Yet the great rollers—as we near the forbidding shores—break with an ominous thunder on the projecting points and reefs. The Doctor insists on getting closer and closer—he knows where the big lithe are likely to be found—and the men, although they keep a watchful eye about them, obey. And then—it is Mary Avon who first calls out—and behold! her rod is suddenly dragged down—the point is hauled below the water—agony and alarm are on her face. "Here—take it—take it!" she calls out. "The rod will be broken." "Not a bit," the Doctor calls out. "Give him the butt hard! Never mind the rod! Haul away!" And indeed by this time everybody was alternately calling and hauling; and John of Skye, attending to the rods of the two ladies, had scarcely time to disengage the big fish, and smooth the flies again; and the Laird was declaring that these lithe fight as hard as a twenty-pound salmon. What did we care about those needles and points of black rock that every two or three seconds showed their teeth through the breaking white surf? "Keep her close in, boys!" Angus Sutherland cried. "We shall have a fine pickling to-morrow." Then one fish, stronger or bigger than his fellows, pulls the rod clean out of Mary Avon’s hands. "Well, I have done it this time," she says. "Not a bit!" her companion cries. "Up all lines! Back now, lads—gently!" And as the stern of the boat is shoved over the great glassy billows, behold! a thin dark line occasionally visible—the end of the lost rod! Then there is a swoop on the part of our Doctor; he has both his hands on the butt; there elapses a minute or two of fighting between man and fish; and then we can see below the boat the wan gleam of the captured animal as it comes to the surface in slow circles. Hurrah! a seven-pounder! John of Skye chuckles to himself as he grasps the big lithe. "Oh, ay!" he says, "the young leddy knows ferry well when to throw away the rod. It is a gran’ good thing to throw away the rod when there will be a big fish. Ay, ay, it iss a good fish." But the brutes that fought hardest of all were the dog-fish—the snakes of the sea; and there was a sort of holy Archangelic joy on the face of John of Skye when he seized a lump of stick to fell these hideous creatures before flinging them back into the water again. And yet why should they have been killed on account of their snake-like eyes and their cruel mouth? The human race did not rise and extirpate Frederick Smethurst because he was ill-favoured.