e up his mind to take a
before-breakfast tramp to the outer bar and so arose at five, tucked a
borrowed pair of fisherman's boots beneath his arm, and, without saying
anything to his housekeeper, walked down the lawn behind the parsonage,
climbed the rail fence, and "cut across lots" to the pine grove on the
bluff. There he removed his shoes, put on the boots, wallowed through
the mealy yellow sand forming the slope of the bluff, and came out on
the white beach and the inner edge of the flats. Then he plashed on,
bound out to where the fish weirs stood, like webby fences, in the
distance.

It was a wonderful walk on a wonderful day. The minister enjoyed every
minute of it. Out here he could forget the petty trials of life, the
Didamas and Elkanahs. The wind blew his hat off and dropped it in a
shallow channel, but he splashed to the rescue and laughed aloud as he
fished it out. It was not much wetter than it had been that night of
the rain, when he tried to lend his umbrella and didn't succeed. This
reflection caused him to halt in his walk and look backward toward the
shore. The brown roof of the old tavern was blushing red in the first
rays of the sun.

A cart, drawn by a plodding horse and with a single individual on its
high seat, was moving out from behind the breakwater. Some fisherman
driving out his weir, probably.

The sand of the outer bar was dimpled and mottled like watered silk by
the action of the waves. It sloped gradually down to meet the miniature
breakers that rolled over and slid in ripples along its edge. Ellery
wandered up and down, picking up shells and sea clams, and peering
through the nets of the nearest weir at the "horsefoot crabs" and squid
and flounders imprisoned in the pound. There were a few bluefish there,
also, and a small school of mackerel.

The minister had been on the bar a considerable time before he began to
think of returning to the shore. He was hungry, but was enjoying himself
too well to mind. The flats were all his that morning. Only the cart and
its driver were in sight and they were half a mile off. He looked at
his watch, sighed, and reluctantly started to walk toward the town; he
mustn't keep Mrs. Coffin's breakfast waiting TOO long.

The first channel he came to was considerably deeper than when he forded
it on the way out. He noticed this, but only vaguely. The next, however,
was so deep that the water splashed in at the top of one of his boots.
He did notice that