namely, yellow agrimony, amphibious persicaria, arum, avens, bindweed,
bird's foot lotus, bittersweet, blackberry, black and white bryony,
brooklime, burdock, buttercups, wild camomile, wild carrot, celandine
(the great and lesser), cinquefoil, cleavers, corn buttercup, corn mint,
corn sowthistle, and spurrey, cowslip, cow-parsnip, wild parsley, daisy,
dandelion, dead nettle, and white dog rose, and trailing rose, violets
(the sweet and the scentless), figwort, veronica, ground ivy, willowherb
(two sorts), herb Robert, honeysuckle, lady's smock, purple loosestrife,
mallow, meadow-orchis, meadow-sweet, yarrow, moon daisy, St. John's
wort, pimpernel, water plantain, poppy, rattles, scabious, self-heal,
silverweed, sowthistle, stitchwort, teazles, tormentil, vetches, and
yellow vetch.
To these may be added an occasional bacon and eggs, a few harebells
(plenty on higher ground), the yellow iris, by the adjoining brook, and
flowering shrubs and trees, as dogwood, gorse, privet, blackthorn,
hawthorn, horse chestnut, besides wild hops, the horsetails on the
mounds, and such plants as grow everywhere, as chickweed, groundsel, and
so forth. A solitary shrub of mugwort grows at some distance, but in the
same district, and in one hedgerow the wild guelder rose flourishes.
Anemones and primroses are not found along or near this road, nor
woodruff. At the first glance a list like this reads as if flowers
abounded, but the reverse is the impression to those who frequent the
place.
It is really a very short list, and as of course all of these do not
appear at once there really is rather a scarcity of wild flowers, so far
at least as variety goes. Just in the spring there is a burst of colour,
and again in the autumn; but for the rest, if we set aside the roses in
June, there seems quite an absence of flowers during the summer. The
wayside is green, the ditches are green, the mounds green; if you enter
and stroll round the meadows, they are green too, or white in places
with umbelliferous plants, principally parsley and cow-parsnip. But
these become monotonous. Therefore, I am constrained to describe it as a
district somewhat lacking flowers, meaning, of course, in point of
variety.
Compared with the hedges and fields of Wiltshire, Gloucestershire,
Berkshire, and similar south-western localities, it seems flowerless. On
the other hand, southern London can boast stretches of heath, which,
when in full bloom, rival Scotch hillsides. These remarks are written
entirely from a non-scientific point of view. Professional botanists may
produce lists of thrice the length, and prove that all the flowers of
England are to be found near London. But it will not alter the fact that
to the ordinary eye the roads and lanes just south of London are in the
middle of the summer comparatively bare of colour. They should be
visited in spring and autumn.
Nor do the meadows seem to produce so many varieties of grass as farther
to the south-west. But beetles of every kind and size, from the great
stag beetle, helplessly floundering through the evening air and clinging
to your coat, down to the green, bronze, and gilded species that hasten
across the path, appear extremely numerous. Warm, dry sands, light
soils, and furze and heath are probably favourable to them.
From this roadside I have seldom heard the corncrake, and never once the
grasshopper lark. These two birds are so characteristic of the meadows
in southwestern counties that a summer evening seems silent to me
without the "crake, crake!" of the one and the singular sibilous rattle
of the other. But they come to other places not far distant from the
road, and one summer a grasshopper-lark could be heard in some meadows
where I had not heard it the two preceding seasons. On the mounds field
crickets cry persistently.
At the end of the hedge which is near a brook, a sedge-reedling takes up
his residence in the spring. The sedge-reedlings here begin to call very
early; the first date I have down is the 16th of April, which is, I
think, some weeks before they begin in other localities. In one ditch
beside the road (not in this particular hedge) there grows a fine bunch
of reeds. Though watery, on account of the artificial drains from the
arable fields, the spot is on much higher ground than the brook, and it
is a little singular that while reeds flourish in this place they are
not to be found by the brook.
The elms of the neighbourhood, wherever they can be utilised as posts,
are unmercifully wired, wires twisted round, holes bored and the ends of
wire driven in or staples inserted, and the same with the young oaks.
