The Open Air 



At last the noise grew fainter in the distance, and 

 the black hulls disappeared round the bend. I walked 

 on up the towing-path. Accidentally lifting my hand 

 to shade my eyes, I was hailed by a ferryman on the 

 watch. He conveyed me over without much volition 

 on my part, and set me ashore by the inn of my 

 imagination. The rooms almost overhung the water: 

 so far my vision was fulfilled. Within there was an 

 odour of spirits and spilled ale, a rustle of sporting 

 papers, talk of racings, and the click of billiard-balls. 

 Without there were two or three loafers, half boat- 

 men, half vagabonds, waiting to pick up stray six- 

 pences a sort of leprosy of rascal and sneak in their 

 faces and the lounge of their bodies. These Thames- 

 side " beach-combers " are a sorry lot, a special 

 Pariah class of themselves. Some of them have been 

 men once: perhaps one retains his sculling skill, and 

 is occasionally engaged by a gentleman to give him 

 lessons. They regarded me eagerly they " spotted " 

 a Thames freshman who might be made to yield silver ; 

 but I walked away down the road into the village. 

 The spire of the church interested me, being of 

 shingles i.e. of wooden slates as the houses are 

 roofed in America, as houses were roofed in Eliza- 

 bethan England; for Young America reproduces Old 

 England even in roofs. Some of the houses so closely 

 approached the churchyard that the pantry windows 

 on a level with the ground were partly blocked up 

 by the green mounds of graves. Borage grew thickly 

 all over the yard, dropping its blue flowers on the 

 dead. The shaip note of a bugle rang in the air: 

 they were changing guard, I suppose, in Wolsey's 

 Palace. 



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