Coming like a white wall the rain reaches me, and in an instant
everything is gone from sight that is more than ten yards distant. The
narrow upland road is beaten to a darker hue, and two runnels of water
rush along at the sides, where, when the chalk-laden streamlets dry,
blue splinters of flint will be exposed in the channels. For a moment
the air seems driven away by the sudden pressure, and I catch my breath
and stand still with one shoulder forward to receive the blow. Hiss,
the land shudders under the cold onslaught; hiss, and on the blast
goes, and the sound with it, for the very fury of the rain, after the
first second, drowns its own noise. There is not a single creature
visible, the low and stunted hedgerows, bare of leaf, could conceal
nothing; the rain passes straight through to the ground. Crooked and
gnarled, the bushes are locked together as if in no other way could
they hold themselves against the gales. Such little grass as there is
on the mounds is thin and short, and could not hide a mouse. There is
no finch, sparrow, thrush, blackbird. As the wave of rain passes over
and leaves a hollow between the waters, that which has gone and that to
come, the ploughed lands on either side are seen to be equally bare. In
furrows full of water, a hare would not sit, nor partridge run; the
larks, the patient larks which endure almost everything, even they have
gone. Furrow on furrow with flints dotted on their slopes, and chalk
lumps, that is all. The cold earth gives no sweet petal of flower, nor
can any bud of thought or bloom of imagination start forth in the mind.
But step by step, forcing a way through the rain and over the ridge, I
find a small and stunted copse down in the next hollow. It is rather a
wide hedge than a copse, and stands by the road in the corner of a
field. The boughs are bare; still they break the storm, and it is a
relief to wait a while there and rest. After a minute or so the eye
gets accustomed to the branches and finds a line of sight through the
narrow end of the copse. Within twenty yards--just outside the
copse--there are a number of lapwings, dispersed about the furrows. One
runs a few feet forward and picks something from the ground; another
runs in the same manner to one side; a third rushes in still a third
direction. Their crests, their green-tinted wings, and white breasts
are not disarranged by the torrent. Something in the style of the birds
recalls the wagtail, though they are so much larger. Beyond these are
half a dozen more, and in a straggling line others extend out into the
field. They have found some slight shelter here from the sweeping of
the rain and wind, and are not obliged to face it as in the open.
Minutely searching every clod they gather their food in imperceptible
items from the surface.
Sodden leaves lie in the furrows along the side of the copse; broken
and decaying burdocks still uphold their jagged stems, but will be
soaked away by degrees; dank grasses droop outwards! the red seed of a
dock is all that remains of the berries and fruit, the seeds and grain
of autumn. Like the hedge, the copse is vacant. Nothing moves within,
watch as carefully as I may. The boughs are blackened by wet and would
touch cold. From the grasses to the branches there is nothing any one
would like to handle, and I stand apart even from the bush that keeps
away the rain. The green plovers are the only things of life that save
the earth from utter loneliness. Heavily as the rain may fall, cold as
the saturated wind may blow, the plovers remind us of the beauty of
shape, colour, and animation. They seem too slender to withstand the
blast--they should have gone with the swallows--too delicate for these
rude hours; yet they alone face them.
Once more the wave of rain has passed, and yonder the hills appear;
these are but uplands. The nearest and highest has a green rampart,
visible for a moment against the dark sky, and then again wrapped in a
toga of misty cloud. So the chilled Roman drew his toga around him in
ancient days as from that spot he looked wistfully southwards and
thought of Italy. Wee-ah-wee! Some chance movement has been noticed by
the nearest bird, and away they go at once as if with the same wings,
sweeping overhead, then to the right, then to the left, and then back
again, till at last lost in the coming shower. After they have thus
vibrated to and fro long enough, like a pendulum coming to rest, they
will alight in the open field on the ridge behind. There in drilled
ranks, well closed together, all facing the same way, they will stand
for hours. Let us go also and let the shower conceal them. Another time
my path leads over the hills.
It is afternoon, which in winter is evening. The sward of the down is
dry under foot, but hard, and does not lift the instep with the springy
feel of summer. The sky is gone, it is not clouded, it is swathed in
gloom. Upwards the still air thickens, and there is no arch or vault of
heaven. Formless and vague, it seems some vast shadow descending. The
sun has disappeared, and the light there still is, is left in the
atmosphere enclosed by the gloomy mist as pools are left by a receding
tide. Through the sand the water slips, and through the mist the light
glides away. Nearer comes the formless shadow and the visible earth
grows smaller. The path has faded, and there are no means on the open
downs of knowing whether the direction pursued is right or wrong, till
a boulder (which is a landmark) is perceived. Thence the way is down
the slope, the last and limit of the hills there. It is a rough
descent, the paths worn by sheep may at any moment cause a stumble. At
the foot is a waggon-track beside a low hedge, enclosing the first
arable field. The hedge is a guide, but the ruts are deep, and it still
needs slow and careful walking. Wee-ah-wee! Up from the dusky surface
of the arable field springs a plover, and the notes are immediately
repeated by another. They can just be seen as darker bodies against the
shadow as they fly overhead. Wee-ah-wee! The sound grows fainter as
they fetch a longer circle in the gloom.
There is another winter resort of plovers in the valley where a barren
waste was ploughed some years ago. A few furze bushes still stand in
the hedges about it, and the corners are full of rushes. Not all the
grubbing of furze and bushes, the deep ploughing and draining, has
succeeded in rendering the place fertile like the adjacent fields. The
character of a marsh adheres to it still. So long as there is a crop,
the lapwings keep away, but as soon as the ploughs turn up the ground
in autumn they return. The place lies low, and level with the waters in
the ponds and streamlets. A mist hangs about it in the evening, and
even when there is none, there is a distinct difference in the
atmosphere while passing it. From their hereditary home the lapwings
cannot be entirely driven away. Out of the mist comes their plaintive
cry; they are hidden, and their exact locality is not to be discovered.
Where winter rules most ruthlessly, where darkness is deepest in
daylight, there the slender plovers stay undaunted.