II

It is not difficult to understand why indoor work is at most times

tolerable in cities, fair weather or foul. For in cities earth and sky

have long been driven out of their ancient comradeship. Stifled by

pavements and masonry, the earth cannot feel the touch of the sunbeams,

nor the air enrich itself with the breath of the soil. The old glad

interchange is prevented at all points. There is no lure in the

sunshine, no siren voice in the gale. Summer rain does not call you out

into the open, to share the joy of it with the drinking grass and leaves.

Amidst your dead, impenetrable bricks-and-mortar, you can plod on with

your scribbling or figuring without a heart-stir; no vine-leaf will tap

at your window, no lily-of-the-field taunt your industry, nor song of

skylark dissipate your dreams.

But indoor work, carried on in a village deep in the green heart of some

beautiful country-side, is on an entirely different plane. At times,

perhaps, it becomes the hardest work in the world. With one lavish hand

life gives you the things most necessary for close, unremitting

application, and with the other she ruthlessly sets all manner of

obstacles in your path. On such a day as now dawned crystal-clear over

Windlecombe, with the first warm wind of the year blowing new life into

everything, there was no stopping indoors for me. I got down to my work

punctually enough, even a little before the wonted time. But good

resolutions could make no headway against such odds. The south-west wind

boomed merrily in the elm-tops. The sunbeams riddled my old house

through and through. Out in the garden robins and thrushes had formed

themselves into a grand orchestra; and when the breeze lulled for a

moment, I could hear the larks singing far overhead, as though it were a

summer’s day. An hour of half-hearted tinkering saw my fortitude break

like a milldam. Five minutes later I had shut the house-door behind me,

and was off up the village street, gulping down deep draughts of the

sweet morning air.

I chose the path that led to the Downs. Mounting the steep, chalky track

in the arms of the gale, with the misty green heights looming up before

me against the blue of the winter’s morning, one fact was borne in upon

me at every step. Though I must needs write winter—for January was but

three parts done—it was no longer winter, but spring. A few days’ sunny

warmth had worked what seemed like a miracle. In the hedges and trees

the buds were swelling. Birds were pairing. Young green spears of grass

showed underfoot. Across the path clouds of midges danced in the

sunshine. I heard the first low love-croon of a wood-dove; and, when I

stopped for breath in the lee of the hazel-copse, there drifted out upon

me a song never yet heard on winter days—the mellow voice of a blackbird

calling for a mate.

But the more we study Nature out of doors, the more we come to disbelieve

in winter altogether. Winter is in truth a myth. From the moment the

old year’s leaves are down, the earth is in vigorous preparation for the

new year’s life and growth. Nature lies by quietly enough during the

cold spells, but each awakening is a stronger and more joyous one. While

they last, the long frosts seem to hold all the life of things suspended.

Yet, with every return of the south-west wind, it is easy to see that

this is not really so. Though the visible sunbeams have had no power for

progress, those stored in the earth have been slowly and steadily at

work. And when the thaw comes, Nature seems to take up the slack of the

year in one tremendous forward pull.

I reached the crest of Windle Down, and made over the springy, dew-soaked

grass, content to go wheresoever the tearing wind should drive me. The

long, billowing curves of the hills stretched away on all sides until

they lost themselves in distant violet haze. Here and there flocks of

sheep made a grey patch in the sunlit solitude, and a low clamour of

bells was in the air blent with the unending song of the larks. On the

combe-sides the gorse spread its darker green, and, near at hand, I could

make out its gold buds already bursting under the touch of the sunbeams

The next hill before me was topped with a ring of fencing, near which

stood a solitary figure, clear cut against the tender blue of the north.

