IT was only a piece of broken glass. From its shape and colour, I should
say it had, in its happier days, formed portion of a cheap scent-bottle.
Lying isolated on the grass, shone upon by the early morning sun, it
certainly appeared at its best. It attracted him.
He cocked his head, and looked at it with his right eye. Then he hopped
round to the other side, and looked at it with his left eye. With either
optic it seemed equally desirable.
That he was an inexperienced young rook goes without saying. An older
bird would not have given a second glance to the thing. Indeed, one
would have thought his own instinct might have told him that broken glass
would be a mistake in a bird’s nest. But its glitter drew him too
strongly for resistance. I am inclined to suspect that at some time,
during the growth of his family tree, there must have occurred a
_mésalliance_, perhaps worse. Possibly a strain of magpie blood?—one
knows the character of magpies, or rather their lack of character—and
such things have happened. But I will not pursue further so painful a
train: I throw out the suggestion as a possible explanation, that is all.
He hopped nearer. Was it a sweet illusion, this flashing fragment of
rainbow; a beautiful vision to fade upon approach, typical of so much
that is un-understandable in rook life? He made a dart forward and
tapped it with his beak. No, it was real—as fine a lump of jagged green
glass as any newly-married rook could desire, and to be had for the
taking. _She_ would be pleased with it. He was a well-meaning bird; the
mere upward inclination of his tail suggested earnest though possibly
ill-directed endeavour.
He turned it over. It was an awkward thing to carry; it had so very many
corners. But he succeeded at last in getting it firmly between his beak,
and in haste, lest some other bird should seek to dispute with him its
possession, at once flew off with it.
A second rook who had been watching the proceedings from the lime tree,
called to a third who was passing. Even with my limited knowledge of the
language I found it easy to follow the conversation: it was so obvious.
“Issachar!”
“Hallo!”
“What do you think? Zebulan’s found a piece of broken bottle. He’s
going to line his nest with it.”
“No!”
“God’s truth. Look at him. There he goes, he’s got it in his beak.”
“Well, I’m—!”
And they both burst into a laugh.
But Zebulan heeded them not. If he overheard, he probably put down the
whole dialogue to jealousy. He made straight for his tree. By standing
with my left cheek pressed close against the window-pane, I was able to
follow him. He is building in what we call the Paddock elms—a suburb
commenced only last season, but rapidly growing. I wanted to see what
his wife would say.
At first she said nothing. He laid it carefully down on the branch near
the half-finished nest, and she stretched up her head and looked at it.
Then she looked at him. For about a minute neither spoke. I could see
that the situation was becoming strained. When she did open her beak, it
was with a subdued tone, that had a vein of weariness running through it.
“What is it?” she asked.
He was evidently chilled by her manner. As I have explained, he is an
inexperienced young rook. This is clearly his first wife, and he stands
somewhat in awe of her.
“Well, I don’t exactly know what it’s _called_,” he answered.
“Oh.”
“No. But it’s pretty, isn’t it?” he added. He moved it, trying to get
it where the sun might reach it. It was evident he was admitting to
himself that, seen in the shade, it lost much of its charm.
“Oh, yes; very pretty,” was the rejoinder; “perhaps you’ll tell me what
you’re going to do with it.”
The question further discomforted him. It was growing upon him that this
thing was not going to be the success he had anticipated. It would be
necessary to proceed warily.
“Of course, it’s not a twig,” he began.
“I see it isn’t.”
“No. You see, the nest is nearly all twigs as it is, and I thought—”
“Oh, you did think.”
“Yes, my dear. I thought—unless you are of opinion that it’s too showy—I
thought we might work it in somewhere.”
Then she flared out.
“Oh, did you? You thought that a good idea. An A1 prize idiot I seem to
have married, I do. You’ve been gone twenty minutes, and you bring me
back an eight-cornered piece of broken glass, which you think we might
‘work into’ the nest. You’d like to see me sitting on it for a month,
you would. You think it would make a nice bed for the children to lie
on. You don’t think you could manage to find a packet of mixed pins if
you went down again, I suppose. They’d look pretty ‘worked in’
somewhere, don’t you think?—Here, get out of my way. I’ll finish this
nest by myself.” She always had been short with him.
