CHAPTER VII.
THE "STORMY PETREL."
"A boat, a boat is the toy for me, To rollick about in on river and sea, To be a child of the breeze and the gale, And like a wild bird on the deep to sail-- This is the life for me."
The United Sea Urchins' Recreation Society usually met every morningupon the strip of green common underneath the cliffs which they hadappropriated to their own use, and were prepared to hold against allcomers. The Rokebys, who were enthusiastic bathers, had a tent upon theshore, and spent nearly half the morning in the sea, where they couldfloat, swim on their backs, tread water, and even turn head over heels,much to the envy of the Wrights, who made valiant efforts to emulatethese wonderful feats, and nearly drowned themselves in the attempt. Thetwo little Barringtons were solemnly bathed each day by their mother ina specially-constructed roofless tent, which was fixed upon four polesover a hole previously dug in the sand, and filled by the advancingtide. Here they were obliged to sit for ten minutes in the water, withthe sun pouring down upon them till the small tent resembled a vapourbath, after which they were massaged according to the treatmentrecommended by a certain Heidelberg doctor in whom Mrs. Barrington hadgreat faith, and whose methods she insisted upon carrying out to theletter, in spite of Ruth's indignant remonstrances and Edna's wails.
"Ruth says bathing's no fun at all," confided Isobel to her mother; "andI shouldn't think it is, if you can't splash about in the sea and enjoyyourself. Mrs. Barrington won't let them try to swim, and they just haveto sit in a puddle inside the tent, while she flings cans of sea-waterdown their backs. Edna says the hot sun makes the skin peel off her, andshe can't bear the rubbing afterwards. Her clothes fridge her, too; theyalways wear thick woollen under-things even in this blazing weather,their mother's so afraid of them taking a chill."
"Poor children!" said Mrs. Stewart; "I certainly think they have rathera bad time. It must be very hard to be brought up by rule, and to haveso many experiments tried upon you."
"Ruth says she has one comfort, though," continued Isobel: "they'reallowed to speak English all the time during the holidays. At home theyhave a German governess, and they talk French one day, and German thenext, and English only on Sundays. Ruth hates languages. She won't speaka word to mademoiselle, but she says the Wrights simply talkcat-French--it's half of it English words--although they're so conceitedabout it, and generally say something out very loud if they thinkanybody is passing, even if it's only _Il fait beau aujourd'hui_, or_Comment vous portez-vous?_ The Rokebys poke terrible fun at them;they've made up a gibberish language of their own, and they talk it hardwhenever the Wrights let off French. It makes Charlotte and Aggie quitesavage, because they know they're talking about them, only they can'tunderstand a word."
* * * * *
"What's the club going to do to-day?" asked Bertie Rokeby one morning,looking somewhat damp and moist after his swim. ("He never _will_ dryhimself properly," said Mrs. Rokeby; "he just gets into his clothes ashe is, and he's sitting down on the old boat just where the sun hasmelted the pitch, and it will be sure to stick to his trousers.")
"Don't know," said Harold Wright, lolling comfortably in the shade of arock, with his head on his rolled-up jacket; "too hot to race roundwith the thermometer over 70 deg.. I shall stay where I am, with a book."
"Get up, you fat porpoise! You'll grow too lazy to walk. Unless you meanto stop and swat at Greek like old Arthur."
"No, thanks," laughed Harold. "I'm not in for a scholarship yet, thankgoodness! I'm just going to kick my heels here. The _dolce far niente_,you know."
"Let us go down to the quay," suggested Charlie Chester, "and watch theboats come in. It's stunning to see them packing all the herrings intobarrels, and flinging the mackerel about. Some of the men are ever sodecent: they let you help to haul in the ropes, and take you on boardsometimes."
"Shall we go too?" said Belle, who, with her arm as usual round Isobel'swaist, stood among the group of children; "it's rather fun down by thequay, if you don't get _too_ near the fish.--Are you coming, Aggie?"
"Yes, if Charlotte and mademoiselle will go too.--Mam'zelle, voulez-vousaller avec nous a voir le fish-market?"
Mademoiselle shivered slightly, as if Aggie's French set her teeth onedge.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est, chere enfant, cette 'feesh markeet'?" she replied.
"I don't know whether I can quite explain it in French," replied Aggie;but seeing the Rokebys come up, she made a desperate effort to sustainher character as a linguist. "C'est l'endroit ou on vend le poisson,vous savez."
