CHAPTER X
July 14th.
We are not wholly without the pleasures of the town in Barbury Green.Once or twice in a summer, late on a Saturday afternoon, a procession ofred and yellow vans drives into a field near the centre of the village.By the time the vans are unpacked all the children in the community aresurrounding the gate of entrance. There is rifle-shooting, there isfortune-telling, there are games of pitch and toss, and swings, andFrench bagatelle; and, to crown all, a wonderful orchestrion that goes bysteam. The water is boiled for the public's tea, and at the same timethrilling strains of melody are flung into the air. There is at presentonly one tune in the orchestrion's repertory, but it is a very good tune;though after hearing it three hundred and seven times in a singleafternoon, it pursues one, sleeping and waking, for the next week. Phoebeand I took the Square Baby and went in to this diversified entertainment.There was a small crowd of children at the entrance, but as none of themseemed to be provided with pennies, and I felt in a fairy godmother mood,I offered them the freedom of the place at my expense.
I never purchased more radiant good-will for less money, but the combinedeffect of the well-boiled tea and the boiling orchestrion produced manyvillage nightmares, so the mothers told me at chapel next morning.
* * * * *
I have many friends in Barbury Green, and often have a pleasant chat withthe draper, and the watchmaker, and the chemist.
{The freedom of the place at my expense: p74.jpg}
The last house on the principal street is rather an ugly one, withespecially nice window curtains. As I was taking my daily walk to thepost-office (an entirely unfruitful expedition thus far, as nobody hastaken the pains to write to me) I saw a nursemaid coming out of the gate,wheeling a baby in a perambulator. She was going placidly away from theGreen when, far in the distance, she espied a man walking rapidly towardus, a heavy Gladstone bag in one hand. She gazed fixedly for a moment,her eyes brightening and her cheeks flushing with pleasure,--whoever itwas, it was an unexpected arrival;--then she retraced her steps and,running up the garden-path, opened the front door and held an excitedcolloquy with somebody; a slender somebody in a nice print gown andneatly-dressed hair, who came to the gate and peeped beyond the hedgeseveral times, drawing back between peeps with smiles and heightenedcolour. She did not run down the road, even when she had satisfiedherself of the identity of the traveller; perhaps that would not havebeen good form in an English village, for there were houses on theopposite side of the way. She waited until he opened the gate, thenursemaid took the bag and looked discreetly into the hedge, then themistress slipped her hand through the traveller's arm and walked up thepath as if she had nothing else in the world to wish for. The nurse hada part in the joy, for she lifted the baby out of the perambulator andshowed proudly how much he had grown.
It was a dear little scene, and I, a passer-by, had shared in it and feltbetter for it. I think their content was no less because part of it hadenriched my life, for happiness, like mercy, is twice blessed; it blessesthose who are most intimately associated in it, and it blesses all thosewho see it, hear it, feel it, touch it, or breathe the same atmosphere. Alaughing, crowing baby in a house, one cheerful woman singing about herwork, a boy whistling at the plough, a romance just suspected, with itsmiracle of two hearts melting into one--the wind's always in the westwhen you have any of these wonder-workers in your neighbourhood.
I have talks too, sometimes, with the old parson, who lives in a quainthouse with "_Parva Domus Magna Quies_" cut into the stone over thedoorway. He is not a preaching parson, but a retired one, almost thenicest kind, I often think.
He has been married thirty years, he tells me; thirty years, spent in theone little house with the bricks painted red and grey alternately, andthe scarlet holly-hocks growing under the windows. I am sure they havebeen sweet, true, kind years, and that his heart must be a quiet,peaceful place just like his house and garden.
"I was only eleven years old when I fell in love with my wife," he toldme as we sat on the seat under the lime-tree; he puffing cosily at hispipe, I plaiting grasses for a hatband.
{Puffing cosily at his pipe: p77.jpg}
"It was just before Sunday-school. Her mother had dressed her all inwhite muslin like a fairy, but she had stepped on the edge of a puddle,and some of the muddy water had bespattered her frock. A circle ofchildren had surrounded her, and some of the motherly little girls wereon their knees rubbing at the spots anxiously, while one of them wipedaway the tears that were running down her pretty cheeks. I looked! Itwas fatal! I did not look again, but I was smitten to the very heart! Idid not speak to her for six years, but when I did, it was all right withboth of us, thank God! and I've been in love with her ever since, whenshe behaves herself!"
That is the way they speak of love in Barbury Green, and oh! how muchsweeter and more wholesome it is than the language of the town! Whowould not be a Goose Girl, "to win the secret of the weed's plain heart"?It seems to me that in society we are always gazing at magic-lanternshows, but here we rest our tired eyes with looking at the stars.