Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1932-05-29

had lively interest in local history. We
became great friends-So much SO that
after a few minutes I was invited to
proceed to her cottage, from the back
of which on a fine day Windsor Castle
is visible on its hill across the Thames
Valley.
Set back from the village green, lit
tie distance from the village Wcll-which
is over 400 feet deep-doWn a garden
path under bowers Of roses, I Was led to
the little cottage. Here was England as
my hostess in Maryland had dreamed it.
The master of the house, grave, digni-
fled old gentleman. rose to greet me,
turning an immense tomcat from his
knees He might have beel an arch
bishop, in his sober black, with his court
ly manner He was "a years CT age. My
hostess, his wife, was II. I had no idea
old age could be so lovely to behold so
enjoyable. In that oak beamcd cottage,
where the kettle sang on the hob, where
no photograph or radio shattered the
quiet with its adenoidal nesroid ecstasy.
the England of Queen Elizabeth, Queen
Anne, the Georges and Queen Victoria
was viSibly preserved
While I drank a glass OF home made
wine I cleaned a little personal history
For so years nay host had been the
church bell ringer. By trade he was the
village blacksmith. There was no spread
ing chestnut tree, but the forge still
stood on the village green. For 40 years
the horses that had plowed the uelands,
the horses on which the squire and his
lady and the squire's children had rid
den, had been in his charge.
TODAY the smithy is silent and dark.
The cobWebS have gathered. There
is no fire with its sudden blaze, no ring
Of hammer ON the anvil. The horses
have gore. The blacksmith SITS unoccu-
pied in his cottage, thinking CT the days
that are no more. What thoughts run
through his mind as he sits in his arm
chair by the cottage fire? He has seen
England change almost beyond recogni-
ton. His merry little wife has a prodi-
gious memory. You can see that she still
has the zest OF living. A natural cour-
teSy has attracted to her cottage visitors
of all classes from the surrounding
countryside.
have no keener delight than to mount
to that upland village, to knock at the
little door under its dark porch and take
the chair so eagerly offered to me at the
fireSide, while the great grave cat raises
its head on his masters knees and blinkS
at me-
Fate, too, has strangely and tragically
crossed the threads of our lives One day
the old lady proudly showed me a photo
graph frame made Of wrought ironwork,
one of the last labors of her husband It
displayed regimental emblem and con-
tanned the photograph of youth in uni
form. I then learned how tragedy had
come to this quiet cottage in the hills.
In the last month of the war, in the
fighting around Cambria, this old couple
had lost their only son. 1t CHANGED that
I witnessed the battle, in my function of
war correspondent, and On the wall of
my cottage in the valley below there
hung the map, with his NOES, used by
Field Marshal Haig in plotting the course
OF the battle. Strange that more than
10 years later should be able to name
and describe the field where their son
fell!
That old lady had seen it, too She
had made the momentouS journey to her
sons graveside in France. Today, in the
church, there hangs a wooden cross
brought from that distant grave. When
the old blacksmith or his wife dies, they
tell me, it is to be placed in the grave
with them.
And that will mean the end of one
old family in the village of Fawley. You
can walk amid the old tombstones, so
beautifully decorated by forgotten viii
lage sculptor with his chisel, and read