The Dewy Morn

Volume I

I

The sunbeams streamed over Ashpen Hill into a broad lane, a little after four in the morning. Felise was walking slowly towards the hill, which was yet at some distance, staying every moment to glance aside into the green and dew-laden hedges. On her right the hedge came to the sward; on the left a bank rose, and the hedge went along the summit.

The fragrance of the dew, invisibly evaporating, filled the air she breathed. From sweet-green hawthorn leaves, from heavy grasses drooping, the glittering drops dissolving brought with them the odour of leaf and flower. The larks, long since up, had sung the atmosphere clear of the faint white mist left by the night.

She found blue veronica in a bunch of grass under a dead thorn-branch, blown by the winds months ago out from the hedge. She lifted up the branch to fling it aside, and give the flowers more room and freedom; but she replaced it, reflecting that the thorns would perhaps prevent passing sheep from treading on them.

Upon the bank there was a cowslip; one stalk bore deep orange flowers, the others bunches yet unopened, and clothed in delicate green. Felise took the flower, which no bee had yet sipped, put it to her lips, and then placed it in her dress.

She stepped lightly round the smooth brown boulder-stones with which the lane was dotted in places—rude disjointed efforts at paving—beside which grew bunches of rushes, safe there from the cartwheels. Not even cartwheels could stand the jolt over these iron rocks. She walked sometimes on the elevated sides of the ruts—the earth had been forced up by the crushing weight of wagon-loads; they were grass-grown, and the grass hung over the groove, along which weasels often hunted.

Sometimes she trod the sward by the bank, where it was short, and full of threeleaved clover whose white bloom was not yet out; then, crossing to the opposite side, she sauntered by the hedge there, letting the hawthorn brush her skirt, and the soft green hooks of the young bramble-shoots strive in vain to hold her.

An ash-branch stood out to bar her path. She stopped and touched it, and counted the leaves on the sprays; they were all uneven.

In the grass ahead the pinkish ears of a young rabbit stood up; he was nibbling peacefully, heedless of her approach. Not till she was close did he raise himself to look at her, first sitting on his haunches, then as if about to beg, then away into the burrow.

Her white hand wandered presently among more blue veronica flowering on the slope of the bank. She did not gather—she touched only, and went on. She touched, too, the tips of some brake, freshly-green, and rising rapidly now day by day. A rush of wings—a wood-pigeon came over; he was startled, and, swerving, went higher into the air.

There was honeysuckle on the hedge above the bank, too far to reach. She took a hawthorn leaf, felt it, and dropped it; then pulled a bennet, or grass-stalk, and dropped that; then pulled a rush, and left it. A lover might have tracked her easily by the footmarks on the dewy grass—by the rush thrown down, and by the white handkerchief which she had carried in her hand and unconsciously dropped. A robin came to look at the handkerchief before she had gone many minutes; he thought perhaps there might be a crumb, and he is, too, very inquisitive.

Felise sat down on a great trunk of oak lying in the lane by a gateway, and sighed with very depth of enjoyment. There was a yellowhammer perched on the gate, and he had been singing. When Felise approached, he ceased; but seeing that she was quiet and intended him no harm, he began again. His four or five rising notes, and the long-drawn idle-sounding note with which they conclude, suited so well with the sunshine, they soothed her still further. She sighed again, and let herself sit loosely on the oak-trunk, like the yellowhammer. He had his back humped, and all his body rested comfortably. So did she; she permitted her back to bow, her shoulders to stoop, her limbs to relax, and idle nature to have her own way. After a while she sighed again.

She was bathing in the beauty of the morning—floating upheld on the dewy petals. A swimmer lies on the warm summer water, the softest of couches, extended at full length, the body so gently held that it undulates slightly with the faint swell. So soft is the couch it softens the frame, which becomes supple, flexible, like the water itself.

