So the confident young man pointed the boat’s stem down stream, and after a little jerky work on the bar stood clear out into blue water.

He was used to sailing, so that he really took his boat rather cleverly round to the north-east.  Then he made fast the sheet, since he wanted one hand free; the boat lay prettily over till the water gurgled again under her sharp bows, and Mr. Ellington felt the contentment and exhilaration born of swift movement.  But of course he must needs proceed in this matter as in all others without thought of the future.  The tide was running fast out, and a surface current which always skirts the bay set the boat ever more eastward.  The rocks grew a little dim before Ellington looked round and considered the situation.  He felt quite easy in his mind, however, and, stepping forward, let go the tiny halliard, whereupon the sail came down.

“Now,” he said, “we’re just going to let her take her own way for an hour.”

This sailor-like resolution pleased his companion mightily, so the boat was allowed to wheel lazily, and curtsey to the slight waves as they set to the shore.  Then the young people chatted softly, and forgot the time.

Now those who have watched the humours of autumn weather by the coast will have noticed that very often after a warm breeze has been blowing for hours, there will suddenly come a chill easterly waft.  This will be followed by a steady cold wind.  The trees are blown white, the grass is black with shadows, and the sea springs up like magic into a short nasty “lipper.”  Within half-an-hour the lipper has gathered size, and in a terribly short time there are ugly, medium-sized waves bowling fiercely and regularly westward.  The change mostly comes just about an hour after the tide has turned.  Ellington and his companion were talking on heedlessly, when the girl, interrupting him in the middle of a speech, said, shivering, “How cold it has turned!”

“Yes,” returned Ellington, “it often comes like that.  Do you see how she’s beginning to caper?  So, there!  Softly, softly!” he cried, as though he were talking to a horse.  A spirt of water had jerked over the boat’s side.

He ran up his sail, and as the little craft swung on her light heels, and drew away to the west, he said, “I wish I hadn’t got you into this mess.  But never mind, I don’t think it’s more than a wetting and a fuss when we get home, at the worst of it.”

Mr. Casely was sitting by his fire in the sanded kitchen.  Excepting two very old fellows, he was the only man left in the village that afternoon, for all the other men and lads had gone north on the morning tide.  His noble face had got the beginnings of a few new lines since we first saw him; his mouth was sorrowful, and his brows fell heavier than ever.

A woman came in rather hurriedly, and said, “Thou’d better come out a minute, honey.  The sea’s come on very coarse, and the young Squire’s boat’s gettin’ badly used out there, about a mile to the east’ard.”