Field and Hedgerow Part 9

Going nearer, the large hips grow from stone to life, the deep folds of the lower torso have but this moment been formed as she stooped, and the impulse is to extend the hands to welcome this beautiful embodiment of loving kindness. There, in full existence, visible, tangible, seems to be all that the heart has imagined of the deepest and highest emotions. She stoops to please the children, that they may climb her back; the whole of her body speaks the dearest, the purest love. To extend the hands towards her is so natural, it is difficult to avoid actually doing so. Hers is not the polished beauty of the Venus de Medici, whose very fingers have no joints. The typical Venus is fined down from the full growth of human shape to fit the artist's conception of what beauty should be. Her frame is rounded; her limbs are rounded; her neck is rounded; the least possible appearance of fulness is removed; any line that is not in exact accordance with a strict canon is worked out--in short, an ideal is produced, but humanity is obliterated. Something of the too rounded is found in it--a figure so polished has an air of the bath and of the mirror, of luxury; it is _too_ feminine; it obviously has a price payable in gold. But here is a woman perfect as a woman, with the love of children in her breast, her back bent for their delight. An ideal indeed, but real and human. Her form has its full growth of wide hips, deep torso, broad shoulders. Nothing has been repressed or fined down to a canon of art or luxury. A heart beats within her bosom; she is love; with her neither gold nor applause has anything to do; she thinks of the children. In that length of back and width of chest, in that strong torso, there is just the least trace of manliness. She is not all, not too feminine; with all her tenderness, she can think and act as n.o.bly as a man.

Absorbed in the contemplation of her beauty, I did not for some time think of inquiring into material particulars. But there is a tablet on the pedestal which tells all that is known. This statue is called the 'Venus Accroupie,' or Stooping Venus, and was found at Vienne, France.

The term 'Venus' is conventional, merely to indicate a female form of remarkable beauty, for there is nothing in the figure to answer to what one usually understands as the attributes of the G.o.ddess. It is simply a woman stooping to take a child pick-a-back, the child's little hand remaining upon the back, just as it was placed, in the act of clinging.

Both arms are missing, and there appears to be some dispute as to the exact way in which they were bent across the body. The right arm looks as if it had pa.s.sed partly under the left breast, the fingers resting on the left knee, which is raised; while the left arm was uplifted to maintain the balance. The shoulders are ma.s.sive rather than broad, and do not overshadow the width of the hips. The right knee is rounded, because it is bent; the left knee less so, because raised. Bending the right knee has the effect of slightly widening the right thigh. The right knee is very n.o.ble, bold in its slow curve, strong and beautiful.

Known of course to students, this wonderful work seems quite overlooked by the ma.s.s of visitors to the Louvre, and its fame has not spread. Few have even heard its name, for it has not been written and lectured into the popular mind like the Venus de Medici. While I was studying it several hundred visitors went straight past, without so much as a casual glance, on their way direct to the Venus of Milo, of which they had read in their guide-books, and of which they had seen splendid photographs in every window. One came along, on the contrary, very slowly, carefully examining the inscriptions upon the altars and various figures; he appeared to understand the Latin and Greek, and it might have been expected that he would stay to look at the Accroupie. He did not; he worked all round the statue, reading every word legible on the base of the insignificant figures against the wall, and so onwards down the _salon_. One of the most complete of the guide-books dismisses the Accroupie in a single line, so it is not surprising that people do not seek it. But what is surprising is that in a city so artistic as Paris there should be so few photographs of this statue. I could get but two--these were duplicates, and were all the proprietor of the shop possessed; there was some trouble to find them. I was told that, as they were so seldom asked for, copies were not kept, and that there was only this one particular view--a very bad one. Other shops had none. The Venus of Milo is in every shop--in every size, and from every point of view; of the Accroupie these two poor representations were hunted out from the bottom of a portfolio. Of course, these remarks apply only to Paris as the public know it; doubtless the studios have the Accroupie, and could supply representations of every kind: casts, too, can be obtained at the Louvre. But to those who, like myself, wander in the outer darkness of common barbarian life, the Accroupie is unknown till we happily chance upon it. Possibly the reason may be that this statue infinitely surpa.s.ses those fixed ideals of art which the studios have for so many centuries resolutely forced upon the world. It seems that after a certain length of art study the natural eyesight is lost. But I hope and believe there are thousands of people in the world in full possession of their natural eyesight, and capable of appreciating the Accroupie when once their attention is called to it.

I knew it was useless to search further among the galleries of the Louvre, for there could not be two such works in existence anywhere, much less in one collection. Therefore I did not go a step beyond, but sat down to enjoy it, and when I had gazed enough for one morning I turned to leave the place. There are never two works of equal beauty of any kind, just as there are never two moments of equal pleasure: seize the one you have, and make much of it, for such a moment will never return. In walking away I frequently looked back--first at three or four yards', then at ten yards' distance; gradually the proportions diminished, but the great sweep of outline retained its power. At about thirty yards it is remarkable how this n.o.ble work entirely overshadows the numerous figures close to it. Upon each side of the gallery the wall is lined with ranks of statuary, but they are quite lost as statuary, and seem nothing more than wall decorations, merely curious castings put there to conceal the monotony of the surface. Cleverly executed they may be, but there is no other merit, and they appear commonplace. They have no meaning; the eye glances along them without emotion. It always returns to, and rests upon, the Accroupie--the living and the beautiful. Here is the difference between genius and talent. Talent has lined the walls with a hundred clever things, and could line miles of surface; genius gives us but one example, and the clever things are silenced. Here is the difference between that which expresses a n.o.ble idea, and that which is dexterously conventional. The one single idea dominates the whole. Here is the difference, again, between the secret of the heart, the aspiration of the soul, and that which is only the workmanship of a studio ancient or modern. The Accroupie is human, loving tender; how poor are G.o.ddesses beside her! At forty, fifty, sixty yards, still looking back, though the details now disappeared, the wonderful outline of the torso and hips was as powerful as ever. Ascending the steps which lead from the gallery I paused once more, standing close against the wall, for other figures interfere with a distant view, and even at that distance (eighty yards or more) the same beauty was recognisable. Yet there is no extended arm, no att.i.tude to force attention--nothing but the torso is visible; there is no artificial background (as with the Venus of Milo) to throw it into relief; the figure crouches, and the love expressed in the action is conveyed by the marvel of the work as far as it can be seen.

