beginners in the art commit, while the sand showed whiter beneath the
keel, till Davies regretfully drew off and shouted: 'Ready about,
centre-plate down,' and I dashed down to the trappings of that
diabolical contrivance, the only part of the Dulcibella's equipment
that I hated fiercely to the last. It had an odious habit when
lowered of spouting jets of water through its chain-lead on to the
cabin floor. One of my duties was to gag it with cotton-waste, but
even then its choking gurgle was a most uncomfortable sound in your
dining-room. In a minute the creek would be behind us and we would be
thumping our stem into the short hollow waves of the fiord, and
lurching through spray and rain for some point on the opposite shore.
Of our destination and objects, if we had any, I knew nothing. At the
northern end of the fiord, just before we turned, Davies had turned
dreamy in the most exasperating way, for I was steering at the time
and in mortal need of sympathetic guidance, if I was to avoid a
sudden jibe. As though continuing aloud some internal debate, he held
a onesided argument to the effect that it was no use going farther
north. Ducks, weather, and charts figured in it, but I did not follow
the pros and cons. I only know that we suddenly turned and began to
'battle' south again. At sunset we were back once more in the same
quiet pool among the trees and fields of Als Sound, a wondrous peace
succeeding the turmoil. Bruised and sodden, I was extricating myself
from my oily prison, and later was tasting (though not nearly yet in
its perfection) the unique exultation that follows such a day, when,
glowing all over, deliciously tired and pleasantly sore, you eat what
seems ambrosia, be it only tinned beef; and drink nectar, be it only
distilled from terrestrial hops or coffee berries, and inhale as
culminating luxury balmy fumes which even the happy Homeric gods knew
naught of.