52 IDLEHURST: 



brought something new. The soil threw up incense 

 at every step, the scarcely budded branches set it 

 afloat, all of the fine and recondite kind. Almost 

 any nose can appreciate hay, or lilac-blossom, or even 

 a bean-field, exquisite differences though these be ; 

 but a budding quick-hedge after a shower, or moist 

 young bracken, or a larch plantation on a spring 

 evening, require nares emunctce. As I passed along 

 the wood road, above all the separate notes notes 

 of primrose clump, bluebell spike, trodden tussock, 

 and wet moss came the general woodland air, the 

 breath of the very trunks and twigs, of trickling 

 water, of fir bark, of the dead leaves of fifty years. 

 As I came out into the open, I caught the smell of 

 a dusty road in the twilight cool, not unlike the 

 steam which goes up when raindrops begin to run 

 together and darken the dry soil of garden beds 

 a smell that brings recollections of drought and 

 timely showers. Then as I passed the hedge-corner 

 by Bish's cottage, came a blue drifting haze from 

 the garden patch, the half pungent, half sweet aroma 

 of a rubbish fire, which, acting through my idiosyn- 

 crasy of nostril, brought me home in a pleasantly 

 sentimental state of retrospect. I turned into the 

 dark warmth of the cowshed as I went across the 

 yard to find one more luxury of recollection in 



