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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5406-h.zip b/5406-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a06f956 --- /dev/null +++ b/5406-h.zip diff --git a/5406-h/5406-h.htm b/5406-h/5406-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..14ce00b --- /dev/null +++ b/5406-h/5406-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8296 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Afoot in England, by W.H. Hudson + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Afoot in England, by W.H. Hudson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Afoot in England + +Author: W.H. Hudson + +Release Date: March 28, 2009 [EBook #5406] +Last Updated: January 25, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFOOT IN ENGLAND *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + AFOOT IN ENGLAND + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By W.H. Hudson + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0001"> Chapter One. </a> Guide-Books, + An Introduction <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> Chapter Two. </a> On + Going Back <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003"> Chapter Three. </a> Walking + and Cycling <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> Chapter Four. </a> Seeking + a Shelter <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> Chapter Five. </a> Wind, + Wave, and Spirit <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006"> Chapter Six. </a> By + Swallowfield <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0007"> Chapter Seven. </a> Roman + Calleva <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008"> Chapter Eight. </a> A + Gold Day At Silchester <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> Chapter Nine. + </a> Rural Rides <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0010"> Chapter + Ten. </a> The Last of His Name <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0011"> Chapter Eleven. </a> Salisbury and Its + Doves <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> Chapter Twelve. </a> Whitesheet + Hill <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0013"> Chapter Thirteen. </a> Bath + and Wells Revisited <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> Chapter + Fourteen. </a> The Return of the Native <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0015"> Chapter Fifteen. </a> Summer Days on + the Otter <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> Chapter Sixteen. </a> In + Praise of the Cow <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0017"> Chapter Seventeen. + </a> An Old Road Leading Nowhere <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0018"> Chapter Eighteen. </a> Branscombe <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> Chapter Nineteen. </a> Abbotsbury + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> Chapter Twenty. </a> Salisbury + Revisited <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0021"> Chapter Twenty-One. </a> Stonehenge + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0022"> Chapter Twenty-Two. </a> The + Village and "The Stones" <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0023"> Chapter + Twenty-Three. </a> Following a River <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2HCH0024"> Chapter Twenty-Four. </a> Troston + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0025"> Chapter Twenty-Five. </a> My + Friend Jack <br /><br /> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + Chapter One: Guide-Books: An Introduction + </h2> + <p> + Guide-books are so many that it seems probable we have more than any other + country—possibly more than all the rest of the universe together. + Every county has a little library of its own—guides to its towns, + churches, abbeys, castles, rivers, mountains; finally, to the county as a + whole. They are of all prices and all sizes, from the diminutive + paper-covered booklet, worth a penny, to the stout cloth-bound octavo + volume which costs eight or ten or twelve shillings, or to the gigantic + folio county history, the huge repository from which the guide-book maker + gets his materials. For these great works are also guide-books, containing + everything we want to learn, only made on so huge a scale as to be suited + to the coat pockets of Brobdingnagians rather than of little ordinary men. + The wonder of it all comes in when we find that these books, however old + and comparatively worthless they may be, are practically never wholly out + of date. When a new work is brought out (dozens appear annually) and, say, + five thousand copies sold, it does not throw as many, or indeed any, + copies of the old book out of circulation: it supersedes nothing. If any + man can indulge in the luxury of a new up-to-date guide to any place, and + gets rid of his old one (a rare thing to do), this will be snapped up by + poorer men, who will treasure it and hand it down or on to others. + Editions of 1860-50-40, and older, are still prized, not merely as + keepsakes but for study or reference. Any one can prove this by going the + round of a dozen second-hand booksellers in his own district in London. + There will be tons of literary rubbish, and good stuff old and new, but + few guidebooks—in some cases not one. If you ask your man at a + venture for, say, a guide to Hampshire, he will most probably tell you + that he has not one in stock; then, in his anxiety to do business, he + will, perhaps, fish out a guide to Derbyshire, dated 1854—a shabby + old book—and offer it for four or five shillings, the price of a + Crabbe in eight volumes, or of Gibbon's Decline and Fall in six volumes, + bound in calf. Talk to this man, and to the other eleven, and they will + tell you that there is always a sale for guide-books—that the supply + does not keep pace with the demand. It may be taken as a fact that most of + the books of this kind published during the last half-century—many + millions of copies in the aggregate—are still in existence and are + valued possessions. + </p> + <p> + There is nothing to quarrel with in all this. As a people we run about a + great deal; and having curious minds we naturally wish to know all there + is to be known, or all that is interesting to know, about the places we + visit. Then, again, our time as a rule being limited, we want the whole + matter—history, antiquities, places of interest in the + neighbourhood, etc. in a nutshell. The brief book serves its purpose well + enough; but it is not thrown away like the newspaper and the magazines; + however cheap and badly got up it may be, it is taken home to serve + another purpose, to be a help to memory, and nobody can have it until its + owner removes himself (but not his possessions) from this planet; or until + the broker seizes his belongings, and guide-books, together with other + books, are disposed of in packages by the auctioneer. + </p> + <p> + In all this we see that guide-books are very important to us, and that + there is little or no fault to be found with them, since even the worst + give some guidance and enable us in after times mentally to revisit + distant places. It may then be said that there are really no bad + guide-books, and that those that are good in the highest sense are beyond + praise. A reverential sentiment, which is almost religious in character, + connects itself in our minds with the very name of Murray. It is, however, + possible to make an injudicious use of these books, and by so doing to + miss the fine point of many a pleasure. The very fact that these books are + guides to us and invaluable, and that we readily acquire the habit of + taking them about with us and consulting them at frequent intervals, comes + between us and that rarest and most exquisite enjoyment to be experienced + amidst novel scenes. He that visits a place new to him for some special + object rightly informs himself of all that the book can tell him. The + knowledge may be useful; pleasure is with him a secondary object. But if + pleasure be the main object, it will only be experienced in the highest + degree by him who goes without book and discovers what old Fuller called + the "observables" for himself. There will be no mental pictures previously + formed; consequently what is found will not disappoint. When the mind has + been permitted to dwell beforehand on any scene, then, however beautiful + or grand it may be, the element of surprise is wanting and admiration is + weak. The delight has been discounted. + </p> + <p> + My own plan, which may be recommended only to those who go out for + pleasure—who value happiness above useless (otherwise useful) + knowledge, and the pictures that live and glow in memory above albums and + collections of photographs—is not to look at a guide-book until the + place it treats of has been explored and left behind. + </p> + <p> + The practical person, to whom this may come as a new idea and who wishes + not to waste any time in experiments, would doubtless like to hear how the + plan works. He will say that he certainly wants all the happiness to be + got out of his rambles, but it is clear that without the book in his + pocket he would miss many interesting things: Would the greater degree of + pleasure experienced in the others be a sufficient compensation? I should + say that he would gain more than he would lose; that vivid interest and + pleasure in a few things is preferable to that fainter, more diffused + feeling experienced in the other case. Again, we have to take into account + the value to us of the mental pictures gathered in our wanderings. For we + know that only when a scene is viewed emotionally, when it produces in us + a shock of pleasure, does it become a permanent possession of the mind; in + other words, it registers an image which, when called up before the inner + eye, is capable of reproducing a measure of the original delight. + </p> + <p> + In recalling those scenes which have given me the greatest happiness, the + images of which are most vivid and lasting, I find that most of them are + of scenes or objects which were discovered, as it were, by chance, which I + had not heard of, or else had heard of and forgotten, or which I had not + expected to see. They came as a surprise, and in the following instance + one may see that it makes a vast difference whether we do or do not + experience such a sensation. + </p> + <p> + In the course of a ramble on foot in a remote district I came to a small + ancient town, set in a cuplike depression amidst high wood-grown hills. + The woods were of oak in spring foliage, and against that vivid green I + saw the many-gabled tiled roofs and tall chimneys of the old timbered + houses, glowing red and warm brown in the brilliant sunshine—a scene + of rare beauty, and yet it produced no shock of pleasure; never, in fact, + had I looked on a lovely scene for the first time so unemotionally. It + seemed to be no new scene, but an old familiar one; and that it had + certain degrading associations which took away all delight. + </p> + <p> + The reason of this was that a great railway company had long been + "booming" this romantic spot, and large photographs, plain and coloured, + of the town and its quaint buildings had for years been staring at me in + every station and every railway carriage which I had entered on that line. + Photography degrades most things, especially open-air things; and in this + case, not only had its poor presentments made the scene too familiar, but + something of the degradation in the advertising pictures seemed to attach + itself to the very scene. Yet even here, after some pleasureless days + spent in vain endeavours to shake off these vulgar associations, I was to + experience one of the sweetest surprises and delights of my life. + </p> + <p> + The church of this village-like town is one of its chief attractions; it + is a very old and stately building, and its perpendicular tower, nearly a + hundred feet high, is one of the noblest in England. It has a magnificent + peal of bells, and on a Sunday afternoon they were ringing, filling and + flooding that hollow in the hills, seeming to make the houses and trees + and the very earth to tremble with the glorious storm of sound. Walking + past the church, I followed the streamlet that runs through the town and + out by a cleft between the hills to a narrow marshy valley, on the other + side of which are precipitous hills, clothed from base to summit in oak + woods. As I walked through the cleft the musical roar of the bells + followed, and was like a mighty current flowing through and over me; but + as I came out the sound from behind ceased suddenly and was now in front, + coming back from the hills before me. A sound, but not the same—not + a mere echo; and yet an echo it was, the most wonderful I had ever heard. + For now that great tempest of musical noise, composed of a multitude of + clanging notes with long vibrations, overlapping and mingling and clashing + together, seemed at the same time one and many—that tempest from the + tower which had mysteriously ceased to be audible came back in strokes or + notes distinct and separate and multiplied many times. The sound, the + echo, was distributed over the whole face of the steep hill before me, and + was changed in character, and it was as if every one of those thousands of + oak trees had a peal of bells in it, and that they were raining that + far-up bright spiritual tree music down into the valley below. As I stood + listening it seemed to me that I had never heard anything so beautiful, + nor had any man—not the monk of Eynsham in that vision when he heard + the Easter bells on the holy Saturday evening, and described the sound as + "a ringing of a marvellous sweetness, as if all the bells in the world, or + whatsoever is of sounding, had been rung together at once." + </p> + <p> + Here, then, I had found and had become the possessor of something + priceless, since in that moment of surprise and delight the mysterious + beautiful sound, with the whole scene, had registered an impression which + would outlast all others received at that place, where I had viewed all + things with but languid interest. Had it not come as a complete surprise, + the emotion experienced and the resultant mental image would not have been + so vivid; as it is, I can mentally stand in that valley when I will, + seeing that green-wooded hill in front of me and listen to that unearthly + music. + </p> + <p> + Naturally, after quitting the spot, I looked at the first opportunity into + a guide-book of the district, only to find that it contained not one word + about those wonderful illusive sounds! The book-makers had not done their + work well, since it is a pleasure after having discovered something + delightful for ourselves to know how others have been affected by it and + how they describe it. + </p> + <p> + Of many other incidents of the kind I will, in this chapter, relate one + more, which has a historical or legendary interest. I was staying with the + companion of my walks at a village in Southern England in a district new + to us. We arrived on a Saturday, and next morning after breakfast went out + for a long walk. Turning into the first path across the fields on leaving + the village, we came eventually to an oak wood, which was like an open + forest, very wild and solitary. In half an hour's walk among the old oaks + and underwood we saw no sign of human occupancy, and heard nothing but the + woodland birds. We heard, and then saw, the cuckoo for the first time that + season, though it was but April the fourth. But the cuckoo was early that + spring and had been heard by some from the middle of March. At length, + about half-past ten o'clock, we caught sight of a number of people walking + in a kind of straggling procession by a path which crossed ours at right + angles, headed by a stout old man in a black smock frock and brown + leggings, who carried a big book in one hand. One of the processionists we + spoke to told us they came from a hamlet a mile away on the borders of the + wood and were on their way to church. We elected to follow them, thinking + that the church was at some neighbouring village; to our surprise we found + it was in the wood, with no other building in sight—a small + ancient-looking church built on a raised mound, surrounded by a wide + shallow grass-grown trench, on the border of a marshy stream. The people + went in and took their seats, while we remained standing just by the door. + Then the priest came from the vestry, and seizing the rope vigorously, + pulled at it for five minutes, after which he showed us where to sit and + the service began. It was very pleasant there, with the door open to the + sunlit forest and the little green churchyard without, with a willow wren, + the first I had heard, singing his delicate little strain at intervals. + </p> + <p> + The service over, we rambled an hour longer in the wood, then returned to + our village, which had a church of its own, and our landlady, hearing + where we had been, told us the story, or tradition, of the little church + in the wood. Its origin goes very far back to early Norman times, when all + the land in this part was owned by one of William's followers on whom it + had been bestowed. He built himself a house or castle on the edge of the + forest, where he lived with his wife and two little daughters who were his + chief delight. It happened that one day when he was absent the two little + girls with their female attendant went into the wood in search of flowers, + and that meeting a wild boar they turned and fled, screaming for help. The + savage beast pursued, and, quickly overtaking them, attacked the + hindermost, the youngest of the two little girls, anal killed her, the + others escaping in the meantime. On the following day the father returned, + and was mad with grief and rage on hearing of the tragedy, and in his + madness resolved to go alone on foot to the forest and search for the + beast and taste no food or drink until he had slain it. Accordingly to the + forest he went, and roamed through it by day and night, and towards the + end of the following day he actually found and roused the dreadful animal, + and although weakened by his long fast and fatigue, his fury gave him + force to fight and conquer it, or else the powers above came to his aid; + for when he stood spear in hand to wait the charge of the furious beast he + vowed that if he overcame it on that spot he would build a chapel, where + God would be worshipped for ever. And there it was raised and has stood to + this day, its doors open every Sunday to worshippers, with but one break, + some time in the sixteenth century to the third year of Elizabeth, since + when there has been no suspension of the weekly service. + </p> + <p> + That the tradition is not true no one can say. We know that the memory of + an action or tragedy of a character to stir the feelings and impress the + imagination may live unrecorded in any locality for long centuries. And + more, we know or suppose, from at least one quite familiar instance from + Flintshire, that a tradition may even take us back to prehistoric times + and find corroboration in our own day. + </p> + <p> + But of this story what corroboration is there, and what do the books say? + I have consulted the county history, and no mention is made of such a + tradition, and can only assume that the author had never heard it—that + he had not the curious Aubrey mind. He only says that it is a very early + church—how early he does not know—and adds that it was built + "for the convenience of the inhabitants of the place." An odd statement, + seeing that the place has every appearance of having always been what it + is, a forest, and that the inhabitants thereof are weasels, foxes, jays + and such-like, and doubtless in former days included wolves, boars, + roe-deer and stags, beings which, as Walt Whitman truly remarks, do not + worry themselves about their souls. + </p> + <p> + With this question, however, we need not concern ourselves. To me, after + stumbling by chance on the little church in that solitary woodland place, + the story of its origin was accepted as true; no doubt it had come down + unaltered from generation to generation through all those centuries, and + it moved my pity yet was a delight to hear, as great perhaps as it had + been to listen to the beautiful chimes many times multiplied from the + wooded hill. And if I have a purpose in this book, which is without a + purpose, a message to deliver and a lesson to teach, it is only this—the + charm of the unknown, and the infinitely greater pleasure in discovering + the interesting things for ourselves than in informing ourselves of them + by reading. It is like the difference in flavour in wild fruits and all + wild meats found and gathered by our own hands in wild places and that of + the same prepared and put on the table for us. The ever-varying aspects of + nature, of earth and sea and cloud, are a perpetual joy to the artist, who + waits and watches for their appearance, who knows that sun and atmosphere + have for him revelations without end. They come and go and mock his best + efforts; he knows that his striving is in vain—that his weak hands + and earthy pigments cannot reproduce these effects or express his feeling—that, + as Leighton said, "every picture is a subject thrown away." But he has his + joy none the less; it is in the pursuit and in the dream of capturing + something illusive, mysterious, and inexpressibly beautiful. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Two: On Going Back + </h2> + <p> + In looking over the preceding chapter it occurred to me that I had omitted + something, or rather that it would have been well to drop a word of + warning to those who have the desire to revisit a place where they have + experienced a delightful surprise. Alas! they cannot have that sensation a + second time, and on this account alone the mental image must always be + better than its reality. Let the image—the first sharp impression—content + us. Many a beautiful picture is spoilt by the artist who cannot be + satisfied that he has made the best of his subject, and retouching his + canvas to bring out some subtle charm which made the work a success loses + it altogether. So in going back, the result of the inevitable + disillusionment is that the early mental picture loses something of its + original freshness. The very fact that the delightful place or scene was + discovered by us made it the shining place it is in memory. And again, the + charm we found in it may have been in a measure due to the mood we were + in, or to the peculiar aspect in which it came before us at the first, due + to the season, to atmospheric and sunlight effects, to some human + interest, or to a conjunction of several favourable circumstances; we know + we can never see it again in that aspect and with that precise feeling. + </p> + <p> + On this account I am shy of revisiting the places where I have experienced + the keenest delight. For example, I have no desire to revisit that small + ancient town among the hills, described in the last chapter; to go on a + Sunday evening through that narrow gorge, filled with the musical roar of + the church bells; to leave that great sound behind and stand again + listening to the marvellous echo from the wooded hill on the other side of + the valley. Nor would I care to go again in search of that small ancient + lost church in the forest. It would not be early April with the clear + sunbeams shining through the old leafless oaks on the floor of fallen + yellow leaves with the cuckoo fluting before his time; nor would that + straggling procession of villagers appear, headed by an old man in a smock + frock with a big book in his hand; nor would I hear for the first time the + strange history of the church which so enchanted me. + </p> + <p> + I will here give an account of yet another of the many well-remembered + delightful spots which I would not revisit, nor even look upon again if I + could avoid doing so by going several miles out of my way. + </p> + <p> + It was green open country in the west of England—very far west, + although on the east side of the Tamar—in a beautiful spot remote + from railroads and large towns, and the road by which I was travelling (on + this occasion on a bicycle) ran or serpentined along the foot of a range + of low round hills on my right hand, while on my left I had a green valley + with other low round green hills beyond it. The valley had a marshy stream + with sedgy margins and occasional clumps of alder and willow trees. It was + the end of a hot midsummer day; the sun went down a vast globe of crimson + fire in a crystal clear sky; and as I was going east I was obliged to + dismount and stand still to watch its setting. When the great red disc had + gone down behind the green world I resumed my way but went slowly, then + slower still, the better to enjoy the delicious coolness which came from + the moist valley and the beauty of the evening in that solitary place + which I had never looked on before. Nor was there any need to hurry; I had + but three or four miles to go to the small old town where I intended + passing the night. By and by the winding road led me down close to the + stream at a point where it broadened to a large still pool. This was the + ford, and on the other side was a small rustic village, consisting of a + church, two or three farm-houses with their barns and outbuildings, and a + few ancient-looking stone cottages with thatched roofs. But the church was + the main thing; it was a noble building with a very fine tower, and from + its size and beauty I concluded that it was an ancient church dating back + to the time when there was a passion in the West Country and in many parts + of England of building these great fanes even in the remotest and most + thinly populated parishes. In this I was mistaken through having seen it + at a distance from the other side of the ford after the sun had set. + </p> + <p> + Never, I thought, had I seen a lovelier village with its old picturesque + cottages shaded by ancient oaks and elms, and the great church with its + stately tower looking dark against the luminous western sky. Dismounting + again I stood for some time admiring the scene, wishing that I could make + that village my home for the rest of my life, conscious at the same time + that is was the mood, the season, the magical hour which made it seem so + enchanting. Presently a young man, the first human figure that presented + itself to my sight, appeared, mounted on a big carthorse and leading a + second horse by a halter, and rode down into the pool to bathe the + animals' legs and give them a drink. He was a sturdy-looking young fellow + with a sun-browned face, in earth-coloured, working clothes, with a small + cap stuck on the back of his round curly head; he probably imagined + himself not a bad-looking young man, for while his horses were drinking he + laid over on the broad bare backs and bending down studied his own + reflection in the bright water. Then an old woman came out of a cottage + close by, and began talking to him in her West Country dialect in a thin + high-pitched cracked voice. Their talking was the only sound in the + village; so silent was it that all the rest of its inhabitants might have + been in bed and fast asleep; then, the conversation ended, the young man + rode out with a great splashing and the old woman turned into her cottage + again, and I was left in solitude. + </p> + <p> + Still I lingered: I could not go just yet; the chances were that I should + never again see that sweet village in that beautiful aspect at the + twilight hour. + </p> + <p> + For now it came into my mind that I could not very well settle there for + the rest of my life; I could not, in fact, tie myself to any place without + sacrificing certain other advantages I possessed; and the main thing was + that by taking root I should deprive myself of the chance of looking on + still other beautiful scenes and experiencing other sweet surprises. I was + wishing that I had come a little earlier on the scene to have had time to + borrow the key of the church and get a sight of the interior, when all at + once I heard a shrill voice and a boy appeared running across the wide + green space of the churchyard. A second boy followed, then another, then + still others, and I saw that they were going into the church by the side + door. They were choir-boys going to practice. The church was open then, + and late as it was I could have half an hour inside before it was dark! + The stream was spanned by an old stone bridge above the ford, and going + over it I at once made my way to the great building, but even before + entering it I discovered that it possessed an organ of extraordinary power + and that someone was performing on it with a vengeance. Inside the noise + was tremendous—a bigger noise from an organ, it seemed to me, than I + had ever heard before, even at the Albert Hall and the Crystal Palace, but + even more astonishing than the uproar was the sight that met my eyes. The + boys, nine or ten sturdy little rustics with round sunburnt West Country + faces, were playing the roughest game ever witnessed in a church. Some + were engaged in a sort of flying fight, madly pursuing one another up and + down the aisles and over the pews, and whenever one overtook another he + would seize hold of him and they would struggle together until one was + thrown and received a vigorous pommelling. Those who were not fighting + were dancing to the music. It was great fun to them, and they were + shouting and laughing their loudest only not a sound of it all could be + heard on account of the thunderous roar of the organ which filled and + seemed to make the whole building tremble. The boys took no notice of me, + and seeing that there was a singularly fine west window, I went to it and + stood there some time with my back to the game which was going on at the + other end of the building, admiring the beautiful colours and trying to + make out the subjects depicted. In the centre part, lit by the after-glow + in the sky to a wonderful brilliance, was the figure of a saint, a lovely + young woman in a blue robe with an abundance of loose golden-red hair and + an aureole about her head. Her pale face wore a sweet and placid + expression, and her eyes of a pure forget-me-not blue were looking + straight into mine. As I stood there the music, or noise, ceased and a + very profound silence followed—not a giggle, not a whisper from the + outrageous young barbarians, and not a sound of the organist or of anyone + speaking to them. Presently I became conscious of some person standing + almost but not quite abreast of me, and turning sharply I found a + clergyman at my side. He was the vicar, the person who had been letting + himself go on the organ; a slight man with a handsome, pale, ascetic face, + clean-shaven, very dark-eyed, looking more like an Italian monk or priest + than an English clergyman. But although rigidly ecclesiastic in his + appearance and dress, there was something curiously engaging in him, along + with a subtle look which it was not easy to fathom. There was a light in + his dark eyes which reminded me of a flame seen through a smoked glass or + a thin black veil, and a slight restless movement about the corners of his + mouth as if a smile was just on the point of breaking out. But it never + quite came; he kept his gravity even when he said things which would have + gone very well with a smile. + </p> + <p> + "I see," he spoke, and his penetrating musical voice had, too, like his + eyes and mouth, an expression of mystery in it, "that you are admiring our + beautiful west window, especially the figure in the centre. It is quite + new—everything is new here—the church itself was only built a + few years ago. This window is its chief glory: it was done by a good + artist—he has done some of the most admired windows of recent years; + and the centre figure is supposed to be a portrait of our generous + patroness. At all events she sat for it to him. You have probably heard of + Lady Y—?" + </p> + <p> + "What!" I exclaimed. "Lady Y—: that funny old woman!" + </p> + <p> + "No—middle-aged," he corrected, a little frigidly and perhaps a + little mockingly at the same time. + </p> + <p> + "Very well, middle-aged if you like; I don't know her personally. One + hears about her; but I did not know she had a place in these parts." + </p> + <p> + "She owns most of this parish and has done so much for us that we can very + well look leniently on a little weakness—her wish that the future + inhabitants of the place shall not remember her as a middle-aged woman not + remarkable for good looks—'funny,' as you just now said." + </p> + <p> + He was wonderfully candid, I thought. But what extraordinary benefits had + she bestowed on them, I asked, to enable them to regard, or to say, that + this picture of a very beautiful young female was her likeness! + </p> + <p> + "Why," he said, "the church would not have been built but for her. We were + astonished at the sum she offered to contribute towards the work, and at + once set about pulling the small old church down so as to rebuild on the + exact site." + </p> + <p> + "Do you know," I returned, "I can't help saying something you will not + like to hear. It is a very fine church, no doubt, but it always angers me + to hear of a case like this where some ancient church is pulled down and a + grand new one raised in its place to the honour and glory of some rich + parvenu with or without a brand new title." + </p> + <p> + "You are not hurting me in the least," he replied, with that change which + came from time to time in his eyes as if the flame behind the screen had + suddenly grown brighter. "I agree with every word you say; the meanest + church in the land should be cherished as long as it will hold together. + But unfortunately ours had to come down. It was very old and decayed past + mending. The floor was six feet below the level of the surrounding ground + and frightfully damp. It had been examined over and over again by experts + during the past forty or fifty years, and from the first they pronounced + it a hopeless case, so that it was never restored. The interior, right + down to the time of demolition, was like that of most country churches of + a century ago, with the old black worm-eaten pews, in which the + worshippers shut themselves up as if in their own houses or castles. On + account of the damp we were haunted by toads. You smile, sir, but it was + no smiling matter for me during my first year as vicar, when I discovered + that it was the custom here to keep pet toads in the church. It sounds + strange and funny, no doubt, but it is a fact that all the best people in + the parish had one of these creatures, and it was customary for the ladies + to bring it a weekly supply of provisions—bits of meat, hard-boiled + eggs chopped up, and earth-worms, and whatever else they fancied it would + like—in their reticules. The toads, I suppose, knew when it was + Sunday—their feeding day; at all events they would crawl out of + their holes in the floor under the pews to receive their rations—and + caresses. The toads got on my nerves with rather unpleasant consequences. + I preached in a way which my listeners did not appreciate or properly + understand, particularly when I took for my subject our duty towards the + lower animals, including reptiles." + </p> + <p> + "Batrachians," I interposed, echoing as well as I could the tone in which + he had rebuked me before. + </p> + <p> + "Very well, batrachians—I am not a naturalist. But the impression + created on their minds appeared to be that I was rather an odd person in + the pulpit. When the time came to pull the old church down the + toad-keepers were bidden to remove their pets, which they did with + considerable reluctance. What became of them I do not know—I never + inquired. I used to have a careful inspection made of the floor to make + sure that these creatures were not put back in the new building, and I am + happy to think it is not suited to their habits. The floors are very well + cemented, and are dry and clean." + </p> + <p> + Having finished his story he invited me to go to the parsonage and get + some refreshment. "I daresay you are thirsty," he said. + </p> + <p> + But it was getting late; it was almost dark in the church by now, although + the figure of the golden-haired saint still glowed in the window and gazed + at us out of her blue eyes. "I must not waste more of your time," I added. + "There are your boys still patiently waiting to begin their practice—such + nice quiet fellows!" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, they are," he returned a little bitterly, a sudden accent of + weariness in his voice and no trace now of what I had seen in his + countenance a little while ago—the light that shone and brightened + behind the dark eye and the little play about the corners of the mouth as + of dimpling motions on the surface of a pool. + </p> + <p> + And in that new guise, or disguise, I left him, the austere priest with + nothing to suggest the whimsical or grotesque in his cold ascetic face. + Recrossing the bridge I stood a little time and looked once more at the + noble church tower standing dark against the clear amber-coloured sky, and + said to myself: "Why, this is one of the oddest incidents of my life! Not + that I have seen or heard anything very wonderful—just a small + rustic village, one of a thousand in the land; a big new church in which + some person was playing rather madly on the organ, a set of unruly + choir-boys; a handsome stained-glass west window, and, finally, a nice + little chat with the vicar." It was not in these things; it was a sense of + something strange in the mind, of something in some way unlike all other + places and people and experiences. The sensation was like that of the + reader who becomes absorbed in Henry Newbolt's romance of The Old Country, + who identifies himself with the hero and unconsciously, or without quite + knowing how, slips back out of this modern world into that of half a + thousand years ago. It is the same familiar green land in which he finds + himself—the same old country and the same sort of people with + feelings and habits of life and thought unchangeable as the colour of + grass and flowers, the songs of birds and the smell of the earth, yet with + a difference. I recognized it chiefly in the parish priest I had been + conversing with; for one thing, his mediaeval mind evidently did not + regard a sense of humour and of the grotesque as out of place in or on a + sacred building. If it had been lighter I should have looked at the roof + for an effigy of a semi-human toad-like creature smiling down mockingly at + the worshippers as they came and went. + </p> + <p> + On departing it struck me that it would assuredly be a mistake to return + to this village and look at it again by the common lights of day. No, it + was better to keep the impressions I had gathered unspoilt; even to + believe, if I could, that no such place existed, but that it had existed + exactly as I had found it, even to the unruly choir-boys, the + ascetic-looking priest with a strange light in his eyes, and the + worshippers who kept pet toads in the church. They were not precisely like + people of the twentieth century. As for the eccentric middle-aged or + elderly person whose portrait adorned the west window, she was not the + lady I knew something about, but another older Lady Y—, who + flourished some six or seven centuries ago. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Three: Walking and Cycling + </h2> + <p> + We know that there cannot be progression without retrogression, or gain + with no corresponding loss; and often on my wheel, when flying along the + roads at a reckless rate of very nearly nine miles an hour, I have + regretted that time of limitations, galling to me then, when I was + compelled to go on foot. I am a walker still, but with other means of + getting about I do not feel so native to the earth as formerly. That is a + loss. Yet a poorer walker it would have been hard to find, and on even my + most prolonged wanderings the end of each day usually brought extreme + fatigue. This, too, although my only companion was slow—slower than + the poor proverbial snail or tortoise—and I would leave her half a + mile or so behind to force my way through unkept hedges, climb hills, and + explore woods and thickets to converse with every bird and shy little + beast and scaly creature I could discover. But mark what follows. In the + late afternoon I would be back in the road or footpath, satisfied to go + slow, then slower still, until—the snail in woman shape would be + obliged to slacken her pace to keep me company, and even to stand still at + intervals to give me needful rest. + </p> + <p> + But there were compensations, and one, perhaps the best of all, was that + this method of seeing the country made us more intimate with the people we + met and stayed with. They were mostly poor people, cottagers in small + remote villages; and we, too, were poor, often footsore, in need of their + ministrations, and nearer to them on that account than if we had travelled + in a more comfortable way. I can recall a hundred little adventures we met + with during those wanderings, when we walked day after day, without map or + guide-book as our custom was, not knowing where the evening would find us, + but always confident that the people to whom it would fall in the end to + shelter us would prove interesting to know and would show us a kindness + that money could not pay for. Of these hundred little incidents let me + relate one. + </p> + <p> + It was near the end of a long summer day when we arrived at a small hamlet + of about a dozen cottages on the edge of an extensive wood—a forest + it is called; and, coming to it, we said that here we must stay, even if + we had to spend the night sitting in a porch. The men and women we talked + to all assured us that they did not know of anyone who could take us in, + but there was Mr. Brownjohn, who kept the shop, and was the right person + to apply to. Accordingly we went to the little general shop and heard that + Mr. Brownjohn was not at home. His housekeeper, a fat, dark, voluble woman + with prominent black eyes, who minded the shop in the master's absence, + told us that Mr. Brownjohn had gone to a neighbouring farm-house on + important business, but was expected back shortly. We waited, and by and + by he returned, a shabbily dressed, weak-looking little old man, with pale + blue eyes and thin yellowish white hair. He could not put us up, he said, + he had no room in his cottage; there was nothing for us but to go on to + the next place, a village three miles distant, on the chance of finding a + bed there. We assured him that we could go no further, and after revolving + the matter a while longer he again said that we could not stay, as there + was not a room to be had in the place since poor Mrs. Flowerdew had her + trouble. She had a spare room and used to take in a lodger occasionally, + and a good handy woman she was too; but now—no, Mrs. Flowerdew could + not take us in. We questioned him, and he said that no one had died there + and there had been no illness. They were all quite well at Mrs. + Flowerdew's; the trouble was of another kind. There was no more to be said + about it. + </p> + <p> + As nothing further could be got out of him we went in search of Mrs. + Flowerdew herself, and found her in a pretty vine-clad cottage. She was a + young woman, very poorly dressed, with a pleasing but careworn face, and + she had four small, bright, healthy, happy-faced children. They were all + grouped round her as she stood in the doorway to speak to us, and they too + were poorly dressed and poorly shod. When we told our tale she appeared + ready to burst into tears. Oh, how unfortunate it was that she could not + take us in! It would have made her so happy, and the few shillings would + have been such a blessing! But what could she do now—the landlord's + agent had put in a distress and carried off and sold all her best things. + Every stick out of her nice spare room had been taken from them! Oh, it + was cruel! + </p> + <p> + As we wished to hear more she told us the whole story. They had got + behindhand with the rent, but that had often been the case, only this time + it happened that the agent wanted a cottage for a person he wished to + befriend, and so gave them notice to quit. But her husband was a + high-spirited man and determined to stick to his rights, so he informed + the agent that he refused to move until he received compensation for his + improvements. + </p> + <p> + Questioned about these improvements, she led us through to the back to + show us the ground, about half an acre in extent, part of which was used + as a paddock for the donkey, and on the other part there were about a + dozen rather sickly-looking young fruit trees. Her husband, she said, had + planted the orchard and kept the fence of the paddock in order, and they + refused to compensate him! Then she took us up to the spare room, empty of + furniture, the floor thick with dust. The bed, table, chairs, + washhandstand, toilet service—the things she had been so long + struggling to get together, saving her money for months and months, and + making so many journeys to the town to buy—all, all he had taken + away and sold for almost nothing! + </p> + <p> + Then, actually with tears in her eyes, she said that now we knew why she + couldn't take us in—why she had to seem so unkind. + </p> + <p> + But we are going to stay, we told her. It was a very good room; she could + surely get a few things to put in it, and in the meantime we would go and + forage for provisions to last us till Monday. + </p> + <p> + It is odd to find how easy it is to get what one wants by simply taking + it! At first she was amazed at our decision, then she was delighted and + said she would go out to her neighbours and try to borrow all that was + wanted in the way of furniture and bedding. Then we returned to Mr. + Brownjohn's to buy bread, bacon, and groceries, and he in turn sent us to + Mr. Marling for vegetables. Mr. Marling heard us, and soberly taking up a + spade and other implements led us out to his garden and dug us a mess of + potatoes while we waited. In the meantime good Mrs. Flowerdew had not been + idle, and we formed the idea that her neighbours must have been her + debtors for unnumbered little kindnesses, so eager did they now appear to + do her a good turn. Out of one cottage a woman was seen coming burdened + with a big roll of bedding; from others children issued bearing cane + chairs, basin and ewer, and so on, and when we next looked into our room + we found it swept and scrubbed, mats on the floor, and quite comfortably + furnished. + </p> + <p> + After our meal in the small parlour, which had been given up to us, the + family having migrated into the kitchen, we sat for an hour by the open + window looking out on the dim forest and saw the moon rise—a great + golden globe above the trees—and listened to the reeling of the + nightjars. So many were the birds, reeling on all sides, at various + distances, that the evening air seemed full of their sounds, far and near, + like many low, tremulous, sustained notes blown on reeds, rising and + falling, overlapping and mingling. And presently from the bushes close by, + just beyond the weedy, forlorn little "orchard," sounded the rich, full, + throbbing prelude to the nightingale's song, and that powerful melody that + in its purity and brilliance invariably strikes us with surprise seemed to + shine out, as it were, against the background of that diffused, mysterious + purring of the nightjars, even as the golden disc of the moon shone + against and above the darkening skies and dusky woods. + </p> + <p> + And as we sat there, gazing and listening, a human voice came out of the + night—a call prolonged and modulated like the coo-ee of the + Australian bush, far off and faint; but the children in the kitchen heard + it at the same time, for they too had been listening, and instantly went + mad with excitement. + </p> + <p> + "Father!" they all screamed together. "Father's coming!" and out they + rushed and away they fled down the darkening road, exerting their full + voices in shrill answering cries. + </p> + <p> + We were anxious to see this unfortunate man, who was yet happy in a loving + family. He had gone early in the morning in his donkey-cart to the little + market town, fourteen miles away, to get the few necessaries they could + afford to buy. Doubtless they would be very few. We had not long to wait, + as the white donkey that drew the cart had put on a tremendous spurt at + the end, notwithstanding that the four youngsters had climbed in to add to + his burden. But what was our surprise to behold in the charioteer a tall, + gaunt, grey-faced old man with long white hair and beard! He must have + been seventy, that old man with a young wife and four happy bright-eyed + little children! + </p> + <p> + We could understand it better when he finally settled down in his corner + in the kitchen and began to relate the events of the day, addressing his + poor little wife, now busy darning or patching an old garment, while the + children, clustered at his knee, listened as to a fairy tale. Certainly + this white-haired man had not grown old in mind; he was keenly interested + in all he saw and heard, and he had seen and heard much in the little + market town that day. Cattle and pigs and sheep and shepherds and + sheepdogs; farmers, shopkeepers, dealers, publicans, tramps, and + gentlefolks in carriages and on horseback; shops, too, with beautiful new + things in the windows; millinery, agricultural implements, flowers and + fruit and vegetables; toys and books and sweeties of all colours. And the + people he had met on the road and at market, and what they had said to him + about the weather and their business and the prospects of the year, how + their wives and children were, and the clever jokes they had made, and his + own jokes, which were the cleverest of all. If he had just returned from + Central Africa or from Thibet he could not have had more to tell them nor + told it with greater zest. + </p> + <p> + We went to our room, but until the small hours the wind of the old + traveller's talk could still be heard at intervals from the kitchen, + mingled with occasional shrill explosions of laughter from the listening + children. + </p> + <p> + It happened that on the following day, spent in idling in the forest and + about the hamlet, conversing with the cottagers, we were told that our old + man was a bit of a humbug; that he was a great talker, with a hundred + schemes for the improvement of his fortunes, and, incidently, for the + benefit of his neighbours and the world at large; but nothing came of it + all and he was now fast sinking into the lowest depths of poverty. Yet who + would blame him? 'Tis the nature of the gorse to be "unprofitably gay." + All that, however, is a question for the moralist; the point now is that + in walking, even in that poor way, when, on account of physical weakness, + it was often a pain and weariness, there are alleviations which may be + more to us than positive pleasures, and scenes to delight the eye that are + missed by the wheelman in his haste, or but dimly seen or vaguely surmised + in passing—green refreshing nooks and crystal streamlets, and + shadowy woodland depths with glimpses of a blue sky beyond—all in + the wilderness of the human heart. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Four: Seeking a Shelter + </h2> + <p> + The "walks" already spoken of, at a time when life had little or no other + pleasure for us on account of poverty and ill-health, were taken at pretty + regular intervals two or three times a year. It all depended on our means; + in very lean years there was but one outing. It was impossible to escape + altogether from the immense unfriendly wilderness of London simply + because, albeit "unfriendly," it yet appeared to be the only place in the + wide world where our poor little talents could earn us a few shillings a + week to live on. Music and literature! but I fancy the nearest + crossing-sweeper did better, and could afford to give himself a more + generous dinner every day. It occasionally happened that an article sent + to some magazine was not returned, and always after so many rejections to + have one accepted and paid for with a cheque worth several pounds was a + cause of astonishment, and was as truly a miracle as if the angel of the + sun had compassionately thrown us down a handful of gold. And out of these + little handfuls enough was sometimes saved for the country rambles at + Easter and Whitsuntide and in the autumn. It was during one of these + Easter walks, when seeking for a resting-place for the night, that we met + with another adventure worth telling. + </p> + <p> + We had got to that best part of Surrey not yet colonized by wealthy men + from the City, but where all things are as they were of old, when, late in + the day, we came to a pleasant straggling village with one street a mile + long. Here we resolved to stay, and walked the length of the street making + inquiries, but were told by every person we spoke to that the only place + we could stay at was the inn—the "White Hart." When we said we + preferred to stay at a cottage they smiled a pitying smile. No, there was + no such place. But we were determined not to go to the inn, although it + had a very inviting look, and was well placed with no other house near it, + looking on the wide village green with ancient trees shading the road on + either side. + </p> + <p> + Having passed it and got to the end of the village, we turned and walked + back, still making vain inquiries, passing it again, and when once more at + the starting-point we were in despair when we spied a man coming along the + middle of the road and went out to meet him to ask the weary question for + the last time. His appearance was rather odd as he came towards us on that + blowy March evening with dust and straws flying past and the level sun + shining full on him. He was tall and slim, with a large round smooth face + and big pale-blue innocent-looking eyes, and he walked rapidly but in a + peculiar jerky yet shambling manner, swinging and tossing his legs and + arms about. Moving along in this disjointed manner in his loose fluttering + clothes he put one in mind of a big flimsy newspaper blown along the road + by the wind. This unpromising-looking person at once told us that there + was a place where we could stay; he knew it well, for it happened to be + his father's house and his own home. It was away at the other end of the + village. His people had given accommodation to strangers before, and would + be glad to receive us and make us comfortable. + </p> + <p> + Surprised, and a little doubtful of our good fortune, I asked my young man + if he could explain the fact that so many of his neighbours had assured us + that no accommodation was to be had in the village except at the inn. He + did not make a direct reply. He said that the ways of the villagers were + not the ways of his people. He and all his house cherished only kind + feelings towards their neighbours; whether those feelings were returned or + not, it was not for him to say. And there was something else. A small + appointment which would keep a man from want for the term of his natural + life, without absorbing all his time, had become vacant in the village. + Several of the young men in the place were anxious to have it; then he, + too, came forward as a candidate, and all the others jeered at him and + tried to laugh him out of it. He cared nothing for that, and when the + examination came off he proved the best man and got the place. He had + fought his fight and had overcome all his enemies; if they did not like + him any the better for his victory, and did and said little things to + injure him, he did not mind much, he could afford to forgive them. + </p> + <p> + Having finished his story, he said good-bye, and went his way, blown, as + it were, along the road by the wind. + </p> + <p> + We were now very curious to see the other members of his family; they + would, we imagined, prove amusing, if nothing better. They proved a good + deal better. The house we sought, for a house it was, stood a little way + back from the street in a large garden. It had in former times been an + inn, or farm-house, possibly a manor-house, and was large, with many small + rooms, and short, narrow, crooked staircases, half-landings and narrow + passages, and a few large rooms, their low ceilings resting on old oak + beams, black as ebony. Outside, it was the most picturesque and doubtless + the oldest house in the village; many-gabled, with very tall ancient + chimneys, the roofs of red tiles mottled grey and yellow with age and + lichen. It was a surprise to find a woodman—for that was what the + man was—living in such a big place. The woodman himself, his + appearance and character, gave us a second and greater surprise. He was a + well-shaped man of medium height; although past middle life he looked + young, and had no white thread in his raven-black hair and beard. His + teeth were white and even, and his features as perfect as I have seen in + any man. His eyes were pure dark blue, contrasting rather strangely with + his pale olive skin and intense black hair. Only a woodman, but he might + have come of one of the oldest and best families in the country, if there + is any connection between good blood and fine features and a noble + expression. Oddly enough, his surname was an uncommon and aristocratic + one. His wife, on the other hand, although a very good woman as we found, + had a distinctly plebeian countenance. One day she informed us that she + came of a different and better class than her husband's. She was the + daughter of a small tradesman, and had begun life as a lady's-maid: her + husband was nothing but a labourer; his people had been labourers for + generations, consequently her marriage to him had involved a considerable + descent in the social scale. Hearing this, it was hard to repress a smile. + </p> + <p> + The contrast between this man and the ordinary villager of his class was + as great in manners and conversation as in features and expression. His + combined dignity and gentleness, and apparent unconsciousness of any caste + difference between man and man, were astonishing in one who had been a + simple toiler all his life. + </p> + <p> + There were some grown-up children, others growing up, with others that + were still quite small. The boys, I noticed, favoured their mother, and + had commonplace faces; the girls took after their father, and though their + features were not so perfect they were exceptionally good-looking. The + eldest son—the disjointed, fly-away-looking young man who had + conquered all his enemies—had a wife and child. The eldest daughter + was also married, and had one child. Altogether the three families + numbered about sixteen persons, each family having its separate set of + rooms, but all dining at one table. How did they do it? It seemed easy + enough to them. They were serious people in a sense, although always + cheerful and sometimes hilarious when together of an evening, or at their + meals. But they regarded life as a serious matter, a state of probation; + they were non-smokers, total abstainers, diligent at their work, united, + profoundly religious. A fresh wonder came to light when I found that this + poor woodman, with so large a family to support, who spent ten or twelve + hours every day at his outdoor work, had yet been able out of his small + earnings to buy bricks and other materials, and, assisted by his sons, to + build a chapel adjoining his house. Here he held religious services on + Sundays, and once or twice of an evening during the week. These services + consisted of extempore prayers, a short address, and hymns accompanied by + a harmonium, which they all appeared able to play. + </p> + <p> + What his particular doctrine was I did not inquire, nor did I wish for any + information on that point. Doubtless he was a Dissenter of some kind + living in a village where there was no chapel; the services were for the + family, but were also attended by a few of the villagers and some persons + from neighbouring farms who preferred a simpler form of worship to that of + the Church. + </p> + <p> + It was not strange that this little community should have been regarded + with something like disfavour by the other villagers. For these others, + man for man, made just as much money, and paid less rent for their small + cottages, and, furthermore, received doles from the vicar and his + well-to-do parishioners, yet they could not better their position, much + less afford the good clothing, books, music, and other pleasant things + which the independent woodman bestowed on his family. And they knew why. + The woodman's very presence in their midst was a continual reproach, a + sermon on improvidence and intemperance, which they could not avoid + hearing by thrusting their fingers into their ears. + </p> + <p> + During my stay with these people something occurred to cause them a very + deep disquiet. The reader will probably smile when I tell them what it + was. Awaking one night after midnight I heard the unusual sound of voices + in earnest conversation in the room below; this went on until I fell + asleep again. In the morning we noticed that our landlady had a somewhat + haggard face, and that the daughters also had pale faces, with purple + marks under the eyes, as if they had kept their mother company in some + sorrowful vigil. We were not left long in ignorance of the cause of this + cloud. The good woman asked if we had been much disturbed by the talking. + I answered that I had heard voices and had supposed that friends from a + distance had arrived overnight and that they had sat up talking to a late + hour. No—that was not it, she said; but someone had arrived late, a + son who was sixteen years old, and who had been absent for some days on a + visit to relations in another county. When they gathered round him to hear + his news he confessed that while away he had learnt to smoke, and he now + wished them to know that he had well considered the matter, and was + convinced that it was not wrong nor harmful to smoke, and was determined + not to give up his tobacco. They had talked to him—father, mother, + brothers, and sisters—using every argument they could find or invent + to move him, until it was day and time for the woodman to go to his woods, + and the others to their several occupations. But their "all-night sitting" + had been wasted; the stubborn youth had not been convinced nor shaken. + When, after morning prayers, they got up from their knees, the sunlight + shining in upon them, they had made a last appeal with tears in their + eyes, and he had refused to give the promise they asked. The poor woman + was greatly distressed. This young fellow, I thought, favours his mother + in features, but mentally he is perhaps more like his father. Being a + smoker myself I ventured to put in a word for him. They were distressing + themselves too much, I told her; smoking in moderation was not only + harmless, especially to those who worked out of doors, but it was a + well-nigh universal habit, and many leading men in the religious world, + both churchmen and dissenters, were known to be smokers. + </p> + <p> + Her answer, which came quickly enough, was that they did not regard the + practice of smoking as in itself bad, but they knew that in some + circumstances it was inexpedient; and in the case of her son they were + troubled at the thought of what smoking would ultimately lead to. People, + she continued, did not care to smoke, any more than they did to eat and + drink, in solitude. It was a social habit, and it was inevitable that her + boy should look for others to keep him company in smoking. There would be + no harm in that in the summer-time when young people like to keep out of + doors until bedtime; but during the long winter evenings he would have to + look for his companions in the parlour of the public-house. And it would + not be easy, scarcely possible, to sit long among the others without + drinking a little beer. It is really no more wrong to drink a little beer + than to smoke, he would say; and it would be true. One pipe would lead to + another and one glass of beer to another. The habit would be formed and at + last all his evenings and all his earnings would be spent in the + public-house. + </p> + <p> + She was right, and I had nothing more to say except to wish her success in + her efforts. + </p> + <p> + It is curious that the strongest protests against the evils of the village + pubic, which one hears from village women, come from those who are not + themselves sufferers. Perhaps it is not curious. Instinctively we hide our + sores, bodily and mental, from the public gaze. + </p> + <p> + Not long ago I was in a small rustic village in Wiltshire, perhaps the + most charming village I have seen in that country. There was no inn or + ale-house, and feeling very thirsty after my long walk I went to a cottage + and asked the woman I saw there for a drink of milk. She invited me in, + and spreading a clean cloth on the table, placed a jug of new milk, a + loaf, and butter before me. For these good things she proudly refused to + accept payment. As she was a handsome young woman, with a clear, pleasant + voice, I was glad to have her sit there and talk to me while I refreshed + myself. Besides, I was in search of information and got it from her during + our talk. My object in going to the village was to see a woman who, I had + been told, was living there. I now heard that her cottage was close by, + but unfortunately, while anxious to see her, I had no excuse for calling. + </p> + <p> + "Do you think," said I to my young hostess, "that it would do to tell her + that I had heard something of her strange history and misfortunes, and + wished to offer her a little help? Is she very poor?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, no," she replied. "Please do not offer her money, if you see her. She + would be offended. There is no one in this village who would take a + shilling as a gift from a stranger. We all have enough; there is not a + poor person among us." + </p> + <p> + "What a happy village!" I exclaimed. "Perhaps you are all total + abstainers." + </p> + <p> + She laughed, and said that they all brewed their own beer—there was + not a total abstainer among them. Every cottager made from fifty to eighty + gallons, or more, and they drank beer every day, but very moderately, + while it lasted. They were all very sober; their children would have to go + to some neighbouring village to see a tipsy man. + </p> + <p> + I remarked that at the next village, which had three public-houses, there + were a good marry persons so poor that they would gladly at any time take + a shilling from any one. + </p> + <p> + It was the same everywhere in the district, she said, except in that + village which had no public-house. Not only were they better off, and + independent of blanket societies and charity in all forms, but they were + infinitely happier. And after the day's work the men came home to spend + the evening with their wives and children. + </p> + <p> + At this stage I was surprised by a sudden burst of passion on her part. + She stood up, her face flushing red, and solemnly declared that if ever a + public-house was opened in that village, and if the men took to spending + their evenings in it, her husband with them, she would not endure such a + condition of things—she wondered that so many women endured it—but + would take her little ones and go away to earn her own living under some + other roof! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Five: Wind, Wave, and Spirit + </h2> + <p> + The rambles I have described were mostly inland: when by chance they took + us down to the sea our impressions and adventures appeared less + interesting. Looking back on the holiday, it would seem to us a somewhat + vacant time compared to one spent in wandering from village to village. I + mean if we do not take into account that first impression which the sea + invariably makes on us on returning to it after a long absence—the + shock of recognition and wonder and joy as if we had been suffering from + loss of memory and it had now suddenly come back to us. That brief moving + experience over, there is little the sea can give us to compare with the + land. How could it be otherwise in our case, seeing that we were by it in + a crowd, our movements and way of life regulated for us in places which + appear like overgrown and ill-organized convalescent homes? There was + always a secret intense dislike of all parasitic and holiday places, an + uncomfortable feeling which made the pleasure seem poor and the + remembrance of days so spent hardly worth dwelling on. And as we are able + to keep in or throw out of our minds whatever we please, being autocrats + in our own little kingdom, I elected to cast away most of the memories of + these comparatively insipid holidays. But not all, and of those I retain I + will describe at least two, one in the present chapter on the East Anglian + coast, the other later on. + </p> + <p> + It was cold, though the month was August; it blew and the sky was grey and + rain beginning to fall when we came down about noon to a small town on the + Norfolk coast, where we hoped to find lodging and such comforts as could + be purchased out of a slender purse. It was a small modern pleasure town + of an almost startling appearance owing to the material used in building + its straight rows of cottages and its ugly square houses and villas. This + was an orange-brown stone found in the neighbourhood, the roofs being all + of hard, black slate. I had never seen houses of such a colour, it was + stronger, more glaring and aggressive than the reddest brick, and there + was not a green thing to partially screen or soften it, nor did the + darkness of the wet weather have any mitigating effect on it. The town was + built on high ground, with an open grassy space before it sloping down to + the cliff in which steps had been cut to give access to the beach, and + beyond the cliff we caught sight of the grey, desolate, wind-vexed sea. + But the rain was coming down more and more heavily, turning the streets + into torrents, so that we began to envy those who had found a shelter even + in so ugly a place. No one would take us in. House after house, street + after street, we tried, and at every door with "Apartments to Let" over it + where we knocked the same hateful landlady-face appeared with the same + triumphant gleam in the fish-eyes and the same smile on the mouth that + opened to tell us delightedly that she and the town were "full up"; that + never had there been known such a rush of visitors; applicants were being + turned away every hour from every door! + </p> + <p> + After three miserable hours spent in this way we began inquiring at all + the shops, and eventually at one were told of a poor woman in a small + house in a street a good way back from the front who would perhaps be able + to taken us in. To this place we went and knocked at a low door in a long + blank wall in a narrow street; it was opened to us by a pale thin + sad-looking woman in a rusty black gown, who asked us into a shabby + parlour, and agreed to take us in until we could find something better. + She had a gentle voice and was full of sympathy, and seeing our plight + took us into the kitchen behind the parlour, which was living- and + working-room as well, to dry ourselves by the fire. + </p> + <p> + "The greatest pleasure in life," said once a magnificent young athlete, a + great pedestrian, to me, "is to rest when you are tired." And, I should + add, to dry and warm yourself by a big fire when wet and cold, and to eat + and drink when you are hungry and thirsty. All these pleasures were now + ours, for very soon tea and chops were ready for us; and so strangely + human, so sister-like did this quiet helpful woman seem after our harsh + experiences on that rough rainy day—that we congratulated ourselves + on our good fortune in having found such a haven, and soon informed her + that we wanted no "better place." + </p> + <p> + She worked with her needle to support herself and her one child, a little + boy of ten; and by and by when he came in pretty wet from some outdoor + occupation we made his acquaintance and the discovery that he was a little + boy of an original character. He was so much to his mother, who, poor + soul, had nobody else in the world to love, that she was always haunted by + the fear of losing him. He was her boy, the child of her body, exclusively + her own, unlike all other boys, and her wise heart told her that if she + put him in a school he would be changed so that she would no longer know + him for her boy. For it is true that our schools are factories, with a + machinery to unmake and remake, or fabricate, the souls of children much + in the way in which shoddy is manufactured. You may see a thousand rags or + garments of a thousand shapes and colours cast in to be boiled, bleached, + pulled to pieces, combed and woven, and finally come out as a piece of + cloth a thousand yards long of a uniform harmonious pattern, smooth, + glossy, and respectable. His individuality gone, he would in a sense be + lost to her; and although by nature a weak timid woman, though poor, and a + stranger in a strange place, this thought, or feeling, or "ridiculous + delusion" as most people would call it, had made her strong, and she had + succeeded in keeping her boy out of school. + </p> + <p> + Hers was an interesting story. Left alone in the world she had married one + in her own class, very happily as she imagined. He was in some business in + a country town, well off enough to provide a comfortable home, and he was + very good; in fact, his one fault was that he was too good, too + open-hearted and fond of associating with other good fellows like himself, + and of pledging them in the cup that cheers and at the same time + inebriates. Nevertheless, things went very well for a time, until the + child was born, the business declined, and they began to be a little + pinched. Then it occurred to her that she, too, might be able to do + something. She started dressmaking, and as she had good taste and was + clever and quick, her business soon prospered. This pleased him; it + relieved him from the necessity of providing for the home, and enabled him + to follow his own inclination, which was to take things easily—to be + an idle man, with a little ready money in his pocket for betting and other + pleasures. The money was now provided out of "our business." This state of + things continued without any change, except that process of degeneration + which continued in him, until the child was about four years old, when all + at once one day he told her they were not doing as well as they might. She + was giving far too much of her time and attention to domestic matters—to + the child especially. Business was business—a thing it was hard for + a woman to understand—and it was impossible for her to give her mind + properly to it with her thoughts occupied with the child. It couldn't be + done. Let the child be put away, he said, and the receipts would probably + be doubled. He had been making inquiries and found that for a modest + annual payment the boy could be taken proper care of at a distance by good + decent people he had heard of. + </p> + <p> + She had never suspected such a thought in his mind, and this proposal had + the effect of a stunning blow. She answered not one word: he said his say + and went out, and she knew she would not see him again for many hours, + perhaps not for some days; she knew, too, that he would say no more to her + on the subject, that it would all be arranged about the child with or + without her consent. His will was law, her wishes nothing. For she was his + wife and humble obedient slave; never had she pleaded with or admonished + him and never complained, even when, after her long day of hard work, he + came in at ten or eleven o'clock at night with several of his pals, all + excited with drink and noisy as himself, to call for supper. Nevertheless + she had been happy—intensely happy, because of the child. The love + for the man she had married, wondering how one so bright and handsome and + universally admired and liked could stoop to her, who had nothing but love + and worship to give in return—that love was now gone and was not + missed, so much greater and more satisfying was the love for her boy. And + now she must lose him. Two or three silent miserable days passed by while + she waited for the dreadful separation, until the thought of it became + unendurable and she resolved to keep her child and sacrifice everything + else. Secretly she prepared for flight, getting together the few necessary + things she could carry; then, with the child in her arms, she stole out + one evening and began her flight, which took her all across England at its + widest part, and ended at this small coast town, the best hiding-place she + could think of. + </p> + <p> + The boy was a queer little fellow, healthy but colourless, with strangely + beautiful grey eyes which, on first seeing them, almost startled one with + their intelligence. He was shy and almost obstinately silent, but when I + talked to him on certain subjects the intense suppressed interest he felt + would show itself in his face, and by and by it would burst out in speech—an + impetuous torrent of words in a high shrill voice. He reminded me of a + lark in a cage. Watch it in its prison when the sun shines forth—when, + like the captive falcon in Dante, it is "cheated by a gleam"—its + wing-tremblings, and all its little tentative motions, how the excitement + grows and grows in it, until, although shut up and flight denied it, the + passion can no longer be contained and it bursts out in a torrent of + shrill and guttural sounds, which, if it were free and soaring, would be + its song. His passion was all for nature, and his mother out of her small + earnings had managed to get quite a number of volumes together for him. + These he read and re-read until he knew them by heart; and on Sundays, or + any other day they could take, those two lonely ones would take a basket + containing their luncheon, her work and a book or two, and set out on a + long ramble along the coast to pass the day in some solitary spot among + the sandhills. + </p> + <p> + With these two, the gentle woman and her quiet boy over his book, and the + kitchen fire to warm and dry us after each wetting, the bad weather became + quite bearable although it lasted many days. And it was amazingly bad. The + wind blew with a fury from the sea; it was hard to walk against it. The + people in hundreds waited in their dull apartments for a lull, and when it + came they poured out like hungry sheep from the fold, or like children + from a school, swarming over the green slope down to the beach, to scatter + far and wide over the sands. Then, in a little while; a new menacing + blackness would come up out of the sea, and by and by a fresh storm of + wind would send the people scuttling back into shelter. So it went on day + after day, and when night came the sound of the ever-troubled sea grew + louder, so that, shut up in our little rooms in that back street, we had + it in our ears, except at intervals, when the wind howled loud enough to + drown its great voice, and hurled tempests of rain and hail against the + roofs and windows. + </p> + <p> + To me the most amazing thing was the spectacle of the swifts. It was late + for them, near the end of August; they should now have been far away on + their flight to Africa; yet here they were, delaying on that desolate east + coast in wind and wet, more than a hundred of them. It was strange to see + so many at one spot, and I could only suppose that they had congregated + previous to migration at that unsuitable place, and were being kept back + by the late breeders, who had not yet been wrought up to the point of + abandoning their broods. They haunted a vast ruinous old barn-like + building near the front, which was probably old a century before the town + was built, and about fifteen to twenty pairs had their nests under the + eaves. Over this building they hung all day in a crowd, rising high to + come down again at a frantic speed, and at each descent a few birds could + be seen to enter the holes, while others rushed out to join the throng, + and then all rose and came down again and swept round and round in a + furious chase, shrieking as if mad. At all hours they drew me to that + spot, and standing there, marvelling at their swaying power and the fury + that possessed them, they appeared to me like tormented beings, and were + like those doomed wretches in the halls of Eblis whose hearts were in a + blaze of unquenchable fire, and who, every one with hands pressed to his + breast, went spinning round in an everlasting agonized dance. They were + tormented and crazed by the two most powerful instincts of birds pulling + in opposite directions—the parental instinct and the passion of + migration which called them to the south. + </p> + <p> + In such weather, especially on that naked desolate coast, exposed to the + fury of the winds, one marvels at our modern craze for the sea; not merely + to come and gaze upon and listen to it, to renew our youth in its salt, + exhilarating waters and to lie in delicious idleness on the warm shingle + or mossy cliff; but to be always, for days and weeks and even for months, + at all hours, in all weathers, close to it, with its murmur, "as of one in + pain," for ever in our ears. + </p> + <p> + Undoubtedly it is an unnatural, a diseased, want in us, the result of a + life too confined and artificial in close dirty overcrowded cities. It is + to satisfy this craving that towns have sprung up everywhere on our coasts + and extended their ugly fronts for miles and leagues, with their tens of + thousands of windows from which the city-sickened wretches may gaze and + gaze and listen and feed their sick souls with the ocean. That is to say, + during their indoor hours; at other times they walk or sit or lie as close + as they can to it, following the water as it ebbs and reluctantly retiring + before it when it returns. It was not so formerly, before the discovery + was made that the sea could cure us. Probably our great-grandfathers + didn't even know they were sick; at all events, those who had to live in + the vicinity of the sea were satisfied to be a little distance from it, + out of sight of its grey desolation and, if possible, out of hearing of + its "accents disconsolate." This may be seen anywhere on our coasts; + excepting the seaports and fishing settlements, the towns and villages are + almost always some distance from the sea, often in a hollow or at all + events screened by rising ground and woods from it. The modern seaside + place has, in most cases, its old town or village not far away but quite + as near as the healthy ancients wished to be. + </p> + <p> + The old village nearest to our little naked and ugly modern town was + discovered at a distance of about two miles, but it might have been two + hundred, so great was the change to its sheltered atmosphere. Loitering in + its quiet streets among the old picturesque brick houses with tiled or + thatched roofs and tall chimneys—ivy and rose and creeper-covered, + with a background of old oaks and elms—I had the sensation of having + come back to my own home. In that still air you could hear men and women + talking fifty or a hundred yards away, the cry or laugh of a child and the + clear crowing of a cock, also the smaller aerial sounds of nature, the + tinkling notes of tits and other birdlings in the trees, the twitter of + swallows and martins, and the "lisp of leaves and ripple of rain." It was + sweet and restful in that home-like place, and hard to leave it to go back + to the front to face the furious blasts once more. Rut there were + compensations. + </p> + <p> + The little town, we have seen, was overcrowded with late summer visitors, + all eager for the sea yet compelled to waste so much precious time shut up + in apartments, and at every appearance of a slight improvement in the + weather they would pour out of the houses and the green slope would be + covered with a crowd of many hundreds, all hurrying down to the beach. The + crowd was composed mostly of women—about three to every man, I + should say—and their children; and it was one of the most + interesting crowds I had ever come across on account of the large number + of persons in it of a peculiarly fine type, which chance had brought + together at that spot. It was the large English blonde, and there were so + many individuals of this type that they gave a character to the crowd so + that those of a different physique and colour appeared to be fewer than + they were and were almost overlooked. They came from various places about + the country, in the north and the Midlands, and appeared to be of the + well-to-do classes; they, or many of them, were with their families but + without their lords. They were mostly tall and large in every way, very + white-skinned, with light or golden hair and large light blue eyes. A + common character of these women was their quiet reposeful manner; they + walked and talked and rose up and sat down and did everything, in fact, + with an air of deliberation; they gazed in a slow steady way at you, and + were dignified, some even majestic, and were like a herd of large + beautiful white cows. The children, too, especially the girls, some almost + as tall as their large mothers, though still in short frocks, were very + fine. The one pastime of these was paddling, and it was a delight to see + their bare feet and legs. The legs of those who had been longest on the + spot—probably several weeks in some instances—were of a deep + nutty brown hue suffused with pink; after these a gradation of colour, + light brown tinged with buff, pinkish buff and cream, like the Gloire de + Dijon rose; and so on to the delicate tender pink of the clover blossom; + and, finally, the purest ivory white of the latest arrivals whose skins + had not yet been caressed and coloured by sun and wind. + </p> + <p> + How beautiful are the feet of these girls by the sea who bring us glad + tidings of a better time to come and the day of a nobler courage, a freer + larger life when garments which have long oppressed and hindered shall + have been cast away! It was, as I have said, mere chance which had brought + so many persons of a particular type together on this occasion, and I + thought I might go there year after year and never see the like again. As + a fact I did return when August came round and found a crowd of a + different character. The type was there but did not predominate: it was no + longer the herd of beautiful white and strawberry cows with golden horns + and large placid eyes. Nothing in fact was the same, for when I looked for + the swifts there were no more than about twenty birds instead of over a + hundred, and although just on the eve of departure they were not behaving + in the same excited manner. + </p> + <p> + Probably I should not have thought so much about that particular crowd in + that tempestuous August, and remembered it so vividly, but for the + presence of three persons in it and the strange contrast they made to the + large white type I have described. These were a woman and her two little + girls, aged about eight and ten respectively, but very small for their + years. She was a little black haired and black-eyed woman with a pale sad + dark face, on which some great grief or tragedy had left its shadow; very + quiet and subdued in her manner; she would sit on a chair on the beach + when the weather permitted, a book on her knees, while her two little ones + played about, chasing and flying from the waves, or with the aid of their + long poles vaulting from rock to rock. They were dressed in black frocks + and scarlet blouses, which set off their beautiful small dark faces; their + eyes sparkled like black diamonds, and their loose hair was a wonder to + see, a black mist or cloud about their heads and necks composed of threads + fine as gossamer, blacker than jet and shining like spun glass-hair that + looked as if no comb or brush could ever tame its beautiful wildness. And + in spirit they were what they seemed: such a wild, joyous, frolicsome + spirit with such grace and fleetness one does not look for in human + beings, but only in birds or in some small bird-like volatile mammal—a + squirrel or a marmoset of the tropical forest, or the chinchilla of the + desolate mountain slopes, the swiftest, wildest, loveliest, most airy and + most vocal of small beasties. Occasionally to watch their wonderful + motions more closely and have speech with them, I followed when they raced + over the sands or flew about over the slippery rocks, and felt like a + cochin-china fowl, or muscovy duck, or dodo, trying to keep pace with a + humming-bird. Their voices were well suited to their small brilliant + forms; not loud, though high-pitched and singularly musical and + penetrative, like the high clear notes of a skylark at a distance. They + also reminded me of certain notes, which have a human quality, in some of + our songsters—the swallow, redstart, pied wagtail, whinchat, and two + or three others. Such pure and beautiful sounds are sometimes heard in + human voices, chiefly in children, when they are talking and laughing in + joyous excitement. But for any sort of conversation they were too + volatile; before I could get a dozen words from them they would be off + again, flying and flitting along the margin, like sandpipers, and beating + the clear-voiced sandpiper at his own aerial graceful game. + </p> + <p> + By and by I was favoured with a fine exhibition of the spirit animating + these two little things. The weather had made it possible for the crowd of + visitors to go down and scatter itself over the beach, when the usual + black cloud sprang up and soon burst on us in a furious tempest of wind + and rain, sending the people flying back to the shelter of a large + structure erected for such purposes against the cliff. It was a vast + barn-like place, open to the front, the roof supported by wooden columns, + and here in a few minutes some three or four hundred persons were + gathered, mostly women and their girls, white and blue-eyed with long wet + golden hair hanging down their backs. Finding a vacant place on the bench, + I sat down next to a large motherly-looking woman with a robust or dumpy + blue-eyed girl about four or five years old on her lap. Most of the people + were standing about in groups waiting for the storm to blow over, and + presently I noticed my two wild-haired dark little girls moving about in + the crowd. It was impossible not to seen them, for they could not keep + still a moment. They were here, there, and everywhere, playing + hide-and-seek and skipping and racing wherever they could find an opening, + and by and by, taking hold of each other, they started dancing. It was a + pretty spectacle, but most interesting to see was the effect produced on + the other children, the hundred girls, big and little, the little ones + especially, who had been standing there tired and impatient to get out to + the sea, and who were now becoming more and more excited as they gazed, + until, like children when listening to lively music, they began moving + feet and hands and soon their whole bodies in time to the swift movements + of the little dancers. At last, plucking up courage, first one, then + another, joined them, and were caught as they came and whirled round and + round in a manner quite new to them and which they appeared to find very + delightful. By and by I observed that the little rosy-faced dumpy girl on + my neighbour's knees was taking the infection; she was staring, her blue + eyes opened to their widest in wonder and delight. Then suddenly she began + pleading, "Oh, mummy, do let me go to the little girls—oh, do let + me!" And her mother said "No," because she was so little, and could never + fly round like that, and so would fall and hurt herself and cry. But she + pleaded still, and was ready to cry if refused, until the good anxious + mother was compelled to release her; and down she slipped, and after + standing still with her little arms and closed hands held up as if to + collect herself before plunging into the new tremendous adventure, she + rushed out towards the dancers. One of them saw her coming, and instantly + quitting the child she was waltzing with flew to meet her, and catching + her round the middle began spinning her about as if the solid little thing + weighed no more than a feather. But it proved too much for her; very soon + she came down and broke into a loud cry, which brought her mother + instantly to her, and she was picked up and taken back to the seat and + held to the broad bosom and soothed with caresses and tender words until + the sobs began to subside. Then, even before the tears were dry, her eyes + were once more gazing at the tireless little dancers, taking on child + after child as they came timidly forward to have a share in the fun, and + once more she began to plead with her "mummy," and would not be denied, + for she was a most determined little Saxon, until getting her way she + rushed out for a second trial. Again the little dancer saw her coming and + flew to her like a bird to its mate, and clasping her laughed her merry + musical little laugh. It was her "sudden glory," an expression of pure + delight in her power to infuse her own fire and boundless gaiety of soul + into all these little blue-eyed rosy phlegmatic lumps of humanity. + </p> + <p> + What was it in these human mites, these fantastic Brownies, which, in that + crowd of Rowenas and their children, made them seem like beings not only + of another race, but of another species? How came they alone to be + distinguished among so many by that irresponsible gaiety, as of the most + volatile of wild creatures, that quickness of sense and mind and sympathy, + that variety and grace and swiftness—all these brilliant exotic + qualities harmoniously housed in their small beautiful elastic and + vigorous frames? It was their genius, their character—something + derived from their race. But what race? Looking at their mother watching + her little ones at their frolics with dark shining eyes—the small + oval-faced brown-skinned woman with blackest hair—I could but say + that she was an Iberian, pure and simple, and that her children were like + her. In Southern Europe that type abounds; it is also to be met with + throughout Britain, perhaps most common in the southern counties, and it + is not uncommon in East Anglia. Indeed, I think it is in Norfolk where we + may best see the two most marked sub-types in which it is divided—the + two extremes. The small stature, narrow head, dark skin, black hair and + eyes are common to both, and in both these physical characters are + correlated with certain mental traits, as, for instance, a peculiar + vivacity and warmth of disposition; but they are high and low. In the + latter sub-division the skin is coarse in texture, brown or old parchment + in colour, with little red in it; the black hair is also coarse, the + forehead small, the nose projecting, and the facial angle indicative of a + more primitive race. One might imagine that these people had been + interred, along with specimens of rude pottery and bone and flint + implements, a long time back, about the beginning of the Bronze Age + perhaps, and had now come out of their graves and put on modern clothes. + At all events I don't think a resident in Norfolk would have much + difficulty in picking out the portraits of some of his fellow-villagers in + Mr. Reed's Prehistoric Peeps. + </p> + <p> + The mother and her little ones were of the higher sub-type: they had + delicate skins, beautiful faces, clear musical voices. They were Iberians + in blood, but improved; purified and refined as by fire; gentleized and + spiritualized, and to the lower types down to the aboriginals, as is the + bright consummate flower to leaf and stem and root. + </p> + <p> + Often and often we are teased and tantalized and mocked by that old + question: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Oh! so old— + Thousands of years, thousands of years, + If all were told— +</pre> + <p> + of black and blue eyes; blue versus black and black versus blue, to put it + both ways. And by black we mean black with orange-brown lights in it—the + eye called tortoise-shell; and velvety browns with other browns, also + hazels. Blue includes all blues, from ultramarine, or violet, to the + palest blue of a pale sky; and all greys down to the grey that is almost + white. Our preference for this or that colour is supposed to depend on + nothing but individual taste, or fancy, and association. I believe it is + something more, but I do find that we are very apt to be swayed this way + and that by the colour of the eyes of the people we meet in life, + according as they (the people) attract or repel us. The eyes of the two + little girls were black as polished black diamonds until looked at + closely, when they appeared a beautiful deep brown on which the black + pupils were seen distinctly; they were so lovely that I, predisposed to + prefer dark to light, felt that this question was now definitely settled + for me—that black was best. That irresistible charm, the flame-like + spirit which raised these two so much above the others—how could it + go with anything but the darkest eyes! + </p> + <p> + But no sooner was the question thus settled definitely and for all time, + to my very great satisfaction, than it was unsettled again. I do not know + how this came about; it may have been the sight of some small child's blue + eyes looking up at me, like the arch blue eyes of a kitten, full of wonder + at the world and everything in it; + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Where did you get those eyes so blue?" + "Out of the sky as I came through"; +</pre> + <p> + or it may have been the sight of a harebell; and perhaps it came from + nothing but the "waste shining of the sky." At all events, there they + were, remembered again, looking at me from the past, blue eyes that were + beautiful and dear to me, whose blue colour was associated with every + sweetness and charm in child and woman and with all that is best and + highest in human souls; and I could not and had no wish to resist their + appeal. + </p> + <p> + Then came a new experience of the eye that is blue—a meeting with + one who almost seemed to be less flesh than spirit. A middle-aged lady, + frail, very frail; exceedingly pale from long ill-health, prematurely + white-haired, with beautiful grey eyes, gentle but wonderfully bright. + Altogether she was like a being compounded as to her grosser part of foam + and mist and gossamer and thistledown, and was swayed by every breath of + air, and who, should she venture abroad in rough weather, would be lifted + and blown away by the gale and scattered like mist over the earth. Yet + she, so frail, so timid, was the one member of the community who had set + herself to do the work of a giant—that of championing all ill-used + and suffering creatures, wild or tame, holding a protecting shield over + them against the innate brutality of the people. She had been abused and + mocked and jeered at by many, while others had regarded her action with an + amused smile or else with a cold indifference. But eventually some, for + very shame, had been drawn to her side, and a change in the feeling of the + people had resulted; domestic animals were treated better, and it was no + longer universally believed that all wild animals, especially those with + wings, existed only that men might amuse themselves by killing and + wounding and trapping and caging and persecuting them in various other + ways. + </p> + <p> + The sight of that burning and shining spirit in its frail tenement—for + did I not actually see her spirit and the very soul of her in those eyes?—was + the last of the unforgotten experiences I had at that place which had + startled and repelled me with its ugliness. + </p> + <p> + But, no, there was one more, marvellous as any—the experience of a + day of days, one of those rare days when nature appears to us + spiritualized and is no longer nature, when that which had transfigured + this visible world is in us too, and it becomes possible to believe—it + is almost a conviction—that the burning and shining spirit seen and + recognized in one among a thousand we have known is in all of us and in + all things. In such moments it is possible to go beyond even the most + advanced of the modern physicists who hold that force alone exists, that + matter is but a disguise, a shadow and delusion; for we may add that force + itself—that which we call force or energy—is but a semblance + and shadow of the universal soul. + </p> + <p> + The change in the weather was not sudden; the furious winds dropped + gradually; the clouds floated higher in the heavens, and were of a lighter + grey; there were wider breaks in them, showing the lucid blue beyond; and + the sea grew quieter. It had raved and roared too long, beating against + the iron walls that held it back, and was now spent and fallen into an + uneasy sleep, but still moved uneasily and moaned a little. Then all at + once summer returned, coming like a thief in the night, for when it was + morning the sun rose in splendour and power in a sky without a cloud on + its vast azure expanse, on a calm sea with no motion but that scarcely + perceptible rise and fall as of one that sleeps. As the sun rose higher + the air grew warmer until it was full summer heat, but although a "visible + heat," it was never oppressive; for all that day we were abroad, and as + the tide ebbed a new country that was neither earth nor sea was disclosed, + an infinite expanse of pale yellow sand stretching away on either side, + and further and further out until it mingled and melted into the sparkling + water and faintly seen line of foam on the horizon. And over all—the + distant sea, the ridge of low dunes marking where the earth ended and the + flat, yellow expanse between—there brooded a soft bluish silvery + haze. A haze that blotted nothing out, but blended and interfused them all + until earth and air and sea and sands were scarcely distinguishable. The + effect, delicate, mysterious, unearthly, cannot be described. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Ethereal gauze... + Visible heat, air-water, and dry sea, + Last conquest of the eye... + + Sun dust, + Aerial surf upon the shores of earth, + Ethereal estuary, frith of light.... + Bird of the sun, transparent winged. +</pre> + <p> + Do we not see that words fail as pigments do—that the effect is too + coarse, since in describing it we put it before the mental eye as + something distinctly visible, a thing of itself and separate. But it is + not so in nature; the effect is of something almost invisible and is yet a + part of all and makes all things—sky and sea and land—as + unsubstantial as itself. Even living, moving things had that aspect. Far + out on the lowest further strip of sand, which appeared to be on a level + with the sea, gulls were seen standing in twos and threes and small groups + and in rows; but they did not look like gulls—familiar birds, + gull-shaped with grey and white plumage. They appeared twice as big as + gulls, and were of a dazzling whiteness and of no definite shape: though + standing still they had motion, an effect of the quivering dancing air, + the "visible heat"; at rest, they were seen now as separate objects; then + as one with the silver sparkle on the sea; and when they rose and floated + away they were no longer shining and white, but like pale shadows of + winged forms faintly visible in the haze. + </p> + <p> + They were not birds but spirits—beings that lived in or were passing + through the world and now, like the heat, made visible; and I, standing + far out on the sparkling sands, with the sparkling sea on one side and the + line of dunes, indistinctly seen as land, on the other, was one of them; + and if any person had looked at me from a distance he would have seen me + as a formless shining white being standing by the sea, and then perhaps as + a winged shadow floating in the haze. It was only necessary to put out + one's arms to float. That was the effect on my mind: this natural world + was changed to a supernatural, and there was no more matter nor force in + sea or land nor in the heavens above, but only spirit. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Six: By Swallowfield + </h2> + <p> + One of the most attractive bits of green and wooded country near London I + know lies between Reading and Basingstoke and includes Aldermaston with + its immemorial oaks in Berkshire and Silchester with Pamber Forest in + Hampshire. It has long been one of my favourite haunts, summer and winter, + and it is perhaps the only wooded place in England where I have a home + feeling as strong as that which I experience in certain places among the + South Wiltshire downs and in the absolutely flat country on the Severn, in + Somerset, and the flat country in Cambridgeshire and East Anglia, + especially at Lynn and about Ely. + </p> + <p> + I am now going back to my first visit to this green retreat; it was in the + course of one of those Easter walks I have spoken of, and the way was + through Reading and by Three Mile Cross and Swallowfield. On this occasion + I conceived a dislike to Reading which I have never quite got over, for it + seemed an unconscionably big place for two slow pedestrians to leave + behind. Worse still, when we did leave it we found that Reading would not + leave us. It was like a stupendous octopus in red brick which threw out + red tentacles, miles and miles long in various directions—little + rows and single and double cottages and villas, all in red, red brick and + its weary accompaniment, the everlasting hard slate roof. These square red + brick boxes with sloping slate tops are built as close as possible to the + public road, so that the passer-by looking in at the windows may see the + whole interior—wall-papers, pictures, furniture, and oftentimes the + dull expressionless face of the woman of the house, staring back at you + out of her shallow blue eyes. The weather too was against us; a grey hard + sky, like the slate roofs, and a cold strong east wind to make the road + dusty all day long. + </p> + <p> + Arrived at Three Mile Cross, it was no surprise to find it no longer + recognizable as the hamlet described in Our Village, but it was saddening + to look at the cottage in which Mary Russell Mitford lived and was on the + whole very happy with her flowers and work for thirty years of her life, + in its present degraded state. It has a sign now and calls itself the + "Mitford Arms" and a "Temperance Hotel," and we were told that you could + get tea and bread and butter there but nothing else. The cottage has been + much altered since Miss Mitford's time, and the open space once occupied + by the beloved garden is now filled with buildings, including a + corrugated-iron dissenting chapel. + </p> + <p> + From Three Mile Cross we walked on to Swallowfield, still by those + never-ending roadside red-brick cottages and villas, for we were not yet + properly out of the hated biscuit metropolis. It was a big village with + the houses scattered far and wide over several square miles of country, + but just where the church stands it is shady and pleasant. The pretty + church yard too is very deeply shaded and occupies a small hill with the + Loddon flowing partly round it, then taking its swift way through the + village. Miss Mitford's monument is a plain, almost an ugly, granite + cross, standing close to the wall, shaded by yew, elm, and beech trees, + and one is grateful to think that if she never had her reward when living + she has found at any rate a very peaceful resting-place. + </p> + <p> + The sexton was there and told us that he was but ten years old when Miss + Mitford died, but that he remembered her well and she was a very pleasant + little woman. Others in the place who remembered her said the same—that + she was very pleasant and sweet. We know that she was sweet and charming, + but unfortunately the portraits we have of her do not give that + impression. They represent her as a fat common-place looking person, a + little vulgar perhaps. I fancy the artists were bunglers. I possess a copy + of a very small pencil sketch made of her face by a dear old lady friend + of mine, now dead, about the year 1851 or 2. My friend had a gift for + portraiture in a peculiar way. When she saw a face that greatly interested + her, in a drawing-room, on a platform, in the street, anywhere, it + remained very vividly in her mind and on going home she would sketch it, + and some of these sketches of well known persons are wonderfully good. She + was staying in the country with a friend who drove with her to + Swallowfield to call on Miss Mitford, and on her return to her friend's + house she made the little sketch, and in this tiny portrait I can see the + refinement, the sweetness, the animation and charm which she undoubtedly + possessed. + </p> + <p> + But let me now venture to step a little outside of my own province, my + small plot—a poor pedestrian's unimportant impressions of places and + faces; all these p's come by accident; and this I put in parenthetically + just because an editor solemnly told me a while ago that he couldn't abide + and wouldn't have alliteration's artful aid in his periodical. Let us + leave the subject of what Miss Mitford was to those of her day who knew + her; a thousand lovely personalities pass away every year and in a little + while are no more remembered than the bright-plumaged bird that falls in + the tropical forest, or the vanished orchid bloom of which some one has + said that the angels in heaven can look on no more beautiful thing. + Leaving all that, let us ask what remains to us of another generation of + all she was and did? + </p> + <p> + She was a prolific writer, both prose and verse, and, as we know, had an + extraordinary vogue in her own time. Anything that came from her pen had + an immediate success; indeed, so highly was she regarded that nothing she + chose to write, however poor, could fail. And she certainly did write a + good deal of poor stuff: it was all in a sense poor, but books and books, + poor soul, she had to write. It was in a sense poor because it was mostly + ambitious stuff, and, as the proverb says, "You cannot fly like an eagle + with the wings of a wren." She was driven to fly, and gave her little + wings too much to do, and her flights were apt to be mere little weak + flutterings over the surface of the ground. A wren, and she had not a + cuckoo but a devouring cormorant to sustain—that dear, beautiful + father of hers, who was more to her than any reprobate son to his devoted + mother, and who day after day, year after year, gobbled up her earnings, + and then would hungrily go on squawking for more until he stumbled into + the grave. Alas! he was too long in dying; she was worn out by then, the + little heart beating not so fast, and the bright little brain growing dim + and very tired. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +Now all the ambitious stuff she wrote to keep the cormorant and, +incidentally, to immortalize herself, has fallen deservedly into +oblivion. But we—some of us—do not forget and never want to forget +Mary Russell Mitford. Her letters remain—the little friendly letters +which came from her pen like balls of silvery down from a sun-ripened +plant, and were wafted far and wide over the land to those she loved. +There is a wonderful charm in them; they are so spontaneous, so natural, +so perfectly reflect her humour and vivacity, her overflowing sweetness, +her beautiful spirit. And one book too remains—the series of sketches +about the poor little hamlet, in which she lived so long and laboured +so hard to support herself and her parents, the turtledove mated with a +cormorant. Driven to produce work and hard up for a subject, in a happy +moment she took up this humble one lying at her own door and allowed her +self to write naturally even as in her most intimate letters. This is +the reason of the vitality of Our Tillage; it was simple, natural, and +reflected the author herself, her tender human heart, her impulsive +nature, her bright playful humorous spirit. There is no thought, no mind +stuff in it, and it is a classic! It is about the country, and she has +so little observation that it might have been written in a town, out of +a book, away from nature's sights and sounds. Her rustic characters +are not comparable to those of a score or perhaps two or three score of +other writers who treat of such subjects. The dialogue, when she makes +them talk, is unnatural, and her invention so poor that when she puts in +a little romance of her own making one regrets it. And so one might go +on picking it all to pieces like a dandelion blossom. Nevertheless it +endures, outliving scores of in a way better books on the same themes, +because her own delightful personality manifests itself and shines in +all these little pictures. This short passage describing how she took +Lizzie, the little village child she loved, to gather cowslips in the +meadows, will serve as an illustration. + + They who know these feelings (and who is so happy as not to +have known some of them) will understand why Alfieri became powerless, +and Froissart dull; and why even needlework, the most effective +sedative, that grand soother and composer of women's distress, fails +to comfort me today. I will go out into the air this cool, pleasant +afternoon, and try what that will do.... I will go to the meadows, the +beautiful meadows and I will have my materials of happiness, Lizzie and +May, and a basket for flowers, and we will make a cowslip ball. "Did +you ever see a cowslip ball, Lizzie?" "No." "Come away then; make haste! +run, Lizzie!" + + And on we go, fast, fast! down the road, across the lea, +past the workhouse, along by the great pond, till we slide into the deep +narrow lane, whose hedges seem to meet over the water, and win our way +to the little farmhouse at the end. "Through the farmyard, Lizzie; over +the gate; never mind the cows; they are quiet enough." "I don't mind +'em," said Miss Lizzie, boldly and' truly, and with a proud affronted +air, displeased at being thought to mind anything, and showing by her +attitude and manner some design of proving her courage by an attack on +the largest of the herd, in the shape of a pull by the tail. "I don't +mind 'em." "I know you don't, Lizzie; but let them, alone and don't +chase the turkey-cock. Come to me, my dear!" and, for wonder, Lizzie +came. +</pre> + <p> + In the meantime my other pet, Mayflower, had also gotten into a scrape. + She had driven about a huge unwieldy sow, till the animal's grunting had + disturbed the repose of a still more enormous Newfoundland dog, the + guardian of the yard. + </p> + <p> + The beautiful white greyhound's mocking treatment of the surly dog on the + chain then follows, and other pretty scenes and adventures, until after + some mishaps and much trouble the cowslip ball is at length completed. + </p> + <p> + What a concentration of fragrance and beauty it was! Golden and sweet to + satiety! rich in sight, and touch, and smell! Lizzie was enchanted, and + ran off with her prize, hiding amongst the trees in the very coyness of + ecstasy, as if any human eye, even mine, would be a restraint on her + innocent raptures. + </p> + <p> + Here the very woman is revealed to us, her tender and lively disposition, + her impulsiveness and childlike love of fun and delight in everything on + earth. We see in such a passage what her merit really is, the reason of + our liking or "partiality" for her. Her pleasure in everything makes + everything interesting, and in displaying her feeling without art or + disguise she succeeds in giving what we may call a literary expression to + personal charm—that quality which is almost untranslatable into + written words. Many women possess it; it is in them and issues from them, + and is like an essential oil in a flower, but too volatile to be captured + and made use of. Furthermore, women when they write are as a rule even + more conventional than men, more artificial and out of and away from + themselves. + </p> + <p> + I do not know that any literary person will agree with me; I have gone + aside to write about Miss Mitford mainly for my own satisfaction. + Frequently when I have wanted to waste half an hour pleasantly with a book + I have found myself picking up "Our Village" from among many others, some + waiting for a first perusal, and I wanted to know why this was so—to + find out, if not to invent, some reason for my liking which would not make + me ashamed. + </p> + <p> + At Swallowfield we failed to find a place to stay at; there was no such + place; and of the inns, named, I think, the "Crown," "Cricketers," + "Bird-in-the-Hand," and "George and Dragon," only one, was said to provide + accommodation for travellers as the law orders, but on going to the house + we were informed that the landlord or his wife was just dead, or + dangerously ill, I forget which, and they could take no one in. + Accordingly, we had to trudge back to Three Mile Cross and the old + ramshackle, well-nigh ruinous inn there. It was a wretched place, smelling + of mould and dry-rot; however, it was not so bad after a fire had been + lighted in the grate, but first the young girl who waited on us brought in + a bundle of newspapers, which she proceeded to thrust up the chimney-flue + and kindle, "to warm the flue and make the fire burn," she explained. + </p> + <p> + On the following day, the weather being milder, we rambled on through + woods and lanes, visiting several villages, and arrived in the afternoon + at Silchester, where we had resolved to put up for the night. By a happy + chance we found a pleasant cottage on the common to stay at and pleasant + people in it, so that we were glad to sit down for a week there, to loiter + about the furzy waste, or prowl in the forest and haunt the old walls; but + it was pleasant even indoors with that wide prospect before the window, + the wooded country stretching many miles away to the hills of Kingsclere, + blue in the distance and crowned with their beechen rings and groves. Of + Roman Calleva itself and the thoughts I had there I will write in the + following chapter; here I will only relate how on Easter Sunday, two days + after arriving, we went to morning service in the old church standing on a + mound inside the walls, a mile from the village and common. + </p> + <p> + It came to pass that during the service the sun began to shine very + brightly after several days of cloud and misty windy wet weather, and that + brilliance and the warmth in it served to bring a butterfly out of hiding; + then another; then a third; red admirals all; and they were seen through + all the prayers, and psalms, and hymns, and lessons, and the sermon + preached by the white-haired Rector, fluttering against the translucent + glass, wanting to be out in that splendour and renew their life after so + long a period of suspension. But the glass was between them and their + world of blue heavens and woods and meadow flowers; then I thought that + after the service I would make an attempt to get them out; but soon + reflected that to release them it would be necessary to capture them + first, and that that could not be done without a ladder and butterfly net. + Among the women (ladies) on either side of and before me there were no + fewer than five wearing aigrettes of egret and bird-of-paradise plumes in + their hats or bonnets, and these five all remained to take part in that + ceremony of eating bread and drinking wine in remembrance of an event + supposed to be of importance to their souls, here and hereafter. It + saddened me to leave my poor red admirals in their prison, beating their + red wings against the coloured glass—to leave them too in such + company, where the aigrette wearers were worshipping a little god of their + own little imaginations, who did not create and does not regard the + swallow and dove and white egret and bird-of-paradise, and who was + therefore not my god and whose will as they understood it was nothing to + me. + </p> + <p> + It was a consolation when I went out, still thinking of the butterflies in + their prison, and stood by the old ruined walls grown over with ivy and + crowned with oak and holly trees, to think that in another two thousand + years there will be no archaeologist and no soul in Silchester, or + anywhere else in Britain, or in the world, who would take the trouble to + dig up the remains of aigrette-wearers and their works, and who would care + what had become of their pitiful little souls—their immortal part. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Seven: Roman Calleva + </h2> + <p> + An afternoon in the late November of 1903. Frost, gales, and abundant + rains have more than half stripped the oaks of their yellow leaves. But + the rain is over now, the sky once more a pure lucid blue above me—all + around me, in fact, since I am standing high on the top of the ancient + stupendous earthwork, grown over with oak wood and underwood of holly and + thorn and hazel with tangle of ivy and bramble and briar. It is + marvellously still; no sound from the village reaches me; I only hear the + faint rustle of the dead leaves as they fall, and the robin, for one spied + me here and has come to keep me company. At intervals he spurts out his + brilliant little fountain of sound; and that sudden bright melody and the + bright colour of the sunlit translucent leaves seem like one thing. Nature + is still, and I am still, standing concealed among trees, or moving + cautiously through the dead russet bracken. Not that I am expecting to get + a glimpse of the badger who has his hermitage in this solitary place, but + I am on forbidden ground, in the heart of a sacred pheasant preserve, + where one must do one's prowling warily. Hard by, almost within a + stone's-throw of the wood-grown earthwork on which I stand, are the + ruinous walls of Roman Calleva—the Silchester which the antiquarians + have been occupied in uncovering these dozen years or longer. The stone + walls, too, like the more ancient earthwork, are overgrown with trees and + brambles and ivy. The trees have grown upon the wall, sending roots deep + down between the stones, through the crumbling cement; and so fast are + they anchored that never a tree falls but it brings down huge masses of + masonry with it. This slow levelling process has been going on for + centuries, and it was doubtless in this way that the buildings within the + walls were pulled down long ages ago. Then the action of the earth-worms + began, and floors and foundations, with fallen stones and tiles, were + gradually buried in the soil, and what was once a city was a dense thicket + of oak and holly and thorn. Finally the wood was cleared, and the city was + a walled wheat field—so far as we know, the ground has been + cultivated since the days of King John. But the entire history of this + green walled space before me—less than twenty centuries in duration—does + not seem so very long compared with that of the huge earthen wall I am + standing on, which dates back to prehistoric times. + </p> + <p> + Standing here, knee-deep in the dead ruddy bracken, in the "coloured + shade" of the oaks, idly watching the leaves fall fluttering to the + ground, thinking in an aimless way of the remains of the two ancient + cities before me, the British and the Roman, and of their comparative + antiquity, I am struck with the thought that the sweet sensations produced + in me by the scene differ in character from the feeling I have had in + other solitary places. The peculiar sense of satisfaction, of restfulness, + of peace, experienced here is very perfect; but in the wilderness, where + man has never been, or has at all events left no trace of his former + presence, there is ever a mysterious sense of loneliness, of desolation, + underlying our pleasure in nature. Here it seems good to know, or to + imagine, that the men I occasionally meet in my solitary rambles, and + those I see in the scattered rustic village hard by, are of the same race, + and possibly the descendants, of the people who occupied this spot in the + remote past—Iberian and Celt, and Roman and Saxon and Dane. If that + hard-featured and sour-visaged old gamekeeper, with the cold blue + unfriendly eyes, should come upon me here in my hiding-place, and scowl as + he is accustomed to do, standing silent before me, gun in hand, to hear my + excuses for trespassing in his preserves, I should say (mentally): This + man is distinctly English, and his far-off progenitors, somewhere about + sixteen hundred years ago, probably assisted at the massacre of the + inhabitants of the pleasant little city at my feet. By and by, leaving the + ruins, I may meet with other villagers of different features and different + colour in hair, skin, and eyes, and of a pleasanter expression; and in + them I may see the remote descendants of other older races of men, some + who were lords here before the Romans came, and of others before them, + even back to Neolithic times. + </p> + <p> + This, I take it, is a satisfaction, a sweetness and peace to the soul in + nature, because it carries with it a sense of the continuity of the human + race, its undying vigour, its everlastingness. After all the tempests that + have overcome it, through all mutations in such immense stretches of time, + how stable it is! + </p> + <p> + I recall the time when I lived on a vast vacant level green plain, an + earth which to the eye, and to the mind which sees with the eye, appeared + illimitable, like the ocean; where the house I was born in was the oldest + in the district—a century old, it was said; where the people were + the children's children of emigrants from Europe who had conquered and + colonized the country, and had enjoyed but half a century of national + life. But the people who had possessed the land before these emigrants—what + of them? They, were but a memory, a tradition, a story told in books and + hardly more to us than a fable; perhaps they had dwelt there for long + centuries, or for thousands of years; perhaps they had come, a wandering + horde, to pass quickly away like a flight of migrating locusts; for no + memorial existed, no work of their hands, not the faintest trace of their + occupancy. + </p> + <p> + Walking one day at the side of a ditch, which had been newly cut through a + meadow at the end of our plantation, I caught sight of a small black + object protruding from the side of the cutting, which turned out to be a + fragment of Indian pottery made of coarse clay, very black, and rudely + ornamented on one side. On searching further a few more pieces were found. + I took them home and preserved them carefully, experiencing a novel and + keen sense of pleasure in their possession; for though worthless, they + were man's handiwork, the only real evidence I had come upon of that + vanished people who had been before us; and it was as if those bits of + baked clay, with a pattern incised on them by a man's finger-nail, had in + them some magical property which enabled me to realize the past, and to + see that vacant plain repeopled with long dead and forgotten men. + </p> + <p> + Doubtless we all possess the feeling in some degree—the sense of + loneliness and desolation and dismay at the thought of an uninhabited + world, and of long periods when man was not. Is it not the absence of + human life or remains rather than the illimitable wastes of thick-ribbed + ice and snow which daunts us at the thought of Arctic and Antarctic + regions? Again, in the story of the earth, as told by geology, do we not + also experience the same sense of dismay, and the soul shrinking back on + itself, when we come in imagination to those deserts desolate in time when + the continuity of the race was broken and the world dispeopled? The + doctrine of evolution has made us tolerant of the thought of human + animals,—our progenitors as we must believe—who were of + brutish aspect, and whose period on this planet was so long that, compared + with it, the historic and prehistoric periods are but as the life of an + individual. A quarter of a million years has perhaps elapsed since the + beginning of that cold period which, at all events in this part of the + earth, killed Palaeolithic man; yet how small a part of his racial life + even that time would seem if, as some believe, his remains may be traced + as far back as the Eocene! But after this rude man of the Quaternary and + Tertiary epochs had passed away there is a void, a period which to the + imagination seems measureless, when sun and moon and stars looked on a + waste and mindless world. When man once more reappears he seems to have + been re-created on somewhat different lines. + </p> + <p> + It is this break in the history of the human race which amazes and daunts + us, which "shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the + universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation." + </p> + <p> + Here, in these words of Hermann Melville, we are let all at once into the + true meaning of those disquieting and seemingly indefinable emotions so + often experienced, even by the most ardent lovers of nature and of + solitude, in uninhabited deserts, on great mountains, and on the sea. We + find here the origin of that horror of mountains which was so common until + recent times. A friend once confessed to me that he was always profoundly + unhappy at sea during long voyages, and the reason was that his sustaining + belief in a superintending Power and in immortality left him when he was + on that waste of waters, which have no human associations. The feeling, so + intense in his case, is known to most if not all of us; but we feel it + faintly as a disquieting element in nature of which we may be but vaguely + conscious. + </p> + <p> + Most travelled Englishmen who have seen much of the world and resided for + long or short periods in many widely separated countries would probably + agree that there is a vast difference in the feeling of strangeness, or + want of harmony with our surroundings, experienced in old and in new + countries. It is a compound feeling and some of its elements are the same + in both cases; but in one there is a disquieting element which the other + is without. Thus, in Southern Europe, Egypt, Syria, and in many countries + of Asia, and some portions of Africa, the wanderer from home might + experience dissatisfaction and be ill at ease and wish for old familiar + sights and sounds; but in a colony like Tasmania, and in any new country + where there were no remains of antiquity, no links with the past, the + feeling would be very much more poignant, and in some scenes and moods + would be like that sense of desolation which assails us at the thought of + the heartless voids and immensities of the universe. + </p> + <p> + He recognizes that he is in a world on which we have but recently entered, + and in which our position is not yet assured. + </p> + <p> + Here, standing on this mound, as on other occasions past counting, I + recognize and appreciate the enormous difference which human associations + make in the effect produced on us by visible nature. In this silent + solitary place, with the walled field which was once Calleva Atrebatum at + my feet, I yet have a sense of satisfaction, of security, never felt in a + land that had no historic past. The knowledge that my individual life is + but a span, a breath; that in a little while I too must wither and mingle + like one of those fallen yellow leaves with the mould, does not grieve me. + I know it and yet disbelieve it; for am I not here alive, where men have + inhabited for thousands of years, feeling what I now feel—their + oneness with everlasting nature and the undying human family? The very + soil and wet carpet of moss on which their feet were set, the standing + trees and leaves, green or yellow, the rain-drops, the air they breathed, + the sunshine in their eyes and hearts, was part of them, not a garment, + but of their very substance and spirit. Feeling this, death becomes an + illusion; and the illusion that the continuous life of the species (its + immortality) and the individual life are one and the same is the reality + and truth. An illusion, but, as Mill says, deprive us of our illusions and + life would be intolerable. Happily we are not easily deprived of them, + since they are of the nature of instincts and ineradicable. And this very + one which our reason can prove to be the most childish, the absurdest of + all, is yet the greatest, the most fruitful of good for the race. To those + who have discarded supernatural religion, it may be a religion, or at all + events the foundation to build one on. For there is no comfort to the + healthy natural man in being told that the good he does will not be + interred with his bones, since he does not wish to think, and in fact + refuses to think, that his bones will ever be interred. Joy in the "choir + invisible" is to him a mere poetic fancy, or at best a rarefied + transcendentalism, which fails to sustain him. If altruism, or the + religion of humanity, is a living vigorous plant, and as some believe + flourishes more with the progress of the centuries, it must, like other + "soul-growths," have a deeper, tougher woodier root in our soil. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Eight: A Gold Day At Silchester + </h2> + <p> + It is little to a man's profit to go far afield if his chief pleasure be + in wild life, his main object to get nearer to the creatures, to grow day + by day more intimate with them, and to see each day some new thing. Yet + the distance has the same fascination for him as for another—the + call is as sweet and persistent in his ears. If he is on a green level + country with blue hills on the horizon, then, especially in the early + morning, is the call sweetest, most irresistible. Come away—come + away: this blue world has better things than any in that green, too + familiar place. The startling scream of the jay—you have heard it a + thousand times. It is pretty to watch the squirrel in his chestnut-red + coat among the oaks in their fresh green foliage, full of fun as a bright + child, eating his apple like a child, only it is an oak-apple, shining + white or white and rosy-red, in his little paws; but you have seen it so + many times—come away: + </p> + <p> + It was not this voice alone which made me forsake the green oaks of + Silchester and Pamber Forest, to ramble for a season hither and thither in + Wiltshire, Dorset, and Somerset; there was something for me to do in those + places, but the call made me glad to go. And long weeks—months—went + by in my wanderings, mostly in open downland country, too often under + gloomy skies, chilled by cold winds and wetted by cold rains. Then, having + accomplished my purpose and discovered incidentally that the call had + mocked me again, as on so many previous occasions, I returned once more to + the old familiar green place. + </p> + <p> + Crossing the common, I found that where it had been dry in spring one + might now sink to his knees in the bog; also that the snipe which had + vanished for a season were back at the old spot where they used to breed. + It was a bitter day near the end of an unpleasant summer, with the wind + back in the old hateful north-east quarter; but the sun shone, the sky was + blue, and the flying clouds were of a dazzling whiteness. Shivering, I + remembered the south wall, and went there, since to escape from the wind + and bask like some half-frozen serpent or lizard in the heat was the + highest good one could look for in such weather. To see anything new in + wild life was not to be hoped for. + </p> + <p> + That old grey, crumbling wall of ancient Calleva, crowned with big oak and + ash and thorn and holly, and draped with green bramble and trailing ivy + and creepers—how good a shelter it is on a cold, rough day! Moving + softly, so as not to disturb any creature, I yet disturbed a ring snake + lying close to the wall, into which it quickly vanished; and then from + their old place among the stones a pair of blue stock-doves rushed out + with clatter of wings. The same blue doves which I had known for three + years at that spot! A few more steps and I came upon as pretty a little + scene in bird life as one could wish for: twenty to twenty-five small + birds of different species—tits, wrens, dunnocks, thrushes, + blackbirds, chaffinches, yellowhammers—were congregated on the lower + outside twigs of a bramble bush and on the bare ground beside it close to + the foot of the wall. The sun shone full on that spot, and they had met + for warmth and for company. The tits and wrens were moving quietly about + in the bush; others were sitting idly or preening their feathers on the + twigs or the ground. Most of them were making some kind of small sound—little + exclamatory chirps, and a variety of chirrupings, producing the effect of + a pleasant conversation going on among them. This was suddenly suspended + on my appearance, but the alarm was soon over, and, seeing me seated on a + fallen stone and, motionless, they took no further notice of me. Two + blackbirds were there, sitting a little way apart on the bare ground; + these were silent, the raggedest, rustiest-looking members of that little + company; for they were moulting, and their drooping wings and tails had + many unsightly gaps in them where the old feathers had dropped out before + the new ones had grown. They were suffering from that annual sickness with + temporary loss of their brightest faculties which all birds experience in + some degree; the unseasonable rains and cold winds had been bad for them, + and now they were having their sun-bath, their best medicine and cure. + </p> + <p> + By and by a pert-looking, bright-feathered, dapper cock chaffinch dropped + down from the bush, and, advancing to one of the two, the rustiest and + most forlorn-looking, started running round and round him as if to make a + close inspection of his figure, then began to tease him. At first I + thought it was all in fun—merely animal spirit which in birds often + discharges itself in this way in little pretended attacks and fights. But + the blackbird had no play and no fight in him, no heart to defend himself; + all he did was to try to avoid the strokes aimed at him, and he could not + always escape them. His spiritlessness served to inspire the chaffinch + with greater boldness, and then it appeared that the gay little creature + was really and truly incensed, possibly because the rusty, draggled, and + listless appearance of the larger bird was offensive to him. Anyhow, the + persecutions continued, increasing in fury until they could not be borne, + and the blackbird tried to escape by hiding in the bramble. But he was not + permitted to rest there; out he was soon driven and away into another + bush, and again into still another further away, and finally he was hunted + over the sheltering wall into the bleak wind on the other side. Then the + persecutor came back and settled himself on his old perch on the bramble, + well satisfied at his victory over a bird so much bigger than himself. All + was again peace and harmony in the little social gathering, and the + pleasant talkee-talkee went on as before. About five minutes passed, then + the hunted blackbird returned, and, going to the identical spot from which + he had been driven, composed himself to rest; only now he sat facing his + lively little enemy. + </p> + <p> + I was astonished to see him back; so, apparently, was the chaffinch. He + started, craned his neck, and regarded his adversary first with one eye + then with the other. "What, rags and tatters, back again so soon!" I seem + to hear him say. "You miserable travesty of a bird, scarcely fit for a + weasel to dine on! Your presence is an insult to us, but I'll soon settle + you. You'll feel the cold on the other, side of the wall when I've knocked + off a few more of your rusty rags." + </p> + <p> + Down from his perch he came, but no sooner had he touched his feet to the + ground than the blackbird went straight at him with extraordinary fury. + The chaffinch, taken by surprise, was buffeted and knocked over, then, + recovering himself, fled in consternation, hotly pursued by the sick one. + Into the bush they went, but in a moment they were out again, darting this + way and that, now high up in the trees, now down to the ground, the + blackbird always close behind; and no little bird flying from a hawk could + have exhibited a greater terror than that pert chaffinch—that + vivacious and most pugnacious little cock bantam. At last they went quite + away, and were lost to sight. By and by the blackbird returned alone, and, + going once more to his place near the second bird, he settled down + comfortably to finish his sunbath in peace and quiet. + </p> + <p> + I had assuredly witnessed a new thing on that unpromising day, something + quite different from anything witnessed in my wide rambles; and, though a + little thing, it had been a most entertaining comedy in bird life with a + very proper ending. It was clear that the sick blackbird had bitterly + resented the treatment he had received; that, brooding on it out in the + cold, his anger had made him strong, and that he came back determined to + fight, with his plan of action matured. He was not going to be made a fool + every time! + </p> + <p> + The birds all gone their several ways at last, I got up from my stone and + wondered if the old Romans ever dreamed that this wall which they made to + endure would after seventeen hundred years have no more important use than + this—to afford shelter to a few little birds and to the solitary man + that watched them—from the bleak wind. Many a strange Roman curse on + this ungenial climate must these same stones have heard. Looking through a + gap in the wall I saw, close by, on the other side, a dozen men at work + with pick and shovel throwing up huge piles of earth. They were uncovering + a small portion of that ancient buried city and were finding the + foundations and floors and hypocausts of Silchester's public baths; also + some broken pottery and trifling ornaments of bronze and bone. The workmen + in that bitter wind were decidedly better off than the gentlemen from + Burlington House in charge of the excavations. These stood with coats + buttoned up and hands thrust deep down in their pockets. It seemed to me + that it was better to sit in the shelter of the wall and watch the birds + than to burrow in the crumbling dust for that small harvest. Yet I could + understand and even appreciate their work, although it is probable that + the glow I experienced was in part reflected. Perhaps my mental attitude, + when standing in that sheltered place, and when getting on to the windy + wall I looked down on the workers and their work, was merely benevolent. I + had pleasure in their pleasure, and a vague desire for a better + understanding, a closer alliance and harmony. It was the desire that we + might all see nature—the globe with all it contains—as one + harmonious whole, not as groups of things, or phenomena, unrelated, cast + there by chance or by careless or contemptuous gods. This dust of past + ages, dug out of a wheat-field, with its fragments of men's work—its + pottery and tiles and stones—this is a part, too, even as the small + birds, with their little motives and passions, so like man's, are a part. + I thought with self shame of my own sins in this connection; then, + considering the lesser faults on the other side, I wished that Mr. St. + John Hope would experience a like softening mood and regret that he had + abused the ivy. It grieves me to hear it called a "noxious weed." That + perished people, whose remains in this land so deeply interest him, were + the mightiest "builders of ruins" the world has known; but who except the + archaeologist would wish to see these piled stones in their naked + harshness, striking the mind with dismay at the thought of Time and its + perpetual desolations! I like better the old Spanish poet who says, "What + of Rome; its world-conquering power, and majesty and glory—what has + it come to?" The ivy on the wall, the yellow wallflower, tell it. A + "deadly parasite" quotha! Is it not well that this plant, this evergreen + tapestry of innumerable leaves, should cover and partly hide and partly + reveal the "strange defeatures" the centuries have set on man's greatest + works? I would have no ruin nor no old and noble building without it; for + not only does it beautify decay, but from long association it has come to + be in the mind a very part of such scenes and so interwoven with the human + tragedy, that, like the churchyard yew, it seems the most human of green + things. + </p> + <p> + Here in September great masses of the plant are already showing a greenish + cream-colour of the opening blossoms, which will be at their perfection in + October. Then, when the sun shines, there will be no lingering red + admiral, nor blue fly or fly of any colour, nor yellow wasp, nor any + honey-eating or late honey-gathering insect that will not be here to feed + on the ivy's sweetness. And behind the blossoming curtain, alive with the + minute, multitudinous, swift-moving, glittering forms, some nobler form + will be hidden in a hole or fissure in the wall. Here on many a night I + have listened to the sibilant screech of the white owl and the brown owl's + clear, long-drawn, quavering lamentation: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Good Ivy, what byrdys hast thou?" + "Non but the Howlet, that How! How!" +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Nine: Rural Rides + </h2> + <p> + "A-birding on a Broncho" is the title of a charming little book published + some years ago, and probably better known to readers on the other side of + the Atlantic than in England. I remember reading it with pleasure and + pride on account of the author's name, Florence Merriam, seeing that, on + my mother's side, I am partly a Merriam myself (of the branch on the other + side of the Atlantic), and having been informed that all of that rare name + are of one family, I took it that we were related, though perhaps very + distantly. "A-birding on a Broncho" suggested an equally alliterative + title for this chapter—"Birding on a Bike"; but I will leave it to + others, for those who go a-birding are now very many and are hard put to + find fresh titles to their books. For several reasons it will suit me + better to borrow from Cobbett and name this chapter "Rural Rides." + </p> + <p> + Sore of us do not go out on bicycles to observe the ways of birds. Indeed, + some of our common species have grown almost too familiar with the wheel: + it has become a positive danger to them. They not infrequently mistake its + rate of speed and injure themselves in attempting to fly across it. + Recently I had a thrush knock himself senseless against the spokes of my + forewheel, and cycling friends have told me of similar experiences they + have had, in some instances the heedless birds getting killed. Chaffinches + are like the children in village streets—they will not get out of + your way; by and by in rural places the merciful man will have to ring his + bell almost incessantly to avoid running over them. As I do not travel at + a furious speed I manage to avoid most things, even the wandering loveless + oil-beetle and the small rose-beetle and that slow-moving insect tortoise + the tumbledung. Two or three seasons ago I was so unfortunate as to run + over a large and beautifully bright grass snake near Aldermaston, once a + snake sanctuary. He writhed and wriggled on the road as if I had broken + his back, but on picking him up I was pleased to find that my + wind-inflated rubber tyre had not, like the brazen chariot wheel, crushed + his delicate vertebra; he quickly recovered, and when released glided + swiftly and easily away into cover. Twice only have I deliberately tried + to run down, to tread on coat-tails so to speak, of any wild creature. One + was a weasel, the other a stoat, running along at a hedge-side before me. + In both instances, just as the front wheel was touching the tail, the + little flat-headed rascal swerved quickly aside and escaped. + </p> + <p> + Even some of the less common and less tame birds care as little for a man + on a bicycle as they do for a cow. Not long ago a peewit trotted leisurely + across the road not more than ten yards from my front wheel; and on the + same day I came upon a green woodpecker enjoying a dust-bath in the public + road. He declined to stir until I stopped to watch him, then merely flew + about a dozen yards away and attached himself to the trunk of a fir tree + at the roadside and waited there for me to go. Never in all my wanderings + afoot had I seen a yaffingale dusting himself like a barn-door fowl! + </p> + <p> + It is not seriously contended that birds can be observed narrowly in this + easy way; but even for the most conscientious field naturalist the wheel + has its advantages. It carries him quickly over much barren ground and + gives him a better view of the country he traverses; finally, it enables + him to see more birds. He will sometimes see thousands in a day where, + walking, he would hardly have seen hundreds, and there is joy in mere + numbers. It was just to get this general rapid sight of the bird life of + the neighbouring hilly district of Hampshire that I was at Newbury on the + last day of October. The weather was bright though very cold and windy, + and towards evening I was surprised to see about twenty swallows in + Northbrook Street flying languidly to and fro in the shelter of the + houses, often fluttering under the eaves and at intervals sitting on + ledges and projections. These belated birds looked as if they wished to + hibernate, or find the most cosy holes to die in, rather than to emigrate. + On the following day at noon they came out again and flew up and down in + the same feeble aimless manner. + </p> + <p> + Undoubtedly a few swallows of all three species, but mostly house-martins, + do "lie up" in England every winter, but probably very few survive to the + following spring. We should have said that it was impossible that any + should survive but for one authentic instance in recent years, in which a + barn-swallow lived through the winter in a semi-torpid state in an + outhouse at a country vicarage. What came of the Newbury birds I do not + know, as I left on the 2nd of November—tore myself away, I may say, + for, besides meeting with people I didn't know who treated a stranger with + sweet friendliness, it is a town which quickly wins one's affections. It + is built of bricks of a good deep rich red—not the painfully bright + red so much in use now—and no person has had the bad taste to spoil + the harmony by introducing stone and stucco. Moreover, Newbury has, in + Shaw House, an Elizabethan mansion of the rarest beauty. Let him that is + weary of the ugliness and discords in our town buildings go and stand by + the ancient cedar at the gate and look across the wide green lawn at this + restful house, subdued by time to a tender rosy-red colour on its walls + and a deep dark red on its roof, clouded with grey of lichen. + </p> + <p> + From Newbury and the green meadows of the Kennet the Hampshire hills may + be seen, looking like the South Down range at its highest point viewed + from the Sussex Weald. I made for Coombe Hill, the highest hill in + Hampshire, and found it a considerable labour to push my machine up from + the pretty tree-hidden village of East Woodhay at its foot. The top is a + league-long tableland, with stretches of green elastic turf, thickets of + furze and bramble, and clumps of ancient noble beeches—a beautiful + lonely wilderness with rabbits and birds for only inhabitants. From the + highest point where a famous gibbet stands for ever a thousand feet above + the sea and where there is a dew-pond, the highest in England, which has + never dried up although a large flock of sheep drink in it every summer + day, one looks down into an immense hollow, a Devil's Punch Bowl very many + times magnified,—and spies, far away and far below, a few lonely + houses half hidden by trees at the bottom. This is the romantic village of + Coombe, and hither I went and found the vicar busy in the garden of the + small old picturesque parsonage. Here a very pretty little bird comedy was + in progress: a pair of stock-doves which had been taken from a rabbit-hole + in the hill and reared by hand had just escaped from the large cage where + they had always lived, and all the family were excitedly engaged in trying + to recapture them. They were delightful to see—those two pretty blue + birds with red legs running busily about on the green lawn, eagerly + searching for something to eat and finding nothing. They were quite tame + and willing to be fed, so that anyone could approach them and put as much + salt on their tails as he liked, but they refused to be touched or taken; + they were too happy in their new freedom, running and flying about in that + brilliant sunshine, and when I left towards the evening they were still at + large. + </p> + <p> + But before quitting that small isolated village in its green basin—a + human heart in a chalk hill, almost the highest in England—I wished + the hours I spent in it had been days, so much was there to see and hear. + There was the gibbet on the hill, for example, far up on the rim of the + green basin, four hundred feet above the village; why had that memorial, + that symbol of a dreadful past, been preserved for so many years and + generations? and why had it been raised so high—was it because the + crime of the person put to death there was of so monstrous a nature that + it was determined to suspend him, if not on a gibbet fifty cubits high, at + all events higher above the earth than Haman the son of Hammedatha the + Agagite? The gruesome story is as follows. + </p> + <p> + Once upon a time there lived a poor widow woman in Coombe, with two sons, + aged fourteen and sixteen, who worked at a farm in the village. She had a + lover, a middle-aged man, living at Woodhay, a carrier who used to go on + two or three days each week with his cart to deliver parcels at Coombe. + But he was a married man, and as he could not marry the widow while his + wife remained alive, it came into his dull Berkshire brain that the only + way out of the difficulty was to murder her, and to this course the widow + probably consented. Accordingly, one day, he invited or persuaded her to + accompany him on his journey to the remote village, and on the way he got + her out of the cart and led her into a close thicket to show her something + he had discovered there. What he wished to show her (according to one + version of the story) was a populous hornets' nest, and having got her + there he suddenly flung her against it and made off, leaving the cloud of + infuriated hornets to sting her to death. That night he slept at Coombe, + or stayed till a very late hour at the widow's cottage and told her what + he had done. In telling her he had spoken in his ordinary voice, but by + and by it occurred to him that the two boys, who were sleeping close by in + the living-room, might have been awake and listening. She assured him that + they were both fast asleep, but he was not satisfied, and said that if + they had heard him he would kill them both, as he had no wish to swing, + and he could not trust them to hold their tongues. Thereupon they got up + and examined the faces of the two boys, holding a candle over them, and + saw that they were in a deep sleep, as was natural after their long day's + hard work on the farm, and the murderer's fears were set at rest. Yet one + of the boys, the younger, had been wide awake all the time, listening, + trembling with terror, with wide eyes to the dreadful tale, and only when + they first became suspicious instinct came to his aid and closed his eyes + and stilled his tremors and gave him the appearance of being asleep. Early + next morning, with his terror still on him, he told what he had heard to + his brother, and by and by, unable to keep the dreadful secret, they + related it to someone—a carter or ploughman on the farm. He in turn + told the farmer, who at once gave information, and in a short time the man + and woman were arrested. In due time they were tried, convicted, and + sentenced to be hanged in the parish where the crime had been committed. + </p> + <p> + Everybody was delighted, and Coombe most delighted of all, for it happened + that some of their wise people had been diligently examining into the + matter and had made the discovery that the woman had been murdered just + outside their borders in the adjoining parish of Inkpen, so that they were + going to enjoy seeing the wicked punished at somebody else's expense. + Inkpen was furious and swore that it would not be saddled with the cost of + a great public double execution. The line dividing the two parishes had + always been a doubtful one; now they were going to take the benefit of the + doubt and let Coombe hang its own miscreants! + </p> + <p> + As neither side would yield, the higher authorities were compelled to + settle the matter for them, and ordered the cost to be divided between the + two parishes, the gibbet to be erected on the boundary line, as far as it + could be ascertained. This was accordingly done, the gibbet being erected + at the highest point crossed by the line, on a stretch of beautiful smooth + elastic turf, among prehistoric earthworks—a spot commanding one of + the finest and most extensive views in Southern England. The day appointed + for the execution brought the greatest concourse of people ever witnessed + at that lofty spot, at all events since prehistoric times. If some of the + ancient Britons had come out of their graves to look on, seated on their + earthworks, they would have probably rubbed their ghostly hands together + and remarked to each other that it reminded them of old times. All classes + were there, from the nobility and gentry, on horseback and in great + coaches in which they carried their own provisions, to the meaner sort who + had trudged from all the country round on foot, and those who had not + brought their own food and beer were catered for by traders in carts. The + crowd was a hilarious one, and no doubt that grand picnic on the beacon + was the talk of they country for a generation or longer. The two wretches + having been hanged in chains on one gibbet were left to be eaten by + ravens, crows, and magpipes, and dried by sun and winds, until, after long + years, the swinging, creaking skeletons with their chains on fell to + pieces and were covered with the turf, but the gibbet itself was never + removed. + </p> + <p> + Then a strange thing happened. The sheep on a neighbouring farm became + thin and sickly and yielded little wool and died before their time. No + remedies availed and the secret of their malady could not be discovered; + but it went on so long that the farmer was threatened with utter ruin. + Then, by chance, it was discovered that the chains in which the murderers + had been hanged had been thrown by some evil-minded person into a dew-pond + on the farm. This was taken to be the cause of the malady in the sheep; at + all events, the chains having been taken out of the pond and buried deep + in the earth, the flock recovered: it was supposed that the person who had + thrown the chains in the water to poison it had done so to ruin the farmer + in revenge for some injustice or grudge. But even now we are not quite + done with the gibbet! Many, many years had gone by when Inkpen discovered + from old documents that their little dishonest neighbour, Coombe, had + taken more land than she was entitled to, that not only a part but the + whole of that noble hill-top belonged to her! It was Inkpen's turn to + chuckle now; but she chuckled too soon, and Coombe, running out to look, + found the old rotten stump of the gibbet still in the ground. Hands off! + she cried. Here stands a post, which you set up yourself, or which we put + up together and agreed that this should be the boundary line for ever. + Inkpen sneaked off to hide herself in her village, and Coombe, determined + to keep the subject in mind, set up a brand-new stout gibbet in the place + of the old rotting one. That too decayed and fell to pieces in time, and + the present gibbet is therefore the third, and nobody has ever been hanged + on it. Coombe is rather proud of it, but I am not sure that Inkpen is. + </p> + <p> + That was one of three strange events in the life of the village which I + heard: the other two must be passed by; they would take long to tell and + require a good pen to do them justice. To me the best thing in or of the + village was the vicar himself, my put-upon host, a man of so blithe a + nature, so human and companionable, that when I, a perfect stranger + without an introduction or any excuse for such intrusion came down like a + wolf on his luncheon-table, he received me as if I had been an old friend + or one of his own kindred, and freely gave up his time to me for the rest + of that day. To count his years he was old: he had been vicar of Coombe + for half a century, but he was a young man still and had never had a day's + illness in his life—he did not know what a headache was. He smoked + with me, and to prove that he was not a total abstainer he drank my health + in a glass of port wine—very good wine. It was Coombe that did it—its + peaceful life, isolated from a distracting world in that hollow hill, and + the marvellous purity of its air. "Sitting there on my lawn," he said, + "you are six hundred feet above the sea, although in a hollow four hundred + feet deep." It was an ideal open-air room, round and green, with the sky + for a roof. In winter it was sometimes very cold, and after a heavy fall + of snow the scene was strange and impressive from the tiny village set in + its stupendous dazzling white bowl. Not only on those rare arctic days, + but at all times it was wonderfully quiet. The shout of a child or the + peaceful crow of a cock was the loudest sound you heard. Once a gentleman + from London town came down to spend a week at the parsonage. Towards + evening on the very first day he grew restless and complained of the + abnormal stillness. "I like a quiet place well enough," he exclaimed, "but + this tingling silence I can't stand!" And stand it he wouldn't and didn't, + for on the very next morning he took himself off. Many years had gone by, + but the vicar could not forget the Londoner who had come down to invent a + new way of describing the Coombe silence. His tingling phrase was a joy + for ever. + </p> + <p> + He took me to the church—one of the tiniest churches in the country, + just the right size for a church in a tiny village and assured me that he + had never once locked the door in his fifty years—day and night it + was open to any one to enter. It was a refuge and shelter from the storm + and the Tempest, and many a poor homeless wretch had found a dry place to + sleep in that church during the last half a century. This man's feeling of + pity and tenderness for the very poor, even the outcast and tramp, was a + passion. But how strange all this would sound in the ears of many country + clergymen! How many have told me when I have gone to the parsonage to + "borrow the key" that it had been found necessary to keep the church door + locked, to prevent damage, thefts, etc. "Have you never had anything + stolen?" I asked him. Yes, once, a great many years ago, the church plate + had been taken away in the night. But it was recovered: the thief had + taken it to the top of the hill and thrown it into the dewpond there, no + doubt intending to take it out and dispose of it at some more convenient + time. But it was found, and had ever since then been kept safe at the + vicarage. Nothing of value to tempt a man to steal was kept in the church. + He had never locked it, but once in his fifty years it had been locked + against him by the churchwardens. This happened in the days of the Joseph + Arch agitation, when the agricultural labourer's condition was being hotly + discussed throughout the country. The vicar's heart was stirred, for he + knew better than most how hard these conditions were at Coombe and in the + surrounding parishes. He took up the subject and preached on it in his own + pulpit in a way that offended the landowners and alarmed the farmers in + the district. The church wardens, who were farmers, then locked him out of + his church, and for two or three weeks there was no public worship in the + parish of Coombe. Doubtless their action was applauded by all the + substantial men in the neighbourhood; the others who lived in the cottages + and were unsubstantial didn't matter. That storm blew over, but its + consequences endured, one being that the inflammatory parson continued to + be regarded with cold disapproval by the squires and their larger tenants. + But the vicar himself was unrepentant and unashamed; on the contrary, he + gloried in what he had said and done, and was proud to be able to relate + that a quarter of a century later one of the two men who had taken that + extreme course said to him, "We locked you out of your own church, but + years have brought me to another mind about that question. I see it in a + different light now and know that you were right and we were wrong." + </p> + <p> + Towards evening I said good-bye to my kind friend and entertainer and + continued my rural ride. From Coombe it is five miles to Hurstbourne + Tarrant, another charming "highland" village, and the road, sloping down + the entire distance, struck me as one of the best to be on I had travelled + in Hampshire, running along a narrow green valley, with oak and birch and + bramble and thorn in their late autumn colours growing on the slopes on + either hand. Probably the beauty of the scene, or the swift succession of + beautiful scenes, with the low sun flaming on the "coloured shades," + served to keep out of my mind something that should have been in it. At + all events, it was odd that I had more than once promised myself a visit + to the very village I was approaching solely because William Cobbett had + described and often stayed in it, and now no thought of him and his + ever-delightful Rural Rides was in my mind. + </p> + <p> + Arrived at the village I went straight to the "George and Dragon," where a + friend had assured me I could always find good accommodations. But he was + wrong: there was no room for me, I was told by a weird-looking, lean, + white-haired old woman with whity-blue unfriendly eyes. She appeared to + resent it that any one should ask for accommodation at such a time, when + the "shooting gents" from town required all the rooms available. Well, I + had to sleep somewhere, I told her: couldn't she direct me to a cottage + where I could get a bed? No, she couldn't—it is always so; but after + the third time of asking she unfroze so far as to say that perhaps they + would take me in at a cottage close by. So I went, and a poor kind widow + who lived there with a son consented to put me up. She made a nice fire in + the sitting-room, and after warming myself before it, while watching the + firelight and shadows playing on the dim walls and ceiling, it came to me + that I was not in a cottage, but in a large room with an oak floor and + wainscoting. "Do you call this a cottage?" I said to the woman when she + came in with tea. "No, I have it as a cottage, but it is an old farm-house + called the Rookery," she returned. Then, for the first time, I remembered + Rural Rides. "This then is the very house where William Cobbett used to + stay seventy or eighty years ago," I said. She had never heard of William + Cobbett; she only knew that at that date it had been tenanted by a farmer + named Blount, a Roman Catholic, who had some curious ideas about the land. + </p> + <p> + That settled it. Blount was the name of Cobbett's friend, and I had come + to the very house where Cobbett was accustomed to stay. But how odd that + my first thought of the man should have come to me when sitting by the + fire where Cobbett himself had sat on many a cold evening! And this was + November the second, the very day eighty-odd years ago when he paid his + first visit to the Rookery; at all events, it is the first date he gives + in Rural Rides. And he too had been delighted with the place and the + beauty of the surrounding country with the trees in their late autumn + colours. Writing on November 2nd, 1821, he says: "The place is commonly + called Uphusband, which is, I think, as decent a corruption of names as + one could wish to meet with. However, Uphusband the people will have it, + and Uphusband it shall be for me." That is indeed how he names it all + through his book, after explaining that "husband" is a corruption of + Hurstbourne, and that there are two Hurstbournes, this being the upper + one. + </p> + <p> + I congratulated myself on having been refused accommodation at the "George + and Dragon," and was more than satisfied to pass an evening without a + book, sitting there alone listening to an imaginary conversation between + those two curious friends. "Lord Carnarvon," says Cobbett, "told a man, in + 1820, that he did not like my politics. But what did he mean by my + politics? I have no politics but such as he ought to like. To be sure I + labour most assiduously to destroy a system of distress and misery; but is + that any reason why a Lord should dislike my politics? However, dislike + them or like them, to them, to those very politics, the Lords themselves + must come at last." + </p> + <p> + Undoubtedly he talked like that, just as he wrote and as he spoke in + public, his style, if style it can be called, being the most simple, + direct, and colloquial ever written. And for this reason, when we are + aweary of the style of the stylist, where the living breathing body + becomes of less consequence than its beautiful clothing, it is a relief, + and refreshment, to turn from the precious and delicate expression, the + implicit word, sought for high and low and at last found, the balance of + every sentence and perfect harmony of the whole work—to go from it + to the simple vigorous unadorned talk of Rural Rides. A classic, and as + incongruous among classics as a farmer in his smock-frock, leggings, and + stout boots would appear in a company of fine gentlemen in fashionable + dress. The powerful face is the main thing, and we think little of the + frock and leggings and how the hair is parted or if parted at all. Harsh + and crabbed as his nature no doubt was, and bitter and spiteful at times, + his conversation must yet have seemed like a perpetual feast of honeyed + sweets to his farmer friend. Doubtless there was plenty of variety in it: + now he would expatiate on the beauty of the green downs over which he had + just ridden, the wooded slopes in their glorious autumn colours, and the + rich villages between; this would remind him of Malthus, that blasphemous + monster who had dared to say that the increase in food production did not + keep pace with increase of population; then a quieting down, a + breathing-space, all about the turnip crop, the price of eggs at Weyhill + Fair, and the delights of hare coursing, until politics would come round + again and a fresh outburst from the glorious demagogue in his tantrums. + </p> + <p> + At eight o'clock Cobbett would say good night and go to bed, and early + next morning write down what he had said to his friend, or some of it, and + send it off to be printed in his paper. That, I take it, is how Rural + Rides was written, and that is why it seems so fresh to us to this day, + and that to take it up after other books is like going out from a + luxurious room full of fine company into the open air to feel the wind and + rain on one's face and see the green grass. But I very much regret that + Cobbett tells us nothing of his farmer friend. Blount, I imagine, must + have been a man of a very fine character to have won the heart and + influenced such a person. Cobbett never loses an opportunity of vilifying + the parsons and expressing his hatred of the Established Church; and yet, + albeit a Protestant, he invariably softens down when he refers to the + Roman Catholic faith and appears quite capable of seeing the good that is + in it. + </p> + <p> + It was Blount, I think, who had soothed the savage breast of the man in + this matter. The only thing I could hear about Blount and his "queer + notions" regarding the land was his idea that the soil could be improved + by taking the flints out. "The soil to look upon," Cobbett truly says, + "appears to be more than half flint, but is a very good quality." Blount + thought to make it better, and for many years employed all the aged poor + villagers and the children in picking the flints from the ploughed land + and gathering them in vast heaps. It does not appear that he made his land + more productive, but his hobby was a good one for the poor of the village; + the stones, too, proved useful afterwards to the road-makers, who have + been using them these many years. A few heaps almost clothed over with a + turf which had formed on them in the course of eighty years were still to + be seen on the land when I was there. + </p> + <p> + The following day I took no ride. The weather was so beautiful it seemed + better to spend the time sitting or basking in the warmth and brightness + or strolling about. At all events, it was a perfect day at Hurstbourne + Tarrant, though not everywhere, for on that third of November the greatest + portion of Southern England was drowned in a cold dense white fog. In + London it was dark, I heard. Early in the morning I listened to a + cirl-bunting singing merrily from a bush close to the George and Dragon + Inn. This charming bird is quite common in the neighbourhood, although, as + elsewhere in England, the natives know it not by its book name, nor by any + other, and do not distinguish it from its less engaging cousin, the + yellowhammer. + </p> + <p> + After breakfast I strolled about the common and in Doles Wood, on the down + above the village, listening to the birds, and on my way back encountered + a tramp whose singular appearance produced a deep impression on my mind. + We have heard of a work by some modest pressman entitled "Monarchs I have + met", and I sometimes think that one equally interesting might be written + on "Tramps I have met". As I have neither time nor stomach for the task, I + will make a present of the title to any one of my fellow-travellers, + curious in tramps, who cares to use it. This makes two good titles I have + given away in this chapter with a borrowed one. + </p> + <p> + But if it had been possible for me to write such a book, a prominent place + would be given in it to the one tramp I have met who could be accurately + described as gorgeous. I did not cultivate his acquaintance; chance threw + us together and we separated after exchanging a few polite commonplaces, + but his big flamboyant image remains vividly impressed on my mind. + </p> + <p> + At noon, in the brilliant sunshine, as I came loiteringly down the long + slope from Doles Wood to the village, he overtook me. He was a huge man, + over six feet high, nobly built, suggesting a Scandinavian origin, with a + broad blond face, good features, and prominent blue eyes, and his hair was + curly and shone like gold in the sunlight. Had he been a mere labourer in + a workman's rough clay-stained clothes, one would have stood still to look + at and admire him, and say perhaps what a magnificent warrior he would + have looked with sword and spear and plumed helmet, mounted on a big + horse! But alas! he had the stamp of the irreclaimable blackguard on his + face; and that same handsome face was just then disfigured with several + bruises in three colours—blue, black, and red. Doubtless he had been + in a drunken brawl on the previous evening and had perhaps been thrown out + of some low public-house and properly punished. + </p> + <p> + In his dress he was as remarkable as in his figure. Bright blue trousers + much too small for his stout legs, once the property, no doubt, of some + sporting young gent of loud tastes in colours; a spotted fancy waistcoat, + not long enough to meet the trousers, a dirty scarlet tie, long black + frock-coat, shiny in places, and a small dirty grey cap which only covered + the topmost part of his head of golden hair. + </p> + <p> + Walking by the hedge-side he picked and devoured the late blackberries, + which were still abundant. It was a beautiful unkept hedge with scarlet + and purple fruit among the many-coloured fading leaves and silver-grey + down of old-man's-beard. + </p> + <p> + I too picked and ate a few berries and made the remark that it was late to + eat such fruit in November. The Devil in these parts, I told him, flies + abroad in October to spit on the bramble bushes and spoil the fruit. It + was even worse further north, in Norfolk and Suffolk, where they say the + Devil goes out at Michaelmas and shakes his verminous trousers over the + bushes. + </p> + <p> + He didn't smile; he went on sternly eating blackberries, and then remarked + in a bitter tone, "That Devil they talk about must have a busy time, to go + messing about blackberry bushes in addition to all his other important + work." + </p> + <p> + I was silent, and presently, after swallowing a few more berries, he + resumed in the same tone: "Very fine, very beautiful all this"—waving + his hand to indicate the hedge, its rich tangle of purple-red stems and + coloured leaves, and scarlet fruit and silvery oldman's-beard. "An artist + enjoys seeing this sort of thing, and it's nice for all those who go about + just for the pleasure of seeing things. But when it comes to a man + tramping twenty or thirty miles a day on an empty belly, looking for work + which he can't find, he doesn't see it quite in the same way." + </p> + <p> + "True," I returned, with indifference. + </p> + <p> + But he was not to be put off by my sudden coldness, and he proceeded to + inform me that he had just returned from Salisbury Plain, that it had been + noised abroad that ten thousand men were wanted by the War Office to work + in forming new camps. On arrival he found it was not so—it was all a + lie—men were not wanted—and he was now on his way to Andover, + penniless and hungry and— + </p> + <p> + By the time he had got to that part of his story we were some distance + apart, as I had remained standing still while he, thinking me still close + behind, had gone on picking blackberries and talking. He was soon out of + sight. + </p> + <p> + At noon the following day, the weather still being bright and genial, I + went to Crux Easton, a hilltop village consisting of some low farm + buildings, cottages, and a church not much bigger than a cottage. A great + house probably once existed here, as the hill has a noble avenue of limes, + which it wears like a comb or crest. On the lower slope of the hill, the + old unkept hedges were richer in colour than in most places, owing to the + abundance of the spindle-wood tree, laden with its loose clusters of + flame-bright, purple-pink and orange berries. + </p> + <p> + Here I saw a pretty thing: a cock cirl-bunting, his yellow breast towards + me, sitting quietly on a large bush of these same brilliant berries, set + amidst a mass of splendidly coloured hazel leaves, mixed with bramble and + tangled with ivy and silver-grey traveller's-joy. An artist's heart would + have leaped with joy at the sight, but all his skill and oriental colours + would have made nothing of it, for all visible nature was part of the + picture, the wide wooded earth and the blue sky beyond and above the bird, + and the sunshine that glorified all. + </p> + <p> + On the other side of the hedge there were groups of fine old beech trees + and, strange to see, just beyond the green slope and coloured trees, was + the great whiteness of the fog which had advanced thus far and now + appeared motionless. I went down and walked by the side of the bank of + mist, feeling its clammy coldness on one cheek while the other was fanned + by the warm bright air. Seen at a distance of a couple of hundred yards, + the appearance was that of a beautiful pearly-white cloud resting upon the + earth. Many fogs had I seen, but never one like this, so + substantial-looking, so sharply defined, standing like a vast white wall + or flat-topped hill at the foot of the green sunlit slope! I had the fancy + that if I had been an artist in sculpture, and rapid modeller, by using + the edge of my hand as a knife I could have roughly carved out a human + figure, then drawing it gently out of the mass proceeded to press and work + it to a better shape, the shape, let us say, of a beautiful woman. Then, + if it were done excellently, and some man-mocking deity, or power of the + air, happened to be looking on, he would breathe life and intelligence + into it, and send it, or her, abroad to mix with human kind and complicate + their affairs. For she would seem a woman and would be like some women we + have known, beautiful with blue flower-like eyes, pale gold or + honey-coloured hair; very white of skin, Leightonian, almost diaphanous, + so delicate as to make all other skins appear coarse and made of clay. And + with her beauty and a mysterious sweetness not of the heart, since no + heart there would be in that mist-cold body, she would draw all hearts, + ever inspiring, but never satisfying passion, her beauty and alluring + smiles being but the brightness of a cloud on which the sun is shining. + </p> + <p> + Birds, driven by the fog to that sunlit spot, were all about me in + incredible numbers. Rooks and daws were congregating on the bushes, where + their black figures served to intensify the red-gold tints of the foliage. + At intervals the entire vast cawing multitude simultaneously rose up with + a sound as of many waters, and appeared now at last about to mount up into + the blue heavens, to float circling there far above the world as they are + accustomed to do on warm windless days in autumn. But in a little while + their brave note would change to one of trouble; the sight of that + immeasurable whiteness covering so much of the earth would scare them, and + led by hundreds of clamouring daws they would come down again to settle + once more in black masses on the shining yellow trees. + </p> + <p> + Close by a ploughed field of about forty acres was the camping-ground of + an army of peewits; they were travellers from the north perhaps, and were + quietly resting, sprinkled over the whole area. More abundant were the + small birds in mixed flocks or hordes—finches, buntings, and larks + in thousands on thousands, with a sprinkling of pipits and pied and grey + wagtails, all busily feeding on the stubble and fresh ploughed land. + Thickly and evenly distributed, they appeared to the vision ranging over + the brown level expanse as minute animated and variously coloured clods—black + and brown and grey and yellow and olive-green. + </p> + <p> + It was a rare pleasure to be in this company, to revel in their + astonishing numbers, to feast my soul on them as it were—little + birds in such multitudes that ten thousand Frenchmen and Italians might + have gorged to repletion on their small succulent bodies—and to + reflect that they were safe from persecution so long as they remained here + in England. This is something for an Englishman to be proud of. + </p> + <p> + After spending two hours at Crux Easton, with that dense immovable fog + close by, I at length took the plunge to get to Highclere. What a change! + I was at once where all form and colour and melody had been blotted out. + My clothes were hoary with clinging mist, my fingers numb with cold, and + Highclere, its scattered cottages appearing like dim smudges through the + whiteness, was the dreariest village on earth. I fled on to Newbury in + quest of warmth and light, and found it indoors, but the town was deep in + the fog. + </p> + <p> + The next day I ventured out again to look for the sun, and found it not, + but my ramble was not without its reward. In a pine wood three miles from + the town I stood awhile to listen to the sound as of copious rain of the + moisture dropping from the trees, when a sudden tempest of loud, sharp + metallic notes—a sound dear to the ornithologist's ears—made + me jump; and down into the very tree before which I was standing dropped a + flock of about twenty crossbills. So excited and noisy when coming down, + the instant they touched the tree they became perfectly silent and + motionless. Seven of their number had settled on the outside shoots, and + sat there within forty feet of me, looking like painted wooden images of + small green and greenish-yellow parrots; for a space of fifteen minutes + not the slightest movement did they make, and at length, before going, I + waved my arms about and shouted to frighten them, and still they refused + to stir. + </p> + <p> + Next morning that memorable fog lifted, to England's joy, and quitting my + refuge I went out once more into the region of high sheep-walks, adorned + with beechen woods and traveller's-joy in the hedges, rambling by + Highclere, Burghclere, and Kingsclere. The last—Hampshire's little + Cuzco—is a small and village-like old red brick town, unapproached + by a railroad and unimproved, therefore still beautiful, as were all + places in other, better, less civilized days. Here in the late afternoon a + chilly grey haze crept over the country and set me wishing for a fireside + and the sound of friendly voices, and I turned my face towards beloved + Silchester. Leaving the hills behind me I got away from the haze and went + my devious way by serpentine roads through a beautiful, wooded, undulating + country. And I wish that for a hundred, nay, for a thousand years to come, + I could on each recurring November have such an afternoon ride, with that + autumnal glory in the trees. Sometimes, seeing the road before me carpeted + with pure yellow, I said to myself, now I am coming to elms; but when the + road shone red and russet-gold before me I knew it was overhung by + beeches. But the oak is the common tree in this place, and from every high + point on the road I saw far before me and on either hand the woods and + copses all a tawny yellow gold—the hue of the dying oak leaf. The + tall larches were lemon-yellow, and when growing among tall pines produced + a singular effect. Best of all was it where beeches grew among the firs, + and the low sun on my left hand shining through the wood gave the coloured + translucent leaves an unimaginable splendour. This was the very effect + which men, inspired by a sacred passion, had sought to reproduce in their + noblest work—the Gothic cathedral and church, its dim interior lit + by many-coloured stained glass. The only choristers in these natural fanes + were the robins and the small lyrical wren; but on passing through the + rustic village of Wolverton I stopped for a couple of minutes to listen to + the lively strains of a cirl-bunting among some farm buildings. + </p> + <p> + Then on to Silchester, its furzy common and scattered village and the vast + ruinous walls, overgrown with ivy, bramble, and thorn, of ancient Roman + Calleva. Inside the walls, at one spot, a dozen men were still at work in + the fading light; they were just finishing—shovelling earth in to + obliterate all that had been opened out during the year. The old flint + foundations that had been revealed; the houses with porches and corridors + and courtyards and pillared hypocausts; the winter room with its wide + beautiful floor—red and black and white and grey and yellow, with + geometric pattern and twist and scroll and flower and leaf and quaint + figures of man and beast and bird—all to be covered up with earth so + that the plough may be driven over it again, and the wheat grow and ripen + again as it has grown and ripened there above the dead city for so many + centuries. The very earth within those walls had a reddish cast owing to + the innumerable fragments of red tile and tessera mixed with it. Larks and + finches were busily searching for seeds in the reddish-brown soil. They + would soon be gone to their roosting-places and the tired men to their + cottages, and the white owl coming from his hiding-place in the walls + would have old Silchester to himself, as he has had it since the cries and + moans of the conquered died into silence so long ago. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Ten: The Last of His Name + </h2> + <p> + I came by chance to the village—Norton, we will call it, just to + call it something, but the county in which it is situated need not be + named. It happened that about noon that day I planned to pass the night at + a village where, as I was informed at a small country town I had rested + in, there was a nice inn—"The Fox and Grapes"—to put up at, + but when I arrived, tired and hungry, I was told that I could not have a + bed and that the only thing to do was to try Norton, which also boasted an + inn. It was hard to have to turn some two or three miles out of my road at + that late hour on a chance of a shelter for the night, but there was + nothing else to do, so on to Norton I went with heavy steps, and arrived a + little after sunset, more tired and hungry than ever, only to be told at + the inn that they had no accommodation for me, that their one spare room + had been engaged! "What am I to do, then?" I demanded of the landlord. + "Beyond this village I cannot go to-night—do you want me to go out + and sleep under a hedge?" He called his spouse, and after some + conversation they said the village baker might be able to put me up, as he + had a spare bedroom in his house. So to the baker's I went, and found it a + queer, ramshackle old place, standing a little back from the village + street in a garden and green plot with a few fruit trees growing on it. To + my knock the baker himself came out—a mild-looking, flabby-faced + man, with his mouth full, in a very loose suit of pyjama-like garments of + a bluish floury colour. I told him my story, and he listened, swallowing + his mouthful, then cast his eyes down and rubbed his chin, which had a + small tuft of hairs growing on it, and finally said, "I don't know. I must + ask my wife. But come in and have a cup of tea—we're just having a + cup ourselves, and perhaps you'd like one." + </p> + <p> + I could have told him that I should like a dozen cups and a great many + slices of bread-and-butter, if there was nothing else more substantial to + be had. However, I only said, "Thank you," and followed him in to where + his wife, a nice-looking woman, with black hair and olive face, was seated + behind the teapot. Imagine my surprise when I found that besides tea there + was a big hot repast on the table—a ham, a roast fowl, potatoes and + cabbage, a rice pudding, a dish of stewed fruit, bread-and-butter, and + other things. + </p> + <p> + "You call this a cup of tea!" I exclaimed delightedly. The woman laughed, + and he explained in an apologetic way that he had formerly suffered + grievously from indigestion, so that for many years his life was a burden + to him, until he discovered that if he took one big meal a day, after the + work was over, he could keep perfectly well. + </p> + <p> + I was never hungrier than on this evening, and never, I think, ate a + bigger or more enjoyable meal; nor have I ever ceased to remember those + two with gratitude, and if I were to tell here what they told me—the + history of their two lives—I think it would be a more interesting + story than the one I am about to relate. I stayed a whole week in their + hospitable house; a week which passed only too quickly, for never had I + been in a sweeter haunt of peace than this village in a quiet, green + country remote from towns and stations. It was a small rustic place, a few + old houses and thatched cottages, and the ancient church with square + Norman tower hard to see amid the immense old oaks and elms that grew all + about it. At the end of the village were the park gates, and the park, a + solitary, green place with noble trees, was my favourite haunt; for there + was no one to forbid me, the squire being dead, the old red Elizabethan + house empty, with only a caretaker in the gardener's lodge to mind it, and + the estate for sale. Three years it had been in that condition, but nobody + seemed to want it; occasionally some important person came rushing down in + a motor-car, but after running over the house he would come out and, + remarking that it was a "rummy old place," remount his car and vanish in a + cloud of dust to be seen no more. + </p> + <p> + The dead owner, I found, was much in the village mind; and no wonder, + since Norton had never been without a squire until he passed away, leaving + no one to succeed him. It was as if some ancient landmark, or an + immemorial oak tree on the green in whose shade the villagers had been + accustomed to sit for many generations, had been removed. There was a + sense of something wanting something gone out of their lives. Moreover, he + had been a man of a remarkable character, and though they never loved him + they yet reverenced his memory. + </p> + <p> + So much was he in their minds that I could not be in the village and not + hear the story of his life—the story which, I said, interested me + less than that of the good baker and his wife. On his father's death at a + very advanced age he came, a comparative stranger, to Norton, the first + half of his life having been spent abroad. He was then a middle-aged man, + unmarried, and a bachelor he remained to the end. He was of a reticent + disposition and was said to be proud; formal, almost cold, in manner; + furthermore, he did not share his neighbours' love of sport of any + description, nor did he care for society, and because of all this he was + regarded as peculiar, not to say eccentric. But he was deeply interested + in agriculture, especially in cattle and their improvement, and that + object grew to be his master passion. It was a period of great depression, + and as his farms fell vacant he took them into his own hands, increased + his stock and built model cowhouses, and came at last to be known + throughout his own country, and eventually everywhere, as one of the + biggest cattle-breeders in England. But he was famous in a peculiar way. + Wise breeders and buyers shook their heads and even touched their + foreheads significantly, and predicted that the squire of Norton would + finish by ruining himself. They were right, he ruined himself; not that he + was mentally weaker than those who watched and cunningly exploited him; he + was ruined because his object was a higher one than theirs. He saw clearly + that the prize system is a vicious one and that better results may be + obtained without it. He proved this at a heavy cost by breeding better + beasts than his rivals, who were all exhibitors and prizewinners, and who + by this means got their advertisements and secured the highest prices, + while he, who disdained prizes and looked with disgust at the overfed and + polished animals at shows, got no advertisements and was compelled to sell + at unremunerative prices. The buyers, it may be mentioned, were always the + breeders for shows, and they made a splendid profit out of it. + </p> + <p> + He carried on the fight for a good many years, becoming more and more + involved, until his creditors took possession of the estate, sold off the + stock, let the farms, and succeeded in finding a tenant for the furnished + house. He went to a cottage in the village and there passed his remaining + years. To the world he appeared unmoved by his reverses. The change from + mansion and park to a small thatched cottage, with a labourer's wife for + attendant, made no change in the man, nor did he resign his seat on the + Bench of Magistrates or any other unpaid office he held. To the last he + was what he had always been, formal and ceremonious, more gracious to + those beneath him than to equals; strict in the performance of his duties, + living with extreme frugality and giving freely to those in want, and very + regular in his attendance at church, where he would sit facing the tombs + and memorials of his ancestors, among the people but not of them—a + man alone and apart, respected by all but loved by none. + </p> + <p> + Finally he died and was buried with the others, and one more memorial with + the old name, which he bore last was placed on the wall. That was the + story as it was told me, and as it was all about a man who was without + charm and had no love interest it did not greatly interest me, and I soon + dismissed it from my thoughts. Then one day coming through a grove in the + park and finding myself standing before the ancient, empty, desolate house—for + on the squire's death everything had been sold and taken away—I + remembered that the caretaker had begged me to let him show me over the + place. I had not felt inclined to gratify him, as I had found him a young + man of a too active mind whose only desire was to capture some person to + talk to and unfold his original ideas and schemes, but now having come to + the house I thought I would suffer him, and soon found him at work in the + vast old walled garden. He joyfully threw down his spade and let me in and + then up to the top floor, determined that I should see everything. By the + time we got down to the ground floor I was pretty tired of empty rooms, + oak panelled, and passages and oak staircases, and of talk, and impatient + to get away. But no, I had not seen the housekeeper's room—I must + see that!—and so into another great vacant room I was dragged, and + to keep me as long as possible in that last room he began unlocking and + flinging open all the old oak cupboards and presses. Glancing round at the + long array of empty shelves, I noticed a small brown-paper parcel, thick + with dust, in a corner, and as it was the only movable thing I had seen in + that vacant house I asked him what the parcel contained. Books, he replied—they + had been left as of no value when the house was cleared of furniture. As I + wished to see the books he undid the parcel; it contained forty copies of + a small quarto-shaped book of sonnets, with the late squire's name as + author on the title page. I read a sonnet, and told him I should like to + read them all. "You can have a copy, of course," he exclaimed. "Put it in + your pocket and keep it." When I asked him if he had any right to give one + away he laughed and said that if any one had thought the whole parcel + worth twopence it would not have been left behind. He was quite right; a + cracked dinner—plate or a saucepan with a hole in it or an + earthenware teapot with a broken spout would not have been left, but the + line was drawn at a book of sonnets by the late squire. Nobody wanted it, + and so without more qualms I put it in my pocket, and have it before me + now, opened at page 63, on which appears, without a headline, the sonnet I + first read, and which I quote:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + How beautiful are birds, of God's sweet air + Free denizens; no ugly earthly spot + Their boundless happiness doth seem to blot. + The swallow, swiftly flying here and there, + Can it be true that dreary household care + Doth goad her to incessant flight? + If not How can it be that she doth cast her lot + Now there, now here, pursuing summer everywhere? + I sadly fear that shallow, tiny brain + Is not exempt from anxious cares and fears, + That mingled heritage of joy and pain + That for some reason everywhere appears; + And yet those birds, how beautiful they are! + Sure beauty is to happiness no bar. +</pre> + <p> + This has a fault that doth offend the reader of modern verse, and there + are many of the eighty sonnets in the book which do not equal it in merit. + He was manifestly an amateur; he sometimes writes with labour, and he not + infrequently ends with the unpardonable weak line. Nevertheless he had + rightly chosen this difficult form in which to express his inner self. It + suited his grave, concentrated thought, and each little imperfect poem of + fourteen lines gives us a glimpse into a wise, beneficent mind. He had + fought his fight and suffered defeat, and had then withdrawn himself + silently from the field to die. But if he had been embittered he could + have relieved himself in this little book. There is no trace of such a + feeling. He only asks, in one sonnet, where can a balm be found for the + heart fretted and torn with eternal cares; when we have thought and + striven for some great and good purpose, when all our striving has ended + in disaster? His plan, he concludes, is to go out in the quiet night-time + and look at the stars. + </p> + <p> + Here let me quote two more sonnets written in contemplative mood, just to + give the reader a fuller idea not of the verse, as verse, but of the + spirit in the old squire. There is no title to these two:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I like a fire of wood; there is a kind + Of artless poetry in all its ways: + When first 'tis lighted, how it roars and plays, + And sways to every breath its flames, refined + By fancy to some shape by life confined. + And then how touching are its latter days; + When, all its strength decayed, and spent the blaze + Of fiery youth, grey ash is all we find. + Perhaps we know the tree, of which the pile + Once formed a part, and oft beneath its shade + Have sported in our youth; or in quaint style + Have carved upon its rugged bark a name + Of which the memory doth alone remain + A memory doomed, alas! in turn to fade. +</pre> + <p> + Bad enough as verse, the critic will say; refined, confined, find—what + poor rhymes are these! and he will think me wrong to draw these frailties + from their forgotten abode. But I like to think of the solitary old man + sitting by his wood fire in the old house, not brooding bitterly on his + frustrate life, but putting his quiet thoughts into the form of a sonnet. + The other is equally good—or bad, if the critic will have it so:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The clock had just struck five, and all was still + Within my house, when straight I open threw + With eager hand the casement dim with dew. + Oh, what a glorious flush of light did fill + That old staircase! and then and there did kill + All those black doubts that ever do renew + Their civil war with all that's good and true + Within our hearts, when body and mind are ill + From this slight incident I would infer + A cheerful truth, that men without demur, + In times of stress and doubt, throw open wide + The windows of their breast; nor stung by pride + In stifling darkness gloomily abide; + But bid the light flow in on either side. +</pre> + <p> + A "slight incident" and a beautiful thought. But all I have so far said + about the little book is preliminary to what I wish to say about another + sonnet which must also be quoted. It is perhaps, as a sonnet, as ill done + as the others, but the subject of it specially attracted me, as it + happened to be one which was much in my mind during my week's stay at + Norton. That remote little village without a squire or any person of means + or education in or near it capable of feeling the slightest interest in + the people, except the parson, an old infirm man who was never seen but + once a week—how wanting in some essential thing it appeared! It + seemed to me that the one thing which might be done in these small centres + of rural life to brighten and beautify existence is precisely the thing + which is never done, also that what really is being done is of doubtful + value and sometimes actually harmful. + </p> + <p> + Leaving Norton one day I visited other small villages in the neighbourhood + and found they were no better off. I had heard of the rector of one of + these villages as a rather original man, and went and discussed the + subject with him. "It is quite useless thinking about it," he said. "The + people here are clods, and will not respond to any effort you can make to + introduce a little light and sweetness into their lives." There was no + more to be said to him, but I knew he was wrong. I found the villagers in + that part of the country the most intelligent and responsive people of + their class I had ever encountered. It was a delightful experience to go + into their cottages, not to read them a homily or to present them with a + book or a shilling, nor to inquire into their welfare, material and + spiritual, but to converse intimately with a human interest in them, as + would be the case in a country where there are no caste distinctions. It + was delightful, because they were so responsive, so sympathetic, so alive. + Now it was just at this time, when the subject was in my mind, that the + book of sonnets came into my hands—given to me by the generous + caretaker—and I read in it this one on "Innocent Amusements":— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + There lacks a something to complete the round + Of our fair England's homely happiness + A something, yet how oft do trifles bless + When greater gifts by far redound + To honours lone, but no responsive sound + Of joy or mirth awake, nay, oft oppress, + While gifts of which we scarce the moment guess + In never-failing joys abound. + No nation can be truly great + That hath not something childlike in its life + Of every day; it should its youth renew + With simple joys that sweetly recreate + The jaded mind, conjoined in friendly strife + The pleasures of its childhood days pursue. +</pre> + <p> + What wise and kindly thoughts he had—the old squire of Norton! + Surely, when telling me the story of his life, they had omitted something! + I questioned them on the point. Did he not in all the years he was at + Norton House, and later when he lived among them in a cottage in the + village—did he not go into their homes and meet them as if he knew + and felt that they were all of the same flesh, children of one universal + Father, and did he not make them feel this about him—that the + differences in fortune and position and education were mere accidents? And + the answer was: No, certainly not! as if I had asked a preposterous + question. He was the squire, a gentleman—any one might understand + that he could not come among them like that! That is what a parson can do + because he is, so to speak, paid to keep an eye on them, and besides it's + religion there and a different thing. But the squire!—their squire, + that dignified old gentleman, so upright in his saddle, so considerate and + courteous to every one—but he never forgot his position—never + in that way! I also asked if he had never tried to establish, or + advocated, or suggested to them any kind of reunions to take place from + time to time, or an entertainment or festival to get them to come + pleasantly together, making a brightness in their lives—something + which would not be cricket or football, nor any form of sport for a few of + the men, all the others being mere lookers-on and the women and children + left out altogether; something which would be for and include everyone, + from the oldest grey labourer no longer able to work to the toddling + little ones; something of their own invention, peculiar to Norton, which + would be their pride and make their village dearer to them? And the answer + was still no, and no, and no. He had never attempted, never suggested, + anything of the sort. How could he—the squire! Yet he wrote those + wise words:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + No nation can be truly great + That hath not something childlike in its life + Of every day. +</pre> + <p> + Why are we lacking in that which others undoubtedly have, a something to + complete the round of homely happiness in our little rural centres; how is + it that we do not properly encourage the things which, albeit childlike, + are essential, which sweetly recreate? It is not merely the selfishness of + those who are well placed and prefer to live for themselves, or who have + light but care not to shed it on those who are not of their class. + Selfishness is common enough everywhere, in men of all races. It is not + selfishness, nor the growth of towns or decay of agriculture, which as a + fact does not decay, nor education, nor any of the other causes usually + given for the dullness, the greyness of village life. The chief cause, I + take it, is that gulf, or barrier, which exists between men and men in + different classes in our country, or a considerable portion of it—the + caste feeling which is becoming increasingly rigid in the rural world, if + my own observation, extending over a period of twenty-five years, is not + all wrong. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Eleven: Salisbury and Its Doves + </h2> + <p> + Never in my experience has there been a worse spring season than that of + 1903 for the birds, more especially for the short-winged migrants. In + April I looked for the woodland warblers and found them not, or saw but a + few of the commonest kinds. It was only too easy to account for this + rarity. The bitter north-east wind had blown every day and all day long + during those weeks when birds are coming, and when nearing the end of + their journey, at its most perilous stage, the wind had been dead against + them; its coldness and force was too much for these delicate travellers, + and doubtless they were beaten down in thousands into the grey waters of a + bitter sea. The stronger-winged wheatear was more fortunate, since he + comes in March, and before that spell of deadly weather he was already + back in his breeding haunts on Salisbury Plain, and, in fact, everywhere + on that open down country. I was there to hear him sing his wild notes to + the listening waste—singing them, as his pretty fashion is, up in + the air, suspended on quickly vibrating wings like a great black and white + moth. But he was in no singing mood, and at last, in desperation, I fled + to Salisbury to wait for loitering spring in that unattractive town. + </p> + <p> + The streets were cold as the open plain, and there was no comfort indoors; + to haunt the cathedral during those vacant days was the only occupation + left to me. There was some shelter to be had under the walls, and the + empty, vast interior would seem almost cosy on coming in from the wind. At + service my due feet never failed, while morning, noon, and evening I paced + the smooth level green by the hour, standing at intervals to gaze up at + the immense pile with its central soaring spire, asking myself why I had + never greatly liked it in the past and did not like it much better now + when grown familiar with it. Undoubtedly it is one of the noblest + structures of its kind in England—even my eyes that look coldly on + most buildings could see it; and I could admire, even reverence, but could + not love. It suffers by comparison with other temples into which my soul + has wandered. It has not the majesty and appearance of immemorial age, the + dim religious richness of the interior, with much else that goes to make + up, without and within, the expression which is so marked in other + mediaeval fanes—Winchester, Ely, York, Canterbury, Exeter, and + Wells. To the dry, mechanical mind of the architect these great cathedrals + are in the highest degree imperfect, according to the rules of his art: to + all others this imperfectness is their chief excellence and glory; for + they are in a sense a growth, a flower of many minds and many periods, and + are imperfect even as Nature is, in her rocks and trees; and, being in + harmony with Nature and like Nature, they are inexpressibly beautiful and + satisfying beyond all buildings to the aesthetic as well as to the + religious sense. + </p> + <p> + Occasionally I met and talked with an old man employed at the cathedral. + One day, closing one eye and shading the other with his hand, he gazed up + at the building for some time, and then remarked: "I'll tell you what's + wrong with Salisbury—it looks too noo." He was near the mark; the + fault is that to the professional eye it is faultless; the lack of + expression is due to the fact that it came complete from its maker's + brain, like a coin from the mint, and being all on one symmetrical plan it + has the trim, neat appearance of a toy cathedral carved out of wood and + set on a green-painted square. + </p> + <p> + After all, my thoughts and criticisms on the cathedral, as a building, + were merely incidental; my serious business was with the feathered people + to be seen there. Few in the woods and fewer on the windy downs, here + birds were abundant, not only on the building, where they were like + seafowl congregated on a precipitous rock, but they were all about me. The + level green was the hunting ground of many thrushes—a dozen or + twenty could often be seen at one time—and it was easy to spot those + that had young. The worm they dragged out was not devoured; another was + looked for, then another; then all were cut up in proper lengths and + beaten and bruised, and finally packed into a bundle and carried off. + Rooks, too, were there, breeding on the cathedral elms, and had no time + and spirit to wrangle, but could only caw-caw distressfully at the wind, + which tossed them hither and thither in the air and lashed the tall trees, + threatening at each fresh gust to blow their nests to pieces. Small birds + of half a dozen kinds were also there, and one tinkle-tinkled his spring + song quite merrily in spite of the cold that kept the others silent and + made me blue. One day I spied a big queen bumble-bee on the ground, + looking extremely conspicuous in its black and chestnut coat on the fresh + green sward; and thinking it numbed by the cold I picked it up. It moved + its legs feebly, but alas! its enemy had found and struck it down, and + with its hard, sharp little beak had drilled a hole in one of the upper + plates of its abdomen, and from that small opening had cunningly extracted + all the meat. Though still alive it was empty as a blown eggshell. Poor + queen and mother, you survived the winter in vain, and went abroad in vain + in the bitter weather in quest of bread to nourish your few first-born—the + grubs that would help you by and by; now there will be no bread for them, + and for you no populous city in the flowery earth and a great crowd of + children to rise up each day, when days are long, to call you blessed! And + he who did this thing, the unspeakable oxeye with his black and yellow + breast—"catanic black and amber"—even while I made my + lamentation was tinkling his merry song overhead in the windy elms. + </p> + <p> + The birds that lived on the huge cathedral itself had the greatest + attraction for me; and here the daws, if not the most numerous, were the + most noticeable, as they ever are on account of their conspicuousness in + their black plumage, their loquacity and everlasting restlessness. Far up + on the ledge from which the spire rises a kestrel had found a cosy corner + in which to establish himself, and one day when I was there a number of + daws took it on themselves to eject him: they gathered near and flew this + way and that, and cawed and cawed in anger, and swooped at him, until he + could stand their insults no longer, and, suddenly dashing out, he struck + and buffeted them right and left and sent them screaming with fear in all + directions. After this they left him in peace: they had forgotten that he + was a hawk, and that even the gentle mousing wind-hover has a nobler + spirit than any crow of them all. + </p> + <p> + On first coming to the cathedral I noticed a few pigeons sitting on the + roof and ledges very high up, and, not seeing them well, I assumed that + they were of the common or domestic kind. By and by one cooed, then + another; and recognizing the stock-dove note I began to look carefully, + and found that all the birds on the building—about thirty pairs—were + of this species. It was a great surprise, for though we occasionally find + a pair of stock-doves breeding on the ivied wall of some inhabited mansion + in the country, it was a new thing to find a considerable colony of this + shy woodland species established on a building in a town. They lived and + bred there just as the common pigeon—the vari-coloured descendant of + the blue rock—does on St. Paul's, the Law Courts, and the British + Museum in London. Only, unlike our metropolitan doves, both the domestic + kind and the ringdove in the parks, the Salisbury doves though in the town + are not of it. They come not down to mix with the currents of human life + in the streets and open spaces; they fly away to the country to feed, and + dwell on the cathedral above the houses and people just as sea-birds—kittiwake + and guillemot and gannet—dwell on the ledges of some vast + ocean-fronting cliff. + </p> + <p> + The old man mentioned above told me that the birds were called "rocks" by + the townspeople, also that they had been there for as long as he could + remember. Six or seven years ago, he said, when the repairs to the roof + and spire were started, the pigeons began to go away until there was not + one left. The work lasted three years, and immediately on its conclusion + the doves began to return, and were now as numerous as formerly. How, I + inquired, did these innocent birds get on with their black neighbours, + seeing that the daw is a cunning creature much given to persecution—a + crow, in fact, as black as any of his family? They got on badly, he said; + the doves were early breeders, beginning in March, and were allowed to + have the use of the holes until the daws wanted them at the end of April, + when they forcibly ejected the young doves. He said that in spring he + always picked up a good many young doves, often unfledged, thrown down by + the dawn. I did not doubt his story. I had just found a young bird myself—a + little blue-skinned, yellow-mouthed fledgling which had fallen sixty or + seventy feet on to the gravel below. But in June, he said, when the daws + brought off their young, the doves entered into possession once more, and + were then permitted to rear their young in peace. + </p> + <p> + I returned to Salisbury about the middle of May in better weather, when + there were days that were almost genial, and found the cathedral a greater + "habitacle of birds" than ever: starlings, swifts, and swallows were + there, the lively little martins in hundreds, and the doves and daws in + their usual numbers. All appeared to be breeding, and for some time I saw + no quarreling. At length I spied a pair of doves with a nest in a small + cavity in the stone at the back of a narrow ledge about seventy feet from + the ground, and by standing back some distance I could see the hen bird + sitting on the nest, while the cock stood outside on the ledge keeping + guard. I watched this pair for some hours and saw a jackdaw sweep down on + them a dozen or more times at long intervals. Sometimes after swooping + down he would alight on the ledge a yard or two away, and the male dove + would then turn and face him, and if he then began sidling up the dove + would dash at and buffet him with his wings with the greatest violence and + throw him off. When he swooped closer the dove would spring up and meet + him in the air, striking him at the moment of meeting, and again the daw + would be beaten. When I left three days after witnessing this contest, the + doves were still in possession of their nest, and I concluded that they + were not so entirely at the mercy of the jackdaw as the old man had led me + to believe. + </p> + <p> + It was, on this occasion, a great pleasure to listen to the doves. The + stock-dove has no set song, like the ringdove, but like all the other + species in the typical genus Columba it has the cooing or family note, one + of the most human-like sounds which birds emit. In the stock-dove this is + a better, more musical, and a more varied sound than in any other Columba + known to me. The pleasing quality of the sound as well as the variety in + it could be well noted here where the birds were many, scattered about on + ledges and projections high above the earth, and when bird after bird + uttered its plaint, each repeating his note half a dozen to a dozen times, + one in slow measured time, and deep-voiced like the rock-dove, but more + musical; another rapidly, with shorter, impetuous notes in a higher key, + as if carried away by excitement. There were not two birds that cooed in + precisely the same way, and the same bird would often vary its manner of + cooing. + </p> + <p> + It was best to hear them during the afternoon service in the cathedral, + when the singing of the choir and throbbing and pealing of the organ which + filled the vast interior was heard outside, subdued by the walls through + which it passed, and was like a beautiful mist or atmosphere of sound + pervading and enveloping the great building; and when the plaining of the + doves, owing to the rhythmic flow of the notes and their human characters, + seemed to harmonize with and be a part of that sacred music. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Twelve: Whitesheet Hill + </h2> + <p> + On Easter Saturday the roadsides and copses by the little river Nadder + were full of children gathering primroses; they might have filled a + thousand baskets without the flowers being missed, so abundant were they + in that place. Cold though it was the whole air was laden with the + delicious fragrance. It was pleasant to see and talk with the little + people occupied with the task they loved so well, and I made up my mind to + see the result of all this flower-gathering next day in some of the + village churches in the neighbourhood—Fovant, Teffant Evias, + Chilmark, Swallowcliffe, Tisbury, and Fonthill Bishop. I had counted on + some improvement in the weather—some bright sunshine to light up the + flower-decorated interiors; but Easter Sunday proved colder than ever, + with the bitter north-east still blowing, the grey travelling cloud still + covering the sky; and so to get the full benefit of the bitterness I went + instead to spend my day on the top of the biggest down above the valley. + That was Whitesheet Hill, and forms the highest part of the long ridge + dividing the valleys of the Ebble and Nadder. + </p> + <p> + It was roughest and coldest up there, and suited my temper best, for when + the weather seems spiteful one finds a grim sort of satisfaction in + defying it. On a genial day it would have been very pleasant on that lofty + plain, for the flat top of the vast down is like a plain in appearance, + and the earthworks on it show that it was once a populous habitation of + man. Now because of the wind and cloud its aspect was bare and bleak and + desolate, and after roaming about for an hour, exploring the thickest + furze patches, I began to think that my day would have to be spent in + solitude, without a living creature to keep me company. The birds had + apparently all been blown away and the rabbits were staying at home in + their burrows. Not even an insect could I see, although the furze was in + full blossom; the honey-suckers were out of sight and torpid, and the + bloom itself could no longer look "unprofitably gay," as the poet says it + does. "Not even a wheatear!" I said, for I had counted on that bird in the + intervals between the storms, although I knew I should not hear his wild + delightful warble in such weather. + </p> + <p> + Then, all at once, I beheld that very bird, a solitary female, flittering + on over the flat ground before me, perching on the little green ant-mounds + and flirting its tail and bobbing as if greatly excited at my presence in + that lonely place. I wondered where its mate was, following it from place + to place as it flew, determined now I had found a bird to keep it in + sight. Presently a great blackness appeared low down in the cloudy sky, + and rose and spread, travelling fast towards me, and the little wheatear + fled in fear from it and vanished from sight over the rim of the down. But + I was there to defy the weather, and so instead of following the bird in + search of shelter I sat down among some low furze bushes and waited and + watched. By and by I caught sight of three magpies, rising one by one at + long intervals from the furze and flying laboriously towards a distant + hill-top grove of pines. Then I heard the wailing cry of a peewit, and + caught sight of the bird at a distance, and soon afterwards a sound of + another character—the harsh angry cry of a carrion crow, almost as + deep as the raven's angry voice. Before long I discovered the bird at a + great height coming towards me in hot pursuit of a kestrel. They passed + directly over me so that I had them a long time in sight, the kestrel + travelling quietly on in the face of the wind, the crow toiling after, and + at intervals spurting till he got near enough to hurl himself at his + enemy, emitting his croaks of rage. For invariably the kestrel with one of + his sudden swallow-like turns avoided the blow and went on as before. I + watched them until they were lost to sight in the coming blackness and + wondered that so intelligent a creature as a crow should waste his + energies in that vain chase. Still one could understand it and even + sympathize with him. For the kestrel is a most insulting creature towards + the bigger birds. He knows that they are incapable of paying him out, and + when he finds them off their guard he will drop down and inflict a blow + just for the fun of the thing. This outraged crow appeared determined to + have his revenge. + </p> + <p> + Then the storm broke on me, and so fiercely did the rain and sleet thrash + me that, fearing a cold soaking, I fled before it to the rim of the plain, + where the wheatear had vanished, and saw a couple of hundred yards down on + the smooth steep slope a thicket of dwarf trees. It was, the only shelter + in sight, and to it I went, to discover much to my disgust that the trees + were nothing but elders. For there is no tree that affords so poor a + shelter, especially on the high open downs, where the foliage is scantier + than in other situations and lets in the wind and rain in full force upon + you. + </p> + <p> + But the elder affects me in two ways. I like it on account of early + associations, and because the birds delight in its fruit, though they + wisely refuse to build in its branches; and I dislike it because its smell + is offensive to me and its berries the least pleasant of all wild fruits + to my taste. I can eat ivy-berries in March, and yew in its season, poison + or not; and hips and haws and holly-berries and harsh acorn, and the + rowan, which some think acrid; but the elderberry I can't stomach. + </p> + <p> + How comes it, I have asked more than once, that this poor tree is so often + seen on the downs where it is so badly fitted to be and makes so sorry an + appearance with its weak branches broken and its soft leaves torn by the + winds? How badly it contrasts with the other trees and bushes that + flourish on the downs—furze, juniper, holly, blackthorn, and + hawthorn! + </p> + <p> + Two years ago, one day in the early spring, I was walking on an extensive + down in another part of Wiltshire with the tenant of the land, who began + there as a large sheep-farmer, but eventually finding that he could make + more with rabbits than with sheep turned most of his land into a warren. + The higher part of this down was overgrown with furze, mixed with holly + and other bushes, but the slopes were mostly very bare. At one spot on a + wide bare slope where the rabbits had formed a big group of burrows there + was a close little thicket of young elder trees, looking exceedingly + conspicuous in the bright green of early April. Calling my companion's + attention to this little thicket I said something about the elder growing + on the open downs where it always appeared to be out of harmony with its + surroundings. "I don't suppose you planted elders here," I said. + </p> + <p> + "No, but I know who did," he returned, and he then gave me this curious + history of the trees. Five years before, the rabbits, finding it a + suitable spot to dig in, probably because of a softer chalk there, made a + number of deep burrows at that spot. When the wheatears, or + "horse-maggers" as he called them, returned in spring two or three pairs + attached themselves to this group of burrows and bred in them. There was + that season a solitary elder-bush higher up on the down among the furze + which bore a heavy crop of berries; and when the fruit was ripe he watched + the birds feeding on it, the wheatears among them. The following spring + seedlings came up out of the loose earth heaped about the rabbit burrows, + and as they were not cut down by the rabbits, for they dislike the elder, + they grew up, and now formed a clump of fifty or sixty little trees of six + feet to eight feet in height. + </p> + <p> + Who would have thought to find a tree-planter in the wheatear, the bird of + the stony waste and open naked down, who does not even ask for a bush to + perch on? + </p> + <p> + It then occurred to me that in every case where I had observed a clump of + elder bushes on the bare downside, it grew upon a village or collection of + rabbit burrows, and it is probable that in every case the clump owed its + existence to the wheatears who had dropped the seed about their + nesting-place. The clump where I had sought a shelter from the storm was + composed of large old dilapidated-looking half-dead elders; perhaps their + age was not above thirty or forty years, but they looked older than + hawthorns of one or two centuries; and under them the rabbits had their + diggings—huge old mounds and burrows that looked like a badger's + earth. Here, too, the burrows had probably existed first and had attracted + the wheatears, and the birds had brought the seed from some distant bush. + </p> + <p> + Crouching down in one of the big burrows at the roots of an old elder I + remained for half an hour, listening to the thump-thump of the alarmed + rabbits about me, and the accompanying hiss and swish of the wind and + sleet and rain in the ragged branches. + </p> + <p> + The storm over I continued my rambles on Whitesheet Hill, and coming back + an hour or two later to the very spot where I had seen and followed the + wheatear, I all at once caught sight of a second bird, lying dead on the + turf close to my feet! The sudden sight gave me a shock of astonishment, + mingled with admiration and grief. For how pretty it looked, though dead, + lying on its back, the little black legs stuck stiffly up, the long wings + pressed against the sides, their black tips touching together like the + clasped hands of a corpse; and the fan-like black and white tail, half + open as in life, moved perpetually up and down by the wind, as if that + tail-flirting action of the bird had continued after death. It was very + beautiful in its delicate shape and pale harmonious colouring, resting on + the golden-green mossy turf. And it was a male, undoubtedly the mate of + the wheatear I had seen at the spot, and its little mate, not knowing what + death is, had probably been keeping watch near it, wondering at its + strange stillness and greatly fearing for its safety when I came that way, + and passed by without seeing it. + </p> + <p> + Poor little migrant, did you come back across half the world for this—back + to your home on Whitesheet Hill to grow cold and fail in the cold April + wind, and finally to look very pretty, lying stiff and cold, to the one + pair of human eyes that were destined to see you! The little birds that + come and go and return to us over such vast distances, they perish like + this in myriads annually; flying to and from us they are blown away by + death like sere autumn leaves, "the pestilence-stricken multitudes" + whirled away by the wind! They die in myriads: that is not strange; the + strange, the astonishing thing is the fact of death; what can they tell us + of it—the wise men who live or have ever lived on the earth—what + can they say now of the bright intelligent spirit, the dear little + emotional soul, that had so fit a tenement and so fitly expressed itself + in motions of such exquisite grace, in melody so sweet! Did it go out like + the glow-worm's lamp, the life and sweetness of the flower? Was its + destiny not like that of the soul, specialized in a different direction, + of the saint or poet or philosopher! Alas, they can tell us nothing! + </p> + <p> + I could not go away leaving it in that exposed place on the turf, to be + found a little later by a magpie or carrion crow or fox, and devoured. + Close by there was a small round hillock, an old forsaken nest of the + little brown ants, green and soft with moss and small creeping herbs—a + suitable grave for a wheatear. Cutting out a round piece of turf from the + side, I made a hole with my stick and put the dead bird in and replacing + the turf left it neatly buried. + </p> + <p> + It was not that I had or have any quarrel with the creatures I have named, + or would have them other than they are—carrion-eaters and + scavengers, Nature's balance-keepers and purifiers. The only creatures on + earth I loathe and hate are the gourmets, the carrion-crows and foxes of + the human kind who devour wheatears and skylarks at their tables. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Thirteen: Bath and Wells Revisited + </h2> + <p> + 'Tis so easy to get from London to Bath, by merely stepping into a railway + carriage which takes you smoothly without a stop in two short hours from + Paddington, that I was amazed at myself in having allowed five full years + to pass since my previous visit. The question was much in my mind as I + strolled about noting the old-remembered names of streets and squares and + crescents. Quiet Street was the name inscribed on one; it was, to me, the + secret name of them all. The old impressions were renewed, an old feeling + partially recovered. The wide, clean ways; the solid, stone-built houses + with their dignified aspect; the large distances, terrace beyond terrace; + mansions and vast green lawns and parks and gardens; avenues and groups of + stately trees, especially that unmatched clump of old planes in the + Circus; the whole town, the design in the classic style of one master + mind, set by the Avon, amid green hills, produced a sense of harmony and + repose which cannot be equalled by any other town in the kingdom. + </p> + <p> + This idle time was delightful so long as I gave my attention exclusively + to houses from the outside, and to hills, rocks, trees, waters, and all + visible nature, which here harmonizes with man's works. To sit on some + high hill and look down on Bath, sun-flushed or half veiled in mist; to + lounge on Camden Crescent, or climb Sion Hill, or take my ease with the + water-drinkers in the spacious, comfortable Pump Room; or, better still, + to rest at noon in the ancient abbey—all this was pleasure pure and + simple, a quiet drifting back until I found myself younger by five years + than I had taken myself to be. + </p> + <p> + I haunted the abbey, and the more I saw of it the more I loved it. The + impression it had made on me during my former visits had faded, or else I + had never properly seen it, or had not seen it in the right emotional + mood. Now I began to think it the best of all the great abbey churches of + England and the equal of the cathedrals in its effect on the mind. How + rich the interior is in its atmosphere of tempered light or tender gloom! + How tall and graceful the columns holding up the high roof of white stone + with its marvellous palm-leaf sculpture! What a vast expanse of + beautifully stained glass! I certainly gave myself plenty of time to + appreciate it on this occasion, as I visited it every day, sometimes two + or three times, and not infrequently I sat there for an hour at a stretch. + </p> + <p> + Sitting there one day, thinking of nothing, I was gradually awakened to a + feeling almost of astonishment at the sight of the extraordinary number of + memorial tablets of every imaginable shape and size which crowd the walls. + So numerous are they and so closely placed that you could not find space + anywhere to put your hand against the wall. We are accustomed to think + that in cathedrals and other great ecclesiastical buildings the + illustrious dead receive burial, and their names and claims on our + gratitude and reverence are recorded, but in no fane in the land is there + so numerous a gathering of the dead as in this place. The + inscription-covered walls were like the pages of an old black-letter + volume without margins. Yet when I came to think of it I could not recall + any Bath celebrity or great person associated with Bath except Beau Nash, + who was not perhaps a very great person. Probably Carlyle would have + described him as a "meeserable creature." + </p> + <p> + Leaving my seat I began to examine the inscriptions, and found that they + had not been placed there in memory of men belonging to Bath or even + Somerset. These monuments were erected to persons from all counties in the + three kingdoms, and from all the big towns, those to Londoners being most + numerous. Nor were they of persons distinguished in any way. Here you find + John or Henry or Thomas Smith, or Brown, or Jones, or Robinson, provision + dealer, or merchant, of Clerkenwell, or Bermondsey, or Bishopsgate Street + Within or Without; also many retired captains, majors, and colonels. There + were hundreds more whose professions or occupations in life were not + stated. There were also hundreds of memorials to ladies—widows and + spinsters. They were all, in fact, to persons who had come to die in Bath + after "taking the waters," and dying, they or their friends had purchased + immortality on the walls of the abbey with a handful or two of gold. Here + is one of several inscriptions of the kind I took the trouble to copy: + "His early virtues, his cultivated talents, his serious piety, + inexpressibly endeared him to his friends and opened to them many bright + prospects of excellence and happiness. These prospects have all faded," + and so on for several long lines in very big letters, occupying a good + deal of space on the wall. But what and who was he, and what connection + had he with Bath? He was a young man born in the West Indies who died in + Scotland, and later his mother, coming to Bath for her health, "caused + this inscription to be placed on the abbey walls"! If this policy or + tradition is still followed by the abbey authorities, it will be necessary + for them to build an annexe; if it be no longer followed, would it be + going too far to suggest that these mural tablets to a thousand + obscurities, which ought never to have been placed there, should now be + removed and placed in some vault where the relations or descendants of the + persons described could find, and if they wished it, have them removed? + </p> + <p> + But it must be said that the abbey is not without a fair number of + memorials with which no one can quarrel; the one I admire most, to Quin, + the actor, has, I think, the best or the most appropriate epitaph ever + written. No, one, however familiar with the words, will find fault with me + for quoting them here: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + That tongue which set the table on a roar + And charmed the public ear is heard no more. + Closed are those eyes, the harbingers of wit, + Which spake before the tongue what Shakespeare writ. + Cold is that hand which living was stretched forth + At friendship's call to succor modest worth. + Here lies James Quin, deign readers to be taught + Whate'er thy strength of body, force of thought, + In Nature's happiest mood however cast, + To this complexion thou must come at last. +</pre> + <p> + Quin's monument strikes one as the greatest there because of Garrick's + living words, but there is another very much more beautiful. + </p> + <p> + I first noticed this memorial on the wall at a distance of about three + yards, too far to read anything in the inscription except the name of + Sibthorpe, which was strange to me, but instead of going nearer to read it + I remained standing to admire it at that distance. The tablet was of white + marble, and on it was sculptured the figure of a young man with curly head + and classic profile. He was wearing sandals and a loose mantle held to his + breast with one hand, while in the other hand he carried a bunch of leaves + and flowers. He appeared in the act of stepping ashore from a boat of + antique shape, and the artist had been singularly successful in producing + the idea of free and vigorous motion in the figure as well as of some + absorbing object in his mind. The figure was undoubtedly symbolical, and I + began to amuse myself by trying to guess its meaning. Then a curious thing + happened. A person who had been moving slowly along near me, apparently + looking with no great interest at the memorials, came past me and glanced + first at the tablet I was looking at, then at me. As our eyes met I + remarked that I was admiring the best memorial I had found in the abbey, + and then added, "I've been trying to make out its meaning. You see the man + is a traveller and is stepping ashore with a flowering spray in his hand. + It strikes me that it may have been erected to the memory of a person who + introduced some valuable plant into England." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, perhaps," he said. "But who was he?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't know yet," I returned. "I can only see that his name was + Sibthorpe." + </p> + <p> + "Sibthorpe!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Why, this is the very memorial I've + been looking for all over the abbey and had pretty well given up all hopes + of finding it." With that he went to it and began studying the + inscription, which was in Latin. John Sibthorpe, I found, was a + distinguished botanist, author of the Flora Graeca, who died over a + century ago. + </p> + <p> + I asked him why he was interested in Sibthorpe's memorial. + </p> + <p> + "Well, you see, I'm a great botanist myself," he explained, "and have been + familiar with his name and work all my life. Of course," he added, "I + don't mean I'm great in the sense that Sibthorpe was. I'm only a little + local botanist, quite unknown outside my own circle; I only mean that I'm + a great lover of botany." + </p> + <p> + I left him there, and had the curiosity to look up the great man's life, + and found some very curious things in it. He was a son of Humphrey + Sibthorpe, also a great botanist, who succeeded the still greater + Dillenius as Sherardian Professor of Botany at Oxford, a post which he + held for thirty-six years, and during that time he delivered one lecture, + which was a failure. John, if he did not suck in botany with his mother's + milk, took it quite early from his father, and on leaving the University + went abroad to continue his studies. Eventually he went to Greece, + inflamed with the ambition to identify all the plants mentioned by + Dioscorides. Then he set about writing his Flora Graeca; but he had a + rough time of it travelling about in that rude land, and falling ill he + had to leave his work undone. When nearing his end he came to Bath, like + so many other afflicted ones, only to die, and he was very properly buried + in the abbey. In his will he left an estate the proceeds of which were to + be devoted to the completion of his work, which was to be in ten folio + volumes, with one hundred plates in each. This was done and the work + finished forty-four years after his death, when thirty copies were issued + to the patient subscribers at two hundred and forty guineas a copy. But + the whole cost of the work was set down at 30,000 pounds! A costlier work + it would be hard to find; I wonder how many of us have seen it? + </p> + <p> + But I must go back to my subject. I was not in Bath just to die and lie + there, like poor Sibthorpe, with all those strange bedfellows of his, nor + was I in search of a vacant space the size of my hand on the walls to + bespeak it for my own memorial. On the contrary, I was there, as we have + seen, to knock five years off my age. And it was very pleasant, as I have + said, so long as I confined my attention to Bath, the stone-built town of + old memories and associations—so long as I was satisfied to loiter + in the streets and wide green places and in the Pump Room and the abbey. + The bitter came in only when, going from places to faces, I began to seek + out the friends and acquaintances of former days. The familiar faces + seemed not wholly familiar now. A change had been wrought; in some cases a + great change, as in that of some weedy girl who had blossomed into fair + womanhood. One could not grieve at that; but in the middle-aged and those + who were verging on or past that period, it was impossible not to feel + saddened at the difference. "I see no change in you," is a lie ready to + the lips which would speak some pleasing thing, but it does not quite + convince. Men are naturally brutal, and use no compliments to one another; + on the contrary, they do not hesitate to make a joke of wrinkles and grey + hairs—their own and yours. "But, oh, the difference" when the + familiar face, no longer familiar as of old, is a woman's! This is no + light thing to her, and her eyes, being preternaturally keen in such + matters, see not only the change in you, but what is infinitely sadder, + the changed reflection of herself. Your eyes have revealed the shock you + have experienced. You cannot hide it; her heart is stabbed with a sudden + pain, and she is filled with shame and confusion; and the pain is but + greater if her life has glided smoothly—if she cannot appeal to your + compassion, finding a melancholy relief in that saddest cry:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + O Grief has changed me since you saw me last! +</pre> + <p> + For not grief, nor sickness, nor want, nor care, nor any misery or + calamity which men fear, is her chief enemy. Time alone she hates and + fears—insidious Time who has lulled her mind with pleasant + flatteries all these years while subtly taking away her most valued + possessions, the bloom and colour, the grace, the sparkle, the charm of + other years. + </p> + <p> + Here is a true and pretty little story, which may or may not exactly fit + the theme, but is very well worth telling. A lady of fashion, middle-aged + or thereabouts, good-looking but pale and with the marks of care and + disillusionment on her expressive face, accompanied by her pretty + sixteen-years-old daughter, one day called on an artist and asked him to + show her his studio. He was a very great artist, the greatest + portrait-painter we have ever had and he did not know who she was, but + with the sweet courtesy which distinguished him through all his long life—he + died recently at a very advanced age—he at once put his work away + and took her round his studio to show her everything he thought would + interest her. But she was restless and inattentive, and by and by leaving + the artist talking to her young daughter she began going round by herself, + moving constantly from picture to picture. Presently she made an + exclamation, and turning they saw her standing before a picture, a + portrait of a girl, staring fixedly at it. "Oh," she cried, and it was a + cry of pain, "was I once as beautiful as that?" and burst into tears. She + had found the picture she had been looking for, which she had come to see; + it had been there twenty to twenty-five years, and the story of it was as + follows. + </p> + <p> + When she was a young girl her mother took her to the great artist to have + her portrait painted, and when the work was at length finished she and her + mother went to see it. The artist put it before them and the mother looked + at it, her face expressing displeasure, and said not one word. Nor did the + artist open his lips. And at last the girl, to break the uncomfortable + silence, said, "Where shall we hang it, mother?" and the lady replied, + "Just where you like, my dear, so long as you hang it with the face to the + wall." It was an insolent, a cruel thing to say, but the artist did not + answer her bitterly; he said gently that she need not take the portrait as + it failed to please her, and that in any case he would decline to take the + money she had agreed to pay him for the work. She thanked him coldly and + went her way, and he never saw her again. And now Time, the humbler of + proud beautiful women, had given him his revenge: the portrait, scorned + and rejected when the colour and sparkle of life was in the face, had been + looked on once more by its subject and had caused her to weep at the + change in herself. + </p> + <p> + To return. One wishes in these moments of meeting, of surprise and sudden + revealings, that it were permissible to speak from the heart, since then + the very truth might have more balm than bitterness in it. "Grieve not, + dear friend of old days, that I have not escaped the illusion common to + all—the idea that those we have not looked on this long time—full + five years, let us say—have remained as they were while we ourselves + have been moving onwards and downwards in that path in which our feet are + set. No one, however hardened he may be, can escape a shock of surprise + and pain; but now the illusion I cherished has gone—now I have seen + with my physical eyes, and a new image, with Time's writing on it, has + taken the place of the old and brighter one, I would not have it + otherwise. No, not if I could would I call back the vanished lustre, since + all these changes, above all that wistful look in the eyes, do but serve + to make you dearer, my sister and friend and fellow-traveller in a land + where we cannot find a permanent resting-place." + </p> + <p> + Alas! it cannot be spoken, and we cannot comfort a sister if she cannot + divine the thought; but to brood over these inevitable changes is as idle + as it is to lament that we were born into this mutable world. After all, + it is because of the losses, the sadnesses, that the world is so + infinitely sweet to us. The thought is in Cory's Mimnernus in Church: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + All beauteous things for which we live + By laws of time and space decay. + But oh, the very reason why + I clasp them is because they die. +</pre> + <p> + From this sadness in Bath I went to a greater in Wells, where I had not + been for ten years, and timing my visit so as to have a Sunday service at + the cathedral of beautiful memories, I went on a Saturday to Shepton + Mallet. A small, squalid town, a "manufacturing town" the guide-book calls + it. Well, yes; it manufactures Anglo-Bavarian beer in a gigantic brewery + which looks bigger than all the other buildings together, the church and a + dozen or twenty public-houses included. To get some food I went to the + only eating-house in the place, and saw a pleasant-looking woman, plump + and high-coloured, with black hair, with an expression of good humour and + goodness of every description in her comely countenance. She promised to + have a chop ready by the time I had finished looking at the church, and I + said I would have it with a small Guinness. She could not provide that, + the house, she said, was strictly temperance. "My doctor has ordered me to + take it," said I, "and if you are religious, remember that St. Paul tells + us to take a little stout when we find it beneficial." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I know that's what St. Paul says," she returned, with a heightened + colour and a vicious emphasis on the saint's name, "but we go on a + different principle." + </p> + <p> + So I had to go for my lunch to one of the big public-houses, called + hotels; but whether it called itself a cow, or horse, or stag, or angel, + or a blue or green something, I cannot remember. They gave me what they + called a beefsteak pie—a tough crust and under it some blackish + cubes carved out of the muscle of an antediluvian ox-and for this + delicious fare and a glass of stout I paid three shillings and odd pence. + </p> + <p> + As I came away Shepton Mallet was shaken to its foundations by a + tremendous and most diabolical sound, a prolonged lupine yell or yowl, as + if a stupendous wolf, as big, say, as the Anglo-Bavarian brewery, had + howled his loudest and longest. This infernal row, which makes Shepton + seem like a town or village gone raving mad, was merely to inform the men, + and, incidentally, the universe, that it was time for them to knock off + work. + </p> + <p> + Turning my back on the place, I said to myself, "What a fool I am to be + sure! Why could I not have been satisfied for once with a cup of coffee + with my lunch? I should have saved a shilling, perhaps eighteen-pence, to + rejoice the soul of some poor tramp; and, better still, I could have + discussed some interesting questions with that charming rosy-faced woman. + What, for instance, was the reason of her quarrel with the apostle; by the + by, she never rebuked me for misquoting his words; and what is the moral + effect (as seen through her clear brown eyes) of the Anglo-Bavarian + brewery on the population of the small town and the neighbouring + villages?" + </p> + <p> + The road I followed from Shepton to Wells winds by the water-side, a + tributary of the Brue, in a narrow valley with hills on either side. It is + a five-mile road through a beautiful country, where there is practically + no cultivation, and the green hills, with brown woods in their hollows, + and here and there huge masses of grey and reddish Bath stone cropping out + on their sides, resembling gigantic castles and ramparts, long ruined and + overgrown with ivy and bramble, produce the effect of a land dispeopled + and gone back to a state of wildness. + </p> + <p> + A thaw had come that morning, ending the severest frost experienced this + winter anywhere in England, and the valley was alive with birds, happy and + tuneful at the end of January as in April. Looking down on the stream the + sudden glory of a kingfisher passed before me; but the sooty-brown + water-ouzel with his white bib, a haunter, too, of this water, I did not + see. Within a mile or so of Wells I overtook a small boy who belonged + there, and had been to Shepton like me, noticing the birds. "I saw a + kingfisher," I said. "So did I," he returned quickly, with pride. He + described it as a biggish bird with a long neck, but its colour was not + blue—oh, no! I suggested that it was a heron, a long-necked creature + under six feet high, of no particular colour. No, it was not a heron; and + after taking thought, he said, "I think it was a wild duck." + </p> + <p> + Bestowing a penny to encourage him in his promising researches into the + feathered world, I went on by a footpath over a hill, and as I mounted to + the higher ground there before me rose the noble tower of St. Cuthbert's + Church, and a little to the right of it, girt with high trees, the + magnificent pile of the cathedral, with green hills and the pale sky + beyond. O joy to look again on it, to add yet one more enduring image of + it to the number I had long treasured! For the others were not exactly + like this one; the building was not looked at from the same point of view + at the same season and late hour, with the green hills lit by the + departing sun and the clear pale winter sky beyond. + </p> + <p> + Coming in by the moated palace I stood once more on the Green before that + west front, beautiful beyond all others, in spite of the strange + defeatures Time has written on it. I watched the daws, numerous as ever, + still at their old mad games, now springing into the air to scatter abroad + with ringing cries, only to return the next minute and fling themselves + back on their old perches on a hundred weather-stained broken statues in + the niches. And while I stood watching them from the palace trees close by + came the loud laugh of the green woodpecker. The same wild, beautiful + sound, uttered perhaps by the same bird, which I had often heard at that + spot ten years ago! "You will not hear that woodland sound in any other + city in the kingdom," I wrote in a book of sketches entitled "Birds and + Man", published in 1901. + </p> + <p> + But of my soul's adventures in Wells on the two or three following days I + will say very little. That laugh of the woodpecker was an assurance that + Nature had suffered no change, and the town too, like the hills and rocks + and running waters, seemed unchanged; but how different and how sad when I + looked for those I once knew, whose hands I had hoped to grasp again! Yes, + some were living still; and a dog too, one I used to take out for long + walks and many a mad rabbit-hunt—a very handsome white-and-liver + coloured spaniel. I found him lying on a sofa, and down he got and wagged + his tail vigorously, pretending, with a pretty human hypocrisy in his + gentle yellow eyes, that he knew me perfectly well, that I was not a bit + changed, and that he was delighted to see me. + </p> + <p> + On my way back to Bath I had a day at Bristol. It was cattle-market day, + and what with the bellowings, barkings, and shoutings, added to the buzz + and clang of innumerable electric tramcars and the usual din of street + traffic, one got the idea that the Bristolians had adopted a sort of + Salvation Army theory, and were endeavouring to conquer earth (it is not + heaven in this case) by making a tremendous noise. I amused myself + strolling about and watching the people, and as train after train came in + late in the day discharging loads of humanity, mostly young men and women + from the surrounding country coming in for an evening's amusement, I + noticed again the peculiarly Welsh character of the Somerset peasant—the + shape of the face, the colour of the skin, and, above all, the expression. + </p> + <p> + Freeman, when here below, proclaimed it his mission to prove that + "Englishmen were Englishmen, and not somebody else." It appeared to me + that any person, unbiassed by theories on such a subject, looking at that + crowd, would have come to the conclusion, sadly or gladly, according to + his nature, that we are, in fact, "somebody else." + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Fourteen: The Return of the Native + </h2> + <p> + That "going back" about which I wrote in the second chapter to a place + where an unexpected beauty or charm has revealed itself, and has made its + image a lasting and prized possession of the mind, is not the same thing + as the revisiting a famous town or city, rich in many beauties and old + memories, such as Bath or Wells, for instance. Such centres have a + permanent attraction, and one who is a rover in the land must return to + them again and again, nor does he fail on each successive visit to find + some fresh charm or interest. The sadness of such returns, after a long + interval, is only, as I have said, when we start "looking up" those with + whom we had formed pleasant friendly relations. And all because of the + illusion that we shall see them as they were—that Time has stood + still waiting for our return, and by and by, to our surprise and grief, we + discover that it is not so; that the dear friends of other days, long + unvisited but unforgotten, have become strangers. This human loss is felt + even more in the case of a return to some small centre, a village or + hamlet where we knew every one, and our intimacy with the people has + produced the sense of being one in blood with them. It is greatest of all + when we return to a childhood's or boyhood's home. Many writers have + occupied themselves with this mournful theme, and I imagine that a person + of the proper Amiel-like tender and melancholy moralizing type of mind, by + using his own and his friends' experiences, could write a charmingly sad + and pretty book on the subject. + </p> + <p> + The really happy returns of this kind must be exceedingly rare. I am + almost surprised to think that I am able to recall as many as two, but + they hardly count, as in both instances the departure or exile from home + happens at so early a time of life that no recollections of the people + survived—nothing, in fact, but a vague mental picture of the place. + One was of a business man I knew in London, who lost his early home in a + village in the Midlands, as a boy of eight or nine years of age, through + the sale of the place by his father, who had become impoverished. The boy + was trained to business in London, and when a middle-aged man, wishing to + retire and spend the rest of his life in the country, he revisited his + native village for the first time, and discovered to his joy that he could + buy back the old home. He was, when I last saw him, very happy in its + possession. + </p> + <p> + The other case I will relate more fully, as it is a very curious one, and + came to my knowledge in a singular way. + </p> + <p> + At a small station near Eastleigh a man wearing a highly pleased + expression on his face entered the smoking-carriage in which I was + travelling to London. Putting his bag on the rack, he pulled out his pipe + and threw himself back in his seat with a satisfied air; then, looking at + me and catching my eye, he at once started talking. I had my newspaper, + but seeing him in that overflowing mood I responded readily enough, for I + was curious to know why he appeared so happy and who and what he was. Not + a tradesman nor a bagman, and not a farmer, though he looked like an + open-air man; nor could I form a guess from his speech and manner as to + his native place. A robust man of thirty-eight or forty, with blue eyes + and a Saxon face, he looked a thorough Englishman, and yet he struck me as + most un-English in his lively, almost eager manner, his freedom with a + stranger, and something, too, in his speech. From time to time his face + lighted up, when, looking to the window, his eyes rested on some pretty + scene—a glimpse of stately old elm trees in a field where cattle + were grazing, of the vivid green valley of a chalk stream, the paler hills + beyond, the grey church tower or spire of some tree-hidden village. When + he discovered that these hills and streams and rustic villages had as + great a charm for me as for himself, that I knew and loved the two or + three places he named in a questioning way, he opened his heart and the + secret of his present happiness. + </p> + <p> + He was a native of the district, born at a farmhouse of which his father + in succession to his grandfather had been the tenant. It was a small farm + of only eighty-five acres, and as his father could make no more than a + bare livelihood out of it, he eventually gave it up when my informant was + but three years old, and selling all he had, emigrated to Australia. Nine + years later he died, leaving a numerous family poorly provided for; the + home was broken up and boys and girls had to go out and face the world. + They had somehow all got on very well, and his brothers and sisters were + happy enough out there, Australians in mind, thoroughly persuaded that + theirs was the better land, the best country in the world, and with no + desire to visit England. He had never felt like that; somehow his father's + feeling about the old country had taken such a hold of him that he never + outlived it—never felt at home in Australia, however successful he + was in his affairs. The home feeling had been very strong in his father; + his greatest delight was to sit of an evening with his children round him + and tell them of the farm and the old farm-house where he was born and had + lived so many years, and where some of them too had been born. He was + never tired of talking of it, of taking them by the hand, as it were, and + leading them from place to place, to the stream, the village, the old + stone church, the meadows and fields and hedges, the deep shady lanes, + and, above all, to the dear old ivied house with its gables and tall + chimneys. So many times had his father described it that the old place was + printed like a map on his mind, and was like a picture which kept its + brightness even after the image of his boyhood's home in Australia had + become faded and pale. With that mental picture to guide him he believed + that he could go to that angle by the porch where the flycatchers bred + every year and find their nest; where in the hedge the blackberries were + most abundant; where the elders grew by the stream from which he could + watch the moorhens and watervoles; that he knew every fence, gate, and + outhouse, every room and passage in the old house. Through all his busy + years that picture never grew less beautiful, never ceased its call, and + at last, possessed of sufficient capital to yield him a modest income for + the rest of his life, he came home. What he was going to do in England he + did not consider. He only knew that until he had satisfied the chief + desire of his heart and had looked upon the original of the picture he had + borne so long in his mind he could not rest nor make any plans for the + future. + </p> + <p> + He came first to London and found, on examining the map of Hampshire, that + the village of Thorpe (I will call it), where he was born, is three miles + from the nearest station, in the southern part of the county. Undoubtedly + it was Thorpe; that was one of the few names of places his father had + mentioned which remained in his memory always associated with that vivid + image of the farm in his mind. To Thorpe he accordingly went—as + pretty a rustic village as he had hoped to find it. He took a room at the + inn and went out for a long walk—"just to see the place," he said to + the landlord. He would make no inquiries; he would find his home for + himself; how could he fail to recognize it? But he walked for hours in a + widening circle and saw no farm or other house, and no ground that + corresponded to the picture in his brain. + </p> + <p> + Troubled at his failure, he went back and questioned his landlord, and, + naturally, was asked for the name of the farm he was seeking. He had + forgotten the name—he even doubted that he had ever heard it. But + there was his family name to go by—Dyson; did any one remember a + farmer Dyson in the village? He was told that it was not an uncommon name + in that part of the country. There were no Dysons now in Thorpe, but some + fifteen or twenty years ago one of that name had been the tenant of Long + Meadow Farm in the parish. The name of the farm was unfamiliar, and when + he visited the place he found it was not the one he sought. + </p> + <p> + It was a grievous disappointment. A new sense of loneliness oppressed him; + for that bright image in his mind, with the feeling about his home, had + been a secret source of comfort and happiness, and was like a companion, a + dear human friend, and now he appeared to be on the point of losing it. + Could it be that all that mental picture, with the details that seemed so + true to life, was purely imaginary? He could not believe it; the old house + had probably been pulled down, the big trees felled, orchard and hedges + grabbed up—all the old features obliterated—and the land + thrown into some larger neighbouring farm. It was dreadful to think that + such devastating changes had been made, but it had certainly existed as he + saw it in his mind, and he would inquire of some of the old men in the + place, who would perhaps be able to tell him where his home had stood + thirty years ago. + </p> + <p> + At once he set about interviewing all the old men he came upon in his + rounds, describing to them the farm tenanted by a man named Dyson about + forty years ago, and by and by he got hold of one who knew. He listened + for a few minutes to the oft-repeated story, then exclaimed, "Why, sir, + 'tis surely Woodyates you be talking about!" + </p> + <p> + "That's the name! That's the name," he cried. "Woodyyates-how did I ever + forget it! You knew it then—where was it?" + </p> + <p> + "I'll just show you," said the old man, proud at having guessed rightly, + and turning started slowly hobbling along till he got to the end of the + lane. + </p> + <p> + There was an opening there and a view of the valley with trees, blue in + the distance, at the furthest visible point. "Do you see them trees?" he + said. "That's where Harping is; 'tis two miles or, perhaps, a little more + from Thorpe. There's a church tower among them trees, but you can't see it + because 'tis hid. You go by the road till you comes to the church, then + you go on by the water, maybe a quarter of a mile, and you comes to + Woodyates. You won't see no difference in it; I've knowed it since I were + a boy, but 'tis in Harping parish, not in Thorpe." + </p> + <p> + Now he remembered the name—Harping, near Thorpe—only Thorpe + was the more important village where the inn was and the shops. + </p> + <p> + In less than an hour after leaving his informant he was at Woodyates, + feasting his eyes on the old house of his dreams and of his exiled + father's before him, inexpressibly glad to recognize it as the very house + he had loved so long—that he had been deceived by no false image. + </p> + <p> + For some days he haunted the spot, then became a lodger at the farm-house, + and now after making some inquiries he had found that the owner was + willing to sell the place for something more than its market value, and he + was going up to London about it. + </p> + <p> + At Waterloo I wished him happiness in his old home found again after so + many years, then watched him as he walked briskly away—as + commonplace-looking a man as could be seen on that busy crowded platform, + in his suit of rough grey tweeds, thick boots, and bowler hat. Yet one + whose fortune might be envied by many even among the successful—one + who had cherished a secret thought and feeling, which had been to him like + the shadow of a rock and like a cool spring in a dry and thirsty land. + </p> + <p> + And in that host of undistinguished Colonials and others of British race + from all regions of the earth, who annually visit these shores on business + or for pleasure or some other object, how many there must be who come with + some such memory or dream or aspiration in their hearts! A greater number + probably than we imagine. For most of them there is doubtless + disappointment and disillusion: it is a matter of the heart, a sentiment + about which some are not given to speak. He too, my fellow-passenger, + would no doubt have held his peace had his dream not met with so perfect a + fulfilment. As it was he had to tell his joy to some one, though it were + to a stranger. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Fifteen: Summer Days on the Otter + </h2> + <p> + The most characteristic district of South Devon, the greenest, most + luxuriant in its vegetation, and perhaps the hottest in England, is that + bit of country between the Exe and the Axe which is watered by the Clyst, + the Otter, and the Sid. In any one of a dozen villages found beside these + pretty little rivers a man might spend a month, a year, a lifetime, very + agreeably, ceasing not to congratulate himself on the good fortune which + first led him into such a garden. Yet after a week or two in this + luxurious land I began to be dissatisfied with my surroundings. It was + June; the weather was exceptionally dry and sultry. Vague thoughts, or + "visitings" of mountains and moors and coasts would intrude to make the + confinement of deep lanes seem increasingly irksome. Each day I wandered + miles in some new direction, never knowing whither the devious path would + lead me, never inquiring of any person, nor consulting map or guide, since + to do that is to deprive oneself of the pleasure of discovery; always with + a secret wish to find some exit as it were—some place beyond the + everlasting wall of high hedges and green trees, where there would be a + wide horizon and wind blowing unobstructed over leagues of open country to + bring me back the sense of lost liberty. I found only fresh woods and + pastures new that were like the old; other lanes leading to other + farm-houses, each in its familiar pretty setting of orchard and garden; + and, finally, other ancient villages, each with its ivy-grown grey church + tower looking down on a green graveyard and scattered cottages, mostly + mud-built and thatched with straw. Finding no outlook on any side I went + back to the streams, oftenest to the Otter, where, lying by the hour on + the bank, I watched the speckled trout below me and the dark-plumaged + dipper with shining white breast standing solitary and curtseying on a + stone in the middle of the current. Sometimes a kingfisher would flash by, + and occasionally I came upon a lonely grey heron; but no mammal bigger + than a watervole appeared, although I waited and watched for the much + bigger beast that gives the river its name. Still it was good to know that + he was there, and had his den somewhere in the steep rocky bank under the + rough tangle of ivy and bramble and roots of overhanging trees. One was + shot by a farmer during my stay, but my desire was for the living, not a + dead otter. Consequently, when the otter-hunt came with blaze of scarlet + coats and blowing of brass horns and noise of barking hounds and shouts of + excited people, it had no sooner got half a mile above Ottery St. Mary, + where I had joined the straggling procession, than, falling behind, the + hunting fury died out of me and I was relieved to hear that no quarry had + been found. The frightened moorhen stole back to her spotty eggs, the + dipper returned to his dipping and curtseying to his own image in the + stream, and I to my idle dreaming and watching. + </p> + <p> + The watching was not wholly in vain, since there were here revealed to me + things, or aspects of things, that were new. A great deal depends on + atmosphere and the angle of vision. For instance, I have often looked at + swans at the hour of sunset, on the water and off it, or flying, and have + frequently had them between me and the level sun, yet never have I been + favoured with the sight of the rose-coloured, the red, and the + golden-yellow varieties of that majestic waterfowl, whose natural colour + is white. On the other hand, who ever saw a carrion-crow with crimson + eyes? Yet that was one of the strange things I witnessed on the Otter. + </p> + <p> + Game is not everywhere strictly preserved in that part of Devon, and the + result is that the crow is not so abhorred and persecuted a fowl as in + many places, especially in the home counties, where the cult of the sacred + bird is almost universal. At one spot on the stream where my rambles took + me on most days a pair of crows invariably greeted my approach with a loud + harsh remonstrance, and would keep near me, flying from tree to tree + repeating their angry girdings until I left the place. Their nest was in a + large elm, and after some days I was pleased to see that the young had + been safely brought off. The old birds screamed at me no more; then I came + on one of their young in the meadow near the river. His curious behaviour + interested me so much that I stood and watched him for half an hour or + longer. It was a hot, windless day, and the bird was by himself among the + tall flowering grasses and buttercups of the meadow—a queer gaunt + unfinished hobbledehoy-looking fowl with a head much too big for his body, + a beak that resembled a huge nose, and a very monstrous mouth. When I + first noticed him he was amusing himself by picking off the small insects + from the flowers with his big beak, a most unsuitable instrument, one + would imagine, for so delicate a task. At the same time he was hungering + for more substantial fare, and every time a rook flew by over him on its + way to or from a neighbouring too populous rookery, the young crow would + open wide his immense red mouth and emit his harsh, throaty hunger-call. + The rook gone, he would drop once more into his study of the buttercups, + to pick from them whatever unconsidered trifle in the way of provender he + could find. Once a small bird, a pied wagtail, flew near him, and he + begged from it just as he had done from the rooks: the little creature + would have run the risk of being itself swallowed had it attempted to + deliver a packet of flies into that cavernous mouth. I went nearer, moving + cautiously, until I was within about four yards of him, when, half + turning, he opened his mouth and squawked, actually asking me to feed him; + then, growing suspicious, he hopped awkwardly away in the grass. + Eventually he permitted a nearer approach, and slowly stooping I was just + on the point of stroking his back when, suddenly becoming alarmed, he + swung himself into the air and flapped laboriously off to a low hawthorn, + twenty or thirty yards away, into which he tumbled pell-mell like a bundle + of old black rags. + </p> + <p> + Then I left him and thought no more about the crows except that their + young have a good deal to learn upon first coming forth into an unfriendly + world. But there was a second nest and family close by all the time. A day + or two later I discovered it accidentally in a very curious way. + </p> + <p> + There was one spot where I was accustomed to linger for a few minutes, + sometimes for half an hour or so, during my daily walks. Here at the foot + of the low bank on the treeless side of the stream there was a scanty + patch of sedges, a most exposed and unsuitable place for any bird to breed + in, yet a venturesome moorhen had her nest there and was now sitting on + seven eggs. First I would take a peep at the eggs, for the bird always + quitted the nest on my approach; then I would gaze into the dense tangle + of tree, bramble, and ivy springing out of the mass 'of black rock and red + clay of the opposite bank. In the centre of this rough tangle which + overhung the stream there grew an old stunted and crooked fir tree with + its tufted top so shut out from the light by the branches and foliage + round it that it looked almost black. One evening I sat down on the green + bank opposite this tangle when the low sun behind me shone level into the + mass of rock and rough boles and branches, and fixing my eyes on the black + centre of the mass I encountered a pair of crimson eyes staring back into + mine. A level ray of light had lit up that spot which I had always seen in + deep shadow, revealing its secret. After gazing steadily for some time I + made out a crow's nest in the dwarf pine top and the vague black forms of + three young fully fledged crows sitting or standing in it. The middle bird + had the shining crimson eyes; but in a few moments the illusory colour was + gone and the eyes were black. + </p> + <p> + It was certainly an extraordinary thing: the ragged-looking black-plumaged + bird on its ragged nest of sticks in the deep shade, with one ray of + intense sunlight on its huge nose-like beak and blood-red eyes, a sight to + be remembered for a lifetime! It recalled Zurbaran's picture of the + "Kneeling Monk," in which the man with everything about him is steeped in + the deepest gloom except his nose, on which one ray of strong light has + fallen. The picture of the monk is gloomy and austere in a wonderful + degree: the crow in his interior with sunlit big beak and crimson eyes + looked nothing less than diabolical. + </p> + <p> + I paid other visits to the spot at the same hour, and sat long and watched + the crows while they watched me, occasionally tossing pebbles on to them + to make them shift their positions, but the magical effect was not + produced again. + </p> + <p> + As to the cause of that extraordinary colour in the crow's eyes, one might + say that it was merely the reflected red light of the level sun. We are + familiar with the effect when polished and wet surfaces, such as glass, + stone, and water, shine crimson in the light of a setting sun; but there + is also the fact, which is not well known, that the eye may show its own + hidden red—the crimson colour which is at the back of the retina and + which is commonly supposed to be seen only with the ophthalmoscope. + Nevertheless I find on inquiry among friends and acquaintances that there + are instances of persons in which the iris when directly in front of the + observer with the light behind him, always looks crimson, and in several + of these cases the persons exhibiting this colour, or danger signal, as it + may be called, were subject to brain trouble. It is curious to find that + the crimson colour or light has also been observed in dogs: one friend has + told me of a pet King Charles, a lively good-tempered little dog with + brown eyes like any other dog, which yet when they looked up, into yours + in a room always shone ruby-red instead of hyaline blue, or green, as is + usually the case. From other friends I heard of many other cases: one was + of a child, an infant in arms, whose eyes sometimes appeared crimson, + another of a cat with yellow eyes which shone crimson-red in certain + lights. Of human adults, I heard of two men great in the world of science, + both dead now, in whose eyes the red light had been seen just before and + during attacks of nervous breakdown. I heard also of four other persons, + not distinguished in any way, two of them sisters, who showed the red + light in the eyes: all of them suffered, from brain trouble and two of + them ended their lives in asylums for the insane. + </p> + <p> + Discussing these cases with my informants, we came to the conclusion that + the red light in the human eye is probably always a pathological + condition, a danger signal; but it is not perhaps safe to generalize on + these few instances, and I must add that all the medical men I have spoken + to on the subject shake their heads. One great man, an eye specialist, + went so far as to say that it is impossible, that the red light in the eye + was not seen by my informants but only imagined. The ophthalmoscope, he + said, will show you the crimson at the back of the eye, but the colour is + not and cannot be reflected on the surface of the iris. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Sixteen: In Praise of the Cow + </h2> + <p> + In spite of discontents I might have remained to this day by the Otter, in + the daily and hourly expectation of seeing some new and wonderful thing in + Nature in that place where a crimson-eyed carrion-crow had been revealed + to me, had not a storm of thunder and rain broken over the country to + shake me out of a growing disinclination to move. We are, body and mind, + very responsive to atmospheric changes; for every storm in Nature there is + a storm in us—a change physical and mental. We make our own + conditions, it is true, and these react and have a deadening effect on us + in the long run, but we are never wholly deadened by them—if we be + not indeed dead, if the life we live can be called life. We are told that + there are rainless zones on the earth and regions of everlasting summer: + it is hard to believe that the dwellers in such places can ever think a + new thought or do a new thing. The morning rain did not last very long, + and before it had quite ceased I took up my knapsack and set off towards + the sea, determined on this occasion to make my escape. + </p> + <p> + Three or four miles from Ottery St. Mary I overtook a cowman driving nine + milch cows along a deep lane and inquired my way of him. He gave me many + and minute directions, after which we got into conversation, and I walked + some distance with him. The cows he was driving were all pure Devons, + perfect beauties in their bright red coats in that greenest place where + every rain-wet leaf sparkled in the new sunlight. Naturally we talked + about the cows, and I soon found that they were his own and the pride and + joy of his life. We walked leisurely, and as the animals went on, first + one, then another would stay for a mouthful of grass, or to pull down half + a yard of green drapery from the hedge. It was so lavishly decorated that + the damage they did to it was not noticeable. By and by we went on ahead + of the cows, then, if one stayed too long or strayed into some inviting + side-lane, he would turn and utter a long, soft call, whereupon the + straggler would leave her browsing and hasten after the others. + </p> + <p> + He was a big, strongly built man, a little past middle life and + grey-haired, with rough-hewn face—unprepossessing one would have + pronounced him until the intelligent, kindly expression of the eyes was + seen and the agreeable voice was heard. As our talk progressed and we + found how much in sympathy we were on the subject, I was reminded of that + Biblical expression about the shining of a man's face: "Wine that maketh + glad the heart of man"—I hope the total abstainers will pardon me—"and + oil that maketh his face to shine," we have in one passage. This rather + goes against our British ideas, since we rub no oil or unguents on our + skin, but only soap which deprives it of its natural oil and too often + imparts a dry and hard texture. Yet in that, to us, disagreeable aspect of + the skin caused by foreign fats, there is a resemblance to the sudden + brightening and glory of the countenance in moments of blissful emotion or + exaltation. No doubt the effect is produced by the eyes, which are the + mirrors of the mind, and as they are turned full upon us they produce an + illusion, seeming to make the whole face shine. + </p> + <p> + In our talk I told him of long rambles on the Mendips, along the valley of + the Somerset Axe, where I had lately been, and where of all places, in + this island, the cow should be most esteemed and loved by man. Yet even + there, where, standing on some elevation, cows beyond one's power to + number could be seen scattered far and wide in the green vales beneath, it + had saddened me to find them so silent. It is not natural for them to be + dumb; they have great emotions and mighty voices—the cattle on a + thousand hills. Their morning and evening lowing is more to me than any + other natural sound—the melody of birds, the springs and dying gales + of the pines, the wash of waves on the long shingled beach. The hills and + valleys of that pastoral country flowing with milk and honey should be + vocal with it, echoing and re-echoing the long call made musical by + distance. The cattle are comparatively silent in that beautiful district, + and indeed everywhere in England, because men have made them so. They + have, when deprived of their calves, no motive for the exercise of their + voices. For two or three days after their new-born calves have been taken + from them they call loudly and incessantly, day and night, like Rachel + weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted; grief and anxiety + inspires that cry—they grow hoarse with crying; it is a powerful, + harsh, discordant sound, unlike the long musical call of the cow that has + a calf, and remembering it, and leaving the pasture, goes lowing to give + it suck. + </p> + <p> + I also told him of the cows of a distant country where I had lived, that + had the maternal instinct so strong that they refused to yield their milk + when deprived of their young. They "held it back," as the saying is, and + were in a sullen rage, and in a few days their fountains dried up, and + there was no more milk until calving-time came round once more. + </p> + <p> + He replied that cows of that temper were not unknown in South Devon. Very + proudly he pointed to one of the small herd that followed us as an + example. In most cases, he said, the calf was left from two or three days + to a week, or longer, with the mother to get strong, and then taken away. + This plan could not be always followed; some cows were so greatly + distressed at losing the young they had once suckled that precautions had + to be taken and the calf smuggled away as quietly as possible when dropped—if + possible before the mother had seen it. Then there were the extreme cases + in which the cow refused to be cheated. She knew that a calf had been + born; she had felt it within her, and had suffered pangs in bringing it + forth; if it appeared not on the grass or straw at her side then it must + have been snatched away by the human creatures that hovered about her, + like crows and ravens round a ewe in travail on some lonely mountain side. + </p> + <p> + That was the character of the cow he had pointed out; even when she had + not seen the calf of which she had been deprived she made so great an + outcry and was thrown into such a rage and fever, refusing to be milked + that, finally, to save her, it was thought necessary to give her back the + calf. Now, he concluded, it was not attempted to take it away: twice a day + she was allowed to have it with her and suckle it, and she was a very + happy animal. + </p> + <p> + I was glad to think that there was at least one completely happy cow in + Devonshire. + </p> + <p> + After leaving the cowkeeper I had that feeling of revulsion very strongly + which all who know and love cows occasionally experience at the very + thought of beef. I was for the moment more than tolerant of vegetarianism, + and devoutly hoped that for many days to come I should not be sickened + with the sight of a sirloin on some hateful board, cold, or smoking hot, + bleeding its red juices into the dish when gashed with a knife, as if + undergoing a second death. We do not eat negroes, although their pigmented + skins, flat feet, and woolly heads proclaim them a different species; even + monkey's flesh is abhorrent to us, merely because we fancy that that + creature in its ugliness resembles some old men and some women and + children that we know. But the gentle large-brained social cow that + caresses our hands and faces with her rough blue tongue, and is more like + man's sister than any other non-human being—the majestic, beautiful + creature with the juno eyes, sweeter of breath than the rosiest virgin—we + slaughter and feed on her flesh—monsters and cannibals that we are! + </p> + <p> + But though cannibals, it is very pleasant to find that many cowmen love + their cows. Walking one afternoon by a high unkept hedge near Southampton + Water, I heard loud shouts at intervals issuing from a point some distance + ahead, and on arriving at the spot found an old man leaning idly over a + gate, apparently concerned about nothing. "What are you shouting about?" I + demanded. "Cows," he answered, with a glance across the wide green field + dotted with a few big furze and bramble bushes. On its far side half a + dozen cows were, quietly grazing. "They came fast enough when I was + a-feeding of 'em," he presently added; "but now they has to find for + theirselves they don't care how long they keeps me." I was going to + suggest that it would be a considerable saving of time if he went for + them, but his air of lazy contentment as he leant on the gate showed that + time was of no importance to him. He was a curious-looking old man, in old + frayed clothes, broken boots, and a cap too small for him. He had short + legs, broad chest, and long arms, and a very big head, long and horselike, + with a large shapeless nose and grizzled beard and moustache. His ears, + too, were enormous, and stood out from the head like the handles of a + rudely shaped terra-cotta vase or jar. The colour of his face, the ears + included, suggested burnt clay. But though Nature had made him ugly, he + had an agreeable expression, a sweet benign look in his large dark eyes, + which attracted me, and I stayed to talk with him. + </p> + <p> + It has frequently been said that those who are much with cows, and have an + affection for them, appear to catch something of their expression—to + look like cows; just as persons of sympathetic or responsive nature, and + great mobility of face, grow to be like those they live and are in + sympathy with. The cowman who looks like a cow may be more bovine than his + fellows in his heavier motions and slower apprehensions, but he also + exhibits some of the better qualities—the repose and placidity of + the animal. + </p> + <p> + He said that he was over seventy, and had spent the whole of his life in + the neighbourhood, mostly with cows, and had never been more than a dozen + miles from the spot where we were standing. At intervals while we talked + he paused to utter one of his long shouts, to which the cows paid no + attention. At length one of the beasts raised her head and had a long + look, then slowly crossed the field to us, the others following at some + distance. They were shorthorns, all but the leader, a beautiful young + Devon, of a uniform rich glossy red; but the silky hair on the distended + udder was of an intense chestnut, and all the parts that were not clothed + were red too—the teats, the skin round the eyes, the moist embossed + nose; while the hoofs were like polished red pebbles, and even the shapely + horns were tinged with that colour. Walking straight up to the old man, + she began deliberately licking one of his ears with her big rough tongue, + and in doing so knocked off his old rakish cap. Picking it up he laughed + like a child, and remarked, "She knows me, this one does—and she + loikes me." + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Seventeen: An Old Road Leading Nowhere + </h2> + <p> + So many and minute were the directions I received about the way from the + blessed cowkeeper, and so little attention did I give them, my mind being + occupied with other things, that they were quickly forgotten. Of half a + hundred things I remembered only that I had to "bear to the left." This I + did, although it seemed useless, seeing that my way was by lanes, across + fields, and through plantations. At length I came to a road, and as it + happened to be on my left hand I followed it. It was narrow, worn deep by + traffic and rains; and grew deeper, rougher, and more untrodden as I + progressed, until it was like the dry bed of a mountain torrent, and I + walked on boulder-stones between steep banks about fourteen feet high. + Their sides were clothed with ferns, grass and rank moss; their summits + were thickly wooded, and the interlacing branches of the trees above, + mingled with long rope-like shoots of bramble and briar, formed so close a + roof that I seemed to be walking in a dimly lighted tunnel. At length, + thinking that I had kept long enough to a road which had perhaps not been + used for a century, also tired of the monotony of always bearing to the + left, I scrambled out on the right-hand side. For some time past I had + been ascending a low, broad, flat-topped hill, and on forcing my way + through the undergrowth into the open I found myself on the level plateau, + an unenclosed spot overgrown with heather and scattered furze bushes, with + clumps of fir and birch trees. Before me and on either hand at this + elevation a vast extent of country was disclosed. The surface was + everywhere broken, but there was no break in the wonderful greenness, + which the recent rain had intensified. There is too much green, to my + thinking, with too much uniformity in its soft, bright tone, in South + Devon. After gazing on such a landscape the brown, harsh, scanty + vegetation of the hilltop seemed all the more grateful. The heath was an + oasis and a refuge; I rambled about in it until my feet and legs were wet; + then I sat down to let them dry and altogether spent several agreeable + hours at that spot, pleased at the thought that no human fellow-creature + would intrude upon me. Feathered companions were, however, not wanting. + The crowing of cock pheasants from the thicket beside the old road warned + me that I was on preserved grounds. Not too strictly preserved, however, + for there was my old friend the carrion-crow out foraging for his young. + He dropped down over the trees, swept past me, and was gone. At this + season, in the early summer, he may be easily distinguished, when flying, + from his relation the rook. When on the prowl the crow glides smoothly and + rapidly through the air, often changing his direction, now flying close to + the surface, anon mounting high, but oftenest keeping nearly on a level + with the tree tops. His gliding and curving motions are somewhat like + those of the herring-gull, but the wings in gliding are carried stiff and + straight, the tips of the long flight-feathers showing a slight upward + curve. But the greatest difference is in the way the head is carried. The + rook, like the heron and stork, carries his beak pointing lance-like + straight before him. He knows his destination, and makes for it; he + follows his nose, so to speak, turning neither to the right nor the left. + The foraging crow continually turns his head, gull-like and harrier-like, + from side to side, as if to search the ground thoroughly or to concentrate + his vision on some vaguely seen object. + </p> + <p> + Not only the crow was there: a magpie chattered as I came from the brake, + but refused to show himself; and a little later a jay screamed at me, as + only a jay can. There are times when I am intensely in sympathy with the + feeling expressed in this ear-splitting sound, inarticulate but human. It + is at the same time warning and execration, the startled solitary's + outburst of uncontrolled rage at the abhorred sight of a fellow-being in + his woodland haunt. + </p> + <p> + Small birds were numerous at that spot, as if for them also its wildness + and infertility had an attraction. Tits, warblers, pipits, finches, all + were busy ranging from place to place, emitting their various notes now + from the tree-tops, then from near the ground; now close at hand, then far + off; each change in the height, distance, and position of the singer + giving the sound a different character, so that the effect produced was + one of infinite variety. Only the yellow-hammer remained constant in one + spot, in one position, and the song at each repetition was the same. + Nevertheless this bird is not so monotonous a singer as he is reputed. A + lover of open places, of commons and waste lands, with a bush or dwarf + tree for tower to sit upon, he is yet one of the most common species in + the thickly timbered country of the Otter, Clyst, and Sid, in which I had + been rambling, hearing him every day and all day long. Throughout that + district, where the fields are small, and the trees big and near together, + he has the cirl-bunting's habit of perching to sing on the tops of high + hedgerow elms and oaks. + </p> + <p> + By and by I had a better bird to listen to—a redstart. A female flew + down within fifteen yards of me; her mate followed and perched on a dry + twig, where he remained a long time for so shy and restless a creature. He + was in perfect plumage, and sitting there, motionless in the strong + sunlight, was wonderfully conspicuous, the gayest, most exotic-looking + bird of his family in England. Quitting his perch, he flew up into a tree + close by and began singing; and for half an hour thereafter I continued + intently listening to his brief strain, repeated at short intervals—a + song which I think has never been perfectly described. "Practice makes + perfect" is an axiom that does not apply to the art of song in the bird + world; since the redstart, a member of a highly melodious family, with a + good voice to start with, has never attained to excellence in spite of + much practising. The song is interesting both on account of its + exceptional inferiority and of its character. A distinguished + ornithologist has said that little birds have two ways of making + themselves attractive—by melody and by bright plumage; and that most + species excel in one or the other way; and that the acquisition of gay + colours by a species of a sober-coloured melodious family will cause it to + degenerate as a songster. He is speaking of the redstart. Unfortunately + for the rule there are too many exceptions. Thus confining ourselves to a + single family—that of the finches—in our own islands, the most + modest coloured have the least melody, while those that have the gayest + plumage are the best singers—the goldfinch, chaffinch, siskin, and + linnet. Nevertheless it is impossible to listen for any length of time to + the redstart, and to many redstarts, without feeling, almost with + irritation, that its strain is only the prelude of a song—a promise + never performed; that once upon a time in the remote past it was a sweet, + copious, and varied singer, and that only a fragment of its melody now + remains. The opening rapidly warbled notes are so charming that the + attention is instantly attracted by them. They are composed of two sounds, + both beautiful—the bright pure gushing robin-like note, and the more + tender expressive swallow-like note. And that is all; the song scarcely + begins before it ends, or collapses; for in most cases the pure sweet + opening strain is followed by a curious little farrago of gurgling and + squeaking sounds, and little fragments of varied notes, often so low as to + be audible only at a few yards' distance. It is curious that these slight + fragments of notes at the end vary in different individuals, in strength + and character and in number, from a single faintest squeal to half a dozen + or a dozen distinct sounds. In all cases they are emitted with apparent + effort, as if the bird strained its pipe in the vain attempt to continue + the song. + </p> + <p> + The statement that the redstart is a mimic is to be met with in many books + about birds. I rather think that in jerking out these various little + broken notes which end its strain, whether he only squeaks or succeeds in + producing a pure sound, he is striving to recover his own lost song rather + than to imitate the songs of other birds. + </p> + <p> + So much entertainment did I find at that spot, so grateful did it seem in + its openness after long confinement in the lower thickly wooded country, + that I practically spent the day there. At all events the best time for + walking was gone when I quitted it, and then I could think of no better + plan than to climb down into the old long untrodden road, or channel, + again just to see where it would lead me. After all, I said, my time is my + own, and to abandon the old way I have walked in so long without + discovering the end would be a mistake. So I went on in it once more, and + in about twenty minutes it came to an end before a group of old farm + buildings in a hollow in the woods. The space occupied by the buildings + was quite walled round and shut in by a dense growth of trees and bushes; + and there was no soul there and no domestic animal. The place had + apparently been vacant many years, and the buildings were in a ruinous + condition, with the roofs falling in. + </p> + <p> + Now when I look back on that walk I blame myself for having gone on my way + without trying to find out something of the history of that forsaken home + to which the lonely old road had led me. Those ruinous buildings once + inhabited, so wrapped round and hidden away by trees, have now a strange + look in memory as if they had a story to tell, as if something intelligent + had looked from the vacant windows as I stood staring at them and had + said, We have waited these many years for you to come and listen to our + story and you are come at last. + </p> + <p> + Something perhaps stirred in me in response to that greeting and message, + but I failed to understand it, and after standing there awhile, oppressed + by a sense of loneliness, I turned aside, and creeping and pushing through + a mass and tangle of vegetation went on my way towards the coast. + </p> + <p> + Possibly that idea or fancy of a story to tell, a human tragedy, came to + me only because of another singular experience I had that day when the + afternoon sun had grown oppressively hot—another mystery of a + desolate but not in this case uninhabited house. The two places somehow + became associated together in my mind. + </p> + <p> + The place was a little farm-house standing some distance from the road, in + a lonely spot out of sight of any other habitation, and I thought I would + call and ask for a glass of milk, thinking that if things had a promising + look on my arrival my modest glass of milk would perhaps expand to a + sumptuous five-o'clock tea and my short rest to a long and pleasant one. + </p> + <p> + The house I found on coming nearer was small and mean-looking and very + old; the farm buildings in a dilapidated condition, the thatch rotten and + riddled with holes in which many starlings and sparrows had their nests. + Gates and fences were broken down, and the ground was everywhere overgrown + with weeds and encumbered with old broken and rusty implements, and + littered with rubbish. No person could I see about the place, but knew it + was inhabited as there were some fowls walking about, and some calves shut + in a pen in one of the numerous buildings were dolefully calling—calling + to be fed. Seeing a door half open at one end of the house I went to it + and rapped on the warped paintless wood with my stick, and after about a + minute a young woman came from an inner room and asked me what I wanted. + She was not disturbed or surprised at my sudden appearance there: her face + was impassive, and her eyes when they met mine appeared to look not at me + but at something distant, and her words were spoken mechanically. + </p> + <p> + I said that I was hot and thirsty and tired and would be glad of a glass + of milk. + </p> + <p> + Without a word she turned and left me standing there, and presently + returned with a tumbler of milk which she placed on a deal table standing + near me. To my remarks she replied in monosyllables, and stood + impassively, her hands at her side, her eyes cast down, waiting for me to + drink the milk and go. And when I had finished it and set the glass down + and thanked her, she turned in silence and went back to that inner room + from which she first came. And hot and tired as I had felt a few moments + before, and desirous of an interval of rest in the cool shade, I was glad + to be out in the burning sun once more, for the sight of that young woman + had chilled my blood and made the heat out-of-doors seem grateful to me. + </p> + <p> + The sight of such a face in the midst of such surroundings had produced a + shock of surprise, for it was noble in shape, the features all fine and + the mouth most delicately chiselled, the eyes dark and beautiful, and the + hair of a raven blackness. But it was a colourless face, and even the lips + were pale. Strongest of all was the expression, which had frozen there, + and was like the look of one on whom some unimaginable disaster or some + hateful disillusionment had come, not to subdue nor soften, but to change + all its sweet to sour, and its natural warmth to icy cold. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Eighteen: Branscombe + </h2> + <p> + Health and pleasure resorts and all parasitic towns in fact, inland or on + the sea, have no attractions for me and I was more than satisfied with a + day or two of Sidmouth. Then one evening I heard for the first time of a + place called Branscomb—a village near the sea, over by Beer and + Seaton, near the mouth of the Axe, and the account my old host gave me + seemed so attractive that on the following day I set out to find it. + Further information about the unknown village came to me in a very + agreeable way in the course of my tramp. A hotter walk I never walked—no, + not even when travelling across a flat sunburnt treeless plain, nearer + than Devon by many degrees to the equator. One wonders why that part of + Devon which lies between the Exe and the Axe seems actually hotter than + other regions which undoubtedly have a higher temperature. After some + hours of walking with not a little of uphill and downhill, I began to find + the heat well-nigh intolerable. I was on a hard dusty glaring road, shut + in by dusty hedges on either side. Not a breath of air was stirring; not a + bird sang; on the vast sky not a cloud appeared. If the vertical sun had + poured down water instead of light and heat on me my clothing could not + have clung to me more uncomfortably. Coming at length to a group of two or + three small cottages at the roadside, I went into one and asked for + something to quench my thirst—cider or milk. There was only water to + be had, but it was good to drink, and the woman of the cottage was so + pretty and pleasant that I was glad to rest an hour and talk with her in + her cool kitchen. There are English counties where it would perhaps be + said of such a woman that she was one in a thousand; but the Devonians are + a comely race. In that blessed county the prettiest peasants are not all + diligently gathered with the dew on them and sent away to supply the + London flower-market. Among the best-looking women of the peasant class + there are two distinct types—the rich in colour and the colourless. + A majority are perhaps intermediate, but the two extreme types may be + found in any village or hamlet; and when seen side by side—the lily + and the rose, not to say the peony—they offer a strange and + beautiful contrast. + </p> + <p> + This woman, in spite of the burning climate, was white as any pale town + lady; and although she was the mother of several children, the face was + extremely youthful in appearance; it seemed indeed almost girlish in its + delicacy and innocent expression when she looked up at me with her blue + eyes shaded by her white sun-bonnet. The children were five or six in + number, ranging from a boy of ten to a baby in her arms—all clean + and healthy looking, with bright, fun-loving faces. + </p> + <p> + I mentioned that I was on my way to Branscombe, and inquired the distance. + </p> + <p> + "Branscomb—are you going there? Oh, I wonder what you will think of + Branscombe!" she exclaimed, her white cheeks flushing, her innocent eyes + sparkling with excitement. + </p> + <p> + What was Branscombe to her, I returned with indifference; and what did it + matter what any stranger thought of it? + </p> + <p> + "But it is my home!" she answered, looking hurt at my careless words. "I + was born there, and married there, and have always lived at Branscombe + with my people until my husband got work in this place; then we had to + leave home and come and live in this cottage." + </p> + <p> + And as I began to show interest she went on to tell me that Branscombe + was, oh, such a dear, queer, funny old place! That she had been to other + villages and towns—Axmouth, and Seaton, and Beer, and to Salcombe + Regis and Sidmouth, and once to Exeter; but never, never had she seen a + place like Branscombe—not one that she liked half so well. How + strange that I had never been there—had never even heard of it! + People that went there sometimes laughed at it at first, because it was + such a funny, tumbledown old place; but they always said afterwards that + there was no sweeter spot on the earth. + </p> + <p> + Her enthusiasm was very delightful; and, when baby cried, in the + excitement of talk she opened her breast and fed it before me. A pretty + sight! But for the pure white, blue-veined skin she might have been taken + for a woman of Spain—the most natural, perhaps the most lovable, of + the daughters of earth. But all at once she remembered that I was a + stranger, and with a blush turned aside and covered her fair skin. Her + shame, too, like her first simple unconscious action, was natural; for we + live in a cooler climate, and are accustomed to more clothing than the + Spanish; and our closer covering "has entered the soul," as the late + Professor Kitchen Parker would have said; and that which was only becoming + modesty in the English woman would in the Spanish seem rank prudishness. + </p> + <p> + In the afternoon I came to a slender stream, clear and swift, running + between the hills that rose, round and large and high, on either hand, + like vast downs, some grassy, others wooded. This was the Branscombe, and, + following it, I came to the village; then, for a short mile my way ran by + a winding path with the babbling stream below me on one side, and on the + other the widely separated groups and little rows of thatched cottages. + </p> + <p> + Finally, I came to the last and largest group of all, the end of the + village nearest to the sea, within ten minutes' walk of the shingly beach. + Here I was glad to rest. Above, on the giant downs, were stony waste + places, and heather and gorse, where the rabbits live, and had for + neighbours the adder, linnet, and wheatear, and the small grey titlark + that soared up and dropped back to earth all day to his tinkling little + tune. On the summit of the cliff I had everything I wanted and had come to + seek—the wildness and freedom of untilled earth; an unobstructed + prospect, hills beyond hills of malachite, stretching away along the coast + into infinitude, long leagues of red sea-wall and the wide expanse and + everlasting freshness of ocean. And the village itself, the little old + straggling place that had so grand a setting, I quickly found that the + woman in the cottage had not succeeded in giving me a false impression of + her dear home. It was just such a quaint unimproved, old-world, restful + place as she had painted. It was surprising to find that there were many + visitors, and one wondered where they could all stow themselves. The + explanation was that those who visited Branscombe knew it, and preferred + its hovels to the palaces of the fashionable seaside town. No cottage was + too mean to have its guest. I saw a lady push open the cracked and warped + door of an old barn and go in, pulling the door to after her—it was + her bed-sitting-room. I watched a party of pretty merry girls marching, + single file, down a narrow path past a pig-sty, then climb up a ladder to + the window of a loft at the back of a stone cottage and disappear within. + It was their bedroom. The relations between the villagers and their + visitors were more intimate and kind than is usual. They lived more + together, and were more free and easy in company. The men were mostly farm + labourers, and after their day's work they would sit out-of-doors on the + ground to smoke their pipes; and where the narrow crooked little street + was narrowest—at my end of the village—when two men would sit + opposite each other, each at his own door, with legs stretched out before + them, their boots would very nearly touch in the middle of the road. When + walking one had to step over their legs; or, if socially inclined, one + could stand by and join in the conversation. When daylight faded the + village was very dark—no lamp for the visitors—and very + silent, only the low murmur of the sea on the shingle was audible, and the + gurgling sound of a swift streamlet flowing from the hill above and + hurrying through the village to mingle with the Branscombe lower down in + the meadows. Such a profound darkness and quiet one expects in an inland + agricultural village; here, where there were visitors from many distant + towns, it was novel and infinitely refreshing. + </p> + <p> + No sooner was it dark than all were in bed and asleep; not one square path + of yellow light was visible. To enjoy the sensation I went out and sat + down, and listened alone to the liquid rippling, warbling sound of the + swift-flowing streamlet—that sweet low music of running water to + which the reed-warbler had listened thousands of years ago, striving to + imitate it, until his running rippling song was perfect. + </p> + <p> + A fresh surprise and pleasure awaited me when I explored the coast east of + the village; it was bold and precipitous in places, and from the summit of + the cliff a very fine view of the coast-line on either hand could be + obtained. Best of all, the face of the cliff itself was the breeding-place + of some hundreds of herring-gulls. The eggs at the period of my visit were + not yet hatched, but highly incubated, and at that stage both parents are + almost constantly at home, as if in a state of anxious suspense. I had + seen a good many colonies of this gull before at various breeding stations + on the coast—south, west, and east—but never in conditions so + singularly favourable as at this spot. From the vale where the Branscombe + pours its clear waters through rough masses of shingle into the sea the + ground to the east rises steeply to a height of nearly five hundred feet; + the cliff is thus not nearly so high as many another, but it has features + of peculiar interest. Here, in some former time, there has been a + landslip, a large portion of the cliff at its highest part falling below + and forming a sloping mass a chalky soil mingled with huge fragments of + rock, which lies like a buttress against the vertical precipice and seems + to lend it support. The fall must have occurred a very long time back, as + the vegetation that overspreads the rude slope—hawthorn, furze, and + ivy—has an ancient look. Here are huge masses of rock standing + isolated, that resemble in their forms ruined castles, towers, and + churches, some of them completely overgrown with ivy. On this rough slope, + under the shelter of the cliff, with the sea at its feet, the villagers + have formed their cultivated patches. The patches, wildly irregular in + form, some on such steeply sloping ground as to suggest the idea that they + must have been cultivated on all fours, are divided from each other by + ridges and by masses of rock, deep fissures in the earth, strips of + bramble and thorn and furze bushes. Altogether the effect was very + singular the huge rough mass of jumbled rock and soil, the ruin wrought by + Nature in one of her Cromwellian moods, and, scattered irregularly about + its surface, the plots or patches of cultivated smoothness—potato + rows, green parallel lines ruled on a grey ground, and big, blue-green, + equidistant cabbage-globes—each plot with its fringe of spike-like + onion leaves, crinkled parsley, and other garden herbs. Here the villagers + came by a narrow, steep, and difficult path they had made, to dig in their + plots; while, overhead, the gulls, careless of their presence, pass and + repass wholly occupied with their own affairs. + </p> + <p> + I spent hours of rare happiness at this spot in watching the birds. I + could not have seen and heard them to such advantage if their + breeding-place had been shared with other species. Here the herring-gulls + had the rock to themselves, and looked their best in their foam-white and + pearl-grey plumage and yellow legs and beaks. While I watched them they + watched me; not gathered in groups, but singly or in pairs, scattered up + and down all over the face of the precipice above me, perched on ledges + and on jutting pieces of rock. Standing motionless thus, beautiful in form + and colour, they looked like sculptured figures of gulls, set up on the + projections against the rough dark wall of rock, just as sculptured + figures of angels and saintly men and women are placed in niches on a + cathedral front. At first they appeared quite indifferent to my presence, + although in some instances near enough for their yellow irides to be + visible. While unalarmed they were very silent, standing in that clear + sunshine that gave their whiteness something of a crystalline appearance; + or flying to and fro along the face of the cliff, purely for the delight + of bathing in the warm lucent air. Gradually a change came over them. One + by one those that were on the wing dropped on to some projection, until + they had all settled down, and, letting my eyes range up and down over the + huge wall of rock, it was plain to see that all the birds were watching + me. They had made the discovery that I was a stranger. In my rough old + travel-stained clothes and tweed hat I might have passed for a Branscombe + villager, but I did no hoeing and digging in one of the cultivated + patches; and when I deliberately sat down on a rock to watch them, they + noticed it and became suspicious; and as time went on and I still remained + immovable, with my eyes fixed on them, the suspicion and anxiety increased + and turned to fear; and those that were sitting on their nests got up and + came close to the edge of the rock, to gaze with the others and join in + the loud chorus of alarm. It was a wonderful sound. Not like the tempest + of noise that may be heard at the breeding-season at Lundy Island, and at + many other stations where birds of several species mix their various + voices—the yammeris and the yowlis, and skrykking, screeking, + skrymming scowlis, and meickle moyes and shoutes, of old Dunbar's + wonderful onomatopoetic lines. Here there was only one species, with a + clear resonant cry, and as every bird uttered that one cry, and no other, + a totally different effect was produced. The herring-gull and lesser + black-backed gull resemble each other in language as they do in general + appearance; both have very powerful and clear voices unlike the guttural + black-headed and common gull. But the herring-gull has a shriller, more + piercing voice, and resembles the black-backed species just as, in human + voices, a boy's clear treble resembles a baritone. Both birds have a + variety of notes; and both, when the nest is threatened with danger, utter + one powerful importunate cry, which is repeated incessantly until the + danger is over. And as the birds breed in communities, often very + populous, and all clamour together, the effect of so many powerful and + unisonant voices is very grand; but it differs in the two species, owing + to the quality of their voices being different; the storm of sound + produced by the black-backs is deep and solemn, while that of the + herring-gulls has a ringing sharpness almost metallic. + </p> + <p> + It is probable that in the case I am describing the effect of sharpness + and resonance was heightened by the position of the birds, perched + motionless, scattered about on the face of the perpendicular wall of rock, + all with their beaks turned in my direction, raining their cries upon me. + It was not a monotonous storm of cries, but rose and fell; for after two + or three minutes the excitement would abate somewhat and the cries grow + fewer and fewer; then the infection would spread again, bird after bird + joining the outcry; and after a while there would be another lull, and so + on, wave following wave of sound. I could have spent hours, and the hours + would have seemed like minutes, listening to that strange chorus of + ringing chiming cries, so novel was its effect, and unlike that of any + other tempest of sound produced by birds which I had ever heard. When by + way of a parting caress and benediction (given and received) I dipped my + hands in Branscombe's clear streamlet it was with a feeling of tender + regret that was almost a pain. For who does not make a little inward moan, + an Eve's Lamentation, an unworded, "Must I leave thee, Paradise?" on + quitting any such sweet restful spot, however brief his stay in it may + have been? But when I had climbed to the summit of the great down on the + east side of the valley and looked on the wide land and wider sea flashed + with the early sunlight I rejoiced full of glory at my freedom. For + invariably when the peculiar character and charm of a place steals over + and takes possession of me I begin to fear it, knowing from long + experience that it will be a painful wrench to get away and that get away + sooner or later I must. Now I was free once more, a wanderer with no ties, + no business to transact in any town, no worries to make me miserable like + others, nothing to gain and nothing to lose. + </p> + <p> + Pausing on the summit to consider which way I should go, inland, towards + Axminister, or along the coast by Beer, Seton, Axmouth, and so on to Lyme + Regis, I turned to have a last look and say a last good-bye to Branscombe + and could hardly help waving my hand to it. + </p> + <p> + Why, I asked myself, am I not a poet, or verse-maker, so as to say my + farewell in numbers? My answer was, Because I am too much occupied in + seeing. There is no room and time for 'tranquillity,' since I want to go + on to see something else. As Blake has it: "Natural objects always did and + do, weaken, deaden and obliterate imagination in me." + </p> + <p> + We know however that they didn't quite quench it in him. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Nineteen: Abbotsbury + </h2> + <p> + Abbotsbury is an old unspoilt village, not on but near the sea, divided + from it by half a mile of meadowland where all sorts of meadow and water + plants flourish, and where there are extensive reed and osier beds, the + roosting-place in autumn and winter of innumerable starlings. I am always + delighted to come on one of these places where starlings congregate, to + watch them coming in at day's decline and listen to their marvellous + hubbub, and finally to see their aerial evolutions when they rise and + break up in great bodies and play at clouds in the sky. When the people of + the place, the squire and keepers and others who have an interest in the + reeds and osiers, fall to abusing them on account of the damage they do, I + put my fingers in my ears. But at Abbotsbury I did not do so, but listened + with keen pleasure to the curses they vented and the story they told. This + was that when the owner of Abbotsbury came down for the October shooting + and found the starlings more numerous than ever, he put himself into a + fine passion and reproached his keepers and other servants for not having + got rid of the birds as he had desired them to do. Some of them ventured + to say that it was easier said than done, whereupon the great man swore + that he would do it himself without assistance from any one, and getting + out a big duck-gun he proceeded to load it with the smallest shot and went + down to the reed bed and concealed himself among the bushes at a suitable + distance. The birds were pouring in, and when it was growing dark and they + had settled down for the night he fired his big piece into the thick of + the crowd, and by and by when the birds after wheeling about for a minute + or two settled down again in the same place he fired again. Then he went + home, and early next morning men and boys went into the reeds and gathered + a bushel or so of dead starlings. But the birds returned in their + thousands that evening, and his heart being still hot against them he went + out a second time to slaughter them wholesale with his big gun. Then when + he had blazed into the crowd once more, and the dead and wounded fell like + rain into the water below, the revulsion came and he was mad with himself + for having done such a thing, and on his return to the house, or palace, + he angrily told his people to "let the starlings alone" for the future—never + to molest them again! + </p> + <p> + I thought it one of the loveliest stories I had ever heard; there is no + hardness comparable to that of the sportsman, yet here was one, a very + monarch among them, who turned sick at his own barbarity and repented. + </p> + <p> + Beyond the flowery wet meadows, favored by starlings and a breeding-place + of swans, is the famous Chesil Bank, one of the seven wonders of Britain. + And thanks to this great bank, a screen between sea and land extending + about fourteen miles eastward from Portland, this part of the coast must + remain inviolate from the speculative builder of seaside holiday resorts + or towns of lodging-houses. + </p> + <p> + Every one has heard of the Fleet in connection with the famous swannery of + Abbotsbury, the largest in the land. I had heard so much about the + swannery that it had but little interest for me. The only thing about it + which specially attracted my attention was seeing a swan rise up and after + passing over my head as I stood on the bank fly straight out over the sea. + I watched him until he had diminished to a small white spot above the + horizon, and then still flying he faded from sight. Do these swans that + fly away over the sea, and others which appear in small flocks or pairs at + Poole Harbour and at other places on the coast, ever return to the Fleet? + Probably some do, but, I fancy some of these explorers must settle down in + waters far from home, to return no more. + </p> + <p> + The village itself, looked upon from this same elevation, is very + attractive. Life seems quieter, more peaceful there out of sight of the + ocean's turbulence, out of hearing of its "accents disconsolate." The + cottages are seen ranged in a double line along the narrow crooked street, + like a procession of cows with a few laggards scattered behind the main + body. One is impressed by its ancient character. The cottages are old, + stone-built and thatched; older still is the church with its grey square + tower, and all about are scattered the memorials of antiquity—the + chantry on the hill, standing conspicuous alone, apart, above the world; + the vast old abbey barn, and, rough thick stone walls, ivy-draped and + crowned with beautiful valerian, and other fragments that were once parts + of a great religious house. + </p> + <p> + Looking back at the great round hill from the village it is impossible not + to notice the intense red colour of the road that winds over its green + slope. One sometimes sees on a hillside a ploughed field of red earth + which at a distance might easily be taken for a field of blossoming + trifolium. Viewed nearer the crimson of the clover and red of the earth + are very dissimilar; distance appears to intensify the red of the soil and + to soften that of the flower until they are very nearly of the same hue. + The road at Abbotsbury was near and looked to me more intensely red than + any ordinary red earth, and the sight was strangely pleasing. These two + complementary colours, red and green, delight us most when seen thus—a + little red to a good deal of green, and the more luminous the red and + vivid the green the better they please us. We see this in flowers—in + the red geranium, for example—where there is no brown soil below, + but green of turf or herbage. I sometimes think the red campions and + ragged-robins are our most beautiful wild flowers when the sun shines + level on the meadow and they are like crimson flowers among the tall + translucent grasses. I remember the joy it was in boyhood in early spring + when the flowers were beginning to bloom, when in our gallops over the + level grass pampas we came upon a patch of scarlet verbenas. The first + sight of the intense blooms scattered all about the turf would make us + wild with delight, and throwing ourselves from our ponies we would go down + among the flowers to feast on the sight. + </p> + <p> + Green is universal, but the red earth which looks so pleasing amid the + green is distributed very partially, and it may be the redness of the soil + and the cliffs in Devon have given that county a more vivid personality, + so to speak, than most others. Think of Kent with its white cliffs, chalk + downs, and dull-coloured clays in this connection! + </p> + <p> + The humble subterraneous mole proves himself on occasions a good colourist + when he finds a soil of the proper hue to burrow in, and the hillocks he + throws up from numberless irregular splashes of bright red colour on a + green sward. The wild animals that strike us as most beautiful, when seen + against a green background, are those which bear the reddest fur—fox, + squirrel, and red deer. One day, in a meadow a few miles from Abbotsbury, + I came upon a herd of about fifty milch cows scattered over a considerable + space of ground, some lying down, others standing ruminating, and still + others moving about and cropping the long flowery grasses. All were of + that fine rich red colour frequently seen in Dorset and Devon cattle, + which is brighter than the reds of other red animals in this country, wild + and domestic, with the sole exception of a rare variety of the collie dog. + The Irish setter and red chouchou come near it. So beautiful did these red + cows look in the meadow that I stood still for half an hour feasting my + eyes on the sight. + </p> + <p> + No less was the pleasure I experienced when I caught sight of that road + winding over the hill above the village. On going to it I found that it + had looked as red as rust simply because it was rust-earth made rich and + beautiful in colour with iron, its red hue variegated with veins and + streaks of deep purple or violet. I was told that there were hundreds of + acres of this earth all round the place—earth so rich in iron that + many a man's mouth had watered at the sight of it; also that every effort + had been made to induce the owner of Abbotsbury to allow this rich mine to + be worked. But, wonderful to relate, he had not been persuaded. + </p> + <p> + A hard fragment of the red stuff, measuring a couple of inches across and + weighing about three ounces avoirdupois, rust-red in colour with purple + streaks and yellow mottlings, is now lying before me. The mineralogist + would tell me that its commercial value is naught, or something + infinitesimal; which is doubtless true enough, as tens of thousands of + tons of the same material lie close to the surface under the green turf + and golden blossoming furze at the spot where I picked up my specimen. The + lapidary would not look at it; nevertheless, it is the only article of + jewellery I possess, and I value it accordingly. And I intend to keep this + native ruby by me for as long as the lords of Abbotsbury continue in their + present mind. The time may come when I shall be obliged to throw it away. + That any millionaire should hesitate for a moment to blast and blacken any + part of the earth's surface, howsoever green and refreshing to the heart + it may be, when by so doing he might add to his income, seems like a + fable, or a tale of fairyland. It is as if one had accidentally discovered + the existence of a little fantastic realm, a survival from a remote past, + almost at one's doors; a small independent province, untouched by + progress, asking to be conquered and its antediluvian constitution taken + from it. + </p> + <p> + From the summit of that commanding hill, over which the red path winds, a + noble view presents itself of the Chesil Bank, or of about ten miles of + it, running straight as any Roman road, to end beneath the rugged + stupendous cliffs of Portland. The ocean itself, and not conquering Rome, + raised this artificial-looking wall or rampart to stay its own proud + waves. Formed of polished stones and pebbles, about two hundred yards in + width, flat-topped, with steeply sloping sides, at this distance it has + the appearance of a narrow yellow road or causeway between the open sea on + one hand and the waters of the Fleet, a narrow lake ten miles long, on the + other. + </p> + <p> + When the mackerel visit the coast, and come near enough to be taken in a + draw-net, every villager who owns a share (usually a tenth) in a + fishing-boat throws down his spade or whatever implement he happens to + have in his hand at the moment, and hurries away to the beach to take his + share in the fascinating task. At four o'clock one morning a youth, who + had been down to the sea to watch, came running into the village uttering + loud cries which were like excited yells—a sound to rouse the + deepest sleeper. The mackerel had come! For the rest of the day there was + a pretty kind of straggling procession of those who went and came between + the beach and the village—men in blue cotton shirts, blue jerseys, + blue jackets, and women in grey gowns and big white sun-bonnets. During + the latter part of the day the proceedings were peculiarly interesting to + me, a looker-on with no share in any one of the boats, owing to the + catches being composed chiefly of jelly-fish. Some sympathy was felt for + the toilers who strained their muscles again and again only to be mocked + in the end; still, a draught of jelly-fish was more to my taste than one + of mackerel. The great weight of a catch of this kind when the net was + full was almost too much for the ten or twelve men engaged in drawing it + up; then (to the sound of deep curses from those of the men who were not + religious) the net would be opened and the great crystalline hemispheres, + hyaline blue and delicate salmon-pink in colour, would slide back into the + water. Such rare and exquisite colours have these great glassy flowers of + ocean that to see them was a feast; and every time a net was hauled up my + prayer—which I was careful not to repeat aloud—was, Heaven + send another big draught of jelly-fish! + </p> + <p> + The sun, sinking over the hills towards Swyre and Bridport, turned crimson + before it touched the horizon. The sky became luminous; the yellow Chesil + Bank, stretching long leagues away, and the hills behind it, changed their + colours to violet. The rough sea near the beach glittered like gold; the + deep green water, flecked with foam, was mingled with fire; the one boat + that remained on it, tossing up and down near the beach, was like a boat + of ebony in a glittering fiery sea. A dozen men were drawing up the last + net; but when they gathered round to see what they had taken—mackerel + or jelly-fish—I cared no longer to look with them. That sudden, + wonderful glory which had fallen on the earth and sea had smitten me as + well and changed me; and I was like some needy homeless tramp who has + found a shilling piece, and, even while he is gloating over it, all at + once sees a great treasure before him—glittering gold in heaps, and + all rarest sparkling gems, more than he can gather up. + </p> + <p> + But it is a poor simile. No treasures in gold and gems, though heaped + waist-high all about, could produce in the greediest man, hungry for + earthly pleasures, a delight, a rapture, equal to mine. For this joy was + of another and higher order and very rare, and was a sense of lightness + and freedom from all trammels as if the body had become air, essence, + energy, or soul, and of union with all visible nature, one with sea and + land and the entire vast overarching sky. + </p> + <p> + We read of certain saints who were subject to experiences of this kind + that they were "snatched up" into some supramundane region, and that they + stated on their return to earth that it was not lawful for them to speak + of the things they had witnessed. The humble naturalist and + nature-worshipper can only witness the world glorified—transfigured; + what he finds is the important thing. I fancy the mystics would have been + nearer the mark if they had said that their experiences during their + period of exaltation could not be reported, or that it would be idle to + report them, since their questioners lived on the ground and would be + quite incapable on account of the mind's limitations of conceiving a state + above it and outside of its own experience. + </p> + <p> + The glory passed and with it the exaltation: the earth and sea turned + grey; the last boat was drawn up on the slope and the men departed slowly: + only one remained, a rough-looking youth, about fifteen years old. Some + important matter which he was revolving in his mind had detained him alone + on the darkening beach. He sat down, then stood up and gazed at the + rolling wave after wave to roar and hiss on the shingle at his feet; then + he moved restlessly about, crunching pebbles beneath his thick boots; + finally, making up his mind, he took off his coat, threw it down, and + rolled up his shirt-sleeves, with the resolute air of a man about to + engage in a fight with an adversary nearly as big as himself. Stepping + back a little space, he made a rush at the sea, not to cast himself in it, + but only, as it turned out, with the object of catching some water in the + hollow of his hands from the top of an incoming wave. He only succeeded in + getting his legs wet, and in hastily retreating he fell on his back. + Nothing daunted, he got up and renewed the assault, and when he succeeded + in catching water in his hands he dashed it on and vigorously rubbed it + over his dirty face. After repeating the operation about a dozen times, + receiving meanwhile several falls and wettings, he appeared satisfied, put + on his coat and marched away homewards with a composed air. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Twenty: Salisbury Revisited + </h2> + <p> + Since that visit to Salisbury, described in a former chapter, when I + watched and listened to the doves in those cold days in early spring, I + have been there a good many times, but never at the time when the bird + colony is most interesting to observe, just before and during the early + part of the breeding-season. At length, in the early days of June, 1908, + the wished opportunity was mine—wished yet feared, seeing that it + was possible some disaster had fallen upon that unique colony of + stock-doves. It is true they appeared to be long established and well able + to maintain their foothold on the building in spite of malicious + persecuting daws, but there was nothing to show that they had been long + there, seeing that it had been observed by no person but myself that the + cathedral doves were stock-doves and not the domestic pigeon found on + other large buildings. Great was my happiness to find them still there, as + well as the daws and all the other feathered people who make this great + building their home; even the kestrels were not wanting. There were three + there one morning, quarrelling with the daws in the old way in the old + place, halfway up the soaring spire. The doves were somewhat diminished in + number, but there were a good many pairs still, and I found no dead young + ones lying about, as they were now probably grown too large to be ejected, + but several young daws, about a dozen I think, fell to the ground during + my stay. Undoubtedly they were dragged out of their nests and thrown down, + perhaps by daws at enmity with their parents, or it may be by the doves, + who are not meek-spirited, as we have seen, or they would not be where + they are, and may on occasion retaliate by invading their black enemies' + nesting-holes. + </p> + <p> + Swallows, martins, and swifts were numerous, the martins especially, and + it was beautiful to see them for ever wheeling about in a loose swarm + about the building. They reminded me of bees and flies, and sometimes with + a strong light on them they were like those small polished black and + silvery-white beetles (Gyrinus) which we see in companies on the surface + of pools and streams, perpetually gliding and whirling about in a sort of + complicated dance. They looked very small at a height of a couple of + hundred feet from the ground, and their smallness and numbers and lively + and eccentric motions made them very insect-like. + </p> + <p> + The starlings and sparrows were in a small minority among the breeders, + but including these there were seven species in all, and as far as I could + make out numbered about three hundred and fifty birds—probably the + largest wild bird colony on any building in England. + </p> + <p> + Nor could birds in all this land find a more beautiful building to nest + on, unless I except Wells Cathedral solely on account of its west front, + beloved of daws, and where their numerous black company have so fine an + appearance. Wells has its west front; Salisbury, so vast in size, is yet a + marvel of beauty in its entirety; and seeing it as I now did every day and + wanting nothing better, I wondered at my want of enthusiasm on a previous + visit. Still, to me, the bird company, the sight of their airy gambols and + their various voices, from the deep human-like dove tone to the perpetual + subdued rippling, running-water sound of the aerial martins, must always + be a principal element in the beautiful effect. Nor do I know a building + where Nature has done more in enhancing the loveliness of man's work with + her added colouring. The way too in which the colours are distributed is + an example of Nature's most perfect artistry; on the lower, heavier + buttressed parts, where the darkest hues should be, we find the browns and + rust-reds of the minute aerial alga, mixed with the greys of lichen, these + darker stainings extending upwards to a height of fifty or sixty feet, in + places higher, then giving place to more delicate hues, the pale tender + greens and greenish greys, in places tinged with yellow, the colours + always appearing brightest on the smooth surface between the windows and + sculptured parts. The effect depends a good deal on atmosphere and + weather: on a day of flying clouds and a blue sky, with a brilliant + sunshine on the vast building after a shower, the colouring is most + beautiful. It varies more than in the case of colour in the material + itself or of pigments, because it is a "living" colour, as Crabbe rightly + says in his lumbering verse: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The living stains, which Nature's hand alone, + Profuse of life, pours out upon the stone. +</pre> + <p> + Greys, greens, yellows, and browns and rust-reds are but the colours of a + variety of lowly vegetable forms, mostly lichens and the aerial alga + called iolithus. + </p> + <p> + Without this colouring, its "living stains," Salisbury would not have + fascinated me as it did during this last visit. It would have left me cold + though all the architects and artists had assured me that it was the most + perfectly beautiful building on earth. + </p> + <p> + I also found an increasing charm in the interior, and made the discovery + that I could go oftener and spend more hours in this cathedral without a + sense of fatigue or depression than in any other one known to me, because + it has less of that peculiar character which we look for and almost + invariably find in our cathedrals. It has not the rich sombre majesty, the + dim religious light and heavy vault-like atmosphere of the other great + fanes. So airy and light is it that it is almost like being out of doors. + You do not experience that instantaneous change, as of a curtain being + drawn excluding the light and air of day and of being shut in, which you + have on entering other religious houses. This is due, first, to the vast + size of the interior, the immense length of the nave, and the unobstructed + view one has inside owing to the removal by the "vandal" Wyatt of the old + ponderous stone screen—an act for which I bless while all others + curse his memory; secondly, to the comparatively small amount of stained + glass there is to intercept the light. So graceful and beautiful is the + interior that it can bear the light, and light suits it best, just as a + twilight best suits Exeter and Winchester and other cathedrals with heavy + sculptured roofs. One marvels at a building so vast in size which yet + produces the effect of a palace in fairyland, or of a cathedral not built + with hands but brought into existence by a miracle. + </p> + <p> + I began to think it not safe to stay in that place too long lest it should + compel me to stay there always or cause me to feel dissatisfied and + homesick when away. + </p> + <p> + But the interior of itself would never have won me, as I had not expected + to be won by any building made by man; and from the inside I would pass + out only to find a fresh charm in that part where Nature had come more to + man's aid. + </p> + <p> + Walking on the cathedral green one morning, glancing from time to time at + the vast building and its various delicate shades of colour, I asked + myself why I kept my eyes as if on purpose away from it most of the time, + now on the trees, then on the turf, and again on some one walking there—why, + in fact, I allowed myself only an occasional glance at the object I was + there solely to look at. I knew well enough, but had never put it into + plain words for my own satisfaction. + </p> + <p> + We are all pretty familiar from experience with the limitations of the + sense of smell and the fact that agreeable odours please us only fitfully; + the sensation comes as a pleasing shock, a surprise, and is quickly gone. + If we attempt to keep it for some time by deliberately smelling a fragrant + flower or any perfume, we begin to have a sense of failure as if we had + exhausted the sense, keen as it was a moment ago. + </p> + <p> + There must be an interval of rest for the nerve before the sensation can + be renewed in its first freshness. Now it is the same, though in a less + degree, with the more important sense of sight. We look long and steadily + at a thing to know it, and the longer and more fixedly we look the better, + if it engages the reasoning faculties; but an aesthetic pleasure cannot be + increased or retained in that way. We must look, merely glancing as it + were, and look again, and then again, with intervals, receiving the image + in the brain even as we receive the "nimble emanation" of a flower, and + the image is all the brighter for coming intermittently. In a large + prospect we are not conscious of this limitation because of the wideness + of the field and the number and variety of objects or points of interest + in it; the vision roams hither and thither over it and receives a + continuous stream or series of pleasing impressions; but to gaze fixedly + at the most beautiful object in nature or art does but diminish the + pleasure. Practically it ceases to be beautiful and only recovers the + first effect after we have given the mind an interval of rest. + </p> + <p> + Strolling about the green with this thought in my mind, I began to pay + attention to the movements of a man who was manifestly there with the same + object as myself—to look at the cathedral. I had seen him there for + quite half an hour, and now began to be amused at the emphatic manner in + which he displayed his interest in the building. He walked up and down the + entire length and would then back away a distance of a hundred yards from + the walls and stare up at the spire, then slowly approach, still gazing + up, until coming to a stop when quite near the wall he would remain with + his eyes still fixed aloft, the back of his head almost resting on his + back between his shoulders. His hat somehow kept on his head, but his + attitude reminded me of a saying of the Arabs who, to give an idea of the + height of a great rock or other tall object, say that to look up at it + causes your turban to fall off. The Americans, when they were chewers of + tobacco, had a different expression; they said that to look up at so tall + a thing caused the tobacco juice to run down your throat. + </p> + <p> + His appearance when I approached him interested me too. His skin was the + color of old brown leather and he had a big arched nose, clear light blue + very shrewd eyes, and a big fringe or hedge of ragged white beard under + his chin; and he was dressed in a new suit of rough dark brown tweeds, + evidently home-made. When I spoke to him, saying something about the + cathedral, he joyfully responded in broadest Scotch. It was, he said, the + first English cathedral he had ever seen and he had never seen anything + made by man to equal it in beauty. He had come, he told me, straight from + his home and birthplace, a small village in the north of Scotland, shut + out from the world by great hills where the heather grew knee-deep. He had + never been in England before, and had come directly to Salisbury on a + visit to a relation. + </p> + <p> + "Well," I said, "now you have looked at it outside come in with me and see + the interior." + </p> + <p> + But he refused: it was enough for one day to see the outside of such a + building: he wanted no more just then. To-morrow would be soon enough to + see it inside; it would be the Sabbath and he would go and worship there. + </p> + <p> + "Are you an Anglican?" I asked. + </p> + <p> + He replied that there were no Anglicans in his village. They had two + Churches—the Church of Scotland and the Free Church. + </p> + <p> + "And what," said I, "will your minister say to your going to worship in a + cathedral? We have all denominations here in Salisbury, and you will + perhaps find a Presbyterian place to worship in." + </p> + <p> + "Now it's strange your saying that!" he returned, with a dry little laugh. + "I've just had a letter from him the morning and he writes on this varra + subject. 'Let me advise you,' he tells me in the letter, 'to attend the + service in Salisbury Cathedral. Nae doot,' he says, 'there are many things + in it you'll disapprove of, but not everything perhaps, and I'd like ye to + go.'" + </p> + <p> + I was a little sorry for him next day when we had an ordination service, + very long, complicated, and, I should imagine, exceedingly difficult to + follow by a wild Presbyterian from the hills. He probably disapproved of + most of it, but I greatly admired him for refusing to see anything more of + the cathedral than the outside on the first day. His method was better + than that of an American (from Indiana, he told me) I met the following + day at the hotel. He gave two hours and a half, including attendance at + the morning service, to the cathedral, inside and out, then rushed off for + an hour at Stonehenge, fourteen miles away, on a hired bicycle. I advised + him to take another day—I did not want to frighten him by saying a + week—and he replied that that would make him miss Winchester. After + cycling back from Stonehenge he would catch a train to Winchester and get + there in time to have some minutes in the cathedral before the doors + closed. He was due in London next morning. He had already missed Durham + Cathedral in the north through getting interested in and wasting too much + time over some place when he was going there. Again, he had missed Exeter + Cathedral in the south, and it would be a little too bad to miss + Winchester too! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Twenty-One: Stonehenge + </h2> + <p> + That American from Indiana! As it was market day at Salisbury I asked him + before we parted if he had seen the market, also if they had market days + in the country towns in his State? He said he had looked in at the market + on his way back from the cathedral. No, they had nothing of the kind in + his State. Indiana was covered with a network of railroads and electric + tram lines, and all country produce, down to the last new-laid egg, was + collected and sent off and conveyed each morning to the towns, where it + was always market day. + </p> + <p> + How sad! thought I. Poor Indiana, that once had wildness and romance and + memories of a vanished race, and has now only its pretty meaningless name! + </p> + <p> + "I suppose," he said, before getting on his bicycle, "there's nothing + beside the cathedral and Stonehenge to see in Wiltshire?" + </p> + <p> + "No, nothing," I returned, "and you'll think the time wasted in seeing + Stonehenge." + </p> + <p> + "Why?" + </p> + <p> + "Only a few old stones to see." + </p> + <p> + But he went, and I have no doubt did think the time wasted, but it would + be some consolation to him, on the other side, to be able to say that he + had seen it with his own eyes. + </p> + <p> + How did these same "few old stones" strike me on a first visit? It was one + of the greatest disillusionments I ever experienced. Stonehenge looked + small—pitiably small! For it is a fact that mere size is very much + to us, in spite of all the teachings of science. We have heard of + Stonehenge in our childhood or boyhood—that great building of + unknown origin and antiquity, its circles of stones, some still standing, + others lying prostrate, like the stupendous half-shattered skeleton of a + giant or monster whose stature reached to the clouds. It stands, we read + or were told, on Salisbury Plain. To my uninformed, childish mind a plain + anywhere was like the plain on which I was born—an absolutely level + area stretching away on all sides into infinitude; and although the effect + is of a great extent of earth, we know that we actually see very little of + it, that standing on a level plain we have a very near horizon. On this + account any large object appearing on it, such as a horse or tree or a big + animal, looks very much bigger than it would on land with a broken + surface. + </p> + <p> + Oddly enough, my impossible Stonehenge was derived from a sober + description and an accompanying plate in a sober work—a gigantic + folio in two volumes entitled "A New System of Geography", dated some time + in the eighteenth century. How this ponderous work ever came to be out on + the pampas, over six thousand miles from the land of its origin, is a + thing to wonder at. I remember that the Stonehenge plate greatly impressed + me and that I sacrilegiously cut it out of the book so as to have it! + </p> + <p> + Now we know, our reason tells us continually, that the mental pictures + formed in childhood are false because the child and man have different + standards, and furthermore the child mind exaggerates everything; + nevertheless, such pictures persist until the scene or object so + visualized is actually looked upon and the old image shattered. This + refers to scenes visualized with the inner eye, but the disillusion is + almost as great when we return to a home left in childhood or boyhood and + look on it once more with the man's eyes. How small it is! How diminished + the hills, and the trees that grew to such a vast height, whose tops once + seemed "so close against the sky"—what poor little trees they now + are! And the house itself, how low it is; and the rooms that seemed so + wide and lofty, where our footfalls and childish voices sounded as in some + vast hall, how little and how mean they look! + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Children, they are very little, +</pre> + <p> + the poet says, and they measure things by their size; but it seems odd + that unless we grow up amid the scenes where our first impressions were + received they should remain unaltered in the adult mind. The most amusing + instance of a false picture of something seen in childhood and continuing + through life I have met was that of an Italian peasant I knew in South + America. He liked to talk to me about the cranes, those great and + wonderful birds he had become acquainted with in childhood in his home on + the plains of Lombardy. The birds, of course, only appeared in autumn and + spring when migrating, and passed over at a vast height above the earth. + These birds, he said, were so big and had such great wings that if they + came down on the flat earth they would be incapable of rising, hence they + only alighted on the tops of high mountains, and as there was nothing for + them to eat in such places, it being naked rock and ice, they were + compelled to subsist on each other's droppings. Now it came to pass that + one year during his childhood a crane, owing to some accident, came down + to the ground near his home. The whole population of the village turned + out to see so wonderful a bird, and were amazed at its size; it was, he + said, the strangest sight he had ever looked on. How big was it? I asked + him; was it as big as an ostrich? An ostrich, he said, was nothing to it; + I might as well ask him how it compared with a lapwing. He could give me + no measurements: it happened when he was a child; he had forgotten the + exact size, but he had seen it with his own eyes and he could see it now + in his mind—the biggest bird in the world. Very well, I said, if he + could see it plainly in his mind he could give some rough idea of the + wing-spread—how much would it measure from tip to tip? He said it + was perhaps fifty yards—perhaps a good deal more! + </p> + <p> + A similar trick was played by my mind about Stonehenge. As a child I had + stood in imagination before it, gazing up awestruck on those stupendous + stones or climbing and crawling like a small beetle on them. And what at + last did I see with my physical eyes? Walking over the downs, miscalled a + plain, anticipating something tremendous, I finally got away from the + woods at Amesbury and spied the thing I sought before me far away on the + slope of a green down, and stood still and then sat down in pure + astonishment. Was this Stonehenge—this cluster of poor little grey + stones, looking in the distance like a small flock of sheep or goats + grazing on that immense down! How incredibly insignificant it appeared to + me, dwarfed by its surroundings—woods and groves and farmhouses, and + by the vast extent of rolling down country visible at that point. It was + only when I had recovered from the first shock, when I had got to the very + place and stood among the stones, that I began to experience something of + the feeling appropriate to the occasion. + </p> + <p> + The feeling, however, must have been very slight, since it permitted me to + become interested in the appearance and actions of a few sparrows + inhabiting the temple. The common sparrow is parasitical on man, + consequently but rarely found at any distance from human habitations, and + it seemed a little strange to find them at home at Stonehenge on the open + plain. They were very active carrying up straws and feathers to the + crevices on the trioliths where the massive imposts rest on the upright + stones. I noticed the birds because of their bright appearance: they were + lighter coloured than any sparrows I have ever seen, and one cock bird + when flying to and fro in the sunlight looked almost white. I formed the + idea that this small colony of about a dozen birds had been long + established at that place, and that the change in their colouring was a + direct result of the unusual conditions in which they existed, where there + was no shade and shelter of trees and bushes, and they were perpetually + exposed for generations to the full light of the wide open sky. + </p> + <p> + On revisiting Stonehenge after an interval of some years I looked for my + sparrows and failed to find them. It was at the breeding-season, when they + would have been there had they still existed. No doubt the little colony + had been extirpated by a sparrow-hawk or by the human guardians of "The + Stones," as the temple is called by the natives. + </p> + <p> + It remains to tell of my latest visit to "The Stones." I had resolved to + go once in my life with the current or crowd to see the sun rise on the + morning of the longest day at that place. This custom or fashion is a + declining one: ten or twelve years ago, as many as one or two thousand + persons would assemble during the night to wait the great event, but the + watchers have now diminished to a few hundreds, and on some years to a few + scores. The fashion, no doubt, had its origin when Sir Norman Lockyer's + theories, about Stonehenge as a Sun Temple placed so that the first rays + of sun on the longest day of the year should fall on the centre of the + so-called altar or sacrificial stone placed in the middle of the circle, + began to be noised about the country, and accepted by every one as the + true reading of an ancient riddle. But I gather from natives in the + district that it is an old custom for people to go and watch for sunrise + on the morning of June 21. A dozen or a score of natives, mostly old + shepherds and labourers who lived near, would go and sit there for a few + hours and after sunrise would trudge home, but whether or not there is any + tradition or belief associated with the custom I have not ascertained. + "How long has the custom existed?" I asked a field labourer. "From the + time of the old people—the Druids," he answered, and I gave it up. + </p> + <p> + To be near the spot I went to stay at Shrewton, a downland village four + miles from "The Stones"; or rather a group of five pretty little villages, + almost touching but distinct, like five flowers or five berries on a + single stem, each with its own old church and individual or parish life. + It is a pretty tree-shaded place, full of the crooning sound of + turtle-doves, hidden among the wide silent open downs and watered by a + clear swift stream, or winter bourne, which dries up during the heats of + late summer, and flows again after the autumn rains, "when the springs + rise" in the chalk hills. While here, I rambled on the downs and haunted + "The Stones." The road from Shrewton to Amesbury, a straight white band + lying across a green country, passes within a few yards of Stonehenge: on + the right side of this narrow line the land is all private property, but + on the left side and as far as one can see it mostly belongs to the War + Office and is dotted over with camps. I roamed about freely enough on both + sides, sometimes spending hours at a stretch, not only on Government land + but "within bounds," for the pleasure of spying on the military from a + hiding-place in some pine grove or furze patch. I was seldom challenged, + and the sentinels I came across were very mild-mannered men; they never + ordered me away; they only said, or hinted, that the place I was in was + not supposed to be free to the public. + </p> + <p> + I come across many persons who lament the recent great change on Salisbury + Plain. It is hateful to them; the sight of the camp and troops marching + and drilling, of men in khaki scattered about everywhere over a hundred + square leagues of plain; the smoke of firing and everlasting booming of + guns. It is a desecration; the wild ancient charm of the land has been + destroyed in their case, and it saddens and angers them. I was pretty free + from these uncomfortable feelings. + </p> + <p> + It is said that one of the notions the Japanese have about the fox—a + semi-sacred animal with them—is that, if you chance to see one + crossing your path in the morning, all that comes before your vision on + that day will be illusion. As an illustration of this belief it is related + that a Japanese who witnessed the eruption of Krakatoa, when the heavens + were covered with blackness and kindled with intermitting flashes and the + earth shaken by the detonations, and when all others, thinking the end of + the world had come, were swooning with extreme fear, viewed it without a + tremor as a very sublime but illusory spectacle. For on that very morning + he had seen a fox cross his path. + </p> + <p> + A somewhat similar effect is produced on our minds if we have what may be + called a sense of historical time—a consciousness of the + transitoriness of most things human—if we see institutions and works + as the branches on a pine or larch, which fail and die and fall away + successively while the tree itself lives for ever, and if we measure their + duration not by our own few swift years, but by the life of nations and + races of men. It is, I imagine, a sense capable of cultivation, and + enables us to look upon many of man's doings that would otherwise vex and + pain us, and, as some say, destroy all the pleasure of our lives, not + exactly as an illusion, as if we were Japanese and had seen a fox in the + morning, but at all events in what we call a philosophic spirit. + </p> + <p> + What troubled me most was the consideration of the effect of the new + conditions on the wild life of the plain—or of a very large portion + of it. I knew of this before, but it was nevertheless exceedingly + unpleasant when I came to witness it myself when I took to spying on the + military as an amusement during my idle time. Here we have tens of + thousands of very young men, boys in mind, the best fed, healthiest, + happiest crowd of boys in all the land, living in a pure bracing + atmosphere, far removed from towns, and their amusements and temptations, + all mad for pleasure and excitement of some kind to fill their vacant + hours each day and their holidays. Naturally they take to birds'-nesting + and to hunting every living thing they encounter during their walks on the + downs. Every wild thing runs and flies from them, and is chased or stoned, + the weak-winged young are captured, and the nests picked or kicked up out + of the turf. In this way the creatures are being extirpated, and one can + foresee that when hares and rabbits are no more, and even the small birds + of the plain, larks, pipits, wheatears, stonechats, and whincats, have + vanished, the hunters in khaki will take to the chase of yet smaller + creatures—crane-flies and butterflies and dragon-flies, and even the + fantastic, elusive hover-flies which the hunters of little game will + perhaps think the most entertaining fly of all. + </p> + <p> + But it would be idle to grieve much at this small incidental and + inevitable result of making use of the plain as a military camp and + training-ground. The old god of war is not yet dead and rotting on his + iron hills; he is on the chalk hills with us just now, walking on the + elastic turf, and one is glad to mark in his brown skin and sparkling eyes + how thoroughly alive he is. + </p> + <p> + A little after midnight on the morning of June 21, 1908, a Shrewton cock + began to crow, and that trumpet sound, which I never hear without a + stirring of the blood, on account of old associations, informed me that + the late moon had risen or was about to rise, linking the midsummer + evening and morning twilights, and I set off to Stonehenge. It was a fine + still night, without a cloud in the pale, dusky blue sky, thinly sprinkled + with stars, and the crescent moon coming up above the horizon. After the + cock ceased crowing a tawny owl began to hoot, and the long tremulous + mellow sound followed me for some distance from the village, and then + there was perfect silence, broken occasionally by the tinkling bells of a + little company of cyclists speeding past towards "The Stones." I was in no + hurry: I only wished I had started sooner to enjoy Salisbury Plain at its + best time, when all the things which offend the lover of nature are + invisible and nonexistent. Later, when the first light began to appear in + the east before two o'clock, it was no false dawn, but insensibly grew + brighter and spread further, until touches of colour, very delicate, + palest amber, then tender yellow and rose and purple, began to show. I + felt then as we invariably feel on such occasions, when some special + motive has called us forth in time to witness this heavenly change, as of + a new creation— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The miracle of diuturnity + Whose instancy unbeds the lark, +</pre> + <p> + that all the days of my life on which I had not witnessed it were wasted + days! + </p> + <p> + O that unbedding of the lark! The world that was so still before now all + at once had a sound; not a single song and not in one place, but a sound + composed of a thousand individual sounds, rising out of the dark earth at + a distance on my right hand and up into the dusky sky, spreading far and + wide even as the light was spreading on the opposite side of the heavens—a + sound as of multitudinous twanging, girding, and clashing instruments, + mingled with shrill piercing voices that were not like the voices of + earthly beings. They were not human nor angelic, but passionless, and it + was as if the whole visible world, the dim grassy plain and the vast pale + sky sprinkled with paling stars, moonlit and dawnlit, had found a voice to + express the mystery and glory of the morning. + </p> + <p> + It was but eight minutes past two o'clock when this "unbedding of the + lark" began, and the heavenly music lasted about fourteen minutes, then + died down to silence, to recommence about half an hour later. At first I + wondered why the sound was at a distance from the road on my right hand + and not on my left hand as well. Then I remembered what I had seen on that + side, how the "boys" at play on Sundays and in fact every day hunt the + birds and pull their nests out, and I could only conclude that the lark + has been pretty well wiped out from all that part of the plain over which + the soldiers range. + </p> + <p> + At Stonehenge I found a good number of watchers, about a couple of + hundred, already assembled, but more were coming in continually, and a + mile or so of the road to Amesbury visible from "The Stones" had at times + the appearance of a ribbon of fire from the lamps of this continuous + stream of coming cyclists. Altogether about five to six hundred persons + gathered at "The Stones," mostly young men on bicycles who came from all + the Wiltshire towns within easy distance, from Salisbury to Bath. I had a + few good minutes at the ancient temple when the sight of the rude upright + stones looking black against the moonlit and star-sprinkled sky produced + an unexpected feeling in me: but the mood could not last; the crowd was + too big and noisy, and the noises they made too suggestive of a Bank + Holiday crowd at the Crystal Palace. + </p> + <p> + At three o'clock a ribbon of slate-grey cloud appeared above the eastern + horizon, and broadened by degrees, and pretty soon made it evident that + the sun would be hidden at its rising at a quarter to four. The crowd, + however, was not down-hearted; it sang and shouted; and by and by, just + outside the barbed-wire enclosure a rabbit was unearthed, and about three + hundred young men with shrieks of excitement set about its capture. It was + a lively scene, a general scrimmage, in which everyone was trying to + capture an elusive football with ears and legs to it, which went darting + and spinning about hither and thither among the multitudinous legs, until + earth compassionately opened and swallowed poor distracted bunny up. It + was but little better inside the enclosure, where the big fallen stones + behind the altar-stone, in the middle, on which the first rays of sun + would fall, were taken possession of by a crowd of young men who sat and + stood packed together like guillemots on a rock. These too, cheated by + that rising cloud of the spectacle they had come so far to see, wanted to + have a little fun, and began to be very obstreperous. By and by they found + out an amusement very much to their taste. + </p> + <p> + Motor-cars were now arriving every minute, bringing important-looking + persons who had timed their journeys so as to come upon the scene a little + before 3:45, when the sun would show on the horizon; and whenever one of + these big gentlemen appeared within the circle of stones, especially if he + was big physically and grotesque-looking in his motorist get-up, he was + greeted with a tremendous shout. In most cases he would start back and + stand still, astonished at such an outburst, and then, concluding that the + only way to save his dignity was to face the music, he would step + hurriedly across the green space to hide himself behind the crowd. + </p> + <p> + The most amusing case was that of a very tall person adorned with an + exceedingly long, bright red beard, who had on a Glengarry cap and a great + shawl over his overcoat. The instant this unfortunate person stepped into + the arena a general wild cry of "Scotland for ever!" was raised, followed + by such cheers and yells that the poor man actually staggered back as if + he had received a blow, then seeing there was no other way out of it, he + too rushed across the open space to lose himself among the others. + </p> + <p> + All this proved very entertaining, and I was glad to laugh with the crowd, + thinking that after all we were taking a very mild revenge on our hated + enemies, the tyrants of the roads. + </p> + <p> + The fun over, I went soberly back to my village, and finding it impossible + to get to sleep I went to Sunday-morning service at Shrewton Church. It + was strangely restful there after that noisy morning crowd at Stonehenge. + The church is white stone with Norman pillars and old oak beams laid over + the roof painted or distempered blue—a quiet, peaceful blue. There + was also a good deal of pleasing blue colour in the glass of the east + window. The service was, as I almost invariably find it in a village + church, beautiful and impressive. Listening to the music of prayer and + praise, with some natural outdoor sound to fill up the pauses—the + distant crow of a cock or the song of some bird close by—a + corn-bunting or wren or hedge-sparrow—and the bright sunlight + filling the interior, I felt as much refreshed as if kind nature's sweet + restorer, balmy sleep, had visited me that morning. The sermon was nothing + to me; I scarcely heard it, but understood that it was about the + Incarnation and the perfection of the plan of salvation and the + unreasonableness of the Higher Criticism and of all who doubt because they + do not understand. I remembered vaguely that on three successive Sundays + in three village churches in the wilds of Wiltshire I had heard sermons + preached on and against the Higher Criticism. I thought it would have been + better in this case if the priest had chosen to preach on Stonehenge and + had said that he devoutly wished we were sun-worshippers, like the + Persians, as well as Christians; also that we were Buddhists, and + worshippers of our dead ancestors like the Chinese, and that we were + pagans and idolaters who bow down to sticks and stones, if all these added + cults would serve to make us more reverent. And I wish he could have said + that it was as irreligious to go to Stonehenge, that ancient temple which + man raised to the unknown god thousands of years ago, to indulge in noise + and horseplay at the hour of sunrise, as it would be to go to Salisbury + Cathedral for such a purpose. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Twenty-Two: The Village and "The Stones" + </h2> + <p> + My experiences at "The Stones" had left me with the idea that but for the + distracting company the hours I spent there would have been very sweet and + precious in spite of the cloud in the east. Why then, I asked, not go back + on another morning, when I would have the whole place to myself? If a + cloud did not matter much it would matter still less that it was not the + day of the year when the red disc flames on the watcher's sight directly + over that outstanding stone and casts first a shadow then a ray of light + on the altar. In the end I did not say good-bye to the village on that + day, but settled down to listen to the tales of my landlady, or rather to + another instalment of her life-story and to further chapters in the + domestic history of those five small villages in one. I had already been + listening to her every evening, and at odd times during the day, for over + a week, at first with interest, then a little impatiently. I was impatient + at being kept in, so to speak. Out-of-doors the world was full of light + and heat, full of sounds of wild birds and fragrance of flowers and + new-mown hay; there were also delightful children and some that were + anything but delightful—dirty, ragged little urchins of the slums. + For even these small rustic villages have their slums; and it was now the + time when the young birds were fluttering out of their nests—their + hunger cries could be heard everywhere; and the ragged little barbarians + were wild with excitement, chasing and stoning the flutterers to slay + them; or when they succeeded in capturing one without first having broken + its wings or legs it was to put it in a dirty cage in a squalid cottage to + see it perish miserably in a day or two. Perhaps I succeeded in saving two + or three threatened lives in the lanes and secret green places by the + stream; perhaps I didn't; but in any case it was some satisfaction to have + made the attempt. + </p> + <p> + Now all this made me a somewhat impatient listener to the village tales—the + old unhappy things, for they were mostly old and always unhappy; yet in + the end I had to listen. It was her eyes that did it. At times they had an + intensity in their gaze which made them almost uncanny, something like the + luminous eyes of an animal hungrily fixed on its prey. They held me, + though not because they glittered: I could have gone away if I had thought + proper, and remained to listen only because the meaning of that singular + look in her grey-green eyes, which came into them whenever I grew restive, + had dawned on my careless mind. + </p> + <p> + She was an old woman with snow-white hair, which contrasted rather + strangely with her hard red colour; but her skin was smooth, her face well + shaped, with fine acquiline features. No doubt it had been a very handsome + face though never beautiful, I imagine; it was too strong and firm and + resolute; too like the face of some man we see, which, though we have but + a momentary sight of it in a passing crowd, affects us like a sudden puff + of icy-cold air—the revelation of a singular and powerful + personality. Yet she was only a poor old broken-down woman in a Wiltshire + village, held fast in her chair by a hopeless infirmity. With her legs + paralysed she was like that prince in the Eastern tale on whom an evil + spell had been cast, turning the lower half of his body into marble. But + she did not, like the prince, shed incessant tears and lament her + miserable destiny with a loud voice. She was patient and cheerful always, + resigned to the will of Heaven, and—a strange thing this to record + of an old woman in a village!—she would never speak of her ailments. + But though powerless in body her mind was vigorous and active teeming with + memories of all the vicissitudes of her exceedingly eventful, busy life, + from the time when she left her village as a young girl to fight her way + in the great world to her return to end her life in it, old and broken, + her fight over, her children and grandchildren dead or grown up and + scattered about the earth. + </p> + <p> + Chance having now put me in her way, she concluded after a few preliminary + or tentative talks that she had got hold of an ideal listener; but she + feared to lose me—she wanted me to go on listening for ever. That + was the reason of that painfully intense hungry look in her eyes; it was + because she discovered certain signs of lassitude or impatience in me, a + desire to get up and go away and refresh myself in the sun and wind. Poor + old woman, she could not spring upon and hold me fast when I attempted to + move off, or pluck me back with her claws; she could only gaze with + fiercely pleading eyes and say nothing; and so, without being fascinated, + I very often sat on listening still when I would gladly have been + out-of-doors. + </p> + <p> + She was a good fluent talker; moreover, she studied her listener, and + finding that my interest in her own interminable story was becoming + exhausted she sought for other subjects, chiefly the strange events in the + lives of men and women who had lived in the village and who had long been + turned to dust. They were all more or less tragical in character, and it + astonished me to think that I had stayed in a dozen or twenty, perhaps + forty, villages in Wiltshire, and had heard stories equally strange and + moving in pretty well every one of them. + </p> + <p> + If each of these small centres possessed a scribe of genius, or at any + rate one with a capacity for taking pains, who would collect and print in + proper form these remembered events, every village would in time have its + own little library of local history, the volumes labelled respectively, "A + Village Tragedy", "The Fields of Dulditch", "Life's Little Ironies", + "Children's Children", and various others whose titles every reader will + be able to supply. + </p> + <p> + The effect of a long spell of listening to these unwritten tragedies was + sometimes strong enough to cloud my reason, for on going directly forth + into the bright sunshine and listening to the glad sounds which filled the + air, it would seem that this earth was a paradise and that all creation + rejoiced in everlasting happiness excepting man alone who—mysterious + being!—was born to trouble and disaster as the sparks fly upwards. A + pure delusion, due to our universal and ineradicable passion for romance + and tragedy. Tell a man of a hundred humdrum lives which run their quiet + contented course in this village, and the monotonous unmoving story, or + hundred stories, will go in at one ear and out at the other. Therefore + such stories are not told and not remembered. But that which stirs our + pity and terror—the frustrate life, the glorious promise which was + not fulfilled, the broken hearts and broken fortunes, and passion, crime, + remorse, retribution—all this prints itself on the mind, and every + such life is remembered for ever and passed on from generation to + generation. But it would really form only one brief chapter in the long, + long history of the village life with its thousand chapters. + </p> + <p> + The truth is, if we live in fairly natural healthy condition, we are just + as happy as the lower animals. Some philosopher has said that the chief + pleasure in a man's life, as in that of a cow, consists in the processes + of mastication, deglutition, and digestion, and I am very much inclined to + agree with him. The thought of death troubles us very little—we do + not believe in it. A familiar instance is that of the consumptive, whose + doctor and friends have given him up and wait but to see the end, while + he, deluded man, still sees life, an illimitable, green, sunlit prospect, + stretching away to an infinite distance before him. + </p> + <p> + Death is a reality only when it is very near, so close on us that we can + actually hear its swift stoaty feet rustling over the dead leaves, and for + a brief bitter space we actually know that his sharp teeth will presently + be in our throat. + </p> + <p> + Out in the blessed sunshine I listen to a blackcap warbling very + beautifully in a thorn bush near the cottage; then to the great shout of + excited joy of the children just released from school, as they rush + pell-mell forth and scatter about the village, and it strikes me that the + bird in the thorn is not more blithe-hearted than they. An old rook—I + fancy he is old, a many-wintered crow—is loudly caw-cawing from the + elm tree top; he has been abroad all day in the fields and has seen his + young able to feed themselves; and his own crop full, and now he is + calling to the others to come and sit there to enjoy the sunshine with + him. I doubt if he is happier than the human inhabitants of the village, + the field labourers and shepherds who have been out toiling since the + early hours, and are now busy in their own gardens and allotments or + placidly smoking their pipes at their cottage doors. + </p> + <p> + But I could not stay longer in that village of old unhappy memories and of + quiet, happy, uninteresting lives that leave no memory, so after waiting + two more days I forced myself to say good-bye to my poor old landlady. Or + rather to say "Good night," as I had to start at one o'clock in the + morning so as to have a couple, of hours before sunrise at "The Stones" on + my way to Salisbury. Her latest effort to detain me a day longer had been + made and there was no more to say. + </p> + <p> + "Do you know," she said in a low mysterious voice, "that it is not safe to + be alone at midnight on this long lonely road—the loneliest place in + all Salisbury Plain?" "The safest," I said. "Safe as the Tower of London—the + protectors of all England are there." "Ah, there's where the danger is!" + she returned. "If you meet some desperate man, a deserter with his rifle + in his hand perhaps, do you think he would hesitate about knocking you + over to save himself and at the same time get a little money to help him + on his way?" + </p> + <p> + I smiled at her simulated anxiety for my safety, and set forth when it was + very dark but under a fine starry sky. The silence, too, was very + profound: there was no good-bye from crowing cock or hooting owl on this + occasion, nor did any cyclist pass me on the road with a flash of light + from his lamp and a tinkle from his bell. The long straight road on the + high down was a dim grey band visible but a few yards before me, lying + across the intense blackness of the earth. By day I prefer as a rule + walking on the turf, but this road had a rare and peculiar charm at this + time. It was now the season when the bird's-foot-trefoil, one of the + commonest plants of the downland country, was in its fullest bloom, so + that in many places the green or grey-green turf as far as one could see + on every side was sprinkled and splashed with orange-yellow. Now this + creeping, spreading plant, like most plants that grow on the close-cropped + sheep-walks, whose safety lies in their power to root themselves and live + very close to the surface, yet must ever strive to lift its flowers into + the unobstructed light and air and to overtop or get away from its + crowding neighbours. On one side of the road, where the turf had been cut + by the spade in a sharp line, the plant had found a rare opportunity to + get space and light and had thrust out such a multitude of bowering + sprays, projecting them beyond the turf, as to form a close band or rope + of orange-yellow, which divided the white road from the green turf, and at + one spot extended unbroken for upwards of a mile. The effect was so + singular and pretty that I had haunted this road for days for the pleasure + of seeing that flower border made by nature. Now all colour was + extinguished: beneath and around me there was a dimness which at a few + yards' distance deepened to blackness, and above me the pale dim blue sky + sprinkled with stars; but as I walked I had the image of that brilliant + band of yellow colour in my mind. + </p> + <p> + By and by the late moon rose, and a little later the east began to grow + lighter and the dark down to change imperceptibly to dim hoary green. Then + the exquisite colours of the dawn once more, and the larks rising in the + dim distance—a beautiful unearthly sound—and so in the end I + came to "The Stones," rejoicing, in spite of a cloud which now appeared on + the eastern horizon to prevent the coming sun from being seen, that I had + the place to myself. The rejoicing came a little too soon; a very few + minutes later other visitors on foot and on bicycles began to come in, and + we all looked at each other a little blankly. Then a motorcar arrived, and + two gentlemen stepped out and stared at us, and one suddenly burst out + laughing. + </p> + <p> + "I see nothing to laugh at!" said his companion a little severely. + </p> + <p> + The other in a low voice made some apology or explanation which I failed + to catch. It was, of course, not right; it was indecent to laugh on such + an occasion, for we were not of the ebullient sort who go to "The Stones" + at three o'clock in the morning "for a lark"; but it was very natural in + the circumstances, and mentally I laughed myself at the absurdity of the + situation. However, the laugher had been rebuked for his levity, and this + incident over, there was nothing further to disturb me or any one in our + solemn little gathering. + </p> + <p> + It was a very sweet experience, and I cannot say that my early morning + outing would have been equally good at any other lonely spot on Salisbury + Plain or anywhere else with a wide starry sky above me, the flush of dawn + in the east, and the larks rising heavenward out of the dim misty earth. + Those rudely fashioned immemorial stones standing dark and large against + the pale clear moonlit sky imparted something to the feeling. I sat among + them alone and had them all to myself, as the others, fearing to tear + their clothes on the barbed wire, had not ventured to follow me when I got + through the fence. Outside the enclosure they were some distance from me, + and as they talked in subdued tones, their voices reached me as a low + murmur—a sound not out of harmony with the silent solitary spirit of + the place; and there was now no other sound except that of a few larks + singing fitfully a long way off. + </p> + <p> + Just what the element was in that morning's feeling which Stonehenge + contributed I cannot say. It was too vague and uncertain, too closely + interwoven with the more common feeling for nature. No doubt it was partly + due to many untraceable associations, and partly to a thought, scarcely + definite enough to be called a thought, of man's life in this land from + the time this hoary temple was raised down to the beginning of history. A + vast span, a period of ten or more, probably of twenty centuries, during + which great things occurred and great tragedies were enacted, which seem + all the darker and more tremendous to the mind because unwritten and + unknown. But with the mighty dead of these blank ages I could not commune. + Doubtless they loved and hated and rose and fell, and there were broken + hearts and broken lives; but as beings of flesh and blood we cannot + visualize them, and are in doubt even as to their race. And of their + minds, or their philosophy of life, we know absolutely nothing. We are + able, as Clifford has said in his Cosmic Emotion, to shake hands with the + ancient Greeks across the great desert of centuries which divides our day + from theirs; but there is no shaking hands with these ancients of Britain—or + Albion, seeing that we are on the chalk. To our souls they are as strange + as the builders of Tiuhuanaco, or Mitla and Itzana, and the cyclopean + ruins of Zimbabwe and the Carolines. + </p> + <p> + It is thought by some of our modern investigators of psychic phenomena + that apparitions result from the coming out of impressions left in the + surrounding matter, or perhaps in the ether pervading it, especially in + moments of supreme agitation or agony. The apparition is but a restored + picture, and pictures of this sort are about us in millions; but for our + peace they are rarely visible, as the ability to see them is the faculty + of but a few persons in certain moods and certain circumstances. Here, + then, if anywhere in England, we, or the persons who are endowed with this + unpleasant gift, might look for visions of the time when Stonehenge was + the spiritual capital, the Mecca of the faithful (when all were that), the + meeting-place of all the intellect, the hoary experience, the power and + majesty of the land. + </p> + <p> + But no visions have been recorded. It is true that certain stories of + alleged visions have been circulated during the last few years. One, very + pretty and touching, is of a child from the London slums who saw things + invisible to others. This was one of the children of the very poor, who + are taken in summer and planted all about England in cottages to have a + week or a fortnight of country air and sunshine. Taken to Stonehenge, she + had a vision of a great gathering of people, and so real did they seem + that she believed in the reality of it all, and so beautiful did they + appear to her that she was reluctant to leave, and begged to be taken back + to see it all again. Unfortunately it is not true. A full and careful + inquiry has been made into the story, of which there are several versions, + and its origin traced to a little story-telling Wiltshire boy who had read + or heard of the white-robed priests of the ancient days at "The Stones," + and who just to astonish other little boys naughtily pretended that he had + seen it all himself! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Twenty-Three: Following a River + </h2> + <p> + The stream invites us to follow: the impulse is so common that it might be + set down as an instinct; and certainly there is no more fascinating + pastime than to keep company with a river from its source to the sea. + Unfortunately this is not easy in a country where running waters have been + enclosed, which should be as free as the rain and sunshine to all, and + were once free, when England was England still, before landowners annexed + them, even as they annexed or stole the commons and shut up the footpaths + and made it an offence for a man to go aside from the road to feel God's + grass under his feet. Well, they have also got the road now, and cover and + blind and choke us with its dust and insolently hoot-hoot at us. Out of + the way, miserable crawlers, if you don't want to be smashed! + </p> + <p> + Sometimes the way is cut off by huge thorny hedges and fences of barbed + wire—man's devilish improvement on the bramble—brought down to + the water's edge. The river-follower must force his way through these + obstacles, in most cases greatly to the detriment of his clothes and + temper; or, should they prove impassable, he must undress and go into the + water. Worst of all is the thought that he is a trespasser. The pheasants + crow loudly lest he should forget it. Occasionally, too, in these private + places he encounters men in velveteens with guns under their arms, and + other men in tweeds and knickerbockers, with or without guns, and they all + stare at him with amazement in their eyes, like disturbed cattle in a + pasture; and sometimes they challenge him. But I must say that, although I + have been sharply spoken to on several occasions, always, after a few + words, I have been permitted to keep on my way. And on that way I intend + to keep until I have no more strength to climb over fences and force my + way through hedges, but like a blind and worn-out old badger must take to + my earth and die. + </p> + <p> + I found the Exe easy to follow at first. Further on exceedingly difficult + in places; but I was determined to keep near it, to have it behind me and + before me and at my side, following, leading, a beautiful silvery serpent + that was my friend and companion. For I was following not the Exe only, + but a dream as well, and a memory. Before I knew it the Exe was a beloved + stream. Many rivers had I seen in my wanderings, but never one to compare + with this visionary river, which yet existed, and would be found and + followed at last. My forefathers had dwelt for generations beside it, + listening all their lives long to its music, and when they left it they + still loved it in exile, and died at last with its music in their ears. + Nor did the connection end there; their children and children's children + doubtless had some inherited memory of it; or how came I to have this + feeling, which made it sacred, and drew me to it? We inherit not from our + ancestors only, but, through them, something, too, from the earth and + place that knew them. + </p> + <p> + I sought for and found it where it takes its rise on open Exmoor; a simple + moorland stream, not wild and foaming and leaping over rocks, but flowing + gently between low peaty banks, where the little lambs leap over it from + side to side in play. Following the stream down, I come at length to + Exford. Here the aspect of the country begins to change; it is not all + brown desolate heath; there are green flowery meadows by the river, and + some wood. A little further down and the Exe will be a woodland stream; + but of all the rest of my long walk I shall only say that to see the real + beauty of this stream one must go to Somerset. From Exford to Dulverton it + runs, singing aloud, foam-flecked, between high hills clothed to their + summits in oak woods: after its union with the Barle it enters Devonshire + as a majestic stream, and flows calmly through a rich green country; its + wild romantic charm has been left behind. + </p> + <p> + The uninformed traveller, whose principle it is never to look at a + guide-book, is surprised to find that the small village of Exford contains + no fewer than half a dozen inns. He asks how they are kept going; and the + natives, astonished at his ignorance, proceed to enlighten him. Exford is + the headquarters of the stag-hunt: thither the hunters flock in August, + and spend so much money during thir brief season that the innkeepers grow + rich and fat, and for the rest of the year can afford to doze peacefully + behind their bars. Here are the kennels, and when I visited them they + contained forty or fifty couples of stag-hounds. These are gigantic + foxhounds, selected for their great size from packs all over the country. + When out exercising these big vari-coloured dogs make a fine show. It is + curious to find that, although these individual variations are continually + appearing—very large dogs born of dogs of medium size—others + cannot be bred from them; the variety cannot be fixed. + </p> + <p> + The village is not picturesque. Its one perennial charm is the swift river + that flows through it, making music on its wide sandy and pebbly floor. + Hither and thither flit the wagtails, finding little half-uncovered stones + in the current to perch upon. Both the pied and grey species are there; + and, seeing them together, one naturally wishes to resettle for himself + the old question as to which is the prettiest and most graceful. Now this + one looks best and now that; but the delicately coloured grey and yellow + bird has the longest tail and can use it more prettily. Her tail is as + much to her, both as ornament and to express emotions, as a fan to any + flirtatious Spanish senora. One always thinks of these dainty feathered + creatures as females. It would seem quite natural to call the wagtail + "lady-bird," if that name had not been registered by a diminutive podgy + tortoise-shaped black and red beetle. + </p> + <p> + So shallow is the wide stream in the village that a little girl of about + seven came down from a cottage, and to cool her feet waded out into the + middle, and there she stood for some minutes on a low flat stone, looking + down on her own wavering image broken by a hundred hurrying wavelets and + ripples. This small maidie, holding up her short, shabby frock with her + wee hands, her bright brown hair falling over her face as she bent her + head down and laughed to see her bare little legs and their flickering + reflection beneath, made a pretty picture. Like the wagtails, she looked + in harmony with her surroundings. + </p> + <p> + So many are the villages, towns, and places of interest seen, so many the + adventures met with in this walk, starting with the baby streamlet beyond + Simonsbath, and following it down to Exeter and Exmouth, that it would + take half a volume to describe them, however briefly. Yet at the end I + found that Exford had left the most vivid and lasting impression, and was + remembered with most pleasure. It was more to me than Winsford, that + fragrant, cool, grey and green village, the home of immemorial peace, + second to no English village in beauty; with its hoary church tower, its + great trees, its old stone, thatched cottages draped in ivy and vine, its + soothing sound of running waters. Exeter itself did not impress me so + strongly, in spite of its cathedral. The village of Exford printed itself + thus sharply on my mind because I had there been filled with wonder and + delight at the sight of a face exceeding in loveliness all the faces seen + in that West Country—a rarest human gem, which had the power of + imparting to its setting something of its own wonderful lustre. The type + was a common Somerset one, but with marked differences in some respects, + else it could not have been so perfect. + </p> + <p> + The type I speak of is a very distinct one: in a crowd in a London street + you can easily spot a Somerset man who has this mark on his countenance, + but it shows more clearly in the woman. There are more types than one, but + the variety is less than in other places; the women are more like each + other, and differ more from those that are outside their borders than is + the case in other English counties. A woman of this prevalent type, to be + met with anywhere from Bath and Bedminster to the wilds of Exmoor, is of a + good height, and has a pleasant, often a pretty face; regular features, + the nose straight, rather long, with thin nostrils; eyes grey-blue; hair + brown, neither dark nor light, in many cases with a sandy or sunburnt + tint. Black, golden, reds, chestnuts are rarely seen. There is always + colour in the skin, but not deep; as a rule it is a light tender brown + with a rosy or reddish tinge. Altogether it is a winning face, with + smiling eyes; there is more in it of that something we can call + "refinement" than is seen in women of the same class in other counties. + The expression is somewhat infantile; a young woman, even a middle-aged + woman, will frequently remind you of a little girl of seven or eight + summers. The innocent eyes and mobile mouth are singularly childlike. This + peculiarity is the more striking when we consider the figure. This is not + fully developed according to the accepted standards the hips are too + small, the chest too narrow and flat, the arms too thin. True or false, + the idea is formed of a woman of a childlike, affectionate nature, but + lacking in passion, one to be chosen for a sister rather than a wife. + Something in us—instinct or tradition—will have it that the + well-developed woman is richest in the purely womanly qualities—the + wifely and maternal feelings. The luxuriant types that abound most in + Devonshire are not common here. + </p> + <p> + It will be understood that the women described are those that live in + cottages. Here, as elsewhere, as you go higher in the social scale—further + from the soil as it were—the type becomes less and less distinct. + Those of the "higher class," or "better class," are few, and always in a + sense foreigners. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Twenty-Four: Troston + </h2> + <p> + I doubt if the name of this small Suffolk village, remote from towns and + railroads, will have any literary associations for the reader, unless he + be a person of exceptionally good memory, who has taken a special interest + in the minor poets of the last century; or that it would help him if I add + the names of Honington and Sapiston, two other small villages a couple of + miles from Troston, with the slow sedgy Little Ouse, or a branch of it, + flowing between them. Yet Honington was the birthplace of Robert + Bloomfield, known as "the Suffolk poet" in the early part of the last + century (although Crabbe was living then and was great, as he is becoming + again after many years); while at Sapiston, the rustic village on the + other side of the old stone bridge, he acquired that love of nature and + intimate knowledge of farm life and work which came out later in his + Farmer's Boy. Finally, Troston, the little village in which I write, was + the home of Capel Lofft, a person of importance in his day, who discovered + Bloomfield, found a publisher for his poems, and boomed it with amazing + success. + </p> + <p> + I dare say it will only provoke a smile of amusement in readers of + literary taste when I confess that Bloomfield's memory is dear to me; that + only because of this feeling for the forgotten rustic who wrote rhymes I + am now here, strolling about in the shade of the venerable trees in + Troston Park-the selfsame trees which the somewhat fantastic Capel knew in + his day as "Homer," "Sophocles," "Virgil," "Milton," and by other names, + calling each old oak, elm, ash, and chestnut after one of the immortals. + </p> + <p> + I can even imagine that the literary man, if he chanced to be a personal + friend, would try to save me from myself by begging me not to put anything + of this sort into print. He would warn me that it matters nothing that + Bloomfield's verse was exceedingly popular for a time, that twenty-five or + thirty editions of his Farmer's Boy were issued within three years of its + publication in 1800 that it continued to be read for half a century + afterwards. There are other better tests. Is it alive to-day? What do + judges of literature say of it now? Nothing! They smile and that's all. + The absurdity of his popularity was felt in his own day. Byron laughed at + it; Crabbe growled and Charles Lamb said he had looked at the Farmer's Boy + and it made him sick. Well, nobody wants to look at it now. + </p> + <p> + Much more might be said very easily on this side; nevertheless, I think I + shall go on with my plea for the small verse-maker who has long fallen + out; and though I may be unable to make a case out, the kindly critic may + find some circumstance to extenuate my folly—to say, in the end, + that this appears to be one of the little foolishnesses which might be + forgiven. + </p> + <p> + I must confess at starting that the regard I have for one of his poems, + the Farmer's Boy, is not wholly a matter of literary taste or the critical + faculty; it is also, to some extent, a matter of association,—and as + the story of how this comes about is rather curious, I will venture to + give it. + </p> + <p> + In the distant days of my boyhood and early youth my chief delight was in + nature, and when I opened a book it was to find something about nature in + it, especially some expression of the feeling produced in us by nature, + which was, in my case, inseparable from seeing and hearing, and was, to + me, the most important thing in life. For who could look on earth, water, + sky, on living or growing or inanimate things, without experiencing that + mysterious uplifting gladness in him! In due time I discovered that the + thing I sought for in printed books was to be found chiefly in poetry, + that half a dozen lines charged with poetic feeling about nature often + gave me more satisfaction than a whole volume of prose on such subjects. + Unfortunately this kind of literature was not obtainable in my early home + on the then semi-wild pampas. There were a couple of hundred volumes on + the shelves—theology, history, biography, philosophy, science, + travels, essays, and some old forgotten fiction; but no verse was there, + except Shenstone, in a small, shabby, coverless volume. This I read and + re-read until I grew sick of bright Roxana tripping o'er the green, or of + gentle Delia when a tear bedews her eye to think yon playful kid must die. + To my uncultivated mind—for I had never been at school, and lived in + the open air with the birds and beasts—this seemed intolerably + artificial; for I was like a hungry person who has nothing but kickshaws + put before him, and eats because he is hungry until he loathes a food + which in its taste confounds the appetite. Never since those distant days + have I looked at a Shenstone or even seen his name in print or heard it + spoken, without a slight return of that old sensation of nausea. If + Shenstone alone had come to me, the desire for poetry would doubtless have + been outlived early in life; but there were many passages, some very long, + from the poets in various books on the shelves, and these kept my appetite + alive. There was Brown's Philosophy, for example; and Brown loved to + illustrate his point with endless poetic quotations, the only drawback in + my case being that they were almost exclusively drawn from Akenside, who + was not "rural." But there were other books in which other poets were + quoted, and of all these the passages which invariably pleased me most + were the descriptions of rural sights and sounds. + </p> + <p> + One day, during a visit to the city of Buenos Ayres, I discovered in a + mean street, in the southern part of the town, a second-hand bookshop, + kept by an old snuffy spectacled German in a long shabby black coat. I + remember him well because he was a very important person to me. It was the + first shop of the kind I had seen—I doubt if there was another in + the town; and to be allowed to rummage by the hour among this mass of old + books on the dusty shelves and heaped on the brick floor was a novel and + delightful experience. The books were mostly in Spanish, French, and + German, but there were some in English, and among them I came upon + Thomson's Seasons. I remember the thrill of joy I experienced when I + snatched up the small thin octavo in its smooth calf binding. It was the + first book in English I ever bought, and to this day when I see a copy of + the Seasons on a bookstall, which is often enough, I cannot keep my + fingers off it and find it hard to resist the temptation to throw a couple + of shillings away and take it home. If shillings had not been wanted for + bread and cheese I should have had a roomful of copies by now. + </p> + <p> + Few books have given me more pleasure, and as I still return to it from + time to time I do not suppose I shall ever outgrow the feeling, in spite + of its having been borne in on me, when I first conversed with readers of + poetry in England, that Thomson is no longer read—that he is + unreadable. + </p> + <p> + After such a find I naturally went back many times to burrow in that + delightful rubbish heap, and was at length rewarded by the discovery of + yet another poem of rural England—the Farmer's Boy. I was prepared + to like it, for although I did not know anything about the author's early + life, the few passages I had come across in quotations in James Rennie's + and other old natural history compilations had given me a strong desire to + read the whole poem. I certainly did like it—this quiet description + in verse of a green spot in England, my spiritual country which so far as + I knew I was never destined to see; and that I continue to like it is, as + I have said, the reason of my being in this place. + </p> + <p> + While thus freely admitting that the peculiar circumstances of the case + caused me to value this poem, and, in fact, made it very much more to me + than it could be to persons born in England with all its poetical + literature to browse on, I am at the same time convinced that this is not + the sole reason for my regard. + </p> + <p> + I take it that the Farmer's Boy is poetry, not merely slightly poetized + prose in the form of verse, although it is undoubtedly poetry of a very + humble order. + </p> + <p> + Mere descriptions of rural scenes do not demand the higher qualities of + the poet—imagination and passion. The lower kind of inspiration is, + in fact, often better suited to such themes and shows nature by the common + light of day, as it were, instead of revealing it as by a succession of + lightning flashes. Even among those who confine themselves to this lower + plane, Bloomfield is not great: his small flame is constantly sinking and + flickering out. But at intervals it burns up again and redeems the work + from being wholly commonplace and trivial. He is, in fact, no better than + many another small poet who has been devoured by Time since his day, and + whose work no person would now attempt to bring back. It is probable, too, + that many of these lesser singers whose fame was brief would in their day + have deeply resented being placed on a level with the Suffolk + peasant-poet. In spite of all this, and of the impossibility of saving + most of the verse which is only passably good from oblivion, I still think + the Farmer's Boy worth preserving for more reasons than one, but chiefly + because it is the only work of its kind. + </p> + <p> + There is no lack of rural poetry—the Seasons to begin with and much + Thomsonian poetry besides, treating of nature in a general way; then we + have innumerable detached descriptions of actual scenes, such as we find + scattered throughout Cowper's Task, and numberless other works. Besides + all this there are the countless shorter poems, each conveying an + impression of some particular scene or aspect of nature; the poet of the + open air, like the landscape painter, is ever on the look out for + picturesque "bits" and atmospheric effects as a subject. In Bloomfield we + get something altogether different—a simple, consistent, and fairly + complete account of the country people's toilsome life in a remote + agricultural district in England—a small rustic village set amid + green and arable fields, woods and common lands. We have it from the + inside by one who had part in it, born and bred to the humble life he + described; and, finally, it is not given as a full day-to-day record—photographed + as we may say—with all the minute unessential details and + repetitions, but as it appeared when looked back upon from a distance, + reliving it in memory, the sights and sounds and events which had + impressed the boy's mind standing vividly out. Of this lowly poem it may + be truly said that it is "emotion recollected in tranquillity," to use the + phrase invented by Wordsworth when he attempted a definition of poetry + generally and signally failed, as Coleridge demonstrated. + </p> + <p> + It will be said that the facts of Bloomfield's life—that he was a + farmer's boy whose daily tasks were to scare the crows, feed the pigs, and + forty things besides, and that later, when learning the shoemaker's trade + in a London garret, he put these memories together and made them into a + poem—are wholly beside the question when we come to judge the work + as literature. A peasant poet may win a great reputation in his own day on + account of the circumstances of the case, but in the end his work must be + tried by the same standards applied in other and in all cases. + </p> + <p> + There is no getting away from this, and all that remains is to endeavour + to show that the poem, although poor as a whole, is not altogether bad, + but contains many lines that glow with beautiful poetic feeling, and many + descriptive passages which are admirable. Furthermore, I will venture to + say that despite the feebleness of a large part of the work (as poetry) it + is yet worth preserving in its entirety on account of its unique + character. It may be that I am the only person in England able to + appreciate it so fully owing to the way in which it first came to my + notice, and the critical reader can, if he thinks proper, discount what I + am now saying as mere personal feeling. But the case is this: when, in a + distant region of the world, I sought for and eagerly read anything I + could find relating to country scenes and life in England—the land + of my desire—I was never able to get an extended and congruous view + of it, with a sense of the continuity in human and animal life in its + relation to nature. It was all broken up into pieces or "bits"; it was in + detached scenes, vividly reproduced to the inner eye in many cases, but + unrelated and unharmonized, like framed pictures of rural subjects hanging + on the walls of a room. Even the Seasons failed to supply this want, since + Thomson in his great work is of no place and abides nowhere, but ranges on + eagle's wings over the entire land, and, for the matter of that, over the + whole globe. But I did get it in the Farmer's Boy. I visualized the whole + scene, the entire harmonious life; I was with him from morn till eve + always in that same green country with the same sky, cloudy or serene, + above me; in the rustic village, at the small church with a thatched roof + where the daws nested in the belfry, and the children played and shouted + among the gravestones in the churchyard; in woods and green and ploughed + fields and the deep lanes—with him and his fellow-toilers, and the + animals, domestic and wild, regarding their life and actions from day to + day through all the vicissitudes of the year. + </p> + <p> + The poem, then, appears to fill a place in our poetic literature, or to + fill a gap; at all events from the point of view of those who, born and + living in distant parts of the earth, still dream of the Old Home. This + perhaps accounts for the fact, which I heard at Honington, that most of + the pilgrims to Bloomfield's birthplace are Americans. + </p> + <p> + Bloomfield followed his great example in dividing his poem into the four + seasons, and he begins, Thomson-like, with an invitation to the Muse:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + O come, blest spirit, whatsoe'er thou art, + Thou kindling warmth that hov'rest round my heart. +</pre> + <p> + But happily he does not attempt to imitate the lofty diction of the + Seasons or Windsor Forest, the noble poem from which, I imagine, Thomson + derived his sonorous style. He had a humble mind and knew his limitations, + and though he adopted the artificial form of verse which prevailed down to + his time he was still able to be simple and natural. + </p> + <p> + "Spring" does not contain much of the best of his work, but the opening is + graceful and is not without a touch of pathos in his apologetic + description of himself, as Giles, the farmer's boy. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Nature's sublimer scenes ne'er charmed my eyes + Nor Science led me... + From meaner objects far my raptures flow... + Quick-springing sorrows, transient as the dew, + Delight from trifles, trifles ever new. + 'Twas thus with Giles; meek, fatherless, and poor, + Labour his portion... + His life was cheerful, constant servitude... + Strange to the world, he wore a bashful look, + The fields his study, Nature was his book. +</pre> + <p> + The farm is described, the farmer, his kind, hospitable master; the + animals, the sturdy team, the cows and the small flock of fore-score ewes. + Ploughing, sowing, and harrowing are described, and the result left to the + powers above: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Yet oft with anxious heart he looks around, + And marks the first green blade that breaks the ground; + In fancy sees his trembling oats uprun, + His tufted barley yellow with the sun. +</pre> + <p> + While his master dreams of what will be, Giles has enough to do protecting + the buried grain from thieving rooks and crows; one of the multifarious + tasks being to collect the birds that have been shot, for although— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Their danger well the wary plunderers know + And place a watch on some conspicuous bough, + Yet oft the skulking gunner by surprise + Will scatter death among them as they rise. +</pre> + <p> + 'Tis useless, he tells us, to hang these slain robbers about the fields, + since in a little while they are no more regarded than the men of rags and + straw with sham rifles in their hands. It was for him to shift the dead + from place to place, to arrange them in dying attitudes with outstretched + wings. Finally, there was the fox, the stealer of dead crows, to be + guarded against; and again at eventide Giles must trudge round to gather + up his dead and suspend them from twigs out of reach of hungry + night-prowlers. Called up at daybreak each morning, he would take his way + through deep lanes overarched with oaks to "fields remote from home" to + redistribute his dead birds, then to fetch the cows, and here we have an + example of his close naturalist-like observation in his account of the + leading cow, the one who coming and going on all occasions is allowed + precedence, who maintains her station, "won by many a broil," with just + pride. A picture of the cool dairy and its work succeeds, and a lament on + the effect of the greed and luxury of the over-populous capital which + drains the whole country-side of all produce, which makes the Suffolk + dairy-wives run mad for cream, leaving nothing but the "three-times + skimmed sky-blue" to make cheese for local consumption. What a cheese it + is, that has the virtue of a post, which turns the stoutest blade, and is + at last flung in despair into the hog-trough, where + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + It rests in perfect spite, + Too big to swallow and too hard to bite! +</pre> + <p> + We then come to the sheep, "for Giles was shepherd too," and here there is + more evidence of his observant eye when he describes the character of the + animals, also in what follows about the young lambs, which forms the best + passage in this part. I remember that, when first reading it, being then + little past boyhood myself, how much I was struck by the vivid beautiful + description of a crowd of young lambs challenging each other to a game, + especially at a spot where they have a mound or hillock for a playground + which takes them with a sort of goatlike joyous madness. For how often in + those days I used to ride out to where the flock of one to two thousand + sheep were scattered on the plain, to sit on my pony and watch the glad + romps of the little lambs with keenest delight! I cannot but think that + Bloomfield's fidelity to nature in such pictures as these does or should + count for something in considering his work. He concludes:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Adown the slope, then up the hillock climb, + Where every mole-hill is a bed of thyme, + Then panting stop; yet scarcely can refrain; + A bird, a leaf, will set them off again; + Or if a gale with strength unusual blow, + Scattering the wild-briar roses into snow, + Their little limbs increasing efforts try, + Like a torn rose the fair assemblage fly. +</pre> + <p> + This image of the wind-scattered petals of the wild rose reminds him + bitterly of the destined end of these joyous young lives—his + white-fleeced little fellow-mortals. He sees the murdering butcher coming + in his cart to demand the firstlings of the flock; he cannot suppress a + cry of grief and indignation—he can only strive to shut out the + shocking image from his soul! + </p> + <p> + "Summer" opens with some reflections on the farmer's life in a prosy + Crabbe-like manner; and here it may be noted that as a rule Bloomfield no + sooner attempts to rise to a general view than he grows flat; and in like + manner he usually fails when he attempts wide prospects and large effects. + He is at his best only when describing scenes and incidents at the farm in + which he himself is a chief actor, as in this part when, after the sowing + of the turnip seed, he is sent out to keep the small birds from the + ripening corn: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + There thousands in a flock, for ever gay, + Loud chirping sparrows welcome on the day, + And from the mazes of the leafy thorn + Drop one by one upon the bending corn. +</pre> + <p> + Giles trudging along the borders of the field scares them with his + brushing-pole, until, overcome by fatigue and heat, he takes a rest by the + brakes and lying, half in sun and half in shade, his attention is + attracted to the minute insect life that swarms about him: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The small dust-coloured beetle climbs with pain + O'er the smooth plantain leaf, a spacious plain! + Then higher still by countless steps conveyed, + He gains the summit of a shivering blade, + And flirts his filmy wings and looks around, + Exulting in his distance from the ground. +</pre> + <p> + It is one of his little exquisite pictures. Presently his vision is called + to the springing lark: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Just starting from the corn, he cheerly sings, + And trusts with conscious pride his downy wings; + Still louder breathes, and in the face of day + Mounts up and calls on Giles to mark his way. + Close to his eye his hat he instant bends + And forms a friendly telescope that lends + Just aid enough to dull the glaring light + And place the wandering bird before his sight, + That oft beneath a light cloud sweeps along; + Lost for a while yet pours a varied song; + The eye still follows and the cloud moves by, + Again he stretches up the clear blue sky, + His form, his motions, undistinguished quite, + Save when he wheels direct from shade to light. +</pre> + <p> + In the end he falls asleep, and waking refreshed picks up his poles and + starts again brushing round. + </p> + <p> + Harvesting scenes succeed, with a picture of Mary, the village beauty, + taking her share in the work, and how the labourers in their unwonted + liveliness and new-found wit + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Confess the presence of a pretty face. +</pre> + <p> + She is very rustic herself in her appearance:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Her hat awry, divested of her gown, + Her creaking stays of leather, stout and brown: + Invidious barrier! why art thou so high, + When the slight covering of her neck slips by, + Then half revealing to the eager sight + Her full, ripe bosom, exquisitely white? +</pre> + <p> + The leather stays have no doubt gone the way of many other dreadful + things, even in the most rustic villages in the land; not so the barbarous + practice of docking horses' tails, against which he protests in this place + when describing the summer plague of flies and the excessive sufferings of + the domestic animals, especially of the poor horses deprived of their only + defence against such an enemy. At his own little farm there was yet + another plague in the form of an old broken-winged gander, "the pest and + tryant of the yard," whose unpleasant habit it was to go for the beasts + and seize them by the fetlocks. The swine alone did not resent the attacks + but welcomed them, receiving the assaults as caresses, and stretching + themselves out and lying down and closing their pigs' eyes, they would + emit grunts of satisfaction, while the triumphant bird, followed by the + whole gabbling flock, would trample on the heads of their prostrate foes. + </p> + <p> + "Autumn" opens bravely: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Again the year's decline, 'midst storms and floods, + The thund'ring chase, the yellow fading woods + Invite my song. +</pre> + <p> + It contains two of the best things in the poem, the first in the opening + part, describing the swine in the acorn season, a delightful picture which + must be given in full:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + No more the fields with scattered grain supply + The restless tenants of the sty; + From oak to oak they run with eager haste, + And wrangling share the first delicious taste + Of fallen acorns; yet but thinly found + Till a strong gale has shook them to the ground. + It comes; and roaring woods obedient wave: + Their home well pleased the joint adventurers leave; + The trudging sow leads forth her numerous young, + Playful, and white, and clean, the briars among, + Till briars and thorns increasing fence them round, + Where last year's mould'ring leaves bestrew the ground, + And o'er their heads, loud lashed by furious squalls, + Bright from their cups the rattling treasure falls; + Hot thirsty food; whence doubly sweet and cool + The welcome margin of some rush-grown pool, + The wild duck's lonely haunt, whose jealous eye + Guards every point; who sits prepared to fly, + On the calm bosom of her little lake, + Too closely screened for ruffian winds to shake; + And as the bold intruders press around, + At once she starts and rises with a bound; + With bristles raised the sudden noise they hear, + And ludicrously wild and winged with fear, + The herd decamp with more than swinish speed, + And snorting dash through sedge and rush and reed; + Through tangled thickets headlong on they go, + Then stop and listen for their fancied foe; + The hindmost still the growing panic spreads, + Repeated fright the first alarm succeeds, + Till Folly's wages, wounds and thorns, they reap; + Yet glorying in their fortunate escape, + Their groundless terrors by degrees soon cease, + And Night's dark reign restores their peace. + For now the gale subsides, and from each bough + The roosting pheasant's short but frequent crow + Invites to rest, and huddling side by side + The herd in closest ambush seek to hide; + Seek some warm slope with shagged moss o'erspread, + Dried leaves their copious covering and their bed. + In vain may Giles, through gathering glooms that fall, + And solemn silence, urge his piercing call; + Whole days and nights they tarry 'midst their store, + Nor quit the woods till oaks can yield no more. +</pre> + <p> + It is a delightful passage to one that knows a pig—the animal we + respect for its intelligence, holding it in this respect higher, more + human, than the horse, and at the same time laugh at on account of certain + ludicrous points about it, as for example its liability to lose its head. + Thousands of years of comfortable domestic life have failed to rid it of + this inconvenient heritage from the time when wild in woods it ran. Yet in + this particular instance the terror of the swine does not seem wholly + inexcusable, if we know a wild duck as well as a pig, especially the duck + that takes to haunting a solitary woodland pool, who, when intruded on, + springs up with such a sudden tremendous splash and flutter of wings and + outrageous screams, that man himself, if not prepared for it, may be + thrown off his balance. + </p> + <p> + Passing over other scenes, about one hundred and fifty lines, we come to + the second notable passage, when after the sowing of the winter wheat, + poor Giles once more takes up his old occupation of rook-scaring. It is + now as in spring and summer— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Keen blows the blast and ceaseless rain descends; + The half-stripped hedge a sorry shelter lends, +</pre> + <p> + and he thinks it would be nice to have a hovel, no matter how small, to + take refuge in, and at once sets about its construction. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + In some sequestered nook, embanked around, + Sods for its walls and straw in burdens bound; + Dried fuel hoarded is his richest store, + And circling smoke obscures his little door; + Whence creeping forth to duty's call he yields, + And strolls the Crusoe of the lonely fields. + On whitehorn tow'ring, and the leafless rose, + A frost-nipped feast in bright vermilion glows; + Where clust'ring sloes in glossy order rise, + He crops the loaded branch, a cumbrous prize; + And on the flame the splutt'ring fruit he rests, + Placing green sods to seat the coming guests; + His guests by promise; playmates young and gay; + But ah! fresh pastures lure their steps away! + He sweeps his hearth, and homeward looks in vain, + Till feeling Disappointment's cruel pain + His fairy revels are exchanged for rage, + His banquet marred, grown dull his hermitage, + The field becomes his prison, till on high + Benighted birds to shades and coverts fly. +</pre> + <p> + "The field becomes his prison," and the thought of this trivial restraint, + which is yet felt so poignantly, brings to mind an infinitely greater one. + Look, he says— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + From the poor bird-boy with his roasted sloes +</pre> + <p> + to the miserable state of those who are confined in dungeons, deprived of + daylight and the sight of the green earth, whose minds perpetually travel + back to happy scenes, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Trace and retrace the beaten worn-out way, +</pre> + <p> + whose chief bitterness it is to be forgotten and see no familiar friendly + face. + </p> + <p> + "Winter" is, I think, the best of the four parts it gives the idea that + the poem was written as it stands, from "Spring" onwards, that by the time + he got to the last part the writer had acquired a greater ease and + assurance. At all events it is less patchy and more equal. It is also more + sober in tone, as befits the subject, and opens with an account of the + domestic animals on the farm, their increased dependence on man and the + compassionate feelings they evoke in us. He is, we feel, dealing with + realities, always from the point of view of a boy of sensitive mina and + tender heart—one taken in boyhood from this life before it had + wrought any change in him. For in due time the farm boy, however fine his + spirit may be, must harden and grow patient and stolid in heat and cold + and wet, like the horse that draws the plough or cart; and as he hardens + he grows callous. In his wretched London garret if any change came to him + it was only to an increased love and pity for the beasts he had lived + among, who looked and cried to him to be fed. He describes it well, the + frost and bitter cold, the hungry cattle following the cart to the fields, + the load of turnips thrown out on the hard frozen ground; but the turnips + too are frozen hard and they cannot eat them until Giles, following with + his beetle, splits them up with vigorous blows, and the cows gather close + round him, sending out a cloud of steam from their nostrils. + </p> + <p> + The dim short winter day soon ends, but the sound of the flails continues + in the barns till long after dark before the weary labourers end their + task and trudge home. Giles, too, is busy at this time taking hay to the + housed cattle, many a sweet mouthful being snatched from the load as he + staggers beneath it on his way to the racks. Then follow the well-earned + hours of "warmth and rest" by the fire in the big old kitchen which he + describes:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + For the rude architect, unknown to fame, + (Nor symmetry nor elegance his aim), + Who spread his floors of solid oak on high, + On beams rough-hewn from age to age that lie, + Bade his wide fabric unimpaired sustain + The orchard's store, and cheese, and golden grain; + Bade from its central base, capacious laid, + The well-wrought chimney rear its lofty head + Where since hath many a savoury ham been stored, + And tempests howled and Christmas gambols roared. +</pre> + <p> + The tired ploughman, steeped in luxurious heat, by and by falls asleep and + dreams sweetly until his chilblains or the snapping fire awakes him, and + he pulls himself up and goes forth yawning to give his team their last + feed, his lantern throwing a feeble gleam on the snow as he makes his way + to the stable. Having completed his task, he pats the sides of those he + loves best by way of good-night, and leaves them to their fragrant meal. + And this kindly action on his part suggests one of the best passages of + the poem. Even old well-fed Dobbin occasionally rebels against his + slavery, and released from his chains will lift his clumsy hoofs and kick, + "disdainful of the dirty wheel." Short-sighted Dobbin! + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Thy chains were freedom, and thy toils repose, + Could the poor post-horse tell thee all his woes; + Show thee his bleeding shoulders, and unfold + The dreadful anguish he endures for gold; + Hired at each call of business, lust, or rage, + That prompts the traveller on from stage to stage. + Still on his strength depends their boasted speed; + For them his limbs grow weak, his bare ribs bleed; + And though he groaning quickens at command, + Their extra shilling in the rider's hand + Becomes his bitter scourge.... +</pre> + <p> + The description, too long to quote, which follows of the tortures + inflicted on the post-horse a century ago, is almost incredible to us, and + we flatter ourselves that such things would not be tolerated now. But we + must get over the ground somehow, and I take it that but for the invention + of other more rapid means of transit the present generation would be as + little concerned at the pains of the post-horse as they are at the horrors + enacted behind the closed doors of the physiological laboratories, the + atrocity of the steel trap, the continual murdering by our big game + hunters of all the noblest animals left on the globe, and finally the + annual massacre of millions of beautiful birds in their breeding time to + provide ornaments for the hats of our women. + </p> + <p> + "Come forth he must," says Bloomfield, when he describes how the flogged + horse at length gains the end of the stage and, "trembling under + complicated pains," when "every nerve a separate anguish knows," he is + finally unharnessed and led to the stable door, but has scarcely tasted + food and rest before he is called for again. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Though limping, maimed and sore; + He hears the whip; the chaise is at the door... + The collar tightens and again he feels + His half-healed wounds inflamed; again the wheels + With tiresome sameness in his ears resound + O'er blinding dust or miles of flinty ground. +</pre> + <p> + This is over and done with simply because the post-horse is no longer + wanted, and we have to remember that no form of cruelty inflicted, whether + for sport or profit or from some other motive, on the lower animals has + ever died out of itself in the land. Its end has invariably been brought + about by legislation through the devotion of men who were the "cranks," + the "faddists," the "sentimentalists," of their day, who were jeered and + laughed at by their fellows, and who only succeeded by sheer tenacity and + force of character after long fighting against public opinion and a + reluctant Parliament, in finally getting their law. + </p> + <p> + Bloomfield's was but a small voice crying in the wilderness, and he was + indeed a small singer in the day of our greatest singers. As a poet he was + not worthy to unloose the buckles of their shoes; but he had one thing in + common with the best and greatest, the feeling of tender love and + compassion for the lower animals which was in Thomson and Cowper, but + found its highest expression in his own great contemporaries, Coleridge, + Shelley, and Wordsworth. In virtue of this feeling he was of their + illustrious brotherhood. + </p> + <p> + In conclusion, I will quote one more passage. From the subject of horses + he passes to that of dogs and their occasional reversion to wildness, when + the mastiff or cur, the "faithful" house-dog by day, takes to + sheep-killing by night. As a rule he is exceedingly cunning, committing + his depredations at a distance frown home, and after getting his fill of + slaughter he sneaks home in the early hours to spend the day in his kennel + "licking his guilty paws." This is an anxious time for shepherds and + farmers, and poor Giles is compelled to pay late evening visits to his + small flock of heavy-sided ewes penned in their distant fold. It is a + comfort to him to have a full moon on these lonely expeditions, and + despite his tremors he is able to appreciate the beauty of the scene. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + With saunt'ring steps he climbs the distant stile, + Whilst all around him wears a placid smile; + There views the white-robed clouds in clusters driven + And all the glorious pageantry of heaven. + Low on the utmost bound'ry of the sight + The rising vapours catch the silver light; + Thence fancy measures as they parting fly + Which first will throw its shadow on the eye, + Passing the source of light; and thence away + Succeeded quick by brighter still than they. + For yet above the wafted clouds are seen + (In a remoter sky still more serene) + Others detached in ranges through the air, + Spotless as snow and countless as they're fair; + Scattered immensely wide from east to west + The beauteous semblance of a flock at rest. +</pre> + <p> + This is almost the only passage in the poem in which something of the + vastness of visible nature is conveyed. He saw the vastness only in the + sky on nights with a full moon or when he made a telescope of his hat to + watch the flight of the lark. It was not a hilly country about his native + place, and his horizon was a very limited one, usually bounded by the + hedgerow timber at the end of the level field. The things he depicts were + seen at short range, and the poetry, we see, was of a very modest kind. It + was a "humble note" which pleased me in the days of long ago when I was + young and very ignorant, and as it pleases me still it may be supposed + that mentally I have not progressed with the years. Nevertheless, I am not + incapable of appreciating the greater music; all that is said in its + praise, even to the extremest expressions of admiration of those who are + moved to a sense of wonder by it, find an echo in me. But it is not only a + delight to me to listen to the lark singing at heaven's gate and to the + vesper nightingale in the oak copse—the singer of a golden throat + and wondrous artistry; I also love the smaller vocalists—the modest + shufewing and the lesser whitethroat and the yellowhammer with his simple + chant. These are very dear to me: their strains do not strike me as + trivial; they have a lesser distinction of their own and I would not miss + them from the choir. The literary man will smile at this and say that my + paper is naught but an idle exercise, but I fancy I shall sleep the better + tonight for having discharged this ancient debt which has been long on my + conscience. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter Twenty-Five: My Friend Jack + </h2> + <p> + My friend rack is a retriever—very black, very curly, perfect in + shape, but just a retriever; and he is really not my friend, only he + thinks he is, which comes to the same thing. So convinced is he that I am + his guide, protector, and true master, that if I were to give him a + downright scolding or even a thrashing he would think it was all right and + go on just the same. His way of going on is to make a companion of me + whether I want him or not. I do not want him, but his idea is that I want + him very much. I bitterly blame myself for having made the first advances, + although nothing came of it except that he growled. I met him in a Cornish + village in a house where I stayed. There was a nice kennel there, painted + green, with a bed of clean straw and an empty plate which had contained + his dinner, but on peeping in I saw no dog. Next day it was the same, and + the next, and the day after that; then I inquired about it—Was there + a dog in that house or not? Oh, yes, certainly there was: Jack, but a very + independent sort of dog. On most days he looked in, ate his dinner and had + a nap on his straw, but he was not what you would call a home-keeping dog. + </p> + <p> + One day I found him in, and after we had looked for about a minute at each + other, I squatting before the kennel, he with chin on paws pretending to + be looking through me at something beyond, I addressed a few kind words to + him, which he received with the before-mentioned growl. I pronounced him a + surly brute and went away. It was growl for growl. Nevertheless I was well + pleased at having escaped the consequences in speaking kindly to him. I am + not a "doggy" person nor even a canophilist. The purely parasitic or + degenerate pet dog moves me to compassion, but the natural vigorous + outdoor dog I fear and avoid because we are not in harmony; consequently I + suffer and am a loser when he forces his company on me. The outdoor world + I live in is not the one to which a man goes for a constitutional, with a + dog to save him from feeling lonely, or, if he has a gun, with a dog to + help him kill something. It is a world which has sound in it, distant + cries and penetrative calls, and low mysterious notes, as of insects and + corncrakes, and frogs chirping and of grasshopper warblers—sounds + like wind in the dry sedges. And there are also sweet and beautiful songs; + but it is very quiet world where creatures move about subtly, on wings, on + polished scales, on softly padded feet—rabbits, foxes, stoats, + weasels, and voles and birds and lizards and adders and slow-worms, also + beetles and dragon-flies. Many are at enmity with each other, but on + account of their quietude there is no disturbance, no outcry and rushing + into hiding. And having acquired this habit from them I am able to see and + be with them. The sitting bird, the frolicking rabbit, the basking adder—they + are as little disturbed at my presence as the butterfly that drops down + close to my feet to sun his wings on a leaf or frond and makes me hold my + breath at the sight of his divine colour, as if he had just fluttered down + from some brighter realm in the sky. Think of a dog in this world, + intoxicated with the odours of so many wild creatures, dashing and + splashing through bogs and bushes! It is ten times worse than a bull in a + china-shop. The bull can but smash a lot of objects made of baked clay; + the dog introduces a mad panic in a world of living intelligent beings, a + fairy realm of exquisite beauty. They scuttle away and vanish into hiding + as if a deadly wind had blown over the earth and swept them out of + existence. Only the birds remain—they can fly and do not fear for + their own lives, but are in a state of intense anxiety about their eggs + and young among the bushes which he is dashing through or exploring. + </p> + <p> + I had good reason, then, to congratulate myself on Jack's surly behaviour + on our first meeting. Then, a few days later, a curious thing happened. + Jack was discovered one morning in his kennel, and when spoken to came or + rather dragged himself out, a most pitiable object. He was horribly + bruised and sore all over; his bones appeared to be all broken; he was + limp and could hardly get on his feet, and in that miserable condition he + continued for some three days. + </p> + <p> + At first we thought he had been in a big fight—he was inclined that + way, his master said—but we could discover no tooth marks or + lacerations, nothing but bruises. Perhaps, we said, he had fallen into the + hands of some cruel person in one of the distant moorland farms, who had + tied him up, then thrashed him with a big stick, and finally turned him + loose to die on the moor or crawl home if he could. His master looked so + black at this that we said no more about it. But Jack was a wonderfully + tough dog, all gristle I think, and after three days of lying there like a + dead dog he quickly recovered, though I'm quite sure that if his injuries + had been distributed among any half-dozen pampered or pet dogs it would + have killed them all. A morning came when the kennel was empty: Jack was + not dead—he was well again, and, as usual, out. + </p> + <p> + Just then I was absent for a week or ten days then, back again, I went out + one fine morning for a long day's ramble along the coast. A mile or so + from home, happening to glance back I caught sight of a black dog's face + among the bushes thirty or forty yards away gazing earnestly at me. It was + Jack, of course, nothing but his head visible in an opening among the + bushes—a black head which looked as if carved in ebony, in a + wonderful setting of shining yellow furze blossoms. The beauty and + singularity of the sight made it impossible for me to be angry with him, + though there's nothing a man more resents than being shadowed, or secretly + followed and spied upon, even by a dog, so, without considering what I was + letting myself in for, I cried out "Jack" and instantly he bounded out and + came to my side, then flew on ahead, well pleased to lead the way. + </p> + <p> + "I must suffer him this time," I said resignedly, and went on, he always + ahead acting as my scout and hunter—self-appointed, of course, but + as I had not ordered him back in trumpet tones and hurled a rock at him to + enforce the command, he took it that he was appointed by me. He certainly + made the most of his position; no one could say that he was lacking in + zeal. He scoured the country to the right and left and far in advance of + me, crashing through furze thickets and splashing across bogs and streams, + spreading terror where he went and leaving nothing for me to look at. So + it went on until after one o'clock when, tired and hungry, I was glad to + go down into a small fishing cove to get some dinner in a cottage I knew. + Jack threw himself down on the floor and shared my meal, then made friends + with the fisherman's wife and got a second meal of saffron cake which, + being a Cornish dog, he thoroughly enjoyed. + </p> + <p> + The second half of the day was very much like the first, altogether a + blank day for me, although a very full one for Jack, who had filled a vast + number of wild creatures with terror, furiously hunted a hundred or more, + and succeeded in killing two or three. + </p> + <p> + Jack was impossible, and would never be allowed to follow me again. So I + sternly said and so thought, but when the time came and I found him + waiting for me his brown eyes bright with joyful anticipation, I could not + scowl at him and thunder out No! I could not help putting myself in his + place. For here he was, a dog of boundless energy who must exercise his + powers or be miserable, with nothing in the village for him except to + witness the not very exciting activities of others; and that, I + discovered, had been his life. He was mad to do something, and because + there was nothing for him to do his time was mostly spent in going about + the village to keep an eye on the movements of the people, especially of + those who did the work, always with the hope that his services might be + required in some way by some one. He was grateful for the smallest crumbs, + so to speak. House-work and work about the house—milking, feeding + the pigs and so on—did not interest him, nor would he attend the + labourers in the fields. Harvest time would make a difference; now it was + ploughing, sowing, and hoeing, with nothing for Jack. But he was always + down at the fishing cove to see the boats go out or come in and join in + the excitement when there was a good catch. It was still better when the + boat went with provisions to the lighthouse, or to relieve the keeper, for + then Jack would go too and if they would not have him he would plunge into + the waves and swim after it until the sails were hoisted and it flew like + a great gull from him and he was compelled to swim back to land. If there + was nothing else to do he would go to the stone quarry and keep the + quarrymen company, sharing their dinner and hunting away the cows and + donkeys that came too near. Then at six o'clock he would turn up at the + cricket-field, where a few young enthusiasts would always attend to + practise after working hours. + </p> + <p> + Living this way Jack was, of course, known to everybody—as well + known as the burly parson, the tall policeman, and the lazy girl who acted + as postman and strolled about the parish once a day delivering the + letters. When Jack trotted down the village street he received as many + greetings as any human inhabitant—"Hullo, Jack!" or "Morning, Jack," + or "Where be going, Jack?" + </p> + <p> + But all this variety, and all he could do to fit himself into and be a + part of the village life and fill up his time, did not satisfy him. + Happiness for Jack was out on the moor—its lonely wet thorny places, + pregnant with fascinating scents, not of flowers and odorous herbs, but of + alert, warm-blooded, and swift-footed creatures. And I was going there—would + I, could I, be so heartless as to refuse to take him? + </p> + <p> + You see that Jack, being a dog, could not go there alone. He was a social + being by instinct as well as training, dependent on others, or on the one + who was his head and master. His human master, or the man who took him out + and spoke to him in a tone of authority, represented the head of the pack—the + leading dog for the time being, albeit a dog that walked on his hind legs + and spoke a bow-wow dialect of his own. + </p> + <p> + I thought of all this and of many things besides. The dog, I remembered, + was taken by man out of his own world and thrust into one where he can + never adapt himself perfectly to the conditions, and it was consequently + nothing more than simple justice on my part to do what I could to satisfy + his desire even at some cost to myself. But while I was revolving the + matter in my mind, feeling rather unhappy about it, Jack was quite happy, + since he had nothing to revolve. For him it was all settled and done with. + Having taken him out once, I must go on taking him out always. Our two + lives, hitherto running apart—his in the village, where he occupied + himself with uncongenial affairs, mine on the moor where, having but two + legs to run on, I could catch no rabbits—were now united in one + current to our mutual advantage. His habits were altered to suit the new + life. He stayed in now so as not to lose me when I went for a walk, and + when returning, instead of going back to his kennel, he followed me in and + threw himself down, all wet, on the rug before the fire. His master and + mistress came in and stared in astonishment. It was against the rules of + the house! They ordered him out and he looked at them without moving. Then + they spoke again very sharply indeed, and he growled a low buzzing growl + without lifting his chin from his paws, and they had to leave him! He had + transferred his allegiance to a new master and head of the pack. He was + under my protection and felt quite safe: if I had taken any part in that + scene it would have been to order those two persons who had once lorded it + over him out of the room! + </p> + <p> + I didn't really mind his throwing over his master and taking possession of + the rug in my sitting-room, but I certainly did very keenly resent his + behaviour towards the birds every morning at breakfast-time. It was my + chief pleasure to feed them during the bad weather, and it was often a + difficult task even before Jack came on the scene to mix himself in my + affairs. The Land's End is, I believe, the windiest place in the world, + and when I opened the window and threw the scraps out the wind would catch + and whirl them away like so many feathers over the garden wall, and I + could not see what became of them. It was necessary to go out by the + kitchen door at the back (the front door facing the sea being impossible) + and scatter the food on the lawn, and then go into watch the result from + behind the window. The blackbirds and thrushes would wait for a lull to + fly in over the wall, while the daws would hover overhead and sometimes + succeed in dropping down and seizing a crust, but often enough when + descending they would be caught and whirled away by the blast. The poor + magpies found their long tails very much against them in the scramble, and + it was even worse with the pied wagtail. He would go straight for the + bread and get whirled and tossed about the smooth lawn like a toy bird + made of feathers, his tail blown over his head. It was bad enough, and + then Jack, curious about these visits to the lawn, came to investigate and + finding the scraps, proceeded to eat them all up. I tried to make him + understand better by feeding him before I fed the birds; then by scolding + and even hitting him, but he would not see it; he knew better than I did; + he wasn't hungry and he didn't want bread, but he would eat it all the + same, every scrap of it, just to prevent it from being wasted. Jack was + doubtless both vexed and amused at my simplicity in thinking that all this + food which I put on the lawn would remain there undevoured by those + useless creatures the birds until it was wanted. + </p> + <p> + Even this I forgave him, for I saw that he had not, that with his dog mind + he could not, understand me. I also remembered the words of a wise old + Cornish writer with regard to the mind of the lower animals: "But their + faculties of mind are no less proportioned to their state of subjection + than the shape and properties of their bodies. They have knowledge + peculiar to their several spheres and sufficient for the under-part they + have to act." + </p> + <p> + Let me be free from the delusion that it is possible to raise them above + this level, or in other words to add an inch to their mental stature. I + have nothing to forgive Jack after all. And so in spite of everything Jack + was suffered at home and accompanied me again and again in my walks + abroad; and there were more blank days, or if not altogether blank, seeing + that there was Jack himself to be observed and thought about, they were + not the kind of days I had counted on having. My only consolation was that + Jack failed to capture more than one out of every hundred, or perhaps five + hundred, of the creatures he hunted, and that I was even able to save a + few of these. But I could not help admiring his tremendous energy and + courage, especially in cliff-climbing when we visited the headlands—those + stupendous masses and lofty piles of granite which rise like castles built + by giants of old. He would almost make me tremble for his life when, after + climbing on to some projecting rock, he would go to the extreme end and + look down over it as if it pleased him to watch the big waves break in + foam on the black rocks a couple of hundred feet below. But it was not the + big green waves or any sight in nature that drew him—he sniffed and + sniffed and wriggled and twisted his black nose, and raised and depressed + his ears as he sniffed, and was excited solely because the upward currents + of air brought him tidings of living creatures that lurked in the rocks + below—badger and fox and rabbit. One day when quitting one of these + places, on looking up I spied Jack standing on the summit of a precipice + about seventy-five feet high. Jack saw me and waved his tail, and then + started to come straight down to me! From the top a faint rabbit track + was, visible winding downwards to within twenty-four feet of the ground; + the rest was a sheer wall of rock. Down he dashed, faster and faster as he + got to where the track ended, and then losing his footing he fell swiftly + to the earth, but luckily dropped on a deep spongy turf and was not hurt. + After witnessing this reckless act I knew how he had come by those + frightful bruises on a former occasion. He had doubtless fallen a long way + down a cliff and had been almost crushed on the stones. But the lesson was + lost on Jack; he would have it that where rabbits and foxes went he could + go! + </p> + <p> + After all, the chief pleasure those blank bad days had for me was the + thought that Jack was as happy as he could well be. But it was not enough + to satisfy me, and by and by it came into my mind that I had been long + enough at that place. It was hard to leave Jack, who had put himself so + entirely in my hands, and trusted me so implicitly. But—the weather + was keeping very bad: was there ever known such a June as this of 1907? So + wet and windy and cold! Then, too, the bloom had gone from the furze. It + was, I remembered, to witness this chief loveliness that I came. Looking + on the wide moor and far-off boulder-strewn hills and seeing how rusty the + bushes were, I quoted— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The bloom has gone, and with the bloom go I, +</pre> + <p> + and early in the morning, with all my belongings on my back, I stole + softly forth, glancing apprehensively in the direction of the kennel, and + out on to the windy road. It was painful to me to have to decamp in this + way; it made me think meanly of myself; but if Jack could read this and + could speak his mind I think he would acknowledge that my way of bringing + the connection to an end was best for both of us. I was not the person, or + dog on two legs, he had taken me for, one with a proper desire to kill + things: I only acted according to my poor lights. Nothing, then, remains + to be said except that one word which it was not convenient to speak on + the windy morning of my departure—Good-bye Jack. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Afoot in England, by W.H. 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Hudson + +Release Date: April, 2004 [EBook #5406] +Posting Date: March 28, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFOOT IN ENGLAND *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + + + + + + + +AFOOT IN ENGLAND + + +By W.H. Hudson + + + +Contents + + I. Guide Books: An Introduction, + II. On Going Back, + III. Walking and Cycling, + IV. Seeking a Shelter, + V. Wind, Wave, and Spirit, + VI. By Swallowfield, + VII. Roman Calleva, + VIII. A Cold Day at Silchester, + IX. Rural Rides, + X. The Last of his Name, + XI. Salisbury and its Doves, + XII. Whitesheet Hill, + XIII. Bath and Wells Revisited, + XIV. The Return of the Native, + XV. Summer Days on the Otter, + XVI. In Praise of the Cow, + XVII. An Old Road Leading Nowhere, + XVIII. Branscombe, + XIX. A Abbotsbury, + XX. Salisbury Revisited, + XXI. Stonehenge, + XXII. The Tillage and "The Stones," + XXIII. Following a River, + XXIV. Troston, + XXV. My Friend Jack, + + + + +Chapter One: Guide-Books: An Introduction + +Guide-books are so many that it seems probable we have more than any +other country--possibly more than all the rest of the universe together. +Every county has a little library of its own--guides to its towns, +churches, abbeys, castles, rivers, mountains; finally, to the county +as a whole. They are of all prices and all sizes, from the diminutive +paper-covered booklet, worth a penny, to the stout cloth-bound octavo +volume which costs eight or ten or twelve shillings, or to the gigantic +folio county history, the huge repository from which the guide-book +maker gets his materials. For these great works are also guide-books, +containing everything we want to learn, only made on so huge a scale +as to be suited to the coat pockets of Brobdingnagians rather than of +little ordinary men. The wonder of it all comes in when we find that +these books, however old and comparatively worthless they may be, are +practically never wholly out of date. When a new work is brought out +(dozens appear annually) and, say, five thousand copies sold, it +does not throw as many, or indeed any, copies of the old book out of +circulation: it supersedes nothing. If any man can indulge in the luxury +of a new up-to-date guide to any place, and gets rid of his old one +(a rare thing to do), this will be snapped up by poorer men, who will +treasure it and hand it down or on to others. Editions of 1860-50-40, +and older, are still prized, not merely as keepsakes but for study +or reference. Any one can prove this by going the round of a dozen +second-hand booksellers in his own district in London. There will +be tons of literary rubbish, and good stuff old and new, but few +guidebooks--in some cases not one. If you ask your man at a venture for, +say, a guide to Hampshire, he will most probably tell you that he has +not one in stock; then, in his anxiety to do business, he will, perhaps, +fish out a guide to Derbyshire, dated 1854--a shabby old book--and offer +it for four or five shillings, the price of a Crabbe in eight volumes, +or of Gibbon's Decline and Fall in six volumes, bound in calf. Talk to +this man, and to the other eleven, and they will tell you that there is +always a sale for guide-books--that the supply does not keep pace with +the demand. It may be taken as a fact that most of the books of this +kind published during the last half-century--many millions of copies in +the aggregate--are still in existence and are valued possessions. + +There is nothing to quarrel with in all this. As a people we run about a +great deal; and having curious minds we naturally wish to know all there +is to be known, or all that is interesting to know, about the places we +visit. Then, again, our time as a rule being limited, we want the whole +matter--history, antiquities, places of interest in the neighbourhood, +etc. in a nutshell. The brief book serves its purpose well enough; but +it is not thrown away like the newspaper and the magazines; however +cheap and badly got up it may be, it is taken home to serve another +purpose, to be a help to memory, and nobody can have it until its owner +removes himself (but not his possessions) from this planet; or until +the broker seizes his belongings, and guide-books, together with other +books, are disposed of in packages by the auctioneer. + +In all this we see that guide-books are very important to us, and that +there is little or no fault to be found with them, since even the worst +give some guidance and enable us in after times mentally to revisit +distant places. It may then be said that there are really no bad +guide-books, and that those that are good in the highest sense are +beyond praise. A reverential sentiment, which is almost religious in +character, connects itself in our minds with the very name of Murray. It +is, however, possible to make an injudicious use of these books, and by +so doing to miss the fine point of many a pleasure. The very fact that +these books are guides to us and invaluable, and that we readily acquire +the habit of taking them about with us and consulting them at frequent +intervals, comes between us and that rarest and most exquisite enjoyment +to be experienced amidst novel scenes. He that visits a place new to him +for some special object rightly informs himself of all that the book can +tell him. The knowledge may be useful; pleasure is with him a secondary +object. But if pleasure be the main object, it will only be experienced +in the highest degree by him who goes without book and discovers what +old Fuller called the "observables" for himself. There will be no +mental pictures previously formed; consequently what is found will not +disappoint. When the mind has been permitted to dwell beforehand on +any scene, then, however beautiful or grand it may be, the element +of surprise is wanting and admiration is weak. The delight has been +discounted. + +My own plan, which may be recommended only to those who go out +for pleasure--who value happiness above useless (otherwise useful) +knowledge, and the pictures that live and glow in memory above albums +and collections of photographs--is not to look at a guide-book until the +place it treats of has been explored and left behind. + +The practical person, to whom this may come as a new idea and who wishes +not to waste any time in experiments, would doubtless like to hear how +the plan works. He will say that he certainly wants all the happiness to +be got out of his rambles, but it is clear that without the book in his +pocket he would miss many interesting things: Would the greater degree +of pleasure experienced in the others be a sufficient compensation? +I should say that he would gain more than he would lose; that vivid +interest and pleasure in a few things is preferable to that fainter, +more diffused feeling experienced in the other case. Again, we have to +take into account the value to us of the mental pictures gathered in our +wanderings. For we know that only when a scene is viewed emotionally, +when it produces in us a shock of pleasure, does it become a permanent +possession of the mind; in other words, it registers an image which, +when called up before the inner eye, is capable of reproducing a measure +of the original delight. + +In recalling those scenes which have given me the greatest happiness, +the images of which are most vivid and lasting, I find that most of them +are of scenes or objects which were discovered, as it were, by chance, +which I had not heard of, or else had heard of and forgotten, or which +I had not expected to see. They came as a surprise, and in the following +instance one may see that it makes a vast difference whether we do or do +not experience such a sensation. + +In the course of a ramble on foot in a remote district I came to a small +ancient town, set in a cuplike depression amidst high wood-grown hills. +The woods were of oak in spring foliage, and against that vivid green +I saw the many-gabled tiled roofs and tall chimneys of the old timbered +houses, glowing red and warm brown in the brilliant sunshine--a scene of +rare beauty, and yet it produced no shock of pleasure; never, in fact, +had I looked on a lovely scene for the first time so unemotionally. +It seemed to be no new scene, but an old familiar one; and that it had +certain degrading associations which took away all delight. + +The reason of this was that a great railway company had long been +"booming" this romantic spot, and large photographs, plain and coloured, +of the town and its quaint buildings had for years been staring at me +in every station and every railway carriage which I had entered on that +line. Photography degrades most things, especially open-air things; +and in this case, not only had its poor presentments made the scene too +familiar, but something of the degradation in the advertising pictures +seemed to attach itself to the very scene. Yet even here, after some +pleasureless days spent in vain endeavours to shake off these vulgar +associations, I was to experience one of the sweetest surprises and +delights of my life. + +The church of this village-like town is one of its chief attractions; it +is a very old and stately building, and its perpendicular tower, +nearly a hundred feet high, is one of the noblest in England. It has a +magnificent peal of bells, and on a Sunday afternoon they were ringing, +filling and flooding that hollow in the hills, seeming to make the +houses and trees and the very earth to tremble with the glorious storm +of sound. Walking past the church, I followed the streamlet that runs +through the town and out by a cleft between the hills to a narrow marshy +valley, on the other side of which are precipitous hills, clothed from +base to summit in oak woods. As I walked through the cleft the musical +roar of the bells followed, and was like a mighty current flowing +through and over me; but as I came out the sound from behind ceased +suddenly and was now in front, coming back from the hills before me. A +sound, but not the same--not a mere echo; and yet an echo it was, the +most wonderful I had ever heard. For now that great tempest of musical +noise, composed of a multitude of clanging notes with long vibrations, +overlapping and mingling and clashing together, seemed at the same time +one and many--that tempest from the tower which had mysteriously ceased +to be audible came back in strokes or notes distinct and separate and +multiplied many times. The sound, the echo, was distributed over the +whole face of the steep hill before me, and was changed in character, +and it was as if every one of those thousands of oak trees had a peal +of bells in it, and that they were raining that far-up bright spiritual +tree music down into the valley below. As I stood listening it seemed +to me that I had never heard anything so beautiful, nor had any man--not +the monk of Eynsham in that vision when he heard the Easter bells on +the holy Saturday evening, and described the sound as "a ringing of a +marvellous sweetness, as if all the bells in the world, or whatsoever is +of sounding, had been rung together at once." + +Here, then, I had found and had become the possessor of something +priceless, since in that moment of surprise and delight the mysterious +beautiful sound, with the whole scene, had registered an impression +which would outlast all others received at that place, where I had +viewed all things with but languid interest. Had it not come as a +complete surprise, the emotion experienced and the resultant mental +image would not have been so vivid; as it is, I can mentally stand in +that valley when I will, seeing that green-wooded hill in front of me +and listen to that unearthly music. + +Naturally, after quitting the spot, I looked at the first opportunity +into a guide-book of the district, only to find that it contained not +one word about those wonderful illusive sounds! The book-makers had not +done their work well, since it is a pleasure after having discovered +something delightful for ourselves to know how others have been affected +by it and how they describe it. + +Of many other incidents of the kind I will, in this chapter, relate one +more, which has a historical or legendary interest. I was staying with +the companion of my walks at a village in Southern England in a district +new to us. We arrived on a Saturday, and next morning after breakfast +went out for a long walk. Turning into the first path across the fields +on leaving the village, we came eventually to an oak wood, which was +like an open forest, very wild and solitary. In half an hour's walk +among the old oaks and underwood we saw no sign of human occupancy, and +heard nothing but the woodland birds. We heard, and then saw, the cuckoo +for the first time that season, though it was but April the fourth. But +the cuckoo was early that spring and had been heard by some from the +middle of March. At length, about half-past ten o'clock, we caught sight +of a number of people walking in a kind of straggling procession by a +path which crossed ours at right angles, headed by a stout old man in +a black smock frock and brown leggings, who carried a big book in one +hand. One of the processionists we spoke to told us they came from a +hamlet a mile away on the borders of the wood and were on their way to +church. We elected to follow them, thinking that the church was at some +neighbouring village; to our surprise we found it was in the wood, with +no other building in sight--a small ancient-looking church built on a +raised mound, surrounded by a wide shallow grass-grown trench, on the +border of a marshy stream. The people went in and took their seats, +while we remained standing just by the door. Then the priest came from +the vestry, and seizing the rope vigorously, pulled at it for five +minutes, after which he showed us where to sit and the service began. It +was very pleasant there, with the door open to the sunlit forest and +the little green churchyard without, with a willow wren, the first I had +heard, singing his delicate little strain at intervals. + +The service over, we rambled an hour longer in the wood, then returned +to our village, which had a church of its own, and our landlady, hearing +where we had been, told us the story, or tradition, of the little church +in the wood. Its origin goes very far back to early Norman times, when +all the land in this part was owned by one of William's followers on +whom it had been bestowed. He built himself a house or castle on +the edge of the forest, where he lived with his wife and two little +daughters who were his chief delight. It happened that one day when he +was absent the two little girls with their female attendant went into +the wood in search of flowers, and that meeting a wild boar they turned +and fled, screaming for help. The savage beast pursued, and, quickly +overtaking them, attacked the hindermost, the youngest of the two little +girls, anal killed her, the others escaping in the meantime. On the +following day the father returned, and was mad with grief and rage on +hearing of the tragedy, and in his madness resolved to go alone on foot +to the forest and search for the beast and taste no food or drink until +he had slain it. Accordingly to the forest he went, and roamed through +it by day and night, and towards the end of the following day he +actually found and roused the dreadful animal, and although weakened by +his long fast and fatigue, his fury gave him force to fight and conquer +it, or else the powers above came to his aid; for when he stood spear +in hand to wait the charge of the furious beast he vowed that if he +overcame it on that spot he would build a chapel, where God would be +worshipped for ever. And there it was raised and has stood to this day, +its doors open every Sunday to worshippers, with but one break, some +time in the sixteenth century to the third year of Elizabeth, since when +there has been no suspension of the weekly service. + +That the tradition is not true no one can say. We know that the memory +of an action or tragedy of a character to stir the feelings and impress +the imagination may live unrecorded in any locality for long centuries. +And more, we know or suppose, from at least one quite familiar instance +from Flintshire, that a tradition may even take us back to prehistoric +times and find corroboration in our own day. + +But of this story what corroboration is there, and what do the books +say? I have consulted the county history, and no mention is made of +such a tradition, and can only assume that the author had never heard +it--that he had not the curious Aubrey mind. He only says that it is +a very early church--how early he does not know--and adds that it was +built "for the convenience of the inhabitants of the place." An odd +statement, seeing that the place has every appearance of having always +been what it is, a forest, and that the inhabitants thereof are weasels, +foxes, jays and such-like, and doubtless in former days included wolves, +boars, roe-deer and stags, beings which, as Walt Whitman truly remarks, +do not worry themselves about their souls. + +With this question, however, we need not concern ourselves. To me, +after stumbling by chance on the little church in that solitary woodland +place, the story of its origin was accepted as true; no doubt it had +come down unaltered from generation to generation through all those +centuries, and it moved my pity yet was a delight to hear, as great +perhaps as it had been to listen to the beautiful chimes many times +multiplied from the wooded hill. And if I have a purpose in this book, +which is without a purpose, a message to deliver and a lesson to teach, +it is only this--the charm of the unknown, and the infinitely greater +pleasure in discovering the interesting things for ourselves than in +informing ourselves of them by reading. It is like the difference in +flavour in wild fruits and all wild meats found and gathered by our own +hands in wild places and that of the same prepared and put on the table +for us. The ever-varying aspects of nature, of earth and sea and cloud, +are a perpetual joy to the artist, who waits and watches for their +appearance, who knows that sun and atmosphere have for him revelations +without end. They come and go and mock his best efforts; he knows that +his striving is in vain--that his weak hands and earthy pigments cannot +reproduce these effects or express his feeling--that, as Leighton said, +"every picture is a subject thrown away." But he has his joy none the +less; it is in the pursuit and in the dream of capturing something +illusive, mysterious, and inexpressibly beautiful. + + + + +Chapter Two: On Going Back + + +In looking over the preceding chapter it occurred to me that I had +omitted something, or rather that it would have been well to drop a word +of warning to those who have the desire to revisit a place where they +have experienced a delightful surprise. Alas! they cannot have that +sensation a second time, and on this account alone the mental image +must always be better than its reality. Let the image--the first sharp +impression--content us. Many a beautiful picture is spoilt by the artist +who cannot be satisfied that he has made the best of his subject, and +retouching his canvas to bring out some subtle charm which made the +work a success loses it altogether. So in going back, the result of +the inevitable disillusionment is that the early mental picture loses +something of its original freshness. The very fact that the delightful +place or scene was discovered by us made it the shining place it is in +memory. And again, the charm we found in it may have been in a measure +due to the mood we were in, or to the peculiar aspect in which it came +before us at the first, due to the season, to atmospheric and sunlight +effects, to some human interest, or to a conjunction of several +favourable circumstances; we know we can never see it again in that +aspect and with that precise feeling. + +On this account I am shy of revisiting the places where I have +experienced the keenest delight. For example, I have no desire to +revisit that small ancient town among the hills, described in the last +chapter; to go on a Sunday evening through that narrow gorge, filled +with the musical roar of the church bells; to leave that great sound +behind and stand again listening to the marvellous echo from the wooded +hill on the other side of the valley. Nor would I care to go again in +search of that small ancient lost church in the forest. It would not +be early April with the clear sunbeams shining through the old leafless +oaks on the floor of fallen yellow leaves with the cuckoo fluting before +his time; nor would that straggling procession of villagers appear, +headed by an old man in a smock frock with a big book in his hand; nor +would I hear for the first time the strange history of the church which +so enchanted me. + +I will here give an account of yet another of the many well-remembered +delightful spots which I would not revisit, nor even look upon again if +I could avoid doing so by going several miles out of my way. + +It was green open country in the west of England--very far west, +although on the east side of the Tamar--in a beautiful spot remote from +railroads and large towns, and the road by which I was travelling (on +this occasion on a bicycle) ran or serpentined along the foot of a range +of low round hills on my right hand, while on my left I had a green +valley with other low round green hills beyond it. The valley had a +marshy stream with sedgy margins and occasional clumps of alder and +willow trees. It was the end of a hot midsummer day; the sun went down +a vast globe of crimson fire in a crystal clear sky; and as I was going +east I was obliged to dismount and stand still to watch its setting. +When the great red disc had gone down behind the green world I resumed +my way but went slowly, then slower still, the better to enjoy the +delicious coolness which came from the moist valley and the beauty of +the evening in that solitary place which I had never looked on before. +Nor was there any need to hurry; I had but three or four miles to go +to the small old town where I intended passing the night. By and by +the winding road led me down close to the stream at a point where it +broadened to a large still pool. This was the ford, and on the other +side was a small rustic village, consisting of a church, two or three +farm-houses with their barns and outbuildings, and a few ancient-looking +stone cottages with thatched roofs. But the church was the main thing; +it was a noble building with a very fine tower, and from its size and +beauty I concluded that it was an ancient church dating back to the +time when there was a passion in the West Country and in many parts +of England of building these great fanes even in the remotest and most +thinly populated parishes. In this I was mistaken through having seen it +at a distance from the other side of the ford after the sun had set. + +Never, I thought, had I seen a lovelier village with its old picturesque +cottages shaded by ancient oaks and elms, and the great church with its +stately tower looking dark against the luminous western sky. Dismounting +again I stood for some time admiring the scene, wishing that I could +make that village my home for the rest of my life, conscious at the same +time that is was the mood, the season, the magical hour which made it +seem so enchanting. Presently a young man, the first human figure that +presented itself to my sight, appeared, mounted on a big carthorse and +leading a second horse by a halter, and rode down into the pool to bathe +the animals' legs and give them a drink. He was a sturdy-looking young +fellow with a sun-browned face, in earth-coloured, working clothes, +with a small cap stuck on the back of his round curly head; he probably +imagined himself not a bad-looking young man, for while his horses were +drinking he laid over on the broad bare backs and bending down studied +his own reflection in the bright water. Then an old woman came out of a +cottage close by, and began talking to him in her West Country dialect +in a thin high-pitched cracked voice. Their talking was the only sound +in the village; so silent was it that all the rest of its inhabitants +might have been in bed and fast asleep; then, the conversation ended, +the young man rode out with a great splashing and the old woman turned +into her cottage again, and I was left in solitude. + +Still I lingered: I could not go just yet; the chances were that I +should never again see that sweet village in that beautiful aspect at +the twilight hour. + +For now it came into my mind that I could not very well settle there +for the rest of my life; I could not, in fact, tie myself to any place +without sacrificing certain other advantages I possessed; and the main +thing was that by taking root I should deprive myself of the chance of +looking on still other beautiful scenes and experiencing other sweet +surprises. I was wishing that I had come a little earlier on the scene +to have had time to borrow the key of the church and get a sight of the +interior, when all at once I heard a shrill voice and a boy appeared +running across the wide green space of the churchyard. A second boy +followed, then another, then still others, and I saw that they were +going into the church by the side door. They were choir-boys going to +practice. The church was open then, and late as it was I could have +half an hour inside before it was dark! The stream was spanned by an old +stone bridge above the ford, and going over it I at once made my way +to the great building, but even before entering it I discovered that +it possessed an organ of extraordinary power and that someone was +performing on it with a vengeance. Inside the noise was tremendous--a +bigger noise from an organ, it seemed to me, than I had ever heard +before, even at the Albert Hall and the Crystal Palace, but even more +astonishing than the uproar was the sight that met my eyes. The boys, +nine or ten sturdy little rustics with round sunburnt West Country +faces, were playing the roughest game ever witnessed in a church. Some +were engaged in a sort of flying fight, madly pursuing one another up +and down the aisles and over the pews, and whenever one overtook another +he would seize hold of him and they would struggle together until +one was thrown and received a vigorous pommelling. Those who were not +fighting were dancing to the music. It was great fun to them, and they +were shouting and laughing their loudest only not a sound of it all +could be heard on account of the thunderous roar of the organ which +filled and seemed to make the whole building tremble. The boys took no +notice of me, and seeing that there was a singularly fine west window, I +went to it and stood there some time with my back to the game which +was going on at the other end of the building, admiring the beautiful +colours and trying to make out the subjects depicted. In the centre +part, lit by the after-glow in the sky to a wonderful brilliance, was +the figure of a saint, a lovely young woman in a blue robe with an +abundance of loose golden-red hair and an aureole about her head. Her +pale face wore a sweet and placid expression, and her eyes of a pure +forget-me-not blue were looking straight into mine. As I stood there +the music, or noise, ceased and a very profound silence followed--not +a giggle, not a whisper from the outrageous young barbarians, and not a +sound of the organist or of anyone speaking to them. Presently I became +conscious of some person standing almost but not quite abreast of me, +and turning sharply I found a clergyman at my side. He was the vicar, +the person who had been letting himself go on the organ; a slight man +with a handsome, pale, ascetic face, clean-shaven, very dark-eyed, +looking more like an Italian monk or priest than an English clergyman. +But although rigidly ecclesiastic in his appearance and dress, there was +something curiously engaging in him, along with a subtle look which +it was not easy to fathom. There was a light in his dark eyes which +reminded me of a flame seen through a smoked glass or a thin black veil, +and a slight restless movement about the corners of his mouth as if a +smile was just on the point of breaking out. But it never quite came; +he kept his gravity even when he said things which would have gone very +well with a smile. + +"I see," he spoke, and his penetrating musical voice had, too, like his +eyes and mouth, an expression of mystery in it, "that you are admiring +our beautiful west window, especially the figure in the centre. It is +quite new--everything is new here--the church itself was only built a +few years ago. This window is its chief glory: it was done by a good +artist--he has done some of the most admired windows of recent years; +and the centre figure is supposed to be a portrait of our generous +patroness. At all events she sat for it to him. You have probably heard +of Lady Y--?" + +"What!" I exclaimed. "Lady Y--: that funny old woman!" + +"No--middle-aged," he corrected, a little frigidly and perhaps a little +mockingly at the same time. + +"Very well, middle-aged if you like; I don't know her personally. One +hears about her; but I did not know she had a place in these parts." + +"She owns most of this parish and has done so much for us that we can +very well look leniently on a little weakness--her wish that the future +inhabitants of the place shall not remember her as a middle-aged woman +not remarkable for good looks--'funny,' as you just now said." + +He was wonderfully candid, I thought. But what extraordinary benefits +had she bestowed on them, I asked, to enable them to regard, or to say, +that this picture of a very beautiful young female was her likeness! + +"Why," he said, "the church would not have been built but for her. We +were astonished at the sum she offered to contribute towards the work, +and at once set about pulling the small old church down so as to rebuild +on the exact site." + +"Do you know," I returned, "I can't help saying something you will not +like to hear. It is a very fine church, no doubt, but it always angers +me to hear of a case like this where some ancient church is pulled down +and a grand new one raised in its place to the honour and glory of some +rich parvenu with or without a brand new title." + +"You are not hurting me in the least," he replied, with that change +which came from time to time in his eyes as if the flame behind the +screen had suddenly grown brighter. "I agree with every word you say; +the meanest church in the land should be cherished as long as it will +hold together. But unfortunately ours had to come down. It was very old +and decayed past mending. The floor was six feet below the level of the +surrounding ground and frightfully damp. It had been examined over and +over again by experts during the past forty or fifty years, and from the +first they pronounced it a hopeless case, so that it was never restored. +The interior, right down to the time of demolition, was like that of +most country churches of a century ago, with the old black worm-eaten +pews, in which the worshippers shut themselves up as if in their own +houses or castles. On account of the damp we were haunted by toads. You +smile, sir, but it was no smiling matter for me during my first year as +vicar, when I discovered that it was the custom here to keep pet toads +in the church. It sounds strange and funny, no doubt, but it is a fact +that all the best people in the parish had one of these creatures, +and it was customary for the ladies to bring it a weekly supply of +provisions--bits of meat, hard-boiled eggs chopped up, and earth-worms, +and whatever else they fancied it would like--in their reticules. The +toads, I suppose, knew when it was Sunday--their feeding day; at all +events they would crawl out of their holes in the floor under the pews +to receive their rations--and caresses. The toads got on my nerves with +rather unpleasant consequences. I preached in a way which my listeners +did not appreciate or properly understand, particularly when I took for +my subject our duty towards the lower animals, including reptiles." + +"Batrachians," I interposed, echoing as well as I could the tone in +which he had rebuked me before. + +"Very well, batrachians--I am not a naturalist. But the impression +created on their minds appeared to be that I was rather an odd person +in the pulpit. When the time came to pull the old church down the +toad-keepers were bidden to remove their pets, which they did with +considerable reluctance. What became of them I do not know--I never +inquired. I used to have a careful inspection made of the floor to make +sure that these creatures were not put back in the new building, and I +am happy to think it is not suited to their habits. The floors are very +well cemented, and are dry and clean." + +Having finished his story he invited me to go to the parsonage and get +some refreshment. "I daresay you are thirsty," he said. + +But it was getting late; it was almost dark in the church by now, +although the figure of the golden-haired saint still glowed in the +window and gazed at us out of her blue eyes. "I must not waste more of +your time," I added. "There are your boys still patiently waiting to +begin their practice--such nice quiet fellows!" + +"Yes, they are," he returned a little bitterly, a sudden accent of +weariness in his voice and no trace now of what I had seen in his +countenance a little while ago--the light that shone and brightened +behind the dark eye and the little play about the corners of the mouth +as of dimpling motions on the surface of a pool. + +And in that new guise, or disguise, I left him, the austere priest with +nothing to suggest the whimsical or grotesque in his cold ascetic face. +Recrossing the bridge I stood a little time and looked once more at the +noble church tower standing dark against the clear amber-coloured sky, +and said to myself: "Why, this is one of the oddest incidents of my +life! Not that I have seen or heard anything very wonderful--just a +small rustic village, one of a thousand in the land; a big new church in +which some person was playing rather madly on the organ, a set of unruly +choir-boys; a handsome stained-glass west window, and, finally, a nice +little chat with the vicar." It was not in these things; it was a sense +of something strange in the mind, of something in some way unlike all +other places and people and experiences. The sensation was like that of +the reader who becomes absorbed in Henry Newbolt's romance of The Old +Country, who identifies himself with the hero and unconsciously, or +without quite knowing how, slips back out of this modern world into +that of half a thousand years ago. It is the same familiar green land in +which he finds himself--the same old country and the same sort of people +with feelings and habits of life and thought unchangeable as the colour +of grass and flowers, the songs of birds and the smell of the earth, yet +with a difference. I recognized it chiefly in the parish priest I had +been conversing with; for one thing, his mediaeval mind evidently did +not regard a sense of humour and of the grotesque as out of place in or +on a sacred building. If it had been lighter I should have looked at +the roof for an effigy of a semi-human toad-like creature smiling down +mockingly at the worshippers as they came and went. + +On departing it struck me that it would assuredly be a mistake to return +to this village and look at it again by the common lights of day. No, +it was better to keep the impressions I had gathered unspoilt; even to +believe, if I could, that no such place existed, but that it had +existed exactly as I had found it, even to the unruly choir-boys, +the ascetic-looking priest with a strange light in his eyes, and the +worshippers who kept pet toads in the church. They were not precisely +like people of the twentieth century. As for the eccentric middle-aged +or elderly person whose portrait adorned the west window, she was +not the lady I knew something about, but another older Lady Y--, who +flourished some six or seven centuries ago. + + + + +Chapter Three: Walking and Cycling + + +We know that there cannot be progression without retrogression, or gain +with no corresponding loss; and often on my wheel, when flying along +the roads at a reckless rate of very nearly nine miles an hour, I have +regretted that time of limitations, galling to me then, when I was +compelled to go on foot. I am a walker still, but with other means of +getting about I do not feel so native to the earth as formerly. That is +a loss. Yet a poorer walker it would have been hard to find, and on even +my most prolonged wanderings the end of each day usually brought extreme +fatigue. This, too, although my only companion was slow--slower than the +poor proverbial snail or tortoise--and I would leave her half a mile +or so behind to force my way through unkept hedges, climb hills, and +explore woods and thickets to converse with every bird and shy little +beast and scaly creature I could discover. But mark what follows. In the +late afternoon I would be back in the road or footpath, satisfied to +go slow, then slower still, until--the snail in woman shape would be +obliged to slacken her pace to keep me company, and even to stand still +at intervals to give me needful rest. + +But there were compensations, and one, perhaps the best of all, was that +this method of seeing the country made us more intimate with the people +we met and stayed with. They were mostly poor people, cottagers in small +remote villages; and we, too, were poor, often footsore, in need of +their ministrations, and nearer to them on that account than if we +had travelled in a more comfortable way. I can recall a hundred little +adventures we met with during those wanderings, when we walked day after +day, without map or guide-book as our custom was, not knowing where the +evening would find us, but always confident that the people to whom it +would fall in the end to shelter us would prove interesting to know and +would show us a kindness that money could not pay for. Of these hundred +little incidents let me relate one. + +It was near the end of a long summer day when we arrived at a small +hamlet of about a dozen cottages on the edge of an extensive wood--a +forest it is called; and, coming to it, we said that here we must stay, +even if we had to spend the night sitting in a porch. The men and women +we talked to all assured us that they did not know of anyone who could +take us in, but there was Mr. Brownjohn, who kept the shop, and was the +right person to apply to. Accordingly we went to the little general shop +and heard that Mr. Brownjohn was not at home. His housekeeper, a fat, +dark, voluble woman with prominent black eyes, who minded the shop +in the master's absence, told us that Mr. Brownjohn had gone to a +neighbouring farm-house on important business, but was expected back +shortly. We waited, and by and by he returned, a shabbily dressed, +weak-looking little old man, with pale blue eyes and thin yellowish +white hair. He could not put us up, he said, he had no room in his +cottage; there was nothing for us but to go on to the next place, a +village three miles distant, on the chance of finding a bed there. We +assured him that we could go no further, and after revolving the matter +a while longer he again said that we could not stay, as there was not a +room to be had in the place since poor Mrs. Flowerdew had her trouble. +She had a spare room and used to take in a lodger occasionally, and a +good handy woman she was too; but now--no, Mrs. Flowerdew could not take +us in. We questioned him, and he said that no one had died there and +there had been no illness. They were all quite well at Mrs. Flowerdew's; +the trouble was of another kind. There was no more to be said about it. + +As nothing further could be got out of him we went in search of Mrs. +Flowerdew herself, and found her in a pretty vine-clad cottage. She was +a young woman, very poorly dressed, with a pleasing but careworn face, +and she had four small, bright, healthy, happy-faced children. They were +all grouped round her as she stood in the doorway to speak to us, and +they too were poorly dressed and poorly shod. When we told our tale she +appeared ready to burst into tears. Oh, how unfortunate it was that +she could not take us in! It would have made her so happy, and the +few shillings would have been such a blessing! But what could she do +now--the landlord's agent had put in a distress and carried off and sold +all her best things. Every stick out of her nice spare room had been +taken from them! Oh, it was cruel! + +As we wished to hear more she told us the whole story. They had got +behindhand with the rent, but that had often been the case, only this +time it happened that the agent wanted a cottage for a person he wished +to befriend, and so gave them notice to quit. But her husband was a +high-spirited man and determined to stick to his rights, so he informed +the agent that he refused to move until he received compensation for his +improvements. + +Questioned about these improvements, she led us through to the back to +show us the ground, about half an acre in extent, part of which was used +as a paddock for the donkey, and on the other part there were about a +dozen rather sickly-looking young fruit trees. Her husband, she said, +had planted the orchard and kept the fence of the paddock in order, and +they refused to compensate him! Then she took us up to the spare room, +empty of furniture, the floor thick with dust. The bed, table, +chairs, washhandstand, toilet service--the things she had been so long +struggling to get together, saving her money for months and months, and +making so many journeys to the town to buy--all, all he had taken away +and sold for almost nothing! + +Then, actually with tears in her eyes, she said that now we knew why she +couldn't take us in--why she had to seem so unkind. + +But we are going to stay, we told her. It was a very good room; she +could surely get a few things to put in it, and in the meantime we would +go and forage for provisions to last us till Monday. + +It is odd to find how easy it is to get what one wants by simply taking +it! At first she was amazed at our decision, then she was delighted and +said she would go out to her neighbours and try to borrow all that was +wanted in the way of furniture and bedding. Then we returned to Mr. +Brownjohn's to buy bread, bacon, and groceries, and he in turn sent us +to Mr. Marling for vegetables. Mr. Marling heard us, and soberly taking +up a spade and other implements led us out to his garden and dug us a +mess of potatoes while we waited. In the meantime good Mrs. Flowerdew +had not been idle, and we formed the idea that her neighbours must have +been her debtors for unnumbered little kindnesses, so eager did they now +appear to do her a good turn. Out of one cottage a woman was seen coming +burdened with a big roll of bedding; from others children issued bearing +cane chairs, basin and ewer, and so on, and when we next looked into +our room we found it swept and scrubbed, mats on the floor, and quite +comfortably furnished. + +After our meal in the small parlour, which had been given up to us, the +family having migrated into the kitchen, we sat for an hour by the open +window looking out on the dim forest and saw the moon rise--a great +golden globe above the trees--and listened to the reeling of the +nightjars. So many were the birds, reeling on all sides, at various +distances, that the evening air seemed full of their sounds, far and +near, like many low, tremulous, sustained notes blown on reeds, rising +and falling, overlapping and mingling. And presently from the bushes +close by, just beyond the weedy, forlorn little "orchard," sounded +the rich, full, throbbing prelude to the nightingale's song, and that +powerful melody that in its purity and brilliance invariably strikes us +with surprise seemed to shine out, as it were, against the background of +that diffused, mysterious purring of the nightjars, even as the golden +disc of the moon shone against and above the darkening skies and dusky +woods. + +And as we sat there, gazing and listening, a human voice came out of the +night--a call prolonged and modulated like the coo-ee of the Australian +bush, far off and faint; but the children in the kitchen heard it at the +same time, for they too had been listening, and instantly went mad with +excitement. + +"Father!" they all screamed together. "Father's coming!" and out they +rushed and away they fled down the darkening road, exerting their full +voices in shrill answering cries. + +We were anxious to see this unfortunate man, who was yet happy in a +loving family. He had gone early in the morning in his donkey-cart to +the little market town, fourteen miles away, to get the few necessaries +they could afford to buy. Doubtless they would be very few. We had +not long to wait, as the white donkey that drew the cart had put on a +tremendous spurt at the end, notwithstanding that the four youngsters +had climbed in to add to his burden. But what was our surprise to behold +in the charioteer a tall, gaunt, grey-faced old man with long white hair +and beard! He must have been seventy, that old man with a young wife and +four happy bright-eyed little children! + +We could understand it better when he finally settled down in his corner +in the kitchen and began to relate the events of the day, addressing his +poor little wife, now busy darning or patching an old garment, while the +children, clustered at his knee, listened as to a fairy tale. Certainly +this white-haired man had not grown old in mind; he was keenly +interested in all he saw and heard, and he had seen and heard much in +the little market town that day. Cattle and pigs and sheep and shepherds +and sheepdogs; farmers, shopkeepers, dealers, publicans, tramps, and +gentlefolks in carriages and on horseback; shops, too, with beautiful +new things in the windows; millinery, agricultural implements, flowers +and fruit and vegetables; toys and books and sweeties of all colours. +And the people he had met on the road and at market, and what they had +said to him about the weather and their business and the prospects of +the year, how their wives and children were, and the clever jokes they +had made, and his own jokes, which were the cleverest of all. If he had +just returned from Central Africa or from Thibet he could not have had +more to tell them nor told it with greater zest. + +We went to our room, but until the small hours the wind of the old +traveller's talk could still be heard at intervals from the kitchen, +mingled with occasional shrill explosions of laughter from the listening +children. + +It happened that on the following day, spent in idling in the forest and +about the hamlet, conversing with the cottagers, we were told that +our old man was a bit of a humbug; that he was a great talker, with a +hundred schemes for the improvement of his fortunes, and, incidently, +for the benefit of his neighbours and the world at large; but nothing +came of it all and he was now fast sinking into the lowest depths of +poverty. Yet who would blame him? 