CHAPTER NINE.
BIG FISHING--A STRANGE DISSECTION.
The dog-days and the sultriness of August extended some of theirinfluence even in our fresh kingdom by the sea. The only exercise thattempted us was swimming, and that, by Captain Mugford's permission, wenow enjoyed twice each day--before breakfast and after tea. What elseis so delightful and health-giving? The header from the brown rock fromwhose sides wave the cool, green tresses of the sea! off, with a whoop,and hands above your head, as the sun pats tricklingly your back! off,with a spring, down head first through the deliciously cool, clear,bracing water, that effervesces about you in bubbles of sport. Then, asthe long delicate tendrils beneath swing like sirens' arms to welcomeyou, to arch the back and, leaving the alluring depths, rise through thedark water with the ease of an eagle on his wings until your head popsinto the upper world of noise and sunlight again. The long, sharp,regular strokes now, every muscle stretching elastically and the wholeframe electric with vigour and freshness--oh, how delicious!
Reeking with wet, we climb the rock, picking a spot where limpets arenot, and sit in that glorious sunlight, each atom of which seems to meltinto the blood. Clasping our hands about our knees, we can watch theglory of the sun climbing higher and higher above the ocean, and, if wechoose, fancy ourselves big grapes ripening on "Lusitanian summers,"until we are dry--which is too soon--and then with what overflowingspirits and ravenous appetites we go, like hunters, to the house!
"Come, Marm Juno, send in the eggs and bacon. We're as hungry asbears!"
"He! he! he! How you yun' gemmen do go on. Seems as ef you'se nebbergit nuffen ter eat at hum. 'Spects you'll git fat down 'ere! He! he!"
But our studies did not slacken because of the warm weather. CopyingMr Clare, we all worked with a will. There was not a laggard amongstus, I believe. There was a disposition to please one who had so grownin our affection and respect as even to have outstripped our dear oldsalt tute. He understood our youthful difficulties, sympathised withour interests, and, not limiting his duties to hearing us recite, taughtus _how to study_.
As August waned the fishing improved, and with the little fiddler orsoldier crab we caught fish of three and four pounds instead of those ofone and two pounds that had a month ago employed us. And then thestriped bass, the _Labrus lineatus_, the king of saltwater game fish--what splendid sport they furnished!
These last we caught, some of us with the pole and reel, some with thehand-line. But it was active work to throw out about sixty yards ofline and then troll it quickly back through the eddies off the rocks,where the bass fed and sported. The Captain was great at this;despising the pole and waving the bait round and round his head, hewould throw it full a hundred yards to sea.
I tell you it was exciting to hook a five or six pounder and have himmake off with a lurch. Pay out then, quick, quick, just keeping a"feel" of the fellow's mouth, and as he slacks his speed, tauten yourline, and pull in with all your strength. Slower now, as he begins tohaul back. Now look out; he is off again with a mightier spring andgreater speed than before. Pay out, quick and steady. So, again andagain, his strength getting less and less, until you can tow him up tothe rock, and your companion put the gaff in his ruddy gills.
Many a noble fish escaped; many a line and hook snapped in the warfare.Sometimes a much larger fish would take hold, and two of us would haveto pull on the line stretched like wire. During the season we took aseven-pounder, one of eight, and one of ten pounds, and Captain Mugford,alone on the rocks, one stormy morning, when we boys were in school,captured a royal fellow of twelve pounds, and brought it for ouradmiring gaze as we went to dinner. Mr Clare promised to beat that,but he never did.
One Saturday afternoon, about the last of August, just after a somewhatheavy gale, which had been blowing for a couple of days, we all repairedto Bass Rocks, though the sky was drizzling yet, and the spray of thewaves dashed at every blow clear over our stand.
It was apparently a splendid time for our friends, the labrus, but wedid not get a bite. We persevered, however, fresh baiting the hooks,and throwing out again and again, with not a fin to flash after themthrough the curdled waters.
