He advanced slowly, feeling with his stick among the hemlocks and dock-leaves.

“There’s no water, anyway,” he said, stepping down among the obscure rank-scented growths. “Wait a second,” he cried, “I believe we can get up over this.”

He felt about with his free hand. He could just detect the faint outlines of the branches of some small tree or shrub. It turned out⁠—well did he know that acrid mind-cleansing pungency in his nostrils!⁠—to be an elder-bush; and he pulled himself up by its brittle stalks till he attained the summit of the hedge.

“Come on! Catch hold!” he cried triumphantly, securing a firm position for himself and stretching out the handle of his stick towards her.

It took her a second or two of struggling amid the mass of weeds and of fumbling with upraised arm, before she reached the extended support. But when once she felt it between her fingers she clung tight with both hands, and he soon pulled her up beside him.