Unfortunately she pronounced _poisson_ like the English "poison," andmademoiselle held up her dainty little hands with a shriek of horror.
"Vere zey sell ze poison! Non, mon enfant! You sall nevaire take mezere! Madame Wright, see not permit zat you go! C'est impossible!"
"It's all right, mademoiselle," said Arthur, taking his nose for amoment out of his dictionary. "Aggie only meant _poisson_. The mater'lllet the kids go, if you want to take 'em."
"Come along, mademoiselle, do!" said Charlie Chester cordially. "Venezavec moi! That's about all the French I can talk, because at school weonly learn to write exercises about pens and ink and paper, and thegardener's son, and lending your knife to the uncle of the baker; ajolly silly you'd be if you did, too! You'd never get it back.Suivez-moi! And come and see the _poisson_. You'll enjoy it if you do."
"I'm sure she wouldn't," said Charlotte Wright, who liked to keep hergoverness to herself. "We haven't time, either--we must do ourtranslation before dinner; and Joyce and Eric can't go unless we'rethere to look after them."
"All right; don't, then! We shan't grieve," retorted Charlie. "We'll gowith the Rokebys."
But the Rokebys, though ready, as a rule, to go anywhere and everywhere,on this particular occasion were due at the railway station to meet acousin who was arriving that morning; so it ended in only Belle andIsobel, with Charlie and Hilda Chester, setting off for the old town.The quay was a busy, bustling scene. The herring-fleet had just come in,and it was quite a wonderful sight to watch the fish, with their shiningiridescent colours, leaping by hundreds inside the holds. They wereflung out upon the jetty, and packed at once into barrels, an operationwhich seemed to demand much noise and shouting on the part of thefishermen in the boats, and to call for a good deal of forcible languagefrom their partners on shore. The small fry and cuttle-fish were thrownoverboard for the sea-gulls, that hovered round with loud cries, waitingto pounce upon the tempting morsels, while the great flat skate anddog-fish were put aside separately.
"They're second-rate stuff, you see," explained Charlie Chester, who,with his hands in his pockets and his most seaman-like gait, wentstrolling jauntily up and down the harbour, inspecting the cargoes,trying the strength of the cables, peeping into the barrels with theknowing air of a connoisseur of fish, and generally putting himselfwhere he was decidedly not wanted.
"They only pack the herrings, and they salt and dry the others in thesun. You can see them dangling outside their cottage doors all over thetown, and smell them too, I should say. When they're quite hard theyhammer them out flat, and send them to Whitechapel for the Jews tobuy--at least that's what the mate of the _Penelope_ told me the otherday."
"They eat them themselves too," said Hilda. "I went inside a cottage oneday, and they were frying some for dinner. The woman gave me a taste,but it was perfectly horrid, and I couldn't swallow it. I had to rushoutside round the corner and spit it out."
"You disgusting girl!" said Belle, picking her way daintily between thebarrels; "I wonder you could touch it, to begin with! Why, here are thewomen coming with the cockles. What a haul they've had! There's oldBiddy at the head of them."
"So she is!" cried Charlie; "her basket looks almost bursting!--Hullo,Biddy!--
'In Dublin's fair city, Where girls are so pretty, There once lived a maiden named Molly Malon She wheeled a wheelbarrow Through streets wide and narrow
, Singing, "Cockles and mussels alive, alive-O!"'
Change it into Biddy, and there you are! I've an eye for an 'illigantcolleen' when I see her!"
"Sure, ye're at yer jokes agin, Masther Charlie," laughed Biddy;"colleen, indade, and me turned sixty only the other day! If it weren'tfor the kreel on me back, I'd be afther yez."
"I'd like to see you catch me," cried Charlie, as he jumped on a heap ofbarrels, bringing the whole pile with a crash to the ground, greatly tothe wrath of the owner, who expressed his views with so much vigour thatthe children judged it discreet to adjourn farther on along the quay.
They strolled past the storehouse, and round the corner to where aflight of green slimy steps led down to the water. There was an ironring here in the sea wall, and tied to it by a short cable was thejolliest pleasure boat imaginable, newly painted in white and blue, withher name, the Stormy _Petrel_, in gilt letters on the prow, her sailfurled, and a pair of sculls lying ready along her seats.
"She's a smart craft," said Charlie, reaching down to the painter, andpulling the boat up to the steps. "I vote we get inside her, and trywhat she feels like."
