Part 3

The trees stretched across the entire field, and every twig on every branch had its perching songster, the combined effect being as though the trees had suddenly shot out a magic foliage, coal-black against the deepening blue of the sky, heavy and thick as leaves in June. Now the mountain brooks had swollen to Niagaras. The hubbub was literally deafening. I shouted my loudest, hoping to set the gargantuan host to flight, but I could scarce hear my own voice. For a full ten minutes I stood in that great flood-tide of melody, and all the time fresh detachments of birds were continually arriving to swell the multitude, and add their voices to the chorus. At length I saw two birds break away from the mass, and fly straight off side by side. Immediately the tumult ceased, and there followed a sound like the long, rumbling roll of thunder. The whole concourse had taken wing together, the tree-tops, released from their weight, lashing back as though struck by a flaw of wind. Now the army swept over my head, darkening the sky as it went. The thunderous sound grew less and less as the flock made for the distant woods. A moment more, and an uncanny silence had fallen on everything. Then, half a mile away in the misty dark, I heard the rich, wild voice peal out again, where the starling host had taken up their quarters for the night.

Thus it happened every evening for a week after, when they passed on out of the district and I saw them no more. Probably no single stretch of country could support such incredible numbers for more than a few days together, and they must be for ever trekking onward, leaving behind them a famine-stricken land, and making life all the harder for our own native birds. For there is little doubt that these vast hordes of starlings that sweep the country-side in winter, are foreigners in the main.

FEBRUARY

I

FROM where my old house stands, behind its double row of lindens at the top of the green, you can see well-nigh all that is happening in Windlecombe. Sitting at the writing-table in the great bay-window, you get an uninterrupted view down the length of the village street. From the windows right and left—through a trellis of bare branches in winter, and, in summer, through gaps in the greenery—you overlook the side-alleys where dwell the less profoundly respectable, the more free-and-easy, of Windlecombe folk. And in the rear, beyond my garden and little orchard, there is the farm—rickyard and barn and dwelling-house all crowded together on the green hill-side bestrewn with grazing cattle, cocks and hens innumerable, all of the snow-white breed, gobbling turkeys, and guinea-fowl that cry ‘Come back, come back!’ every waking moment of their lives.

All the oldest houses in Windlecombe are gathered round the village green. Here, amidst its thicket of live-oak and yew, the church tower rears its bluff grey stones against the sky, its clock-face with the one gilded hour-hand (minutes are of no account in Windlecombe) turned to catch the last light of evening. The parsonage, the village shop, the forge and wheelwright’s yard, a dozen or more of ivy-smothered tenements, stand at easy intervals round the oblong of the green. There is the little sweetstuff shop at the far corner, side by side with the cobbler’s den; and, beyond them, the inn juts boldly out half across the roadway, silhouetting its sign against the distant, bright patch of river which flows at the foot of the hill.

I often wonder how other villages get on without a green. In Windlecombe all the life of the place seems to culminate here. On summer evenings every one drifts this way at some time or other for a quiet stroll, or a chat with friends on the seats under the ‘Seven Sisters,’ a group of gnarled Scotch pines almost in the centre of the green.

[Picture: ‘Old Friends’]

Even in winter I seldom look forth and see it entirely deserted. Except in school-hours, there are always children playing upon it, and the old men, whose work in the fields is done, hold here daily a sort of informal club whenever the sun shines. But the old women I never see. All their lives long, their activities and interests have been centred in the home, and now they spend the dusk of their days consistently by the firesides. On week-days, the fairest summer weather has no power to tempt them abroad. Up to seventy or so, they can be seen creeping over the green towards the church on Sunday mornings; but it is duty, not desire, that has drawn them from their burrows. For the rest of the week they sit, most of them, stitching tiny scraps of silk and cotton together. It seems to be an indispensable condition of future bliss with all the old women in Sussex, that each should finish a patchwork quilt before she dies.

There comes a morning in the year, generally in early February, when the fact that the days are getting longer is suddenly driven in upon your consciousness, as though the change had come about in a single night at the touch of some magician’s wand.

