Beyond the rock-strewn passage of Craggeen lies the wide roadstead of
Finilaun. Here the water is deep, and the shelter, from every quarter,
almost complete. Across the western end of it stretches like a bent bow,
the long island of Finilaun. On the south, reaching almost to the point
of Finilaun, is Craggeen, and between the two is a shallow strait. On
the east is the mainland, broken and bitten into with long creeks and
bays. On the north lies a chain of islands, Ilaunure, Curraunbeg and
Curraunmor, separated from each other by narrow channels, through which
the tide runs strongly in and out of the roadstead.
Across the open roadstead Flanagan’s old boat crept under her patched
lug sail. Priscilla, standing on the shore of Craggeen, watched eagerly.
At first she could see the occupants of the boat quite plainly, a man at
the tiller, a woman sitting forward near the mast. She had no difficulty
in recognising them. The man wore the white sweater which had attracted
her attention when she first saw him, a garment most unusual among
boatmen in Rosnacree Bay. The woman was the same who had mopped her
dripping companion with a pocket handkerchief on Inishark. They talked
eagerly together. Now and then the man turned and looked back at
Craggeen. The woman pointed something out to him. Priscilla understood.
They could see the patch of the Tortoise’s sail above the rocks which
blocked the entrance of the passage. They were no doubt wondering
anxiously whether they were still pursued. Flanagan’s old boat, her sail
bellied pleasantly by the following wind, drew further and further away.
Priscilla could no longer distinguish the figures of the man and woman.
She watched the sail. It was evident that the boat was making for one of
the three northern islands. Soon it was clear that her destination
was the eastern end of Curraunbeg. Either she meant to run through the
passage between that island and Curraunmor, or the spies would land on
Curraunbeg. The day was clear and bright. Priscilla’s eyes were
good. She saw on the eastern shore of Curraunbeg a white patch,
distinguishable against the green background of the field. It could be
nothing else but the tents of the spies’ encampment. Flanagan’s old boat
slipped round the corner of the island and disappeared. Priscilla was
satisfied. She knew where the spies had settled down.
She returned to the Tortoise. Frank had left the boat and was sitting on
the shore. Miss Rutherford, with the recovered rudder on her knees,
sat beside him. Jimmy Kinsella was standing in front of them apparently
delivering a speech. The two boats lay side by side close to the shore.
“What’s Jimmy jawing about?” said Priscilla.
“I’m after telling the lady,” said Jimmy, “that you’ll sail no more
today.”
“Will I not? And why?”
“You will not,” said Jimmy, “because the rudder iron is broke on you.”
“That’s the worst of these boats,” said Priscilla. “The rudder sticks
down six inches below the bottom of them and if there happens to be
a rock anywhere in the neighborhood it’s the rudder that it’s sure to
hit.”
“You’ll excuse me saying so, Miss, but you’d no right to be trying to
get through Craggeen at this time of the tide. It couldn’t be done.”
“It could,” said Priscilla, “and, what’s more, it would, only for that
old rudder.”
“Any way,” said Jimmy; “you’ll sail no more today, and it’ll be lucky
if you sail tomorrow for you’ll have to give that rudder to Patsy, the
smith, to put a new iron on it and that same Patsy isn’t one that likes
doing anything in a hurry.”
“I’m going on to Curraunbeg,” said Priscilla, “I’ll steer with an oar.”
“Is it steer with an oar, Miss?”
“Haven’t you often done it yourself, Jimmy?”
“Not that one,” said Jimmy, pointing to the Tortoise.
“Sure my da’s said to me many’s the time how that one is pretty near as
giddy as yourself.”
“Your da talks too much,” said Priscilla. “Come on, Cousin Frank. What
about you, Miss Rutherford? Are you coming?”
“You’ll not go,” said Jimmy, “or if you do, you’ll walk.”
Priscilla looked out at the sea. The tide was falling rapidly. Through
the opening of the passage which led into Finilaun roadstead there was
no more than a trickle of water running like a brook over the stony
bottom.
“It’ll be as much as you’ll do this minute,” said Jimmy, “to get back
the way you came, and you’ll only do that same by taking the sails off
of her and poling her along with an oar.”
