And yet, to Edwin, the whole place seemed familiar. He was not in the least surprised when, opposite a windy farm-house, in front of which the dry blades of a dishevelled dracæna shivered as though protesting against its wintry exile, his father turned off to the left along a road that had once been gay with cottage gardens and trim buildings of stone, but was now suggestive of nothing but ruin and desolation. By one of these pathetic ruins his father paused.
“This was your grandfather’s house, Eddie. It was here that I was born.”
Now there remained only the ground-plan of a house, and the only sign of habitation in all the ruin was to be seen in the smoke-blackened stones of the chimney. The garden, indeed, lay beautiful in decay, for there, as everywhere in this deserted countryside, the golden ragwort had taken possession; but within the walls of the house only nettles shivered.
“You’ll always find nettles in deserted human habitations. I don’t know why,” said Mr. Ingleby. “There is a rather unusual botanical curiosity to be found among the workings at Cold Harbour,” he went on, “the Roman Nettle. Urtica . . . Urtica. . . . My memory isn’t what it used to be. It has a bigger leaf than the ordinary nettle and a much more poisonous sting. It’s only found in places where the Romans have been.”
Why, in the face of this harrowing desolation, should he be thinking of things like that? A ghost . . . with as little passion or feeling as a ghost: emotions so different from the passionate resentment that now filled Edwin’s heart.
“Ah . . . here is the school. I suppose they couldn’t pull that down. I remember when it was newly built. It was there that I learnt my alphabet. . . .”
In the whole of the lane the school was the only whole building.
“If you come to the edge of the Batch you will see the valley bottom where I spent my childhood with your great-grandmother.”
They passed on, and saw, a hundred feet beneath them, the valley of the little stream. More ruins, many of them; but one or two cottages still inhabited. The lower cottages lay close to the water, and in four or five places the stream was spanned by a clapper bridge. In one of the gardens ghostly children were playing, and in another ghostly washing flapped in a breeze that had risen with the coolness of evening. Mr. Ingleby pointed out to Edwin his great-grandmother’s home. It was the cottage in the garden of which the children were playing.
From the chimney a trail of smoke dwindled up against the grey hill-side.