A long spell of gloomy weather ends in a crisp, bright dawn. Through the chinks in the blind, the sun casts quivering spots of gold upon the wall. You wake from your dreams, and immediately know that life has become a different thing from that of yesterday. Throwing the casements back, there comes in upon you a flood of new light, new air, new melody. It is barely eight o’clock, and already the sun is high over Windle hill. The thrushes have given up their winter piping, and have begun to sing in the old glad way, linking half a dozen sweet notes in a phrase together, and pouring it out over and over again. The air has the savour of warm earth in it, the scent of green growth; and, looking down at the flower-borders in the garden, you see sheaves of snowdrops breaking up through the soil, and the first crocuses yielding their treasure to the first bees.

To-day, though it was only the first of February, just such another morning startled me from sleep, and sent me out of doors tingling to the finger-tips with this new spirit of wonder at a changed order of things. Over Windlecombe, in the level sunlight, half a hundred violet plumes of smoke rose into the calm air. From the smithy came the steady chime of Tom Clemmer’s anvil. The pit-saw was droning in the wheelwright’s yard. Up at High Barn they were threshing wheat, and the sound might have been that from a great cathedral organ, so far off that nothing but the deep tones of the pedal-pipes could reach the ear. But though all these sounds denoted humanity astir, and busy at the day’s task, to the eye there was no sign of any one abroad. I was as much alone as Crusoe on his island, and just as free to wander where I would.

I skirted the green, and turned in at the churchyard gate. Everywhere between the crowding stones, the grass was white with dew. Glittering water-bells rimmed every leaf, and trembled at the tip of every twig. The old yew dripped solemnly in its shadowed corner. Down the face of each memorial-stone, tiny runnels coursed like tears.

It was strange to see how the dewdrops obliterated all vestige of natural colour in the grass, and yet lent it a thousand alien hues. As I moved slowly along, sparks of vivid green and crimson, orange and blue, flashed incessantly amidst the frosted silver. Turning my back to the sunshine, all these colours vanished, and the glittering quality of the dew was lost. Now it was just a dead-white field, crossed and re-crossed with lines of emerald where the foraging birds had left their tracks. But all round the head of my shadow, that stretched giant-like before me, there was still a shining circle of light. I remembered to have read somewhere of one of the religious painters in the Middle Age, who accounted himself divinely set apart from his fellows, by reason of a halo which, he said, appeared at certain seasons about him as he walked in the fields. Probably he saw then what I saw this morning; but, being an artist, he won inspiration, new freshets of saintly energy, from what, to the ordinary unemotional sinner, would be no more than an interesting, natural fact.

II

Towards afternoon, quite a little throng of ancient folk gathered on the benches under the Seven Sisters, drawn thither by the sunny mildness of the day. Sauntering about on the green hard by, I could hear the low hum of their voices; and at last I took a place, almost unobserved, on one of the outer seats a little distance from the group.

Eavesdropping, even in its most innocent form, hardly comes into the category of virtues; but, in any serious attempt to study country life and character, it must be reckoned almost a necessary vice. I confess, in this respect, not only to having yielded to it as a lifelong, irresistible habit, but to having cultivated it on many occasions as an art. The English peasant under open observation is no more himself than a wild bird in a cage; and these old folk, in particular, needed as much wary stalking-down as any creature of the woodland. Settled myself quietly now behind a newspaper in the corner, my presence, if it had been marked at all, was soon forgotten; and the talk began again among the group in the usual desultory, pondering style—talk in the ancient dialect of Sussex, such as you will hear to-day only in the most out-of-the-way villages, and then only among those with whose passing it also must pass irrevocably away.

Daniel Dray, the old wheelwright, was tapping his stick reflectively on his boot-toe, keeping time with the song of the pit-saw in the neighbouring yard, where young Daniel was mightily at work. By his side sat Tom Clemmer the elder, his bleak grey eyes far away in space. All the rest of the company were studying the horizon in much the same distraught, silent fashion. A very old, but still hearty man, in a wide blue suit, was chipping at a plug of sailor’s tobacco with a jack-knife, and smiling to himself. At length the smile developed into a rich chuckle.

‘Dan’l,’ said he, ‘now you ha’ spoke a trew wured, if never afore! So they be, Dan’l, so they be! Ay! an’ all round the wureld ’tis th’ same wi’ ’em! Doan’t I know?’ He made a telling pause at the question, and then—‘Not ’aaf!’ he added in solemn irony, as he struck a match on his hindermost serge.

The old wheelwright stretched himself luxuriously in the sunshine.

