med so hateful
to her?

"Hamish," said Macleod, abruptly, after reading one of these letters,
"come, now, we will go and overhaul the _Umpire_, for you know she is to
be made very smart this summer; for we have people coming all the way
from London to Dare, and they must not think we do not know in Mull how
to keep a yacht in shipshape."

"Ay, sir," said Hamish; "and if we do not know that in Mull, where will
they be likely to know that?"

"And you will get the cushions in the saloon covered again; and we will
have a new mirror for the ladies' cabin, and Miss Macleod, if you ask
her, will put a piece of lace round the top of that, to make it look
like a lady's room. And then, you know, Hamish, you can show the little
boy Johnny Wickes how to polish the brass; and he will polish the brass
in the ladies' cabin until it is as white as silver. Because, you know,
Hamish, they have very fine yachts in the South. They are like hotels on
the water. We must try to be as smart as we can."

"I do not know about the hotels," said Hamish, scornfully. "And perhaps
it is a fine thing to hef a hotel; and Mr. M'Arthur they say he is a
ferry rich man, and he has ferry fine pictures too; but I was thinking
that if I will be off the Barra Head on a bad night--between the
Sgriobh bhan and the Barra Head on a bad night--it is not any hotel I
will be wishing that I wass in, but a good boat. And the _Umpire_ she is
a good boat; and I hef no fear of going anywhere in the world with
her--to London or to Inverary, ay, or the Queen's own castle on the
island--and she will go there safe, and she will come back safe; and if
she is not a hotel--well, perhaps she will not be a hotel; but she is a
fine good boat, and she has swinging lamps whatever."

But even the presence of the swinging-lamps, which Hamish regarded as
the highest conceivable point of luxury, did little to lessen the
dolorousness of the appearance of the poor old _Umpire_. As Macleod,
seated in the stern of the gig, approached her, she looked like some
dingy old hulk relegated to the duty of keeping stores. Her top-mast and
bowsprit removed; not a stitch of cord on her; only the black iron
shrouds remaining of all her rigging; her skylights and companion-hatch
covered with waterproof--it was a sorry spectacle. And then when they
went below, even the swinging-lamps were blue-moulded and stiff. There
was an odor of damp straw throughout. All the cushions and carpets had
been remov