Priscilla surrendered. It is, after all, impossible to sail a boat
without water. The Tortoise lay afloat in a pool, but the Finilaun end
of the passage was hardly better than a lane-way of wet stones. At the
other end there was still high water, but very little of it. Priscilla
acted promptly in the emergency. She had no desire to lie imprisoned for
hours on Craggeen, she had lain the day before on the bank off Inishark.
She took the sails off the Tortoise and, standing on the thwart
amidships, began poling the boat back into the open water at the
south-eastern end of the passage. Jimmy, also poling, followed in his
boat.
Miss Rutherford, the broken rudder still on her knees, and Frank, were
left on shore.
“Do you think,” she said, “that Priscilla intends to maroon us here?
She’s gone without us.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Franks “It’s not my fault. I couldn’t stop
her.”
“She’s got all the food there is, even the peppermint creams. I wish I’d
thought of snatching that parcel from the boat before she started. She’d
have come back when she found out they were gone. I wonder whether Jimmy
finished the soup? I wonder what he’s done with the Primus stove. It
wasn’t mine, and I know Professor Wilder sets a value on it. Perhaps
they’ll pick it up on their way and return it. If they do I shan’t so
much mind what happens to us.”
“I don’t think they’ll really leave us here,” said Frank. “Even
Priscilla wouldn’t do that. I wish I could walk down to the corner of
the island and see where they’ve gone.”
Jimmy Kinsella appeared, strolling quietly along the shore.
“The young lady says, Miss,” he said “that if you wouldn’t mind walking
down to the far side of the gravel spit, which is where she has the
boats, she’d be glad, for she wouldn’t like to be eating what’s in the
boat without you’d be there to have some yourself.”
“Priscilla is perfectly splendid,” said Miss Rutherford, “and we’re not
going to be marooned after all. Come along, Frank.”
“The young lady says, Miss,” said Jimmy, “that if you’d go to her the
best way you can by yourself that I’d give my arm to the gentleman and
get him along over the stones so as not to hurt his leg and that same
won’t be easy for the shore’s mortal rough.”
Miss Rutherford refused to desert Frank. She recognised that the shore
was all that Jimmy said it was. Large slippery boulders were strewed
about it for fifty yards or so between the place where she stood and the
gravel spit. She insisted on helping Jimmy to transport Frank. In the
end they descended upon Priscilla, all three abreast. Frank, with one
arm round Jimmy’s neck and one round Miss Rutherford’s, hobbled bravely.
“I don’t know,” said Priscilla, “that this is exactly an ideal place
for luncheon, but we can have it here if you like, and in some ways I’m
rather inclined to. You never know what may happen if you put things
off. Last time the but was snatched out of our mouths by a callous
destiny just as it was beginning to smell really good. By the way,
Jimmy, what did you do with the soup?”
“It’s there beyond, Miss, where you left it.”
“I expect it’s all boiled away by this time,” said Priscilla, “but of
course the Primus stove may have gone out. You never know beforehand how
those patent machines will act. If it has gone out the soup will be all
right, though coldish. Perhaps we’d better go back there.”
“Which would you like to do yourself, Priscilla,” said Miss Rutherford.
“Now that those spies have escaped us again,” said Priscilla, “it
doesn’t matter to me in the least where we go. But this place is a bit
stony for sitting in for long. I’m beginning to feel already rather as
if a plougher had ploughed upon my back and made large furrows; but
of course I’m thinking principally of Frank on account of his sprained
ankle. A grassy couch would be much pleasanter for him, and there is
grass where we left the Primus stove. We can row back. It isn’t a very
long pull.”
“The wind’s dropped, Miss, with the fall of the tide,” said Jimmy, “and
what’s left of it has gone round to the southward.”
“That settles it,” said Priscilla. “Frank, you and Miss Rutherford, go
in the Tortoise. Jimmy and I will row the other boat and tow you.”
“I can row all right,” said Frank.
To be treated as incapable by Priscilla when they were alone together
was unpleasant but tolerable. To be held up as an object of scorn to
Miss Rutherford was not tolerable. He had already exposed himself to her
contempt by running her down. He was anxious to show her that he was not
altogether a fool in a boat.
