Part 4 (1/2)
In a little while a second plover arrives from the field behind; he, too, dances a maze in the air before he settles. Soon a third joins them. They are visible at that spot because the gra.s.s is short; elsewhere they would be hidden. If one of these rises and flies to and fro, almost instantly another follows, and then it is indeed a dance before they alight. The wheeling, maze-tracing, devious windings continue till the eye wearies and rests with pleasure on a pa.s.sing b.u.t.terfly. These birds have nests in the meadows adjoining; they meet here as a common feeding-ground.
Presently they will disperse, each returning to his mate at the nest. Half an hour afterwards they will meet once more, either here or on the wing.
In this manner they spend their time from dawn, through the flower-growing day, till dusk. When the sun arises over the hill into the sky, already blue, the plovers have been up a long while.
All the busy morning they go to and fro: the busy morning when the wood-pigeons cannot rest in the copses on the combe side, but continually fly in and out; when the blackbirds whistle in the oaks; when the bluebells gleam with purplish l.u.s.tre. At noontide in the dry heat it is pleasant to listen to the sound of water moving among the thousand thousand gra.s.s-blades of the mead. The flower-growing day lengthens out beyond the sunset, and till the hedges are dim the lapwings do not cease.
Leaving now the shade of the oak, I follow the path into the meadow on the right, stepping by the way over a streamlet which diffuses its rapid current broadcast over the sward till it collects again and pours into the brook. This next meadow is somewhat more raised, and not watered; the gra.s.s is high, and full of b.u.t.tercups. Before I have gone twenty yards a lapwing rises out in the field, rushes towards me through the air, and circles round my head, making as if to dash at me, and uttering shrill cries. Immediately another comes from the mead behind the oak; then a third from over the hedge, and all those that have been feeding by the bank, till I am encircled with them. They wheel round, dive, rise aslant, cry, and wheel again, always close over me, till I have walked some distance, when one by one they fall off, and, still uttering threats, retire. There is a nest in this meadow, and, although it is, no doubt, a long way from the path, my presence even in the field, large as it is, is resented. The couple who imagine themselves threatened are quickly joined by their friends, and there is no rest till I have left their treasures far behind.
II.--THE GREEN CORN
Pure colour almost always gives the idea of fire, or, rather, it is perhaps as if a light shone through as well as the colour itself.
The fresh green blade of corn is like this--so pellucid, so clear and pure in its green as to seem to s.h.i.+ne with colour. It is not brilliant--not a surface gleam nor an enamel--it is stained through.
Beside the moist clods the slender flags arise, filled with the sweetness of the earth. Out of the darkness under--that darkness which knows no day save when the ploughshare opens its c.h.i.n.ks--they have come to the light. To the light they have brought a colour which will attract the sunbeams from now till harvest. They fall more pleasantly on the corn, toned, as if they mingled with it.
Seldom do we realize that the world is practically no thicker to us than the print of our footsteps on the path. Upon that surface we walk and act our comedy of life, and what is beneath is nothing to us. But it is out from that underworld, from the dead and the unknown, from the cold, moist ground, that these green blades have sprung. Yonder a steam-plough pants up the hill, groaning with its own strength, yet all that strength and might of wheels, and piston, and chains cannot drag from the earth one single blade like these.
Force cannot make it; it must grow--an easy word to speak or write, in fact full of potency.
It is this mystery--of growth and life, of beauty and sweetness and colour, and sun-loved ways starting forth from the clods--that gives the corn its power over me. Somehow I identify myself with it; I live again as I see it. Year by year it is the same, and when I see it I feel that I have once more entered on a new life. And to my fancy, the spring, with its green corn, its violets, and hawthorn leaves, and increasing song, grows yearly dearer and more dear to this our ancient earth. So many centuries have flown. Now it is the manner with all natural things to gather as it were by smallest particles. The merest grain of sand drifts unseen into a crevice, and by-and-by another; after a while there is a heap; a century and it is a mound, and then everyone observes and comments on it. Time itself has gone on like this; the years have acc.u.mulated, first in drifts, then in heaps, and now a vast mound, to which the mountains are knolls, rises up and overshadows us. Time lies heavy on the world. The old, old earth is glad to turn from the cark and care of driftless centuries to the first sweet blades of green.
There is suns.h.i.+ne to-day, after rain, and every lark is singing.
Across the vale a broad cloud-shadow descends the hillside, is lost in the hollow, and presently, without warning, slips over the edge, crossing swiftly along the green tips. The suns.h.i.+ne follows--the warmer for its momentary absence. Far, far down in a gra.s.sy combe stands a solitary corn-rick, conical-roofed, casting a lonely shadow--marked because so solitary--and beyond it, on the rising slope, is a brown copse. The leafless branches take a brown tint in the sunlight; on the summit above there is furze; then more hill-lines drawn against the sky. In the tops of the dark pines at the corner of the copse, could the glance sustain itself to see them, there are finches warming themselves in the sunbeams. The thick needles shelter them from the current of air, and the sky is bluer above the pines. Their hearts are full already of the happy days to come, when the moss yonder by the beech, and the lichen on the fir-trunk, and the loose fibres caught in the fork of an unbending bough, shall furnish forth a sufficient mansion for their young. Another broad cloud-shadow, and another warm embrace of sunlight. All the serried ranks of the green corn bow at the word of command as the wind rushes over them.
