He walked homewards, and he went lingeringly, more eager to feel the young heather under his feet than to tell his news. A few months, and he would walk on pavements; he would not breathe this wonderful, uplifting air. The sound of mountain water would only come to him in thoughts, and when he woke at night he would think the Blue Hill looked down on him until, leaping out of bed, as was his way, he would find nothing but grey walls and grass. He would hear the chiming of many clocks and, looking from his window, he would find the world empty for lack of the mountains and the babbling water and the smell of the uninhabited night.
He sat down again. A turn of the path had brought him to a wider view. The hills here stretched their arms to hold the valley, and he saw the white walls of his home, the silver snake of water winding to the lake, the fringing trees, birches and mountain ash, and the dark cluster of the yews with the church roof shining in the midst of them, under the sun. The smell of peat rose warmly from the earth and the bleating of lambs was sweet in his accustomed ears. One had to pay dearly for conquests and satisfied desires, he found, and he was willing to pay the price demanded--the price of exile. "But it'll not be for all the year," he consoled himself; and then he wondered that he had not rejoiced at the promised separation from his father. What had once seemed a necessity for decent life had now fallen back among the unimportant things. He was learning much.
"I'd live with ten like him, and hate them all, if I could live here," he said, and went on slowly, all his senses alert and greedy to gather stores against the future famine.
His mother glanced up, smiled and nodded as he appeared in the kitchen doorway. "Tea's ready," she said. It was her daily greeting.
He nodded in his turn and stood on the threshold with his hands in his pockets, watching the waving larches. They spoke to him in a language he could not interpret, but understood. He felt an unyouthful and transitory desire to remain rooted as they were, a desire for peace and life without a struggle. If he stayed here, Janet would give him work; he would like it well enough, and things would be simpler so. He considered the proposal with the calm interest of one who has no doubts. He was going to Oxford almost as surely as he was going to die. He was ambitious: he wanted what the place could give him; he wanted and dreaded the companionship of other men, the combat of minds opposed, the communion of kindred ones, learning, knowledge of humanity. He would get these and the hills would remain; wherever life might lead him, he would come back to them and they would still be here.