half-submerged willows, and made an angry clatter along stony
shores. The course kept turning and turning in a narrow and well-

timbered valley. Now the river would approach the side, and run
griding along the chalky base of the hill, and show us a few open

colza-fields among the trees. Now it would skirt the garden-walls
of houses, where we might catch a glimpse through a doorway, and

see a priest pacing in the chequered sunlight. Again, the foliage
closed so thickly in front, that there seemed to be no issue; only

a thicket of willows, overtopped by elms and poplars, under which
the river ran flush and fleet, and where a kingfisher flew past

like a piece of the blue sky. On these different manifestations
the sun poured its clear and catholic looks. The shadows lay as

solid on the swift surface of the stream as on the stablemeadows.
The light sparkled golden in the dancing poplar leaves, and brought

the hills into communion with our eyes. And all the while the
river never stopped running or took breath; and the reeds along the

whole valley stood shivering from top to toe.
There should be some myth (but if there is, I know it not) founded

on the shivering of the reeds. There are not many things in nature
more striking to man's eye. It is such an eloquent pantomime of

terror; and to see such a number of terrified creatures taking
sanctuary in every nook along the shore, is enough to infect a

silly human with alarm. Perhaps they are only a-cold, and no
wonder, standing waist-deep in the stream. Or perhaps they have

never got accustomed to the speed and fury of the river's flux, or
the miracle of its continuous body. Pan once played upon their

forefathers; and so, by the hands of his river, he still plays upon
these later generations down all the valley of the Oise; and plays

the same air, both sweet and shrill, to tell us of the beauty and
the terror of the world.

The canoe was like a leaf in the current. It took it up and shook
it, and carried it masterfully away, like a Centaur carrying off a

nymph. To keep some command on our direction required hard and
diligent plying of the paddle. The river was in such a hurry for

the sea! Every drop of water ran in a panic, like as many people
in a frightened crowd. But what crowd was ever so numerous, or so

single-minded? All the objects of sight went by at a dance
measure; the eyesight raced with the racing river; the exigencies

of every moment kept the pegs screwed so tight, that our being
quivered like a well-tuned instrument; and the blood shook off its

lethargy, and trotted through all the highways and byways of the
veins and arteries, and in and out of the heart, as if circulation

were but a holiday journey, and not the daily moil of three-score
years and ten. The reeds might nod their heads in warning, and

with tremulous gestures tell how the river was as cruel as it was
strong and cold, and how death lurked in the eddy underneath the

willows. But the reeds had to stand where they were; and those who
stand still are always timid advisers. As for us, we could have

shouted aloud. If this lively and beautiful river were, indeed, a
thing of death's contrivance, the old ashen rogue had famously

outwitted himself with us. I was living three to the minute. I
was scoring points against him every stroke of my paddle, every

turn of the stream. I have rarely had better profit of my life.
For I think we may look upon our little private war with death

somewhat in this light. If a man knows he will sooner or later be
robbed upon a journey, he will have a bottle of the best in every

inn, and look upon all his extravagances as so much gained upon the
thieves. And above all, where instead of simply spending, he makes

a profitableinvestment for some of his money, when it will be out
of risk of loss. So every bit of brisk living, and above all when

it is healthful, is just so much gained upon the wholesale filcher,
death. We shall have the less in our pockets, the more in our

stomach, when he cries stand and deliver. A swift stream is a
favourite artifice of his, and one that brings him in a comfortable

thing per annum; but when he and I come to settle our accounts, I
shall whistle in his face for these hours upon the upper Oise.

Towards afternoon we got fairly drunken with the sunshine and the
exhilaration of the pace. We could no longer contain ourselves and

our content. The canoes were too small for us; we must be out and
stretch ourselves on shore. And so in a green meadow we bestowed

our limbs on the grass, and smoked deifying tobacco and proclaimed
the world excellent. It was the last good hour of the day, and I

dwell upon it with extreme complacency.
On one side of the valley, high up on the chalky summit of the

hill, a ploughman with his team appeared and disappeared at regular
intervals. At each revelation he stood still for a few seconds

against the sky: for all the world (as the CIGARETTE declared)
like a toy Burns who should have just ploughed up the Mountain

Daisy. He was the only living thing within view, unless we are to
count the river.

On the other side of the valley a group of red roofs and a belfry
showed among the foliage. Thence some inspired bell-ringer made

the afternoon musical on a chime of bells. There was something
very sweet and taking in the air he played; and we thought we had

never heard bells speak so intelligibly, or sing so melodiously, as
these. It must have been to some such measure that the spinners

and the young maids sang, 'Come away, Death,' in the Shakespearian
Illyria. There is so often a threatening note, something blatant

and metallic, in the voice of bells, that I believe we have fully
more pain than pleasure from hearing them; but these, as they

sounded abroad, now high, now low, now with a plaintive cadence
that caught the ear like the burthen of a popular song, were always

moderate and tunable, and seemed to fall in with the spirit of
still, rustic places, like the noise of a waterfall or the babble

of a rookery in spring. I could have asked the bell-ringer for his
blessing, good, sedate old man, who swung the rope so gently to the

time of his meditations. I could have blessed the priest or the
heritors, or whoever may be concerned with such affairs in France,

who had left these sweet old bells to gladden the afternoon, and
not held meetings, and made collections, and had their names

repeatedly printed in the local paper, to rig up a peal of brand-
new, brazen, Birmingham-hearted substitutes, who should bombard

their sides to the provocation of a brand-new bell-ringer, and fill
the echoes of the valley with terror and riot.

At last the bells ceased, and with their note the sun withdrew.
The piece was at an end; shadow and silence possessed the valley of

the Oise. We took to the paddle with glad hearts, like people who
have sat out a noble performance and returned to work. The river

was more dangerous here; it ran swifter, the eddies were more
sudden and violent. All the way down we had had our fill of

difficulties. Sometimes it was a weir which could be shot,
sometimes one so shallow and full of stakes that we must withdraw

the boats from the water and carry them round. But the chief sort
of obstacle was a consequence of the late high winds. Every two or

three hundred yards a tree had fallen across the river, and usually
involved more than another in its fall.

Often there was free water at the end, and we could steer round the
leafy promontory and hear the water sucking and bubbling among the

twigs. Often, again, when the tree reached from bank to bank,
there was room, by lying close, to shoot through underneath, canoe

and all. Sometimes it was necessary to get out upon the trunk
itself and pull the boats across; and sometimes, when the stream

was too impetuous for this, there was nothing for it but to land
and 'carry over.' This made a fine series of accidents in the

day's career, and kept us aware of ourselves.
Shortly after our re-embarkation, while I was leading by a long

way, and still full of a noble, exulting spirit in honour of the
sun, the swift pace, and the church bells, the river made one of

its leonine pounces round a corner, and I was aware of another
fallen tree within a stone-cast. I had my backboard down in a

trice, and aimed for a place where the trunk seemed high enough
above the water, and the branches not too thick to let me slip