WE always consider that emancipation takes place at one exact spot on
the Great Western Railway; the only difficulty is that Virginia and I
never agree as to which is the exact spot.
Virginia insists that the air suddenly changes just beyond Chepstow
Station, where we change from the London and South Wales main line to
the local train that, two or three times a day (week-days only), runs
through our particular Valley, like a small boy’s toy affair.
This train, which makes up in black smoke for what it lacks of other
dignity, steams out of the main line junction with an important snort
and rumble; over the bridge it goes, and the stranger would imagine
it was well under way. But no; it then comes to a standstill at the
point where the main line and the Valley line meet, in order that
the gentleman who lives—we presume—in the signal-box (but who is
always standing on the railway line when we see him) may hand to our
engine-driver a metal staff—some sort of a key, they tell me, which is
said to unlock the single railway line. I don’t pretend to understand
the process myself. I only know that our engine-driver looks lovingly
at it as though it were the apple of his eye (I’ve craned my head out
of the window, that’s how I know), and clasps it to his chest, until he
gets to the first station on the Valley line, where he hands it over to
the station-master, who, in turn, gives him another one, to which he
clings just as pathetically.
In this leisurely way we proceed up the Valley.
It wouldn’t have any deep significance, but for the fact that Virginia
maintains it is the first key that unlocks the imprisoned Ego within
her, and sets her soul free from the trammels and shackles and cobwebs
and chains, hampering, warping, and enmeshing her, that have been
riveted by the blighting tendencies of London (and a lot more to the
same effect). She says she feels the fetters burst directly that
key is handed over, for she knows then that the train is beyond the
possibility of making a mistake, and getting back on to the London main
line again instead of the single pair of Valley rails.
Then it is that the air becomes fresher than ever. The primroses that
grow all up the rocks, just beyond the signal-box, are very much finer
than those on the junction side; the Sweet Betsey (alias red valerian)
starts to drape the ledges with rosy-crimson as soon as the signalman
walks back up the wooden steps to his cabin. And Virginia herself
becomes a different being, though opinions are painfully divided as to
whether the change is for the better or for the worse.
She says she feels just like the Lord Mayor, or the Speaker in the
House of Commons, with a myrmidon going on ahead of her bearing the
mace.
We just let her talk on when she gets lightheaded like this. After all,
this Rod of Office which the engine-driver cherishes is what Virginia
waits for through four hours of express train—six if you go by a
slow one. And the spot where he receives it on the line is where she
develops a beatific smile of wondrous amiability.
For me, the chains snap a little further on.
After the driver has received his Key of Office the train meanders
peacefully through west country orchards, placid meadows, and
tawny-gold cornfields; past grey-brown haystacks; past little cottages,
each with its pig-sty and scratting hens, and a clothes-line displaying
pinafores and sundry other garments only mentioned _sotto voce_ in the
paper pattern section of ladies’ papers. Small, hatless, yellow-haired
children, gathering daisies or cowslips in adjoining fields, wave at us
as we go by.
Then the engine braces itself for a mighty effort, and gives a
business-like shriek on its whistle (this is the great exploit of the
whole journey) as it plunges into a very long, dark, clattering tunnel,
cut through solid rock. Here we sit in the breathless darkness for
several minutes, to emerge finally upon scenery so unlike that we left
behind at the entrance to the tunnel as to suggest that we had entered
another country.
Gone are the cornfields, the gentle undulations, gone the farms and
cottages, the hayricks and barns. Almost in sheer precipices the rocks
rise up from the rushing winding river in the valley below, clothed
from summit to base with forest trees. The train, now an insignificant
atom on the face of Nature, puffs vigorously along a ledge cut half-way
up the face of these giant hills.
From the windows on one side of the train you look down upon a world of
rocks, trees and water, to the Horse Shoe bend, where the river turns
and twists and doubles back on itself again. Not a house is in sight.
The windows on the other side show more grey rocks rising up out of
sight, with trees growing where you would scarcely think they could
find root-hold, much less food to live and thrive on. And where it is
bare stone, and there are no trees, the scarred and jagged surface of
the rocks—due to far-away earth-rends and more modern rock-slides—is
lovingly swathed and festooned with trails of Travellers’ Joy and ivy
and bryony; while ferns and foxgloves, wild strawberries and Mother of
Millions flourish on the narrow ledges, and sprout out from sheltered
crannies—such a mist of delicate loveliness veiling all that is grim
and cold and hard.
