At irksome times like this one’s thoughts are apt to stray, and a straw may give them direction. What may have suggested the train of thought, unless it was the tinkle of the rivulet beside me, I cannot say, but my mind reverted to the part the sands of Whitsand Bay have played in history. Here, three centuries ago, the Spaniard landed and burnt the mill at Vellandreath; here landed Perkin Warbeck, on his ill-starred expedition; here Stephen; here John, on his return from Ireland; here Athelstan; here, if tradition be true, those heathen hordes whom King Arthur and his knights overthrew on Vellandrucher moor; here were drawn up the galleys. . . .
My historical reverie was interrupted by a slight tug at the line held loosely in my hand, a tug followed by the drawing of the slack through my fingers. A bass—it is his way—was running out to sea with the bait in his mouth. At last! I had jumped to my feet on feeling the fish, and when the loose line was used up, I suddenly raised the point of the rod—a sixteen-foot salmon-rod—and drove the hook home. What a rush the fish made! I put on every ounce of strain I dared, considering the fineness of the cast, but it seemed to have little or no effect on the fish, which kept going seawards. I could tell its whereabouts during the first part of the rush by the jet of phosphorescent water that spurted from the line, but now I could see nothing except the dark expanse with its silvery fringe. If the tackle held, I knew the bass could count on nothing in its favour; for the moorings of the boat and of the storepots were far outside the limit of my hundred yards of line, and there was no wreckage now, the fishermen having cleared it away for the sake of the mullet and pilchard seines. To husband the line left on the reel, I advanced as far as I dared into the water, my feet sinking deep in the loose sand. I was rather at a loss to know how to act for the best; whether to continue the steady strain to the last, or give the fish the butt before the line was run out. To stand there and be smashed would be ignominious; so, come what might, I determined to take the offensive. Grasping the greenheart and the line in both hands, I brought the point of the rod back over my shoulder slowly, to avoid a jerk, putting on all the strain I could. Either the fish must yield or the tackle break. There was a violent struggle, in which the top joint played an important part, and then suddenly the tension relaxed, and I feared—in fact, had little doubt—that the gut had snapped, or possibly the hook torn away. Winding up as quickly as possible, I had recovered some twenty yards when, to my joy, the reel screamed again. A second time I applied the butt, and then kept working the fish in. Now he would swim to my left, now to the right, but I could not see the wave which I feel sure he was raising. With much difficulty, for he fought all the way, I brought him to within a few yards of the breakers. How he struggled to maintain his ground there! evidently regarding the broken water as a zone of the greatest danger. After a time I thought I might venture to haul him in. But no, he would not consent to that. Of his own free will he had for many summers sought the shallows, even foraged amongst the breakers; but there was a good reason why he should shun them now. Once I had him just beyond the faintly gleaming arch of a wave, though I could not distinguish the fish, but only the place where he was struggling inside rings of incandescent silver. At last his strength was spent, and I succeeded in dragging him into the grip of a wave which tumbled him half-way up the shelving beach. With a great effort I extricated my legs from the quicksand, and throwing my rod aside, rushed at the fish as the backwash carried him down. I got a hold of him, but lost it, the prickly dorsal fin wounding my hand badly; then the next wave, which nearly swept me off my feet—in my desperation I had followed the fish—washed him in, and though half-blinded by the spray, I succeeded in rolling him on to the dry sand.