“What can that duffer Thornton be about all this long time?” asked Barton.

Mrs. Bagshaw and I exchanged glances.  “I am not sure,” said she to me, “that I have not been doing a very imprudent thing in letting them land.”

It was full ten minutes after the arrival of the rest of the party before Thornton and Florence made their appearance, looking very confused and awkward.  Glenville preceded them, shouting and laughing.  “Here they are, caught at last, and apparently quite pleased at keeping us all waiting, and quite unable to give any account of what they have been doing.  One little fern has fallen before their united efforts in the space of half an hour or more.  Hawkstone says he’ll be shot if he lends you his boat to go a row in another time.  Don’t you, Hawkstone?”

“No, sir, I didn’t say that.  If a gentleman and a lady like to loiter on the hill it’s nothing to a poor boatman how long they stay, leastways wind and weather permitting, as the packet says.”

Hawkstone pushed us off through the surf, and it was no easy matter, and, I daresay, required some judgment and presence of mind to seize the right moment between the breaking of the great waves.  With all his skill we managed to ship a little water, amid the laughing shrieks of the ladies and the boisterous shouts of “two” and “three,” who got some of the water down their backs.  We were soon under weigh, however, and tugging manfully on, occasionally missing a stroke when the boat lurched on a great wave, and making but slow progress.  Fortunately we had not far to go before we arrived opposite to the parade, where a small crowd of people was watching our movements with great interest, and the pocket handkerchiefs again fluttered from the land.  The signals, however, met with no response from us.  Tug as we would, we seemed to make very little way, notwithstanding Hawkstone’s “Well rowed, gentlemen, she’s moving fast.  We shall do it yet.”

The waves were now running high, white crested, and with a long, wide sweep in them.  We were forced to steer close to the rocks at the point in order to keep as much as possible out of the tide, which was running so strongly a few yards from the land that we never could have made any way against it there.  As it was I could see that for many seconds we did not open a single point of rock, and it was all we could do to keep the boat from dropping astern.  Just as I was beginning to despair of ever getting back in safety, and was aware that my wind was going, and that both arms and legs were on the point of giving way, a loud shout from Hawkstone alarmed us all.  He jumped up, shouting, “Row hard on the bow side, ease off on the stroke,” and in a moment (how he got from the bows I shall never know!) we saw him seated behind the stern-board with the tiller in his hand.  The boat shot round, shipping a heavy sea, and we were at one moment within a yard of the rock underneath the parade.  “Row