There are opinions and opinions. At any
rate the hours passed softly away until the yacht ran clean into the
thick of the fleet, and the merry, eldritch exchange of salutes began.
The second breeze had been worse than the first, and many men had gone;
but the smacksmen, by a special mercy, have no time for morbid brooding.
They will risk their lives with the most incredible dauntlessness to
save a comrade. The Albert Medal is, I make bold to say, deserved by a
score of men in the North Sea every year. The fellows will talk with
grave pity about Jim or Jack, who were lost twenty years ago; they
remember all his ways, his last words, his very relatives; but, when a
breeze is over, they make no moan over the lost ones until they gather
in prayer-meetings.
"Watch now, and you'll soon see something," said Blair to Ferrier.
The boats began to flit round on the quiet sea, and the lines of them
converged towards the schooner or towards a certain smart smack, which
Fullerton eyed with a queer sort of paternal and proprietary interest.
The men knew that the yacht was free to them as a dispensary, and the
care they took to avoid doing unnecessary damage was touching. When you
are wearing a pair of boots weighing jointly about three stone, you
cannot tread like a fairy. Blair knew this, and, though his boat was
scrupulously clean, he did not care for the lady's boudoir and oak floor
business.
Lewis had his hands full--so full that the ladies went below.
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