As soon as twilight fell the owls woke up the adjoining wood, and called to other owls across the ravine.
These were the only sounds to break the silence.
It is when you are ill, more than at any other time, that you realise the human difference between town and country. You can live all your life, and then be ill and die, in London, and the people next door—even those in the same building—may know nothing about it.
I knew of a girl living in a block of small flats occupied by women workers, and trying to make a living by journalism, who lay dead in her room for a week, and then was only discovered by the caretaker because her rent was overdue. No one had missed her, though there were women going up and down stairs and in and out of the rooms, all around her. The isolation of the solitary woman in a crowded city can be something awful.
It isn’t that town dwellers at heart are more selfish than country folks; it is their mode of life that is to blame.
London claims so much of one’s time and energy for the doing of “most important” work, and the pursuit of machine-made pleasure, till next to nothing is left for the greatest of all work and the greatest of all pleasure—merely being kind.
Once it was known that I wasn’t getting better and the local doctor had been summoned (he lives in another village nearly four miles off), kindnesses came from all directions, everybody offering the best they had. If extra people had been required to take turns sitting up at night, any number were ready to come on duty. One woman, who is exceedingly capable, though an amateur masseuse, came to inquire if it was a case where rubbing would be beneficial. She brought a bottle of Elliman’s with her, in case she could be of use, and offered to come daily.
Did the Buff Orpingtons lay that priceless treasure, an unexpected mid-winter egg? It was promptly sent up by a small child, with a kind hope from mother that the lady would be able to take it.
I believe Sarah Ann Perkins would have slain every duck she possessed (and have scorned to take payment), if only there had been the slightest chance of my once more eating that fair slice from the breast!
A calf’s foot was needed for jelly. The butcher hadn’t one, didn’t know who had; but one arrived next day, though he had had to scour the county for it.