d his long boots, for
which he exchanged his low ties of russet leather, and, picking up
fishing-tackle and crabbing nets, started off at a brisk pace for the
shore of the pond, leaving Marsden to follow with the pail of dinner.

When all these were stowed away in the locker of "The Aquidneck,"
together with a straw-covered flask and a volume of Omar Khayyam,
Flint bade a cheerful good-bye to Marsden, who stood rolling up his
shirt-sleeves, and giving copious advice. The amateur skipper cast off
from the little dock, lowered the centreboard, and stretched himself
lazily in the stern, with one hand on the tiller. Peace was in his
heart, and a pipe in his mouth--what could man ask more of the gods?

The white sails of "The Aquidneck" fluttered in the light breeze as if
tremulous with the ecstasy of motion. The sea, beyond the low
grass-covered sand-bar which enclosed the pond, lay bright and smooth
to southward, its surface dotted with craft of various sizes. Here
skimmed a white-winged schooner; there panted and puffed a tug
absurdly inadequate to its tow of low-lying coal-barges. Far on the
horizon, a swelling island raised its bulk, purple as Capri, against
the golden haze.

Flint might have been a better sailor had he not been so good a
swimmer; but, having no fear of the consequences of a sudden bath, he
took all risks, sailed into the very apple of the eye of the wind, and
habitually fastened his sheet,--a practice strongly reprehended by old
Marsden.

"There's a new boat on the pond," said Flint to himself, as a
cat-rigged craft, white-hulled with a band of olive, shot out from
behind a point of rock. "Her lines are rather good. A good sailor
aboard too, I should say, for she runs free and yet steady. I'd like
to try a race with the chap some day; maybe it would be hardly fair if
he's a new comer, for I know the pond like--Damn it! what's that?"

_That_ was a sunken rock which Flint, in his self-satisfied musings,
had failed to keep a lookout for. It had struck "The Aquidneck" full
(or _vice versa_, which amounts to the same thing); and here was a
pretty pickle. Navigation is like flirtation: all goes smoothly till
the shock comes, and then everything capsizes, with no chance for
explanation.

"The Aquidneck" began to fill, and then to sink so rapidly that
Flint, not caring to risk entanglement in the sheets, thought it
prudent to jump overboard, and struck out lustily for the shore.
Fortunately for Flint,