And with all their motions and stepping from bough to bough,

Produced by Malcolm Farmer

THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS

BY RICHARD JEFFERIES

My thanks are due to those editors who have so kindly permitted me to

reprint the following pages:--"The Field-Play" appeared in _Time_;

"Bits of Oak Bark" and "The Pageant of Summer" in _Longman's Magazine_;

"Meadow Thoughts" and "Mind under Water" in _The Graphic_; "Clematis

Lane," "Nature near Brighton," "Sea, Sky, and Down," "January in the

Sussex Woods," and "By the Exe" in _The Standard_; "Notes on Landscape

Painting," in _The Magazine of Art_; "Village Miners," in _The

Gentleman's Magazine_; "Nature and the Gamekeeper," "The Sacrifice to

Trout," "The Hovering of the Kestrel," and "Birds Climbing the Air," in

_The St. James's Gazette_; "Sport and Science," in _The National

Review_; "The Water-Colley," in _The Manchester Guardian_; "Country

Literature," "Sunlight in a London Square," "Venice in the East End,"

"The Pigeons at the British Museum," and "The Plainest City in Europe,"

in _The Pall Mall Gazette_.

RICHARD JEFFERIES

CONTENTS

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

THE FIELD PLAY:

I. UPTILL-A-THORN

II. RURAL DYNAMITE

BITS OF OAK BARK:

I. THE ACORN-GATHERER

II. THE LEGEND OF A GATEWAY

III. A ROMAN BROOK

MEADOW THOUGHTS

CLEMATIS LANE

NATURE NEAR BRIGHTON

SEA, SKY, AND DOWN

JANUARY IN THE SUSSEX WOODS

BY THE EXE

THE WATER-COLLEY

NOTES ON LANDSCAPE PAINTING

VILLAGE MINERS

MIND UNDER WATER

SPORT AND SCIENCE

NATURE AND THE GAMEKEEPER

THE SACRIFICE TO TROUT

THE HOVERING OF THE KESTREL

BIRDS CLIMBING THE AIR

COUNTRY LITERATURE:

I. THE AWAKENING.

II. SCARCITY OF BOOKS

III. THE VILLAGER'S TASTE IN READING

IV. PLAN OF DISTRIBUTION

SUNLIGHT IN A LONDON SQUARE

VENICE IN THE EAST END.

THE PIGEONS AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM

THE PLAINEST CITY IN EUROPE

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

I

Green rushes, long and thick, standing up above the edge of the ditch,

told the hour of the year as distinctly as the shadow on the dial the

hour of the day. Green and thick and sappy to the touch, they felt like

summer, soft and elastic, as if full of life, mere rushes though they

were. On the fingers they left a green scent; rushes have a separate

scent of green, so, too, have ferns, very different to that of grass or

leaves. Rising from brown sheaths, the tall stems enlarged a little in

the middle, like classical columns, and heavy with their sap and

freshness, leaned against the hawthorn sprays. From the earth they had

drawn its moisture, and made the ditch dry; some of the sweetness of

the air had entered into their fibres, and the rushes--the common

rushes--were full of beautiful summer. The white pollen of early

grasses growing on the edge was dusted from them each time the hawthorn

boughs were shaken by a thrush. These lower sprays came down in among

the grass, and leaves and grass-blades touched. Smooth round stems of

angelica, big as a gun-barrel, hollow and strong, stood on the slope of

the mound, their tiers of well-balanced branches rising like those of a

tree. Such a sturdy growth pushed back the ranks of hedge parsley in

full white flower, which blocked every avenue and winding bird's-path

of the bank. But the "gix," or wild parsnip, reached already high above

both, and would rear its fluted stalk, joint on joint, till it could

face a man. Trees they were to the lesser birds, not even bending if

perched on; but though so stout, the birds did not place their nests on

or against them. Something in the odour of these umbelliferous plants,

perhaps, is not quite liked; if brushed or bruised they give out a

bitter greenish scent. Under their cover, well shaded and hidden, birds

build, but not against or on the stems, though they will affix their

nests to much less certain supports. With the grasses that overhung the

edge, with the rushes in the ditch itself, and these great plants on

the mound, the whole hedge was wrapped and thickened. No cunning of

glance could see through it; it would have needed a ladder to help any

one look over.

It was between the may and the June roses. The may-bloom had fallen,

and among the hawthorn boughs were the little green bunches that would

feed the redwings in autumn. High up the briars had climbed, straight

and towering while there was a thorn, or an ash sapling, or a

yellow-green willow to uphold them, and then curving over towards the

meadow. The buds were on them, but not yet open; it was between the may

and the rose.

As the wind, wandering over the sea, takes from each wave an invisible

portion, and brings to those on shore the ethereal essence of ocean, so

the air lingering among the woods and hedges--green waves and

billows--became full of fine atoms of summer. Swept from notched

hawthorn leaves, broad-topped oak-leaves, narrow ash sprays and oval

willows; from vast elm cliffs and sharp-taloned brambles under; brushed

from the waving grasses and stiffening corn, the dust of the sunshine

was borne along and breathed. Steeped in flower and pollen to the music

of bees and birds, the stream of the atmosphere became a living thing.

