WHEN all the world was young and we were young with it there was no
occupation more pleasing to our infant minds than the digging of great
holes in that placid and maternal earth that endured the trampling of our
childish feet with patience, and betrayed no realisation of the
extraordinary miracle of life that had set us dancing in the fields and
valleys of the world. As repentant children trace with curious finger on
their mother’s foreheads the lines that they themselves have set there,
so we followed the furrows on the forehead of our mother Earth with our
little spades, smoothing here and deepening there, and not the less
contented that our labours had but a vague and illusory aim. Sometimes,
perhaps, we had a half-formed ambition to dig to those dim and incredible
Antipodes where children walk head downwards, clinging to the earth with
their feet, like the flies on the playroom’ ceiling. Sometimes, perhaps,
we dug for treasure, immense masses of golden coin, like those memorable
hoards described in “Treasure Island” and the “Gold Bug.” Or, again, it
might be that we planned vast caves and galleries wherein tawny pirates
and swart smugglers might carouse, shocking the echoes with
blood-curdling oaths, and drinking boiling rum like Quilp. We dug, in
fine.
There seems to be some element in the human mind that is definitely
attracted by the digging of holes, for it is not only children who are
interested by the spectacle. The genial excavators whose duty it is to
make havoc of the London streets never fail to draw an attentive and
apparently appreciative audience, whether of loafers or philosophers the
critic may not lightly determine. They gaze into the pit with
countenances of abysmal profundity, that appear to see all, to understand
all, and to express nothing in particular. It is possible that they are
placidly enjoying the reflection that beneath the complex contrivances of
our civilisation, beneath London itself, the virgin earth lies unturned
and unaffected. Perhaps, as each spadeful of earth reaches the surface,
they perceive, like a child watching the sawdust trickle from the broken
head of a doll, that here is the raw material of which worlds are made.
Perhaps they do not think at all, but merely derive a mild satisfaction
from watching other people work. Yet it is at least agreeable to believe
that they are watchers for the unexpected, that they have discovered the
great truth that if you dig long enough you will probably dig something
up.
We children knew this very well, and we never dug without feeling the
thrill proper to treasure-seekers. Even half a brick becomes eventful
when found in these circumstances, and the earth had a hundred pleasant
secrets in the shape of fragments of pottery, mysterious lumps of metal
and excited insects for those who approached her reverently, trowel in
hand. It was this variety of treasure that made us prefer inland digging
to those more fashionable excavations that are carried on at the seaside.
Sand is a friendly substance in which to dig, and it is very convenient
to have a supply of water like the sea close at hand when it is necessary
to fill a pond or add a touch of realism to a moat. But the ease with
which sand obeys the spade soon becomes monotonous, and the seaside in
general suffers from an air of having been elaborately prepared for
children to play there. Our delving operations in the garden had the
charm of nominal illegality, and the brown earth had a hundred moods to
thwart and help and enchant us continually. Sometimes we dug with
scientific precision; sometimes we set to work with fury, flinging the
earth to all sides in our eagerness to rob her of her secrets. A
philosopher might have found in us a striking instance of the revolt of
civilised man against Nature; a woman would have noticed that we were
getting our pinafores dirty.
And though we liked digging for its own sake, we were not unmindful of
the possibilities of a good big hole. From its cool depths we could
obtain a new aspect of the sky; and, cunningly roofed over with branches
and earth, it made a snug retreat for a harassed brigand and a surprising
pitfall for the unwary gardener. In smaller cavities we concealed
treasure of stones decked with the colours left behind by the painters at
the last spring-cleaning, and if we could not wholly convince ourselves
of their intrinsic value, they at least bore adequate resemblance to the
treasures of Aladdin’s cave, as revealed to us in pantomime. We kept the
knowledge of the spots where these treasures were buried a close secret,
even from each other, and it was etiquette for the finder of one of these
repositories to remove its contents and conceal them elsewhere. The
conflict between seeker and finder never languished, and men who rose up
millionaires would go to bed paupers.
Like all sincere artists, we did not allow our own efforts to hinder a
just appreciation of those of others, and we had the utmost admiration
for rabbits, down whose enchanted burrows we would peer longingly,
reflecting wisely how fine a home it must be that had so romantic and
fascinating an entrance. For us half the charm of “Alice” lay in the
natural and sensible means by which she reached her wonderland, though we
could never bring ourselves to forgive the author for pretending that his
clearly veracious narrative was only a dream. This, we recognised, was
an obvious grown-up device for preventing the youthful from slipping away
from governesses to wonderlands of their own, and true enough we found
rabbit-holes oddly reluctant to admit our small bodies, even though we
widened their mouths with our trowels. Looking-glasses, it may be
mentioned, proved no less refractory, and at this day, it is said,
children find it impossible to emulate the flying feats of “Peter Pan,”
though they carefully follow the directions. It is clear that these
grown-up authors are not wholly straightforward with their youthful
readers, but guard the Olympian interests by concealing some essential
part of the ritual in these matters. Sooner or later the children find
them out, and expel them from all nurseries, playrooms, gardens, and
places where youth and wisdom congregate.
But if we could not tread those long corridors into which the rabbits
scuttled so featly on our approach, there was nothing to hinder us from
digging a tunnel to fairyland of our own. The grand project formed, all
the forces of the garden would unite, and we would dig seriously for an
hour or so. At the end of that time somebody’s foot would be hurt by a
spade, or some bright spirit would suggest that we should fill the hole
with water and call it a lake. Or, perhaps, it would be teatime—at all
events, we never got to fairyland at all. Or did we? As we grow old our
memories fade, but dimly I seem to remember a garden that was like no
garden I have found in grown-up places. It is possible that we did reach
fairyland, treading the same road that Alice and Cinderella and Aladdin
had trod before us. Perhaps a grown-up writer may be pardoned for
forgetting.