But he found it increasingly difficult after an hour or two of companionship with Marion Beecher to get back to the emotions which had swayed him during the weeks of his intimacy with Miss Goold. To write for the _Croppy_ after sitting beside Marion in church on Sunday evenings was like passing suddenly from a quiet wood into a heated saloon where people wrangled. A wave of the old passionate feeling, when it returned, affected him as raw spirit would the palate of a boy. One day early in summer--the short summer of Connaught, which is glorious in June, and dissolves into windy mist and warm rain in the middle of July--Hyacinth was invited by Canon Beecher to join a boating party on the lake. The river, whose one useful function was the turning of Mr. Quinn’s millwheel, wound away afterwards through marshy fields and groves of willow-trees into the great lake. At its mouth the Beechers kept their boat, a cumbrous craft, very heavy to row, but safe and suited to carry a family in comfort. The party started early--Canon Beecher, Hyacinth, and one of the boys very early, for they had to walk the two miles which separated Ballymoy from the lake shore. Mrs. Beecher, the girls, the two other boys, and the baskets of provisions followed a little later on the Rectory car, packed beyond all possibility of comfort. The Canon himself pulled an oar untiringly, but without the faintest semblance of style, and the party rippled with joy when they discovered that Hyacinth also could row. ‘Now,’ said Elsie, ‘we can go anywhere. We can go on rowing and rowing all day, and see places we’ve never seen before.’ ‘My dear girl,’ said her mother, ‘remember that Mr. Conneally and your father aren’t machines. You mustn’t expect them to go too far.’ ‘Oh, but,’ said Elsie, ‘father says he never gets tired if he has only one oar to pull.’ The Canon was preparing for his toil. The old coat, in colour now almost olive green, was folded and used as a cushion by Marion in the bow. His white cuffs, stowed inside his hat, were committed to the care of Mrs. Beecher. He rolled his gray shirtsleeves up to the elbow, and unbuttoned his waistcoat. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I’m ready. If I’m not hurried, I’ll pull along all day. But what about you, Conneally? You’re not accustomed to this sort of thing?’ But Hyacinth for once was self-confident. He might be a poor singer and a contemptible tennis player, but he knew that nothing which had to do with boats could come amiss to him. He looked across the sparkling water of the lake. ‘I’ll go on as long as you like. You won’t tire me when there’s no tide and no waves. This is a very different business from getting out the sweeps to pull a nobby five miles against the strength of the ebb, with a heavy ground swell running.’ About eleven o’clock they landed on an island and ate biscuits. The Canon told Hyacinth the story of the ruin under whose walls they sat.