It was life to breathe it, for the air itself was life. The strength of

the earth went up through the leaves into the wind. Fed thus on the

food of the Immortals, the heart opened to the width and depth of the

summer--to the broad horizon afar, down to the minutest creature in the

grass, up to the highest swallow. Winter shows us Matter in its dead

form, like the Primary rocks, like granite and basalt--clear but cold

and frozen crystal. Summer shows us Matter changing into life, sap

rising from the earth through a million tubes, the alchemic power of

light entering the solid oak; and see! it bursts forth in countless

leaves. Living things leap in the grass, living things drift upon the

air, living things are coming forth to breathe in every hawthorn bush.

No longer does the immense weight of Matter--the dead, the

crystallised--press ponderously on the thinking mind. The whole office

of Matter is to feed life--to feed the green rushes, and the roses that

are about to be; to feed the swallows above, and us that wander beneath

them. So much greater is this ween and common rush than all the Alps.

Fanning so swiftly, the wasp's wings are but just visible as he passes;

did he pause, the light would be apparent through their texture. On the

wings of the dragon-fly as he hovers an instant before he darts there

is a prismatic gleam. These wing textures are even more delicate than

the minute filaments on a swallow's quill, more delicate than the

pollen of a flower. They are formed of matter indeed, but how

exquisitely it is resolved into the means and organs of life! Though

not often consciously recognised, perhaps this is the great pleasure of

summer, to watch the earth, the dead particles, resolving themselves

into the living case of life, to see the seed-leaf push aside the clod

and become by degrees the perfumed flower. From the tiny mottled egg

come the wings that by-and-by shall pass the immense sea. It is in this

marvellous transformation of clods and cold matter into living things

that the joy and the hope of summer reside. Every blade of grass, each

leaf, each separate floret and petal, is an inscription speaking of

hope. Consider the grasses and the oaks, the swallows, the sweet blue

butterfly--they are one and all a sign and token showing before our

eyes earth made into life. So that my hope becomes as broad as the

horizon afar, reiterated by every leaf, sung on every bough, reflected

in the gleam of every flower. There is so much for us yet to come, so

much to be gathered, and enjoyed. Not for you and me, now, but for our

race, who will ultimately use this magical secret for their happiness.

Earth holds secrets enough to give them the life of the fabled

Immortals. My heart is fixed firm and stable in the belief that

ultimately the sunshine and the summer, the flowers and the azure sky,

shall become, as it were, interwoven into man's existence. He shall

take from all their beauty and enjoy their glory. Hence it is that a

flower is to me so much more than stalk and petals. When I look in the

glass I see that every line in my face means pessimism; but in spite of

my face--that is my experience--I remain an optimist. Time with an

unsteady hand has etched thin crooked lines, and, deepening the

hollows, has cast the original expression into shadow. Pain and sorrow

flow over us with little ceasing, as the sea-hoofs beat on the beach.

Let us not look at ourselves but onwards, and take strength from the

leaf and the signs of the field. He is indeed despicable who cannot

look onwards to the ideal life of man. Not to do so is to deny our

birthright of mind.

The long grass flowing towards the hedge has reared in a wave against

it. Along the hedge it is higher and greener, and rustles into the very

bushes. There is a mark only now where the footpath was; it passed

close to the hedge, but its place is traceable only as a groove in the

sorrel and seed-tops. Though it has quite filled the path, the grass

there cannot send its tops so high; it has left a winding crease. By

the hedge here stands a moss-grown willow, and its slender branches

extend over the sward. Beyond it is an oak, just apart from the bushes;

then the ground gently rises, and an ancient pollard ash, hollow and

black inside, guards an open gateway like a low tower. The different

tone of green shows that the hedge is there of nut-trees; but one great

hawthorn spreads out in a semicircle, roofing the grass which is yet

more verdant in the still pool (as it were) under it. Next a corner,

more oaks, and a chestnut in bloom. Returning to-this spot an old apple

tree stands right out in the meadow like an island. There seemed just

now the tiniest twinkle of movement by the rushes, but it was lost

among the hedge parsley. Among the grey leaves of the willow there is

another flit of motion; and visible now against the sky there is a

little brown bird, not to be distinguished at the moment from the many

other little brown birds that are known to be about. He got up into the

willow from the hedge parsley somehow, without being seen to climb or

fly. Suddenly he crosses to the tops of the hawthorn and immediately

flings himself up into the air a yard or two, his wings and ruffled

crest making a ragged outline; jerk, jerk, jerk, as if it were with the

utmost difficulty he could keep even at that height. He scolds, and

twitters, and chirps, and all at once sinks like a stone into the hedge

and out of sight as a stone into a pond. It is a whitethroat; his nest

is deep in the parsley and nettles. Presently he will go out to the

island apple tree and back again in a minute or two; the pair of them

are so fond of each other's affectionate company they cannot remain

apart.

Watching the line of the hedge, about every two minutes, either near at

hand or yonder a bird darts out just at the level of the grass, hovers

a second with labouring wings, and returns as swiftly to the cover.

Sometimes it is a flycatcher, sometimes a greenfinch, or chaffinch, now

and then a robin, in one place a shrike, perhaps another is a redstart.

They are fly-fishing all of them, seizing insects from the sorrel tips

and grass, as the kingfisher takes a roach from the water. A blackbird

slips up into the oak and a dove descends in the corner by the chestnut

tree. But these are not visible together, only one at a time and with

intervals. The larger part of the life of the hedge is out of sight.

