Rose, the under housemaid, with the recollection of the scientifically Christian method of treating her toothache fresh in her mind and therefore stimulated by a strong desire to annoy Miss Lentaigne, woke at five a.m. At half past five she called Priscilla and knocked at Frank’s door. Priscilla was fully dressed ten minutes later. Frank appeared in the yard at five minutes to six. They started as the stable clock struck six, Priscilla wheeling the bath-chair. Rose yawning widely, watched them from the scullery window.
Priscilla had failed to seize the cold salmon the night before. Rose, foraging early in the morning, with the fear of the cook before her eyes, had secured nothing but half a loaf of bread and a square section of honey. It was therefore something of a disappointment to find that Brannigan’s shop was not open when they reached the quay. No biscuits or tinned meats could be bought. Many adventurers would have been daunted by the prospect of a long day’s work with such slender provision. It is recorded, for instance, of Julius Caesar, surely the most eminent adventurer of all history, that he hesitated to attempt an expedition against one of the tribes of Gaul “propter inopiam pecuniae,” which may very well be translated “on account of a shortage of provisions.” But Julius Caesar, at the period of his greatest conquests, was a middle-aged man. He had lost the first careless rapture of youth. Frank and Priscilla, because their combined ages only amounted to thirty-two years, were more daring than Caesar. With a fine faith in the providence which feeds adventurers, they scorned the wisdom which looks dubiously at bread and honey. They did not hesitate at all.
The tide was still rising when they embarked. At that hour in the morning there was no wind and it was necessary to row theTortoiseout. Priscilla took both oars herself, remembering the gyrations of the boat the day before when Frank was helping her to row.
“There’ll be a breeze,” she said, “when the tide turns, but we can’t afford to wait here for that. When we’re outside the stone perch we’ll drop anchor. But the first thing is to set pursuit at defiance by getting beyond the reach of the human voice. If we can’t hear whoever happens to be calling us we can’t be expected to turn back and it won’t be disobedience if we don’t.”
The tide, with an hour more of flow behind it, crept along the grey quay wall, and eddied past the buoys. Two hookers lay moored, and faint spirals of smoke rose from the stove chimneys of their forecastles. Thin wreaths of grey mist hung here and there over the still surface of the bay. Patches of purple slime lay unbroken on the unrippled surface. Scraps of shrivelled rack, sucked off the shores of the nearer islands, floated past theTortoise. A cormorant, balanced on the top of one of the perches outside Delginish, sat with wings outstretched and neck craned forward, peering out to sea. A fleet of terns floated motionless on the water beyond the island. Two gulls with lazy flappings of their wings, flew westwards down the bay. Priscilla, rowing with short, decisive strokes, drove theTortoiseforward.
“It’s going to be blazing hot,” she said, “and altogether splendidly glorious. I feel rather like a dove that is covered with silver wings and her feathers like gold. Don’t you?”
Frank did. Although he would not have expressed himself in the words of the Psalmist, he recognised them. The most reliable tenor in the choir at Haileybury is necessarily familiar with the Psalms.
They reached the stone perch and cast anchor. It was half past seven o’clock. Priscilla got out the bread and honey.
“The proper thing to do,” she said, “would be to go on half rations at once, and serve out the bread by ounces and the honey by teaspoonfuls, but I think we won’t. I’m as hungry as any wolf.”
“Besides,” said Frank, “we haven’t got a teaspoon.”
“I hope your knife is to the fore. I’m not particular as a rule about the way I eat things, but there’s no use beginning the day by making the whole boat sticky. I loathe stickiness, especially when I happen to sit on it, which is one of the reasons which makes me glad I wasn’t born a bee. They have to, of course, poor things, even the queen, I believe. It can’t be pleasant.”
The tug of the boat at her anchor rope slackened as the tide reached its height. A light easterly wind came to them from the land. Priscilla swallowed the last morsel of bread and honey as theTortoisedrifted over her anchor and swung round.
“Perhaps,” she said, “you’d like to practise steering, Cousin Dick. If so, creep aft and take the tiller. I’ll get the sail on her and haul up the anchor.”
Frank, humbled by the experience of the day before, was doubtful. Priscilla encouraged him. He took the tiller with nervous joy. Priscilla hoisted the lug and then the foresail.
“Now,” she said, “I’ll get up the anchor and we’ll try to go off on the starboard tack. If we don’t we’ll have to jibe immediately. With this much wind it won’t matter, but you might not like the sensation.”
