through the green wedge of leaves, their stalks twinkling as they
wriggled in and out, and sometimes one half-bitten cherry would go down
red into the green. The meadow was on a level with Jacob's eyes as he
lay back; gilt with buttercups, but the grass did not run like the thin
green water of the graveyard grass about to overflow the tombstones, but
stood juicy and thick. Looking up, backwards, he saw the legs of
children deep in the grass, and the legs of cows. Munch, munch, he
heard; then a short step through the grass; then again munch, munch,
munch, as they tore the grass short at the roots. In front of him two
white butterflies circled higher and higher round the elm tree.

"Jacob's off," thought Durrant looking up from his novel. He kept
reading a few pages and then looking up in a curiously methodical
manner, and each time he looked up he took a few cherries out of the bag
and ate them abstractedly. Other boats passed them, crossing the
backwater from side to side to avoid each other, for many were now
moored, and there were now white dresses and a flaw in the column of air
between two trees, round which curled a thread of blue--Lady Miller's
picnic party. Still more boats kept coming, and Durrant, without getting
up, shoved their boat closer to the bank.

"Oh-h-h-h," groaned Jacob, as the boat rocked, and the trees rocked, and
the white dresses and the white flannel trousers drew out long and
wavering up the bank.

"Oh-h-h-h!" He sat up, and felt as if a piece of elastic had snapped in
his face.

"They're friends of my mother's," said Durrant. "So old Bow took no end
of trouble about the boat."