'How much would he give me?'
'I think I could get him to give ye four shillings a week. That would keep ye very well.'
'Keep me?' said Rob. 'Ay, but what's to become o' Duncan and Neil and
Nicol?'
'They must shift for themselves,' the grocer answered.
'That winna do,' said Rob, and he left the shop.
He overtook his companions and asked them to go along to some rocks overlooking the harbour. They sat down there—the harbour below them with all its picturesque boats, and masses of drying nets, and what not.
'Neil,' said Rob to his cousin, 'we'll have to think about things now. There will be no more Eilean-na-Rona for us. We have just about as much left as will pay the lodgings this week, and Nicol must go three nights a week to the night school. What we get for stripping the nets 'll no do now.'
'It will not,' said Neil.
'Mr. Jamieson was offering me a place in Glasgow, but it is not very good, and I think we will do better if we keep together. Neil,' said he, 'if we had only a net, do ye not think we could trawl for cuddies?' [1]
And again he said, 'Neil, do ye not think we could make a net for ourselves out of the old rags lying at the shed?'