As I sat on, lost in thought, my great hound’s head resting at my feet, the silence was broken by the sound of the old church clock. It struck eleven. I touched the grass at my feet: it was wet with dew.
From behind me as I rose came strongly in a soft breeze all the perfumes of the sweet things then in flower, and as I passed out of the cloisters my last vision was the mead of narcissi nodding softly in the night wind.
Mouse and I turned back out of the lily gate, and so into the quadrangle. Light flashed from the hanging lamps in the ambulatory, and I heard in the distance the refrain of an old Brittany song, that Auguste was singing in his kitchen. Half an hour later not a sound, and the lights were put out, and all was still. Only the scents of the honeysuckle and the budding lilac reached me from my open casement, and the cry of the corncrake, which seemed mysteriously to record the passing of the hours and the passing of all things—Kings, Queens, Abbots, Kingdoms and Commonwealths. So musing I fell asleep.
Several weeks later I rose “betimes,” as they say here, and whilst the dew was lying like a mantle of diamonds on the glistening turf. I stepped off to the old red-walled garden and visited the beds of tulips.
My late tulips were all out in a blaze of beauty—rose, red, white, yellow, and gold, whilst some were splashed with sombre purple. On the walls, the creepers were all clad in green, and the honeysuckles cast their perfume in all the corners of the garden. But I did not stop to linger; a wild spirit was on me, and I made my way across the golden meadows, past the fern-clad hill, and beyond what folks call here the paddock. I walked on, faithful Mouse following closely, until I reached the bottom of the hill on which the hamlet of Wyke is built, and then I turned to the north, and retraced my steps by Farley Dingle.
What an enchantingly beautiful thing the dew on the opening flowers of the dog-rose is, and how delicate are the red shades of the opening fronds of the bracken. Then I saw other treasures, none of which were more lovely than some pink cheeked oak-apples, encircled in the golden tassels of the oak blossom.
Why does one not get up every morning? I said to myself. Why miss daily the enchantments of morning? The dew, the scents, and the sunshine were all delicious.
I returned through the little town. Life was just beginning. Shops were opening. A few people drove past in noisy carts. Mothers were preparing their children to go to school. Men were going to work after their breakfasts, to the near fields, or in the shops; whilst whelp, and hound, and pup, were all gaily frolicking in the streets.
THE ROYAL OAK
I saw little friends go by. They laughed and bowed to me. Nearly all the little lads had got, I noticed, a sprig of oak leaves in their cap, for it was the 29th of May, Royal Oak Apple Day, as the folks call it; and some of them as they passed called out—