the lake. Singling out one from the tiny fleet of pleasure boats always
to be found at the Bowness landing-stage, Captain Ducie seated himself
in the stern and lighted his cigar. The boatman's sinewy arms soon
pulled him out into the middle of the lake, when the head of the little
craft was set for Bon Repos.

The sun was dipping to the western hills. In his wake he had left a rack
of torn and fiery cloud, as though he had rent his garments in wrath and
cast them from him. Soft, grey mists and purple shadows were beginning
to strike upward from the vales, but on the great shoulders of
Fairfield, and on the scarred fronts of other giants further away, the
sunshine lingered lovingly. It was like the hand of Childhood caressing
the rugged brows of Age.

With that glorious panorama which crowns the head of the lake before his
eyes, with the rhythmic beat of the oars and the soft pulsing of the
water in his ears, with the blue smoke-rings of his cigar rising like
visible aspirations through the evening air, an unwonted peace, a soft
brooding quietude, began to settle down upon the Captain's world-worn
spirit; and through the stillness came a faint whisper, like his
mother's voice speaking from the far-off years of childhood, recalling
to his memory things once known, but too long forgotten; lessons too
long despised, but with a vital truth underlying them which he seemed
never to have realised till now. Suddenly the boat's keel grazed the
shingly strand, and there before him, half shrouded in the shadows of
evening, was Bon Repos.

A genuine north-country house, strong, rugged and homely-looking,
despite its Gallic cognomen. It was built of the rough grey stone of the
district, and roofed with large blue slates. It stood at the head of a