If he had just returned from
Central Africa or from Thibet he could not have had more to
tell them nor told it with greater zest.
We went to our room, but until the small hours the wind of the
old traveller's talk could still be heard at intervals from
the kitchen, mingled with occasional shrill explosions of
laughter from the listening children.
It happened that on the following day, spent in idling in the
forest and about the hamlet, conversing with the cottagers, we
were told that our old man was a bit of a humbug; that he was
a great talker, with a hundred schemes for the improvement
of his fortunes, and, incidently, for the benefit of his
neighbours and the world at large; but nothing came of it all
and he was now fast sinking into the lowest depths of poverty.
Yet who would blame him? 'Tis the nature of the gorse to be
"unprofitably gay." All that, however, is a question for the
moralist; the point now is that in walking, even in that poor
way, when, on account of physical weakness, it was often a
pain and weariness, there are alleviations which may be more
to us than positive pleasures, and scenes to delight the eye
that are missed by the wheelman in his haste, or but dimly
seen or vaguely surmised in passing--green refreshing nooks
and crystal streamlets, and shadowy woodland depths with
glimpses of a blue sky beyond--all in the wilderness of the
human heart.
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