The evening arrived on which the greater part of the boats was to put off for the first assay. Malcolm would have made one in the little fleet, for he belonged to his friend Joseph Mair’s crew, had it not been found impossible to get the new boat ready before the following evening; whence, for this one more, he was still his own master, with one more chance of a pleasure for which he had been on the watch ever since Lady Florimel had spoken of having a row in his boat. True, it was not often she appeared on the shore in the evening; nevertheless he kept watching the dune with his keen eyes, for he had hinted to Mrs Courthope that perhaps her young lady would like to see the boats go out. Although it was the fiftieth time his eyes had swept the links in vague hope, he could hardly believe their testimony when now at length he spied a form, which could only be hers, looking seaward from the slope, as still as a sphinx on Egyptian sands. He sauntered slowly towards her by the landward side of the dune, gathering on his way a handful of the reddest daisies he could find; then, ascending the sand-hill, approached her along the top. “Saw ye ever sic gowans in yer life, my leddy?” he said, holding out his posy. “Is that what you call them?” she returned. “Ow ay, my leddy--daisies _ye_ ca’ them. I dinna ken but yours is the bonnier name o’ the twa--gien it be what Mr Graham tells me the auld poet Chaucer maks o’ ’t.” “What is that?” “Ow, jist the een o’ the day--the _day’s eyes_, ye ken. They’re sma’ een for sic a great face, but syne there’s a lot o’ them to mak up for that. They’ve begun to close a’ready, but the mair they close the bonnier they luik, wi’ their bits o’ screwed-up mooies (_little mouths_). But saw ye ever sic reid anes, or ony sic a size, my leddy?” “I don’t think I ever did. What is the reason they are so large and red?” “I dinna ken. There canna be muckle nourishment in sic a thin soil, but there maun be something that agrees wi’ _them_. It’s the same a’ roon’ aboot here.” Lady Florimel sat looking at the daisies, and Malcolm stood a few yards off watching for the first of the red sails, which must soon show themselves, creeping out on the ebb tide. Nor had he waited long before a boat appeared, then another and another--six huge oars, ponderous to toil withal, urging each from the shelter of the harbour out into the wide weltering plain. The fishing-boat of that time was not decked as now, and each, with every lift of its bows, revealed to their eyes a gaping hollow, ready, if a towering billow should break above it, to be filled with sudden death. One by one the whole fleet crept out, and ever as they gained the breeze, up went the red sails, and filled: aside leaned every boat from the wind, and went dancing away over the frolicking billows towards the sunset, its sails, deep-dyed in oak-bark, shining redder and redder in the growing redness of the sinking sun.