Many trees are much disfigured from this cause, the bark is worn off on
many; and others, which have recovered, have bulging rings, where it
swelled up over the iron. The heads of large nails and staples are
easily discovered where the wire has disappeared, sometimes three or
four, one above the other, in the same tree. A fine avenue of elms which
shades part of a suburb appears to be dying by degrees--the too common
fate of elms in such places.
How many beautiful trees have thus perished near London?--witness the
large elms that once stood in Jews' Walk, at Sydenham. Barking the
trunks for sheer wanton mischief is undoubtedly the cause in some cases,
and it has been suggested that quicksilver has occasionally been
inserted in gimlet holes. The mercury is supposed to work up the
channels of the sap, and to prevent its flow.
But may not the ordinary conditions of suburban improvement often
account for the decay of such trees without occult causes? Sewers carry
away the water that used to moisten the roots, and being at some depth,
they not only take the surface water of a storm before it has had time
to penetrate, but drain the lower stratum completely. Then, gas-pipes
frequently leak, so much so that the soil for yards is saturated and
emits a smell of gas. Roots passing through such a soil can scarcely be
healthy, and very probably, in making excavations for laying pipes the
roots are cut through. The young trees that have been planted in some
places are, I notice, often bored by grubs to an extraordinary extent,
and will never make sound timber.
One July day, while walking on this road, I happened to look over a
gateway and saw that a large and prominent mansion on the summit of some
elevated ground had apparently disappeared. The day was very clear and
bright, sunny and hot, and there was no natural vapour. But on the light
north-east wind there came slowly towards me a bluish-yellow mist, the
edge of which was clearly defined, and which blotted out distant objects
and blurred those nearer at hand. The appearance of the open arable
field over which I was looking changed as it approached.
In front of the wall of mist the sunshine lit the field up brightly,
behind the ground was dull, and yet not in shadow. It came so slowly
that its movement could be easily watched. When it went over me there
was a perceptible coolness and a faint smell of damp smoke, and
immediately the road, which had been white under the sunshine, took a
dim, yellowish hue. The sun was not shut out nor even obscured, but the
rays had to pass through a thicker medium. This haze was not thick
enough to be called fog, nor was it the summer haze that in the country
adds to the beauty of distant hills and woods.
It was clearly the atmosphere--not the fog--but simply the atmosphere of
London brought out over the fields by a change in the wind, and
prevented from diffusing itself by conditions of which nothing seems
known. For at ordinary times the atmosphere of London diffuses itself in
aerial space and is lost, but on this hot July day it came bodily and
undiluted out into the cornfields. From its appearance I should say it
would travel many miles in the same condition. In November fog seems
seasonable: in hot and dry July this phenomenon was striking.
Along the road flocks of sheep continue to travel, some weary enough,
and these, gravitating to the rear of the flock by reason of infirmity,
lie down in the dust to rest, while their companions feed on the wayside
sward. But the shepherds are careful of them, and do not hasten.
Shepherds here often carry the pastoral crook. In districts far from the
metropolis you may wander about for days, and with sheep all round you,
never see a shepherd with a crook; but near town the pastoral staff is
common.
These flocks appear to be on their way to the southern down farms, and,
as I said before, the shepherds are tender over their sheep and careful
not to press them. I regret that I cannot say the same about the
bullocks, droves of which continually go by, often black cattle, and
occasionally even the little Highland animals. The appearance of some of
these droves is quite sufficient to indicate the treatment they have
undergone. Staring eyes, heads continually turned from side to side,
starting at everything, sometimes bare places on the shoulders, all tell
the same tale of blows and brutal treatment.
Suburban streets which a minute before were crowded with ladies and
children (most gentlemen are in town at midday) are suddenly vacated
when the word passes that cattle are coming. People rush everywhere,
into gardens, shops, back lanes, anywhere, as if the ringing scabbards
of charging cavalry were heard, or the peculiar thumping rattle of
rifles as they come to the "present" before a storm of bullets. It is no
wonder that townsfolk exhibit a fear of cattle which makes their friends
laugh when they visit the country after such experiences as these. This
should be put down with a firm hand.
