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By Root 859 0

and grass had plentifully covered the area. There were traces of stone and gravel, and in the midst a wide pathway led back into the wood. Toby threw down his swimming things and started along the path. He saw in a moment or two that there was a building of some sort ahead of him. He was confronted by what seemed to be a very old tumbled-down barn. The roof, which had once been stone-tiled, was partly fallen in, and the roof timbers, made of fir wood, with bark and ragged branch ends still showing on them, could be seen at one end, pointing upwards in gaunt empty arches. The walls were of thick roughly hewn stone, piled together in mortarless intricacy. Toby decided it must be a medieval barn. He approached the gaping entrance with caution and looked in. A huge door opened on the other side towards the pasture, but the place was twilit within. It was quite empty except for some old rotting sacks and boxes. It echoed a little. The mud floor was as hard as cement, though cracked here and there under the broken part of the roof by grass and thistles. Looking up Toby saw the great cross beams, immensely thick, each one made long ago from the stem of a huge oak. Enormous cobwebs entangled the beams and made a textile net under the peak of the roof. Up there something, perhaps a bat, was stirring in the lofty darkness. Toby hurried through and out the other side.

He could now see through the trees the wider light of the pastureland. He walked on. By the edge of the pasture a concrete path, used perhaps for the transit of logs, ran along beside the wood in the direction of the Court. Once perhaps the barn had stood on the verge of the grass, but now the wood had captured it and it was derelict and useless. Excited by his discovery Toby bounded back toward the shore of the lake and the cheerful open sunshine which he could see ahead of him along the path. He found Murphy sitting on the ramp, guarding his things, his long tongue drooping in the heat, with the patient smiling face of a panting dog.

It had been chilly in the barn. The sun warmed Toby now with a luxurious zeal. He looked at the water and desired intensely to be in it. Glancing across the lake he saw that the land opposite was just outside the enclosure wall. He had been told never to swim opposite the enclosure. He decided that, although he would still be visible from within the wall, he would follow the letter of the law and swim from the ramp. He liked the place and did not want to go any farther. Indeed, looking on along the lake shore it seemed that the banks were increasingly muddy and weedy, and the lake ended in a sort of rebarbative bog. Toby undressed quickly and went to sun himself on the sloping stones before going in. The sun warmed his flesh deeply.

First he tried lying flat on his face with his feet down the slope. But the human body is not so constructed that when in that position the neck and chin can rest comfortably upon the ground. Our awkward frames deny us the relaxed pose of the recumbent dog. Convinced of this truth, Toby turned over and reclined on one elbow. In this more inviting position he was accosted by Murphy who came and laid his head against his shoulder. In a kind of physical rapture Toby sat up and took the furry beast in his arms and cuddled him as he had sometimes seen Nick do. The sensation of the hot soft living fur against his skin was strange and exciting. He sat there motionless for a while, holding the dog and looking down into the lake. It was deep there by the landing-stage; and suddenly his eyes made out a large fish basking motionless where the sun penetrated the greenish water. From its narrow length and its fierce jaws he knew it to be a pike. His head nodding a little over Murphy's back he watched the quiet pike. Then his eyes began to close and only the hot sparkling of the lake pierced through the fringe of his eyelids. He felt so happy he could almost die of it, invited by that sleep of youth when physical well-being and joy and absence of care lull the mind into a sweet coma which is the more inviting since its