s time when tall weeds close over us like woods. Standing
up thus against the large low moon, the daisies really seemed to
be giant daisies, the dandelions to be giant dandelions. Somehow it
reminded them of the dado of a nursery wall-paper. The drop of the
river-bed sufficed to sink them under the roots of all shrubs and
flowers and make them gaze upwards at the grass. "By Jove!" said
Flambeau, "it's like being in fairyland."

Father Brown sat bolt upright in the boat and crossed himself. His
movement was so abrupt that his friend asked him, with a mild stare,
what was the matter.

"The people who wrote the mediaeval ballads," answered the priest, "knew
more about fairies than you do. It isn't only nice things that happen in
fairyland."

"Oh, bosh!" said Flambeau. "Only nice things could happen under such an
innocent moon. I am for pushing on now and seeing what does really come.
We may die and rot before we ever see again such a moon or such a mood."

"All right," said Father Brown. "I never said it was always wrong to
enter fairyland. I only said it was always dangerous."

They pushed slowly up the brightening river; the glowing violet of the
sky and the pale gold of the moon grew fainter and fainter, and faded
into that vast colourless cosmos that precedes the colours of the dawn.
When the first faint stripes of red and gold and grey split the horizon
from end to end they were broken by the black bulk of a town or village
which sat on the river just ahead of them. It was already an easy
twilight, in which all things were visible, when they came under the
hanging roofs and bridges of this riverside hamlet. The houses, with
their long, low, stooping roofs, seemed to come down to drink at the
river, like huge grey and red cattle. The broadening and whitening
dawn had already turned to working daylight before they saw any living
creature on the wharves and bridges of that silent town. Eventually they
saw a very placid and prosperous man in his shirt sleeves, with a face
as round as the recently sunken moon, and rays of red whisker around the
low arc of it, who was leaning on a post above the sluggish tide. By
an impulse not to be analysed, Flambeau rose to his full height in the
swaying boat and shouted at the man to ask if he knew Reed Island or
Reed House. The prosperous man's smile grew slightly more expansive,
and he simply pointed up the river towards the next bend of it. Flambeau
went ahead without further sp