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.