All the thrush-fledglings, the young blackbirds, and finches are

hidden, most of them on the mound among the ivy, and parsley, and rough

grasses, protected too by a roof of brambles. The nests that still have

eggs are not, like the nests of the early days of April, easily found;

they are deep down in the tangled herbage by the shore of the ditch, or

far inside the thorny thickets which then looked mere bushes, and are

now so broad. Landrails are running in the grass concealed as a man

would be in a wood; they have nests and eggs on the ground for which

you may search in vain till the mowers come.

Up in the corner a fragment of white fur and marks of scratching show

where a doe has been preparing for a litter. Some well-trodden runs

lead from mound to mound; they are sandy near the hedge where the

particles have been carried out adhering to the rabbits' feet and fur.

A crow rises lazily from the upper end of the field, and perches in the

chestnut. His presence, too, was unsuspected. He is there by far too

frequently. At this season the crows are always in the mowing-grass,

searching about, stalking in winding tracks from furrow to furrow,

picking up an egg here and a foolish fledgling that has wandered from

the mound yonder. Very likely there may be a moorhen or two slipping

about under cover of the long grass; thus hidden, they can leave the

shelter of the flags and wander a distance from the brook. So that

beneath the surface of the grass and under the screen of the leaves

there are ten times more birds than are seen.

Besides the singing and calling, there is a peculiar sound which is

only heard in summer. Waiting quietly to discover what birds are about,

I become aware of a sound in the very air. It is not the midsummer hum

which will soon be heard over the heated hay in the valley and over the

cooler hills alike. It is not enough to be called a hum, and does but

just tremble at the extreme edge of hearing. If the branches wave and

rustle they overbear it; the buzz of a passing bee is so much louder it

overcomes all of it that is in the whole field. I cannot, define it,

except by calling the hours of winter to mind--they are silent; you

hear a branch crack or creak as it rubs another in the wood, you hear

the hoar-frost crunch on the grass beneath your feet, but the air is

without sound in itself. The sound of summer is everywhere--in the

passing breeze, in the hedge, in the broad branching trees, in the

grass as it swings; all the myriad particles that together make the

summer are in motion. The sap moves in the trees, the pollen is pushed

out from grass and flower, and yet again these acres and acres of

leaves and square miles of grass blades--for they would cover acres and

square miles if reckoned edge to edge--are drawing their strength from

the atmosphere. Exceedingly minute as these vibrations must be, their

numbers perhaps may give them a volume almost reaching in the aggregate

to the power of the ear. Besides the quivering leaf, the swinging

grass, the fluttering bird's wing, and the thousand oval membranes

which innumerable insects whirl about, a faint resonance seems to come

from the very earth itself. The fervour of the sunbeams descending in a

tidal flood rings on the strung harp of earth. It is this exquisite

undertone, heard and yet unheard, which brings the mind into sweet

accordance with the wonderful instrument of nature.

By the apple tree there is a low bank, where the grass is less tall and

admits the heat direct to the ground; here there are blue

flowers--bluer than the wings of my favourite butterflies--with white

centres--the lovely bird's-eyes, or veronica. The violet and cowslip,

bluebell and rose, are known to thousands; the veronica is overlooked.

The ploughboys know it, and the wayside children, the mower and those

who linger in fields, but few else. Brightly blue and surrounded by

greenest grass, imbedded in and all the more blue for the shadow of the

grass, these growing butterflies' wings draw to themselves the sun.

From this island I look down into the depth of the grasses. Red sorrel

spires--deep drinkers of reddest sun wine--stand the boldest, and in

their numbers threaten the buttercups. To these in the distance they

give the gipsy-gold tint--the reflection of fire on plates of the

precious metal. It will show even on a ring by firelight; blood in the

gold, they say. Gather the open marguerite daisies, and they seem

large--so wide a disc, such fingers of rays; but in the grass their

size is toned by so much green. Clover heads of honey lurk in the

bunches and by the hidden footpath. Like clubs from Polynesia the tips

of the grasses are varied in shape: some tend to a point--the

foxtails--some are hard and cylindrical; others, avoiding the club

shape, put forth the slenderest branches with fruit of seed at the

ends, which tremble as the air goes by. Their stalks are ripening and

becoming of the colour of hay while yet the long blades remain green.

Each kind is repeated a hundred times, the foxtails are succeeded by

foxtails, the narrow blades by narrow blades, but never become

monotonous; sorrel stands by sorrel, daisy flowers by daisy. This bed

of veronica at the foot of the ancient apple has a whole handful of

flowers, and yet they do not weary the eye. Oak follows oak and elm

ranks with elm, but the woodlands are pleasant; however many times

reduplicated, their beauty only increases. So, too, the summer days;

the sun rises on the same grasses and green hedges, there is the same

blue sky, but did we ever have enough of them? No, not in a hundred

years! There seems always a depth, somewhere, unexplored, a thicket

that has not been seen through, a corner full of ferns, a quaint old

hollow tree, which may give us something. Bees go by me as I stand

under the apple, but they pass on for the most part bound on a long

journey, across to the clover fields or up to the thyme lands; only a

few go down into the mowing-grass. The hive bees are the most impatient

of insects; they cannot bear to entangle their wings beating against

grasses or boughs. Not one will enter a hedge. They like an open and

level surface, places cropped by sheep, the sward by the roadside,

fields of clover, where the flower is not deep under grass.