'Tis the nature of the gorse to be +"unprofitably gay." All that, however, is a question for the moralist; +the point now is that in walking, even in that poor way, when, on +account of physical weakness, it was often a pain and weariness, there +are alleviations which may be more to us than positive pleasures, and +scenes to delight the eye that are missed by the wheelman in his haste, +or but dimly seen or vaguely surmised in passing--green refreshing nooks +and crystal streamlets, and shadowy woodland depths with glimpses of a +blue sky beyond--all in the wilderness of the human heart. + + + + +Chapter Four: Seeking a Shelter + + +The "walks" already spoken of, at a time when life had little or no +other pleasure for us on account of poverty and ill-health, were taken +at pretty regular intervals two or three times a year. It all depended +on our means; in very lean years there was but one outing. It was +impossible to escape altogether from the immense unfriendly wilderness +of London simply because, albeit "unfriendly," it yet appeared to be the +only place in the wide world where our poor little talents could earn us +a few shillings a week to live on. Music and literature! but I fancy the +nearest crossing-sweeper did better, and could afford to give himself a +more generous dinner every day. It occasionally happened that an +article sent to some magazine was not returned, and always after so many +rejections to have one accepted and paid for with a cheque worth several +pounds was a cause of astonishment, and was as truly a miracle as if the +angel of the sun had compassionately thrown us down a handful of gold. +And out of these little handfuls enough was sometimes saved for the +country rambles at Easter and Whitsuntide and in the autumn. It was +during one of these Easter walks, when seeking for a resting-place for +the night, that we met with another adventure worth telling. + +We had got to that best part of Surrey not yet colonized by wealthy men +from the City, but where all things are as they were of old, when, late +in the day, we came to a pleasant straggling village with one street a +mile long. Here we resolved to stay, and walked the length of the street +making inquiries, but were told by every person we spoke to that the +only place we could stay at was the inn--the "White Hart." When we said +we preferred to stay at a cottage they smiled a pitying smile. No, there +was no such place. But we were determined not to go to the inn, although +it had a very inviting look, and was well placed with no other house +near it, looking on the wide village green with ancient trees shading +the road on either side. + +Having passed it and got to the end of the village, we turned and walked +back, still making vain inquiries, passing it again, and when once more +at the starting-point we were in despair when we spied a man coming +along the middle of the road and went out to meet him to ask the weary +question for the last time. His appearance was rather odd as he came +towards us on that blowy March evening with dust and straws flying past +and the level sun shining full on him. He was tall and slim, with a +large round smooth face and big pale-blue innocent-looking eyes, and he +walked rapidly but in a peculiar jerky yet shambling manner, swinging +and tossing his legs and arms about. Moving along in this disjointed +manner in his loose fluttering clothes he put one in mind of a +big flimsy newspaper blown along the road by the wind. This +unpromising-looking person at once told us that there was a place where +we could stay; he knew it well, for it happened to be his father's +house and his own home. It was away at the other end of the village. His +people had given accommodation to strangers before, and would be glad to +receive us and make us comfortable. + +Surprised, and a little doubtful of our good fortune, I asked my young +man if he could explain the fact that so many of his neighbours had +assured us that no accommodation was to be had in the village except at +the inn. He did not make a direct reply. He said that the ways of +the villagers were not the ways of his people. He and all his house +cherished only kind feelings towards their neighbours; whether those +feelings were returned or not, it was not for him to say. And there was +something else. A small appointment which would keep a man from want for +the term of his natural life, without absorbing all his time, had +become vacant in the village. Several of the young men in the place were +anxious to have it; then he, too, came forward as a candidate, and all +the others jeered at him and tried to laugh him out of it. He cared +nothing for that, and when the examination came off he proved the best +man and got the place. He had fought his fight and had overcome all his +enemies; if they did not like him any the better for his victory, and +did and said little things to injure him, he did not mind much, he could +afford to forgive them. + +Having finished his story, he said good-bye, and went his way, blown, as +it were, along the road by the wind. + +We were now very curious to see the other members of his family; they +would, we imagined, prove amusing, if nothing better. They proved a good +deal better. The house we sought, for a house it was, stood a little way +back from the street in a large garden. It had in former times been an +inn, or farm-house, possibly a manor-house, and was large, with many +small rooms, and short, narrow, crooked staircases, half-landings and +narrow passages, and a few large rooms, their low ceilings resting on +old oak beams, black as ebony. Outside, it was the most picturesque and +doubtless the oldest house in the village; many-gabled, with very tall +ancient chimneys, the roofs of red tiles mottled grey and yellow with +age and lichen. It was a surprise to find a woodman--for that was +what the man was--living in such a big place. The woodman himself, his +appearance and character, gave us a second and greater surprise. He was +a well-shaped man of medium height; although past middle life he looked +young, and had no white thread in his raven-black hair and beard. His +teeth were white and even, and his features as perfect as I have seen in +any man. His eyes were pure dark blue, contrasting rather strangely with +his pale olive skin and intense black hair. Only a woodman, but he might +have come of one of the oldest and best families in the country, if +there is any connection between good blood and fine features and a noble +expression. Oddly enough, his surname was an uncommon and aristocratic +one. His wife, on the other hand, although a very good woman as we +found, had a distinctly plebeian countenance. One day she informed us +that she came of a different and better class than her husband's. +She was the daughter of a small tradesman, and had begun life as a +lady's-maid: her husband was nothing but a labourer; his people had been +labourers for generations, consequently her marriage to him had involved +a considerable descent in the social scale. Hearing this, it was hard to +repress a smile. + +The contrast between this man and the ordinary villager of his class was +as great in manners and conversation as in features and expression. His +combined dignity and gentleness, and apparent unconsciousness of any +caste difference between man and man, were astonishing in one who had +been a simple toiler all his life. + +There were some grown-up children, others growing up, with others that +were still quite small. The boys, I noticed, favoured their mother, and +had commonplace faces; the girls took after their father, and though +their features were not so perfect they were exceptionally good-looking. +The eldest son--the disjointed, fly-away-looking young man who had +conquered all his enemies--had a wife and child. The eldest daughter was +also married, and had one child. Altogether the three families numbered +about sixteen persons, each family having its separate set of rooms, but +all dining at one table. How did they do it? It seemed easy enough to +them. They were serious people in a sense, although always cheerful and +sometimes hilarious when together of an evening, or at their meals. But +they regarded life as a serious matter, a state of probation; they +were non-smokers, total abstainers, diligent at their work, united, +profoundly religious. A fresh wonder came to light when I found that +this poor woodman, with so large a family to support, who spent ten or +twelve hours every day at his outdoor work, had yet been able out of his +small earnings to buy bricks and other materials, and, assisted by his +sons, to build a chapel adjoining his house. Here he held religious +services on Sundays, and once or twice of an evening during the week. +These services consisted of extempore prayers, a short address, and +hymns accompanied by a harmonium, which they all appeared able to play. + +What his particular doctrine was I did not inquire, nor did I wish for +any information on that point. Doubtless he was a Dissenter of some kind +living in a village where there was no chapel; the services were for +the family, but were also attended by a few of the villagers and some +persons from neighbouring farms who preferred a simpler form of worship +to that of the Church. + +It was not strange that this little community should have been regarded +with something like disfavour by the other villagers. For these others, +man for man, made just as much money, and paid less rent for their +small cottages, and, furthermore, received doles from the vicar and his +well-to-do parishioners, yet they could not better their position, much +less afford the good clothing, books, music, and other pleasant things +which the independent woodman bestowed on his family. And they knew why. +The woodman's very presence in their midst was a continual reproach, +a sermon on improvidence and intemperance, which they could not avoid +hearing by thrusting their fingers into their ears. + +During my stay with these people something occurred to cause them a very +deep disquiet. The reader will probably smile when I tell them what +it was. Awaking one night after midnight I heard the unusual sound of +voices in earnest conversation in the room below; this went on until +I fell asleep again. In the morning we noticed that our landlady had a +somewhat haggard face, and that the daughters also had pale faces, with +purple marks under the eyes, as if they had kept their mother company in +some sorrowful vigil. We were not left long in ignorance of the cause +of this cloud. The good woman asked if we had been much disturbed by +the talking. I answered that I had heard voices and had supposed that +friends from a distance had arrived overnight and that they had sat up +talking to a late hour. No--that was not it, she said; but someone had +arrived late, a son who was sixteen years old, and who had been absent +for some days on a visit to relations in another county. When they +gathered round him to hear his news he confessed that while away he +had learnt to smoke, and he now wished them to know that he had well +considered the matter, and was convinced that it was not wrong nor +harmful to smoke, and was determined not to give up his tobacco. They +had talked to him--father, mother, brothers, and sisters--using every +argument they could find or invent to move him, until it was day and +time for the woodman to go to his woods, and the others to their several +occupations. But their "all-night sitting" had been wasted; the stubborn +youth had not been convinced nor shaken. When, after morning prayers, +they got up from their knees, the sunlight shining in upon them, they +had made a last appeal with tears in their eyes, and he had refused to +give the promise they asked. The poor woman was greatly distressed. This +young fellow, I thought, favours his mother in features, but mentally he +is perhaps more like his father. Being a smoker myself I ventured to +put in a word for him. They were distressing themselves too much, I told +her; smoking in moderation was not only harmless, especially to those +who worked out of doors, but it was a well-nigh universal habit, and +many leading men in the religious world, both churchmen and dissenters, +were known to be smokers. + +Her answer, which came quickly enough, was that they did not regard +the practice of smoking as in itself bad, but they knew that in some +circumstances it was inexpedient; and in the case of her son they +were troubled at the thought of what smoking would ultimately lead to. +People, she continued, did not care to smoke, any more than they did to +eat and drink, in solitude. It was a social habit, and it was inevitable +that her boy should look for others to keep him company in smoking. +There would be no harm in that in the summer-time when young people like +to keep out of doors until bedtime; but during the long winter +evenings he would have to look for his companions in the parlour of the +public-house. And it would not be easy, scarcely possible, to sit long +among the others without drinking a little beer. It is really no more +wrong to drink a little beer than to smoke, he would say; and it would +be true. One pipe would lead to another and one glass of beer to +another. The habit would be formed and at last all his evenings and all +his earnings would be spent in the public-house. + +She was right, and I had nothing more to say except to wish her success +in her efforts. + +It is curious that the strongest protests against the evils of the +village pubic, which one hears from village women, come from those who +are not themselves sufferers. Perhaps it is not curious. Instinctively +we hide our sores, bodily and mental, from the public gaze. + +Not long ago I was in a small rustic village in Wiltshire, perhaps the +most charming village I have seen in that country. There was no inn +or ale-house, and feeling very thirsty after my long walk I went to a +cottage and asked the woman I saw there for a drink of milk. She invited +me in, and spreading a clean cloth on the table, placed a jug of new +milk, a loaf, and butter before me. For these good things she proudly +refused to accept payment. As she was a handsome young woman, with a +clear, pleasant voice, I was glad to have her sit there and talk to me +while I refreshed myself. Besides, I was in search of information and +got it from her during our talk. My object in going to the village was +to see a woman who, I had been told, was living there. I now heard that +her cottage was close by, but unfortunately, while anxious to see her, I +had no excuse for calling. + +"Do you think," said I to my young hostess, "that it would do to tell +her that I had heard something of her strange history and misfortunes, +and wished to offer her a little help? Is she very poor?" + +"Oh, no," she replied. "Please do not offer her money, if you see her. +She would be offended. There is no one in this village who would take a +shilling as a gift from a stranger. We all have enough; there is not a +poor person among us." + +"What a happy village!" I exclaimed. "Perhaps you are all total +abstainers." + +She laughed, and said that they all brewed their own beer--there was not +a total abstainer among them. Every cottager made from fifty to eighty +gallons, or more, and they drank beer every day, but very moderately, +while it lasted. They were all very sober; their children would have to +go to some neighbouring village to see a tipsy man. + +I remarked that at the next village, which had three public-houses, +there were a good marry persons so poor that they would gladly at any +time take a shilling from any one. + +It was the same everywhere in the district, she said, except in that +village which had no public-house. Not only were they better off, and +independent of blanket societies and charity in all forms, but they were +infinitely happier. And after the day's work the men came home to spend +the evening with their wives and children. + +At this stage I was surprised by a sudden burst of passion on her part. +She stood up, her face flushing red, and solemnly declared that if +ever a public-house was opened in that village, and if the men took +to spending their evenings in it, her husband with them, she would +not endure such a condition of things--she wondered that so many women +endured it--but would take her little ones and go away to earn her own +living under some other roof! + + + + +Chapter Five: Wind, Wave, and Spirit + + +The rambles I have described were mostly inland: when by chance they +took us down to the sea our impressions and adventures appeared less +interesting. Looking back on the holiday, it would seem to us a somewhat +vacant time compared to one spent in wandering from village to village. +I mean if we do not take into account that first impression which the +sea invariably makes on us on returning to it after a long absence--the +shock of recognition and wonder and joy as if we had been suffering +from loss of memory and it had now suddenly come back to us. That brief +moving experience over, there is little the sea can give us to compare +with the land. How could it be otherwise in our case, seeing that we +were by it in a crowd, our movements and way of life regulated for us in +places which appear like overgrown and ill-organized convalescent homes? +There was always a secret intense dislike of all parasitic and holiday +places, an uncomfortable feeling which made the pleasure seem poor and +the remembrance of days so spent hardly worth dwelling on. And as we +are able to keep in or throw out of our minds whatever we please, being +autocrats in our own little kingdom, I elected to cast away most of the +memories of these comparatively insipid holidays. But not all, and of +those I retain I will describe at least two, one in the present chapter +on the East Anglian coast, the other later on. + +It was cold, though the month was August; it blew and the sky was grey +and rain beginning to fall when we came down about noon to a small town +on the Norfolk coast, where we hoped to find lodging and such comforts +as could be purchased out of a slender purse. It was a small modern +pleasure town of an almost startling appearance owing to the material +used in building its straight rows of cottages and its ugly square +houses and villas. This was an orange-brown stone found in the +neighbourhood, the roofs being all of hard, black slate. I had never +seen houses of such a colour, it was stronger, more glaring and +aggressive than the reddest brick, and there was not a green thing to +partially screen or soften it, nor did the darkness of the wet weather +have any mitigating effect on it. The town was built on high ground, +with an open grassy space before it sloping down to the cliff in which +steps had been cut to give access to the beach, and beyond the cliff +we caught sight of the grey, desolate, wind-vexed sea. But the rain was +coming down more and more heavily, turning the streets into torrents, +so that we began to envy those who had found a shelter even in so ugly a +place. No one would take us in. House after house, street after street, +we tried, and at every door with "Apartments to Let" over it where we +knocked the same hateful landlady-face appeared with the same triumphant +gleam in the fish-eyes and the same smile on the mouth that opened to +tell us delightedly that she and the town were "full up"; that never had +there been known such a rush of visitors; applicants were being turned +away every hour from every door! + +After three miserable hours spent in this way we began inquiring at all +the shops, and eventually at one were told of a poor woman in a small +house in a street a good way back from the front who would perhaps be +able to taken us in. To this place we went and knocked at a low door in +a long blank wall in a narrow street; it was opened to us by a pale +thin sad-looking woman in a rusty black gown, who asked us into a shabby +parlour, and agreed to take us in until we could find something better. +She had a gentle voice and was full of sympathy, and seeing our plight +took us into the kitchen behind the parlour, which was living- and +working-room as well, to dry ourselves by the fire. + +"The greatest pleasure in life," said once a magnificent young athlete, +a great pedestrian, to me, "is to rest when you are tired." And, I +should add, to dry and warm yourself by a big fire when wet and +cold, and to eat and drink when you are hungry and thirsty. All these +pleasures were now ours, for very soon tea and chops were ready for us; +and so strangely human, so sister-like did this quiet helpful woman +seem after our harsh experiences on that rough rainy day--that we +congratulated ourselves on our good fortune in having found such a +haven, and soon informed her that we wanted no "better place." + +She worked with her needle to support herself and her one child, a +little boy of ten; and by and by when he came in pretty wet from some +outdoor occupation we made his acquaintance and the discovery that he +was a little boy of an original character. He was so much to his mother, +who, poor soul, had nobody else in the world to love, that she was +always haunted by the fear of losing him. He was her boy, the child of +her body, exclusively her own, unlike all other boys, and her wise heart +told her that if she put him in a school he would be changed so that she +would no longer know him for her boy. For it is true that our schools +are factories, with a machinery to unmake and remake, or fabricate, the +souls of children much in the way in which shoddy is manufactured. You +may see a thousand rags or garments of a thousand shapes and colours +cast in to be boiled, bleached, pulled to pieces, combed and woven, and +finally come out as a piece of cloth a thousand yards long of a uniform +harmonious pattern, smooth, glossy, and respectable. His individuality +gone, he would in a sense be lost to her; and although by nature a +weak timid woman, though poor, and a stranger in a strange place, this +thought, or feeling, or "ridiculous delusion" as most people would call +it, had made her strong, and she had succeeded in keeping her boy out of +school. + +Hers was an interesting story. Left alone in the world she had married +one in her own class, very happily as she imagined. He was in some +business in a country town, well off enough to provide a comfortable +home, and he was very good; in fact, his one fault was that he was too +good, too open-hearted and fond of associating with other good fellows +like himself, and of pledging them in the cup that cheers and at the +same time inebriates. Nevertheless, things went very well for a time, +until the child was born, the business declined, and they began to be a +little pinched. Then it occurred to her that she, too, might be able to +do something. She started dressmaking, and as she had good taste and +was clever and quick, her business soon prospered. This pleased him; it +relieved him from the necessity of providing for the home, and enabled +him to follow his own inclination, which was to take things easily--to +be an idle man, with a little ready money in his pocket for betting and +other pleasures. The money was now provided out of "our business." This +state of things continued without any change, except that process of +degeneration which continued in him, until the child was about four +years old, when all at once one day he told her they were not doing +as well as they might. She was giving far too much of her time and +attention to domestic matters--to the child especially. Business was +business--a thing it was hard for a woman to understand--and it was +impossible for her to give her mind properly to it with her thoughts +occupied with the child. It couldn't be done. Let the child be put away, +he said, and the receipts would probably be doubled. He had been making +inquiries and found that for a modest annual payment the boy could be +taken proper care of at a distance by good decent people he had heard +of. + +She had never suspected such a thought in his mind, and this proposal +had the effect of a stunning blow. She answered not one word: he said +his say and went out, and she knew she would not see him again for many +hours, perhaps not for some days; she knew, too, that he would say no +more to her on the subject, that it would all be arranged about the +child with or without her consent. His will was law, her wishes nothing. +For she was his wife and humble obedient slave; never had she pleaded +with or admonished him and never complained, even when, after her long +day of hard work, he came in at ten or eleven o'clock at night with +several of his pals, all excited with drink and noisy as himself, to +call for supper. Nevertheless she had been happy--intensely happy, +because of the child. The love for the man she had married, wondering +how one so bright and handsome and universally admired and liked +could stoop to her, who had nothing but love and worship to give in +return--that love was now gone and was not missed, so much greater and +more satisfying was the love for her boy. And now she must lose him. +Two or three silent miserable days passed by while she waited for the +dreadful separation, until the thought of it became unendurable and she +resolved to keep her child and sacrifice everything else. Secretly she +prepared for flight, getting together the few necessary things she could +carry; then, with the child in her arms, she stole out one evening and +began her flight, which took her all across England at its widest part, +and ended at this small coast town, the best hiding-place she could +think of. + +The boy was a queer little fellow, healthy but colourless, with +strangely beautiful grey eyes which, on first seeing them, almost +startled one with their intelligence. He was shy and almost obstinately +silent, but when I talked to him on certain subjects the intense +suppressed interest he felt would show itself in his face, and by and +by it would burst out in speech--an impetuous torrent of words in a high +shrill voice. He reminded me of a lark in a cage. Watch it in its prison +when the sun shines forth--when, like the captive falcon in Dante, it is +"cheated by a gleam"--its wing-tremblings, and all its little tentative +motions, how the excitement grows and grows in it, until, although shut +up and flight denied it, the passion can no longer be contained and it +bursts out in a torrent of shrill and guttural sounds, which, if it were +free and soaring, would be its song. His passion was all for nature, and +his mother out of her small earnings had managed to get quite a number +of volumes together for him. These he read and re-read until he knew +them by heart; and on Sundays, or any other day they could take, those +two lonely ones would take a basket containing their luncheon, her work +and a book or two, and set out on a long ramble along the coast to pass +the day in some solitary spot among the sandhills. + +With these two, the gentle woman and her quiet boy over his book, and +the kitchen fire to warm and dry us after each wetting, the bad weather +became quite bearable although it lasted many days. And it was amazingly +bad. The wind blew with a fury from the sea; it was hard to walk against +it. The people in hundreds waited in their dull apartments for a lull, +and when it came they poured out like hungry sheep from the fold, or +like children from a school, swarming over the green slope down to the +beach, to scatter far and wide over the sands. Then, in a little while; +a new menacing blackness would come up out of the sea, and by and by a +fresh storm of wind would send the people scuttling back into shelter. +So it went on day after day, and when night came the sound of the +ever-troubled sea grew louder, so that, shut up in our little rooms in +that back street, we had it in our ears, except at intervals, when the +wind howled loud enough to drown its great voice, and hurled tempests of +rain and hail against the roofs and windows. + +To me the most amazing thing was the spectacle of the swifts. It was +late for them, near the end of August; they should now have been far +away on their flight to Africa; yet here they were, delaying on that +desolate east coast in wind and wet, more than a hundred of them. It was +strange to see so many at one spot, and I could only suppose that they +had congregated previous to migration at that unsuitable place, and were +being kept back by the late breeders, who had not yet been wrought up +to the point of abandoning their broods. They haunted a vast ruinous +old barn-like building near the front, which was probably old a century +before the town was built, and about fifteen to twenty pairs had their +nests under the eaves. Over this building they hung all day in a crowd, +rising high to come down again at a frantic speed, and at each descent +a few birds could be seen to enter the holes, while others rushed out to +join the throng, and then all rose and came down again and swept round +and round in a furious chase, shrieking as if mad. At all hours they +drew me to that spot, and standing there, marvelling at their swaying +power and the fury that possessed them, they appeared to me like +tormented beings, and were like those doomed wretches in the halls of +Eblis whose hearts were in a blaze of unquenchable fire, and who, +every one with hands pressed to his breast, went spinning round in an +everlasting agonized dance. They were tormented and crazed by the two +most powerful instincts of birds pulling in opposite directions--the +parental instinct and the passion of migration which called them to the +south. + +In such weather, especially on that naked desolate coast, exposed to +the fury of the winds, one marvels at our modern craze for the sea; not +merely to come and gaze upon and listen to it, to renew our youth in its +salt, exhilarating waters and to lie in delicious idleness on the warm +shingle or mossy cliff; but to be always, for days and weeks and even +for months, at all hours, in all weathers, close to it, with its murmur, +"as of one in pain," for ever in our ears. + +Undoubtedly it is an unnatural, a diseased, want in us, the result of a +life too confined and artificial in close dirty overcrowded cities. It +is to satisfy this craving that towns have sprung up everywhere on our +coasts and extended their ugly fronts for miles and leagues, with their +tens of thousands of windows from which the city-sickened wretches may +gaze and gaze and listen and feed their sick souls with the ocean. That +is to say, during their indoor hours; at other times they walk or sit +or lie as close as they can to it, following the water as it ebbs and +reluctantly retiring before it when it returns. It was not so formerly, +before the discovery was made that the sea could cure us. Probably our +great-grandfathers didn't even know they were sick; at all events, those +who had to live in the vicinity of the sea were satisfied to be a little +distance from it, out of sight of its grey desolation and, if possible, +out of hearing of its "accents disconsolate." This may be seen anywhere +on our coasts; excepting the seaports and fishing settlements, the towns +and villages are almost always some distance from the sea, often in a +hollow or at all events screened by rising ground and woods from it. The +modern seaside place has, in most cases, its old town or village not far +away but quite as near as the healthy ancients wished to be. + +The old village nearest to our little naked and ugly modern town was +discovered at a distance of about two miles, but it might have been two +hundred, so great was the change to its sheltered atmosphere. Loitering +in its quiet streets among the old picturesque brick houses with tiled +or thatched roofs and tall chimneys--ivy and rose and creeper-covered, +with a background of old oaks and elms--I had the sensation of having +come back to my own home. In that still air you could hear men and women +talking fifty or a hundred yards away, the cry or laugh of a child and +the clear crowing of a cock, also the smaller aerial sounds of nature, +the tinkling notes of tits and other birdlings in the trees, the twitter +of swallows and martins, and the "lisp of leaves and ripple of rain." It +was sweet and restful in that home-like place, and hard to leave it to +go back to the front to face the furious blasts once more. Rut there +were compensations. + +The little town, we have seen, was overcrowded with late summer +visitors, all eager for the sea yet compelled to waste so much precious +time shut up in apartments, and at every appearance of a slight +improvement in the weather they would pour out of the houses and the +green slope would be covered with a crowd of many hundreds, all hurrying +down to the beach. The crowd was composed mostly of women--about three +to every man, I should say--and their children; and it was one of the +most interesting crowds I had ever come across on account of the large +number of persons in it of a peculiarly fine type, which chance had +brought together at that spot. It was the large English blonde, and +there were so many individuals of this type that they gave a character +to the crowd so that those of a different physique and colour appeared +to be fewer than they were and were almost overlooked. They came from +various places about the country, in the north and the Midlands, and +appeared to be of the well-to-do classes; they, or many of them, were +with their families but without their lords. They were mostly tall and +large in every way, very white-skinned, with light or golden hair and +large light blue eyes. A common character of these women was their quiet +reposeful manner; they walked and talked and rose up and sat down and +did everything, in fact, with an air of deliberation; they gazed in a +slow steady way at you, and were dignified, some even majestic, and were +like a herd of large beautiful white cows. The children, too, especially +the girls, some almost as tall as their large mothers, though still in +short frocks, were very fine. The one pastime of these was paddling, and +it was a delight to see their bare feet and legs. The legs of those +who had been longest on the spot--probably several weeks in some +instances--were of a deep nutty brown hue suffused with pink; after +these a gradation of colour, light brown tinged with buff, pinkish buff +and cream, like the Gloire de Dijon rose; and so on to the delicate +tender pink of the clover blossom; and, finally, the purest ivory +white of the latest arrivals whose skins had not yet been caressed and +coloured by sun and wind. + +How beautiful are the feet of these girls by the sea who bring us glad +tidings of a better time to come and the day of a nobler courage, a +freer larger life when garments which have long oppressed and hindered +shall have been cast away! It was, as I have said, mere chance which had +brought so many persons of a particular type together on this occasion, +and I thought I might go there year after year and never see the like +again. As a fact I did return when August came round and found a crowd +of a different character. The type was there but did not predominate: +it was no longer the herd of beautiful white and strawberry cows with +golden horns and large placid eyes. Nothing in fact was the same, for +when I looked for the swifts there were no more than about twenty birds +instead of over a hundred, and although just on the eve of departure +they were not behaving in the same excited manner. + +Probably I should not have thought so much about that particular crowd +in that tempestuous August, and remembered it so vividly, but for the +presence of three persons in it and the strange contrast they made to +the large white type I have described. These were a woman and her two +little girls, aged about eight and ten respectively, but very small for +their years. She was a little black haired and black-eyed woman with a +pale sad dark face, on which some great grief or tragedy had left its +shadow; very quiet and subdued in her manner; she would sit on a chair +on the beach when the weather permitted, a book on her knees, while her +two little ones played about, chasing and flying from the waves, or +with the aid of their long poles vaulting from rock to rock. They +were dressed in black frocks and scarlet blouses, which set off their +beautiful small dark faces; their eyes sparkled like black diamonds, and +their loose hair was a wonder to see, a black mist or cloud about their +heads and necks composed of threads fine as gossamer, blacker than jet +and shining like spun glass-hair that looked as if no comb or brush +could ever tame its beautiful wildness. And in spirit they were what +they seemed: such a wild, joyous, frolicsome spirit with such grace and +fleetness one does not look for in human beings, but only in birds or +in some small bird-like volatile mammal--a squirrel or a marmoset of the +tropical forest, or the chinchilla of the desolate mountain slopes, +the swiftest, wildest, loveliest, most airy and most vocal of small +beasties. Occasionally to watch their wonderful motions more closely and +have speech with them, I followed when they raced over the sands or flew +about over the slippery rocks, and felt like a cochin-china fowl, or +muscovy duck, or dodo, trying to keep pace with a humming-bird. Their +voices were well suited to their small brilliant forms; not loud, though +high-pitched and singularly musical and penetrative, like the high +clear notes of a skylark at a distance. They also reminded me of +certain notes, which have a human quality, in some of our songsters--the +swallow, redstart, pied wagtail, whinchat, and two or three others. Such +pure and beautiful sounds are sometimes heard in human voices, chiefly +in children, when they are talking and laughing in joyous excitement. +But for any sort of conversation they were too volatile; before I could +get a dozen words from them they would be off again, flying and +flitting along the margin, like sandpipers, and beating the clear-voiced +sandpiper at his own aerial graceful game. + +By and by I was favoured with a fine exhibition of the spirit animating +these two little things. The weather had made it possible for the crowd +of visitors to go down and scatter itself over the beach, when the usual +black cloud sprang up and soon burst on us in a furious tempest of +wind and rain, sending the people flying back to the shelter of a large +structure erected for such purposes against the cliff. It was a vast +barn-like place, open to the front, the roof supported by wooden +columns, and here in a few minutes some three or four hundred persons +were gathered, mostly women and their girls, white and blue-eyed with +long wet golden hair hanging down their backs. Finding a vacant place +on the bench, I sat down next to a large motherly-looking woman with a +robust or dumpy blue-eyed girl about four or five years old on her lap. +Most of the people were standing about in groups waiting for the storm +to blow over, and presently I noticed my two wild-haired dark little +girls moving about in the crowd. It was impossible not to seen them, +for they could not keep still a moment. They were here, there, and +everywhere, playing hide-and-seek and skipping and racing wherever they +could find an opening, and by and by, taking hold of each other, they +started dancing. It was a pretty spectacle, but most interesting to see +was the effect produced on the other children, the hundred girls, big +and little, the little ones especially, who had been standing there +tired and impatient to get out to the sea, and who were now becoming +more and more excited as they gazed, until, like children when listening +to lively music, they began moving feet and hands and soon their whole +bodies in time to the swift movements of the little dancers. At last, +plucking up courage, first one, then another, joined them, and were +caught as they came and whirled round and round in a manner quite new +to them and which they appeared to find very delightful. By and by I +observed that the little rosy-faced dumpy girl on my neighbour's knees +was taking the infection; she was staring, her blue eyes opened to their +widest in wonder and delight. Then suddenly she began pleading, "Oh, +mummy, do let me go to the little girls--oh, do let me!" And her mother +said "No," because she was so little, and could never fly round like +that, and so would fall and hurt herself and cry. But she pleaded still, +and was ready to cry if refused, until the good anxious mother was +compelled to release her; and down she slipped, and after standing still +with her little arms and closed hands held up as if to collect herself +before plunging into the new tremendous adventure, she rushed out +towards the dancers. One of them saw her coming, and instantly quitting +the child she was waltzing with flew to meet her, and catching her round +the middle began spinning her about as if the solid little thing weighed +no more than a feather. But it proved too much for her; very soon she +came down and broke into a loud cry, which brought her mother instantly +to her, and she was picked up and taken back to the seat and held to the +broad bosom and soothed with caresses and tender words until the sobs +began to subside. Then, even before the tears were dry, her eyes were +once more gazing at the tireless little dancers, taking on child after +child as they came timidly forward to have a share in the fun, and once +more she began to plead with her "mummy," and would not be denied, for +she was a most determined little Saxon, until getting her way she rushed +out for a second trial. Again the little dancer saw her coming and +flew to her like a bird to its mate, and clasping her laughed her merry +musical little laugh. It was her "sudden glory," an expression of pure +delight in her power to infuse her own fire and boundless gaiety of soul +into all these little blue-eyed rosy phlegmatic lumps of humanity. + +What was it in these human mites, these fantastic Brownies, which, in +that crowd of Rowenas and their children, made them seem like beings not +only of another race, but of another species? How came they alone to be +distinguished among so many by that irresponsible gaiety, as of the +most volatile of wild creatures, that quickness of sense and mind and +sympathy, that variety and grace and swiftness--all these brilliant +exotic qualities harmoniously housed in their small beautiful elastic +and vigorous frames? It was their genius, their character--something +derived from their race. But what race? Looking at their mother watching +her little ones at their frolics with dark shining eyes--the small +oval-faced brown-skinned woman with blackest hair--I could but say that +she was an Iberian, pure and simple, and that her children were like +her. In Southern Europe that type abounds; it is also to be met with +throughout Britain, perhaps most common in the southern counties, and it +is not uncommon in East Anglia. Indeed, I think it is in Norfolk +where we may best see the two most marked sub-types in which it is +divided--the two extremes. The small stature, narrow head, dark skin, +black hair and eyes are common to both, and in both these physical +characters are correlated with certain mental traits, as, for instance, +a peculiar vivacity and warmth of disposition; but they are high and +low. In the latter sub-division the skin is coarse in texture, brown or +old parchment in colour, with little red in it; the black hair is also +coarse, the forehead small, the nose projecting, and the facial angle +indicative of a more primitive race. One might imagine that these people +had been interred, along with specimens of rude pottery and bone and +flint implements, a long time back, about the beginning of the Bronze +Age perhaps, and had now come out of their graves and put on modern +clothes. At all events I don't think a resident in Norfolk would +have much difficulty in picking out the portraits of some of his +fellow-villagers in Mr. Reed's Prehistoric Peeps. + +The mother and her little ones were of the higher sub-type: they +had delicate skins, beautiful faces, clear musical voices. They were +Iberians in blood, but improved; purified and refined as by fire; +gentleized and spiritualized, and to the lower types down to the +aboriginals, as is the bright consummate flower to leaf and stem and +root. + +Often and often we are teased and tantalized and mocked by that old +question: + + Oh! so old-- + Thousands of years, thousands of years, + If all were told-- + +of black and blue eyes; blue versus black and black versus blue, to put +it both ways. And by black we mean black with orange-brown lights in +it--the eye called tortoise-shell; and velvety browns with other browns, +also hazels. Blue includes all blues, from ultramarine, or violet, to +the palest blue of a pale sky; and all greys down to the grey that is +almost white. Our preference for this or that colour is supposed to +depend on nothing but individual taste, or fancy, and association. I +believe it is something more, but I do find that we are very apt to be +swayed this way and that by the colour of the eyes of the people we meet +in life, according as they (the people) attract or repel us. The eyes of +the two little girls were black as polished black diamonds until looked +at closely, when they appeared a beautiful deep brown on which the black +pupils were seen distinctly; they were so lovely that I, predisposed to +prefer dark to light, felt that this question was now definitely settled +for me--that black was best. That irresistible charm, the flame-like +spirit which raised these two so much above the others--how could it go +with anything but the darkest eyes! + +But no sooner was the question thus settled definitely and for all time, +to my very great satisfaction, than it was unsettled again. I do not +know how this came about; it may have been the sight of some small +child's blue eyes looking up at me, like the arch blue eyes of a kitten, +full of wonder at the world and everything in it; + + "Where did you get those eyes so blue?" + "Out of the sky as I came through"; + +or it may have been the sight of a harebell; and perhaps it came from +nothing but the "waste shining of the sky." At all events, there they +were, remembered again, looking at me from the past, blue eyes that were +beautiful and dear to me, whose blue colour was associated with every +sweetness and charm in child and woman and with all that is best and +highest in human souls; and I could not and had no wish to resist their +appeal. + +Then came a new experience of the eye that is blue--a meeting with one +who almost seemed to be less flesh than spirit. A middle-aged lady, +frail, very frail; exceedingly pale from long ill-health, prematurely +white-haired, with beautiful grey eyes, gentle but wonderfully bright. +Altogether she was like a being compounded as to her grosser part of +foam and mist and gossamer and thistledown, and was swayed by every +breath of air, and who, should she venture abroad in rough weather, +would be lifted and blown away by the gale and scattered like mist +over the earth. Yet she, so frail, so timid, was the one member of +the community who had set herself to do the work of a giant--that of +championing all ill-used and suffering creatures, wild or tame, holding +a protecting shield over them against the innate brutality of the +people. She had been abused and mocked and jeered at by many, while +others had regarded her action with an amused smile or else with a cold +indifference. But eventually some, for very shame, had been drawn to her +side, and a change in the feeling of the people had resulted; domestic +animals were treated better, and it was no longer universally believed +that all wild animals, especially those with wings, existed only that +men might amuse themselves by killing and wounding and trapping and +caging and persecuting them in various other ways. + +The sight of that burning and shining spirit in its frail tenement--for +did I not actually see her spirit and the very soul of her in those +eyes?--was the last of the unforgotten experiences I had at that place +which had startled and repelled me with its ugliness. + +But, no, there was one more, marvellous as any--the experience of a day +of days, one of those rare days when nature appears to us spiritualized +and is no longer nature, when that which had transfigured this visible +world is in us too, and it becomes possible to believe--it is almost a +conviction--that the burning and shining spirit seen and recognized in +one among a thousand we have known is in all of us and in all things. In +such moments it is possible to go beyond even the most advanced of the +modern physicists who hold that force alone exists, that matter is but a +disguise, a shadow and delusion; for we may add that force itself--that +which we call force or energy--is but a semblance and shadow of the +universal soul. + +The change in the weather was not sudden; the furious winds dropped +gradually; the clouds floated higher in the heavens, and were of a +lighter grey; there were wider breaks in them, showing the lucid blue +beyond; and the sea grew quieter. It had raved and roared too long, +beating against the iron walls that held it back, and was now spent +and fallen into an uneasy sleep, but still moved uneasily and moaned +a little. Then all at once summer returned, coming like a thief in the +night, for when it was morning the sun rose in splendour and power in +a sky without a cloud on its vast azure expanse, on a calm sea with +no motion but that scarcely perceptible rise and fall as of one that +sleeps. As the sun rose higher the air grew warmer until it was full +summer heat, but although a "visible heat," it was never oppressive; for +all that day we were abroad, and as the tide ebbed a new country that +was neither earth nor sea was disclosed, an infinite expanse of pale +yellow sand stretching away on either side, and further and further out +until it mingled and melted into the sparkling water and faintly seen +line of foam on the horizon. And over all--the distant sea, the ridge +of low dunes marking where the earth ended and the flat, yellow expanse +between--there brooded a soft bluish silvery haze. A haze that blotted +nothing out, but blended and interfused them all until earth and air +and sea and sands were scarcely distinguishable. The effect, delicate, +mysterious, unearthly, cannot be described. + + Ethereal gauze... + Visible heat, air-water, and dry sea, + Last conquest of the eye... + + Sun dust, + Aerial surf upon the shores of earth, + Ethereal estuary, frith of light.... + Bird of the sun, transparent winged. + +Do we not see that words fail as pigments do--that the effect is too +coarse, since in describing it we put it before the mental eye as +something distinctly visible, a thing of itself and separate. But it is +not so in nature; the effect is of something almost invisible and is +yet a part of all and makes all things--sky and sea and land--as +unsubstantial as itself. Even living, moving things had that aspect. Far +out on the lowest further strip of sand, which appeared to be on a level +with the sea, gulls were seen standing in twos and threes and small +groups and in rows; but they did not look like gulls--familiar birds, +gull-shaped with grey and white plumage. They appeared twice as big as +gulls, and were of a dazzling whiteness and of no definite shape: though +standing still they had motion, an effect of the quivering dancing air, +the "visible heat"; at rest, they were seen now as separate objects; +then as one with the silver sparkle on the sea; and when they rose +and floated away they were no longer shining and white, but like pale +shadows of winged forms faintly visible in the haze. + +They were not birds but spirits--beings that lived in or were passing +through the world and now, like the heat, made visible; and I, standing +far out on the sparkling sands, with the sparkling sea on one side and +the line of dunes, indistinctly seen as land, on the other, was one of +them; and if any person had looked at me from a distance he would have +seen me as a formless shining white being standing by the sea, and then +perhaps as a winged shadow floating in the haze. It was only necessary +to put out one's arms to float. That was the effect on my mind: this +natural world was changed to a supernatural, and there was no more +matter nor force in sea or land nor in the heavens above, but only +spirit. + + + + +Chapter Six: By Swallowfield + + +One of the most attractive bits of green and wooded country near London +I know lies between Reading and Basingstoke and includes Aldermaston +with its immemorial oaks in Berkshire and Silchester with Pamber Forest +in Hampshire. It has long been one of my favourite haunts, summer and +winter, and it is perhaps the only wooded place in England where I have +a home feeling as strong as that which I experience in certain places +among the South Wiltshire downs and in the absolutely flat country on +the Severn, in Somerset, and the flat country in Cambridgeshire and East +Anglia, especially at Lynn and about Ely. + +I am now going back to my first visit to this green retreat; it was in +the course of one of those Easter walks I have spoken of, and the way +was through Reading and by Three Mile Cross and Swallowfield. On this +occasion I conceived a dislike to Reading which I have never quite got +over, for it seemed an unconscionably big place for two slow pedestrians +to leave behind. Worse still, when we did leave it we found that Reading +would not leave us. It was like a stupendous octopus in red brick +which threw out red tentacles, miles and miles long in various +directions--little rows and single and double cottages and villas, all +in red, red brick and its weary accompaniment, the everlasting hard +slate roof. These square red brick boxes with sloping slate tops are +built as close as possible to the public road, so that the passer-by +looking in at the windows may see the whole interior--wall-papers, +pictures, furniture, and oftentimes the dull expressionless face of the +woman of the house, staring back at you out of her shallow blue eyes. +The weather too was against us; a grey hard sky, like the slate roofs, +and a cold strong east wind to make the road dusty all day long. + +Arrived at Three Mile Cross, it was no surprise to find it no longer +recognizable as the hamlet described in Our Village, but it was +saddening to look at the cottage in which Mary Russell Mitford lived and +was on the whole very happy with her flowers and work for thirty years +of her life, in its present degraded state. It has a sign now and calls +itself the "Mitford Arms" and a "Temperance Hotel," and we were told +that you could get tea and bread and butter there but nothing else. The +cottage has been much altered since Miss Mitford's time, and the open +space once occupied by the beloved garden is now filled with buildings, +including a corrugated-iron dissenting chapel. + +From Three Mile Cross we walked on to Swallowfield, still by those +never-ending roadside red-brick cottages and villas, for we were not yet +properly out of the hated biscuit metropolis. It was a big village with +the houses scattered far and wide over several square miles of country, +but just where the church stands it is shady and pleasant. The pretty +church yard too is very deeply shaded and occupies a small hill with the +Loddon flowing partly round it, then taking its swift way through the +village. Miss Mitford's monument is a plain, almost an ugly, granite +cross, standing close to the wall, shaded by yew, elm, and beech trees, +and one is grateful to think that if she never had her reward when +living she has found at any rate a very peaceful resting-place. + +The sexton was there and told us that he was but ten years old when +Miss Mitford died, but that he remembered her well and she was a very +pleasant little woman. Others in the place who remembered her said the +same--that she was very pleasant and sweet. We know that she was sweet +and charming, but unfortunately the portraits we have of her do not +give that impression. They represent her as a fat common-place looking +person, a little vulgar perhaps. I fancy the artists were bunglers. I +possess a copy of a very small pencil sketch made of her face by a dear +old lady friend of mine, now dead, about the year 1851 or 2. My friend +had a gift for portraiture in a peculiar way. When she saw a face that +greatly interested her, in a drawing-room, on a platform, in the street, +anywhere, it remained very vividly in her mind and on going home she +would sketch it, and some of these sketches of well known persons are +wonderfully good. She was staying in the country with a friend who drove +with her to Swallowfield to call on Miss Mitford, and on her return to +her friend's house she made the little sketch, and in this tiny portrait +I can see the refinement, the sweetness, the animation and charm which +she undoubtedly possessed. + +But let me now venture to step a little outside of my own province, my +small plot--a poor pedestrian's unimportant impressions of places and +faces; all these p's come by accident; and this I put in parenthetically +just because an editor solemnly told me a while ago that he couldn't +abide and wouldn't have alliteration's artful aid in his periodical. Let +us leave the subject of what Miss Mitford was to those of her day who +knew her; a thousand lovely personalities pass away every year and in a +little while are no more remembered than the bright-plumaged bird that +falls in the tropical forest, or the vanished orchid bloom of which some +one has said that the angels in heaven can look on no more beautiful +thing. Leaving all that, let us ask what remains to us of another +generation of all she was and did? + +She was a prolific writer, both prose and verse, and, as we know, had an +extraordinary vogue in her own time. Anything that came from her pen had +an immediate success; indeed, so highly was she regarded that nothing +she chose to write, however poor, could fail. And she certainly did +write a good deal of poor stuff: it was all in a sense poor, but books +and books, poor soul, she had to write. It was in a sense poor because +it was mostly ambitious stuff, and, as the proverb says, "You cannot fly +like an eagle with the wings of a wren." She was driven to fly, and gave +her little wings too much to do, and her flights were apt to be mere +little weak flutterings over the surface of the ground. A wren, and +she had not a cuckoo but a devouring cormorant to sustain--that dear, +beautiful father of hers, who was more to her than any reprobate son to +his devoted mother, and who day after day, year after year, gobbled up +her earnings, and then would hungrily go on squawking for more until he +stumbled into the grave. Alas! he was too long in dying; she was worn +out by then, the little heart beating not so fast, and the bright little +brain growing dim and very tired. + +Now all the ambitious stuff she wrote to keep the cormorant and, +incidentally, to immortalize herself, has fallen deservedly into +oblivion. But we--some of us--do not forget and never want to forget +Mary Russell Mitford. Her letters remain--the little friendly letters +which came from her pen like balls of silvery down from a sun-ripened +plant, and were wafted far and wide over the land to those she loved. +There is a wonderful charm in them; they are so spontaneous, so natural, +so perfectly reflect her humour and vivacity, her overflowing sweetness, +her beautiful spirit. And one book too remains--the series of sketches +about the poor little hamlet, in which she lived so long and laboured +so hard to support herself and her parents, the turtledove mated with a +cormorant. Driven to produce work and hard up for a subject, in a happy +moment she took up this humble one lying at her own door and allowed her +self to write naturally even as in her most intimate letters. This is +the reason of the vitality of Our Tillage; it was simple, natural, and +reflected the author herself, her tender human heart, her impulsive +nature, her bright playful humorous spirit. There is no thought, no mind +stuff in it, and it is a classic! It is about the country, and she has +so little observation that it might have been written in a town, out of +a book, away from nature's sights and sounds. Her rustic characters +are not comparable to those of a score or perhaps two or three score of +other writers who treat of such subjects. The dialogue, when she makes +them talk, is unnatural, and her invention so poor that when she puts in +a little romance of her own making one regrets it. And so one might go +on picking it all to pieces like a dandelion blossom. Nevertheless it +endures, outliving scores of in a way better books on the same themes, +because her own delightful personality manifests itself and shines in +all these little pictures. This short passage describing how she took +Lizzie, the little village child she loved, to gather cowslips in the +meadows, will serve as an illustration. + + They who know these feelings (and who is so happy as not to +have known some of them) will understand why Alfieri became powerless, +and Froissart dull; and why even needlework, the most effective +sedative, that grand soother and composer of women's distress, fails +to comfort me today. I will go out into the air this cool, pleasant +afternoon, and try what that will do.... I will go to the meadows, the +beautiful meadows and I will have my materials of happiness, Lizzie and +May, and a basket for flowers, and we will make a cowslip ball. "Did +you ever see a cowslip ball, Lizzie?" "No." "Come away then; make haste! +run, Lizzie!" + + And on we go, fast, fast! down the road, across the lea, +past the workhouse, along by the great pond, till we slide into the deep +narrow lane, whose hedges seem to meet over the water, and win our way +to the little farmhouse at the end. "Through the farmyard, Lizzie; over +the gate; never mind the cows; they are quiet enough." "I don't mind +'em," said Miss Lizzie, boldly and' truly, and with a proud affronted +air, displeased at being thought to mind anything, and showing by her +attitude and manner some design of proving her courage by an attack on +the largest of the herd, in the shape of a pull by the tail. "I don't +mind 'em." "I know you don't, Lizzie; but let them, alone and don't +chase the turkey-cock. Come to me, my dear!" and, for wonder, Lizzie +came. + +In the meantime my other pet, Mayflower, had also gotten into a scrape. +She had driven about a huge unwieldy sow, till the animal's grunting +had disturbed the repose of a still more enormous Newfoundland dog, the +guardian of the yard. + +The beautiful white greyhound's mocking treatment of the surly dog on +the chain then follows, and other pretty scenes and adventures, until +after some mishaps and much trouble the cowslip ball is at length +completed. + +What a concentration of fragrance and beauty it was! Golden and sweet to +satiety! rich in sight, and touch, and smell! Lizzie was enchanted, and +ran off with her prize, hiding amongst the trees in the very coyness +of ecstasy, as if any human eye, even mine, would be a restraint on her +innocent raptures. + +Here the very woman is revealed to us, her tender and lively +disposition, her impulsiveness and childlike love of fun and delight in +everything on earth. We see in such a passage what her merit really +is, the reason of our liking or "partiality" for her. Her pleasure in +everything makes everything interesting, and in displaying her feeling +without art or disguise she succeeds in giving what we may call a +literary expression to personal charm--that quality which is almost +untranslatable into written words. Many women possess it; it is in them +and issues from them, and is like an essential oil in a flower, but too +volatile to be captured and made use of. Furthermore, women when they +write are as a rule even more conventional than men, more artificial and +out of and away from themselves. + +I do not know that any literary person will agree with me; I have +gone aside to write about Miss Mitford mainly for my own satisfaction. +Frequently when I have wanted to waste half an hour pleasantly with +a book I have found myself picking up "Our Village" from among many +others, some waiting for a first perusal, and I wanted to know why this +was so--to find out, if not to invent, some reason for my liking which +would not make me ashamed. + +At Swallowfield we failed to find a place to stay at; there was no +such place; and of the inns, named, I think, the "Crown," "Cricketers," +"Bird-in-the-Hand," and "George and Dragon," only one, was said to +provide accommodation for travellers as the law orders, but on going to +the house we were informed that the landlord or his wife was just dead, +or dangerously ill, I forget which, and they could take no one in. +Accordingly, we had to trudge back to Three Mile Cross and the old +ramshackle, well-nigh ruinous inn there. It was a wretched place, +smelling of mould and dry-rot; however, it was not so bad after a fire +had been lighted in the grate, but first the young girl who waited on us +brought in a bundle of newspapers, which she proceeded to thrust up the +chimney-flue and kindle, "to warm the flue and make the fire burn," she +explained. + +On the following day, the weather being milder, we rambled on through +woods and lanes, visiting several villages, and arrived in the afternoon +at Silchester, where we had resolved to put up for the night. By a happy +chance we found a pleasant cottage on the common to stay at and pleasant +people in it, so that we were glad to sit down for a week there, to +loiter about the furzy waste, or prowl in the forest and haunt the old +walls; but it was pleasant even indoors with that wide prospect before +the window, the wooded country stretching many miles away to the hills +of Kingsclere, blue in the distance and crowned with their beechen rings +and groves. Of Roman Calleva itself and the thoughts I had there I will +write in the following chapter; here I will only relate how on Easter +Sunday, two days after arriving, we went to morning service in the old +church standing on a mound inside the walls, a mile from the village and +common. + +It came to pass that during the service the sun began to shine very +brightly after several days of cloud and misty windy wet weather, and +that brilliance and the warmth in it served to bring a butterfly out of +hiding; then another; then a third; red admirals all; and they were seen +through all the prayers, and psalms, and hymns, and lessons, and the +sermon preached by the white-haired Rector, fluttering against the +translucent glass, wanting to be out in that splendour and renew their +life after so long a period of suspension. But the glass was between +them and their world of blue heavens and woods and meadow flowers; then +I thought that after the service I would make an attempt to get them +out; but soon reflected that to release them it would be necessary to +capture them first, and that that could not be done without a ladder and +butterfly net. Among the women (ladies) on either side of and before +me there were no fewer than five wearing aigrettes of egret and +bird-of-paradise plumes in their hats or bonnets, and these five all +remained to take part in that ceremony of eating bread and drinking wine +in remembrance of an event supposed to be of importance to their souls, +here and hereafter. It saddened me to leave my poor red admirals in +their prison, beating their red wings against the coloured glass--to +leave them too in such company, where the aigrette wearers were +worshipping a little god of their own little imaginations, who did not +create and does not regard the swallow and dove and white egret and +bird-of-paradise, and who was therefore not my god and whose will as +they understood it was nothing to me. + +It was a consolation when I went out, still thinking of the butterflies +in their prison, and stood by the old ruined walls grown over with +ivy and crowned with oak and holly trees, to think that in another two +thousand years there will be no archaeologist and no soul in Silchester, +or anywhere else in Britain, or in the world, who would take the trouble +to dig up the remains of aigrette-wearers and their works, and who would +care what had become of their pitiful little souls--their immortal part. + + + + +Chapter Seven: Roman Calleva + + +An afternoon in the late November of 1903. Frost, gales, and abundant +rains have more than half stripped the oaks of their yellow leaves. But +the rain is over now, the sky once more a pure lucid blue above me--all +around me, in fact, since I am standing high on the top of the ancient +stupendous earthwork, grown over with oak wood and underwood of holly +and thorn and hazel with tangle of ivy and bramble and briar. It is +marvellously still; no sound from the village reaches me; I only hear +the faint rustle of the dead leaves as they fall, and the robin, for one +spied me here and has come to keep me company. At intervals he spurts +out his brilliant little fountain of sound; and that sudden bright +melody and the bright colour of the sunlit translucent leaves seem like +one thing. Nature is still, and I am still, standing concealed among +trees, or moving cautiously through the dead russet bracken. Not that +I am expecting to get a glimpse of the badger who has his hermitage in +this solitary place, but I am on forbidden ground, in the heart of a +sacred pheasant preserve, where one must do one's prowling warily. Hard +by, almost within a stone's-throw of the wood-grown earthwork on which I +stand, are the ruinous walls of Roman Calleva--the Silchester which +the antiquarians have been occupied in uncovering these dozen years +or longer. The stone walls, too, like the more ancient earthwork, are +overgrown with trees and brambles and ivy. The trees have grown upon the +wall, sending roots deep down between the stones, through the crumbling +cement; and so fast are they anchored that never a tree falls but it +brings down huge masses of masonry with it. This slow levelling process +has been going on for centuries, and it was doubtless in this way that +the buildings within the walls were pulled down long ages ago. Then the +action of the earth-worms began, and floors and foundations, with fallen +stones and tiles, were gradually buried in the soil, and what was once +a city was a dense thicket of oak and holly and thorn. Finally the wood +was cleared, and the city was a walled wheat field--so far as we know, +the ground has been cultivated since the days of King John. But the +entire history of this green walled space before me--less than twenty +centuries in duration--does not seem so very long compared with that of +the huge earthen wall I am standing on, which dates back to prehistoric +times. + +Standing here, knee-deep in the dead ruddy bracken, in the "coloured +shade" of the oaks, idly watching the leaves fall fluttering to the +ground, thinking in an aimless way of the remains of the two ancient +cities before me, the British and the Roman, and of their comparative +antiquity, I am struck with the thought that the sweet sensations +produced in me by the scene differ in character from the feeling I have +had in other solitary places. The peculiar sense of satisfaction, of +restfulness, of peace, experienced here is very perfect; but in the +wilderness, where man has never been, or has at all events left no trace +of his former presence, there is ever a mysterious sense of loneliness, +of desolation, underlying our pleasure in nature. Here it seems good +to know, or to imagine, that the men I occasionally meet in my solitary +rambles, and those I see in the scattered rustic village hard by, are of +the same race, and possibly the descendants, of the people who occupied +this spot in the remote past--Iberian and Celt, and Roman and Saxon and +Dane. If that hard-featured and sour-visaged old gamekeeper, with the +cold blue unfriendly eyes, should come upon me here in my hiding-place, +and scowl as he is accustomed to do, standing silent before me, gun in +hand, to hear my excuses for trespassing in his preserves, I should say +(mentally): This man is distinctly English, and his far-off progenitors, +somewhere about sixteen hundred years ago, probably assisted at the +massacre of the inhabitants of the pleasant little city at my feet. By +and by, leaving the ruins, I may meet with other villagers of different +features and different colour in hair, skin, and eyes, and of a +pleasanter expression; and in them I may see the remote descendants of +other older races of men, some who were lords here before the Romans +came, and of others before them, even back to Neolithic times. + +This, I take it, is a satisfaction, a sweetness and peace to the soul +in nature, because it carries with it a sense of the continuity of +the human race, its undying vigour, its everlastingness. After all the +tempests that have overcome it, through all mutations in such immense +stretches of time, how stable it is! + +I recall the time when I lived on a vast vacant level green plain, +an earth which to the eye, and to the mind which sees with the eye, +appeared illimitable, like the ocean; where the house I was born in was +the oldest in the district--a century old, it was said; where the people +were the children's children of emigrants from Europe who had conquered +and colonized the country, and had enjoyed but half a century of +national life. But the people who had possessed the land before these +emigrants--what of them? They, were but a memory, a tradition, a story +told in books and hardly more to us than a fable; perhaps they had dwelt +there for long centuries, or for thousands of years; perhaps they had +come, a wandering horde, to pass quickly away like a flight of migrating +locusts; for no memorial existed, no work of their hands, not the +faintest trace of their occupancy. + +Walking one day at the side of a ditch, which had been newly cut through +a meadow at the end of our plantation, I caught sight of a small black +object protruding from the side of the cutting, which turned out to be +a fragment of Indian pottery made of coarse clay, very black, and rudely +ornamented on one side. On searching further a few more pieces were +found. I took them home and preserved them carefully, experiencing +a novel and keen sense of pleasure in their possession; for though +worthless, they were man's handiwork, the only real evidence I had come +upon of that vanished people who had been before us; and it was as if +those bits of baked clay, with a pattern incised on them by a man's +finger-nail, had in them some magical property which enabled me to +realize the past, and to see that vacant plain repeopled with long dead +and forgotten men. + +Doubtless we all possess the feeling in some degree--the sense of +loneliness and desolation and dismay at the thought of an uninhabited +world, and of long periods when man was not. Is it not the absence of +human life or remains rather than the illimitable wastes of thick-ribbed +ice and snow which daunts us at the thought of Arctic and Antarctic +regions? Again, in the story of the earth, as told by geology, do we not +also experience the same sense of dismay, and the soul shrinking back +on itself, when we come in imagination to those deserts desolate in time +when the continuity of the race was broken and the world dispeopled? +The doctrine of evolution has made us tolerant of the thought of human +animals,--our progenitors as we must believe--who were of brutish +aspect, and whose period on this planet was so long that, compared +with it, the historic and prehistoric periods are but as the life of an +individual. A quarter of a million years has perhaps elapsed since the +beginning of that cold period which, at all events in this part of the +earth, killed Palaeolithic man; yet how small a part of his racial life +even that time would seem if, as some believe, his remains may be traced +as far back as the Eocene! But after this rude man of the Quaternary and +Tertiary epochs had passed away there is a void, a period which to the +imagination seems measureless, when sun and moon and stars looked on a +waste and mindless world. When man once more reappears he seems to have +been re-created on somewhat different lines. + +It is this break in the history of the human race which amazes and +daunts us, which "shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities +of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of +annihilation." + +Here, in these words of Hermann Melville, we are let all at once into +the true meaning of those disquieting and seemingly indefinable emotions +so often experienced, even by the most ardent lovers of nature and of +solitude, in uninhabited deserts, on great mountains, and on the sea. +We find here the origin of that horror of mountains which was so common +until recent times. A friend once confessed to me that he was always +profoundly unhappy at sea during long voyages, and the reason was that +his sustaining belief in a superintending Power and in immortality +left him when he was on that waste of waters, which have no human +associations. The feeling, so intense in his case, is known to most if +not all of us; but we feel it faintly as a disquieting element in nature +of which we may be but vaguely conscious. + +Most travelled Englishmen who have seen much of the world and resided +for long or short periods in many widely separated countries would +probably agree that there is a vast difference in the feeling of +strangeness, or want of harmony with our surroundings, experienced +in old and in new countries. It is a compound feeling and some of its +elements are the same in both cases; but in one there is a disquieting +element which the other is without. Thus, in Southern Europe, Egypt, +Syria, and in many countries of Asia, and some portions of Africa, the +wanderer from home might experience dissatisfaction and be ill at +ease and wish for old familiar sights and sounds; but in a colony +like Tasmania, and in any new country where there were no remains of +antiquity, no links with the past, the feeling would be very much more +poignant, and in some scenes and moods would be like that sense of +desolation which assails us at the thought of the heartless voids and +immensities of the universe. + +He recognizes that he is in a world on which we have but recently +entered, and in which our position is not yet assured. + +Here, standing on this mound, as on other occasions past counting, +I recognize and appreciate the enormous difference which human +associations make in the effect produced on us by visible nature. In +this silent solitary place, with the walled field which was once Calleva +Atrebatum at my feet, I yet have a sense of satisfaction, of security, +never felt in a land that had no historic past. The knowledge that my +individual life is but a span, a breath; that in a little while I too +must wither and mingle like one of those fallen yellow leaves with the +mould, does not grieve me. I know it and yet disbelieve it; for am I +not here alive, where men have inhabited for thousands of years, feeling +what I now feel--their oneness with everlasting nature and the undying +human family? The very soil and wet carpet of moss on which their +feet were set, the standing trees and leaves, green or yellow, the +rain-drops, the air they breathed, the sunshine in their eyes and +hearts, was part of them, not a garment, but of their very substance and +spirit. Feeling this, death becomes an illusion; and the illusion that +the continuous life of the species (its immortality) and the individual +life are one and the same is the reality and truth. An illusion, but, +as Mill says, deprive us of our illusions and life would be intolerable. +Happily we are not easily deprived of them, since they are of the nature +of instincts and ineradicable. And this very one which our reason +can prove to be the most childish, the absurdest of all, is yet the +greatest, the most fruitful of good for the race. To those who have +discarded supernatural religion, it may be a religion, or at all events +the foundation to build one on. For there is no comfort to the healthy +natural man in being told that the good he does will not be interred +with his bones, since he does not wish to think, and in fact refuses +to think, that his bones will ever be interred. Joy in the "choir +invisible" is to him a mere poetic fancy, or at best a rarefied +transcendentalism, which fails to sustain him. If altruism, or the +religion of humanity, is a living vigorous plant, and as some believe +flourishes more with the progress of the centuries, it must, like other +"soul-growths," have a deeper, tougher woodier root in our soil. + + + + +Chapter Eight: A Gold Day At Silchester + + +It is little to a man's profit to go far afield if his chief pleasure +be in wild life, his main object to get nearer to the creatures, to grow +day by day more intimate with them, and to see each day some new thing. +Yet the distance has the same fascination for him as for another--the +call is as sweet and persistent in his ears. If he is on a green level +country with blue hills on the horizon, then, especially in the early +morning, is the call sweetest, most irresistible. Come away--come away: +this blue world has better things than any in that green, too familiar +place. The startling scream of the jay--you have heard it a thousand +times. It is pretty to watch the squirrel in his chestnut-red coat among +the oaks in their fresh green foliage, full of fun as a bright child, +eating his apple like a child, only it is an oak-apple, shining white +or white and rosy-red, in his little paws; but you have seen it so many +times--come away: + +It was not this voice alone which made me forsake the green oaks of +Silchester and Pamber Forest, to ramble for a season hither and thither +in Wiltshire, Dorset, and Somerset; there was something for me to do +in those places, but the call made me glad to go. And long +weeks--months--went by in my wanderings, mostly in open downland +country, too often under gloomy skies, chilled by cold winds and wetted +by cold rains. Then, having accomplished my purpose and discovered +incidentally that the call had mocked me again, as on so many previous +occasions, I returned once more to the old familiar green place. + +Crossing the common, I found that where it had been dry in spring one +might now sink to his knees in the bog; also that the snipe which had +vanished for a season were back at the old spot where they used to +breed. It was a bitter day near the end of an unpleasant summer, with +the wind back in the old hateful north-east quarter; but the sun shone, +the sky was blue, and the flying clouds were of a dazzling whiteness. +Shivering, I remembered the south wall, and went there, since to escape +from the wind and bask like some half-frozen serpent or lizard in the +heat was the highest good one could look for in such weather. To see +anything new in wild life was not to be hoped for. + +That old grey, crumbling wall of ancient Calleva, crowned with big oak +and ash and thorn and holly, and draped with green bramble and trailing +ivy and creepers--how good a shelter it is on a cold, rough day! Moving +softly, so as not to disturb any creature, I yet disturbed a ring snake +lying close to the wall, into which it quickly vanished; and then from +their old place among the stones a pair of blue stock-doves rushed out +with clatter of wings. The same blue doves which I had known for three +years at that spot! A few more steps and I came upon as pretty a little +scene in bird life as one could wish for: twenty to twenty-five small +birds of different species--tits, wrens, dunnocks, thrushes, blackbirds, +chaffinches, yellowhammers--were congregated on the lower outside twigs +of a bramble bush and on the bare ground beside it close to the foot of +the wall. The sun shone full on that spot, and they had met for warmth +and for company. The tits and wrens were moving quietly about in the +bush; others were sitting idly or preening their feathers on the twigs +or the ground. Most of them were making some kind of small sound--little +exclamatory chirps, and a variety of chirrupings, producing the effect +of a pleasant conversation going on among them. This was suddenly +suspended on my appearance, but the alarm was soon over, and, seeing me +seated on a fallen stone and, motionless, they took no further notice +of me. Two blackbirds were there, sitting a little way apart on the bare +ground; these were silent, the raggedest, rustiest-looking members of +that little company; for they were moulting, and their drooping wings +and tails had many unsightly gaps in them where the old feathers had +dropped out before the new ones had grown. They were suffering from that +annual sickness with temporary loss of their brightest faculties which +all birds experience in some degree; the unseasonable rains and cold +winds had been bad for them, and now they were having their sun-bath, +their best medicine and cure. + +By and by a pert-looking, bright-feathered, dapper cock chaffinch +dropped down from the bush, and, advancing to one of the two, the +rustiest and most forlorn-looking, started running round and round him +as if to make a close inspection of his figure, then began to tease +him. At first I thought it was all in fun--merely animal spirit which +in birds often discharges itself in this way in little pretended attacks +and fights. But the blackbird had no play and no fight in him, no heart +to defend himself; all he did was to try to avoid the strokes aimed at +him, and he could not always escape them. His spiritlessness served to +inspire the chaffinch with greater boldness, and then it appeared that +the gay little creature was really and truly incensed, possibly because +the rusty, draggled, and listless appearance of the larger bird was +offensive to him. Anyhow, the persecutions continued, increasing in +fury until they could not be borne, and the blackbird tried to escape +by hiding in the bramble. But he was not permitted to rest there; out he +was soon driven and away into another bush, and again into still another +further away, and finally he was hunted over the sheltering wall into +the bleak wind on the other side. Then the persecutor came back and +settled himself on his old perch on the bramble, well satisfied at his +victory over a bird so much bigger than himself. All was again peace and +harmony in the little social gathering, and the pleasant talkee-talkee +went on as before. About five minutes passed, then the hunted blackbird +returned, and, going to the identical spot from which he had been +driven, composed himself to rest; only now he sat facing his lively +little enemy. + +I was astonished to see him back; so, apparently, was the chaffinch. He +started, craned his neck, and regarded his adversary first with one eye +then with the other. "What, rags and tatters, back again so soon!" I +seem to hear him say. "You miserable travesty of a bird, scarcely fit +for a weasel to dine on! Your presence is an insult to us, but I'll soon +settle you. You'll feel the cold on the other, side of the wall when +I've knocked off a few more of your rusty rags." + +Down from his perch he came, but no sooner had he touched his feet to +the ground than the blackbird went straight at him with extraordinary +fury. The chaffinch, taken by surprise, was buffeted and knocked over, +then, recovering himself, fled in consternation, hotly pursued by the +sick one. Into the bush they went, but in a moment they were out again, +darting this way and that, now high up in the trees, now down to the +ground, the blackbird always close behind; and no little bird flying +from a hawk could have exhibited a greater terror than that pert +chaffinch--that vivacious and most pugnacious little cock bantam. +At last they went quite away, and were lost to sight. By and by the +blackbird returned alone, and, going once more to his place near the +second bird, he settled down comfortably to finish his sunbath in peace +and quiet. + +I had assuredly witnessed a new thing on that unpromising day, something +quite different from anything witnessed in my wide rambles; and, though +a little thing, it had been a most entertaining comedy in bird life with +a very proper ending. It was clear that the sick blackbird had bitterly +resented the treatment he had received; that, brooding on it out in the +cold, his anger had made him strong, and that he came back determined +to fight, with his plan of action matured. He was not going to be made a +fool every time! + +The birds all gone their several ways at last, I got up from my stone +and wondered if the old Romans ever dreamed that this wall which +they made to endure would after seventeen hundred years have no more +important use than this--to afford shelter to a few little birds and to +the solitary man that watched them--from the bleak wind. Many a strange +Roman curse on this ungenial climate must these same stones have heard. +Looking through a gap in the wall I saw, close by, on the other side, a +dozen men at work with pick and shovel throwing up huge piles of earth. +They were uncovering a small portion of that ancient buried city and +were finding the foundations and floors and hypocausts of Silchester's +public baths; also some broken pottery and trifling ornaments of bronze +and bone. The workmen in that bitter wind were decidedly better off than +the gentlemen from Burlington House in charge of the excavations. +These stood with coats buttoned up and hands thrust deep down in their +pockets. It seemed to me that it was better to sit in the shelter of the +wall and watch the birds than to burrow in the crumbling dust for that +small harvest. Yet I could understand and even appreciate their +work, although it is probable that the glow I experienced was in part +reflected. Perhaps my mental attitude, when standing in that sheltered +place, and when getting on to the windy wall I looked down on the +workers and their work, was merely benevolent. I had pleasure in their +pleasure, and a vague desire for a better understanding, a closer +alliance and harmony. It was the desire that we might all see +nature--the globe with all it contains--as one harmonious whole, not as +groups of things, or phenomena, unrelated, cast there by chance or by +careless or contemptuous gods. This dust of past ages, dug out of a +wheat-field, with its fragments of men's work--its pottery and tiles and +stones--this is a part, too, even as the small birds, with their little +motives and passions, so like man's, are a part. I thought with self +shame of my own sins in this connection; then, considering the lesser +faults on the other side, I wished that Mr. St. John Hope would +experience a like softening mood and regret that he had abused the ivy. +It grieves me to hear it called a "noxious weed." That perished people, +whose remains in this land so deeply interest him, were the +mightiest "builders of ruins" the world has known; but who except +the archaeologist would wish to see these piled stones in their naked +harshness, striking the mind with dismay at the thought of Time and +its perpetual desolations! I like better the old Spanish poet who says, +"What of Rome; its world-conquering power, and majesty and glory--what +has it come to?" The ivy on the wall, the yellow wallflower, tell it. A +"deadly parasite" quotha! Is it not well that this plant, this evergreen +tapestry of innumerable leaves, should cover and partly hide and partly +reveal the "strange defeatures" the centuries have set on man's greatest +works? I would have no ruin nor no old and noble building without it; +for not only does it beautify decay, but from long association it has +come to be in the mind a very part of such scenes and so interwoven +with the human tragedy, that, like the churchyard yew, it seems the most +human of green things. + +Here in September great masses of the plant are already showing a +greenish cream-colour of the opening blossoms, which will be at their +perfection in October. Then, when the sun shines, there will be no +lingering red admiral, nor blue fly or fly of any colour, nor yellow +wasp, nor any honey-eating or late honey-gathering insect that will +not be here to feed on the ivy's sweetness. And behind the blossoming +curtain, alive with the minute, multitudinous, swift-moving, glittering +forms, some nobler form will be hidden in a hole or fissure in the wall. +Here on many a night I have listened to the sibilant screech of the +white owl and the brown owl's clear, long-drawn, quavering lamentation: + + "Good Ivy, what byrdys hast thou?" + "Non but the Howlet, that How! How!" + + + + +Chapter Nine: Rural Rides + + +"A-birding on a Broncho" is the title of a charming little book +published some years ago, and probably better known to readers on the +other side of the Atlantic than in England. I remember reading it with +pleasure and pride on account of the author's name, Florence Merriam, +seeing that, on my mother's side, I am partly a Merriam myself (of the +branch on the other side of the Atlantic), and having been informed that +all of that rare name are of one family, I took it that we were related, +though perhaps very distantly. "A-birding on a Broncho" suggested an +equally alliterative title for this chapter--"Birding on a Bike"; but +I will leave it to others, for those who go a-birding are now very +many and are hard put to find fresh titles to their books. For several +reasons it will suit me better to borrow from Cobbett and name this +chapter "Rural Rides." + +Sore of us do not go out on bicycles to observe the ways of birds. +Indeed, some of our common species have grown almost too familiar +with the wheel: it has become a positive danger to them. They not +infrequently mistake its rate of speed and injure themselves in +attempting to fly across it. Recently I had a thrush knock himself +senseless against the spokes of my forewheel, and cycling friends have +told me of similar experiences they have had, in some instances the +heedless birds getting killed. Chaffinches are like the children in +village streets--they will not get out of your way; by and by in rural +places the merciful man will have to ring his bell almost incessantly to +avoid running over them. As I do not travel at a furious speed I manage +to avoid most things, even the wandering loveless oil-beetle and the +small rose-beetle and that slow-moving insect tortoise the tumbledung. +Two or three seasons ago I was so unfortunate as to run over a large and +beautifully bright grass snake near Aldermaston, once a snake sanctuary. +He writhed and wriggled on the road as if I had broken his back, but on +picking him up I was pleased to find that my wind-inflated rubber tyre +had not, like the brazen chariot wheel, crushed his delicate vertebra; +he quickly recovered, and when released glided swiftly and easily away +into cover. Twice only have I deliberately tried to run down, to tread +on coat-tails so to speak, of any wild creature. One was a weasel, +the other a stoat, running along at a hedge-side before me. In both +instances, just as the front wheel was touching the tail, the little +flat-headed rascal swerved quickly aside and escaped. + +Even some of the less common and less tame birds care as little for a +man on a bicycle as they do for a cow. Not long ago a peewit trotted +leisurely across the road not more than ten yards from my front wheel; +and on the same day I came upon a green woodpecker enjoying a dust-bath +in the public road. He declined to stir until I stopped to watch him, +then merely flew about a dozen yards away and attached himself to the +trunk of a fir tree at the roadside and waited there for me to go. Never +in all my wanderings afoot had I seen a yaffingale dusting himself like +a barn-door fowl! + +It is not seriously contended that birds can be observed narrowly in +this easy way; but even for the most conscientious field naturalist the +wheel has its advantages. It carries him quickly over much barren ground +and gives him a better view of the country he traverses; finally, it +enables him to see more birds. He will sometimes see thousands in a day +where, walking, he would hardly have seen hundreds, and there is joy in +mere numbers. It was just to get this general rapid sight of the bird +life of the neighbouring hilly district of Hampshire that I was at +Newbury on the last day of October. The weather was bright though very +cold and windy, and towards evening I was surprised to see about twenty +swallows in Northbrook Street flying languidly to and fro in the shelter +of the houses, often fluttering under the eaves and at intervals sitting +on ledges and projections. These belated birds looked as if they wished +to hibernate, or find the most cosy holes to die in, rather than to +emigrate. On the following day at noon they came out again and flew up +and down in the same feeble aimless manner. + +Undoubtedly a few swallows of all three species, but mostly +house-martins, do "lie up" in England every winter, but probably very +few survive to the following spring. We should have said that it was +impossible that any should survive but for one authentic instance in +recent years, in which a barn-swallow lived through the winter in a +semi-torpid state in an outhouse at a country vicarage. What came of +the Newbury birds I do not know, as I left on the 2nd of November--tore +myself away, I may say, for, besides meeting with people I didn't know +who treated a stranger with sweet friendliness, it is a town which +quickly wins one's affections. It is built of bricks of a good deep rich +red--not the painfully bright red so much in use now--and no person has +had the bad taste to spoil the harmony by introducing stone and stucco. +Moreover, Newbury has, in Shaw House, an Elizabethan mansion of the +rarest beauty. Let him that is weary of the ugliness and discords in our +town buildings go and stand by the ancient cedar at the gate and look +across the wide green lawn at this restful house, subdued by time to +a tender rosy-red colour on its walls and a deep dark red on its roof, +clouded with grey of lichen. + +From Newbury and the green meadows of the Kennet the Hampshire hills may +be seen, looking like the South Down range at its highest point viewed +from the Sussex Weald. I made for Coombe Hill, the highest hill in +Hampshire, and found it a considerable labour to push my machine up from +the pretty tree-hidden village of East Woodhay at its foot. The top is a +league-long tableland, with stretches of green elastic turf, thickets +of furze and bramble, and clumps of ancient noble beeches--a beautiful +lonely wilderness with rabbits and birds for only inhabitants. From +the highest point where a famous gibbet stands for ever a thousand feet +above the sea and where there is a dew-pond, the highest in England, +which has never dried up although a large flock of sheep drink in it +every summer day, one looks down into an immense hollow, a Devil's Punch +Bowl very many times magnified,--and spies, far away and far below, +a few lonely houses half hidden by trees at the bottom. This is the +romantic village of Coombe, and hither I went and found the vicar busy +in the garden of the small old picturesque parsonage. Here a very pretty +little bird comedy was in progress: a pair of stock-doves which had been +taken from a rabbit-hole in the hill and reared by hand had just escaped +from the large cage where they had always lived, and all the family were +excitedly engaged in trying to recapture them. They were delightful to +see--those two pretty blue birds with red legs running busily about +on the green lawn, eagerly searching for something to eat and finding +nothing. They were quite tame and willing to be fed, so that anyone +could approach them and put as much salt on their tails as he liked, but +they refused to be touched or taken; they were too happy in their new +freedom, running and flying about in that brilliant sunshine, and when I +left towards the evening they were still at large. + +But before quitting that small isolated village in its green basin--a +human heart in a chalk hill, almost the highest in England--I wished the +hours I spent in it had been days, so much was there to see and hear. +There was the gibbet on the hill, for example, far up on the rim of the +green basin, four hundred feet above the village; why had that memorial, +that symbol of a dreadful past, been preserved for so many years and +generations? and why had it been raised so high--was it because the +crime of the person put to death there was of so monstrous a nature that +it was determined to suspend him, if not on a gibbet fifty cubits high, +at all events higher above the earth than Haman the son of Hammedatha +the Agagite? The gruesome story is as follows. + +Once upon a time there lived a poor widow woman in Coombe, with two +sons, aged fourteen and sixteen, who worked at a farm in the village. +She had a lover, a middle-aged man, living at Woodhay, a carrier who +used to go on two or three days each week with his cart to deliver +parcels at Coombe. But he was a married man, and as he could not marry +the widow while his wife remained alive, it came into his dull Berkshire +brain that the only way out of the difficulty was to murder her, and +to this course the widow probably consented. Accordingly, one day, he +invited or persuaded her to accompany him on his journey to the remote +village, and on the way he got her out of the cart and led her into a +close thicket to show her something he had discovered there. What +he wished to show her (according to one version of the story) was a +populous hornets' nest, and having got her there he suddenly flung her +against it and made off, leaving the cloud of infuriated hornets to +sting her to death. That night he slept at Coombe, or stayed till a +very late hour at the widow's cottage and told her what he had done. +In telling her he had spoken in his ordinary voice, but by and by it +occurred to him that the two boys, who were sleeping close by in the +living-room, might have been awake and listening. She assured him that +they were both fast asleep, but he was not satisfied, and said that if +they had heard him he would kill them both, as he had no wish to swing, +and he could not trust them to hold their tongues. Thereupon they got up +and examined the faces of the two boys, holding a candle over them, +and saw that they were in a deep sleep, as was natural after their long +day's hard work on the farm, and the murderer's fears were set at rest. +Yet one of the boys, the younger, had been wide awake all the time, +listening, trembling with terror, with wide eyes to the dreadful tale, +and only when they first became suspicious instinct came to his aid and +closed his eyes and stilled his tremors and gave him the appearance of +being asleep. Early next morning, with his terror still on him, he told +what he had heard to his brother, and by and by, unable to keep the +dreadful secret, they related it to someone--a carter or ploughman on +the farm. He in turn told the farmer, who at once gave information, and +in a short time the man and woman were arrested. In due time they were +tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged in the parish where the +crime had been committed. + +Everybody was delighted, and Coombe most delighted of all, for it +happened that some of their wise people had been diligently examining +into the matter and had made the discovery that the woman had been +murdered just outside their borders in the adjoining parish of Inkpen, +so that they were going to enjoy seeing the wicked punished at somebody +else's expense. Inkpen was furious and swore that it would not be +saddled with the cost of a great public double execution. The line +dividing the two parishes had always been a doubtful one; now they +were going to take the benefit of the doubt and let Coombe hang its own +miscreants! + +As neither side would yield, the higher authorities were compelled to +settle the matter for them, and ordered the cost to be divided between +the two parishes, the gibbet to be erected on the boundary line, as far +as it could be ascertained. This was accordingly done, the gibbet +being erected at the highest point crossed by the line, on a stretch +of beautiful smooth elastic turf, among prehistoric earthworks--a +spot commanding one of the finest and most extensive views in Southern +England. The day appointed for the execution brought the greatest +concourse of people ever witnessed at that lofty spot, at all events +since prehistoric times. If some of the ancient Britons had come out +of their graves to look on, seated on their earthworks, they would have +probably rubbed their ghostly hands together and remarked to each other +that it reminded them of old times. All classes were there, from the +nobility and gentry, on horseback and in great coaches in which they +carried their own provisions, to the meaner sort who had trudged from +all the country round on foot, and those who had not brought their own +food and beer were catered for by traders in carts. The crowd was a +hilarious one, and no doubt that grand picnic on the beacon was the talk +of they country for a generation or longer. The two wretches having been +hanged in chains on one gibbet were left to be eaten by ravens, crows, +and magpipes, and dried by sun and winds, until, after long years, the +swinging, creaking skeletons with their chains on fell to pieces and +were covered with the turf, but the gibbet itself was never removed. + +Then a strange thing happened. The sheep on a neighbouring farm became +thin and sickly and yielded little wool and died before their time. No +remedies availed and the secret of their malady could not be discovered; +but it went on so long that the farmer was threatened with utter +ruin. Then, by chance, it was discovered that the chains in which the +murderers had been hanged had been thrown by some evil-minded person +into a dew-pond on the farm. This was taken to be the cause of the +malady in the sheep; at all events, the chains having been taken out +of the pond and buried deep in the earth, the flock recovered: it was +supposed that the person who had thrown the chains in the water to +poison it had done so to ruin the farmer in revenge for some injustice +or grudge. But even now we are not quite done with the gibbet! Many, +many years had gone by when Inkpen discovered from old documents that +their little dishonest neighbour, Coombe, had taken more land than +she was entitled to, that not only a part but the whole of that noble +hill-top belonged to her! It was Inkpen's turn to chuckle now; but she +chuckled too soon, and Coombe, running out to look, found the old rotten +stump of the gibbet still in the ground. Hands off! she cried. Here +stands a post, which you set up yourself, or which we put up together +and agreed that this should be the boundary line for ever. Inkpen +sneaked off to hide herself in her village, and Coombe, determined to +keep the subject in mind, set up a brand-new stout gibbet in the place +of the old rotting one. That too decayed and fell to pieces in time, +and the present gibbet is therefore the third, and nobody has ever +been hanged on it. Coombe is rather proud of it, but I am not sure that +Inkpen is. + +That was one of three strange events in the life of the village which I +heard: the other two must be passed by; they would take long to tell and +require a good pen to do them justice. To me the best thing in or of the +village was the vicar himself, my put-upon host, a man of so blithe +a nature, so human and companionable, that when I, a perfect stranger +without an introduction or any excuse for such intrusion came down like +a wolf on his luncheon-table, he received me as if I had been an old +friend or one of his own kindred, and freely gave up his time to me for +the rest of that day. To count his years he was old: he had been vicar +of Coombe for half a century, but he was a young man still and had never +had a day's illness in his life--he did not know what a headache was. He +smoked with me, and to prove that he was not a total abstainer he drank +my health in a glass of port wine--very good wine. It was Coombe that +did it--its peaceful life, isolated from a distracting world in that +hollow hill, and the marvellous purity of its air. "Sitting there on my +lawn," he said, "you are six hundred feet above the sea, although in a +hollow four hundred feet deep." It was an ideal open-air room, round and +green, with the sky for a roof. In winter it was sometimes very cold, +and after a heavy fall of snow the scene was strange and impressive from +the tiny village set in its stupendous dazzling white bowl. Not only on +those rare arctic days, but at all times it was wonderfully quiet. The +shout of a child or the peaceful crow of a cock was the loudest sound +you heard. Once a gentleman from London town came down to spend a week +at the parsonage. Towards evening on the very first day he grew restless +and complained of the abnormal stillness. "I like a quiet place well +enough," he exclaimed, "but this tingling silence I can't stand!" And +stand it he wouldn't and didn't, for on the very next morning he took +himself off. Many years had gone by, but the vicar could not forget the +Londoner who had come down to invent a new way of describing the Coombe +silence. His tingling phrase was a joy for ever. + +He took me to the church--one of the tiniest churches in the country, +just the right size for a church in a tiny village and assured me that +he had never once locked the door in his fifty years--day and night it +was open to any one to enter. It was a refuge and shelter from the storm +and the Tempest, and many a poor homeless wretch had found a dry place +to sleep in that church during the last half a century. This man's +feeling of pity and tenderness for the very poor, even the outcast and +tramp, was a passion. But how strange all this would sound in the ears +of many country clergymen! How many have told me when I have gone to the +parsonage to "borrow the key" that it had been found necessary to keep +the church door locked, to prevent damage, thefts, etc. "Have you never +had anything stolen?" I asked him. Yes, once, a great many years ago, +the church plate had been taken away in the night. But it was recovered: +the thief had taken it to the top of the hill and thrown it into the +dewpond there, no doubt intending to take it out and dispose of it at +some more convenient time. But it was found, and had ever since then +been kept safe at the vicarage. Nothing of value to tempt a man to steal +was kept in the church. He had never locked it, but once in his fifty +years it had been locked against him by the churchwardens. This +happened in the days of the Joseph Arch agitation, when the agricultural +labourer's condition was being hotly discussed throughout the country. +The vicar's heart was stirred, for he knew better than most how hard +these conditions were at Coombe and in the surrounding parishes. He +took up the subject and preached on it in his own pulpit in a way that +offended the landowners and alarmed the farmers in the district. The +church wardens, who were farmers, then locked him out of his church, +and for two or three weeks there was no public worship in the parish of +Coombe. Doubtless their action was applauded by all the substantial +men in the neighbourhood; the others who lived in the cottages and were +unsubstantial didn't matter. That storm blew over, but its consequences +endured, one being that the inflammatory parson continued to be regarded +with cold disapproval by the squires and their larger tenants. But the +vicar himself was unrepentant and unashamed; on the contrary, he gloried +in what he had said and done, and was proud to be able to relate that a +quarter of a century later one of the two men who had taken that extreme +course said to him, "We locked you out of your own church, but years +have brought me to another mind about that question. I see it in a +different light now and know that you were right and we were wrong." + +Towards evening I said good-bye to my kind friend and entertainer and +continued my rural ride. From Coombe it is five miles to Hurstbourne +Tarrant, another charming "highland" village, and the road, sloping +down the entire distance, struck me as one of the best to be on I had +travelled in Hampshire, running along a narrow green valley, with oak +and birch and bramble and thorn in their late autumn colours growing +on the slopes on either hand. Probably the beauty of the scene, or the +swift succession of beautiful scenes, with the low sun flaming on the +"coloured shades," served to keep out of my mind something that should +have been in it. At all events, it was odd that I had more than once +promised myself a visit to the very village I was approaching solely +because William Cobbett had described and often stayed in it, and now no +thought of him and his ever-delightful Rural Rides was in my mind. + +Arrived at the village I went straight to the "George and Dragon," where +a friend had assured me I could always find good accommodations. But +he was wrong: there was no room for me, I was told by a weird-looking, +lean, white-haired old woman with whity-blue unfriendly eyes. She +appeared to resent it that any one should ask for accommodation at +such a time, when the "shooting gents" from town required all the rooms +available. Well, I had to sleep somewhere, I told her: couldn't she +direct me to a cottage where I could get a bed? No, she couldn't--it is +always so; but after the third time of asking she unfroze so far as to +say that perhaps they would take me in at a cottage close by. So I went, +and a poor kind widow who lived there with a son consented to put me +up. She made a nice fire in the sitting-room, and after warming myself +before it, while watching the firelight and shadows playing on the dim +walls and ceiling, it came to me that I was not in a cottage, but in +a large room with an oak floor and wainscoting. "Do you call this a +cottage?" I said to the woman when she came in with tea. "No, I have +it as a cottage, but it is an old farm-house called the Rookery," she +returned. Then, for the first time, I remembered Rural Rides. "This then +is the very house where William Cobbett used to stay seventy or eighty +years ago," I said. She had never heard of William Cobbett; she only +knew that at that date it had been tenanted by a farmer named Blount, a +Roman Catholic, who had some curious ideas about the land. + +That settled it. Blount was the name of Cobbett's friend, and I had come +to the very house where Cobbett was accustomed to stay. But how odd that +my first thought of the man should have come to me when sitting by the +fire where Cobbett himself had sat on many a cold evening! And this was +November the second, the very day eighty-odd years ago when he paid his +first visit to the Rookery; at all events, it is the first date he gives +in Rural Rides. And he too had been delighted with the place and the +beauty of the surrounding country with the trees in their late autumn +colours. Writing on November 2nd, 1821, he says: "The place is commonly +called Uphusband, which is, I think, as decent a corruption of names as +one could wish to meet with. However, Uphusband the people will have it, +and Uphusband it shall be for me." That is indeed how he names it all +through his book, after explaining that "husband" is a corruption of +Hurstbourne, and that there are two Hurstbournes, this being the upper +one. + +I congratulated myself on having been refused accommodation at the +"George and Dragon," and was more than satisfied to pass an evening +without a book, sitting there alone listening to an imaginary +conversation between those two curious friends. "Lord Carnarvon," says +Cobbett, "told a man, in 1820, that he did not like my politics. But +what did he mean by my politics? I have no politics but such as he ought +to like. To be sure I labour most assiduously to destroy a system of +distress and misery; but is that any reason why a Lord should dislike +my politics? However, dislike them or like them, to them, to those very +politics, the Lords themselves must come at last." + +Undoubtedly he talked like that, just as he wrote and as he spoke in +public, his style, if style it can be called, being the most simple, +direct, and colloquial ever written. And for this reason, when we are +aweary of the style of the stylist, where the living breathing body +becomes of less consequence than its beautiful clothing, it is a relief, +and refreshment, to turn from the precious and delicate expression, the +implicit word, sought for high and low and at last found, the balance of +every sentence and perfect harmony of the whole work--to go from it to +the simple vigorous unadorned talk of Rural Rides. A classic, and as +incongruous among classics as a farmer in his smock-frock, leggings, and +stout boots would appear in a company of fine gentlemen in fashionable +dress. The powerful face is the main thing, and we think little of the +frock and leggings and how the hair is parted or if parted at all. +Harsh and crabbed as his nature no doubt was, and bitter and spiteful at +times, his conversation must yet have seemed like a perpetual feast +of honeyed sweets to his farmer friend. Doubtless there was plenty of +variety in it: now he would expatiate on the beauty of the green downs +over which he had just ridden, the wooded slopes in their glorious +autumn colours, and the rich villages between; this would remind him of +Malthus, that blasphemous monster who had dared to say that the increase +in food production did not keep pace with increase of population; then +a quieting down, a breathing-space, all about the turnip crop, the +price of eggs at Weyhill Fair, and the delights of hare coursing, until +politics would come round again and a fresh outburst from the glorious +demagogue in his tantrums. + +At eight o'clock Cobbett would say good night and go to bed, and early +next morning write down what he had said to his friend, or some of it, +and send it off to be printed in his paper. That, I take it, is how +Rural Rides was written, and that is why it seems so fresh to us to this +day, and that to take it up after other books is like going out from a +luxurious room full of fine company into the open air to feel the wind +and rain on one's face and see the green grass. But I very much regret +that Cobbett tells us nothing of his farmer friend. Blount, I imagine, +must have been a man of a very fine character to have won the heart +and influenced such a person. Cobbett never loses an opportunity of +vilifying the parsons and expressing his hatred of the Established +Church; and yet, albeit a Protestant, he invariably softens down when he +refers to the Roman Catholic faith and appears quite capable of seeing +the good that is in it. + +It was Blount, I think, who had soothed the savage breast of the man +in this matter. The only thing I could hear about Blount and his "queer +notions" regarding the land was his idea that the soil could be improved +by taking the flints out. "The soil to look upon," Cobbett truly says, +"appears to be more than half flint, but is a very good quality." Blount +thought to make it better, and for many years employed all the aged poor +villagers and the children in picking the flints from the ploughed land +and gathering them in vast heaps. It does not appear that he made his +land more productive, but his hobby was a good one for the poor of the +village; the stones, too, proved useful afterwards to the road-makers, +who have been using them these many years. A few heaps almost clothed +over with a turf which had formed on them in the course of eighty years +were still to be seen on the land when I was there. + +The following day I took no ride. The weather was so beautiful it seemed +better to spend the time sitting or basking in the warmth and brightness +or strolling about. At all events, it was a perfect day at Hurstbourne +Tarrant, though not everywhere, for on that third of November the +greatest portion of Southern England was drowned in a cold dense white +fog. In London it was dark, I heard. Early in the morning I listened +to a cirl-bunting singing merrily from a bush close to the George and +Dragon Inn. This charming bird is quite common in the neighbourhood, +although, as elsewhere in England, the natives know it not by its book +name, nor by any other, and do not distinguish it from its less engaging +cousin, the yellowhammer. + +After breakfast I strolled about the common and in Doles Wood, on the +down above the village, listening to the birds, and on my way back +encountered a tramp whose singular appearance produced a deep impression +on my mind. We have heard of a work by some modest pressman entitled +"Monarchs I have met", and I sometimes think that one equally +interesting might be written on "Tramps I have met". As I have neither +time nor stomach for the task, I will make a present of the title to +any one of my fellow-travellers, curious in tramps, who cares to use +it. This makes two good titles I have given away in this chapter with a +borrowed one. + +But if it had been possible for me to write such a book, a prominent +place would be given in it to the one tramp I have met who could be +accurately described as gorgeous. I did not cultivate his acquaintance; +chance threw us together and we separated after exchanging a few polite +commonplaces, but his big flamboyant image remains vividly impressed on +my mind. + +At noon, in the brilliant sunshine, as I came loiteringly down the long +slope from Doles Wood to the village, he overtook me. He was a huge man, +over six feet high, nobly built, suggesting a Scandinavian origin, with +a broad blond face, good features, and prominent blue eyes, and his +hair was curly and shone like gold in the sunlight. Had he been a mere +labourer in a workman's rough clay-stained clothes, one would have stood +still to look at and admire him, and say perhaps what a magnificent +warrior he would have looked with sword and spear and plumed helmet, +mounted on a big horse! But alas! he had the stamp of the irreclaimable +blackguard on his face; and that same handsome face was just then +disfigured with several bruises in three colours--blue, black, and red. +Doubtless he had been in a drunken brawl on the previous evening and had +perhaps been thrown out of some low public-house and properly punished. + +In his dress he was as remarkable as in his figure. Bright blue trousers +much too small for his stout legs, once the property, no doubt, of +some sporting young gent of loud tastes in colours; a spotted fancy +waistcoat, not long enough to meet the trousers, a dirty scarlet tie, +long black frock-coat, shiny in places, and a small dirty grey cap which +only covered the topmost part of his head of golden hair. + +Walking by the hedge-side he picked and devoured the late blackberries, +which were still abundant. It was a beautiful unkept hedge with scarlet +and purple fruit among the many-coloured fading leaves and silver-grey +down of old-man's-beard. + +I too picked and ate a few berries and made the remark that it was late +to eat such fruit in November. The Devil in these parts, I told him, +flies abroad in October to spit on the bramble bushes and spoil the +fruit. It was even worse further north, in Norfolk and Suffolk, where +they say the Devil goes out at Michaelmas and shakes his verminous +trousers over the bushes. + +He didn't smile; he went on sternly eating blackberries, and then +remarked in a bitter tone, "That Devil they talk about must have a busy +time, to go messing about blackberry bushes in addition to all his other +important work." + +I was silent, and presently, after swallowing a few more berries, he +resumed in the same tone: "Very fine, very beautiful all this"--waving +his hand to indicate the hedge, its rich tangle of purple-red stems +and coloured leaves, and scarlet fruit and silvery oldman's-beard. "An +artist enjoys seeing this sort of thing, and it's nice for all those who +go about just for the pleasure of seeing things. But when it comes to a +man tramping twenty or thirty miles a day on an empty belly, looking for +work which he can't find, he doesn't see it quite in the same way." + +"True," I returned, with indifference. + +But he was not to be put off by my sudden coldness, and he proceeded to +inform me that he had just returned from Salisbury Plain, that it had +been noised abroad that ten thousand men were wanted by the War Office +to work in forming new camps. On arrival he found it was not so--it was +all a lie--men were not wanted--and he was now on his way to Andover, +penniless and hungry and-- + +By the time he had got to that part of his story we were some distance +apart, as I had remained standing still while he, thinking me still +close behind, had gone on picking blackberries and talking. He was soon +out of sight. + +At noon the following day, the weather still being bright and genial, +I went to Crux Easton, a hilltop village consisting of some low farm +buildings, cottages, and a church not much bigger than a cottage. A +great house probably once existed here, as the hill has a noble avenue +of limes, which it wears like a comb or crest. On the lower slope of the +hill, the old unkept hedges were richer in colour than in most places, +owing to the abundance of the spindle-wood tree, laden with its loose +clusters of flame-bright, purple-pink and orange berries. + +Here I saw a pretty thing: a cock cirl-bunting, his yellow breast +towards me, sitting quietly on a large bush of these same brilliant +berries, set amidst a mass of splendidly coloured hazel leaves, mixed +with bramble and tangled with ivy and silver-grey traveller's-joy. An +artist's heart would have leaped with joy at the sight, but all his +skill and oriental colours would have made nothing of it, for all +visible nature was part of the picture, the wide wooded earth and the +blue sky beyond and above the bird, and the sunshine that glorified all. + +On the other side of the hedge there were groups of fine old beech trees +and, strange to see, just beyond the green slope and coloured trees, +was the great whiteness of the fog which had advanced thus far and now +appeared motionless. I went down and walked by the side of the bank +of mist, feeling its clammy coldness on one cheek while the other was +fanned by the warm bright air. Seen at a distance of a couple of hundred +yards, the appearance was that of a beautiful pearly-white cloud resting +upon the earth. Many fogs had I seen, but never one like this, so +substantial-looking, so sharply defined, standing like a vast white wall +or flat-topped hill at the foot of the green sunlit slope! I had the +fancy that if I had been an artist in sculpture, and rapid modeller, by +using the edge of my hand as a knife I could have roughly carved out a +human figure, then drawing it gently out of the mass proceeded to press +and work it to a better shape, the shape, let us say, of a beautiful +woman. Then, if it were done excellently, and some man-mocking deity, or +power of the air, happened to be looking on, he would breathe life and +intelligence into it, and send it, or her, abroad to mix with human kind +and complicate their affairs. For she would seem a woman and would be +like some women we have known, beautiful with blue flower-like eyes, +pale gold or honey-coloured hair; very white of skin, Leightonian, +almost diaphanous, so delicate as to make all other skins appear coarse +and made of clay. And with her beauty and a mysterious sweetness not +of the heart, since no heart there would be in that mist-cold body, she +would draw all hearts, ever inspiring, but never satisfying passion, her +beauty and alluring smiles being but the brightness of a cloud on which +the sun is shining. + +Birds, driven by the fog to that sunlit spot, were all about me in +incredible numbers. Rooks and daws were congregating on the bushes, +where their black figures served to intensify the red-gold tints of the +foliage. At intervals the entire vast cawing multitude simultaneously +rose up with a sound as of many waters, and appeared now at last about +to mount up into the blue heavens, to float circling there far above the +world as they are accustomed to do on warm windless days in autumn. But +in a little while their brave note would change to one of trouble; the +sight of that immeasurable whiteness covering so much of the earth would +scare them, and led by hundreds of clamouring daws they would come down +again to settle once more in black masses on the shining yellow trees. + +Close by a ploughed field of about forty acres was the camping-ground +of an army of peewits; they were travellers from the north perhaps, and +were quietly resting, sprinkled over the whole area. More abundant were +the small birds in mixed flocks or hordes--finches, buntings, and larks +in thousands on thousands, with a sprinkling of pipits and pied and grey +wagtails, all busily feeding on the stubble and fresh ploughed land. +Thickly and evenly distributed, they appeared to the vision ranging +over the brown level expanse as minute animated and variously coloured +clods--black and brown and grey and yellow and olive-green. + +It was a rare pleasure to be in this company, to revel in their +astonishing numbers, to feast my soul on them as it were--little birds +in such multitudes that ten thousand Frenchmen and Italians might have +gorged to repletion on their small succulent bodies--and to reflect +that they were safe from persecution so long as they remained here in +England. This is something for an Englishman to be proud of. + +After spending two hours at Crux Easton, with that dense immovable +fog close by, I at length took the plunge to get to Highclere. What +a change! I was at once where all form and colour and melody had been +blotted out. My clothes were hoary with clinging mist, my fingers numb +with cold, and Highclere, its scattered cottages appearing like dim +smudges through the whiteness, was the dreariest village on earth. I +fled on to Newbury in quest of warmth and light, and found it indoors, +but the town was deep in the fog. + +The next day I ventured out again to look for the sun, and found it not, +but my ramble was not without its reward. In a pine wood three miles +from the town I stood awhile to listen to the sound as of copious rain +of the moisture dropping from the trees, when a sudden tempest of loud, +sharp metallic notes--a sound dear to the ornithologist's ears--made me +jump; and down into the very tree before which I was standing dropped a +flock of about twenty crossbills. So excited and noisy when coming +down, the instant they touched the tree they became perfectly silent and +motionless. Seven of their number had settled on the outside shoots, and +sat there within forty feet of me, looking like painted wooden images of +small green and greenish-yellow parrots; for a space of fifteen minutes +not the slightest movement did they make, and at length, before going, I +waved my arms about and shouted to frighten them, and still they refused +to stir. + +Next morning that memorable fog lifted, to England's joy, and quitting +my refuge I went out once more into the region of high sheep-walks, +adorned with beechen woods and traveller's-joy in the hedges, rambling +by Highclere, Burghclere, and Kingsclere. The last--Hampshire's little +Cuzco--is a small and village-like old red brick town, unapproached by +a railroad and unimproved, therefore still beautiful, as were all places +in other, better, less civilized days. Here in the late afternoon +a chilly grey haze crept over the country and set me wishing for a +fireside and the sound of friendly voices, and I turned my face towards +beloved Silchester. Leaving the hills behind me I got away from the haze +and went my devious way by serpentine roads through a beautiful, wooded, +undulating country. And I wish that for a hundred, nay, for a thousand +years to come, I could on each recurring November have such an afternoon +ride, with that autumnal glory in the trees. Sometimes, seeing the road +before me carpeted with pure yellow, I said to myself, now I am coming +to elms; but when the road shone red and russet-gold before me I knew it +was overhung by beeches. But the oak is the common tree in this place, +and from every high point on the road I saw far before me and on either +hand the woods and copses all a tawny yellow gold--the hue of the dying +oak leaf. The tall larches were lemon-yellow, and when growing among +tall pines produced a singular effect. Best of all was it where beeches +grew among the firs, and the low sun on my left hand shining through +the wood gave the coloured translucent leaves an unimaginable splendour. +This was the very effect which men, inspired by a sacred passion, had +sought to reproduce in their noblest work--the Gothic cathedral and +church, its dim interior lit by many-coloured stained glass. The only +choristers in these natural fanes were the robins and the small lyrical +wren; but on passing through the rustic village of Wolverton I +stopped for a couple of minutes to listen to the lively strains of a +cirl-bunting among some farm buildings. + +Then on to Silchester, its furzy common and scattered village and the +vast ruinous walls, overgrown with ivy, bramble, and thorn, of ancient +Roman Calleva. Inside the walls, at one spot, a dozen men were still at +work in the fading light; they were just finishing--shovelling earth +in to obliterate all that had been opened out during the year. The old +flint foundations that had been revealed; the houses with porches and +corridors and courtyards and pillared hypocausts; the winter room with +its wide beautiful floor--red and black and white and grey and yellow, +with geometric pattern and twist and scroll and flower and leaf and +quaint figures of man and beast and bird--all to be covered up with +earth so that the plough may be driven over it again, and the wheat grow +and ripen again as it has grown and ripened there above the dead city +for so many centuries. The very earth within those walls had a reddish +cast owing to the innumerable fragments of red tile and tessera mixed +with it. Larks and finches were busily searching for seeds in the +reddish-brown soil. They would soon be gone to their roosting-places +and the tired men to their cottages, and the white owl coming from his +hiding-place in the walls would have old Silchester to himself, as he +has had it since the cries and moans of the conquered died into silence +so long ago. + + + + +Chapter Ten: The Last of His Name + + +I came by chance to the village--Norton, we will call it, just to call +it something, but the county in which it is situated need not be named. +It happened that about noon that day I planned to pass the night at a +village where, as I was informed at a small country town I had rested +in, there was a nice inn--"The Fox and Grapes"--to put up at, but when +I arrived, tired and hungry, I was told that I could not have a bed and +that the only thing to do was to try Norton, which also boasted an inn. +It was hard to have to turn some two or three miles out of my road at +that late hour on a chance of a shelter for the night, but there was +nothing else to do, so on to Norton I went with heavy steps, and arrived +a little after sunset, more tired and hungry than ever, only to be told +at the inn that they had no accommodation for me, that their one spare +room had been engaged! "What am I to do, then?" I demanded of the +landlord. "Beyond this village I cannot go to-night--do you want me to +go out and sleep under a hedge?" He called his spouse, and after some +conversation they said the village baker might be able to put me up, as +he had a spare bedroom in his house. So to the baker's I went, and +found it a queer, ramshackle old place, standing a little back from the +village street in a garden and green plot with a few fruit trees +growing on it. To my knock the baker himself came out--a mild-looking, +flabby-faced man, with his mouth full, in a very loose suit of +pyjama-like garments of a bluish floury colour. I told him my story, and +he listened, swallowing his mouthful, then cast his eyes down and rubbed +his chin, which had a small tuft of hairs growing on it, and finally +said, "I don't know. I must ask my wife. But come in and have a cup of +tea--we're just having a cup ourselves, and perhaps you'd like one." + +I could have told him that I should like a dozen cups and a great many +slices of bread-and-butter, if there was nothing else more substantial +to be had. However, I only said, "Thank you," and followed him in to +where his wife, a nice-looking woman, with black hair and olive face, +was seated behind the teapot. Imagine my surprise when I found that +besides tea there was a big hot repast on the table--a ham, a roast +fowl, potatoes and cabbage, a rice pudding, a dish of stewed fruit, +bread-and-butter, and other things. + +"You call this a cup of tea!" I exclaimed delightedly. The woman +laughed, and he explained in an apologetic way that he had formerly +suffered grievously from indigestion, so that for many years his life +was a burden to him, until he discovered that if he took one big meal a +day, after the work was over, he could keep perfectly well. + +I was never hungrier than on this evening, and never, I think, ate a +bigger or more enjoyable meal; nor have I ever ceased to remember those +two with gratitude, and if I were to tell here what they told me--the +history of their two lives--I think it would be a more interesting +story than the one I am about to relate. I stayed a whole week in their +hospitable house; a week which passed only too quickly, for never had +I been in a sweeter haunt of peace than this village in a quiet, green +country remote from towns and stations. It was a small rustic place, a +few old houses and thatched cottages, and the ancient church with square +Norman tower hard to see amid the immense old oaks and elms that grew +all about it. At the end of the village were the park gates, and the +park, a solitary, green place with noble trees, was my favourite haunt; +for there was no one to forbid me, the squire being dead, the old red +Elizabethan house empty, with only a caretaker in the gardener's lodge +to mind it, and the estate for sale. Three years it had been in that +condition, but nobody seemed to want it; occasionally some important +person came rushing down in a motor-car, but after running over the +house he would come out and, remarking that it was a "rummy old place," +remount his car and vanish in a cloud of dust to be seen no more. + +The dead owner, I found, was much in the village mind; and no wonder, +since Norton had never been without a squire until he passed away, +leaving no one to succeed him. It was as if some ancient landmark, or an +immemorial oak tree on the green in whose shade the villagers had been +accustomed to sit for many generations, had been removed. There was a +sense of something wanting something gone out of their lives. Moreover, +he had been a man of a remarkable character, and though they never loved +him they yet reverenced his memory. + +So much was he in their minds that I could not be in the village and not +hear the story of his life--the story which, I said, interested me less +than that of the good baker and his wife. On his father's death at a +very advanced age he came, a comparative stranger, to Norton, the first +half of his life having been spent abroad. He was then a middle-aged +man, unmarried, and a bachelor he remained to the end. He was of a +reticent disposition and was said to be proud; formal, almost cold, in +manner; furthermore, he did not share his neighbours' love of sport of +any description, nor did he care for society, and because of all this +he was regarded as peculiar, not to say eccentric. But he was deeply +interested in agriculture, especially in cattle and their improvement, +and that object grew to be his master passion. It was a period of great +depression, and as his farms fell vacant he took them into his own +hands, increased his stock and built model cowhouses, and came at last +to be known throughout his own country, and eventually everywhere, as +one of the biggest cattle-breeders in England. But he was famous in +a peculiar way. Wise breeders and buyers shook their heads and even +touched their foreheads significantly, and predicted that the squire +of Norton would finish by ruining himself. They were right, he ruined +himself; not that he was mentally weaker than those who watched and +cunningly exploited him; he was ruined because his object was a higher +one than theirs. He saw clearly that the prize system is a vicious one +and that better results may be obtained without it. He proved this at +a heavy cost by breeding better beasts than his rivals, who were +all exhibitors and prizewinners, and who by this means got their +advertisements and secured the highest prices, while he, who disdained +prizes and looked with disgust at the overfed and polished animals at +shows, got no advertisements and was compelled to sell at unremunerative +prices. The buyers, it may be mentioned, were always the breeders for +shows, and they made a splendid profit out of it. + +He carried on the fight for a good many years, becoming more and more +involved, until his creditors took possession of the estate, sold off +the stock, let the farms, and succeeded in finding a tenant for the +furnished house. He went to a cottage in the village and there passed +his remaining years. To the world he appeared unmoved by his reverses. +The change from mansion and park to a small thatched cottage, with a +labourer's wife for attendant, made no change in the man, nor did he +resign his seat on the Bench of Magistrates or any other unpaid +office he held. To the last he was what he had always been, formal and +ceremonious, more gracious to those beneath him than to equals; strict +in the performance of his duties, living with extreme frugality and +giving freely to those in want, and very regular in his attendance +at church, where he would sit facing the tombs and memorials of his +ancestors, among the people but not of them--a man alone and apart, +respected by all but loved by none. + +Finally he died and was buried with the others, and one more memorial +with the old name, which he bore last was placed on the wall. That +was the story as it was told me, and as it was all about a man who was +without charm and had no love interest it did not greatly interest me, +and I soon dismissed it from my thoughts. Then one day coming through a +grove in the park and finding myself standing before the ancient, empty, +desolate house--for on the squire's death everything had been sold and +taken away--I remembered that the caretaker had begged me to let him +show me over the place. I had not felt inclined to gratify him, as I +had found him a young man of a too active mind whose only desire was +to capture some person to talk to and unfold his original ideas and +schemes, but now having come to the house I thought I would suffer him, +and soon found him at work in the vast old walled garden. He joyfully +threw down his spade and let me in and then up to the top floor, +determined that I should see everything. By the time we got down to +the ground floor I was pretty tired of empty rooms, oak panelled, and +passages and oak staircases, and of talk, and impatient to get away. But +no, I had not seen the housekeeper's room--I must see that!--and so +into another great vacant room I was dragged, and to keep me as long as +possible in that last room he began unlocking and flinging open all the +old oak cupboards and presses. Glancing round at the long array of empty +shelves, I noticed a small brown-paper parcel, thick with dust, in a +corner, and as it was the only movable thing I had seen in that vacant +house I asked him what the parcel contained. Books, he replied--they had +been left as of no value when the house was cleared of furniture. As I +wished to see the books he undid the parcel; it contained forty copies +of a small quarto-shaped book of sonnets, with the late squire's name as +author on the title page. I read a sonnet, and told him I should like to +read them all. "You can have a copy, of course," he exclaimed. "Put it +in your pocket and keep it." When I asked him if he had any right to +give one away he laughed and said that if any one had thought the whole +parcel worth twopence it would not have been left behind. He was quite +right; a cracked dinner--plate or a saucepan with a hole in it or an +earthenware teapot with a broken spout would not have been left, but the +line was drawn at a book of sonnets by the late squire. Nobody wanted +it, and so without more qualms I put it in my pocket, and have it before +me now, opened at page 63, on which appears, without a headline, the +sonnet I first read, and which I quote:-- + + How beautiful are birds, of God's sweet air + Free denizens; no ugly earthly spot + Their boundless happiness doth seem to blot. + The swallow, swiftly flying here and there, + Can it be true that dreary household care + Doth goad her to incessant flight? + If not How can it be that she doth cast her lot + Now there, now here, pursuing summer everywhere? + I sadly fear that shallow, tiny brain + Is not exempt from anxious cares and fears, + That mingled heritage of joy and pain + That for some reason everywhere appears; + And yet those birds, how beautiful they are! + Sure beauty is to happiness no bar. + +This has a fault that doth offend the reader of modern verse, and there +are many of the eighty sonnets in the book which do not equal it in +merit. He was manifestly an amateur; he sometimes writes with +labour, and he not infrequently ends with the unpardonable weak line. +Nevertheless he had rightly chosen this difficult form in which to +express his inner self. It suited his grave, concentrated thought, and +each little imperfect poem of fourteen lines gives us a glimpse into a +wise, beneficent mind. He had fought his fight and suffered defeat, and +had then withdrawn himself silently from the field to die. But if he +had been embittered he could have relieved himself in this little book. +There is no trace of such a feeling. He only asks, in one sonnet, where +can a balm be found for the heart fretted and torn with eternal cares; +when we have thought and striven for some great and good purpose, when +all our striving has ended in disaster? His plan, he concludes, is to go +out in the quiet night-time and look at the stars. + +Here let me quote two more sonnets written in contemplative mood, just +to give the reader a fuller idea not of the verse, as verse, but of the +spirit in the old squire. There is no title to these two:-- + + I like a fire of wood; there is a kind + Of artless poetry in all its ways: + When first 'tis lighted, how it roars and plays, + And sways to every breath its flames, refined + By fancy to some shape by life confined. + And then how touching are its latter days; + When, all its strength decayed, and spent the blaze + Of fiery youth, grey ash is all we find. + Perhaps we know the tree, of which the pile + Once formed a part, and oft beneath its shade + Have sported in our youth; or in quaint style + Have carved upon its rugged bark a name + Of which the memory doth alone remain + A memory doomed, alas! in turn to fade. + +Bad enough as verse, the critic will say; refined, confined, find--what +poor rhymes are these! and he will think me wrong to draw these +frailties from their forgotten abode. But I like to think of the +solitary old man sitting by his wood fire in the old house, not brooding +bitterly on his frustrate life, but putting his quiet thoughts into the +form of a sonnet. The other is equally good--or bad, if the critic will +have it so:-- + + The clock had just struck five, and all was still + Within my house, when straight I open threw + With eager hand the casement dim with dew. + Oh, what a glorious flush of light did fill + That old staircase! and then and there did kill + All those black doubts that ever do renew + Their civil war with all that's good and true + Within our hearts, when body and mind are ill + From this slight incident I would infer + A cheerful truth, that men without demur, + In times of stress and doubt, throw open wide + The windows of their breast; nor stung by pride + In stifling darkness gloomily abide; + But bid the light flow in on either side. + +A "slight incident" and a beautiful thought. But all I have so far said +about the little book is preliminary to what I wish to say about another +sonnet which must also be quoted. It is perhaps, as a sonnet, as ill +done as the others, but the subject of it specially attracted me, as it +happened to be one which was much in my mind during my week's stay at +Norton. That remote little village without a squire or any person +of means or education in or near it capable of feeling the slightest +interest in the people, except the parson, an old infirm man who was +never seen but once a week--how wanting in some essential thing it +appeared! It seemed to me that the one thing which might be done in +these small centres of rural life to brighten and beautify existence is +precisely the thing which is never done, also that what really is being +done is of doubtful value and sometimes actually harmful. + +Leaving Norton one day I visited other small villages in the +neighbourhood and found they were no better off. I had heard of the +rector of one of these villages as a rather original man, and went and +discussed the subject with him. "It is quite useless thinking about it," +he said. "The people here are clods, and will not respond to any effort +you can make to introduce a little light and sweetness into their +lives." There was no more to be said to him, but I knew he was wrong. I +found the villagers in that part of the country the most intelligent +and responsive people of their class I had ever encountered. It was +a delightful experience to go into their cottages, not to read them a +homily or to present them with a book or a shilling, nor to inquire into +their welfare, material and spiritual, but to converse intimately with +a human interest in them, as would be the case in a country where there +are no caste distinctions. It was delightful, because they were so +responsive, so sympathetic, so alive. Now it was just at this time, +when the subject was in my mind, that the book of sonnets came into my +hands--given to me by the generous caretaker--and I read in it this one +on "Innocent Amusements":-- + + There lacks a something to complete the round + Of our fair England's homely happiness + A something, yet how oft do trifles bless + When greater gifts by far redound + To honours lone, but no responsive sound + Of joy or mirth awake, nay, oft oppress, + While gifts of which we scarce the moment guess + In never-failing joys abound. + No nation can be truly great + That hath not something childlike in its life + Of every day; it should its youth renew + With simple joys that sweetly recreate + The jaded mind, conjoined in friendly strife + The pleasures of its childhood days pursue. + +What wise and kindly thoughts he had--the old squire of Norton! Surely, +when telling me the story of his life, they had omitted something! I +questioned them on the point. Did he not in all the years he was at +Norton House, and later when he lived among them in a cottage in the +village--did he not go into their homes and meet them as if he knew and +felt that they were all of the same flesh, children of one universal +Father, and did he not make them feel this about him--that the +differences in fortune and position and education were mere accidents? +And the answer was: No, certainly not! as if I had asked a preposterous +question. He was the squire, a gentleman--any one might understand that +he could not come among them like that! That is what a parson can do +because he is, so to speak, paid to keep an eye on them, and besides +it's religion there and a different thing. But the squire!