What matter that the ferry could not traverse the foaming waters? Old Micky (known as Mad Micky, for risking his life in the wildest weather) crossed every morning in his worn boat with the regularity of a postman!
The inhabitants on either side were glad enough to make use of his fearless enterprise, for to be cut off from communication often proved highly inconvenient. So they paid him to carry their wares, and traded with each other, while they shrugged their shoulders at the danger entailed.
"Poor craythur!" they would say; "shure, and he's bound to go under some day, but there's none at home to mourn him, and he's set his mind on a watery grave!"
To Hal that night Mad Micky appeared as the one bright spot on the dark horizon of his childish sorrow.
If only he had Miss Cairn's cough-drops safely at Castle Stewart when Mrs. Court arrived, all anxiety could be at an end. The lost voice must needs return under the influence of such wonderful round, coloured lozenges, with purple or pink stripes for choice. He fancied mother would like the pink stripes best, because they were prettier.
Lulled by the glad notion of repairing his sinful past, little Hal let his heavy, tear-stained eyes close, and dreamt of a beauteous lady in a tea-gown, of Mad Micky, and sweets in a huge glass jar away across the tide.
II.
When Hal, after many difficulties, escaped the watchful eyes of Miss Ainsworth, and running through torrents of rain hid himself under a drenched tarpaulin at the bottom of Micky's boat, the supreme moment of his life had been reached.
He suspected that on such a morning of storm even Mad Micky might possibly refuse to pilot human cargo across the rough water, for New Year's Eve outvied the previous days of tempest.
The boat, moored at the Castle Stewart end of Slaneyford Lough, lay in sight of the roaring sea, whose billows broke upon innumerable creeks made alive by the hurrying presence of foam-crested waves.