d that he devoutly wished we were sun-worshippers,
like the Persians, as well as Christians; also that we were Buddhists,
and worshippers of our dead ancestors like the Chinese, and that we were
pagans and idolaters who bow down to sticks and stones, if all these
added cults would serve to make us more reverent. And I wish he could
have said that it was as irreligious to go to Stonehenge, that ancient
temple which man raised to the unknown god thousands of years ago, to
indulge in noise and horseplay at the hour of sunrise, as it would be to
go to Salisbury Cathedral for such a purpose.

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Village and "The Stones"

My experiences at "The Stones" had left me with the idea that but for
the distracting company the hours I spent there would have been very
sweet and precious in spite of the cloud in the east. Why then, I asked,
not go back on another morning, when I would have the whole place to
myself? If a cloud did not matter much it would matter still less that
it was not the day of the year when the red disc flames on the watcher's
sight directly over that outstanding stone and casts first a shadow then
a ray of light on the altar. In the end I did not say good-bye to the
village on that day, but settled down to listen to the tales of my
landlady, or rather to another instalment of her life-story and to
further chapters in the domestic history of those five small villages in
one. I had already been listening to her every evening, and at odd times
during the day, for over a week, at first with interest, then a little
impatiently. I was impatient at being kept in, so to speak. Out-of-doors
the world was full of light and heat, full of sounds of wild birds
and fragrance of flowers and new-mown hay; there were also delightful
children and some that were anything but delightful--dirty, ragged
little urchins of the slums. For even these small rustic villages
have their slums; and it was now the time when the young birds were
fluttering out of their nests--their hunger cries could be heard
everywhere; and the ragged little barbarians were wild with excitement,
chasing and stoning the flutterers to slay them; or when they succeeded
in capturing one without first having broken its wings or legs it was to
put it in a dirty cage in a squalid cottage to see it perish miserably
in a day or two. Perhaps I succeeded in saving two or three threatened
lives in the lanes and secret green places by the stream