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 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