Returning next morning I took the pa.s.sage on the left (not as before on the right), and so came at once to the top of the steps, and to a spot whence a view can with little trouble be obtained. Perhaps it is more than eighty yards away, but the effect is the same despite the distance.

The very best place to view the statue is exactly in front of it, two or three yards away, or as close as you like, but precisely in front. It requires no careful choice of position so as to give a limb more prominence, or render the light more effective (the light just there is bad, though it is near a window). The sculptor did not rely upon 'artistic' and selected att.i.tudes--something made up for the occasion. No meretricious aid whatever has been called in--no trick, no illusion of the eye, nothing theatrical. He relied solely and simply upon a true representation of the human body--the torso, the body itself--as he really saw it in life. When we consider that the lines of the body seen in front are gentle, and in no way prominent, it is apparent how beautiful the original must have been, and how wonderfully the form has been rendered in marble for this to be the best position to view it.

Three large folds, marked by deep lines, cross the lower part of the torso, and it is these creases that give the work its life. They are but just made in stooping, and will disappear as she rises from that position. These three grooves cross the entire front of the torso; the centre one is forked at its extremity near the right hip, and the fork of this groove encloses a smaller crease. Immediately under the right breast there is a short separate groove caused by the body leaning to the right; this is a fold of the side, not of the front. Under these folds there must be breath, there must be blood; they indicate a glowing life. The immense vitality of the form appears in them, and even as an athlete's muscles are exhibited in relief at his exercises, so exceeding strength of life is evident in these grooves. A heart throbbing steadily and strong, veins full of rich, pure blood, a warm touch, an eager wish to be affectionate, and self lost in the desire to love--this is the expression of the folds. Full of the energy of exceptional vitality, she gladly gives that energy for the delight of the little one.

There are no grooves on the torso of the Venus de Medici or of the Venus of Cnidus; they are sculptured in att.i.tudes chosen to allow of the body and the limbs presenting an unbroken smoothness. They have the roundness of the polished column. They are ideals, but do not live. Here the deep grooves and the large folds are life.

As we move slowly around the statue from left to right, after observing it in front, the right breast gradually advances, and its outline appears. The act of stooping and leaning to one side causes the right breast to be lower than the left. By degrees the right breast recedes and the left advances, and, standing at the full left of the figure, there are three chief lines to notice--that of the back seen in profile, of the torso, and of the left thigh. The thigh is raised, and, so stretched, seems slightly compressed near the knee. It is more rotund than thick or heavy; it is not so much size as roundness; it is not mere plumpness, but form.

A step farther and the back begins to appear, and the outline of its right edge. Standing exactly at the back, there is a remarkable flatness at the lower end of the mesial groove. This flatness is somewhat in the shape of an elongated diamond; it is rather below the loins, and is, I think, caused by the commencement or upper part of the pelvis. In stooping and at the same time leaning to one side, the flesh at this spot is drawn tightly against the firm structure under the skin, so that the flatness is almost, if not quite, hollow. Had the sculptor been representing a G.o.ddess he would have concealed this flatness in some way or other, or selected a position which did not cause it, for the conventional art--beauty must be equally rounded everywhere. Had he been poorer in conception he would have slurred it over, or not even observed it. The presence of this flatness or slightly hollow surface demonstrates how true the work is to reality. The statue is a personality, a living thing. As the line of the horizon recedes at sea, and that which now appears the edge or boundary is presently sailed over, so the edge or outline of the body recedes as you move around it. Another step, and the right thigh and the right breast are in sight, with the ends of the grooves. Lines that look almost straight are changed, as you approach, into curves. The action of the limbs is most apparent when viewed from the right side of the statue; but its most beautiful aspect is exactly in front. In moving round, it is very striking to observe how the least change of position--if you do but move an inch--alters the outline and curve of the work; the breast, not visible before, is now apparent as the bust rises; another inch and it becomes a demi-lune, till it swells to its full undulation. At every step the figure alters, but no matter at how many angles it is looked at, it always has beautiful curves. They adapt themselves, these curves, to the position of the eye, and wherever the eye is placed they satisfy its demands for beauty. Examine any part, and it is found perfect; for instance, the inside of the right knee (visible from the left of the statue) slightly bulges, being pressed out by the stooping position.

At a third visit it seemed to me that the statue had grown much more beautiful in the few days which had elapsed since I first saw it.

