I have been staying in the remote country with an aristocrat, by
which, of course, I mean not a man with two motor-cars, or a man
with illustrious quarterings, but one through whose garden runs a
trout-stream. I used to think that the possession of a cedar alone
conferred aristocracy, and I still think that in some measure it does;
but a stream with trout in it...! Moreover, this friend of mine has a
cedar too.
It is odd how late in life one does some of the most desirable things.
Here am I, who, ever since I can remember, have been longing to be idle
with a book in a chair beside running water; yet not till last week
did I find the conditions perfect. The sun was hot, yet not too hot;
the book did not matter, yet was not despicable, and once a peacock
butterfly settled upon the open page, and this justified in an instant
the existence of author, publisher, paper-maker, printer, binder, and
book-seller; the air was filled not only with the pretty whispering
burble of the current, but also with the plashing of a fountain in
its marble basin and the steady descent of water through a sluice;
sweet scents came and went with the gentle breeze, and one had but to
lift the eyes to see phloxes and dahlias in all their rich glory. And
once--but that is too wonderful an experience to be mentioned without
more ceremony.
Just as one man’s meat is another man’s poison, so is one man’s
commonplace another’s phenomenon. To an Englishman, for example, in
Dieppe it is nothing to read that a swallow-tailed butterfly has been
seen in England, because on the cliffs between Dieppe and Le Puy
swallow-tails are as prevalent as garden-whites with us. But what a
thrill for the English schoolboy with his net to see one in his native
meadows! Again, it is nothing to a gamekeeper to watch a family of
foxes at play in the early morning; but it would be an unforgettable
spectacle to a town dweller. And I daresay that there are readers
of these lines in Norfolk who are as accustomed to the sight of
kingfishers as I who live far from water am to that of rooks; but to me
kingfishers have appeared so seldom that they are like angels’ visits
and mark the years. I remember one on the Rother, near Midhurst, in
1884; another near Abingdon in 1889; another at Burford Bridge in 1890;
and a fourth in the valley between Rievaulx and Helmsley in 1894. That
is my total--four kingfishers in quite a long and not indolent life,
which includes at least two separate weeks on the Avon devoted to the
search for this bird--not the frequented Avon either, but the Avon’s
quieter parts such as one finds near the Combertons and about Harington
Weir.
At least that was my total until last week. But now I must add a fifth,
for as I was sitting by this little stream, thinking of nothing,
quietly ruminative and happily receptive, suddenly a jewel darted
through the air, and, burning bright against the sombre depths of a
yew, disappeared again. Almost before I had realized its presence my
fifth kingfisher was gone; but the day was made perfect by the flash.
And had I sat on I might have had even greater luck, for a fortnight
ago, while my friend was standing motionless on his bridge, an otter
climbed out of the water close by and strolled along the bank,
bright-eyed and inquisitive. Luck is the only word; and, as I once
wrote elsewhere, it is a kind of luck which goes entirely by favour of
the gods. I have it not. The only otter I ever saw was at the Zoo; and
incidentally I might add that the otter is the only animal in the Zoo
for which (with the exception of the mice) one does not feel sorry. He
seems so content; and has so much of his “native pewter” (so to speak)
to revel in; and is so continuously and rapturously alive, making the
best of both worlds--water and land. Whenever I look at him--and he is
three or four strong just now--I again realize that one of the most
satisfactory memories I can indulge is that on the single occasion on
which I joined an otter hunt nothing was killed.
It was seventeen years ago. The pack had come all the way to Sussex
from Wales, accompanied by an indefatigable owner, who illustrated,
curiously, pathetically, almost tragically, the hold that the chase can
exert upon an English gentleman. For he was a ruin: he was paralyzed
below the waist, and had the use only of one arm; but strapped securely
on a tried and faithful pony, he was able to direct and follow the
hunt. It was a strange sight: the old placid pony tugging at the lush
grass, while its crippled rider, in the grip of the passion of pursuit,
yelled like a demon. Hour after hour this stricken centaur patrolled
the banks and urged on his hounds with shouts and cries pouring from
his twisted lips. Not an otter-haunted stream in England but knew him!
I often think of him and wonder.
Dipping the other day in that most agreeable of recent autobiographies,
_The Reminiscences of Albert Pell_, I opened once again at his story
of Sir John Lawes’ otters, and, re-reading it, I felt more than
ever relieved that that one otter-hunt of my youth ended without
bloodshed. “An otter,” wrote Mr. Pell, who knew most things about
English woodlands and streams, “is a delightfully amusing pet, and
extremely inquisitive. When indoor he pries into every room, upstairs
and downstairs, but has, as a famous sportswoman says, a bad habit of
getting up early in the morning, having a bath, if there is one in
the room handy, then going up a chimney and returning to get into bed
with his mistress. My friend Sir John Lawes, as great a man in sport
as in science, had a pair of these animals at Rothamsted. They retired
by day to a small pool in the park. It was his custom at one time to
drive some miles to the railway-station at St. Albans, taking the train
there for London. On his return he never failed to bring back a basket
of fresh fish for the otters. As the carriage entered the park on the
way back to the Hall the creatures, unmoved by any other traffic,
recognized the paces of their master’s horses, and coming out of their
retreat in haste across the grass, ran ahead of the carriage, jumping
up like dogs at the horses’ noses till they reached the Hall, when,
the basket being emptied before them, they hurried back with their
present. Sir John took them up with him to his forest in Scotland,
where the pair enjoyed the forest as much as he did, taking themselves
off in the evening on fishing excursions in wild Highland waters,
to return without fail before daylight. A wretch of a gillie killed
the female, whereupon the disconsolate mate became irregular in his
habits, staying out at first for one night, then for two or three,
then a week, and finally never came back at all; probably lured away
by the enchantments of some wild jade with whom he set up poaching and
housekeeping.”
Is not that a charming story? I think the picture of the two creatures
frisking ahead of the horses (like porpoises around the prow of a
vessel) one of the most joyous it would be possible to conceive.
The sight of otters and kingfishers, alert and glancing, in their
native haunts confers distinction; but there is a far more remarkable
uniquity even than that; and I recently possessed it. What do you say
to a Sunday morning walk in Sussex and coming upon the dead body of a
badger lying just in the mouth of its burrow? On the strength of such
an adventure I claim to be for the moment a creature enormously apart
and loftily pinnacled. That we had badgers within half a mile, we knew.
Mus Penfold often sees traces of them, although never has a living one
met his sight; and last year, I regret to say, a party of stupid men
with eight dogs were allowed by the farmer to dig out two of the young
badgers and kill them. I did not watch them at their vile work, but I
saw their _débris_ afterwards, and counted the bottles.
How this badger died we shall never know; but there he lay, just like a
comfortable sleeping bear: in fact curiously like that little Malayan
“Gypsy” whom I found at the Zoo and whom you will find elsewhere in
this book. His head, black and yellow, was between his long-clawed paws
quite naturally. But he was dead enough, and his skin is now in the
house as a bloodless trophy and a proof that England is not yet wholly
tamed.