The kiss of the sun on the sail seemed to waken the statue into life, showing him wiry and lithe, with the blue of a warmer water in his eyes. After the marsh stood up he came about, and at once the world was all struggle and noise, straining and drumming canvas overhead, and hissing and bubbling water under the bow. The boat felt stiff from stem to stern, a passionate live thing set against control. She leaned over, as if bent on ridding herself of her human freight, and let the water line up and slap itself over their feet. The sail was gleaming now, and the bay deepening into blue, and suddenly Kit saw the dazzling front of his home, with the yew sharp-cut and black against its side. It had the rippling tide before it and the shining river behind, and where there was neither river nor tide there were green fields and thick hedges and white roads.... Faint at the upstairs window, he thought he saw a face.... Now they had found the channel and were coming at the house, rushing and winged as they had been before, such a flying thing of the deep as Agnes had once seen. It seemed to Kit, as it had seemed to her, that they would ride on that moving water straight into the house itself. The boat raced towards it as a horse towards a fence, only smoother and swifter and keener than any horse. He clambered out to the bow and knelt on the seat, and felt the ride and lift of her over the carrying sea. Kneeling, he thought of ancient figureheads, and knew what they had felt and why they stood for the whole exultation of the world.... It was plain to him what he should do when they rose at the house. The flung-back casement upstairs was like a sign, and behind it the face still glimmered and watched and leaned. Straight out of the boat, as she lifted under his feet, he would step unhurriedly into the room....