OUR COUNTRY
“It was a good day, Arthur, that first brought you to Abercorran
House,” said old Ann, as she went to the door to deliver the stray
pigeon to its owner.
“Yes,” I said, a little pathetically for Ann’s taste and with thought
too deep for tears, at least in her company. I looked round the
kitchen, remembering the glory that was Abercorran ... Philip ...
Jessie ... Roland ... Aurelius.... It was no unselfish memory, for
I wished with all my heart that I was fifteen again, that the month
was April, the hour noon, and the scene the yard of Abercorran House
with all the family assembled, all the dogs, Aurelius, and Mr Torrance
(there being still some days left of the Easter holidays), yes, and
Higgs also, and most certainly the respectable Mr Stodham.
“Yes, it was a good day,” continued Ann, returning, “if it had not been
for you we should never have known Aurelius.”
This was so like the old Ann that I was delighted, with all my conceit.
I remembered that first visit well, limping into the yard the day after
the paper-chase, and seeing big Jack (aged then about twenty) and tall
Roland (less than two years younger) discussing a greyhound with a
blackguard in an orange neck-tie, Jessie (my own age) surrounded by
pigeons, Mr Morgan and Mr Torrance at the top of the steps looking on,
and away on the pond under the elms little Harry and Lewis crying for
help to release their craft from the water-lilies of that perilous sea.
When the limper was introduced as “Arthur,” Mr Torrance said:
“Not that same Arthur, that with spear in rest
Shot through the lists at Camelot and charged
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings,”
and Mr Morgan roared with laughter, as having no cigar he was free
to do at the moment, and everyone else joined in except the Gypsy,
who appeared to think he was the victim; such laughter was a command.
Before the roar was over Ann came up to me and said: “Will you please
to come into the kitchen. I have something for that poor leg of yours.”
Pity was worse than ever, but to escape the laughter, I followed
her. “There you are,” she said as we entered, pointing to a broad
blackberry tart uncut, “that will do your leg good. It is between you
and Philip.” And with that she left me and at another door in came
Philip, and though there was nothing wrong with his leg he enjoyed the
tart as much as I did.
We were then friends of twenty-four hours standing, my age being
ten, his twelve, and the time of the year an October as sweet as its
name. We had been for six months together at the same school without
speaking, until yesterday, the day of the paper-chase. After running
and walking for more than two hours that sunny morning we found
ourselves together, clean out of London and also out of the chase,
because he had gone off on a false scent and because I ran badly.
I had never before been in that lane of larches. It was, in fact, the
first time that I had got out of London into pure country on foot.
I had been by train to sea-side resorts and the country homes of
relatives, but this was different. I had no idea that London died in
this way into the wild.
Out on the broad pasture bounded by a copse like a dark wall, rooks
cawed in the oak-trees. Moorhens hooted on a hidden water behind the
larches. At the end of a row of cottages and gardens full of the
darkest dahlias was a small, gray inn called “The George,” which my
companion entered. He came out again in a minute with bread and cheese
for two, and eating slowly but with large mouthfuls we strolled on, too
busy and too idle to talk. Instead of larches horse-chestnuts overhung
our road; in the glittering grass borders the dark fruit and the white
pods lay bright. So as we ate we stooped continually for the biggest
“conquers” to fill our pockets. Suddenly the other boy, musing and
not looking at me, asked, “What’s your name?” “Arthur Froxfield,” I
answered, pleased and not at all surprised. “It doesn’t suit you,” he
said, looking at me. “It ought to be John something--
‘John, John, John,
With the big boots on.’
You’re tired.”
I knew his name well enough, for at twelve he was the best runner in
the school. Philip Morgan.... I do not suppose that I concealed my
pride to be thus in his company.
For an hour we were separated; we hit upon the trail, and off he went
without a word. At a limping trot I followed, but lost sight of Philip
and soon fell back into a walk. I had, in fact, turned homewards when
he overtook me; he had been forced to retrace his steps. I was by this
time worn out, and should have given up but for my self-satisfaction
at the long run and the pleasure of knowing that he did not mind my
hanging on his arm as on we crawled. Thus at last after an age of
sleepy fatigue I found myself at home. It had been arranged that on the
next day I was to go round to Abercorran House.
