Lore of Proserpine

by Maurice Hewlett

  OREADS

  I end this little book with an experience of my own, or rather aseries of experiences, and will leave conclusions to a final chapter.I don't say that I have no others which could have found aplace--indeed, there are many others. But they were fitful, momentarythings, unaccountable and unrelated to each other, without the mainclue which in itself is too intimate a thing to be revealed just yet,and I am afraid of compiling a catalogue. I have travelled far andwide across Europe in my day, not without spiritual experiences. If atsome future time these co-ordinate into a body of doctrine I will takecare to clothe that body in the vesture of print and paper. Here,meantime, is something of recent years.

  My house at Broad Chalke stands in a narrow valley, which a littlestream waters more than enough. This valley is barely a mile broadthroughout its length, and in my village scarcely half so much. I canbe in the hills in a quarter of an hour, and in five-and-twentyminutes find myself deeply involved, out of sight of man or hiscontrivances. The downs in South Wilts are nowhere lofty, and havenone of the abrupt grandeur of those which guard the Sussex coast andweald; but they are of much larger extent, broader, longer, moreuntrodden, made much more intricate by the numberless creeks andfriths which, through some dim cycle of antiquity, the sea, ebbinggradually to the great Avon delta, must have graved. Beautiful, withquiet and a solemn peacefulness of their own, they always are. Theyendure enormously, _in saecula saeculorum_. Storms drive over them,mists and rains blot them out; rarely they are shrouded in a fleece ofsnow. In spring the clouds and the light hold races up their flanks;in summer they seem to drowse like weary monsters in the still andfervent heat. They are never profoundly affected by such changes ofNature's face; grow not awful, sharing her wrath, nor dangerously fairwhen she woos them with kisses to love. They are the quiet and soberspokesmen of earth, clad in Quaker greys and drabs. They show nocrimson at sunset, no gilded livery at dawn. The grey deepens to coolpurple, the brown glows to russet at such festal times. Early in thespring they may drape themselves in tender green, or show their sidesdappled with the white of sheep. Flowers they bear, but secretly;little curious orchids, bodied like bees, eyed like spiders, fleckedwith the blood-drops of Attis or Adonis or some murderedshepherd-boy; pale scabious, pale cowslip, thyme that breathes sharpfragrance, "aromatic pain," as you crush it, potentilla, lady'sslipper, cloudy blue milkwort, toad-flax that shows silver to thewind. Such as these they flaunt not, but wear for choiceness. Youwould not see them unless you knew them there. For denizens they havethe hare, the fox, and the badger. Redwings, wheatears, peewits, andairy kestrels are the people of their skies.

  I love above all the solitude they keep, and to feel the pulsing ofthe untenanted air. The shepherd and his sheep, the limping hare,lagging fox, wheeling, wailing plover; such will be your company: youmay dip deeply into valleys where no others will be by, hear the soundof your own heart, or the shrilling of the wind in the upland bents. Ihave heard, indeed, half a mile above me, the singing of the greatharps of wire which stretch from Sarum to Shaftesbury along thehighest ridge; but such a music is no disturbance of the peace;rather, it assures you of solitude, for you wouldn't hear it were younot ensphered with it alone. There's a valley in particular, lyingjust under Chesilbury, where I choose most to be. Chesilbury, a hugegrass encampment, three hundred yards square, with fosse and rampartstill sharp, with a dozen gateways and three mist-pools within itsambit, which stands upon the ancient road and dominates two valleys.Below that, coming up from the south, is my charmed valley. There, Iknow, the beings whom I call Oreads, for want of a homelier word,haunt and are to be seen now and then. I know, because I myself haveseen them.

