BELOW THE RIVER BANK 239 



yellow jewel weed on the higher ground is most like an 

 orchid, and the blue vervain which is purple most like 

 fairy candelabra; and here is no vista over the banks 

 to the surrounding hilltops. The rank foliage forms a 

 solid wall, and arches like a groined roof overhead. 

 Only through the opening behind us do we catch a bit 

 of the river, glistening under the sun, as through an 

 open door. This is a chapel beside the river road, a 

 spot for deeper meditation on our languid way. 



Here, too, as we watch over the side of the boat, we 

 see just the ghost of a pickerel move like a sudden 

 lightning streak of shadow under the weeds that bear 

 his name, and wonder why the boy whom we passed 

 upstream sitting in the sun on the bank does not come 

 here to cast his line. Perhaps it is because the small 

 boy loves the sense of a procession in a river, loves to 

 see the water go by, to watch the passing boats, to feel 

 the sweep of landscape, almost as much as (if less con- 

 sciously than) he loves to fish. The cloistered spots 

 are, after all, for a more contemplative maturity 

 it is only our pride that prevents us from saying for 

 middle age. The swales are beautiful back waters, and 

 youth is not yet satiated with midstream. 



The bird and animal life of the land below the river 

 bank is a different thing, no less than are the flora and 

 the view. Two live things stand out most prominently 

 in my memories of our northern rivers kingfishers and 

 turtles, the kingfisher flying ever on ahead of the boat 



