THE CUCKOO-FIELDS.
The cuckoos came so frequently to some grass-land just outside the
Chace and sloping down to the brook that I gave the spot the name of
the Cuckoo-fields. There were two detached copses in them of no great
extent, and numerous oaks and hawthorns, while the brook below was
bordered with willow-stoles. This stretch of grass was divided into
two large fields by a line of decaying posts and rails, and it became
a favourite resort of mine in the warm days of spring, because I could
almost always see and hear the cuckoos there.
Why they should love it so much is not easy to tell, unless on account
of the comparatively barren character of the soil. The earth seemed to
be of a very different kind to that in the rich and fertile meadows
and fields close by; for the grass was rough, short, and thin, and
soon became greyish or brown as the summer advanced, burning or drying
up under the sun. It may often be observed that a piece of waste, like
furze, when in the midst of good land, is much frequented by all birds
and animals, though where there is nothing else but waste they are
often almost entirely absent.
As the oaks come out into full leaf, the time when the meadows become
beautiful, the notes of the cuckoo sound like a voice crying 'Come
hither' from the trees. Then, sitting on the grey and lichen-covered
rail under the cover of a hawthorn, I saw sometimes two and sometimes
three cuckoos following each other courting, now round the copse, now
by the hedge or the brook, and presently along the rails where they
constantly perched. Occasionally one would alight on the sward among
the purple flowers of the meadow orchis. From the marshy meadow across
the brook apeew it rose from time to time, uttering his plaintive call
and wheeling to and fro on the wing. At the sound a second and a third
appeared in succession, and after beating up and down for a few
minutes settled again in the grass. The meadow might have been called
a plovery--as we say rookery and heronry--for the green plovers or
peewits always had several nests in it.
The course of the humble bees that went by could be watched for some
way--their large size and darker colour made them visible--as they now
went down into the grass, and now started forward again. The honey
bees, small and somewhat lighter in colour, could not be seen so far.
They were busy in the sunshine, for the hive bee must gather most of
its honey before the end of July, before the scythe has laid the grass
in the last meadow low. Few if any flowers come up after the scythe
has gone over, except the white clover, which almost alone shows in
the aftermath, or, as country people call it, the 'lattermath.' Near
me a titlark every few minutes rose from the sward, and spreading his
wings came down aslant, singing with all his might.
Some sarsen stones just showed above the grass: the old folk say that
these boulders grow in size and increase in number. The fact is that
in some soils the boulder protrudes more and more above the surface in
the course of time, and others come into view that were once hidden;
while in another place the turf rises, and they seem to slowly sink
into the earth. The monotonous and yet pleasing cry of the peewits,
the sweet titlark singing overhead, and the cuckoos flying round,
filled the place with the magic charm of spring.
Coming to these Cuckoo-fields day after day, there was always
something to interest me, either in the meadows themselves or on the
way thither. The very dust of the road had something to show. For
under the shadowy elms a little seed or grain had jolted down through
the chinks in the bed of a passing waggon, and there the chaffinches
and sparrows had congregated. As they moved to and fro they had left
the marks of their feet in the thick white dust, so crossed and
intertangled in a maze of tracks that no one could have designed so
delicate and intricate a pattern. If it was cloudy, still, glancing
over the cornfields, just as you turned partly round to look, there
seemed a brilliant streak of sunshine across them. This was a broad
band of charlock: its light yellow is so gaudy and glaring in the mass
that as it first catches the eye it seems as if the land were lit up
by the sun. After it the buttercups appear of a quiet colour, like
dead gold in contrast.
Under-foot, almost in the very dust of the road, the silverweed opened
its yellow petals, and where there was a dry bank, or by the gateways
leading into the corn, the pink pimpernel grew. For some time I
suspected the pimpernel of not invariably closing its petals before
rain, and at last by precise observation found that it did not. Twice
in a comparatively short period I noted the petals wide open within a
few minutes of a shower. It appears rather to close during the
atmospheric change which occurs previous to rain than to rain itself.
Once now and then a shower seems to come up in the driest weather
without warning or change in the atmosphere: the cloud is over and
gone almost before it seems worth while to take shelter. To the
approach of such shower-clouds the pimpernel does not invariably
respond, but it is perfectly accurate if anything serious be brewing.
By a furrow in the sward by the roadside there grew a little piece of
some species of gorse--so small and delicate, with the tiniest yellow
flowers, that it was well worthy of a place where it would be admired;
for few could have seen it hidden there.
Birds'-foot lotus covered the sward of one part of the Cuckoo-fields,
on the higher ground near the woods, where the soil was dry; and by
the hedge there were some bushy plants of the rest-harrow, whose
prickly branches repel cattle and whose appearance reproaches the
farmer for neglect. Yet though an outcast with animals and men, it
bears a beautiful flower, butterfly-shaped and delicately tinted with
pink. Now, as the days roll on, the blue succory and the scarlet
poppies stand side by side in the yellow wheat but just outside my
Cuckoo-fields, and one or two stray corncockles bloom; they are not
common here and are perhaps brought from a distance. Here you may walk
many miles and even wait several harvests to see a corncockle.
