"It is all haphazard, the sailing of a yacht," she says to him, though we can all hear. "Anybody can do it. But they make a jargon about it to puzzle other people, and pretend it is a science, and all that."
"Well," says the Laird, who is quite unaware of the fury that fills her brain, "there are some of the phrases in this book that are verra extraordinary. In navigating this same Sound of Mull, they say you are to keep the 'weather shore aboard.' How can ye keep the weather shore aboard?"
"Indeed, if we don't get into a port soon," remarks our hostess and chief commissariat-officer, "it will be the only thing we shall have on board. How would you like it cooked, Mary?"
"I won't speak to any of you," says the disgraced skipper, with much composure.
"Will you sing to us, then?"
"Will you behave properly if you are reinstated in command?" asks Angus Sutherland.
"Yes, I will," she says, quite humbly; and forthwith she is allowed to have the tiller again.
Brisker and brisker grows the breeze; it is veering to the south, too; the sea is rising, and with it the spirits of everybody on board. The ordinarily sedate and respectable White Dove is showing herself a trifle frisky, moreover; an occasional clatter below of hairbrushes or candlesticks tells us that people accustomed to calms fall into the habit of leaving their cabins ill-arranged.
"There will be more wind, sir," says John of Skye, coming aft; and he is looking at some long and streaky "mare's tails" in the south-western sky. "And if there wass a gale o' wind, I would let her have it!"
Why that grim ferocity of look, Captain John? Is the poor old White Dove responsible for the too fine weather, that you would like to see her driven, all wet and bedraggled, before a south-westerly gale? If you must quarrel with something, quarrel with the barometer; you may admonish it with a belaying-pin if you please.