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NATURE NEAR LONDON
BY
RICHARD JEFFERIES
AUTHOR OF
"THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS," "THE OPEN AIR," ETC.
[Illustration]
FINE-PAPER EDITION
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1905
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press
PREFACE
It is usually supposed to be necessary to go far into the country to
find wild birds and animals in sufficient numbers to be pleasantly
studied. Such was certainly my own impression till circumstances led me,
for the convenience of access to London, to reside for awhile about
twelve miles from town. There my preconceived views on the subject were
quite overthrown by the presence of as much bird-life as I had been
accustomed to in distant fields and woods.
First, as the spring began, came crowds of chiffchaffs and willow-wrens,
filling the furze with ceaseless flutterings. Presently a nightingale
sang in a hawthorn bush only just on the other side of the road. One
morning, on looking out of window, there was a hen pheasant in the furze
almost underneath. Rabbits often came out into the spaces of sward
between the bushes.
The furze itself became a broad surface of gold, beautiful to look down
upon, with islands of tenderest birch green interspersed, and willows in
which the sedge-reedling chattered. They used to say in the country that
cuckoos were getting scarce, but here the notes of the cuckoo echoed all
day long, and the birds often flew over the house. Doves cooed,
blackbirds whistled, thrushes sang, jays called, wood-pigeons uttered
the old familiar notes in the little copse hard by. Even a heron went
over now and then, and in the evening from the window I could hear
partridges calling each other to roost.
Along the roads and lanes the quantity and variety of life in the hedges
was really astonishing. Magpies, jays, woodpeckers--both green and
pied--kestrels hovering overhead, sparrow-hawks darting over gateways,
hares by the clover, weasels on the mounds, stoats at the edge of the
corn. I missed but two birds, the corncrake and the grasshopper lark,
and found these another season. Two squirrels one day ran along the
palings and up into a guelder-rose tree in the garden. As for the
finches and sparrows their number was past calculation. There was
material for many years' observation, and finding myself so unexpectedly
in the midst of these things, I was led to make the following sketches,
which were published in _The Standard_, and are now reprinted by
permission.
The question may be asked: Why have you not indicated in every case the
precise locality where you were so pleased? Why not mention the exact
hedge, the particular meadow? Because no two persons look at the same
thing with the same eyes. To me this spot may be attractive, to you
another; a third thinks yonder gnarled oak the most artistic. Nor could
I guarantee that every one should see the same things under the same
conditions of season, time, or weather. How could I arrange for you next
autumn to see the sprays of the horse-chestnut, scarlet from frost,
reflected in the dark water of the brook? There might not be any frost
till all the leaves had dropped. How could I contrive that the cuckoos
should circle round the copse, the sunlight glint upon the stream, the
warm sweet wind come breathing over the young corn just when I should
wish you to feel it? Every one must find their own locality. I find a
favourite wild-flower here, and the spot is dear to me; you find yours
yonder. Neither painter nor writer can show the spectator their
originals. It would be very easy, too, to pass any of these places and
see nothing, or but little. Birds are wayward, wild creatures uncertain.
The tree crowded with wood-pigeons one minute is empty the next. To
traverse the paths day by day, and week by week; to keep an eye ever on
the fields from year's end to year's end, is the one only method of
knowing what really is in or comes to them. That the sitting gambler
sweeps the board is true of these matters. The richest locality may be
apparently devoid of interest just at the juncture of a chance visit.
Though my preconceived ideas were overthrown by the presence of so much
that was beautiful and interesting close to London, yet in course of
time I came to understand what was at first a dim sense of something
wanting. In the shadiest lane, in the still pinewoods, on the hills of
purple heath, after brief contemplation there arose a restlessness, a
feeling that it was essential to be moving. In no grassy mead was there
a nook where I could stretch myself in slumberous ease and watch the
swallows ever wheeling, wheeling in the sky. This was the unseen
influence of mighty London. The strong life of the vast city magnetised
me, and I felt it under the calm oaks. The something wanting in the
fields was the absolute quiet, peace, and rest which dwells in the
meadows and under the trees and on the hilltops in the country. Under
its power the mind gradually yields itself to the green earth, the wind
among the trees, the song of birds, and comes to have an understanding
with them all. For this it is still necessary to seek the far-away
glades and hollow coombes, or to sit alone beside the sea. That such a
sense of quiet might not be lacking, I have added a chapter or so on
those lovely downs that overlook the south coast.
R. J.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Woodlands 1
Footpaths 12
Flocks of Birds 24
Nightingale Road 35
A Brook 48
A London Trout 59
A Barn 70
Wheatfields 80
The Crows 90
Heathlands 101
The River 111
Nutty Autumn 124
Round a London Copse 133
Magpie Fields 147
Herbs 162
Trees About Town 172
To Brighton 181
The Southdown Shepherd 193
The Breeze on Beachy Head 204
NATURE NEAR LONDON
WOODLANDS
The tiny white petals of the barren strawberry open under the April
sunshine which, as yet unchecked by crowded foliage above, can reach the
moist banks under the trees. It is then that the first stroll of the
year should be taken in Claygate Lane. The slender runners of the
strawberries trail over the mounds among the moss, some of the flowers
but just above the black and brown leaves of last year which fill the
shallow ditch. These will presently be hidden under the grass which is
pushing up long blades, and bending over like a plume.