Frank did not want to enjoy any sensation of a sudden kind and jibing, as he understood it, was always unexpected. He asked which way he ought to push the tiller so as to make sure of reaching the starboard tack. Priscilla stood beside the mast and delivered a long, very confusing lecture on the effect of the rudder on the boat and the advantage of hauling down one or other of the foresail sheets when getting under way from anchor. Frank did not understand much of what she said, but was ashamed to ask for more information. Priscilla, on her knees under the foresail, tugged at the anchor rope. TheTortoisequivered slightly, but did not move. Priscilla, leaning well back, tugged harder. TheTortoise—it is impossible to speak of a boat except as a live thing with a capricious will—shook herself irritably.
“She’s slap over the anchor,” said Priscilla. “I can’t think how she gets there for there’s plenty of rope out; but there she is and I can’t move the beastly thing. Perhaps you’ll try. You may be stronger than I am. I expect it has got stuck somehow behind a rock.”
Frank felt confident that he was stronger in the arms than Priscilla. He crept forward and put his whole strength into a pull on the anchor rope. TheTortoisetwisted herself broadside on to the breeze and then listed over to windward. Priscilla looked round her in amazement. The breeze was certainly very light, but it was contrary to her whole experience that a boat with sails set should heel over towards the wind. She told Frank to stop pulling. TheTortoiseslowly righted herself and then drifted back to her natural position, head to wind.
“The only thing I can think of,” said Priscilla, “is that the anchor rope has got round the centreboard. It might. You never can tell exactly what an anchor rope will do. However, if it has, we’ve nothing to do but haul up the centreboard and clear it.”
She took the centreboard rope and pulled. Frank joined her and they both pulled. The centreboard remained immovable. TheTortoisewas entirely unaffected by their pulling.
“Jammed,” said Priscilla. “I feel a jolly sight less like that dove than I did. It looks rather as if we were going to spend the day here. I don’t want to cut the rope and lose the anchor if I can possibly help it, but of course it may come to that in the end, though even then I’m not sure that we’ll get clear.”
“Can we do nothing?” said Frank.
“This,” said Priscilla, “is a case for prolonged and cool-headed reasoning. You reason your best and I’ll bring all the resources of my mind to bear on the problem!”
She sat down in the bottom of the boat and gazed thoughtfully at the stone perch. Frank, to whom the nature of the problem was obscure, also gazed at the stone perch, but without much hope of finding inspiration. Priscilla looked round suddenly.
“We might try poking at it with the blade of an oar,” she said. “I don’t think it will be much use, but there’s no harm trying.”
The poking was a total failure, and Priscilla, reaching far out to thrust the oar well under the keel of the boat, very nearly fell overboard. Frank caught her by the skirt at the last moment and hauled her back.
“We’ll have to sit down and think again,” she said. “By the way, what was that word which Euclid said when he suddenly found out how to construct an isosceles triangle? He was in his bath at the time, as well as I recollect.”
A man is not in the lower sixth at Haileybury without possessing a good working knowledge of the chief events of classical antiquity. Frank rose to his opportunity.
“Are you thinking of Archimedes?” he asked. “What he said was ‘Eureka’ and what he found out wasn’t anything about triangles but—”
“Thanks,” said Priscilla. “It doesn’t really matter whether it was Euclid or not and it isn’t of the least importance what he found out. It was the word I wanted. Let’s agree that whichever of us Eureka’s it first stands up and shouts the word far across the sea. You’ve no objection to that, I suppose. The idea may stimulate our imaginations.”
Frank had no objection. He felt tolerably certain that he would not have to shout. Priscilla, frowning heavily, fixed her eyes on the stone perch, A few minutes later she spoke again.
“Once,” she said, “I was riding my bicycle in father’s mackintosh, which naturally was a little long for me. In process of time the tail of it got wound round and round the back wheel and I was regularly stuck, couldn’t move hand or foot and had to lie on my side with the bicycle on top of me. That seems to me very much the way we are now with that anchor rope and the centreboard.”
“How did you get out?” said Frank hopefully.
That Priscilla had got out was evident. If her position on the bicycle was really analogous to that of theTortoisethe same plan of escape might perhaps be tried.
“I lay there,” said Priscilla, “until Peter Walsh happened to come along the road. He kind of unwound me.”
A boat, heavily laden, was rowing slowly towards them, making very little way against the gathering strength of the ebb tide and the easterly wind.
“Perhaps,” said Frank, “the people in that boat, if it ever gets here, will unwind us.”
The boat drew nearer and Priscilla declared that it was Kinsella’s.
“It’s Joseph Antony himself rowing her,” she said. “He’d be getting on faster if he had Jimmy along with him, but I suppose he’s off with the sponge lady again.”
Kinsella reached theTortoiseand stopped rowing.
“You’re out for a sail again today, Miss?” he said. “Well, it’s fine weather for the likes of you.”
“At the present moment,” said Priscilla, “we’re stuck and can’t get out.”
“Do you tell me that now? And what’s the matter with you?”
“The anchor rope is foul of the centreboard and we can’t get either the one or the other of them to move.”
“Begor!” said Joseph Antony.
“Do you know any way of getting it clear?”
“I do, of course.”
“Well, trot it out.”
“If you was to take the oars,” said Joseph Antony, “and was to row the boat round the way she wasn’t going when she twisted the rope on you it would come untwisted again.”
“It would, of course. Thank you very much. Rather stupid of us not to have thought of that. It seems quite simple. But that’s always the way. The simplest things are far the hardest to think of. Columbus and the egg, for instance.”
She got out the oars as she spoke and began turning theTortoiseround.
“Begging your pardon, Miss,” said Joseph Antony, “but which way is the rope twisted round the plate? If you row her round the wrong way you’ll twist it worse than ever.”
But luck favored Priscilla. When theTortoisehad made one circle the rope shook itself clear. Joseph Antony, dipping his oars gently in the water, drew close alongside.
“I’d be sorry now,” he said, “if it was to Inishbawn you were thinking of going. Herself and the children is away off. I’d have been afraid to leave them there with myself up at the quay with a load of gravel.”
Priscilla looked at him with a smile of complete scepticism.
“It’s not gravel you have there,” she said.
“It’s a curious thing,” said Joseph Antony in an offended tone, “for you to be saying the like of that and the boat up to the seats with gravel before your eyes.”
“I don’t deny there’s gravel on top,” said Priscilla, “but there’s something else underneath.”
Joseph Antony urged his boat further from theTortoise.
“What do you mean, at all?” he said.
“I don’t know what you’ve got,” said Priscilla, “but I saw the rim of some sort of a wooden tub sticking out of the gravel in the fore part of the boat.”
Joseph Antony began to row vigorously towards the quay. Priscilla hailed him.
“Tell me this now,” she said, “Why did you take Mrs. Kinsella and the children off their island? Was it for fear of the rats?”
Joseph Antony lay on his oars.
“It was not rats,” he said. “Why would it?”
“Was it for change of air after the fever?”
“Fever! What fever?”
“Was it because there was something on the island that it wouldn’t be nice for Mrs. Kinsella or any other woman to see?”
“It was because of a young heifer,” said Joseph Antony, “that I was after buying at the fair of Rosnacree ere yesterday, the wickedest one I ever seen. She had her horn druv through Jimmy’s leg and pretty nearly trampled the life out of the baby before she was an hour on the island. If so be that you want to be scattered about, an arm here and a leg there, as soon as you set foot on the shore you can go to Inish-bawn, you and the young gentleman along with you. But if it’s pleasure you’re looking for it would be better for you to go somewhere else for it, the two of yez.”
He spoke truculently. It was evident that Priscilla’s questioning had seriously annoyed him. He began to row again while he was speaking and was out of earshot before Priscilla could reply. She waved her hand to him gaily.
The trouble with the anchor rope had delayed the start of theTortoise. It was eleven o’clock before she got under way. Frank had the tiller. Priscilla, seated in the fore part of the boat, gave him instruction in the art of steering. Running before a light breeze makes no high demand upon the helmsman’s skill. Frank learned to keep the boat’s head steady on her course and realised how small a motion of his hand produced a considerable effect. The time came when the course had to be altered. Priscilla, bent above all on discovering the new camping-ground of the spies, kept in the main channel. There comes a place where this turns northwards. Frank had to push down the tiller in order to bring the boat on her new course. He began to understand the meaning of what he did. The island of Inishrua lay under his lee. Priscilla scanned its slope for the sight of a tent. Frank, now beginning to enjoy his position thoroughly, let the boat away, eased off his sheet and ran down the passage between Inishrua and Knockilaun, the next island to the northward. Cattle browsed peacefully in the fields. A dog rushed from a cottage door and barked. Two children came down to the shore and gazed at the boat curiously. There was no encampment on either island.