Pondering upon the causes of this increasing interest, I began to see that one reason was because it recalled to my memory the loveliness of nature. Old days which I had spent wandering among deep meadows and by green woods came back to me. In such days the fancy had often occurred to me that, besides the loveliness of leaves and flowers, there must be some secret influence drawing me on as a hand might beckon. The light and colour suspended in the summer atmosphere, as colour is in stained but translucent gla.s.s, were to me always on the point of becoming tangible in some beautiful form. The hovering lines and shape never became sufficiently defined for me to know what form it could be, yet the colours and the light meant something which I was not able to fix. I was now sitting in a gallery of stone, with cold marbles, cold floors, cold light from the windows. Without there were only houses, the city of Paris--a city above all other cities farthest from woods and meads. Here, nevertheless, there came back to me this old thought born in the midst of flowers and wind-rustled leaves, and I saw that with it the statue before me was in concord. The living original of this work was the human impersonation of the secret influence which had beckoned me on in the forest and by running streams. She expressed in loveliness of form the colour and light of sunny days; she expressed the deep aspiring desire of the soul for the perfection of the frame in which it is encased, for the perfection of its own existence.

The sun rolls on in the far dome of heaven, and now day and now night sweeps with alternate bands over the surface of hill, and wood, and sea; the sea beats in endless waves, which first began to undulate a thousand thousand years ago, starting from the other rim of Time; the green leaves repeat the beauty that gladdened man in ancient days. But for themselves they are, and not for us. Their glory fills the mind with rapture but for a while, and it learns that they are, like carven idols, wholly careless and indifferent to our fate. Then is the valley incomplete, and the void sad! Its hills speak of death as well as of life, and we know that for man there is nothing on earth really but man; the human species owns and possesses nothing but its species. When I saw this I turned with threefold concentration of desire and love towards that expression of hope which is called beauty, such as is worked in marble here. For I think beauty is truthfully an expression of hope, and that is why it is so enthralling--because while the heart is absorbed in its contemplation, unconscious but powerful hope is filling the breast. So powerful is it as to banish for the time all care, and to make this life seem the life of the immortals.

Returning the next morning, my thoughts went on, and found that this ideal of nature required of us something beyond good. The conception of moral good did not satisfy one while contemplating it. The highest form known to us at present is pure unselfishness, the doing of good, not for any reward, now or hereafter, nor for the completion of an imaginary scheme. This is the best we know. But how unsatisfactory! Filled with the aspirations called forth by the ideal before me, it appeared as if even the saving of life is a little work compared to what the heart would like to do. An outlet is needed more fully satisfying to its inmost desires than is afforded by any labour of self-abnegation. It must be something in accord with the perception of beauty and of an ideal. Personal virtue is not enough. The works called good are dry and jejune, soon consummated, often of questionable value, and leaving behind them when finished a sense of vacuity. You give a sum of money to a good object and walk away, but it does not satisfy the craving of the heart. You deny yourself pleasure to sit by the bedside of an invalid--a good deed; but when it is done there remains an emptiness of the soul. It is not enough--it is casuistry to say that it is. I often think the reason the world is so cold and selfish, so stolid and indifferent, is because it has never yet been shown how to be anything else. Listening to the prophets of all times and climes, it has heard them proclaim their ordinances, and has seen these observances punctually obeyed for hundreds of years, and nothing has come of it all. To-day it listens to the prophets of humanity, and it sees much real benevolence actually carried out. But the result is infinitesimal. Nothing comes of it; it does not satisfy the individual heart. The world at large continues untouched and indifferent--first because its common sense is not convinced, and secondly because its secret aspirations are in no degree satisfied. So that it is not altogether the world's fault if it is stolid. Everything has been tried and found wanting, Men rushed in crowds to the gold-diggings of California, to the Australian 'finds;' and in like manner, if any real spiritual or ideal good were proffered, crowds would rush to partic.i.p.ate in it. Nothing yet has been given but empty words, and these so-called 'goods' have proved as tasteless, and as much Dead Sea apples, as the apples of vice; perhaps even more bitter than the regrets of vice. Though I cannot name the ideal good, it seems to me that it will be in some way closely a.s.sociated with the ideal beauty of nature.

SUMMER IN SOMERSET.

The brown Barle River running over red rocks aslant its course is pushed aside, and races round curving slopes. The first shoot of the rapid is smooth and polished like a gem by the lapidary's art, rounded and smooth as a fragment of torso, and this convex undulation maintains a solid outline. Then the following scoop under is furrowed as if ploughed across, and the ridge of each furrow, where the particles move a little less swiftly than in the hollow of the groove, falls backwards as foam blown from a wave. At the foot of the furrowed decline the current rises over a rock in a broad white sheet--white because as it is dashed to pieces the air mingles with it. After this furious haste the stream does but just overtake those bubbles which have been carried along on another division of the water flowing steadily but straight. Sometimes there are two streams like this between the same banks, sometimes three or even more, each running at a different rate, and each gliding above a floor differently inclined. The surface of each of these streams slopes in a separate direction, and though under the same light they reflect it at varying angles. The river is animated and alive, rushing here, gliding there, foaming yonder; its separate and yet component parallels striving together, and talking loudly in incomplete sentences. Those rivers that move through midland meads present a broad, calm surface, at the same level from side to side; they flow without sound, and if you stood behind a thick hedge you would not know that a river was near. They dream along the meads, toying with their forget-me-nots, too idle even to make love to their flowers vigorously. The brown Barle enjoys his life, and splashes in the sunshine like boys bathing--like them he is sunburnt and brown. He throws the wanton spray over the ferns that bow and bend as the cool breeze his current brings sways them in the shade. He laughs and talks, and sings louder than the wind in his woods.

