Stone walls. A wild country, caught in the net of the stone walls.
Stone walls following the planes of the land, running straight along the
valleys, switchbacking up and down the slopes. Humped-up, grey spines of
the green mounds.
Stone walls, piled loosely, with the brute skill of earth-men, building
centuries ago. They bulged, they toppled, yet they stood firm, holding
the wild country in their mesh, knitting the grey villages to the grey
farms, and the farms to the grey byres. Where you thought the net had
ended it flung out a grey rope over the purple back of Renton, the green
shoulder of Greffington.
Outside the village, the schoolhouse lane, a green trench sunk between
stone walls, went up and up, turning three times. At the top of the last
turn a gate.
When you had got through the gate you were free.
It led on to the wide, flat half-ring of moor that lay under Karva. The
moor and the high mound of the hill were free; they had slipped from the
net of the walls.
Broad sheep-drives cut through the moor. Inlets of green grass forked
into purple heather. Green streamed through purple, lapped against
purple, lay on purple in pools and splashes.
Burnt patches. Tongues of heather, twisted and pointed, picked clean by
fire, flickering grey over black earth. Towards evening the black and
grey ran together like ink and water, stilled into purple, the black
purple of grapes.
If you shut your eyes you could see the flat Essex country spread in a
thin film over Karva. Thinner and thinner. But you could remember what it
had been like. Low, tilled fields, thin trees; sharp, queer, uncertain
beauty. Sharp, queer, uncertain happiness, coming again and again, never
twice to the same place in the same way. It hurt you when you remembered
it.
The beauty of the hills was not like that. It stayed. It waited for you,
keeping faith. Day after day, night after night, it was there.
Happiness was there. You were sure of it every time. Roddy's uneasy eyes,
Papa's feet, shuffling in the passage, Mamma's disapproving, remembering
face, the Kendals' house, smelling of rotten apples, the old man,
coughing and weeping in his chair, they couldn't kill it; they couldn't
take it away.
The mountain sheep waited for you. They stood back as you passed, staring
at you with their look of wonder and sadness.
Grouse shot up from your feet with a "Rek-ek-ek-kek!" in sudden,
explosive flight.
Plovers rose, wheeling round and round you with sharper and sharper cries
of agitation. "_Pee_-vit--_pee_-vit--_pee_-vit! Pee-_vitt_!" They
swooped, suddenly close, close to your eyes; you heard the drumming
vibration of their wings.
Away in front a line of sheep went slowly up and up Karva. The hill made
their bleating mournful and musical.
You slipped back into the house. In the lamp-lighted drawing-room the
others sat, bored and tired, waiting for prayer-time. They hadn't noticed
how long you had been gone.