"Oh, uncle, uncle, uncle!" his nephew cried. "You used never to do such things. You must quit the society of those artists, if they have such a corrupting influence on you."
"I tell ye," he says, with a sudden seriousness, "I would just like to show Tom Galbraith that picture o’ Canna that’s below. No; I would not ask him to alter a thing. Very good—very good it is. And—and—I think—I will admit it—for a plain man likes the truth to be told—there is just a bit jealousy among them against any English person that tries to paint Scotch scenery. No, no, Miss Mary—don’t you be afraid. Ye can hold your own. If I had that picture, now—if it belonged to me—and if Tom was stopping wi’ me at Denny-mains, I would not allow him to alter it, not if he offered to spend a week’s work on it."
After that—what? The Laird could say no more.
Alas! alas! our wish to take a new route northward was all very well; but we had got under the lee of Lismore, and slowly and slowly the wind died away, until even the sea was as smooth as the surface of a mirror. It was but little compensation that we could lean over the side of the yacht, and watch the thousands of "sea-blubbers" far down in the water, in all their hues of blue, and purple, and pale pink. The heat of the sun was blistering; scorching with a sharp pain any nose or cheek that was inadvertently turned towards it. As for the Laird, he could not stand this oven-like business any longer; he declared the saloon was ever so much cooler than the deck; and went down below, and lay at length on one of the long blue cushions.
"Why, John," says Queen T., "you are bringing on those dead calms again. What will Dr. Sutherland say to you?"
But John of Skye has his eye on the distant shore.
"Oh, no, mem," he says, with a crafty smile, "there will not be a dead calm very long."
And there, in at the shore, we see a dark line on the water; and it spreads and spreads; the air becomes gratefully cool to the face before the breeze perceptibly fills the sails; then there is a cheerful swing over of the boom and a fluttering of the as yet unreleased head-sails. A welcome breeze, surely, from the far hills of Kingairloch. We thank you, you beautiful Kingairloch, with your deep glens and your rose-purple shoulders of hills: long may you continue to send fresh westerly winds to the parched and passing voyager!