shoal of fish.

'Look, look, Neil!' he cried. 'It's either mackerel or herring; will
we try for them?'

The greatest excitement at once prevailed on board. The younger
brothers pulled their hardest to make for that rough patch on the
water. Rob undid the rope from the guy-pole, and got this last ready
to drop overboard. He knew very well that they ought to have had two
boats to execute this manoeuvre; but was there not a chance for them if
they were to row hard, in a circle, and pick up the other end of the
net when they came to it? So Neil took a third oar: two rowing one
side and one the other was just what they wanted.

They came nearer and nearer that strange hissing of the water. They
kept rather away from it: and Rob quietly dropped the guy-pole over,
paying out the net rapidly, so that it should not be dragged after the
boat. Then the three lads pulled hard, and in a circle, so that at
last they were sending the bow of the boat straight towards the
floating guy-pole. The other guy-pole was near the stern of the boat,
the rope made fast to one of the thwarts. In a few minutes Rob had
caught this first guy-pole: they were now possessed of the two ends of
the net.

But the water had grown suddenly quiet. Had the fish dived and escaped
them? There was not the motion of a fin anywhere: and yet the net
seemed heavy to haul.

'Rob,' said Neil, almost in a whisper, 'we've got them!'

'We havena got them,' was the reply; 'but they're in the net. Man, I
wonder if it'll stand out.'

Then it was that the diligent patching and the strong tackle told. The
question was not with regard to the strength of the net, it was rather
with regard to the strength of the younger lads; for they had succeeded
in enclosing a goodly portion of a large shoal of mackerel, and the
weight seemed more than they could get into the boat. But even the
strength of the younger ones seemed to grow into the strength of giants
when they saw through the clear water a great moving mass like
quicksilver. And then the wild excitement of hauling in; the
difficulty of it; the danger of the fish escaping; the warning cries of
Rob; the clatter made by the mackerel; the possibility of swamping the
boat altogether, as all the four were straining their utmost at one
side. Indeed, by an awkward tilt at one moment some hundred or two of
the mackerel were seen to glide away; but perhaps that rendered it all
the more practicable to get into th