Crimson stalks and leaves of herb Robert stretch across the little
cavities of the mound; lower, and rising almost from the water of the
ditch, the wild parsnip spreads its broad fan. Slanting among the
underwood, against which it leans, the dry white "gix" (cow-parsnip) of
last year has rotted from its root, and is only upheld by branches.
Yellowish green cup-like leaves are forming upon the brown and drooping
heads of the spurge, which, sheltered by the bushes, has endured the
winter's frosts. The lads pull them off, and break the stems, to watch
the white "milk" well up, the whole plant being full of acrid juice.
Whorls of woodruff and grass-like leaves of stitchwort are rising; the
latter holds but feebly to the earth, and even in snatching the flower
the roots sometimes give way and the plant is lifted with it.
Upon either hand the mounds are so broad that they in places resemble
covers rather than hedges, thickly grown with bramble and briar, hazel
and hawthorn, above which the straight trunks of young oaks and Spanish
chestnuts stand in crowded but careless ranks. The leaves which dropped
in the preceding autumn from these trees still lie on the ground under
the bushes, dry and brittle, and the blackbirds searching about among
them cause as much rustling as if some animal were routing about.
As the month progresses these wide mounds become completely green,
hawthorn and bramble, briar and hazel put forth their leaves, and the
eye can no longer see into the recesses. But above, the oaks and edible
chestnuts are still dark and leafless, almost black by contrast with the
vivid green beneath them. Upon their bare boughs the birds are easily
seen, but the moment they descend among the bushes are difficult to
find. Chaffinches call and challenge continually--these trees are their
favourite resort--and yellowhammers flit along the underwood.
Behind the broad hedge are the ploughed fields they love, alternating
with meadows down whose hedges again a stream of birds is always flowing
to the lane. Bright as are the colours of the yellowhammer, when he
alights among the brown clods of the ploughed field he is barely
visible, for brown conceals like vapour. A white butterfly comes
fluttering along the lane, and as it passes under a tree a chaffinch
swoops down and snaps at it, but rises again without doing apparent
injury, for the butterfly continues its flight.
From an oak overhead comes the sweet slender voice of a linnet, the
sunshine falling on his rosy breast. The gateways show the thickness of
the hedge, as an embrasure shows the thickness of a wall. One gives
entrance to an arable field which has been recently rolled, and along
the gentle rise of a "land" a cock-pheasant walks, so near that the ring
about his neck is visible. Presently, becoming conscious that he is
observed, he goes down into a furrow, and is then hidden.
The next gateway, equally deep-set between the bushes, opens on a
pasture, where the docks of last year still cumber the ground, and
bunches of rough grass and rushes are scattered here and there. A
partridge separated from his mate is calling across the field, and comes
running over the short sward as his companion answers. With his neck
held high and upright, stretched to see around, he looks larger than
would be supposed, as he runs swiftly, threading his way through the
tufts, the docks, and the rushes. But suddenly noticing that the gateway
is not clear, he crouches, and is concealed by the grass.
Some distance farther there is a stile, sitting upon which the view
ranges over two adjacent meadows. They are bounded by a copse of ash
stoles and young oak trees, and the lesser of the meads is full of rush
bunches and dotted with green ant-hills. Among these, just beyond
gunshot, two rabbits are feeding; pausing and nibbling till they have
eaten the tenderest blades, and then leisurely hopping a yard or so to
another spot. Later on in the summer this little meadow which divides
the lane from the copse is alive with rabbits.
Along the hedge the brake fern has then grown, in the corner by the
copse there is a beautiful mass of it, and several detached bunches away
from the hedge among the ant-hills. From out of the fern, which is a
favourite retreat with them, rabbits are continually coming, feeding
awhile, darting after each other, and back again to cover. To-day there
are but three, and they do not venture far from their buries.
Watching these, a green woodpecker cries in the copse, and immediately
afterwards flies across the mead, and away to another plantation.
Occasionally the spotted woodpecker may be seen here, a little bird
which, in the height of summer, is lost among the foliage, but in spring
and winter can be observed tapping at the branches of the trees.
I think I have seen more spotted woodpeckers near London than in far
distant and nominally wilder districts. This lane, for some two miles,
is lined on each side with trees, and, besides this particular copse,
there are several others close by; indeed, stretching across the country
to another road, there is a succession of copses, with meadows between.
Birds which love trees are naturally seen flitting to and fro in the
lane; the trees are at present young, but as they grow older and decay
they will be still more resorted to.
Jays screech in the trees of the lane almost all the year round, though
more frequently in spring and autumn, but I rarely walked here without
seeing or hearing one. Beyond the stile, the lane descends into a
hollow, and is bordered by a small furze common, where, under shelter of
the hollow brambles and beneath the golden bloom of the furze, the pale
anemones flower.
