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“I reckon there’s scarce an inch of paint left on my front door,” she observed, as the man steadied her with an arm round her waist, and settled her comfortably in the stern-sheets.

He unshipped his oars and began to pull.

“Ay. I heard ’em whackin’ the door with a deal o’ tow-row. They was going it like billy-O when I came past the Town Quay. But one mustn’ complain, May-mornin’s.”

“I wasn’ complaining,” said the woman; “I was just remarking. How’s Maria?”

“She’s nicely, thank you.”

“And the children?”

“Brave.”

“I’ve put up sixpennyworth of nicey in four packets–that’s one apiece–and I’ve written the name on each, for you to take home to ’em.”

She fumbled in her reticule and produced the packets. The peppermint-drops and brandy-balls were wrapped in clean white paper, and the names written in a thin Italian hand. John thanked her and stowed them in his trousers pockets.

“You’ll give my love to Maria? I take it very kindly her letting you come for me like this.”

“Oh, as for that–” began John, and broke off; “I don’t call to mind that ever I saw a more handsome morning for the time o’ year.”

They had made this expedition together more than a score of times, and always found the same difficulty in conversing. The boat moved easily past the town, the jetties above it, and the vessels that lay off them awaiting their cargoes; it turned the corner and glided by woods where the larches were green, the sycamores dusted with bronze, the wild cherry-trees white with blossom, and all voluble. Every little bird seemed ready to burst his throat that morning with the deal he had to say. But these two–the man especially–had nothing to say, yet ached for words.

“Nance Treweek’s married,” the woman managed to tell him at last.

“I was thinking it likely, by the way she carried on last Maying.”

“That wasn’ the man. She’ve kept company with two since him, and mated with a fourth man altogether–quite a different sort, in the commercial traveller line.”

“Did he wear a seal weskit?”

“Well, he might have; but not to my knowledge. What makes you ask?”

“Because I used to know a Johnny Fortnight that wore one in these parts; and I thought it might be he, belike.”

“Jim had a greater gift o’ speech than you can make pretence to,” said the woman abruptly. “I often wonder that of two twin-brothers one should be so glib and t’other so mum-chance.”

“‘Tis the Lord’s ways,” the man answered, resting on his oars. “Will you be dabblin’ your feet as usual, Sarah?”

“Why not?”

He turned the boat’s nose to a small landing-place cut in the solid rock, where a straight pathway dived between hazel-bushes and appeared again twenty feet above, winding inland around the knap of a green hill. Here he helped her to disembark, and waited with his back to the shore. The spinster behind the hazel screen pulled off shoes and stockings, and paddled about for a minute in the dewy grass that fringed the meadow’s lower slope. Then, drawing a saucer from her reticule, she wrung some dew into it and bathed her face. Ten minutes later she re-appeared on the river’s bank.

“A happy May, John!”

“A happy May to you, Sarah!”

John stepped out beside her, and making his boat fast, followed her up the narrow path and around the shoulder of the steep meadow. They overed a stile, then a second, and were among pink slopes of orchards in bloom. Ahead of them a church tower rose out of soft billows of apple-blossom, and above the tower a lark was singing. A child came along the footpath from the village with two garlands mounted cross-wise on a pole and looped together with strings of painted birds’ eggs. John gave him a penny for his show.

“Here’s luck to your lass!” said the wise child.

Sarah was pleased, and added a second penny from her reticule. The boy spat on it for luck, slipped it into his breeches pocket, and went on his way skipping.