CHAPTER VII

“That fellow is still looking at us through his glasses,” said Frank.

“Can’t help it,” said Priscilla, “If it amuses him he can go on looking

at us for the next four hours.”

She gathered her dripping skirt round her and stepped into the boat

“Sylvia Courtney,” she said, “told me last term that her favorite poem

in English literature, is ‘Gray’s Elegy’ on account of it’s being so

full of calm. Sometimes I think that Sylvia Courtney is rather a beast.”

“She must be a rotter,” said Frank, “if she said that.”

“All the same, there’s no use our fretting ourselves into a fuss. We

can’t get out of this unless we had the wings of a dove, so we may as

well take the sails off the boat.”

She climbed across Frank, loosed the halyard and brought the lug down

into the boat with a sudden run. Frank was buried in the folds of it.

After some struggling he got his head out and breathed freely.

“I say, Priscilla,” he said, “why didn’t you tell me you were going to

do that?”

Priscilla was gathering the foresail in her arms.

“I thought you knew,” she said.

“I didn’t know the beastly thing was going to come down on my head.”

“That fellow on the island,” said Priscilla, “is getting down his tents

and seems to be in a mighty hurry. He’s got a woman helping him. Do

you think she could be a female spy? There are such things. They carry

secret ciphers sewn into their stays and other things of that kind.”

“I don’t believe they’re spies at all,” said Frank, who was feeling

dishevelled and uncomfortable after his struggle with the sail.

“Anyhow they seem pretty keen on getting away from Inishark. Just look

at them.”

There was no doubt that the people on the island were doing their

best to strike their camp as quickly as possible. In their hurry they

stumbled over guy ropes, got the fly sheet of one of their tents badly

tangled round a packing case, and made the matter worse by trying to

free it without proper consideration.

“Let them fuss,” said Priscilla. “We can’t help it if they do get away.

If your ankle isn’t too bad we might as well have lunch. You grub out

the food when I get off my shoes and stockings, I’m a bit damp about the

legs.”

Frank felt under the thwart through which the mast was stepped and drew

out one by one the parcel of macaroons, the tongue, the tin of peaches

and the bottles. Priscilla wrung out her stockings over the stern of the

boat and then hung them on the gunwale to dry. She propped her shoes up

against the stern where they would get as much breeze as possible.

“I wish,” said Frank, “that we’d thought of getting some bread.”

“Why? Don’t you like macaroons?”

“I like them all right, but they don’t go very well with tongue.”

“We’ll begin with the tongue, then, and keep the macaroons till

afterwards. Hand it over.”

She took a rowlock and shattered the jar which held the tongue. She

succeeded in throwing some of the broken glass overboard. A good deal

more of it stuck in the tongue.

“What I generally do,” she said, “when I’m out in the Blue Wanderer

by myself and happen to have a tongue, which isn’t often on account of

their being so beastly expensive--but whenever I have I simply bite bits

off it as I happen to want them. But I know that’s not polite. If you

prefer it, Cousin Frank, you can gouge out a chunk or two with your

knife before I gnaw it.”

This seemed to Frank a good suggestion. He got out his knife.

“Sylvia Courtney is always frightfully polite,” said Priscilla.

Frank hesitated. The recollection of Sylvia Courtney’s appreciation of

Wordsworth’s “Ode to Duty” and her fondness for “Gray’s Elegy” for the

sake of its calm came to him. He would not be classed with her. He put

his knife back into his pocket and bit a small bit off the tongue. Then

he leaned over the side of the boat and spat out a good deal of broken

glass. He also spat out some blood.

“That seems to be rather a glassy bit you’ve got,” said Priscilla. “Are

you cut?”

“A little,” said Frank, “but it doesn’t matter.”

Priscilla bit off a large mouthful and handed the tongue back to Frank.

Her cheeks bulged a good deal, but she chewed without any appearance

of discomfort. Frank had read in books about “the call of the wild.”

He now, for the first time, felt the lust for savage life. He took the

tongue, tore off a fragment with his teeth, and discovered as he ate it,

that he was exceedingly hungry.

“Your lemonade bottle,” he said, a few minutes later, “has one of those

glass stoppers in it instead of a cork. How shall I open it?”

“Shank of a rowlock,” said Priscilla. “Those spies on the island have

got their tents down at last. They’re packing up now.”

Frank opened the lemonade bottle and then glanced at the island. The

female spy was packing a holdall. Her companion was staggering down the

beach towards the place where Flanagan’s old boat lay high and dry

on her side. He carried the packing case on his shoulder. Priscilla,

tilting her head back, drank the lemonade from its bottle in large

gulps. Then she opened the parcel of biscuits and munched a macaroon

contentedly.

“It’s dashed annoying,” said Frank, “having to sit here and watch them

escape, just as we had them cornered too.”

