Chapter III

I think the last of the summer boating parties to Windlecombe has come and gone; at least for a week I have seen and heard nothing of revelry. But the thin stream of odd folk still dribbles into the village from road or Down.

There were two elderly ladies, obviously sisters, wandering about the place one day, who afforded material for commentary to most curious tongues. Severely and sparely clad in grey tweeds, wearing black felt hats each wrapped about with a wisp of grey gauze, and gold spectacles, over the shining hafts of which little tight glossy-white ringlets depended, pink serene faces inclined to be downy, and voices low and gentle yet extraordinarily penetrating and clear—they crept about the village all day long in an ecstasy of enjoyment, peering into cottage doorways, looking over garden fences, watching the children at play on the green and the mothers hanging out their linen, gazing with timorous delight down into the wheelwright’s sawpit, and into the black deeps of Tom Clemmer’s forge. And all the while, though they kept up an incessant low interchange between themselves, they accosted no one. Apparently Windlecombe was to them a sort of spectacle, half peep-show and half menagerie, where everything might be looked at, but nothing touched. The last I saw of them, they were standing at the far end of the green, looking towards the seats under the Seven Sisters where two old rustics slumbered peacefully in the sun. The pair were in earnest consultation, and obvious, though wholly affectionate difference on some point. At length one, apparently the more ancient by a year or two, raised her hands with a gesture of reluctant consent. And then the other timidly approached the old men, presented each with what, at a distance, appeared to be a surplus sandwich drawn from a reticule, and returned to her companion, giving her—before they made off down the street together—a grateful, childish little hug.

On another day a very different pair dropped down from the skies amongst us. They were two men scarcely of middle age, the one with a swirl of coppery hair topping a high forehead, the other sombre-locked, low-browed and swarthy; both alike shabby, unshaven and unkempt. They came swinging down the hill-path together, hatless and barefooted, laden up with certain dusty travelling-gear, the one of them carrying in addition a leather-cased violin. As they strode through the village street they made the place resound with their laughter, jovially greeted all and sundry that chanced in their way, and finally disappeared through the door of the Three Thatchers Inn.

Thereafter, sitting at work by the window, I forgot all about them, until a far-off strain of music gradually forced itself upon my ear. I could make out the violin, played as though it were three instruments at least, and above it such a voice as I had heard only once in my life before. I saw that passers-by were halting in the roadway to listen. Some were crowded round the inn window, craning over one another’s heads. Then the music stopped, the pair of harmonious vagabonds reappeared, and made straight for the Seven Sisters, all the folk jostling at their heels. A moment later, the violin struck into an air that sent my pen clattering to the paper, and my feet speeding towards the house-door. It was the ‘X—,’ the tenor song from ‘Q—,’ played by a master hand. Before I reached the fringe of the little crowd—taking the old vicar by the arm as I went—the copper-haired man had mounted upon the seat and had begun to sing the incomparable melody, hurling it over the heads of the crowd with a passion, a force, yet with a surpassingly delicate sweetness of tone, that drew the people spellbound closer and closer with every moment round him. The old parson’s grip tightened on my sleeve.

‘What is he like?’ he whispered. And when I had told him—‘Strange that he should come here and— But there can be few with a voice like that: it must be— Ah! listen! Don’t you know now?’

For the song had changed. The violin had slowed down into a simple quiet undertone. And then there pealed out upon us an air that a year ago had been made famous by one man alone, and he almost the greatest in his art. As he sang, his great chest heaving in the sunshine, I watched him, and once he looked swiftly in our direction. He gave us the whole piece, that finishes on a note incredibly high, yet is not really an end to the song, for the note is one picked out, as it were, at random in the scale. Then, to my amazement, he got down from the bench, took the hat from the head of the nearest boy, and went gravely about among the folk, collecting pennies. From me he levied toll as from the rest, but instead of holding out the hat to the Reverend, he placed it, money and all, into his hands, adding to the goodly store a shining piece from his own pocket. ‘You will know what to do with it,’ said he, his grey eyes twinkling merrily.

A minute later the pair were trudging off together down the street, as they had come, with their dusty, travel-stained satchels swinging behind them, and their long hair blowing in the breeze.