It Was the Nightingale

by Henry Williamson

  “Lucky boy!”

  He felt the poignancy of the child’s happiness. The labourer clumped past, holding the hand of the child. The two went into their cottage next door. He heard the loving words to small daughter and baby. Then came the noises of sluicing, swish of water thrown over the garden wall, scrape of chairs drawn up on lime-ash floor, talk in low voices. The family was having tea.

  He could not remember ever before having remained so still in contentment, floating on a temperature of between 100° and 101° F. Influenza was about; he had felt bad on the first night of his arrival, and gone to bed in his day clothes, to awaken with a strange feeling of comfort, a warmth and sensation of being levitated, floating upon the material illusion of life. Or was it possession by the spirit of Willie? He lay in contentment; then with a start realised that the weight of grief had lifted from him. He felt that Barley was in the room, smiling at him, wanting him to know that all was well; then it seemed that his cousin’s spirit had brought her there, to help him. How much was this his own inducement, how much arose from memory, this feeling of the presence of the dead?

  *

  He lay in the chair while a parallelogram of westering sun moved across the worn lime-ash floor. A late cuckoo was calling from the elms, a faltering voice beginning to crack.

  Hearing footfalls, he pulled himself out of the chair. From the window he saw Mules the postman alighting from his bicycle.

  Dear Mules, he had known Willie. He stood in the doorway, watching him wheeling his red machine to the side of the road, placing it carefully against the garden wall before walking forward in his slightly deprecatory manner, not so much a walk as placing one foot before the other, a loose motion which set swinging each arm and leg independently of its fellows. Even his head bobbed, as though in rehearsal of a profoundly courteous but equally shy greeting.

  He felt desire to meet gentle motion with gentle motion in the sunshine, and with streaming eyes floated forward to meet Mules through the curiously unreal afternoon.

  Mules appeared to be existing in an identical fourth dimension with himself, as with brown canvas post-bag slung on shoulder of blue serge tunic he stood there; and then, enclosed within these startlingly clear colours his form began to bob, to undulate, to move a hesitant hand in rehearsal of touching peak of cap.

  Overwhelming gratitude arose at sight of the dear fellow with his shy upward glance and smile; sudden tears enclosed his eyes. Whatever was Mules saying?

  “I’m sure I be very plaised to hear the noos. Zillah read it on th’ paper, Zillah did, read it like—the noos—on the paper,” said the postman softly, almost coyly. “Us wondered if you’d be bringin’ of’n yurr now. Zillah and my wife would be very plaised vor look after th’ li’l fellow, very plaised like, Zillah and my wife would be to look after you and young maister, beggin’ your pardon, zur,” while touching Phillip reassuringly with a forefinger.

  “I’m afraid I am very dull, I don’t quite understand, Muley dear.”

  “’Tes all on th’ paper! Di’n ’ee zee th’ paper, surenuff? ’Tes all thur about young maister, the babby, surely you zeed’n?”

  “I haven’t seen a paper for ages. What is it?”

  Mules spoke very gently, “Have ’ee not, surenuff? Yes, ’tes on the Gaz-at-ee this week, my wife’s sister to Queensbridge sent it to my wife. ’Tes your li’l boy, you know, ’tes young maister, he won a prize for being the best babby at the Flower Show. ’Tes all on th’ paper! I’ll show ’ee if you come along home with me, zur.”

  “Won a prize for being the best baby? Are you joking?”

  “Oh no, zur, it be true—true like—’tes on th’ Gaz-at-ee.”

  He managed to look Phillip in the face, a quick glance before looking away again. The gentle look returned, this time without falter. “You look a proper weary man, proper weary man you look, midear. But ’tes true what I be tellin’ ’ee. My wife saith her and Zillah would take care of the babby for ’ee, if you’m a mind to’t. Poor little maister, without a mother, poor li’l babby. That’s right.”

  His mind seemed to dream, then to hover back. “Your li’l cat, too, I zeed her sittin’ on th’ wall, homely already her be, homely like. Your old dog, he followed me home. Just like pore ole Billjohn, Mr. Willie’s span’ll. ’Tes true. ’A knoweth, I fancy. Your dog—your span’ll—’a did, surenuff, just like ole Billjohn, your cousin Mr. William’s span’ll Billjohn, do ’ee mind he? ’A used to come down to our place, us was very plaized vor see th’ poor old dog, just as us be plaized vor see Rusty.”

