n' think over it, when, who
should I see almost hull down on my lee bow but the enemy--Elise
herself!

"Well, I changed my course at once; bore straight down on her, an' soon
overhauled her, but the nearer I came the more did my courage run out,
so I gradooally begun to take in sail an drop astarn. At last I got
savage, `You're a fool, Jenkins!' says I to myself. `That's a fact!'
says su'thin' inside o' me.

"Now, if that su'thin' had kep' quiet, I do believe that I'd have gone
about-ship an' showed her my heels, but that su'thin', whatever it was,
set up my dander. `Now then,' says I, `haul taut the main brace! Up
wi' the t'gall'nt-s'ls an' sky-scrapers! "England expects," etceterer!'

"Afore you could say Jack Robinson, I was along side--grapplin'-irons
hove into her riggin', and a broadside fired. The way I gave it her
astonished even myself. Nelson himself could scarce ha' done it better!
Well, she struck her colours at the first broadside, an' somehow--I
never could make out exactly how--we was sittin' on the stump of a tree
with her head on my rough unworthy buzzum. Think o' that! Dan, _her_
head--the head of a Angel! Give us your flipper, mate."

"I congratulate you, Jenkins, with all my heart," said Dan, grasping the
seaman's flipper, and giving it a hearty shake. "So now, I must look
out for another best-man. Morel will do for me, I think, and you can
have my brother Peter, no doubt. But could we not manage to have both
weddings on the same day?"

"Impossible," answered the seaman, promptly. "Couldn't wait."

"But we might compromise the matter. I might have mine a little sooner
and you could have yours a little later."

Still Jenkins shook his head. "Not fair-play," he said. "All the
advantage on your side. However, we might consider it. Hold a sort o'
drum-head court-martial over it, with Elise and Elspie as judges."

When the said court-marital--as Dan called it--was held, the compromise
was agreed to, and it was finally fixed that six weeks thereafter the
two couples should be united in Ben Nevis Hall.

But the current of these parallel streams of true love was not yet
destined to run smooth--as the next chapter will show.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

A NEW DISASTER.

"I mean to go off to-morrow on a shooting trip to the lake," said Dan
Davidson to Archie Sinclair. "I've had a long spell at farming
operations of late, and am tired of it. The double wedding, you know,
comes