Living year after year in Windlecombe, I have come by old habit to
associate with each month that passes its own characteristic changes and
events. February always stands in my mind for three great ebullitions of
the year’s life, equally wonderful in their several ways—the coming of
the elm blossom, the earliest clamorous music from the lambing-pens, and
the first rich song of the awakening bees.
Through my study window, all this week of warm, glittering, showery
weather, I have watched the elm-trees about the churchyard gradually lose
their sharp, clear-cut outline of winter, and dissolve into the misty
softness of spring. Already the tree-tops are so dense that the blue sky
can barely penetrate them. This change is not caused by the expanding
leaf buds, but by the opening of the myriad blossoms, which come and go
before the leaf. Their colour is a magnificent, sombre purple; and the
whole tree stands up in the sunshine, clad in this gorgeous raiment from
its bole to its highest twig—an imperial garment reminding you in more
ways than one of ancient Rome and its Cæsars; for there is little doubt
that the elm is no British tree, but was brought to us by the Romans, all
those centuries ago, with so many other good things.
In the deep pockets of rich soil which have sifted down to the valleys,
and in the shallower soil of our chalk hills, almost every species of
forest tree makes generous growth. But perhaps nothing takes so kindly
to highland Sussex conditions as the elm. The village gardens are
fringed about with its beautiful, wide-spreading shapes, and, in summer,
griddled over with its long blue shadows. But no tree stands within a
distance of its own height from any dwelling. Hard experience has taught
men that the elm is undesirable as a near neighbour. Of all trees it is
the most comely, because it is never symmetrical, but it owes this
picturesque trait to a habit intolerable in a close acquaintance. Not
only does the elm cast its great branches to earth at all times and
without creak or groan of warning, but during the season of the
equinoctial gales, you never know when the whole tree may not come
toppling over in a moment, measuring its vast length on the ground with a
sound like the impact of the heaviest wave that ever thundered against
Beachy Head.
It was so that the King of Windlecombe, the oldest and mightiest elm
through half the county, came down one pitch-black, tempestuous night in
a September of long ago. None of the children, nor many of the younger
folk in the village, now remember the King, where he towered up beyond
the east wall of the churchyard, and every sunset threw his vast shadow
half way up the combe. But they are all familiar with the story of his
downfall. A wild night it was. Every window shook in its frame; every
chimney was an organ-pipe for the wind’s blowing; the sound of the rain
on roof and wall was like an incessant hail of musketry. Thatches were
stripped off. The inn-sign went clattering down the street. The gilt
weather-cock on the church tower took a list that it has kept to this
day. No one dared go abroad that night, but families sat close at home,
keeping shoulder to shoulder in timorous company, and dreadfully
wondering what it was like at sea. Had you need to speak, you must shout
your words, so great was the din of the hurricane. All night it raged
undiminished, and no one slept; some even would not venture to bed, not
knowing but the roof might be plucked off any moment as they lay, and let
the drenching torrent in upon them. Then, as the first grey tinge of
dawn blanched in the eastern sky, high above the voice of the storm came
one tremendous booming note, as though the earth had split asunder. And
with the light, people looked out and saw that the King of Windlecombe
was down.
To-day, as I settled myself to work with the lattices tight closed, to
shut out the lure of the songful morning, there came a patter of earth
upon the glass. At first I thought it was one of the martins’ nests
broken away from the eaves above, being stuffed too full of hay by
interloping sparrows. But the sharp volley sounded again, and looking
out, there on the path below I beheld the old vicar in wide-brimmed hat
and tartan shawl.
‘How now, old mole!’ cried he, shaking his stout oak cudgel at me. ‘The
sun shines, the west wind calls, all the brooks are laughing over their
beds! Yet there you hide in your burrow, grouting among dead words,
warming up stale, cold dreams a twelvemonth old! Shame on you! Come
out, and let the air and sunbeams riddle your dusty fur! Come and lend
me your eyes for a long morning. I have seen to Mrs. Dawes’ rheumatics.
I have done the school. Old Collup has had his bedside talk. I am free
for a ramble, and I want to go everywhere and hear tell of everything.
Come this moment, or I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house
down!’
With his jolly, wrinkled face turned upward, his long white beard
wagging, and his kind eyes steadily meeting mine, it was difficult to
believe that he could see only the faintest shadow of all before him;
that for years past he had lived and worked in a world of deepest dusk,
wherein the very noontide sun of summer was no more than a pale spot in
never-ending gloom. I got my thick boots, and was soon trudging down the
hill with him towards the riverside woods and meadows, every yard of
which had been familiar to him in his days of light.
Arun was running high, with three spring tides yet to come. Much rain
had fallen of late. It looked as though the floods would soon be upon
us, unless the wind changed, and drier, colder weather set in. We
skirted the river-bank, with the wind whipping light ripples almost to
our feet, and the sun making a broad path of gold along the waters.
Beyond the river stretched level green pastures intersected by deep
dykes, and beyond these again lay the misty blue sierra of wooded hills.
The old parson strode easily forward, his face turned up to the sky. His
step never faltered, but his stick hovered incessantly about the path as
he went.
‘Hark to the wind in the trees!’ he said. ‘That is a new voice: the elms
must be in full bloom, and I can guess what they look like. And the
sound is different in that clump of beeches there: the leaf-buds must be
getting long and green now. Only the ash and the oak keep their winter
voice in February.’
Thus it always was on our walks together. What he heard, he told me of;
and what I saw, I gave him as well as I was able.
‘Listen!’ he said presently. ‘Did you hear that? That is the first
chaffinch-song of the year. And there is the great-tit clashing his
silver cymbals together, and the bullfinches blowing over the tops of
their latchkeys, and a green woodpecker laughing—he never laughs in that
grim, scornful way until the year is well on the wing!’
Then I, not to be behind him:
‘I see grass—fresh new growth pushing up everywhere. Young nettles too:
they are coming up green amongst the old dead stems. But they cannot
sting yet—yes, they can! and badly! Stop here a moment, Reverend! The
celandines are out thick on the bank—you remember their shining, yellow,
five-rayed stars, set in dark green leaves like the spade-blades of
Hamlet’s diggers. Below on the bank, where it is too steep for anything
else to grow, there are coltsfoot flowers. The drab earth glows with
them—no leaves at all, but just long, curved, scaly stems, each ending in
a tuft of golden fleece. And then there is—’
‘I know, I know! I can look back a dozen springs, and see them all as
well as you. But listen to that thrush! That is his honeymooning note,
and the pair must be nesting not far away. I have found thrushes’ nests
in February many a time. See if you can find this one.’
‘Your singer has flown. And there goes the hen, out of the other side of
the bush; if the nest is anywhere, it will be here under this tangle of
clematis. Yes, two eggs already! I wish you could see their clear
greenish-blue, with the dapple-marks on it.’