As quickly as sinewy arms can send her along, the small boat describes a circle round the fish, that continue to frisk about, all unconscious of their peril.
At length a shout of joy announces that connection has been made. The two ends of the seine are joined, and, if it be a purse-seine, the bottom is drawn together also, and then the tired, excited fishermen can take a little rest, and they try to guess how many barrels this "stop" of mackerel will make. Jack Hays and the rest of the boys can hardly contain themselves with delight, for won't they all have a trip up to the city so soon as the fish are ready to be sold, and these trips are the great events of their life.
Having got the fish nicely caught inside the seine, the next thing is to get them out again. The big net with its precious load is drawn as near the shore as possible, the boats crowd round it, and a busy scene ensues, as the blue-backed, silver-bellied beauties are taken from the meshes, and piled up in the boats until these little craft can hold no more.
In a little while all the fish are safely on shore, and then comes the splitting and salting, in which not only the boys, but the girls and their mothers too, take a hand, for the more quickly it is done the better.
The dexterity shown by the workers is astonishing. Holding a sharp knife in their right hand, they stand before a pile of glistening mackerel. With one motion they seize a fine fat fellow, with another they split him open from head to tail, with a third they despoil him of his entire digestive apparatus, with a fourth they put in its place a handful of salt, with a fifth fling him upon a pile beside them, and the whole operation is done in the twinkling of an eye.
To see the girls at this—and none are more expert than they—takes a good deal of the romance out of one's ideas of fisher-maidens; but it cannot be helped. They cannot afford to be romantic, or look picturesque. Their life is too hard for that kind of amusement.
In the catching of mackerel and herring there is not much danger, and the fishermen need not go far from home. But it is different with the cod and haddock and hake. To get these big fellows you must go out upon the Banks, as those strange, shallow areas in the Atlantic Ocean are called; and going out upon the Banks means being away for long weeks at a time, and exposed to many dangers.
Storms are frequent there, and the waves run mountain high, so that stanch and trim as the fishing craft are, and thoroughly expert their masters, hardly a season passes without the loss of a Nancy Bell or Cod-Seeker with all on board. Often, alas! do
"The women go weeping and wringing their hands,
For those who will never come back to the town."
Another danger ever present, ever indeed growing greater, is that of being run down some foggy night by the great ocean steamers that are thronging past in increasing numbers.