Here is a pool by the bank under an ash--a deep green pool inclosed by ma.s.sive rocks, which the stream has to brim over. The water is green--or is it the ferns, and the moss, and the oaks, and the pale ash reflected?

This rock has a purple tint, dotted with moss spots almost black; the green water laps at the purple stone, and there is one place where a thin line of scarlet is visible, though I do not know what causes it. Another stone the spray does not touch has been dried to a bright white by the sun. Inclosed, the green water slowly swirls round till it finds crevices, and slips through. A few paces farther up there is a red rapid--reddened stones, and reddened growths beneath the water, a light that lets the red hues overcome the others--a wild rush of crowded waters rotating as they go, shrill voices calling. This next bend upwards dazzles the eyes, for every inclined surface and striving parallel, every swirl, and bubble, and eddy, and rush around a rock chances to reflect the sunlight. Not one long pathway of quiet sheen, such as stretches across a rippled lake, each wavelet throwing back its ray in just proportion, but a hundred separate mirrors vibrating, each inclined at a different angle, each casting a tremulous flash into the face. The eyelids involuntarily droop to shield the gaze from a hundred arrows; they are too strong--nothing can be distinguished but a woven surface of brilliance, a mesh of light, under which the water runs, itself invisible. I will go back to the deep green pool, and walking now with the sun behind, how the river has changed!

Soft, cool shadows reach over it, which I did not see before; green surfaces are calm under trees; the rocks are less hard; the stream runs more gently, and the oaks come down nearer; the delicious sound of the rushing water almost quenches my thirst. My eyes have less work to do to meet the changing features of the current which now seems smooth as my glance accompanies its movement. The sky, which was not noticed before, now appears reaching in rich azure across the deep hollow, from the oaks on one side to the oaks on the other. These woods, which cover the steep and rocky walls of the gorge from river to summit, are filled with the June colour of oak. It is not green, nor russet, nor yellow; I think it may be called a glow of yellow under green. It is warmer than green; the glow is not on the outer leaves, but comes up beneath from the depth of the branches. The rush of the river soothes the mind, the broad descending surfaces of yellow-green oak carry the glance downwards from the blue over to the stream in the hollow. Rush! rush!--it is the river, like a mighty wind in the wood. A pheasant crows, and once and again falls the tap, tap of woodmen's axes--scarce heard, for they are high above. They strip the young oaks of their bark as far as they can while the saplings stand, then fell them, and as they all lie downhill there are parallel streaks of buff (where the sap has dried) drawn between the yellow-green ma.s.ses of living leaf. The pathway winds in among the trees at the base of the rocky hill; light green whortleberries fill every interstice, bearing tiny red globes of flower--flower-lamps--open at the top. Wood-sorrel lifts its delicate veined petals; the leaf is rounded like the shadow of a bubble on a stone under clear water. I like to stay by the wood-sorrel a little while--it is so chastely beautiful; like the purest verse, it speaks to the inmost heart. Staying, I hear unconsciously--listen! Rush! rush! like a mighty wind in the wood.

It draws me on to the deep green pool inclosed about by rocks--a pool to stand near and think into. The purple rock, dotted with black moss; the white rock; the thin scarlet line; the green water; the overhanging tree; the verdant moss upon the bank; the lady fern--are there still. But I see also now a little pink somewhere in the water, much brown too, and shades I know no name for. The water is not green, but holds in solution three separate sets of colours. The confervae on the stones, the growths beneath at the bottom waving a little as the water swirls like minute seaweeds--these are brown and green and somewhat reddish too. Under water the red rock is toned and paler, but has deep black cavities. Next, the surface, continually changing as it rotates, throws back a different light, and thirdly, the oaks' yellow-green high up, the pale ash, the tender ferns drooping over low down confer their tints on the stream. So from the floor of the pool, from the surface, and from the adjacent bank, three sets of colours mingle. Washed together by the slow swirl, they produce a shade--the brown of the Barle--lost in darkness where the bank overhangs.

Following the current downwards at last the river for awhile flows in quietness, broad and smooth. A trout leaps for a fly with his tail curved in the air, full a foot out of water. Trout watch behind sunken stones, and shoot to and fro as insects droop in their flight and appear about to fall. So clear is the water and so brightly illuminated that the fish are not easily seen--for vision depends on contrast--but in a minute I find a way to discover them by their shadows. The black shadow of a trout is distinct upon the bottom of the river, and guides the eye to the spot; then looking higher in the transparent water there is the fish. It was curious to see these black shadows darting to and fro as if themselves animated and without bodies, for if the trout darted before being observed the light concealed him in motion. Some of the trout came up from under Torre-steps, a singular structure which here connects the sh.o.r.es of the stream. Every one has seen a row of stepping-stones across a shallow brook; now pile other stones on each of these, forming b.u.t.tresses, and lay flat stones like unhewn planks from b.u.t.tress to b.u.t.tress, and you have the plan of this primitive bridge. It has a megalithic appearance, as if a.s.sociated with the age of rude stone monuments. They say its origin is doubtful; there can be no doubt of the loveliness of the spot. The Barle comes with his natural rush and fierceness under the unhewn stone planking, then deepens, and there overhanging a black pool--for the shadow was so deep as to be black--grew a large bunch of marsh-marigolds in fullest flower, the broad golden cups almost resting on the black water. The bridge is not intended for wheels, and though it is as firm as the rock, foot pa.s.sengers have to look at their steps, as the great planks, flecked with lichen at the edges, are not all level. The horned sheep and lambs go over it--where do they not go? Like goats they wander everywhere.

