unts they bolted as fast as they could go. I picked up the picture of
the bridge, together with the portfolio, and took them to the young
woman who owned them. As the hogs had gone, all three of the women was
now getting down from the gate.

"Thank you very much," she said, "for saving my drawings. It was
awfully good of you, especially--"

"Oh, you are welcome," said I, cutting her off short; and, handing the
other young woman her umbrella, I passed by the impudent one without so
much as looking at her, and on the other side of the hedge I saw Jone
coming across the grass. I jerked open the gate, not caring who it
might swing against, and walked to meet Jone. When I was near enough I
called out to know what on earth had become of him that he had left me
there so long by myself, forgetting that I hadn't wanted him to come at
all; and he told me that he had had a hard time getting on shore,
because they found the banks very low and muddy, and when he had landed
he was on the wrong side of a hedge, and had to walk a good way around
it.

"I was troubled," said he, "because I thought you might come to grief
with the hogs."

"Hogs!" said I, so sarcastic, that Jone looked hard at me, but I didn't
tell him anything more till we was in the boat, and then I just said
right out what had happened. Jone couldn't help laughing.

"If I had known," said he, "that you was on top of a gate discussing
horses' tails and cabs I wouldn't have felt in such a hurry to get to
you."

"And you would have made a mistake if you hadn't," I said, "for hogs
are nothing to such a person as was on that gate."

Old Samivel was rowing slow and looking troubled, and I believe at that
minute he forgot the River Wye was crooked.

"That was really hard, madam," he said, "really hard on you; but it was
a woman, and you have to excuse women. Now if they had been three
Englishmen sitting on that gate they would never have said such things
to you, knowing that you was a stranger in these parts and had come on
shore to do them a service. And now, madam, I'm glad to see you are
beginning to take notice of the landscapes again. Just ahead of us is
another bend, and when we get around that you'll see the prettiest
picture you've seen yet. This is a crooked river, madam, and that's how
it got its name. Wye means crooked."

After a while we came to a little church near the river bank, and here
Samivel stopped rowing, and putting his hands on his knees he la