There is largeness and freedom here. Broad as the down and free as the wind, the thought can roam high over the narrow roofs in the vale. Nature has affixed no bounds to thought. All the palings, and walls, and crooked fences deep down yonder are artificial. The fetters and traditions, the routine, the dull roundabout, which deadens the spirit like the cold moist earth, are the merest nothing. Here it is easy with the physical eye to look over the highest roof, which must also always be the narrowest. The moment the eye of the mind is filled with the beauty of things natural an equal freedom and width of view comes to it. Step aside from the trodden footpath of personal experience, throwing away the petty cynicism bred of petty hopes disappointed. Step out upon the broad down beside the green corn, and let its freshness become part of life.
The wind pa.s.ses and it bends--let the wind, too, pa.s.s over the spirit. From the cloud-shadow it emerges to the suns.h.i.+ne--let the heart come out from the shadow of roofs to the open glow of the sky.
High above, the songs of the larks fall as rain--receive it with open hands. Pure is the colour of the green flags, the slender, pointed blades--let the thought be pure as the light that s.h.i.+nes through that colour. Broad are the downs and open the aspect--gather the breadth and largeness of view. Never can that view be wide enough and large enough; there will always be room to aim higher. As the air of the hills enriches the blood, so let the presence of these beautiful things enrich the inner sense.
A KING OF ACRES
I.--JAMES THARDOVER
A weather-beaten man stood by a gateway watching some teams at plough. The bleak March wind rushed across the field, reddening his face; rougher than a flesh-brush, it rubbed the skin, and gave it a glow as if each puff were a blow with the 'gloves.' His short brown beard was full of dust blown into it. Between the line of the hat and the exposed part of the forehead the skin had peeled slightly, literally worn off by the unsparing rudeness of wintry mornings.
Like the early field veronica, which flowered at his feet in the short gra.s.s under the hedge, his eyes were blue and grey. The petals are partly of either hue, and so his eyes varied according to the light--now somewhat more grey, and now more blue. Tall and upright, he stood straight as a bolt, though both arms were on the gate, and his ashen walking-stick swung over it. He wore a grey overcoat, a grey felt hat, grey leggings, and his boots were grey with the dust which had settled on them.
He was thinking: 'Farmer Bartholomew is doing the place better this year; he scarcely hoed a weed last season; the stubble was a tangle of weeds; one could hardly walk across it. That second team stops too long at the end of the furrow--idle fellow that. Third team goes too fast; horses will be soon tired. Fourth team--he's getting beyond his work--too old; the stilts nearly threw him over there.
This ground has paid for the draining--one, at all events. Never saw land look better. Looks brownish and moist--moist brownish red.
Query, what colour is that? Ask Mary--the artist. Never saw it in a picture. Keeps his hedges well; this one is like a board on the top, thorn-boughs molten together; a hare could run along it (as they will sometimes with harriers behind them, and jump off the other side to baffle scent). Now, why is Bartholomew doing his land better this year? Keen old fellow! Something behind this. Has he got that bit of money that was coming to him? Done something, they said, last Doncaster; no one could get anything out of him. Dark as night. Sold the trainer some oats--that I know. Wonder how much the trainer pocketed over that transaction? Expect he did not charge them all.
Still, he's a decent fellow. Honesty is uncertain--never met an honest man. Doubt if world could hang together. Bartholomew is honest enough; but either he has won some money, or he really does not want the drawback at audit. Takes care his horses don't look too well. Notice myself that farmers do not let their teams look so glossy as a few years ago. Like them to seem rough and uncared for--can't afford smooth coats these hard times. Don't look very glossy myself; don't feel very glossy. Hate this wind--hang kings'
ransoms! People who like these winds are telling falsehoods. That's broken (as one of the teams stopped); have to send to blacksmith.
Knock off now; no good your pottering there. Next team stops to go and help potter. Third team stops to help second. Fourth team comes across to help third. All pottering. Wants Bartholomew among them.
That's the way to do a morning's work. Did anyone ever see such idleness! Group about a broken chain--link snapped. Tie it up with your leathern garter--not he; no resource. What patience a man needs to have anything to do with land! Four teams idle over a snapped link! Rent!--of course they can't pay rent. Wonder if a gang of American labourers could make anything out of our farms? There they work from sunrise to sunset. Suppose import a gang and try. Did anyone ever see such a helpless set as that yonder? Depression--of course. No go-ahead in them.'
'Mind opening the gate, you?' said a voice behind; and, turning, the thinker saw a dealer in a trap, who wanted the gate opened, to save him the trouble of getting down to do it himself. The thinker did as he was asked, and held the gate open. The trap went slowly through.
'Will you come on and take a gla.s.s?' said the dealer, pointing with the b.u.t.t-end of his whip. 'Crown.' This was sententious for the Crown in the hamlet. Country-folk speak in pieces, putting the princ.i.p.al word in a sentence for the entire paragraph.