Priscilla and Frank left the quay at half past seven against a tide which was still rising, but with a pleasant easterly breeze behind them. Once past the stone perch Priscilla set the boat on her course for Craggeen and gave the tiller to Frank. She herself pulled a spinnaker from beneath the stern sheets and explained to Frank that when she had hoisted it the boat’s speed would be considerably increased. Then she made him uncomfortable by hitting him several times in different parts of the body with a long spar which she called the spinnaker boom.
The setting of this sail struck Frank as an immensely complicated business. He watched Priscilla working with a whole series of ropes and admired her skill greatly, until it occurred to him that she was not very sure of what she was doing. A rope, which she had made fast with some care close beside him, had to be cast loose, carried forward, passed outside a stay, and then made fast again. There appeared to be three corners to the spinnaker, and all three were hooked turn about on the end of the boom. Even when the third was unhooked again and the one which had been tried first restored to its place Priscilla seemed a little dissatisfied with the result. Another of the three corners was caught and held by the clip-hooks on the end of the halliard. Priscilla moused these carefully, explaining why she did so, and then found that she had to cut the mousing and catch the remaining corner of the sail with the hooks. When at last she triumphantly hoisted it the thing went up in a kind of bundle. Its own sheet was wrapped round it twice, and a jib sheet which had somehow wandered away from its proper place got twined round and round the boom which remained immovable near the mast. Priscilla surveyed the result of her work with a puzzled frown. Then she lowered the sail and turned to Frank.
“I thoroughly understand spinnakers,” she said, “in theory. I don’t suppose that there’s a single thing known about them that I don’t know. But they’re beastly confusing things when you come to deal with them in practical life. Lots of other things are like that. It’s exactly the same with algebra. I expect I’ve told you that I simply loathe algebra. Well, that’s the reason. I understand it all right, but when it comes to doing it, it comes out just like that spinnaker. However it doesn’t really matter. That’s the great comfort about most things. You get on quite well enough without them, though of course you would get on better with, if you could do them.”
TheTortoisedid in fact slip along at a very satisfactory pace in spite of the lightness of the wind. It was just half past eight when they reached the mouth of the bay in which they had lunched the day before with Miss Rutherford.
“I feel rather,” said Priscilla, “as if I could do with a little breakfast There’s no use going on shore. Let’s anchor and eat what we want in the boat.”
Frank who was very hungry agreed at once. He rounded the boat up into the wind and Priscilla flung the anchor overboard. Then she picked her parcels one by one from the folds of the spinnaker in which they had wrapped themselves.
“It won’t do,” she said, “to eat everything today at the first go off the way we did yesterday. Specially as we’ve promised to give Miss Rutherford luncheon. The duck, for instance, had better be kept.”
She laid the duck down again and covered it, a little regretfully, with the spinnaker. She took up the jampot which contained the caramel pudding. Her face brightened as she looked at it.
“By the way, Cousin Frank,” she said. “That word is inviolable.”
“That word?”
“The sanctuary and secret word,” said Priscilla. “Don’t you remember I couldn’t get it last night. But I did after I went to sleep which was jolly lucky. I hopped up at once and wrote it down. Now we know what Inishbawn will be for Lady Torrington’s poor daughter when we get her there. All the same I don’t think we’d better eat the caramel pudding at breakfast. It mightn’t be wholesome for you at this hour—on account of your sprained ankle, I mean, and not being accustomed to puddings at breakfast. Besides I expect Miss Rutherford would rather like it. What do you say to starting with an artichoke each?”
Frank was ready to start with anything that was given him. He ate the artichoke greedily and felt hardly less hungry when he had finished it. Priscilla too seemed unsatisfied. She said that they had perhaps made a mistake in beginning with the artichokes. But her sense of duty and her instinct for hospitality triumphed over her appetite. Feeling that temptation might prove overpowering, she put the slices of cold fish out of sight under the spinnaker with the remark that they ought to be kept for Miss Rutherford. She and Frank ate the herrings’ roes on toast, the sweetbread and one of the four rolls. Then though Frank still looked hungry, Priscilla hoisted the foresail and hauled up the anchor.
They reached the passage past Craggeen when the tide was at the full and threaded their way among the rocks successfully. They passed into the wide water of Finilaun roads. A long reach lay before them and the wind had begun to die down as the tide turned. Priscilla, leaving Frank to steer, settled herself comfortably on the weather side of the boat between the centreboard case and the gunwale. Far down to leeward another boat was slipping across the roads towards the south. She had an old stained jib and an obtrusively new mainsail which shone dazzlingly white in the sun. Priscilla watched her with idle interest for some time. Then she announced that she was Flanagan’s new boat.
“He bought the calico for the sail at Brannigan’s,” she said, “and made it himself. Peter Walsh told me that. I’m bound to say it doesn’t sit badly; but of course you can’t really tell about the sit of a sail when the boat’s off the wind. I’d like to see it when she’s close-hauled. That’s the way with lots of other things besides sails. I dare say now that Lord Torrington is quite an agreeable sort of man when his daughter isn’t running away.”
“I’m sure he’s not,” said Frank.
“You can’t be sure,” said Priscilla. “Nobody could, except of course Lady Torrington and she doesn’t seem to me the sort of person who’s much cowed in her own house. I wish you’d heard her going for Aunt Juliet last night, most politely, but every word she said had what’s called in French a ‘double entendre’ wrapped up in it. That means——”
“I know what it means,” said Frank.
“That’s all right then. I thought perhaps you wouldn’t. I always heard they rather despised French at boys’ schools, which is idiotic of course and may not be true.”
Frank recollected a form master with whom, at one stage of his career at school he used to study the adventures of the innocent Telemaque. This gentleman refused to read aloud or allow his class to read aloud the text of the book, alleging that no one who did not suffer from a malformation of the mouth could pronounce French properly. Still even this master must have attached some meaning to the phrase “double entendre,” though he might not have used it in precisely Priscilla’s sense.
