The moon shone out, and still the boat went sailing up and down the lake,
and still the party in the boat laughed and talked and sang merry songs,
and still Charlton walked up and down the shore, though almost all the
rest of the spectators had gone, and the Poet sat down in helpless
dejection. And still Smith Westcott sat and talked to Katy. What he said
need not be told: how, while all the rest laughed and sang, the
Privileged Infant was serious; and how he appealed to Katy's sympathies
by threatening to jump off into the lake; and how he told her that they
must be married, and have it all over at once. Then, when it was all
over, Albert wouldn't feel bad about it any more. Brothers never did.
When he and Albert should get to be brothers-in-law, they'd get on
splendidly. By George! Some such talk as this he had as they sailed up
and down the lake. Just what it was will never be known, whether he
planned an elopement that very night, or on Sunday night, or on the night
which they must pass in Red Owl Landing, nobody knows. Isabel Marlay, who
saw all, was sure that Smith had carried all his points. He had convinced
the sweet and trusting Katy that an immediate marriage would be best for
Brother Albert as well as for themselves.
And as the boat sailed on, tacking to and fro, even the pilot got over
his anxiety at the overloading which had taken place when Westcott got
in. The old tar said to Towle that she carried herself beautifully.
Five minutes after he made the remark, while Westcott was talking to
Katy, and playfully holding his fingers in the water as he leaned over
the gunwale that almost dipped, there came a flaw in the wind, and the
little boat, having too much canvas and too much loading, careened
suddenly and capsized.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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