THE FIRST CLOUD
About a mile seaward from Porlock, separated from it by a narrow strip
of the most luxuriant meadowland in Devonshire, lies the village of
Bossington. Perhaps it were better called a hamlet, for at the time
when I knew anything about it (which, let the tourist remember, is many
years ago) it consisted but of six or seven cottages, a farmhouse, and
a half-ruined old manor-house, for the privilege of living in which my
father paid ten pounds a year, or some such trifling sum, to the
neighbouring clergyman whose property it was.
But what the place lacked in size was certainly atoned for--and more
than atoned for--by the beauty of its situation. High above it, like a
mighty protecting giant, rose Bossington Headland, covered always with
a soft, springy turf, and glowing in midsummer with the brilliant
colouring of rich purple heather and yellow gorse. Often have I stood
on its highest point, and with my head bared to the strong fresh
breeze, watched the sun rise over the Exmoor Hills and Dunkerry Beacon,
and waited until it shed its first warm gleams on the white cottages
and queer old church-tower of Porlock, which lay clustered together in
picturesque irregularity at the head of the little bay. And almost as
often have I gazed upon the same scene from the same spot by the less
distinct but more harmonious light of the full harvest moon, and have
wondered in which guise it seemed the fairest.
Behind Bossington lay Allercombe Woods, great tree-covered hills
sloping on one side down to the road which connected, and still
connects, Porlock with Minehead and the outside world, and on the
other, descending precipitously to the sea; so precipitously indeed
that it seemed always a wonder to me how the thickly growing but
stunted fir-trees could preserve their shape and regularity. The
descent from Bossington Headland into Porlock was by a steep winding
path through Allercombe Woods, and many a time I have looked through
the thin coating of green leaves upon the fields which stretched like a
piece of patchwork below down to the sea, and wondered whether any
other country in the world (I had never been out of Devonshire then)
could be more beautiful than this.
Within a stone's throw of where the blue sea of our English Bay of
Naples rippled in on to the firm white sands, was the tumble-down old
building in which we lived. What there had been of walls had long
before our time been hidden by climbing plants and ivy, and in
summer-time the place from a distance somewhat resembled a gigantic
nosegay of cottage roses, jessamine, and other creeping flowers. There
was but a small garden and no ground, for Bossington Headland rose
precipitously close to the back of the house, and in front there was no
space for any. A shed served as a stable for one or two Exmoor ponies,
and also as a sleeping-place for the lanky, raw-boned Devonshire lad
whom we kept to look after them.
There were but few habitable rooms in our mansion, but they were
sufficient, for our household was a small one. My father, mother,
sister, myself, and a country servant comprised it. We never had a
visitor, save occasionally the clergyman from Porlock. We never went
anywhere. We knew no one, and at seventeen years of age an idea which
had been developing in me for a long time, took to itself the tangible
shape of words.
"Father," I said to him one evening when we were sitting out upon our
little strip of lawn together, he smoking, I envying him for being able
to smoke, "do you know that I have never been out of Devonshire--never
been further than Exeter even, and I am eighteen years old?"
It was long before he answered me, and when, at last, he turned round
and did so, I was distressed to see the look of deep anxiety in his
worn, handsome face, and the troubled light in his clear eyes.
"I know it, my boy," he said, pityingly. "I have been expecting this.
You are weary of the country."
I stood up, with my hands in my pockets, and my back against the
latticed wall of the house, gazing over the sparkling, dancing sea, to
where, on the horizon, the stars seemed to stoop and meet it. Was I
tired of this quiet home? I scarcely knew; country sports and country
sights were dear to me, and I had no desire to leave them for ever. I
thought of the fat trout in the Exford streams, and the huntsman's
rallying call from "t'other side Dunkerry," and the wild birds that
needed so much getting at and such quick firing, and of the deep-sea
fishing, and the shooting up the coombes from Farmer Pulsford's boat,
and of the delight of shipping on a hot summer's day and diving deep
down into the cool bracing water. Why should I wish to leave all this?
What should I be likely to find pleasanter in the world of which, as
yet, I knew nothing? For a moment or two I hesitated--but it was only
for a moment or two. The restlessness which had been growing up within
me for years was built upon a solid foundation, and would not be
silenced.
"No, I'm not tired of the country, father," I answered, slowly. "I
love it too much ever to be tired of it. But men don't generally live
all their lives in one place, do they, without having any work or
anything to do except enjoy themselves?"
"And what should you like to be?" my father asked, quickly.
I had long ago made up my mind upon that point, and was not slow to
answer--
"I should like to be a soldier," I declared, emphatically.
I was very little prepared for the result of my words. A spasm of what
seemed to be the most acute pain passed across my father's face, and he
covered it for a moment with his hands. When he withdrew them he
looked like a ghost, deathly pale in the golden moonlight, and when he
spoke his voice trembled with emotion.
"God forbid that you should wish it seriously!" he said, "for it is the
one thing which you can never be!"
"Oh, Hugh, you do not mean it really; you do not wish to go away from
us!"
I turned round, for the voice, a soft and gentle one, was my mother's.
She was standing in the open window with a fleecy white shawl around
her head, and her eyes, the sweetest I ever saw, fixed appealingly upon
me. I glanced from one to the other blankly, for my disappointment was
great. Then, like a flash, a sudden conviction laid hold of me. There
was some great and mysterious reason why we had lived so long apart
from the world.