“Flanagan has probably been over to Curraunbeg,” said Priscilla, “to see how his old boat is looking. After what Jimmy Kinsella is sure to have told him about the way they’re treating her he’s naturally a bit anxious. I wonder will he have the nerve to charge them anything extra at the end for dilapidations. It’s curious now that we don’t see the tents on Curraunbeg. I saw them yesterday from Craggeen. Perhaps they’ve moved round to the other side of the island.”
“There’s a boat coming out from behind the point now,” said Frank. “Perhaps they’re moving again.”
Priscilla leaned over the gunwale and stared long at the boat which Frank pointed out.
“There’s a man and a woman in her,” he said.
“It’s not Flanagan’s old boat though,” said Priscilla. “I rather think it’s Jimmy Kinsella. I hope Miss Rutherford hasn’t been hunting them on her own, under the impression that they’re German spies. We oughtn’t to have told her that. She’s so frightfully impulsive you can’t tell what she’d do.”
Jimmy Kinsella had recognised theTortoiseshortly after he rounded the point of Curraunbeg. He dropped his lug sail and began to row up to windward evidently meaning to get within speaking distance of Priscilla. The boats approached each other at an angle. Miss Rutherford stood up in the stern of hers, waved a pocket handkerchief and shouted. Priscilla shouted in reply. Frank threw theTortoiseup into the wind and Jimmy Kinsella pulled alongside.
“They’ve gone,” said Miss Rutherford. “They’ve escaped you again.”
“You’ve frightened them away,” said Priscilla. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
“No,” said Miss Rutherford, “I didn’t Honour bright! They’d gone before I got there. The people on the island said they packed up early this morning and when they saw Flanagan passing in his new boat they hailed him and got him to take them off.”
“Wasn’t that the boat we saw just now?” said Frank.
“Yes,” said Priscilla. “Frightfully annoying, isn’t it?”
“Never mind,” said Miss Rutherford. “I know where they’re gone. The people on the island told me. To Inishminna. Wasn’t Inishminna the name, Jimmy?”
“It was, Miss.”
“Climb on board,” said Priscilla. “That is to say if you want to come. We must be after them at once. We’ll follow Flanagan. Jimmy can row through Craggeen passage and pick you up afterwards.”
Miss Rutherford tumbled from her own boat into theTortoise.
“Thanks awfully,” she said. “I want to see you arrest those spies more than anything.”
“They’re not spies,” said Priscilla.
“We never really thought they were,” said Frank.
“The truth is——” said Priscilla.
She stopped abruptly and looked round. Jimmy Kinsella was some distance astern heading for Craggeen. He appeared to be quite out of earshot. Nevertheless Priscilla lowered her voice to a whisper.
“We’re on an errand of mercy,” she said.
“Oh,” said Miss Rutherford, “not vengeance. I’m disappointed.”
“Mercy is a much nicer thing,” said Priscilla, “besides being more Christian.”
“All the same,” said Miss Rutherford, “I’m disappointed. Vengeance is far more exciting.”
“To a certain extent,” said Priscilla, “we’re taking vengeance too. At least Frank is, on account of his ankle you know. So you needn’t be disappointed.”
“That cheers me up a little,” said Miss Rutherford, “but do explain.”
“It’s quite simple really,” said Priscilla. “Though it may seem a little complicated. You explain, Cousin Frank, and be sure to begin at the beginning or she won’t understand.”
“Lord Torrington,” said Frank, “is Secretary of State for War, and his daughter, Lady Isabel—but perhaps I’d better tell you first that as I was coming over to Ireland I met——”
“‘Now who be ye would cross Lochgyle,” said Priscilla, waving her hands towards the sea, “‘this dark and stormy water?’”
“‘Oh I’m the chief of Ulva’s Isle, and this Lord Ullin’s daughter.’ You know that poem, I suppose.”
“I’ve known it for years,” said Miss Rutherford.
“Well, thats it,” said Priscilla. “You have the whole thing now.”
“I see,” said Miss Rutherford, “I see it all now, or almost all. This is far better than spies. How did you ever think of it?”
“It’s true,” said Priscilla.
“Lord Torrington,” said Frank, “is over here stopping with my uncle, and he came specially to find his daughter who’s run away.”
“‘One lovely hand stretched out for aid,’” said Priscilla, “‘and one was round her lover.’ That’s what we want to avoid if we can. I call that an errand of mercy. Don’t you?”
“It’s far and away the most merciful errand I ever heard of,” said Miss Rutherford. “But why don’t you hurry? At any moment now her father’s men may reach the shore.”
“We can’t,” said Priscilla, “hurry any more than we are. The wind’s dropping every minute. Luff her a little bit, Frank, or she won’t clear the point. The tide’s taking us down, and that point runs out a terrific distance.”
“The only thing I don’t quite see yet,” said Miss Rutherford, “is where the vengeance comes in.”
“That’s to be taken on her father,” said Priscilla.
“Quite right,” said Miss Rutherford, “as a matter of abstract justice; but I rather gathered from the way you spoke, Priscilla, that Frank had some kind of private feud with the old gentleman.”
“He shoved me off the end of the steamer’s gangway,” said Frank, “and sprained my ankle. He has never so much as said he was sorry.”
“Good,” said Miss Rutherford. “Now our consciences are absolutely clear. What we are going to do is to carry off the blushing bride to some distant island.”
“Inishbawn,” said Priscilla.
TheTortoisehad slipped through the passage at the south end of Finislaun. She was moving very slowly across another stretch of open water. On her lee bow lay Inishbawn. The island differs from most others in the bay in being twin. Instead of one there are two green mounds linked together by a long ridge of grey boulders. Tides sweep furiously round the two horns of it, but the water inside is calm and sheltered from any wind except one from the south east. On the slope of the northern hill stands the Kinsellas’ cottage, with certain patches of cultivated land around it. The southern hill is bare pasture land roamed over by bullocks and a few sheep which in stormy weather or night cross the stony isthmus to seek companionship and shelter near the cottage.
“Isn’t that Inishbawn?” said Miss Rutherford. “Jimmy Kinsella told me it was the day I first met you.”
