All My Road Before Me

by C. S. Lewis

  Tuesday 18 August: We breakfasted about nine, after a good night’s rest, on eggs and home cured bacon: both excellent. D was still rather tired from the journey and said she would take ‘a lazy day’. Maureen and I started for a walk at ten.

  We went up the valley in the tracks of my evening stroll. The wood grew even better beyond my last night’s farthest south. The trees were very old and mossy, the turf of a jewel like greenness and studded with white boulders. The path rose considerably as we went through the wood. We stopped for our first halt at a stream where Maureen cooled her feet. After we left the wood the path was high above the river and very heathery. The view back down the receding reaches of the valley, deepening as it receded and backed by the great ridge at the County Gate, was one of the finest I have ever seen: and with every step forward increased the sense of penetrating into ‘the bowels of the land’.

  Presently we turned up the Doone Valley. Here we were rather disappointed to find a party on ponies in front of us. Just at the shepherd’s hut a cow ran at us, but I waved my stick and it considered that honour was satisfied. We put on speed after this until we had passed the ponies and then struck right over open moor. It was very hot. Presently we began to descend and saw a big lump of hill opposite us which I take to be Great Black Hill. To our right we had a lovely new glimpse of Badgworthy Combe and the woods beyond it. About here we got into very dense heather and saw it suddenly quiver in front of us . . . We . . . struck left till we reached a green gully about four feet deep and running quite straight down the hillside. After a few yards descent it developed, as I had expected, into a stream, where we picked our way from stone to stone laboriously. We found plenty of frog spawn and some red mosses.

  It was a relief to find another stream running east at the bottom and to stretch our legs on flat gravel. This was Lank Combe . . . We then went on again and a little to our left till we saw the woods of Cloud Farm below us. We intentionally overshot our mark and went on, beyond a little combe, to the green part of the hill. Here we had a long rest.

  Maureen, apropos of something, asked me if the evolutionary theory meant that we had come from monkeys. I explained what it really meant. She asked where Adam and Eve came in. I explained that the Biblical and scientific accounts were alternatives. She asked me which I believed. I said the scientific. She said ‘I suppose if one believes in it then, one doesn’t believe in God.’ I said one could believe in God without believing in all the things said about him in the Old Testament. Here the matter ended. I don’t see how I could have answered differently at any point.

  . . . We waded the river for our feet’s sake and so arrived home at 1.15. D had been unpacking and was very sleepy. Indeed we all felt a drowsiness in the air which increased after a very ample and excellent lunch of boiled chicken. Maureen and I made some play with doing German while D very nearly sank into real sleep.

  . . . After tea we found more comfortable seats at the top of a kind of miniature cliff near the farm. I went on with Cowper’s Task which I began to read for the second time just before we left home. I was at Book II, ‘The Timepiece’, one of the poorest parts. At his worst he is bad enough, but somehow he never irritates me . . .

  After supper all three of us went up to the wood as I had done last night. The difference between society and solitude, together with a little more delight, altered everything. Last night it had been all desolation and awe: tonight it was peaceful and drowsy. To bed by eleven.

  Wednesday 19 August: We had some thunder and lightning in the night and continual rain. When I woke in the morning the view from my window was a solid wall of fog. Then gradually the dark surface of the moor would show through and reach a certain point of clearness: after which it would fade again. The fog went on thinning and thickening like this for an hour. When I had shaved I went down to the river. From a few yards away the outline was invisible: only the swirls of foam showed up rather whiter than the smoky mist. I took a dip in the deep pool under the fall. It was quite deep enough to swim in and very cold, so that I did no more than reach the further bank and come back.

  D was more rested this morning and I think she is going to like the place—a point about which I have had some fears. After breakfast Maureen and I set out with Pat. We went down the valley on this side by the path over three fields and through a wood which is the normal entrance of this farm. The grass was soaking and the fog very thick. On reaching the road we turned right and went to Oare where we had a look at the church: a pleasant crowded little building but neither very old nor beautiful . . .

