THE LINGERING OF THE LIGHT
With the West wind blowing down the valley, wet and warm from the Atlantic, men go home leisurely from their work in the fields, happy in the last of the light, and enjoying, though they never say so, the delicate melancholy of the hour. It is a gift you make no account of when the East wind brings it you, for that Scythian scourge withers what it touches, and under its whip the light itself seems like a husk about the day. Old people tell us that it brings the blight, whatever they mean by that. It brought locusts into Egypt once, and brings influenza into England. Perhaps they put the two together. It brings sick thinking too, a cold which has the property of drying up the springs of the blood. There’s no escape from it. The air seems thinner that comes from the East; brickwork will not keep it out, nor glazed windows. One fancies in the black mood of it that the “channering worm” at his work in the churchyard must feel it, and dive deeper into the mould.
But now one can enjoy the sweet grave evening and turn the mind hopefully to the prime of the year that is coming. The blackbird whistles for it in the leafless elm; a belated white hen on the hillside, very much at her ease, is still heeling up the turf and inspecting the result. A cottage wife, having her fire alight and kettle on the boil, stands for a moment at her open door. To mate the gentle influence of the evening she has made herself trim in clean white blouse and blue skirt, and looks what she was intended to be, a pretty young woman with a pride in herself. A friend, going home, stops her perambulator for a minute to exchange sentiments about the nights “drawing out.” Almost as she speaks this one draws in—for at this time of year twilight is a thing of moments. It will be dark before she is home. No matter: the wind is warm and balmy; she can take her ease, and her baby be none the worse. This is the weather that opens the human buds as well as the snowdrops, and gems the gardens with aconites, and the hearths with sprawling children. We do not heed Dr. Inge down here.
Here’s the end of January, and the winter, by our calendar, over in three weeks’ time. Since that calendar was written up we have invented a new winter. It is more difficult to get through April with safety, at least to garden buds, than any January we have known for forty years; but as far as we are concerned ourselves we can stand anything in April, with May to follow; whereas January can still intimidate, and a cold spell then will cause twice the sickness of the Spring-winter. January is to April as Till to Tweed:
“Till said to Tweed,
’Though ye rin wi’ speed,
An’ I rin slaw,
Where ye drown ae mon