re you from?"
"What's your name?" and all such stupid things to say to a man whose
whole mind in a time like this has to be on sail and sea and tiller.
{250}

During this passage from the Isle of Wight I had noticed now and then,
when the waves tossed more than usual, that a dull, heavy, thumping sound
was heard aboard the yawl, and gradually I concluded that her iron keel
had been broken by the rock at Bembridge, and that it was swinging free
below my boat. This idea increased my anxiety to get in safely; and to
make sure of the matter we took the Rob Roy at once to the "gridiron,"
and laid her alongside a screw-steamer which had been out during the
night, and had run on a rock in the dark thunderstorm. The "baulks" or
beams of the gridiron under water were very far apart, and we had much
difficulty in placing the yawl so as to settle down on two of them, but
the crew of the steamer helped me well, and all the more readily, as I
had given them books at Dieppe, a gift they did not now forget.

Just as the ebbing tide had lowered the yawl fairly on the baulks,
another steamer came in from France, crowded with passengers, and the
waves of her swell lifted my poor little boat off her position, and
rudely fixed her upon only one baulk, from which it was not possible to
move her; therefore, when the tide descended she was hung up askew in a
ludicrous position of extreme discomfort to her weary bones; but when I
went outside to examine below, there was nothing whatever amiss, and
gladness for this outweighed all other troubles, and left me quite ready
for a good sleep at night.

For this purpose we rowed the yawl into a quiet little river, and lashed
her alongside a neat schooner, whose captain and wife and children and
their little dog 'Lady' were soon great friends, for they were courteous
people, as might be expected in a respectable vessel; it is generally so.

Now the Rob Roy settled into soft mud for a good rest of three days, and
I went to the Inn where "Mr. Smith" landed from France in 1848, after he
had given up being King Louis Philippe.

The Inn traded upon this fact, and it had other peculiarities--very bad
chops, worse tea, no public room, and a very deaf waitress! the whole
sufficiently uncomfortable to justify my complaint, and it must be a very
bad inn indeed that is not comfortable enough for _me_.

Here I was soon accosted by a reader of canoe books, and next day we
inspected the oyster-beds, and a c