pel, at first only in the
hamlets and valleys round his home at Underbarrow near to Kendal. But
one day when the daffodils were all abloom, and blowing their golden
trumpets silently beside the sheltered streams, it came to him that he
must take a further journey, and must follow the golden paths of the
daffodils over hill and vale, until at the end of this street of gold
he should come to Swarthmoor Hall; that there he might assist his
friends at their Meeting, and with them be strengthened and have his
soul refreshed.

A walk of seventeen miles or so lay before him, and an easy journey it
should prove in this gay springtime, though in winter, when the snow
lay drifted on the uplands, it would have been another matter. He
could have travelled by the sheltered road that runs through the
valley. It being springtime, however, and a sunny day when Miles set
out from his home, he chose for pure pleasure to go by the fells.
First, he travelled across the Westmorland country till he came to the
lower end of Lake Winandermere, where the hills lie gently round like
giants' children, being not yet full grown into giants themselves with
brows that touch the sky, as they are at the upper end of that same
shining lake. Then, leaving Winandermere, across the Furness fells he
came, keeping ever on his right hand the Old Man of Coniston, who,
with his head for the most part wrapped in clouds, standeth yet, as he
hath stood for ages, the Guardian of all that region.

Thus at length, as Miles journeyed, he came within sight of the
promontory of Furness, that lies encircled by the sea, even as a
babe's head lies in the crook of a woman's elbow. Seeing this, Miles'
heart rejoiced, for he knew that his journey's end was in sight, and
he tramped along blithely and without fear.

Suddenly, on the path at some distance ahead of him, he saw a patch of
brilliant green and purple coming towards him--a gay figure more
likely to be met with in the streets of London than on those lonely
fells. Miles thought to himself as it drew nearer, ''Tis a woman!'
then, 'Nay, it is surely a great Thistle coming towards me; no woman
would wear garments such as those in this lonely place.' As he shaded
his eyes the better to see what might be approaching, his mind ran
back to the first sermon he had ever heard George Fox preach, on his
first visit to Underbarrow, when he said, 'That all people in the Fall
were gone from the image of God, righteousness and hol