war against the wrong.
After Hautmont, the sun came forth again and the wind went down;

and a little paddling took us beyond the ironworks and through a
delectable land. The river wound among low hills, so that

sometimes the sun was at our backs, and sometimes it stood right
ahead, and the river before us was one sheet of intolerable glory.

On either hand, meadows and orchards bordered, with a margin of
sedge and water flowers, upon the river. The hedges were of great

height, woven about the trunks of hedgerow elms; and the fields, as
they were often very small, looked like a series of bowers along

the stream. There was never any prospect; sometimes a hill-top
with its trees would look over the nearest hedgerow, just to make a

middle distance for the sky; but that was all. The heaven was bare
of clouds. The atmosphere, after the rain, was of enchanting

purity. The river doubled among the hillocks, a shining strip of
mirror glass; and the dip of the paddles set the flowers shaking

along the brink.
In the meadows wandered black and white cattle fantastically

marked. One beast, with a white head and the rest of the body
glossy black, came to the edge to drink, and stood gravely

twitching his ears at me as I went by, like some sort of
preposterous clergyman in a play. A moment after I heard a loud

plunge, and, turning my head, saw the clergyman struggling to
shore. The bank had given way under his feet.

Besides the cattle, we saw no living things except a few birds and
a great many fishermen. These sat along the edges of the meadows,

sometimes with one rod, sometimes with as many as half a score.
They seemed stupefied with contentment; and when we induced them to

exchange a few words with us about the weather, their voices
sounded quiet and far away. There was a strange diversity of

opinion among them as to the kind of fish for which they set their
lures; although they were all agreed in this, that the river was

abundantly supplied. Where it was plain that no two of them had
ever caught the same kind of fish, we could not help suspecting

that perhaps not any one of them had ever caught a fish at all. I
hope, since the afternoon was so lovely, that they were one and all

rewarded; and that a silver booty went home in every basket for the
pot. Some of my friends would cry shame on me for this; but I

prefer a man, were he only an angler, to the bravest pair of gills
in all God's waters. I do not affect fishes unless when cooked in

sauce; whereas an angler is an important piece of river scenery,
and hence deserves some recognition among canoeists. He can always

tell you where you are after a mild fashion; and his quiet presence
serves to accentuate the solitude and stillness, and remind you of

the glittering citizens below your boat.
The Sambre turned so industriously to and fro among his little

hills, that it was past six before we drew near the lock at
Quartes. There were some children on the tow-path, with whom the

CIGARETTE fell into a chaffing talk as they ran along beside us.
It was in vain that I warned him. In vain I told him, in English,

that boys were the most dangerous creatures; and if once you began
with them, it was safe to end in a shower of stones. For my own

part, whenever anything was addressed to me, I smiled gently and
shook my head as though I were an inoffensive person inadequately

acquainted with French. For indeed I have had such experience at
home, that I would sooner meet many wild animals than a troop of

healthy urchins.
But I was doing injustice to these peaceable young Hainaulters.

When the CIGARETTE went off to make inquiries, I got out upon the
bank to smoke a pipe and superintend the boats, and became at once

the centre of much amiablecuriosity. The children had been joined
by this time by a young woman and a mild lad who had lost an arm;

and this gave me more security. When I let slip my first word or
so in French, a little girl nodded her head with a comical grown-up

air. 'Ah, you see,' she said, 'he understands well enough now; he
was just making believe.' And the little group laughed together

very good-naturedly.
They were much impressed when they heard we came from England; and

the little girl proffered the information that England was an
island 'and a far way from here - BIEN LOIN D'ICI.'

'Ay, you may say that, a far way from here,' said the lad with one
arm.

I was as nearly home-sick as ever I was in my life; they seemed to
make it such an incalculable distance to the place where I first

saw the day. They admired the canoes very much. And I observed
one piece of delicacy in these children, which is worthy of record.

They had been deafening us for the last hundred yards with
petitions for a sail; ay, and they deafened us to the same tune

next morning when we came to start; but then, when the canoes were
lying empty, there was no word of any such petition. Delicacy? or

perhaps a bit of fear for the water in so crank a vessel? I hate
cynicism a great deal worse than I do the devil; unless perhaps the

two were the same thing? And yet 'tis a good tonic; the cold tub
and bath-towel of the sentiments; and positively necessary to life

in cases of advanced sensibility.
From the boats they turned to my costume. They could not make

enough of my red sash; and my knife filled them with awe.
'They make them like that in England,' said the boy with one arm.

I was glad he did not know how badly we make them in England now-a-
days. 'They are for people who go away to sea,' he added, 'and to

defend one's life against great fish.'
I felt I was becoming a more and more romantic figure to the little

group at every word. And so I suppose I was. Even my pipe,
although it was an ordinary French clay pretty well 'trousered,' as

they call it, would have a rarity in their eyes, as a thing coming
from so far away. And if my feathers were not very fine in

themselves, they were all from over seas. One thing in my outfit,
however, tickled them out of all politeness; and that was the

bemired condition of my canvas shoes. I suppose they were sure the
mud at any rate was a home product. The little girl (who was the

genius of the party) displayed her own sabots in competition; and I
wish you could have seen how gracefully and merrily she did it.

The young woman's milk-can, a great amphora of hammered brass,
stood some way off upon the sward. I was glad of an opportunity to

divert public attention from myself, and return some of the
compliments I had received. So I admired it cordially both for

form and colour, telling them, and very truly, that it was as
beautiful as gold. They were not surprised. The things were

plainly the boast of the countryside. And the children expatiated
on the costliness of these amphorae, which sell sometimes as high

as thirty francs apiece; told me how they were carried on donkeys,
one on either side of the saddle, a brave caparison in themselves;

and how they were to be seen all over the district, and at the
larger farms in great number and of great size.

PONT-SUR-SAMBRE
WE ARE PEDLARS

THE CIGARETTE returned with good news. There were beds to be had
some ten minutes' walk from where we were, at a place called Pont.

We stowed the canoes in a granary, and asked among the children for
a guide. The circle at once widened round us, and our offers of

reward were received in dispiriting silence. We were plainly a
pair of Bluebeards to the children; they might speak to us in

public places, and where they had the advantage of numbers; but it
was another thing to venture off alone with two uncouth and

legendary characters, who had dropped from the clouds upon their
hamlet this quiet afternoon, sashed and be-knived, and with a