CHAPTER III
THE SOLWAY SHORE
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 cockpit, 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 shift 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 Ayrshire 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 shining 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 shore. 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 cockpit, lazily watching a razor-bill which had risen with a hoarse 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, Dick's stepfather, found me a Glasgow carpenter who had been building some anglers' boats at Lochmaben."
"And what had the carpenter to do with your being wrecked?"
"Nothing, so far as I can see; though I've thought about him now and then."
Andrew paused for a moment, and Whitney, knowing his comrade, waited for him to go on.
"The ebb had been running for some time when I left Gibb's Hole, and a nasty surf broke on the sands. There was not wind enough to account for it, but everything was harshly clear and that's often threatening. However, I set the big jib and topsail, because I wanted to clear the banks before the flood tide made. It runs from four to six knots an hour among the Solway shoals, and there's some risk of knocking the boat's bilges in if you get aground. The breeze fell light, and near dusk I came round and stood inshore on the port tack, so that I could, if necessary, slip back into Rough Firth. The Scotch channel of the Solway is no place to run for on a dirty night.
"When I got down to Abbey Head the swell was growing steep and the sea looked ragged where it cut the horizon – which showed there was wind out there. The shooting-punt I was towing was a drag, and I didn't make much progress until a smart southwesterly breeze sprang up soon after dark. I could just lay my course down the coast, and I hung on to big jib and topsail while I could. With two or three hours of that wind I'd be able to run in behind the Ross, which you see ahead. Then the breeze freshened suddenly and she listed over until most of her lee deck was in the water. For a time after that I had my hands full."
"So I imagine," Whitney remarked. "I've seen a big jib give two men trouble when they had to take it in, and you were alone and had the topsail up. I'm not surprised that you got wrecked."
"I wasn't wrecked just then. In fact, I made her snug, with two reefs in the mainsail, and I lighted the compass binnacle. The trouble was that the wind was drawing ahead and the night had turned very dark. I couldn't get a glimpse of the coast, and it wouldn't have been wise to run back yet. There's a light on Hestan Island, but I wouldn't have found water enough across the sands in Rough Firth. She'd have gone down at her anchor if I'd brought up to wait.
"Well, I ate some sandwiches I had ready, and stood on. She was plunging wildly and putting her storm-jib into the sea that was getting up; but she was an able boat, and the punt towed pretty well when I'd made an extra rope fast to her."
"You wouldn't find that easy," Whitney suggested, as he pictured the lonely man's struggle to haul up the heavy craft while the yacht on which he must relinquish control rolled with thrashing canvas athwart the combers.
"I let the Arrow come up and dropped the peak. The worst was that I had to lean right out with both hands on the punt while I made the second rope fast, and I nearly went overboard when she lurched. I made it fast, but when we went on I got a shock, for the water was washing up from under the cockpit floor. You see, as she'd shipped two or three combers, I'd thought it was washing down."
"The floorings would be nearly two feet above her bottom planks," Whitney said.
"Yes. It meant she was leaking hard, and I'll admit that rather staggered me, because she'd always been a remarkably tight craft. Well, I hove her to again, lighted the cabin lamp, and pulled up the floorings. This wasn't easy; they were closely fitted and the carpenter had nailed