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.