Priscilla's Spies Part 31

"It would be better," said Brannigan, "if you were to see Peter Walsh yourself. Sure I don't know what's happened to your boat."

"Where's Peter Walsh?"

"He's down at the end of the quay putting an extra coat of paint on Miss Priscilla's boat I don't know what sense there is in doing the like, but of course he wouldn't care to go contrary to what the young lady might say."

Sir Lucius left the shop abruptly. At the door he ran into Lord Torrington and the police sergeant.

"d.a.m.n it all, Lentaigne," said Lord Torrington, "how are we going to get out?"

"There was boats in it," said the police sergeant, "plenty of them, when I gave your lordship's message to Peter Walsh."

"Where are they now?" said Lord Torrington. "What's the good of telling me they were here when they're not?"

The police sergeant looked cautiously round.

"I wouldn't say," he said at last, "but they're gone out of it, every one of the whole lot of them."

Peter Walsh, his paint brush in his hand, and an expression of respectful regret, on his face, came up to Sir Lucius and touched his hat.

"What's the meaning of this?" said Sir Lucius. "Didn't I send you word to have a boat, either my own or some other, ready for me at twelve?"

"The message the sergeant gave me," said Peter Walsh, "was to engage Joseph Antony Kinsella's boat for your honour if so be that Miss Priscilla had your own took out."

"And why the devil didn't you?" said Lord Torrington.

"Because she's not in it, your honour; nor hasn't been this day. I was waiting for her and the minute she came to the quay I'd have been in her, helping Joseph Antony to shovel out the gravel the way she'd be fit for two gentlemen like yourselves to go in her."

"Is there no other boat to be got?" said Lord Torrington.

"Launch Miss Priscilla's at once," said Sir Lucius.

"Sure the paint's wet on the bottom of her."

"Launch her," said Sir Lucius, "paint or not paint."

"I'll launch her if your honour bids me," said Peter Walsh. "But what use will she be to you when she's in the water? She'll not work to windward for you under the little lug that's in her, and it's from the west the wind's coming now."

He looked round the sky as he spoke.

"Glory be to G.o.d!" he said. "Will you look at what's coming. There's thunder in it and maybe worse."

Sir Lucius took Lord Torrington by the arm and led him out of earshot of the police sergeant and Peter Walsh.

"We'd better not go today, Torrington. There's a thunder storm coming.

We'd simply get drenched."

"I don't care if I am drenched."

"And besides we can't go. There isn't a boat. We couldn't get anywhere in that little thing of Priscilla's. After all if she's on an island today she'll be there tomorrow."

"If that fool of a sergeant told us the truth this morning," said Lord Torrington, "and there's some man with her I want to break every bone in his body as soon as I can."

"He'll be there tomorrow," said Sir Lucius, "and I'll see that there's a boat here to take us out."

CHAPTER XVIII

Priscilla and Frank left the quay at half past seven against a tide which was still rising, but with a pleasant easterly breeze behind them. Once past the stone perch Priscilla set the boat on her course for Craggeen and gave the tiller to Frank. She herself pulled a spinnaker from beneath the stern sheets and explained to Frank that when she had hoisted it the boat's speed would be considerably increased. Then she made him uncomfortable by hitting him several times in different parts of the body with a long spar which she called the spinnaker boom.

The setting of this sail struck Frank as an immensely complicated business. He watched Priscilla working with a whole series of ropes and admired her skill greatly, until it occurred to him that she was not very sure of what she was doing. A rope, which she had made fast with some care close beside him, had to be cast loose, carried forward, pa.s.sed outside a stay, and then made fast again. There appeared to be three corners to the spinnaker, and all three were hooked turn about on the end of the boom. Even when the third was unhooked again and the one which had been tried first restored to its place Priscilla seemed a little dissatisfied with the result. Another of the three corners was caught and held by the clip-hooks on the end of the halliard. Priscilla moused these carefully, explaining why she did so, and then found that she had to cut the mousing and catch the remaining corner of the sail with the hooks. When at last she triumphantly hoisted it the thing went up in a kind of bundle. Its own sheet was wrapped round it twice, and a jib sheet which had somehow wandered away from its proper place got twined round and round the boom which remained immovable near the mast.

