The Dales of Arcady Part 1

The Dales of Arcady.

by Dorothy Una Ratcliffe.

PROLOGUE

_The youngest G.o.ddess sat in a corner of the Universe and sulked.

For aeons, she had watched the older G.o.ddesses play each in turn with the Earth-Ball, and every time the Ball pa.s.sed her way, someone said,

"She is too young, and, if she played with the Ball, might injure it."

Another added,

"Even our honourable Sister E---- created baleful Etna in her ardent desire to give a beauteous mountain to flowering Sicily, and C----, when she designed the azure Mediterranean, raised her little finger all too hurriedly, causing the whirlpool so dreaded by Grecian sailors."

But the youngest G.o.ddess had waited long and was becoming mutinous.

Her great grey eyes, like silent moorland tarns fringed with shadowy larches, were fixed on the handiwork of the G.o.ddess who at that moment held the Ball.

She noticed the blue line thoughtfully traced across a vast tract of land, the line men call the River Amazon, and she watched the Designer proudly hold the Ball aloft to show her handiwork to her sisters.

"Surely it is the finest river we have yet traced!"

"Nay! let me see it."

"Can it be greater than that which Mortals call the Ganges?"

Then, as the Designer of the Amazon threw the Ball above the head of the youngest G.o.ddess toward the lap of a weary, responsible-looking sister, the youngest G.o.ddess leapt above the little silvern stars, and caught it in her lithe white arms.

A look of consternation went round the Universe.

"She is too young to play!"

But the youngest G.o.ddess claspt the Ball to her breast.

"Let me play, just once," she pleaded. "I will make no earthquakes, no volcanoes, no geysers, nothing that could spoil the beauty of the Ball."

Then an old G.o.ddess--so old that she could remember G.o.d calling order out of chaos, hobbled towards her.

"Child! thou hast seized the Ball, and play with it thou wilt, but disturb not the handiwork of thine elder sisters. Thou canst pattern only where they have not worked."

So the youngest G.o.ddess held the Ball up to the glance of G.o.d to get a great light upon it, and by chance found one small s.p.a.ce covered with heather and bilberry, a wild sad waste.

"Here, I may play! Oh! my sisters, I would make something rarer and more beautiful of my little wild heath than any of you have dreamed of for other parts of the Ball."

Lovingly she laid her outstretched hand upon the bosom of the moorland, and when she lifted it the uplands bore the soft imprint, and a little river flowed where each finger had rested.

Thus were created

Airedale, Wharfedale, Nidderdale, Wensleydale, and Swaledale.

And because the fingers of the youngest G.o.ddess quivered with pleasure they are merry little dancing rivers, and even play underground as they ripple to the Ouse.

In this wise she fulfilled her desire to make something rarer and more beautiful of her moorland waste than her sisters had ever dreamed of for any other part of the Ball.

But, being very young, she boasted of her wondrous achievement, and, as a punishment, the other G.o.ddesses prevented her from ever playing with the Ball again.

That is the reason there is only one Dales.h.i.+re._

DALEs.h.i.+RE

To E. A. B.

When sad home-longings, like little waifs, Come to my heart, in a stranger-land, No thought of a house sweeps over me, No pleasant thorp does my heart demand; For the great blue open wold it cries, For the road that over the moorland lies.

For heather lands where the plovers wing, Where frail mists gather about the hills Like mystic shapes that eerily cling, Where the air is hushed for the snipe-loved rills: All these my tired heart greets as "Home,"

When and wherever I'm forced to roam.

In the dales the pollarded willows flower: I hear the wings of a mating thrush; The river has gained its spated hour, Its mad, magnificent, tumbling rush; Ready to break their hearts or sing, My own sweet dales are expecting spring.

No flower-girt cottage means home to me, No stately, splendid ancestral pile, No cosy house builded pleasantly Does my wandering-weary heart beguile, But the homesick heart of me longs to hail My county of lovering moor and dale!

BEAMSLEY BEACON.

ON OTLEY CHEVIN

Over the rough-hewn limestone wall, I watched the serpenting river crawl Adown the dale, thro' dimpled fields, Daisy-brimmed, where Almscliffe s.h.i.+elds With rocky crest The lambs that play on the old Earth's breast.

Gently I felt G.o.d's hand in mine, As the sun came forth with a strength benign: "_I have one request to make, dear G.o.d: That when my body is 'neath the sod, My spirit still May over this country roam at will._"

On the wings of the wind I heard Him sigh: "Unheedingly many--so many--pa.s.s by, Tho' the world is full of My fairest thought, Of all that My servant Time hath wrought, It is so rare To hear that My work is surpa.s.sing fair."

"_O! Grant my prayer, and let me stay In this land where Thy little rivers stray, For I love them, G.o.d, with a love so true, Remembering they are a part of You.

O! Speak and bless!_"

And the wind from the uplands echoed "Yes."

WHARFEDALE.