He supposed it still belonged to him . Stephen had been a good sort of a fellow , a bit slow and plodding , perhaps , bovinely content to dwell within the hills , never hearkening or responding to the lure of the beyond . Yet it might be he had chosen the better part , to dwell thus on the land of his fathers , with a wife won in youth , and children to grow up around him . The childless , wifeless man looking down from the hill wondered if it might have been so with him had he been content to stay in the valley . Perhaps so . There had been Joyce . He wondered where Joyce was now and whom she had married , for of course she had married . Did she too live somewhere down there in the valley , the matronly , contented mother of lads and lassies ? He could see her old home also , not so far from his own , just across a green meadow by way of a footpath and stile and through the firs beyond it . How often he had traversed that path in the old days , knowing that Joyce would be waiting at the end of it among the firs -- Joyce , the playmate of childhood , the sweet confidante and companion of youth ! They had never been avowed lovers , but he had loved her then , as a boy loves , although he had never said a word of love to her . Joyce alone knew of his longings and his ambitions and his dreams ; he had told them all to her freely , sure of the understanding and sympathy no other soul in the valley could give him . How true and strong and womanly and gentle she had always been ! When he left home he had meant to go back to her some day . They had parted without pledge or kiss , yet he knew she loved him and that he loved her . At first they corresponded , then the letters began to grow fewer . It was his fault ; he had gradually forgotten . The new , fierce , burning interests that came into his life crowded the old ones out . Boyhood 's love was scorched up in that hot flame of ambition and contest . He had not heard from or of Joyce for many years .
Now , again , he remembered as he looked down XXXXX the homeland fields .
At across although around from in into of on without