Thanks to friendly current and wind, they made steady progress toward their unexpected refuge. At one or two points less and less fairly in front of them the surf broke, but not to any formidable extent nor for many yards, apparently. Occasionally they did not seem to move at all. Then would come a gentle impetus, and they glided on. The sun was high in the sky, a hot autumn day was well in course before the boat drifted around and into a tiny cove quite on the landward shore of the island and back of the farm and its structures, which they must reach on foot. They grounded in a shoal. They could not secure the boat, though they were unwilling to risk its loss. At last they were compelled to do this. They attempted little carrying. Wet and panting, especially Philip, without whose assistance Gerald scarcely could have landed where they came in, they got to the firm ground.
Yes, it was not a dream! Their feet pressed earth at last. They walked slowly up the narrow, rocky beach to a stony field full of daisies and coarse grass. They turned around a buckwheat patch, and, last, they struck a lane that apparently traversed the entire length of their unknown host’s farm and premises. All was beautiful and peaceful in the sunshine of noon, though they were too exhausted and anxious to think of nature. They met nobody yet. The farm-house loomed up in the midst of its trees nearer and nearer. They plodded on wearily. Soon they came to a turn in the lane. A dog barked loudly from the edge of the garden fifty yards beyond, succeeding to a great patch of wild laurel. Philip called out a friendly “Holloa!” twice or thrice as they advanced. No one answered from right or left. Perhaps it would be well for him to go on alone for a few moments, anxious as he was to have Gerald well cared for.
“You stay here,” he said, accordingly, making Gerald sit down amid the laurel in one angle of a stone wall. “I’ll just walk ahead—and lecture that dog—and ring the bell and rouse the community, whatever it amounts to, and then I’ll come back and carry you into it in triumph. I wont leave you a moment longer than it will take me to break the news to them that they have got a couple of shipwrecked mariners on their hands who want luncheon—or breakfast.”
Gerald sat down, anxious, but nothing loath. Philip quickened his steps and went on toward the distant garden-gate and the yet silent house.
[CHAPTER XII.]
INVADING THE UNKNOWN.
Turning his head back to glance at Gerald, already half hid by the bushes straggling beside the path, Philip followed the weather-worn fence on his left. The garden into which he now looked seemed to be flourishing, chiefly in the way of Indian corn and tomatoes and string-beans. As he came closer to the house, and its outward structure was clearer, he noticed that it was more dignified and solid looking than most of its sort. It might almost be termed a mansion. It was built of grayish stone and white-painted wood, the second story covered by the high-pitched roof with its at least dozen dormer-windows. Both down-stairs and up-stairs many of these windows were closed.
“Family must be small, and all busy somewhere in the back, or perhaps in the garden,” Philip concluded, advancing.
A harmless snake darted across the way as he at length raised the gate-latch. He called out, “Holloa, here!” in as loud a tone as his fatigue permitted. His only answer was the dog’s leaping forward through the shrubbery from a nook under one of the trees. But this canine warder proved to be all bark and no bite. At the sight of Philip unlatching the gate his objections subsided to a growl, his bound ended in a trot, and his tail suddenly began wagging eagerly.