The time when the fields were fullest of flowers; the time when the green wheat began to grow tall, and to contain wheatears like hidden treasures among its innumerable stalks; the time when it became golden; the time when the partridges called at even in the short stubble.
The sound of the wind in the oaks and in the pines; the rush it came with across the grass; the rustle of the dry corn swinging.
The light of the sun shining on the green sward, on the treetops, on the clouds at sunset.
Storms darkening the face of heaven; strong gales casting fragments of branches afar from the trees; thunder rolling back in heavier echoes from the hills; lightning springing athwart the darkness.
The blackness of frost; the white of the snow; the crystal rime in the early morning; the heavy days of long, long rain; moaning wind in the elms.
The first swallow, and the hawthorn leaf green on the dark bough; the song of the nightingale; the first call of the cuckoo; the first apple-bloom; the first scent of the hay; the first sheaf of wheat; the first beech-boughs turning red and gold.
The coming of the redwings, and the fieldfares; the thrushes singing again in the mild autumn days; the last harebell from the hill.
The stars rising, constellation by constellation, as the year went on; those that had fulfilled their time of shining in the evening sky marching to the westwards, while others came up in the east. The visible path of the earth rolling onward in space, made visible by night to those who watch the stars—visible by day in the shortening shadows of summer noon, and the long shadows of winter.
The glowing planets—calm Jupiter, red Mars, silvery Venus—glowing over the trees in the evening.
Swallows building under the eaves—swallows building in the chimneys; thrushes in the hawthorn-bushes; great missel-thrushes in the apple-trees of the orchard; the blue sparrow’s egg in the hedge; the chaffinch’s moss and lichen nest against the elm; the dove’s nest up in the copse, fearlessly building because no rude hand disturbed them; the pheasant’s eggs carelessly left on the ground by the bramble-bush, the corncrake’s found by the mower; the moorhen’s nest by the trout-pool.
She knew and loved them all—the colour and sound and light, the changing days, the creatures of the wood and of the field. With these she lived, and they became familiar to her, as the threads of the pattern are known to those who sit the livelong day embroidering—the woven embroidery of the earth; so beautiful, because without design.
Not so much the actual realities, the woods and hills, as the mystery that brooded among them. Yet “mystery” does not convey what she felt, for there was nothing concealed; rather it was the openness, the pure frankness of nature which drew her. Perhaps “glamour” would be better—the glamour of the woodland and the grassy solitude.
It was noticed that she gathered very few flowers, sometimes only bringing home some fragment of spray; it was what she felt among them that was so dear to her.
There were no women at Mr. Goring’s to show her the delicate lines that divide decorum from impropriety. He dreaded at first lest she should insensibly contract the manners of the village girls, although she did not consort with them; but he was soon set at rest on that point. Her manners remained as in the beginning; all the freedom of the fields did not induce the slightest change. Except that she romped with the great spaniel now and then, there was nothing she did the most fastidious could find fault with. Relieved of this fear, he let her wander whither she listed. Once only she overstepped the unwritten law of the country; she rode her pony into some young wheat, and galloped him to and fro.
It was Robert Godwin’s wheat, and he watched her do it in the wild delight of her youth. She had no thought of injury; she had found a broad open space, and she liked to spurn the earth and the fresh green blades of wheat beneath the pony’s hoofs.
He did not interfere; he let her trample it as much as she pleased. She was the only human being he did not drive.
Felise was very contrite when it was explained to her at home that she had done wrong; this happened in early days, not long after her arrival at Beechknoll.
Always out in the garden, or the field, or the copse with her uncle Goring, whom she called “papa,” he taught her the names of the trees and plants, the ways of the birds, the signs of spring, the indications of autumn. Sometimes he was trimming the shrubs in the garden, sometimes mending a gate, sometimes chopping poles with an axe in the copse. She brought a book and sat near him, every now and then asking questions—called every now and then to observe something.
The birds were bolder in this copse than elsewhere, for no gun was ever fired; even the herons came to the pool and the stream unchecked. Nothing was interfered with; not even the weasels. Yet every wild creature abounded, despite the absence of trap, gin, and gun.
To Felise, this man who knew so much was an interpreter—translating for her the language of the trees, the words of the wind, the song of the sun at his rising and his setting, the still calm intent of the stars. His gardening and planting was in reality only a manner of self-employment, so that he might be ever under the sun by day, under the stars in the evening, that he might be out-of-doors face to face with the wonders of the earth and sky.
So that it was not only the physical joy of her strong limbs that led her to the hill to climb and run with the wind. It was the open secret of the day, the
