Still, it was hard to think that the charm of the place would not pass insensibly into the hearts, perhaps even into the faces, of the dwellers there. He stood for a little to see the bright water leaping clear and fresh from the sluice. There was a delicious scent of cool river-plants everywhere. It was hard not to think that the stream, bickering out in the sun from the still pool, had a sense of joy and delight. It was passing, passing; Hugh could trace in thought every mile of the way; down the wooded valley it was bound, running over the brown gravel, by shady wood-ends and pasture-sides; then it would pass out into the plain, and run, a full and brimming stream, between high sandy banks, half hidden by the thick, glossy-leaved alders. Hugh knew the broad water-meadows down below, with the low hills on either side, where big water-plants grew in marshy places, and where the cattle moved slowly about through the still hours. Soon the stream would be running by the great downs--it was a river now, bearing boats upon it--till it passed by the wharves and beneath the bridges of the little town, and out into the great sea-flat, meeting, with how strange a wonder, the upward-creeping briny tide, with its sharp savours and its wholesome smell; till it flowed at last by the docks, where the big steamers lay unlading, blowing their loud sea-horns, past weed-fringed piers and shingly beaches, until it was mingled with the moving deep, where the waves ran higher on the blue sea-line, and the great buoy rolled and dipped above the shoal. And then, perhaps, it would be drawn up again in twisted wreaths of mist, rising in vapour beneath the breathless sun, to float back, perhaps, in clouds over the earth, and begin its little pilgrimage again.