At that point the depth of the sea was sixty feet at the very base of the rock. At each half-tide, and especially in stormy weather, an irresistible current swept away all sand deposit, and sheered off projecting masses of stone so effectually, that, in the course of time, the overhanging cliff must be undermined and fall into the sea.
High tide or low, there was always sufficient water to float a battleship, and the place was noted as a favorite nook for salmon, at that season preparing for their annual visit to the sylvan streams of the moorland valleys.
The lordly salmon is peculiar in his habits. Delighting, at one period of the year, to roam through the ocean wilds, at another he seeks shallow rivers, in whose murmuring fords he scarce finds room to turn his portly frame.
And the law protects him most jealously.
In the river he is guarded like a king, and when he clusters at its mouth, lazily making up his mind to try a change of water, as a monarch might visit Homburg for a change of air, he can only be caught under certain severe restrictions.
He must not be netted within so many yards of the seaward limit of the estuary; he may not be caught wholesale; the nets must have a maximum length of four hundred feet; they must not be set between 7 P. M. on a Friday and 7 A. M. on a Monday.
Viewed in every aspect, the salmon is given exceptional chances of longevity. His price is high as his culinary reputation, and the obvious sequel to all these precautions is that certain nefarious persons known as poachers try every artifice to defeat the law and capture him.
A favorite dodge is to run out a large quantity of nets in just such a tideway as the foot of the cliff crowned by Grange House. None can spy the operations from the land, while a close watch seaward gives many chances of escape from enterprising water bailiffs, who, moreover, can sometimes be made conveniently drunk.
When Philip hurtled into the placid sea his naked body shone white, like the plumage of some gigantic bird.
Indeed, a man who was leisurely pulling a coble in a zigzag course—while two others paid out a net so that its sweeping curves might embarrass any wandering salmon who found himself within its meshes—marked the falling body in its instantaneous passage, and thought at first that some huge sea fowl had dived after its prey.