"Will they let us?" asked Isobel.
"We won't ask them," laughed Charlie. "It's all right; we shan't do anyharm. They can turn us out if they want her. Come along." And he heldout his hand.
It was such a tempting proposal that it simply was not in human natureto resist, and the three little girls hopped briskly into the boat,Belle and Isobel settling themselves in the bows, and Hilda taking aseat in the stern.
"It almost feels as if we were really sailing," said Isobel, as the boatdanced upon the green water, pulling at its painter as though it wereanxious to break away and follow the ebbing tide.
"She'd cut through anything, she's so sharp in the bows," said Charlie,handling the sculls lovingly, and looking out towards the mouth of theharbour, where long white-capped waves flecked the horizon.
"Can't you take us for a row, Charlie?" cried Belle; "it's so jolly onthe water."
"Yes, do, Charlie," echoed Hilda; "it would be such fun."
"Do you mean, go for a real sail?" asked Isobel, rather aghast at such adaring proposal.
"Oh, we'd only take her for a turn round the harbour, and be back beforeany one missed her. It would be an awful lark," said Charlie.
"But not without a boatman!" remonstrated Isobel.
"Why not? I know all about sailing," replied Charlie confidently, for,having been occasionally taken yachting by his father, and having pickedup a number of nautical terms, which he generally used wrongly, heimagined himself to be a thorough Jack Tar. "Wouldn't you like it? Ithought you were fond of the sea."
"So I am," said Isobel; "but I don't think we ought to go withoutasking. It's not our boat, and the man she belongs to mightn't like usto take her out by ourselves."
"I suppose you're afraid," sneered Charlie; "most girls are dreadfulland-lubbers. Hilda's keen enough; and as for Belle, she's half wild togo, I can see."
"I should think I am; and what's more, I mean to!" declared Belle; andsettling the dispute as Alexander of old untied the Gordian knot, shetook her penknife from her pocket, and leaning over, cut the painter offsharp.
"_Now_ you've done it!" cried Charlie. "Well, we're off, at any rate, sowe may as well enjoy ourselves.--Hilda, you must steer while I row. Ifyou watch me feather my oars, you'll see I can manage the thing inripping style."
There was such a strong ebb tide that Charlie had really no need to row.The boat went skimming over the waves as if she had been a veritablestormy petrel, sending the water churning round her bows. Although allfour children felt a trifle guilty, they could not help enjoying thedelightful sensation of that swift-rushing motion over the sea. Nearlyall Anglo-Saxons have a love for the water: perhaps some spirit of theold vikings still lingers in our blood, and thrills afresh at the splashof the waves, the dash of the salt spray, and the fleck of the foam onour faces. There is a feeling of freedom, a sense of air, and space, anddancing light, and soft, subdued sound that blend into one exhilaratingjoy, when, with only a plank between us and the racing water, it is asif nature took us in her arms and were about to carry us away from everytrammel of civilization, somewhere into that far-off land that liesalways just over the horizon--that lost Atlantis which the oldnavigators sought so carefully, but never found.
Isobel sat in the bows, her hand locked in Belle's. She felt as if theywere birds flying through space together, or mermaids who had risen upfrom the sea-king's palace to take a look at the sun-world above, andwere floating along as much a part of the waves as the great trails ofbladder-wrack, or the lumps of soft spongy foam that whirled by them.Charlie rested on his sculls and let the boat take her course for awhile; she was heading towards the bar, straight out from the cliffs andthe harbour to where the heavy breakers, which dashed against thelighthouse, merged into the rollers of the open sea.
"Aren't we going out rather a long way?" said Belle at last. "We'vepassed the old schooner and the dredger, and we're very nearly at thebuoy. We don't want to sail quite to America, though it's jolly when weskim along like this. If we don't mind we shall be over the bar in a fewminutes."
"By jove! so we shall!" cried Charlie. "I didn't notice we'd come sofar. We must bring her round.--Get her athwart, Hilda, quick!"
"I suppose if you pull one line it goes one way, and if you pull theother line it goes the other way," said Hilda, whose first experience itwas with the tiller, giving such a mighty jerk as an experiment that sheswung the boat half round.
"Easy abaft!" shouted Charlie. "Do you want to capsize us? Turn her tostarboard; she's on the port tack. Put up the helm, and make her luff!"
"What _do_ you mean?" cried Hilda, utterly bewildered by these nauticaldirections.
