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On the right is a green level, a smiling meadow; grass of the richest decks the side of the slope; mighty trees also adorn it, giant elms, the nearest of which, when the sun is nigh its meridian, fling a broad shadow on the face of the pool; through yon vista you catch a glimpse of the ancient brick of an old English hall.” This old hall stood on the site of an older hearthstead called the Earl’s Home, where lived some “Sigurd or Thorkild” in the days “when Thor and Freya were yet gods, and Odin was a portentous name.” Earlham stands to-day as it did in Borrow’s time, and, no doubt, other Norwich lads at times lie out on the hillside dreaming of the sea-rovers of Scandinavia who ravaged the hearths and homes of the marshland folk of East Anglia.
North of the Arno was a wide tract of marshland, which had to be crossed before the Apennine mountains could be reached. Never, during all his campaigns, did Hannibal's army have to undergo such suffering. In many ways it was worse than the passage of the Alps, for once in the midst of the morasses, swollen by the melting snows, it was hardly possible to snatch a moment of sleep.
Then, the performance over, I followed home some simple old centurion was it? who, returned from the wars on the far frontier, had given the city a shady walk and that shrine of Neptune. We came at last to a country house of "pale red and yellow marble," half farm, half villa, lying away from the white road at the point where it begins to decline somewhat sharply to the marshland below.
Off a bleak piece of marshland Bill and the Cockney said good-by and cast loose in their skiff. French Pete, in the cabin, bewailed their bad luck in various languages, and sought consolation in the wine-bottle. The wind freshened as they got clear of the land, and soon the Dazzler was heeling it with her lee deck buried and the water churning by, half-way up the cockpit-rail.
The pair created a great commotion as they whirred past scattered houses and emerged into the keen, cold air of the marshland. A few cars met en route actually slowed up, and heads were thrust out to peer in wonder. Women in them were scared, and enjoined drivers to be careful, while men explained laughingly that a couple of joy-riders were being chased by a motor "cop."
A water snake glides across the channel, leaving a silver wake in the moonlight. The frogs plunk into the water as we push past. A night heron rises from the margin of the river and slowly flops away. The bittern booms again as we row down the peaceful river, and we leave the marshland to its ancient and rightful owners.
This level marshland, the barren, metallic mountains, and a sort of semitropic jungle, partly inundated by water, comprise nearly all the area of the Light Country.
Below, through the orchard trees, were faint visions of the marshland, riven with creeks of silvery sea. He turned back towards the room, where red-shaded lamps still stood upon the white tablecloth, a curiously artificial daub of color after the splendour of the moonlit land. "The night is perfect," he exclaimed. "Do you need a wrap, or are you sufficiently acclimatized?"
Yet, we should have been content still to look and to listen, down in the hidden tiny ways of the marshland, but for the fading light that warned us homeward. What would night be among the sedges with the wandering rivulets full of twinkling stars, with the soft calling of wakeful birds, and with the skurrying of little creatures in their shadowy forest of reeds?
We sat apart, I longing for him to speak to me and exchange thoughts. But there was no one to introduce us. How stupid convention is! At sunset we climbed up to the topmost tier and stood together as though on an island tower in the midst of a sea of marshland. I ached to speak to him, and still we remained silent and apart. That night came the introduction I longed for.
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