In a cottage some way up the hill we ate clotted cream and whortleberry jam. Through the open door came the ceaseless rush! rush! like a wind in the wood. The floor was of concrete, lime and sand; on the open hearth--p.r.o.nounced 'airth'--sods of turf cut from the moor and oak branches were smouldering under the chimney crook. Turf smoke from the piled-up fires of winter had darkened the beams of the ceiling, but from that rude room there was a view of the river, and the hill, and the oaks in full June colour, which the rich would envy. Sometimes in early morning the wild red deer are seen feeding on the slope opposite. As we drove away in reckless Somerset style, along precipices above the river, with nothing but a fringe of fern for parapet, the oak woods on the hills under us were shading down into evening coolness of tint, the yellow less warm, the green more to the surface. Upon the branches of the trees moss grows, forming a level green top to the round bough like a narrow cushion along it, with frayed edges drooping over each side. Though moss is common on branches, it does not often make a raised cushion, thick, as if green velvet pile were laid for the birds to run on. There were rooks'

nests in some tall ash trees; the scanty foliage left the nests exposed, they were still occupied by late broods. Rooks' nests are not often seen in ashes as in elms.

By a mossy bank a little girl--a miniature Audrey--stout, rosy, and ragged, stood with a yellow straw hat aslant on her yellow hair, eating the leaves from a spray of beech in her hand. Audrey looked at us, eating the beech leaves steadily, but would not answer, not even 'Where's your father to?' For in Somerset the 'to' is put last, and must never be omitted; thus, instead of saying 'I bought this at Taunton,' it is correct to say 'I bought this to Taunton.' There are models under gla.s.s cases in places of entertainment with a notice to say that if a penny be inserted the machine will go. Audrey the Little would not speak, but when a penny was put in her hand she began to move, and made off for home with the treasure. The road turned and turned, but whichever way the Barle was always under us, and the red rock rose high at the side. This rock fractures aslant if worked, vast flakes come out, and the cleavage is so natural that until closely approached a quarry appears a cliff. Stone got out in squares, or cut down straight, leaves an artificial wall; these rocks cannot be made to look artificial, and if painted a quarry would be certainly quite indistinguishable from a natural precipice. Entering a little town (Dulverton) the road is jammed tight between cottages: so narrow is the lane that foot pa.s.sengers huddle up in doorways to avoid the touch of the wheels, and the windows of the houses are protected by iron bars like cages lest the splash-boards should crack the gla.s.s.

Nowhere in closest-built London is there such a lane--one would imagine land to be dear indeed. The farm labourers, filing homewards after their day's work, each carry poles of oak or f.a.gots on their shoulders for their hearths, generally oak branches; it is their perquisite. The oak somehow takes root among the interstices of the stones of this rocky land. Past the houses the rush! rush! of the brown Barle rises again in the still evening air.

From the Devon border I drifted like a leaf detached from a tree, across to a deep coombe in the Quantock Hills. The vast hollow is made for repose and lotus-eating; its very shape, like a hammock, indicates idleness. There the days go over noiselessly and without effort, like white summer clouds. Ridges each side rise high and heroically steep--it would be proper to set out and climb them, but not to-day, not now: some time presently. To the left ma.s.sive Will's Neck stands out in black shadow defined and distinct, like a fragment of night in the bright light of the day. The wild red deer lie there, but the mountain is afar; a sigh is all I can give to it, for the Somerset sun is warm and the lotus sweet Yonder, if the misty heat moves on, the dim line of Dunkery winds along the sky, not unlike the curved back of a crouching hare. The weight of the mountains is too great--what is the use of attempting to move? It is enough to look at them. The day goes over like a white cloud; as the sun declines it is pleasant to go into the orchard--the vineyard of Somerset, and then perhaps westward may be seen a light in the sky by the horizon as if thrown up from an immense mirror under. The mirror is the Severn sea, itself invisible at this depth, but casting a white glow up against the vapour in the air. By it you may recognise the nearness of the sea.

The thumb-nail ridges of the Quantocks begin to grow harder, they carry the eye along on soft curves like those of the South Downs in Suss.e.x, but suddenly end in a flourish and point as if cut out with the thumb-nail.

Draw your thumb-nail firmly along soft wood, and it will, by its natural slip, form such a curve. Blackbird and thrush commence to sing as the heavy heat decreases; the bloom on the apple trees is loose now, and the blackbird as he springs from the bough shakes down flakes of blossom.

Towards even a wind moves among the lengthening shadows, and my footsteps involuntarily seek the glen, where a streamlet trickles down over red flat stones which resound musically as the water strikes them. Ferns are growing so thickly in the hedge that soon it will seem composed of their fronds; the first June rose hangs above their green tips. A water-ousel with white breast rises and flies on; again disturbed, he makes a circle, and returns to the stream behind. On the moist earth there is the print of a hare's pad; here is a foxglove out in flower; and now as the incline rises heather thickens on the slope. Sometimes we wander beside the streamlet which goes a mile into the coombe--the shadow is deep and cool in the vast groove of the hill, the shadow acc.u.mulates there, and is pressed by its own weight--up slowly as far as the 'sog,' or peaty place where the spring rises, and where the sundew grows. Sometimes climbing steep and rocky walls--scarce sprinkled with gra.s.s--we pause every other minute to look down on the great valley which reaches across to Dunkery.

