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recover his resources. And having got to Gilhampton at last, he
changed his five-pound note, bought four pound postal orders, and
repeated his manoeuvre with nineteen pounds.
After a lapse of fifteen years he rediscovered this interesting world,
about which so many people go incredibly blind and bored. He went
along country roads while all the birds were piping and chirruping and
cheeping and singing, and looked at fresh new things, and felt as
happy and irresponsible as a boy with an unexpected half-holiday. And
if ever the thought of Miriam returned to him he controlled his mind.
He came to country inns and sat for unmeasured hours talking of this
and that to those sage carters who rest for ever in the taps of
country inns, while the big sleek brass jingling horses wait patiently
outside with their waggons; he got a job with some van people who were
wandering about the country with swings and a steam roundabout and
remained with them for three days, until one of their dogs took a
violent dislike to him and made his duties unpleasant; he talked to
tramps and wayside labourers, he snoozed under hedges by day and in
outhouses and hayricks at night, and once, but only once, he slept in
a casual ward. He felt as the etiolated grass and daisies must do when
you move the garden roller away to a new place.
He gathered a quantity of strange and interesting memories.
He crossed some misty meadows by moonlight and the mist lay low on the
grass, so low that it scarcely reached above his waist, and houses and
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