“Jack will have you some day, and he’s big, and he’ll manage you.”
“O!” said Frances, dropping her hat, “O!” Her little foot was put
forward, she stood bolt upright with open lips. Scorn, utter, complete,
perfect scorn was expressed from head to foot. Jack manage her! The
idea! Before she could recover her breath, Bevis, who had immediately
started running, was half across the next field.
Next morning they set to work to fix up the blue boat for sailing, and
first stepped the mast and wedged it tight with a chip. A cord came
down each side aslant to the gunwale, and was fastened there--these were
the backstays to strengthen the mast when the wind blew rough. The
bowsprit was lashed firmly at the bow, and the sheets or cords to work
the foresail put through the staples, after which the tiller was fixed
on instead of the lines. They had two sails--mainsail (without a boom)
and foresail. Bevis once thought of having a topsail, but found it very
awkward to contrive it without the ropes (they always called their cords
ropes) becoming entangled.
The rigging and sails were now up, and Mark wanted to unfurl them and
see how they answered, but Bevis, who was in a sullen mood, would not
let him, till everything was completed. They had to put in the ballast,
first bricks placed close together on the bottom, then two small bags of
sand, and a large flat stone, which they thought would be enough. All
this occupied a great deal of time, what with having to go backwards and
forwards to the house for things and tools that had been forgotten, and
the many little difficulties that always arise when anything new is
being done.
Nothing fits the first time, and it all has to be done twice. So that
when the last thing of all, the oyster-barrel with the tin canister
inside, was put on board, it was about four in the afternoon. When they
began to push the boat off the ground and get her afloat, they found
that the wind had sunk. In the morning it had blown steadily from the
westward, and busy at their work they had not noticed that after noon it
gently declined. They pushed off, and rowed a hundred yards, so as to
be out of the shelter of the trees on the shore, but there was no more
breeze there than in the corner which they called the harbour.
The surface was smooth, and all the trees were reflected in it. Bevis
had been sullen and cross all day, and this did not improve his temper.
It was very rare for him to continue angry like this, and Mark resented
it, so that they did not talk much. Bevis unfurled the sails and
hoisted them up. The foresail worked perfectly, but the mainsail would
not go up nor come down quickly. It was fastened to the mast by ten or
twelve brass rings for travellers, and these would not slip, though they
looked plenty large enough. They stuck, and had to be pushed by hand
before the sail could be hoisted.
This was not at all proper, sails ought to go up and down easily and
without a moment’s delay, which might indeed be dangerous in a squall.
Bevis pulled out his knife, and cut a number of them off, leaving only
three or four, and the sail then worked much better. Next they tried
reefing, they had put in two rows, but when the second was taken in the
sail looked rather shapeless, and Bevis angrily cut off the second row.
He told Mark to row back while he furled, and Mark did so. After they
had fastened the boat by the painter to the willow root, and picked up
their tools, they went homewards, leaving the rigging standing ready for
use on the morrow.
“There’s two things now,” said Mark, “that ought to be done.”
“What’s that?” crossly.
“There ought to be an iron ring and staple to tie the ship to--a ship
ought not to be tied to a root.”
“Get a ring, then.”
“And another thing--two more things.”
“That there are not.”
“That there are. You want a bowl to bale the water out, the waves are
sure to splash over.”
“That’s nothing.”
“Well, then,” said Mark savagely, “you’ve forgotten the anchor.”
Bevis looked at him as if he could have smashed him, and then went up
into the bench-room without a word.
“You’re a bear,” shouted Mark from the bottom of the staircase. “I
shan’t come;” and he went to the parlour and found a book. For the
remainder of the day, whenever they met, in a minute they were off at a
tangent, and bounded apart. Bevis was as cross as a bear, and Mark
would not conciliate him, not seeing that he had given him the least
reason. At night they quarrelled in their bedroom, Bevis grumbling at
Mark for throwing his jacket on the chair he generally used, and Mark
pitching Bevis’s waistcoat into a corner.
About ten minutes after the candle was out, Bevis got up, slipped on his
trousers and jacket, and went downstairs barefoot in the dark.
“Glad you’re gone,” said Mark.
