"Bed.a.m.n," he said, "but I never seen the like. With the whole of the wide sea for you to choose out of was there no place that would do you except just the one place where the lady happened to be standing?"

CHAPTER XII

Priscilla's reproaches were sharper and less broadly philosophic in tone.

"Why didn't you luff when I told you?" she said. "Didn't I say you were to keep up to windward of Jimmy Kinsella's boat? If you couldn't do that why hadn't you the sense to let out the main sheet? If we hadn't run into the sponge lady we'd have stripped the copper band off our keel.

As it is, I expect she's dead. She hit her head a most frightful crack against the mast."

Miss Rutherford was lying on her stomach across the fore part of the gunwale of the _Tortoise_. Her head was close to the mast She was groping about with her hands in the bottom of the boat The lower part of her body, which was temporarily, owing to her position, the upper part, was outside the boat. Her feet beat the air with futile vigour. She wriggled convulsively and after a time her legs followed her head and shoulders into the boat. She rose on her knees, very red in the face, a good deal dishevelled, but laughing heartily.

"I'm not a bit dead," she said, "but I expect my hair's coming down."

"It is," said Priscilla. "I don't believe you have a hairpin left unless one or two have been driven into your skull. Are you much hurt?"

"Not at all," said Miss Rutherford. "Is your mast all right? I hit it rather hard."

Priscilla looked at the mast critically and stroked the part hit by Miss Rutherford's head to find out if it was bruised or cracked.

"I'm most awfully sorry," said Frank. "I don't know how I came to be such a fool. I lost my head completely. I put the tiller the wrong way.

I can't imagine how it all happened."

"I don't think," said Miss Rutherford, "that I ever had an invitation to luncheon accepted quite so heartily before. You actually rushed into my arms."

"Were you inviting us to lunch?" said Priscilla.

"I've been inviting you at the top of my voice," said Miss Rutherford, "for nearly a quarter of an hour. I'm so glad you've come in the end."

"We couldn't hear what you were saying," said Priscilla. "All we knew was that you were shouting at us. If we'd known it was an invitation??"

"You couldn't have come any quicker if you'd heard every word," said Miss Rutherford.

"I'm frightfully sorry," said Frank again. "I can't tell you??"

"If I'd known it was luncheon," said Priscilla, "I'd have steered myself and run no risks. We haven't a thing to eat in our boat and I'm getting weak with hunger."

Miss Rutherford stepped overboard again.

"Come on," she said, "we're going to have the grandest picnic ever was, I went down to the village yesterday evening after I got home and bought another tin of Californian peaches."

"How did you know you'd meet us?" said Priscilla.

"I hoped for the best. I felt sure I'd meet you tomorrow if I didn't today. I should have dragged the peaches about with me until I did.

Nothing would have induced me to open the tin by myself. I've also got two kinds of dessicated soup and??

"Penny-packers?" said Priscilla. "I know the look of them, but I never bought one on account of the difficulty of cooking. I don't believe they'd be a bit good dry."

"But I've borrowed Professor Wilder's Primus stove," said Miss Rutherford, "and I've got two cups and an enamelled mug to drink it out of."

"We could have managed with the peach tin," said Priscilla, "after we'd finished the peaches. I hate luxury. But, of course, it's awfully good of you to think of the cups."

"I hesitated about suggesting that we should take turns at the tin,"

said Miss Rutherford. "I knew you wouldn't mind, but I wasn't quite sure??"

She glanced at Frank.

"Oh, he'd have been all right," said Priscilla. "I'm training him in."

"I've also got a pound and a half of peppermint creams," said Miss Rutherford.

"My favourite sweet," said Priscilla. "You got them at Brannigan's, I hope. He keeps a particularly fine kind, very strong. You have a delicious chilly feeling on your tongue when you draw in your breath after eating them. But Brannigan's is the only place where you get them really good."

"I forget the name of the shop, but I think it must have been Brannigan's. The man advised me to buy them the moment he heard you were to be of the party. He evidently knew your tastes. Then?I'm almost ashamed to confess it after what you said about luxury; but after all you needn't eat it unless you like??

"What is it?" said Priscilla. "Not milk chocolate, surely."

"No. A loaf of bread."

"Oh, bread's all right It'll go capitally with the soup. Frank was clamouring for bread yesterday, weren't you, Cousin Frank? If there's any over after the soup we can make it into tipsy cake with the juice of the peaches. That's the way tipsy cake is made, except for the sherry, which always rather spoils it, I think, on account of the burny taste it gives. That and the whipped cream, which, of course, is rather good though considered to be unwholesome. But you can't have things like that out boating."

"Come on," said Miss Rutherford, "we'll start the Primus stove, and while the water is boiling we'll eat a few of the peppermint creams as _hors d'oeuvres_."

Priscilla jumped from the bow of the boat to the sh.o.r.e. "Jimmy Kinsella," she said, "go and help Mr. Mannix out of the boat. He's got a sprained ankle and can't walk. Then you can take our anchor ash.o.r.e and shove out the boat. She'll lie off all right if you haul down the jib.

Miss Rutherford and I will go and light the Primus stove. I've always wanted to see a Primus stove, but I never have except in a Stores List and then, of course, it wasn't working."

"Come on," said Miss Rutherford. "I have it all ready in a sheltered nook under the bank at the top of the beach."

She took Priscilla's hand and began to run across the seaweed towards the gra.s.s. Half way up Priscilla stopped abruptly and looked round.

Jimmy Kinsella had his arm round Frank and was helping him out of the boat.

"Hullo, Jimmy!" said Priscilla. "I'd better come back and give you a hand. You'll hardly be able to do that job by yourself."

"I will, of course," said Jimmy. "Why not?"

"I thought, perhaps, you wouldn't," said Priscilla, "on account of the hole in your leg."

"What hole?"

"The hole your father's new heifer made when she drove her horn through your leg," said Priscilla. "I suppose there is a hole. There must be if the horn went clean through. It can't have closed up again yet."

"I don't know," said Jimmy. "Did ever I meet a young lady as fond of the funning as yourself, Miss. Many's the time my da did be saying that the like of Miss Priscilla??"

"Your da, as you call him," said Priscilla, "says a deal more than his prayers."

"Do tell me about the hole in Jimmy's leg," said Miss Rutherford. "He never mentioned it to me."