The tide was still rising when they embarked. At that hour in the morning there was no wind and it was necessary to row the Tortoise out. Priscilla took both oars herself, remembering the gyrations of the boat the day before when Frank was helping her to row.

"There'll be a breeze," she said, "when the tide turns, but we can't afford to wait here for that. When we're outside the stone perch we'll drop anchor. But the first thing is to set pursuit at defiance by getting beyond the reach of the human voice. If we can't hear whoever happens to be calling us we can't be expected to turn back and it won't be disobedience if we don't."

The tide, with an hour more of flow behind it, crept along the grey quay wall, and eddied past the buoys. Two hookers lay moored, and faint spirals of smoke rose from the stove chimneys of their forecastles. Thin wreaths of grey mist hung here and there over the still surface of the bay. Patches of purple slime lay unbroken on the unrippled surface. Scraps of shrivelled rack, sucked off the shores of the nearer islands, floated past the Tortoise. A cormorant, balanced on the top of one of the perches outside Delginish, sat with wings outstretched and neck craned forward, peering out to sea. A fleet of terns floated motionless on the water beyond the island. Two gulls with lazy flappings of their wings, flew westwards down the bay. Priscilla, rowing with short, decisive strokes, drove the Tortoise forward.

"It's going to be blazing hot," she said, "and altogether splendidly glorious. I feel rather like a dove that is covered with silver wings and her feathers like gold. Don't you?"

Frank did. Although he would not have expressed himself in the words of the Psalmist, he recognised them. The most reliable tenor in the choir at Haileybury is necessarily familiar with the Psalms.

They reached the stone perch and cast anchor. It was half past seven o'clock. Priscilla got out the bread and honey.

"The proper thing to do," she said, "would be to go on half rations at once, and serve out the bread by ounces and the honey by teaspoonfuls, but I think we won't. I'm as hungry as any wolf."

"Besides," said Frank, "we haven't got a teaspoon."

"I hope your knife is to the fore. I'm not particular as a rule about the way I eat things, but there's no use beginning the day by making the whole boat sticky. I loathe stickiness, especially when I happen to sit on it, which is one of the reasons which makes me glad I wasn't born a bee. They have to, of course, poor things, even the queen, I believe. It can't be pleasant."

The tug of the boat at her anchor rope slackened as the tide reached its height A light easterly wind came to them from the land. Priscilla swallowed the last morsel of bread and honey as the Tortoise drifted over her anchor and swung round.

"Perhaps," she said, "you'd like to practise steering, Cousin Dick. If so, creep aft and take the tiller. I'll get the sail on her and haul up the anchor."

Frank, humbled by the experience of the day before, was doubtful. Priscilla encouraged him. He took the tiller with nervous joy. Priscilla hoisted the lug and then the foresail.

"Now," she said, "I'll get up the anchor and we'll try to go off on the starboard tack. If we don't we'll have to jibe immediately. With this much wind it won't matter, but you might not like the sensation."

Frank did not want to enjoy any sensation of a sudden kind and jibing, as he understood it, was always unexpected. He asked which way he ought to push the tiller so as to make sure of reaching the starboard tack. Priscilla stood beside the mast and delivered a long, very confusing lecture on the effect of the rudder on the boat and the advantage of hauling down one or other of the foresail sheets when getting under way from anchor. Frank did not understand much of what she said, but was ashamed to ask for more information. Priscilla, on her knees under the foresail, tugged at the anchor rope. The Tortoise quivered slightly, but did not move. Priscilla, leaning well back, tugged harder. The Tortoise—it is impossible to speak of a boat except as a live thing with a capricious will—shook herself irritably.

"She's slap over the anchor," said Priscilla. "I can't think how she gets there for there's plenty of rope out; but there she is and I can't move the beastly thing. Perhaps you'll try. You may be stronger than I am. I expect it has got stuck somehow behind a rock."

Frank felt confident that he was stronger in the arms than Priscilla. He crept forward and put his whole strength into a pull on the anchor rope. The Tortoise twisted herself broadside on to the breeze and then listed over to windward. Priscilla looked round her in amazement. The breeze was certainly very light, but it was contrary to her whole experience that a boat with sails set should heel over towards the wind. She told Frank to stop pulling. The Tortoise slowly righted herself and then drifted back to her natural position, head to wind.

"The only thing I can think of," said Priscilla, "is that the anchor rope has got round the centreboard. It might. You never can tell exactly what an anchor rope will do. However, if it has, we've nothing to do but haul up the centreboard and clear it."

She took the centreboard rope and pulled. Frank joined her and they both pulled. The centreboard remained immovable. The Tortoise was entirely unaffected by their pulling.

"Jammed," said Priscilla. "I feel a jolly sight less like that dove than I did. It looks rather as if we were going to spend the day here. I don't want to cut the rope and lose the anchor if I can possibly help it, but of course it may come to that in the end, though even then I'm not sure that we'll get clear."

"Can we do nothing?" said Frank.

"This," said Priscilla, "is a case for prolonged and cool-headed reasoning. You reason your best and I'll bring all the resources of my mind to bear on the problem!"

She sat down in the bottom of the boat and gazed thoughtfully at the stone perch. Frank, to whom the nature of the problem was obscure, also gazed at the stone perch, but without much hope of finding inspiration. Priscilla looked round suddenly.

"We might try poking at it with the blade of an oar," she said. "I don't think it will be much use, but there's no harm trying."

The poking was a total failure, and Priscilla, reaching far out to thrust the oar well under the keel of the boat, very nearly fell overboard. Frank caught her by the skirt at the last moment and hauled her back.

"We'll have to sit down and think again," she said. "By the way, what was that word which Euclid said when he suddenly found out how to construct an isosceles triangle? He was in his bath at the time, as well as I recollect."

A man is not in the lower sixth at Haileybury without possessing a good working knowledge of the chief events of classical antiquity. Frank rose to his opportunity.

"Are you thinking of Archimedes?" he asked. "What he said was 'Eureka' and what he found out wasn't anything about triangles but—"

"Thanks," said Priscilla. "It doesn't really matter whether it was Euclid or not and it isn't of the least importance what he found out. It was the word I wanted. Let's agree that whichever of us Eureka's it first stands up and shouts the word far across the sea. You've no objection to that, I suppose. The idea may stimulate our imaginations."

Frank had no objection. He felt tolerably certain that he would not have to shout. Priscilla, frowning heavily, fixed her eyes on the stone perch, A few minutes later she spoke again.

"Once," she said, "I was riding my bicycle in father's mackintosh, which naturally was a little long for me. In process of time the tail of it got wound round and round the back wheel and I was regularly stuck, couldn't move hand or foot and had to lie on my side with the bicycle on top of me. That seems to me very much the way we are now with that anchor rope and the centreboard."

"How did you get out?" said Frank hopefully.

That Priscilla had got out was evident. If her position on the bicycle was really analogous to that of the Tortoise the same plan of escape might perhaps be tried.

"I lay there," said Priscilla, "until Peter Walsh happened to come along the road. He kind of unwound me."

A boat, heavily laden, was rowing slowly towards them, making very little way against the gathering strength of the ebb tide and the easterly wind.

"Perhaps," said Frank, "the people in that boat, if it ever gets here, will unwind us."

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 shore 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 passage 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 shore 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 passage 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 passage 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 passed 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 passage 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 shore 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 shore," 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 pass 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 shore. 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 shore with his hands in his pockets, spoke slowly.

"Bedamn," he said, "but I never seen the like. With the whole of the wide sea for you to choose out of was there no place that would do you except just the one place where the lady happened to be standing?"



CHAPTER XII

Priscilla's reproaches were sharper and less broadly philosophic in tone.

"Why didn't you luff when I told you?" she said. "Didn't I say you were to keep up to windward of Jimmy Kinsella's boat? If you couldn't do that why hadn't you the sense to let out the main sheet? If we hadn't run into the sponge lady we'd have stripped the copper band off our keel. As it is, I expect she's dead. She hit her head a most frightful crack against the mast."

