sea, and took the herring there, and then the
trawlers they would sink their nets and come home in the morning as
if they had not caught one fish, although the boat would be white with
the scales of the herring. And what is more, sir, the government knew
ferry well that if trawling was put down, then there would be a ferry
good many murders; for the Tarbert-men, when they came home to drink
whisky, and wash the whisky down with porter, they were ready to fight
anybody."

"It must be a delightful place to live in," Lavender said.

"Oh, but it is ferry different now," Mackenzie continued--"ferry
different. The men they are nearly all Good Templars now, and there is
no drinking whatever, and there is reading-rooms and such things, and
the place is ferry quiet and respectable."

"I hear," Ingram remarked, "that good people attribute the change to
moral suasion, and that wicked people put it down to want of money."

"Papa, this boy will have to be put to bed," Sheila said.

"Well," Mackenzie answered, "there is not so much money in the place
as there wass in the old times. The shop-keepers do not make so much
money as before, when the men were wild and drunk in the daytime, and
had plenty to spend when the police-boat did not catch them. But the
fishermen, they are ferry much better without the money; and I can
say for them, Mr. Lavender, that there is no better fishermen on the
coast. They are ferry fine, tall men, and they are ferry well dressed
in their blue clothes, and they are manly fellows, whether they are
drunk or whether they are sober. Now look at this, sir, that in the
worst of weather they will neffer tek whisky with them when they go
out to the sea at night, for they think it is cowardly. And they are
ferry fine fellows, and gentlemanly in their ways, and they are ferry
good-natured to strangers."

"I have heard that of them on all hands," Lavender said, "and some day
I hope to put their civility and good-fellowship to the proof."

That was merely the idle conversation of a summer evening: no one paid
any further attention to it, nor did even Lavender himself think again
of his vaguely-expressed hope of some day visiting Tarbert. Let us now
shift the scene of this narrative to Tarbert itself.

When you pass from the broad and blue waters of Loch Fyne into the
narrow and rocky channel leading to Tarbert harbor, you find before
you an almost circular bay, round which stretches an irregular line
of white