THE OLD CANAL 91 



the volume of it to purple ; here the surface is 

 suddenly rippled and broken into a shimmer of 

 colourless light, where a shoal of dace simultaneously 

 splash at some sudden fear ; and then abrupt images 

 of the tangled bank stand forth in the crystal, with 

 reflections of blue sky, lazy cloud, and passing bird, 

 as the water settles once again into a wide-reaching 

 mirror. 



Silver-grey at a point of passage from the tow-path 

 to meadow lands on the other side, an old wooden 

 bridge spans the canal, and its brick piers stretch 

 above a brown pool. An ancient fabric it is, yet sound 

 oak lies hidden under the mossy vestment of the 

 beams, and one may conceive of the venerable thing, 

 now making a slow, fair end, all unregarded in this 

 lovely valley, as spanning more than the water with 

 its ripe old brickwork and time-stained timbers, as 

 dreaming of the life that circulated here long ago, 

 of the flat boats that crept beneath it, of the plod- 

 ding beasts and men that passed and repassed on 

 their journey to and from the distant sea. Yet, 

 not so distant for those who know ; because some 

 folks who feel this region to be a part of themselves, 

 and who read in this old canal the romance or 

 poem that life has sung for them such declare 

 that the existence of the adjacent ocean is whispered 

 by every bending blade ; proclaimed by the western 

 wind, dallying here among the grey-green sallows 

 and wild flowers in his journey from the Atlantic ; 

 most surely announced by snowy-breasted gulls that 



