"Shove your hand from ye, sir!" called out the skipper to the distressed steersman; and this somewhat infantine direction soon put the vessel on her course again.
In a few minutes thereafter John of Skye put his pipe in his waistcoat pocket.
"We'll let her about now, sir," he called to the Laird.
The two men who happened to be on deck went to the jib-sheets; John himself leisurely proceeding to stand by the weather fore-sheet. Then, as the Laird seemed still to await further orders, he called out—
"Helm hard down, sir, if ye please!"
But this rope bothered the Laird. He angrily untwisted it, let it drop on the deck, and then with both hands endeavoured to jam the tiller towards the weather bulwarks, which were certainly nearer to him than the lee bulwarks.
"The other way, sir!" Mary Avon cried to him, anxiously.
"Bless me! bless me! Of course!" he cried, in return; and then he let the tiller go, and just managed to get out of its way as it swung to leeward. And then as the bow sheered round, and the White Dove made away for the mouth of Loch Craignish on the port tack, he soon discovered the use of the weather tiller rope, for the wind was now blowing hard, and the yacht pitching a good deal.
"We are getting on, Miss Mary!" he cried to her, crushing his wideawake down over his forehead. "Have ye not got a bit song for us? What about the two sailors that pitied all the poor folk in London?"
She only cast down her eyes, and a faint colour suffused her cheeks: our singing-bird had left us.