Priscilla surveyed the result of her work with a puzzled frown. Then she lowered the sail and turned to Frank.

"I thoroughly understand spinnakers," she said, "in theory. I don't suppose that there's a single thing known about them that I don't know.

But they're beastly confusing things when you come to deal with them in practical life. Lots of other things are like that. It's exactly the same with algebra. I expect I've told you that I simply loathe algebra.

Well, that's the reason. I understand it all right, but when it comes to doing it, it comes out just like that spinnaker. However it doesn't really matter. That's the great comfort about most things. You get on quite well enough without them, though of course you would get on better with, if you could do them."

The _Tortoise_ did in fact slip along at a very satisfactory pace in spite of the lightness of the wind. It was just half past eight when they reached the mouth of the bay in which they had lunched the day before with Miss Rutherford.

"I feel rather," said Priscilla, "as if I could do with a little breakfast There's no use going on sh.o.r.e. Let's anchor and eat what we want in the boat."

Frank who was very hungry agreed at once. He rounded the boat up into the wind and Priscilla flung the anchor overboard. Then she picked her parcels one by one from the folds of the spinnaker in which they had wrapped themselves.

"It won't do," she said, "to eat everything today at the first go off the way we did yesterday. Specially as we've promised to give Miss Rutherford luncheon. The duck, for instance, had better be kept."

She laid the duck down again and covered it, a little regretfully, with the spinnaker. She took up the jampot which contained the caramel pudding. Her face brightened as she looked at it.

"By the way, Cousin Frank," she said. "That word is inviolable."

"That word?"

"The sanctuary and secret word," said Priscilla. "Don't you remember I couldn't get it last night But I did after I went to sleep which was jolly lucky. I hopped up at once and wrote it down. Now we know what Inishbawn will be for Lady Torrington's poor daughter when we get her there. All the same I don't think we'd better eat the caramel pudding at breakfast It mightn't be wholesome for you at this hour?on account of your sprained ankle, I mean, and not being accustomed to puddings at breakfast. Besides I expect Miss Rutherford would rather like it. What do you say to starting with an artichoke each?"

Frank was ready to start with anything that was given him. He ate the artichoke greedily and felt hardly less hungry when he had finished it.

Priscilla too seemed unsatisfied. She said that they had perhaps made a mistake in beginning with the artichokes. But her sense of duty and her instinct for hospitality triumphed over her appet.i.te. Feeling that temptation might prove overpowering, she put the slices of cold fish out of sight under the spinnaker with the remark that they ought to be kept for Miss Rutherford. She and Frank ate the herrings' roes on toast, the sweetbread and one of the four rolls. Then though Frank still looked hungry, Priscilla hoisted the foresail and hauled up the anchor.

They reached the pa.s.sage past Craggeen when the tide was at the full and threaded their way among the rocks successfully. They pa.s.sed into the wide water of Finilaun roads. A long reach lay before them and the wind had begun to die down as the tide turned. Priscilla, leaving Frank to steer, settled herself comfortably on the weather side of the boat between the centreboard case and the gunwale. Far down to leeward another boat was slipping across the roads towards the south. She had an old stained jib and an obtrusively new mainsail which shone dazzlingly white in the sun. Priscilla watched her with idle interest for some time. Then she announced that she was Flanagan's new boat.

"He bought the calico for the sail at Brannigan's," she said, "and made it himself. Peter Walsh told me that. I'm bound to say it doesn't sit badly; but of course you can't really tell about the sit of a sail when the boat's off the wind. I'd like to see it when she's close-hauled.

That's the way with lots of other things besides sails. I dare say now that Lord Torrington is quite an agreeable sort of man when his daughter isn't running away."

"I'm sure he's not," said Frank.

"You can't be sure," said Priscilla. "n.o.body could, except of course Lady Torrington and she doesn't seem to me the sort of person who's much cowed in her own house. I wish you'd heard her going for Aunt Juliet last night, most politely, but every word she said had what's called in French a 'double entendre' wrapped up in it. That means??"

"I know what it means," said Frank.