THE VOLUNTEER HELMSMAN AND HIS MOVEMENTS.
The wind was strong from the south-west; and, after passing the
breakwater, the Goldwing struck into a smart little sea for a
fresh-water pond. The motion was so strange, not to say exciting, to
the passengers from the interior, that they kept very still for a
time. The water slopped over the bow, and occasionally a bucketful
pounded pretty hard on the forward deck.
Some of the boys were evidently a little startled, though they did not
like to show that they were moved by this new experience. Others tried
to look and act as though they had been on the waves all the days of
their lives.
“It’s all right, fellows,” said Dory, when about half a barrel of
water slapped on the boards forward. “We intend to keep on the top of
the water.”
“Does a boat always do like that, and take the water in?” asked Ben
Ludlow, who had never seen a sheet of water bigger than a pond a mile
in diameter.
“No: sometimes the boat don’t throw the water at all, but sometimes it
does ten times as bad as now. I have been out in this boat when one
hand had to keep baling all the time. We call this a quiet sail.”
“Of course it’s a quiet sail,” added Oscar Chester, who had once been
on a steamer. “There isn’t any thing to be afraid of.”
“I can stand it as long as the rest of you,” replied Ben Ludlow, who
thought the last speaker had cast an imputation upon his courage.
“When Dory is frightened, it will be time enough for the rest of us to
get scared.”
“I had no idea that a boat made such a fuss in going along,” said Dave
Windsor.
“It don’t always; but we are sailing against the wind as near as we
can go,” Dory explained. “I suppose all you fellows are going to learn
how to sail a boat, and you might as well begin now.”
The skipper of the Goldwing proceeded to show in what manner the mouth
of Beaver River was to be reached. When he had gone far enough to
weather Willsborough Point, he could lay his course to Thompson’s
Point; and from there he must beat about dead to windward. Most of the
new pupils were interested, and asked a great many questions. Dory
explained every thing very minutely; and it was not his fault if they
did not understand, at least the theory of sailing a boat against the
wind.
“But I can’t see what makes the boat go ahead when the wind is against
her,” suggested John Brattle. “I can understand how the wind pushes
the boat along when it is blowing from behind her, but not when it
comes from the way it does now.”
“It is the friction of the wind against the sails. Did you ever see a
ferry-boat cross a river by the force of the current?”
John Brattle happened to be the only one of the party who had seen a
current-boat. He had crossed the Androscoggin River, in Maine, in a
stage on such a craft.
“If the ferry-boat were headed square across the river, the current
would not move her any way but down the river,” added Dory.
“There was a big wire rope stretched across the river, which did not
let her go down the stream,” replied John Brattle. “Then the boat was
turned to an angle half-way between the direction of the current and
the wire rope.”
“Precisely as our sails are set at an angle with the course of the
boat. In this position the friction of the water against the boat
forces it across the river.”
“But you have no wire rope.”
“We have a centre-board instead.” Dory pointed out the centre-board of
the Goldwing, and showed how it worked. “This boat would slide off
sideways if it were not for that.”
“But we have to go a great deal farther when beating,” said Ned
Bellows.
“Of course we do,” replied Dory. “Sometimes we have to go two miles to
make one when the wind is dead ahead.”
“Captain Gildrock said it was twenty miles from Burlington to Beech
Hill. Must we go forty miles to get there?” asked Ben Ludlow.
“Not at all: the wind isn’t dead ahead. Here we are, just north of
Willsborough Point. I am coming about now. Look out for your heads
when the boom goes over.”
Dory put the helm down, and all the sails began to flap and bang. But
in a moment the Goldwing took the wind on the starboard tack, the
sails went over, and the schooner began to gather headway on her new
course.
“That’s what we call tacking,” said the skipper. “We shall go about
eleven miles on this tack.”
“I say, Dory, let me steer her a while now,” added Oscar Chester,
rising from his seat, and moving aft.
“Keep your seat!” replied the skipper rather sharply. “You mustn’t
move about in the boat.”
“But I want to steer her,” persisted Oscar, resuming his seat.
“Did you ever steer a boat?” asked Dory.
“I never steered a sailboat; but I can do it as well as you can,”
added the new pupil. “I have seen just how it is done. When you want
the boat to go to the right, you put the stick in your hand to the
left.”
“I don’t believe in running any risks in a boat, and I must keep the
helm myself,” answered Dory. “There is wind enough to upset the boat
if you don’t know how to handle her.”
“But I do know how to handle her. I have kept my eyes open, and I know
all about it. It don’t take me a month to learn any thing.”
