White Wings: A Yachting Romance, Volume III. William Black
not rest satisfied until we see him sail the White Dove into Stornoway harbour!"
CHAPTER II.
ONLY A HEADACHE
Stornoway harbour, indeed! The weather was laughing at us. The glass had steadily fallen until it had got about as low as it could go with decency; and yet this next morning was more beautiful, and bright, and calm than ever! Were we to be for ever confined in this remote Loch of the Burying Place?
"Angus! Angus! where are you?" the Admiral calls out, as she comes up on deck.
"Here I am," calls out a voice in return, from the cross-trees.
She raises her head, and perceives the ruddy-faced Doctor hanging on by the ratlines.
"Where is the fine sailing weather you were to bring us – eh?"
"I have been looking for it," he replies, as he comes down the rigging; "and there is not a breath anywhere."
"Very well," she says, promptly; "I'll tell you what you must do. You must get everybody who can handle a gun into the gig and go away up to the head of the loch there, and shoot every living thing you can see. Do you understand? We are on the brink of starvation! We are perishing! Do you want us to boil tarred rope into soup?"
"No," he says, humbly.
"Very well. Away you go. If you can't bring us any wind to take us into a civilised place, you must provide us with food; is that clear enough?"
Here Captain John comes aft, touching his cap.
"Good morning mem! I was never seeing the like of this weather, mem."
"I don't want to see any more of it," she says, sharply. "Did you bring us in here because there was a convenient place to bury us in? Do you know that we are dying of starvation?"
"Oh, no, mem!" says Captain John, with a grin; but looking rather concerned all the same.
However, her attention is quickly called away by the sound of oars. She turns and regards this small boat approaching the yacht; and the more she looks the more do her eyes fill with astonishment.
"Well, I declare!" she says, "this is about the coolest thing I have seen for ages."
For it is Miss Mary Avon who is rowing the dingay back to the yacht; and her only companion is the Youth, who is contentedly seated in the stern, with his gun laid across his knees.
"Good morning, Mr. Smith!" she says, with the most gracious sarcasm. "Pray don't exert yourself too much. Severe exercise before breakfast is very dangerous."
The Youth lays hold of the rope; there is a fine blush on his handsome face.
"It is Miss Avon's fault," he says; "she would not let me row."
"I suppose she expected you to shoot? Where are the duck, and the snipe, and the golden plover? Hand them up!"
"If you want to see anything in the shape of game about this coast, you'd better wait till next Sunday," says he, somewhat gloomily.
However, after breakfast, we set out for the shallow head of the loch; and things do not turn out so badly after all. For we have only left the yacht some few minutes when there is a sudden whirring of wings – a call of "Duck! duck!" – and the Doctor, who is at the bow, and who is the only one who is ready, fires a snap-shot at the birds. Much to everybody's amazement, one drops, and instantly dives. Then begins an exciting chase. The biorlinn is sent careering with a vengeance; the men strain every muscle; and then another cry directs attention to the point at which the duck has reappeared. It is but for a second. Though he cannot fly, he can swim like a fish; and from time to time, as the hard pulling enables us to overtake him, we can see him shooting this way or that through the clear water. Then he bobs his head up, some thirty or forty yards off; and there is another snap-shot – the charge rattling on the water the fifth part of an instant after he disappears.
"Dear me!" says the Laird; "that bird will cost us ten shillings in cartridges."
But at last he is bagged. A chance shot happens to catch him before he dives; he is stretched on the water, with his black webbed feet in the air; and a swoop of Captain John's arm brings him dripping into the gig. And then our natural history is put to the test. This is no gay-plumaged sheldrake, or blue-necked mallard, or saw-toothed merganser. It is a broad-billed duck, of a sooty black and grey; we begin to regret our expenditure of cartridges; experiments on the flavour of unknown sea birds are rarely satisfactory. But Captain John's voice is authoritative and definite. "It is a fine bird," he says. And Master Fred has already marked him for his own.
Then among the shallows at the head of the loch there is many a wild pull after broods of flappers, and random firing at the circling curlew. The air is filled with the calling of the birds; and each successive shot rattles away with its echo among the silent hills. What is the result of all this noise and scramble? Not much, indeed; for right in the middle of it we are attracted by a strange appearance in the south. That dark line beyond the yacht: is it a breeze coming up the loch? Instantly the chase after mergansers ceases; cartridges are taken out; the two or three birds we have got are put out of the way; and the Laird, taking the tiller ropes, sits proud and erect. Away go the four oars with the precision of machinery; and the long sweep sends the gig ahead at a swinging pace. Behold! behold! the dark blue on the water widening! Is it a race between the wind and the gig as to which will reach the White Dove first? "Give me your oar, Fred!" says the Doctor, who is at the bow.
There is but a momentary pause. Again the shapely boat swings along; and with the measured beat of the oars comes the old familiar chorus —
… Cheerily, and all together!
Ho, ro, clansmen!
A long, strong pull together! —
Ho, ro, clansmen!
Soon the flowing breeze will blow;
We'll show the snowy canvas on her —
Ho, ro, clansmen!
A long, strong pull together! —
Ho, ro, clansmen!
Wafted by the breeze of morn
We'll quaff the joyous horn together! —
Ho, ro, clansmen!
A long, strong pull together! —
Ho, ro, clansmen!
"We'll beat! we'll beat!" cries the Laird, in great delight. "Give it her, boys! Not one halfpennyworth o' that wind will we lose!"
The bow cleaves the blue water; the foam hisses away from her rudder. It is a race of the North against the South. Then the chorus again —
Ho, ro, clansmen!
A long, strong pull together! —
Ho, ro, clansmen!
Hurrah! hurrah! As the gig is run alongside, and guns and birds handed up, that spreading blue has not quite reached the yacht; there is no appreciable stir of the lazy ensign. But there is little time to be lost. The amateurs swing the gig to the davits, while the men are getting in the slack of the anchor chain; the women are incontinently bundled below, to be out of the way of flapping sheets. Then, all hands at the halyards! And by the time the great White Wings are beginning to spread, the breeze stirs the still air around us; and the peak sways gently this way and that; and they who are hard at work at the windlass are no doubt grateful for this cool blowing from the south. Then there is a cessation of noise; we become vaguely aware that we are moving. At last the White Dove has spread her wings; her head is turned towards the south. Good-bye! you lonely loch, with the silent shores and the silent tombs – a hundred farewells to you, wherever we may be going!
And slowly we beat down the loch, against this light southerly breeze. But as we get further and further into the open, surely there is something in the air and in the appearance of the southern sky that suggests that the glass has not been falling for nothing. The sea is smooth; but there is a strange gloom ahead of us; and beyond the islands that we visited yesterday nothing is visible but a wan and sultry glare. Then, afar, we can hear a noise as of the approach of some