rz looked at him, then catching up the bucket, made off in search of
water. When he came back the horses were feeding from an india-rubber
trough slung to the pole; they stretched their heads towards the bucket,
pushing aside each other's noses.

The flame in the east had died, but the tops of the larches were bathed
in a gentle radiance; and the peaks ahead were like amber. Everywhere
were threads of water, threads of snow, and little threads of dewy green,
glistening like gossamer.

Mr. Treffry called out: "Give me your arm, Mr. Harz; I'd like to shake
the reefs out of me. When one comes to stand over at the knees, it's no
such easy matter, eh?" He groaned as he put his foot down, and gripped
the young man's shoulder as in a vise. Presently he lowered himself on
to a stone.

"'All over now!' as Chris would say when she was little; nasty temper she
had too--kick and scream on the floor! Never lasted long though....
'Kiss her! take her up! show her the pictures!' Amazing fond of pictures
Chris was!" He looked dubiously at Harz; then took a long pull at his
flask. "What would the doctor say? Whisky at four in the morning! Well!
Thank the Lord Doctors aren't always with us." Sitting on the stone,
with one hand pressed against his side, and the other tilting up the
flask, he was grey from head to foot.

Harz had dropped on to another stone. He, too, was worn out by the
excitement and fatigue, coming so soon after his illness. His head was
whirling, and the next thing he remembered was a tree walking at him,
turning round, yellow from the roots up; everything seemed yellow, even
his own feet. Somebody opposite to him was jumping up and down, a grey
bear--with a hat--Mr. Treffry! He cried: "Ha-alloo!" And the figure
seemed to fall and disappear....

When Harz came to himself a hand was pouring liquor into his mouth, and a
wet cloth was muffled round his brows; a noise of humming and hoofs
seemed familiar. Mr. Treffry loomed up alongside, smoking a cigar; he
was muttering: "A low trick, Paul--bit of my mind!" Then, as if a
curtain had been snatched aside, the vision before Harz cleared again.
The carriage was winding between uneven, black-eaved houses, past
doorways from which goats and cows were coming out, with bells on their
necks. Black-eyed boys, and here and there a drowsy man with a long,
cherry-stemmed pipe between his teeth, stood aside to stare.

Mr. Treffry seemed to have taken a new lease