Part 12

I’m only human after all, and naturally any woman’s temperature would rise in the face of such spurning of her free-will offerings. I didn’t write, and I’m using the jam-jars still. The nation doesn’t seem any the worse off—though Virginia points out to me that the War _might_ have ended sooner had I insisted on handing them over; she says every little helps, as is proved by the fact that the very week she put her first 15_s._ 6_d._ into Exchequer Bonds the Government got the first “tank.”

At any rate, as I never eat preserves myself, I can still, even with a restricted sugar allowance, enjoy the peculiar pleasure that arises within a woman’s soul when she is occasionally able to say, quite casually as it were, to a friend: “Would you care to have a pot of my new gooseberry and cinnamon jam? They say it’s rather good, though of course—etc.” And the friend replies: “Oh, I should _love_ it, dear; _such_ a treat; that jar of ginger marmalade I took home last time was positively _delicious_. Everyone said—etc.”

One favourite item for collection among the cottagers is old bottles, and the stock you will see in some of their outhouses is often most extensive and varied. On one occasion an old man who was doing some odd days’ work for me about the garden, in the absence of the handyman, was deploring the way the rabbits devastated the cabbages.

“I’ll get rid on ’em for ’ee if you’ll leave ’em to me!” he assured me. I said I only wished he would, as they are a real plague at times.

Imagine my horror a few days later when I took some friends along to see the vegetables, to discover a legion of empty whisky bottles, labels intact, neck downwards in the soil, and dotted about the vegetable garden in all directions. The old man explained that they were put there to skeer they rabbits, as they was dreadful frit of bottles! But my friends refused to believe that so honest-looking an old Amos could have brought them with him!

* * * * *

The inside of the wood-house is as aloof as are the hills from our machinery-driven, smoke-begrimed, petrol-flavoured twentieth century. Even when work is in progress, here is no hustle; there are no short cuts to the other side of a larch log; the saw must go steadily, patiently, almost slowly, if it hopes to get through the tree at one standing.

To step from the hot noonday glare, on a summer day, into the cool seclusion of these thick stone walls, is to enter a haven of peace and quiet that would seem to belong to the forest primeval rather than to this noise-stricken age.

The window opening to the north excludes the fierce sun, but the yellow-washed walls give light and cheeriness. And the ivy, that ubiquitous plant that scorns all disadvantages, and overcomes every obstacle, has crept in under the red tiles and hangs in festoons from the dark rafters; while in other places its pale green shoots have found for themselves a way clean through the thickness of the wall, pushing along crevices and around the stones, till at last they have come to light on the inner side, where they immediately proceed to drape lopped trunks and big branches standing in the corner.

It is no mere accumulation of timber and sticks that is housed within these rough old walls. The very spirit of the forest seems to permeate the place; everything is part and parcel of the big outside—the stones that pave the floor; the heap of cones in one corner, waiting to brighten up smouldering winter fires and set them all aglow; the solid sections of some sturdy oak, cut to just the right height for seats; the bark stripped from a birch-tree, silver white even now, with grey and pinkish paper-like peelings and black breathing marks; and the great brown branches of larch, a tracery of studded twigs and stems and cones, that have been placed across the end of the wood-house, and sweep the rafters at the top, looking, as you enter the door, like some wonderful rood-screen, dark brown with age, shutting off an ancient, yellow-washed chancel—though such a screen no mortal hand could ever carve!

The larch is always in evidence, and gives a resinous odour to the place, as does the sawdust by the bench, a rich brown pile, for very little of our hillside wood is white; most of it ranges from reddish-brown to mahogany colour. Though here is a small creamy-white gate in course of construction—merely a little wicket to keep the calves out of the orchard—that is made of straight, round branches, slit down the centre, so that one side of each is flat and the other semicircular. The design is simplicity itself, some uprights with a few cross-pieces to hold them together and suggest a trellis; yet the rich cream colour and the satiny surface of the wood make it a thing of distinct beauty. This is only a branch of the lime-tree, with the bark peeled off.

In an ordinary way we seldom have a chance to notice the intrinsic beauty of wood itself. Of course we see it in its polished perfection when it comes to us in some choice piece of furniture, or panelling; but this is not exactly the beauty to which I refer. Each branch, each tree trunk, has, in its unpolished state, definite characteristics of its own, quite distinct from those we see in the finished product civilization regards as the one end to be aimed for. These characteristics may be rough, and are frequently rugged; but their appeal is often all the stronger for this fact.

