John fortunately secured the mate’s place.  Before he could tell Margaret this she heard her father speak well of him to the captain.  “There is nae better sailor, nor better lad, for that matter,” said Peter.  “I like none that he wad hang roun’ my bonnie Marg’et; but then, a cat may look at a king without it being high treason, I wot.”

A week afterwards Peter thought differently.  When John told him honestly how matters stood between him and Margaret he was more angry than when Sandy Beg swore away his whole Dutch cargo.  He would listen to neither love nor reason, and positively forbid him to hold any further intercourse with his daughter.  John had expected this, and was not greatly discouraged.  He had Margaret’s promise.  Youth is hopeful, and they could wait; for it never entered their minds absolutely to disobey the old man.

In the meantime there was a kind of peacemaking between Ragon and John.  The good Dominie Sinclair had met them both one day on the beach, and insisted on their forgiving and shaking hands.  Neither of them were sorry to do so.  Men who have shared the dangers of the deep-sea fishing and the stormy Northern Ocean together cannot look upon each other as mere parts of a bargain.  There was, too, a wild valor and a wonderful power in emergencies belonging to Ragon that had always dazzled John’s more cautious nature.  In some respects, he thought Ragon Torr the greatest sailor that left Stromness harbor, and Ragon was willing enough to admit that John “was a fine fellow,” and to give his hand at the dominie’s direction.

Alas! the good man’s peacemaking was of short duration.  As soon as Peter told the young Norse sailor of John’s offer for Margaret’s hand, Ragon’s passive good-will turned to active dislike and bitter jealousy.  For, though he had taken little trouble to please Margaret, he had come to look upon her as his future wife.  He knew that Peter wished it so, and he now imagined that it was also the only thing on earth he cared for.

Thus, though John was getting good wages, he was not happy.  It was rarely he got a word with Margaret, and Peter and Ragon were only too ready to speak.  It became daily more and more difficult to avoid an open quarrel with them, and, indeed, on several occasions sharp, cruel words, that hurt like wounds, had passed between them on the public streets and quays.

Thus Stromness, that used to be so pleasant to him, was changing fast.  He knew not how it was that people so readily believed him in the wrong.  In Wick, too, he had been troubled with Sandy Beg, and a kind of nameless dread possessed him about the man; he could not get rid of it, even after he had heard that Sandy had sailed in a whaling ship for the Arctic seas.