The Cruise of the Snowbird: A Story of Arctic Adventure. Stables Gordon

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.