Three lanterns, and then Joost stopped

I hung the third lantern just after eight, when the canal had gone the colour of a wet stone and the hall windows were the only other light. The first two had been up since Thursday. People kept asking for a fourth because the far cleat sits in a pocket of dark, and Sander, who is not a nervous man, said he had to feel for the rope with his foot. I looked at the post. The grain is opening. A fourth hook would be a hole we do not need.

So the rule is the one I wrote on the board the same night. Three lanterns. The dark boat on the right cleat. The pale boat on the left. Two people in the pale one, nothing heavy, and you tie it back where you found it. If you drag it onto the grass I will see the track in the morning. I am not being poetic. The grass keeps the mark.