There is a hill not far from my home whence it is possible to see
northward and southward such a stretch of land as is not to be seen from
any eminence among those I know in Western Europe. Southward the
sea-plain and the sea standing up in a belt of light against the sky,
and northward all the weald.
From this summit the eye is disturbed by no great cities of the modern
sort, but a dozen at least of those small market towns which are the
delight of South England hold the view from point to point, from the
pale blue downs of the island over, eastward, to the Kentish hills.
A very long way off, and near the sea-line, the high faint spire of that
cathedral which was once the mother of all my county goes up without
weight into the air and gathers round it the delicate and distant
outlines of the landscape--as, indeed, its builders meant that it should
do. In such a spot, on such a high watch-tower of England, I met, three
days ago, a man.
I had been riding my kind and honourable horse for two hours, broken,
indeed, by a long rest in a deserted barn.
I had been his companion, I say, for two hours, and had told him a
hundred interesting things--to which he had answered nothing at
all--when I took him along a path that neither of us yet had trod. I had
not, I know; he had not (I think), for he went snorting and doubtfully.
This path broke up from the kennels near Waltham, and made for the High
Wood between Gumber and No Man's Land. It went over dead leaves and
quite lonely to the thick of the forest; there it died out into a
vaguer and a vaguer trail. At last it ceased altogether, and for half an
hour or so I pushed carefully, always climbing upwards, through the
branches, and picked my way along the bramble-shoots, until at last I
came out upon that open space of which I had spoken, and which I have
known since my childhood. As I came out of the wood the south-west wind
met me, full of the Atlantic, and it seemed to me to blow from Paradise.
I remembered, as I halted and so gazed north and south to the weald
below me, and then again to the sea, the story of that Sultan who
publicly proclaimed that he had possessed all power on earth, and had
numbered on a tablet with his own hand each of his happy days, and had
found them, when he came to die, to be seventeen. I knew what that
heathen had meant, and I looked into my heart as I remembered the story,
but I came back from the examination satisfied, for "So far," I said to
myself, "this day is among my number, and the light is falling. I will
count it for one." It was then that I saw before me, going easily and
slowly across the downs, the figure of a man.
He was powerful, full of health and easy; his clothes were rags; his
face was open and bronzed. I came at once off my horse to speak with
him, and, holding my horse by the bridle, I led it forward till we met.
Then I asked him whither he was going, and whether, as I knew these open
hills by heart, I could not help him on his way.
He answered me that he was in no need of help, for he was bound nowhere,
but that he had come up off the high road on to the hills in order to
get his pleasure and also to see what there was on the other side. He
said to me also, with evident enjoyment (and in the accent of a lettered
man), "This is indeed a day to be alive!"
I saw that I had here some chance of an adventure, since it is not every
day that one meets upon a lonely down a man of culture, in rags and
happy. I therefore took the bridle right off my horse and let him
nibble, and I sat down on the bank of the Roman road holding the
leather of the bridle in my hand, and wiping the bit with plucked grass.
The stranger sat down beside me, and drew from his pocket a piece of
bread and a large onion. We then talked of those things which should
chiefly occupy mankind: I mean, of happiness and of the destiny of the
soul. Upon these matters I found him to be exact, thoughtful, and just.
First, then, I said to him: "I also have been full of gladness all this
day, and, what is more, as I came up the hill from Waltham I was
inspired to verse, and wrote it inside my mind, completing a passage I
had been working at for two years, upon joy. But it was easy for me to
be happy, since I was on a horse and warm and well fed; yet even for me
such days are capricious. I have known but few in my life. They are each
of them distinct and clear, so rare are they, and (what is more) so
different are they in their very quality from all other days."
"You are right," he said, "in this last phrase of yours.... They are
indeed quite other from all the common days of our lives. But you were
wrong, I think, in saying that your horse and clothes and good feeding
and the rest had to do with these curious intervals of content. Wealth
makes the run of our days somewhat more easy, poverty makes them more
hard--or very hard. But no poverty has ever yet brought of itself
despair into the soul--the men who kill themselves are neither rich nor
poor. Still less has wealth ever purchased those peculiar hours. I also
am filled with their spirit to-day, and God knows," said he, cutting his
onion in two, so that it gave out a strong savour, "God knows I can
purchase nothing."
"Then tell me," I said, "whence do you believe these moments come? And
will you give me half your onion?"
"With pleasure," he replied, "for no man can eat a whole onion; and as
for that other matter, why I think the door of heaven is ajar from time
to time, and that light shines out upon us for a moment between its
opening and closing." He said this in a merry, sober manner; his black
eyes sparkled, and his large beard was blown about a little by the
wind. Then he added: "If a man is a slave to the rich in the great
cities (the most miserable of mankind), yet these days come to him. To
the vicious wealthy and privileged men, whose faces are stamped hard
with degradation, these days come; they come to you, you say, working (I
suppose) in anxiety like most of men. They come to me who neither work
nor am anxious so long as South England may freely import onions."
"I believe you are right," I said. "And I especially commend you for
eating onions; they contain all health; they induce sleep; they may be
called the apples of content, or, again, the companion fruits of
mankind."
"I have always said," he answered gravely, "that when the couple of them
left Eden they hid and took away with them an onion. I am moved in my
soul to have known a man who reveres and loves them in the due measure,
for such men are rare."
Then he asked, with evident anxiety: "Is there no inn about here where a
man like me will be taken in?"
"Yes," I told him. "Down under the Combe at Duncton is a very good inn.
Have you money to pay? Will you take some of my money?"
"I will take all you can possibly afford me," he answered in a cheerful,
manly fashion. I counted out my money and found I had on me but 3s.7d.
"Here is 3s. 7d.," I said.
"Thank you, indeed," he answered, taking the coins and wrapping them in
a little rag (for he had no pockets, but only holes).
"I wish," I said with regret, "we might meet and talk more often of many
things. So much do we agree, and men like you and me are often lonely."
He shrugged his shoulders and put his head on one side, quizzing at me
with his eyes. Then he shook his head decidedly, and said: "No, no--it
is certain that we shall never meet again." And thanking me with great
fervour, but briefly, he went largely and strongly down the escarpment
of the Combe to Duncton and the weald; and I shall never see him again
till the Great Day....