Harry Higginson, having been very unlucky before this, losing severalstrong lines, had provided himself this time with one which, he said,could hold a hundred-pounder--the line consisting of two thick flaxenlines plaited together. He had it rigged on his pole. Grown carelessfrom the ill-luck we had met, he at length let his bait sink to thebottom, about thirty yards from the rocks, and got talking with theCaptain, who had given up fishing, and, with his sou'wester pulled abouthis ears, was taking a comfortable pipe in a crevice of the biggestrock.
Suddenly I heard a reel go clork--cle-erk cleerk! and saw Harry's polefall from his hands to the rock. He seized it in a second, but as hestopped the revolving of the reel, the pole bent, and he pulled back onit--Snap! It was gone in the middle of the second joint. Of course theline remained, and that he commenced pulling in, bestowing the whilesome pretty hard expressions on his bad luck, for it really seemed as ifthe once-hooked fish had gone off in safety. About ten yards of theline came in slack, and then it stopped.
"Fast to a rock! What luck!" cried Harry, and then he commenced tojerk.
As he turned to look at us, with an expression of sarcasticindifference, I saw the line straightening out again in a steady, slowway, as if it was attached to an invisible canal-boat.
"Hold fast," I cried; "look! you have got something. What can it be?"saying which, Harry commenced to pull, but in vain--the prey went ahead.
Captain Mugford had taken the pipe from his mouth as his attention wasfastened by the strange manoeuvres of Harry's game. Things having cometo such a bewildering pass, he put up his pipe and, shaking the folds ofthe sou'wester from about his head, sprung forward and took hold of theline with Harry, but it still ran out through their hands.
"Seventeen seventy-six! what a whopper," exclaimed the Captain. "Wemust let go another anchor--eh, Harry?"
"Indeed! yes," replied Harry. "Look! he is stopping, and seems to beshaking the hook as a cat would a mouse. What can it be?"
Now the unknown took a tack towards us, and the line was gathered in andkept tight, and, as he began to go about on another course, his enemiestook advantage of his momentary sluggishness to haul with considerableeffect on the line. That brought the rascal right under the rocks. Wecould not see him; only the commotion of the water. Being brought upwith such a short turn maddened the fellow, and perhaps he began torealise what was giving him such a jaw-ache. At any rate, just then heshowed his speed to the whole length of the line, rushing off like alocomotive, and cutting his enemies fingers to the bones. They held on,however, and were able to bring him to as his charge slackened.
Of course the others of us hauled in our lines and watched witheagerness the combat so exciting. We proffered advice of all kinds tothe two fishers, which they did not heed but devised schemes as themoment required, and certainly they managed with great skill. You wouldhave thought the Captain was on deck in a hurricane, or repelling theboarders of a Malay pirate. The pipe was jammed up to its bowl in theside of his mouth, and all he said came in jerks through his teeth.
We were perfectly in the dark as to what the fish might be--whether animmense cod or halibut, or a princely bass.
The fight went on for half an hour without any decided result. Butafter that the struggles of the fish occupied a smaller space, nevertaking more than half the line out now. He was nearer the surface too,and the quick slaps of a tremendous tail lashed the sea.
"Mr Clare," called out Captain Mugford, "won't you twist two of theboys' lines together and bend them on that gaff? By the way, there is ahatchet with us, is there not? Good! Have that and the gaff ready. Weare tiring the animal, whatever it is--a shark, I suspect."
Whilst we were carrying out the Captain's orders, Harry cried, "See,see! there is the whole length of him. Yes, a shark. What a grandbeast!"
They were tiring him--worrying the strength and fierceness out of him.Every turn was bringing him nearer the rock. Every dash of his wasweaker. But it must have been fully an hour from the first rush he madebefore he was brought exhausted alongside of the rocks, and the Captaincried, "Put in the gaff, Mr Clare--hard deep!"
