mp, 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
manoeuvres 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 versa_.

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 f