We fastened the so-called boat together with some pieces of string, got a
bit of wall-paper and pasted over the shabbier places, said our prayers,
and stepped on board.
They charged us thirty-five shillings for the loan of the remnant for six
days; and we could have bought the thing out-and-out for four-and-
sixpence at any sale of drift-wood round the coast.
The weather changed on the third day, - Oh! I am talking about our
present trip now, - and we started from Oxford upon our homeward journey
in the midst of a steady drizzle.
The river - with the sunlight flashing from its dancing wavelets, gilding
gold the grey-green beech- trunks, glinting through the dark, cool wood
paths, chasing shadows o'er the shallows, flinging diamonds from the
mill-wheels, throwing kisses to the lilies, wantoning with the weirs'
white waters, silvering moss-grown walls and bridges, brightening every
tiny townlet, making sweet each lane and meadow, lying tangled in the
rushes, peeping, laughing, from each inlet, gleaming gay on many a far
sail, making soft the air with glory - is a golden fairy stream.
But the river - chill and weary, with the ceaseless rain-drops falling on
its brown and sluggish waters, with a sound as of a woman, weeping low in
some dark chamber; while the woods, all dark and silent, shrouded in
their mists of vapour, stand like ghosts upon the margin; silent ghosts
with eyes reproachful, like the ghosts of evil actions, like the ghosts
of friends neglected - is a spirit-haunted water through the land of vain
regrets.
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