A short way further along I come across a boy gathering palm. He is a town
boy, and has come all the way from Whitechapel thus early. He has already
gathered a great bundle--worth five shillings to him, he says. This same
palm will to-morrow be distributed over London, and those who buy sprigs
of it by the Bank will know nothing of the blue-eyed boy who gathered it,
and the murmuring river by which it grew. And the lad, once more lost in
some squalid court, will be a sort of Sir John Mandeville to his
companions--a Sir John Mandeville of the fields, with their water-rats,
their birds' eggs, and many other wonders. And one can imagine him saying,
'And the sparrows there fly right up into the sun, and sing like angels!'
But he won't get his comrades to believe _that_.


IV

Spring has a wonderful way of bringing out hidden traits of character.
Through my window I look out upon a tiny farm. It is kept by a tall,
hard-looking, rough-bearded fellow, whom I have watched striding about his
fields all winter, with but little sympathy. Yet it would seem I have been
doing him wrong. For this morning, as he passed along the outside of the
railing wherein his two sheep were grazing, suddenly they came bounding
towards him with every manifestation of delight, literally recalling the
lambkins which Wordsworth saw bound 'as to the tabor's sound.' They
followed as far as the railing permitted, pushing their noses through at
him; nay, when at last he moved out of reach, they were evidently so much
in love that they leaped the fence and made after him. And he, instead of
turning brutally on them, as I had expected, smiled and played with them
awhile. Indeed, he had some difficulty in disengaging himself from their
persistent affection. So, evidently, they knew him better than I.