Chapter V. The Healing Waters The slashe is not a beautiful river,

unless indeed mud is beautiful, for it is very muddy. The slashe is a disagreeable kind

of compromise between a river and a canal. It is like a canal, which, after the manner

of the mythic frog that wanted to be an ox, had seen a river, and swelled itself to

bursting in imitation thereof. It has quite a knack of swelling in bursting this slashe.

It overflows its banks and swallows up a house or two, or takes an impromptu snack off

a few outbuildings once or twice a year. It is inimical to children and has been known

to suck into its muddy bosom the hopes of divers families. And as afterwards, gone down

to the distant sea, flaunting on its breast Billy Straw Hat, or Johnny's pinnifor, has

a flag of triumph for having done a little amateur business for the gentleman on the pale

horse. It has been a soft pillow of rest, too, this muddy breast of the slashe, and

weary heads have been known to sleep more soundly in that loathsome, dark, and slimy

bed than on couches of down. Oh, keep us ever from even whispering to our own hearts

that our best chance of peaceful slumber might be in such a bed.

An ugly, dark, and dangerous river, a river that is always telling you of trouble, an

anguish, and weariness of spirit, a river that is to some poor and pressionable mortal

creatures who are apt to be saddened by a cloud or brightened by a sunbeam is not healthy

to look upon. I wonder what that woman thinks of the river, a badly dressed woman carrying

a baby who walks with a slow and restless step up and down by one of its banks, on the

afternoon of the day on which the murder of Mr. Montaillieu Harding took place.

It is a very solitary spot she has chosen, on the furthest outskirts of the town of

Slapperton, and the town of Slapperton being it best, a very ugly town, is ugliest at the

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