crosses it eight or ten men armed with long staves standing waiting for
him. If there was but one deep place at the side of the ledge of rocks
he could beat them still and slip by, but the water is low for want of
rain, and he is unable to do so. He turns and tries at the sides of the
river lower down. Behind matted roots, and under the bank, with a rocky
fragment at one side, he faces his pursuers. The hounds are snapped at
as they approach in front. He cannot be struck with a staff from above
because the bank covers him. Some one must wade across and strike him
with a pole till he moves, or carry a terrier or two and pitch them in
the hole, half above and half under water. Next he tries the other
bank, then baffles all by doubling, till some one spies his nostril as
he comes up to breathe. The rocky hill at hand resounds with the cries
of the hounds, the sharp bark of the terriers, the orders of the
huntsman, and the shouts of the others. There are ladies in the mead by
the river's edge watching the hunt. Met in every direction, the otter
swims down stream; there are no rocks there, he knows, but as he comes
he finds a net stretched across. He cannot go down the river for the
net, nor up it for the guarded ledge of rocks; he is enclosed in a pool
without a chance of escape from it, and all he can do is to prolong the
unequal contest to the last moment. Now he visits his former holes or
"hovers," to be again found out; now he rests behind rocky fragments,
now dives and doubles or eludes all for a minute by some turn. So long
as his wind endures or he is not wounded he can stop in the water, and
so long as he is in the water he can live. But by degrees he is
encircled; some wade in and cut off his course; hounds stop him one way
and men the other, till, finally forced to land or to the shallow, he
is slain. His webbed feet are cut off and given as trophies to the
ladies who are present. The skin varies in colour--sometimes a deep
brown, sometimes fawn.
The otter is far wilder than the fox; for the fox a home is found and
covers are kept for him, even though he makes free with the pheasants;
but the otter has no home except the river and the rocky fastnesses
beside it. No creature could be more absolutely wild, depending solely
upon his own exertions for existence. Of olden time he was believed to
be able to scent the fish in the water at a considerable distance, as a
hound scents a fox, and to go straight to them. If he gets among a
number he will kill many more than he needs. For this reason he has
been driven by degrees from most of the rivers in the south where he
used to be found, but still exists in Somerset and Devon. Not even in
otter-hunting does he get the same fair play as the fox. No one strikes
a fox or puts a net across his course. That, however, is necessary, but
it is time that a strong protest was made against the extermination of
the otter in rivers like the Thames, where he is treated as a venomous
cobra might be on land; The truth is the otter is a most interesting
animal and worth preservation, even at the cost of what he eats. There
is a great difference between keeping the number of otters down by
otter-hunting within reasonable limits and utterly exterminating them.
Hunting the otter in Somerset is one thing, exterminating them in the
Thames another, and I cannot but feel a sense of deep regret when I
hear of fresh efforts towards this end. In the home counties, and,
indeed, in many other counties, the list of wild creatures is already
short enough, and is gradually decreasing, and the loss of the otter
would be serious. This animal is one of the few perfectly wild
creatures that have survived without any protection from the ancient
forest days. Despite civilisation, it still ventures, occasionally,
within a few miles of London, and well inside that circle in which
London takes its pleasure. It would be imagined that its occurrence so
near the metropolis would be recorded with pride; instead of which, no
sooner is the existence of an otter suspected than gun and trap are
eagerly employed for its destruction.
I cannot but think that the people of London at large, if aware of
these facts, would disapprove of the attempt to exterminate one of the
most remarkable members of their fauna. They should look upon the
inhabitants of the river as peculiarly their own. Some day, perhaps,
they will take possession of the fauna and flora within a certain
compass of their city. Every creature that could be kept alive within
such a circle would be a gain, especially to the Thames, that well-head
of the greatest city in the world. I marvel that they permit the least
of birds to be shot upon its banks. Nothing at present is safe, not so
much as a reed-sparrow, not even the martins that hover over the stormy
reaches. Where is the kingfisher? Where are the water-fowl? Where soon
will be the water-lilies? But if London extended its strong arm, how
soon would every bush be full of bird-life, and the osier-beds and
eyots the haunt of wild creatures! At this moment, it appears, so
bitter is the enmity to the otter, that a reward is set on his head,
and as much as two guineas is sometimes paid for the destruction of a
full-grown one. Perhaps the following list of slaughter may call
attention to the matter:--Three killed by Harlingham Weir in three
years. On the 22nd of January, at East Molesey, opposite the Gallery at
Hampton Court, in a field, a fine otter was shot, weighing twenty-six
pounds, and measuring fifty-two inches. On the 26th of January 1884, a
small otter was killed at Thames Ditton. Both these were close to
London from a sporting or natural history point of view. In February or
March 1884, an otter was killed at Cliefden Springs, Maidenhead; it
measured fifty-one inches. Here, then, are six in a short period, and
it is not a complete list; I have a distinct memory of one caught in a
trap by Molesey Weir within the last two or three years, and then
beaten to death with a spade.