When the June roses open their petals on the briars, and the scent of
new-mown hay is wafted over the hedge from the meadows, the lane seems
to wind through a continuous wood. The oaks and chestnuts, though too
young to form a complete arch, cross their green branches, and cast a
delicious shadow. For it is in the shadow that we enjoy the summer,
looking forth from the gateway upon the mowing grass where the glowing
sun pours down his fiercest beams.
Tall bennets and red sorrel rise above the grass, white ox-eye daisies
chequer it below; the distant hedge quivers as the air, set in motion by
the intense heat, runs along. The sweet murmuring coo of the turtle dove
comes from the copse, and the rich notes of the blackbird from the oak
into which he has mounted to deliver them.
Slight movements in the hawthorn, or in the depths of the tall hedge
grasses, movements too quick for the glance to catch their cause, are
where some tiny bird is passing from spray to spray. It may be a
white-throat creeping among the nettles after his wont, or a wren. The
spot where he was but a second since may be traced by the trembling of
the leaves, but the keenest attention may fail to detect where he is
now. That slight motion in the hedge, however, conveys an impression of
something living everywhere within.
There are birds in the oaks overhead whose voice is audible though they
are themselves unseen. From out of the mowing grass, finches rise and
fly to the hedge; from the hedge again others fly out, and, descending
into the grass, are concealed as in a forest. A thrush travelling along
the hedgerow just outside goes by the gateway within a yard. Bees come
upon the light wind, gliding with it, but with their bodies aslant
across the line of current. Butterflies flutter over the mowing grass,
hardly clearing the bennets. Many-coloured insects creep up the sorrel
stems and take wing from the summit.
Everything gives forth a sound of life. The twittering of swallows from
above, the song of greenfinches in the trees, the rustle of hawthorn
sprays moving under the weight of tiny creatures, the buzz upon the
breeze; the very flutter of the butterflies' wings, noiseless as it is,
and the wavy movement of the heated air across the field cause a sense
of motion and of music.
The leaves are enlarging, and the sap rising, and the hard trunks of the
trees swelling with its flow; the grass blades pushing upwards; the
seeds completing their shape; the tinted petals uncurling. Dreamily
listening, leaning on the gate, all these are audible to the inner
senses, while the ear follows the midsummer hum, now sinking, now
sonorously increasing over the oaks. An effulgence fills the southern
boughs, which the eye cannot sustain, but which it knows is there.
The sun at its meridian pours forth his light, forgetting, in all the
inspiration of his strength and glory, that without an altar-screen of
green his love must scorch. Joy in life; joy in life. The ears listen,
and want more: the eyes are gratified with gazing, and desire yet
further; the nostrils are filled with the sweet odours of flower and
sap. The touch, too, has its pleasures, dallying with leaf and flower.
Can you not almost grasp the odour-laden air and hold it in the hollow
of the hand?
Leaving the spot at last, and turning again into the lane, the shadows
dance upon the white dust under the feet, irregularly circular spots of
light surrounded with umbra shift with the shifting branches. By the
wayside lie rings of dandelion stalks carelessly cast down by the child
who made them, and tufts of delicate grasses gathered for their beauty
but now sprinkled with dust. Wisps of hay hang from the lower boughs of
the oaks where they brushed against the passing load.
After a time, when the corn is ripening, the herb betony flowers on the
mounds under the oaks. Following the lane down the hill and across the
small furze common at the bottom, the marks of traffic fade away, the
dust ceases, and is succeeded by sward. The hedgerows on either side are
here higher than ever, and are thickly fringed with bramble bushes,
which sometimes encroach on the waggon ruts in the middle, and are
covered with flowers, and red, and green, and ripe blackberries
together.
Green rushes line the way, and green dragon flies dart above them.
Thistledown is pouting forth from the swollen tops of thistles crowded
with seed. In a gateway the turf has been worn away by waggon wheels and
the hoofs of cart horses, and the dry heat has pulverised the crumbling
ruts. Three hen pheasants and a covey of partridges that have been
dusting themselves here move away without much haste at the approach of
footsteps--the pheasants into the thickets, and the partridges through
the gateway. The shallow holes in which they were sitting can be traced
on the dust, and there are a few small feathers lying about.
A barley field is within the gate; the mowers have just begun to cut it
on the opposite side. Next to it is a wheat field; the wheat has been
cut and stands in shocks. From the stubble by the nearest shock two
turtle doves rise, alarmed, and swiftly fly towards a wood which bounds
the field. This wood, indeed, upon looking again, clearly bounds not
this field only, but the second and the third, and so far as the eye can
see over the low hedges of the corn, the trees continue. The green lane
as it enters the wood, becomes wilder and rougher at every step,
widening, too, considerably.
In the centre the wheels of timber carriages, heavily laden with trunks
of trees which were dragged through by straining teams in the rainy days
of spring, have left vast ruts, showing that they must have sunk to the
axle in the soft clay. These then filled with water, and on the water
duck-weed grew, and aquatic grasses at the sides. Summer heats have
evaporated the water, leaving the weeds and grasses prone upon the still
moist earth.
