Beata decided it would be a good place to fish, so they got out their log-lines. The first and most manifest thing to do was to find bait. There were plenty of limpets on the rocks, and with penknives they managed to dislodge some of them. It was only when a limpet was caught napping that it was possible to secure him: once he sat down tight and excluded the air from his shell, no amount of pulling could move him. The victims thus gathered were sacrificed by Beata and Merle, who acted as high priestesses, and chopped them up, and placed them upon the hooks, for neither Mavis nor Romola would touch them, and even Fay was not particularly keen upon this part of the fishing operations. They were ready at last, and cast their lines. Merle, unfortunately, through lack of experience, had not unreeled hers far enough, and the heavy weight sank deeply in the water and jerked the whole thing out of her hands into the sea.
"Oh, what a shame! And we've only just paid two and sixpence for it! What an utter idiot I was! I never thought it would pull like that. See, it's floating about down there!"
"I'll get it for you if I can," said Beata. With some manoeuvring she managed to fling her own line over it and drag it slowly in, losing it several times but rescuing it in the end.
After that mishap Merle was wiser, and threw with more discretion. Fay also tried her luck, and the girls sat waiting for bites. But alas! none came. There were several false alarms, but the lines when hauled in held nothing more exciting than hunks of seaweed. It was really most disappointing.
"I'm afraid they don't like the bait," said Beata at last. "If we could find a few lob-worms now, it might tempt them. They're evidently rather dainty."
"And I expect we don't know much about it!" said Mavis.
"Well, people have to learn some time, I suppose. You can't tumble to fishing by instinct!"
It was decided to go farther along and try to find lob-worms. The difficulty was to scramble down the rocks on to the sand. From above it looked quite easy and possible, but at close quarters the crags were very precipitous. At one point, however, they determined to venture. They sat on the edge of the sloping rock, let go, and then simply slid down, hanging on to pieces of ivy and tufts of grass. The cove, when they thus reached it, was worth the trouble of getting there. Sand-gobies were darting about in the pools, and came swimming up to fight for the pieces of limpet which the girls dropped in for them. They found a few lobworms and re-baited their hooks and cast their lines afresh, but met with no better success than before.
"I'm fed up with fishing!" announced Romola at last. "Let's go home!"
She had voiced the general opinion of the party. All immediately began to wind up their lines.