THE HAPPY VALLEY
Two friends, who may be called for present purposes Messrs. Madrigal and Doggerel, dismounted from the West Chester trolley at the crossing of Darby creek. Madrigal rolled a cigarette. Doggerel filled a pipe. They paid their respects to the old sawmill and Mr. Flounders, its presiding deity. Then they set off for a tramp up the valley.
It was a genial afternoon, after a night of thrashing rain and gale. The air was meek and placid; the sky a riotous blue. After the tumultuous washing of the storm all the heavenly linen was hung out to dry, bulging and ballooning in snowy clots along the upper dome. The tents of creekside campers were sodden, and great branches lay scattered on the meadows, wrenched down by the wind. By Mr. Sanderson's farm at Brookthorpe a scoutmaster was breaking camp, preparing to take his boys home. They had only been there four days and the grieved urchins stood in miserable silence. The hurricane of the night before had nearly washed them away, and as everything was so wet their leader feared to let them sleep on the ground. The boys were heartbroken, but the scoutmaster said sagely: "I'd rather have the boys mad at me than their mothers."
In spite of the recent downpour, the walking was admirable. Roads were damp, easy underfoot, free from dust. Madrigal and Doggerel were gay at heart. They scrambled up the embankment of the deserted Delaware County Railroad, which is the most direct pathway toward the headwaters of Darby. It is possible to go along the bank of the creek, but underbrush was still drenched, and Mr. Sanderson uttered cryptic warning of a certain bull. On the grass-grown track of the antique railroad, treading gingerly over worm-eaten wooden trestles, the explorer enjoys perfect sunny tranquillity. It is only five miles from the city limits, but one moves in the heart of bird-song and ancient solitude. One freight train a day is the traffic of the forgotten line, and probably the director general of railroads never heard of it. It would not be surprising to meet Rip Van Winkle pacing thoughtfully along the mouldering ties. And as it is raised high above the valley, the walker gains a fair prospect over the green country of Darbyland. The creek, swollen with rain, brawled rapidly along its winding shallows. Cattle munched in the meadows. Goldenrod was minting its gold, and a first faint suggestion of autumn breathed in the sleepy air. Madrigal tore off his linen collar, stuffed it in his pocket, and fell to quoting Keats. Doggerel, having uttered some painful words about the old cider traffic, now evaporated, Madrigal bestirred his memory of the Ode to Autumn. "Or by a cider press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours." Madrigal is a man of well-stored mind, and as the wayfarers tripped nimbly along the ties, where wild flowers embroider the old cuttings and deserted farms stand crumbling among knotted apple trees, he beguiled the journey with varied speculation and discourse.
At a long-abandoned station known as Foxcroft—which is now only a quarry, and has the air of some mining settlement of the far West—the walkers began to understand something of the secret of this region. It is a fox-hunting country (according to the map, the next station on this mystic line was called The Hunt) and from here on they caught glimpses of the life of that picturesque person known as the "country gentleman." There were jumping barriers for horses erected in the meadows; rows of kennels, and a red-cheeked squire with a riding crop and gaiters striding along the road. Along that rolling valley, with whispering cornfields and fair white mansions lingering among trees, is the tint and contour of rural England, long-settled, opulent and serene. In one thing only does it lack English charm: there are no old ale-houses along the way. No King's Arms or Waggon and Horses or Jolly Ploughboy where one may sit on a bench well-polished by generations of corduroyed hindquarters and shut out the smiling horizon with a tankard's rim. "Oh land of freedom!" cried Madrigal, ironically, clucking his tongue upon a drouthy palate.
From Foxcroft there is a tempting blue vista up a tributary valley toward Newtown Square, which would be well worth exploring; but Madrigal and Doggerel turned away through another covered bridge in order to keep along the trend of Darby. A detour along the road brought them back to the creek at a magnificent stone bridge of three arches. The man who designed that bridge was a true artist, and had studied the old English bridges. And at this corner stands a curious old house bearing the inscription Ludwig's Lust (Ludwig's Pleasure) Built 1774, Remodelled 1910. As the pedestrians stood admiring, a car drove up to the door, and the hapless Doggerel created some irritation by hopefully asking one of the motorists if the place were an inn.
After Ludwig's Lust came the most enchanting stretch of the journey. The road runs close by the creek, which foams along a stony course under an aisle of trees. Where Wigwam Run joins the creek is a group of farm buildings and a wayside spring of perfect water. It was sorry to see a beautiful old outhouse of dappled stonework being pickaxed into rubble. At this point is the fork of Darby and Little Darby. An old deserted mill is buried in greenery, the stones furred with moss. Just beyond, a little road dips off to the left, crossing both branches of the stream. Here, where Little Darby churns cascading among great boulders and tiny shelves of sand, one might well be in some mountain elbow of the Poconos. Madrigal and Doggerel gazed tenderly on this shady cavern of wood and water. If it had been an hour earlier, with the sunlight strong upon these private grottoes, a bathe would have been in order. But it was already drawing late.
The Berwyn road, on which the travelers now proceeded, is full of surprises. Great houses crown the hilltops, with rows of slender poplars silhouetted against the sky. Here and there a field of tawny grain lifts a smooth shoulder against blue heaven. A little drinking fountain on a downward grade drops a tinkling dribble of cold water from a carved lion's mouth. Among old willows and buttonwoods stand comely farmhouses—one beside the road is tinted a rich salmon pink. A real estate agent's sign at the entrance to a fine tract says, "For Sale, 47 Acres, with Runing Water." The walkers thought they discerned a message in that. For a rune means a mark of magic significance, a whisper, a secret counsel. And the chiming water of Darby has its own whispers of secret counsel as it runs its merry way, a laughing little river that preaches sermons unawares.
In the meadows near Old St. David's Church—built when Philadelphia itself was hardly more than a village—are Guernsey calves, soft as a plush cushion, with bright topaz eyes. Madrigal told how he had written a poem about Old St. David's when he was sixteen, in which he described the "kine" grazing by the stream, and in which (after the manner of poets in their teens) he besought merciful Death to come and take him. Death, one supposes, was sorely tempted, but happily refrained from reaping the tender bardling.
In the quiet graveyard of Old St. David's the travelers halted a while, to see the grave of Anthony Wayne and admire the thin trailers of the larches swinging in the golden flood of late sunlight that slanted down the valley. It was 6 o'clock, and they were beginning to doubt their ability to reach their destination on time. A party of motorists were just leaving the church, and both Madrigal and Doggerel loitered pointedly by the gate in hopes of a lift. But no such fortune. So they set valiantly upon the last leg of the afternoon. In a shady bend of the road came a merry motor zooming along and Doggerel's friend, Jarden Guenther, at the wheel. Mr. Guenther was doubtless amazed to see Doggerel in this remote spot, but he was going the other way, and passed with a cheerful halloo. Then, by the old Defense Signal tree on the Paoli road, came a flivver, which rescued the two plodders and took them two miles or so on their way. By the Tredyffrin golf course they were set down before a winding byway, which they followed with tingling shanks and hearts full of achievement.
A shady lane by the now stripling Darby brought them to a quiet pool under leaning willows, and a silver gush of water over a small dam beneath which a bronze Venus bathes herself thoughtfully. Madrigal wore the face of one entering into joy rarely vouchsafed to battered poets. Doggerel, in his paltry way, was likewise of blithe cheer. Through a gap in the hedge they scaled a knoll and reached their haven. And here they found what virtuous walkers have ever found at the end of an innocent journey—a bath, a beer, and a blessing.