_Strong and free_, _strong and free_, _The floodgates are open_, _away to the sea_, _Free and strong_, _free and strong_, _Cleansing my streams as I hurry along_, _To the golden sands_, _and the leaping bar_, _And the taintless tide that awaits me afar_. _As I lose myself in the infinite main_, _Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again_. _Undefiled_, _for the undefiled_; _Play by me_, _bathe in me_, _mother and child_. So Tom went down; and all the while he never saw the Irishwoman going down behind him. [Picture: Girl and woman walking on beech] CHAPTER II “And is there care in heaven? and is there love In heavenly spirits to these creatures base That may compassion of their evils move? There is:—else much more wretched were the case Of men than beasts: But oh! the exceeding grace Of Highest God that loves His creatures so, And all His works with mercy doth embrace, That blessed Angels He sends to and fro, To serve to wicked man, to serve His wicked foe!” SPENSER. [Picture: Tom at the old dame’s house] A MILE off, and a thousand feet down. So Tom found it; though it seemed as if he could have chucked a pebble on to the back of the woman in the red petticoat who was weeding in the garden, or even across the dale to the rocks beyond. For the bottom of the valley was just one field broad, and on the other side ran the stream; and above it, gray crag, gray down, gray stair, gray moor walled up to heaven. A quiet, silent, rich, happy place; a narrow crack cut deep into the earth; so deep, and so out of the way, that the bad bogies can hardly find it out. The name of the place is Vendale; and if you want to see it for yourself, you must go up into the High Craven, and search from Bolland Forest north by Ingleborough, to the Nine Standards and Cross Fell; and if you have not found it, you must turn south, and search the Lake Mountains, down to Scaw Fell and the sea; and then, if you have not found it, you must go northward again by merry Carlisle, and search the Cheviots all across, from Annan Water to Berwick Law; and then, whether you have found Vendale or not, you will have found such a country, and such a people, as ought to make you proud of being a British boy. So Tom went to go down; and first he went down three hundred feet of steep heather, mixed up with loose brown gritstone, as rough as a file; which was not pleasant to his poor little heels, as he came bump, stump, jump, down the steep. And still he thought he could throw a stone into the garden. Then he went down three hundred feet of lime-stone terraces, one below the other, as straight as if a carpenter had ruled them with his ruler and then cut them out with his chisel. There was no heath there, but—