No, on second thoughts, I will not repeat what Harris said. I may have
been to blame, I admit it; but nothing excuses violence of language and
coarseness of expression, especially in a man who has been carefully
brought up, as I know Harris has been. I was thinking of other things,
and forgot, as any one might easily understand, that I was steering, and
the consequence was that we had got mixed up a good deal with the tow-
path. It was difficult to say, for the moment, which was us and which
was the Middlesex bank of the river; but we found out after a while, and
separated ourselves.
Harris, however, said he had done enough for a bit, and proposed that I
should take a turn; so, as we were in, I got out and took the tow-line,
and ran the boat on past Hampton Court. What a dear old wall that is
that runs along by the river there! I never pass it without feeling
better for the sight of it. Such a mellow, bright, sweet old wall; what
a charming picture it would make, with the lichen creeping here, and the
moss growing there, a shy young vine peeping over the top at this spot,
to see what is going on upon the busy river, and the sober old ivy
clustering a little farther down! There are fifty shades and tints and
hues in every ten yards of that old wall. If I could only draw, and knew
how to paint, I could make a lovely sketch of that old wall, I'm sure.
I've often thought I should like to live at Hampton Court. It looks so
peaceful and so quiet, and it is such a dear old place to ramble round in
the early morning before many people are about.
But, there, I don't suppose I should really care for it when it came to
actual practice. It would be so ghastly dull and depressing in the
evening, when your lamp cast uncanny shadows on the panelled walls, and
the echo of distant feet rang through the cold stone corridors, and now
drew nearer, and now died away, and all was death-like silence, save the
beating of one's own heart.
We are creatures of the sun, we men and women. We love light and life.
That is why we crowd into the towns and cities, and the country grows
more and more deserted every year. In the sunlight - in the daytime,
when Nature is alive and busy all around us, we like the open hill-sides
and the deep woods well enough: but in the night, when our Mother Earth
has gone to sleep, and left us waking, oh! the world seems so lonesome,
and we get frightened, like children in a silent house. Then we sit and
sob, and long for the gas-lit streets, and the sound of human voices, and
the answering throb of human life.
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