  I must describe this Oread-Valley more particularly, I believe. Eastand west, above it, runs the old road we call the Race-Plain--thehighest ground hereabouts, rising from Harnham by Salisbury to end atShaftesbury in Dorset. North of this ridge is Chesilbury Camp;immediately south of that is the valley. Here the falling flood as itdrained away must have sucked the soil out sharply at two neighbouringpoints, for this valley has two heads, and between them stands agrass-grown bluff. The western vale-head is quite round but verysteep. It faces due south and has been found grateful by thorns,elders, bracken and even heather. But the eastern head is sharper,begins almost in a point. From that it sweeps out in a huge demi-luneof cliff, the outer cord being the east, the inner hugging the bluff.Facing north from the valley, facing these two heads, you see theeastern of them like a great amphitheatre, its steep embayed side sosmooth as to seem the work of men's hands. It is too steep for turf;it is grey with marl, and patchy where scree of flint and chalk hasrun and found a lodgment. Ice-worn it may be, man-wrought it is not.No red-deer picks have been at work there, no bright-eyed, scramblinghordes have toiled their shifts or left traces through the centuriesas at the Devil's Dyke. This noble arena is Nature's. Here I saw herpeople more than once. And the first sign I had of them was this.

  I

  I was here alone one summer's night; a night of stars, but without amoon. I lay within the scrub of the western valley-head and lookedsouth. I could just see the profile of the enfolding hills, but onlyjust; could guess that in the soft blackness below me, filling up theforeground like a lake, the valley was there indeed; realise that if Istepped down, perhaps thirty yards or so, my feet would sink into thepile of the turf-carpet, and feel the sharp benediction of the dew.About me surged and beat an enormous silence. The only sound atall--and that was fitful--came from a fern-owl which, from athorn-bush above me, churred softly and at intervals his content withthe night.

  The stars were myriad, but sky-marks shone out; the Bear, the Belt,the Chair, the dancing sister Pleiades. The Galaxy was like asnow-cloud; startlingly, by one, by two, meteors flared a shortcourse and died. You never feel lonely when you have the stars; yetthey do not pry upon you. You can hide nothing from them, and need notseek to hide. If they have foreknowledge, they nurse no after-thought.

  Now, to-night, as I looked and wondered at their beauty, I becameaware of a phenomenon untold before. Yet so quietly did it come, andso naturally, that it gave me no disturbance, nor forced itself uponme. A luminous ring, a ring of pale fire, in shape a long, narrow, andfluctuating oval, became discernible in the sky south of mystand-point, midway (I thought) between me and the south.

  It was diaphanous, or diaphanous to strong light behind it. At onetime I saw the great beacon of the south-west (Saturn, I think)burning through it; not within the ring, but from behind the littenvapour of which the ring was made. Lesser fires than his were put outby it. It varied very much in shape as it spread or drew out, as asmoker's blue rings are varied by puffs of wind. Now it was a perfectround, now so long as to be less a hoop than a fine oblong. Sometimesit was pear-shaped, sometimes amorphous; bulbous here, hollow there.And there seemed movement; I thought now and again that it was spiralas well as circular, that it might, under some stress of speed,writhe upward like dust in a whirlwind. It wavered, certainly, inelevation, lifting, sinking, wafted one way or another with the easeof a cloud of gnats. It was extraordinarily beautiful and exciting. Iwatched it for an hour.

  At times I seemed to be conscious of more than appearance. I cannotspeak more definitely than that. Music was assuredly in my head, veryshrill, piercing, continuous music. No air, no melody, but theexpectancy of an air, preparation for it, a prelude to melodiousissues. You may say the overture to some vast aerial symphony; I knownot what else to call it. I was never more than alive to it, nevercertain of it. It was as furtive, secret, and tremulous as the dawnitself. Now, just as under that shivering and tentative opening ofgreat music you are conscious of the fierce energy of violins, so wasI aware, in this surmise of music, of wild forces which made it. Ithought not of voices but of wings. I was sure that this ring of flamewhirled as well as floated in the air; the motion and the sound, alikeindecipherable, were one and the same to me.

