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Updated: June 8, 2025
Mabberly tried to persuade the men to remain a little longer, but they were obdurate, so he let them go, knowing well that his father, who was a wealthy merchant and shipowner, would see to the interests of the men who had suffered in his son's service. As they retraced their steps to the house the skipper gave Giles Jackman some significant glances, which induced him to fall behind the others.
Then a fancy took possession of Mabberly namely, to have a "spin out into the Atlantic and see how it looked!" It mattered not to Jackman or Barret what they did or where they went; the first being exuberantly joyous, the other quietly happy. So they had their run out to sea; but twenty-four hours of it sufficed it became monotonous. "I think we'd better go back now," suggested Mabberly.
"I feel inclined to make a lazy day of it and go out with your son Archie," said Mabberly, "to look at the best views for photographing. I had intended to photograph a good deal among the Western Isles, this summer; but my apparatus now lies, with the yacht, at the bottom of the sea." "Yes, in company with my sixteen-shooter rifle," said Giles Jackman, with a rueful countenance.
Next morning, when Mabberly again visited the deck, he found the skipper standing on the same spot where he had left him, apparently in the same attitude, and with the same grave, sleepless expression on his cast-iron features. The boy, Robin Tips, was at the helm, looking very sleepy.
"By all means; as many as the boat will hold," returned the laird. It was finally arranged that, besides those already mentioned, Mabberly, Jackman, MacRummle, Quin, the three boys, Roderick the groom, and Ian Anderson, as boatman in charge, should cross over to the little church at Drumquaich, about eight miles distant by water.
The buckets were passed in uninterrupted succession from the pond to the house, where Mabberly received them at the front door, that being deemed the point where danger and the need for unusual energy began. He passed them in through the smoke of the hall to MacRummle, who handed them to Roderick and the butler.
He was so fond of it that, strange though it may seem to you, gentlemen, he had a curious predilection for pie-bald horses." "Come, now, Mac, don't begin upon your friend Robinson till after dinner." "Has Archie's photography turned out well?" asked Mabberly at this point. "I do a little in that way myself, and am interested as to the result of his efforts to-day."
"Iss it to fush, ye'll be wantin'?" asked Ian, as he ushered the party into his cottage, where Mrs Anderson was baking oat-cakes, and Aggy was busy knitting socks with her thin fingers as deftly and rapidly as if she had been in robust health. "Yes, that is our object to-day," said Mabberly. "Good-day, Mrs Anderson; good-day, Aggy.
They turned the corner of the mansion as he spoke, and certainly did come on Barret's friends, in circumstances, however, which seemed quite unaccountable at first sight, for there, in front of the open door, were not only Bob Mabberly, Giles Jackman, Skipper McPherson, James McGregor, Pat Quin, and Robin Tips, but also Mrs Gordon, the two boy Gordons named respectively, Eddie and Junkie Duncan, the butler, and little Flora, with a black wooden doll in her arms, all standing in more or less awkward attitudes, motionless and staring straight before them as if petrified with surprise or some kindred feeling.
"Agreed," said his companions. "Iss it goin' back you'll be?" asked the skipper. "Yes. Don't you think we may as well turn now?" said Mabberly, who made it a point always, if possible, to carry the approbation of the skipper with him. "I think it wass petter if we had niver come oot." "Why so, Captain?" "Because it's comin' on to plow. Putt her roond, Shames."
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