Setting Night-lines.--An Encounter with Poachers.
Old Cox met Frank one day, and said to him in his broad Norfolk, which
would be unintelligible to you were I to render it faithfully,--
"I wish you would give me some more fish, Mr. Merivale. You catch
plenty, and if you would give me some that you doesn't want, I would
take them to Norwich market and sell them. I sorely want to buy a pair
of blankets for the old woman and me afore the winter comes."
"Well, Cox, you shall have all we catch and don't want," said Frank; and
when he saw his friends he said,--
"Let us make a mighty night-line, and set it like the long lines the
Cromer fishermen set for cods, and lay it in the broad for eels, and
give all we catch to Cox. Two or three nights' haul will set him up for
the winter."
So they made a long night-line. They bought a quarter of a mile of stout
cord, and at distances of a yard from each other they fastened eel-hooks
by means of short lengths of fine water-cord. Cox himself got them the
worms, and then one fine night they rowed the punt to the middle of the
broad, and set the night-line in the deep water of the channel.
"Well," said Dick, "this is the longest and most wearisome job I have
ever done, and old Cox ought to be infinitely obliged to us. We have
been two hours and a half setting this line."
Early in the morning they went out, and took up the night-line, but to
their great surprise they found but very few eels on it, and plenty of
bream, which they did not want. They were much disappointed at this, and
went to Bell, and asked him the reason, for there were plenty of eels in
the broad.
"Where did you set the line?" he asked.
"In the deep water of the channel."
"Then that is just the place where you ought not to have set it. At
night the eels make for the shallow water to feed, and if the grass is
wet they will even wriggle out among it. I have seen them myself many a
time. You must set your line along the edge where the water is about a
foot or two feet deep, and you will have as many eels as you can carry."
They tried again, and set the line as Bell had directed them, and the
next morning they began to haul it in. The first hook came up bare. So
did the second, and the third. As they hauled in the line their faces
looked very blank, for every hook was bare.
"We are not the first," said Frank savagely, "some other fellows have
been here before us, and have taken up the line, and robbed it. They
must have watched us laying it. Now I'll tell you what we will do. We
will set it again to-night, and watch in the yacht, and if we see any
fellows touching it we will give them a drubbing. Are you game?"
"Yes," answered both Dick and Jimmy readily, "we are."
So the third time they set the line, and then as soon as it got dark
they crept quietly on board the yacht. They had set the line within 150
yards of the _Swan_, and as there was a glitter on the water from the
reflection of the stars, they could see if anyone approached it.
"What shall we do if they do touch it?" said Dick. "How shall we get at
them?"
"I did intend to take the boat, and row after them," answered Frank;
"but see, we are to windward of them, and there is a good breeze, so
that if we let the yacht drift towards them until they take the alarm,
and then run the sails up, we shall overtake them."
"And what shall we do then?" said Jimmy, who was becoming a little
nervous.
"Run them down--the water is not deep enough to drown them--and take
away their boat if we can, and then make them come and beg our pardon
before we give it up to them. If they attempt to board us, knock them
over again."
Frank spoke decidedly and hotly, for he was much put out at the theft of
the fish. His family had so befriended the poor people around, that it
was very ungrateful of some of them to rob their line. His spirits rose,
too, with a force he could not resist, at the thought of a midnight
engagement, and the chance of outwitting those who had thought to outwit
him. Dick and Jimmy were ready to follow their dux at any instant, and
anywhere.
"They won't come till about midnight," said Frank, "so we may as well
take a little sleep."
About two o'clock they were broad awake, and lying flat on the deck of
the yacht, peering into the darkness in the direction of the night-line.
"Hush," said Dick; "I heard a noise like that of oars."
They listened, and sure enough they heard the noise of oars splashing in
the water, and grating in the rowlocks.
"Here they are," whispered Frank. "We shall soon be in the thick of it."
Dick had been trembling for some time in his nervousness, and he thought
somewhat bitterly, "What is the matter with me? Am I a coward?" and he
felt ashamed at the thought. It was not cowardice, however, but pure
nervousness, and the moment he heard the sound of the approaching voices
his nervousness departed, and he felt as cool and collected as Frank.
A black patch soon became visible on the water, and they could just
distinguish the outline of the boat. A splash in the water told them
that the mooring stone had been thrown out, and that the robbers were at
work. Frank quietly slipped his mooring, and the yacht drifted quickly
towards the men. They were soon near enough to see that there were two
men in the boat, and they heard one of them say in a startled tone,--
"I say, Jack, that yacht's adrift."
"Is there any one on board, did you see?" said the other.
"No, I don't think so."
"Yes, there is though. Pull up that stone and row off as fast as you
can," answered his companion.
"Up with the sail!" shouted Frank, as he flew to the helm. Dick and
Jimmy threw themselves on the halyard, and the great sail rose with
surprising quickness against the dark night. The men in the boat were
now pulling away at the top of their speed, but with the wind dead aft
the yacht bore swiftly down upon them. The water was only about two feet
deep, and began to shallow. The yacht's centre boards were up, but still
she could not go much further, and they could tell that they were
continually touching the mud.
"They will escape us," said Dick.
"No, there is a deep bay just where they are rowing," said Jimmy.
As the water deepened the yacht started forwards, and in another minute
they were on the runaways. Crash went their bows against the boat: she
was at once capsized, and her occupants were struggling in the water.
One of them scrambled on board the _Swan_, and rushed aft with an oar
upraised to strike, but Frank laid the helm over as he put the yacht
about, and the boom struck the fellow on the head and knocked him
overboard.
Meanwhile Dick had with the boat-hook tried to catch hold of the boat.
In this he failed, but he got hold of something far more important, and
that was a large fine-mesh net, which the poachers had no doubt intended
to use after robbing the night-line. With such nets the damage done to
fishing is enormous. Shoals of fishes as small as minnows, and useless
for anything except manure, are massacred with them, and it is by the
constant use of such nets that the fishing on the broads falls now so
far short of what it used to be. Night-lines set for eels are not
poaching or destructive. The quantity of eels is so great, that, as long
as the young ones are spared, either night-lines or nets of the proper
kind may be used.
The yacht swept on, leaving the men up to their waists in the water, and
swearing horribly. Frank felt a wild impulse to return and fight them,
for he was of a fighting blood, such as a soldier should have, but he
thought, "If we go back there are sure to be some hard blows, and I have
no right to take Dick or Jimmy into a scrimmage and perhaps get them
severely hurt, for they are not so strong as I am," so he refrained, and
they sailed back to the boat-house, and waited until the dawn. Their
adversaries dared not attack them, but went off out of sight and
hearing.
In the morning they took up the line, and were well-rewarded for their
previous trouble. The eels they took pretty well loaded the donkey-cart
which old Cox had borrowed, and he took them to Norwich and made a good
profit out of them.
Having amused themselves once with the night-lines the boys did not care
to use them again, for it was _infra dig._ to catch fish for profit.
However the profits were good to other people, so they gave the line to
old Cox, and told him that he must get some one to set it, and go shares
with him.
The next day Frank walked down to the village public-house and stuck up
the following notice in the bar,--
"If the person to whom the nets I have belong, will call at my house and
claim them, he shall have the nets and a good thrashing."
Frank was five feet eleven inches high, and well built in addition, and
he had always a look on his face which said "I mean what I say;" and the
nets were never claimed.