Frank pressed down the tiller and hauled in his sheet. Priscilla insisted on his working the main sheet himself. He did it awkwardly and slowly, having only one hand and some fingers of the other, which held the tiller. Then he had his first experience of the joy of beating a small boat against the wind. The passage between the islands is narrow and the tacks were necessarily very short. Frank made all the mistakes common to beginners, sailing at one moment many points off the wind, at the next trying to sail with the luff of his lug and perhaps his foresail flapping piteously. But he learned how to stay the boat and became fascinated in guessing the point on the land which he might hope to reach at the end of each tack. Priscilla kept him from becoming over proud. She showed him, each time the boat went about, the spot which with reasonably good steering he ought to have reached. It was always many yards to windward.
At the end of the passage the boat stood on the starboard tack towards a small round island which lay to the east of Inishrua.
“That’s Inishgorm,” said Priscilla. “I don’t see how they can possibly be there, for there’s not a place on it to pitch a tent except the extreme top of the island. But we may as well have a look at it.”
Inishgorm ends on the west in a rocky promontory. TheTortoisepassed it and then Frank stayed her again. The next tack brought them into a little bay with deep, clear water. They stood right on until they were within a few yards of the land. Terns, anxious for the safety of their chicks, rose with shrill cries, circled round the boat, swooping sometimes within a few feet of the sail and then soaring again. Their excitement died away and their cries got fewer when the boat went about and stood away from the island. Priscilla pointed out a long low reef which lay under their lee. Round-backed rocks stood clear of the water at intervals. Elsewhere brown sea wrack was plainly visible just awash. On one of the rocks two seals lay basking in the sun. At the point of the reef a curious patch of sharply rippled water marked where two tides met. A long tack brought theTortoiseclear of the windward end of the reef. Frank paid out the main sheet and let the boat away for another run down a passage between the reef and a series of small flat islands.
“This,” said Priscilla, “is the likeliest place we’ve been today. I shouldn’t wonder a bit if we came on them here.”
The navigation seemed to Frank bewilderingly intricate. Small bays opened among the islands. Rocks obtruded themselves in unexpected places. It was never possible to keep a straight course for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Priscilla gave order in quick succession, “Luff her a little,” “Let her away now,” “Hold on as you’re going,” “Steady,” “Don’t let her away any more.” Now and then she threatened him with the possibility of a jibe. Frank, becoming accustomed to everything else, still dreaded that manoeuvre.
A loud hail reached them from the narrow mouth of a bay to windward of them. Priscilla looked round. The hail was repeated. Far up on the northern shore of the bay lay a boat, half in, half out of the water. Beyond her stern, knee deep in the water, with kilted skirts, stood a woman shouting wildly and waving a pocket handkerchief.
“It’s the sponge lady,” said Priscilla. “Luff, luff her all you can. We’ll go in there and see what she wants.”
TheTortoiseslanted up into the wind. Her sails flapped and filled again. Frank pulled manfully on the sheet. There were two short tacks, swift changes of position, slacking and hauling in of sheets. Then Frank found himself, once more on the starboard tack, standing straight for the lady who waved and shouted to them.
“It’s a gravelly shore,” said Priscilla. “We’ll beach her. Sail her easy now, Cousin Frank, and slack away your main sheet if you find there’s too much way on her. We don’t want to knock a hole in her bottom. Keep her just to windward of Jimmy Kinsella’s boat.”
The orders were too numerous and too complicated. Frank could keep his head on the football field while hostile forwards charged down on him, could run, kick or pass at such a crisis without setting his nerves a-quiver. He lost all power of reasoning when theTortoisesprang towards Jimmy Kinsella’s boat and the gravelly shore. He had judged with absolute accuracy the flight of the ball which the Uppingham captain drove hard and high into the long field. As it left the bat he had started to run, had calculated the curve of its fall, had gauged the pace of his own running, had arrived to receive it in his outstretched hands. He failed altogether in calculating the speed of theTortoise. He suddenly forgot which way to push the tiller in order to attain the result he desired. A wild cry from Priscilla confused him more than ever. He was dimly aware of a sudden check in the motion of the boat. He saw Priscilla start up, and then the lady, who a moment before was standing in the sea, precipitated herself head first over the bow. At the same moment theTortoisegrounded on the gravel with a sharp grinding sound. Frank looked about him amazed. Jimmy Kinsella, standing on the shore with his hands in his pockets, spoke slowly.
“Bedamn,” he said, “but I never seen the like. With the whole of the wide sea for you to choose out of was there no place that would do you except just the one place where the lady happened to be standing?”
Priscilla’s reproaches were sharper and less broadly philosophic in tone.
