A Traveller in Little Things | Page 3

now as if it had been yesterday, though it was sixty-five years ago.
He then went on to talk of the changes that had been going on in the
world since that happy time; but the greatest change of all was in the
appearance of things. He had had a hard life, and the hardest time was
when he was a ploughboy and had to work so hard that he was tired to
death at the end of every day; yet at four o'clock in the morning he was
ready and glad to get up and go out to work all day again because
everything looked so bright, and it made him happy just to look up at
the sky and listen to the birds. In those days there were larks. The
number of larks was wonderful; the sound of their singing filled the
whole air. He didn't want any greater happiness than to hear them
singing over his head. A few days ago, not more than half a mile from
where we were standing, he was crossing a field when a lark got up
singing near him and went singing over his head. He stopped to listen
and said to himself, "Well now, that do remind me of old times!"
"For you know," he went on, "it is a rare thing to hear a lark now.
What's become of all the birds I used to see I don't know. I remember
there was a very pretty bird at that time called the yellow-hammer--a
bird all a shining yellow, the prettiest of all the birds." He never saw
nor heard that bird now, he assured me.
That was how the old man talked, and I never told him that yellow
hammers could be seen and heard all day long anywhere on the
common beyond the green wall of the elms, and that a lark was singing
loudly high up over our heads while he was talking of the larks he had
listened to sixty-five years ago in the Vale of Aylesbury, and saying
that it was a rare thing to hear that bird now.

III
AS A TREE FALLS
At the Green Dragon, where I refreshed myself at noon with bread and
cheese and beer, I was startlingly reminded of a simple and, I suppose,
familiar psychological fact, yet one which we are never conscious of
except at rare moments when by chance it is thrust upon us.
There are many Green Dragons in this world of wayside inns, even as
there are many White Harts, Red Lions, Silent Women and other
incredible things; but when I add that my inn is in a Wiltshire village,
the headquarters of certain gentlemen who follow a form of sport which
has long been practically obsolete in this country, and indeed
throughout the civilised world, some of my readers will have no
difficulty in identifying it.
After lunching I had an hour's pleasant conversation with the genial
landlord and his buxom good-looking wife; they were both natives of a
New Forest village and glad to talk about it with one who knew it
intimately. During our talk I happened to use the words--I forget what
about--"As a tree falls so must it lie." The landlady turned on me her
dark Hampshire eyes with a sudden startled and pained look in them,
and cried: "Oh, please don't say that!'
"Why not?" I asked. "It is in the Bible, and a quite common saying."
"I know," she returned, "but I can't bear it--I hate to hear it!"
She would say no more, but my curiosity was stirred, and I set about
persuading her to tell me. "Ah, yes," I said, "I can guess why. It's
something in your past life--a sad story of one of your family--one very
much loved perhaps--who got into trouble and was refused all help
from those who might have saved him."
"No," she said, "it all happened before my time--long before. I never
knew her." And then presently she told me the story.

When her father was a young man he lived and worked with his father,
a farmer in Hampshire and a widower. There were several brothers and
sisters, and one of the sisters, named Eunice, was most loved by all of
them and was her father's favourite on account of her beauty and sweet
disposition. Unfortunately she became engaged to a young man who
was not liked by the father, and when she refused to break her
engagement to please him he was dreadfully angry and told her that if
she went against him and threw herself away on that worthless fellow
he would forbid her the house and would never see or speak to her
again.
Being of an affectionate disposition and fond of her father it grieved
her