Complete Poetical Works of Edward Thomas

by Edward Thomas

  He did try to explain the likeness, but to an audience that only knew Herrick as the author of ‘Bid me to live’ and as an immoral clergyman, and at this distance of time I cannot reconstruct the likeness. But it may have been that Aurelius wrote verses which Mr Torrance, in the kindness of his heart, believed to resemble Herrick’s. I know nothing of that. The nearest to poetry I ever saw of his was a pack of cards which he spent his life, off and on, in painting. Jessie was one of the Queens, and rightly so. That this pack was found in the cottage where he stayed before he finally disappeared, proves, to me at any rate, that he regarded this life as at an end.

  CHAPTER VI. OUR COUNTRY

  ‘IT was a good day, Arthur, that first brought you to Abercorran House,’ said old Ann, as she went to the door to deliver the stray pigeon to its owner.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, a little pathetically for Ann’s taste and with thought too deep for tears, at least in her company. I looked round the kitchen, remembering the glory that was Abercorran... Philip... Jessie... Roland... Aurelius... It was no unselfish memory, for I wished with all my heart that I was fifteen again, that the month was April, the hour noon, and the scene the yard of Abercorran House with all the family assembled, all the dogs, Aurelius, and Mr Torrance (there being still some days left of the Easter holidays), yes, and Higgs also, and most certainly the respectable Mr Stodham.

  ‘Yes, it was a good day,’ continued Ann, returning, ‘if it had not been for you we should never have known Aurelius.’

  This was so like the old Ann that I was delighted, with all my conceit. I remembered that first visit well, limping into the yard the day after the paper-chase, and seeing big Jack (aged then about twenty) and tall Roland (less than two years younger) discussing a greyhound with a blackguard in an orange neck-tie, Jessie (my own age) surrounded by pigeons, Mr Morgan and Mr Torrance at the top of the steps looking on, and away on the pond under the elms little Harry and Lewis crying for help to release their craft from the water-lilies of that perilous sea. When the limper was introduced as ‘Arthur,’ Mr Torrance said:

  ‘Not that same Arthur, that with spear in rest

  Shot through the lists at Camelot and charged

  Before the eyes of ladies and of kings,’

  and Mr Morgan roared with laughter, as having no cigar he was free to do at the moment, and everyone else joined in except the Gypsy, who appeared to think he was the victim; such laughter was a command. Before the roar was over Ann came up to me and said: ‘Will you please to come into the kitchen. I have something for that poor leg of yours.’ Pity was worse than ever, but to escape the laughter, I followed her. ‘There you are,’ she said as we entered, pointing to a broad blackberry tart uncut, ‘that will do your leg good. It is between you and Philip.’ And with that she left me and at another door in came Philip, and though there was nothing wrong with his leg he enjoyed the tart as much as I did.

  We were then friends of twenty-four hours standing, my age being ten, his twelve, and the time of the year an October as sweet as its name. We had been for six months together at the same school without speaking, until yesterday, the day of the paper-chase. After running and walking for more than two hours that sunny morning we found ourselves together, clean out of London and also out of the chase, because he had gone off on a false scent and because I ran badly.

  I had never before been in that lane of larches. It was, in fact, the first time that I had got out of London into pure country on foot. I had been by train to sea-side resorts and the country homes of relatives, but this was different. I had no idea that London died in this way into the wild.

  Out on the broad pasture bounded by a copse like a dark wall, rooks cawed in the oak-trees. Moorhens hooted on a hidden water behind the larches. At the end of a row of cottages and gardens full of the darkest dahlias was a small, gray inn called ‘The George,’ which my companion entered. He came out again in a minute with bread and cheese for two, and eating slowly but with large mouthfuls we strolled on, too busy and too idle to talk. Instead of larches horse-chestnuts overhung our road; in the glittering grass borders the dark fruit and the white pods lay bright. So as we ate we stooped continually for the biggest ‘conquers’ to fill our pockets. Suddenly the other boy, musing and not looking at me, asked, ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Arthur Froxfield,’ I answered, pleased and not at all surprised. ‘It doesn’t suit you,’ he said, looking at me. ‘It ought to be John something —

  “John, John, John,

  With the big boots on.”

