Free Turning the Stones by Debra Daley Page A

skiff. In a trice, the stranger and his men hoisted the fisherman’s boat over their heads and with strong arms bore it away to the breakers. The stranger did not look away from his task, not even to see that the customs man and his constables had put the whip to their mounts. I dare say he judged that the heavy going would not permit the horses to come on at a gallop. He did not give the shore another glance.
    I retreated to the crowd and watched the skiff push off, its occupants rowing strongly away, aided by the outgoing tide. The bystanders were not interested in the skiff. All eyes were on the punt and its imminent ungrappling – ‘I do wonder at the bearing of that weight upon yon punt,’ I heard someone say. ‘’Tis looking desperate burdened.’
    Even as the customs man drew level with the churned sand that indicated the skiff’s launching spot, no one paid any heed. The pursuers were armed with pistols and I wondered if they would aim and fire, but the onlookers had pressed forward and a safe bead could not be drawn on the retreating men from among the crowd. As well, the heavily laden punt lolled on the swell like a floating hillock, providing cover for the escaping skiff. The customs man and the constables were further hampered by a contretemps, which occurred as a stout party on the barge made to transfer to the punt. As he raised his leg, the waves made an unfavourable shift and the bargeman landed awkwardly. In the vicinity of a spot we call the beer-house hole, which is the only deep water in those parts, his weight threw the craft off balance, allowing the sea to rush on to the punt. The boatman lost his pole and he and the bargeman both pitched overboard, followed by the master’s chests. At that moment, an oversized wave happened by, turned over the punt and ran away to the shore, leaving the men and the chests to flounder. It was a stroke of great bad luck for the master.
    My gaze slid towards the customs men. The soft sea-mud had forced them to dismount. While the crowd shouted encouragement to the two men in the water, who were clinging to cork floats thrown from the barge, the chests were faring less well. They seemed determined to sink themselves.
    I shaded my eyes to look downstream and saw that the skiff’s mast had been raised and a lug-sail was set. I remember hearing the rasp of the beer-house sign up on the promontory as the freshening breeze set it to swing. My heart lifted as if on a huge wave as the skiff disappeared behind a merchant brig anchored in the channel. When it appeared again as a receding smudge on the water I felt a sort of sorrow as if I, like that foolish, swamped punt, was in danger of overturning.
    The breeze must have carried my scent to the master’s spaniels, because their muzzles went up and they bounded from the water. They lost no time in flushing me out from among the onlookers. Mr Waterland, sensing something close to hand that displeased him, tightened his shoulders. He spun round and fixed on me a stare that was in equal amounts frightening and frightened – as though I had rendered him aghast – before he turned abruptly away.
    *
    That evening, after Eliza had retired to her bedchamber, I came downstairs with her hat, thinking to trim it in the servants’ hall so as to keep it out of her sight until our birthday. My date of birth being unknown, Mrs Waterland has given me Eliza’s to share as a convenience. The ribbon and lace were still in Mrs Waterland’s parlour on the ground floor, where she had inspected them that afternoon and showed me how the ribbon must create a careless, trailing effect as though it had sprung loose during a game of high jinks and had been left unheeded.
    I knocked timidly on the connecting door between the back stairs and the parlour. Finding no answer I was about to steal into the room to retrieve the trim, when I heard the mistress’svoice cry, ‘Do not pursue me, sir! I have stopped my ears against you.’
    At once I