"When we cam' out," says John—picking his English, "the wind will be from the norse—ay, a fine light breeze from the norse. And will Mr. —— himself be for going on now? it is a ferry bad sea for the leddies—a ferry coorse sea."
But it appears that this conversation—bawled aloud—has been overheard. There are voices from below. The skylight of the ladies' cabin is partly open.
"Don't mind us," calls Mary Avon. "Go on by all means!"
The other voice calls—
"Why can't you keep this fool of a boat straight? Ask him when we shall be into the Sound of Iona."
One might as well ask him when we shall be into the Sound of Jericho or Jerusalem. With half a gale of wind right in our teeth, and with the heavy Atlantic swell running, we might labour here all day—and all the night too—without getting round the Ross of Mull. There is nothing for it but to turn and run, that we may have our breakfast in peace. Let her away, then, you brave John of Skye!—slack out the main-sheet, and give her plenty of it, too: then at the same moment Sandy from Islay perceives that a haul at the weather topping-lift will clear the boom from the davits; and now—and now, good Master Fred—our much-esteemed and shifty Friedrich d'or—if you will but lay the cloth on the table, we will help you to steady the dancing phantasmagoria of plates and forks!
"Dear me!" says the Laird, when we are assembled together, "it has been an awful night!"
"Oh, I hope you have not been ill!" says his hostess, with a quick concern in the soft, clear eyes.
He does not look as if he had suffered much. He is contentedly chipping an egg; and withal keeping an eye on the things near him, for the White Dove, still plunging a good deal, threatens at times to make of everything on the table a movable feast.
"Oh, no, ma'am, not ill," he says. "But at my time of life, ye see, one is not as light in weight as one used to be; and the way I was flung about in that cabin last night was just extraordinary. When I was trying to put on my boots this morning, I am sure I resembled nothing so much as a pea in a bladder—indeed it was so—I was knocked about like a pea in a bladder."