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" Then she would slide away chuckling softly
to herself till she was brought up by some fresh obstacle. The
dullest of folk cannot see this kind of thing hour after hour
through long days without noticing it; and Harvey, being anything
but dull, began to comprehend and enjoy the dry chorus of wave-
tops turning over with a sound of incessant tearing; the hurry of
the winds working across open spaces and herding the purple-blue
cloud-shadows; the splendid upheaval of the red sunrise; the
folding and packing away of the morning mists, wall after wall
withdrawn across the white floors; the salty glare and blaze of
noon; the kiss of rain falling over thousands of dead, flat square
miles; the chilly blackening of everything at the day's end; and
the million wrinkles of the sea under the moonlight, when the jib-
boom solemnly poked at the low stars, and Harvey went down to get
a doughnut from the cook.

But the best fun was when the boys were put on the wheel together,
Tom Platt within hail, and she cuddled her lee-rail down to the
crashing blue, and kept a little home-made rainbow arching
unbroken over her windlass. Then the jaws of the booms whined
against the masts, and the sheets creaked, and the sails filled
with roaring; and when she slid into a hollow she trampled like a
woman tripped in her own silk dress, and came out, her jib wet
half-way up, yearning and peering for the tall twin-lights of
Thatcher's Island.

They left the cold grey of the Bank sea, saw the lumber-ships
making for Quebec by the Straits of St. Lawrence, with the Jersey
salt-brigs from Spain and Sicily; found a friendly northeaster off
Artimon Bank that drove them within view of the East light of
Sable Island, - a sight Disko did not linger over, - and stayed
with them past Western and Le Have, to the northern fringe of
George's. From there they picked up the deeper water, and let her
go merrily.

"Hattie's pulling on the string," Dan confided to Harvey. "Hattie
an' ma. Next Sunday you'll be hirin' a boy to throw water on the
windows to make ye go to sleep. 'Guess you'll keep with us till
your folks come. Do you know the best of gettin' ashore again?"

"Hot bath'?" said Harvey. His eyebrows were all white with dried
spray.

"That's good, but a night-shirt's better. I've been dreamin' o'
night-shirts ever since we bent our mainsail. Ye can wiggle your
toes then. Ma'll hev a new one fer me, all washed soft. It's home,
Harve. It's home! Ye can sense it in the air. We're runnin' into
the aidge of a hot wave naow, an' I can smell the bayberries.
Wonder if we'll get in fer supper. Port a trifle."

The hesitating sails flapped and lurched in the close air as the
deep smoothed out, blue and oily, round them. When they whistled
for a wind only the rain came in spiky rods, bubbling and
drumming, and behind the rain the thunder and the lightning of
mid-August. They lay on the deck with bare feet and arms, telling

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