The Four Macnicols by William Black (best e books to read TXT) 📕

nets--shaking out the seaweed and freeing the enmeshed fish--was familiar to them; and they all worked with a will. There was neither a dog-fish nor a conger in all the haul, so they had no fears for their hands. In less than a quarter of an hour the net was back in the boat, properly arranged, and Rob ready to start again--at a place farther along the beach.

They were soon full of eagerness. In fact, they were too eager; and this time they hauled in with such might and main that, just as the guy-poles were nearing the shore, the rope attached to one of them broke. But Rob instantly jumped into the water, seized the pole itself, and hauled it out with him. Here, also, they had a considerable take of fish; but there was a heavy weight of seaweed besides; and one or two rents showed that they had pulled the net over rocks. So they went back to the former ground; and so successful were they, and so eagerly did they work, that when the coming darkness warned them to return to Erisaig, they had the stern of the boat nearly full of very fairly-sized saithe.

Neil regarded this wonderful treasure of the deep, as he laboured away at his oar.

'Man, Rob, who could have expected such a lot? And what will ye do with them now? Will ye send them to Glasgow by the _Glenara_?--I think Mr. M'Aulay would lend us a box or two. Or will ye clean them and dry them, and sell them from a barrow?'

'We canna start two or three trades all at once,' said Rob, after a minute or two. 'I think we'll sell them straight off, if the folk are no in bed. Ye'll gang and see, Neil; and I'll count the fish at the slip.'

'And what will I say ye will take for them?'

'I think I would ask a sixpence a hundred,' said Rob, slowly; for he had been considering that question for the last ten minutes.

At length they got in to the slip; and Neil at once proceeded to inform the inhabitants of Erisaig, who were still lounging about in the dusk, that for sixpence a hundred they could have fine fresh 'cuddies.' It might be thought that in a place like Erisaig, which was one of the headquarters of the herring-trade, it would be difficult to sell fish of any description. But the fact was that the herring were generally contracted for by the agents of the salesmen, and shipped directly for Glasgow, so that they were but rarely retailed in Erisaig itself; moreover, people accustomed to herring their whole life through preferred variety--a freshly-caught mackerel, or flounder, or what not. Perhaps, however, it was more curiosity than anything else that brought the neighbours along to the west slip, to see what the MacNicols had been about.

Well, there was a good deal of laughing and jeering, especially on the part of the men (these were idlers: the fishermen were all gone away in the boats); but the women, who had to provide for their households, knew when they had a cheap bargain; and the sale of the 'cuddies' proceeded briskly. Indeed, when the people had gone away again, and the four lads were by themselves on the quay, there was not a single 'cuddy' left--except a dozen that Rob had put into a can of water, to be given to the grocer in the morning as part payment for the loan of the ropes.

'What do ye make it altogether?' said Neil to Rob, who was counting the money.

'Three shillings and ninepence.'

'Three shillings and ninepence! Man, that's a lot. Will ye put it in the savings bank?'

'No, I will not,' said Rob. 'I'm no satisfied with the net, Neil. We must have better ropes all the way round; and whatever money we can spare we maun spend on the net. Man, think of this now: if we were to fall in with a big haul of herring or Johnnie-Dories, and lose them through the breaking of the net, I think ye would jist sit down and greet.'

It was wise counsel, as events showed. For one afternoon, some ten days afterwards, they set out as usual. They had been having varying success; but they had earned more than enough to pay their landlady, the tailor, and the schoolmaster; and every farthing beyond these necessary expenses they had spent on the net. They had replaced all the rotten pieces with sound twine; they had got new ropes; they had deepened it, moreover, and added some more sinkers to help the guy-poles. Well, on this afternoon, Duncan and Nicol, being the two youngest, were as usual pulling away to one of the small quiet bays, and Rob was idly looking around him, when he saw something on the surface of the sea at some distance off that excited a sudden interest. It was what the fishermen call 'broken water'--a seething produced by a shoal of fish.

'Look, look, Neil!' he cried. 'It's either mackerel or herring; will we try for them?'

The greatest excitement at once prevailed on board. The younger brothers pulled their hardest to make for that rough patch on the water. Rob undid the rope from the guy-pole, and got this last ready to drop overboard. He knew very well that they ought to have had two boats to execute this manoeuvre; but was there not a chance for them if they were to row hard, in a circle, and pick up the other end of the net when they came to it? So Neil took a third oar: two rowing one side and one the other was just what they wanted.