Shepherding on the South Downs is an hereditary family calling, and old

George Artlett, the shepherd at Windlecombe farm, had trained up two at

least of his four sons to follow in his own tranquil steps. In village

life, though the essence of neighbourliness is that it must be exercised

impartially to one and all, worthy or unworthy, there are ever some about

you with whom the daily traffic of genial word and deed comes more aptly

than with the rest. In all the years I had known the Artletts, there had

been scarce a day when I had not encountered one or other of that sturdy

clan, and generally to my profit. If it was not the old shepherd himself

placidly trailing along in the rear of his flock with his shining crook,

it was ‘young’ George, the fifty-year-old under-shepherd, his pocket

bulged out with a Bible; or Dewie, the shepherd’s boy; or John, the

sporting handy-man, tramping off to covert with his pack of mongrels; or

quaint ‘Mistus’ Artlett, carrying her household basket to and from the

shop. Of Tom Artlett—the ‘Singing Ploughman,’ as he was called in the

neighbouring market town—I got a glimpse sometimes in the early grey of

morning, or more often of late afternoon, as he journeyed between home

and farm. He ploughed his acre a day conscientiously, walking the usual

twelve miles in the doing of it; and all the while his rich, powerful

voice made the hills about him echo with the songs he loved.

Why he sang these songs, and why young George’s pocket always bulged,

would have been at once evident to you if you could have looked out of

window with me any Sunday morning about eight of the clock. Punctually

at that hour, the two brothers strode by in their scarlet guernseys and

blue, braided coats, on their way to the town; and there they passed a

seventh day more toilsome than all the other six, coming home at

nightfall hoarse and weary, yet plainly as happy as any men could be.

Young George Artlett stood on the hill-top, leaning upon his crook. The

wind fluttered his coat about him, and lashed his haversack to and fro.

He stood with his back in my direction, bare-headed, his grey hair

streaming in the breeze. It was not until I had almost come up with him

that I marked his uplifted face, his closed eyes, his moving lips; and

then I stopped irresolutely, ashamed of the blunder I had committed. But

before I could turn and retreat, the dog at his side had signalled my

presence. The old tarpaulin sou’wester hat was returned to its place.

Young George wheeled round, and looked at me with eyes of welcome.

‘I knowed by th’ bark o’ him, who ’twur,’ he said, in his slow, deep,

quiet voice. ‘Rowster, ’a has a name fer all o’ ye. That there little

happy shruck, ’tis yerself an’ nane other. When ’a perks up an’ bellers,

’tis th’ poodle-dorg an’ Miss Sweet. An’ when ’a grizzles, I an’t no

call to look around; there be a black coat no gurt ways off, sure as big

apples comes from little uns.’

He smiled to himself, as though the memory of some recent encounter with

the black coat had returned to him. Then he took a quick glance at the

sun.

‘Drinkin’-time!’ said he.

His sheep were all on the far hill-side, half a mile off perhaps,

feeding—as sheep always do on windy days—with their heads to the breeze;

and shouldering together in long, straight lines, roughly parallel—as,

again, sheep generally will, in spite of the prettily ordered groups on

painters’ canvases. It is only on days of perfect calm that grazing

sheep will head to all points of the compass, and on the South Downs such

days are rare indeed.

George Artlett put his hands to his mouth funnel-wise, and sent the

shepherd’s folding-call ringing on the breeze.

‘Coo-oo-oo-o-up! Coo-oo-oo-o-up! Coom along—coo-oo-up!’

The shrill, wild notes pealed out, drawing an echo from every hill far

and near. At once all the ewes on the distant sunny slope stopped their

nibbling, and looked round. Again the cry rang forth. This time the

foremost sheep moved a step or two in our direction, hesitated, then came

slowly on. A moment later the whole flock was under way, pouring

steadily up the hill-side and filling the air with a deep, clamorous

song.

But two or three of the younger sheep had stayed behind in a little bay

of grass beyond the furze-brake. Rowster looked inquiringly at his

master, got a consenting wave of the arm, and was off with the speed of

light. We watched him as he raced down the hill in a wide semicircle,

and, taking the malingerers in the rear, drove them helter-skelter after

the rest. Yelping and snapping behind them, he brought the whole flock

up to the dew-pond at what seemed an entirely unnecessary pace.

‘’Tis allers so wi’ dorgs,’ observed young George reflectively. ‘Ye can

never larn them as shepherd work ought to go slow as the sun i’ the sky.

All fer hurry an’ bustle they be, from birth-time to buryin’—get the hour

by, sez they, the day over, life done, an’ on wi’ the next thing!’

