"
The laird stopped, gazed at her for a moment, shook his head, and
walked on.
Grassy steeps everywhere met the stones and sands of the shore,
and the grass and the sand melted, as it were, and vanished each
in the other. Just where they met in the next hollow, stood a small
building of stone with a tiled roof. It was now strangely visible
through the darkness, for from every crevice a fire illumined smoke
was pouring. But the companions were not alarmed or even surprised.
They bent their way towards it without hastening a step, and coming
to a fence that enclosed a space around it, opened a little gate,
and passed through. A sleepy watchman challenged them. "It 's me,"
said the laird.
"A fine nicht, laird," returned the voice, and said no more.
The building was divided into several compartments, each with
a separate entrance. On the ground in each burned four or five
little wood fires, and the place was filled with smoke and glow.
The smoke escaped partly by openings above the doors, but mostly
by the crannies of the tiled roof. Ere it reached these, however,
it had to pass through a great multitude of pendent herrings. Hung
up by the gills, layer above layer, nearly to the roof, their last
tails came down as low as the laird's head. From beneath nothing
was to be seen but a firmament of herring tails. These fish were
the last of the season, and were thus undergoing the process of
kippering. It was a new venture in the place, and its success as
yet a question.
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