--their +squire, that dignified old gentleman, so upright in his saddle, +so considerate and courteous to every one--but he never forgot his +position--never in that way! I also asked if he had never tried to +establish, or advocated, or suggested to them any kind of reunions to +take place from time to time, or an entertainment or festival to +get them to come pleasantly together, making a brightness in their +lives--something which would not be cricket or football, nor any form of +sport for a few of the men, all the others being mere lookers-on and the +women and children left out altogether; something which would be for and +include everyone, from the oldest grey labourer no longer able to work +to the toddling little ones; something of their own invention, peculiar +to Norton, which would be their pride and make their village dearer +to them? And the answer was still no, and no, and no. He had never +attempted, never suggested, anything of the sort. How could he--the +squire! Yet he wrote those wise words:-- + + No nation can be truly great + That hath not something childlike in its life + Of every day. + +Why are we lacking in that which others undoubtedly have, a something to +complete the round of homely happiness in our little rural centres; +how is it that we do not properly encourage the things which, albeit +childlike, are essential, which sweetly recreate? It is not merely +the selfishness of those who are well placed and prefer to live for +themselves, or who have light but care not to shed it on those who are +not of their class. Selfishness is common enough everywhere, in men of +all races. It is not selfishness, nor the growth of towns or decay of +agriculture, which as a fact does not decay, nor education, nor any of +the other causes usually given for the dullness, the greyness of village +life. The chief cause, I take it, is that gulf, or barrier, which +exists between men and men in different classes in our country, or +a considerable portion of it--the caste feeling which is becoming +increasingly rigid in the rural world, if my own observation, extending +over a period of twenty-five years, is not all wrong. + + + + +Chapter Eleven: Salisbury and Its Doves + + +Never in my experience has there been a worse spring season than that +of 1903 for the birds, more especially for the short-winged migrants. In +April I looked for the woodland warblers and found them not, or saw but +a few of the commonest kinds. It was only too easy to account for this +rarity. The bitter north-east wind had blown every day and all day long +during those weeks when birds are coming, and when nearing the end +of their journey, at its most perilous stage, the wind had been dead +against them; its coldness and force was too much for these delicate +travellers, and doubtless they were beaten down in thousands into the +grey waters of a bitter sea. The stronger-winged wheatear was more +fortunate, since he comes in March, and before that spell of deadly +weather he was already back in his breeding haunts on Salisbury Plain, +and, in fact, everywhere on that open down country. I was there to hear +him sing his wild notes to the listening waste--singing them, as his +pretty fashion is, up in the air, suspended on quickly vibrating wings +like a great black and white moth. But he was in no singing mood, and at +last, in desperation, I fled to Salisbury to wait for loitering spring +in that unattractive town. + +The streets were cold as the open plain, and there was no comfort +indoors; to haunt the cathedral during those vacant days was the only +occupation left to me. There was some shelter to be had under the walls, +and the empty, vast interior would seem almost cosy on coming in from +the wind. At service my due feet never failed, while morning, noon, +and evening I paced the smooth level green by the hour, standing at +intervals to gaze up at the immense pile with its central soaring spire, +asking myself why I had never greatly liked it in the past and did not +like it much better now when grown familiar with it. Undoubtedly it is +one of the noblest structures of its kind in England--even my eyes that +look coldly on most buildings could see it; and I could admire, even +reverence, but could not love. It suffers by comparison with other +temples into which my soul has wandered. It has not the majesty +and appearance of immemorial age, the dim religious richness of the +interior, with much else that goes to make up, without and within, the +expression which is so marked in other mediaeval fanes--Winchester, Ely, +York, Canterbury, Exeter, and Wells. To the dry, mechanical mind of the +architect these great cathedrals are in the highest degree imperfect, +according to the rules of his art: to all others this imperfectness is +their chief excellence and glory; for they are in a sense a growth, a +flower of many minds and many periods, and are imperfect even as Nature +is, in her rocks and trees; and, being in harmony with Nature and like +Nature, they are inexpressibly beautiful and satisfying beyond all +buildings to the aesthetic as well as to the religious sense. + +Occasionally I met and talked with an old man employed at the cathedral. +One day, closing one eye and shading the other with his hand, he gazed +up at the building for some time, and then remarked: "I'll tell you +what's wrong with Salisbury--it looks too noo." He was near the mark; +the fault is that to the professional eye it is faultless; the lack of +expression is due to the fact that it came complete from its maker's +brain, like a coin from the mint, and being all on one symmetrical plan +it has the trim, neat appearance of a toy cathedral carved out of wood +and set on a green-painted square. + +After all, my thoughts and criticisms on the cathedral, as a building, +were merely incidental; my serious business was with the feathered +people to be seen there. Few in the woods and fewer on the windy downs, +here birds were abundant, not only on the building, where they were like +seafowl congregated on a precipitous rock, but they were all about me. +The level green was the hunting ground of many thrushes--a dozen or +twenty could often be seen at one time--and it was easy to spot those +that had young. The worm they dragged out was not devoured; another was +looked for, then another; then all were cut up in proper lengths and +beaten and bruised, and finally packed into a bundle and carried off. +Rooks, too, were there, breeding on the cathedral elms, and had no time +and spirit to wrangle, but could only caw-caw distressfully at the wind, +which tossed them hither and thither in the air and lashed the tall +trees, threatening at each fresh gust to blow their nests to +pieces. Small birds of half a dozen kinds were also there, and one +tinkle-tinkled his spring song quite merrily in spite of the cold that +kept the others silent and made me blue. One day I spied a big queen +bumble-bee on the ground, looking extremely conspicuous in its black and +chestnut coat on the fresh green sward; and thinking it numbed by the +cold I picked it up. It moved its legs feebly, but alas! its enemy +had found and struck it down, and with its hard, sharp little beak had +drilled a hole in one of the upper plates of its abdomen, and from that +small opening had cunningly extracted all the meat. Though still alive +it was empty as a blown eggshell. Poor queen and mother, you survived +the winter in vain, and went abroad in vain in the bitter weather in +quest of bread to nourish your few first-born--the grubs that would +help you by and by; now there will be no bread for them, and for you no +populous city in the flowery earth and a great crowd of children to rise +up each day, when days are long, to call you blessed! And he who +did this thing, the unspeakable oxeye with his black and yellow +breast--"catanic black and amber"--even while I made my lamentation was +tinkling his merry song overhead in the windy elms. + +The birds that lived on the huge cathedral itself had the greatest +attraction for me; and here the daws, if not the most numerous, were the +most noticeable, as they ever are on account of their conspicuousness in +their black plumage, their loquacity and everlasting restlessness. Far +up on the ledge from which the spire rises a kestrel had found a cosy +corner in which to establish himself, and one day when I was there a +number of daws took it on themselves to eject him: they gathered near +and flew this way and that, and cawed and cawed in anger, and swooped at +him, until he could stand their insults no longer, and, suddenly dashing +out, he struck and buffeted them right and left and sent them screaming +with fear in all directions. After this they left him in peace: they +had forgotten that he was a hawk, and that even the gentle mousing +wind-hover has a nobler spirit than any crow of them all. + +On first coming to the cathedral I noticed a few pigeons sitting on the +roof and ledges very high up, and, not seeing them well, I assumed that +they were of the common or domestic kind. By and by one cooed, then +another; and recognizing the stock-dove note I began to look carefully, +and found that all the birds on the building--about thirty pairs--were +of this species. It was a great surprise, for though we occasionally +find a pair of stock-doves breeding on the ivied wall of some inhabited +mansion in the country, it was a new thing to find a considerable colony +of this shy woodland species established on a building in a town. +They lived and bred there just as the common pigeon--the vari-coloured +descendant of the blue rock--does on St. Paul's, the Law Courts, and the +British Museum in London. Only, unlike our metropolitan doves, both the +domestic kind and the ringdove in the parks, the Salisbury doves though +in the town are not of it. They come not down to mix with the currents +of human life in the streets and open spaces; they fly away to the +country to feed, and dwell on the cathedral above the houses and people +just as sea-birds--kittiwake and guillemot and gannet--dwell on the +ledges of some vast ocean-fronting cliff. + +The old man mentioned above told me that the birds were called "rocks" +by the townspeople, also that they had been there for as long as he +could remember. Six or seven years ago, he said, when the repairs to the +roof and spire were started, the pigeons began to go away until there +was not one left. The work lasted three years, and immediately on +its conclusion the doves began to return, and were now as numerous as +formerly. How, I inquired, did these innocent birds get on with their +black neighbours, seeing that the daw is a cunning creature much given +to persecution--a crow, in fact, as black as any of his family? They got +on badly, he said; the doves were early breeders, beginning in March, +and were allowed to have the use of the holes until the daws wanted them +at the end of April, when they forcibly ejected the young doves. He +said that in spring he always picked up a good many young doves, often +unfledged, thrown down by the dawn. I did not doubt his story. I had +just found a young bird myself--a little blue-skinned, yellow-mouthed +fledgling which had fallen sixty or seventy feet on to the gravel below. +But in June, he said, when the daws brought off their young, the doves +entered into possession once more, and were then permitted to rear their +young in peace. + +I returned to Salisbury about the middle of May in better weather, +when there were days that were almost genial, and found the cathedral a +greater "habitacle of birds" than ever: starlings, swifts, and swallows +were there, the lively little martins in hundreds, and the doves and +daws in their usual numbers. All appeared to be breeding, and for some +time I saw no quarreling. At length I spied a pair of doves with a +nest in a small cavity in the stone at the back of a narrow ledge about +seventy feet from the ground, and by standing back some distance I could +see the hen bird sitting on the nest, while the cock stood outside on +the ledge keeping guard. I watched this pair for some hours and saw +a jackdaw sweep down on them a dozen or more times at long intervals. +Sometimes after swooping down he would alight on the ledge a yard or +two away, and the male dove would then turn and face him, and if he then +began sidling up the dove would dash at and buffet him with his wings +with the greatest violence and throw him off. When he swooped closer the +dove would spring up and meet him in the air, striking him at the moment +of meeting, and again the daw would be beaten. When I left three days +after witnessing this contest, the doves were still in possession of +their nest, and I concluded that they were not so entirely at the mercy +of the jackdaw as the old man had led me to believe. + +It was, on this occasion, a great pleasure to listen to the doves. The +stock-dove has no set song, like the ringdove, but like all the other +species in the typical genus Columba it has the cooing or family note, +one of the most human-like sounds which birds emit. In the stock-dove +this is a better, more musical, and a more varied sound than in any +other Columba known to me. The pleasing quality of the sound as well as +the variety in it could be well noted here where the birds were many, +scattered about on ledges and projections high above the earth, and when +bird after bird uttered its plaint, each repeating his note half a dozen +to a dozen times, one in slow measured time, and deep-voiced like the +rock-dove, but more musical; another rapidly, with shorter, impetuous +notes in a higher key, as if carried away by excitement. There were not +two birds that cooed in precisely the same way, and the same bird would +often vary its manner of cooing. + +It was best to hear them during the afternoon service in the cathedral, +when the singing of the choir and throbbing and pealing of the organ +which filled the vast interior was heard outside, subdued by the walls +through which it passed, and was like a beautiful mist or atmosphere of +sound pervading and enveloping the great building; and when the plaining +of the doves, owing to the rhythmic flow of the notes and their human +characters, seemed to harmonize with and be a part of that sacred music. + + + + +Chapter Twelve: Whitesheet Hill + + +On Easter Saturday the roadsides and copses by the little river Nadder +were full of children gathering primroses; they might have filled a +thousand baskets without the flowers being missed, so abundant were +they in that place. Cold though it was the whole air was laden with the +delicious fragrance. It was pleasant to see and talk with the little +people occupied with the task they loved so well, and I made up my mind +to see the result of all this flower-gathering next day in some of the +village churches in the neighbourhood--Fovant, Teffant Evias, Chilmark, +Swallowcliffe, Tisbury, and Fonthill Bishop. I had counted on some +improvement in the weather--some bright sunshine to light up the +flower-decorated interiors; but Easter Sunday proved colder than ever, +with the bitter north-east still blowing, the grey travelling cloud +still covering the sky; and so to get the full benefit of the bitterness +I went instead to spend my day on the top of the biggest down above the +valley. That was Whitesheet Hill, and forms the highest part of the long +ridge dividing the valleys of the Ebble and Nadder. + +It was roughest and coldest up there, and suited my temper best, for +when the weather seems spiteful one finds a grim sort of satisfaction +in defying it. On a genial day it would have been very pleasant on +that lofty plain, for the flat top of the vast down is like a plain in +appearance, and the earthworks on it show that it was once a populous +habitation of man. Now because of the wind and cloud its aspect was bare +and bleak and desolate, and after roaming about for an hour, exploring +the thickest furze patches, I began to think that my day would have to +be spent in solitude, without a living creature to keep me company. The +birds had apparently all been blown away and the rabbits were staying +at home in their burrows. Not even an insect could I see, although +the furze was in full blossom; the honey-suckers were out of sight and +torpid, and the bloom itself could no longer look "unprofitably gay," as +the poet says it does. "Not even a wheatear!" I said, for I had counted +on that bird in the intervals between the storms, although I knew I +should not hear his wild delightful warble in such weather. + +Then, all at once, I beheld that very bird, a solitary female, +flittering on over the flat ground before me, perching on the little +green ant-mounds and flirting its tail and bobbing as if greatly excited +at my presence in that lonely place. I wondered where its mate was, +following it from place to place as it flew, determined now I had found +a bird to keep it in sight. Presently a great blackness appeared low +down in the cloudy sky, and rose and spread, travelling fast towards +me, and the little wheatear fled in fear from it and vanished from sight +over the rim of the down. But I was there to defy the weather, and so +instead of following the bird in search of shelter I sat down among some +low furze bushes and waited and watched. By and by I caught sight of +three magpies, rising one by one at long intervals from the furze and +flying laboriously towards a distant hill-top grove of pines. Then I +heard the wailing cry of a peewit, and caught sight of the bird at a +distance, and soon afterwards a sound of another character--the harsh +angry cry of a carrion crow, almost as deep as the raven's angry voice. +Before long I discovered the bird at a great height coming towards me +in hot pursuit of a kestrel. They passed directly over me so that I had +them a long time in sight, the kestrel travelling quietly on in the face +of the wind, the crow toiling after, and at intervals spurting till he +got near enough to hurl himself at his enemy, emitting his croaks of +rage. For invariably the kestrel with one of his sudden swallow-like +turns avoided the blow and went on as before. I watched them until +they were lost to sight in the coming blackness and wondered that so +intelligent a creature as a crow should waste his energies in that vain +chase. Still one could understand it and even sympathize with him. For +the kestrel is a most insulting creature towards the bigger birds. He +knows that they are incapable of paying him out, and when he finds them +off their guard he will drop down and inflict a blow just for the fun of +the thing. This outraged crow appeared determined to have his revenge. + +Then the storm broke on me, and so fiercely did the rain and sleet +thrash me that, fearing a cold soaking, I fled before it to the rim of +the plain, where the wheatear had vanished, and saw a couple of hundred +yards down on the smooth steep slope a thicket of dwarf trees. It was, +the only shelter in sight, and to it I went, to discover much to my +disgust that the trees were nothing but elders. For there is no tree +that affords so poor a shelter, especially on the high open downs, where +the foliage is scantier than in other situations and lets in the wind +and rain in full force upon you. + +But the elder affects me in two ways. I like it on account of early +associations, and because the birds delight in its fruit, though they +wisely refuse to build in its branches; and I dislike it because its +smell is offensive to me and its berries the least pleasant of all +wild fruits to my taste. I can eat ivy-berries in March, and yew in its +season, poison or not; and hips and haws and holly-berries and harsh +acorn, and the rowan, which some think acrid; but the elderberry I can't +stomach. + +How comes it, I have asked more than once, that this poor tree is so +often seen on the downs where it is so badly fitted to be and makes so +sorry an appearance with its weak branches broken and its soft leaves +torn by the winds? How badly it contrasts with the other trees and +bushes that flourish on the downs--furze, juniper, holly, blackthorn, +and hawthorn! + +Two years ago, one day in the early spring, I was walking on an +extensive down in another part of Wiltshire with the tenant of the land, +who began there as a large sheep-farmer, but eventually finding that +he could make more with rabbits than with sheep turned most of his land +into a warren. The higher part of this down was overgrown with furze, +mixed with holly and other bushes, but the slopes were mostly very bare. +At one spot on a wide bare slope where the rabbits had formed a big +group of burrows there was a close little thicket of young elder trees, +looking exceedingly conspicuous in the bright green of early April. +Calling my companion's attention to this little thicket I said something +about the elder growing on the open downs where it always appeared to +be out of harmony with its surroundings. "I don't suppose you planted +elders here," I said. + +"No, but I know who did," he returned, and he then gave me this curious +history of the trees. Five years before, the rabbits, finding it a +suitable spot to dig in, probably because of a softer chalk there, +made a number of deep burrows at that spot. When the wheatears, or +"horse-maggers" as he called them, returned in spring two or three pairs +attached themselves to this group of burrows and bred in them. There was +that season a solitary elder-bush higher up on the down among the furze +which bore a heavy crop of berries; and when the fruit was ripe he +watched the birds feeding on it, the wheatears among them. The following +spring seedlings came up out of the loose earth heaped about the rabbit +burrows, and as they were not cut down by the rabbits, for they dislike +the elder, they grew up, and now formed a clump of fifty or sixty little +trees of six feet to eight feet in height. + +Who would have thought to find a tree-planter in the wheatear, the bird +of the stony waste and open naked down, who does not even ask for a bush +to perch on? + +It then occurred to me that in every case where I had observed a +clump of elder bushes on the bare downside, it grew upon a village or +collection of rabbit burrows, and it is probable that in every case the +clump owed its existence to the wheatears who had dropped the seed about +their nesting-place. The clump where I had sought a shelter from the +storm was composed of large old dilapidated-looking half-dead elders; +perhaps their age was not above thirty or forty years, but they looked +older than hawthorns of one or two centuries; and under them the rabbits +had their diggings--huge old mounds and burrows that looked like a +badger's earth. Here, too, the burrows had probably existed first and +had attracted the wheatears, and the birds had brought the seed from +some distant bush. + +Crouching down in one of the big burrows at the roots of an old elder I +remained for half an hour, listening to the thump-thump of the alarmed +rabbits about me, and the accompanying hiss and swish of the wind and +sleet and rain in the ragged branches. + +The storm over I continued my rambles on Whitesheet Hill, and coming +back an hour or two later to the very spot where I had seen and followed +the wheatear, I all at once caught sight of a second bird, lying dead +on the turf close to my feet! The sudden sight gave me a shock of +astonishment, mingled with admiration and grief. For how pretty it +looked, though dead, lying on its back, the little black legs stuck +stiffly up, the long wings pressed against the sides, their black tips +touching together like the clasped hands of a corpse; and the fan-like +black and white tail, half open as in life, moved perpetually up and +down by the wind, as if that tail-flirting action of the bird had +continued after death. It was very beautiful in its delicate shape and +pale harmonious colouring, resting on the golden-green mossy turf. And +it was a male, undoubtedly the mate of the wheatear I had seen at the +spot, and its little mate, not knowing what death is, had probably been +keeping watch near it, wondering at its strange stillness and greatly +fearing for its safety when I came that way, and passed by without +seeing it. + +Poor little migrant, did you come back across half the world for +this--back to your home on Whitesheet Hill to grow cold and fail in the +cold April wind, and finally to look very pretty, lying stiff and cold, +to the one pair of human eyes that were destined to see you! The little +birds that come and go and return to us over such vast distances, they +perish like this in myriads annually; flying to and from us they are +blown away by death like sere autumn leaves, "the pestilence-stricken +multitudes" whirled away by the wind! They die in myriads: that is not +strange; the strange, the astonishing thing is the fact of death; what +can they tell us of it--the wise men who live or have ever lived on the +earth--what can they say now of the bright intelligent spirit, the dear +little emotional soul, that had so fit a tenement and so fitly expressed +itself in motions of such exquisite grace, in melody so sweet! Did it go +out like the glow-worm's lamp, the life and sweetness of the flower? +Was its destiny not like that of the soul, specialized in a different +direction, of the saint or poet or philosopher! Alas, they can tell us +nothing! + +I could not go away leaving it in that exposed place on the turf, to be +found a little later by a magpie or carrion crow or fox, and devoured. +Close by there was a small round hillock, an old forsaken nest of the +little brown ants, green and soft with moss and small creeping herbs--a +suitable grave for a wheatear. Cutting out a round piece of turf from +the side, I made a hole with my stick and put the dead bird in and +replacing the turf left it neatly buried. + +It was not that I had or have any quarrel with the creatures I have +named, or would have them other than they are--carrion-eaters and +scavengers, Nature's balance-keepers and purifiers. The only creatures +on earth I loathe and hate are the gourmets, the carrion-crows and foxes +of the human kind who devour wheatears and skylarks at their tables. + + + + +Chapter Thirteen: Bath and Wells Revisited + + +'Tis so easy to get from London to Bath, by merely stepping into a +railway carriage which takes you smoothly without a stop in two short +hours from Paddington, that I was amazed at myself in having allowed +five full years to pass since my previous visit. The question was +much in my mind as I strolled about noting the old-remembered names of +streets and squares and crescents. Quiet Street was the name inscribed +on one; it was, to me, the secret name of them all. The old impressions +were renewed, an old feeling partially recovered. The wide, clean ways; +the solid, stone-built houses with their dignified aspect; the large +distances, terrace beyond terrace; mansions and vast green lawns and +parks and gardens; avenues and groups of stately trees, especially that +unmatched clump of old planes in the Circus; the whole town, the design +in the classic style of one master mind, set by the Avon, amid green +hills, produced a sense of harmony and repose which cannot be equalled +by any other town in the kingdom. + +This idle time was delightful so long as I gave my attention exclusively +to houses from the outside, and to hills, rocks, trees, waters, and all +visible nature, which here harmonizes with man's works. To sit on some +high hill and look down on Bath, sun-flushed or half veiled in mist; to +lounge on Camden Crescent, or climb Sion Hill, or take my ease with the +water-drinkers in the spacious, comfortable Pump Room; or, better still, +to rest at noon in the ancient abbey--all this was pleasure pure and +simple, a quiet drifting back until I found myself younger by five years +than I had taken myself to be. + +I haunted the abbey, and the more I saw of it the more I loved it. The +impression it had made on me during my former visits had faded, or else +I had never properly seen it, or had not seen it in the right emotional +mood. Now I began to think it the best of all the great abbey churches +of England and the equal of the cathedrals in its effect on the mind. +How rich the interior is in its atmosphere of tempered light or tender +gloom! How tall and graceful the columns holding up the high roof of +white stone with its marvellous palm-leaf sculpture! What a vast expanse +of beautifully stained glass! I certainly gave myself plenty of time to +appreciate it on this occasion, as I visited it every day, sometimes +two or three times, and not infrequently I sat there for an hour at a +stretch. + +Sitting there one day, thinking of nothing, I was gradually awakened +to a feeling almost of astonishment at the sight of the extraordinary +number of memorial tablets of every imaginable shape and size which +crowd the walls. So numerous are they and so closely placed that you +could not find space anywhere to put your hand against the wall. We are +accustomed to think that in cathedrals and other great ecclesiastical +buildings the illustrious dead receive burial, and their names and +claims on our gratitude and reverence are recorded, but in no fane in +the land is there so numerous a gathering of the dead as in this place. +The inscription-covered walls were like the pages of an old black-letter +volume without margins. Yet when I came to think of it I could not +recall any Bath celebrity or great person associated with Bath except +Beau Nash, who was not perhaps a very great person. Probably Carlyle +would have described him as a "meeserable creature." + +Leaving my seat I began to examine the inscriptions, and found that they +had not been placed there in memory of men belonging to Bath or even +Somerset. These monuments were erected to persons from all counties in +the three kingdoms, and from all the big towns, those to Londoners being +most numerous. Nor were they of persons distinguished in any way. Here +you find John or Henry or Thomas Smith, or Brown, or Jones, or Robinson, +provision dealer, or merchant, of Clerkenwell, or Bermondsey, or +Bishopsgate Street Within or Without; also many retired captains, +majors, and colonels. There were hundreds more whose professions +or occupations in life were not stated. There were also hundreds of +memorials to ladies--widows and spinsters. They were all, in fact, +to persons who had come to die in Bath after "taking the waters," and +dying, they or their friends had purchased immortality on the walls +of the abbey with a handful or two of gold. Here is one of several +inscriptions of the kind I took the trouble to copy: "His early virtues, +his cultivated talents, his serious piety, inexpressibly endeared him to +his friends and opened to them many bright prospects of excellence and +happiness. These prospects have all faded," and so on for several long +lines in very big letters, occupying a good deal of space on the wall. +But what and who was he, and what connection had he with Bath? He was +a young man born in the West Indies who died in Scotland, and later his +mother, coming to Bath for her health, "caused this inscription to +be placed on the abbey walls"! If this policy or tradition is still +followed by the abbey authorities, it will be necessary for them to +build an annexe; if it be no longer followed, would it be going too far +to suggest that these mural tablets to a thousand obscurities, which +ought never to have been placed there, should now be removed and +placed in some vault where the relations or descendants of the persons +described could find, and if they wished it, have them removed? + +But it must be said that the abbey is not without a fair number of +memorials with which no one can quarrel; the one I admire most, to Quin, +the actor, has, I think, the best or the most appropriate epitaph ever +written. No, one, however familiar with the words, will find fault with +me for quoting them here: + + That tongue which set the table on a roar + And charmed the public ear is heard no more. + Closed are those eyes, the harbingers of wit, + Which spake before the tongue what Shakespeare writ. + Cold is that hand which living was stretched forth + At friendship's call to succor modest worth. + Here lies James Quin, deign readers to be taught + Whate'er thy strength of body, force of thought, + In Nature's happiest mood however cast, + To this complexion thou must come at last. + +Quin's monument strikes one as the greatest there because of Garrick's +living words, but there is another very much more beautiful. + +I first noticed this memorial on the wall at a distance of about three +yards, too far to read anything in the inscription except the name of +Sibthorpe, which was strange to me, but instead of going nearer to read +it I remained standing to admire it at that distance. The tablet was of +white marble, and on it was sculptured the figure of a young man with +curly head and classic profile. He was wearing sandals and a loose +mantle held to his breast with one hand, while in the other hand +he carried a bunch of leaves and flowers. He appeared in the act of +stepping ashore from a boat of antique shape, and the artist had been +singularly successful in producing the idea of free and vigorous motion +in the figure as well as of some absorbing object in his mind. The +figure was undoubtedly symbolical, and I began to amuse myself by trying +to guess its meaning. Then a curious thing happened. A person who had +been moving slowly along near me, apparently looking with no great +interest at the memorials, came past me and glanced first at the tablet +I was looking at, then at me. As our eyes met I remarked that I was +admiring the best memorial I had found in the abbey, and then added, +"I've been trying to make out its meaning. You see the man is a +traveller and is stepping ashore with a flowering spray in his hand. It +strikes me that it may have been erected to the memory of a person who +introduced some valuable plant into England." + +"Yes, perhaps," he said. "But who was he?" + +"I don't know yet," I returned. "I can only see that his name was +Sibthorpe." + +"Sibthorpe!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Why, this is the very memorial +I've been looking for all over the abbey and had pretty well given up +all hopes of finding it." With that he went to it and began studying +the inscription, which was in Latin. John Sibthorpe, I found, was a +distinguished botanist, author of the Flora Graeca, who died over a +century ago. + +I asked him why he was interested in Sibthorpe's memorial. + +"Well, you see, I'm a great botanist myself," he explained, "and have +been familiar with his name and work all my life. Of course," he added, +"I don't mean I'm great in the sense that Sibthorpe was. I'm only a +little local botanist, quite unknown outside my own circle; I only mean +that I'm a great lover of botany." + +I left him there, and had the curiosity to look up the great man's +life, and found some very curious things in it. He was a son of Humphrey +Sibthorpe, also a great botanist, who succeeded the still greater +Dillenius as Sherardian Professor of Botany at Oxford, a post which +he held for thirty-six years, and during that time he delivered one +lecture, which was a failure. John, if he did not suck in botany with +his mother's milk, took it quite early from his father, and on leaving +the University went abroad to continue his studies. Eventually he +went to Greece, inflamed with the ambition to identify all the plants +mentioned by Dioscorides. Then he set about writing his Flora Graeca; +but he had a rough time of it travelling about in that rude land, and +falling ill he had to leave his work undone. When nearing his end he +came to Bath, like so many other afflicted ones, only to die, and he +was very properly buried in the abbey. In his will he left an estate +the proceeds of which were to be devoted to the completion of his work, +which was to be in ten folio volumes, with one hundred plates in each. +This was done and the work finished forty-four years after his death, +when thirty copies were issued to the patient subscribers at two hundred +and forty guineas a copy. But the whole cost of the work was set down +at 30,000 pounds! A costlier work it would be hard to find; I wonder how +many of us have seen it? + +But I must go back to my subject. I was not in Bath just to die and lie +there, like poor Sibthorpe, with all those strange bedfellows of his, +nor was I in search of a vacant space the size of my hand on the walls +to bespeak it for my own memorial. On the contrary, I was there, as we +have seen, to knock five years off my age. And it was very pleasant, as +I have said, so long as I confined my attention to Bath, the stone-built +town of old memories and associations--so long as I was satisfied to +loiter in the streets and wide green places and in the Pump Room and the +abbey. The bitter came in only when, going from places to faces, I began +to seek out the friends and acquaintances of former days. The familiar +faces seemed not wholly familiar now. A change had been wrought; in some +cases a great change, as in that of some weedy girl who had blossomed +into fair womanhood. One could not grieve at that; but in the +middle-aged and those who were verging on or past that period, it was +impossible not to feel saddened at the difference. "I see no change in +you," is a lie ready to the lips which would speak some pleasing thing, +but it does not quite convince. Men are naturally brutal, and use no +compliments to one another; on the contrary, they do not hesitate to +make a joke of wrinkles and grey hairs--their own and yours. "But, oh, +the difference" when the familiar face, no longer familiar as of old, +is a woman's! This is no light thing to her, and her eyes, being +preternaturally keen in such matters, see not only the change in you, +but what is infinitely sadder, the changed reflection of herself. Your +eyes have revealed the shock you have experienced. You cannot hide it; +her heart is stabbed with a sudden pain, and she is filled with shame +and confusion; and the pain is but greater if her life has glided +smoothly--if she cannot appeal to your compassion, finding a melancholy +relief in that saddest cry:-- + + O Grief has changed me since you saw me last! + +For not grief, nor sickness, nor want, nor care, nor any misery or +calamity which men fear, is her chief enemy. Time alone she hates and +fears--insidious Time who has lulled her mind with pleasant flatteries +all these years while subtly taking away her most valued possessions, +the bloom and colour, the grace, the sparkle, the charm of other years. + +Here is a true and pretty little story, which may or may not exactly +fit the theme, but is very well worth telling. A lady of fashion, +middle-aged or thereabouts, good-looking but pale and with the marks +of care and disillusionment on her expressive face, accompanied by her +pretty sixteen-years-old daughter, one day called on an artist and asked +him to show her his studio. He was a very great artist, the greatest +portrait-painter we have ever had and he did not know who she was, but +with the sweet courtesy which distinguished him through all his long +life--he died recently at a very advanced age--he at once put his work +away and took her round his studio to show her everything he thought +would interest her. But she was restless and inattentive, and by and by +leaving the artist talking to her young daughter she began going round +by herself, moving constantly from picture to picture. Presently she +made an exclamation, and turning they saw her standing before a picture, +a portrait of a girl, staring fixedly at it. "Oh," she cried, and it was +a cry of pain, "was I once as beautiful as that?" and burst into tears. +She had found the picture she had been looking for, which she had come +to see; it had been there twenty to twenty-five years, and the story of +it was as follows. + +When she was a young girl her mother took her to the great artist to +have her portrait painted, and when the work was at length finished she +and her mother went to see it. The artist put it before them and the +mother looked at it, her face expressing displeasure, and said not one +word. Nor did the artist open his lips. And at last the girl, to break +the uncomfortable silence, said, "Where shall we hang it, mother?" and +the lady replied, "Just where you like, my dear, so long as you hang it +with the face to the wall." It was an insolent, a cruel thing to say, +but the artist did not answer her bitterly; he said gently that she need +not take the portrait as it failed to please her, and that in any case +he would decline to take the money she had agreed to pay him for the +work. She thanked him coldly and went her way, and he never saw her +again. And now Time, the humbler of proud beautiful women, had given +him his revenge: the portrait, scorned and rejected when the colour and +sparkle of life was in the face, had been looked on once more by its +subject and had caused her to weep at the change in herself. + +To return. One wishes in these moments of meeting, of surprise and +sudden revealings, that it were permissible to speak from the heart, +since then the very truth might have more balm than bitterness in +it. "Grieve not, dear friend of old days, that I have not escaped the +illusion common to all--the idea that those we have not looked on this +long time--full five years, let us say--have remained as they were while +we ourselves have been moving onwards and downwards in that path in +which our feet are set. No one, however hardened he may be, can escape +a shock of surprise and pain; but now the illusion I cherished has +gone--now I have seen with my physical eyes, and a new image, with +Time's writing on it, has taken the place of the old and brighter one, +I would not have it otherwise. No, not if I could would I call back the +vanished lustre, since all these changes, above all that wistful look +in the eyes, do but serve to make you dearer, my sister and friend +and fellow-traveller in a land where we cannot find a permanent +resting-place." + +Alas! it cannot be spoken, and we cannot comfort a sister if she cannot +divine the thought; but to brood over these inevitable changes is as +idle as it is to lament that we were born into this mutable world. After +all, it is because of the losses, the sadnesses, that the world is so +infinitely sweet to us. The thought is in Cory's Mimnernus in Church: + + All beauteous things for which we live + By laws of time and space decay. + But oh, the very reason why + I clasp them is because they die. + +From this sadness in Bath I went to a greater in Wells, where I had not +been for ten years, and timing my visit so as to have a Sunday service +at the cathedral of beautiful memories, I went on a Saturday to Shepton +Mallet. A small, squalid town, a "manufacturing town" the guide-book +calls it. Well, yes; it manufactures Anglo-Bavarian beer in a gigantic +brewery which looks bigger than all the other buildings together, the +church and a dozen or twenty public-houses included. To get some food I +went to the only eating-house in the place, and saw a pleasant-looking +woman, plump and high-coloured, with black hair, with an expression of +good humour and goodness of every description in her comely countenance. +She promised to have a chop ready by the time I had finished looking at +the church, and I said I would have it with a small Guinness. She could +not provide that, the house, she said, was strictly temperance. "My +doctor has ordered me to take it," said I, "and if you are religious, +remember that St. Paul tells us to take a little stout when we find it +beneficial." + +"Yes, I know that's what St. Paul says," she returned, with a heightened +colour and a vicious emphasis on the saint's name, "but we go on a +different principle." + +So I had to go for my lunch to one of the big public-houses, called +hotels; but whether it called itself a cow, or horse, or stag, or angel, +or a blue or green something, I cannot remember. They gave me what they +called a beefsteak pie--a tough crust and under it some blackish cubes +carved out of the muscle of an antediluvian ox-and for this delicious +fare and a glass of stout I paid three shillings and odd pence. + +As I came away Shepton Mallet was shaken to its foundations by a +tremendous and most diabolical sound, a prolonged lupine yell or yowl, +as if a stupendous wolf, as big, say, as the Anglo-Bavarian brewery, had +howled his loudest and longest. This infernal row, which makes Shepton +seem like a town or village gone raving mad, was merely to inform the +men, and, incidentally, the universe, that it was time for them to knock +off work. + +Turning my back on the place, I said to myself, "What a fool I am to be +sure! Why could I not have been satisfied for once with a cup of coffee +with my lunch? I should have saved a shilling, perhaps eighteen-pence, +to rejoice the soul of some poor tramp; and, better still, I could +have discussed some interesting questions with that charming rosy-faced +woman. What, for instance, was the reason of her quarrel with the +apostle; by the by, she never rebuked me for misquoting his words; and +what is the moral effect (as seen through her clear brown eyes) of +the Anglo-Bavarian brewery on the population of the small town and the +neighbouring villages?" + +The road I followed from Shepton to Wells winds by the water-side, a +tributary of the Brue, in a narrow valley with hills on either side. +It is a five-mile road through a beautiful country, where there is +practically no cultivation, and the green hills, with brown woods in +their hollows, and here and there huge masses of grey and reddish Bath +stone cropping out on their sides, resembling gigantic castles and +ramparts, long ruined and overgrown with ivy and bramble, produce the +effect of a land dispeopled and gone back to a state of wildness. + +A thaw had come that morning, ending the severest frost experienced this +winter anywhere in England, and the valley was alive with birds, happy +and tuneful at the end of January as in April. Looking down on the +stream the sudden glory of a kingfisher passed before me; but the +sooty-brown water-ouzel with his white bib, a haunter, too, of this +water, I did not see. Within a mile or so of Wells I overtook a small +boy who belonged there, and had been to Shepton like me, noticing the +birds. "I saw a kingfisher," I said. "So did I," he returned quickly, +with pride. He described it as a biggish bird with a long neck, but +its colour was not blue--oh, no! I suggested that it was a heron, a +long-necked creature under six feet high, of no particular colour. No, +it was not a heron; and after taking thought, he said, "I think it was a +wild duck." + +Bestowing a penny to encourage him in his promising researches into the +feathered world, I went on by a footpath over a hill, and as I mounted +to the higher ground there before me rose the noble tower of St. +Cuthbert's Church, and a little to the right of it, girt with high +trees, the magnificent pile of the cathedral, with green hills and the +pale sky beyond. O joy to look again on it, to add yet one more enduring +image of it to the number I had long treasured! For the others were +not exactly like this one; the building was not looked at from the same +point of view at the same season and late hour, with the green hills lit +by the departing sun and the clear pale winter sky beyond. + +Coming in by the moated palace I stood once more on the Green before +that west front, beautiful beyond all others, in spite of the strange +defeatures Time has written on it. I watched the daws, numerous as ever, +still at their old mad games, now springing into the air to scatter +abroad with ringing cries, only to return the next minute and fling +themselves back on their old perches on a hundred weather-stained broken +statues in the niches. And while I stood watching them from the palace +trees close by came the loud laugh of the green woodpecker. The same +wild, beautiful sound, uttered perhaps by the same bird, which I had +often heard at that spot ten years ago! "You will not hear that woodland +sound in any other city in the kingdom," I wrote in a book of sketches +entitled "Birds and Man", published in 1901. + +But of my soul's adventures in Wells on the two or three following days +I will say very little. That laugh of the woodpecker was an assurance +that Nature had suffered no change, and the town too, like the hills and +rocks and running waters, seemed unchanged; but how different and how +sad when I looked for those I once knew, whose hands I had hoped to +grasp again! Yes, some were living still; and a dog too, one I used +to take out for long walks and many a mad rabbit-hunt--a very handsome +white-and-liver coloured spaniel. I found him lying on a sofa, and down +he got and wagged his tail vigorously, pretending, with a pretty human +hypocrisy in his gentle yellow eyes, that he knew me perfectly well, +that I was not a bit changed, and that he was delighted to see me. + +On my way back to Bath I had a day at Bristol. It was cattle-market day, +and what with the bellowings, barkings, and shoutings, added to the buzz +and clang of innumerable electric tramcars and the usual din of street +traffic, one got the idea that the Bristolians had adopted a sort of +Salvation Army theory, and were endeavouring to conquer earth (it is +not heaven in this case) by making a tremendous noise. I amused myself +strolling about and watching the people, and as train after train came +in late in the day discharging loads of humanity, mostly young men and +women from the surrounding country coming in for an evening's amusement, +I noticed again the peculiarly Welsh character of the Somerset +peasant--the shape of the face, the colour of the skin, and, above all, +the expression. + +Freeman, when here below, proclaimed it his mission to prove that +"Englishmen were Englishmen, and not somebody else." It appeared to me +that any person, unbiassed by theories on such a subject, looking +at that crowd, would have come to the conclusion, sadly or gladly, +according to his nature, that we are, in fact, "somebody else." + + + + +Chapter Fourteen: The Return of the Native + + +That "going back" about which I wrote in the second chapter to a place +where an unexpected beauty or charm has revealed itself, and has made +its image a lasting and prized possession of the mind, is not the same +thing as the revisiting a famous town or city, rich in many beauties and +old memories, such as Bath or Wells, for instance. Such centres have a +permanent attraction, and one who is a rover in the land must return to +them again and again, nor does he fail on each successive visit to find +some fresh charm or interest. The sadness of such returns, after a long +interval, is only, as I have said, when we start "looking up" those with +whom we had formed pleasant friendly relations. And all because of the +illusion that we shall see them as they were--that Time has stood still +waiting for our return, and by and by, to our surprise and grief, we +discover that it is not so; that the dear friends of other days, long +unvisited but unforgotten, have become strangers. This human loss is +felt even more in the case of a return to some small centre, a village +or hamlet where we knew every one, and our intimacy with the people has +produced the sense of being one in blood with them. It is greatest of +all when we return to a childhood's or boyhood's home. Many writers +have occupied themselves with this mournful theme, and I imagine that a +person of the proper Amiel-like tender and melancholy moralizing type +of mind, by using his own and his friends' experiences, could write a +charmingly sad and pretty book on the subject. + +The really happy returns of this kind must be exceedingly rare. I am +almost surprised to think that I am able to recall as many as two, but +they hardly count, as in both instances the departure or exile from home +happens at so early a time of life that no recollections of the people +survived--nothing, in fact, but a vague mental picture of the place. +One was of a business man I knew in London, who lost his early home in a +village in the Midlands, as a boy of eight or nine years of age, through +the sale of the place by his father, who had become impoverished. The +boy was trained to business in London, and when a middle-aged man, +wishing to retire and spend the rest of his life in the country, he +revisited his native village for the first time, and discovered to his +joy that he could buy back the old home. He was, when I last saw him, +very happy in its possession. + +The other case I will relate more fully, as it is a very curious one, +and came to my knowledge in a singular way. + +At a small station near Eastleigh a man wearing a highly pleased +expression on his face entered the smoking-carriage in which I was +travelling to London. Putting his bag on the rack, he pulled out his +pipe and threw himself back in his seat with a satisfied air; then, +looking at me and catching my eye, he at once started talking. I had my +newspaper, but seeing him in that overflowing mood I responded readily +enough, for I was curious to know why he appeared so happy and who and +what he was. Not a tradesman nor a bagman, and not a farmer, though he +looked like an open-air man; nor could I form a guess from his speech +and manner as to his native place. A robust man of thirty-eight or +forty, with blue eyes and a Saxon face, he looked a thorough Englishman, +and yet he struck me as most un-English in his lively, almost eager +manner, his freedom with a stranger, and something, too, in his speech. +From time to time his face lighted up, when, looking to the window, his +eyes rested on some pretty scene--a glimpse of stately old elm trees in +a field where cattle were grazing, of the vivid green valley of a chalk +stream, the paler hills beyond, the grey church tower or spire of some +tree-hidden village. When he discovered that these hills and streams and +rustic villages had as great a charm for me as for himself, that I knew +and loved the two or three places he named in a questioning way, he +opened his heart and the secret of his present happiness. + +He was a native of the district, born at a farmhouse of which his father +in succession to his grandfather had been the tenant. It was a small +farm of only eighty-five acres, and as his father could make no more +than a bare livelihood out of it, he eventually gave it up when my +informant was but three years old, and selling all he had, emigrated to +Australia. Nine years later he died, leaving a numerous family poorly +provided for; the home was broken up and boys and girls had to go out +and face the world. They had somehow all got on very well, and his +brothers and sisters were happy enough out there, Australians in mind, +thoroughly persuaded that theirs was the better land, the best country +in the world, and with no desire to visit England. He had never felt +like that; somehow his father's feeling about the old country had taken +such a hold of him that he never outlived it--never felt at home in +Australia, however successful he was in his affairs. The home feeling +had been very strong in his father; his greatest delight was to sit of +an evening with his children round him and tell them of the farm and the +old farm-house where he was born and had lived so many years, and where +some of them too had been born. He was never tired of talking of it, +of taking them by the hand, as it were, and leading them from place to +place, to the stream, the village, the old stone church, the meadows and +fields and hedges, the deep shady lanes, and, above all, to the dear +old ivied house with its gables and tall chimneys. So many times had +his father described it that the old place was printed like a map on his +mind, and was like a picture which kept its brightness even after the +image of his boyhood's home in Australia had become faded and pale. With +that mental picture to guide him he believed that he could go to that +angle by the porch where the flycatchers bred every year and find their +nest; where in the hedge the blackberries were most abundant; where the +elders grew by the stream from which he could watch the moorhens and +watervoles; that he knew every fence, gate, and outhouse, every room and +passage in the old house. Through all his busy years that picture never +grew less beautiful, never ceased its call, and at last, possessed of +sufficient capital to yield him a modest income for the rest of his +life, he came home. What he was going to do in England he did not +consider. He only knew that until he had satisfied the chief desire of +his heart and had looked upon the original of the picture he had borne +so long in his mind he could not rest nor make any plans for the future. + +He came first to London and found, on examining the map of Hampshire, +that the village of Thorpe (I will call it), where he was born, is three +miles from the nearest station, in the southern part of the county. +Undoubtedly it was Thorpe; that was one of the few names of places his +father had mentioned which remained in his memory always associated +with that vivid image of the farm in his mind. To Thorpe he accordingly +went--as pretty a rustic village as he had hoped to find it. He took a +room at the inn and went out for a long walk--"just to see the place," +he said to the landlord. He would make no inquiries; he would find his +home for himself; how could he fail to recognize it? But he walked for +hours in a widening circle and saw no farm or other house, and no ground +that corresponded to the picture in his brain. + +Troubled at his failure, he went back and questioned his landlord, and, +naturally, was asked for the name of the farm he was seeking. He had +forgotten the name--he even doubted that he had ever heard it. But there +was his family name to go by--Dyson; did any one remember a farmer Dyson +in the village? He was told that it was not an uncommon name in that +part of the country. There were no Dysons now in Thorpe, but some +fifteen or twenty years ago one of that name had been the tenant of Long +Meadow Farm in the parish. The name of the farm was unfamiliar, and when +he visited the place he found it was not the one he sought. + +It was a grievous disappointment. A new sense of loneliness oppressed +him; for that bright image in his mind, with the feeling about his +home, had been a secret source of comfort and happiness, and was like a +companion, a dear human friend, and now he appeared to be on the point +of losing it. Could it be that all that mental picture, with the details +that seemed so true to life, was purely imaginary? He could not believe +it; the old house had probably been pulled down, the big trees felled, +orchard and hedges grabbed up--all the old features obliterated--and the +land thrown into some larger neighbouring farm. It was dreadful to +think that such devastating changes had been made, but it had certainly +existed as he saw it in his mind, and he would inquire of some of the +old men in the place, who would perhaps be able to tell him where his +home had stood thirty years ago. + +At once he set about interviewing all the old men he came upon in his +rounds, describing to them the farm tenanted by a man named Dyson about +forty years ago, and by and by he got hold of one who knew. He listened +for a few minutes to the oft-repeated story, then exclaimed, "Why, sir, +'tis surely Woodyates you be talking about!" + +"That's the name! That's the name," he cried. "Woodyyates-how did I ever +forget it! You knew it then--where was it?" + +"I'll just show you," said the old man, proud at having guessed rightly, +and turning started slowly hobbling along till he got to the end of the +lane. + +There was an opening there and a view of the valley with trees, blue in +the distance, at the furthest visible point. "Do you see them trees?" +he said. "That's where Harping is; 'tis two miles or, perhaps, a little +more from Thorpe. There's a church tower among them trees, but you +can't see it because 'tis hid. You go by the road till you comes to the +church, then you go on by the water, maybe a quarter of a mile, and you +comes to Woodyates. You won't see no difference in it; I've knowed it +since I were a boy, but 'tis in Harping parish, not in Thorpe." + +Now he remembered the name--Harping, near Thorpe--only Thorpe was the +more important village where the inn was and the shops. + +In less than an hour after leaving his informant he was at Woodyates, +feasting his eyes on the old house of his dreams and of his exiled +father's before him, inexpressibly glad to recognize it as the very +house he had loved so long--that he had been deceived by no false image. + +For some days he haunted the spot, then became a lodger at the +farm-house, and now after making some inquiries he had found that the +owner was willing to sell the place for something more than its market +value, and he was going up to London about it. + +At Waterloo I wished him happiness in his old home found again after +so many years, then watched him as he walked briskly away--as +commonplace-looking a man as could be seen on that busy crowded +platform, in his suit of rough grey tweeds, thick boots, and bowler +hat. Yet one whose fortune might be envied by many even among the +successful--one who had cherished a secret thought and feeling, which +had been to him like the shadow of a rock and like a cool spring in a +dry and thirsty land. + +And in that host of undistinguished Colonials and others of British +race from all regions of the earth, who annually visit these shores on +business or for pleasure or some other object, how many there must be +who come with some such memory or dream or aspiration in their hearts! +A greater number probably than we imagine. For most of them there is +doubtless disappointment and disillusion: it is a matter of the heart, +a sentiment about which some are not given to speak. He too, my +fellow-passenger, would no doubt have held his peace had his dream not +met with so perfect a fulfilment. As it was he had to tell his joy to +some one, though it were to a stranger. + + + + +Chapter Fifteen: Summer Days on the Otter + + +The most characteristic district of South Devon, the greenest, most +luxuriant in its vegetation, and perhaps the hottest in England, is +that bit of country between the Exe and the Axe which is watered by +the Clyst, the Otter, and the Sid. In any one of a dozen villages found +beside these pretty little rivers a man might spend a month, a year, +a lifetime, very agreeably, ceasing not to congratulate himself on the +good fortune which first led him into such a garden. Yet after a week +or two in this luxurious land I began to be dissatisfied with my +surroundings. It was June; the weather was exceptionally dry and sultry. +Vague thoughts, or "visitings" of mountains and moors and coasts would +intrude to make the confinement of deep lanes seem increasingly irksome. +Each day I wandered miles in some new direction, never knowing whither +the devious path would lead me, never inquiring of any person, nor +consulting map or guide, since to do that is to deprive oneself of the +pleasure of discovery; always with a secret wish to find some exit as +it were--some place beyond the everlasting wall of high hedges and green +trees, where there would be a wide horizon and wind blowing unobstructed +over leagues of open country to bring me back the sense of lost liberty. +I found only fresh woods and pastures new that were like the old; other +lanes leading to other farm-houses, each in its familiar pretty setting +of orchard and garden; and, finally, other ancient villages, each with +its ivy-grown grey church tower looking down on a green graveyard and +scattered cottages, mostly mud-built and thatched with straw. Finding no +outlook on any side I went back to the streams, oftenest to the Otter, +where, lying by the hour on the bank, I watched the speckled trout +below me and the dark-plumaged dipper with shining white breast standing +solitary and curtseying on a stone in the middle of the current. +Sometimes a kingfisher would flash by, and occasionally I came upon +a lonely grey heron; but no mammal bigger than a watervole appeared, +although I waited and watched for the much bigger beast that gives the +river its name. Still it was good to know that he was there, and had his +den somewhere in the steep rocky bank under the rough tangle of ivy and +bramble and roots of overhanging trees. One was shot by a farmer +during my stay, but my desire was for the living, not a dead otter. +Consequently, when the otter-hunt came with blaze of scarlet coats and +blowing of brass horns and noise of barking hounds and shouts of excited +people, it had no sooner got half a mile above Ottery St. Mary, where I +had joined the straggling procession, than, falling behind, the hunting +fury died out of me and I was relieved to hear that no quarry had been +found. The frightened moorhen stole back to her spotty eggs, the dipper +returned to his dipping and curtseying to his own image in the stream, +and I to my idle dreaming and watching. + +The watching was not wholly in vain, since there were here revealed to +me things, or aspects of things, that were new. A great deal depends on +atmosphere and the angle of vision. For instance, I have often looked +at swans at the hour of sunset, on the water and off it, or flying, and +have frequently had them between me and the level sun, yet never have +I been favoured with the sight of the rose-coloured, the red, and the +golden-yellow varieties of that majestic waterfowl, whose natural colour +is white. On the other hand, who ever saw a carrion-crow with crimson +eyes? Yet that was one of the strange things I witnessed on the Otter. + +Game is not everywhere strictly preserved in that part of Devon, and the +result is that the crow is not so abhorred and persecuted a fowl as +in many places, especially in the home counties, where the cult of the +sacred bird is almost universal. At one spot on the stream where my +rambles took me on most days a pair of crows invariably greeted my +approach with a loud harsh remonstrance, and would keep near me, flying +from tree to tree repeating their angry girdings until I left the place. +Their nest was in a large elm, and after some days I was pleased to see +that the young had been safely brought off. The old birds screamed at me +no more; then I came on one of their young in the meadow near the river. +His curious behaviour interested me so much that I stood and watched him +for half an hour or longer. It was a hot, windless day, and the bird +was by himself among the tall flowering grasses and buttercups of the +meadow--a queer gaunt unfinished hobbledehoy-looking fowl with a head +much too big for his body, a beak that resembled a huge nose, and a +very monstrous mouth. When I first noticed him he was amusing himself by +picking off the small insects from the flowers with his big beak, a most +unsuitable instrument, one would imagine, for so delicate a task. At the +same time he was hungering for more substantial fare, and every time a +rook flew by over him on its way to or from a neighbouring too populous +rookery, the young crow would open wide his immense red mouth and emit +his harsh, throaty hunger-call. The rook gone, he would drop once +more into his study of the buttercups, to pick from them whatever +unconsidered trifle in the way of provender he could find. Once a small +bird, a pied wagtail, flew near him, and he begged from it just as he +had done from the rooks: the little creature would have run the risk +of being itself swallowed had it attempted to deliver a packet of flies +into that cavernous mouth. I went nearer, moving cautiously, until I was +within about four yards of him, when, half turning, he opened his mouth +and squawked, actually asking me to feed him; then, growing suspicious, +he hopped awkwardly away in the grass. Eventually he permitted a nearer +approach, and slowly stooping I was just on the point of stroking his +back when, suddenly becoming alarmed, he swung himself into the air and +flapped laboriously off to a low hawthorn, twenty or thirty yards away, +into which he tumbled pell-mell like a bundle of old black rags. + +Then I left him and thought no more about the crows except that +their young have a good deal to learn upon first coming forth into an +unfriendly world. But there was a second nest and family close by all +the time. A day or two later I discovered it accidentally in a very +curious way. + +There was one spot where I was accustomed to linger for a few minutes, +sometimes for half an hour or so, during my daily walks. Here at the +foot of the low bank on the treeless side of the stream there was a +scanty patch of sedges, a most exposed and unsuitable place for any bird +to breed in, yet a venturesome moorhen had her nest there and was now +sitting on seven eggs. First I would take a peep at the eggs, for the +bird always quitted the nest on my approach; then I would gaze into the +dense tangle of tree, bramble, and ivy springing out of the mass 'of +black rock and red clay of the opposite bank. In the centre of this +rough tangle which overhung the stream there grew an old stunted and +crooked fir tree with its tufted top so shut out from the light by the +branches and foliage round it that it looked almost black. One evening I +sat down on the green bank opposite this tangle when the low sun behind +me shone level into the mass of rock and rough boles and branches, and +fixing my eyes on the black centre of the mass I encountered a pair of +crimson eyes staring back into mine. A level ray of light had lit up +that spot which I had always seen in deep shadow, revealing its secret. +After gazing steadily for some time I made out a crow's nest in the +dwarf pine top and the vague black forms of three young fully fledged +crows sitting or standing in it. The middle bird had the shining crimson +eyes; but in a few moments the illusory colour was gone and the eyes +were black. + +It was certainly an extraordinary thing: the ragged-looking +black-plumaged bird on its ragged nest of sticks in the deep shade, with +one ray of intense sunlight on its huge nose-like beak and blood-red +eyes, a sight to be remembered for a lifetime! It recalled Zurbaran's +picture of the "Kneeling Monk," in which the man with everything about +him is steeped in the deepest gloom except his nose, on which one ray of +strong light has fallen. The picture of the monk is gloomy and austere +in a wonderful degree: the crow in his interior with sunlit big beak and +crimson eyes looked nothing less than diabolical. + +I paid other visits to the spot at the same hour, and sat long and +watched the crows while they watched me, occasionally tossing pebbles on +to them to make them shift their positions, but the magical effect was +not produced again. + +As to the cause of that extraordinary colour in the crow's eyes, one +might say that it was merely the reflected red light of the level sun. +We are familiar with the effect when polished and wet surfaces, such as +glass, stone, and water, shine crimson in the light of a setting sun; +but there is also the fact, which is not well known, that the eye may +show its own hidden red--the crimson colour which is at the back of +the retina and which is commonly supposed to be seen only with the +ophthalmoscope. Nevertheless I find on inquiry among friends and +acquaintances that there are instances of persons in which the iris +when directly in front of the observer with the light behind him, always +looks crimson, and in several of these cases the persons exhibiting +this colour, or danger signal, as it may be called, were subject to +brain trouble. It is curious to find that the crimson colour or light +has also been observed in dogs: one friend has told me of a pet King +Charles, a lively good-tempered little dog with brown eyes like any +other dog, which yet when they looked up, into yours in a room always +shone ruby-red instead of hyaline blue, or green, as is usually the +case. From other friends I heard of many other cases: one was of a +child, an infant in arms, whose eyes sometimes appeared crimson, another +of a cat with yellow eyes which shone crimson-red in certain lights. +Of human adults, I heard of two men great in the world of science, both +dead now, in whose eyes the red light had been seen just before and +during attacks of nervous breakdown. I heard also of four other persons, +not distinguished in any way, two of them sisters, who showed the red +light in the eyes: all of them suffered, from brain trouble and two of +them ended their lives in asylums for the insane. + +Discussing these cases with my informants, we came to the conclusion +that the red light in the human eye is probably always a pathological +condition, a danger signal; but it is not perhaps safe to generalize +on these few instances, and I must add that all the medical men I +have spoken to on the subject shake their heads. One great man, an eye +specialist, went so far as to say that it is impossible, that the red +light in the eye was not seen by my informants but only imagined. The +ophthalmoscope, he said, will show you the crimson at the back of the +eye, but the colour is not and cannot be reflected on the surface of the +iris. + + + + +Chapter Sixteen: In Praise of the Cow + + +In spite of discontents I might have remained to this day by the Otter, +in the daily and hourly expectation of seeing some new and wonderful +thing in Nature in that place where a crimson-eyed carrion-crow had +been revealed to me, had not a storm of thunder and rain broken over +the country to shake me out of a growing disinclination to move. We are, +body and mind, very responsive to atmospheric changes; for every storm +in Nature there is a storm in us--a change physical and mental. We make +our own conditions, it is true, and these react and have a deadening +effect on us in the long run, but we are never wholly deadened by +them--if we be not indeed dead, if the life we live can be called life. +We are told that there are rainless zones on the earth and regions of +everlasting summer: it is hard to believe that the dwellers in such +places can ever think a new thought or do a new thing. The morning rain +did not last very long, and before it had quite ceased I took up my +knapsack and set off towards the sea, determined on this occasion to +make my escape. + +Three or four miles from Ottery St. Mary I overtook a cowman driving +nine milch cows along a deep lane and inquired my way of him. He gave me +many and minute directions, after which we got into conversation, and +I walked some distance with him. The cows he was driving were all pure +Devons, perfect beauties in their bright red coats in that greenest +place where every rain-wet leaf sparkled in the new sunlight. Naturally +we talked about the cows, and I soon found that they were his own and +the pride and joy of his life. We walked leisurely, and as the animals +went on, first one, then another would stay for a mouthful of grass, +or to pull down half a yard of green drapery from the hedge. It was so +lavishly decorated that the damage they did to it was not noticeable. +By and by we went on ahead of the cows, then, if one stayed too long or +strayed into some inviting side-lane, he would turn and utter a long, +soft call, whereupon the straggler would leave her browsing and hasten +after the others. + + +He was a big, strongly built man, a little past middle life and +grey-haired, with rough-hewn face--unprepossessing one would have +pronounced him until the intelligent, kindly expression of the eyes was +seen and the agreeable voice was heard. As our talk progressed and we +found how much in sympathy we were on the subject, I was reminded of +that Biblical expression about the shining of a man's face: "Wine that +maketh glad the heart of man"--I hope the total abstainers will pardon +me--"and oil that maketh his face to shine," we have in one passage. +This rather goes against our British ideas, since we rub no oil or +unguents on our skin, but only soap which deprives it of its natural +oil and too often imparts a dry and hard texture. Yet in that, to us, +disagreeable aspect of the skin caused by foreign fats, there is a +resemblance to the sudden brightening and glory of the countenance +in moments of blissful emotion or exaltation. No doubt the effect is +produced by the eyes, which are the mirrors of the mind, and as they are +turned full upon us they produce an illusion, seeming to make the whole +face shine. + +In our talk I told him of long rambles on the Mendips, along the valley +of the Somerset Axe, where I had lately been, and where of all places, +in this island, the cow should be most esteemed and loved by man. Yet +even there, where, standing on some elevation, cows beyond one's power +to number could be seen scattered far and wide in the green vales +beneath, it had saddened me to find them so silent. It is not natural +for them to be dumb; they have great emotions and mighty voices--the +cattle on a thousand hills. Their morning and evening lowing is more to +me than any other natural sound--the melody of birds, the springs and +dying gales of the pines, the wash of waves on the long shingled beach. +The hills and valleys of that pastoral country flowing with milk and +honey should be vocal with it, echoing and re-echoing the long call +made musical by distance. The cattle are comparatively silent in that +beautiful district, and indeed everywhere in England, because men have +made them so. They have, when deprived of their calves, no motive for +the exercise of their voices. For two or three days after their new-born +calves have been taken from them they call loudly and incessantly, +day and night, like Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be +comforted; grief and anxiety inspires that cry--they grow hoarse with +crying; it is a powerful, harsh, discordant sound, unlike the long +musical call of the cow that has a calf, and remembering it, and leaving +the pasture, goes lowing to give it suck. + +I also told him of the cows of a distant country where I had lived, that +had the maternal instinct so strong that they refused to yield their +milk when deprived of their young. They "held it back," as the saying +is, and were in a sullen rage, and in a few days their fountains dried +up, and there was no more milk until calving-time came round once more. + +He replied that cows of that temper were not unknown in South Devon. +Very proudly he pointed to one of the small herd that followed us as +an example. In most cases, he said, the calf was left from two or three +days to a week, or longer, with the mother to get strong, and then taken +away. This plan could not be always followed; some cows were so greatly +distressed at losing the young they had once suckled that precautions +had to be taken and the calf smuggled away as quietly as possible when +dropped--if possible before the mother had seen it. Then there were the +extreme cases in which the cow refused to be cheated. She knew that a +calf had been born; she had felt it within her, and had suffered pangs +in bringing it forth; if it appeared not on the grass or straw at her +side then it must have been snatched away by the human creatures that +hovered about her, like crows and ravens round a ewe in travail on some +lonely mountain side. + +That was the character of the cow he had pointed out; even when she had +not seen the calf of which she had been deprived she made so great an +outcry and was thrown into such a rage and fever, refusing to be milked +that, finally, to save her, it was thought necessary to give her back +the calf. Now, he concluded, it was not attempted to take it away: twice +a day she was allowed to have it with her and suckle it, and she was a +very happy animal. + +I was glad to think that there was at least one completely happy cow in +Devonshire. + +After leaving the cowkeeper I had that feeling of revulsion very +strongly which all who know and love cows occasionally experience at +the very thought of beef. I was for the moment more than tolerant of +vegetarianism, and devoutly hoped that for many days to come I should +not be sickened with the sight of a sirloin on some hateful board, cold, +or smoking hot, bleeding its red juices into the dish when gashed with a +knife, as if undergoing a second death. We do not eat negroes, although +their pigmented skins, flat feet, and woolly heads proclaim them a +different species; even monkey's flesh is abhorrent to us, merely +because we fancy that that creature in its ugliness resembles some +old men and some women and children that we know. But the gentle +large-brained social cow that caresses our hands and faces with +her rough blue tongue, and is more like man's sister than any other +non-human being--the majestic, beautiful creature with the juno eyes, +sweeter of breath than the rosiest virgin--we slaughter and feed on her +flesh--monsters and cannibals that we are! + +But though cannibals, it is very pleasant to find that many cowmen +love their cows. Walking one afternoon by a high unkept hedge near +Southampton Water, I heard loud shouts at intervals issuing from a +point some distance ahead, and on arriving at the spot found an old man +leaning idly over a gate, apparently concerned about nothing. "What +are you shouting about?" I demanded. "Cows," he answered, with a glance +across the wide green field dotted with a few big furze and bramble +bushes. On its far side half a dozen cows were, quietly grazing. "They +came fast enough when I was a-feeding of 'em," he presently added; "but +now they has to find for theirselves they don't care how long they keeps +me." I was going to suggest that it would be a considerable saving of +time if he went for them, but his air of lazy contentment as he leant +on the gate showed that time was of no importance to him. He was a +curious-looking old man, in old frayed clothes, broken boots, and a cap +too small for him. He had short legs, broad chest, and long arms, and +a very big head, long and horselike, with a large shapeless nose and +grizzled beard and moustache. His ears, too, were enormous, and stood +out from the head like the handles of a rudely shaped terra-cotta vase +or jar. The colour of his face, the ears included, suggested burnt clay. +But though Nature had made him ugly, he had an agreeable expression, +a sweet benign look in his large dark eyes, which attracted me, and I +stayed to talk with him. + +It has frequently been said that those who are much with cows, and have +an affection for them, appear to catch something of their expression--to +look like cows; just as persons of sympathetic or responsive nature, +and great mobility of face, grow to be like those they live and are in +sympathy with. The cowman who looks like a cow may be more bovine than +his fellows in his heavier motions and slower apprehensions, but he also +exhibits some of the better qualities--the repose and placidity of the +animal. + +He said that he was over seventy, and had spent the whole of his life +in the neighbourhood, mostly with cows, and had never been more than a +dozen miles from the spot where we were standing. At intervals while we +talked he paused to utter one of his long shouts, to which the cows paid +no attention. At length one of the beasts raised her head and had a long +look, then slowly crossed the field to us, the others following at some +distance. They were shorthorns, all but the leader, a beautiful young +Devon, of a uniform rich glossy red; but the silky hair on the distended +udder was of an intense chestnut, and all the parts that were not +clothed were red too--the teats, the skin round the eyes, the moist +embossed nose; while the hoofs were like polished red pebbles, and even +the shapely horns were tinged with that colour. Walking straight up to +the old man, she began deliberately licking one of his ears with her big +rough tongue, and in doing so knocked off his old rakish cap. Picking +it up he laughed like a child, and remarked, "She knows me, this one +does--and she loikes me." + + + + +Chapter Seventeen: An Old Road Leading Nowhere + + +So many and minute were the directions I received about the way from +the blessed cowkeeper, and so little attention did I give them, my mind +being occupied with other things, that they were quickly forgotten. +Of half a hundred things I remembered only that I had to "bear to the +left." This I did, although it seemed useless, seeing that my way was +by lanes, across fields, and through plantations. At length I came to +a road, and as it happened to be on my left hand I followed it. It was +narrow, worn deep by traffic and rains; and grew deeper, rougher, and +more untrodden as I progressed, until it was like the dry bed of a +mountain torrent, and I walked on boulder-stones between steep banks +about fourteen feet high. Their sides were clothed with ferns, grass +and rank moss; their summits were thickly wooded, and the interlacing +branches of the trees above, mingled with long rope-like shoots of +bramble and briar, formed so close a roof that I seemed to be walking in +a dimly lighted tunnel. At length, thinking that I had kept long enough +to a road which had perhaps not been used for a century, also tired +of the monotony of always bearing to the left, I scrambled out on the +right-hand side. For some time past I had been ascending a low, broad, +flat-topped hill, and on forcing my way through the undergrowth into the +open I found myself on the level plateau, an unenclosed spot overgrown +with heather and scattered furze bushes, with clumps of fir and birch +trees. Before me and on either hand at this elevation a vast extent of +country was disclosed. The surface was everywhere broken, but there +was no break in the wonderful greenness, which the recent rain had +intensified. There is too much green, to my thinking, with too much +uniformity in its soft, bright tone, in South Devon. After gazing on +such a landscape the brown, harsh, scanty vegetation of the hilltop +seemed all the more grateful. The heath was an oasis and a refuge; I +rambled about in it until my feet and legs were wet; then I sat down to +let them dry and altogether spent several agreeable hours at that spot, +pleased at the thought that no human fellow-creature would intrude upon +me. Feathered companions were, however, not wanting. The crowing of cock +pheasants from the thicket beside the old road warned me that I was on +preserved grounds. Not too strictly preserved, however, for there was my +old friend the carrion-crow out foraging for his young. He dropped down +over the trees, swept past me, and was gone. At this season, in the +early summer, he may be easily distinguished, when flying, from his +relation the rook. When on the prowl the crow glides smoothly and +rapidly through the air, often changing his direction, now flying close +to the surface, anon mounting high, but oftenest keeping nearly on a +level with the tree tops. His gliding and curving motions are somewhat +like those of the herring-gull, but the wings in gliding are carried +stiff and straight, the tips of the long flight-feathers showing a +slight upward curve. But the greatest difference is in the way the +head is carried. The rook, like the heron and stork, carries his beak +pointing lance-like straight before him. He knows his destination, and +makes for it; he follows his nose, so to speak, turning neither to +the right nor the left. The foraging crow continually turns his head, +gull-like and harrier-like, from side to side, as if to search the +ground thoroughly or to concentrate his vision on some vaguely seen +object. + +Not only the crow was there: a magpie chattered as I came from the +brake, but refused to show himself; and a little later a jay screamed at +me, as only a jay can. There are times when I am intensely in sympathy +with the feeling expressed in this ear-splitting sound, inarticulate +but human. It is at the same time warning and execration, the startled +solitary's outburst of uncontrolled rage at the abhorred sight of a +fellow-being in his woodland haunt. + +Small birds were numerous at that spot, as if for them also its wildness +and infertility had an attraction. Tits, warblers, pipits, finches, all +were busy ranging from place to place, emitting their various notes now +from the tree-tops, then from near the ground; now close at hand, then +far off; each change in the height, distance, and position of the singer +giving the sound a different character, so that the effect produced was +one of infinite variety. Only the yellow-hammer remained constant in +one spot, in one position, and the song at each repetition was the same. +Nevertheless this bird is not so monotonous a singer as he is reputed. +A lover of open places, of commons and waste lands, with a bush or dwarf +tree for tower to sit upon, he is yet one of the most common species in +the thickly timbered country of the Otter, Clyst, and Sid, in which I +had been rambling, hearing him every day and all day long. Throughout +that district, where the fields are small, and the trees big and near +together, he has the cirl-bunting's habit of perching to sing on the +tops of high hedgerow elms and oaks. + +By and by I had a better bird to listen to--a redstart. A female flew +down within fifteen yards of me; her mate followed and perched on a dry +twig, where he remained a long time for so shy and restless a creature. +He was in perfect plumage, and sitting there, motionless in the strong +sunlight, was wonderfully conspicuous, the gayest, most exotic-looking +bird of his family in England. Quitting his perch, he flew up into +a tree close by and began singing; and for half an hour thereafter I +continued intently listening to his brief strain, repeated at short +intervals--a song which I think has never been perfectly described. +"Practice makes perfect" is an axiom that does not apply to the art +of song in the bird world; since the redstart, a member of a highly +melodious family, with a good voice to start with, has never attained to +excellence in spite of much practising. The song is interesting both +on account of its exceptional inferiority and of its character. A +distinguished ornithologist has said that little birds have two ways of +making themselves attractive--by melody and by bright plumage; and that +most species excel in one or the other way; and that the acquisition of +gay colours by a species of a sober-coloured melodious family will +cause it to degenerate as a songster. He is speaking of the redstart. +Unfortunately for the rule there are too many exceptions. Thus confining +ourselves to a single family--that of the finches--in our own islands, +the most modest coloured have the least melody, while those that have +the gayest plumage are the best singers--the goldfinch, chaffinch, +siskin, and linnet. Nevertheless it is impossible to listen for any +length of time to the redstart, and to many redstarts, without feeling, +almost with irritation, that its strain is only the prelude of a song--a +promise never performed; that once upon a time in the remote past it +was a sweet, copious, and varied singer, and that only a fragment of its +melody now remains. The opening rapidly warbled notes are so charming +that the attention is instantly attracted by them. They are composed of +two sounds, both beautiful--the bright pure gushing robin-like note, and +the more tender expressive swallow-like note. And that is all; the song +scarcely begins before it ends, or collapses; for in most cases the pure +sweet opening strain is followed by a curious little farrago of gurgling +and squeaking sounds, and little fragments of varied notes, often so low +as to be audible only at a few yards' distance. It is curious that these +slight fragments of notes at the end vary in different individuals, in +strength and character and in number, from a single faintest squeal to +half a dozen or a dozen distinct sounds. In all cases they are emitted +with apparent effort, as if the bird strained its pipe in the vain +attempt to continue the song. + +The statement that the redstart is a mimic is to be met with in many +books about birds. I rather think that in jerking out these various +little broken notes which end its strain, whether he only squeaks or +succeeds in producing a pure sound, he is striving to recover his own +lost song rather than to imitate the songs of other birds. + +So much entertainment did I find at that spot, so grateful did it seem +in its openness after long confinement in the lower thickly wooded +country, that I practically spent the day there. At all events the best +time for walking was gone when I quitted it, and then I could think of +no better plan than to climb down into the old long untrodden road, or +channel, again just to see where it would lead me. After all, I said, +my time is my own, and to abandon the old way I have walked in so long +without discovering the end would be a mistake. So I went on in it once +more, and in about twenty minutes it came to an end before a group of +old farm buildings in a hollow in the woods. The space occupied by the +buildings was quite walled round and shut in by a dense growth of trees +and bushes; and there was no soul there and no domestic animal. The +place had apparently been vacant many years, and the buildings were in a +ruinous condition, with the roofs falling in. + +Now when I look back on that walk I blame myself for having gone on my +way without trying to find out something of the history of that forsaken +home to which the lonely old road had led me. Those ruinous buildings +once inhabited, so wrapped round and hidden away by trees, have now a +strange look in memory as if they had a story to tell, as if something +intelligent had looked from the vacant windows as I stood staring at +them and had said, We have waited these many years for you to come and +listen to our story and you are come at last. + +Something perhaps stirred in me in response to that greeting and +message, but I failed to understand it, and after standing there awhile, +oppressed by a sense of loneliness, I turned aside, and creeping and +pushing through a mass and tangle of vegetation went on my way towards +the coast. + +Possibly that idea or fancy of a story to tell, a human tragedy, came to +me only because of another singular experience I had that day when the +afternoon sun had grown oppressively hot--another mystery of a desolate +but not in this case uninhabited house. The two places somehow became +associated together in my mind. + +The place was a little farm-house standing some distance from the road, +in a lonely spot out of sight of any other habitation, and I thought I +would call and ask for a glass of milk, thinking that if things had +a promising look on my arrival my modest glass of milk would perhaps +expand to a sumptuous five-o'clock tea and my short rest to a long and +pleasant one. + +The house I found on coming nearer was small and mean-looking and very +old; the farm buildings in a dilapidated condition, the thatch rotten +and riddled with holes in which many starlings and sparrows had their +nests. Gates and fences were broken down, and the ground was everywhere +overgrown with weeds and encumbered with old broken and rusty +implements, and littered with rubbish. No person could I see about the +place, but knew it was inhabited as there were some fowls walking about, +and some calves shut in a pen in one of the numerous buildings were +dolefully calling--calling to be fed. Seeing a door half open at one end +of the house I went to it and rapped on the warped paintless wood with +my stick, and after about a minute a young woman came from an inner room +and asked me what I wanted. She was not disturbed or surprised at my +sudden appearance there: her face was impassive, and her eyes when they +met mine appeared to look not at me but at something distant, and her +words were spoken mechanically. + +I said that I was hot and thirsty and tired and would be glad of a glass +of milk. + +Without a word she turned and left me standing there, and presently +returned with a tumbler of milk which she placed on a deal table +standing near me. To my remarks she replied in monosyllables, and stood +impassively, her hands at her side, her eyes cast down, waiting for me +to drink the milk and go. And when I had finished it and set the glass +down and thanked her, she turned in silence and went back to that inner +room from which she first came. And hot and tired as I had felt a few +moments before, and desirous of an interval of rest in the cool shade, +I was glad to be out in the burning sun once more, for the sight of that +young woman had chilled my blood and made the heat out-of-doors seem +grateful to me. + +The sight of such a face in the midst of such surroundings had produced +a shock of surprise, for it was noble in shape, the features all fine +and the mouth most delicately chiselled, the eyes dark and beautiful, +and the hair of a raven blackness. But it was a colourless face, and +even the lips were pale. Strongest of all was the expression, which had +frozen there, and was like the look of one on whom some unimaginable +disaster or some hateful disillusionment had come, not to subdue nor +soften, but to change all its sweet to sour, and its natural warmth to +icy cold. + + + + +Chapter Eighteen: Branscombe + + +Health and pleasure resorts and all parasitic towns in fact, inland or +on the sea, have no attractions for me and I was more than satisfied +with a day or two of Sidmouth. Then one evening I heard for the first +time of a place called Branscomb--a village near the sea, over by Beer +and Seaton, near the mouth of the Axe, and the account my old host gave +me seemed so attractive that on the following day I set out to find +it. Further information about the unknown village came to me in a +very agreeable way in the course of my tramp. A hotter walk I never +walked--no, not even when travelling across a flat sunburnt treeless +plain, nearer than Devon by many degrees to the equator. One wonders why +that part of Devon which lies between the Exe and the Axe seems actually +hotter than other regions which undoubtedly have a higher temperature. +After some hours of walking with not a little of uphill and downhill, +I began to find the heat well-nigh intolerable. I was on a hard dusty +glaring road, shut in by dusty hedges on either side. Not a breath of +air was stirring; not a bird sang; on the vast sky not a cloud appeared. +If the vertical sun had poured down water instead of light and heat on +me my clothing could not have clung to me more uncomfortably. Coming at +length to a group of two or three small cottages at the roadside, I went +into one and asked for something to quench my thirst--cider or milk. +There was only water to be had, but it was good to drink, and the woman +of the cottage was so pretty and pleasant that I was glad to rest an +hour and talk with her in her cool kitchen. There are English counties +where it would perhaps be said of such a woman that she was one in a +thousand; but the Devonians are a comely race. In that blessed county +the prettiest peasants are not all diligently gathered with the dew +on them and sent away to supply the London flower-market. Among +the best-looking women of the peasant class there are two distinct +types--the rich in colour and the colourless. A majority are perhaps +intermediate, but the two extreme types may be found in any village or +hamlet; and when seen side by side--the lily and the rose, not to say +the peony--they offer a strange and beautiful contrast. + +This woman, in spite of the burning climate, was white as any pale town +lady; and although she was the mother of several children, the face was +extremely youthful in appearance; it seemed indeed almost girlish in its +delicacy and innocent expression when she looked up at me with her blue +eyes shaded by her white sun-bonnet. The children were five or six in +number, ranging from a boy of ten to a baby in her arms--all clean and +healthy looking, with bright, fun-loving faces. + +I mentioned that I was on my way to Branscombe, and inquired the +distance. + +"Branscomb--are you going there? Oh, I wonder what you will think of +Branscombe!" she exclaimed, her white cheeks flushing, her innocent eyes +sparkling with excitement. + +What was Branscombe to her, I returned with indifference; and what did +it matter what any stranger thought of it? + +"But it is my home!" she answered, looking hurt at my careless words. "I +was born there, and married there, and have always lived at Branscombe +with my people until my husband got work in this place; then we had to +leave home and come and live in this cottage." + +And as I began to show interest she went on to tell me that Branscombe +was, oh, such a dear, queer, funny old place! That she had been to other +villages and towns--Axmouth, and Seaton, and Beer, and to Salcombe Regis +and Sidmouth, and once to Exeter; but never, never had she seen a place +like Branscombe--not one that she liked half so well. How strange that I +had never been there--had never even heard of it! People that went +there sometimes laughed at it at first, because it was such a funny, +tumbledown old place; but they always said afterwards that there was no +sweeter spot on the earth. + +Her enthusiasm was very delightful; and, when baby cried, in the +excitement of talk she opened her breast and fed it before me. A pretty +sight! But for the pure white, blue-veined skin she might have been +taken for a woman of Spain--the most natural, perhaps the most lovable, +of the daughters of earth. But all at once she remembered that I was a +stranger, and with a blush turned aside and covered her fair skin. Her +shame, too, like her first simple unconscious action, was natural; for +we live in a cooler climate, and are accustomed to more clothing than +the Spanish; and our closer covering "has entered the soul," as the +late Professor Kitchen Parker would have said; and that which was only +becoming modesty in the English woman would in the Spanish seem rank +prudishness. + +In the afternoon I came to a slender stream, clear and swift, running +between the hills that rose, round and large and high, on either hand, +like vast downs, some grassy, others wooded. This was the Branscombe, +and, following it, I came to the village; then, for a short mile my way +ran by a winding path with the babbling stream below me on one side, +and on the other the widely separated groups and little rows of thatched +cottages. + +Finally, I came to the last and largest group of all, the end of the +village nearest to the sea, within ten minutes' walk of the shingly +beach. Here I was glad to rest. Above, on the giant downs, were stony +waste places, and heather and gorse, where the rabbits live, and had for +neighbours the adder, linnet, and wheatear, and the small grey titlark +that soared up and dropped back to earth all day to his tinkling little +tune. On the summit of the cliff I had everything I wanted and had come +to seek--the wildness and freedom of untilled earth; an unobstructed +prospect, hills beyond hills of malachite, stretching away along the +coast into infinitude, long leagues of red sea-wall and the wide expanse +and everlasting freshness of ocean. And the village itself, the little +old straggling place that had so grand a setting, I quickly found +that the woman in the cottage had not succeeded in giving me a false +impression of her dear home. It was just such a quaint unimproved, +old-world, restful place as she had painted. It was surprising to find +that there were many visitors, and one wondered where they could all +stow themselves. The explanation was that those who visited Branscombe +knew it, and preferred its hovels to the palaces of the fashionable +seaside town. No cottage was too mean to have its guest. I saw a lady +push open the cracked and warped door of an old barn and go in, pulling +the door to after her--it was her bed-sitting-room. I watched a party +of pretty merry girls marching, single file, down a narrow path past a +pig-sty, then climb up a ladder to the window of a loft at the back of a +stone cottage and disappear within. It was their bedroom. The relations +between the villagers and their visitors were more intimate and kind +than is usual. They lived more together, and were more free and easy in +company. The men were mostly farm labourers, and after their day's work +they would sit out-of-doors on the ground to smoke their pipes; and +where the narrow crooked little street was narrowest--at my end of the +village--when two men would sit opposite each other, each at his own +door, with legs stretched out before them, their boots would very nearly +touch in the middle of the road. When walking one had to step over +their legs; or, if socially inclined, one could stand by and join in the +conversation. When daylight faded the village was very dark--no lamp +for the visitors--and very silent, only the low murmur of the sea on the +shingle was audible, and the gurgling sound of a swift streamlet flowing +from the hill above and hurrying through the village to mingle with the +Branscombe lower down in the meadows. Such a profound darkness and quiet +one expects in an inland agricultural village; here, where there +were visitors from many distant towns, it was novel and infinitely +refreshing. + +No sooner was it dark than all were in bed and asleep; not one square +path of yellow light was visible. To enjoy the sensation I went out and +sat down, and listened alone to the liquid rippling, warbling sound of +the swift-flowing streamlet--that sweet low music of running water to +which the reed-warbler had listened thousands of years ago, striving to +imitate it, until his running rippling song was perfect. + +A fresh surprise and pleasure awaited me when I explored the coast east +of the village; it was bold and precipitous in places, and from the +summit of the cliff a very fine view of the coast-line on either hand +could be obtained. Best of all, the face of the cliff itself was the +breeding-place of some hundreds of herring-gulls. The eggs at the period +of my visit were not yet hatched, but highly incubated, and at that +stage both parents are almost constantly at home, as if in a state of +anxious suspense. I had seen a good many colonies of this gull before at +various breeding stations on the coast--south, west, and east--but never +in conditions so singularly favourable as at this spot. From the vale +where the Branscombe pours its clear waters through rough masses of +shingle into the sea the ground to the east rises steeply to a height of +nearly five hundred feet; the cliff is thus not nearly so high as many +another, but it has features of peculiar interest. Here, in some former +time, there has been a landslip, a large portion of the cliff at its +highest part falling below and forming a sloping mass a chalky soil +mingled with huge fragments of rock, which lies like a buttress against +the vertical precipice and seems to lend it support. The fall must have +occurred a very long time back, as the vegetation that overspreads the +rude slope--hawthorn, furze, and ivy--has an ancient look. Here are huge +masses of rock standing isolated, that resemble in their forms ruined +castles, towers, and churches, some of them completely overgrown with +ivy. On this rough slope, under the shelter of the cliff, with the sea +at its feet, the villagers have formed their cultivated patches. The +patches, wildly irregular in form, some on such steeply sloping ground +as to suggest the idea that they must have been cultivated on all +fours, are divided from each other by ridges and by masses of rock, deep +fissures in the earth, strips of bramble and thorn and furze bushes. +Altogether the effect was very singular the huge rough mass of jumbled +rock and soil, the ruin wrought by Nature in one of her Cromwellian +moods, and, scattered irregularly about its surface, the plots or +patches of cultivated smoothness--potato rows, green parallel +lines ruled on a grey ground, and big, blue-green, equidistant +cabbage-globes--each plot with its fringe of spike-like onion leaves, +crinkled parsley, and other garden herbs. Here the villagers came by a +narrow, steep, and difficult path they had made, to dig in their plots; +while, overhead, the gulls, careless of their presence, pass and repass +wholly occupied with their own affairs. + +I spent hours of rare happiness at this spot in watching the birds. +I could not have seen and heard them to such advantage if their +breeding-place had been shared with other species. Here the +herring-gulls had the rock to themselves, and looked their best in their +foam-white and pearl-grey plumage and yellow legs and beaks. While I +watched them they watched me; not gathered in groups, but singly or in +pairs, scattered up and down all over the face of the precipice above +me, perched on ledges and on jutting pieces of rock. Standing motionless +thus, beautiful in form and colour, they looked like sculptured figures +of gulls, set up on the projections against the rough dark wall of +rock, just as sculptured figures of angels and saintly men and women +are placed in niches on a cathedral front. At first they appeared quite +indifferent to my presence, although in some instances near enough +for their yellow irides to be visible. While unalarmed they were very +silent, standing in that clear sunshine that gave their whiteness +something of a crystalline appearance; or flying to and fro along the +face of the cliff, purely for the delight of bathing in the warm lucent +air. Gradually a change came over them. One by one those that were on +the wing dropped on to some projection, until they had all settled down, +and, letting my eyes range up and down over the huge wall of rock, it +was plain to see that all the birds were watching me. They had made the +discovery that I was a stranger. In my rough old travel-stained clothes +and tweed hat I might have passed for a Branscombe villager, but I +did no hoeing and digging in one of the cultivated patches; and when +I deliberately sat down on a rock to watch them, they noticed it and +became suspicious; and as time went on and I still remained immovable, +with my eyes fixed on them, the suspicion and anxiety increased and +turned to fear; and those that were sitting on their nests got up and +came close to the edge of the rock, to gaze with the others and join in +the loud chorus of alarm. It was a wonderful sound. Not like the tempest +of noise that may be heard at the breeding-season at Lundy Island, and +at many other stations where birds of several species mix their various +voices--the yammeris and the yowlis, and skrykking, screeking, skrymming +scowlis, and meickle moyes and shoutes, of old Dunbar's wonderful +onomatopoetic lines. Here there was only one species, with a clear +resonant cry, and as every bird uttered that one cry, and no other, +a totally different effect was produced. The herring-gull and lesser +black-backed gull resemble each other in language as they do in general +appearance; both have very powerful and clear voices unlike the guttural +black-headed and common gull. But the herring-gull has a shriller, more +piercing voice, and resembles the black-backed species just as, in human +voices, a boy's clear treble resembles a baritone. Both birds have a +variety of notes; and both, when the nest is threatened with danger, +utter one powerful importunate cry, which is repeated incessantly until +the danger is over. And as the birds breed in communities, often very +populous, and all clamour together, the effect of so many powerful and +unisonant voices is very grand; but it differs in the two species, +owing to the quality of their voices being different; the storm of +sound produced by the black-backs is deep and solemn, while that of the +herring-gulls has a ringing sharpness almost metallic. + +It is probable that in the case I am describing the effect of sharpness +and resonance was heightened by the position of the birds, perched +motionless, scattered about on the face of the perpendicular wall of +rock, all with their beaks turned in my direction, raining their cries +upon me. It was not a monotonous storm of cries, but rose and fell; for +after two or three minutes the excitement would abate somewhat and the +cries grow fewer and fewer; then the infection would spread again, bird +after bird joining the outcry; and after a while there would be another +lull, and so on, wave following wave of sound. I could have spent hours, +and the hours would have seemed like minutes, listening to that strange +chorus of ringing chiming cries, so novel was its effect, and unlike +that of any other tempest of sound produced by birds which I had ever +heard. When by way of a parting caress and benediction (given and +received) I dipped my hands in Branscombe's clear streamlet it was with +a feeling of tender regret that was almost a pain. For who does not make +a little inward moan, an Eve's Lamentation, an unworded, "Must I leave +thee, Paradise?" on quitting any such sweet restful spot, however brief +his stay in it may have been? But when I had climbed to the summit of +the great down on the east side of the valley and looked on the wide +land and wider sea flashed with the early sunlight I rejoiced full of +glory at my freedom. For invariably when the peculiar character and +charm of a place steals over and takes possession of me I begin to fear +it, knowing from long experience that it will be a painful wrench to get +away and that get away sooner or later I must. Now I was free once more, +a wanderer with no ties, no business to transact in any town, no worries +to make me miserable like others, nothing to gain and nothing to lose. + +Pausing on the summit to consider which way I should go, inland, towards +Axminister, or along the coast by Beer, Seton, Axmouth, and so on to +Lyme Regis, I turned to have a last look and say a last good-bye to +Branscombe and could hardly help waving my hand to it. + +Why, I asked myself, am I not a poet, or verse-maker, so as to say my +farewell in numbers? My answer was, Because I am too much occupied in +seeing. There is no room and time for 'tranquillity,' since I want to go +on to see something else. As Blake has it: "Natural objects always did +and do, weaken, deaden and obliterate imagination in me." + +We know however that they didn't quite quench it in him. + + + + +Chapter Nineteen: Abbotsbury + + +Abbotsbury is an old unspoilt village, not on but near the sea, divided +from it by half a mile of meadowland where all sorts of meadow and water +plants flourish, and where there are extensive reed and osier beds, +the roosting-place in autumn and winter of innumerable starlings. I +am always delighted to come on one of these places where starlings +congregate, to watch them coming in at day's decline and listen to their +marvellous hubbub, and finally to see their aerial evolutions when they +rise and break up in great bodies and play at clouds in the sky. When +the people of the place, the squire and keepers and others who have an +interest in the reeds and osiers, fall to abusing them on account of the +damage they do, I put my fingers in my ears. But at Abbotsbury I did not +do so, but listened with keen pleasure to the curses they vented and the +story they told. This was that when the owner of Abbotsbury came down +for the October shooting and found the starlings more numerous than +ever, he put himself into a fine passion and reproached his keepers and +other servants for not having got rid of the birds as he had desired +them to do. Some of them ventured to say that it was easier said than +done, whereupon the great man swore that he would do it himself without +assistance from any one, and getting out a big duck-gun he proceeded +to load it with the smallest shot and went down to the reed bed and +concealed himself among the bushes at a suitable distance. The birds +were pouring in, and when it was growing dark and they had settled down +for the night he fired his big piece into the thick of the crowd, and by +and by when the birds after wheeling about for a minute or two settled +down again in the same place he fired again. Then he went home, and +early next morning men and boys went into the reeds and gathered +a bushel or so of dead starlings. But the birds returned in their +thousands that evening, and his heart being still hot against them he +went out a second time to slaughter them wholesale with his big gun. +Then when he had blazed into the crowd once more, and the dead and +wounded fell like rain into the water below, the revulsion came and he +was mad with himself for having done such a thing, and on his return to +the house, or palace, he angrily told his people to "let the starlings +alone" for the future--never to molest them again! + +I thought it one of the loveliest stories I had ever heard; there is no +hardness comparable to that of the sportsman, yet here was one, a very +monarch among them, who turned sick at his own barbarity and repented. + +Beyond the flowery wet meadows, favored by starlings and a +breeding-place of swans, is the famous Chesil Bank, one of the seven +wonders of Britain. And thanks to this great bank, a screen between sea +and land extending about fourteen miles eastward from Portland, this +part of the coast must remain inviolate from the speculative builder of +seaside holiday resorts or towns of lodging-houses. + +Every one has heard of the Fleet in connection with the famous swannery +of Abbotsbury, the largest in the land. I had heard so much about the +swannery that it had but little interest for me. The only thing about +it which specially attracted my attention was seeing a swan rise up and +after passing over my head as I stood on the bank fly straight out over +the sea. I watched him until he had diminished to a small white spot +above the horizon, and then still flying he faded from sight. Do these +swans that fly away over the sea, and others which appear in small +flocks or pairs at Poole Harbour and at other places on the coast, +ever return to the Fleet? Probably some do, but, I fancy some of these +explorers must settle down in waters far from home, to return no more. + +The village itself, looked upon from this same elevation, is very +attractive. Life seems quieter, more peaceful there out of sight of the +ocean's turbulence, out of hearing of its "accents disconsolate." The +cottages are seen ranged in a double line along the narrow crooked +street, like a procession of cows with a few laggards scattered behind +the main body. One is impressed by its ancient character. The cottages +are old, stone-built and thatched; older still is the church with +its grey square tower, and all about are scattered the memorials of +antiquity--the chantry on the hill, standing conspicuous alone, apart, +above the world; the vast old abbey barn, and, rough thick stone walls, +ivy-draped and crowned with beautiful valerian, and other fragments that +were once parts of a great religious house. + +Looking back at the great round hill from the village it is impossible +not to notice the intense red colour of the road that winds over its +green slope. One sometimes sees on a hillside a ploughed field of +red earth which at a distance might easily be taken for a field of +blossoming trifolium. Viewed nearer the crimson of the clover and red of +the earth are very dissimilar; distance appears to intensify the red of +the soil and to soften that of the flower until they are very nearly +of the same hue. The road at Abbotsbury was near and looked to me more +intensely red than any ordinary red earth, and the sight was strangely +pleasing. These two complementary colours, red and green, delight us +most when seen thus--a little red to a good deal of green, and the more +luminous the red and vivid the green the better they please us. We see +this in flowers--in the red geranium, for example--where there is no +brown soil below, but green of turf or herbage. I sometimes think the +red campions and ragged-robins are our most beautiful wild flowers when +the sun shines level on the meadow and they are like crimson flowers +among the tall translucent grasses. I remember the joy it was in boyhood +in early spring when the flowers were beginning to bloom, when in our +gallops over the level grass pampas we came upon a patch of scarlet +verbenas. The first sight of the intense blooms scattered all about the +turf would make us wild with delight, and throwing ourselves from our +ponies we would go down among the flowers to feast on the sight. + +Green is universal, but the red earth which looks so pleasing amid the +green is distributed very partially, and it may be the redness of +the soil and the cliffs in Devon have given that county a more vivid +personality, so to speak, than most others. Think of Kent with its white +cliffs, chalk downs, and dull-coloured clays in this connection! + +The humble subterraneous mole proves himself on occasions a good +colourist when he finds a soil of the proper hue to burrow in, and the +hillocks he throws up from numberless irregular splashes of bright +red colour on a green sward. The wild animals that strike us as most +beautiful, when seen against a green background, are those which bear +the reddest fur--fox, squirrel, and red deer. One day, in a meadow a +few miles from Abbotsbury, I came upon a herd of about fifty milch cows +scattered over a considerable space of ground, some lying down, others +standing ruminating, and still others moving about and cropping the long +flowery grasses. All were of that fine rich red colour frequently seen +in Dorset and Devon cattle, which is brighter than the reds of other red +animals in this country, wild and domestic, with the sole exception of +a rare variety of the collie dog. The Irish setter and red chouchou come +near it. So beautiful did these red cows look in the meadow that I stood +still for half an hour feasting my eyes on the sight. + +No less was the pleasure I experienced when I caught sight of that road +winding over the hill above the village. On going to it I found that it +had looked as red as rust simply because it was rust-earth made rich +and beautiful in colour with iron, its red hue variegated with veins and +streaks of deep purple or violet. I was told that there were hundreds of +acres of this earth all round the place--earth so rich in iron that many +a man's mouth had watered at the sight of it; also that every effort had +been made to induce the owner of Abbotsbury to allow this rich mine to +be worked. But, wonderful to relate, he had not been persuaded. + +A hard fragment of the red stuff, measuring a couple of inches across +and weighing about three ounces avoirdupois, rust-red in colour with +purple streaks and yellow mottlings, is now lying before me. The +mineralogist would tell me that its commercial value is naught, or +something infinitesimal; which is doubtless true enough, as tens of +thousands of tons of the same material lie close to the surface under +the green turf and golden blossoming furze at the spot where I picked up +my specimen. The lapidary would not look at it; nevertheless, it is the +only article of jewellery I possess, and I value it accordingly. And +I intend to keep this native ruby by me for as long as the lords of +Abbotsbury continue in their present mind. The time may come when I +shall be obliged to throw it away. That any millionaire should hesitate +for a moment to blast and blacken any part of the earth's surface, +howsoever green and refreshing to the heart it may be, when by so doing +he might add to his income, seems like a fable, or a tale of fairyland. +It is as if one had accidentally discovered the existence of a little +fantastic realm, a survival from a remote past, almost at one's doors; +a small independent province, untouched by progress, asking to be +conquered and its antediluvian constitution taken from it. + +From the summit of that commanding hill, over which the red path winds, +a noble view presents itself of the Chesil Bank, or of about ten miles +of it, running straight as any Roman road, to end beneath the rugged +stupendous cliffs of Portland. The ocean itself, and not conquering +Rome, raised this artificial-looking wall or rampart to stay its own +proud waves. Formed of polished stones and pebbles, about two hundred +yards in width, flat-topped, with steeply sloping sides, at this +distance it has the appearance of a narrow yellow road or causeway +between the open sea on one hand and the waters of the Fleet, a narrow +lake ten miles long, on the other. + +When the mackerel visit the coast, and come near enough to be taken in +a draw-net, every villager who owns a share (usually a tenth) in a +fishing-boat throws down his spade or whatever implement he happens to +have in his hand at the moment, and hurries away to the beach to take +his share in the fascinating task. At four o'clock one morning a youth, +who had been down to the sea to watch, came running into the village +uttering loud cries which were like excited yells--a sound to rouse the +deepest sleeper. The mackerel had come! For the rest of the day there +was a pretty kind of straggling procession of those who went and came +between the beach and the village--men in blue cotton shirts, +blue jerseys, blue jackets, and women in grey gowns and big white +sun-bonnets. During the latter part of the day the proceedings were +peculiarly interesting to me, a looker-on with no share in any one of +the boats, owing to the catches being composed chiefly of jelly-fish. +Some sympathy was felt for the toilers who strained their muscles again +and again only to be mocked in the end; still, a draught of jelly-fish +was more to my taste than one of mackerel. The great weight of a catch +of this kind when the net was full was almost too much for the ten or +twelve men engaged in drawing it up; then (to the sound of deep curses +from those of the men who were not religious) the net would be opened +and the great crystalline hemispheres, hyaline blue and delicate +salmon-pink in colour, would slide back into the water. Such rare and +exquisite colours have these great glassy flowers of ocean that to see +them was a feast; and every time a net was hauled up my prayer--which I +was careful not to repeat aloud--was, Heaven send another big draught of +jelly-fish! + +The sun, sinking over the hills towards Swyre and Bridport, turned +crimson before it touched the horizon. The sky became luminous; the +yellow Chesil Bank, stretching long leagues away, and the hills behind +it, changed their colours to violet. The rough sea near the beach +glittered like gold; the deep green water, flecked with foam, was +mingled with fire; the one boat that remained on it, tossing up and down +near the beach, was like a boat of ebony in a glittering fiery sea. A +dozen men were drawing up the last net; but when they gathered round to +see what they had taken--mackerel or jelly-fish--I cared no longer to +look with them. That sudden, wonderful glory which had fallen on the +earth and sea had smitten me as well and changed me; and I was like some +needy homeless tramp who has found a shilling piece, and, even while +he is gloating over it, all at once sees a great treasure before +him--glittering gold in heaps, and all rarest sparkling gems, more than +he can gather up. + +But it is a poor simile. No treasures in gold and gems, though heaped +waist-high all about, could produce in the greediest man, hungry for +earthly pleasures, a delight, a rapture, equal to mine. For this joy was +of another and higher order and very rare, and was a sense of lightness +and freedom from all trammels as if the body had become air, essence, +energy, or soul, and of union with all visible nature, one with sea and +land and the entire vast overarching sky. + +We read of certain saints who were subject to experiences of this kind +that they were "snatched up" into some supramundane region, and that +they stated on their return to earth that it was not lawful for them +to speak of the things they had witnessed. The humble naturalist and +nature-worshipper can only witness the world glorified--transfigured; +what he finds is the important thing. I fancy the mystics would have +been nearer the mark if they had said that their experiences during +their period of exaltation could not be reported, or that it would be +idle to report them, since their questioners lived on the ground +and would be quite incapable on account of the mind's limitations of +conceiving a state above it and outside of its own experience. + +The glory passed and with it the exaltation: the earth and sea turned +grey; the last boat was drawn up on the slope and the men departed +slowly: only one remained, a rough-looking youth, about fifteen years +old. Some important matter which he was revolving in his mind had +detained him alone on the darkening beach. He sat down, then stood up +and gazed at the rolling wave after wave to roar and hiss on the shingle +at his feet; then he moved restlessly about, crunching pebbles beneath +his thick boots; finally, making up his mind, he took off his coat, +threw it down, and rolled up his shirt-sleeves, with the resolute air +of a man about to engage in a fight with an adversary nearly as big as +himself. Stepping back a little space, he made a rush at the sea, not +to cast himself in it, but only, as it turned out, with the object +of catching some water in the hollow of his hands from the top of an +incoming wave. He only succeeded in getting his legs wet, and in hastily +retreating he fell on his back. Nothing daunted, he got up and renewed +the assault, and when he succeeded in catching water in his hands +he dashed it on and vigorously rubbed it over his dirty face. After +repeating the operation about a dozen times, receiving meanwhile several +falls and wettings, he appeared satisfied, put on his coat and marched +away homewards with a composed air. + + + + +Chapter Twenty: Salisbury Revisited + + +Since that visit to Salisbury, described in a former chapter, when I +watched and listened to the doves in those cold days in early spring, I +have been there a good many times, but never at the time when the bird +colony is most interesting to observe, just before and during the early +part of the breeding-season. At length, in the early days of June, 1908, +the wished opportunity was mine--wished yet feared, seeing that it +was possible some disaster had fallen upon that unique colony of +stock-doves. It is true they appeared to be long established and well +able to maintain their foothold on the building in spite of malicious +persecuting daws, but there was nothing to show that they had been long +there, seeing that it had been observed by no person but myself that the +cathedral doves were stock-doves and not the domestic pigeon found on +other large buildings. Great was my happiness to find them still there, +as well as the daws and all the other feathered people who make this +great building their home; even the kestrels were not wanting. There +were three there one morning, quarrelling with the daws in the old way +in the old place, halfway up the soaring spire. The doves were somewhat +diminished in number, but there were a good many pairs still, and I +found no dead young ones lying about, as they were now probably grown +too large to be ejected, but several young daws, about a dozen I think, +fell to the ground during my stay. Undoubtedly they were dragged out +of their nests and thrown down, perhaps by daws at enmity with their +parents, or it may be by the doves, who are not meek-spirited, as we +have seen, or they would not be where they are, and may on occasion +retaliate by invading their black enemies' nesting-holes. + +Swallows, martins, and swifts were numerous, the martins especially, and +it was beautiful to see them for ever wheeling about in a loose swarm +about the building. They reminded me of bees and flies, and sometimes +with a strong light on them they were like those small polished black +and silvery-white beetles (Gyrinus) which we see in companies on the +surface of pools and streams, perpetually gliding and whirling about +in a sort of complicated dance. They looked very small at a height of a +couple of hundred feet from the ground, and their smallness and numbers +and lively and eccentric motions made them very insect-like. + +The starlings and sparrows were in a small minority among the breeders, +but including these there were seven species in all, and as far as I +could make out numbered about three hundred and fifty birds--probably +the largest wild bird colony on any building in England. + +Nor could birds in all this land find a more beautiful building to nest +on, unless I except Wells Cathedral solely on account of its west front, +beloved of daws, and where their numerous black company have so fine an +appearance. Wells has its west front; Salisbury, so vast in size, is yet +a marvel of beauty in its entirety; and seeing it as I now did every +day and wanting nothing better, I wondered at my want of enthusiasm on a +previous visit. Still, to me, the bird company, the sight of their airy +gambols and their various voices, from the deep human-like dove tone +to the perpetual subdued rippling, running-water sound of the aerial +martins, must always be a principal element in the beautiful effect. +Nor do I know a building where Nature has done more in enhancing the +loveliness of man's work with her added colouring. The way too in which +the colours are distributed is an example of Nature's most perfect +artistry; on the lower, heavier buttressed parts, where the darkest hues +should be, we find the browns and rust-reds of the minute aerial alga, +mixed with the greys of lichen, these darker stainings extending upwards +to a height of fifty or sixty feet, in places higher, then giving place +to more delicate hues, the pale tender greens and greenish greys, in +places tinged with yellow, the colours always appearing brightest on +the smooth surface between the windows and sculptured parts. The effect +depends a good deal on atmosphere and weather: on a day of flying clouds +and a blue sky, with a brilliant sunshine on the vast building after a +shower, the colouring is most beautiful. It varies more than in the +case of colour in the material itself or of pigments, because it is a +"living" colour, as Crabbe rightly says in his lumbering verse: + + The living stains, which Nature's hand alone, + Profuse of life, pours out upon the stone. + +Greys, greens, yellows, and browns and rust-reds are but the colours of +a variety of lowly vegetable forms, mostly lichens and the aerial alga +called iolithus. + +Without this colouring, its "living stains," Salisbury would not have +fascinated me as it did during this last visit. It would have left me +cold though all the architects and artists had assured me that it was +the most perfectly beautiful building on earth. + +I also found an increasing charm in the interior, and made the discovery +that I could go oftener and spend more hours in this cathedral without +a sense of fatigue or depression than in any other one known to me, +because it has less of that peculiar character which we look for and +almost invariably find in our cathedrals. It has not the rich sombre +majesty, the dim religious light and heavy vault-like atmosphere of the +other great fanes. So airy and light is it that it is almost like being +out of doors. You do not experience that instantaneous change, as of a +curtain being drawn excluding the light and air of day and of being +shut in, which you have on entering other religious houses. This is due, +first, to the vast size of the interior, the immense length of the nave, +and the unobstructed view one has inside owing to the removal by the +"vandal" Wyatt of the old ponderous stone screen--an act for which I +bless while all others curse his memory; secondly, to the comparatively +small amount of stained glass there is to intercept the light. So +graceful and beautiful is the interior that it can bear the light, and +light suits it best, just as a twilight best suits Exeter and Winchester +and other cathedrals with heavy sculptured roofs. One marvels at a +building so vast in size which yet produces the effect of a palace +in fairyland, or of a cathedral not built with hands but brought into +existence by a miracle. + +I began to think it not safe to stay in that place too long lest it +should compel me to stay there always or cause me to feel dissatisfied +and homesick when away. + +But the interior of itself would never have won me, as I had not +expected to be won by any building made by man; and from the inside I +would pass out only to find a fresh charm in that part where Nature had +come more to man's aid. + +Walking on the cathedral green one morning, glancing from time to time +at the vast building and its various delicate shades of colour, I asked +myself why I kept my eyes as if on purpose away from it most of the +time, now on the trees, then on the turf, and again on some one walking +there--why, in fact, I allowed myself only an occasional glance at the +object I was there solely to look at. I knew well enough, but had never +put it into plain words for my own satisfaction. + +We are all pretty familiar from experience with the limitations of +the sense of smell and the fact that agreeable odours please us only +fitfully; the sensation comes as a pleasing shock, a surprise, and is +quickly gone. If we attempt to keep it for some time by deliberately +smelling a fragrant flower or any perfume, we begin to have a sense of +failure as if we had exhausted the sense, keen as it was a moment ago. + +There must be an interval of rest for the nerve before the sensation can +be renewed in its first freshness. Now it is the same, though in a +less degree, with the more important sense of sight. We look long and +steadily at a thing to know it, and the longer and more fixedly we look +the better, if it engages the reasoning faculties; but an aesthetic +pleasure cannot be increased or retained in that way. We must look, +merely glancing as it were, and look again, and then again, with +intervals, receiving the image in the brain even as we receive the +"nimble emanation" of a flower, and the image is all the brighter for +coming intermittently. In a large prospect we are not conscious of +this limitation because of the wideness of the field and the number and +variety of objects or points of interest in it; the vision roams hither +and thither over it and receives a continuous stream or series of +pleasing impressions; but to gaze fixedly at the most beautiful object +in nature or art does but diminish the pleasure. Practically it ceases +to be beautiful and only recovers the first effect after we have given +the mind an interval of rest. + +Strolling about the green with this thought in my mind, I began to pay +attention to the movements of a man who was manifestly there with the +same object as myself--to look at the cathedral. I had seen him there +for quite half an hour, and now began to be amused at the emphatic +manner in which he displayed his interest in the building. He walked +up and down the entire length and would then back away a distance of +a hundred yards from the walls and stare up at the spire, then slowly +approach, still gazing up, until coming to a stop when quite near the +wall he would remain with his eyes still fixed aloft, the back of his +head almost resting on his back between his shoulders. His hat somehow +kept on his head, but his attitude reminded me of a saying of the Arabs +who, to give an idea of the height of a great rock or other tall object, +say that to look up at it causes your turban to fall off. The Americans, +when they were chewers of tobacco, had a different expression; they said +that to look up at so tall a thing caused the tobacco juice to run down +your throat. + +His appearance when I approached him interested me too. His skin was +the color of old brown leather and he had a big arched nose, clear light +blue very shrewd eyes, and a big fringe or hedge of ragged white beard +under his chin; and he was dressed in a new suit of rough dark brown +tweeds, evidently home-made. When I spoke to him, saying something about +the cathedral, he joyfully responded in broadest Scotch. It was, he +said, the first English cathedral he had ever seen and he had never seen +anything made by man to equal it in beauty. He had come, he told me, +straight from his home and birthplace, a small village in the north of +Scotland, shut out from the world by great hills where the heather grew +knee-deep. He had never been in England before, and had come directly to +Salisbury on a visit to a relation. + +"Well," I said, "now you have looked at it outside come in with me and +see the interior." + +But he refused: it was enough for one day to see the outside of such a +building: he wanted no more just then. To-morrow would be soon enough +to see it inside; it would be the Sabbath and he would go and worship +there. + +"Are you an Anglican?" I asked. + +He replied that there were no Anglicans in his village. They had two +Churches--the Church of Scotland and the Free Church. + +"And what," said I, "will your minister say to your going to worship in +a cathedral? We have all denominations here in Salisbury, and you will +perhaps find a Presbyterian place to worship in." + +"Now it's strange your saying that!" he returned, with a dry little +laugh. "I've just had a letter from him the morning and he writes on +this varra subject. 'Let me advise you,' he tells me in the letter, 'to +attend the service in Salisbury Cathedral. Nae doot,' he says, 'there +are many things in it you'll disapprove of, but not everything perhaps, +and I'd like ye to go.'" + +I was a little sorry for him next day when we had an ordination service, +very long, complicated, and, I should imagine, exceedingly difficult to +follow by a wild Presbyterian from the hills. He probably disapproved of +most of it, but I greatly admired him for refusing to see anything +more of the cathedral than the outside on the first day. His method was +better than that of an American (from Indiana, he told me) I met the +following day at the hotel. He gave two hours and a half, including +attendance at the morning service, to the cathedral, inside and out, +then rushed off for an hour at Stonehenge, fourteen miles away, on a +hired bicycle. I advised him to take another day--I did not want to +frighten him by saying a week--and he replied that that would make him +miss Winchester. After cycling back from Stonehenge he would catch a +train to Winchester and get there in time to have some minutes in the +cathedral before the doors closed. He was due in London next morning. +He had already missed Durham Cathedral in the north through getting +interested in and wasting too much time over some place when he was +going there. Again, he had missed Exeter Cathedral in the south, and it +would be a little too bad to miss Winchester too! + + + + +Chapter Twenty-One: Stonehenge + + +That American from Indiana! As it was market day at Salisbury I asked +him before we parted if he had seen the market, also if they had market +days in the country towns in his State? He said he had looked in at the +market on his way back from the cathedral. No, they had nothing of the +kind in his State. Indiana was covered with a network of railroads and +electric tram lines, and all country produce, down to the last new-laid +egg, was collected and sent off and conveyed each morning to the towns, +where it was always market day. + +How sad! thought I. Poor Indiana, that once had wildness and romance +and memories of a vanished race, and has now only its pretty meaningless +name! + +"I suppose," he said, before getting on his bicycle, "there's nothing +beside the cathedral and Stonehenge to see in Wiltshire?" + +"No, nothing," I returned, "and you'll think the time wasted in seeing +Stonehenge." + +"Why?" + +"Only a few old stones to see." + +But he went, and I have no doubt did think the time wasted, but it would +be some consolation to him, on the other side, to be able to say that he +had seen it with his own eyes. + +How did these same "few old stones" strike me on a first visit? It was +one of the greatest disillusionments I ever experienced. Stonehenge +looked small--pitiably small! For it is a fact that mere size is very +much to us, in spite of all the teachings of science. We have heard of +Stonehenge in our childhood or boyhood--that great building of unknown +origin and antiquity, its circles of stones, some still standing, others +lying prostrate, like the stupendous half-shattered skeleton of a giant +or monster whose stature reached to the clouds. It stands, we read or +were told, on Salisbury Plain. To my uninformed, childish mind a plain +anywhere was like the plain on which I was born--an absolutely level +area stretching away on all sides into infinitude; and although the +effect is of a great extent of earth, we know that we actually see +very little of it, that standing on a level plain we have a very near +horizon. On this account any large object appearing on it, such as a +horse or tree or a big animal, looks very much bigger than it would on +land with a broken surface. + +Oddly enough, my impossible Stonehenge was derived from a sober +description and an accompanying plate in a sober work--a gigantic folio +in two volumes entitled "A New System of Geography", dated some time in +the eighteenth century. How this ponderous work ever came to be out on +the pampas, over six thousand miles from the land of its origin, is +a thing to wonder at. I remember that the Stonehenge plate greatly +impressed me and that I sacrilegiously cut it out of the book so as to +have it! + +Now we know, our reason tells us continually, that the mental pictures +formed in childhood are false because the child and man have different +standards, and furthermore the child mind exaggerates everything; +nevertheless, such pictures persist until the scene or object so +visualized is actually looked upon and the old image shattered. This +refers to scenes visualized with the inner eye, but the disillusion is +almost as great when we return to a home left in childhood or boyhood +and look on it once more with the man's eyes. How small it is! How +diminished the hills, and the trees that grew to such a vast height, +whose tops once seemed "so close against the sky"--what poor little +trees they now are! And the house itself, how low it is; and the rooms +that seemed so wide and lofty, where our footfalls and childish voices +sounded as in some vast hall, how little and how mean they look! + + Children, they are very little, + +the poet says, and they measure things by their size; but it seems odd +that unless we grow up amid the scenes where our first impressions +were received they should remain unaltered in the adult mind. The most +amusing instance of a false picture of something seen in childhood and +continuing through life I have met was that of an Italian peasant I knew +in South America. He liked to talk to me about the cranes, those great +and wonderful birds he had become acquainted with in childhood in his +home on the plains of Lombardy. The birds, of course, only appeared in +autumn and spring when migrating, and passed over at a vast height above +the earth. These birds, he said, were so big and had such great wings +that if they came down on the flat earth they would be incapable of +rising, hence they only alighted on the tops of high mountains, and as +there was nothing for them to eat in such places, it being naked rock +and ice, they were compelled to subsist on each other's droppings. Now +it came to pass that one year during his childhood a crane, owing +to some accident, came down to the ground near his home. The whole +population of the village turned out to see so wonderful a bird, and +were amazed at its size; it was, he said, the strangest sight he +had ever looked on. How big was it? I asked him; was it as big as an +ostrich? An ostrich, he said, was nothing to it; I might as well ask +him how it compared with a lapwing. He could give me no measurements: +it happened when he was a child; he had forgotten the exact size, but he +had seen it with his own eyes and he could see it now in his mind--the +biggest bird in the world. Very well, I said, if he could see it plainly +in his mind he could give some rough idea of the wing-spread--how +much would it measure from tip to tip? He said it was perhaps fifty +yards--perhaps a good deal more! + +A similar trick was played by my mind about Stonehenge. As a child I had +stood in imagination before it, gazing up awestruck on those stupendous +stones or climbing and crawling like a small beetle on them. And what at +last did I see with my physical eyes? Walking over the downs, miscalled +a plain, anticipating something tremendous, I finally got away from the +woods at Amesbury and spied the thing I sought before me far away on +the slope of a green down, and stood still and then sat down in pure +astonishment. Was this Stonehenge--this cluster of poor little grey +stones, looking in the distance like a small flock of sheep or goats +grazing on that immense down! How incredibly insignificant it appeared +to me, dwarfed by its surroundings--woods and groves and farmhouses, and +by the vast extent of rolling down country visible at that point. It was +only when I had recovered from the first shock, when I had got to +the very place and stood among the stones, that I began to experience +something of the feeling appropriate to the occasion. + +The feeling, however, must have been very slight, since it permitted +me to become interested in the appearance and actions of a few sparrows +inhabiting the temple. The common sparrow is parasitical on man, +consequently but rarely found at any distance from human habitations, +and it seemed a little strange to find them at home at Stonehenge on the +open plain. They were very active carrying up straws and feathers to the +crevices on the trioliths where the massive imposts rest on the upright +stones. I noticed the birds because of their bright appearance: they +were lighter coloured than any sparrows I have ever seen, and one cock +bird when flying to and fro in the sunlight looked almost white. I +formed the idea that this small colony of about a dozen birds had been +long established at that place, and that the change in their colouring +was a direct result of the unusual conditions in which they existed, +where there was no shade and shelter of trees and bushes, and they were +perpetually exposed for generations to the full light of the wide open +sky. + +On revisiting Stonehenge after an interval of some years I looked for +my sparrows and failed to find them. It was at the breeding-season, when +they would have been there had they still existed. No doubt the little +colony had been extirpated by a sparrow-hawk or by the human guardians +of "The Stones," as the temple is called by the natives. + +It remains to tell of my latest visit to "The Stones." I had resolved to +go once in my life with the current or crowd to see the sun rise on the +morning of the longest day at that place. This custom or fashion is a +declining one: ten or twelve years ago, as many as one or two thousand +persons would assemble during the night to wait the great event, but the +watchers have now diminished to a few hundreds, and on some years to +a few scores. The fashion, no doubt, had its origin when Sir Norman +Lockyer's theories, about Stonehenge as a Sun Temple placed so that +the first rays of sun on the longest day of the year should fall on the +centre of the so-called altar or sacrificial stone placed in the middle +of the circle, began to be noised about the country, and accepted by +every one as the true reading of an ancient riddle. But I gather from +natives in the district that it is an old custom for people to go and +watch for sunrise on the morning of June 21. A dozen or a score of +natives, mostly old shepherds and labourers who lived near, would go +and sit there for a few hours and after sunrise would trudge home, but +whether or not there is any tradition or belief associated with the +custom I have not ascertained. "How long has the custom existed?" I +asked a field labourer. "From the time of the old people--the Druids," +he answered, and I gave it up. + +To be near the spot I went to stay at Shrewton, a downland village +four miles from "The Stones"; or rather a group of five pretty little +villages, almost touching but distinct, like five flowers or five +berries on a single stem, each with its own old church and individual +or parish life. It is a pretty tree-shaded place, full of the crooning +sound of turtle-doves, hidden among the wide silent open downs and +watered by a clear swift stream, or winter bourne, which dries up during +the heats of late summer, and flows again after the autumn rains, "when +the springs rise" in the chalk hills. While here, I rambled on the downs +and haunted "The Stones." The road from Shrewton to Amesbury, a straight +white band lying across a green country, passes within a few yards +of Stonehenge: on the right side of this narrow line the land is all +private property, but on the left side and as far as one can see it +mostly belongs to the War Office and is dotted over with camps. I +roamed about freely enough on both sides, sometimes spending hours at +a stretch, not only on Government land but "within bounds," for the +pleasure of spying on the military from a hiding-place in some pine +grove or furze patch. I was seldom challenged, and the sentinels I came +across were very mild-mannered men; they never ordered me away; they +only said, or hinted, that the place I was in was not supposed to be +free to the public. + +I come across many persons who lament the recent great change on +Salisbury Plain. It is hateful to them; the sight of the camp and troops +marching and drilling, of men in khaki scattered about everywhere over +a hundred square leagues of plain; the smoke of firing and everlasting +booming of guns. It is a desecration; the wild ancient charm of the land +has been destroyed in their case, and it saddens and angers them. I was +pretty free from these uncomfortable feelings. + +It is said that one of the notions the Japanese have about the fox--a +semi-sacred animal with them--is that, if you chance to see one crossing +your path in the morning, all that comes before your vision on that day +will be illusion. As an illustration of this belief it is related that +a Japanese who witnessed the eruption of Krakatoa, when the heavens were +covered with blackness and kindled with intermitting flashes and the +earth shaken by the detonations, and when all others, thinking the +end of the world had come, were swooning with extreme fear, viewed it +without a tremor as a very sublime but illusory spectacle. For on that +very morning he had seen a fox cross his path. + +A somewhat similar effect is produced on our minds if we have what +may be called a sense of historical time--a consciousness of the +transitoriness of most things human--if we see institutions and works +as the branches on a pine or larch, which fail and die and fall away +successively while the tree itself lives for ever, and if we measure +their duration not by our own few swift years, but by the life +of nations and races of men. It is, I imagine, a sense capable of +cultivation, and enables us to look upon many of man's doings that would +otherwise vex and pain us, and, as some say, destroy all the pleasure +of our lives, not exactly as an illusion, as if we were Japanese and +had seen a fox in the morning, but at all events in what we call a +philosophic spirit. + +What troubled me most was the consideration of the effect of the new +conditions on the wild life of the plain--or of a very large portion +of it. I knew of this before, but it was nevertheless exceedingly +unpleasant when I came to witness it myself when I took to spying on +the military as an amusement during my idle time. Here we have tens of +thousands of very young men, boys in mind, the best fed, healthiest, +happiest crowd of boys in all the land, living in a pure bracing +atmosphere, far removed from towns, and their amusements and +temptations, all mad for pleasure and excitement of some kind to fill +their vacant hours each day and their holidays. Naturally they take to +birds'-nesting and to hunting every living thing they encounter during +their walks on the downs. Every wild thing runs and flies from them, and +is chased or stoned, the weak-winged young are captured, and the nests +picked or kicked up out of the turf. In this way the creatures are being +extirpated, and one can foresee that when hares and rabbits are no +more, and even the small birds of the plain, larks, pipits, wheatears, +stonechats, and whincats, have vanished, the hunters in khaki will take +to the chase of yet smaller creatures--crane-flies and butterflies and +dragon-flies, and even the fantastic, elusive hover-flies which the +hunters of little game will perhaps think the most entertaining fly of +all. + +But it would be idle to grieve much at this small incidental and +inevitable result of making use of the plain as a military camp and +training-ground. The old god of war is not yet dead and rotting on his +iron hills; he is on the chalk hills with us just now, walking on the +elastic turf, and one is glad to mark in his brown skin and sparkling +eyes how thoroughly alive he is. + +A little after midnight on the morning of June 21, 1908, a Shrewton +cock began to crow, and that trumpet sound, which I never hear without a +stirring of the blood, on account of old associations, informed me that +the late moon had risen or was about to rise, linking the midsummer +evening and morning twilights, and I set off to Stonehenge. It was a +fine still night, without a cloud in the pale, dusky blue sky, thinly +sprinkled with stars, and the crescent moon coming up above the horizon. +After the cock ceased crowing a tawny owl began to hoot, and the long +tremulous mellow sound followed me for some distance from the village, +and then there was perfect silence, broken occasionally by the tinkling +bells of a little company of cyclists speeding past towards "The +Stones." I was in no hurry: I only wished I had started sooner to enjoy +Salisbury Plain at its best time, when all the things which offend the +lover of nature are invisible and nonexistent. Later, when the first +light began to appear in the east before two o'clock, it was no false +dawn, but insensibly grew brighter and spread further, until touches +of colour, very delicate, palest amber, then tender yellow and rose +and purple, began to show. I felt then as we invariably feel on such +occasions, when some special motive has called us forth in time to +witness this heavenly change, as of a new creation-- + + The miracle of diuturnity + Whose instancy unbeds the lark, + +that all the days of my life on which I had not witnessed it were wasted +days! + +O that unbedding of the lark! The world that was so still before now all +at once had a sound; not a single song and not in one place, but a sound +composed of a thousand individual sounds, rising out of the dark earth +at a distance on my right hand and up into the dusky sky, spreading far +and wide even as the light was spreading on the opposite side of the +heavens--a sound as of multitudinous twanging, girding, and clashing +instruments, mingled with shrill piercing voices that were not like +the voices of earthly beings. They were not human nor angelic, but +passionless, and it was as if the whole visible world, the dim grassy +plain and the vast pale sky sprinkled with paling stars, moonlit and +dawnlit, had found a voice to express the mystery and glory of the +morning. + +It was but eight minutes past two o'clock when this "unbedding of the +lark" began, and the heavenly music lasted about fourteen minutes, then +died down to silence, to recommence about half an hour later. At first I +wondered why the sound was at a distance from the road on my right hand +and not on my left hand as well. Then I remembered what I had seen on +that side, how the "boys" at play on Sundays and in fact every day hunt +the birds and pull their nests out, and I could only conclude that the +lark has been pretty well wiped out from all that part of the plain over +which the soldiers range. + +At Stonehenge I found a good number of watchers, about a couple of +hundred, already assembled, but more were coming in continually, and +a mile or so of the road to Amesbury visible from "The Stones" had +at times the appearance of a ribbon of fire from the lamps of this +continuous stream of coming cyclists. Altogether about five to six +hundred persons gathered at "The Stones," mostly young men on bicycles +who came from all the Wiltshire towns within easy distance, from +Salisbury to Bath. I had a few good minutes at the ancient temple when +the sight of the rude upright stones looking black against the moonlit +and star-sprinkled sky produced an unexpected feeling in me: but the +mood could not last; the crowd was too big and noisy, and the noises +they made too suggestive of a Bank Holiday crowd at the Crystal Palace. + +At three o'clock a ribbon of slate-grey cloud appeared above the eastern +horizon, and broadened by degrees, and pretty soon made it evident that +the sun would be hidden at its rising at a quarter to four. The crowd, +however, was not down-hearted; it sang and shouted; and by and by, just +outside the barbed-wire enclosure a rabbit was unearthed, and about +three hundred young men with shrieks of excitement set about its +capture. It was a lively scene, a general scrimmage, in which everyone +was trying to capture an elusive football with ears and legs to it, +which went darting and spinning about hither and thither among the +multitudinous legs, until earth compassionately opened and swallowed +poor distracted bunny up. It was but little better inside the enclosure, +where the big fallen stones behind the altar-stone, in the middle, on +which the first rays of sun would fall, were taken possession of by a +crowd of young men who sat and stood packed together like guillemots on +a rock. These too, cheated by that rising cloud of the spectacle they +had come so far to see, wanted to have a little fun, and began to be +very obstreperous. By and by they found out an amusement very much to +their taste. + +Motor-cars were now arriving every minute, bringing important-looking +persons who had timed their journeys so as to come upon the scene a +little before 3:45, when the sun would show on the horizon; and whenever +one of these big gentlemen appeared within the circle of stones, +especially if he was big physically and grotesque-looking in his +motorist get-up, he was greeted with a tremendous shout. In most cases +he would start back and stand still, astonished at such an outburst, and +then, concluding that the only way to save his dignity was to face the +music, he would step hurriedly across the green space to hide himself +behind the crowd. + +The most amusing case was that of a very tall person adorned with an +exceedingly long, bright red beard, who had on a Glengarry cap and +a great shawl over his overcoat. The instant this unfortunate person +stepped into the arena a general wild cry of "Scotland for ever!" was +raised, followed by such cheers and yells that the poor man actually +staggered back as if he had received a blow, then seeing there was no +other way out of it, he too rushed across the open space to lose himself +among the others. + +All this proved very entertaining, and I was glad to laugh with the +crowd, thinking that after all we were taking a very mild revenge on our +hated enemies, the tyrants of the roads. + +The fun over, I went soberly back to my village, and finding it +impossible to get to sleep I went to Sunday-morning service at Shrewton +Church. It was strangely restful there after that noisy morning crowd +at Stonehenge. The church is white stone with Norman pillars and old oak +beams laid over the roof painted or distempered blue--a quiet, peaceful +blue. There was also a good deal of pleasing blue colour in the glass +of the east window. The service was, as I almost invariably find it in +a village church, beautiful and impressive. Listening to the music +of prayer and praise, with some natural outdoor sound to fill up the +pauses--the distant crow of a cock or the song of some bird close by--a +corn-bunting or wren or hedge-sparrow--and the bright sunlight filling +the interior, I felt as much refreshed as if kind nature's sweet +restorer, balmy sleep, had visited me that morning. The sermon was +nothing to me; I scarcely heard it, but understood that it was about +the Incarnation and the perfection of the plan of salvation and the +unreasonableness of the Higher Criticism and of all who doubt because +they do not understand. I remembered vaguely that on three successive +Sundays in three village churches in the wilds of Wiltshire I had heard +sermons preached on and against the Higher Criticism. I thought it would +have been better in this case if the priest had chosen to preach on +Stonehenge and had said that he devoutly wished we were sun-worshippers, +like the Persians, as well as Christians; also that we were Buddhists, +and worshippers of our dead ancestors like the Chinese, and that we were +pagans and idolaters who bow down to sticks and stones, if all these +added cults would serve to make us more reverent. And I wish he could +have said that it was as irreligious to go to Stonehenge, that ancient +temple which man raised to the unknown god thousands of years ago, to +indulge in noise and horseplay at the hour of sunrise, as it would be to +go to Salisbury Cathedral for such a purpose. + + + + +Chapter Twenty-Two: The Village and "The Stones" + + +My experiences at "The Stones" had left me with the idea that but for +the distracting company the hours I spent there would have been very +sweet and precious in spite of the cloud in the east. Why then, I asked, +not go back on another morning, when I would have the whole place to +myself? If a cloud did not matter much it would matter still less that +it was not the day of the year when the red disc flames on the watcher's +sight directly over that outstanding stone and casts first a shadow then +a ray of light on the altar. In the end I did not say good-bye to the +village on that day, but settled down to listen to the tales of my +landlady, or rather to another instalment of her life-story and to +further chapters in the domestic history of those five small villages in +one. I had already been listening to her every evening, and at odd times +during the day, for over a week, at first with interest, then a little +impatiently. I was impatient at being kept in, so to speak. Out-of-doors +the world was full of light and heat, full of sounds of wild birds +and fragrance of flowers and new-mown hay; there were also delightful +children and some that were anything but delightful--dirty, ragged +little urchins of the slums. For even these small rustic villages +have their slums; and it was now the time when the young birds were +fluttering out of their nests--their hunger cries could be heard +everywhere; and the ragged little barbarians were wild with excitement, +chasing and stoning the flutterers to slay them; or when they succeeded +in capturing one without first having broken its wings or legs it was to +put it in a dirty cage in a squalid cottage to see it perish miserably +in a day or two. Perhaps I succeeded in saving two or three threatened +lives in the lanes and secret green places by the stream; perhaps +I didn't; but in any case it was some satisfaction to have made the +attempt. + +Now all this made me a somewhat impatient listener to the village +tales--the old unhappy things, for they were mostly old and always +unhappy; yet in the end I had to listen. It was her eyes that did it. +At times they had an intensity in their gaze which made them almost +uncanny, something like the luminous eyes of an animal hungrily fixed on +its prey. They held me, though not because they glittered: I could have +gone away if I had thought proper, and remained to listen only because +the meaning of that singular look in her grey-green eyes, which came +into them whenever I grew restive, had dawned on my careless mind. + +She was an old woman with snow-white hair, which contrasted rather +strangely with her hard red colour; but her skin was smooth, her face +well shaped, with fine acquiline features. No doubt it had been a very +handsome face though never beautiful, I imagine; it was too strong and +firm and resolute; too like the face of some man we see, which, though +we have but a momentary sight of it in a passing crowd, affects us like +a sudden puff of icy-cold air--the revelation of a singular and +powerful personality. Yet she was only a poor old broken-down woman in a +Wiltshire village, held fast in her chair by a hopeless infirmity. With +her legs paralysed she was like that prince in the Eastern tale on whom +an evil spell had been cast, turning the lower half of his body into +marble. But she did not, like the prince, shed incessant tears and +lament her miserable destiny with a loud voice. She was patient and +cheerful always, resigned to the will of Heaven, and--a strange thing +this to record of an old woman in a village!--she would never speak of +her ailments. But though powerless in body her mind was vigorous and +active teeming with memories of all the vicissitudes of her exceedingly +eventful, busy life, from the time when she left her village as a young +girl to fight her way in the great world to her return to end her life +in it, old and broken, her fight over, her children and grandchildren +dead or grown up and scattered about the earth. + +Chance having now put me in her way, she concluded after a few +preliminary or tentative talks that she had got hold of an ideal +listener; but she feared to lose me--she wanted me to go on listening +for ever. That was the reason of that painfully intense hungry look in +her eyes; it was because she discovered certain signs of lassitude or +impatience in me, a desire to get up and go away and refresh myself in +the sun and wind. Poor old woman, she could not spring upon and hold me +fast when I attempted to move off, or pluck me back with her claws; she +could only gaze with fiercely pleading eyes and say nothing; and so, +without being fascinated, I very often sat on listening still when I +would gladly have been out-of-doors. + +She was a good fluent talker; moreover, she studied her listener, and +finding that my interest in her own interminable story was becoming +exhausted she sought for other subjects, chiefly the strange events in +the lives of men and women who had lived in the village and who had long +been turned to dust. They were all more or less tragical in character, +and it astonished me to think that I had stayed in a dozen or twenty, +perhaps forty, villages in Wiltshire, and had heard stories equally +strange and moving in pretty well every one of them. + +If each of these small centres possessed a scribe of genius, or at any +rate one with a capacity for taking pains, who would collect and print +in proper form these remembered events, every village would in time +have its own little library of local history, the volumes labelled +respectively, "A Village Tragedy", "The Fields of Dulditch", "Life's +Little Ironies", "Children's Children", and various others whose titles +every reader will be able to supply. + +The effect of a long spell of listening to these unwritten tragedies was +sometimes strong enough to cloud my reason, for on going directly forth +into the bright sunshine and listening to the glad sounds which filled +the air, it would seem that this earth was a paradise and that +all creation rejoiced in everlasting happiness excepting man alone +who--mysterious being!