had learnt to turn his paddle slantwise after the stroke, and to drag it so as to assist the steering; which was not always easy, for here and there a snag blocked the main channel, or a pebbly shallow where the eye had to search for the smooth V that signals the best water.  Tilda watched him, marvelling at his strange aptitude, and once, catching her eye, he nodded; but still, as he mastered the knack, and the stroke of the paddle became more and more mechanical, his attention disengaged itself from the moment—­from the voice of Mr. Jessup astern, the girl’s intent gaze, the swirl about the blade, the scent and pageant of the green banks on either hand—­and pressed forward to follow each far curve of the stream, each bend as it slowly unfolded.  Bend upon bend—­they might fold it a hundred deep; but somewhere ahead and beyond their folding lay the Island.

In this wise they passed under a grassy hillside set with trimmed elms, and came to Grange Mill and another portage; and below Grange to Bidford, where there is a bridge of many arches carrying the old Roman road called Icknield Street; and from the bridge and grey little town they struck into a long reach that ran straight into the dazzle of the sun—­through flat meadows at first, and then, with a turn, under the steep of Marcleeve Hill, that here borders Avon to the south for miles.  Here begin the spurs of the Cotswolds—­scars of green and red marle dotted with old thorn trees or draped with ash and maple, or smothered with trails of the Traveller’s Joy.

Mr. Jessup, whose instructions had become less and less frequent, and indeed were by this time patently superfluous, so quick the boy showed himself to anticipate the slightest warning, hereabouts engaged Tilda in converse.

“He’s a wonder, this child!  I don’t know where he comes from, or you, or how far you ’re willing I should take you.  In fact, there’s an unholy flavour of kidnapping about this whole adventure.  But I guess, if I wanted to return you, there are no railways hereabouts.  We must strike the first depot we come to, and I’ll frank you back, with apologies to your parents.”

“We got none,” Tilda assured him.

“For a steady-going country like England that’s unusual, eh?”

“There is a bit o’ that about us,” she conceded after a pause.

“But you must belong to somebody?” he urged.

“He do . . .  And that’s what I got to find out.  But it’ll be all right when we get to ’Olmness.”

“Holmness?” queried Mr. Jessup.  “Where’s Holmness?”

“It’s an Island, in the Bristol Channel, w’ich is in the Free Library.  We’re goin’ that way, ain’t we?”

“That’s our direction, certainly; though we’re a goodish way off.”

“No ’urry,” said Tilda graciously.  “We’ll get there in time.”

Mr. Jessup smiled.

“Thank you.  I am delighted to help, of course.  You’ll find friends there—­at Holmness?”