BACK TO THE WEST COUNTRY 179 



when there were gods who heeded man and white cows 

 that were sacred to them. 



I had seen and heard and made these precious things 

 mine ; now I wanted to turn back to the west again, 

 to be in other green flowery places before the bloom 

 was gone. It was nearing mid-June and by making 

 haste now I might yet find some other feathered rarity 

 and listen to some new song before the silent time. The 

 golden oriole and furze-wren were but two of half a 

 dozen species I had come out to find. 



At Yeovil I delayed two or three days with a 

 double motive. 



One of the most delightful experiences of a rambler 

 about the land is, when the day's end has brought him 

 to some strange or long unvisited place, to remember 

 all at once that this is the spot, the very parish, to which 

 old friends came to settle two or three or more years 

 ago. He missed their dear familiar faces sadly in that 

 part of the country where he had known them, but 

 he has never wholly forgotten or ceased to love them, 

 and now how delightful to find and drop in by surprise 

 on them, to take pot luck as in the old days, to talk of 

 those same dear old days and the old home, of every 

 person in it from the squire to the village idiot. 



It is hardly necessary to add that these lost friends 

 one goes about to recover are not persons of importance 

 who keep a motor-car, but simple people who live and 

 for long generations have lived the simple life, who 

 are on the soil with some of the soil on them, who 

 see few visitors from a distance — from the great world, 



