weeds, stretching so far out into the water that the moorhen feeding
near the land was beyond reach of shot. From the green matted mass
through which a boat could scarcely have been forced came a slight
uncertain sound, now here now yonder, a faint 'suck-sock;' and the
dragon-flies were darting to and fro.

The only ripple of the surface, till broken by the sculls, was where the
swallows dipped as they glided, leaving a circle of tiny wavelets that
barely rolled a yard. Past the low but steep bluff of sand rising sheer
out of the water, drilled with martins' holes and topped by a sapling
oak in the midst of a great furze bush: yellow bloom of the furze, tall
brake fern nestling under the young branches, woodbine climbing up and
bearing sweet coronals of flower.

Past the barley that came down to the willows by the shore--ripe and
white under the bright sunshine, but yonder beneath the shadow of the
elms with a pale tint of amber. Past broad rising meadows, where under
the oaks on the upper ground the cattle were idly lying out of the
sultry heat.

Then the barren islands, strewn with stone and mussel-shells glistening
in the sunshine, over which in a gale the waves made a clean sweep,
rendered the navigation intricate; and the vessel had to be worked in
and out, now scraping against rocky walls of sandstone, now grounding
and churning up the bottom, till presently she floated in the bay
beneath the firs. There a dark shadow hung over the black water--still
and silent, so still that even the aspens rested from their rustling.

Out again into the sunshine by the wide mouth of the Green River, as the
chart named the brook whose level stream scarce moved into the lake. A