“Miss Dearborn,” he called, “I think you are a great deal too far from shore, and you must be getting very tired and hot. Your face is greatly flushed. I will hurry along and see if I can find a good place for you to stop and cool yourself.”
“I am all right,” cried Margery, resting on her oars. “I get along very well, only the boat doesn’t steer properly. I think it is because of the weight of that stick in the bow. I suppose I cannot get rid of it?”
“Oh no!” cried the bishop, in alarm; “please don’t think of it! But if you touch shore at the first open space, I think I can arrange it better for you.”
“Very good,” said she; “you go ahead and find such a place, and I will come in.”
“If you touch shore,” said the bishop to himself, “you don’t go out again in that boat alone! You don’t know how to row at all.”
The bishop ran a hundred yards or more before he found a place at which a boat could be beached. It was not a very good place, but if he could reach out and seize the bow, that would be enough for him. He was strong enough to pull that boat over a paved street.
As he looked out over the water he saw that Margery had progressed considerably since he had seen her last, but she was still farther from shore than before.
“Row straight towards me!” he shouted. “Here is a fine landing-place, cool and shady.”
She looked around and managed to turn the boat’s head in his direction. Then she rowed hard, pulling and splashing, and evidently a little tired. She was strong, but this unusual exercise was a trial to her muscles. Perhaps, too, she felt that the bishop was watching her, and that made her a little nervous, for she could not help being aware that she was not handling the oars as well as when she started out. With a strong pull at her right oar to turn the boat inland, she got her left oar tangled between the water and the boat, so it seemed to her, and lost her hold of it. In a moment it was overboard and floating on the lake.
Leaning over the side of the boat, she made a grasp at the oar, but it was too far for her to reach it; and then, by a spasmodic movement of the other oar, the distance was increased.