ou'westerly clouds all around
had raised themselves like a vast down-hanging fringe, a tremendous
curtain, ragged with inconceivable delicacy at the foot, between which,
and the water-line, the peep o' day stared blankly. The whitish light,
which made the sea look deathly cold, was changed to a silvery sheen
where the hidden cliffs stood. From immaterial shadows, looming over
the surf-line, the cliffs themselves brightened to an insubstantial
fabric, an airy vision, ruddily flushed; till, finally, ever becoming
more earthy, they upreared themselves, high-ribbed and red, bush-crowned
and splashed with green--our familiar, friendly cliffs, for each and
every part of whom we have a name. The sun slid out from a parting of
clouds in the east, warming the dour waves into playfulness.

'Twas all a wonder and a wild delight.

As I looked at Tony, while he glanced around with eyes that were at
once curiously alert and dreamy, I saw that, in spite of use and habit,
in spite of his taking no particular notice of what the sea and sky
were like, except so far as they affected the sailing of the boat,--the
dawn was creeping into him. Many such dawns have crept into him. They
are a part of himself.

[Sidenote: _A TENDERHEART BY NATURE_]

"Look to your lew'ard line!" he cried, "they'm up for it!"

He hauled a mackerel aboard, and, catching hold of the shank of the
hook, flicked the fish into the bottom of the boat with one and the
same motion that flung the sid overboard again; and after it the lead.
Wedging the mackerel's head between his knees, he bent its body to a
curve, scraped off the scales near its tail, and cut a fresh lask from
the living fish. He is a tenderheart by nature, but now: "That'll hae
'em!" he crowed.

The mackerel bit hotly at our new baits.[10] Before the lines were
properly out, in they had to come again. Flop-flop went the fish on the
bottom-boards as we jerked them carelessly off the hooks. Every moment
or two one of them would dance up and flip its tail wildly; beat on the
bottom-boards a tattoo which spattered us with scales; then sink back
among the glistening mass that was fast losing its beauty of colour,
its opalescent pinks and steely blues, even as it died and stiffened.

[10] Undoubtedly, if the mackerel are only half on the feed, a
fresh lask is better than any other bait, better than an equally
brilliant salted lask. It is the shine of the bait at which the
fish