Some poet of olden times--I forget his name--tells us that "pity is akin to love". Well, Flora began by pitying this "poor little London boy", as she always called him, even to his face, but quite sympathizingly, and she ended, ere yet the summer was in its prime, by liking him very much indeed. To say that she loved him would, of course, be a phrase misapplied, for Flora was only a child.
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With June, and all its floral and sylvan joys, came shoals of herring from the far north, and busy indeed were the boatmen catching them.
Glenvoie lay some distance back from a great sweep of a bay, at each end of which was a bold and rocky headland.
Few of the herring boats really belonged to this bay, but they all used often to run in here, and after arranging their nets, they set sail for their mighty draughts of fishes.
Duncan and Conal were always welcome, because they assisted right willingly and merrily at the work.
The boats were very large, and all open in the centre--the well, this space was called--and with a cuddy, or small living and cooking room, both fore and aft.
It used to be rough work, this herring fishing, and not over cleanly, but the boys always put on the oldest clothes they had, with waterproof leggings, oil-skin hats, and sou'westers.
They would be out sometimes for two days and nights.
The beauty of the scenery, looking towards the land at the sunset hour, it would be impossible for pen or pencil to do justice to. The smooth sea, with its patches of crimson, opal, or orange, the white sands of the bay, the dark, frowning headlands, the dark greenery of the shaggy woods and forests, and the rugged hills towering high against the eastern horizon; the whole made a picture that a Turner only could have conveyed to canvas.