Esther's Charge: A Story for Girls

by Evelyn Everett-Green

"I wish we could get a nice breezy day," Pickle had often said; "then we'd hoist up the sail and have a jolly time. But it never blows on Saturday afternoon. I call it a swindle."

There was a sail to the boat, and the boys were learning more and more of the management of a sailing craft. They often went out with Mr. Earle in the Swan, and sometimes he would take the tiller and make them manage the sail, whilst sometimes he would take the sail and set them on to steer. They were growing expert now, and they had never been lacking in boldness from the first. One day Mr. Trelawny came down himself, and Puck was put in charge of the tiller and Pickle of the sheet; and between them, with only a little assistance and instruction, they managed to get the boat through the water very creditably.

"You'll make a pair of good jack-tars in time," had been Mr. Trelawny's encouraging verdict at the end of the voyage; and ever since Pickle and Puck had been burning and yearning for a chance of displaying their prowess by taking a sail quite on their own account.

They had begged to have the Swan for their experiment, but had been forbidden.

"Don't try to run before you can walk," Mr. Earle had advised. "This is a ticklish coast, and you don't know much about it yet. And though the weather has been very settled, nobody knows what may happen. Sometimes a gale of wind gets up just when one expects it least. You'd be in a nice predicament if that were to happen. You must wait till you're older and stronger before you go sailing alone."

"I call that rot," Pickle said rather loftily in private to his brother afterwards; "we could do it perfectly well now, I'm sure."

But as Pickle was really trying to cure himself of his self-will and desire to do everything his own way, he did not say anything more about having the Swan to go sailing in. Perhaps he felt that Mr. Earle's "no" was a different sort of thing from his father's, and that coaxing and teasing would be thrown away here. So the two things together kept him quiet.

Nevertheless there was a great desire in his mind to show off his prowess and skill in the art of practical navigation, and it had been quite a disappointment to him that Saturday after Saturday came and went, and there was not enough breeze in the bay to fill the sail of "Jonah's" old boat.

"It seems as if it was just to spite us," he grumbled more than once; "but it'll have to come some day, and then you'll see what you'll see."

It did not seem much like coming this breathless September afternoon. The sun shone as fiercely as if it were the height of summer. There was neither a cloud to be seen in the sky nor a breath of air to be felt.