Non-Fiction > Uncollected essays > Volumes 33-38, 1876-1878 - Cornhill magazine > Volume 33

rOKEST NOTES. 553
dignified and insinuating. It is not for nothing that the Doctor has
voyaged all the world over, and si^eaks all languages, from French to
Patagonian. He has not come home from perilous journeys to be
thwarted by a coiiwral of horse. And so we soon see the soldier's
mouth relax, and his shoulders intimate a relenting heart. " En voiture.
Messieurs, Mesdames," sings the Doctor ; and on we go again at a good
round pace, for black care follows hard after us, and discretion jirevails
not a little over valour in some timorous spirits of the party. At any
moment we may meet the sergeant, who will send us back. At any
moment we may encounter a flying shell, which will send \is somewhere
further off than Grez.
Grez — for that is oiir destination — has been highly recommended for
its beauty. " II y a de I'eau," people have said, with an emphasis, as if
that settled the question, which, for a French mind, I am rather led to
think it does. And Grez, when we get there, is indeed a place worthy
of some praise. It lies out of the forest, a cluster of houses, with an
old bridge, an old castle in ruin, and a quaint old church. The inn
garden descends in terraces to the river; stable-yard, kail-yard,
orchard, and a space of lawn, fringed with rushes and embellished with
a green arbour. On the opposite bank there is a reach of EnglLsh-
looking plain, set thickly with willows and poplars. And between the
two Lies the river, clear and deep and full of reeds and floating lilies.
Water-plants cluster about the starlings of the long low bridge, and
stand half-way up upon the piers in green luxuriance. They catch the
dipped oar with long antennae, and chequer the slimy bottom with the
shadow of their leaves. And the river wanders hither and thither
among the islets, and is smothered and broken up by the weeds, like
an old building in the lithe hardy arms of the climbing ivy. You may
watch the box where the gt)od man of the inn keeps fish alive for his
-kitchen, one oily ripple following another over the top of the yellow
deal. And you can hear a splashing and a prattle of voices from the shed
under the old kirk, where the village women wash and wash all day,
among the fish and water-lilies. It seems as if linen washed there
should be specially cool and sweet.
We have come here for the river. And no sooner have we all
bathed than we board the two shallops, and jjush ofi" gaily, and go
gliding under the trees and gathering a great treasure of water-lilies.
Some one sings ; some trail their hands in the cool water ; some lean
over the gunwale, to see the image of the tall poplars far below, and the
shadow of the boat with the balanced oai-s and their own head pro-
truded, glide smoothly over the yellow floor of the stream. At last, the
day declining — all silent and happy, and \ip to the knees in the wet
lilies — we punt slowly back again to the landing-place beside the bridge.
There is a wish for solitude on all. One hides himself in the ai-bour
with a cigarette ; another goes a walk in the country with Cocardon ; a
third iaspects the church. And it is not till dinner is on the table, and