i8 
Land & Water 
May 1 6, 191 8 
I persuaded myself that in a little while, as we went west- 
ward, the conditions would change ; I should see the green, 
the intense green that people wrote about, instead of this 
everlasting blue haze ; I should see the Tamar, shining blue 
with great banks of brilliant gorse climbing on cither side. 
"Next morning I set off early. You won't be surprised 
when I tell you that I remember every ridiculous detail of 
that walk. On the floatinp bridge at T<xrpoint I talked to a 
bluejacket. A Cornishman, he told me, home on leave to^ 
a place called Tregantle. He was vcrj' friendly, taking me 
for a seaman ; deceived, I suppose, by my tanned face. 
I told him that I was walking out beyond Liskeard, . . . 
and he said he would go with me as far as Antony. Then 
came my first disappointment. The road out of Torpoint 
was hilly, and I found "that I simply couldn't keep pace with. 
him. That's what India does for you. You never think of 
walking there. I soon saw it was a bad job, and he went on 
his way whistling, leaving me pumped on the side of the 
road, sitting to recover my breath. It was on one of those 
banked hedges which you get in the West countr}', covered 
with sweet-smelling grass, and on the top of it, in a cluster, 
I found my first primroses. You say that Linnaeus went 
down on his knees and thanked God for the sight of the 
gorse. I didn't do that exactly; but I'll confess that tears 
came into my eyes. I thought of my mother. You know, 
she had a passion for primroses. 
"Oh, well. . . . That day I realised what spring means. 
I don't believe there was ever such a day in the world. The 
clouds lifted. The sun shone. All the country was full of 
bird-song. And it wasn't blue any longer. I suppose my 
eyes were beginning to get accustomed to the subdued 
English colour. Suddenly I began to see it all. It was just 
as if the green had come out with a rush. I won't talk about 
it : I see it will make you homesick. I'll only say that it 
made me forget my tiredness. If life were going to be all 
like that it would be unbearably beautiful. 
" I slept that night in a hotel at Liskeard — a comfortable, 
square place facing a wide street planted with trees. Next 
morning, in the same peerless weather, I set off, a little stiff 
and sore with my walk of the day before. This, of course, 
was to be my great day. My mind was full of words, which 
ran in it like a nursery rhyme. 
" 'When you get out of the train at Liskeard, which way 
do you go ?' 
" 'Dozen the hill to the road to Looe till you get to the gate 
on the railway.' 
" It was all working out pat, like a game of patience. 
Here was the hill. On the edge of it there hung a block of 
recent labourers' cottages. Bfelow the hill I found the 
railway running in the bottom of a most lovely valley, with 
hazel thickets clothing the hills on either side. I crossed the 
line, and the brook which becomes the East Looe river. 
I climbed a steep bank at the back of some farm, buildings. 
On the edge of a dark spinney of firs primroses were growing. 
The prescription still worked. 
"It was an awful pull up to Penberthy's farm. 'Here,' 
I said to myself, ' the dream is going to let me down ; for 
Jack Penberthy's dog, with the teeth worn smooth by carry 
ing stones, must have been dead for many years. Still . . 
Well, there was a dog there ; but I saw quite enough of his 
teeth at a distance ; so whether he was a new incarnation ol 
the dream-dog or no I can't tell you. But I did see a woman 
who was probably little Jack Penberthy's wife. She r;jme 
out and scowled at me from under black, straight brows. 
I shouted 'Good morning' to her; but she didn't answer. 
I would have given good morning to my w'>r<t enemy on 
that day. ... 
"Bevond Penberthy's farm the going became more easy. 
'One field of rough grazing and one of plough, and don't 'ee 
tread on the yowig corn.' 
"Beautiful slender stufi : I suppose the rotation of crop- 
ping had just brought it back to that field for my delight. 
Bej'ond the wheat, the path led me over many acres of grass 
land, a high, windy piece of country from which I could see 
the hill-town of Liskeard and the moors behind it. And one 
chimney-stack I saw on a remote hog's back of a hill that 
seemed familiar. From time to time I would stop and fill 
my lungs with air and my eyes with the sight of that sweep 
of country. Standing there, with my waistcoat unbuttoned, 
I suddenly felt myself give a little shiver. It warned me that 
I must be careful. People on the boat had told me that a 
man who has malaria in him is bound to get it when he goes 
>to a colder climate. I reflected that I hadn't brought any 
quinine with me. Still, that was nothing. 
You keeps the path right over above Hcrodsfoot.' — I had 
come to a steep hillside. Below me lay a deep valley far 
wilder and more densely wooded than that of the East Looe. 
