How I blushed as I took Captain Dalrymple’s card, and stammered out my own name in return!  I had never possessed a card in my life, nor needed one, till this moment.  I rather think that Captain Dalrymple guessed these facts, for he shook hands with me at once, and put an end to my embarrassment by proposing that we should take a boat, and pull a mile or two up the river.  The thing was no sooner said than done.  There were plenty of boats below the iron bridge; so we chose one of the cleanest, and jumped into it without any kind of reference to the owner, whoever he might be.

“Batelier, Messieurs?  Batelier?” cried a dozen men at once, rushing down to the water’s edge.

But Dalrymple had already thrown off his coat, and seized the oars.

“Batelier, indeed!” laughed he, as with two or three powerful strokes he carried us right into the middle, of the stream.  “Trust an Oxford man for employing any arms but his own, when a pair of sculls are in question!”

* * * * *

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ISLAND IN THE RIVER.

It was just eight o’clock when we started, with the twilight coming on.  Our course lay up the river, with a strong current setting against us; so we made but little way, and enjoyed the tranquil beauty of the evening.  The sky was pale and clear, somewhat greenish overhead and deepening along the line of the horizon into amber and rose.  Behind us lay the town with every brown spire articulated against the sky and every vane glittering in the last glow that streamed up from the west.  To our left rose a line of steep chalk cliffs, and before us lay the river, winding away through meadow lands fringed with willows and poplars, and interspersed with green islands wooded to the water’s edge.  Presently the last flush faded, and one large planet, splendid and solitary, like the first poet of a dark century, emerged from the deepening gray.

My companions were in high spirits.  They jested; they laughed; they hummed scraps of songs; they had a greeting for every boat that passed.  By-and-by, we came to an island with a little landing-place where a score or two of boats were moored against the alders by the water’s edge.  A tall flag-staff gay with streamers peeped above the tree-tops, and a cheerful sound of piping and fiddling, mingled with the hum of many voices, came and went with the passing breeze.  As Dalrymple rested on his oars to listen, a boat which we had outstripped some minutes before, shot past us to the landing-place, and its occupants, five in number, alighted.

“Bet you ten to one that’s a bridal party,” said Mr. Sullivan.

“Say you so?  Then suppose we follow, and have a look at the bride!” exclaimed his friend.  “The place is a public garden.”