The Cruise of the Snowbird: A Story of Arctic Adventure

Chapter Seven
A Summer’s Day at Sea – Strange Scenery – The Squall – Adventure among Bottle-Nosed Whales – The “Snowbird.”

The cutter yacht had been riding at anchor for two whole days and nights in the beautiful little bay of Talisker. This bay lies on the west-by-south side of the wonderful Isle of Wings, which we call Skye, and forms, in fact, the mouth or entrance to one of the prettiest glens in all the Highlands. (It is called in the Gaelic language “the winged island,” owing to its peculiar formation.) Let me try to describe it to you then in a few words, but I shall be very clever indeed if I can give you anything like a just conception of its beauty. Suppose you have been standing in from the sea, and have just dropped anchor at the mouth of the glen, which is not more than half a mile in width, you will find on your right hand and on your left tall beetling cliffs, the tops of which are often hidden by the clouds. You may judge of their height when I tell you that the eagles have built their nests for ages on the southern rock. The bay itself is perfectly crescentic, receiving in its centre the waters of a fine salmon stream, while its waves break upon silver sand instead of the usual shingle. The bottom of the glen is perfectly flat, and occupied by well-tilled land; its sides descend precipitously from the table-land above, so much so that the burns or streamlets that form after every summer shower come roaring down over them in white foaming cascades. The upper end of the glen is wooded, and from above the trees peep out the white chimneys of the mansion house of Talisker. This glen or ravine ends in a sugar-loaf mountain of great height, the little pathway to the top of which winds round and round, so that looking at it from below it reminds you forcibly of the pictures of the Tower of Babel, as seen in old-fashioned illustrated Bibles.

Our heroes had been enjoying themselves, fishing in the stream all day, dining with the hospitable squire in the evenings, and going off at nights to sleep on board their little yacht.

“Boys,” said McBain, early in the morning of the third day, “rouse out like good fellows.”

Rory and Allan were soon stirring. Ralph contented himself with simply turning himself round in his oblong hammock, and feebly inquiring, —

“What’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter?” said McBain, sitting down near him; “this is the matter – the morning is far too bright to please me; there is a little wind from the nor’ard, and it seems increasing, and the glass is tumbling down, and we can’t lie here unless we want to leave the bones of the Flower of Arrandoon to bleach on the sands.”

“Och!” cried Rory, in his richest brogue; “it’s very wrong of you to bother the poor English crayture so much. Bring him a cup of tea and leave him alone.”

But Ralph was now fully aroused, and three minutes afterwards the three friends were splashing and dashing in the sea, mounting the rollers, diving and treading water, laughing and joking, and making more noise than all the gulls and kittywakes that screamed around them.

McBain had stopped on board to cook the breakfast, and it was all ready by the time they were dressed – fresh salmon steaks, new-laid eggs, and fragrant coffee.

“Now then, my lads,” cried McBain, “on deck all of you, and stand by to get the anchor up. I’ve sent a message to the squire, saying we must start, and bidding him good-bye for the present.

“Which way are we going, captain?” asked Rory.

“Up north, my lad,” was the reply. “Portree is our destination, and though by going south we would have a favouring wind at first, we would never get past Loch Alsh; besides, if you look at the chart you’ll find that northwards is nearer. And now, Rory, please, no more talk; you just untie the mainsail cover and undo the tyers, that’s your work, because you’re neat.”

“Thank you,” said Rory.

“Mainsheet all right?”

“All right, sir.”

“Well, heave away and shorten cable.

“So – top the boom, hook on, hoist together. Up goes the gaff. Well done, lads, and handily. Belay – why, I have hardly to speak. Well done again. Now, if your sheets are shipshape, up with the jib and foresail.

