The only conclusion for Hugh seemed to be this: that one must have a work to be faithfully and resolutely fulfilled; and that, outside of that, one must live tenderly, simply, and kindly, adding so far as one might to the happiness of others; and that one might resolutely eschew all the busy multiplication of activities, which produced such scanty results, and were indeed mainly originated in order that so-called active people might feel themselves to be righteously employed. XXVII Progress--Country Life--Sustained Happiness--The Twilight One hot still summer day Hugh went far afield, and struck into a little piece of country that was new to him. He seemed to discern from the map that it must have once been a large, low island almost entirely surrounded by marshes; and this turned out to be the case. It was approached along a high causeway crossing the fen, with rich black land on either hand. No high-road led through or out of the village, nothing but grass-tracks and drift-ways. The place consisted of a small hamlet, with an old church and two or three farmhouses of some size and antiquity; it was all finely timbered with an abundance of ancient elm-trees everywhere; they stood that afternoon absolutely still and motionless, with the sun hot on their towering green heads; and Hugh remembered how, long ago, as a boy at school, he used to watch, out of the windows of a stuffy class-room, the great elms of the school close rising just thus in the warm summer air, while his thoughts wandered from the dull lesson into a region of delighted, irrecoverable reverie. To-day he sate for a long time in the little churchyard, the bees humming about the limes with a soft musical note, that rose and fell with a lazy cadence, while doves hidden somewhere in the elms lent as it were a voice to the trees. That soft note seemed to brim over from a spring of measureless content; it seemed like the calling of the spirit of summer, brooding in indolent joy and innocent satisfaction over the long sweet hours of sunshine, while the day stood still to listen. Hugh resigned himself luxuriously to the soft influences of the place, and felt that for a short space he need neither look backwards nor forwards, but simply float with the golden hour. At last he bestirred himself, realising that he had yet far to go. It was now cool and fresh, and the shadows of the trees lay long across the grass. Hugh struck down on to the fen and walked for a long time in the solitary fields, by a dyke, passing a big ancient farm that lay very peacefully among its wide pastures.