Rushes have sprung up and mark the line of the ruts, and willow stoles,
bramble bushes, and thorns growing at the side, make, as it were, a
third hedge in the middle of the lane. The best path is by the wood
itself, but even there occasional leaps are necessary over pools of dark
water full of vegetation. These alternate with places where the ground,
being higher, yawns with wide cracks crumbling at the edge, the heat
causing the clay to split and open. In winter it must be an impassable
quagmire; now it is dry and arid.
Rising out of this low-lying spot the lane again becomes green and
pleasant, and is crossed by another. At the meeting of these four ways
some boughs hang over a green bank where I have often rested. In front
the lane is barred by a gate, but beyond the gate it still continues its
straight course into the wood. To the left the track, crossing at right
angles, also proceeds into the wood, but it is so overhung with trees
and blocked by bushes that its course after the first hundred yards or
so cannot be traced.
To the right the track--a little wider and clearer of bushes--extends
through wood, and as it is straight and rises up a gentle slope, the eye
can travel along it half a mile. There is nothing but wood around. This
track to the right appears the most used, and has some ruts in the
centre. The sward each side is concealed by endless thistles, on the
point of sending forth clouds of thistledown, and to which presently the
goldfinches will be attracted.
Occasionally a movement among the thistles betrays the presence of a
rabbit; only occasionally, for though the banks are drilled with buries,
the lane is too hot for them at midday. Particles of rabbits' fur lie on
the ground, and their runs are visible in every direction. But there are
no birds. A solitary robin, indeed, perches on an ash branch opposite,
and regards me thoughtfully. It is impossible to go anywhere in the open
air without a robin; they are the very spies of the wood. But there are
no thrushes, no blackbirds, finches, nor even sparrows.
In August it is true most birds cease to sing, but sitting thus
partially hidden and quiet, if there were any about something would be
heard of them. There would be a rustling, a thrush would fly across the
lane, a blackbird would appear by the gateway yonder in the shadow which
he loves, a finch would settle in the oaks. None of these incidents
occur; none of the lesser signs of life in the foliage, the tremulous
spray, the tap of a bill cleaned by striking first one side and then the
other against a bough, the rustle of a wing--nothing.
There are woods, woods, woods; but no birds. Yonder a drive goes
straight into the ashpoles, it is green above and green below, but a
long watch will reveal nothing living. The dry mounds must be full of
rabbits, there must be pheasants somewhere; but nothing visible. Once
only a whistling sound in the air directs the glance upwards, it is a
wood-pigeon flying at full speed. There are no bees, for there are no
flowers. There are no butterflies. The black flies are not numerous, and
rarely require a fanning from the ash spray carried to drive them off.
Two large dragon-flies rush up and down, and cross the lane, and rising
suddenly almost to the tops of the oaks swoop down again in bold
sweeping curves. The broad, deep ditch between the lane and the mound of
the wood is dry, but there are no short rustling sounds of mice.
The only sound is the continuous singing of the grasshoppers, and the
peculiar snapping noise they make as they spring, leaping along the
sward. The fierce sun of the ripe wheat pours down a fiery glow scarcely
to be borne except under the boughs; the hazel leaves already have lost
their green, the tips of the rushes are shrivelling, the grass becoming
brown; it is a scorched and parched desert of wood.
The finches have gone forth in troops to the stubble where the wheat has
been cut, and where they can revel on the seeds of the weeds now ripe.
Thrushes and blackbirds have gone to the streams, to splash and bathe,
and to the mown meadows, where in the short aftermath they can find
their food. There they will look out on the shady side of the hedge as
the sun declines, six or eight perhaps of them along the same hedge, but
all in the shadow, where the dew forms first as the evening falls, where
the grass feels cool and moist, while still on the sunny side it is warm
and dry.
The bees are busy on the heaths and along the hilltops, where there are
still flowers and honey, and the butterflies are with them. So the woods
are silent, still, and deserted, save by a stray rabbit among the
thistles, and the grasshoppers ceaselessly leaping in the grass.
Returning presently to the gateway just outside the wood, where upon
first coming the pheasants and partridges were dusting themselves, a
waggon is now passing among the corn and is being laden with the
sheaves. But afar off, across the broad field and under the wood, it
seems somehow only a part of the silence and the solitude. The men with
it move about the stubble, calmly toiling; the horses, having drawn it a
little way, become motionless, reposing as they stand, every line of
their large limbs expressing delight in physical ease and idleness.
Perhaps the heat has made the men silent, for scarcely a word is spoken;
if it were, in the stillness it must be heard, though they are at some
distance. The wheels, well greased for the heavy harvest work, do not
creak. Save an occasional monosyllable, as the horses are ordered on, or
to stop, and a faint rustling of straw, there is no sound. It may be the
flood of brilliant light, or the mirage of the heat, but in some way the
waggon and its rising load, the men and the horses, have an unreality of
appearance.
The yellow wheat and stubble, the dull yellow of the waggon, toned down
by years of weather, the green woods near at hand, darkening in the
distance and slowly changing to blue, the cloudless sky, the
heat-suffused atmosphere, in which things seem to float rather than to
grow or stand, the shadowless field, all are there, and yet are not
there, but far away and vision-like. The waggon, at last laden, travels
away, and seems rather to disappear of itself than to be hidden by the
trees. It is an effort to awake and move from the spot.
