Part 11

However, I had just one faint glimmer of common sense left me, and that told me to take the first train going west next morning, which I did, leaving Paddington (in company with Virginia and Ursula, who had a holiday due to her from the hospital) in a warm close fog that might imply a thunderstorm, or an early autumn, or merely the ordinary airless carbonic-acid gloom that is a distinguishing feature of London. Some eminent authority has said that the air in London hasn’t been changed for over a hundred years, and I can quite believe it!

We found the cottage bathed in the glow of the soft sunshine that is still summer, but that brings with it the first touch of regret for the good-bye that is near at hand. There had been some soaking rains after a dry spell, and everything in the garden was holding up bright, refreshed leaves, and glowing flowers, one and all assuring me that though they had a gasping time a few weeks before, and had wondered from day to day if they could manage to hold on till the evening, things had now taken a glorious turn for the better; and they were glad they hadn’t given up, since I was so pleased to see them.

Several apologised for ragged washed-out blossoms lower down their stem, but explained that it was due to the rain, and that they were sending up new ones to take the place of the shabby ones as quickly as ever they could.

The dear things seemed to look at me with such understanding sympathy; the pansies held up their bright little faces just like a bevy of inquiring children; the hollyhocks, I am sure, turned round to look in my direction; the last of the sweet peas threw out tender little fingers to touch my arm as I passed beside their hedge; the golden rod stretched its neck and tiptoed lest I should miss it at the back of the border.

Haven’t you noticed that most flowers seem to have faces? I don’t mean that you can trace a direct resemblance to human features in them as you can in the moon; but there is something in the flowers that looks at you—something that looks at you shyly, as the wild rose; or stares at you boldly, like the marigold; or twinkles at you gaily, like the cornflower and coreopsis; or appears slightly inclined to frivolity, like the larkspur and the ragged robin; or takes life with solid seriousness, like the Canterbury bell; or gives you the innocent look of a baby, like the primrose; or beams at you with large-hearted maternal kindness, like a big gloire de Dijon.

Most flowers, you will find, give you a look with some definite characteristic—at least, so it seems to me. Probably that is one reason why they are so comforting and companionable.

And I was wanting something comforting and companionable that day. I had overworked and generally neglected the rules of common sense, till I had got to that dismal pitch that simply asks of blank space, “What’s the good of anything?”

Then more questions began to worry me.

What had Christianity accomplished, seeing the way the Sermon on the Mount was being trampled under foot by the instigators of this war? After all, wasn’t might going to win, in spite of all one believed of the supremacy of right? Wasn’t the devil having things all his own way now? What were Christians doing? Had religion lost its power? What were the churches doing? Was _anybody_ doing _anything_ worth whiles?

Those who have let themselves run down physically, and have neglected to take proper meals, and have turned night into day, and have tried systematically to cram a fortnight’s work into every week, know exactly where one finds oneself at the end of a few months.

And it is only the very exceptional people who do not find their spiritual condition about as jaded as their nerves after a course of this sort of thing. We get to feel that we are ploughing a very lone furrow, and it is only a step further to the state of mind that says it isn’t worth ploughing at all.

Personal experience has taught me that there is only one cure for me when I get to this state of nervous wreckage; and that is to get away to the solitudes; to listen among the great silences of the hills for the still small Voice that has never failed those who wait for its Message.

God’s methods of restoring weary humanity are many and various. Sometimes He sees that first and foremost, like Elijah, His tired children need rest and food. And just as one of the greatest terrors that can befall the worn-out worker in a city is insomnia, so one of the greatest boons that Nature in her quietudes bestows is the ability to drop off into peaceful, brain-mending oblivion.

So He giveth His beloved sleep.

Or it may be that He sees His children need to be drawn away from the world for a while, in order to talk face to face with Him. Sometimes we have to be brought to a state of great weakness before we will listen to His plea: “Come ye yourselves apart and rest awhile.” We do not always heed it when we are well and strong. In the enforced quiet we can find time to turn to Him.

And a sojourn with our Lord in the desert has meant for many the feeding of five thousand on the morrow.

* * * * *

When I am badly in the depths, I know of no surer way to restore my mind than a long walk across the hills. Some people need human companionship; but, personally, I can do very well by myself under such circumstances (always provided that I don’t meet a cow likewise on a walking tour). I can pull myself together more quickly if I don’t have to spend time and energy striving to be amiable and politely attentive to someone.

I have often started out on a Sunday morning, and walked on till I came upon some unknown church that served as a useful end to my pilgrimage. On one occasion I remember discovering a small chapel hidden away among a few homesteads in a pretty valley I unexpectedly tumbled into. They were starting the first hymn as I entered. There were nine of us all told, including the preacher, the two ladies who raised two different tunes simultaneously, and the rugged-faced deacon or elder, who brought me a hymnbook and, later, took the collection.