“That’s it,” said Priscilla, “that’s where we mean to put her.”
“It’s not half far enough away,” said Miss Rutherford. “Lord Ullin or Torrington or whatever lord it is will quite easily follow her there. We must go much further, right out into the west to High Brasail, where lovers are ever young and angry fathers do not come.”
“Inishbawn will do all right,” said Priscilla.
“Priscilla says,” said Frank, “that the people won’t let Lord Torrington land on Inishbawn.”
“They certainly seemed to have some objection to letting any one land,” said Miss Rutherford. “Every time I suggested going there Jimmy has headed me off with one excuse or another.”
“They have very good reasons,” said Priscilla. “I have more or less idea what they are; but of course I can’t tell you. It’s never right to tell other people’s secrets unless you’re perfectly sure that you know them yourself, and I’m not sure. You hardly ever can be unless you happen to be one of the people that has the secret and in this case I’m not.”
“I don’t want to ask embarrassing questions,” said Miss Rutherford, “though I’m almost consumed with curiosity about the secret. But are you quite sure that it’s of a kind that will really prevent Lord Torrington landing there?”
“Quite absolutely, dead, cock sure,” said Priscilla. “If I’m right about the secret and I think I am, though of course it’s quite possible that I may not be, but if I am there isn’t a man about the bay who wouldn’t die a thousand miserable deaths rather than let Lord Torrington and the police sergeant land on that island.”
“Then all we’ve got to do,” said Miss Rutherford, “is to get her there and she’s safe.”
Priscilla hurriedly turned over the corner of the spinnaker and got out the jam pot. She glanced at its paper cover.
“Inishbawn is an inviolable sanctuary,” she said. “What a mercy it is that I wrote down that word last night. I had forgotten it again. It’s a desperately hard word to remember.”
“It’s a very good word,” said Miss Rutherford.
“It’s useful anyhow,” said Priscilla. “In fact, considering what we’re going to do I don’t see how we could very well get on without it. I suppose it’s rather too early to have luncheon.”
“It’s only half past eleven,” said Frank, “but——”
“I breakfasted early,” said Miss Rutherford.
“We scarcely breakfasted at all,” said Frank.
“All right,” said Priscilla, “the wind’s gone hopelessly. It’s much too hot to row, so I suppose we may as well have luncheon though it’s not the proper time.”
“Let us shake ourselves free of the wretched conventions of ordinary civilisation,” said Miss Rutherford. “Let us eat when we are hungry without regard to the clock. Let us gorge ourselves with California peach juice. Let us suck the burning peppermint—”
“We haven’t any today,” said Priscilla. “Brannigan’s wasn’t open when we started.”
“The principle is just the same,” said Miss Rutherford. “Whatever food you have is sure to be refreshingly unusual.”
TheTortoiselay absolutely becalmed. The ebbing tide carried her slowly past Inishbawn towards the deep passage between the end of the breakwater of boulders and the point on which the lighthouse stands. The air was extraordinarily close and oppressive. Even Priscilla seemed affected by it. She lay against the side of the boat with her hands trailing idly in the water. Frank sat with the useless tiller in his hand and watched the boom swing slowly across as the boat swayed this way or that with the current. Miss Rutherford, her face glistening with heat, had gone to sleep in a most uncomfortable attitude soon after luncheon. Her head nodded backwards from time to time and whenever it did so she opened her eyes, smiled at Frank, rearranged herself a little and then went to sleep again.
The cattle on Inishbawn had forsaken their scanty pasture and stood knee-deep in the sea. Not even the wild new heifer, which had gored Jimmy Kinsella, if such a creature existed at all, would have had energy to do much. A dog, which ought perhaps to have been barking at the cattle, lay prostrate under the shadow afforded by a grassy bank. A flock of white terns floated motionless a few yards from theTortoise, looking like a miniature fleet of graceful, white-sailed pleasure boats. They had no heart to go circling and swooping for fish.
Perhaps it would have been useless if they had. The fish themselves may well have been lying, in search of coolness among the weedy stones at the bottom of the sea. Of all living creatures the jelly fish alone seemed to retain any spirit. Immense crowds of them drifted past theTortoise, swelling out and closing again their concave bodies, revolving slowly round, dragging long purple tendrils deliriously through the warm water. They swept past Priscilla’s drooping hands, touching them with their yielding bodies and brushing them softly with their tendrils. Now and then she lifted one from the water, watched it lie flaccid on the palm of her hand and then dropped it into the sea again.
A faint air of wind stole across from Inishbawn. TheTortoise, utterly without steerage way, felt it and turned slowly towards it. It was as if she stretched her head out for another such gentle kiss as the wind gave her. Priscilla felt it, and with returning animation made a plunge for an unusually large jelly fish, captured it and held it up triumphantly.
“It’s a pity you’re not out after jelly fish, Miss Rutherford,” she said, “instead of sponges. There are thousands and thousands of them. We could fill the boat with them in half an hour.”
Miss Rutherford made no reply. She had succeeded in wriggling herself into such a position that her head rested on the thwart of the boat. Her face was extremely red, and, owing perhaps to the twisted position of her neck, she was snoring. Priscilla looked at Frank and smiled.
“I wonder,” she said, “if we ought to wake her up. She won’t like it, of course, but it may be the kindest thing to do. It wouldn’t be at all nice for her if she smothered in her sleep.”
Frank blinked lazily. He was very nearly asleep.
“You’re a nice pair,” said Priscilla. “What on earth is the point of dropping off like that in the middle of the day? Ghastly laziness I call it.”
Another puff of wind and then another came from the west. TheTortoisebegan to move through the water. Frank woke up and paid serious attention to his steering. Priscilla looked round the sea and then the sky. The thunder storm was breaking over Rosnacree, five miles to the east, and a heavy bank of dark clouds was piled up across the sky.
“It looks uncommonly queer,” said Priscilla, “rather magnificent in some ways, but I wish I knew exactly what it’s going to do. I don’t understand this breeze coming in from the west. It’s freshening too.”
A long deep growl reached them from the east.
“Thunder,” said Frank.
