Priscilla's Spies Part 18

The boat drew nearer and Priscilla declared that it was Kinsella's.

"It's Joseph Antony himself rowing her," she said. "He'd be getting on faster if he had Jimmy along with him, but I suppose he's off with the sponge lady again."

Kinsella reached the _Tortoise_ and stopped rowing.

"You're out for a sail again today, Miss?" he said. "Well, it's fine weather for the likes of you."

"At the present moment," said Priscilla, "we're stuck and can't get out."

"Do you tell me that now? And what's the matter with you?"

"The anchor rope is foul of the centreboard and we can't get either the one or the other of them to move."

"Begor!" said Joseph Antony.

"Do you know any way of getting it clear?"

"I do, of course."

"Well, trot it out."

"If you was to take the oars," said Joseph Antony, "and was to row the boat round the way she wasn't going when she twisted the rope on you it would come untwisted again."

"It would, of course. Thank you very much. Rather stupid of us not to have thought of that. It seems quite simple. But that's always the way.

The simplest things are far the hardest to think of. Columbus and the egg, for instance."

She got out the oars as she spoke and began turning the _Tortoise_ round.

"Begging your pardon, Miss," said Joseph Antony, "but which way is the rope twisted round the plate? If you row her round-the wrong way you'll twist it worse than ever."

But luck favored Priscilla. When the _Tortoise_ had made one circle the rope shook itself clear. Joseph Antony, dipping his oars gently in the water, drew close alongside.

"I'd be sorry now," he said, "if it was to Inishbawn you were thinking of going. Herself and the children is away off. I'd have been afraid to leave them there with myself up at the quay with a load of gravel."

Priscilla looked at him with a smile of complete scepticism.

"It's not gravel you have there," she said.

"It's a curious thing," said Joseph Antony in an offended tone, "for you to be saying the like of that and the boat up to the seats with gravel before your eyes."

"I don't deny there's gravel on top," said Priscilla, "but there's something else underneath."

Joseph Antony urged his boat further from the _Tortoise_.

"What do you mean, at all?" he said.

"I don't know what you've got," said Priscilla, "but I saw the rim of some sort of a wooden tub sticking out of the gravel in the fore part of the boat."

Joseph Antony began to row vigorously towards the quay. Priscilla hailed him.

"Tell me this now," she said, "Why did you take Mrs. Kinsella and the children off their island? Was it for fear of the rats?"

Joseph Antony lay on his oars.

"It was not rats," he said. "Why would it?"

"Was it for change of air after the fever?"

"Fever! What fever?"

"Was it because there was something on the island that it wouldn't be nice for Mrs. Kinsella or any other woman to see?"

"It was because of a young heifer," said Joseph Antony, "that I was after buying at the fair of Rosna-cree ere yesterday, the wickedest one I ever seen. She had her horn druv through Jimmy's leg and pretty nearly trampled the life out of the baby before she was an hour on the island.

If so be that you want to be scattered about, an arm here and a leg there, as soon as you set foot on the sh.o.r.e you can go to Inish-bawn, you and the young gentleman along with you. But if it's pleasure you're looking for it would be better for you to go somewhere else for it, the two of yez."

He spoke truculently. It was evident that Priscilla's questioning had seriously annoyed him. He began to row again while he was speaking and was out of earshot before Priscilla could reply. She waved her hand to him gaily.

The trouble with the anchor rope had delayed the start of the _Tortoise_. It was eleven o'clock before she got under way. Frank had the tiller. Priscilla, seated in the fore part of the boat, gave him instruction in the art of steering. Running before a light breeze makes no high demand upon the helmsman's skill. Frank learned to keep the boat's head steady on her course and realised how small a motion of his hand produced a considerable effect. The time came when the course had to be altered. Priscilla, bent above all on discovering the new camping-ground of the spies, kept in the main channel. There comes a place where this turns northwards. Frank had to push down the tiller in order to bring the boat on her new course. He began to understand the meaning of what he did. The island of Inishrua lay under his lee. Priscilla scanned its slope for the sight of a tent. Frank, now beginning to enjoy his position thoroughly, let the boat away, eased off his sheet and ran down the pa.s.sage between Inishrua and Knockilaun, the next island to the northward. Cattle browsed peacefully in the fields. A dog rushed from a cottage door and barked. Two children came down to the sh.o.r.e and gazed at the boat curiously. There was no encampment on either island.

