No expense was spared in the upholstering of the little cabin, and they even had a small galley, with a tiny spirit range, enough to make tea and boil eggs.
It was indeed a proud day for the boys, and Toddie and Tippetty, when they went for their first sail.
Their consort was a big cobble with a fisherman to row, and a silly sort of a sailor-fellow with a lifebuoy.
The villagers gathered down by the beach and natural harbour, to give them a cheer when they started away on their trial trip, with their saucy little red flag floating at the peak.
Her name was the Water Baby, and with great pomp and ceremony she had been duly christened by Toddie, a tiny bottle of eau de Cologne, brought by Frank, having been duly broken on her bows before she left the slip.
One day Mrs. Fielding herself went for a sail, and found it so perfectly safe that at Frank's earnest request she allowed them in future to dispense with the consort cobble, and the sailor-fellow also.
But they had to carry a lifebuoy nevertheless, and this was only right.
Boy though he was, Fred knew something about the signs of the weather, and always got into harbour in time to avoid a storm, or anything like one.
* * * * * *
So spring merged into summer; the days grew warmer and longer, and the sea more calm and bright. Then Fred's summer holidays came round; and happier children than those three, Frank, Fred, and Toddie, were surely not to be found in all broad Scotland.