“Oh! she is ready, I dare say; and she can finish her preparations afterwards,” said Miss Petrie.
“And it is to be very quiet. Indeed, hardly a wedding at all in the usual sense,” said George.
“But that is rather mean of Tam, I think,” said Mr Petrie. “He ought to give a dance on board the ‘John Seaton,’ if he is to have the command of her.”
His sisters were charmed with the idea. And would not Mr George put the thought into Tam’s head?
“The ‘John Seaton’ is not in yet. He would hardly consent to wait for that,” said Mr Scott.
“Don’t you call it a risk, giving a man like Tam Saugster the command of a vessel like the ‘John Seaton’?”
Mr Petrie asked the question not at George, but at his father.
“There is ay a risk of one kind or another about all seafaring matters,” said Mr Dawson quietly.
“But there ought to be a fine wedding. Tam is quite a credit to the town now. We could all go to the dance,” said Miss Annie Petrie.
“But I am afraid Tam would not long be a credit to the town if the whiskey were to flow as freely as it usually does at sailors’ weddings. That could hardly be dispensed with, the whiskey, I mean. It would test Tam’s principles at any rate, in which I cannot say I have very great faith,” said James with a little sneer.