Eden Phillpotts

“ Hither winds the stream, trout in every hover, and the brown hills rise on either side, barren and storm-beaten. Then, at the mouth of the land between them, a great welter of white foam fills the gap, for the storm has beaten the sea mad, and the roar of it ascends in unbroken thunder over the meadows. Behind the meeting-place of land and ocean, there roll the lashed and stricken seas, all dim and grey; and their herds are brightened with sunshine or darkened by cloud, as the wind heaves them to shore. ”

“ Coombe Valley lives with music and movement. Far away in the gap eastward rises a blue mound with Kilkhampton Church-tower perched thereon, and thence, by winding woods, the way opens to the historic mill. Full of tender colour are the tree-clad hills—a robe of grey and amber and amethyst, jewelled here and there, where the last of the leaves still hang. Wind-beaten oak and larch, beech and ash twine their arms together and make a great commotion where the woven texture of their boughs is swaying and bending. ”

“ And secret waters twinkle out by many a hidden channel to them, bedewing their foliage with grey moisture.
On a cloudy day night never departs from the deepest caverns of this gorge, and only the foam-light reveals each polished rib and buttress. The air is full of mist from a waterfall that thunders through the darkness, and chance of season and weather seldom permit the westering sun to thrust a red-gold shaft into the gloom. But that rare moment is worth pilgrimage, for then the place awakens and a thousand magic passages of brightness pierce the gorge to reveal its secrets. ”

“ Ferns and foxgloves and a thousand lesser plants thrive in niches and crevices of the stone; and there is a splendid passage of flame, where the mimulus has found its way by some rivulet into the quarry, and sheets a precipice with gold.
By steps and scarps the sides fall, narrowing always to the bottom; but the cliff planes are huge enough for sunshine and shadow to paint wonderful pictures upon them and find the colours—the olive and blue and mossy green, or the great splashes and patches of rose and russet that make harmony there. They melt together brokenly ”

“ At time of twilight it is good to be here, for then one may measure the profundity of such peace and contrast this matrix of vanished granite with the scene of its present disposal; one may drink from this cup all the mystery that fills a deserted theatre of man's work and feel that loneliness which only human ruins tell; and then one may open the eye of the mind upon another vision, and suffer the ear of imagination to throb with its full-toned roar.
For hence came London Bridge; the mighty masses of granite riven from this solitude span Thames. ”

“ The lesser things are at their feet and the sublimity of their struggle—their mournful but magnificent protest against destiny—makes one ignore the sequestered woodland, where there is neither battle nor victory, but comfortable, ignoble shelter and repose. The river kisses the feet of these happy nonentities; they make many a stately arch and pillar along the water; in spring the pigeon and the storm-thrush nest among their branches; and they gleam with newly-opened foliage and shower their silky shards upon the earth; in autumn they fling a harvest of sweet beech mast around their feet. ”

“ For their jewels will be unfolding presently, to soften the cleft granite with misty green and bring the vernal time to these silent cliffs.
The quarry lies like a gash in the slope of the hills. To the dizzy edges of it creep heather and the bracken; beneath, upon its precipices, a stout rowan or two rises, and everywhere Nature has fought and laboured to hide this wound driven so deep into her mountain-side by man. A cicatrix of moss and fern and many grasses conceal the scars of pick and gunpowder; time has weathered the harsh edges of the riven stone ”

“ All is movement and bustle; the mill-stream races away to the river, and the river to the sea. The tree-tops bend and cry; the clouds tell of the gale overhead, now thinning to let the sunshine out, now darkening under a sudden squall and dropping a hurtle of hail.
From the mill-pool to the west opened another vision of meadows with a little grey bridge in the midst of them. ”

“ They cry and musically mew from their high place; and beneath them the cuckoo answers.
Nestling now upon the very heart of this wide vale a homestead lies, where the fields make a dimple and the burn comes flashing. Byres and granaries light gracious colour here, for their slate roofs are mellow with lichen of red gold, and they stand as a bright knot round which the valley opens and blossoms with many-coloured petals. The very buttercups shine pale by contrast, and the apple-blooth, its blushes hidden from this distance, masses in pure, cold grey beneath the glow of these great roofs. ”

“ Islets lie off-shore, so full of light that they glow like bubbles blown of air and seem to float on the surface of the sea. Their shadows fall in delicious purple on the aquamarine waters and warm hues percolate their ragged, silver faces, while the gulls cluster in myriads upon them, and, black and silent among the noisy sea-fowl, stand dusky cormorants with long necks lifted. Like pale blue silk, shot and streamed over with pure light, the Channel rises to the mists of the horizon. Light penetrates air and water and earth, so that the weight of land and water are lifted off them and lost ”

