At the Spring
The path across the fields is so well worn that one can find his way
along its devious course by night almost as easily as by day. I have
gone over it at all hours, and have never returned without some fresh
and cheering memory for other and less favoured days. The fields
across which it leads one, with the unfailing suggestion of something
better beyond, are undulating and dotted here and there with browsing
cattle. The landscape is full of pastoral repose and charm--the charm
of familiar things that are touched with old memories, and upon whose
natural beauty there rests the reflected light of days that have become
idyllic. No one can walk along a country road over which as a boy he
heard the daily invitation of the schoolhouse bell without discovering
at every turn some loveliness never revealed save to the glance of
unforgotten youth. The path which leads to the spring has this
unfailing charm for me, and for many who have long ceased to follow its
winding course. At this season it is touched here and there by the
autumnal splendour, and fairly riots in the profusion of the
golden-rod, whose yellow plumes are lighting the retreating steps of
summer across the fields. Great masses of brilliant wood-bine cover
the stone walls and hang from the trees along the fences. The corn,
cut and stacked in orderly lines, is not without its transforming touch
of colour; and while the trees still wait for the coronation of the
year Nature seems to have passed along this path and turned it into a
royal highway. As it approaches the woods, one gets glimpses of the
village spires in the distance, and finds a new charm in this
borderland between sunlight and shadow, between solitude and the
companionship of human life. A little distance along the edges of the
woods, with an occasional detour of the path into the shades of the
forest, brings one to the spring. A great, rudely-cut stone marks the
place, and makes a kind of background for the cool, limpid pool into
which a few leaves fall from the woods, but which belongs to the open
sky and fields. There is certainly no more gentle, reposeful scene
than this; so secluded from the dust and whirl of cities and
thoroughfares, and yet so near to ancient homes, so sweet and
life-giving in its service to them, so often and so eagerly sought at
all seasons and by men of all conditions. Here oftenest come the
restless feet of children, and their shouts are almost the only sounds
that ever break this solitude.
To me there is something inexpressibly sweet and refreshing in the
familiar and yet unfailing loveliness of this place. The fields are
always peaceful, and the slow motions of the cattle grouped here and
there under the shadows of solitary trees, or of the sheep browsing in
long, irregular lines across the further meadows, give the landscape
that touch of pastoral life which unites us with Nature in the oldest
and most homelike relations. Here, on still summer afternoons, one
seems to have come upon a sleeping world; a world over whose slumber
the clouds are passing like peaceful dreams. In such an hour the
limpid water of the spring seems to rise out of the very heart of the
earth, and to bring with it an unfailing refreshment of spirit. The
white sand through which it finds its way makes its transparent
clearness more apparent, and the great stone seems to hold back the
woods from an approach that would overshadow it. It rises so silently
into the visible world from the unseen depths that one cannot but feel
some illusion of sentiment thrown over it, some disclosure of truth
escaping with it from the darkness beneath. Whence does it flow, and
what has its journey been? Did some remote mountain range gather its
waters from the clouds and send them down through long and winding
channels deep in its heart? Is there far below an invisible stream
flowing, like the river Alphaeus, unseen and unheard beneath the earth?
The spring is mute when these questions rise to lips which it is always
ready to moisten from its cool depths. It is enough that in this quiet
place the bounty of Nature never ceases to overflow, and that here she
holds out the cup of refreshment with royal indifference to gratitude
or neglect. Here she ministers to every comer as if her whole life
were a service. One forgets that behind this cup of cold water, held
out to the humblest, there sweep sublime powers, and that the same hand
which serves him here moves in their courses the planets, whose faint
reflections shine in this silent pool by night.
Springs have been natural centres of life from the earliest times.
Deep in the solitude of forests, or fringed with foliage in the heart
of deserts, they have alike served the needs and appealed to the
sentiment of men. Around the wells cluster the most venerable
associations of the ancient patriarchal families; the beautiful
pastoral life of the Old Testament, full of deep, unwritten poetry,
discovers no scenes more characteristic and touching than those which
were enacted beside these sources of fertility. Green and fruitful in
the memory of the most sacred history repose these cool, refreshing
pools under the burning glance of the tropical sun. Here, too, as in
those distant lands, life is kept in constant freshness around the
borders of the spring. The grass grows green and dense here the whole
summer through, and here there is always a breath of cooler air when
the fields glow with intense heat. In such places Nature waits to
touch the fevered spirit with something of her own peace, and to keep
alive forever in the hearts of men that faith in things unseen which
rises like a spring from the depths, and makes a centre of fruitful and
beautiful life.