If they could once join and form a circle, even if part of it were only the net ropes, the fish would be inclosed, and instead of making for the unfinished part of the circle where there was only rope, they would avoid it and the boats, and make for the other side.

"All right, Josh! they're showing again," cried Will, for the dreaded catastrophe had not taken place--the fish had not gone down and swum away beneath the boats.

"Keep wi' us, lad!" came a musical hail to Josh, "and we shall do it yet."

"Ay, ay!" shouted back Josh; and like a sentry he kept going to and fro, with the boats closing up, yard by yard, but slowly, for they had the weight of the widely-spread net to check their progress.

They were forty yards from Uncle Abram's boat on either side, and it seemed a long time before they were twenty, and all the while this was the most dangerous time, for the alarmed shoal was beginning to swim to and fro. Then all at once they disappeared from the surface again, and d.i.c.k thought they were gone.

But the fishermen pulled steadily still, and their companions in the stern of each boat kept the line tighter, and just as they were now getting closer the mackerel showed again, making the water flicker as if a violent storm of rain were falling.

"Back out, lad, and go to port," said the captain of the seine-boat; and Josh rowed steadily along close to the line, pausing half-way between the seine-boat and the beginning of the corks, that is, of the net.

The men in the little boat just at the same time pa.s.sed their rope on board to their friends, and then went off to the right, to pause half-way, as Josh had done to the left.

Meanwhile the men on the seine-boat began to haul steadily at the ropes at each end, drawing the great circle narrower.

"Why, how big is this net round?" said d.i.c.k in a whisper, as if he feared alarming the fish.

"Mile," said Josh laconically, "ropes and all."

"But they are drawing the ropes in fast now," said Will, "and when they get the spreaders together it will be seven hundred yards."

"What are the spreaders?"

"Long poles to keep the ends of the net stretched. They've got lead at the bottom, like the net, to keep them on the sand."

"Look out!" shouted the captain of the seine. "Here they come!"

The men hauled the harder, and oars were splashed in all three boats, the smaller rowing to and fro, with the result that the surface of the water became calm once more, not the sign of a ripple to betoken the presence of a fish; but no one ceased his efforts.

"Are they gone, Will?" asked d.i.c.k.

"No, they've only gone below; they're hunting all about the seine for a hole to escape, and the thing is now whether they follow it on to one of the ends: if they do, it's only follow my leader, not one will be left."

It was a long job, but the men worked with all their might, keeping up their steady strain at the ropes, and gradually reducing the circle, till at last the two ends of the net were brought together and made to overlap safely, but there was not a sign of the fish.

"They've got away," said d.i.c.k.

"I'm afraid so," said Will, for there was an ominous silence among the fishermen, who had been at work all this while apparently for nothing.

Then all at once there was a loud cheer, for the shoal, a very large one, suddenly appeared at the top again, fretting the water as the fish swam here and there, shut-up as they were in an irregular circle about two hundred yards across, and hopelessly entangled, for if there had been a loophole of escape they would have found it now.

"There won't be no storm to-day," said Josh, looking round, "so they've got them safe, and now, my lads, what do you say to a bit o' brexfa.s.s?"

"Breakfast!" cried d.i.c.k. "Oh! I had forgotten all about that. I must go ash.o.r.e; but I should have liked to see them get the mackerel out."

"Oh! you'll have plenty of time for that," said Josh, beginning to row for the harbour and going close by the seine-boat, whose captain hailed them.

"Thank ye, lads," he cried. "You, Will Marion, tell your uncle we've got as pretty a school as has been took this year."

"Ay, ay!" shouted Will. Then taking one oar he rowed hard, and in a few minutes they were at the harbour, the pier being covered with the fisher folk.

"Best take this year," sang Josh in answer to a storm of inquiries; and then Will sprang up the steps, to run home with a shield of good news to ward off the angry points that Aunt Ruth was waiting to discharge at him for not coming home to his meals in time.

The first faces d.i.c.k saw on the pier were those of his father and Arthur.

"I am so sorry, father!" began d.i.c.k.

"You've not kept me waiting, my boy," said Mr Temple kindly. "I've been watching the fishing from the cliff."

"You might have told me that you were going to see some seine-fishing,"

said Arthur in an ill-used tone, as they entered the inn parlour, where breakfast was waiting.

"Didn't know myself," cried d.i.c.k. "Why, it's ten o'clock! Oh! I am so hungry!"

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

"A GASHLY GREAT FISH IN THE NET."

There was quite enough interesting business to see after breakfast to make Mr Temple disposed to go out to the great seine, so that when, about eleven, Will came to the inn to say that he was just going out to the men, if Master d.i.c.k or Master Arthur would like to come, their father readily accepted the invitation for all three. So they were rowed out, to find the men very busy at work in boats beside the great circle of corks, shooting a smaller seine inside the big one; and this being at last completed, the small seine was drawn close, the lower rope contracted, and the fish huddled together so closely that a small boat was at work amongst them, the men literally dipping the struggling fish out of the water with huge landing-nets and baskets, the water flying, and the silvery, pearly fish sparkling in the sun.

It was a most animated scene, for as a boat was loaded she went ash.o.r.e, and the fish were rapidly counted, thrust into small stout hampers, tied down, and loaded on to carts waiting for their freight, and then off and away to the railway-station almost before the fish were dead.

Josh and Will stood high in the good graces of the seine men for their help that morning, so that there was quite a welcome for the party in the boat as the corked line was pressed down, and Josh took the boat right into the charmed circle where the fish were darting to and fro in wild efforts to escape through the frail yielding wall of net that held them so securely.

"I've got a net ready for you," said Will, drawing a strong landing-net from under a piece of sail and handing it to d.i.c.k, who was soon after busily at work dashing it in and capturing the lovely arrowy fish in ones and twos and threes. Once he caught five at once, and drew them inboard for his father to admire the brilliancy of the colours upon the live fish, and the lovely purple ripple marks that died away on the sides in a sheen of pink and silver and gold.

Now and then other fish were netted, but fish that had been surrounded with the mackerel. Several times over little stumpy red mullet were seen--brilliant little fish, and then grey mullet--large-scaled silvery fish with tiny mouths and something the aspect, on a large scale, of a river dace.

The fishermen found time to good-naturedly call Josh when any particular prize of this kind was found, and the Temples had not been there long before, flapping, gasping, and staring, a very monster of ugliness was taken out in a landing-net, along with a score of mackerel.

This flat-sided, great-eyed, big-headed creature, with a huge back fin, and general ugliness painted in it everywhere, had a dark mark on either side of the body; and though arrayed and burnished here and there with metallic colours, the fish was so grotesque that its beauties were quite ignored.

"Ah! our friend John-Dory--Jean Dore, as the French call him--gilded John," said Mr Temple. "A delicacy, but not a handsome fish. Look at the thumb and finger marks upon his side."

"Oh! but those are not finger marks," cried d.i.c.k.

"No," said his father, "but they are quite near enough in appearance to make people say that this is the fish Peter caught, and held between his finger and thumb while he opened its mouth."

"Here y'are, sir!" shouted a fisherman. "Young gents like to see this?"

Josh rowed the boat alongside and d.i.c.k held his net, while the fisherman laughingly turned into it from his own a great jelly-fish, as clear as crystal and glistening in the sun with iridescent colours of the loveliest hue.

"Oh, what a beauty!" cried d.i.c.k. "Look, father, look!"

"Yes; keep it in the water, you will see it to the best advantage there."