“Trip the anchor, and on board with it. There we are, Rory; we’re going on the starboard tack a little way; just cant her head. Now she feels it. Belay halyards, and coil the slack. That’s right and not lubberly. Rory, you’ll make the best sailor of the lot of us. No, never mind the topsail for a bit. Presently though. Now I’ll steer for a little. We may have a puff when we clear the cliffs. Meanwhile, hoist your morsel of ensign, and, Rory, fire that farthing gun of yours.”

“The farthing gun made a deal of noise for the price of it, anyhow,” said Rory.

Hardly had the sound ceased reverberating from among the cliffs, when two white puffs of smoke rose up from under the nearest tree, and then, bang! bang! came the sound towards them. “Good-bye” it seemed to say. It was Macallum, the keeper, with his double-barrelled gun.

There was not much of a breeze after all, and plenty of sail being carried, they bowled along beautifully on the starboard tack, sailing moderately, but not too close to the wind. Although every now and then the cutter elevated her bows, and brought them down again with a peevish thud that sent the spray flying from stem to stern, nobody minded that a bit; the weather was warm, the water was warm, and besides they were all encased in oilskins.

Indeed it was one of the most enjoyable cruises they had ever had, counting from their departure from Glen Talisker to their arrival at Portree. McBain knew the coast well. He did not hug it, neither did he put far out to sea; he put her about on the other tack shortly, as if he meant to go up Loch Bacadale. Presently they were not far off Idrigail Point, and the cutter was once more laid on the starboard tack, and sails being trimmed, and everything working well, there was time for conversation.

“Shall I steer?” said Rory, who was never happier than when he was “the man at the wheel.”

“Not just yet,” said McBain; “when we’re round Point Aird, very likely I’ll let you do as you please; but, boys, I’ve got that falling glass on the brain, and I want to take every advantage, and fight for every corner.”

“Look now, Ralph and Rory, you’ve never been so close in-shore before. Allan, don’t you speak, you have. The day is bright and clear; do you see McLeod’s Table?”

“The never a table see I,” said Rory.

“Well,” continued McBain, “that lofty mountain with the flat top is so called.”

“And a precious big feast McLeod could spread there too,” said Allan.

“And a precious big feast he did one time spread,” replied McBain, “if an old Gaelic book of mine is anything to go by.”

“Tell us,” cried Rory, who was always on tiptoe to hear a tale.

“It would seem, then, that the McLeods and the McDonalds were, in old times, deadly foes; although at times they appeared to make it up, and vowed eternal friendship. The chief McLeod invited the McDonalds once to a great ‘foy,’ and after eating and drinking on the top of that great hill, until perhaps they had had more than enough, three hundred armed Highlanders sprang from an ambush among the rocks and slew the McDonalds without mercy. Their flesh was literally given to the eagles, as Walter Scott expresses it, and their bones, which lay bleaching on the mountain top, have long since mouldered to dust.

“On another occasion,” continued McBain, “the McLeods surprised two hundred McDonalds at worship, in a cave, and building fires in front of it, smothered them. The poor half-burned wretches that leapt out through the flames speedily fell by the edge of the sword.”

“What cruel, treacherous brutes those McLeods must have been,” remarked Ralph.

“Well,” said McBain, “war is always cruel, and even in our own day treachery towards the enemy is far from uncommon; but, mind you, the McDonalds were not sinless in this respect either. A chief of this bold clan once invited a chief of the McLeods to dinner in his castle of Duntulm.”

“I wouldn’t have gone a step of my toe,” cried Rory.

“But McLeod did,” said McBain, “and he went unarmed.”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Allan; “it strikes me they were playing the rogue’s game of ‘confidence.’”

“Something very like it, but McDonald apparently didn’t know how kind to be to his guest, and pressed him to eat and drink galore, as we say. McDonald even showed McLeod to his bedroom, and, for the first time perhaps in his lifetime, poor McLeod began to quake when he found himself within the donjon-keep.

“‘There is your bedroom,’ said the stern McDonald. ‘Yonder is where your body will lie, and yonder is where your bones will repose when the rats have done with them.’

