WIND-ANEMONES. THE FISHPOND.
The only spot about the Chace where the wind-anemones grew was in a
small detached copse of ash-poles nearly a mile from the great woods.
Between the stoles, which were rather far apart, the ground was quite
covered in spring with dark-green vegetation, so that it was
impossible to walk there without treading down the leaves of
bluebells, anemones, and similar woodland plants. But if you wished to
see the anemones in their full beauty it was necessary to visit the
copse frequently; for if you forgot it, or delayed a fortnight, very
likely upon returning you would find that their fleeting loveliness
was over. Their slender red stems rise but a few inches, and are
surrounded with three leaves; the six white petals of the cup-shaped
flower droop a little and have a golden centre. Under the petal is a
tinge of purple, which is sometimes faintly visible through it. The
leaves are not only three in number, but are each cut deeply thrice;
they are hardy, but the flower extremely delicate.
On the banks dividing the copse from the meadows around it the blue
dog-violets, which have no perfume, often opened so large and wide as
to resemble pansies. They do not appear like this till just as their
flowering time is almost over. The meadows by the copse were small,
not more than two or three acres each. One which was marshy was white
for weeks together with the lady's-smock or cuckoo-flower. The petals
of these flowers are silvery white in some places, in others tinted
with lilac. The hues of wild flowers vary with their situation: in
shady woodlands the toadflax or butter-and-eggs is often pale--a
sulphur colour; upon the Downs it is a deep and beautiful yellow. In a
ditch, of this marshy meadow was a great bunch of woodruff, above
whose green whorls the white flowers were lifted. Over them the
brambles arched, their leaves growing in fives, and each leaf prickly.
The bramble-shoots, as they touch the ground, take root and rise
again, and thus would soon cross a field were they not cut down.
Pheasants were fond of visiting this copse, following the hedgerows to
it from the Chace, and they always had one or more nests in it. A
green woodpecker took it in his route, though he did not stay long,
there not being many trees. These birds seem to have their regular
rounds; there are some copses where they are scarcely ever heard. They
prefer old trees; where there is much large and decaying timber, there
the woodpeckers come. Such little meadows as these about the copse are
the favourite resort of birds and the very home of flowers--more so
than extensive woods like the Chace, or the open pastures and arable
fields. Thick hedgerows attract birds, and behind such cover their
motions may be watched. There is, too, more variety of bush and tree.
In one such hedgerow leading from the copse the maple-bushes in spring
were hung with the green flowers which, though they depend in their
season from so many trees, as the oak, are perhaps rarely observed.
The elder-bushes in full white bloom scented the air for yards around
both by night and day; the white bloom shows on the darkest evening.
Besides several crab-stoles--the buds of the crab might be mistaken
for thorns growing pointed at the extreme end of the twigs--there was
a large crab tree, which bore a plentiful crop. The lads sharpen their
knives by drawing the blade slowly to and fro through a crab-apple;
the acid of the fruit eats the steel like aquafortis. They hide stores
of these crabs in holes in the hayricks, supposing them to improve by
keeping. There, too, they conceal quantities of the apples from the
old orchards, for the fruit in them is often almost as hard and not
much superior in flavour to the crab. These apples certainly become
more mellow after several months in the warm hay.
A wild 'plum,' or bullace, grew in one place; the plum about twice the
size of a sloe, with a bloom upon the skin like the cultivated fruit,
but lacking its sweetness. Yet there was a distinct difference of
taste: the 'plum' had not got the extreme harshness of the sloe. A
quantity of dogwood occupied a corner; in summer it bore a pleasing
flower; in the autumn, after the black berries appeared upon it, the
leaves became a rich bronze colour, and some when the first frosts
touched them curled up at the edge and turned crimson. There were two
or three guelder-rose bushes--the wild shrub--which were covered in
June with white bloom; not in snowy balls like the garden variety, but
flat and circular, the florets at the edge of the circle often
whitest, and those in the centre greenish. In autumn the slender
boughs were weighed down with heavy bunches of large purplish berries,
so full of red juice as to appear on the point of bursting. As these
soon disappeared they were doubtless eaten by birds.