  I watched it, I say, for an hour: it may have been for two hours.By-and-by it came nearer, gradually very near. It was
now dazzling,not to be looked at full; but its rate of approach was inappreciable,and as it came on I was able to peer into it and see nothing but itsbeauty. There was a core of intensity, intolerably bright; about that,lambency but no flame, in which I saw leaves and straws and fronds offern flickering, spiring, heeling over and over. That it whirled aswell as floated was now clear, for a strong wind blew before and afterit as it rushed by. This happened as I sat there. Blinding but notburning, heralded by a keen wind, it came by me and passed; a swiftwind followed it as it went. It swept out toward the hollow of theeastern valley-head, seemed to strike upon that and glance upward;thence it swept gladly up, streaming to the zenith, grew thin, fineand filmy, and seemed to melt into the utmost stars. I had seenwonders and went home full of thought.

  II

  I first saw an Oread in this place in a snow-storm which, driven by anorth-westerly gale, did havoc to the lowlands, but not to the foldedhills. I had pushed up the valley in the teeth of the storm to see itunder the white stress. It was hard work for me and my dog; I had towade knee-deep, and he to jump, like a cat in long grass, through thedrifts. But we reached our haven and found shelter from the weather.High above us where we stood the snow-flakes tossed and rioted, butbefore they fell upon us being out of the wind, they drifted idlydown, _come ... in Alpe senza vento_. The whole valley was purelywhite, its outlines blurred by the slant-driving snow. There was not aliving creature to be seen, and my dog, a little sharp-nosed blackbeast, shivered as he looked about, with wide eyes and quick-set ears,for a friendly sight, and held one paw tentatively in the air, as ifhe feared the cold.

  Suddenly he yelped once, and ran, limping on three legs or scuttlingon all four, over the snow toward the great eastern escarpment, butmidway stopped and looked with all his might into its smoothed hollow.His jet-black ears stood sharp as a hare's; through the white scud Iwas conscious that he trembled. He gazed into the sweep of the curvinghill, and following the direction he gave me, all my senses quick, Igazed also, but for a while saw nothing.

  Very gradually, without alarm on my part, a blur of colour seemed toform itself and centre in one spot, half-way up the concave of thedown; very pale yellow, a soft, lemon colour. At first scarcely morethan a warm tinge to the snow, it took shape as I watched it, and thenbody also. It was now opaque within semi-transparency; one could tracean outline, a form. Then I made out of it a woman dressed in yellow; aslim woman, tawny-haired, in a thin smock of lemon-yellow whichflacked and bellied in the gale. Her hair blew out to it in snakystreamers, sideways. Her head was bent to meet the cold, her barewhite arms were crossed, and hugged her shoulders, as if to keep herbosom warm. From mid-thigh downward she was bare and very white, yetdistinct upon the snow. That was the white of chilled flesh I couldsee. Though she wore but a single garment, and that of the thinnestand shortest, though she suffered cold, hugged herself and shivered,she was not of our nature, to die of such exposure. Her eyes, as Icould guess, were long-enduring and steadfast. Her lips were not blue,though her teeth seemed to chatter; she was not rigid with thestiffening that precedes frozen death. Drawing near her by degrees,coming within fifteen yards of where she stood and passioned, thoughshe saw me, waited for me, in a way expected me, she showed neitherfear nor embarrassment, nor appealed by looks for shelter. She was,rather, like a bird made tame by winter, that finds the lesser fearswallowed up in a greater. For myself, as when one finds one's selfbefore a new thing, one stands and gazes, so was I before this beingof the wild. I would go no nearer, speak I could not. But I had nofear. She was new to me not strange. I felt that she and I belonged toworlds apart; that as soon might I hope to be familiar with fox ormarten as with her. My little black dog was of the same mind. He wasglad when I joined him, and wagged his little body--tail he hasnone--to say so. But he had no eyes for me, nor I for him. We stoodtogether for company, and filled our eyes with the tenant of thewaste. How long we watched her I have no notion, but the day fellswiftly in and found us there.

