"Well, Hamish, I don't object. Tell them that what they say is right. This year has been a very good year; we have made some money; I will give them two shillings a week more if they like. But then, look here, Hamish—if they have their wages raised in a good year, they must have them lowered in a bad year. They cannot expect to share the profit without sharing the loss too. Do you understand that, Hamish?"
"Yes, Sir Keith, I think I do."
"Do you think you could put it into good Gaelic for them?"
"Oh ay."
"Then tell them to choose for themselves. But make it clear."
"Ay, Sir Keith," said Hamish. "And if it was not for that —— man, John Fraser, there would be no word of this thing. And there is another thing I will hef to speak to you about, Sir Keith; and it is John Fraser, too, who is at the bottom of this, I will know that fine. It is more than two or three times that you will warn the men not to bathe in the bay below the castle; and not for many a day will any one do that, for the Cave bay it is not more as half a mile away. And when you were in London, Sir Keith, it was this man John Fraser he would bathe in the bay below the castle in the morning, and he got one or two of the others to join him; and when I bade him go away, he will say that the sea belongs to no man. And this morning, too—"
"This morning!" Macleod said, jumping to his feet. There was an angry flash in his eyes.
"Ay, sir, this very morning I saw two of them myself—and John Fraser he was one of them—and I went down and said to them, 'It will be a bad day for you,' says I to them, 'if Sir Keith will find you in this bay.'"
"Are they down at the quay now?" Macleod said.
"Ay, they will be in the house now."