eyes with her
hand, for the sun was now bright and hot, and calling out "Phil--lip!
Em--ily! time to be off."

The girl threw down her rope and obeyed her mother's call, but Philip
lingered. He could not make out who and what the stranger might be.

That person said, "Perhaps, Mr. Rowles, you would let your boy come
with me just to put me in the right way."

"No, no; he is going to school. You be off, Phil, before I look at you
again."

So, rather unwillingly, Philip also retreated into the house, from
whence he and Emily presently emerged with their books, and
disappeared across the fields in the direction of the village, where
their company was requested by the schoolmaster and the schoolmistress
until four o'clock, with a long interval for dinner and play.

"I would let him go with you if it was not for his schooling,"
remarked Mr. Rowles; "but he must waste no time if he wants to get the
prize. You won't get a prize for rowing. Why, some of them that comes
here don't know what you mean by feathering!"

The stranger looked very humble. He was a middle-aged man of ordinary
appearance, but extremely neat in his dress. His cloth clothes were
all of spotless black, his necktie was black with a small white spot;
he showed a good deal of fine shirt-front, and a pair of clean cuffs.
Then his hair was carefully cut, and he had trimmed whiskers, but no
beard or moustache. His hands were not those of a working-man, nor had
they the look of those of a gentleman. Edward Rowles could not make
him out.

"I'm sure you are not a boating man," said he.

"Oh, no! oh, dear no! I never rowed a boat before. Though I have been
at sea: I have crossed the Channel with Mr. Burnet. But not rowing
myself, of course."

"Who's Mr. Burnet?" asked Rowles.

"We are staying at the hotel," replied the stranger; "and what's more,
I must be getting back, for he likes his breakfast at a quarter-past
ten sharp. Can I get back another way? Can't I go down that river?"

He pointed up the stream which came swirling from the weir.

"No," said Rowles, "you can't go up the weir-stream, any more than you
could leap a donkey over a turnpike-gate. Get into your boat, and pull
yourself quietly up under the left-hand bank."

"I have no rope to pull it by," said the stranger meekly.

"They come down here," remarked Rowles with infinite contempt, and
speaking to the river, "and don't know what you mean by pulling. They
think it is the same as towin