  She was, I take it, quite young, she was slim and of ordinaryproportions. When I say that I mean that she had nothing inhuman abouther stature, was neither giant nor pygmy. Whether she was what we callgood-looking or not I find it impossible to determine, for whenstrangeness is so added to beauty as to absorb and transform it, ourstandards are upset and balances thrown out. She was pale to the lips,had large, fixed and patient eyes. Her arms and legs showed greyish inthe white storm, but where the smock was cut off the shadows it madeupon her were faintly warm. One of her knees was bent, the footsupported only by the toes. The other was firm upon the ground: shelooked, to the casual eye, to be standing on one leg. Her eyes in astare covered me, but were not concerned to see me so near. They hadthe undiscerning look of one whose mind is numbed, as hers might wellbe. Shelter--a barn, a hayrick--lay within a mile of her; and yet shechose to suffer the cold, and was able to endure it. She knew it, Isupposed, for a thing not to be avoided; she took it as it came--asshe would have taken the warmth and pleasure of the sun. We humankindwith our wits for ever turned inward to ourselves, grieve or exult aswe bid ourselves: she, like all other creatures else, was not in thatself-relation; her parts were closer-knit, and could not separate toenvisage each other. So, at least, I read her--that she lived as shecould and as she must, neither looked back with regret nor forwardwith longing. Time present, the flashing moment, was all her being.That state will never be ours again.

  I discovered before nightfall what she waited for there alone in thecruel weather. A moving thing emerged from the heart of the whitefury, came up the valley along the shelving down: a shape like hers,free-moving, thinly clad, suffering yet not paralysed by the storm. Itshaped as a man, a young man, and her mate. Taller, darker, stoutliermade, his hardy legs were browner, and so were his arms--crossed likehers over his breast and clasping his shoulders. His head was bare,dark and crisply covered with short hair. His smock whipped about himbefore, as the wind drove it; behind him it flacked and fluttered likea flag. Patiently forging his way, bowing his head to the gale, hecame into range; and she, aware of him, waited.

  He came directly to her. They greeted by touchings. He stretched outhis hands to her, touched her shoulders and sides. He touched both hercheeks, her chin, the top of her head, all with the flat of the palm.He stroked her wet and streaming hair. He held her by the shouldersand peered into her face, then put both arms about her and drew her tohim. She, who had so far made no motions of her own, now uncrossed herarms and daintily touched him in turn. She put both her palms flatupon his breast; next on his thighs, next, being within the circle ofhis arms, she put up her hands and cupped his face. Then, with agesture like a sigh, she let them fall to his waist, fastened themabout him and let her head lie on his bosom. She shut her eyes, seemedcontented and appeased. He clasped her, with a fine, protecting airupon him, looking down tenderly at her resting head. So they stoodtogether in the dusk, while the wind tore at their thin covering, andthe snow, lying, made a broad patch of white upon his shoulder.

  Breathless I looked at them, and my dog forgot to be cold. High on hishaunches, with lifted forepaw and sharp-cocked ears, he watched,trembled and whined.

  After a while, impatient as it appeared of the ravaging storm, themale drew the female to the ground. They used no language, as weunderstand it, and made no sign that I could see, but rather sanktogether to get the shelter of the drift. He lay upon the snow, uponthe weather side, she close beside him. They crouched like two birdsin a storm, and hid their heads under their interlacing arms. He gavethe weather his back, and raised himself on his elbow, the better toshield her. Within his arm she lay and cuddled to him snugly. I candescribe his action no more closely than by saying that he covered heras a hen her chick. As a partridge grouts with her wings in a dustyfurrow, so he worked in the powdered snow to make her a nest. When thenight fell upon them, with its promise of bitter frost in theunrelenting wind, she lay screened against its rigours by the shelterof him. They were very still. Their heads were together, their cheekstouched.
I believe that they slept.

  III

  In the autumn, in harvest-time, I saw her with a little one. She waslying now, deeply at ease, in the copse wood of the valley-head,within a nest of brake-fern, and her colouring was richer, more intune with the glory of the hour. She had a burnt glow in her cheeks;her hair showed the hue of the corn which, not a mile away, our peoplewere reaping afield. From where we were, she and I, one could hear therattle of the machine as it swept down the tall and serried wheat. Itwas the top of noon when I found her; the sun high in heaven, but sofierce in his power that you saw him through a mist of his own making,and the sky all about him white as a sea-fog. The Oread's body wassanguine brown, only her breast, which I saw half-revealed through aslit in her smock, was snowy white. It was the breast of a maiden, notof a mother with a young child.

