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17th September
1926.

THE SHEILING,
SILVERDALE,
CARNFORTH.

Dear Colonel Buchan,

I was happy in the sudden occasion
that brought me to sit at your side at the Oxford
Recitations and to hear that you had been so long
cognisant of my work: and the only disappointment
Oxford brought me was that I missed speaking with
you again in the pleasant tumult and busy cross-
currents of the last night. I remember the first
book you published (soon after you left Oxford),
and your "South Countrie" (which I never saw
- I mean the places, not the poem! - until this
year) and "Fisher Jamie" often come into my
mind.

So that I was contented to hear you
too had had an eye on me all that time - though
a little scared to learn that you had preserved
(as well as scented out) those early booklings of
mine which came into the world so shyly that I
had begun to feel entitled to hope that no one had