126 \AWLBLES OF A VOtMINIS 



Then, as the sweet breath of the lime-trees grows 

 stronger in the twilight, you pass the house-boats at 

 their moorings, near the well-remembered village, and 

 put in where the long bridge crosses the wide river, and 

 where the old hostel invites the oarsmen to its pleasant 

 shelter. As you make fast your skiff among the crowd 

 of boats that spread out like a fan into the stream, your 

 name is shouted from the shore. Yes, your fellow- 

 voyagers of the morrow are among the group of idlers 

 round the doorway. 



How easily the " river man " flings off the trammels 

 of his ordinary garb ! But yesterday he was in the 

 City, in coat of faultless cut, with unimpeachable hat, 

 and the very correctest of ties. Behold him now a 

 stalwart oarsman, disguised in flannels and a 'varsity 

 cap, a short pipe in his mouth, and no hint about him 

 anywhere to tell that only last night he threw down the 

 pen or shut up the ledger. But it is hard to leave the 

 world altogether unremembered. Perhaps even now he 

 is wandering away in fancy from the river, and the 

 boats, and the pleasant scene before him, to reflect on the 

 state of the market, to think with a touch of uneasi- 

 ness of that venture in tea, or to meditate on fluctuations 

 in diamonds. That figure, now, in the very oldest of 

 coats and most untidy of caps may even be a school- 

 master, who has left those few sheep in the wilderness, 

 and has managed somehow to snatch this brief respite 

 from his toil. 



The group breaks up. One by one the idlers quit the 

 doorway and find their billets in the cosy inn. Silence 



