Chapter II

That summer is drawing to its end, and autumn close at hand, one need not look at the calendar to know. Throughout a morning’s walk, signs of imminent change crop up now at every turn. The wild arums that you have forgotten since last you saw them turning their pale green cowls from the light, give out a bold glitter of scarlet in the shady deeps under every hedgerow. Each day sees the hips and haws growing ruddier. Though September is scarce half gone, the green bracken-fronds in the woods are already alight at the tips with crimson and gold; and the heather on the combe-side has lost its clear rose-red. The song of the bees in it seems as loud as ever, but for every tuft of living blossom there are two that are faded and brown. The good times are nearly over for the honey-makers, and each day the gathering of a full load of nectar means travelling farther afield.

I wonder why it is I always look forward to the renewal of the year’s life with so much eagerness and impatience, and yet meet its decline with such surpassing equanimity. Am I—I have often asked myself lately—the same being who industriously searched the river bank for a whole bleak February morning in quest of the first coltsfoot, greeting it with an unconscionable extravagance of rejoicing: I who now tread the same way in nowise perturbed, nor even unelated, at the obvious fact of each day’s lessened ardour? The truth that the year is already on the long downward road, riding for its winter fall, awakens in me not a pang of regret. Indeed, I neither remember the departed magnificence of June as something lost, nor regard the ever-diminishing September days as portent of penurious times to come. With autumn, as with advancing age, when once each is assured, irrevocable, the natural tendency seems to be towards a looking neither backward nor forward, but towards a joyful acceptance of the things that are. And so, at these times, whatever our declared principles, we one and all develop, or degenerate, into optimists.

But, of a truth, it needs very little of this mental condiment to be happy in a Sussex Downland village in September. Perhaps none but the very old can, at any time, sincerely avow a repugnance towards machinery in farming: certainly, at this season of the year, the whole spirit of village life receives benefit from it. They have been threshing up at the farm to-day, and from sunrise to sunset, all through the still, quiet, golden hours, the voice of the threshing mill has permeated everything, blent itself with the song of the robins in the garden, with the chime from the smithy, with all the other sounds of labour that go to make up the silence of country dwelling-places. I have come to look upon this sound as the veritable keynote of autumn, and to believe that it has an influence on all hearts at this season, entirely underrated by those whose business it is to study rural affairs.

It is the fashion to contemn the old melodramatic trick of still-music; but, for my own part, I have never been able to resist the low sobbing and sighing of the violins when the stage-story is being cleared up, all wrongs righted, and the villain given his due. The speech itself is nothing to me. It is seldom regarded, and remembered never. I should be just as deeply moved if all that leashed, melodious passion went as setting to ‘Old Mother Hubbard’ or ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’ And on the same principle, when this beautiful, solemn voice of the threshing mill dwells in the autumnal air, I find myself doing the commonest things with a sense of high Fate and speeding of the world’s progress. But, indeed, Nature works throughout largely on this still-music plan, and therein lies one inestimable advantage of living in the country. Bird song, to all intents and purposes, unceasing throughout the year—the songs of stream, river, and sea—the songs of the four winds—all work together for good on the hearts of those men and women who, by their own design, or by external destiny, have been led to keep their thread of life running by green woods and fields.

As the sun went down behind the hills, and left the world afloat in wine-coloured mist, every sound of work ceased in the village, save this rich throbbing voice of the threshing mill up at the farm. I went out into the dreaming light to listen to it. From where I sat on the churchyard wall, I could make out that they were prolonging the work into the dusk, so that the last rick might be finished now, and the threshing gang move on to-night to the next farm. There was the deep sound of the mill itself, one tremendous baritone note succeeding another, each held for a moment, and then suddenly changing to one higher or lower in the sonorous clef. Apart from this, I could distinguish the fuss and fume of the engine, as it drove its white breath in little unsteady gusts up against the violet calm of the sky. And there was another sound—the flapping song of the driving-belt—a note that punctuated everything, as though some invisible conductor were beating time to the general symphony. But the combined effect of all was infinitely harmonious and restful.

Yet I had come out, in the main, to hear, not this familiar part of the music, but something about it that I loved to hear most of all; and this was the stopping of the machine. It was almost dark before the last sheaf went to the mill, and steam was shut off. And then the wonderful note began. The machine took an appreciable time to run down. But now there was no upward inflection in its voice. Note by note, each note more drawn out and quieter, the rich tones fell through every stage of an octave, until at last they died away in the profoundest, softest bass. Even then I fancied I could feel the solid earth still shuddering with a music too deep for human ear.