He came to a shallow stream, a mere brook winding through the valley amid red willow and wild rice and fragrant beds of brown-topped reeds. A flight of swans passed overhead, their necks outstretched, their bodies casting gaunt shadows across the grass. On the near side patches of bush variegated the plain; beyond, the descending sun cast a dazzling haze. The wind was murmuring in the reeds, and the whistlings of aquatic fowl made a plaintive music. The lonely boy relieved his solitude as he walked, by reciting to the tune of the breeze one of the poetic fables he had learnt at school:
"And when he was unable to restrain his secret, he crept among the reeds, and murmured, 'King Midas has the ears of an ass.' But the reeds betrayed him. When the wind passed they bent together and whispered, 'Midas has the ears of an ass—the ears of an ass.'"
Stepping among the sedges, where single stalks shuddered in the cold water, Geoffrey looked for the ripple which would indicate a place of crossing. The reeds inclined their feathery heads towards him, and the malicious whisper seemed to follow, "Geoffrey has the ears of an ass—the ears of an ass." Laughing at the idle fancy, he ran on at the sight of a line of foam some little way down the stream. Drawing off his shoes, he passed across the yellow gravel, the keen water nipping his ankles, the reeds brushing his head. Old Thames had often been as cold, when as a schoolboy he had waded through its weeds hunting the dive-dapper's nest.
Viner hesitated where the Indian trail split. That to the left ran into the sun. He could scarcely see it, so dazzling was the glory. That to the right was bare and cold, but leading, had he known it, direct to the south. At the foot of a long bank the brook poured away its water, and above in the fruit-bushes the wild canaries sang away the hours. The youth took the bow from his shoulder, held it on end, and let it fall. The bow pointed as he wished, as perhaps his fingers had guided it at the moment of release. It fell into the sun.
A breath of fire was in the splendour ahead, an acrid smoke crept down, he heard the crackling of twigs. It seemed to the traveller that the sun was consuming the grove before him. A voice began to sing. Geoffrey tried to persuade himself that some little yellow bird was sitting in the sun-grove warbling its soul out to him. Then an envious night cloud swooped upon the lord of day and rolled him up in its dewy blanket, and immediately a palisade, a grass roof, and a thicket started out like black upon white. But the song went on.
A log-cabin stood right in the centre of the setting sun, a snaky palisade winding around, enclosing also a garden planted with corn and potatoes, where already blade and crinkled leaf pushed from the dark alluvial soil. Trees surrounded the house.
Amid the smoke the side of an iron pot showed at intervals. The singer held her head back, the slightest frown creasing her forehead. She was waiting for the fire to burn clearly, and to encourage it she sang.
Her hair, which hung all about her body, was golden-brown, no one tress the same shade as another, the whole a bewildering mantle of beauty. Its wealth became reckless when one crafty ray of sunlight eluded the cloud and shot across her head.
"Oh, oh!" she sighed, breaking off her bird-like song. "The sun will not let my fire burn, and—this wicked wind!"
The breeze, delighting to flirt with so glorious a creature, veered slyly, and fanned the bitter smoke around her. She danced away coughing, her cheeks scarlet, her red mouth gasping for pure air, her tresses gleaming in their mesh of sunlight. Her movements were as supple as the swaying dance of the pine-branch over her. She tried to laugh while she caught at her breath, and, failing, fell back panting, showing her tiny teeth.