Beautiful end

by Constance Holme

The plantation further on which he had seen cut down, was grown again just as tall and thick. The road was dark and damp under the trees, cool in summer and muddy in the wet. Down this hill he had once seen timber-waggons running away. It must have been winter because it had snowed in the night, and the sky was black and the road just sprinkled white. The river was the colour of the blade of an axe, and running as if it was out of control, too. The children were coming from school when the first waggon got away, with a team of three horses and a load of larch. The long, clean poles, straight as a ship’s masts, swung like an anchored boat to the incoming tide. The driver was running close in front of the wheel, lying back on the reins and shouting all the way. The children scattered like feathers thrashed from a bed, and collected again to watch the waggon take the turn, skidding and swinging broadways to the road. The other waggon braked along the wall, driving a furrow in mortar and moss and fern. Kit remembered it all as if it had been last week,—the fine bite in the air and the thundering hoofs, the musical clink of the brasses and the fierce clanking of the chains, the swing and heave and weight and length of the load, the great horses, the nerve and strength of the men.... When you were old you liked to think of these things, to remember that not everybody grew old at the same time. Once he had seen Bob lift a trap through a gate with the help of the cowman from the Hall. The broad shoulders and strong wrists had raised the wheels like toys, and the Squire had sat in the trap above their heads and laughed. And there were still men to do these things though Bob had fallen out. Youth was still in the world, and hands were firm on a rein....

Bob pulled up on the bridge before he turned to the marsh, to let him look at the river from either side. And first he looked at it sliding through the park, between grass banks and bulrushes and dreaming, stooping trees. Through the trees he saw flashes of red and white that were cattle coming down to drink, and where the sun had left the water black there was the sudden whiteness of still swans. The ghosts of themselves gleamed at them from beneath, and when the cattle stooped to drink there would be coloured cattle in the water, too. The fish were rising as the shadows grew, stirring the river with their delicate rings. It was hard to remember in the peace that all water had its toll, even this calm dreamer shedding its gold coat. Yet it, too, had its weeds that could drag a swimmer down, its black spot of tradition where the brothers had been drowned, pools where the lonely had sought a greater solitude still. But to-night the peace of the evening was glad peace, because of the Tyranny of Marget overpast.

On one side of the bridge the river was making ready for the night, but on the other it was still sunny and awake. It had still to get out on to the sands, to catch the last drop of gold as it fell from the lingering day. There were no bridges or banks to gather it into shade, or trees that hushed the water with shadow long before the sun was under the sea. Once safely out it ran in a glinting length in which nothing was mirrored but the sky. This was the river he knew best, that was never afraid of the lonely flat or the Terrible Friend that was the tide. In the park and the village it was cluttered and darkened by the growing things on its banks, like the minds of folks who lived in a close street. Here, on the edge of the world, nobody’s shadow could tread on your heels. He drew a breath of relief as they turned for the moss-road, and took another bite from his buttered scone.

The moss-road, running close beside the sands, with the sea-wall on its left like a ruled fence, had grassy borders dropping to grass-grown dykes. Beyond the hedge to the right the fields lay level and square, planned for the easy handling of the plough. The long lines of the roots were at right angles to the long line of the road, and when there was wind over the young corn it billowed across it in unbroken waves. Marsh and sands were full of these darting lines with their sense of flight, as if they were arrows shot from the bow of the eye.

Dropping behind them to the south was the hamlet above the beach that had once been known as a port. All its white faces were snowy in the sun, but there were no sails slipping to rest in front of it to-day. Yet it was not so long since ships had sailed from there to trade with Spain. Kit remembered the old merchant who had owned the ships, with his comb of white hair, round spectacles and benevolent grey eyes. The Spanish trade had died with him, and seemed like a fairy tale to-day. He had been everybody’s friend who needed a friend, and there had been hands in his pockets all his life.

The sky in front of them seemed packed to the sun with hills, the crowded purple mountains threaded with the dales. They looked empty as hills of the moon from across the bay, but Kit had many friends along their flanks. The folk there knew to the full what winter meant, and rain falling like rods from the high tops, and nights that were endless, whether wild or still, and becks at the flood and the great drama of the snow. From the marsh the hills were soft as blue clouds poised light on each other’s backs, but Kit knew that their bodies were strong soil and their bones of iron. He knew the rough grass that clothed them as Nebuchadnezzar was clothed with hair. He knew the exalted joy of mounting on their backs, like riding some mighty horse across the earth. He knew their crag-faces and screes, their smooth, green slides and rocky ghylls. He knew their moorland and moss-hags, their bog-pools and lost tarns. He knew the lone, white-fronted farms, and the becks rushing at their doors. And in the midst of the loneliness he had only to climb some peak, and find himself at home because looking out to sea.