Miss Rutherford was lying on her stomach across the fore part of the gunwale of the Tortoise. Her head was close to the mast She was groping about with her hands in the bottom of the boat The lower part of her body, which was temporarily, owing to her position, the upper part, was outside the boat. Her feet beat the air with futile vigour. She wriggled convulsively and after a time her legs followed her head and shoulders into the boat. She rose on her knees, very red in the face, a good deal dishevelled, but laughing heartily.

"I'm not a bit dead," she said, "but I expect my hair's coming down."

"It is," said Priscilla. "I don't believe you have a hairpin left unless one or two have been driven into your skull. Are you much hurt?"

"Not at all," said Miss Rutherford. "Is your mast all right? I hit it rather hard."

Priscilla looked at the mast critically and stroked the part hit by Miss Rutherford's head to find out if it was bruised or cracked.

"I'm most awfully sorry," said Frank. "I don't know how I came to be such a fool. I lost my head completely. I put the tiller the wrong way. I can't imagine how it all happened."

"I don't think," said Miss Rutherford, "that I ever had an invitation to luncheon accepted quite so heartily before. You actually rushed into my arms."

"Were you inviting us to lunch?" said Priscilla.

"I've been inviting you at the top of my voice," said Miss Rutherford, "for nearly a quarter of an hour. I'm so glad you've come in the end."

"We couldn't hear what you were saying," said Priscilla. "All we knew was that you were shouting at us. If we'd known it was an invitation——"

"You couldn't have come any quicker if you'd heard every word," said Miss Rutherford.

"I'm frightfully sorry," said Frank again. "I can't tell you——"

"If I'd known it was luncheon," said Priscilla, "I'd have steered myself and run no risks. We haven't a thing to eat in our boat and I'm getting weak with hunger."

Miss Rutherford stepped overboard again.

"Come on," she said, "we're going to have the grandest picnic ever was, I went down to the village yesterday evening after I got home and bought another tin of Californian peaches."

"How did you know you'd meet us?" said Priscilla.

"I hoped for the best. I felt sure I'd meet you tomorrow if I didn't today. I should have dragged the peaches about with me until I did. Nothing would have induced me to open the tin by myself. I've also got two kinds of dessicated soup and——

"Penny-packers?" said Priscilla. "I know the look of them, but I never bought one on account of the difficulty of cooking. I don't believe they'd be a bit good dry."

"But I've borrowed Professor Wilder's Primus stove," said Miss Rutherford, "and I've got two cups and an enamelled mug to drink it out of."

"We could have managed with the peach tin," said Priscilla, "after we'd finished the peaches. I hate luxury. But, of course, it's awfully good of you to think of the cups."

"I hesitated about suggesting that we should take turns at the tin," said Miss Rutherford. "I knew you wouldn't mind, but I wasn't quite sure——"

She glanced at Frank.

"Oh, he'd have been all right," said Priscilla. "I'm training him in."

"I've also got a pound and a half of peppermint creams," said Miss Rutherford.

"My favourite sweet," said Priscilla. "You got them at Brannigan's, I hope. He keeps a particularly fine kind, very strong. You have a delicious chilly feeling on your tongue when you draw in your breath after eating them. But Brannigan's is the only place where you get them really good."

"I forget the name of the shop, but I think it must have been Brannigan's. The man advised me to buy them the moment he heard you were to be of the party. He evidently knew your tastes. Then—I'm almost ashamed to confess it after what you said about luxury; but after all you needn't eat it unless you like——

"What is it?" said Priscilla. "Not milk chocolate, surely."

"No. A loaf of bread."

"Oh, bread's all right It'll go capitally with the soup. Frank was clamouring for bread yesterday, weren't you, Cousin Frank? If there's any over after the soup we can make it into tipsy cake with the juice of the peaches. That's the way tipsy cake is made, except for the sherry, which always rather spoils it, I think, on account of the burny taste it gives. That and the whipped cream, which, of course, is rather good though considered to be unwholesome. But you can't have things like that out boating."

"Come on," said Miss Rutherford, "we'll start the Primus stove, and while the water is boiling we'll eat a few of the peppermint creams as hors d'oeuvres."

Priscilla jumped from the bow of the boat to the shore. "Jimmy Kinsella," she said, "go and help Mr. Mannix out of the boat. He's got a sprained ankle and can't walk. Then you can take our anchor ashore and shove out the boat. She'll lie off all right if you haul down the jib. Miss Rutherford and I will go and light the Primus stove. I've always wanted to see a Primus stove, but I never have except in a Stores List and then, of course, it wasn't working."

"Come on," said Miss Rutherford. "I have it all ready in a sheltered nook under the bank at the top of the beach."

She took Priscilla's hand and began to run across the seaweed towards the grass. Half way up Priscilla stopped abruptly and looked round. Jimmy Kinsella had his arm round Frank and was helping him out of the boat.

"Hullo, Jimmy!" said Priscilla. "I'd better come back and give you a hand. You'll hardly be able to do that job by yourself."

"I will, of course," said Jimmy. "Why not?"

"I thought, perhaps, you wouldn't," said Priscilla, "on account of the hole in your leg."

"What hole?"

"The hole your father's new heifer made when she drove her horn through your leg," said Priscilla. "I suppose there is a hole. There must be if the horn went clean through. It can't have closed up again yet."

"I don't know," said Jimmy. "Did ever I meet a young lady as fond of the funning as yourself, Miss. Many's the time my da did be saying that the like of Miss Priscilla——"

"Your da, as you call him," said Priscilla, "says a deal more than his prayers."

"Do tell me about the hole in Jimmy's leg," said Miss Rutherford. "He never mentioned it to me."

"Nor wouldn't," said Priscilla, "because it's like the rats and the spotted fever and the bad smell, or what ever it was he told you. It's simply not there."

Miss Rutherford lit the methylated spirits in the upper part of the Primus stove. Priscilla pumped up the paraffin with enthusiasm. The water was put on to boil. Then Priscilla asked for the packets of desiccated soup.

"I find," she said, "that it's a capital plan to read the directions for use before you actually do the thing, whatever it is. Last term I spoiled a whole packet of printing paper—photographic, you know—by not doing that. I read them afterwards and found out exactly where I'd gone wrong, which was interesting, of course, but not much real use. Sylvia Courtney rather rubbed it in. That's the sort of girl she is."

"A most disagreeable sort," said Miss Rutherford. "I have met some like her. In fact they're rather common."

"I wouldn't say disagreeable. In fact I rather love Sylvia Courtney at times. But she has her faults. We all have, which in some ways is rather a good thing. If there weren't any faults it would be so dull for people like Aunt Juliet. You're not a Ministering Child, I suppose?"

"No. Are you? I expect you must be."

"I was once. Sylvia Courtney brought me to the meeting. We all had to do some sewing and afterwards there was tea. I joined, of course. The sub. was only sixpence, and there was always tea, with cake, though not good cake. Afterwards I found that I'd sworn a most solemn oath always to do a kind act to some one every day. That's the sort of way you get let in at those meetings."

"You didn't read the directions for use beforehand that time."

"No. But in the end it turned out all right. It was just before the hols when it happened, so, of course, Aunt Juliet had to be my principal victim. I wouldn't do kind acts to Father. He wouldn't understand them, not being educated up to Ministering Children. But Aunt Juliet is different, for I knew that by far the kindest thing I could do to her was to have a few faults. So I did and have ever since, though I stopped being a Ministering Child next term and so wriggled out of the swear."

Frank, leaning on Jimmy Kinsella, came towards them from the boat He was bent on being particularly polite to Miss Rutherford, feeling that he ought to atone for his unfortunate blunder with the boat He took off his cap and bowed.

"I hope," he said, "that you've been successful in catching sponges."

"I've not got any to-day," said Miss Rutherford. "I haven't begun to fish for them. The tide isn't low enough yet. How are you getting on with the spies? Caught any?"

"Oh," said Frank, "we don't really think they are spies, you know."

"All the same," said Priscilla, "the president of the War Office is out after them. At least we think he must be. We don't see what else he can be after, nor does Father."

"Lord Torrington is to arrive at my uncle's house to-day," said Frank.

