News from the Duchy | Page 2

took an idle delight in recognising.
(He is gone now, and his place knows him no more; yet I continue to
hope for sight of a black rabbit just there.) But this afternoon I looked

out with special interest because, happening to pass down the line two
days before, I had noted a gang of navvies at work on the culvert; and
among them, as they stood aside to let the train pass, I had recognised
my friend Joby Tucker, their ganger, and an excellent fellow to boot.
Therefore my eyes were alert as we approached the curve that opens
the meadow into view, and--as I am a Christian man, living in the
twentieth century--I saw this Vision: I beheld beneath the shade of the
midmost oak eight men sitting stark naked, whereof one blew on a flute,
one played a concertina, and the rest beat their palms together, marking
the time; while before them, in couples on the sward, my gang of
navvies rotated in a clumsy waltz watched by a ring of solemn
ruminant kine!
I saw it. The whole scene, barring the concertina and the navvies'
clothes, might have been transformed straight from a Greek vase of the
best period. Here, in this green corner of rural England on a workaday
afternoon (a Wednesday, to be precise), in full sunlight, I saw this
company of the early gods sitting, naked and unabashed, and piping,
while twelve British navvies danced to their music. . . . I saw it; and a
derisive whistle from the engine told me that driver and stoker saw it
too. I was not dreaming, then. But what on earth could it mean? For
fifteen seconds or so I stared at the Vision . . . and so the train joggled
past it and rapt it from my eyes.
I can understand now the ancient stories of men who, having by hap
surprised the goddesses bathing, never recovered from the shock but
thereafter ran wild in the woods with their memories.
At the next station I alighted. It chanced to be the station for which I
had taken my ticket; but anyhow I should have alighted there. The spell
of the vision was upon me. The Norman porch might wait. It is (as I
have said) used to waiting, and in fact it has waited. I have not yet
made another holiday to visit it. Whether or no the market-women and
the local policeman had beheld, I know not. I hope not, but now shall
never know. . . . The engine-driver, leaning in converse with the
station-master, and jerking a thumb backward, had certainly beheld.
But I passed him with averted eyes, gave up my ticket, and struck

straight across country for the spot.
I came to it, as my watch told me, at twenty minutes after five. The
afternoon sunlight still lay broad on the meadow. The place was
unchanged save for a lengthening of its oak-tree shadows. But the
persons of my Vision--naked gods and navvies--had vanished. Only the
cattle stood, knee-deep in the pool, lazily swishing their tails in protest
against the flies; and the cattle could tell me nothing.
Just a fortnight later, as I spent at St. Blazey junction the forty odd
minutes of repentance ever thoughtfully provided by our railway
company for those who, living in Troy, are foolish enough to travel, I
spied at some distance below the station a gang of men engaged in
unloading rubble to construct a new siding for the clay-traffic, and at
their head my friend Mr. Joby Tucker. The railway company was
consuming so much of my time that I felt no qualms in returning some
part of the compliment, and strolled down the line to wish Mr. Tucker
good day. "And, by the bye," I added, "you owe me an explanation.
What on earth were you doing in Treba meadow two Wednesdays
ago--you and your naked friends?"
Joby leaned on his measuring rod and grinned from ear to ear.
"You see'd us?" he asked, and, letting his eyes travel along the line, he
chuckled to himself softly and at length. "Well, now, I'm glad o' that.
'Fact is, I've been savin' up to tell 'ee about it, but (thinks I) when I tells
Mr. Q. he won't never believe."
"I certainly saw you," I answered; "but as for believing--"
"Iss, iss," he interrupted, with fresh chucklings; "a fair knock-out, wasn'
it? . . . You see, they was blind--poor fellas!"
"Drunk?"
"No, sir--blind--'pity the pore blind'; three-parts blind, anyways, an'
undergoin' treatment for it."

"Nice sort of treatment!"
"Eh? You don't understand. See'd us from the train, did 'ee? Which
train?"
"The 1.35 ex Millbay."
"Wish I'd a-knowed you was watchin' us. I'd ha' waved my hat as you
went by, or