Priscilla's Spies Part 6

"Miss Lentaigne," he said, "will be quite safe with me."

He spoke with lordly self-confidence, calculated, he thought, to impress the impudent loafers on the window sills and to reduce Peter Walsh to prompt submission. Having spoken he felt unreasonably angry with Priscilla who was grinning.

Peter Walsh ambled down to the quay. He climbed over the dredger, which was lying alongside, and dropped from her into a small water-logged punt. In this he ferried himself out to the _Tortoise_. Priscilla bounded into Brannigan's shop. The sea dogs on the window sills eyed Frank and shook their heads. It was painfully evident that his self-confident tone had not imposed on them.

"There's not much wind any way," said one of them, "and what there is will be dropping with the ebb."

"It'll work round to the west with the flood," said another. "With the weather we're having now it'll follow the sun."

Priscilla came out of the shop laden with parcels which she placed one by one on Frank's lap.

"Beer and lemonade," she said. "The beast was out of lemon flavoured soda, so I had to get lemonade instead, but your lager's all right. You don't mind drinking out of the bottle, do you, Cousin Frank? You can have the bailing tin of course, if you like, but it's rather salty.

Macaroons and cocoanut creams. They turned out to be the same price, so I thought I might as well get a mixture. The cocoanut creams are lighter, so one gets more of them for the money. Tongue. I told him not to put paper on the tongue. I always think brown paper is rather a nuisance in a boat. It gets so soppy when it's the least wet. There's no use having more of it than we can help. Peaches. He hadn't any of the small one and sixpenny tins, so I had to spend your other shilling to make up the half-crown for the big one. I hope you don't mind. We shall be able to finish it all right I expect. Oh, bother! I forgot that the peaches require a tin-opener. Have you a knife? If you have we may be able to manage by hammering it along through the lid of the tin with a rowlock."

Frank had a knife, but he set some value on it He did not want to have it reduced to the condition of a coa.r.s.e toothed saw by being hammered through a tin with a rowlock. He hesitated.

"All right," said Priscilla, "if you'd rather not have it used I'll go and try to stick Brannigan for the loan of a tin-opener. He may not care for lending it, because things like tin-openers generally drop overboard and then of course he wouldn't get it back. But he'll hardly be able to refuse it I offer to deposit the safety pin in my tie as a hostage. It looks exactly as if it is gold, and, if it was, would be worth far more than any tin-opener."

She went into the shop again. It was nearly ten minutes before she came out. Frank was seriously annoyed by a number of small children who crowded round the bath-chair and made remarks about his appearance. He tried to buy them off with macaroons, but the plan failed, as a similar one did in the case of the Anglo-Saxon king and the Danes. The children, like the Norse pirates, returned almost immediately in increased numbers. Then Priscilla appeared.

"I thought I should have had a frightful rag with Brannigan over the tin-opener," she said, "but he was quite nice about it. He said he'd lend it with pleasure and didn't care whether I left him the safety pin or not. The only trouble was that he couldn't find one. He said that he had a gross of them somewhere, but he didn't know where they'd been put.

In the end it was Mrs. Brannigan who found them in an old biscuit tin under some oilskins. That's what delayed me."

Peter Walsh was hoisting a sail, a gunter lug, on the _Tortoise_.

He paused in his work now and then to cast a glance ash.o.r.e at Frank.

Priscilla wheeled the bath-chair down to the slip and hailed Peter.

"Hurry up now," she said, "and get the foresail on her. Don't keep us here all day."

Peter pulled on the foresail halyards with some appearance of vigour.

He slipped the mooring rope and ran the _Tortoise_ alongside the slip, towing the water logged punt behind her.

"Joseph Antony Kinsella," said Peter, "was in this morning on the flood tide and he was telling me he came across that young fellow again near Illaunglos."

"Was he talking to him?" said Priscilla.

"He was not beyond pa.s.sing the time of day or the like of that for Joseph Antony had a load of gravel and he couldn't be wasting his time. But the young fellow was in Flanagan's old boat and it was Joseph Antony's opinion that he was trying to learn himself how to row her."

"He'd need to. But if that's all that pa.s.sed between them I don't see that we're much further on towards knowing what that man is doing here."

"Joseph Antony did say," said Peter, "that the young gentleman was as simple and innocent as a child and one that wouldn't be likely to be doing any harm."

"You can't be sure of that."

"You cannot, Miss. There's a terrible lot of fellows going round the country these times, sent out by the government that would be glad enough to be interfering with the people and maybe taking the land away from them. You'd never know who might be at such work and who mightn't, but Joseph Antony did say that the fellow in Flanagan's old boat hadn't the look of it. He's too innocent like."

"Hop you out now, Peter," said Priscilla, "and help Mr. Mannix down into the boat. He has a sprained ankle and can't walk by himself. Be careful of him!"

The task of getting Frank into the _Tortoise_ was not an easy one for the slip was nearly as slimy as when Priscilla fell on it the day before. Peter, with his arm round Frank's waist, proceeded very cautiously.

"Settle him down on the starboard side of the centre-board case," said Priscilla. "We'll carry the boom to port on the run out."

"You will," said Peter, "for the wind's in the east, but you'll have to jibe her at the stone perch if you're going down the channel."

"I'm not going down the channel. I mean to stand across to Rossmore and then go into the bay beyond." Priscilla stepped into the boat and took the tiller.

