We are fortunate in the Lake District in having a longer leafage of the trees than is found in the Midlands or the South.  When November comes the woods have not yet waned and are full of Autumn glory, and though it may happen that a sudden frost, with a strong wind following, may rob us of this glory in a night, if we have the usually mild and calm weather that is our portion, our Lakeland woodlands are still in leaf as late as the middle of the month. (p. 203)….

For a man who loves solitude and silence, November is the time for fellside walking; he will neither hear bleat of sheep nor bark of raven, he will not be impeded by heavy snow-fall, for wherever on the tops he meets the snow, he finds it hard to his foot.  Always in November as he gazes down into the quiet valleys, in strange contrast to the look of winter round about him, he sees an apparent springtide green beneath him, hears the pleasant sound of cock-crow from farm to farm, and notices the ruddy-coated rams and their mates in the pastures below.  One other contrast he notes as he descends into the vale—the music of the brooks with their lack of melody on the higher moorlands.  The runlets were frozen with dumbness up above, but in the valley they have found their tongues. (p. 205)

The silence and solitude of the upper fells seem to infect the whole Lake Country.  The rush of tourist life has ceased.  One may walk from Grasmere to Keswick—that main trunk road, loud all through the summer with noise of wheels and hoot of motor horns—and not pass a single vehicle.  Truly, if one seeks for rest and silence, one will find them at the English Lakes in November. (p. 205)….

But on our lakes, though the boats are drawn ashore and humanity seems to have deserted their silver levels, there comes with November a wonderful gift of life from the wild bird world.  Flotillas of the golden-eyed duck and flights of mallard and widgeon may be seen, and the quaint cry of the coot is heard among the reed-beds, while by every beck one’s eyes may be delighted with the antics of the Bessy Dooker—the starry-breasted curtseying water ouzel. (p. 206)

In the woodlands too, though the voice of the jay is the only loud voice heard by day, the whisperings of the schools of tits as they go from leafless larch to larch give a sound of content and winter happiness.  While, if it is open weather, the squirrels leap from bough to bough, and the “little miracle of the forest,” as Ruskin called it, is an engaging companion for any lover of the woods, and the brown owls crow and hoot at dawn and eventide. (p. 206)….

Nor is November without its charms for the working man who ‘follows a last bit of fishing,’ at any rate in the Keswick neighbourhood.  The River Greta is the latest salmon river in the north-western land.  And though it cannot be said to be great sport to go forth with line and worm and take a black fish more dead than alive on its way to the spawning beds up the St. John’s Beck, or in the River Bure when a flood comes down, and the salmon, after long delay in Bassenthwaite, make up to the Greta Bridge and the weir beneath Greta Hall, the fisher folk go crazy with excitement as they watch the great fish moving in the pools or leaping up the amber-coloured torrent stair. (pp. 212-213)

November, with all its silence, its sombre sounds, and its lack of gaiety, has cheer for the sportsman at the Lakes, for if he be neither hunter nor fisher you may tell by the echo of his gun that the water-fowler is busy, and the teal and widgeon and wild duck and golden eye must needs be on the alert if they are to see December days. (p. 213)

November, it is true, has more of colour in the woods and on the fells than in the workaday life of the shepherd or the hind, but it is a cheery month for the children.  Band of Hope meetings, parish room concerts, magic lantern entertainments and tea-drinkings to keep the hand of the village hostesses in for some great crowning effort at Christmas and in the New Year, prevent life being dull; and literary society lectures, ambulance classes, choral society practices, nursing aid courses, cookery classes, dress-making meetings, seem to give the lake-land dwellers a chance of mutual improvement at the only season of the year when, because the visitors have left the country, they feel that their hands are free or their heads have leisure. (pp. 213-214)

(Months at the Lakes, pp. 203-214)

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I am not without hope that if Labour can assert its own honest self of commonsense against the poisonous rubbish of young, hot-headed revolutionaries … Labour will cease from its attitude of mistrust and its age-long quarrel against the capitalist, and will once more realise that, unless each man will do his bit, the Empire is doomed and bankrupt, and all the war has been in vain.

But back of all this lies the crux for the Christian Church.  How can we spiritualise the materialism which has so got hold of master and man as to degrade work from its God-given purpose of helping the brotherhood and ministering to the common weal by turning it into a mere machine for making money and quarrelling about its division.  How can we bring it about that the old monkish proverb, “To work is to pray”, shall be a reality, and Labour – both of master and man, labour of brain and hand – shall begin to perceive the joy of maintaining “the fabric of the world, and that in the handiwork of their craft is their prayer.”

It seems to me that it is the business of the Churches now and always to preach up the inherent nobility of all work as lying in the possibility of giving our life for the brethren, and though we may, and must, urge that the labourer is worthy of his hire, and that sweated labour throughout the world must cease, we can at least assert that work done only for money’s worth will never satisfy the soul, and will never be done at its best.  We have all to learn that the joy of labour lies in the motive behind it, and that motive, if it is to bring joy, is the motive of giving our best for the good of the community, for the building of the social fabric of the State, for the helping of the commonweal.