"Then they must be spies," said Miss Rutherford. "Not that I ever doubted it."

"That water is pretty near boiling," said Priscilla, "What about dropping in the soup?"

"Which shall we have?" said Miss Rutherford. "There's Mulligatawny and Oxtail?"

"Mulligatawny is the hot sort," said Priscilla, "rather like curry in flavour. I'm not sure that I care much for it. By the way, talking of hot things, didn't you say you had some peppermint creams?"

Miss Rutherford produced the parcel. Priscilla put two into her mouth and made a little pile of six others beside her on the ground. Frank said that he would wait for his share till after he had his soup. Miss Rutherford took one. The desiccated Oxtail soup was emptied into the pot. Priscilla retained the paper in which it had been wrapped.

"'Boil for twenty minutes," she read, "'stirring briskly.' That can't be really necessary. I've always noticed that these directions for use are too precautious. They go in frightfully for being on the safe side. I should say myself that we'd be all right in trying it after five minutes. And stirring is rather rot. Things aren't a bit better for being fussed over. In fact Father says most things come out better in the end if they're left alone. 'Add salt to taste, and then serve.' It would have been more sensible to say 'then eat.'" But I suppose serve is a politer word. By the way, have you any salt?"

"Not a grain," said Miss Rutherford. "I entirely forgot the salt."

"It's a pity," said Priscilla, "that we didn't think of putting in some sea water. Potatoes are ripping when boiled in sea water and don't need any salt Peter Walsh told me that once and I expect he knows, I never tried myself."

She glanced at the sea as she spoke, feeling that it was, perhaps, not too late to add the necessary seasoning in its liquid form. A small boat, under a patched lug sail, was crossing the mouth of the bay at the moment. Priscilla sprang to her feet excitedly.

"That's Flanagan's old boat," she said. "I'd know it a mile off. Jimmy! Jimmy Kinsella!"

Jimmy was securing the anchor of the Tortoise. He looked round.

"Isn't that Flanagan's old boat?" said Priscilla.

"It is, Miss, surely. There's ne'er another boat in the bay but herself with the bit of an old flour sack sewed on along the leach of the sail. It was only last week my da was saying——"

"We haven't a moment to lose," said Priscilla. "Miss Rutherford, you help Frank down. I'll run on and get up the foresail."

"But the soup?" said Miss Rutherford, "and the peppermint creams, and the rest of the luncheon?"

"If you feel that you can spare the peppermint creams," said Priscilla, "we'll take them. But we can't wait for the soup."

"Take the bread, too," said Miss Rutherford, "and the peaches. It won't delay you a minute to put in the peaches!"

"If you're perfectly certain you don't want them for yourself, we'll be very glad to have them."

"Nothing would induce me to eat a Californian peach in selfish solitude," said Miss Rutherford, "I should choke if I tried."

"Right," said Priscilla. "You carry them down and sling them on board. I'll help Frank. Now, then, Cousin Frank, do stand up. I can't drag you down over the seaweed on your side. You've got to hop more or less."

Miss Rutherford, with the loaf of bread, the peaches and the peppermint creams in her hand, ran down to the boat. Frank and Priscilla followed her. Jimmy had put the anchor on board and was holding the Tortoise with her bow against the shingle.

"Take me, too," said Miss Rutherford. "I love chasing spies more than anything else in the world."

"All right," said Priscilla. "Bound in and get down to the stern. Now, Frank, you're next. Oh, do go on. Jimmy, give him a lift from behind. I'll steer this time."

She hauled on the foresail halyard, got the sail up and made the rope fast. Then she sprang to the stern, squeezed past Miss Rutherford and took the tiller.

"Shove her off, Jimmy, wade in a bit and push her head round. I'll go off on the starboard tack and not have to jibe. Oh, Miss Rutherford, don't, please don't sit on the main sheet."

The business of getting a boat, which is lying head to wind to pay off and sail away, is comparatively simple. The fact that the shore lies a few yards to windward does not complicate the matter much. The main sheet must be allowed to run out so that the sail does not draw at first. The foresail, its sheet being hauled down, works the boat's head round. Unfortunately for Priscilla, her main sheet would not run out Miss Rutherford made frantic efforts not to sit on it, but only succeeded in involving herself in a serious tangle. Jimmy Kinsella pushed the boat's head round. Both sails filled with wind. Priscilla held the tiller across the boat without effect The Tortoise heeled over, and with a graceful swerve sailed up to the shore again.

"Oh bother!" said Priscilla, "shove her off again, Jimmy. Wade in with her and push her head right round. Thank goodness I have the main sheet clear now."

This time the Tortoise swung round and headed for the entrance of the bay.

"Jimmy," shouted Miss Rutherford, "there's some soup in the pot. Go and eat it Afterwards you'd better come on in your boat and see what happens to us."

"There's no necessity for any excitement," said Priscilla. "Let everybody keep quite calm. We are bound to catch them."

The Tortoise swung round the rocks at the mouth of the bay. Flanagan's old boat was seen a quarter of a mile ahead, running towards a passage which seemed absolutely blocked with rocks. The Tortoise began to overhaul her rapidly.

"I almost wish," said Miss Rutherford, "that you'd allowed Frank to steer. When we're out for an adventure we ought to be as adventurous as possible."

"They're trying the passage through Craggeen," said Priscilla, with her eyes on Flanagan's old boat "That shows they're pretty desperate. Hand me the peppermint creams. There's jolly little water there at this time of the tide. It'll be sheer luck if they get through."

"Take five or six peppermints," said Miss Rutherford, "if you feel that they'll steady your nerves. You'll want something of the sort I feel thrills down to the tips of my fingers."

Flanagan's old boat ran on. Seen from the Tortoise she seemed to pass through an unbroken line of rocks. She twisted and turned now southwards, now west, now northwards. The Tortoise sped after her.

"Now, Cousin Frank," said Priscilla, "get hold of the centreboard rope and haul when I tell you. There'll be barely water to float us, if there's that. We'll never get through with the centreboard down."

She headed the boat straight for a gravelly spit of land past which the tide swept in a rapid stream. A narrow passage opened suddenly. Priscilla put the tiller down and the Tortoise swept through. A mass of floating seaweed met them. The Tortoise fell off from the wind and slipped inside it. A heavy bump followed.

"Up centreboard," said Priscilla. "I knew it was shallow."

Frank pulled vigorously. Another bump followed.

"Bother!" said Priscilla. "We're done now."

The Tortoise swept up into the wind Her sails flapped helplessly.

"What's the matter?" said Miss Rutherford.

"Rudder's gone," said Priscilla. "That last bump unshipped it."

She held the useless tiller in her hand. The rudder, swept forward by the tide, drifted away until it went ashore on a reef at the northern end of the passage. The Tortoise, after making one or two ineffective efforts to sail without a rudder, grounded on the beach of Craggeen Island. Priscilla jumped out.

"Just you two sit where you are," said said, "and don't let the boat drift. I'll run on to the point of the island and see where those spies are going to. Then we'll get the rudder again and be after them."

"Frank," said Miss Rutherford, when Priscilla had disappeared, "have you any idea how we are to keep the boat from drifting?"

"There's the anchor," said Frank.

"I don't trust that anchor a bit It's such a small one, and the boat seems to me to be in a particularly lively mood."

The Tortoise, her bow pressed against the gravel, appeared to be making efforts to force her way through the island. Every now and then, as if irritated by failure, she leaned heavily over to one side.

"I think," said Miss Rutherford, "I'll stand in the water and hold her till Priscilla comes back. It's not deep."

Frank's sense of chivalry would not allow him to sit dry in the boat while a lady was standing up to her ankles in water beside him. He struggled overboard and stood on one leg holding on to the gunwale of the Tortoise. Priscilla was to be seen on the point of the island watching Flanagan's old boat.

"Let's eat some peppermint creams," said Miss Rutherford. "They'll keep us warm."

"I'm awfully sorry about all this," said Frank. "I don't know what you'll think of us. First I run into you and then Priscilla wrecks you on this island."

"I'm enjoying myself thoroughly," said Miss Rutherford. "I wonder what will happen next. We can't go on without a rudder, can we?"

