The train, as Priscilla prophesied, was strictly punctual. It was drawn up at the platform when she leaped off her bicycle in front of the station. As she passed through the gate she came face to face with Frank Mannix supported by the station master and the guard.
“Hullo!” she said. “You’re my cousin Frank, I suppose. You look rather sick.”
Frank gazed at her.
“Are you Priscilla?” he asked.
He had formed no very definite mental picture of his cousin beforehand. Little girls of fifteen years of age are not creatures of great interest to prefects who have made remarkable catches in the long field and look forward to establishing their manhood among the salmon and the grouse. So far as he had thought of Priscilla at all he had placed her in the background, a trim, unobtrusive maiden, who came down to dessert after dinner and was kept under proper control at other times by a governess. It shocked him a little to see a girl in a tousled blue cotton frock, with a green stain on the front of it, with a tangle of damp fair hair hanging round her head in shining strings, with unabashed fearless eyes which looked at him with a certain shrewd merriment.
“You look wobbly,” said Priscilla. “Can’t you walk by yourself?”
“I’ve met with an accident,” said Frank.
“That’s all right. I was afraid just at first that you might be the sort that collapsed altogether after being seasick. Some people do, you know, and they’re never much good for anything. I’m glad you’re not one of them. Accidents are different of course. Nobody can ever be quite sure of not meeting an accident.”
She glanced at the stain on the front of her dress as she spoke. It was the result of an accident.
“I’ve sprained my ankle,” said Frank.
“It’s my belief,” said the guard, “that the young gentleman’s leg is broke on him. That’s what the ticket-collector was after telling me at the junction any way.”
“Would you like me to cut off your sock?” said Priscilla. “The station-master’s wife would lend me a pair of scissors. She’s sure to have a pair. Almost everybody has.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” said Frank.
There had been trouble enough in getting the sock on over the damp table napkin. He had no wish to have it taken off again unnecessarily.
“All right,” said Priscilla, “I won’t if you’d rather not of course; but it’s the proper thing to do for a sprained ankle. Sylvia Courtney told me so and she attended a course of Ambulance lectures last term and learnt all about first aid on the battle-field. I wanted to go to those lectures frightfully, but Aunt Juliet wouldn’t let me. Rather rot I thought it at the time, but I saw afterwards that she couldn’t possibly on account of her principles.”
Frank, following Priscilla’s rapid thought with difficulty, supposed that Ambulance lectures, dealing necessarily with the human body, might be considered by some people slightly unsuitable for young girls, and that Aunt Juliet was a lady who set a high value on propriety. Priscilla offered a different explanation.
“Christian Science,” she said. “That’s Aunt Juliet’s latest. There’s always something. Can you sit on a car?”
“Oh yes,” said Frank. “If I was once up I could sit well enough.”
“Let you make your mind easy about getting up,” said the station-master. “We’ll have you on the side of the car in two twos.”
They hoisted him up, Priscilla giving advice and directions while they did so. Then she took her bicycle from a porter who held it for her.
“The donkey-trap will bring your luggage,” she said. “It will be all right.”
She turned to the coachman.
“Drive easy now, James,” she said, “and mind you don’t let the cob shy when you come to the new drain that they’re digging outside the court house. There’s nothing worse for a broken bone than a sudden jar. That’s another thing that was in the Ambulance lectures.”
The car started. Priscilla rode alongside, keeping within speaking distance of Frank.
“But my ankle’s not broken,” he said.
“It may be. Anyhow I expect a jar is just as bad for a sprain. Very likely the lecturer said so and Sylvia Courtney forgot to tell me. Pretty rotten luck this, for you, Cousin Frank, on account of the fishing. You can’t possibly fish and the river’s in splendid order. Father said so yesterday. But perhaps Aunt Juliet will be able to cure you. She thinks she can cure anything.”
“I shall be all right,” said Frank, “when I can rest my leg a bit—I don’t think it’s really bad I daresay at the end of a week——”
“If Aunt Juliet cures you at all she’ll do it quicker than that. She had Father out of bed the day after he got influenza last Easter hols. He very nearly died afterwards on account of having to travel up to Dublin to go to a nursing home when his temperature was 400 and something, but Aunt Juliet said he was perfectly well all the time; so she may be able to fix up that ankle of yours.”
They have, so it is understood, tried experiments in vegetarianism at Haileybury; but Christian Science is not yet part of the regular curriculum even on the modern side. Frank Mannix had only the vaguest idea of what Miss Lentaigne’s beliefs were. He knew nothing at all about her methods. Priscilla’s account of them was not very encouraging.
“All I want,” he said, “is simply to rest my ankle.”
“Do you think,” said Priscilla, “that you could sit in a boat? That’s mine, the green one beside the slip. If you turn your head you’ll see her. But perhaps it hurts you to turn your head. If it does you’d better not try. The boat will be there all the same even if you don’t see her.”
