Afoot in England: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

On Going Back

In looking over the preceding chapter it occurred to me that I
had omitted something, or rather that it would have been well
to drop a word of warning to those who have the desire to
revisit a place where they have experienced a delightful
surprise. Alas! they cannot have that sensation a second
time, and on this account alone the mental image must always
be better than its reality. Let the image--the first sharp
impression--content us. Many a beautiful picture is spoilt by
the artist who cannot be satisfied that he has made the best
of his subject, and retouching his canvas to bring out some
subtle charm which made the work a success loses it
altogether. So in going back, the result of the inevitable
disillusionment is that the early mental picture loses
something of its original freshness. The very fact that the
delightful place or scene was discovered by us made it the
shining place it is in memory. And again, the charm we found
in it may have been in a measure due to the mood we were in,
or to the peculiar aspect in which it came before us at the
first, due to the season, to atmospheric and sunlight effects,
to some human interest, or to a conjunction of several
favourable circumstances; we know we can never see it again
in that aspect and with that precise feeling.

On this account I am shy of revisiting the places where I have
experienced the keenest delight. For example, I have no
desire to revisit that small ancient town among the hills,
described in the last chapter; to go on a Sunday evening
through that narrow gorge, filled with the musical roar of the
church bells; to leave that great sound behind and stand again
listening to the marvellous echo from the wooded hill on the
other side of the valley. Nor would I care to go again in
search of that small ancient lost church in the forest. It
would not be early April with the clear sunbeams shining
through the old leafless oaks on the floor of fallen yellow
leaves with the cuckoo fluting before his time; nor would that
straggling procession of villagers appear, headed by an old
man in a smock frock with a big book in his hand; nor would I
hear for the first time the strange history of the church
which so enchanted me.

I will here give an account of yet another of the many
well-remembered delightful spots which I would not revisit,
nor even look upon again if I could avoid doing so by going
several miles out of my way.

It was green open country in the west of England--very far
west, although on the east side of the Tamar--in a beautiful
spot remote from railroads and large towns, and the road by
which I was travelling (on this occasion on a bicycle) ran or
serpentined along the foot of a range of low round hills on my
right hand, while on my left I had a green valley with other
low round green hills beyond it. The valley had a marshy
stream with sedgy margins and occasional clumps of alder and
willow trees. It was the end of a hot midsummer day; the sun
went down a vast globe of crimson fire in a crystal clear sky;
and as I was going east I was obliged to dismount and stand
still to watch its setting. When the great red disc had gone
down behind the green world I resumed my way but went slowly,
then slower still, the better to enjoy the delicious coolness
which came from the moist valley and the beauty of the evening
in that solitary place which I had never looked on before.
Nor was there any need to hurry; I had but three or four miles
to go to the small old town where I intended passing the
night. By and by the winding road led me down close to the
stream at a point where it broadened to a large still pool.
This was the ford, and on the other side was a small rustic
village, consisting of a church, two or three farm-houses with
their barns and outbuildings, and a few ancient-looking stone
cottages with thatched roofs. But the church was the main
thing; it was a noble building with a very fine tower, and
from its size and beauty I concluded that it was an ancient
church dating back to the time when there was a passion in the
West Country and in many parts of England of building these
great fanes even in the remotest and most thinly populated
parishes. In this I was mistaken through having seen it at a
distance from the other side of the ford after the sun had
set.

Never, I thought, had I seen a lovelier village with its old
picturesque cottages shaded by ancient oaks and elms, and the
great church with its stately tower looking dark against the
luminous western sky. Dismounting again I stood for some time
admiring the scene, wishing that I could make that village my
home for the rest of my life, conscious at the same time that
is was the mood, the season, the magical hour which made it
seem so enchanting. Presently a young man, the first human
figure that presented itself to my sight, appeared, mounted on
a big carthorse and leading a second horse by a halter, and
rode down into the pool to bathe the animals' legs and give
them a drink. He was a sturdy-looking young fellow with a
sun-browned face, in earth-coloured, working clothes, with a
small cap stuck on the back of his round curly head; he
probably imagined himself not a bad-looking young man, for
while his horses were drinking he laid over on the broad bare
backs and bending down studied his own reflection in the
bright water. Then an old woman came out of a cottage close
by, and began talking to him in her West Country dialect in a
thin high-pitched cracked voice. Their talking was the only
sound in the village; so silent was it that all the rest of
its inhabitants might have been in bed and fast asleep; then,
the conversation ended, the young man rode out with a great
splashing and the old woman turned into her cottage again, and
I was left in solitude.

Still I lingered: I could not go just yet; the chances were
that I should never again see that sweet village in that
beautiful aspect at the twilight hour.

