"Oh, that will be very pleasant," said she, immediately beginning to put away her colours. "What a fine breeze! I am sure I shall be ready in fifteen minutes."
Then the usual bustle began; messages flying up and down, and the gig and dingay racing each other to the shore and back again. By twelve o'clock everything had been got on board. Then the White Dove gently glided away from her moorings; we had started on our last and longest voyage.
It seemed innumerable ages since we had been in our sea-home. And that first glance round the saloon—as our absent friend the Doctor had remarked—called up a multitude of recollections, mostly converging to a general sense of snugness, and remoteness, and good fellowship. The Laird sank down into a corner of one of the couches, and said—
"Well, I think I could spend the rest of my days in this yacht. It seems as if I had lived in it for many, many years."
But Miss Avon would not let him remain below; it was a fine sailing day; and very soon we were all on deck. A familiar scene?—this expanse of blue sea, curling with white here and there; with a dark blue sky overhead, and all around the grand panorama of mountains in their rich September hues? The sea is never familiar. In its constant and moving change, its secret and slumbering power, its connection with the great unknown beyond the visible horizon, you never become familiar with the sea. We may recognise the well-known landmarks as we steal away to the north—the long promontory and white lighthouse of Lismore, the ruins of Duart, the woods of Scallasdale, the glimpse into Loch Aline—and we may use these things only to calculate our progress; but always around us is the strange life, and motion, and infinitude of the sea, which never becomes familiar.
We had started with a light favourable wind, of the sort that we had come to call a Mary-Avon-steering breeze; but after luncheon this died away, and we lay icily for a long time opposite the dark green woods of Fuinary. However, there was a wan and spectral look about the sunshine of this afternoon, and there were some long, ragged shreds of cloud in the southern heavens—just over the huge round shoulders of the Mull mountains—that told us we were not likely to be harassed by any protracted calms. And, in fact, occasional puffs and squalls came over from the south which, if they did not send us on much farther, at least kept everybody on the alert.
And at length we got it. The gloom over the mountains had deepened, and the streaks of sunlit sky that were visible here and there had a curious coppery tinge about them. Then we heard a hissing in towards the shore, and the darkening band on the sea spread rapidly out to us; then there was a violent shaking of blocks and spars, and, as the White Dove bent to the squall, a most frightful clatter was heard below, showing that some careless people had been about. Then away went the yacht like an arrow! We cared little for the gusts of rain that came whipping across from time to time. We would not even go down to see what damage had been done in the cabins. John of Skye, with his savage hatred of the long calms we had endured, refused to lower his gaff topsail. At last he was "letting her have it."
We spun along, with the water hissing away from our wake; but the squall had not had time to raise anything of a sea, so there was but little need for the women to duck their heads to the spray. Promontory after promontory, bay after bay was passed, until far ahead of us, through the driving mists of rain, we could make out the white shaft of Ru-na-Gaul lighthouse. But here another condition of affairs confronted us. When we turned her nose to the south, to beat in to Tobermory harbour, the squall was coming tearing out of that cup among the hills with an exceeding violence. When the spray sprang high at the bows, the flying shreds of it that reached us bore an uncommon resemblance to the thong of a whip. The topsail was got down, the mizen taken in, and then we proceeded to fight our way into the harbour in a series of tacks that seemed to last only a quarter of a second. What with the howling of the wind, that blew back his orders in his face; and what with the wet decks, that caused the men to stumble now and again; and what with the number of vessels in the bay, that cut short his tacks at every turn, Captain John of Skye had an exciting time of it. But we knew him of old. He "put on" an extra tack, when there was no need for it, and slipped though between a fishing-smack and a large schooner, merely for the sake of "showing off." And then the White Dove was allowed to go up to the wind, and slowly slackened her pace, and the anchor went out with a roar. We were probably within a yard of the precise spot where we had last anchored in the Tobermory bay.
It blew and rained hard all that evening, and we did not even think of going on deck after dinner. We were quite content as we were. Somehow a new and secret spirit of cheerfulness had got possession of certain members of this party, without any ostensible cause. There was no longer the depression that had prevailed about West Loch Tarbert. When Mary Avon played bezique with the Laird, it was to a scarcely audible accompaniment of "The Queen's Maries."
Nor did the evening pass without an incident worthy of some brief mention. There is, in the White Dove, a state-room which really acts as a passage, during the day, between the saloon and the forecastle; and when this state-room is not in use, Master Fred is in the habit of converting it into a sort of pantry, seeing that it adjoins his galley. Now, on this evening, when our shifty Friedrich d'or came in with soda-water and such like things, he took occasion to say to the Rear-Admiral of the Fleet on board—