She caught up the offending object—it was a fairly heavy lump of
glass—and flung it out of the tree with all her force. I heard it crash
through the cucumber frame. That makes the seventh pane of glass broken
in that cucumber frame this week. The couple in the branch above are the
worst. Their plan of building is the most extravagant, the most absurd I
ever heard of. They hoist up ten times as much material as they can
possibly use; you might think they were going to build a block, and let
it out in flats to the other rooks. Then what they don’t want they fling
down again. Suppose we built on such a principle? Suppose a human
husband and wife were to start erecting their house in Piccadilly Circus,
let us say; and suppose the man spent all the day steadily carrying
bricks up the ladder while his wife laid them, never asking her how many
she wanted, whether she didn’t think he had brought up sufficient, but
just accumulating bricks in a senseless fashion, bringing up every brick
he could find. And then suppose, when evening came, and looking round,
they found they had some twenty cart-loads of bricks lying unused upon
the scaffold, they were to commence flinging them down into Waterloo
Place. They would get themselves into trouble; somebody would be sure to
speak to them about it. Yet that is precisely what those birds do, and
nobody says a word to them. They are supposed to have a President. He
lives by himself in the yew tree outside the morning-room window. What I
want to know is what he is supposed to be good for. This is the sort of
thing I want him to look into. I would like him to be worming underneath
one evening when those two birds are tidying up: perhaps he would do
something then. I have done all I can. I have thrown stones at them,
that, in the course of nature, have returned to earth again, breaking
more glass. I have blazed at them with a revolver; but they have come to
regard this proceeding as a mere expression of light-heartedness on my
part, possibly confusing me with the Arab of the Desert, who, I am given
to understand, expresses himself thus in moments of deep emotion. They
merely retire to a safe distance to watch me; no doubt regarding me as a
poor performer, inasmuch as I do not also dance and shout between each
shot. I have no objection to their building there, if they only would
build sensibly. I want somebody to speak to them to whom they will pay
attention.
You can hear them in the evening, discussing the matter of this surplus
stock.
“Don’t you work any more,” he says, as he comes up with the last load,
“you’ll tire yourself.”
“Well, I am feeling a bit done up,” she answers, as she hops out of the
nest and straightens her back.
“You’re a bit peckish, too, I expect,” he adds sympathetically. “I know
I am. We will have a scratch down, and be off.”
“What about all this stuff?” she asks, while titivating herself; “we’d
better not leave it about, it looks so untidy.”
“Oh, we’ll soon get rid of that,” he answers. “I’ll have that down in a
jiffy.”
To help him, she seizes a stick and is about to drop it. He darts
forward and snatches it from her.
“Don’t you waste that one,” he cries, “that’s a rare one, that is. You
see me hit the old man with it.”
And he does. What the gardener says, I will leave you to imagine.
Judged from its structure, the rook family is supposed to come next in
intelligence to man himself. Judging from the intelligence displayed by
members of certain human families with whom I have come in contact, I can
quite believe it. That rooks talk I am positive. No one can spend
half-an-hour watching a rookery without being convinced of this. Whether
the talk be always wise and witty, I am not prepared to maintain; but
that there is a good deal of it is certain. A young French gentleman of
my acquaintance, who visited England to study the language, told me that
the impression made upon him by his first social evening in London was
that of a parrot-house. Later on, when he came to comprehend, he, of
course, recognized the brilliancy and depth of the average London
drawing-room talk; but that is how, not comprehending, it impressed him
at first. Listening to the riot of a rookery is much the same
experience. The conversation to us sounds meaningless; the rooks
themselves would probably describe it as sparkling.
There is a Misanthrope I know who hardly ever goes into Society. I
argued the question with him one day. “Why should I?” he replied; “I
know, say, a dozen men and women with whom intercourse is a pleasure;
they have ideas of their own which they are not afraid to voice. To rub
brains with such is a rare and goodly thing, and I thank Heaven for their
friendship; but they are sufficient for my leisure. What more do I
require? What is this ‘Society’ of which you all make so much ado? I
have sampled it, and I find it unsatisfying. Analyze it into its
elements, what is it? Some person I know very slightly, who knows me
very slightly, asks me to what you call an ‘At Home.’ The evening comes,
I have done my day’s work and I have dined. I have been to a theatre or
concert, or I have spent a pleasant hour or so with a friend. I am more
inclined for bed than anything else, but I pull myself together, dress,
and drive to the house. While I am taking off my hat and coat in the
hall, a man enters I met a few hours ago at the Club. He is a man I have
very little opinion of, and he, probably, takes a similar view of me.
