“Oh, he isn’t in bed; can’t spare the time to lay up, with the
haymaking just on. He’s cutting the five-acre field to-day. He gets
about, but he has an abundation of pain at nights. Yes, you’re right.
Very active he is, there’s no keeping him still. He’ll walk to his own
funeral, _he_ will.”
Actually the man had a touch of rheumatism!
* * * * *
Finally we are settled in the fly, piled up with the lighter luggage,
while Abigail and old Bob’s nephew follow in the cart.
To the stranger who has never been in our Valley before, the drive to
the Cottage is a thing of wonder; to those of us who do the journey
many times in the course of the year new beauties are always revealing
themselves, and the whole scene seems more lovely each time we look
upon it, if that be possible.
The station is on the river level, down in the green depths of
the Valley. But you cannot go many yards on level ground, as the
hills on either side of the river are steep, with nothing but the
narrowest footpath in places, between their precipitous sides and the
fast-rushing water. In many cases the cottage-gardens on the hill-side
have to be kept up with walls of stone—as one sees the vineyards built
up on steep hill-sides in vine-growing districts—otherwise the rains
and swollen brooks would wash the earth down, in the winter, into the
river below.
The horses start the ascent as soon as they leave the station, and pass
through the small village, which shows a curious medley in the way of
architecture. In the wall of an old cow-house there is a Gothic window,
built probably with stones taken from the ruined Abbey; all the windows
of one cottage bear an ecclesiastical stamp. Before the beautiful ruin
was carefully guarded as it is now, people must have gone and helped
themselves as they pleased to carved stonework and any fragment that
they could make use of; and thus you may find an exquisite bit of
carved stone in a most ordinary three-roomed dwelling. Some of the
cottages and barns may have been part of the Abbey property; at any
rate one comes on architectural surprises in the most unexpected places.
But even though in this district man’s handiwork has achieved wondrous
things, it is the work of Nature that claims the attention.
The Abbey seems a huge pile when you stand under its roofless walls;
but once you start to ascend the hills, everything takes on new
proportions. No longer are you shut in by two high green hill-walls,
the higher you go the smaller become the hills that are nearest to you,
as they reveal far greater giants behind them. The blue Welsh mountains
rise up, still further beyond again.
Below, the river winds and loses itself, seeming to come to an abrupt
end against a barrier of dark green slopes; but it evidently finds
a way out, for it is seen further on in the far distance, a silver,
gleaming band, still winding, and still guarded by mountains that now
are tinged with the purply-blue tone that Nature uses for her distant
effects.
The lanes through which we pass are miracles of loveliness, with
their ferns and flowers and birds and butterflies. But I think one’s
overwhelming thought is of the grandeur of the distances. One is always
looking away to the far-off, to the farms and small homesteads dotted
at rare intervals on far heights and among the forests; to the peaks
beyond peaks; to the light playing on miles of birch and oak; to the
shadowy coombes where hills drop down into other valleys.
I have always noticed, when I am bringing anyone for the first time
from the station to my house, that, though I point out the roadside
springs and waterfalls, the glory of the hedges, the rose-coloured
honeysuckle that grows over one cottage, smothering roof, chimneys
and all, the visitors do not expend so much admiration on any of this,
it is always the inexplicable mystery of the hills that holds them.
Every five minutes takes one higher, and reveals a further panorama.
Beautiful as are the lesser things, lovely as is the old ruined Abbey,
the human and the near seem to slip away from you as you look across
the deep chasm where the river lies below, to the vastness on the
other side. There is a power, a force born of great heights and great
spaces, that cannot be explained, but is surely felt by all who have
not mortgaged their soul to mammon. There was a depth of mystic meaning
in the words of the shepherd poet, even in the world’s young days, when
he wrote: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh
my help.”
It takes you about an hour to drive up to the cottage, and by this time
the lane has grown so narrow—and so bumpy!—that you marvel the horses
have ever got you there at all. But when you have reached the little
white gate you stand and look in silence. A new touch is added to the
landscape. You are now high enough to look over the tops of some of the
intervening hills, and there away beyond, between a dip in the hills,
you see a gleaming band of silver, the waters of the Channel.
Some people consider no scenery perfect unless there is a railway in
the foreground to take them back to town as soon as possible. Some
artists always want a touch of scarlet to complete any picture. Myself,
I always think a glimpse of water is needed to make a beautiful view
absolutely satisfying. At my cottage I am doubly blessed! I can see the
river in the Valley below, and beyond there is the Channel, towards
which that river is ever hurrying.
During the drive up, the small white dog with brown ears, sits on the
box seat, dividing his time between shrieking Billingsgate insults
to every local dog (I blush for his manners. And he looks so refined
too!) and licking old Bob’s face. Not that he has any particular
affection for our driver, but he gets quite hysterical when he sees
the countryside and scents the rabbits; and old Bob is the handiest
recipient for his overwhelming gratitude. A few dogs trail after us
through the village, telling him—and one another—what they will do when
they get hold of him; but they fall back when it comes to the hill;
and our own treasure looks triumphantly ahead for new dogs to revile;
deluding himself with the idea that he has slain all behind him, and
left their corpses in the road! Occasionally he ceases to be a bullying
war-dog, and becomes almost human; then he suddenly looks round at
us, wags his tail all he knows how, and gives a little whimper that
plainly says, “Isn’t it good to be here again!” And we all agree.
It _is_ good to see the hills, and the valleys, the sturdy trees, and
the tender little ferns growing out of the walls. Best of all, it is
good to see the small white gate, and the red-tiled roof, and the blue
smoke curling up, oh, so peacefully, from the cottage chimney. It is
good to see the flowers smothering the walls and the garden beds; and
very good to greet one’s own furniture again, one’s own rooms, one’s
own familiar things—no matter how humble they may be.
For months we have clean forgotten that the living-room window
requires two thumps if it is to be got open; yet without a moment’s
hesitation Ursula pulls off her gloves the moment we enter the door,
makes straight for the window, and gives it the requisite couple of
vigorous bangs, so as to let in the evening scent of the honeysuckle
that is thick about the porch. For months, it may be, we have forgotten
entirely that the lid of the biggest brown teapot has a knack of
tumbling off into the teacup, unless it is held on while one pours.
And yet, the moment I take up that teapot again, instinctively my hand
grips the lid.
There is an indefinable spirit of welcome in all these little familiar
things—so commonplace and feeble and stupid they would seem to
outsiders; yet to us they imply that “we belong.” It is part of the
all-pervading rest that we find among these hills, that we go on from
just where we left off last time. We don’t have to start afresh, or
get acquainted with the place, or learn anything new. There is a great
charm in returning to familiar scenes that is missed by those who are
always rushing off on some new quest. True, they may find interest in
another direction; but I think with most of us—excepting when we are
very young and very inexperienced—the homing instinct is strong.
I have laid my battered brain on pillows in some of the largest hotels
in the world; but I have never known in any of them the peaceful rest
that is to be found in the cottage bedroom, despite its sloping roof.
I’m not saying that there is nothing whatever to disturb one there—all
too often Mr. and Mrs. Starling (several of them) persist in building
under the tiles just above my head, and the various families demand
breakfast at 3.30. Yet I even get to sleep through this.
There is one thing, however, that always wakes me and calls me in
a most peremptory manner to get up, and that is the return of the
swallows one morning in April or May, when the sites are being chosen
for the new nests under the eaves. It is such a sweet little chatter,
such a bubbling over of comment and advice and reminiscence, as they
get their first beakful of mud, and start to lay the foundation-stone
of the nest.
What do they say? I often wonder. They seem to talk the whole time,
and explain to each other the excellent residential qualities of their
various positions. One thing I am sure they say—and they twitter it
over and over again—I know they mean it, though I don’t understand
their language; for the homing instinct is strong in them, as it is in
all of Nature’s children; and as I listen to them in the early morning,
I can almost hear their words, “Isn’t it good to be here again?”