  Just before lunch I yielded to a long treasured desire and wrote for Geo. MacDonald’s Lilith: he and Wordsworth being the only people it seems possible to read here. We had chicken for lunch again: very good and better than yesterday by the addition of green peas. We sat in till tea time. I did some German with Maureen and continued The Task.

  After tea all three of us went out for a delightful walk. We turned up the valley, keeping to our own side of the river. It is much rougher here and, happily, not open to the public. The view both up and down was beyond anything I have yet seen. It reminded D of Norway . . .

  Thursday 20 August: A grey morning. I bathed as before. After breakfast Maureen said she would stay at home and I sallied forth by myself. I crossed the river and turned to my right as if for Malmsmead: then to my left by a lane which brought me up quickly to a high and richly heathered part of the moor. I followed this for some little way and turned to my right by a track which would lead me past the tumuli. Even frequent references to the map did not keep me in the true way. I bore too much to my right and crossed two westward flowing streams instead of one. At the first I had a pleasant halt and a smoke in a little green valley full of boulders overhung with miniature cliffs of heather.

  I reached my objective—the upper end of Lank Combe—earlier than I expected, but I was not sorry. On the level tops of these hills with no valleys in view I find it a little oppressive. Indeed on my walks and in my mental pictures these last two days I can trace a little hyperaesthesia. Perhaps it is just as well I have never seen real mountains. The descent of Lank Combe was very laborious, but beautiful.

  As I reached the bottom it began to rain. The rest of my walk was unpleasant, not so much because of the rain as of a small boy—ceteris paribus25 the least pleasant type of human being—who tacked himself on to me and followed me with relentless conversation however fast or slow I walked. One touch of nature deserves a record. He asked me (in the wood) if I’d been up here in the dark. I said ‘Yes’ and began to like him better. I asked him if he had been in the river. He replied ‘No’ and, poor creature, looked mortified as if he had relinquished all claims to manhood. Then suddenly a bright idea struck him. ‘Me and my brother was nearly killed the other day.’ His brother’s head had been cut by a collapse of stone ‘and he made ten shillings showing it to the visitors’.

  Got home and changed. After lunch I began St John Ervine’s Alice and a Family which I found in a cupboard: in many ways a good book, but it plays too much on the mere language of Cockneys. Now this is only a repetition of the child’s idea that all foreign languages are mumbled English. Every dialect ought to be got over and taken for granted. Then we can get at what is really going on.

  After tea we had an excellent walk up the far side of the valley nearly to the ‘Doone Valley’. By the way when I see the crowds of lost townspeople who trail up that far side of the river of a fine morning, blind to heather, sky and rock, and deaf to birds and water, to look at one of the least attractive combes because it has been labelled ‘Doone’ and then ask fretfully, ‘But what is there to see?’—I cd. wish Blackmore had never written . . .

  Friday 21 August: Another grey day. Bathed. Set out to find the way to the sea at Glenthorne. I walked down our own side of the valley, crossed the Lyn at Parsonage Farm, and up to County Gate. Couldn’t find any way down so turned west and went to Brendon. Home by road with a delicious halt in the wood by Malmsmead.


  Out after tea with D and Maureen. A card to say that Lilith is out of print and an insane letter from Aunt Lily. I am sorry about Lilith. I asked for it about two years ago and it was in print then, but in those day 6/-for an unnecessary book was not to be thought of.

  Saturday 22 August: A blue sky at last, which held up all day, though full of floating white clouds. After a bathe and an excellent breakfast of fresh whiting I set out for Brendon to see about Mrs Hume-Rotheray’s mirror. Just as I had crossed the bridge Maureen ran after me, asking me on Mrs Lock’s behalf to buy a lb. of candles. Moral—don’t tell where you’re going!

  The walk over the moor was delightful. I overshot my mark a bit and came down by a long and beautiful glen with an easy path which brought me into the Lyn valley about a mile to the west of Brendon. I turned left to an inn further down where a bridge enabled me to cross into the woods on the other side: and through them I came back to Brendon . . .

  After lunch (roast mutton and such good peas) we all sat out in the sun under the fir wood. I read Esmond. I have never got so far in it before. It is good. After tea we all walked up to the beginning of Lank Combe. D, who had been complaining of lumbago and had not meant to go far, was enticed into turning up and after a short glen we emerged unexpectedly into a lovely open place full of sunlight with the whole combe before us. We spent a long time childishly throwing sticks into the stream and watching their various fortunes and peripeties in the rapids. Maureen gave Ada a music lesson in the evening.

  Sunday 23 August: D’s pain was much worse this morning. She thought it was a chill on the kidneys. She was very miserable with it all day and I am horribly anxious. I was out in the morning up the glen that D discovered, over Oare Common, down the valley of Chalk River to Oareford (or rather beyond it) and home by road. A changing sky that brightened at first but turned to rain about 12.

  Sat in all the afternoon and so did D. Wrote a few lines on Jesseran. Ada gave Maureen a riding lesson. After supper D went to get a warm at the kitchen fire and I went out for a pitiful attempt at a stroll which Pat almost refused to accompany. A grim, ominous looking place this is when one has something hanging over one.

  D went to bed at 10.30 with two hot water bottles. Maureen privately suggested to me that we should divide the night and each watch a part. I chose the first as D had great ease from the jars and seemed sleepy. I hoped she would have a good night and that after a few hours I might go to bed without waking Maureen. When I went up at 12 D was awake and had only been dozing. The good effect of the jars seemed to have worn off. Went up again at 1 and found that she had not slept at all since. The pain is pretty bad: but it seems to get much worse from any movement after she has been in one position for some time, which gives me hope that it is a chill. I sat with her for about half an hour, interrupting it to go and investigate kettles in the kitchen against refilling the jars. We talked quite cheerfully.

  I have suppressed even mental Dymerisms so far. I have been reading Esmond which I shall always hate for this, and am writing this at two minutes to two. It gets cold down here. 2.50 down from D again: she is much the same. I have found some peat in the scullery and mended the kitchen fire but I am afraid it will be long before there is any really hot water. I got nice and warm in there. 4 o’clock: I have filled the two jars and the water was really hot. I had almost despaired of my peat fire: it is heartbreaking stuff to boil a kettle by. When I brought the second jar up D seemed to be asleep—I hardly dare to write it down for the superstition. Touch wood: I gave the jar noiselessly to Maureen and crept down. I have found some milk in the kitchen, about half a tumblerfull, on which I shall now feast. Poor Maureen has had hardly any sleep. Tired of Esmond and am reading Hilaire Belloc’s Mr Emanuel Burden. I don’t know enough to appreciate it fully, but I fancy it is good.

  Monday 24 August: Got to bed about 4.30 and up at 9 this morning. D still pretty bad. As soon as I had had breakfast I set off for the nearest doctor who lives at Rockford: this is the pub with the bridge beyond Brendon and it is some ten miles there and back. I found the walk tedious, though it runs through a glorious valley all the way, and was footsore. I had forgotten to bring money and could get no drink. The doctor lives in a cottage full of trophies: a sad, weatherbeaten old man: not quite a gentleman and not very pleasant to speak to. He promised to come in the afternoon. When he came he gave all his directions to Mrs Lock. He left a medicine and ordered a mustard plaster. D quite liked him.

  I spent most of the day in the kitchen stoking the fires for the repeated jars which we needed. My powers of perspiration were a source of amusement to the family who apparently feel like Chaucer about it. I must admit that the necessity of being always in and out with them became rather irksome before it was done. D was a good deal better in the evening. I gave her two jars last thing at 10.30 and went to bed. I replaced them at five, being then woken for the purpose.

  Tuesday 25 August: D was very much better this morning. I started out in mist and rain to walk over moor to Brendon for the tobacco I had been unable to get yesterday. When I got on top of the moor it began to clear. There was brilliant sunshine with big white sailing clouds. I had a glimpse of the sea. My spirits rose and in a few minutes I was singing my small stock of Wagner and getting what seemed at the moment to be a splendid idea of Jesseram. I came home the same way after an enjoyable walk and a pint of beer in Brendon.