“Why didn’t you luff when I told you?” she said. “Didn’t I say you were to keep up to windward of Jimmy Kinsella’s boat? If you couldn’t do that why hadn’t you the sense to let out the main sheet? If we hadn’t run into the sponge lady we’d have stripped the copper band off our keel. As it is, I expect she’s dead. She hit her head a most frightful crack against the mast.”
Miss Rutherford was lying on her stomach across the fore part of the gunwale of theTortoise. Her head was close to the mast. She was groping about with her hands in the bottom of the boat. The lower part of her body, which was temporarily, owing to her position, the upper part, was outside the boat. Her feet beat the air with futile vigour. She wriggled convulsively and after a time her legs followed her head and shoulders into the boat. She rose on her knees, very red in the face, a good deal dishevelled, but laughing heartily.
“I’m not a bit dead,” she said, “but I expect my hair’s coming down.”
“It is,” said Priscilla. “I don’t believe you have a hairpin left unless one or two have been driven into your skull. Are you much hurt?”
“Not at all,” said Miss Rutherford. “Is your mast all right? I hit it rather hard.”
Priscilla looked at the mast critically and stroked the part hit by Miss Rutherford’s head to find out if it was bruised or cracked.
“I’m most awfully sorry,” said Frank. “I don’t know how I came to be such a fool. I lost my head completely. I put the tiller the wrong way. I can’t imagine how it all happened.”
“I don’t think,” said Miss Rutherford, “that I ever had an invitation to luncheon accepted quite so heartily before. You actually rushed into my arms.”
“Were you inviting us to lunch?” said Priscilla.
“I’ve been inviting you at the top of my voice,” said Miss Rutherford, “for nearly a quarter of an hour. I’m so glad you’ve come in the end.”
“We couldn’t hear what you were saying,” said Priscilla. “All we knew was that you were shouting at us. If we’d known it was an invitation——”
“You couldn’t have come any quicker if you’d heard every word,” said Miss Rutherford.
“I’m frightfully sorry,” said Frank again. “I can’t tell you——”
“If I’d known it was luncheon,” said Priscilla, “I’d have steered myself and run no risks. We haven’t a thing to eat in our boat and I’m getting weak with hunger.”
Miss Rutherford stepped overboard again.
“Come on,” she said, “we’re going to have the grandest picnic ever was, I went down to the village yesterday evening after I got home and bought another tin of Californian peaches.”
“How did you know you’d meet us?” said Priscilla.
“I hoped for the best. I felt sure I’d meet you tomorrow if I didn’t today. I should have dragged the peaches about with me until I did. Nothing would have induced me to open the tin by myself. I’ve also got two kinds of dessicated soup and——
“Penny-packers?” said Priscilla. “I know the look of them, but I never bought one on account of the difficulty of cooking. I don’t believe they’d be a bit good dry.”
“But I’ve borrowed Professor Wilder’s Primus stove,” said Miss Rutherford, “and I’ve got two cups and an enamelled mug to drink it out of.”
“We could have managed with the peach tin,” said Priscilla, “after we’d finished the peaches. I hate luxury. But, of course, it’s awfully good of you to think of the cups.”
“I hesitated about suggesting that we should take turns at the tin,” said Miss Rutherford. “I knew you wouldn’t mind, but I wasn’t quite sure——”
She glanced at Frank.
“Oh, he’d have been all right,” said Priscilla. “I’m training him in.”
“I’ve also got a pound and a half of peppermint creams,” said Miss Rutherford.
“My favourite sweet,” said Priscilla. “You got them at Brannigan’s, I hope. He keeps a particularly fine kind, very strong. You have a delicious chilly feeling on your tongue when you draw in your breath after eating them. But Brannigan’s is the only place where you get them really good.”
“I forget the name of the shop, but I think it must have been Brannigan’s. The man advised me to buy them the moment he heard you were to be of the party. He evidently knew your tastes. Then—I’m almost ashamed to confess it after what you said about luxury; but after all you needn’t eat it unless you like——
“What is it?” said Priscilla. “Not milk chocolate, surely.”
“No. A loaf of bread.”
“Oh, bread’s all right. It’ll go capitally with the soup. Frank was clamouring for bread yesterday, weren’t you, Cousin Frank? If there’s any over after the soup we can make it into tipsy cake with the juice of the peaches. That’s the way tipsy cake is made, except for the sherry, which always rather spoils it, I think, on account of the burny taste it gives. That and the whipped cream, which, of course, is rather good though considered to be unwholesome. But you can’t have things like that out boating.”
“Come on,” said Miss Rutherford, “we’ll start the Primus stove, and while the water is boiling we’ll eat a few of the peppermint creams ashors d’oeuvres.”
