and
little; and the clouds, so close above your head, are brothers, and you
stretch your arms to them.

We had the river to ourselves, except that, far in the distance, we could
see a fishing-punt, moored in mid-stream, on which three fishermen sat;
and we skimmed over the water, and passed the wooded banks, and no one
spoke.

I was steering.

As we drew nearer, we could see that the three men fishing seemed old and
solemn-looking men. They sat on three chairs in the punt, and watched
intently their lines. And the red sunset threw a mystic light upon the
waters, and tinged with fire the towering woods, and made a golden glory
of the piled-up clouds. It was an hour of deep enchantment, of ecstatic
hope and longing. The little sail stood out against the purple sky, the
gloaming lay around us, wrapping the world in rainbow shadows; and,
behind us, crept the night.

We seemed like knights of some old legend, sailing across some mystic
lake into the unknown realm of twilight, unto the great land of the
sunset.

We did not go into the realm of twilight; we went slap into that punt,
where those three old men were fishing. We did not know what had
happened at first, because the sail shut out the view, but from the
nature of the language that rose up upon the evening air, we gathered
that we had come into the neighbourhood of human beings, and that they
were vexed and discontented.

Harris let the sail down, and then we saw what had happened. We had
knocked those three old gentlemen off their chairs into a general heap at
the bottom of the boat, and they were now slowly and painfully sorting
themselves out from each other, and picking fish off themselves; and as
they worked, they cursed us--not with a common cursory curse, but with
long, carefully-thought-out, comprehensive curses, that embraced the
whole of our career, and went away into the distant future, and included
all our relations, and covered everything connected with us--good,
substantial curses.

Harris told them they ought to be grateful for a little excitement,
sitting there fishing all day, and he also said that he was shocked and
grieved to hear men their age give way to temper so.

But it did not do any good.

George said he would steer, after that. He said a mind like mine ought
not to be expected to give itself away in steering boats--better let a
mere commonplace human being see after that boat, before we jolly well
all got drowned; and he