That summer is drawing to its end, and autumn close at hand, one need not
look at the calendar to know. Throughout a morning’s walk, signs of
imminent change crop up now at every turn. The wild arums that you have
forgotten since last you saw them turning their pale green cowls from the
light, give out a bold glitter of scarlet in the shady deeps under every
hedgerow. Each day sees the hips and haws growing ruddier. Though
September is scarce half gone, the green bracken-fronds in the woods are
already alight at the tips with crimson and gold; and the heather on the
combe-side has lost its clear rose-red. The song of the bees in it seems
as loud as ever, but for every tuft of living blossom there are two that
are faded and brown. The good times are nearly over for the
honey-makers, and each day the gathering of a full load of nectar means
travelling farther afield.
I wonder why it is I always look forward to the renewal of the year’s
life with so much eagerness and impatience, and yet meet its decline with
such surpassing equanimity. Am I—I have often asked myself lately—the
same being who industriously searched the river bank for a whole bleak
February morning in quest of the first coltsfoot, greeting it with an
unconscionable extravagance of rejoicing: I who now tread the same way in
nowise perturbed, nor even unelated, at the obvious fact of each day’s
lessened ardour? The truth that the year is already on the long downward
road, riding for its winter fall, awakens in me not a pang of regret.
Indeed, I neither remember the departed magnificence of June as something
lost, nor regard the ever-diminishing September days as portent of
penurious times to come. With autumn, as with advancing age, when once
each is assured, irrevocable, the natural tendency seems to be towards a
looking neither backward nor forward, but towards a joyful acceptance of
the things that are. And so, at these times, whatever our declared
principles, we one and all develop, or degenerate, into optimists.
But, of a truth, it needs very little of this mental condiment to be
happy in a Sussex Downland village in September. Perhaps none but the
very old can, at any time, sincerely avow a repugnance towards machinery
in farming: certainly, at this season of the year, the whole spirit of
village life receives benefit from it. They have been threshing up at
the farm to-day, and from sunrise to sunset, all through the still,
quiet, golden hours, the voice of the threshing mill has permeated
everything, blent itself with the song of the robins in the garden, with
the chime from the smithy, with all the other sounds of labour that go to
make up the silence of country dwelling-places. I have come to look upon
this sound as the veritable keynote of autumn, and to believe that it has
an influence on all hearts at this season, entirely underrated by those
whose business it is to study rural affairs.
It is the fashion to contemn the old melodramatic trick of still-music;
but, for my own part, I have never been able to resist the low sobbing
and sighing of the violins when the stage-story is being cleared up, all
wrongs righted, and the villain given his due. The speech itself is
nothing to me. It is seldom regarded, and remembered never. I should be
just as deeply moved if all that leashed, melodious passion went as
setting to ‘Old Mother Hubbard’ or ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’ And
on the same principle, when this beautiful, solemn voice of the threshing
mill dwells in the autumnal air, I find myself doing the commonest things
with a sense of high Fate and speeding of the world’s progress. But,
indeed, Nature works throughout largely on this still-music plan, and
therein lies one inestimable advantage of living in the country. Bird
song, to all intents and purposes, unceasing throughout the year—the
songs of stream, river, and sea—the songs of the four winds—all work
together for good on the hearts of those men and women who, by their own
design, or by external destiny, have been led to keep their thread of
life running by green woods and fields.
As the sun went down behind the hills, and left the world afloat in
wine-coloured mist, every sound of work ceased in the village, save this
rich throbbing voice of the threshing mill up at the farm. I went out
into the dreaming light to listen to it. From where I sat on the
churchyard wall, I could make out that they were prolonging the work into
the dusk, so that the last rick might be finished now, and the threshing
gang move on to-night to the next farm. There was the deep sound of the
mill itself, one tremendous baritone note succeeding another, each held
for a moment, and then suddenly changing to one higher or lower in the
sonorous clef. Apart from this, I could distinguish the fuss and fume of
the engine, as it drove its white breath in little unsteady gusts up
against the violet calm of the sky. And there was another sound—the
flapping song of the driving-belt—a note that punctuated everything, as
though some invisible conductor were beating time to the general
symphony. But the combined effect of all was infinitely harmonious and
restful.
Yet I had come out, in the main, to hear, not this familiar part of the
music, but something about it that I loved to hear most of all; and this
was the stopping of the machine. It was almost dark before the last
sheaf went to the mill, and steam was shut off. And then the wonderful
note began. The machine took an appreciable time to run down. But now
there was no upward inflection in its voice. Note by note, each note
more drawn out and quieter, the rich tones fell through every stage of an
octave, until at last they died away in the profoundest, softest bass.
Even then I fancied I could feel the solid earth still shuddering with a
music too deep for human ear.