Our minds have no thought in common, but as it is necessary to talk, I
tell him it is a warm evening. Perhaps it is a warm evening, perhaps it
isn’t; in either case he agrees with me. I ask him if he is going to
Ascot. I do not care a straw whether he is going to Ascot or not. He
says he is not quite sure, but asks me what chance Passion Flower has for
the Thousand Guineas. I know he doesn’t value my opinion on the subject
at a brass farthing—he would be a fool if he did, but I cudgel my brains
to reply to him, as though he were going to stake his shirt on my advice.
We reach the first floor, and are mutually glad to get rid of one
another. I catch my hostess’ eye. She looks tired and worried; she
would be happier in bed, only she doesn’t know it. She smiles sweetly,
but it is clear she has not the slightest idea who I am, and is waiting
to catch my name from the butler. I whisper it to him. Perhaps he will
get it right, perhaps he won’t; it is quite immaterial. They have asked
two hundred and forty guests, some seventy-five of whom they know by
sight, for the rest, any chance passer-by, able, as the theatrical
advertisements say, ‘to dress and behave as a gentleman,’ would do every
bit as well. Indeed, I sometimes wonder why people go to the trouble and
expense of invitation cards at all. A sandwich-man outside the door
would answer the purpose. ‘Lady Tompkins, At Home, this afternoon from
three to seven; Tea and Music. Ladies and Gentlemen admitted on
presentation of visiting card. Afternoon dress indispensable.’ The
crowd is the thing wanted; as for the items, well, tell me, what is the
difference, from the Society point of view, between one man in a black
frock-coat and another?
“I remember being once invited to a party at a house in Lancaster Gate.
I had met the woman at a picnic. In the same green frock and parasol I
might have recognized her the next time I saw her. In any other clothes
I did not expect to. My cabman took me to the house opposite, where they
were also giving a party. It made no difference to any of us. The
hostess—I never learnt her name—said it was very good of me to come, and
then shunted me off on to a Colonial Premier (I did not catch his name,
and he did not catch mine, which was not extraordinary, seeing that my
hostess did not know it) who, she whispered to me, had come over, from
wherever it was (she did not seem to be very sure) principally to make my
acquaintance. Half through the evening, and by accident, I discovered my
mistake, but judged it too late to say anything then. I met a couple of
people I knew, had a little supper with them, and came away. The next
afternoon I met my right hostess—the lady who should have been my
hostess. She thanked me effusively for having sacrificed the previous
evening to her and her friends; she said she knew how seldom I went out:
that made her feel my kindness all the more. She told me that the
Brazilian Minister’s wife had told her that I was the cleverest man she
had ever met. I often think I should like to meet that man, whoever he
may be, and thank him.
“But perhaps the butler does pronounce my name rightly, and perhaps my
hostess actually does recognize me. She smiles, and says she was so
afraid I was not coming. She implies that all the other guests are but
as a feather in her scales of joy compared with myself. I smile in
return, wondering to myself how I look when I do smile. I have never had
the courage to face my own smile in the looking-glass. I notice the
Society smile of other men, and it is not reassuring. I murmur something
about my not having been likely to forget this evening; in my turn,
seeking to imply that I have been looking forward to it for weeks. A few
men shine at this sort of thing, but they are a small percentage, and
without conceit I regard myself as no bigger a fool than the average
male. Not knowing what else to say, I tell her also that it is a warm
evening. She smiles archly as though there were some hidden witticism in
the remark, and I drift away, feeling ashamed of myself. To talk as an
idiot when you _are_ an idiot brings no discomfort; to behave as an idiot
when you have sufficient sense to know it, is painful. I hide myself in
the crowd, and perhaps I’ll meet a woman I was introduced to three weeks
ago at a picture gallery. We don’t know each other’s names, but, both of
us feeling lonesome, we converse, as it is called. If she be the
ordinary type of woman, she asks me if I am going on to the Johnsons’. I
tell her no. We stand silent for a moment, both thinking what next to
say. She asks me if I was at the Thompsons’ the day before yesterday. I
again tell her no. I begin to feel dissatisfied with myself that I was
not at the Thompsons’. Trying to get even with her, I ask her if she is
going to the Browns’ next Monday. (There are no Browns, she will have to
say, No.) She is not, and her tone suggests that a social stigma rests
upon the Browns. I ask her if she has been to Barnum’s Circus; she
hasn’t, but is going. I give her my impressions of Barnum’s Circus,
which are precisely the impressions of everybody else who has seen the
show.
