pping into the boat. "Neal
will stuff his bird for you and perch him on a stone. You shall have him
to set on the top of your new bureau, the one Aunt Estelle sent you when
she escaped from Paris without having her head chopped off."

They pushed the boat cautiously back along the channel, travelling stern
first, for there was little room to turn, and even in calm weather men
do not willingly lay a boat across the sea in such a place.

"Now for Rackle Roy and a basketful of glashins and lithe," said
Maurice.

East a little and out seawards from the mouth of the cave lies a long,
flat rock, dry at low water, and even at flood tide in calm weather,
swept with desolating surf when the Atlantic swell rolls in or the wind
lashes the nearer sea to fury. Right out of the centre of the rock the
waves have fashioned a deep bay, curved like a horse-shoe. This is a
famous fishing-place. As the tide rises, lithe and glashin, brazers,
gurnet, rock codling, and crowds of cuddings come here to feed, and the
fisherman, on those rare days, when he can land at all, may count on
bringing home with him great bunches of fish strung through the gills.

The rock lay far enough from the cliff to be clear of the shadow. The
sun shone on its brown weed-clad sides, glistened on black clusters of
mussels, glowed on the red seams of the rock where the iron cropped
out, and baked the black basalt of the upper surface. The spirits of the
party revived when they landed. Una's gaiety returned to her.

"Have you forgotten the bait, Maurice? I'm sure you have. It would be
like you to come for a day's fishing without bait."

"No, then, I haven't. There are three large crabs in the boat, and even
if there wasn't one at all we could do nicely with limpets. There's
worse bait than a good limpet."

"Well, and if you have the crabs I expect you've forgotten the sheep's
wool. What do you think, Neal? Yesterday we were fishing cuddings off
the Black Rock and Maurice ran out of wool. The fish simply sucked the
bait off our hooks and laughed at us. What did Maurice do but take my
hairs. He pulled them out one by one as he wanted them, and wrapped the
bait on with them."

"Your wool, Brown-Eyes, doesn't come up to that of the sheep. It's not
soft enough. But I shan't want it to-day. I've got my pockets half full
of the proper sort."

Neal laughed, but he felt that to use Una's hair as a wrap for the red
pulp of a crab's back or the soft, black belly of a