They came nearer and nearer that strange hissing of the water. They kept rather away from it: and Rob quietly dropped the guy-pole over, paying out the net rapidly, so that it should not be dragged after the boat. Then the three lads pulled hard, and in a circle, so that at last they were sending the bow of the boat straight towards the floating guy-pole. The other guy-pole was near the stern of the boat, the rope made fast to one of the thwarts. In a few minutes Rob had caught this first guy-pole: they were now possessed of the two ends of the net.

But the water had grown suddenly quiet. Had the fish dived and escaped them? There was not the motion of a fin anywhere: and yet the net seemed heavy to haul.

'Rob,' said Neil, almost in a whisper, 'we've got them!'

'We havena got them,' was the reply; 'but they're in the net. Man, I wonder if it'll stand out.'

Then it was that the diligent patching and the strong tackle told. The question was not with regard to the strength of the net, it was rather with regard to the strength of the younger lads; for they had succeeded in enclosing a goodly portion of a large shoal of mackerel, and the weight seemed more than they could get into the boat. But even the strength of the younger ones seemed to grow into the strength of giants when they saw through the clear water a great moving mass like quicksilver. And then the wild excitement of hauling in; the difficulty of it; the danger of the fish escaping; the warning cries of Rob; the clatter made by the mackerel; the possibility of swamping the boat altogether, as all the four were straining their utmost at one side. Indeed, by an awkward tilt at one moment some hundred or two of the mackerel were seen to glide away; but perhaps that rendered it all the more practicable to get into the boat what remained. When that heaving, sparkling, jerking mass of quicksilver at last was captured--shining all through the brown meshes of the net--the younger lads sat down quite exhausted, wet through, and happy.

'Man, Rob, what do you think of that?' said Neil in amazement.

'What do I think?' said Rob; 'I think that if we could get two or three more hauls like that I would soon buy a share in Coll MacDougall's boat and go after the herring.'

They had no more thought that afternoon of 'cuddy'-fishing after this famous take. Rob and Neil--the younger ones having had their share--rowed back to Erisaig; then Rob left the boat at the slip, and walked up to the office of the fish-salesman.

'What will ye give me for mackerel?' he said.

The salesman laughed at him, thinking he had caught a few with rods and flies.

'I'm no buying mackerel,' said he; 'no by the half-dozen.'

'I've half a boat load,' said Rob.

The salesman glanced towards the slip, and saw the tailor's boat pretty low in the water.

'Is that mackerel?'

'Yes, it is mackerel.'

'Where were you buying them?'

'I was not buying them anywhere. I caught them myself--my brothers and me.'

'I do not believe you.'

'I cannot help that, then,' said Rob. 'But where had I the money to buy mackerel from any one?'

The salesman glanced at the boat again.

'I'll go down to the slip with you.'

So he and Rob together walked down to the slip, and the salesmen had a look at the mackerel. Apparently he had arrived at the conclusion that, after all, Rob was not likely to have bought a cargo of mackerel as a commercial speculation.

'Well, I will buy the mackerel from you,' he said. 'I will give you half-a-crown the hundred for them.'

'Half-a-crown!' said Rob. 'I will take three-and-sixpence the hundred for them.'

'I will not give it to you. But I will give you three shillings the hundred, and a good price, too.'

'Very well, then,' said Rob.

So the MacNicols got altogether 2 pounds 8 shillings for that load of mackerel: and out of that Rob spent the eight shillings on still further improving the net; the 2 pounds going into the savings bank. It is to be imagined that after this they kept a pretty sharp look-out for 'broken water;' but of course they could not expect to run across a shoal of mackerel every day.

However, as time went on, with bad luck and with good, and by dint of hard and constant work whatever the luck was, the sum in the savings bank slowly increased; and at last Rob announced to his companions that they had saved enough to enable him to purchase a share in Coll MacDougall's boat. Neil and Duncan and Nicol were sorely disinclined to part with Rob; but yet they saw clearly enough that he was getting too old to remain at the cuddy-fishing, and they knew they could now work that line of business quite well by themselves. What Rob said was this:

'You see it is a great chance for all of us that I should get a share in the boat; for what I make at the herring-fishing will go into the bank along with what you make at the trawling by the shore. And who knows, if we all work hard enough, who knows but we may have a herring-skiff all to ourselves some day? And that would be a fine thing to have a herring-skiff to ourselves, and our own nets; and all