No! Listen now to what I had to say without interrupting me
again: All this about the villages, viewed from up there where the lark
sings, is but a preliminary - a little play to deceive yourself and me.
For, all the time you are thinking of other things, serious and some
exceedingly sad - of those who live not in villages but in dreadful
cities, who are like motherless men who have never known a mother's
love and have never had a home on earth. And you are like one who has
come upon a cornfield, ripe for the harvest with you alone to reap it.
And viewing it you pluck an ear of corn, and rub the grains out in the
palm of your hand, and toss them up, laughing and playing with them
like a child, pretending you are thinking of nothing, yet all the time
thinking - thinking of the task before you. And presently you will take
to the reaping and reap until the sun goes down, to begin again at
sunrise to toil and sweat again until evening. Then, lifting your bent
body with pain and difficulty, you will look to see how little you have
done, and that the field has widened and now stretches away before you
to the far horizon. And in despair you will cast the sickle away and
abandon the task."
"What then, O wise sister, would you have me do?"
"Leave it now, and save yourself this fresh disaster and suffering."
"So be it! I cannot but remember that there have been many disasters -
more than can be counted on the fingers of my two hands - which I would
have saved myself if I had listened when I turned a deaf ear to you.
But tell me, do you mind just a little more innocent play on my part -
just a little picture of, say, one of the villages viewed a while ago
from under the cloud - or perhaps two?"
And Psyche, my sister, having won her point and pacified me, and
conquered my scruples and gloom, and seeing me now submissive, smiled a
gracious consent.
XIII
HER OWN VILLAGE
One afternoon when cycling among the limestone hills of Derbyshire I
came to an unlovely dreary-looking little village named Chilmorton. It
was an exceptionally hot June day and I was consumed with thirst: never
had I wanted tea so badly. Small gritstone-built houses and cottages of
a somewhat sordid aspect stood on either side of the street, but there
was no shop of any kind and not a living creature could I see. It was
like a village of the dead or sleeping. At the top of the street I came
to the church standing in the middle of its church yard with the
public-house for nearest neighbour. Here there was life. Going in I
found it the most squalid and evil-smelling village pub I had ever
entered. Half a dozen grimy-looking labourers were drinking at the bar,
and the landlord was like them in appearance, with his dirty shirt-
front open to give his patrons a view of his hairy sweating chest. I
asked him to get me tea. "Tea!" he shouted, staring at me as if I had
insulted him; "There's no tea here!" A little frightened at his
aggressive manner I then meekly asked for soda-water, which he gave me,
and it was warm and tasted like a decoction of mouldy straw. After
taking a sip and paying for it I went to look at the church, which I
was astonished to find open.
It was a relief to be in that cool, twilight, not unbeautiful interior
after my day in the burning sun.
After resting and taking a look round I became interested in watching
and listening to the talk of two other visitors who had come in before
me. One was a slim, rather lean brown-skinned woman, still young but
with the incipient crow's-feet, the lines on the forehead, the dusty-
looking dark hair, and other signs of time and toil which almost
invariably appear in the country labourer's wife before she attains to
middle age. She was dressed in a black gown, presumably her best
although it was getting a little rusty. Her companion was a fat, red-
cheeked young girl in a towny costume, a straw hat decorated with
bright flowers and ribbons, and a string of big coloured beads about
her neck.
In a few minutes they went out, and when going by me I had a good look
at the woman's face, for it was turned towards me with an eager
questioning look in her dark eyes and a very friendly smile on her
lips. What was the attraction I suddenly found in that sunburnt face? -
what did it say to me or remind me of? - what did it suggest?
I followed them out to where they were standing talking among the
gravestones, and sitting down on a tomb near them spoke to the woman.
She responded readily enough, apparently pleased to have some one to
talk to, and pretty soon began to tell me the history of their lives.
She told me that Chilmorton was her native place, but that she had been
absent from it many many years. She knew just how many years because
her child was only six months old when she left and was now fourteen
though she looked more. She was such a big girl! Then her man took them
to his native place in Staffordshire, where they had lived ever since.
But their girl didn't live with them now. An aunt, a sister of her
husband, had taken her to the town where she lived, and was having her
taught at a private school.
