“Golden lads and girls,” she repeated softly. “Oh, they can never come to dust while there are days like this to sail and sail!”
Her arms, extended yearningly, as if she would have plucked the secret of youth from the tossing bay, fell to her side. “I wish we could sail forever—never to go back to the sad land.”
He thrilled. “So do I. Let’s do it—you and I together.”
“And Aunty Landis?”
“I’m not so sure about Aunty Landis. The stockings might give out, you know.”
They had left Piney Cove not long after nine. With the strong northwester behind them, they made such progress that before two o’clock they were in sight of their destination.
Rincoteague Island lies on the very border-line between ocean and bay. On the eastern side, it is crowned by a straggling forest of pine and oak, and looks almost boldly toward the near waters of the Atlantic. A small hotel, and rows of bath-houses, mark it as a “resort”—a resort sustained by the excursion steamer that makes daily trips thereto from the towns of the mainland.
Although aware that the Wisp had been making extraordinary speed, it was not until Fessenden bore up direct for Rincoteague that he realized how the wind was freshening. He had put his helm down a little carelessly, and instantly a cupful of water took him in the back. He glanced astern, to find quite a sea racing after.
“Positively it’s roughing up,” he said. “Will you be afraid to face a head sea going home, Betty?”
“No, indeed; not with such a sailor as you, Bob White.”