_ CHAPTER XVII
MR. FOUNTAIN, Miss Fountain, and Mr. Talboys started to go on the
boating expedition. As they were getting into the boat, Mr. Fountain
felt a little ill, and begged to be excused. Mr. Talboys offered to
return with him. He declined: "Have your little sail. I will wait at
the inn for you."
This pantomime had, I blush to say, been arranged beforehand. Miss
Fountain, we may be sure, saw through it, but she gave no sign. A
lofty impassibility marked her demeanor, and she let them do just what
they liked with her.
The boat was launched, the foresail set, and Fountain remained on
shore in anything but a calm and happy state.
But friendships like these are not free from dross; and I must confess
that among the feelings which crossed his mind was a hope that Talboys
would pop, and be refused, as _he_ had been. Why should he,
Fountain, monopolize defeat? We should share all things with a friend.
Meantime, by one of those caprices to which her sex are said to be
peculiarly subject, Lucy seemed to have given up all intention of
carrying out her plan for getting rid of Mr. Talboys. Instead of
leading him on to his fate, she interposed a subtle but almost
impassable barrier between him and destruction; her manner and
deportment were of a nature to freeze declarations of love upon the
human lip. She leaned back languidly and imperially on the luxurious
cushions, and listlessly eyed the sky and the water, and ignored with
perfect impartiality all the living creatures in the boat.
Mr. Talboys endeavored in vain to draw her out of this languid mood.
He selected an interesting subject of conversation to--himself; he
told her of his feats yachting in the Mediterranean; he did not tell
her, though, that his yacht was sailed by the master and not by him,
her proprietor. In reply to all this Lucy dropped out languid
monosyllables.
At last Talboys got piqued and clapped on sail.
There had not been a breath of air until half an hour before they
started; but now a stiff breeze had sprung up; so they had smooth
water and yet plenty of wind, and the boat cut swiftly through-the
bubbling water.
"She walks well," said the yachtsman.
Lucy smiled a gracious, though still rather too queenly assent. I
think the motion was pleasing her. Lively motion is very agreeable to
her sex.
"This is a very fast boat," said Mr. Talboys. "I should like to try
her speed. What do you say, Miss Fountain?"
"With all my heart," said Lucy, in a tone that expressed her utter
indifference.
"Here is this lateen-rigged boat creeping down on our quarter; we will
stand east till she runs down to us, and then we will run by her and
challenge her." Accordingly Talboys stood east.
But he did not get his race; for, somewhat to his surprise, the
lateen-rigged boat, instead of holding her course, which was about
south-southwest, bore up directly and stood east, keeping about half a
mile to windward of Talboys.
This puzzled Talboys. "They are afraid to try it," said he. "If they
are afraid of us sailing on a wind, they would not have much chance
with us in beating to windward. A lugger can lie two points nearer the
wind than a schooner."
All this science was lost on Lucy. She lay back languid and listless.
Mr. Talboy's crew consisted of a man and a boy. He steered the boat
himself. He ordered them to go about and sail due west. It was no
sooner done than, lo and behold, the schooner came about and sailed
west, keeping always half a mile to windward.
"That boat is following us, Miss Fountain."
"What for?" inquired she; "is it my uncle coming after us?"
"No; I see no one aboard but a couple of fishermen."
"They are not fishermen," put in the boy; "they are
sailors--coastguard men, likely."
"Besides," said Mr. Talboys, "your uncle would run down to us at once,
but these keep waiting on us and dogging us. Confound their
impudence."
"It is all fancy," said Lucy; "run away as fast as you can that way,"
and she pointed down the wind, "and you will see nobody will take the
trouble to run after us."
"Hoist the mainsail," cried Talboys.
They had hitherto been sailing under the foresail only. In another
minute they were running furiously before the wind with both sails
set. The boat yawed, and Lucy began to be nervous; still, the
increased rapidity of motion excited her agreeably. The
lateen-schooner, sailing under her fore-sail only, luffed directly and
stood on in the lugger's wake. Lucy's cheek burned, but she said
nothing.
"There," cried Talboys, "now do you believe me? I think we gain on
her, though."
