Leaves in the Wind

THE WAYFARERS LIBRARY
LEAVES IN THE WIND
Alpha of the Plough
(A. G. Gardiner)
LONDON & TORONTO: J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
TO MY CHILDREN
PREFATORY NOTE
This collection of essays, now republished in the Wayfarers' Library, were written during the war, and first appeared in book form during the war. Like the preceding volume, Pebbles on the Shore , they were the literary diversions of a time of great public anxiety and heavy personal tasks. The writing of them was a happy distraction from unhappy things, and now that the great wind has passed it is a pleasure to find the leaves it blew down gathered between the companionable covers of the Wayfarer. I leave them as they fell.
CONTENTS

I do not know which of us got into the carriage first. Indeed I did not know he was in the carriage at all for some time. It was the last train from London to a Midland town—a stopping train, an infinitely leisurely train, one of those trains which give you an understanding of eternity. It was tolerably full when it started, but as we stopped at the suburban stations the travellers alighted in ones and twos, and by the time we had left the outer ring of London behind I was alone—or, rather, I thought I was alone.