Part 12

They come in families, in amorous couples, in collective friendships of each sex and every number and age. They bring baskets of provisions, cameras, balls wherewith to play rounders on the green; and of musical instruments many weird kinds—concertinas, mouth-organs, babies, and often yapping terriers that set all our own dogs frantic on their chains. An altruist, whose convictions have grown up amidst the quiet slow neighbourliness of the country, never finds his principles less easy of application than when he must atune himself to the holiday moods of people escaped from the town. There is no harm in all the shouting and laughter and fatuous horseplay. Inebriety is practically extinct among those who make summer the season, and the country the scene, of their year’s brief merry-making. And yet it all seems mistaken, reprehensible, on the same principle that a blunder is worse than a crime. It is futile to tell him so, unless he already knows it, and then it is equally unnecessary; but when the day-tripper learns to enjoy himself on the green country-side in the true spirit for which the sun was made to shine and the flowers to grow, he will have found the Philosopher’s Stone that is to change, not mere lead and iron, but Time and Life themselves into gold.

On most mornings in August the more careful of us will go about thrusting greasy paper-scraps out of sight under bushes, flicking the incongruous yellow of banana-peel into obscure corners, lamenting stripped boughs, and marvelling at nosegays thrown heedlessly away, as if the joy of them had lain in the mere plucking. But all the strange folk that use the village for their pleasuring at this time, do not leave these unlovely tokens behind them. Only yesterday, as I sat on the edge of the old worked-out, riverside chalk-pit here—whence you have a view north and south of the glittering water for miles—there came a new sound in the air, and I must throw aside my sheaf of galley-proofs to listen. The sound came from the river, and was still afar off. Many voices were joined in singing one of the old catch-songs, which go round a circle of three or four phrases, and to which there is never an end until you make an end of its beginning in slow time.

The sweet medley grew louder and clearer, and presently there was united to it the rhythmic plash of oars. A great tarry old sea-boat came round the water’s bend, holding a party of a dozen or so. At last the labouring craft and the music came to a halt together, and the singers clambered ashore. I should have forgotten all about them now, for they soon passed out of sight amid the waterside foliage. But as I was coming homeward up the village street, I heard the voices again; and there, under the Seven Sisters on the green, the little company were standing together, singing apparently for their own solace and delight. It was a strange thing, here in unemotional England, and many of the village folk had been drawn wonderingly to their doors. Yet the singers did not seem to remark this, nor to regard their action as anything out of the common. For, the song finished, they broke into several parties and sauntered on, talking quietly amongst themselves as if to make music were part of the daily conversation of their lives.

All that afternoon, from the quiet of my garden, I heard the voices at intervals, and from different points about the village, near and far. Once I saw the party right on the top of Windle Hill, strolling about in twos and threes, looking like foraging crows on the heights. After a while I saw them get together in a little circle; and then, right at the ear’s-tip, I could just catch the higher notes of their singing—a strange wild song, much like the song of the larks that must be contending with them up there against the blue sky.

The last I saw of this mysterious company was at sunset, from my perch over the chalk-pit again. They had already embarked when I arrived, and had got their little ship well under way. The oars were dipping steadily to the same old catch-song that had brought them hither: there was still a faint throbbing echo of ‘White Sand and Grey Sand’ upon the air long after the sun had plunged, and the pale half-moon was beginning to enter a timid silver protest against the lingering crimson in the sky.

II

Near upon half a century I have lived in the world, and cannot yet say of the wind whether I hate it or love it most.

It is a dilemma that comes only to the dweller in the country, for in a town no sane man can be in two minds on the matter. With a careering, mephitic dust choking up all organs of perception, and the risk of being cloven to the chine by a roof slate or lassoed by a loose electric wire, no one can think of wind, hot or cold, without heartily wishing it gone. But in the country, though for my old enemy, the northeast wind, I have nothing but fear and detestation at all seasons, warm gales, whether in winter or summer, come as often in friendly as in inimical guise. Like certain of the Hindu gods, the wind must be content to be treated according to the outcome of its activities, and receive laudation or revilement as this prove fair or foul.

