Among the quick and bramble thorns;
The red cow jerks the padlock chain;
The dun cow shakes her bell again,
And round and round the chestnut tree,
The white cow bellows lustily.” ...
He knew all four verses by heart.
“Your aims are wonderful,” I stammered. “If I could only see you at work, if you would only show me the scenes which inspire such antique and lofty emotions....”
“See! this is London—nothing but trees—I have seen it so as I came home. But I cannot go with you. I return to think about the Golden Age.”
He tied the flowers round the pole of a signboard that stood on a harsh courtyard of gravel strewn with dirty paper, and pursued his homeward road, eager for “The Old Angel” or “The Chequers” where he could vivify his vision of the Golden Age.
In the sky, the distant dawn sent up to the clouds a faint dream of light that made their shapes just visible. A hedge-sparrow awoke in the furze beside the road, twittered clearly and became silent again; on the other side, in some invisible trees high up, a few rooks began to talk. Then, for a little while as I went on, the darkness was complete, and the silence also, except that the telegraph wires forced a faint complaint out of the light wind.