“McLeod would have tried to rush out, but strong arms were there to thrust him back. No one came near the prisoner for two days, then through the barred window food was handed him, salt-sodden flesh and a flask of water. He ate greedily, then applied the jar to his lips to quench his thirst. Horror! the water was seawater.”

“And he perished of thirst?” inquired Ralph.

“So the story goes,” replied McBain.

“A chief of the McLeods,” said McBain, “one of the very, very oldest of the chiefs, had a large family of grown-up daughters, and they wouldn’t always obey the old man, and one day, instead of attending upon him – for he was blind – they went to bathe and disport themselves among the billows, but a sea-nymph came and turned them all into stone.”

“And served them right,” said Rory.

“And there they stand; those tall black rocks, well in towards the point yonder, with the white waves dashing among their feet. They are called McLeod’s maidens until this day.”

“Well,” said Ralph, with a quiet smile, “there is no mistake about it – there were giants in those days.”

They were nearly at Dunvegan Head by this time, standing, in fact, well in towards it on the port tack, for the waters are deep even close in-shore. When they had left it on the beam they opened out broad Loch Follart, when McBain, pointing landwards, said, —

“In there is a little bay, called Loch Bay, and by it a rural hamlet or village, which is claimed as the real capital of Skye. It is called Stein.”

“But see, see,” cried Rory. “Is that a geyser rising out of the sea between us and the shore?”

“Why, it is very like a fountain,” said Ralph.

“It is very like a whale,” said Allan, and McBain laughed.

“It is a whale,” he added. “It is the solitary, or caa’in’ whale, and the rascal is in there after the herrings. A more independent brute doesn’t swim in the sea. He ignores a boat. He looks upon mankind as poor, miserable, puny creatures, and I don’t think he would go very far out of his way for a line-of-battle ship.”

An hour or two afterwards they came in sight of Duntulm Castle, previously having passed the little church of Kilmuir, with its bleak-looking stone-built manse. Near it is a graveyard, which had very great interest for poetic Rory.

“Poor Flora McDonald!” he almost sighed. “I always think that Prince Charlie should have taken her away with him to sunny Italy and married her. How beautifully the story of the ill-fated prince would have read had it ended thus!”

“Rory,” said Ralph, “I’ll leave you to dream and romance while I go and see about the luncheon.”

“So like an Englishman,” said Rory.

“Never mind,” replied Ralph; “we can’t be all alike. What if I do prefer roly-poly to romance; don’t the English win all their battles on beefsteak?”

“Yes, it is time for you to dive in,” said Rory, laughing; “but there, hand out my fiddle and I’ll forgive you. If the sea-nymphs will only be kind now,” he continued, “and keep me dry, I’ll play and sing you something appropriate.”

He did, in his sweet tenor voice, accompanying himself with his favourite instrument. He sang them the old song that begins:

 
“Far over the hills and the heather so green,
And down by the corrie that sings to the sea,
The bonnie young Flora sat weeping alane,
The dew on her plaid and the tear in her e’e.
She looked at a boat with the breezes that swung,
Away on the wave like a bird of the main,
And ay as it lessened, she sigh’d and she sung,
‘Fareweel to the lad I shall ne’er see again.’”
 

“’Deed, indeed,” said Rory, in his richest brogue, and with a moisture in his eye, “it is very pretty, and would be romantic entirely if the frizzle, frizzle, frizzle of that Saxon’s frying-pan wouldn’t join in the chorus.”

“Ham and eggs, boys; ham and eggs?” cried Ralph. “Away with melancholy.”

Not far from Duntulm Castle was a house, of which our friends bore the kindliest of recollections, for here they had been most hospitably entertained.

“I wonder,” said Ralph and Rory, almost in the same breath, “if they’ll see us and know us.”

“Fire your gun again, anyhow, Rory,” said McBain.

The gun was run in, loaded and fired, and they had the satisfaction of seeing their friends in the garden waving welcome to them with a Highland plaid. Then the ensign was dipped, the headsails hauled to leeward again, and away they went.

