THE SOLWAY SHORE
There was a light wind from the westward, and the flood tide, running
east, smoothed the sea to a faintly wrinkled heave, when the _Rowan_
crept across Wigtown Bay on the southern coast of Scotland. Andrew
lounged at the tiller while Whitney sat in the cockpit, holding a tray
on which were laid out a pot of smoke-tainted tea, several thick
slices of bread, sardines, and marmalade.
Whitney wore a woolen sweater--which had been white a few days before
but now was a dingy gray--new blue trousers, already streaked with
rust, and an expensive yachting cap which had got badly crushed. His
hands were not immaculate, and there was a soot-smear on his face.
"This kind of yachting's not quite what I've been used to," he
remarked. "On Long Island Sound you don't get the sea we ran into
coming round the head last night; and when we went cruising in small
craft we always hired somebody to do the dirty work."
"There's not much room for a paid hand on board the _Rowan_," Andrew
replied hesitatingly. "Still, if you'd like--"
"You don't want a man."
"He would be rather in the way, and I don't know what he'd find to do,
except the cooking."
"And hauling the dinghy up a muddy beach, taking out the kedge on a
stormy night, and pulling twenty fathoms of heavy chain about when you
shift your moorings! I could think of a few other trifles if I tried;
but I won't insist. It looks as if I were going to get some muscle
up."
Whitney thought his companion had a private reason for dispensing with
a paid hand; and an extra man was certainly not needed for open-water
navigation, for Andrew had shown himself quite capable of sailing the
_Rowan_ alone. After searching the Glasgow yacht-agents' registers for
a boat of sufficiently light draught, they had bought the _Rowan_ at
an Ayrshire port; and Whitney got a surprise when his partner drove
her through the furious tide-race that swirls around the Mull of
Galloway, in a strong breeze of wind. He had confidence in the little
yacht after that. She was thirty-two feet long, low in the water, and
broad of beam, but her mast was short and her canvas snug: Whitney
knew the disadvantages of a long heavy boom. Her deck was laid with
narrow planks, no longer white, for there were stains like blood upon
them where the rain had run from the mainsail, which was tanned with
cutch.
Now the canvas glowed a warm orange in the evening light as its tall
peak swayed gently across the sky, and the ripples that lapped the
gliding hull united beneath the counter and trailed astern in silky
lines.
To starboard, far off, the Isle of Man rose in a high, black saw-edge
above the shining sea; ahead to the east, water and sky were soft
blue; to port, the Scottish hills rose in shades of gray and purple.
Andrew named them as the boat crept on.
"Cairn Harry, running straight up from the water; Dirk Hatteraik
stored his brandy in a cave on Raven Crag, and John Knox hid in
Barrholm tower, in the long patch of woods. The black ridge behind is
Cairnsmoor o' Fleet, and a waste of moors runs back from it toward the
head of Clyde. The water of Cree flows through the dark hollow."
"The Cree!" Whitney exclaimed. "That is where my mother and sister
are. Our friend has a grouse moor and some salmon rights." He paused
and laughed. "I can imagine them sitting down to dinner under the
electric light in somebody's ancestral hall, with a frozen British
butler running the show. Wonder what they'd say if they knew I wasn't
far off, living like an Indian on board this craft!"
"There are no ancestral halls beside the Cree, and electric lights are
scarce in the Galloway wilds," Andrew explained.
Whitney chuckled. He was not thinking of ancestral halls, but was
wondering what his sister Madge would think of his comrade. On the
surface, Andrew was easy-going, ingenuous, and diffident, but beneath
this lay an unwavering firmness.
"Historic country, isn't it?" he remarked, to make Andrew talk.
"Yes," said Andrew in an apologetic tone, and started off on his
favorite hobby.
Slowly the sea grew dimmer; the sunset glow behind them faded to a
smoky red; and while they drifted east with the flood tide a black
island detached itself from the dusky shore. Soon a trembling beam
flashed out from its summit.
"The Ross," Andrew said. "I was wrecked there."
"Tell me about it," requested Whitney, lounging in the cockpit, lazily
watching a razor-bill which had risen with a hoarse croak from the
boat's rippling wake.
"It was the only time such a thing ever happened to me, and I don't
understand it yet. I was living on board the _Arrow_ then, shooting
from a punt. She was a stiff, roomy boat, of nearly nine tons, and I'd
just had her pulled up at Glencaple for an overhaul. Staffer, Dick's
stepfather, found me a Glasgow carpenter who had been building some
anglers' boats at Lochmaben."
