“Oh, you hef heard that, then?” Mackenzie said.
“Mosenberg brought me the news. But are you quite sure about this affair? Don’t you think this is merely a trick of Ingram’s to enable him to give the money to Sheila? That would be very like him. I know him of old.”
“Well, I cannot help it if a man will tell lies,” said Mackenzie. “But that is what he says is true. And he will not touch the money—indeed, he will hef plenty, as you say. But there it is for Sheila and you, and you will be able to build whatever house you like. And if you was thinking of having a bigger boat than the Maighdean-mhara—” the old man suggested.
Lavender jumped at that notion directly. “What if we could get a yacht big enough to cruise anywhere in the Summer months?” he said. “We might bring a party of people all the way from the Thames to Loch Roag, and cast anchor opposite Sheila’s house. Fancy Ingram and his wife coming up like that in the Autumn; and I know you could go over to Sir James, and get us some shooting.”
Mackenzie laughed grimly: “We will see—we will see about that. I think there will be no great difficulty about getting a deer or two for you, and as for the salmon, there will be one or two left in the White Water. Oh yes, we will have a little shooting and a little fishing for any of your friends. And as for the boat, it will be ferry difficult to get a good big boat for such a purpose without you was planning and building one yourself; and that will be better, I think, for the yachts nowadays they are all built for the racing, and you will have a beat fifty tons, sixty tons, seventy tons, that hass no room in her below, but is nothing but a big heap of canvas and spars. But if you was wanting a good, steady boat, with good cabins below for the leddies, and a good saloon that you could have your dinner in all at once, then you will maybe come down with me to a shipbuilder I know in Glasgow—oh, he is a ferry good man—and we will see what can be done. There is a gentleman now in Dunoon—and they say he is a ferry great artist, too—and he hass a schooner of sixty tons that I hef been in myself, and it wass just like a steamer below for the comfort of it. And when the boat is ready I will get you ferry good sailors for her, that will know every bit of the coast from Loch Indaal to the Butt of Lewis, and I will see that they are ferry cheap for you, for I hef plenty of work for them in the Winter. But I was no saying yet,” the old man added, “that you were right about coming to live in Borva. Stornoway is a good place to live in; and it is a fine harbor for repairs, if the boat was wanting repairs.”
“If she were, couldn’t we send her around to Stornoway?”
“But the people in Stornoway—it iss the people in Stornoway,” said Mackenzie, who was not going to give in without a grumble.
Well, they did not fix on a site for the house that afternoon. Sheila did not make her appearance. Lavender kept continually turning and looking over the long undulations of rock and moorland; and at length he said, “Look here, Johnny, would you mind going on by yourselves? I think I shall walk back to the house.”
“What is keeping that foolish girl?” her father said, impatiently. “It is something about the dinner now, as if any one was particular about a dinner in an island like this, where you can expect nothing. But at Stornoway—oh, yes, they hef many things there.”
“But I want you to come and dine with us on board the Phœbe to-night, sir,” Johnny said. “It will be rather a lark, mind you; we make up a tight fit in that cabin. I wonder if Mrs. Lavender would venture; do you think she would, sir?”