We turned our shoulders to the blustering wind, and leant over the rail

together, watching the sheep drink. These dew-ponds on the Sussex Downs

are always a mystery to strangers coming for the first time into the

sheep country; and they are never quite bereft of their miraculous

quality, even among the shepherds themselves. That in a land, where

there are neither springs nor natural pools of water, man should dig

hollows, not in the lowest sink-points of the valleys where one would

reasonably make such a work, but on the summits of the highest hills, and

then confidently expect Nature to fill them with water, keeping them so

filled year after year, in and out of season, no matter what call was

made on their resources—must appear little else than downright ineptitude

to one who has never had the feasibility of the plan demonstrated under

his very eyes. Yet the seeming wonder of the dew-pond has a very simple

explanation. It is nothing more than a cold spot on the earth, which

continually precipitates the moisture from the air passing over it; and

this cold spot is formed on the hill-top because there it encounters air

which has not been robbed of its vapour by previous contact with the

earth.

The best dew-pan makers are the men of Wiltshire, as all flockmasters

know. The pond, having been excavated to the right depth and shape, is

lined first with puddled clay or chalk, then with a thick layer of dry

straw; finally, upon this straw a further substantial coating of clay is

laid, and well beaten down. Nothing is needed then but to bring a few

cart-loads of water to start the pond, and to set a ring-fence about it

to keep off heavy stock. The action of the straw, in its waterproof

double-casing, is to intercept the heat-radiation of the earth at that

particular point, so that the pond-cavity and its contents remain colder

than the surrounding soil.

How the dew-pond came to be invented has often been the subject of

wondering speculation. No doubt there have been dew-pond makers for

untold centuries back, but at one time, however far distant, a first

discovery of the principle underlying the thing must have been made.

Probably the dew-pond, in some form or other, had its origin in those

remote times when all the high-lying chalk-lands of southern England were

overrun by a dense population. But then, as now, the region must have

been waterless; and the people, living there for security’s sake, must,

nevertheless, have been constrained to provide themselves with this first

daily necessity of all life. We read of the manna given in the

Wilderness, and the water struck from the Rock. These were miracles

worked, as miracles ever are, for children: they were grown men,

evidently, in mind and heart, to whom the dew-pond was given. For though

the thing, in essence, was set to shine about their feet wherever men

trod, so that none could forbear seeing, its adaptation to human need was

left to man’s own labour and thoughtful ingenuity. To-day, as in those

far-off ages, the dwarf plume-thistle studs the sward of the Downs, each

circle of thick, fleshy leaves, matted together and centrally depressed,

forming a perfect little dew-pond, that retains its garnered moisture

long after all other vegetation has grown dry in the heat of the mounting

sun. Even if there were no such thing as a dew-pond on all the Downs

to-day, and every flock must perforce be driven miles, perhaps, down into

the valley to be watered, it is inconceivable that no one of prime

intelligence, wandering the hills alive to the need of the thirsty

thousands around him, would mark the natural reservoirs of the thistles,

reason out the principles they embodied, and straightway set brain and

hand to work on the first dew-pond—using perchance, in earliest

experiment, the actual thistle-leaves for the indispensable

heat-retarding layer.

I had often talked the matter over with George Artlett, and now we

drifted into the old subject. But he was never to be cajoled out of his

belief in the miraculous nature of the affair.

‘Him as sent th’ fire down to th’ could altar,’ he said, his long arm

going up to heaven, and his voice taking on that deep, vibratory chime so

familiar to Sunday loiterers in Stavisham marketplace, ‘He knaws how to

send watter to faith an’ a dry pan. Ay! but I ha’ seed it comin’, many’s

the time. An’ th’ first time, I ’lowed as ’twur High Barn ricks burnin’.

We was goin’ hoame to fold, and there afore me, right agen th’ red

night-sky, I seed a gurt topplin’ cloud o’ summut as looked like smoke

ahent th’ hill. Sez I, ’tis High Barn ricks afire! But it warn’t. It

wur jest Gorramighty gatherin’ together His dew from the fower winds o’

heaven, an’ pourin’ it into Maast’ Coles’s pond.’