“You know too well, mother, what it is. Can it be that you have been fasting alone already?”
“I learned all this,” said Ella, evading the question, “when I was nearly as young as you. There was a scarcity then, and we had a sore struggle. My father was never well after that season. There was no need, thank God, to stint the lads as we stinted ourselves; and, as for me, the only harm,” she continued, smiling, “was, that your father found me less comely when he came back than I had been when he went away. There is also this good,—that there is one among us who has gone through evil times, and knows how to abide them.”
“Teach me, mother. How shall I get such food as we may live on?”
“There will be no positive want of food yet, my boy, though it will be such as will not nourish us like that we have been used to. We must try shell-fish, without bannocks or potatoes; merely shell-fish, day after day; and the strongest soon grow weak on such diet.”
“I would rather give up my share, sometimes,” said Kenneth, “than gather them at the cost of what I see. I have been glad you were at home when the tide went down, and I would not let the little ones come and help, lest they should learn to fight like the hungry people on the shore. Dan, that ever kept his eyes half-shut at noon, now watches the first falling of the water, and bullies every one, if it be Noreen herself, that sees a shell before he snatches it.”
“Their potatoes have not come up,” observed Ella, “and they begin to be pinched the very first, because they had nothing to give for meal.”
“And then,” continued Kenneth, “the Murdochs have got the ill-will of all the neighbours, by their stripping every child they meet of whatever he may be carrying home. The very babies are learning to curse Meg Murdoch.”
“And so you took their part,” said Ella, smiling, “and let them strip you in turn. You are right not to let your little brothers go down with you to learn theft and covetousness; but you must not go on giving away your own share, now that you will have no bread at home.”
“Then there are the fowl,” said Kenneth. “They are not food for the delicate, to be sure, at this season; but we must try whether they will not nourish us till better days come. The worst of it is that very few are left, and those are the oldest and toughest.”
“The neighbours that are poorer than we have been everywhere before us,” said Ella. “But they are welcome. Since they trusted to chance, the first chances are their due. My eyes are dim with watching yon boat, and I can see nothing: is it still there, or has the mist come over it?”