  She leaned over it and watched it asleep. Once or twice she touchedits head in affection; then presently looked up and saw me. If I hadhad no surprise coming upon her, neither now had she. Her eyes took mein, as mine might take in a tree not noticed before, or a floweringbush, or a finger-post. Such things might well be there, and mightwell not be; I had no particular interest for her, and gave her noalarm. Nothing assures me so certainly of her remoteness from myself,and of my kinship with her too, as this absence of shock.

  She allowed me to come nearer, and nearer still, to stand close overher and examine the child. She did not lift her head, but I knew thatshe was aware of me; for her eyelids lifted and fell quickly, andshowed me once or twice her watchful eyes. She was indeed a beautifulcreature, exquisite in make and finish. Her skin shone like the petalsof certain flowers. There is one especially, called _Sisyrinchium_,whose common name of Satin-flower describes a surface almost metallicin its lustre. I thought of that immediately: her skin drank in andexhaled light. I could not hit upon the stuff of which her shift wasmade. It looked like coarse silk, had a web, had fibres or threads. Itmay have been flax, but that it was much too sinuous. It seemed tostick to the body where it touched, even to seek the flesh where itdid not touch, that it might cling like gossamer with invisibletentacles. In colour it was very pale yellow, not worn nor stained. Itwas perfectly simple, sleeveless, and stopped half-way between the hipand the knee. I looked for, but could not discover, either hem orseam. Her feet and hands were very lovely, the toes and fingers longand narrow, rosy-brown. I had full sight of her eyes for one throbbingmoment. Extraordinarily bright, quick and pulsing, waxing and waningin intensity (as if an inner light beat in them), of the grey colourof a chipped flint stone. The lashes were long, curving and very dark;they were what you might call smut-colour and gave a blurred effect tothe eyes which was strange. This, among other things, was what set herapart from us, this and the patient yet palpitating stare of herregard. She looked at me suddenly, widely and full, taking in muchmore than me, yet making me the centre of her vision. It gave me theidea that she was surprised at my nearness and ready for any attack,but did not seek to avoid it. There I was overstanding her and heroffspring; and what was must be.

  Of the little one I could not see much. It was on its side in thefern, fast asleep. Its arms were stretched up the slope, its face wasbetween them. Its knees were bent and a little foot tucked up to touchits body. Quite naked, brown all over, it was as plump and smooth andtender as a little pig. But it was not pink; it was very brown.

  All nature seemed at the top of perfection that wonderful day. A hawksoared high in the blue, bees murmured all about, the distancequivered. I could see under the leaves of a great mullein the brighteyes, then the round body of a mouse. Afar off the corn-cutter rattledand whirred, and above us on the ridgeway some workmen sat at theirdinner under the telegraph wires. Men were all about us at theiraffairs with Nature's face; and here stood I, a man of themselves, andat my feet the Oread lay at ease and watched her young. There was foodfor wonder in all this, but none for doubt. Who knows what hisneighbour sees? Who knows what his dog? Every species of us walkssecret from the others; every species of us the centre of hisuniverse, its staple of measure, and its final cause. And if at timesone is granted a peep into new heavens and a new earth, and can get nomore, perhaps the best thing we win from that is the conviction thatwe must doubt nothing and wonder at everything. Here, now, was I,common, blundering, trampling, make-shift man, peering upon myOread--fairy of the hill, whatever she was--and tempted to gauge herby my man-taught balances of right and wrong, and use and wont. Wasthat young male who had sheltered her in the snow her mate in truth,the father of her young one? Or what sort of mating had been hers?What wild love? What mysteries of the night? And where was he now? Andwas he one, or were they many, who companioned this beautiful thing?And would he come if I waited for him? And would he share her watch,her quiet content, her still rapture?