They were passing the quay while she spoke, and Priscilla, who was a little behind at the moment, pointed to theBlue Wanderer. Frank discovered one of the disadvantages of an Irish car. The view of the passengers, even if each one is alone on his side, is confined almost entirely to objects on one side of the road. Only by twisting his neck in a most uncomfortable way can any one see what lies directly behind him. Frank made the effort and was unimpressed by the appearance of theBlue Wanderer. She was exceedingly unlike the shining outriggers in which he had sometimes rowed on the upper reaches of the Thames during earlier summer holidays.
“I expect,” said Priscilla, “that the salt water will be jolly good for your ankle, in reality, though Aunt Juliet will say it wont. She’s bound to say that, of course, on account of her principles. All the same it may. Peter Walsh was telling me the other day that it’s perfectly splendid for rheumatism. I shouldn’t wonder a bit if sprained ankles and rheumatism are much the same sort of thing, only with different names. But of course we can’t go this afternoon. Aunt Juliet will demand to have first shy at you. If she fails we may manage to sneak off to-morrow morning. But perhaps you don’t care for boats, Cousin Frank.”
“I like boats very much.”
He spoke in a slightly patronising tone, as an elderly gentleman might confess to a fondness for chocolates in order to please a small nephew. He felt it necessary to make it quite clear to Priscilla that he had not come to Rosnacree to be her playmate and companion. He had come to fish salmon in company with her father and such other grown men as might from time to time present themselves. Nursery games in stumpy green boats were not consonant with his dignity. He did not want to hurt Priscilla’s feelings, but he was anxious that she should understand his position. She seemed unimpressed.
“That’s all right,” she said. “I’ll row you. You can sit in the stern and let your legs dangle over in the water. I’ve often done that when Peter Walsh has been rowing. It’s quite a jolly thing to do.”
It was a thing which Frank Mannix was quite determined not to do. The suggestion that he should behave in such a way struck him as “cheeky” in a very high degree. A lower schoolboy in Edmondstone House, if he had ventured to speak in such a way, would have been beaten with a fives bat. But Priscilla was a girl and, as Frank understood, girls are not beaten. He answered her with kindly condescension.
“Perhaps we’ll be able to manage it some day,” he said, “before I leave.”
They arrived at Rosnacree House and Frank was helped up the steps by the butler and the coachman. Sir Lucius expressed the greatest regret when he heard of his nephew’s accident.
“It’s too bad,” he said, “too bad, and the river in such fine condition after a fortnight’s rain. I was looking forward to seeing you get into your first salmon. But cheer up, Frank, I daresay it won’t turn out to be very tedious. We’ll have you hobbling along in a week or a fortnight. We’ve a good while before us yet. I’ll get up O’Hara this afternoon, our local practitioner. Not a bad fellow at all, though he drinks a bit. Still he’ll know what to do with a sprained ankle. Oh! by the way perhaps——”
Sir Lucius’ sentence ended abruptly. His sister entered the room. She greeted Frank and inquired whether he had enjoyed his journey. The story of the accident was told to her. It was evident at once that she took a keen interest in the sprained ankle. Priscilla, describing the scene afterwards to Rose, the under housemaid, said that Miss Lentaigne’s eyes gleamed and sparkled with joy. Every one in the household had for many weeks carefully refrained from illness or disability of any kind. If Miss Lentaigne’s eyes really did sparkle they expressed a perfectly natural delight. There is nothing more trying than to possess a power of healing and to find no opportunity for exercising it.
“Perhaps,” she said, “Frank and I may have a little talk together after luncheon.”
Sir Lucius was a man of hospitable instincts with high old-fashioned ideas of the courtesy due by a host to his guest. He did not think it quite fair to subject Frank to a course of Christian Science. But he was also very much afraid of his sister, whom he recognised as his intellectual superior. He cleared his throat and made a nervous protest on Frank’s behalf.
“I’m not sure, Juliet,” he said, “I’m really not at all sure that your theory quite applies to sprains, especially ankles.”
Miss Lentaigne smiled very gently. Her face expressed a tolerant patience with the crude ideas entertained by her brother.
“Of course,” Sir Lucius went on, “there’s a great deal in your idea. I’ve always said so. In the case of any internal disease, nerves you know, and that kind of thing where there’s nothing actually visible, I’m sure it works out admirably, quite admirably, but with a sprained ankle! Come now, Juliet, there’s the swelling you know. You can’t deny the swelling. Hang it all, you can measure the swelling with a tape. Is your ankle much swelled, Frank?”
“A good deal. But it’s not worth making a fuss about. It’ll be all right.”
