Henry accompanied me back to school in the evening – but I recall nothing of the
journey. The light had gone out of the
day. Fortunately, as soon as I arrived,
it was time to go to bed
. . . . But I slept
very badly that summer, and the
trains, with their puffing and hooting, filled me more than
ever with nostalgia. . . . I lay awake listening to them and to the croaking of the frogs, a sound
new to me. Even then I loved that music, ragged
and of the mud, muddy yet so
boastful and personal that, much more
personal than in birdsong, one could detect individual voices . . . .
Osbert Sitwell, The Scarlet Tree, 1945
