Before they well knew that they had been asleep, they started to feel the rocking of the boat, and found themselves out upon the broad waters of the river. And there in the fore-part of the boat, clear and sparkling in the moonlight, stood a naked man of shining silver. He was bending upon the pole of the boat, and his long hair fell over it right down into the water. The old couple rose up quietly, and unwinding themselves from the net, threw it over the Silver Man, over his head and hands and feet, and dragged him down into the bottom of the boat. The old man caught the ferry pole, and heaved the boat still into the middle of the stream. As he did so a gentle shock came to the heart of each; feebly it fluttered and sank low. “Oh, wife!” sighed the old man, and reached out his hand for hers. The Silver Man lay still in the folds of the net, and looked at them with a wise and quiet gaze. “What would you have of me?” he said, and his voice was far off and low. They said, “Bring us into the land of Returning Time.” The Silver Man said: “Only once can you go there, and once return.” They both answered “We wish once to go there, and once return.” So he promised them that they should have the whole of their request; and they unloosed him from the net, and landed all together on the further bank. Up the hill they went, following the track of the Silver Man. Presently they reached its crest; and there before them lay all the howling winter of the world. The Silver Man turned his face and looked back; and looking back it became all young, and ruddy, and bright. The ferryman and his wife gazed at him, both speechless at the wonderful change. He took their hands, making them turn the way by which they had come; below their feet was a deep black gulf, and beyond and away lay nothing but a dark starless hollow of air. “Now,” said their guide, “you have but to step forward one step, and you shall be in the land of Returning Time.” They loosed hold of his hands, joined clasp, husband with wife, and at one step upon what seemed gulf beneath their feet, found themselves in a green and flowery land. There were perfumed valleys and grassy hills, whose crops stretched down before the breeze; thick fleecy clouds crossed their tops, and overhead, amid a blue air rang the shrill trilling of birds. Behind lay, fading mistily as a dream, the bare world they had left; and fast on his forward road, growing small to them from a distance, went the Silver Man, a shining point on the horizon. The ferryman and his wife looked, and saw youth in each other’s faces beginning to peep out through the furrows of age; each step they took made them grow younger and stronger; years fell from them like worn-out rags as they went down into the valleys of the land of Returning Time.