“ Into the river, where she spreads upon a smooth pool, and trout dart shadowy through the crystal, the brightness burns, until the stream bed sparkles with amber and agate and flashes up in [75] sweet reflections beneath each brier and arched fern-frond bending at the brink.
Nor does the rivulet lack correspondence with greater streams in its human relation; she is complete in every particular, for man has found her also; and dimly seen, amid the very tree-tops, where the gorge opens, and great rocks come kissing close, an arch of stone carries his little road from hamlet to hamlet. ”

“ East of Exe River and south of those rolling heaths crowned by the encampment of Woodberry, there lies a green valley surrounded by forest and hill. Beyond it rise great bluffs that break in precipices upon the sea. They are dimmed to sky colour by a gentle wind from the east, for Eurus, however fierce his message, sweeps a fair garment about him. Out of the blue mists that hide distance the definition brightens and lesser hills range themselves, their knolls dark with pine, their bosoms rounded under forest of golden green oak and beech ”

“ The ways of the falling leaf are manifold, and as the rock delays the river, so the trees, with trunk and bough, arrest the flying foliage, bar its hurrying volume and deflect its tide. In winter the glen is good, for then a man may escape the north wind here and, finding some snug holt among the river rocks, mark the beauty about him while snow begins to touch the tree-tops and the boughs are sighing. Then can be contrasted the purple masses of sodden leaves with the splendour of the mosses among which they lie ”

“ The quarry is full of noises—the clank of the pumps, the rattle of the trucks, the hiss of pneumatic and steam drills, the clink of tampers and the rumble and rattle of the great rocks dislodged by crowbars from the cliffs. Men shout, too, and their voices are as the drone of little gnats; but sometimes, at the hour of blasting, an immense volume of sound is liberated, and the thunder of the explosion crashes round and round the cup and wakes a war of echoes thrown from cliff to cliff. ”

“ On the earth dead leaves make a russet warmth, brighter by contrast with the young green round about, and brilliant where sunlight winnows through. There, in the direct beam, flash little flies, which hang suspended upon the light like golden beads; while through the glades, young fern is spread for pleasant resting-places. Pigeons murmur aloft unseen, and many a grey-bird and black-bird sing beside their hidden homes. ”

“ Where low and treeless hills roll out to the cliffs, and the gulls cry their sea message over farms and fields, a mighty mouth opens upon the midst of the land and gapes five hundred feet into the earth. In shape of a crater it yawns, and its many-coloured cliffs slope from the surface inwards. The great cup is chased and jewelled. Round it run many galleries, some deserted, some alive with workers. Like threads of light they circle it, now opening upon the sides of the rounded cliffs, now suspended in air under perpendicular precipices. ”

“ One noble cliff falls sheer five hundred feet to a wilderness of rock, and across its huge front there hang aerial threads, like gossamers, while at its crown black wheels and chimneys tower into the sky. Below, upon the bluff of a crag, there turns a wheel, and a great pump, with intermittent jolt and grunt, sucks the water from the bottom of the quarry and sends it to tanks up aloft. ”

“ Beech and alder, with scrub of dwarf willow at their feet, cluster on the islets and climb the deepening valley westward; but in the glen stand aged trees, and on the crest of the slope haggard spruce firs still fight for life and mark, in their twisted and decaying timbers and perishing boughs, the torment of the unsleeping wind. Great is the contrast between these stricken ruins with death in their high tops, [80] and the sylva beneath sheltered by the granite hill. There beech and pine are prosperous and sleek compared with the unhappy, time-foundered wights above them ”

“ Shadow, too, plays its own sleight; the cliff that was sun-kissed fades and glooms, while the scarps and planes before shaded, shine out again and spread their splendour along the sea. Light and darkness race over the waves also, and now the fringes of foam flash far off in the sunshine and streak the distant bases of earth ”

“ Away in the heath and winding onward by many a curve may yet be traced the first railroad in the West Country. It started here, upon the frontier hills of Dartmoor, and sank mile upon mile to the valleys beneath. But of granite were wrought the lines, and over them ran ponderous wagons. Many thousand feet of stone were first cut for the railway, before those greater masses destined for London set forth upon it to their destination.
Like the empty quarry this deserted railway now lies silent, and the place of its passing on the hills and through the forest [51] beneath is at peace again. ”