Even the wooden posts, from which wire is stretched to fence off the
railway company’s land from the adjoining woods, are entirely covered
with a living mosaic of small-leaved ivy, patterned, with no two
scrolls alike, in a way that human hand could never copy.
Below there is always the river, that swirls and rushes noisily at
low tide over its weirs. A heron stands motionless on a grey-green
moss-covered boulder near the bank. He looks up at the little train;
but it is too far away to worry him. He, and a kite circling high
overhead, are the only signs of life to be seen as one passes along.
Yet the whole earth is teeming with small folk, furred and feathered;
the rarest of butterflies are glinting over the rocks; the otter is
hiding down in the river-pools; and from time to time a salmon leaps
into the air, a flash, a streak of silver, and a series of eddying
ripples—that is all.
This is the spot where, for me, a new life begins; where unconsciously
I draw my breath with a deep intake, and suddenly feel the past
slipping from me; the noise and din, the sordidness and care of the
city fade into the background and become nothing more substantial than
some remote nightmare.
Here in this Valley of Peace and Quietness my dreams become realities.
And best of all, here God seems to lay His Hand on tired heart and
tired brain; and I find myself saying, “This is the rest wherewith ye
may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing.”
* * * * *
We had just witnessed the presentation of the first key. As usual,
Virginia and I had been arguing—no, that isn’t the right word; I never
argue; I merely discuss things intelligently. At any rate, we had been
exchanging views (that differed) as to the exact place where we noticed
the great change come over ourselves in particular, and things in
general. As we didn’t get any nearer a final settlement we appealed to
Ursula, who was sitting silent, with a far-away look in her eyes, as of
one engaged in bridging space and measuring the stars.
She came back to earth, however, at our question, and said she was
absolutely sure the moment of _her_ great transformation was when
she got hold of a cup of proper domestic tea, as distinct from the
indigestive railway variety. Indeed, for the past few minutes she had
been entirely absorbed in the mental contemplation of the meal she
hoped Abigail would soon be preparing. Even then she could smell the
sizzling ham and the frying eggs and the buttered toast we should have
on arrival.
We were in the sulphurous depths of the tunnel at the moment. Naturally
I was hurt. As I said to her, I knew my board was frugal, and my viands
simple, modest, unaffected and unassuming, but at least they didn’t
smell like _that_!
Fortunately she hadn’t much time to explain what she did and what she
didn’t mean, for we came out of the tunnel into the panorama of hills
and silence; no one ever talks much just here, save the braying type of
tourist.
Besides, there is the “Abbey” to watch for. No matter how many times
you may see that, you always wait expectantly for the moment when you
catch the first glimpse of the wonderful grey ruin.
The abbey-makers of the olden days not only knew how to build, but they
also knew how to “place” their beautiful structures. And the setting of
our Abbey is as nearly perfect as anything can be in this world.
The steep hills recede a little bit just at one bend of the river,
leaving room for a broad green meadow between the water and the
uprising steeps. Here the Abbey was placed: a babbling river in the
foreground, dark larch-covered hills in the background. Surely it is
no fanciful exaggeration to think that the beauty all around them must
have influenced the men who raised that wonderful poem in stone!
I would like to take you into the Abbey and show you the beautiful
views that can be seen from every ruined window, each one a framed
picture in itself; the spray of oak-leaves carved on one piece of
stone, the live snapdragons growing out of buttresses, the graceful
spring of each slender arch, the perfect proportions of the whole
building, for, despite the cruel wreckage it suffered in the past, it
is still the most lovely Gothic ruin in England.
But to-day we can’t stay.
The train hurries on, through another short tunnel, over a bridge
spanning the river and a talkative weir, and then into our station.
In the summer there is a good deal of bustle in this station, which
is the haunt of many tourists. I am told that five out of every
ten visitors are from the United States. No American thinks of
“doing” England without seeing our valley, which is famous for its
scenery and its ruins. Thus you always find a number of women in
trim “shirt-waists,” and wearing large chiffon veils on the top of
their hats at angles quite unknown to the English woman, sitting on
the platform about train time, writing the usual budget of picture
postcards.
But we aren’t “foreigners” (as the natives style everyone who doesn’t
belong to their village). That is one of the many charms of arriving
at this station. Here no one regards us merely as passengers who
can’t find their luggage; or, passengers who have changed where they
had no business to; or, passengers who expect the local porter to
know by heart all the railway connections and times of return trains
throughout the British Isles. Neither are we among the people who
look suspiciously at every wagonette driver, certain that he is going
to overcharge, and uncertain as to which is likely to overcharge the
least. We have no anxieties concerning the truth of the advertised
merits of the various hotels, and apartments to let, in the village.
We “belong.”
There is a sense of home-coming in our arrival. The porters actually
rush forward to help with our luggage, and the station-master raises
his cap.
Old Bob—who occupies the doubly proud position of being the only one
among the fly proprietors who displays a pair of steeds attached to his
vehicle, while he is also the one who usually drives what he describes
as “the e-light-y”—is waiting with his wagonette (and pair, don’t
forget) and a cart for the luggage.
It really is comforting to be claimed by someone at the end of a
journey, if it be but the wagonette driver. I feel so solitary,
such an orphan, when I chance to arrive alone at some strange place
in quest of a holiday, possibly unknown to a single person but the
landlady-to-be. Don’t you know the sinking feeling that comes over
you as you look round upon the crowds of people, some scrambling in,
and some scrambling out of the train; every face a blank so far as you
are concerned? No one to trouble whether you ever get any further, or
whether you remain in that jostling turmoil for ever.
You almost wish you could get into the train and go back to town again;
you reflect that there at least the butcher knows you, and the people
next door, and the crossing-sweeper at the corner.
You revive after having some tea, but it is possible to spend a very
doleful, homesick quarter of an hour between the time you get out of
the train and the time you sit down to a meal in some strange room,
whose painful unlikeness to the ones you live in accentuates your
loneliness.
But that never happens to us in our Valley. Before we have got out of
our compartment, Abigail is already on the platform and holding a levee
consisting of two porters, the signalman, the assistant engine-driver
from a goods train in the siding, and old Bob’s nephew, who drives the
cart. All lend a hand as she proceeds to marshal the luggage, and with
a peremptory wave of her umbrella, directs its disposal.
* * * * *
Of course there really isn’t much luggage. That is one of the
advantages of retreating to your own secluded cottage; being off
the beaten track as we are, there is no necessity to take many
“toilettes”—either demi or semi—or a large variety of lounge robes,
or matinées, or boudoir negligées, or rest frocks, or tea-gowns, or
cocoa-coats, or evening wraps built of chiffon, and really necessary,
handy things of that sort. All we take with us is just a few clothes to
wear.
On one occasion Virginia did bring down a long “article” (I don’t
know what else to call it) composed of about ten yards of white net,
embroidered here and there with large beads, an artificial rose sewn
on to one corner of the curtain-like thing, a gilt-metal fringe
suggestive of shoelace tags all around the edges. She couldn’t quite
understand how she came by it, she said. She remembered an energetic
ultra-elegant shop-assistant, somewhere, displaying it before her,
with the information that it was a “slumber swirl,” and assuring her,
condescendingly, that it was the very latest, and absolutely sweet, and
just the thing for outdoors in the summer. Virginia said she agreed
with her, she was sure; knowing her own sweet and plastic disposition,
she would certainly have agreed with her; she was thankful to say she
wasn’t one of those people who perpetually disagree with other people.
But—she had no recollection of having attached her name and address to
the wisp, much less of having paid for it! Still, the energetic damsel
had sent it home—and here it was!
Ursula, after one glance at the confection, hastily turned her eyes
away and announced that, for her part, she didn’t consider it—well,
quite adequate!
Her sister explained that it wasn’t supposed to be worn _that_ way;
and she arranged herself with closed eyes on the sofa to show us how
it would look when draped over her—head and all—as she rested in the
hammock. It took a lot of adjusting so as to avoid getting some knobbly
bead motif just under her ear, and to prevent the shoe-lace tags
attacking the under-side of the face. And when she had at last found a
spot of unembellished net on which to lay her rose-leaf cheek, she was
afraid to move for fear of splitting the frail net.
Ursula merely snorted.
When next I saw the “slumber swirl,” part of it had been converted into
a meat-safe of irreproachable moral character, Ursula having utilised
the frame of our getting-worn-out one for the purpose.
* * * * *
No; our luggage is only trifling, and only consists of just what we
need. Abigail takes mine and her own to Paddington in a bus, which also
picks up the luggage of the other two girls _en route_. Individually,
the details do not seem much, but I confess, when I see it dumped all
together on the platform, the aggregate looks somewhat nondescript.
There will be four large hat-boxes (or five if Abigail brings more than
one); anything from three to seven trunks; Abigail’s collapsible straw
basket; a bundle of umbrellas and sunshades; the dog, in his travelling
basket; a chip basket containing pots of mysterious seedlings Virginia
has been specially raising in town (which usually get upset once or
twice on the way, and have been known to turn out docks). There is
sure to be a cardboard box for one of Abigail’s best Jap silk Sunday
frocks that she doesn’t want to get crushed; a string bag containing
Abigail’s novels and snippety weeklies, her crochet, a few oranges, two
bananas, some chocolate, and whatever other refreshment she will need
on the journey; a brown-paper parcel holding a few articles of wearing
apparel, also belonging to Abigail, that she only remembered at the
last minute, and cook did up for her.
Then Ursula is sure to bring some contribution to the larder—perhaps
tomatoes and a cake. Naturally, there is our lunch basket; and I,
personally, never feel complete unless I have my leather dispatch-box
beside me. I also take a suit-case containing my mackintosh—in case
it rains when I arrive—books and papers which I never read, knitting,
and similar necessities for the journey; it is also useful as a final
receptacle for oddments I omitted to pack elsewhere. Virginia and
Ursula bring similar suit-cases, for similar reasons.
Sometimes Abigail springs surprises on us at the last minute. “Whatever
have you there?” I asked one day, as she joined us on the Paddington
platform, a jangling parcel in one hand that sounded like a badly
cracked bell, and a large protrusion—silent, fortunately—embraced in
the other arm.
“Oh, this is just a new zinc pail” (shaking the musical packet), “we
need an extra one; and I’ve put in a little iron shovel, as I want one
for my kitchen scuttle: and there’s a nutmeg grater too; the one down
there is getting rusty. And _this_” (nodding towards her chest) “is an
enamel washing-up bowl. Our big one down there leaks.”
And she proceeded serenely on her way to the accompaniment of iron
shovel clink-clanging against zinc pail, with the nutmeg-grater
tintinnabulating cheerfully in a higher key—and evidently pleased at
the public interest she was arousing.
Not that her surprises are always so useful. On one occasion I noticed
she had brought two collapsible straw baskets, but concluded she had
some very special new frocks for the flower show. The porter disposed
of the luggage—while Abigail was looking the bookstall over. When she
returned and found both baskets missing, she rushed to the guard’s van.
Soon things were being dragged out again, Abigail excitedly urging
haste. The guard helped, Abigail assisting with much conversation.
Eventually she lugged one basket up to her own compartment, scorning
the help of the penitent porter. As she passed my compartment, a
heartrending “mee-au” came from the basket.
“What in the world—!!—!!!” I began.
“It’s only Angelina,” Abigail explained. “She hasn’t seemed well
lately. I thought a change of air might do her good. Only it gave me a
bit of a fright when I found they’d put her in the van, thinking she
was luggage!”
(Incidentally, Angelina is _my_ cat.)
Being my own place and not someone else’s we are going to, it
occasionally happens that there are items of furnishing that need to
go down, a mirror, for instance, that is too large to pack in a trunk.
Strictly speaking, the railway company might be within their rights
if they argued that such things could not legitimately be called
passenger’s luggage; but Virginia said, with regard to the mirror—4
feet × 2—that if they objected to take it, she should tell them every
woman is entitled to carry a mirror among her personal luggage.
Fortunately no one so far has objected to any of the details of our
_impedimenta_, so long as the excess charges are promptly paid. We
usually go down with the same guard. I tell him what the contraband
is. He carries the parcel off majestically, assuring me that his one
eye won’t leave it all the way down, no matter where the other may be
focused; and he begs me to have no anxiety as to its safety. I haven’t.
I know from long experience that the guards and officials on the G.W.R.
have elevated politeness and courtesy from a mere duty to a fine art.
Sometimes I almost wish they wouldn’t take quite such care of our
things! There was the brown pitcher, for instance. I had been wanting
a very large one for fetching the water from the spring outside the
cottage gate. Of course, I know you can get big enamel jugs (painted
duck-egg blue, or anything else in the art line that you fancy);
but the latter seems so strident, so townified, so newly-rich, so
over-dressed, when you see them beside our moss-grown wooden spout,
where the mountain spring splashes down into a stony hollow, among
ferns and long mosses. The sturdy but humble brown pitcher tones in
better with the pale yellow sand in the bottom of the hollow, the
browns and greys and greens of the stones and growing things all round.
The very water falls into it with a mellow musical sound, instead of
the hollow tinny ring that the enamelled creature gives forth.
But I couldn’t see one in the village shop as big as I required.
Ursula, however, ran against the very thing unexpectedly in town. The
only difficulty was the packing, so she decided to carry it just as it
was. Virginia expressed a sincere hope that she would at least tie a
pale blue bow on the handle.
She got it safely as far as Paddington, but here an iron pillar
suddenly ran alongside and torpedoed the pitcher—so she said—knocking a
small but very business-like hole clean through its bulging side. Then
the question arose: What was she to do with the remnants? The train
was due to start in two minutes, so she hadn’t time to inquire for the
station dust-bin.
Virginia suggested that she should try to induce the bookstall boy to
accept it as payment for a packet of milk chocolate; failing that,
she had better put an advertisement in the paper offering a wonderful
specimen of antique Roman pottery in exchange for a sable motoring
coat, or a cartload of white mice.
What she did do was to leave it tidily on the nearest seat, with the
intention of bestowing sixpence on the first porter she could waylay if
he would make himself responsible for its after career. But apparently
every employee at Paddington Station had enlisted.
The whistle was blown, and the train started to move slowly, just as
the vigilant eye of the guard fell upon the disabled crock. His face
lighted up. He seized it, rushed to the moving compartment containing
Ursula. “Madam,” he gasped, “you have forgotten this,” and he thrust it
into her arms.
She didn’t dare try to leave it behind any more!
* * * * *
Then there was the fish. It was on an occasion when Virginia was
coming down by herself, and thus lacked the restraining, and more
practical, hand of Ursula. Now, as I have already hinted, Virginia is
an intelligent girl. She can tell you exactly how many million tons of
certain chemicals could be excavated from the very bottom of Vesuvius
(if only they could manage to put the fire out, of course), and how,
if these million tons were applied to the land in Mars, as artificial
manure, the wheat crop they would produce in one year—if only you could
raise their temperature a few hundred degrees, and this could easily be
done if you transfer—by wireless—the heat that isn’t needed in Vesuvius
to Mars (or is it the moon?), where they do want it—why, then—(where
was I?)—Oh, yes, the wheat crop they would harvest per annum would be
sufficient to feed the whole of the inhabitants of this planet of ours,
and several others thrown in, for—I forgot how many dozen years.
Yes, she is a very bright girl, just as well informed on any other
subject you like to mention—excepting fish! There she draws a woeful
blank: she has no more notion how to tell fresh fish at sight than a
baby!
Still, she is generous in her intentions, and as no one ever thinks
of journeying to the cottage without taking something in the eatable
line—it is only right to take a little present when you go to stay with
friends, isn’t it?—Virginia cast about as to what she could bring. Game
has no attraction—we have plenty of that. Fish, on the contrary, is a
rarity. Although our river is full, we seldom see fish at the cottage,
excepting a very over-due variety that a man peddles round occasionally.
So she decided on fish—alas! And hastened into the first fishmonger’s
she saw and ordered a dozen pairs of soles. She maintains that wasn’t
what she meant to ask for. It was oysters she wanted to bestow on me,
and she went in with the definite intention of purchasing a dozen
oysters. At that moment, however, her mind was somewhat pre-occupied
with a scientific invention she was thinking out, whereby no woman need
ever again handle a broom or carpet-sweeper or anything of that kind.
It was a simple device, consisting of a vacuum between the layers
of leather on the bottom of the shoe, and some sort of a suction
arrangement whereby you drew up the dust from the carpet (or wherever
you walked) just by stepping on it. You would clear as you go, and
instead of a person trailing dirt up and down the stairs by walking
straight in from the garden and up to the top attic, they would really
be giving the stair carpet what would be equal to a good brushing.
Moreover, not only would spring cleaning be banished for ever—when her
invention was perfected—but your shoes would never more need mending.
The dust collected in the shoe, being subject to so many cubic inches
of pressure due to the person standing on top of the shoe, would become
so compressed and self-adhesive as to offer a direct resistance to the
friction set up between boot and alien matter trodden upon, equal to
the inverse ratio of—I haven’t the faintest notion what! But I dare say
you can follow her line of argument. She herself says she is always
lucid and concise.
At any rate, I remember she said that it was terribly hard to be the
mother of a huge family of boys, who not only trailed dust and dirt
into the house at all times and seasons, but also wore out innumerable
pairs of boots into the bargain. Whereupon I reminded her that neither
of us need worry personally about that just yet!
She agreed, but said that did not alter her desire to benefit her day
and generation, and to rid the world of “the Burden of the Broom.”
And she was meditating on this, and thinking of all the leather we
had wasted by letting it wear off the bottoms of our boots, when
she saw the fish shop, and though she _thought_ a dozen “oysters,”
what she _said_ was a dozen “pairs of soles”—and, of course, I would
recognise that the mistake wasn’t her fault; it was entirely due to the
psychological action of the subconscious something that connected soles
with boots, etc.
Anyhow, the result was that she paid cheerfully for such a collection
of fish as I hope I may never see again. And how happy that fishmonger
must have been, when the transaction was completed, only those who got
a whiff of the fish can estimate.
Virginia admitted that she thought the price seemed a lot for a dozen
oysters (soles were two shillings a pound at the time), and the bag
seemed heavy. Also, she confessed that it was a trifle more than she
had intended to spend on a present for me at that moment, though she,
being a real lady, would have been the last to mention it if I hadn’t.
No, she hadn’t thought to look at what he put in; she merely told him
to pack them up very securely, as she was going on a long railway
journey. She didn’t know they were soles till she glanced at the bill
in the train. She consoled me with the information that fish has the
most wonderful phosphorescent properties, invaluable in the case of
brain-fag; and she should see that I ate it all!
After a few miles of the journey the soles grew a little noisy in the
rack. You don’t want to look a gift-horse in the mouth—truth to tell, I
didn’t want to look at that particular gift at all. But I had to open
both windows.
At our first stop, Reading, when the guard came to the door and
politely inquired, “Are you ladies all right? Can I get you anything?”
I asked him if he would be so good as to take charge of the big rush
bag. I suggested that he could tie it on to the back buffer at the very
end of the train. I assured him it was nothing that would hurt. But he
only smiled, and said he had plenty of room in his own compartment; the
basket would be quite safe there, no one would touch it. I could quite
believe it!
When he came down the platform at Swindon he looked very pale and out
of sorts, I thought. Conscience-stricken, I pressed a shilling into
his hand, and begged him to get himself a good cup of tea. He said he
would, and certainly seemed to have revived when next he passed.
We got it home, eventually, without Abigail detecting it—I wanted to
save Virginia’s face before the handmaiden—as we took the basket,
wrapped up in my mackintosh, in the wagonette with us, Abigail
following behind in the luggage-cart. She did say later, however, that
she wished that pedlar and his awful kippers and bloaters could be
suppressed by law. He had evidently just been round, she said, and she
could smell his wretched fish all the way as she drove up. We didn’t
tell her what we had hidden in the old barn.
We buried them darkly at dead of night. The only soft spot we could
find, that admitted of a good-sized trench being dug without much
trouble, was the moist earth beside the brook in the lower orchard.
Next morning, at breakfast-time, when the small dog ran in to greet us,
his nose and paws showed signs of active service as he joyfully dabbed
brown mud on the front of our fresh print frocks, and waggled his tail
with the air of a dog who is conscious of heroic achievements. Abigail
followed him with the bacon-dish, which, in her excitement, she tried
to balance on the top of the coffee-pot.
“You’d never believe what a high tide there has been in the brook!”
she began. “A spring tide, I should think. It’s washed up hundreds and
hundreds and _hundreds_ of large fish on to the bank. Never saw such
a thing in my life before. First I knew of it was slipping on one on
the kitchen hearthrug. Dandie had brought one in—wanted me to grill
it for his breakfast, I suppose! Then I found he’d carried one up to
the mat outside your bedroom door, and just dropped a few others here
and there about the house. So I went out to see where he got ’em from.
Judging by the smell, they must have lain there for weeks. Wish I’d
been here with a net at the time. I’ve never caught a live fish in my
life, though I’ve often tried to fish in the pond on Peckham Rye.”