The horned sheep, which are practically wild, like wild creatures, have worn out holes for themselves to lie in beside the hill. If resolution is strong, we move through the dark heather (soon to be purple), startling the heath-poults, or black game, till at last the Channel opens, and the far-distant Flat and Steep Holms lie, as it looks, afloat on the dim sea.

This is labour enough; stern indeed must be the mind that could work at summer's noon in Somerset, when the apple vineyards slumber; when the tall foxgloves stand in the heavy heat and the soft air warms the deepest day-shadow so that nothing is cool to the touch but the ferns. Is there anything so good as to do nothing?

Fame travels slowly up these breathless hills, and pauses overcome in the heated hollow lanes. A famous wit of European reputation, when living, resided in Somerset. A traveller one day chancing to pa.s.s through the very next parish inquired of a local man if somebody called Sydney Smith did not once live in that neighbourhood. 'Yes,' was the reply, 'I've heard all about Sydney Smith; I can tell you. He was a highwayman, and was hung on that hill there.' He would have shown the very stump of the gallows-tree as proof positive, like Jack Cade's bricks, alive in the chimney to this day.

There really was a highwayman, however, whose adventures are said to have suggested one of the characters in the romance of 'Lorna Doone.' This desperate fellow had of course his houses of call, where he could get refreshment safely, on the moors. One bitter winter's day the robber sat down to a hearty dinner in an inn at Exford. Placing his pistols before him, he made himself comfortable, and ate and drank his fill. By-and-by an old woman entered, and humbly took a seat in a corner far from the fire. In time the highwayman observed the wretched, shivering creature, and of his princely generosity told her to come and sit by the hearth.

The old woman gladly obeyed, and crouched beside him. Presently, as he sat absorbed in his meal, his arms were suddenly pinioned from behind.

The old woman had him tight, so that he could not use his weapons, while at a call constables, who had been posted about, rushed in and secured him. The old woman was in fact a man in disguise. A relation of the thief-taker still lives and tells the tale. The highwayman's mare, mentioned in the novel, had been trained to come at his call, and was so ungovernable that they shot her.

Such tracts of open country, moors, and unenclosed hills were the haunts of highwaymen till a late period, and memories of the gallows, and of escapes from them, are common. A well-to-do farmer who used to attend Bristol market, and dispose there of large quant.i.ties of stock and produce, dared not bring home the money himself lest he should be robbed.

He entrusted the cash to his drover; the farmer rode along the roads, the drover made short cuts on foot, and arrived safely with the money. This went on for years, in which time the honest fellow--a mere labourer--carried some thousands of pounds for his master, faithfully delivering every shilling. He had, however, a little failing--a dangerous one in those days, when the gallows was the punishment for sheep-stealing. He was known to be a sheep-stealer, and actually after bringing home a hundred pounds would go and put his neck in danger the very same night by taking a sheep. This went on for some time, people shut their eyes, but at last patience was exhausted, and efforts were made to catch him in the act, without success.

One night he came home in the usual manner from market, delivered the cash, and went to his cottage. Next day a little girl was sent on an innocent errand to the cottage, with orders while she was there to look sharply round and observe if there were any ashes on the floor. She came back with the news that there was a heap of wood ashes. Immediately a posse set out, and the drover was arrested. The use of the ashes by sheep-stealers was to suck up and remove stains of blood, which were certain to be left in cutting up the animal. Sufficient proof was found in the cottage to condemn the honest thief to be hung; great exertions were, however, made in his behalf; and princ.i.p.ally, it is supposed, on account of his character for carrying large sums of money untouched, he was saved. There is a story of the smugglers--once notorious folk on these hills--teaching their horses to understand the usual words of command backwards. If they were driving pack-horses along at night with a load of brandy landed from a lugger, and were met by the revenue men, who ordered them to stop that the packs might be searched, the smugglers, like good and loyal subjects, called 'Whoa! whoa!' Instantly the horses set off at a tearing gallop, for they understood 'Whoa!' as' Gee-up!'

By a farmer's door I found a tall branch of oak lying against the porch.

The bark was dry, and the leaves were shrivelled, but the bough had been originally taken green from the tree. These boughs are discovered against the door on the morning of the 29th of May, and are in memory of the escape of King Charles from his enemies by hiding in an oak. The village ringers leave them, and then go to the church and ring a peal, for which they expect cider or small coin from each loyal person honoured with an oak branch. Another custom, infinitely more ancient, is that of singing to the apple trees in early spring, so that the orchards may be induced to bear a good crop. The singers come round and visit each orchard; they have a rhyme specially for the purpose, part of the refrain of which is that a cup of good cider cannot do any one harm--a hint which brings out a canful. In strange contrast to these genial customs, which accord so well with flowery fields, I heard an instance of the coldest indifference. An old couple lived for many years in a cottage; at last the wife died, and the husband, while the body was in the house, had his meals on the coffin as a table.

A hundred years since, before steam, the corn was threshed out by the flail--a slow, and consequently expensive process. Many efforts were made to thresh quicker. Among others, wooden machines were put up in some of the villages, something resembling a water-wheel placed horizontally.