“ Abundant life flows to the gate and circles the walls. Arable land ascends the hills, and the clank of plough and cry of man to his horses will soon be heard in the stubble of the corn. The orchards flash ruddy and gold; to-morrow they will be naked and grey; and then again they will foam with flowers and roll in a white sea to the castle walls. Time rings his rounds and forgets not this sequestered hollow. ”

“ Seen from beyond the stew ponds in the valley below, the ruins of Berry still present a noble vision piled among the tree-tops into the sky, and never can it more attract than at autumn time, when the wealth of the woods is scattered and only spruce and pine trail their green upon the grey and amber of the naked forest. ”

“ Centuries had weathered the stone so that every angle of its rounded head and four-sided shaft was softened. Time had wrought on the granite mass, as well as man, and fingering the relic through the ages, had blurred every line of the form, set grey lichens on the little head of the Christ that hung there and splashed the shaft with living russet and silver and jade-green. The old cross rose nine feet high, its simple [114] form clothed in a harmony of colours beautiful and delicate. ”

“ Compton's time-stained face and crown of ivy rise now above a plat of flowers. Trim borders of familiar things blossom within their box-hedges before the entrance, and at this autumn hour fat dahlias, spiring hollyhocks, and rainbows of asters and pansies wind a girdle beneath the walls.
It is a ruin of wide roofs and noble frontage. Above its windows sinister bartizans frown grimly; the portals yawn vast and deep; only the chapel-windows open frankly upon the face of the dwelling ”

“ Where once I roamed with only the gulls above and rabbits below for company, and for music the sigh of the wind in the bents and the song of the sea, half a hundred little houses have sprung up, and bungalows, red and white and green, throng the Warren. At hand is a railway-station, whence hundreds descend to take their pleasure, while easterly this once peaceful region is most populous and the Exmouth boats cross the estuary and land their passengers.
One does not grudge the joy of the place to townsfolk or golfers ”

“ Centuries have bedecked and adorned the sides of this stupendous pit; and while naked sheets and planes of colour, the work of recent years, still gleam starkly, all innocent of blade and leaf, elsewhere in deserted galleries and among cliff-faces torn bare by vanished generations of men, green things have made their home and flourished with luxuriance, to the eternal drip of surface water. ”

“ Great Scotch firs tower to the south, and the light burns redly in their boughs against the blue sky above them. A farmhouse nestles beside the old mansion under a roof of ancient thatch, that falls low over the dawn-facing front, and makes ragged eyelashes for the little windows. The face of the farm is nearly hidden in green things, and a colour note of mauve dominates the foliage where wistaria showers. There are climbing roses too, a Japanese quince, and wallflowers and columbines in the garden plot that subtends the dwelling. ”

“ And already, before it is one hundred years old, there comes a cry that London's heart finds this great artery too small for the stream of life that flows for ever upon it. One may hope, however, that when the necessity arrives, this notable bridge will not be spoiled, but another created hard by, if needs must, to fulfil the demands of traffic. Perhaps a second tunnel may solve the problem, since metropolitan man is turning so rapidly into a mole. ”

“ The birds are everywhere—cresting the finials of the rocks, swooping over the sea, busy teaching the little grey "squabs" to use their wings and trust the air. Now and then a coney thrusts his ears from a burrow, likes not the heat, and pops [44] back again to his cool, dark parlour. Brown hawks hang above the brown sward. Life seems to be retreating before the pitiless sun, yet the sear, scorched grasses will be green again in a few weeks when the cisterns of the autumn rains open upon them. ”

“ Steam puffs from the machines; they thrust their scoops into the fallen mass; at each dig they pick up a ton and a half of rubbish and then deposit it in a trolley that waits for the load hard by. A network of tram-lines branches every way in the bottom of the cup, and extends its fingers to the points of attack; and where they end—at smudges of silver-grey scattered about the bottom of the quarry—there creep little atoms, like mites on a cheese. ”

“ In the lap of many an enfolding hill Compton huddles its aged fabric, and, despite certain warlike additions, can have risen for no purpose of offence, for the land rakes it on every side; it stands at the bottom of a great green cup, whose slopes are crowned with fir and beech, whose sides now glimmer under stubble of corn, green of roots, and wealth of wide orchards, bright with the ripening harvest. Close at hand men make [32] ready the cider-presses again, and the cooper's mallet echoes among his barrels. ”

“ Nature had played with it and rendered it beautiful. Ivy crowns every turret and shattered wall; its limbs writhe like hydras in and out of the ruined windows, and twist their fingers into the rotting mortar; while along the tattered battlements and archways, grass and wild flowers grow rankly together and many saplings of oak and ash and thorn find foothold aloft. ”