At this dismal time we were evidently all possessed by the idea that

we were followed. As the tide made, it flapped heavily at irregular

intervals against the shore; and whenever such a sound came, one or

other of us was sure to start, and look in that direction. Here and

there, the set of the current had worn down the bank into a little

creek, and we were all suspicious of such places, and eyed them

nervously. Sometimes, "What was that ripple?" one of us would say in a

low voice. Or another, "Is that a boat yonder?" And afterwards we would

fall into a dead silence, and I would sit impatiently thinking with what

an unusual amount of noise the oars worked in the thowels.

At length we descried a light and a roof, and presently afterwards ran

alongside a little causeway made of stones that had been picked up hard

by. Leaving the rest in the boat, I stepped ashore, and found the light

to be in a window of a public-house. It was a dirty place enough, and I

dare say not unknown to smuggling adventurers; but there was a good

fire in the kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to eat, and various

liquors to drink. Also, there were two double-bedded rooms,--"such as

they were," the landlord said. No other company was in the house than

the landlord, his wife, and a grizzled male creature, the "Jack" of the

little causeway, who was as slimy and smeary as if he had been low-water

mark too.

With this assistant, I went down to the boat again, and we all came

ashore, and brought out the oars, and rudder and boat-hook, and all

else, and hauled her up for the night. We made a very good meal by the

kitchen fire, and then apportioned the bedrooms: Herbert and Startop

were to occupy one; I and our charge the other. We found the air as

carefully excluded from both, as if air were fatal to life; and there

were more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the beds than I should have

thought the family possessed. But we considered ourselves well off,

notwithstanding, for a more solitary place we could not have found.

While we were comforting ourselves by the fire after our meal, the

Jack--who was sitting in a corner, and who had a bloated pair of shoes

on, which he had exhibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as

interesting relics that he had taken a few days ago from the feet of

a drowned seaman washed ashore--asked me if we had seen a four-oared

galley going up with the tide? When I told him No, he said she must have

gone down then, and yet she "took up too," when she left there.




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