“Yes, it is time for you to dive in,” said Rory, laughing; “but there, hand out my fiddle and I’ll forgive you. If the sea-nymphs will only be kind now,” he continued, “and keep me dry, I’ll play and sing you something appropriate.”
He did, in his sweet tenor voice, accompanying himself with his favourite instrument. He sang them the old song that begins:
“Far over the hills and the heather so green,
And down by the corrie that sings to the sea,
The bonnie young Flora sat weeping alane,
The dew on her plaid and the tear in her e’e.
She looked at a boat with the breezes that swung,
Away on the wave like a bird of the main,
And ay as it lessened, she sigh’d and she sung,
‘Fareweel to the lad I shall ne’er see again.’”
“’Deed, indeed,” said Rory, in his richest brogue, and with a moisture in his eye, “it is very pretty, and would be romantic entirely if the frizzle, frizzle, frizzle of that Saxon’s frying-pan wouldn’t join in the chorus.”
“Ham and eggs, boys; ham and eggs?” cried Ralph. “Away with melancholy.”
Not far from Duntulm Castle was a house, of which our friends bore the kindliest of recollections, for here they had been most hospitably entertained.
“I wonder,” said Ralph and Rory, almost in the same breath, “if they’ll see us and know us.”
“Fire your gun again, anyhow, Rory,” said McBain.
The gun was run in, loaded and fired, and they had the satisfaction of seeing their friends in the garden waving welcome to them with a Highland plaid. Then the ensign was dipped, the headsails hauled to leeward again, and away they went.
But see, it is getting wonderfully dark ahead, and a misty cloud seems rapidly nearing them, with a long white line right under it.