THE WATER-COLLEY
The sweet grass was wet with dew as I walked through a meadow in
Somerset to the river. The cuckoo sang, the pleasanter perhaps because
his brief time was nearly over, and all pleasant things seem to have a
deeper note as they draw towards an end. Dew and sweet green grass were
the more beautiful because of the knowledge that the high hills around
were covered by sun-dried, wiry heather. River-side mead, dew-laden
grass, and sparkling stream were like an oasis in the dry desert. They
refreshed the heart to look upon as water refreshes the weary. The
shadows were more marked and defined than they are as day advances, the
hues of the flowers brighter, for the dew was to shadow and flower as
if the colours of the artist were not yet dry. Humblebees went down
with caution into the long grass, not liking to wet their wings.
Butterflies and the brilliant moths of a hot summer's morn alight on a
dry heated footpath till the dew is gone. A great rock rising from the
grass by the river's edge alone looked arid, and its surface already
heated, yet it also cast a cool shadow. By a copse, two rabbits--the
latest up of all those which had sported during the night--stayed till
I came near, and then quietly moved in among the ferns and foxgloves.
In the narrowest part of the wood between the hedge and the river a
corncrake called his loudest "crake, crake," incessantly. The
cornncrake or landrail is difficult even to see, so closely does he
conceal himself in the tall grasses, and his call echoed and re-echoed
deceives those who try to find him. Yet by great patience and watchful
skilfulness the corncrake is sometimes caught by hand. If tracked, and
if you can see him--the most difficult part--you can put your hand on
him. Now and then a corncrake is caught in the same way by hand while
sitting on her nest on the ground. It is not, however, as easy as it
reads. Walking through the grass, and thinking of the dew and the
beautiful morning sunshine, I scarcely noticed the quantity of
cuckoo-flowers, or cardamine, till presently it occurred to me that it
was very late in the season for cuckoo-flowers and stooping I picked
one, and in the act saw it was an orchis--the early purple. The meadow
was coloured, or rather tinted, with the abundance of the orchis,
palest of pale pink, dotted with red, the small narrow leaves sometimes
with black spots. They grew in the pasture everywhere, from the river's
side in the deep valley to the top of the hill by the wood.
As soon as the surface of the river was in sight I stood and watched,
but no ripple or ring of wavelets appeared; the trout were not feeding.
The water was so low that the river consisted of a series of pools,
connected by rapids descending over ledges of stones and rocky
fragments. Illumined to the very bottom, every trout was visible, even
those under the roots of trees and the hollow of the bank. A cast with
the fly there was useless; the line would be seen; there was no ripple
to hide it. As the trout, too, were in the pools, it might be concluded
that those worth taking had fed, and only the lesser fish would be
found in the eddies, where they are permitted by the larger fish to
feed after they have finished. Experience and reason were all against
the attempt, yet so delightful is the mere motion and delicate touch of
the fly-line on the water that I could not but let myself enjoy that at
least. The slender lancewood rod swayed, the line swished through the
air, and the fly dropped a few inches too high up the rapid among the
stones--I had meant it to fall farther across in the dark backwater at
the foot of the fall. The swift rush of the current carried the fly
instantly downwards, but not so quick as to escape a troutlet; he took
it, and was landed immediately. But to destroy these under-sized fish
was not sport, and as at that moment a water-colley passed I determined
to let the trout alone, and observe his ways.
Colley means a blackbird; water-colley, the water-blackbird or
water-ousel--called the dipper in the North. In districts where the
bird is seldom seen it is occasionally shot and preserved as a white
blackbird. But in flight and general appearance the water-colley is
almost exactly like a starling with a white neck. His colour is not
black or brown--it is a rusty, undecided brown, at a distance something
the colour of a young starling, and he flies in a straight line, and
yet clumsily, as a young starling does. His very cry, too, sounds
immature, pettish, and unfinished, as if from a throat not capable of a
full note. There are usually two together, and they pass and re-pass
all day as you fish, but if followed are not to be observed without
care. I came on the colley too suddenly the first time, at a bend of
the river; he was beneath the bank towards me, and flew out from under
my feet, so that I did not see him till he was on the wing. Away he
flew with a call like a young bird just tumbled out of its nest,
following the curves of the stream. Presently I saw him through an
alder bush which hid me; he was perched on a root of alder under the
opposite bank. Worn away by the stream the dissolved earth had left the
roots exposed, the colley was on one of them; in a moment he stepped on
to the shore under the hollow, and was hidden behind the roots under a
moss-grown stole. When he came out he saw me, and stopped feeding.
