rk, deep water, beautifully transparent--so
clear that the many-tinted fronds of bladder-wrack and other weeds could
be seen swaying to and fro under the influence of the tide which rose
and fell.

Here, in a natural harbour, sheltered from all dangers, lay the boat the
boy sought. It was moored in a nook by a rope attached to a great ring;
the staple had been sunk in a crack and sealed fast with molten lead,
and no matter what storms raged outside, the boat was safely sheltered,
and swung in a natural basin at ordinary tides, while at the very lowest
it grounded gently in a bed of white sand.

It was well afloat upon this occasion, and skirting round it along a
laboriously chipped-out ledge about a foot wide, the boy entered a crack
in the rock face, for it could hardly be called a cavern. But it was
big enough for its purpose, which was to shelter from the rain and rock
drippings a quantity of boat gear, mast, sails, ropes, and tackle
generally, which leaned or hung snugly enough about the rock, in company
with a small seine, a trammel-net, a spare grapnel or two, some
lobster-pots, and buoys with corks and lines.

Aleck was not long about carrying mast, yard, and sail to the boat and
shipping them. Then, in obedience to an idea, he placed a couple of
fishing-lines, a gaff-hook, a landing-net, and some spare hooks aboard;
then, taking a little bucket, he half filled it with the crystal water
of the pool, and after placing it aboard took hold of a thin line, one
end of which was secured to a ring-bolt in a block of wreck lumber,
while the other ran down into the pool.

A pull at the line brought a large closely-worked, spindle-shaped basket
to the surface, when a commotion inside announced that the six-inch-wide
square of flat cork, which formed a lid, covered something alive.

So it proved; for upon unfastening the lid an opening was laid bare, and
upon the "coorge"--as the fishing folk called the basket--being laid
across the bucket and turned sidewise, some ten or a dozen silvery
eel-shaped fish glided out into the bucket, and began swimming round and
round in search of an outlet.

"More bait than I shall want," said Aleck, covering and letting the
basket go back into the pool. Then, unfastening the mooring-rope, the
boy picked up a boat-hook, and by hooking on to the side rocks here and
there he piloted the boat along the devious watery lane, with the mighty
walls towering high on either side and whisperi