headlong into the river, and have ended my troubles there and then. The
boat righted itself, veered half-round and then went steadily on its way
down the stream. I sank on my knees and buried my face in my hands, and
began to cry. When I had cried a little while it came into my mind that
I would say my prayers. So I said them, with clasped hands and wet eyes;
and the words seemed to come from me and affect me in a way that I had
never experienced before. As I write these lines I have a vivid
recollection of noticing how blurred and large the moon looked through
my tears.

My heart was now quieted a little; I was no longer so utterly
overmastered by my fears. I was recalled to a more vivid sense of earth
and its realities by the low, melancholy striking of some village clock.
I gazed eagerly along both banks of the river; but although the moon
shone so brightly, neither house nor church nor any sign of human
habitation was visible. When the clock had told its last syllable, the
silence seemed even more profound than before. I might have been
floating on a river that wound through a country never trodden by the
foot of man, so entirely alone, so utterly removed from all human aid,
did I feel myself to be.

I drew the skirt of my frock over my shoulders, for the night air was
beginning to chill me, and contrived to regain the seat I had taken on
first entering the boat. Whither would the river carry me, was the
question I now put to myself. To the sea, doubtless. Had I not been
taught at school that sooner or later all rivers emptied themselves into
the ocean? The immensity of the thought appalled me. It seemed to chill
the beating of my heart; I grew cold from head to foot. Still the boat
held its course steadily, swept onward by the resistless current; still
the willows nodded their fantastic farewells. Along the level meadows