He clambered carefully on board, and sat dripping.
"I have no food here," said the man, "for I live hard by, and did but come out to look at some lines I set down overnight, but we shall soon be there."
As he spoke he was poling vigorously, and they were already half way over the pool.
As they neared the opposite shore, Hyla saw the reeds grew to a great height above them, forming a thick screen with apparently an unbroken face. But he knew that suddenly they would come upon an opening which would be quite imperceptible to the ordinary eye, and so it proved.
With a sure hand the stranger sent the bows at a break but a yard wide in the reeds. The punt went hissing through the narrow passage, pushing the reeds aside for a moment, only that they should spring back again after its passage. A few yards through the thick growth brought them into a circular pool or basin. This also was surrounded with reeds which towered up into the air. It was very small in diameter, and floating on its placid black water was like being at the bottom of a jar.
The place was full of the earliest sunlights and busy with the newly awakened life of the fen.
But what arrested the serf's immediate attention was a curious structure at the far side of the pool. It resembled nothing so much as a small house-boat. A wooden hut had been built upon a floating platform of timber, and the whole was moored to a stout pile which projected some three feet from the water.
A fire smouldered on the deck in front of the hut, and a cooking pot hung over it by a chain.
"This is my home," said the man, pointing towards the raft. "Where I go I take my house with me, and ask no man's leave. I have lived on this pool for near two years now."
They landed on the raft.