“Who is aboard her, Dick? they are strangers to me.”
By taking in so many reefs the lateen had lowered her rate of sailing, and she now followed in their wake, keeping a quarter of a mile to windward.
Talboys lost all patience. “Who is it, I wonder, that has the insolence to dog us so?” and he looked keenly at Miss Fountain.
She did not think herself bound to reply, and gazed with a superior air of indifference on the sky and the water.
“I will soon know,” said Talboys.
“What does it matter?” inquired Lucy. “Probably somebody who is wasting his time as we are.”
“The road we are on is as free to him as to us,” suggested the old boatman, with a fine sense of natural justice. He added, “But if you will take my advice, sir, you will shorten sail, and put her about for home. It is blowing half a gale of wind, and the sea will be getting up, and that won't be agreeable for the young lady.”
“Gale of wind? Nonsense,” said Talboys; “it is a fine breeze.”
“Oh, thank you, sir,” said Lucy to the old man; “I love the sea, but I should not like to be out in a storm.”
The old boatman grinned. “'Storm is a word that an old salt reserves for one of those hurricanes that blow a field of turnips flat, and teeth down your throat. You can turn round and lean your back against it like a post; and a carrion-crow making for the next parish gets fanned into another county. That is a storm.”