turn play over them. He is about to give his men an immense amount of work, and aside from the prospects of immediate personal loss, the blow his pride will receive in the event of a failure is big before him. A beaten general may retire to his tent and there brood alone over his discomfiture, or, if utterly routed his flying followers have no breath for taunts, but the Skipper who has directed an unsuccessful cast is confined to a narrow boat in the midst of his crew on the wide Atlantic, and howsoever undeserved, from the low mutterings and disappointed looks of his men there is no escape.

There should be no knots in the thread of a story, but while the boat is covering the space between it and the school, we desire to take you on board and introduce you to the crew. Don't be diffident, never mind the present surroundings, you'll find yourself in most excellent company, nothing less than descendants of Colonial governors, lawyers, doctors, schoolmasters, physicians, and, you'd scarcely credit it, a Judge of the Superior Court of Massachusetts.

The majority of the crew are from the British Provinces, and many of them inherit by direct descent or marriage, the blood of the Loyalists who emigrated during or at the close of the Revolution. No doubt some of these fishermen could trace their ancestry back to a prolific New England divine. We will not go deeply into the matter lest we stir up trouble by producing an heir to old King's Chapel in Boston. You will recall that their forefathers considered the forbears of some people we could name, very much beneath them in the social

scale, called their fellow countrymen "contumacious Rebels," their ebullitions of patriotism, the "blusterings of seditious demagogues" and so denouncing,-departed.

The Longfellow and Lowell houses are examples of the mansions they left behind them. A study of the exodus alluded to above shows that the forbears of these people came almost entirely from the shore towns of New England and the South. So it was not sentiment, but the bad roads leading from the interior to the sea coast that kept some of our fathers at home in '97. Be that as it may, these descendants of the Loyalists are an enterprising, sturdy lot. They have touched the hem of the garments of the Great Republic and clearly perceive that their forefathers in adhering to the King instead of the farmyard made a stupendous blunder; that their loyalty blinded them to the future prospects in real estate. Nevertheless, they call history to depose that a people who, because of their religious or political opinions, relinquish their hearths and homes and household gods to confiscation, gather their old men and tender little ones about them, embark on frail vessels, cross the ocean in midwinter and plunge into a wilderness, have at least the courage of their conviction.

A few of the crew are from the old families of Cape Ann, bearing names that have often been on the tongues of men during our country's history. Who can count the seed that has blown over the Great Republic from thy parent stalk O Essex County! Their fathers leaped into the surf at Louisburg and stormed shoreward. Down came the "Fleur-de-lys" and out marched

the dandy officers of Louis XV, laces and ruffles much bedraggled. This breed was right behind the son of Webster when he went down where the wave of battle was whitest.

There is one Swede, a yellowhaired, handsome fellow whose features have the regularity of a chiselled statue. He comes from the North of Sweden where the air is so clear that the Milky Way, Vinter Gäten (Winter Garden) he calls it, looks like an unbroken pathway of silver. Were you with him any clear night in the middle watch he would tell you the origin, according to the folk-lore of his Province, of this celestial phenomena. A very pretty story. "Ever so many years ago," he would say, "there were two young lovers and they both died, and the soul of the boy went to one planet and the soul of the girl to another, and they were thousands. and thousands of miles apart, and they mourned because they were thus separated, but a happy thought possessed the boy lover and he began to build a roadway of stars, and he was thousands and thousands of years in building it, but at last it was completed, and that accounts for the way of silver and that is the road on which the lovers were united."

And now for the learned professions. That man with the brown cheeks and white forehead, his hat tilted back, keeping as regular if not as strong a stroke as any, is a Vermont schoolmaster. He had a mild hemorrhage in the middle of the school year and his physician prescribed a sea voyage. To ship on a Cape Ann seiner and fill both pocket and prescription at the same. time, was a clever idea, wasn't it?

You will recall that a young fellow with a decided droop in his left eyelid, who was to be Governor of Massachusetts, one day sailed out of Marblehead on the same errand. The vessels discharged both of the above cases "Cured." The schoolmaster is now a physician himself and you may be assured that when he sees a boy whose symptoms indicate cod liver oil, he says to his patient "first catch your codfish!"

