White Wings: A Yachting Romance, Volume I. Black William
Macdonald!" exclaims John of Skye, whose professional pride has been wounded. "Will John Macdonald be doing anything more than I wass do myself in the Bull-hole – ay, last year – last year I will tek my own smack out of the Bull-hole at the norse end, and ferry near low water, too; and her deep-loaded? Oh, yes, I will be knowing the Bull-hole this many a year."
And John of Skye is as good as his word. Favoured by a flood-tide, we steal gently into the unfrequented creek, behind the great rocks of red granite; and so extraordinarily clear is the water that, standing upright on the deck, we can see the white sand of the bottom with shoals of young saithe darting this way and that. And then just as we get opposite an opening in the rocks, through which we can descry the northern shores of Iona, and above those the blue peak of the Dutchman, away goes the anchor with a short, quick rush; her head swings round to meet the tide; the White Dove is safe from all the winds that blow. Now lower away the gig, boys, and bear us over the blue waters of the Sound!
"I am really afraid to begin," Mary Avon says, as we remonstrate with her for not having touched a colour-tube since she started. "Besides, you know, I scarcely look on it that we have really set out yet. This is only a sort of shaking ourselves into our places; I am only getting accustomed to the ways of our cabin now. I shall scarcely consider that we have started on our real voyaging until – "
Oh, yes, we know very well. Until we have got Angus Sutherland on board. But what she really said was, after slight hesitation:
" – until we set out for the Northern Hebrides."
"Ay, it's a good thing to feel nervous about beginning," says the Laird, as the long sweep of the four oars brings us nearer and nearer to the Iona shores. "I have often heard Tom Galbraith say that to the younger men. He says if a young man is over confident, he'll come to nothing. But there was a good one I once heard Galbraith tell about a young man that was pentin at Tarbert – that's Tarbert on Loch Fyne, Miss Avon. Ay, well, he was pentin away, and he was putting in the young lass of the house as a fisher-lass; and he asked her if she could not get a creel to strap on her back, as a background for her head, ye know. Well, says she – "
Here the fierce humour of the story began to bubble up in the Laird's blue-grey eyes. We were all half laughing already. It was impossible to resist the glow of delight on the Laird's face.
"Says she – just as pat as ninepence – says she, 'it's your ain head that wants a creel!'"
The explosion was inevitable. The roar of laughter at this good one was so infectious that a subdued smile played over the rugged features of John of Skye. "It's your ain head that wants a creel:" the Laird laughed, and laughed again, until the last desperately suppressed sounds were something like kee! kee! kee! Even Mary Avon pretended to understand.
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