"Time for me to be going also," he replied, looking at his watch. "I have seven miles before me."
"Not if you make use of the Eval ferryboat." She looked at him mischievously.
"I do not intend to make use of it, even to oblige you, Lady Maud. I might meet the professor, and then there would be a petty-assault case."
"Of course! How tiresome you are! I counted on your being here a week at least, and people can unmake ever so many quarrels in seven days."
"Or make them. But the elements are too strong for you, Lady Maud. I told you so."
Rick Halmar came up as, still smiling over the joke, they entered the drawing-room.
"I'm so glad. I was afraid you might not come before I left, and I must go soon."
"Then you can pilot Mr. Lockhart a little way. He has to walk over to Carbost Bay."
"A good bit of the way, you mean," replied Rick, turning his bright face towards Will Lockhart's. "Our ferry is far the shortest; in fact, it's the only road, for the upper-end bridge gave way in the flood last night and the stream isn't fordable yet!"
"What a nuisance the elements are at times; aren't they, Mr. Lockhart?"
"I should think so," assented Rick cheerfully. "Why, we have been trying to get to Eilean-a-fa-ash these three weeks--haven't we, Lady Maud?--without catching a fine day and a suitable tide on the hop together. The sea ford might have done last spring, but it was too rough for the ladies to return by boat, or else too wet. But the first fine day. That is it, isn't it?"
"Yes, Mr. Halmar!" cried Cynthia Strong from the window seat where Captain Weeks was blissfully useful over a skein of wool. "And please order the fine day soon, for I have to go by the next _Clansman_."
"Then I shall go too," murmured the captain.
"I suppose the birds will be getting rather wild by that time," remarked the young lady tartly. Theoretically, she felt bound to despise her admirer and his occupations; practically, his murmurs made her heart beat.
"Wild! Why, they lie like stones on this coast. Something to do with the Gulf Stream, I'm told, though I know nothing myself about these scientific things. But you can kick 'em up and shoot 'em like chickens on the last day of the season."
Captain Weeks laughed,--the true man's laugh of surprised tolerance. "I thought you knew everything, Miss Strong; but I don't suppose they think it worth while to teach girls. It's the 10th of December for grouse, but partridges go on till the beginning of February, and there's no real close time for--" His voice fell to the confidential tone. Eustace Gordon had meanwhile joined the trio at the door.