Y TWO.

SHOWS HOW OLIVER AND HIS FRIEND WENT TO NEWLYN AND SAW THE MACKEREL
MARKET, AND FOUND SOME DIFFICULTIES AND MYSTERIES AWAITING THEM THERE.

The beach opposite Newlyn presented a busy scene when Oliver Trembath
and his friend Charlie Tregarthen reached it.

Although the zenith of the season was over, mackerel fishing was still
going on there in full vigour, and immense crowds of men, women, and
children covered the sands. The village lies on the heights above, and
crowds of people were leaning over the iron rails which guard the unwary
or unsteady passenger from falling into the sea below. A steep causeway
connects the main street above with the shore beneath; and up and down
it horses, carts, and people were hurrying continuously.

True, there was not at that time quite as much bustle as may be
witnessed there at the present day. The railway has penetrated these
remote regions of the west, and now men work with a degree of feverish
haste that was unknown then. While hundreds of little boats (tenders to
the large ones) crowd in on the beach, auctioneers with long heavy boots
wade knee-deep into the water, followed and surrounded by purchasers,
and, ringing a bell as each boat comes in, shout,--"Now, then, five
hundred, more or less, in this boat; who bids? Twenty shillings a
hundred for five hundred--twenty shillings--say nineteen--I'm bid
nineteen--nineteen-and-six--say nineteen-an--twenty--twenty shillings
I'm bid--say twenty-one--shall I make it twenty-one shillings for any
person?" etcetera.

The bells and voices of these auctioneers, loud though they be, are mild
compared with the shouts of men, women, and children, as the fish are
packed in baskets, with hot haste, to be in time for the train; and
horses with laden carts gallop away over the sands at furious speed,
while others come dashing back for more fish. And there is need for all
this furious haste, for trains, like time and tide, wait for no man, and
prices vary according to trains. Just before the starting of one, you
will hear the auctioneers put the fish up at 20 shillings, 25 shillings,
and even 30 shillings a hundred, and in the next half-hour, after the
train is gone, and no chance remains of any more of the fish being got
into the London market by the following morning, the price suddenly
falls to 8 shillings a hundred, sometimes even less. There is need for
haste, too, because the quantity of fish is very great, for there are
som