The inside of his lip hurt him a good deal while he ate. He wanted

to grumble about something; but the fear of being compared to Sylvia

Courtney kept him silent about the broken glass. Priscilla took another

macaroon.

“We were doing Wordsworth’s ‘Excursion’ last term,” she said, “in

English literature, and there’s a long tract of it called ‘Despondency

Corrected.’ I wish I had it here now. It’s just what would do you good.”

Frank nibbled a biscuit with his eyes on the island. The man was

carrying down a bundle of rugs to the boat. The woman followed him with

one of the tents. Then they went back together to their camping ground

and collected a number of small objects which were scattered about.

Frank became desperate.

“Priscilla,” he said, “don’t you think you could wade across to that

island. There’s only about an inch and a half of water round the boat

now. I’d do it myself if it wasn’t for this infernal ankle. I simply

can’t walk.”

“I could,” said Priscilla, “and what’s more, I would, only that there’s

a deep channel between us and them. If I’d jibed that time instead of

trying to stay her I should have kept in the channel and not run on to

this bank. I knew it was here all right, but I forgot it just at the

moment. That’s the worst of moments. They simply make one forget things,

however hard one tries not to. I daresay you’ve noticed that.”

Frank had as a matter of fact noticed this peculiarity of moments very

often. It had turned up in the course of his experience both on cricket

and football fields. But it seemed to him that the consequences of being

entrapped by it were much more serious in sailing boats than elsewhere.

He was so far from blaming Priscilla for the plight of the Tortoise that

he felt very grateful to her for not blaming him. His moment had come

when she gave him the order about the centreboard. Then not only memory,

but all power of coherent thought had deserted him.

“Let’s have at the Californian peaches,” said Priscilla. “But we’d

better eat a bit slower now that the first pangs of hunger are allayed.

If we hurry up too much we’ll have no food left soon and we have

absolutely nothing else to do except to eat until five o’clock this

afternoon. We can’t expect to get off before that.”

The spies packed their belongings into Flanagan’s old boat and then set

to work to push her down to the sea. Frank, with the point of the opener

driven through the top of the peach tin, paused to watch them. They

shoved and pulled vainly. The boat remained where she was. Frank began

to hope that they, too, might have to wait for the rising tide. They sat

down on a large stone and consulted together. Then they took everything

out of the boat and tried pushing and pulling her again. Her weight was

still too great for them. They moved her forward in short jerks, but

each time they moved her the keel at her stern buried itself deeper

in the soft mud. They sat down, evidently somewhat exhausted, and had

another consultation. Then the man got the oars and laid them out as

rollers. He lifted the boat’s stern on to the first of them.

“I thought,” said Priscilla, “that they’d hit on that dodge sooner or

later. Now they’ll get on a bit. Go on scalping the peach tin, Cousin

Frank.”

The peaches had been cut in half by the kindly Californian who preserved

them and a half peach fits, with a little squeezing, into any mouth of

ordinary size. Priscilla and Frank fished them out with their fingers

and ate them. Some juice, but considering the circumstances very little,

dripped down the front of Frank’s white flannel coat, the glorious

crimson bound coat of the first eleven. He did not care in the least. He

had lapsed hopelessly. No urchin in the lower school, brewing cocoa

over a form room fire, ladling out condensed milk with the blade of a

penknife, would have been more dead to the decencies of life than this

degenerate hero of the lower sixth.

“They’re getting the boat down,” said Priscilla, swallowing a lump of

peach. “Do you think that you could throw stones far enough to hit them

when they get out into the channel? I’d grub up the stones for you. We

might frighten them back that way.”

Frank had won second prize in the sports at the end of the Easter term

for throwing the cricket ball. He looked across the stretch of water and

judged the distance carefully.

“No,” he said, regretfully, “I couldn’t.”

“That’s a pity,” said Priscilla, “for I can’t, either. I never could shy

worth tuppence. Curious, isn’t it? Hardly any girls can.”

The spies had got old Flanagan’s boat down to the water’s edge.

They went back to the place where she had lain first. By a series of

laborious portages they got all their goods down to the beach and packed

them into the boat.

“They’re off now,” said Frank, regretfully.

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” said Priscilla. “That fellow’s an

extraordinary ass with a boat.”

Her optimism was well founded. By shoving hard the spies ran their

boat into the water. The lady spy stopped at the brink. The man, with

reckless indifference to wet feet, followed the boat, still shoving.

It happens that the shore of the north side of Inishark shelves very

rapidly into the deep channel. The boat floated suddenly, and urged by

the violence of the last shove, slid rapidly from the shore. The man

grasped at her. His fingers slid along the gunwale. He plunged forward

knee-deep, snatched at the retreating bow, missed it, stumbled and

fell headlong into the water. The boat floated free and swung into the

channel on the tide.

