An Old Man's Holiday Author:Edward Marston Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III ANGLING THAT " PREACHETH PATIENCE" June 1898 ONCE a year our housemaid assumes dominion over our entire household: when she opens her m... more »outh no dog is allowed to bark. We have to pack up and be off. Spring- cleaning is on—stair-carpets are torn up ; bedrooms made quite uninhabitable. Once I tried to live through it at home all alone, the rest of the family being at the sea, but I don't want to try it again. I resolved for the future to leave spring-cleaning to itself, so this year, in the first week in May, we started off for the Isle of Wight. I am now writing in the middle of June, on a bitterly cold day, without a fire—a north-easterly wind prevailing, as it has done for some days— and I find it difficult to realise now that five weeks ago we had some bright and shiny days of lovely summer weather. We had many long strolls and drives in the pleasant interior of the lovely island—where the trees were all just out in full leaf—the meadows were green with lush grass, and golden with yellow buttercups—and the hedgerows were gilded over with solid beds of gorse and broom in full bloom—and as to the birds, they were positively rampant with their songs. " . . . At the bent spray edge That's the wise thrush, he sings each song twice over Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture."—Browning. These were our early days — the nearer we approached the month of June the nearer winter we seemed to be getting—the days and nights grew colder and colder—and at length, when we left the island, we thought we had left summer quite behind us. I remember one very hot, sunny afternoon, strolling along in a shady lane, I was surprised to see a leather-bat dashing about close to my head, and catching insects in the air. Nev...« less