There is a public-house at the foot of the hill, and a lane of harsh noises and a beam of light projected together from its open door across the road. Beyond it I turned into a house, for I knew I should find there an aged and solitary man who would have his own thoughts on such a night as this; for he had a son, and the spectre of the Bapaume road had reminded me where that boy was celebrating whatever peace he knew. His father was not communicative; and what could I say? He sat, answering me distantly and austerely, and he might have been a bearded sage seeing in retrospect a world he had long known, and who at last had made up his mind about it, though he would not tell me what that was. Outside we could hear revellers approaching. They paused at our door; their feet began to shuffle, and they sang:
“If I catch you bending,
I'll turn you upside down,
Knees up, knees up,
Knees up, knees up,
Knees up, Father Brown.”
XXVII. The Real Thing
JANUARY 9, 1920. There was a country town of which we heard wonderful tales as children. But it was as far as Cathay. It had many of the qualities that once made Cathay desirable and almost unbelievable. We heard of it at the time when we heard of the cities of Vanity Fair and Baghdad, and all from a man with a beard, who once sat by a London fire, just before bedtime, smoking a pipe and telling those who were below him on the rug about the past, and of more fortunate times, and of cities that were fair and far. Nothing was easier for us then than to believe fair reports. Good dreams must be true, for they are good. Some day, he said, he would take us to Torhaven; but he did not, for his luck was not like that.
Nothing like that; so instead we used to look westward to where Torhaven would be, whenever the sunset appeared the right splendour for the sky that was over what was delectable and elsewhere. We made that do for years. Torhaven existed, there was no doubt, for once we made a journey to Paddington Station—a long walk—and saw the very name on a railway carriage. It was a surprising and a happy thought that that carriage would go into such a town that very day. What is more confident than the innocence of youth? Where, if not with youth, could be found such willing and generous reliance in noble legend?
And how enduring is its faith! Long after, but not too long after, for fine appearances to us still meant fine prospects, we arrived one morning bodily in the haven of good report. Its genius was as bright as we expected. It had a shining face. It was the equal of the morning. Its folk could not be the same as those who lived within dark walls under a heaven that was usually but murk. It lost nothing because we could examine its streets. We went from it with a memory even warmer and more comforting. What would happen to us if youth did not more than merely believe the pleasant tales that are told, if it did not loyally desire to believe that things are what they are said to be?
This country town is of the Southern kind which, with satisfaction, we show to strangers as something peculiarly of our country. It is ancient and luminous in an amphitheatre of hills, and schooners and barques come right among its gables. It is wealthy, but it is not of the common sort, for it never shows haste. It knows, of course, that wealth is cheap, until it has matured and has attained that dignity which only leisure and the indifference of usage can confer. The country around has a long history of well-sounding family names as native as its hills—they arrived together, or thereabouts—and the lodge gates on its highways, with their weathered and mossy heraldic devices, have a way of acquainting you with the measure of your inconsequence as you pass them when walking. Torhaven has no poverty. It tolerates some clean and obscure but very profitable manufactures. But its shipping is venerable, and is really not an industry at all, being as proper as the owning of deer-parks. On market day you would think you were in a French town, so many are the agriculturists, and so quiet and solid the evidence of their wellbeing. They own their farms, they love good horses, their wagons are built like ships, and their cattle, as aboriginal as the county families, might be the embodiment of the sleek genius of those hills and meadows, so famous are they for cream. The people of that country live well. They know their worth and the substance which they add to the strength of the British community. And they pride themselves on the legends, peculiarly theirs, which tell of their independence of mind, of their love of freedom, of their liberal opinions and the nonconformity of their religious views. They are stout folk, kind and companionable, and they do not love masters.
It was the summer following the end of the War, and we were back again in Torhaven. The recollection of its ancient peace, of its stillness and light, of the refuge it offered, had enticed us there. Its very name had been the hope of escape. Where should we find people more likely to be quick and responsive? They would be among the first to understand the nature of the calamity which had overtaken us. They would know, long before amorphous and alien London, what that new world should be like which we owed to the young, a world in which might grow a garden for the bruised souls of the disillusioned.