I recollect this night well, for I revelled in its very antithesis to life in England.  Everything seemed so strange and quiet; the great black rocks casting their shadows over the phosphorescent waves; the star-studded sky, with the pale round moon, across which a gentle breeze wafted silvery gauze-like clouds; the feeling of motion, the sense of freedom, the love of labour to haul the net, the expectation of what would be our luck, the merry badinage between my comrade and me, our little songs between the hauls, and a score of other things cause me to look back upon this night (and many others) with the thought, “Shall I ever know such happiness again?”

Many persons, yes, most persons, must have recollections of past pure delights that steal across their memories of things which happened long years ago, and cause them to ask themselves the same question, “Shall I ever know such happiness again?”

Why not?  It always seems to strike me that when we are supremely happy, we do not realise it at the time; but when the happy time has fled, and has become a memory, we long for its return in vain.  We long in vain for that particular pleasure, but there are present joys for us to which at the time we do not give heed enough, or instead of bemoaning the past (which has flown) we should live and enjoy the tangible present.

From moralising to fishing is a long jump, but we must take the leap and attend to our net again.

After two or three hauls we had almost enough fish, but Alec said, “One more for luck,” and he being Skipper afloat, I Commandant ashore, like a good A.B., I obeyed.  We had caught several fair soles, but our last haul brought us up two of the largest it has been my lot to capture.

“They are two, but not a pair,” remarked Alec.

Neither were they, for when they were measured one was nineteen and a half inches long, and the other exactly twenty-three inches.  We christened them Adam and Eve, and like a couple of cannibals declared our intention of eating them for our supper when we got ashore.

As we sailed slowly in against the tide, the question arose who should devour Adam and who Eve; so we agreed to guess the length of the trawl beam between the irons for choice of fish.

I guessed first:  “Ten feet.”

“There,” said Monday, “you have nearly taken my guess out of my mouth, for I was going to say three metres, and that makes it about, let me see, nine feet ten inches.”

“How much is a metre?” I asked eagerly.

“Why about thirty-nine inches and a quarter of your measure,” was his ready reply.

“Then,” I rejoined, bubbling over with excitement, “I’ve discovered the measurements in the document.  Why Old Barbe Rouge was a Frenchman, and of course used French measure,—­the metre!  Hurrah!” and I made the rocks echo with my excited hurrahs and loud laughter.

Adam and Eve were duly cooked, but they were not half eaten, for either they were too large or our appetites too small by reason of our great excitement; anyhow, Adam would have sufficed for us both, and Eve would have made a capital breakfast for us in the morning.  As it was, the mangled remains of the patriarchs remained for our dinner the next day, as breakfast was, under the circumstances of what happened next day, quite out of the question.