Look at the wonderful ribbing on the rind of this Spanish chestnut; what is it that wakes up in you when you study its lines and formation? You cannot say, yet you respond to it in an indefinable manner. These branches of apple-wood, only gnarled old things, twisted and crooked and all out of shape some people would say; yet you know that they would not have been nearly so lovely had they been straight as a dart. The larches with their strong bark showing grey and red and green, and furrowed like the sea sand—isn’t there something in this that calls to you from back recesses of your being, and reminds you of the time when you—no, not you, but your ancestors, centuries ago, lived not so much in cities and houses made with hands, as out of doors, finding mystery in the green-roofed aisles and the cathedral dimness of forests long since felled?

To those of us who spend much time among these hills, each tree within the wood-house comes as a friend, with a definite personality and distinct association, and we regret its individual “going out,” even though we know it to be inevitable.

This giant, that leans against the outside wall, with no possibility of ever getting inside the door until it has been sawn in half, is a big fir (where a squirrel nested) that heeled right over in a blizzard. Here is the tall cherry-tree that died of a hollow heart, so beloved of the birds that they left us never a one if we got up later than half-past four the morning the cherries were ripe. This is the bough from the big plum-tree that broke down last August under its weight of fruit. These branches of old apple-trees are some of the winter wreckage that was strewn about the orchards; see the lichen that covers them, could anything be more satisfying to look upon? And these are some of the birches that seemed so frail as they bent to the wind on the slopes, with purple twigs and green leaves always moving; until you have actually handled them you scarcely realize the strength and toughness of the delicate-looking bark, and you henceforth take a much more personal interest in Hiawatha and his canoe, even though his tree was another member of the family. And that convenient stump you are sitting upon is part of a hoary pear, that used annually to clothe itself in white—and then contribute more gallons of perry than it does to think of in these more sober days!

But no mere catalogue of contents can describe the charm of this little wind-swept place. To realise it you must first of all stand in need of quiet and retreat. When the craving comes upon you that impels us all, at one time or another, to get away from “things” and be alone with ourselves and Nature that we may re-discover our souls, take a book if you will (it matters not what, for you won’t read it, but to some it is essential that a book be in the hand if they are to sit still for a moment!) and climb the hill to that wood-house.

Take a seat on the beech log by the door, and let yourself absorb some of the spirit of your environment. Keep quite still when the squirrel trails his bushy tail down the path, he won’t inquire after your National Registration card; neither will the pheasant, even though he raises his head with a suspicious jerk as he is feeding among the grass. Little rabbits will dart in and out of their burrows among the bracken; the woodpecker will mock at you from a tree that waves above the roof; a robin will streak down from nowhere, like a flash, and stand as erect as a drill-sergeant on the corner of the work-bench while he inquires—but, there is an interruption; he excuses himself for a moment while he goes off to thrash his wife who ventured to peep in at the window. Let them all have their way, they are as much a part of the general atmosphere of the place as the sweet scent of the evening dew upon the grass, and the ceaseless soughing of the wind in the branches; moreover, this is home to them.

The little folk of the forests are so companionable when you know them; even the same butterflies will come again and again. I recently spent two hours a day for a fortnight in this spot, and all the time apparently the same butterfly hovered about the door, resting every few minutes on the warm rock among the stone-crop and fiercely chasing off any other butterfly that came within its evidently marked-out domain. And the little folk never bore you with their boastings, nor weary you with platitudes. They are content to let you think your own thoughts, to take you as you are, if you will but recollect that theirs are ancient privileges that have descended to them as a world-old heritage. It is you who, helpless in the grip of civilisation, sold your forest “hearth-rights” long since, and are now but a stranger, or at best a passing guest, in this out-door world that was man’s first home.

* * * * *

Gradually quiet possesses you, and you hear the trees talking of things that have far outstripped the clash and turmoil of modernity. What is it they say, those swaying boughs and branches that throb with every wind, and these that stand around you, silently, waiting their last service to man, each with some final sacrificial offering—the apple-wood giving in incense, the oak giving in strength, and the laurel giving in flame?

Theirs is a blessing rather than a message; a lifting of a load from the over-burdened heart rather than the teaching of stern lessons. And as you shake off some of the dust of earth that has clogged your soul, you find yourself sending out thoughts in directions long forgotten; the things of earth take on new proportions, the first being often last, and the last becoming first.

* * * * *

The ministry of the forest trees can never be entirely explained; but one remembers with reverence that our Lord Himself worked in some such little wood-house, where He touched the trees and fashioned the timber with His sacred Hands.

Haply He left His Benediction when He passed that way.

XIII

Abigail’s “Lonely Sailor”

I’M sure I didn’t start my career of usefulness with any intention of adopting a “lonely sailor.” It was Abigail who bestowed him upon me.

So far as I remember, it was something like this.

Abigail had joined “The Domestic Helpers’ Branch” of a Guild, organised by some well-meaning souls, for the purpose of befriending those men in the Army and Navy who are supposed to be without feminine kith or kin of any description to take an interest in them.

She had been lured to a Guild meeting by her friend Pamela.