Miss Lentaigne smiled again. In her opinion it was all right already. There was not really any swelling, although Frank, in his ignorance, might honestly think there was. She hoped, after luncheon, to convince him of these pleasant truths.
Sir Lucius was a coward at heart. He was exceedingly sorry for his nephew, but he made no further effort to save him from the ministrations of Miss Lentaigne. Nor did he venture to mention the name of O’Hara, the excellent, though occasionally inebriate, local practitioner. Frank, as yet unaware of the full beauty of the scientific Christian method of dealing with illness, was very polite to Miss Lentaigne during luncheon. He talked to her about Parliament and its doings as a subject likely to interest her, assuming the air of a man who knows the inner secrets of the Cabinet. He did, in fact, know a good deal about the habits and manners of our legislators, having picked up details of an interesting kind from his father. Miss Lentaigne was greatly delighted with him. So was Priscilla, who winked three times at her father when neither Frank nor her aunt was looking at her. Sir Lucius was uneasy. He feared that his nephew was likely to turn out a prig, a kind of boy which he held in particular abhorrence.
When luncheon was over he said that he intended to take his rod and go up the river for the afternoon. He invited Priscilla to go with him and carry his landing net. Frank, preceded by Miss Lentaigne, was conducted by the butler to a hammock chair agreeably placed under the shade of a lime tree on the lawn. When Sir Lucius and Priscilla, laden with fishing gear, passed him, he was still making himself politely agreeable to Miss Lentaigne. Priscilla winked at him. He returned the salutation with a stare which was intended to convince her that winking was a particularly vicious kind of bad form. Miss Lentaigne, as Priscilla noticed, sat with two treatises on Christian Science in her hand.
Priscilla, returning without her father at half past six o’clock, found Frank sitting alone under the lime tree. He was in a singularly chastened mood and inclined to be companionable and friendly, even with a girl of no more than fifteen years old.
“I say, Priscilla,” he said, “is that old aunt of yours quite mad?”
There was something in the way he expressed himself which delighted Priscilla. He had reverted to the phraseology of an undignified schoolboy of the lower fifth. The veneer of grown manhood, even the polish of a prefect, had, as it were, peeled off him during the afternoon.
“Not at all,” said Priscilla. “She’s frightfully clever, what’s called intellectual. You know the sort of thing. How’s your ankle?”
“She says it isn’t sprained. But, blow it all, it’s swelled the size of the calf of your leg.”
He did not mean Priscilla’s leg particularly; but with a slight lift of an already short skirt she surveyed her own calf curiously. She wanted to know exactly how thick Frank’s injured ankle was.
“Then she didn’t cure it?”
“Cure it!” said Frank, “I should think not. She simply kept on telling me I only thought it was sprained. I never heard such rot talked in all my life. How do you stand it at all?”
“That’s nothing,” said Priscilla. “We’re quite glad she’s taken to Christian Science; though she did nearly kill poor father. Before that she was all for teetotallity—that’s not quite the right word, but you know the thing I mean, drinking nothing but lemonade, either homemade or the kind that fizzes. I didn’t mind that a bit for I like lemonade, both sorts, but father simply hated it. He told me he’d rather go up to that nursing home in Dublin every time he feels ill than live through another six months on lemonade. Before that she was frightfully keen on a thing called uric acid. Do you know what that is, Cousin Frank?” “No,” he said, “I don’t. How did it take her?” “She wouldn’t give us anything to eat,” said Priscilla, “except queer sort of mashes which she said were made of nuts and biscuits and things. I got quite thin and as weak as a cat.” “I wonder you stuck it out.” “Oh, it didn’t last long. None of them do, you know. That’s our great consolation; though we rather hope the Christian Science will on account of its doing us no particular harm. She doesn’t mind what we eat or drink, which is a great comfort. She can’t you know, according to her principles, because when there’s no such thing as being sick it can’t matter how much whipped cream or anything of that sort you eat just before you go to bed at night. She didn’t like it a bit when I got up on Christmas night and foraged out nearly a quarter of a cold plum pudding. She was just going up to bed and she caught me. She wanted awfully to stop me eating it, but she couldn’t without giving the whole show away, so I ate it before her very eyes. That’s the beauty of Christian Science.” “But I say, Priscilla, weren’t you sick?” “Not a bit. When Father heard about it next morning he said he thought there must be something in Aunt Juliet’s theory after all. He has stuck to that ever since, though he says it doesn’t apply to influenza. She had a great idea about fresh air one time, and got up a carpenter to take the window frames, windows and all, clean out of my room. I used to have to borrow hairpins from Rose—she’s the under housemaid and a great friend of mine—so as to fasten the bedclothes on to the mattress. Otherwise they blew away during the night, while I was asleep. That was one of the worst times we ever had, though I don’t think Father minded it so much. He used to go out and smoke in the harness room. But I hated it worse than anything except the uric acid. You never knew where your clothes would be in the morning if it was the least stormy, and my hair used to blow into soup and tea and things, which made it frightfully sticky.”
