A Shepherds Life | Page 2

has a repelling effect. Like Gilpin
they love not an undecorated earth; and false and ridiculous as Gilpin's
taste may seem to me and to all those who love the chalk, which "spoils
everything" as Gilpin said, he certainly expresses a feeling common to
those who are unaccustomed to the emptiness and silence of these great
spaces.
As to walking on the downs, one remembers that the fine days are not
so many, even in the season when they are looked for--they have
certainly been few during this wet and discomfortable one of 1909. It is
indeed only on the chalk hills that I ever feel disposed to quarrel with
this English climate, for all weathers are good to those who love the
open air, and have their special attractions. What a pleasure it is to be
out in rough weather in October when the equinoctial gales are on, "the
wind Euroclydon," to listen to its roaring in the bending trees, to watch
the dead leaves flying, the pestilence-stricken multitudes, yellow and
black and red, whirled away in flight on flight before the volleying
blast, and to hear and see and feel the tempests of rain, the big
silver-grey drops that smite you like hail! And what pleasure too, in the
still grey November weather, the time of suspense and melancholy
before winter, a strange quietude, like a sense of apprehension in nature!
And so on through the revolving year, in all places in all weathers,

there is pleasure in the open air, except on these chalk hills because of
their bleak nakedness. There the wind and driving rain are not for but
against you, and may overcome you with misery. One feels their
loneliness, monotony, and desolation on many days, sometimes even
when it is not wet, and I here recall an amusing encounter with a
bird-scarer during one of these dreary spells.
It was in March, bitterly cold, with an east wind which had been
blowing many days, and overhead the sky was of a hard, steely grey. I
was cycling along the valley of the Ebble, and finally leaving it pushed
up a long steep slope and set off over the high plain by a dusty road
with the wind hard against me. A more desolate scene than the one
before me it would be hard to imagine, for the land was all ploughed
and stretched away before me, an endless succession of vast grey fields,
divided by wire fences. On all that space there was but one living thing
in sight, a human form, a boy, far away on the left side, standing in the
middle of a big field with something which looked like a gun in his
hand. Immediately after I saw him he, too, appeared to have caught
sight of me, for turning he set off running as fast as he could over the
ploughed ground towards the road, as if intending to speak to me. The
distance he would have to run was about a quarter of a mile and I
doubted that he would be there in time to catch me, but he ran fast and
the wind was against me, and he arrived at the road just as I got to that
point. There by the side of the fence he stood, panting from his race, his
handsome face glowing with colour, a boy about twelve or thirteen,
with a fine strong figure, remarkably well dressed for a bird-scarer. For
that was what he was, and he carried a queer, heavy-looking old gun. I
got off my wheel and waited for him to speak, but he was silent, and
continued regarding me with the smiling countenance of one well
pleased with himself. "Well?" I said, but there was no answer; he only
kept on smiling.
"What did you want?" I demanded impatiently.
"I didn't want anything."
"But you started running here as fast as you could the moment you
caught sight of me."

"Yes, I did."
"Well, what did you do it for--what was your object in running here?"
"Just to see you pass," he answered.
It was a little ridiculous and vexed me at first, but by and by when I left
him, after some more conversation, I felt rather pleased; for it was a
new and somewhat flattering experience to have any person run a long
distance over a ploughed field, burdened with a heavy gun, "just to see
me pass."
But it was not strange in the circumstances; his hours in that grey,
windy desolation must have seemed like days, and it was a break in the
monotony, a little joyful excitement in getting to the road in time to see
a passer-by more closely, and for a few moments gave him a sense of
human companionship. I began