Pamela, it should be explained, was my parlour-maid, originally, but when the national trumpet sounded for the reduction of one’s staff of employees, she had moved a little further along the road, to “The Gables,” a household that fancied they needed a parlour-maid worse than I did.

We were mutually quite satisfied with the transference; she had recently had a sister enter the service of a ducal family, and I had found the effort necessary to keep pace with the duchess exceedingly wearing. Kind hearts may be more than coronets, but they don’t always show to such advantage, since one has to wear them inside.

As we had parted with no recriminations on either side, naturally I begged Pamela to make my house “a home away from home” whenever she pleased, which she accordingly did; and it was on one of her many “runs in” that she had expatiated on the Guild in question, and induced Abigail to sample it.

* * * * *

And thus, Abigail had returned from the meeting moved to the very core of her kind heart by the harrowing details the speaker had related of fine, daring, courageous, and magnificent specimens of British and Colonial manhood, left desolate and uncared for, pining for a word of sympathy and understanding from someone in the home-land—a word that never came, alas!

Abigail said it had quite put her off her supper that night, thinking of all those brave men, defending us and our homes right up to their very last breath—and yet, never a woman to get them a clean pair of socks or a hot meal when all was over; not a letter of sympathy, nor a card with a line on it (here cook told her that funeral cards had quite gone out), not so much as a word of encouragement from any relative under the sun, every woman at home selfishly engaged with her own concerns—— Why, it was a disgrace to the country that our heroes should be neglected and put upon by the women of the land in any such way! And please would I mind her sending off a cake as soon as possible? as of course she had adopted a lonely sailor, wouldn’t have it on her conscience not to; and cook was quite willing to make it, there was plenty of dripping, and we still had a fair amount of carraway seeds left, and they wouldn’t come as expensive as currants—cook’s cousins at the Crystal Palace liked carraways _quite_ as well as currants if plenty of spice and peel was put in. The fried potatoes had nearly _choked_ her, when she was telling cook about it all . . . no, not because she was talking with her mouth full; she meant that the very thought of those poor lonely men was like eating sawdust. The speaker at the meeting had said he was sure each one present had only to ask her employer, and permission would be given immediately and gladly for a cake or potted meat or some other little delicacy to be sent once a week, as a sign of sympathy and understanding, to one of these grand yet lonely souls.

Of course I immediately and gladly gave permission for the concrete sympathy to be sent once a week, but stipulated that it was to be a cake; five shillings’ worth of meat, as per my butcher’s charges, goes positively nowhere when “potted.” I reckoned that a good dripping cake would give the desolate one a deal more sympathy for the money.

(At the same time, to keep our rations properly balanced I cut off the small plate of spice buns, our only cake luxury, which had been in the habit of adorning our Sunday afternoon tea-table.)

And oh! the care with which we sewed up that first box of sympathy in a remnant of cretonne, carefully putting it on wrong side out (to preserve its beauty), and hoping that when he undid it he would notice what a charming pattern of purple dahlias and blue roses was on the inside, and how the cretonne was just a nice size to make up into a boot bag if he chanced to be needing a new one.

* * * * *

I pass over the next few weeks while we waited anxiously for the “lonely sailor” to materialise. He was engaged on board H.M.S. “The North Sea,” and sailors, we know, are subject to wind and weather. Abigail said she almost wished now that she had selected a lonely soldier; she could have had one if she had liked; but she had chosen a sailor because she thought he might wear better. The German sailors didn’t seem so pigheadedly bent on fighting as the German soldiers were.

We did our best to keep the time from hanging idly on our hands by devising as much variety as possible for future menus, discussing the respective merits of cinnamon _versus_ cocoanut as a flavouring, and wondering whether after all we shouldn’t be more likely to buck up his desolate spirits (and more particularly his pen) if we sent a sultana cake next week, rather than gingerbread.

I never before knew Abigail so prompt in her attendance upon the postman’s knock as she was during those blank weeks that accompanied the first half-dozen cakes. And then, when she was in a very slough of dark despondency, and constantly wondering who _had_ eaten them, since they had evidently never reached _him_, a letter arrived, and forthwith Abigail trod upon air—figuratively, I mean, not literally; in reality I never heard her so noisy; she went up and down, up and down the stairs past my study door where I was working, as though she had lost a step and was looking for it! Finally, when I heard her singing “Days and moments quickly flying” as she O-cedar-mopped some neighbouring polished boards, I knew something must have happened, and I opened the door and asked if anything was the matter? Whereupon she produced the letter from the bib of her apron—would have brought it before, only knew I liked everything to be perfectly quiet when I was working—and didn’t I think it was a lovely letter?

