I found at length the only way was to get his cap and whip and show them to the dogs. Immediately I did this they would begin to bark wildly and jump up at him to make him start for the run they loved so much. Parnell would then say reproachfully, "Oh, Queenie, how can you deceive the poor dogs like that?" and I would answer that the only way to keep them believing in us was to go at once for that belated ride. Once started none of the party, dogs or horses, enjoyed it more than he. In this house we had from the side windows of Parnell's and from my room in which he afterwards died, a view of the most wonderful sunsets I have ever seen in England. Then the whole west was a veritable fairyland of gold and crimson, and the harbour and Shoreham town, with the little country church of Aldrington against the setting of the Downs, were touched with a pearly mist of {275} light that lifted them far out of the prosaic ugliness we knew by the blank light of midday. Parnell used to say to me as we walked away to the golden harbour, "Is it really like this, my Queen, or as we see it at noon?" I could only reply that it was both--the both that made life at once so interesting and so difficult. Often in the following spring my King and I would drive out as far as the foot of the Downs near the training stables beyond Southwick; and then, climbing to the crest of the hills, go for long walks, away over the Downs, walking or resting as we felt inclined, returning as night fell, to drive home. One sunny morning, lengthening into a brighter day, I especially remember, when the south-west wind sent the flickering shadows across the Downs where its sea-scents mingled with the sweet pungency of the young herbage. As we walked along hand in hand we were gay in the glorious spring of the year, feeling that while love walked so closely with us youth could not lag too far behind, and in the wide expanse of the South Downs, which appealed so much to both our natures, we forgot all care and trouble. Very far away, standing clear against the skyline, there was a figure of a shepherd, his flock a little lower showed grey against the dull green distance. He stood motionless, as these lonely Down shepherds do. The tumbled heap by him, we said, was his dog. So we watched him some miles away for more than an hour. We wondered what he thought of, and whether all this lonely loveliness meant anything to him, or if he would be glad to change his quiet life for the rush and hurry of a town. Presently, from where we sat, at the highest point of the hills, we saw some horses going at full gallop over the training ground, the horses straining at the bit, and {276} seemingly glad to be alive. The dull thud of the hoofs came up to us to mingle with the incessant trilling of the skylarks and the bleating of the distant sheep. Now we turned seaward, overlooking Shoreham Harbour, and watched the vessels going out to sea on voyages fraught with unknown possibilities.