Down there, I supposed, lay Herodsfoot, though I could see 
no sign of any village. I knew, at any rate, that Treliske 
stood liigh, and that I should not have to go down into the 
valley to find it, and it relieved me when I saw that the 
path took a turn through the edge of a hazel plantation, 
landing me clean into a field where gorse was growing in 
the shape of a letter L. 
"Why did the gorse grow like a letter L ? I'll tell you. 
On two sides of the field were stone walls, and the angle 
between them faced the mouth of the valley and the pre- 
vailing wind, so that the flying seeds were always blown up 
into that corner and along the walls, Even in such a small 
thing, you see, it vvor*ked. . Now for the two paths. 'One 
of them goes to Duloe and the other to Treliske.' I could see 
the two paths, and then found mysplf faced with an awful 
doubt. Wliich went to Duloe and which to Treliske? I 
stood at the corner of the field shiveftng. Now, there was 
no doubt about it. I was in for fever. My head ached ; 
my limbs were sore ; I began to feel sick. I must get, 
somehow, to a village. The map showed me an inn at Duloe. 
It seemed to me that the sooner I reached it the better, so 
I gambled on the path which branched off to the left. While 
I had been debating with myself the sky had clouded over. 
I set out as best I could. Once, in a near field, I saw a man 
on horseback, and shouted to him, thinking to a.sk him the 
way. I suppose he didn't hear me, for as soon as I shouted 
he rode away as fast as he could go. Then the path took 
me into a field full of cows. You'll laugh at me when I tell 
you that I didn't hke the look of them, although, if you come 
to think of it, your English cows are formidable beasts com- 
pared with our little Indian buffaloes. It wasn't that, 
though. As soon as I set foot in the field they all began to 
run for me. I never saw anything like it. I simply made 
for the hedge, and there they stood below me, about a dozen 
of them, refusing to let me pass. I threw a clod of earth at 
them to get them out of the way. They didn't run. They 
clustered round it, sniffing it as it lay on the ground. Then 
I tumbled to it. I saV that there wasn't a day's feed in the 
field. The wretched beasts were starving. 
"By this time my fever was pretty bad. At the corner of 
the next field I met a little girl with black hair and quick, 
brown eyes : a dirty child, in the poorest of clothes. I 
called to her, but she ran from me as if she were frightened. 
I had a sudden idea that perhaps she was right, and that 
I myself was a sort of ghostly revenanl. I suppose I was 
light-headed. Fever does take me like that. I knew I 
couldn't go on much longer, and thanked Heaven when I 
saw at the end of the field a big.squahd sort of stone cottage 
the windows oi one half were empty, the others decorated 
with ragged lace curtains. In the garden, among hens and 
gooseberry bushes, I saw my little girl wiping her nose on 
her frock. Now she smiled at me slyly. Her mother 
appeared : a slatternly woman with red hair and bad teeth. 
I asked her the way to Duloe. ' Duloe ? ' she said, 
Duloe? ..." I never heard the rest of it. I fainted on 
her doorstep; I suppose I had overdone it. 
"They weren't bad people. She and her husband got me 
to bed and sent for a doctor. The bed wa.s hi thy, and the 
doctor a most objectionable old man, without the least 
knowledge of tropical diseases. He ventured to give me 
two grains of quinine. / take it byi the teaspoonful, you 
know. It isn't even expensive. . . . The days I spent in 
that bed, four of them, were the most miserable I ever had 
in my life. Thf- people regarded me as the nuisance which, 
1 suppose, I was. The woman with the red hair and the 
bad teeth would forget all about my food, even though I 
assured her that she and her husband would be well paid for 
everything they did for me. Her eldest daughter suffered 
from fits, and slept within a few inches of me tlffough a 
n;irrow partition of boards. I used to hear the father slap- 
ping her at night when she made a noise. Altogether, it 
was a ghastly nightmare, of which 1 remember very little 
but the view through the window. It was always the same 
wild and miserable scene : colourless liilltops and black 
woods, and over all, a cold and drenching rain that never 
ceased. Nobody, it seemed to me, who had ever known 
sunshine, could consent to live in a place like that. I 
wondered, rather ruefully, if Treliske were better. Of 
course, Trehske must be better. 
"On the fourth day I got up and drove away from that 
ghastly place. I paid the woman who had neglected me, 
handsomely. Slie took it as a matter of course. I told her 
that 1 would send her little girl a present. I'd noticed that 
the child had no toj's. 'I'll post it to her when I get back 
to London,' I said. 'And, by the way, I haven't got your 
name.' She said the name was Crago. I wrote it down, 
smiUng, for I remembered that it was my mother's! 
'And the address,' I said, 'the name of the house '' 
"'Treliske.' " 