But see, it is getting wonderfully dark ahead, and a misty cloud seems rapidly nearing them, with a long white line right under it.

“Stand by the jib-sheet,” cried McBain. “Ease away; now luff, my lady.”

The cutter was laid nearly lee-rail under, but she bore it wonderfully well. Then sail was taken in, for, said McBain, “We’ll have more of these gentry.” And so they had, and it was more than an hour ere they doubled Ru-Hunish Point, and bore away for the Aird. Once round here the danger was over, and they were no longer on a lee shore.

I myself never could see the good of a squall, either white or black, and either of them are dangerous enough in all conscience when they take you unawares, but it is said there is good in all things. Be this as it may, the squalls the cutter had gone through seemed to clear the summer air in a remarkable manner, for even the glass began to rise, and with it the spirits of those on board.

It was a fair wind now all the way to Portree, and they made the best of it, Rory being once more in his favourite seat with tiller in hand. Past that mysterious mountain called Quiraing, onwards and past the tartan rock, over the precipitous sides of which a cataract was pouring into the sea, so that you might have sailed a boat between the water and the cliff; past the bay of Steinscholl, past the point of Braddan, past the strange weird rocks of Storr, with Rona Isle and Raasay on the weather beam, and the wild white hills of Cuchullin in full view in the far distance, and past Prince Charlie’s cave itself, and now they keep her in more towards the shore, for they are not far from the loch of Portree. Just past the cave they sail through a fleet of fishing boats. The men on board seem greatly excited. They have hauled in their oars, and stand by with great stones in their hands – part of the boat’s ballast – as if watching for a coming foe. But where is this foe? Why, look ahead, the whole sea for half a mile is darkened with an immense shoal of porpoises, driving straight towards the cutter and the boats, turning neither to right nor left, leaping from the water, splashing and dashing, and apparently wild with glee. Small respect have these “sea pigs,” as they are termed in the native language, for the poor fishermen’s nets; if the nets happen to come in their way, through they go, and there is an end of it. How the men shout and scream, to be sure! The bottle-noses take not the slightest heed of them; they are in their own element, so on they come and on they go, the wild shouts of the fishermen are nothing to them, and the stones thrown glide harmlessly off their greasy backs; but they are gone at last, gone like a whirlwind, and the boatmen are left lamenting over their bad luck and their broken nets.

Three hours after this the storm came on in earnest, but the little yacht lay snug at her moorings, and her owners were sipping their coffee after a good dinner in peace.

It was quite late that night before they retired. It mattered little in one way at what time they turned in, for there was small likelihood that the storm now raging across the island would abate before twelve hours at least. And what do you think they talked about? Why, the sea, the sea, and nothing but the sea, and wild adventures here and there in many lands. Again and again they plied McBain with questions about that strange country up in the frozen north, where it was said the mammoth caves lay. And McBain told them all he knew, and all he had ever heard concerning them. It was determined that northwards they should sail and nowhere else.

“What shall we call our coming queen?” said Rory. “What shall we name the yacht?”

“Oh! wait till we see her first,” said Allan.

“Ridiculous!” cried the impetuous Rory. “No, let us call her the Snowbird.”

Chapter Eight
Rolling Home – A Rough Passage – The Welcome Back – The Way a Sailor Sleeps

When the royal eagle, the bird of Jove, paid a visit to the Castle of Arrandoon, and dropped so daringly into the poultry yard, intent only on turkey, it will be remembered that his presence created no little commotion, but I question if the din of even that memorable morning equalled the hubbub that arose when Allan and his friends returned from their four months’ cruise in the cutter.

A letter from Oban had reached Mrs McGregor three days beforehand, so that they were quite expected, and even the probable hour of their arrival in the creek in Glentroom was known.