  We both sat in D’s room in the afternoon. I went on with The Task: I am now at ‘The Winter morning walk’. D was much better and very cheerful. After tea Maureen and I had an interview with the two black pigs who were asleep in the field. They hardly looked like animals: more like big leather bottles with curiously shaped stoppers. They lie on their sides and grunt to each other alternately as fast as the ticking of a grandfather clock. Each grunt shakes the whole body. I tickled one with my foot and it made to roll over on its back like a cat. They are perfectly clean. I have never seen pigs at close quarters before. Later on I walked up as far as the Doone Valley.

  Wednesday 26 August: D had had a poor night. Walked over to Rockford in the rain after breakfast and reported to the doctor as he had told me to do. He seemed satisfied and gave me another bottle. D was up in the afternoon and more comfortable. Read on with The Task and did some work on Jesseram.

  Thursday 27 August: D pretty well today but still upstairs. It was a wet morning and there was a hunt on, which two reasons determined me to stay in. I read a good deal more of Esmond. After a very late lunch it cleared and the rest of the day had a cool white sky with a few patches of blue and more of pigeon colour.

  I went out at 3.30. I walked by road to Oareford in a delightful wooded valley where the river is deeper than ours and very rocky. Tho’ a small stream, it sometimes has a rock gorge about fifteen feet deep. I left the road just after it had crossed the stream and began on a path that climbed left, i.e. northward, to the main road. This brought me up the side of a magnificent combe which was chiefly felled wood with that odd grey look about it (how the ground aghast was of the light). The landscape in every direction was beyond hope. Behind was the moor with deep alluring valleys winding up into it: westward the green and stony valley of the Lyn with its path and clumps of fir trees. In front of me this big grey ravine closing up towards the thicker woods that made the horizon.

  I reached the main road at a gate lodge where I took some ginger beer. I then crossed into an estate north of the road and skirted along in it for about half a mile. It was partly wood and partly heather. I saw the sea, the Foreland point and the hills beyond Porlock. I then crossed the main road again and found a bridle path in a scrubby wood running south west by a mossy ditch with a hedge of young beeches above it. This brought me out to open heather above Deddy Combe.

  I never saw anything better. The whole of the Oare and Malmsmead valley suddenly appeared as a green island in the middle of blue black moor with the first sun of that day shining upon it. Everything was tumbled and crooked, running this way and that, so that one hardly
knew where the horizontal was. The distances looked far larger than they really were.

  Home by 6 and did French with Maureen. Finished Esmond later in the day.

  Friday 28 August: D had a poor night and was very stiff and sore in the morning. It wore off during the day. I stayed in after breakfast and finished The Task. There are some fine passages in the last book which I had quite forgotten—I may have skipped them before—on the good, old, and inexhaustible theme of the good time coming. It is interesting to read them shortly after Prometheus Unbound: wh. I read in London with Barfield lately. After a very late lunch I went out.

  There had been rain in the morning but now it was a clear warm afternoon with a very soft air. All the hills were alive with sunshine and the moving shadows of clouds. I went by Parsonage Farm and up to County Gate: thence westward along the main road in hopes of finding a way down to the sea. I was in sight of it all the time: very blue today, with the Welsh mountains showing on the far side. The country between me and it was very attractive with heather and deep gorges but it was all enclosed and I could not leave the main road until the path leading to a farm which my map names ‘Desolate’ . . .

  I found a more definite track. This soon brought me on to the road running to the Lighthouse at the Foreland. It was so late that I did not go down. I sat for a long time looking down on Caddow Combe, a very fine grim ravine between two steep hills of grass and shale. A little schooner worming its way round the point gave a more comfortable feeling to the place.

  I came back to Brendon by the road that passes Combe Farm where I have not been yet. The Brendon valley and moors beyond, seen from this new angle, astonished me. Indeed the whole walk was quite bewildering with the amount and variations of its beauty. I have never spent a better three or four hours. In Brendon pub I met old Lock who stood me a glass of beer: drinking it and returning it kept me there some time. He was engaged in a game of quoits with some other farmers and all very merry. Home for a late tea.