Amid the gushing of the faucet, Sard saw the little figure stripped and dancing in the white porcelain bath. "Stop in on your way to the dining-car," called Minga. CHAPTER VII THE ORGAN BUILDER'S HOUSE The Hudson River has not only the opulence that Washington Irving portrayed, not only the swelling of soft hills and majesty of toppling mountains and slopes that spell fecundity of farmland but it has, along palisade and headland, another opulence. Under those mountains that throw down thunder-storms, and along the rocky walls climbed by winding roads magnificent homes testify to the imperialism that has not yet been cleansed from the heart of man. The instinct for choosing imposing sites for impressive homes would be difficult to trace to its beginning. Robber barons built their castles inaccessibly for very good reasons; the prelates' palaces were on the hills that all might see and be reminded of Mother Church. The Roman Roads, unlike the furtive sunken roads of the cavemen, were built high because of fearlessness and pride. But the American who builds his home, or one of his homes, on the Hudson does not do so just because he longs to feast his eyes on sumptuous natural terrace and broad natural waterway; he does so because in his instinctive choice of surroundings, he selects an expressive background for his own dignity and his own importance. All night long the great steamers of the Hudson River glide majestically up and down, the long white fingers of their search-lights pointing to this and that lordly residence. The Oil King, the Copper King, the Pill King, and the Shoe King, whose white palaces and miles of stocked and fruited domain are gated and avenued away from the public, are silently indicated to such humble travelers as care to look. One can hardly travel the Hudson River nowadays and worship the great Creator, for the great Creator is a little overshadowed by the aforesaid King of Commerce, the great Producer. But in spite of the sleepiness and lethargic atmosphere that the Dutch traditions have strangely imparted to the strings of villages, there are in certain moods superb freedoms and freshnesses along the Hudson. There are still spiritual emphasis and quests along red sandstone shores, where the green hemlocks gather. The sunrises in the Westchester Hills are like black tents with banners streaming. The waters of the Tappan Zee are then a great glittering field of cloth of gold, and at sunset when the houses on the Irvington Hills are all ablaze with sunstruck window glass, the bold, black breasts of Palisades and Hook Mountain front the river like African slaves guarding some inner mystery of valley, some clean, unspoiled fastness of forest and field and stream.