CHAPTER XI 



EABLY SPRING IN SAVERNAKE FOREST 



When the spring -feeling is in the blood, 

 infecting us with vague longings for we know 

 not what ; when we are restless and seem to be 

 waiting for some obstruction to be removed — 

 blown away by winds, or washed away by rains — 

 some change that wiU open the way to liberty and 

 happiness, — the feeling not unfrequently takes 

 a more or less definite form : we want to go away 

 somewhere, to be at a distance from our feUow- 

 beings, and nearer, if not to the sun, at all events 

 to wild nature. At such times I think of all the 

 places where I should like to be, and one is 

 Savernake ; and thither in two following seasons 

 I have gone to ramble day after day, forgetting 

 the world and myself in its endless woods. 



It is not that Spring is early there ; on the 



