' The PURGLE was
got with educational intent; and it served its purpose so well, and
the boys knew their business so practically, that when the summer
was at an end, Fleeming, Mrs. Jenkin, Frewen the engineer, Bernard
the stoker, and Kenneth Robertson a Highland seaman, set forth in
her to make the passage south. The first morning they got from
Loch Broom into Gruinard bay, where they lunched upon an island;
but the wind blowing up in the afternoon, with sheets of rain, it
was found impossible to beat to sea; and very much in the situation
of castaways upon an unknown coast, the party landed at the mouth
of Gruinard river. A shooting lodge was spied among the trees;
there Fleeming went; and though the master, Mr. Murray, was from
home, though the two Jenkin boys were of course as black as
colliers, and all the castaways so wetted through that, as they
stood in the passage, pools formed about their feet and ran before
them into the house, yet Mrs. Murray kindly entertained them for
the night. On the morrow, however, visitors were to arrive; there
would be no room and, in so out-of-the-way a spot, most probably no
food for the crew of the PURGLE; and on the morrow about noon, with
the bay white with spindrift and the wind so strong that one could
scarcely stand against it, they got up steam and skulked under the
land as far as Sanda Bay.
Pages:
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222