236 



FISHERMEN'S OWN BOOK. 



full well that the concussion would cause the lobsters to cast their claws, 

 thereby destroying their value. 



Lobster spearing is pursued in the Indian fashion, by torchlights. A 

 dark, calm night and a falling tide are the first requisites, and the crew of 

 the canoe must consist of three — one to row, one to hold the torch so that 

 its light will fall through the shallow water and light up the bottom to show 

 the lobsters crouched among the seaweed ; and last, but not least, the spear- 

 er, armed with a long wooden spear, which it requires considerable skill and 

 practice to drive down, so that the two prongs will close over the lobster's 

 back, capturing him firmly, leaving the body uninjured. It is a sport both 

 exciting and picturesque, as the boat creeps along under the shadow of the 

 bank and the torch casts a Rembrandtish light on the occupants and on the 

 overhanging trees. The captive lobsters sometimes make very unpleasant 

 occupiers of a boat, and it requires great equanimity to feel them crawling 

 about one's feet. 



A Faithful Beacon Light. — It is a very 

 tender story of faithfulness in humble places, 

 I which Jean Ingelow relates. It was in one of 

 the Orkney Islands, far beyond the north of 

 Scotland. On the coast of this island there 

 stood a rock called Lonely Rock, very danger- 

 ous to mariners. On a night, long ago, a young 

 girl was kneeling at the window in her chamber 

 in a fisherman's cottage, looking out upon the 

 dark and driving clouds, and listening anxious- 

 ly to the wind and sea. At last the morning 

 came, and one boat that should have been rid- 

 ing on the waves was missing. It was her fa- 

 ther's boat, and half a mile from the cottage 

 her father's body was found washed upon the 

 sand. He had been wrecked against the Lone- 

 ly Rock. The girl watched her father's body, 

 according to the customs of her people, till it was laid in the grave, then 

 she lay down on her bed and slept. When the night came she arose and 

 set a candle in her casement. All night she sat by the candle, trimmed it 

 when it flickered down, and spun. So many hanks of yarn as she had spun 

 before for her daily bread, she spun still, and one hank over for her nightly 

 candle. And from that time to the time of telling this story — for fifty years, 

 through youth, maturity, into old age — she has turned night into day. And 

 in the snowstorms of winter, in the serene calms of Summer, through driv- 

 ing mists, deceptive moonlight and solemn darkness, that northern harbor 