“Do you think,” said Frank, “that she’ll leave me alone now? Or will she want to have another go at me to-morrow?”
“Sure to,” said Priscilla, “unless you give in that your ankle is quite well.”
“But I can’t walk.”
“That won’t matter in the least. She’ll say you can. Aunt Juliet is tremendously determined. Poor Rose—I told you she is the under housemaid, didn’t I? She is any way. Poor Rose once got a swelled face on account of a tooth that she wouldn’t have out. Aunt Juliet kept at her, reading little bits out of books and kind of praying, in passages and pantries and places, wherever she met Rose. That went on for more than a week. Then Rose got Dr. O’Hara to haul the tooth and the swelling went down. Aunt Juliet said it was Christian Science cured her. And of course it may have been. You never can tell really what it is that cures people.”
“I wonder,” said Frank, “if I could manage to get down to the boat to-morrow. You said something about a boat, didn’t you, Priscilla? Is it far?”
“I’ll work that all right for you. As it just happens, luckily enough there’s an old bath-chair in a corner of the hay-loft. I came across it last hols when I was looking for a bicycle pump I lost. I was rather disappointed at the time, not thinking that the old chair would be any use, whereas I wanted the pump. Now it turns out to be exactly what we want, which shows that well directed labour is never really wasted. The front-wheel is a bit groggy, but I daresay it’ll hold all right as far as the quay. I’ll go round after dinner to-night and fish it out. I can wheel you quite easily, for it’s all down hill.”
Frank had not intended when he left England to go about the country in a bath-chair with a groggy front-wheel. For a moment he hesitated. A wild fear struck him of what the Uppingham captain—that dangerous bat whose innings his brilliant catch had cut short—might say and think if he saw the vehicle. But the Uppingham captain was not likely to be in Rosnacree. Christian Science was a more threatening danger. He pictured to himself the stare of amazement on the countenance of Mr. Dupré and the sniggering face of young Latimer who collected beetles and hated washing. But Mr. Dupré, Latimer and the members of the house eleven, were, no doubt, far off.
Miss Lentaigne was very near at hand. He accepted Priscilla’s offer.
“Right,” she said. “I’ll settle the chair, if I have to tie it together with my hair ribbon. It’s nice to think of that old chair coming in useful in the end. It must have been in the loft for ages and ages. Sylvia Courtney told me that her mother says anything will come in useful if you only keep it long enough; but I don’t know whether that’s true. I don’t think it can be, quite, for I tried it once with a used up exercise-book and it didn’t seem to be the slightest good even after years and years, though it got most frightfully tattered. Still it may be true. You never can tell about things of that sort, and Sylvia Courtney says her mother is extremely wise; so she may be quite right.
“Christian Science,” said Frank bitterly, “wouldn’t be of any use if you kept it for centuries. What’s the use of saying a thing isn’t swelled when it is?”
A night’s rest restored self-respect to Frank Mannix. He felt when his clothes were brought to him in the morning by a respectful footman that he had to some extent sacrificed his dignity in his confidential talk with Priscilla the day before. He had committed himself to the bath-chair and the boating expedition, and he had too high a sense of personal honour to back out of an engagement definitely made. But he determined to keep Priscilla at a distance. He would go with her, would to some extent join in her childish sports; but it must be on the distinct understanding that he did so as a grown man who condescends to play games with an amusing child. With this idea in his mind he dressed himself very carefully in a suit a cricket flannels. The garments were in themselves suitable for boating as he understood the sport. They were also likely, he thought, to impress Priscilla. The white flannel coat, bound round its edges with crimson silk, was at Haileybury part of a uniform set apart for the sole use of members of the first eleven who had actually got their colours. The crimson sash round his waist was a badge of the same high office. Small boys, who played cricket on the house pitches in the Little Side ground, bowed in awed humility before a member of the first eleven when he appeared before them in all his glory and felt elated if they were allowed to walk across the quadrangle with any one who wore the sacred vestments. Frank had little doubt that Priscilla, who was to be his companion for the day would realise the greatness of her privileges.
But Priscilla seemed curiously unimpressed. She met him in the breakfast room before either Sir Lucius or Miss Lentaigne came down.
“Great Scot! Cousin Frank,” she said, “you are a howler!”
Frank drew himself up; but realised even as he did so that he must make some reply to Priscilla. It was impossible to pretend not to know that she was speaking about his clothes.
“An old suit of flannels,” he said with elaborate carelessness. “I hope you didn’t expect me to be grand.”
“I never saw anything grander in my life,” said Priscilla. “I thought Sylvia Courtney’s summer Sunday hat was swankey; but it’s simply not in it with your coat. I suppose that belt thing is real silk.”
