harvest carried each a copy of _The Western Morning News_ or _The
Western Daily Mercury_ to be read aloud, discussed, expounded under
the cuddy lamp in the long hours between shooting the nets and
hauling them.

"When the corn is in the shock,
Then the fish is on the rock."

A very little of the corn had been shocked as yet; but the fields,
right down to the cliffs' edge, stood ripe for abundant harvest.
I doubt, indeed, if in our time they have ever smiled a fairer
promise or reward for husbandry than during this last fortnight of
July 1914, when the crews, running back with the southerly breeze for
Polpier, would note how the crop stood yellower in to-day's than in
yesterday's sunrise, and speculate when Farmer Best or farmer Bate
meant to start reaping. As for the fish, the boats had made small
catches--dips among the straggling advance-guards of the great armies
of pilchards surely drawing in from the Atlantic. "'Tis early days
yet, hows'ever--time enough, my sons--plenty time!" promised Un'
Benny Rowett, patriarch of the fishing-fleet and local preacher on
Sundays. Some of the younger men grumbled that "there was no
tellin': the season had been tricky from the start." The
spider-crabs--that are the curse of inshore trammels--had
lingered for a good three weeks past the date when by all rights they
were due to sheer off. Then a host of spur-dogs had invaded the
whiting-grounds, preying so gluttonously on the hooked fish that,
haul in as you might, three times out of four the line brought up
nothing but a head--all the rest bitten off and swallowed.
"No salmon moving, over to Troy. The sean-boats there hadn't even
troubled to take out a licence." As for lobsters, "they were