The other was creditable to the human race, and, adopting
it, I took off my cap to this damp but cheerful pair as they went by.
They answered with a wave of the hand, and I stood looking after them
till they disappeared in the mist.
I am inclined to think that those young people, if they be still alive,
are happy. Maybe, fortune has been kind to them, or maybe she has not,
but in either event they are, I am inclined to think, happier than are
most people.
Now and again, the daily tornado would rage with such fury as to defeat
its own purpose by prematurely exhausting itself. On these rare
occasions we would sit out on the deck, and enjoy the unwonted luxury of
fresh air.
I remember well those few pleasant evenings: the river, luminous with the
drowned light, the dark banks where the night lurked, the storm-tossed
sky, jewelled here and there with stars.
It was delightful not to hear for an hour or so the sullen thrashing of
the rain; but to listen to the leaping of the fishes, the soft swirl
raised by some water-rat, swimming stealthily among the rushes, the
restless twitterings of the few still wakeful birds.
An old corncrake lived near to us, and the way he used to disturb all the
other birds, and keep them from going to sleep, was shameful. Amenda,
who was town-bred, mistook him at first for one of those cheap alarm
clocks, and wondered who was winding him up, and why they went on doing
it all night; and, above all, why they didn't oil him.
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