There was nothing to be done that night, of course, for mackerel must be
delicately worked; but long before the sun arose, all Flamborough, able
to put leg in front of leg, and some who could not yet do that, gathered
together where the land-hold was, above the incline for the launching
of the boats. Here was a medley, not of fisher-folk alone, and all their
bodily belongings, but also of the thousand things that have no soul,
and get kicked about and sworn at much because they can not answer.
Rollers, buoys, nets, kegs, swabs, fenders, blocks, buckets, kedges,
corks, buckie-pots, oars, poppies, tillers, sprits, gaffs, and every
kind of gear (more than Theocritus himself could tell) lay about,
and rolled about, and upset their own masters, here and there and
everywhere, upon this half acre of slip and stumble, at the top of the
boat channel down to the sea, and in the faint rivalry of three vague
lights, all making darkness visible.

For very ancient lanterns, with a gentle horny glimmer, and loop-holes
of large exaggeration at the top, were casting upon anything quite
within their reach a general idea of the crinkled tin that framed them,
and a shuffle of inconstant shadows, but refused to shed any light on
friend or stranger, or clear up suspicions, more than three yards off.
In rivalry with these appeared the pale disk of the moon, just setting
over the western highlands, and "drawing straws" through summer haze;
while away in the northeast over the sea, a slender irregular wisp of
gray, so weak that it seemed as if it were being blown away, betokened
the intention of the sun to restore clear ideas of number and of figure
by-and-by. But little did anybody heed such things; every one ran
against everybody else, and all was eagerness, haste, and bustle for the
first great launch of the Flamborough boats, all of which must be taken
in order.