This was moved by horses walking round and round, and drove machinery in the barn by belt or shafting. The labourers, greatly incensed--for they regarded threshing by the flail as their right--tried to burn them, but the structures were guarded and still exist. Under the modern conditions of farming they are still found useful to cut chaff, crack corn, and so on. The ancient sickle is yet in use for reaping in Somerset; the reapers sharpen it by drawing the edge through an apple, when the acid bites and cleans the steel. While we were sauntering through a village one morning, out rushed the boys from school, and instantly their tongues began to wag of those things on which their hearts were set. 'I know a jay's nest, said one; 'I know an owl's nest,' cried a second; a third hastened to claim knowledge of a pigeon's nest. It will be long before education drives the natural love of the woods out of the children's hearts. Of old time a village school used to be held in an ancient building, the lower part of which was occupied as almshouses. Underneath the ancient folk lived as best they might, while the young folk learned and gave their cla.s.s responses, or romped on the floor overhead. The upper part of the building belonged to one owner, the lower part to another landlord. It came about that the roof decayed and the upper owner suggested to the lower owner that they should agree in bearing the cost of repairs. Upon which the owner of the bas.e.m.e.nt remarked that he contemplated _pulling his part down._

In these hamlets along the foot of the hills ancient stone crosses are often found. One of them has retained its top perfect, and really is a cross, not a shaft only. This is, I think, rare. Sometimes in the village street, the slender column grey against the green trees, sometimes in the churchyard, these crosses come on the mind like a sudden enigma. It requires an effort to grasp their meaning, so long have the ideas pa.s.sed away which led to their erection. They almost startle modern thought. How many years since the peasant women knelt at their steps! On the base of one which has a sculptured shaft the wall-rue fern was growing. A young starling was perched on the yew by it; he could but just fly, and fluttered across to the sill of the church window. Young birds called pettishly for food from the bushes. Upon the banks hart's-tongue was coming up fresh and green, and the early orchis was in flower. Fern and flower and fledglings had come again as they have come every year since the oldest of these ancient shafts was erected, for life is older, life is greyer, than the weather-beaten mouldings. But life, too, is fresh and young; the stern thought in the stone becomes more cold and grim as the centuries pa.s.s away. In the crevices at the foot of another cross wallflowers blossomed, and plants of evening primrose, not yet in flower, were growing. Under a great yew lay the last decaying beam of the stocks.

A little yew tree grew on the top of the church tower, its highest branch just above the parapet. A thrush perhaps planted it--thrushes are fond of the viscous yew berries. Through green fields, in which the gra.s.s as rising high and sweet, a footpath took me by a solitary mill with an undershot wheel. The sheds about here are often supported on round columns of stone. Beyond the mill is a pleasant meadow, quiet, still, and sunlit; b.u.t.tercup, sorrel, and daisy flowered among the gra.s.ses down to the streamlet, where comfrey, with white and pink-lined bells, stood at the water's edge. A renowned painter, Walker, who died early, used to work in this meadow: the original scene from which he took his picture of _The Plough_ is not far distant. The painter is gone; the gra.s.ses and the flowers are renewed with the summer. As I stood by the brook a water-rat came swimming, drawing a large dock-leaf in his mouth; seeing me, he dived, and took the leaf with him under water.

Everywhere wild strawberries were flowering on the banks--wild strawberries have been found ripe in January here; everywhere ferns were thickening and extending, foxgloves opening their bells. Another deep coombe led me into the mountainous Quantocks, far below the heather, deep beside another trickling stream. In this land the sound of running water is perpetual, the red flat stones are resonant, and the speed of the stream draws forth music like quick fingers on the keys; the sound of running water and the pleading voice of the willow-wren are always heard in summer. Among the oaks growing on the steep hill-side the willow-wrens repeated their sweet prayer; the water as it ran now rose and now fell; there was a louder note as a little stone was carried over a fall. The shadow came slowly out from the oak-grown side of the coombe, it reached to the margin of the brook. Under the oaks there appears nothing but red stones, as if the trees were rooted in them; under the boughs probably the gra.s.s does not cover the rock as it does on the opposite side. There mountain-ashes flowered in loose order on the green slope. Redstarts perched on them, darting out to seize pa.s.sing insects. Still deeper in the coombe the oaks stood on either side of the stream; it was the beginning of woods which reach for miles, in which occasionally the wild red deer wander, and drink at the clear waters. By now the shadow of the western hill-top had crossed the brooklet, and the still coombe became yet more silent. There was an alder, ivy-grown, beside the stream--a tree with those lines which take an artist's fancy. Under the roots of alders the water-ousel often creeps by day, and the tall heron stalks past at night. Receding up the eastern slope of the coombe the sunlight left the dark alder's foliage in the deep shadow of the hollow. I went up the slope till I could see the sun, and waited; in a few minutes the shadow reached me, and it was sunset; I went still higher, and presently the sun set again. A cool wind was drawing up the coombe, it was dusky in the recesses of the oaks, and the water of the stream had become dark when we emerged from the great hollow, and yet without the summer's evening had but just commenced, and the banks were still heated by the sun.