“Or if luck be against me, she is possibly a smart woman, that is to say,
her conversation is a running fire of spiteful remarks at the expense of
every one she knows, and of sneers at the expense of every one she
doesn’t. I always feel I could make a better woman myself, out of a
bottle of vinegar and a penn’orth of mixed pins. Yet it usually takes
one about ten minutes to get away from her.
“Even when, by chance, one meets a flesh-and-blood man or woman at such
gatherings, it is not the time or place for real conversation; and as for
the shadows, what person in their senses would exhaust a single brain
cell upon such? I remember a discussion once concerning Tennyson,
considered as a social item. The dullest and most densely-stupid bore I
ever came across was telling how he had sat next to Tennyson at dinner.
‘I found him a most uninteresting man,’ so he confided to us; ‘he had
nothing to say for himself—absolutely nothing.’ I should like to
resuscitate Dr. Samuel Johnson for an evening, and throw him into one of
these ‘At Homes’ of yours.”
My friend is an admitted misanthrope, as I have explained; but one cannot
dismiss him as altogether unjust. That there is a certain mystery about
Society’s craving for Society must be admitted. I stood one evening
trying to force my way into the supper room of a house in Berkeley
Square. A lady, hot and weary, a few yards in front of me was struggling
to the same goal.
“Why,” remarked she to her companion, “why do we come to these places,
and fight like a Bank Holiday crowd for eighteenpenny-worth of food?”
“We come here,” replied the man, whom I judged to be a philosopher, “to
say we’ve been here.”
I met A— the other evening, and asked him to dine with me on Monday. I
don’t know why I ask A— to dine with me, but about once a month I do. He
is an uninteresting man.
“I can’t,” he said, “I’ve got to go to the B—s’; confounded nuisance, it
will be infernally dull.”
“Why go?” I asked.
“I really don’t know,” he replied.
A little later B— met me, and asked me to dine with him on Monday.
“I can’t,” I answered, “some friends are coming to us that evening. It’s
a duty dinner, you know the sort of thing.”
“I wish you could have managed it,” he said, “I shall have no one to talk
to. The A—s are coming, and they bore me to death.”
“Why do you ask him?” I suggested.
“Upon my word, I really don’t know,” he replied.
But to return to our rooks. We were speaking of their social instincts.
Some dozen of them—the “scallywags” and bachelors of the community, I
judge them to be—have started a Club. For a month past I have been
trying to understand what the affair was. Now I know: it is a Club.
And for their Club House they have chosen, of course, the tree nearest my
bedroom window. I can guess how that came about; it was my own fault, I
never thought of it. About two months ago, a single rook—suffering from
indigestion or an unhappy marriage, I know not—chose this tree one night
for purposes of reflection. He woke me up: I felt angry. I opened the
window, and threw an empty soda-water bottle at him. Of course it did
not hit him, and finding nothing else to throw, I shouted at him,
thinking to frighten him away. He took no notice, but went on talking to
himself. I shouted louder, and woke up my own dog. The dog barked
furiously, and woke up most things within a quarter of a mile. I had to
go down with a boot-jack—the only thing I could find handy—to soothe the
dog. Two hours later I fell asleep from exhaustion. I left the rook
still cawing.
The next night he came again. I should say he was a bird with a sense of
humour. Thinking this might happen, I had, however, taken the precaution
to have a few stones ready. I opened the window wide, and fired them one
after another into the tree. After I had closed the window, he hopped
down nearer, and cawed louder than ever. I think he wanted me to throw
more stones at him: he appeared to regard the whole proceeding as a game.
