At any rate the hours passed softly away until the yacht ran clean into the thick of the fleet, and the merry, eldritch exchange of salutes began.
The second breeze had been worse than the first, and many men had gone; but the smacksmen, by a special mercy, have no time for morbid brooding.
They will risk their lives with the most incredible dauntlessness to save a comrade.

The Albert Medal is, I make bold to say, deserved by a score of men in the North Sea every year.

The fellows will talk with grave pity about Jim or Jack, who were lost twenty years ago; they remember all his ways, his last words, his very relatives; but, when a breeze is over, they make no moan over the lost ones until they gather in prayer-meetings.
"Watch now, and you'll soon see something," said Blair to Ferrier.
The boats began to flit round on the quiet sea, and the lines of them converged towards the schooner or towards a certain smart smack, which Fullerton eyed with a queer sort of paternal and proprietary interest.
The men knew that the yacht was free to them as a dispensary, and the care they took to avoid doing unnecessary damage was touching.

When you are wearing a pair of boots weighing jointly about three stone, you cannot tread like a fairy.

Blair knew this, and, though his boat was scrupulously clean, he did not care for the lady's boudoir and oak floor business.
Lewis had his hands full--so full that the ladies went below.