Saying which, she slips several shillings into his hand, adding, as she notes the effect--
"Do you think it sufficiently heavy? If not--but never mind now. In our absence you can amuse yourself weighing and counting the coins. I fancy they'll do."
She is sure of it, knowing the man's weakness to be money, as it now proves.
Her argument is too powerful for his resistance, and he does not resist. Despite his solicitude for the welfare of the Wynn family, with his habitual regard of duty, the ancient servitor, refraining from further protest, proceeds to undo the knot of the _Gwendoline's_ painter.
Stepping into the boat, the other Gwendoline takes the oars, Miss Lees seating herself to steer.
"All right! Now, Joe, give us a push off."
Joseph, having let all loose, does as directed, which sends the light craft clear out of its dock. Then, standing on the bottom step, with an adroit twirl of the thumb, he spreads the silver pieces over his palm--so that he may see how many--and, after counting and contemplating with pleased expression, slips them into his pocket, muttering to himself--
"I dar say it'll be all right. Miss Gwen's a oner to take care o' herself; an' the old lady neen't a know anythin' about it."
To make his last words good, he mounts briskly back up the boat stairs, and ensconces himself in the heart of a thick-leaved laurestinus--to the great discomfort of a pair of missel-thrushes, which have there made nest, and commenced incubation.
The fair rower, vigorously bending to the oars, soon brings through the bye-way, and out into the main channel of the river.
Once in mid-stream she suspends her stroke, permitting the boat to drift down with the current; which, for a mile below Llangorren, flows gently through meadow land but a few feet above its own level, and flush with it in times of flood.
On this particular day there is none such--no rain having fallen for a week--and the Wye's water is pure and clear. Smooth, too, as the surface of a mirror; only where, now and then, a light zephyr, playing upon it, stirs up the tiniest of ripples; a swallow dips its scimitar wings; or a salmon in bolder dash causes a purl, with circling eddies, whose wavelets extend wider and wider as they subside. So, with the trace of their boat's keel; the furrow made by it instantly closing up, and the current resuming its tranquillity; while their reflected forms--too bright to be spoken of as shadows--now fall on one side, now on the other, as the capricious curving of the river makes necessary a change of course.