Then there was the getting together of a crew. Of course old Billy was made skipper. He had sailed twenty years in a boat of Kinvig's with three nets to his share, and half that time he had been admiral of the Peeltown fleet of herring boats, with five pounds a year for his post of honor. In Dan's boat he was to have four nets by his own right, and one for his nephew, Davy Fayle. Davy was an orphan, brought up by Billy Quilleash. He was a lad of eighteen, and was to sail as boy. There were four other hands--Crennel, the cook; Teare, the mate; Corkell, and Corlett. Early and late Dan was down at the harbor, stripped to the woolen shirt, and tackling any odd job of painting or carpentry, for the opening of the herring season was hard upon them. But he found time to run up to the new Ballamona to tell Mona that she was to christen his new boat, for it had not been named when it left the chocks; and then to the old Ballamona, to persuade Ewan to go with him on his first trip to the herrings. The day appointed by custom for the first takings of the herring came quickly round. It was a brilliant day in early June. Ewan had been across to Slieu Dhoo to visit his father, for the first time since his marriage, more than half a year ago, in order to say that he meant to go out for the night's fishing in Dan's new boat, and to beg that his young wife, who was just then in delicate health, might be invited to spend the night of his absence with Mona at the new Ballamona. The Deemster complied with a grim face; Ewan's young wife went across in the early morning, and in the afternoon all four, the Deemster and Mona, Ewan and his wife, set off in a lumbering, springless coach--the first that the island had yet seen--to witness the departure of the herring fleet from Peeltown, and to engage in that day's ceremony. The salt breath of the sea was in the air, and the light ripples of the bay glistened through a drowsy haze of warm sunshine. It was to be high water at six o'clock. When the Deemster's company reached Peeltown, the sun was still high over Contrary Head, and the fishing boats in the harbor, to the number of two hundred, were rolling gently, with their brown sails half set, to the motion of the rising tide.