"She'll get it back. It's quite near us."

"So it is. I see it bobbing up and down against the rocks there. I think I'll go after it myself. It will be a pleasant surprise for Priscilla when she comes back to find that we've got it. Do you think you can hold the boat by yourself? She seems quieter than she was."

Miss Rutherford waded round the stern of the Tortoise and set off towards the rudder. The water was not deep in any part of the channel, but there were holes here and there. When Miss Rutherford stepped into them she stood in water up to her knees. There were also slippery stones and once she staggered and very nearly fell. She saved herself by plunging one arm elbow deep in front of her. She hesitated and looked round.

"Thank goodness," she said, "here's Jimmy Kinsella coming in the other boat. He'll get the rudder."



CHAPTER XIII

Beyond the rock-strewn passage of Craggeen lies the wide roadstead of Finilaun. Here the water is deep, and the shelter, from every quarter, almost complete. Across the western end of it stretches like a bent bow, the long island of Finilaun. On the south, reaching almost to the point of Finilaun, is Craggeen, and between the two is a shallow strait. On the east is the mainland, broken and bitten into with long creeks and bays. On the north lies a chain of islands, Ilaunure, Curraunbeg and Curraunmor, separated from each other by narrow channels, through which the tide runs strongly in and out of the roadstead.

Across the open roadstead Flanagan's old boat crept under her patched lug sail. Priscilla, standing on the shore of Craggeen, watched eagerly. At first she could see the occupants of the boat quite plainly, a man at the tiller, a woman sitting forward near the mast. She had no difficulty in recognising them. The man wore the white sweater which had attracted her attention when she first saw him, a garment most unusual among boatmen in Rosnacree Bay. The woman was the same who had mopped her dripping companion with a pocket handkerchief on Inishark. They talked eagerly together. Now and then the man turned and looked back at Craggeen. The woman pointed something out to him. Priscilla understood.

They could see the patch of the Tortoise's sail above the rocks which blocked the entrance of the passage. They were no doubt wondering anxiously whether they were still pursued. Flanagan's old boat, her sail bellied pleasantly by the following wind, drew further and further away. Priscilla could no longer distinguish the figures of the man and woman. She watched the sail. It was evident that the boat was making for one of the three northern islands. Soon it was clear that her destination was the eastern end of Curraunbeg. Either she meant to run through the passage between that island and Curraunmor, or the spies would land on Curraunbeg. The day was clear and bright. Priscilla's eyes were good. She saw on the eastern shore of Curraunbeg a white patch, distinguishable against the green background of the field. It could be nothing else but the tents of the spies' encampment. Flanagan's old boat slipped round the corner of the island and disappeared. Priscilla was satisfied. She knew where the spies had settled down.

She returned to the Tortoise. Frank had left the boat and was sitting on the shore. Miss Rutherford, with the recovered rudder on her knees, sat beside him. Jimmy Kinsella was standing in front of them apparently delivering a speech. The two boats lay side by side close to the shore.

"What's Jimmy jawing about?" said Priscilla.

"I'm after telling the lady," said Jimmy, "that you'll sail no more today."

"Will I not? And why?"

"You will not," said Jimmy, "because the rudder iron is broke on you."

"That's the worst of these boats," said Priscilla. "The rudder sticks down six inches below the bottom of them and if there happens to be a rock anywhere in the neighborhood it's the rudder that it's sure to hit."

"You'll excuse me saying so, Miss, but you'd no right to be trying to get through Craggeen at this time of the tide. It couldn't be done."

"It could," said Priscilla, "and, what's more, it would, only for that old rudder."

"Any way," said Jimmy; "you'll sail no more today, and it'll be lucky if you sail tomorrow for you'll have to give that rudder to Patsy, the smith, to put a new iron on it and that same Patsy isn't one that likes doing anything in a hurry."

"I'm going on to Curraunbeg," said Priscilla, "I'll steer with an oar."

"Is it steer with an oar, Miss?"

"Haven't you often done it yourself, Jimmy?"

"Not that one," said Jimmy, pointing to the Tortoise.

"Sure my da's said to me many's the time how that one is pretty near as giddy as yourself."

"Your da talks too much," said Priscilla. "Come on, Cousin Frank. What about you, Miss Rutherford? Are you coming?"

"You'll not go," said Jimmy, "or if you do, you'll walk."

Priscilla looked out at the sea. The tide was falling rapidly. Through the opening of the passage which led into Finilaun roadstead there was no more than a trickle of water running like a brook over the stony bottom.

"It'll be as much as you'll do this minute," said Jimmy, "to get back the way you came, and you'll only do that same by taking the sails off of her and poling her along with an oar."

Priscilla surrendered. It is, after all, impossible to sail a boat without water. The Tortoise lay afloat in a pool, but the Finilaun end of the passage was hardly better than a lane-way of wet stones. At the other end there was still high water, but very little of it Priscilla acted promptly in the emergency. She had no desire to lie imprisoned for hours on Craggeen, she had lain the day before on the bank off Inishark. She took the sails off the Tortoise and, standing on the thwart amidships, began poling the boat back into the open water at the south-eastern end of the passage. Jimmy, also poling, followed in his boat.

Miss Rutherford, the broken rudder still on her knees, and Frank, were left on shore.

"Do you think," she said, "that Priscilla intends to maroon us here? She's gone without us."

"I'm awfully sorry," said Franks "It's not my fault. I couldn't stop her."

"She's got all the food there is, even the peppermint creams. I wish I'd thought of snatching that parcel from the boat before she started. She'd have come back when she found out they were gone. I wonder whether Jimmy finished the soup? I wonder what he's done with the Primus stove. It wasn't mine, and I know Professor Wilder sets a value on it. Perhaps they'll pick it up on their way and return it. If they do I shan't so much mind what happens to us."

"I don't think they'll really leave us here," said Frank. "Even Priscilla wouldn't do that. I wish I could walk down to the corner of the island and see where they've gone."

Jimmy Kinsella appeared, strolling quietly along the shore.

"The young lady says, Miss," he said "that if you wouldn't mind walking down to the far side of the gravel spit, which is where she has the boats, she'd be glad, for she wouldn't like to be eating what's in the boat without you'd be there to have some yourself."

"Priscilla is perfectly splendid," said Miss Rutherford, "and we're not going to be marooned after all, Come along, Frank."

"The young lady says, Miss," said Jimmy, "that if you'd go to her the best way you can by yourself that I'd give my arm to the gentleman and get him along over the stones so as not to hurt his leg and that same won't be easy for the shore's mortal rough."

Miss Rutherford refused to desert Frank. She recognised that the shore was all that Jimmy said it was. Large slippery boulders were strewed about it for fifty yards or so between the place where she stood and the gravel spit. She insisted on helping Jimmy to transport Frank. In the end they descended upon Priscilla, all three abreast. Frank, with one arm round Jimmy's neck and one round Miss Rutherford's, hobbled bravely.

"I don't know," said Priscilla, "that this is exactly an ideal place for luncheon, but we can have it here if you like, and in some ways I'm rather inclined to. You never know what may happen if you put things off. Last time the but was snatched out of our mouths by a callous destiny just as it was beginning to smell really good. By the way, Jimmy, what did you do with the soup?"

"It's there beyond, Miss, where you left it."

"I expect it's all boiled away by this time," said Priscilla, "but of course the Primus stove may have gone out You never know beforehand how those patent machines will act. If it has gone out the soup will be all right, though coldish. Perhaps we'd better go back there."

"Which would you like to do yourself, Priscilla," said Miss Rutherford.

"Now that those spies have escaped us again," said Priscilla, "it doesn't matter to me in the least where we go. But this place is a bit stony for sitting in for long. I'm beginning to feel already rather as if a plougher had ploughed upon my back and made large furrows; but of course I'm thinking principally of Frank on account of his sprained ankle. A grassy couch would be much pleasanter for him, and there is grass where we left the Primus stove. We can row; back. It isn't a very long pull."

"The wind's dropped, Miss, with the fall of the tide," said Jimmy, "and what's left of it has gone round to the southward."

