ound... especially
these nights, every one distinct in his mind, the place where
yesterday's tent had been pitched, and the place where he had laid
his head a week ago, the stones which three nights ago had prevented
him from sleeping.

"These experiences will form part of my life, a background, an
escapement from civilisation when I return to it. We must think a
little of the future--lay by a store like the bees"; and next
morning he looked round, his eyes delighting in the beauty of the
light. Truly a light sent from beyond skies in which during the
course of the day every shade of blue could be distinguished. A thin,
white cloud would appear towards evening, stretch like a skein of
white silk across the sky, to gather as the day declined into one
white cloud, which would disappear, little by little, into the
sunset. As Owen rode at the head of his cavalcade he watched this
cloud, growing smaller, and its diminishing often inspired the
thought of a ship entering into a harbour, sail dropping over sail.

The pale autumn weather continued day after day; everything in the
landscape seemed fixed; and it seemed impossible to believe that
very soon dark clouds would roll overhead, and wind tear the trees,
and floods dangerous to man and horse rush down the peaceful river
beds, now nearly dry, only a trickle of water, losing itself among
sandy reaches.

During the long march of twenty days the caravan passed through
almost every kind of scenery--long plains in which there was nothing
but reeds and tussocked grass, and these plains were succeeded by
stony hills covered with scrub. Again they caught sight of Arab
fires in the morning like a mist, at night lighting up the horizon;
and a few days afterwards they were riding through an oak forest
whose interspaces were surprisingly like the tapestries at
Riversdale, only no archer came forward to shoot the stag; and he
listened vainly, for the sounds of hunting horns.

On debouching from the forest they passed through pleasantly watered
valleys, the hillsides of which were cultivated. It was pleasant to
see fields again, though they were but meagre Arab fields. All the
same Owen was glad to see the blue shadows of the woods marking the
edge of these fields, for they carried his thoughts back to England,
to his own fields, and in his mood of mind every remembrance of
England was agreeable. He was beginning to weary of wild nature, so
it was pleasant to see an Arab shepherd e