At midday the street leading into the cathedral square is a scene of multitudinous interests. A little boys' school, marshalled solemnly by a master--spectacled and sticked--the boys all stiff-capped and starched looking; a square, closed-in cart, with neatly packed rows of those appetising long loaves lying cosily side by side; a huge cart, _messageries Parisiennes_, drawn by splendid cart-horses, five bells on each side of their splendid collars--collars edged with brass nails, and brass facings with pink background--the peasant conducting it, wearing the high-crowned black hat and loose, navy-blue blouse reaching to knee, and opening wide at collar; a barrow of some sweet-smelling stuff pushed over the cobbles by a costermonger who, as he passed, stretched out a disengaged hand to re-arrange his truck of oranges to make the vacant places of those gone before seem less deserted and more enticing to a possible customer. The stream beside the way was swinging merrily along in a succession of weirs, forming itself into different patterns as it went along, owing to its course being over rough, uneven cobbles. Here, as it turned a corner, the sun shone full on it, and from being a stream of doubtful reputation--being in most instances the receptacle of the castaway Flotsam and Jetsam of many a household--it straightway became a river of pure molten steel. Then, down another street as I accompanied it, its tide turned--the tide which is swelled by many pailfuls from the doors that lie beside its route--and like the bottle imp, it dwindled into a tiny thing, and flowed along weakly--creased and lined. The Guide-book urges one on from Rouen, to Caudebec-en-Caux. But I found so much to see in the way of old streets and old buildings in Rouen itself, that I postponed our day's journey to Caudebec till just before we were leaving. Then our choice fell on a day when the powers of the weather fought against us in our courses, and it rained almost continuously for the whole day long. But there are special beauties which are abroad in these times, which those who have seen them once, recognise at their true value, and would not forego. In this case there was a driving white scud of rain slanting across the meadows. It swept over steep slopes redly orange with fallen leaves lying thick in layers everywhere. The tree trunks stood, yellow in contrast, over streams in which the rain made spear pricks, which swiftly became pin-point centres of ever widening circles. Cows moving lazily on, in their grazing, stepped in the squelching gravel of the deeply-rutted roads, shining up dully, in dark slate colour. Here and there, but not often, black-timbered barns came into sight, sparsely covered with vivid green moss.