erman's
intention to round the Battery Point.
Lennard Sherbrooke was not at all aware of the dangerous reef that lay
so near their course; but it soon became evident to him that there was
some great peril, which required much skill and care to avoid; and, as
night fell, the anxiety of the seamen evidently became greater. The wind
by this time was blowing quite a hurricane, and the rushing roaring
sound of the gale and the ocean was quite deafening. But about half an
hour after sunset that peculiar angry roar, which is only heard in the
neighbourhood of breakers, was distinguished to leeward; and looking in
that direction, Sherbrooke perceived one long white line of foam and
surf, rising like an island in the midst of dark and struggling waters.
Not a word was said: it seemed as if scarcely a breath was drawn. In a
few minutes the sound of the breakers became less distinct; a slight
motion was perceivable in the arm of the man who held the tiller, and in
about ten minutes the effect of the neighbouring headlands was found in
smoother water and a lighter gale, as the boat glided calmly and
steadily on, into a small bay, not many hundred miles from Baltimore.
The rest of their voyage, till they reached the shore again, was safe
and easy: the master of the boat and his men seemed to know every creek,
cove, and inlet, as well as their own dwelling places; and, directing
their coarse to a little but deep stream, they ran in between two other
boats, and were soon safely moored.
The boy, by Sherbrooke's direction, had lain himself down in the bottom
of the boat, wrapped up in a large cloak; and there, with the happy
privilege of childhood, he had fallen sound asleep, nor woke till danger
and anxiety were passed, and the little vessel safe at the shore.
Accommodation was easily found in a neighbouring village, and, on the
following day, one, and only one, of the boat's crew went over to the
spot from which they had set out on the preceding evening. He returned
with another man, both loaded with provisions. There was much coming and
going between the village and the boat during the day. By eventide the
storm had sobbed itself away; the sea was calm again, the sky soft and
clear; and beneath the bright eyes of the watchful stars, the boat once
more took its way across the broad bosom of the ocean, with its course
laid directly towards the English shore.

CHAPTER IV.
Those were days of pack-saddles and pillions--days certainly not without
their state and display