Who indeed could be dull, with such a sea on which to sail, with such free and lonely downs on which to roam, and such a wealth of islands to explore! Only those, I think, who pack their dullness in their portmanteaus and carry it with them wherever they go.
And now we must say goodbye to it all. First we will sail to Tresco and take leave of the few friends we have made there. One of them gives us as a parting gift a bunch of Cynosures—“Shiny-shores,” she calls them; and surely a more poetical name for this lovely golden narcissus than the one it really bears—“dog’s tail,” if we carry it back to its original meaning.
OFF TO ST. MARTIN’S
To Bryher next, just to gather a few early buds of sea-pink from the downs by Hell Bay, and to wave farewell to those we know who live in Bryher Town.
It is as we are flying merrily along to St. Martin’s that I remember I have made no sketch of this sailing-boat on which we have spent so many happy hours. And yet she is a thing of beauty, and well deserves recording. Perhaps even now it is not too late.
Did you ever try to make a sketch of a sailing-boat in full sail from the very doubtful vantage-ground of the dinghy attached behind—with the painter let out to its fullest extent to give you sufficient distance? If you ever do anything so foolish (I admit it was foolish), I would advise you to persuade all your weightiest friends to accompany you; for so your cockleshell would gain a little in steadiness, and dance a little less lightly on the waves. And then, perhaps, your brush-strokes would not so often be made half an inch or more from where you meant them to be! In my case the forepart of the boat rose high out of the water, at intervals bobbing down with a splash, and I had the opportunity of trying the effect of a mixture of salt water with my paints.
I have heard a story of a lady who said, in describing a certain painting made on the Mississippi, “I know it must be like the place, for the man who painted it had made his colours out of the earths from the very river-banks he was painting.” On this principle sea-water must be the proper medium for painting the sea!
We must not stop long at St. Martin’s, for time is going fast, so we will content ourselves with climbing to the top of Cruther’s Hill above the pier, and letting our eyes, instead of our feet, roam over the island once more.
And now to St. Agnes, which has a special corner in our hearts. So we will sail all round it, for the wind has slightly dropped, and get a glimpse of every part before we land in Perconger.