The voyage from Portree to Oban had been an uneventful one. The wind was favourable all the way, but strong enough to make a glorious passage with a close-reefed mainsail and storm-jib, so they bowled along, impatient now to get back to bonnie Arrandoon. But they did not mind the roughness of the passage; they did not mind the tumbling and the tossing they got; they despised even the danger of being pooped. They made heavy weather just off Ardnamurchan Point. McBain stuck to the tiller, and for a whole hour, or more, perhaps, there was not a word spoken by any one. They are fearful cliffs, those around the wild highlands of Ardnamurchan, black and wet and fearful; the largest ship that ever floated would be dashed to pieces in a few minutes if it had the misfortune to run amongst them. Perhaps our heroes were thinking how little chance their cockle-shell of a cutter would have, if she got carried any where near them, but they kept their thoughts to themselves, and meanwhile the yacht was behaving like the beauty she was. Indeed she seemed positively to enjoy rolling homewards over these great, green, foam-crested seas; for she bobbed and she bowed to the waves; she curtseyed to them and she coquetted with them as if she were indeed a nymph of the sea and a flirt as well. Sometimes she would dip her bowsprit into a wave, as if she meant to go down bows first, but in a moment she had lifted her head again, and tossed the water saucily off, ere ever it had time to reach the well; next she would flood the lee-rail, and make the waves believe they could board her there, then righting again in an instant, after a nod or two to the seas ahead, as much as to say, “Please to observe what I shall do now,” she would sink herself right down by the stern, with the foam surging around her like a boiling cauldron, but never admitted a drop. There were times though, when she sank so far down in the trough of the sea that her sails began to shiver, yet for all that she was uphill again in a second or two, and scudding onwards as merrily as ever.

The seas were shorter in Loch Sunart, they were choppy in the Sound of Mull, and seemed to get bigger and rougher every other mile of the journey; the crew were not sorry, therefore, when the anchor was let go, and the mainsail clewed, in the Bay of Oban.

“Why,” said Ralph, after dinner that day, “we haven’t had such a tossing all the cruise. I declare to you, boys, that every bone of my body aches from top to toe.” McBain laughed.

“You ought to go out,” he said, “for a few nights with the herring boats.”

“Is it rougher,” queried Ralph, “than what we have already gone through?”

“Ten times,” replied McBain.

“Then, if you please,” said Ralph, “don’t send me. I’d rather be excused, Captain McBain, I do assure you.”

“And so our summer cruise is ended,” said Allan, with something very like a sigh.

“And haven’t we enjoyed it too!” said Rory, who was lying on the sofa locker, book in hand. “Troth, boys,” he added, “I didn’t notice, till this very minute, that my book was upside down. It is dreaming I was entirely. Oh! those, beautiful mountains of the Cuchullin, raising their diamond tops into the summer air, with the purple haze beneath them, and the blue sea flecked with white-winged birds! Scenery like this I’ll never get out of my head, and what is more I never wish to, and if ever it does attempt to slip away, sure I’ve only to shut my eyes and play that sweetest of old reveries, ‘Tha mi tinn leis a ghoal,’ (The Languor of Love), and it will all, all come back again.”

“And we’ve had the very best of eating and drinking all the time, you know,” Ralph said.

“And it hasn’t cost us much,” added Allan.

Rory looked first at one and then at the other of his friends, apparently more in sorrow than in anger; then he resumed his book, this time with the right side up.

“I’ve been keeping tally,” continued Allan, addressing himself more particularly to McBain, “of all that our voyage has cost us, and taking everything into consideration, I find that we couldn’t have travelled half so cheaply on shore, nor could we have lived as cheaply even at home. We did not pay much for the cutter and all her fittings, and if we had cared to do a little more fishing, and sent more boxes of lobsters down with the southern steamers, I think we would positively have made a good deal of profit.”

“You are thoroughly practical,” said Ralph; “I like you for that.”

“Well, but,” said Allan, half apologetically, “neither of us, you know, is extra rich, and I think it is some satisfaction to look back to a time spent most pleasantly and enjoyably, without either extra expenditure, or – or – what shall I say?”

