Living Silver 



well down at the heels, 'you'd outfish us, aa'richt, - after you'd 

 cut awa' hauf the bowls aboot Smith's Knoll.* 



'And who the hell would lose himself fifty cran of the finest 

 hardest little matties in the North Sea for the sake of a bit of an- 

 other man's buff. Come on now, Ian, if you saw them boiling up 

 bright white from the greenbacks, would you spare a thought for a 

 bit of twine and a balloon you could buy for a fiver?' 



*To hell with the bowls. Naebody's worried aboot the odd float. 

 But when you chaps scissor them off the back of a heavy net, a 

 heavy net mind you, that micht ha'e twenty cran lying neat and 

 tight under her, then we poor bastards lose the net and the bowl 

 and the catch, and a dozen other nets as well if they're meshed 

 hard as the first one. These chaps, Johnny, they'll mak' mince- 

 meat o' a two mile fleet in a few hoors. And what they can't 

 chew they send to the bottom.' 



Tadeusz, who was anxious to smooth this eternal rivalry be- 

 tween the ringers and the drifters, poured in his oily question: 

 'But George, man, why is it that, if these ring boats are so good, 

 we never see them down here where the herring are thickest?' 



'Ah that's another story. They're wee boats to begin with and 

 they can't stand a stiff sea like you get on these East Anglian ridges. 

 And then, you know, it's got to do with the method of fishing.' 



'That's what I want to hear about,' said Jan, intercepting lan's 

 depreciatory remarks. 'I've heard so much of this ring fishing 

 business that I can hardly believe myself that I know nothing about 

 it. Yet I don't know a thing. I've seen some of the boats, up 

 about Oban once when I was on holiday there. And very tidy 

 little craft they looked. You could imagine that they cleaned out 

 the locker and polished the anchor chain every week-end.' 



'Aye, they're bonny boats,' replied George, 'and they're not 

 really worse sea boats than some of these frowsy drifters. It's just 

 that their gear's a bit more difficult to handle. You can't just 

 throw a net overboard and pick it up a couple of hours later like 

 you do on a drifter. You need a little skill.' 



'Like hell you do,' exploded Ian. 'All they need is a calm so 



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