I spread it out painfully, for it curled up like a watch-spring at the least slackening of pressure. I was not familiar with charts, and this sudden trust reposed in me after a good deal of neglect made me nervous.

‘You see Flensburg, don’t you?’ he said. ‘That’s where we are,’ dabbing with a long reach at an indefinite space on the crowded sheet. ‘Now, which side of that buoy off the point do we pass?’

I had scarcely taken in which was land and which was water, much less the significance of the buoy, when he resumed:

‘Never mind, I’m pretty sure it’s all deep water about here. I expect that mark’s the fairway for steamers.’

In a minute or two we were passing the buoy in question, on the wrong side I am pretty certain, for weeds and sand came suddenly into view below us with uncomfortable distinctness. But all Davies said was:

‘There’s never any sea here, and the plate’s not down,’ a dark utterance which I pondered doubtfully. ‘The best of these Schleswig waters,’ he went on, ‘is that a boat of this size can go almost anywhere. There’s no navigation required. Why—’ At this moment a faint scraping was felt rather than heard beneath us.

‘Aren’t we aground?’ I asked with great calmness.

‘Oh, she’ll blow over,’ he replied, wincing a little.

She ‘blew over,’ but the episode caused a little naïve vexation in Davies. I relate it as a good instance of one of his minor peculiarities. He was utterly without that didactic pedantry which yachting has a fatal tendency to engender in men who profess it. He had tossed me the chart without a thought that I was an ignoramus, to whom it would be Greek, and who would provide him with an admirable subject to drill and lecture, just as his neglect of me throughout the morning had been merely habitual and unconscious independence. In the second place, master of his métier, as I knew him afterwards to be, resourceful, skilful, and alert, he was liable to lapse into a certain amateurish vagueness, half irritating and half amusing. I think truly that both these peculiarities came from the same source – a hatred of any sort of affectation. To the same source I traced the fact that he and his yacht observed none of the superficial etiquette of yachts and yachtsmen, that she never, for instance, flew a national ensign, and he never wore a ‘yachting suit.’

We rounded a low green point which I had scarcely noticed before.

‘We must jibe,’ said Davies; ‘just take the helm, will you’; and, without waiting for my co-operation, he began hauling in the mainsheet with great vigour. I had rude notions of steering, but jibing is a delicate operation. No yachtsman will be surprised to hear that the boom saw its opportunity and swung over with a mighty crash, with the mainsheet entangled round me and the tiller.

‘Jibed all standing,’ was his sorrowful comment. ‘You’re not used to her yet. She’s very quick on the helm.’

‘Where am I to steer for?’ I asked wildly.

‘Oh, don’t trouble, I’ll take her now,’ he replied.

I felt it was time to make my position clear. ‘I’m an utter duffer at sailing,’ I began. ‘You’ll have a lot to teach me, or one of these days I shall be wrecking you. You see, there’s always been a crew—’

‘Crew!’ – with sovereign contempt – ‘why, the whole fun of the thing is to do everything oneself.’

‘Well, I’ve felt in the way the whole morning.’

‘I’m awfully sorry!’ His dismay and repentance were comical. ‘Why, it’s just the other way; you may be all the use in the world.’ He became absent.

We were following the inward trend of a small bay towards a cleft in the low shore.

‘That’s Ekken Sound,’ said Davies; ‘let’s look into it,’ and a minute or two later we were drifting through a dainty little strait, with a peep of open water at the end of it. Cottages bordered either side, some overhanging the very water, some connecting with it by a rickety wooden staircase or a miniature landing-stage. Creepers and roses rioted over the walls and tiny porches. For a space on one side, a rude quay with small smacks floating off it spoke of some minute commercial interests; a very small tea-garden with neglected-looking bowers and leaf-strewn tables hinted at some equally minute tripping interest. A pervading hue of mingled bronze and rose came partly from the weather-mellowed woodwork of the cottages and stages, and partly from the creepers and the trees behind, where autumn’s subtle fingers were already at work. Down this exquisite sea-lane we glided till it ended in a broad mere, where our sails which had been shivering and complaining filled into contented silence.

‘Ready about!’ said Davies callously. ‘We must get out of this again,’ and round we swung.

‘Why not anchor and stop here?’ I protested; for a view of tantalizing loveliness was unfolding itself.

‘Oh, we’ve seen all there is to be seen, and we must take this breeze while we’ve got it.’ It was always torture to Davies to feel a good breeze running to waste while he was inactive at anchor or on shore. The ‘shore’ to him was an inferior element, merely serving as a useful annexe to the water – a source of necessary supplies.

‘Let’s have lunch,’ he pursued, as we resumed our way down the fiord.