Paul loved to sleep with his mother. Sleep is still most perfect, in
spite of hygienists, when it is shared with a beloved. The warmth, the
security and peace of soul, the utter comfort from the touch of the
other, knits the sleep, so that it takes the body and soul completely in
its healing. Paul lay against her and slept, and got better; whilst she,
always a bad sleeper, fell later on into a profound sleep that seemed to
give her faith.
In convalescence he would sit up in bed, see the fluffy horses feeding
at the troughs in the field, scattering their hay on the trodden yellow
snow; watch the miners troop home--small, black figures trailing slowly
in gangs across the white field. Then the night came up in dark blue
vapour from the snow.
In convalescence everything was wonderful. The snowflakes, suddenly
arriving on the window-pane, clung there a moment like swallows,
then were gone, and a drop of water was crawling down the glass. The
snowflakes whirled round the corner of the house, like pigeons dashing
by. Away across the valley the little black train crawled doubtfully
over the great whiteness.
While they were so poor, the children were delighted if they could do
anything to help economically. Annie and Paul and Arthur went out early
in the morning, in summer, looking for mushrooms, hunting through the
wet grass, from which the larks were rising, for the white-skinned,
wonderful naked bodies crouched secretly in the green. And if they got
half a pound they felt exceedingly happy: there was the joy of finding
something, the joy of accepting something straight from the hand of
Nature, and the joy of contributing to the family exchequer.
But the most important harvest, after gleaning for frumenty, was the
blackberries. Mrs. Morel must buy fruit for puddings on the Saturdays;
also she liked blackberries. So Paul and Arthur scoured the coppices and
woods and old quarries, so long as a blackberry was to be found, every
week-end going on their search. In that region of mining villages
blackberries became a comparative rarity. But Paul hunted far and wide.
He loved being out in the country, among the bushes. But he also could
not bear to go home to his mother empty. That, he felt, would disappoint
her, and he would have died rather.
"Good gracious!" she would exclaim as the lads came in, late, and tired
to death, and hungry, "wherever have you been?"
"Well," replied Paul, "there wasn't any, so we went over Misk Hills. And
look here, our mother!"
She peeped into the basket.
"Now, those are fine ones!" she exclaimed.
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