II

It is the patient humble-bee that goes down into the forest of the

mowing-grass. If entangled, the humble-bee climbs up a sorrel stem and

takes wing, without any sign of annoyance. His broad back with tawny

bar buoyantly glides over the golden buttercups. He hums to himself as

he goes, so happy is he. He knows no skep, no cunning work in glass

receives his labour, no artificial saccharine aids him when the beams

of the sun are cold, there is no step to his house that he may alight

in comfort; the way is not made clear for him that he may start

straight for the flowers, nor are any sown for him. He has no shelter

if the storm descends suddenly; he has no dome of twisted straw well

thatched and tiled to retreat to. The butcher-bird, with a beak like a

crooked iron nail, drives him to the ground, and leaves him pierced

with a thorn; but no hail of shot revenges his tortures. The grass

stiffens at nightfall (in autumn), and he must creep where he may, if

possibly he may escape the frost. No one cares for the humble-bee. But

down to the flowering nettle in the mossy-sided ditch, up into the tall

elm, winding in and out and round the branched buttercups, along the

banks of the brook, far inside the deepest wood, away he wanders and

despises nothing. His nest is under the rough grasses and the mosses of

the mound; a mere tunnel beneath the fibres and matted surface. The

hawthorn overhangs it, the fern grows by, red mice rustle past.

It thunders, and the great oak trembles; the heavy rain drops through

the treble roof of oak and hawthorn and fern. Under the arched branches

the lightning plays along, swiftly to and fro, or seems to, like the

swish of a whip, a yellowish-red against the green; a boom! a crackle

as if a tree fell from the sky. The thick grasses are bowed, the white

florets of the wild parsley are beaten down, the rain hurls itself, and

suddenly a fierce blast tears the green oak leaves and whirls them out

into the fields; but the humble-bee's home, under moss and matted

fibres, remains uninjured. His house at the root of the king of trees,

like a cave in the rock, is safe. The storm passes and the sun comes

out, the air is the sweeter and the richer for the rain, like verses

with a rhyme; there will be more honey in the flowers. Humble he is,

but wild; always in the field, the wood; always by the banks and

thickets; always wild and humming to his flowers. Therefore I like the

humble-bee, being, at heart at least, for ever roaming among the

woodlands and the hills and by the brooks. In such quick summer storms

the lightning gives the impression of being far more dangerous than the

zigzag paths traced on the autumn sky. The electric cloud seems almost

level with the ground and the livid flame to rush to and fro beneath

the boughs as the little bats do in the evening.

Caught by such a cloud, I have stayed under thick larches at the edge

of plantations. They are no shelter, but conceal one perfectly. The

wood-pigeons come home to their nest trees; in larches they seem to

have permanent nests, almost like rooks. Kestrels, too, come home to

the wood. Pheasants crow, but not from fear--from defiance, in fear

they scream. The boom startles them, and they instantly defy the sky.

The rabbits quietly feed on out in the field between the thistles and

rushes that so often grow in woodside pastures, quietly hopping to

their favourite places, utterly heedless how heavy the echoes may be in

the hollows of the wooded hills. Till the rain comes they take no heed

whatever, but then make for shelter. Blackbirds often make a good deal

of noise; but the soft turtle-doves coo gently, let the lightning be as

savage as it will. Nothing has the least fear. Man alone, more

senseless than a pigeon, put a god in vapour; and to this day, though

the printing press has set a foot on every threshold, numbers bow the

knee when they hear the roar the timid dove does not heed. So trustful

are the doves, the squirrels, the birds of the branches, and the

creatures of the field. Under their tuition let us rid ourselves of

mental terrors, and face death itself as calmly as they do the livid

lightning; so trustful and so content with their fate, resting in

themselves and unappalled. If but by reason and will I could reach the

godlike calm and courage of what we so thoughtlessly call the timid

turtle-dove, I should lead a nearly perfect life.

The bark of the ancient apple tree under which I have been standing is

shrunken like iron which has been heated and let cool round the rim of

a wheel. For a hundred years the horses have rubbed against it while

feeding in the aftermath. The scales of the bark are gone or smoothed

down and level, so that insects have no hiding-place. There are no

crevices for them, the horsehairs that were caught anywhere have been

carried away by birds for their nests. The trunk is smooth and

columnar, hard as iron. A hundred times the mowing-grass has grown up

around it, the birds have built their nests, the butterflies fluttered

by, and the acorns dropped from the oaks. It is a long, long time,

counted by artificial hours or by the seasons, but it is longer still

in another way. The greenfinch in the hawthorn yonder has been there

since I came out, and all the time has been happily talking to his

love. He has left the hawthorn indeed, but only for a minute or two, to

fetch a few seeds, and comes back each time more full of song-talk than

ever. He notes no slow movement of the oak's shadow on the grass; it is

nothing to him and his lady dear that the sun, as seen from his nest,

is crossing from one great bough of the oak to another. The dew even in

the deepest and most tangled grass has long since been dried, and some

of the flowers that close at noon will shortly fold their petals. The

morning airs, which breathe so sweetly, come less and less frequently

as the heat increases. Vanishing from the sky, the last fragments of

cloud have left an untarnished azure. Many times the bees have returned

to their hives, and thus the index of the day advances. It is nothing

to the green-finches; all their thoughts are in their song-talk. The

sunny moment is to them all in all. So deeply are they rapt in it that

they do not know whether it is a moment or a year. There is no clock

for feeling, for joy, for love.

And with all their motions and stepping from bough to bough, they are

not restless; they have so much time, you see. So, too, the whitethroat

in the wild parsley; so, too, the thrush that just now peered out and

partly fluttered his wings as he stood to look. A butterfly comes and

stays on a leaf--a leaf much warmed by the sun--and shuts his wings. In

a minute he opens them, shuts them again, half wheels round, and

by-and-by--just when he chooses, and not before--floats away. The

flowers open, and remain open for hours, to the sun. Hastelessness is

the only word one can make up to describe it; there is much rest, but

no haste. Each moment, as with the greenfinches, is so full of life

that it seems so long and so sufficient in itself. Not only the days,

but life itself lengthens in summer. I would spread abroad my arms and

gather more of it to me, could I do so.

All the procession of living and growing things passes. The grass

stands up taller and still taller, the sheaths open, and the stalk

arises, the pollen clings till the breeze sweeps it. The bees rush

past, and the resolute wasps; the humble-bees, whose weight swings them

along. About the oaks and maples the brown chafers swarm; and the

fern-owls at dusk, and the blackbirds and jays by day, cannot reduce

their legions while they last. Yellow butterflies, and white, broad red

admirals, and sweet blues; think of the kingdom of flowers which is

theirs! Heavy moths burring at the edge of the copse; green, and red,

and gold flies: gnats, like smoke, around the tree-tops; midges so

thick over the brook, as if you could haul a netful; tiny leaping

creatures in the grass; bronze beetles across the path; blue

dragonflies pondering on cool leaves of water-plantain. Blue jays

flitting, a magpie drooping across from elm to elm; young rooks that

have escaped the hostile shot blundering up into the branches; missel

thrushes leading their fledglings, already strong on the wing, from

field to field. An egg here on the sward dropped by a starling; a red

ladybird creeping, tortoise-like, up a green fern frond. Finches

undulating through the air, shooting themselves with closed wings, and

linnets happy with their young.

Golden dandelion discs--gold and orange--of a hue more beautiful, I

think, than the higher and more visible buttercup. A blackbird,

gleaming, so black is he, splashing in the runlet of water across the

gateway. A ruddy kingfisher swiftly drawing himself as you might draw a

stroke with a pencil, over the surface of the yellow buttercups, and

away above the hedge. Hart's-tongue fern, thick with green, so green as

to be thick with its colour, deep in the ditch under the shady hazel

boughs. White meadow-sweet lifting its tiny florets, and black-flowered

sedges. You must push through the reed grass to find the sword-flags;

the stout willow-herbs will not be trampled down, but resist the foot

like underwood. Pink lychnis flowers behind the withy stoles, and

little black moorhens swim away, as you gather it, after their mother,

who has dived under the water-grass, and broken the smooth surface of

the duckweed. Yellow loosestrife is rising, thick comfrey stands at the

very edge; the sandpipers run where the shore is free from bushes. Back

by the underwood the prickly and repellent brambles will presently

present us with fruit. For the squirrels the nuts are forming, green

beechmast is there--green wedges under the spray; up in the oaks the

small knots, like bark rolled up in a dot, will be acorns. Purple

vetches along the mounds, yellow lotus where the grass is shorter, and

orchis succeeds to orchis. As I write them, so these things come--not

set in gradation, but like the broadcast flowers in the mowing-grass.

Now follows the gorse, and the pink rest-harrow, and the sweet

lady's-bedstraw, set as it were in the midst of a little thorn-bush.

The broad repetition of the yellow clover is not to be written; acre

upon acre, and not one spot of green, as if all the green had been

planed away, leaving only the flowers to which the bees come by the

thousand from far and near. But one white campion stands in the midst

of the lake of yellow. The field is scented as though a hundred hives

of honey had been emptied on it. Along the mound by it the bluebells

are seeding, the hedge has been cut and the ground is strewn with

twigs. Among those seeding bluebells and dry twigs and mosses I think a

titlark has his nest, as he stays all day there and in the oak over.

The pale clear yellow of charlock, sharp and clear, promises the

finches bushels of seed for their young. Under the scarlet of the

poppies the larks run, and then for change of colour soar into the

blue. Creamy honeysuckle on the hedge around the cornfield, buds of

wild rose everywhere, but no sweet petal yet. Yonder, where the wheat

can climb no higher up the slope, are the purple heath-bells, thyme and

flitting stonechats.

The lone barn shut off by acres of barley is noisy with sparrows. It is

their city, and there is a nest in every crevice, almost under every

tile. Sometimes the partridges run between the ricks, and when the bats

come out of the roof, leverets play in the waggon-track. At even a

fern-owl beats by, passing close to the eaves whence the moths issue.