--was born to trouble and disaster as the sparks +fly upwards. A pure delusion, due to our universal and ineradicable +passion for romance and tragedy. Tell a man of a hundred humdrum +lives which run their quiet contented course in this village, and the +monotonous unmoving story, or hundred stories, will go in at one ear +and out at the other. Therefore such stories are not told and not +remembered. But that which stirs our pity and terror--the frustrate +life, the glorious promise which was not fulfilled, the broken hearts +and broken fortunes, and passion, crime, remorse, retribution--all this +prints itself on the mind, and every such life is remembered for ever +and passed on from generation to generation. But it would really form +only one brief chapter in the long, long history of the village life +with its thousand chapters. + +The truth is, if we live in fairly natural healthy condition, we are +just as happy as the lower animals. Some philosopher has said that the +chief pleasure in a man's life, as in that of a cow, consists in the +processes of mastication, deglutition, and digestion, and I am very +much inclined to agree with him. The thought of death troubles us very +little--we do not believe in it. A familiar instance is that of the +consumptive, whose doctor and friends have given him up and wait but +to see the end, while he, deluded man, still sees life, an illimitable, +green, sunlit prospect, stretching away to an infinite distance before +him. + +Death is a reality only when it is very near, so close on us that we can +actually hear its swift stoaty feet rustling over the dead leaves, and +for a brief bitter space we actually know that his sharp teeth will +presently be in our throat. + +Out in the blessed sunshine I listen to a blackcap warbling very +beautifully in a thorn bush near the cottage; then to the great shout +of excited joy of the children just released from school, as they rush +pell-mell forth and scatter about the village, and it strikes me that +the bird in the thorn is not more blithe-hearted than they. An old +rook--I fancy he is old, a many-wintered crow--is loudly caw-cawing from +the elm tree top; he has been abroad all day in the fields and has seen +his young able to feed themselves; and his own crop full, and now he is +calling to the others to come and sit there to enjoy the sunshine with +him. I doubt if he is happier than the human inhabitants of the village, +the field labourers and shepherds who have been out toiling since the +early hours, and are now busy in their own gardens and allotments or +placidly smoking their pipes at their cottage doors. + +But I could not stay longer in that village of old unhappy memories +and of quiet, happy, uninteresting lives that leave no memory, so after +waiting two more days I forced myself to say good-bye to my poor old +landlady. Or rather to say "Good night," as I had to start at one +o'clock in the morning so as to have a couple, of hours before sunrise +at "The Stones" on my way to Salisbury. Her latest effort to detain me a +day longer had been made and there was no more to say. + +"Do you know," she said in a low mysterious voice, "that it is not safe +to be alone at midnight on this long lonely road--the loneliest place +in all Salisbury Plain?" "The safest," I said. "Safe as the Tower of +London--the protectors of all England are there." "Ah, there's where the +danger is!" she returned. "If you meet some desperate man, a deserter +with his rifle in his hand perhaps, do you think he would hesitate about +knocking you over to save himself and at the same time get a little +money to help him on his way?" + +I smiled at her simulated anxiety for my safety, and set forth when it +was very dark but under a fine starry sky. The silence, too, was very +profound: there was no good-bye from crowing cock or hooting owl on this +occasion, nor did any cyclist pass me on the road with a flash of light +from his lamp and a tinkle from his bell. The long straight road on the +high down was a dim grey band visible but a few yards before me, lying +across the intense blackness of the earth. By day I prefer as a rule +walking on the turf, but this road had a rare and peculiar charm at this +time. It was now the season when the bird's-foot-trefoil, one of the +commonest plants of the downland country, was in its fullest bloom, so +that in many places the green or grey-green turf as far as one could see +on every side was sprinkled and splashed with orange-yellow. Now +this creeping, spreading plant, like most plants that grow on the +close-cropped sheep-walks, whose safety lies in their power to root +themselves and live very close to the surface, yet must ever strive to +lift its flowers into the unobstructed light and air and to overtop or +get away from its crowding neighbours. On one side of the road, where +the turf had been cut by the spade in a sharp line, the plant had found +a rare opportunity to get space and light and had thrust out such a +multitude of bowering sprays, projecting them beyond the turf, as to +form a close band or rope of orange-yellow, which divided the white road +from the green turf, and at one spot extended unbroken for upwards of a +mile. The effect was so singular and pretty that I had haunted this road +for days for the pleasure of seeing that flower border made by nature. +Now all colour was extinguished: beneath and around me there was a +dimness which at a few yards' distance deepened to blackness, and above +me the pale dim blue sky sprinkled with stars; but as I walked I had the +image of that brilliant band of yellow colour in my mind. + +By and by the late moon rose, and a little later the east began to grow +lighter and the dark down to change imperceptibly to dim hoary green. +Then the exquisite colours of the dawn once more, and the larks rising +in the dim distance--a beautiful unearthly sound--and so in the end I +came to "The Stones," rejoicing, in spite of a cloud which now appeared +on the eastern horizon to prevent the coming sun from being seen, that +I had the place to myself. The rejoicing came a little too soon; a very +few minutes later other visitors on foot and on bicycles began to come +in, and we all looked at each other a little blankly. Then a motorcar +arrived, and two gentlemen stepped out and stared at us, and one +suddenly burst out laughing. + +"I see nothing to laugh at!" said his companion a little severely. + +The other in a low voice made some apology or explanation which I failed +to catch. It was, of course, not right; it was indecent to laugh on +such an occasion, for we were not of the ebullient sort who go to "The +Stones" at three o'clock in the morning "for a lark"; but it was very +natural in the circumstances, and mentally I laughed myself at the +absurdity of the situation. However, the laugher had been rebuked for +his levity, and this incident over, there was nothing further to disturb +me or any one in our solemn little gathering. + +It was a very sweet experience, and I cannot say that my early morning +outing would have been equally good at any other lonely spot on +Salisbury Plain or anywhere else with a wide starry sky above me, the +flush of dawn in the east, and the larks rising heavenward out of the +dim misty earth. Those rudely fashioned immemorial stones standing dark +and large against the pale clear moonlit sky imparted something to +the feeling. I sat among them alone and had them all to myself, as +the others, fearing to tear their clothes on the barbed wire, had +not ventured to follow me when I got through the fence. Outside the +enclosure they were some distance from me, and as they talked in subdued +tones, their voices reached me as a low murmur--a sound not out of +harmony with the silent solitary spirit of the place; and there was now +no other sound except that of a few larks singing fitfully a long way +off. + +Just what the element was in that morning's feeling which Stonehenge +contributed I cannot say. It was too vague and uncertain, too closely +interwoven with the more common feeling for nature. No doubt it was +partly due to many untraceable associations, and partly to a thought, +scarcely definite enough to be called a thought, of man's life in this +land from the time this hoary temple was raised down to the beginning +of history. A vast span, a period of ten or more, probably of twenty +centuries, during which great things occurred and great tragedies were +enacted, which seem all the darker and more tremendous to the mind +because unwritten and unknown. But with the mighty dead of these blank +ages I could not commune. Doubtless they loved and hated and rose and +fell, and there were broken hearts and broken lives; but as beings of +flesh and blood we cannot visualize them, and are in doubt even as to +their race. And of their minds, or their philosophy of life, we know +absolutely nothing. We are able, as Clifford has said in his Cosmic +Emotion, to shake hands with the ancient Greeks across the great desert +of centuries which divides our day from theirs; but there is no shaking +hands with these ancients of Britain--or Albion, seeing that we are +on the chalk. To our souls they are as strange as the builders of +Tiuhuanaco, or Mitla and Itzana, and the cyclopean ruins of Zimbabwe and +the Carolines. + +It is thought by some of our modern investigators of psychic phenomena +that apparitions result from the coming out of impressions left in the +surrounding matter, or perhaps in the ether pervading it, especially in +moments of supreme agitation or agony. The apparition is but a restored +picture, and pictures of this sort are about us in millions; but for our +peace they are rarely visible, as the ability to see them is the faculty +of but a few persons in certain moods and certain circumstances. Here, +then, if anywhere in England, we, or the persons who are endowed with +this unpleasant gift, might look for visions of the time when Stonehenge +was the spiritual capital, the Mecca of the faithful (when all were +that), the meeting-place of all the intellect, the hoary experience, the +power and majesty of the land. + +But no visions have been recorded. It is true that certain stories of +alleged visions have been circulated during the last few years. One, +very pretty and touching, is of a child from the London slums who saw +things invisible to others. This was one of the children of the very +poor, who are taken in summer and planted all about England in cottages +to have a week or a fortnight of country air and sunshine. Taken to +Stonehenge, she had a vision of a great gathering of people, and so +real did they seem that she believed in the reality of it all, and so +beautiful did they appear to her that she was reluctant to leave, and +begged to be taken back to see it all again. Unfortunately it is not +true. A full and careful inquiry has been made into the story, of +which there are several versions, and its origin traced to a little +story-telling Wiltshire boy who had read or heard of the white-robed +priests of the ancient days at "The Stones," and who just to astonish +other little boys naughtily pretended that he had seen it all himself! + + + + +Chapter Twenty-Three: Following a River + + +The stream invites us to follow: the impulse is so common that it might +be set down as an instinct; and certainly there is no more fascinating +pastime than to keep company with a river from its source to the sea. +Unfortunately this is not easy in a country where running waters have +been enclosed, which should be as free as the rain and sunshine to all, +and were once free, when England was England still, before landowners +annexed them, even as they annexed or stole the commons and shut up the +footpaths and made it an offence for a man to go aside from the road to +feel God's grass under his feet. Well, they have also got the road now, +and cover and blind and choke us with its dust and insolently hoot-hoot +at us. Out of the way, miserable crawlers, if you don't want to be +smashed! + +Sometimes the way is cut off by huge thorny hedges and fences of barbed +wire--man's devilish improvement on the bramble--brought down to the +water's edge. The river-follower must force his way through these +obstacles, in most cases greatly to the detriment of his clothes and +temper; or, should they prove impassable, he must undress and go into +the water. Worst of all is the thought that he is a trespasser. The +pheasants crow loudly lest he should forget it. Occasionally, too, in +these private places he encounters men in velveteens with guns under +their arms, and other men in tweeds and knickerbockers, with or without +guns, and they all stare at him with amazement in their eyes, like +disturbed cattle in a pasture; and sometimes they challenge him. But +I must say that, although I have been sharply spoken to on several +occasions, always, after a few words, I have been permitted to keep on +my way. And on that way I intend to keep until I have no more strength +to climb over fences and force my way through hedges, but like a blind +and worn-out old badger must take to my earth and die. + +I found the Exe easy to follow at first. Further on exceedingly +difficult in places; but I was determined to keep near it, to have it +behind me and before me and at my side, following, leading, a beautiful +silvery serpent that was my friend and companion. For I was following +not the Exe only, but a dream as well, and a memory. Before I knew it +the Exe was a beloved stream. Many rivers had I seen in my wanderings, +but never one to compare with this visionary river, which yet existed, +and would be found and followed at last. My forefathers had dwelt for +generations beside it, listening all their lives long to its music, and +when they left it they still loved it in exile, and died at last +with its music in their ears. Nor did the connection end there; their +children and children's children doubtless had some inherited memory of +it; or how came I to have this feeling, which made it sacred, and drew +me to it? We inherit not from our ancestors only, but, through them, +something, too, from the earth and place that knew them. + +I sought for and found it where it takes its rise on open Exmoor; a +simple moorland stream, not wild and foaming and leaping over rocks, but +flowing gently between low peaty banks, where the little lambs leap +over it from side to side in play. Following the stream down, I come at +length to Exford. Here the aspect of the country begins to change; it +is not all brown desolate heath; there are green flowery meadows by +the river, and some wood. A little further down and the Exe will be a +woodland stream; but of all the rest of my long walk I shall only say +that to see the real beauty of this stream one must go to Somerset. From +Exford to Dulverton it runs, singing aloud, foam-flecked, between high +hills clothed to their summits in oak woods: after its union with +the Barle it enters Devonshire as a majestic stream, and flows calmly +through a rich green country; its wild romantic charm has been left +behind. + +The uninformed traveller, whose principle it is never to look at a +guide-book, is surprised to find that the small village of Exford +contains no fewer than half a dozen inns. He asks how they are kept +going; and the natives, astonished at his ignorance, proceed to +enlighten him. Exford is the headquarters of the stag-hunt: thither +the hunters flock in August, and spend so much money during thir brief +season that the innkeepers grow rich and fat, and for the rest of the +year can afford to doze peacefully behind their bars. Here are the +kennels, and when I visited them they contained forty or fifty couples +of stag-hounds. These are gigantic foxhounds, selected for their great +size from packs all over the country. When out exercising these big +vari-coloured dogs make a fine show. It is curious to find that, +although these individual variations are continually appearing--very +large dogs born of dogs of medium size--others cannot be bred from them; +the variety cannot be fixed. + +The village is not picturesque. Its one perennial charm is the swift +river that flows through it, making music on its wide sandy and +pebbly floor. Hither and thither flit the wagtails, finding little +half-uncovered stones in the current to perch upon. Both the pied and +grey species are there; and, seeing them together, one naturally wishes +to resettle for himself the old question as to which is the prettiest +and most graceful. Now this one looks best and now that; but the +delicately coloured grey and yellow bird has the longest tail and can +use it more prettily. Her tail is as much to her, both as ornament and +to express emotions, as a fan to any flirtatious Spanish senora. One +always thinks of these dainty feathered creatures as females. It would +seem quite natural to call the wagtail "lady-bird," if that name had +not been registered by a diminutive podgy tortoise-shaped black and red +beetle. + +So shallow is the wide stream in the village that a little girl of about +seven came down from a cottage, and to cool her feet waded out into +the middle, and there she stood for some minutes on a low flat stone, +looking down on her own wavering image broken by a hundred hurrying +wavelets and ripples. This small maidie, holding up her short, shabby +frock with her wee hands, her bright brown hair falling over her face as +she bent her head down and laughed to see her bare little legs and their +flickering reflection beneath, made a pretty picture. Like the wagtails, +she looked in harmony with her surroundings. + +So many are the villages, towns, and places of interest seen, so many +the adventures met with in this walk, starting with the baby streamlet +beyond Simonsbath, and following it down to Exeter and Exmouth, that it +would take half a volume to describe them, however briefly. Yet at the +end I found that Exford had left the most vivid and lasting impression, +and was remembered with most pleasure. It was more to me than Winsford, +that fragrant, cool, grey and green village, the home of immemorial +peace, second to no English village in beauty; with its hoary church +tower, its great trees, its old stone, thatched cottages draped in ivy +and vine, its soothing sound of running waters. Exeter itself did not +impress me so strongly, in spite of its cathedral. The village of Exford +printed itself thus sharply on my mind because I had there been filled +with wonder and delight at the sight of a face exceeding in loveliness +all the faces seen in that West Country--a rarest human gem, which had +the power of imparting to its setting something of its own wonderful +lustre. The type was a common Somerset one, but with marked differences +in some respects, else it could not have been so perfect. + +The type I speak of is a very distinct one: in a crowd in a London +street you can easily spot a Somerset man who has this mark on his +countenance, but it shows more clearly in the woman. There are more +types than one, but the variety is less than in other places; the women +are more like each other, and differ more from those that are outside +their borders than is the case in other English counties. A woman of +this prevalent type, to be met with anywhere from Bath and Bedminster +to the wilds of Exmoor, is of a good height, and has a pleasant, often a +pretty face; regular features, the nose straight, rather long, with thin +nostrils; eyes grey-blue; hair brown, neither dark nor light, in many +cases with a sandy or sunburnt tint. Black, golden, reds, chestnuts are +rarely seen. There is always colour in the skin, but not deep; as a rule +it is a light tender brown with a rosy or reddish tinge. Altogether +it is a winning face, with smiling eyes; there is more in it of that +something we can call "refinement" than is seen in women of the same +class in other counties. The expression is somewhat infantile; a young +woman, even a middle-aged woman, will frequently remind you of a little +girl of seven or eight summers. The innocent eyes and mobile mouth are +singularly childlike. This peculiarity is the more striking when we +consider the figure. This is not fully developed according to the +accepted standards the hips are too small, the chest too narrow and +flat, the arms too thin. True or false, the idea is formed of a woman +of a childlike, affectionate nature, but lacking in passion, one to be +chosen for a sister rather than a wife. Something in us--instinct or +tradition--will have it that the well-developed woman is richest in +the purely womanly qualities--the wifely and maternal feelings. The +luxuriant types that abound most in Devonshire are not common here. + +It will be understood that the women described are those that live +in cottages. Here, as elsewhere, as you go higher in the social +scale--further from the soil as it were--the type becomes less and less +distinct. Those of the "higher class," or "better class," are few, and +always in a sense foreigners. + + + + +Chapter Twenty-Four: Troston + + +I doubt if the name of this small Suffolk village, remote from towns and +railroads, will have any literary associations for the reader, unless +he be a person of exceptionally good memory, who has taken a special +interest in the minor poets of the last century; or that it would +help him if I add the names of Honington and Sapiston, two other small +villages a couple of miles from Troston, with the slow sedgy Little +Ouse, or a branch of it, flowing between them. Yet Honington was the +birthplace of Robert Bloomfield, known as "the Suffolk poet" in the +early part of the last century (although Crabbe was living then and was +great, as he is becoming again after many years); while at Sapiston, the +rustic village on the other side of the old stone bridge, he acquired +that love of nature and intimate knowledge of farm life and work which +came out later in his Farmer's Boy. Finally, Troston, the little village +in which I write, was the home of Capel Lofft, a person of importance in +his day, who discovered Bloomfield, found a publisher for his poems, and +boomed it with amazing success. + +I dare say it will only provoke a smile of amusement in readers of +literary taste when I confess that Bloomfield's memory is dear to me; +that only because of this feeling for the forgotten rustic who wrote +rhymes I am now here, strolling about in the shade of the venerable +trees in Troston Park-the selfsame trees which the somewhat fantastic +Capel knew in his day as "Homer," "Sophocles," "Virgil," "Milton," and +by other names, calling each old oak, elm, ash, and chestnut after one +of the immortals. + +I can even imagine that the literary man, if he chanced to be a personal +friend, would try to save me from myself by begging me not to put +anything of this sort into print. He would warn me that it matters +nothing that Bloomfield's verse was exceedingly popular for a time, that +twenty-five or thirty editions of his Farmer's Boy were issued within +three years of its publication in 1800 that it continued to be read for +half a century afterwards. There are other better tests. Is it alive +to-day? What do judges of literature say of it now? Nothing! They smile +and that's all. The absurdity of his popularity was felt in his own day. +Byron laughed at it; Crabbe growled and Charles Lamb said he had looked +at the Farmer's Boy and it made him sick. Well, nobody wants to look at +it now. + +Much more might be said very easily on this side; nevertheless, I think +I shall go on with my plea for the small verse-maker who has long fallen +out; and though I may be unable to make a case out, the kindly critic +may find some circumstance to extenuate my folly--to say, in the end, +that this appears to be one of the little foolishnesses which might be +forgiven. + +I must confess at starting that the regard I have for one of his poems, +the Farmer's Boy, is not wholly a matter of literary taste or +the critical faculty; it is also, to some extent, a matter of +association,--and as the story of how this comes about is rather +curious, I will venture to give it. + +In the distant days of my boyhood and early youth my chief delight +was in nature, and when I opened a book it was to find something about +nature in it, especially some expression of the feeling produced in us +by nature, which was, in my case, inseparable from seeing and hearing, +and was, to me, the most important thing in life. For who could look +on earth, water, sky, on living or growing or inanimate things, without +experiencing that mysterious uplifting gladness in him! In due time I +discovered that the thing I sought for in printed books was to be found +chiefly in poetry, that half a dozen lines charged with poetic feeling +about nature often gave me more satisfaction than a whole volume of +prose on such subjects. Unfortunately this kind of literature was not +obtainable in my early home on the then semi-wild pampas. There were a +couple of hundred volumes on the shelves--theology, history, biography, +philosophy, science, travels, essays, and some old forgotten fiction; +but no verse was there, except Shenstone, in a small, shabby, coverless +volume. This I read and re-read until I grew sick of bright Roxana +tripping o'er the green, or of gentle Delia when a tear bedews her eye +to think yon playful kid must die. To my uncultivated mind--for I had +never been at school, and lived in the open air with the birds and +beasts--this seemed intolerably artificial; for I was like a hungry +person who has nothing but kickshaws put before him, and eats because +he is hungry until he loathes a food which in its taste confounds the +appetite. Never since those distant days have I looked at a Shenstone or +even seen his name in print or heard it spoken, without a slight return +of that old sensation of nausea. If Shenstone alone had come to me, the +desire for poetry would doubtless have been outlived early in life; +but there were many passages, some very long, from the poets in various +books on the shelves, and these kept my appetite alive. There was +Brown's Philosophy, for example; and Brown loved to illustrate his point +with endless poetic quotations, the only drawback in my case being that +they were almost exclusively drawn from Akenside, who was not "rural." +But there were other books in which other poets were quoted, and of +all these the passages which invariably pleased me most were the +descriptions of rural sights and sounds. + +One day, during a visit to the city of Buenos Ayres, I discovered in a +mean street, in the southern part of the town, a second-hand bookshop, +kept by an old snuffy spectacled German in a long shabby black coat. I +remember him well because he was a very important person to me. It was +the first shop of the kind I had seen--I doubt if there was another in +the town; and to be allowed to rummage by the hour among this mass of +old books on the dusty shelves and heaped on the brick floor was a novel +and delightful experience. The books were mostly in Spanish, French, +and German, but there were some in English, and among them I came upon +Thomson's Seasons. I remember the thrill of joy I experienced when I +snatched up the small thin octavo in its smooth calf binding. It was the +first book in English I ever bought, and to this day when I see a copy +of the Seasons on a bookstall, which is often enough, I cannot keep +my fingers off it and find it hard to resist the temptation to throw +a couple of shillings away and take it home. If shillings had not been +wanted for bread and cheese I should have had a roomful of copies by +now. + +Few books have given me more pleasure, and as I still return to it from +time to time I do not suppose I shall ever outgrow the feeling, in spite +of its having been borne in on me, when I first conversed with readers +of poetry in England, that Thomson is no longer read--that he is +unreadable. + +After such a find I naturally went back many times to burrow in that +delightful rubbish heap, and was at length rewarded by the discovery of +yet another poem of rural England--the Farmer's Boy. I was prepared to +like it, for although I did not know anything about the author's early +life, the few passages I had come across in quotations in James Rennie's +and other old natural history compilations had given me a strong desire +to read the whole poem. I certainly did like it--this quiet description +in verse of a green spot in England, my spiritual country which so far +as I knew I was never destined to see; and that I continue to like it +is, as I have said, the reason of my being in this place. + +While thus freely admitting that the peculiar circumstances of the case +caused me to value this poem, and, in fact, made it very much more to +me than it could be to persons born in England with all its poetical +literature to browse on, I am at the same time convinced that this is +not the sole reason for my regard. + +I take it that the Farmer's Boy is poetry, not merely slightly poetized +prose in the form of verse, although it is undoubtedly poetry of a very +humble order. + +Mere descriptions of rural scenes do not demand the higher qualities of +the poet--imagination and passion. The lower kind of inspiration is, in +fact, often better suited to such themes and shows nature by the common +light of day, as it were, instead of revealing it as by a succession of +lightning flashes. Even among those who confine themselves to this lower +plane, Bloomfield is not great: his small flame is constantly sinking +and flickering out. But at intervals it burns up again and redeems +the work from being wholly commonplace and trivial. He is, in fact, no +better than many another small poet who has been devoured by Time since +his day, and whose work no person would now attempt to bring back. It +is probable, too, that many of these lesser singers whose fame was brief +would in their day have deeply resented being placed on a level with the +Suffolk peasant-poet. In spite of all this, and of the impossibility of +saving most of the verse which is only passably good from oblivion, I +still think the Farmer's Boy worth preserving for more reasons than one, +but chiefly because it is the only work of its kind. + +There is no lack of rural poetry--the Seasons to begin with and much +Thomsonian poetry besides, treating of nature in a general way; then we +have innumerable detached descriptions of actual scenes, such as we find +scattered throughout Cowper's Task, and numberless other works. Besides +all this there are the countless shorter poems, each conveying an +impression of some particular scene or aspect of nature; the poet of +the open air, like the landscape painter, is ever on the look out for +picturesque "bits" and atmospheric effects as a subject. In Bloomfield +we get something altogether different--a simple, consistent, and fairly +complete account of the country people's toilsome life in a remote +agricultural district in England--a small rustic village set amid green +and arable fields, woods and common lands. We have it from the inside by +one who had part in it, born and bred to the humble life he described; +and, finally, it is not given as a full day-to-day record--photographed +as we may say--with all the minute unessential details and repetitions, +but as it appeared when looked back upon from a distance, reliving it in +memory, the sights and sounds and events which had impressed the boy's +mind standing vividly out. Of this lowly poem it may be truly said that +it is "emotion recollected in tranquillity," to use the phrase invented +by Wordsworth when he attempted a definition of poetry generally and +signally failed, as Coleridge demonstrated. + +It will be said that the facts of Bloomfield's life--that he was a +farmer's boy whose daily tasks were to scare the crows, feed the pigs, +and forty things besides, and that later, when learning the shoemaker's +trade in a London garret, he put these memories together and made them +into a poem--are wholly beside the question when we come to judge the +work as literature. A peasant poet may win a great reputation in his own +day on account of the circumstances of the case, but in the end his work +must be tried by the same standards applied in other and in all cases. + +There is no getting away from this, and all that remains is to endeavour +to show that the poem, although poor as a whole, is not altogether bad, +but contains many lines that glow with beautiful poetic feeling, and +many descriptive passages which are admirable. Furthermore, I will +venture to say that despite the feebleness of a large part of the work +(as poetry) it is yet worth preserving in its entirety on account of its +unique character. It may be that I am the only person in England able +to appreciate it so fully owing to the way in which it first came to my +notice, and the critical reader can, if he thinks proper, discount what +I am now saying as mere personal feeling. But the case is this: when, in +a distant region of the world, I sought for and eagerly read anything I +could find relating to country scenes and life in England--the land of +my desire--I was never able to get an extended and congruous view of it, +with a sense of the continuity in human and animal life in its relation +to nature. It was all broken up into pieces or "bits"; it was in +detached scenes, vividly reproduced to the inner eye in many cases, +but unrelated and unharmonized, like framed pictures of rural subjects +hanging on the walls of a room. Even the Seasons failed to supply this +want, since Thomson in his great work is of no place and abides nowhere, +but ranges on eagle's wings over the entire land, and, for the matter +of that, over the whole globe. But I did get it in the Farmer's Boy. I +visualized the whole scene, the entire harmonious life; I was with him +from morn till eve always in that same green country with the same sky, +cloudy or serene, above me; in the rustic village, at the small church +with a thatched roof where the daws nested in the belfry, and the +children played and shouted among the gravestones in the churchyard; in +woods and green and ploughed fields and the deep lanes--with him and his +fellow-toilers, and the animals, domestic and wild, regarding their life +and actions from day to day through all the vicissitudes of the year. + +The poem, then, appears to fill a place in our poetic literature, or to +fill a gap; at all events from the point of view of those who, born and +living in distant parts of the earth, still dream of the Old Home. This +perhaps accounts for the fact, which I heard at Honington, that most of +the pilgrims to Bloomfield's birthplace are Americans. + +Bloomfield followed his great example in dividing his poem into the four +seasons, and he begins, Thomson-like, with an invitation to the Muse:-- + + O come, blest spirit, whatsoe'er thou art, + Thou kindling warmth that hov'rest round my heart. + +But happily he does not attempt to imitate the lofty diction of the +Seasons or Windsor Forest, the noble poem from which, I imagine, +Thomson derived his sonorous style. He had a humble mind and knew his +limitations, and though he adopted the artificial form of verse which +prevailed down to his time he was still able to be simple and natural. + +"Spring" does not contain much of the best of his work, but the opening +is graceful and is not without a touch of pathos in his apologetic +description of himself, as Giles, the farmer's boy. + + Nature's sublimer scenes ne'er charmed my eyes + Nor Science led me... + From meaner objects far my raptures flow... + Quick-springing sorrows, transient as the dew, + Delight from trifles, trifles ever new. + 'Twas thus with Giles; meek, fatherless, and poor, + Labour his portion... + His life was cheerful, constant servitude... + Strange to the world, he wore a bashful look, + The fields his study, Nature was his book. + +The farm is described, the farmer, his kind, hospitable master; the +animals, the sturdy team, the cows and the small flock of fore-score +ewes. Ploughing, sowing, and harrowing are described, and the result +left to the powers above: + + Yet oft with anxious heart he looks around, + And marks the first green blade that breaks the ground; + In fancy sees his trembling oats uprun, + His tufted barley yellow with the sun. + +While his master dreams of what will be, Giles has enough to do +protecting the buried grain from thieving rooks and crows; one of the +multifarious tasks being to collect the birds that have been shot, for +although-- + + Their danger well the wary plunderers know + And place a watch on some conspicuous bough, + Yet oft the skulking gunner by surprise + Will scatter death among them as they rise. + +'Tis useless, he tells us, to hang these slain robbers about the fields, +since in a little while they are no more regarded than the men of rags +and straw with sham rifles in their hands. It was for him to shift +the dead from place to place, to arrange them in dying attitudes with +outstretched wings. Finally, there was the fox, the stealer of dead +crows, to be guarded against; and again at eventide Giles must trudge +round to gather up his dead and suspend them from twigs out of reach of +hungry night-prowlers. Called up at daybreak each morning, he would take +his way through deep lanes overarched with oaks to "fields remote from +home" to redistribute his dead birds, then to fetch the cows, and here +we have an example of his close naturalist-like observation in his +account of the leading cow, the one who coming and going on all +occasions is allowed precedence, who maintains her station, "won by +many a broil," with just pride. A picture of the cool dairy and its +work succeeds, and a lament on the effect of the greed and luxury of +the over-populous capital which drains the whole country-side of all +produce, which makes the Suffolk dairy-wives run mad for cream, leaving +nothing but the "three-times skimmed sky-blue" to make cheese for local +consumption. What a cheese it is, that has the virtue of a post, which +turns the stoutest blade, and is at last flung in despair into the +hog-trough, where + + It rests in perfect spite, + Too big to swallow and too hard to bite! + +We then come to the sheep, "for Giles was shepherd too," and here there +is more evidence of his observant eye when he describes the character of +the animals, also in what follows about the young lambs, which forms the +best passage in this part. I remember that, when first reading it, being +then little past boyhood myself, how much I was struck by the vivid +beautiful description of a crowd of young lambs challenging each other +to a game, especially at a spot where they have a mound or hillock for a +playground which takes them with a sort of goatlike joyous madness. For +how often in those days I used to ride out to where the flock of one to +two thousand sheep were scattered on the plain, to sit on my pony and +watch the glad romps of the little lambs with keenest delight! I cannot +but think that Bloomfield's fidelity to nature in such pictures as +these does or should count for something in considering his work. He +concludes:-- + + Adown the slope, then up the hillock climb, + Where every mole-hill is a bed of thyme, + Then panting stop; yet scarcely can refrain; + A bird, a leaf, will set them off again; + Or if a gale with strength unusual blow, + Scattering the wild-briar roses into snow, + Their little limbs increasing efforts try, + Like a torn rose the fair assemblage fly. + +This image of the wind-scattered petals of the wild rose reminds +him bitterly of the destined end of these joyous young lives--his +white-fleeced little fellow-mortals. He sees the murdering butcher +coming in his cart to demand the firstlings of the flock; he cannot +suppress a cry of grief and indignation--he can only strive to shut out +the shocking image from his soul! + +"Summer" opens with some reflections on the farmer's life in a prosy +Crabbe-like manner; and here it may be noted that as a rule Bloomfield +no sooner attempts to rise to a general view than he grows flat; and in +like manner he usually fails when he attempts wide prospects and large +effects. He is at his best only when describing scenes and incidents +at the farm in which he himself is a chief actor, as in this part when, +after the sowing of the turnip seed, he is sent out to keep the small +birds from the ripening corn: + + There thousands in a flock, for ever gay, + Loud chirping sparrows welcome on the day, + And from the mazes of the leafy thorn + Drop one by one upon the bending corn. + +Giles trudging along the borders of the field scares them with his +brushing-pole, until, overcome by fatigue and heat, he takes a rest by +the brakes and lying, half in sun and half in shade, his attention is +attracted to the minute insect life that swarms about him: + + The small dust-coloured beetle climbs with pain + O'er the smooth plantain leaf, a spacious plain! + Then higher still by countless steps conveyed, + He gains the summit of a shivering blade, + And flirts his filmy wings and looks around, + Exulting in his distance from the ground. + +It is one of his little exquisite pictures. Presently his vision is +called to the springing lark: + + Just starting from the corn, he cheerly sings, + And trusts with conscious pride his downy wings; + Still louder breathes, and in the face of day + Mounts up and calls on Giles to mark his way. + Close to his eye his hat he instant bends + And forms a friendly telescope that lends + Just aid enough to dull the glaring light + And place the wandering bird before his sight, + That oft beneath a light cloud sweeps along; + Lost for a while yet pours a varied song; + The eye still follows and the cloud moves by, + Again he stretches up the clear blue sky, + His form, his motions, undistinguished quite, + Save when he wheels direct from shade to light. + +In the end he falls asleep, and waking refreshed picks up his poles and +starts again brushing round. + +Harvesting scenes succeed, with a picture of Mary, the village beauty, +taking her share in the work, and how the labourers in their unwonted +liveliness and new-found wit + + Confess the presence of a pretty face. + +She is very rustic herself in her appearance:-- + + Her hat awry, divested of her gown, + Her creaking stays of leather, stout and brown: + Invidious barrier! why art thou so high, + When the slight covering of her neck slips by, + Then half revealing to the eager sight + Her full, ripe bosom, exquisitely white? + +The leather stays have no doubt gone the way of many other dreadful +things, even in the most rustic villages in the land; not so the +barbarous practice of docking horses' tails, against which he protests +in this place when describing the summer plague of flies and the +excessive sufferings of the domestic animals, especially of the poor +horses deprived of their only defence against such an enemy. At his +own little farm there was yet another plague in the form of an +old broken-winged gander, "the pest and tryant of the yard," whose +unpleasant habit it was to go for the beasts and seize them by the +fetlocks. The swine alone did not resent the attacks but welcomed them, +receiving the assaults as caresses, and stretching themselves out and +lying down and closing their pigs' eyes, they would emit grunts of +satisfaction, while the triumphant bird, followed by the whole gabbling +flock, would trample on the heads of their prostrate foes. + +"Autumn" opens bravely: + + Again the year's decline, 'midst storms and floods, + The thund'ring chase, the yellow fading woods + Invite my song. + +It contains two of the best things in the poem, the first in the opening +part, describing the swine in the acorn season, a delightful picture +which must be given in full:-- + + No more the fields with scattered grain supply + The restless tenants of the sty; + From oak to oak they run with eager haste, + And wrangling share the first delicious taste + Of fallen acorns; yet but thinly found + Till a strong gale has shook them to the ground. + It comes; and roaring woods obedient wave: + Their home well pleased the joint adventurers leave; + The trudging sow leads forth her numerous young, + Playful, and white, and clean, the briars among, + Till briars and thorns increasing fence them round, + Where last year's mould'ring leaves bestrew the ground, + And o'er their heads, loud lashed by furious squalls, + Bright from their cups the rattling treasure falls; + Hot thirsty food; whence doubly sweet and cool + The welcome margin of some rush-grown pool, + The wild duck's lonely haunt, whose jealous eye + Guards every point; who sits prepared to fly, + On the calm bosom of her little lake, + Too closely screened for ruffian winds to shake; + And as the bold intruders press around, + At once she starts and rises with a bound; + With bristles raised the sudden noise they hear, + And ludicrously wild and winged with fear, + The herd decamp with more than swinish speed, + And snorting dash through sedge and rush and reed; + Through tangled thickets headlong on they go, + Then stop and listen for their fancied foe; + The hindmost still the growing panic spreads, + Repeated fright the first alarm succeeds, + Till Folly's wages, wounds and thorns, they reap; + Yet glorying in their fortunate escape, + Their groundless terrors by degrees soon cease, + And Night's dark reign restores their peace. + For now the gale subsides, and from each bough + The roosting pheasant's short but frequent crow + Invites to rest, and huddling side by side + The herd in closest ambush seek to hide; + Seek some warm slope with shagged moss o'erspread, + Dried leaves their copious covering and their bed. + In vain may Giles, through gathering glooms that fall, + And solemn silence, urge his piercing call; + Whole days and nights they tarry 'midst their store, + Nor quit the woods till oaks can yield no more. + +It is a delightful passage to one that knows a pig--the animal we +respect for its intelligence, holding it in this respect higher, more +human, than the horse, and at the same time laugh at on account of +certain ludicrous points about it, as for example its liability to lose +its head. Thousands of years of comfortable domestic life have failed to +rid it of this inconvenient heritage from the time when wild in woods +it ran. Yet in this particular instance the terror of the swine does +not seem wholly inexcusable, if we know a wild duck as well as a pig, +especially the duck that takes to haunting a solitary woodland pool, +who, when intruded on, springs up with such a sudden tremendous splash +and flutter of wings and outrageous screams, that man himself, if not +prepared for it, may be thrown off his balance. + +Passing over other scenes, about one hundred and fifty lines, we come to +the second notable passage, when after the sowing of the winter wheat, +poor Giles once more takes up his old occupation of rook-scaring. It is +now as in spring and summer-- + + Keen blows the blast and ceaseless rain descends; + The half-stripped hedge a sorry shelter lends, + +and he thinks it would be nice to have a hovel, no matter how small, to +take refuge in, and at once sets about its construction. + + In some sequestered nook, embanked around, + Sods for its walls and straw in burdens bound; + Dried fuel hoarded is his richest store, + And circling smoke obscures his little door; + Whence creeping forth to duty's call he yields, + And strolls the Crusoe of the lonely fields. + On whitehorn tow'ring, and the leafless rose, + A frost-nipped feast in bright vermilion glows; + Where clust'ring sloes in glossy order rise, + He crops the loaded branch, a cumbrous prize; + And on the flame the splutt'ring fruit he rests, + Placing green sods to seat the coming guests; + His guests by promise; playmates young and gay; + But ah! fresh pastures lure their steps away! + He sweeps his hearth, and homeward looks in vain, + Till feeling Disappointment's cruel pain + His fairy revels are exchanged for rage, + His banquet marred, grown dull his hermitage, + The field becomes his prison, till on high + Benighted birds to shades and coverts fly. + +"The field becomes his prison," and the thought of this trivial +restraint, which is yet felt so poignantly, brings to mind an infinitely +greater one. Look, he says-- + + From the poor bird-boy with his roasted sloes + +to the miserable state of those who are confined in dungeons, deprived +of daylight and the sight of the green earth, whose minds perpetually +travel back to happy scenes, + + Trace and retrace the beaten worn-out way, + +whose chief bitterness it is to be forgotten and see no familiar +friendly face. + +"Winter" is, I think, the best of the four parts it gives the idea that +the poem was written as it stands, from "Spring" onwards, that by the +time he got to the last part the writer had acquired a greater ease and +assurance. At all events it is less patchy and more equal. It is also +more sober in tone, as befits the subject, and opens with an account of +the domestic animals on the farm, their increased dependence on man and +the compassionate feelings they evoke in us. He is, we feel, dealing +with realities, always from the point of view of a boy of sensitive +mina and tender heart--one taken in boyhood from this life before it had +wrought any change in him. For in due time the farm boy, however fine +his spirit may be, must harden and grow patient and stolid in heat and +cold and wet, like the horse that draws the plough or cart; and as he +hardens he grows callous. In his wretched London garret if any change +came to him it was only to an increased love and pity for the beasts he +had lived among, who looked and cried to him to be fed. He describes it +well, the frost and bitter cold, the hungry cattle following the cart +to the fields, the load of turnips thrown out on the hard frozen ground; +but the turnips too are frozen hard and they cannot eat them until +Giles, following with his beetle, splits them up with vigorous blows, +and the cows gather close round him, sending out a cloud of steam from +their nostrils. + +The dim short winter day soon ends, but the sound of the flails +continues in the barns till long after dark before the weary labourers +end their task and trudge home. Giles, too, is busy at this time taking +hay to the housed cattle, many a sweet mouthful being snatched from the +load as he staggers beneath it on his way to the racks. Then follow +the well-earned hours of "warmth and rest" by the fire in the big old +kitchen which he describes:-- + + For the rude architect, unknown to fame, + (Nor symmetry nor elegance his aim), + Who spread his floors of solid oak on high, + On beams rough-hewn from age to age that lie, + Bade his wide fabric unimpaired sustain + The orchard's store, and cheese, and golden grain; + Bade from its central base, capacious laid, + The well-wrought chimney rear its lofty head + Where since hath many a savoury ham been stored, + And tempests howled and Christmas gambols roared. + +The tired ploughman, steeped in luxurious heat, by and by falls asleep +and dreams sweetly until his chilblains or the snapping fire awakes him, +and he pulls himself up and goes forth yawning to give his team their +last feed, his lantern throwing a feeble gleam on the snow as he makes +his way to the stable. Having completed his task, he pats the sides +of those he loves best by way of good-night, and leaves them to their +fragrant meal. And this kindly action on his part suggests one of the +best passages of the poem. Even old well-fed Dobbin occasionally rebels +against his slavery, and released from his chains will lift his clumsy +hoofs and kick, "disdainful of the dirty wheel." Short-sighted Dobbin! + + Thy chains were freedom, and thy toils repose, + Could the poor post-horse tell thee all his woes; + Show thee his bleeding shoulders, and unfold + The dreadful anguish he endures for gold; + Hired at each call of business, lust, or rage, + That prompts the traveller on from stage to stage. + Still on his strength depends their boasted speed; + For them his limbs grow weak, his bare ribs bleed; + And though he groaning quickens at command, + Their extra shilling in the rider's hand + Becomes his bitter scourge.... + +The description, too long to quote, which follows of the tortures +inflicted on the post-horse a century ago, is almost incredible to us, +and we flatter ourselves that such things would not be tolerated now. +But we must get over the ground somehow, and I take it that but for the +invention of other more rapid means of transit the present generation +would be as little concerned at the pains of the post-horse as they +are at the horrors enacted behind the closed doors of the physiological +laboratories, the atrocity of the steel trap, the continual murdering by +our big game hunters of all the noblest animals left on the globe, and +finally the annual massacre of millions of beautiful birds in their +breeding time to provide ornaments for the hats of our women. + +"Come forth he must," says Bloomfield, when he describes how the +flogged horse at length gains the end of the stage and, "trembling under +complicated pains," when "every nerve a separate anguish knows," he is +finally unharnessed and led to the stable door, but has scarcely tasted +food and rest before he is called for again. + + Though limping, maimed and sore; + He hears the whip; the chaise is at the door... + The collar tightens and again he feels + His half-healed wounds inflamed; again the wheels + With tiresome sameness in his ears resound + O'er blinding dust or miles of flinty ground. + +This is over and done with simply because the post-horse is no longer +wanted, and we have to remember that no form of cruelty inflicted, +whether for sport or profit or from some other motive, on the lower +animals has ever died out of itself in the land. Its end has invariably +been brought about by legislation through the devotion of men who were +the "cranks," the "faddists," the "sentimentalists," of their day, who +were jeered and laughed at by their fellows, and who only succeeded by +sheer tenacity and force of character after long fighting against public +opinion and a reluctant Parliament, in finally getting their law. + +Bloomfield's was but a small voice crying in the wilderness, and he was +indeed a small singer in the day of our greatest singers. As a poet he +was not worthy to unloose the buckles of their shoes; but he had one +thing in common with the best and greatest, the feeling of tender love +and compassion for the lower animals which was in Thomson and Cowper, +but found its highest expression in his own great contemporaries, +Coleridge, Shelley, and Wordsworth. In virtue of this feeling he was of +their illustrious brotherhood. + +In conclusion, I will quote one more passage. From the subject of horses +he passes to that of dogs and their occasional reversion to wildness, +when the mastiff or cur, the "faithful" house-dog by day, takes to +sheep-killing by night. As a rule he is exceedingly cunning, committing +his depredations at a distance frown home, and after getting his fill +of slaughter he sneaks home in the early hours to spend the day in his +kennel "licking his guilty paws." This is an anxious time for shepherds +and farmers, and poor Giles is compelled to pay late evening visits to +his small flock of heavy-sided ewes penned in their distant fold. It is +a comfort to him to have a full moon on these lonely expeditions, and +despite his tremors he is able to appreciate the beauty of the scene. + + With saunt'ring steps he climbs the distant stile, + Whilst all around him wears a placid smile; + There views the white-robed clouds in clusters driven + And all the glorious pageantry of heaven. + Low on the utmost bound'ry of the sight + The rising vapours catch the silver light; + Thence fancy measures as they parting fly + Which first will throw its shadow on the eye, + Passing the source of light; and thence away + Succeeded quick by brighter still than they. + For yet above the wafted clouds are seen + (In a remoter sky still more serene) + Others detached in ranges through the air, + Spotless as snow and countless as they're fair; + Scattered immensely wide from east to west + The beauteous semblance of a flock at rest. + +This is almost the only passage in the poem in which something of the +vastness of visible nature is conveyed. He saw the vastness only in the +sky on nights with a full moon or when he made a telescope of his hat +to watch the flight of the lark. It was not a hilly country about his +native place, and his horizon was a very limited one, usually bounded by +the hedgerow timber at the end of the level field. The things he depicts +were seen at short range, and the poetry, we see, was of a very modest +kind. It was a "humble note" which pleased me in the days of long ago +when I was young and very ignorant, and as it pleases me still it may +be supposed that mentally I have not progressed with the years. +Nevertheless, I am not incapable of appreciating the greater music; +all that is said in its praise, even to the extremest expressions of +admiration of those who are moved to a sense of wonder by it, find an +echo in me. But it is not only a delight to me to listen to the lark +singing at heaven's gate and to the vesper nightingale in the oak +copse--the singer of a golden throat and wondrous artistry; I also love +the smaller vocalists--the modest shufewing and the lesser whitethroat +and the yellowhammer with his simple chant. These are very dear to +me: their strains do not strike me as trivial; they have a lesser +distinction of their own and I would not miss them from the choir. The +literary man will smile at this and say that my paper is naught but an +idle exercise, but I fancy I shall sleep the better tonight for having +discharged this ancient debt which has been long on my conscience. + + + + +Chapter Twenty-Five: My Friend Jack + + +My friend rack is a retriever--very black, very curly, perfect in shape, +but just a retriever; and he is really not my friend, only he thinks +he is, which comes to the same thing. So convinced is he that I am +his guide, protector, and true master, that if I were to give him a +downright scolding or even a thrashing he would think it was all right +and go on just the same. His way of going on is to make a companion of +me whether I want him or not. I do not want him, but his idea is that +I want him very much. I bitterly blame myself for having made the first +advances, although nothing came of it except that he growled. I met him +in a Cornish village in a house where I stayed. There was a nice kennel +there, painted green, with a bed of clean straw and an empty plate which +had contained his dinner, but on peeping in I saw no dog. Next day it +was the same, and the next, and the day after that; then I inquired +about it--Was there a dog in that house or not? Oh, yes, certainly there +was: Jack, but a very independent sort of dog. On most days he looked +in, ate his dinner and had a nap on his straw, but he was not what you +would call a home-keeping dog. + +One day I found him in, and after we had looked for about a minute +at each other, I squatting before the kennel, he with chin on paws +pretending to be looking through me at something beyond, I addressed +a few kind words to him, which he received with the before-mentioned +growl. I pronounced him a surly brute and went away. It was growl +for growl. Nevertheless I was well pleased at having escaped the +consequences in speaking kindly to him. I am not a "doggy" person nor +even a canophilist. The purely parasitic or degenerate pet dog moves +me to compassion, but the natural vigorous outdoor dog I fear and avoid +because we are not in harmony; consequently I suffer and am a loser when +he forces his company on me. The outdoor world I live in is not the one +to which a man goes for a constitutional, with a dog to save him +from feeling lonely, or, if he has a gun, with a dog to help him kill +something. It is a world which has sound in it, distant cries and +penetrative calls, and low mysterious notes, as of insects and +corncrakes, and frogs chirping and of grasshopper warblers--sounds like +wind in the dry sedges. And there are also sweet and beautiful songs; +but it is very quiet world where creatures move about subtly, on wings, +on polished scales, on softly padded feet--rabbits, foxes, stoats, +weasels, and voles and birds and lizards and adders and slow-worms, also +beetles and dragon-flies. Many are at enmity with each other, but on +account of their quietude there is no disturbance, no outcry and rushing +into hiding. And having acquired this habit from them I am able to see +and be with them. The sitting bird, the frolicking rabbit, the basking +adder--they are as little disturbed at my presence as the butterfly +that drops down close to my feet to sun his wings on a leaf or frond and +makes me hold my breath at the sight of his divine colour, as if he had +just fluttered down from some brighter realm in the sky. Think of a dog +in this world, intoxicated with the odours of so many wild creatures, +dashing and splashing through bogs and bushes! It is ten times worse +than a bull in a china-shop. The bull can but smash a lot of objects +made of baked clay; the dog introduces a mad panic in a world of living +intelligent beings, a fairy realm of exquisite beauty. They scuttle away +and vanish into hiding as if a deadly wind had blown over the earth and +swept them out of existence. Only the birds remain--they can fly and +do not fear for their own lives, but are in a state of intense anxiety +about their eggs and young among the bushes which he is dashing through +or exploring. + +I had good reason, then, to congratulate myself on Jack's surly +behaviour on our first meeting. Then, a few days later, a curious thing +happened. Jack was discovered one morning in his kennel, and when spoken +to came or rather dragged himself out, a most pitiable object. He was +horribly bruised and sore all over; his bones appeared to be all broken; +he was limp and could hardly get on his feet, and in that miserable +condition he continued for some three days. + +At first we thought he had been in a big fight--he was inclined +that way, his master said--but we could discover no tooth marks or +lacerations, nothing but bruises. Perhaps, we said, he had fallen into +the hands of some cruel person in one of the distant moorland farms, who +had tied him up, then thrashed him with a big stick, and finally turned +him loose to die on the moor or crawl home if he could. His master +looked so black at this that we said no more about it. But Jack was +a wonderfully tough dog, all gristle I think, and after three days of +lying there like a dead dog he quickly recovered, though I'm quite sure +that if his injuries had been distributed among any half-dozen pampered +or pet dogs it would have killed them all. A morning came when the +kennel was empty: Jack was not dead--he was well again, and, as usual, +out. + +Just then I was absent for a week or ten days then, back again, I went +out one fine morning for a long day's ramble along the coast. A mile or +so from home, happening to glance back I caught sight of a black dog's +face among the bushes thirty or forty yards away gazing earnestly at me. +It was Jack, of course, nothing but his head visible in an opening +among the bushes--a black head which looked as if carved in ebony, in +a wonderful setting of shining yellow furze blossoms. The beauty and +singularity of the sight made it impossible for me to be angry with +him, though there's nothing a man more resents than being shadowed, or +secretly followed and spied upon, even by a dog, so, without considering +what I was letting myself in for, I cried out "Jack" and instantly he +bounded out and came to my side, then flew on ahead, well pleased to +lead the way. + +"I must suffer him this time," I said resignedly, and went on, he always +ahead acting as my scout and hunter--self-appointed, of course, but as +I had not ordered him back in trumpet tones and hurled a rock at him +to enforce the command, he took it that he was appointed by me. He +certainly made the most of his position; no one could say that he was +lacking in zeal. He scoured the country to the right and left and far in +advance of me, crashing through furze thickets and splashing across bogs +and streams, spreading terror where he went and leaving nothing for +me to look at. So it went on until after one o'clock when, tired and +hungry, I was glad to go down into a small fishing cove to get some +dinner in a cottage I knew. Jack threw himself down on the floor and +shared my meal, then made friends with the fisherman's wife and got a +second meal of saffron cake which, being a Cornish dog, he thoroughly +enjoyed. + +The second half of the day was very much like the first, altogether a +blank day for me, although a very full one for Jack, who had filled a +vast number of wild creatures with terror, furiously hunted a hundred or +more, and succeeded in killing two or three. + +Jack was impossible, and would never be allowed to follow me again. So +I sternly said and so thought, but when the time came and I found him +waiting for me his brown eyes bright with joyful anticipation, I could +not scowl at him and thunder out No! I could not help putting myself in +his place. For here he was, a dog of boundless energy who must exercise +his powers or be miserable, with nothing in the village for him except +to witness the not very exciting activities of others; and that, I +discovered, had been his life. He was mad to do something, and because +there was nothing for him to do his time was mostly spent in going about +the village to keep an eye on the movements of the people, especially of +those who did the work, always with the hope that his services might +be required in some way by some one. He was grateful for the smallest +crumbs, so to speak. House-work and work about the house--milking, +feeding the pigs and so on--did not interest him, nor would he attend +the labourers in the fields. Harvest time would make a difference; now +it was ploughing, sowing, and hoeing, with nothing for Jack. But he was +always down at the fishing cove to see the boats go out or come in and +join in the excitement when there was a good catch. It was still better +when the boat went with provisions to the lighthouse, or to relieve the +keeper, for then Jack would go too and if they would not have him he +would plunge into the waves and swim after it until the sails were +hoisted and it flew like a great gull from him and he was compelled to +swim back to land. If there was nothing else to do he would go to the +stone quarry and keep the quarrymen company, sharing their dinner +and hunting away the cows and donkeys that came too near. Then at +six o'clock he would turn up at the cricket-field, where a few young +enthusiasts would always attend to practise after working hours. + +Living this way Jack was, of course, known to everybody--as well known +as the burly parson, the tall policeman, and the lazy girl who acted as +postman and strolled about the parish once a day delivering the letters. +When Jack trotted down the village street he received as many greetings +as any human inhabitant--"Hullo, Jack!" or "Morning, Jack," or "Where be +going, Jack?" + +But all this variety, and all he could do to fit himself into and be +a part of the village life and fill up his time, did not satisfy him. +Happiness for Jack was out on the moor--its lonely wet thorny places, +pregnant with fascinating scents, not of flowers and odorous herbs, +but of alert, warm-blooded, and swift-footed creatures. And I was going +there--would I, could I, be so heartless as to refuse to take him? + +You see that Jack, being a dog, could not go there alone. He was a +social being by instinct as well as training, dependent on others, or +on the one who was his head and master. His human master, or the man who +took him out and spoke to him in a tone of authority, represented the +head of the pack--the leading dog for the time being, albeit a dog that +walked on his hind legs and spoke a bow-wow dialect of his own. + +I thought of all this and of many things besides. The dog, I remembered, +was taken by man out of his own world and thrust into one where he can +never adapt himself perfectly to the conditions, and it was consequently +nothing more than simple justice on my part to do what I could to +satisfy his desire even at some cost to myself. But while I was +revolving the matter in my mind, feeling rather unhappy about it, Jack +was quite happy, since he had nothing to revolve. For him it was all +settled and done with. Having taken him out once, I must go on taking +him out always. Our two lives, hitherto running apart--his in the +village, where he occupied himself with uncongenial affairs, mine on +the moor where, having but two legs to run on, I could catch no +rabbits--were now united in one current to our mutual advantage. His +habits were altered to suit the new life. He stayed in now so as not +to lose me when I went for a walk, and when returning, instead of going +back to his kennel, he followed me in and threw himself down, all wet, +on the rug before the fire. His master and mistress came in and stared +in astonishment. It was against the rules of the house! They ordered +him out and he looked at them without moving. Then they spoke again very +sharply indeed, and he growled a low buzzing growl without lifting his +chin from his paws, and they had to leave him! He had transferred +his allegiance to a new master and head of the pack. He was under my +protection and felt quite safe: if I had taken any part in that scene it +would have been to order those two persons who had once lorded it over +him out of the room! + +I didn't really mind his throwing over his master and taking possession +of the rug in my sitting-room, but I certainly did very keenly resent +his behaviour towards the birds every morning at breakfast-time. It was +my chief pleasure to feed them during the bad weather, and it was often +a difficult task even before Jack came on the scene to mix himself in my +affairs. The Land's End is, I believe, the windiest place in the world, +and when I opened the window and threw the scraps out the wind would +catch and whirl them away like so many feathers over the garden wall, +and I could not see what became of them. It was necessary to go out +by the kitchen door at the back (the front door facing the sea being +impossible) and scatter the food on the lawn, and then go into watch the +result from behind the window. The blackbirds and thrushes would wait +for a lull to fly in over the wall, while the daws would hover overhead +and sometimes succeed in dropping down and seizing a crust, but often +enough when descending they would be caught and whirled away by the +blast. The poor magpies found their long tails very much against them in +the scramble, and it was even worse with the pied wagtail. He would go +straight for the bread and get whirled and tossed about the smooth lawn +like a toy bird made of feathers, his tail blown over his head. It was +bad enough, and then Jack, curious about these visits to the lawn, came +to investigate and finding the scraps, proceeded to eat them all up. +I tried to make him understand better by feeding him before I fed the +birds; then by scolding and even hitting him, but he would not see it; +he knew better than I did; he wasn't hungry and he didn't want bread, +but he would eat it all the same, every scrap of it, just to prevent +it from being wasted. Jack was doubtless both vexed and amused at my +simplicity in thinking that all this food which I put on the lawn would +remain there undevoured by those useless creatures the birds until it +was wanted. + +Even this I forgave him, for I saw that he had not, that with his dog +mind he could not, understand me. I also remembered the words of a wise +old Cornish writer with regard to the mind of the lower animals: "But +their faculties of mind are no less proportioned to their state of +subjection than the shape and properties of their bodies. They have +knowledge peculiar to their several spheres and sufficient for the +under-part they have to act." + +Let me be free from the delusion that it is possible to raise them above +this level, or in other words to add an inch to their mental stature. +I have nothing to forgive Jack after all. And so in spite of everything +Jack was suffered at home and accompanied me again and again in my walks +abroad; and there were more blank days, or if not altogether blank, +seeing that there was Jack himself to be observed and thought about, +they were not the kind of days I had counted on having. My only +consolation was that Jack failed to capture more than one out of every +hundred, or perhaps five hundred, of the creatures he hunted, and that I +was even able to save a few of these. But I could not help admiring +his tremendous energy and courage, especially in cliff-climbing when +we visited the headlands--those stupendous masses and lofty piles of +granite which rise like castles built by giants of old. He would almost +make me tremble for his life when, after climbing on to some projecting +rock, he would go to the extreme end and look down over it as if it +pleased him to watch the big waves break in foam on the black rocks a +couple of hundred feet below. But it was not the big green waves or any +sight in nature that drew him--he sniffed and sniffed and wriggled and +twisted his black nose, and raised and depressed his ears as he sniffed, +and was excited solely because the upward currents of air brought him +tidings of living creatures that lurked in the rocks below--badger and +fox and rabbit. One day when quitting one of these places, on looking +up I spied Jack standing on the summit of a precipice about seventy-five +feet high. Jack saw me and waved his tail, and then started to come +straight down to me! From the top a faint rabbit track was, visible +winding downwards to within twenty-four feet of the ground; the rest +was a sheer wall of rock. Down he dashed, faster and faster as he got +to where the track ended, and then losing his footing he fell swiftly to +the earth, but luckily dropped on a deep spongy turf and was not hurt. +After witnessing this reckless act I knew how he had come by those +frightful bruises on a former occasion. He had doubtless fallen a long +way down a cliff and had been almost crushed on the stones. But the +lesson was lost on Jack; he would have it that where rabbits and foxes +went he could go! + +After all, the chief pleasure those blank bad days had for me was the +thought that Jack was as happy as he could well be. But it was not +enough to satisfy me, and by and by it came into my mind that I had +been long enough at that place. It was hard to leave Jack, who had put +himself so entirely in my hands, and trusted me so implicitly. But--the +weather was keeping very bad: was there ever known such a June as this +of 1907? So wet and windy and cold! Then, too, the bloom had gone from +the furze. It was, I remembered, to witness this chief loveliness that +I came. Looking on the wide moor and far-off boulder-strewn hills and +seeing how rusty the bushes were, I quoted-- + + The bloom has gone, and with the bloom go I, + +and early in the morning, with all my belongings on my back, I stole +softly forth, glancing apprehensively in the direction of the kennel, +and out on to the windy road. It was painful to me to have to decamp in +this way; it made me think meanly of myself; but if Jack could read this +and could speak his mind I think he would acknowledge that my way of +bringing the connection to an end was best for both of us. I was not +the person, or dog on two legs, he had taken me for, one with a proper +desire to kill things: I only acted according to my poor lights. +Nothing, then, remains to be said except that one word which it was not +convenient to speak on the windy morning of my departure--Good-bye Jack. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Afoot in England, by W.H. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Afoot in England + +Author: W.H. Hudson + +Release Date: April, 2004 [EBook #5406] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on July 8, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFOOT IN ENGLAND *** + + + + + + + + + + +AFOOT IN ENGLAND + +BY W.H. HUDSON + + +Contents + + I. Guide Books: An Introduction, + II. On Going Back, + III. Walking and Cycling, + IV. Seeking a Shelter, + V. Wind, Wave, and Spirit, + VI. By Swallowfield, + VII. Roman Calleva, + VIII. A Cold Day at Silchester, + IX. Rural Rides, + X. The Last of his Name, + XI. Salisbury and its Doves, + XII. Whitesheet Hill, + XIII. Bath and Wells Revisited, + XIV. The Return of the Native, + XV. Summer Days on the Otter, + XVI. In Praise of the Cow, + XVII. An Old Road Leading Nowhere, + XVIII. Branscombe, + XIX. A Abbotsbury, + XX. Salisbury Revisited, + XXI. Stonehenge, + XXII. The Tillage and "The Stones," + XXIII. Following a River, + XXIV. Troston, + XXV. My Friend Jack, + + + + +Chapter One: Guide-Books: An Introduction + +Guide-books are so many that it seems probable we have more +than any other country--possibly more than all the rest of the +universe together. Every county has a little library of its +own--guides to its towns, churches, abbeys, castles, rivers, +mountains; finally, to the county as a whole. They are of all +prices and all sizes, from the diminutive paper-covered +booklet, worth a penny, to the stout cloth-bound octavo volume +which costs eight or ten or twelve shillings, or to the +gigantic folio county history, the huge repository from which +the guide-book maker gets his materials. For these great +works are also guide-books, containing everything we want to +learn, only made on so huge a scale as to be suited to the +coat pockets of Brobdingnagians rather than of little ordinary +men. The wonder of it all comes in when we find that these +books, however old and comparatively worthless they may be, +are practically never wholly out of date. When a new work is +brought out (dozens appear annually) and, say, five thousand +copies sold, it does not throw as many, or indeed any, copies +of the old book out of circulation: it supersedes nothing. If +any man can indulge in the luxury of a new up-to-date guide to +any place, and gets rid of his old one (a rare thing to do), +this will be snapped up by poorer men, who will treasure it +and hand it down or on to others. Editions of 1860-50-40, and +older, are still prized, not merely as keepsakes but for study +or reference. Any one can prove this by going the round of a +dozen second-hand booksellers in his own district in London. +There will be tons of literary rubbish, and good stuff old and +new, but few guidebooks--in some cases not one. If you ask +your man at a venture for, say, a guide to Hampshire, he will +most probably tell you that he has not one in stock; then, in +his anxiety to do business, he will, perhaps, fish out a guide +to Derbyshire, dated 1854--a shabby old book--and offer it +for four or five shillings, the price of a Crabbe in eight +volumes, or of Gibbon's Decline and Fall in six volumes, bound +in calf. Talk to this man, and to the other eleven, and they +will tell you that there is always a sale for guide-books +--that the supply does not keep pace with the demand. It may be +taken as a fact that most of the books of this kind published +during the last half-century--many millions of copies in the +aggregate--are still in existence and are valued possessions. + +There is nothing to quarrel with in all this. As a people we +run about a great deal; and having curious minds we naturally +wish to know all there is to be known, or all that is +interesting to know, about the places we visit. Then, again, +our time as a rule being limited, we want the whole matter +--history, antiquities, places of interest in the neighbourhood, +etc. in a nutshell. The brief book serves its purpose well +enough; but it is not thrown away like the newspaper and the +magazines; however cheap and badly got up it may be, it is +taken home to serve another purpose, to be a help to memory, +and nobody can have it until its owner removes himself (but +not his possessions) from this planet; or until the broker +seizes his belongings, and guide-books, together with other +books, are disposed of in packages by the auctioneer. + +In all this we see that guide-books are very important to us, +and that there is little or no fault to be found with them, +since even the worst give some guidance and enable us in +after times mentally to revisit distant places. It may then +be said that there are really no bad guide-books, and that +those that are good in the highest sense are beyond praise. A +reverential sentiment, which is almost religious in character, +connects itself in our minds with the very name of Murray. It +is, however, possible to make an injudicious use of these +books, and by so doing to miss the fine point of many a +pleasure. The very fact that these books are guides to us and +invaluable, and that we readily acquire the habit of taking +them about with us and consulting them at frequent intervals, +comes between us and that rarest and most exquisite enjoyment +to be experienced amidst novel scenes. He that visits a place +new to him for some special object rightly informs himself of +all that the book can tell him. The knowledge may be useful; +pleasure is with him a secondary object. But if pleasure be +the main object, it will only be experienced in the highest +degree by him who goes without book and discovers what old +Fuller called the "observables" for himself. There will +be no mental pictures previously formed; consequently what is +found will not disappoint. When the mind has been permitted +to dwell beforehand on any scene, then, however beautiful or +grand it may be, the element of surprise is wanting and +admiration is weak. The delight has been discounted. + +My own plan, which may be recommended only to those who go out +for pleasure--who value happiness above useless (otherwise +useful) knowledge, and the pictures that live and glow in +memory above albums and collections of photographs--is not to +look at a guide-book until the place it treats of has been +explored and left behind. + +The practical person, to whom this may come as a new idea +and who wishes not to waste any time in experiments, would +doubtless like to hear how the plan works. He will say that +he certainly wants all the happiness to be got out of his +rambles, but it is clear that without the book in his pocket +he would miss many interesting things: Would the greater +degree of pleasure experienced in the others be a sufficient +compensation? I should say that he would gain more than he +would lose; that vivid interest and pleasure in a few things +is preferable to that fainter, more diffused feeling +experienced in the other case. Again, we have to take into +account the value to us of the mental pictures gathered in our +wanderings. For we know that only when a scene is viewed +emotionally, when it produces in us a shock of pleasure, does +it become a permanent possession of the mind; in other words, +it registers an image which, when called up before the inner +eye, is capable of reproducing a measure of the original +delight. + +In recalling those scenes which have given me the greatest +happiness, the images of which are most vivid and lasting, I +find that most of them are of scenes or objects which were +discovered, as it were, by chance, which I had not heard +of, or else had heard of and forgotten, or which I had not +expected to see. They came as a surprise, and in the following +instance one may see that it makes a vast difference whether +we do or do not experience such a sensation. + +In the course of a ramble on foot in a remote district I came +to a small ancient town, set in a cuplike depression amidst +high wood-grown hills. The woods were of oak in spring +foliage, and against that vivid green I saw the many-gabled +tiled roofs and tall chimneys of the old timbered houses, +glowing red and warm brown in the brilliant sunshine--a scene +of rare beauty, and yet it produced no shock of pleasure; +never, in fact, had I looked on a lovely scene for the first +time so unemotionally. It seemed to be no new scene, but +an old familiar one; and that it had certain degrading +associations which took away all delight. + +The reason of this was that a great railway company had +long been "booming" this romantic spot, and large photographs, +plain and coloured, of the town and its quaint buildings had +for years been staring at me in every station and every +railway carriage which I had entered on that line. Photography +degrades most things, especially open-air things; and in this +case, not only had its poor presentments made the scene too +familiar, but something of the degradation in the advertising +pictures seemed to attach itself to the very scene. Yet even +here, after some pleasureless days spent in vain endeavours to +shake off these vulgar associations, I was to experience one +of the sweetest surprises and delights of my life. + +The church of this village-like town is one of its chief +attractions; it is a very old and stately building, and its +perpendicular tower, nearly a hundred feet high, is one of the +noblest in England. It has a magnificent peal of bells, and +on a Sunday afternoon they were ringing, filling and flooding +that hollow in the hills, seeming to make the houses and trees +and the very earth to tremble with the glorious storm of +sound. Walking past the church, I followed the streamlet that +runs through the town and out by a cleft between the hills to +a narrow marshy valley, on the other side of which are +precipitous hills, clothed from base to summit in oak woods. +As I walked through the cleft the musical roar of the bells +followed, and was like a mighty current flowing through and +over me; but as I came out the sound from behind ceased +suddenly and was now in front, coming back from the hills +before me. A sound, but not the same--not a mere echo; and +yet an echo it was, the most wonderful I had ever heard. +For now that great tempest of musical noise, composed of a +multitude of clanging notes with long vibrations, overlapping +and mingling and clashing together, seemed at the same time +one and many--that tempest from the tower which had +mysteriously ceased to be audible came back in strokes or +notes distinct and separate and multiplied many times. The +sound, the echo, was distributed over the whole face of the +steep hill before me, and was changed in character, and it was +as if every one of those thousands of oak trees had a peal of +bells in it, and that they were raining that far-up bright +spiritual tree music down into the valley below. As I stood +listening it seemed to me that I had never heard anything so +beautiful, nor had any man--not the monk of Eynsham in that +vision when he heard the Easter bells on the holy Saturday +evening, and described the sound as "a ringing of a marvellous +sweetness, as if all the bells in the world, or whatsoever is +of sounding, had been rung together at once." + +Here, then, I had found and had become the possessor of +something priceless, since in that moment of surprise and +delight the mysterious beautiful sound, with the whole scene, +had registered an impression which would outlast all others +received at that place, where I had viewed all things with but +languid interest. Had it not come as a complete surprise, the +emotion experienced and the resultant mental image would not +have been so vivid; as it is, I can mentally stand in that +valley when I will, seeing that green-wooded hill in front of +me and listen to that unearthly music. + +Naturally, after quitting the spot, I looked at the first +opportunity into a guide-book of the district, only to find +that it contained not one word about those wonderful illusive +sounds! The book-makers had not done their work well, since +it is a pleasure after having discovered something delightful +for ourselves to know how others have been affected by it and +how they describe it. + +Of many other incidents of the kind I will, in this chapter, +relate one more, which has a historical or legendary interest. +I was staying with the companion of my walks at a village in +Southern England in a district new to us. We arrived on a +Saturday, and next morning after breakfast went out for a long +walk. Turning into the first path across the fields on +leaving the village, we came eventually to an oak wood, which +was like an open forest, very wild and solitary. In half an +hour's walk among the old oaks and underwood we saw no sign of +human occupancy, and heard nothing but the woodland birds. We +heard, and then saw, the cuckoo for the first time that +season, though it was but April the fourth. But the cuckoo +was early that spring and had been heard by some from the +middle of March. At length, about half-past ten o'clock, we +caught sight of a number of people walking in a kind of +straggling procession by a path which crossed ours at right +angles, headed by a stout old man in a black smock frock and +brown leggings, who carried a big book in one hand. One of +the processionists we spoke to told us they came from a hamlet +a mile away on the borders of the wood and were on their way +to church. We elected to follow them, thinking that the +church was at some neighbouring village; to our surprise we +found it was in the wood, with no other building in sight +--a small ancient-looking church built on a raised mound, +surrounded by a wide shallow grass-grown trench, on the border +of a marshy stream. The people went in and took their seats, +while we remained standing just by the door. Then the priest +came from the vestry, and seizing the rope vigorously, pulled +at it for five minutes, after which he showed us where to sit +and the service began. It was very pleasant there, with the +door open to the sunlit forest and the little green churchyard +without, with a willow wren, the first I had heard, singing +his delicate little strain at intervals. + +The service over, we rambled an hour longer in the wood, then +returned to our village, which had a church of its own, and +our landlady, hearing where we had been, told us the story, or +tradition, of the little church in the wood. Its origin goes +very far back to early Norman times, when all the land in this +part was owned by one of William's followers on whom it had +been bestowed. He built himself a house or castle on the edge +of the forest, where he lived with his wife and two little +daughters who were his chief delight. It happened that one +day when he was absent the two little girls with their female +attendant went into the wood in search of flowers, and that +meeting a wild boar they turned and fled, screaming for help. +The savage beast pursued, and, quickly overtaking them, +attacked the hindermost, the youngest of the two little girls, +anal killed her, the others escaping in the meantime. On the +following day the father returned, and was mad with grief and +rage on hearing of the tragedy, and in his madness resolved to +go alone on foot to the forest and search for the beast and +taste no food or drink until he had slain it. Accordingly to +the forest he went, and roamed through it by day and night, +and towards the end of the following day he actually found and +roused the dreadful animal, and although weakened by his long +fast and fatigue, his fury gave him force to fight and conquer +it, or else the powers above came to his aid; for when he +stood spear in hand to wait the charge of the furious beast he +vowed that if he overcame it on that spot he would build a +chapel, where God would be worshipped for ever. And there it +was raised and has stood to this day, its doors open every +Sunday to worshippers, with but one break, some time in the +sixteenth century to the third year of Elizabeth, since when +there has been no suspension of the weekly service. + +That the tradition is not true no one can say. We know that +the memory of an action or tragedy of a character to stir the +feelings and impress the imagination may live unrecorded in +any locality for long centuries. And more, we know or +suppose, from at least one quite familiar instance from +Flintshire, that a tradition may even take us back to +prehistoric times and find corroboration in our own day. + +But of this story what corroboration is there, and what do +the books say? I have consulted the county history, and no +mention is made of such a tradition, and can only assume that +the author had never heard it--that he had not the curious +Aubrey mind. He only says that it is a very early church +--how early he does not know--and adds that it was built "for +the convenience of the inhabitants of the place." An odd +statement, seeing that the place has every appearance of +having always been what it is, a forest, and that the +inhabitants thereof are weasels, foxes, jays and such-like, +and doubtless in former days included wolves, boars, roe-deer +and stags, beings which, as Walt Whitman truly remarks, do not +worry themselves about their souls. + +With this question, however, we need not concern ourselves. +To me, after stumbling by chance on the little church in that +solitary woodland place, the story of its origin was accepted +as true; no doubt it had come down unaltered from generation +to generation through all those centuries, and it moved my +pity yet was a delight to hear, as great perhaps as it had +been to listen to the beautiful chimes many times multiplied +from the wooded hill. And if I have a purpose in this book, +which is without a purpose, a message to deliver and a lesson +to teach, it is only this--the charm of the unknown, and the +infinitely greater pleasure in discovering the interesting +things for ourselves than in informing ourselves of them by +reading. It is like the difference in flavour in wild fruits +and all wild meats found and gathered by our own hands in wild +places and that of the same prepared and put on the table for +us. The ever-varying aspects of nature, of earth and sea and +cloud, are a perpetual joy to the artist, who waits and watches +for their appearance, who knows that sun and atmosphere have +for him revelations without end. They come and go and mock +his best efforts; he knows that his striving is in vain--that +his weak hands and earthy pigments cannot reproduce these +effects or express his feeling--that, as Leighton said, "every +picture is a subject thrown away." But he has his joy none +the less; it is in the pursuit and in the dream of capturing +something illusive, mysterious, and inexpressibly beautiful. + + + + +Chapter Two: On Going Back + + +In looking over the preceding chapter it occurred to me that I +had omitted something, or rather that it would have been well +to drop a word of warning to those who have the desire to +revisit a place where they have experienced a delightful +surprise. Alas! they cannot have that sensation a second +time, and on this account alone the mental image must always +be better than its reality. Let the image--the first sharp +impression--content us. Many a beautiful picture is spoilt by +the artist who cannot be satisfied that he has made the best +of his subject, and retouching his canvas to bring out some +subtle charm which made the work a success loses it +altogether. So in going back, the result of the inevitable +disillusionment is that the early mental picture loses +something of its original freshness. The very fact that the +delightful place or scene was discovered by us made it the +shining place it is in memory. And again, the charm we found +in it may have been in a measure due to the mood we were in, +or to the peculiar aspect in which it came before us at the +first, due to the season, to atmospheric and sunlight effects, +to some human interest, or to a conjunction of several +favourable circumstances; we know we can never see it again +in that aspect and with that precise feeling. + +On this account I am shy of revisiting the places where I have +experienced the keenest delight. For example, I have no +desire to revisit that small ancient town among the hills, +described in the last chapter; to go on a Sunday evening +through that narrow gorge, filled with the musical roar of the +church bells; to leave that great sound behind and stand again +listening to the marvellous echo from the wooded hill on the +other side of the valley. Nor would I care to go again in +search of that small ancient lost church in the forest. It +would not be early April with the clear sunbeams shining +through the old leafless oaks on the floor of fallen yellow +leaves with the cuckoo fluting before his time; nor would that +straggling procession of villagers appear, headed by an old +man in a smock frock with a big book in his hand; nor would I +hear for the first time the strange history of the church +which so enchanted me. + +I will here give an account of yet another of the many +well-remembered delightful spots which I would not revisit, +nor even look upon again if I could avoid doing so by going +several miles out of my way. + +It was green open country in the west of England--very far +west, although on the east side of the Tamar--in a beautiful +spot remote from railroads and large towns, and the road by +which I was travelling (on this occasion on a bicycle) ran or +serpentined along the foot of a range of low round hills on my +right hand, while on my left I had a green valley with other +low round green hills beyond it. The valley had a marshy +stream with sedgy margins and occasional clumps of alder and +willow trees. It was the end of a hot midsummer day; the sun +went down a vast globe of crimson fire in a crystal clear sky; +and as I was going east I was obliged to dismount and stand +still to watch its setting. When the great red disc had gone +down behind the green world I resumed my way but went slowly, +then slower still, the better to enjoy the delicious coolness +which came from the moist valley and the beauty of the evening +in that solitary place which I had never looked on before. +Nor was there any need to hurry; I had but three or four miles +to go to the small old town where I intended passing the +night. By and by the winding road led me down close to the +stream at a point where it broadened to a large still pool. +This was the ford, and on the other side was a small rustic +village, consisting of a church, two or three farm-houses with +their barns and outbuildings, and a few ancient-looking stone +cottages with thatched roofs. But the church was the main +thing; it was a noble building with a very fine tower, and +from its size and beauty I concluded that it was an ancient +church dating back to the time when there was a passion in the +West Country and in many parts of England of building these +great fanes even in the remotest and most thinly populated +parishes. In this I was mistaken through having seen it at a +distance from the other side of the ford after the sun had +set. + +Never, I thought, had I seen a lovelier village with its old +picturesque cottages shaded by ancient oaks and elms, and the +great church with its stately tower looking dark against the +luminous western sky. Dismounting again I stood for some time +admiring the scene, wishing that I could make that village my +home for the rest of my life, conscious at the same time that +is was the mood, the season, the magical hour which made it +seem so enchanting. Presently a young man, the first human +figure that presented itself to my sight, appeared, mounted on +a big carthorse and leading a second horse by a halter, and +rode down into the pool to bathe the animals' legs and give +them a drink. He was a sturdy-looking young fellow with a +sun-browned face, in earth-coloured, working clothes, with a +small cap stuck on the back of his round curly head; he +probably imagined himself not a bad-looking young man, for +while his horses were drinking he laid over on the broad bare +backs and bending down studied his own reflection in the +bright water. Then an old woman came out of a cottage close +by, and began talking to him in her West Country dialect in a +thin high-pitched cracked voice. Their talking was the only +sound in the village; so silent was it that all the rest of +its inhabitants might have been in bed and fast asleep; then, +the conversation ended, the young man rode out with a great +splashing and the old woman turned into her cottage again, and +I was left in solitude. + +Still I lingered: I could not go just yet; the chances were +that I should never again see that sweet village in that +beautiful aspect at the twilight hour. + +For now it came into my mind that I could not very well settle +there for the rest of my life; I could not, in fact, tie +myself to any place without sacrificing certain other +advantages I possessed; and the main thing was that by taking +root I should deprive myself of the chance of looking on still +other beautiful scenes and experiencing other sweet surprises. +I was wishing that I had come a little earlier on the scene to +have had time to borrow the key of the church and get a sight +of the interior, when all at once I heard a shrill voice and a +boy appeared running across the wide green space of the +churchyard. A second boy followed, then another, then still +others, and I saw that they were going into the church by the +side door. They were choir-boys going to practice. The +church was open then, and late as it was I could have half an +hour inside before it was dark! The stream was spanned by an +old stone bridge above the ford, and going over it I at once +made my way to the great building, but even before entering it +I discovered that it possessed an organ of extraordinary power +and that someone was performing on it with a vengeance. +Inside the noise was tremendous--a bigger noise from an organ, +it seemed to me, than I had ever heard before, even at the +Albert Hall and the Crystal Palace, but even more astonishing +than the uproar was the sight that met my eyes. The boys, +nine or ten sturdy little rustics with round sunburnt West +Country faces, were playing the roughest game ever witnessed +in a church. Some were engaged in a sort of flying fight, +madly pursuing one another up and down the aisles and over the +pews, and whenever one overtook another he would seize hold of +him and they would struggle together until one was thrown and +received a vigorous pommelling. Those who were not fighting +were dancing to the music. It was great fun to them, and they +were shouting and laughing their loudest only not a sound of +it all could be heard on account of the thunderous roar of the +organ which filled and seemed to make the whole building +tremble. The boys took no notice of me, and seeing that there +was a singularly fine west window, I went to it and stood +there some time with my back to the game which was going on at +the other end of the building, admiring the beautiful colours +and trying to make out the subjects depicted. In the centre +part, lit by the after-glow in the sky to a wonderful +brilliance, was the figure of a saint, a lovely young woman in +a blue robe with an abundance of loose golden-red hair and an +aureole about her head. Her pale face wore a sweet and placid +expression, and her eyes of a pure forget-me-not blue were +looking straight into mine. As I stood there the music, or +noise, ceased and a very profound silence followed--not a +giggle, not a whisper from the outrageous young barbarians, +and not a sound of the organist or of anyone speaking to them. +Presently I became conscious of some person standing almost +but not quite abreast of me, and turning sharply I found a +clergyman at my side. He was the vicar, the person who had +been letting himself go on the organ; a slight man with a +handsome, pale, ascetic face, clean-shaven, very dark-eyed, +looking more like an Italian monk or priest than an English +clergyman. But although rigidly ecclesiastic in his +appearance and dress, there was something curiously engaging +in him, along with a subtle look which it was not easy to +fathom. There was a light in his dark eyes which reminded me +of a flame seen through a smoked glass or a thin black veil, +and a slight restless movement about the corners of his mouth +as if a smile was just on the point of breaking out. But it +never quite came; he kept his gravity even when he said things +which would have gone very well with a smile. + +"I see," he spoke, and his penetrating musical voice had, too, +like his eyes and mouth, an expression of mystery in it, "that +you are admiring our beautiful west window, especially the +figure in the centre. It is quite new--everything is new +here--the church itself was only built a few years ago. This +window is its chief glory: it was done by a good artist--he +has done some of the most admired windows of recent years; and +the centre figure is supposed to be a portrait of our generous +patroness. At all events she sat for it to him. You have +probably heard of Lady Y--?" + +"What!" I exclaimed. "Lady Y--: that funny old woman!" + +"No--middle-aged," he corrected, a little frigidly and perhaps +a little mockingly at the same time. + +"Very well, middle-aged if you like; I don't know her +personally. One hears about her; but I did not know she had a +place in these parts." + +"She owns most of this parish and has done so much for us that +we can very well look leniently on a little weakness--her wish +that the future inhabitants of the place shall not remember her +as a middle-aged woman not remarkable for good looks--'funny,' +as you just now said." + +He was wonderfully candid, I thought. But what extraordinary +benefits had she bestowed on them, I asked, to enable them to +regard, or to say, that this picture of a very beautiful young +female was her likeness! + +"Why," he said, "the church would not have been built but for +her. We were astonished at the sum she offered to contribute +towards the work, and at once set about pulling the small old +church down so as to rebuild on the exact site." + +"Do you know," I returned, "I can't help saying something you +will not like to hear. It is a very fine church, no doubt, +but it always angers me to hear of a case like this where some +ancient church is pulled down and a grand new one raised in +its place to the honour and glory of some rich parvenu with or +without a brand new title." + +"You are not hurting me in the least," he replied, with that +change which came from time to time in his eyes as if the +flame behind the screen had suddenly grown brighter. "I agree +with every word you say; the meanest church in the land should +be cherished as long as it will hold together. But +unfortunately ours had to come down. It was very old and +decayed past mending. The floor was six feet below the level +of the surrounding ground and frightfully damp. It had been +examined over and over again by experts during the past forty +or fifty years, and from the first they pronounced it a +hopeless case, so that it was never restored. The interior, +right down to the time of demolition, was like that of most +country churches of a century ago, with the old black worm- +eaten pews, in which the worshippers shut themselves up as if +in their own houses or castles. On account of the damp we +were haunted by toads. You smile, sir, but it was no smiling +matter for me during my first year as vicar, when I discovered +that it was the custom here to keep pet toads in the church. +It sounds strange and funny, no doubt, but it is a fact that +all the best people in the parish had one of these creatures, +and it was customary for the ladies to bring it a weekly +supply of provisions--bits of meat, hard-boiled eggs chopped +up, and earth-worms, and whatever else they fancied it would +like--in their reticules. The toads, I suppose, knew when it +was Sunday--their feeding day; at all events they would crawl +out of their holes in the floor under the pews to receive +their rations--and caresses. The toads got on my nerves with +rather unpleasant consequences. I preached in a way which my +listeners did not appreciate or properly understand, +particularly when I took for my subject our duty towards the +lower animals, including reptiles." + +"Batrachians," I interposed, echoing as well as I could the +tone in which he had rebuked me before. + +"Very well, batrachians--I am not a naturalist. But the +impression created on their minds appeared to be that I was +rather an odd person in the pulpit. When the time came to +pull the old church down the toad-keepers were bidden to +remove their pets, which they did with considerable +reluctance. What became of them I do not know--I never +inquired. I used to have a careful inspection made of the +floor to make sure that these creatures were not put back +in the new building, and I am happy to think it is not +suited to their habits. The floors are very well cemented, +and are dry and clean." + +Having finished his story he invited me to go to the parsonage +and get some refreshment. "I daresay you are thirsty," he +said. + +But it was getting late; it was almost dark in the church by +now, although the figure of the golden-haired saint still +glowed in the window and gazed at us out of her blue eyes. "I +must not waste more of your time," I added. "There are your +boys still patiently waiting to begin their practice--such +nice quiet fellows!" + +"Yes, they are," he returned a little bitterly, a sudden +accent of weariness in his voice and no trace now of what I +had seen in his countenance a little while ago--the light that +shone and brightened behind the dark eye and the little play +about the corners of the mouth as of dimpling motions on the +surface of a pool. + +And in that new guise, or disguise, I left him, the austere +priest with nothing to suggest the whimsical or grotesque in +his cold ascetic face. Recrossing the bridge I stood a little +time and looked once more at the noble church tower standing +dark against the clear amber-coloured sky, and said to myself: +"Why, this is one of the oddest incidents of my life! Not +that I have seen or heard anything very wonderful--just a +small rustic village, one of a thousand in the land; a big new +church in which some person was playing rather madly on the +organ, a set of unruly choir-boys; a handsome stained-glass +west window, and, finally, a nice little chat with the vicar." +It was not in these things; it was a sense of something +strange in the mind, of something in some way unlike all other +places and people and experiences. The sensation was like +that of the reader who becomes absorbed in Henry Newbolt's +romance of The Old Country, who identifies himself with the +hero and unconsciously, or without quite knowing how, slips +back out of this modern world into that of half a thousand +years ago. It is the same familiar green land in which he +finds himself--the same old country and the same sort of +people with feelings and habits of life and thought +unchangeable as the colour of grass and flowers, the songs +of birds and the smell of the earth, yet with a difference. +I recognized it chiefly in the parish priest I had been +conversing with; for one thing, his mediaeval mind evidently +did not regard a sense of humour and of the grotesque as out +of place in or on a sacred building. If it had been lighter I +should have looked at the roof for an effigy of a semi-human +toad-like creature smiling down mockingly at the worshippers +as they came and went. + +On departing it struck me that it would assuredly be a mistake +to return to this village and look at it again by the common +lights of day. No, it was better to keep the impressions I +had gathered unspoilt; even to believe, if I could, that no +such place existed, but that it had existed exactly as I had +found it, even to the unruly choir-boys, the ascetic-looking +priest with a strange light in his eyes, and the worshippers +who kept pet toads in the church. They were not precisely +like people of the twentieth century. As for the eccentric +middle-aged or elderly person whose portrait adorned the west +window, she was not the lady I knew something about, but +another older Lady Y--, who flourished some six or seven +centuries ago. + + + + +Chapter Three: Walking and Cycling + + +We know that there cannot be progression without +retrogression, or gain with no corresponding loss; and often +on my wheel, when flying along the roads at a reckless rate of +very nearly nine miles an hour, I have regretted that time of +limitations, galling to me then, when I was compelled to go on +foot. I am a walker still, but with other means of getting +about I do not feel so native to the earth as formerly. That +is a loss. Yet a poorer walker it would have been hard to +find, and on even my most prolonged wanderings the end of each +day usually brought extreme fatigue. This, too, although my +only companion was slow--slower than the poor proverbial snail +or tortoise--and I would leave her half a mile or so behind to +force my way through unkept hedges, climb hills, and explore +woods and thickets to converse with every bird and shy little +beast and scaly creature I could discover. But mark what +follows. In the late afternoon I would be back in the road or +footpath, satisfied to go slow, then slower still, until--the +snail in woman shape would be obliged to slacken her pace to +keep me company, and even to stand still at intervals to give +me needful rest. + +But there were compensations, and one, perhaps the best of +all, was that this method of seeing the country made us more +intimate with the people we met and stayed with. They were +mostly poor people, cottagers in small remote villages; and +we, too, were poor, often footsore, in need of their +ministrations, and nearer to them on that account than if we +had travelled in a more comfortable way. I can recall a +hundred little adventures we met with during those wanderings, +when we walked day after day, without map or guide-book as our +custom was, not knowing where the evening would find us, but +always confident that the people to whom it would fall in the +end to shelter us would prove interesting to know and would +show us a kindness that money could not pay for. Of these +hundred little incidents let me relate one. + +It was near the end of a long summer day when we arrived at a +small hamlet of about a dozen cottages on the edge of an +extensive wood--a forest it is called; and, coming to it, we +said that here we must stay, even if we had to spend the night +sitting in a porch. The men and women we talked to all +assured us that they did not know of anyone who could take us +in, but there was Mr. Brownjohn, who kept the shop, and was +the right person to apply to. Accordingly we went to the +little general shop and heard that Mr. Brownjohn was not at +home. His housekeeper, a fat, dark, voluble woman with +prominent black eyes, who minded the shop in the master's +absence, told us that Mr. Brownjohn had gone to a neighbouring +farm-house on important business, but was expected back +shortly. We waited, and by and by he returned, a shabbily +dressed, weak-looking little old man, with pale blue eyes and +thin yellowish white hair. He could not put us up, he said, +he had no room in his cottage; there was nothing for us but to +go on to the next place, a village three miles distant, on the +chance of finding a bed there. We assured him that we could +go no further, and after revolving the matter a while longer +he again said that we could not stay, as there was not a room +to be had in the place since poor Mrs. Flowerdew had her +trouble. She had a spare room and used to take in a lodger +occasionally, and a good handy woman she was too; but now--no, +Mrs. Flowerdew could not take us in. We questioned him, and +he said that no one had died there and there had been no +illness. They were all quite well at Mrs. Flowerdew's; the +trouble was of another kind. There was no more to be said +about it. + +As nothing further could be got out of him we went in search +of Mrs. Flowerdew herself, and found her in a pretty +vine-clad cottage. She was a young woman, very poorly +dressed, with a pleasing but careworn face, and she had four +small, bright, healthy, happy-faced children. They were all +grouped round her as she stood in the doorway to speak to us, +and they too were poorly dressed and poorly shod. When we +told our tale she appeared ready to burst into tears. Oh, how +unfortunate it was that she could not take us in! It would +have made her so happy, and the few shillings would have been +such a blessing! But what could she do now--the landlord's +agent had put in a distress and carried off and sold all her +best things. Every stick out of her nice spare room had been +taken from them! Oh, it was cruel! + +As we wished to hear more she told us the whole story. They +had got behindhand with the rent, but that had often been the +case, only this time it happened that the agent wanted a +cottage for a person he wished to befriend, and so gave them +notice to quit. But her husband was a high-spirited man and +determined to stick to his rights, so he informed the agent +that he refused to move until he received compensation for his +improvements. + +Questioned about these improvements, she led us through to the +back to show us the ground, about half an acre in extent, part +of which was used as a paddock for the donkey, and on the +other part there were about a dozen rather sickly-looking +young fruit trees. Her husband, she said, had planted the +orchard and kept the fence of the paddock in order, and they +refused to compensate him! Then she took us up to the spare +room, empty of furniture, the floor thick with dust. The bed, +table, chairs, washhandstand, toilet service--the things she +had been so long struggling to get together, saving her money +for months and months, and making so many journeys to the town +to buy--all, all he had taken away and sold for almost +nothing! + +Then, actually with tears in her eyes, she said that now we +knew why she couldn't take us in--why she had to seem so +unkind. + +But we are going to stay, we told her. It was a very good +room; she could surely get a few things to put in it, and in +the meantime we would go and forage for provisions to last us +till Monday. + +It is odd to find how easy it is to get what one wants by +simply taking it! At first she was amazed at our decision, +then she was delighted and said she would go out to her +neighbours and try to borrow all that was wanted in the way of +furniture and bedding. Then we returned to Mr. Brownjohn's to +buy bread, bacon, and groceries, and he in turn sent us to Mr. +Marling for vegetables. Mr. Marling heard us, and soberly +taking up a spade and other implements led us out to his +garden and dug us a mess of potatoes while we waited. In the +meantime good Mrs. Flowerdew had not been idle, and we formed +the idea that her neighbours must have been her debtors for +unnumbered little kindnesses, so eager did they now appear to +do her a good turn. Out of one cottage a woman was seen +coming burdened with a big roll of bedding; from others +children issued bearing cane chairs, basin and ewer, and so +on, and when we next looked into our room we found it swept +and scrubbed, mats on the floor, and quite comfortably +furnished. + +After our meal in the small parlour, which had been given up +to us, the family having migrated into the kitchen, we sat for +an hour by the open window looking out on the dim forest and +saw the moon rise--a great golden globe above the trees--and +listened to the reeling of the nightjars. So many were the +birds, reeling on all sides, at various distances, that the +evening air seemed full of their sounds, far and near, like +many low, tremulous, sustained notes blown on reeds, rising +and falling, overlapping and mingling. And presently from +the bushes close by, just beyond the weedy, forlorn little +"orchard," sounded the rich, full, throbbing prelude to the +nightingale's song, and that powerful melody that in its +purity and brilliance invariably strikes us with surprise +seemed to shine out, as it were, against the background of +that diffused, mysterious purring of the nightjars, even as +the golden disc of the moon shone against and above the +darkening skies and dusky woods. + +And as we sat there, gazing and listening, a human voice +came out of the night--a call prolonged and modulated like +the coo-ee of the Australian bush, far off and faint; but +the children in the kitchen heard it at the same time, for +they too had been listening, and instantly went mad with +excitement. + +"Father!" they all screamed together. "Father's coming!" and +out they rushed and away they fled down the darkening road, +exerting their full voices in shrill answering cries. + +We were anxious to see this unfortunate man, who was yet happy +in a loving family. He had gone early in the morning in his +donkey-cart to the little market town, fourteen miles away, to +get the few necessaries they could afford to buy. Doubtless +they would be very few. We had not long to wait, as the white +donkey that drew the cart had put on a tremendous spurt at the +end, notwithstanding that the four youngsters had climbed in +to add to his burden. But what was our surprise to behold in +the charioteer a tall, gaunt, grey-faced old man with long +white hair and beard! He must have been seventy, that old man +with a young wife and four happy bright-eyed little children! + +We could understand it better when he finally settled down in +his corner in the kitchen and began to relate the events of +the day, addressing his poor little wife, now busy darning +or patching an old garment, while the children, clustered +at his knee, listened as to a fairy tale. Certainly this +white-haired man had not grown old in mind; he was keenly +interested in all he saw and heard, and he had seen and heard +much in the little market town that day. Cattle and pigs and +sheep and shepherds and sheepdogs; farmers, shopkeepers, +dealers, publicans, tramps, and gentlefolks in carriages and +on horseback; shops, too, with beautiful new things in the +windows; millinery, agricultural implements, flowers and fruit +and vegetables; toys and books and sweeties of all colours. +And the people he had met on the road and at market, and what +they had said to him about the weather and their business and +the prospects of the year, how their wives and children were, +and the clever jokes they had made, and his own jokes, which +were the cleverest of all. If he had just returned from +Central Africa or from Thibet he could not have had more to +tell them nor told it with greater zest. + +We went to our room, but until the small hours the wind of the +old traveller's talk could still be heard at intervals from +the kitchen, mingled with occasional shrill explosions of +laughter from the listening children. + +It happened that on the following day, spent in idling in the +forest and about the hamlet, conversing with the cottagers, we +were told that our old man was a bit of a humbug; that he was +a great talker, with a hundred schemes for the improvement +of his fortunes, and, incidently, for the benefit of his +neighbours and the world at large; but nothing came of it all +and he was now fast sinking into the lowest depths of poverty. +Yet who would blame him? 'Tis the nature of the gorse to be +"unprofitably gay." All that, however, is a question for the +moralist; the point now is that in walking, even in that poor +way, when, on account of physical weakness, it was often a +pain and weariness, there are alleviations which may be more +to us than positive pleasures, and scenes to delight the eye +that are missed by the wheelman in his haste, or but dimly +seen or vaguely surmised in passing--green refreshing nooks +and crystal streamlets, and shadowy woodland depths with +glimpses of a blue sky beyond--all in the wilderness of the +human heart. + + + + +Chapter Four: Seeking a Shelter + + +The "walks" already spoken of, at a time when life had +little or no other pleasure for us on account of poverty and +ill-health, were taken at pretty regular intervals two or +three times a year. It all depended on our means; in very +lean years there was but one outing. It was impossible to +escape altogether from the immense unfriendly wilderness of +London simply because, albeit "unfriendly," it yet appeared to +be the only place in the wide world where our poor little +talents could earn us a few shillings a week to live on. +Music and literature! but I fancy the nearest crossing-sweeper +did better, and could afford to give himself a more generous +dinner every day. It occasionally happened that an article +sent to some magazine was not returned, and always after so +many rejections to have one accepted and paid for with a +cheque worth several pounds was a cause of astonishment, and +was as truly a miracle as if the angel of the sun had +compassionately thrown us down a handful of gold. And out of +these little handfuls enough was sometimes saved for the +country rambles at Easter and Whitsuntide and in the autumn. +It was during one of these Easter walks, when seeking for a +resting-place for the night, that we met with another +adventure worth telling. + +We had got to that best part of Surrey not yet colonized by +wealthy men from the City, but where all things are as they +were of old, when, late in the day, we came to a pleasant +straggling village with one street a mile long. Here we +resolved to stay, and walked the length of the street making +inquiries, but were told by every person we spoke to that the +only place we could stay at was the inn--the "White Hart." +When we said we preferred to stay at a cottage they smiled a +pitying smile. No, there was no such place. But we were +determined not to go to the inn, although it had a very +inviting look, and was well placed with no other house near +it, looking on the wide village green with ancient trees +shading the road on either side. + +Having passed it and got to the end of the village, we turned +and walked back, still making vain inquiries, passing it +again, and when once more at the starting-point we were in +despair when we spied a man coming along the middle of the +road and went out to meet him to ask the weary question for +the last time. His appearance was rather odd as he came +towards us on that blowy March evening with dust and straws +flying past and the level sun shining full on him. He +was tall and slim, with a large round smooth face and big +pale-blue innocent-looking eyes, and he walked rapidly but in +a peculiar jerky yet shambling manner, swinging and tossing +his legs and arms about. Moving along in this disjointed +manner in his loose fluttering clothes he put one in mind of +a big flimsy newspaper blown along the road by the wind. +This unpromising-looking person at once told us that there was +a place where we could stay; he knew it well, for it happened +to be his father's house and his own home. It was away at the +other end of the village. His people had given accommodation +to strangers before, and would be glad to receive us and make +us comfortable. + +Surprised, and a little doubtful of our good fortune, I asked +my young man if he could explain the fact that so many of his +neighbours had assured us that no accommodation was to be had +in the village except at the inn. He did not make a direct +reply. He said that the ways of the villagers were not the +ways of his people. He and all his house cherished only kind +feelings towards their neighbours; whether those feelings were +returned or not, it was not for him to say. And there was +something else. A small appointment which would keep a man +from want for the term of his natural life, without absorbing +all his time, had become vacant in the village. Several of +the young men in the place were anxious to have it; then he, +too, came forward as a candidate, and all the others jeered at +him and tried to laugh him out of it. He cared nothing for +that, and when the examination came off he proved the best man +and got the place. He had fought his fight and had overcome +all his enemies; if they did not like him any the better for +his victory, and did and said little things to injure him, he +did not mind much, he could afford to forgive them. + +Having finished his story, he said good-bye, and went his way, +blown, as it were, along the road by the wind. + +We were now very curious to see the other members of his +family; they would, we imagined, prove amusing, if nothing +better. They proved a good deal better. The house we sought, +for a house it was, stood a little way back from the street +in a large garden. It had in former times been an inn, or +farm-house, possibly a manor-house, and was large, with +many small rooms, and short, narrow, crooked staircases, +half-landings and narrow passages, and a few large rooms, +their low ceilings resting on old oak beams, black as ebony. +Outside, it was the most picturesque and doubtless the oldest +house in the village; many-gabled, with very tall ancient +chimneys, the roofs of red tiles mottled grey and yellow with +age and lichen. It was a surprise to find a woodman--for that +was what the man was--living in such a big place. The woodman +himself, his appearance and character, gave us a second and +greater surprise. He was a well-shaped man of medium height; +although past middle life he looked young, and had no white +thread in his raven-black hair and beard. His teeth were +white and even, and his features as perfect as I have seen in +any man. His eyes were pure dark blue, contrasting rather +strangely with his pale olive skin and intense black hair. +Only a woodman, but he might have come of one of the oldest +and best families in the country, if there is any connection +between good blood and fine features and a noble expression. +Oddly enough, his surname was an uncommon and aristocratic +one. His wife, on the other hand, although a very good woman +as we found, had a distinctly plebeian countenance. One day +she informed us that she came of a different and better class +than her husband's. She was the daughter of a small +tradesman, and had begun life as a lady's-maid: her husband +was nothing but a labourer; his people had been labourers for +generations, consequently her marriage to him had involved a +considerable descent in the social scale. Hearing this, it +was hard to repress a smile. + +The contrast between this man and the ordinary villager of his +class was as great in manners and conversation as in features +and expression. His combined dignity and gentleness, and +apparent unconsciousness of any caste difference between man +and man, were astonishing in one who had been a simple toiler +all his life. + +There were some grown-up children, others growing up, with +others that were still quite small. The boys, I noticed, +favoured their mother, and had commonplace faces; the girls +took after their father, and though their features were not so +perfect they were exceptionally good-looking. The eldest son +--the disjointed, fly-away-looking young man who had conquered +all his enemies--had a wife and child. The eldest daughter +was also married, and had one child. Altogether the three +families numbered about sixteen persons, each family having +its separate set of rooms, but all dining at one table. +How did they do it? It seemed easy enough to them. They were +serious people in a sense, although always cheerful and +sometimes hilarious when together of an evening, or at their +meals. But they regarded life as a serious matter, a state of +probation; they were non-smokers, total abstainers, diligent +at their work, united, profoundly religious. A fresh wonder +came to light when I found that this poor woodman, with so +large a family to support, who spent ten or twelve hours every +day at his outdoor work, had yet been able out of his small +earnings to buy bricks and other materials, and, assisted by +his sons, to build a chapel adjoining his house. Here he held +religious services on Sundays, and once or twice of an evening +during the week. These services consisted of extempore +prayers, a short address, and hymns accompanied by a +harmonium, which they all appeared able to play. + +What his particular doctrine was I did not inquire, nor did I +wish for any information on that point. Doubtless he was a +Dissenter of some kind living in a village where there was no +chapel; the services were for the family, but were also +attended by a few of the villagers and some persons from +neighbouring farms who preferred a simpler form of worship to +that of the Church. + +It was not strange that this little community should have been +regarded with something like disfavour by the other villagers. +For these others, man for man, made just as much money, and +paid less rent for their small cottages, and, furthermore, +received doles from the vicar and his well-to-do parishioners, +yet they could not better their position, much less afford the +good clothing, books, music, and other pleasant things which +the independent woodman bestowed on his family. And they knew +why. The woodman's very presence in their midst was a +continual reproach, a sermon on improvidence and intemperance, +which they could not avoid hearing by thrusting their fingers +into their ears. + +During my stay with these people something occurred to cause +them a very deep disquiet. The reader will probably smile +when I tell them what it was. Awaking one night after +midnight I heard the unusual sound of voices in earnest +conversation in the room below; this went on until I fell +asleep again. In the morning we noticed that our landlady had +a somewhat haggard face, and that the daughters also had pale +faces, with purple marks under the eyes, as if they had kept +their mother company in some sorrowful vigil. We were not +left long in ignorance of the cause of this cloud. The good +woman asked if we had been much disturbed by the talking. I +answered that I had heard voices and had supposed that friends +from a distance had arrived overnight and that they had sat up +talking to a late hour. No--that was not it, she said; but +someone had arrived late, a son who was sixteen years old, and +who had been absent for some days on a visit to relations in +another county. When they gathered round him to hear his news +he confessed that while away he had learnt to smoke, and he +now wished them to know that he had well considered the +matter, and was convinced that it was not wrong nor harmful to +smoke, and was determined not to give up his tobacco. They +had talked to him--father, mother, brothers, and sisters +--using every argument they could find or invent to move him, +until it was day and time for the woodman to go to his woods, +and the others to their several occupations. But their +"all-night sitting" had been wasted; the stubborn youth had +not been convinced nor shaken. When, after morning prayers, +they got up from their knees, the sunlight shining in upon +them, they had made a last appeal with tears in their eyes, +and he had refused to give the promise they asked. The poor +woman was greatly distressed. This young fellow, I thought, +favours his mother in features, but mentally he is perhaps +more like his father. Being a smoker myself I ventured to put +in a word for him. They were distressing themselves too much, +I told her; smoking in moderation was not only harmless, +especially to those who worked out of doors, but it was a +well-nigh universal habit, and many leading men in the +religious world, both churchmen and dissenters, were known to +be smokers. + +Her answer, which came quickly enough, was that they did not +regard the practice of smoking as in itself bad, but they knew +that in some circumstances it was inexpedient; and in the case +of her son they were troubled at the thought of what smoking +would ultimately lead to. People, she continued, did not care +to smoke, any more than they did to eat and drink, in +solitude. It was a social habit, and it was inevitable that +her boy should look for others to keep him company in smoking. +There would be no harm in that in the summer-time when young +people like to keep out of doors until bedtime; but during the +long winter evenings he would have to look for his companions +in the parlour of the public-house. And it would not be easy, +scarcely possible, to sit long among the others without +drinking a little beer. It is really no more wrong to drink +a little beer than to smoke, he would say; and it would be +true. One pipe would lead to another. and one glass of +beer to another. The habit would be formed and at last all +his evenings and all his earnings would be spent in the +public-house. + +She was right, and I had nothing more to say except to wish +her success in her efforts. + +It is curious that the strongest protests against the evils of +the village pubic, which one hears from village women, come +from those who are not themselves sufferers. Perhaps it is +not curious. Instinctively we hide our sores, bodily and +mental, from the public gaze. + +Not long ago I was in a small rustic village in Wiltshire, +perhaps the most charming village I have seen in that country. +There was no inn or ale-house, and feeling very thirsty after +my long walk I went to a cottage and asked the woman I saw +there for a drink of milk. She invited me in, and spreading a +clean cloth on the table, placed a jug of new milk, a loaf, +and butter before me. For these good things she proudly +refused to accept payment. As she was a handsome young woman, +with a clear, pleasant voice, I was glad to have her sit there +and talk to me while I refreshed myself. Besides, I was in +search of information and got it from her during our talk. My +object in going to the village was to see a woman who, I had +been told, was living there. I now heard that her cottage was +close by, but unfortunately, while anxious to see her, I had +no excuse for calling. + +"Do you think," said I to my young hostess, "that it would do +to tell her that I had heard something of her strange history +and misfortunes, and wished to offer her a little help? Is +she very poor?" + +"Oh, no," she replied. "Please do not offer her money, if you +see her. She would be offended. There is no one in this +village who would take a shilling as a gift from a stranger. +We all have enough; there is not a poor person among us." + +"What a happy village!" I exclaimed. "Perhaps you are all +total abstainers." + +She laughed, and said that they all brewed their own beer +--there was not a total abstainer among them. Every cottager +made from fifty to eighty gallons, or more, and they drank +beer every day, but very moderately, while it lasted. They +were all very sober; their children would have to go to some +neighbouring village to see a tipsy man. + +I remarked that at the next village, which had three +public-houses, there were a good marry persons so poor that +they would gladly at any time take a shilling from any one. + +It was the same everywhere in the district, she said, except +in that village which had no public-house. Not only were they +better off, and independent of blanket societies and charity +in all forms, but they were infinitely happier. And after the +day's work the men came home to spend the evening with their +wives and children. + +At this stage I was surprised by a sudden burst of passion on +her part. She stood up, her face flushing red, and solemnly +declared that if ever a public-house was opened in that +village, and if the men took to spending their evenings in it, +her husband with them, she would not endure such a condition +of things--she wondered that so many women endured it--but +would take her little ones and go away to earn her own living +under some other roof! + + + + +Chapter Five: Wind, Wave, and Spirit + + +The rambles I have described were mostly inland: when by +chance they took us down to the sea our impressions and +adventures appeared less interesting. Looking back on the +holiday, it would seem to us a somewhat vacant time compared +to one spent in wandering from village to village. I mean if +we do not take into account that first impression which the +sea invariably makes on us on returning to it after a long +absence--the shock of recognition and wonder and joy as if we +had been suffering from loss of memory and it had now suddenly +come back to us. That brief moving experience over, there is +little the sea can give us to compare with the land. How +could it be otherwise in our case, seeing that we were by it +in a crowd, our movements and way of life regulated for us in +places which appear like overgrown and ill-organized +convalescent homes? There was always a secret intense dislike +of all parasitic and holiday places, an uncomfortable feeling +which made the pleasure seem poor and the remembrance of days +so spent hardly worth dwelling on. And as we are able to keep +in or throw out of our minds whatever we please, being +autocrats in our own little kingdom, I elected to cast away +most of the memories of these comparatively insipid holidays. +But not all, and of those I retain I will describe at least +two, one in the present chapter on the East Anglian coast, the +other later on. + +It was cold, though the month was August; it blew and the sky +was grey and rain beginning to fall when we came down about +noon to a small town on the Norfolk coast, where we hoped to +find lodging and such comforts as could be purchased out of a +slender purse. It was a small modern pleasure town of an +almost startling appearance owing to the material used in +building its straight rows of cottages and its ugly square +houses and villas. This was an orange-brown stone found in +the neighbourhood, the roofs being all of hard, black slate. +I had never seen houses of such a colour, it was stronger, +more glaring and aggressive than the reddest brick, and there +was not a green thing to partially screen or soften it, nor +did the darkness of the wet weather have any mitigating effect +on it. The town was built on high ground, with an open grassy +space before it sloping down to the cliff in which steps had +been cut to give access to the beach, and beyond the cliff we +caught sight of the grey, desolate, wind-vexed sea. But the +rain was coming down more and more heavily, turning the +streets into torrents, so that we began to envy those who had +found a shelter even in so ugly a place. No one would take us +in. House after house, street after street, we tried, and at +every door with "Apartments to Let" over it where we knocked +the same hateful landlady-face appeared with the same +triumphant gleam in the fish-eyes and the same smile on the +mouth that opened to tell us delightedly that she and the town +were "full up"; that never had there been known such a rush of +visitors; applicants were being turned away every hour from +every door! + +After three miserable hours spent in this way we began +inquiring at all the shops, and eventually at one were told of +a poor woman in a small house in a street a good way back from +the front who would perhaps be able to taken us in. To this +place we went and knocked at a low door in a long blank wall +in a narrow street; it was opened to us by a pale thin +sad-looking woman in a rusty black gown, who asked us into a +shabby parlour, and agreed to take us in until we could find +something better. She had a gentle voice and was full of +sympathy, and seeing our plight took us into the kitchen +behind the parlour, which was living- and working-room as +well, to dry ourselves by the fire. + +"The greatest pleasure in life," said once a magnificent young +athlete, a great pedestrian, to me, "is to rest when you are +tired." And, I should add, to dry and warm yourself by a big +fire when wet and cold, and to eat and drink when you are +hungry and thirsty. All these pleasures were now ours, for +very soon tea and chops were ready for us; and so strangely +human, so sister-like did this quiet helpful woman seem after +our harsh experiences on that rough rainy day--that we +congratulated ourselves on our good fortune in having found +such a haven, and soon informed her that we wanted no "better +place." + +She worked with her needle to support herself and her one +child, a little boy of ten; and by and by when he came in +pretty wet from some outdoor occupation we made his +acquaintance and the discovery that he was a little boy of an +original character. He was so much to his mother, who, poor +soul, had nobody else in the world to love, that she was +always haunted by the fear of losing him. He was her boy, the +child of her body, exclusively her own, unlike all other boys, +and her wise heart told her that if she put him in a school he +would be changed so that she would no longer know him for her +boy. For it is true that our schools are factories, with a +machinery to unmake and remake, or fabricate, the souls of +children much in the way in which shoddy is manufactured. You +may see a thousand rags or garments of a thousand shapes and +colours cast in to be boiled, bleached, pulled to pieces, +combed and woven, and finally come out as a piece of cloth a +thousand yards long of a uniform harmonious pattern, smooth, +glossy, and respectable. His individuality gone, he would in +a sense be lost to her; and although by nature a weak timid +woman, though poor, and a stranger in a strange place, this +thought, or feeling, or "ridiculous delusion" as most people +would call it, had made her strong, and she had succeeded in +keeping her boy out of school. + +Hers was an interesting story. Left alone in the world she +had married one in her own class, very happily as she +imagined. He was in some business in a country town, well off +enough to provide a comfortable home, and he was very good; in +fact, his one fault was that he was too good, too open-hearted +and fond of associating with other good fellows like himself, +and of pledging them in the cup that cheers and at the same +time inebriates. Nevertheless, things went very well for a +time, until the child was born, the business declined, and +they began to be a little pinched. Then it occurred to her +that she, too, might be able to do something. She started +dressmaking, and as she had good taste and was clever and +quick, her business soon prospered. This pleased him; it +relieved him from the necessity of providing for the home, +and enabled him to follow his own inclination, which was to +take things easily--to be an idle man, with a little ready +money in his pocket for betting and other pleasures. The +money was now provided out of "our business." This state of +things continued without any change, except that process of +degeneration which continued in him, until the child was about +four years old, when all at once one day he told her they were +not doing as well as they might. She was giving far too much +of her time and attention to domestic matters--to the child +especially. Business was business--a thing it was hard for a +woman to understand--and it was impossible for her to give her +mind properly to it with her thoughts occupied with the child. +It couldn't be done. Let the child be put away, he said, and +the receipts would probably be doubled. He had been making +inquiries and found that for a modest annual payment the boy +could be taken proper care of at a distance by good decent +people he had heard of. + +She had never suspected such a thought in his mind, and this +proposal had the effect of a stunning blow. She answered not +one word: he said his say and went out, and she knew she would +not see him again for many hours, perhaps not for some days; +she knew, too, that he would say no more to her on the +subject, that it would all be arranged about the child with or +without her consent. His will was law, her wishes nothing. +For she was his wife and humble obedient slave; never had she +pleaded with or admonished him and never complained, even +when, after her long day of hard work, he came in at ten or +eleven o'clock at night with several of his pals, all excited +with drink and noisy as himself, to call for supper. +Nevertheless she had been happy--intensely happy, because of +the child. The love for the man she had married, wondering +how one so bright and handsome and universally admired and +liked could stoop to her, who had nothing but love and worship +to give in return--that love was now gone and was not missed, +so much greater and more satisfying was the love for her boy. +And now she must lose him. Two or three silent miserable days +passed by while she waited for the dreadful separation, until +the thought of it became unendurable and she resolved to keep +her child and sacrifice everything else. Secretly she +prepared for flight, getting together the few necessary things +she could carry; then, with the child in her arms, she stole +out one evening and began her flight, which took her all +across England at its widest part, and ended at this small +coast town, the best hiding-place she could think of. + +The boy was a queer little fellow, healthy but colourless, +with strangely beautiful grey eyes which, on first seeing +them, almost startled one with their intelligence. He was shy +and almost obstinately silent, but when I talked to him on +certain subjects the intense suppressed interest he felt would +show itself in his face, and by and by it would burst out in +speech--an impetuous torrent of words in a high shrill voice. +He reminded me of a lark in a cage. Watch it in its prison +when the sun shines forth--when, like the captive falcon in +Dante, it is "cheated by a gleam"--its wing-tremblings, and +all its little tentative motions, how the excitement grows and +grows in it, until, although shut up and flight denied it, the +passion can no longer be contained and it bursts out in a +torrent of shrill and guttural sounds, which, if it were free +and soaring, would be its song. His passion was all for +nature, and his mother out of her small earnings had managed +to get quite a number of volumes together for him. These he +read and re-read until he knew them by heart; and on Sundays, +or any other day they could take, those two lonely ones would +take a basket containing their luncheon, her work and a book +or two, and set out on a long ramble along the coast to pass +the day in some solitary spot among the sandhills. + +With these two, the gentle woman and her quiet boy over his +book, and the kitchen fire to warm and dry us after each +wetting, the bad weather became quite bearable although it +lasted many days. And it was amazingly bad. The wind blew +with a fury from the sea; it was hard to walk against it. The +people in hundreds waited in their dull apartments for a lull, +and when it came they poured out like hungry sheep from the +fold, or like children from a school, swarming over the green +slope down to the beach, to scatter far and wide over the +sands. Then, in a little while; a new menacing blackness +would come up out of the sea, and by and by a fresh storm of +wind would send the people scuttling back into shelter. So it +went on day after day, and when night came the sound of the +ever-troubled sea grew louder, so that, shut up in our little +rooms in that back street, we had it in our ears, except at +intervals, when the wind howled loud enough to drown its great +voice, and hurled tempests of rain and hail against the roofs +and windows. + +To me the most amazing thing was the spectacle of the swifts. +It was late for them, near the end of August; they should now +have been far away on their flight to Africa; yet here they +were, delaying on that desolate east coast in wind and wet, +more than a hundred of them. It was strange to see so many at +one spot, and I could only suppose that they had congregated +previous to migration at that unsuitable place, and were being +kept back by the late breeders, who had not yet been wrought +up to the point of abandoning their broods. They haunted a +vast ruinous old barn-like building near the front, which was +probably old a century before the town was built, and about +fifteen to twenty pairs had their nests under the eaves. Over +this building they hung all day in a crowd, rising high to +come down again at a frantic speed, and at each descent a few +birds could be seen to enter the holes, while others rushed +out to join the throng, and then all rose and came down again +and swept round and round in a furious chase, shrieking as if +mad. At all hours they drew me to that spot, and standing +there, marvelling at their swaying power and the fury that +possessed them, they appeared to me like tormented beings, and +were like those doomed wretches in the halls of Eblis whose +hearts were in a blaze of unquenchable fire, and who, every +one with hands pressed to his breast, went spinning round in +an everlasting agonized dance. They were tormented and crazed +by the two most powerful instincts of birds pulling in +opposite directions--the parental instinct and the passion of +migration which called them to the south. + +In such weather, especially on that naked desolate coast, +exposed to the fury of the winds, one marvels at our modern +craze for the sea; not merely to come and gaze upon and listen +to it, to renew our youth in its salt, exhilarating waters and +to lie in delicious idleness on the warm shingle or mossy +cliff; but to be always, for days and weeks and even for +months, at all hours, in all weathers, close to it, with its +murmur, "as of one in pain," for ever in our ears. + +Undoubtedly it is an unnatural, a diseased, want in us, the +result of a life too confined and artificial in close dirty +overcrowded cities. It is to satisfy this craving that towns +have sprung up everywhere on our coasts and extended their +ugly fronts for miles and leagues, with their tens of +thousands of windows from which the city-sickened wretches may +gaze and gaze and listen and feed their sick souls with the +ocean. That is to say, during their indoor hours; at other +times they walk or sit or lie as close as they can to it, +following the water as it ebbs and reluctantly retiring before +it when it returns. It was not so formerly, before the +discovery was made that the sea could cure us. Probably our +great-grandfathers didn't even know they were sick; at all +events, those who had to live in the vicinity of the sea were +satisfied to be a little distance from it, out of sight of its +grey desolation and, if possible, out of hearing of its +"accents disconsolate." This may be seen anywhere on our +coasts; excepting the seaports and fishing settlements, the +towns and villages are almost always some distance from the +sea, often in a hollow or at all events screened by rising +ground and woods from it. The modern seaside place has, in +most cases, its old town or village not far away but quite as +near as the healthy ancients wished to be. + +The old village nearest to our little naked and ugly modern +town was discovered at a distance of about two miles, but it +might have been two hundred, so great was the change to its +sheltered atmosphere. Loitering in its quiet streets among +the old picturesque brick houses with tiled or thatched roofs +and tall chimneys--ivy and rose and creeper-covered, with a +background of old oaks and elms--I had the sensation of having +come back to my own home. In that still air you could hear +men and women talking fifty or a hundred yards away, the cry +or laugh of a child and the clear crowing of a cock, also the +smaller aerial sounds of nature, the tinkling notes of tits +and other birdlings in the trees, the twitter of swallows and +martins, and the "lisp of leaves and ripple of rain." It was +sweet and restful in that home-like place, and hard to leave +it to go back to the front to face the furious blasts once +more. Rut there were compensations. + +The little town, we have seen, was overcrowded with late +summer visitors, all eager for the sea yet compelled to waste +so much precious time shut up in apartments, and at every +appearance of a slight improvement in the weather they would +pour out of the houses and the green slope would be covered +with a crowd of many hundreds, all hurrying down to the beach. +The crowd was composed mostly of women--about three to every +man, I should say--and their children; and it was one of the +most interesting crowds I had ever come across on account of +the large number of persons in it of a peculiarly fine type, +which chance had brought together at that spot. It was the +large English blonde, and there were so many individuals of +this type that they gave a character to the crowd so that +those of a different physique and colour appeared to be fewer +than they were and were almost overlooked. They came from +various places about the country, in the north and the +Midlands, and appeared to be of the well-to-do classes; they, +or many of them, were with their families but without their +lords. They were mostly tall and large in every way, very +white-skinned, with light or golden hair and large light blue +eyes. A common character of these women was their quiet +reposeful manner; they walked and talked and rose up and sat +down and did everything, in fact, with an air of deliberation; +they gazed in a slow steady way at you, and were dignified, +some even majestic, and were like a herd of large beautiful +white cows. The children, too, especially the girls, some +almost as tall as their large mothers, though still in short +frocks, were very fine. The one pastime of these was +paddling, and it was a delight to see their bare feet and +legs. The legs of those who had been longest on the spot +--probably several weeks in some instances--were of a deep +nutty brown hue suffused with pink; after these a gradation of +colour, light brown tinged with buff, pinkish buff and cream, +like the Gloire de Dijon rose; and so on to the delicate +tender pink of the clover blossom; and, finally, the purest +ivory white of the latest arrivals whose skins had not yet +been caressed and coloured by sun and wind. + +How beautiful are the feet of these girls by the sea who bring +us glad tidings of a better time to come and the day of a +nobler courage, a freer larger life when garments which have +long oppressed and hindered shall have been cast away! +It was, as I have said, mere chance which had brought so many +persons of a particular type together on this occasion, and I +thought I might go there year after year and never see the +like again. As a fact I did return when August came round and +found a crowd of a different character. The type was there +but did not predominate: it was no longer the herd of +beautiful white and strawberry cows with golden horns and +large placid eyes. Nothing in fact was the same, for when I +looked for the swifts there were no more than about twenty +birds instead of over a hundred, and although just on the eve +of departure they were not behaving in the same excited +manner. + +Probably I should not have thought so much about that +particular crowd in that tempestuous August, and remembered it +so vividly, but for the presence of three persons in it and +the strange contrast they made to the large white type I have +described. These were a woman and her two little girls, aged +about eight and ten respectively, but very small for their +years. She was a little black haired and black-eyed woman +with a pale sad dark face, on which some great grief or +tragedy had left its shadow; very quiet and subdued in her +manner; she would sit on a chair on the beach when the weather +permitted, a book on her knees, while her two little ones +played about, chasing and flying from the waves, or with the +aid of their long poles vaulting from rock to rock. They were +dressed in black frocks and scarlet blouses, which set off +their beautiful small dark faces; their eyes sparkled like +black diamonds, and their loose hair was a wonder to see, a +black mist or cloud about their heads and necks composed of +threads fine as gossamer, blacker than jet and shining like +spun glass-hair that looked as if no comb or brush could ever +tame its beautiful wildness. And in spirit they were what +they seemed: such a wild, joyous, frolicsome spirit with such +grace and fleetness one does not look for in human beings, but +only in birds or in some small bird-like volatile mammal--a +squirrel or a marmoset of the tropical forest, or the +chinchilla of the desolate mountain slopes, the swiftest, +wildest, loveliest, most airy and most vocal of small +beasties. Occasionally to watch their wonderful motions more +closely and have speech with them, I followed when they raced +over the sands or flew about over the slippery rocks, and felt +like a cochin-china fowl, or muscovy duck, or dodo, trying to +keep pace with a humming-bird. Their voices were well suited +to their small brilliant forms; not loud, though high-pitched +and singularly musical and penetrative, like the high clear +notes of a skylark at a distance. They also reminded me of +certain notes, which have a human quality, in some of our +songsters--the swallow, redstart, pied wagtail, whinchat, and +two or three others. Such pure and beautiful sounds are +sometimes heard in human voices, chiefly in children, when +they are talking and laughing in joyous excitement. But for +any sort of conversation they were too volatile; before I +could get a dozen words from them they would be off again, +flying and flitting along the margin, like sandpipers, and +beating the clear-voiced sandpiper at his own aerial graceful +game. + +By and by I was favoured with a fine exhibition of the spirit +animating these two little things. The weather had made it +possible for the crowd of visitors to go down and scatter +itself over the beach, when the usual black cloud sprang up +and soon burst on us in a furious tempest of wind and rain, +sending the people flying back to the shelter of a large +structure erected for such purposes against the cliff. It was +a vast barn-like place, open to the front, the roof supported +by wooden columns, and here in a few minutes some three or +four hundred persons were gathered, mostly women and their +girls, white and blue-eyed with long wet golden hair hanging +down their backs. Finding a vacant place on the bench, I sat +down next to a large motherly-looking woman with a robust or +dumpy blue-eyed girl about four or five years old on her lap. +Most of the people were standing about in groups waiting +for the storm to blow over, and presently I noticed my two +wild-haired dark little girls moving about in the crowd. It +was impossible not to seen them, for they could not keep still +a moment. They were here, there, and everywhere, playing +hide-and-seek and skipping and racing wherever they could +find an opening, and by and by, taking hold of each other, +they started dancing. It was a pretty spectacle, but most +interesting to see was the effect produced on the other +children, the hundred girls, big and little, the little ones +especially, who had been standing there tired and impatient to +get out to the sea, and who were now becoming more and more +excited as they gazed, until, like children when listening to +lively music, they began moving feet and hands and soon their +whole bodies in time to the swift movements of the little +dancers. At last, plucking up courage, first one, then +another, joined them, and were caught as they came and whirled +round and round in a manner quite new to them and which they +appeared to find very delightful. By and by I observed that +the little rosy-faced dumpy girl on my neighbour's knees was +taking the infection; she was staring, her blue eyes opened to +their widest in wonder and delight. Then suddenly she began +pleading, "Oh, mummy, do let me go to the little girls--oh, do +let me!" And her mother said "No," because she was so little, +and could never fly round like that, and so would fall and +hurt herself and cry. But she pleaded still, and was ready to +cry if refused, until the good anxious mother was compelled to +release her; and down she slipped, and after standing still +with her little arms and closed hands held up as if to collect +herself before plunging into the new tremendous adventure, she +rushed out towards the dancers. One of them saw her coming, +and instantly quitting the child she was waltzing with flew to +meet her, and catching her round the middle began spinning her +about as if the solid little thing weighed no more than a +feather. But it proved too much for her; very soon she came +down and broke into a loud cry, which brought her mother +instantly to her, and she was picked up and taken back to the +seat and held to the broad bosom and soothed with caresses and +tender words until the sobs began to subside. Then, even +before the tears were dry, her eyes were once more gazing at +the tireless little dancers, taking on child after child as +they came timidly forward to have a share in the fun, and once +more she began to plead with her "mummy," and would not be +denied, for she was a most determined little Saxon, until +getting her way she rushed out for a second trial. Again the +little dancer saw her coming and flew to her like a bird to +its mate, and clasping her laughed her merry musical little +laugh. It was her "sudden glory," an expression of pure +delight in her power to infuse her own fire and boundless +gaiety of soul into all these little blue-eyed rosy phlegmatic +lumps of humanity. + +What was it in these human mites, these fantastic Brownies, +which, in that crowd of Rowenas and their children, made them +seem like beings not only of another race, but of another +species? How came they alone to be distinguished among so +many by that irresponsible gaiety, as of the most volatile of +wild creatures, that quickness of sense and mind and sympathy, +that variety and grace and swiftness--all these brilliant +exotic qualities harmoniously housed in their small beautiful +elastic and vigorous frames? It was their genius, their +character--something derived from their race. But what +race? Looking at their mother watching her little ones at +their frolics with dark shining eyes--the small oval-faced +brown-skinned woman with blackest hair--I could but say that +she was an Iberian, pure and simple, and that her children +were like her. In Southern Europe that type abounds; it is +also to be met with throughout Britain, perhaps most common in +the southern counties, and it is not uncommon in East Anglia. +Indeed, I think it is in Norfolk where we may best see the two +most marked sub-types in which it is divided--the two +extremes. The small stature, narrow head, dark skin, black +hair and eyes are common to both, and in both these physical +characters are correlated with certain mental traits, as, for +instance, a peculiar vivacity and warmth of disposition; but +they are high and low. In the latter sub-division the skin is +coarse in texture, brown or old parchment in colour, with +little red in it; the black hair is also coarse, the forehead +small, the nose projecting, and the facial angle indicative of +a more primitive race. One might imagine that these people +had been interred, along with specimens of rude pottery and +bone and flint implements, a long time back, about the +beginning of the Bronze Age perhaps, and had now come out of +their graves and put on modern clothes. At all events I don't +think a resident in Norfolk would have much difficulty in +picking out the portraits of some of his fellow-villagers in +Mr. Reed's Prehistoric Peeps. + +The mother and her little ones were of the higher sub-type: +they had delicate skins, beautiful faces, clear musical +voices. They were Iberians in blood, but improved; purified +and refined as by fire; gentleized and spiritualized, and to +the lower types down to the aboriginals, as is the bright +consummate flower to leaf and stem and root. + +Often and often we are teased and tantalized and mocked by +that old question: + + Oh! so old-- + Thousands of years, thousands of years, + If all were told-- + +of black and blue eyes; blue versus black and black versus +blue, to put it both ways. And by black we mean black with +orange-brown lights in it--the eye called tortoise-shell; and +velvety browns with other browns, also hazels. Blue includes +all blues, from ultramarine, or violet, to the palest blue of +a pale sky; and all greys down to the grey that is almost +white. Our preference for this or that colour is supposed +to depend on nothing but individual taste, or fancy, and +association. I believe it is something more, but I do find +that we are very apt to be swayed this way and that by the +colour of the eyes of the people we meet in life, according as +they (the people) attract or repel us. The eyes of the two +little girls were black as polished black diamonds until +looked at closely, when they appeared a beautiful deep brown +on which the black pupils were seen distinctly; they were so +lovely that I, predisposed to prefer dark to light, felt that +this question was now definitely settled for me--that black +was best. That irresistible charm, the flame-like spirit +which raised these two so much above the others--how could it +go with anything but the darkest eyes! + +But no sooner was the question thus settled definitely and for +all time, to my very great satisfaction, than it was unsettled +again. I do not know how this came about; it may have been +the sight of some small child's blue eyes looking up at me, +like the arch blue eyes of a kitten, full of wonder at the +world and everything in it; + + "Where did you get those eyes so blue?" + "Out of the sky as I came through"; + +or it may have been the sight of a harebell; and perhaps it +came from nothing but the "waste shining of the sky." At all +events, there they were, remembered again, looking at me from +the past, blue eyes that were beautiful and dear to me, whose +blue colour was associated with every sweetness and charm in +child and woman and with all that is best and highest in human +souls; and I could not and had no wish to resist their appeal. + +Then came a new experience of the eye that is blue--a meeting +with one who almost seemed to be less flesh than spirit. A +middle-aged lady, frail, very frail; exceedingly pale from +long ill-health, prematurely white-haired, with beautiful grey +eyes, gentle but wonderfully bright. Altogether she was like +a being compounded as to her grosser part of foam and mist and +gossamer and thistledown, and was swayed by every breath of +air, and who, should she venture abroad in rough weather, +would be lifted and blown away by the gale and scattered like +mist over the earth. Yet she, so frail, so timid, was the one +member of the community who had set herself to do the work of +a giant--that of championing all ill-used and suffering +creatures, wild or tame, holding a protecting shield over them +against the innate brutality of the people. She had been +abused and mocked and jeered at by many, while others had +regarded her action with an amused smile or else with a cold +indifference. But eventually some, for very shame, had been +drawn to her side, and a change in the feeling of the people +had resulted; domestic animals were treated better, and it was +no longer universally believed that all wild animals, +especially those with wings, existed only that men might amuse +themselves by killing and wounding and trapping and caging and +persecuting them in various other ways. + +The sight of that burning and shining spirit in its frail +tenement--for did I not actually see her spirit and the very +soul of her in those eyes?