"I could take the boat to Rough Firth. Then we might go on to Wigtown Bay, where you could see your people. Will you come, Dick?"
"Yes—as far as Rough Firth; but I don't know about the rest. Small boat sailing needs an acquired taste. You have to get used to eating half-cooked food and sleeping among wet sails. On my last cruise, drops from a deck-beam fell on my face all night when it rained. Andrew's hardier than I am, and no doubt truer to the old strain; but while the Annandale Johnstones did many reckless things, they had generally sense enough to stick to dry land."
They made the necessary arrangements, and a few days later the Rowan went down the Solway with the strong ebb-tide. The shoals were beginning to show above the sand-filled water when she drifted past a point fringed by low reefs and boulders, at Criffel's southern foot. Whitney guessed its distance as about three miles, and took a compass bearing at Andrew's order. The coast turned sharply west at the point, and the mountain, sloping to meet it, broke down into a wall of cliffs that rose, grim and forbidding, from the beach. At one place, a gap in the wall suggested a river mouth. There was not much wind, the sky was hazy, and on the port hand a stretch of gray water ran back to the horizon. It looked like open sea; but the strong rippling in the foreground indicated that the tide was running across thinly-covered banks.
"I should have liked a breeze," Andrew said. "If we bring her around, the ebb will sweep us past the mouth of the Firth. There's not much water on the sands ahead, but we ought to get a fathom, if I can find the Barnhourie gut. Keep her as she's going, Dick, with the knoll ashore on the bowsprit-end, while I look at the chart."
Andrew went below and Whitney turned to Dick.
"Do you know this gut?" he asked.
"I remember something about it, but they keep changing. See what depth there is."
Whitney found six feet, and looked around as he heard the topsail flap. The Rowan was sailing upright, but going very fast, with the current eddying about her. Wreaths of sand came up to the surface and went down again.
"Keep her full," he said. "She's luffing off her course."
"It's possible. The tide's strong and she's not steering well. I dare say there's enough water everywhere, but Andrew must find the gut: he feels he has to do the proper thing. He's made like that."