The singing was not a marked success at first, owing partly to the divided opinion of the congregation as to which tune they were really singing; moreover, my entrance had momentarily diverted attention and seemed to make all concerned a trifle nervous. But at length the preacher himself started a third tune that we all knew and were able to join in; and a very sincere and devout service followed.

I gathered from information impressed upon us in the course of the sermon (probably for my special benefit, as the handful of cottagers assembled would assuredly know) that there was to be a special collection that day on behalf of some chapel fund.

When I told this to Ursula, who didn’t then know so much about our hill-people as she does now, she said, “Ah! I suppose that was why only nine came!”

But, in reality, nine was not at all a poor congregation for a tiny hamlet like this on a Sunday morning. The mothers are mostly at home getting dinner; the fathers are seeing to the stock, and don’t reckon to get themselves “cleaned up” till the afternoon. But in the evening—then the little building would be packed to the door.

In his final prayer the minister prayed so earnestly that we might all be induced to give with the greatest liberality, that I felt exceedingly sorry I had only put a half-crown into my glove when I started out, leaving my purse at home.

The rugged elder looked studiously in the opposite direction while I slipped the coin on to the plate; somehow I hoped he wouldn’t be too disappointed when he discovered that the respectable-looking stranger had not given more handsomely after the pleading of the preacher. But it was all I had.

After the service I lingered a moment to read a quaint old tombstone in the church precincts. The rest of the worshippers likewise lingered—respectful but curious—in the road outside the gate. The preacher had shaken hands with me at the door; my rugged friend had been immersed in the duties of his office as steward, treasurer, and church secretary combined. But now he came out of the door, looked anxiously about, and seeing me still there, made straight for me. I concluded that he, too, was going to shake hands, and possibly inquire if I was staying in the neighbourhood. But what he actually said was this—

“Excuse me, ma’am, but do you happen to know what you put into the plate?”

“A half-crown,” I faltered, wondering whether by any remote chance it was a bad one.

He nodded his head, and, opening his work-hardened hand, displayed the morning’s collection—seven pennies, three halfpennies, and my half-crown on top.

“That’s right,” he nodded. And then, lowering his voice, presumably to save my feelings, he added, “But if ’twas a mistake, and you didn’t mean to put in all that, _you can have it back_.”

Do you know, it made a lump come in my throat.

* * * * *

I told Ursula about it at dinner, remarking that it looked as though they hadn’t much faith even though they had specially prayed for generous giving.

Ursula said that in _her_ opinion it looked as though it was high time I presented to the ragbag the hat I had worn that morning, since it had been for months past a dejected object of pity, though with her usual delicacy of feeling she had, up to the present, refrained from telling me so in plain English. But now, in all kindness such as only a dear friend can show, she had no hesitation in saying that she wasn’t at all surprised that they mistook me for an old age pensioner on the verge of bankruptcy.

* * * * *

But I’ve been wandering again. To return to that September day when I reached the cottage as weary of life and as downhearted about everything as any mortal could well be. The whole world seemed out of joint. Yet in my innermost soul I knew that religion was really all right, and that it was I who had gone wrong. But I refused to look at that aspect of it.

Next day I determined to give it all up, and just meditated on my own funeral. I tried to reckon up how many people I could really rely on to send wreaths; it didn’t make me feel any the less pessimistic when I decided there were only four who could be counted upon as certainties, and they included Virginia and Ursula!

And even one of these failed me; for when I mentioned the matter to the girls, they said: Surely I didn’t imagine they were going to be so wasteful as to send _two_ wreaths, when one would do quite as well if both their names appeared on the card attached? But they did offer to make it a wreath of painted-white-tin flowers, under a glass shade (regardless of expense), if I preferred, suggesting that I might get longer pleasure out of a wreath of this kind.

Getting no more consolation from them than this, I said I would go for a walk. Virginia and Ursula anticipated my wishes and declined to accompany me. They had urgent work on hand that was far too important to postpone for a mere walk. It was the planting of onion seed.

The week before we had read in the papers how imperative it was that everybody should plant food crops in any available scrap of ground they might possess, to help keep starvation at bay.

We read the article eagerly.

I had several acres of land doing nothing in particular at the moment, that I was only too glad to use for a special crop of eatables against the time of national famine. Without finishing the article, we had started to discuss what would be best to lay down, taking into account the idiosyncrasies of our digestions.

“Green peas in the small field adjoining the orchard,” Ursula had decided for me; and then she proceeded: “Broad beans in half of the upper garden; scarlet runners at the back of the strawberry beds and along by the south wall; the potato garden can now have carrots, parsnips, turnips and beets; the west garden must have pickled cabbage (I mean the cabbage before it is pickled), shallots, spring onions and pickling onions, chives——”

“What _are_ ‘chives’?” interrupted Virginia.

