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Updated: June 29, 2025
But, as I walked along Wilderness Road towards the church, a new and unexpected difficulty presented itself to my mind. I could not, without running the risk of an interruption, enter the church till after the Odd-Fellows had all returned from Graylingham, as Shales and his companions would have to pass along Wilderness Road, which skirts the churchyard.
At about ten o'clock I mounted the gangway and waited behind a deserted bungalow built for Fenella Stanley till I should hear the Odd-Fellows returning. In a few minutes I heard them approaching. They were singing snatches of songs they had been entertained with at Graylingham, and chatting and laughing as they went down Wilderness Road towards Raxton.
I got up in silence, and walked by her side out of the churchyard towards her father's cottage, which was situated between the new church and the old, and at a considerable distance from the town of Raxton on one side, and the village of Graylingham on the other. Her eager young limbs would every moment take her ahead of me, for she was as vigorous as a fawn.
However, the fact of the navvies being at work so close to a church whose chancel belonged to my family afforded an excellent motive for my visit. But before I could introduce the subject to Mrs. Shales, I had to listen to an exhaustive chronicle of Raxton and Graylingham doings since I had left.
The written words of my father that had worked this magical effect upon me were these: 'But after months of these lonely wanderings in Graylingham Wood and along the sands, not even the reshaping power of memory would suffice to appease my longing; a new hope, wild as new, was breaking in upon my soul, dim and yet golden, like the sun struggling through a sea-fog.
But as to what Tom could 'a dun with the carpus, I'm allus heer'd that you may dew anythink with any-think, if you on'y send it carriage-paid to Lunnon, I left the house in anger and disgust. No tidings could I get of Winifred in Raxton or Graylingham. By this time I was thoroughly worn out, and obliged to go home. My anxiety had become nearly insupportable.
So vividly did she bring before my eyes the scenery of North Wales, that when at last I went there it seemed quite familiar to me. And so in describing individuals, her pictures of them were like photographs. Graylingham Wood was our favourite haunt. This place and the adjoining piece of waste land, called the Wilderness, had for us all the charms of a primeval forest.
As I recall that walk home along Wilderness Road. I live it as thoroughly as I did then. I can see the rim of the sinking sun burning fiery red low down between the trees on the left, and then suddenly dropping out of sight. I can see on the right the lustre of the high-tide sea. I can hear the 'che-eu-chew, che-eu-chew. of the wood-pigeons in Graylingham Wood.
Pushed into an old worn shoe, which with its fellow lay tossed among the ragged clothes, was a brown stained letter. I took it out. It was addressed to 'Miss Winifred Wynne at Mrs. Davies's. Part of the envelope was torn away. It bore the Graylingham post-mark, and its superscription was in a hand which I did not recognise, and yet it was a hand which seemed half-familiar to me.
There were people staying at the Hall, and they and Frank engrossed all my mother's attention. At least, she did not appear to notice my absence from home. Early one morning, before breakfast, curiosity led him to follow me, and he came upon us in Graylingham Wood as we were sitting under a tree close to the cliff, eating the wild honey we had found in the Wilderness.
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