White Wings: A Yachting Romance, Volume IIBlack, William
General
White Wings: A Yachting Romance, Volume II
Black, William
Yachting -- Fiction
"Miss Avon," Dr. Sutherland again remonstrates, "you have come five or
six miles now. Suppose you have to walk back in the rain?"
"I don’t mind about that," she says, cheerfully. "But I am dreadfully,
dreadfully hungry."
"Then we must push on to Clachaig," says the Laird; "there is no help
for it."
"But wait a moment," she says.
She goes to the side of the road, where the great grey boulders, and
ferns, and moist marsh-grass are, and begins to gather handfuls of
"sourocks;" that is to say, of the smaller sheep’s sorrel. "Who will
partake of this feast to allay the pangs of hunger?"
"Is thy servant a baa-lamb that she should do this thing?" her hostess
says, and drives the girl forward.
The inn is reached but in time; for behold there is a grey "smurr" of
mist coming down the glen; and the rain is beginning to darken the grey
boulders. And very welcome are those chairs, and the bread and cheese
and beer, and the humble efforts in art around the walls. If the feast
is not as the feasting of the Fishmongers—if we have no pretty boxes to
carry home to the children—if we have no glimpses of the pale blue river
and shipping through the orange light of the room, at least we are not
amazed by the appearance of the Duke of Sussex in the garb of a
Highlander. And the frugal meal is substantial enough. Then the
question about getting back arises.
"Now, Mary," says her hostess, "you have got to pay for your amusement.
How will you like walking seven or eight miles in a thunderstorm?"
But here the Laird laughs.
"No, no," he says, going to the window. "That waggonette that has just
come up I ordered at the inn on passing. Ye will not have to walk a
step, my lass; but I think we had better be going, as it looks black
overhead."
Black enough, indeed, was it as we drove back in this silent afternoon,
with a thunderstorm apparently about to break over our heads. And it
was close and sultry when we got on board again, though there was as yet
no wind. Captain John did not like the look of the sky.
"I said you were going to bring a gale with you, Angus," his hostess
remarked to him, cheerfully, at dinner.
"It begins to look like it," he answered, gravely; "and it is getting
too late to run away from here if the wind rises. As soon as it begins
to blow, if I were John, I would put out the starboard anchor."
"I know he will take your advice," she answers, promptly.
We saw little of Angus Sutherland that evening; for it was raining hard
and blowing hard; and the cabin below, with its lit candles, and books
and cards, and what not, was cheerful enough; while he seemed very much
to prefer being on deck. We could hear the howling of the wind through
the rigging, and the gurgling of the water along the sides of the yacht;
and we knew by the way she was swaying that she was pulling hard at her
anchor chain. There was to be no beautiful moonlight for us that night,
with the black shadows on the hills, and the lane of silver on the
water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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