This was Thursday; and in the evening, between seven and eight o'clock,
I launched the boat again under the eyes of the population and started
fishing on the inner grounds, well in sight of the Porth. Dusk fell,
and with it the young moon dropped behind the western headland. Far out
beyond Menawhidden the riding-lights of a few drifters sparkled in the
darkness: but I had little to fear from them.
The moon had no sooner disappeared than I shifted my ground, and pulling
slowly down in the shore's shadow (I had greased the leathers of my oars
for silence), ran the boat in by the point under Gunner's Meadow,
beached her cunningly between two rocks, and pulled a tarpaulin over to
hide her white-painted interior. My only danger now lay in blundering
against the coastguard: but by dodging from one big boulder to another
and listening all the while for footsteps, I gained the withy bed at the
foot of the meadow. The night was almost pitch-black, and no one could
possibly detect the boat unless he searched for it.
I followed the little stream up the valley bottom, through an orchard,
and struck away from it across another meadow and over the rounded
shoulder of the hill to my right. This brought me in rear of a
kitchen-garden and a lonely cob-walled cottage, the front of which faced
down a dozen precipitous steps upon the road leading from Lansulyan to
the Porth.
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