They were in no hurry to get in, for there was no means of sending their fish off till morning, hence they took matters coolly enough. "Did you do the dive to-night, Master Mark?" said the master of the boat. "Yes, to be sure," said Mark conceitedly. "Bah! it's mere child's play." "And yet Mas'r Harry Paul never does it," said another, in the sing-song tone peculiar to the district. "He! a miserable coward!" cried Penelly, contemptuously. "He hasn't the spirit of a fly. Such a fellow ought to be hounded out of the place. Why, I could pick out a dozen boys of twelve who would do it." "Yes," said the master of the lugger maliciously, "but he's a beautiful swimmer." "Tchah! I'd swim twice as far," said Penelly. "He's a wretched coward, and I hate him." "What! because he can swim better than you, sir?" said the master. "I tell you I'm the better swimmer," said Penelly sharply. "Then it must be because he thrashed you for behaving ill to poor old Tom Genna?" "He thrash me!" cried Penelly contemptuously. "I should like to see him do it." "Here's your chance, then," said the master maliciously. "He's swimming straight for the boat." Mark Penelly's face grew a shade more sallow, but he said nothing, only knelt down by a pile of loose net, and watched the young man, whom he looked upon as his rival, till Harry, swimming gracefully and well, came right up and answered the hail of the fishermen with a cheery shout. "Come aboard, Mas'r Harry; we're going to have the sweeps out soon, and we'll take you in." "No, thank you," was the reply. "I am going round you, and then back." Mark Penelly had gone over to the other side of the lugger while the conversation was going on, and he did not face the man he looked upon as his rival; while Harry, unnoticed by the busy fishers as he swam round, went on, touching the sides of the lugger as he lightly swam, but only the next moment to find himself entangled in a quantity of the thin mackerel net, which seemed somehow to descend upon him like a cloud, and before he could realise the fact he was under water, hopelessly fettered by the net, and feeling that if he could not extricate himself directly he should be a dead man. CHAPTER TWO. ZEKLE MAKES HAY. At first sight nothing seems more frail than a herring or mackerel net, one of those slight pieces of mesh-work that, in a continuation of lengths perhaps half-a-mile long, is let down into the sea to float with the tide, ready for the shoals of fish that dart against it as it forms a filmy wall across their way. The wonder always is that it does not break with even a few pounds of fish therein, but it rarely does, for co-operation is power, and it is in the multiplicity of crossing threads that the strength consists.