A Romance of the Marshes.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1008, 24 December 1910, Page 12

A Romance of the Marshes.

j By 0. K. Chesterton. | 0- ■ e

In books, as a whole, marshes ar<? described .as desolate., and colourless, great, fields.of clay or sedge, vast horizons of drab or grey. But this, like many other literary associations, is a piece of poetical injustice. Monotony, has nothing to do with a' place; monotony, cither in its sensation or its infliction, is simply the quality of a person. There are no dreary sights;'there are only dreary sightseers. It is a matter of taste, that is of personality, whether marshes are monotonous ; but it is a matter of fact and science that they are not monochrome. The tops of high mountains (I am told) are all ' white; the depths of primeval caverns (I am also told) are. all dark. The. sea will bo grey or blue for weeks to-: getlier ;and tho desert, I havo been led to believe, is tho colour of san'd. Tho North Pole (if wo found, it), would bo whito with cracks of blue, and Endless Space (if we went there) .would, ■ I suppose, bo black with white spots. If any of these were counted of a monotonous colour I could well understand it; but, on tho contrary, they • aro always spoken' of as if they had 1 tho gorgeous and chaotic colours of a cosmic kaleidoscope. Now exactly where you can find colours liko those of. a tulip garden or a stained-glass window is in those sunken and sodden lands which are aways called dreary., Of' course, the great' tulip gardens did arise in Holland, which is simply one immense marsh. : There is nothing in Europe so truly tropical ' as marshes. Also, now I come to think of it, : there are few places so agreeably marshy as . tropics. At any. rate, swamp and fcnlands in England are always especially rich in gay. grasses or gorgeous . fungoids, and seem sometimes as glorious as a transformation scene, but also as unsubstantial.' In' these splendid scenes it is always Very easy to put your foot through the scenery. You may sink up to your arm-pits, but you will sink up, to your arm-pits in flowers. I do not deny that I myself am of a sort that sinks—except in the matter of spirits. I saw in the west counties recently a swampy field of great richness and promise. If I had stepped on it I have -no doubt at all . that 1 should havo. van-' ished'; that aeons hence the complete fossil of a fat Fleet Street journalist would be found in'that compressed clay. I only claim that it would be found in somo attitude of energy,' or even of joy. But. the last point is the most • important of all; for, as. I imagined myself sinking up to tho neck in what looked 1 like a solid green field, I' suddenly remembered that this very thing must have happened to certain interesting ' pirates qui to a thousand years ago. ..

For, as it happened, the flat fenland j in which I so nearly sank was . the lon-1 land round the Island' of Athelney, which is now an island in the . fields and no j longer in tho waters; But on the abrupt hillock a stone-still stands to say that this was that embattled islet in tho Parrot where Iving Alfred held his last fort aqainst tho.i'oreign invaders,.in that war that nearly washed' US' as far from civilisation as .llie Solomon Islands. . Hero lie defended tho island called..Athelney as he afterwards did..his best to defend the island called ; England. ... . One approaches tho island of Athclncy along a low long road liko.an interminable'.white, string-..stretcifcd ■ across. -tho flats, and lined with-'those dwarfish • trees that are elvish in their very-dullness. At or.c point of'the journey (I. cannot conceive why) one is arrested- by a toll gato at which one has to pay threepence. Perhaps it is a distorted tradition of thoso dark ages. Whether or no it was a permanent barrier to the barbarians it was only a temporary. barrier to nio. I discovered three large and complete coppers in various parts of my-'-'person, and- I passed oil along that strangely monotonous and' strangely fascinating path. It- is not merely fanciful to feel that tho place expresses itself appropriately., as, .the. place-jwhere . tile Great Christian King hid himself from the heathen. .Though a marshland is always open. it is still curiously secret. Fens, liko deserts, are large things, very apt to bo mislaid. These flats feared to bo overlooked in a double 'sense; the small trees • crouched and the whole plain seemed lying- oil its face, ns - - men do ■when shells burst. ,The little path ran fearlessly forward, .but it seemed to run on all fours, i'.Everything in that.straiigo. countryside seemed,. to be lying low,' as,. if to avoid the incessant and Tattling r,aiu of tho.Danish arrows. There were, indeed, hills of lio inconsiderable height quite within call; but thoso porls (and flats of tho old Parrot seemed to separate themselves liko a'"central' and secret sea; and in the midst of them stood up tho rock of Athelney as isolators,it was : to Alfred.- . And all . across , this recumbent and almost crawling country ■tliero ran the glory of the low wet? lands; grass lustrous and living like the plumage of some universal bird;. tho flowers as gorgeous as , bonfires and tho weeds moro beautiful .than the flowers. One stooped to stroke tho grass, as if tho earth- were all one .kind beast that could feel.

Why docs no decent person write nn historical novel about Alfred and • his fort in Athelney, in the marshes of tho X'arret? Not .a:, very, historical novel. Not about his, Truth-telling (please) or. his founding the .British Empire, or tho British Navy, .or. the .Navy League, or whichever, it was he • founded. Not about the Treaty of Wodmore a «d whether it ought (as an eminent historian says). to. be' called i tho Pact of Chippenham. But an aboriginal romance for boys, about tho bare, bald, beatific fact that a great hero held his fort in ah island in a river. An island is fine enough, in all conscience or piratic unconscientionsness, but an island in a river sounds like, tho beginning of tho greatest adventure story on earth. "Robinson is really a great tale, but think of Koblnson Crusoe's feelings if ho could have. actually seen England' arid Spain from his inaccessible isle l . And then consider the further elements of juvenile romance' in an island that was more of an island, than, it loolced. Athelney 'was, masked' with marshes; many a heavy-harnessed Viking may havo started bounding across a meadow ouly to find himself submerged in a sea'. I feel tho full fictitious splendour spreading round me; I see glimpses of a great romance, that will never bo written. I see a sudden' shaft quivering in-ono Df lno short, trees. I see a red-haired man wading madly among, tho tall gold flowers of the marsh, leaping onward and. lurching lower. I see another shaft stand quivering in his throat. I cannot see any more, because, as L have • delicately suggested, lam a heavy man. This mysterious . marshland does not sustain me, and I sink into its depths with a bubbling groan.—"Daily News."