“What sort of weather do you think we are going to have to-day, Tom?”
“I think the wind is going to shift, sir, and perhaps there will be more of it. It has gone round four points to the east since I turned out before sunrise.”
“And where do you think we had better go to-day, Tom?”
“Well, as the wind is now it would be first-rate for a run to Dartmouth.”
“Yes, but we should have a dead-beat back, Tom; we should never get back before dark.”
“No sir, but that Greek chap tells me as your father said as how there were no occasion to be back to-night, if so be as you liked to make a cruise of it.”
“Did he say that? That is capital. Then let us go to Dartmouth; to-morrow we can start as early as we like so as to get back here.”
“I don’t reckon we shall have to beat back. According to my notion the wind will be somewhere round to the south by to-morrow morning; that will suit us nicely. Now then, sir, we will see about getting sail on her.”
As soon as they began to throw the sail-covers off, Marco came on deck and lent a hand, and in the course of three minutes the sails were up, the mooring slipped, and the Surf was gliding past the end of the jetty.
“That was done in pretty good style, sir,” Tom Burdett said as he took up his station by the side of Horace, who was at the tiller. “I reckon when we have had a week’s practice together we shall get up sail as smartly as a man-of-war captain would want to see. I do like to see things done smart if it is only on a little craft like this, and with three of us we ought to get all her lower sail on her in no time. That Greek chap knows what he is about. Of course he has often been out with you in the fishing-boats, but there has never been any call for him to lend a hand there, and I was quite surprised just now when he turned to at it. I only reckoned on Dick and myself, and put the Greek down as steward and cook.”