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queer.’ He frowned down at his cup. ‘I wouldn’t want to take anytsin’ to do wiss her anyway, for no religion has she at all but a bit of wood or stone.’
    All weekend the clouds raced greyly above a shaggy sea but on Monday night there seemed to be a promise of calm in the night sky and on Tuesday morning I woke without the sound of rain on my windows or the wind bullying the roof. In Bruach one’s life was so inextricably bound up with the weather that one got into the habit of waking with an ear cocked for the sound of wind much as, after an illness, one wakes to the expectation of pain. If there was no noise of storm in the morning one waited tensely, hesitating to believe the miracle and then when one had accepted it one would throw off the bedclothes and hasten to get started on the labours of a busy day.
    By the time I returned from milking Bonny, Wayfarer had left her moorings and was already a dark speck on the horizon. Within a few days Nelly Elly, the postmistress, had received a telephone message from Erchy saying that Johnny had been taken to the dentist and that Hector had bought himself a new boat in which they now proposed to sail back. She reported that he had sounded quite sober. For two or three days there was no word from the men and so it was assumed that they were already on their way. Those of us who had binoculars went frequently to lean on our elbows on the stone dykes and stare out to sea, hoping to be the first to pick up a sight of the mariners and send the word round the village. For easily diverted people like myself it was an excuse to scan the outlying islands, trying to identify their varied peaks or, nearer home, to focus the glasses on the constant industry of the sea birds; on cormorants fishing greedily; on busy, bobbing guillemots and on the swift dipping flight of terns over the sea, contrasting their activity with the motionlessness of a stately heron standing beside the mouth of the burn, and then, ruefully, with my own idleness.
    But a week went by without any sign of the boat and when on the following Tuesday morning the mist rolled in from the sea, thick as a sponge, and hid everything beyond the boundaries of the crofts, we knew we could not expect to see them for some time. I wondered if Morag and Behag, Hector’s wife, were worrying about the lack of news and felt I ought to go along and ceilidh with them for the evening. When I pushed open the door of Morag’s cottage there came the sound of many voices.
    â€˜Come away in,’ called Morag happily. ‘Come in and see the rascals.’
    Erchy, Tom-Tom and Hector, their faces shining in the lamplight, were seated at the table enjoying a meal of salt herring and potatoes. There was a partly full whisky bottle on the table and a couple of empties down in the hearth. The men looked mightily pleased with themselves.
    â€˜How on earth did you get home on a day like this?’ I asked them.
    â€˜We came in Hector’s new boat. How would you think?’ replied Erchy waggishly.
    â€˜Did you have a compass?’
    â€˜We did not, then. What would we be wantin’ with one of them things, anyway?’
    â€˜But isn’t the mist as thick on the water as it is here on the land?’ I wanted to know.
    â€˜Twice as thick,’ pronounced Erchy. ‘We kept catchin’ the boat right bangs. Hector said they was only hard pieces of water but I believe we hit every rock between here and Oban.’ He broke open a large floury-looking potato and stuffed almost the whole of it into his mouth. He turned to Hector. ‘She’s a good strong boat you have there,’ he told him, with an accompanying slap on the back. ‘She must be or she’d be in bits by now.’
    Hector smiled bashfully at the herring he was holding in his two hands.
    â€˜Seriously,’ I taxed them. ‘How did you manage to navigate if you don’t have a compass?’
    â€˜Ach,