Читать книгу Adventurers of the Night - James Owen Hannay - Страница 7

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Tommy and I packed the trunk, the two small bags, and the bundle into the dinghy. She is a small boat, designed originally to hold three people. I was very doubtful about the wisdom of taking four people and some heavy luggage in her, though we had only a short way to go to reach the "Aurora." However, Tommy seemed sure that he could manage it, and I felt that if we did sink no great harm would be done. There were plenty of people on the pier to rescue us, and a wetting might perhaps cool off the Floyds' determination to go to Inisheeny.

We nearly did sink at the very start, for Dr. Floyd turned out to be one of those men who are awkward in boats. We perched Molly in the bow. Tommy took the oars and sat on the forward thwart. We stowed the luggage amidships and I sat on one side of the stern sheets. The other side was left clear for Floyd, and he had nothing to do but step in and sit down gently. Instead of stepping he fell, or jumped into the boat and sat down with such a heavy thump that the water lipped over the gunwale and wet him. Many men, indeed most men, very much dislike getting the seats of their trousers wet. I could have excused Floyd if he had got angry and abused me, though the accident was his own fault. But he took the wetting quite good-temperedly. He might get "ratty," as Molly warned me, about crannogs. In other ways he was evidently a good tempered man. I began to hope that he would not be an impossible companion in the "Aurora's" cabin.

Tommy pushed off cautiously, and paddled out towards the "Aurora" with short easy strokes. We were badly down by the head, and if he had rowed at all hard he would have driven the boat's nose under. Then Molly would have got as wet as her father in much the same way. As we passed the end of the pier I saw Sergeant Morris staring at us solemnly. He evidently meant to keep his eye on us up to the last possible moment. After that he would, no doubt, go and make his report to Patterson, who would realise my perfidy.

We started, after suffering more than the usual fuss and discomfort. My idea was to pack the Floyds into the cabin until we were well under way; but that proved to be impossible. The tent, the trunk, the two bags, and the packing-case from Mahony's shop filled the cabin; and, in any case, Molly was determined to help Tommy and me. She displayed great activity and a talent for entangling herself in sheets and halyards. Her father was much easier to manage. After he had been hit on the head by the boom once, he was content to sit on the floor of the cockpit, and did not complain when we walked on him in our effort to get the ropes we wanted clear of Molly. I began to feel some respect and a good deal of liking for Floyd.

Our sail, once we got clear of the harbour, was a very pleasant one. The breeze, which had been easterly early in the day, had followed the sun round and was southerly when we started. This gave us a free reach for Inisheeny. We had to take a pull on our sheets later on as the breeze got westerly. But except for that we had nothing to do but sit still and look about us. The sea was perfectly calm, so there was no excuse for getting seasick. Tommy took Molly forward, and they sat on the deck with their feet dangling in the sail locker. From the scraps of their talk, which I overheard, I fancy he gave her an exhaustive lecture on the rigging and gear of a cutter. Floyd, when I allowed him to get up from the floor of the cockpit, sat quietly beside me and said he was enjoying himself. He seemed to be a placid, singularly gentle man. But I kept off the subject of crannogs. There is no use taking risks, and if there is a raw spot in a man's temper it is foolish to go poking at it.

We had, indeed, no difficulty in finding things to talk about. Floyd is in or about my own age, and I soon discovered that we were both Trinity men, though he had been a year junior to me. We launched into reminiscences, and I found that Floyd had taken a minor part in a "rag" which I have always been proud of having organised. We chuckled together over our success in driving a bullock up two flights of stairs and tying it to the door of the Junior Dean's rooms. Floyd, by his own confession, had done little except look on and cheer, but it pleased me to think he had done even that. I felt sure then that Patterson was quite wrong in supposing him to be one of those Intellectuals who inspire revolutions. Trinity College, Dublin, has its faults and failings as a university, but no one who has really shared the spirit of the place ever becomes either an Intellectual or a Revolutionary. The whole genius of Trinity is inimical to that kind of portentous solemnity which is a necessary part of the character of all reformers. And Floyd had been not merely in but of the College. A man who had taken a part, even a small part, in pushing a bullock upstairs, could not afterwards take any of our great movements of thought quite seriously. And how can a man be an intellectual leader if he is not quite sure of the gravity of the times and of his own immense importance?

This consideration cheered me. I felt I could give a satisfactory account of myself to Patterson. If the Floyds were not, as I was convinced, emissaries of a secret society, Patterson would have no object in following them about and chasing them out to Inisheeny in my boat. I was further cheered by a hail from Tommy.

"I say, Uncle Terence," he said, "what about a bit of lunch?"

It was after two o'clock, and quite time that we ate something. But I had nothing to offer my guests except the two tinned tongues and the whisky. There was not even any water on board, so Molly's pound of tea would be no use to her. We were entirely dependent on the contents of Mahony's packing-case.

"What did you get at Mahony's?" I asked. "I hope you thought of bread."

Bread was just the sort of common-place, essential thing which a boy like Tommy would forget if left to himself. Many people, much older than Tommy, go through life with the idea that bread, potatoes, and other ordinary foods are always there, naturally, and of their own accord; that in catering one may ignore them and concentrate one's attention on butter and jam, or seakale and asparagus. Tommy's answer to my question did not reassure me much.