FOOTPATHS
"Always get over a stile," is the one rule that should ever be borne in
mind by those who wish to see the land as it really is--that is to say,
never omit to explore a footpath, for never was there a footpath yet
which did not pass something of interest.
In the meadows, everything comes pressing lovingly up to the path. The
small-leaved clover can scarce be driven back by frequent footsteps from
endeavouring to cover the bare earth of the centre. Tall buttercups,
round whose stalks the cattle have carefully grazed, stand in ranks;
strong ox-eye daisies, with broad white disks and torn leaves, form with
the grass the tricolour of the pasture--white, green, and gold.
When the path enters the mowing grass, ripe for the scythe, the
simplicity of these cardinal hues is lost in the multitude of shades and
the addition of other colours. The surface of mowing grass is indeed
made up of so many tints that at the first glance it is confusing; and
hence, perhaps, it is that hardly ever has an artist succeeded in
getting the effect upon canvas. Of the million blades of grass no two
are of the same shade.
Pluck a handful and spread them out side by side and this is at once
evident. Nor is any single blade the same shade all the way up. There
may be a faint yellow towards the root, a full green about the middle,
at the tip perhaps the hot sun has scorched it, and there is a trace of
brown. The older grass, which comes up earliest, is distinctly different
in tint from that which has but just reached its greatest height, and in
which the sap has not yet stood still.
Under all there is the new grass, short, sweet, and verdant, springing
up fresh between the old, and giving a tone to the rest as you look down
into the bunches. Some blades are nearly grey, some the palest green,
and among them others, torn from the roots perhaps by rooks searching
for grubs, are quite white. The very track of a rook through the grass
leaves a different shade each side, as the blades are bent or trampled
down.
The stalks of the bennets vary, some green, some yellowish, some brown,
some approaching whiteness, according to age and the condition of the
sap. Their tops, too, are never the same, whether the pollen clings to
the surface or whether it has gone. Here the green is almost lost in
red, or quite; here the grass has a soft, velvety look; yonder it is
hard and wiry, and again graceful and drooping. Here there are bunches
so rankly verdant that no flower is visible and no other tint but dark
green; here it is thin and short, and the flowers, and almost the turf
itself, can be seen; then there is an array of bennets (stalks which
bear the grass-seed) with scarcely any grass proper.
Every variety of grass--and they are many--has its own colour, and every
blade of every variety has its individual variations of that colour. The
rain falls, and there is a darker tint at large upon the field, fresh
but darker; the sun shines and at first the hue is lighter, but
presently if the heat last a brown comes. The wind blows, and
immediately as the waves of grass roll across the meadow a paler tint
follows it.
A clouded sky dulls the herbage, a cloudless heaven brightens it, so
that the grass almost reflects the firmament like water. At sunset the
rosy rays bring out every tint of red or purple. At noonday, watch as
alternate shadow and sunshine come one after the other as the clouds are
wafted over. By moonlight perhaps the white ox-eyed daisies show the
most. But never will you find the mowing grass in the same field looking
twice alike.
Come again the day after to-morrow only, and there is a change; some of
the grass is riper, some is thicker, with further blades which have
pushed up, some browner. Cold northern winds cause it to wear a dry,
withered aspect; under warm showers it visibly opens itself; in a
hurricane it tosses itself wildly to and fro; it laughs under the
sunshine.
There are thick bunches by the footpath, which hang over and brush the
feet. While approaching there seems nothing there except grass, but in
the act of passing, and thus looking straight down into them, there are
blue eyes at the bottom gazing up. These specks of blue sky hidden in
the grass tempt the hand to gather them, but then you cannot gather the
whole field.
Behind the bunches where the grass is thinner are the heads of purple
clover; pluck one of these, and while meditating draw forth petal after
petal and imbibe the honey with the lips till nothing remains but the
green framework, like stolen jewellery from which the gems have been
taken. Torn pink ragged robins through whose petals a comb seems to have
been remorselessly dragged, blue scabious, red knapweeds, yellow
rattles, yellow vetchings by the hedge, white flowering parsley, white
campions, yellow tormentil, golden buttercups, white cuckoo-flowers,
dandelions, yarrow, and so on, all carelessly sown broadcast without
order or method, just as negligently as they are named here, first
remembered, first mentioned, and many forgotten.
Highest and coarsest of texture, the red-tipped sorrel--a crumbling
red--so thick and plentiful that at sunset the whole mead becomes
reddened. If these were in any way set in order or design, howsoever
entangled, the eye might, as it were, get at them for reproduction. But
just where there should be flowers there are none, whilst in odd places
where there are none required there are plenty.
In hollows, out of sight till stumbled on, is a mass of colour; on the
higher foreground only a dull brownish green. Walk all round the meadow,
and still no vantage point can be found where the herbage groups itself,
whence a scheme of colour is perceivable. There is no "artistic"
arrangement anywhere.
