22 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



and three or four cottages a veritable hamlet in every 

 sense of the word. 



In a village a few miles distant, as you walk 

 between cherry and pear orchards, you pass a little 

 shop the sweets, and twine, and trifles are such as 

 may be seen in similar windows a hundred miles 

 distant. There is the very wooden measure for nuts, 

 which has been used time out of mind, in the distant 

 country. Out again into the road as the sun sinks, 

 and westwards the wind lifts a cloud of dust, whica I* 

 lit up and made rosy by the rays passing through it. 

 For such is the beauty of the sunlight that it can 

 impart a glory even to dust. 



Once more, never go by a stile (that does not look 

 private) without getting over it and following the 

 path. But they all end in one place. After rambling 

 across furze and heath, or through dark fir woods; 

 after lingering in the meadows among the buttercups, 

 or by the copses where the pheasants crow ; after 

 gathering June roses, or, in later days, staining the 

 lips with blackberries or cracking nuts, by-and-by the 

 path brings you in sight of a railway station. And the 

 railway station, through some process of mind, presently 

 compels you to go up on the platform, and after a 

 little purring and revolution of wheels you emerge 

 at Charing Cross, or London Bridge, or Waterloo, or 

 Ludgate Hill, and, with the freshness of the meadows 

 still clinging to your coat, mingle with the crowd. 



The inevitable end of every footpath round about 

 London is London. All paths go thither. 



If it were far away in the distant country you might 

 sit down in the shadow upon the hay and fall asleep, 

 or dream awake hour after hour. There would be no 

 inclination to move. But if you sat down on the sward 