On the narrow waggon-track which descends along a coombe and is worn in

chalk, the heat pours down by day as if an invisible lens in the

atmosphere focussed the sun's rays. Strong woody knapweed endures it,

so does toadflax and pale blue scabious, and wild mignonette. The very

sun of Spain burns and burns and ripens the wheat on the edge of the

coombe, and will only let the spring moisten a yard or two around it;

but there a few rushes have sprung, and in the water itself brooklime

with blue flowers grows so thickly that nothing but a bird could find

space to drink. So down again from this sun of Spain to woody coverts

where the wild hops are blocking every avenue, and green-flowered

bryony would fain climb to the trees; where grey-flecked ivy winds

spirally about the red rugged bark of pines, where burdocks fight for

the footpath, and teazle-heads look over the low hedges. Brake-fern

rises five feet high; in some way woodpeckers are associated with

brake, and there seem more of them where it flourishes. If you count

the depth and strength of its roots in the loamy sand, add the

thickness of its flattened stem, and the width of its branching fronds,

you may say that it comes near to be a little tree. Beneath where the

ponds are bushy mare's-tails grow, and on the moist banks jointed

pewterwort; some of the broad bronze leaves of water-weeds seem to try

and conquer the pond and cover it so firmly that a wagtail may run on

them. A white butterfly follows along the waggon-road, the pheasants

slip away as quietly as the butterfly flies, but a jay screeches loudly

and flutters in high rage to see us. Under an ancient garden wall among

matted bines of trumpet convolvulus, there is a hedge-sparrow's nest

overhung with ivy on which even now the last black berries cling.

There are minute white flowers on the top of the wall, out of reach,

and lichen grows against it dried by the sun till it looks ready to

crumble. By the gateway grows a thick bunch of meadow geranium, soon to

flower; over the gate is the dusty highway road, quiet but dusty,

dotted with the innumerable footmarks of a flock of sheep that has

passed. The sound of their bleating still comes back, and the bees

driven up by their feet have hardly had time to settle again on the

white clover beginning to flower on the short roadside sward. All the

hawthorn leaves and briar and bramble, the honeysuckle, too, is gritty

with the dust that has been scattered upon it. But see--can it be?

Stretch a hand high, quick, and reach it down; the first, the sweetest,

the dearest rose of June. Not yet expected, for the time is between the

may and the roses, least of all here in the hot and dusty highway; but

it is found--the first rose of June.

Straight go the white petals to the heart; straight the mind's glance

goes back to how many other pageants of summer in old times When

perchance the sunny days were even more sunny; when the stilly oaks

were full of mystery, lurking like the Druid's mistletoe in the midst

of their mighty branches. A glamour in the heart came back to it again

from every flower; as the sunshine was reflected from them so the

feeling in the heart returned tenfold. To the dreamy summer haze love

gave a deep enchantment, the colours were fairer, the blue more lovely

in the lucid sky. Each leaf finer, and the gross earth enamelled

beneath the feet. A sweet breath on the air, a soft warm hand in the

touch of the sunshine, a glance in the gleam of the rippled waters, a

whisper in the dance of the shadows. The ethereal haze lifted the heavy

oaks and they were buoyant on the mead, the rugged bark was chastened

and no longer rough, each slender flower beneath them again refined.

There was a presence everywhere though unseen, on the open hills, and

not shut out under the dark pines. Dear were the June roses then

because for another gathered. Yet even dearer now with so many years as

it were upon the petals; all the days that have been before, all the

heart-throbs, all our hopes lie in this opened bud. Let not the eyes

grow dim, look not back but forward; the soul must uphold itself like

the sun. Let us labour to make the heart grow larger as we become

older, as the spreading oak gives more shelter. That we could but take

to the soul some of the greatness and the beauty of the summer!

Still the pageant moves. The song-talk of the finches rises and sinks

like the tinkle of a waterfall. The greenfinches have been by me all

the while. A bullfinch pipes now and then further up the hedge where

the brambles and thorns are thickest. Boldest of birds to look at, he

is always in hiding. The shrill tone of a goldfinch came just now from

the ash branches, but he has gone on. Every four or five minutes a

chaffinch sings close by, and another fills the interval near the

gateway. There are linnets somewhere, but I cannot from the old apple

tree fix their exact place. Thrushes have sung and ceased; they will

begin again in ten minutes. The blackbirds do not cease; the note

tittered by a blackbird in the oak yonder before it can drop is taken

up by a second near the top of the field, and ere it falls is caught by

a third on the left-hand side. From one of the topmost boughs of an elm

there fell the song of a willow warbler for awhile; one of the least of

birds, he often seeks the highest branches of the highest tree.

A yellowhammer has just flown from a bare branch in the gateway, where

he has been perched and singing a full hour. Presently he will commence

again, and as the sun declines will sing him to the horizon, and then

again sing till nearly dusk. The yellowhammer is almost the longest of

all the singers; he sits and sits and has no inclination to move. In

the spring he sings, in the summer he sings, and he continues when the

last sheaves are being carried from the wheat field. The redstart

yonder has given forth a few notes, the whitethroat flings himself into

the air at short intervals and chatters, the shrike calls sharp and

determined, faint but shrill calls descend from the swifts in the air

These descend, but the twittering notes of the swallows do not reach so

far--they are too high to-day. A cuckoo has called by the brook, and

now fainter from a greater distance. That the titlarks are singing I

know, but not within hearing from here; a dove, though, is audible, and

a chiffchaff has twice passed. Afar beyond the oaks at the top of the

field dark specks ascend from time to time, and after moving in wide

circles for awhile descend again to the corn. These must be larks; but

their notes are not powerful enough to reach me, though they would were

it not for the song in the hedges, the hum of innumerable insects, and

the ceaseless "crake, crake" of landrails. There are at least two

landrails in the mowing-grass; one of them just now seemed coming

straight towards the apple tree, and I expected in a minute to see the

grass move, when the bird turned aside and entered the tufts and wild

parsley by the hedge. Thence the call has come without a moment's

pause, "crake, crake," till the thick hedge seems filled with it. Tits

have visited the apple tree over my head, a wren has sung in the

willow, or rather on a dead branch projecting lower down than the leafy

boughs, and a robin across under the elms in the opposite hedge. Elms

are a favourite tree of robins--not the upper branches, but those that

grow down the trunk, and are the first to have leaves in spring.

