me woman, with black wavy hair and deep-set grey
eyes, came forward on the bank and waved her hand gracefully to us, and
said:

"Dick, my friend, we have almost had to wait for you! What excuse have
you to make for your slavish punctuality? Why didn't you take us by
surprise, and come yesterday?"

"O," said Dick, with an almost imperceptible jerk of his head toward our
boat, "we didn't want to come too quick up the water; there is so much to
see for those who have not been up here before."

"True, true," said the stately lady, for stately is the word that must be
used for her; "and we want them to get to know the wet way from the east
thoroughly well, since they must often use it now. But come ashore at
once, Dick, and you, dear neighbours; there is a break in the reeds and a
good landing-place just round the corner. We can carry up your things,
or send some of the lads after them."

"No, no," said Dick; "it is easier going by water, though it is but a
step. Besides, I want to bring my friend here to the proper place. We
will go on to the Ford; and you can talk to us from the bank as we paddle
along."

He pulled his sculls through the water, and on we went, turning a sharp
angle and going north a little. Presently we saw before us a bank of elm-
trees, which told us of a house amidst them, though I looked in vain for
the grey walls that I expected to see there. As we went, the folk on the
bank talked indeed, mingling their kind voices with the cuckoo's song,
the sweet strong whistle of the blackbirds, and the ceaseless note of the
corn-crake as he crept through the long grass of the mowing-field; whence
came waves of fragrance from the flowering clover amidst of the ripe
grass.

In a few minutes we had passed through a deep eddying pool into the sharp
stream that ran from the ford, and beached our craft on a tiny strand of
limestone-gravel, and stepped ashore into the arms of our up-river
friends, our journey done.

I disentangled myself from the merry throng, and mounting on the cart-
road that ran along the river some feet above the water, I looked round
about me. The river came down through a wide meadow on my left, which
was grey now with the ripened seeding grasses; the gleaming water was
lost presently by a turn of the bank, but over the meadow I could see the
mingled gables of a building where I knew the lock must be, and which now
seemed to combine a mill with it. A low wooded ridge bounded the