In contrast to the hills and moors which are so open and wild, the broad vales beneath are closely shut in with hedges. The fields are all of moderate size, unlike the great pastures elsewhere, so that the constant succession of hedges, one after the other, for ten, twenty, or more miles, encloses the country as it were fivefold. Most of the fields are square, or at all events right-angled, unlike the irregular outline and corners of fields in other counties. The number of meadows make it appear as if the land was chiefly gra.s.s, though there is really a fair proportion of arable. Over every green hedge there seems a gra.s.sy mead; in every hedge trees are numerous, and their thick June foliage, green too, gives a sense of green colour everywhere. But this is relieved with red--the soil is red, and where the plough has been the red furrows stand out so brightly as to seem lifted a little from the level. These red squares when on the side of rising ground show for many miles. The stones are red that lie about, the road dust has a reddish tint, so have the walls of the cottages and mills. Where the banks of the hedges can be seen (or where rabbits have thrown out the earth) they are red, and the water in the ditches and streamlets looks red--it is in fact clear, and the colour is that of the sand and stones. The footpath winds a red band through the gra.s.s of the meads, and if it pa.s.ses under a cliff the rock too rises aslant in red lines. Along the cropped hedges red campions flower so thickly as to take the place of green leaves, and by every gateway red foxgloves grow. Red trifolium is a favourite crop; it is not much redder than the land which bears it. The hues of the red ploughed squares, seen through the trees, vary as the sun dries or the rain moistens the colour. Then, again, the ferns as the summer advances bring forward their green to the aid of the leaves and gra.s.s, so that red and green constantly strive together.

There is a fly-rod in every house, almost every felt hat has gut and flies wound round it, and every one talks trout. Every one, too, complained that the rivers were so low it was difficult to angle. This circ.u.mstance, however, rendered the hues of the rocky banks more distinct. Sitting down to dinner by chance with two farmers, one began to tell me how he had beguiled three trout the previous evening; and the other described how, as he was walking in a field of his by the river, he had seen an otter. These creatures, which are becoming sadly scarce, if not indeed extinct in many counties, are still fairly numerous in the waters here. I hope they will long remain so, for although they certainly do destroy great numbers of fish, yet it must be remembered that in this country our list of wild animals has been gradually decreasing for centuries, and especially wild animals that show sport. The otter, I fear, is going; I hope the sportsmen of Somerset will see that it remains in their county, at all events, when it has become a tradition elsewhere.

Otter hounds frequently visit the rivers, and first-rate sport is obtained. In these villages, two hundred miles from London, and often far from the rail, some of the conditions resemble those in the United States, where, instead of shops, 'stores' supply every article from one counter. So here you buy everything in one shop; it is really a 'store in the American sense. A house which seems amid fields is called 'The Dragon;' you would suppose it an inn, but it is a shop, and has been so ever since the olden times when every trader put out a sign. The sign has gone, but the name remains.

Somewhere in a wood there is a stone, supposed to be a tombstone of the prophetess Mother Shipton, and bearing an undecipherable inscription. One of her rhymes is well remembered in the neighbourhood:--

When Watchet is all washed down Williton shall be a seaport town.

This is founded on the gradual encroachment of the sea, which is a fact, but it will be some time yet before masts are seen at Williton.

At Dunster there is a curious mill which has two wheels, overshot, one in front of the other, and both driven by the same sluice. It as very hot as we stood by the wheels; the mill dust came forth and sprinkled the foliage so that the leaves seemed scarce able to breathe; it drifted almost to the stream hard by, where trout were watching under a cloud of midges dancing over the ripples. They look as if entangled in an inextricable maze, but if you let your eye travel, say to the right, as you would follow the flight of a bird, you find that one side of the current of insects flies up that way, and the other side returns. They go to and fro in regular order, exactly like the fashionable folk in Rotten Row, but the two ranks pa.s.s so quickly that looked at both together the vision cannot separate them, they are faster than the impression on the retina.

At Selworthy a footpath leads up through a wood on Selworthy Hill, and as it ascends, always at the side of the slope, gradually opens out what is perhaps the finest view of Dunkery Beacon, the Dunkery range, and that edge of Exmoor on to the sh.o.r.e of the sea. Across the deep vale the Exmoor mountains rise and reach on either hand, immense breadths of dark heather, deep coombes filled with black shadow, and rounded ma.s.ses that look dry and heated. To the right is the gleaming sea, and the distant sound of the surge comes up to the wood. The headland and its three curves boldly project into the sunlit waters; from its foot many a gallant stag hard pressed by the hounds has swum out into the track of pa.s.sing vessels. Selworthy Woods were still in the afternoon heat; except for the occasional rustle of a rabbit or of a pheasant, there was no evidence of life; the sound of the sea was faint and soon lost among the ferns. Slowly, very slowly, great Dunkery grew less hard of aspect, shadows drew along at the base, while again the declining sun from time to time sent his beams into valleys till now dark. The thatched house at Holnicote by the foot of Selworthy much interested me; it is one of the last of thatched houses inhabited by a gentleman and landed proprietor.

Sir Thomas Acland, who resides here, is a very large owner. Thatch prevails on his estates; thatched cottages, thatched farmhouses, and his thatched mansion. In the coolness of the evening the birds began to sing and squirrels played across the lawn in front of Holnicote House.

Humble-bees hummed in the gra.s.s and visited the flowers of the holly bushes. Thrushes sang, and chaffinches, and, sweetest of all, if simplest in notes, the greenfinches talked and courted in the trees. Two cuckoos called in different directions, wood-pigeons raised their voices in Selworthy Wood, and rooks went over cawing in their deliberate way. In the level meadow from among the tall gra.s.ses and white-flowering wild parsley a landrail called 'crake, crake,' ceaselessly. There was a sense of rest and quiet, and with it a joyousness of bird-life, such as should be about an English homestead.