even in
that gale her canvas flapped in the troughs. Then in despair I prayed to
the boat itself (since nothing else could hear me), "Oh, Boat," for so I
was taught the vocative, "bear me safe round this corner, and I will
scatter wine over your decks." She heard me and rounded the point, and
so terrified was I that (believe me if you will) I had not even the soul
to remember how ridiculous and laughable it was that sailors should call
this Cape of Storms "the Onion."

Once round it, for some reason I will not explain, but that I believe
connected with my prayer, the sea grew tolerable. It still came on to
the land (we could sail with the wind starboard), and the wind blew
harder yet; but we ran before it more easily, because the water was less
steep. We were racing down the long drear shingle bank of Oxford, past
what they call "the life-boat house" on the chart (there is no life-boat
there, nor ever was), past the look-out of the coastguard, till we saw
white water breaking on the bar of the Alde.

Then I said to my companion, "There are, I know, two mouths to this
harbour, a northern and a southern; which shall we take?" But he said,
"Take the nearest."

I then, reciting my firm beliefs and remembering my religion, ran for
the white water. Before I knew well that she was round, the sea was
yellow like a pond, the waves no longer heaved, but raced and broke as
they do upon a beach. One greener, kindly and roaring, a messenger of
the gale grown friendly after its play with us, took us up on its crest
and ran us into the deep and calm beyond the bar, but as we crossed, the
gravel ground beneath our keel. So the boat made harbour. Then, without
hesitation, she cast herself upon the mud, and I, sitting at the tiller,
my companion ashore, and pushing at her inordinate sprit, but both
revelling in safety, we gave thanks and praise. That night we scattered
her decks with wine as I had promised, and lay easy in deep water
within.

But which of you who talk so loudly about the island race and the
command of the sea have had such a day? I say to you all it does not
make one boastful, but fills one with humility and right vision. Go out
some day and run before it in a gale. You will talk less and think more;
I dislike the memory of your faces. I have written for your correction.
Read less, good people, and sail more; and, above all, leave us in
peace.

THE SINGER

The other day as I was taking my pleasure along a