“But the intellectual advantages of the city?”
“Ah, there you have it. And yet, although you have had no college education, no free lectures, no public night schools, no young men’s clubs, I venture to think you are better prepared for the battle of life than many of those whom, you imagine, are more fortunately situated.”
The words recalled Harry Grant’s statement, and Burton did not pursue the subject.
It was mid-day when they wound down the steep banks of the Poplar river to the broad, elm-studded parkland below. Burton swung the team to the left, and they plunged into the recesses of the forest along an old and little used trail, which presently brought them to the edge of the water. Here they unhitched and Burton tied the horses where they could find a little grass, while Miss Vane spread the contents of the lunch basket on a rug beside the water. The long drive in the bright morning sunshine had whetted their appetites, but no sauce of hunger was necessary to give flavour to Mrs. Grant’s chicken sandwiches and currant jelly, with a thermos bottle of hot coffee. After the luncheon they gathered up the fragments, and climbing gingerly down to the stones which studded the shallow water, washed their hands in the stream that rippled by their feet. Then they picked their way across the river on the stones, for the water was low, and found a path leading through enchanted corridors fenced with great elms, and so they delved into the fastness of the wood. Finally, tired with their explorations, they recrossed the stream, startling a lazy fish that lay, head against the current, in the shelter of a stone, and found a great flat rock that overlooked the water. Here they sat, gazing down into its silvery depths, while the ripple of the running water caricatured their reflections. The faces below them were one moment long and sober, the next broad and merry, and then, by a little freak of the current, suddenly blended into one.
Both laughed. “The water is teasing,” said Miss Vane.
Burton sat in a great happiness of body and soul.
Aloud he repeated in a gentle undertone,
“And here and there a foamy flake,
Upon me as I travel;
With many a silvery waterbreak,
Above the golden gravel.
“I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.”
He stopped short, half ashamed; the poet had tricked him into a word he had not meant to use.
The hours fled faster than they knew, and it was not until the setting sun burst in great golden bars between the trunks of the stately elms that they realized it was growing late.