"That settles it," said Priscilla. "Frank, you and Miss Rutherford, go in the Tortoise. Jimmy and I will row the other boat and tow you."

"I can row all right," said Frank.

To be treated as incapable by Priscilla when they were alone together was unpleasant but tolerable. To be held up as an object of scorn to Miss Rutherford was not tolerable. He had already exposed himself to her contempt by running her down. He was anxious to show her that he was not altogether a fool in a boat.

"You can't, much," said Priscilla. "At least you didn't seem as if you could yesterday; but if you like you can try. We'll take the oars out of the Tortoise into your boat, Jimmy, and pull four."

"I don't see how that could be, Miss, for there's only three seats in my boat along with the one in the stern and you couldn't row from that."

"Don't be a fool, Jimmy. I'll pull two oars in the middle. Frank will take one in the bow, and you'll pull stroke. Miss Rutherford will have the Tortoise all to herself."

Frank found it comparatively easy to row in Jimmy Kinsella's boat. The oar was short and stumpy with a very narrow blade. It was worked between two thole pins of which one was cracked and required tender treatment. It was impossible to pull comfortably while sitting in the middle of the seat; he still hit Priscilla in the back when he swung forward; but there was no boom to hit him and there was no mast behind him to bump his own back against Priscilla was too fully occupied managing her own two oars to pay much attention to him. Jimmy Kinsella pulled away with dogged indifference to what any one else was doing. Miss Rutherford sat in the stern of the Tortoise and shouted encouraging remarks from time to time. She had, apparently, boated on the Thames at some time in her life, for she was mistress of a good deal of rowing slang which she used with vigour and effect. It cheered Frank greatly to hear the more or less familiar words, for he realised almost at once that neither Priscilla nor Jimmy Kinsella understood them. He felt a warm affection for Miss Rutherford rise in his heart when she told Jimmy, who sat humped up over his oar, to keep his back flat. Jimmy merely smiled in reply. He had known since he was two years old that the flatness or roundness of the rower's back has nothing whatever to do with the progress of a boat in Rosnacree Bay. A few minutes later she accused Priscilla of "bucketing," and Frank loved her for the word. Priscilla replied indignantly with an obvious misapprehension of Miss Rutherford's meaning. Frank, who was rowing in his best style, smiled and was pleased to catch sight of an answering smile on Miss Rutherford's lips. He had established an understanding with her. She and he, as representatives of the rowing of a higher civilisation, could afford to smile together over the barbarous methods of Priscilla and Jimmy Kinsella.

The tide was still against them, though the full strength of the ebb was past. The stream which ran through the narrow water-way had to be reckoned with.

The Tortoise, when being towed, behaved after the manner of her kind. She hung heavily on the tow rope for a minute; then rushed forward as if she wished to bump the stern of Jimmy's boat At the last moment she used to change her mind and swoop off to the right or left, only to be brought up short by the rope at which she tugged with angry jerks until, finding that it really could not be broken, she dropped sulkily astern. These manoeuvres, though repeated with every possible variation, left Priscilla and Jimmy Kinsella entirely unmoved. They pulled with the same stolid indifference whatever pranks the Tortoise played. They annoyed Frank. Sometimes when the tow rope hung slack in the water, he pulled through his stroke with ease and comfort Sometimes when the Tortoise hung back heavily he seemed to be pulling against an impossible dead weight But his worst experience came when the Tortoise altered her tactics in the middle of one of his strokes. Then, if it happened that she sulked suddenly, he was brought up short with a jerk that jarred his spine. If, on the other; hand, she chose to rush forward when he had his weight well on the end of his oar, he ran a serious risk of falling backwards after the manner of beginners who catch crabs. The side swoops of the Tortoise were equally trying. They seemed to Frank to disturb hopelessly the whole rhythm of the rowing. Nothing but the encouragement which came to him from Miss Rutherford's esoteric slang kept him from losing his temper. He could not have been greatly blamed if he had lost it. It was after three o'clock. He had breakfasted, meagrely, on bread and honey, at half past seven. He had spent the intervening seven and a half hours on the sea, eating nothing but the one peppermit cream which Miss Rutherford pressed on him while he held the Tortoise at Craggeen. Priscilla had eaten a great many peppermint cream and was besides more inured to starvation on the water of the bay than Frank was. But even Priscilla, when the excitement of getting away from Craggeen had passed, seemed slightly depressed. She scarcely spoke at all, and when she replied to Miss Rutherford's accusation of "bucketing" did so incisively.

The boats turned into the bay from which Miss Rutherford had first hailed the Tortoise. They were safely beached. Priscilla ran up to the nook under the hill where the Primus stove was left Miss Rutherford and Jimmy stayed to help Frank.

"It's all right," shouted Priscilla. "A good deal has boiled away, but the Primus stove evidently went out in time to prevent the bottom being boiled out of the pot. Want of paraffin, I expect."

"Never mind," said Miss Rutherford, "I have some more in a bottle. We can boil it up again."

"It's hardly worth while," said Priscilla. "I expect it would be quite good cold, what's left of it. Thickish of course, but nourishing."

"We'll make a second brew," said Miss Rutherford. "I have another package. Jimmy, do you know if there's any water in this neighbourhood?"

"There's a well beyond," said Jimmy, "at the end of the field across the hill, but I don't would the likes of yez drink the water that does be in it."

"Saltish?" said Priscilla.

"It is not then. But the cattle does be drinking out of it and I wouldn't say it was too clean."

"If we boil it," said Frank, "that won't matter."

He had read, as most of us did at the time, accounts of the precautions taken by the Japanese doctors during the war with Russia to save the soldiers under their care from enteric fever. He believed that boiling removed dirt from water.

"There's worms in it," said Jimmy. "It's hardly ever you take a cupful out of it without you'd feel the worms on your tongue and you drinking it."

Miss Rutherford looked at Priscilla, who appeared undismayed at the prospect of swallowing worms. Then she looked at Frank. He was evidently doubtful. His faith in boiling did not save him from a certain shrinking from wormy soup.

"Once we were out for a picnic," said Priscilla, "and when we'd finished tea we found a frog, dead, of course, in the bottom of the kettle. It hadn't flavoured the tea in the least In fact we didn't know it was there till afterwards."

She poured out the cold soup into the two cups and the enamelled mug as she spoke. Then she handed the pot to Jimmy.

"Run now," she said, "and fill that up with your dirty water. We'll have the stove lit and the other packet of soup ready by the time you're back."

The soup which had not boiled away was very thick indeed. It turned out to be impossible to drink it But Priscilla discovered that it could be poured out slowly, like clotted cream on pieces of bread held ready for it under the rims of the cups. It remained, spreading gradually, on top of the bread long enough to allow a prompt eater to get the whole thing into his mouth without allowing any of the soup to be wasted by dripping on to the ground. The flavour: was excellent.

Jimmy returned with the water. Miss Rutherford put the pot on the stove at once. It was better, she said, to boil it without looking at it.

"The directions for use," said Priscilla, "say that the water should be brought to the boil before the soup is put in. But that, of course, is ridiculous. We'll put the dry soup in at once and let it simmer. I expect the flavour will come out all right if we leave it till it does boil."

"In the meanwhile," said Miss Rutherford, "we'll attack the Californian peaches."

They ate them, as they had eaten the others the day before, in their fingers, straight out of the tin with greedy rapture. Five half peaches, nearly all the juice, and a large chunk of bread, were given to Jimmy Kinsella, who carried them off and devoured them in privacy behind his boat.

"Tomorrow," said Priscilla, "we'll have another go at the spies. They're desperately afraid of us. I could see that when they were escaping across Finilaun harbour."

"By the expression of their faces?" said Miss Rutherford.

"Not exactly. It was more the way they were going on. Sylvia Courtney was once learning off a poem called 'The Ancient Mariner.' That was when she was going in for the prize in English literature. She and I sleep in the same room and she used to say a few verses of it every night while we were doing our hairs. I never thought any of it would come in useful to me, but it has; which just shows that one never ought to waste anything. The bit I mean was about a man who walked along a road at night in fear and dread. He used to look round and then turn no more his head, because he knew a frightful fiend did close behind him tread. That's exactly what those two spies did today when they were sailing across Finilaun; so you see poetry is some use after all. I used to think it wasn't; but it is. It's frightfully silly to make up your mind that anything in the world is no use. You never can tell until you've tried and that may not be for years."

