of the promontory was gained, the whole broad north scene opened upon the eye.  Two hills of equal height on the east shore looked over the river at their neighbours.  Above them, on both shores, the land fell, and at the distance of about eight miles curved round to the east in an amphitheatre of low hills.  There the river formed a sort of inland sea, and from thence swept down queen-like between its royal handmaids on the right hand and on the left, till it reached the promontory point.  This low distant shore and water was now masked with blue, and only the nearer highlands shewed under the mask their fine outlines, and the Shatemuc its smooth face.

At the point of the promontory the rocky wall broke down to a low easy shore, which stretched off easterly in a straight line for half a mile, to the bottom of what was called the north bay.  Just beyond the point, a rounded mass of granite pushed itself into the water out of reach of the trees and shewed itself summer and winter barefacedly.  This rock was known at certain states of the tide to be in the way of the white mackerel.  Winthrop made fast his little skiff between it and the shore, and climbing upon the rock, he and Rufus sat down and fell to work; for to play they had not come hither, but to catch their supper.

The spirit of silence seemed to have possessed them both, for with very few words they left the boat and took their places, and with no words at all for some time the hooks were baited and the lines thrown.  Profound stillness —­ and then the flutter of a poor little fish as he struggled out of his element, or the stir made by one of the fishers in reaching after the bait-basket —­ and then all was still again.  The lines drooped motionless in the water; the eyes of the fishers wandered off to the distant blue, and then came back to their bobbing corks.  Thinking, both the young men undoubtedly were, for it could not have been the mackerel that called such grave contemplation into their faces.

“It’s confoundedly hot!” said Rufus at length very expressively.

His brother seemed amused.

“What are you laughing at?” said Rufus a little sharply.

“Nothing —­ I was thinking you had been in the shade lately.  We’ve got ’most enough, I guess.”

“Shade! —­ I wish there was such a thing.  This is a pretty place though, if it wasn’t August, —­ and if one was doing anything but sitting on a rock fishing.”

“Isn’t it better than Asphodel?” said Winthrop.

“Asphodel! —­ When are you going to get away from here, Winthrop?”

“I don’t know.”

“Has anything been done about it?”

“No.”

“It is time, Winthrop.”

Winthrop was silent.

“We must manage it somehow.  You ought not to be fishing here any longer.  I want you to get on the way.”

“Ay —­ I must wait awhile,” said the other with a sigh.  “I shall go —­ that’s all I know, but I can’t see a bit ahead.  I’m round there under the point now, and there’s a big headland in the way that hides the up view.”