It made me forget Tim and the sheep, and even mother.
I tried to get up on my feet, but the wind buffeted me back before I reached my knees, and I was fain to lie prone, with my nose to the storm, blinking through half-closed eyes out to sea.
For a long time I lay thus.

Then I seemed to descry at the point of the bay windward a sail.

It was a minute or more before I could be certain I saw aright.

Yes, it was a sail.
What craft could be mad enough in such weather to trust itself to the mercies of the bay?
Even my father, the most daring of helmsmen, would give Fanad Head a wide berth before he put such a wind as this at his back.

This stranger must be either disabled or ignorant of the coast, or she would never drive in thus towards a lee-shore like ours.