The newly-married pair crossed a wooden bridge over the stream from the
Lake, and found themselves on its further shore, a shore as untouched
and unspoilt now as when Wordsworth knew it, a hundred years ago. The
sun had only just vanished out of sight behind the Grasmere fells, and
the long Westmorland after-glow would linger for nearly a couple of
hours yet. After much rain the skies were clear, and all the omens fair.
But the rain had left its laughing message behind; in the full river, in
the streams leaping down the fells, in the freshness of every living
thing--the new-leafed trees, the grass with its flowers, the rushes
spreading their light armies through the flooded margins of the lake,
and bending to the light wind, which had just, as though in mischief,
blotted out the dream-world in the water, and set it rippling eastwards
in one sheet of living silver, broken only by a cloud-shadow at its
further end. Fragrance was everywhere--from the trees, the young fern,
the grass; and from the shining west, the shadowed fells, the brilliant
water, there breathed a voice of triumphant beauty, of unconquered
peace, which presently affected George Sarratt strangely.

They had just passed through a little wood; and in its friendly gloom,
he had put his arm round his wife so that they had lingered a little,
loth to leave its shelter. But now they had emerged again upon the
radiance of the fell-side, and he had found a stone for Nelly to rest
on.

'That those places in France, and that sky--should be in the same
world!' he said, under his breath, pointing to the glow on the eastern
fells, as he threw himself down on the turf beside her.

Her face flushed with exercise and happiness suddenly darkened.