By this time they were near the tunnel.
"Could you let me through to the shore?" asked Clementina.
"Certainly, my lady. I wish you could see the boats go out. From the Boar's Tail it is a pretty sight. They will all be starting together as soon as the tide turns."
Thereupon Clementina began questioning him about the night-fishing, and Malcolm described its pleasures and dangers, and the pleasures of its dangers, in such fashion that Clementina listened with delight. He dwelt especially on the feeling almost of disembodiment, and existence as pure thought, arising from the all-pervading clarity and fluidity, the suspension and the unceasing motion.
"I wish I could once feel like that," exclaimed Clementina. "Could I not go with you—for one night—just for once, Malcolm?"
"My lady, it would hardly do, I am afraid. If you knew the discomforts that must assail one unaccustomed—I cannot tell—but I doubt if you would go. All the doors to bliss have their defences of swamps and thorny thickets through which alone they can be gained. You would need to be a fisherman's sister—or wife—I fear, my lady, to get through to this one."
Clementina smiled gravely, but did not reply, and Malcolm too was silent, thinking. "Yes," he said at last: "I see how we can manage it. You shall have a boat for your own use, my lady, and—"
"But I want to see just what you see, and to feel, as nearly as I may, what you feel. I don't want a downy, rose-leaf notion of the thing. I want to understand what you fishermen encounter and experience."
"We must make a difference, though, my lady. Look what clothes, what boots, we fishers must wear to be fit for our work! But you shall have a true idea as far it reaches, and one that will go a long way toward enabling you to understand the rest. You shall go in a real fishing-boat, with a full crew and all the nets, and you shall catch real herrings; only you shall not be out longer than you please. But there is hardly time to arrange for it to-night, my lady."
"To-morrow, then?"