By the roadside here the hay tyers, who cut up the hayricks into
trusses, use balances--a trifling matter, but sufficient to mark a
difference, for in the west such men use a steelyard slung on a prong,
the handle of the prong on the shoulder and the points stuck in the
rick, with which to weigh the trusses. Wooden cottages, wooden barns,
wooden mills are also characteristic.
Mouchers come along the road at all times and seasons, gathering
sacksful of dandelions in spring, digging up fern roots and cowslip mars
for sale, cutting briars for standard roses, gathering water-cresses and
mushrooms, and in the winter cutting rushes.
There is a rook with white feathers in the wing which belongs to an
adjacent rookery, and I have observed a blackbird also streaked with
white. One January day, when the snow was on the ground and the frost
was sharp, when the pale sun seemed to shine brightest round the rim of
the disk, as if there were a band of stronger light there, I saw a white
animal under a heap of poles by the wayside, near the great hedge I have
mentioned. It immediately concealed itself, but, thinking that it was a
ferret gone astray, I waited, and presently the head and neck were
cautiously protruded.
I made the usual call with the lips, but the creature instantly returned
to cover. I waited again, hiding this time, and after an interval the
creature moved and hastened away from the poles, where it was, in a
measure, exposed, to the more secure shelter of some bushes. Then I saw
that it was of a clear white, while so-called white ferrets are usually
a dingy yellow, and the white tail was tipped with black. From these
circumstances, and from the timidity and anxious desire to escape
observation, I could only conclude that it was a white stoat.
Stoats, as remarked previously, are numerous in these hedges, and it was
quite possible for a white one to be among them. The white stoat may be
said to exactly resemble the ermine. The interest of the circumstance
arises not from its rarity, but from its occurring so near the
metropolis.
A BROOK
Some low wooden rails guarding the approach to a bridge over a brook one
day induced me to rest under an aspen, with my back against the tree.
Some horse-chestnuts, beeches, and alders grew there, fringing the end
of a long plantation of willow stoles which extended in the rear
following the stream. In front, southwards, there were open meadows and
cornfields, over which shadow and sunshine glided in succession as the
sweet westerly wind carried the white clouds before it.
The brimming brook, as it wound towards me through the meads, seemed to
tremble on the verge of overflowing, as the crown of wine in a glass
rises yet does not spill. Level with the green grass, the water gleamed
as though polished where it flowed smoothly, crossed with the dark
shadows of willows which leaned over it. By the bridge, where the breeze
rushed through the arches, a ripple flashed back the golden rays. The
surface by the shore slipped towards a side hatch and passed over in a
liquid curve, clear and unvarying, as if of solid crystal, till
shattered on the stones, where the air caught up and played with the
sound of the bubbles as they broke.
Beyond the green slope of corn, a thin, soft vapour hung on the distant
woods, and hid the hills. The pale young leaves of the aspen rustled
faintly, not yet with their full sound; the sprays of the
horse-chestnut, drooping with the late frosts, could not yet keep out
the sunshine with their broad green. A white spot on the footpath yonder
was where the bloom had fallen from a blackthorn bush.
The note of the tree-pipit came from over the corn--there were some
detached oaks away in the midst of the field, and the birds were
doubtless flying continually up and down between the wheat and the
branches. A willow-wren sang plaintively in the plantation behind, and
once a cuckoo called at a distance. How beautiful is the sunshine! The
very dust of the road at my feet seemed to glow with whiteness, to be
lit up by it, and to become another thing. This spot henceforward was a
place of pilgrimage.
Looking that morning over the parapet of the bridge, down stream, there
was a dead branch at the mouth of the arch, it had caught and got fixed
while it floated along. A quantity of aquatic weeds coming down the
stream had drifted against the branch and remained entangled in it.
Fresh weeds were still coming and adding to the mass, which had
attracted a water-rat.
