And because I could think of nothing else on the spur of the moment, I threw down the poker (it was red-rust, alas, when I chanced upon it a week later) and went indoors and wrote about the cottage and the hills.
When it was published in the magazine, readers very kindly wrote by the bagful begging for a continuation. It has been continuing—with perennial requests for more—for some time now. This only shows how generously tolerant of editors are the readers of periodical literature.
Virginia merely sniffs, “What won’t people buy!”
I don’t think she need have put it so baldly as that.
If by some miraculous chance there should be any profits from the sale of this book, I intend to devote them to the purchase of a cow (or hen, if it doesn’t run to a cow), to aid the national larder. I shall call it “the Memorial Cow,” in memory of those who have been good enough to assist in its purchase.
Should any reader wish to have the cow (or hen) named specially after him—or her—self this could doubtless be arranged. Particulars on application to the publisher.
II
About Getting There
We always consider that emancipation takes place at one exact spot on the Great Western Railway; the only difficulty is that Virginia and I never agree as to which is the exact spot.
Virginia insists that the air suddenly changes just beyond Chepstow Station, where we change from the London and South Wales main line to the local train that, two or three times a day (week-days only), runs through our particular Valley, like a small boy’s toy affair.
This train, which makes up in black smoke for what it lacks of other dignity, steams out of the main line junction with an important snort and rumble; over the bridge it goes, and the stranger would imagine it was well under way. But no; it then comes to a standstill at the point where the main line and the Valley line meet, in order that the gentleman who lives—we presume—in the signal-box (but who is always standing on the railway line when we see him) may hand to our engine-driver a metal staff—some sort of a key, they tell me, which is said to unlock the single railway line. I don’t pretend to understand the process myself. I only know that our engine-driver looks lovingly at it as though it were the apple of his eye (I’ve craned my head out of the window, that’s how I know), and clasps it to his chest, until he gets to the first station on the Valley line, where he hands it over to the station-master, who, in turn, gives him another one, to which he clings just as pathetically.
In this leisurely way we proceed up the Valley.
It wouldn’t have any deep significance, but for the fact that Virginia maintains it is the first key that unlocks the imprisoned Ego within her, and sets her soul free from the trammels and shackles and cobwebs and chains, hampering, warping, and enmeshing her, that have been riveted by the blighting tendencies of London (and a lot more to the same effect). She says she feels the fetters burst directly that key is handed over, for she knows then that the train is beyond the possibility of making a mistake, and getting back on to the London main line again instead of the single pair of Valley rails.
Then it is that the air becomes fresher than ever. The primroses that grow all up the rocks, just beyond the signal-box, are very much finer than those on the junction side; the Sweet Betsey (alias red valerian) starts to drape the ledges with rosy-crimson as soon as the signalman walks back up the wooden steps to his cabin. And Virginia herself becomes a different being, though opinions are painfully divided as to whether the change is for the better or for the worse.
She says she feels just like the Lord Mayor, or the Speaker in the House of Commons, with a myrmidon going on ahead of her bearing the mace.
We just let her talk on when she gets lightheaded like this. After all, this Rod of Office which the engine-driver cherishes is what Virginia waits for through four hours of express train—six if you go by a slow one. And the spot where he receives it on the line is where she develops a beatific smile of wondrous amiability.
For me, the chains snap a little further on.
After the driver has received his Key of Office the train meanders peacefully through west country orchards, placid meadows, and tawny-gold cornfields; past grey-brown haystacks; past little cottages, each with its pig-sty and scratting hens, and a clothes-line displaying pinafores and sundry other garments only mentioned sotto voce in the paper pattern section of ladies’ papers. Small, hatless, yellow-haired children, gathering daisies or cowslips in adjoining fields, wave at us as we go by.
Then the engine braces itself for a mighty effort, and gives a business-like shriek on its whistle (this is the great exploit of the whole journey) as it plunges into a very long, dark, clattering tunnel, cut through solid rock. Here we sit in the breathless darkness for several minutes, to emerge finally upon scenery so unlike that we left behind at the entrance to the tunnel as to suggest that we had entered another country.
Gone are the cornfields, the gentle undulations, gone the farms and cottages, the hayricks and barns. Almost in sheer precipices the rocks rise up from the rushing winding river in the valley below, clothed from summit to base with forest trees. The train, now an insignificant atom on the face of Nature, puffs vigorously along a ledge cut half-way up the face of these giant hills.
From the windows on one side of the train you look down upon a world of rocks, trees and water, to the Horse Shoe bend, where the river turns and twists and doubles back on itself again. Not a house is in sight.
The windows on the other side show more grey rocks rising up out of sight, with trees growing where you would scarcely think they could find root-hold, much less food to live and thrive on. And where it is bare stone, and there are no trees, the scarred and jagged surface of the rocks—due to far-away earth-rends and more modern rock-slides—is lovingly swathed and festooned with trails of Travellers’ Joy and ivy and bryony; while ferns and foxgloves, wild strawberries and Mother of Millions flourish on the narrow ledges, and sprout out from sheltered crannies—such a mist of delicate loveliness veiling all that is grim and cold and hard.
Even the wooden posts, from which wire is stretched to fence off the railway company’s land from the adjoining woods, are entirely covered with a living mosaic of small-leaved ivy, patterned, with no two scrolls alike, in a way that human hand could never copy.
Below there is always the river, that swirls and rushes noisily at low tide over its weirs. A heron stands motionless on a grey-green moss-covered boulder near the bank. He looks up at the little train; but it is too far away to worry him. He, and a kite circling high overhead, are the only signs of life to be seen as one passes along. Yet the whole earth is teeming with small folk, furred and feathered; the rarest of butterflies are glinting over the rocks; the otter is hiding down in the river-pools; and from time to time a salmon leaps into the air, a flash, a streak of silver, and a series of eddying ripples—that is all.
This is the spot where, for me, a new life begins; where unconsciously I draw my breath with a deep intake, and suddenly feel the past slipping from me; the noise and din, the sordidness and care of the city fade into the background and become nothing more substantial than some remote nightmare.
Here in this Valley of Peace and Quietness my dreams become realities. And best of all, here God seems to lay His Hand on tired heart and tired brain; and I find myself saying, “This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing.”
We had just witnessed the presentation of the first key. As usual, Virginia and I had been arguing—no, that isn’t the right word; I never argue; I merely discuss things intelligently. At any rate, we had been