So, too, with the colours--of the shades of green something has already
been said--and here are bright blues and bright greens, yellows and
pinks, positive discords and absolute antagonisms of tint side by side,
yet without jarring the eye. Green all round, the trees and hedges; blue
overhead, the sky; purple and gold westward, where the sun sinks. No
part of this grass can be represented by a blur or broad streak of
colour, for it is not made up of broad streaks. It is composed of
innumerable items of grass blade and flower, each in itself coloured and
different from its neighbour. Not one of these must be slurred over if
you wish to get the same effect.
Then there are drifting specks of colour which cannot be fixed.
Butterflies, white, parti-coloured, brown, and spotted, and light blue
flutter along beside the footpath; two white ones wheel about each
other, rising higher at every turn till they are lost and no more to be
distinguished against a shining white cloud. Large dark humble bees roam
slowly, and honey bees with more decided flight. Glistening beetles,
green and gold, run across the bare earth of the path, coming from one
crack in the dry ground and disappearing in the (to them) mighty chasm
of another.
Tiny green "hoppers"--odd creatures shaped something like the fancy
frogs of children's story-books--alight upon it after a spring, and
pausing a second, with another toss themselves as high as the highest
bennet (veritable elm-trees by comparison), to fall anywhere out of
sight in the grass. Reddish ants hurry over. Time is money; and their
business brooks no delay.
Bee-like flies of many stripes and parti-coloured robes face you,
suspended in the air with wings vibrating so swiftly as to be unseen;
then suddenly jerk themselves a few yards to recommence hovering. A
greenfinch rises with a yellow gleam and a sweet note from the grass,
and is off with something for his brood, or a starling, solitary now,
for his mate is in the nest, startled from his questing, goes straight
away.
Dark starlings, greenfinch, gilded fly, glistening beetle, blue
butterfly, humble bee with scarf about his thick waist, add their moving
dots of colour to the surface. There is no design, no balance, nothing
like a pattern perfect on the right-hand side, and exactly equal on the
left-hand. Even trees which have some semblance of balance in form are
not really so, and as you walk round them so their outline changes.
Now the path approaches a stile set deep in thorns and brambles, and
hardly to be gained for curved hooks and prickles. But on the briars
June roses bloom, arches of flowers over nettles, burdock, and rushes in
the ditch beneath. Sweet roses--buds yet unrolled, white and conical;
roses half open and pink tinted; roses widespread, the petals curling
backwards on the hedge, abandoning their beauty to the sun. In the
pasture over the stile a roan cow feeds unmoved, calmly content,
gathering the grass with rough tongue. It is not only what you actually
see along the path, but what you remember to have seen, that gives it
its beauty.
From hence the path skirts the hedge enclosing a copse, part of which
had been cut in the winter, so that a few weeks since in spring the
bluebells could be seen, instead of being concealed by the ash branches
and the woodbine. Among them grew one with white bells, like a lily,
solitary in the midst of the azure throng. A "drive," or green lane
passing between the ash-stoles, went into the copse, with tufts of
tussocky grass on either side and rush bunches, till farther away the
overhanging branches, where the poles were uncut, hid its course.
Already the grass has hidden the ruts left by the timber carriages--the
last came by on May-day with ribbons of orange, red, and blue on the
horses' heads for honour of the day. Another, which went past in the
wintry weeks of the early year, was drawn by a team wearing the ancient
harness with bells under high hoods, or belfries, bells well attuned,
too, and not far inferior to those rung by handbell men. The beat of the
three horses' hoofs sounds like the drum that marks time to the chime
upon their backs. Seldom, even in the far away country, can that
pleasant chime be heard.
But now the timber is all gone, the ruts are hidden, and the tall spruce
firs, whose graceful branches were then almost yellow with young needles
on the tip, are now clothed in fresh green. On the bank there is a
flower which is often gathered for the forget-me-not, and is not unlike
it at the first glance; but if the two be placed side by side, this, the
scorpion grass, is but a pale imitation of the true plant; its petals
vary in colour and are often dull, and it has not the yellow central
spot. Yet it is not unfrequently sold in pots in the shops as
forget-me-not. It flowers on the bank, high above the water of the
ditch.
The true forget-me-not can hardly be seen in passing, so much does it
nestle under flags and behind sedges, and it is not easy to gather
because it flowers on the very verge of the running stream. The shore is
bordered with matted vegetation, aquatic grass, and flags and weeds, and
outside these, where its leaves are washed and purified by the clear
stream, its blue petals open. Be cautious, therefore, in reaching for
the forget-me-not, lest the bank be treacherous.
It was near this copse that in early spring I stayed to gather some
white sweet violets, for the true wild violet is very nearly white. I
stood close to a hedger and ditcher, who, standing on a board, was
cleaning out the mud that the water might run freely. He went on with
his work, taking not the least notice of an idler, but intent upon his
labour, as a good and true man should be. But when I spoke to him he
answered me in clear, well-chosen language, well pronounced, "in good
set terms."
No slurring of consonants and broadening of vowels, no involved and
backward construction depending on the listener's previous knowledge for
comprehension, no half sentences indicating rather than explaining, but
correct sentences. With his shoes almost covered by the muddy water, his
hands black and grimy, his brown face splashed with mud, leaning on his
shovel he stood and talked from the deep ditch, not much more than head
and shoulders visible above it. It seemed a voice from the very earth,
speaking of education, change, and possibilities.
