“That’s all right then. I thought perhaps you wouldn’t. I always heard
they rather despised French at boys’ schools, which is idiotic of course
and may not be true.”
Frank recollected a form master with whom, at one stage of his career at
school he used to study the adventures of the innocent Telemaque. This
gentleman refused to read aloud or allow his class to read aloud
the text of the book, alleging that no one who did not suffer from a
malformation of the mouth could pronounce French properly. Still even
this master must have attached some meaning to the phrase “double
entendre,” though he might not have used it in precisely Priscilla’s
sense.
“Flanagan has probably been over to Curraunbeg,” said Priscilla, “to see
how his old boat is looking. After what Jimmy Kinsella is sure to
have told him about the way they’re treating her he’s naturally a bit
anxious. I wonder will he have the nerve to charge them anything extra
at the end for dilapidations. It’s curious now that we don’t see the
tents on Curraunbeg. I saw them yesterday from Craggeen. Perhaps they’ve
moved round to the other side of the island.”
“There’s a boat coming out from behind the point now,” said Frank.
“Perhaps they’re moving again.”
Priscilla leaned over the gunwale and stared long at the boat which
Frank pointed out.
“There’s a man and a woman in her,” he said.
“It’s not Flanagan’s old boat though,” said Priscilla. “I rather think
it’s Jimmy Kinsella. I hope Miss Rutherford hasn’t been hunting them on
her own, under the impression that they’re German spies. We oughtn’t to
have told her that. She’s so frightfully impulsive you can’t tell what
she’d do.”
Jimmy Kinsella had recognised the Tortoise shortly after he rounded
the point of Curraunbeg. He dropped his lug sail and began to row up to
windward evidently meaning to get within speaking distance of Priscilla.
The boats approached each other at an angle. Miss Rutherford stood up
in the stern of hers, waved a pocket handkerchief and shouted. Priscilla
shouted in reply. Frank threw the Tortoise up into the wind and Jimmy
Kinsella pulled alongside.
“They’ve gone,” said Miss Rutherford. “They’ve escaped you again.”
“You’ve frightened them away,” said Priscilla. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
“No,” said Miss Rutherford, “I didn’t Honour bright! They’d gone before
I got there. The people on the island said they packed up early this
morning and when they saw Flanagan passing in his new boat they hailed
him and got him to take them off.”
“Wasn’t that the boat we saw just now?” said Frank.
“Yes,” said Priscilla. “Frightfully annoying, isn’t it?”
“Never mind,” said Miss Rutherford. “I know where they’re gone. The
people on the island told me. To Inishminna. Wasn’t Inishminna the name,
Jimmy?”
“It was, Miss.”
“Climb on board,” said Priscilla. “That is to say if you want to come.
We must be after them at once. We’ll follow Flanagan. Jimmy can row
through Craggeen passage and pick you up afterwards.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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