They had come back from the bustle of great towns, from intercourse with many men, from the life which always grows more rapid and more exciting the nearer people draw towards London—to the old quiet home, to the tarns, to the heather, to the mountains, to the valleys, which were all the same as when Phemie had dwelt among them, the adopted daughter of the owner of the Hill Farm.
She had left the wild mountain country when the sun was shining brightly; in the noontide, in the light; she returned to walk through it once more, but the grey evening shadows were settling down over the landscape, as the shadows had settled upon her life. She left it to become a great lady, and she had achieved that object. She had gained wealth and position, and she was now wondering, as she looked to right and left, what wealth and position availed.
They walked on, and the pure sweet air coming down from among the hills seemed to put fresh life into her, to restore something of the elasticity of her youth. Side by side, still in silence, they passed by Rydal Hill, through Rydal village, and so on till they came within sight of a house which most tourists in that part of England must have paused to admire. It is a cottage set back a little from the road, looking over Rydal Lake, with Nab Scar and Helm Crag overshadowing it, with the sweet greenery of that lovely country swelling away from it on all sides, with the summer flowers giving forth their sweetest perfume around it, with climbers and creepers trailing over it—a delightful spot in which to live, a sad place in which to die.
There are nooks on the earth that seem too beautiful to leave; there are seasons when everything in nature is so perfect, when her skies are so soft, her woods so leafy, her sunsets so gorgeous, her mornings so bright and gladsome, her streams so clear, her lakes so calm, her flowers and shrubs so fragrant, that it seems impossible for man to go away from all this beauty and brightness, to close his eyes on the face of this lovely world, and never to open them in time again.
Some thought of this kind came across Phemie’s mind as she stood looking at the lake and the landscape, which now lay bathed and steeped in moonlight. For the first time for years she felt that there was a happiness in the mere fact of existence; that no human being can have quite done with life so long as he remains in the flesh. It came upon her suddenly that she had been wrong, that she had done wrong, in suffering herself to grow so weary of so beautiful a world; and as out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh, so out of her heart dropped the sentence,
“I think one might grow almost happy again, uncle, living in a place like this.”
Then they turned and retraced their steps, talking as they went, talking under the moonlight of many things about which they had held their peace for years; and it was getting late when they found themselves in Ambleside once more, and entering the Salutation, at the door of which hotel some excursionists were just alighting.
“Mother, and father, and children,” decided Phemie, as she passed them by; and she would have gone upstairs and thought no more of them but for a voice which she fancied she knew, exclaiming,
“Don’t run in so rudely, Harry; keep back, sir.” Whereupon at once the lady said, “You are always snubbing that boy, Basil.”
The person so addressed never turned to answer; he caught the child, who was rushing past Phemie, with one hand, while with the other he raised his hat and apologised for his son’s forwardness.