It is difficult to think quickly of anything ever made by the hand of man more beautiful than a sailing boat. A racing yacht has something of art for art’s sake about it, but the lobster fishers’ boat on that bright sea gave art its warrant. They hove to between the island and the shore and sank their lobster catch, then came on to be drawn up by all of us above high-water mark. She was a long open boat, what they called an Irish skiff, and she had in fact been built in Ireland. I had seen her kind in Kerry. There was shamrock-green paint on her, too, and she had those simple subtle lines so difficult to define, holding within them reticence, deceit, and all man’s knowledge of the treachery of the sea.

Eoin’s eye had meantime caught sight of the crabs creaking against the bottom boards, and the friendly skipper told him to take as many as he liked for they were of no value to him. The four men had spent the whole night on Fladdachuain Island, but, as it happened, without much success. Not that you would guess it from their mien. This traffic with the sea may be a despairing but is also a fascinating business, for it is a gamble not only in its catches but in its markets, and as the summer went on it claimed our attention more and more.

The skipper told us how to distinguish between the male and female crab. The last flap of shell that folds like a tail over the breast is pale and narrow in the male and purple and broad in the female. He himself would eat only the male. So Eoin and I gathered five or six males and went back to the hotel, where he insisted on having them cooked. It was now five o’clock, with all hope of seeing my boat gone and our minds committed darkly to departure. Indeed we should have been gone an hour ago. Eoin was cracking his last claw with a ruthless hammer when the telegram came advising us of the boat’s arrival that afternoon. Whereupon someone walked in saying the boat was in the bay. We went to the front door and there she lay calmly at anchor, beyond the wreck. And through an inexplicable and disturbing warmth, I thought she looked very well.

It turned out that the telegram had been handed to a schoolboy in the morning, but the schoolboy had handed it to a van-man, who had carried it on his rounds back to Portree, and thus, in a very close finish, the yacht had beaten it.

As we backed out, I was about to swing the head of the small boat against the sun when the crofter stopped me; so I immediately swung her with the sun and headed for the yacht, while Eoin’s voice assured us that she was bonny and sat the water like a swan. There are less heartening things than optimism and a kind eye. The dark mood of disappointment and irritation was lifting from us, but still a few direct words might be said. And they were, for as we stepped aboard a voice with a slow sarcastic drawl remarked: