[Illustration: COOMBE.]
Life comes laden still with good days that whisper of romance, when in
some haunt of old legend, our feet loiter for a little before we pass
forward again. I indeed seek these places, and confess an incurable
affection for romance in my thoughts if not my deeds. I would not banish
her from art, or life; and though most artists of to-day will have none
of her, spurn romantic and classic alike, and take only realism to their
bosoms; yet who shall declare that realism is the last word, or that
reality belongs to her drab categories alone?
"There is no 'reality' for us--nor for you either, ye sober ones, and we
are far from being so alien to one another as ye suppose, and perhaps
our goodwill to get beyond drunkenness is just as respectable as your
belief that ye are altogether _incapable_ of drunkenness."
A return to romance most surely awaits literature, when our artists have
digested the new conditions and discovered the magic and mystery that
belong to newly created things--whether Nature or her human child has
made them; but for the moment, those changes that to-day build
revolution, stone on stone, demand great seers to record the romantic
splendour of their promise, sing justly of all that science is doing,
write the epic of our widening view and show man leading the lightning
chained in his latest triumph. For us, who cannot measure such visions,
there remains Nature--the incurable romantic--who retains her early
methods, loves the sword better than the pruning-hook, and still
sometimes strikes jealously at her sophisticated child, who has learned
to substitute a thousand wants for the simple needs that she could
gratify.
At Coombe, on the coast of North Cornwall, there yet lies a nest of old
romance, wherein move, for dream-loving folk, the shadows of an old-time
tale. Nature reigns unchanged in the valley and her processions and
pageants keep their punctual time and place; but once a story-teller
came hither, and the direct, genial art of a brave spirit found
inspiration here. From this secluded theatre sprang _Westward Ho!_ and
none denies willing tribute to him who made that book.
Seen on this stormy December day with a north-wester raging off the sea
and the wind turning the forest music to "a hurricane of harps," Coombe
Valley lives with music and movement. Far away in the gap eastward rises
a blue mound with Kilkhampton Church-tower perched thereon, and thence,
by winding woods, the way opens to the historic mill. Full of tender
colour are the tree-clad hills--a robe of grey and amber and amethyst,
jewelled here and there, where the last of the leaves still hang.
Wind-beaten oak and larch, beech and ash twine their arms together and
make a great commotion where the woven texture of their boughs is
swaying and bending. Their yield and swing challenge the grey daylight,
and it plays upon them and flings a tracery of swift brightness over the
forest. The light is never still, but trembles upon the transparent
woods, so that every movement of their great mass wins an answering
movement from the illumination that reveals them. Beneath, under the
tremulous curtain and visible through its throbbing, lies the earth's
bosom, all brown with fallen leaves. It swells firm and solid under
restless branch and bough, and listens to the great song of the trees.
Sometimes a sunburst from the sky touches the woodland, and the ramage
aloft sparkles like a gauze of silver over the russet and gold beneath.
In the heart of the valley there runs a river, and, freed from her work,
the mill-stream leaps to join it. The mill-wheel thunders, as it did
when little Rose Salterne set stout hearts beating and dreamed dreams,
wherein no sorrow homed or horror whispered. But time has not forgotten
Coombe Mill, and, to one who may love flowers, the evidence of progress
chiefly lies among them. There is a garden here and many a plant, that
had not yet faced the buffets of an English winter when Kingsley's
heroine tended her clove-pinks and violets, now thrives contented in
this little garth.
Beside the mill-pond, flogged by the December storm, Kaffir lilies wave
their crimson and the red fuchsia flourishes. A bush of golden eleagnus
is happy, and a shrubby speedwell thrives beside it; honeysuckles climb
to the thatch of the white-washed homestead; a rambler rose hangs out
its last blossoms; and a yellow jasmine also blooms upon the wall.
Marigolds and lavender and blue periwinkles trail together in a bright
wreath against the darkness of the water-wheel; there are stocks and
Michaelmas daisies, too, with the silver discs of honesty and the fading
green of tamarisk.
Many suchlike things flourish in this cradle of low hills, for winter is
a light matter here, and great cold never comes to them. They push
forth and creep into the lanes and hedges; they find the water-meadows
and love the shelter of the apple trees and the brink of the stream.
Beside the mill there towers a great ivy-tod in fruit, and rises the
weathered mill-house, stoutly built to bear the strain within. Once
granite mill-wheels ground the corn, but now their day is over and they
repose, flower crowned, in the hedges outside. The eternal splashing of
water has painted a dark stain here, and ferns have found foothold. One
great hart's tongue lolls fifty wet green leaves out from the gloom of
the wheel-chamber.
All is movement and bustle; the mill-stream races away to the river, and
the river to the sea. The tree-tops bend and cry; the clouds tell of the
gale overhead, now thinning to let the sunshine out, now darkening under
a sudden squall and dropping a hurtle of hail.
From the mill-pool to the west opened another vision of meadows with a
little grey bridge in the midst of them. Hither winds the stream, trout
in every hover, and the brown hills rise on either side, barren and
storm-beaten. Then, at the mouth of the land between them, a great
welter of white foam fills the gap, for the storm has beaten the sea
mad, and the roar of it ascends in unbroken thunder over the meadows.
Behind the meeting-place of land and ocean, there roll the lashed and
stricken seas, all dim and grey; and their herds are brightened with
sunshine or darkened by cloud, as the wind heaves them to shore. But
there is no horizon from which we can trace them. They emerge wildly out
of the flying scud of cloud that presses down upon the waters.