Irish Jesuit Province

Autumn in a Midland ValleyAuthor(s): Michael WalshSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 61, No. 724 (Oct., 1933), pp. 619-622Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20513628 .

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619

AUTUMN IN A MIDLAND VALLEY.

BY MICHAEL WALSH.

THE great gathering home has taken place. Snlug and close together stand the corn stacks in the corner of the haggard. They are thatched with

straw or, perhaps, with reeds. What a fine shelter these long bog reed& make. How neatly they are pinned down with pliant pins of wood, which are called " scollops."I There is a look of permanency aboat these stacks of cor:n and wheat. Nearby stands the rick of hay, adding yet another warm colour to the haggard. Already the song of the threshinag-engine is heard at one of the farm-houses of the valley, and the neighbours gather in their dozens to help at the threshing of the cora. The sound of this busy mill dominates all other sounds of the sun-lit autumn day. Francis Ledwidge has likened its distant sound to a " war of hives." Soon the great engine with its unwieldy wagons will be labouring down the laneway to the next farm-house,

where the great threshing scene will be repeated. A few people still in this sheltered valley of which I

write thresh the corn with a flail. One day the flail will be a museum curiosity. I am proud to recall twenty golden years ago when I threshed with a flail

myself. The handle or handstaff of a good flail is made from hazel. To the end of this a lighter stick, usually of seasoned holly, is loosely attached. This is called the bolkeen. The connecting string must be tied in such a way as to allow the botikeen to be indepen

dent in its movement when the handstaff is raised. And there is real art in the way in which one uses a flail.

We remember in " -Hills and the Sea "1 Belloc's remarks

on mowing with a seythe. The same could be generally applied to threshing with a flail. When the handstaff is raised the boltceen must spin around high above the head with lightness and freedom, and yet in the very airiness of that motion gather strength and power to

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620 THE IRISH' MONTHLY

descend upon the corn, causing the sheaf to dance and the grain to jump from the ears. And one of the many

pungent scents of autumn arises from the newly threshed straw.

The great autumn gathering hoime has spread to the potato field. The potato-digging machine has not yet come into the valley. The plough is brought into action, cutting away the shoulders of the drills, and the spade work is then made easy. Into long, deep pits the potatoes are gathered. Over t-hem is placed a snug

covering of straw and a firm, coat of the rich earth in

which they grew. Some people gather the potatoes into barns, but we of the valley maintain that a pit in their own mother earth is the most natural place for them 'until ready for use. The parsnips, too, are housed, in the same warm earth, while in due time the turnips

will be stored in a neat heap by the hedge, where they will get a heavy coat of ferns or, perhaps, sedge or rushes.

'The great gathering hotme of the autumn's crops and fruits is not confined to the cornfields and the orchards. Thrifty housewives have made delicious jams and jellies for winter use from the innumerable blackberries and

wild apples of the pasture hedges. And all the turf has been drawn home over the long

white bog roads. The great brown turf rick is not the least of autumn's warm tints.

The big hill that folds in the valley from the south has often a grey mist about its rocky summit; the stubble fields beneath look wet and dreary, and then there is an aspect of depression about the heath and furze. But autumln in the valley often gives uls many days of calm sunlight, while one of the most beautiful

pictiures of the year grows daily in loveliness before our eyes. It is the picture of autumn's burning beauty in

the woods; it is a picture, too, of the vivid green of the

pine trees over the grey reeds of the bog. All through autumn's activities in field and barn the

brown shower is falling from the tree, now in hesitating

golden flakes through the tranquil day, again in multi

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AUTUMN IN A MIDLAND VALLEY 621

tudes while the great branches seem to be wounded with t-he storm. And there is a long miuffled tumult in the woods to the north of the valley.

But in autumn's gentler moments one may contem plate the falling leaf. One could not do better than quote from Belloc's study of this aspect of autumn -

"The leaves are so light that they sidle on their going downward, hesitating in that which is not void to them, and touch at last so imperceptibly the earth

with which they are to mingle, that the gesture is much gentler than a salutation, and even more discreet than a discreet caress.

" They make a little sound, less than the least of sounds. No bird at night in the marshes rustles so slightly; no men, though men are the subtlest of living beings, put so evanescent a stress upon their sacred whispers or their prayers. The leaves are hardly heard, but they are heard just so much that men also, who are

destined at the exnd to grow glorious and to die, look up and hear them falling."

And again the essayist is reflecting deeply on autumn, and though it is an English autumn it is the autumn of our Irish midland valley also:

T The scent of life is never fuller in the woods than

now, for the ground is yielding up its memories. The spring when it comes will not restore this fulness, nor these deep and ample recollections of the earth. For the earth seems now to remember the drive of the ploughshare and its harryling; the seed and the full bursting of it, the swelling and the completion of the harvest. Up to the edge of the woods the earth has borne fruit; the barns are full; the wheat is standing stacked in the fields, and there are orchards all around. It is upon such a mood of parentage and fruition that the dead leaves fall."I

Yes, the year marches to death in proud pageantry in this Irish valley. In the -beech woods the autumn burns onwards towards the time of snows. T'he days shorten and the great hill goes asleep under the frosty stars. But inside, where the turf fires burn cheerily

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622 THE IRIStI MONTHLY

on the hearth-flags, the people of the valley gather around. In one house old stories of the past are re told; in another farmhouse the school-children pore over their boaks. In the last cabin in the laneway an

old woman is gazing through the long night into the glowing coals... Do fairy lands form and magical I-Brasils take shape in the white heat of the turf fire? . . . Anon she closes her eyes, for memory can thus see

better -

When my ears will not hear again Leaves moving, nor the sound of rain;

When my eyes are, too old to see

The apple orchard's ecstasy O MIemory I Stay young with me."

FAME.

Does man need learning to express his soul, And realise the gifts the Lord God gave ?

What profits him to read the cryptic scroll, If passion overwhelm him like a wave ?

Or must he do great deeds to earn renown: The glory and the pomp of conscious power;

Prestige, dominion crushing with its frown; The wealth that's overwhelmed with golden shower?

Nay, virtue is revealed in lesser deeds The honest smile of understanding friends,

The charity that meets a neighbour's needs, The kindly thoughtfulness that sorrow mends.

For strength of body, mind, or human heart Is shewn in choosing all and not a part.

EDWARD JAMES SCHUSTER.

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