  You’re tired.’

  I knew his name well enough, for at twelve he was the best runner in the school. Philip Morgan.... I do not suppose that I concealed my pride to be thus in his company.

  For an hour we were separated; we hit upon the trail, and off he went without a word. At a limping trot I followed, but lost sight of Philip and soon fell back into a walk. I had, in fact, turned homewards when he overtook me; he had been forced to retrace his steps. I was by this time worn out, and should have given up but for my self-satisfaction at the long run and the pleasure of knowing that he did not mind my hanging on his arm as on we crawled. Thus at last after an age of sleepy fatigue I found myself at home. It had been arranged that on the next day I was to go round to Abercorran House.

  Again and again Philip and I revisited that lane of larches, the long waterside copse, the oak wood out in the midst of the fields, and all the hedges, to find moorhen’s eggs, a golden-crested wren’s, and a thousand treasures, and felicity itself. Philip had known this country for a year or more; now we always went together. I at least, for a long time, had a strong private belief that the place had been deserted, overlooked, forgotten, that it was known only to us. It was not like ordinary country. The sun there was peculiarly bright. There was something unusual in the green of its grass, in the caw of its rooks in April, in the singing of its missel-thrushes on the little round islands of wood upon the ploughland. When later on I read about those ‘remote and holy isles’ where the three sons of Ulysses and Circe ruled over the glorious Tyrrhenians, I thought, for some reason or another, or perhaps for no reason, of those little round islands of ash and hazel amidst the ploughland of Our Country, when I was ten and Philip twelve. If we left it unvisited for some weeks it used to appear to our imaginations extraordinary in its beauty, and though we might be forming plans to go thither again before long, I did not fully believe that it existed — at least for others — while I was away from it. I have never seen thrushes’ eggs of a blue equalling those we found there.

  No wonder Our Country was supernaturally beautiful. It had London for a foil and background; what is more, on that first day it wore an uncommon autumnal splendour, so that I cannot hope to meet again such heavily gilded elms smouldering in warm, windless sunshine, nor such bright meadows as they stood in, nor such blue sky and such white billowy cloud as rose up behind the oaks on its horizon.

  Philip knew this Our Country in and out, and though his opinion was that it was not a patch on the country about his old home at Abercorran, he was never tired of it. In the first place he had been introduced to it by Mr Stodham. ‘Mr Stodham,’ said Philip, ‘knows more about England than the men who write the geography books. He knows High Bower, where we lived for a year. He is a nice man. He has a horrible wife. He is in an office somewhere, and she spends his money on jewellery. But he does not mind; remember that. He has written a poem and father does not want him to recite it. Glory be to Mr Stodham. When he trespasses they don’t say anything, or if they do it is only, “Fine day, sir,” or “Where did you want to go to, sir,” or “Excuse me, sir, I don’t mind your being on my ground, but thought you mightn’t be aware it is private.” But if they catch you or me, especially you, being only eleven and peagreen at that, we shall catch it.”

  Once he was caught. He was in a little copse that was all blackthorns, and the blackthorns were all spikes. Inside was Philip looking for what he could find; outside, and keeping watch, sat I; and it
was Sunday. Sunday was the only day when you ever saw anyone in Our Country. Presently a man who was passing said: ‘The farmer’s coming along this road, if that’s any interest to you.’ It was too late. There he was — coming round the bend a quarter of a mile off, on a white pony. I whistled to Philip to look out. I was innocently sitting in the same place when the farmer rode up. He asked me at once the name of the boy in the copse, which so took me by surprise that I blabbed out at once. ‘Philip Morgan,’ shouted the farmer, ‘Philip Morgan, come out of that copse.’ But Philip was already out of it, as I guessed presently when I saw a labourer running towards the far end, evidently in pursuit. The farmer rode on, and thinking he had given it up I followed him. However, five minutes later Philip ran into his arms at a gateway, just as he was certain he had escaped, because his pursuer had been outclassed and had given up running In a few minutes I joined them. Philip was recovering his breath and at the same time giving his address. If we sent in five shillings to a certain hospital in his name, said the farmer, he would not prosecute us—’No,’ he added, ‘ten shillings, as it is Sunday.’