  Mules glanced around, then lowered his voice. “Us would be very plaized vor you to come too, if you’m a mind to. Only don’t ’ee come if you’m not in a mind to come, like. And don’t ’ee tell no-one what I zaid, wull ’ee? There be some what’d take the bread out of a man’s mouth!”

  Phillip looked steadily at the slightly foxy face and said softly, “I used to look after mules in the army, they were lovely animals, very gentle and hard-working.”

  “Aw, you’m a funny man, midear, a funny man, zur, beggin’ your pardon.” A hand came out to touch him, the hand hesitated, then rested on Phillip’s arm. “You come to our place,” said Mules quietly, without nervousness. “You look a proper tired man, midear. Zillah and my wife won’t zee ’ee wrong. Us’d like vor look after the li’l old babby, tew. Us would!”

  A hand was put in the bag, a letter taken out. “Oh my, I was very nearly forgettin’ this yurr letter corned for ’ee, I hope ’tes good news, I do, surenuff.”

  Phillip glanced at the unfamiliar writing, and put the envelope in his pocket. The postman said as he turned away, “You’ll come vor zee little maister’s photograph up on th’ Gaz-at-ee, won’t ’ee? Zillah and my wife would be disappointed if you don’t come vor see it. ’Tes a bootiful boy, smilin’ away like anything up on th’ paper.” He touched Phillip’s hand. “My dear zoul, you be hot, your hand be proper hot! Be’ee feelin’ a-right, zur? Many people be complainin’ of this yurr Roosian ’fluenza what be goin’ about. Plaize vor take care of yourself, midear. You’m so thin as a rasher of wind, a proper starved man you look. Us wouldn’t like vor zee ’ee go down through not takin’ proper care, you know that. Many people were sorry vor zee Mr. William go down. I mind the time when I zaid these very words to your cousin, I do. Us was standin’ in this very same place just like you and I be now. I mind zayin’ the selfsame words to ’n.” He patted Phillip’s hand once again. “Come you now to my wife’s place. My wife an’ Zillah wull look after ’ee praper, us wull.”

  “I’ll come along very shortly, and thank you, thank you very much.”

  *

  Phillip in the Mules’ parlour, drinking cup after cup of weak hot tea with lemon and honey in it, felt blissful. The baby’s photograph in the South Hams Gazette, together with the enthusiasm of Mrs. Mules and her daughter in offering to have him as a lodger had been crowned by exaltation when, upon opening the letter Mules had brought, he saw the signature of Mary Ogilvie and read that he was invited to Wildernesse.

  He kept the full reading of the letter, as a reserve against the possible return of the blank of loneliness, until he was safe under blankets in his cottage bedroom, friendly candle shining in the night.

  Wildernesse

  Barnstaple

  Devon

  Tuesday

  Dear Phillip

  Mother heard that you were here, and asks me to say that we shall be most pleased to see you any time that you feel like coming out to us. I need hardly say how glad I am at the thought of your being in Willie’s old cottage. It is strange that you should be there, and yet not really so. Whenever he mentioned your name in the old days, it was always with such happiness. I know how very fond he was of you, and you of him.

  It is getting on for two years since that time, Phillip, but it still seems like last week to me. Do come as soon as you can. The children, Ronnie and Pam, are at school now, and my sister Jean has a job at Minehead looking after polo ponies. M
y cousin Lucy from Dorset is staying near Bideford, she will be here next week (on Monday) when the otterhounds are coming to the Duckponds, so if we don’t see each other before then, perhaps we can meet there, and you will come back to tea here afterwards?

  He read it many times before blowing out the candle, and trying to settle to sleep, with many sighs.

  Part Three

  AT THE MULES’

  Chapter 8

  LIBELLULA

  Phillip put off a reply to Mary Ogilvie’s letter until he returned from a journey by train, accompanied by Mrs. Mules and Zillah, to fetch the baby.