"The spies," said Miss Rutherford, "are, I suppose, encamped somewhere on the far side of Finilaun harbour."

"On Curraunbeg," said Prisdlla. "I saw the tents."

"I may be going in that direction myself tomorrow," said Miss Rutherford.

Priscilla got up and stepped across to the place where Frank was sitting. She stooped down and whispered to him. Then she returned to her own seat and winked at him, keeping her left eye closed for nearly half a minute, and screwing up the corresponding corner of her mouth.

"We hope," said Frank, "that you'll join us at luncheon tomorrow wherever we may meet. It's our turn to bring the grub."

"With the greatest pleasure," said Miss Rutherford. "Shall I bring the stove?"

"I didn't like to invite you," said Priscilla, "until I found out whether Frank had any money to buy things with. As it turns out he has lots. I haven't. That's the reason I whispered to him, although I know it's rude to whisper when there's any one else there. Of course, I may be able to collar a few things out of the house; but I may not. With that Secretary of War staying in the house there is bound to be a lot of food lying about which nobody would notice much if it was gone. But then it's not easy to get it unless you happen not to be allowed in to dinner, which may be the case. If I'm not—Frank, I'm afraid, is sure to be on account of his having a dress coat—but if I'm not, which is what may happen if Aunt Juliet thinks it would score off me not to, then I can get lots of things without difficulty because the cook can't possibly tell whether they've been finished up in the dining-room or not."

"We'll hope for the best," said Miss Rutherford. "A jelly now or a few meringues would certainly be a pleasant variety after the tinned and dried provisions of the last two days."

The peppermint creams were finished before the second brew of soup came to the boil on the Primus stove. Priscilla poured it out It was hot, of about the consistency usual in soup, and it smelt savoury. Nevertheless Miss Rutherford, after watching for an opportunity to do so unseen, poured hers out on the ground. Frank fingered his mug irresolutely and once took a sip. Priscilla, after looking at her share intently, carried it off and gave it to Jimmy Kinsella.

"It's curious," she said when she came back, "but I don't feel nearly so keen on soup as I did. I daresay it's the peaches and the peppermint creams. I used to think it was rather rot putting off the sweets at dinner until after the meaty things. Now, I know it isn't. Sometimes there's really a lot of sense in an arrangement which seems silly at first, which is one of the things which always makes me say that grownup people aren't such fools as you might suppose if you didn't really know."

"We'll remember that at lunch tomorrow," said Miss Rutherford.

No one mentioned worms.

For the second time the weather, generally malign and irresponsible, favoured Priscilla. With the rising tide a light westerly breeze sprang up. She hoisted the sails and sat in the stern of the boat with an oar. She tucked the middle of it under her armpit, pressed her side tight against the gunwale, and with the blade trailing in the water steadied the Tortoise on her course. There is a short cut back to Rosnacree quay from the bay in which Miss Rutherford was left. It winds among a perfect maze of rocks, half covered or bare at low water, gradually becoming invisible as the tide rises. Priscilla, whose self-confidence was unshaken by her disaster in Craggeen passage, took this short cut in spite of a half-hearted protest from Frank. "I don't exactly know the way," she said, "but now that we've lost the rudder there's nothing very much can happen to us. We can keep the centreboard up as we're running, and if we do go on a rock, the tide will lift us off again. It's rising now. Besides, it saves us miles to go this way, and it really won't do for you to be late for dinner."



CHAPTER XIV

Thomas Antony Kinsella sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the quay. Beneath him lay his boat. The tide was flowing, but it had not yet floated her. She was supported on an even keel by the mooring ropes made fast from her bow and stern to bollards on the quay. Her sails and gear lay in confusion on her thwarts. She was still half full of gravel although some of her cargo had been shovelled out and lay in a heap behind Kinsella. He was apparently disinclined to shovel out the rest, an excusable laziness, for the day was very hot.

With the point of a knife Kinsella scraped the charred ash from the bowl of his pipe. Then he cut several thin slices from a plug of black twist tobacco, rolled them slowly between the palm of one hand and the thumb of the other; spat thoughtfully over the side of the quay into his boat, charged his pipe and put it into his mouth. There he held it for some minutes while he stared glassily at the top of his boat's mast. He spat again and then drew a match from his waistcoat pocket.

Sergeant Rafferty of the Royal Irish Constabulary strolled quietly along the quay. It was his duty to stroll somewhere every day in order to intimidate malefactors. He found the quay on the whole a more interesting place than any of the country roads round the town, so he often chose it for the scene of what his official regulations described as a "patrol." When he reached Kinsella he stopped.

"Good day to you," he said.

Kinsella, without looking round, struck his match on a stone beside him and lit his pipe. He sucked in three draughts of smoke, spat again and then acknowledged the sergeant's greeting.

"It's a fine day," said the sergeant

"It is," said Kinsella, "thanks be to God."

The sergeant stirred the pile of gravel on the quay thoughtfully with his foot Then, peering over Kinsella's shoulder, he took a look at the gravel which still remained in the boat.

"Tell me this, now, Joseph Antony," he said. "Who might that gravel be for? It's the third day you're after bringing in a load and there's ne'er a cart's been down for it yet?"

"I couldn't say who it might be for."

"Do you tell me that now? And who's to pay you for it?"

"Sweeny 'll pay for it," said Kinsella. "It was him ordered it."

The sergeant stirred the gravel again with his foot Timothy Sweeny was a publican who kept a small shop in one of the back streets of Rosnacree. He was known to the sergeant, but was not regarded with favour. There is a way into Sweeny's house through a back-yard which is reached by climbing a wall. Sweeny's front door was always shut on Sundays and his shutters were put up during those hours when the law regards the consumption of alcohol as undesirable. But the sergeant had good reason to suppose that many thirsty people found their way to the refreshment they craved through the back-yard. Sweeny was an object of suspicion and dislike to the sergeant. Therefore he stirred the gravel on the quay again and again looked at the gravel in the boat. There is no law against buying gravel; but it seemed to the sergeant very difficult to believe that Sweeny had bought four boatloads of it. Joseph Antony Kinsella felt that some explanation was due to the sergeant.

"It's a gentleman up the country," he said, "that Sweeny's buying the gravel for. I did hear that he's to send it by rail when I have the whole of it landed."

He watched the sergeant out of the corners of his eyes to see how he would receive this statement. The sergeant did not seem to be altogether satisfied.

"What are you getting for it?" he asked.

"Five shillings a load."

"You're doing well," said the sergeant.

"It's good gravel, so it is, the best."

"It may be good gravel," said the sergeant, "but the gentleman that's buying it will buy it dear if you take the half of every load you bring in home in the evening and fetch it here again the next morning along with a little more."

The sergeant stared at the gravel in the boat as he spoke. His face had cleared, and the look of suspicion had left his eyes. Sweeny, so his instinct told him, must be engaged in some kind of wrongdoing.

Now he understood what it was. The gentleman up the country was to be defrauded of half the gravel he paid for. Curiously enough, considering that his wrongdoing had been detected, the look of anxiety left Kinsella's face. He sucked at his pipe, found that it had gone out, and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.

"If neither Sweeny nor the gentleman is making any complaint," he said, "it would suit you to keep your mouth shut."

"I'm not blaming you," said the sergeant "Sure, anybody'd do the same if they got the chance."

"If there's people in the world," said Kinsella, "that hasn't sense enough to see that they get what they pay for, oughtn't we to be thankful for it?"

"You're right there," said the sergeant

Kinsella took out his pipe and lit it again. Sergeant Rafferty after examining the sea with attentive scrutiny for some minutes, strolled back towards his barracks.

Peter Walsh slid off the window sill of Brannigan's shop and took a long look at the sky. Having satisfied himself that its appearance was very much what he expected he walked down the quay to the place where Kinsella was sitting.

