But though they asked me many questions, and made a sort of lord of me, and offered to darn my stockings (which in truth required it), I fell asleep in the midst of them, although I would not acknowledge it; and they said, 'Poor cousin! he is weary', and led me to a blessed bed, and kissed me all round like swan's down.
In the morning all the Exmoor hills, the thought of which had frightened me at the end of each day's travel, seemed no more than bushels to me, as I looked forth the bedroom window, and thanked God for the sight of them.

And even so, I had not to climb them, at least by my own labour.
For my most worthy uncle (as we oft call a parent's cousin), finding it impossible to keep me for the day, and owning indeed that I was right in hastening to my mother, vowed that walk I should not, even though he lost his Saturday hides from Minehead and from Watchett.

Accordingly he sent me forth on the very strongest nag he had, and the maidens came to wish me God-speed, and kissed their hands at the doorway.

It made me proud and glad to think that after seeing so much of the world, and having held my own with it, I was come once more among my own people, and found them kinder, and more warm-hearted, ay and better looking too, than almost any I had happened upon in the mighty city of London.
But how shall I tell you the things I felt, and the swelling of my heart within me, as I drew nearer, and more near, to the place of all I loved and owned, to the haunt of every warm remembrance, the nest of all the fledgling hopes--in a word, to home?
The first sheep I beheld on the moor with a great red J.R.on his side (for mother would have them marked with my name, instead of her own as they should have been), I do assure you my spirit leaped, and all my sight came to my eyes.

I shouted out, 'Jem, boy!'-- for that was his name, and a rare hand he was at fighting--and he knew me in spite of the stranger horse; and I leaned over and stroked his head, and swore he should never be mutton.