Priscilla jumped from the bow of the boat to the shore. “Jimmy Kinsella,” she said, “go and help Mr. Mannix out of the boat. He’s got a sprained ankle and can’t walk. Then you can take our anchor ashore and shove out the boat. She’ll lie off all right if you haul down the jib. Miss Rutherford and I will go and light the Primus stove. I’ve always wanted to see a Primus stove, but I never have except in a Stores List and then, of course, it wasn’t working.”
“Come on,” said Miss Rutherford. “I have it all ready in a sheltered nook under the bank at the top of the beach.”
She took Priscilla’s hand and began to run across the seaweed towards the grass. Half way up Priscilla stopped abruptly and looked round. Jimmy Kinsella had his arm round Frank and was helping him out of the boat.
“Hullo, Jimmy!” said Priscilla. “I’d better come back and give you a hand. You’ll hardly be able to do that job by yourself.”
“I will, of course,” said Jimmy. “Why not?”
“I thought, perhaps, you wouldn’t,” said Priscilla, “on account of the hole in your leg.”
“What hole?”
“The hole your father’s new heifer made when she drove her horn through your leg,” said Priscilla. “I suppose there is a hole. There must be if the horn went clean through. It can’t have closed up again yet.”
“I don’t know,” said Jimmy. “Did ever I meet a young lady as fond of the funning as yourself, Miss. Many’s the time my da did be saying that the like of Miss Priscilla——”
“Your da, as you call him,” said Priscilla, “says a deal more than his prayers.”
“Do tell me about the hole in Jimmy’s leg,” said Miss Rutherford. “He never mentioned it to me.”
“Nor wouldn’t,” said Priscilla, “because it’s like the rats and the spotted fever and the bad smell, or what ever it was he told you. It’s simply not there.”
Miss Rutherford lit the methylated spirits in the upper part of the Primus stove. Priscilla pumped up the paraffin with enthusiasm. The water was put on to boil. Then Priscilla asked for the packets of desiccated soup.
“I find,” she said, “that it’s a capital plan to read the directions for use before you actually do the thing, whatever it is. Last term I spoiled a whole packet of printing paper—photographic, you know—by not doing that. I read them afterwards and found out exactly where I’d gone wrong, which was interesting, of course, but not much real use. Sylvia Courtney rather rubbed it in. That’s the sort of girl she is.”
“A most disagreeable sort,” said Miss Rutherford. “I have met some like her. In fact they’re rather common.”
“I wouldn’t say disagreeable. In fact I rather love Sylvia Courtney at times. But she has her faults. We all have, which in some ways is rather a good thing. If there weren’t any faults it would be so dull for people like Aunt Juliet. You’re not a Ministering Child, I suppose?”
“No. Are you? I expect you must be.”
“I was once. Sylvia Courtney brought me to the meeting. We all had to do some sewing and afterwards there was tea. I joined, of course. The sub. was only sixpence, and there was always tea, with cake, though not good cake. Afterwards I found that I’d sworn a most solemn oath always to do a kind act to some one every day. That’s the sort of way you get let in at those meetings.”
“You didn’t read the directions for use beforehand that time.”
“No. But in the end it turned out all right. It was just before the hols when it happened, so, of course, Aunt Juliet had to be my principal victim. I wouldn’t do kind acts to Father. He wouldn’t understand them, not being educated up to Ministering Children. But Aunt Juliet is different, for I knew that by far the kindest thing I could do to her was to have a few faults. So I did and have ever since, though I stopped being a Ministering Child next term and so wriggled out of the swear.”
Frank, leaning on Jimmy Kinsella, came towards them from the boat. He was bent on being particularly polite to Miss Rutherford, feeling that he ought to atone for his unfortunate blunder with the boat He took off his cap and bowed.
“I hope,” he said, “that you’ve been successful in catching sponges.”
“I’ve not got any to-day,” said Miss Rutherford. “I haven’t begun to fish for them. The tide isn’t low enough yet. How are you getting on with the spies? Caught any?”
“Oh,” said Frank, “we don’t really think they are spies, you know.”
“All the same,” said Priscilla, “the president of the War Office is out after them. At least we think he must be. We don’t see what else he can be after, nor does Father.”
“Lord Torrington is to arrive at my uncle’s house to-day,” said Frank.
“Then they must be spies,” said Miss Rutherford. “Not that I ever doubted it.”
“That water is pretty near boiling,” said Priscilla, “What about dropping in the soup?”
“Which shall we have?” said Miss Rutherford. “There’s Mulligatawny and Oxtail?”