"We are going three knots to her two, sir," said the old man, "but it
is by her good will; that is the fastest boat in the town, sailing on
a wind; at beating to windward we could tackle her easy enough, but
not at running free. Ah! there goes her mainsel up; I thought she
would not be long before she gave us that."
"Oh, how beautiful!" cried Lucy; "it is like a falcon or an eagle
sailing down on us; it seems all wings. Why don't we spread wings too
and fly away?"
"You see, miss," explained the boatman, "that schooner works her sails
different from us; going down wind she can carry her mainsel on one
side of the craft and her foresel on the other. By that she keeps on
an even keel, and, what is more, her mainsel does not take the wind
out of her foresel. Bless you, that little schooner would run past the
fastest frigate in the king's service with the wind dead aft as we
have got it now; she is coming up with us hand over head, and as stiff
on her keel as a rock; this is her point of sailing, beating to
windward is ours. Why, if they ain't reefing the foresel, to make the
race even; and there go three reefs into her mainsel too." The old
boatman scratched his head.
"Who is aboard her, Dick? they are strangers to me."
By taking in so many reefs the lateen had lowered her rate of sailing,
and she now followed in their wake, keeping a quarter of a mile to
windward.
Talboys lost all patience. "Who is it, I wonder, that has the
insolence to dog us so?" and he looked keenly at Miss Fountain.
She did not think herself bound to reply, and gazed with a superior
air of indifference on the sky and the water.
"I will soon know," said Talboys.
"What does it matter?" inquired Lucy. "Probably somebody who is
wasting his time as we are."
"The road we are on is as free to him as to us," suggested the old
boatman, with a fine sense of natural justice. He added, "But if you
will take my advice, sir, you will shorten sail, and put her about for
home. It is blowing half a gale of wind, and the sea will be getting
up, and that won't be agreeable for the young lady."
"Gale of wind? Nonsense," said Talboys; "it is a fine breeze."
"Oh, thank you, sir," said Lucy to the old man; "I love the sea, but I
should not like to be out in a storm."
The old boatman grinned. "'Storm is a word that an old salt reserves
for one of those hurricanes that blow a field of turnips flat, and
teeth down your throat. You can turn round and lean your back against
it like a post; and a carrion-crow making for the next parish gets
fanned into another county. That is a storm."
The old boatman went forward grinning, and he and his boy lowered the
mainsail. Then Talboys at the helm brought the boat's head round to
the wind. She came down to her bearings directly, which is as much as
to say that to Lucy she seemed to be upsetting.
Lucy gave a little scream. The sail, too, made a report like the crack
of a pistol.
"Oh, what is that?" cried Lucy.
"Wind, mum," replied the boatman, composedly.
"What is that purple line on the water, sir, out there, a long way
beyond the other boat?
"Wind, mum."
"It seems to move. It is coming this way."
"Ay, mum, that is a thing that always makes to leeward," said the old
fellow, grinning. "I'll take in a couple of reefs before it comes to
us."
Meantime, the moment the lugger lowered her mainsail, the schooner,
divining, as it appeared, her intention, did the same, and luffed
immediately, and was on the new tack first of the two.
"Ay, my lass," said the old boatman, "you are smartly handled, no
doubt, but your square stern and your try-hanglar sail they will take
you to leeward of us pretty soon, do what you can."
The event seemed to justify this assertion; the little lugger was on
her best point of sailing, and in about ten minutes the distance
between the two boats was slightly but sensibly diminished. The
lateen, no doubt, observed this, for she began to play the game of
short tacks, and hoisted her mainsail, and carried on till she seemed
to sail on her beam-ends, to make up, as far as possible, by speed and
smartness for what she lost by rig in beating to windward.
"They go about quicker than we do," said Talboys.
"Of course they do; they have not got to dip their sail, as we have,
every time we tack."
This was the true solution, but Mr. Talboys did not accept it.
"We are not so smart as we ought to be. Now you go to the helm, and I
and the boy will dip the lug."
The old boatman took the helm as requested, and gave the word of
command to Mr. Talboys. "Stand _by_ the foretack."
"Yes," said Mr. Talboys, "here I am."
