"That's right, my lass," said the Laird. "Speak up for them who are absent. But, indeed, I think I will go on deck myself now, to see what's going on."
We all went on deck, and there and then unanimously passed a vote of approval on Captain John's proceedings, for the wind had moderated very considerably; and there was a pale suffused light telling of the moon being somewhere behind the fleecy clouds in the south-east. With much content we perceived that the White Dove was already moving out of the dark little harbour. We heard the rush of the sea outside without much concern.
It was a pleasant sailing night after all. When we had stolen by the glare of the solitary lighthouse, and got into the open, we found there was no very heavy sea running, while there was a steady serviceable breeze from the south. There was moonlight abroad too, though the moon was mostly invisible behind the thin drifting clouds. The women, wrapped up, sate hand-in-hand, and chatted to each other; the Doctor was at the tiller; the Laird was taking an occasional turn up and down, sometimes pausing to challenge general attention by some profound remark.
And very soon we began to perceive that Angus Sutherland had by some inscrutable means got into the Laird's good graces in a most marked degree. Denny-mains, on this particular night, as we sailed away northward, was quite complimentary about the march of modern science, and the service done to humanity by scientific men. He had not even an ill word for the Vestiges of Creation. He went the length of saying that he was not scholar enough to deny that there might be various ways of interpreting the terms of the Mosaic chronology; and expressed a great interest in the terribly remote people who must have lived in the lake-dwellings.
"Oh, don't you believe that!" said our steersman good-naturedly. "The scientifics are only humbugging the public about those lake-dwellings. They were only the bath-houses and wash-houses of a comparatively modern and civilised race, just as you see them now on the Lake of a Thousand Islands, and at the mouths of the Amazon, and even on the Rhine. Surely you know the bath-houses built on piles on the Rhine?"
"Dear me!" said the Laird, "that is extremely interesting. It is a novel view—a most novel view. But then the remains—what of the remains? The earthen cups and platters: they must have belonged to a very preemitive race?"
"Not a bit," said the profound scientific authority, with a laugh. "They were the things the children amused themselves with, when their nurses took them down there to be out of the heat and the dust. They were a very advanced race indeed. Even the children could make earthen cups and saucers, while the children now-a-days can only make mud-pies."
"Don't believe him, sir!" their hostess called out; "he is only making a fool of us all."
"Ay, but there's something in it—there's something in it," said the Laird seriously; and he took a step or two up and down the deck, in deep meditation. "There's something in it. It's plausible. If it is not sound, it is an argument. It would be a good stick to break over an ignorant man's head."
Suddenly the Laird began to laugh aloud.