“It is not the sort of fun I can appreciate, Mr Vine,” said Leslie, turning as he reached the stern of the boat.
“Well, I know that,” cried Harry mockingly. “Scotchmen never can appreciate a joke.”
“There, ladies, what did I tell you?” cried Pradelle triumphantly.
There was no reply, and the visitor from London winced, for his presence in the boat seemed to be thoroughly de trop.
“Miss Vine – Miss Van Heldre,” said Leslie quietly, “will you change places now? Get right aft and we will climb in over the bows.”
“But the boat?” faltered Louise, whose emotion was so great that she could hardly trust herself to speak.
“We’ll see to that,” said Leslie. “Your brother and I will row back.”
It did not seem to trouble him now that the two girls took their places, one on either side of Pradelle, while as soon as they were seated he climbed in streaming with water, seating himself on the gunwale, Harry climbing in on the other side.
“Harry, how could you?” cried Louise, now, with an indignant look.
“Easily enough,” he said, seating himself calmly. “Thought you’d lost me?”
He looked at Madelaine as he spoke, but she turned her face away biting her lips, and it was Louise who replied:
“I did not think you could have been so cruel.”
“Cruel be hanged!” he retorted. “Thought I’d find out whether I was of any consequence after all. You people seem to say I’m of none. Did they begin to cry, Vic?”
“Oh, I’m not going to tell tales,” said Pradelle with a smile.
“I should have had a pipe in there, only my matches had got wet.”
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Pradelle, and the mirth sounded strange there beneath the rocks, and a very decided hiss seemed to come from out of the low rugged opening.
“Try again, Vic,” said Harry mockingly, but his friend made no reply, for he was staring hard and defiantly at Leslie, who, as he handled his oar, gave him a calmly contemptuous look that galled him to the quick.
“Ready, Leslie?” said Harry.
“Yes.”
The oars dipped, Leslie pulling stroke, and the boat shot out from its dangerous position among the rocks, rose at a good-sized swelling wave, topped it, seemed to hang as in a balance for a moment, and then glided down and went forward in response to a few vigorous strokes.
“Never mind the tiller, Vic,” said Harry; “let it swing. We can manage without that. All right, girls?”
There was no reply.
“Sulky, eh? Well, I’d a good mind to stop in. Sorry you got so wet, Leslie.”
Still no reply.
“Cheerful party, ’pon my word!” said Harry, with a contemptuous laugh. “Hope no one objects to my smoking.”
He looked hard at Madelaine, but she avoided his gaze, and he uttered a short laugh.
“Got a cigar to spare, Vic?”
“Yes, dear boy, certainly.”
“Pass it along then and the lights. Hold hard a minute, Leslie.”
The latter ceased rowing as Pradelle handed a cigar and the matches to his friend.
“Will you take one, Mr Leslie?” said Pradelle.
“Thanks, no,” said Leslie quietly, and to the would-be donor’s great relief, for he had only two left. Then once more the rowing was resumed, Pradelle striking a match to light a cigar for himself, and then recollecting himself and throwing the match away.
“Well, we’re enjoying ourselves!” cried Harry after they had proceeded some distance in silence. “I say, Vic, say something!”
Pradelle had been cudgelling his brains for the past ten minutes, but the more he tried to find something à propos the more every pleasant subject seemed to recede.
In fact it would have been difficult just then for the most accomplished talker to have set all present at their ease, for Harry’s folly had moved his sister so that she feared to speak lest she should burst into a hysterical fit of weeping, and Madelaine, as she sat there with her lips compressed, felt imbued with but one desire, which took the form of the following words:
“Oh, how I should like to box his ears!”
“Getting dry, Leslie?” said Harry after a long silence.
“Not very,” was the reply.
“Ah well, there’s no fear of our catching cold pulling like this.”
“Not the slightest,” said Leslie coldly; then there was another period of silence, during which the water seemed to patter and slap the bows of the boat, while the panorama of rock and foam and glittering cascade, as the crags were bathed by the Atlantic swell, and it fell back broken, seemed perfectly fresh and new as seen from another point of view.
At last Harry, after trying two or three times more to start a conversation, said shortly —
“Well, this is my last day at home, and I think I ought to say, ‘Thank goodness!’ This is coming out for a pleasant sail, and having to row back like a galley-slave! Oh, I beg your pardon, ladies! All my mistake. I am highly complimented. All this glumminess is because I am going away.”
He received such a look of reproach that he uttered an angry ejaculation and began to pull so hard that Leslie had to second his movement to keep the boat’s head straight for the harbour, whose farther point soon after came in sight, with two figures on the rocks at the end.
“Papa along with Uncle Luke,” said Louise softly.
“Eh?” said Harry sharply; “the old man still fishing?”
“Yes,” said Louise rather coldly; “and, Maddy, dear, is not that Mr Van Heldre?”
Madelaine shaded her eyes from the western sun, where it was sinking fast, and nodded.
“Where shall we land you?” said Harry sulkily now, “at the point, or will you go up the harbour?”
“If there is not too much sea on, at the point,” said Louise gravely.
“Oh, I dare say we can manage that without wetting your plumes,” said the young man contemptuously; and after another ten minutes’ pulling they reached the harbour mouth and made for the point, where Uncle Luke stood leaning on his rod watching the coming boat, in company with a tall grey man with refined features, who had taken off the straw hat he wore to let the breeze play through his closely-cut hair, while from time to time he turned to speak either to Uncle Luke or to the short thick set man who, with his pointed white moustache and closely clipped peaked beard, looked in his loose holland blouse like a French officer taking his vacation at the seaside.
“Mind how you come,” said the latter in a sharp, decided way. “Watch your time, Leslie. Back in, my lad. Can you manage it, girls?”
“Oh, yes,” they cried confidently. “Sit still then till the boat’s close in, then one at a time. You first, my dear.”
This to Louise, as he stepped actively down the granite rocks to a narrow natural shelf, which was now bare, now several inches deep in water.
“If we manage it cleverly we can get you ashore without a wetting.”
The warnings were necessary, for the tide ran fast, and the Atlantic swell made the boat rise and fall, smooth as the surface was.
“Now then,” cried the French-looking gentleman, giving his orders as if he were an officer