lish delicacy of tint and type. The big shoulders, black brows and
black mousquetaire swagger of Flambeau were a great contrast.

All these trivialities Brown heard and saw; but heard them as a tired
man hears a tune in the railway wheels, or saw them as a sick man sees
the pattern of his wall-paper. No one can calculate the turns of mood in
convalescence: but Father Brown's depression must have had a great deal
to do with his mere unfamiliarity with the sea. For as the river mouth
narrowed like the neck of a bottle, and the water grew calmer and the
air warmer and more earthly, he seemed to wake up and take notice like
a baby. They had reached that phase just after sunset when air and water
both look bright, but earth and all its growing things look almost
black by comparison. About this particular evening, however, there was
something exceptional. It was one of those rare atmospheres in which
a smoked-glass slide seems to have been slid away from between us and
Nature; so that even dark colours on that day look more gorgeous than
bright colours on cloudier days. The trampled earth of the river-banks
and the peaty stain in the pools did not look drab but glowing umber,
and the dark woods astir in the breeze did not look, as usual, dim blue
with mere depth of distance, but more like wind-tumbled masses of some
vivid violet blossom. This magic clearness and intensity in the colours
was further forced on Brown's slowly reviving senses by something
romantic and even secret in the very form of the landscape.

The river was still well wide and deep enough for a pleasure boat so
small as theirs; but the curves of the country-side suggested that it
was closing in on either hand; the woods seemed to be making broken and
flying attempts at bridge-building--as if the boat were passing from
the romance of a valley to the romance of a hollow and so to the supreme
romance of a tunnel. Beyond this mere look of things there was little
for Brown's freshening fancy to feed on; he saw no human beings, except
some gipsies trailing along the river bank, with faggots and osiers
cut in the forest; and one sight no longer unconventional, but in
such remote parts still uncommon: a dark-haired lady, bare-headed, and
paddling her own canoe. If Father Brown ever attached any importance to
either of these, he certainly forgot them at the next turn of the river
which brought in sight a singular object.

The water seemed to widen and split, being c