“I don’t know, but I’ve read the name somewhere. Don’t interrupt me.”

“And fennel—that will come in handy for fish—and leeks. In that piece of waste ground beyond the barn I think we ought to plant asparagus, because, after all, there is no need to dispense with luxuries if you can grow them for nothing, is there?

“And how would it be to plant maize all down that bed where you had the Shirley poppies? I should think the same aspect would suit the two, and some green corn would be very nice. I suppose, if you plant it now, it will be about right in January or February, wouldn’t it? Or you could sell it. It’s twopence halfpenny or threepence a cob at the Stores. So if you had, say, fifty plants, and if each produced—how many _do_ they produce on a plant?... Oh, well, if you don’t know, let’s be on the safe side and say one each—that would be a clear profit of—well, at threepence each—let’s see, fifty pence is four and twopence, and three times would be—twelve and sixpence—say twelve shillings, allowing sixpence for seed. So that would be well worth trying, in case the moratorium never ends. Then there would have to be cabbages and suchlike. How about digging up the orchard, and——”

“Oh, yes,” said Virginia scornfully (she had picked up the paper and read to the end of the aforementioned article, which had proved very enlightening). “And I suppose you expect it all to grow under a couple of feet of snow. Let me tell you that it is now too late to plant anything but onions! He, she, or it, who wrote this article, says so.”

I myself had been going to tell her, when I could get a word in, that it was too late for most of the things she had named.

But Ursula, who had never done any vegetable gardening, was still sceptical. That was why I suggested that we should consult the obliging manager at Carter’s, in Queen Victoria Street, as we often did over our gardening woes.

Just ahead of us in the shop, when we got there, was an elderly gentleman who wanted some grass seed; he asked if they would tell him how to start a lawn next spring.

It was in the middle of the day—a very busy time for a shop of this kind, when city men are on their way to or from lunch, and seize a few extra minutes to buy their seeds. The shop was full—it looked as though every scrap of land within the twelve-mile radius was going to be put under cultivation—and the assistants had all their work to serve everyone as quickly as they wanted to be served.

The Elderly Gentleman was apparently the only one who was not in a hurry; so he asked the most minute questions, and the manager gave him copious directions, from preparing the ground at the start, right up to marking it off for tennis, when it was in its prime (though, judging by the small packet of seed the E. G. had bought, the lawn would never support a tennis-net).

Then by the time the shop was quite packed, and when everything that was possible appeared to have been said about planting and maintaining a lawn—including keeping it free from moss, the best way to trim the edges, the law with regard to trespassing fowls, and the careful tying of black cotton over the newly-planted seeds to keep off the birds—the E. G. asked what he should do when daisies came up? The manager said patiently that his firm’s grass seeds didn’t produce daisies; but as the E. G. seemed to worry about daisies, he was told how to get rid of daisies.

At last he really went, reluctantly, I admit; but the other customers—who had all become so engrossed in his lawn that they couldn’t remember what they had come in to buy for themselves—heaved a sigh of relief.

Slowly he made his way to the middle of the wide crossing just in front of the shop. You knew by his hesitating walk that there was another question he had meant to ask, but he couldn’t recall it for the moment.

Yes! He suddenly turned round briskly (and nearly ended the lawn under a taxi), the shop-door opened again, and an anxious voice inquired, “What ought I to do if the birds get at the seeds in spite of the black cotton and the bits of white rag tied to them?”

The manager passed his hand across what looked like an aching brow, and further braced himself to do his duty; but a gentleman customer came to the rescue by replying, “It is usual, in such a case, sir, to buy another packet of grass seed, and start all over again on exactly the same lines as before, only you plant an extra reel of black cotton this time.”

After this we were able to inquire of the manager what crops he would advise us to plant as our contribution to the nation’s larder, to say nothing of our own.

“Onions,” he said, so promptly that one would have thought others had asked the same question. And then added—“Giant Rocca.”

I am not sure how many pounds of seed Ursula immediately ordered; she proposed to make it a present to me, and naturally wished to be generous. Virginia says she believes she heard her say a half-a-hundredweight. Anyhow, the obliging manager asked, with a slight cough, how large a portion of ground we were intending to cultivate, as half an ounce would be sufficient for—I forget how many acres! So she reduced her order to half a pound. She said she didn’t want us to run short. (I don’t fancy we shall, either!) Besides, she rather liked the name “Giant Rocca.” It suggested something large and strengthening wherewith to combat the foe.

* * * * *

We hadn’t a moment’s rest after we arrived at the cottage until the onion seed was well underground. Ursula decided that it would be really a blessing if I _would_ go out—she could then plant in peace.

The handy man being unable to “oblige” me by doing a little work just then, she had decided to plant the seeds herself.

