Lobster fishing apparently was coming on again, for white fishing was valueless. ‘At least the trawlers can’t get the lobsters!’ said the Mate.

He agreed, but said he had heard that trawlers could disturb the lobster spawn. I recalled the lobster fisherman in Tobermory, so disheartened that he thought of giving up. We did not know about lobster spawn, but it seemed reasonable enough to us that where fishing and spawning banks are cleaned up all sorts of life must be affected, for there is a balance in nature. One thing was certain, anyway, that if a man like this—and many like him I had met—were given half a chance to earn a livelihood from the sea, they would do their utmost. There is a point of despair where going on becomes impossible.

From Fionnphort the Mate telephoned to his home, and getting slightly disturbing news of illness, was anxious to be back by Saturday. It was now Wednesday, with the glass still falling. As we ploughed our way back to the Bull Hole, the sky looked anything but promising. There are times when Mull seems one of the most desolate lands on earth. There were no sheep on this southern part of the Ross and, more remarkable, we saw only two or three rabbits and these round about the deserted quarries. Peat and bog and granite. As we came down past the nameless grave, something sinister emerged from it all. We had hardly got on board when the broken skies closed over and the rain descended once more.

Towards evening our sheltered anchorage for the first time became very unsettled. The boat began to rock badly without any ostensible cause—until we found the wind had gone round to the west. If it went round still farther, towards the north, and began to blow, we should feel the sea in earnest.

So back again we went in the evening to try to pick up a weather forecast. Fortunately we ran into the ferryman in Fionnphort, who, though he had not listened in to the nine o‘clock news that evening had followed his invariable practice of taking the 10.30 a.m. shipping forecast, and he gave us heart. He explained that a depression had passed over, that the wind was changing accordingly to follow it up, that by the time we got back we might expect to see the glass rising, and that—if no other depression was following after!—we should have a good chance of getting away in the morning. His discussion of the situation impressed us and we enjoyed our talk with him very much. In his imperturbable way he described the bottom of the Sound and the course to take through the Torranan Rocks. ‘If you find a heavy swell round the red buoy out there, do not mind about that.’

We thanked him and, much heartened, turned back. On the way, we saw the fisherman and his wife in the Sound off Eilean na mBan and were glad that his bait would not now go rotten. They were obviously having no easy time of it out there, while the young children would be waiting for them at home. We wished them and their stores well, for we could not help making the contrast between this life and the life of the house-letter. Indeed, we talked of it for the rest of the way and of the comparable life on the wild north-eastern coast of Scotland we knew so well. There, strong daring men use bigger boats—these East Coast men who have carried over some of the roving Viking spirit, who know Castlebay as well as Wick, Peterhead as Stornoway. The fisherman of Ardmore was not a native.