Endless repetition of fishing, and kelp,
and of the sorrows of purgatory.
When we had finished our whiskey word came that the boat might
remain.
With some difficulty I got my bags out of the steamer and carried
them up through the crowd of women and donkeys that were still
struggling on the quay in an inconceivable medley of flour-bags and
cases of petroleum. When I reached the inn the old woman was in
great good humour, and I spent some time talking by the kitchen
fire. Then I groped my way back to the harbour, where, I was told,
the old net-mender, who came to see me on my first visit to the
islands, was spending the night as watchman.
It was quite dark on the pier, and a terrible gale was blowing.
There was no one in the little office where I expected to find him,
so I groped my way further on towards a figure I saw moving with a
lantern.
It was the old man, and he remembered me at once when I hailed him
and told him who I was. He spent some time arranging one of his
lanterns, and then he took me back to his office - a mere shed of
planks and corrugated iron, put up for the contractor of some work
which is in progress on the pier.