True work, no matter if it be done in factory, or workshop, or preacher’s study, or Council Chamber, work of head or hand, would take on quite a different complexion if we could all believe that the task was not our own appointing, but was by the will of that Heavenly Father to whom we pray, “Give us day by day our daily bread,” and I can never forget that by that prayer we do not ask for loaves to tumble into our laps, but for power and health and strength and opportunity to quit ourselves like men at the task appointed, and to serve our fellows as we work for it.

It was surely not for nothing that our Saviour worked at the carpenter’s bench in Nazareth, nor that His first disciples toiled hard with boat and net and the making of nets.  If God Incarnate disdained not work of hand, how dare we think that handwork has not such divinity about it, as to help us to be nearer God—the Almighty ceaseless worker—as we toil.

Nor will the Churches have done their duty till they preach up, in season and out of season, the Fellowship of Labour.  Henceforward let us cease to divide work into two categories, the work of hand and the work of brains.  All workers whether of hand or brain are one the whole world over.  There would be no class differences if all would, by their labour, help their time and serve the common weal.  The common goodwill and heroism in effort for the common good would breed new brotherhood….  The man or woman who takes the new morning as a means of helping the world forward for the glory of God and service of their fellows, will lie down at night, glad for the chance of work, and grateful for chance of rest to fit them for another day of labour.

If instead of chattering and endless conferences, if instead of romancing about the coming golden age—when every man shall have whatever he thinks is his share of the world’s good without working for it, we could all—to me a metaphor—take our coats off and turn to solid work, we might yet save England and the Empire.  We shall save it sooner if we realise the nobleness of service which all true work ensures, and the eternity of God’s purpose that in work and by work alone the highest was possible for each and all.

(Church Family Newspaper, 26 (5 December 1919), p. 26)

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The night is dark, the stars are bright,
    Our crew are sleeping sound below,
But on the bank, in ruddy light,
    The village watchmen’s faces glow.

The old man sits, his wrinkles tell
    He has few watches more to keep;
His son, and his son’s son as well,
    Crouch by, to guard the strangers’ sleep.

The talk burns up, the fire burns down,
    New flame the broken corn-stalks raise,
And naked limbs, lean, lank, and brown,
    Are stretched towards a cheerful blaze.

In that cold land from whence we came,
    We sat beside our fires erewhile,
But never knew the joy of flame
    Like these poor children of the Nile.

With skirts tucked up to belted waist,
    They huddle round it, knees to chin,
They seem its warm-breathed power to taste,
    They rub its rosy comfort in.

Old Egypt’s oracles are dumb,
    Tho’ yonder burns the Sothic star,1
The Sun-god Horus, Ra, and Tum,
    By Nilus’ bank, unworshipped are.

But this red flower of flame that springs
    Is kindred to the rose of morn,
And to these village watchmen brings
    The blessing that with day is born.

Unconscious votaries the band
    Around their burning altar sit,
And offering make, with careful hand,
    And break the fuel, bit by bit.

Then when the mist is white as snow,
    In abbas wrapt the watchmen rise;
Beyond the Arabian hills, they know,
    The dawn prepares its new surprise.

The cocks are crowing in the plain,
    The pigeons fly, the village wakes,
The girls go forth to weed the grain,
    The Shadûf-man his bucket takes.

Then to their toil afield they fare,
    Our guards,—with ne’er a word of thanks,—
And leave behind their seal of care—
    Black ashes on the silent bank.

[1 From the rising of this star, Sirius, the Egyptians calculated their Sothic year of 365¼ days.]

 (Idylls and Lyrics of the Nile, p.66)

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To-day how many thousands will not hear,
    There in their changeless timeless world of light,
    The sad year’s solemn passing in the night,
The silent coming of a happier year.
For this new year, though full of woe and fear,
    Shall prove that Right has triumphed over Might,
    Shall see and end of war’s accursed blight,
And Peace among the Nations drawing near.

We cannot hear their voices, clasp their hands,
    The faces that we loved no more we see;
        But they whose names are bright on Honour’s roll
        In some far world shall know we reached their goal,
That nobler for their deed our Empire stands
    Crowned with the Will that set all Europe free.

(Times, 1 January 1915, p. 7)

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Where once the fisher’s cot could ill contrive
        A frugal welcome for the chance-come guest,
In gay saloons, with ostentation drest,
Large tables shine, and noisy caterers thrive;
Off sands made black with swarms from labour’s hive
The lonely shrimpers vanish, dispossest;
Where poets mused, the showman plies his jest,
And jaded horses plough the sandy drive.
The strenuous tide has lost its task: men rear,
Of alien stone, huge barriers rudely strong;
For music of the rushy bank we hear
The grating band—a stroller’s gipsy song;
While that sea-monster millipede, the pier,
Puts out from shore to please a giddy throng.

(Sonnets Round the Coast, p. 214)

 

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  1. New Quay
  2. Nether Stowey
  3. Nature’s Gospel
  4. The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty