"Well, where are we under decks, and produced most irriorders for?" he asked. ... To an anchorage behind Gigulorum-no, Gigulis. . . or Gigula. or . . . anyhow, it's some name like that-I know it reminded me of my first and only-Latin Grammar! " Jack had reappeared with the inevitable chart as we talked, and the Don thought it best to inform himself firsthand of our destination. "Ah-Gigulum is, I perceive, the name. I follow, although haltingly, what you mean about the Latin Primer, but I am afraid the impression left on you by that admirable work was more painful than accurate." Jack was not following, even haltingly; he is so sure suchlike conversation leads nowhither, and was concentrating his attention more usefully on the doings of the long-legged dividers in his hand as they staggered over the chart. Nothing of any note happened at the Gigha-Gigulum anchorage, only that it poured without intermission all night, and the crew, while watering laboriously at a burn, must have absorbed enough moisture to prevent their feeling thirsty for a week. Jack said the punishment fitted the crime, but tempered justice with a glass of rum apiece before they turned in. This was duly swallowed at the cabin-door with a solemn toast: "Sweet hearts and wives or was it "or wives" I forget. ↑ The rain managed to find a few weak places in Skeletta's tating drips in the cabin-roofs. I had one over my bunk; the Don's toes attracted another; and a third was in the open groceries' looker, and had filled the butter-dish and soaked the sugar. As soon as the rain stopped, so did they, but not so the White Knight! With a concoction of the evilest smelling stuff, he prowled about the decks all morning, smearing the seams with what looked and smelt like melted goloshes, and sternly forbade any one to walk on the innumerable lines and patches he made, till moving about the deck was like passing a test for sobriety. It was a dull gusty day, well enough for actual sailing, but the colour had been washed out of the sea and land and sky as though with a wash of grey, making it seem a different world from the jewelled brilliance with which it is sometimes set. I find an occasional dull day rather a relief, for then one can turn one's whole attention to all the dull things that have to be done, but which waste a really fine day. There are always chores," even with a crew; for although last year, when we had none, a crew seemed to me the solution of all earthly troubles, in point of fact they are not, and I don't suppose even the best of them would do the darning and the letter-writing. I am generally the one to want to sail for the mere pleasure of sailing, irrespective of the place arrived at; but the weather left me uninterested, so with no nagging wife to push him farther, Jack decided to make a short day of it and anchor before reaching Crinan at Carsaig Bay. The White Knight's weather instruments were all in a depressed mood, and he thought a look at the official forecasts would be useful. It is quite touching the faith Jack has in these prophecies, even after years, especially when they foretell evil. He would have been a perfect blessing to Cassandra. The Skipper was not much more pleased with Carsaig than with Gigha, and when we anchored there I was not surprised -I only wondered where Jack expected to find a newspaper, for there was nothing to be seen but one house and a few cottages and limitless hillside. As Jack explained once more, if I would only occasionally study the chart instead of merely talking, I would see that Loch Sween is just half a mile across the hill, and Tayvallich is its capital. Jack hates going ashore-he and Skeletta have always so many little things to do together,so the rest of us were rowed ashore by Peter. At last the crew would get their daily bread, water having proved the only product of Gigulum. It began to rain again as we walked over to Tayvallich, and the wind, which had been fairly strong before, began to come with those sudden howls which always make me wish I were going to sleep in a solid fixture of a house, and not very comfortable-looking anchorage, invitingly so in comparison to Carsaig, which to my unpractised eye seemed rather too open for comfort, if not for safety. We all voted to try and get Jack to bring Skeletta into Loch Sween, although it would be a much longer way for her than our short walk across. The postoffice proved disappointingly enlightened, and accepted our shilling and our instructions with complete urbanity. Tayvallich, being rather a resort of sailing yachts, may account for their knowledge, but I doubt it. I find it difficult to believe that any one but Jack and a brother White Knight in the Meteorological Office, who invented the idea, ever thought of telegraphing for the "probable weather." rich cakes, which are the only ones which stand a sea life. Also, Jack's golosh - solution seemed to permeate the atmosphere in a nauseating way. Sandy managed the cake and ignored the smell, as was suitable at his age, but even he seemed to be off smoking. I retired to "rest in the after-cabin for a little. How I hate the gradually increasing row which precedes a storm! Everything bangs and rattles! The halyards smack against the mast, and even when they are lashed to the shrouds, some other thing always manages to smack something else; and even the little bottles in the lockers clap their hands. Then the bobstay makes the most hideous and ominous noises as the pro- the waves raise it up and down against the anchor-chain, with the same effect as a guttersnipe