For now it came into my mind that I could not very well settle
there for the rest of my life; I could not, in fact, tie
myself to any place without sacrificing certain other
advantages I possessed; and the main thing was that by taking
root I should deprive myself of the chance of looking on still
other beautiful scenes and experiencing other sweet surprises.
I was wishing that I had come a little earlier on the scene to
have had time to borrow the key of the church and get a sight
of the interior, when all at once I heard a shrill voice and a
boy appeared running across the wide green space of the
churchyard. A second boy followed, then another, then still
others, and I saw that they were going into the church by the
side door. They were choir-boys going to practice. The
church was open then, and late as it was I could have half an
hour inside before it was dark! The stream was spanned by an
old stone bridge above the ford, and going over it I at once
made my way to the great building, but even before entering it
I discovered that it possessed an organ of extraordinary power
and that someone was performing on it with a vengeance.
Inside the noise was tremendous--a bigger noise from an organ,
it seemed to me, than I had ever heard before, even at the
Albert Hall and the Crystal Palace, but even more astonishing
than the uproar was the sight that met my eyes. The boys,
nine or ten sturdy little rustics with round sunburnt West
Country faces, were playing the roughest game ever witnessed
in a church. Some were engaged in a sort of flying fight,
madly pursuing one another up and down the aisles and over the
pews, and whenever one overtook another he would seize hold of
him and they would struggle together until one was thrown and
received a vigorous pommelling. Those who were not fighting
were dancing to the music. It was great fun to them, and they
were shouting and laughing their loudest only not a sound of
it all could be heard on account of the thunderous roar of the
organ which filled and seemed to make the whole building
tremble. The boys took no notice of me, and seeing that there
was a singularly fine west window, I went to it and stood
there some time with my back to the game which was going on at
the other end of the building, admiring the beautiful colours
and trying to make out the subjects depicted. In the centre
part, lit by the after-glow in the sky to a wonderful
brilliance, was the figure of a saint, a lovely young woman in
a blue robe with an abundance of loose golden-red hair and an
aureole about her head. Her pale face wore a sweet and placid
expression, and her eyes of a pure forget-me-not blue were
looking straight into mine. As I stood there the music, or
noise, ceased and a very profound silence followed--not a
giggle, not a whisper from the outrageous young barbarians,
and not a sound of the organist or of anyone speaking to them.
Presently I became conscious of some person standing almost
but not quite abreast of me, and turning sharply I found a
clergyman at my side. He was the vicar, the person who had
been letting himself go on the organ; a slight man with a
handsome, pale, ascetic face, clean-shaven, very dark-eyed,
looking more like an Italian monk or priest than an English
clergyman. But although rigidly ecclesiastic in his
appearance and dress, there was something curiously engaging
in him, along with a subtle look which it was not easy to
fathom. There was a light in his dark eyes which reminded me
of a flame seen through a smoked glass or a thin black veil,
and a slight restless movement about the corners of his mouth
as if a smile was just on the point of breaking out. But it
never quite came; he kept his gravity even when he said things
which would have gone very well with a smile.

"I see," he spoke, and his penetrating musical voice had, too,
like his eyes and mouth, an expression of mystery in it, "that
you are admiring our beautiful west window, especially the
figure in the centre. It is quite new--everything is new
here--the church itself was only built a few years ago. This
window is its chief glory: it was done by a good artist--he
has done some of the most admired windows of recent years; and
the centre figure is supposed to be a portrait of our generous
patroness. At all events she sat for it to him. You have
probably heard of Lady Y--?"

"What!" I exclaimed. "Lady Y--: that funny old woman!"

"No--middle-aged," he corrected, a little frigidly and perhaps
a little mockingly at the same time.

"Very well, middle-aged if you like; I don't know her
personally. One hears about her; but I did not know she had a
place in these parts."

"She owns most of this parish and has done so much for us that
we can very well look leniently on a little weakness--her wish
that the future inhabitants of the place shall not remember her
as a middle-aged woman not remarkable for good looks--'funny,'
as you just now said."

He was wonderfully candid, I thought. But what extraordinary
benefits had she bestowed on them, I asked, to enable them to
regard, or to say, that this picture of a very beautiful young
female was her likeness!

"Why," he said, "the church would not have been built but for
her. We were astonished at the sum she offered to contribute
towards the work, and at once set about pulling the small old
church down so as to rebuild on the exact site."

"Do you know," I returned, "I can't help saying something you
will not like to hear. It is a very fine church, no doubt,
but it always angers me to hear of a case like this where some
ancient church is pulled down and a grand new one raised in
its place to the honour and glory of some rich parvenu with or
without a brand new title."

