and strong physically, but very biddable, and would gratefully absorb all the information that always oozes, and sometimes gushes, out of Jack. Again I say, "Poor simple Isobel!" But I did not say it then; I went on encouraging Jack to ask the youth-and he began to feel a sort of missionary zeal about him. "Like all these young idiots, I suppose he would spend the summer dashing about the country on a motor-bike, or endangering the moors to decent men; much better for him to learn a bit about a boatthough, of course, he can't learn much in a month, though he'll think he knows everything." Jack proved rather nearer the mark than I, which seems strange, but after all he must once have been a boy of eighteen himself, and remembered it subconsciously. The youth came to see us -came, and conquered me at least. Jack was a shade less enthusiastic, as he found the boy's only experience with boats was with motors-and motors to a sailing enthusiast are as worms to the dry-fly man! But the youth seemed a good youth, and Jack began to look upon him as a brand worth saving from the burning, the which he would think a suitable end for the Devotees of the Internal Combustion God. Jack could not get away till July, so I went to Skeletta's seaside cupboard by myself in the middle of June. After one summer's practice, and a long winter's theories, I felt quite capable of seeing the ship put in commission. Skeletta was in the water all right, with her main features apparently in place; but when I saw how much had been left in the store, I could not but fear that there were too many wheels over, as in amateur clock-mending. Jack, I was sure, would find lists of vital things undone. I had a little list of the more probable ones which certainly would be missed, and counted on this to invest me with importance in the eyes of the crew. While I was stumbling about the yard with the Boss, Skeletta's dinghy came ashore, and I found myself gazing at that wonderful, longed-for, expensive luxury, the crew! The Boss said they were the crew. I could not have guessed it. In the innocence of my inexperience I had pictured them as smart naval-looking beings, garbed in blue uniforms with brass buttons, or at least jaunty-looking jerseys bearing Skeletta's name proudly on their chests. promise of yachting attire nothing could have been less like a "snapshot from Cowes or "the Clyde yachting season " pictures in the illustrated weeklies. Donaldson was arrayed in a collarless flannel shirt of indeterminate hue, fortunately partially covered by a waistcoat with a dubious past, and his head-gear was a depressed remnant of a "peaked cap." Jack had warned me that I would know the Skipper from his inferior satellite by this precious possession-a peaked cap "-or, in ordinary parlance, a yachting-cap, the more menial second hand or the third, fourth, fifth, or sixth hands, being only adorned with round caps, no more glorious than an ordinary sailor's ! No such insignia of servitude graced the touzled head of Peter MacCaskin-but loathsome creation in checks, which made me think of the bowsprit which got mixed with the rudder sometimes, as he wore it with the peak down the neck! On his body he wore a yacht-hand's jersey right enough, but the yacht's name was not Skeletta, nor was it worn in front, but behind! I gathered that this was from the last boat he served, and if he were not exactly off with the old love before being on with the new, he had at least turned his back on her! I started off on my list of questions, to each of which Duncan answered with soothing gentleness quite right," as though speaking to a delirious child. Peter evidently considered that they also serve who only stand and grin, and between them my small stock of confidence in my nautical knowledge died away. During the winter I had become quite glib about garboards and stringer, and hanging knees, and suchlike; but now I began to doubt if such things were really more probable than they sounded! A little more grinning and soothing, and I fell back on the Sweet Woman's way of describing rather than cataloguing, and even reefpoints were in danger of becoming "those funny little bits of string on the sail.' After my arrival the clothes question became less acute. Skeletta's own name and designation burned in red letters on her servitor's chest, and the Skipper wore a collar, and a waistcoat gorgeous with those longed-for brass buttons-a happier waistcoat than the last, I hope, for it had no apparent history. Jack, the Don, and the Youth were all to arrive together, and I had I had lengthy instructions beforehand from Jack to ensure everything being ready to start at once. I humbly put them before "Tuncan," so my recital had an obligato of "Yess, yess, chust so's." We had all our provisions, I knew, as I had personally unpacked mighty boxes from the stores, strewing the surrounding sea with straw, paper, and empty boxes in a manner it would be quite a good subworthy of the average tripper ject for forcible cacophonous picnicking in a private park! writing! When I could bear The sea does not really like it conjecture no more, I asked him either, I believe, but the tidy- quietly and sympathetically, ing tides are more patient and "What are you reading, Jack?" efficient than any keeper or gardener. Jack had done some of the grocery-ordering himself this year on the principle that it is better to go bankrupt for a sheep than a lamb, and having got the sheep disguised as a crew, we might as well have what lamb we wanted to eat, or, as he summarised it, even a s'nice s'mince-pie." The only verse Jack ever seems to remember arises ghost-like from the pantomine "hits" of several years before. I once, for one breathless moment, thought he was reading Browning, for he was poring over a little blue book exactly the same as the one I was reading, 'The Ring and the Book.' I sat very quiet, so as not to interrupt him, though I longed to know which of Browning's poems had so unexpectedly absorbed him. Perhaps he was even thinking of my patient anxious efforts to profit by all his expositions of sea-learning as he read "Teach me, only