e found things in a condition that was admirably suited to the
state of his feelings. The fishermen of the cove were in a state of
wild excitement, for an enormous shoal of pilchards had been enclosed in
the seine-nets, and Maggot with his men, as well as the people employed
by Mr Donnithorne, were as much over head and ears in fishing as Oliver
was in love. Do you ask, "Why all this excitement?" We will tell you.

The pilchard fishing is to the Cornish fisherman what the harvest is to
the husbandman, but this harvest of the sea is not the result of
prolonged labour, care, and wisdom. It comes to him in a night. It may
last only a few days, or weeks. Sometimes it fails altogether. During
these days of sunshine he must toil with unwonted energy. There is no
rest for him while the season lasts if he would not miss his
opportunity. The pilchard is a little fish resembling a small herring.
It visits the southern coasts of England in autumn and winter, and the
shoals are so enormous as to defy calculation or description. When they
arrive on the coast, "huers"--sharp-sighted men--are stationed on the
cliffs to direct the boatmen when to go out and where to shoot their
seine-nets. When these are shot, millions of pilchards are often
enclosed in a single net.

To give an idea of the numbers of fish and the extent of the fishing, in
a few words, we may state the fact that, in 1834, one shoal of great
depth, and nearly a mile broad, extended from Hayle River to St. Ives, a
distance of two and a half miles. A seine was shot into this mass, and
3,600 hogsheads were carried to the curing cellars. As there are 3,000
pilchards in each hogshead, the catch amounted to nearly eleven million
fish! The value of these might be 3 pounds a hogshead, and the clear
profit about 1 pound a hogshead, so that it is no wonder we hear of
fortunes having been made in a few hauls of the pilchard seines. At the
same time, losses are sometimes very heavy, owing to gales arising and
breaking or carrying away the nets. Such facts, combined with the
uncertainty of the arrival or continuance of the fish on any particular
part of the coast, tend to induce that spirit of eager, anxious
excitement to which we have referred as being so congenial to Oliver
Trembath's state of mind at the time of which we write.

On the beach the young doctor found Maggot and his men launching their
boats, and of course he lent them a hand.

"Pilchards been seen