This last, as the two boats have arrived within less than three lengths of one another. At the same time Ryecroft, drawing tight the port tiller-cord, changes course suddenly, leaving just sufficient sea-way for his oarsman to shave past, and avoid the threatened collision.
Which is done the instant after--to the discomfiture of the would-be capsizers. As the skiff glides lightly beyond their reach, dancing over the river swell, as if in triumph and to mock them, they drop their oars, and send after it a chorus of yells, mingled with blasphemous imprecations.
In a lull between, the Hussar officer at length takes the cigar from his lips, and calls back to them--
"You ruffians! You shall rue it! Shout on--till you're hoarse. There's a reckoning for you, perhaps sooner than you expect."
"Yes, ye d--d scoun'rels!" adds the young waterman, himself so enraged as almost to foam at the mouth. "Ye'll have to pay dear for sich a dastartly attemp' to waylay Jack Wingate's boat. That will ye."
"Bah!" jeeringly retorts one of the roughs. "To blazes wi' you, an' yer boat!"
"Ay, to the blazes wi' ye!" echo the others in drunken chorus; and, while their voices are still reverberating along the adjacent cliffs, the fishing skiff drifts round a bend of the river, bearing its owner and his fare out of their sight, as beyond earshot of their profane speech.
The lawn of Llangorren Court, for a time abandoned to the dumb quadrupeds, that had returned to their tranquil pasturing, is again enlivened by the presence of the two young ladies; but so transformed, that they are scarce recognisable as the same late seen upon it. Of course, it is their dresses that have caused the change; Miss Wynn now wearing a pea jacket of navy blue, with anchor buttons, and a straw hat set coquettishly on her head, its ribbons of azure hue trailing over, and prettily contrasting with the plaits of her chrome-yellow hair, gathered in a grand coil behind. But for the flowing skirt below, she might be mistaken for a young mid, whose cheeks as yet show only the down--one who would "find sweethearts in every port."
Miss Lees is less nautically attired; having but slipped over her morning dress a paletot of the ordinary kind, and on her head a plumed hat of the Neopolitan pattern. For all, a costume becoming; especially the brigand-like head-gear which sets off her finely-chiselled features and skin, dark as any daughter of the South.