The young fellow pulling stroke oar, is sure he has "a call." He will some day mount the pulpit of the largest Baptist church in Maine. He has preached many times in Massachusetts and and some of my readers have without doubt sat under him. His son is to be one of the most eloquent clergymen in the city of Boston.

The boy pulling on the after seat, trying to keep time with his big "Down East" thwart-mate, insists upon being a lawyer. Not a lawyer, but a real lawyer that pleads before a learned judge and says sweetly: "Now, if your honor pleases." Sharp indeed would be the ears that could catch at this moment a voice in a political state convention nominating this befreckled and scale-bespattered chap for Attorney General. He reached that distinction. He was, within the month, nominated and confirmed Associate Judge of the Superior Court of Massachusetts. Now aren't you glad you came aboard!

So next season when you go to Cape Ann to feel the beauties of an "An Old Maid's Paradise" or to see the sunset glorifying the sand. dunes at Annisquam, in your tour of the wharves if you should happen to run across a chap in a yellow oilskin packet, hoisting out halibut,

just remember that the jacket may some day be shed for the robes of a bishop or the mantle of a judge.

With such a crew, O Captain, we are led to expect nothing short of a successful cast!

Having reached the vicinity of the fish, the speed of the boat is lessened, the voices of the crew fall to a murmur and the Captain begins to study the movements of the school. It is a critical moment and a little while, will decide all. From the crew comes the encouraging remarks: "They're mack'rel all right, Captain, and they're going along asleep." "You could bail them up with a dipnet!" "There is no her ring about them, look at their gills!"

The cork-heaver, the lightest man in the crew, stands aft of the seine, the seine-heaver, the heaviest and strongest man of the crew stands forward of it, his hand resting caressingly, like an old cannoneer, on the mighty instrument he is about to discharge. These latter two are silent, passive; their time is not yet come.

The Captain, having assured himself that the fish are keeping an unvarying course, lazily and unsuspectingly rushing along in the calm. ocean, suddenly lifts his long steering oar out of the water with a wide sweep and cries out: "Stand by,give them the twine!" The seineheaver's passive form awakens to life, and ere the keg, attached to one end of the seine to act as a buoy, is dancing on the waves, every oar has caught the water with a mighty grip and plank and stanchion groan beneath the telling beneath the telling strain.

The bolt is shot, the die is cast, sober second thought cuts no figure

now, for, fish or no fish the act of setting the seine must now be gone through with. The Captain's face

wears the relaxed look of one who has for better or for worse, put his decision into action, and he cries out to his men: "Lift her out of the water, boys, carry her along; break them rowlocks, if you get that school we can buy gold ones; little more beef on your port oars, there!" These coaching cries are but a relief to the Captain's pent up feelings. There are no shirkers. The crew are putting every pound of strength they possess into the bending oars, fully appreciating the importance of surrounding the school in the shortest possible time. Bight after bight of the seine is thrown overboard, the cork-heaver following with a corresponding section of corks. The turn is made, the school is half surrounded and the boat, still circling, is bearing in toward the buoy to which the men in the dory have attached their craft, making a larger steering target for the Captain. All is going well and cries of mutual encouragement break fitfully from the lips of the panting oarsmen when, suddenly, the fish that have, up to this time, shown their

ipple on the surface, disappear. The zone of the cork-beaded circle is as smooth, and unvexed as the sea without. For some anxious minutes the fishers would, figuratively and literally, float on a sea of doubt. No evidence would be visible until the seine was well in to tell whether the cast had been successful or not. With a force and momentum that almost overturns the dory, the boats come together and in a trice the purse-lines, one from the dory and one from the seine boat, are rove through blocks

on the gunwale of the later, the lines are manned and come hissing in from the ocean carrying with them two jets of sea water.

