When I came out, the Mate regarded me rather challengingly. ‘I’d like’, he said, ‘to try a little bit of sail.’

I knew fine what was passing in his mind. My old engine could bust itself now; with a bit of sail he’d make Oban though the heavens fell. So there was a smile all round and I took the tiller.

On hands and knees he got round the mast, took his time, and presently up went the triangle of sail. He drew the lacing taut, and, back in the cockpit, pulled with exaggerated effort on the sheet, so that all and sundry might observe this eighth wonder of the world. He turned, nodding humorously, delighted with himself. ‘It can snow now,’ he said.

The Crew, who had been under the strain of the weather, not understanding always what we had shouted at each other and fearing that we had been keeping things from her—for outlook cries for rocks and wild looks around and an open knife might conceivably make some sort of impression!—came to individual life again and did her trapeze act past the engine into the cabin where, on all fours, she made real juicy tomato sandwiches on heavily buttered good and thick brown bread (Beattie’s Glasgow bread, which is got in the small places along the West, is palatable and keeps admirably if rewrapped in its own paper). Added thereto a raw egg dropped into a half-tumbler of fresh milk, with a tablespoonful of whisky, made quite a sustaining snack.

The Crew ate indifferently and confessed, on being probed, that she had felt a bit sick with excitement (sea-sickness never touched her), and for a time had actually had to keep her eyes off the seas. However, she also confessed that she would not have missed the experience.

The sail was steadying us beyond any hope of mine and must have been adding about a couple of knots to our speed. For the first time we began to take stock of our earthly environment, and enjoyed the relief that comes after an anxious spell.

For this was a new part of the world, after Skye and the distant Hebrides, the Small Isles and the Arisaig mainland. Heavy storm clouds blotted out the Paps of Jura and hung low over the ridges of Islay and Scarba, but the small Isles of the Sea had their rock walls glistening in a burst of sun. Far ahead the mainland was vague, and what looked like a dark cloud on the sea we assumed to be Kerrera Island.

But Mull was near enough for proper inspection, and the Mate, light-heartedly studying the chart, assured the Crew that the wide inlet she saw was Loch Buy.

‘The Macleans of Loch Buy,’ she remembered. ‘So it must be in there somewhere—the Harper’s Pass. Did you ever hear the saying they have on Mull: “Wasn’t I the fool to burn my harp for her—or for him?” ’

‘No,’ he answered. ‘But I’ll give you a cigarette if you’ll tell it.’