Besides the hawthorn and briar there were several species of
willow--the snake-skin willow, so called because it sheds its bark;
the 'snap-willow,' which is so brittle that every gale breaks off its
feeble twigs, and pollards. One of these, hollow and old, had upon its
top a crowd of parasites. A bramble had taken root there, and hung
over the side; a small currant-bush grew freely--both, no doubt,
unwittingly planted by birds--and finally the bines of the noxious
bitter-sweet or nightshade, starting from the decayed wood, supported
themselves among the willow-branches, and in autumn were bright with
red berries. Ash-stoles, the buds on whose boughs in spring are hidden
under black sheaths; nut-tree stoles, with ever-welcome nuts--always
stolen here, but on the Downs, where they are plentiful, staying till
they fall; young oak growing up from the butt of a felled tree. On
these oak-twigs sometimes, besides the ordinary round galls, there may
be found another gall, larger, and formed, as it were, of green scales
one above the other.
Where shall we find in the artificial and, to my thinking, tasteless
pleasure-grounds of modern houses so beautiful a shrubbery as this old
hedgerow? Nor were evergreens wanting, for the ivy grew thickly, and
there was one holly-bush--not more, for the soil was not affected by
holly. The tall cow-parsnip or 'gicks' rose up through the bushes; the
great hollow stem of the angelica grew at the edge of the field, on
the verge of the grass, but still sheltered by the brambles. Some
reeds early in spring thrust up their slender green tubes, tipped with
two spear-like leaves. The reed varies in height according to the
position in which it grows. If the hedge has been cut it does not
reach higher than four or five feet; when it springs from a deep,
hollow corner, or with bushes to draw it up, you can hardly touch its
tip with your walking-stick. The leaders of the black bryony, lifting
themselves above the bushes, and having just there nothing to cling
to, twist around each other, and two bines thus find mutual support
where one alone would fall of its own weight.
In the watery places the sedges send up their dark flowers, dusted
with light yellow pollen, rising above the triangular stem with its
narrow, ribbed leaf. The reed-sparrow or bunting sits upon the spray
over the ditch with its carex grass and rushes; he is a graceful bird,
with a crown of glossy black. Hops climb the ash and hang their
clusters, which impart an aromatic scent to the hand that plucks them;
broad burdock leaves, which the mouchers put on the top of their
baskets to shield their freshly gathered watercresses from the
sunshine; creeping avens, with buttercup-like flowers and long stems
that straggle across the ditch, and in autumn are tipped with a small
ball of soft spines; mints, strong-scented and unmistakable; yarrow,
white and sometimes a little lilac, whose flower is perhaps almost the
last that the bee visits. In the middle of October I have seen a wild
bee on a last stray yarrow.
On the higher and drier bank some few slender square stems of betony,
with leaves in pairs like wings, stand up tall and stiff as the summer
advances. The labiate purplish flowers are all at the top; each flower
is set in the cup by a curve at the lesser end, like a crook; the
leaves and stalk are slightly rough, and have an aromatic bitter
perfume when crushed. On the flower of a great thistle a moth has
alighted, and hidden under its broad wing is a humble-bee, the two
happy together and neither interfering with the other. Sometimes a bee
will visit the white rose on the briar.
Near the gateway, on the edge of the trodden ground, grows a tall,
stout, bushy plant, like a shrub, with pale greyish-green leaves, much
lobed and divided: the top of each branch in August is thick with
small whitish-green flowers tipped with brown. These, if rubbed in the
hand, emit a strong and peculiar scent, with a faint flavour of
lavender, and yet quite different. This is the mugwort. Still later
on, under the shade of the trees on the mound, there appear bunches of
a pale herb, with greenish labiate flowers, and a scent like hops: it
is the woodsage, and if tasted the leaf will be found extremely
bitter.
In the mornings of autumn the webs of the spiders hang along the hedge
bowed a little with dew, like hammocks of gossamer slung from thorn to
thorn. Then the hedge-sparrows, perching on the topmost boughs of the
hawthorn, cry 'peep-peep' mournfully; the heavy dew on the grass
beneath arranges itself in two rows of drops along the edges of the
blades. From the day when the first leaf appears upon the hardy
woodbine, in the early year, to the time when the partridge finds the
eggs in the ant-hill, and on again till the last harebell dies, there
is always something beautiful or interesting in these great hedgerows.