"And what had the carpenter to do with your being wrecked?"
"Nothing, so far as I can see; though I've thought about him now and
then."
Andrew paused for a moment, and Whitney, knowing his comrade, waited
for him to go on.
"The ebb had been running for some time when I left Gibb's Hole, and a
nasty surf broke on the sands. There was not wind enough to account
for it, but everything was harshly clear and that's often threatening.
However, I set the big jib and topsail, because I wanted to clear the
banks before the flood tide made. It runs from four to six knots an
hour among the Solway shoals, and there's some risk of knocking the
boat's bilges in if you get aground. The breeze fell light, and near
dusk I came round and stood inshore on the port tack, so that I could,
if necessary, slip back into Rough Firth. The Scotch channel of the
Solway is no place to run for on a dirty night.
"When I got down to Abbey Head the swell was growing steep and the sea
looked ragged where it cut the horizon--which showed there was wind
out there. The shooting-punt I was towing was a drag, and I didn't
make much progress until a smart southwesterly breeze sprang up soon
after dark. I could just lay my course down the coast, and I hung on
to big jib and topsail while I could. With two or three hours of that
wind I'd be able to run in behind the Ross, which you see ahead. Then
the breeze freshened suddenly and she listed over until most of her
lee deck was in the water. For a time after that I had my hands full."
"So I imagine," Whitney remarked. "I've seen a big jib give two men
trouble when they had to take it in, and you were alone and had the
topsail up. I'm not surprised that you got wrecked."
"I wasn't wrecked just then. In fact, I made her snug, with two reefs
in the mainsail, and I lighted the compass binnacle. The trouble was
that the wind was drawing ahead and the night had turned very dark. I
couldn't get a glimpse of the coast, and it wouldn't have been wise to
run back yet. There's a light on Hestan Island, but I wouldn't have
found water enough across the sands in Rough Firth. She'd have gone
down at her anchor if I'd brought up to wait.
"Well, I ate some sandwiches I had ready, and stood on. She was
plunging wildly and putting her storm-jib into the sea that was
getting up; but she was an able boat, and the punt towed pretty well
when I'd made an extra rope fast to her."
"You wouldn't find that easy," Whitney suggested, as he pictured the
lonely man's struggle to haul up the heavy craft while the yacht on
which he must relinquish control rolled with thrashing canvas athwart
the combers.
"I let the _Arrow_ come up and dropped the peak. The worst was that I
had to lean right out with both hands on the punt while I made the
second rope fast, and I nearly went overboard when she lurched. I made
it fast, but when we went on I got a shock, for the water was washing
up from under the cockpit floor. You see, as she'd shipped two or
three combers, I'd thought it was washing down."
"The floorings would be nearly two feet above her bottom planks,"
Whitney said.
"Yes. It meant she was leaking hard, and I'll admit that rather
staggered me, because she'd always been a remarkably tight craft.
Well, I hove her to again, lighted the cabin lamp, and pulled up the
floorings. This wasn't easy; they were closely fitted and the
carpenter had nailed one or two of them down. I can't tell you why he
did it, but I tore my hand before I got them loose. You can understand
that I had to be quick. She wouldn't lie to well with nobody at the
helm, and kept forging up head to wind and falling off again. The way
she lurched about threw me against the lockers and once or twice I
heard a sea come on board. There was too much water for me to find
where it was coming in, and when I crawled out and tried the pump it
wouldn't draw, so I went back and felt for the bottom of its pipe.
There was a suction-box at the end, and it seemed to be stuffed up
with shavings. The carpenter must have thrown them under the floor."
"Rather a curious place to put them!" Whitney commented. "I suppose a
shaving had stuck under a valve and stopped the pump. But, as you'd
have a grid on the suction-box, how did they get in?"
"I've never found out, but I'd like to meet that carpenter," Andrew
replied grimly.
He felt for his pipe and lighted it, and Whitney had to prompt him
before he resumed:
"Things didn't look hopeful. It was blowing hard; she was leaking
fast, and I couldn't pump her out. I had to make the Ross while she
kept afloat. I thought about cutting the punt adrift, but it seemed a
waste, and afterward I was glad I didn't. As it was a dead beat to
windward, speed was important, and the only thing was to keep her
sailing hard and let the seas come on board. There was so much spray
flying that I couldn't see the punt astern, but the drag on the
tow-lines showed that she was there. Then the old boat began to get
sluggish, and it made me savage. She'd brought me through many a stiff
blow, and I was fond of her. The Ross light was getting brighter; but
a sea that came over the coaming washed out the binnacle lamp when I
was ready to make the Sound. If I'd been able to take the light's
bearing and look at the chart, I might have sailed her in.
