EXCITING SAIL--CAST AWAY.

The absence of Mr Clare was the only drawback to our pleasure that
morning. He had told us the evening before that he should probably
return from his visit the same day, getting home about the time we
expected to be back--about sundown, which at that date in September was
at twenty minutes after six. He said, however, that possibly he might
remain in Q---town until after Sunday morning service.

When Captain Mugford had completed his smoke, by which time we had a
fine steady breeze from the south-east, he rose from his luxurious
position and took Walter's place at the helm, saying--

"Not a permanent removal, Walter, but only until I can put the cutter
just where I want her for fish. Fifteen minutes more will do that; so
you had better go forward to Drake and get the anchor all ready to let
go. You other boys can stand by the sails."

The Captain noted carefully the changing colour of the water as we drew
over some bank, and he took bearings, too, from points on the land we
had left nearly ten miles astern. In a few minutes he luffed a bit and
sang out--

"Down with your foresail! Get in the jib."

The bowsprit pointed right in the wind's eye, and the boom hung fore and
aft, the sail empty, as the cutter lost her headway.

"Is that anchor ready?"

"Aye, aye, sir!" replied Walter and Drake.

"Let go! About five fathoms, is it?" called the Captain.

"About that!" the boys answered.

"That's just what we want. Make fast! Now stow the mainsail, so that
it won't be in the way of your lines, and fish. There, that will do!
Now, all to the lines! Who'll have the first fish?"

In a minute Drake hauled that up--a cod--and the fun commenced. Cod and
bass, and now and then a halibut, as fast as we could bait and pull!
There was soon a lively flopping in our craft, and now and then a
dog-fish would take hold, much to our annoyance, for generally he broke
the hook or line, or else, if we got him in, made such a furious lashing
about our legs that we had to finish him with a hatchet.

We lay at anchor there until we had had fishing enough. About two
o'clock we stopped, having caught, as near as the Captain could
estimate, between one and two hundred pounds of cod, a dog-fish, and
eleven sea-bass--not the striped bass, such as we took off the rocks
with a troll line in rough water: that was the _Labrax lineatus_; but
the sea-bass, the _Centropristes nigricans_, superior in title,