The yellowhammer is the most persistent individually, but I think the

blackbirds when listened to are the masters of the fields. Before one

can finish another begins, like the summer ripples succeeding behind

each other, so that the melodious sound merely changes its position.

Now here, now in the corner, then across the field, again in the

distant copse, where it seems about to sink, when it rises again almost

at hand. Like a great human artist, the blackbird makes no effort,

being fully conscious that his liquid tone cannot be matched. He utters

a few delicious notes, and carelessly quits the green stage of the oak

till it pleases him to sing again. Without the blackbird, in whose

throat the sweetness of the green fields dwells, the days would be only

partly summer. Without the violet all the bluebells and cowslips could

not make a spring, and without the blackbird even the nightingale would

be but half welcome. It is not yet noon, these songs have been

ceaseless since dawn; this evening, after the yellowhammer has sung the

sun down, when the moon rises and the faint stars appear, still the

cuckoo will call, and the grasshopper lark, the landrail's "crake,

crake" will echo from the mound, a warbler or a blackcap will utter his

notes, and even at the darkest of the summer night the swallows will

hardly sleep in their nests. As the morning sky grows blue, an hour

before the sun, up will rise the larks singing and audible now, the

cuckoo will recommence, and the swallows will start again on their

tireless journey. So that the songs of the summer birds are as

ceaseless as the sound of the waterfall which plays day and night.

I cannot leave it; I must stay under the old tree in the midst of the

long grass, the luxury of the leaves, and the song in the very air. I

seem as if I could feel all the glowing life the sunshine gives and the

south wind calls to being. The endless grass, the endless leaves, the

immense strength of the oak expanding, the unalloyed joy of finch and

blackbird; from all of them I receive a little. Each gives me something

of the pure joy they gather for themselves. In the blackbird's melody

one note is mine; in the dance of the leaf shadows the formed maze is

for me, though the motion is theirs; the flowers with a thousand faces

have collected the kisses of the morning. Feeling with them, I receive

some, at least, of their fulness of life. Never could I have enough;

never stay long enough--whether here or whether lying on the shorter

sward under the sweeping and graceful birches, or on the thyme-scented

hills. Hour after hour, and still not enough. Or walking the footpath

was never long enough, or my strength sufficient to endure till the

mind was weary. The exceeding beauty of the earth, in her splendour of

life, yields a new thought with every petal. The hours when the mind is

absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live, so that the

longer we can stay among these things so much the more is snatched from

inevitable Time. Let the shadow advance upon the dial-I can watch it

with equanimity while it is there to be watched. It is only when the

shadow is _not_ there, when the clouds of winter cover it, that the

dial is terrible. The invisible shadow goes on and steals from us. But

now, while I can see the shadow of the tree and watch it slowly gliding

along the surface of the grass, it is mine. These are the only hours

that are not wasted--these hours that absorb the soul and fill it with

beauty. This is real life, and all else is illusion, or mere endurance.

Does this reverie of flowers and waterfall and song form an ideal, a

human ideal, in the mind? It does; much the same ideal that Phidias

sculptured of man and woman filled with a godlike sense of the violet

fields of Greece, beautiful beyond thought, calm as my turtle-dove

before the lurid lightning of the unknown. To be beautiful and to be

calm, without mental fear, is the ideal of nature. If I cannot achieve

it, at least I can think it.

THE FIELD-PLAY

I

UPTILL-A-THORN

"Save the nightingale alone;

She, poor bird, as all forlorn,

Lean'd her breast uptill a thorn."

--_Passionate Pilgrim._

She pinned her torn dress with a thorn torn from the bushes through

which she had scrambled to the hay-field. The gap from the lane was

narrow, made more narrow by the rapid growth of summer; her rake caught

in an ash-spray, and in releasing it she "ranted" the bosom of her

print dress. So soon as she had got through she dropped her rake on the

hay, searched for a long, nail-like thorn, and thrust it through, for

the good-looking, careless hussy never had any provision of pins about

her. Then, taking a June rose which pricked her finger, she put the

flower by the "rant", or tear, and went to join the rest of the

hay-makers. The blood welled up out of the scratch in the finger more

freely than would have been supposed from so small a place. She put her

lips to it to suck it away, as folk do in all quarters of the earth yet

discovered, being one of those instinctive things which come without

teaching. A red dot of blood stained her soft white cheek, for, in

brushing back her hair with her hand, she forgot the wounded finger.

With red blood on her face, a thorn and a rose in her bosom, and a hurt

on her hand, she reached the chorus of rakers.

