In the flower-garden roses would trail over arch and pergola; there
would be a lawn with shaped yews on it; while in the orchard old
apple-trees would flaunt their red abundance above grey, lichened walls.
("As if there weren't apples enough here!" thought Mary.)
He got a frog in his throat as he went on to paint in greater detail for
her, who had left it so young, the intimate charm of the home country--
the rich, green, dimpled countryside. And not till now did he grasp how
sorely he had missed it. "Oh, believe me, to talk of 'going home' is no
mere figure of speech, Mary!" In fancy he trod winding lanes that ran
between giant hedges: hedges in tender bud, with dew on them; or snowed
over with white mayflowers; or behung with the fairy webs and gossamer
of early autumn, thick as twine beneath their load of moisture. He
followed white roads that were banked with primroses and ran headlong
down to the sea; he climbed the shoulder of a down on a spring morning,
when the air was alive with larks carolling. But chiefly it was the
greenness that called to him--the greenness of the greenest country in
the world. Viewed from this distance, the homeland looked to him like
one vast meadow. Oh, to tread its grass again!--not what one knew as
grass here, a poor annual, that lasted for a few brief weeks; but lush
meadow-grass, a foot high; or shaven emerald lawns on which ancient
trees spread their shade; or the rank growth in old orchards, starry
with wild flowers, on which fruit-blossoms fluttered down.
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