On the third night, as I heard nothing of him, I flattered myself that,
in spite of his bravado, I had discouraged him. I might have known rooks
better.
What happened when the Club was being formed, I take it, was this:
“Where shall we fix upon for our Club House?” said the secretary, all
other points having been disposed of. One suggested this tree, another
suggested that. Then up spoke this particular rook:
“I’ll tell you where,” said he, “in the yew tree opposite the porch. And
I’ll tell you for why. Just about an hour before dawn a man comes to the
window over the porch, dressed in the most comical costume you ever set
eyes upon. I’ll tell you what he reminds me of—those little statues that
men use for decorating fields. He opens the window, and throws a lot of
things out upon the lawn, and then he dances and sings. It’s awfully
interesting, and you can see it all from the yew tree.”
That, I am convinced, is how the Club came to fix upon the tree next my
window. I have had the satisfaction of denying them the exhibition they
anticipated, and I cheer myself with the hope that they have visited
their disappointment upon their misleader.
There is a difference between Rook Clubs and ours. In our clubs the
respectable members arrive early, and leave at a reasonable hour; in Rook
Clubs, it would appear, this principle is reversed. The Mad Hatter would
have liked this Club—it would have been a club after his own heart. It
opens at half-past two in the morning, and the first to arrive are the
most disreputable members. In Rook-land the rowdy-dowdy, randy-dandy,
rollicky-ranky boys get up very early in the morning and go to bed in the
afternoon. Towards dawn, the older, more orderly members drop in for
reasonable talk, and the Club becomes more respectable. The tree closes
about six. For the first two hours, however, the goings-on are
disgraceful. The proceedings, as often as not, open with a fight. If no
two gentlemen can be found to oblige with a fight, the next noisiest
thing to fall back upon is held to be a song. It is no satisfaction to
me to be told that rooks cannot sing. _I_ know that, without the trouble
of referring to the natural history book. It is the rook who does not
know it; _he_ thinks he can; and as a matter of fact, he does. You can
criticize his singing, you can call it what you like, but you can’t stop
it—at least, that is my experience. The song selected is sure to be one
with a chorus. Towards the end it becomes mainly chorus, unless the
soloist be an extra powerful bird, determined to insist upon his rights.
The President knows nothing of this Club. He gets up himself about
seven—three hours after all the others have finished breakfast—and then
fusses round under the impression that he is waking up the colony, the
fat-headed old fool. He is the poorest thing in Presidents I have ever
heard of. A South American Republic would supply a better article. The
rooks themselves, the married majority, fathers of families, respectable
nestholders, are as indignant as I am. I hear complaints from all
quarters.
Reflection comes to one as, towards the close of these chill afternoons
in early spring, one leans upon the paddock gate watching the noisy
bustling in the bare elms.
So the earth is growing green again, and love is come again unto the
hearts of us old sober-coated fellows. Oh, Madam, your feathers gleam
wondrous black, and your bonnie bright eye stabs deep. Come, sit by our
side, and we’ll tell you a tale such as rook never told before. It’s the
tale of a nest in a topmost bough, that sways in the good west wind.
It’s strong without, but it’s soft within, where the little green eggs
lie safe. And there sits in that nest a lady sweet, and she caws with
joy, for, afar, she sees the rook she loves the best. Oh, he has been
east, and he has been west, and his crop it is full of worms and slugs,
and they are all for her.
We are old, old rooks, so many of us. The white is mingling with the
purple black upon our breasts. We have seen these tall elms grow from
saplings; we have seen the old trees fall and die. Yet each season come
to us again the young thoughts. So we mate and build and gather that
again our old, old hearts may quiver to the thin cry of our newborn.
Mother Nature has but one care, the children. We talk of Love as the
Lord of Life: it is but the Minister. Our novels end where Nature’s tale
begins. The drama that our curtain falls upon, is but the prologue to
her play. How the ancient Dame must laugh as she listens to the prattle
of her children. “Is Marriage a Failure?” “Is Life worth Living?” “The
New Woman _versus_ the Old.” So, perhaps, the waves of the Atlantic
discuss vehemently whether they shall flow east or west.
Motherhood is the law of the Universe. The whole duty of man is to be a
mother. We labour: to what end? the children—the woman in the home, the
man in the community. The nation takes thought for its future: why? In
a few years its statesmen, its soldiers, its merchants, its toilers, will
be gathered unto their fathers. Why trouble we ourselves about the
future? The country pours its blood and treasure into the earth that the
children may reap. Foolish Jacques Bonhomie, his addled brain full of
dreams, rushes with bloody hands to give his blood for Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity. He will not live to see, except in vision, the new world he
gives his bones to build—even his spinning word-whipped head knows that.
But the children! they shall live sweeter lives. The peasant leaves his
fireside to die upon the battle-field. What is it to him, a grain in the
human sand, that Russia should conquer the East, that Germany should be
united, that the English flag should wave above new lands? the heritage
his fathers left him shall be greater for his sons. Patriotism! what is
it but the mother instinct of a people?
Take it that the decree has gone forth from Heaven: There shall be no
more generations, with this life the world shall die. Think you we
should move another hand? The ships would rot in the harbours, the grain
would rot in the ground. Should we paint pictures, write books, make
music? hemmed in by that onward creeping sea of silence. Think you with
what eyes husband and wife would look on one another. Think you of the
wooing—the spring of Love dried up; love only a pool of stagnant water.
How little we seem to realize this foundation of our life. Herein, if
nowhere else, lies our eternity. This Ego shall never die—unless the
human race from beginning to end be but a passing jest of the Gods, to be
swept aside when wearied of, leaving room for new experiments. These
features of mine—we will not discuss their æsthetic value—shall never
disappear; modified, varied, but in essential the same, they shall
continue in ever increasing circles to the end of Time. This temperament
of mine—this good and evil that is in me, it shall grow with every age,
spreading ever wider, combining, amalgamating. I go into my children and
my children’s children, I am eternal. I am they, they are I. The tree
withers and you clear the ground, thankful if out of its dead limbs you
can make good firewood; but its spirit, its life, is in fifty saplings.
The tree dies not, it changes.
These men and women that pass me in the street, this one hurrying to his
office, this one to his club, another to his love, they are the mothers
of the world to come.
This greedy trickster in stocks and shares, he cheats, he lies, he wrongs
all men—for what? Follow him to his luxurious home in the suburbs: what
do you find? A man with children on his knee, telling them stories,
promising them toys. His anxious, sordid life, for what object is it
lived? That these children may possess the things that he thinks good
for them. Our very vices, side by side with our virtues, spring from
this one root, Motherhood. It is the one seed of the Universe. The
planets are but children of the sun, the moon but an offspring of the
earth, stone of her stone, iron of her iron. What is the Great Centre of
us all, life animate and inanimate—if any life _be_ inanimate? Is the
eternal universe one dim figure, Motherhood, filling all space?
This scheming Mother of Mayfair, angling for a rich son-in-law! Not a
pleasing portrait to look upon, from one point of view. Let us look at
it, for a moment, from another. How weary she must be! This is her
third “function” to-night; the paint is running off her poor face. She
has been snubbed a dozen times by her social superiors, openly insulted
by a Duchess; yet she bears it with a patient smile. It is a pitiful
ambition, hers: it is that her child shall marry money, shall have
carriages and many servants, live in Park Lane, wear diamonds, see her
name in the Society Papers. At whatever cost to herself, her daughter
shall, if possible, enjoy these things. She could so much more
comfortably go to bed, and leave the child to marry some well-to-do
commercial traveller. Justice, Reader, even for such. Her sordid
scheming is but the deformed child of Motherhood.
Motherhood! it is the gamut of God’s orchestra, savageness and cruelty at
the one end, tenderness and self-sacrifice at the other.
The sparrow-hawk fights the hen: he seeking food for his brood, she
defending hers with her life. The spider sucks the fly to feed its
myriad young; the cat tortures the mouse to give its still throbbing
carcase to her kittens, and man wrongs man for children’s sake. Perhaps
when the riot of the world reaches us whole, not broken, we shall learn
it is a harmony, each jangling discord fallen into its place around the
central theme, Motherhood.