“I thought you said one o’clock for luncheon, sir,” young Mosenberg said.
“One o’clock!” Mackenzie repeated, impatiently. “Who the teffle can wait till one o’clock, if you hef been walking about an island since the daylight, with nothing to eat or drink.”
Mr. Mackenzie forgot that it was not Lavender he had asked to lunch.
“Oh, yes,” he said, “Sheila hass had plenty of time to send down to Borvapost for some fish; and by the time you get up to the house you will see that it is ready.”
“Very well,” Johnny said, “we can go up to the house, anyway.”
He went up the companion, and he had scarcely got his head above the level of the bulwarks when he called back, “I say Mr. Mackenzie, here is Lavender on the shore, and your daughter is with him. Do they want to come on board, do you think? Or do they want us to go ashore?”
Mackenzie uttered a few phrases in Gaelic, and got up on deck instantly. There, sure enough, was Sheila, with her hand on her husband’s arm, both looking toward the yacht. The wind was blowing too strong for them to call. Mackenzie wanted himself to pull in for them, but this was overruled, and Pate was despatched.
An awkward pause ensued. The three standing on deck were sorely perplexed as to the forthcoming interview, and as to what they should do. Were they to rejoice over a reconciliation, or ignore the fact altogether and simply treat Sheila as Mrs. Lavender? Her father, indeed, fearing that Sheila would be strangely excited, and would probably burst into tears, wondered what he could get to scold her about.
Fortunately, an incident partly ludicrous broke the awkwardness of their arrival. The getting on deck was a matter of some little difficulty; in the scuffle Sheila’s small hat, with its snow-white feather, got unloosed somehow, and the next minute it was whirled away by the wind into the sea. Pate could not be sent after it just at the moment, and it was rapidly drifting away to leeward, when Johnny Eyre, with a laugh and a “Here goes!” plunged in after the white feather that was dipping and rising in the waves like a sea-gull. Sheila uttered a slight cry, and caught her husband’s arm. But there was not much danger. Johnny was an expert swimmer, and in a few minutes he was seen to be making his way backward with one arm, while in the other hand he held Sheila’s hat. Then Pate had by this time got the small boat around to leeward, and very shortly after Johnny, dripping like a Newfoundland dog, came on deck and presented the hat to Sheila, amidst a vast deal of laughter.
“I am so sorry,” she said; “but you must change your clothes quickly. I hope you will have no harm from it.”