BACK TO GASTON CAREW 209

Then the river dropped between its banks, and the woods
and the hills were gone. The tide ran heavily against the
shore, and the wake of the wherry broke the floating stars
into cold white streaks and zigzag ripplings of raveled
light that ran unsteadily after them. The craft at anchor
in the Pool had swung about upon the flow, and pointed
down to Greenwich. <A hush had fallen upon the never-
ending bustle of the town; and the air was full of a gray,
uncanny afterglow which seemed to come up out of the
water, for the sky was grown quite dark.

They were all wrapped in their boat-cloaks, tired and
silent. Now and then Nick dipped his fingers into the
cold water over the gunwale.

This was the end of the glory.

He wished the boat would go alittle faster. Yet when
they came to the landing he was sorry.

The man-at-arms who went with him to Master Carew’s
house was one of the Earl of Arundel’s men, in a stiff-
wadded jacket of heron-blue, with the earl’s colors richly
worked upon its back and his badge upon the sleeves.
Prowlers gave way before him in the streets, for he was
broad and tall and mighty, and the fear of any man was
not in the look of his eye.

As they came up the slow hill, Nick sighed, for the
long-legged man-at-arms walked fast. ‘What, there!”
said he, and clapped Nick on the shoulder with his bony
hand; “art far spent, lad? Why, marry, get thee upon
my back. I ’ll jog thee home in the shake of a black
sheep’s tail.”

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