"Now, Mr. Gill, we are quite ready to start. We shall get things straight on the voyage."
"You will have plenty of time, miss; she will anchor off Grain Spit till the tide begins to run up hard. You won't be able to get up the creek till an hour before high tide."
"That won't matter," Hilda said; "it will not be dark till nine."
"You can get up the anchor now," the builder said to two men who had been sitting smoking in the bow.
The barge's boat was lying bottom upwards on the hatches and another boat lay behind her.
"This boat does not belong to her, Mr. Gill; does she?" Hilda asked.
"No, miss; that is the men's boat. When they have got the barge to where she is to be moored, they will row down to Hole Haven, and get a tow up with the first barge that comes down after the tide has turned. How will you be coming back, Miss Covington?"
"We have arranged for a gig to be at Hole Haven at eight o'clock to drive us to Brentwood, where we shall take train to town. We shall not be up before half-past eleven, but as we have our man with us that does not matter; besides, the carriage is to be at the station to meet the train."
The girls and Walter watched the operation of getting up the anchor and of setting the foresail and jib. They remained on deck while the barge beat down the long reach past the dockyards, and then with slackened sheets rounded the wooded curve down into Gillingham Reach, then, accompanied by Roberts, they went below. Here they were soon hard at work. The great packages were opened, and mattresses and bedclothes brought out.
"This reminds one of our work when you first came to us," Netta laughed, as they made the bed.