Again and again Philip and I revisited that lane of larches, the long
water-side copse, the oak wood out in the midst of the fields, and all
the hedges, to find moorhen’s eggs, a golden-crested wren’s, and a
thousand treasures, and felicity itself. Philip had known this country
for a year or more; now we always went together. I at least, for a long
time, had a strong private belief that the place had been deserted,
overlooked, forgotten, that it was known only to us. It was not like
ordinary country. The sun there was peculiarly bright. There was
something unusual in the green of its grass, in the caw of its rooks
in April, in the singing of its missel-thrushes on the little round
islands of wood upon the ploughland. When later on I read about those
“remote and holy isles” where the three sons of Ulysses and Circe ruled
over the glorious Tyrrhenians, I thought, for some reason or another,
or perhaps for no reason, of those little round islands of ash and
hazel amidst the ploughland of Our Country, when I was ten and Philip
twelve. If we left it unvisited for some weeks it used to appear to
our imaginations extraordinary in its beauty, and though we might be
forming plans to go thither again before long, I did not fully believe
that it existed--at least for others--while I was away from it. I have
never seen thrushes’ eggs of a blue equalling those we found there.
No wonder Our Country was supernaturally beautiful. It had London
for a foil and background; what is more, on that first day it wore
an uncommon autumnal splendour, so that I cannot hope to meet again
such heavily gilded elms smouldering in warm, windless sunshine, nor
such bright meadows as they stood in, nor such blue sky and such white
billowy cloud as rose up behind the oaks on its horizon.
Philip knew this Our Country in and out, and though his opinion
was that it was not a patch on the country about his old home at
Abercorran, he was never tired of it. In the first place he had been
introduced to it by Mr Stodham. “Mr Stodham,” said Philip, “knows more
about England than the men who write the geography books. He knows High
Bower, where we lived for a year. He is a nice man. He has a horrible
wife. He is in an office somewhere, and she spends his money on
jewellery. But he does not mind; remember that. He has written a poem
and father does not want him to recite it. Glory be to Mr Stodham. When
he trespasses they don’t say anything, or if they do it is only, ‘Fine
day, sir,’ or ‘Where did you want to go to, sir,’ or ‘Excuse me, sir, I
don’t mind your being on my ground, but thought you mightn’t be aware
it is private.’ But if they catch you or me, especially you, being only
eleven and peagreen at that, we shall catch it.”
Once he was caught. He was in a little copse that was all blackthorns,
and the blackthorns were all spikes. Inside was Philip looking for what
he could find; outside, and keeping watch, sat I; and it was Sunday.
Sunday was the only day when you ever saw anyone in Our Country.
Presently a man who was passing said: “The farmer’s coming along
this road, if that’s any interest to you.” It was too late. There he
was--coming round the bend a quarter of a mile off, on a white pony.
I whistled to Philip to look out. I was innocently sitting in the same
place when the farmer rode up. He asked me at once the name of the boy
in the copse, which so took me by surprise that I blabbed out at once.
“Philip Morgan,” shouted the farmer, “Philip Morgan, come out of that
copse.” But Philip was already out of it, as I guessed presently when
I saw a labourer running towards the far end, evidently in pursuit.
The farmer rode on, and thinking he had given it up I followed him.
However, five minutes later Philip ran into his arms at a gateway,
just as he was certain he had escaped, because his pursuer had been
outclassed and had given up running. In a few minutes I joined them.
Philip was recovering his breath and at the same time giving his
address. If we sent in five shillings to a certain hospital in his
name, said the farmer, he would not prosecute us--“No,” he added,
“ten shillings, as it is Sunday.” “The better the day the better the
deed,” said Philip scornfully. “Thank you, my lad,” said the giver
of charity, and so we parted. But neither did we pay the money, nor
were we prosecuted; for my father wrote a letter from his official
address. I do not know what he said. In future, naturally, we gave
some of our time and trouble to avoiding the white pony when we were
in those parts. Not that he got on our nerves. We had no nerves. No:
but we made a difference. Besides, his ground was really not in what
we called Our Country, _par excellence_. Our own country was so free
from molestation that I thought of it instantly when Aurelius read to
me about the Palace of the Mountain of Clouds. A great king had asked
his counsellors and his companions if they knew of any place that no
one could invade, no one, either man or genie. They told him of the
Palace of the Mountain of Clouds. It had been built by a genie who had
fled from Solomon in rebellion. There he had dwelt until the end of
his days. After him no one inhabited it; for it was separated by great
distances and great enchantment from the rest of the world. No one
went thither. It was surrounded by running water sweeter than honey,
colder than snow, and by fruitful trees. And there in the Palace of the
Mountain of Clouds the king might dwell in safety and solitude for ever
and ever....
