Phyllis was the kind of sailor that a skipper loves—never afraid, happiest when the boat was "on her ear" and the waves breaking over the deck, but contented and cheerful in a calm, and not getting hysterical in thundershowers, and, above all, proof against seasickness, even in the long "ground swell" and the broiling sun.
One day, Rick and his sisters, three girls ranging from fifteen to nineteen, Alan Armstrong, Phyllis, Rick's mother, a young Scotchman named David Campbell, and two more of Rick's and Alan's college chums, with three girl friends of the Deans, started out on the Saxon for a day's sailing. The plan was to sail down to the Lower Light, fish off the Brewsters during the turn of the tide, make a chowder of the perch and small cod caught there, and return, with a favorable breeze, just late enough to catch the young moon not yet ending its first quarter.
David Campbell was a new element in the party, and one dreaded by all the rest. First of all, he was but just over from the "land of bannocks," and his speech was not as intelligible as English speech might be expected to be. Then he was lame, and there were many subjects engrossing to gay young people, such as sports of all kinds, which must be avoided out of consideration for one debarred from them. And, above all, nobody had the faintest idea what he cared most about; which, added to his burry speech, made conversation formidable. But he had been committed to the elder Mrs. Dean by an old friend who had been good to her when she was in Scotland, and she had laid the strictest injunctions on her kindred to honor to their utmost the draft made upon her.
There was a strong, southwesterly breeze in starting out, and the Saxon lay over in fine style, the waves curling around her bow, and occasionally shipping over the fore deck in the way that always made Phyllis long to shout with Viking happiness.
She begged the privilege of sitting up by the mast—the Saxon was a sloop—and Captain Rick gladly accorded it; for Phyllis grew so radiant when her blue flannel frock was soaked, and her cheeks got so red, and her hair so curly, that it was a pleasure to look on her. All the party chattered behind her back, but she paid no attention to them till, after a time, she noted that David's long-drawn "Aye" of assent to some proposition was growing less frequent, and she turned to see if the stranger were neglected. Yes, there he sat, rather apart from the rest, a look of loneliness in his blue eyes, gazing eastward.
"This won't do," she thought, and heroically resigned her glorious perch to come aft and brave the perils of a Scotch accent so different in reality from reading Barrie, with the privilege of skipping.
"I wish we were going to sail all the way over, don't you?" she asked, seating herself beside the stranger, and bringing with her at once an atmosphere of dampness and cordiality.
"Aye," said David, somewhat startled, but smiling in spite of himself into the sweet face surrounded by its halo of curling wet hair.
"I long for England and Scotland," continued artful Phyllis. "Of course I want to see Italy and its art; but England and Scotland are home. Long ago my father's family came from England, and a little more recently my mother's ancestors came from Scotland."