II
About 1840, a canal was constructed across the meadows of the
Marsh Farm, connecting the newly-opened collieries of the
Erewash Valley. A high embankment travelled along the fields to
carry the canal, which passed close to the homestead, and,
reaching the road, went over in a heavy bridge.
So the Marsh was shut off from Ilkeston, and enclosed in the
small valley bed, which ended in a bushy hill and the village
spire of Cossethay.
The Brangwens received a fair sum of money from this trespass
across their land. Then, a short time afterwards, a colliery was
sunk on the other side of the canal, and in a while the Midland
Railway came down the valley at the foot of the Ilkeston hill,
and the invasion was complete. The town grew rapidly, the
Brangwens were kept busy producing supplies, they became richer,
they were almost tradesmen.
Still the Marsh remained remote and original, on the old,
quiet side of the canal embankment, in the sunny valley where
slow water wound along in company of stiff alders, and the road
went under ash-trees past the Brangwens' garden gate.
But, looking from the garden gate down the road to the right,
there, through the dark archway of the canal's square aqueduct,
was a colliery spinning away in the near distance, and further,
red, crude houses plastered on the valley in masses, and beyond
all, the dim smoking hill of the town.
The homestead was just on the safe side of civilization,
outside the gate. The house stood bare from the road, approached
by a straight garden path, along which at spring the daffodils
were thick in green and yellow. At the sides of the house were
bushes of lilac and guelder-rose and privet, entirely hiding the
farm buildings behind.
At the back a confusion of sheds spread into the home-close
from out of two or three indistinct yards. The duck-pond lay
beyond the furthest wall, littering its white feathers on the
padded earthen banks, blowing its stray soiled feathers into the
grass and the gorse bushes below the canal embankment, which
rose like a high rampart near at hand, so that occasionally a
man's figure passed in silhouette, or a man and a towing horse
traversed the sky.
At first the Brangwens were astonished by all this commotion
around them. The building of a canal across their land made them
strangers in their own place, this raw bank of earth shutting
them off disconcerted them. As they worked in the fields, from
beyond the now familiar embankment came the rhythmic run of the
winding engines, startling at first, but afterwards a narcotic
to the brain. Then the shrill whistle of the trains re-echoed
through the heart, with fearsome pleasure, announcing the
far-off come near and imminent.