"We have wandered in our glee
With the butterfly and bee,
We have climbed o'er heathery swells,
We have wound through forest dells:
Mountain-moss has felt our tread.
Woodland streams our way have led;
Flowers in deepest shadowy nooks,
Nurslings of the loneliest brooks,
Unto us, have yielded up
Fragrant bell and starry cup."
Back in Berkshire once again. Were we glad to return? It was a
question many a worthy neighbour asked us. Could we answer it in the
affirmative? We could not, and did not. Not even for politeness' sake.
But we dearly love Berkshire for all that, love its rolling meadows, its
fields of waving corn, the trees that go sweeping over its round hills
like cloudlands of green; its placid river, its quiet streams, where the
glad fish leap in spring and summer; love its birds, love its beasts,
all the way up from the timid wee field-mouse to the saucy fox who leads
so merry a life in the woods; and love its people, its peasantry--honest
and true are they, sometimes rough, but always right. Yes, and I am not
sure we have not even a kindly regard for its long-nosed pigs. So
there!
But the fact is that, in one sense of the term, we really had never been
from home. We had taken our home with us.
And what a long delightful summer and autumn ramble we had had of it to
be sure. No single one of us could remember everything we had seen and
come through. But when we get chatting together of a winter's evening,
and especially when I get my log-book alongside me, then it all comes
back.
I have many log-books, for though I do not consider myself a great
traveller, I have sojourned in many lands, and sailed on many seas. And
those logs serve often and often to bring me back the past. Here, for
instance, is--
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