rattling a stick along railings, only that in a boat the sound is magnified, and echoes and reverberates in a devastating manner. Then there is a particularly ghostly "wouff" in the rigging when a squall hits the boat that makes me lose a heart-beat every time. We got back on board about tea-time after a really battling walk in wind and rain. The dinghy in a choppy sea is a bustling, spluttering little creature, and managed to make us even wetter than we were. Tea, which we all professed to scorn when we had to boil, set, and wash-up ourselves, has become a pleasing enough institution, with a slave in the foc's'le to produce it. But this time I did not appreciate it quite as much as I had expected to do while we tramped in the rain. Skeletta had become infected with Jack's uneasiness about the weather and the low views of the graphs and meters, and she was fidgeting about in a manner which quite took my attention off the rather I -I heard alarums and excursions, off," which were interpreted as usual by the unseen crowd all shouting at once. could not rush on deck, for the excellent reason that the others were doing so, and as my door is also the companion, it is not easy to open with a grown man climbing up it. But even the Don got up quickly on this occasion, and I was set free to follow. I had to clutch the boom for support when I did reach the deck, for Skeletta was rolling hysterically, and the queer grinding noise continued. Sandy was the only unoccupied unit, and was clinging to the shrouds. The scrum at the winch suddenly broke up, and the play became more open, so to speak. "No good," shouted Jack; 66 she won't hold-must get some sail on her. Hurry up, man" (to the Don). Get out of that " (this to Sandy), "and pull in this rope-no, not that one! Oh, go and help some one else!" It occurred to me at this point that it was pouring, so as I am not a hauler but a mere steerer, there was a moment to spare to get an oily. Needless to say, the others had neither coats nor the time to get them. By now it was getting dusk, and nothing less attractive could be imagined than setting forth in that rain-swept bay, full of white horses, with worse "What on earth has happened?" I shouted through the various noises, human and natural. "Don't know-gone aground, outside, where they came from. I think." If that were so, we must be pivoting on our keel in a manner to produce immediate disintegration! Whatever was happening at the bows seemed to make a scrum round the anchorwinch, and the little Don soon got squeezed out of it, and, having anxiously surveyed the rear elevation of the rest for a few moments, staggered back towards us. No sooner was the mainsail more or less up, than a squall of extra viciousness struck at it and heeled us over till the lee gunwale was buried. Again and again this happened. As soon as the poor quivering boat tried to gather way she was smacked flat, and we just drifted helpless. Then Jack abandoned the mainsail altogether, and hoisted the foresail to try her with that. I remember we sailed into the Crinan sea-loch once with only foresail, and all went beautiThrough Skeletta's jazz con- fully; but this was a different certo of noises, the Don's pre- matter. The wind no longer cise diction cut through every- laid us flat, but the waves thing else like a solo instru- snubbed and checked Skeletta's mentevery effort, and still we drifted "Au contraire, madame; the helpless out into the bay. To anchor has left it." say Jack had got the wind up Have we gone aground? I howled in competition with the wind. sounds as if he were, witch- "Sandy!" I gasped; "look!" All round us the waves were breaking white, but for the first time I saw a patch of breakers-seething white, just astern,—and in the low hollows between waves, jagged and black, a line of rocks. got the full force of the sou❜wester which was responsible for our eviction. We ran before it in the dark and rain to Crinan, where the harbour, though small, is at least sheltered. By now, as might be supposed, we were all soaked to the skin, and, with the wind blowing it in, it seemed to me we must be wet even through it. The worst of Crinan is that one comes on it so suddenly from the south, and going, as we were, like a destroyer after so nearly being the destroyed, there was no time to take in what boats were anchored there, but just round up amongst them, and let down the anchor with a run, trusting to good luck in default of good guidance. But I must not deny Jack some iota of skill as well as luck, for with his lynx-eyes he can, and did, see more or less where he was going, while the rest of us were still trying to make out what lights were what. The sudden midnight arrival and rattle of anchoring chain brought the crews of the sleeping boats tumbling on deck. But after a few halloos and answers we and they decided that we were not actually going to bump any of them, and they disappeared again. I obeyed, filled with a sort of interested surprise that real danger-not merely "strafs " -should touch so holiday a matter as Skeletta. Just then the sail stopped banging and The first thing to do was to cracking, and over we went, change and get hot drinks. gunwale under-but sailing! Sandy, being a super on deck, Then, like a a silver clarion, got the cabin free for his rerung the accents of the Don's clothing, while the Don conwell-known tonguescientiously helped Jack, and "A somewhat narrow squeak I, of course, had my own; -eh, what ↑ " but when I began to boil milk Once outside the bay we and make cocoa in the main |