While the boat is encircling a school of mackerel, the oars of necessity make considerable noise and the length of time the fish remain visible depends on their degree of "wildness." Sooner or later, they settle and disappear, and pèrhaps when the seine appears to be half around them they come up without the circle and it is hard to convince the fishermen that the ripple they leave behind is not the ripple of laughter. They may, following a dozen older and wiser heads who have been trapped before, dive straight down and escape to a fish, and the cry, "They've dove her!" announce the melancholy fact that labor and energy have been expended in vain. Observers will have noticed, however, that fish of the mackerel species usually leave the surface at a very acute angle, which fact increases the likelihood of the school striking the seine before they clear its confines. They appear to settle, at first, somewhat below the surface, their speed slightly accelerated. As they strike the bunt or middle of the seine which has been thrown directly in their course, it is possible they conceive it to be the ocean's bed and they naturally begin to rise towards the surface. Having discovered their error they dive once more, this time perhaps deeper, but the seine that was at first a circular wall with the bottom wide open, has rapidly assumed the formation of a bowl and again they are blocked.

The denseness of the mass decreases the mobility, the mob-consciousness is at their centre holding

them together like a magnet, whatever independent movement is suggested to any individuals, the gregarious instinct denies, and the school, intact, rises once more toward the surface. The matter has now become serious and the fish begin to poke their noses into the meshes, cautiously, curiously, trying to discover what this strange thing is opposing itself to the free will of an independent mackerel who has heretofore darted where it listeth, the while, following the wall of twine toward the buoy. Both fish and boat are now converging on the same point. As they near one another, the school, alarmed at the uproar, suddenly wheel in a body and dart towards what appears to them, open water, only to meet with the old obstruction on the opposite side. The only avenue of escape is toward and under the boat, but the noise, the shadow of the boat on the water, the long oars that are plunged into the sea and agitated, commonly deters them from this course. At last the thoroughly bewildered and disorganized school breaks up into small pods or bodies and then sinks to the bottom of the seine that has been drawn completely around and beneath them.

Having pursed the seine up, that is, drawn the bottom of it together, like the mouth of lady's opera bag, the rings are taken across the gunwale of the boat, the fishermen, lining up from bow to stern, insert their fingers into the meshes and the great net is slowly, foot by foot, dragged into the boat. The suspense is now intense, up to this, there is not one vestige of evidence to tell the fishermen that their cast has been successful, but now a

keen eye catches sight of some silver bars down in the blue depths standing out from the seine. These manifestations increase and multiply, and suddenly the whole school rises to the surface, seething and boiling in their ever-narrowing confines. It is a sight no human eye could look on and be unmoved and the fishermen hail it with exulting shouts that rises from a low roar to a crescendo of shrieks: "They're in her! They're in her! THEY'RE ALL IN HER!"

During the drying up period, the dory is stationed at the bunt cork, a cork exactly in the middle of the seine. This precaution is necessary because the school, if a large one, may by their weight carry the corks below the surface, allowing the fish to escape.

The seine being fully dried in, this cork is taken on the gunwale of the seine boat, an oar is put up as a signal for the vessel to draw near, the captain with a portion of the crew is carried aboard and the vessel is slowly worked up to the prize. As they near the seine boat. the fore sheet is eased off, the jibs ar lowered and the vessel glides quietly alongside. Lines are passed fore and aft to the seine boat, the bunt cork is taken on the rail of the schooner and the work of transferring the haul to the decks begins. Hoisting tackle is attached to a huge dipnet, holding from one to two barrels and plunged into the

swarm beneath and the order is given to hoist away. As the bottom of the net clears the rail it is upset and the first installment of "blue blacks" go rattling and drumming over the decks. This process is continued until the catch is transferred from the seine to the schooner's decks. Now begins the work of "dressing down." The crew are divided into gangs of four; two split the fish, the others free them from their gibs and entrails and throw them into barrels, partly filled with water, to soak out the blood. From these wash-barrels they are taken and salted down. No sleep is permitted and only a moment is allowed for a hasty lunch, until the entire catch is split. gibbed, plowed and salted and ready to be stowed below. It was a big school and every remaining barrel on board is full. And now, from the decks of the conquering vessel, a mysterious, cylinder-shaped object runs up aloft, is hauled out to the mainpeak, and the next moment the Stars and Stripes, like an embodied shout of victory, flutters out on the favored air, telling the scattered fleet through which she is flying, that effort brings nearer the target of desires; that the "Alice M. Story" has wet all her salt and is homeward bound; telling them also that the rules of the Navy do not obtain here, to wit: Vessels in sight at time. of capture have no share in the prize money.