“Prodigality,” suggested Ralph.

“That word will do,” said Allan; “but I do declare I’m nearly half asleep.”

“I expect,” said McBain, trying to repress a yawn, “that we will all sleep to-night without rocking.”

Two hours afterwards they were all asleep, and the yacht rose and fell gently on the rippling water, the moon shone over the mountains, making the houses in the little town all look as if their walls were marble and their slated roofs were burnished gold.

They would have gone right up Loch Linnhe, instead of calling at Oban, only Rory wished to do a little extra varnishing and gilding before their return, so they stopped here for two days.

Yes, there is no mistake about it, there was a commotion in and around the old castle. As Allan and his friends came filing up the glen, headed by Peter, who had gone to meet them with the bagpipes, in true Highland fashion, I think the dogs were the first to hear the wild joyous notes of the pibroch. Every one of them found his way out into the courtyard; the inner gate of the drawbridge was closed, so Oscar and Bran stood and barked at it, just as if that would open it; the smaller dogs yapped at their heels, for whatsoever Bran and Oscar did, the collie and Skyes followed suit; every feathered biped about the place joined in the chorus, and then, for just a moment, there was a slight lull, and Allan’s favourite pony was heard laughing loud and shrill to himself in the stables.

“Och! and och!” cried old Janet, rushing out to open the gate for the dogs, “it’s the happy day for old Yonish (Janet) and it’s the happy day for the whole of us. Go doggies, go craytures, and meet the dear master!”

The dogs needed no pressing. Headed by Bran, with Oscar in the rear – for these dogs always kept up a certain decorum in presence of the others – out they rushed, and next moment Allan was in the midst of them.

He would not check them in their glee for all the world, but, with Bran on one side of him, and Collie on the other, and all the Skyes dancing round his feet, it must be confessed that for fully five minutes he had rather a rough time of it. Oscar, after kissing his master on the ear, picked off his hat, and trotted away back with it to the castle.

So Allan returned bareheaded, but laughing, to receive the affectionate greetings of his mother and sister. But who is that tall, handsome, elderly gentleman in company with the latter? You would have required no answer to that question had you but seen the rich blood mantling in Ralph’s cheeks the moment he saw him, or marked the glad glitter in his eyes. He seemed to clear the drawbridge at a couple of bounds.

“Father! father!”

“Ralph, boy!”

“Your runaway son,” said Ralph, laughing.

“My sailor boy!” said his father, smiling in his turn.

Those last words made Ralph’s heart bound with joy. He knew his father well, and he knew when he said “my sailor boy” that he did not mean to repent his promise anent the yacht.

Allan was talking to his mother and sister, Helen McGregor hanging on his arm, and looking fondly up in his face.

But poor Irish Rory stood shyly by himself, close by the drawbridge gate. At present there was nobody to speak to him; for the time being, at all events, there was no one to bid him welcome back.

“Och!” he said to himself, with a sigh, “the never a father nor mother have I. Sure I never remember feeling before that I was an orphan entirely.”

A big cold nose was thrust into his hand. Then a great dog rubbed its shoulder with rough but genuine kindness against his legs. It was Bran’s mother, and her behaviour affected him so that he was almost letting fall a tear on her honest head, when he suddenly spied old Janet, and off went the cloud from his brow in a moment – and off went he, to pump-shake the old lady by the hand, and vow to her that this was the happiest day in his life.

And old Janet must needs wipe her eyes with her apron as she called him, much to his amusement, “mo chree” and “mo ghoal” (love), and “the bonnie boy that he was,” and a hundred other flattering and endearing epithets, that made Rory laugh and pump-shake her hand again, and feel on the whole as merry as a cricket. But when Helen herself came running towards him, and placed both her hands in his and welcomed him “home,” then his cup of joy was about full, and he entirely forgot he was an orphan. Then she dragged him over to her mother, and the first greetings over —

“Isn’t he sunburnt?” said Helen; “but do, mamma, look at Allan and his friend.”

