The Captain of the "Heather Bell".



You might have known he was a Scotchman by the name of his little
steamer; and if you had not known it by that, you would have known it as
soon as you looked at him. Scotch, pure, unmitigated, unmistakable
Scotch, was Donald Mackintosh, from the crown of his auburn head down to
the soles of his big awkward feet. Six feet two inches in his stockings
he stood, and so straight that he looked taller even than that;
blue-gray eyes full of a canny twinkle; freckles,--yes, freckles that
were really past the bounds of belief, for up into his hair they ran,
and to the rims of his eyes,--no pale, dull, equivocal freckles, such as
might be mistaken for dingy spots of anything else, but brilliant,
golden-brown freckles, almost auburn like his hair. Once seen, never to
be forgotten were Donald Mackintosh's freckles. All this does not sound
like the description of a handsome man; but we are not through yet with
what is to be said about Donald Mackintosh's looks. We have said nothing
of his straight massive nose, his tawny curling beard, which shaded up
to yellow around a broad and laughing mouth, where were perpetually
flashing teeth of an even ivory whiteness a woman might have coveted.
No, not handsome, but better than handsome, was Donald Mackintosh; he
was superb. Everybody said so: nobody could have been found to dispute
it,--nobody but Donald himself; he thought, honestly thought, he was
hideous. All that he could see on the rare occasions when he looked in a
glass was an expanse of fiery red freckles, topped off with what he
would have called a shock of red hair. Uglier than anything he had ever