Read Books Online, for Free |
The Water-Babies | Charles Kingsley | |
Chapter III |
Page 15 of 17 |
No. It was none of these, the salmon stream at Harthover. It was such a stream as you see in dear old Bewick; Bewick, who was born and bred upon them. A full hundred yards broad it was, sliding on from broad pool to broad shallow, and broad shallow to broad pool, over great fields of shingle, under oak and ash coverts, past low cliffs of sandstone, past green meadows, and fair parks, and a great house of gray stone, and brown moors above, and here and there against the sky the smoking chimney of a colliery. You must look at Bewick to see just what it was like, for he has drawn it a hundred times with the care and the love of a true north countryman; and, even if you do not care about the salmon river, you ought, like all good boys, to know your Bewick. At least, so old Sir John used to say, and very sensibly he put it too, as he was wont to do: "If they want to describe a finished young gentleman in France, I hear, they say of him, 'IL SAIT SON RABELAIS.' But if I want to describe one in England, I say, 'HE KNOWS HIS BEWICK.' And I think that is the higher compliment." But Tom thought nothing about what the river was like. All his fancy was, to get down to the wide wide sea. And after a while he came to a place where the river spread out into broad still shallow reaches, so wide that little Tom, as he put his head out of the water, could hardly see across. |
Who's On Your Reading List? Read Classic Books Online for Free at Page by Page Books.TM |
The Water-Babies Charles Kingsley |
Home | More Books | About Us | Copyright 2004