14 PEPACTON 



gossiped with me from the bank above when the 

 storm had abated. 



The second night I stopped at the sign of the 

 elm-tree. The woods were too wet, and I con- 

 cluded to make my boat my bed. A superb elm, 

 on a smooth grassy plain a few feet from the water's 

 edge, looked hospitable in the twilight, and I drew 

 my boat up beneath it. I hung my clothes on the 

 jagged edges of its rough bark, and went to bed 

 with the moon, "in her third quarter," peeping 

 under the branches upon me. I had been reading 

 Stevenson's amusing "Travels with a Donkey," and 

 the lines he pretends to quote from an old play kept 

 ruaning in my head : 



" The bed was made, the room was fit, 

 By punctual eve the stars were lit; 

 The air was sweet, the water ran ; 

 No need was there for maid or man, 

 When we put up, my ass and I, 

 At God's green caravanserai." 



But the stately elm played me a trick : it slyly and 

 at long intervals let great drops of water down upon 

 me, now with a sharp smack upon my rubber coat; 

 then with a heavy thud upon the seat in the bow or 

 stern of my boat ; then plump into my upturned ear, 

 or upon my uncovered arm, or with a ring into my 

 tin cup, or with a splash into my coffee- pail that 

 stood at my side full of water from a spring I had 

 just passed. After two hours' trial I found drop- 

 ping off to sleep, under such circumstances, was out 

 of the question; so I sprang up, in no very amiable 

 mood toward my host, and drew my boat clean from 