“School colours,” said Frank.
“Oh! Ours are blue and dark yellow. I have them on a hockey blouse.”
The bath-chair turned out to be rather more dilapidated and disreputable than Frank expected. The front-wheel—bound to its place with string, not hair ribbon—seemed very likely indeed to come off. He eyed it doubtfully.
“If you’re afraid,” said Priscilla, “that it will dirty your beautiful white trousers, I’ll give it a rub-over with my pocket-handcher. But I don’t think that’ll be much use really. You’ll be filthy from head to foot in any case before we get home.”
Frank, limping with as much dignity as possible, sat down in the chair. He got out his cigarette case and asked Priscilla not to start until he had lit his cigarette.
“You don’t object to the smell, I hope,” he said politely.
“Not a bit. I’d smoke myself only I don’t like it. I tried once—Sylvia Courtney was shocked. That’s rather the sort she is—but it seemed to me to have a nasty taste. You’re sure you like it, Cousin Frank? Don’t do it simply because you think you ought.”
Priscilla pushed the bath-chair from behind. Frank guided the shaky front wheel by means of a long handle. They went down the avenue at an extremely rapid pace, Priscilla moving in a kind of jaunty canter. When they reached the gate Frank’s cigarette had gone out. There was a pause while he lit it again. Then he asked Priscilla to go a little less quickly. He wished his approach to the public street of the village to be as little grotesque as possible.
“By the way,” said Priscilla, “have you any money?”
“Certainly. How much do you want?”
“That depends. I have eightpence, which ought to be enough unless you want something very expensive to drink.”
“Why should we take anything to drink? We said at breakfast that we’d be back for luncheon.”
“We won’t,” said Priscilla, “nor we won’t for tea. Lucky if we are for dinner.”
“But Miss Lentaigne said she’d expect us. If we stay out she won’t like it.”
“Let her dis.,” said Priscilla. “Now what do you want to drink? I always have lemon flavoured soda. It’s less sticky than regular lemonade. Stone ginger beer is better than either, of course, but Brannigan doesn’t keep it, I can’t imagine why not.”
“If we’re going to stay out,” said Frank, “I’ll have beer, lager for choice.”
“Right. Lager is twopence. Lemon flavoured soda twopence if we bring back the bottles. That will leave fourpence for biscuits which ought to be enough.”
Fourpence worth of biscuits seemed to Frank an insufficient supply of food for two people who are to be on the sea for the whole day. He saw, besides, an opportunity of asserting once for all his position of superiority. He made up his mind to tip Priscilla. He fumbled in his pocket for a coin.
“You get quite a lot of biscuits for fourpence,” said Priscilla, “if you go in for plain arrowroot. Of course they’re rather dull, but then you get very few of the better sorts. Take macaroons, for instance. They’re nearly a halfpenny each in Brannigan’s. Sheer robbery, I call it.”
Frank, determined to do the thing handsomely if he did it at all, passed half a crown to Priscilla over the back of the bath chair.
“My dear child,” he said, “buy macaroons by all means if you like them. Buy as many as you want.”
Priscilla received the half-crown without any appearance of shame.
“If you’re prepared to lash out money in that way,” she said, “we may as well have a tongue. Brannigan has small ones at one and sixpence. Brawn of course is cheaper, but then if you have brawn you want a tin-opener. The tongues are in glass jars which you can break with a stone or a rowlock. The lids are supposed to come off quite easily if you jab a knife through them, but they don’t really. All that happens is a sort of fizz of air and the lid sticks on as tight as ever. Things hardly ever do what they’re supposed to according to science, which makes me think that science is rather rot, though, of course, it may have its uses only that I don’t know them.”
Priscilla wheeled the bath-chair for some distance along the road without speaking. Then she asked another question.
“Which would you rather have, the tongue or a tin of Californian peaches. They’re one and sixpence too, so we can’t have both, for it would be a pity to miss the chance of one and fourpence worth of macaroons. I don’t remember ever having so many at one time before. Though of course they’re not really so many when there are two of us to eat them.”
“I’ll give you another one and sixpence,” said Frank, “and then you’ll be able to get the peaches too if you want them. I rather bar those tinned fruits myself. They have no flavour.”
On Saturday evenings, when prefects and all self-respecting members of the upper and middle schools have tea in their studies, Frank was accustomed to eat tinned lobsters and sometimes tinned salmon, but he knew that superiority to such forms of food was one of the marks of a grown man. He hoped, by speaking slightingly of the Californian peaches, to impress Priscilla with the idea that he was a sort of uncle of hers. The luncheon was involving him in considerable expense, but he did not grudge the money if it produced the effect he desired. Unfortunately it did not.