teach Love, as I ought, I will speak thy speech, Love, think thy thought" -thoughts of grommets and gaskets, and bights and hitches, I suppose! I tried to remember if Browning had written anything about boats, but could only remember "A Last Ride" -no First Sail Together, though The absorbed attention hardly relaxed enough to answer; then he said "Notes on Bilge Disinfec tion.' I was cast down, but should not have been surprised. If he had been reading Browning, his final comment might still have been "Bilge!" To go back to the thought before last, Jack's groceries consisted of all the nicest things we know of, in tins or jarsbeginning with Caviare, and going on with many more I had never heard of, such as Euchred figs; but no doubt Jack would know all about them, I thought. The crew and I were commissioned to get to Lamlash, and the others would join us there, as it is a good startingplace for going round the Mull of Kintyre, which we intended to do, instead of going through the paint - rubbing, temperstraining canal. To me this seemed a high adventure! Just myself and a crew! Pretending it was all an everyday matter is not merely protective colouring: it adds to the inside joy in the unusual. If one let it come to the surface it might ooze through and evaporate! It was a glorious day, with a nice amateur breeze, and everything went so beautifully I could not help wondering what would be found to be too-near steamer's waves, and I had to clutch the boom in my arms to keep my balance, and she and I together must have looked like an absurd mechanical toy! I am really sorry for Skeletta when she suffers the indignity of being rolled. In herself she is so dignified, and her movements when sailing so graceful in the roughest sea, that it is an insult and a libel on her when her anchored peace is rudely disturbed. Incidentally my own native dignity and grace suffered a little too! wrong! I do not mean I feared the jealous gods-a half day's sail is within the permitted dole of human happiness !-but I did fear the White Knight's first inspection of us! The boat seemed to me to have the usual number of sails and ropes; but I had learned by now enough to know that merely looking all right was a small matter, and somehow the new Skipper's inevitable "Yess, yess," had ceased to "had ceased to reassure me. Then even if our zeal could no respite know (and I am conscious of having taken several respites from Skeletta), could a White Knight's tender care cease towards-his precious yacht? At Lamlash we anchored quite close to the pier, which Tuncan assured me was the right place, though to me both the bottom and the incoming steamers seemed too close. When the steamer with our people on board arrived, they passed within speaking distance, and I tried to believe that some of the open ecstasy of Jack's expression was meant for me! I leant negligently against the boom, and waved to them, and tried not to look as conscious as I was of all the interested passengers, while remembering very clearly what a charming picture Skeletta makes as one approaches her like that. How all the people on board must be admiring her and envying me! One second more and they probably did neither, for Skeletta suddenly rolled violently to the Our dinghy, with both men, had gone to fetch the Owner and his guests, and returned less saucily than she went, for her ten feet of length is taxed rather heavily with five grown men in her. We had not noticed that last year when we paddled our own canoe, but a crew, though a fine thing to have, is inconveniently corporeal. The Don said something about her being rather low in the water. "Not a bit of it," Jack at once asserted. She can stand lots more than this-see how much freeboard she still has !" And he put his hand over to demonstrate, and the water rushed up his sleeve like an inverted waterfall. "Yes; I do see," said the Don quite gravely, not dryly, except in the literal sense. Jack leaped up. our flight of two steps to the deck, and with a perfunctory marital sort of kiss, said, "How are you? Glad to see you," and so on; and then in a tone of real interest, and almost forceful inquiry, "But, my dear girl, what on earth have you done to her bowsprit ? " It would have been misplaced frivolity to have answered, "I haven't touched the beastly thing." Besides, I was puzzled. What could be wrong with her bowsprit ? A fellow feminine feeling with Skeletta made me wonder -if she had forgotten to rub the powder off her nose. We went to the bows, and gazed at the feature under discussion. It still seemed all right to me, and I rather foolishly said so. All right ? " exclaimed Skeletta's owner scornfully. "Oh, it's all right, all right; only it's not her's." The Skipper was summoned from aft, where he was being peculiarly assiduous in his supervision of Peter's efforts with the luggage. To get any information out of Tuncan beyond Yess, chust so," it required the laborious methods of the animal, vegetable, or mineral game. But at last we got the facts-or as many as Tuncan considered good for us. Another yacht, whose skipper was a friend of his, had broken her bowsprit when racing, and as we were not using ours "chust at the time," Skeletta's bowsprit was now adorning the unlucky yachtand Where on earth did this come from?" growled the outraged Owner. ، "I do not chust rightly know the name, but they were saying she would not be fitting VOL. CCXVI.-NO. MCCOV. out this year, whatefer; yess, yess, that is how it iss." Jack was not soothed by this account of fair exchange, but more afraid of being accused of robbery. "Nice thing for us if we met the man the beastly spar does belong to, and we can't explain, and he will suppose we helped ourselves to it. Damn!" This rather clouded the happy home-coming, but supper was just ready, and was calculated to soothe the savage breast. The final touch was to be Euchred Euchred figs. When this novelty appeared in a dish, I asked Jack if he knew about them, and he said no, not exactly, but they looked all right in their glass, "and how about some of that Devonshire cream with them while it's still fresh ? |