"Let _go_ the fore-tack"; and, contemporaneously with the order,
he brought the boat's head round.
Now this operation is always a nice one, particularly in these small
luggers, where the lug has to be dipped, that is to say, lowered, and
raised again on the opposite side of the mast; for the lug should not
be lowered a moment too soon, or the boat, losing her way, would not
come round; nor a moment too late, lest the sail, owing to the new
position the boat is taking under the influence of the rudder, should
receive the wind while between the wind and the mast, and so the craft
be taken aback, than which nothing can well happen more disastrous.
Mr. Talboys, though not the accomplished sailor he thought himself,
knew this as well as anybody, and with the boy's help he lowered the
sail at the right moment; but, getting his head awkwardly in the way,
the yard, in coming down, hit him on the nose and nearly knocked him
on to his beam-ends. It would have been better if it had done so quite
instead of bounding off his nose on to his shoulder and there resting;
for, as it was, the descent of the sail being thus arrested half-way
at the critical moment, and the boat's head coming round all the same,
a gust of wind caught the sail and wrapped it tight round the mast to
windward. The boy uttered a cry of terror so significant that Lucy
trembled all over, and by an uncontrollable impulse leaned
despairingly back and waved her white handkerchief toward the
antagonist boat. The old boatman with an oath darted forward with an
agility he could not have shown ashore.
The effect on the craft was alarming. If the whole sail had been thus
taken aback, she would have gone down like lead; for, as it was, she
was driven on her side and at the same time driven back by the stern;
the whole sea seemed to rise an inch above her gunwale; the water
poured into her at every drive the gusts of wind gave her, and the
only wonder seemed why the waves did not run clean over her.
In vain the old boatman, cursing and swearing, tugged at the canvas to
free it from the mast. It was wrapped round it like Dejanira's shirt,
and with as fatal an effect; the boat was filling; and as this brought
her lower in the water, and robbed her of much of her buoyancy, and as
the fatal cause continued immovable, her destruction was certain.
Every cheek was blanched with fear but Lucy's, and hers was red as
fire ever since she waved her handkerchief; so powerful is modesty
with her sex. A true virgin can blush in death's very grasp.
In the midst of this agitation and terror, suddenly the boat was
hailed. They all looked up, and there was the lateen coming tearing
down on them under all her canvas, both her broad sails spread out to
the full, one on each side. She seemed all monstrous wing. The lugger
being now nearly head to wind, she came flying down on her weather bow
as if to run past her, then, lowering her foresail, made a broad
sweep, and brought up suddenly between the lugger and the wind. As her
foresail fell, a sailor bounded over it on to the forecastle, and
stood there with one foot on the gunwale, active as Mercury, eye
glowing, and a rope in his hand.
"Stand by to lower your mast," roared this sailor in a voice of
thunder to the boatman of the lugger; and the moment the schooner came
up into the wind athwart the lugger's bows he bounded over ten feet of
water into her, and with a turn of the hand made the rope fast to her
thwart, then hauling upon it, brought her alongside with her head
literally under the schooner's wing.
He and the old boatman then instantly unstepped the mast and laid it
down in the boat, sail and all. It was not his great strength that
enabled them to do this (a dozen of him could not have done it while
the wind pressed on the mast); it was his address in taking all the
wind out of the lug by means of the schooner's mainsail. The old man
never said a word till the work was done; then he remarked, "That was
clever of you."
The new-comer took no notice whatever. "Reef that sail, Jack," he
cried; "it will be in the lady's face by and by; and heave your bailer
in here; their boat is full of water."
"Not so full as it would if you hadn't brought up alongside," said the
old boatman.
"Do you want to frighten the lady?" replied the sailor, in his driest
and least courtier-like way.
"I am not frightened, Mr. Dodd," said Lucy. "I was, but I am not now."
"Come and help me get the water out of her, Jack. Stay! Miss Fountain
had better step into the dry boat, meantime. Now, Jack, look alive;
lash her longside aft."
This done, the two sailors, one standing on the lugger's gunwale, one
on the schooner's, handed Miss Fountain into the schooner, and gave
her the cushions of the lugger to sit upon. They then went to work
with a will, and bailed half a ton of water out.
