Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
but this was the first in the sequence of those Shaksperean mornings,
and it was also, subjectively, the finest. I shall not describe it,
since, objectively and in the quietude of hard fact, I now perceive that
it could not have been in the least remarkable. The sun rose over
the southward range which Bunyan took for the model of his Delectable
Mountains, and forty or fifty square miles of diversified land was
spread out in front of me. The road cut down for a couple of miles like
a geometrician’s rule, and disappeared in a slight S curve, the work
of a modern generation afraid of gradients, on to the other side of the
Delectable Mountains. I thought: “How magnificent were those Romans
in their disregard of everything except direction!” And being a
professional novelist I naturally began at once to consider the
possibilities of exploiting Watling Street in fiction. Then I climbed
to the brow of my own hill, whence, at the foot of the long northerly
slope, I could descry the outposts of my village, a mile away; there
was no habitation of mankind nearer to me than this picturesque and
venerable hamlet, which seemed to lie inconsiderable on the great road
like a piece of paper. The seventy-four telegraph wires which border the
great road run above the roofs of Winghurst as if they were unaware
of its existence. “And Winghurst,” I reflected, “is henceforth
my metropolis.” No office! No memorising of time-tables! No daily
struggle-for-lunch! Winghurst, with three hundred inhabitants, the
centre of excitement, the fount of external life!
The course of these ordinary but inevitable thoughts was interrupted by
my consciousness of a presence near me. A man coughed. He had approached
me, in almost soleless boots, on the grassy footpath. For a brief second
I regarded him with that peculiar fellow-feeling which a man who has
risen extremely early is wont to exhibit towards another man who
has risen extremely early. But finding no answering vanity in his
undistinguished features I quickly put on an appearance of usualness, to
indicate that I might be found on that spot at that hour every morning.
The man looked shabby, and that Sherlock Holmes who lies concealed in
each one of us decided for me that he must be a tailor out-of-work.
“Good morning, sir,” he said.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Do you want to buy a good recipe for a horse, sir?” he asked.
“A horse?” I repeated, wondering whether he was a lunatic, or a genius
who had discovered a way to manufacture horses.
“Yes, sir,” he said, “They often fall sick, sir, you know. The saying
is, as I daresay you’ve heard, ‘Never trust a woman’s word or a horse’s
health.’”