Short Fiction by H. G. Wells (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

1800. But they went on with steadfast eyes into the country, paying no heed to such cries.

Before them in the south rose the Downs, blue at first, and as they came nearer changing to green, surmounted by the row of gigantic wind-wheels that supplemented the wind-wheels upon the roof-spaces of the city, and broken and restless with the long morning shadows of those whirling vanes. By midday they had come so near that they could see here and there little patches of pallid dots⁠—the sheep the Meat Department of the Food Company owned. In another hour they had passed the clay and the root crops and the single fence that hedged them in, and the prohibition against trespass no longer held: the levelled roadway plunged into a cutting with all its traffic, and they could leave it and walk over the greensward and up the open hillside.

Never had these children of the latter days been together in such a lonely place.

They were both very hungry and footsore⁠—for walking was a rare exercise⁠—and presently they sat down on the weedless, close-cropped grass, and looked back for the first time at the city from which they had come, shining wide and splendid in the blue haze of the valley of the Thames. Elizabeth was a little afraid of the unenclosed sheep away up the slope⁠—she had never been near big unrestrained animals before⁠—but Denton reassured her. And overhead a white-winged bird circled in the blue.

They talked but little until they had eaten, and then their tongues were loosened. He spoke of the happiness that was now certainly theirs, of the folly of not breaking sooner out of that magnificent prison of latter-day life, of the old romantic days that had passed from the world forever. And then he became boastful. He took up the sword that lay on the ground beside him, and she took it from his hand and ran a tremulous finger along the blade.

“And you could,” she said, “you⁠—could raise this and strike a man?”

“Why not? If there were need.”

“But,” she said, “it seems so horrible. It would slash⁠ ⁠… There would be”⁠—her voice sank⁠—“blood.”

“In the old romances you have read often enough⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, I know: in those⁠—yes. But that is different. One knows it is not blood, but just a sort of red ink⁠ ⁠… And you⁠—killing!”

She looked at him doubtfully, and then handed him back the sword.

After they had rested and eaten, they rose up and went on their way towards the hills. They passed quite close to a huge flock of sheep, who stared and bleated at their unaccustomed figures. She had never seen sheep before, and she shivered to think such gentle things must needs be slain for food. A sheepdog barked from a distance, and then a shepherd appeared amidst the supports of the wind-wheels, and came down towards them.

When he drew near he called out asking whither they were going.

Denton hesitated, and told him briefly that they sought some ruined house among the Downs, in which they might live together. He tried to speak in an offhand manner, as though it was a usual thing to do. The man stared incredulously.

“Have you done anything?” he asked.

“Nothing,” said Denton. “Only we don’t want to live in a city any longer. Why should we live in cities?”

The shepherd stared more incredulously than ever. “You can’t live here,” he said.

“We mean to try.”

The shepherd stared from one to the other. “You’ll go back tomorrow,” he said. “It looks pleasant enough in the sunlight⁠ ⁠… Are you sure you’ve done nothing? We shepherds are not such great friends of the police.”

Denton looked at him steadfastly. “No,” he said. “But we are too poor to live in the city, and we can’t bear the thought of wearing clothes of blue canvas and doing drudgery. We are going to live a simple life here, like the people of old.”

The shepherd was a bearded man with a thoughtful face. He glanced at Elizabeth’s fragile beauty.

“They had simple minds,” he said.

“So have we,” said Denton.

The shepherd smiled.

“If you go along here,” he said, “along the crest beneath the wind-wheels, you will see a heap of mounds and ruins on your right-hand side. That was once a town called Epsom. There are no houses there, and the bricks have been used for a sheep pen. Go on, and another heap on the edge of the root-land is Leatherhead; and then the hill turns away along the border of a valley, and there are woods of beech. Keep along the crest. You will come to quite wild places. In some parts, in spite of all the weeding that is done, ferns and bluebells and other such useless plants are growing still. And through it all underneath the wind-wheels runs a straight lane paved with stones, a roadway of the Romans two thousand years old. Go to the right of that, down into the valley and follow it along by the banks of the river. You come presently to a street of houses, many with the roofs still sound upon them. There you may find shelter.”

They thanked him.

“But it’s a quiet place. There is no light after dark there, and I have heard tell of robbers. It is lonely. Nothing happens there. The phonographs of the storytellers, the kinematograph entertainments, the news machines⁠—none of them are to be found there. If you are hungry there is no food, if you are ill no doctor⁠—” He stopped.

“We shall try it,” said Denton, moving to go on. Then a thought struck him, and he made an agreement with the shepherd, and learnt where they might find him, to buy and bring them anything of which they stood in need, out of the city.

And in the evening they came to the deserted village, with its houses that seemed so small and odd to them: they found it golden in the glory of the sunset, and desolate and still. They went from one deserted house to another, marvelling at