whispered secrets not forgotten.

All the Devonshire streams are full of life and strength. They
chatter cheerily over stones, they toil bravely to shape out their
bed. Some of them might tell horrible tales of the far-away past,
of the worship of the false god when blood stained the clear
waters; tales, too, of feud and warfare, of grave council and
martial gathering; and happy stories of fairy and pixy our eyes are
too dull to see, and of queer little hillmen with foreign ways and
terror of all human beings. Their banks are bright with tormentil,
blue with forget-me-not, rich in treasures of starry moss; the
water is clear, cool in the hottest summer--they rise under the
shadow of the everlasting hills, and their goal is the sea.

* * * * *

There are other times when I must leave the clean waters and the
good brown earth, to live, for a while, in London: and there I go
on pilgrimage that I may listen to the river's voice.

I stand sometimes at a wharf where the ships are being unloaded of
the riches of every country, of fruits of labour by my unknown
brothers in strange lands; and the river speaks of citizenship in
the great world of God, wherein all men have place, each man have
his own place, and every one should be neighbour to him who may
have need.

I pass on to London Bridge, our Bridge of Sighs. How many of these
my brethren have sought refuge in the cold grey arms of the river
from something worse than death? What drove them to this dreadful