and was
listening to Peter's intemperate words with a very evil smile.

"How much did ye sell yoursel' for, Sandy Beg? It took the son of a
Hieland robber like you to tell tales of a honest man's cargo. It was
an ill day when the Scots cam to Orkney, I trow."

"She'll hae petter right to say tat same 'fore lang time." And Sandy's
face was dark with a subdued passion that Peter might have known to be
dangerous, but which he continued to aggravate by contemptuous
expressions regarding Scotchmen in general.

This John Sabay was in no mood to bear; he very soon took offence at
Peter's sweeping abuse, and said he would relieve him at any rate of
one Scot. "He didna care to sail again wi' such a crowd as Peter
gathered round him."

It was a very unadvised speech. Ragon lifted it at once, and in the
words which followed John unavoidably found himself associated with
Sandy Beg, a man whose character was of the lowest order. And he had
meant to be so temperate, and to part with both Peter and Ragon on the
best terms possible. How weak are all our resolutions! John turned
away from Peter's store conscious that he had given full sway to all
the irritation and disappointment of his feelings, and that he had
spoken as violently as either Peter, Ragon, or even the half-brutal
Sandy Beg. Indeed, Sandy had said very little; but the malignant look
with which he regarded Peter, John could never forget.

This was not his only annoyance. Paul Calder's boats were fully
manned, and the others had already left for Brassey's Sound. The
Sabays were not rich; a few weeks of idleness would make the long
Orkney winter a dreary prospect. Christine and his mother sat from
morning to night braiding straw into the once famous Orkney Tuscans,
and he went to the peat-moss to cut a good stock of winter fuel; but
his earnings in money were small and precarious, and he was so anxious
that Christine's constant cheerfulness hurt him.

Sandy Beg had indeed said something of an offer he could make "if
shentlemans wanted goot wages wi' ta chance of a lucky bit for
themsel's; foive kuineas ta month an' ta affsets. Oigh! oigh!" But
John had met the offer with such scorn and anger that Sandy had
thought it worth while to bestow one of his most wicked looks upon
him. The fact was, Sandy felt half grateful to John for his apparent
partisanship, and John indignantly resented any disposition to put him
in the same boat with a man so generally suspected and disl