Near upon half a century I have lived in the world, and cannot yet say of
the wind whether I hate it or love it most.
It is a dilemma that comes only to the dweller in the country, for in a
town no sane man can be in two minds on the matter. With a careering,
mephitic dust choking up all organs of perception, and the risk of being
cloven to the chine by a roof slate or lassoed by a loose electric wire,
no one can think of wind, hot or cold, without heartily wishing it gone.
But in the country, though for my old enemy, the northeast wind, I have
nothing but fear and detestation at all seasons, warm gales, whether in
winter or summer, come as often in friendly as in inimical guise. Like
certain of the Hindu gods, the wind must be content to be treated
according to the outcome of its activities, and receive laudation or
revilement as this prove fair or foul.
All through to-day the south-west wind has been volleying up the combe,
and everywhere in the village there has been a hubbub of slamming doors
and rattling casements, and the flack and clutter of linen drying on the
garden lines. People fought their way step by step down the hill against
the wind, and tripped lightly up it, the oldest and feeblest forced into
a smart jog-trot. Aprons were blown over faces, and hats snatched off at
corners. The trees overshadowing the village have been lashing together,
and roaring out a deep continuous song. The three thatchers on the inn
sign, each with a gilded hod of straw, have been flashing signals up to
my window every time the sun broke through the flying storm-wrack; and a
hundred times in the long day some riding witch of a rain-cloud has tried
to drench us, but each time the south-west gale has seized it by the
tattered skirts and chevied it away over the hills before it could shed a
dozen drops.
But it has been a good wind all through, and fine heartening weather; and
I have been glad to be abroad in it whenever I could spare or steal an
hour. Said the old vicar, as we climbed up Windle Hill together this
morning, his long white beard flowing out before him as he lay back on
the blast:
‘I know what you would have done, if I had let you choose the way. You
would have struck deep into the woods, like the butterflies, and missed
all the healthy buffeting of it. But there is only one place for a man
to-day, and that is on the open Down. It never pays in the long-run in
life to study how to keep out of the way of hard knocks.’
The sunshine raced ahead of us, vaulted the hilltop, and was gone. A
scatter of warm rain drove out of the grey heaven. I turned up my
coat-collar just in time to intercept the returning sun.
‘True,’ said I, ‘but the good of hard knocks depends not on their
frequency, but on the profit you extract from them. I get and keep
designedly as much of this as I can, so a little goes a long way with me.
And I love the quiet and stillness of the deep wood, when the wind is
roaring out in the open. If we had gone there to-day, we should have
found the rosebay willowherbs in full bloom, and more butterflies upon
them than you could find in a week elsewhere. Besides, the ups in life
are just as good for one as the downs. I can admire the old Scotch pine
that clings to the bare hill-top through a century of winter storms, but
I must not be inconsiderate of the lilies.’
The old Windlecombe vicar has a way of dealing with notions of this kind
which is good for his hearer, whether he allow himself convinced, or
consider his dignity affronted. He ventilates such ideas as he would let
light into a room, by dashing a rough hand through the dust-grimed
window. It is a method unpicturesque and often brutal, but effective and
salutary in the main. I owe him gratefully many a pretty rainbow bubble
of conceit exploded.
‘Pluck your head out of the sand,’ quoth he, ‘for your ragged
hinder-parts are visible to all the world of honest eyes. The pine and
the lily are not choosing creatures. To them is their environment
allotted, but to you is given the wilful fashioning of it. A man may be
either gold or iron—made either for beauty or for use. But the one will
not decorate, nor the other uphold the world, if he shirk the fires that
must first refine or temper him. So away with your foolish Sahara
tricks, and get on with the work the moment brings you.’
By this he meant I was to look about me, and tell him what I saw as we
went along, a duty in which I was too often an unintentional malingerer.
