It was at the close of an autumn
day, and I was on a broad road in a level stretch of country with the
low buildings of a farmhouse a quarter of a mile ahead of me, and no
other building in sight. A lonely land with but one living creature in
sight - a very small girl, slowly coming towards me, walking in the
middle of the wet road; for it had been raining a greater part of the
day. It was amazing to see that wee solitary being on the lonely road,
with the wide green and brown earth spreading away to the horizon on
either side under the wide pale sky. She was a sturdy little thing of
about five years old, in heavy clothes and cloth cap, and long knitted
muffler wrapped round her neck and crossed on her chest, then tied or
bound round her waist, thick boots and thick leggings! And she had a
round serious face, and big blue eyes with as much wonder in them at
seeing me as I suppose mine expressed at seeing her. When we were still
a little distance apart she drew away to the opposite side of the road,
thinking perhaps that so big a man would require the whole of its
twenty-five yards width for himself. But no, that was not the reason of
her action, for on gaining the other side she stopped and turned so as
to face me when I should be abreast of her, and then at the proper
moment she bent her little knees and dropped me an elaborate curtsey;
then, rising again to her natural height, she continued regarding me
with those wide-open astonished eyes! Nothing in little girls so
deliciously quaint and old-worldish had ever come in my way before; and
though it was late in the day and the road long, I could not do less
than cross over to speak to her. She belonged to a cottage I had left
some distance behind, and had been to the farm with a message and was
on her way back, she told me, speaking with slow deliberation and
profound respect, as to a being of a higher order than man. Then she
took my little gift and after making a second careful curtsey proceeded
slowly and gravely on her way.
Undoubtedly all this unsmiling, deeply respectful manner was a mask, or
we may go so far as to call it second nature, and was the result of
living in a cottage in an agricultural district with adults or old
people: - probably her grandmother was the poor little darling's model,
and any big important-looking man she met was the lord of the manor!
What an amazing difference outwardly between the rustic and the city
child of a society woman, accustomed to be addressed and joked with and
caressed by scores of persons every day - her own people, friends,
visitors, strangers! Such a child I met last summer at a west-end shop
or emporium where women congregate in a colossal tea-room under a glass
dome, with glass doors opening upon an acre of flat roof.
There, one afternoon, after drinking my tea I walked away to a good
distance on the roof and sat down to smoke a cigarette, and presently
saw a charming-looking child come dancing out from among the tea-
drinkers. Round and round she whirled, heedless of the presence of all
those people, happy and free and wild as a lamb running a race with
itself on some green flowery down under the wide sky. And by-and-by she
came near and was pirouetting round my chair, when I spoke to her, and
congratulated her on having had a nice holiday at the seaside. One knew
it from her bare brown legs. Oh yes, she said, it was a nice holiday at
Bognor, and she had enjoyed it very much.
"Particularly the paddling," I remarked.
No, there was no paddling - her mother wouldn't let her paddle.
"What a cruel mother!" I said, and she laughed merrily, and we talked a
little longer, and then seeing her about to go, I said, "you must be
just seven years old."
"No, only five," she replied.
"Then," said I, "you must be a wonderfully clever child."
"Oh yes, I know I'm clever," she returned quite naturally, and away she
went, spinning over the wide space, and was presently lost in the
crowd.
A few minutes later a pleasant-looking but dignified lady came out from
among the tea-drinkers and bore down directly on me. "I hear," she
said, "you've been talking to my little girl, and I want you to know I
was very sorry I couldn't let her paddle. She was just recovering from
whooping-cough when I took her to the seaside, and I was afraid to let
her go in the water."
I commended her for her prudence, and apologised for having called her
cruel, and after a few remarks about her charming child, she went her
way.
And now I have no sooner done with this little girl than another cometh
up as a flower in my memory and I find I'm compelled to break off.
There are too many for me. It is true that the child's beautiful life
is a brief one, like that of the angel-insect, and may be told in a
paragraph; yet if I were to write only as many of them as there are
"Lives" in Plutarch it would still take an entire book - an octavo of at
least three hundred pages. But though I can't write the book I shall
not leave the subject just yet, and so will make a pause here, to
continue the subject in the next sketch, then the next to follow, and
probably the next after that.
