n
with our eyes. And all the while the river never stopped running or took
breath; and the reeds along the whole valley stood shivering from top to
toe.

There should be some myth (but if there is, I know it not) founded on
the shivering of the reeds. There are not many things in nature more
striking to man's eye. It is such an eloquent pantomime of terror; and
to see such a number of terrified creatures taking sanctuary in every
nook along the shore is enough to infect a silly human with alarm.
Perhaps they are only a-cold, and no wonder, standing waist-deep in the
stream. Or perhaps they have never got accustomed to the speed and fury
of the river's flux, or the miracle of its continuous body. Pan once
played upon their forefathers; and so, by the hands of his river, he
still plays upon these later generations down all the valley of the
Oise; and plays the same air, both sweet and shrill, to tell us of the
beauty and the terror of the world.

The canoe was like a leaf in the current. It took it up and shook it,
and carried it masterfully away, like a Centaur carrying off a nymph. To
keep some command on our direction required hard and diligent plying of
the paddle. The river was in such a hurry for the sea! Every drop of
water ran in a panic, like as many people in a frightened crowd. But
what crowd was ever so numerous, or so single-minded? All the objects of
sight went by at a dance measure; the eyesight raced with the racing
river; the exigencies of every moment kept the pegs screwed so tight
that our being quivered like a well-tuned instrument, and the blood
shook oft its lethargy, and trotted through all the highways and byways
of the veins and arteries, and in and out of the heart, as if
circulation were but a holiday journey, and not the daily moil of
threescore years and ten. The reeds might nod their heads in warning,
and with tremulous gestures tell how the river was as cruel as it was
strong and cold, and how death lurked in the eddy underneath the
willows. But the reeds had to stand where they were, and those who stand
still are always timid advisers. As for us, we could have shouted aloud.
If this lively and beautiful river were, indeed, a thing of death's
contrivance, the old ashen rogue had famously outwitted himself with us.
I was living three to the minute. I was scoring points against him every
stroke of my paddle, every turn of the stream, I have rarely had better
profit of my life.

For I think