There are other chalk streams in Wiltshire and Hampshire and Dorset—swift crystal currents that play all summer long with the floating poa grass fast held in their pebbly beds, flowing through smooth downs, with small ancient churches in their green villages, and pretty thatched cottages smothered in flowers—which yet do not produce the same effect as the Wylye. Not Avon for all its beauty, nor Itchen, nor Test. Wherein, then, does the "Wylye bourne" differ from these others, and what is its special attraction? It was only when I set myself to think about it, to analyse the feeling in my own mind, that I discovered the secret—that is, in my own case, for of its effect on others I cannot say anything. What I discovered was that the various elements of interest, all of which may be found in other chalk-stream valleys, are here concentrated, or comprised in a limited space, and seen together produce a combined effect on the mind. It is the narrowness of the valley and the nearness of the high downs standing over it on either side, with, at some points, the memorials of antiquity carved on their smooth surfaces, the barrows and lynchetts or terraces, and the vast green earth-works crowning their summit. Up here on the turf, even with the lark singing his shrill music in the blue heavens, you are with the prehistoric dead, yourself for the time one of that innumerable, unsubstantial multitude, invisible in the sun, so that the sheep travelling as they graze, and the shepherd following them, pass through their ranks without suspecting their presence. And from that elevation you look down upon the life of to-day—the visible life, so brief in the individual, which, like the swift silver stream beneath, yet flows on continuously from age to age and for ever. And even as you look down you hear, at that distance, the bell of the little hidden church tower telling the hour of noon, and quickly following, a shout of freedom and joy from many shrill voices of children just released from school. Woke to life by those sounds, and drawn down by them, you may sit to rest or sun yourself on the stone table of a tomb overgrown on its sides with moss, the two-century-old inscription well-nigh obliterated, in the little grass-grown, flowery churchyard which serves as village green and playground in that small centre of life, where the living and the dead exist in a neighbourly way together. For it is not here as in towns, where the dead are away and out of mind and the past cut off. And if after basking too long in the sun in that tree-sheltered spot you go into the little church to cool yourself, you will probably find in a dim corner not far from the altar a stone effigy of one of an older time; a knight in armour, perhaps a crusader with legs crossed, lying on his back, dimly seen in the dim light, with perhaps a coloured sunbeam on his upturned face. For this little church where the villagers worship is very old; Norman on Saxon foundations; and before they were ever laid there may have been a temple to some ancient god at that spot, or a Roman villa perhaps. For older than Saxon foundations are found in the vale, and mosaic floors, still beautiful after lying buried so long.
All this—the far-removed events and periods in time—are not in the conscious mind when we are in the vale or when we are looking down on it from above: the mind is occupied with nothing but visible nature. Thus, when I am sitting on the tomb, listening to the various sounds of life about me, attentive to the flowers and bees and butterflies, to man or woman or child taking a short cut through the churchyard, exchanging a few words with them; or when I am by the water close by, watching a little company of graylings, their delicately-shaded, silver-grey scales distinctly seen as they lie in the crystal current watching for flies; or when I listen to the perpetual musical talk and song combined of a family of green-finches in the alders or willows, my mind is engaged with these things. But if one is familiar with the vale; if one has looked with interest and been deeply impressed with the signs and memorials of past life and of antiquity everywhere present and forming part of the scene, something of it and of all that it represents remains in the subconscious mind to give a significance and feeling to the scene, which affects us here more than in most places; and that, I take it, is the special charm of this little valley.
CHAPTER XIV
A SHEEP-DOG'S LIFE
Watch—His visits to a dew-pond—David and his dog Monk—Watch goes to David's assistance—Caleb's new master objects to his dog—Watch and the corn-crake—Watch plays with rabbits and guinea-pigs—Old Nance the rook-scarer—The lost pair of spectacles—Watch in decline—Grey hairs in animals—A grey mole—Last days of Watch—A shepherd on old sheep-dogs
Perhaps the most interesting of the many sheep-dog histories the shepherd related was that of Watch, a dog he had at Winterbourne Bishop for three years before he migrated to Warminster. Watch, he said, was more "like a Christian," otherwise a reasonable being, than any other dog he had owned. He was exceedingly active, and in hot weather suffered more from heat than most dogs. Now the only accessible water when they were out on the down was in the mist-pond about a quarter of a mile from his "liberty," as he called that portion of the down on which he was entitled to pasture his sheep. When Watch could stand his sufferings no longer, he would run to his master, and sitting at his feet look up at his face and emit a low, pleading whine.
"What be you wanting, Watch—a drink or a swim?" the shepherd would say, and Watch, cocking up his ears, would repeat the whine.
"Very well, go to the pond," Bawcombe would say, and off Watch would rush, never pausing until he got to the water, and dashing in he would swim round and round, lapping the water as he bathed.
At the side of the pond there was a large, round sarsen-stone, and invariably on coming out of his bath Watch would jump upon it, and with his four feet drawn up close together would turn round and round, surveying the country from that elevation; then jumping down he would return in all haste to his duties.