NORTHUMBERLAND 



We changed at Morpeth, took the branch line, and got 

 out at what I have since identified as Scott's Gap 

 station. We spent the night at a friend's house near 

 by, and in the morning sallied forth to a tributary of 

 the Wansbeck, which I remember was in capital order. 

 What I most recall, however, is the delight of the old 

 sensations once again, and how it all came upon 

 me in a moment that, without admitting it, I had 

 been in a trouting sense homesick all these years. It 

 was a cool, breezy summer day, with glints of sunshine, 

 and the raindrops still sparkled in the leaves and upon 

 the grass. There were scents you never get a whiff 

 of out of England, and a chorus of sound you never 

 hear out of Britain. There were the grey but glorious 

 moors once more, the wide half-boggy pasture fields, 

 the soft, fresh, moist air that is nowhere else quite the 

 same. A fig for your unbroken sunshine and tangled 

 forests, with or without the snakes and mosquitoes 

 and all the rest of it, I shouted in my thoughts at any 

 rate, and meant it and still mean it ; for I was a true- 

 born Briton after all, and there is no prejudice in these 

 worthy ingrained preferences. They are much too 

 deep for anything so common as that. Give to me 

 always and all the time the atmosphere that so vastly 

 helps to impart an indescribable scenic charm to 

 Britain, as every discerning alien admits ; that covers 

 it with a sward which is to them beyond anything they 

 have ever dreamed of, that gives a mystery to the moun- 

 tain and a character to the moor, all and absolutely their 

 own. Let the hot-house folk who do not understand 

 these things, degenerate sons of a northern race, hunt 

 the sun around the world, and curse if they choose what 



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