"Nymphea Odorata,"—he murmured, in the yearning tone of a lover addressing his beloved;—"Nymphea Chromatella—now I wonder if I shall see anything of them this year! The Aurora Caroliniana must have been eaten up by water-rats!"
Nebbie uttered a short bark. The faintest whisper of 'rats' seriously affected his nerves. He could have told his master many a harrowing story of those mischievous creatures swimming to and fro in the peaceful flood, tearing with their sharp teeth at the lily roots, and making a horrible havoc of all the most perfect buds of promise. The river Rest itself was so clear and bright that it was difficult to associate rats with its silver flowing,—yet rats there were, hiding among the osiers and sedges, frightening the moorhens and reed-warblers out of their little innocent lives. Nebbie caught and killed them whenever he could,—but he had no particular taste for swimming, and he was on rather 'strained relations' with a pair of swans who, with a brood of cygnets kept fierce guard on the opposite bank against all unwelcome intrusion.
His careful examination of the lily beds done, John Walden sprang back again from the pier to the land, and there hesitated a moment. His eyes rested longingly on a light punt, which, running half out of a rustic boathouse, swayed suggestively on the gleaming water.
"I wish I had time,—" he said, half aloud, while Nebbie wagging his tail violently, sat waiting and expectant. The river looked deliciously tempting. The young green of the silver birches drooping above its shining surface, the lights and shadows rippling across it with every breath of air,—the skimming of swallows to and fro,—the hum of bees among the cowslips, thyme and violets that were pushing fragrantly through the clipped turf,—were all so many wordless invitations to him to go forth into the fair freedom of Nature.
"The green trees whispered low and mild, It was a sound of joy! They were my playmates when a child, And rocked me in their arms so wild! Still they looked on me and smiled As if I were a boy!"
Such simple lines,—by Longfellow too, the despised of all the Sir Oracles of criticism,—yet coming to Walden's memory suddenly, they touched a chord of vivid emotion.
"And still they whispered soft and low! Oh, I could not choose but go!"
he hummed half under his breath, and then with a decided movement turned from the winding river towards the house.
"No, Nebbie, it's no use," he said aloud, addressing his four-footed comrade, who thereupon got up reluctantly and began to trot pensively beside him—"We mustn't be selfish. There are a thousand and one things to do. There is dinner to be served to the children at two o'clock—there is Mrs. Keeley to call upon—there are the school accounts to be looked into,—" here he glanced at his watch— " Good Heavens!—how time flies! It is half-past eleven! I shall have to see Bainton later on."
He hurried his steps and was just in sight of his study window, when he was met by his parlourmaid, a neat, trim young woman who rejoiced in the euphonious name of Hester Rockett, and who said as she approached him: