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 



