CHAPTER VIII

THE PURCHASE OF THE "LORNA DOONE"

Bobby was awakened by a lamenting voice, or, rather, chorus--the gulls.

He came on deck to find the sun pushing up from behind the sandspit. Black and white sheldrakes were fishing round the _Sandfly_, and a flock of curlews showed, making away towards the trough of Poole.

Breakfast was over by eight, and half an hour later, rowed by Sam, they were landing at the wharf where the _Lorna Doone_ was moored--a white-painted, broad-beamed ketch of some forty-five or fifty tons, new masted, as one could easily see, and with the Poole yacht club flag at her jack-staff.

All the same, and despite her new paint, new masts, and gaily fluttering flag, she did not look it. Did not look the yacht her owner made her out to be. Her builders had never meant her to play this part. They had meant her for trawling, for beating against North Sea weather, for carrying tons of fish and discharging them on Grimsby wharves, maybe even for the Icelandic banks and the seas off Flugasker. A plain work-woman in silks and satin and a diamond tiara, that is what she looked like, but Sam said her heart was good.

From the wharf they dropped on to her deck, where a shipkeeper received them.

"Mr. Purbeck ain't down yet," said the man, "but he won't have no objection to you looking over her. Thinkin' of buyin', are you? Well, you might do worse. Purbeck ain't down yet. Been celebratin' at the inn till lord knows what o'clock with some of them young chaps from the club. Mighty free he is with his money to everyone, but those that serve him; a pound a week is good enough for the likes of me, and him cuttin' and shinin' ashore, champagne corks poppin' like guns and cigars as big as your leg and----"

"Jim," said Hackett, seized with a sudden brain wave, "do you want to earn half-a-crown?"

"Spit it out!" said Jim.

"What did Purbeck pay for her?"

"Three hundred and fifty," replied Jim, "and the masts and standin' riggin' and paint cost him another hundred. Cough up your half-crown."

The money changed hands and they went below. Yes, everything was as Hackett had said. A comfortable cabin with an after cabin, a sleeping cabin leading forward to a galley, a fo'c'sle, a bath-room, metal ballast, and a general appearance of solidity and soundness that appealed even to the inexperienced eyes of Bobby.

On deck it was the same, from the anchor-winch to the wheel.

"Now," said Sam, as they scrambled on to the wharf, "we'll go and see Purbeck. You ought to get her for five hundred, or six at the most. He wants to sell, and the winter is before him and there aren't many buyers about, not for a boat like her. I'll do the business for you and you keep your mouth shut."

They found Purbeck at breakfast at the inn; a stout and red-faced individual with small blue eyes and a blue serge coat with brass buttons on it.

Sam knew him.

"Hello, Purbeck," said Sam, ringing the coffee-room bell. "Didn't know you were here. I've just been looking at that boat of yours. Two glasses of beer"--to the waiter who had answered the bell. "A friend of mine is wanting a boat--are you selling?"

"That depends," said Purbeck. "I'd thought of selling, but, to tell you the truth, I've scarcely the heart to. I'm used to her. There's nothing to touch her on the coast, and I've made arrangements to lay her up for the winter by Nicholson's yard."

"Well, she's a bit too small, anyhow," said Sam. "You don't by chance happen to know of a boat a wee bit bigger, yawl for choice? By the way, what were you thinking of asking for her when you thought of selling--if it's not a rude question?"

"Twelve hundred," said Purbeck.

"Twelve hundred? Oh, that's no use to us, even if she was big enough. Fifty-five is what we thought of. This is Mr. Lestrange. He's the man who wants to buy. But he can't afford big money. Why, laying her up for the winter will knock a lot off her value. It's not as if you were selling at the beginning of the season. But, of course, that's your affair."

Then began a long conversation on the question of laying a yacht up for the winter, and Bobby, as he sat listening to these two yachting toughs manœuvring for a stranglehold, thought the deal off. But it wasn't, by any means.

Slowly and by degrees they got down to tin-tacks and prices, Sam shamelessly dropping the question of the boat being too small, and Purbeck, robed in the garb of the hypothetical, suggesting prices that he might accept were he disposed by any chance to enter on a deal.

Bobby left them at it, and went out to smoke a pipe.

Half an hour later Sam joined him, flushed under his tan and exhausted.

"He'll take seven hundred," said Sam. "I can't beat him down a penny more. Seven hundred as she stands, without anything taken off her, and ready for sea; everything in the sail-room, the galley as it stands, and the cabins--bunk-bedding--everything."

"Would you advise me to close?" asked Bobby.

"I would. You won't do better and might do a lot worse. She's a sound boat, and you can sell her when you've done with her."

"Well, I hadn't thought of that before. That makes it easier. You see, Sam, I'm dealing in this matter with old Behrens' money, not my own, and I have to go carefully. You're sure she's big enough for Mediterranean work?"

"Oh, gosh, yes."

"Then I'll close. Behrens will send him the cheque to-morrow."

They went back to the inn and concluded matters with Purbeck, who would make out all the necessary papers and hand them over to Sam on receipt of the cheque. Then Bobby collected his traps and made for the station, Hackett accompanying him.

The soul of Sam seemed upraised by the triumphant conclusion of the deal. It was more. It was trapped, entangled, snared like a rabbit by the sticks and strings of the _Lorna Doone_. She had taken possession of him just as a woman takes possession of a man, and his love for the _Sandfly_ was under eclipse.

He was married to the _Sandfly_, and up to last night he had been quite happy with her, but this morning had made all the difference. He had gone over the _Lorna_ with the eyes of a prospective buyer, approved of her, and finally bargained for her. It is true he had bargained for her on behalf of another man. That made no difference. The act had somehow tied him and her together. He was already beginning to dream of the contents of her sail-room, asking himself how she would go under a spinnaker, telling himself that he had been blind to her up to this, that her lines of strength were in reality lines of beauty--the only beauty worth having. And only a week ago he had called her a tub!

It was the beginning of the sort of thing that leads a man into the divorce court. To-morrow he would be telling himself that the _Sandfly_ was a soap-dish, a toy, a woman's boat.

Bobby, in some subtle and extraordinary manner, sensed something of this as they stood together at the station waiting for the London train that was to take him to Town.

"Well," said he, "it's good of you to have taken all this trouble, and to promise to help in getting me my crew, but there's one thing I do wish, and that is that you were going with us in command."

"How do you mean in command?"

"I mean if you had thought of going with us I'd have asked you to take charge; you'd have been captain. But I suppose it's not to be. Anyhow, you'll give a hand, won't you, in getting things together, and when the business is finished with Purbeck I give you _carte blanche_ to go over and see what's wanted, and make any alterations or improvements, if it won't take too much of your time."

"I'll give an eye to her," said Sam. "Make your mind easy. And take it from me you've got a boat that won't let you down. I'll have her dry-docked at Mattheson's and go over the copper, and I'll let you know anything that's wanted. Don't bother about the crew and all that. I'll see to everything."

Then the train came in and Bobby went off, and Samuel Hackett, slowly retracing his steps to the inn, had a glass of beer, lit his pipe, and returned to the wharfside, standing with his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixed in contemplation on the new boat that had come into his life.

The boat that yesterday had been nothing to him. Blind, blind he had been, yet blind chiefly because she was above the tonnage that he had been accustomed to. She was too big to work single-handed.

He got into his dinghy and returned to the _Sandfly_, tied up and came on board, got the paint and brush and went on with the interrupted business of yesterday. But it was no longer entirely a labour of love. His mind was elsewhere, pleasantly occupied, yet uneasy.