"Well, with the compass gone, I had to run for it blind, and she was
so waterlogged that she would hardly steer. Then suddenly she stopped
with a shock that threw me from the helm. What had happened was plain,
and when the next sea washed over her I pulled up the punt, cut the
lines, and fell into the well. She swung away on top of a comber, and
I wondered where she'd take me; for there were crags about and the
paddles had washed overboard. She was full and waterlogged, but I lay
along the deck and she kept right side up until we came ashore on a
bank of shingle. Rocks ran up behind it, and there was a gully I
couldn't cross at the end of the cove. I pulled the punt up, and spent
the night lying behind her out of the wind, when I wasn't tramping
about the shingle to keep myself warm. In the morning a coastguard
showed me a way up the cliff; and when I came back there later there
was no sign of the _Arrow_."
Andrew stopped, and for some minutes the silence was broken by the
rustle of the flapping topsail and the soft splash at the bows. It had
grown dark and the sea was faintly phosphorescent: pale blue and green
spangles glimmered down the wake. Ross Island had faded into the black
head behind it, but a bright beam of light still glittered across the
water.
"On the face of it, the reason you were wrecked is obvious," Whitney
said. "The boat began to strain when she was pounding, overpressed
with sail, through a steep head sea, and you couldn't pump her out.
Besides, as she'd just been hauled up for repairs, a butt may have got
started by the hammering or a seam have been left open."
"The carpenter was a good workman," Andrew replied quietly.
"He may have neglected something, for all that. Boats will leak when
they're driven hard; pumps get out of order; and a stranger might nail
down a floor board you kept loose. The curious point is that all these
things should happen together." Whitney paused and smiled. "Of course,
if you had some dangerous secret or were heir to a great estate that
somebody else wanted, one might suggest a melodramatic explanation."
"I've no secret anybody would give twopence for, and I inherit nothing
except a very small annuity."
"Then you'll have to put the series of accidents down to coincidence.
Where were you bound for when you came to grief?"
Andrew glanced back toward a stretch of water that still shone faintly
among the shadowy hills.
"Up yonder, near the head of Wigtown Bay, to shoot geese. Dick was to
come on by train and join me. He's fond of wildfowling, and I took
advantage of it to get him away."
"Away from what?"
Andrew hesitated.
"Well, you see, he was inclined to go the pace, and Staffer had some
friends at Appleyard just then--clever, amusing men-about-town, who
were fond of cards and knew all about the turf. Dick tried to play up
to them, and he was losing a good deal of money and drinking rather
more than was good for him."
"And his stepfather encouraged his extravagance?"
"Oh, no. Staffer gave him good advice in a cynical, witty way; told
him he must pull up because the pace was too hot for a lad. I never
quite liked the man, but one must be fair, and he was willing to let
me take Dick. In fact, he agreed it was the best thing to do."
"But as it turned out, you didn't take him. Were you much at Appleyard
afterward?"
"No. One of Staffer's friends offered me a pretty good post abroad,
and everybody thought I ought to seize the chance, but I didn't. In
consequence, a kind of coolness grew up and I haven't stayed long at
Appleyard since. Dick sends a message and Elsie writes long letters
now and then."
Whitney stood up and stretched himself. A rhythmic throb of engines
stole out of the silence, and, some distance off, a yellow and a green
light moved across the level sea. Overhead, the topsail cut black
against the sky, and the water had grown more luminous in the eddying
wake. To the east, a thin, silver moon was shining above the dim
heights of Cumberland. Tiny ripples lapped the _Rowan's_ side, but the
breeze was faint and everything was still.
"The flood will take us to Rough Firth, and we may as well stand on,"
Andrew said. "You can go below. I'll call you if you're wanted."
Carefully lowering his head, Whitney crept into the small cabin and
lighted the lamp. Its illumination showed the oilskins swinging
against the forecastle bulkhead, and the narrow table on top of the
centerboard trunk, which ran up the middle of the floor. On each side
were lockers that served as seats, and two folding cots were strapped
against the skin of the boat. Whitney let one down and got into it
with his clothes on: he had found that this was prudent when cruising
in small vessels. There was a rack, loaded with odds and ends, a few
inches above his head; and a smell of tarred rope, paraffin and
mildewed canvas came out of the forecastle; but this did not trouble
him, and he was soon asleep.
In the meanwhile, Andrew sat at the helm, his mind busy with gloomy
thoughts.