For some years, young as he was, Malcolm had hired himself to one or other of the boat-proprietors of the Seaton or of Scaurnose, for the herring-fishing—only, however, in the immediate neighbourhood, refusing to go to the western islands, or any station whence he could not return to sleep at his grandfather’s cottage. He had thus on every occasion earned enough to provide for the following winter, so that his grandfather’s little income as piper, and other small returns, were accumulating in various concealments about the cottage; for, in his care for the future, Duncan dreaded lest Malcolm should buy things for him, without which, in his own sightless judgment, he could do well enough.
Until the herring-season should arrive, however, Malcolm made a little money by line-fishing; for he had bargained, the year before, with the captain of a schooner for an old ship’s-boat, and had patched and caulked it into a sufficiently serviceable condition. He sold his fish in the town and immediate neighbourhood, where a good many housekeepers favoured the handsome and cheery young fisherman.
He would now be often out in the bay long before it was time to call his grandfather, in his turn to rouse the sleepers of Portlossie. But the old man had as yet always waked about the right time, and the inhabitants had never had any ground of complaint—a few minutes one way or the other being of little consequence. He was the cock which woke the whole yard: morning after morning his pipes went crowing through the streets of the upper region, his music ending always with his round. But after the institution of the gun-signal, his custom was to go on playing where he stood until he heard it, or to stop short in the midst of his round and his liveliest rêveillê the moment it reached his ear. Loath as he might be to give over, that sense of good manners which was supreme in every highlander of the old time, interdicted the fingering of a note after the marquis’s gun had called aloud.
When Malcolm meant to go fishing, he always loaded the swivel the night before, and about sunset the same evening he set out for that purpose. Not a creature was visible on the border of the curving bay except a few boys far off on the gleaming sands whence the tide had just receded: they were digging for sand-eels—lovely little silvery fishes—which, as every now and then the spade turned one or two up, they threw into a tin pail for bait. But on the summit of the long sand-hill, the lonely figure of a man was walking to and fro in the level light of the rosy west; and as Malcolm climbed the near end of the dune, it was turning far off at the other: half-way between them was the embrasure with the brass swivel, and there they met. Although he had never seen him before, Malcolm perceived at once it must be Lord Lossie, and lifted his bonnet. The marquis nodded and passed on, but the next moment, hearing the noise of Malcolm’s proceedings with the swivel, turned and said— “What are you about there with that gun, my lad?”
“I’m jist gauin’ to dicht her oot an’ lod her, my lord,” answered Malcolm.
“And what next? You’re not going to fire the thing?”
“Ay—the morn’s mornin’, my lord.”
“What will that be for?”
“Ow, jist to wauk yer lordship.”
“Hm!” said his lordship, with more expression than articulation.