"What fools these people are!" the officer exclaimed. "Ho, within there!"
The landlady came to the door.
"Do you speak English?"
"I speak a little," the woman said.
"Just ask these men who they are and where they come from."
The woman asked the question in Gaelic, and Malcolm replied:
"We are, as you see, fishermen, and we come from Huish."
As he spoke there was a slight change in the woman's face; but it passed away, and she translated Malcolm's answer to the officer.
"But that is forty miles away," the officer said. "What do they do with their fish at this distance from their home?"
The question being put in Gaelic by the woman, Malcolm replied that owing to the boats being seized by the soldiers, and trade being at a standstill, they could no longer make a living at home, and were therefore on their way to Glasgow to ship as sailors. They were carrying their fish with them to pay for their food and lodging on the way.