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Title: Children of the Dear Cotswolds Author: L. Allen Harker Release Date: July 09, 2014 [EBook #46548] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF THE DEAR COTSWOLDS
AUTHOR OF "MISS ESPERANCE AND MR. WYCHERLY," ETC.
LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1918
_Copyright in the United States of America by L. Allen Harker._
JAN AND HER JOB THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY A ROMANCE OF THE NURSERY MASTER AND MAID MISS ESPERANCE AND MR. WYCHERLY MR. WYCHERLY’S WARDS
Dear to you, too, the small "uplandish" town, The steep stone roofs, the graceful gabled street, The great beech woods, the rolling purple down, The golden fields that shimmer in the heat With molten glow of buttercups ablaze— Dear to you, too.
Dear to you, too, the folk, slow-spoken, kind, Wise with a mother-wisdom not of books; The sturdy "Cotsal-bred" of cautious mind, That judges men by "doin’s, not by looks," With sapient nods and trenchant homely phrase— Dear to you, too.
And since you love them well—people and land— I bring you stories of them—just a few Old folk and young—in hope you’ll let them stand With others that I wot of dear to you. How happy should these prove in future days— Dear to you, too.
"I’m homesick for my hills again— My hills again! To see above the Severn plain, Unscabbarded against the sky, The blue high blade of Cotswold lie." F. W. HARVEY.
I was in the train, and at Swindon a mud-stained "Tommy," hung round with equipment like the White Knight, and accompanied by an old lame man and a young lad, tumbled into my carriage just as the train was leaving the station. The old man and the lad had evidently been to meet the soldier at the junction, so as to lose no possible moment of the precious "leaf." They were very cheery, and in turn refreshed themselves from a bottle, what time the rather uncheerful smell of the very-small-ale permitted at present was wafted about the carriage. Mingled with the rattle of the train came scraps of conversation: much mutual exchange of news in the slow, rumbling Gloucestershire voices, a little quickened and sharpened, just then, by excitement and the shamefaced emotion that refused to be entirely hidden. Every now and then one would hear such sentences as, "Ah, so ’a be, at Armenteers that was, poor Ernie! and us could never find no trace on ’im."