The other shore looked better.

There the wind-bent shag of trees was greener save when, with a hint of rain, the breeze turned up an under-leaf ripple of silver.

He met no one; no one but a madman, he reflected, would explore the tangled banks of a hermit river.
At sunset, after seven slow weariful miles downstream in the brooding quiet of a hot afternoon murmurous with birds and the sound of the river, he came to the end of his journey--a wood, stretching steeply up a cliff to a farmhouse lost in trees and ivy.

It was on the other side of the river and there was no bridge.
Kenny, who believed all things of Fate when the pet or victim was himself, refused absolutely to credit her crowning whimsy.

In a fury of exasperation he clambered down to the water's edge and washed his face; moodily mopping it with his handkerchief he stared across the water.
The sun in a last blaze was going down behind the higher line of trees.
Roof peaks and chimney lay against a mat of gold.