eemed endless, did this meadow. But it ended at last, by a grassy
shore where the two rivers met, cutting off and ending all hope.
And here, for the first and only time on their voyage, all Tilda's
courage forsook her.

"Bill! Oh, Bill!" she wailed, standing at the water's edge and
stretching forth her hands across the relentless flood.

But the dog, barking desperately beside her, drowned her voice, and no
answer came.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE S.S. EVAN EVANS

"_Then three times round went our gallant ship._"--OLD SONG.

The time is next morning, and the first grey hour of daylight.
The scene, an unlovely tidal basin crowded with small shipping--
schooners and brigantines dingy with coal-dust, tramp steamers, tugs,
Severn trows; a ship lock and beyond it the river, now grown into a
broad flood all grey and milky in the dawn.

Tilda and Arthur Miles sat on the edge of the basin, with Godolphus
between them, and stared down on the deck of the _Severn Belle_ tug,
waiting for some sign of life to declare itself on board. By leave of a
kindly cranesman, they had spent the night in a galvanised iron shed
where he stored his cinders, and the warmth in the cinders had kept them
comfortable. But the dawn was chilly, and now they had only their
excitement to keep them warm. For some reason best known to himself the
dog did not share in this excitement, and only the firm embrace of
Tilda's arm around his chest and shoulders held him from wandering.
Now and again he protested against this restraint.

Tilda's eyes never left the tug; but the boy kept intermittent watch
only, being busy writing with the stump of a pencil on a scrap of paper
he had spread on the gritty concrete. Somewhere in the distance a
hooter sounded, proclaiming the hour. Still but the thinnest thread of
smoke issued from the tug's funnel.

"It's not like Bill," Tilda muttered. "'E was always partic'lar about
early risin' . . . An' I don't know what _you_ feel like, Arthur Miles,
but _I_ could do with breakfast."

"And a wash," suggested the boy.

"It don't look appetisin'--not even if we knew 'ow to swim," said Tilda,
relaxing her watch for an instant only, and studying the water in the
basin. "We must 'old on--'old on an' wait till the clouds roll by--that
was one of Bill's sayin's. An' to think of 'im bein' so near!"
Tilda never laughed, but some mirth in her voice anticipated Bill's
astonishment. "Now read me what yer've written."