Now I am a man of my devotions, and render thanks to a kind Providence every morning for the preservation of the night. But I am well aware that the quality of my thankfulness is not what it should be at half-past two of a bleak and chill morning when the nets must be looked. So I say again that both parties suffer by the present arrangement.
But this morning of which I speak there was not a great deal to complain of, save that I left the others snoring in their hammocks and box-beds round the chambers of dark oak where they were lodged. The thought of this annoyed me as I went.
It was still dark when I went out with only my boots over my bare feet, and the chill wind whipping about my shanks. What of the sea one could observe was the colour of the inside of an oyster-shell, pearl grey and changeful. The land loomed mistily dark, and there was a fitful light going about the farm-town of Craigdarroch, where the Maxwells dwelt, which made me wonder if it could be that hellicat lassie, who had called me a sheep, wandering abroad so early. For in spite of her smile she was a lass that none of us lads of the Rathan could abide. Still, I own that it was friendly-like to see at that dead hour of the morning some one else astir even across half a mile of salt water.
From Rathan Head I looked out seaward and saw one of the fast brigs of the Freetraders from the Isle of Man, or perhaps from Holland, manoeuvring out with the tide. Little thinking how much she was to cost us, against the swiftly brightening sky I watched her draw away from the land. None of us, barring the Preventive officers, had any ill-will at the traffic itself, though my father had taught me never to use any of the stuff, desiring that I should be hardy and thole wind and weather without it, as very well may be done. Still, when it was decently gone about, he did not see what right the Preventives had to keep other folk from doing in the matter as their fathers had done before them. King George, decent man, that was but lately come over the water from Germany, surely could not be much harmed by a poor man’s bit still in the lee of the peat-stack.
But indeed there were good and bad, decent and indecent, at the traffic, as we were soon to learn.
It was cold and unkindly on the flats, and there was nothing except lythe and saithe in the nets – save some small red trout, which I cast over on the other side, that they might grow large and run up the rivers in August. So little was there that I must, with exceedingly cold feet and not in the best of tempers, proceed to the flats and tramp flounders for our breakfast. Right sorely did I grieve now that I had not awaked two of the others, for Andrew Allison’s feet were manifestly intended by nature for tramping flounders, being broad and flat as the palm of my hand. Moreover, John his brother was quick and biddable at the job – though I think chiefly because he desired much to get back to his play about the caves and on the sand with his ancient crony, Bob Nicoll of Kilconquhar.
But I was all my lone on the flats, and it was sufficiently dreary work. Nevertheless, I soon had my baskets full of the flapping, slippery fish, though it was none too nice a job to feel them slide between your toes and wriggle their tails under your instep. That was what gave Andrew Allison so great an advantage at the business, for he had no instep – at least not to speak of.
When I got to the shore with my backload of breakfast I knew not whether I had any feet at all, except when I looked and saw my legs causing them to move and in some fashion to carry me. So I came to the house, which now stood up bright in the sunshine of the morning.
Going into the still curtained chamber out of the flooding morning sun was the strangest thing. It vexed me wonderfully to hear the others still snoring in their naked beds, and I so cold and weary with my morning’s work. Moreover, the air had the closeness that comes with thick walls and many breathings.
Throwing down my fish and slipping off my dew-damp clothes to be dried before the fire, I threw myself into the bed which Andrew Allison and I occupied together. He lay next the wall. Without a moment’s delay I placed my ice-chill feet where it would do them most good. This caused my companion to awake with so great a shout that the others tumbled instantly out of bed, thinking that the Freetraders were upon us at the least. As for Andrew, he lay still and acted warming-pan, being fortunately between me and the wall.
To the others I issued my orders as I grew warmer.
‘Lazy slug-a-beds––’ it was my way thus to speak, ordering the youngsters about like a skipper ‘––get about your work! You, John Allison, get the boat and go over to Craigdarroch for the milk, and be back by breakfast-time; and gin ye so muckle as lift the lid of the can, I’ll thrash ye till ye canna stan’ – forbye, ye’ll get no breakfast.’
John got his cap, grumbling and shaking his head. But he went.
‘You, Rab, clean the fish, and you, Jerry MacWhirter, get a fire started, and hae the breakfast on the table in an hour. Dry my clothes before the fire.’
‘It’s Andra’s day!’ said Jerry.
‘Maybe it is,’ said I, ‘but for the present Andrew has other business on hand. He was tired yestreen, and he’s the better o’ a rest this morning. Get the breakfast and be nimble. It’ll be better for ye.’
‘But, Rab says––’ began Jerry, who was reluctantly putting on his clothes.
‘Not another word out of the mouth o’ ye!’ I cried, imperatively.
It is wonderful what firmness does in a household. In this way I had a good sleep before breakfast.
When I awoke Andrew was on foot. He had stolen out of bed and taken a sea plunge from the southernmost rocks, drying himself on the sand by running naked in the brisk airs of the morning which drew off the sea.
There is no finer breakfast than flounders fried in oatmeal with a little salt butter as soon as ever they come out of the water – their tails jerking Flip, flap, in the frizzle of the pan.
‘Gracious,’ said Jerry, ‘but it’s guid. I’m gled I got up o’ my ain free will.’
Andrew and I being captain and lieutenant of the gang, had forks; the rest had none, by which lack for eating flounders they were the better off. It is most amazing the number of bones a flounder can carry, and that without trouble. Also it is a mercy that none of us choked on any of them, in so unseemly a haste did we eat.
RATHAN ISLAND lay in the roughest tumble of the seas. Its southern point took the full sweep of the Solway tides as they rushed and surged upwards to cover the great deadly sands of Barnhourie. From Sea Point, as we named it, the island stretched northward in many rocky steeps and cliffs riddled with caves. For just at this point the softer sandstone you meet with on the Cumberland shore set its nose out of the brine. So the island was more easily worn into sea caves and strange arches, towers and haystacks, all of stone, sitting by themselves out in the tideway for all the world like bairns’ playthings.
In these caves, which had many doors and entries, I had played with the tide ever since I was a boy. I knew them all as well as I knew our own backyard under the cliff. And the knowledge was before long to stand me in better stead than the Latin grammar I had learned from my father.
In fine weather it was a pleasant thing to go up to the highest point of the island, which, though little of a mountain, was called Ben Rathan, and see the country all about one. Thence was to be seen the reek of many farm- towns and villages, besides cot-houses without number, all blowing the same way when the wind was soft and equal. The morning was the best time to go there. Upon Rathan, close under the sky, the bees hummed about among the short, crisp heather, which was springy just like our little sheltie’s mane after my father had done docking it. There was a great silence up there – only a soughing from the south, where the tides