“It was a good day, Arthur, that first brought you to Abercorran House,” said old Ann, as she went to the door to deliver the stray pigeon to its owner.
“Yes,” I said, a little pathetically for Ann’s taste and with thought too deep for tears, at least in her company. I looked round the kitchen, remembering the glory that was Abercorran ... Philip ... Jessie ... Roland ... Aurelius.... It was no unselfish memory, for I wished with all my heart that I was fifteen again, that the month was April, the hour noon, and the scene the yard of Abercorran House with all the family assembled, all the dogs, Aurelius, and Mr Torrance (there being still some days left of the Easter holidays), yes, and Higgs also, and most certainly the respectable Mr Stodham.
“Yes, it was a good day,” continued Ann, returning, “if it had not been for you we should never have known Aurelius.”
[64]
This was so like the old Ann that I was delighted, with all my conceit. I remembered that first visit well, limping into the yard the day after the paper-chase, and seeing big Jack (aged then about twenty) and tall Roland (less than two years younger) discussing a greyhound with a blackguard in an orange neck-tie, Jessie (my own age) surrounded by pigeons, Mr Morgan and Mr Torrance at the top of the steps looking on, and away on the pond under the elms little Harry and Lewis crying for help to release their craft from the water-lilies of that perilous sea. When the limper was introduced as “Arthur,” Mr Torrance said:
“Not that same Arthur, that with spear in rest
Shot through the lists at Camelot and charged
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings,”
and Mr Morgan roared with laughter, as having no cigar he was free to do at the moment, and everyone else joined in except the Gypsy, who appeared to think he was the victim; such laughter was a command. Before the roar was over Ann came up to me and said: “Will you please to come into the kitchen. I have something for that poor leg of yours.” Pity was worse than ever, but to escape the laughter, I followed her. “There you are,” she said as we[65] entered, pointing to a broad blackberry tart uncut, “that will do your leg good. It is between you and Philip.” And with that she left me and at another door in came Philip, and though there was nothing wrong with his leg he enjoyed the tart as much as I did.
We were then friends of twenty-four hours standing, my age being ten, his twelve, and the time of the year an October as sweet as its name. We had been for six months together at the same school without speaking, until yesterday, the day of the paper-chase. After running and walking for more than two hours that sunny morning we found ourselves together, clean out of London and also out of the chase, because he had gone off on a false scent and because I ran badly.
I had never before been in that lane of larches. It was, in fact, the first time that I had got out of London into pure country on foot. I had been by train to sea-side resorts and the country homes of relatives, but this was different. I had no idea that London died in this way into the wild.
Out on the broad pasture bounded by a copse like a dark wall, rooks cawed in the oak-trees. Moorhens hooted on a hidden water behind the[66] larches. At the end of a row of cottages and gardens full of the darkest dahlias was a small, gray inn called “The George,” which my companion entered. He came out again in a minute with bread and cheese for two, and eating slowly but with large mouthfuls we strolled on, too busy and too idle to talk. Instead of larches horse-chestnuts overhung our road; in the glittering grass borders the dark fruit and the white pods lay bright. So as we ate we stooped continually for the biggest “conquers” to fill our pockets. Suddenly the other boy, musing and not looking at me, asked, “What’s your name?” “Arthur Froxfield,” I answered, pleased and not at all surprised. “It doesn’t suit you,” he said, looking at me. “It ought to be John something—
‘John, John, John,
With the big boots on.’
You’re tired.”
I knew his name well enough, for at twelve he was the best runner in the school. Philip Morgan.... I do not suppose that I concealed my pride to be thus in his company.
For an hour we were separated; we hit upon the trail, and off he went without a word. At a limping trot I followed, but lost sight of Philip[67] and soon fell back into a walk. I had, in fact, turned homewards when he overtook me; he had been forced to retrace his steps. I was by this time worn out, and should have given up but for my self-satisfaction at the long run and the pleasure of knowing that he did not mind my hanging on his arm as on we crawled. Thus at last after an age of sleepy fatigue I found myself at home. It had been arranged that on the next day I was to go round to Abercorran House.