Felise was lying on the flowers and grass, extended under the sun, steeped in their sweetness. She visibly sat on the oak-trunk—invisibly her nature was reclining, as the swimmer on the sun-warmed sea. Her frame drooped as the soul, which bears it up, flowed outwards, feeling to grass, and flower, and leaf, as the swimmer spreads the arms abroad, and the fingers feel the water. She sighed with deep content, dissolving in the luxurious bath of beauty.

Her strong heart beating, the pulses throbbing, her bosom rising and regularly sinking with the rich waves of life; her supple limbs and roundness filled with the plenty of ripe youth; her white, soft, roseate skin, the surface where the sun touched her hand glistening with the dew of the pore; the bloom upon her—that glow of the morn of life—the hair more lovely than the sunlight; the grace unwritten of perfect form—these produced within her a sense of existence—a consciousness of being, to which she was abandoned; and her lips parted to sigh. The sigh was the expression of feeling herself to be.

To be! To live! To have an intense enjoyment in every inspiration of breath; in every beat of the pulse; in every movement of the limbs; in every sense!

The rugged oak-trunk was pleasant to her. She placed her hand on the brown, stained wood—stained with its own sap, for the bark had been removed. She touched it; and so full of life was her touch, that it found a pleasure in that rude wood. The brown boulder-stone in the lane, ancient, smoothed, and ground in times which have vanished like a cloud, its surface the colour of old polished oak, reflecting the sun with a dull gleam—the very boulder-stone was pleasant to her, so full of life was her sense of sight.

There came a skylark, dropping over the hedge, and alighted on a dusty level spot in the lane. His shadow shot a foot long on the dust, thrown by the level beams of the sun. The dust, in shadow and sunshine—the despised dust—now that the lark drew her glance to it, was pleasant to see.

All things are joyously beautiful to those who feel themselves to be; but it is only given to the chosen of nature to know this exceeding delight.

In herself rapt, the whole face of earth and sky ministered to her, each and all that made up the visible world was flung at her feet. They did homage—Felise, queen of herself, was queen of all.

It was love without a lover—love absorbed in itself. Her whole existence was quivering with love; this intensity of life was love. She was gathering from sunlight, azure sky and grassy fields, from dewy hills and all the morning, an immense strength to love. Her parted lips sighed—there was such store and warmth of love within them. Without a thought she thought deeply, pondering, weighed down on herself with weight of feeling. Her own intense existence absorbed her.

Till looking that way, she saw that there was now a broad space between the lower rim of the sun and the hill she meant to climb; then she got up, and went on. She had started in time to see the sun rise, from its summit, but had idled and dallied with flowers and green boughs on the way, and lost the sunrise.

II

The lane became more rugged; then there was a sudden dip, and in the hollow of the dip a streamlet ran across. A blackbird had been splashing in the water; and, as she came over the slope, rose up loudly calling. He perched on the hedge, looked towards her impudently from his dark eyes, half a mind to defy her, so bold was he in his beauty of blackest black and tawny bill. But as she stepped nearer he went off, again loudly calling and startling every bird in the field.

The streamlet was so shallow the small flints were only half submerged, and the water was but a few inches wide. The sand which the blackbird had disturbed floated quickly away, leaving it perfectly pure. Felise stooped, dipped her fingers, and watched the drops fall sparkling from them. She felt the water; she liked to touch all things—the sunlight shone the brighter on her hand because it was wet.

Beyond the streamlet the lane rose rapidly, rugged and narrow; the hedges ceased, and only a hawthorn-bush here and there appeared on the banks. Presently it became a deep white groove, worn in chalk.

Felise stepped quickly now, and in a few minutes reached the foot of the hill, where the lane left the straight line, and went up the Downs aslant, so that wagons might be drawn up, which they could not have been had the track been straight.

The moment Felise’s foot touched the sward, she began to run up the hill, making direct for the ridge, like a hare, or a bee bent for the thyme above. Her arched insteps, like springs, threw her forwards; her sinews strung and strong, lifted her easily. Her weight did not press the turf—it was for the time suspended between her swift bounds. Rejoicing, her deep chest opened, the pliant ribs, like opening fingers, made room for cubic feet of purest atmosphere. The air inhaled lifted her; she was lighter and more swift.