“Must be,” said Priscilla. “The clouds are coming up against the wind. Only thunder does that—and liberty. At least Wordsworth says liberty does. I never saw it myself. I told you we were doing ‘The Excursion’ last term. It’s in that somewhere. I say, this breeze is freshening. Keep her just as she’s going, Cousin Frank. We’ll be able to let her go in a minute. Oh, do look at the water!”
The sea had turned a deep purple colour. In spite of the ripples which the westerly breeze raised on its surface it had a curious look of sulky menace.
“Miss Rutherford,” said Priscilla, “wake up, we’re going to have a thunder storm.”
Miss Rutherford sat up with a start
“A storm!” she said. “How splendid! Any chance of being wrecked?”
“Not at present,” said Priscilla, “but you never know what may happen. If you feel at all nervous I’ll steer myself.”
“Nervous!” said Miss Rutherford. “I’m delighted. There’s nothing I should like more than to be wrecked on a desert island with you two. It would just complete the most glorious series of adventures I’ve ever had. Do try and get wrecked.”
“Hadn’t we better go in to Inishbawn and wait till it’s over?” said Frank.
“Nonsense,” said Priscilla. “Wetting won’t hurt us, and anyway we’ll be at Inishminna in half an hour with this breeze.”
TheTortoisewas racing through the dark water. She was listed over so that her lee gunwale seemed likely to dip under. Miss Rutherford, in spite of her wish for shipwreck, scrambled up to windward. They reached the point of Ardilaun and fled, bending and staggering, down the narrow passage between it and Inishlean. Priscilla took the mainsheet in her hand and ordered Frank to luff a little. There was another period of rushing, heavily listed, with the wind fair abeam. Now and then, as a squall struck the sails, Priscilla let the mainsheet run out and allowed theTortoiseto right herself. The sea was flecked with the white tops of short, steep waves, raised hurriedly, as it were irritably by the wind. A few heavy drops of rain fell. The whole sky became very dark. A bright zig-zag of light flashed down, the thunder crashed over head. The rain came down like a solid sheet of water.
“Let her away again now,” said Priscilla. “We can run right down on Inishark. Be ready to round her up into the wind when I tell you. I daren’t jibe her.”
“Don’t,” said Frank. “I say, you’d better steer.”
“Can’t now. We couldn’t possibly change places. Are you all right, Miss Rutherford?”
“Splendid. Couldn’t be better. I’m soaked to the skin. Can’t possibly be any wetter even if we swim for it.”
Inishark loomed, a low dark mass under their bow, dimly seen through a veil of blinding rain which fell so heavily that the floor boards under their feet were already awash.
“We’ll have to bail in a minute or two if this goes on,” said Priscilla. “I wonder where the tin is?”
A roar of thunder drowned her voice. Miss Rutherford and Frank saw her gesticulate wildly and point towards the island. Two small patches of white were to be seen near the shore.
“Their tents,” yelled Priscilla. “We have them now if we don’t sink. Luff her up, Cousin Frank, luff her up for all you’re worth. We must get her off on the other tack or we’ll be past them.”
She hauled on the mainsheet as she spoke. TheTortoiserounded up into the wind, lay over till the water began to pour over her side, righted herself again and stood suddenly on an even keel, her sails flapping wildly, the boat herself trembling like a creature desperately frightened. Then she fell off on her new tack. Priscilla dragged Miss Rutherford up to windward. Frank, guided by instinct rather than by any knowledge of what was happening, scrambled up past the end of the long tiller. Priscilla let the main sheet run out again. TheTortoiseraced straight for the shore.
“Keep her as she’s going, Cousin Frank. I’ll get the sail off her.”
For a minute or two there was wild confusion. Priscilla treading on Miss Rutherford without remorse or apology, struggled with the halyard. The sail bellied hugely, dipped into the sea to leeward and was hauled desperately on board. The rain streamed down on them, each drop starting up again like a miniature fountain when it splashed upon the wood of the boat. TheTortoise, nearly half full of water, still staggered towards the shore under her foresail. Priscilla hauled at the rope of the centreboard.
“Run her up on the beach,” she shouted. “If we do knock a hole in her it can’t be helped. Oh glory, glory! look at that!”
One of the tents tore itself from its fastenings, flapped wildly in the air and then collapsed on the ground, a writhing heaving mass of soaked canvas. TheTortoisestruck heavily on the shore. Priscilla leaped over her bows and ran up the beach with the anchor in her hand. She rammed one of its flukes deep into the gravel. Then she turned towards the boat and shouted:
“You help Frank out, Miss Rutherford. I must run on and see what’s happening to those tents.”
A young woman, rain soaked and dishevelled, knelt beside the fallen tent. She was working with fierce energy at the guy ropes, such of them as still clung to their pegs. They were hopelessly entangled with the others which had broken free and all of them were knotted and twisted round corners of the flapping canvas.
“If I were you,” said Priscilla, “I’d leave those things alone till the storm blows over. You’re only making them worse.”
The young woman looked round at Priscilla and smoothed her blown wet hair from her face.
“Come and help me,” she said, “please.”
“What’s the good of hurrying?” said Priscilla.
“My husband’s underneath.”
“Well, I suppose he’s all right. In fact, I daresay he’s a good deal drier there than we are outside. We’d far better go into your tent and wait.”
“He’ll smother.”
“Not he. If he’s suffering from anything this minute I should say it is draughts.”
The canvas heaved convulsively. It was evident that some one underneath was making desperate efforts to get out.
“He’s smothering. I know he is.”
“Very well,” said Priscilla. “I’ll give you a help if you like; I don’t know much about tents and I may simply make things worse. However, I’ll try.”
She attacked a complex tangle of ropes vigorously. Miss Rutherford, with Frank leaning on her shoulder, staggered up the beach. Just as they reached the tents the head of a young man appeared under the flapping canvas. Then his arms struggled out. Priscilla seized him by the hands and pulled hard.
“Oh, Barnabas!” said the young lady, “are you safe?”
“He’s wet,” said Priscilla, “and rather muddy, but he’s evidently alive and he doesn’t look as if he was injured in any way.”
