The scene of the quay-side was gay and indeed festive. The few ships had hoisted colours in celebration of the Aurora's arrival, and the large flags of those days streaming from mast-head and gaff-end and ensign-staff and jack-staff combined with the brilliant blue of the sky, the light and lovely greenery of spring that clothed the ravine's slopes, the sober hue of the cliffs, the white shape of the squab lighthouse past which some gulls[Pg 90] were wheeling, the chocolate tint of the revolving windmill, the sober grey of the houses and the diamond sparkle of the river with its softened reflection of bridge and banks streaming into its heart in dreamlike shadow of what was mirrored: this combination, I say, coupled with the motions and colours of human life on the quay-side, albeit the beer hour had struck and the picture owed nothing of animation to the workmen, fascinated the eye with the calm, the freshness, and the glory of a little English sea-piece, Sabbath-like in repose, lighted by the sun of April beaming in a perfectly fair heaven.,
At breakfast, which was necessarily delayed on board the Aurora, the conversation, as may be supposed, was almost entirely concerned with undoubtedly the most memorable incident—the meeting with Nelson—in the lives of Captain Acton and Sir William. The Aurora had hauled out of the Fleet with a dipping flag, and with wings eagerly straining to the breath of the strengthening blue breeze that gushed with a tropic warmth over the little seas which creamed and purred in heads that would easily grow spiteful and change their fountain-like music into a harsh hissing as of serpents, was heading as true a course as Captain Weaver could imagine for the barque that Captain Acton wanted.,
At last, sick and dizzy, he turned from the place and with raft and pole fought his way back to the shore. Never again, he told himself, would he try to fathom further what lay in Lost Man's Swamp. Weary and perspiring, he climbed the wooded upland. He turned and dipped into the willows, intending to take the shortest way home through the hardwoods. On top of the beech knoll he paused for a moment to let his eyes rest on the big house in the walnut grove. In some vague way his mind connected its owner with that dead waste of stinking marsh. Why, he wondered, had Hinter chosen this lonely spot on which to build his home? As he turned to strike across the neck of woods between him and the causeway the man about whom he had just been thinking stepped out from a clump of hazel-nut bushes directly in his path..
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