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sentimental pilgrimage and my last night in my old rooms cost me some hard tears.
    It was not a transient feeling: when I was sitting in the train it seemed to me that the disadvantages of a collegiate life had never been so slight, and never again could I recapture the strength of my dislike for it.
    I had hoped that Wales would compensate me for my sacrifice, but at Ruabon it was raining, and from there a dirty little train crawled spasmodically through cloud and showers, threading its interminable way through the invisible Principality. In the end I missed my station and I had all the difficulty in the world to find a cab that would take me from Llanfair up Cwm Bugail.
    When I reached my own house through the pouring rain it was dark and the fires had not been lighted: a tomb-like smell met me as I opened the door. The old woman from across the valley had either not received my note or had misunderstood it. I went straight to my damp bed and lay there shivering for an hour or two before I drifted off to a haunted sleep. It was a fitting end for a day that had begun with emotional exhaustion and had ended in extreme physical fatigue.
    Things looked much better in the morning. The sun was shining from a brilliant sky and the valley was looking finer than I had ever seen it. From my bed I looked straight out over to the other side, where the ridge of the Saeth sloped up right-handed to fill half my window. By moving a little I could see the peak itself, rising above a wisp of cloud like a veil, still just tinged with pink.
    The valley was full of lambs. Their voices were everywhere, loud and insistent, a hundred different tones; and everywhere the answering ewes, much deeper. I could see the lambs on the other side. So far away they were no more than white flecks, but brilliant white, and never still.
    Quite suddenly I felt active and happy, and I longed to be out. The air smelled wonderful in the garden, and there was a bird of some kind singing away, as I should have sung if I could. The boy from the farm appeared: he lurked about in view for some time and then shouted something in which I caught the word Parcels, and he pointed down to the farm. I went down and found that the kind people had taken in a number of things that I had sent to Hafod—household things and books, gramophone, records and so on—and had carefully stored them out of the rain. They were as welcoming as if I had been a native returning—how very pleasant it is to be made cordially welcome—and they insisted on giving me breakfast, ham of their own curing, eggs, a mountain of butter, and their own bread. Afterwards young Vaughan picked up my cases as though they were empty (I can think of nothing heavier nor more awkward than a box of gramophone records) and carried them up the hill to Hafod.
    For the next week I hardly stirred from the cottage. It is unusual, perhaps, for a man to reach middle age without ever having set up house; but I had not. It was terribly hard work: when one is naturally unhandy and has to learn all the techniques for the first time the putting up of a single shelf is a day’s labor; but Lord, the satisfaction of putting the books on it, clearing the floor of them and their packing, stowing away the boxes and reducing the place to something like order. There is a wonderful satisfaction, a feeling of accomplishment when you sit down for the first time in a neat room and look at the straight rows, one above another to the ceiling, all standing square on solid bases. Without being a bibliomaniac it has always seemed to me that books are the supreme decoration of a room, and I took the liveliest pleasure in arranging them according to their height and color.
    I had a great disappointment, however; it was the defection of Mrs. Bowen, who was to do for me. It was a blow, for I had based my assumptions, my projected way of life on somebody else doing the cooking and the work of the household. She was a savage old creature, with