  Idle, man-made questions, custom-taught! I did wait. I sat by herwaiting. But he did not come.

  IV

  A month later, in October, I saw a great assembling of Oreads, bywhich I was able to connect more than one experience. I could nowunderstand the phenomenon of the luminous ring.

  I reached the valley by about six o'clock in the evening. It wastwilight, not yet dusk. The sun was off the hollow, which lay in bluemist, but above the level of the surrounding hills the air was bathedin the sunset glow. The hush of evening was over all, the great cup ofthe down absolutely desert; there were no birds, nor voices of birds;not a twig snapped, not a leaf rustled. Imperceptibly the shadowslengthened, faded with the light; and again behind the silence Iguessed at, rather than discerned, a preparatory, gathering music. Sofinally, by twos and threes, they came to their assembling.

  Once more I never saw them come. Out of the mist they driftedtogether. There had been a moment when they were not there; there wasa moment when I saw them. I saw three of them together, two femalesand a male. They formed a circle, facing inwards, their armsintertwined. The pale colour of their garments, the grey tones intheir flesh were so perfectly in tune with the hazy light, that itwould have been impossible, I am certain, to have seen them at all ata hundred yards' distance. I could not determine whether they wereconversing or not: if they were, it was without speech. I have neverheard an articulate sound from any one of them, and have no provablereason for connecting the unvoiced music I have sometimes discernedwith any act of theirs. It has accompanied them, and may haveproceeded from them--but I don't know that. Of these three linkedtogether I remember that one of them threw back her head till shefaced the sky. She did not laugh, or seem to be laughing: there was nosound. It was rather as if she was bathing her face in the light. Shethrew her head back so far that I could see the gleam in her wildeyes; her hair streamed downward, straight as a fall of water. Theother two regarded her, and the male presently withdrew one of hisarms from the circle and laid his hand upon her. She let it be so;seemed not to notice.

  Imperceptibly others had come about these three. If I took my eyes offa group for a moment they were attracted to other groups or singleshapes. Some lay at ease on the sward, resting on elbow; some prone,on both elbows; some seemed asleep, their heads on molehill pillows;some sat huddling together, with their chins upon their knees; someknelt face to face and held each other fondly; some were teasing, somechasing others, winding in and out of the scattered groups. Buteverything was doing in complete silence.

  Now and again one, flying from another, would rise in the air, thepursuer following. They skimmed, soared, glided like swallows, in longsweeping curves--there was no noise in their flight. They were quitewithout reticence in their intercourse; desired or avoided, loved orhated as the moment urged them; strove to win, struggled to escape,achieved or surrendered without remark from their companions. Theywere like children or animals. Desire was reason good; and if love wassoon over, hate lasted no longer. One passion or the other set themscuffling: when it was spent they had no after-thought.

  One pretty sight I saw. A hare came lolloping over the valley bottom,quite at his ease. In the midst of the assembly he stopped to nibble,then reared
himself up and cleaned his face. He saw them and they himwithout concern on either side.

  The valley filled up; I could not count the shifting, crossing,restless shapes I saw down there. Presently, without call or signal,as if by one consent, the Oreads joined hands and enclosed the wholecircuit in their ring. The effect in the dusk was of a pale glow, asof the softest fire, defining the contour of the valley; and soon theywere moving, circling round and round. Shriller and louder swelled thehidden music, and faster span the ring. It whirled and wavered, liftedand fell, but so smoothly, with such inherent power of motion, that itwas less like motion visible than motion heard. Nothing wasdistinguishable but the belt of pale fire. That which I had seenbefore they had now become--a ring of flame intensely swift. As ifsucked upward by a centripetal force it rose in the air. Wheelingstill with a sound incredibly shrill it rose to my level, swept by meheralded by a keen wind, and was followed by a draught which caughtleaves and straws of grass and took them swirling along. Round and up,and ever up it went, narrowing and spiring to the zenith. There,looking long after it, I saw it diminish in size and brightness tillit became filmy as a cloud, then melted into the company of thestars.