THE WALK. 33
The boat lands. The children pass over a wall. The walk.

“ No,” said Phonny, “ Rodolphus is not there.”

The children remained standing upon the bank a few
minutes, looking sometimes at the dog upon the shore
before them, and sometimes at the boat and the boys on
the water, to see what the boys would do. The boat
gradually approached the shore. When they came near,
the boys called to the dog continually, endeavouring to
induce him to swim out to them through the water. But
the dog was not a water dog, and did not dare to come.

At last the boat touched the land. Then one of the
boys jumped out upon the beach, and taking up the dog
under his arm, he stepped back into the boat again. The
dog was of a lhght brown colour, and he had a long
bushy tail, so that it is not at all surprising that Phonny
at first mistook him for a fox.

As soon as the boys had got the dog in the boat, they
rowed away from the shore again, and then Caroline
said,

“Come! Now we will go on.”

So the party walked along the road together. In a
short time the road turned off from the shore, and then
Caroline led the way to a place where one or two stones
had been taken out from the top of the stone wall, so as
to make it easy to get over.

“Here is where we are to go,” said she.

So she climbed over the wall, and then helped Malle-
ville and Phonny over. Beyond the wall there was a
path. It led through and among tangled thickets of
bushes and trees, but still, as the path itself, though very
tortuous, was continuous and unimpeded, the children
got along in it very well. The land, so far as they could
see through the woods and thickets, rose very steep on

D