The young man looked round him wildly at first. He was evidently bewildered after his struggle with the tent and surprised at the manner of his rescue. He gradually realised that there were strangers present. His eyes rested on Miss Rutherford. She seemed the most responsible member of the party. He pulled himself together with an effort and addressed her in a tone of suave politeness which, under the circumstances, was very surprising.
“Perhaps,” he said, “I ought to introduce myself. My name is Pennefather, Barnabas Pennefather. The Rev. Barnabas Pennefather. This is my wife, Lady Isabel Pennefather. I have a card somewhere.”
He began to fumble in various packets.
“Never mind the card,” said Priscilla. “We’ll take your word for it.”
“We,” said Miss Rutherford, “are a rescue party. We’ve been in search of you for days. This is Priscilla. This is Frank. My own name is Martha Rutherford.”
“A rescue party!” said Mr. Pennefather.
“Did mother send you after us?” said Lady Isabel. “If she did you may go away again. I won’t go back.”
“Quite the contrary,” said Priscilla, “we’re on your side.”
“In fact,” said Miss Rutherford, “we’re here to save you from——”
“At first,” said Priscilla, “we fancied you might be spies, German spies. Afterwards we found out you weren’t. That often happens you know. Just as you think you’re perfectly certain you’re right, it turns out that you’re quite wrong.”
“Then you really were pursuing us,” said Lady Isabel. “I always said you were, didn’t I, Barnabas?”
“Is Lord Torrington here?” said Mr. Pennefather.
“Not exactly here,” said Priscilla, “at least not yet. But he will be soon. When we left home this morning he was fully bent on hunting you down and I rather think the police sergeant must have given him the tip about where you are.”
“The police!” said Mr. Pennefather.
“I don’t so much mind if it’s only father,” said Lady Isabel.
“You may not,” said Priscilla. “But I expect Mr. Pennefather will. Lord Torrington is very fierce. In his rage and fury he sprained Frank’s ankle. He might have broken it. In fact, the railway guard thought he had. I don’t know what he’ll do to you when he catches you.”
“Does he know we’re married,” said Mr. Pennefather.
“Is mother with him?” said Lady Isabel.
“She is,” said Priscilla. “But it’s all right. Aunt Juliet will keep her in play. You can count on Aunt Juliet until she finds out that you’re married—after that——— But it will be all right. We have come to conduct you to a place of safety.”
“An inviolable sanctuary,” said Miss Rutherford. “But we shall all have colds in the head before we get there if we don’t do something to dry ourselves.”
“Barnabas,” said Lady Isabel, “do go and change your clothes. He fell into the sea the other day, and he is so liable to take cold.”
“We saw him,” said Priscilla. “Go and change your clothes, Mr. Pennefather. By the time you’ve done that Jimmy Kinsella will have arrived and you can be off at once with Miss Rutherford. The sooner we’re all out of this the better. Though Lord Torrington doesn’t look like a man who would come out in a thunder storm even to catch his daughter.”
“Your black suit is in the hold-all in my tent,” said Lady Isabel.
The Reverend Barnabas Pennefather disappeared into the tent which was still standing. Priscilla looked around her cheerfully.
“It’s clearing up,” she said. “There’s quite a lot of blue sky to be seen over Rosnacree. We’ll all dry soon.”
She gathered the bottom of her skirt tight into her hands and wrung the water out of it.
“Where are you going to take him to?” she said to Miss Rutherford.
“Am I to take him?” said Miss Rutherford. “I didn’t know that was part of the plan. I thought we were all going together to Inishbawn, the sanctuary.”
“Didn’t I tell you,” said Priscilla. “We decided that you were to have charge of Barnabas for a few days until the trouble blows over a bit. You’re to pretend that he’s your husband. You don’t mind, do you?”
“I’d much rather have Frank,” said Miss Rutherford.
“What on earth would be the use of that?” said Priscilla.
“But, of course, I’ll marry Barnabas with pleasure,” said Miss Rutherford, “if it’s really necessary and Lady Isabel doesn’t object.”
“I won’t be separated from Barnabas,” said Lady Isabel, “and I’m sure he’ll never agree to leave me.”
“All the same you’ll have to,” said Priscilla, “both of you. We can’t pretend you’re not married if you’re going about together on Inishbawn.”
“But I don’t want to pretend I’m not married. I’m proud of what we’ve done.”
“You’ll sacrifice the respect and affection of Aunt Juliet,” said Priscilla, “the moment it comes out that you’re married. As long as she thinks you’re out on your own defying the absurd conventions by which women are made into what she calls ‘bedizened dolls for the amusement of the brutalised male sex,’ she’ll be all on your side. But once she thinks you’ve given up your economic independence she’ll simply turn round and help Lady Torrington to hunt you down.”
Mr. Pennefather emerged from the tent. He wore a black suit of clothes of strictly clerical cut and a collar which buttoned at the back of his neck. Except that he was barefooted and had not brushed his hair he would have been fit to attend a Church Conference. His self-respect was restored by his attire. He walked over to Frank, who was dripping on a stone, and handed him a visiting card. Frank read it.
“Reverend Barnabas Pennefather—St. Agatha’s Clergy House—Grosvenor Street, W.”
“I am the senior curate,” he said. “The staff consists of five priests besides the vicar.”
“They want to take you away from me,” said Lady Isabel. “But you won’t go, say you won’t, Barnabas.”
Mr. Pennefather took his place at his wife’s side. He held her hand in his.
“Nothing on earth,” he said, “can separate us now.”
“Very well,” said Priscilla. “You’re rather ungrateful, both of you, considering all we’re doing for you, and I don’t think you’re exactly polite to Miss Rutherford, however——”
“Don’t mind about me,” said Miss Rutherford. “I feel snubbed, of course, but I wasn’t really keen on having him for a husband, even temporarily.”
Mr. Pennefather looked at her with shocked surprise. A deep flush spread slowly over his face. His eyes blazed with righteous indignation.
“Woman——” he began.
