Wandering Heath

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Wandering Heath, by Sir Arthur Thomas

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Title: Wandering Heath
Author: Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Release Date: July 3, 2006 [eBook #18750]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANDERING HEATH***
E-text prepared by Lionel Sear

WANDERING HEATH.
by
ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH.
1895 This e-text was prepared from a reprint of a version published in 1895.

The stories in this volume made their first appearance in England as follows: "The Roll-Call of the Reef" in The Idler; "The Looe Die-hards" in The Illustrated London News, where it was entitled "The Power o' Music"; "Jetsom" and "The Bishop of Eucalyptus" in The Pall Mall Magazine; "Visitors at the Gunnel Rock" in The Strand Magazine; "Flowing Source" in The Woman at Home; and the rest, with one exception, in the friendly pages of The Speaker.

CONTENTS.
PROLOGUE.
THE ROLL-CALL OF THE REEF.
THE LOOE DIE-HARDS.
MY GRANDFATHER, HENDRY WATTY.
JETSOM.
WRESTLERS.
THE BISHOP OF EUCALYPTUS.
WIDDERSHINS.
VISITORS AT THE GUNNEL ROCK.
LETTERS FROM TROY--
I. THE FIRST PARISH MEETING. II. THE SIMPLE SHEPHERD.
LEGENDS--
I. THE LEGEND OF SIR DINAR. II. "FLOWING SOURCE".
EXPERIMENTS--
I. A YOUNG MAN'S DIARY. II. THE CAPTAIN FROM BATH.

PROLOGUE.
"What is the use of it?" the Poet demanded peevishly--it was New Year's Day in the morning. "People don't read my poetry when I have gone to the trouble of writing it!"
"The more shame to them," said his wife.
"But, my dear, you know you never read it yourself."
"Oh, that is altogether different. Besides you are improving, are you not?" She asked it a trifle anxiously, but the question set him off at once.
"In twenty years' time--" he began eagerly.
"--The boy will be at college." She laid down her needle and embroidery and, gazing into the fire, let her hands lie idle in her lap.
"You might think of me."
"I thought," she answered, "you were doing that."
"Of yourself, then."
"In twenty years' time--" She broke off with the faintest possible sigh.
The Poet jumped up and went to his writing-desk. "That reminds me," he said, and produced a folded scrap of paper. "I wrote it last night. It's a sort of a little New Year's present--you need not read it, you know."
"But I will": and she took the paper and read--
UPON NEW YEAR'S EVE
Now winds of winter glue Their tears upon the thorn, And earth has voices few, And those forlorn.
And 'tis our solemn night When maidens sand the porch, And play at Jack's Alight With burning torch,
Or cards, or Kiss i' the Ring-- While ashen faggots blaze, And late wassailers sing In miry ways.
Then, dear my wife, be blithe To bid the New Year hail And welcome--plough, drill, scythe, And jolly flail.
For though the snows he'll shake Of winter from his head, To settle, flake by flake, On ours instead;
Yet we be wreathed green Beyond his blight or chill, Who kissed at seventeen And worship still.
We know not what he'll bring: But this we know to-night-- He doth prepare the Spring For our delight.
With birds he'll comfort us, With blossoms, balms, and bees, With brooks, and odorous Wild breath o' the breeze.
Come then, O festal prime! With sweets thy bosom fill, And dance it, dripping thyme, On Lantick hill.
West wind, awake! and comb Our garden, blade from blade-- We, in our little home, Sit unafraid.
--"Why, I quite like it!" said she.

THE ROLL-CALL OF THE REEF.
"Yes, sir," said my host the quarryman, reaching down the relics from their hook in the wall over the chimney-piece; "they've hung there all my time, and most of my father's. The women won't touch 'em; they're afraid of the story. So here they'll dangle, and gather dust and smoke, till another tenant comes and tosses 'em out o' doors for rubbish. Whew! 'tis coarse weather."
He went to the door, opened it, and stood studying the gale that beat upon his cottage-front, straight from the Manacle Reef. The rain drove past him into the kitchen, aslant like threads of gold silk in the shine of the wreckwood fire. Meanwhile by the same firelight I examined the relics on my knee. The metal of each was tarnished out of knowledge. But the trumpet was evidently an old cavalry trumpet, and the threads of its parti-coloured sling, though frayed and dusty, still hung together. Around the side-drum, beneath its cracked brown varnish, I could hardly trace a royal coat-of-arms, and a legend running--Per Mare per Terram--the motto of the Marines. Its parchment, though coloured and scented with wood-smoke, was limp and mildewed; and I began to tighten up the straps--under which the drumsticks had been loosely thrust--with the idle purpose of trying if some music might be got out of