Stepping Westward

THE wayside hedgerow, gay with its autumn tints, stretched its undulating length beside the rather stony lane that wound upwards from the high road, and lost itself amid a multiplicity of sheep-tracks on the down.

It was one of those mild days that here in the south country cheat the fancy with their likeness, not merely to spring, but to summer. The sky was blue and cloudless; the birds were singing; the banks were still starred with many flowers: crane’s-bill, mallow and scabious. Here and there the gorse was blooming afresh, and new blossoms of guelder-rose surmounted, incongruously enough, twigs with claret-coloured leaves that dropped at a touch. Here, indeed, the finger of autumn had left its trace, and all along the hedge were tokens of its magic. Such miracles of colour as the conjurer had wrought this year are rarely to be seen: such goldens and ambers, such scarlets and crimsons; stretching away beyond the hedge were fields still silvery with night-dews, and woods shining with the incomparable burnish of the season.

Sol Bowditch, the hedger, had no eyes for any of these beauties, however; under the strokes of that uncompromising bill-hook of his the glories of the hedge were shorn. Bending his vigorous young body backwards, he threw all his strength into the task, and with each rhythmical swing of his sturdy arm a fresh victim fell. Now a branch of maple that seemed to shower stars as it dropped; now a jagged wild-rose, heavily laden with ruby provender which later on might have made many a starving bird happy; now a hazel-twig with a few belated nuts still clinging to their shrivelled wrappings; now, with quick sharp strokes, making short work of hawthorn and privet; again tearing, rather than cutting with his hook, long-tufted tendrils of jewelled bryony or hoary traveller’s-joy.

Thus was beauty laid low and nature’s kindly forethought set at nought. Farmer House cared little for the poetical aspect of things, and still less for the wants of the singing-birds; being apt, indeed, to speak of all wild creatures in a lump as “dratted varmint.” It was Sol Bowditch’s duty to please Farmer House, and so between them the birds’ winter store was trampled under foot or scattered to the winds.

Sol Bowditch was a stranger, having recently tramped hither all the way from Bridport in search of work; but though he had travelled on foot and carried his worldly goods in a small bundle, he was unquestionably an honest and respectable young fellow. No one who looked at his brown face and clear eyes could doubt that fact, and as for the manner in which he wielded his bill-hook it was, as the farmer said, a treat to see him.