rted,
that they had better in that case try it themselves; which remark
had the effect of making Tom resolve to cut short his visit, and
in the meantime had brought him and his ally to the river side on
the night in question.

The first hour, as we have seen, had been enough for the ally;
and so Tom was left in company with a plaid, a stick, and a pipe,
to spend the night by himself.

It was by no means the first night he had spent in the open air,
and promised to be a pleasant one for camping out. It was almost
the longest day in the year, and the weather was magnificent.
There was yet an hour of daylight, and the place he had chosen
was just the right one for enjoying the evening.

He was sitting under one of a clump of huge old alders, growing
on the thin strip of land already noticed, which divided the main
stream from the deep artificial ditch which fed the
water-meadows. On his left the emerald-green meadows stretched
away till they met the inclosed corn-land. On his right ran the
main stream, some fifty feet in breadth at this point; on the
opposite side of which was a rough piece of ground, half
withey-bed, half copse, with a rank growth of rushes at the
water's edge. These were the chosen haunts of the moor-hen and
water-rat, whose tracks could be seen by dozens, like small open
doorways, looking out on to the river, through which ran a number
of mysterious little paths into the rush-wilderness beyond.

The sun was now going down behind the copse, through which his
beams came aslant, chequered and mellow. The stream ran dimpling
by him, sleepily swaying the masses of weed, under the surface
and on the surface; and the trout rose under the banks, as some
moth or gnat or gleaming beetle fell into the stream; here and
there one more frolicsome than his brethren would throw himself
joyously into the air. The swifts rushed close by him, in
companies of five or six, and wheeled, and screamed, and dashed
away again, skimming along the water, baffling his eye as he
tried to follow their flight. Two kingfishers shot suddenly up on
to their supper station, on a stunted willow stump, some twenty
yards below him, and sat there in the glory of their blue backs
and cloudy red waistcoats, watching with long sagacious beaks
pointed to the water beneath, and every now and then dropping
like flashes of light into the stream, and rising again, with
what seemed one motion, to their perches. A heron or two were
fishing abou