In the morning a wire came to the first mate—I think it was supposed to be from Antwerp—saying the captain was on his way home to meet his wife in Norway, on which the fond creature said she would at once return home to meet her good man, and she went. An hour later the captain appeared on board, and they made sail for Valparaiso.
My wife said: “That’s a most excellent story, Captain Henriksen,” at which he protested solemnly: “No, no, dat is no story, dat is quite true, I tells you.” And we had to explain the differences in our language between the “story,” an incident, and the “story,” an untruth; if you try, you will find it is rather difficult to do this. The language question again!—how often it crops up. I wish I could speak Norsk properly; I have to worry along with English. I was told to-day I can speak that difficult language very well. We had all been speaking to the lighthouse service captain for quite a long time when he complimented Henriksen on his English and flatteringly told me I spoke it even better, and I explained I’d made a study of it for about half-a-century, and in fact had the honour of lisping my first words in his own part of the country.
The “St. Ebba,” Motor Whaler, in Oban
Note the whale gun and harpoon at the bow and the oil boilers amidships.
That incident was slightly amusing: but halting English nearly got our Swedish motor inspector, whom we met at Tobermory, into serious trouble. He is such a nice-looking fellow, too, I felt quite sorry. He waited there for our arrival peacefully for three days at the Mishnish Hotel, putting in the time sketching. One day he made a drawing of Aros Castle, the Allans’ mansion, and as he lay in the grass and ferns under the birches his thoughts went back to his professional work and he drew plans and symbols, and a native came dandering along, full of the kindly interest the west highlander takes in the stranger (I like it myself, but some people call it mere curiosity), and he ventured: “You will shust pe arrived, maybe by the Lochinvar? Aye, aye, shust so, she’s a wonderful boat. Aye, you will be from Glasgie? That’s a fine toon Glasgie. I wass there for the Exheebition. Och, no, you will not be from Glasgie. From Sweden! Do you tell me so? ma Cot! that’s a long way. I see, I see, so you will be a foreigner. Weel, weel, I will wish you a coot day,” and he went. But he had seen the symbols, and he knew the Fleet was at Oban, and he had been reading the papers about invasions, so when he met the policeman, who pays a visit to Tobermory once a year to sign his name, he said to him that “there wass a lad at Aros, in the ‘furrns,’ drawin’ plans and things—would he be a spy?” After due consideration the policeman decided to walk round the bay. It is not very far round the bay, not far for anyone but Tobermory natives, who are restful people. I once saw them watching Aros Castle on fire with their hands in their pockets, and it never occurred to them to trot round the half-mile to help.
Well, the policeman did not go quite round the bay, for he met the young man coming back and he said: “It’s a fine day, Mister, for the time of year, and you will haff been drawing?”—and asked very politely if he might see the sketches; in the West we are very polite, for the climate is so mild. And as the young Swede modestly refused to exhibit, MacFarlane accompanied the visitor rather silently till they came to the famous Mishnish (famous for drams since the Flood), and then the young Swede began to see the humour of the situation, and allowed MacFarlane to examine his baggage, and got him at last to understand, with great difficulty, for he only spoke very little English, that he was waiting for a Diesel engine motor-whaler called the St Ebba, and mentioned this writer’s name, which made it all right with MacFarlane. And the hotelkeeper, and one or two friends of the policeman and the hotel proprietor came, and they had quite a pleasant afternoon and evening: for as the sun shines there are soft drinks to be drunk and tales to be told in the Mishnish Hotel in Tobermory’s sheltered bay any day of the year round.
