Page:The spirit of place, and other essays, Meynell, 1899.djvu/57



was when no good news made a journey, and no friend came near, but a welcome was uttered, or at least thought, for the travelling feet of the wayfarer or the herald. The feet, the feet were beautiful on the mountains; their toil was the price of all communication, and their reward the first service and refreshment. They were blessed and bathed; they suffered, but they were friends with the earth; dews in grass at morning, shallow rivers at noon, gave them coolness. They must have grown hard upon their mountain paths, yet never so hard but they needed and had the first pity and the readiest succour. It was never easy for the feet of man to travel this earth, shod or unshod, and his feet are delicate, like his colour.

If they suffered hardship once, they suffer privation now. Yet the feet should have more of the acquaintance of earth, and know more of flowers, freshness, cool brooks, wild thyme,