The Mail-Boat 







who kindled them, and burnt for several days, so that at 

 night red beacons shone brightly seawards, and those on 

 the outer islands wondered what they could mean. But these 

 times of fine weather were of good cheer for the crofters, for 

 on the low islands the frost is never severe, and thus they 

 could go ahead with their ploughing or could burn their piles 

 of tangles. Some of them, perhaps, would put out to sea in 

 their skiffs, and would set their long lines for cod and ling and 

 conger eels, lifting them just before the arrival of the mail- 

 boat so that they might send their " takes " to the southern 

 market. 



And when spring had merged into summer and the days 

 were long and fine the salmon nets would be put out along 

 the shores of Mull, and the mail-boat, on her return run from 

 the islands, would bear across toward Calliach Point and the 

 fishermen would put out in their small boat with their catch 

 of fine salmon straight from the sea. One day of early May 

 the air was extraordinarily clear as we crossed to the fishers, 

 and the snow-covered hills of Skye seemed but a few miles 

 away, although in reality close on forty miles distant. This, 

 I think, was the only occasion on which I have been able to 

 see the sharp outline of Dunvegan Head, in the north of 

 Skye, from these waters; and even behind that, and perhaps 

 sixty miles off, was the conical point of one of the distant 

 Applecross Hills, dazzling white against the deep blue of the 

 sky. 



On such fine days the crew of the mail-boat would be very 

 busy, for after the frost and wet of frie winter there would 

 be much painting to be done, and the masts and woodwork 

 would have to be scraped and revarnished. And as the 

 crew worked industriously they would speak rapidly to each 

 other in the Gaelic, and to the stranger from the south their 

 tongue would seem curious. 



During the war the mail-boat was taken away to do her 

 share in the fighting. I often thought of her breasting, the 

 short, steep waves of the North Sea, with, maybe, a bleak and 



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