Of the Strange Fish that we Caught at Spithead

One evening in the month of May 1685, about the end of the first week of
the month, my friend Reuben Lockarby and I borrowed Ned Marley's
pleasure boat, and went a-fishing out of Langston Bay. At that time I
was close on one-and-twenty years of age, while my companion was one
year younger. A great intimacy had sprung up between us, founded on
mutual esteem, for he being a little undergrown man was proud of my
strength and stature, while my melancholy and somewhat heavy spirit took
a pleasure in the energy and joviality which never deserted him, and in
the wit which gleamed as bright and as innocent as summer lightning
through all that he said. In person he was short and broad,
round-faced, ruddy-cheeked, and in truth a little inclined to be fat,
though he would never confess to more than a pleasing plumpness, which
was held, he said, to be the acme of manly beauty amongst the ancients.
The stern test of common danger and mutual hardship entitle me to say
that no man could have desired a stauncher or more trusty comrade.
As he was destined to be with me in the sequel, it was but fitting that
he should have been at my side on that May evening which was the
starting-point of our adventures.

We pulled out beyond the Warner Sands to a place half-way between them
and the Nab, where we usually found bass in plenty. There we cast the
heavy stone which served us as an anchor overboard, and proceeded to set
our lines. The sun sinking slowly behind a fog-bank had slashed the
whole western sky with scarlet streaks, against which the wooded slopes
of the Isle of Wight stood out vaporous and purple. A fresh breeze was
blowing from the south-east, flecking the long green waves with crests
of foam, and filling our eyes and lips with the smack of the salt spray.