atron
gayly. "We can all go on the water together; I've got the biggest boat
on the Broads. The little skiffs," he added, in a lower tone, as he led
the way to the quay steps, "besides being ticklish and easily upset,
won't hold more than two, with the boatman; and the major told me he
should feel it his duty to go with his daughter, if we all separated in
different boats. I thought _that_ would hardly do, sir," pursued Pedgift
Junior, with a respectfully sly emphasis on the words. "And, besides, if
we had put the old lady into a skiff, with her weight (sixteen stone if
she's a pound), we might have had her upside down in the water half her
time, which would have occasioned delay, and thrown what you call a damp
on the proceedings. Here's the boat, Mr. Armadale. What do you think of
it?"

The boat added one more to the strangely anomalous objects which
appeared at the Broads. It was nothing less than a stout old lifeboat,
passing its last declining years on the smooth fresh water, after the
stormy days of its youth time on the wild salt sea. A comfortable
little cabin for the use of fowlers in the winter season had been built
amidships, and a mast and sail adapted for inland navigation had been
fitted forward. There was room enough and to spare for the guests,
the dinner, and the three men in charge. Allan clapped his faithful
lieutenant approvingly on the shoulder; and even Mrs. Pentecost,
when the whole party were comfortably established on board, took a
comparatively cheerful view of the prospects of the picnic. "If anything
happens," said the old lady, addressing the company generally, "there's
one comfort for all of us. My son can swim."

The boat floated out from the creek into the placid waters of the Broad,
and the full beauty of the scene opened on the view.

On the northward and westward, as the boat reached the middle of the
lake, the shore lay clear and low in the sunshine, fringed darkly at
certain points by rows of dwarf trees; and dotted here and there, in
the opener spaces, with windmills and reed-thatched cottages, of puddled
mud. Southward, the great sheet of water narrowed gradually to a little
group of close-nestling islands which closed the prospect; while to the
east a long, gently undulating line of reeds followed the windings of
the Broad, and shut out all view of the watery wastes beyond. So clear
and so light was the summer air that the one cloud in the eastern
quarter of the heaven was the