The Roadmender

Excerpt

I have attained my ideal:  I am a roadmender, some say stonebreaker.  Both titles are correct, but the one is more pregnant than the other.  All day I sit by the roadside on a stretch of grass under a high hedge of saplings and a tangle of traveller’s joy, woodbine, sweetbrier, and late roses.  Opposite me is a white gate, seldom used, if one may judge from the trail of honeysuckle growing tranquilly along it:  I know now that whenever and wherever I die my soul will pass out through this white gate; and then, thank God, I shall not have need to undo that trail.