  Billy was immediately at home as, strapped in the tall chair that had been Phillip’s, he sat in the Mules’ kitchen, rattling an enamel mug on the tray before throwing it on the floor; whereupon Zillah picked it up and the game was repeated. The energetic and noisy Zillah never tired of playing the mug game with him, although Phillip once suggested that it might end in the baby learning to throw everything about when he grew up. At this Zillah became immediately possessive. “Whose baby be it? ’Tes I who looks after him, you know!”

  She teased the baby, then reproved him when he cried out in a pet: but Phillip did not like to interfere. Soon he was having his meals alone, sitting at the circular table in the parlour, while repeated laughter came from the kitchen.

  Having failed to compose a satisfactory reply to Mary Ogilvie’s letter, he decided to walk to the house on Sunday afternoon; but determination failed when he saw Mrs. Ogilvie and her uncle, Mr. Sufford Chychester, gardening beside the lawn. He tried to write a letter for Mules to deliver on his bicycle early the next morning, but failed again. What must Mary think of him? Finally he wrote a brief note saying that he was looking forward to seeing her and her cousin at the Duckponds. After more indecision on the day he walked there and arrived during the luncheon interval. Mary came to meet him with a smile of welcome.

  “I am so very glad you could come! How are you? Do you know my cousin, Lucy Copleston?”

  “How do you do.”

  “How do you do.”

  “Uncle Suff is over there. Would you like to talk to him?”

  “Yes, Mary, I should.”

  Hardly had the acquaintance been renewed with apparent heartiness on the old man’s part when a hound ran past gulping the remains of a pork pie. Mary laughed and touched the arm of her great-uncle to call attention to the sight. “Ha, you rogue!” exclaimed Mr. Chychester, genially, giving Phillip a comradely glance as the hound barged past his thin legs.

  Thereafter Phillip began to feel easier as hounds, having drawn blank all the morning, left for the stream which fed the Duck-ponds. He found himself walking with Mary’s cousin beside a small mill-pond, round the edges of which dragonflies were darting and hovering.

  “Do you know the various kinds, Miss Copleston?”

  “Only that there is usually a blue one in our water-garden tub, that my father calls ‘Libellula’.”

  “What a beautiful name—Libellula! Too good for the harsh, prehensile life of a dragonfly!”

  When she said nothing more, he felt blank. They were now walking past brambles and alders which almost choked the small stream.

  “Mary said you live in Dorset, Miss Copleston.”

  “Yes, we are on the edge of Cranborne Chase.”

  “I suppose you don’t know Colham? It’s a bit north of you, I fancy.”

  “It’s not far from where we live.”

  “My cousin, who knew Mary, used to live there.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  They crossed another meadow. “Did Mary tell you about Willie?”

  “Yes,” she nodded.

  “Are you staying long in Devon?”

  “Until next Monday.”

  Hounds were speaking in the undergrowth adjoining a rushy depression. There were cries and whip-cracks. Gor’n leave it! Leave it!

  With relief he heard that hounds, marking at a holt where a bitch and cubs were laid up, had been taken off the line.

  “There’s a meet tomorrow at Meeth Bridge,” he said. “Will you be going?”

  She blushed at his question. What a strangely sensitive girl she was, he thought, as he told her about his tame otter, which had been seen along the Taw. “Is Meeth Bridge on that river?”

  “Oh no, the Torridge.”

  “Thank heaven for that!”

  It was a day without a kill, for which he was thankful; and afterwards a dozen or so men and women drove to Wildernesse for tea. He enjoyed himself, and as he was leaving Mary said, “Phillip, I shan’t be able to come out tomorrow, but Lucy is going, and there’ll be a lift from Bideford, if you don’t want to go all the way on your motor-bicycle.”

  At the Meeth meet he found himself, by invitation, among the fortunate ones by the Master’s car at luncheon, drinking cyder drawn from the keg on the Trojan’s running board, and eating crab sandwiches and cherry cake offered him by the Master’s lady herself.

  Sweet country hospitality, he thought, as he walked beside Lucy along the banks of the upper Torridge. He had discovered by now that she knew all about wild birds and flowers, and liked nothing so much as being out in the woods and fields by herself. Whenever she could, she told him, she slept out of doors beside a camp fire.

