ough some process of mind, presently compels you to go up on the
platform, and after a little puffing and revolution of wheels you emerge
at Charing Cross, or London Bridge, or Waterloo, or Ludgate Hill, and,
with the freshness of the meadows still clinging to your coat, mingle
with the crowd.

The inevitable end of every footpath round about London is London. All
paths go thither.

If it were far away in the distant country you might sit down in the
shadow upon the hay and fall asleep, or dream awake hour after hour.
There would be no inclination to move. But if you sat down on the sward
under the ancient pollard oak in the little mead with the brook, and the
wood of which I spoke just now as like a glade in the enchanted Forest
of Arden, this would not be possible. It is the proximity of the immense
City which induces a mental, a nerve-restlessness. As you sit and would
dream a something plucks at the mind with constant reminder; you cannot
dream for long, you must up and away, and, turn in which direction you
please, ultimately it will lead you to London.

There is a fascination in it; there is a magnetism stronger than that of
the rock which drew the nails from Sindbad's ship. You are like a bird
let out with a string tied to the foot to flutter a little way and
return again. It is not business, for you may have none, in the ordinary
sense; it is not "society," it is not pleasure. It is the presence of
man in his myriads. There is something in the heart which cannot be
satisfied away from it.

It is a curious thing that your next-door neighbour may be a stranger,
but there are no strangers in a vast crowd. They all seem to have some
relationship, or rather, perhaps, they do not rouse the sense of reserve
which a single unknown person might. Still, the impulse is not to be
analysed; these are mere notes acknowledging its power. The hills and
vales, and meads and woods are like the ocean upon which Sindbad sailed;
but coming too near the loadstone of London, the ship wends thither,
whether or no.

At least it is so with me, and I often go to London without any object
whatever, but just because I must, and, arriving there, wander
whithersoever the hurrying throng carries me.

FLOCKS OF BIRDS

A certain road leading outwards from a suburb, enters at once among
fields. It soon passes a thick hedge dividing a meadow from a cornfield,
in which hedge is a spot where some bluebells may be found in spring.
Wi