Well was it that a strong line had been made fast to the gaff, for asits big hook struck him behind the gills, he uttered a sound like themoan of a child, and flapped off, the gaff remaining in him, into deepwater.
With the two lines and his exhausted state, it was comparatively easy tobring him to the rocks again, and then with blows of the hatchet we hadsoon murdered him. Even then it was a job of some moment to get thebody safely up the slimy and uneven rocks.
At length our prey was well secured, and we stood about him in triumph.It was a shark, measuring five feet and three inches in length, and hemust certainly have weighed nearly a hundred pounds.
From the study Mr Clare made of the subject, we found that the name bywhich the shark is technically known is _Squalidae_, which includes alarge family fitly designated, as your Latin dictionary will prove whenyou find the adjective _squalidus_--"filthy, slovenly, loathsome." Itis a family of many species, there being some thirty or forty cousins;and the different forms of the teeth, snout, mouth, lips, and tail-fins,the existence or absence of eyelids, spiracles, (those are the aperturesby which the water taken in for respiration is thrown out again), thesituation of the different fins, etcetera, distinguish the differentdivisions of the common family. The cousin who, wandering about thatstormy Saturday, had frightened away the bass, and finally astonishedhimself by swallowing a fish-hook when he only thought to suck a daintybit of his family's favourite delicacy, was known as the _Zygaena_--soMr Clare introduced him to us when his sharkship had grown soexceedingly diffident as not to be able to say one word for himself--agenus distinguished by having the sides of the head greatly prolonged ina horizontal direction, from which circumstance they are commonly knownas the hammer-headed sharks.
His teeth were in three rows, the points of the teeth being directedtowards the corners of the mouth. The two back rows were bent down, andonly intended, Mr Clare told us, to replace the foremost when injured.These horrible teeth were notched like a saw.
I think the face, if so you might call it, of that piratical fish worethe most fearfully cruel and rapacious expression I had ever seen. That_Zygaena_ family of the _Squalidae_, (I think they sound more horriblydevilish when called by their classical titles), is one dangerous toman, and it is very rare that a man-eating or man-biting shark is everfound on the English coast.
I proposed to cut him open, and so we did. Among the half-digestedfood, most of which was fish, I found something that at first lookedlike a leather strap. I seized it and pulled it out. Surely there wasa buckle. I washed and laid it out on the rock, while we all gatheredabout in great excitement to make out what our dead enemy had beenpreying on. There was no longer a doubt that it was a dog-collar--thecollar of a medium-sized dog, perhaps a spaniel or terrier. There was aplate on it, which, with a little rubbing, we made to read, "DavidAtherton, Newcastle." How very strange! Had the little fellow beenwashed overboard from some vessel? or had he swum off some neighbouringbeach to bring a stick for his master?
We could never discover any antecedents of any kind whatever to thatmysterious sequel to "The Romance of the Poor Young Dog." Was there afond master mourning for him in Newcastle, England, or in Newcastle,Pennsylvania? Alas, poor dog! thou wert hastily snatched from thisworld--the ocean thy grave and a shark's belly thy coffin. Thy collarhangs, as I write this, over my study table, and many a time has my oldPonto sniffed at that relic of a fellow-dog, and his eyes grown moist asI repeated to him my surmises of the sad fate of David Atherton'scompanion.
Mr Clare told us a good deal about sharks. Of the many varieties, themost hideous is the Wolf-fish, (_Anarrhicas lupus_). Though muchsmaller than the white shark, he is a very formidable creature. He hassix rows of grinders in each jaw, excellently adapted for bruising thecrabs, lobsters, scallops, and large whelks, which the voracious animalgrinds to pieces, and swallows along with the shells. When caught, itfastens with indiscriminate rage upon anything within its reach, fightsdesperately, even when out of the water, and inflicts severe wounds ifnot avoided cautiously. Schonfeld relates this wolf-fish will seize onan anchor and leave the marks of its teeth in it, and Steller mentionsone on the coast of Kamschatka, which he saw lay hold of a cutlass, withwhich a man was attempting to kill it, and break it to bits as if it hadbeen made of glass. This monster is, from its great size, one of themost formidable denizens of the ocean; in the British waters it attainsthe length of six or seven feet, and is said to be much larger in themore Northern seas. It usually frequents the deep parts of the sea, butcomes among the marine plants of the coast in spring, to deposit itsspawn. It swims rather slowly, and glides along with somewhat of themotion of an eel.
