The Children Were Five Or Six In
Number, Ranging From A Boy Of Ten To A Baby In Her Arms - All
Clean And Healthy Looking, With Bright, Fun-Loving Faces.
I mentioned that I was on my way to Branscombe, and inquired
the distance.
"Branscomb - are you going there? Oh, I wonder what you will
think of Branscombe!" she exclaimed, her white cheeks
flushing, her innocent eyes sparkling with excitement.
What was Branscombe to her, I returned with indifference; and
what did it matter what any stranger thought of it?
"But it is my home!" she answered, looking hurt at my careless
words. "I was born there, and married there, and have always
lived at Branscombe with my people until my husband got work
in this place; then we had to leave home and come and live in
this cottage."
And as I began to show interest she went on to tell me that
Branscombe was, oh, such a dear, queer, funny old place! That
she had been to other villages and towns - Axmouth, and Seaton,
and Beer, and to Salcombe Regis and Sidmouth, and once to
Exeter; but never, never had she seen a place like Branscombe
- not one that she liked half so well. How strange that I had
never been there - had never even heard of it! People that
went there sometimes laughed at it at first, because it was
such a funny, tumbledown old place; but they always said
afterwards that there was no sweeter spot on the earth.
Her enthusiasm was very delightful; and, when baby cried, in
the excitement of talk she opened her breast and fed it before
me. A pretty sight! But for the pure white, blue-veined skin
she might have been taken for a woman of Spain - the most
natural, perhaps the most lovable, of the daughters of earth.
But all at once she remembered that I was a stranger, and with
a blush turned aside and covered her fair skin. Her shame,
too, like her first simple unconscious action, was natural;
for we live in a cooler climate, and are accustomed to more
clothing than the Spanish; and our closer covering "has
entered the soul," as the late Professor Kitchen Parker would
have said; and that which was only becoming modesty in the
English woman would in the Spanish seem rank prudishness.
In the afternoon I came to a slender stream, clear and swift,
running between the hills that rose, round and large and high,
on either hand, like vast downs, some grassy, others wooded.
This was the Branscombe, and, following it, I came to the
village; then, for a short mile my way ran by a winding path
with the babbling stream below me on one side, and on the
other the widely separated groups and little rows of thatched
cottages.
Finally, I came to the last and largest group of all, the end
of the village nearest to the sea, within ten minutes' walk of
the shingly beach. Here I was glad to rest. Above, on the
giant downs, were stony waste places, and heather and gorse,
where the rabbits live, and had for neighbours the adder,
linnet, and wheatear, and the small grey titlark that soared
up and dropped back to earth all day to his tinkling little
tune. On the summit of the cliff I had everything I wanted
and had come to seek - the wildness and freedom of untilled
earth; an unobstructed prospect, hills beyond hills of
malachite, stretching away along the coast into infinitude,
long leagues of red sea-wall and the wide expanse and
everlasting freshness of ocean. And the village itself, the
little old straggling place that had so grand a setting, I
quickly found that the woman in the cottage had not succeeded
in giving me a false impression of her dear home. It was just
such a quaint unimproved, old-world, restful place as she had
painted. It was surprising to find that there were many
visitors, and one wondered where they could all stow
themselves. The explanation was that those who visited
Branscombe knew it, and preferred its hovels to the palaces
of the fashionable seaside town. No cottage was too mean to
have its guest. I saw a lady push open the cracked and
warped door of an old barn and go in, pulling the door to
after her - it was her bed-sitting-room. I watched a party of
pretty merry girls marching, single file, down a narrow path
past a pig-sty, then climb up a ladder to the window of a loft
at the back of a stone cottage and disappear within. It was
their bedroom. The relations between the villagers and their
visitors were more intimate and kind than is usual. They
lived more together, and were more free and easy in company.
The men were mostly farm labourers, and after their day's work
they would sit out-of-doors on the ground to smoke their
pipes; and where the narrow crooked little street was
narrowest - at my end of the village - when two men would sit
opposite each other, each at his own door, with legs stretched
out before them, their boots would very nearly touch in the
middle of the road. When walking one had to step over their
legs; or, if socially inclined, one could stand by and join in
the conversation. When daylight faded the village was very
dark - no lamp for the visitors - and very silent, only the low
murmur of the sea on the shingle was audible, and the gurgling
sound of a swift streamlet flowing from the hill above and
hurrying through the village to mingle with the Branscombe
lower down in the meadows. Such a profound darkness and quiet
one expects in an inland agricultural village; here, where
there were visitors from many distant towns, it was novel and
infinitely refreshing.
No sooner was it dark than all were in bed and asleep; not one
square path of yellow light was visible.
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