The
dew lay heavy on leaf and blade and gossamer, a cool fresh wind
swept clear over dale and down from the sea, and the clover field
rippled like a silvery lake in the breeze.
There is something inexpressibly beautiful in the unused day,
something beautiful in the fact that it is still untouched,
unsoiled; and town and country share alike in this loveliness. At
half-past three on a June morning even London has not assumed her
responsibilities, but smiles and glows lighthearted and smokeless
under the caresses of the morning sun.
Five o'clock. The bell rings out crisp and clear from the
monastery where the Bedesmen of St Hugh watch and pray for the
souls on this labouring forgetful earth. Every hour the note of
comfort and warning cries across the land, tells the Sanctus, the
Angelus, and the Hours of the Passion, and calls to remembrance and
prayer.
When the wind is north, the sound carries as far as my road, and
companies me through the day; and if to His dumb children God in
His mercy reckons work as prayer, most certainly those who have
forged through the ages an unbroken chain of supplication and
thanksgiving will be counted among the stalwart labourers of the
house of the Lord.
Sun and bell together are my only clock: it is time for my water
drawing; and gathering a pile of mushrooms, children of the night,
I hasten home.
The cottage is dear to me in its quaint untidiness and want of
rectitude, dear because we are to be its last denizens, last of the
long line of toilers who have sweated and sown that others might
reap, and have passed away leaving no trace.
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