His crew lowered the sail quickly, and stowed it out of their way, for the chief feature of the little trip was close at hand.

Old Daygo went forward now, shaking his head at the boys' progress of hauling in the trawl-net line themselves.
"Ay," he said; "you can take out the fish if there be any." And he methodically dragged the net, which had been stretched like so many walls of meshes overnight right across the swift waters of the tide, having been down long enough for the ebb and flow both to pass through it, with the consequence that, if fish had passed that way, they would have been pocketed or become netted among the meshes from either side.
But a good deal of the net was dragged into the boat before the glittering scales of a fish were seen.
"Red mullet!" cried Vince, as he pounced upon two small ones, looking as if clothed in mother-o'-pearl, speckled and stained with scarlet.
These were taken out and thrown into the locker, with the result that the lobster flipped its tail and splashed about furiously.

But by this time there was a golden gleam in the net drawn aboard; taking his turn, Mike dragged out a grotesque-looking, big-headed John Dory, all golden-green upon its sides, and bearing the two dark marks, as if a giant finger and thumb had been imprinted upon it.

This, too, with its great eyes staring, and wide mouth gaping feebly, was thrown into the locker.
Then old Daygo began to growl and mutter: for the meshes showed the heads only of a fine pair of red mullet, the whole of the bodies having been eaten away; and a minute later up came the cause, in the shape of a long, grey, eely-looking fish, which writhed and struggled violently to get free, but only entangled itself the more tightly.
"Nay, nay! let me come," cried the old man, as he saw the boys whip out their knives.

"I don't want my net cut to pieces; I'll do it myself." He threw the portion of the net containing the captive on one side in the bottom of the boat, and hauled in the rest, which contained nothing but a sickly green, mottled-looking wrasse of about a couple of pounds weight.