Guy would fish for hours at a time, sitting almost motionless on the slanting willow, but Hugo and I would bring books with us as a rule. We would fish for a bit and then read for a bit and then fish again. Guy thought that rather childish, but he never interfered with us or tried to stop us. That was, I think, part of the special charm of Yearsly. No one ever interfered with anyone else. There was no pressure on anyone or anything to be different from what it was.
One thing we missed during these years was the autumn at Yearsly, when the trees in the High Wood turned red and gold, and the leaves floated down about you as you walked, through the still air, and rustled round your feet. There was a blue haze among the tree trunks and a nip in the air, and often the smell of bonfires, burning up leaves and sticks, and the dew on the grass would lie thick till midday, though the sun was shining. And in the walled garden, the dahlias would be out, and dark red chrysanthemums and michaelmas daisies, and old Joseph, the gardener, would be pottering slowly about the summer borders, clearing up, and rooting out and burning up piles of finished flowers, on the rubbish heap behind the potting shed.
We had to go back to school now, at the very beginning of autumn, leaving with the trees still green and coming back again when they were quite bare.
In the Christmas holidays there were carol singings. Cousin Delia trained the people in the village to sing carols, and they would come in and sing in the hall by candle-light, sometimes with lanterns in their hands, on Christmas Eve; and Guy would sing with them, and Cousin Delia would teach them special things, besides carols. Once it was Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. And Guy sang the solo parts. I think that is the most beautiful music I know. They stood there in the shadow of the hall, about twenty people altogether, with their lanterns on the ground. The light flickered upward on the dark wood of the staircase and on faces here and there, but it was mostly shadow, and the sound of the voices rose up and died away in the high darkness of the roof. Sometimes they would go round being waits and sing at other houses, and at farms, and we would go with them, walking back with our lantern after midnight over dark frosty fields, with stars very clear in the frost. Of course it was not always like that—sometimes it was wet and we had colds, and it was all a disappointment—but not often, and somehow I don’t remember those times.
We had Christmas Trees too, generally on New Year’s Day, and the children from the village came, and some old people, and then there would be games.
My grandmother came to stay very often at Christmas. We all liked it when she came.
VIII
My own life at school was uneventful. I was not unhappy, nor unkindly treated. I think it was rather a good school, but I did not learn much, and it never mattered to me one way or another. It was time to be lived through, and that was all; and I lived through it without much trouble or distress.
I was not naughty, so far as I can remember. I did not get into scrapes or mischief. But I was not clever at all. Arithmetic I have never been able to do, or the things connected with Arithmetic, and subjects like Literature and Poetry were badly taught. I had learned much more of them from Cousin Delia and from Hugo.
The only friend I made at school was Sophia Lane Watson. She was two years younger than me, and came to school when she was thirteen, so I had been there nearly three years when she came. But I was struck by her as soon as I saw her, and we made friends in a kind of way, almost at once.