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4. THE EARLY TWENTIES
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The ex-officer
must have presented an extraordinary sight to the villagers of
the quiet North Devon village which had changed little in the
past 100 years. Dressed so casually that he often wore no shoes,
sleeping out in the summer, swimming naked, throwing apples at
passers-by, and writing day and night. His ‘strangeness’
was compounded by the friends that he had, particularly his equally
wild companion who shared his cottage to begin with called ‘Julian
Warbeck’ in his novels, and also the succession of young
ladies with whom he had intense relationships. He tried to join
the activities of the established social circle, joining the tennis
and sailing clubs, but they could not understand his eccentric
behaviour and wild manner and tended to ostracise him, whilst
the village people did not understand him either. He was regarded
with suspicion, considered an outsider and a very strange young
man, being called ‘funny’ or even ‘mazed’
by the locals. |
| Yet his portrayal of their village, their conversations, their
customs, parish meetings and country sports were deadly accurate,
wickedly funny, yet sympathetic; and captured just in time. THE
VILLAGE BOOK, and its companion volume THE LABOURING LIFE portray
a life long gone but for which there is today a great nostalgia.
(These titles were revised and reprinted in 1945 as TALES OF,
and LIFE IN, A DEVON VILLAGE.)
Sustained by sporadic newspaper articles and stories in magazines,
payment for which seems to have been quite generous, fourteen
guineas being a frequent sum, further volumes of his tetralogy
THE FLAX OF DREAM were published, the second volume, DANDELION
DAYS, and also the collection of nature essays, THE LONE SWALLOWS
in 1922. Before Henry had left London he had belonged to a club
for young writers called The Tomorrow Club, where he had met several
established writers who came to give talks to the aspiring literati
including John Galsworthy and Walter de la Mare, who had very
generously given Henry permission to dedicate one of his stories
to him. Henry also met the great author’s son, Richard de
la Mare, with whom he became friends and who was to be Henry’s
best man in due course. THE PEREGRINE’S SAGA, another collection
of short stories was published in 1923 and the third volume of
‘Flax’, THE DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN, appeared in 1924.
Simultaneously published in the United States of America by
Dutton’s Pub. Co. these books were attracting much attention
from reviewers and critics, as shown by his book of cuttings.
The young author was already making a name for himself.
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