Part 47 (1/2)

”There's a tank just under the window--with a slate cover: we can lower ourselves down to it from the sill, and after that it's not six feet to the ground.”

”What's up with you?” She raised herself, and sat rubbing her eyes.

”Oh, get yer clothes off an' go back to bed! Walkin' in yer sleep you must be.”

”If you won't come with me, I'm going alone.”

”Eh?” She stared at him across the moon-ray, for he had gone back to the window and lifted the curtain again. ”But _where_ in the world?”

”To Holmness.”

”'Olmness? . . . It's crazed you are.”

”I am not crazed at all. It's all quite easy, I tell you--easy and simple. They've left the boat afloat--I've found out how to get to her--and the night is as still as can be. . . . Are you coming?”

”You'll be drowned, I tell you--drowned or lost, for sure--”

”Are you coming?”

He did not reason with her, or she would have resisted. He spoke very calmly, and for the first time she felt his will mastering hers.

One thing was certain--she could not let him go alone. . . . She threw back the bedclothes, slipped out, and began to dress, protesting all the while against the folly of it.

To reach the ground was mere child's-play, as he had promised. From the broad window-ledge to the slate tank was an easy drop, and from the tank they lowered themselves to a gravelled pathway that led around this gable of the house. They made the least possible noise, for fear of awakening the farm-dogs; but these slept in an out-house of the great farmyard, which lay on the far side of the building. Here the moon shone into a diminutive garden with box-bordered flower-beds, and half a dozen bee-skips in row against a hedge of privet, and at the end of the gravelled walk a white gate glimmering.

Arthur Miles tip-toed to the gate, lifted its latch very cautiously, and held it aside for Tilda to pa.s.s. They were free.

”Of all the madness!” she muttered as they made for the coombe.

The boy did not answer. He knew the way pretty well, for this was their fourth journey. But the moonlight did not reach, save here and there, the hollows through which the path wound, and each step had to be carefully picked.

”Look 'ere,” she essayed again after a while, ”I won't say but this is a lark, if on'y you'll put that nonsense about 'Olmness out of yer mind.

We can go down to the cottage an' make believe it's yer ancesteral 'ome--”

”Wh'st!” he commanded sharply, under his breath.

She listened. Above the murmur of the stream her ears caught a soft pattering sound somewhere in the darkness behind.

”What is it?” She caught at his arm.

”I don't know. . . . Yes I do. 'Dolph?--is it 'Dolph? Here then-- _good_ dog!”

And sure enough 'Dolph came leaping out of the darkness, heaven knows by what instinct guided. 'Dolph, too wise to utter a single bark, but springing to lick their hands, and fawning against their legs.

The dog's presence put new courage into Tilda, she scarcely knew why, and henceforth she followed more confidently. With a stumble or two, but no serious mishap, they groped their way down the coombe, and coming to the ledge, saw the beach spread at their feet in the moonlight and out on the water the dark boat heaving gently, a little beyond the edge of the waves' ripple. The tide had receded since their last visit, and Arthur Miles knew nothing about tides. But he had discovered the trick of the boat's moorings. The farm-men, returning from their pursuit of the stag, had dropped a small anchor attached to a sh.o.r.e-line, by which at high-water they could draw her in and thus save themselves the present labour of hauling her up the steep beach. But the weather being fair, they had suffered high-water to pa.s.s, and let her ride out the night as she lay.

Arthur Miles knew the bush to which the sh.o.r.e-end of the line was attached, and scrambling down beside the fall, found it easily and untied it. As a fact (of which, however, he was quite unaware), he had very little time to lose. In another twenty minutes the boat's keel would have taken ground immovably. He ran down the beach, coiling the slack of the line as he went; tugged at the anchor, which yielded readily; found it; and almost at the same moment heard the boat's nose grate softly on the pebbles. The beach shelved steeply, and her stern lay well afloat; nor was there any run of sea to baffle him by throwing her broadside-on to the stones. He hurried Tilda aboard.

She clambered over the thwarts to the stern-sheets, 'Dolph sprang after her, and then with the lightest push the boy had her afloat--so easily indeed that she had almost slid away, leaving him; but he just managed to clutch the gunwale close by the stem and to scramble after.

He seized an oar at once and thrust off. Next came the difficult job of working her round and pointing her nose for the sea. Of rowing he knew nothing at all, nor could Tilda help him. He could but lift the clumsy oar, and ply it with the little skill he had learnt on the voyage down Avon, as one plies a canoe-paddle. Even to do this he was forced to stand erect in the stern-sheets: if he sat, the awkward pole would over-weight his strength completely. But the boy had a native sense of watermans.h.i.+p, and no fear at all; and the boat, being a stable old tub, while taxing all his efforts, allowed a margin for mistakes. Little by little he brought her round, and paddled her clear of the cove into open water.

Even then he might have desisted. For although the moon, by this time high aloft behind his right shoulder, shone fair along the waterway to the Island, the grey ma.s.s of which loomed up like the body of a sea-monster anch.o.r.ed and asleep in the offing, he soon discovered that his own strength would never suffice to drive the boat so far.

But almost on the moment of this discovery he made two others; the first, that the tide--or, as he supposed it, the current--set down and edged the boat at every stroke a little towards the Island, which lay, in fact, well down to the westward of the cove, and by half a mile perhaps; the second, that out here a breeze, hitherto imperceptible, was blowing steadily off the land. He considered this for a while, and then ordered Tilda, who by this time was s.h.i.+vering with cold, to pull up the V-shaped bottom-board covering the well in the stern and fix it upright in the bows. She did this obediently, and, so placed, it acted as a diminutive sail.