Again the stars and the sky were all, and there was no sound but the slight murmurous lipping of the slow swell against the edges of the planks. Then Clementina said, "Did you make that song, Malcolm?"
"Whilk o' them, my leddy? But it's a' ane: they're baith mine, sic as they are."
"Thank you," she returned.
"What for, my leddy?"
"I beg your pardon, my lady. I forgot your ladyship was English."
"Please forget it," she said. "But I thank you for your songs too. It was the second I wanted to know about: the first I was certain was your own. I did not know you could enter like that into the feelings of an old man."
"Why not, my lady? I never can see living thing without asking it how it feels. Often and often, out here at such a time as this, have I tried to fancy myself a herring caught by the gills in the net down below, instead of the fisherman in the boat above going to haul him out."
"And did you succeed?"
"Well, I fancy I came to understand as much of him as he does himself. It's a merry enough life down there. The flukes—plaice, you call them, my lady—bother me, I confess. I never contemplate one without feeling as if I had been sat upon when I was a baby. But for an old man! Why, that's what I shall be myself one day, most likely, and it would be a shame not to know pretty nearly how he felt—near enough, at least, to make a song about him."