Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/36



passage over the causeway was a hasty and somewhat perilous one, for the rocks  were overgrown with thick, brown seaweed  and still wet from the falling tide. Considering what a hurry he was in and how many times he looked back over his shoulder, it was  quite remarkable that he made the crossing  without mishap. He walked up a strip of sandy beach, climbed a steep bank and came  into the cool, dark pine woods. The faint marks of an old road showed before him, covered with a rusty-brown carpet of fallen needles and leading past the big, grey empty mill  of which the Captain had spoken. He followed along it, turned down the lane as directed and tramped some distance straight through the forest, the tall black trees towering above him and the partridge berries, trailing ground pine and slender swinging Indian  pines growing thick beneath his feet. 20