When they got to Balladhoo the calculation was made. The boat had earned in all three hundred pounds. Of this the master took four shares for himself and his nets, the owner eight shares, every man two shares, a share for the boy, and a share for the boat. The men grumbled when Christian took up his two shares like another man. He asked if he had not done a man's work. They answered that he had kept a regular fisherman off the boat. Kisseck grumbled also; said he brought home three hundred pounds and got less than thirty pounds of it. "The provisioning has cost too much," said Mylrea Balladhoo. "Your tea is at four shillings a pound, besides fresh meat and fine-flour biscuits. What can you expect?" Christian offered to give half his share to the man whose berth he took, and the other half to Danny Fayle. This quieted Kisseck, but the others laughed and muttered among themselves, "Two more shares for Kisseck." Then the men, closely encircled by their wives, moved off. "Remember the _Meailley_!" "To-night. Aw, sure, sure!" CHAPTER VIII "SEEMS TO ME IT'S ALL NATHUR" When Danny left the boat he threw his oilskins over his arm and trudged along the quay. Bill Kisseck's cottage stood alone under the Horse Hill, and to get to it Danny had to walk round by the bridge that crossed the river. On the way thither he met Ruby Cregeen, red with running. She had sighted the boats from the cottage on the hill, and was hurrying down to see them come into the harbor. The little woman was looking this morning like something between a glint of sunshine and a flash of quicksilver. On the way down she had pulled three stalks of the foxglove bell, and stuck them jauntily in her hat, their long swan-like necks drooping over her sunny face. She had come too late for her purpose, but Danny took her hand and said he would see her back before going off home to bed. The little one prattled every inch of the way. "Did you catch many herrings, Danny?" "Nine barrels." "Isn't it cruel to catch herrings?" "Why cruel, Ruby veg?" "I don't know. Don't the herrings want to stay in the water, Danny?" "Lave them alone for that. You should see the shoals of them lying round the nets, watching the others--their mothers and sisters, as you might say--who've got their gills 'tangled. And when you haul the net up, away they go at a slant in millions and millions--just like lightning firing through the water. Och, 'deed now, they've got their feelings same as anybody else. Yes, yes, yes!" "What a shame!" "What's a shame, Ruby? What a sollum face, though." "Why, to catch them." Danny looked puzzled. He was obviously reasoning out a great problem.