George A. Birmingham

“ A southeast wind is dreaded, with good reason, in Rosnacree Bay. It descends from the mountains in vicious squalls. It catches rushing tides at baffling angles and lashes them into white-lipped fury. Sturdy island boats of the larger size, boats with bluff bows and bulging sides, brave it under their smallest lugs. But lesser boats, and especially light pleasure crafts like the Tortoise do well to lie snug at their moorings till the southeasterly wind has spent its strength. ”

“ Frank felt as the poet Lucretius did when from the security of a sheltered nook on the side of a cliff he watched boats tossing on the sea. The sense of neighbouring strain and struggle added to the completeness of his own repose. A bed of mignonette scented the air agreeably. Some white roses glimmered faintly in the twilight. Far off, a grey still shadow, lay the bay. Frank’s cigarette dropped, half smoked, from his fingers. He slept deliciously.
A few minutes later he woke with a start. Priscilla stood over him. ”

“ The breeze had freshened a little, and the Tortoise made good way through the calm water. Frank began to feel some little trust in Priscilla. She handled the boat with an air of confidence which was reassuring. His conscience was troubling him less than it did. There is nothing in the world equal to sailing as a means of quieting anxious consciences. A man may be suffering mental agonies from the recollection of some cruel and cold-blooded murder which he happens to have committed. On land his life would be a burden to him. ”

“ The cattle on Inishbawn had forsaken their scanty pasture and stood knee-deep in the sea. Not even the wild new heifer, which had gored Jimmy Kinsella, if such a creature existed at all, would have had energy to do much. A dog, which ought perhaps to have been barking at the cattle, lay prostrate under the shadow afforded by a grassy bank. A flock of white terns floated motionless a few yards from the Tortoise, looking like a miniature fleet of graceful, white-sailed pleasure boats. ”

“ Frank, who recollected Lord Torrington with disagreeable distinctness, did not find any great comfort in being totally forgotten. He would have liked, though he scarcely expected, some expression of regret that the accident had occurred.
“It’ll be all the easier,” said Priscilla, “to pay him back if he hasn’t any suspicion that we have an undying vendetta against him. I rather like vendettas, don’t you? There’s something rather noble in the idea of pursuing a man with implacable vengeance from generation to generation.”
“I don’t quite see,” said Frank, “what good a vendetta is. ”

“ It is turned backwards by some stray spit of land and set beating against some other current of the same tide which has taken a different way and reached the same point in strong opposite flow. The little glistening wavelets leap to meet each other, like lovers reunited whose mouths are hungry for the pressure of glad greetings. There are places where the water eddies round and round, where smooth eager lips, rising from the whirlpools, seem as if they reached up for something to kiss, and are sucked down again into the depths with voiceless passion. ”

“ 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 white terns hover and plunge, re-emerge amid the joyful callings of their fellows, each with some tiny silver fish to feed to the yellow chicks which gape to them from the short, coarse grass among the rocks. Curlews call to each other from island to island, and high answering calls come from the sea-saturated fields of the mainland. Small broad billed guillemots and puffins float at ease upon the water, swelling with obvious pride as they display the flocks of little ones which swim with infantile solemnity around them. Gulls cluster and splash noisily over shoals of fry. ”

“ When, as in the case of young Kinsella, the Irishman has much to do with the sea his courtesy reaches a high degree of refinement. As the advancing tide crept inch by inch over the mudbank Jimmy Kinsella was forced back towards the Tortoise. He moved from stone to stone, dragging his boat after him as the water floated her. Never once did he look round or make any attempt to attract the attention of Miss Rutherford. ”

“ At the end of twenty minutes Priscilla gave him a rest.
“There’s no use our killing ourselves,” she said. “The tide’s under us. It’s a jolly lucky thing it is. If it was the other way we wouldn’t get home to-night. I wonder now whether the Kinsellas think you’ve any connection with the police. You don’t look it in the least, but you never can tell what people will think. If they do mistake you for anything of the sort it might account for their not wanting you to land on Inishbawn.” ”

“ Who cares about Home Rule? What he’s coming for is the spies. Didn’t you say that this Torrington man is the head of the War Office? What would bring him down here if it isn’t German spies? And we’re the only two people who know where those spies are. Even we don’t quite know; but we will tomorrow. Just fancy Aunt Juliet’s face when we march them up here in the afternoon, tied hand and foot with the anchor rope, and hand them over to the War Office. ”

“ Priscilla enlightened him.
“I daresay you don’t know,” she said, “that there is a German spy at the present moment making a chart of this bay. We are hunting him.”
There is something intensely stimulating to every healthy mind in the idea of hunting a spy. No prefect in the world, no master even, not Mr. Dupré himself, not the remote divine head-master in the calm Elysium of his garden, could have escaped a thrill at the mention of such a sport. Frank was conscious of a sudden relapse from the serenity of the grown man’s common sense. For an instant he became a normal schoolboy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Don’t you?”
“It’s far and away the most merciful errand I ever heard of,” said Miss Rutherford. “But why don’t you hurry? At any moment now her father’s men may reach the shore.”
“We can’t,” said Priscilla, “hurry any more than we are. The wind’s dropping every minute. Luff her a little bit, Frank, or she won’t clear the point. The tide’s taking us down, and that point runs out a terrific distance.”
“The only thing I don’t quite see yet,” said Miss Rutherford, “is where the vengeance comes in.” ”