“Well have a gorgeous bust,” said Priscilla. “I shouldn’t wonder if Brannigan got some kind of fit when we spend all that in his shop at once. He’s not accustomed to millionaires.”
Frank, not being able to find a shilling and a sixpence in his pocket, handed over another half crown. Priscilla promised to give him his change. She stopped the bath-chair at the door of Brannigan’s shop. The men of leisure who sat on the window sills stared curiously at Frank. Young gentlemen dressed in white flannels and wheeled in bath-chairs are rare in Rosnacree. Frank felt embarrassed and annoyed.
“Excuse me half a mo.,” said Priscilla. “I’ll just speak a word to Peter Walsh and then do the shopping. Peter, you’re to get the sails on theTortoiseat once.”
She spoke with such decisive authority that Peter Walsh felt quite certain that she had no right to give the order.
“Is it theTortoise, Miss?”
“Didn’t I say theTortoise. Go and get the sails at once.”
“I don’t know,” said Peter, “whether would your da be pleased with me if I sent you out in theTortoise. Sure you know——”
“Mr. Mannix and I,” said Priscilla, “are going out for the day in theTortoise.”
Peter Walsh took a long look at Frank. He was apparently far from satisfied with the result of his inspection.
“Of course if the young gentleman in the perambulator is going with you, Miss—theTortoiseis a giddy kind of a boat, your honour, and without you’d be used to her or the like of her—but sure if you’re satisfied—but what it is, the master gave orders that Miss Priscilla wasn’t to go out in theTortoisewithout either himself or me would be along with her.”
Frank was painfully aware that he was not used to theTortoiseor to any boat the least like her. He had never in his life been to sea in a sailing boat for the management of which he was in any way responsible. He was, in fact, entirely ignorant of the art of boat sailing. But the men who sat on the window sills of Brannigan’s shop, battered sea dogs every one of them, had their eyes fixed on him. It would be deeply humiliating to have to own up before them that he knew nothing about boats. Sir Lucius’s order applied, very properly, to Priscilla who was a child. Peter Walsh looked as if he thought that Frank also ought to be treated as a child. This was intolerable. The day seemed very calm. It was difficult to think that there could be any real risk in going out in the __Tortoise__. Priscilla nudged him sharply with her elbow. Frank yielded to temptation.
“Miss Lentaigne,” he said, “will be quite safe with me.”
He spoke with lordly self-confidence, calculated, he thought, to impress the impudent loafers on the window sills and to reduce Peter Walsh to prompt submission. Having spoken he felt unreasonably angry with Priscilla who was grinning.
Peter Walsh ambled down to the quay. He climbed over the dredger, which was lying alongside, and dropped from her into a small water-logged punt. In this he ferried himself out to theTortoise. Priscilla bounded into Brannigan’s shop. The sea dogs on the window sills eyed Frank and shook their heads. It was painfully evident that his self-confident tone had not imposed on them.
“There’s not much wind any way,” said one of them, “and what there is will be dropping with the ebb.”
“It’ll work round to the west with the flood,” said another. “With the weather we’re having now it’ll follow the sun.”
Priscilla came out of the shop laden with parcels which she placed one by one on Frank’s lap.
“Beer and lemonade,” she said. “The beast was out of lemon flavoured soda, so I had to get lemonade instead, but your lager’s all right. You don’t mind drinking out of the bottle, do you, Cousin Frank? You can have the bailing tin of course, if you like, but it’s rather salty. Macaroons and cocoanut creams. They turned out to be the same price, so I thought I might as well get a mixture. The cocoanut creams are lighter, so one gets more of them for the money. Tongue. I told him not to put paper on the tongue. I always think brown paper is rather a nuisance in a boat. It gets so soppy when it’s the least wet. There’s no use having more of it than we can help. Peaches. He hadn’t any of the small one and sixpenny tins, so I had to spend your other shilling to make up the half-crown for the big one. I hope you don’t mind. We shall be able to finish it all right I expect. Oh, bother! I forgot that the peaches require a tin-opener. Have you a knife? If you have we may be able to manage by hammering it along through the lid of the tin with a rowlock.”
Frank had a knife, but he set some value on it He did not want to have it reduced to the condition of a coarse toothed saw by being hammered through a tin with a rowlock. He hesitated.
“All right,” said Priscilla, “if you’d rather not have it used I’ll go and try to stick Brannigan for the loan of a tin-opener. He may not care for lending it, because things like tin-openers generally drop overboard and then of course he wouldn’t get it back. But he’ll hardly be able to refuse it I offer to deposit the safety pin in my tie as a hostage. It looks exactly as if it is gold, and, if it was, would be worth far more than any tin-opener.”