‘I knows naun o’ Frenchies, an’ blackamoors, an’ sech-like,’ said he. ‘But a Sussex maid!—Ah!’

The exclamation, long drawn out, was echoed round the circle. Old Tom Clemmer turned argumentatively in his seat.

‘Ay! real purty, Dan’l!—purty enough!’ he agreed. ‘Ye wur i’ luck’s way, as I minds well wur said by all th’ folk, forebye ’tis so long ago. But, Fegs! man! We han’t all had your fortun’ i’ bright eyes! What sez Maast’ Grimble there?’

A thin high voice quavered out from the end of the bench. For full five minutes it hovered in mid-air, like a long-drawn-out treble note on a violin.

‘Ay! trew, Tom! Never a wured o’ a lee, Tom! But ’twur nane o’ my doin’, as many’s th’ time I ha’ tould ye. Stavisham Fair, ’twur, i’ Fifty-three, as I first seed her, all i’ sky-blew an’ spangles; wi’ th’ lights flarin’, an’ th’ drooms bustin’, an’ th’ trumpets blowin’; an’ sech a crowd o’ gay folk as never got together afore, i’ th’ wureld. Wunk, ’a did, at me; an’ I wunk back. Then ’a wunk agen, an’ ’twur all ower, neighbours! We got church-bawled th’ follerin’ Sunday; an’ hoame I fetched her all within th’ month. An’ then, Tom, ye knowed how’t fell out. Six weeks o’ it, we had together; an’ then off ’a goos after ’a’s ould carrawan agen, an’ I goos fer a souldger. An’ nane but th’ gurt goodness knows whether I be married man or widder-man to-day.’

The faint, shrill voice ceased. A lean, old man, with a chubby face and eyes of so pale a blue, that they seemed almost colourless in the rich, yellow light of the afternoon, had been intently listening, a trembling hand to each ear. He wore a spotless white round-frock, and was punctiliously, unnaturally clean in all other respects. Now he brought his finger-tips softly together, and stared at the sky in an ecstasy of reminiscence.

‘Eighteen thousand happy days,’ said he triumphantly, ‘agen six weeks o’ rough an’ tumble—pore George! Ah! well-a-day! But ’tis so, neighbours. Th’ Reverend, ’a figured it out fer Jane an’ me laast catterning-time. Eighteen thou— Gorm! but I should ha’ lost ’em all, if she hadn’t up an’ spoke out! I ne’er had no thought on’t, trew as th’ sun goos round th’ sky. But Jane, ’a gie me a red neckercher wan Hock-Monday. Thinks I, “Wat’s that fer?” An’ then ’a gie me a bag o’ pea-nuts, an’ sez I to mysel’, “’Tis a queer maid surelye!” An’ then ’a cooms along at harvest-time, an’ sez she, “’Enery Dawes, I ha’ jist heerd as ould Mistus Fenny ’ull gie up th’ malthouse cottage at Milemas, an’ seein’ as how you warnts me an’ I warnts you, ’twould be a pity to lose it; so let’s get arsted i’ church directly-minute,” sez she. Wi’ that, ’a putt both arms around th’ red neckercher, as I wore; an’ gie me wan, two, three—each chop, an’ wan i’ th’ middle. Lor’ bless ye! I knowed then what ’a meant, I did! I wur allers th’ sort as could see through a brick wall fur as most folk: never warnted no more ’n an ’int.’

‘There agen!’ said old Tom Clemmer, after a pause. ‘Ye wur another o’ th’ lucky wans, ’Enery. Th’ best o’ wimmin plunked straight into your eye, in a manner o’ speakin’. Ah! but courtin’ days warn’t all pea-nuts an’ red handkerchers wi’ some o’ us, ’Enery! Dear! oh Lor’! what trouble I did ha’, surelye!’

He stopped, and sat for a while smiling down into the bowl of his pipe, and shaking his head.

‘But ye got her at laast, Tom!’ said Daniel Dray softly. He stole a commiserate glance round at the other members of the company, and had a silent, meaning nod from each. Old Tom Clemmer blushed, then laughed outright.