  ‘The better the day the better the deed,’ said Philip scornfully. ‘Thank you, my lad.’ said the giver of charity, and so we parted. But neither did we pay the money, nor were we prosecuted; for my father wrote a letter from his official address. I do not know what he said. In future, naturally, we gave some of our time and trouble to avoiding the white pony when we were in those parts. Not that he got on our nerves. We had no nerves. No: but we made a difference. Besides, his ground was really not in what we called Our Country, par excellence. Our own country was so free from molestation that I thought of it instantly when Aurelius read to me about the Palace of the Mountain of Clouds. A great king had asked his counsellors and his companions if they knew of any place that no one could invade, no one, either man or genie. They told him of the Palace of the Mountain of Clouds. It had been built by a genie who had fled from Solomon in rebellion. There he had dwelt until the end of his days. After him no one inhabited it; for it was separated by great distances and great enchantment from the rest of the world. No one went thither. It was surrounded by running water sweeter than honey, colder than snow, and by fruitful trees. And there in the Palace of the Mountain of Clouds the king might dwell in safety and solitude for ever and ever....

  In the middle of the oak wood we felt as safe and solitary as if we were lords of the Palace of the Mountain of Clouds. And so we were. For four years we lived charmed lives. For example, when we had manufactured a gun and bought a pistol, we crawled over the ploughed fields at twilight, and fired both at a flock of pewits. Yet neither birds nor poachers suffered. We climbed the trees for the nests of crows, woodpeckers, owls, wood-pigeons, and once for a kestrel’s, as if they were all ours. We went everywhere. More than once we found ourselves among the lawns and shrubberies of big houses which we had never suspected. This seems generally to have happened at twilight. As we never saw the same house twice the mysteriousness was increased. One of the houses was a perfect type of the dark ancient house in a forest. We came suddenly stumbling upon it among the oaks just before night. The walls were high and craggy, and without lights anywhere. A yew tree grew right up against it. A crow uttered a curse from the oak wood. And that house I have never seen again save in memory. There it remains, as English as Morland, as extravagantly wild as Salvator Rosa. That evening Philip must needs twang his crossbow at the crow — an impossible shot; but by the grace of God no one came out of the house, and at this distance of time it is hard to believe that men and women were actually living there.

  Most of these estates had a pond or two, and one had a long one like a section of a canal. Here we fished with impunity and an untroubled heart, hoping for a carp, now and then catching a tench. But often we did not trouble to go so far afield. Our own neighbourhood was by no means unproductive, and the only part of it which was sacred was the Wilderness. None of the birds of the Wilderness ever suffered at our hands. Without thinking about it we refrained from fishing in the Wilderness pond, and I never saw anybody else do so except Higgs, but though it seemed to me like robbing the offertory Higgs only grinned. But other people’s grounds were honoured in a different way. Private shrubberies became romantic at night to the trespasser. Danger doubled their shadows, and creeping amongst them we missed no ecstasy of which we were capable. The danger caused no conscious anxiety or fear, yet contrived to heighten the colour of such expeditions. We never had the least expectation of being caught. Otherwise we should have had more than a little fear in the January night when we went out after birds, armed with nets and lanterns. The scene was a region of meadows, waiting to be built on and in the meantime occupied by a few horses and cows, and a football and a lawn-tennis club. Up and down the hedges we went with great hopes of four and twenty blackbirds or so. We had attained a deep and thrilling satisfaction but not taken a single bird when we were suddenly aware of a deep, genial voice asking, ‘What’s the game?’ It was a policeman. The sight acted like the pulling of a trigger — off we sped. Having an advantage of position I was the first to leap the boundary hedge into the road, or rather into the ditch between hedge and road. Philip followed, but not the policeman. We both fell at the jump, Philip landing on top of me, but without damage to either. We reached home, covered in mud and secret glory, which made up for the loss of a cap and two lanterns. The glory lasted one day only, for on the next I was compelled to accompany my father to the police-station to inquire after the cap and lanterns. However, I had the honour of hearing the policeman say — though laughing — that we had taken the leap like hunters and given him no chance at all. This and the fact that our property was not recovered preserved a little of the glory.

