CHAPTER THIRTEEN 



RINGING 



*AN' it's the same up Stornoway. A kid with a bent hook would 

 get as much fish as the whole damned fleet of us this year.' 



* Aye, it's no been much guid as a season. No even a reid herrin' 

 tae guide a man off frae the blighters.' 



It was October, and Yarmouth was in an uproar. The herring 

 take had been only slightly above average after three years of hal- 

 cyon fishing. 



'Well,' said Jan, 'All we can hope is that that fool of an engin- 

 eer will have righted the oil feed by the morning. Tomorrow 

 night is the full of the moon.' 



'And a damned silly thing this drifting is, waiting on her liverish 

 highness, the full moon, be damned. With a couple of little ring 

 boats and a length of wire*, I'd outfish the lot of you and be back 

 in time for the pictures. ' The old man who spoke was one of the 

 two Scotsmen of the Stanislaw^s crew. For over a score of years 

 he had been his own master, fishing ring nets in the sheltered 

 parts of Scotland's west coast. But the fleet had grown and the 

 herring population had decreased. Ring-netting was no longer as 

 lucrative as it had once been. And anyhow, he had seen his daugh- 

 ter married and his two sons through University. There was no 

 need for him to work any longer. He came to sea for the fun of it, 

 drifting in the summer when the weather was kind to his rheu- 

 matism. And a good thing it was for the Stanislaw. George was, 

 by far, the best sailor and fisherman who had ever boarded her. 



*Aye,' charged Ian, a Peterhead drifter skipper whose luck was 



19^ 



