My Wandering Week, Part V

The Weekly Machen

In the summer of 1913, the Evening News commissioned Arthur Machen to set forth and do one of the things he did best: wandering. The G & S bibliography lists three installments of this journey. You may read Parts 1 and 2, but unfortunately, Part 3 remains unrecovered. However, my rummaging disinterred a previously unknown Part 4, and most recently, this fifth installment. Who knows… perhaps there are more to be discovered. For now, we can rejoin Machen on his wandering as he skillfully describes for us the lovely English countryside populated by curious and amusing figures. Had Machen been a world traveler, no doubt he would have added to the venerable tradition of the travelogue.

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My Wandering Week:
Part 5 – Among the High Places
by
Arthur Machen
July 31, 1913

Dunster stands, as I have said, for penthouses. It is noteworthy also for a rushing brook—the Avel Water, I think they call it—that comes down cold and clear from the heart of Exmoor, for the vision of giant heights, and steep wooded hills, for the resonance of mellow bells, for the sight of the headland and the misty summer sea.

This last delight I only discovered when I came out to the lawn behind the Luttrell Arms. This is a goodly inn, an inn rich in curious medieval work, in a high pitched fifteenth-century chamber, with carved beams and angels bearing them up, and—let it be said since we be mortals—in an excellent cook and in famous cider.

And from the garden at the back of it one looks out, the castellated “Folly” on the wooded hill behind, the real castle rising from the woods to the right, down over sloping park-like meadows to the incoming of the tides as they wash against the cliff. And then as I gazed toward the sea, the deep, full clanging of the bell began to sound, echoing from the hills, reverberant in the valleys, filling the soft air with its overtones, dying and yet aspiring. It was six o’clock; they were ringing the Angelus as they have rung it, morning and evening, these many hundred years.

The next morning “old Jack Poole,” as he calls himself, took me in hand, and in a dog-cart. Old Jack has known the country for fifty years; and he has accumulated such wisdom as to the roads and the wind and the whims and ways of the red deer that he is ready to guarantee a sight of the death of anyone who likes to put himself into his keeping.

Glorious Country

It was Sunday, so there was no question of hunting. Mr. Poole was instructed to show me the country, and he showed me about twenty-eight glorious miles of it. The landlord insisted on packing a basket with a bottle of beer. This struck me as unnecessary, as I was to lunch at Porlock, but a sympathetic bystander said very seriously, “When you’m to Dunkery you’ll find it go down,” and I am bound to say that there was a good deal in this counsel.

We drove down the hill, and turned past the “Nunnery”—the medieval building faced with shingles that I have mentioned—the noble church, and so into that noble land that lies under Exmoor.

We wound in and out among the valleys, green with rich pasture lands, with bowery apple-orchards on the hillside; with clear streams. Here were sweet-scented, hanging woods rising to a sheer height above the road, here the entrance to more secret valleys, to more hidden thickets, here, suddenly, abrupt, tremendous, the huge round dome of a vast hill swelled in its vault toward the sky. The large woods sent up their sweet spires of tender green, the crooked oak boughs bent and intertwined above us, the Alders where dark and glossy by the winding of the brook, the banks of the line were deep with ferns.

As we set out the air was very still, save for the thrilling intonation of the Dunster bells, save for the melodious echoes that came fainting up the valleys from unseen church towers. No breeze blew, no leaf stirred; the sky was hidden by a sombre veil of cloud-like mist. But as we went from valley to valley, always under great mounting hills, a faint breeze a rose and made the leafage of the woods tremble, and the grey mist lightened and became shining as if it were silver, and then places of light begin to gleam amongst the trees. We climbed higher and higher still, and the wind was brisker; before it the mist dissolved and vanished away, drifting like grey smoke; and the sky was all blue and the sun appeared in full glory.

Sarcastic Vicar

Here I must make an interlude of self-criticism. We all know that woods are green in summer and that a cloudless sky is blue; and yet we who write are somehow bound to repeat these well-ascertained facts. It cannot be helped, yet I chuckled heartily on that day while I was lunching at the Ship “to Porlock.” one of the vicar’s daughters cried enthusiastically, “Oh, look at that blue sky through the green leaves.”

And the vicar answered drily, “Yes. The usual colours.”

On we went still upward. We came to a hamlet which Jack Poole said was 1,1000 ft. above the sea, and presently, still mounting, we entered a narrow lane, with dwarf beech hedges. I think I should have known, without being told, that we had come to high places. There was something in the keen pure breath of the air, something of gladness and exaltation that brought back for a moment the joy of youth. And then the beech trees on each side grew queerly as though they grow on mountain sides, and the flowers on the banks were somehow different from the valley blossoms.

And another sign that we were drawing near the wild lands: old Jack turned round in his seat and said “I’ve driven over him, I’ve done for him.” There on the road a brilliant black and yellow adder writhed and twisted toward the hedge, venomous but broken. Through a gate; and now before me rose the wide wild sweep of the moor, high mounting, unending to the eyes; a sight to awe the heart and charm it; a site majestical and splendid like the triumph of great music; and there, atop of all, was Dunkery Beacon. The moor rolled upwards as a mighty wave; one would fain say “Amen” on seeing it, as if it were a solemn prayer that the earth had uttered.

A Violet Wall

The slope of Dunkery is of an austere aspect. It is dun and umber with the sombre growth of the heather; it is grave, it has grey shadows. But it rose in its solemnity against that glad and shining blue of the sky; and it gleamed too, here and here again with royal glorious purples of heather blossom, it was illuminated with places of reeds and rushes, with the growth of the bracken.

Up we climbed by the rough road, and over the crest, dipped down again; and here before us was a long steep wall, violet, and beneath the sea all still.

The violet wall was the mist that hid the hills of Wales; and by a broken way we came down to Porlock, a haven abandoned by the sea, a little town of whitewashed cottages and trailing noneysuckle and roses; a place where a weary man might rest, between the glens and heights of Exmoor and the misty violet sea.

 

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