When she was dry David jumped back into his own boat. "Now, Miss
Fountain, your boat is dry, but the sea is getting up, and I think, if
I were you, I would stay where you are."
"I mean to," said the lady, calmly. "Mr. Talboys, _would_ you
mind coming into this boat? We shall be safer here; it--it is larger."
The gentleman thus addressed was embarrassed between two
mortifications, one on each side him. If he came into David's boat he
would be second fiddle, he who had gone out of port first fiddle. If
he stuck to the lugger Lucy would go off with Dodd, and he would look
like a fool coming ashore without her. He hesitated.
David got impatient. "Come, sir," he cried, "don't you hear the lady
invite you? and every moment is precious." And he held out his hand to
him.
Talboys decided on taking it, and he even unbent so far as to jump
vigorously--so vigorously that, David pulling him with force at the
same moment, he came flying into the schooner like a cannon-ball, and,
toppling over on his heels, went down on the seat with his head
resting on the weather gunwale, and his legs at a right angle with his
back.
"That is one way of boarding a craft," muttered David, a little
discontentedly; then to the old boatman: "Here, fling us that
tarpaulin. I say, here is more wind coming; are you sure you can work
that lugger, you two?"
"We will be ashore before you can, now there's nobody to bother us,"
was the prompt reply.
"Then cast loose; here we are, drifting out to sea."
The old man cast the rope loose; David hauled it on board, and the
schooner shot away from her companion and bore up north-north-west,
leaving the luggar rocking from side to side on the rising waves. But
the next minute Lucy saw her sail rise, and she bore up and stood
northeast.
"Good-by to you, little horror," said Lucy.
"We shall fall in with her a good many times more before we make the
land," said David Dodd.
Lucy inquired what he meant; but he had fallen to hauling the sheet
aft and making the sail stand flatter, and did not answer her. Indeed,
he seemed much more taken up with Jack than with her, and, above all,
entirely absorbed in the business of sailing the boat.
She was a little mortified at this behavior, and held her tongue.
Talboys was sulky, and held his. It was a curious situation. In the
hurry and bustle, none of the parties had realized it; but now, as the
boat breasted the waves, and all was silent on board, they had time to
review their position.
Talboys grew gloomier and gloomier at the poor figure he cut. Lucy
kept blushing at intervals as she reflected on the obligation she had
laid herself under to a rejected lover. The rejected lover alone
seemed to mind his business and nothing else; and, as he was almost
ludicrously unconscious that he was doing a chivalrous action, a
misfortune to which those who do these things are singularly liable,
he did not gild the transaction with a single graceful speech, and
permitted himself to be more occupied with the sails than with rescued
beauty.
Succeeding events, however, explained, and in some degree excused,
this commonplace behavior.
The next time they tacked some spray came flying in, and wetted all
hands. Lucy laughed. The lugger had also tacked, and the two boats
were now standing toward each other; when they met the lugger had
weathered on them some sixty or seventy yards.
A furious rain now came on almost horizontally, and the sailors
arranged the tarpaulin so as to protect Mr. Talboys and Miss Fountain.
"But you will be wet through yourself, Mr. Dodd. Will you not come
under shelter too?"
"And who is to sail the boat?" He added, "I am glad to see the rain. I
hope it will still the wind; if it doesn't, we shall have to try
something else, that is all."
"Pray, when do you undertake to land us, Mr. Dodd?" inquired Mr.
Talboys, superciliously.
"Well, sir, if it does not blow any harder, about eight bells."
"Eight bells? Why, that means midnight," exclaimed Talboys.
"Wind and tide both dead against us," replied David, coolly.
"Oh, Mr. Dodd, tell me the truth: is there any danger?"
"Danger? Not that I see; but it is very uncomfortable, and unbecoming,
for you to be beating to windward against the tide for so many hours,
when you ought to be sitting on the sofa at home. However, next time
you run out of port, I hope those that take charge of you will look to
the almanac for the tide, and look to windward for the weather: Jack,
the lugger lies nearer the wind than we do.
"A little, sir."
