train carry its complement of freemen into the night, and read the
names of distant places on the time-bills with indescribable
longings?

We were not clear of the fortifications before the rain began. The
wind was contrary, and blew in furious gusts; nor were the aspects
of nature any more clement than the doings of the sky. For we
passed through a stretch of blighted country, sparsely covered with
brush, but handsomely enough diversified with factory chimneys. We
landed in a soiled meadow among some pollards, and there smoked a
pipe in a flaw of fair weather. But the wind blew so hard, we
could get little else to smoke. There were no natural objects in
the neighbourhood, but some sordid workshops. A group of children
headed by a tall girl stood and watched us from a little distance
all the time we stayed. I heartily wonder what they thought of us.

At Hautmont, the lock was almost impassable; the landing-place
being steep and high, and the launch at a long distance. Near a
dozen grimy workmen lent us a hand. They refused any reward; and,
what is much better, refused it handsomely, without conveying any
sense of insult. 'It is a way we have in our countryside,' said
they. And a very becoming way it is. In Scotland, where also you
will get services for nothing, the good people reject your money as
if you had been trying to corrupt a voter. When people take the
trouble to do dignified acts, it is worth while to take a little
more, and allow the dignity to be common to all concerned. But in
our brave Saxon countries, where we plod threescore years and ten
in the mud, and the wind keeps singing in our ears from birth to
burial, we do our good and bad with a high hand and almost
offensively; and make even our alms a witness-bearing and an act of