Australian Tales - Setis

from north west are usually the precursors of hard squalls from the
opposite point of the compass. But neither of them observed, or thought
of anything that was disagreeable until a strong blast of wind whirled
into the cave, and caused a scramble to secure the bonnets and mantles
from being blown into the water.
“Ma goodness! it's gaen to bloo, I'm thinking,” said Mr. M'Faddle,
while the wind roared like thunder among the rocks and caverns, and
made the previously glassy surface of the harbour seethe and foam like a
boiling fish kettle. “Wha on earth wad he thocht it wad a ben sae rough,
all in a minute like? Hey! deeckins! luke at the boatie, it's ganging off
without us; as true as my name's Mac,” he added, pointing to the boat,
which was fast drifting away from the island, with the sail flapping, and
shaking the mast furiously. “Archie, what's to be done, mon? Why dinna
ye speak? Why do ye stand there gaping like a swine?”
“Can't you swim after it?” asked Twist, with a bewildered look.
“Toot mon! are ye daft althegether? The sharks wad bite the legs aff
me, before I had kicked out thrice: besides I could na mair catch the
boatie, by swimming, than I could catch a Jew fish. What in the warrald
shall I do now?”
As Mr. M'Faddle asked that unanswerable question, he raced down to
the rocks below, and the first thing he did there was to well baste his boy
Johnny with the leg of an old Chinese chair — which was unluckily
lying close to hand — and at the same time scolded him soundly, in
broad Scotch, for being “such a gowk as to let the boat gang adreeft.”
Johnny acknowledged the basting with a series of howls, louder than
the wind, then hobbled away as fast as he could to a stump, where he was
sitting rubbing his bruises, when the rest of the party came down to the
shore to learn the facts of the case, which were simply this, the boat
having been imperfectly fastened, had broken adrift with the first puff.
“I say, Sally, what part of the harbour does Johnny most resemble just
now?” asked Nick M'Faddle of his sister, as he pointed to his discomfited
brother in the distance. “Do you give it up, Sally? Well, I'll tell you; he is
like Sirius cove (serious cove). Ha, ha, ha! that's good, isn't it? I made
that out of my own head.”
“That's good, too, see what you can make out of that,” exclaimed his
mother, crossly administering a big box on Nick's ear, which sounded
like a cracker. “I heard your impudence, you young monkey. You
deserve the leg of the chair as much as your brother every bit. Now what
cove do you look like?”
It would lengthen my story into a volume, were I to detail all the
misadventures of the unlucky islanders. How Mr. M'Faddle scolded his
wife for boxing Nick, and Mrs. M'Faddle abused her husband for basting
Johnny. How Mrs. Twist's satin bonnet blew into the water, and Mr.
Twist tumbled in head foremost, in his vain attempt to recover it, and at