"You little idiot, don't tug so hard! You'll be running us into thebuoy. Look here! you can't steer. Just drop these lines. I'd better shipthe oars and hoist the sail, and then I can take the tiller myself.There's a stiffish breeze; I can tack her round, you'll see, if I've noone interfering. Now let me get my bearings."
"Are you sure you know how?" asked Belle uneasily.
"Haven't I watched old Jordan do it a hundred times?" declared Charlie."I'll soon have the canvas up. I say, look out there! The bloomingthing's heavier than I thought."
"Oh, do be careful!" entreated Belle, as the sail went up in a verypeculiar fashion, and beginning to fill with the breeze sent the boatheeling sharply over.
"She'll be perfectly right if I slack out. The wind's on our beam,"replied Charlie; "I must get her a-lee."
"You're going to upset us!" exclaimed Belle, for the sail was flappingabout in such a wild and unsteady manner as seemed to threaten tooverturn the little vessel.
"Not if I make this taut," cried Charlie, hauling away with all hisstrength.--"Hilda, that was a near shave!" as the unmanageable canvas,swelling out suddenly, caught her a blow on the side of her head andnearly swept her from the boat.
Hilda gave a shriek of terror and clung wildly to the gunwale.
"O Charlie!" she cried, "take us back. I don't like sailing. I want togo home."
"Oh! why did we ever come?" shrieked Belle, jumping up in her seat andwringing her hands. "You'll send us to the bottom."
"Sit still, dear," cried Isobel. "You'll upset the boat if you move soquickly.--Charlie, I think you'd better take down that sail and try thesculls again. If you'll let me steer perhaps I could manage better thanHilda, and we could turn out of the current; it's taking us straight tosea. If we can head round towards the quay we might get back."
"All serene," said Charlie, furling his canvas with secret relief."There ought to be several, really, for this job; it takes more than oneto sail a craft properly, and none of you girls know how to help."
He gave Isobel a hand as she moved cautiously into the stern, andsettling her with the ropes, he once more took up the oars.
"I shall come too," wailed Belle. "I can't stay alone at this end of theboat. Isobel, it's hor
rid of you to leave me."
"Sit still," commanded Charlie. "It's you who'll have us over if youjump about like that. We can't all be at one end, I tell you. You muststop where you are."
He made a desperate effort to turn the boat, but his boyish arms werepowerless against the strength of the ebbing tide, and they were sweptrapidly towards the bar.
"It's no use," said Charlie at last, shipping his sculls; "I can't gether out of this current. We shall just have to drift on till some onesees us and picks us up."
"O Charlie!" cried Hilda, her round chubby face aghast with horror,"shall we float on for days and days without anything to eat, or beshipwrecked on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe, and have to clingto broken masts and spars?"
"We're all right; don't make such a fuss!" said Charlie, glancinguneasily, however, at the long waves ahead. They were crossing the bar,and the water was rough outside the harbour.
"I _know_ we're going to be drowned!" moaned Belle. "It's your fault,Charlie. You ought never to have brought us."
"Well, I like that!" retorted Charlie, with some heat, "when it was youwho first thought of it, and asked me to take you. I suppose you'll besaying I cut the painter next."
"You want to throw the blame on me!" declared Belle.
"No, I don't; but there's such a thing as fair play."
"O Charlie, it doesn't matter whose fault it was now," said Isobel. "Isuppose in a way it's all our faults for getting in, to begin with.Couldn't we somehow raise a signal of distress? Suppose you tie myhandkerchief to the scull, and hoist it up like a flag. Some ship mightnotice it."
"Not a bad idea," said Charlie, who by this time wished himself well outof the scrape. "You've a head on your shoulders, though I did call you aland-lubber."
Between them they managed to tie on the handkerchief and hoist the oar,and as their improvised flag fluttered in the wind they hopeddesperately that it might bring some friendly vessel to their aid.
They had quite cleared the harbour by now; the sea was rough, and thecurrent still carried them on fast. Isobel sat with her arm round poorlittle Hilda, who clung to her very closely, watching the water with awhite, frightened face, though she was too plucky to cry. Belle, who hadcompletely lost self-control, was huddled down in the bows, shaking withhysterical sobs, and uttering shrieks every time the boat struck abigger wave than usual.
"I wonder no one in the harbour noticed us set off," said Isobel after atime, when the land seemed to be growing more and more distant behindthem.
