62 IDLEHURST : 



I often have recourse to this sort of spell. After 

 reaching my farthest point and setting my face home- 

 wards, I let my mind run on before to the centre of 

 all comings and goings, the covert and burrow of 

 one's personality ; sometimes peopling the quiet 

 rooms with faces and voices which never came there 

 and never shall ; filling the prosaic corners with happy 

 ghosts, who always vanish even while my hand is on 

 the door. 



\6tk. Blackthorn winter, in half a gale from the 

 north-west, and with now and again a spit of snow 

 out of the hard-edged deep blue clouds. On such 

 rude days conscience demands a sorting-up of tasks 

 neglected ; and my forenoon went in works of 

 necessity with barrow and spade, comfortless among 

 the wind-thrashed wallflowers and strewn pear- 

 blossom. At noon the sun struggled out, sending 

 great spokes of misty light through the folds of the 

 steely sky, and suddenly lighting up the orchard 

 boughs, silver and gold against the gloomy north. 



Conscience was eased after a morning face-to- 

 ground and back rigidly bent, and I walked down to 

 the village and aimlessly out towards the blank out- 

 line of Ockington Beacon. Two miles out, at Jolland's 

 Corner, a vast triangle of waste common fringed at 

 one edge with cottages, a sawmill, a coffee-tavern, 



