CHAPTER Twenty-Three: Following a River.
The stream invites us to follow: the impulse is so common that it might be set down as an instinct; and certainly there is no more fascinating pastime than to keep company with a river from its source to the sea.
Unfortunately this is not easy in a country where running waters have been enclosed, which should be as free as the rain and sunshine to all, and were once free, when England was England still, before landowners annexed them, even as they annexed or stole the commons and shut up the footpaths and made it an offence for a man to go aside from the road to feel God's grass under his feet.

Well, they have also got the road now, and cover and blind and choke us with its dust and insolently hoot-hoot at us.

Out of the way, miserable crawlers, if you don't want to be smashed! Sometimes the way is cut off by huge thorny hedges and fences of barbed wire--man's devilish improvement on the bramble--brought down to the water's edge.

The river-follower must force his way through these obstacles, in most cases greatly to the detriment of his clothes and temper; or, should they prove impassable, he must undress and go into the water.

Worst of all is the thought that he is a trespasser.