The copse is now filling up with undergrowth; the brambles are
spreading, the briars extending, masses of nettles, and thistles like
saplings in size and height, crowding the spaces between the ash-stoles.
By the banks great cow-parsnips or "gix" have opened their broad heads
of white flowers; teazles have lifted themselves into view, every
opening is occupied. There is a scent of elder flowers, the meadow-sweet
is pushing up, and will soon be out, and an odour of new-mown hay floats
on the breeze.
From the oak green caterpillars slide down threads of their own making
to the bushes below, but they are running terrible risk. For a pair of
white-throats or "nettle-creepers" are on the watch, and seize the green
creeping things crossways in their beaks. Then they perch on a branch
three or four yards only from where I stand, silent and motionless, and
glance first at me and next at a bush of bramble which projects out to
the edge of the footpath. So long as my eyes are turned aside, or half
closed, the bird perches on the branch, gaining confidence every moment.
The instant I open my eyes, or move them, or glance towards him, without
either movement of head, hand, or foot, he is off to the oak.
His tiny eyes are intent on mine; the moment he catches my glance he
retires. But in half a minute affection brings him back, still with the
caterpillar in his beak, to the same branch. Whilst I have patience to
look the other way there he stays, but again a glance sends him away.
This is repeated four or five times, till, finally, convinced that I
mean no harm and yet timorous and fearful of betrayal even in the act,
he dives down into the bramble bush.
After a brief interval he reappears on the other side of it, having
travelled through and left his prey with his brood in the nest there.
Assured by his success his mate follows now, and once having done it,
they continue to bring caterpillars, apparently as fast as they can pass
between the trees and the bush. They always enter the bush, which is
scarcely two yards from me, on one side, pass through in the same
direction, and emerge on the other side, having thus regular places of
entrance and exit.
As I stand watching these birds a flock of rooks goes over, they have
left the nesting trees, and fly together again. Perhaps this custom of
nesting together in adjacent trees and using the same one year after
year is not so free from cares and jealousies as the solitary plan of
the little white-throats here. Last March I was standing near a rookery,
noting the contention and quarrelling, the downright tyranny, and
brigandage which is carried on there. The very sound of the cawing,
sharp and angry, conveys the impression of hate and envy.
Two rooks in succession flew to a nest the owners of which were absent,
and deliberately picked a great part of it to pieces, taking the twigs
for their own use. Unless the rook, therefore, be ever in his castle his
labour is torn down, and, as with men in the fierce struggle for wealth,
the meanest advantages are seized on. So strong is the rook's bill that
he tears living twigs of some size with it from the bough. The
white-throats were without such envy and contention.
From hence the footpath, leaving the copse, descends into a hollow, with
a streamlet flowing through a little meadow, barely an acre, with a
pollard oak in the centre, the rising ground on two sides shutting out
all but the sky, and on the third another wood. Such a dreamy hollow
might be painted for a glade in the Forest of Arden, and there on the
sward and leaning against the ancient oak one might read the play
through without being disturbed by a single passer-by. A few steps
farther and the stile opens on a road.
There the teams travel with rows of brazen spangles down their necks,
some with a wheatsheaf for design, some with a swan. The road itself, if
you follow it, dips into a valley where the horses must splash through
the water of a brook spread out some fifteen or twenty yards wide; for,
after the primitive Surrey fashion, there is no bridge for waggons. A
narrow wooden structure bears foot-passengers; you cannot but linger
half across and look down into its clear stream. Up the current where it
issues from the fields and falls over a slight obstacle the sunlight
plays and glances.
A great hawthorn bush grows on the bank; in spring, white with May; in
autumn, red with haws or peggles. To the shallow shore of the brook,
where it washes the flints and moistens the dust, the house-martins come
for mortar. A constant succession of birds arrive all day long to drink
at the clear stream, often alighting on the fragments of chalk and flint
which stand in the water, and are to them as rocks.
Another footpath leads from the road across the meadows to where the
brook is spanned by the strangest bridge, built of brick, with one arch,
but only just wide enough for a single person to walk, and with parapets
only four or five inches high. It is thrown aslant the stream, and not
straight across it, and has a long brick approach. It is not unlike--on
a small scale--the bridges seen in views of Eastern travel. Another path
leads to a hamlet, consisting of a church, a farmhouse, and three or
four cottages--a veritable hamlet in every sense of the word.
In a village a few miles distant, as you walk between cherry and pear
orchards, you pass a little shop--the sweets, and twine, and trifles are
such as may be seen in similar windows a hundred miles distant. There is
the very wooden measure for nuts, which has been used time out of mind,
in the distant country. Out again into the road as the sun sinks, and
westwards the wind lifts a cloud of dust, which is lit up and made rosy
by the rays passing through it. For such is the beauty of the sunlight
that it can impart a glory even to dust.
Once more, never go by a stile (that does not look private) without
getting over it and following the path. But they all end in one place.
