Lark Rise to Candleford (81 page)

Nearer at hand were the trees and bushes and wildflower
patches beside the path she had trodden daily. The pond where the yellow
brandyball waterlilies grew, the little birch thicket where the long-tailed
tits had congregated, the boathouse where she had sheltered from the thunderstorm
and seen the rain plash like leaden bullets into the leaden water, and the
hillock beyond from which she had seen the perfect rainbow. She was never to
see any of these again, but she was to carry a mental picture of them, to be
recalled at will, through the changing scenes of a lifetime.

As she went on her way, gossamer threads, spun from bush to
bush, barricaded her pathway, and as she broke through one after another of these
fairy barricades she thought, 'They're trying to bind and keep me'. But the
threads which were to bind her to her native county were more enduring than
gossamer. They were spun of love and kinship and cherished memories.