“ 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 knew the exultation of such moments. The dash across the goal line from a swiftly taken pass is a thing to live for. Frank, as a fast three-quarter back, knew that too. But this tearing of a heeling boat through bubbling green water became to him, when he got over the first terror of it, a delirious joy.
“That’s Inishminna ahead of us to windward,” said Priscilla. “Flanagan lives there, who hired him the old boat. He might be there, but he isn’t. I can see the whole slope of the island. We’ll slip under the lee of the end of it past Illaunglos. It’s a likely enough island.” ”

“ That’s just the way the wind behaves when you’re out sailing. Either it has you clinging on to the main sheet for all you’re worth or else it dies away and leaves you flapping. It’s only about once a month that you get just what you want.”
It seemed to Frank, when the boat got under way, that they had happened on the one propitious day. The Tortoise slipped pleasantly along, her sails well filled, the boom pressed forward against the shroud, the main sheet an attenuated coil at Priscilla’s feet. ”

“ Here are smaller boats from nearer islands which have come in on the morning tide carrying men and women bent on marketing, which will spread brown sails in the evening and bear their passengers home again. Here at her red buoy lies Sir Lucius’ smartly varnished pleasure boat, the Tortoise, reckoned “giddy” in spite of her name by staid, cautious island folk; but able, with her centre board and high peaked gunter lug to sail round and round any other boat in the bay. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Standing upright with outspread hands and head thrown back, she trod water, gazing straight up into the sky. She lay motionless on her back, totally immersed save for eyes, nostrils and mouth. A noise of oars roused her. She rolled over, swam a stroke or two, and saw Flanagan’s old boat come swiftly down the channel. The stranger, who had courted disaster by fouling the steamer’s warp, tugged unskilfully at his oars. He headed for the island. Priscilla shouted to him.
“Keep out,” she said. “You’re going straight for the rocks.”
The young man in the boat turned round and stared at her. ”

“ Jimmy Kinsella was some distance astern heading for Craggeen. He appeared to be quite out of earshot. Nevertheless Priscilla lowered her voice to a whisper.
“We’re on an errand of mercy,” she said.
“Oh,” said Miss Rutherford, “not vengeance. I’m disappointed.”
“Mercy is a much nicer thing,” said Priscilla, “besides being more Christian.”
“All the same,” said Miss Rutherford, “I’m disappointed. Vengeance is far more exciting.”
“To a certain extent,” said Priscilla, “we’re taking vengeance too. At least Frank is, on account of his ankle you know. So you needn’t be disappointed.” ”

“ He was very much exhausted when the Tortoise was at length brought alongside the slip at the end of the quay. Priscilla still seemed fresh and vigorous.
“I wonder,” said Frank, “if we could hire a boy.”
“Dozens,” said Priscilla, “if you want them... What for?”
“To wheel that bath-chair. I can’t walk, you know. And I don’t like to think of your pushing me up the hill. You must be tired.”
“That,” said Priscilla, “is what I call real politeness. There are lots of other kinds of politeness which aren’t worth tuppence. But that kind is rather nice. It makes me feel quite grown up. ”

“ The Blue Wanderer slipped past. She reached one and then another of the perches which mark the channel into the harbour. The breeze freshened slightly. Little wavelets formed under the Blue Wandere’s bow and curled outwards from her sides, spreading slowly and then fading away in her wake. Priscilla drew a biscuit from her pocket and munched it contentedly. ”

“ Pigs, driven down to the shore to root among the rotting seaweed, splash knee deep in the sea. At the time of high spring tides, in March and at the end of September, the water flows in oily curves or splashes muddily against the very thresholds of the cottages. It penetrates the brine-soaked soil and wells turn brackish. It wanders far inland through winding straits. The wayfarer, stepping across what seems to be a ditch at the end of a field far from the sea wonders to hear brown wrack crackle under his feet. ”

“ It was evident at once that she took a keen interest in the sprained ankle. Priscilla, describing the scene afterwards to Rose, the under housemaid, said that Miss Lentaigne’s eyes gleamed and sparkled with joy. Every one in the household had for many weeks carefully refrained from illness or disability of any kind. If Miss Lentaigne’s eyes really did sparkle they expressed a perfectly natural delight. There is nothing more trying than to possess a power of healing and to find no opportunity for exercising it.
“Perhaps,” she said, “Frank and I may have a little talk together after luncheon.” ”

“ Half an hour later Lord Torrington, wrapped in two blankets and a patchwork quilt, clothing which he had chosen in preference to Joseph Antony’s Sunday suit, was sitting in front of a blazing fire in the Kinsellas’ kitchen. He held in his hand a mug full of raw spirit and hot water, mixed in equal proportions. Each time he sipped at it he coughed. Priscilla sat beside him with a bottle from which she offered to replenish the mug after each sip. Lady Isabel, looking frightened but obstinate, stood opposite him, holding the Reverend Barnabas Pennefather by the hand. ”

“ Priscilla had failed to seize the cold salmon the night before. Rose, foraging early in the morning, with the fear of the cook before her eyes, had secured nothing but half a loaf of bread and a square section of honey. It was therefore something of a disappointment to find that Brannigan’s shop was not open when they reached the quay. No biscuits or tinned meats could be bought. Many adventurers would have been daunted by the prospect of a long day’s work with such slender provision. ”

“ 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. ”