“You can’t, much,” said Priscilla. “At least you didn’t seem as if you
could yesterday; but if you like you can try. We’ll take the oars out of
the Tortoise into your boat, Jimmy, and pull four.”
“I don’t see how that could be, Miss, for there’s only three seats in my
boat along with the one in the stern and you couldn’t row from that.”
“Don’t be a fool, Jimmy. I’ll pull two oars in the middle. Frank will
take one in the bow, and you’ll pull stroke. Miss Rutherford will have
the Tortoise all to herself.”
Frank found it comparatively easy to row in Jimmy Kinsella’s boat. The
oar was short and stumpy with a very narrow blade. It was worked between
two thole pins of which one was cracked and required tender treatment.
It was impossible to pull comfortably while sitting in the middle of
the seat; he still hit Priscilla in the back when he swung forward; but
there was no boom to hit him and there was no mast behind him to bump
his own back against. Priscilla was too fully occupied managing her own
two oars to pay much attention to him. Jimmy Kinsella pulled away with
dogged indifference to what any one else was doing. Miss Rutherford sat
in the stern of the Tortoise and shouted encouraging remarks from time
to time. She had, apparently, boated on the Thames at some time in her
life, for she was mistress of a good deal of rowing slang which she used
with vigour and effect. It cheered Frank greatly to hear the more
or less familiar words, for he realised almost at once that neither
Priscilla nor Jimmy Kinsella understood them. He felt a warm affection
for Miss Rutherford rise in his heart when she told Jimmy, who sat
humped up over his oar, to keep his back flat. Jimmy merely smiled in
reply. He had known since he was two years old that the flatness or
roundness of the rower’s back has nothing whatever to do with the
progress of a boat in Rosnacree Bay. A few minutes later she accused
Priscilla of “bucketing,” and Frank loved her for the word. Priscilla
replied indignantly with an obvious misapprehension of Miss Rutherford’s
meaning. Frank, who was rowing in his best style, smiled and was pleased
to catch sight of an answering smile on Miss Rutherford’s lips. He had
established an understanding with her. She and he, as representatives of
the rowing of a higher civilisation, could afford to smile together over
the barbarous methods of Priscilla and Jimmy Kinsella.
The tide was still against them, though the full strength of the ebb
was past. The stream which ran through the narrow water-way had to be
reckoned with.
The Tortoise, when being towed, behaved after the manner of her kind.
She hung heavily on the tow rope for a minute; then rushed forward as if
she wished to bump the stern of Jimmy’s boat At the last moment she
used to change her mind and swoop off to the right or left, only to be
brought up short by the rope at which she tugged with angry jerks until,
finding that it really could not be broken, she dropped sulkily astern.
These manoeuvres, though repeated with every possible variation, left
Priscilla and Jimmy Kinsella entirely unmoved. They pulled with the same
stolid indifference whatever pranks the Tortoise played. They annoyed
Frank. Sometimes when the tow rope hung slack in the water, he pulled
through his stroke with ease and comfort. Sometimes when the Tortoise
hung back heavily he seemed to be pulling against an impossible dead
weight. But his worst experience came when the Tortoise altered her
tactics in the middle of one of his strokes. Then, if it happened that
she sulked suddenly, he was brought up short with a jerk that jarred his
spine. If, on the other; hand, she chose to rush forward when he had
his weight well on the end of his oar, he ran a serious risk of falling
backwards after the manner of beginners who catch crabs. The side swoops
of the Tortoise were equally trying. They seemed to Frank to disturb
hopelessly the whole rhythm of the rowing. Nothing but the encouragement
which came to him from Miss Rutherford’s esoteric slang kept him from
losing his temper. He could not have been greatly blamed if he had lost
it. It was after three o’clock. He had breakfasted, meagrely, on bread
and honey, at half past seven. He had spent the intervening seven and a
half hours on the sea, eating nothing but the one peppermit cream which
Miss Rutherford pressed on him while he held the Tortoise at Craggeen.
