“If you are going farther North, I must go with you,” Lavender said, “for you are bound to drown yourself some day, Johnny, if some one doesn’t take care of you.”
There was no deep design in this project of Johnny’s, but he had had a vague impression that Lavender might like to go North, if only to have a passing glimpse at the island he used to know.
“One of my fellows is well acquainted with the Hebrides,” he said. “If you don’t think it too much of a risk, I should like it myself, for those Northern islands must look uncommonly wild and savage in Winter, and one likes to have new experiences. Fancy, Mosenberg, what material you will get for your next piece; it will be full of storms and seas and thunder. You know how the wind whistles through the overture to the Diamants de la Couronne.”
“It will whistle through us,” said the boy, with an anticipatory shiver, “but I do not mind the wind if it is not wet. It is the wet that makes a boat so disagreeable. Everything is so cold and clammy; you can touch nothing, and when you put your head up in the morning, pah! a dash of rain and mist and salt water altogether gives you a shock.”
“What made you come around the Mull, Johnny, instead of cutting through the Crinan?” Lavender asked of his friend.
“Well,” said the youth, modestly, “nothing, except that two or three men said we couldn’t do it.”
“I thought so,” Lavender said. “And I see I must go with you, Johnny. You must play no more of these tricks. You must watch your time, and run her quietly up the Sound of Jura to Crinan; and watch again, and get her up to Oban; and watch again, and get her up to Loch Sligachan. Then you may consider. It is quite possible you may have fine, clear weather if there is a moderate Northeast wind blowing—”
“A Northeast wind!” Mosenberg cried.
“Yes,” Lavender replied, confidently, for he had not forgotten what Sheila used to teach him, “that is your only chance. If you have been living in fog and rain for a fortnight you will never forget your gratitude to a Northeaster when it suddenly sets in to lift the clouds and show you a bit of blue sky. But it may knock us about a bit in crossing the Minch.”
“We have come around the Mull, and we can go anywhere,” Johnny said. “I’d back the Phœbe to take you safely to the West Indies; wouldn’t you, Mosenberg?”