He naturally went up to The Gregory at this hour, because it was thenthat he met the other boys, and caught puffins by being lowered over thecliff. The agent of the island employed the boys, and paid them a sixpencefor every dozen birds, that he might sell the feathers. The boys had arope 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 withboth hands, the rope being held above by four or five strong boys, wholowered 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 theheads of the heavy and stupid birds; then tied each on a string as hecaught it, and so kept it to be hauled up in the morning. He took in thisway twenty or thirty score of the birds, besides quantities of their largeeggs, which were found in deep clefts in the rock; and these he carriedwith him when his friends came in the morning to haul him up. It was agood school of courage, for sometimes boys missed their footing and weredashed to pieces. At other times he fished in his father's boat, or drovecalves for sale on the mainland, or cured salt after high tide in thecaverns, or collected kelp for the farmers.
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