On Arrival He Found It Was Not So - It Was All A
Lie - Men Were Not Wanted - And He Was Now On His Way To
Andover, Penniless And Hungry And -
By the time he had got to that part of his story we were some
distance apart, as I had remained standing still while he,
thinking me still close behind, had gone on picking
blackberries and talking.
He was soon out of sight.
At noon the following day, the weather still being bright and
genial, I went to Crux Easton, a hilltop village consisting of
some low farm buildings, cottages, and a church not much
bigger than a cottage. A great house probably once existed
here, as the hill has a noble avenue of limes, which it wears
like a comb or crest. On the lower slope of the hill, the old
unkept hedges were richer in colour than in most places, owing
to the abundance of the spindle-wood tree, laden with its
loose clusters of flame-bright, purple-pink and orange
berries.
Here I saw a pretty thing: a cock cirl-bunting, his yellow
breast towards me, sitting quietly on a large bush of these
same brilliant berries, set amidst a mass of splendidly
coloured hazel leaves, mixed with bramble and tangled with ivy
and silver-grey traveller's-joy. An artist's heart would have
leaped with joy at the sight, but all his skill and oriental
colours would have made nothing of it, for all visible nature
was part of the picture, the wide wooded earth and the blue
sky beyond and above the bird, and the sunshine that glorified
all.
On the other side of the hedge there were groups of fine old
beech trees and, strange to see, just beyond the green slope
and coloured trees, was the great whiteness of the fog which
had advanced thus far and now appeared motionless. I went
down and walked by the side of the bank of mist, feeling its
clammy coldness on one cheek while the other was fanned by the
warm bright air. Seen at a distance of a couple of hundred
yards, the appearance was that of a beautiful pearly-white
cloud resting upon the earth. Many fogs had I seen, but never
one like this, so substantial-looking, so sharply defined,
standing like a vast white wall or flat-topped hill at the
foot of the green sunlit slope! I had the fancy that if I had
been an artist in sculpture, and rapid modeller, by using the
edge of my hand as a knife I could have roughly carved out a
human figure, then drawing it gently out of the mass proceeded
to press and work it to a better shape, the shape, let us say,
of a beautiful woman. Then, if it were done excellently, and
some man-mocking deity, or power of the air, happened to be
looking on, he would breathe life and intelligence into it,
and send it, or her, abroad to mix with human kind and
complicate their affairs. For she would seem a woman and
would be like some women we have known, beautiful with blue
flower-like eyes, pale gold or honey-coloured hair; very white
of skin, Leightonian, almost diaphanous, so delicate as to
make all other skins appear coarse and made of clay. And with
her beauty and a mysterious sweetness not of the heart, since
no heart there would be in that mist-cold body, she would draw
all hearts, ever inspiring, but never satisfying passion, her
beauty and alluring smiles being but the brightness of a cloud
on which the sun is shining.
Birds, driven by the fog to that sunlit spot, were all about
me in incredible numbers. Rooks and daws were congregating on
the bushes, where their black figures served to intensify the
red-gold tints of the foliage. At intervals the entire vast
cawing multitude simultaneously rose up with a sound as
of many waters, and appeared now at last about to mount up
into the blue heavens, to float circling there far above the
world as they are accustomed to do on warm windless days in
autumn. But in a little while their brave note would change
to one of trouble; the sight of that immeasurable whiteness
covering so much of the earth would scare them, and led by
hundreds of clamouring daws they would come down again to
settle once more in black masses on the shining yellow trees.
Close by a ploughed field of about forty acres was the
camping-ground of an army of peewits; they were travellers
from the north perhaps, and were quietly resting, sprinkled
over the whole area. More abundant were the small birds in
mixed flocks or hordes - finches, buntings, and larks in
thousands on thousands, with a sprinkling of pipits and pied
and grey wagtails, all busily feeding on the stubble and fresh
ploughed land. Thickly and evenly distributed, they appeared
to the vision ranging over the brown level expanse as minute
animated and variously coloured clods - black and brown and
grey and yellow and olive-green.
It was a rare pleasure to be in this company, to revel in
their astonishing numbers, to feast my soul on them as it
were - little birds in such multitudes that ten thousand
Frenchmen and Italians might have gorged to repletion on their
small succulent bodies - and to reflect that they were safe
from persecution so long as they remained here in England.
This is something for an Englishman to be proud of.
After spending two hours at Crux Easton, with that dense
immovable fog close by, I at length took the plunge to get to
Highclere. What a change! I was at once where all form and
colour and melody had been blotted out. My clothes were hoary
with clinging mist, my fingers numb with cold, and Highclere,
its scattered cottages appearing like dim smudges through the
whiteness, was the dreariest village on earth.
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