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'Rob, said he, in a whisper, as he fastened the painter of his punt, 'I promised I would tell ye something. I'll show ye how to find the herring. 'You! said Rob, derisively. 'Ay, me, Rob, I'll make a rich man of you. I will tell you something about the herring that not any one in Erisaig knows that not any one in Scotland knows.
If you say it is a teetotal boat, it is a teetotal boat; but you will not forget to give me whole herring for bait when you are going out of the bay? Rob could not speak; he was breathless. Nor was their work nearly done when they had got in the net with all its splendid gleaming treasure. There was not a breath of wind; they had to set to work to pull the heavy boat back to Erisaig.
For this Robert of the Red Hand, more familiarly known as Rob MacNicol, or even as plain Rob, was an active, stout-sinewed, black-eyed lad of seventeen, whose only mark of chieftainship apparently was that, unlike his brothers, he wore shoes and stockings; these three relatives constituted his allies and kinsmen; the so-called Spanish main was in reality an arm of the sea better known in the Hebrides as Loch Scrone; and the war-galley was an old, ramshackle, battered, and betarred boat belonging generally to the fishing-village of Erisaig; for, indeed, the boat was so old and so battered that nobody now seemed to claim any special ownership of it.
Bailie came along not long after that, and shook hands with Rob, and congratulated him; for it turned out that while not another Erisaig boat had that night got more than from two to three crans, the Mary of Argyle had turned ten crans as good herring as ever were got out of Loch Scrone.
And very soon the wild rumour ran through Erisaig that no other than Rob MacNicol had been appointed master of the new skiff, the Mary of Argyle; and that he had taken his brothers and cousin as his crew.
For that evening, when it grew a little more towards dusk, they would make their first cast with their net. Yes; and that evening, when it had quite turned to dusk, the people of Erisaig were startled with a new proclamation. 'Cuddies' is the familiar name in those parts for young saithe. 'Trawling, again, means there the use of an ordinary seine. 'Fleein' a dragon' flying a kite.
They had a long time of waiting to get over through the still summer night, but still Rob was strangely excited, wondering whether Sandy had really, in pottering about, discovered a new indication of the whereabouts of the herring, or whether he was to go back to Erisaig in the morning with empty nets. There was another thing too. Had he shown himself too credulous before his companions?
It was clear that Rob had been carefully considering the details of this scheme of co-operation. And it was eagerly welcomed, not only by Neil, but also by the brothers Duncan and Nicol, who had been frightened by the thought of Rob going away to Glasgow. The youngest of all, Nicol, boldly declared that he could mend nets as well as any man in Erisaig.
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.
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