In the Tideway

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

"But the professor will row, of course. Every one rows at Oxford. Indeed, I, for one, think the Oxford style is the best in the world."

"Then perhaps you will not require my aid. I only learnt off the coast of Cornwall."

Cynthia looked at her usually docile adorer in amaze; she did not understand that the big man had for once thought it worth while to make up his mind. "But we couldn't go without you," she pleaded quite meekly. "You see, you have been there before. Ah, no! we couldn't go without you."

"If I can be of any use--" said the captain magnificently, and the sight of his aggrieved but courteous dignity gave Cynthia quite a pang.

So it was arranged that, about slack tide, he and the professor should row to Eilean-a-fa-ash from the boat-house on the north headland, and afterwards, taking advantage of the full tide and southerly current, slip down the coast across the sands to meet the wagonette. Eustace and Maud proposed to start about the same time for Eval House, so that he might say good-bye to Miss Willina before joining the yacht's boat at Grâda point, whence the carriage, on its return journey, would take Lady Maud back to Roederay.

A sombre silence had lain between these two all day, and even when they were left alone on the terrace watching the others disappear shorewards, they said nothing for a time. A great stillness seemed to be in the very air. Not a breath on the water, not a sound on the moor, not a cloud on the sky. The very house seemed asleep; most of the servants away for edification or amusement at the preaching, miles to the south, amongst the peat bogs and heather, singing psalms and eating peppermint drops, praising the Creator and flirting with the creature.

The silence must have reminded Eustace of this fact, for at last he turned to his companion hastily. "They won't be at Eval, so there is no use going. Come, Maud! It is the last time we shall be together, I suppose. Come."

It was not much to grant, she thought, when she might never see him again. So they went out together over the moors, down by the little pools where the water showed their shadows, blended one into the other, upon the cairns where they sate together, looking out over the sea. Together, always together, Eustace and she, as it had been at the beginning. And this was the end, the very end.

Meanwhile the trio in the boat set forth gaily; the professor very straight in the back, and with no little style giving the stroke, whilst Arthur Weeks, gloomily polite, paddled in the bows, debarred from even a fair sight of his beloved. The full flood-tide lapped at the furthermost scallop of seaweed on the shingly shore, and touched the sea-pinks cresting the rocks.

"Couldn't you pull a leetle harder?" suggested the captain drily, when the professor paused in a long sentence to take breath. "I don't want to hustle anybody, but we have only just got time to manage it. We are making a good deal of leeway, and the channel north is a bit dangerous."