He had often gone up to play in the dales, and of all his dances he had liked these best. First of all came the journey, which was always an adventure in itself. Some sudden turn from the high road to the north, and he was plunged in a twisting lane between the hills. Already, perhaps, it would be dusk, because of the barrier to the west, which grew and darkened and grew as the shadows gathered and trailed. He himself was small as a gnat on the thread of road, between the monsters soaring on either side. There would be water talking out of the shadows here and there, hidden streams and falls with the last light flashing on their manes. Always he heard the water-talk when he went into the dales, because it was so different from the voice of his own sea. And, greater than the water, was the stillness, that nothing was ever big enough to break, neither the shrill dogs nor the shepherds’ whistle nor the cry of the sheep. Even thunder and wind could only trouble it for a time, like the floating of furious smoke across a glass. Behind them you felt the imperturbable patience of a greater strength. It was a different stillness from the empty silences of the marsh. It was the live stillness of great bodies, crowded side by side, whom even Nature seemed powerless to stir.

His journey’s end was always some farmhouse, where he had a meal before starting for the dance. From these dwellings, which he often saw only by night, he carried pictures of shadowy rafters and firelit walls, blind staircases to which he trusted himself as to a horse knowing its way, and clean, bare rooms upstairs where a lighted candle seemed to bring the mountains into the house itself. After the meal he groped his way at a lantern’s tail to the festive barn. He could trace the hedges by the shadowy line along their tops, and smell the smell of earth that is damp in the night, and hear the sheep-wail out of the void. And then, in the midst of the dark, that was either smooth blackness or full of looming shapes, the door of the barn would open a yellow port-hole to the night. He left the night with regret, although he grew in stature as he went in, and the fiddle, too, increased in weight and power. Out in the dale it had seemed a tinkling thing, but once inside its voice was proud and strong. On the rough platform or the corner chair where they spent the night, he and his fiddle came proudly into their own.

Sometimes he got to the barn first and had time to look about the great, bare place that to-night was the heart of the dale. The knotted floor was well swept, and slippery with shredded wax. Forms were set along the walls, with clean paper at their backs, and high above that were the glistening, steady lamps. There were food and drink on tables at the end, white cloths and bright tea-urns and polished cups and plates. Far over all was the darkness of the roof, untouched by the light as the dale through the big doors. Outside the door, the opening had shone gold; on this, it was only a gaping square of black.

But the lads and lasses were waiting, as a rule, clear-skinned, dark-haired folk with still, grey eyes, and feet that were tapping the floor before he had tuned. He thought about them as he played with a steady swing, of their lives and the lives that had made them what they were. He thought of their old names, and the way they bred so true to type and strain. He thought of the long silences in which they spent their days, of their courtesies and roughnesses, their simple-mindedness and reserve, their inherited knowledge of the lonely places of the earth. He thought of their houses, with rafters and wide hearths, their worn flags and sudden steps, their deep sills and oak stairs. He thought of the windows which, at break of day, held pictures never seen on any wall. He thought of the hills where they walked, that were rich with Viking names and cradled the Viking dead. He thought of the secrets of the hills, of their mysterious dangers and almost-forgotten rites. It was a hundred years, perhaps, since they lighted the last fire on Baal’s Hill; less than seventy since the wildfire had gone round. The fire-charmers were barely dead, or the tooth-charmers, or the old women who knew the herbs. Folk lived long in the dales, and the old secrets longer still. Gods were not of necessity fled because the sacrifice was past. There was still that feeling up in the wastes that out of nothing something might appear. There were lakes in which drowned bodies never rose, and terrible winds which could slay you in a breath. Folks said there were spirits who hated the railways crossing the moors, and were glad when the big trains came to harm in the night. Things were as strange as when there were devils on Cross Fell, and the idol lay in its bed at Kirkby Thore. The dale-folk were wonderful to Kit, because of the mysteries in their blood, but often he found them rather pitiful, too. Often they seemed to him, as he played, like children dancing in a lighted cave. He thought of the cave as set in a blackened void, with giants of darkness stooping over its roof. The folk in the cave were not afraid, because for them the cave was the whole world. So heedless they seemed, and young, so fleet-passing and yet so strong. Death slew them, and yet they came in the same form, with the same faces and voices and transmitted ways. Life must surely be stronger than death, while the stamp of it stood so long....