As they sat at breakfast, Florimel did tell her father. His first emotion, however—at least the first he showed—was vexation with herself.
“You must not be going out alone—and at such ridiculous hours,” he said. “I shall be compelled to get you a governess.”
“Really, papa,” she returned, “I don’t see the good of having a marquis for a father, if I can’t go about as safe as one of the fisher-children. And I might just as well be at school, if I’m not to do as I like.”
“What if the dog had turned on you!” he said.
“If he dared!” exclaimed the girl, and her eyes flashed.
Her father looked at her for a moment, said to himself—“There spoke a Colonsay!” and pursued the subject no further.
When they passed Mrs Catanach’s cottage an hour after, on their way to the harbour, they saw the blinds drawn down, as if a dead man lay within: according to after report, she had the brute already laid out like a human being, and sat by the bedside awaiting a coffin which she had ordered of Watty Witherspail.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
COLONSAY CASTLE.
The day continued lovely, with a fine breeze. The whole sky and air and sea were alive—with moving clouds, with wind, with waves flashing in the sun. As they stepped on board amidst the little crowd gathered to see, Lady Florimel could hardly keep her delight within the bounds of so-called propriety. It was all she could do to restrain herself from dancing on the little deck half-swept by the tiller. The boat of a schooner which lay at the quay towed them out of the harbour. Then the creature spread her wings like a bird —main-sail and gaff-topsail, staysail and jib—leaped away to leeward, and seemed actually to bound over the waves. Malcolm sat at the tiller, and Blue Peter watched the canvas.
Lady Florimel turned out to be a good sailor, and her enjoyment was so contagious as even to tighten certain strings about her father’s heart which had long been too slack to vibrate with any simple gladness. Her questions were incessant—first about the sails and rigging, then about the steering; but when Malcolm proceeded to explain how the water re-acted on the rudder, she declined to trouble herself with that.