"Oh, no, mem; I not think that," says he, deprecatingly.
"Then why won't you go and have some sleep? Do you want to be ill?"
"Oh, there iss plenty of sleep," says he. "Maybe we will get to Kyle Akin to-night; and there will be plenty of sleep for us."
"But I am asking you as a favour to go and get some sleep now. Surely the men can take charge of the yacht!"
"Oh, yes, oh, yes!" says John of Skye. "They can do that ferry well."
And then he paused—for he was great friends with this young lady, and did not like to disoblige her.
"You will be having your dinner now. After the dinner, if Mr. Sutherland himself will be on deck, I will go below and turn in for a time."
"Of course Dr. Sutherland will be on deck," says the new captain, promptly; and she was so sure of one member of her crew that she added, "and he will not leave the tiller for a moment until you come to relieve him."
Perhaps it was this promise—perhaps it was the wonderful beauty of the evening—that made us hurry over dinner. Then we went on deck again; and our young Doctor, having got all his bearings and directions clear in his head, took the tiller, and John of Skye at length succumbed to the authority of Commander Avon and disappeared into the forecastle.
The splendour of colour around us on that still evening!—away in the west the sea of a pale yellow green, with each ripple a flash of rose-flame, and over there in the south the great mountains of Skye—the Coolins, Blaven, and Ben-na-Cailleach—become of a plum-purple in the clear and cloudless sky. Angus Sutherland was at the tiller contemplatively smoking an almost black meerschaum; the Laird was discoursing to us about the extraordinary pith and conciseness of the Scotch phrases in the Northumbrian Psalter; while ever and anon a certain young lady, linked arm-in-arm with her friend, would break the silence with some aimless fragment of ballad or old-world air.