Three Boys | Page 8

Chief."
"She isn't, Scood. Oh, what an old dummy you are!"
"Well, so she is the chief."
"So she is! Ah, you! Look here, you, Max Blande: my father's the Chief of the Clan Mackhai."
"Is he? Is it much further, to the grey mare's stable?" faltered the passenger.
The two boys roared with laughter, Max gazing from one to the other rather pitifully.
"Did I say something very stupid?" he asked mildly.
"Yes, you said stable," cried Kenneth, wiping his eyes. "I say, Scood, wait till he sees the Grey Mare."
"Yes; wait till she sees the Grey Mare," cried Scood, bending double with mirth.
Max drew in a long breath, and gazed straight before him at the sea, and then to right and left of the fiord through which they were rapidly sailing. He saw the shore some three miles away on their left, and a couple to their right, a distance which they were reducing, as the boat, with the wind well astern, rushed on.
"It's too bad to laugh at you," said Kenneth, smoothing the wrinkles out of his face.
"I don't know what I said to make you laugh," replied Max, with a piteous look.
"Then wait till you see the Grey Mare's Tail, and you will."
"I don't think I want to see it. I would rather you set me ashore, and let me walk."
"Didn't I tell you that you couldn't walk home? Besides, every one goes to see the Grey Mare's Tail--eh, Scood?"
There was a nod and a mirthful look which troubled the visitor, who sat with his face contracted, and a spasm seeming to run through him every time the boat made a leap and dive over some wave.
They were running rapidly now toward a huge mass of rock, which ran gloomy looking and forbidding into the sea, evidently forming one of the points of a bay beyond. The mountains came here very close to the sea, and it was as if by some convulsion of nature the great buttress had been broken short off, leaving a perpendicular face of rock, along whose narrow ledges grey and black birds were sitting in scores.
"See the birds?" cried Kenneth, as they sped on rapidly, Max gaining a little confidence as he found that the boat did not go right over from the pressure of the wind on the sail.
"Are those birds?" he said.
"Yes; gulls and cormorants and puffins. Did you feed Macbrayne's pigeons as you came along?"
"No," said Max quietly; "I did not see them."
"Oh, come, I know better than that. Didn't you come up Loch Fyne in the Columba?"
"The great steamer? Yes."
"Well, didn't you see a large flock of grey gulls flying with you all the way?"
"Oh yes, and some people threw biscuits to them. They were like a great grey and white cloud."
"Well, I call them Macbrayne's pigeons."
"Are we going ashore here?" said Max eagerly, as they neared the point, about which the swift tide foamed and leaped furiously, the waves causing a deep, low roar to rise as they fretted among the tumbled chaos of rocks.
"I hope not. Eh, Scood?"
"Hope not! Why?"
"Because the sea would knock the boat to pieces. That's all."
"Hah!"
Max drew his breath with a low hiss, and gazed sharply from Kenneth to the foaming water they were approaching so swiftly, and now, with the little knowledge he had gained, the lowering mass of rock began to look terribly forbidding, and the birds which flew shrieking away seemed to be uttering cries of warning.
"Hadn't you better pull the left rein--I mean steer away, if it's so dangerous?"
"No; I'm going in between those two rocks, close in. Plenty of water now, isn't there, Scood?"
"Not plenty; enough to clear the rock," was the reply.
"Sit fast, and you'll see what a rush through we shall go. Hold tight."
Max set his teeth, and his eyes showed a complete circle of white about the iris as the boat careened over, and, feeling now the current which raced foaming around the point, he had a strange catching of the breath, while his hands clung spasmodically to the thwart and side.
The huge mass of frowning rock seemed to be coming to meet them; the grey-winged birds flew hither and thither; the water, that had been dark blue flecked with white, suddenly became one wild race of foam, such as he had seen behind the paddle-boxes of the steamers during his run up from Glasgow. There was the perpendicular wall on his right, and a cluster of black crags on his left, and toward these the boat was rushing at what seemed to him a terrific rate. It was like running wildly to their death; but Kenneth was seated calmly holding the tiller, and Scood half lay back, letting one hand hang over and splash amongst the foam.
Hiss, roar, rush, and a spray of spattering drops of the beaten waves