CHAPTER XXII.
PRIUS DEMENTAT.
When Maurice Mangan left the train at Winstead, and climbed out of the
deep chalk cutting in which the station is buried, and emerged upon the
open downs, he found himself in a very different world from that he had
left. Far away behind him lay the great city (even now the dusky dome of
St. Paul's was visible across the level swathes of landscape), with its
miry ways and teeming population and continuous thunder of traffic;
while here were the windy skies of a wild March morning and swaying
trees and cawing rooks and air that was sweet in the nostrils and soft
to the throat. As he light-heartedly strode away across the undulations
of blossoming gorse, fragments of song from his favorite poets chased
one another through his brain; and somehow they were all connected with
the glad opening out of the year--"And then my heart with pleasure
fills, and dances with the daffodils"--"Along the grass sweet airs are
blown, our way this day in spring"--"And in the gloaming o' the wood,
the throssil whistled sweet"--Mangan could sing no more than a crow; but
he felt as if he were singing; there was a kind of music in the long
stride, the quick pulse, the deep inhalations of the delicious air.
Pages:
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645