Again and again Philip and I revisited that lane of larches, the long water-side copse, the oak wood out in the midst of the fields, and all the hedges, to find moorhen’s eggs, a golden-crested wren’s, and a thousand treasures, and felicity itself. Philip had known this country for a year or more; now we always went together. I at least, for a long time, had a strong private belief that the place had been deserted, overlooked, forgotten, that it was known only to us. It was not like ordinary country. The sun there was peculiarly bright. There was something unusual in the green of its grass, in the caw of its rooks in April, in the singing of its missel-thrushes on the little round islands of wood upon the ploughland. When later on I read about[68] those “remote and holy isles” where the three sons of Ulysses and Circe ruled over the glorious Tyrrhenians, I thought, for some reason or another, or perhaps for no reason, of those little round islands of ash and hazel amidst the ploughland of Our Country, when I was ten and Philip twelve. If we left it unvisited for some weeks it used to appear to our imaginations extraordinary in its beauty, and though we might be forming plans to go thither again before long, I did not fully believe that it existed—at least for others—while I was away from it. I have never seen thrushes’ eggs of a blue equalling those we found there.
No wonder Our Country was supernaturally beautiful. It had London for a foil and background; what is more, on that first day it wore an uncommon autumnal splendour, so that I cannot hope to meet again such heavily gilded elms smouldering in warm, windless sunshine, nor such bright meadows as they stood in, nor such blue sky and such white billowy cloud as rose up behind the oaks on its horizon.
Philip knew this Our Country in and out, and though his opinion was that it was not a patch on the country about his old home at Abercorran, he was never tired of it. In the first place he[69] had been introduced to it by Mr Stodham. “Mr Stodham,” said Philip, “knows more about England than the men who write the geography books. He knows High Bower, where we lived for a year. He is a nice man. He has a horrible wife. He is in an office somewhere, and she spends his money on jewellery. But he does not mind; remember that. He has written a poem and father does not want him to recite it. Glory be to Mr Stodham. When he trespasses they don’t say anything, or if they do it is only, ‘Fine day, sir,’ or ‘Where did you want to go to, sir,’ or ‘Excuse me, sir, I don’t mind your being on my ground, but thought you mightn’t be aware it is private.’ But if they catch you or me, especially you, being only eleven and peagreen at that, we shall catch it.”
Once he was caught. He was in a little copse that was all blackthorns, and the blackthorns were all spikes. Inside was Philip looking for what he could find; outside, and keeping watch, sat I; and it was Sunday. Sunday was the only day when you ever saw anyone in Our Country. Presently a man who was passing said: “The farmer’s coming along this road, if that’s any interest to you.” It was too late. There he was—coming round the bend a quarter[70] of a mile off, on a white pony. I whistled to Philip to look out. I was innocently sitting in the same place when the farmer rode up. He asked me at once the name of the boy in the copse, which so took me by surprise that I blabbed out at once. “Philip Morgan,” shouted the farmer, “Philip Morgan, come out of that copse.” But Philip was already out of it, as I guessed presently when I saw a labourer running towards the far end, evidently in pursuit. The farmer rode on, and thinking he had given it up I followed him. However, five minutes later Philip ran into his arms at a gateway, just as he was certain he had escaped, because his pursuer had been outclassed and had given up running. In a few minutes I joined them. Philip was recovering his breath and at the same time giving his address. If we sent in five shillings to a certain hospital in his name, said the farmer, he would not prosecute us—“No,” he added, “ten shillings, as it is Sunday.” “The better the day the better the deed,” said Philip scornfully. “Thank you, my lad,” said the giver of charity, and so we parted. But neither did we pay the money, nor were we prosecuted; for my father wrote a letter from his official address. I do not know what he said. In future, naturally,[71] we gave some of our time and trouble to avoiding the white pony when we were in those parts. Not that he got on our nerves. We had no nerves. No: but we made a difference. Besides, his ground was really not in what we called Our Country, par excellence. Our own country was so free from molestation that I thought of it instantly when Aurelius read to me about the Palace of the Mountain of Clouds. A great king had asked his counsellors and his companions if they knew of any place that no one could invade, no one, either man or genie. They told him of the Palace of the Mountain of Clouds. It had been built by a genie who had fled from Solomon in rebellion. There he had dwelt until the end of his days. After him no one inhabited it; for it was separated by great distances and great enchantment from the rest of the world. No one went thither. It was surrounded by running water sweeter than honey, colder than snow, and by fruitful trees. And there in the Palace of the Mountain of Clouds the king might dwell in safety and solitude for ever and ever....
