"Oh! very nicely indeed, but go away; don't stand there and stare at a
fellow when he is having his dinner. It is rude."
"Is it good, though?" the other would ask.
"Delicious!" the reply would be.
"How ever did you get inside?"
"Look and see."
Then the new-come lobster would find the hole in the top of the cage,
and in he would pop. And presently more and more lobsters would come
round and pop in one by one.
Well, but when they wanted to pop out again they would not find it so
easy. In fact, there would be no way out for them, until Duncan hauled
up the creel and pulled them forth to be boiled.
"It is so easy to get into a trap, but so difficult to get out again,"
old Duncan would say to Kenneth, "so, my dear laddie, always all your
life be sure to look before you leap."
Old Duncan was a very merry old man; he used to tell Kenneth such funny
stories, and tales of the deep blue sea, and all about sea-fairies, and
water babies, and mermaids that live deep down beneath the ocean in
coral caves. I do not think that old Duncan believed in these things
himself, nor that he expected Kenneth to believe in them either, but
they helped to pass the time, and often of a winter's evening the boy
would stay in the fisherman's hut so late that night came on before he
started for Glen Alva, and the stars would be all shining as he took his
road across the hills and over the dreary moorland where Nancy lived.
Old Duncan Reed did not know the time except by the sun, and Kenneth had
no watch, so he could never be sure on occasions like these what o'clock
it really was.
But one thing Kenneth never did forget, and that was to bring a few fish
or a lobster or a lovely crab for Nancy.
If her light was burning when he reached the little cottage, then he
would go in; if not, he knew she had gone to bed, so he would hang the
string of fish to the door latch--a very old-fashioned one with a
thumb-piece--and go quietly away with Kooran. Or if it was a lobster
with its claws tied, he used to tether it to the foot of a rose tree
that grew near the door, and poor old Nancy found it in the morning, and
was thankful accordingly. I'm sure of this, that Nancy never said her
prayers without asking guidance, and a blessing for her bonnie boy.
And it was in this very cottage that Kenneth and Duncan the keeper now
found themselves, in front of a nice peat fire, for though it was yet
early in autumn, in this bleak Highland moorland the evenings struck
chill and cold.
Nancy herself sat in the corner, with her grey grimalkin on her
shoulder. The cat seemed asleep, only she had one eye open, and that
eye was watching the door.