Todd looked earnestly, explaining that her mother might not be
prepared for three extra to dinner; it was her brother's trawl, and
she meant to just run her eye along for the right sort of a little
haddock. I leaned over the boat's side with great interest and
excitement, while she skillfully handled the long line of hooks,
and made scornful remarks upon worthless, bait-consuming creatures
of the sea as she reviewed them and left them on the trawl or shook
them off into the waves. At last we came to what she pronounced a
proper haddock, and having taken him on board and ended his life
resolutely, we went our way.
As we sailed along I listened to an increasingly delightful
commentary upon the islands, some of them barren rocks, or at best
giving sparse pasturage for sheep in the early summer. On one of
these an eager little flock ran to the water's edge and bleated at
us so affectingly that I would willingly have stopped; but Mrs.
Todd steered away from the rocks, and scolded at the sheep's mean
owner, an acquaintance of hers, who grudged the little salt and
still less care which the patient creatures needed.
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