“Ay, is he so self-willed?” asked the lieutenant, with a smile, and a glance at Minnie.

“A mule; a positive mule,” said the captain.

“Come, uncle, you know that I don’t deserve such a character, and it’s too bad to give it to me to-day.  Did I not agree to come on this excursion at once, when you asked me?”

“Ay, but you wouldn’t if I had ordered you,” returned the captain.

“I rather think he would,” observed the lieutenant, with another smile, and another glance at Minnie.

Both smiles and glances were observed and noted by Ruby, whose heart felt another pang shoot through it; but this, like the former, subsided when the lieutenant again addressed the captain, and devoted himself to him so exclusively, that Ruby began to feel a touch of indignation at his want of appreciation of such a girl as Minnie.

“He’s a stupid ass,” thought Ruby to himself, and then, turning to Minnie, directed her attention to a curious natural arch on the cliffs, and sought to forget all the rest of the world.

In this effort he was successful, and had gradually worked himself into the firm belief that the world was paradise, and that he and Minnie were its sole occupants—­a second edition, as it were, of Adam and Eve—­when the lieutenant rudely dispelled the sweet dream by saying sharply to the man at the bow-oar—­

“Is that the boat, Baker?  You ought to know it pretty well.”

“I think it is, sir,” answered the man, resting on his oar a moment, and glancing over his shoulder; “but I can’t be sure at this distance.”

“Well, pull easy,” said the lieutenant; “you see, it won’t do to scare them, Captain Ogilvy, and they’ll think we’re a pleasure party when they see a woman in the boat.”

Ruby thought they would not be far wrong in supposing them a pleasure party.  He objected, mentally, however, to Minnie being styled a “woman”—­not that he would have had her called a man, but he thought that girl would have been more suitable—­angel, perhaps, the most appropriate term of all.

“Come, captain, I think I will join you in a pipe,” said the lieutenant, pulling out a tin case, in which he kept the blackest of little cutty pipes.  “In days of old our ancestors loved to fight—­now we degenerate souls love to smoke the pipe of peace.”

“I did not know that your ancestors were enemies,” said Minnie to the captain.

“Enemies, lass! ay, that they were.  What! have ye never heard tell o’ the great fight between the Ogilvys and Lindsays?”

“Never,” said Minnie.

“Then, my girl, your education has been neglected, but I’ll do what I can to remedy that defect.”

Here the captain rekindled his pipe (which was in the habit of going out, and requiring to be relighted), and, clearing his throat with the emphasis of one who is about to communicate something of importance, held forth as follows.