Those superior Londoners who know nothing at first hand about Nature “unimproved,” the type who find complete satisfaction for soul, body and mind at some loud and crowded seaside resort, sometimes say to me: “I can’t think how you can endure the terrible isolation of the country—with absolutely nothing to look at, no one to say a word, nobody to take the slightest interest in you, dead or alive. Well, I should go out of my mind in such solitariness! But then, I am so human; I do like a little life,” etc.
I don’t attempt to convert such people. After all, they are just as much entitled to their views as I am to mine. Besides, I am only too thankful that they keep away from our hills, and disport themselves in an environment more in keeping with their personal tastes. We don’t want the blatant woman, or the overdressed (which nowadays means underdressed) woman, or the artificial woman, or the woman who “likes a little life”; our hills would never suit them as a background, either mentally or otherwise. Why, we have neither a music-hall nor a picture palace for I don’t know how many miles round! A benighted spot, isn’t it!
But when they reproach us with having no one to say a word, and nobody to take the slightest interest in our doings—well, I could say many things! But I merely assure them that we are nothing if not neighbourly!
I took my sewing and went down to the bottom of the lower orchard. It was a warm day, but not too hot to sit out of doors at eleven in the morning, provided one found a shelter from the sun overhead. As I have explained before, my cottage is on a steep hillside, the whole earth runs either up or down. In only a few favoured spots can you place a chair—and sit on it—with any degree of certainty; and even then you probably have to level up the back, or the front, by putting some flat stones under two of the legs. The slope of the hill faces south; hence we get all the sun there is.
The bottom of the lower orchard was just the place for such a day. A wall with overhanging tangles of honeysuckle and ivy, and an oak-tree that spread big arms well over the wall, gave just the shade one needed from the blazing sun. I put the wicker chair with its back to the wall—and such a comfort a wall is anywhere out of doors when you want to sit down.
The view from this spot is very restful on a summer’s day: the hot south is behind; one faces the cooler, glareless northern sky above the hill that rises before one.
This orchard is but sparsely populated with fruit-trees, and most of these are very old. There are some huge pear-trees that rise tall and fairly straight, suggestive of rather well-fed poplars. There are some twisted, rugged apple-trees, every branch and twig presenting a wonderful study in silver and grey and green filigree, where the lichens have spread and revelled unmolested for many a year. The lichens are so marvellously beautiful, it always takes me quite a time to get down to the lower wall; there is so much to look at on the way. The delicate fronds, that seem closely related in their appearance to the hoarfrost designs on the winter windows, show such a variety of different cluster-schemes. They decorate the odd corners, and throw beauty over the hard knots and gnarls, till I sometimes think they are among the most exquisite things Nature has ever produced—only while I am thinking this, I come upon something else equally beautiful.