It was evening in the country at harvest-time, at that moment towards
sundown when the light, about to be withdrawn, glows with a fulness of
gold which makes it seem impossible that it can ever die. The earth was
heavy with fruition, every square field brimful of the ungathered
harvest. The heavy corn swayed almost by reason of its own weight. A
thunderstorm would beat it prostrate in an hour. All the crops were full
and good, some almost level with the low hedges. Heat seemed to radiate
from the yellow mass, that scorching heat which in autumn never seems to
leave the earth, but to linger about the ground, surrounding the
responsive and standing corn. But the day had brought no heaviness to
the sky, blue without a cloud, only a grave and increasing heat, a sun
which blinded the eyes and seemed to take no account of anything save
its steady purpose of ripening the fruit and grain.
Looking round one saw that it was not an impressive country. There were
no hills, no grandeurs, no proximity to the sea. It was a country whose
pageants were made, not by great heights or sombre woods, but by the
orderly and coloured procession of the harvests; where one recovered the
preoccupied sight of little children, seeing so much to absorb one near
the ground that one did not seek the horizon; where matters were
measured and done not by the clock but by the sun's height, by midday
heat and darkness, by the lowing of cows or the calling of lambs.
A woman, well on the way to middle age, sat in the house-place of a
small cottage on the white high-road. Everything had been done for the
night, the pigs and pony fed; the cow milked and the milk strained; the
churn cleaned and the cream standing. The hens had been driven in and
were almost asleep on their perches. The wood was ready for the morning
and the clock had been wound up. She had not had her supper yet she did
not remove her sun-bonnet or yard-boots. She cut herself a slice of
stale bread and a large piece of cheese, dipped a cup in the barrel of
buttermilk and sat down on a low stool with the bread and cheese in one
hand and the cup of milk in the other. She was evidently in great
perturbation, for at times she forgot to eat altogether and sat with the
bread and cheese suspended in her hand while she thought deeply. Her
rather large plain features had a dignity of expression which was
pleasing, though it betrayed a tendency to melancholy. She had no frown,
for her blue eyes were of excellent strength and one does not sit up
late in the country. She was tall and rather bony, a strong peasant
woman.
Presently she rose, her supper still unfinished, and took from a shelf,
from among a medley of herbs and medicine bottles, a penny bottle of ink
with a pen sticking in it. Searching in a drawer of the round table she
found a large envelope on which was written, "Giant pennyworth of note."
She took from it one of the thin bluish sheets of paper, and sitting at
the table, her sun-bonnet making a grotesque shadow behind her, she
began to write. She wrote with little hesitation, urged by the strength
of some feeling. Her handwriting was large and she made long loops to
her g's.
"DEAR SIR,--Though you passed by my cottage yesterday you are so
unknown to me by sight, that I have only just discovered who it
was that was brought to such a pitiable condition before me.
First, sir, let me describe to you what a sight I saw before me,
when, hearing a great plunging and shouting in the road, I came
out from the shippon to see what was the matter.
"I saw, sir, a strong, well-looking, well-dressed young man of
twenty-six lying in the mud of the road, his foot in one stirrup of
his horse, he, mad with drink cursing, first the poor horse (a very
quiet stallion), then the road (a very easy one) and last, the
Almighty God of love. The horse, dragged everywhere by the efforts
of the young man to gain a footing, was rewarded for its patience
when its master at last, by my help, regained his feet, by severe
kicks in the belly, and I, a poor woman, was abused and called evil
names.
"Sir! if instead of cursing the good-tempered beast or the God of
love above you, you had cursed the origin of such a spectacle as
you then were, your clothes covered with mud, your mouth full of
blaspheming, staggering about the road pulling at the mouth of your
horse--_strong drink_--you would have been a more reasonable being.
"What, sir, had the horse done to you? What had this poor woman
done to you? What, sir, had your heavenly Father done to you, that
you should fill your mouth with curses against us all? Your enemy
was none of us, but that viper, strong drink.
"O sir! shun your enemy I beseech you. I am a woman who has had no
children, but, sir, if I had been the mother of so strong and
good-looking a man as you, it would have broken my heart to see you
lying there muddy and cursing, a poorer sight under God's sky than
the poor dumb beast that bore you.--Your obedient servant,
Ann Hilton."
The woman folded and fastened the letter and then wiped her eyes with
the corner of her apron. She looked round the room as if to see that
everything was done and went to shut the door for the night. She looked
out into the lane. The cottage a little lower down had a light in the
window and here and there lights shewed along the road. The night when
one can no longer work out of doors matters little in the country, yet
the ample stillness with distant rustling sounds pleased her and she
lingered. Two young men carrying shapeless bundles on their shoulders
wished her good-night as they passed home from work. Everyone seemed to
have finished with out of doors. Even the cat from the yard rubbed
against her as it ran into the house, stealthily and crouching as if in
fear. She turned indoors and lit the lamp, fastened the door with a
wooden bolt and drew the blind before the diamond-paned window.