“Oh yes,” said Muffin. “But it is not good for water.”
“I presume,” said Cheriton, “that water is not good for it.”
Muffin proceeded to wring a little more moisture out of her nether garments. She gave them an additional kilt, and began to come ashore.
“Keep in,” said Jim Lascelles, in a tone that brooked no denial. “Keep those Foot Pieces covered or you will ruin everything.”
“Mrs. Lascelles,” said Cheriton, “I seem to remember that you have a natural eye for scenery. I think I remarked it when you read the second chapter of your novel. Unfortunately, my own powers of vision are so limited that I am not always able to detect good scenery when I meet it. Those tall things are mountains, are they not?”
“Yes, I think we have the authority of Borrow that they are,” said Mrs. Lascelles.
“Capital,” said Cheriton, “and, as I am afraid our presence here interferes with the nice conduct of a masterpiece, do you mind showing me how to walk upon them? It is reckoned a good thing, I believe, for one to be able to say one has walked upon the mountains.”
Accompanied by the French novel and the red umbrella, Cheriton picked his way along the margin of Lake Dwygy in patent leathers with box-cloth uppers. It was a beauteous evening, calm and free. Not a sound was to be heard except the muffled murmur of the tiny wavelets washing the pebbles upon which they walked. Occasionally, they heard the call of a wood pigeon from the dense black mass behind them, embowering the hamlet of Pen-y-Gros. Once Mrs. Lascelles thought she detected the pipe of the curlew. Facing them was the gigantic Gwydr, with the August sunset beginning to peer over his shoulder. His majesty was crowned with a glory that was older than he.
The naiad and the painter’s easel were hidden now by a bend of the lake. They were out of sight and out of hearing too. The red umbrella rested on a large and smooth piece of slate, raised in such a manner that it formed an ideal seat for two persons. The two admirers of nature’s majesty were gazing around them at the immensity of things. Neither spoke for a little while. It may have been awe that enfolded them; on the contrary, it may have been a slight fatigue. For at least all experience tends to teach that French novels, red umbrellas, and patent-leather boots with box-cloth uppers are more susceptible to the latter emotion than they are to the former. Still, it is not to be controverted that Cheriton sighed profoundly.
“If I were that fellow Rousseau,” said he, “I think I should want to sit down and write something.”