All through to-day the south-west wind has been volleying up the combe, and everywhere in the village there has been a hubbub of slamming doors and rattling casements, and the flack and clutter of linen drying on the garden lines. People fought their way step by step down the hill against the wind, and tripped lightly up it, the oldest and feeblest forced into a smart jog-trot. Aprons were blown over faces, and hats snatched off at corners. The trees overshadowing the village have been lashing together, and roaring out a deep continuous song. The three thatchers on the inn sign, each with a gilded hod of straw, have been flashing signals up to my window every time the sun broke through the flying storm-wrack; and a hundred times in the long day some riding witch of a rain-cloud has tried to drench us, but each time the south-west gale has seized it by the tattered skirts and chevied it away over the hills before it could shed a dozen drops.

But it has been a good wind all through, and fine heartening weather; and I have been glad to be abroad in it whenever I could spare or steal an hour. Said the old vicar, as we climbed up Windle Hill together this morning, his long white beard flowing out before him as he lay back on the blast:

‘I know what you would have done, if I had let you choose the way. You would have struck deep into the woods, like the butterflies, and missed all the healthy buffeting of it. But there is only one place for a man to-day, and that is on the open Down. It never pays in the long-run in life to study how to keep out of the way of hard knocks.’

The sunshine raced ahead of us, vaulted the hilltop, and was gone. A scatter of warm rain drove out of the grey heaven. I turned up my coat-collar just in time to intercept the returning sun.

‘True,’ said I, ‘but the good of hard knocks depends not on their frequency, but on the profit you extract from them. I get and keep designedly as much of this as I can, so a little goes a long way with me. And I love the quiet and stillness of the deep wood, when the wind is roaring out in the open. If we had gone there to-day, we should have found the rosebay willowherbs in full bloom, and more butterflies upon them than you could find in a week elsewhere. Besides, the ups in life are just as good for one as the downs. I can admire the old Scotch pine that clings to the bare hill-top through a century of winter storms, but I must not be inconsiderate of the lilies.’

The old Windlecombe vicar has a way of dealing with notions of this kind which is good for his hearer, whether he allow himself convinced, or consider his dignity affronted. He ventilates such ideas as he would let light into a room, by dashing a rough hand through the dust-grimed window. It is a method unpicturesque and often brutal, but effective and salutary in the main. I owe him gratefully many a pretty rainbow bubble of conceit exploded.

‘Pluck your head out of the sand,’ quoth he, ‘for your ragged hinder-parts are visible to all the world of honest eyes. The pine and the lily are not choosing creatures. To them is their environment allotted, but to you is given the wilful fashioning of it. A man may be either gold or iron—made either for beauty or for use. But the one will not decorate, nor the other uphold the world, if he shirk the fires that must first refine or temper him. So away with your foolish Sahara tricks, and get on with the work the moment brings you.’

By this he meant I was to look about me, and tell him what I saw as we went along, a duty in which I was too often an unintentional malingerer.

‘Yesterday a Londoner was in the village,’ I told him, for a start, ‘and he was scoffing at our Downs. “Where,” said he, “are the green highlands of Sussex I have read so much about? Why, the hills are not green, but brown!” And it was quite true at this season, and from his standpoint down in the valley. Up here we can see what gives the Downs their rich bronze colour in summer-time. From below they looked parched and sunburnt, as though nothing could grow for the heat and drought. But now I can see that the general brown tone is really a mingling of a thousand living hues. Looking straight down as you walk, the turf is as green as ever it was; but a dozen paces onward all this fresh verdure is lost under the greys and drabs of the seeding grass-heads. Then again, the brown colour is due just as much to the blending of all other colours that the eye separates at a close view, but confuses from afar. We are walking on a carpet of flowers; we cannot avoid trampling them, if we are to set foot to the ground at all. Yellow goatsbeard and vetchling, and the little trefoil with the blood-red tips to its petals, and golden hawkweed everywhere; for blues, there are millions of plantains, and sheepsbit, and harebells; and the wild thyme purples half the hillside, making the bright carmine of the orchids brighter still wherever it blows. But I have not reckoned in half the flowers that—’

‘Hold, enough! I am sick of your Londoner, and of every human being for the moment. Listen to the free, glorious wind! Down in the valley there we always think of the wind as a creature with a voice—something striding through the sky and calling as it goes. But up here we know that it is the earth that calls. Hark to it swishing, and surging, and sighing for miles round! The sound is never overhead on these treeless wastes, but always underfoot. You keep head and shoulders up in the soundless sunshine, and walk in a maelstrom. Did you ever think that the larks always sing in the midst of silence, no matter how hard the wind blows? Those are George Artlett’s sheep we are coming to, are they not? I ought to know the old dog’s talk!’