“If you don’t mind,” said Priscilla, “I think we’ll call you Barnabas. It’s rather long, of course, and solemn. The natural thing would be to shorten it down to Barny, but that wouldn’t suit you a bit. The rain’s over now. I think I’ll go down and bail out theTortoise. Then we’ll all start. You people can be taking down the tent that’s standing, and folding up the other one.”
“Where are we going to?” said Mr. Pennefather.
“To a sanctuary,” said Miss Rutherford, “an inviolable sanctuary. Priscilla has that written down on the cover of a jam pot, so there’s no use arguing about it.”
“She says we’ll be safe,” said Lady Isabel.
“I refuse to move,” said Mr. Pennefather, “until I know where I’m going and why.”
“You talk to him, Cousin Frank,” said Priscilla. “I see Jimmy Kinsella coming round the corner in his boat and I really must bail out theTortoise.”
“If you don’t move out of this pretty quick,” said Frank to Mr. Pennefather, “Lord Torrington will have you to a dead cert.”
“‘And fast before her father’s men,” said Miss Rutherford, “‘three days we fled together. And should they find us in this glen——‘”
“Oh, Barnabas,” said Lady Isabel, who knew Campbell’s poem and anticipated the end of the quotation, “Oh, Barnabas, let’s go, anywhere, anywhere.”
“I never saw any man,” said Frank, “in such a wax as Lord Torrington.”
“I haven’t met him myself,” said Miss Rutherford, “but I expect that when he begins to speak he’ll shock you even worse than I did.”
“We don’t mind Father,” said Lady Isabel. “It’s Mother.”
“They’re both on your track,” said Frank.
Mr. Pennefather looked from one to another of the group around him. Then he turned slowly on his heel and began to roll up his tent. Lady Isabel and Miss Rutherford set to work to pack the camp equipage. Frank took off his coat and wrung the water out of it. Then he spread it on the ground and looked at it. It was the coat worn by members of the First Eleven. He had won his right to it when he caught out the Uppingham captain in the long field. Now such triumphs and glories seemed incredibly remote. The voices of Priscilla and Jimmy Kinsella reached him from the shore. They were arguing hotly.
Frank looked at them and saw that they were both on their knees in theTortoisescooping up water in tin dishes.
The bailing was finished at last. The packing was nearly done. Priscilla walked up to the camp dragging Jimmy Kinsella with her by the collar of the coat.
“Barnabas,” she said, “have you got a revolver?”
Mr. Pennefather looked up from a roll of blankets which he was strapping together.
“No,” he said. “I don’t carry revolvers.”
“I think you ought to,” said Priscilla. “I mean whenever you happen to be running away with the daughter of the First Lord of the War Office or any one like that. But, of course, being a clergyman may make a difference. It’s awfully hard to know exactly what a clergyman ought to do when he’s eloping. At the same time it’s jolly awkward you’re not having a revolver, for Jimmy Kinsella says he won’t go to Inishbawn and we can’t all fit in theTortoise.”
“Leave him to me,” said Frank. “Just bring him over here, Priscilla, and I’ll deal with him.”
“I’ll not take you to Inishbawn,” said Jimmy.
Priscilla handed him over to Frank. It was a long time, more than two years, since Frank had acquired some reputation as a master of men in the form Room of Remove A.; but he retained a clear recollection of the methods he had employed. He seized Jimmy Kinsella’s wrist and with a deft, rapid movement, twisted it round. Jimmy had not enjoyed the advantages of an English public school education. Torture of a refined kind was new to him. He uttered a shrill squeal.
“Will you go where you’re told,” said Frank, “or do you want more?”
“I dursn’t take yez to Inishbawn,” said Jimmy whimpering. “My da would beat me if I did.”
Frank twisted his arm again.
“My da will cut the liver out of me,” said Jimmy.
“Stop that,” said Mr. Pennefather. “I cannot allow bullying.”
“It’s for your sake entirely that it’s being done,” said Priscilla. “You’re the most ungrateful beast I ever met. It would serve you jolly well right if we left you here to have your own arm twisted by Lord Torrington.”
Miss Rutherford was kneeling in front of a beautiful canteen, fitting aluminium plates and various articles of cutlery into the places prepared for them. She stood up and brandished a large carving fork.
“This,” she said, “will be just as effective as a revolver. You take it, Frank, and sit close to him in the boat. The moment he stops rowing or tries to go in any direction except Inishbawn you——”
She made a vicious stab in the air and then handed the fork to Frank.
A quarter of an hour later the party started. Mr. Pennefather and Lady Isabel refused to be separated. Priscilla took them in theTortoise. They sat side by side near the mast and held each other’s hands. Priscilla, after one glance in their direction, looked resolutely past them for the rest of the voyage. Miss Rutherford sat in the bow of Jimmy Kinsella’s boat. Jimmy sat amidships and rowed. Frank, with the carving fork poised for a thrust, sat in the stern. The wind, following the departed thunderstorm, blew from the east. Priscilla set sail on theTortoise. Jimmy hoisted his lug, but was obliged to row as well as sail in order to keep in touch with his consort. The boats grounded almost together on the shingly beach of Inishbawn.
Joseph Antony, who had made his way home through the thunderstorm, put his hand on the bow of theTortoise.
“It’ll be better for you not to land,” he said.
“I know all about that,” said Priscilla. “You needn’t bother to invent anything fresh.”
“You can’t land here,” said Joseph Antony. “Aren’t there islands enough in the bay? Jimmy, will you push that boat off from the shore and take the lady and gentleman that’s in her away out of this.”
The carving fork descended an inch towards Jimmy’s leg. His father menaced him with a threatening scowl. Jimmy sat quite still. Like the leader of the House of Lords during the last stage of a recent political crisis, he had ceased to be a free agent.
“I don’t want to land on your beastly island,” said Priscilla. “If there wasn’t as much as a half-tide rock in the whole bay that I could put my foot on I wouldn’t land here, and you can tell your wife from me that if that baby of hers was to die for the want of a bit of flannel, I won’t steal another scrap from Aunt Juliet’s box to give it to her.”
