lready began to lift the
bold outline of Bredon Hill that shuts out the Severn Valley, when
without warning the boy broke into song . . .

It was the strangest performance. It had no tune in it, no intelligible
words; it was just a chant rising and falling, as the surf might rise
and fall around the base of that Island for which his eyes sought the
green vale right away to the horizon.

Mr. Jessup looked up from his work. His eyes encountered Tilda's, and
Tilda's were smiling. But at the same time they enjoined silence.

The boy sang on. His voice had been low and tentative at first; but
now, gathering courage, he lifted it upon a note of high challenge. He
could not have told why, but he sang because he was steering towards his
fate. It might lie far, very far, ahead; but somewhere ahead it lay,
beyond the gradually unfolding hills; somewhere in the west these would
open upon the sea, and in the sea would be lying his Island. His song
already saluted it.

"I am coming!" it challenged. "O my fate, be prepared for me!"

So they floated down to Harvington Mill and Weir; and as Mr. Jessup
half-turned his head, warning him to steer for shore, the boy's voice
faltered and dropped suddenly to silence, as a lark drops down from the
sky. Tilda saw him start and come to himself with a hot blush, that
deepened when she laughed and ordered 'Dolph to bark for an encore.

They ported the canoe and luggage down a steep and slippery overfall,
launched her again, and shot down past Harvington Weir, where a crowd of
small sandpipers kept them company for a mile, flitting ahead and
alighting but to take wing again. Tilda had fallen silent. By and by,
as they passed the Fish and Anchor Inn, she looked up at Mr. Jessup and
asked--

"But if you want to paint fast, why not travel by train?"

"I thought of it," Mr. Jessup answered gravely. "But the railroad
hereabouts wasn't engineered to catch the sentiment, and it's the
sentiment I'm after--the old-world charm of field and high-road and
leafy hedgerow, if you understand me." Here he paused of a sudden, and
laid his sketch-block slowly down on his knee. "Je-hosaphat!" he
exclaimed, his eyes brightening. "Why ever didn't I think of it?"

"Think of wot?"

He nodded his head.

"You'll see, missie, when we get to Evesham! You've put a notion into
me--and we're going to rattle up Turner and make him hum. The
guide-books say he spent considerable of his time at Tewk