THE LONE SWALLOWS
NEW NOVELS
| PENDER AMONG THE RESIDENTS | FORREST REID |
| THE CROSS-CUT | COURTNEY RYLEY COOPER |
| THE BEST GIFT OF ALL | ROWAN GLEN |
| AS OTHERS SEE US | MARMADUKE PICKTHALL |
| THE PIT-PROP SYNDICATE | FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS |
| ROSEANNE | E. MARIA ALBANESI |
THE
LONE SWALLOWS
by
HENRY WILLIAMSON
they symbol all that is best in nature and all that is
best in our hearts.”
LONDON: 48 PALL MALL
W. COLLINS SONS & CO. LTD.
GLASGOW MELBOURNE AUCKLAND
Copyright, 1922
Manufactured in Great Britain
COMPILER’S NOTE
Most of the papers in this volume arepublished for the first time. A few haveappeared in The Daily Express, The LondonEvening News, The Field, The SaturdayReview, The Outlook, The English Review,and The Wide World Magazine. I amindebted to the Editors of these publicationsfor permission to reprint them; and I ampersonally grateful to Sir Theodore Cook,of The Field, and to Mr. Austin Harrisonof The English Review for their encouragementand kindness in criticising and printingmy earliest essays.
“Winter’s Eve,” the first attempt todescribe the common sights and soundsof the English countryside, I include forreasons of sentiment. Nature writing, Ihave been told by some authorities on art,is regarded as a trivial thing—“nature,”[vi]according to those people, is but a frailbase for art-creation. Those authorities, Idiscovered, did not know the differencebetween a linnet and a celandine. Andthey did not want to be told. But I imaginethat, as children, they would have beendelighted to see a linnet’s woven nest, andto be told that the celandine is the first ofthe wild flowers to fashion after a drearywinter a gold cup in the February meadowsand