Free How Dear Is Life by Henry Williamson Page B

Phillip thought that Uncle Hugh could have done ever so much better, if he had lived. But there he was, in the cemetery beside Grannie: two white tombstones.
    In the evening, in the moonlight, you can hear those darkies singing—
    Harmony floated through the warm summer twilight on the Hill; laughing girls passed; sudden feet running over dusky grass, shouts and more laughter, as youth wrestled and ragged in fun. Cries in the gloaming; the near double-warble of some sweet whistler, feelinggrand in a new pair of peg-topped trousers, all the rage among the sort of chaps who ‘warbled’; two-fingered screech of Cranmer leaving for home, a salute for his admired, his beloved Phillip—an attitude of which the recipient was entirely unconscious. Phillip wished he wouldn’t do it, but, of course, didn’t like to tell old Horace.
    *
    The harvest moon rose over the Thames estuary, casting long shadows: and among the shadows, fancy might have seen one of the wraiths of the Hill, the ghost of Hugh Turney swaying in the mist of light between two dark hawthorn patches, and remarking in a whisper of his old ironic self, Keep it going boys — your race is nearly run.
    You have stolen my heart , my heart away —
    The high moon shone on her house, dark and with drawn blinds, and glistened on the little turret that was her bedroom. Standing in the blackness of the hawthorns across the roadmerging his own darkness with the shadows of the moon, he dreamed of a face there, a smile, of white arms held out to him below, all his spirit like a nightingale singing. It was safe to stand there and dream: for she was with her people in the Isle of Wight. Alas, that his holidays began before they were due to return! Ah, he was glad, for might she not then miss him?
    When the moon shone down upon the Hill, all fancies seemed possible. Ghosts walked, dreams became truth.
    Night by night the moon rose later, to slant in gold upon the singing, the playing, and the fun. Keep it going , boys ——
    *
    “Well, old chap—if I might make a suggestion for your holiday next week—you could join the Cyclists’ Touring Club, you know. They provide one, on request, with a list of suitable lodgings for the night. Why not go awheel down to the West Country? It is a wonderful journey, across the Plain—though I fancy it is too late to hear the quails——”
    “I was wondering, Father—do you think I might pay Uncle John and Willie a visit, at Rookhurst? Of course, I don’t want to be in the way.”
    “Well, you might call at Uncle John’s on the way down, Phillip. Then he might invite you to stay. A postcard to your Cousin Willie, say three days in advance, would be the thing, I think.”
    So with rod and saloon gun strapped to cross-bar of the Swift, Phillip cycled away very early one morning, to cross the Thames by Kingston Bridge; and by way of Staines, Bagshot Common, and Andover, to Salisbury for the night in an eighteen-penny bed-and-breakfast C.T.C.-recommended lodging; then onwards across the Great Plain, in heat radiating from white dust and stubble field of that chalk country where he lingered throughout a summer day, dreaming of the ventriloquial notes of quails; and at owl-light he came to the thatched village of Rookhurst, and the stone house of Willie and Uncle John under the downs.

Chapter 4
LAST WINTER OF THE OLD WORLD
    O N THE first day of October the coal fire was lit in the office. The Michaelmas renewals were now coming in. They wereconnected, in Phillip’s eyes, with a most desirable thing: overtime. This began after five o’clock, and was paid for at the wonderful rate of one shilling and sixpence an hour for a junior of under ten years’ service. He worked out that this was slightly more than thrice the rate of his day work. The Overtime Book was a big black-covered one, and the entries had to be countersigned by E.R.H.—except Mr. Hollis’, Phillip noticed: he counter-signed his own. Mr. Hollis worked alone, too—never