‘Trew, Dan’l! An’ well I reckermembers th’ day as ’a first come to Windlecombe—up to th’ farm-us yonder, though ’tis forty year ago. All o’ a heap, I wur, soon as I sot eyes on her. “Churn-maid?” sez I to mysel’, “’twunt be long afore y’are summut better’n that, down at th’ forge-cottage ’long o’ me!” Come Sunday, I runs agen her on th’ litten-path. “Marnin’, Mary!” sez I, an’ gies her th’ marigolds I’d picked fer her out o’ my own gay-ground; an’ down ’a throws ’em in th’ mud, an’ off wi’out so much as wured or look. Ah! a proud, fine maid ’a wur!—to be sure an’ all!’

Tom Clemmer knocked out his pipe upon his crutch. Then he threw an exultant glance about him.

‘What might a man do then, ye’d think? Well, as marigolds warn’t no good, I tries laylocks. Not a bit on it! Jerrineums—wuss an’ wuss! Roses—never so much as a sniff! Summut useful, thinks I; but they little spring onions as I tied up in a bunch wi’ yaller ribbin, an’ hung on th’ dairy gate fer her, there they hung ’til they was yaller too. Then I has a grand idee. Off I goos to Stavisham, an’ buys a gurt big hamber brooch; an’ a silver necklace wot weighed down my pocket, carryin’ of it; an’ a spanglorious goulden weddin’-ring. “Now, my gel, we’ll jest see!” sez I all th’ way hoame. I bides quiet ’til Sunday, then I hides ahent th’ gurt elver-tree, an’ pops out upon her suddentlike, as ’a cooms along. I offers her th’ brooch. “Get out o’ my way!” sez she, “’tis jest a common ha’penny fairin’— No, ’tis hamber, ’tis real purty!” ’a sez, an’ brings up stock-still. Then out cooms th’ necklace, an’ down went ’a’s good book slap i’ th’ dirt. “Oh! ’tis kind o’ ye, blacksmith!” sez she, ketchin’ hould on’t. “Ah! but what thinks you o’ this here?” sez I; “but I mount gie it ye yet awhile, ’cause ’tis unlucky fer a maid to ha’ th’ ring afore th’ day.” Lor! what eyes ’a had, surelye! ’A thought a bit, then sez she, “Thomas Clemmer, how much ha’ ye got laid by?” An’ soon as I’d tould her, sez she, “I’ll ha’ ye, Tom, darlin’, fer I never loved nane but you!” Ah! well, well! Most onaccountable, ’tis, how th’ very wureds cooms back to ye, arter years an’ years!’

He fell into a brown study, out of which he presently came with a jerk.

‘Fower o’clock? Never! Gorm! how high th’ sun be! I must be getten hoame-along!’

He rose upon his one serviceable foot, fitted the other foot, a shapeless bundle of linen, into the sling that hung from his neck, seized his crutches, and stumped placidly away. There was a direct path from the Seven Sisters across the green to Tom Clemmer’s cottage, but he always came and went by the roundabout route through the churchyard. For the excellent, but frugal-minded Mrs. Clemmer had lain there, under a home-made iron cross and a carefully tended bed of marigolds, these twenty years back.

III

Living year after year in Windlecombe, I have come by old habit to associate with each month that passes its own characteristic changes and events. February always stands in my mind for three great ebullitions of the year’s life, equally wonderful in their several ways—the coming of the elm blossom, the earliest clamorous music from the lambing-pens, and the first rich song of the awakening bees.

Through my study window, all this week of warm, glittering, showery weather, I have watched the elm-trees about the churchyard gradually lose their sharp, clear-cut outline of winter, and dissolve into the misty softness of spring. Already the tree-tops are so dense that the blue sky can barely penetrate them. This change is not caused by the expanding leaf buds, but by the opening of the myriad blossoms, which come and go before the leaf. Their colour is a magnificent, sombre purple; and the whole tree stands up in the sunshine, clad in this gorgeous raiment from its bole to its highest twig—an imperial garment reminding you in more ways than one of ancient Rome and its Cæsars; for there is little doubt that the elm is no British tree, but was brought to us by the Romans, all those centuries ago, with so many other good things.

