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"It will be the Revenue cutter he is feared of, Angus," said his father. "The Revenue boat is lying off the White Rock in Lamlash," said Angus. "McNeilage will be getting old and sober." "Wait a wee, Angus wait a wee, my boy." It was another McKinnon, a friend of his own, that spoke. "Things are just right; the wee boats will be in 'e noo.
"Give way together," and it came to me that the quick command had the ring of a Government ship, and I was wondering if the Gull was making for her home port, for my heart somehow warmed to the Gull, and McNeilage, when I would be looking at the loom of that raking black schooner, and hearing the quick short strokes of the oars of the row-boat with no singing or any laughter.
"Ay, a priest gave the packet to a Scots friend o' mine in Rouen, and then it came to me at a tavern in Dantzig. I didna bide long there. I was landed wi' the smugglers at Fowey," says he, "and McNeilage put me ashore last night at the Point and was to leave word for ye. It was a thought gruesome here," says he, "wi' McAllan and the dog among the bones ben there deid?
I am minding he would be calling himself McNeilage the mother o' him was Sassenach." "Would he be speaking o' the Gull?" said I. "No, man, but a party told me," said the old rascal, "a party told me that the skiffs were below Bealach an sgadan before the moon was up, and Tam is thinking that there will be some fine, fine water on the mainland side before the morning afore the more-nin," says he.
"Back on the boats," cried Ronald McKinnon, for well he kent McNeilage would make sail for only one thing, and that was the Government ship; and the sailors drew off quickly with their wounded. The excisemen stood reloading the flintlocks, and Gilchrist, in a flutter of fear, gave no orders until the skiffs were offshore and rowing hard for the Gull, waiting with her sails all aback.
Och, these are the nights to be enjoying. I would whiles take a stick and the dogs and over the hill for it to McKinnon's for a crack with Ronald and Mirren, and then we would go to the Quay Inn and listen to the singing, or talk to McGilp for McGilp had left the sea and settled at McKelvie's, where he was very much respected as a moneyed man, having sold the Seagull to McNeilage, his mate.
Here's tae them, they were good while they lasted," and the unholy wretch smacked his lips as though he relished the memory more than the drink. "Sanny McNeilage, they ca' me. I've seen what I've seen and what ye'll never see I've seen the decks red for a week and all hands drunk;" and then he turned to me, and his face shone with kindliness, "Are ye any man wi' a cutlass, my lad?"
Sometimes yet I can see Helen's face clear-cut upraised against the sky, her curling black hair flying loose, and never, never will I forget her laughing the devilry and the joy of it. Angus McKinnon stretched himself on the shore at the Clates. "I am not liking this waiting," said he to Dan McBride; "McNeilage might have been standing closer in."
And so it proved, for that night McGilp himself was rowed ashore, and his eyes were red as a rabbit's wi' the lashing o' the sea, and the white salt was dried on his beard. With him was McNeilage, his mate, his face red and shining like a well-fed minister, and the drink to his thrapple. "A great night last night," said he.
There were many things to be telling the wanderer that he had got some notion of from McNeilage of the Seagull, but for the most part it was hard to talk to a man walking fast. We came up over the last of the three lonely hills, with bare moorlands and peat hags fornent us, and away below the sea, and I held on for the house on the moor that once was McCurdy's hut.
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