The farmer and the sun are the leading actors, and the hay-makers are

the chorus, who bear the burden of the play. Marching, each a step

behind the other, and yet in a row, they presented a slanting front,

and so crossed the field, turning the "wallows." At the hedge she took

her place, the last in the row. There were five men and eight women;

all flouted her. The men teased her for being late again at work; she

said it was so far to come. The women jeered at her for tearing her

dress--she couldn't get through a "thornin'" hedge right. There was

only one thing she could do, and that was to "make a vool of zum

veller" (make a fool of some fellow). Dolly did not take much notice,

except that her nervous temperament showed slight excitement in the

manner she used her rake, now turning the hay quickly, now missing

altogether, then catching the teeth of the rake in the

buttercup-runners. The women did not fail to tell her how awkward she

was. By-and-by Dolly bounced forward, and, with a flush on her cheek,

took the place next to the men. They teased her too, you see, but there

was no spiteful malice in their tongues. There are some natures which,

naturally meek, if much condemned, defy that condemnation, and

willingly give it ground of justification by open guilt. The women

accused her of too free a carriage with the men; she replied by seeking

their company in the broad glare of the summer day. They laughed

loudly, joked, but welcomed her; they chatted with her gaily; they

compelled her to sip from their ale as they paused by the hedge. By

noon there was a high colour on her cheeks; the sun, the exercise, the

badinage had brought it up.

So fair a complexion could not brown even in summer, exposed to the

utmost heat. The beams indeed did heighten the hue of her cheeks a

little, but it did not shade to brown. Her chin and neck were wholly

untanned, white and soft, and the blue veins roamed at their will. Lips

red, a little full perhaps; teeth slightly prominent but white and

gleamy as she smiled. Dark brown hair in no great abundance, always

slipping out of its confinement and straggling, now on her forehead,

and now on her shoulders, like wandering bines of bryony. The softest

of brown eyes under long eyelashes; eyes that seemed to see everything

in its gentlest aspect, that could see no harm anywhere. A ready smile

on the face, and a smile in the form. Her shape yielded so easily at

each movement that it seemed to smile as she walked. Her nose was the

least pleasing feature--not delicate enough to fit with the complexion,

and distinctly upturned, though not offensively. But it was not

noticed; no one saw anything beyond the laughing lips, the laughing

shape, the eyes that melted so near to tears. The torn dress, the

straggling hair, the tattered shoes, the unmended stocking, the straw

hat split, the mingled poverty and carelessness--perhaps rather

dreaminess--disappeared when once you had met the full untroubled gaze

of those beautiful eyes. Untroubled, that is, with any ulterior thought

of evil or cunning; they were as open as the day, the day which you can

make your own for evil or good. So, too, like the day, was she ready to

the making.

No stability; now fast in motion; now slow; now by fits and starts;

washing her face to-day, her hands to-morrow. Never going straight,

even along the road; talking with the waggoner, helping a child to pick

watercress, patting the shepherd's dog, finding a flower, and late

every morning at the hay-field. It was so far to come, she said; no

doubt it was, if these stoppings and doublings were counted in. No

character whatever, no more than the wind; she was like a well-hung

gate swinging to a touch; like water yielding to let a reed sway; like

a singing-flame rising and falling to a word, and even to an altered

tone of voice. A word pushed her this way; a word pushed her that.

Always yielding, sweet, and gentle. Is not this the most seductive of

all characters in women?

Had they left her alone, would it have been any different? Those

bitter, coarse, feminine tongues which gave her the name of evil, and

so led her to openly announce that, as she had the name, she would

carry on the game. That is an old country saying, "Bear the name, carry

the game." If you have the name of a poacher, then poach; you will be

no worse off and you will have the pleasure of the poaching. It is a

serious matter, indeed, to give any one a bad name, more especially a

sensitive, nervous, beautiful girl.

Under the shady oaks at luncheon the men all petted her and flattered

her in their rude way, which, rude as it was, had the advantage of

admitting of no mistake. Two or three more men strolled up from other

fields, luncheon in hand and eating as they came, merely to chat with

her. One was a mower--a powerful fellow, big boned, big everywhere, and

heavy fisted; his chest had been open since four o'clock that morning

to the sun, and was tanned like his face. He took her in his mighty

arms and kissed her before them all; not one dared move, for the weight

of that bone-smashing fist was known. Big Mat drank, as all strong men

do; he fought; beyond that there was nothing against him. He worked

hard, and farmers are only too glad of a man who will work. He was

rather a favourite with the master, and trusted. He kissed her twice,

and then went back to his work of mowing, which needs more strength

than any other country labour--a mower is to a man what a dray-horse is

to a horse.

They lingered long over the luncheon under the shady oaks, with the

great blue tile of the sky overhead, and the sweet scent of hay around

them. They lingered so long, that young Mr. Andrew came to start them

again, and found Dolly's cheeks all aglow. The heat and the laughter

had warmed them; her cheeks burned, in contrast to her white, pure

forehead--for her hat was off--and to the cool shade of the trees. She

lingered yet a little longer chatting with Mr. Andrew--lingered a full

half-hour--and when they parted, she had given him a rose from the

hedge. Young Mr. Andrew was but half a farmer's son; he was destined

for a merchant's office in town; he had been educated for it, and was

only awaiting the promised opening. He was young, but no yokel; too

knowing of town cunning and selfish hardness to entangle himself. Yet

those soft brown eyes, that laughing shape; Andrew was very young and

so was she, and the summer sun burned warm.