In the deep pockets of rich soil which have sifted down to the valleys, and in the shallower soil of our chalk hills, almost every species of forest tree makes generous growth. But perhaps nothing takes so kindly to highland Sussex conditions as the elm. The village gardens are fringed about with its beautiful, wide-spreading shapes, and, in summer, griddled over with its long blue shadows. But no tree stands within a distance of its own height from any dwelling. Hard experience has taught men that the elm is undesirable as a near neighbour. Of all trees it is the most comely, because it is never symmetrical, but it owes this picturesque trait to a habit intolerable in a close acquaintance. Not only does the elm cast its great branches to earth at all times and without creak or groan of warning, but during the season of the equinoctial gales, you never know when the whole tree may not come toppling over in a moment, measuring its vast length on the ground with a sound like the impact of the heaviest wave that ever thundered against Beachy Head.

It was so that the King of Windlecombe, the oldest and mightiest elm through half the county, came down one pitch-black, tempestuous night in a September of long ago. None of the children, nor many of the younger folk in the village, now remember the King, where he towered up beyond the east wall of the churchyard, and every sunset threw his vast shadow half way up the combe. But they are all familiar with the story of his downfall. A wild night it was. Every window shook in its frame; every chimney was an organ-pipe for the wind’s blowing; the sound of the rain on roof and wall was like an incessant hail of musketry. Thatches were stripped off. The inn-sign went clattering down the street. The gilt weather-cock on the church tower took a list that it has kept to this day. No one dared go abroad that night, but families sat close at home, keeping shoulder to shoulder in timorous company, and dreadfully wondering what it was like at sea. Had you need to speak, you must shout your words, so great was the din of the hurricane. All night it raged undiminished, and no one slept; some even would not venture to bed, not knowing but the roof might be plucked off any moment as they lay, and let the drenching torrent in upon them. Then, as the first grey tinge of dawn blanched in the eastern sky, high above the voice of the storm came one tremendous booming note, as though the earth had split asunder. And with the light, people looked out and saw that the King of Windlecombe was down.

To-day, as I settled myself to work with the lattices tight closed, to shut out the lure of the songful morning, there came a patter of earth upon the glass. At first I thought it was one of the martins’ nests broken away from the eaves above, being stuffed too full of hay by interloping sparrows. But the sharp volley sounded again, and looking out, there on the path below I beheld the old vicar in wide-brimmed hat and tartan shawl.

‘How now, old mole!’ cried he, shaking his stout oak cudgel at me. ‘The sun shines, the west wind calls, all the brooks are laughing over their beds! Yet there you hide in your burrow, grouting among dead words, warming up stale, cold dreams a twelvemonth old! Shame on you! Come out, and let the air and sunbeams riddle your dusty fur! Come and lend me your eyes for a long morning. I have seen to Mrs. Dawes’ rheumatics. I have done the school. Old Collup has had his bedside talk. I am free for a ramble, and I want to go everywhere and hear tell of everything. Come this moment, or I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down!’

With his jolly, wrinkled face turned upward, his long white beard wagging, and his kind eyes steadily meeting mine, it was difficult to believe that he could see only the faintest shadow of all before him; that for years past he had lived and worked in a world of deepest dusk, wherein the very noontide sun of summer was no more than a pale spot in never-ending gloom. I got my thick boots, and was soon trudging down the hill with him towards the riverside woods and meadows, every yard of which had been familiar to him in his days of light.

Arun was running high, with three spring tides yet to come. Much rain had fallen of late. It looked as though the floods would soon be upon us, unless the wind changed, and drier, colder weather set in. We skirted the river-bank, with the wind whipping light ripples almost to our feet, and the sun making a broad path of gold along the waters. Beyond the river stretched level green pastures intersected by deep dykes, and beyond these again lay the misty blue sierra of wooded hills. The old parson strode easily forward, his face turned up to the sky. His step never faltered, but his stick hovered incessantly about the path as he went.

‘Hark to the wind in the trees!’ he said. ‘That is a new voice: the elms must be in full bloom, and I can guess what they look like. And the sound is different in that clump of beeches there: the leaf-buds must be getting long and green now. Only the ash and the oak keep their winter voice in February.’

Thus it always was on our walks together. What he heard, he told me of; and what I saw, I gave him as well as I was able.

‘Listen!’ he said presently. ‘Did you hear that? That is the first chaffinch-song of the year. And there is the great-tit clashing his silver cymbals together, and the bullfinches blowing over the tops of their latchkeys, and a green woodpecker laughing—he never laughs in that grim, scornful way until the year is well on the wing!’

Then I, not to be behind him: