“I hope not,” replied her sister. “But I don’t care! I’m going to eat that breakfast if it kills me! I was never so hungry in all my life before.”
They left the Nimble Shanks moored at the double-ender’s anchor-buoy, and the latter lurched away on the short leg of her tack for the entrance to the cove. There was a fresh breeze and the water began to sing under the sharp bows of the Hattie G.
The cook got busy in the galley and the fragrance of coffee and fried fish smothered all other smells about the craft—for it must be confessed that the double-ender had an ancient and fishy smell of her own that was not altogether pleasant to the nostrils of a fastidious person.
These hearty boys and girls were out for fun, however, and they had been long enough at Pleasant Cove to get used to most fishy odors. Before breakfast was over the Hattie G. had run through the “Breach,” as the cove entrance was called, and they were sailing straight out to sea.
The mournful wail of a horn in the fog now and then announced the location of some lobsterman. The Hattie G. answered these “scares” with her own horn and swept on through the fog.
But now the mist began to lift. A golden glow rose, increased, and spread all along the eastern horizon. Suddenly they shot out of the fog and sailed right into the bright path of the rising sun.
This wonderful sight of sunrise at sea delighted Ruth and Agnes intensely. It was just as though they had sailed suddenly into a new world.
The fog masked the land astern. Ahead was nothing but the heaving, greenish-gray waves, foam-streaked at their crowns to the distant skyline, with only a few sails crossing the line of vision. Not a speck of land marred the seascape.
Later, when the Hattie G. reached the Banks, there was something beside the view to interest and excite the Corner House girls.
The big sails were lowered and only a riding sail spread to keep the Hattie G. on an even keel. A “pulpit” was set up on each of her short booms—both fore and aft.