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Page 33

2
Entry on Q

TERENCE HAWKES

I Et in Arcadia ego

The small crowd of locals was curious. None of them had seen a canoe launched on the river before. However, its two inhabitants seemed intrepid enough. Spurred less by pleasure than by the prospect of discovery, they committed themselves boldly to the stream. A long, meandering journey with much tedious pulling through reed beds lay ahead. But, on the second day, their efforts were rewarded:

Beyond the barrier we looked to right and left, amazed. We had passed from a sluggish brook, twisting among water-plants and willows, to a pleasant, expanded river, flowing between wide lawns, by slopes of bracken, by the roots of gigantic trees—oaks, Spanish oaks, wych-elms, stately firs, sweet chestnuts, backed by filmy larch coppices.

This was Arden, the Forest of Arden, actually Stoneleigh-in-Arden, and Shakespeare’s very Arden.

Actually, as we rested on our paddles, down to a shallow ahead —their accustomed ford no doubt—a herd of deer tripped daintily and charged across, splashing; first the bucks, in single file, then the does in a body. The very bed of Avon changes just here: the river now brawling by a shallow, now deepening, and anon sliding over slabs of sandstone. This (I repeat) is verily and historically

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