I scanned the hills about me, but could see no sign of sheep, shepherd, or dog. But as we drew to the edge of the wide plateau we were traversing, and got a view down into the steep combe beyond, there sure enough were all three. The sheep, just growing artistically presentable after their June shearing, were scattered over the deep bottom, quietly nibbling at the turf. Far below, in the shadow of a single stunted hawthorn, sat young George Artlett scribbling on his knee. No doubt Rowster had been lying by his master’s side, until our shadows struck sheer down upon him from the brink of the hill. But now he was up and pricking his ears sharply in our direction, growling menaces and wagging a welcome at one and the same time. I gave the Reverend what I saw in few words. To my surprise he began to descend the steep hill-side.

[Picture: “Southdown Ewes”]

‘After all,’ said he, ‘George Artlett and I never really fell out. But we agreed to differ, and that is the most fatal, most lasting disagreement of all. I should have known better. I think I will risk a hand to him again.’

As we clambered down the precipitous slope, into the shelter of the combe, the wind suddenly stopped its music in our ears. There fell a dead calm about us. At the bottom, we seemed to be walking between two widely separated, yet almost perpendicular cliffs of green, with a great span of blue sky far above, across which the heavy cumuli raged unceasingly. George Artlett got to his feet at our approach, thrust his paper into his pocket, and gravely clawed off his old tarpaulin hat. He took the hand held out to him with wonder, and a little hesitation.

‘And how fares the good work, George?’

Artlett was silent a moment. He tried to read the sightless eyes.

‘Shepherdin’, sir? ’Tis allers slow goin’, but goin’ all th’ time. We did famous with th’ wool, an’—’

‘George, leave the wool alone. You know what I mean.’

George Artlett swung round on his heel, and swung back again. He counted the fingers on his gnarled hand slowly one by one.

‘Be ut priest to lost runagate, or be ut man to man?’ he asked, looking up suddenly.

‘It is just one child in the dark way putting forth hand to another. For, to the best of us, George, comradeship can be no more than a heartening touch and sound of a footstep going a common road, and the voice of a friend. Do you see a light at the end of your path?’

‘Ay! I do that!’

‘Look closer. Is not the light just the shine of a Beautiful Face, very grave and sorrowful, but with a great joy beginning to spread over it, and—’

Though the deep voice stemmed on in the sunny quiet of the combe, I could distinguish the words no longer; for something, that was by no means part of me but of a more delicate nurture, had set my feet going against my will. I was halfway down the long alley of the combe before I stopped to wait for the old vicar. And then, looking backward, I fell to staring with all my eyes.

‘Reverend,’ said I, after he had rejoined me, and we had walked on together in silence for a minute or two, ‘I wish you could see what is before me now.’

I had brought him out of his reverie with a jerk. ‘Well: on with it!’

‘I see a green sunlit space, with the shadow of an old hawthorn upon it. And in the shadow I see two men kneeling, bareheaded, their faces turned up to the sky. And with all my heart I wish there were a third with them; but there is not another fit for such company, to my certain knowledge, within ten thousand miles.’

He seemed to weigh his reply before he uttered it. But:—

‘You’re a good fool,’ said he, ‘and I love you. And there were three there, nay! a Fourth,—all the time.’

III

In winter-time, ‘when nights are dark and ways be foul,’ I can conceive of no pleasanter aspect of village life at any season than the indoor, fireside one; but when the long radiant August evenings are here, there is equally no other time for me. More and more, with every year that glides by, life in Windlecombe at this season seems to focus itself round the Seven Sisters’ trees upon the green. All the summer day through, the old folk gather there; and always a low murmur of voices comes drifting up to my window from their garrulous company. But it is after the day’s work is done, and all, able or disable, are free for recreation, that the true life of the place begins.