The thistledown floats; and see, yonder the white balls are rolling
before the gentle air along the very tips of the bronzing wheat-ears.
By the hedge the straggling stalks of St. John's wort lift the yellow
petals dotted with black specks above the bunches of grass. The
leaves, held up to the light, seem to have numerous eyelets, as if
pricked but not quite through--windows in the leaf. In the grass the
short selfheal shows; and, leaning over the gate, on the edge of the
wheat you may see the curious prickly seed-vessels of the corn
buttercup--the 'hedgehog'--whose spines, however, will not scratch the
softest skin.
Resting on the rail under the hawthorn for a minute or two in early
spring, when it was too chilly to stay long, I watched a flock of
rooks and jackdaws soaring in the sky. Round and round and ever
upwards they circled, the jackdaws of course betraying their presence
by their call; up towards the blue, as if in the joy of their hearts,
they held a festival, happy in the genial weather and the approach of
the nesting-time. This soaring and wheeling is evidently done for
recreation, like a dance. Presently the flock seems to tumble and
fall, and there comes the rushing sound of the air swiftly parted by
their out-spread wings as they dive a hundred feet in a second. The
noise is audible a quarter of a mile off. This, too, is play; for,
catching themselves and regaining their balance just above the elms,
they resume their steady flight onwards to distant feeding-grounds.
Later in the season, sitting there in the warm evenings, I could hear
the pheasants utter their peculiar roost-cry, and the noise of their
wings as they flew up in the wood: the vibration is so loud that it
might almost be described as thumping.
By-and-by the cuckoo began to lose his voice; he gurgled and gasped,
and cried 'cuck--kuk--kwai--kash,' and could not utter the soft,
melodious 'oo.' The latest date on which I ever heard the cuckoo here,
to be certain, was the day before St. Swithin, July 14, 1879. The
nightingales, too, lose their sweet notes, but not their voices; they
remain in the hedges long after their song has ceased. Passing by the
hawthorn bushes up to the end of July, you may hear a bird within that
seems to threaten you with a loud 'sweet-kurr,' and, looking in, you
will find it to be a nightingale. The spelling exactly represents the
sound, 'r' being twirled. 'Sweet-kurr-kurr' comes from the interior of
the bushes with an angry emphasis.
Along the lower part of these meadows there was a brook, and the
brook-sparrows were chattering ceaselessly as I walked among the
willow-stoles by it one morning towards the end of June. On the left
hand the deep stream flowed silently round its gentle curves, and on
the other through the willows and alders the grassy slope of the
Cuckoo-fields was visible. Broad leaves of the marsh marigold, the
flower long since gone, covered the ground; light-green horsetails
were dotted thickly about; and tall grasses flourished, rising to the
knee. Dark shallow pools were so hidden under these grasses and plants
that the presence of the black and yet clear water could not be
perceived until the foot sank into it.
The sedge-birds kept just in front of me, now busy on a willow-stole,
and concealed in the grasses and moss which grew out of the decaying
wood; now among the sedges covering the mudbanks where the brook had
silted up; now in the hedge which divided the willows from the meadow.
Still the peculiar sparrow-like note, the ringing chirp, came
continually from their throats; the warm sultry day delighted them.
One clung to the side of a slender flag, which scarcely seemed strong
enough to support it, yet did not even bend under its weight; then on
again as I came nearer--but only two or three yards--to recommence
singing immediately.
Pushing through the brushwood and past the reddish willow-poles, I
entered a very thicket of flags, rising to the shoulder. These were
not ribbed or bayonet-shaped, but flat, like a long sword. Three or
four sprang from a single root, broad and tall, and beside them a
stalk, and on it the yellow iris in fall flower. The marsh seemed lit
up with these bright lamps of colour under the shadowy willows and the
dark alders. There were a dozen at least within a few yards close
around, and others dimly visible through the branches--three large
yellow petals drooping, and on the curve of each brownish mottled
markings or lines delicately stippled, beside them a rolled spike-like
bloom not yet unfolded: a flower of the waters, crowned with gold,
above the green dwellers by the shore.
Here the sedge-birds left me, doubling back to their favourite
willow-stoles and sedges. Further on, the ground rose, and on the
drier bank the 'gicks' grew shoulder high, towering over the brambles.
It was difficult to move through the tangled underwood, so I went out
into the Cuckoo-fields. Hilary had drained away much of the water that
used to form a far larger marsh about here, and calculated his
levellings in a most ingenious manner with a hollow 'gicks.' He took a
wooden bowl, and filled it to the brim with water. Then cutting a dry
'gicks' so that it should be open at either end, like a tube, he
floated it--the stalk is very light--on the bowl. Looking through this
tube he could get his level almost as accurately as with an engineer's
instrument, though of course it was more cumbrous to use.
