ducks and drakes play with hilarious delight at their own family game, or
spread out one wing after another in the slower enjoyment of letting the
delicious moisture penetrate to their innermost down. The smoke from the
flues of Sandbourne had barely strength enough to emerge into the
drizzling rain, and hung down the sides of each chimney-pot like the
streamer of a becalmed ship; and a troop of rats might have rattled down
the pipes from roof to basement with less noise than did the water that
day.

On the broad moor beyond the town, where Christopher's meetings with the
teacher had so regularly occurred, were a stream and some large pools;
and beside one of these, near some hatches and a weir, stood a little
square building, not much larger inside than the Lord Mayor's coach. It
was known simply as 'The Weir House.' On this wet afternoon, which was
the one following the day of Christopher's last lesson over the plain, a
nearly invisible smoke came from the puny chimney of the hut. Though the
door was closed, sounds of chatting and mirth fizzed from the interior,
and would have told anybody who had come near--which nobody did--that the
usually empty shell was tenanted to-day.

The scene within was a large fire in a fireplace to which the whole floor
of the house was no more than a hearthstone. The occupants were two
gentlemanly persons, in shooting costume, who had been traversing the
moor for miles in search of wild duck and teal, a waterman, and a small
spaniel. In the corner stood their guns, and two or three wild mallards,
which represented the scanty product of their morning's labour, the
iridescent necks of the dead birds replying to every flicker of the fire.
The two sportsmen were smoking, and their man was mostly occupying
himself in poking and stirring the fire with a stick: all three appeared
to be pretty well wetted.