G K Chesterton

A Miscellany of Men G K Chesterton

There is something creepy in the flat Eastern Counties; a brush of the white feather. There is astillness, which is rather of the mind than of the bodily senses. Rapid changes and suddenrevelations of scenery, even when they are soundless, have something in them analogous to amovement of music, to a crash or a cry. Mountain hamlets spring out on us with a shout likemountain brigands. Comfortable valleys accept us with open arms and warm words, likecomfortable innkeepers. But travelling in the great level lands has a curiously still and lonely quality;lonely even when there are plenty of people on the road and in the market-place. One's voice seemsto break an almost elvish silence, and something unreasonably weird in the phrase of the nurserytales, "And he went a little farther and came to another place," comes back into the mind. In some such mood I came along a lean, pale road south of the fens, and found myself in a large, quiet, and seemingly forgotten village. It was one of those places that instantly produce a frame ofmind which, it may be, one afterwards decks out with unreal details. I dare say that grass did notreally grow in the streets, but I came away with a curious impression that it did. I dare say themarketplace was not literally lonely and without sign of life, but it left the vague impression of beingso. The place was large and even loose in design, yet it had the air of something hidden away andalways overlooked. It seemed shy, like a big yokel; the low roofs seemed to be ducking behind thehedges and railings; and the chimneys holding their breath. I came into it in that dead hour of theafternoon which is neither after lunch nor before tea, nor anything else even on a half-holiday; and Ihad a fantastic feeling that I had strayed into a lost and extra hour that is not numbered in thetwenty-four. I entered an inn which stood openly in the market-place yet was almost as private as a privatehouse. Those who talk of "public-houses" as if they were all one problem would have been bothpuzzled and pleased with such a place. In the front window a stout old lady in black with anelaborate cap sat doing a large piece of needlework. She had a kind of comfortable Puritanism abouther; and might have been (perhaps she was) the original Mrs. Grundy. A little more withdrawn intothe parlour sat a tall, strong, and serious girl, with a face of beautiful honesty and a pair of scissorsstuck in her belt, doing a small piece of needlework. Two feet behind them sat a hulking labourerwith a humorous face like wood painted scarlet, with a huge mug of mild beer which he had nottouched, and probably would not touch for hours. On the hearthrug there was an equally motionlesscat; and on the table a copy of 'Household Words'