."

The _Blue Wanderer_, urged by the faint southerly breeze, slid along.
The water was scarcely rippled by the wind but the tide ran strongly.
One buoy after another was passed. A large black boat lay alongside the
quay, loaded heavily with gravel. The owner leaned over his gunwale and
greeted Priscilla. She replied with friendly familiarity.

"How are you, Kinsella? How's Jimmy and the baby? I expect the baby's
grown a lot."

"You're looking fine yourself, Miss," said Joseph Antony Kinsella. "The
baby and the rest of them is doing grand, thanks be to God."

The _Blue Wanderer_ slipped past. She reached one and then another
of the perches which mark the channel into the harbour. The breeze
freshened slightly. Little wavelets formed under the _Blue Wandere's_
bow and curled outwards from her sides, spreading slowly and then fading
away in her wake. Priscilla drew a biscuit from her pocket and munched
it contentedly.

Right ahead of her lay the little island of Delginish with a sharply
shelving gravel shore. On the northern side of it stood two warning red
perches. There were rocks inside them, rocks which were covered at full
tide and half tide, but pushed up their brown sea-weedy backs when the
tide was low. Priscilla put down her tiller, hauled on her sheet and
slipped in through a narrow passage. She rounded the eastern corner
of the island and ran her boat ashore in a little bay. She lowered the
sail, slipped off her shoes and stockings and pushed the boat out. A few
yards from the shore, she dropped her anchor and waited till the boat
swung shorewards again to the length of her anchor rope. Then, with her
bathing-dress in her hand she waded to the land. The tide was falling.
Priscilla had been caught more than once by an ebbing tide with a boat
left high and dry. It was not an easy matter to push the Blue Wanderer
down a stretch of stony beach. Precautions had to be taken to keep her
afloat.

A few minutes later, a brilliant scarlet figure, she was wading out
again, knee deep, waist deep. Then with a joyful plunge she swam forward
through the sun-warmed water. She came abreast of the corner of her
bay, the eastern point of Delginish, turned on her back and splashed
deliciously, sending columns of glistening foam high into the air.
Standing upright with outspread hands and head thrown back, she trod
water, gazing straight up into the sky. She lay motionless on her back,
totally immersed save for eyes, nostril