I followed him for about a quarter of an hour through the dim, mossy glades of the grand old wood, till all at once it grew lighter, and we stepped out beside a broad sheet of water dotted with lilies and patches of rush and reed, while about fifty yards farther along the bank of the broad pool there was a roughly-thatched boat-house, with a mossy old punt moored to one of the posts by a rusty chain.
“Now, then, what do you think of this, eh?” said Mercer.
I looked round at the smooth sheet of water glistening in the bright sunshine, completely shut in by giant old trees whose great branches hung down over the sides and even dipped their ends and seemed to be repeated in the mirror-like surface. Here I could see silvery lily-blossoms, and there others of gold floating like cups amongst the broad round leaves, and, turning from the beautiful picture to my companion, I could only say two words:
“It’s glorious!”
“I should think it is,” he cried. “We two are going to have no end of fun together. You don’t mind the other boys bullying you, and old Reb snarling and finding fault, and the Doctor boxing your ears with your books, when you’ve got places like this to come to. Hi! look at the old moorhen, there, with her young ones,” and he pointed to a curious-looking bird swimming about and flicking its black and white tail, as it went in and out among the rushes growing in the water, with six little sooty-looking, downy young ones swimming after it. “Ever see one of them before?”
“No,” I said. “There’s another over there too.”
“No, it isn’t; that’s a bald coot. It’s got a white shield on the top of its head, and the moorhen’s got a red one like sealing-wax. Hi! look at that!”
For all of a sudden there was a rush and splash close to the reeds, and the moorhen and five young ones went through the water with a dash to hide among the reeds.
“Know what that was?”
“They saw us, and were frightened. Or did some one throw a big stone?”