4372. Were you sent for about it?-No; I wished to know if my boy should take the wages that he had been offered.
4373. Why did you wish to know that?-Because I did not expect they would give me the same amount of wages if he acted as a beach boy. At the same time, they do not pay the boys ill; they pay them tolerably well.
4374. But why did you go to see them? Had you been told before that your boy ought not to engage except to them?-I had known that.
4375. How did you know it?-It is publicly known that the proprietor will want the boys of the tenantry to work for him.
4376. Had your boy been engaged before then?-He had wrought as a beach boy the previous year.
4377. By whom had he been offered a higher wage in that month of January?-By Messrs. Hay's man at Dunrossness.
4378. What was he to work at?-He was to work among the fish at the livers or oil, as a beach boy to Messrs. Hay.
4379. What wages was he offered for that?-10s. for the season.
4380. When you got that offer, did you go to Mr. Bruce's office to see about it?-Not immediately; it was a while after.
4381. Had you any communication from Mr. Bruce or Mr. Irvine which led you to go to them about it?-No; but I knew that I was not safe to let him go to Messrs. Hay without telling them about it. The reason why I knew that was, because there had been a boy agreed by a man I was fishing with to go to the [Page 109] fishing, but the boy was kept back from the fishing, and the man had to look out for another boy. We had two boys and two of ourselves to make up our boat's crew; and the boy that my fellow-fisherman told me he had agreed with was kept back, and he had to go and search the parish for another to fill his place.