fter
waiting a while, Hawkstone shouting more than once, it was proposed that
someone should go in search for them. Hawkstone was getting very
impatient, and warned us we should have a hard struggle to get home
again.

"It will be a bad job if we cannot get round the point," cried he, "for
then we shall have to land in the bay, and although there will be no
danger if we get off soon, yet the ladies will get a wetting, and maybe
the boat will be damaged. We shall just get a little water going out,
for the surf is running in strong."

"It is very wonderful," said Mrs. Bagshaw, "how suddenly the wind rises
on this coast, and the waves answer to the lash like wild colts. The
change from calm to storm is most remarkable."

"Very," thought I to myself, when I called to mind the sudden changes of
temper which I had noticed in her.

"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 c