t,
and rowed in a curve, with the net still being paid out, till the rocks
on the other side by the race were reached, and the sandy cove shut in
by a wall of net, kept stretched by the leads at the bottom and the line
of corks at the top.

At this point the boys landed with their trousers tucked up to the
highest extent, jackets off, and arms bare as their legs, to start
inland dragging the lines, the men on the other point starting at the
same time, and bringing the dot-like row of corks to a rounder curve as
the strain on the ropes grew heavier.

Tom Dinass now started for the point at the head of the cove to run the
boat well ashore, and then go to the help of the boys as they toiled
steadily on, stepping cautiously over the rocks, which were slippery
with reddish-yellow fucus, till the broken part gave place to the heavy,
well-rounded boulders which rattled and rumbled over one another in
times of storms. Then the boulders gave place to shingle, which was
rather better for the fishers, and lastly to the fine level sand over
which the seine was to be dragged.

But this took some time and no little labour, for it was slow, hard
work, full of the excitement of speculation; for the net, after
enclosing so wide an area, might come in full of fish, or with nothing
but long heavy strands of floating weed torn by the waves from the rocks
perhaps miles away.

Experience and hints given by the blue-shirted bronzed fishers of the
cove had taught the boys when was the best time for shooting the seine,
however, so they generally were pretty successful; and as the net was
drawn inland the bobbing of the line of corks and sundry flashes told
that fish of some kind had been enclosed, when the excitement began.

It was a bright scene that summer's evening, when the sea was empurpled
by the reflections of the gorgeous western sky, the smoke from the
smelting-house looking like a golden feather.

But neither Gwyn nor Joe had eyes for the beauties of Nature which
surrounded the nook where their fathers had made their home, for the
excitement of the seine drawing was gaining in intensity.

Dinass, after running up the boat by the help of a couple of the men who
had strolled down to see, was hurrying to pass the boys and wade out
with an oar over his shoulder behind the line of corks, ready to splash
and beat the water should there, by any chance, be a shoal of mullet
within--no unlikely event, for these fish swam up with the t