There was a short laugh, for stories of ‘wangling’ the dole by a clever ‘faking’ of insurable employment provided a touch of humour in most places, though one could always feel the underlying spirit of condemnation.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said an old fisherman, whose sea days were manifestly over, ‘but it was a hard life in the old days. We had our good times, but the life was hard. Take the small line itself. You were no sooner home than you had to start in to redd the line, then to put on tippings and lost hooks, then to shell the mussels, and then start in to bait the six hundred hooks. And after that a few hours in bed—and off again. You have your engines now—no calms, no hanging on the oars, no head winds. And not a hook to bait. It’s fair pampered ye are, if you ask me.’ And his old eyes twinkled.

‘God, I don’t know,’ said a fine limber man of about forty-five, obviously a skipper, with the grey salt of the sea on a fold of his blue jersey. ‘Even the seine net is as hard work, and more constant, than the old winter-fishing small line. You’re at it the whole time. The engine merely compels you to work the harder. You’ve got to keep going. Why? For a reason you never had in the old days: overhead expenses. The Bank won’t let you off your interest. And it sees you pay your insurance company. And your gear—it doesn’t stand up to the wear and tear long. And if you run an engine, you don’t run it on air. You had hard times in the old days certainly. No one is denying that. But you hadn’t this—threatening thing—behind you.’

‘That’s so,’ said the old man quietly. ‘But we often had our own debts and they seemed heavy enough sometimes.’

‘That’s so,’ said the skipper soberly. ‘When things are going against you, it’s bad enough, whatever the age. We’ve got to do with it as it will do with us.’

‘Unless you go in for the dole,’ said the man who had already referred to this topic. He was a youngish, red-necked, strong fellow, and obviously had a story to tell. He did tell it, too; about three fellows who were employed to barrow stones, so that when their wealthy employer decided to build a dyke round his house the stones would be all in one place.

‘Digging the old hole to fill it up again!’

‘Never mind. Their employer—’

‘Who was their employer?’

‘Their employer was an Old Age Pensioner.’

There was a hearty laugh at that.

‘Come on, you’ll have another glass of beer,’ added the red-necked man, who had clearly a humour of his own.

‘No, no, Dan,’ said the skipper. ‘It’s high time we were off, boy.’

‘Where were you shot last night?’ asked the old man.

‘Off the north end of Skye,’ answered the skipper. ‘Three baskets of mackerel—that was all. I have never seen the herring scarcer.’