136 EASY-CHAIR MEMORIES 



woodland all to ourselves. My chief com- 

 panions hitherto have been the flies. There 

 has been a never-ending supply of them, and 

 one wonders where they come from. Do the 

 same flies gang all the way with us ? Or do 

 they change unperceived and gradually? I 

 wonder if they accompany motor-cars at fifty 

 miles an hour? or perhaps it is one of the 

 small blessings of motor-cars that flies cannot 

 catch or keep up with them. Anyway, they 

 are a persistent and perpetual nuisance, buzzing 

 and tickling one on nose and chin and neck 

 and hands ; now and then getting under one's 

 spectacles, and making a great fizzle and fuss 

 to get out again. 



In the solemn, silent, solitary woods I knew 

 I should be free of cycles and motors and 

 clouds of dust, but the lively flies followed and 

 bothered me more than ever. When I passed 

 through this wood four or five weeks ago, the 

 bracken was just beginning to peep through 

 the dead remains of other years, and blue-bells 

 and wood-anemones and primroses were in full 

 bloom. Now they have disappeared, and the 

 fern is in full feathery leaf, six feet high, and 

 adds a beauty of its own to the woodland 



