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For many days these favorable circumstances continued, and Liot and David were very happy together; but as they neared the vexed seas which lash Cape Wrath and pour down into the North Minch, Liot had enough to do to keep his boat afloat. He was driven against his will and way almost to the Butt of Lewis; and as his meal and water were very low, he looked for death in more ways than one.
The captain had no sooner heard the news than he cut his cable and to sea again; and before morning broke, we were in the Great Minch. The wind blew very boisterous, and the sea raged extremely.
At Kylakin we were obliged to bring up for the night; but getting under weigh again at daylight, we took a fair wind with us along the east coast of Skye, passed Raasa and Rona, and so across the Minch to Stornaway.
When the Board met, four new lights formed the extent of their intentions Kinnaird Head, in Aberdeenshire, at the eastern elbow of the coast; North Ronaldsay, in Orkney, to keep the north and guide ships passing to the south'ard of Shetland; Island Glass, on Harris, to mark the inner shore of the Hebrides and illuminate the navigation of the Minch; and the Mull of Kintyre.
An engine that runs along the road, that is a small matter; but an engine that can take you up the Sound of Sleat, and across the Minch, and all the way to Stornoway, that is an engine to be talked about!"
Would not they suddenly resolve to leave behind them London and its ways and people, even this monotonous sea out there, and speed away northwardly till they came in sight of the great and rolling Minch, with its majestic breadth of sky and its pale blue islands lying far away at the horizon?
It was therefore decided that the little party should cross the Minch in an open boat and make for the Long Island. For this expedition the very man was forthcoming in the person of the Highland pilot who had accompanied Mr. Macdonald to South Uist. This was old Donald MacLeod of Guatergill, in Skye, a trader of substance and a man of shrewdness and experience.
Wimbush came up to see him, with the inevitable result that when I returned I found him under arms and flushed and feverish, though decorated with the rare flower she had brought him for his button-hole. He came down to dinner, but Lady Augusta Minch was very shy of him. To-day he's in great pain, and the advent of ces dames I mean of Guy Walsingham and Dora Forbes doesn't at all console me.
And Duncan and Scarlett, and even John the Piper all the well-remembered folks who lived far away across the Minch they would ask why Miss Sheila was never coming back. Mrs. Lorraine had been standing aside from the piano. Noticing that Sheila had played the introduction to the song twice over in an undetermined manner, she came forward a step or two and pretended to be looking at the music.
"I can't bear this any longer: I must go and see her." "You'll have to bear worse if you go. You don't know what getting to Lewis is in the winter. You'll be killed with cold before you see the Minch." "I can stand a good bit of cold when there's a reason for it," said the young man; "and I have written to Sheila to say I should start to-morrow." "In that case I had better make use of you.