"It's a fine evening," he said.

"It is," said Kinsella, "as fine an evening as you'd see, thanks be to God."

Peter Walsh sat down beside his friend and spat into the boat beneath him.

"I seen the sergeant talking to you," he said.

"That same sergeant has mighty little to do," said Kinsella.

"It'll be as well for us if he hasn't more one of these days."

"What do you mean by that, Peter Walsh?"

"What might he have been talking to you about?"

"Gravel, no less."

"Asking who it might be for or the like? Would you say, now, Joseph Antony, that he was anyways uneasy in his mind?"

"He was uneasy," said Kinsella, "but he's easy now."

"Did you tell him who the gravel was for?"

"Is it likely I'd tell him when I didn't know myself? What I told him was that Timothy Sweeny had the gravel bought off me at five shillings a load and that it was likely he'd be sending it by rail to some gentleman up the country that would have it ordered from him."

"And what did he say to that?"

"What he as good as said was that Timothy Sweeny and myself would have the gentleman cheated out of half the gravel he'd paid for by the time he'd got the other half. There was a smile on his face like there might be on a man, and him after a long drink, when he found out the way we were getting the better of the gentleman up the country. Believe you me, Peter Walsh, he wouldn't have rested easy in his bed until he did find out, either that or some other thing."

"That sergeant is as cute as a pet fox," said Peter Walsh. "You'd be hard set to keep anything from him that he wanted to know."

Kinsella sat for some minutes without speaking. Then he took a match from his pocket and lit his pipe for the third time.

"I'd be glad," he said, "if you'd tell me what it was you had in your mind when you said a minute ago that the sergeant might maybe have more to do than he'd care for one of these days."

Peter Walsh looked carefully round him in every direction and satisfied himself that there was no one within earshot.

"Was I telling you," he said, "about the gentleman, and the lady along with him that came in on the train today?"

"You were not."

"Well, he came, and I'm thinking that he's a high-up man."

"What about him?"

"The sergeant was sent for up to the big house," said Peter Walsh, "soon after the strange gentleman came. I don't know rightly what they wanted with him. Sweeny was asking Constable Maloney after; but sure the boy knew no more than I did myself."

"It's a curious thing," said Kinsella, "so it is, damned curious."

"Damned," said Peter Walsh.

"I wouldn't be sorry if the whole lot of them was drownded one of these days."

"I wouldn't like anything would happen to the young lady."

"Is it Priscilla? I wasn't meaning her. But any way, Peter Walsh, you know well the sea wouldn't drown that one."

"It would not, surely. Why would it?"

"What I had in my mind," said Kinsella, "was the rest of them."

He looked sadly at the sky and then out across the sea, which was perfectly calm.

"But there'll be no drowning," he added with a sigh, "while the weather holds the way it is."

"There's a feel in the air," said Peter Walsh hopefully, "like as if there might be thunder."

A small boat, rowed by a boy, stole past them up the harbour. Neither of the two men spoke until she reached the slip at the end of the quay.

"I'd be sorry," said Kinsella, "if anything would happen to them two that does be going about in Flanagan's old boat. There's no harm in them barring the want of sense."

"It would be as well for them to be kept off Inishbawn for all that."

"They never offered to set foot on the island," said Kinsella, "since the day I told them that herself and the childer had the fever. The way it is with them, they wouldn't care where they'd be, one place being the same to them as another, if they'd be let alone."

"That's what they will not be, then."

"On account of Priscilla?"

"Her and the young fellow she has with her. They're out hunting them two that has Flanagan's old boat the same as it might be some of the boys at a coursing match and the hare in front of them. Such chasing you never seen! It was up out of their beds they were this morning at six o'clock, when you'd think the likes of them would be asleep."

"I seen them," said Kinsella.

"And the one of them is as bad as the other. You'd be hard put to it to say whether it was Priscilla has put the comether on the young fellow or him that had her druv' on to be doing what it would be better for her to leave alone."

"Tell me this now, Peter Walsh, that young fellow is by the way of having a sore leg on him, so they tell me. Would you say now but that might be a trick the way it would put us off from suspecting any mischief he might be up to?"

"I was thinking myself," said Peter, "that he might be imposing on us; but it's my opinion now that the leg's genuine. I followed them up last night, unbeknown to them, to see would he get out of the perambulator when he was clear of the town and nobody to notice him. But he kept in it and she wheeled him up to the big house every step of the way."

The evidence was conclusive and carried complete conviction to Kinsella's mind.

"What would be your own opinion," said Peter Walsh, "about that one that does be going about the bay in your own boat along with Jimmy?"

"I wouldn't say there'd be much harm in her. Jimmy says it's hard to tell what she'd be after. He did think at the first go off that it might be cockles; but it's not, for he took her to Carribee strand, where there's plenty of them, and the devil a one she'd pick up. Nor it's not periwinkles. Nor dilishk, though they do say that the dilishk is reckoned to be a cure for consumption, and you'd think it might be that. But Jimmy says it's not, for he offered her a bit yesterday and she wouldn't look at it."

"I don't know what else it could be," said Peter Walsh.

"Nor I don't know. But Jimmy says she doesn't speak like one that would be any ways in with the police."

"She was in Brannigan's last night, buying peppermint drops and every kind of foolishness, the same as she might be a little girleen that was given a penny and her just out of school."

"If she hasn't more sense at her time of life," said Kinsella, "she never will."

"Seeing it's that sort she is, I wouldn't say we'd any need to be caring where she goes so long as it isn't to Inishbawn."

"She'll not go there," said Kinsella, "for if she does I'll flay the skin of Jimmy's back with the handle of a hay-rake, and well he knows it."

"If I was easy in my mind about the strange gentleman that's up at the big house——"

"It's a curious thing, so it is, him sending for the sergeant the minute he came."

"Bedamn," said Peter Walsh, "but it is."

The extreme oddness of the strange gentleman's conduct affected both men profoundly. For fully five minutes they sat staring at the sea, motionless, save when one or the other of them thrust his head forward a little in order to spit. Kinsella at last got out his pipe, probed the tobacco a little with the point of his knife so as to loosen it, pressed it together again with his thumb, and then lit it.

"I wouldn't mind the sergeant," he said, "cute and all as he thinks himself, I wouldn't mind him. It's the strange gentleman I'm thinking of."

The Tortoise stole round the end of the quay while he spoke. Kinsella eyed her. He noticed at once that Priscilla was steering with an oar. In his acutely suspicious mood every trifle was a matter for investigation.

"What's wrong with her," he said, "that she wouldn't steer with the rudder when she has one?"

"It might be," said Peter Walsh, "that she's lost it. You couldn't tell what the likes of her would do."

"She was in trouble this morning when I seen her," said Kinsella, "but she had the rudder then."

Priscilla hailed them from the boat

"Hullo, Peter!" she shouted. "Go down to the slip and be ready to take the boat. Have you the bath chair ready?"

"I have, Miss. It's there standing beside the slip where you left it this morning. Who'd touch the like? What's happened the rudder?"

"Iron's broken," said Priscilla, "and it must be mended tonight. I say, Kinsella, Jimmy's leg isn't near as bad as you'd think it would be, after having the horn of a wild bull run through it."

"It wasn't a bull at all, Miss, but a heifer."

"I don't see that it makes much difference which it was," said Priscilla.

"Do you hear that now?" said Kinsella to his friend in a whisper. "Believe you me, Peter Walsh, it's as good for the whole of us that she's not in the police."

"What's that you're saying?" said Priscilla.

The boat, though the wind had almost left her sails, drifted up on the rising tide and was already past the spot where the two men were sitting. Peter Walsh got up and shouted his answer after her.

"Joseph Antony Kinsella," he said, "is just after telling me that it's his belief that you'd make a grand sergeant of police."

"It's a good job for him that I'm not," said Priscilla. "For the first thing I'd do if I was would be to go out and see what it is he has going on on Inishbawn."

Peter Walsh, without unduly hurrying himself, arrived at the slip before the Tortoise. Priscilla stepped ashore and handed him the rudder.

