Sheumas leaned and picked up the trodden fragments. “They’re warm still, Macleod.” “Are they?” Isla cried at that, his eyes with a red light coming into the blue: “then they will go where the man in the song went, the man who sought his home for ever and ever and never came any nearer than into the shine of the window-lamps.” With that he threw the pieces into the dark water that was already growing ashy-grey. “’Tis a sure cure, that, Sheumas Maclean.” “Ay, so they say, … and so, so: ay, as you were saying, Ian Mòr went into the shadow because of that home he could not win?” “So they say. And now we’ll take the nets. ’Tis a heavy net that comes out black, as the sayin’ is. They’re heavy for sure, after this still night, an’ the wind southerly, an’ the pollack this way an’ that.” “Well, now, that’s strange.” “What is strange, Sheumas Maclean?” “That you should say that thing.” “And for why that?” “Oh, just this. Silis had a dream the other night, she had. She dreamed she saw you standing alone on the _Luath_: and you were hauling hard a heavy net, so that the sweat ran down your face. And your face was dead-white pale, she said. An’ you hauled an’ you hauled. An’ someone beside you that she couldn’t see laughed an’ laughed: an’ …” With a stifled oath, Isla broke in upon the speaker’s words: “Why, man alive, you said he, the man, myself it is, was alone on the _Luath_.” “Well, Silis saw no one but yourself, Isla Macleod.” “But she heard some one beside me laughing an’ laughing.” “So she said. And you were dead-white, she said: with the sweat pouring down you. An’ you pulled an’ you pulled. Then you looked up at her and said: ‘_It’s a heavy net that comes up black, as the sayin’ is._’” Isla Macleod made no answer to that, but slowly began to haul at the nets. A swift moving light slid hither and thither well away to the north-east. The sea greyed. A new, poignant, salt smell came up from the waves. Sail after sail of the smacks ceased to be a blur in the dark: each lifted a brown shadowy wing against a dusk through which a flood of myriad drops of light steadily oozed. Now from this boat, now from that, hoarse cries resounded. The _Mairi Ban_ swung slowly round before the faint dawn-wind, and lifted her bow homeward with a little slapping splash. The _Maggie_, the _Trilleachan_, the _Eilid_, the _Jessie_, and the _Mairi Donn_ followed one by one. In silence the two men on the _Luath_ hauled in their nets. The herring made a sheet of shifting silver as they lay in the hold. As the dawn lightened, the quivering silver mass sparkled. The decks were mailed with glittering scales: these, too, gleamed upon the legs, arms, and hands of the two fishermen. “Well, that’s done!” exclaimed Sheumas at last. “Up with the helm, Isla, and let us make for home.”