In the middle of the oak wood we felt as safe and solitary as if we
were lords of the Palace of the Mountain of Clouds. And so we were.
For four years we lived charmed lives. For example, when we had
manufactured a gun and bought a pistol, we crawled over the ploughed
fields at twilight, and fired both at a flock of pewits. Yet neither
birds nor poachers suffered. We climbed the trees for the nests of
crows, woodpeckers, owls, wood-pigeons, and once for a kestrel’s, as
if they were all ours. We went everywhere. More than once we found
ourselves among the lawns and shrubberies of big houses which we had
never suspected. This seems generally to have happened at twilight. As
we never saw the same house twice the mysteriousness was increased. One
of the houses was a perfect type of the dark ancient house in a forest.
We came suddenly stumbling upon it among the oaks just before night.
The walls were high and craggy, and without lights anywhere. A yew tree
grew right up against it. A crow uttered a curse from the oak wood. And
that house I have never seen again save in memory. There it remains,
as English as Morland, as extravagantly wild as Salvator Rosa. That
evening Philip must needs twang his crossbow at the crow--an impossible
shot; but by the grace of God no one came out of the house, and at this
distance of time it is hard to believe that men and women were actually
living there.
Most of these estates had a pond or two, and one had a long one like
a section of a canal. Here we fished with impunity and an untroubled
heart, hoping for a carp, now and then catching a tench. But often
we did not trouble to go so far afield. Our own neighbourhood was by
no means unproductive, and the only part of it which was sacred was
the Wilderness. None of the birds of the Wilderness ever suffered at
our hands. Without thinking about it we refrained from fishing in the
Wilderness pond, and I never saw anybody else do so except Higgs, but
though it seemed to me like robbing the offertory Higgs only grinned.
But other people’s grounds were honoured in a different way. Private
shrubberies became romantic at night to the trespasser. Danger doubled
their shadows, and creeping amongst them we missed no ecstasy of which
we were capable. The danger caused no conscious anxiety or fear,
yet contrived to heighten the colour of such expeditions. We never
had the least expectation of being caught. Otherwise we should have
had more than a little fear in the January night when we went out
after birds, armed with nets and lanterns. The scene was a region of
meadows, waiting to be built on and in the meantime occupied by a few
horses and cows, and a football and a lawn-tennis club. Up and down
the hedges we went with great hopes of four and twenty blackbirds or
so. We had attained a deep and thrilling satisfaction but not taken a
single bird when we were suddenly aware of a deep, genial voice asking,
“What’s the game?” It was a policeman. The sight acted like the pulling
of a trigger--off we sped. Having an advantage of position I was the
first to leap the boundary hedge into the road, or rather into the
ditch between hedge and road. Philip followed, but not the policeman.
We both fell at the jump, Philip landing on top of me, but without
damage to either. We reached home, covered in mud and secret glory,
which made up for the loss of a cap and two lanterns. The glory lasted
one day only, for on the next I was compelled to accompany my father to
the police-station to inquire after the cap and lanterns. However, I
had the honour of hearing the policeman say--though laughing--that we
had taken the leap like hunters and given him no chance at all. This
and the fact that our property was not recovered preserved a little of
the glory.
In these meadows, in the grounds which their owners never used at
night, and in Our Country, Philip and I spent really a great deal of
time, fishing, birds-nesting, and trying to shoot birds with cross-bow,
pistol, or home-made gun. There were intervals of school, and of
football and cricket, but these in memory do not amount to more than
the towns of England do in comparison with the country. As on the map
the towns are but blots and spots on the country, so the school-hours
were embedded, almost buried away, in the holidays, official,
semi-official, and altogether unofficial. Philip and I were together
during most of them; even the three principal long holidays of the year
were often shared, either in Wales with some of Philip’s people, or at
Lydiard Constantine, in Wiltshire, with my aunt Rachel.