‘Yesterday a Londoner was in the village,’ I told him, for a start, ‘and
he was scoffing at our Downs. “Where,” said he, “are the green highlands
of Sussex I have read so much about? Why, the hills are not green, but
brown!” And it was quite true at this season, and from his standpoint
down in the valley. Up here we can see what gives the Downs their rich
bronze colour in summer-time. From below they looked parched and
sunburnt, as though nothing could grow for the heat and drought. But now
I can see that the general brown tone is really a mingling of a thousand
living hues. Looking straight down as you walk, the turf is as green as
ever it was; but a dozen paces onward all this fresh verdure is lost
under the greys and drabs of the seeding grass-heads. Then again, the
brown colour is due just as much to the blending of all other colours
that the eye separates at a close view, but confuses from afar. We are
walking on a carpet of flowers; we cannot avoid trampling them, if we are
to set foot to the ground at all. Yellow goatsbeard and vetchling, and
the little trefoil with the blood-red tips to its petals, and golden
hawkweed everywhere; for blues, there are millions of plantains, and
sheepsbit, and harebells; and the wild thyme purples half the hillside,
making the bright carmine of the orchids brighter still wherever it
blows. But I have not reckoned in half the flowers that—’
‘Hold, enough! I am sick of your Londoner, and of every human being for
the moment. Listen to the free, glorious wind! Down in the valley there
we always think of the wind as a creature with a voice—something striding
through the sky and calling as it goes. But up here we know that it is
the earth that calls. Hark to it swishing, and surging, and sighing for
miles round! The sound is never overhead on these treeless wastes, but
always underfoot. You keep head and shoulders up in the soundless
sunshine, and walk in a maelstrom. Did you ever think that the larks
always sing in the midst of silence, no matter how hard the wind blows?
Those are George Artlett’s sheep we are coming to, are they not? I ought
to know the old dog’s talk!’
I scanned the hills about me, but could see no sign of sheep, shepherd,
or dog. But as we drew to the edge of the wide plateau we were
traversing, and got a view down into the steep combe beyond, there sure
enough were all three. The sheep, just growing artistically presentable
after their June shearing, were scattered over the deep bottom, quietly
nibbling at the turf. Far below, in the shadow of a single stunted
hawthorn, sat young George Artlett scribbling on his knee. No doubt
Rowster had been lying by his master’s side, until our shadows struck
sheer down upon him from the brink of the hill. But now he was up and
pricking his ears sharply in our direction, growling menaces and wagging
a welcome at one and the same time. I gave the Reverend what I saw in
few words. To my surprise he began to descend the steep hill-side.
[Picture: “Southdown Ewes”]
‘After all,’ said he, ‘George Artlett and I never really fell out. But
we agreed to differ, and that is the most fatal, most lasting
disagreement of all. I should have known better. I think I will risk a
hand to him again.’
As we clambered down the precipitous slope, into the shelter of the
combe, the wind suddenly stopped its music in our ears. There fell a
dead calm about us. At the bottom, we seemed to be walking between two
widely separated, yet almost perpendicular cliffs of green, with a great
span of blue sky far above, across which the heavy cumuli raged
unceasingly. George Artlett got to his feet at our approach, thrust his
paper into his pocket, and gravely clawed off his old tarpaulin hat. He
took the hand held out to him with wonder, and a little hesitation.
‘And how fares the good work, George?’
Artlett was silent a moment. He tried to read the sightless eyes.
‘Shepherdin’, sir? ’Tis allers slow goin’, but goin’ all th’ time. We
did famous with th’ wool, an’—’
‘George, leave the wool alone. You know what I mean.’
George Artlett swung round on his heel, and swung back again. He counted
the fingers on his gnarled hand slowly one by one.
‘Be ut priest to lost runagate, or be ut man to man?’ he asked, looking
up suddenly.
‘It is just one child in the dark way putting forth hand to another.
For, to the best of us, George, comradeship can be no more than a
heartening touch and sound of a footstep going a common road, and the
voice of a friend. Do you see a light at the end of your path?’
‘Ay! I do that!’
‘Look closer. Is not the light just the shine of a Beautiful Face, very
grave and sorrowful, but with a great joy beginning to spread over it,
and—’
Though the deep voice stemmed on in the sunny quiet of the combe, I could
distinguish the words no longer; for something, that was by no means part
of me but of a more delicate nurture, had set my feet going against my
will. I was halfway down the long alley of the combe before I stopped to
wait for the old vicar. And then, looking backward, I fell to staring
with all my eyes.
‘Reverend,’ said I, after he had rejoined me, and we had walked on
together in silence for a minute or two, ‘I wish you could see what is
before me now.’