“Mulligatawny is the hot sort,” said Priscilla, “rather like curry in flavour. I’m not sure that I care much for it. By the way, talking of hot things, didn’t you say you had some peppermint creams?”
Miss Rutherford produced the parcel. Priscilla put two into her mouth and made a little pile of six others beside her on the ground. Frank said that he would wait for his share till after he had his soup. Miss Rutherford took one. The desiccated Oxtail soup was emptied into the pot. Priscilla retained the paper in which it had been wrapped.
“‘Boil for twenty minutes,” she read, “‘stirring briskly.’ That can’t be really necessary. I’ve always noticed that these directions for use are too precautious. They go in frightfully for being on the safe side. I should say myself that we’d be all right in trying it after five minutes. And stirring is rather rot. Things aren’t a bit better for being fussed over. In fact Father says most things come out better in the end if they’re left alone. ‘Add salt to taste, and then serve.’ It would have been more sensible to say ‘then eat.’ But I suppose serve is a politer word. By the way, have you any salt?”
“Not a grain,” said Miss Rutherford. “I entirely forgot the salt.”
“It’s a pity,” said Priscilla, “that we didn’t think of putting in some sea water. Potatoes are ripping when boiled in sea water and don’t need any salt. Peter Walsh told me that once and I expect he knows, I never tried myself.”
She glanced at the sea as she spoke, feeling that it was, perhaps, not too late to add the necessary seasoning in its liquid form. A small boat, under a patched lug sail, was crossing the mouth of the bay at the moment. Priscilla sprang to her feet excitedly.
“That’s Flanagan’s old boat,” she said. “I’d know it a mile off. Jimmy! Jimmy Kinsella!”
Jimmy was securing the anchor of theTortoise. He looked round.
“Isn’t that Flanagan’s old boat?” said Priscilla.
“It is, Miss, surely. There’s ne’er another boat in the bay but herself with the bit of an old flour sack sewed on along the leach of the sail. It was only last week my da was saying——”
“We haven’t a moment to lose,” said Priscilla. “Miss Rutherford, you help Frank down. I’ll run on and get up the foresail.”
“But the soup?” said Miss Rutherford, “and the peppermint creams, and the rest of the luncheon?”
“If you feel that you can spare the peppermint creams,” said Priscilla, “we’ll take them. But we can’t wait for the soup.”
“Take the bread, too,” said Miss Rutherford, “and the peaches. It won’t delay you a minute to put in the peaches!”
“If you’re perfectly certain you don’t want them for yourself, we’ll be very glad to have them.”
“Nothing would induce me to eat a Californian peach in selfish solitude,” said Miss Rutherford, “I should choke if I tried.”
“Right,” said Priscilla. “You carry them down and sling them on board. I’ll help Frank. Now, then, Cousin Frank, do stand up. I can’t drag you down over the seaweed on your side. You’ve got to hop more or less.”
Miss Rutherford, with the loaf of bread, the peaches and the peppermint creams in her hand, ran down to the boat. Frank and Priscilla followed her. Jimmy had put the anchor on board and was holding theTortoisewith her bow against the shingle.
“Take me, too,” said Miss Rutherford. “I love chasing spies more than anything else in the world.”
“All right,” said Priscilla. “Bound in and get down to the stern. Now, Frank, you’re next. Oh, do go on. Jimmy, give him a lift from behind. I’ll steer this time.”
She hauled on the foresail halyard, got the sail up and made the rope fast. Then she sprang to the stern, squeezed past Miss Rutherford and took the tiller.
“Shove her off, Jimmy, wade in a bit and push her head round. I’ll go off on the starboard tack and not have to jibe. Oh, Miss Rutherford, don’t, please don’t sit on the main sheet.”
The business of getting a boat, which is lying head to wind to pay off and sail away, is comparatively simple. The fact that the shore lies a few yards to windward does not complicate the matter much. The main sheet must be allowed to run out so that the sail does not draw at first. The foresail, its sheet being hauled down, works the boat’s head round. Unfortunately for Priscilla, her main sheet would not run out. Miss Rutherford made frantic efforts not to sit on it, but only succeeded in involving herself in a serious tangle. Jimmy Kinsella pushed the boat’s head round. Both sails filled with wind. Priscilla held the tiller across the boat without effect TheTortoiseheeled over, and with a graceful swerve sailed up to the shore again.
“Oh bother!” said Priscilla, “shove her off again, Jimmy. Wade in with her and push her head right round. Thank goodness I have the main sheet clear now.”
This time theTortoiseswung round and headed for the entrance of the bay.
