[11] The Iona fishermen, and, indeed, the Gaelic and Scottish fishermen generally, believe that the pollack (porpoise) knows when it is the Sabbath, and on that day will come closer to the land, and be more wanton in its gambols on the sun-warmed surface of the sea, than on the days when the herring-boats are abroad. “What was wrong with the old man of the sea?” I asked Macrae. At first he would say nothing. He looked vaguely at a coiled rope; then, with hand-shaded gaze, across to the red rocks at Fionnaphort. I repeated my question. He took refuge in English. “It wass ferry likely the _Clansman_ would be pringing ta new minister-body. Did you pe knowing him, or his people, or where he came from?” But I was not to be put off thus; and at last, while Ivor stared down the green-shelving lawns of the sea below us, Phadric told me this thing. His reluctance was partly due to the shyness which, with the Gael, almost invariably follows strong emotion, and partly to that strange, obscure, secretive instinct which is also so characteristically Celtic, and often prevents Gaels of far apart isles, or of different clans, from communicating to each other stories or legends of a peculiarly intimate kind. “I will tell you what my father told me, and what, if you like, you may hear again from the sister of my father, who is the wife of Ian Finlay, who has the farm on the north side of Dûn-I. “You will have heard of old James Achanna of Eilanmore, off the Ord o’ Sutherland? To be sure, for have you not stayed there. Well, I need not tell you how he came there out of the south, but it will be news to you to learn that my elder brother Murdoch was had by him as a shepherd, and to help on the farm. And the way of that thing was this. Murdoch had gone to the fishing north of Skye, with Angus and William Macdonald, and in the great gale that broke up their boat, among so many others, he found himself stranded on Eilanmore. Achanna told him that, as he was ruined, and so far from home, he would give him employment; and though Murdoch had never thought to serve under a Galloway man, he agreed. “For a year he worked on the upper farm, Ardoch-beag as it was called. There the gloom came upon him. Turn which way he would, the beauty that is in the day was no more. In vain, when he came out into the air in the morning did he cry _Deasiul_! and keep by the sun-way. At night he heard the sea calling in his sleep. So, when the lambing was over, he told Achanna that he must go, for he hungered for the sea. True, the wave ran all around Eilanmore, but the farm was between bare hills and among high moors, and the house was in a hollow place. But it was needful for him to go. Even then, though he did not know it, the madness of the sea was upon him.