h enough above the water, and the branches
not too thick to let me slip below. When a man has just vowed eternal
brotherhood with the universe, he is not in a temper to take great
determinations coolly, and this, which might have been a very important
determination for me, had not been taken under a happy star. The tree
caught me about the chest, and while I was yet struggling to make less
of myself and get through, the river took the matter out of my hands,
and bereaved me of my boat. The _Arethusa_ swung round broadside on,
leaned over, ejected so much of me as still remained on board, and, thus
disencumbered, whipped under the tree, righted, and went merrily away
down stream.

I do not know how long it was before I scrambled on to the tree to which
I was left clinging, but it was longer than I cared about. My thoughts
were of a grave and almost sombre character, but I still clung to my
paddle. The stream ran away with my heels as fast as I could pull up my
shoulders, and I seemed, by the weight, to have all the water of the
Oise in my trousers-pockets. You can never know, till you try it, what a
dead pull a river makes against a man. Death himself had me by the
heels, for this was his last ambuscado, and he must now join personally
in the fray. And still I held to my paddle. At last I dragged myself on
to my stomach on the trunk, and lay there a breathless sop, with a
mingled sense of humour and injustice. A poor figure I must have
presented to Burns upon the hill-top with his team. But there was the
paddle in my hand. On my tomb, if ever I have one, I mean to get these
words inscribed: "He clung to his paddle."

The _Cigarette_ had gone past a while before; for, as I might have
observed, if I had been a little less pleased with the universe at the
moment, there was a clear way round the tree-top at the farther side. He
had offered his services to haul me out, but as I was then already on my
elbows I had declined and sent him down stream after the truant
_Arethusa_. The stream was too rapid for a man to mount with one canoe,
let alone two, upon his hands. So I crawled along the trunk to shore,
and proceeded down the meadows by the riverside. I was so cold that my
heart was sore. I had now an idea of my own why the reeds so bitterly
shivered. I could have given any of them a lesson. The _Cigarette_
remarked facetiously that he thought I was "taking exercise" as I drew
near, until he made out for certain that I was on