oy's description. Sure enough, there was no
weather-cock in sight, not even on the church-tower.

Not far beyond Kilve we saw a white house, a mile or so away, standing
among the trees to the south, at the foot of the high-rolling Quantock
Hills. Our post-boy told us that it was Alfoxton, "where Muster
Wudswuth used to live," but just how to get to it he did not know. So
we drove into the next village of Holford and made inquiry at the
"Giles' Plough Inn," a most quaint and rustic tavern with a huge
ancient sign-board on the wall, representing Giles with his white horse
and his brown horse and his plough. Turning right and left and right
again, through narrow lanes, between cottages gay with flowers, we came
to a wicket-gate beside an old stone building, and above the gate a
notice warning all persons not to trespass on the grounds of Alfoxton.
But the gate was on the latch, and a cottager, passing by, told us that
there was a "right of way" which could not be closed--"goa straight on,
and nivver fear, nubbody 'll harm ye."

[Illustration: Tannery Combe, Holford.]

A few steps brought us into the thick woods, and to the edge of a deep
glen, spanned by a bridge made of a single long tree-trunk, with a
hand-rail at one side. Down below us, as we stood on the swaying
bridge, a stream dashed and danced and sang through the shade, among
the ferns and mosses and wild flowers. The steep sides of the glen
glistened with hollies and laurels, tangled and confused with
blackberry bushes. Overhead was the interwoven roof of oaks and ashes
and beeches. Here it was that Wordsworth, in the year 1797, when he was
feeling his way back from the despair of mind which followed the
shipwreck of his early revolutionary dreams, used to wander alone or
with his dear sister Dorothy. And here he composed the "Lines Written
in Early Spring"--almost the first notes of his new poetic power:

"I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sat reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

"Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its leaves;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes."

Climbing up to the drive, we followed a long curving avenue toward the
house. It led along the breast of the hill, with a fine view under the
spreading arms of the great beeches, across the water to the Welsh
mountains. On the l