V Sackville-West

Grey Wethers V Sackville-West

GREY WETHERSPart OneMore than half a century has now elapsed since the events which added a new legend to the hard ancient hills lying about Marlborough and King's Avon. The last organised rustic Scouring of the White Horse of King's Avon, -from which occasion these events may properly be said to date, although a believer in predestination might be found to contend that they dated, indeed, from the very births of Clare Warrener and Nicholas Lovel, -that last organised Scouring took place more than half a century ago. The White Horse remains, the same gaunt, hoary relic; King's Avon remains, secluded, tragic, rearing its great stones within the circle of its strange earthwork; the Downs remain, and every winter, now as then, shroud their secrets and the memory of their secrets beneath the same mantle of snow away from the speculation of the curious. But of Clare Warrener and Nicholas Lovel no trace remains, unless indeed they have passed into the wind and become incorporate with the intractable spaces and [Pg 10]uncompromising heights. A great many tales are locally told of them, all too fantastic to be set down in print; the chalky soil, so unpropitious to other crops, grew at least a rich crop of superstition, especially in an age and district when stories of witches and burnings were curiously mingled in the minds of the ignorant with the opening of barrows and the fable of British princes. So it is not surprising that the disappearance of these two persons should have given rise to a jabber of conjecture which rapidly came to be explained away by a variety of legends following the line of approved local tradition. It is not the business of print to enter into these conjectures or their interpretation. It is the business of print to set down, in as practical a manner as may be, the circumstances leading up to the final catastrophe, -or fulfilment, call it which you will, according to the point of view from which you approach it, -and to leave the reader to carry on the narrative for himself in the manner best suited to his own fancy and requirements. .