Read "Across the Stream" by E.F. Benson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Archie was precariously perched on the side of his little Una-rigged, red-sailed boat, looking with dancing blue eyes at the rocky coast all smothered in billows and sunlit spray some quarter of a mile ahead, and wondering if he would be able to make the harbour of Silorno on this tack. He wondered also what was the best thing to do if he could not. There seemed to be two alternatives, the one to beat out to sea again and come in on another tack, the other to run before the wind to the head of the bay, away to the right, where he knew there was a sandy beach, tumble himself out as best he might, and, he was afraid, see his beloved _Amphitrite_ being pounded to bits by the rollers; for, with all his optimism, he could not picture himself hauling her up out of harm's way.
But even this seemed preferable to the other alternative, for to beat out again in such a sea seemed really a challenge to the elements to swamp him, in which case he was like to lose the _Amphitrite_ and his own life as well.