Perched on the branch the little brown creature bent forward over the
surface, and with its two forepaws drew towards it the slender thread of
a weed, exactly as with hands. Holding the thread in the paws, it
nibbled it, eating the sweet and tender portion, feeding without fear
though but a few feet away, and precisely beneath me.
In a minute the surface of the current was disturbed by larger ripples.
There had been a ripple caused by the draught through the arch, but this
was now increased. Directly afterwards a moorhen swam out, and began to
search among the edge of the tangled weeds. So long as I was perfectly
still the bird took no heed, but at a slight movement instantly
scuttled back under the arch. The water-rat, less timorous, paused,
looked round, and returned to feeding.
Crossing to the other side of the bridge, up stream, and looking over,
the current had scooped away the sand of the bottom by the central pier,
exposing the brickwork to some depth--the same undermining process that
goes on by the piers of bridges over great rivers. Nearer the shore the
sand has silted up, leaving it shallow, where water-parsnip and other
weeds joined, as it were, the verge of the grass and the stream. The
sunshine reflected from the ripples on this, the southern side,
continually ran with a swift, trembling motion up the arch.
Penetrating the clear water, the light revealed the tiniest stone at the
bottom: but there was no fish, no water-rat, or moorhen on this side.
Neither on that nor many succeeding mornings could anything be seen
there; the tail of the arch was evidently the favourite spot. Carefully
looking over that side again, the moorhen who had been out rushed back;
the water-rat was gone. Were there any fish? In the shadow the water was
difficult to see through, and the brown scum of spring that lined the
bottom rendered everything uncertain.
By gazing steadily at a stone my eyes presently became accustomed to the
peculiar light, the pupils adjusted themselves to it, and the brown
tints became more distinctly defined. Then sweeping by degrees from a
stone to another, and from thence to a rotting stick embedded in the
sand, I searched the bottom inch by inch. If you look, as it were at
large--at everything at once--you see nothing. If you take some object
as a fixed point, gaze all around it, and then move to another, nothing
can escape.
Even the deepest, darkest water (not, of course, muddy) yields after a
while to the eye. Half close the eyelids, and while gazing into it let
your intelligence rather wait upon the corners of the eye than on the
glance you cast straight forward. For some reason when thus gazing the
edge of the eye becomes exceedingly sensitive, and you are conscious of
slight motions or of a thickness--not a defined object, but a thickness
which indicates an object--which is otherwise quite invisible.
The slow feeling sway of a fish's tail, the edges of which curl over and
grasp the water, may in this manner be identified without being
positively seen, and the dark outline of its body known to exist against
the equally dark water or bank. Shift, too, your position according to
the fall of the light, just as in looking at a painting. From one point
of view the canvas shows little but the presence of paint and blurred
colour, from another at the side the picture stands out.
Sometimes the water can be seen into best from above, sometimes by lying
on the sward, now by standing back a little way, or crossing to the
opposite shore. A spot where the sunshine sparkles with dazzling gleam
is perhaps perfectly inpenetrable till you get the other side of the
ripple, when the same rays that just now baffled the glance light up the
bottom as if thrown from a mirror for the purpose. I convinced myself
that there was nothing here, nothing visible at present--not so much as
a stickleback.
Yet the stream ran clear and sweet, and deep in places. It was too broad
for leaping over. Down the current sedges grew thickly at a curve: up
the stream the young flags were rising; it had an inhabited look, if
such a term may be used, and moorhens and water-rats were about but no
fish. A wide furrow came along the meadow and joined the stream from
the side. Into this furrow, at flood time, the stream overflowed farther
up, and irrigated the level sward.
At present it was dry, its course, traced by the yellowish and white hue
of the grasses in it only recently under water, contrasting with the
brilliant green of the sweet turf around. There was a marsh marigold in
it, with stems a quarter of an inch thick; and in the grass on the
verge, but just beyond where the flood reached, grew the lilac-tinted
cuckoo flowers, or cardamine.
The side hatch supplied a pond, which was only divided from the brook by
a strip of sward not more than twenty yards across. The surface of the
pond was dotted with patches of scum that had risen from the bottom.
Part at least of it was shallow, for a dead branch blown from an elm
projected above the water, and to it came a sedge-reedling for a moment.
