‘Pluck your head out of the sand,’ quoth he, ‘for your ragged hinder-parts are visible to all the world of honest eyes. The pine and the lily are not choosing creatures. To them is their environment allotted, but to you is given the wilful fashioning of it. A man may be either gold or iron—made either for beauty or for use. But the one will not decorate, nor the other uphold the world, if he shirk the fires that must first refine or temper him. So away with your foolish Sahara tricks, and get on with the work the moment brings you.’
By this he meant I was to look about me, and tell him what I saw as we went along, a duty in which I was too often an unintentional malingerer.
‘Yesterday a Londoner was in the village,’ I told him, for a start, ‘and he was scoffing at our Downs. “Where,” said he, “are the green highlands of Sussex I have read so much about? Why, the hills are not green, but brown!” And it was quite true at this season, and from his standpoint down in the valley. Up here we can see what gives the Downs their rich bronze colour in summer-time. From below they looked parched and sunburnt, as though nothing could grow for the heat and drought. But now I can see that the general brown tone is really a mingling of a thousand living hues. Looking straight down as you walk, the turf is as green as ever it was; but a dozen paces onward all this fresh verdure is lost under the greys and drabs of the seeding grass-heads. Then again, the brown colour is due just as much to the blending of all other colours that the eye separates at a close view, but confuses from afar. We are walking on a carpet of flowers; we cannot avoid trampling them, if we are to set foot to the ground at all. Yellow goatsbeard and vetchling, and the little trefoil with the blood-red tips to its petals, and golden hawkweed everywhere; for blues, there are millions of plantains, and sheepsbit, and harebells; and the wild thyme purples half the hillside, making the bright carmine of the orchids brighter still wherever it blows. But I have not reckoned in half the flowers that—’
‘Hold, enough! I am sick of your Londoner, and of every human being for the moment. Listen to the free, glorious wind! Down in the valley there we always think of the wind as a creature with a voice—something striding through the sky and calling as it goes. But up here we know that it is the earth that calls. Hark to it swishing, and surging, and sighing for miles round! The sound is never overhead on these treeless wastes, but always underfoot. You keep head and shoulders up in the soundless sunshine, and walk in a maelstrom. Did you ever think that the larks always sing in the midst of silence, no matter how hard the wind blows? Those are George Artlett’s sheep we are coming to, are they not? I ought to know the old dog’s talk!’
I scanned the hills about me, but could see no sign of sheep, shepherd, or dog. But as we drew to the edge of the wide plateau we were traversing, and got a view down into the steep combe beyond, there sure enough were all three. The sheep, just growing artistically presentable after their June shearing, were scattered over the deep bottom, quietly nibbling at the turf. Far below, in the shadow of a single stunted hawthorn, sat young George Artlett scribbling on his knee. No doubt Rowster had been lying by his master’s side, until our shadows struck sheer down upon him from the brink of the hill. But now he was up and pricking his ears sharply in our direction, growling menaces and wagging a welcome at one and the same time. I gave the Reverend what I saw in few words. To my surprise he began to descend the steep hill-side.
‘After all,’ said he, ‘George Artlett and I never really fell out. But we agreed to differ, and that is the most fatal, most lasting disagreement of all. I should have known better. I think I will risk a hand to him again.’
As we clambered down the precipitous slope, into the shelter of the combe, the wind suddenly stopped its music in our ears. There fell a dead calm about us. At the bottom, we seemed to be walking between two widely separated, yet almost perpendicular cliffs of green, with a great span of blue sky far above, across which the heavy cumuli raged unceasingly. George Artlett got to his feet at our approach, thrust his paper into his pocket, and gravely clawed off his old tarpaulin hat. He took the hand held out to him with wonder, and a little hesitation.
‘And how fares the good work, George?’
Artlett was silent a moment. He tried to read the sightless eyes.