My prayer is answered this morning.  I slept a dreamless sleep, and was roused by the cheerful crowing of cocks, which picked about the back yard of the inn.  I dressed quickly, only suspending my task to watch the little dramas of the inn yard—­the fowls on the pig-sty wall; the horse waiting meekly, with knotted traces hanging round it, to be harnessed; the cat, on some grave business of its own, squeezing gracefully under a closed barn door; the weary, flat-footed duck, nuzzling the mud of a small pool as delicately as though it were a rich custard.  I was utterly free; I might go and come as I liked.  Time had ceased to exist for me, and it was pleasant to reflect, as I finished my simple breakfast, that I should under professional conditions have been hurrying briskly into school for an hour of Latin Prose.  The incredible absurdity and futility of it all came home to me.  Half the boys that I teach so elaborately would be both more wholesomely and happily employed if they were going out to farm-work for the day.  But they are gentlemen’s sons, and so must enter what are called the liberal professions, to retire at the age of sixty with a poor digestion, a peevish wife, and a family of impossible children.  But it is only in such inconsequent moments that I allow myself to think thus slightingly of Latin Prose.  It is a valuable accomplishment, and, when I have repaired the breaches made by professional work in the mental equilibrium, I shall rejoin my colleagues with a full sense of its paramount importance.

I scribble this diary with a vile pen, and ink like blacking, on the corner of my breakfast-table.  I have packed my knapsack, and in a few minutes I shall set out upon my march.

April 9.—­I spent an almost perfect day yesterday.  It was a cool bright day, with a few clouds like cotton-wool moving sedately in a blue sky.  I first walked quietly about my little town, which was full of delicate beauties.  The houses are all built of a soft yellow stone, which weathers into a species of rich orange.  Heaven knows where the designers came from, but no two houses seem alike; some of them are gabled, buttressed, stone-mullioned, irregular in outline, but yet with a wonderful sense of proportion.  Some are Georgian, with classical pilasters and pediments.  Yet they are all for use and not for show; and the weak modern shop-windows, which some would think disfigure the delicate house-fronts, seem to me just to give the requisite sense of contrast.  At the end of the street stands the church, with a stately Perpendicular tower, and a resonant bell which tells the hour.  This overlooks a pile of irregular buildings, now a farm, but once a great manor-house, with a dovecote and pavilions; but the old terrace is now an orchard, and the fine oriel of the house looks straight into the byre.  Inside the church—­it is open and well-kept—­you can trace the history of the manor and its occupants, from Job Best, a rich mercer of London, whose monument, with marble