BACK TO THE WEST COUNTRY 181 



absolutely right, that Yeovil's one nightingale was 

 a rather poor performer. 



From Yeovil to Glastonbury is but a few miles, 

 some fifteen as the crow flies — no distance at all to 

 the person of importance in a motor-car and nothing 

 to detain him by the way. To me — to all whose desire 

 in travelling is not to arrive at their destination — 

 it was as far as I liked to make it. It was in fact a 

 vast green country where I discovered several small 

 ancient towns and more villages than I can remember; 

 churches in the shadow of whose grey old towers 

 one would like to spend the slow last years of life; 

 inns too where bread and cheese and beer, if nothing 

 else, can be obtained for refreshment, and the cot- 

 tage homes of the people one loves best. They are 

 never wildly enthusiastic like the Lancastrians about 

 anything, but they are sweeter, more engaging in 

 temper and manner, whether on account of their 

 softer climate or the larger infusion of Celtic blood 

 in their Anglo-Saxon veins I know not. They are 

 perhaps a perfect amalgam, like their Welsh neigh- 

 bours on the other side of the Severn with the harsh 

 lines of the Welsh features subdued, and like their 

 Saxon neighbours on the east side without their 

 stolidity. Moreover, they are not without a spark of 

 that spirit which is in the northerner — the romance, 

 the inner bright life which is not wholly concerned 

 with material things. 