  They met again the following day, and the next day. Soon she would be going home, and he would be seeing her no more. Meanwhile everything they saw together must be cherished, as he walked by her side for many miles in the hot sun above the valleys through which flowed the pale amber waters of Dartmoor in their descent to the sea. Yes, the wonderful time would soon be over, he thought as he sat in the midst of tobacco smoke and cheery talk outside an inn at midday, and again at tea when hounds had gone back in the van to kennels. For the hunting he did not care, but he wanted to learn the technique of hunting otters in the waters of brook and mill-leat, weir-pool and runner; for the idea of a book about Lutra’s life was growing in his mind.

  *

  On the penultimate day of the Joint Week he saw to his dismay that Lucy was accompanied by two older people, whom he imagined to be her uncle and aunt. They had not been out before. Should he go up to her, and say good-morning? Or wait for her uncle to invite him to join them? He shrank from the thought of attaching himself to them, and kept away until, alarmed that they might consider him rude—after all, Lucy must have spoken to them about him—he went towards them, prepared to remove his cap and say good-morning. Before he reached them, her uncle began to talk to someone else, together with his wife: he hesitated whether or not to turn away: but it would be obvious if he did, so he kept on his course, and lifting cap, bent his head as he passed the group, and said, “Good-morning, Lucy!”

  Immediately her cheeks flushed; he walked on past them, feeling that he had been presumptuous by addressing her by her Christian name on what must appear to be so short an acquaintance; and pretended that he was on his way to look at the hounds sitting by the road verge under the eye of huntsman and kennel boy.

  Soon the field moved off to draw the banks of a weir-pool. He walked by himself, keeping well away from Lucy and her people, and staring at the water as though greatly interested in what he saw there: hounds clustering about the roots of a sycamore tree growing on the banks, obviously an otter holt. Then hounds were taken away, and a man with an iron bar began to thump the ground above the waterside roots.

  The pool was long and deep. The otter holt apparently went back far under the roots, which resisted penetration by the bar, so a terrier was put in. From underground came the faint noises of barking. The terrier crept out, shivering. Another, with bigger head, was put in. Within a minute there was a cry from the bank of Bubbles-a-vent! and looking into the water Phillip saw the chain of small air-bubbles rising, section by section, upon the surface, as the otter swam underwater to the opposite bank.

  The otter crossed again, re-entered the underwater entrance of the holt; was driven out once more, and went upstream, individual hounds swimming and givi
ng tongue as they lapped the scent on the water. People were running, it was exciting; for Phillip, a cause of disquiet. Supposing the otter were Lutra? The chase went under a stone bridge, and to the throat of the pool, where it was shallow. There a massed clamour broke out; the pace of pursuit increased upon the stones by the edge of the river. Suddenly he saw the otter galloping across a bank of flat stones called shillets. The horn rang out with long notes and uniformed men jumped down into the shallows. to form a stickle across the shillets and so bar the way back to deep water. But the otter went on upstream, and when last seen was swimming under a wide bridge that crossed the road.

  *

  Phillip listened to men saying that it was unusual for an otter to take a direct line like that for more than a mile upstream, away from the deep holding of a weir-pool. By its size and shape of head it was a dog, they said. Phillip recalled how Lutra had run before him over fields and by the sea, like a dog hunting before his master.

  On the right bank above the bridge was a mill. The wheel was not working, it was the sawyers’ dinner hour. He heard the Master say that the otter might be lying in the water under one of the flood-piled heaps of branches lodged against the cut-waters of the bridge.

  “We’ll give him a breather while we eat our sandwiches.”

  Motor-cars, which had followed on the road rising through oakwoods above the meadows, had now returned to the bridge.

  Sitting on the parapet, Phillip began to feel more and more depressed as he watched, from a distance, the group of friends about the Master’s Trojan. He had not been invited by the Master’s wife to help himself. Was it because of Lucy? Or had her uncle and aunt heard the rumours from South Devon? He sat a hundred yards from the Master’s car, while laughter and talk floated to him through vacant sunshine.

  The Master’s wife, a florid lady wearing a floppy, summery hat and a pink gown with a pattern of roses, was looking round. He stared up into the sky; then, feeling that he was perhaps conspicuous by remaining away, strolled back to the near end of the bridge, which had about thirty yards of parapet, and leaned over the northern end, watching the huntsman looking about him on the stones at the river-verge below.