--was the last of the unforgotten +experiences I had at that place which had startled and +repelled me with its ugliness. + +But, no, there was one more, marvellous as any--the experience +of a day of days, one of those rare days when nature appears +to us spiritualized and is no longer nature, when that which +had transfigured this visible world is in us too, and it +becomes possible to believe--it is almost a conviction--that +the burning and shining spirit seen and recognized in one +among a thousand we have known is in all of us and in all +things. In such moments it is possible to go beyond even the +most advanced of the modern physicists who hold that force +alone exists, that matter is but a disguise, a shadow and +delusion; for we may add that force itself--that which we call +force or energy--is but a semblance and shadow of the +universal soul. + +The change in the weather was not sudden; the furious winds +dropped gradually; the clouds floated higher in the heavens, +and were of a lighter grey; there were wider breaks in them, +showing the lucid blue beyond; and the sea grew quieter. It +had raved and roared too long, beating against the iron walls +that held it back, and was now spent and fallen into an uneasy +sleep, but still moved uneasily and moaned a little. Then all +at once summer returned, coming like a thief in the night, for +when it was morning the sun rose in splendour and power in a +sky without a cloud on its vast azure expanse, on a calm sea +with no motion but that scarcely perceptible rise and fall as +of one that sleeps. As the sun rose higher the air grew +warmer until it was full summer heat, but although a "visible +heat," it was never oppressive; for all that day we were +abroad, and as the tide ebbed a new country that was neither +earth nor sea was disclosed, an infinite expanse of pale +yellow sand stretching away on either side, and further and +further out until it mingled and melted into the sparkling +water and faintly seen line of foam on the horizon. And over +all--the distant sea, the ridge of low dunes marking where the +earth ended and the flat, yellow expanse between--there +brooded a soft bluish silvery haze. A haze that blotted +nothing out, but blended and interfused them all until earth +and air and sea and sands were scarcely distinguishable. The +effect, delicate, mysterious, unearthly, cannot be described. + + Ethereal gauze . . . + Visible heat, air-water, and dry sea, + Last conquest of the eye . . . + + Sun dust, + Aerial surf upon the shores of earth, + Ethereal estuary, frith of light. . . . + Bird of the sun, transparent winged. + +Do we not see that words fail as pigments do--that the effect +is too coarse, since in describing it we put it before the +mental eye as something distinctly visible, a thing of itself +and separate. But it is not so in nature; the effect is of +something almost invisible and is yet a part of all and makes +all things--sky and sea and land--as unsubstantial as itself. +Even living, moving things had that aspect. Far out on the +lowest further strip of sand, which appeared to be on a level +with the sea, gulls were seen standing in twos and threes and +small groups and in rows; but they did not look like gulls +--familiar birds, gull-shaped with grey and white plumage. +They appeared twice as big as gulls, and were of a dazzling +whiteness and of no definite shape: though standing still they +had motion, an effect of the quivering dancing air, the +"visible heat"; at rest, they were seen now as separate +objects; then as one with the silver sparkle on the +sea; and when they rose and floated away they were no longer +shining and white, but like pale shadows of winged forms +faintly visible in the haze. + +They were not birds but spirits--beings that lived in or were +passing through the world and now, like the heat, made +visible; and I, standing far out on the sparkling sands, with +the sparkling sea on one side and the line of dunes, +indistinctly seen as land, on the other, was one of them; and +if any person had looked at me from a distance he would have +seen me as a formless shining white being standing by the sea, +and then perhaps as a winged shadow floating in the haze. It +was only necessary to put out one's arms to float. That was +the effect on my mind: this natural world was changed to a +supernatural, and there was no more matter nor force in sea or +land nor in the heavens above, but only spirit. + + + + +Chapter Six: By Swallowfield + + +One of the most attractive bits of green and wooded country +near London I know lies between Reading and Basingstoke and +includes Aldermaston with its immemorial oaks in Berkshire and +Silchester with Pamber Forest in Hampshire. It has long been +one of my favourite haunts, summer and winter, and it is +perhaps the only wooded place in England where I have a home +feeling as strong as that which I experience in certain places +among the South Wiltshire downs and in the absolutely flat +country on the Severn, in Somerset, and the flat country in +Cambridgeshire and East Anglia, especially at Lynn and about +Ely. + +I am now going back to my first visit to this green retreat; +it was in the course of one of those Easter walks I have +spoken of, and the way was through Reading and by Three Mile +Cross and Swallowfield. On this occasion I conceived a +dislike to Reading which I have never quite got over, for it +seemed an unconscionably big place for two slow pedestrians to +leave behind. Worse still, when we did leave it we found that +Reading would not leave us. It was like a stupendous octopus +in red brick which threw out red tentacles, miles and miles +long in various directions--little rows and single and double +cottages and villas, all in red, red brick and its weary +accompaniment, the everlasting hard slate roof. These square +red brick boxes with sloping slate tops are built as close as +possible to the public road, so that the passer-by looking in +at the windows may see the whole interior--wall-papers, +pictures, furniture, and oftentimes the dull expressionless +face of the woman of the house, staring back at you out of her +shallow blue eyes. The weather too was against us; a grey +hard sky, like the slate roofs, and a cold strong east wind to +make the road dusty all day long. + +Arrived at Three Mile Cross, it was no surprise to find it no +longer recognizable as the hamlet described in Our Village, +but it was saddening to look at the cottage in which Mary +Russell Mitford lived and was on the whole very happy with her +flowers and work for thirty years of her life, in its present +degraded state. It has a sign now and calls itself the +"Mitford Arms" and a "Temperance Hotel," and we were told that +you could get tea and bread and butter there but nothing else. +The cottage has been much altered since Miss Mitford's time, +and the open space once occupied by the beloved garden is now +filled with buildings, including a corrugated-iron dissenting +chapel. + +From Three Mile Cross we walked on to Swallowfield, still by +those never-ending roadside red-brick cottages and villas, for +we were not yet properly out of the hated biscuit metropolis. +It was a big village with the houses scattered far and wide +over several square miles of country, but just where the +church stands it is shady and pleasant. The pretty church +yard too is very deeply shaded and occupies a small hill with +the Loddon flowing partly round it, then taking its swift way +through the village. Miss Mitford's monument is a plain, +almost an ugly, granite cross, standing close to the wall, +shaded by yew, elm, and beech trees, and one is grateful to +think that if she never had her reward when living she has +found at any rate a very peaceful resting-place. + +The sexton was there and told us that he was but ten years old +when Miss Mitford died, but that he remembered her well and +she was a very pleasant little woman. Others in the place +who remembered her said the same--that she was very pleasant +and sweet. We know that she was sweet and charming, but +unfortunately the portraits we have of her do not give that +impression. They represent her as a fat common-place looking +person, a little vulgar perhaps. I fancy the artists were +bunglers. I possess a copy of a very small pencil sketch made +of her face by a dear old lady friend of mine, now dead, about +the year 1851 or 2. My friend had a gift for portraiture in a +peculiar way. When she saw a face that greatly interested +her, in a drawing-room, on a platform, in the street, anywhere, +it remained very vividly in her mind and on going home she +would sketch it, and some of these sketches of well known +persons are wonderfully good. She was staying in the country +with a friend who drove with her to Swallowfield to call on +Miss Mitford, and on her return to her friend's house she +made the little sketch, and in this tiny portrait I can see +the refinement, the sweetness, the animation and charm which +she undoubtedly possessed. + +But let me now venture to step a little outside of my own +province, my small plot--a poor pedestrian's unimportant +impressions of places and faces; all these p's come by +accident; and this I put in parenthetically just because an +editor solemnly told me a while ago that he couldn't abide and +wouldn't have alliteration's artful aid in his periodical. +Let us leave the subject of what Miss Mitford was to those of +her day who knew her; a thousand lovely personalities pass +away every year and in a little while are no more remembered +than the bright-plumaged bird that falls in the tropical +forest, or the vanished orchid bloom of which some one has +said that the angels in heaven can look on no more beautiful +thing. Leaving all that, let us ask what remains to us of +another generation of all she was and did? + +She was a prolific writer, both prose and verse, and, as we +know, had an extraordinary vogue in her own time. Anything +that came from her pen had an immediate success; indeed, so +highly was she regarded that nothing she chose to write, +however poor, could fail. And she certainly did write a good +deal of poor stuff: it was all in a sense poor, but books and +books, poor soul, she had to write. It was in a sense poor +because it was mostly ambitious stuff, and, as the proverb +says, "You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a +wren." She was driven to fly, and gave her little wings too +much to do, and her flights were apt to be mere little weak +flutterings over the surface of the ground. A wren, and she +had not a cuckoo but a devouring cormorant to sustain--that +dear, beautiful father of hers, who was more to her than any +reprobate son to his devoted mother, and who day after day, +year after year, gobbled up her earnings, and then would +hungrily go on squawking for more until he stumbled into the +grave. Alas! he was too long in dying; she was worn out by +then, the little heart beating not so fast, and the bright +little brain growing dim and very tired. + +Now all the ambitious stuff she wrote to keep the cormorant +and, incidentally, to immortalize herself, has fallen +deservedly into oblivion. But we--some of us--do not forget +and never want to forget Mary Russell Mitford. Her letters +remain--the little friendly letters which came from her pen +like balls of silvery down from a sun-ripened plant, and were +wafted far and wide over the land to those she loved. There +is a wonderful charm in them; they are so spontaneous, so +natural, so perfectly reflect her humour and vivacity, her +overflowing sweetness, her beautiful spirit. And one book too +remains--the series of sketches about the poor little hamlet, +in which she lived so long and laboured so hard to support +herself and her parents, the turtledove mated with a +cormorant. Driven to produce work and hard up for a subject, +in a happy moment she took up this humble one lying at her own +door and allowed her self to write naturally even as in her +most intimate letters. This is the reason of the vitality of +Our Tillage; it was simple, natural, and reflected the author +herself, her tender human heart, her impulsive nature, her +bright playful humorous spirit. There is no thought, no mind +stuff in it, and it is a classic! It is about the country, +and she has so little observation that it might have been +written in a town, out of a book, away from nature's sights +and sounds. Her rustic characters are not comparable to those +of a score or perhaps two or three score of other writers who +treat of such subjects. The dialogue, when she makes them +talk, is unnatural, and her invention so poor that when she +puts in a little romance of her own making one regrets it. +And so one might go on picking it all to pieces like a +dandelion blossom. Nevertheless it endures, outliving scores +of in a way better books on the same themes, because her own +delightful personality manifests itself and shines in all +these little pictures. This short passage describing how she +took Lizzie, the little village child she loved, to gather +cowslips in the meadows, will serve as an illustration. + + They who know these feelings (and who is so happy as not to +have known some of them) will understand why Alfieri became +powerless, and Froissart dull; and why even needlework, the +most effective sedative, that grand soother and composer of +women's distress, fails to comfort me today. I will go out +into the air this cool, pleasant afternoon, and try what +that will do. . . . I will go to the meadows, the beautiful +meadows and I will have my materials of happiness, Lizzie +and May, and a basket for flowers, and we will make a +cowslip ball. "Did you ever see a cowslip ball, Lizzie?" +"No." "Come away then; make haste! run, Lizzie!" + + And on we go, fast, fast! down the road, across the lea, +past the workhouse, along by the great pond, till we slide +into the deep narrow lane, whose hedges seem to meet over +the water, and win our way to the little farmhouse at the +end. "Through the farmyard, Lizzie; over the gate; never +mind the cows; they are quiet enough." "I don't mind 'em," +said Miss Lizzie, boldly and' truly, and with a proud +affronted air, displeased at being thought to mind anything, +and showing by her attitude and manner some design of proving +her courage by an attack on the largest of the herd, in the +shape of a pull by the tail. "I don't mind 'em." "I know +you don't, Lizzie; but let them, alone and don't chase +the turkey-cock. Come to me, my dear!" and, for wonder, +Lizzie came. + +In the meantime my other pet, Mayflower, had also gotten +into a scrape. She had driven about a huge unwieldy sow, +till the animal's grunting had disturbed the repose of a +still more enormous Newfoundland dog, the guardian of the +yard. + +The beautiful white greyhound's mocking treatment of the +surly dog on the chain then follows, and other pretty +scenes and adventures, until after some mishaps and much +trouble the cowslip ball is at length completed. + +What a concentration of fragrance and beauty it was! +Golden and sweet to satiety! rich in sight, and touch, and +smell! Lizzie was enchanted, and ran off with her prize, +hiding amongst the trees in the very coyness of ecstasy, as +if any human eye, even mine, would be a restraint on her +innocent raptures. + +Here the very woman is revealed to us, her tender and lively +disposition, her impulsiveness and childlike love of fun +and delight in everything on earth. We see in such a passage +what her merit really is, the reason of our liking or +"partiality" for her. Her pleasure in everything makes +everything interesting, and in displaying her feeling without +art or disguise she succeeds in giving what we may call a +literary expression to personal charm--that quality which is +almost untranslatable into written words. Many women possess +it; it is in them and issues from them, and is like an essential +oil in a flower, but too volatile to be captured and made use +of. Furthermore, women when they write are as a rule even more +conventional than men, more artificial and out of and away +from themselves. + +I do not know that any literary person will agree with me; I +have gone aside to write about Miss Mitford mainly for my own +satisfaction. Frequently when I have wanted to waste half an +hour pleasantly with a book I have found myself picking up +"Our Village" from among many others, some waiting for a first +perusal, and I wanted to know why this was so--to find out, if +not to invent, some reason for my liking which would not make +me ashamed. + +At Swallowfield we failed to find a place to stay at; there +was no such place; and of the inns, named, I think, the +"Crown," "Cricketers," "Bird-in-the-Hand," and "George and +Dragon," only one, was said to provide accommodation for +travellers as the law orders, but on going to the house we +were informed that the landlord or his wife was just dead, or +dangerously ill, I forget which, and they could take no one +in. Accordingly, we had to trudge back to Three Mile Cross +and the old ramshackle, well-nigh ruinous inn there. It was a +wretched place, smelling of mould and dry-rot; however, it was +not so bad after a fire had been lighted in the grate, but +first the young girl who waited on us brought in a bundle of +newspapers, which she proceeded to thrust up the chimney-flue +and kindle, "to warm the flue and make the fire burn," she +explained. + +On the following day, the weather being milder, we rambled on +through woods and lanes, visiting several villages, and +arrived in the afternoon at Silchester, where we had resolved +to put up for the night. By a happy chance we found a +pleasant cottage on the common to stay at and pleasant people +in it, so that we were glad to sit down for a week there, to +loiter about the furzy waste, or prowl in the forest and haunt +the old walls; but it was pleasant even indoors with that wide +prospect before the window, the wooded country stretching many +miles away to the hills of Kingsclere, blue in the distance +and crowned with their beechen rings and groves. Of Roman +Calleva itself and the thoughts I had there I will write in +the following chapter; here I will only relate how on Easter +Sunday, two days after arriving, we went to morning service in +the old church standing on a mound inside the walls, a mile +from the village and common. + +It came to pass that during the service the sun began to shine +very brightly after several days of cloud and misty windy wet +weather, and that brilliance and the warmth in it served to +bring a butterfly out of hiding; then another; then a third; +red admirals all; and they were seen through all the prayers, +and psalms, and hymns, and lessons, and the sermon preached by +the white-haired Rector, fluttering against the translucent +glass, wanting to be out in that splendour and renew their +life after so long a period of suspension. But the glass was +between them and their world of blue heavens and woods and +meadow flowers; then I thought that after the service I would +make an attempt to get them out; but soon reflected that to +release them it would be necessary to capture them first, and +that that could not be done without a ladder and butterfly +net. Among the women (ladies) on either side of and before me +there were no fewer than five wearing aigrettes of egret and +bird-of-paradise plumes in their hats or bonnets, and these +five all remained to take part in that ceremony of eating +bread and drinking wine in remembrance of an event supposed to +be of importance to their souls, here and hereafter. It +saddened me to leave my poor red admirals in their prison, +beating their red wings against the coloured glass--to leave +them too in such company, where the aigrette wearers were +worshipping a little god of their own little imaginations, who +did not create and does not regard the swallow and dove and +white egret and bird-of-paradise, and who was therefore not my +god and whose will as they understood it was nothing to me. + +It was a consolation when I went out, still thinking of the +butterflies in their prison, and stood by the old ruined walls +grown over with ivy and crowned with oak and holly trees, to +think that in another two thousand years there will be no +archaeologist and no soul in Silchester, or anywhere else in +Britain, or in the world, who would take the trouble to dig up +the remains of aigrette-wearers and their works, and who would +care what had become of their pitiful little souls--their +immortal part. + + + + +Chapter Seven: Roman Calleva + + +An afternoon in the late November of 1903. Frost, gales, and +abundant rains have more than half stripped the oaks of their +yellow leaves. But the rain is over now, the sky once more a +pure lucid blue above me--all around me, in fact, since I am +standing high on the top of the ancient stupendous earthwork, +grown over with oak wood and underwood of holly and thorn and +hazel with tangle of ivy and bramble and briar. It is +marvellously still; no sound from the village reaches me; I +only hear the faint rustle of the dead leaves as they fall, +and the robin, for one spied me here and has come to keep me +company. At intervals he spurts out his brilliant little +fountain of sound; and that sudden bright melody and the +bright colour of the sunlit translucent leaves seem like one +thing. Nature is still, and I am still, standing concealed +among trees, or moving cautiously through the dead russet +bracken. Not that I am expecting to get a glimpse of the +badger who has his hermitage in this solitary place, but I am +on forbidden ground, in the heart of a sacred pheasant +preserve, where one must do one's prowling warily. Hard by, +almost within a stone's-throw of the wood-grown earthwork on +which I stand, are the ruinous walls of Roman Calleva--the +Silchester which the antiquarians have been occupied in +uncovering these dozen years or longer. The stone walls, too, +like the more ancient earthwork, are overgrown with trees and +brambles and ivy. The trees have grown upon the wall, sending +roots deep down between the stones, through the crumbling +cement; and so fast are they anchored that never a tree falls +but it brings down huge masses of masonry with it. This slow +levelling process has been going on for centuries, and it was +doubtless in this way that the buildings within the walls were +pulled down long ages ago. Then the action of the earth-worms +began, and floors and foundations, with fallen stones and +tiles, were gradually buried in the soil, and what was once a +city was a dense thicket of oak and holly and thorn. Finally +the wood was cleared, and the city was a walled wheat field +--so far as we know, the ground has been cultivated since the +days of King John. But the entire history of this green +walled space before me--less than twenty centuries in +duration--does not seem so very long compared with that of +the huge earthen wall I am standing on, which dates back to +prehistoric times. + +Standing here, knee-deep in the dead ruddy bracken, in the +"coloured shade" of the oaks, idly watching the leaves fall +fluttering to the ground, thinking in an aimless way of the +remains of the two ancient cities before me, the British and +the Roman, and of their comparative antiquity, I am struck +with the thought that the sweet sensations produced in me by +the scene differ in character from the feeling I have had in +other solitary places. The peculiar sense of satisfaction, of +restfulness, of peace, experienced here is very perfect; but +in the wilderness, where man has never been, or has at all +events left no trace of his former presence, there is ever a +mysterious sense of loneliness, of desolation, underlying our +pleasure in nature. Here it seems good to know, or to +imagine, that the men I occasionally meet in my solitary +rambles, and those I see in the scattered rustic village hard +by, are of the same race, and possibly the descendants, of the +people who occupied this spot in the remote past--Iberian and +Celt, and Roman and Saxon and Dane. If that hard-featured and +sour-visaged old gamekeeper, with the cold blue unfriendly +eyes, should come upon me here in my hiding-place, and scowl +as he is accustomed to do, standing silent before me, gun in +hand, to hear my excuses for trespassing in his preserves, I +should say (mentally): This man is distinctly English, and +his far-off progenitors, somewhere about sixteen hundred years +ago, probably assisted at the massacre of the inhabitants of +the pleasant little city at my feet. By and by, leaving the +ruins, I may meet with other villagers of different features +and different colour in hair, skin, and eyes, and of a +pleasanter expression; and in them I may see the remote +descendants of other older races of men, some who were lords +here before the Romans came, and of others before them, even +back to Neolithic times. + +This, I take it, is a satisfaction, a sweetness and peace to +the soul in nature, because it carries with it a sense of the +continuity of the human race, its undying vigour, its +everlastingness. After all the tempests that have overcome +it, through all mutations in such immense stretches of time, +how stable it is! + +I recall the time when I lived on a vast vacant level green +plain, an earth which to the eye, and to the mind which sees +with the eye, appeared illimitable, like the ocean; where the +house I was born in was the oldest in the district--a century +old, it was said; where the people were the children's +children of emigrants from Europe who had conquered and +colonized the country, and had enjoyed but half a century of +national life. But the people who had possessed the land +before these emigrants--what of them? They, were but a +memory, a tradition, a story told in books and hardly more +to us than a fable; perhaps they had dwelt there for long +centuries, or for thousands of years; perhaps they had come, +a wandering horde, to pass quickly away like a flight of +migrating locusts; for no memorial existed, no work of their +hands, not the faintest trace of their occupancy. + +Walking one day at the side of a ditch, which had been newly +cut through a meadow at the end of our plantation, I caught +sight of a small black object protruding from the side of the +cutting, which turned out to be a fragment of Indian pottery +made of coarse clay, very black, and rudely ornamented on one +side. On searching further a few more pieces were found. I +took them home and preserved them carefully, experiencing a +novel and keen sense of pleasure in their possession; for +though worthless, they were man's handiwork, the only real +evidence I had come upon of that vanished people who had been +before us; and it was as if those bits of baked clay, with a +pattern incised on them by a man's finger-nail, had in them +some magical property which enabled me to realize the past, +and to see that vacant plain repeopled with long dead and +forgotten men. + +Doubtless we all possess the feeling in some degree--the sense +of loneliness and desolation and dismay at the thought of an +uninhabited world, and of long periods when man was not. Is +it not the absence of human life or remains rather than the +illimitable wastes of thick-ribbed ice and snow which daunts +us at the thought of Arctic and Antarctic regions? Again, in +the story of the earth, as told by geology, do we not also +experience the same sense of dismay, and the soul shrinking +back on itself, when we come in imagination to those deserts +desolate in time when the continuity of the race was broken +and the world dispeopled? The doctrine of evolution has made +us tolerant of the thought of human animals,--our progenitors +as we must believe--who were of brutish aspect, and whose +period on this planet was so long that, compared with it, the +historic and prehistoric periods are but as the life of an +individual. A quarter of a million years has perhaps elapsed +since the beginning of that cold period which, at all events +in this part of the earth, killed Palaeolithic man; yet how +small a part of his racial life even that time would seem if, +as some believe, his remains may be traced as far back as the +Eocene! But after this rude man of the Quaternary and +Tertiary epochs had passed away there is a void, a period +which to the imagination seems measureless, when sun and moon +and stars looked on a waste and mindless world. When man once +more reappears he seems to have been re-created on somewhat +different lines. + +It is this break in the history of the human race which amazes +and daunts us, which "shadows forth the heartless voids and +immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind +with the thought of annihilation." + +Here, in these words of Hermann Melville, we are let all at +once into the true meaning of those disquieting and seemingly +indefinable emotions so often experienced, even by the most +ardent lovers of nature and of solitude, in uninhabited +deserts, on great mountains, and on the sea. We find here the +origin of that horror of mountains which was so common until +recent times. A friend once confessed to me that he was +always profoundly unhappy at sea during long voyages, and the +reason was that his sustaining belief in a superintending +Power and in immortality left him when he was on that waste of +waters, which have no human associations. The feeling, so +intense in his case, is known to most if not all of us; but we +feel it faintly as a disquieting element in nature of which we +may be but vaguely conscious. + +Most travelled Englishmen who have seen much of the world and +resided for long or short periods in many widely separated +countries would probably agree that there is a vast difference +in the feeling of strangeness, or want of harmony with our +surroundings, experienced in old and in new countries. It is +a compound feeling and some of its elements are the same in +both cases; but in one there is a disquieting element which +the other is without. Thus, in Southern Europe, Egypt, Syria, +and in many countries of Asia, and some portions of Africa, +the wanderer from home might experience dissatisfaction and be +ill at ease and wish for old familiar sights and sounds; but +in a colony like Tasmania, and in any new country where there +were no remains of antiquity, no links with the past, the +feeling would be very much more poignant, and in some scenes +and moods would be like that sense of desolation which assails +us at the thought of the heartless voids and immensities of +the universe. + +He recognizes that he is in a world on which we have but +recently entered, and in which our position is not yet +assured. + +Here, standing on this mound, as on other occasions past +counting, I recognize and appreciate the enormous difference +which human associations make in the effect produced on us by +visible nature. In this silent solitary place, with the +walled field which was once Calleva Atrebatum at my feet, I +yet have a sense of satisfaction, of security, never felt in a +land that had no historic past. The knowledge that my +individual life is but a span, a breath; that in a little +while I too must wither and mingle like one of those fallen +yellow leaves with the mould, does not grieve me. I know it +and yet disbelieve it; for am I not here alive, where men have +inhabited for thousands of years, feeling what I now feel +--their oneness with everlasting nature and the undying human +family? The very soil and wet carpet of moss on which their +feet were set, the standing trees and leaves, green or yellow, +the rain-drops, the air they breathed, the sunshine in their +eyes and hearts, was part of them, not a garment, but of their +very substance and spirit. Feeling this, death becomes an +illusion; and the illusion that the continuous life of the +species (its immortality) and the individual life are one and +the same is the reality and truth. An illusion, but, as Mill +says, deprive us of our illusions and life would be +intolerable. Happily we are not easily deprived of them, +since they are of the nature of instincts and ineradicable. +And this very one which our reason can prove to be the most +childish, the absurdest of all, is yet the greatest, the most +fruitful of good for the race. To those who have discarded +supernatural religion, it may be a religion, or at all events +the foundation to build one on. For there is no comfort to +the healthy natural man in being told that the good he does +will not be interred with his bones, since he does not wish to +think, and in fact refuses to think, that his bones will ever +be interred. Joy in the "choir invisible" is to him a mere +poetic fancy, or at best a rarefied transcendentalism, which +fails to sustain him. If altruism, or the religion of +humanity, is a living vigorous plant, and as some believe +flourishes more with the progress of the centuries, it must, +like other "soul-growths," have a deeper, tougher woodier root +in our soil. + + + + +Chapter Eight: A Gold Day At Silchester + + +It is little to a man's profit to go far afield if his chief +pleasure be in wild life, his main object to get nearer to the +creatures, to grow day by day more intimate with them, and to +see each day some new thing. Yet the distance has the same +fascination for him as for another--the call is as sweet and +persistent in his ears. If he is on a green level country +with blue hills on the horizon, then, especially in the early +morning, is the call sweetest, most irresistible. Come away +--come away: this blue world has better things than any in +that green, too familiar place. The startling scream of the +jay--you have heard it a thousand times. It is pretty to +watch the squirrel in his chestnut-red coat among the oaks in +their fresh green foliage, full of fun as a bright child, +eating his apple like a child, only it is an oak-apple, +shining white or white and rosy-red, in his little paws; but +you have seen it so many times--come away: + +It was not this voice alone which made me forsake the green +oaks of Silchester and Pamber Forest, to ramble for a season +hither and thither in Wiltshire, Dorset, and Somerset; there +was something for me to do in those places, but the call +made me glad to go. And long weeks--months--went by in my +wanderings, mostly in open downland country, too often under +gloomy skies, chilled by cold winds and wetted by cold rains. +Then, having accomplished my purpose and discovered +incidentally that the call had mocked me again, as on so many +previous occasions, I returned once more to the old familiar +green place. + +Crossing the common, I found that where it had been dry in +spring one might now sink to his knees in the bog; also that +the snipe which had vanished for a season were back at the old +spot where they used to breed. It was a bitter day near the +end of an unpleasant summer, with the wind back in the old +hateful north-east quarter; but the sun shone, the sky was +blue, and the flying clouds were of a dazzling whiteness. +Shivering, I remembered the south wall, and went there, since +to escape from the wind and bask like some half-frozen serpent +or lizard in the heat was the highest good one could look for +in such weather. To see anything new in wild life was not to +be hoped for. + +That old grey, crumbling wall of ancient Calleva, crowned with +big oak and ash and thorn and holly, and draped with green +bramble and trailing ivy and creepers--how good a shelter it +is on a cold, rough day! Moving softly, so as not to disturb +any creature, I yet disturbed a ring snake lying close to the +wall, into which it quickly vanished; and then from their old +place among the stones a pair of blue stock-doves rushed out +with clatter of wings. The same blue doves which I had known +for three years at that spot! A few more steps and I came +upon as pretty a little scene in bird life as one could wish +for: twenty to twenty-five small birds of different species +--tits, wrens, dunnocks, thrushes, blackbirds, chaffinches, +yellowhammers--were congregated on the lower outside twigs of +a bramble bush and on the bare ground beside it close to the +foot of the wall. The sun shone full on that spot, and they +had met for warmth and for company. The tits and wrens were +moving quietly about in the bush; others were sitting idly or +preening their feathers on the twigs or the ground. Most of +them were making some kind of small sound--little exclamatory +chirps, and a variety of chirrupings, producing the effect of +a pleasant conversation going on among them. This was +suddenly suspended on my appearance, but the alarm was soon +over, and, seeing me seated on a fallen stone and, motionless, +they took no further notice of me. Two blackbirds were there, +sitting a little way apart on the bare ground; these were +silent, the raggedest, rustiest-looking members of that little +company; for they were moulting, and their drooping wings and +tails had many unsightly gaps in them where the old feathers +had dropped out before the new ones had grown. They were +suffering from that annual sickness with temporary loss of +their brightest faculties which all birds experience in some +degree; the unseasonable rains and cold winds had been bad for +them, and now they were having their sun-bath, their best +medicine and cure. + +By and by a pert-looking, bright-feathered, dapper cock +chaffinch dropped down from the bush, and, advancing to one of +the two, the rustiest and most forlorn-looking, started +running round and round him as if to make a close inspection +of his figure, then began to tease him. At first I thought it +was all in fun--merely animal spirit which in birds often +discharges itself in this way in little pretended attacks and +fights. But the blackbird had no play and no fight in him, no +heart to defend himself; all he did was to try to avoid the +strokes aimed at him, and he could not always escape them. +His spiritlessness served to inspire the chaffinch with +greater boldness, and then it appeared that the gay little +creature was really and truly incensed, possibly because the +rusty, draggled, and listless appearance of the larger bird +was offensive to him. Anyhow, the persecutions continued, +increasing in fury until they could not be borne, and the +blackbird tried to escape by hiding in the bramble. But he +was not permitted to rest there; out he was soon driven and +away into another bush, and again into still another further +away, and finally he was hunted over the sheltering wall into +the bleak wind on the other side. Then the persecutor came +back and settled himself on his old perch on the bramble, well +satisfied at his victory over a bird so much bigger than +himself. All was again peace and harmony in the little social +gathering, and the pleasant talkee-talkee went on as before. +About five minutes passed, then the hunted blackbird returned, +and, going to the identical spot from which he had been +driven, composed himself to rest; only now he sat facing his +lively little enemy. + +I was astonished to see him back; so, apparently, was the +chaffinch. He started, craned his neck, and regarded his +adversary first with one eye then with the other. "What, rags +and tatters, back again so soon!" I seem to hear him say. +"You miserable travesty of a bird, scarcely fit for a weasel +to dine on! Your presence is an insult to us, but I'll soon +settle you. You'll feel the cold on the other, side of the +wall when I've knocked off a few more of your rusty rags." + +Down from his perch he came, but no sooner had he touched his +feet to the ground than the blackbird went straight at him +with extraordinary fury. The chaffinch, taken by surprise, +was buffeted and knocked over, then, recovering himself, fled +in consternation, hotly pursued by the sick one. Into the +bush they went, but in a moment they were out again, darting +this way and that, now high up in the trees, now down to the +ground, the blackbird always close behind; and no little bird +flying from a hawk could have exhibited a greater terror than +that pert chaffinch--that vivacious and most pugnacious little +cock bantam. At last they went quite away, and were lost to +sight. By and by the blackbird returned alone, and, going +once more to his place near the second bird, he settled down +comfortably to finish his sunbath in peace and quiet. + +I had assuredly witnessed a new thing on that unpromising day, +something quite different from anything witnessed in my wide +rambles; and, though a little thing, it had been a most +entertaining comedy in bird life with a very proper ending. +It was clear that the sick blackbird had bitterly resented the +treatment he had received; that, brooding on it out in the +cold, his anger had made him strong, and that he came back +determined to fight, with his plan of action matured. He was +not going to be made a fool every time! + +The birds all gone their several ways at last, I got up from +my stone and wondered if the old Romans ever dreamed that this +wall which they made to endure would after seventeen hundred +years have no more important use than this--to afford shelter +to a few little birds and to the solitary man that watched +them--from the bleak wind. Many a strange Roman curse on this +ungenial climate must these same stones have heard. +Looking through a gap in the wall I saw, close by, on the +other side, a dozen men at work with pick and shovel throwing +up huge piles of earth. They were uncovering a small portion +of that ancient buried city and were finding the foundations +and floors and hypocausts of Silchester's public baths; also +some broken pottery and trifling ornaments of bronze and bone. +The workmen in that bitter wind were decidedly better off than +the gentlemen from Burlington House in charge of the +excavations. These stood with coats buttoned up and hands +thrust deep down in their pockets. It seemed to me that +it was better to sit in the shelter of the wall and watch the +birds than to burrow in the crumbling dust for that small +harvest. Yet I could understand and even appreciate their +work, although it is probable that the glow I experienced was +in part reflected. Perhaps my mental attitude, when standing +in that sheltered place, and when getting on to the windy wall +I looked down on the workers and their work, was merely +benevolent. I had pleasure in their pleasure, and a vague +desire for a better understanding, a closer alliance and +harmony. It was the desire that we might all see nature--the +globe with all it contains--as one harmonious whole, not as +groups of things, or phenomena, unrelated, cast there by +chance or by careless or contemptuous gods. This dust of past +ages, dug out of a wheat-field, with its fragments of men's +work--its pottery and tiles and stones--this is a part, too, +even as the small birds, with their little motives and +passions, so like man's, are a part. I thought with self +shame of my own sins in this connection; then, considering +the lesser faults on the other side, I wished that Mr. St. +John Hope would experience a like softening mood and regret +that he had abused the ivy. It grieves me to hear it called a +"noxious weed." That perished people, whose remains in this +land so deeply interest him, were the mightiest "builders of +ruins" the world has known; but who except the archaeologist +would wish to see these piled stones in their naked harshness, +striking the mind with dismay at the thought of Time and its +perpetual desolations! I like better the old Spanish poet who +says, "What of Rome; its world-conquering power, and majesty +and glory--what has it come to?" The ivy on the wall, the +yellow wallflower, tell it. A "deadly parasite" quotha! Is +it not well that this plant, this evergreen tapestry of +innumerable leaves, should cover and partly hide and partly +reveal the "strange defeatures" the centuries have set on +man's greatest works? I would have no ruin nor no old and +noble building without it; for not only does it beautify +decay, but from long association it has come to be in the mind +a very part of such scenes and so interwoven with the human +tragedy, that, like the churchyard yew, it seems the most +human of green things. + +Here in September great masses of the plant are already +showing a greenish cream-colour of the opening blossoms, which +will be at their perfection in October. Then, when the sun +shines, there will be no lingering red admiral, nor blue fly +or fly of any colour, nor yellow wasp, nor any honey-eating or +late honey-gathering insect that will not be here to feed on +the ivy's sweetness. And behind the blossoming curtain, alive +with the minute, multitudinous, swift-moving, glittering +forms, some nobler form will be hidden in a hole or fissure in +the wall. Here on many a night I have listened to the +sibilant screech of the white owl and the brown owl's clear, +long-drawn, quavering lamentation: + + "Good Ivy, what byrdys hast thou?" + "Non but the Howlet, that How! How!" + + + + +Chapter Nine: Rural Rides + + +"A-birding on a Broncho" is the title of a charming little book +published some years ago, and probably better known to readers +on the other side of the Atlantic than in England. I remember +reading it with pleasure and pride on account of the author's +name, Florence Merriam, seeing that, on my mother's side, I am +partly a Merriam myself (of the branch on the other side of +the Atlantic), and having been informed that all of that rare +name are of one family, I took it that we were related, though +perhaps very distantly. "A-birding on a Broncho" suggested an +equally alliterative title for this chapter--"Birding on a +Bike"; but I will leave it to others, for those who go +a-birding are now very many and are hard put to find fresh +titles to their books. For several reasons it will suit me +better to borrow from Cobbett and name this chapter "Rural +Rides." + +Sore of us do not go out on bicycles to observe the ways of +birds. Indeed, some of our common species have grown almost +too familiar with the wheel: it has become a positive danger +to them. They not infrequently mistake its rate of speed and +injure themselves in attempting to fly across it. Recently I +had a thrush knock himself senseless against the spokes of my +forewheel, and cycling friends have told me of similar +experiences they have had, in some instances the heedless +birds getting killed. Chaffinches are like the children in +village streets--they will not get out of your way; by and by +in rural places the merciful man will have to ring his bell +almost incessantly to avoid running over them. As I do not +travel at a furious speed I manage to avoid most things, even +the wandering loveless oil-beetle and the small rose-beetle +and that slow-moving insect tortoise the tumbledung. Two or +three seasons ago I was so unfortunate as to run over a large +and beautifully bright grass snake near Aldermaston, once a +snake sanctuary. He writhed and wriggled on the road as if I +had broken his back, but on picking him up I was pleased to +find that my wind-inflated rubber tyre had not, like the +brazen chariot wheel, crushed his delicate vertebra; he +quickly recovered, and when released glided swiftly and easily +away into cover. Twice only have I deliberately tried to run +down, to tread on coat-tails so to speak, of any wild +creature. One was a weasel, the other a stoat, running along +at a hedge-side before me. In both instances, just as the +front wheel was touching the tail, the little flat-headed +rascal swerved quickly aside and escaped. + +Even some of the less common and less tame birds care as +little for a man on a bicycle as they do for a cow. Not long +ago a peewit trotted leisurely across the road not more than +ten yards from my front wheel; and on the same day I came upon +a green woodpecker enjoying a dust-bath in the public road. +He declined to stir until I stopped to watch him, then merely +flew about a dozen yards away and attached himself to the +trunk of a fir tree at the roadside and waited there for me to +go. Never in all my wanderings afoot had I seen a yaffingale +dusting himself like a barn-door fowl! + +It is not seriously contended that birds can be observed +narrowly in this easy way; but even for the most conscientious +field naturalist the wheel has its advantages. It carries him +quickly over much barren ground and gives him a better view of +the country he traverses; finally, it enables him to see more +birds. He will sometimes see thousands in a day where, +walking, he would hardly have seen hundreds, and there is joy +in mere numbers. It was just to get this general rapid sight +of the bird life of the neighbouring hilly district of +Hampshire that I was at Newbury on the last day of October. +The weather was bright though very cold and windy, and towards +evening I was surprised to see about twenty swallows in +Northbrook Street flying languidly to and fro in the shelter +of the houses, often fluttering under the eaves and at +intervals sitting on ledges and projections. These belated +birds looked as if they wished to hibernate, or find the most +cosy holes to die in, rather than to emigrate. On the +following day at noon they came out again and flew up and down +in the same feeble aimless manner. + +Undoubtedly a few swallows of all three species, but mostly +house-martins, do "lie up" in England every winter, but +probably very few survive to the following spring. We should +have said that it was impossible that any should survive but +for one authentic instance in recent years, in which a +barn-swallow lived through the winter in a semi-torpid state +in an outhouse at a country vicarage. What came of the +Newbury birds I do not know, as I left on the 2nd of November +--tore myself away, I may say, for, besides meeting with +people I didn't know who treated a stranger with sweet +friendliness, it is a town which quickly wins one's +affections. It is built of bricks of a good deep rich red +--not the painfully bright red so much in use now--and no +person has had the bad taste to spoil the harmony by +introducing stone and stucco. Moreover, Newbury has, in Shaw +House, an Elizabethan mansion of the rarest beauty. Let him +that is weary of the ugliness and discords in our town +buildings go and stand by the ancient cedar at the gate and +look across the wide green lawn at this restful house, subdued +by time to a tender rosy-red colour on its walls and a deep +dark red on its roof, clouded with grey of lichen. + +From Newbury and the green meadows of the Kennet the Hampshire +hills may be seen, looking like the South Down range at its +highest point viewed from the Sussex Weald. I made for Coombe +Hill, the highest hill in Hampshire, and found it a +considerable labour to push my machine up from the pretty +tree-hidden village of East Woodhay at its foot. The top is a +league-long tableland, with stretches of green elastic turf, +thickets of furze and bramble, and clumps of ancient noble +beeches--a beautiful lonely wilderness with rabbits and birds +for only inhabitants. From the highest point where a famous +gibbet stands for ever a thousand feet above the sea and where +there is a dew-pond, the highest in England, which has never +dried up although a large flock of sheep drink in it every +summer day, one looks down into an immense hollow, a Devil's +Punch Bowl very many times magnified,--and spies, far away and +far below, a few lonely houses half hidden by trees at the +bottom. This is the romantic village of Coombe, and hither I +went and found the vicar busy in the garden of the small old +picturesque parsonage. Here a very pretty little bird comedy +was in progress: a pair of stock-doves which had been taken +from a rabbit-hole in the hill and reared by hand had just +escaped from the large cage where they had always lived, and +all the family were excitedly engaged in trying to recapture +them. They were delightful to see--those two pretty blue +birds with red legs running busily about on the green lawn, +eagerly searching for something to eat and finding nothing. +They were quite tame and willing to be fed, so that anyone +could approach them and put as much salt on their tails as he +liked, but they refused to be touched or taken; they were too +happy in their new freedom, running and flying about in that +brilliant sunshine, and when I left towards the evening they +were still at large. + +But before quitting that small isolated village in its green +basin--a human heart in a chalk hill, almost the highest in +England--I wished the hours I spent in it had been days, so +much was there to see and hear. There was the gibbet on the +hill, for example, far up on the rim of the green basin, four +hundred feet above the village; why had that memorial, that +symbol of a dreadful past, been preserved for so many years +and generations? and why had it been raised so high--was it +because the crime of the person put to death there was of so +monstrous a nature that it was determined to suspend him, if +not on a gibbet fifty cubits high, at all events higher above +the earth than Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite? The +gruesome story is as follows. + +Once upon a time there lived a poor widow woman in Coombe, +with two sons, aged fourteen and sixteen, who worked at a farm +in the village. She had a lover, a middle-aged man, living at +Woodhay, a carrier who used to go on two or three days each +week with his cart to deliver parcels at Coombe. But he was a +married man, and as he could not marry the widow while his +wife remained alive, it came into his dull Berkshire brain +that the only way out of the difficulty was to murder her, and +to this course the widow probably consented. Accordingly, one +day, he invited or persuaded her to accompany him on his +journey to the remote village, and on the way he got her out +of the cart and led her into a close thicket to show her +something he had discovered there. What he wished to show her +(according to one version of the story) was a populous +hornets' nest, and having got her there he suddenly flung her +against it and made off, leaving the cloud of infuriated +hornets to sting her to death. That night he slept at Coombe, +or stayed till a very late hour at the widow's cottage and +told her what he had done. In telling her he had spoken in +his ordinary voice, but by and by it occurred to him that the +two boys, who were sleeping close by in the living-room, might +have been awake and listening. She assured him that they were +both fast asleep, but he was not satisfied, and said that if +they had heard him he would kill them both, as he had no wish +to swing, and he could not trust them to hold their tongues. +Thereupon they got up and examined the faces of the two boys, +holding a candle over them, and saw that they were in a deep +sleep, as was natural after their long day's hard work on the +farm, and the murderer's fears were set at rest. Yet one of +the boys, the younger, had been wide awake all the time, +listening, trembling with terror, with wide eyes to the +dreadful tale, and only when they first became suspicious +instinct came to his aid and closed his eyes and stilled his +tremors and gave him the appearance of being asleep. Early +next morning, with his terror still on him, he told what he +had heard to his brother, and by and by, unable to keep the +dreadful secret, they related it to someone--a carter or +ploughman on the farm. He in turn told the farmer, who at +once gave information, and in a short time the man and woman +were arrested. In due time they were tried, convicted, and +sentenced to be hanged in the parish where the crime had been +committed. + +Everybody was delighted, and Coombe most delighted of all, for +it happened that some of their wise people had been diligently +examining into the matter and had made the discovery that the +woman had been murdered just outside their borders in the +adjoining parish of Inkpen, so that they were going to enjoy +seeing the wicked punished at somebody else's expense. Inkpen +was furious and swore that it would not be saddled with the +cost of a great public double execution. The line dividing +the two parishes had always been a doubtful one; now they were +going to take the benefit of the doubt and let Coombe hang its +own miscreants! + +As neither side would yield, the higher authorities were +compelled to settle the matter for them, and ordered the cost +to be divided between the two parishes, the gibbet to be +erected on the boundary line, as far as it could be +ascertained. This was accordingly done, the gibbet being +erected at the highest point crossed by the line, on a stretch +of beautiful smooth elastic turf, among prehistoric +earthworks--a spot commanding one of the finest and most +extensive views in Southern England. The day appointed for +the execution brought the greatest concourse of people ever +witnessed at that lofty spot, at all events since prehistoric +times. If some of the ancient Britons had come out of their +graves to look on, seated on their earthworks, they would have +probably rubbed their ghostly hands together and remarked to +each other that it reminded them of old times. All classes +were there, from the nobility and gentry, on horseback and in +great coaches in which they carried their own provisions, to +the meaner sort who had trudged from all the country round on +foot, and those who had not brought their own food and beer +were catered for by traders in carts. The crowd was a +hilarious one, and no doubt that grand picnic on the beacon +was the talk of they country for a generation or longer. +The two wretches having been hanged in chains on one gibbet +were left to be eaten by ravens, crows, and magpipes, and +dried by sun and winds, until, after long years, the swinging, +creaking skeletons with their chains on fell to pieces and +were covered with the turf, but the gibbet itself was never +removed. + +Then a strange thing happened. The sheep on a neighbouring +farm became thin and sickly and yielded little wool and died +before their time. No remedies availed and the secret of +their malady could not be discovered; but it went on so long +that the farmer was threatened with utter ruin. Then, by +chance, it was discovered that the chains in which the +murderers had been hanged had been thrown by some evil-minded +person into a dew-pond on the farm. This was taken to be the +cause of the malady in the sheep; at all events, the chains +having been taken out of the pond and buried deep in the +earth, the flock recovered: it was supposed that the person +who had thrown the chains in the water to poison it had done +so to ruin the farmer in revenge for some injustice or grudge. +But even now we are not quite done with the gibbet! Many, +many years had gone by when Inkpen discovered from old +documents that their little dishonest neighbour, Coombe, had +taken more land than she was entitled to, that not only a part +but the whole of that noble hill-top belonged to her! It was +Inkpen's turn to chuckle now; but she chuckled too soon, and +Coombe, running out to look, found the old rotten stump of the +gibbet still in the ground. Hands off! she cried. Here +stands a post, which you set up yourself, or which we put up +together and agreed that this should be the boundary line for +ever. Inkpen sneaked off to hide herself in her village, and +Coombe, determined to keep the subject in mind, set up a +brand-new stout gibbet in the place of the old rotting one. +That too decayed and fell to pieces in time, and the present +gibbet is therefore the third, and nobody has ever been hanged +on it. Coombe is rather proud of it, but I am not sure that +Inkpen is. + +That was one of three strange events in the life of the +village which I heard: the other two must be passed by; they +would take long to tell and require a good pen to do them +justice. To me the best thing in or of the village was the +vicar himself, my put-upon host, a man of so blithe a nature, +so human and companionable, that when I, a perfect stranger +without an introduction or any excuse for such intrusion came +down like a wolf on his luncheon-table, he received me as if I +had been an old friend or one of his own kindred, and freely +gave up his time to me for the rest of that day. To count his +years he was old: he had been vicar of Coombe for half a +century, but he was a young man still and had never had a +day's illness in his life--he did not know what a headache +was. He smoked with me, and to prove that he was not a total +abstainer he drank my health in a glass of port wine--very +good wine. It was Coombe that did it--its peaceful life, +isolated from a distracting world in that hollow hill, and the +marvellous purity of its air. "Sitting there on my lawn," he +said, "you are six hundred feet above the sea, although in a +hollow four hundred feet deep." It was an ideal open-air +room, round and green, with the sky for a roof. In winter it +was sometimes very cold, and after a heavy fall of snow the +scene was strange and impressive from the tiny village set in +its stupendous dazzling white bowl. Not only on those rare +arctic days, but at all times it was wonderfully quiet. The +shout of a child or the peaceful crow of a cock was the +loudest sound you heard. Once a gentleman from London town +came down to spend a week at the parsonage. Towards evening +on the very first day he grew restless and complained of the +abnormal stillness. "I like a quiet place well enough," he +exclaimed, "but this tingling silence I can't stand!" And +stand it he wouldn't and didn't, for on the very next morning +he took himself off. Many years had gone by, but the vicar +could not forget the Londoner who had come down to invent a +new way of describing the Coombe silence. His tingling phrase +was a joy for ever. + +He took me to the church--one of the tiniest churches in the +country, just the right size for a church in a tiny village +and assured me that he had never once locked the door in his +fifty years--day and night it was open to any one to enter. +It was a refuge and shelter from the storm and the Tempest, +and many a poor homeless wretch had found a dry place to sleep +in that church during the last half a century. This man's +feeling of pity and tenderness for the very poor, even the +outcast and tramp, was a passion. But how strange all this +would sound in the ears of many country clergymen! How many +have told me when I have gone to the parsonage to "borrow the +key" that it had been found necessary to keep the church door +locked, to prevent damage, thefts, etc. "Have you never had +anything stolen?" I asked him. Yes, once, a great many years +ago, the church plate had been taken away in the night. But +it was recovered: the thief had taken it to the top of the +hill and thrown it into the dewpond there, no doubt intending +to take it out and dispose of it at some more convenient time. +But it was found, and had ever since then been kept safe at +the vicarage. Nothing of value to tempt a man to steal was +kept in the church. He had never locked it, but once in his +fifty years it had been locked against him by the +churchwardens. This happened in the days of the Joseph Arch +agitation, when the agricultural labourer's condition was +being hotly discussed throughout the country. The vicar's +heart was stirred, for he knew better than most how hard these +conditions were at Coombe and in the surrounding parishes. He +took up the subject and preached on it in his own pulpit in a +way that offended the landowners and alarmed the farmers in +the district. The church wardens, who were farmers, then +locked him out of his church, and for two or three weeks there +was no public worship in the parish of Coombe. Doubtless +their action was applauded by all the substantial men in the +neighbourhood; the others who lived in the cottages and were +unsubstantial didn't matter. That storm blew over, but its +consequences endured, one being that the inflammatory parson +continued to be regarded with cold disapproval by the squires +and their larger tenants. But the vicar himself was +unrepentant and unashamed; on the contrary, he gloried in what +he had said and done, and was proud to be able to relate that +a quarter of a century later one of the two men who had taken +that extreme course said to him, "We locked you out of your +own church, but years have brought me to another mind about +that question. I see it in a different light now and know +that you were right and we were wrong." + +Towards evening I said good-bye to my kind friend and +entertainer and continued my rural ride. From Coombe it is +five miles to Hurstbourne Tarrant, another charming "highland" +village, and the road, sloping down the entire distance, +struck me as one of the best to be on I had travelled in +Hampshire, running along a narrow green valley, with oak and +birch and bramble and thorn in their late autumn colours +growing on the slopes on either hand. Probably the beauty of +the scene, or the swift succession of beautiful scenes, with +the low sun flaming on the "coloured shades," served to keep +out of my mind something that should have been in it. At all +events, it was odd that I had more than once promised myself a +visit to the very village I was approaching solely because +William Cobbett had described and often stayed in it, and now +no thought of him and his ever-delightful Rural Rides was in +my mind. + +Arrived at the village I went straight to the "George and +Dragon," where a friend had assured me I could always find +good accommodations. But he was wrong: there was no room for +me, I was told by a weird-looking, lean, white-haired old +woman with whity-blue unfriendly eyes. She appeared to resent +it that any one should ask for accommodation at such a time, +when the "shooting gents" from town required all the rooms +available. Well, I had to sleep somewhere, I told her: +couldn't she direct me to a cottage where I could get a bed? +No, she couldn't--it is always so; but after the third time of +asking she unfroze so far as to say that perhaps they would +take me in at a cottage close by. So I went, and a poor kind +widow who lived there with a son consented to put me up. She +made a nice fire in the sitting-room, and after warming myself +before it, while watching the firelight and shadows playing on +the dim walls and ceiling, it came to me that I was not in a +cottage, but in a large room with an oak floor and +wainscoting. "Do you call this a cottage?" I said to the +woman when she came in with tea. "No, I have it as a cottage, +but it is an old farm-house called the Rookery," she returned. +Then, for the first time, I remembered Rural Rides. "This +then is the very house where William Cobbett used to stay +seventy or eighty years ago," I said. She had never heard of +William Cobbett; she only knew that at that date it had been +tenanted by a farmer named Blount, a Roman Catholic, who had +some curious ideas about the land. + +That settled it. Blount was the name of Cobbett's friend, and +I had come to the very house where Cobbett was accustomed to +stay. But how odd that my first thought of the man should +have come to me when sitting by the fire where Cobbett himself +had sat on many a cold evening! And this was November the +second, the very day eighty-odd years ago when he paid his +first visit to the Rookery; at all events, it is the first +date he gives in Rural Rides. And he too had been delighted +with the place and the beauty of the surrounding country with +the trees in their late autumn colours. Writing on November +2nd, 1821, he says: "The place is commonly called Uphusband, +which is, I think, as decent a corruption of names as one +could wish to meet with. However, Uphusband the people will +have it, and Uphusband it shall be for me." That is indeed +how he names it all through his book, after explaining that +"husband" is a corruption of Hurstbourne, and that there are +two Hurstbournes, this being the upper one. + +I congratulated myself on having been refused accommodation at +the "George and Dragon," and was more than satisfied to pass +an evening without a book, sitting there alone listening to an +imaginary conversation between those two curious friends. +"Lord Carnarvon," says Cobbett, "told a man, in 1820, that he +did not like my politics. But what did he mean by my +politics? I have no politics but such as he ought to like. +To be sure I labour most assiduously to destroy a system of +distress and misery; but is that any reason why a Lord should +dislike my politics? However, dislike them or like them, to +them, to those very politics, the Lords themselves must come +at last." + +Undoubtedly he talked like that, just as he wrote and as he +spoke in public, his style, if style it can be called, being +the most simple, direct, and colloquial ever written. And for +this reason, when we are aweary of the style of the stylist, +where the living breathing body becomes of less consequence +than its beautiful clothing, it is a relief, and refreshment, +to turn from the precious and delicate expression, the +implicit word, sought for high and low and at last found, the +balance of every sentence and perfect harmony of the whole +work--to go from it to the simple vigorous unadorned talk of +Rural Rides. A classic, and as incongruous among classics as +a farmer in his smock-frock, leggings, and stout boots would +appear in a company of fine gentlemen in fashionable dress. +The powerful face is the main thing, and we think little of +the frock and leggings and how the hair is parted or if parted +at all. Harsh and crabbed as his nature no doubt was, and +bitter and spiteful at times, his conversation must yet have +seemed like a perpetual feast of honeyed sweets to his farmer +friend. Doubtless there was plenty of variety in it: now he +would expatiate on the beauty of the green downs over which he +had just ridden, the wooded slopes in their glorious autumn +colours, and the rich villages between; this would remind him +of Malthus, that blasphemous monster who had dared to say that +the increase in food production did not keep pace with +increase of population; then a quieting down, a +breathing-space, all about the turnip crop, the price of eggs +at Weyhill Fair, and the delights of hare coursing, until +politics would come round again and a fresh outburst from the +glorious demagogue in his tantrums. + +At eight o'clock Cobbett would say good night and go to bed, +and early next morning write down what he had said to his +friend, or some of it, and send it off to be printed in his +paper. That, I take it, is how Rural Rides was written, and +that is why it seems so fresh to us to this day, and that to +take it up after other books is like going out from a +luxurious room full of fine company into the open air to feel +the wind and rain on one's face and see the green grass. +But I very much regret that Cobbett tells us nothing of his +farmer friend. Blount, I imagine, must have been a man of a +very fine character to have won the heart and influenced such +a person. Cobbett never loses an opportunity of vilifying the +parsons and expressing his hatred of the Established Church; +and yet, albeit a Protestant, he invariably softens down when +he refers to the Roman Catholic faith and appears quite +capable of seeing the good that is in it. + +It was Blount, I think, who had soothed the savage breast of +the man in this matter. The only thing I could hear about +Blount and his "queer notions" regarding the land was his idea +that the soil could be improved by taking the flints out. +"The soil to look upon," Cobbett truly says, "appears to be +more than half flint, but is a very good quality." Blount +thought to make it better, and for many years employed all the +aged poor villagers and the children in picking the flints +from the ploughed land and gathering them in vast heaps. It +does not appear that he made his land more productive, but his +hobby was a good one for the poor of the village; the stones, +too, proved useful afterwards to the road-makers, who have +been using them these many years. A few heaps almost clothed +over with a turf which had formed on them in the course of +eighty years were still to be seen on the land when I was +there. + +The following day I took no ride. The weather was so +beautiful it seemed better to spend the time sitting or +basking in the warmth and brightness or strolling about. +At all events, it was a perfect day at Hurstbourne Tarrant, +though not everywhere, for on that third of November the +greatest portion of Southern England was drowned in a cold +dense white fog. In London it was dark, I heard. Early in +the morning I listened to a cirl-bunting singing merrily from +a bush close to the George and Dragon Inn. This charming bird +is quite common in the neighbourhood, although, as elsewhere +in England, the natives know it not by its book name, nor by +any other, and do not distinguish it from its less engaging +cousin, the yellowhammer. + +After breakfast I strolled about the common and in Doles Wood, +on the down above the village, listening to the birds, and on +my way back encountered a tramp whose singular appearance +produced a deep impression on my mind. We have heard of a +work by some modest pressman entitled "Monarchs I have met", +and I sometimes think that one equally interesting might be +written on "Tramps I have met". As I have neither time nor +stomach for the task, I will make a present of the title to +any one of my fellow-travellers, curious in tramps, who cares +to use it. This makes two good titles I have given away in +this chapter with a borrowed one. + +But if it had been possible for me to write such a book, a +prominent place would be given in it to the one tramp I have +met who could be accurately described as gorgeous. I did not +cultivate his acquaintance; chance threw us together and we +separated after exchanging a few polite commonplaces, but his +big flamboyant image remains vividly impressed on my mind. + +At noon, in the brilliant sunshine, as I came loiteringly down +the long slope from Doles Wood to the village, he overtook me. +He was a huge man, over six feet high, nobly built, suggesting +a Scandinavian origin, with a broad blond face, good features, +and prominent blue eyes, and his hair was curly and shone like +gold in the sunlight. Had he been a mere labourer in a +workman's rough clay-stained clothes, one would have stood +still to look at and admire him, and say perhaps what a +magnificent warrior he would have looked with sword and spear +and plumed helmet, mounted on a big horse! But alas! he had +the stamp of the irreclaimable blackguard on his face; and +that same handsome face was just then disfigured with several +bruises in three colours--blue, black, and red. Doubtless he +had been in a drunken brawl on the previous evening and had +perhaps been thrown out of some low public-house and properly +punished. + +In his dress he was as remarkable as in his figure. Bright +blue trousers much too small for his stout legs, once the +property, no doubt, of some sporting young gent of loud tastes +in colours; a spotted fancy waistcoat, not long enough to meet +the trousers, a dirty scarlet tie, long black frock-coat, +shiny in places, and a small dirty grey cap which only covered +the topmost part of his head of golden hair. + +Walking by the hedge-side he picked and devoured the late +blackberries, which were still abundant. It was a beautiful +unkept hedge with scarlet and purple fruit among the +many-coloured fading leaves and silver-grey down of old-man's- +beard. + +I too picked and ate a few berries and made the remark that it +was late to eat such fruit in November. The Devil in these +parts, I told him, flies abroad in October to spit on the +bramble bushes and spoil the fruit. It was even worse further +north, in Norfolk and Suffolk, where they say the Devil goes +out at Michaelmas and shakes his verminous trousers over the +bushes. + +He didn't smile; he went on sternly eating blackberries, and +then remarked in a bitter tone, "That Devil they talk about +must have a busy time, to go messing about blackberry bushes +in addition to all his other important work." + +I was silent, and presently, after swallowing a few more +berries, he resumed in the same tone: "Very fine, very +beautiful all this"--waving his hand to indicate the hedge, +its rich tangle of purple-red stems and coloured leaves, and +scarlet fruit and silvery oldman's-beard. "An artist enjoys +seeing this sort of thing, and it's nice for all those who go +about just for the pleasure of seeing things. But when it +comes to a man tramping twenty or thirty miles a day on an +empty belly, looking for work which he can't find, he doesn't +see it quite in the same way." + +"True," I returned, with indifference. + +But he was not to be put off by my sudden coldness, and he +proceeded to inform me that he had just returned from +Salisbury Plain, that it had been noised abroad that ten +thousand men were wanted by the War Office to work in forming +new camps. On arrival he found it was not so--it was all a +lie--men were not wanted--and he was now on his way to +Andover, penniless and hungry and-- + +By the time he had got to that part of his story we were some +distance apart, as I had remained standing still while he, +thinking me still close behind, had gone on picking +blackberries and talking. He was soon out of sight. + +At noon the following day, the weather still being bright and +genial, I went to Crux Easton, a hilltop village consisting of +some low farm buildings, cottages, and a church not much +bigger than a cottage. A great house probably once existed +here, as the hill has a noble avenue of limes, which it wears +like a comb or crest. On the lower slope of the hill, the old +unkept hedges were richer in colour than in most places, owing +to the abundance of the spindle-wood tree, laden with its +loose clusters of flame-bright, purple-pink and orange +berries. + +Here I saw a pretty thing: a cock cirl-bunting, his yellow +breast towards me, sitting quietly on a large bush of these +same brilliant berries, set amidst a mass of splendidly +coloured hazel leaves, mixed with bramble and tangled with ivy +and silver-grey traveller's-joy. An artist's heart would have +leaped with joy at the sight, but all his skill and oriental +colours would have made nothing of it, for all visible nature +was part of the picture, the wide wooded earth and the blue +sky beyond and above the bird, and the sunshine that glorified +all. + +On the other side of the hedge there were groups of fine old +beech trees and, strange to see, just beyond the green slope +and coloured trees, was the great whiteness of the fog which +had advanced thus far and now appeared motionless. I went +down and walked by the side of the bank of mist, feeling its +clammy coldness on one cheek while the other was fanned by the +warm bright air. Seen at a distance of a couple of hundred +yards, the appearance was that of a beautiful pearly-white +cloud resting upon the earth. Many fogs had I seen, but never +one like this, so substantial-looking, so sharply defined, +standing like a vast white wall or flat-topped hill at the +foot of the green sunlit slope! I had the fancy that if I had +been an artist in sculpture, and rapid modeller, by using the +edge of my hand as a knife I could have roughly carved out a +human figure, then drawing it gently out of the mass proceeded +to press and work it to a better shape, the shape, let us say, +of a beautiful woman. Then, if it were done excellently, and +some man-mocking deity, or power of the air, happened to be +looking on, he would breathe life and intelligence into it, +and send it, or her, abroad to mix with human kind and +complicate their affairs. For she would seem a woman and +would be like some women we have known, beautiful with blue +flower-like eyes, pale gold or honey-coloured hair; very white +of skin, Leightonian, almost diaphanous, so delicate as to +make all other skins appear coarse and made of clay. And with +her beauty and a mysterious sweetness not of the heart, since +no heart there would be in that mist-cold body, she would draw +all hearts, ever inspiring, but never satisfying passion, her +beauty and alluring smiles being but the brightness of a cloud +on which the sun is shining. + +Birds, driven by the fog to that sunlit spot, were all about +me in incredible numbers. Rooks and daws were congregating on +the bushes, where their black figures served to intensify the +red-gold tints of the foliage. At intervals the entire vast +cawing multitude simultaneously rose up with a sound as +of many waters, and appeared now at last about to mount up +into the blue heavens, to float circling there far above the +world as they are accustomed to do on warm windless days in +autumn. But in a little while their brave note would change +to one of trouble; the sight of that immeasurable whiteness +covering so much of the earth would scare them, and led by +hundreds of clamouring daws they would come down again to +settle once more in black masses on the shining yellow trees. + +Close by a ploughed field of about forty acres was the +camping-ground of an army of peewits; they were travellers +from the north perhaps, and were quietly resting, sprinkled +over the whole area. More abundant were the small birds in +mixed flocks or hordes--finches, buntings, and larks in +thousands on thousands, with a sprinkling of pipits and pied +and grey wagtails, all busily feeding on the stubble and fresh +ploughed land. Thickly and evenly distributed, they appeared +to the vision ranging over the brown level expanse as minute +animated and variously coloured clods--black and brown and +grey and yellow and olive-green. + +It was a rare pleasure to be in this company, to revel in +their astonishing numbers, to feast my soul on them as it +were--little birds in such multitudes that ten thousand +Frenchmen and Italians might have gorged to repletion on their +small succulent bodies--and to reflect that they were safe +from persecution so long as they remained here in England. +This is something for an Englishman to be proud of. + +After spending two hours at Crux Easton, with that dense +immovable fog close by, I at length took the plunge to get to +Highclere. What a change! I was at once where all form and +colour and melody had been blotted out. My clothes were hoary +with clinging mist, my fingers numb with cold, and Highclere, +its scattered cottages appearing like dim smudges through the +whiteness, was the dreariest village on earth. I fled on to +Newbury in quest of warmth and light, and found it indoors, +but the town was deep in the fog. + +The next day I ventured out again to look for the sun, and +found it not, but my ramble was not without its reward. In a +pine wood three miles from the town I stood awhile to listen +to the sound as of copious rain of the moisture dropping from +the trees, when a sudden tempest of loud, sharp metallic +notes--a sound dear to the ornithologist's ears--made me jump; +and down into the very tree before which I was standing +dropped a flock of about twenty crossbills. So excited and +noisy when coming down, the instant they touched the tree they +became perfectly silent and motionless. Seven of their number +had settled on the outside shoots, and sat there within forty +feet of me, looking like painted wooden images of small green +and greenish-yellow parrots; for a space of fifteen minutes +not the slightest movement did they make, and at length, +before going, I waved my arms about and shouted to frighten +them, and still they refused to stir. + +Next morning that memorable fog lifted, to England's joy, and +quitting my refuge I went out once more into the region of +high sheep-walks, adorned with beechen woods and +traveller's-joy in the hedges, rambling by Highclere, +Burghclere, and Kingsclere. The last--Hampshire's little +Cuzco--is a small and village-like old red brick town, +unapproached by a railroad and unimproved, therefore still +beautiful, as were all places in other, better, less civilized +days. Here in the late afternoon a chilly grey haze crept +over the country and set me wishing for a fireside and the +sound of friendly voices, and I turned my face towards beloved +Silchester. Leaving the hills behind me I got away from the +haze and went my devious way by serpentine roads through a +beautiful, wooded, undulating country. And I wish that for a +hundred, nay, for a thousand years to come, I could on each +recurring November have such an afternoon ride, with that +autumnal glory in the trees. Sometimes, seeing the road +before me carpeted with pure yellow, I said to myself, now I +am coming to elms; but when the road shone red and russet-gold +before me I knew it was overhung by beeches. But the oak is +the common tree in this place, and from every high point on +the road I saw far before me and on either hand the woods and +copses all a tawny yellow gold--the hue of the dying oak leaf. +The tall larches were lemon-yellow, and when growing among +tall pines produced a singular effect. Best of all was it +where beeches grew among the firs, and the low sun on my left +hand shining through the wood gave the coloured translucent +leaves an unimaginable splendour. This was the very effect +which men, inspired by a sacred passion, had sought to +reproduce in their noblest work--the Gothic cathedral and +church, its dim interior lit by many-coloured stained glass. +The only choristers in these natural fanes were the robins and +the small lyrical wren; but on passing through the rustic +village of Wolverton I stopped for a couple of minutes to +listen to the lively strains of a cirl-bunting among some farm +buildings. + +Then on to Silchester, its furzy common and scattered village +and the vast ruinous walls, overgrown with ivy, bramble, and +thorn, of ancient Roman Calleva. Inside the walls, at one +spot, a dozen men were still at work in the fading light; they +were just finishing--shovelling earth in to obliterate all +that had been opened out during the year. The old flint +foundations that had been revealed; the houses with porches +and corridors and courtyards and pillared hypocausts; the +winter room with its wide beautiful floor--red and black and +white and grey and yellow, with geometric pattern and twist +and scroll and flower and leaf and quaint figures of man and +beast and bird--all to be covered up with earth so that the +plough may be driven over it again, and the wheat grow and +ripen again as it has grown and ripened there above the dead +city for so many centuries. The very earth within those walls +had a reddish cast owing to the innumerable fragments of red +tile and tessera mixed with it. Larks and finches were busily +searching for seeds in the reddish-brown soil. They would +soon be gone to their roosting-places and the tired men to +their cottages, and the white owl coming from his hiding-place +in the walls would have old Silchester to himself, as he has +had it since the cries and moans of the conquered died into +silence so long ago. + + + + +Chapter Ten: The Last of His Name + + +I came by chance to the village--Norton, we will call it, just +to call it something, but the county in which it is situated +need not be named. It happened that about noon that day I +planned to pass the night at a village where, as I was +informed at a small country town I had rested in, there was a +nice inn--"The Fox and Grapes"--to put up at, but when I +arrived, tired and hungry, I was told that I could not have a +bed and that the only thing to do was to try Norton, which +also boasted an inn. It was hard to have to turn some two or +three miles out of my road at that late hour on a chance of a +shelter for the night, but there was nothing else to do, so on +to Norton I went with heavy steps, and arrived a little after +sunset, more tired and hungry than ever, only to be told at +the inn that they had no accommodation for me, that their one +spare room had been engaged! "What am I to do, then?" I +demanded of the landlord. "Beyond this village I cannot go +to-night--do you want me to go out and sleep under a hedge?" +He called his spouse, and after some conversation they said +the village baker might be able to put me up, as he had a +spare bedroom in his house. So to the baker's I went, and +found it a queer, ramshackle old place, standing a little back +from the village street in a garden and green plot with a few +fruit trees growing on it. To my knock the baker himself came +out--a mild-looking, flabby-faced man, with his mouth full, in +a very loose suit of pyjama-like garments of a bluish floury +colour. I told him my story, and he listened, swallowing his +mouthful, then cast his eyes down and rubbed his chin, which +had a small tuft of hairs growing on it, and finally said, "I +don't know. I must ask my wife. But come in and have a cup +of tea--we're just having a cup ourselves, and perhaps you'd +like one." + +I could have told him that I should like a dozen cups and a +great many slices of bread-and-butter, if there was nothing +else more substantial to be had. However, I only said, "Thank +you," and followed him in to where his wife, a nice-looking +woman, with black hair and olive face, was seated behind the +teapot. Imagine my surprise when I found that besides tea +there was a big hot repast on the table--a ham, a roast fowl, +potatoes and cabbage, a rice pudding, a dish of stewed fruit, +bread-and-butter, and other things. + +"You call this a cup of tea!" I exclaimed delightedly. The +woman laughed, and he explained in an apologetic way that he +had formerly suffered grievously from indigestion, so that for +many years his life was a burden to him, until he discovered +that if he took one big meal a day, after the work was over, +he could keep perfectly well. + +I was never hungrier than on this evening, and never, I think, +ate a bigger or more enjoyable meal; nor have I ever ceased to +remember those two with gratitude, and if I were to tell here +what they told me--the history of their two lives--I think it +would be a more interesting story than the one I am about to +relate. I stayed a whole week in their hospitable house; a +week which passed only too quickly, for never had I been in a +sweeter haunt of peace than this village in a quiet, green +country remote from towns and stations. It was a small rustic +place, a few old houses and thatched cottages, and the ancient +church with square Norman tower hard to see amid the immense +old oaks and elms that grew all about it. At the end of the +village were the park gates, and the park, a solitary, green +place with noble trees, was my favourite haunt; for there was +no one to forbid me, the squire being dead, the old red +Elizabethan house empty, with only a caretaker in the +gardener's lodge to mind it, and the estate for sale. Three +years it had been in that condition, but nobody seemed to want +it; occasionally some important person came rushing down in a +motor-car, but after running over the house he would come out +and, remarking that it was a "rummy old place," remount his +car and vanish in a cloud of dust to be seen no more. + +The dead owner, I found, was much in the village mind; and no +wonder, since Norton had never been without a squire until he +passed away, leaving no one to succeed him. It was as if some +ancient landmark, or an immemorial oak tree on the green in +whose shade the villagers had been accustomed to sit for many +generations, had been removed. There was a sense of something +wanting something gone out of their lives. Moreover, he had +been a man of a remarkable character, and though they never +loved him they yet reverenced his memory. + +So much was he in their minds that I could not be in the +village and not hear the story of his life--the story which, I +said, interested me less than that of the good baker and his +wife. On his father's death at a very advanced age he came, a +comparative stranger, to Norton, the first half of his life +having been spent abroad. He was then a middle-aged man, +unmarried, and a bachelor he remained to the end. He was of a +reticent disposition and was said to be proud; formal, almost +cold, in manner; furthermore, he did not share his neighbours' +love of sport of any description, nor did he care for society, +and because of all this he was regarded as peculiar, not to +say eccentric. But he was deeply interested in agriculture, +especially in cattle and their improvement, and that object +grew to be his master passion. It was a period of great +depression, and as his farms fell vacant he took them into his +own hands, increased his stock and built model cowhouses, and +came at last to be known throughout his own country, and +eventually everywhere, as one of the biggest cattle-breeders +in England. But he was famous in a peculiar way. Wise +breeders and buyers shook their heads and even touched their +foreheads significantly, and predicted that the squire of +Norton would finish by ruining himself. They were right, he +ruined himself; not that he was mentally weaker than those who +watched and cunningly exploited him; he was ruined because his +object was a higher one than theirs. He saw clearly that the +prize system is a vicious one and that better results may be +obtained without it. He proved this at a heavy cost by +breeding better beasts than his rivals, who were all +exhibitors and prizewinners, and who by this means got their +advertisements and secured the highest prices, while he, who +disdained prizes and looked with disgust at the overfed and +polished animals at shows, got no advertisements and was +compelled to sell at unremunerative prices. The buyers, it +may be mentioned, were always the breeders for shows, and they +made a splendid profit out of it. + +He carried on the fight for a good many years, becoming more +and more involved, until his creditors took possession of the +estate, sold off the stock, let the farms, and succeeded in +finding a tenant for the furnished house. He went to a +cottage in the village and there passed his remaining years. +To the world he appeared unmoved by his reverses. The change +from mansion and park to a small thatched cottage, with a +labourer's wife for attendant, made no change in the man, nor +did he resign his seat on the Bench of Magistrates or any +other unpaid office he held. To the last he was what he had +always been, formal and ceremonious, more gracious to those +beneath him than to equals; strict in the performance of his +duties, living with extreme frugality and giving freely to +those in want, and very regular in his attendance at church, +where he would sit facing the tombs and memorials of his +ancestors, among the people but not of them--a man alone and +apart, respected by all but loved by none. + +Finally he died and was buried with the others, and one more +memorial with the old name, which he bore last was placed on +the wall. That was the story as it was told me, and as it was +all about a man who was without charm and had no love interest +it did not greatly interest me, and I soon dismissed it from +my thoughts. Then one day coming through a grove in the park +and finding myself standing before the ancient, empty, +desolate house--for on the squire's death everything had been +sold and taken away--I remembered that the caretaker had +begged me to let him show me over the place. I had not felt +inclined to gratify him, as I had found him a young man of a +too active mind whose only desire was to capture some person +to talk to and unfold his original ideas and schemes, but now +having come to the house I thought I would suffer him, and +soon found him at work in the vast old walled garden. He +joyfully threw down his spade and let me in and then up to the +top floor, determined that I should see everything. By the +time we got down to the ground floor I was pretty tired of +empty rooms, oak panelled, and passages and oak staircases, +and of talk, and impatient to get away. But no, I had not +seen the housekeeper's room--I must see that!--and so into +another great vacant room I was dragged, and to keep me as +long as possible in that last room he began unlocking and +flinging open all the old oak cupboards and presses. Glancing +round at the long array of empty shelves, I noticed a small +brown-paper parcel, thick with dust, in a corner, and as it +was the only movable thing I had seen in that vacant house I +asked him what the parcel contained. Books, he replied--they +had been left as of no value when the house was cleared of +furniture. As I wished to see the books he undid the parcel; +it contained forty copies of a small quarto-shaped book of +sonnets, with the late squire's name as author on the title +page. I read a sonnet, and told him I should like to read +them all. "You can have a copy, of course," he exclaimed. +"Put it in your pocket and keep it." When I asked him if he +had any right to give one away he laughed and said that if any +one had thought the whole parcel worth twopence it would not +have been left behind. He was quite right; a cracked dinner +--plate or a saucepan with a hole in it or an earthenware +teapot with a broken spout would not have been left, but the +line was drawn at a book of sonnets by the late squire. +Nobody wanted it, and so without more qualms I put it in my +pocket, and have it before me now, opened at page 63, on which +appears, without a headline, the sonnet I first read, and +which I quote:-- + + How beautiful are birds, of God's sweet air + Free denizens; no ugly earthly spot + Their boundless happiness doth seem to blot. + The swallow, swiftly flying here and there, + Can it be true that dreary household care + Doth goad her to incessant flight? + If not How can it be that she doth cast her lot + Now there, now here, pursuing summer everywhere? + I sadly fear that shallow, tiny brain + Is not exempt from anxious cares and fears, + That mingled heritage of joy and pain + That for some reason everywhere appears; + And yet those birds, how beautiful they are! + Sure beauty is to happiness no bar. + +This has a fault that doth offend the reader of modern verse, +and there are many of the eighty sonnets in the book which do +not equal it in merit. He was manifestly an amateur; he +sometimes writes with labour, and he not infrequently ends +with the unpardonable weak line. Nevertheless he had rightly +chosen this difficult form in which to express his inner self. +It suited his grave, concentrated thought, and each little +imperfect poem of fourteen lines gives us a glimpse into a +wise, beneficent mind. He had fought his fight and suffered +defeat, and had then withdrawn himself silently from the field +to die. But if he had been embittered he could have relieved +himself in this little book. There is no trace of such a +feeling. He only asks, in one sonnet, where can a balm be +found for the heart fretted and torn with eternal cares; when +we have thought and striven for some great and good purpose, +when all our striving has ended in disaster? His plan, he +concludes, is to go out in the quiet night-time and look at +the stars. + +Here let me quote two more sonnets written in contemplative +mood, just to give the reader a fuller idea not of the verse, +as verse, but of the spirit in the old squire. There is no +title to these two:-- + + I like a fire of wood; there is a kind + Of artless poetry in all its ways: + When first 'tis lighted, how it roars and plays, + And sways to every breath its flames, refined + By fancy to some shape by life confined. + And then how touching are its latter days; + When, all its strength decayed, and spent the blaze + Of fiery youth, grey ash is all we find. + Perhaps we know the tree, of which the pile + Once formed a part, and oft beneath its shade + Have sported in our youth; or in quaint style + Have carved upon its rugged bark a name + Of which the memory doth alone remain + A memory doomed, alas! in turn to fade. + +Bad enough as verse, the critic will say; refined, confined, +find--what poor rhymes are these! and he will think me wrong +to draw these frailties from their forgotten abode. But I +like to think of the solitary old man sitting by his wood +fire in the old house, not brooding bitterly on his frustrate +life, but putting his quiet thoughts into the form of a +sonnet. The other is equally good--or bad, if the critic +will have it so:-- + + The clock had just struck five, and all was still + Within my house, when straight I open threw + With eager hand the casement dim with dew. + Oh, what a glorious flush of light did fill + That old staircase! and then and there did kill + All those black doubts that ever do renew + Their civil war with all that's good and true + Within our hearts, when body and mind are ill + From this slight incident I would infer + A cheerful truth, that men without demur, + In times of stress and doubt, throw open wide + The windows of their breast; nor stung by pride + In stifling darkness gloomily abide; + But bid the light flow in on either side. + +A "slight incident" and a beautiful thought. But all I have +so far said about the little book is preliminary to what I +wish to say about another sonnet which must also be quoted. +It is perhaps, as a sonnet, as ill done as the others, but the +subject of it specially attracted me, as it happened to be one +which was much in my mind during my week's stay at Norton. +That remote little village without a squire or any person of +means or education in or near it capable of feeling the +slightest interest in the people, except the parson, an old +infirm man who was never seen but once a week--how wanting in +some essential thing it appeared! It seemed to me that the +one thing which might be done in these small centres of rural +life to brighten and beautify existence is precisely the thing +which is never done, also that what really is being done is of +doubtful value and sometimes actually harmful. + +Leaving Norton one day I visited other small villages in the +neighbourhood and found they were no better off. I had heard +of the rector of one of these villages as a rather original +man, and went and discussed the subject with him. "It is +quite useless thinking about it," he said. "The people here +are clods, and will not respond to any effort you can make to +introduce a little light and sweetness into their lives." +There was no more to be said to him, but I knew he was wrong. +I found the villagers in that part of the country the most +intelligent and responsive people of their class I had ever +encountered. It was a delightful experience to go into their +cottages, not to read them a homily or to present them with a +book or a shilling, nor to inquire into their welfare, +material and spiritual, but to converse intimately with a +human interest in them, as would be the case in a country +where there are no caste distinctions. It was delightful, +because they were so responsive, so sympathetic, so alive. +Now it was just at this time, when the subject was in my mind, +that the book of sonnets came into my hands--given to me by +the generous caretaker--and I read in it this one on "Innocent +Amusements":- + + There lacks a something to complete the round + Of our fair England's homely happiness + A something, yet how oft do trifles bless + When greater gifts by far redound + To honours lone, but no responsive sound + Of joy or mirth awake, nay, oft oppress, + While gifts of which we scarce the moment guess + In never-failing joys abound. + No nation can be truly great + That hath not something childlike in its life + Of every day; it should its youth renew + With simple joys that sweetly recreate + The jaded mind, conjoined in friendly strife + The pleasures of its childhood days pursue. + +What wise and kindly thoughts he had--the old squire of +Norton! Surely, when telling me the story of his life, they +had omitted something! I questioned them on the point. Did +he not in all the years he was at Norton House, and later when +he lived among them in a cottage in the village--did he not go +into their homes and meet them as if he knew and felt that +they were all of the same flesh, children of one universal +Father, and did he not make them feel this about him--that +the differences in fortune and position and education were +mere accidents? And the answer was: No, certainly not! as +if I had asked a preposterous question. He was the squire, +a gentleman--any one might understand that he could not come +among them like that! That is what a parson can do because he +is, so to speak, paid to keep an eye on them, and besides it's +religion there and a different thing. But the squire!--their +squire, that dignified old gentleman, so upright in his +saddle, so considerate and courteous to every one--but he +never forgot his position--never in that way! I also asked if +he had never tried to establish, or advocated, or suggested to +them any kind of reunions to take place from time to time, or +an entertainment or festival to get them to come pleasantly +together, making a brightness in their lives--something which +would not be cricket or football, nor any form of sport for a +few of the men, all the others being mere lookers-on and the +women and children left out altogether; something which would +be for and include everyone, from the oldest grey labourer no +longer able to work to the toddling little ones; something of +their own invention, peculiar to Norton, which would be their +pride and make their village dearer to them? And the answer +was still no, and no, and no. He had never attempted, never +suggested, anything of the sort. How could he--the squire! +Yet he wrote those wise words:-- + + No nation can be truly great + That hath not something childlike in its life + Of every day. + +Why are we lacking in that which others undoubtedly have, a +something to complete the round of homely happiness in our +little rural centres; how is it that we do not properly +encourage the things which, albeit childlike, are essential, +which sweetly recreate? It is not merely the selfishness of +those who are well placed and prefer to live for themselves, +or who have light but care not to shed it on those who are not +of their class. Selfishness is common enough everywhere, in +men of all races. It is not selfishness, nor the growth of +towns or decay of agriculture, which as a fact does not decay, +nor education, nor any of the other causes usually given for +the dullness, the greyness of village life. The chief cause, +I take it, is that gulf, or barrier, which exists between men +and men in different classes in our country, or a considerable +portion of it--the caste feeling which is becoming increasingly +rigid in the rural world, if my own observation, extending over +a period of twenty-five years, is not all wrong. + + + + +Chapter Eleven: Salisbury and Its Doves + + +Never in my experience has there been a worse spring season +than that of 1903 for the birds, more especially for the +short-winged migrants. In April I looked for the woodland +warblers and found them not, or saw but a few of the commonest +kinds. It was only too easy to account for this rarity. The +bitter north-east wind had blown every day and all day long +during those weeks when birds are coming, and when nearing the +end of their journey, at its most perilous stage, the wind had +been dead against them; its coldness and force was too much +for these delicate travellers, and doubtless they were beaten +down in thousands into the grey waters of a bitter sea. The +stronger-winged wheatear was more fortunate, since he comes in +March, and before that spell of deadly weather he was already +back in his breeding haunts on Salisbury Plain, and, in fact, +everywhere on that open down country. I was there to hear him +sing his wild notes to the listening waste--singing them, as +his pretty fashion is, up in the air, suspended on quickly +vibrating wings like a great black and white moth. But he was +in no singing mood, and at last, in desperation, I fled to +Salisbury to wait for loitering spring in that unattractive +town. + +The streets were cold as the open plain, and there was no +comfort indoors; to haunt the cathedral during those vacant +days was the only occupation left to me. There was some +shelter to be had under the walls, and the empty, vast +interior would seem almost cosy on coming in from the wind. +At service my due feet never failed, while morning, noon, and +evening I paced the smooth level green by the hour, standing +at intervals to gaze up at the immense pile with its central +soaring spire, asking myself why I had never greatly liked it +in the past and did not like it much better now when grown +familiar with it. Undoubtedly it is one of the noblest +structures of its kind in England--even my eyes that look +coldly on most buildings could see it; and I could admire, +even reverence, but could not love. It suffers by comparison +with other temples into which my soul has wandered. It has +not the majesty and appearance of immemorial age, the dim +religious richness of the interior, with much else that goes +to make up, without and within, the expression which is so +marked in other mediaeval fanes--Winchester, Ely, York, +Canterbury, Exeter, and Wells. To the dry, mechanical mind of +the architect these great cathedrals are in the highest degree +imperfect, according to the rules of his art: to all others +this imperfectness is their chief excellence and glory; for +they are in a sense a growth, a flower of many minds and many +periods, and are imperfect even as Nature is, in her rocks and +trees; and, being in harmony with Nature and like Nature, they +are inexpressibly beautiful and satisfying beyond all +buildings to the aesthetic as well as to the religious sense. + +Occasionally I met and talked with an old man employed at the +cathedral. One day, closing one eye and shading the other +with his hand, he gazed up at the building for some time, and +then remarked: "I'll tell you what's wrong with Salisbury--it +looks too noo." He was near the mark; the fault is that to +the professional eye it is faultless; the lack of expression +is due to the fact that it came complete from its maker's +brain, like a coin from the mint, and being all on one +symmetrical plan it has the trim, neat appearance of a toy +cathedral carved out of wood and set on a green-painted +square. + +After all, my thoughts and criticisms on the cathedral, as a +building, were merely incidental; my serious business was with +the feathered people to be seen there. Few in the woods and +fewer on the windy downs, here birds were abundant, not only +on the building, where they were like seafowl congregated on a +precipitous rock, but they were all about me. The level green +was the hunting ground of many thrushes--a dozen or twenty +could often be seen at one time--and it was easy to spot those +that had young. The worm they dragged out was not devoured; +another was looked for, then another; then all were cut up in +proper lengths and beaten and bruised, and finally packed into +a bundle and carried off. Rooks, too, were there, breeding on +the cathedral elms, and had no time and spirit to wrangle, but +could only caw-caw distressfully at the wind, which tossed +them hither and thither in the air and lashed the tall trees, +threatening at each fresh gust to blow their nests to pieces. +Small birds of half a dozen kinds were also there, and one +tinkle-tinkled his spring song quite merrily in spite of the +cold that kept the others silent and made me blue. One day I +spied a big queen bumble-bee on the ground, looking extremely +conspicuous in its black and chestnut coat on the fresh green +sward; and thinking it numbed by the cold I picked it up. It +moved its legs feebly, but alas! its enemy had found and +struck it down, and with its hard, sharp little beak had +drilled a hole in one of the upper plates of its abdomen, and +from that small opening had cunningly extracted all the meat. +Though still alive it was empty as a blown eggshell. Poor +queen and mother, you survived the winter in vain, and went +abroad in vain in the bitter weather in quest of bread to +nourish your few first-born--the grubs that would help you by +and by; now there will be no bread for them, and for you no +populous city in the flowery earth and a great crowd of +children to rise up each day, when days are long, to call you +blessed! And he who did this thing, the unspeakable oxeye +with his black and yellow breast--"catanic black and amber"-- +even while I made my lamentation was tinkling his merry song +overhead in the windy elms. + +The birds that lived on the huge cathedral itself had the +greatest attraction for me; and here the daws, if not the most +numerous, were the most noticeable, as they ever are on +account of their conspicuousness in their black plumage, their +loquacity and everlasting restlessness. Far up on the ledge +from which the spire rises a kestrel had found a cosy corner +in which to establish himself, and one day when I was there a +number of daws took it on themselves to eject him: they +gathered near and flew this way and that, and cawed and cawed +in anger, and swooped at him, until he could stand their +insults no longer, and, suddenly dashing out, he struck and +buffeted them right and left and sent them screaming with fear +in all directions. After this they left him in peace: they +had forgotten that he was a hawk, and that even the gentle +mousing wind-hover has a nobler spirit than any crow of them +all. + +On first coming to the cathedral I noticed a few pigeons +sitting on the roof and ledges very high up, and, not seeing +them well, I assumed that they were of the common or domestic +kind. By and by one cooed, then another; and recognizing the +stock-dove note I began to look carefully, and found that all +the birds on the building--about thirty pairs--were of this +species. It was a great surprise, for though we occasionally +find a pair of stock-doves breeding on the ivied wall of some +inhabited mansion in the country, it was a new thing to find a +considerable colony of this shy woodland species established +on a building in a town. They lived and bred there just as +the common pigeon--the vari-coloured descendant of the blue +rock--does on St. Paul's, the Law Courts, and the British +Museum in London. Only, unlike our metropolitan doves, both +the domestic kind and the ringdove in the parks, the Salisbury +doves though in the town are not of it. They come not down to +mix with the currents of human life in the streets and open +spaces; they fly away to the country to feed, and dwell on the +cathedral above the houses and people just as sea-birds +--kittiwake and guillemot and gannet--dwell on the ledges of +some vast ocean-fronting cliff. + +The old man mentioned above told me that the birds were called +"rocks" by the townspeople, also that they had been there for +as long as he could remember. Six or seven years ago, he +said, when the repairs to the roof and spire were started, the +pigeons began to go away until there was not one left. The +work lasted three years, and immediately on its conclusion the +doves began to return, and were now as numerous as formerly. +How, I inquired, did these innocent birds get on with their +black neighbours, seeing that the daw is a cunning creature +much given to persecution--a crow, in fact, as black as any of +his family? They got on badly, he said; the doves were early +breeders, beginning in March, and were allowed to have the use +of the holes until the daws wanted them at the end of April, +when they forcibly ejected the young doves. He said that in +spring he always picked up a good many young doves, often +unfledged, thrown down by the dawn. I did not doubt his +story. I had just found a young bird myself--a little +blue-skinned, yellow-mouthed fledgling which had fallen sixty +or seventy feet on to the gravel below. But in June, he said, +when the daws brought off their young, the doves entered into +possession once more, and were then permitted to rear their +young in peace. + +I returned to Salisbury about the middle of May in better +weather, when there were days that were almost genial, and +found the cathedral a greater "habitacle of birds" than ever: +starlings, swifts, and swallows were there, the lively little +martins in hundreds, and the doves and daws in their usual +numbers. All appeared to be breeding, and for some time I saw +no quarreling. At length I spied a pair of doves with a nest +in a small cavity in the stone at the back of a narrow ledge +about seventy feet from the ground, and by standing back some +distance I could see the hen bird sitting on the nest, while +the cock stood outside on the ledge keeping guard. I watched +this pair for some hours and saw a jackdaw sweep down on them +a dozen or more times at long intervals. Sometimes after +swooping down he would alight on the ledge a yard or two away, +and the male dove would then turn and face him, and if he then +began sidling up the dove would dash at and buffet him with +his wings with the greatest violence and throw him off. When +he swooped closer the dove would spring up and meet him in the +air, striking him at the moment of meeting, and again the daw +would be beaten. When I left three days after witnessing this +contest, the doves were still in possession of their nest, and +I concluded that they were not so entirely at the mercy of the +jackdaw as the old man had led me to believe. + +It was, on this occasion, a great pleasure to listen to the +doves. The stock-dove has no set song, like the ringdove, but +like all the other species in the typical genus Columba it has +the cooing or family note, one of the most human-like sounds +which birds emit. In the stock-dove this is a better, more +musical, and a more varied sound than in any other Columba +known to me. The pleasing quality of the sound as well as the +variety in it could be well noted here where the birds were +many, scattered about on ledges and projections high above the +earth, and when bird after bird uttered its plaint, each +repeating his note half a dozen to a dozen times, one in slow +measured time, and deep-voiced like the rock-dove, but more +musical; another rapidly, with shorter, impetuous notes in a +higher key, as if carried away by excitement. There were not +two birds that cooed in precisely the same way, and the same +bird would often vary its manner of cooing. + +It was best to hear them during the afternoon service in the +cathedral, when the singing of the choir and throbbing and +pealing of the organ which filled the vast interior was heard +outside, subdued by the walls through which it passed, and was +like a beautiful mist or atmosphere of sound pervading and +enveloping the great building; and when the plaining of the +doves, owing to the rhythmic flow of the notes and their human +characters, seemed to harmonize with and be a part of that +sacred music. + + + + +Chapter Twelve: Whitesheet Hill + + +On Easter Saturday the roadsides and copses by the little +river Nadder were full of children gathering primroses; they +might have filled a thousand baskets without the flowers being +missed, so abundant were they in that place. Cold though it +was the whole air was laden with the delicious fragrance. It +was pleasant to see and talk with the little people occupied +with the task they loved so well, and I made up my mind to see +the result of all this flower-gathering next day in some of +the village churches in the neighbourhood--Fovant, Teffant +Evias, Chilmark, Swallowcliffe, Tisbury, and Fonthill Bishop. +I had counted on some improvement in the weather--some +bright sunshine to light up the flower-decorated interiors; +but Easter Sunday proved colder than ever, with the bitter +north-east still blowing, the grey travelling cloud still +covering the sky; and so to get the full benefit of the +bitterness I went instead to spend my day on the top of the +biggest down above the valley. That was Whitesheet Hill, and +forms the highest part of the long ridge dividing the valleys +of the Ebble and Nadder. + +It was roughest and coldest up there, and suited my temper +best, for when the weather seems spiteful one finds a grim +sort of satisfaction in defying it. On a genial day it would +have been very pleasant on that lofty plain, for the flat top +of the vast down is like a plain in appearance, and the +earthworks on it show that it was once a populous habitation +of man. Now because of the wind and cloud its aspect was bare +and bleak and desolate, and after roaming about for an hour, +exploring the thickest furze patches, I began to think that my +day would have to be spent in solitude, without a living +creature to keep me company. The birds had apparently all +been blown away and the rabbits were staying at home in their +burrows. Not even an insect could I see, although the furze +was in full blossom; the honey-suckers were out of sight +and torpid, and the bloom itself could no longer look +"unprofitably gay," as the poet says it does. "Not even a +wheatear!" I said, for I had counted on that bird in the +intervals between the storms, although I knew I should not +hear his wild delightful warble in such weather. + +Then, all at once, I beheld that very bird, a solitary female, +flittering on over the flat ground before me, perching on the +little green ant-mounds and flirting its tail and bobbing as +if greatly excited at my presence in that lonely place. I +wondered where its mate was, following it from place to place +as it flew, determined now I had found a bird to keep it in +sight. Presently a great blackness appeared low down in the +cloudy sky, and rose and spread, travelling fast towards me, +and the little wheatear fled in fear from it and vanished from +sight over the rim of the down. But I was there to defy the +weather, and so instead of following the bird in search of +shelter I sat down among some low furze bushes and waited and +watched. By and by I caught sight of three magpies, rising +one by one at long intervals from the furze and flying +laboriously towards a distant hill-top grove of pines. Then I +heard the wailing cry of a peewit, and caught sight of the +bird at a distance, and soon afterwards a sound of another +character--the harsh angry cry of a carrion crow, almost as +deep as the raven's angry voice. Before long I discovered the +bird at a great height coming towards me in hot pursuit of a +kestrel. They passed directly over me so that I had them a +long time in sight, the kestrel travelling quietly on in the +face of the wind, the crow toiling after, and at intervals +spurting till he got near enough to hurl himself at his enemy, +emitting his croaks of rage. For invariably the kestrel with +one of his sudden swallow-like turns avoided the blow and went +on as before. I watched them until they were lost to sight in +the coming blackness and wondered that so intelligent a +creature as a crow should waste his energies in that vain +chase. Still one could understand it and even sympathize with +him. For the kestrel is a most insulting creature towards the +bigger birds. He knows that they are incapable of paying him +out, and when he finds them off their guard he will drop down +and inflict a blow just for the fun of the thing. This +outraged crow appeared determined to have his revenge. + +Then the storm broke on me, and so fiercely did the rain and +sleet thrash me that, fearing a cold soaking, I fled before it +to the rim of the plain, where the wheatear had vanished, and +saw a couple of hundred yards down on the smooth steep slope a +thicket of dwarf trees. It was, the only shelter in sight, +and to it I went, to discover much to my disgust that the +trees were nothing but elders. For there is no tree that +affords so poor a shelter, especially on the high open downs, +where the foliage is scantier than in other situations and +lets in the wind and rain in full force upon you. + +But the elder affects me in two ways. I like it on account of +early associations, and because the birds delight in its +fruit, though they wisely refuse to build in its branches; and +I dislike it because its smell is offensive to me and its +berries the least pleasant of all wild fruits to my taste. I +can eat ivy-berries in March, and yew in its season, poison or +not; and hips and haws and holly-berries and harsh acorn, and +the rowan, which some think acrid; but the elderberry I can't +stomach. + +How comes it, I have asked more than once, that this poor tree +is so often seen on the downs where it is so badly fitted to +be and makes so sorry an appearance with its weak branches +broken and its soft leaves torn by the winds? How badly it +contrasts with the other trees and bushes that flourish on the +downs--furze, juniper, holly, blackthorn, and hawthorn! + +Two years ago, one day in the early spring, I was walking on +an extensive down in another part of Wiltshire with the tenant +of the land, who began there as a large sheep-farmer, but +eventually finding that he could make more with rabbits than +with sheep turned most of his land into a warren. The higher +part of this down was overgrown with furze, mixed with holly +and other bushes, but the slopes were mostly very bare. At +one spot on a wide bare slope where the rabbits had formed a +big group of burrows there was a close little thicket of young +elder trees, looking exceedingly conspicuous in the bright +green of early April. Calling my companion's attention to +this little thicket I said something about the elder growing +on the open downs where it always appeared to be out of +harmony with its surroundings. "I don't suppose you planted +elders here," I said. + +"No, but I know who did," he returned, and he then gave me +this curious history of the trees. Five years before, the +rabbits, finding it a suitable spot to dig in, probably +because of a softer chalk there, made a number of deep burrows +at that spot. When the wheatears, or "horse-maggers" as he +called them, returned in spring two or three pairs attached +themselves to this group of burrows and bred in them. There +was that season a solitary elder-bush higher up on the down +among the furze which bore a heavy crop of berries; and when +the fruit was ripe he watched the birds feeding on it, the +wheatears among them. The following spring seedlings came up +out of the loose earth heaped about the rabbit burrows, and as +they were not cut down by the rabbits, for they dislike the +elder, they grew up, and now formed a clump of fifty or sixty +little trees of six feet to eight feet in height. + +Who would have thought to find a tree-planter in the wheatear, +the bird of the stony waste and open naked down, who does not +even ask for a bush to perch on? + +It then occurred to me that in every case where I had observed +a clump of elder bushes on the bare downside, it grew upon a +village or collection of rabbit burrows, and it is probable +that in every case the clump owed its existence to the +wheatears who had dropped the seed about their nesting-place. +The clump where I had sought a shelter from the storm was +composed of large old dilapidated-looking half-dead elders; +perhaps their age was not above thirty or forty years, but +they looked older than hawthorns of one or two centuries; and +under them the rabbits had their diggings--huge old mounds and +burrows that looked like a badger's earth. Here, too, the +burrows had probably existed first and had attracted the +wheatears, and the birds had brought the seed from some +distant bush. + +Crouching down in one of the big burrows at the roots of an +old elder I remained for half an hour, listening to the +thump-thump of the alarmed rabbits about me, and the +accompanying hiss and swish of the wind and sleet and rain in +the ragged branches. + +The storm over I continued my rambles on Whitesheet Hill, and +coming back an hour or two later to the very spot where I had +seen and followed the wheatear, I all at once caught sight of +a second bird, lying dead on the turf close to my feet! The +sudden sight gave me a shock of astonishment, mingled with +admiration and grief. For how pretty it looked, though dead, +lying on its back, the little black legs stuck stiffly up, the +long wings pressed against the sides, their black tips +touching together like the clasped hands of a corpse; and the +fan-like black and white tail, half open as in life, moved +perpetually up and down by the wind, as if that tail-flirting +action of the bird had continued after death. It was very +beautiful in its delicate shape and pale harmonious colouring, +resting on the golden-green mossy turf. And it was a male, +undoubtedly the mate of the wheatear I had seen at the spot, +and its little mate, not knowing what death is, had probably +been keeping watch near it, wondering at its strange stillness +and greatly fearing for its safety when I came that way, and +passed by without seeing it. + +Poor little migrant, did you come back across half the world +for this--back to your home on Whitesheet Hill to grow cold +and fail in the cold April wind, and finally to look very +pretty, lying stiff and cold, to the one pair of human eyes +that were destined to see you! The little birds that come +and go and return to us over such vast distances, they perish +like this in myriads annually; flying to and from us they +are blown away by death like sere autumn leaves, "the +pestilence-stricken multitudes" whirled away by the wind! +They die in myriads: that is not strange; the strange, the +astonishing thing is the fact of death; what can they tell +us of it--the wise men who live or have ever lived on the +earth--what can they say now of the bright intelligent spirit, +the dear little emotional soul, that had so fit a tenement and +so fitly expressed itself in motions of such exquisite grace, +in melody so sweet! Did it go out like the glow-worm's lamp, +the life and sweetness of the flower? Was its destiny not +like that of the soul, specialized in a different direction, +of the saint or poet or philosopher! Alas, they can tell us +nothing! + +I could not go away leaving it in that exposed place on the +turf, to be found a little later by a magpie or carrion crow +or fox, and devoured. Close by there was a small round +hillock, an old forsaken nest of the little brown ants, green +and soft with moss and small creeping herbs--a suitable grave +for a wheatear. Cutting out a round piece of turf from the +side, I made a hole with my stick and put the dead bird in and +replacing the turf left it neatly buried. + +It was not that I had or have any quarrel with the creatures +I have named, or would have them other than they are +--carrion-eaters and scavengers, Nature's balance-keepers and +purifiers. The only creatures on earth I loathe and hate are +the gourmets, the carrion-crows and foxes of the human kind +who devour wheatears and skylarks at their tables. + + + + +Chapter Thirteen: Bath and Wells Revisited + + +'Tis so easy to get from London to Bath, by merely stepping +into a railway carriage which takes you smoothly without a +stop in two short hours from Paddington, that I was amazed at +myself in having allowed five full years to pass since my +previous visit. The question was much in my mind as I +strolled about noting the old-remembered names of streets and +squares and crescents. Quiet Street was the name inscribed on +one; it was, to me, the secret name of them all. The old +impressions were renewed, an old feeling partially recovered. +The wide, clean ways; the solid, stone-built houses with their +dignified aspect; the large distances, terrace beyond terrace; +mansions and vast green lawns and parks and gardens; avenues +and groups of stately trees, especially that unmatched clump +of old planes in the Circus; the whole town, the design in the +classic style of one master mind, set by the Avon, amid green +hills, produced a sense of harmony and repose which cannot be +equalled by any other town in the kingdom. + +This idle time was delightful so long as I gave my attention +exclusively to houses from the outside, and to hills, rocks, +trees, waters, and all visible nature, which here harmonizes +with man's works. To sit on some high hill and look down on +Bath, sun-flushed or half veiled in mist; to lounge on Camden +Crescent, or climb Sion Hill, or take my ease with the +water-drinkers in the spacious, comfortable Pump Room; or, +better still, to rest at noon in the ancient abbey--all this +was pleasure pure and simple, a quiet drifting back until I +found myself younger by five years than I had taken myself to +be. + +I haunted the abbey, and the more I saw of it the more I loved +it. The impression it had made on me during my former visits +had faded, or else I had never properly seen it, or had not +seen it in the right emotional mood. Now I began to think it +the best of all the great abbey churches of England and the +equal of the cathedrals in its effect on the mind. How rich +the interior is in its atmosphere of tempered light or tender +gloom! How tall and graceful the columns holding up the high +roof of white stone with its marvellous palm-leaf sculpture! +What a vast expanse of beautifully stained glass! I certainly +gave myself plenty of time to appreciate it on this occasion, +as I visited it every day, sometimes two or three times, and +not infrequently I sat there for an hour at a stretch. + +Sitting there one day, thinking of nothing, I was gradually +awakened to a feeling almost of astonishment at the sight of +the extraordinary number of memorial tablets of every +imaginable shape and size which crowd the walls. So numerous +are they and so closely placed that you could not find space +anywhere to put your hand against the wall. We are accustomed +to think that in cathedrals and other great ecclesiastical +buildings the illustrious dead receive burial, and their names +and claims on our gratitude and reverence are recorded, but in +no fane in the land is there so numerous a gathering of the +dead as in this place. The inscription-covered walls were +like the pages of an old black-letter volume without margins. +Yet when I came to think of it I could not recall any Bath +celebrity or great person associated with Bath except Beau +Nash, who was not perhaps a very great person. Probably +Carlyle would have described him as a "meeserable creature." + +Leaving my seat I began to examine the inscriptions, and found +that they had not been placed there in memory of men belonging +to Bath or even Somerset. These monuments were erected to +persons from all counties in the three kingdoms, and from all +the big towns, those to Londoners being most numerous. Nor +were they of persons distinguished in any way. Here you +find John or Henry or Thomas Smith, or Brown, or Jones, or +Robinson, provision dealer, or merchant, of Clerkenwell, or +Bermondsey, or Bishopsgate Street Within or Without; also many +retired captains, majors, and colonels. There were hundreds +more whose professions or occupations in life were not stated. +There were also hundreds of memorials to ladies--widows and +spinsters. They were all, in fact, to persons who had come to +die in Bath after "taking the waters," and dying, they or +their friends had purchased immortality on the walls of the +abbey with a handful or two of gold. Here is one of several +inscriptions of the kind I took the trouble to copy: "His +early virtues, his cultivated talents, his serious piety, +inexpressibly endeared him to his friends and opened to them +many bright prospects of excellence and happiness. These +prospects have all faded," and so on for several long lines in +very big letters, occupying a good deal of space on the wall. +But what and who was he, and what connection had he with Bath? +He was a young man born in the West Indies who died in +Scotland, and later his mother, coming to Bath for her health, +"caused this inscription to be placed on the abbey walls"! +If this policy or tradition is still followed by the abbey +authorities, it will be necessary for them to build an annexe; +if it be no longer followed, would it be going too far to +suggest that these mural tablets to a thousand obscurities, +which ought never to have been placed there, should now be +removed and placed in some vault where the relations or +descendants of the persons described could find, and if they +wished it, have them removed? + +But it must be said that the abbey is not without a fair +number of memorials with which no one can quarrel; the one I +admire most, to Quin, the actor, has, I think, the best or the +most appropriate epitaph ever written. No, one, however +familiar with the words, will find fault with me for quoting +them here: + + That tongue which set the table on a roar + And charmed the public ear is heard no more. + Closed are those eyes, the harbingers of wit, + Which spake before the tongue what Shakespeare writ. + Cold is that hand which living was stretched forth + At friendship's call to succor modest worth. + Here lies James Quin, deign readers to be taught + Whate'er thy strength of body, force of thought, + In Nature's happiest mood however cast, + To this complexion thou must come at last. + +Quin's monument strikes one as the greatest there because of +Garrick's living words, but there is another very much more +beautiful. + +I first noticed this memorial on the wall at a distance of +about three yards, too far to read anything in the inscription +except the name of Sibthorpe, which was strange to me, but +instead of going nearer to read it I remained standing to +admire it at that distance. The tablet was of white marble, +and on it was sculptured the figure of a young man with curly +head and classic profile. He was wearing sandals and a loose +mantle held to his breast with one hand, while in the other +hand he carried a bunch of leaves and flowers. He appeared in +the act of stepping ashore from a boat of antique shape, and +the artist had been singularly successful in producing the +idea of free and vigorous motion in the figure as well as of +some absorbing object in his mind. The figure was undoubtedly +symbolical, and I began to amuse myself by trying to guess its +meaning. Then a curious thing happened. A person who had +been moving slowly along near me, apparently looking with no +great interest at the memorials, came past me and glanced +first at the tablet I was looking at, then at me. As our eyes +met I remarked that I was admiring the best memorial I had +found in the abbey, and then added, "I've been trying to make +out its meaning. You see the man is a traveller and is +stepping ashore with a flowering spray in his hand. It +strikes me that it may have been erected to the memory of a +person who introduced some valuable plant into England." + +"Yes, perhaps," he said. "But who was he?" + +"I don't know yet," I returned. "I can only see that his name +was Sibthorpe." + +"Sibthorpe!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Why, this is the very +memorial I've been looking for all over the abbey and had +pretty well given up all hopes of finding it." With that he +went to it and began studying the inscription, which was in +Latin. John Sibthorpe, I found, was a distinguished botanist, +author of the Flora Graeca, who died over a century ago. + +I asked him why he was interested in Sibthorpe's memorial. + +"Well, you see, I'm a great botanist myself," he explained, +"and have been familiar with his name and work all my life. +Of course," he added, "I don't mean I'm great in the sense +that Sibthorpe was. I'm only a little local botanist, quite +unknown outside my own circle; I only mean that I'm a great +lover of botany." + +I left him there, and had the curiosity to look up the great +man's life, and found some very curious things in it. He was +a son of Humphrey Sibthorpe, also a great botanist, who +succeeded the still greater Dillenius as Sherardian Professor +of Botany at Oxford, a post which he held for thirty-six +years, and during that time he delivered one lecture, which +was a failure. John, if he did not suck in botany with his +mother's milk, took it quite early from his father, and on +leaving the University went abroad to continue his studies. +Eventually he went to Greece, inflamed with the ambition to +identify all the plants mentioned by Dioscorides. Then he set +about writing his Flora Graeca; but he had a rough time of it +travelling about in that rude land, and falling ill he had to +leave his work undone. When nearing his end he came to Bath, +like so many other afflicted ones, only to die, and he was +very properly buried in the abbey. In his will he left an +estate the proceeds of which were to be devoted to the +completion of his work, which was to be in ten folio volumes, +with one hundred plates in each. This was done and the work +finished forty-four years after his death, when thirty copies +were issued to the patient subscribers at two hundred and +forty guineas a copy. But the whole cost of the work was set +down at 30,000 pounds! A costlier work it would be hard to +find; I wonder how many of us have seen it? + +But I must go back to my subject. I was not in Bath just to +die and lie there, like poor Sibthorpe, with all those strange +bedfellows of his, nor was I in search of a vacant space the +size of my hand on the walls to bespeak it for my own +memorial. On the contrary, I was there, as we have seen, to +knock five years off my age. And it was very pleasant, as I +have said, so long as I confined my attention to Bath, the +stone-built town of old memories and associations--so long as +I was satisfied to loiter in the streets and wide green places +and in the Pump Room and the abbey. The bitter came in only +when, going from places to faces, I began to seek out the +friends and acquaintances of former days. The familiar faces +seemed not wholly familiar now. A change had been wrought; in +some cases a great change, as in that of some weedy girl who +had blossomed into fair womanhood. One could not grieve at +that; but in the middle-aged and those who were verging on or +past that period, it was impossible not to feel saddened at +the difference. "I see no change in you," is a lie ready to +the lips which would speak some pleasing thing, but it does +not quite convince. Men are naturally brutal, and use no +compliments to one another; on the contrary, they do not +hesitate to make a joke of wrinkles and grey hairs--their own +and yours. "But, oh, the difference" when the familiar face, +no longer familiar as of old, is a woman's! This is no light +thing to her, and her eyes, being preternaturally keen in such +matters, see not only the change in you, but what is +infinitely sadder, the changed reflection of herself. Your +eyes have revealed the shock you have experienced. You cannot +hide it; her heart is stabbed with a sudden pain, and she is +filled with shame and confusion; and the pain is but greater +if her life has glided smoothly--if she cannot appeal to your +compassion, finding a melancholy relief in that saddest cry:-- + + O Grief has changed me since you saw me last! + +For not grief, nor sickness, nor want, nor care, nor any +misery or calamity which men fear, is her chief enemy. Time +alone she hates and fears--insidious Time who has lulled her +mind with pleasant flatteries all these years while subtly +taking away her most valued possessions, the bloom and colour, +the grace, the sparkle, the charm of other years. + +Here is a true and pretty little story, which may or may not +exactly fit the theme, but is very well worth telling. A lady +of fashion, middle-aged or thereabouts, good-looking but pale +and with the marks of care and disillusionment on her +expressive face, accompanied by her pretty sixteen-years-old +daughter, one day called on an artist and asked him to show +her his studio. He was a very great artist, the greatest +portrait-painter we have ever had and he did not know who she +was, but with the sweet courtesy which distinguished him +through all his long life--he died recently at a very advanced +age--he at once put his work away and took her round his +studio to show her everything he thought would interest her. +But she was restless and inattentive, and by and by leaving +the artist talking to her young daughter she began going round +by herself, moving constantly from picture to picture. +Presently she made an exclamation, and turning they saw her +standing before a picture, a portrait of a girl, staring +fixedly at it. "Oh," she cried, and it was a cry of pain, +"was I once as beautiful as that?" and burst into tears. She +had found the picture she had been looking for, which she had +come to see; it had been there twenty to twenty-five years, +and the story of it was as follows. + +When she was a young girl her mother took her to the great +artist to have her portrait painted, and when the work was at +length finished she and her mother went to see it. The artist +put it before them and the mother looked at it, her face +expressing displeasure, and said not one word. Nor did the +artist open his lips. And at last the girl, to break the +uncomfortable silence, said, "Where shall we hang it, mother?" +and the lady replied, "Just where you like, my dear, so long +as you hang it with the face to the wall." It was an +insolent, a cruel thing to say, but the artist did not answer +her bitterly; he said gently that she need not take the +portrait as it failed to please her, and that in any case he +would decline to take the money she had agreed to pay him for +the work. She thanked him coldly and went her way, and he +never saw her again. And now Time, the humbler of proud +beautiful women, had given him his revenge: the portrait, +scorned and rejected when the colour and sparkle of life was +in the face, had been looked on once more by its subject and +had caused her to weep at the change in herself. + +To return. One wishes in these moments of meeting, of +surprise and sudden revealings, that it were permissible to +speak from the heart, since then the very truth might have +more balm than bitterness in it. "Grieve not, dear friend of +old days, that I have not escaped the illusion common to all +--the idea that those we have not looked on this long time +--full five years, let us say--have remained as they were +while we ourselves have been moving onwards and downwards in +that path in which our feet are set. No one, however hardened +he may be, can escape a shock of surprise and pain; but now +the illusion I cherished has gone--now I have seen with my +physical eyes, and a new image, with Time's writing on it, has +taken the place of the old and brighter one, I would not have +it otherwise. No, not if I could would I call back the +vanished lustre, since all these changes, above all that +wistful look in the eyes, do but serve to make you dearer, my +sister and friend and fellow-traveller in a land where we +cannot find a permanent resting-place." + +Alas! it cannot be spoken, and we cannot comfort a sister if +she cannot divine the thought; but to brood over these +inevitable changes is as idle as it is to lament that we were +born into this mutable world. After all, it is because of the +losses, the sadnesses, that the world is so infinitely sweet +to us. The thought is in Cory's Mimnernus in Church: + + All beauteous things for which we live + By laws of time and space decay. + But oh, the very reason why + I clasp them is because they die. + +From this sadness in Bath I went to a greater in Wells, where +I had not been for ten years, and timing my visit so as to +have a Sunday service at the cathedral of beautiful memories, +I went on a Saturday to Shepton Mallet. A small, squalid +town, a "manufacturing town" the guide-book calls it. Well, +yes; it manufactures Anglo-Bavarian beer in a gigantic +brewery which looks bigger than all the other buildings +together, the church and a dozen or twenty public-houses +included. To get some food I went to the only eating-house +in the place, and saw a pleasant-looking woman, plump and +high-coloured, with black hair, with an expression of good +humour and goodness of every description in her comely +countenance. She promised to have a chop ready by the time I +had finished looking at the church, and I said I would have it +with a small Guinness. She could not provide that, the house, +she said, was strictly temperance. "My doctor has ordered me +to take it," said I, "and if you are religious, remember that +St. Paul tells us to take a little stout when we find it +beneficial." + +"Yes, I know that's what St. Paul says," she returned, with a +heightened colour and a vicious emphasis on the saint's name, +"but we go on a different principle." + +So I had to go for my lunch to one of the big public-houses, +called hotels; but whether it called itself a cow, or horse, +or stag, or angel, or a blue or green something, I cannot +remember. They gave me what they called a beefsteak pie--a +tough crust and under it some blackish cubes carved out of the +muscle of an antediluvian ox-and for this delicious fare and a +glass of stout I paid three shillings and odd pence. + +As I came away Shepton Mallet was shaken to its foundations by +a tremendous and most diabolical sound, a prolonged lupine +yell or yowl, as if a stupendous wolf, as big, say, as the +Anglo-Bavarian brewery, had howled his loudest and longest. +This infernal row, which makes Shepton seem like a town or +village gone raving mad, was merely to inform the men, and, +incidentally, the universe, that it was time for them to knock +off work. + +Turning my back on the place, I said to myself, "What a fool I +am to be sure! Why could I not have been satisfied for once +with a cup of coffee with my lunch? I should have saved a +shilling, perhaps eighteen-pence, to rejoice the soul of some +poor tramp; and, better still, I could have discussed some +interesting questions with that charming rosy-faced woman. +What, for instance, was the reason of her quarrel with the +apostle; by the by, she never rebuked me for misquoting his +words; and what is the moral effect (as seen through her clear +brown eyes) of the Anglo-Bavarian brewery on the population of +the small town and the neighbouring villages?" + +The road I followed from Shepton to Wells winds by the +water-side, a tributary of the Brue, in a narrow valley with +hills on either side. It is a five-mile road through a +beautiful country, where there is practically no cultivation, +and the green hills, with brown woods in their hollows, and +here and there huge masses of grey and reddish Bath stone +cropping out on their sides, resembling gigantic castles and +ramparts, long ruined and overgrown with ivy and bramble, +produce the effect of a land dispeopled and gone back to a +state of wildness. + +A thaw had come that morning, ending the severest frost +experienced this winter anywhere in England, and the valley +was alive with birds, happy and tuneful at the end of January +as in April. Looking down on the stream the sudden glory of a +kingfisher passed before me; but the sooty-brown water-ouzel +with his white bib, a haunter, too, of this water, I did not +see. Within a mile or so of Wells I overtook a small boy who +belonged there, and had been to Shepton like me, noticing the +birds. "I saw a kingfisher," I said. "So did I," he returned +quickly, with pride. He described it as a biggish bird with a +long neck, but its colour was not blue--oh, no! I suggested +that it was a heron, a long-necked creature under six feet +high, of no particular colour. No, it was not a heron; and +after taking thought, he said, "I think it was a wild duck." + +Bestowing a penny to encourage him in his promising researches +into the feathered world, I went on by a footpath over a hill, +and as I mounted to the higher ground there before me rose the +noble tower of St. Cuthbert's Church, and a little to the +right of it, girt with high trees, the magnificent pile of the +cathedral, with green hills and the pale sky beyond. O joy to +look again on it, to add yet one more enduring image of it to +the number I had long treasured! For the others were not +exactly like this one; the building was not looked at from the +same point of view at the same season and late hour, with the +green hills lit by the departing sun and the clear pale winter +sky beyond. + +Coming in by the moated palace I stood once more on the Green +before that west front, beautiful beyond all others, in spite +of the strange defeatures Time has written on it. I watched +the daws, numerous as ever, still at their old mad games, now +springing into the air to scatter abroad with ringing cries, +only to return the next minute and fling themselves back on +their old perches on a hundred weather-stained broken statues +in the niches. And while I stood watching them from the +palace trees close by came the loud laugh of the green +woodpecker. The same wild, beautiful sound, uttered perhaps +by the same bird, which I had often heard at that spot ten +years ago! "You will not hear that woodland sound in any +other city in the kingdom," I wrote in a book of sketches +entitled "Birds and Man", published in 1901. + +But of my soul's adventures in Wells on the two or three +following days I will say very little. That laugh of the +woodpecker was an assurance that Nature had suffered no +change, and the town too, like the hills and rocks and running +waters, seemed unchanged; but how different and how sad when I +looked for those I once knew, whose hands I had hoped to grasp +again! Yes, some were living still; and a dog too, one I used +to take out for long walks and many a mad rabbit-hunt--a very +handsome white-and-liver coloured spaniel. I found him lying +on a sofa, and down he got and wagged his tail vigorously, +pretending, with a pretty human hypocrisy in his gentle yellow +eyes, that he knew me perfectly well, that I was not a bit +changed, and that he was delighted to see me. + +On my way back to Bath I had a day at Bristol. It was +cattle-market day, and what with the bellowings, barkings, and +shoutings, added to the buzz and clang of innumerable electric +tramcars and the usual din of street traffic, one got the idea +that the Bristolians had adopted a sort of Salvation Army +theory, and were endeavouring to conquer earth (it is not +heaven in this case) by making a tremendous noise. I amused +myself strolling about and watching the people, and as train +after train came in late in the day discharging loads of +humanity, mostly young men and women from the surrounding +country coming in for an evening's amusement, I noticed again +the peculiarly Welsh character of the Somerset peasant--the +shape of the face, the colour of the skin, and, above all, the +expression. + +Freeman, when here below, proclaimed it his mission to prove +that "Englishmen were Englishmen, and not somebody else." It +appeared to me that any person, unbiassed by theories on such +a subject, looking at that crowd, would have come to the +conclusion, sadly or gladly, according to his nature, that we +are, in fact, "somebody else." + + + + +Chapter Fourteen: The Return of the Native + + +That "going back" about which I wrote in the second chapter to +a place where an unexpected beauty or charm has revealed +itself, and has made its image a lasting and prized possession +of the mind, is not the same thing as the revisiting a famous +town or city, rich in many beauties and old memories, such as +Bath or Wells, for instance. Such centres have a permanent +attraction, and one who is a rover in the land must return to +them again and again, nor does he fail on each successive +visit to find some fresh charm or interest. The sadness of +such returns, after a long interval, is only, as I have said, +when we start "looking up" those with whom we had formed +pleasant friendly relations. And all because of the illusion +that we shall see them as they were--that Time has stood still +waiting for our return, and by and by, to our surprise and +grief, we discover that it is not so; that the dear friends of +other days, long unvisited but unforgotten, have become +strangers. This human loss is felt even more in the case of a +return to some small centre, a village or hamlet where we knew +every one, and our intimacy with the people has produced the +sense of being one in blood with them. It is greatest of all +when we return to a childhood's or boyhood's home. Many +writers have occupied themselves with this mournful theme, and +I imagine that a person of the proper Amiel-like tender and +melancholy moralizing type of mind, by using his own and his +friends' experiences, could write a charmingly sad and pretty +book on the subject. + +The really happy returns of this kind must be exceedingly +rare. I am almost surprised to think that I am able to recall +as many as two, but they hardly count, as in both instances +the departure or exile from home happens at so early a time of +life that no recollections of the people survived--nothing, in +fact, but a vague mental picture of the place. One was of a +business man I knew in London, who lost his early home in a +village in the Midlands, as a boy of eight or nine years of +age, through the sale of the place by his father, who had +become impoverished. The boy was trained to business in +London, and when a middle-aged man, wishing to retire and +spend the rest of his life in the country, he revisited his +native village for the first time, and dicovered to his joy +that he could buy back the old home. He was, when I last saw +him, very happy in its possession. + +The other case I will relate more fully, as it is a very +curious one, and came to my knowledge in a singular way. + +At a small station near Eastleigh a man wearing a highly +pleased expression on his face entered the smoking-carriage in +which I was travelling to London. Putting his bag on the +rack, he pulled out his pipe and threw himself back in his +seat with a satisfied air; then, looking at me and catching my +eye, he at once started talking. I had my newspaper, but +seeing him in that overflowing mood I responded readily +enough, for I was curious to know why he appeared so happy and +who and what he was. Not a tradesman nor a bagman, and not a +farmer, though he looked like an open-air man; nor could I +form a guess from his speech and manner as to his native +place. A robust man of thirty-eight or forty, with blue eyes +and a Saxon face, he looked a thorough Englishman, and yet he +struck me as most un-English in his lively, almost eager +manner, his freedom with a stranger, and something, too, in +his speech. From time to time his face lighted up, when, +looking to the window, his eyes rested on some pretty scene--a +glimpse of stately old elm trees in a field where cattle were +grazing, of the vivid green valley of a chalk stream, the +paler hills beyond, the grey church tower or spire of some +tree-hidden village. When he discovered that these hills and +streams and rustic villages had as great a charm for me as for +himself, that I knew and loved the two or three places he +named in a questioning way, he opened his heart and the secret +of his present happiness. + +He was a native of the district, born at a farmhouse of which +his father in succession to his grandfather had been the +tenant. It was a small farm of only eighty-five acres, and as +his father could make no more than a bare livelihood out of +it, he eventually gave it up when my informant was but three +years old, and selling all he had, emigrated to Australia. +Nine years later he died, leaving a numerous family poorly +provided for; the home was broken up and boys and girls had to +go out and face the world. They had somehow all got on very +well, and his brothers and sisters were happy enough out +there, Australians in mind, thoroughly persuaded that theirs +was the better land, the best country in the world, and with +no desire to visit England. He had never felt like that; +somehow his father's feeling about the old country had taken +such a hold of him that he never outlived it--never felt at +home in Australia, however successful he was in his affairs. +The home feeling had been very strong in his father; his +greatest delight was to sit of an evening with his children +round him and tell them of the farm and the old farm-house +where he was born and had lived so many years, and where some +of them too had been born. He was never tired of talking of +it, of taking them by the hand, as it were, and leading them +from place to place, to the stream, the village, the old stone +church, the meadows and fields and hedges, the deep shady +lanes, and, above all, to the dear old ivied house with its +gables and tall chimneys. So many times had his father +described it that the old place was printed like a map on his +mind, and was like a picture which kept its brightness even +after the image of his boyhood's home in Australia had become +faded and pale. With that mental picture to guide him he +believed that he could go to that angle by the porch where the +flycatchers bred every year and find their nest; where in the +hedge the blackberries were most abundant; where the elders +grew by the stream from which he could watch the moorhens and +watervoles; that he knew every fence, gate, and outhouse, +every room and passage in the old house. Through all his busy +years that picture never grew less beautiful, never ceased its +call, and at last, possessed of sufficient capital to yield +him a modest income for the rest of his life, he came home. +What he was going to do in England he did not consider. He +only knew that until he had satisfied the chief desire of his +heart and had looked upon the original of the picture he had +borne so long in his mind he could not rest nor make any plans +for the future. + +He came first to London and found, on examining the map of +Hampshire, that the village of Thorpe (I will call it), where +he was born, is three miles from the nearest station, in the +southern part of the county. Undoubtedly it was Thorpe; that +was one of the few names of places his father had mentioned +which remained in his memory always associated with that vivid +image of the farm in his mind. To Thorpe he accordingly went +--as pretty a rustic village as he had hoped to find it. He +took a room at the inn and went out for a long walk--"just to +see the place," he said to the landlord. He would make no +inquiries; he would find his home for himself; how could he +fail to recognize it? But he walked for hours in a widening +circle and saw no farm or other house, and no ground that +corresponded to the picture in his brain. + +Troubled at his failure, he went back and questioned his +landlord, and, naturally, was asked for the name of the farm +he was seeking. He had forgotten the name--he even doubted +that he had ever heard it. But there was his family name to +go by--Dyson; did any one remember a farmer Dyson in the +village? He was told that it was not an uncommon name in that +part of the country. There were no Dysons now in Thorpe, but +some fifteen or twenty years ago one of that name had been the +tenant of Long Meadow Farm in the parish. The name of the +farm was unfamiliar, and when he visited the place he found it +was not the one he sought. + +It was a grievous disappointment. A new sense of loneliness +oppressed him; for that bright image in his mind, with the +feeling about his home, had been a secret source of comfort +and happiness, and was like a companion, a dear human friend, +and now he appeared to be on the point of losing it. Could it +be that all that mental picture, with the details that seemed +so true to life, was purely imaginary? He could not believe +it; the old house had probably been pulled down, the big trees +felled, orchard and hedges grabbed up--all the old features +obliterated--and the land thrown into some larger neighbouring +farm. It was dreadful to think that such devastating changes +had been made, but it had certainly existed as he saw it in +his mind, and he would inquire of some of the old men in the +place, who would perhaps be able to tell him where his home +had stood thirty years ago. + +At once he set about interviewing all the old men he came upon +in his rounds, describing to them the farm tenanted by a man +named Dyson about forty years ago, and by and by he got hold +of one who knew. He listened for a few minutes to the +oft-repeated story, then exclaimed, "Why, sir, 'tis surely +Woodyates you be talking about!" + +"That's the name! That's the name," he cried. "Woodyyates- +how did I ever forget it! You knew it then--where was it?" + +"I'll just show you," said the old man, proud at having +guessed rightly, and turning started slowly hobbling along +till he got to the end of the lane. + +There was an opening there and a view of the valley with +trees, blue in the distance, at the furthest visible point. +"Do you see them trees?" he said. "That's where Harping is; +'tis two miles or, perhaps, a little more from Thorpe. +There's a church tower among them trees, but you can't see it +because 'tis hid. You go by the road till you comes to the +church, then you go on by the water, maybe a quarter of a +mile, and you comes to Woodyates. You won't see no difference +in it; I've knowed it since I were a boy, but 'tis in Harping +parish, not in Thorpe." + +Now he remembered the name--Harping, near Thorpe--only Thorpe +was the more important village where the inn was and the +shops. + +In less than an hour after leaving his informant he was at +Woodyates, feasting his eyes on the old house of his dreams +and of his exiled father's before him, inexpressibly glad to +recognize it as the very house he had loved so long--that he +had been deceived by no false image. + +For some days he haunted the spot, then became a lodger at the +farm-house, and now after making some inquiries he had found +that the owner was willing to sell the place for something +more than its market value, and he was going up to London +about it. + +At Waterloo I wished him happiness in his old home found again +after so many years, then watched him as he walked briskly +away--as commonplace-looking a man as could be seen on that +busy crowded platform, in his suit of rough grey tweeds, thick +boots, and bowler hat. Yet one whose fortune might be envied +by many even among the successful--one who had cherished a +secret thought and feeling, which had been to him like the +shadow of a rock and like a cool spring in a dry and thirsty +land. + +And in that host of undistinguished Colonials and others of +British race from all regions of the earth, who annually visit +these shores on business or for pleasure or some other object, +how many there must be who come with some such memory or dream +or aspiration in their hearts! A greater number probably than +we imagine. For most of them there is doubtless +disappointment and disillusion: it is a matter of the heart, a +sentiment about which some are not given to speak. He too, my +fellow-passenger, would no doubt have held his peace had his +dream not met with so perfect a fulfilment. As it was he had +to tell his joy to some one, though it were to a stranger. + + + + +Chapter Fifteen: Summer Days on the Otter + + +The most characteristic district of South Devon, the greenest, +most luxuriant in its vegetation, and perhaps the hottest in +England, is that bit of country between the Exe and the Axe +which is watered by the Clyst, the Otter, and the Sid. In any +one of a dozen villages found beside these pretty little +rivers a man might spend a month, a year, a lifetime, very +agreeably, ceasing not to congratulate himself on the good +fortune which first led him into such a garden. Yet after a +week or two in this luxurious land I began to be dissatisfied +with my surroundings. It was June; the weather was +exceptionally dry and sultry. Vague thoughts, or "visitings" +of mountains and moors and coasts would intrude to make the +confinement of deep lanes seem increasingly irksome. Each day +I wandered miles in some new direction, never knowing whither +the devious path would lead me, never inquiring of any person, +nor consulting map or guide, since to do that is to deprive +oneself of the pleasure of discovery; always with a secret +wish to find some exit as it were--some place beyond the +everlasting wall of high hedges and green trees, where there +would be a wide horizon and wind blowing unobstructed over +leagues of open country to bring me back the sense of lost +liberty. I found only fresh woods and pastures new that were +like the old; other lanes leading to other farm-houses, each +in its familiar pretty setting of orchard and garden; and, +finally, other ancient villages, each with its ivy-grown grey +church tower looking down on a green graveyard and scattered +cottages, mostly mud-built and thatched with straw. Finding +no outlook on any side I went back to the streams, oftenest to +the Otter, where, lying by the hour on the bank, I watched the +speckled trout below me and the dark-plumaged dipper with +shining white breast standing solitary and curtseying on a, +stone in the middle of the current. Sometimes a kingfisher +would flash by, and occasionally I came upon a lonely grey +heron; but no mammal bigger than a watervole appeared, +although I waited and watched for the much bigger beast that +gives the river its name. Still it was good to know that he +was there, and had his den somewhere in the steep rocky bank +under the rough tangle of ivy and bramble and roots of +overhanging trees. One was shot by a farmer during my stay, +but my desire was for the living, not a dead otter. +Consequently, when the otter-hunt came with blaze of scarlet +coats and blowing of brass horns and noise of barking hounds +and shouts of excited people, it had no sooner got half a mile +above Ottery St. Mary, where I had joined the straggling +procession, than, falling behind, the hunting fury died out of +me and I was relieved to hear that no quarry had been found. +The frightened moorhen stole back to her spotty eggs, the +dipper returned to his dipping and curtseying to his own image +in the stream, and I to my idle dreaming and watching. + +The watching was not wholly in vain, since there were here +revealed to me things, or aspects of things, that were new. A +great deal depends on atmosphere and the angle of vision. For +instance, I have often looked at swans at the hour of sunset, +on the water and off it, or flying, and have frequently had +them between me and the level sun, yet never have I been +favoured with the sight of the rose-coloured, the red, and the +golden-yellow varieties of that majestic waterfowl, whose +natural colour is white. On the other hand, who ever saw a +carrion-crow with crimson eyes? Yet that was one of the +strange things I witnessed on the Otter. + +Game is not everywhere strictly preserved in that part of +Devon, and the result is that the crow is not so abhorred and +persecuted a fowl as in many places, especially in the home +counties, where the cult of the sacred bird is almost +universal. At one spot on the stream where my rambles took me +on most days a pair of crows invariably greeted my approach +with a loud harsh remonstrance, and would keep near me, flying +from tree to tree repeating their angry girdings until I left +the place. Their nest was in a large elm, and after some days +I was pleased to see that the young had been safely brought +off. The old birds screamed at me no more; then I came on one +of their young in the meadow near the river. His curious +behaviour interested me so much that I stood and watched him +for half an hour or longer. It was a hot, windless day, and +the bird was by himself among the tall flowering grasses and +buttercups of the meadow--a queer gaunt unfinished +hobbledehoy-looking fowl with a head much too big for his +body, a beak that resembled a huge nose, and a very monstrous +mouth. When I first noticed him he was amusing himself by +picking off the small insects from the flowers with his big +beak, a most unsuitable instrument, one would imagine, for so +delicate a task. At the same time he was hungering for more +substantial fare, and every time a rook flew by over him on +its way to or from a neighbouring too populous rookery, the +young crow would open wide his immense red mouth and emit his +harsh, throaty hunger-call. The rook gone, he would drop once +more into his study of the buttercups, to pick from them +whatever unconsidered trifle in the way of provender he could +find. Once a small bird, a pied wagtail, flew near him, and +he begged from it just as he had done from the rooks: the +little creature would have run the risk of being itself +swallowed had it attempted to deliver a packet of flies into +that cavernous mouth. I went nearer, moving cautiously, until +I was within about four yards of him, when, half turning, he +opened his mouth and squawked, actually asking me to feed him; +then, growing suspicious, he hopped awkwardly away in the +grass. Eventually he permitted a nearer approach, and slowly +stooping I was just on the point of stroking his back when, +suddenly becoming alarmed, he swung himself into the air and +flapped laboriously off to a low hawthorn, twenty or thirty +yards away, into which he tumbled pell-mell like a bundle of +old black rags. + +Then I left him and thought no more about the crows except +that their young have a good deal to learn upon first coming +forth into an unfriendly world. But there was a second nest +and family close by all the time. A day or two later I +discovered it accidentally in a very curious way. + +There was one spot where I was accustomed to linger for a few +minutes, sometimes for half an hour or so, during my daily +walks. Here at the foot of the low bank on the treeless side +of the stream there was a scanty patch of sedges, a most +exposed and unsuitable place for any bird to breed in, yet a +venturesome moorhen had her nest there and was now sitting on +seven eggs. First I would take a peep at the eggs, for the +bird always quitted the nest on my approach; then I would gaze +into the dense tangle of tree, bramble, and ivy springing out +of the mass 'of black rock and red clay of the opposite bank. +In the centre of this rough tangle which overhung the stream +there grew an old stunted and crooked fir tree with its tufted +top so shut out from the light by the branches and foliage +round it that it looked almost black. One evening I sat down +on the green bank opposite this tangle when the low sun behind +me shone level into the mass of rock and rough boles and +branches, and fixing my eyes on the black centre of the mass I +encountered a pair of crimson eyes staring back into mine. A +level ray of light had lit up that spot which I had always +seen in deep shadow, revealing its secret. After gazing +steadily for some time I made out a crow's nest in the dwarf +pine top and the vague black forms of three young fully +fledged crows sitting or standing in it. The middle bird had +the shining crimson eyes; but in a few moments the illusory +colour was gone and the eyes were black. + +It was certainly an extraordinary thing: the ragged-looking +black-plumaged bird on its ragged nest of sticks in the deep +shade, with one ray of intense sunlight on its huge nose-like +beak and blood-red eyes, a sight to be remembered for a +lifetime! It recalled Zurbaran's picture of the "Kneeling +Monk," in which the man with everything about him is steeped +in the deepest gloom except his nose, on which one ray of +strong light has fallen. The picture of the monk is gloomy +and austere in a wonderful degree: the crow in his interior +with sunlit big beak and crimson eyes looked nothing less than +diabolical. + +I paid other visits to the spot at the same hour, and sat long +and watched the crows while they watched me, occasionally +tossing pebbles on to them to make them shift their positions, +but the magical effect was not produced again. + +As to the cause of that extraordinary colour in the crow's +eyes, one might say that it was merely the reflected red light +of the level sun. We are familiar with the effect when +polished and wet surfaces, such as glass, stone, and water, +shine crimson in the light of a setting sun; but there is also +the fact, which is not well known, that the eye may show its +own hidden red--the crimson colour which is at the back of the +retina and which is commonly supposed to be seen only with the +ophthalmoscope. Nevertheless I find on inquiry among friends +and acquaintances that there are instances of persons in which +the iris when directly in front of the observer with the light +behind him, always looks crimson, and in several of these +cases. the persons exhibiting this colour, or danger signal, +as it may be called, were subject to brain trouble. It is +curious to find that the crimson colour or light has also been +observed in dogs: one friend has told me of a pet King +Charles, a lively good-tempered little dog with brown eyes +like any other dog, which yet when they looked up, into yours +in a room always shone ruby-red instead of hyaline blue, or +green, as is usually the case. From other friends I heard of +many other cases: one was of a child, an infant in arms, whose +eyes sometimes appeared crimson, another of a cat with yellow +eyes which shone crimson-red in certain lights. Of human +adults, I heard of two men great in the world of science, both +dead now, in whose eyes the red light had been seen just +before and during attacks of nervous breakdown. I heard also +of four other persons, not distinguished in any way, two of +them sisters, who showed the red light in the eyes: all of +them suffered, from brain trouble and two of them ended their +lives in asylums for the insane. + +Discussing these cases with my informants, we came to the +conclusion that the red light in the human eye is probably +always a pathological condition, a danger signal; but it is +not perhaps safe to generalize on these few instances, and I +must add that all the medical men I have spoken to on the +subject shake their heads. One great man, an eye specialist, +went so far as to say that it is impossible, that the red +light in the eye was not seen by my informants but only +imagined. The ophthalmoscope, he said, will show you the +crimson at the back of the eye, but the colour is not and +cannot be reflected on the surface of the iris. + + + + +Chapter Sixteen: In Praise of the Cow + + +In spite of discontents I might have remained to this day by +the Otter, in the daily and hourly expectation of seeing some +new and wonderful thing in Nature in that place where a +crimson-eyed carrion-crow had been revealed to me, had not a +storm of thunder and rain broken over the country to shake me +out of a growing disinclination to move. We are, body and +mind, very responsive to atmospheric changes; for every storm +in Nature there is a storm in us--a change physical and +mental. We make our own conditions, it is true, and these +react and have a deadening effect on us in the long run, but +we are never wholly deadened by them--if we be not indeed +dead, if the life we live can be called life. We are told +that there are rainless zones on the earth and regions of +everlasting summer: it is hard to believe that the dwellers in +such places can ever think a new thought or do a new thing. +The morning rain did not last very long, and before it had +quite ceased I took up my knapsack and set off towards the +sea, determined on this occasion to make my escape. + +Three or four miles from Ottery St. Mary I overtook a cowman +driving nine milch cows along a deep lane and inquired my way +of him. He gave me many and minute directions, after which we +got into conversation, and I walked some distance with him. +The cows he was driving were all pure Devons, perfect beauties +in their bright red coats in that greenest place where every +rain-wet leaf sparkled in the new sunlight. Naturally we +talked about the cows, and I soon found that they were his own +and the pride and joy of his life. We walked leisurely, and +as the animals went on, first one, then another would stay for +a mouthful of grass, or to pull down half a yard of green +drapery from the hedge. It was so lavishly decorated that the +damage they did to it was not noticeable. By and by we went +on ahead of the cows, then, if one stayed too long or strayed +into some inviting side-lane, he would turn and utter a long, +soft call, whereupon the straggler would leave her browsing +and hasten after the others. + + +He was a big, strongly built man, a little past middle life +and grey-haired, with rough-hewn face--unprepossessing one +would have pronounced him until the intelligent, kindly +expression of the eyes was seen and the agreeable voice was +heard. As our talk progressed and we found how much in +sympathy we were on the subject, I was reminded of that +Biblical expression about the shining of a man's face: "Wine +that maketh glad the heart of man"--I hope the total +abstainers will pardon me--"and oil that maketh his face to +shine," we have in one passage. This rather goes against our +British ideas, since we rub no oil or unguents on our skin, +but only soap which deprives it of its natural oil and too +often imparts a dry and hard texture. Yet in that, to us, +disagreeable aspect of the skin caused by foreign fats, there +is a resemblance to the sudden brightening and glory of the +countenance in moments of blissful emotion or exaltation. No +doubt the effect is produced by the eyes, which are the +mirrors of the mind, and as they are turned full upon us they +produce an illusion, seeming to make the whole face shine. + +In our talk I told him of long rambles on the Mendips, along +the valley of the Somerset Axe, where I had lately been, and +where of all places, in this island, the cow should be most +esteemed and loved by man. Yet even there, where, standing on +some elevation, cows beyond one's power to number could be +seen scattered far and wide in the green vales beneath, it had +saddened me to find them so silent. It is not natural for +them to be dumb; they have great emotions and mighty voices +--the cattle on a thousand hills. Their morning and evening +lowing is more to me than any other natural sound--the melody +of birds, the springs and dying gales of the pines, the wash +of waves on the long shingled beach. The hills and valleys of +that pastoral country flowing with milk and honey should be +vocal with it, echoing and re-echoing the long call made +musical by distance. The cattle are comparatively silent in +that beautiful district, and indeed everywhere in England, +because men have made them so. They have, when deprived of +their calves, no motive for the exercise of their voices. For +two or three days after their new-born calves have been taken +from them they call loudly and incessantly, day and night, +like Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be +comforted; grief and anxiety inspires that cry--they grow +hoarse with crying; it is a powerful, harsh, discordant sound, +unlike the long musical call of the cow that has a calf, and +remembering it, and leaving the pasture, goes lowing to give +it suck. + +I also told him of the cows of a distant country where I had +lived, that had the maternal instinct so strong that they +refused to yield their milk when deprived of their young. +They "held it back," as the saying is, and were in a sullen +rage, and in a few days their fountains dried up, and there +was no more milk until calving-time came round once more. + +He replied that cows of that temper were not unknown in South +Devon. Very proudly he pointed to one of the small herd that +followed us as an example. In most cases, he said, the calf +was left from two or three days to a week, or longer, with the +mother to