Returning home our route was changed, and Quash the boatman took us all
the way round by water to Hampton. I should have told you that our exit
was as wild as our entrance to this estate and was made through a broken
wooden fence, which we had to climb partly over and partly under, with
some risk and some obloquy, in spite of our dexterity, as I tore my dress,
and very nearly fell flat on my face in the process. Our row home was
perfectly enchanting; for though the morning's wind and (I suppose) the
state of the tide had roughened the waters of the great river, and our
passage was not as smooth as it might have been, the wind had died away,
the evening air was deliciously still, and mild, and soft. A young slip of
a moon glimmered just above the horizon, and 'the stars climbed up the
sapphire steps of heaven,' while we made our way over the rolling,
rushing, foaming waves, and saw to right and left the marsh fires burning
in the swampy meadows, adding another coloured light in the landscape to
the amber-tinted lower sky and the violet arch above, and giving wild
picturesqueness to the whole scene by throwing long flickering rays of
flame upon the distant waters.