She went into the shop again. It was nearly ten minutes before she came out. Frank was seriously annoyed by a number of small children who crowded round the bath-chair and made remarks about his appearance. He tried to buy them off with macaroons, but the plan failed, as a similar one did in the case of the Anglo-Saxon king and the Danes. The children, like the Norse pirates, returned almost immediately in increased numbers. Then Priscilla appeared.
“I thought I should have had a frightful rag with Brannigan over the tin-opener,” she said, “but he was quite nice about it. He said he’d lend it with pleasure and didn’t care whether I left him the safety pin or not. The only trouble was that he couldn’t find one. He said that he had a gross of them somewhere, but he didn’t know where they’d been put. In the end it was Mrs. Brannigan who found them in an old biscuit tin under some oilskins. That’s what delayed me.”
Peter Walsh was hoisting a sail, a gunter lug, on theTortoise. He paused in his work now and then to cast a glance ashore at Frank. Priscilla wheeled the bath-chair down to the slip and hailed Peter.
“Hurry up now,” she said, “and get the foresail on her. Don’t keep us here all day.”
Peter pulled on the foresail halyards with some appearance of vigour. He slipped the mooring rope and ran theTortoisealongside the slip, towing the water logged punt behind her.
“Joseph Antony Kinsella,” said Peter, “was in this morning on the flood tide and he was telling me he came across that young fellow again near Illaunglos.”
“Was he talking to him?” said Priscilla.
“He was not beyond passing the time of day or the like of that for Joseph Antony had a load of gravel and he couldn’t be wasting his time. But the young fellow was in Flanagan’s old boat and it was Joseph Antony’s opinion that he was trying to learn himself how to row her.”
“He’d need to. But if that’s all that passed between them I don’t see that we’re much further on towards knowing what that man is doing here.”
“Joseph Antony did say,” said Peter, “that the young gentleman was as simple and innocent as a child and one that wouldn’t be likely to be doing any harm.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“You cannot, Miss. There’s a terrible lot of fellows going round the country these times, sent out by the government that would be glad enough to be interfering with the people and maybe taking the land away from them. You’d never know who might be at such work and who mightn’t, but Joseph Antony did say that the fellow in Flanagan’s old boat hadn’t the look of it. He’s too innocent like.”
“Hop you out now, Peter,” said Priscilla, “and help Mr. Mannix down into the boat. He has a sprained ankle and can’t walk by himself. Be careful of him!”
The task of getting Frank into theTortoisewas not an easy one for the slip was nearly as slimy as when Priscilla fell on it the day before. Peter, with his arm round Frank’s waist, proceeded very cautiously.
“Settle him down on the starboard side of the centre-board case,” said Priscilla. “We’ll carry the boom to port on the run out.”
“You will,” said Peter, “for the wind’s in the east, but you’ll have to jibe her at the stone perch if you’re going down the channel.”
“I’m not going down the channel. I mean to stand across to Rossmore and then go into the bay beyond.” Priscilla stepped into the boat and took the tiller.
“Did I hear you say, Miss, that you’re thinking of going on to Inishbawn?”
“You did not hear me say anything about Inishbawn; but I may go there all the same if I’ve time. I want to see the Kinsellas’ new baby.”
“If you’ll take my advice, Miss,” said Peter, “you’ll not go next nor nigh Inishbawn.”
“And why not?”
“Joseph Antony Kinsella was telling me this morning that it’s alive with rats, such rats nobody ever seen. They have the island pretty near eat away.”
“Talk sense,” said Priscilla.
“They came out on the tide swimming,” said Peter, “like as it might be a shoal of mackerel, and you think there’d be no end to them climbing up over the stones and eating all before them.”
“Shove her bow round, Peter; and keep that rat story of yours for the young man in Flanagan’s boat. He’ll believe it if he’s as innocent as you say.”
Peter shoved out theTortoise. The wind caught the sail. Priscilla paid out the main sheet and let the boom swing forward. Peter shouted a last warning from the slip.
“Joseph Antony was telling me,” he said, “that they’re terrible fierce, worser than any rats ever he seen.”
TheTortoiseslipped along and was soon beyond the reach of his voice. She passed the heavy hookers at the quay side, left buoy after buoy behind her, bobbed cheerfully through a tide race at the stone perch, and stood out, the wind right behind her, for Rossmore Head.
Rosnacree Bay is a broad stretch of water, but those who go down to it in boats are singularly at the mercy of the tides. Save for certain channels the water everywhere is shallow. At some remote period, it seems, the ocean broke in and submerged a tract of low land between the mountains which bound the north and south shores of the bay. What once were round hillocks rising from boggy pasture land are now islands, sloping eastwards to the water as they once sloped eastwards to green fields, but torn and chafed into steep bluffs where the sea beats on their western sides.