Though the handwriting wasn’t much to boast of, and the spelling even worse, it was a straightforward, man-like letter; he was evidently very pleased to have the cakes, and quite touched that the young lady should have been so kind as to think of him. He said his people were too far off to send him anything like that: his father and mother had gone out to Canada when he was ten years old. No one had sent him a _parcel_ so far, therefore it was quite a surprise packet when the first one came. It was kind of her to ask if he would like some more; all he could say was—“the more the merrier,” if the young lady felt like it.

And he signed himself, her faithful friend, Dick.

After that Dick’s name became so all-insistent in our midst that the whole household appeared to exist solely for the purpose of revolving round him. So constantly was it wafted on the four winds of heaven, that I remarked to the Head of Affairs: it seemed for all the world as though we had adopted a pet canary, and were everlastingly wondering if his seed glass had been replenished.

* * * * *

There was only one slight shadow falling athwart the sunshine. Pamela (who was a great authority on “How to tell your character by your handwriting,” having had her own delineated by her favourite penny weekly) had declared that Dick was anæmic and delicate; she knew, because his handwriting sloped downwards—a sure sign; it was also cramped and irregular, an unfailing indication of a mean and grasping nature; while the heavy downstrokes and the absence of punctuation proved as plain as plain could be that he was unreliable.

Poor Pamela had had her own disappointments in life, and had been warped a little thereby.

Of course Abigail said she did not believe a word of such rubbish, and she rather liked the funny-shaped letters, and thought the black strokes looked particularly strong and healthy.

Nevertheless, it was surprising how that trifle of seed, carelessly dropped, took root in our minds, and how from that date onwards we all regarded Dick as anæmic and in need of strenuous nourishment; while if more than a month elapsed between his communications, we couldn’t help just wondering whether, after all, he might not be a _little_ mean and grasping, and six weeks demonstrated with absolute certainty that he was unreliable!

* * * * *

A month after we received his first letter, there came another, and of course we all fluttered with excitement.

Dick still approved of the cakes, I was glad to hear; and since the young lady had asked if there was anything else she could send, he wasn’t one to cadge for himself, but there was his mate Mick; he wanted to put in a word for him. Mick, it appeared, was even more lonely, more ignored by the world of women, more in need of sympathetic understanding than he was; and—what was more to the point—was badly in want of a large scarf. Not that Mick would have asked for it himself, very independent Mick was; but since he had so enjoyed half of every cake, and the nights were very cold this time of the year, and he had been his pal for years, why, he felt sure the young lady wouldn’t mind his just mentioning it, as he couldn’t think of telling her how short he was of socks himself.

_Mind!_ Why, we all regarded Dick as a public benefactor! Abigail discovered that Dick and Mick rhymed, and as she said, you didn’t have poetry like that brought to the door _every_ day! She suddenly developed the airs of a society belle; she borrowed my copy of “The Modern Knitting Book;” and, might she just run out for an hour in the afternoon to get some wool—you needed thicker wool for scarves than for socks—as the shops were so dark at night?

Cook, with her numerous cousins on H.M.S. “Crystal Palace” (a near neighbour of ours), was given to understand that she could now take a second place! There was no getting away from the fact that Mr. Dick and Mr. Mick were actually engaged in the defence of the realm, while cook’s cousins appeared to do nothing more than take joy-rides in motor-lorries to and fro along our road.

Pamela alone was sceptical; she said she should go cautiously, you never knew! But then, she had every reason to be a pessimist; even her “lonely soldier” had been sent out to China, and, naturally, you can’t sympathise so understandingly with anyone when it takes a couple of months before you get an answer to your letter (if even he should chance to write by return), as when he is only across the Straits of Dover. She said she got tired of keeping copies of her letters, so that she might know what he was talking about when he wrote back—only he never did!

Surmising that Abigail would have her hand over-full if she took on the wants of both men, I said to her, “I think _I_ had better adopt Mr. Mick, as I am sure you will have enough to do to provide et-ceteras for Mr. Dick! You can take all the credit for it, and write the letters, but I will settle the bills.”

And having some socks and a large muffler all ready for dispatch to some needy man, I gave them to her and said I would pay the postage, if she would save me the trouble of doing them up and taking them to the post office. I also added that a cake had better be sent once a week to Mr. Mick in addition to the one sent to Mr. Dick. I know something of the appetite of the Navy—and what is one simple cake between two hearty men!

Abigail was effusively grateful, took it quite as a personal favour; you might have thought I was settling an annuity on her own father! She explained that naturally she felt more interest in Dick, and was more anxious to spend her money on him; at the same time, she should certainly mention my name to Mr. Mick; it wouldn’t be fair to take all the credit to herself.

So we left it at that.

I consulted with cook on the subject of securing ample and pleasing variety, combined with unquestionable nourishment; and judging by the amount of information she was able to give me as to what “they” like, you would have thought she had reared a whole family of husbands!