Then at once a reel would be formed on the floor, and never did feet of fairies trip it more lightly, in moonlit glade, than did these laughing children over the fisherman’s floor.
Thus did John spend his evenings at home, when the sea was too stormy to permit of his going after his usual avocations. On clear nights, however, the little boat bobbed up and down against the starry horizon, and Eppie burned her little oil lamp in the gable window, albeit the moon might be shining as bright as day.
There were times, however, when that bright little beacon lamp was sorely needed, nights when the lonely fisherman was overtaken by sudden storms, when clouds and darkness lowered around him, sea and sky met in wildest fury; then did that light in the window steel his arm and nerve his heart, telling as it did of the cosy wee cottage—his home, where his good wife sat anxiously awaiting his return, though often and often, strong-minded though she was, with womanly tears falling from her eyes.
But for all the dangers John had come through—and what fisherman on that wild coast does not?—he had so far never yet met with any accident worth mentioning, or out of the usual run common to his class. Many a strong boat belonging to his neighbours had perished, and many a stalwart fellow had left a widow and fatherless bairns to mourn, but nothing had ever happened to John more distressing than the occasional loss of his lines, or destruction of his gear by awkward and obstreperous bottle-nosed whales, too eager in pursuit of the silvery herrings to consider the little fisherman’s interest. Not a small misfortune, either, to a poor man like him, to have a dozen of these unwieldy brutes run their blunt noses through his nets, rending asunder nearly all his worldly wealth, and carrying away the pieces on their great greasy tails, to goodness knows where.
. . . . . .
Still a few days would elapse before the launching of John’s great boat, and the commencement of herring-fishing in earnest. Very busy days they were for John and Eppie, making and mending nets, and completing all preparations for the silver harvest.
First bursar at the University though he was, the making of a fishing net was far beyond Sandie’s skill, but as his wages had already commenced, he was determined he should not be idle. One lesson in the management of the lobster creels was enough, so he took them in charge. This left John free to go on with more important work.
So every evening Sandie broke up crabs, and baited the creels with the pieces. Then one by one he would carry them to the little boat, then launching the craft upon the salt sea, leap on board and seize the oars.
Sandie was by no means an awkward boatman. In handling an oar his constant practice on the Don had made him quite an adept. And so, as the sun was slowly sinking towards the green hills in the far west, and hardly a ripple on the swelling sea, Sandie would row his boat far away out to a rocky point of the coast, several miles from John’s cottage. The cliffs here were for the most part steep and precipitous, and afforded no landing for boat or skiff, while the water all around was very deep. Yellow scented furze and stunted pine-trees grew on the cliff-tops—these trees, more inland, deepening into a dark and gloomy wood. Seagulls were for ever wheeling and screaming around this bold promontory, and it was said that at one time even the golden-headed eagle had had an eerie on the most inaccessible shelf of the rock.
But it was not birds Sandie was after, but crabs and lobsters; and here the best on all the coast were to be found in abundance.