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Updated: September 15, 2025
The lawn was little better than a common; the pond was thick with weeds and sluggish water-plants, that almost covered its surface; and a light, elegant bridge, that spanned a river which ran before the house, was also moss-grown and dilapidated.
Under other and safer circumstances it would have been a curious and interesting spectacle: this gigantic, human-like ape, stretching forth its hairy arms, each full four feet in length gathering in the heads of the tall water-plants, and munching them in great mouthfuls, then letting the stalks go and sweeping round to collect a fresh sheaf, at intervals wading a pace or two to reach some that were more tempting to its taste.
There was no pause, and all the mounted men could do was to let their horses keep pace with the mules and cattle, only guiding them clear of the thickest part of the drove. And so they thundered on till the dusty plain was left behind, and green rank herbage and thickly growing water-plants reached, through which the cattle rushed to the shallow water at the edge of the lake.
Antoine rose in a rectangle around the sunny court, casting long shadows across the basin of the fountain. The strip of blue overhead was cloudless. Sparrows twittered under the eaves the yellow awnings fluttered, the flowers swayed in the summer breeze, and the jet of the fountain splashed among the water-plants.
I have had similar experiences before. I have looked in a gallery at picture after picture bright, soulless, accomplished things and asked myself how it was possible for men and women to spend their time so elaborately to no purpose; and then one catches sight of some little sketch a pool in the silence of high summer, the hot sun blazing on tall trees full of leaf, and rich water-plants, with a single figure in a moored boat, musing dreamily; and at once one is transported into a region of thrilled wonder.
Many of the true water-plants have triple blossoms, with a small triple calyx holding them; in the Drosidæ the floral spirit passes into the calyx also, and the entire flower becomes a six-rayed star, bursting out of the stem laterally, as if it were the first of flowers and had made its way to the light by force through the unwilling green.
She stood spell-bound at first, and then, scrambling down among rock and fern, reached the little stream, and was soon wading about in its bed, enjoying the sensation of the soft, warm water flowing over her bare feet, and pulling the little flowering water-plants that raised their heads among the moss-grown logs and stones which lay in the bed of the stream.
He wore straw hat, stout shoes, strong gray trousers, to brave shrub-oaks and smilax, and to climb a tree for a hawk's or a squirrel's nest. He waded into the pool for the water-plants, and his strong legs were no insignificant part of his armor.
Yes, it was the spring, and the city dreamed wistfully of lilacs and the dewy piping of birds in gnarled old apple-trees, of dogwood lighting up with sudden silver the thickening woods, of water-plants unfolding their glossy scrolls in pools of morning freshness.
With some effort he raised the smaller of the two planks and carried it to where Anna stood fixed like a statue among the flowering water-plants. Then he pushed the plank out till it rested on a hillock of rushes, while the other end remained on the meadow. "Ah!" he drew a long breath "see the trouble you give by your carelessness."
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