Pence slipped into a sitting position and looked as directed. He beheld from his dizzy elevation the rolling marshland, extending from the far-distant stream of the Thames to the foot of low-lying inland hills. As it was July, and the sun shone strongly, the marshes were comparatively dry, but here and there Pence beheld pools and ditches flashing like jewels in the yellow radiance. Immediately before him he could see the village of Marshely, not so very far away, with red-roofed houses gathered closely round the grey, square tower of the church; he could even see the tin roof of his own humble Bethel gleaming like silver in the sunlight. And here and there, dotted indiscriminately, were lonely houses, single huts, clumps of trees, and on the higher ground rising inland, more villages similar to Marshely. The flat and perilously green lands were divided by hedges and ditches and fences into squares and triangles and oblongs and rectangles, all as emerald-hued as faery rings. The human habitations were so scattered, that it looked as though some careless genii had dropped them by chance when flying overhead. Far away glittered the broad stream of the Thames, with ships and steamers and boats and barges moving, outward and inward bound, on its placid surface. The rigid line of the railway shot straightly through villages and trees and occasional cuttings, across the verdant expanse, with here and there a knot representing a station. Smoke curled from the tall chimneys of the dynamite factories near the river, and silvery puffs of steam showed that a train was on its way to Tilbury. All was fresh, restful, beautiful, and so intensely green as to be suggestive of early Spring buddings. "When I took command of this here farm, ten years back," observed Captain Huxham, drawing in a deep breath of moist air, "it were water-logged like a derelict, es y' might say. Cast yer weather-eye over it now, Mr. Pence, an' wot's yer look-out: a gardin of Edin, smilin' with grain." "Yet it's a derelict still," remarked the preacher, struggling to his feet and holding on by the chimney; "let me examine your farm of Bleacres."