“We shall have to use your boat, lady dear, since mine lies bottom upward on the beach, waiting for repairs,” he said, as he placed the two bags in the skiff and handed his companion to a seat in the stern.
“It is uncle’s boat; but we can send it back by a man from La Compte’s Landing,” replied Gloria, as her escort took the oars and laid himself stoutly to them.
They first crossed the water to a landing on the main opposite the little island. David Lindsay pushed the boat up on the sands, and beckoned to an old negro man who was seen standing in the open door of his hut, and commissioned him or his wife to go across to the island every day to attend to the needs of Winny, the cow, and to the pig and the poultry; and gave them the use of all the milk and eggs until Dame Lindsay’s return.
Then he pushed off and rowed away from the place.
La Compte’s Landing lay two miles down the coast, and it took a half hour’s hard rowing to reach its wharf and boat-house on the sands. Above these the land, covered with a thicket of trees, rose abruptly for several hundred feet. From the midst of the trees on the summit might be seen the chimneys and peaked roof of La Compte’s Lodge, and, farther down, the steeple of St. Luke’s church.
“This is my place also, David Lindsay, and it will soon be our place. But I would not live here. It is too near the Promontory,” said Gloria, as they landed.
An old negro man stood by the flagstaff.
“Gwine to take de boat, sar?” he inquired of the young man.
“Yes,” answered the latter.
Whereupon the negro ran up the red flag. That was the signal for the steamboat to stop for passengers.