"I want to come on board, Rob," the old man said, as he now rowed his boat up to the stern of the yacht. "Rob," said he, in a whisper, as he fastened the painter of his boat, "I promised I would tell you something. I'll show you how to find the herring."
"You!" said Rob.
"Yes, Rob," said Daft Sandy; "I'll make a rich man of you. I will tell you something about the herring that no one in Erisaig knows,—that no one in all Scotland knows."
Then he begged Rob to take him for that night's fishing. He had discovered a sure sign of the presence of herring, unknown to any of the fishermen: it was the appearance, on the surface of the water, of small air-bubbles.
Rob MacNicol was doubtful, for he had never heard of this thing before; but at last he could not resist the pleading of the old man. So they pulled in, and anchored the boats until toward sunset. Then, taking poor Sandy on board of the Mary of Argyle, they set forth again, rowing slowly as the light faded out of the sky, and keeping watch all around on the almost glassy sea.
VIII.
The night was coming on, and they were far away from home; but old Sandy kept up his watch, studying the water as though he expected to find pearls floating in it. At last, in great excitement, he grasped Rob's arm. Leaning over the side of the boat, they could just make out in the dusk a great quantity of air-bubbles rising to the surface.
"Put some stones along with the sinkers, Rob," the old man said, in a whisper, as though he were afraid of the herring hearing. "Go deep, deep, deep!"
To let out a long drift-net, which sometimes goes as deep as fifteen fathoms, is an easy affair: but to haul it in again is a hard task; and when it happens to be laden, and heavily laden, with silver gleaming fish, that is a breakback business for four young lads.
But if you are hauling in yard after yard of a dripping net, only to find the brown meshes starred at every point with the shining silver of the herring, then even young lads can work like men. Sandy was laughing all the while.