He had
thus on every occasion earned enough to provide for the following
winter, so that his grandfather's little income as piper, and other
small returns, were accumulating in various concealments about the
cottage; for, in his care for the future, Duncan dreaded lest Malcolm
should buy things for him, without which, in his own sightless
judgment, he could do well enough.
Until the herring season should arrive, however, Malcolm made a little
money by line fishing; for he had bargained, the year before, with
the captain of a schooner for an old ship's boat, and had patched
and caulked it into a sufficiently serviceable condition. He sold
his fish in the town and immediate neighbourhood, where a good many
housekeepers favoured the handsome and cheery young fisherman.
He would now be often out in the bay long before it was time to call
his grandfather, in his turn to rouse the sleepers of Portlossie.
But the old man had as yet always waked about the right time, and
the inhabitants had never had any ground of complaint--a few
minutes one way or the other being of little consequence. He was
the cock which woke the whole yard: morning after morning his pipes
went crowing through the streets of the upper region, his music
ending always with his round. But after the institution of the
gun signal, his custom was to go on playing where he stood until
he heard it, or to stop short in the midst of his round and his
liveliest reveille the moment it reached his ear.
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