"Well, I give in," says Mary Avon, at last, as a heavier lurch than usual threatens to throw her and her easel together into the scuppers. "It is no use."
"I thought you never gave in, Mary," says our Admiral, whose head has appeared again at the top of the companion-stairs.
"I wonder who could paint like this," says Miss Avon, indignantly. And indeed she is trussed up like a fowl, with one arm round one of the gig davits.
"Turner was lashed to the mast of a vessel in order to see a storm," says Queen T.
"But not to paint," retorts the other. "Besides, I am not Turner. Besides, I am tired."
By this time, of course, Angus Sutherland has come to her help; and removes her easel and what not for her; and fetches her a deck-chair.
"Would you like to play chess?" says he.
"Oh, yes," she answers dutifully, "if you think the pieces will stay on the board."
"Draughts will be safer," says he, and therewith he plunges below, and fetches up the squared board.
And so, on this beautiful summer day, with the shining seas around them, and a cool breeze tempering the heat of the sun, Ferdinand and Miranda set to work. And it was a pretty sight to see them—her soft dark eyes so full of an anxious care to acquit herself well; his robust, hard, fresh-coloured face full of a sort of good-natured forbearance. But nevertheless it was a strange game. All Scotchmen are supposed to play draughts; and one brought up in a manse is almost of necessity a good player. But one astonished onlooker began to perceive that, whereas Mary Avon played but indifferently, her opponent played with a blindness that was quite remarkable. She had a very pretty, small, white hand; was he looking at that that he did not, on one occasion, see how he could have taken three pieces and crowned his man all at one fell swoop? And then is it considered incumbent on a draught-player to inform his opponent of what would be a better move on the part of the latter? However that may be, true it is that, by dint of much advice, opportune blindness, and atrocious bad play, the Doctor managed to get the game ended in a draw.