As For The Banks Of This River, They Got More And More Beautiful As We
Went On.
There was high hills with some castles, woods and crags and
grassy slopes, and now and then a lordly mansion or two, and great
massive, rocky walls, bedecked with vines and moss, rising high up
above our heads and shutting us out from the world.
Jone and I was filled as full as our minds could hold with the romantic
loveliness of the river and its banks, and old Samivel was so pleased
to see how we liked it - for I believe he looked upon that river as his
private property - that he told us about everything we saw, and pointed
out a lot of things we wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't been for him,
as if he had been a man explaining a panorama, and pointing out with a
stick the notable spots as the canvas unrolled.
The only thing in his show which didn't satisfy him was two very fine
houses which had both of them belonged to noble personages in days
gone by, but which had been sold, one to a man who had made his money
in tea, and the other to a man who had made money in cotton. "Think of
that," said he; "cotton and tea, and living in such mansions as them
are, once owned by lords. They are both good men, and gives a great
deal to the poor, and does all they can for the country; but only think
of it, madam, cotton and tea! But all that happened a good while ago,
and the world is getting too enlightened now for such estates as them
are to come to cotton and tea."
Sometimes we passed houses and little settlements, but, for the most
part, the country was as wild as undiscovered lands, which, being that
to me, I felt happier, I am sure, than Columbus did when he first
sighted floating weeds. Jone was a good deal wound up too, for he had
never seen anything so beautiful as all this. We had our luncheon at a
little inn, where the bread was so good that for a time I forgot the
scenery, and then we went on, passing through the Forest of Dean,
lonely and solemn, with great oak and beech trees, and Robin Hood and
his merry men watching us from behind the bushes for all we knew.
Whenever the river twists itself around, as if to show us a new view,
old Samivel would say: "Now isn't that the prettiest thing you've seen
yet?" and he got prouder and prouder of his river every mile he rowed.
At one place he stopped and rested on his oars. "Now, then," said he,
twinkling up his face as if he was really David Llewellyn showing us a
fish with its eyes bulged out with sticks to make it look fresh, "as we
are out on a kind of a lark, suppose we try a bit of a hecho," and then
he turned to a rocky valley on his left, and in a voice like the man at
the station calling out the trains he yelled, "Hello there, sir!
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