Priscilla leaped up excitedly.

“Now they’re done,” she said. “They’re far worse stuck than we are.”

“Oh, do look at him,” said Frank, “Did you ever see anything so funny?”

The man staggered to his feet and floundered towards the shore,

squeezing the salt water from his eyes with his knuckles.

“Of course, I’m sorry for the poor beast in a way,” said Priscilla, “but

I can’t help feeling that it jolly well serves him right. Oh, look at

them now!”

She laughed convulsively. The scene was sufficiently ridiculous. The spy

stood dripping forlornly, on the shore. The lady dabbed at various parts

of his clothing with her pocket-handkerchief. Flanagan’s old boat, now

fairly in mid-channel, bobbed cheerfully along on the ebbing tide.

“I’d give a lot this minute,” said Priscilla, “for a pair of glasses. I

can’t think why I was such a fool as not to take father’s when we were

starting.”

“I can see well enough,” said Frank. “What I’d like would be to be able

to hear what he’s saying.”

“I don’t take any interest in bad language, and in any case I don’t

believe he’s capable of it. He looked to me like the kind of man who

wouldn’t say anything much worse than ‘Dear me.’”

“Wouldn’t he? Look at him now. If he isn’t cursing I’ll eat my hat.”

The spy had shaken himself free of his companion’s pocket handkerchief.

He was waving his arms violently and shouting so loudly that his voice

reached the Tortoise against the wind.

“I suppose,” said Priscilla, “that that’s his way of trying to get dry

without catching a chill. Horrid ass, isn’t he? It’d be far better for

him to run. What’s the good of yelling? I expect in reality it’s simply

temper.”

But Priscilla underestimated the intelligence of the spy. It appeared

very soon that he was not merely giving expression to emotion, but had a

purpose in his performance. The lady, too, began to shout, shrilly. She

waved her damp pocket handkerchief round and round her head. Priscilla

and Frank turned and saw that another boat, a small black boat, with

a very dilapidated lug sail, had appeared round the corner of the next

island, and was making towards Inishark.

“Bother,” said Priscilla, “that man, whoever he is, will bring them back

their boat.”

The steersman in the lug-sailed boat altered his course slightly and

reached down towards the derelict. As he neared her he dropped his sail

and got out oars.

“That’s young Kinsella,” said Priscilla. “I know him by the red sleeve

his mother sewed into that gray shirt of his. No one else has a shirt

the least like it. He’s a soft-hearted sort of boy who’d do a good turn

to any one. He’s sure to take their boat back to them.”

“He has a lady with him,” said Frank.

“He has. I can’t see who she is; but it doesn’t look like his mother.

Can’t be, in fact, for she has a baby to mind. I collared a lot of

flannel out of a box in Aunt Juliet’s room last ‘hols’ and gave it to

her for the baby. It’s a bit of what I gave her that was made into a

sleeve for Jimmy’s shirt. I wonder now who it is he has got with him?”

Jimmy Kinsella overtook the drifting boat, took her painter, and began

to tow her towards Inishark.

“That lady,” said Priscilla, “is a black stranger to me. Who can she

possibly be?”

Jimmy Kinsella rowed hard, and in about ten minutes ran his own

boat aground on Inishark. He disembarked, dragged at the painter of

Flanagan’s boat and handed her over to the lady on the island. A long

conversation followed. The whole party, Jimmy Kinsella, his lady, the

dripping spy, and the original lady with the damp pocket handkerchief,

consulted together eagerly. Then they took the hold-all out of

Flanagan’s boat. There was another conversation, and it became plain

that the two ladies were expostulating with the dripping gentleman.

Jimmy Kinsella stood a little apart and gazed placidly at the two boats.

Then the hold-all was unpacked and a number of garments laid out on the

beach. They were sorted out and a bundle of them handed to the spy.

He walked straight up the slope of the island and disappeared over the

crest of the hill.

“Gone to change his clothes,” said Priscilla.

The two ladies repacked the hold-all. Jimmy Kinsella stowed it in the

bow of Flanagan’s boat. Then the lady of the island got it out again,

unpacked it once more, and took something out of it.

“Clean pocket-handkerchief, I expect,” said Priscilla.

The guess was evidently a good one, for she spread the wet handkerchief

on a stone. Her companion reappeared over the crest of the island, clad

in another pair of white trousers and another sweater. He carried his

wet garments at arm’s length. Jimmy Kinsella went to meet him. They

talked together as they walked down to the boats. Then the two ladies

kissed each other warmly. Priscilla watched the performance with a

sneer.

“Awful rot, that kind of thing,” she said.

“All women do it,” said Frank.

