She had walked on, maybe a hundred paces, before the absurdity of it struck her. She had been thinking of Mr. Pope's line: "When wild in woods the noble savage ran." And at the notion of Scipio, in gilt-laced hat and livery, tearing wildly through the undergrowth in the joy of liberty, she halted and laughed aloud. She was smiling yet when, at a turning of the leafy lane, she came upon the prettiest innocent sight. On a cushion of moss beside the path, two small children--a boy and a girl--lay fast asleep. The boy's arm was flung around his sister's shoulders, and across his thighs rested a wand or thin pole topped with a May-garland of wild hyacinths, red-robin and painted birds' eggs. A tin cup, brought to collect pence for the garland, glittered in the cart-rut at their feet. It had rolled down the mossy bank as the girl's fingers relaxed in sleep. They were two little ones of Troy, strayed hither from the merrymaking; and at first Miss Marty had a mind to wake them, seeing how near they lay to the river's brink. But noting that a fallen log safeguarded them from this peril, she fumbled for the pocket beneath her skirt, dropped a sixpence with as little noise as might be into the tin cup, and tiptoed upon her way. About three hundred yards from the village she met another pair of children; and, soon after, a score or so in a cluster, who took toll of her in pence; for almost everyone carried a garland. And then the trees opened, and she saw before her the village with its cottages, grey and whitewashed, its gardens and orchards, mirrored in the brimming tide, all trembling in the morning light and yet exquisitely still. Far up the river, beyond the village and the bridge, a level green meadow ran out, narrowing the channel; and here beneath the apple-trees--for the meadow was half an orchard--had been set out many lines of white-covered tables, at which the Mayers made innocently merry. Innocently, did I say? Well, I have known up-country folk before now to be scandalised by some things which we in the Duchy think innocent enough. So let me admit that the three long-boats conveyed something more than the youth and beauty of Troy to that morning's Maying; that when launched from Mr. Runnells' yard they were not entirely what they seemed: that from their trial spin across the bay they returned some inches deeper in the water, and yet they did not leak. Had you perchance been standing by the shore in the half-light as they came up over the shallows, you might have wondered at the number of times they took ground, and at the slowness of the tide to lift and float them. You might have wondered again why, after they emerged from the deep shadow of Sir Felix Felix-Williams' woods upon the southern shore, albeit in shallow water, they seemed to feel their hindrances no longer. Have you ever, my reader, caught hold of a lizard and been left with his tail in your hands?