  In these meadows, in the grounds which then-owners never used at night, and in Our Country, Philip and I spent really a great deal of time, fishing, birds-nesting, and trying to shoot birds with cross-bow, pistol, or homemade gun. There were intervals of school, and of football and cricket, but these in memory do not amount to more than the towns of England do in comparison with the country. As on the map the towns are but blots and spots on the country, so the school-hours were embedded, almost buried away, in the holidays, official, semi-official, and altogether unofficial. Philip and I were together during most of them; even the three principal long holidays of the year were often shared, either in Wales with some of Philip’s people, or at Lydiard Constantine, in Wiltshire, with my aunt Rachel.

  CHAPTER VII. WOOL-GATHERING AND LYDIARD CONSTANTINE

  ONE day at Abercorran House I heard Aurelius, Mr Morgan, and Mr Torrance in the Library, talking about wool-gathering. ‘Since Jessie told us about that river in Essex with the Welsh name,’ said Mr Morgan, laughing, ‘we have travelled from Gwithavon to Battersea Park Road and a fishmonger’s advertisement. Such are the operations of the majestic intellect. How did we get all that way? Do you suppose the cave-men were very different, except that they did not trouble about philology and would have eaten their philologers, while they did without fishmongers because fish were caught to eat, not to sell, in those days?’

  ‘Well!’ said Aurelius, ‘we could not live if we had nothing in common with the cave-men. A man who was a mere fishmonger or a mere philologer could not live a day without artificial aid. Scratch a philologer sufficiently hard and you will find a sort of a cave-man.’

  ‘I think,’ continued Mr Morgan, ‘that we ought to prove our self-respect by going soberly back on our steps to see what by-ways took us out of Gwithavon to this point.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of you at that game,’ said Aurelius. ‘I have often played it during church services, or rather after them. A church service needs no further defence if it can provide a number of boys with a chance of good wool-gathering.’

  ‘Very true,’ said Mr Torrance, who always agreed with Aurelius when it was possible. A fancy had struck him, and instead of turning it into a sonnet he said: ‘I like to think that the original wool-gatherers were men whos
e taste it was to wander the mountains and be before-hand with the nesting birds, gathering stray wool from the rocks and thorns, a taste that took them into all sorts of wild new places without over-loading them with wool, or with profit or applause.’

  ‘Very pretty, Frank,’ said Aurelius, who had himself now gone woolgathering and gave us the benefit of it. He told us that he had just recalled a church and a preacher whose voice used to enchant his boyhood into a halfdream. The light was dim as with gold dust. It was warm and sleepy, and to the boy all the other worshippers seemed to be asleep. The text was the three verses of the first chapter of Genesis which describe the work of creation on the fifth day. He heard the clergyman’s voice murmuring, ‘Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.’ll6

