“If you mean for myself and my own safety, Loony, you are right. It is not for me to repine at the hour that calls me away, but I cannot bear to think how you and others, with so many dear to you, should be perilled just to serve me! And poor Joan, too, at the moment when life was about to brighten for her!” She held down her head for a minute or two, and then suddenly, as it were, rallying, she cried out, “The boat is laboring too much for'ard, Loony; set the jib on her!”
“To be sure, if you ordher it, Miss Mary; but she has more sail now than she can carry.”
“Set the jib, Loony. I know the craft well; she 'll ride the waves all the lighter for it. If it were but daylight, I almost think I 'd enjoy this. We 've been out in as bad before.”
Loony shook his head as he went forward to bend the additional sail.
“You see she won't bear it, miss,” cried he, as the boat plunged fearfully into the trough of the sea.
“Let us try,” said she, calmly. “Stand by, ready to slack off, if I give the word.” And so saying, she took the tiller from the sailor, and seated herself on the weather-gunwale. “There, see how she does it now! Ah, Loony, confess, I am the true pilot. I knew my nerve would come back when I took my old post here. I was always a coward in a carriage, if I was n't on the box and the reins in my hands; and the same at sea. Sit up to windward, men, and don't move; never mind baling, only keep quiet.”
“Miss Mary was right,” muttered one of the men; “the head-sail is drawing her high out of the water!”
“Is that dark mass before us cloud, or the land?” cried she.
“It's the mountains, miss. There to the left, where you see the dip in the ridge, that's Kilkieran. I think I see the lights on shore now.”
“I see them now myself,” cried Mary. “Oh, how the sight of land gives love of life! They called earth truly who named her mother!” said she to herself. “What was that which swept past us, Loony?”