Priscilla had eaten a great many peppermint cream and was besides more
inured to starvation on the water of the bay than Frank was. But even
Priscilla, when the excitement of getting away from Craggeen had passed,
seemed slightly depressed. She scarcely spoke at all, and when
she replied to Miss Rutherford’s accusation of “bucketing” did so
incisively.
The boats turned into the bay from which Miss Rutherford had first
hailed the Tortoise. They were safely beached. Priscilla ran up to the
nook under the hill where the Primus stove was left. Miss Rutherford and
Jimmy stayed to help Frank.
“It’s all right,” shouted Priscilla. “A good deal has boiled away, but
the Primus stove evidently went out in time to prevent the bottom being
boiled out of the pot. Want of paraffin, I expect.”
“Never mind,” said Miss Rutherford, “I have some more in a bottle. We
can boil it up again.”
“It’s hardly worth while,” said Priscilla. “I expect it would be quite
good cold, what’s left of it. Thickish of course, but nourishing.”
“We’ll make a second brew,” said Miss Rutherford. “I have another
package. Jimmy, do you know if there’s any water in this neighbourhood?”
“There’s a well beyond,” said Jimmy, “at the end of the field across the
hill, but I don’t would the likes of yez drink the water that does be
in it.”
“Saltish?” said Priscilla.
“It is not then. But the cattle does be drinking out of it and I
wouldn’t say it was too clean.”
“If we boil it,” said Frank, “that won’t matter.”
He had read, as most of us did at the time, accounts of the precautions
taken by the Japanese doctors during the war with Russia to save the
soldiers under their care from enteric fever. He believed that boiling
removed dirt from water.
“There’s worms in it,” said Jimmy. “It’s hardly ever you take a cupful
out of it without you’d feel the worms on your tongue and you drinking
it.”
Miss Rutherford looked at Priscilla, who appeared undismayed at the
prospect of swallowing worms. Then she looked at Frank. He was evidently
doubtful. His faith in boiling did not save him from a certain shrinking
from wormy soup.
“Once we were out for a picnic,” said Priscilla, “and when we’d finished
tea we found a frog, dead, of course, in the bottom of the kettle. It
hadn’t flavoured the tea in the least. In fact we didn’t know it was
there till afterwards.”
She poured out the cold soup into the two cups and the enamelled mug as
she spoke. Then she handed the pot to Jimmy.
“Run now,” she said, “and fill that up with your dirty water. We’ll
have the stove lit and the other packet of soup ready by the time you’re
back.”
The soup which had not boiled away was very thick indeed. It turned out
to be impossible to drink it, but Priscilla discovered that it could be
poured out slowly, like clotted cream, on pieces of bread held ready for
it under the rims of the cups. It remained, spreading gradually, on top
of the bread long enough to allow a prompt eater to get the whole thing
into his mouth without allowing any of the soup to be wasted by dripping
on to the ground. The flavour was excellent.
Jimmy returned with the water. Miss Rutherford put the pot on the stove
at once. It was better, she said, to boil it without looking at it.
“The directions for use,” said Priscilla, “say that the water should be
brought to the boil before the soup is put in. But that, of course,
is ridiculous. We’ll put the dry soup in at once and let it simmer. I
expect the flavour will come out all right if we leave it till it does
boil.”
“In the meanwhile,” said Miss Rutherford, “we’ll attack the Californian
peaches.”
They ate them, as they had eaten the others the day before, in their
fingers, straight out of the tin with greedy rapture. Five half peaches,
nearly all the juice, and a large chunk of bread, were given to Jimmy
Kinsella, who carried them off and devoured them in privacy behind his
boat.
“Tomorrow,” said Priscilla, “we’ll have another go at the spies. They’re
desperately afraid of us. I could see that when they were escaping
across Finilaun harbour.”
“By the expression of their faces?” said Miss Rutherford.
“Not exactly. It was more the way they were going on. Sylvia Courtney
was once learning off a poem called ‘The Ancient Mariner.’ That was when
she was going in for the prize in English literature. She and I sleep in
the same room and she used to say a few verses of it every night while
we were doing our hairs. I never thought any of it would come in useful
to me, but it has; which just shows that one never ought to waste
anything. The bit I mean was about a man who walked along a road at
night in fear and dread. He used to look round and then turn no more
his head, because he knew a frightful fiend did close behind him tread.