There is something about the ease-taking of men physically tired after a long day’s work in fresh air and sunshine, that fascinates one who is only mind-weary, and that alone from much chaffering with pen and ink. Though you have but cramped limbs to stretch out over the green sward, and, by comparison, but a torpid, attenuated flow in your veins, somewhat of your neighbour’s healthful, dog-tired humour over-brims upon you; and after a pipe or two, and an hour’s slow desultory chat, you can almost forget the tang of the study, the reek of old leather burdening imprisoned air, and congratulate yourself on a man’s work manfully done, albeit vicariously—the day-long tussle with the good earth, mammoth ‘nunches’ and ‘eleveners’ devoured under hedgerows, a shirt a score of times soused with honest sweat, and as many dried by the thirsty harvest sun.

All the old Windlecombe faces were there to-night under the drooping pine boughs, and most of the middle-aged ones. The younger men and boys were down on the Mead at cricket practice, and there they would stay as long as a glimmer of daylight remained in the sky. But the sun had still a fathom to go before it would lie, red and lusty, caught in the toils of the far-off Stavisham hills. I evaded with what grace I could the cake of ship’s tobacco held out to me by Captain Stallwood, accepting as fair compromise a charge from the tin box of old Tom Clemmer, his dearest friend. Gradually the talk got back to the point where my coming had intersected it.

‘’Tis trew,’ said the Captain now, ‘trew as I sets here on a plank o’ th’ ould _King_, as ye cut an’ shaped yersel’, Dan’l.’

I followed his glance round the circle of benches. There was not a head among the company but was wagging dubiously. Old Daniel Dray’s face was an incredulous, a horrified blank.

‘What!’ said he, ‘a human critter swaller seventeen live—’

‘I seed it,’ interrupted the Captain, pointing his pipe-stem solemnly at us for emphasis, ‘I seed it wi’ my own pair o’ eyes. Little lirrupy green chaps, they was, all hoppin’ an’ somersettin’ i’ th’ baasket. An’ th’ blackamoor, ’a putts ’a’s mouth to th’ lip o’ it, an’ “hap! hap!” sez he, an’ every time ’a sez it, wan o’ ’em jumps in. An’ when they was all down, ’a gies a sort o’ gruggle, an’ skews ’a’s head ower th’ baasket, an’ “hap! hap!” sez he agen, an’ every time ’a sez it, out pops— But there! ’tis no sense tellin’ ye! Folks sees naun o’ th’ wureld i’ little small village places, an’ an’t got no believes.’

He was silent a while, then brought out a tobacco-box like a brass halfpenny bun, and held it up to the common view. It was old and battered, and had certain initials scratched on the lid. The Captain fingered it in mournful reminiscence.

‘Lookee now,’ he said, ‘I doan’t rightly know as I ever telled ye. “G.B.” That bean’t Tom Stall’ard, be ut? Ah! No, sez all on ye, ready enow. ’Twur George’s, ould George Budgen as— Dan’l, what year war’t as I went aff to sea?’

Daniel Dray’s lips moved in silent calculation.

‘Seventy-three belike, or maybe seventy-four, ’cause ye’d been gone, Joe, a year afore Harker’s coo slipped the five-legged heifer, an’ that wur—’

‘Ay! trew, Dan’l. An’ George Budgen, ’a wur shipmate along o’ me purty soon arter I gooed away. Well: an’ this here baccy-box—th’ least time as I seed ut i’ George’s haand, ’a took a fill out av ut, jest afore ’a went on watch. An’ ut come on to blaw that night—Gorm! how ’t did blaw! An’ _rain_, not aarf! An’ i’ th’ marnin’ never a sign o’ pore George Budgen to be seen! Well now, full a fortnit arter that, what ’ud we do but ketch a gurt thresher on a trail-line, an’ inside o’ th’ crittur what ’ud we find but a halibut, big as a tay-tray, all alive an’ lippin’, ’a wur. Sez th’ cappen—I wur ship’s-boy then—“Joe,” sez he, “git an’ clane un, an’ I’ll ha’ un fer me supper,” ’a sez. Now then, Dan’l, ye’ll never believe ut, but trew as ye sets there, clink goes my knife agen summut inside o’ th’ halibut, an’—’

‘Goo on, Stallard!’