The white shark is far more dreadful, from its gigantic size andstrength; its jaws are also furnished with from three to six rows ofstrong, flat, triangular, sharp-pointed, and finely serrated teeth,which it can raise or depress at will.
This brute grows to a length of thirty feet, and its strength may beimagined from the fact that a young shark, only six feet long, has beenknown to break a man's leg by a stroke of its tail. Therefore, whensailors have caught a shark at sea, with a baited hook, the first thingthey do when it is drawn upon deck is to chop off its tail, to preventthe mischief to be dreaded from its immense strength.
Hughes, the author of the "Natural History of Barbadoes," relates ananecdote which gives a good idea of the nature of this monster: "In thereign of Queen Anne a merchant ship from England arrived at Barbadoes;some of the crew, ignorant of the danger of doing so, were bathing inthe sea, when a large shark suddenly appeared swimming directly towardsthem. All hurried on board, and escaped, except one unfortunate fellow,who was bit in two by the shark. A comrade and friend of the man,seeing the severed body of his companion, vowed instant revenge. Thevoracious shark was seen swimming about in search of the rest of hisprey, when the brave lad leaped into the water. He carried in his handa long, sharp-pointed knife, and the fierce monster pushed furiouslytowards him. Already he had turned over, and opened his huge, deadlyjaws, when the youth, diving cleverly, seized the shark somewhere nearthe fins with his left hand, and stabbed him several times in the belly.The creature, mad with pain and streaming with blood, attempted vainlyto escape. The crews of the ships near saw that the fight was over, butknew not which was slain, till, as the shark became exhausted, he rosenearer the shore, and the gallant assailant still continuing hisefforts, was able, with assistance, to drag him on shore. There heripped open the stomach of the shark and took from it the half of hisfriend's body, which he then buried together with the trunk half."
The negroes are admirable swimmers and divers, and they sometimes attackand vanquish the terrible shark, but great skill is necessary.
When Sir Brooke Watson, as a youth, was in the West Indies, he was onceswimming near a ship when he saw a shark making towards him. He criedout in terror for help, and caught a rope thrown to him; but even as themen were drawing him up the side of the vessel, the monster dartedafter, and took off his leg at a single snap.
Fortunately for sea-bathers on our shores, the white shark and themonstrous hammer-headed _zygaena_ seldom appear in the colder latitudes,though both have occasionally been seen on the British coasts.
The northern ocean has its peculiar sharks, but some are good-natured,like the huge basking shark, (_S maximus_), and feed on seaweeds andmedusae and the rest, such as the _picked_ dog-fish, (_Galeusacanthius_), are, although fierce, of too small a size to be dangerousto man.
But the dog-fish and others, such as the blue shark, are verytroublesome and injurious to the fisherman; though they do not ventureto attack him, for they hover about his boat and cut the hooks from hislines. Indeed, this som
etimes leads to their own destruction; and whentheir teeth do not deliver them from their difficulty, the blue sharks,which hover about the coast of Cornwall during the pilchard season, rolltheir bodies round so as to twine the line about them in its wholelength, and often in such a way that Mr Yarrell has known a fishermangive up as hopeless the attempt to unroll it.
This shark is very dangerous to the pilchard drift-net, and very oftenwill pass along the whole length of net, cutting out, as if with shears,the fish and the net which holds them, and swallowing both together.
Captain Mugford: Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors Page 9