Naturally we expressed great interest, and suggested immediate
cremation in the kitchener.
Later on, the handy man was decidedly sceptical. His grandfeyther had
once caught a trout in that brook (only he gave long biographical,
geographical and historical details, which proved that it wasn’t that
brook at all); but he hadn’t a-seed any hisself a-coming down.
Abigail scornfully pointed out that high tides came _up_, and these
fish had been washed _up_ from the river, which is 700 feet below; and
she flapped one as evidence before his astonished eyes.
Seeing is believing in our village!
To this day Abigail’s tales, to cook and co. and her friends at home,
of how she goes out and catches soles as large as plaice in our own
brook, and boils them for supper, equal any fish stories ever told!
* * * * *
But to return to the luggage and ourselves, which I left waiting at our
little station.
While the luggage is being stowed into the vehicles, we take stock of
the platform, that seems to fancy itself the pivot of the universe!
Everybody that is going away scrambles into the train with precipitate
haste, as though they were trying to catch a train on the Tube, or a
sprinting motor-bus in the Strand! although they know quite well that
the peaceful old engine—already twenty-five minutes behind time—won’t
think of stirring again until it has had a ten minutes’ nap!
Those who have just arrived seem equally in a hurry to get somewhere
else, and they try to squeeze three thick out of the small station
gate—only to plant themselves in the path just outside for a long
gossip with the first person they see.
There are women with empty baskets returning from market, and women
seeing off friends, each carrying a huge “bookey” of flowers, built
up in the approved style, from the back: first a big background
rhubarb leaf, or something equally green and spacious, then some
striped variegated grass—gardeners’ garters, we call it; also some
southernwood—better known as Old Man’s Beard; tall flowers like
foxgloves, phlox, Japanese anemones, early dahlias and sunflowers
follow; the shorter stems of pinks, calceolarias, sweet williams and
roses are the next in succession; finishing off with some gorgeous
pansies and a very fat cabbage rose with a short stem (that persists
in tumbling out), a piece of sweetbriar, and a few silver and gold
everlasting flowers down low in the front. If you have a geranium in
your window, etiquette demands that you add the best spray—as a special
offering—to the bunch, telling your friend all about the way you got
that geranium cutting, and the trouble you had to rear it.
You know the sort of complacent well-packed bunches that are the
result of this combination. Not artistic, of course, according to town
standards, but, all the same, they are dears; and I always feel I want
every one I see.
The station itself is a flower garden. And even in the space outside,
where the motor-cars await the rich, and the wagonettes and carts await
the nearly-poor, primroses and violets and cowslips and bluebells grow
thick on the banks.
Naturally the arrival of the train is a matter of local importance, and
if you happen to be near the station about train-time you go in and sit
on the platform just to see who comes or goes.
And how well everybody looks, and sturdy, and brown, after the pale
anæmic faces we have left in town! You think how happy they must all
be here in the fresh air and the sunshine. So they ought to be, and so
most of them could be, if only they kept a look-out for happiness, and
seized all that came their way. But human nature the world over seems
to love to contemplate the tragic, or at least to pity itself! The
result is that every other person you meet in our village will tell you
a tale of woe as highly-coloured as anything you hear in town.
“How do you do?” I inquired, last time I arrived, of a comfortable
healthy-looking woman, who had just been seeing her daughter off by
train. Her husband is a steady man, in regular work. She owns the
cottage she lives in, and a pig, and has no difficulty in supplying the
wants of her family, which are few.
“Oh, I’m not up to much, m’m,” she began. “Things is so hard nowadays,
and no one gives _we_ a bit o’ help. There’s that Jane Price, _she_ got
a pound of tea, and a hundudweight of coal, and a red flannel petticut,
from the lady of the manor at Christmas, and _she_ be a widder with
on’y her children. But _I_ on’y got some tea and a petticut (not a nice
colour red neither), no coal nor nothing, and thur I’ve got _he_ to
keep as well as the children, and in course I need it wuss’n her do!”
Further along the platform I spoke to the wife of a small farmer, a
healthy soul, with nothing much to worry her. But she didn’t intend to
be behindhand with trouble! Other people found plenty to moan about;
she wasn’t to be outdone.
“You’ve heard of the awful time I’m having with my husband? Fell down
in the wood and broke his leg in four places! Suffers terrible, he
does.”