Off in a Boat by Neil Gunn

Author:Neil Gunn [Gunn, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781461718611
Publisher: New Amsterdam Books
Published: 2013-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

When the rain ceased I picked out all the putty round the skylight windows with a chisel, while the Crew followed me, cleaning and reputtying. With the sun shining, the bay, tricked out in wooded slopes and shimmering yachts, looked a lovely sight, and life a dancing holiday. Gloom and sunlight: perhaps you need the one for the other, and whenever you get too much of the one, the other seems very precious. The Crew, with shattering extravagance, presented a young lettuce to the swan. ‘After all the dry biscuits and things,’ she explained. The swan agreed. Then she drew my attention to the beauty of the gulls, as they circled and heeled, very white in the sun. ‘You had better give them some of your “Macnair’s Crax”’, I suggested, referring to a private hoard of very special biscuits. But she only laughed. If she did not care so much for things that crept or leapt or flew or grew it would make life simpler often.

She had a new oilskin cloth sort of decoration for the cabin walls behind the bunks. ‘Its pure white tones with the pantry box,’ she observed. ‘It will keep away any drips, too.’ Clearly she had not been idle ashore while we had slaved away at the engine. If only we had been able to get the boat on to a slipway, we should probably have found the offending nail or two responsible for the bilge leak. However, the amount coming in was not alarming and the new pump was working effectively. Actually the boat had been very little used in her long life—apart from the last two or three years in Skye—and under Mr. Ogilvy’s ownership she had been oiled and varnished so thoroughly that I at last understood why paint chipped easily off her hull. A simple all-round overhaul and she would still be an excellent sea boat. When my brother arrived for ten days, we were ready to give her a further trial.

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