There was a corner here that had not been mown for a long time, and in
the autumn the wild carrots took possession of it, almost to the
exclusion of grass and other plants. The flower of the wild carrot
gathers together as the seeds mature, and forms a framework cup at the
top of the stalk, like a bird's-nest. These 'bird's-nests,' brown and
weather-beaten, endured far into the winter. The brook-sparrows still
sang as I passed by again in the evening; they seem the most unwearied
of birds, for you may hear them all day, all the evening, and at one
o'clock next morning; indeed, at intervals, all night. By night the
note is, or appears to be, less sparrow-like, or perhaps the silence
of night improves it to the ear. I stayed that evening in a corner of
a wheatfield not yet yellow, and watched the shadows of the trees grow
longer and broader as the sun declined.
As the breeze rushed over the corn there was a play of various shades
of green, the stalks as they bent this and that way taking different
hues. But under the hedge it was still; the wind could not come
through, though it moved the boughs above. A mass of cloud like flocks
of wool, mottled and with small spaces of blue between, drifted slowly
eastwards, and its last edge formed an arch over the western horizon,
under which the sun shone. The yellow vetchling had climbed up from
the ditch and opened its flower, and there were young nuts on the
hazel bough. Far away in a copse a wood-pigeon called; nearer the
blackbirds were whistling; a willow wren uttered his note high in the
elm, and a distant yellowhammer sang to the sinking sun.
The brook had once been much wider, and in flood times rendered the
Overboro' road almost impassable; for before a bridge was built it
spread widely and crossed the highway--a rushing, though shallow,
torrent fifty yards broad. The stumps of the willows that had grown by
it could still be found in places, and now and then an ancient
'bullpoll' was washed up. This grass is so tough that the tufts or
cushions it forms will last in water for fifty years, even when rooted
up--decayed of course and black, but still distinguishable. In those
times just previous to the construction of railways, when the lord of
the manor came down after Parliament rose, there used to be a
competition to get hold of his coachman. So few agricultural people
travelled, and news came so slowly and in such distorted fashion, that
the coachman became a great authority. Such a brook as this was then
often a serious obstacle.
There was still an old punt, seldom used, to be found in a rickyard of
Hilary's, close by which was an extensive pond. The punt was thatched
over with flags from the stream. The moorhens were fond of this pond
because it was surrounded with a great quantity of rushes; they were
numerous all up the brook. These birds, being tame and common, are not
much regarded either for sport or the table, yet a moorhen shot at the
right time of the year--not till the frosts have begun--is delicious
eating. If the bird were rare it would be thought to rival the
woodcock; as it is, probably few people ever taste it. The path to
Lucketts' Place from this rickyard passed a stone-quarry, where the
excavated stone was built up in square heaps. In these heaps, in which
there were many interstices and hollows, rabbits often sat out; and by
stopping the entrance and carefully removing the stones they might
occasionally be taken by hand. Next by the barn where in spring the
sparrows made a continuous noise, chirping and quarrelling as they
carried on their nesting operations: they sometimes flew up with long
green bennets and grass fibres as well as with dry straws.
Then across the road, where the flint-heaps always put me in mind of
young Aaron; for he once gravely assured me that they were the very
best places in the world on which to rest or sleep. The flints were
dry, and preserved the slumbering wayfarer from damp. He had no doubt
proved this when the ale was too strong. At the house, as I passed
through the courtyard, I found him just on the point of starting for
Overboro' with a wallet, to bring back some goods from the shops. The
wallet is almost unknown even in farmsteads now: it is a kind of long
bag closed at each end, but with a slit in the centre for the
insertion of the things to be conveyed. When filled it is slung over
the shoulder, one end in front and the other behind, so as to balance.
Without knowing the shape of a wallet the story of Jack the
Giant-Killer stowing away such enormous quantities of pudding is
scarcely to be understood: children nowadays never see such a thing.
Many nursery tales contain allusions of this kind, the meaning of
which must be obscure to the rising generation.
Within doors I found a great discussion going forward between Hilary
and a farmer who had called, as to the exact relationship of a man who
had just quitted his tenancy and another who died nearly forty years
before. They could not agree either as to the kinship or the date;
though the visitor was the more certain because he so well remembered
that there was an extraordinary cut of 'turvin' that year. The
'turvin' is the hay made on the leaze, not the meadows, out of the
rough grass and bennets left by the cows. To listen to the zest with
which they entered into the minutest details of the family affairs of
so long ago, concerning people with whom neither had any
connection--how they recollected the smallest particulars--was
astonishing. This marvellous capacity for gossip seemed like a
revelation of a totally different state of society. The memory of
country people for such details is beyond belief.
When the visitor left with his wife we walked to the gate and saw them
down the road; and it was curious to note that they did not walk side
by side. If you meet a farmer of the old style and his wife walking
together, never do you see them arm-in-arm. The husband walks a yard
or two in front, or else on the other side of the road; and this even
when they are going to church.