grounded.  Soon there was a swaying this way and that, as if yet undecided, and at length a positive heel over to that; the whole of my little world within being canted to half a right angle, and a ridiculous distortion of every single thing in my bedroom was the result.  The humiliating sensation of being aground on hard unromantic mud is tempered by the ludicrous crooked appearance of the contents of your cabin and by the absurd sensation of sleeping in a corner with everything askance except the lamp flame, which, because it burns upright, looks most awry

of all, and incongruously flares on the spout of the teapot in your pantry.

And why this bouleversement of all things?  Because I had omitted to bring a pair of “legs” with me, for a boat cannot stand upright on shore without legs any more than an animal.

Next time the Rob Roy came to Margate we made one powerful leg for her by lashing the two oars to the iron shroud, and took infinite pains to incline the boat over to that side so as to be turned away from the wind and screened from the tide, and I therefore weighted her down by placing the dingey and heavy anchor on the lee gunwale, and then with misplaced contentment proceeded to cook my dinner.  At a solemn pause in the repast, the yawl, without other warning than a loud splash, perversely turned over to the wrong side, with deck to sea and wind, and every single thing exactly the contrary of what was proper.  I had just time to plunge my hissing spirit-lamp into the sea, and thus to prevent the cry of “Ship on fire!” but had not time to put out my cabin-lamp, and this instantly bore its flame provokingly upright against the thick glass of the aneroid barometer, which duly told its fate by three sonorous “crinks,” and at once three starred cracks shot through its crystal front.

The former experience of the night as spent

when one is thus arbitrarily “inclined to sleep” made me wish to get ashore; but this idea was stifled partly by pride and partly by the fact that there was not water enough to enable me to go ashore in a boat, and yet there was too much water besides soft mud to make it at all pleasant to set off and wade to bed.  The recovery from this unwholesome state of things, with all the world askew, was equally notable, for when the tide rose again, in the late midnight hours, the sea-dreams of disturbed slumber were arrested by a gentle nudge, and then by a more decided heaving up of one’s bed in the dark, until at last it came level again as the boat floated, and all the things that were right when she was wrong turned over now at wrong angles, because the boat had righted. [32]

An excellent cure for all such little mishaps is to “imagine it is to-morrow morning,” for in the morning one is sure to forget all the night’s troubles; and so with the fiery rising sun on the sails we are floating out to sea.

In such a sunny day the North Foreland is a very comfortable-looking cliff, with pleasant country-houses on the top, and corn-fields growing round the lighthouse.  Next there is Ramsgate, and then Dover pier.  But now, and in weather like this, will be a proper occasion to practise manœuvres which will certainly have to be performed in bad times, so we stretched away out to the Goodwin Sands, where one is nearly always sure to find a sea running, and for several hours we worked assiduously at reefing the sails, and getting the little dingey out of the cabin and into the water, and vice versâ.

At least a short trial of my yacht in the Thames would have been advisable before starting on a long voyage, but as this was not possible now, it was of invaluable benefit to spend an afternoon at drill on the Goodwin; rightly assured that success in this journey could not be expected haphazard, but might be hoped for after the practice in daylight and fine weather of what had to be done afterwards in rough water and darkness.  By this time, just a week in the Rob Roy, the little craft seemed quite an old friend.  Her many virtues and her few faults were being found out.  The happy life aboard had almost enchained me, but still I left the yawl at Dover, and ran up to London for the annual inspection of the London

Scottish Volunteers; and having led his fine company of kilted Riflemen through Hyde Park, the Captain sheathed his claymore to handle the tiller again, eager for the voyage.

The new rough hairy ropes had chafed my hands abundantly, and they were red and black, and blistered, and swollen, and variously adorned by cuts, and bruises, and scars.  When shall I ever get gloves on again, or be fit to appear at a dinner-table?  These wounds, however, had taught me this lesson, “Do every act deliberately.  Hasty smartness is slowest.  When each single thing from morning to night has to be done by your own fingers, save them from bruises and chafes.  Nothing is worse spent than needless muscular action.  You will want every atom you have some day or other this week.  Husband vital force.”

The Sappho schooner was at Dover, and her owner, Mr. Lawton, one of the Canoe Club, took leave of the Rob Roy, and sailed away to Iceland, while I started for Boulogne in the dawn, when all the scene around looked like a woodcut, pale and colourless, as I cooked hot breakfast at five o’clock.  Nothing particular happened in this voyage across the Channel.  It was simply a very pleasant sail, in a very fine day, and in a good little boat.  The sight of both shores at once, when you are in the widest part of a passage, deprives it immediately

of the romance and interest of being entirely out of sight of land and ships, and all else but water, and so there is absent that deeper stir of feeling which powerfully seized me in the wider traverse afterwards from Havre to Cowes.

Indeed, when you know the under-water geography of the channel near Dover, it is impossible not to feel that you are sailing over shallow waves; for though they seem to be deep and grand enough from Dover Castle or the Boulogne heights, the whole way might almost be spanned by piers and arches, and if you wished to walk over dry shod at the low spring-tide, you need only lay from shore to shore a twenty miles’ slice of undulated ground cut from the environs of London.  The cellars of the houses would be at the bottom of the sea, but the chimney-pots would still be above it for stepping-stones.

The wind fell as we neared France, and a fog came on, and the tide carried us off in a wrong direction north to Cape Grisnez, where I anchored with twenty fathoms, to wait for the reflux six or seven hours.  Often as we had to do the same thing in after days, there was always constant employment for every hour of a long stoppage like this, with a well-furnished tool-box, and a busy mind ever making additions, experiments, improvements, and with books to read.  Not one

single moment of the voyage ever hung heavy on the Rob Roy.

Trying to get into Boulogne at low water was an unprepared attempt, and met its due reward; for the thing had to be done without the benefit of my “Pilot-book,” which had been put away with such exceeding care, that now it could not anywhere be found—not after several rigorous searches all over the boat.  Finally, concluding that I must have taken the