down the glade from time to time; so that even in my great chamber the
air was being renewed all night long. I thought with horror of the inn
at Chasserades and the congregated nightcaps; with horror of the
nocturnal prowesses of clerks and students, of hot theatres and pass-keys
and close rooms. I have not often enjoyed a more serene possession of
myself, nor felt more independent of material aids. The outer world,
from which we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle habitable
place; and night after night a man's bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting
for him in the fields, where God keeps an open house. I thought I had
rediscovered one of those truths which are revealed to savages and hid
from political economists: at the least, I had discovered a new pleasure
for myself. And yet even while I was exulting in my solitude I became
aware of a strange lack. I wished a companion to lie near me in the
starlight, silent and not moving, but ever within touch. For there is a
fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood,
is solitude made perfect. And to live out of doors with the woman a man
loves is of all lives the most complete and free.

As I thus lay, between content and longing, a faint noise stole towards
me through the pines. I thought, at first, it was the crowing of cocks
or the barking of dogs at some very distant farm; but steadily and
gradually it took articulate shape in my ears, until I became aware that
a passenger was going by upon the high-road in the valley, and singing
loudly as he went. There was more of good-will than grace in his
performance; but he trolled with ample lungs; and the sound of his voice
took hold upon the hillside and set the air shaking in the leafy glens. I
have heard people passing by night in sleeping cities; some of them sang;
one, I remember, played loudly on the bagpipes. I have heard the rattle
of a cart or carriage spring up suddenly after hours of stillness, and
pass, for some minutes, within the range of my hearing as I lay abed.