Between the Larch-woods and the Weir

But for those who are too poor, or too rich, to need to bother about advertising their car—those who can indulge in the luxury of walking with no fear of losing social prestige—there is, about that cottage, a world of eternal youth that never grows old, a world that is for ever offering new discoveries.

And from the weir in the valley to the larch-woods at the summit, curiously insistent voices are calling. You have but to walk along the river bank to hear them in the tumbling, swirling waters as they pour over, and sweep around, the boulders in the river bed. And although the only living thing you may actually see is the blue glint of a darting kingfisher, or a heron standing sentinel on some mossed and water-splashed rock, or a burnished swallow skimming over the surface of the water, you know for a certainty that there is more—much more—in the murmur of the river and the clamour of the weir than the ear can ever classify.

Loud as it is when the tide is going down, it is not noisy—for noise never soothes, whereas this babbling of the waters is one of the most restful sounds the tired mind can know.

When you leave the river, and take the path that climbs up through the woods—the path you have to search for, so overgrown is it with nut bushes and bracken and low hanging branches of the birches—another sense of mystery awaits you. Though the way may get easier, and the trail a little more defined, the higher you climb, you feel you are penetrating a new land—that you are the first ever to come this way.

And that inexplicable lure of the unknown seizes you; though you can see nothing ahead of you but a steep rough footpath arched over by the branches of the trees that hedge you about on either side, you are conscious of “something” beyond the croon of the ringdoves and the scuttle of the rabbit. It comes to you in the odour of last year’s dead leaves under the oaks; in the pungent warm scent of the larches in the sun. It greets you in the army of foxgloves that have monopolized the one bit of open sky space where a few trees were uprooted in a storm; and in the tall clump of dark blue campanula that has sprung up in another spot where a sun-shaft falls; and in the regiments of wild daffodils in a clearing that so far have escaped the trowel of the spoiler.

You sense it on an early Easter day, when you pause half-way up, and look back on a vast tracery of bare branches and twigs, pale grey where the light strikes on them, and bursting into smiles at intervals where the blackthorn has come out.

It speaks to you when you come upon the smooth grey bark of the beeches, the beautifully ribbed rind of the Spanish chestnut, and the scaly, red trunks of the pines.

You feel it at your feet when you see the brown, uncurling fern fronds; and it pulls at your heart when you step across a brook that is quietly talking to itself, like a happy baby, as it wanders downhill, unconcerned and most haphazard, amid watercress and ragged robin and creeping jenny.

When at last you emerge for a moment—breathless—from the woods, and come upon the cottage, standing in the midst of its gay flower-patch, you think you have solved the mystery in the sweet smell of the newly turned earth; or that it hovers over the crimson flame of the Herb Robert glowing all about the tops of the grey stone walls.

Yet it is not merely the birds and the flowers, the wood scents and the trees that hold one as with a spell. Such things can be catalogued; whereas there is something intangible among the wild woods, something indefinable, beyond all material things, that makes in some incomprehensible way for peace of mind and the mending of the soul. And it is one of our greatest blessings that we cannot tabulate it, or order it by the dozen from the Stores; that it cannot be “cornered” or monopolized by the money grubber.

The healing of the hills cannot be purchased with gold. It is free to all—yet it can only be had by individual, quiet seeking.

The Glory still burns in the Bush; the Light of God’s kindling can never be extinguished. But sometimes we are too preoccupied to turn aside to see the great sight; and sometimes we fail to put our shoes from off our feet, forgetting that the place whereon we stand is holy ground.

Enter Eileen

I HAVE no “at home” day. I confess it reluctantly, knowing what a state of social forsakenness this implies. But it is wonderful how you can manage to occupy your time with the simple little duties of an editor’s office, till you never feel the lack of greater events!

Not that I am cut off from acquaintances thereby; decidedly not. They are kind enough to turn up on Saturday afternoons and take their chance of finding me in; and when they do, with one accord they proceed to pity me for all the “at homes” I’ve missed during the week, and they do their best to make me bright and happy for the short half-holiday I am able to take from work, while I just sit with my hands in my lap and give myself up to being entertained.

I don’t do knitting on such occasions, unlike Miss Quirker who, when I chance to call, remarks, “You’ll excuse my going on with this sock, won’t you?—then I shan’t feel that I’m entirely wasting my time!”

For weeks I had been feeling that, no matter what happened, I simply must get away from London for a change of scene and a change of noise—not a holiday; holidays had been out of the question for some time past, with the major portion of the office staff at the front. We had been postponing and postponing going away, feeling that it was unpatriotic to be out of town when there was so much work to do. But at last I decided some fresh air was imperative, and arranged to spend a little time at my cottage on the hillside, Virginia and Ursula, my two most intimate friends, accompanying me, as the Head of Affairs was abroad on important business.

It seemed such long, long months since I had heard anything about the Flower-Patch. True, I had left Mrs. Widow (the villager who is supposed to look after the house in my absence) a bundle of stamped, addressed envelopes, when last I was down, begging her to send me an occasional letter, giving me news of the cottage, and telling me how the flowers were getting on, and whether the rose arches had blown down, and when the wild snowdrops in the orchard were in bloom, and if there were many apples on the new trees we had planted, and whether the lavender cuttings had taken hold, etc. I felt that a few details of this description might help to keep my brain balanced amid the tumult and terror of the War.

Mrs. Widow wrote regularly every month, and this is the type of letter she always sent:—

“Dear Mam. i hope your well, my newralger has been cruell bad but it is Better now. my daugters baby ethel have two teeth. she is a smart Baby but do cry a lot. Mrs Greens little girl have had something in her throat taken out. doctor says its had a noise. John Green have been called up but I expec you dont know none of them As they lives 3 mile above Monmouth. Mrs Greens sister lives to Cardiff she had a boy last week. i hope the master is well. Its the Sunday School versary tomorror. Thank you for the money. glad to say everything all rite.

Yours MRS WIDOW.”

I suppose the correct thing would be to call the letters “human documents”; but as the humans mentioned in the documents are, as often as not, people of whom I have never heard, the record of anniversaries, illnesses, births, deaths, and marriages that she sends regularly each month (as a receipt for cash received), are seldom either illuminating or exciting. There was nothing for it but to go down and glean impressions first hand.

It was known that I was going out of town the following week, therefore a collection of callers had looked in, and they were doing their utmost to “liven me up” one afternoon in February, and we were having a lovely time explaining to each other how highly strung our respective doctors said we were when they insisted that we must take a complete rest. It appeared—after a lavish amount of detail—that we each suffered from far too active a brain; I found I was by no means the only one!

We also were most communicative about the brilliancy of our children—not that we said it because we were their mothers, you understand; fortunately, unlike other mothers, we were able to take quite detached views of our own children, and regard them from a purely impersonal standpoint; a great gain, because it enabled us to see how really exceptional they were.

I was not expected to contribute anything under this heading, save copious notes of exclamation on hearing what the various head masters and mistresses had said regarding the genius of the respective children. It was simply amazing to sit there and just contemplate how indebted the world would ultimately be to these ladies, for having bestowed such prodigies on their day and generation; for evidently there wasn’t one of my guests who owned a just-ordinary child! No, these young people were all the joy and pride of their teacher, and the way all of them would have passed their exams, (if they hadn’t also possessed too active brains, like their mothers), was positively phenomenal.