He leaned forward while speaking, resting chest and elbows on the oars—­only now and again dipping the blades in the water to steady the boat in its course as it moved smoothly onward borne by brimming stream and tide.  From out the shadow of his thimble-crowned hat he looked up knowingly, with the freemasonry of assured good-temper at Tom, who stood before him hands in pockets, friendly and debonair, class distinctions for the moment quite forgot.  For, let alone immediate convenience of chaperonage, the young man found unexpected entertainment in this typical South Saxon, relic, as it struck him, of a bygone age and social order.  Might not that tough and somewhat clumsy body, that crafty, jovial, yet non-committal countenance, have transferred themselves straight from the pages of Geoffrey Chaucer into nineteenth-century life?  Here, was a master of primitive knowledge and of arts not taught in modern Board (or any other) Schools; a merry fellow too, who could, as Tom divined, when company and circumstances allowed, be broadly, unprintably humorous.

So, in this last connection perhaps, it was just as well that Damaris still appeared somewhat implacable.  Coming on board she had passed Jennifer—­who rowed amidships—­and gone right forward, putting as wide a distance as conditions permitted between her cousin and herself.  Now, as she sat on a pile of red-brown seine nets in the bow of the boat, she kept her face averted, looking away down the cool liquid highway, and presenting to his observation a graceful, white-clad but eminently discouraging back.  Her attitude repelled rather than invited advances, so at least Tom, watching her, certainly thought.  This justified his not following her but staying where he was, and leaving her to herself.  Whereupon annoyance again beset him; for it was very little to his credit to have mismanaged his dealings with her and alienated her sympathies thus.  With her, it was very evident, he had not been at all a success.  And it pricked his young vanity very shrewdly not to be a success.

From these unsatisfactory reflections William Jennifer’s voice, prefaced by a warning cough, recalled him.

“Making any long stay in these parts, sir?” he enquired.

And when Tom explained that a few hours from now would witness the termination of his visit, and that, in all probability, many years of absence from England lay ahead—­

“Indeed, indeed, to be sure.  Who’d have thought it for a young gentleman of the quality-like yourself!  But, there, some are born under the traveller’s star, sir—­created with a roving spirit.  And the Lord help ’em, I say, for they’re so made as to be powerless to help themselves seemingly.  Rove they must and will, if they are to taste any contentment—­an itch in their feet from the cradle nought but foreign lands’ll serve to pacify.  The sight of the ocean now, seems fairly tormenting to ’em till they can satisfy themselves of what’s on the far side of it.”