night, the moon being full, and all the birds asleep, he did enter his
coracle (as Master Francis Pretty would have said) and depart out of
the island. And first, he knew not why, he looked upward, with his
hands clasped, and from that moment his eyes were pinned to the west.

He had promised the thrushes to begin by making short voyages, with
them to his guides, but far away he saw the Kensington Gardens
beckoning to him beneath the bridge, and he could not wait. His face
was flushed, but he never looked back; there was an exultation in his
little breast that drove out fear. Was Peter the least gallant of the
English mariners who have sailed westward to meet the Unknown?

At first, his boat turned round and round, and he was driven back to
the place of his starting, whereupon he shortened sail, by removing
one of the sleeves, and was forthwith carried backward by a contrary
breeze, to his no small peril. He now let go the sail, with the
result that he was drifted toward the far shore, where are black
shadows he knew not the dangers of, but suspected them, and so once
more hoisted his night-gown and went roomer of the shadows until he
caught a favouring wind, which bore him westward, but at so great a
speed that he was like to be broke against the bridge. Which, having
avoided, he passed under the bridge and came, to his great rejoicing,
within full sight of the delectable Gardens. But having tried to cast
anchor, which was a stone at the end of a piece of the kite-string, he
found no bottom, and was fain to hold off, seeking for moorage, and,
feeling his way, he buffeted against a sunken reef that cast him
overboard by the greatness of the shock, and he was near to being
drowned, but clambered back into the vessel. There now arose a mighty
storm, accompanied by roaring of waters, such as he had never heard
the like, and he was tossed this way and that, and his hands so numbed