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.