“Jimmy,” shouted Miss Rutherford, “there’s some soup in the pot. Go and eat it. Afterwards you’d better come on in your boat and see what happens to us.”
“There’s no necessity for any excitement,” said Priscilla. “Let everybody keep quite calm. We are bound to catch them.”
TheTortoiseswung round the rocks at the mouth of the bay. Flanagan’s old boat was seen a quarter of a mile ahead, running towards a passage which seemed absolutely blocked with rocks. TheTortoisebegan to overhaul her rapidly.
“I almost wish,” said Miss Rutherford, “that you’d allowed Frank to steer. When we’re out for an adventure we ought to be as adventurous as possible.”
“They’re trying the passage through Craggeen,” said Priscilla, with her eyes on Flanagan’s old boat. “That shows they’re pretty desperate. Hand me the peppermint creams. There’s jolly little water there at this time of the tide. It’ll be sheer luck if they get through.”
“Take five or six peppermints,” said Miss Rutherford, “if you feel that they’ll steady your nerves. You’ll want something of the sort. I feel thrills down to the tips of my fingers.”
Flanagan’s old boat ran on. Seen from theTortoiseshe seemed to pass through an unbroken line of rocks. She twisted and turned now southwards, now west, now northwards. TheTortoisesped after her.
“Now, Cousin Frank,” said Priscilla, “get hold of the centreboard rope and haul when I tell you. There’ll be barely water to float us, if there’s that. We’ll never get through with the centreboard down.”
She headed the boat straight for a gravelly spit of land past which the tide swept in a rapid stream. A narrow passage opened suddenly. Priscilla put the tiller down and theTortoiseswept through. A mass of floating seaweed met them. TheTortoisefell off from the wind and slipped inside it. A heavy bump followed.
“Up centreboard,” said Priscilla. “I knew it was shallow.”
Frank pulled vigorously. Another bump followed.
“Bother!” said Priscilla. “We’re done now.”
TheTortoiseswept up into the wind. Her sails flapped helplessly.
“What’s the matter?” said Miss Rutherford.
“Rudder’s gone,” said Priscilla. “That last bump unshipped it.”
She held the useless tiller in her hand. The rudder, swept forward by the tide, drifted away until it went ashore on a reef at the northern end of the passage. TheTortoise, after making one or two ineffective efforts to sail without a rudder, grounded on the beach of Craggeen Island. Priscilla jumped out.
“Just you two sit where you are,” said said, “and don’t let the boat drift. I’ll run on to the point of the island and see where those spies are going to. Then we’ll get the rudder again and be after them.”
“Frank,” said Miss Rutherford, when Priscilla had disappeared, “have you any idea how we are to keep the boat from drifting?”
“There’s the anchor,” said Frank.
“I don’t trust that anchor a bit. It’s such a small one, and the boat seems to me to be in a particularly lively mood.”
TheTortoise, her bow pressed against the gravel, appeared to be making efforts to force her way through the island. Every now and then, as if irritated by failure, she leaned heavily over to one side.
“I think,” said Miss Rutherford, “I’ll stand in the water and hold her till Priscilla comes back. It’s not deep.”
Frank’s sense of chivalry would not allow him to sit dry in the boat while a lady was standing up to her ankles in water beside him. He struggled overboard and stood on one leg holding on to the gunwale of theTortoise. Priscilla was to be seen on the point of the island watching Flanagan’s old boat.
“Let’s eat some peppermint creams,” said Miss Rutherford. “They’ll keep us warm.”
“I’m awfully sorry about all this,” said Frank. “I don’t know what you’ll think of us. First I run into you and then Priscilla wrecks you on this island.”
“I’m enjoying myself thoroughly,” said Miss Rutherford. “I wonder what will happen next. We can’t go on without a rudder, can we?”
“She’ll get it back. It’s quite near us.”
“So it is. I see it bobbing up and down against the rocks there. I think I’ll go after it myself. It will be a pleasant surprise for Priscilla when she comes back to find that we’ve got it. Do you think you can hold the boat by yourself? She seems quieter than she was.”
Miss Rutherford waded round the stern of theTortoiseand set off towards the rudder. The water was not deep in any part of the channel, but there were holes here and there. When Miss Rutherford stepped into them she stood in water up to her knees. There were also slippery stones and once she staggered and very nearly fell. She saved herself by plunging one arm elbow deep in front of her. She hesitated and looked round.
“Thank goodness,” she said, “here’s Jimmy Kinsella coming in the other boat. He’ll get the rudder.”