Chapter III

I often wonder how it is that the old saying, about March and its leonine or lamb-like incomings and outgoings, should have kept so sturdily its place in popular credence. Looking through a pile of old note-books ranging back over a couple of decades or so, I find that, in the majority of years, March has both begun and ended in the lamb-like character. The lion appears only in the rôle of an interloper, a go-between; for, almost invariably, there has been a period of chilly, riotous weather sometime after the middle of the month.

So it has come about this season. Yesterday was a day without a flaw; and as the sun began at last to mellow and decline, dragging a net of shining golden haze behind it over the western hills, I gave up a day-long, though still unfinished task, and went to sit awhile on the churchyard wall.

The north-west wall is the last rampart of Windlecombe. It is made of flint, with an oval, red-brick coping of generous breadth: there is none in the parish, as far as I know, but can be comfortable upon it. Sitting thereon side-saddle-wise, you have a view, on the one hand, of the grey stones and evergreenery of the churchyard, and, on the other, your glance can wander unchecked straight down the combe to the river, then forward over the brook-country to the far-off Stavisham woods. As yet the light had abated scarce a jot of its dynamic brilliance. Shadows were long, and the white house-fronts had taken on a leaven of rosy sweetness; but in the most retiring nooks it was still broad day. I turned my back on the serene prospect of level plain, where here and there the sunlight picked out a glittering coil of river, and set myself to the contemplation of a remarkable fellowship near at hand.

Close by the wall stood an almond-tree, its wide-spreading branches covered to the tips with pink blossom, and behind it glowered and gloomed a venerable yew. The one tree, as it were, reached out glad, welcoming arms to the spring, squandering its all to make one hour of joyous festival at the return of the prodigal light; the other turned but a niggardly side-eye on all the inflowing radiance of the season. It seemed to be trying to do its least and worst, to discount the extravagant jubilation of its neighbour. For very shame it could not wholly resist the call of the sunshine. Grudgingly it put forth, at the tip of each sombre green frond, a sparse sprig of lighter green. And because the almond-tree threw down its spent blossom in largesse of rosy litter upon the grass below, this dour-natured vegetable, turning its necessities to virtuous account, now shed the dead brown buds of the foregoing year, sending this rubbish fluttering to earth with the same hesitant, sidelong action with which the almond petals fell, as though in a mockery of imitation.

As I sat on the wall with my back to the declining sun,—humouring this, and many similar far-fetched, vain conceits as the best antidote I knew against the day’s long overstrain of fancy,—high overhead in the church tower hard by, the bell began its quiet summons for evensong. Through gaps in the thicket of ilex and laurel, I saw, first, the tall, gaunt figure of the Reverend go by on the litten-path with his vast, confident stride, the pallid threadpaper of a curate flickering at his heels. After them came Miss Sweet, the rich and lonely spinster up at the great house, mincing along under a puce sunshade, with an extended handful of ivory books; then Mrs. Coles from the farm, as ever, hot and out of breath; finally, at a respectful interval carefully calculated, three or four of the village women dribbled through, and disappeared into the north porch after the rest.

The usual weekly congregation being now complete, the bell stopped. The harmonium gave out one low, sonorous note, which on weekdays was the beginning and end of its share in the service. For the next twenty minutes, no other sound drifted over to me but the clucking and whistling of the starlings on the chancel roof. And then, having become again immersed in the affair of the yew and almond trees, both now alike steeped by the setting sun in the same rose-red dye, I was startled by a hand on my arm. The Reverend stood at my side, ruddy-faced, red-bearded, the very blackness of his clothes changed mysteriously to the like glowing hue. His kind eyes looked straight into mine, just as if he could see them.

‘A fine evening, isn’t it?’ he said, ‘just one rich flood of crimson without form—only a great light spreading up the sky from where the sun has disappeared; spreading up and gradually paling and changing until there is nothing but pure blue, with one silver peg of a star sticking in it—is it not so?’

‘Why, no, it is not quite that,’ said I, considering, ‘the star is there sure enough, and the great red light. But the red does not merge into blue, it melts gradually into a wonderful, luminous, metallic green, with the star, almost white, swimming in the midst of it. Far overhead the sky is blue enough, and up there more stars are blinking out every moment. But the green! If you could only see its—’

‘Snow!’ interrupted the old vicar placidly.

‘What!’

‘Snow. Wind first, a gale perhaps; and then the snow. You will see. What says the almond-tree here?’

‘It says,’ I contended, ‘but one word. Spring!—abounding new life and growth; sunshine kindling stronger and stronger every day; the winter gone and already half forgotten. With every pink bloom it promises nightingales, and white flannels and straw hats and—’

‘Ah! And you never will grow up now: you’re too old. The almond-blossom?—it lies in my memory always side by side with the snowdrop and the Christmas-rose. Snow-flowers, all three! Wait a little, and be convinced. But now look, and tell me which way the chimney-smoke is blowing.’

‘Blowing! There is not a breath of—’

There was more than a breath down there in the fair-way of the combe, although here we could feel nothing of it. Under the deep red dusk I could make out the smoke-plumes from the village chimneys all driving off at a sharp right-angle to the south. Even as I looked, there came a sudden flaw of wind overhead that set the yew boughs rocking, and its voice was the old-remembered voice. The north wind again! Somewhere in its black tangled depths the yew-tree creaked derisively. The Reverend put his arm through mine.

‘But it is mercifully late,’ he said, as we turned homeward together. ‘Artlett need not fear for his lambs now, nor I for mine. Is the sky already overcast? Or am I only blinder than usual?’