about eleven o'clock
Charles Svendt laughingly prepared them for an exhibition of incompetence by stating that his swimming was n't a patch on his dancing , but that he could get along . Miss Penny gaily gave him points as to her own peculiar methods of swimming , which , as we know , demanded instant and easy touch of sand or stone at any moment of the halting progression . He confessed to a like prejudice in favour of something solid within reach of his sinking capacity , and they agreed to help one another . They called for him at the hotel about eleven o'clock , and went joking through the sunny lanes of Petit Dixcart , crossed the brook that runs out of Hart 's - Tongue Valley , and followed it by the winding path along the side of the cliff , among the gorse and ferns , down into the bay . They had a right merry bathe with no grave casualties . Miss Penny , indeed , got out of her depth twice , to the extent of quite two inches , and shrieked for help , which Charles Svendt gallantly hastened to render ; while Graeme and Margaret swam across from head to head , watched enviously by the paddlers in shallow waters . They went home by the climbing path up the hillside , rested on The Quarter-deck while Charles Svendt got his breath back , and so , by the old Dixcart hotel , and the new one nestling among its flowers and trees , and up the Valley , to the Vicarage .