"Oh, yes. And that's Timber Island over there, covered with trees and stamped out round like a breakfast bun, and that's the False Duck Island, where we came in last night. The schooner sailing yonder is going to take the channel between that white line of breakers and South Bay Point running out there, and those huts you see nestling in the trees far away on the main-land are fishermen's houses—"
He was not looking at any of these things, but was following out two trains of thought in his active head while he talked against time. What really absorbed him was Margaret's ear, and a sort of invisible down on the back part of her cheek. He was thinking to himself that if five dollars would purchase a kiss on that spot he would be content to see a notice in the Gazette: "Maurice Rankin, failed: liabilities, $5.00."
Margaret was listening, gravely unconscious of being so much admired, enjoying all he said, and feasting her eyes upon the distances, the brilliant colors, and the fleeting shadows of the broken clouds upon the water.
"Why, what a nice old chappie you are!" she exclaimed, giving his hand a pat and taking hers away. "How did you manage to find out all about the surroundings?"
"Been around boarding the different schooners lying at anchor. Examining their papers, you know," said he grandly. "Went around in the canoe to the first fellow—a coal vessel. A man appeared near the bow and looked down at me as if I were a kind of fish swimming about. 'Heave-to, or I'll sink you,' I said in the true old nautical style. He did not say a word, but stooped down and did heave two, in fact three, pieces of coal at me. I passed on, satisfied that his vessel needed no further inspection. I was then attracted by the name of another schooner, on whose stern was painted the legend 'Bark Swaller.'"
"What a strange name," said Margaret, as Maurice spelled it out.
"Well, it puzzled me a good deal, as I examined it closely, being in doubt whether Barque Swallow was intended, or perhaps the name of some German owner. At all events a sailor spied me paddling about under the stern of the boat and regarded me with evident suspicion. I thought I would deal more gently with this man than with the other fellow. 'Can you tell me,' I asked, 'the name of that round island over there?' The only answer I got was unsatisfactory. 'Sheer off,' said he, 'wid your dirty dug-out.' This seemed rather rude, but I did not retaliate. I thought I might go further and fare worse, so I endeavored to mollify him. Perhaps, I thought, being up all night in hard weather had made these sailors irritable.
"'Can you drink whisky?' I said—" Margaret was looking at Maurice with a soft expression of interest and mirth. He was talking on in order that he might continue to bask in the beauty of the face that looked straight at him. But the strain for a moment was too great. For an instant he slacked up his check-rein, and while he narrated his story he continued in the same tone with: "(Believe me, my dear Margaret, you are looking perfectly heavenly this morning) and the effect on this poor toiler of the sea was, I assure you, quite wonderful." Rankin's tongue went straight on, as if the parenthesis were part of the narrative. Margaret saw that it was useless to speak, and resigned herself to listen again. "Quite wonderful," he continued. "The fellow motioned to me to come to the bow of the vessel, and when I got there he came over the bulwarks and dropped like a monkey from one steel rope to another till he stood on the bobstay chains."
"'Whist!' said he. 'Divil a word! Have you got it there?'
"'There is some on the yacht,' I said, 'and I want to ask you some questions about this place. What island is that over there?'