[Afoot in England by W.H. Hudson]@TWC D-Link bookAfoot in England CHAPTER Fourteen: The Return of the Native 9/10
There's a church tower among them trees, but you can't see it because 'tis hid.
You go by the road till you comes to the church, then you go on by the water, maybe a quarter of a mile, and you comes to Woodyates.
You won't see no difference in it; I've knowed it since I were a boy, but 'tis in Harping parish, not in Thorpe." Now he remembered the name--Harping, near Thorpe--only Thorpe was the more important village where the inn was and the shops. In less than an hour after leaving his informant he was at Woodyates, feasting his eyes on the old house of his dreams and of his exiled father's before him, inexpressibly glad to recognize it as the very house he had loved so long--that he had been deceived by no false image. For some days he haunted the spot, then became a lodger at the farm-house, and now after making some inquiries he had found that the owner was willing to sell the place for something more than its market value, and he was going up to London about it. At Waterloo I wished him happiness in his old home found again after so many years, then watched him as he walked briskly away--as commonplace-looking a man as could be seen on that busy crowded platform, in his suit of rough grey tweeds, thick boots, and bowler hat.
Yet one whose fortune might be envied by many even among the successful--one who had cherished a secret thought and feeling, which had been to him like the shadow of a rock and like a cool spring in a dry and thirsty land. And in that host of undistinguished Colonials and others of British race from all regions of the earth, who annually visit these shores on business or for pleasure or some other object, how many there must be who come with some such memory or dream or aspiration in their hearts! A greater number probably than we imagine.
For most of them there is doubtless disappointment and disillusion: it is a matter of the heart, a sentiment about which some are not given to speak.
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