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Coles at the Harbour told me all about it. He was a young man then and he says he can never forget that dreadful time. You know in those days hundreds of American fishing schooners used to come down to the Gulf every summer to fish mackerel. On one beautiful Saturday night in this October of 1851, more than one hundred of these vessels could be counted from Markdale Capes.
When he returned we kept our course, and she sailed to the south in order to get to sea. As soon as we reached the end of Long Island, they began to throw their fish lines, and continued to catch mackerel all day long. I think the European mackerel are better and fatter.
"Yes," said I "I see. It is curious, though, that they should look so white at a distance, when their backs are dark and blueish, like a mackerel!" "Ah! that is because the under part of their wings is only then visible. Look, now, at that lot there that have just risen to escape the boneta. They seem exactly like a fall of snowflakes!" "Poor things!" said Kate.
Indeed, by an awkward tilt at one moment some hundred or two of the mackerel were seen to glide away; but perhaps that rendered it all the more practicable to get into the boat what remained. When that heaving, sparkling, jerking mass of quicksilver at last was captured shining all through the brown meshes of the net the younger lads sat down quite exhausted, wet through, and happy.
Into the keelers the mackerel on deck were bailed and around them the men gathered, with long-handled torches set up all about. All hands came into the dressing skipper and cook too and the work went on. It was one gang against the other, each jealously counting barrels when they were filled, that full credit might be given for speed. Sixteen men were accounted for in this way.
And he that has official entree may learn, by mounting dusky stairs, half-ladder and half-stair, and by passing through low-ceilinged chambers freighted with many barrels, to the sanctums of the fish lords, what's doing in the foreign herring way, and get the current market quotations, at present sky-high, and hear that the American shore mackerel catch is very fine stock.
During the afternoon thin cirri clouds, flying very high, spread out over the western heavens like a fan. As the day lengthened they thickened to resemble the scales of a fish, bringing to mind the old saying, "A mackerel sky and a mare's tail," etc. The signs were all unmistakable, and even the gulls recognized a change, and, screaming, sought shelter on our spars. Mr.
That's the way to talk! Well, now, be honest about it: What did you have for supper night afore last? Mince pie, was it? Why didn't you eat another slice? Then you'd have dreamed about a mackerel keg full of di'monds, most likely."
"No, but mackerel and bluefish are in season, and at all odds 't is well to be on hand to claim the staging, for Conant hath sent word by an Indian that some English ships were harrying our fishermen at Monhegan, and we had best look to our properties in those regions." "Ay, ay, 't is as thou sayest, Will, like cup and ball, thy need and my desire. How soon can we sail?"
There was a man the brother of the man you were talking to when the girls were dancing was married to a widow had a public-house away to the west of Ballydavid, and he was out fishing for mackerel, and he got a great haul of them; then he filled his canoe too full, so that she was down to the edge in the water, and a wave broke into her when they were near the shore, and she went down under them.
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