"Tip us your fin, my old coxs'un!" said he, winking at me over the rim of an enormous pewter vessel which effectually eclipsed the lower segment of his visage. "Blessed if I ain't as glad to see you as one of Mother Carey's chickens in a squall."
"Come, Anthony! leave off your nautical nonsense, and talk like a man of the world. What on earth have you and Tom Strachan, been after?"
"Nothing on earth, but a good deal on sea, and a trifle on as uncomfortable a section of basalt as ever served two unhappy buccaniers for bed, table, and sofa. The chilliness is not off me yet."
"But how did it happen?"
"Very simply: but I'll tell you all about it. It's a long story, though, so if you please I shall top off with something hot. I'm glad you've come, however, for I had some doubts how far this sort of original Petersham would inspire confidence as to my credit in the bosom of the fair M'Tavish. It's all right now, however, so here goes for my yarn."
But I shall not follow my friend through all the windings of his discourse, varied though it certainly was, like the adventures of the venerated Sinbad. Suffice it to say, that they were hardly out of sight of the Cumbraes before Tom confided the whole tale of his sorrows to the callous Anthony, who, as he expressed it, had come out for a lark, and had no idea of the of rummaging the whole of the west coast and the adjacent islands for a petticoat. Moved, however, by the pathetic entreaties of Strachan, and, perhaps, somewhat reconciled to the quest by the dim vision of an elopement, Anthony magnanimously waived his objections, and the two kept cruising together, in a little shell of a yacht, all round the western Archipelago. Besides themselves, there were only a man and a boy on board.
"It was slow work," said Anthony,—"deucedly slow. I would not have minded the thing so much if Strachan had been reasonably sociable; but it was rather irksome, you will allow, when, after the boy had brought in the kettle, and we had made every thing snug for the night, Master Strachan began to maunder about the lady's eyes, and to tear his hair, and to call himself the most miserable dog in existence. I had serious thoughts, at one time, of leaving him ashore on Mull or Skye, and making off direct to the Orkneys; but good-nature was always my foible, so I went on, beating from one place to another, as though we had been looking for the wreck of the Florida.
"I'll never take another cruise with a lover so long as I live. Tom led me all manner of dances, and we were twice fired at from farm-houses where he was caterwauling beneath the windows with a guitar. It seems he had heard that flame of his sing a Spanish air at Jedburgh. Tom must needs pick it up, and you have no idea how he pestered me. Go where we would, he kept harping on that abominable ditty, in the hopes that his mistress might hear him; and, when I remonstrated on the absurdity of the proceeding, he quoted the case of Blondel, and some trash out of Uhland's ballads. Serenading on the west coast is by no means a pleasant pastime. The nights are as raw as an anchovy, and the midges particularly plentiful.
"Well, sir, we could find no trace of the lady after all. Strachan got into low spirits, and I confess that I was sometimes sulky—so we had an occasional blow up, which by no means added to the conviviality of the voyage. One evening, just at sundown, we entered the Sound of Sneeshanish—an ugly place, let me tell you, at the best, but especially to be avoided in any thing like a gale of wind. The clouds in the horizon looked particularly threatening, and I got a little anxious, for I knew that there were rocks about, and not a light-house in the whole of the district.
"In an hour or two it grew as dark as a wolf's throat. I could not for the life of me make out where we were, for the Sound is very narrow in some parts, and occasionally I thought that I could hear breakers ahead.