Free Complete New Tales of Para Handy by Stuart Donald Page A

What iss wrong wi’ the man?”
    â€œHe’s no been himsel’ since he visited yon spae-wife at Minard Fair last week,” said Dougie, “and had his hand read.”
    â€œHe should have more sense,” said Para Handy, “than to pay ony attention to the ravin’ of a wumman wi’ nae mair knowledge o’ his future than he has o’ the workin’s of a turbine enchine.”
    The Mate tactfully resisted the temptation to remind Para Handy of the occasions on which he himself had slipped into a fortune teller’s candy-striped tent at country fairs, with his shilling grasped firmly in the grubby hand which he was about to present for a mystical interpretation. Such a service was usually offered by the wife of the round-about proprietor, disguised in spotted red head-kerchief and borrowed floral robe, prodigally (and deliberately) burning so much incense for atmosphere that it was almost as difficult to breathe as it was to see.
    By now they had entered the wider, sheltered upper loch and the vessel was headed towards the pier at Bonawe. She was scheduled the following morning to load a cargo of granite setts from the nearby quarry for Glasgow Corporation roads department. By five o’clock the puffer was snug at the pier and the crew, with the exception of the Engineer (who refused to be persuaded to join them under any circumstances), set out to walk the mile or so inland to the inn at Taynuilt.
    They had scarcely settled themselves at a corner table with glasses of beer and the landlord’s best set of dominos when the outer door burst open and a worried-looking man in a yachting cap came in almost at a run. He banged the bell on the bar loudly and urgently and when the landlord appeared had a brisk and anxious exchange with him, the two of them hunched across the counter so that their heads were almost touching.
    Finally the landlord straightened up, shaking his head.
    â€œI’m sorry, Captain Forbes, but there’s no’ an ingineer this side o’ Oban. Go you there on the next train,” and here he consulted his watch, “You’ll be in the toon by eight o’clock and if you’re lucky in finding a man you’ll be back before 10.”
    â€œTen!” cried Forbes. “I can’t leave a touring party stranded on the ship till then! They’re due back at the Hotel for their dinners at eight!”
    Para Handy cleared his throat. “Where’s the shup, chentlemen,” he asked, “and what seems to be the trouble? We have a sort of an enchineer wi’ us — he’s no’ here but he’s no’ far away — and I am sure he would not see you stuck.”

    Half-an-hour later Captain Forbes, Para Handy and Macphail (the last still in the same ill-humoured temper) were clattering through the Pass of Brander in a pony and trap.
    Forbes was indeed in a predicament.
    The small Loch Awe pleasure steamer, of which he was captain and part owner, was aground at the mouth of the pass, where it opened out into the broad waters of the loch itself. “We should never have come so close in shore,” he admitted ruefully “but I’ve done so often enough before without any trouble.”
    The trouble stemmed from the fact that the engine had died just as he was about to turn the little vessel back to deeper water and, drifting with the momentum of her passage, she ran gently aground 200 yards offshore. The problem was seriously compounded when all efforts to get her engine re-started failed.
    â€œWe took a new engineer on for this season,” said Forbes, “and I don’t think he has the experience he said he had.”
    The three rowed out to the little ship — imaginatively named the Lochawe — in the dinghy in which Forbes himself had come ashore in search of another engineer. As they clambered aboard the Captain was surrounded by a crowd of passengers, some of them