After rambling across furze and heath, or through dark fir woods; after
lingering in the meadows among the buttercups, or by the copses where
the pheasants crow; after gathering June roses, or, in later days,
staining the lips with blackberries or cracking nuts, by-and-by the path
brings you in sight of a railway station. And the railway station,
through some process of mind, presently compels you to go up on the
platform, and after a little puffing and revolution of wheels you emerge
at Charing Cross, or London Bridge, or Waterloo, or Ludgate Hill, and,
with the freshness of the meadows still clinging to your coat, mingle
with the crowd.
The inevitable end of every footpath round about London is London. All
paths go thither.
If it were far away in the distant country you might sit down in the
shadow upon the hay and fall asleep, or dream awake hour after hour.
There would be no inclination to move. But if you sat down on the sward
under the ancient pollard oak in the little mead with the brook, and the
wood of which I spoke just now as like a glade in the enchanted Forest
of Arden, this would not be possible. It is the proximity of the immense
City which induces a mental, a nerve-restlessness. As you sit and would
dream a something plucks at the mind with constant reminder; you cannot
dream for long, you must up and away, and, turn in which direction you
please, ultimately it will lead you to London.
There is a fascination in it; there is a magnetism stronger than that of
the rock which drew the nails from Sindbad's ship. You are like a bird
let out with a string tied to the foot to flutter a little way and
return again. It is not business, for you may have none, in the ordinary
sense; it is not "society," it is not pleasure. It is the presence of
man in his myriads. There is something in the heart which cannot be
satisfied away from it.
It is a curious thing that your next-door neighbour may be a stranger,
but there are no strangers in a vast crowd. They all seem to have some
relationship, or rather, perhaps, they do not rouse the sense of reserve
which a single unknown person might. Still, the impulse is not to be
analysed; these are mere notes acknowledging its power. The hills and
vales, and meads and woods are like the ocean upon which Sindbad sailed;
but coming too near the loadstone of London, the ship wends thither,
whether or no.
At least it is so with me, and I often go to London without any object
whatever, but just because I must, and, arriving there, wander
whithersoever the hurrying throng carries me.
FLOCKS OF BIRDS
A certain road leading outwards from a suburb, enters at once among
fields. It soon passes a thick hedge dividing a meadow from a cornfield,
in which hedge is a spot where some bluebells may be found in spring.
Wild flowers are best seen when in masses, a few scattered along a bank
much concealed by grass and foliage are lost, except indeed, upon those
who love them for their own sake.
This meadow in June, for instance, when the buttercups are high, is one
broad expanse of burnished gold. The most careless passer-by can hardly
fail to cast a glance over acres of rich yellow. The furze, again,
especially after a shower has refreshed its tint, must be seen by all.
Where broom grows thickly, lifting its colour well into view, or where
the bird's-foot lotus in full summer overruns the thin grass of some
upland pasture, the eye cannot choose but acknowledge it. So, too, with
charlock, and with hill sides purple with heath, or where the woodlands
are azure with bluebells for a hundred yards together. Learning from
this, those who would transplant wild flowers to their garden should
arrange to have as many as possible of the same species close together.
The bluebells in this hedge are unseen, except by the rabbits. The
latter have a large burrow, and until the grass is too tall, or after it
is cut or grazed, can be watched from the highway. In this hedge the
first nightingale of the year sings, beginning some two or three days
before the bird which comes to the bushes in the gorse, which will
presently be mentioned.
It is, or rather was, a favourite meadow with the partridges; one summer
there was, I think, a nest in or near it, for I saw the birds there
daily. But the next year they were absent. One afternoon a brace of
partridges came over the hedge within a few inches of my head; they had
been flushed and frightened at some distance, and came with the wind at
a tremendous pace. It is a habit with partridges to fly low, but just
skimming the tops of the hedges, and certainly, had they been three
inches lower, they must have taken my hat off. The knowledge that
partridges were often about there, made me always glance into this field
on passing it, long after the nesting season was over.
In October, as I looked as usual, a hawk flew between the elms, and out
into the centre of the meadow, with a large object in his talons. He
alighted in the middle, so as to be as far as possible from either
hedge, and no doubt prepared to enjoy his quarry, when something
startled him, and he rose again. Then, as I got a better view, I saw it
was a rat he was carrying. The long body of the animal was distinctly
visible, and the tail depending, the hawk had it by the shoulders or
head. Flying without the least apparent effort, the bird cleared the
elms, and I lost sight of him beyond them. Now, the kestrel is but a
small bird, and taking into consideration the size of the bird, and the
weight of a rat, it seems as great a feat in proportion as for an eagle
to snatch up a lamb.
Some distance up the road, and in the corner of an arable field, there
was a wheat rick which was threshed and most of the straw carted away.
But there still remained the litter, and among it probably a quantity
of stray corn. There was always a flock of sparrows on this litter--a
flock that might often be counted by the hundred. As I came near the
spot one day a sparrow-hawk, whose approach I had not observed, and
which had therefore been flying low, suddenly came over the hedge just
by the loose straw.
With shrill cries the sparrows instantly rushed for the hedge, not two
yards distant; but the hawk, dashing through the crowd of them as they
rose, carried away a victim. It was done in the tenth of a second. He
came, singled his bird, and was gone like the wind, before the whirr of
wings had ceased on the hawthorn where the flock cowered.