get strong, and then taken away. This plan could +not be always followed; some cows were so greatly distressed +at losing the young they had once suckled that precautions had +to be taken and the calf smuggled away as quietly as possible +when dropped--if possible before the mother had seen it. Then +there were the extreme cases in which the cow refused to be +cheated. She knew that a calf had been born; she had felt it +within her, and had suffered pangs in bringing it forth; if it +appeared not on the grass or straw at her side then it must +have been snatched away by the human creatures that hovered +about her, like crows and ravens round a ewe in travail on +some lonely mountain side. + +That was the character of the cow he had pointed out; even +when she had not seen the calf of which she had been deprived +she made so great an outcry and was thrown into such a rage +and fever, refusing to be milked that, finally, to save her, +it was thought necessary to give her back the calf. Now, he +concluded, it was not attempted to take it away: twice a day +she was allowed to have it with her and suckle it, and she was +a very happy animal. + +I was glad to think that there was at least one completely +happy cow in Devonshire. + +After leaving the cowkeeper I had that feeling of revulsion +very strongly which all who know and love cows occasionally +experience at the very thought of beef. I was for the moment +more than tolerant of vegetarianism, and devoutly hoped that +for many days to come I should not be sickened with the sight +of a sirloin on some hateful board, cold, or smoking hot, +bleeding its red juices into the dish when gashed with a +knife, as if undergoing a second death. We do not eat +negroes, although their pigmented skins, flat feet, and woolly +heads proclaim them a different species; even monkey's flesh +is abhorrent to us, merely because we fancy that that creature +in its ugliness resembles some old men and some women and +children that we know. But the gentle large-brained social +cow that caresses our hands and faces with her rough blue +tongue, and is more like man's sister than any other non-human +being--the majestic, beautiful creature with the juno eyes, +sweeter of breath than the rosiest virgin--we slaughter and +feed on her flesh--monsters and cannibals that we are! + +But though cannibals, it is very pleasant to find that many +cowmen love their cows. Walking one afternoon by a high +unkept hedge near Southampton Water, I heard loud shouts at +intervals issuing from a point some distance ahead, and on +arriving at the spot found an old man leaning idly over a +gate, apparently concerned about nothing. "What are you +shouting about?" I demanded. "Cows," he answered, with a +glance across the wide green field dotted with a few big furze +and bramble bushes. On its far side half a dozen cows were, +quietly grazing. "They came fast enough when I was a-feeding +of 'em," he presently added; "but now they has to find for +theirselves they don't care how long they keeps me." I was +going to suggest that it would be a considerable saving of +time if he went for them, but his air of lazy contentment as +he leant on the gate showed that time was of no importance to +him. He was a curious-looking old man, in old frayed clothes, +broken boots, and a cap too small for him. He had short legs, +broad chest, and long arms, and a very big head, long and +horselike, with a large shapeless nose and grizzled beard and +moustache. His ears, too, were enormous, and stood out from +the head like the handles of a rudely shaped terra-cotta vase +or jar. The colour of his face, the ears included, suggested +burnt clay. But though Nature had made him ugly, he had an +agreeable expression, a sweet benign look in his large dark +eyes, which attracted me, and I stayed to talk with him. + +It has frequently been said that those who are much with cows, +and have an affection for them, appear to catch something of +their expression--to look like cows; just as persons of +sympathetic or responsive nature, and great mobility of face, +grow to be like those they live and are in sympathy with. +The cowman who looks like a cow may be more bovine than his +fellows in his heavier motions and slower apprehensions, but +he also exhibits some of the better qualities--the repose and +placidity of the animal. + +He said that he was over seventy, and had spent the whole of +his life in the neighbourhood, mostly with cows, and had never +been more than a dozen miles from the spot where we were +standing. At intervals while we talked he paused to utter one +of his long shouts, to which the cows paid no attention. At +length one of the beasts raised her head and had a long look, +then slowly crossed the field to us, the others following at +some distance. They were shorthorns, all but the leader, a +beautiful young Devon, of a uniform rich glossy red; but the +silky hair on the distended udder was of an intense chestnut, +and all the parts that were not clothed were red too--the +teats, the skin round the eyes, the moist embossed nose; while +the hoofs were like polished red pebbles, and even the shapely +horns were tinged with that colour. Walking straight up to +the old man, she began deliberately licking one of his ears +with her big rough tongue, and in doing so knocked off his old +rakish cap. Picking it up he laughed like a child, and +remarked, "She knows me, this one does--and she loikes me." + + + + +Chapter Seventeen: An Old Road Leading Nowhere + + +So many and minute were the directions I received about the +way from the blessed cowkeeper, and so little attention did I +give them, my mind being occupied with other things, that they +were quickly forgotten. Of half a hundred things I remembered +only that I had to "bear to the left." This I did, although +it seemed useless, seeing that my way was by lanes, across +fields, and through plantations. At length I came to a road, +and as it happened to be on my left hand I followed it. It +was narrow, worn deep by traffic and rains; and grew deeper, +rougher, and more untrodden as I progressed, until it was +like the dry bed of a mountain torrent, and I walked on +boulder-stones between steep banks about fourteen feet high. +Their sides were clothed with ferns, grass and rank moss; +their summits were thickly wooded, and the interlacing +branches of the trees above, mingled with long rope-like +shoots of bramble and briar, formed so close a roof that I +seemed to be walking in a dimly lighted tunnel. At length, +thinking that I had kept long enough to a road which had +perhaps not been used for a century, also tired of the +monotony of always bearing to the left, I scrambled out on the +right-hand side. For some time past I had been ascending a +low, broad, flat-topped hill, and on forcing my way through +the undergrowth into the open I found myself on the level +plateau, an unenclosed spot overgrown with heather and +scattered furze bushes, with clumps of fir and birch trees. +Before me and on either hand at this elevation a vast extent +of country was disclosed. The surface was everywhere broken, +but there was no break in the wonderful greenness, which the +recent rain had intensified. There is too much green, to my +thinking, with too much uniformity in its soft, bright tone, +in South Devon. After gazing on such a landscape the brown, +harsh, scanty vegetation of the hilltop seemed all the more +grateful. The heath was an oasis and a refuge; I rambled +about in it until my feet and legs were wet; then I sat +down to let them dry and altogether spent several agreeable +hours at that spot, pleased at the thought that no human +fellow-creature would intrude upon me. Feathered companions +were, however, not wanting. The crowing of cock pheasants +from the thicket beside the old road warned me that I was on +preserved grounds. Not too strictly preserved, however, for +there was my old friend the carrion-crow out foraging for his +young. He dropped down over the trees, swept past me, and was +gone. At this season, in the early summer, he may be easily +distinguished, when flying, from his relation the rook. When +on the prowl the crow glides smoothly and rapidly through the +air, often changing his direction, now flying close to the +surface, anon mounting high, but oftenest keeping nearly on a +level with the tree tops. His gliding and curving motions are +somewhat like those of the herring-gull, but the wings in +gliding are carried stiff and straight, the tips of the long +flight-feathers showing a slight upward curve. But the +greatest difference is in the way the head is carried. The +rook, like the heron and stork, carries his beak pointing +lance-like straight before him. He knows his destination, and +makes for it; he follows his nose, so to speak, turning +neither to the right nor the left. The foraging crow +continually turns his head, gull-like and harrier-like, from +side to side, as if to search the ground thoroughly or to +concentrate his vision on some vaguely seen object. + +Not only the crow was there: a magpie chattered as I came from +the brake, but refused to show himself; and a little later a +jay screamed at me, as only a jay can. There are times when I +am intensely in sympathy with the feeling expressed in this +ear-splitting sound, inarticulate but human. It is at the +same time warning and execration, the startled solitary's +outburst of uncontrolled rage at the abhorred sight of a +fellow-being in his woodland haunt. + +Small birds were numerous at that spot, as if for them also +its wildness and infertility had an attraction. Tits, +warblers, pipits, finches, all were busy ranging from place to +place, emitting their various notes now from the tree-tops, +then from near the ground; now close at hand, then far off; +each change in the height, distance, and position of the +singer giving the sound a different character, so that the +effect produced was one of infinite variety. Only the +yellow-hammer remained constant in one spot, in one position, +and the song at each repetition was the same. Nevertheless +this bird is not so monotonous a singer as he is reputed. A +lover of open places, of commons and waste lands, with a bush +or dwarf tree for tower to sit upon, he is yet one of the most +common species in the thickly timbered country of the Otter, +Clyst, and Sid, in which I had been rambling, hearing him +every day and all day long. Throughout that district, where +the fields are small, and the trees big and near together, he +has the cirl-bunting's habit of perching to sing on the tops +of high hedgerow elms and oaks. + +By and by I had a better bird to listen to--a redstart. A +female flew down within fifteen yards of me; her mate followed +and perched on a dry twig, where he remained a long time for +so shy and restless a creature. He was in perfect plumage, +and sitting there, motionless in the strong sunlight, was +wonderfully conspicuous, the gayest, most exotic-looking bird +of his family in England. Quitting his perch, he flew up into +a tree close by and began singing; and for half an hour +thereafter I continued intently listening to his brief strain, +repeated at short intervals--a song which I think has never +been perfectly described. "Practice makes perfect" is an +axiom that does not apply to the art of song in the bird +world; since the redstart, a member of a highly melodious +family, with a good voice to start with, has never attained to +excellence in spite of much practising. The song is +interesting both on account of its exceptional inferiority and +of its character. A distinguished ornithologist has said that +little birds have two ways of making themselves attractive--by +melody and by bright plumage; and that most species excel in +one or the other way; and that the acquisition of gay colours +by a species of a sober-coloured melodious family will cause +it to degenerate as a songster. He is speaking of the +redstart. Unfortunately for the rule there are too many +exceptions. Thus confining ourselves to a single family--that +of the finches--in our own islands, the most modest coloured +have the least melody, while those that have the gayest +plumage are the best singers--the goldfinch, chaffinch, +siskin, and linnet. Nevertheless it is impossible to listen +for any length of time to the redstart, and to many redstarts, +without feeling, almost with irritation, that its strain is +only the prelude of a song--a promise never performed; that +once upon a time in the remote past it was a sweet, copious, +and varied singer, and that only a fragment of its melody now +remains. The opening rapidly warbled notes are so charming +that the attention is instantly attracted by them. They are +composed of two sounds, both beautiful--the bright pure +gushing robin-like note, and the more tender expressive +swallow-like note. And that is all; the song scarcely begins +before it ends, or collapses; for in most cases the pure sweet +opening strain is followed by a curious little farrago of +gurgling and squeaking sounds, and little fragments of varied +notes, often so low as to be audible only at a few yards' +distance. It is curious that these slight fragments of notes +at the end vary in different individuals, in strength and +character and in number, from a single faintest squeal to half +a dozen or a dozen distinct sounds. In all cases they are +emitted with apparent effort, as if the bird strained its pipe +in the vain attempt to continue the song. + +The statement that the redstart is a mimic is to be met with +in many books about birds. I rather think that in jerking out +these various little broken notes which end its strain, +whether he only squeaks or succeeds in producing a pure sound, +he is striving to recover his own lost song rather than to +imitate the songs of other birds. + +So much entertainment did I find at that spot, so grateful did +it seem in its openness after long confinement in the lower +thickly wooded country, that I practically spent the day +there. At all events the best time for walking was gone when +I quitted it, and then I could think of no better plan than to +climb down into the old long untrodden road, or channel, again +just to see where it would lead me. After all, I said, my +time is my own, and to abandon the old way I have walked in so +long without discovering the end would be a mistake. So I +went on in it once more, and in about twenty minutes it came +to an end before a group of old farm buildings in a hollow in +the woods. The space occupied by the buildings was quite +walled round and shut in by a dense growth of trees and +bushes; and there was no soul there and no domestic animal. +The place had apparently been vacant many years, and the +buildings were in a ruinous condition, with the roofs falling +in. + +Now when I look back on that walk I blame myself for having +gone on my way without trying to find out something of the +history of that forsaken home to which the lonely old road had +led me. Those ruinous buildings once inhabited, so wrapped +round and hidden away by trees, have now a strange look in +memory as if they had a story to tell, as if something +intelligent had looked from the vacant windows as I stood +staring at them and had said, We have waited these many years +for you to come and listen to our story and you are come at +last. + +Something perhaps stirred in me in response to that greeting +and message, but I failed to understand it, and after standing +there awhile, oppressed by a sense of loneliness, I turned +aside, and creeping and pushing through a mass and tangle of +vegetation went on my way towards the coast. + +Possibly that idea or fancy of a story to tell, a human +tragedy, came to me only because of another singular +experience I had that day when the afternoon sun had grown +oppressively hot--another mystery of a desolate but not in +this case uninhabited house. The two places somehow became +associated together in my mind. + +The place was a little farm-house standing some distance +from the road, in a lonely spot out of sight of any other +habitation, and I thought I would call and ask for a glass +of milk, thinking that if things had a promising look on my +arrival my modest glass of milk would perhaps expand to a +sumptuous five-o'clock tea and my short rest to a long and +pleasant one. + +The house I found on coming nearer was small and mean-looking +and very old; the farm buildings in a dilapidated condition, +the thatch rotten and riddled with holes in which many +starlings and sparrows had their nests. Gates and fences were +broken down, and the ground was everywhere overgrown with +weeds and encumbered with old broken and rusty implements, and +littered with rubbish. No person could I see about the place, +but knew it was inhabited as there were some fowls walking +about, and some calves shut in a pen in one of the numerous +buildings were dolefully calling--calling to be fed. Seeing a +door half open at one end of the house I went to it and rapped +on the warped paintless wood with my stick, and after about a +minute a young woman came from an inner room and asked me what +I wanted. She was not disturbed or surprised at my sudden +appearance there: her face was impassive, and her eyes when +they met mine appeared to look not at me but at something +distant, and her words were spoken mechanically. + +I said that I was hot and thirsty and tired and would be glad +of a glass of milk. + +Without a word she turned and left me standing there, and +presently returned with a tumbler of milk which she placed on +a deal table standing near me. To my remarks she replied in +monosyllables, and stood impassively, her hands at her side, +her eyes cast down, waiting for me to drink the milk and go. +And when I had finished it and set the glass down and thanked +her, she turned in silence and went back to that inner room +from which she first came. And hot and tired as I had felt a +few moments before, and desirous of an interval of rest in the +cool shade, I was glad to be out in the burning sun once more, +for the sight of that young woman had chilled my blood and +made the heat out-of-doors seem grateful to me. + +The sight of such a face in the midst of such surroundings had +produced a shock of surprise, for it was noble in shape, the +features all fine and the mouth most delicately chiselled, the +eyes dark and beautiful, and the hair of a raven blackness. +But it was a colourless face, and even the lips were pale. +Strongest of all was the expression, which had frozen there, +and was like the look of one on whom some unimaginable +disaster or some hateful disillusionment had come, not to +subdue nor soften, but to change all its sweet to sour, and +its natural warmth to icy cold. + + + + +Chapter Eighteen: Branscombe + + +Health and pleasure resorts and all parasitic towns in fact, +inland or on the sea, have no attractions for me and I was +more than satisfied with a day or two of Sidmouth. Then one +evening I heard for the first time of a place called +Branscomb--a village near the sea, over by Beer and Seaton, +near the mouth of the Axe, and the account my old host gave me +seemed so attractive that on the following day I set out to +find it. Further information about the unknown village came +to me in a very agreeable way in the course of my tramp. A +hotter walk I never walked--no, not even when travelling +across a flat sunburnt treeless plain, nearer than Devon by +many degrees to the equator. One wonders why that part of +Devon which lies between the Exe and the Axe seems actually +hotter than other regions which undoubtedly have a higher +temperature. After some hours of walking with not a little of +uphill and downhill, I began to find the heat well-nigh +intolerable. I was on a hard dusty glaring road, shut in by +dusty hedges on either side. Not a breath of air was +stirring; not a bird sang; on the vast sky not a cloud +appeared. If the vertical sun had poured down water instead +of light and heat on me my clothing could not have clung to me +more uncomfortably. Coming at length to a group of two or +three small cottages at the roadside, I went into one and +asked for something to quench my thirst--cider or milk. There +was only water to be had, but it was good to drink, and the +woman of the cottage was so pretty and pleasant that I was +glad to rest an hour and talk with her in her cool kitchen. +There are English counties where it would perhaps be said of +such a woman that she was one in a thousand; but the Devonians +are a comely race. In that blessed county the prettiest +peasants are not all diligently gathered with the dew on them +and sent away to supply the London flower-market. Among the +best-looking women of the peasant class there are two distinct +types--the rich in colour and the colourless. A majority are +perhaps intermediate, but the two extreme types may be found +in any village or hamlet; and when seen side by side--the lily +and the rose, not to say the peony--they offer a strange and +beautiful contrast. + +This woman, in spite of the burning climate, was white as any +pale town lady; and although she was the mother of several +children, the face was extremely youthful in appearance; it +seemed indeed almost girlish in its delicacy and innocent +expression when she looked up at me with her blue eyes shaded +by her white sun-bonnet. The children were five or six in +number, ranging from a boy of ten to a baby in her arms--all +clean and healthy looking, with bright, fun-loving faces. + +I mentioned that I was on my way to Branscombe, and inquired +the distance. + +"Branscomb--are you going there? Oh, I wonder what you will +think of Branscombe!" she exclaimed, her white cheeks +flushing, her innocent eyes sparkling with excitement. + +What was Branscombe to her, I returned with indifference; and +what did it matter what any stranger thought of it? + +"But it is my home!" she answered, looking hurt at my careless +words. "I was born there, and married there, and have always +lived at Branscombe with my people until my husband got work +in this place; then we had to leave home and come and live in +this cottage." + +And as I began to show interest she went on to tell me that +Branscombe was, oh, such a dear, queer, funny old place! That +she had been to other villages and towns--Axmouth, and Seaton, +and Beer, and to Salcombe Regis and Sidmouth, and once to +Exeter; but never, never had she seen a place like Branscombe +--not one that she liked half so well. How strange that I had +never been there--had never even heard of it! People that +went there sometimes laughed at it at first, because it was +such a funny, tumbledown old place; but they always said +afterwards that there was no sweeter spot on the earth. + +Her enthusiasm was very delightful; and, when baby cried, in +the excitement of talk she opened her breast and fed it before +me. A pretty sight! But for the pure white, blue-veined skin +she might have been taken for a woman of Spain--the most +natural, perhaps the most lovable, of the daughters of earth. +But all at once she remembered that I was a stranger, and with +a blush turned aside and covered her fair skin. Her shame, +too, like her first simple unconscious action, was natural; +for we live in a cooler climate, and are accustomed to more +clothing than the Spanish; and our closer covering "has +entered the soul," as the late Professor Kitchen Parker would +have said; and that which was only becoming modesty in the +English woman would in the Spanish seem rank prudishness. + +In the afternoon I came to a slender stream, clear and swift, +running between the hills that rose, round and large and high, +on either hand, like vast downs, some grassy, others wooded. +This was the Branscombe, and, following it, I came to the +village; then, for a short mile my way ran by a winding path +with the babbling stream below me on one side, and on the +other the widely separated groups and little rows of thatched +cottages. + +Finally, I came to the last and largest group of all, the end +of the village nearest to the sea, within ten minutes' walk of +the shingly beach. Here I was glad to rest. Above, on the +giant downs, were stony waste places, and heather and gorse, +where the rabbits live, and had for neighbours the adder, +linnet, and wheatear, and the small grey titlark that soared +up and dropped back to earth all day to his tinkling little +tune. On the summit of the cliff I had everything I wanted +and had come to seek--the wildness and freedom of untilled +earth; an unobstructed prospect, hills beyond hills of +malachite, stretching away along the coast into infinitude, +long leagues of red sea-wall and the wide expanse and +everlasting freshness of ocean. And the village itself, the +little old straggling place that had so grand a setting, I +quickly found that the woman in the cottage had not succeeded +in giving me a false impression of her dear home. It was just +such a quaint unimproved, old-world, restful place as she had +painted. It was surprising to find that there were many +visitors, and one wondered where they could all stow +themselves. The explanation was that those who visited +Branscombe knew it, and preferred its hovels to the palaces +of the fashionable seaside town. No cottage was too mean to +have its guest. I saw a lady push open the cracked and +warped door of an old barn and go in, pulling the door to +after her--it was her bed-sitting-room. I watched a party of +pretty merry girls marching, single file, down a narrow path +past a pig-sty, then climb up a ladder to the window of a loft +at the back of a stone cottage and disappear within. It was +their bedroom. The relations between the villagers and their +visitors were more intimate and kind than is usual. They +lived more together, and were more free and easy in company. +The men were mostly farm labourers, and after their day's work +they would sit out-of-doors on the ground to smoke their +pipes; and where the narrow crooked little street was +narrowest--at my end of the village--when two men would sit +opposite each other, each at his own door, with legs stretched +out before them, their boots would very nearly touch in the +middle of the road. When walking one had to step over their +legs; or, if socially inclined, one could stand by and join in +the conversation. When daylight faded the village was very +dark--no lamp for the visitors--and very silent, only the low +murmur of the sea on the shingle was audible, and the gurgling +sound of a swift streamlet flowing from the hill above and +hurrying through the village to mingle with the Branscombe +lower down in the meadows. Such a profound darkness and quiet +one expects in an inland agricultural village; here, where +there were visitors from many distant towns, it was novel and +infinitely refreshing. + +No sooner was it dark than all were in bed and asleep; not one +square path of yellow light was visible. To enjoy the +sensation I went out and sat down, and listened alone to the +liquid rippling, warbling sound of the swift-flowing +streamlet--that sweet low music of running water to which the +reed-warbler had listened thousands of years ago, striving to +imitate it, until his running rippling song was perfect. + +A fresh surprise and pleasure awaited me when I explored the +coast east of the village; it was bold and precipitous in +places, and from the summit of the cliff a very fine view of +the coast-line on either hand could be obtained. Best of all, +the face of the cliff itself was the breeding-place of some +hundreds of herring-gulls. The eggs at the period of my visit +were not yet hatched, but highly incubated, and at that stage +both parents are almost constantly at home, as if in a state +of anxious suspense. I had seen a good many colonies of this +gull before at various breeding stations on the coast--south, +west, and east--but never in conditions so singularly favourable +as at this spot. From the vale where the Branscombe pours its +clear waters through rough masses of shingle into the sea the +ground to the east rises steeply to a height of nearly five +hundred feet; the cliff is thus not nearly so high as many +another, but it has features of peculiar interest. Here, in +some former time, there has been a landslip, a large portion +of the cliff at its highest part falling below and forming a +sloping mass a chalky soil mingled with huge fragments of rock, +which lies like a buttress against the vertical precipice and +seems to lend it support. The fall must have occurred a very +long time back, as the vegetation that overspreads the rude +slope--hawthorn, furze, and ivy--has an ancient look. Here +are huge masses of rock standing isolated, that resemble in +their forms ruined castles, towers, and churches, some of them +completely overgrown with ivy. On this rough slope, under the +shelter of the cliff, with the sea at its feet, the villagers +have formed their cultivated patches. The patches, wildly +irregular in form, some on such steeply sloping ground as to +suggest the idea that they must have been cultivated on all +fours, are divided from each other by ridges and by masses of +rock, deep fissures in the earth, strips of bramble and thorn +and furze bushes. Altogether the effect was very singular +the huge rough mass of jumbled rock and soil, the ruin wrought +by Nature in one of her Cromwellian moods, and, scattered +irregularly about its surface, the plots or patches of +cultivated smoothness--potato rows, green parallel lines +ruled on a grey ground, and big, blue-green, equidistant +cabbage-globes--each plot with its fringe of spike-like onion +leaves, crinkled parsley, and other garden herbs. Here the +villagers came by a narrow, steep, and difficult path they had +made, to dig in their plots; while, overhead, the gulls, +careless of their presence, pass and repass wholly occupied +with their own affairs. + +I spent hours of rare happiness at this spot in watching the +birds. I could not have seen and heard them to such advantage +if their breeding-place had been shared with other species. +Here the herring-gulls had the rock to themselves, and looked +their best in their foam-white and pearl-grey plumage and +yellow legs and beaks. While I watched them they watched me; +not gathered in groups, but singly or in pairs, scattered up +and down all over the face of the precipice above me, perched +on ledges and on jutting pieces of rock. Standing motionless +thus, beautiful in form and colour, they looked like +sculptured figures of gulls, set up on the projections against +the rough dark wall of rock, just as sculptured figures of +angels and saintly men and women are placed in niches on a +cathedral front. At first they appeared quite indifferent to +my presence, although in some instances near enough for their +yellow irides to be visible. While unalarmed they were very +silent, standing in that clear sunshine that gave their +whiteness something of a crystalline appearance; or flying to +and fro along the face of the cliff, purely for the delight of +bathing in the warm lucent air. Gradually a change came over +them. One by one those that were on the wing dropped on to +some projection, until they had all settled down, and, letting +my eyes range up and down over the huge wall of rock, it was +plain to see that all the birds were watching me. They had +made the discovery that I was a stranger. In my rough old +travel-stained clothes and tweed hat I might have passed for a +Branscombe villager, but I did no hoeing and digging in one of +the cultivated patches; and when I deliberately sat down on a +rock to watch them, they noticed it and became suspicious; and +as time went on and I still remained immovable, with my eyes +fixed on them, the suspicion and anxiety increased and turned +to fear; and those that were sitting on their nests got up and +came close to the edge of the rock, to gaze with the others +and join in the loud chorus of alarm. It was a wonderful +sound. Not like the tempest of noise that may be heard at the +breeding-season at Lundy Island, and at many other stations +where birds of several species mix their various voices--the +yammeris and the yowlis, and skrykking, screeking, skrymming +scowlis, and meickle moyes and shoutes, of old Dunbar's +wonderful onomatopoetic lines. Here there was only one +species, with a clear resonant cry, and as every bird uttered +that one cry, and no other, a totally different effect was +produced. The herring-gull and lesser black-backed gull +resemble each other in language as they do in general +appearance; both have very powerful and clear voices unlike +the guttural black-headed and common gull. But the +herring-gull has a shriller, more piercing voice, and +resembles the black-backed species just as, in human voices, a +boy's clear treble resembles a baritone. Both birds have a +variety of notes; and both, when the nest is threatened with +danger, utter one powerful importunate cry, which is repeated +incessantly until the danger is over. And as the birds breed +in communities, often very populous, and all clamour together, +the effect of so many powerful and unisonant voices is very +grand; but it differs in the two species, owing to the quality +of their voices being different; the storm of sound produced +by the black-backs is deep and solemn, while that of the +herring-gulls has a ringing sharpness almost metallic. + +It is probable that in the case I am describing the effect of +sharpness and resonance was heightened by the position of the +birds, perched motionless, scattered about on the face of the +perpendicular wall of rock, all with their beaks turned in +my direction, raining their cries upon me. It was not a +monotonous storm of cries, but rose and fell; for after two or +three minutes the excitement would abate somewhat and the +cries grow fewer and fewer; then the infection would spread +again, bird after bird joining the outcry; and after a while +there would be another lull, and so on, wave following wave of +sound. I could have spent hours, and the hours would have +seemed like minutes, listening to that strange chorus of +ringing chiming cries, so novel was its effect, and unlike +that of any other tempest of sound produced by birds which +I had ever heard. When by way of a parting caress and +benediction (given and received) I dipped my hands in +Branscombe's clear streamlet it was with a feeling of tender +regret that was almost a pain. For who does not make a little +inward moan, an Eve's Lamentation, an unworded, "Must I leave +thee, Paradise?" on quitting any such sweet restful spot, +however brief his stay in it may have been? But when I had +climbed to the summit of the great down on the east side of +the valley and looked on the wide land and wider sea flashed +with the early sunlight I rejoiced full of glory at my +freedom. For invariably when the peculiar character and charm +of a place steals over and takes possession of me I begin to +fear it, knowing from long experience that it will be a +painful wrench to get away and that get away sooner or later I +must. Now I was free once more, a wanderer with no ties, no +business to transact in any town, no worries to make me +miserable like others, nothing to gain and nothing to lose. + +Pausing on the summit to consider which way I should go, +inland, towards Axminister, or along the coast by Beer, Seton, +Axmouth, and so on to Lyme Regis, I turned to have a last look +and say a last good-bye to Branscombe and could hardly help +waving my hand to it. + +Why, I asked myself, am I not a poet, or verse-maker, so as to +say my farewell in numbers? My answer was, Because I am too +much occupied in seeing. There is no room and time for +'tranquillity,' since I want to go on to see something else. +As Blake has it: "Natural objects always did and do, weaken, +deaden and obliterate imagination in me." + +We know however that they didn't quite quench it in him. + + + + +Chapter Nneteen: Abbotsbury + + +Abbotsbury is an old unspoilt village, not on but near the +sea, divided from it by half a mile of meadowland where all +sorts of meadow and water plants flourish, and where there are +extensive reed and osier beds, the roosting-place in autumn +and winter of innumerable starlings. I am always delighted to +come on one of these places where starlings congregate, to +watch them coming in at day's decline and listen to their +marvellous hubbub, and finally to see their aerial evolutions +when they rise and break up in great bodies and play at clouds +in the sky. When the people of the place, the squire and +keepers and others who have an interest in the reeds and +osiers, fall to abusing them on account of the damage they do, +I put my fingers in my ears. But at Abbotsbury I did not do +so, but listened with keen pleasure to the curses they vented +and the story they told. This was that when the owner of +Abbotsbury came down for the October shooting and found the +starlings more numerous than ever, he put himself into a fine +passion and reproached his keepers and other servants for not +having got rid of the birds as he had desired them to do. +Some of them ventured to say that it was easier said than +done, whereupon the great man swore that he would do it +himself without assistance from any one, and getting out a big +duck-gun he proceeded to load it with the smallest shot and +went down to the reed bed and concealed hiniself among the +bushes at a suitable distance. The birds were pouring in, and +when it was growing dark and they had settled down for the +night he fired his big piece into the thick of the crowd, and +by and by when the birds after wheeling about for a minute or +two settled down again in the same place he fired again. Then +he went home, and early next morning men and boys went into +the reeds and gathered a bushel or so of dead starlings. But +the birds returned in their thousands that evening, and his +heart being still hot against them he went out a second time +to slaughter them wholesale with his big gun. Then when he +had blazed into the crowd once more, and the dead and wounded +fell like rain into the water below, the revulsion came and he +was mad with himself for having done such a thing, and on his +return to the house, or palace, he angrily told his people to +"let the starlings alone" for the future--never to molest them +again! + +I thought it one of the loveliest stories I had ever heard; +there is no hardness comparable to that of the sportsman, yet +here was one, a very monarch among them, who turned sick at +his own barbarity and repented. + +Beyond the flowery wet meadows, favored by starlings and a +breeding-place of swans, is the famous Chesil Bank, one of the +seven wonders of Britain. And thanks to this great bank, a +screen between sea and land extending about fourteen miles +eastward from Portland, this part of the coast must remain +inviolate from the speculative builder of seaside holiday +resorts or towns of lodging-houses. + +Every one has heard of the Fleet in connection with the famous +swannery of Abbotsbury, the largest in the land. I had heard +so much about the swannery that it had but little interest for +me. The only thing about it which specially attracted my +attention was seeing a swan rise up and after passing over my +head as I stood on the bank fly straight out over the sea. I +watched him until he had diminished to a small white spot +above the horizon, and then still flying he faded from sight. +Do these swans that fly away over the sea, and others which +appear in small flocks or pairs at Poole Harbour and at other +places on the coast, ever return to the Fleet? Probably some +do, but, I fancy some of these explorers must settle down in +waters far from home, to return no more. + +The village itself, looked upon from this same elevation, is +very attractive. Life seems quieter, more peaceful there out +of sight of the ocean's turbulence, out of hearing of its +"accents disconsolate." The cottages are seen ranged in a +double line along the narrow crooked street, like a procession +of cows with a few laggards scattered behind the main body. +One is impressed by its ancient character. The cottages are +old, stone-built and thatched; older still is the church with +its grey square tower, and all about are scattered the +memorials of antiquity--the chantry on the hill, standing +conspicuous alone, apart, above the world; the vast old abbey +barn, and, rough thick stone walls, ivy-draped and crowned +with beautiful valerian, and other fragments that were once +parts of a great religious house. + +Looking back at the great round hill from the village it is +impossible not to notice the intense red colour of the road +that winds over its green slope. One sometimes sees on a +hillside a ploughed field of red earth which at a distance +might easily be taken for a field of blossoming trifolium. +Viewed nearer the crimson of the clover and red of the earth +are very dissimilar; distance appears to intensify the red of +the soil and to soften that of the flower until they are very +nearly of the same hue. The road at Abbotsbury was near and +looked to me more intensely red than any ordinary red earth, +and the sight was strangely pleasing. These two complementary +colours, red and green, delight us most when seen thus--a +little red to a good deal of green, and the more luminous the +red and vivid the green the better they please us. We see +this in flowers--in the red geranium, for example--where there +is no brown soil below, but green of turf or herbage. I +sometimes think the red campions and ragged-robins are our +most beautiful wild flowers when the sun shines level on the +meadow and they are like crimson flowers among the tall +translucent grasses. I remember the joy it was in boyhood in +early spring when the flowers were beginning to bloom, when in +our gallops over the level grass pampas we came upon a patch +of scarlet verbenas. The first sight of the intense blooms +scattered all about the turf would make us wild with delight, +and throwing ourselves from our ponies we would go down among +the flowers to feast on the sight. + +Green is universal, but the red earth which looks so pleasing +amid the green is distributed very partially, and it may be +the redness of the soil and the cliffs in Devon have given +that county a more vivid personality, so to speak, than most +others. Think of Kent with its white cliffs, chalk downs, and +dull-coloured clays in this connection! + +The humble subterraneous mole proves himself on occasions a +good colourist when he finds a soil of the proper hue to +burrow in, and the hillocks he throws up from numberless +irregular splashes of bright red colour on a green sward. The +wild animals that strike us as most beautiful, when seen +against a green background, are those which bear the reddest +fur--fox, squirrel, and red deer. One day, in a meadow a few +miles from Abbotsbury, I came upon a herd of about fifty milch +cows scattered over a considerable space of ground, some lying +down, others standing ruminating, and still others moving +about and cropping the long flowery grasses. All were of that +fine rich red colour frequently seen in Dorset and Devon +cattle, which is brighter than the reds of other red animals +in this country, wild and domestic, with the sole exception of +a rare variety of the collie dog. The Irish setter and red +chouchou come near it. So beautiful did these red cows look +in the meadow that I stood still for half an hour feasting my +eyes on the sight. + +No less was the pleasure I experienced when I caught sight of +that road winding over the hill above the village. On going +to it I found that it had looked as red as rust simply because +it was rust-earth made rich and beautiful in colour with iron, +its red hue variegated with veins and streaks of deep purple +or violet. I was told that there were hundreds of acres of +this earth all round the place--earth so rich in iron that +many a man's mouth had watered at the sight of it; also that +every effort had been made to induce the owner of Abbotsbury +to allow this rich mine to be worked. But, wonderful to +relate, he had not been persuaded. + +A hard fragment of the red stuff, measuring a couple of inches +across and weighing about three ounces avoirdupois, rust-red +in colour with purple streaks and yellow mottlings, is now +lying before me. The mineralogist would tell me that its +commercial value is naught, or something infinitesimal; which +is doubtless true enough, as tens of thousands of tons of the +same material lie close to the surface under the green turf +and golden blossoming furze at the spot where I picked up my +specimen. The lapidary would not look at it; nevertheless, it +is the only article of jewellery I possess, and I value it +accordingly. And I intend to keep this native ruby by me for +as long as the lords of Abbotsbury continue in their present +mind. The time may come when I shall be obliged to throw it +away. That any millionaire should hesitate for a moment to +blast and blacken any part of the earth's surface, howsoever +green and refreshing to the heart it may be, when by so doing +he might add to his income, seems like a fable, or a tale of +fairyland. It is as if one had accidentally discovered the +existence of a little fantastic realm, a survival from a +remote past, almost at one's doors; a small independent +province, untouched by progress, asking to be conquered and +its antediluvian constitution taken from it. + +From the summit of that commanding hill, over which the red +path winds, a noble view presents itself of the Chesil Bank, +or of about ten miles of it, running straight as any Roman +road, to end beneath the rugged stupendous cliffs of Portland. +The ocean itself, and not conquering Rome, raised this +artificial-looking wall or rampart to stay its own proud +waves. Formed of polished stones and pebbles, about two +hundred yards in width, flat-topped, with steeply sloping +sides, at this distance it has the appearance of a narrow +yellow road or causeway between the open sea on one hand and +the waters of the Fleet, a narrow lake ten miles long, on the +other. + +When the mackerel visit the coast, and come near enough to be +taken in a draw-net, every villager who owns a share (usually +a tenth) in a fishing-boat throws down his spade or whatever +implement he happens to have in his hand at the moment, and +hurries away to the beach to take his share in the fascinating +task. At four o'clock one morning a youth, who had been down +to the sea to watch, came running into the village uttering +loud cries which were like excited yells--a sound to rouse the +deepest sleeper. The mackerel had come! For the rest of the +day there was a pretty kind of straggling procession of those +who went and came between the beach and the village--men in +blue cotton shirts, blue jerseys, blue jackets, and women in +grey gowns and big white sun-bonnets. During the latter part +of the day the proceedings were peculiarly interesting to me, +a looker-on with no share in any one of the boats, owing to +the catches being composed chiefly of jelly-fish. Some +sympathy was felt for the toilers who strained their muscles +again and again only to be mocked in the end; still, a draught +of jelly-fish was more to my taste than one of mackerel. The +great weight of a catch of this kind when the net was full was +almost too much for the ten or twelve men engaged in drawing +it up; then (to the sound of deep curses from those of the men +who were not religious) the net would be opened and the great +crystalline hemispheres, hyaline blue and delicate salmon-pink +in colour, would slide back into the water. Such rare and +exquisite colours have these great glassy flowers of ocean +that to see them was a feast; and every time a net was hauled +up my prayer--which I was careful not to repeat aloud--was, +Heaven send another big draught of jelly-fish! + +The sun, sinking over the hills towards Swyre and Bridport, +turned crimson before it touched the horizon. The sky became +luminous; the yellow Chesil Bank, stretching long leagues +away, and the hills behind it, changed their colours to +violet. The rough sea near the beach glittered like gold; the +deep green water, flecked with foam, was mingled with fire; +the one boat that remained on it, tossing up and down near the +beach, was like a boat of ebony in a glittering fiery sea. A +dozen men were drawing up the last net; but when they gathered +round to see what they had taken--mackerel or jelly-fish--I +cared no longer to look with them. That sudden, wonderful +glory which had fallen on the earth and sea had smitten me as +well and changed me; and I was like some needy homeless tramp +who has found a shilling piece, and, even while he is +gloating over it, all at once sees a great treasure before +him--glittering gold in heaps, and all rarest sparkling gems, +more than he can gather up. + +But it is a poor simile. No treasures in gold and gems, +though heaped waist-high all about, could produce in the +greediest man, hungry for earthly pleasures, a delight, a +rapture, equal to mine. For this joy was of another and +higher order and very rare, and was a sense of lightness and +freedom from all trammels as if the body had become air, +essence, energy, or soul, and of union with all visible +nature, one with sea and land and the entire vast overarching +sky. + +We read of certain saints who were subject to experiences of +this kind that they were "snatched up" into some supramundane +region, and that they stated on their return to earth that it +was not lawful for them to speak of the things they had +witnessed. The humble naturalist and nature-worshipper can +only witness the world glorified--transfigured; what he finds +is the important thing. I fancy the mystics would have been +nearer the mark if they had said that their experiences during +their period of exaltation could not be reported, or that it +would be idle to report them, since their questioners lived on +the ground and would be quite incapable on account of the +mind's limitations of conceiving a state above it and outside +of its own experience. + +The glory passed and with it the exaltation: the earth and sea +turned grey; the last boat was drawn up on the slope and the +men departed slowly: only one remained, a rough-looking youth, +about fifteen years old. Some important matter which he was +revolving in his mind had detained him alone on the darkening +beach. He sat down, then stood up and gazed at the rolling +wave after wave to roar and hiss on the shingle at his feet; +then he moved restlessly about, crunching pebbles beneath his +thick boots; finally, making up his mind, he took off his +coat, threw it down, and rolled up his shirt-sleeves, with the +resolute air of a man about to engage in a fight with an +adversary nearly as big as himself. Stepping back a little +space, he made a rush at the sea, not to cast himself in it, +but only, as it turned out, with the object of catching some +water in the hollow of his hands from the top of an incoming +wave. He only succeeded in getting his legs wet, and in +hastily retreating he fell on his back. Nothing daunted, he +got up and renewed the assault, and when he succeeded in +catching water in his hands he dashed it on and vigorously +rubbed it over his dirty face. After repeating the operation +about a dozen times, receiving meanwhile several falls and +wettings, he appeared satisfied, put on his coat and marched +away homewards with a composed air. + + + + +Chapter Twenty: Salisbury Revisited + + +Since that visit to Salisbury, described in a former chapter, +when I watched and listened to the doves in those cold days in +early spring, I have been there a good many times, but never +at the time when the bird colony is most interesting to +observe, just before and during the early part of the +breeding-season. At length, in the early days of June, 1908, +the wished opportunity was mine--wished yet feared, seeing +that it was possible some disaster had fallen upon that unique +colony of stock-doves. It is true they appeared to be long +established and well able to maintain their foothold on the +building in spite of malicious persecuting daws, but there was +nothing to show that they had been long there, seeing that it +had been observed by no person but myself that the cathedral +doves were stock-doves and not the domestic pigeon found on +other large buildings. Great was my happiness to find them +still there, as well as the daws and all the other feathered +people who make this great building their home; even the +kestrels were not wanting. There were three there one +morning, quarrelling with the daws in the old way in the old +place, halfway up the soaring spire. The doves were somewhat +diminished in number, but there were a good many pairs still, +and I found no dead young ones lying about, as they were now +probably grown too large to be ejected, but several young +daws, about a dozen I think, fell to the ground during my +stay. Undoubtedly they were dragged out of their nests and +thrown down, perhaps by daws at enmity with their parents, or +it may be by the doves, who are not meek-spirited, as we have +seen, or they would not be where they are, and may on occasion +retaliate by invading their black enemies' nesting-holes. + +Swallows, martins, and swifts were numerous, the martins +especially, and it was beautiful to see them for ever wheeling +about in a loose swarm about the building. They reminded me +of bees and flies, and sometimes with a strong light on them +they were like those small polished black and silvery-white +beetles (Gyrinus) which we see in companies on the surface of +pools and streams, perpetually gliding and whirling about in a +sort of complicated dance. They looked very small at a height +of a couple of hundred feet from the ground, and their +smallness and numbers and lively and eccentric motions made +them very insect-like. + +The starlings and sparrows were in a small minority among the +breeders, but including these there were seven species in all, +and as far as I could make out numbered about three hundred +and fifty birds--probably the largest wild bird colony on any +building in England. + +Nor could birds in all this land find a more beautiful +building to nest on, unless I except Wells Cathedral solely on +account of its west front, beloved of daws, and where their +numerous black company have so fine an appearance. Wells has +its west front; Salisbury, so vast in size, is yet a marvel of +beauty in its entirety; and seeing it as I now did every day +and wanting nothing better, I wondered at my want of +enthusiasm on a previous visit. Still, to me, the bird +company, the sight of their airy gambols and their various +voices, from the deep human-like dove tone to the perpetual +subdued rippling, running-water sound of the aerial martins, +must always be a principal element in the beautiful effect. +Nor do I know a building where Nature has done more in +enhancing the loveliness of man's work with her added +colouring. The way too in which the colours are distributed +is an example of Nature's most perfect artistry; on the lower, +heavier buttressed parts, where the darkest hues should be, we +find the browns and rust-reds of the minute aerial alga, mixed +with the greys of lichen, these darker stainings extending +upwards to a height of fifty or sixty feet, in places higher, +then giving place to more delicate hues, the pale tender +greens and greenish greys, in places tinged with yellow, the +colours always appearing brightest on the smooth surface +between the windows and sculptured parts. The effect depends +a good deal on atmosphere and weather: on a day of flying +clouds and a blue sky, with a brillaint sunshine on the vast +building after a shower, the colouring is most beautiful. It +varies more than in the case of colour in the material itself +or of pigments, because it is a "living" colour, as Crabbe +rightly says in his lumbering verse: + + The living stains, which Nature's hand alone, + Profuse of life, pours out upon the stone. + +Greys, greens, yellows, and browns and rust-reds are but the +colours of a variety of lowly vegetable forms, mostly lichens +and the aerial alga called iolithus. + +Without this colouring, its "living stains," Salisbury would +not have fascinated me as it did during this last visit. It +would have left me cold though all the architects and artists +had assured me that it was the most perfectly beautiful +building on earth. + +I also found an increasing charm in the interior, and made the +discovery that I could go oftener and spend more hours in this +cathedral without a sense of fatigue or depression than in any +other one known to me, because it has less of that peculiar +character which we look for and almost invariably find in our +cathedrals. It has not the rich sombre majesty, the dim +religious light and heavy vault-like atmosphere of the other +great fanes. So airy and light is it that it is almost like +being out of doors. You do not experience that instantaneous +change, as of a curtain being drawn excluding the light and +air of day and of being shut in, which you have on entering +other religious houses. This is due, first, to the vast size +of the interior, the immense length of the nave, and the +unobstructed view one has inside owing to the removal by the +"vandal" Wyatt of the old ponderous stone screen--an act for +which I bless while all others curse his memory; secondly, to +the comparatively small amount of stained glass there is to +intercept the light. So graceful and beautiful is the +interior that it can bear the light, and light suits it best, +just as a twilight best suits Exeter and Winchester and other +cathedrals with heavy sculptured roofs. One marvels at a +building so vast in size which yet produces the effect of a +palace in fairyland, or of a cathedral not built with hands +but brought into existence by a miracle. + +I began to think it not safe to stay in that place too long +lest it should compel me to stay there always or cause me to +feel dissatisfied and homesick when away. + +But the interior of itself would never have won me, as I had +not expected to be won by any building made by man; and from +the inside I would pass out only to find a fresh charm in that +part where Nature had come more to man's aid. + +Walking on the cathedral green one morning, glancing from time +to time at the vast building and its various delicate shades +of colour, I asked myself why I kept my eyes as if on purpose +away from it most of the time, now on the trees, then on the +turf, and again on some one walking there--why, in fact, I +allowed myself only an occasional glance at the object I was +there solely to look at. I knew well enough, but had never +put it into plain words for my own satisfaction. + +We are all pretty familiar from experience with the +limitations of the sense of smell and the fact that agreeable +odours please us only fitfully; the sensation comes as a +pleasing shock, a surprise, and is quickly gone. If we +attempt to keep it for some time by deliberately smelling a +fragrant flower or any perfume, we begin to have a sense of +failure as if we had exhausted the sense, keen as it was a +moment ago. + +There must be an interval of rest for the nerve before the +sensation can be renewed in its first freshness. Now it is +the same, though in a less degree, with the more important +sense of sight. We look long and steadily at a thing to know +it, and the longer and more fixedly we look the better, if it +engages the reasoning faculties; but an aesthetic pleasure +cannot be increased or retained in that way. We must look, +merely glancing as it were, and look again, and then again, +with intervals, receiving the image in the brain even as we +receive the "nimble emanation" of a flower, and the image is +all the brighter for coming intermittently. In a large +prospect we are not conscious of this limitation because of +the wideness of the field and the number and variety of +objects or points of interest in it; the vision roams hither +and thither over it and receives a continuous stream or series +of pleasing impressions; but to gaze fixedly at the most +beautiful object in nature or art does but diminish the +pleasure. Practically it ceases to be beautiful and only +recovers the first effect after we have given the mind an +interval of rest. + +Strolling about the green with this thought in my mind, I +began to pay attention to the movements of a man who was +manifestly there with the same object as myself--to look at +the cathedral. I had seen him there for quite half an hour, +and now began to be amused at the emphatic manner in which he +displayed his interest in the building. He walked up and down +the entire length and would then back away a distance of a +hundred yards from the walls and stare up at the spire, then +slowly approach, still gazing up, until coming to a stop when +quite near the wall he would remain with his eyes still fixed +aloft, the back of his head almost resting on his back between +his shoulders. His hat somehow kept on his head, but his +attitude reminded me of a saying of the Arabs who, to give an +idea of the height of a great rock or other tall object, say +that to look up at it causes your turban to fall off. The +Americans, when they were chewers of tobacco, had a different +expression; they said that to look up at so tall a thing +caused the tobacco juice to run down your throat. + +His appearance when I approached him interested me too. His +skin was the color of old brown leather and he had a big +arched nose, clear light blue very shrewd eyes, and a big +fringe or hedge of ragged white beard under his chin; and he +was dressed in a new suit of rough dark brown tweeds, +evidently home-made. When I spoke to him, saying something +about the cathedral, he joyfully responded in broadest Scotch. +It was, he said, the first English cathedral he had ever seen +and he had never seen anything made by man to equal it in +beauty. He had come, he told me, straight from his home and +birthplace, a small village in the north of Scotland, shut +out from the world by great hills where the heather grew +knee-deep. He had never been in England before, and had come +directly to Salisbury on a visit to a relation. + +"Well," I said, "now you have looked at it outside come in +with me and see the interior." + +But he refused: it was enough for one day to see the outside +of such a building: he wanted no more just then. To-morrow +would be soon enough to see it inside; it would be the Sabbath +and he would go and worship there. + +"Are you an Anglican?" I asked. + +He replied that there were no Anglicans in his village. They +had two Churches--the Church of Scotland and the Free Church. + +"And what," said I, "will your minister say to your going to +worship in a cathedral? We have all denominations here in +Salisbury, and you will perhaps find a Presbyterian place to +worship in." + +"Now it's strange your saying that!" he returned, with a dry +little laugh. "I've just had a letter from him the morning +and he writes on this varra subject. 'Let me advise you,' he +tells me in the letter, 'to attend the service in Salisbury +Cathedral. Nae doot,' he says, 'there are many things in it +you'll disapprove of, but not everything perhaps, and I'd like +ye to go.'" + +I was a little sorry for him next day when we had an +ordination service, very long, complicated, and, I should +imagine, exceedingly difficult to follow by a wild +Presbyterian from the hills. He probably disapproved of most +of it, but I greatly admired him for refusing to see anything +more of the cathedral than the outside on the first day. His +method was better than that of an American (from Indiana, he +told me) I met the following day at the hotel. He gave two +hours and a half, including attendance at the morning service, +to the cathedral, inside and out, then rushed off for an hour +at Stonehenge, fourteen miles away, on a hired bicycle. I +advised him to take another day--I did not want to frighten +him by saying a week--and he replied that that would make him +miss Winchester. After cycling back from Stonehenge he would +catch a train to Winchester and get there in time to have some +minutes in the cathedral before the doors closed. He was due +in London next morning. He had already missed Durham +Cathedral in the north through getting interested in and +wasting too much time over some place when he was going there. +Again, he had missed Exeter Cathedral in the south, and it +would be a little too bad to miss Winchester too! + + + + +Chapter Twenty-One: Stonehenge + + +That American from Indiana! As it was market day at Salisbury +I asked him before we parted if he had seen the market, also +if they had market days in the country towns in his State? He +said he had looked in at the market on his way back from the +cathedral. No, they had nothing of the kind in his State. +Indiana was covered with a network of railroads and electric +tram lines, and all country produce, down to the last new-laid +egg, was collected and sent off and conveyed each morning to +the towns, where it was always market day. + +How sad! thought I. Poor Indiana, that once had wildness and +romance and memories of a vanished race, and has now only its +pretty meaningless name! + +"I suppose," he said, before getting on his bicycle, "there's +nothing beside the cathedral and Stonehenge to see in +Wiltshire?" + +"No, nothing," I returned, "and you'll think the time wasted +in seeing Stonehenge." + +"Why?" + +"Only a few old stones to see." + +But he went, and I have no doubt did think the time wasted, +but it would be some consolation to him, on the other side, to +be able to say that he had seen it with his own eyes. + +How did these same "few old stones" strike me on a first +visit? It was one of the greatest disillusionments I ever +experienced. Stonehenge looked small--pitiably small! For it +is a fact that mere size is very much to us, in spite of all +the teachings of science. We have heard of Stonehenge in our +childhood or boyhood--that great building of unknown origin +and antiquity, its circles of stones, some still standing, +others lying prostrate, like the stupendous half-shattered +skeleton of a giant or monster whose stature reached to the +clouds. It stands, we read or were told, on Salisbury Plain. +To my uninformed, childish mind a plain anywhere was like the +plain on which I was born--an absolutely level area stretching +away on all sides into infinitude; and although the effect is +of a great extent of earth, we know that we actually see very +little of it, that standing on a level plain we have a very +near horizon. On this account any large object appearing on +it, such as a horse or tree or a big animal, looks very much +bigger than it would on land with a broken surface. + +Oddly enough, my impossible Stonehenge was derived from a +sober description and an accompanying plate in a sober work +--a gigantic folio in two volumes entitled "A New System of +Geography", dated some time in the eighteenth century. How +this ponderous work ever came to be out on the pampas, over +six thousand miles from the land of its origin, is a thing to +wonder at. I remember that the Stonehenge plate greatly +impressed me and that I sacrilegiously cut it out of the book +so as to have it! + +Now we know, our reason tells us continually, that the mental +pictures formed in childhood are false because the child and +man have different standards, and furthermore the child mind +exaggerates everything; nevertheless, such pictures persist +until the scene or object so visualized is actually looked +upon and the old image shattered. This refers to scenes +visualized with the inner eye, but the disillusion is almost +as great when we return to a home left in childhood or boyhood +and look on it once more with the man's eyes. How small it +is! How diminished the hills, and the trees that grew to such +a vast height, whose tops once seemed "so close against the +sky"--what poor little trees they now are! And the house +itself, how low it is; and the rooms that seemed so wide and +lofty, where our footfalls and childish voices sounded as in +some vast hall, how little and how mean they look! + + Children, they are very little, + +the poet says, and they measure things by their size; but it +seems odd that unless we grow up amid the scenes where our +first impressions were received they should remain unaltered +in the adult mind. The most amusing instance of a false +picture of something seen in childhood and continuing through +life I have met was that of an Italian peasant I knew in South +America. He liked to talk to me about the cranes, those great +and wonderful birds he had become acquainted with in childhood +in his home on the plains of Lombardy. The birds, of course, +only appeared in autumn and spring when migrating, and passed +over at a vast height above the earth. These birds, he said, +were so big and had such great wings that if they came down on +the flat earth they would be incapable of rising, hence they +only alighted on the tops of high mountains, and as there was +nothing for them to eat in such places, it being naked rock +and ice, they were compelled to subsist on each other's +droppings. Now it came to pass that one year during his +childhood a crane, owing to some accident, came down to the +ground near his home. The whole population of the village +turned out to see so wonderful a bird, and were amazed at its +size; it was, he said, the strangest sight he had ever looked +on. How big was it? I asked him; was it as big as an +ostrich? An ostrich, he said, was nothing to it; I might as +well ask him how it compared with a lapwing. He could give me +no measurements: it happened when he was a child; he had +forgotten the exact size, but he had seen it with his own eyes +and he could see it now in his mind--the biggest bird in the +world. Very well, I said, if he could see it plainly in his +mind he could give some rough idea of the wing-spread--how +much would it measure from tip to tip? He said it was perhaps +fifty yards--perhaps a good deal more! + +A similar trick was played by my mind about Stonehenge. As +a child I had stood in imagination before it, gazing up +awestruck on those stupendous stones or climbing and crawling +like a small beetle on them. And what at last did I see with +my physical eyes? Walking over the downs, miscalled a plain, +anticipating something tremendous, I finally got away from the +woods at Amesbury and spied the thing I sought before me far +away on the slope of a green down, and stood still and then +sat down in pure astonishment. Was this Stonehenge--this +cluster of poor little grey stones, looking in the distance +like a small flock of sheep or goats grazing on that immense +down! How incredibly insignificant it appeared to me, dwarfed +by its surroundings--woods and groves and farmhouses, and by +the vast extent of rolling down country visible at that point. +It was only when I had recovered from the first shock, when I +had got to the very place and stood among the stones, that I +began to experience something of the feeling appropriate to +the occasion. + +The feeling, however, must have been very slight, since it +permitted me to become interested in the appearance and +actions of a few sparrows inhabiting the temple. The common +sparrow is parasitical on man, consequently but rarely found +at any distance from human habitations, and it seemed a little +strange to find them at home at Stonehenge on the open plain. +They were very active carrying up straws and feathers to the +crevices on the trioliths where the massive imposts rest on +the upright stones. I noticed the birds because of their +bright appearance: they were lighter coloured than any +sparrows I have ever seen, and one cock bird when flying to +and fro in the sunlight looked almost white. I formed the +idea that this small colony of about a dozen birds had been +long established at that place, and that the change in their +colouring was a direct result of the unusual conditions in +which they existed, where there was no shade and shelter of +trees and bushes, and they were perpetually exposed for +generations to the full light of the wide open sky. + +On revisiting Stonehenge after an interval of some years I +looked for my sparrows and failed to find them. It was at the +breeding-season, when they would have been there had they +still existed. No doubt the little colony had been extirpated +by a sparrow-hawk or by the human guardians of "The Stones," +as the temple is called by the natives. + +It remains to tell of my latest visit to "The Stones." I had +resolved to go once in my life with the current or crowd to +see the sun rise on the morning of the longest day at that +place. This custom or fashion is a declining one: ten or +twelve years ago, as many as one or two thousand persons would +assemble during the night to wait the great event, but the +watchers have now diminished to a few hundreds, and on some +years to a few scores. The fashion, no doubt, had its origin +when Sir Norman Lockyer's theories, about Stonehenge as a Sun +Temple placed so that the first rays of sun on the longest day +of the year should fall on the centre of the so-called altar +or sacrificial stone placed in the middle of the circle, began +to be noised about the country, and accepted by every one as +the true reading of an ancient riddle. But I gather from +natives in the district that it is an old custom for people to +go and watch for sunrise on the morning of June 21. A dozen +or a score of natives, mostly old shepherds and labourers who +lived near, would go and sit there for a few hours and after +sunrise would trudge home, but whether or not there is any +tradition or belief associated with the custom I have not +ascertained. "How long has the custom existed?" I asked a +field labourer. "From the time of the old people--the +Druids," he answered, and I gave it up. + +To be near the spot I went to stay at Shrewton, a downland +village four miles from "The Stones"; or rather a group of +five pretty little villages, almost touching but distinct, +like five flowers or five berries on a single stem, each with +its own old church and individual or parish life. It is a +pretty tree-shaded place, full of the crooning sound of +turtle-doves, hidden among the wide silent open downs and +watered by a clear swift stream, or winter bourne, which dries +up during the heats of late summer, and flows again after the +autumn rains, "when the springs rise" in the chalk hills. +While here, I rambled on the downs and haunted "The Stones." +The road from Shrewton to Amesbury, a straight white band +lying across a green country, passes within a few yards of +Stonehenge: on the right side of this narrow line the land is +all private property, but on the left side and as far as one +can see it mostly belongs to the War Office and is dotted over +with camps. I roamed about freely enough on both sides, +sometimes spending hours at a stretch, not only on Government +land but "within bounds," for the pleasure of spying on the +military from a hiding-place in some pine grove or furze +patch. I was seldom challenged, and the sentinels I came +across were very mild-mannered men; they never ordered me +away; they only said, or hinted, that the place I was in was +not supposed to be free to the public. + +I come across many persons who lament the recent great change +on Salisbury Plain. It is hateful to them; the sight of the +camp and troops marching and drilling, of men in khaki +scattered about everywhere over a hundred square leagues of +plain; the smoke of firing and everlasting booming of guns. +It is a desecration; the wild ancient charm of the land has +been destroyed in their case, and it saddens and angers them. +I was pretty free from these uncomfortable feelings. + +It is said that one of the notions the Japanese have about the +fox--a semi-sacred animal with them--is that, if you chance +to see one crossing your path in the morning, all that comes +before your vision on that day will be illusion. As an +illustration of this belief it is related that a Japanese who +witnessed the eruption of Krakatoa, when the heavens were +covered with blackness and kindled with intermitting flashes +and the earth shaken by the detonations, and when all others, +thinking the end of the world had come, were swooning with +extreme fear, veiwed it without a tremor as a very sublime but +illusory spectacle. For on that very morning he had seen a +fox cross his path. + +A somewhat similar effect is produced on our minds if we have +what may be called a sense of historical time--a consciousness +of the transitoriness of most things human--if we see +institutions and works as the branches on a pine or larch, +which fail and die and fall away successively while the tree +itself lives for ever, and if we measure their duration not by +our own few swift years, but by the life of nations and races +of men. It is, I imagine, a sense capable of cultivation, and +enables us to look upon many of man's doings that would +otherwise vex and pain us, and, as some say, destroy all the +pleasure of our lives, not exactly as an illusion, as if we +were Japanese and had seen a fox in the morning, but at all +events in what we call a philosophic spirit. + +What troubled me most was the consideration of the effect of +the new conditions on the wild life of the plain--or of a very +large portion of it. I knew of this before, but it was +nevertheless exceedingly unpleasant when I came to witness it +myself when I took to spying on the military as an amusement +during my idle time. Here we have tens of thousands of very +young men, boys in mind, the best fed, healthiest, happiest +crowd of boys in all the land, living in a pure bracing +atmosphere, far removed from towns, and their amusements and +temptations, all mad for pleasure and excitement of some kind +to fill their vacant hours each day and their holidays. +Naturally they take to birds'-nesting and to hunting every +living thing they encounter during their walks on the downs. +Every wild thing runs and flies from them, and is chased or +stoned, the weak-winged young are captured, and the nests +picked or kicked up out of the turf. In this way the +creatures are being extirpated, and one can foresee that when +hares and rabbits are no more, and even the small birds of the +plain, larks, pipits, wheatears, stonechats, and whincats, +have vanished, the hunters in khaki will take to the chase +of yet smaller creatures--crane-flies and butterflies and +dragon-flies, and even the fantastic, elusive hover-flies +which the hunters of little game will perhaps think the most +entertaining fly of all. + +But it would be idle to grieve much at this small incidental +and inevitable result of making use of the plain as a military +camp and training-ground. The old god of war is not yet dead +and rotting on his iron hills; he is on the chalk hills with +us just now, walking on the elastic turf, and one is glad to +mark in his brown skin and sparkling eyes how thoroughly alive +he is. + +A little after midnight on the morning of June 21, 1908, a +Shrewton cock began to crow, and that trumpet sound, which I +never hear without a stirring of the blood, on account of old +associations, informed me that the late moon had risen or was +about to rise, linking the midsummer evening and morning +twilights, and I set off to Stonehenge. It was a fine still +night, without a cloud in the pale, dusky blue sky, thinly +sprinkled with stars, and the crescent moon coming up above +the horizon. After the cock ceased crowing a tawny owl began +to hoot, and the long tremulous mellow sound followed me for +some distance from the village, and then there was perfect +silence, broken occasionally by the tinkling bells of a little +company of cyclists speeding past towards "The Stones." I was +in no hurry: I only wished I had started sooner to enjoy +Salisbury Plain at its best time, when all the things which +offend the lover of nature are invisible and nonexistent. +Later, when the first light began to appear in the east before +two o'clock, it was no false dawn, but insensibly grew +brighter and spread further, until touches of colour, very +delicate, palest amber, then tender yellow and rose and +purple, began to show. I felt then as we invariably feel +on such occasions, when some special motive has called us +forth in time to witness this heavenly change, as of a new +creation-- + + The miracle of diuturnity + Whose instancy unbeds the lark, + +that all the days of my life on which I had not witnessed it +were wasted days! + +O that unbedding of the lark! The world that was so still +before now all at once had a sound; not a single song and not +in one place, but a sound composed of a thousand individual +sounds, rising out of the dark earth at a distance on my right +hand and up into the dusky sky, spreading far and wide even as +the light was spreading on the opposite side of the heavens--a +sound as of multitudinous twanging, girding, and clashing +instruments, mingled with shrill piercing voices that were not +like the voices of earthly beings. They were not human nor +angelic, but passionless, and it was as if the whole visible +world, the dim grassy plain and the vast pale sky sprinkled +with paling stars, moonlit and dawnlit, had found a voice to +express the mystery and glory of the morning. + +It was but eight minutes past two o'clock when this "unbedding +of the lark" began, and the heavenly music lasted about +fourteen minutes, then died down to silence, to recommence +about half an hour later. At first I wondered why the sound +was at a distance from the road on my right hand and not on my +left hand as well. Then I remembered what I had seen on that +side, how the "boys" at play on Sundays and in fact every day +hunt the birds and pull their nests out, and I could only +conclude that the lark has been pretty well wiped out from all +that part of the plain over which the soldiers range. + +At Stonehenge I found a good number of watchers, about a +couple of hundred, already assembled, but more were coming in +continually, and a mile or so of the road to Amesbury visible +from "The Stones" had at times the appearance of a ribbon of +fire from the lamps of this continuous stream of coming +cyclists. Altogether about five to six hundred persons +gathered at "The Stones," mostly young men on bicycles who +came from all the Wiltshire towns within easy distance, from +Salisbury to Bath. I had a few good minutes at the ancient +temple when the sight of the rude upright stones looking black +against the moonlit and star-sprinkled sky produced an +unexpected feeling in me: but the mood could not last; the +crowd was too big and noisy, and the noises they made too +suggestive of a Bank Holiday crowd at the Crystal Palace. + +At three o'clock a ribbon of slate-grey cloud appeared above +the eastern horizon, and broadened by degrees, and pretty soon +made it evident that the sun would be hidden at its rising at +a quarter to four. The crowd, however, was not down-hearted; +it sang and shouted; and by and by, just outside the +barbed-wire enclosure a rabbit was unearthed, and about three +hundred young men with shrieks of excitement set about its +capture. It was a lively scene, a general scrimmage, in which +everyone was trying to capture an elusive football with ears +and legs to it, which went darting and spinning about hither +and thither among the multitudinous legs, until earth +compassionately opened and swallowed poor distracted bunny up. +It was but little better inside the enclosure, where the big +fallen stones behind the altar-stone, in the middle, on which +the first rays of sun would fall, were taken possession of by +a crowd of young men who sat and stood packed together like +guillemots on a rock. These too, cheated by that rising cloud +of the spectacle they had come so far to see, wanted to have a +little fun, and began to be very obstreperous. By and by they +found out an amusement very much to their taste. + +Motor-cars were now arriving every minute, bringing important- +looking persons who had timed their journeys so as to come +upon the scene a little before 3:45, when the sun would show +on the horizon; and whenever one of these big gentlemen +appeared within the circle of stones, especially if he was big +physically and grotesque-looking in his motorist get-up, he +was greeted with a tremendous shout. In most cases he would +start back and stand still, astonished at such an outburst, +and then, concluding that the only way to save his dignity was +to face the music, he would step hurriedly across the green +space to hide himself behind the crowd. + +The most amusing case was that of a very tall person adorned +with an exceedingly long, bright red beard, who had on a +Glengarry cap and a great shawl over his overcoat. The +instant this unfortunate person stepped into the arena a +general wild cry of "Scotland for ever!" was raised, followed +by such cheers and yells that the poor man actually staggered +back as if he had received a blow, then seeing there was no +other way out of it, he too rushed across the open space to +lose himself among the others. + +All this proved very entertaining, and I was glad to laugh +with the crowd, thinking that after all we were taking a very +mild revenge on our hated enemies, the tyrants of the roads. + +The fun over, I went soberly back to my village, and finding +it impossible to get to sleep I went to Sunday-morning service +at Shrewton Church. It was strangely restful there after that +noisy morning crowd at Stonehenge. The church is white stone +with Norman pillars and old oak beams laid over the roof +painted or distempered blue--a quiet, peaceful blue. There +was also a good deal of pleasing blue colour in the glass of +the east window. The service was, as I almost invariably find +it in a village church, beautiful and impressive. Listening +to the music of prayer and praise, with some natural outdoor +sound to fill up the pauses--the distant crow of a cock or +the song of some bird close by--a corn-bunting or wren or +hedge-sparrow--and the bright sunlight filling the interior, I +felt as much refreshed as if kind nature's sweet restorer, +balmy sleep, had visited me that morning. The sermon was +nothing to me; I scarcely heard it, but understood that it was +about the Incarnation and the perfection of the plan of +salvation and the unreasonableness of the Higher Criticism and +of all who doubt because they do not understand. I remembered +vaguely that on three successive Sundays in three village +churches in the wilds of Wiltshire I had heard sermons +preached on and against the Higher Criticism. I thought it +would have been better in this case if the priest had chosen +to preach on Stonehenge and had said that he devoutly wished +we were sun-worshippers, like the Persians, as well as +Christians; also that we were Buddhists, and worshippers of +our dead ancestors like the Chinese, and that we were pagans +and idolaters who bow down to sticks and stones, if all these +added cults would serve to make us more reverent. And I wish +he could have said that it was as irreligious to go to +Stonehenge, that ancient temple which man raised to the +unknown god thousands of years ago, to indulge in noise and +horseplay at the hour of sunrise, as it would be to go to +Salisbury Cathedral for such a purpose. + + + + +Chapter Twenty-Two: The Village and "The Stones" + + +My experiences at "The Stones" had left me with the idea that +but for the distracting company the hours I spent there would +have been very sweet and precious in spite of the cloud in the +east. Why then, I asked, not go back on another morning, when +I would have the whole place to myself? If a cloud did not +matter much it would matter still less that it was not the day +of the year when the red disc flames on the watcher's sight +directly over that outstanding stone and casts first a shadow +then a ray of light on the altar. In the end I did not say +good-bye to the village on that day, but settled down to +listen to the tales of my landlady, or rather to another +instalment of her life-story and to further chapters in the +domestic history of those five small villages in one. I had +already been listening to her every evening, and at odd times +during the day, for over a week, at first with interest, then +a little impatiently. I was impatient at being kept in, so to +speak. Out-of-doors the world was full of light and heat, +full of sounds of wild birds and fragrance of flowers and +new-mown hay; there were also delightful children and some +that were anything but delightful--dirty, ragged little +urchins of the slums. For even these small rustic villages +have their slums; and it was now the time when the young birds +were fluttering out of their nests--their hunger cries could +be heard everywhere; and the ragged little barbarians were +wild with excitement, chasing and stoning the flutterers to +slay them; or when they succeeded in capturing one without +first having broken its wings or legs it was to put it in a +dirty cage in a squalid cottage to see it perish miserably in +a day or two. Perhaps I succeeded in saving two or three +threatened lives in the lanes and secret green places by the +stream; perhaps I didn't; but in any case it was some +satisfaction to have made the attempt. + +Now all this made me a somewhat impatient listener to the +village tales--the old unhappy things, for they were mostly +old and always unhappy; yet in the end I had to listen. It +was her eyes that did it. At times they had an intensity in +their gaze which made them almost uncanny, something like the +luminous eyes of an animal hungrily fixed on its prey. They +held me, though not because they glittered: I could have gone +away if I had thought proper, and remained to listen only +because the meaning of that singular look in her grey-green +eyes, which came into them whenever I grew restive, had dawned +on my careless mind. + +She was an old woman with snow-white hair, which contrasted +rather strangely with her hard red colour; but her skin was +smooth, her face well shaped, with fine acquiline features. +No doubt it had been a very handsome face though never +beautiful, I imagine; it was too strong and firm and resolute; +too like the face of some man we see, which, though we have +but a momentary sight of it in a passing crowd, affects us +like a sudden puff of icy-cold air--the revelation of a +singular and powerful personality. Yet she was only a poor +old broken-down woman in a Wiltshire village, held fast in her +chair by a hopeless infirmity. With her legs paralysed she +was like that prince in the Eastern tale on whom an evil spell +had been cast, turning the lower half of his body into marble. +But she did not, like the prince, shed incessant tears and +lament her miserable destiny with a loud voice. She was +patient and cheerful always, resigned to the will of Heaven, +and--a strange thing this to record of an old woman in a +village!--she would never speak of her ailments. But though +powerless in body her mind was vigorous and active teeming +with memories of all the vicissitudes of her exceedingly +eventful, busy life, from the time when she left her village +as a young girl to fight her way in the great world to her +return to end her life in it, old and broken, her fight over, +her children and grandchildren dead or grown up and scattered +about the earth. + +Chance having now put me in her way, she concluded after a few +preliminary or tentative talks that she had got hold of an +ideal listener; but she feared to lose me--she wanted me to go +on listening for ever. That was the reason of that painfully +intense hungry look in her eyes; it was because she discovered +certain signs of lassitude or impatience in me, a desire to +get up and go away and refresh myself in the sun and wind. +Poor old woman, she could not spring upon and hold me fast +when I attempted to move off, or pluck me back with her claws; +she could only gaze with fiercely pleading eyes and say +nothing; and so, without being fascinated, I very often sat on +listening still when I would gladly have been out-of-doors. + +She was a good fluent talker; moreover, she studied her +listener, and finding that my interest in her own interminable +story was becoming exhausted she sought for other subjects, +chiefly the strange events in the lives of men and women who +had lived in the village and who had long been turned to dust. +They were all more or less tragical in character, and it +astonished me to think that I had stayed in a dozen or twenty, +perhaps forty, villages in Wiltshire, and had heard stories +equally strange and moving in pretty well every one of them. + +If each of these small centres possessed a scribe of genius, +or at any rate one with a capacity for taking pains, who would +collect and print in proper form these remembered events, +every village would in time have its own little library of +local history, the volumes labelled respectively, "A Village +Tragedy", "The Fields of Dulditch", "Life's Little Ironies", +"Children's Children", and various others whose titles every +reader will be able to supply. + +The effect of a long spell of listening to these unwritten +tragedies was sometimes strong enough to cloud my reason, for +on going directly forth into the bright sunshine and listening +to the glad sounds which filled the air, it would seem that +this earth was a paradise and that all creation rejoiced in +everlasting happiness excepting man alone who--mysterious +being!--was born to trouble and disaster as the sparks fly +upwards. A pure delusion, due to our universal and +ineradicable passion for romance and tragedy. Tell a man of a +hundred humdrum lives which run their quiet contented course +in this village, and the monotonous unmoving story, or hundred +stories, will go in at one ear and out at the other. Therefore +such stories are not told and not remembered. But that which +stirs our pity and terror--the frustrate life, the glorious +promise which was not fulfilled, the broken hearts and broken +fortunes, and passion, crime, remorse, retribution--all this +prints itself on the mind, and every such life is remembered +for ever and passed on from generation to generation. But it +would really form only one brief chapter in the long, long +history of the village life with its thousand chapters. + +The truth is, if we live in fairly natural healthy condition, +we are just as happy as the lower animals. Some philosopher +has said that the chief pleasure in a man's life, as in that +of a cow, consists in the processes of mastication, +deglutition, and digestion, and I am very much inclined to +agree with him. The thought of death troubles us very little +--we do not believe in it. A familiar instance is that of the +consumptive, whose doctor and friends have given him up and +wait but to see the end, while he, deluded man, still sees +life, an illimitable, green, sunlit prospect, stretching away +to an infinite distance before him. + +Death is a reality only when it is very near, so close on us +that we can actually hear its swift stoaty feet rustling over +the dead leaves, and for a brief bitter space we actually know +that his sharp teeth will presently be in our throat. + +Out in the blessed sunshine I listen to a blackcap warbling +very beautifully in a thorn bush near the cottage; then to the +great shout of excited joy of the children just released from +school, as they rush pell-mell forth and scatter about the +village, and it strikes me that the bird in the thorn is not +more blithe-hearted than they. An old rook--I fancy he is +old, a many-wintered crow--is loudly caw-cawing from the elm +tree top; he has been abroad all day in the fields and has +seen his young able to feed themselves; and his own crop full, +and now he is calling to the others to come and sit there to +enjoy the sunshine with him. I doubt if he is happier than +the human inhabitants of the village, the field labourers and +shepherds who have been out toiling since the early hours, and +are now busy in their own gardens and allotments or placidly +smoking their pipes at their cottage doors. + +But I could not stay longer in that village of old unhappy +memories and of quiet, happy, uninteresting lives that leave +no memory, so after waiting two more days I forced myself to +say good-bye to my poor old landlady. Or rather to say "Good +night," as I had to start at one o'clock in the morning so as +to have a couple, of hours before sunrise at "The Stones" +on my way to Salisbury. Her latest effort to detain me a day +longer had been made and there was no more to say. + +"Do you know," she said in a low mysterious voice, "that it is +not safe to be alone at midnight on this long lonely road--the +loneliest place in all Salisbury Plain?" "The safest," I +said. "Safe as the Tower of London--the protectors of all +England are there." "Ah, there's where the danger is!" she +returned. "If you meet some desperate man, a deserter with +his rifle in his hand perhaps, do you think he would hesitate +about knocking you over to save himself and at the same time +get a little money to help him on his way?" + +I smiled at her simulated anxiety for my safety, and set forth +when it was very dark but under a fine starry sky. The +silence, too, was very profound: there was no good-bye from +crowing cock or hooting owl on this occasion, nor did any +cyclist pass me on the road with a flash of light from his +lamp and a tinkle from his bell. The long straight road on +the high down was a dim grey band visible but a few yards +before me, lying across the intense blackness of the earth. +By day I prefer as a rule walking on the turf, but this road +had a rare and peculiar charm at this time. It was now the +season when the bird's-foot-trefoil, one of the commonest +plants of the downland country, was in its fullest bloom, so +that in many places the green or grey-green turf as far as one +could see on every side was sprinkled and splashed with +orange-yellow. Now this creeping, spreading plant, like most +plants that grow on the close-cropped sheep-walks, whose +safety lies in their power to root themselves and live very +close to the surface, yet must ever strive to lift its flowers +into the unobstructed light and air and to overtop or get away +from its crowding neighbours. On one side of the road, where +the turf had been cut by the spade in a sharp line, the plant +had found a rare opportunity to get space and light and had +thrust out such a multitude of bowering sprays, projecting +them beyond the turf, as to form a close band or rope of +orange-yellow, which divided the white road from the green +turf, and at one spot extended unbroken for upwards of a mile. +The effect was so singular and pretty that I had haunted this +road for days for the pleasure of seeing that flower border +made by nature. Now all colour was extinguished: beneath and +around me there was a dimness which at a few yards' distance +deepened to blackness, and above me the pale dim blue sky +sprinkled with stars; but as I walked I had the image of that +brilliant band of yellow colour in my mind. + +By and by the late moon rose, and a little later the east +began to grow lighter and the dark down to change +imperceptibly to dim hoary green. Then the exquisite colours +of the dawn once more, and the larks rising in the dim +distance--a beautiful unearthly sound--and so in the end I +came to "The Stones," rejoicing, in spite of a cloud which now +appeared on the eastern horizon to prevent the coming sun from +being seen, that I had the place to myself. The rejoicing +came a little too soon; a very few minutes later other +visitors on foot and on bicycles began to come in, and we all +looked at each other a little blankly. Then a motorcar +arrived, and two gentlemen stepped out and stared at us, and +one suddenly burst out laughing. + +"I see nothing to laugh at!" said his companion a little +severely. + +The other in a low voice made some apology or explanation +which I failed to catch. It was, of course, not right; it was +indecent to laugh on such an occasion, for we were not of the +ebullient sort who go to "The Stones" at three o'clock in the +morning "for a lark"; but it was very natural in the +circumstances, and mentally I laughed myself at the absurdity +of the situation. However, the laugher had been rebuked for +his levity, and this incident over, there was nothing further +to disturb me or any one in our solemn little gathering. + +It was a very sweet experience, and I cannot say that my early +morning outing would have been equally good at any other +lonely spot on Salisbury Plain or anywhere else with a wide +starry sky above me, the flush of dawn in the east, and the +larks rising heavenward out of the dim misty earth. Those +rudely fashioned immemorial stones standing dark and large +against the pale clear moonlit sky imparted something to the +feeling. I sat among them alone and had them all to myself, +as the others, fearing to tear their clothes on the barbed +wire, had not ventured to follow me when I got through the +fence. Outside the enclosure they were some distance from me, +and as they talked in subdued tones, their voices reached me +as a low murmur--a sound not out of harmony with the silent +solitary spirit of the place; and there was now no other sound +except that of a few larks singing fitfully a long way off. + +Just what the element was in that morning's feeling which +Stonehenge contributed I cannot say. It was too vague and +uncertain, too closely interwoven with the more common feeling +for nature. No doubt it was partly due to many untraceable +associations, and partly to a thought, scarcely definite +enough to be called a thought, of man's life in this land from +the time this hoary temple was raised down to the beginning of +history. A vast span, a period of ten or more, probably of +twenty centuries, during which great things occurred and great +tragedies were enacted, which seem all the darker and more +tremendous to the mind because unwritten and unknown. But +with the mighty dead of these blank ages I could not commune. +Doubtless they loved and hated and rose and fell, and there +were broken hearts and broken lives; but as beings of flesh +and blood we cannot visualize them, and are in doubt even as +to their race. And of their minds, or their philosophy of +life, we know absolutely nothing. We are able, as Clifford +has said in his Cosmic Emotion, to shake hands with the +ancient Greeks across the great desert of centuries which +divides our day from theirs; but there is no shaking hands +with these ancients of Britain--or Albion, seeing that we are +on the chalk. To our souls they are as strange as the +builders of Tiuhuanaco, or Mitla and Itzana, and the cyclopean +ruins of Zimbabwe and the Carolines. + +It is thought by some of our modern investigators of psychic +phenomena that apparitions result from the coming out of +impressions left in the surrounding matter, or perhaps in the +ether pervading it, especially in moments of supreme agitation +or agony. The apparition is but a restored picture, and +pictures of this sort are about us in millions; but for our +peace they are rarely visible, as the ability to see them is +the faculty of but a few persons in certain moods and certain +circumstances. Here, then, if anywhere in England, we, or the +persons who are endowed with this unpleasant gift, might look +for visions of the time when Stonehenge was the spiritual +capital, the Mecca of the faithful (when all were that), the +meeting-place of all the intellect, the hoary experience, the +power and majesty of the land. + +But no visions have been recorded. It is true that certain +stories of alleged visions have been circulated during the +last few years. One, very pretty and touching, is of a child +from the London slums who saw things invisible to others. +This was one of the children of the very poor, who are taken +in summer and planted all about England in cottages to have a +week or a fortnight of country air and sunshine. Taken to +Stonehenge, she had a vision of a great gathering of people, +and so real did they seem that she believed in the reality +of it all, and so beautiful did they appear to her that she +was reluctant to leave, and begged to be taken back to see +it all again. Unfortunately it is not true. A full and +careful inquiry has been made into the story, of which there +are several versions, and its origin traced to a little +story-telling Wiltshire boy who had read or heard of the +white-robed priests of the ancient days at "The Stones," and +who just to astonish other little boys naughtily pretended +that he had seen it all himself! + + + + +Chapter Twenty-Three: Following a River + + +The stream invites us to follow: the impulse is so common that +it might be set down as an instinct; and certainly there is no +more fascinating pastime than to keep company with a river +from its source to the sea. Unfortunately this is not easy in +a country where running waters have been enclosed, which +should be as free as the rain and sunshine to all, and were +once free, when England was England still, before landowners +annexed them, even as they annexed or stole the commons and +shut up the footpaths and made it an offence for a man to go +aside from the road to feel God's grass under his feet. Well, +they have also got the road now, and cover and blind and choke +us with its dust and insolently hoot-hoot at us. Out of the +way, miserable crawlers, if you don't want to be smashed! + +Sometimes the way is cut off by huge thorny hedges and fences +of barbed wire--man's devilish improvement on the bramble +--brought down to the water's edge. The river-follower must +force his way through these obstacles, in most cases greatly +to the detriment of his clothes and temper; or, should they +prove impassable, he must undress and go into the water. +Worst of all is the thought that he is a trespasser. The +pheasants crow loudly lest he should forget it. Occasionally, +too, in these private places he encounters men in velveteens +with guns under their arms, and other men in tweeds and +knickerbockers, with or without guns, and they all stare at +him with amazement in their eyes, like disturbed cattle in a +pasture; and sometimes they challenge him. But I must say +that, although I have been sharply spoken to on several +occasions, always, after a few words, I have been permitted to +keep on my way. And on that way I intend to keep until I have +no more strength to climb over fences and force my way through +hedges, but like a blind and worn-out old badger must take to +my earth and die. + +I found the Exe easy to follow at first. Further on +exceedingly difficult in places; but I was determined to keep +near it, to have it behind me and before me and at my side, +following, leading, a beautiful silvery serpent that was my +friend and companion. For I was following not the Exe only, +but a dream as well, and a memory. Before I knew it the Exe +was a beloved stream. Many rivers had I seen in my +wanderings, but never one to compare with this visionary +river, which yet existed, and would be found and followed at +last. My forefathers had dwelt for generations beside it, +listening all their lives long to its music, and when they +left it they still loved it in exile, and died at last with +its music in their ears. Nor did the connection end there; +their children and children's children doubtless had some +inherited memory of it; or how came I to have this feeling, +which made it sacred, and drew me to it? We inherit not from +our ancestors only, but, through them, something, too, from +the earth and place that knew them. + +I sought for and found it where it takes its rise on open +Exmoor; a simple moorland stream, not wild and foaming and +leaping over rocks, but flowing gently between low peaty +banks, where the little lambs leap over it from side to side +in play. Following the stream down, I come at length to +Exford. Here the aspect of the country begins to change; it +is not all brown desolate heath; there are green flowery +meadows by the river, and some wood. A little further down +and the Exe will be a woodland stream; but of all the rest of +my long walk I shall only say that to see the real beauty of +this stream one must go to Somerset. From Exford to Dulverton +it runs, singing aloud, foam-flecked, between high hills +clothed to their summits in oak woods: after its union with +the Barle it enters Devonshire as a majestic stream, and flows +calmly through a rich green country; its wild romantic charm +has been left behind. + +The uninformed traveller, whose principle it is never to look +at a guide-book, is surprised to find that the small village +of Exford contains no fewer than half a dozen inns. He asks +how they are kept going; and the natives, astonished at his +ignorance, proceed to enlighten him. Exford is the +headquarters of the stag-hunt: thither the hunters flock in +August, and spend so much money during thir brief season that +the innkeepers grow rich and fat, and for the rest of the year +can afford to doze peacefully behind their bars. Here are the +kennels, and when I visited them they contained forty or fifty +couples of stag-hounds. These are gigantic foxhounds, +selected for their great size from packs all over the country. +When out exercising these big vari-coloured dogs make a fine +show. It is curious to find that, although these individual +variations are continually appearing--very large dogs born of +dogs of medium size--others cannot be bred from them; the +variety cannot be fixed. + +The village is not picturesque. Its one perennial charm is +the swift river that flows through it, making music on its +wide sandy and pebbly floor. Hither and thither flit the +wagtails, finding little half-uncovered stones in the current +to perch upon. Both the pied and grey species are there; and, +seeing them together, one naturally wishes to resettle for +himself the old question as to which is the prettiest and most +graceful. Now this one looks best and now that; but the +delicately coloured grey and yellow bird has the longest tail +and can use it more prettily. Her tail is as much to her, +both as ornament and to express emotions, as a fan to any +flirtatious Spanish senora. One always thinks of these dainty +feathered creatures as females. It would seem quite natural +to call the wagtail "lady-bird," if that name had not been +registered by a diminutive podgy tortoise-shaped black and red +beetle. + +So shallow is the wide stream in the village that a little +girl of about seven came down from a cottage, and to cool her +feet waded out into the middle, and there she stood for some +minutes on a low flat stone, looking down on her own wavering +image broken by a hundred hurrying wavelets and ripples. This +small maidie, holding up her short, shabby frock with her +wee hands, her bright brown hair falling over her face as she +bent her head down and laughed to see her bare little legs and +their flickering reflection beneath, made a pretty picture. +Like the wagtails, she looked in harmony with her +surroundings. + +So many are the villages, towns, and places of interest seen, +so many the adventures met with in this walk, starting with +the baby streamlet beyond Simonsbath, and following it down to +Exeter and Exmouth, that it would take half a volume to +describe them, however briefly. Yet at the end I found that +Exford had left the most vivid and lasting impression, and was +remembered with most pleasure. It was more to me than +Winsford, that fragrant, cool, grey and green village, the +home of immemorial peace, second to no English village in +beauty; with its hoary church tower, its great trees, its old +stone, thatched cottages draped in ivy and vine, its soothing +sound of running waters. Exeter itself did not impress me so +strongly, in spite of its cathedral. The village of Exford +printed itself thus sharply on my mind because I had there +been filled with wonder and delight at the sight of a face +exceeding in loveliness all the faces seen in that West +Country--a rarest human gem, which had the power of imparting +to its setting something of its own wonderful lustre. The +type was a common Somerset one, but with marked differences in +some respects, else it could not have been so perfect. + +The type I speak of is a very distinct one: in a crowd in a +London street you can easily spot a Somerset man who has this +mark on his countenance, but it shows more clearly in the +woman. There are more types than one, but the variety is less +than in other places; the women are more like each other, and +differ more from those that are outside their borders than is +the case in other English counties. A woman of this prevalent +type, to be met with anywhere from Bath and Bedminster to the +wilds of Exmoor, is of a good height, and has a pleasant, +often a pretty face; regular features, the nose straight, +rather long, with thin nostrils; eyes grey-blue; hair brown, +neither dark nor light, in many cases with a sandy or sunburnt +tint. Black, golden, reds, chestnuts are rarely seen. There +is always colour in the skin, but not deep; as a rule it is a +light tender brown with a rosy or reddish tinge. Altogether +it is a winning face, with smiling eyes; there is more in it +of that something we can call "refinement" than is seen in +women of the same class in other counties. The expression is +somewhat infantile; a young woman, even a middle-aged woman, +will frequently remind you of a little girl of seven or eight +summers. The innocent eyes and mobile mouth are singularly +childlike. This peculiarity is the more striking when we +consider the figure. This is not fully developed according to +the accepted standards the hips are too small, the chest too +narrow and flat, the arms too thin. True or false, the idea +is formed of a woman of a childlike, affectionate nature, but +lacking in passion, one to be chosen for a sister rather than +a wife. Something in us--instinct or tradition--will have it +that the well-developed woman is richest in the purely womanly +qualities--the wifely and maternal feelings. The luxuriant +types that abound most in Devonshire are not common here. + +It will be understood that the women described are those that +live in cottages. Here, as elsewhere, as you go higher in the +social scale--further from the soil as it were--the type +becomes less and less distinct. Those of the "higher class," +or "better class," are few, and always in a sense foreigners. + + + + +Chapter Twenty-Four: Troston + + +I doubt if the name of this small Suffolk village, remote from +towns and railroads, will have any literary associations for +the reader, unless he be a person of exceptionally good +memory, who has taken a special interest in the minor poets of +the last century; or that it would help him if I add the names +of Honington and Sapiston, two other small villages a couple +of miles from Troston, with the slow sedgy Little Ouse, or a +branch of it, flowing between them. Yet Honington was the +birthplace of Robert Bloomfield, known as "the Suffolk poet" +in the early part of the last century (although Crabbe was +living then and was great, as he is becoming again after many +years); while at Sapiston, the rustic village on the other +side of the old stone bridge, he acquired that love of nature +and intimate knowledge of farm life and work which came out +later in his Farmer's Boy. Finally, Troston, the little +village in which I write, was the home of Capel Lofft, a +person of importance in his day, who discovered Bloomfield, +found a publisher for his poems, and boomed it with amazing +success. + +I dare say it will only provoke a smile of amusement in +readers of literary taste when I confess that Bloomfield's +memory is dear to me; that only because of this feeling for +the forgotten rustic who wrote rhymes I am now here, strolling +about in the shade of the venerable trees in Troston Park-the +selfsame trees which the somewhat fantastic Capel knew in his +day as "Homer," "Sophocles," "Virgil," "Milton," and by other +names, calling each old oak, elm, ash, and chestnut after one +of the immortals. + +I can even imagine that the literary man, if he chanced to be +a personal friend, would try to save me from myself by begging +me not to put anything of this sort into print. He would warn +me that it matters nothing that Bloomfield's verse was +exceedingly popular for a time, that twenty-five or thirty +editions of his Farmer's Boy were issued within three years of +its publication in 1800 that it continued to be read for half +a century afterwards. There are other better tests. Is it +alive to-day? What do judges of literature say of it now? +Nothing! They smile and that's all. The absurdity of his +popularity was felt in his own day. Byron laughed at it; +Crabbe growled and Charles Lamb said he had looked at the +Farmer's Boy and it made him sick. Well, nobody wants to look +at it now. + +Much more might be said very easily on this side; nevertheless, +I think I shall go on with my plea for the small verse-maker +who has long fallen out; and though I may be unable to make a +case out, the kindly critic may find some circumstance to +extenuate my folly--to say, in the end, that this appears to +be one of the little foolishnesses which might be forgiven. + +I must confess at starting that the regard I have for one of +his poems, the Farmer's Boy, is not wholly a matter of +literary taste or the critical faculty; it is also, to some +extent, a matter of association,--and as the story of how this +comes about is rather curious, I will venture to give it. + +In the distant days of my boyhood and early youth my chief +delight was in nature, and when I opened a book it was to find +something about nature in it, especially some expression of +the feeling produced in us by nature, which was, in my case, +inseparable from seeing and hearing, and was, to me, the most +important thing in life. For who could look on earth, water, +sky, on living or growing or inanimate things, without +experiencing that mysterious uplifting gladness in him! In +due time I discovered that the thing I sought for in printed +books was to be found chiefly in poetry, that half a dozen +lines charged with poetic feeling about nature often gave me +more satisfaction than a whole volume of prose on such +subjects. Unfortunately this kind of literature was not +obtainable in my early home on the then semi-wild pampas. +There were a couple of hundred volumes on the shelves +--theology, history, biography, philosophy, science, travels, +essays, and some old forgotten fiction; but no verse was +there, except Shenstone, in a small, shabby, coverless volume. +This I read and re-read until I grew sick of bright Roxana +tripping o'er the green, or of gentle Delia when a tear bedews +her eye to think yon playful kid must die. To my uncultivated +mind--for I had never been at school, and lived in the open +air with the birds and beasts--this seemed intolerably +artificial; for I was like a hungry person who has nothing but +kickshaws put before him, and eats because he is hungry until +he loathes a food which in its taste confounds the appetite. +Never since those distant days have I looked at a Shenstone or +even seen his name in print or heard it spoken, without a +slight return of that old sensation of nausea. If Shenstone +alone had come to me, the desire for poetry would doubtless +have been outlived early in life; but there were many +passages, some very long, from the poets in various books on +the shelves, and these kept my appetite alive. There was +Brown's Philosophy, for example; and Brown loved to illustrate +his point with endless poetic quotations, the only drawback in +my case being that they were almost exclusively drawn from +Akenside, who was not "rural." But there were other books in +which other poets were quoted, and of all these the passages +which invariably pleased me most were the descriptions of +rural sights and sounds. + +One day, during a visit to the city of Buenos Ayres, I +discovered in a mean street, in the southern part of the town, +a second-hand bookshop, kept by an old snuffy spectacled +German in a long shabby black coat. I remember him well +because he was a very important person to me. It was the +first shop of the kind I had seen--I doubt if there was +another in the town; and to be allowed to rummage by the hour +among this mass of old books on the dusty shelves and heaped +on the brick floor was a novel and delightful experience. The +books were mostly in Spanish, French, and German, but there +were some in English, and among them I came upon Thomson's +Seasons. I remember the thrill of joy I experienced when I +snatched up the small thin octavo in its smooth calf binding. +It was the first book in English I ever bought, and to this +day when I see a copy of the Seasons on a bookstall, which is +often enough, I cannot keep my fingers off it and find it hard +to resist the temptation to throw a couple of shillings away +and take it home. If shillings had not been wanted for bread +and cheese I should have had a roomful of copies by now. + +Few books have given me more pleasure, and as I still return +to it from time to time I do not suppose I shall ever outgrow +the feeling, in spite of its having been borne in on me, when +I first conversed with readers of poetry in England, that +Thomson is no longer read--that he is unreadable. + +After such a find I naturally went back many times to burrow +in that delightful rubbish heap, and was at length rewarded by +the discovery of yet another poem of rural England--the +Farmer's Boy. I was prepared to like it, for although I did +not know anything about the author's early life, the few +passages I had come across in quotations in James Rennie's and +other old natural history compilations had given me a strong +desire to read the whole poem. I certainly did like it--this +quiet description in verse of a green spot in England, my +spiritual country which so far as I knew I was never destined +to see; and that I continue to like it is, as I have said, the +reason of my being in this place. + +While thus freely admitting that the peculiar circumstances +of the case caused me to value this poem, and, in fact, made +it very much more to me than it could be to persons born in +England with all its poetical literature to browse on, I am +at the same time convinced that this is not the sole reason +for my regard. + +I take it that the Farmer's Boy is poetry, not merely +slightly poetized prose in the form of verse, although it is +undoubtedly poetry of a very humble order. + +Mere descriptions of rural scenes do not demand the higher +qualities of the poet--imagination and passion. The lower +kind of inspiration is, in fact, often better suited to such +themes and shows nature by the common light of day, as it +were, instead of revealing it as by a succession of lightning +flashes. Even among those who confine themselves to this +lower plane, Bloomfield is not great: his small flame is +constantly sinking and flickering out. But at intervals it +burns up again and redeems the work from being wholly +commonplace and trivial. He is, in fact, no better than many +another small poet who has been devoured by Time since his +day, and whose work no person would now attempt to bring back. +It is probable, too, that many of these lesser singers whose +fame was brief would in their day have deeply resented being +placed on a level with the Suffolk peasant-poet. In spite of +all this, and of the impossibility of saving most of the verse +which is only passably good from oblivion, I still think the +Farmer's Boy worth preserving for more reasons than one, but +chiefly because it is the only work of its kind. + +There is no lack of rural poetry--the Seasons to begin with +and much Thomsonian poetry besides, treating of nature in a +general way; then we have innumerable detached descriptions of +actual scenes, such as we find scattered throughout Cowper's +Task, and numberless other works. Besides all this there are +the countless shorter poems, each conveying an impression of +some particular scene or aspect of nature; the poet of the +open air, like the landscape painter, is ever on the look out +for picturesque "bits" and atmospheric effects as a subject. +In Bloomfield we get something altogether different--a simple, +consistent, and fairly complete account of the country +people's toilsome life in a remote agricultural district in +England--a small rustic village set amid green and arable +fields, woods and common lands. We have it from the inside by +one who had part in it, born and bred to the humble life he +described; and, finally, it is not given as a full day-to-day +record--photographed as we may say--with all the minute +unessential details and repetitions, but as it appeared when +looked back upon from a distance, reliving it in memory, the +sights and sounds and events which had impressed the boy's +mind standing vividly out. Of this lowly poem it may be truly +said that it is "emotion recollected in tranquillity," to use +the phrase invented by Wordsworth when he attempted a +definition of poetry generally and signally failed, as +Coleridge demonstrated. + +It will be said that the facts of Bloomfield's life--that he +was a farmer's boy whose daily tasks were to scare the crows, +feed the pigs, and forty things besides, and that later, when +learning the shoemaker's trade in a London garret, he put +these memories together and made them into a poem--are wholly +beside the question when we come to judge the work as +literature. A peasant poet may win a great reputation in his +own day on account of the circumstances of the case, but in +the end his work must be tried by the same standards applied +in other and in all cases. + +There is no getting away from this, and all that remains is to +endeavour to show that the poem, although poor as a whole, is +not altogether bad, but contains many lines that glow with +beautiful poetic feeling, and many descriptive passages which +are admirable. Furthermore, I will venture to say that +despite the feebleness of a large part of the work (as poetry) +it is yet worth preserving in its entirety on account of its +unique character. It may be that I am the only person in +England able to appreciate it so fully owing to the way in +which it first came to my notice, and the critical reader can, +if he thinks proper, discount what I am now saying as mere +personal feeling. But the case is this: when, in a distant +region of the world, I sought for and eagerly read anything I +could find relating to country scenes and life in England +--the land of my desire--I was never able to get an extended +and congruous view of it, with a sense of the continuity in +human and animal life in its relation to nature. It was all +broken up into pieces or "bits"; it was in detached scenes, +vividly reproduced to the inner eye in many cases, but +unrelated and unharmonized, like framed pictures of rural +subjects hanging on the walls of a room. Even the Seasons +failed to supply this want, since Thomson in his great work is +of no place and abides nowhere, but ranges on eagle's wings +over the entire land, and, for the matter of that, over the +whole globe. But I did get it in the Farmer's Boy. I +visualized the whole scene, the entire harmonious life; I was +with him from morn till eve always in that same green country +with the same sky, cloudy or serene, above me; in the rustic +village, at the small church with a thatched roof where the +daws nested in the belfry, and the children played and shouted +among the gravestones in the churchyard; in woods and green +and ploughed fields and the deep lanes--with him and his +fellow-toilers, and the animals, domestic and wild, regarding +their life and actions from day to day through all the +vicissitudes of the year. + +The poem, then, appears to fill a place in our poetic +literature, or to fill a gap; at all events from the point of +view of those who, born and living in distant parts of the +earth, still dream of the Old Home. This perhaps accounts for +the fact, which I heard at Honington, that most of the +pilgrims to Bloomfield's birthplace are Americans. + +Bloomfield followed his great example in dividing his poem +into the four seasons, and he begins, Thomson-like, with an +invitation to the Muse:-- + + O come, blest spirit, whatsoe'er thou art, + Thou kindling warmth that hov'rest round my heart. + +But happily he does not attempt to imitate the lofty diction +of the Seasons or Windsor Forest, the noble poem from which, I +imagine, Thomson derived his sonorous style. He had a humble +mind and knew his limitations, and though he adopted the +artificial form of verse which prevailed down to his time he +was still able to be simple and natural. + +"Spring" does not contain much of the best of his work, but +the opening is graceful and is not without a touch of pathos +in his apologetic description of himself, as Giles, the +farmer's boy. + + Nature's sublimer scenes ne'er charmed my eyes + Nor Science led me . . . + From meaner objects far my raptures flow . . . + Quick-springing sorrows, transient as the dew, + Delight from trifles, trifles ever new. + 'Twas thus with Giles; meek, fatherless, and poor, + Labour his portion . . . + His life was cheerful, constant servitude . . . + Strange to the world, he wore a bashful look, + The fields his study, Nature was his book. + +The farm is described, the farmer, his kind, hospitable +master; the animals, the sturdy team, the cows and the small +flock of fore-score ewes. Ploughing, sowing, and harrowing are +described, and the result left to the powers above: + + Yet oft with anxious heart he looks around, + And marks the first green blade that breaks the ground; + In fancy sees his trembling oats uprun, + His tufted barley yellow with the sun. + +While his master dreams of what will be, Giles has enough to +do protecting the buried grain from thieving rooks and crows; +one of the multifarious tasks being to collect the birds that +have been shot, for although-- + + Their danger well the wary plunderers know + And place a watch on some conspicuous bough, + Yet oft the skulking gunner by surprise + Will scatter death among them as they rise. + +'Tis useless, he tells us, to hang these slain robbers about +the fields, since in a little while they are no more regarded +than the men of rags and straw with sham rifles in their +hands. It was for him to shift the dead from place to place, +to arrange them in dying attitudes with outstretched wings. +Finally, there was the fox, the stealer of dead crows, to be +guarded against; and again at eventide Giles must trudge round +to gather up his dead and suspend them from twigs out of reach +of hungry night-prowlers. Called up at daybreak each morning, +he would take his way through deep lanes overarched with oaks +to "fields remote from home" to redistribute his dead birds, +then to fetch the cows, and here we have an example of his +close naturalist-like observation in his account of the +leading cow, the one who coming and going on all occasions is +allowed precedence, who maintains her station, "won by many a +broil," with just pride. A picture of the cool dairy and its +work succeeds, and a lament on the effect of the greed and +luxury of the over-populous capital which drains the whole +country-side of all produce, which makes the Suffolk +dairy-wives run mad for cream, leaving nothing but the +"three-times skimmed sky-blue" to make cheese for local +consumption. What a cheese it is, that has the virtue of a +post, which turns the stoutest blade, and is at last flung in +despair into the hog-trough, where + + It rests in perfect spite, + Too big to swallow and too hard to bite! + +We then come to the sheep, "for Giles was shepherd too," and +here there is more evidence of his observant eye when he +describes the character of the animals, also in what follows +about the young lambs, which forms the best passage in this +part. I remember that, when first reading it, being then +little past boyhood myself, how much I was struck by the vivid +beautiful description of a crowd of young lambs challenging +each other to a game, especially at a spot where they have a +mound or hillock for a playground which takes them with a sort +of goatlike joyous madness. For how often in those days I +used to ride out to where the flock of one to two thousand +sheep were scattered on the plain, to sit on my pony and watch +the glad romps of the little lambs with keenest delight! I +cannot but think that Bloomfield's fidelity to nature in such +pictures as these does or should count for something in +considering his work. He concludes:- + + Adown the slope, then up the hillock climb, + Where every mole-hill is a bed of thyme, + Then panting stop; yet scarcely can refrain; + A bird, a leaf, will set them off again; + Or if a gale with strength unusual blow, + Scattering the wild-briar roses into snow, + Their little limbs increasing efforts try, + Like a torn rose the fair assemblage fly. + +This image of the wind-scattered petals of the wild rose reminds +him bitterly of the destined end of these joyous young lives--his +white-fleeced little fellow-mortals. He sees the murdering +butcher coming in his cart to demand the firstlings of the flock; +he cannot suppress a cry of grief and indignation--he can only +strive to shut out the shocking image from his soul! + +"Summer" opens with some reflections on the farmer's life in a +prosy Crabbe-like manner; and here it may be noted that as a +rule Bloomfield no sooner attempts to rise to a general view +than he grows flat; and in like manner he usually fails when +he attempts wide prospects and large effects. He is at his +best only when describing scenes and incidents at the farm in +which he himself is a chief actor, as in this part when, after +the sowing of the turnip seed, he is sent out to keep the +small birds from the ripening corn: + + There thousands in a flock, for ever gay, + Loud chirping sparrows welcome on the day, + And from the mazes of the leafy thorn + Drop one by one upon the bending corn. + +Giles trudging along the borders of the field scares them with +his brushing-pole, until, overcome by fatigue and heat, he +takes a rest by the brakes and lying, half in sun and half in +shade, his attention is attracted to the minute insect life +that swarms about him: + + The small dust-coloured beetle climbs with pain + O'er the smooth plantain leaf, a spacious plain! + Then higher still by countless steps conveyed, + He gains the summit of a shivering blade, + And flirts his filmy wings and looks around, + Exulting in his distance from the ground. + +It is one of his little exquisite pictures. Presently his +vision is called to the springing lark: + + Just starting from the corn, he cheerly sings, + And trusts with conscious pride his downy wings; + Still louder breathes, and in the face of day + Mounts up and calls on Giles to mark his way. + Close to his eye his hat he instant bends + And forms a friendly telescope that lends + Just aid enough to dull the glaring light + And place the wandering bird before his sight, + That oft beneath a light cloud sweeps along; + Lost for a while yet pours a varied song; + The eye still follows and the cloud moves by, + Again he stretches up the clear blue sky, + His form, his motions, undistinguished quite, + Save when he wheels direct from shade to light. + +In the end he falls asleep, and waking refreshed picks up his +poles and starts again brushing round. + +Harvesting scenes succeed, with a picture of Mary, the village +beauty, taking her share in the work, and how the labourers in +their unwonted liveliness and new-found wit + + Confess the presence of a pretty face. + +She is very rustic herself in her appearance:-- + + Her hat awry, divested of her gown, + Her creaking stays of leather, stout and brown: + Invidious barrier! why art thou so high, + When the slight covering of her neck slips by, + Then half revealing to the eager sight + Her full, ripe bosom, exquisitely white? + +The leather stays have no doubt gone the way of many other +dreadful things, even in the most rustic villages in the land; +not so the barbarous practice of docking horses' tails, +against which he protests in this place when describing the +summer plague of flies and the excessive sufferings of the +domestic animals, especially of the poor horses deprived of +their only defence against such an enemy. At his own little +farm there was yet another plague in the form of an old +broken-winged gander, "the pest and tryant of the yard," whose +unpleasant habit it was to go for the beasts and seize them by +the fetlocks. The swine alone did not resent the attacks but +welcomed them, receiving the assaults as caresses, and +stretching themselves out and lying down and closing their +pigs' eyes, they would emit grunts of satisfaction, while the +triumphant bird, followed by the whole gabbling flock, would +trample on the heads of their prostrate foes. + +"Autumn" opens bravely: + + Again the year's decline, 'midst storms and floods, + The thund'ring chase, the yellow fading woods + Invite my song. + +It contains two of the best things in the poem, the first in +the opening part, describing the swine in the acorn season, a +delightful picture which must be given in full:-- + + No more the fields with scattered grain supply + The restless tenants of the sty; + From oak to oak they run with eager haste, + And wrangling share the first delicious taste + Of fallen acorns; yet but thinly found + Till a strong gale has shook them to the ground. + It comes; and roaring woods obedient wave: + Their home well pleased the joint adventurers leave; + The trudging sow leads forth her numerous young, + Playful, and white, and clean, the briars among, + Till briars and thorns increasing fence them round, + Where last year's mould'ring leaves bestrew the ground, + And o'er their heads, loud lashed by furious squalls, + Bright from their cups the rattling treasure falls; + Hot thirsty food; whence doubly sweet and cool + The welcome margin of some rush-grown pool, + The wild duck's lonely haunt, whose jealous eye + Guards every point; who sits prepared to fly, + On the calm bosom of her little lake, + Too closely screened for ruffian winds to shake; + And as the bold intruders press around, + At once she starts and rises with a bound; + With bristles raised the sudden noise they hear, + And ludicrously wild and winged with fear, + The herd decamp with more than swinish speed, + And snorting dash through sedge and rush and reed; + Through tangled thickets headlong on they go, + Then stop and listen for their fancied foe; + The hindmost still the growing panic spreads, + Repeated fright the first alarm succeeds, + Till Folly's wages, wounds and thorns, they reap; + Yet glorying in their fortunate escape, + Their groundless terrors by degrees soon cease, + And Night's dark reign restores their peace. + For now the gale subsides, and from each bough + The roosting pheasant's short but frequent crow + Invites to rest, and huddling side by side + The herd in closest ambush seek to hide; + Seek some warm slope with shagged moss o'erspread, + Dried leaves their copious covering and their bed. + In vain may Giles, through gathering glooms that fall, + And solemn silence, urge his piercing call; + Whole days and nights they tarry 'midst their store, + Nor quit the woods till oaks can yield no more. + +It is a delightful passage to one that knows a pig--the animal +we respect for its intelligence, holding it in this respect +higher, more human, than the horse, and at the same time laugh +at on account of certain ludicrous points about it, as for +example its liability to lose its head. Thousands of years of +comfortable domestic life have failed to rid it of this +inconvenient heritage from the time when wild in woods it ran. +Yet in this particular instance the terror of the swine does +not seem wholly inexcusable, if we know a wild duck as well as +a pig, especially the duck that takes to haunting a solitary +woodland pool, who, when intruded on, springs up with such a +sudden tremendous splash and flutter of wings and outrageous +screams, that man himself, if not prepared for it, may be +thrown off his balance. + +Passing over other scenes, about one hundred and fifty lines, +we come to the second notable passage, when after the sowing +of the winter wheat, poor Giles once more takes up his old +occupation of rook-scaring. It is now as in spring and +summer-- + + Keen blows the blast and ceaseless rain descends; + The half-stripped hedge a sorry shelter lends, + +and he thinks it would be nice to have a hovel, no matter how +small, to take refuge in, and at once sets about its +construction. + + In some sequestered nook, embanked around, + Sods for its walls and straw in burdens bound; + Dried fuel hoarded is his richest store, + And circling smoke obscures his little door; + Whence creeping forth to duty's call he yields, + And strolls the Crusoe of the lonely fields. + On whitehorn tow'ring, and the leafless rose, + A frost-nipped feast in bright vermilion glows; + Where clust'ring sloes in glossy order rise, + He crops the loaded branch, a cumbrous prize; + And on the flame the splutt'ring fruit he rests, + Placing green sods to seat the coming guests; + His guests by promise; playmates young and gay; + But ah! fresh pastures lure their steps away! + He sweeps his hearth, and homeward looks in vain, + Till feeling Disappointment's cruel pain + His fairy revels are exchanged for rage, + His banquet marred, grown dull his hermitage, + The field becomes his prison, till on high + Benighted birds to shades and coverts fly. + +"The field becomes his prison," and the thought of this trival +restraint, which is yet felt so poignantly, brings to mind an +infinitely greater one. Look, he says-- + + From the poor bird-boy with his roasted sloes + +to the miserable state of those who are confined in dungeons, +deprived of daylight and the sight of the green earth, whose +minds perpetually travel back to happy scenes, + + Trace and retrace the beaten worn-out way, + +whose chief bitterness it is to be forgotten and see no +familiar friendly face. + +"Winter" is, I think, the best of the four parts it gives the +idea that the poem was written as it stands, from "Spring" +onwards, that by the time he got to the last part the writer +had acquired a greater ease and assurance. At all events it +is less patchy and more equal. It is also more sober in tone, +as befits the subject, and opens with an account of the +domestic animals on the farm, their increased dependence on +man and the compassionate feelings they evoke in us. He is, +we feel, dealing with realities, always from the point of view +of a boy of sensitive mina and tender heart--one taken in +boyhood from this life before it had wrought any change in +him. For in due time the farm boy, however fine his spirit +may be, must harden and grow patient and stolid in heat and +cold and wet, like the horse that draws the plough or cart; +and as he hardens he grows callous. In his wretched London +garret if any change came to him it was only to an increased +love and pity for the beasts he had lived among, who looked +and cried to him to be fed. He describes it well, the frost +and bitter cold, the hungry cattle following the cart to the +fields, the load of turnips thrown out on the hard frozen +ground; but the turnips too are frozen hard and they cannot +eat them until Giles, following with his beetle, splits them +up with vigorous blows, and the cows gather close round him, +sending out a cloud of steam from their nostrils. + +The dim short winter day soon ends, but the sound of the +flails continues in the barns till long after dark before the +weary labourers end their task and trudge home. Giles, too, +is busy at this time taking hay to the housed cattle, many a +sweet mouthful being snatched from the load as he staggers +beneath it on his way to the racks. Then follow the +well-earned hours of "warmth and rest" by the fire in the big +old kitchen which he describes:-- + + For the rude architect, unknown to fame, + (Nor symmetry nor elegance his aim), + Who spread his floors of solid oak on high, + On beams rough-hewn from age to age that lie, + Bade his wide fabric unimpaired sustain + The orchard's store, and cheese, and golden grain; + Bade from its central base, capacious laid, + The well-wrought chimney rear its lofty head + Where since hath many a savoury ham been stored, + And tempests howled and Christmas gambols roared. + +The tired ploughman, steeped in luxurious heat, by and by +falls asleep and dreams sweetly until his chilblains or the +snapping fire awakes him, and he pulls himself up and goes +forth yawning to give his team their last feed, his lantern +throwing a feeble gleam on the snow as he makes his way to the +stable. Having completed his task, he pats the sides of those +he loves best by way of good-night, and leaves them to their +fragrant meal. And this kindly action on his part suggests +one of the best passages of the poem. Even old well-fed +Dobbin occasionally rebels against his slavery, and released +from his chains will lift his clumsy hoofs and kick, +"disdainful of the dirty wheel." Short-sighted Dobbin! + + Thy chains were freedom, and thy toils repose, + Could the poor post-horse tell thee all his woes; + Show thee his bleeding shoulders, and unfold + The dreadful anguish he endures for gold; + Hired at each call of business, lust, or rage, + That prompts the traveller on from stage to stage. + Still on his strength depends their boasted speed; + For them his limbs grow weak, his bare ribs bleed; + And though he groaning quickens at command, + Their extra shilling in the rider's hand + Becomes his bitter scourge . . . . + +The description, too long to quote, which follows of the +tortures inflicted on the post-horse a century ago, is almost +incredible to us, and we flatter ourselves that such things +would not be tolerated now. But we must get over the ground +somehow, and I take it that but for the invention of other +more rapid means of transit the present generation would be as +little concerned at the pains of the post-horse as they are at +the horrors enacted behind the closed doors of the +physiological laboratories, the atrocity of the steel trap, +the continual murdering by our big game hunters of all the +noblest animals left on the globe, and finally the annual +massacre of millions of beautiful birds in their breeding time +to provide ornaments for the hats of our women. + +"Come forth he must," says Bloomfield, when he describes how +the flogged horse at length gains the end of the stage and, +"trembling under complicated pains," when "every nerve a +separate anguish knows," he is finally unharnessed and led to +the stable door, but has scarcely tasted food and rest before +he is called for again. + + Though limping, maimed and sore; + He hears the whip; the chaise is at the door . . . + The collar tightens and again he feels + His half-healed wounds inflamed; again the wheels + With tiresome sameness in his ears resound + O'er blinding dust or miles of flinty ground. + +This is over and done with simply because the post-horse is no +longer wanted, and we have to remember that no form of cruelty +inflicted, whether for sport or profit or from some other +motive, on the lower animals has ever died out of itself in +the land. Its end has invariably been brought about by +legislation through the devotion of men who were the "cranks," +the "faddists," the "sentimentalists," of their day, who were +jeered and laughed at by their fellows, and who only succeeded +by sheer tenacity and force of character after long fighting +against public opinion and a reluctant Parliament, in finally +getting their law. + +Bloomfield's was but a small voice crying in the wilderness, +and he was indeed a small singer in the day of our greatest +singers. As a poet he was not worthy to unloose the buckles +of their shoes; but he had one thing in common with the best +and greatest, the feeling of tender love and compassion for +the lower animals which was in Thomson and Cowper, but found +its highest expression in his own great contemporaries, +Coleridge, Shelley, and Wordsworth. In virtue of this feeling +he was of their illustrious brotherhood. + +In conclusion, I will quote one more passage. From the +subject of horses he passes to that of dogs and their +occasional reversion to wildness, when the mastiff or cur, the +"faithful" house-dog by day, takes to sheep-killing by night. +As a rule he is exceedingly cunning, committing his +depredations at a distance frown home, and after getting his +fill of slaughter he sneaks home in the early hours to spend +the day in his kennel "licking his guilty paws." This is an +anxious time for shepherds and farmers, and poor Giles is +compelled to pay late evening visits to his small flock of +heavy-sided ewes penned in their distant fold. It is a +comfort to him to have a full moon on these lonely +expeditions, and despite his tremors he is able to appreciate +the beauty of the scene. + + With saunt'ring steps he climbs the distant stile, + Whilst all around him wears a placid smile; + There views the white-robed clouds in clusters driven + And all the glorious pageantry of heaven. + Low on the utmost bound'ry of the sight + The rising vapours catch the silver light; + Thence fancy measures as they parting fly + Which first will throw its shadow on the eye, + Passing the source of light; and thence away + Succeeded quick by brighter still than they. + For yet above the wafted clouds are seen + (In a remoter sky still more serene) + Others detached in ranges through the air, + Spotless as snow and countless as they're fair; + Scattered immensely wide from east to west + The beauteous semblance of a flock at rest. + +This is almost the only passage in the poem in which something +of the vastness of visible nature is conveyed. He saw the +vastness only in the sky on nights with a full moon or when he +made a telescope of his hat to watch the flight of the lark. +It was not a hilly country about his native place, and his +horizon was a very limited one, usually bounded by the +hedgerow timber at the end of the level field. The things he +depicts were seen at short range, and the poetry, we see, was +of a very modest kind. It was a "humble note" which pleased +me in the days of long ago when I was young and very ignorant, +and as it pleases me still it may be supposed that mentally I +have not progressed with the years. Nevertheless, I am not +incapable of appreciating the greater music; all that is said +in its praise, even to the extremest expressions of admiration +of those who are moved to a sense of wonder by it, find an +echo in me. But it is not only a delight to me to listen to +the lark singing at heaven's gate and to the vesper +nightingale in the oak copse--the singer of a golden throat +and wondrous artistry; I also love the smaller vocalists--the +modest shufewing and the lesser whitethroat and the +yellowhammer with his simple chant. These are very dear to +me: their strains do not strike me as trivial; they have a +lesser distinction of their own and I would not miss them from +the choir. The literary man will smile at this and say that +my paper is naught but an idle exercise, but I fancy I shall +sleep the better tonight for having discharged this ancient +debt which has been long on my conscience. + + + + +Chapter Twenty-Five: My Friend Jack + + +My friend rack is a retriever--very black, very curly, perfect +in shape, but just a retriever; and he is really not my +friend, only he thinks he is, which comes to the same thing. +So convinced is he that I am his guide, protector, and true +master, that if I were to give him a downright scolding or +even a thrashing he would think it was all right and go on +just the same. His way of going on is to make a companion of +me whether I want him or not. I do not want him, but his idea +is that I want him very much. I bitterly blame myself for +having made the first advances, although nothing came of it +except that he growled. I met him in a Cornish village in a +house where I stayed. There was a nice kennel there, painted +green, with a bed of clean straw and an empty plate which had +contained his dinner, but on peeping in I saw no dog. Next +day it was the same, and the next, and the day after that; +then I inquired about it--Was there a dog in that house or +not? Oh, yes, certainly there was: Jack, but a very +independent sort of dog. On most days he looked in, ate his +dinner and had a nap on his straw, but he was not what you +would call a home-keeping dog. + +One day I found him in, and after we had looked for about a +minute at each other, I squatting before the kennel, he with +chin on paws pretending to be looking through me at something +beyond, I addressed a few kind words to him, which he received +with the before-mentioned growl. I pronounced him a surly +brute and went away. It was growl for growl. Nevertheless I +was well pleased at having escaped the consequences in +speaking kindly to him. I am not a "doggy" person nor even a +canophilist. The purely parasitic or degenerate pet dog moves +me to compassion, but the natural vigorous outdoor dog I fear +and avoid because we are not in harmony; consequently I suffer +and am a loser when he forces his company on me. The outdoor +world I live in is not the one to which a man goes for a +constitutional, with a dog to save him from feeling lonely, +or, if he has a gun, with a dog to help him kill something. +It is a world which has sound in it, distant cries and +penetrative calls, and low mysterious notes, as of insects +and corncrakes, and frogs chirping and of grasshopper +warblers--sounds like wind in the dry sedges. And there are +also sweet and beautiful songs; but it is very quiet world +where creatures move about subtly, on wings, on polished +scales, on softly padded feet--rabbits, foxes, stoats, +weasels, and voles and birds and lizards and adders and +slow-worms, also beetles and dragon-flies. Many are at enmity +with each other, but on account of their quietude there is no +disturbance, no outcry and rushing into hiding. And having +acquired this habit from them I am able to see and be with +them. The sitting bird, the frolicking rabbit, the basking +adder--they are as little disturbed at my presence as the +butterfly that drops down close to my feet to sun his wings on +a leaf or frond and makes me hold my breath at the sight of +his divine colour, as if he had just fluttered down from some +brighter realm in the sky. Think of a dog in this world, +intoxicated with the odours of so many wild creatures, dashing +and splashing through bogs and bushes! It is ten times worse +than a bull in a china-shop. The bull can but smash a lot of +objects made of baked clay; the dog introduces a mad panic in +a world of living intelligent beings, a fairy realm of +exquisite beauty. They scuttle away and vanish into hiding as +if a deadly wind had blown over the earth and swept them out +of existence. Only the birds remain--they can fly and do not +fear for their own lives, but are in a state of intense +anxiety about their eggs and young among the bushes which he +is dashing through or exploring. + +I had good reason, then, to congratulate myself on Jack's +surly behaviour on our first meeting. Then, a few days later, +a curious thing happened. Jack was discovered one morning in +his kennel, and when spoken to came or rather dragged himself +out, a most pitiable object. He was horribly bruised and sore +all over; his bones appeared to be all broken; he was limp and +could hardly get on his feet, and in that miserable condition +he continued for some three days. + +At first we thought he had been in a big fight--he was +inclined that way, his master said--but we could discover no +tooth marks or lacerations, nothing but bruises. Perhaps, we +said, he had fallen into the hands of some cruel person in one +of the distant moorland farms, who had tied him up, then +thrashed him with a big stick, and finally turned him loose to +die on the moor or crawl home if he could. His master looked +so black at this that we said no more about it. But Jack was +a wonderfully tough dog, all gristle I think, and after three +days of lying there like a dead dog he quickly recovered, +though I'm quite sure that if his injuries had been +distributed among any half-dozen pampered or pet dogs it would +have killed them all. A morning came when the kennel was +empty: Jack was not dead--he was well again, and, as usual, +out. + +Just then I was absent for a week or ten days then, back +again, I went out one fine morning for a long day's ramble +along the coast. A mile or so from home, happening to glance +back I caught sight of a black dog's face among the bushes +thirty or forty yards away gazing earnestly at me. It was +Jack, of course, nothing but his head visible in an opening +among the bushes--a black head which looked as if carved in +ebony, in a wonderful setting of shining yellow furze +blossoms. The beauty and singularity of the sight made it +impossible for me to be angry with him, though there's nothing +a man more resents than being shadowed, or secretly followed +and spied upon, even by a dog, so, without considering what I +was letting myself in for, I cried out "Jack" and instantly he +bounded out and came to my side, then flew on ahead, well +pleased to lead the way. + +"I must suffer him this time," I said resignedly, and went on, +he always ahead acting as my scout and hunter--self-appointed, +of course, but as I had not ordered him back in trumpet tones +and hurled a rock at him to enforce the command, he took it +that he was appointed by me. He certainly made the most of +his position; no one could say that he was lacking in zeal. +He scoured the country to the right and left and far in +advance of me, crashing through furze thickets and splashing +across bogs and streams, spreading terror where he went and +leaving nothing for me to look at. So it went on until after +one o'clock when, tired and hungry, I was glad to go down into +a small fishing cove to get some dinner in a cottage I knew. +Jack threw himself down on the floor and shared my meal, then +made friends with the fisherman's wife and got a second meal +of saffron cake which, being a Cornish dog, he thoroughly +enjoyed. + +The second half of the day was very much like the first, +altogether a blank day for me, although a very full one for +Jack, who had filled a vast number of wild creatures with +terror, furiously hunted a hundred or more, and succeeded in +killing two or three. + +Jack was impossible, and would never be allowed to follow me +again. So I sternly said and so thought, but when the time +came and I found him waiting for me his brown eyes bright with +joyful anticipation, I could not scowl at him and thunder out +No! I could not help putting myself in his place. For here +he was, a dog of boundless energy who must exercise his powers +or be miserable, with nothing in the village for him except to +witness the not very exciting activities of others; and that, +I dscovered, had been his life. He was mad to do something, +and because there was nothing for him to do his time was +mostly spent in going about the village to keep an eye on +the movements of the people, especially of those who did +the work, always with the hope that his services might be +required in some way by some one. He was grateful for the +smallest crumbs, so to speak. House-work and work about the +house--milking, feeding the pigs and so on--did not interest +him, nor would he attend the labourers in the fields. Harvest +time would make a difference; now it was ploughing, sowing, +and hoeing, with nothing for Jack. But he was always down at +the fishing cove to see the boats go out or come in and join +in the excitement when there was a good catch. It was still +better when the boat went with provisions to the lighthouse, +or to relieve the keeper, for then Jack would go too and if +they would not have him he would plunge into the waves and +swim after it until the sails were hoisted and it flew like a +great gull from him and he was compelled to swim back to land. +If there was nothing else to do he would go to the stone +quarry and keep the quarrymen company, sharing their dinner +and hunting away the cows and donkeys that came too near. +Then at six o'clock he would turn up at the cricket-field, +where a few young enthusiasts would always attend to practise +after working hours. + +Living this way Jack was, of course, known to everybody--as +well known as the burly parson, the tall policeman, and the +lazy girl who acted as postman and strolled about the parish +once a day delivering the letters. When Jack trotted down the +village street he received as many greetings as any human +inhabitant--"Hullo, Jack!" or "Morning, Jack," or "Where be +going, Jack?" + +But all this variety, and all he could do to fit himself into +and be a part of the village life and fill up his time, did +not satisfy him. Happiness for Jack was out on the moor--its +lonely wet thorny places, pregnant with fascinating scents, +not of flowers and odorous herbs, but of alert, warm-blooded, +and swift-footed creatures. And I was going there--would I, +could I, be so heartless as to refuse to take him? + +You see that Jack, being a dog, could not go there alone. He +was a social being by instinct as well as training, dependent +on others, or on the one who was his head and master. His +human master, or the man who took him out and spoke to him in +a tone of authority, represented the head of the pack--the +leading dog for the time being, albeit a dog that walked on +his hind legs and spoke a bow-wow dialect of his own. + +I thought of all this and of many things besides. The dog, I +remembered, was taken by man out of his own world and thrust +into one where he can never adapt himself perfectly to the +conditions, and it was consequently nothing more than simple +justice on my part to do what I could to satisfy his desire +even at some cost to myself. But while I was revolving the +matter in my mind, feeling rather unhappy about it, Jack was +quite happy, since he had nothing to revolve. For him it was +all settled and done with. Having taken him out once, I must +go on taking him out always. Our two lives, hitherto running +apart--his in the village, where he occupied himself with +uncongenial affairs, mine on the moor where, having but two +legs to run on, I could catch no rabbits--were now united in +one current to our mutual advantage. His habits were altered +to suit the new life. He stayed in now so as not to lose me +when I went for a walk, and when returning, instead of going +back to his kennel, he followed me in and threw himself down, +all wet, on the rug before the fire. His master and mistress +came in and stared in astonishment. It was against the rules +of the house! They ordered him out and he looked at them +without moving. Then they spoke again very sharply indeed, +and he growled a low buzzing growl without lifting his chin +from his paws, and they had to leave him! He had transferred +his allegiance to a new master and head of the pack. He was +under my protection and felt quite safe: if I had taken any +part in that scene it would have been to order those two +persons who had once lorded it over him out of the room! + +I didn't really mind his throwing over his master and taking +possession of the rug in my sitting-room, but I certainly did +very keenly resent his behaviour towards the birds every +morning at breakfast-time. It was my chief pleasure to feed +them during the bad weather, and it was often a difficult task +even before Jack came on the scene to mix himself in my +affairs. The Land's End is, I believe, the windiest place in +the world, and when I opened the window and threw the scraps +out the wind would catch and whirl them away like so many +feathers over the garden wall, and I could not see what became +of them. It was necessary to go out by the kitchen door at +the back (the front door facing the sea being impossible) and +scatter the food on the lawn, and then go into watch the +result from behind the window. The blackbirds and thrushes +would wait for a lull to fly in over the wall, while the daws +would hover overhead and sometimes succeed in dropping down +and seizing a crust, but often enough when descending they +would be caught and whirled away by the blast. The poor +magpies found their long tails very much against them in the +scramble, and it was even worse with the pied wagtail. He +would go straight for the bread and get whirled and tossed +about the smooth lawn like a toy bird made of feathers, his +tail blown over his head. It was bad enough, and then Jack, +curious about these visits to the lawn, came to investigate +and finding the scraps, proceeded to eat them all up. I tried +to make him understand better by feeding him before I fed the +birds; then by scolding and even hitting him, but he would not +see it; he knew better than I did; he wasn't hungry and he +didn't want bread, but he would eat it all the same, every +scrap of it, just to prevent it from being wasted. Jack was +doubtless both vexed and amused at my simplicity in thinking +that all this food which I put on the lawn would remain there +undevoured by those useless creatures the birds until it was +wanted. + +Even this I forgave him, for I saw that he had not, that with +his dog mind he could not, understand me. I also remembered +the words of a wise old Cornish writer with regard to the mind +of the lower animals: "But their faculties of mind are no less +proportioned to their state of subjection than the shape and +properties of their bodies. They have knowledge peculiar to +their several spheres and sufficient for the under-part they +have to act." + +Let me be free from the delusion that it is possible to raise +them above this level, or in other words to add an inch to +their mental stature. I have nothing to forgive Jack after +all. And so in spite of everything Jack was suffered at home +and accompanied me again and again in my walks abroad; and +there were more blank days, or if not altogether blank, seeing +that there was Jack himself to be observed and thought about, +they were not the kind of days I had counted on having. My +only consolation was that Jack failed to capture more than +one out of every hundred, or perhaps five hundred, of the +creatures he hunted, and that I was even able to save a few of +these. But I could not help admiring his tremendous energy +and courage, especially in cliff-climbing when we visited the +headlands--those stupendous masses and lofty piles of granite +which rise like castles built by giants of old. He would +almost make me tremble for his life when, after climbing on to +some projecting rock, he would go to the extreme end and look +down over it as if it pleased him to watch the big waves break +in foam on the black rocks a couple of hundred feet below. +But it was not the big green waves or any sight in nature that +drew him--he sniffed and sniffed and wriggled and twisted his +black nose, and raised and depressed his ears as he sniffed, +and was excited solely because the upward currents of air +brought him tidings of living creatures that lurked in the +rocks below--badger and fox and rabbit. One day when quitting +one of these places, on looking up I spied Jack standing on +the summit of a precipice about seventy-five feet high. Jack +saw me and waved his tail, and then started to come straight +down to me! From the top a faint rabbit track was, visible +winding downwards to within twenty-four feet of the ground; +the rest was a sheer wall of rock. Down he dashed, faster and +faster as he got to where the track ended, and then losing his +footing he fell swiftly to the earth, but luckily dropped on a +deep spongy turf and was not hurt. After witnessing this +reckless act I knew how he had come by those frightful bruises +on a former occasion. He had doubtless fallen a long way down +a cliff and had been almost crushed on the stones. But the +lesson was lost on Jack; he would have it that where rabbits +and foxes went he could go! + +After all, the chief pleasure those blank bad days had for me +was the thought that Jack was as happy as he could well be. +But it was not enough to satisfy me, and by and by it came +into my mind that I had been long enough at that place. It +was hard to leave Jack, who had put himself so entirely in my +hands, and trusted me so implicitly. But--the weather was +keeping very bad: was there ever known such a June as this of +1907? So wet and windy and cold! Then, too, the bloom had +gone from the furze. It was, I remembered, to witness this +chief loveliness that I came. Looking on the wide moor and +far-off boulder-strewn hills and seeing how rusty the bushes +were, I quoted-- + + The bloom has gone, and with the bloom go I, + +and early in the morning, with all my belongings on my back, I +stole softly forth, glancing apprehensively in the direction +of the kennel, and out on to the windy road. It was painful +to me to have to decamp in this way; it made me think meanly +of myself; but if Jack could read this and could speak his +mind I think he would acknowledge that my way of bringing the +connection to an end was best for both of us. I was not the +person, or dog on two legs, he had taken me for, one with a +proper desire to kill things: I only acted according to my +poor lights. Nothing, then, remains to be said except that +one word which it was not convenient to speak on the windy +morning of my departure--Good-bye Jack. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Afoot in England, by W.H. Hudson + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFOOT IN ENGLAND *** + +This file should be named ftnng10.txt or ftnng10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, ftnng11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ftnng10a.txt + + + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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