characterless plain in wearying repetition, and, save by some gaunt gray
tower, with its peal of pathetic bells, or some figure coming athwart
the fields, made picturesque by a gleaner's bundle or a woodman's fagot,
there is no change, no variety, no beauty anywhere; and he who has
dwelt upon the mountains or amid the forests feels oppressed as by
imprisonment with the tedium and the endlessness of that vast and dreary
level. But it is green and very fertile, and it has wide horizons that
have a certain charm of their own even in their dulness and monotony;
and among the rushes by the waterside the flowers grow, and the trees
rise tall and fresh where the barges glide, with their great hulks black
against the sun, and their little green barrels and vari-coloured flags
gay against the leaves. Anyway, there is greenery and breadth of space
enough to be as good as beauty to a child and a dog; and these two asked
no better, when their work was done, than to lie buried in the lush
grasses on the side of the canal, and watch the cumbrous vessels
drifting by and bringing the crisp salt smell of the sea among the
blossoming scents of the country summer.

True, in the winter it was harder, and they had to rise in the darkness
and the bitter cold, and they had seldom as much as they could have
eaten any day; and the hut was scarce better than a shed when the nights
were cold, although it looked so pretty in warm weather, buried in a
great kindly clambering vine, that never bore fruit, indeed, but which
covered it with luxuriant green tracery all through the months of
blossom and harvest. In winter the winds found many holes in the walls
of the poor little hut, and the vine was black and leafless, and the
bare lands looked very bleak and drear without, and sometimes within the
floor was flooded and then frozen. In winter it was hard, and the snow
numbed the little white limbs of Nello, and the icicles cut the brave,
untiring feet of Patrasche.