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Towards Democracy 55

hills. I see the Derbyshire Derwent darting in trouthaunted shallows over its stones. I taste and bathe in the clear brown moor-fed water.

I see the sweet-breathed cottage homes and homesteads dotted for miles and miles and miles. It comes near to them. I enter the wheelwright’s cottage by the angle of the river. The door stands open against the water, and catches its changing syllables all day long; roses twine, and the smell of the woodyard comes in watts.

The Castle rock of Nottingham stands up bold over the Trent valley, the tall flagstaff waves its flag, the old _ market-place is full of town and country folk. The river goes on broadening seaward. I see where it runs beneath the great iron swing-bridges of railroads, there are canals con- necting with it, and the sails of the canal-boats gliding on a level with the meadows.

The great sad colorless flood of the Humber stretches before me, the low-lying banks, the fog, the solitary vessels, the brackish marshes and the water-birds; Hull stretches with its docks, vessels are unlading—bags of shell-fish, cargoes of oranges, timber, fish; I see the flat lands beyond Hull, and the enormous flights of pewits.

The Thames runs down—with the sound of many voices. _ I hear the sound of.the saw-mills and flour-mills of the Cotswolds, I can see racing boats and hear the shouts of partisans, villages bask in the sun below me: Sonning and Maidenhead ; anglers and artists are hid in nooks among tall _ willow-herbs; I glide with tub and outrigger past flower-

_ gardens, meadows, parks; parties of laughing girls handle 5