We took the path that runs between the river and the wood. He soon let his pipe go out, for he moved in open-mouthed wonder all the way, which rendered smoking impracticable. At last we came to a bend in the river, where the bank sloped gently down to the water-side covered with all the rich-hued September growths, and we sat down to rest. I did not plague him with the names of things, nor with any talk at all; but lay, for the most part silently, watching the effect of the place upon him, as one might study the demeanour of a dormouse let loose amidst the like surroundings, straight from Ratcliff Highway. He took off coat and hat, and sat quite still for awhile with legs drawn up, and his chin upon his knees. But presently he fell to wandering about like a child, ducking his pallid bald head over each flower as he came to it, but keeping his itching fingers resolutely clasped behind his back. It was a brave show, even for this brave time of year. Though other months afford perhaps a greater variety in colour and kind, Nature in early autumn seems more forceful and impressive because she concentrates her energies into the dealing of the one blow, the urging of the one appeal upon the colour sense. It was the Purple Month. Look where we would, the same royal colour filled the sunshine. Purple loosestrife edged the river, and purple knapweed, thistles, heather, purple thyme and willowherb and climbing vetch hemmed us in on every side. Paler of hue, yet still of the same regal dye, the wild mint and cranesbill, marjoram and calamint, crowded upon one another; and close to the water’s edge, the Michaelmas daisies were already in full flower—under both banks the soil was tinged with their pure cool lilac, mirrored again yet more faintly in the drowsy water below. For half an hour, perhaps, the little tobacconist wandered up and down this enchanted place; and then he came back to me, treading on tiptoe, hushed, and solemn-eyed, as if he were in church. ‘You live hereabouts?’ he asked, in a voice little above a whisper, ‘all the year round, don’t you? And nothing to do but just put on a hat whenever you want to come here, and in ten minutes here you are! Nothing to pay, and no trouble. Oh, my stars!’ ‘And it is not always the same, you know. I pass this way nearly every week, and there is always something different. The flowers change with every month. You hear different birds singing, according to the season. The leaves on the trees come and go, and the sky shows you a new picture every time you look at it. Even the river changes. It is the top of the tide now: that log, floating out there, has not moved a dozen feet in the last five minutes. But in an hour’s time the water will be driving down swift and strong, and all the reeds and rushes, that now stand up quite straight and still in the sunshine, will bending and trembling in the flow.’