It was all dear and kind and sweet, with a sort
of mid-Western look in its softness (as the English landscape
often has), and the mud-banks were like those of my native Ohio
Valley rivers. The effect was heightened, on our return, by an
aged and virtuously poor (to all appearance) flageolet and cornet
band, playing _'Way down upon the Suwanee River_, while the
light played in "ditties no-tone" over the groves and pastures of
the shore, and the shadows stretched themselves luxuriously out
as if for a long night's sleep. There has seldom been such a day
since I began to grow old; a soft September gale ruffled and
tossed the trees finely, and a subtle Italian quality mixed with
the American richness of the sunshiny air; so that I thought we
reached Bishopsthorpe only too soon, and I woke from a pleasant
reverie to be told that the steamer could not land with us, but
we must be taken ashore in the small boat which we saw putting
out for us from its moorings. To this day I do not know why the
steamer could not land, but perhaps the small boat had a
prescriptive right in the matter.
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