ago.

He naturally went up to The Gregory at this hour, because it was then
that he met the other boys, and caught puffins by being lowered over the
cliff. The agent of the island employed the boys, and paid them a sixpence
for every dozen birds, that he might sell the feathers. The boys had a
rope three hundred feet long, which could reach the bottom of the cliff.
One of them tied this rope around his waist, and then held it fast with
both hands, the rope being held above by four or five strong boys, who
lowered the cragman, or "clifter," as he was called, over the precipice.
Kirwan was thus lowered to the rocks near the sea, where the puffins bred;
and, loosening the rope, he prepared to spend the night in catching them.
He had a pole with a snare on the end, which he easily clapped on the
heads of the heavy and stupid birds; then tied each on a string as he
caught it, and so kept it to be hauled up in the morning. He took in this
way twenty or thirty score of the birds, besides quantities of their large
eggs, which were found in deep clefts in the rock; and these he carried
with him when his friends came in the morning to haul him up. It was a
good school of courage, for sometimes boys missed their footing and were
dashed to pieces. At other times he fished in his father's boat, or drove
calves for sale on the mainland, or cured salt after high tide in the
caverns, or collected kelp for the farmers. But he was always looking
forward to a time when he might get a glimpse of the island of Hy-Brasail,
and make his way to it.

One day when all the fleet of fishing-boats was out for the herring
fishery, and Kirwan among them, the fog came in closer and closer, and he
was shut apart from all others. His companion in the boat--or dory-mate,
as it would be called in New England--had gone to cut bait on board
another boat, but Kirwan could manage the boat well enough alone. Long he