Lavender, however, had to be called in to help, and while the surgical operation was going forward Mrs. Ingram said, “You see we have got towns-folks’ hands as yet. I suppose they will get to be leather by and by. I am sure I don’t know how Mrs. Lavender can do those things about a boat with the tiny little hands she has.”
“Yes, Sheila has small hands, hasn’t she?” Lavender said, as he bound up his friend’s finger; “but then she makes up for that by the bigness of her heart.”
It was a pretty and kindly speech, and it pleased Mrs Ingram, though Sheila did not hear it. Then, when the doctoring was over, they all went below for breakfast, and an odor of fish and ham and eggs and coffee prevailed throughout the yacht.
“I have quite fallen in love with this manner of life,” Mrs. Ingram said. “But, tell me, is it always as pleasant as this? Do you always have those blue seas around you, and green shores? Are the sails always white in the sunlight?”
There was a dead silence.
“Well, I would not say,” Mackenzie observed seriously, as no one else would take up the question—I would not say it is always ferry good weather off this coast—oh no, I would not say that—for if there was no rain, what would the cattle do, and the streams?—they would not hef a pool left in them. Oh, yes, there is rain sometimes, but you cannot always be sailing about, and when there will be rain you will hef your things to attend to in-doors. And there is always plenty of good weather if you wass wanting to tek a trip around the islands or down to Oban—oh, yes, there is no fear of that; and it will be a ferry good coast whatever for the harbor, and there is always some place you can put into if it wass coming on rough, only you must know the coast and the lie of the islands and the rocks about the harbors. And you would learn it ferry soon. There is Sheila there; there is no one in the Lewis will know more of the channels in Loch Roag than she does—not one, I can say that; and when you go farther away, then you must tek some one with you who wass well acquainted with the coast. If you wass thinking of having a yacht, Mr. Ingram, there is one I hef heard of just now in Rothesay that is for sale, and she is a ferry good boat, but not so big as this one.”
“I think we’ll wait till my wife knows more about it, Mr. Mackenzie,” Ingram said. “Wait till she gets round Ardnamurchan, and has crossed the Munch, and has got the fine Atlantic swell as you run into Borvapost.”
“Edward, you frighten me,” his wife said: “I was beginning to give myself courage.”
“But it is mere nonsense,” cried Mackenzie, impatiently. “Kott pless me! there is no chance of your being ill in this fine weather; and if you had a boat of your own, you would ferry soon get accustomed to the weather—oh, ferry soon, indeed—and you would hef no more fear of the water than Sheila has.”
“Sheila has far too little fear of the water,” her husband said.