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The great chieftain, Robert of the Red Hand, having now assembled his kinsmen and allies in the ancient halls of Eilean-na-Rona, proceeded to speak as follows.

‘Nicol, my man, ye have been tried and convicted.’

‘I ken that,’ was Nicol’s philosophical reply.

‘Ye had no business to make fast the sheet of the lug-sail; ye might have drooned the lot of us.’

Nicol nodded. He had sinned, and was prepared to suffer.

‘Have ye ought to say against your being lowered into the dungeon?’

‘I have not. Do you think I’m feared?’ said Nicol scornfully.

‘Ye will not pay the penny?’

‘Deil a penny will I pay!’

‘Nicol,’ said his cousin Neil, with some touch of compassion–for indeed he knew that the dungeon was a gruesome place–‘Nicol, maybe you have not got a penny?’

‘Well, I have not,’ said Nicol.

‘Will I lend ye one?’

‘What would be the use of that?’ said Nicol; ‘I would have to pay it back. Do you think I’m feared? I tell you I am not feared.’

So there was nothing for it but to get the rope and pass it under Nicol’s arms, fastening it securely at his back. Thus bound, the culprit was marched through the archway of the old tower into an apartment that was but feebly lit by the reflected glare coming from without. The other boys, as well as Nicol, walked very carefully over the dank-smelling earth, until they came to what seemed to be a large hole dug out of the ground, and black as midnight. This was the dungeon into which Nicol was to be lowered, that he might expiate his offence before the high revels began.

CHAPTER II.

THE LAST OF THE GAMES.

But before proceeding to relate how the captive clansman was lowered into the dungeon of the castle on Eilean-na-Rona, it will be necessary to explain why he did not choose to purchase his liberty by the payment of the sum of one penny. Pennies among the boys of Erisaig, and more especially among the MacNicols, were an exceedingly scarce commodity. The father of the three MacNicols, who was also burdened with the charge of their orphan cousin Neil, was a hand on board the steamer Glenara Castle, and very seldom came ashore. He had but small wages; and it was all he could do, in the bringing up of the boys, to pay a certain sum for their lodging and schooling, leaving them pretty much to cadge for themselves as regarded food and clothes. Their food, mostly porridge, potatoes, and fish of their own catching, cost little; and they did not spend much money on clothes, especially in summer time, when no Erisaig boy–except Rob MacNicol, who was a distinguished person–would submit to the encumbrance of shoes and stockings. Nevertheless, for various purposes, money was necessary to them; and this they obtained by going down in the morning, when the herring boats came in, and helping the men to strip the nets. The men were generally tired out and sleepy with their long night’s work; and if they had had anything like a good haul, they were glad to give these lads twopence or threepence apiece to undertake the labour of lifting the nets, yard by yard, out of the hold, shaking out the silvery fish and dexterously extricating those that had got more firmly enmeshed. Moreover, it was a work the boys delighted in. If it was not the rose, it was near the rose. If it was not for them as yet to sail away in the afternoon, watched by all the village, at least they could take this small part in the great herring trade. And when they had shaken out the last of the nets, and received their wages, they stepped ashore with a certain pride; and generally they put both hands in their pockets as a real fisherman would do; and perhaps they would walk along the quays with a slight lurch, as if they, also, had been cramped up all the long night through, and felt somewhat unused to walking on first getting back to land.