“Let’s go down to Longmead and watch the water-rats swim the Lunt!” she cried. “We can get down there from here easily. There’s a lovely little field-path I know. And we shan’t meet anyone; for Bob and Lobbie are going to Willum’s Mill.”

Wolf rose stiffly. He had sat so long in petrified delight that he was a little cramped. His mind felt drugged and cramped too, and felicitously stupid.

“Wherever you like, Gerda dear,” he said, looking at her with hypnotized admiration.

She took him by the hand, and together they climbed the embankment.