At first she had made long troughs in which to place the seed, sprinkling it very finely with thumb and finger; but after half an hour of this spine-breaking work she straightened her back with difficulty, and decided that to “sow broadcast” was more in accordance with Nature herself, to say nothing of Biblical teaching. Hence we had it broadcast.

Here I may say that we eventually had Giant Roccas sown the length and breadth of the vegetable garden, in between the rows of spring greens, as well as in open spaces; also they are sending up their spears between rows of snapdragons; round standard rose-trees; in the beds usually devoted to Darwin tulips; down the narrow bed that has Persian irises in the centre and double daisies at the edge; in the rough bed of foxgloves at the back of the pigsty, along the edge of the borders where sweet alyssum bloomed in the summer; under the damson tree where the ground is bare; along by the south wall, where the sweet pea remains were pulled up to make room for them; among the raspberry canes; all over the potato-patch; along with the carnation cuttings in the cold frame; in little dibbles among the strawberry plants; and I even found a few pots, each with a bit of glass over the top, placed in the sunny scullery window, which also proved to be “Giant Roccas,” in case we should run short indoors.

When all these Roccas have attained to their gigantic proportions, I fancy we shall be able to scent that garden a mile or two away!

* * * * *

Still, the onions were only being planted the day I set out for a walk, wandering just where the road might chance to lead me. But you have to take yourself with you, if you go for a walk, and it is some time before you can get away from yourself—if you can make out what I mean by this.

I merely walked on and on, looking at the blackbirds gobbling down the red mountain ash berries, till one gasped at their stowing-away capacity; at the swallows practising their long sweeping flights preparatory to leaving us; at the ferns growing out of the shady side of the walls; at a great patch of rich purple in the corner of a field—that turned out to be a widespread tangle of flowering vetch; at the beautiful colour effect of massed heliotrope Michaelmas daisies against the grey-green background of a mossy fern-decked old stone wall; at the harebells swinging in the wind; at the late foxgloves, still poking beautiful spikes of colour through the hedges; at the blackberries trailing over everything; at the butterflies still flitting about, or resting motionless with outspread wings where they found a warm sunny stone, or gorging themselves to repletion on some over-ripe pears that had fallen by the roadside. There were several lovely creatures with blue-black wings marked with red, white and a little blue, who, like the wasps, were actually intoxicated with pear juice!

A fox slunk across the road right in front of me, and plunged into a wood; probably having the time of his life just now, with most of the hunt somewhere in France.

The springs were coming to life again, after the heavy rain, and water burbled along at the side of the lane, or tumbled out from the rocks at the roadside in tiny waterfalls.

The orchard trees were flecked all over with gold, or pale yellow, or bright crimson—surely we never had a more abundant apple year than this one.

It was such a wonderful afternoon: I was bound to go on wandering.

* * * * *

At last I came to the end of the lanes and found myself on an open hilltop. As the fresh bracing air met me full in the face, I began to feel hungry. I looked at my watch: it was five o’clock. I looked at the landscape, and realised that, though I didn’t know where I was, I was certainly miles away from any tea.

I paused and considered: Should I carefully retrace my steps? That always seems a poor-spirited way of getting home again, even though you are lost! On all sides stretched an expanse of hilly country, grey lichen-covered boulders, yellow-flowered gorse, wiry mauve and purple heather, and a wealth of green, and bronze, and golden tinted bracken, with occasional woods and larch plantations. There was a general hum of bees and insects in the air, and a pheasant rose from the ground close to me and flew with a _whirr_ into a little coppice near by.

A sign-board was lying on the ground by the gate leading into the coppice. It was the worse for wind and weather, but one could still read the alarming warning, “Trespassers will be prosecuted!” Who would trespass, and who would prosecute, on that wild bit of moorland, I wonder? The only being in sight was a rabbit, sitting motionless close beside the prostrate notice and studying me silently with the air of a special constable! Yet even he went off and left me quite alone.

At that moment I caught sight of a chimney over the spur of the hill. I felt convinced it must be attached to a fireplace, and surely there would be a kettle on that fire. I made a bee-line for the place.

* * * * *

To the eye of the town-dweller, hill and moorland distances are apt to be deceptive; the house proved to be much farther off than I had at first imagined. But this gave added zest to expedition; I determined to reach it though I only arrived in time to put up there for the night. A nearer view showed the cottage to be the fag-end of a small hamlet lying snugly in the protecting hollow of the hills.

When I actually entered the village, there were so many pretty dwellings, and they all looked equally inviting, that I was undecided where to open an attack. However, I settled on one that had a couple of hollyhocks, some late pinks, and a black-currant bush growing out of the top of the garden wall, while a free-and-easy grape-vine, a tall monthly rose, and some clematis waved arms of welcome to me from the front of the cottage.