Dimity looked shrewdly at him. “Why, ye be dodderin’ yourself, Mister Solent! Here”⁠—and she hurried to a cupboard and poured something into a glass⁠—“here⁠ ⁠… drink this. ’Tis me wone cordial.” And she watched him intently, with a hand on his shoulder, as he drained it off. “That’s better, eh? Why, you be near as white as thik parson! ’Tis beyond I, what be coming to this house, these turnover days.”

“What is it?” he murmured, spluttering and gasping, while the blood surged back to his head; “what is it, Dimity?”

“Nought but a drop o’ elder-wine,” she said, soothingly, patting him on the head.

The hubbub of voices from the drawing-room of Pond Cottage began to grow more relevant and natural. A moment ago they had sounded in his ears as if he had been a spirit⁠—a spirit whose body was left far behind, under the water with Jason’s nymph.