There were many loungers on the beach when Angus and Ella cleared out. Some were invalids, who could not be kept within their cheerless homes even by the chill and boisterous weather. Many were idlers; and all made sport of what they thought the useless toil of going to sea at such a time. Their jokes would have been painful and perhaps irritating to Angus if he had not had reason to hope that relief was on the way to himself and them.
“Did ye bring home such a cargo this morning that ye are tempted to try your luck again?” cried one.
“Make haste!” exclaimed another, “or ye’ll scarcely find the shoal. It’s a brave summer day for casting a net.”
“Or for angling,” observed a third. “Where are your lines, neighbour? Nothing like a smooth sea for ladies’ fishing.”
“Ye must treat us each with a supper when you come back, Angus,” said a fourth, “unless indeed the fishes should make a supper of you.”
“I trust there may be a supper for every one in Garveloch this night,” observed Ella, as the final shout reached the rolling and pitching vessel; and these cheering words were the last she[she] spoke, as all her husband’s attention and her own was required to direct their rough and somewhat perilous course.
Never was such a commotion excited in Garveloch as upon the spread of the tidings that a vessel had arrived at the quay with a certain quantity of grain and an ample supply of pease. The eagle was startled from her nest by the uproar. The more shrill grew the blast, the louder rose the voices; the higher swelled the tide over the bar, the greater was the eagerness to cross it as the shortest way to the quay. The men sent their wives home for whatever little wealth they had to offer in exchange, in case the food was to be purchased and not given, while they themselves hastened to secure the point whence they might best bid or entreat. Here a poor invalid, putting forth his utmost power to keep up with his competitors, was jostled aside or thrown down by the passers by. There a band of children were beginning a noisy rejoicing for they scarcely knew what; some among them half-crying in the midst of their shouting from hunger and pain, which would not be forgotten. The only quiet people in the island were Angus’s family, and their ill-thriving neighbours round the point.
When the Flora, dimly seen in the twilight, came bounding in as her master had foretold, no one awaited her on the beach but those who had watched the whole expedition, Fergus, Kenneth, and his sister. The expected supply of meal was safe, and Fergus lost no time in conveying it out of sight, and into a place of safety.
“I brought down the money, father,” said Kenneth, producing the pouch, “that you might buy more at the quay, if you wish it, before it is all gone.”
“No, my boy,” said Angus. “We have enough for the present, and I will neither take what others want more than we, nor raise the price by increasing the demand.”