Priscilla's Spies. George A. Birmingham
Tortoise is a giddy kind of a boat, your honour, and without you’d be used to her or the like of her—but sure if you’re satisfied—but what it is, the master gave orders that Miss Priscilla wasn’t to go out in the Tortoise without either himself or me would be along with her.”
Frank was painfully aware that he was not used to the Tortoise or to any boat the least like her. He had never in his life been to sea in a sailing boat for the management of which he was in any way responsible. He was, in fact, entirely ignorant of the art of boat sailing. But the men who sat on the window sills of Brannigan’s shop, battered sea dogs every one of them, had their eyes fixed on him. It would be deeply humiliating to have to own up before them that he knew nothing about boats. Sir Lucius’s order applied, very properly, to Priscilla who was a child. Peter Walsh looked as if he thought that Frank also ought to be treated as a child. This was intolerable. The day seemed very calm. It was difficult to think that there could be any real risk in going out in the __Tortoise__. Priscilla nudged him sharply with her elbow. Frank yielded to temptation.
“Miss Lentaigne,” he said, “will be quite safe with me.”
He spoke with lordly self-confidence, calculated, he thought, to impress the impudent loafers on the window sills and to reduce Peter Walsh to prompt submission. Having spoken he felt unreasonably angry with Priscilla who was grinning.
Peter Walsh ambled down to the quay. He climbed over the dredger, which was lying alongside, and dropped from her into a small water-logged punt. In this he ferried himself out to the Tortoise. Priscilla bounded into Brannigan’s shop. The sea dogs on the window sills eyed Frank and shook their heads. It was painfully evident that his self-confident tone had not imposed on them.
“There’s not much wind any way,” said one of them, “and what there is will be dropping with the ebb.”
“It’ll work round to the west with the flood,” said another. “With the weather we’re having now it’ll follow the sun.”
Priscilla came out of the shop laden with parcels which she placed one by one on Frank’s lap.
“Beer and lemonade,” she said. “The beast was out of lemon flavoured soda, so I had to get lemonade instead, but your lager’s all right. You don’t mind drinking out of the bottle, do you, Cousin Frank? You can have the bailing tin of course, if you like, but it’s rather salty. Macaroons and cocoanut creams. They turned out to be the same price, so I thought I might as well get a mixture. The cocoanut creams are lighter, so one gets more of them for the money. Tongue. I told him not to put paper on the tongue. I always think brown paper is rather a nuisance in a boat. It gets so soppy when it’s the least wet. There’s no use having more of it than we can help. Peaches. He hadn’t any of the small one and sixpenny tins, so I had to spend your other shilling to make up the half-crown for the big one. I hope you don’t mind. We shall be able to finish it all right I expect. Oh, bother! I forgot that the peaches require a tin-opener. Have you a knife? If you have we may be able to manage by hammering it along through the lid of the tin with a rowlock.”
Frank had a knife, but he set some value on it He did not want to have it reduced to the condition of a coarse toothed saw by being hammered through a tin with a rowlock. He hesitated.
“All right,” said Priscilla, “if you’d rather not have it used I’ll go and try to stick Brannigan for the loan of a tin-opener. He may not care for lending it, because things like tin-openers generally drop overboard and then of course he wouldn’t get it back. But he’ll hardly be able to refuse it I offer to deposit the safety pin in my tie as a hostage. It looks exactly as if it is gold, and, if it was, would be worth far more than any tin-opener.”
She went into the shop again. It was nearly ten minutes before she came out. Frank was seriously annoyed by a number of small children who crowded round the bath-chair and made remarks about his appearance. He tried to buy them off with macaroons, but the plan failed, as a similar one did in the case of the Anglo-Saxon king and the Danes. The children, like the Norse pirates, returned almost immediately in increased numbers. Then Priscilla appeared.
“I thought I should have had a frightful rag with Brannigan over the tin-opener,” she said, “but he was quite nice about it. He said he’d lend it with pleasure and didn’t care whether I left him the safety pin or not. The only trouble was that he couldn’t find one. He said that he had a gross of them somewhere, but he didn’t know where they’d been put. In the end it was Mrs. Brannigan who found them in an old biscuit tin under some oilskins. That’s what delayed me.”
Peter Walsh was hoisting a sail, a gunter lug, on the Tortoise. He paused in his work now and then to cast a glance ashore at Frank. Priscilla wheeled the bath-chair down to the slip and hailed Peter.
“Hurry up now,” she said, “and get the foresail on her. Don’t keep us here all day.”
Peter pulled on the foresail halyards with some appearance of vigour. He slipped the mooring rope and ran the Tortoise alongside the slip, towing the water logged punt behind her.
“Joseph Antony Kinsella,” said Peter, “was in this morning on the flood tide and he was telling me he came across that young fellow again near Illaunglos.”
“Was he talking to him?” said Priscilla.
“He was not beyond passing the time of day or the like of that for Joseph Antony had a load of gravel and he couldn’t be wasting his time. But the young fellow was in Flanagan’s old boat and it was Joseph Antony’s opinion that he was trying to learn himself how to row her.”
“He’d need to. But if that’s all that passed between them I don’t see that we’re much further on towards knowing what that man is doing here.”
“Joseph Antony did say,” said Peter, “that the young gentleman was as simple and innocent as a child and one that wouldn’t be likely to be doing any harm.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“You cannot, Miss. There’s a terrible lot of fellows going round the country these times, sent out by the government that would be glad enough to be interfering with the people and maybe taking the land away from them. You’d never know who might be at such work and who mightn’t, but Joseph Antony did say that the fellow in Flanagan’s old boat hadn’t the look of it. He’s too innocent like.”
“Hop you out now, Peter,” said Priscilla, “and help Mr. Mannix down into the boat. He has a sprained ankle and can’t walk by himself. Be careful of him!”
The task of getting Frank into the Tortoise was not an easy one for the slip was nearly as slimy as when Priscilla fell on it the day before. Peter, with his arm round Frank’s waist, proceeded very cautiously.
“Settle him down on the starboard side of the centre-board case,” said Priscilla. “We’ll carry the boom to port on the run out.”
“You will,” said Peter, “for the wind’s in the east, but you’ll have to jibe her at the stone perch if you’re going down the channel.”
“I’m not going down the channel. I mean to stand across to Rossmore and then go into the bay beyond.” Priscilla stepped into the boat and took the tiller.
“Did I hear you say, Miss, that you’re thinking of going on to Inishbawn?”
“You did not hear me say anything about Inishbawn; but I may go there all the same if I’ve time. I want to see the Kinsellas’ new baby.”
“If you’ll take my advice, Miss,” said Peter, “you’ll not go next nor nigh Inishbawn.”
“And why not?”
“Joseph Antony Kinsella was telling me this morning that it’s alive with rats, such rats nobody ever seen. They have the island pretty near eat away.”
“Talk sense,” said Priscilla.
“They came out on the tide swimming,”