Part 2 (2/2)
Whitney came swinging across the marble floor of the waiting-room just as an official at the door announced that their train was ready to start.
CHAPTER III
THE SOLWAY Sh.o.r.e
There was a light wind from the westward, and the flood tide, running east, smoothed the sea to a faintly wrinkled heave, when the _Rowan_ crept across Wigtown Bay on the southern coast of Scotland. Andrew lounged at the tiller while Whitney sat in the c.o.c.kpit, holding a tray on which were laid out a pot of smoke-tainted tea, several thick slices of bread, sardines, and marmalade.
Whitney wore a woolen sweater--which had been white a few days before but now was a dingy gray--new blue trousers, already streaked with rust, and an expensive yachting cap which had got badly crushed. His hands were not immaculate, and there was a soot-smear on his face.
”This kind of yachting's not quite what I've been used to,” he remarked. ”On Long Island Sound you don't get the sea we ran into coming round the head last night; and when we went cruising in small craft we always hired somebody to do the dirty work.”
”There's not much room for a paid hand on board the _Rowan_,” Andrew replied hesitatingly. ”Still, if you'd like--”
”You don't want a man.”
”He would be rather in the way, and I don't know what he'd find to do, except the cooking.”
”And hauling the dinghy up a muddy beach, taking out the kedge on a stormy night, and pulling twenty fathoms of heavy chain about when you s.h.i.+ft your moorings! I could think of a few other trifles if I tried; but I won't insist. It looks as if I were going to get some muscle up.”
Whitney thought his companion had a private reason for dispensing with a paid hand; and an extra man was certainly not needed for open-water navigation, for Andrew had shown himself quite capable of sailing the _Rowan_ alone. After searching the Glasgow yacht-agents' registers for a boat of sufficiently light draught, they had bought the _Rowan_ at an Ayrs.h.i.+re port; and Whitney got a surprise when his partner drove her through the furious tide-race that swirls around the Mull of Galloway, in a strong breeze of wind. He had confidence in the little yacht after that. She was thirty-two feet long, low in the water, and broad of beam, but her mast was short and her canvas snug: Whitney knew the disadvantages of a long heavy boom. Her deck was laid with narrow planks, no longer white, for there were stains like blood upon them where the rain had run from the mainsail, which was tanned with cutch.
Now the canvas glowed a warm orange in the evening light as its tall peak swayed gently across the sky, and the ripples that lapped the gliding hull united beneath the counter and trailed astern in silky lines.
To starboard, far off, the Isle of Man rose in a high, black saw-edge above the s.h.i.+ning sea; ahead to the east, water and sky were soft blue; to port, the Scottish hills rose in shades of gray and purple.
Andrew named them as the boat crept on.
”Cairn Harry, running straight up from the water; Dirk Hatteraik stored his brandy in a cave on Raven Crag, and John Knox hid in Barrholm tower, in the long patch of woods. The black ridge behind is Cairnsmoor o' Fleet, and a waste of moors runs back from it toward the head of Clyde. The water of Cree flows through the dark hollow.”
”The Cree!” Whitney exclaimed. ”That is where my mother and sister are. Our friend has a grouse moor and some salmon rights.” He paused and laughed. ”I can imagine them sitting down to dinner under the electric light in somebody's ancestral hall, with a frozen British butler running the show. Wonder what they'd say if they knew I wasn't far off, living like an Indian on board this craft!”
”There are no ancestral halls beside the Cree, and electric lights are scarce in the Galloway wilds,” Andrew explained.
Whitney chuckled. He was not thinking of ancestral halls, but was wondering what his sister Madge would think of his comrade. On the surface, Andrew was easy-going, ingenuous, and diffident, but beneath this lay an unwavering firmness.
”Historic country, isn't it?” he remarked, to make Andrew talk.
”Yes,” said Andrew in an apologetic tone, and started off on his favorite hobby.
Slowly the sea grew dimmer; the sunset glow behind them faded to a smoky red; and while they drifted east with the flood tide a black island detached itself from the dusky sh.o.r.e. Soon a trembling beam flashed out from its summit.
”The Ross,” Andrew said. ”I was wrecked there.”
”Tell me about it,” requested Whitney, lounging in the c.o.c.kpit, lazily watching a razor-bill which had risen with a hoa.r.s.e croak from the boat's rippling wake.
”It was the only time such a thing ever happened to me, and I don't understand it yet. I was living on board the _Arrow_ then, shooting from a punt. She was a stiff, roomy boat, of nearly nine tons, and I'd just had her pulled up at Glencaple for an overhaul. Staffer, d.i.c.k's stepfather, found me a Glasgow carpenter who had been building some anglers' boats at Lochmaben.”
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