“Sure you know well enough, Miss,” said Joseph Antony, “that there’s ne’er a one would be more welcome to the island than yourself. But the way things is at present——”
“I’ve a pretty good guess at the way things are,” said Priscilla, “and the minute I get back tonight I’m going to tell Sergeant Rafferty.”
Joseph Antony smiled uneasily.
“You wouldn’t do the like of that,” he said.
“I will,” said Priscilla, “unless you allow me to land these two at once.”
Joseph Antony looked long and carefully at Mr. Pennefather.
“What about the other young gentleman?” he said, “the one that has the sore leg?”
“He doesn’t want to set foot on Inishbawn,” said Priscilla.
“And the young lady,” said Joseph Antony, “that does be taking the water in the little boat along with Jimmy?”
“She’ll let Jimmy row her off to any corner of the bay you like,” said Priscilla, “if you’ll allow the other two to land.”
Joseph Antony looked at Mr. Pennefather again.
“I wouldn’t say there was much harm in him,” he said.
“There’s none,” said Priscilla, “absolutely none. Isn’t he paying £4 a week for that old boat of Flanagan’s. Doesn’t that show you the kind of man he is?”
“Unless,” said Joseph Antony, “it could be that he’s signed the pledge for life.”
“Have you signed the pledge for life, Barnabas?” said Priscilla. “Let go of her hand for one minute and answer the question that’s asked you.”
“Does he mean a temperance pledge?” said Mr. Pennefather.
“I do,” said Joseph Antony. “Are you a member of the Total Abstinence Sodality?”
“I take a little whisky after my work on Sunday evenings,” said Mr. Pennefather, “and, of course, when I’m dining out I——”
“That’ll do,” said Joseph Antony. “A man that takes it one time will take it another. I suppose now you’re not any ways connected with the police?”
“He is not,” said Priscilla. “Can’t you see he’s a clergyman?”
“It’s beyond me,” said Joseph Antony, “what brings you to Inishbawn at all.”
“The way things are with you at present,” said Priscilla, “it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have a clergyman staying with you on the island. It would look respectable.”
“It would, of course,” said Joseph Antony.
“If any question ever came to be asked,” said Priscilla, “about what’s going on here, it would be a grand thing for you to be able to say that you had the Rev. Barnabas Pennefather stopping along with you.”
“It would surely,” said Joseph Antony.
Priscilla jumped out of the boat and drew Kinsella a little way up the beach.
“If anything was to come out,” she whispered, “you could say that it was the strange clergyman and that you didn’t know what was going on.”
“I might,” said Joseph Antony.
Priscilla turned to the boat joyfully.
“Hop out, Barnabas,” she shouted, “and take the tents and things with you. It’s all settled. Joseph Antony will give you the run of his island and you’ll be perfectly safe.”
Mr. Pennefather climbed over the bows of theTortoise.
Lady Isabel tugged at the hold-all, which was tucked away under a thwart and heaved it with a great effort into her husband’s arms. He staggered under the weight of it. Joseph Antony Kinsella’s instinctive politeness asserted itself.
“Will you let me take that from you?” he said. “The like of them parcels isn’t fit for your reverence to carry.”
Lady Isabel got the rest of her luggage out of theTortoise. Then she and Mr. Pennefather went to Jimmy Kinsella’s boat and unloaded it. They had a good deal of luggage altogether. When everything was stacked on the beach Mrs. Kinsella, with her baby in her arms, came down and looked at the pile with amazement. Three small, bare-legged Kinsellas, young brothers of Jimmy’s, followed her. She turned to Priscilla.
“Maybe now,” she said, “them ones is after being evicted? Tell me this, was it out of shops or off the land that they did be getting their living before the trouble came on them?”
“Arrah, whist, woman,” said Joseph Antony, “have you no eyes in your head. Can’t you see that the gentleman’s a clergyman?”
“Glory be to God!” said Mrs. Kinsella, “and to think now that they’d evict the like of him!”
Lady Isabel held out her hand to Priscilla.
“Goodbye,” she said, “and thank you so much for all you’ve done. If you see my mother——”
“We’ll see her tonight,” said Priscilla. “I shan’t be let in to dinner, but I’ll see her afterwards when Aunt Juliet is smoking in the hope of shocking your father.”
“Don’t tell her we’re here,” said Lady Isabel.
“Come along, Frank,” said Priscilla. “I’ll help you out of that boat and into theTortoise. We must be getting home. Goodbye, Miss Rutherford.”
“It really is goodbye this time,” said Miss Rutherford. “I’m off tomorrow morning.”
“Back to London?” said Frank. “Hard luck.”
“To that frowsy old Museum,” said Priscilla, “full of skeletons of whales and stuffed antelopes and things.”
“I feel it all acutely,” said Miss Rutherford. “Don’t make it worse for me by enumerating my miseries.”
“And I don’t believe you’ve caught a single sponge,” said Priscilla. “Will they be frightfully angry with you?”
“I’ve got a few,” said Miss Rutherford, “fresh water ones that I caught before I met you. I’ll make the most of them.”
“Anyhow,” said Priscilla, “it’ll be a great comfort to you to feel that you’ve taken part in a noble deed of mercy before you left.”
“That’s something, of course,” said Miss Rutherford, “but you can’t think how annoying it is to have to go away just at this crisis of the adventure. I shall be longing day and night to hear how it ends.”
“I’ll write and tell you, if you like,” said Priscilla.
“Do,” said Miss Rutherford. “Just let me know whether the sanctuary remains inviolable and I shall be satisfied.”
“Right,” said Priscilla. “Goodbye. We needn’t actually kiss each other, need we? Of course, if you want to frightfully you can; but I think kissing’s rather piffle.”
Miss Rutherford contented herself with wringing Priscilla’s hand. Then she and Priscilla helped Frank out of Jimmy Kinsella’s boat and into theTortoise.
