At last she went round to the boats; found the boys all asleep except the baddish boy; waked them up, and made them all haul in their first net.

The nets came in as black as ink, no sign of a herring.
There was but one opinion; there was no herring at Inch Keith; they had not been there this seven years.
At last, Flucker, to whom she came in turn, told her he was going into two fathom water, where he would let out the bladders and drop the nets on their cursed backs.
A strong remonstrance was made by Christie, but the baddish boy insisted that he had an equal right in all her nets, and, setting his sail, he ran into shoal water.
Christie began to be sorrowful; instead of making money, she was going to throw it away, and the ne'er-do-weel Flucker would tear six nets from the ropes.
Flucker hauled down his sail, and unstepped his mast in two fathom water; but he was not such a fool as to risk his six nets; he devoted one to his experiment, and did it well; he let out his bladder line a fathom, so that one half his net would literally be higgledy-piggledy with the rocks, unless the fish were there _en masse._ No long time was required.
In five minutes he began to haul in the net; first, the boys hauled in the rope, and then the net began to approach the surface.

Flucker looked anxiously down, the other lads incredulously; suddenly they all gave a yell of triumph--an appearance of silver and lightning mixed had glanced up from the bottom; in came the first two yards of the net--there were three herrings in it.

These three proved Flucker's point as well as three million.
They hauled in the net.

Before they had a quarter of it in, the net came up to the surface, and the sea was alive with molten silver.