92 IDLEHURST : 



life by Gervase's warm-blooded actualities ; and once 

 more to marvel at the hopes and propositions held in 

 those threshold days ; hopes which, I suppose, to such 

 of us as have not become bishops or members of 

 Parliament, or popular novelists, are among the most 

 sadly-humorous things in the world. 



I paced round the long island of flowers under the 

 fast-thickening dusk, and came to a stop again by the 

 group of snakesheads. My scout used to tell me 

 that it was impossible to get them to grow away 

 from Oxford ; I learned to rank that with Thomas' 

 other many inventions, so soon as I became a gardener. 

 But to-night, after the late ruminations, and with 

 clearer recollections of the Iffley fritillaries, I can 

 believe that he was right after all. These are not 

 the Oxford sort ; the kind I knew has been extinct 

 for a definite number of years. Thomas builded his 

 fiction better than he knew. 



I was drawing towards the house, signalled by the 

 candle-light in the parlour window, when a low churr 

 came from the apple-tree as I passed ; and as I softly 

 came to a stand in the grass, close overhead broke 

 out the voice of the nightingale. Year by year it 

 comes as a fresh miracle, never staled by use, never 

 fallen from the height of younger memories. There 

 is no voice like it ; the volume, the force, the liquid 



