AMBLESIDE. Ill 
princes and peasants, statesmen and poets, old men 
and little children — all drawn to the one solemn spot 
where Nature's poet lay so calmly sleeping amidst 
the scenes he loved so well. What was it in the 
quiet poet that moved all hearts ? Was it the 
" touch of Nature " that makes the whole v7orld 
kin "-^the Nature natural, yet very human too ? 
Amhleside was husy as we drove through. 
Children with happy faces were running about with 
every sort of quaint device, made in rushes and 
flowers, which they were to put up in the church 
at evening service, in honour of the ancient custom 
of rush-bearing — a custom for which no reason is 
now given. May it not be the remains of the 
custom, which prevails abroad, of strewing the 
churches with sweet-scented leaves and flowers 
when there is an ''Exposition of the Blessed 
Sacrament ? " 
I went to Grasmere church on the following 
morning, but I thought the quaint devices wanted 
the children's faces to set them off. It is a lovely 
drive from Windermere to Ulleswater by Trout- 
