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 back-board down in a trice, and aimed for a place
where the trunk seemed hig