"No, they think the Grants may be calling, so they don't dare to be out. Would you each like a stick? We've an assortment here, in the umbrella stand; this is a nice little one with a crooked handle for Aldred, and I can recommend this cherrywood for you, Mabel." The country at Grassingford was exceedingly pretty. It was not grand, nor mountainous, but was well wooded and dotted with picturesque farmsteads. There were deep lanes, with high hedges, which at the present season of the year were a mass of flowering hawthorn; and every little copse and spinney showed blue with hyacinths. There was a delightful spring-like feeling in the air, that combination of sun and breeze, bursting buds, and opening leaves which promises returning summer, renews all the vitality of human beings, and sets us singing like the birds for the mere joy of being alive. Such days seem echoes of the Golden Age slipped out of Paradise, days when we want to forget houses and cities and civilization, and go into the fields to learn the lessons Mother Nature has to teach us--lessons as old as the hills, but fresh every year, when they are fraught with the mystery of new creation. The path to the river lay across fields, and it would have been difficult to find it without a guide who knew the way. It zigzagged between patches of growing corn and hay, turned sharply round corners, and for a short distance even led down the half-dry bed of a stream. "The fact is, it isn't a proper path at all," said Francis. "It's only a short cut that we found out for ourselves; it saves a mile." "It's lovely! I should want to come by it, even if it were a mile longer instead of shorter," said Aldred, who always preferred the romantic to the practical. "How do you manage when the stream is full?" "Oh! we can't get along unless we wade. We came once last winter and had to turn back; the water was up to this stone, a regular rushing torrent, very different from what it is now. Can you scramble over this wall? Take my hand. Now, you see, we are in the lane, and we shall get to the ferry in a minute." The old-fashioned ferry was a most picturesque feature of the tidal river, a large, flat-bottomed boat being worked on chains, which stretched from one bank to the other. Sometimes a horse and cart, or a flock of sheep, would be taken over, as well as ordinary passengers, the whole cargo being slowly wound across the water by the ferryman, who turned a creaking windlass on board. The whole arrangement seemed a delightful survival of days when no one was ever in a hurry, and life revolved on leisurely wheels, as different from our modern rush and excitement as a bullock cart is from a motor car. Aldred was fascinated with the quaint contrivance, and anxious to cross on it; but Francis had other projects. "I say! Wouldn't it be jolly if we could get Pritchard to lend us his small boat, and row ourselves up the river to Holt's farm?" he suggested. "Ripping!" said Godfrey. "Why not?"