The wind was due east and was blowing a good deal harder than it was when they ran down to Inish-bawn. TheTortoisehad a long beat before her, the kind of beat which means that a small boat will take in a good deal of water. Priscilla passed an oilskin coat to Frank. Having been wet through by the thunderstorm and having got dry, Frank had no wish to get wet again. He struggled into the coat, pushing his arms through sleeves which stuck together and buttoned it round him. TheTortoisesettled down to her work in earnest She listed over until the foaming dark water rushed along her gunwale. She pounded into the short seas, lifted her bow clear of them, pounded down again, breasted them, took them fair on the curve of her bow, deluged herself, Frank’s oilskin and even the greater part of her sails with showers of spray. The breeze freshened and at the end of each tack the boat swung round so fast that Frank, with his maimed ankle, had hard work to scramble over the centreboard case to the weather side. He slipped and slithered on the wet floor boards. There was a wash of water on the lee side which caught and soaked whichever leg he left behind him. He discovered that an oilskin coat is a miserably inefficient protection in a small boat. Not that the seas came through it. That does not happen. But while he made a grab at the flying foresail sheet a green blob of a wave would rush up his sleeve and soak him elbow high. Or, when he had turned his back to the wind and settled down comfortably, an insidious shower of spray found means to get between his coat and his neck, and trickled swiftly down, saturating his innermost garments to his very waist. Also it is necessary sometimes to squat with knees bent chinward, and then there are bulging spaces between the buttons of the coat. Seas, leaping joyfully clear of the weather bow, came plump into his lap. It became a subject of interesting speculation whether there was a square inch of his body left dry anywhere.
Priscilla, who had no oilskin, got wet quicker but was no wetter in the end. Her cotton frock clung to her. Water oozed out of the tops of her shoes as she pressed her feet against the lee side of the boat to maintain her position on the slippery floor boards. She had crammed her hat under the stern thwart. Her hair, glistening with salt water, blew in tangles round her head. Her face glowed with excitement. She was enjoying herself to the utmost.
Tack after tack brought them further up the bay. The wind was still freshening, but the sea, as they got nearer the eastern shore, became calmer. TheTortoiseraced through it. Sharp squalls struck her occasionally. She dipped her lee gunwale and took a lump of solid water on board. Priscilla luffed her and let the main sheet run through her fingers. TheTortoisebounced up on even keel and shook her sails in an ill-tempered way. Priscilla, with a pull at the tiller, set her on her course again. A few minutes later the sea whitened and frothed to windward and the same process was gone through again. The stone perch was passed. The tacks became shorter, and the squalls, as the wind descended from the hills, were more frequent.
But the sail ended triumphantly. Never before had Priscilla rounded up theTortoiseto her mooring buoy with such absolute precision. Never before had she so large an audience to witness her skill. Peter Walsh was waiting for her at the buoy in Brannigan’s punt. Patsy the smith, quite sober but still yellow in the face, was standing on the slip. On the edge of the quay, having torn themselves from their favourite seat, were all the loafers who usually occupied Brannigan’s window sills. Timothy Sweeny had come down from his shop and stood in the background, a paunchy, flabby figure of a man, with keen beady eyes.
“The weather’s broke, Miss,” said Peter Walsh, as he rowed them ashore. “The wind will work round to the southeast and your sailing’s done for this turn.”
“It may not,” said Priscilla, stepping from the punt to the slip, “you can’t be sure about the wind.”
“But it will, Miss,” said one of the loafers, leaning over to speak to her.
Another and then another of them took up the words. With absolute unanimity they assured her that sailing next day would be totally impossible.
“Unless you’re wanting to drown yourselves,” said Patsy the smith sullenly.
“The glass has gone down,” said Timothy Sweeny, coming forward.
“Help the gentleman ashore,” said Priscilla, “and don’t croak about the weather.”
“The master was saying today,” said Peter Walsh, “that he’d take theTortoiseout tomorrow, and the gentleman that’s up at the house along with him. I’d be glad now, Miss, if you’d tell him it’ll be no use him wasting his time coming down to the quay on account of the weather being broke and the wind going round to the southeast.”
“And the glass going down,” said Sweeny.
“It’ll be better for him to amuse himself some other way tomorrow,” said Patsy the smith.
“I’ll tell him,” said Priscilla.
“And if the young gentleman that’s with you,” said Peter Walsh, “would say the same I’d be glad. We wouldn’t like anything would happen to the master, for he’s well liked.”
“It would be a disgrace to the whole of us,” said Patsy the smith, “if the strange gentleman was to be drownded.”
“They’d have it on the papers if anything happened him,” said Sweeny, “and the place would be getting a bad name, which is what I wouldn’t like on account of being a magistrate.”
Priscilla began to wheel the bath-chair away from the quay. Having gone a few steps she turned and winked impressively at Peter Walsh. Then she went on. The party on the quay watched her out of sight.
“Now what,” said Sweeny, “might she mean by that kind of behaviour?”
“It’s as much as to say,” said Peter Walsh, “that she knows damn well where it is the master and the other gentleman will be wanting to go.”
“She’s mighty cute,” said Sweeny.
“And what’s more,” said Peter Walsh, “she’ll stop him if she’s able. For she doesn’t want them out on Inishbawn, no more than we do.”
“Are you sure now that she meant that?” said Sweeny.
“I’m as sure as if she said it, and surer.”
“She’s a fine girl, so she is,” said Patsy the smith.
“Devil the finer you’d see,” said one of the loafers, “if you was to search from this to America.”
This, though a spacious, was a thin compliment.
There are never, even at the height of the transatlantic tourist season, very many girls between Rosnacree and America.
“Anyway,” said Sweeny hopefully, “it could be that the wind will go round to the southeast before morning. The glass didn’t rise any since the thunder.”
“It might,” said Peter Walsh.
A southeast wind is dreaded, with good reason, in Rosnacree Bay. It descends from the mountains in vicious squalls. It catches rushing tides at baffling angles and lashes them into white-lipped fury. Sturdy island boats of the larger size, boats with bluff bows and bulging sides, brave it under their smallest lugs. But lesser boats, and especially light pleasure crafts like theTortoisedo well to lie snug at their moorings till the southeasterly wind has spent its strength.