“If we were alone I would let you try it, just to enable you to see
how easy it is to be mistaken,” said Dory, laughing.
“It’s nothing to steer a boat! You needn’t make such a big thing of
it.”
“Well, it is a big thing!” exclaimed Bolingbroke. “I thought I knew
something about it yesterday, and I got overboard in two hundred and
fifty feet of water; and that is deep enough to drown the whole of
you. I should have finished my mortal career then if Dory had not
picked me up.”
None of the other boys said any thing, though it was plain to the
skipper that they did not want Oscar to steer the boat. Dory began to
understand what sort of a fellow Oscar was; and it was evident to him
that he was the bully of the crowd, and that he had already set up,
and perhaps established, his superiority. He was older and larger than
Dory, though three or four of the new pupils were heavier than he.
“You all seem to be afraid of a boat,” continued Oscar with a palpable
sneer. “I am not afraid of her.”
“Can you swim a mile?” asked Dory quietly.
“I can’t swim a rod. I don’t intend to tip her over.”
“Perhaps the rest of the fellows can swim.”
They all protested that they could not.
“If this boat should fill with water, she would go to the bottom like
a pound of lead,” continued Dory. “The water is over two hundred feet
deep out here. It is four hundred off Thompson’s Point. But, if you
can’t swim, you would drown just as quick in six feet of water as in
six hundred.”
“I don’t care for your bugbears: I’m not afraid of them. I want to
steer this boat, and I’m going to do it!” added Oscar stoutly.
“I don’t believe you will steer her on this trip,” replied Dory in a
quiet tone. “But I will give you a chance to steer all you want to
when we are alone.”
“Do you take me for a little chicken, Dory, that can be led around by
you?” demanded Oscar, rising from his place.
“Keep your seat!” added the skipper sharply.
“No, I won’t keep my seat! I will let you know that you are not my
boss.”
“In a boat all hands must obey the skipper, as I shall obey you, Oscar
Chester, when you are the skipper of any boat I am in; and that is
just what Captain Gildrock told you all to do just before we sailed.”
“I don’t obey a little snipper-snapper of a fellow like you, Dory. I
never was bossed by any boy, and I don’t begin now,” blustered Oscar,
moving towards the stern of the boat.
Dory saw that there was likely to be trouble. He had correctly read
the character of Chester; and he was not anxious, while responsible
for the safety of the boat and her passengers, to have any difficulty
with him. He was not afraid of him, bold and stout as Oscar appeared
to be.
Putting the helm up a little, he allowed the schooner to fall off
until the strong wind heeled the boat over, so that the water was
nearly even with the top of the wash-board. This was decidedly
startling to some of the boys, who cried out in their alarm.
The Goldwing went over so far that Oscar was not at all secure in his
footing; and he came very near tumbling over the heads of the fellows
on the lee side, for they had bent forward as the schooner heeled
over.
“Sit down! Keep your seat, Oscar Chester!” shouted Dory. But it was no
part of the rebel’s nature to obey an order of any kind after what had
happened. The inside of the boat was rather crowded, except on each
side of the tiller, where the space had been reserved for the
helmsman.
Making a lively spring for the open space on the lee side of the
rudder-head, he brought up on the seat, just as the skipper put the
helm down to bring the boat back to her former course. The Goldwing
was jumping on the waves; and the rebel did not fetch up just as he
intended, for the motion of the boat interfered with his calculations.
He grasped the main-sheet, and finally came down on the bit of deck
astern of the standing-room.
Oscar evidently wanted to prove that he “always came down-stairs that
way;” for he let go the sheet, and tried to stand up straight. His
pride was still in the ascendency. Dory had put the helm over so far
that the sails were spilled, and this set the schooner to pitching.
Oscar had hardly let go the sheet, when he lost his balance,
and pitched into the lake, disappearing beneath the surface. Dory
tried to catch him before he went over, but failed to do so.
“He has fallen over into the water!” screamed some of the boys,
terribly frightened by this time.
“He will be drowned!” yelled others.
The only one who had not entirely lost his head was the skipper. Dory
was as cool as though he had been up to his neck in ice-water. He had
been in all sorts of scrapes, though he had never encountered a bully
under such unfavorable circumstances. He had put the helm down before,
and the Goldwing had lost her headway. Of course she would not answer
her helm when she had lost her steerage-way.
Oscar Chester came to the top of the water, and all the boys shouted.
Dory did not even look at him, for he was busy with the boat. He
filled away, and came about as soon as he got steerage-way. Oscar was
floundering about in the most unreasonable manner, with a better
chance of being drowned than of being saved.