he fifty feet of long grass to the border of the creek.

"Shall I not wait to help you back?" asked Landless.

"No," said the other, with his peculiarly sweet and touching smile. "I
will sit here awhile beneath the stars and say my hymn of praise to the
Creator of Night. You need not fear for me; my trusty stick will carry
me safely back. Go, lad, thou lookest weary enough thyself, and should
be sleeping after thy long day of toil."

"I am loth to leave you to-night," said Landless.

Godwyn smiled. "And I am always loth to see you go, but it were selfish
to keep you listening to a garrulous, wakeful old man, when your young
frame is in sore need of rest. Good-night, dear lad."

Landless gave him his hands. "Good-night," he said.

He stood below the other at the foot of the low bank to which was
moored his stolen boat. Godwyn stooped and kissed him upon the forehead.
"My heart is tender to-night, lad," he said. "I see in thee my Robert.
Last night I dreamed of him and of his mother, my dearly loved and
long-lost Eunice, and ah! I sorrowed to awake!"

Landless pressed his hand in silence, and in a moment the water widened
between them as Landless bent to his oars and the crazy little bark shot
out into the middle of the stream. At the entrance of the first
labyrinthine winding he turned and looked back to see Godwyn standing
upon the bank, the moonlight silvering his thin hair and high serene
brow. In the mystic white light, against the expanse of solemn heaven,
he looked a vision, a seer or prophet risen from beneath the sighing
grass. He waved his hand to Landless, saying in his quiet voice, "Until
to-morrow!" The boat made the turn, and the lonely figure and the hut
beyond it vanished, leaving only the moonlight, the wash and lap of
water, and the desolate sighing of the marsh grass.

There were many little channels and threadlike streams debouching from
the main creek, and separated from it by clumps and lines of partially
submerged grass, growing in places to the height of reeds. While passing
one of these clumps it occurred to Landless that the grass quivered and
rustled in an unusual fashion. He rested upon his oars and gazed at it
curiously, then stood up, and parting the reeds, looked through into the
tiny channel upon the other side. There was nothing to be seen, and the
rustling had ceased. "A heron has its nest there, or a turtle plunged,
shaking the reeds," said Landless to himself, and went his way.