"Did I hear you say, Miss, that you're thinking of going on to Inishbawn?"

"You did not hear me say anything about Inishbawn; but I may go there all the same if I've time. I want to see the Kinsellas' new baby."

"If you'll take my advice, Miss," said Peter, "you'll not go next nor nigh Inishbawn."

"And why not?"

"Joseph Antony Kinsella was telling me this morning that it's alive with rats, such rats n.o.body ever seen. They have the island pretty near eat away."

"Talk sense," said Priscilla.

"They came out on the tide swimming," said Peter, "like as it might be a shoal of mackerel, and you think there'd be no end to them climbing up over the stones and eating all before them."

"Shove her bow round, Peter; and keep that rat story of yours for the young man in Flanagan's boat. h.e.l.l believe it if he's as innocent as you say."

Peter shoved out the _Tortoise_. The wind caught the sail. Priscilla paid out the main sheet and let the boom swing forward. Peter shouted a last warning from the slip.

"Joseph Antony was telling me," he said, "that they're terrible fierce, worser than any rats ever he seen."

The _Tortoise_ slipped along and was soon beyond the reach of his voice.

She pa.s.sed the heavy hookers at the quay side, left buoy after buoy behind her, bobbed cheerfully through a tide race at the stone perch, and stood out, the wind right behind her, for Rossmore Head.

CHAPTER VI

Rosnacree Bay is a broad stretch of water, but those who go down to it in boats are singularly at the mercy of the tides. Save for certain channels the water everywhere is shallow. At some remote period, it seems, the ocean broke in and submerged a tract of low land between the mountains which bound the north and south sh.o.r.es of the bay. What once were round hillocks rising from boggy pasture land are now islands, sloping eastwards to the water as they once sloped eastwards to green fields, but torn and chafed into steep bluffs where the sea beats on their western sides.

But the ocean's conquest is incomplete. Its empire is disputed still.

The very violence of the a.s.sault has checked its advance by piling up a mighty breakwater of boulders right across the mouth of the bay.

Gathered upon sullenly firm based rocks these great round stones roll and roar and crash when the full force of the Atlantic billows comes foaming against them. They save the islands east of them. There are gaps in the breakwater, and the sea rushes through these, but it is tamed of its ferocity, humiliated from the grandeur of its strength so that it wanders, puzzled, bewildered, through the waterways among the islands.

The land a.s.serts itself. Things which belong to the land approach with contemptuous familiarity the very verges of their mighty foe. On the edges of the water the islanders build their hayricks, redolent of rural life, and set up their stacks of brown turf. Geese and ducks, whose natural play places are muddy pools and inland streams, swim through the salt water in the sheltered bays below the cottages. Pigs, driven down to the sh.o.r.e 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.

A few hours later the land a.s.serts itself again. The sea draws back sullenly at first. Soon its retreat becomes a very flight. The narrow ways between the islands, calm an hour before, are like swift rivers.

Through the cleft gaps in the breakwater of boulders the sea goes back from its adventurous wanderings to the ocean outside; but not as in other places, where a deep felt homing impulse draws tired water to the voluminous mother bosom of the Atlantic. Here, even on the calmest days, steep wavelets curl and break over each other, like fugitives driven to desperate flight by some maddening fear, prepared, so great is the terror behind them, to trample on their own comrades in the race for security. One after another all over the bay the wrack-clad backs of rocks appear. Long swathes of brown slimy weed, tugging at submerged roots, lie writhing on the surface of the ebbing streams. The islands grow larger. Confused heaps of round boulders appear under their western bluffs. Cormorants perch in flocks on shining stones, stretching out their narrow wings, peering through tiny black eyes at the withdrawal of the sea. On the eastern sh.o.r.es of every island, stretches of pebble-strewn mud widen rapidly. The boats below the cottages lie dejected, mutely re-reproachful of the anchors which have held them back from following the departed waters. Soft green banks appear here and there, broaden, join one another, until whole stretches of the bay, miles of it, show this pale sea gra.s.s instead of water. Only the few deep channels remain, with their foolish stranded buoys and their high useless perches, to witness to the fact that at evening time the sea will claim its own again.

Very wonderful are the changes of the bay. The southwest wind sweeps rain over it in slanting drifts. The islands show dimly grey amid a welter of grey water, breaking angrily in short, petulant seas, which buffet boats confusedly and put the helmsmen's skill to a high test. Or chilly, curling mists wrap islands and promontories from sight. Terns, circling somewhere up above, cry to each other shrilly. Gulls flit suddenly into sight and out of sight again, uttering sorrowful wails.

Now and again cormorants, low flying with a rushing noise, break the oily surface of the water with every swift downward flapping of their wings. Then the boatman needs something more than skill, must rely upon an inborn instinct for locality if he is not to find himself embayed and aground in some strange land-locked corner far from his home. Or, in the splendid summer days the islands seem poised a foot or two above the glistening water. 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, coa.r.s.e gra.s.s 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 cl.u.s.ter and splash noisily over shoals of fry. Then boats drift lazily along; piled high perhaps with brown turf, store of winter fuel for some home; or bearing stolid cattle from the cropped pasturage of one island to the untouched gra.s.s of another; or, paddled, noisily, carry a crowd of boys and girls home from school, mightily enriched no doubt with knowledge only to be obtained when the water is calm enough for children's sea-going in the summer days.