That’s exactly what those two spies did today when they were sailing
across Finilaun; so you see poetry is some use after all. I used to
think it wasn’t; but it is. It’s frightfully silly to make up your mind
that anything in the world is no use. You never can tell until you’ve
tried and that may not be for years.”
“The spies,” said Miss Rutherford, “are, I suppose, encamped somewhere
on the far side of Finilaun harbour.”
“On Curraunbeg,” said Priscilla. “I saw the tents.”
“I may be going in that direction myself tomorrow,” said Miss
Rutherford.
Priscilla got up and stepped across to the place where Frank was
sitting. She stooped down and whispered to him. Then she returned to her
own seat and winked at him, keeping her left eye closed for nearly half
a minute, and screwing up the corresponding corner of her mouth.
“We hope,” said Frank, “that you’ll join us at luncheon tomorrow
wherever we may meet. It’s our turn to bring the grub.”
“With the greatest pleasure,” said Miss Rutherford. “Shall I bring the
stove?”
“I didn’t like to invite you,” said Priscilla, “until I found out
whether Frank had any money to buy things with. As it turns out he has
lots. I haven’t. That’s the reason I whispered to him, although I know
it’s rude to whisper when there’s any one else there. Of course, I may
be able to collar a few things out of the house; but I may not. With
that Secretary of War staying in the house there is bound to be a lot of
food lying about which nobody would notice much if it was gone. But
then it’s not easy to get it unless you happen not to be allowed in to
dinner, which may be the case. If I’m not--Frank, I’m afraid, is sure to
be on account of his having a dress coat--but if I’m not, which is what
may happen if Aunt Juliet thinks it would score off me not to, then
I can get lots of things without difficulty because the cook can’t
possibly tell whether they’ve been finished up in the dining-room or
not.”
“We’ll hope for the best,” said Miss Rutherford. “A jelly now or a few
meringues would certainly be a pleasant variety after the tinned and
dried provisions of the last two days.”
The peppermint creams were finished before the second brew of soup came
to the boil on the Primus stove. Priscilla poured it out. It was hot, of
about the consistency usual in soup, and it smelt savoury. Nevertheless
Miss Rutherford, after watching for an opportunity to do so unseen,
poured hers out on the ground. Frank fingered his mug irresolutely and
once took a sip. Priscilla, after looking at her share intently, carried
it off and gave it to Jimmy Kinsella.
“It’s curious,” she said when she came back, “but I don’t feel nearly
so keen on soup as I did. I daresay it’s the peaches and the peppermint
creams. I used to think it was rather rot putting off the sweets at
dinner until after the meaty things. Now, I know it isn’t. Sometimes
there’s really a lot of sense in an arrangement which seems silly at
first, which is one of the things which always makes me say that grownup
people aren’t such fools as you might suppose if you didn’t really
know.”
“We’ll remember that at lunch tomorrow,” said Miss Rutherford.
No one mentioned worms.
For the second time the weather, generally malign and irresponsible,
favoured Priscilla. With the rising tide a light westerly breeze sprang
up. She hoisted the sails and sat in the stern of the boat with an oar.
She tucked the middle of it under her armpit, pressed her side tight
against the gunwale, and with the blade trailing in the water steadied
the Tortoise on her course. There is a short cut back to Rosnacree quay
from the bay in which Miss Rutherford was left. It winds among a perfect
maze of rocks, half covered or bare at low water, gradually becoming
invisible as the tide rises. Priscilla, whose self-confidence was
unshaken by her disaster in Craggeen passage, took this short cut in
spite of a half-hearted protest from Frank. “I don’t exactly know the
way,” she said, “but now that we’ve lost the rudder there’s nothing very
much can happen to us. We can keep the centreboard up as we’re running,
and if we do go on a rock, the tide will lift us off again. It’s rising
now. Besides, it saves us miles to go this way, and it really won’t do
for you to be late for dinner.”