Here at last he was unquestionably Priscilla’s superior. Never, to

his recollection, had he kissed any one except his mother, and he was

generally content to allow her to kiss him.

“I don’t; Sylvia Courtney tried it on with me when we were saying

good-bye at the end of last term, but I jolly soon choked her off. Can’t

think where the pleasure is supposed to come in.”

Jimmy Kinsella placed the spy lady in the stern of Flanagan’s boat and

handed in her companion. He arranged the oars and the rowlocks and then,

standing ankle deep in the water, shoved her off. The spy took his

oars and pulled away. Priscilla and Frank watched the boat until she

disappeared.

“Pretty rough luck on us,” said Priscilla, “Jimmy Kinsella turning up

just at that moment. I wonder if that woman is a man in disguise. She

might be, you know. They sometimes are.”

“Couldn’t possibly. No man would have been such a fool as to go trying

to dry anybody with a pocket handkerchief. Only a woman----”

“If it comes to that,” said Priscilla, “no woman would have been such a

fool as to let that boat go the way he did. Girls aren’t the only asses

in the world, Cousin Frank.”

“Besides,” said Frank, “she evidently took a lot of trouble to persuade

him to change his clothes. That looks as if----”

“It does, rather. I daresay she’s his aunt. It’s just the kind of thing

Aunt Juliet would have done before she took to Christian Science.

Now, of course, it would be against her principles. Let’s have another

Californian peach to fill in the time.”

Frank handed the tin to her and afterwards helped himself.

“Have you drunk all your beer, Cousin Frank?”

“No. Want some?”

“I was only thinking,” said Priscilla, “that perhaps you’d better not.

I’ve just recollected King John.”

“What about him?”

“It was peaches and beer that finished him off, after he’d got stuck in

crossing the Wash. That’s rather the sort of position we’re in now, and

I shouldn’t like anything to happen to you.”

Frank, by way of demonstrating his courage, took a long draught of lager

beer, then he looked across at Inishark. Priscilla’s eyes followed his.

For a minute or two they gazed in silence.

Jimmy Kinsella’s boat still lay on the shore. Jimmy Kinsella’s lady

had taken off her shoes and stockings and rolled up the sleeves of her

blouse. Her skirt was kilted high and folded over a broad band which

kept it well above her knees. Jimmy Kinsella himself, who was modest as

well as chivalrous, sat on a stone with his back to her and gazed at the

slope of the island. The lady waded about in the shallow water. Now and

then she plunged her arms in and appeared to fish something up from the

bottom. Priscilla and Frank looked at each other in amazement.

“I wonder what on earth’s she’s doing,” said Priscilla. “Can she

possibly be taking soundings?”

“No,” said Frank. “Soundings aren’t taken that way. You do it with a

line and a lead from the deck of a ship.”

“All the same,” said Priscilla, “she’s in league with the other spies.

You saw the way they kissed each other.”

“She may,” said Frank, “be taking specimens of the sea bottom. That’s a

very important thing, I believe.”

“It is, frightfully; but that’s not the way it’s done. There was

a curious old johnny last term who gave us a lecture on

hydrography--that’s what he called it--and he said you gather up small

bits of the bottom by putting tallow on the end of a lump of lead. I

expect he knew what he was talking about, but, of course, he may not.

You never can tell about those scientific lecturers. They keep on

contradicting each other so.”

“If she’s not doing that, what is she doing?”

“She may possibly be trying to cure her rheumatism,” said Priscilla.

“They generally bathe for that; but she may not feel bad enough to go

to such extremes. She looks rather fat. Fat people do have rheumatism,

don’t they?”

“No, gout.”

“More or less the same thing,” said Priscilla. “Of course, if that’s

what she’s at, she’s not a spy, and we oughtn’t to go on treating her

as if she was. I don’t think it’s right to suspect people of really bad

crimes unless one knows. Do you, Cousin Frank?”

“Of course not. All the same, the way she’s going on is rather queer.

She’s just put something that she picked up into that tin box she has

slung across her back. That doesn’t look to me as if she had gout.”

“If only Jimmy Kinsella would turn this way,” said Priscilla, “I’d wave

at him and make him come over here. It’s perfectly maddening being stuck

like this when such a lot of exciting things are going on. What time is

it?”

“A little after two.”

“It’s low water then,” said Priscilla. “From this on the tide will be

coming in again.”

The Tortoise lay on the top of a grey bank from which the water had

entirely receded. Between her and the channel, now a tangle of floating

weed, lay a broad stretch of mud, dotted over with large stones and

patches of gravel. The wind, which had been veering round to the south

since twelve o’clock, had almost entirely died away. The sun shone very

warmly. The Tortoise, lying sadly on her side, afforded no shelter at

all. Both the beer and the lemonade were finished.

Priscilla drank some peach juice from the tin.