the means for such a quest were at my disposal. I
was part owner of a boat which had been built for hunting and fishing
cruises on the shallow waters of the Great South Bay. It was a
deliberate, but not inconvenient, craft, well named the Patience; and my
turn for using it had come. Black Zekiel, the captain, crew, and cook,
was the very man that I would have chosen for such an expedition. He
combined the indolent good-humour of the negro with the taciturnity of
the Indian, and knew every shoal and channel of the tortuous waters. He
asked nothing better than to set out on a voyage without a port; sailing
aimlessly eastward day after day, through the long chain of landlocked
bays, with the sea plunging behind the sand-dunes on our right, and the
shores of Long Island sleeping on our left; anchoring every evening in
some little cove or estuary, where Zekiel could sit on the cabin roof,
smoking his corn-cob pipe, and meditating on the vanity and comfort of
life, while I pushed off through the mellow dusk to explore every creek
and bend of the shore, in my light canoe.

There was nothing to hasten our voyage. The three weeks' vacation was
all but gone, when the Patience groped her way through a narrow, crooked
channel in a wide salt-meadow, and entered the last of the series
of bays. A few houses straggled down a point of land; the village of
Quantock lay a little farther back. Beyond that was a belt of woods
reaching to the water; and from these the south-country road emerged to
cross the upper end of the bay on a low causeway with a narrow bridge
of planks at the central point. Here was our Ultima Thule. Not even
the Patience could thread the eye of this needle, or float through the
shallow marsh-canal farther to the east.

We anchored just in front of the bridge, and as I pushed the canoe
beneath it, after supper, I felt the indefinable sensation of having
passed that way before. I knew beforehand what the little boat would
drift into. The broad saffron light of evening fading over a still
lagoon; two converging lines of pine trees running back into the sunset;
a grassy point upon the right; and behind that a neglected garden, a
tangled bower of honeysuckle, a straight path bordered with box, leading
to a deserted house with a high, white-pillared porch--yes, it was
Larmone.

In the morning I went up to the village to see if I could find trace of
my artist's visit to the place. There was no difficulty in the search,
f