The sedge-reedling is so fond of sedges, and reeds, and thick
undergrowth, that though you hear it perpetually within a few yards it
is not easy to see one. On this bare branch the bird was well displayed,
and the streak by the eye was visible; but he stayed there for a second
or two only, and then back again to the sedges and willows.
There were fish I felt sure as I left the spot and returned along the
dusty road, but where were they?
On the sward by the wayside, among the nettles and under the bushes, and
on the mound the dark green arum leaves grew everywhere, sometimes in
bunches close together. These bunches varied--in one place the leaves
were all spotted with black irregular blotches; in another the leaves
were without such markings. When the root leaves of the arum first push
up they are closely rolled together in a pointed spike.
This, rising among the dead and matted leaves of the autumn,
occasionally passes through holes in them. As the spike grows it lifts
the dead leaves with it, which hold it like a ring and prevent it from
unfolding. The force of growth is not sufficiently strong to burst the
bond asunder till the green leaves have attained considerable size.
A little earlier in the year the chattering of magpies would have been
heard while looking for the signs of spring, but they were now occupied
with their nests. There are several within a short distance, easily
distinguished in winter, but somewhat hidden now by the young leaves.
Just before they settled down to housekeeping there was a great
chattering and fluttering and excitement, as they chased each other from
elm to elm.
Four or five were then often in the same field, some in the trees, some
on the ground, their white and black showing distinctly on the level
brown earth recently harrowed or rolled. On such a surface birds are
visible at a distance; but when the blades of the corn begin to reach
any height such as alight are concealed. In many districts of the
country that might be called wild and lonely, the magpie is almost
extinct. Once now and then a pair may be observed, and those who know
their haunts can, of course, find them, but to a visitor passing
through, there seems none. But here, so near the metropolis, the magpies
are common, and during an hour's walk their cry is almost sure to be
heard. They have, however, their favourite locality, where they are much
more frequently seen.
Coming to my seat under the aspen by the bridge week after week, the
burdocks by the wayside gradually spread their leaves, and the
procession of the flowers went on. The dandelion, the lesser celandine,
the marsh marigold, the coltsfoot, all yellow, had already led the van,
closely accompanied by the purple ground-ivy, the red dead-nettle, and
the daisy; this last a late comer in the neighbourhood. The blackthorn,
the horse-chestnut, and the hawthorn came, and the meadows were golden
with the buttercups.
Once only had I noticed any indication of fish in the brook; it was on a
warm Saturday afternoon, when there was a labourer a long way up the
stream, stooping in a peculiar manner near the edge of the water with a
stick in his hand. He was, I felt sure, trying to wire a spawning jack,
but did not succeed. Many weeks had passed, and now there came (as the
close time for coarse fish expired) a concourse of anglers to the almost
stagnant pond fed by the side hatch.
Well-dressed lads with elegant and finished tackle rode up on their
bicycles, with their rods slung at their backs. Hoisting the bicycles
over the gate into the meadow, they left them leaning against the elms,
fitted their rods and fished in the pond. Poorer boys, with long wands
cut from the hedge and ruder lines, trudged up on foot, sat down on the
sward and watched their corks by the hour together. Grown men of the
artisan class, covered with the dust of many miles' tramping, came with
their luncheons in a handkerchief, and set about their sport with a
quiet earnestness which argued long if desultory practice.
In fine weather there were often a dozen youths and four or five men
standing, sitting, or kneeling on the turf along the shore of the pond,
all intent on their floats, and very nearly silent. People driving along
the highway stopped their traps, and carts, and vans a minute or two to
watch them: passengers on foot leaned over the gate, or sat down and
waited expectantly.
Sometimes one of the more venturesome anglers would tuck up his trousers
and walk into the shallow water, so as to be able to cast his bait under
the opposite bank, where it was deep. Then an ancient and much battered
punt was discovered aground in a field at some distance, and dragged to
the pond. One end of the punt had quite rotted away, but by standing at
the other, so as to depress it there and lift the open end above the
surface, two, or even three, could make a shift to fish from it.