Indeed, it is impossible to exhaust them. I have omitted the wild
geranium with its tiny red petals scarce seen in the mass of green,
the mosses, the ferns, and have scarcely said a word about the living
creatures that haunt it. But then one might begin to write a book
about a hedgerow when a boy and find it incomplete in old age.
A much-neglected path led from the park through some fir plantations
down to the fishpond. After the first turn of the narrow track the
close foliage of the firs, through which nothing could be seen, shut
out the world with green walls. The strip of blue sky visible above
was wider than the path, because the trees sloped away somewhat, their
branches shortening towards the top; still it was so contracted that a
passing woodpigeon was seen but for a second as he went over. Every
step carried me into deeper silence--the sudden call of a jay was
startling in its harsh contrast. Presently the path widened where the
thickly planted firs were succeeded by sycamores, horse-chestnuts,
alders, and aspen--trees which stand farther apart, and beneath which
some underwood grew. Here there were thickets of hawthorn and bramble
and elder bushes which can find no place among firs.
The ground now sloped rapidly down into a hollow, and upon this
descent numbers of skeleton leaves were scattered. There was no other
spot all over the Chace where they could be seen like this; you might
walk for hours and not find one, yet here there were hundreds.
Sometimes they covered the ground in layers, several leaves one on the
other. In spring violets pushed up through them and blue-bells--sweet
hope rising over grey decay.
Lower down a large pond almost filled the hollow. It was surrounded on
three sides by trees and thickets; on the fourth an irregular margin
of marshy grass extended. Floating leaves of weeds covered the surface
of the water; these weeds had not been disturbed for years, and there
was no check to their growth except their own profusion, for they
choked each other. The pond had long ceased to supply fish for the
table. Before railways brought the sea so near, such ponds were very
useful. At that time almost everything consumed came from the estate
itself: the bread, the beef, the mutton, the venison, game, fish, all
was supplied by the adjacent woods, the fields, or the water. The lord
in old days hunted the deer on his own domain, brought down game with
a crossbow or captured it with nets, and fished or netted his own
streams and ponds. These great parks and chaces enclosed everything,
so that it was within easy reach of his own door. Sometimes the lord
and his visitors strolled out to see the fishponds netted.
This pond had originally been one of a series, but the others had been
drained and added to the meadows. It was said to be staked at the
bottom to prevent illicit netting; but if so, the stakes by this time
were probably rotten or buried in mud formed from the decaying weeds,
the fallen leaves, and branches which were gradually closing it up. A
few yards from the edge there was a mass of ivy through which a little
brown thatch could be distinguished, and on approaching nearer this
low roof was found to cover the entrance to a cave. It was an ice-house
excavated in the sloping ground or bank, in which, 'when George the
Third was King,' the ice of the ponds had been preserved to cool the
owner's wine in summer. Ice was then a luxury for the rich only; but
when so large a supply arrived from America, a supply increased by
freezing machines, the ice-house lost its importance. The door, once
so jealously closed, was gone, and the dead leaves of last year had
gathered in corners where the winds had whirled them.
The heat of a warm June day seemed still more powerful in this hollow.
The sedges, into which two or three moorhens had retired at my
approach, were still, and the leaves on the boughs overhanging the
water were motionless. Where there was a space free from weeds--a
deeper hole near the bank--a jack basked at the surface in the
sunshine. High above on the hill stood a tall dead fir, from whose
trunk the bark was falling; it had but one branch, which stood out
bare and stark across the sky. There came a sound like distant
thunder, but there were no clouds overhead, and it was not possible to
see far round. Pushing gently through the hawthorn bushes and
ash-stoles at the farther end of the pond, I found a pleasant little
stream rushing swiftly over a clear chalky bottom, hastening away down
to the larger brook.
Beyond it rose a mound and hedgerow, up to which came the meadows,
where, from the noise, the cattle seemed racing to and fro, teased by
insects. Tiny black flies alighting on my hands and face, irritated
the skin; the haymakers call them 'thunder-flies;' but the murmur of
the running water was so delicious that I sat down on a bulging
tree-root, almost over the stream, and listened to the thrushes
singing. Had it been merely warm they would have been silent. They do
not sing in dry sunshine, but they knew what was coming; so that there
is no note so hated by the haymaker as that of the thrush. The birds
were not in the firs, but in the ash-trees along the course of the
rill.
