I was alone: the switchman asked no odds of me, but
furled his bunting and immediately withdrew. For a moment I looked
about me in bewilderment. I think I could have turned back had I been
encouraged to do so, for I felt half guilty in thus surprising my
friends. A moment later I plucked up heart and struck into the road
that leads up to the village.
The road has a margin of grass and weeds, and there are meadows on
both sides. I walked in the very middle of it, with my portmanteau in
my hand, and looked straight ahead. Before me lay the village, a
cluster of white houses embowered in trees. It was sunset; the rain
had washed the leaves and laid the dust in the road; the air was
exquisitely fragrant and of uncommon softness; the white spire of the
village church, flanked by a long line of poplars, was gilded with a
sunbeam, but the lowly roofs of the villagers were bathed in the
radiant twilight that had deepened under the western hills. Cattle
were lowing in the meadows; the crickets chirped everywhere; a barbed
swallow clove the air like an arrow whose force is nigh spent; and a
child's voice rang out on the edge of the village as clear as a
clarion. I paused and laughed aloud. I was mad with joy; an exquisite
thrill ran through me; it seemed to me that the most delicious moment
of my life had come.
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