The muddy stream, as far as the view could reach, was all patched with sunshine, like a beggar’s fustian with cloth of gold. Life was awake on the flood, but in such enchanted guise that for the moment his eyes filled with tears. Wherries shot the ripples, like bobbins traversing a loom of silver tissue; hay barges, soft apple-green along the thwarts and stacked high with yellow trusses, slid placidly past until the blue distance covered them with a haze like glass. From the happy shoreward mists, voices and anvils chimed in intricate harmony, but so subdued by distance as to seem the veritable bells of elf-land. Sir Robert gazed in that entrancement of the spirit that is impersonal and momentarily divine--that comes of a complete surrender to influences outside the bourne of Nature. A voice hailing him, brought him back to the ugly prose of being. “Boat, sir, boat!” “Hi! my lad. Pull in here!” The wherry came alongside the steps, and the man touched his hat. “Waterman, what’s the value of your boat?” “She’s not to sell, sir.” “Perhaps she’s to buy. I’ll give you ten guineas for her.” The craft was old and cranky. The man scratched his head, grinned and spat into the water. “I’m at your service, sir.” “And damn your company, say I. I don’t want it. If you’re for selling, there’s my offer. If you’re not, I’ll go elsewhere.” “Short and sweet. What d’ye want of her?” “That’s my business. Mind you your own, and----” He thought he caught a glimpse of a figure moving the other side of the gateway in the wall. “Come!” he cried hurriedly. “Take or reject. I’ve no time for barter.” He brought a handful of gold out of his pocket as he spoke. There was the sum he had named and a little over. The man hesitated--not from any doubt as to his own advantage in the bargain, but from a dread that he might be lending himself to some compromising transaction. The glitter of the pieces decided him. He stepped forward, hollowed his two hands together, and looked up greedily. “Take it a bargain,” he said. “I’m for your honour.” A moment later he was holding the wherry while the baronet climbed in, sat down and unshipped the sculls. The stern swung out into the stream. At that instant a figure came softly and hastily through the doorway, with a finger on its lips. It slipped a crown into the waterman’s ready palm. The prow of the wherry, held by the latter, jerked and bobbed and settled steady. He in the boat was at wrestle with the sculls. “Let her go!” he cried, without looking round. The waterman gave the craft a vigorous shove, and stepped back. “What’s in the wind with you, my dandy galloot?” he murmured watching, hand on hip; and--“Your honour makes better time with tongue-pad than with sculls,” he added with a grin. And, indeed, it must be confessed that Sir Robert was no accomplished oarsman.