Bevis opened the door of the sitting-room where his mother was reading,
walked up to her, kissed her, and whispered, “I’m sorry; tell the
governor,” and was off before she could answer. Next morning he was as
bright as a lark, and every thing went smoothly again. The governor
smiled once more, and asked where they intended to sail to first.
“Serendib,” said Mark.
“A long voyage,” said the governor.
“Thousands of miles,” said Bevis. “Come on, Mark; what a lot you do
eat.”
Mark came, but as they went up the meadow he said that there ought to be
an anchor.
“So there ought,” said Bevis. “We’ll make one like that in the
picture--you know, with a wooden shaft, and a stone let through it.”
“Like they used to have when they first had ships,” said Mark.
“And went cruising along the shore--”
“We’ve forgotten the compass.”
“Of course, that’s right; they had no compass when we lived.”
“No; they steered by the sun. Look, there’s a jolly wind.”
The water was rippling under a light but steady and pleasant summer
breeze from the north-west. They pushed out, and while the boat slowly
drifted, set the sails. Directly the foresail was up she turned and
moved bow first, like a horse led by the bridle. When the mainsail was
hoisted she began to turn again towards the wind, so that Bevis, who
steered, had to pull the tiller towards him, or in another minute they
would have run into the weeds. He kept her straight before the wind
till they had got out of the bay where the boats were kept, and into the
open water where the wind came stronger. Then he steered up the New
Sea, so that the wind blew right across the boat, coming from the
right-hand side.
It was a beautiful breeze, just the one they wanted, not too strong, and
from the best direction, so that they could sail all the way there and
back without trouble, a soldier’s wind, out and home again.
Mark sat by the mast, both of them on the windward side, so as to trim
the boat by their weight and make her stiffer. He was to work the
foresail if they had to tack, or let down the mainsail if a white squall
or a tornado struck the ship. The ripples kissed the bow with a merry
smack, smack, smack; sometimes there was a rush of bubbles, and they
could feel the boat heel a little as the wind for a moment blew harder.
“How fast we’re going!” said Mark. “Hurrah!”
“Listen to the bubbles? Don’t the sails look jolly?” said Bevis. The
sunshine shone on the white canvas hollowed out by the wind; as the
pilot looked up he could see the slender top of the mast tracing a line
under the azure sky. Is there anything so delicious as the first sail
in your own boat that you have rigged yourself?
Away she slipped, and Mark began to hum, knocking the seat with his
knuckles to keep time. Then Bevis sang, making a tune of his own,
leaning back and watching the sails with the sheet handy to let go if a
puff came, for were they not voyaging on unknown seas? Bevis sang the
same two verses over and over:--
“Telling how the Count Arnaldos,
With his hawk upon his hand,
Saw a fair and stately galley,
Steering onward to the land.
“‘Wouldst thou,’ so the helmsman answer’d
‘Learn the secret of the sea?
Only those who brave its dangers,
Comprehend its mystery!’”
Mark sang with him, till by-and-by he said, “There’s the battlefield;
what country’s that?”
“Thessaly,” said Bevis. “It’s the last land we know; now it’s all new,
and nobody knows anything.”
“Except us.”
“Of course.”
“Are you going all round or straight up?” said Mark presently, as they
came near Fir-Tree Gulf.
“We ought to coast,” said Bevis. “They used to; we mustn’t go out of
sight of land.”
“Steer into the gulf then; mind the stony point; what’s that, what’s the
name?”
“I don’t know,” said Bevis. “It’s a dreadful place; awful rocks--smash,
crash, ship’s side stove in--no chance for any body to escape there.”
“A raft would be smashed.”
“Lifeboats swamped.”
“People jammed on the rocks.”
“Pounded into jelly-fish.”
“But it ought to have a name? Is it Cape Horn?”
“I don’t think so, that’s the other way round the world; we’re more the
India way, I think.”
“Perhaps it’s Gibraltar.”
“As if we shouldn’t know Gibraltar!”
“Of course we should, I forgot. Look! There’s a little island and a
passage--a channel. Mind how you steer--”
“It’s Scylla and Charybdis,” said Bevis. “I can see quite plain.”
“Steer straight,” said Mark. “There’s not much room, rocks one side,
shoal the other; it’s not a pistol-shot wide--”
“Not half a pistol-shot.”
“We’re going. Hark! bubbles!”
Volume Two, Chapter VII.