A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



&amp;lt;c How do you know ? &quot; I asked ; &quot; you never 

 were here before.&quot; 



&quot;True,&quot; he replied, &quot;but there is sawdust in 

 the water, and the bank is wet a foot or two 

 higher than the stream, as if somebody opened 

 his flume occasionally.&quot; 



The road, after passing over the little river on 

 the bridge, turned at a sharp bend and ran paral 

 lel with the banks for some distance, under the 

 grateful shade of chestnuts and elms, the open 

 ings in which afforded us continual glimpses of 

 the water, here broken into foamy hurries and 

 there spread out in dark pools. Not a bird sang 

 in the branches. The only vestiges of summer 

 life that we encountered for a mile or two were 

 some crows caucusing in a dead tree that looked, 

 against the blue sky, like a bunch of antlers, and 

 now and then we met with the little white butter 

 flies that flutter in couples and look like wayward 

 petunias blown about by imperceptible winds. 

 We were winding through the heart of real rus 

 ticity. Here and there we saw the bent labourers 

 at work digging potatoes. Looked at from the 

 distance, they presented all the aspects of ignoble 

 drudgery, grubbing for what at best must be a 

 scanty living. As the sun approached the hori 

 zon, and we began to wonder where we should 

 put up for the night, I suggested that we had 

 better interview some of these field hands as to 

 our whereabouts, and at last we crawled over a 

 stone fence and made our way through stubble 

 and furrows, and past long rows of bagged po- 



166 