"Take that to the smith," she said, "and tell him to put a new iron on it this evening. We'll want it again tomorrow morning."

"I'll tell him, Miss; but I wouldn't say he'd do it for you."

"He'd jolly well better," said Priscilla.

"That same Patsy the smith," said Peter Walsh, "has a terrible strong hate in him for doing anything in a hurry whether it's little or big."

"Just you tell him from me," said Priscilla, "that if I don't get that rudder properly settled when I want it tomorrow morning, I'll go out to Inishbawn, in spite of your rats and your heifers."

Peter Walsh's face remained perfectly impassive. Not even in his eyes was there the smallest expression of surprise or uneasiness.

"What would be the good of saying the like of that to him?" he said. "It's laughing at me he'd be, for he wouldn't understand what I'd mean."

"Don't tell me," said Priscilla. "Whatever villainy there is going on between you and Joseph Antony Kinsella, Patsy the smith will be in it along with you."

Peter Walsh helped Frank into the bath-chair. Priscilla, her face wearing a most determined expression, wheeled him away.

"That rudder will be ready all right," she said.

"But what do you think is going on on the island?" asked Frank.

"I don't know."

"Could they be smuggling?"

"They might be smuggling, only I don't see where they'd get anything to smuggle. Anyway, it's no business of ours so long as we get the rudder. I don't think it's at all a good plan, Cousin Frank, to be always poking our noses into other people's secrets, when we don't absolutely have to."

It occurred to Frank that Priscilla had shown some eagerness in probing the private affairs of the young couple who had hired Flanagan's boat. He did not, however, feel it necessary to make this obvious retort.

Peter Walsh, the rudder under his arm, went back to Joseph Antony Kinsella, who was still sitting on the edge of the quay.

"She says," he said, "that without there's a new iron on that rudder tomorrow morning, she'll go out to Inishbawn and the young fellow along with her."

"Let Patsy the smith put it on for her, then."

"Sure he can't."

"And what's to hinder him?"

"He was drunk an hour ago," said Peter Walsh, "and he'll be drunker now."

"Bedamn then, but you'd better take him down and dip him in the tide, for I'll not have that young fellow with the sore leg on Inishbawn. If it was only herself I wouldn't care."

"I'd be afeard to do it," said Peter Walsh.

"Afeard of what?"

"Afeard of Patsy the smith. Sure it's a madman he is when his temper's riz."

"Let you come along with me," said Kinsella, "and I'll wake him up if it takes the brand of a hot iron to do it. He can be as mad as he likes after, but he'll put an iron on that rudder before ever he gets leave to kill you or any other man."



CHAPTER XV

Priscilla wheeled the bath-chair up the hill from the town, chatting cheerfully as she went.

"It'll be rather exciting," she said, "to see these Torrington people. I don't think I've ever come across a regular, full-blown Marquis before. Lord Thormanby is a peer of course, but he doesn't soar to those giddy heights. I suppose he'll sit on us frightfully if we dare to speak. Not that I mean to try. The thing for me to do is to be 'a simple child which lightly draws its breath, and feels its life in every limb.' That's a quotation, Cousin Frank. Wordsworth, I think. Sylvia Courtney says it's quite too sweet for words. I haven't read the rest of it, so of course, can't say, but I think that bit's rather rot, though I daresay Lord Torrington will like it all right when I do it for him."

Frank felt a certain doubt about the policy. Lord Torrington was indeed pretty sure to prefer a simple child to Priscilla in her ordinary mood; but there was a serious risk of her over-doing the part. He warned Priscilla to be exceedingly careful. She brushed his advice aside with an abrupt change of subject.

"I expect," she said, "that Mrs. Geraghty will be up at the house again. Aunt Juliet wouldn't trust anybody else to hook up Lady Torrington's back. I can do my own, of course; but nobody can who is either fat or dignified. I'm pretty lean, but even I have to wriggle a lot."

Mrs. Geraghty was up at the house. This became plain to Priscilla when she reached the gate-lodge. Mr. Geraghty, who was a gardener by profession, was sitting on his own doorstep with the baby in his arms. The baby, resenting the absence of his mother, was howling. Priscilla stopped.

"If you like," she said, "I'll wheel the baby up to the house and give him to Mrs. Geraghty. Aunt Juliet won't like it if I do. In fact she'll dance about with insatiable fury. But it may be the right thing to do all the same. We ought always to do what's right, Mr. Geraghty, even if other people behave like wild boars; that is to say if we are quite sure that it is right; I think it's nearly sure to be right to give a baby to its mother; though there may be times when it's not. Solomon did, and that's a pretty good example; though I don't suppose that even Solomon always knew for certain when he was doing the rightest thing there was. Anyhow, I'll risk it if you like, Mr. Geraghty. You won't mind having the baby on your knee for a bit, will you, Cousin Frank?"

Frank did mind very much. The ordinary healthy-minded, normal prefect dislikes having anything to do with babies even more than he dislikes being called a child by maiden ladies.

He looked appealingly at Mr. Geraghty. The baby, misunderstanding Priscilla's intentions, yelled louder than before.

Mr. Geraghty, fortunately for Frank, was not a man of the heroic kind. Abstract right was less to him than expediency and he missed the point of the comparison between his position and King Solomon's. He thought it better that his baby should suffer than that Miss Lentaigne's anger should be roused. He declined Priscilla's offer.

Near the upper end of Rosnacree avenue there is a corner from which a view of the lawn is obtained. Sir Lucius and another gentleman were pacing to and fro on the grass when Priscilla and Frank reached the corner and caught sight of them.

"Stop," said Frank, suddenly. "Turn back, Priscilla. Go round some other way."

"Priscilla stopped. The eager excitement of Frank's tone surprised her.

"Why?" she asked. "It's only father and that Lord of his. We've got to face them some time or other. We may as well get it over at once."

"That's the beast who shoved me over the steamer's gangway," said Frank, "and sprained my ankle."

Sir Lucius and Lord Torrington turned at the end of the lawn and began to walk towards Priscilla and Frank.

"Now I can see his face," said Priscilla, "I don't wonder at your rather loathing him. I think you were jolly lucky to get off with a sprained ankle. A man with a nose like that would break your arm or stab you in the back."

Lord Torrington's nose was fleshy, pitted in places, and of a purple colour.

"Curious taste the King must have," said Priscilla, "to make a man like that a Marquis. You'd expect he'd choose out fairly good-looking people. But, of course, you can't really tell about kings. I daresay they have to do quite a lot of things they don't really like, on account of being constitutional. Rather poor sport being constitutional, I should say; for the King that is. It's pleasanter, of course, for the other people."

Frank knew that the present King was blameless in the matter of Lord Torrington's marquisate. It was inherited from a great-grandfather, who may have had an ordinary, possibly even a beautiful nose. But he attempted no explanation. His anxiety made him disinclined for a discussion of the advantages of having an hereditary aristocracy.

"Do turn back, Priscilla," he said.

"If he is the man who sprained your ankle," she said, "it's far better for you to have it out with him now when I'm here to back you up. If you put it off till dinner time you'll have to tackle him alone. I'm sure not to be let in. Anyhow, we can't go back now. They've seen us."

Lord Torrington and Sir Lucius approached them. Frank plucked nervously at his tie, unbuttoned and then re-buttoned his coat. He felt that he had been entirely blameless during the scrimmage on the gangway of the steamer, but Lord Torrington did not look like a man who would readily own himself to be in the wrong.

"Your daughter, Lentaigne?" said Lord Torrington. "H'm, fifteen, you said; looks less. Shake hands, little girl."

Priscilla put out her right hand demurely. Her eyes were fixed on the ground. Her lips were slightly parted in a deprecating smile, suggestive of timid modesty.

"What's your name?" said Lord Torrington.

"Priscilla Lentaigne."

Nothing could have been meeker than the tone in which she spoke.

"H'm," said Lord Torrington, "and you're Mannix's boy. Not much like your father. At school?"

"Yes," said Frank. "At Haileybury."

"What are you doing in that bath-chair with the young lady wheeling you? Is that the kind of manners they teach at Haileybury?"