Chapter 30

Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs -- To the silent wilderness Where the soul need not repress Its music, lest it should not find An echo in another's mind. SHELLEY.

Winnie drew a breath of gratification, as the oars began to dimple the still water and the little boat rounded out from behind the wharf and headed up the river; the very same way by which Winthrop had taken Mr. Haye's two young ladies once long before. The tide was just at the turn, and Hildebrand made a straight run for the rocks.

"How pleasant it is to hear the oars again!" Winnie said. Winthrop said nothing.

Swiftly they pulled up, dappling the smooth grey water with falling drops from the oar-blades, and leaving behind them two lines of spreading wavelets that tracked the boat's way. Cowslip's Mill fell into the distance, and all that shore, as they pulled out into the middle of the river; then they drew near the old granite ridge of Diver's Rock on the other side. The sun had got so low down as that now, and the light of years ago was on the same grey bluffs and patches of wood. It was just like years ago; the trees stood where they did, ay, and the sunlight; the same shadows fell; and the river washed the broken foot of the point with, it might be, the very same little waves and eddies. And there, a mile further on, Wut-a- qut-o's high green side rose up from the water. Winnie had taken off her bonnet and sat with her head resting upon Winthrop's side or arm, her common position whenever she could get it. And she sat and looked, first at one thing and then at another, with quiet tears running and some times streaming down her face. Then the boat struck off from Diver's Rock and pushed straight over for the rocks of Shahweetah. As it neared them, the dear old trees stood forth more plainly to view, each one for itself; and the wonted footholds, on turf and stone, could be told and could be seen, apart one from the other. Poor Winnie could not look at them then, but she put her head down and sobbed her greeting to them all.

"Winnie," -- said Winthrop softly, and she felt his arm closer drawn around her, -- "you must not do that."

It mattered little what Winthrop asked Winnie to do; she never failed to obey him. She stopped crying now, and in another moment was smiling to him her delight, through the drops that held their place yet in her eyes and on her cheeks.

The little boat was shoved in to the usual place among the rocks and the passengers got out.

"What's the fare, Hild'? -- sloop and all?"

The skipper stood on the rocks and looked into the water.

"Will you let me come to you to clear me out, the first time I get into trouble?"

"Yes."

"Then we're square!" he said, preparing to jump back into his boat.

"_Then_ hasn't come," said Winthrop; "let's keep things square as we go along."

"All right," said the skipper. "Couldn't take nothin' from you the first time, Governor."

And Hildebrand after giving Winthrop's hand a shake, into which there went a sort of grateful respect which he would never have yielded to one who had laid any manner of claim to it, dropped into his seat again and pushed off. Winthrop and Winnie turned their steps slowly towards the house.

Very slowly; for each step now was what they had come for. How untravelled the road was!

"How it looks as if we didn't live here, Governor," Winnie said with half a sigh.

"Old Karen and Anderese don't come this way very often," replied her brother.

"Governor, I am very sorry it has got to be sold!"

They walked a few more steps up the rocky path in silence.

"O Governor, look at that great limb of that cedar tree -- all dragging! What a pity."

"Broken by the wind," said Winthrop.

"How beautifully the ivy hangs from that cedar -- just as it