ee lobsters and a crawfish were the haul. What magnificent
colour in the strong yet delicate armour of their shells! Deep blue
shaded into brown, mottled in yellow spots, with deep red at the
joints. They were put into the big basket, which already contained
over three dozen. What a terrible time the poor brutes must have
there! Two or three weeks in this boat, probably the same time in the
tank of the cutter, and a week or two more in another ashore before
they are eaten. I asked if they ever gave them any food, but found
they never did. "One av them dies off an' on, and thin the others ate
him, an' they are always atin' the small claws off each other." Talk
of the lobster blushing because it saw the salad dressing; but ought
it not to make a member of the S.P.C.A. blush to eat lobster
mayonnaise? We set the brown sails to lay the pots again further along
the coast. It is a glorious day, the wavelets dancing on the surface
of the long Atlantic swell that heaves ponderously; for, as Tim
remarked, "the adjacent parish wesht is Ameriky." A glorious
translucent green under the shadow of the leaning sails, and beyond,
under our lee, the line of breakers on the rocks, tapestried in the
rich brown of autumnal seaweed, and above them, in more broken
billows, fields that make the island called "Emerald."

While waiting after laying the pots again, the wind kept freshening,
and heavier clouds in big battalions kept hurrying up from windward.
The trio seem unanimous that we are in for a bit of a blow. Tim says
'tis going to be a nasty night, and we must go in somewhere, although
night is the best time for their fishing. Only one jack-lobster out of
all the pots this time. It was now blowing hard and beginning to rain,
so, with one reef in, we started again. It was a ripping breeze; I
knew of old how quickly the wind can rise along that coast. The last
time I was in Baltimore--picturesque old place, with its ruined abbey
and the memory of the sacking of it by Moorish pirates, and the
carrying-off of the women from only the eighteenth century back--was
when I sailed round in a half-decked 16-footer, designed by Watson.
She was a great little boat, with a ton of lead on her keel. As I was
nearing the harbour just such a breeze sprang up, and, being
single-handed, I could not take in a reef, so had to carry on; right
outside the harbour my foresail carried away, but I got in all right
under the mainsail, and anchored alongside the Ba