ng all night, but have been
unable to do so for want of a mate. It is more than one man's work to
haul a boat up the beach in daytime, let alone the middle of the night
or at early dawn. If the _Moondaisy_'s old crew was here....

Ah! those were days--when George and the Little Commodore and the Looby
and myself used to row out with a swinging stroke at sundown to
Elm-beech-tree[13] and Conger Pool. The choosing of the mark; the
careful heaving of the sling-stone; the blinn, skate, pollack,
spider-crabs, and conger eels, we used to catch; the fights with the
conger in the dark or by the light of matches or of an old lantern that
blew out when it was most wanted; the absurd way the crew turned up
their noses at my nice tomato sandwiches and gobbled down stringy
corned beef; their quiet slumber round the stern seats and my solitary
watch amidships over all the lines, and at the sea-fire trailing in the
flood-tide; their crustiness when I awoke them to shift our mark and
their jubilation when a whopper was to be gaffed; the utter
peacefulness of the night after they had gone to sleep again; our merry
row home and hearty beaching of the boat; the cup of hot tea.... It is
all clean gone. George is in the Navy and the Little Commodore is under
a glass box of waxen flowers up on land. Did I bring back a catch
alone, perhaps the old boat would be stove in.

[13] A spot found by getting an elm-tree on the cliffs in a line
with a beech-tree up on land.

Tony, however, has been saying that, on the rough ground a mile or so
out, good-sized conger can be caught by day. On Saturday, therefore, I
collected gear from the Widger linhays, borrowed a painter and anchor,
and, the wind being easterly, I luffed the _Moondaisy_ out a mile
and a half south-east. There I dropped anchor.

Tony had given me two mackerel for bait, one fresh and the other
somewhat otherwise; that is to say it was merely fishmonger
fresh--quite good enough for eating but hardly good enough for conger
who, though they have a reputation for feeding on dead men, will only
touch the freshest of bait. With the fresh mackerel I caught one large
conger (it ripped in the sail a hole that took Mam Widger an hour to
mend) and two dog-fish. Nothing at all would bite at the stale
mackerel. The easterly sea was making a little and skatting in over the
bows. Besides which, the _Moondaisy_ began to drag her anchor. My
hand to jaw-and-tail fight with the conger had