Frank pressed down the tiller and hauled in his sheet. Priscilla insisted on his working the main sheet himself. He did it awkwardly and slowly, having only one hand and some fingers of the other, which held the tiller. Then he had his first experience of the joy of beating a small boat against the wind. The pa.s.sage between the islands is narrow and the tacks were necessarily very short. Frank made all the mistakes common to beginners, sailing at one moment many points off the wind, at the next trying to sail with the luff of his lug and perhaps his foresail flapping piteously. But he learned how to stay the boat and became fascinated in guessing the point on the land which he might hope to reach at the end of each tack. Priscilla kept him from becoming over proud. She showed him, each time the boat went about, the spot which with reasonably good steering he ought to have reached. It was always many yards to windward.

At the end of the pa.s.sage the boat stood on the starboard tack towards a small round island which lay to the east of Inishrua.

"That's Inishgorm," said Priscilla. "I don't see how they can possibly be there, for there's not a place on it to pitch a tent except the extreme top of the island. But we may as well have a look at it."

Inishgorm ends on the west in a rocky promontory. The _Tortoise_ pa.s.sed it and then Frank stayed her again. The next tack brought them into a little bay with deep, clear water. They stood right on until they were within a few yards of the land. Terns, anxious for the safety of their chicks, rose with shrill cries, circled round the boat, swooping sometimes within a few feet of the sail and then soaring again. Their excitement died away and their cries got fewer when the boat went about and stood away from the island. Priscilla pointed out a long low reef which lay under their lee. Round-backed rocks stood clear of the water at intervals. Elsewhere brown sea wrack was plainly visible just awash.

On one of the rocks two seals lay basking in the sun. At the point of the reef a curious patch of sharply rippled water marked where two tides met A long tack brought the _Tortoise_ clear of the windward end of the reef. Frank paid out the main sheet and let the boat away for another run down a pa.s.sage between the reef and a series of small flat islands.

"This," said Priscilla, "is the likeliest place we've been today. I shouldn't wonder a bit if we came on them here."

The navigation seemed to Frank bewilderingly intricate. Small bays opened among the islands. Rocks obtruded themselves in unexpected places. It was never possible to keep a straight course for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Priscilla gave order in quick succession, "Luff her a little," "Let her away now," "Hold on as you're going,"

"Steady," "Don't let her away any more." Now and then she threatened him with the possibility of a jibe. Frank, becoming accustomed to everything else, still dreaded that manoeuvre.

A loud hail reached them from the narrow mouth of a bay to windward of them. Priscilla looked round. The hail was repeated. Far up on the northern sh.o.r.e of the bay lay a boat, half in, half out of the water.

Beyond her stern, knee deep in the water, with kilted skirts, stood a woman shouting wildly and waving a pocket handkerchief.

"It's the sponge lady," said Priscilla. "Luff, luff her all you can.

We'll go in there and see what she wants."

The _Tortoise_ slanted up into the wind. Her sails flapped and filled again. Frank pulled manfully on the sheet There were two short tacks, swift changes of position, slacking and hauling in of sheets. Then Frank found himself, once more on the starboard tack, standing straight for the lady who waved and shouted to them.

"It's a gravelly sh.o.r.e," said Priscilla. "We'll beach her. Sail her easy now, Cousin Frank, and slack away your main sheet if you find there's too much way on her. We don't want to knock a hole in her bottom. Keep her just to windward of Jimmy Kinsella's boat."

The orders were too numerous and too complicated. Frank could keep his head on the football field while hostile forwards charged down on him, could run, kick or pa.s.s at such a crisis without setting his nerves a-quiver. He lost all power of reasoning when the _Tortoise_ sprang towards Jimmy Kinsella's boat and the gravelly sh.o.r.e. He had judged with absolute accuracy the flight of the ball which the Uppingham captain drove hard and high into the long field. As it left the bat he had started to run, had calculated the curve of its fall, had gauged the pace of his own running, had arrived to receive it in his outstretched hands. He failed altogether in calculating the speed of the _Tortoise_.

He suddenly forgot which way to push the tiller in order to attain the result he desired. A wild cry from Priscilla confused him more than ever. He was dimly aware of a sudden check in the motion of the boat.

He saw Priscilla start up, and then the lady, who a moment before was standing in the sea, precipitated herself head first over the bow.

At the same moment the _Tortoise_ grounded on the gravel with a sharp grinding sound. Frank looked about him amazed. Jimmy Kinsella, standing on the sh.o.r.e with his hands in his pockets, spoke slowly.