"Look, look, Neil!" he cried. "It's either mackerel or herring:
shall we try for them?"
The greatest excitement now prevailed on board. The younger
brothers pulled their hardest for that rough patch on the water.
They came nearer and nearer that strange hissing of the water.
They kept rather away from it; and Rob quietly dropped the guy
pole over, paying out the net rapidly, so that it should not be
dragged after the boat.
Then the three lads pulled hard, and in a circle, so that at last
they were sending the bow of the boat straight toward the
floating guy pole. The other guy pole was near the stern of the
boat, the rope made fast to one of the thwarts. In a few minutes
Rob had caught this first guy pole: they were now possessed of
the two ends of the net.
But the water had grown suddenly quiet. Had the fish dived, and
escaped them? There was not the motion of a fin anywhere, and yet
the net seemed heavy to haul.
"Rob," said Neil, almost in a whisper, "we've got them!"
"We haven't got them, but they're in the net. Man, I wonder if
it'll hold out?"
Then it was that the diligent patching and the strong tackle
told; for they had succeeded in inclosing a goodly portion of a
large shoal of mackerel, and the weight seemed more than they
could get into the boat.
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