The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-10-24

Ar s = when was boy, you could sail within ten feet of her at half ehb." ~
 T knows all bout Black Spit Island 4 said P1ayIe angriiy. There ain't any thin you car. teach me bout Black Spit Island, Bill Yardley.
 ! well. don't you cut it fine, that's all" replied the elder man as he dis- appeared down the hatchway.
 But young Piayle had already resoiv- ed to cut it as fine as he dared. He was not drunk. but he had taken enough to make him reckless, and the joyous spirit of fine sailing possessed him. The pleasure of a thresI to the windward lies in making as much ground as pos sible on each tack. Many sober man nas come to grief in the mad joy of sailing too near shallow water. and 1t was hardly to be expected that a man. whose brain was fired with drink. would be over careful
 Black Spit Island was small detach- ed piece of land lying about five miles from the shore and on the very edge of the Black Deep Sands. But for the fact that it was surrounded by a strong stone wall faced with lines of wooden piles. 1t would have shared the fate of all the tract of country which the sea had eaten away, from the main i, land and buried in the sand. The high est part of the island was only ten feet above the spring high-water mark. 1t remained as a fine example of how a determined man may fight against na- ture. 4
 A house once stood on the island, and nearly hundred years ago. when the sea had almost completed It's work or destruction, the owner, cut off on all sides by the sea, had sworn to keep his home from the grasp of the en- croaching tides. He had done so suc- cessfulIy. And long after he was dead and his house had been pulled down to strengthen part Of the sea wall, this little patch of land remained to bear his name. He had been enc of the Black Hall folk. ana for many years the place had been known as Black Is- land. But when the Trinity House au- thorities had placed a bouy on the end of the sand, some miles distant. and had named it the Black Spit Bouy. the sailors had altered the name of the island.
 The Hope and Glory was now well in the open, and was driving into the teeth of the gale. As she plunged her nose in 1t, she literally ran with wa Ter from stem to stern. Her lee rail was hardly ever out of the sea, and the waves which broke over to windward sluiced along her decks in cQntinu- ous stream of foam. Tankerlane, whtte- faced and shivering, had crept up the ladder from the cabin, and was sitting on the combing of the hatch. The wind and spray buffeted him severely. but he would have preferred the sea itself to the warm stiffness of the cabin,
 Joe Playle was enjoying himself hugely. Clad in oiiskins. sou'-wester, and sea boots. he stood at the tilier like black statue, glistening as the water ran from him in streams. He even dis dained Yardley's assistance, when he put the boat round. Letting go of the tiller. he loosed the Jtb sheet, as the smack swung round into the wind. and threw the waves from her like some black sea monster struggling out of the deep, Then, as she came round, he made the lib sheet fast on the other side with a quick turn on the, elect, and sprang back to the tiller. Tan keriane watched him with mute won- der in his eyes, and old Yardley smoked his pipe quietly before the stove in the cabin, only too glad to ind that the man whom he had suspected of being drunk was capable oK handling the boat by himself.
 As they neared Black Spit leland on the port tack, Playle gave q whistle of surprise. The tide had been ebbing for more than three hours. but the water was still up to the wall As a rule there would have been nearly twenty feet of sand between the wall and the channel.
 aGood.', he said to himself. "tis a bir tide" And the lust of stealing a few more feet on that tack seized him body and soul.
 Hang old Bill" he muttered. '"tis big tide. and deal of water on the banISsS
 Ana he kept the Hope and Glory on the tack, till the wall was within thirty yards of her bowsprit. And Bill Yard ley smoked peacefully in his cabin.