It was my first experience of coming into port alone, with a craft of any size, and in among shipping.

Old fishermen ran down to the wharf for which the _Spray_ was heading, apparently intent upon braining herself there.

I hardly know how a calamity was averted, but with my heart in my mouth, almost, I let go the wheel, stepped quickly forward, and downed the jib.

The sloop naturally rounded in the wind, and just ranging ahead, laid her cheek against a mooring-pile at the windward corner of the wharf, so quietly, after all, that she would not have broken an egg.

Very leisurely I passed a rope around the post, and she was moored.