“Well,” said Allan, “what colour are we?”

“Oh, just like flower-pots,” said Helen, laughing.

That same afternoon Allan was sitting talking to Rory in his “sulky,” when in burst Ralph. He had just returned from a long walk with his father, and he was looking all over joyous.

“Why, what do you think, boys?” he cried, rubbing his hands, and then making believe to punch Allan in the ribs; “what do you think, old man?” he added.

“Something very nice, I’ll be bound,” said Allan, “or staid steady Ralph would not be so far off his balance.”

“It is pleasant in the extreme,” said Ralph, taking a seat in front of them, “and so very unexpected too.

“Now guess what it is.”

“Oh; but we can’t, we never could,” said his friends.

“Out with it, Ralph,” cried Allan, “don’t keep us in ‘tig-tire.’”

“Yes, don’t be provoking, Ralph,” added Rory.

“Well, then,” said Ralph, speaking very slowly, just a word at a time, “father – has – been – down – to Cowes – and – bought – ”

“The yacht!” cried Allan, interrupting him. “Hurrah!”

“Just one moment, my boys,” cried Rory. “I must blow off steam or I’ll burst.” So saying, he seized his violin and commenced playing one of the wildest, maddest Irish melodies ever they had listened to. You might have called the air a jig, but there was a certain sadness in it, as there is in even the merriest of Ireland’s melodies; tenderness breathed through every bar of it. You might have imagined while Rory played that you saw his countrymen dancing at a wake, and heard even their wild “Hooch!” but at the same time you could not help fancying you saw the mourners crooning over the coffin, and heard the broken-hearted wail of the coronach.

Both Allan and Ralph were pretty well used to all Rory’s queer, passionate, and impulsive ways, and so they always gave him what sailors call “plenty of rope,” and landsmen call “latitude.”

When he had finished and quieted down, then did Ralph explain to his friends all about the purchase of the yacht.

“Not a toy, mind you,” he said, “a really first-rate seagoing schooner-yacht, A1 at Lloyd’s, and all that sort of thing. New only three years ago, copper fastenings, wire rigging, and everything complete.”

“And what is her size?” said Allan.

“Oh?” said Ralph, “there is plenty of room to swing a cat in her, I can assure you; she is nearly two hundred tons.”

“Two hundred tons! why she’ll take some managing, won’t she?”

“Father says she will be as easily sailed with the crew we will have, and with ordinary caution, as our little cutter yacht.”

“Of course,” said Rory, “we will have trial trips and all that sort of thing.”

“Ay, ay, lad,” said Ralph; “but don’t you imagine that my father will trust this fine yacht in such juvenile hands as ours, without an experienced sailing-master being on board.”

“And I wonder who that will be,” said Rory, “for you know we wouldn’t take to every stranger.”

“Boys,” said Allan, “I don’t think we will have a stranger over us as sailing-master. I can tell you a bit of a secret; or perhaps, Ralph, you can guess it, if I ask you a question or two. Well, then, what do you think McBain has been studying his Rosser so earnestly for these last many months?”

“I have it,” cried Rory, “sure he’s going to take out a Board of Trade certificate as master.”

“You’re right,” said Allan, “and I think he could take one now even, for he is well up in navigation. He is well up in logarithms, and a capital arithmetician, I won’t say mathematician, though he knows something of mathematics as well. He can take his latitude and longitude, and can lay the place of a vessel on the chart. He knows how to use his sextant well, and can adjust it by the sun; he can take lunars and find his latitude by a star, and he knows everything about compasses and chronometers, and mind you that is saying a good deal. And he can observe azimuths too, and he knows many things more that I can’t tell you about; he says himself he can work a day’s work well, and I for one wouldn’t mind sailing anywhere with him; but he doesn’t mean going up yet for three months. McBain may be slow, but he is sure.”