The laird stopped, gazed at her for a moment, shook his head, and walked on.
Grassy steeps everywhere met the stones and sands of the shore, and the grass and the sand melted, as it were, and vanished each in the other. Just where they met in the next hollow, stood a small building of stone with a tiled roof. It was now strangely visible through the darkness, for from every crevice a fire-illumined smoke was pouring. But the companions were not alarmed or even surprised. They bent their way towards it without hastening a step, and coming to a fence that enclosed a space around it, opened a little gate, and passed through. A sleepy watchman challenged them. “It’s me,” said the laird.
“A fine nicht, laird,” returned the voice, and said no more.
The building was divided into several compartments, each with a separate entrance. On the ground in each burned four or five little wood fires, and the place was filled with smoke and glow. The smoke escaped partly by openings above the doors, but mostly by the crannies of the tiled roof. Ere it reached these, however, it had to pass through a great multitude of pendent herrings. Hung up by the gills, layer above layer, nearly to the roof, their last tails came down as low as the laird’s head. From beneath nothing was to be seen but a firmament of herring-tails. These fish were the last of the season, and were thus undergoing the process of kippering. It was a new venture in the place, and its success as yet a question.
The laird went into one of the compartments, and searching about a little amongst the multitude within his reach, took down a plump one, then cleared away the blazing wood from the top of one of the fires, and laid his choice upon the glowing embers beneath.
“What are ye duin’ there, laird?” cried Phemy from without, whose nostrils the resulting odour had quickly reached. “The fish is no yours.”
“Ye dinna think I wad tak it wantin’ leave, Phemy!” returned the laird. “Mony a supper hae I made this w’y, an’ mony anither I houp to mak. It’ll no be this sizzon though, for this lot’s the last o’ them. They’re fine aitin’, but I’m some feart they winna keep.”
“Wha gae ye leave, sir?” persisted Phemy, showing herself the indivertible guardian of his morals as well as of his freedom.
“Ow, Mr Runcie himsel’, of coorse!” answered the laird. “—Wull I pit ane on to you?”
“Did ye speir leave for me tu?” asked the righteous maiden.