Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/238

222 tide, instead of coming in, had been steadily ebbing during the two hours. She had been very careless, and it seemed as if she might have to pay rather dearly for her mistake.

For there was the boat left high and dry upon the beach, and she saw that it was going to be very hard for her to  push it off. Nevertheless, as she must make the attempt, she hurried down to it. Had the tide been high, as she had calculated, she would merely have untied the rope,  leaning over from the end of the boat, pushed against the  rock with her oar, and, presto, she would have glided off  into deep water. But now!

Poor Amy looked about helplessly; first she must get her boat down to the water. It did not seem as if this could be the same boat that she had made skim along the  waves a few hours before. Now it was clumsy, unyielding and—yes, Amy actually called it obstinate, as she pushed  and pushed, and only succeeded in pressing the bow a little  more deeply into the sands. It was hopeless. She found it absolutely impossible to get it down to the water, and to  wait until the tide returned under the boat, was altogether  out of the question. It was almost equally out of the question for her to think of walking home. She was four or five miles away by the road, and she did not dare leave  the boat. It was about a mile, too, to the nearest house, which stood back some distance from the shore. Of course she might go there, and perhaps find a man who could help  her. But this would be putting some strange person to a great deal of trouble, and Amy knew that she was too  timid to ask the favor. Besides, she did not care to leave