‘He, he! We all knaws what be acomin’, cap’n!’

‘An’ there wur—ah! but ye’ll ne’er believe ut, not if ye was Jonah hisself—there, inside o’ th’ halibut wur a gurt rusty hook as— What-say, Dan’l?’

‘Doan’t ’ee say ut agen, Dan’l! You a reg’lar prayers-gooer, too!’

The Captain filled his pipe from the box, tragically ruminating in the silence that followed.

‘Ah! pore George Budgen! ’A little knowed as ’twould be th’ laast time as ’a ’d pass his tobaccer-box to a friend!’

The sun had long set, and the dusk was creeping up apace. Here and there in the shadowy length of the street, lights were beginning to break out.

Where we sat under the dense canopy of pine-boughs, night had already asserted itself, and to one another we were little more than an arc of glowing pipe-bowls. Old Stallwood chuckled richly from his corner. A sort of inspiration of mendacity seemed to have come over him to-night.

‘But Lor’ bless ye!’ he went on, ‘that bean’t nauthin’!—not when ye’ve been five-an’-thirty year at sea. I knowed a man wanst as worked in a steam sawmill way over in Amurricky somewheres; an’ what did ’a do wan fine marnin’ but get hisself sawed i’ two pieces; an’ wan piece died—th’ doctor cud do nought to save ut. But t’other piece kep’ alive for ten year arterwards—ah! an’ did a man’s work every day!’

Old Daniel bounced to his feet. He breathed hard for a full half-minute.

‘Joe Stall’ard!’ he said at last, severely, ‘shame on ye fer a reg’lar, hout-an’-hout, ould leear! A man cut in two? An’ lived ten year arter—leastways th’ wan part o’ him? Fer shame, Joe! ’Tis traipsin’ about i’ all they heathen countries, I reckons, as has spiled ye! Ah, well, well-a-day! There they be, lightin’ up at th’ Thatchers! Coom along, Tom Clemmer!’

Three squares of red shone out amidst the twinkling dust of the street, denoting the curtained windows of the inn. It was the signal for which all had been waiting, and a general stir took place in the assembly. At length none remained about me but the old seaman. He had said nothing while the dismemberment of the group was in progress, but had sat shaking in silent merriment. Now he, too, got slowly to his feet.

‘’Tis wunnerful,’ he observed, moving away, ‘real onaccountable, th’ little simple things as some folks wunt b’lieve. There be a thing now, as—’

But this story of partitioned, yet still living humanity, even though it came from America, was too much also for me; and I told him so. He stopped in his easy saunter towards the inn.

‘’Tis trew!’ he averred as stoutly as ever. His rich, oily chuckle came over to me through the darkness. ‘Mind ye! I didn’t say as th’ man wur sawed into two ekal parts: ’twur but th’ thumb av him as wur taken off. Belike I’ll jest step acrost to th’ Thatchers now, an’ tell that to Dan’l.’

SEPTEMBER

I

AUGUST holiday-makers in Windlecombe are mainly of the normal, obvious kind, the people for whom guide-books and picture postcards are produced, and by whom the job-masters and the boat proprietors gain a livelihood. But September brings to the village a wandering crew of an altogether different complexion. There is something about the temperate sunshine and general slowing up and sweetening of life during this month, that draws from their hiding-nooks in the city suburbs a class of man and woman for whom I have long entertained the profoundest respect. With every year, as soon as September comes round, I find myself looking out for these stray, for the most part solitary, folk, and, in quite a humble, unpretentious spirit, taking them beneath my avuncular wing.

That they seek the quiet of an inland village in September, and not the feverish, belated distractions of the seaside town, is an initial point in their favour. But almost invariably they bring with them a much more subtle recommendation. They are down for a holiday, but they have come entirely without premeditation. Suddenly yielding to a sort of migratory impulse, they have locked up dusty chambers, or left small shops to the care of wives, or begged a few precious days from niggardly employers; and come away on a spate of emotional longing for country quiet and greenery, irresistible this time, though generally the impulse has been felt and resisted every autumn for twenty years back. Indeed, there must be some specially fatal quality about this period of time, for I constantly hear the same story—no holiday taken for twenty years.