"They were busy packing the herrings," replied Charlie, "and you see westarted from round the corner. Our only chance now is meeting some boatcoming from Ferndale. I say! do you think that's a sail over there?"
"It is!" cried Isobel. "Let us hold the flag up higher, and we'll call'Help!' as loud as we can. Sound carries so far over water, perhaps theymight hear us."
"Ahoy there!" yelled Charlie, with the full strength of his lungs. "Boatahoy!" And Hilda and Isobel joining in, they contrived amongst them toraise a considerably lusty shout.
To their intense relief it seemed to be heard, as the ship tacked round,and bearing down upon them, very soon came up alongside.
"Well, of all sights as ever I clapped eyes on! Four bairns adrift in anopen craft! I thought summat was up when I see'd your flag, and then youhollered.--Easy there, Jim. Take the little 'un on first. Mind that lad!He'll be overboard!--Whisht, honey! don't take on so. You'll soon besafe back with your ma.--Now, missy, give me your hand. Ay, you've beenup to some fine games here, I'll wager, as you never did ought. Butthere! Bairns will be bairns, and I should know, for I've reared seven."
"Mr. Binks!" cried Isobel, to whom the ruddy cheeks, the bushy eyebrows,and the good-natured conversational voice of her friend of the railwaytrain were quite unmistakable.
"Why, it's little missy as were comin' to Silversands!" responded theold man. "To think as I should 'a met you again like this! I felt as ifsomethin' sent me out this mornin' over and above callin' at Ferndalefor a load of coals, which would 'a done to-morrow just as well. It'sthe workin's of Providence as we come on this tack, or you might 'abeen right out to sea, and, ten to one, upset in that narrer bit of aboat."
It certainly felt far safer in Mr. Binks's broad-bottomed fishing-smack,though they had to sit amongst the coals and submit to be rathersearchingly and embarrassingly catechised as to how they came to be insuch a perilous situation. Their plight had been noticed at last fromthe harbour, where the owner of the boat, missing his craft, had raiseda hue-and-cry, and there was quite a little crowd gathered to meet themon the jetty when they landed, a crowd which expressed its satisfactionat their timely rescue, or its disapproval of their escapade, accordingto individual temperament.
"Praise the saints ye're not drownded entoirely!" cried Biddy, givingCharlie a smacking kiss, much to his disgust. "And it's ould BiddyMulligan as saw the peril ye was in, and asked St. Pathrick and theBlessed Virgin to keep an eye on yez. Holy St. Bridget! but ye're abroth of a boy, afther all."
"I'm main set to give you a jolly good hidin'," growled the owner of theboat, greeting Charlie with a somewhat different reception, andfingering a piece of rope-end as if he were much tempted to put histhreat into execution. "Don't you never let me catch you on this quayagain, meddlin' with other folk's property, if you want to keep yourskin on you."
"He really was most dreadfully angry," Isobel told her mother in thegraphic account which she gave afterwards of the adventure. "But Charliesaid how very sorry we were. He took the whole blame to himself, thoughit wasn't all his fault by any means, and he offered to pay for havingborrowed the boat. Then the man said he spoke up like a gentleman, andhe wouldn't take his money from him; and Mr. Binks said bairns would bebairns, and it was a mercy we hadn't gone to the bottom; and the manshook hands with Charlie, and said he was a plucky little chap, with agood notion of handling a sail, and he'd take him out some time and showhim how to do it properly. And Mr. Binks said I'd never been to see himyet, and I told him you'd sprained your ankle and couldn't walk, but itwas getting better nicely, and you'd soon be able to; and he said, wouldwe write and give him warning when we'd made up our minds, and hismissis should bake a cranberry cake on purpose, and if we came early,he'd row us over to see the balk. I said we should be very pleased,because you'd promised before that you'd go. So you will, won't you,mother?"
"I shall be only too glad to have an opportunity of thanking him," saidMrs. Stewart. "I feel I owe him a big debt of gratitude to-day. Perhapsin the meantime we can think of some pretty little present to take withus that would please him and his wife, as a slight return for hiskindness. You would have time to embroider a tea-cosy if I were to helpyou."
"That would be lovely," said Isobel. "And then they could use it everyday at tea-time. We could work a teapot on one side and a big 'B' on theother for Binks. I'm sure they'd like that. May I go and buy thematerials this afternoon? I brought my thimble with me and my newscissors in the green silk bag. I feel as if I should like to begin andmake it at once."