“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 shore-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 pass, and let her ride out the night as she lay.

Arthur Miles knew the bush to which the shore-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 watermanship, 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.