Esther's Charge: A Story for Girls

Her confidence in Pickle was by this time unbounded. He seemed to her almost as wise and as resourceful as a grown-up person, without all the tiresome prudence that seemed to come with the advance of years. If he took them they would be as safe as if they were with Mr. Trelawny himself, and Pickle's own confidence in his powers was little less.

Good resolutions were cast to the winds. Perhaps Pickle did not even know that this was the case. He had so longed for a breeze which would enable him to sail the fisherman's big boat, and it never occurred to him to regard this desire as a part and parcel of the self-will he had tried to get the better of.

He had given up teasing for leave to go out in the Swan alone. But that was quite different. She was a fast-sailing boat, and perhaps wanted somebody more skilled to manage her properly; but this old tub was as safe as a house, he was perfectly certain of that. Besides, they need not go any distance, but just sail round and round or backwards and forwards in the bay. He knew quite well by this time how to tack and put the boat's head about. He could manage that old tub as well as "Jonah" himself.

"Shall we go and find a coral island?" asked Milly, as they tumbled one over the other in their haste.

"I – I don't quite know," answered Pickle, not wishful to seem backward in the spirit of adventure, but rather doubtful as to the course to take for such a goal. "Perhaps to-day we'd better not go so very far. We can look for a coral island next time."

"Shall we take some provisions with us, in case we're wrecked?" asked Milly with beaming face, as though that would be the crowning delight to the adventure.

"We might perhaps," said Pickle; "one gets jolly hungry out sailing. We often have something to eat when we're out in the Swan."

Milly ran off to the storehouse for supplies, whilst the boys made a rush for the boat. Little puffs of wind were coming up from the west, dimpling the water, which had been as smooth as oil, and making it all ruffled and pretty.

The sun, too, began to be obscured by a light film of cloud, and away over the land great banks of lurid-looking vapor began piling themselves slowly up in the sky; but the children were much too busy to think of looking out for signs like these, nor would they have been much the wiser had they noticed them.

Some Cornish children, no older than Milly and Bertie, might have guessed from the look of sky and sea, and from the strange, heavy feeling in the air, that there was going to be a storm. But Mrs. Polperran had managed to bring up her young family in wonderful ignorance of such matters. Bertie had never been allowed to run down to the shore to play with or amongst the fishermen's children; and so long as the sun was shining they never thought of such a thing as rain.

There was sunshine still over the sea, though it was not so bright and hot as it had been.

"Isn't it nice?" cried Milly, who was in a perfect ecstasy. "It isn't too hot now, and there's a lovely little breeze coming up, and it's all so pretty and nice. Here's our basket; there are some cakes left, and I've put in some biscuits. Let's take a drink of water out of the fountain, and then we can go for ever so long."

The children kept their "fountain" replenished in dry weather from a can they brought over, filled from the well behind the fisherman's cottage. They liked drinking from the cleft in the rocks, but unless there had been rain quite lately the cleft was apt to be dry. However, they satisfied their thirst before embarking, and Milly held her breath as she watched the old sail slowly swelling itself out as the puffs of wind caught it. It was the most entrancing experience to see the island just gliding away from them, as it seemed, for the boat did not appear to be moving, and yet there was quite a gap between them and it.

Then the sheet began to draw. Pickle gave a shout of triumph as they felt the movement, and saw the little ripple of water round the prow.

"She's off! she's off!" shouted both the boys in triumph. "Set her head out to sea, Bertie. That's right. Hold her so. Now we shall go. The wind's fresher away from shore. Oh jolly, jolly, jolly! Don't we go along?"

Milly had no words just at first. It was too delightful and wonderful. Here they were actually in a boat of their very own, heading out for the beautiful green and golden sea lying away ahead of them, sparkling and dimpling in the westering light. They did not so much as glance towards land, where the masses of black sulphurous-looking clouds were piling themselves above the tall crags. They only saw the beautiful, shining sea, and felt the bird-like motion of the boat as she rushed through the dimpling waves.

This was something like sailing. No laborious pulling at those heavy oars that moved so slowly through the water, and often hardly seemed to make the boat move at all; nothing to do but sit still, just holding sheet and rudder, and watch the water curling away from the bow as the boat pursued her course. When the puffs of wind came up more strongly they seemed almost to fly, and when they died down a little the sail would flap for a few minutes against the mast, and then Puck would alter their course a little, and soon it would be drawing again beautifully.

They did not care where they went or what they did. They were having a glorious sail, and they were full of delight and triumph. Nobody could say now that they could not manage a boat.

"Only if we tell," said Milly, frankly expressing the thought in words, "perhaps they'll never let us go again."

"That is so stupid of people," said Pickle; "they are always like that. If they'd know we went over to our city of refuge alone in a boat, I believe they'd have stopped us; but we never came to any harm, and now that we can sail like bricks, and manage a boat quite easily, they'd go on, saying just the same things as when we'd never been out or had any lessons. So it's no good talking; we'd better keep it our secret, like the island. But now that the windy time of year is coming, we can go out sailing often. We'll have jolly fun, if some stupid old fisherman doesn't see us and tell; but there seems nobody about to-day anyway."

"I expect it was too hot and bright for fishing," said Milly. "I know fishermen like dull days or the nights best."

A low rumble from the shore boomed through the air, and the children looked round.

"I think it's a thunderstorm over there," said Puck, "but it's jolly and fine out here."

"There! I saw a flash of lightning come out of the big black cloud!" cried Milly. "It was so pretty. I don't mind lightning when I'm right away from it out here. I don't much like it at home. Let's sail away from it, Pickle, right away. It's quite fine the way we're going, and we go so fast. We shan't have it at all. And when mother wonders why we're not wet or anything, we shall just say it didn't rain where we were. It's like the Israelites and the land of Goshen."

Pickle looked just a little doubtfully at the weather. The sun was almost obscured now, though it still shone over the sea away to the west and south. The wind was coming up in squally gusts behind them, and sending the boat dancing along merrily. It was certainly great fun sailing on like that, but the waves were beginning to grow rather bigger out here than they had looked from inside the bay, and when the wind came rushing along, there were sometimes little crests of foam to be seen, and now and then these dashed into the boat.

"I think, perhaps, we'd better put her about now," he said, with a look of wise command directed towards Puck; "the storm might come over here, you know, and then we should get very wet – at least if it rained. You know how to put her helm round, Puck, don't you? Or shall I come and do it?"

"Of course I know," answered Puck rather indignantly; "you just manage the sail. It always flaps a great deal when we put her round on the other tack."

Milly and Bertie, greatly impressed by this nautical language, sat as still as mice watching their companions. Milly was rather disappointed at hearing they were to go back, but now that the sun was obscured and the wind getting up, it wasn't quite so nice upon the water, and Bertie was looking very solemn indeed.

"You're not frightened, are you?" she whispered.

"Oh no; only my inside feels funny," he answered, trying to put a brave face on matters. "I don't think I mind going home so very much."

Milly had no qualms of seasickness such as were troubling Bertie, but she did think the boat was rocking rather wildly, and the sail seemed to be flapping and pulling them over, and the water was very near the edge of the boat, which seemed to be dipping quite down. She gave a little shriek, and threw herself towards the other side. Pickle was fighting fiercely with the sail, and she went to his assistance, and only just in time.

"We must get it down," he said; and Milly helped with all her might, so that in a few more minutes the boat lay rocking on the waves, the sail furled up round the mast, whilst Bertie called out dismally that the water was all over his feet, and Pickle told him rather sharply to get the water can and bail it out as fast as he could.

"You didn't turn her head right a bit," he said to Puck. "We were nearly capsized that time."

"Then it was your fault with the sail," retorted Puck, who was rather frightened. "I didn't do anything wrong."

"Let's go home now," cried Milly, a little piteously, though struggling hard against her rising fears; "the sun's gone in, and I think it's going to rain, and oh! what a flash of lightning that was!"

The boom of the thunder almost immediately after was even more alarming. Poor little Bertie, who was feeling very sick and queer, began to cry; and Pickle looked towards the shore, and marveled how they could ever have got all that way from it in such a little time.

"We can never row back," was the thought in his heart; "we must get the sail up again somehow. We've sailed the Swan backwards and forwards. Why on earth won't this old tub do the same? It must be Puck's fault."

He saw that the spirit of the party was becoming damped, and he was the more resolved to keep up a bold front himself.

"We must just pull her round with the sweeps," he said in his commanding way, "and then we'll get the sail up all right. It's only just the tacking that is a bit difficult. We'll be racing home in a jiffy, you'll see."

This was consoling to Milly, who was half ashamed of her sudden fears, and now that the boat ceased to rock and plunge so wildly she began to recover her courage; and it was rather grand to be helping Pickle to pull the old boat round. She could do that quite well, as well as help Bertie with the bailing out, which he only prosecuted languidly, looking almost ready to cry. His face had a sickly greenish hue too, which rather distressed Milly, but Pickle said, —

"He's only seasick. Puck felt like that once or twice. He'll be better soon."

When the boat was really headed for the shore, Pickle tried experiments with the sail; but do as he would, he couldn't make the boat sail towards land. It would sail away, or it would sail sideways, but towards shore it would not go; and indeed they seemed to be getting slowly farther and farther away, and Bertie suddenly burst into miserable crying, begging to be taken home, because he was so very poorly.

Pickle was beginning to wish very sincerely that they had never left their island. He looked back towards it with longing eyes. It would be a real city of refuge now, but alas! it looked almost as far away as the mainland.

"Can't we row to it?" asked Milly, following the direction of his eyes. "I'm quite cool now. I'm rather cold. I should like to row if we can't sail. We got out here so very quickly, it can't take so very long to row back."

It seemed the only thing to do, and Pickle consented to try. He took one oar, and Milly the other. Puck kept the tiller, and put the boat's head for their city of refuge, whilst Bertie lay along the bottom of the boat, heedless of damp or discomfort, only longing to be at home in his little bed.

"I hope father won't call it being a cockney," he once said pitifully to Milly, "but I can't help it. I do feel so sick. I wish we'd never come."

"I dare say Cornish boys are sometimes sick at sea," answered Milly consolingly. She hardly knew whether she wished they had not come or not. There was something rather exciting in the adventure, and if only they could get back to their city of refuge she thought she should be quite glad. It would make them feel that they really were sailors, to be able to manage a boat in a storm.

Milly had her back to the shore now, and was pulling her oar very manfully. She thought they seemed to be going very fast through the water, though the waves were rather bigger than she liked, and seemed sometimes to rise up very near the edge of the boat. Still she thought they seemed to be getting through them very fast, and made up her mind that they would soon be at their journey's end now. She almost wondered why Puck did not exclaim that they were close in now. He only sat holding the tiller with a very solemn expression on his face.

"The waves are getting very big," he said at last; "I don't much like the look of them. This boat doesn't swim nicely, like the Swan. They look as though they'd come in on us every time."

Then Milly looked over her shoulder, and gave a little cry of astonishment and dismay.