  ‘That was enough,’ said Aurelius, ‘for me it was all the sermon. It summoned up before me a coast of red crags and a black sea that was white where the waves got lost in the long corridors between the crags. The moon, newly formed to rule the night, stood full, large, and white, at the top of the sky, which was as black as the sea and cloudless. And out of the water were rising, by twos and threes, but sometimes in multitudes like a cloud, the birds who were to fly in the open firmament of heaven. Out of the black waste emerged sea-birds, one at a time, their long white wings spread wide out at first, but then as they paused on the surface, uplifted like the sides of a lyre; in a moment they were skimming this way and that, and, rising up in circles, were presently screaming around the moon. Several had only risen a little way when, falling back into the sea, they vanished, there, as I supposed, destined by the divine purpose to be deprived of their wings and to become fish. Eagles as red as the encircling crags came up also, but always solitary; they ascended as upon a whirlwind in one or two long spirals and, blackening the moon for a moment, towered out of sight. The little singing birds were usually cast up in cloudlets, white and yellow and blue and dappled, and, after hovering uncertainly at no great height, made for the crags, where they perched above the white foam, piping, warbling, and twittering, after their own kinds, either singly or in concert. Ever and anon flocks of those who had soared now floated downward across the moon and went over my head with necks outstretched, crying towards the mountains, moors, and marshes, or sloped still lower and alighted upon the water, where they screamed whenever the surface yawned at a new birth of white or many-coloured wings. Gradually the sea was chequered from shore to horizon with birds, and the sky was throbbing continually with others, so that the moon could either not be seen at all, or only in slits and wedges. The crags were covered, as if with moss and leaves, by lesser birds who mingled their voices as if it were a dawn of May In my turn I now went off wool-gathering, so that I cannot say how the fifth day ended in the fancy of Aurelius, if you call it fancy. It being then near the end of winter, that vision of birds set me thinking of the nests to come. I went over in my mind the eggs taken and to be taken by Philip and me at Lydiard Constantine. All of last year’s were in one long box, still haunted by the cheapest scent of the village shop. I had not troubled to arrange them; there was a confusion of moor-hens’ and coots’ big freckled eggs with the lesser blue or white or olive eggs, the blotted, blotched, and scrawled eggs. For a minute they were forgotten during the recollection of a poem I had begun to copy out, and had laid away with the eggs. It was the first poem I had ever read and re-read for my own pleasure, and I was copying it out in my best hand-writing, the capitals in red ink. I had got as far as ‘Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest.’ I tried to repeat the verses but could not, and so I returned to the eggs. I thought of April when we should once again butt our way through thickets of stiff, bristling stems, through thorn and briar and bramble in the double hedges. We should find the thrushes’ nests in a certain copse of oak and blackthorn where the birds used hardly anything but moss, and you could see them far off among the dark branches, which seldom had many leaves, but were furred over with lichens. We would go to all those little ponds shadowed by hazels close to the farms, where there was likely to be a solitary moorhen’s home, and up into the pollard willow which once had four starling’s eggs at the bottom of a long narrow pocket. In all those spring days we had no conscious aim but finding nests, and if we were not scrambling in a wood we walked with heads lifted up to the trees, turned aside to the hedges, or bent down to the grass or undergrowth. We were not curious about the eggs; questions of numbers or variation in size, shape or colour, troubled us but fitfully. Sun, rain, wind, deep mud, water over the boots and knees, scratches to arms, legs, and face, dust in the eyes, fear of gamekeepers and farmers, excitement, dizziness, weariness, all were summed up by the plain or marked eggs in the scent box; they were all that visibly remained of these things, and I valued them in the same way and for the same reason as the athlete valued the parsley crown. The winning of this one or that was recalled with regret, sometimes that I had taken more than I should have done from the same nest, sometimes that I had not taken as many as would have been excusable; I blushed with annoyance because we had not revisited certain nests which were unfinished or empty when we discovered them — the plough-boys doubtless had robbed them completely, or they had merely produced young birds. How careless the country boys were, putting eggs into their hats and often forgetting all about them, often breaking them wantonly. I envied them their opportunities and despised them for making so little use of them.