shootingstar
Member
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2022
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- German
- Home Country
- Germany
- Current Location
- Germany
. . .
Reality was his romance; he gloried to be thus engaged; he wallowed in his business. Suppose a man to dig up a galleon on the Coromandel coast, his rakish schooner keeping the while an offing under easy sail, and he, by the blaze of a great fire of wreckwood, to measure ingots by the bucketful on the uproarious beach; such an one might realise a greater spoil; he should have no more profit of romance than Pinkerton when he cast up his weekly balance-sheet in a bald office.
. . .
(The Wrecker by R. L. Stevenson and L. Osbourne, Chapter vii)
Please, what does keeping an offing under easy sail mean?
Reality was his romance; he gloried to be thus engaged; he wallowed in his business. Suppose a man to dig up a galleon on the Coromandel coast, his rakish schooner keeping the while an offing under easy sail, and he, by the blaze of a great fire of wreckwood, to measure ingots by the bucketful on the uproarious beach; such an one might realise a greater spoil; he should have no more profit of romance than Pinkerton when he cast up his weekly balance-sheet in a bald office.
. . .
(The Wrecker by R. L. Stevenson and L. Osbourne, Chapter vii)
Please, what does keeping an offing under easy sail mean?