"Will you take the helm a minute, Mr. Talboys? and _you_ come
forward and unbend this." The two sailors put their heads together
amidships, and spoke in an undertone. "The wind is rising with the
rain instead of falling."
"'Seems so, sir."
"What do you think yourself?"
"Well, sir, it has been blowing harder and harder ever since we came
out, and very steady."
"It will turn out one of those dry nor'easters, Jack."
"I shouldn't wonder, sir. I wish she was cutter-rigged, sir. A boat
has no business to be any other rig but cutter; there ought to be a
nact o' parliam't against these outlandish rigs."
"I don't know; I have seen wonders done with this lateen rig in the
Pacific."
"The lugger forereaches on us, sir."
"A little, but, for all that, I am glad she is on board our craft; we
have got more beam, and, if it comes to the worst, we can run. The
lugger can't with her sharp stern. I'll go to the helm."
Just as David was stepping aft to take the helm, a wave struck the
boat hard on the weather bow, close to the gunwale, and sent a bucket
of salt water flying all over him; he never turned his head even--took
no more notice of it than a rock does when the sea spits at it. Lucy
shrieked and crouched behind the tarpaulin. David took the helm, and,
seeing Talboys white, said kindly: "Why don't you go forward, sir, and
make yourself snug under the folksel deck? she is sure to wet us abaft
before we can make the land."
No. Talboys resisted his inclination and the deadly nausea that was
creeping over him.
"Thank you, but I like to see what is going on; and" (with an heroic
attempt at sea-slang) "I like a wet boat."
They now fell in with the lugger again lying on the opposite tack, and
a hundred yards at least to windward.
Just before they crossed her wake David sang out to Jack:
"Our masts--are they sound?"
"Bran-new, sir; best Norway pine."
"What d'ye think?"
"Think we are wasting time and daylight."
"Then stand _by_ the main sheet."
"Yes, sir."
_"Slack_ the main sheet."
"Ay, ay, sir."
The boat instantly fell off into the wind, and, as she went round,
David stood up in the stern-sheets and waved his cap to the men on
board the lugger, who were watching him. The old man was seen to shake
his head in answer to the signal, and point to his lug-sail standing
flat as a board, and the next moment they parted company, and the
lateen was running close-reefed before the wind.
Mr. Talboys was sitting collapsed in the lethargy that precedes
seasickness. He started up. "What are you doing?" he shrieked.
"Keep quiet, sir, and don't bother," said David, with calm sternness,
and in his deepest tones.
"Pray don't interfere with Mr. Dodd," said Lucy; "he must know best."
"You don't see what he is doing, then," cried Talboys, wildly; "the
madman is taking us out to sea."
"Are you taking us out to sea, Mr. Dodd?" inquired Lucy, with dismay.
"I am doing according to my judgment of tide and wind, and the
abilities of the craft I am sailing," said David, firmly; "and on
board my own craft I am skipper, and skipper I will be. Go forward,
sir, if you please, and don't speak except to obey orders."
Mr. Talboys, sick, despondent and sulky, went gloomily forward, coiled
himself up under the forecastle deck, and was silent and motionless.
"Don't send me," cried Lucy, "for I will not go. Nothing but your eye
keeps up my courage. I don't mind the water," added she, hastily and a
little timidly, anxious to meet every reason that could be urged for
imprisoning her in the forecastle hold.
"You are all right where you are, miss," said Jack, cheerfully; "we
shan't have no more spray come aboard us; it won't come in by the can
full if it doesn't come by the ton."
"Will you belay your jaw?" roared David, in a fury that Lucy did not
comprehend at the time. "What a set of tarnation babblers in one
little boat."
"I won't speak any more, Mr. Dodd; I won't speak."
"Bless your heart, it isn't you I meant. 'Twould be hard if a lady
might not put her word in. But a man is different. I do love to see a
man belay his jaw, and wait for orders, and then do his duty; hoist
the mainsel, you!"
"Ay, ay, sir."
"Shake out a couple of reefs."
"Ay, ay, sir."
And the lateen spread both her great wings like an albatross, and
leaped and plunged, and flew before the mighty gale. _