But the ocean’s conquest is incomplete. Its empire is disputed still. The very violence of the assault has checked its advance by piling up a mighty breakwater of boulders right across the mouth of the bay. Gathered upon sullenly firm based rocks these great round stones roll and roar and crash when the full force of the Atlantic billows comes foaming against them. They save the islands east of them. There are gaps in the breakwater, and the sea rushes through these, but it is tamed of its ferocity, humiliated from the grandeur of its strength so that it wanders, puzzled, bewildered, through the waterways among the islands. The land asserts itself. Things which belong to the land approach with contemptuous familiarity the very verges of their mighty foe. On the edges of the water the islanders build their hayricks, redolent of rural life, and set up their stacks of brown turf. Geese and ducks, whose natural play places are muddy pools and inland streams, swim through the salt water in the sheltered bays below the cottages. Pigs, driven down to the shore to root among the rotting seaweed, splash knee deep in the sea. At the time of high spring tides, in March and at the end of September, the water flows in oily curves or splashes muddily against the very thresholds of the cottages. It penetrates the brine-soaked soil and wells turn brackish. It wanders far inland through winding straits. The wayfarer, stepping across what seems to be a ditch at the end of a field far from the sea wonders to hear brown wrack crackle under his feet.
A few hours later the land asserts itself again. The sea draws back sullenly at first. Soon its retreat becomes a very flight. The narrow ways between the islands, calm an hour before, are like swift rivers. Through the cleft gaps in the breakwater of boulders the sea goes back from its adventurous wanderings to the ocean outside; but not as in other places, where a deep felt homing impulse draws tired water to the voluminous mother bosom of the Atlantic. Here, even on the calmest days, steep wavelets curl and break over each other, like fugitives driven to desperate flight by some maddening fear, prepared, so great is the terror behind them, to trample on their own comrades in the race for security. One after another all over the bay the wrack-clad backs of rocks appear. Long swathes of brown slimy weed, tugging at submerged roots, lie writhing on the surface of the ebbing streams. The islands grow larger. Confused heaps of round boulders appear under their western bluffs. Cormorants perch in flocks on shining stones, stretching out their narrow wings, peering through tiny black eyes at the withdrawal of the sea. On the eastern shores of every island, stretches of pebble-strewn mud widen rapidly. The boats below the cottages lie dejected, mutely re-reproachful of the anchors which have held them back from following the departed waters. Soft green banks appear here and there, broaden, join one another, until whole stretches of the bay, miles of it, show this pale sea grass instead of water. Only the few deep channels remain, with their foolish stranded buoys and their high useless perches, to witness to the fact that at evening time the sea will claim its own again.
Very wonderful are the changes of the bay. The southwest wind sweeps rain over it in slanting drifts. The islands show dimly grey amid a welter of grey water, breaking angrily in short, petulant seas, which buffet boats confusedly and put the helmsmen’s skill to a high test. Or chilly, curling mists wrap islands and promontories from sight. Terns, circling somewhere up above, cry to each other shrilly. Gulls flit suddenly into sight and out of sight again, uttering sorrowful wails. Now and again cormorants, low flying with a rushing noise, break the oily surface of the water with every swift downward flapping of their wings. Then the boatman needs something more than skill, must rely upon an inborn instinct for locality if he is not to find himself embayed and aground in some strange land-locked corner far from his home. Or, in the splendid summer days the islands seem poised a foot or two above the glistening water. The white terns hover and plunge, re-emerge amid the joyful callings of their fellows, each with some tiny silver fish to feed to the yellow chicks which gape to them from the short, coarse grass among the rocks. Curlews call to each other from island to island, and high answering calls come from the sea-saturated fields of the mainland. Small broad billed guillemots and puffins float at ease upon the water, swelling with obvious pride as they display the flocks of little ones which swim with infantile solemnity around them. Gulls cluster and splash noisily over shoals of fry. Then boats drift lazily along; piled high perhaps with brown turf, store of winter fuel for some home; or bearing stolid cattle from the cropped pasturage of one island to the untouched grass of another; or, paddled, noisily, carry a crowd of boys and girls home from school, mightily enriched no doubt with knowledge only to be obtained when the water is calm enough for children’s sea-going in the summer days.
On such days all the drama of the flowing and ebbing tides may be watched with ever increasing wonder and delight. The sea is caught by the islands and goes whirling down the channels. It is turned backwards by some stray spit of land and set beating against some other current of the same tide which has taken a different way and reached the same point in strong opposite flow. The little glistening wavelets leap to meet each other, like lovers reunited whose mouths are hungry for the pressure of glad greetings. There are places where the water eddies round and round, where smooth eager lips, rising from the whirlpools, seem as if they reached up for something to kiss, and are sucked down again into the depths with voiceless passion. Foot by foot the water gains on the rocks beside the channels, on the fringes of the boulders, on the stony shores, and covers the stretches of mud: