dock wall round the harbour. I tried to amuse myself for
an hour while the tide might rise; but at length, impatient and sleepy
and ready for bed, to be off to-morrow at break of day, I determined to
get on board at once somehow or other.

[Picture: Descending to the boat]

Descending then by the iron bars until I reached the last of them, I
swung myself on the slack of the strong cable hanging from above (and
attached at the other end to my yawl), and which the man received strict
orders to "haul taut" at the critical moment. Alas! in his clumsy hands
the effect intended was exactly reversed; the rope was gently loosened,
and I subsided in the most undignified, inevitable, and provokingly cool
manner quietly into the water at 10.30 P.M. However, there was no use in
grumbling, so I spluttered and laughed, and then went to bed.

Long before sunrise the Rob Roy was creeping out of the harbour of Dieppe
against the strong wind at that point dead ahead; but I took the tow-line
thrown down from the quay by some sturdy fishwives, who will readily tug
a boat to the pier head for a franc or two, and thus save a good
half-hour of tedious rowing against wind and tide. This rope was of a
deep black colour, very fine, thin, and yet strong. There was no time to
find out what it was made of, but it seemed to be plaited of human hair.
As I was aft in my boat and steering, the line suddenly slipped and
disappeared, and the Rob Roy was in great danger of going adrift on the
other pier head, but the excellent dames speedily regained their long
black tress, and coiled it and threw it to me again with great dexterity;
and soon all was put right, and the sails were up, and the line cast off,
and we plunged along in buoyant spirits.

It was a fair wind now, and with a long day in front, and the freshness
of Monday after a good rest. Still this was a rather more anxious day
than the others, because in those though we had passed over the dangers
on the coast of the Somme, they were hidden by water; and on a sunny
morning who can realize shoals that are so fatal in bad weather, but are
concealed by the smiling calm of a fine day? Not so with the great
beetling cliffs of sharp red flint now glittering alongside my course for
miles and miles far beyond what the eye could reach. These formed an
impressive object ever in sight, and generally begetting, as it was seen,
an earnest hope that the weather might be good "ju