It was on the way back from the covert that John had his first conversation with Steer. The boy had fallen behind to tie up a shoe lace, and the poet was hacking away at a wand he had cut out of the thicket. "What are you making, sir?" asked John, overtaking him. "A whistle--can you make one?" "No--I'm not very handy with a pocket knife." "Well, there you are--that's a sycamore pipe which you can play--like the Idle Shepherd Boys," said Steer, giving the stick to John. "_On pipes of sycamore they play The fragments of a Christmas hymn,--_ I suppose you know that?" John confessed his ignorance, but he liked the sound of it and wanted to hear more. "God bless me," said Steer, "you mean to say that you've not heard of Wordsworth? I thought every boy out of a nursery had been brought up on 'We are Seven' and 'The Idle Shepherd Boys.'" "I've never heard of Mr. Wordsworth," said John naïvely,--"do tell me about him." "Oh, he's quite dead now--he was what is called a Lake poet--he lived at the English Lakes, Grasmere and Rydal to be precise, where there was a group of these poets and essayists--Coleridge, Southey, De Quincey, Christopher North--names you've probably heard. 'The Idle Shepherd Boys' was a favourite poem when I was a lad. I remember reciting it to my mother for a penny. She used to give me a penny for every new poem I learned. I remember how she laughed when I pronounced 'vapours'--'vappers.' The first stanza runs-- _The valley rings with mirth and joy; Among the hills the echoes play A never, never ending song, To welcome in the May. The magpie chatters with delight; The mountain raven's youngling brood Have left the mother and the nest; And they go rambling east and west In search of their own food; Or through the glittering vapours dart In very wantonness of heart._" "Oh, how jolly! Do go on please!" shouted John eagerly, and his new friend recited the whole poem. The joy on the boy's face greatly amused him. "You've evidently got a taste for verse, John--but there's much better stuff than that. Wordsworth was a philosopher, he wrote splendid things like-- _Love had he known in huts where poor men lie; His daily teachers had been woods and rills, The silence that is in the starry sky, The sleep that is among the lonely hills._"