“You must take care of the mosquitoes,” said another soldier’s wife, who had been out.
“What’s a mosquito, ’oman?”
“Oh!” was the reply, “a creature with a long snout hangin’ doon in front, that it sucks your blood wi’.”
On landing in India almost the first animal she saw was an elephant.
“May the Lord preserve us!” cried the soldier’s wife, “is that a mosquito?”
But we had to leave the dear old Forest at last, and turn our horses’ heads to the north once more. “It is,” says Phillips, “in such sequestered spots as these, removed from the everlasting whirl and turmoil of this high-pressure age, that we may obtain some glimpses of a life strangely contrasting in its peaceful retirement with our own; and one cannot envy the feelings of him who may spend but a few hours here without many happy and pleasant reflections.”
“The past is but a gorgeous dream,
And time glides by us like a stream
While musing on thy story;
And sorrow prompts a deep alas!
That like a pageant thus should pass
To wreck all human glory.”
We met many pleasant people at Lyndhurst and round it, and made many pleasant tours, Lymington being our limit.
Then we bade farewell to the friends we had made, and turned our horses’ heads homewards through Hants.
When I left my little village it was the sweet spring time, and as the Wanderer stood in the orchard, apple-blossoms fell all about and over her like showers of driven snow. When she stood there again it was the brown withered leaves that rustled around her, and the wind had a wintry sough in it. But I had health and strength in every limb, and in my heart sunny memories—that will never leave it—of the pleasantest voyage ever I have made in my life.