When I look back on the events of the last three days and realise that I have crossed my Rubicon and burned my boats behind me, and that I had no conscious intention of doing anything of the kind when I set out, I just gasp. If I had stayed to reason with myself I should never have had the courage to pack a few things into a bag and take a third-class ticket for Airlee at King's Cross, with the avowed intention of hearing a Yorkshire choir sing in a summer festival. Yet it seems almost prophetic as I recall the incident that I declined to take a return ticket, though, to be sure, there was no advantage in doing so: no reduction, I mean. Whether there was an advantage remains to be seen; I verily believe I should have returned rather than have wasted that return half. I dislike waste. That was on Tuesday; on Wednesday I went to the Town Hall and entered a new world. It cost me a good deal in coin of the realm--much more than I had dreamed of--but I got it all back in the currency of heaven before I came away. It may have been my excitable temperament--for my mother, I remember, used to condone my faults by explaining that I was "highly-strung," whatever that may mean--or it may have been the Yorkshire blood in my veins which turned to fever heat as the vast volume of sweet sound rose and fell; one thing is certain, I lost myself completely, and did not find myself again until I discovered that the room was almost bare of people, and realised by the good-humoured glances of the few who remained that I appeared to be more vacant than the room, and was making myself foolishly conspicuous by remaining seated with my head in my hands and that far-away look in my eyes which tells of "yonderliness." To be quite candid, I am not quite sure that I _did_ find myself; I suspect some tenant moved out and another moved in that afternoon, and I am disposed to think that Airlee explains Windyridge. If I were to attempt to put down in cold words what I heard or what I felt I should fail, and it would seem very ordinary and uninspiring, so I shall not make the attempt. But when I got outside, the noise of the busy city grated on my senses, and the atmosphere--which was really not bad, for the day was bright and sunny--seemed heavy and stifling. I longed for something which I had not previously cared about; I did not understand my yearnings--I do not yet--but I wanted to get away from the wooden pavements, and the granite banks, and the brick warehouses, and the huge hotels, and the smoke and bustle and din, and lay my head in the lap of Nature, and think.