Harder on the back, this, than frum the dory, ain't it ?" It was rather back-breaking work, for in a dory the weight of a cod is water-borne till the last minute, and you are, so to speak, abreast of him; but the few feet of a schooner's free-board make so much extra dead-hauling, and stooping over the bulwarks cramps the stomach.

But it was wild and furious sport so long as it lasted; and a big pile lay aboard when the fish ceased biting.
"Where's Penn and Uncle Salters ?" Harvey asked, slapping the slime off his oilskins, and reeling up the line in careful imitation of the others.
"Git's coffee and see." Under the yellow glare of the lamp on the pawl-post, the fo'c'sle table down and opened, utterly unconscious of fish or weather, sat the two men, a checker-board between them, Uncle Salters snarling at Penn's every move.
"What's the matter naow ?" said the former, as Harvey, one hand in the leather loop at the head of the ladder, hung shouting to the cook.
"Big fish and lousy-heaps and heaps," Harvey replied, quoting Long Jack.

"How's the game ?" Little Penn's jaw dropped.

"Tweren't none o' his fault," snapped Uncle Salters.

"Penn's deef." "Checkers, weren't it ?" said Dan, as Harvey staggered aft with the steaming coffee in a tin pail.