The voice of the thrush is the most 'cultivated,' so to speak, of all
our birds: the trills, the runs, the variations, are so numerous and
contrasted. Not even the nightingale can equal it: the nightingale has
not nearly such command: the thrush seems to know no limit. I own I
love the blackbird best, but in excellence of varied music the thrush
surpasses all. Few birds, except those that are formed for swimming,
come to a still pond. They like a clear running stream; they visit the
sweet running water for drinking and bathing. Dreaming away the time,
listening to the rush of the water bubbling about the stones, I did
not notice that the sky had become overcast, till suddenly a clap of
thunder near at hand awakened me. Some heavy drops of rain fell; I
looked up and saw the dead branch of the fir on the hill stretched out
like a withered arm across a black cloud.
Hastening back to the ice-house, I had barely entered the doorway when
the lightning, visible at noonday, flashed red and threatening, the
thunder crackled and snapped overhead, and the rain fell in a white
sheet of water. There were but two of these overpowering discharges
with their peculiar crack and snap; the electricity passed on quickly,
and the next clap roared over the woods. But the rain was heavier than
before, the fall increased after every flash, however distant, and the
surface of the pond was threshed by the drops which bore down with
them many leaves weakened by blight.
Doubtless the mowers in the meadows had hidden the blades of their
scythes under the swathe, and the haymakers had placed their prongs in
the ditches: nothing is so likely to attract a shock of lightning as a
prong carried on the shoulder with the bright steel points upwards. In
the farmhouses the old folk would cover up the looking-glasses lest
the quicksilver should draw the electric fluid. The haymakers will
tell you that sometimes when they have been standing under a hedge out
of a storm a flash of lightning has gone by with a distinct sound like
'swish,' and immediately afterwards the wet ground has sent forth a
vapour, or, as they say, smoked.
Woodpigeons and many other birds seem to come home to woods and copses
before and during a storm. The woodpigeon is one of the freest of
birds to all appearance: he passes over the highest trees and goes
straight away for miles. Yet, though it is usual to speak of wild
birds and of their freedom, the more you watch their ways the more you
feel that the wildest have their routes and customs: that they do not
act entirely from the impulse of the moment, but have their unwritten
laws. How do the gnats there playing under the horse-chestnut boughs
escape being struck down by the heavy raindrops, each one of which
looks as if it would drown so small a creature? The numbers of insects
far exceed all that words can express: consider the clouds of midges
that often dance over a stream. One day, chancing to glance at a
steeple, I saw what looked like thin smoke issuing from the top of it.
Now it shot out in a straight line from the gilded beak of the
weathercock, now veered about, or declined from the vane. It was an
innumerable swarm of insects, whose numbers made them visible at that
height.
Some insects are much more powerful than would be supposed. A garden
was enclosed with fresh palings formed of split oak so well seasoned
(split oak is the hardest of wood) that it was difficult to train any
creepers against them, for a nail could not be driven in without the
help of a bradawl. Passing along the path one afternoon I heard a
peculiar rasping sound like a very small saw at work, and found it
proceeded from four wasps biting the oak for the materials of their
nest. The noise they made was audible four or five yards away, and
upon looking closer I found the palings all scored and marked in short
shallow grooves. The scores and marks extended along that part of the
palings where the sunshine usually fell; there were none on the shady
side, the wasps preferring to work in the sunlight.
Soon the clouds began to break, and then the sun shone on innumerable
rain-drops. I at once started forth, knowing that such a storm is
often followed by several lesser showers with brief intervals between.
The deserted ice-house was rarely visited--only, perhaps, when some
borage was wanted to put in summer drinks. For a thick growth of
borage had sprung up by it, where perhaps a small garden patch had
once been cultivated, for there was a pear-tree near. The plant, with
its scent of cucumber, grew very strong; the blue flowers when fallen,
if they had not been observed when growing, might be supposed to have
been inserted exactly upside down to their real manner of attachment.
In autumn the leaves of the pear-tree reddened, and afterwards the ivy
over the entrance to the ice-house flowered; then in the cold months of
early spring the birds came for the ivy-berries.