the moon, fascinated. The lake speaks to him. It speaks with his own voice, for it is he. He hears the words rise from its dark bosom, floating on the golden air. "My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. . . . Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely."
Suddenly he turns over, swims strongly, plunging, wrestling with the lake. It is no longer a part of him, but an antagonist. At last he is tired out, and, wading to the shore, he lies down on the smooth sand and watches the moon sink behind the treetops.
This was the first of many nights. More and more often he slipped out of the house and went to the church to play. The church, which on week-days seemed to belong to no one, on Sundays to the Whiteoak family, at night belonged to him. He would play for hours, afterward wandering about the fields or along the roads, and, on warm nights, going to the lake. At night he was fearless and free. In the daytime, depressed by lack of sleep and nervous excitement, he had an air of slinking, of avoiding the others. Renny, noticing the shadows under his eyes, told Piers to give him some work on the farm land to set him up. For a terrible week he was subject to Piers, to his robust ragging, while his back ached, his palms blistered, and he felt ready to drop from fatigue. No music those nights. A dead-beat stumbling to bed. Finch could see that the farm labourers, the stablemen, were vastly amused by his weakness, his stupidity. They would let him struggle with a task too heavy for him, without an offer of assistance, while they tumbled over each other to wait on Piers. He could not understand it. Things came to a head at the end of the week in a quarrel. Finch was
