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White Wings: A Yachting Romance, Volume III
White Wings: A Yachting Romance, Volume III
CHAPTER I.
A CONFESSION
What could the solitary scouts, coming back from the various points of the island, know of this quick, unwilling cry of pain, and of the forced calm that followed it? They had their own sorrows. There was a gloom upon their faces. One and all bore the same story – not a seal, not a wild duck, not even a rock pigeon anywhere.
"But it is a fine thing to be able to straighten one's back," says the Laird, who always seizes on the cheerful side; "and we have not given up hope of your getting the sealskin yet, Miss Mary – no, no. The Doctor says they are away hunting just now; when the tide gets low again they will come up on the rocks. So the best thing we can do is to spend plenty of time over our luncheon, and cross the island again in the afternoon. Aye; begun already?" adds the Laird, as he goes up to the canvas, and regards the rough outlines in charcoal with a critical air. "Very good! very good!" he says, following the lines with his thumb, and apparently drawing in the air. "Excellent! The composeetion very clever indeed – simple, bold, striking. And a fine blaze of colour ye'll have on a day like this; and then the heavy black hull of the smack bang in the foreground: excellent, excellent! But if I were you, I would leave out that rock there; ye would get a better sweep of the sea. Don't distract the eye in sea pieces; bold lines – firm, sound colour: and there ye are. Well, my lass, ye have the skill of constructing a picture. Tom Galbraith himself would admit that, I know – "
But here the Laird is called away by his hostess.
"I would advise you, sir," says she, "to have some luncheon while you can get it. It is a very strange thing, with all you gentlemen on board, and with all those guns lying about, but we are drawing nearer and nearer to starvation. I wish you would give up hunting seals, and shoot something useful."
Here our young Doctor appears with certain bottles that have been cooling in the water.
"There must be plenty of rock pigeons in the caves we passed this morning, on the other island," he says.
"Oh, not those beautiful birds!" says she of the empty larder. "We cannot have Hurlingham transported to the Highlands."
"Whoever trys to shoot those pigeons won't find it a Hurlingham business," he remarks.
But the Laird has a soul above luncheons, and larders, and pigeon-shooting. He is still profoundly absorbed in thought.
"No," he says, at length, to the young lady who, as usual, is by his side. "I am wrong!"