Day began to break over the waves.They gleamed with a blue-gray leaden sheen.The men appeared coming along the harbour, and descended by a stair into a little skiff, where a barrel, or something like one, lay under a tarpaulin.Robert bade Shargar good-bye, and followed.They pushed off, rowed out into the bay, and lay on their oars waiting for the vessel.The light grew apace, and Robert fancied he could distinguish the two horses with one rider against the sky on the top of the cliffs, moving northwards.
Turning his eyes to the sea, he saw the canvas of the brig, and his heart beat fast.The men bent to their oars.She drew nearer, and lay to.When they reached her he caught the rope the sailors threw, was on board in a moment, and went aft to the captain.The Dutchman stared.In a few words Robert made him understand his object, offering to pay for his passage, but the good man would not hear of it.He told him that the lady and gentleman had come on board as brother and sister: the baron was too knowing to run his head into the noose of Scotch law.
'I cannot throw him over the board,' said the skipper; 'and what am I to do? I am afraid it is of no use.Ah! poor thing!'
By this time the vessel was under way.The wind freshened.Mysie had been ill ever since they left the month of the river: now she was much worse.Before another hour passed, she was crying to be taken home to her papa.Still the wind increased, and the vessel laboured much.
Robert never felt better, and if it had not been for the cause of his sea-faring, would have thoroughly enjoyed it.He put on some sea-going clothes of the captain's, and set himself to take his share in working the brig, in which he was soon proficient enough to be useful.When the sun rose, they were in a tossing wilderness of waves.With the sunrise, Robert began to think he had been guilty of a great folly.For what could he do? How was he to prevent the girl from going off with her lover the moment they landed? But his poor attempt would verify his willingness.
The baron came on deck now and then, looking bored.He had not calculated on having to nurse the girl.Had Mysie been well, he could have amused himself with her, for he found her ignorance interesting.As it was, he felt injured, and indeed disgusted at the result of the experiment.
On the third day the wind abated a little; but towards night it blew hard again, and it was not until they reached the smooth waters of the Scheldt that Mysie made her appearance on deck, looking dreadfully ill, and altogether like a miserable, unhappy child.Her beauty was greatly gone, and Lord Rothie did not pay her much attention.
Robert had as yet made no attempt to communicate with her, for there was scarcely a chance of her concealing a letter from the baron.
But as soon as they were in smooth water, he wrote one, telling her in the simplest language that the baron was a bad man, who had amused himself by making many women fall in love with him, and then leaving them miserable: he knew one of them himself.
Having finished his letter, he began to look abroad over the smooth water, and the land smooth as the water.He saw tall poplars, the spires of the forest, and rows of round-headed dumpy trees, like domes.And he saw that all the buildings like churches, had either spires like poplars, or low round domes like those other trees.The domes gave an eastern aspect to the country.The spire of Antwerp cathedral especially had the poplar for its model.The pinnacles which rose from the base of each successive start of its narrowing height were just the clinging, upright branches of the poplar--a lovely instance of Art following Nature's suggestion.