"You are not hurting me in the least," he replied, with that
change which came from time to time in his eyes as if the
flame behind the screen had suddenly grown brighter. "I agree
with every word you say; the meanest church in the land should
be cherished as long as it will hold together. But
unfortunately ours had to come down. It was very old and
decayed past mending. The floor was six feet below the level
of the surrounding ground and frightfully damp. It had been
examined over and over again by experts during the past forty
or fifty years, and from the first they pronounced it a
hopeless case, so that it was never restored. The interior,
right down to the time of demolition, was like that of most
country churches of a century ago, with the old black worm-
eaten pews, in which the worshippers shut themselves up as if
in their own houses or castles. On account of the damp we
were haunted by toads. You smile, sir, but it was no smiling
matter for me during my first year as vicar, when I discovered
that it was the custom here to keep pet toads in the church.
It sounds strange and funny, no doubt, but it is a fact that
all the best people in the parish had one of these creatures,
and it was customary for the ladies to bring it a weekly
supply of provisions--bits of meat, hard-boiled eggs chopped
up, and earth-worms, and whatever else they fancied it would
like--in their reticules. The toads, I suppose, knew when it
was Sunday--their feeding day; at all events they would crawl
out of their holes in the floor under the pews to receive
their rations--and caresses. The toads got on my nerves with
rather unpleasant consequences. I preached in a way which my
listeners did not appreciate or properly understand,
particularly when I took for my subject our duty towards the
lower animals, including reptiles."

"Batrachians," I interposed, echoing as well as I could the
tone in which he had rebuked me before.

"Very well, batrachians--I am not a naturalist. But the
impression created on their minds appeared to be that I was
rather an odd person in the pulpit. When the time came to
pull the old church down the toad-keepers were bidden to
remove their pets, which they did with considerable
reluctance. What became of them I do not know--I never
inquired. I used to have a careful inspection made of the
floor to make sure that these creatures were not put back
in the new building, and I am happy to think it is not
suited to their habits. The floors are very well cemented,
and are dry and clean."

Having finished his story he invited me to go to the parsonage
and get some refreshment. "I daresay you are thirsty," he
said.

But it was getting late; it was almost dark in the church by
now, although the figure of the golden-haired saint still
glowed in the window and gazed at us out of her blue eyes. "I
must not waste more of your time," I added. "There are your
boys still patiently waiting to begin their practice--such
nice quiet fellows!"

"Yes, they are," he returned a little bitterly, a sudden
accent of weariness in his voice and no trace now of what I
had seen in his countenance a little while ago--the light that
shone and brightened behind the dark eye and the little play
about the corners of the mouth as of dimpling motions on the
surface of a pool.

And in that new guise, or disguise, I left him, the austere
priest with nothing to suggest the whimsical or grotesque in
his cold ascetic face. Recrossing the bridge I stood a little
time and looked once more at the noble church tower standing
dark against the clear amber-coloured sky, and said to myself:
"Why, this is one of the oddest incidents of my life! Not
that I have seen or heard anything very wonderful--just a
small rustic village, one of a thousand in the land; a big new
church in which some person was playing rather madly on the
organ, a set of unruly choir-boys; a handsome stained-glass
west window, and, finally, a nice little chat with the vicar."
It was not in these things; it was a sense of something
strange in the mind, of something in some way unlike all other
places and people and experiences. The sensation was like
that of the reader who becomes absorbed in Henry Newbolt's
romance of The Old Country, who identifies himself with the
hero and unconsciously, or without quite knowing how, slips
back out of this modern world into that of half a thousand
years ago. It is the same familiar green land in which he
finds himself--the same old country and the same sort of
people with feelings and habits of life and thought
unchangeable as the colour of grass and flowers, the songs
of birds and the smell of the earth, yet with a difference.
I recognized it chiefly in the parish priest I had been
conversing with; for one thing, his mediaeval mind evidently
did not regard a sense of humour and of the grotesque as out
of place in or on a sacred building. If it had been lighter I
should have looked at the roof for an effigy of a semi-human
toad-like creature smiling down mockingly at the worshippers
as they came and went.

On departing it struck me that it would assuredly be a mistake
to return to this village and look at it again by the common
lights of day. No, it was better to keep the impressions I
had gathered unspoilt; even to believe, if I could, that no
such place existed, but that it had existed exactly as I had
found it, even to the unruly choir-boys, the ascetic-looking
priest with a strange light in his eyes, and the worshippers
who kept pet toads in the church. They were not precisely
like people of the twentieth century. As for the eccentric
middle-aged or elderly person whose portrait adorned the west
window, she was not the lady I knew something about, but
another older Lady Y--, who flourished some six or seven
centuries ago.

Back to chapter list of: Afoot in England