It was very striking, the sort of tribal, patriarchal sentiment, the almost family feeling, prevailing all over this estate and as far as the royal landlord's influence as such extended. Here the man behind the monarch was known as probably he could not be elsewhere in his own dominions or in the world--here, where he was in the special sense at home, and where he could be himself in freedom. Behind his back it was easy to gather the facts of the situation. There was no servile, old-world awe in the enormous and adoring respect paid to their great squire by those who "lived under" him; in their evidently boundless affection there was not a scrap of fear. When the milk gave out in the refreshment tents, because the fine day had brought more tea-drinkers than were expected, messengers ran to the Queen's dairy, as naturally as they would have run home if home had been as near, for more; and the little incident was typical. As a cheap tripper I gained an interesting experience and some valuable knowledge which as a privileged guest I must have missed. Also--in the retrospect--a delightful memory.
At the time, there was a disadvantage attached to the position which almost spoiled my day. The excursion train started early in the morning and returned late in the evening, giving us the whole day "out," and I was not strong enough to stand all that. I knew just how it would be, but I had not seen the time-table when I committed myself to the expedition by inviting a niece-in-law to accompany me. Otherwise I should not have come. And so now I am very thankful that I did invite her. As I said to her, when I tumbled, half dead, out of the train at D---- (cutting off what I could of the return journey, half of which she had still to make), "I'm glad I've done it--now that it is over."
It was all right, the getting there. The drive from Wolferton Station was full of joy, the beautiful modern woodland road not withholding glimpses of the wild heath of my young days, that was wild heath still, splashed with pinky-purple heather delightfully blending with dark fir wood and tawny sand. The tented meadows, and the sweet gardens beyond them, the views of the great house from this side and that, the glorious trees, the glorious grass, the glorious sunshine which Australia could not beat--as long as I escaped with my life to tell the tale--or, rather, to remember the feast of loveliness that it was--it is absurd to talk of what it cost me.