Matt gives a hasty glance to the left, then takes to his heels straight across the sands in pace with his father. The famous “bore” of the Bay of Fundy, in a northerly inlet of which they have been fishing, is racing towards them from the left, and to get to shore they must shoot straight across the galloping current. They are at the head of the bay, where the tide reaches a maximum speed of ten miles an hour, and the sailor, so rarely at home, has forgotten its idiosyncrasy.
“You might ha’ kep’ your weather-eye open,” he growls. “I wonder you’ve never been drownded afore.”
“We shall never do it, father,” pants Matt, taking no notice of the reproach, for the waves are already lapping the rim of the little sand island (cut out by fresh-water rivulets) on which they find themselves, and the pools in which they had waded are filling up rapidly.
“Throw ’em away,” jerks the father; and Matt, with a sigh of regret, unstrings his piscine treasures, and, economically putting the string into his pocket, speeds on with renewed strength. But the sun flares mercilessly through the fulgent haze; and when they reach the end of their island they step into three feet of water, with the safe shore a quarter of a mile off. David Strang, a human revolver in oaths, goes off in a favorite sequence of shots, but hangs fire in the middle, as if damped.
“Strikes me the mother ’ll quote Scripture,” he says, grimly, instead.
“I suppose you can’t swim, sonny?” he adds.
“Not so fur nor thet,” says Matt, meekly.
David grunts in triumphant anger, and, shifting his pitchfork to his left hand, he grasps Matt with his right, and lifts him back on to the burning sand, already soddened by a thin frothy wash.
“Now then, han’ us your fork,” he says, crossly. He knocks out the iron prongs of both the pitchforks, ties the wooden handles securely together by the string from Matt’s discarded fish, and fixes the apparatus across the boy’s breast and under his arms. To finish the job easily he has to climb back on the sand island; for, though he stands in a little eddy, it is impossible to keep his feet against the fierce swirl of the waters; and even on the island, where there are as yet only a few inches of sea, the less sturdy Matt is almost swept away to the right by the mad cavalry charge of the tide on his left flank.
“Now then,” cries David, “it’s about time we were home to supper. I’ll swim ye for your flapjacks.”