"I don't know whether there's bread or not," he said. "I told Mahony to pack up a good-sized case of miscellaneous eatables. I meant to choose the things myself, but just as I was going to begin I saw you passing the shop and I had to bolt out and catch you. Afterwards there wasn't time to talk to Mahony. I had to do a sprint down to the quay to tell Molly what you said about the boat. But I expect Mahony will have put in everything we want. It's a good big case and very heavy."

"Well," I said, "you'd better open it and let us know the worst."

He and Molly crept aft.

"I call this exciting," she said. "I do love not knowing what I'm going to get to eat. I do the housekeeping at home," she explained to me, "and so I always do know. Otherwise there wouldn't be anything, and that would be worse than there being something that you know. Besides being very hard on father."

She and Tommy crept into the cabin. I heard them hammering at the packing-case. I do not know what instrument they used, but it was evidently quite ineffective. Tommy came out in a few minutes and fished a marlin spike out of a locker at my feet. It seemed to help them. At all events they stopped banging the packing case about.

I do not think that Mahony was deliberately malicious. I am sure that he is not given to playing practical jokes on his customers. He must have gathered an entirely wrong idea from Tommy's order for miscellaneous eatables. Either he thought that Tommy wanted to supply a tuck box to take back to school, or else he realised that the order gave him a splendid opportunity for getting rid of surplus stock which had been hanging on his hands. The case contained six pots of jam, made in Ireland, and labelled, "Quince and Peach," ten tins of golden syrup, two pounds of large round white sweets which Tommy said were peppermint creams, and a seven-pound tin of biscuits called Orange Sandwich Wafers, and twelve bottles of lemonade.

Molly, if she really enjoyed not knowing what she was going to get to eat, ought to have been greatly pleased. I can hardly think of a more unexpected luncheon. I am bound to say for her and Tommy that they took Mahony's miscellaneous eatables as a joke, and Floyd did not seem to mind having to lunch on sweet biscuits and golden syrup. Indeed, I was, I am ashamed to say, the only one of the party whose temper was at all ruffled. However, I made Tommy get me out my own tinned tongue and I made the lemonade drinkable by lacing it with whisky; so I did not do badly, and recovered my temper in the end.

Floyd shared the tinned tongue with me, hacking chunks of it out with his penknife. He said he did not care what he ate and was quite ready to satisfy himself with quince and peach jam. But I had some pity on him. I was getting to like him more and more. His cheerful indifference to discomfort and his extreme amiability made me regard him as an excellent companion for a prolonged picnic. Molly and Tommy lunched quite contentedly on Orange Sandwich biscuits dipped in golden syrup. Now and then they took a peppermint cream or two, and they drank three bottles of lemonade between them. They actually seemed to enjoy the diet, for they went on eating until I had to stop them.

We had made a good passage and were off the entrance to the bay at the east side of Inisheeny. I sent Tommy forward to take the foresail off the boat, and to get the anchor and chain on deck. Molly very obligingly packed the remains of Mahony's miscellaneous eatables into the case in the cabin. She did not offer to swab up the smears of golden syrup which she and Tommy left on the seat of the cockpit.

I never tow a dinghy out to Inisheeny with me, for I can always calculate on one of the island inhabitants putting off to take me ashore. I was not surprised to see a man launching a curragh when we entered the bay. I was rather surprised, when I rounded up the "Aurora" and gave Tommy the word to let go the anchor, to see that the man who came out to us was Poacher Quin. He seldom goes to the island except when I take him or when he is required to sail Mrs. Maher's "Seven Daughters." I had seen him the day before at Dunally fair. I realised that he must have left Carrigahooly late that night or very early the next morning in order to reach Inisheeny before us. I did not understand why he should do either the one or the other.

Molly was as eager to go ashore as sailors are who arrive at tropical islands after months of voyaging, and see bananas hanging from the branches of banana trees. Tommy, of course, wanted to go with her, and I had not the heart to keep him in the boat though he ought to have helped me to make up the sails. Dr. Floyd became exceedingly restless as soon as the anchor was dropped. I could see that he did not want to stay on the "Aurora" a moment longer than he need. I was glad enough to get rid of him. He would have been very much in my way.

Quin appeared to be unwilling to take such a large party, though the curragh would have held four easily. He began to make excuses when he saw that he would have to take a lot of luggage as well as three passengers. Molly's tent had to go, of course, and one of the two handbags. When Tommy hauled the trunk on deck I reminded Floyd that he was to sleep on the yacht, and had better unpack anything he wanted before the trunk went ashore. This was a troublesome business, for all his clothes were at the bottom of the trunk, and Molly's on top. However, we succeeded in the end in getting out a suit of pyjamas, a pair of boots, a sponge, various brushes, and a razor. Then we packed Molly's belongings again and passed the trunk over the side to Quin. He received it, the tent, the bag, and Dr. Floyd with growls of protest. I could not make out what was the matter with the man. He is generally most good-tempered and helpful. At the last moment Molly dived into the cabin and came up with a tin of golden syrup, a parcel of biscuits, and a few dozen peppermint creams. She said she felt sure that she would be hungry again before long.

As the curragh pushed off I shouted to Quin to bring me back a loaf of bread, a can of water, and some eggs. Then I set to work to tidy the "Aurora."