



Produced by Al Haines










THE

DALES OF ARCADY



BY

DOROTHY UNA RATCLIFFE




ERSKINE MACDONALD, LTD.

LONDON, W.C.1




_All Rights Reserved_

_First published November 1918_




DEDICATED TO

THE FIRST YORKSHIREMAN I SET EYES ON

DADDY




  CONTENTS


  Prologue
  Daleshire
  On Otley Chevin
  The Song of Nidderdale
  Song of the Mists
  Wander-Thirst
  The Road
  The Swaling of the Moor
  The Moors in Summer
  My Herbary
  Rushes
  Satan and I
  To the Wind
  Saadi and the Rose
  The Difference
  Song of the Primroses
  Lilies
  The Pear-Tree
  Beggar's Gold
  On Early Rising
  Jewels
  Bargaining
  Song of Good-Bye
  King Yesterday
  Kissing
  Philosophy
  A Thrush's Song
  A February Day
  Laus Deo
  "Past-Ten-O'Clock-Land"
  To Memory
  A War Prayer for a Little Boy
  Star-Scandal
  The First of July
  "The Ideal Man"
  To the Coming Spring
  Question
  The Dales of Arcady
  A War-time Grace
  Queen Mab's Awakening




PROLOGUE

_The youngest Goddess sat in a corner of the Universe and sulked.

For aeons, she had watched the older Goddesses play each in turn with
the Earth-Ball, and every time the Ball passed 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 Goddess 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 Goddess 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 Goddess toward the lap of a weary, responsible-looking
sister, the youngest Goddess 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 Goddess 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 Goddess--so old that she could remember God 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 Goddess held the Ball up to the glance of God to get a
great light upon it, and by chance found one small space 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 Goddess quivered with pleasure
they are merry little dancing rivers, and even play underground as they
ripple to the Ouse.

In this wise she