It was a risky and foolhardy attempt on the part of Ronald, and one that he has bitterly repented of, to launch a boat that afternoon. I can never quite forgive him for the sorrow it was to bring on us. But his wife would have it so. It was her greatest enjoyment to put out to sea on such a day. A calm aimless drift, in life or on the sea, was out of harmony with her bright and nerve-wrought soul. Where Ronald was still more at fault was in the choice of our third hand. True, we had a fair amount of experience between us. But, with a strong south-wester to fight against, weight and strength are the two things needed, and will often win through a gale when experience is powerless. Ronald, however, was in one of his obstinate moods. He would take Oswald or no one, and his wife said ditto. Now Oswald was a lad of eighteen: a good seaman, I grant, but quite unequal to the work we had in view. However, he was the son of Ronald’s favourite gardener, and had been his wife’s pet scholar at her Sunday school, since which time he had been her devoted slave, making himself useful about the house, and looking after her specialities in the garden and conservatory. “Isn’t that boat too big for us, Oswald? Remember, there are only two of us to handle it, for Ronald’s ill, and can’t be reckoned on for much. Unless I’m mistaken, it intends to blow harder than this before it’s done.” “Yes, sir. You’re right in a way. But we’ve got the winch to lower and haul her up with. And once at sea she’ll be a deal safer and stauncher than that one,” pointing to a lean, wall-sided thing that was our only alternative. “Besides, we’ll set very little canvas; indeed, to all appearance we shan’t want much.” What a sail we had that afternoon! I think that I, who had countenanced it least, enjoyed it most. For Ronald was only just recovering from influenza, and certainly not up to a rough and tumble experience of this sort. And Oswald, too, for a lad of his spirits, was strangely depressed. “Never felt like it before,” he said, “and I shall be thankful when we’re safe on shore again. Our old people at home would say that I was walking over my grave, or some folly of the kind. But that can’t be out here,” he added, with a poor attempt to laugh it off. First of all we took her along under the lee of the shore, where we were able to carry a fair amount of sail, and when we had worked her well round the bay we put her head straight for the south-east, and, with the wind on our beam, raced out into the open sea. It was a longer and heavier business to work her back again, with the wind right in our teeth, and freshening steadily as the evening wore on. Fortunately for us it had only blown fitfully, and without much weight in it till now. It was still “making up its mind,” as sailors say, whether it would blow or not. But as we were beaching her in a deep sandy cove it had finished apparently with indecision, and began to blow in earnest.