But having made all these exact preparations, I chanced to turn to the open window for a final look down the street, and knew at once that I was lost. It was the steady far-off song from Tom Clemmer’s anvil that overcame me more than anything, and the red glow amidst the elder-boughs that overhung the forge. But all else conspired in one basilisk-like lure to get me forth. The busy wending to and fro, and the cheery commerce of tongues in the darkness, footsteps and voices that I knew as well as I knew my own; twinkling lights in cottages, the illumined windows of the little sweetstuff shop, the cobbler’s den, the inn, the village store; the church lit up for evensong, and the bell quietly tolling, as it seemed, somewhere far up in the black void of the sky; again, the smell of the night, that moist, earthy fragrance of decaying leaves, and tang of frost, and pungent scent of simmering fire-logs from stacks new-broached on these first chilly evenings in November—it all ranged itself together before me as something, ever present and constant in my life, that I too often disregarded, took for granted—the jumble of thatch and red-tiled roof and grey flint wall, sheep and lowing kine and cackling poultry, bevy of kindly human hearts, sharp tongues and willing hands, all wedged up together in one green crevice of the hills, and calling themselves collectively by the old South-Saxon name of Windlecombe. I went first of all a few strides out over the green and looked backward, rightly to estimate, if I could, my own part in the little communal symphony. The bluff bulk of the house, with its coven roof and many gables, stood dark against the greyer darkness of the hills, and behind it rose sable elm plumes fast thinning under the recent autumn chills. From its windows shone lights of varying significance. There were my own red-shaded candles with a corner of a crammed bookcase dimly visible above them; there were naked kitchen lights with ware of polished pewter and copper glinting behind, and a pleasant clatter of crockery; there was a window where the light burnt red and low and wavering as from a spent hearth, and a quiet ripple of music from a piano keeping it congenial company; there was the window high up in the great gable, whose flickering light cast a bunch of head-shadows on the ceiling, suggestive of nursery bedtime, and fairy-tales round the fire. It was all very reassuring and enheartening. Yes: the old White House had its integral part to play in this good English game of Neighbourhood, and played it passing well.