They Would Have Been Sad But For The Sunshine
And The Singing Of The Larks.
And as it was, there came over me at
times a feeling of isolation that was not disagreeable, and yet was
enough to make me quicken my steps eagerly when I saw some one
before me on the road.
This fellow-voyager proved to be no less a
person than the parish constable. It had occurred to me that in a
district which was so little populous and so well wooded, a
criminal of any intelligence might play hide-and-seek with the
authorities for months; and this idea was strengthened by the
aspect of the portly constable as he walked by my side with
deliberate dignity and turned-out toes. But a few minutes'
converse set my heart at rest. These rural criminals are very tame
birds, it appeared. If my informant did not immediately lay his
hand on an offender, he was content to wait; some evening after
nightfall there would come a tap at his door, and the outlaw, weary
of outlawry, would give himself quietly up to undergo sentence, and
resume his position in the life of the country-side. Married men
caused him no disquietude whatever; he had them fast by the foot.
Sooner or later they would come back to see their wives, a peeping
neighbour would pass the word, and my portly constable would walk
quietly over and take the bird sitting. And if there were a few
who had no particular ties in the neighbourhood, and preferred to
shift into another county when they fell into trouble, their
departure moved the placid constable in no degree. He was of
Dogberry's opinion; and if a man would not stand in the Prince's
name, he took no note of him, but let him go, and thanked God he
was rid of a knave. And surely the crime and the law were in
admirable keeping; rustic constable was well met with rustic
offender. The officer sitting at home over a bit of fire until the
criminal came to visit him, and the criminal coming - it was a fair
match. One felt as if this must have been the order in that
delightful seaboard Bohemia where Florizel and Perdita courted in
such sweet accents, and the Puritan sang Psalms to hornpipes, and
the four-and-twenty shearers danced with nosegays in their bosoms,
and chanted their three songs apiece at the old shepherd's
festival; and one could not help picturing to oneself what havoc
among good peoples purses, and tribulation for benignant
constables, might be worked here by the arrival, over stile and
footpath, of a new Autolycus.
Bidding good-morning to my fellow-traveller, I left the road and
struck across country. It was rather a revelation to pass from
between the hedgerows and find quite a bustle on the other side, a
great coming and going of school-children upon by-paths, and, in
every second field, lusty horses and stout country-folk a-
ploughing. The way I followed took me through many fields thus
occupied, and through many strips of plantation, and then over a
little space of smooth turf, very pleasant to the feet, set with
tall fir-trees and clamorous with rooks making ready for the
winter, and so back again into the quiet road. I was now not far
from the end of my day's journey. A few hundred yards farther,
and, passing through a gap in the hedge, I began to go down hill
through a pretty extensive tract of young beeches. I was soon in
shadow myself, but the afternoon sun still coloured the upmost
boughs of the wood, and made a fire over my head in the autumnal
foliage. A little faint vapour lay among the slim tree-stems in
the bottom of the hollow; and from farther up I heard from time to
time an outburst of gross laughter, as though clowns were making
merry in the bush. There was something about the atmosphere that
brought all sights and sounds home to one with a singular purity,
so that I felt as if my senses had been washed with water. After I
had crossed the little zone of mist, the path began to remount the
hill; and just as I, mounting along with it, had got back again,
from the head downwards, into the thin golden sunshine, I saw in
front of me a donkey tied to a tree. Now, I have a certain liking
for donkeys, principally, I believe, because of the delightful
things that Sterne has written of them. But this was not after the
pattern of the ass at Lyons. He was of a white colour, that seemed
to fit him rather for rare festal occasions than for constant
drudgery. Besides, he was very small, and of the daintiest
portions you can imagine in a donkey. And so, sure enough, you had
only to look at him to see he had never worked. There was
something too roguish and wanton in his face, a look too like that
of a schoolboy or a street Arab, to have survived much cudgelling.
It was plain that these feet had kicked off sportive children
oftener than they had plodded with a freight through miry lanes.
He was altogether a fine-weather, holiday sort of donkey; and
though he was just then somewhat solemnised and rueful, he still
gave proof of the levity of his disposition by impudently wagging
his ears at me as I drew near. I say he was somewhat solemnised
just then; for, with the admirable instinct of all men and animals
under restraint, he had so wound and wound the halter about the
tree that he could go neither back nor forwards, nor so much as put
down his head to browse. There he stood, poor rogue, part puzzled,
part angry, part, I believe, amused. He had not given up hope, and
dully revolved the problem in his head, giving ever and again
another jerk at the few inches of free rope that still remained
unwound.
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