“Muzzer says she is sure Jesus will save you; so I came to tell you, for muzzer never says what’s not true.”
Having delivered her consoling message, Flo ran back at once to Molly’s cottage with the cheerful remark that it was all right now, for she had told Ivor that he was going to be saved!
While Mrs Gordon and Flo were thus engaged on shore, the boat party were rowing swiftly down the loch to the little hamlet of Drumquaich. The weather was magnificent. Not a breath of air stirred the surface of the sea, so that every little white cloud in the sky was perfectly reproduced in the concave below. The gulls that floated on the white expanse seemed each to be resting on its own inverted image, and the boat would have appeared in similar aspect but for the shivering of the mirror by its oars.
“Most appropriate type of Sabbath rest,” said Jackman.
“Ay, but like all things here pelow,” remarked Ian Anderson, who possessed in a high degree the faculty of disputation, “it’s not likely to last long.”
“What makes you think so, Ian?” asked Milly, who sat in the stern of the boat between John Barret and Aggy Anderson.
“Well, you see, muss,” began Ian, in his slow, nasal tone, “the gless has bin fallin’ for some time past, an’—Tonal’, poy, mind your helm; see where you’re steerin’ to!”
Donald, who steered, was watching with profound interest the operations of Junkie, who had slily and gravely fastened a piece of twine to a back button of MacRummle’s coat and tied him to the thwart on which he sat. Being thus sternly asked where he was steering to, Donald replied, “Oo, ay,” and quickly corrected the course.
“But surely,” returned Milly, “there is no sign of a rapid change, at least if we may judge from the aspect of Nature; and I am a fervent believer in Nature, whatever the glass may predict.”
“I am not sure o’ that, muss,” said Ian. “You needn’t pull quite so hard, Muster Mabberly; we hev plenty o’ time. Tak it easy. Well, as I wass sayin’, muss, I hev seen it as calm as this i’ the mornin’ mony a time, an’ plowin’ a gale at nicht.”