Chapter II

The dirty weather has come indeed. For many days I have not seen the tops of the hills. They have been hidden in the rain-clouds that have been dragging ceaselessly over the combe. The rain has not seemed to fall, but to flow horizontally from west to east, a gliding white curtain of water-drops, hiding all but the nearest houses from the view. And yet, for all the deluge and the sobbing wind, the gloom, the cold, the miry ways, I would not change this solitary, inaccessible spot in England for the best of foreign sunshine, ease, and gaiety to be found by the Tideless Sea.

Perhaps, if winter is to be given a place at all in the calendar, it must come in these few weeks leading on to Christmas. It is true that, so far as the natural outdoor world is concerned, there is no winter, in the human conception of a season of decay and death. In an hour, when the sky lightened a little and the rain ceased its rattle on the window, I went out and found next year’s corn greening the hill-side; and in all the bare dark woodland there was not a twig without its new buds ripe and ready for another spring. The year’s miracle-play was beginning all over again before its last lines were said.

Yet because, as the old vicar maintains, winter is a human necessity by reason of its heart-welding, neighbour-making qualities, winter we must all have; and so at this time I am glad to hoodwink myself into the belief that the rough-voiced, harrying weather is the very negation of life, bringing us all together for mutual comfort, like children in the dark.

The rain is over now, seemingly for good. Last night at sundown the wind fell, and the grey cloud canopy lifted off to the northward, like the opening lid of a box. As the dense cloud pack broke away from the western horizon, the sun burst through, and poured a sudden stream of red-gold light up the combe. Before this light had paled, the whole sky was crystal clear; and in the east, just above the earth-line, shone the moon—a perfect human face, full-jowled, low-foreheaded, gazing down upon us all with a puzzled, quizzical smile upon her comfortable chops. I came up the street apostrophising her, and ran into a basket, and behind the basket was Grewes. He laid a bunch of lean bony fingers in my hand.

‘This is life again,’ he said feelingly. ‘To be weatherbound in a caravan, you know— Well, it is a little trying even for common people, but for a genius—Spelthorne, you see, cannot bear any constraint. At home he has a studio as big as a church, and when it rains he walks up and down it. But when he tries that in a caravan— Really, I have been very sorry for him, though of course I kept outside as much as I could.’

I had turned and strolled back with him under the pale December twilight. The new quiet of things, the frosty glimmer of the moon, here and there a star beginning to show, the renovated life of the village about us—all made for peace and content. Grewes suddenly stopped and laid his basket down.

‘Spelthorne wants to move on now,’ he told me; ‘he says we have painted the place out, and I haven’t tried to persuade him, you know, but—but—I don’t want to go, and that’s a fact.’

He looked at me distressfully, his stubbly lantern jaw in his lean hand.

‘What has happened to change the place so?’ he asked. ‘Everybody you meet looks as if bound for a wedding. You are all humming carol tunes wherever you go. I haven’t seen a dirty-faced child for a week. And how the people joke and laugh with each other! It can’t be all because Christmas—’

‘Yes, it is,’ said I, ‘it is all because one old man we love insists on having it so, year by year. He has been into every home in the village, great and small, and fired each man, woman, and child with his own rejoicing spirit. If you stop for the next ten days, you will see things change more thoroughly still. Wait till you see them bringing the Christmas-tree up the hill for the children’s treat! And the committee going round on Boxing-Day to award the prizes for the home decorations! And if you have never heard real old-fashioned carols, nor listened to a real Christmas sermon preached by a holy angel in a white beard—’

He took up his basket hurriedly.

‘If—if I must go,’ he said, as we trudged on towards the quarry where the caravan had made its pitch, ‘I shall think of you all wherever I— It seems rather selfish to press him, don’t you think? But perhaps— Oh! here we are! Do come in and talk to Spelthorne for a bit, will you? He sees so little company, and—’

‘Is that you at last, Grewes? My good fellow, what an unconscionable time to take in procuring no more than one pennyworth of pepper and just a pound of gravy beef! To say that I am excessively annoyed is wholly to understate my— Of course all my carefully-thought-out plans for the meal are entirely upset!’

I drew back into the darkness.

‘No, not to-night. There are times when you cannot stand—I mean, when a call is not convenient, and— Why on earth don’t you tell the selfish old brute to go to smithereens?’