In the middle of the oak wood we felt as safe and solitary as if we were lords of the Palace of the Mountain of Clouds. And so we were. For four years we lived charmed lives. For[72] example, when we had manufactured a gun and bought a pistol, we crawled over the ploughed fields at twilight, and fired both at a flock of pewits. Yet neither birds nor poachers suffered. We climbed the trees for the nests of crows, woodpeckers, owls, wood-pigeons, and once for a kestrel’s, as if they were all ours. We went everywhere. More than once we found ourselves among the lawns and shrubberies of big houses which we had never suspected. This seems generally to have happened at twilight. As we never saw the same house twice the mysteriousness was increased. One of the houses was a perfect type of the dark ancient house in a forest. We came suddenly stumbling upon it among the oaks just before night. The walls were high and craggy, and without lights anywhere. A yew tree grew right up against it. A crow uttered a curse from the oak wood. And that house I have never seen again save in memory. There it remains, as English as Morland, as extravagantly wild as Salvator Rosa. That evening Philip must needs twang his crossbow at the crow—an impossible shot; but by the grace of God no one came out of the house, and at this distance of time it is hard to believe that men and women were actually living there.
[73]
Most of these estates had a pond or two, and one had a long one like a section of a canal. Here we fished with impunity and an untroubled heart, hoping for a carp, now and then catching a tench. But often we did not trouble to go so far afield. Our own neighbourhood was by no means unproductive, and the only part of it which was sacred was the Wilderness. None of the birds of the Wilderness ever suffered at our hands. Without thinking about it we refrained from fishing in the Wilderness pond, and I never saw anybody else do so except Higgs, but though it seemed to me like robbing the offertory Higgs only grinned. But other people’s grounds were honoured in a different way. Private shrubberies became romantic at night to the trespasser. Danger doubled their shadows, and creeping amongst them we missed no ecstasy of which we were capable. The danger caused no conscious anxiety or fear, yet contrived to heighten the colour of such expeditions. We never had the least expectation of being caught. Otherwise we should have had more than a little fear in the January night when we went out after birds, armed with nets and lanterns. The scene was a region of meadows, waiting to be built on and in the meantime occupied by a few horses and[74] cows, and a football and a lawn-tennis club. Up and down the hedges we went with great hopes of four and twenty blackbirds or so. We had attained a deep and thrilling satisfaction but not taken a single bird when we were suddenly aware of a deep, genial voice asking, “What’s the game?” It was a policeman. The sight acted like the pulling of a trigger—off we sped. Having an advantage of position I was the first to leap the boundary hedge into the road, or rather into the ditch between hedge and road. Philip followed, but not the policeman. We both fell at the jump, Philip landing on top of me, but without damage to either. We reached home, covered in mud and secret glory, which made up for the loss of a cap and two lanterns. The glory lasted one day only, for on the next I was compelled to accompany my father to the police-station to inquire after the cap and lanterns. However, I had the honour of hearing the policeman say—though laughing—that we had taken the leap like hunters and given him no chance at all. This and the fact that our property was not recovered preserved a little of the glory.
In these meadows, in the grounds which their owners never used at night, and in Our Country,[75] Philip and I spent really a great deal of time, fishing, birds-nesting, and trying to shoot birds with cross-bow, pistol, or home-made gun. There were intervals of school, and of football and cricket, but these in memory do not amount to more than the towns of England do in comparison with the country. As on the map the towns are but blots and spots on the country, so the school-hours were embedded, almost buried away, in the holidays, official, semi-official, and altogether unofficial. Philip and I were together during most of them; even the three principal long holidays of the year were often shared, either in Wales with some of Philip’s people, or at Lydiard Constantine, in Wiltshire, with my aunt Rachel.