Forced into the blood, the strong hill air intoxicated her. She forgot all; she saw nothing—neither the sun, the sky, nor the slope itself; her entire being was occupied in putting forth her strength. Up—from thyme-bunch to thyme-bunch; past grey flat flints; past rusty ironstone fragments; past the parallel paths, a few inches wide, which streaked the hill—up, straight for the summit!

A lark, startled, fled, but immediately began to soar and sing. The landscape widened beneath; there were woods and bright fields. She did not see the fields, or woods, or hear the lark; nor notice the flints which, like lesser milestones, marked her run. Her limbs grew stronger, her bounds more powerful, as her breath was drawn in long, deep inspirations. The labour increased her strength; her appetite for the work grew as she went. She ran and drank the wind to have more of herself—to have the fullness of her own existence. The great heart within her throbbed and bore her, replying to her spirit.

More flints, more thyme—a stonechat flitted away—longer grass, more slippery, the slope steeper, still—up!

Yet the strong limbs could not bound quite so far; the feet fell as swiftly, but the space covered was not so wide. There was effort now.

Brave as may be the heart of woman, yet the high hills must try it. So great was the rush of the aerated blood, it seemed to threaten to suffocate her. The supple knees could not straighten themselves; they remained slightly bent. The pliant ribs, opened to their widest, seemed forced outwards by an expansive power which must break them to get free. Her head was thrown back: she did not look now at the ridge; she looked up at the sky. Surely the summit must be near?

She would have dropped rather than give up; she would have dropped like a hunted animal before she would have yielded.

The time when she knew she must fall was numbered now but by seconds. The strong air which at first gave such a sense of vigour was now too strong; it began to take away her breath. She did not feel her limbs; they moved mechanically, though still quickly. She saw nothing but the sky. Five seconds more, and down she must go: not even that great heart could bear more.

But she was nearer than she knew. Suddenly the slope became less steep, where the summit seemed planed away; her feet went along instead of having to be lifted. She looked and saw the thorn-bush on the ridge before her. She stopped by the bush; she had done it—the hill was conquered.

She could not stand quite still; she walked slowly forwards—the sudden relief to her panting chest was unbearable if she stood. Pant, pant; throb, throb! But her heart sang in its throbs; her eyes gleamed with delight. She walked slowly in a circle, and came back to the old thorn-bush. She could stand now. She looked towards the horizon, blue where it met the descending dome of the sky.

First her gaze went straight out to the farthest, where earth appeared immaterial like the sky; after that it travelled back to her, over woods, the gleam of water, more woods, which were less dense, and had glades of green meadows between them; then rested for awhile on a red roof among sycamores and elms—home—then came nearer. And now she looked down having previously looked out—down on the lane, and on the cornfields; thatched roofs yonder on the left, and early smoke rising; an idle windmill; a church-tower, round which black specks of daws were wheeling; and cornfields, brightly green. Her heart sang within her. She triumphed; she was full of her own life.

In all that vast plain there was not a woman that could have done it, and not two men.

There was nothing large, gigantic, or Amazonian about her; it was the perfection of her physical nature, not size or training. Her natural body had been further perfected by a purely natural life. The wind, the sun, the fields, the hills—freedom, and the spirit which dwells among these, had made her a natural woman; such a woman as Earth meant to live upon her surface, and as Earth intended in the first origin of things: beauty and strength—strength and beauty.

What a latent power of love was there in that richness of blood, that depth of chest, that greatness of heart! Pure love, pure as the springwater that comes from the hills, was there ready to be poured forth—always full, always pouring, always the same and always pure.

Felise walked along the summit of the hill till she reached the place on the other side where it sloped downwards. There the dew had fully dried—it was the eastern slope, and so received the full rays of the sun from his earliest rising. In summer he rises with his full rays, and steps at once in all his fiery strength up over the eastern horizon. The turf was perfectly dry; she sat down, facing eastwards.

Now, for the first time, she heard the larks singing; she had been too full of her own thoughts and efforts to listen before.