Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/25

22 and clapping our hands. And why these clamorous demonstrations? We had just escaped from shipboard, remember; were on the solid green earth, driving through narrow winding avenues, with sloping hills and lofty trees on each side of us, often interlacing over our heads (the trees.I mean!), every inch of ground cultivated and divided by dark hedges filled with flowering shrubs, and sprinkled with thatched and mossy cottages—such as we have only seen in pictures—and the Solent Sea sparkling in the distance.

Our first halt was at Brading Church. Blessed are those who make the scene of their labours fit shrines for the homage of the traveller's heart. So did Leigh Richmond. A troop of children (twelve we counted) ran out to open the gate of the churchyard for us. One pointed out the "young cottager's" grave; another was eager to prove she could repeat glibly the epitaphs "little Jane" had recited. They showed us Brading Church (built in the seventh century) and Richmond's house, and the trees under which he taught. We gathered some holly leaves from the tree that shades his courtyard, which we shall devoutly preserve to show you. We might have remained there till this time if our curiosity had equalled the resources of our "train attendant." It is quite a new sight to us to see children getting their living in this way. We have little to show, and the traveller must grope his way as well as he can to that little. These children with us would have been at school or at the plough,