With the cod, as often most intimately with him in the boneless codfish box, come the hake and the cusk, both rated as inferior fish, though it is hard to see why. The cusk in particular is esteemed by the fishermen for their own use above any other fish that is taken from the trawls on the banks. Go down into the forepeak of any Gloucesterman and ask the crew, while they "mug up," if they like baked cusk. You will see their mouths water and their eyes shine in appreciation of the suggestion. Yet the cusk is hardly a beauty. In fact, the first man who suggested eating him must have been hungry or else adventurous beyond the common run of men. If you will take a bilious looking eel and compress him lengthwise till the becomes a stubby bunch, put on him a pair of yellow goggle eyes that stare madly as if at ghosts, and seem, withal to be sadly afflicted with strabismus, you will have the beginnings of a cusk. Then he must have a broad fin that begins at the back of his neck, promenades his spine to and including his tail and returns beneath him to the spot where some people wear neckties. That is a part of the paraphernalia of this denizen of the deep sea. Often when brought to the surface this peculiar fish will swell up with imprisoned air until he is enormously fat and covered with blisters. The cod and the flounders, cunners and pollock will make up the bulk of your catch as you drift along these under-sea moraines, though now and then a freak may come to your hook in the shape of a dogfish or a skate. These are to be looked for and welcomed. Once the horse mackerel struck into Massachusetts Bay. These weigh a thousand pounds apiece and take live fish of considerable size on the fly. In those days a deep-sea fisherman, hauling in a respectable cod, was likely to find adventure enough with the situation suddenly reversed and a horse mackerel hauling in the line with the fisherman, on the end of it. It is leviathans of the deep like these that Jason Theseus and their companion Greeks bear in mind as the Argo drifts and the catch steadily grows. By and by the low sun flares red through surly clouds of nightfall. The sea is getting up and it is a long sail up the coast to the lee of the outer light. Then with darkness gathering and a head wind and tide the real glory of the day comes. Out of the black west blows half a gale. The waves curl in ghostly phosphorescence and the merry men dance wildly in Hull Gut. It is a long and dogged fight to win through these against the swift tide to the comparative safety of the shelter of Peddocks, where you catch the back wash that helps you well along the lee of Prince's Head.