At The Jumps A Shower Came On, And To Escape A Wetting I Crept Into A
Hole Or Hollow In The Rude Mass Of Black Basaltic Rock Which Stands
Like A Fortress Or Ruined Castle On The Summit Of The Hill.
When the
shower was nearly over I heard the wing-beats and low guttural voice of
a cuckoo; he
Did not see my crouching form in the hollow and settled on
a projecting block of stone close to me - not three yards from my head.
Presently he began to call, and it struck me as very curious that his
voice did not sound louder or different in quality than when heard at a
distance of forty or fifty yards. When he had finished calling and
flown away I crept out of my hole and walked back over the wet heath,
thinking now of the cuckoo and now of that half natural, half
supernatural but not very sublime being who, as I have said, was
formerly a haunter of these parts. This was a question that puzzled my
mind. It is easy to say that legends of the Devil are common enough all
over the land, and date back to old monkish times or to the beginning
of Christianity, when the spiritual enemy was very much in man's
thoughts; the curious thing is, that the devil associated in tradition
with certain singular features in the landscape, as it is here in this
Surrey village, and in a thousand other places, has little or no
resemblance to the true and only Satan.
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