He bobbed himself up and down as he perched on the root in the oddest
manner, bending his legs so that his body almost touched his perch, and
rising again quickly, this repeated in quick succession as if
curtsying. This motion with him is a sign of uncertainty--it shows
suspicion; after he had bobbed to me ten times, off he went. I found
him next on a stone in the middle of the river; it stood up above the
surface of a rapid connecting two pools. Like the trout, the colley
always feeds at the rapids, and flies as they swim, from fall to fall.
He was bobbing up and down, his legs bent, and his rusty brown body
went up and down, but as I was hidden by a hedge he pained confidence,
suspended his curtsying, and began to feed. First he looked all round
the stone, and then stepped to another similar island in the midst of
the rushing water, pushing his head over the edge into it. Next he
stepped into the current, which, though shallow, looked strong enough
to sweep him away. The water checked against him rose to the white mark
on his breast. He waded up the rapid, every now and then thrusting his
head completely under the water; sometimes he was up to his neck,
sometimes not so deep; now and then getting on a stone, searching right
and left as he climbed the cascade. The eddying water shot by his
slender legs, but he moved against it easily, and soon ascended the
waterfall. At the summit a second colley flew past, and he rose and
accompanied his friend.
Upon a ledge of rock I saw him once more, but there was no hedge to
hide me, and he would not feed; he stood and curtsied, and at the
moment of bobbing let his wings too partly down, his tail drooping at
the same time. Calling in an injured tone, as if much annoyed, he flew,
swept round the meadow, and so to the river behind me. His friend
followed. On reaching the river at a safe distance down, he skimmed
along the surface like a kingfisher. They find abundance of insect life
among the stones at the falls, and everywhere in shallow water. Some
accuse them of taking the ova of trout, and they are shot at trout
nurseries; but it is doubtful if they are really guilty, nor can they
do any appreciable injury in an open stream, not being in sufficient
numbers. It is the birds and other creatures peculiar to the water that
render fly-fishing so pleasant; were they all destroyed, and nothing
left but the mere fish, one might as well stand and fish in a stone
cattle-trough. I hope all true lovers of sport will assist in
preserving rather than in killing them.
NOTES ON LANDSCAPE PAINTING
I
The earth has a way of absorbing things that are placed upon it, of
drawing from them their stiff individuality of newness, and throwing
over them something of her own antiquity. As the furrow smooths and
brightens the share, as the mist eats away the sharpness of the iron
angles, so, in a larger manner, the machines sent forth to conquer the
soil are conquered by it, become a part of it, and as natural as the
old, old scythe and reaping-hook. Thus already the new agriculture has
grown hoar.
The oldest of the modern implements is the threshing-machine, which is
historic, for it was once the cause of rural war. There are yeomanry
men still living who remember how they rode about at night after the
rioters, guided by the blazing bonfires kindled to burn the new-fangled
things. Much blood--of John Barleycorn--was spilt in that campaign; and
there is many a farmer yet hearty who recollects the ale-barrels being
rolled up into the rickyards and there broached in cans and buckets,
that the rebels, propitiated with plentiful liquor, might forbear to
set fire to the ricks or sack the homestead. Such memories read strange
to the present generation, proving thereby that the threshing-machine
has already grown old. It is so accepted that the fields would seem to
lack something if it were absent. It is as natural as the ricks: things
grow old so soon in the fields.
On the fitful autumn breeze, with brown leaves whirling and grey grass
rustling in the hedges, the hum of the fly-wheel sounds afar,
travelling through the mist which hides the hills. Sometimes the ricks
are in the open stubble, up the Down side, where the wind comes in a
long, strong rush, like a tide, carrying away the smoke from the funnel
in a sweeping trail; while the brown canvas, stretched as a screen,
flaps and tears, and the folk at work can scarce hear each other speak,
any more than you can by the side of the sea. Vast atmospheric
curtains--what else can you call them?--roll away, opening a view of
the stage of hills a moment, and, closing again, reach from heaven to
earth around. The dark sky thickens and lowers as if it were gathering
thunder, as women glean wheatears in their laps. It is not thunder; it
is as if the wind grew solid and hurled itself--as a man might throw
out his clenched fist--at the hill. The inclined plane of the
mist-clouds again reflects a grey light, and, as if swept up by the
fierce gale, a beam of sunshine comes. You see it first long, as it is
at an angle; then overhead it shortens, and again lengthens after it
has passed, somewhat like the spoke of a wheel. In the second of its
presence a red handkerchief a woman wears on the ricks stands out, the
brass on the engine glows, the water in the butt gleams, men's faces
brighten, the cart-horse's coat looks glossy, the straw a pleasant
yellow. It is gone, and lights up the backs of the sheep yonder as it
runs up the hill swifter than a hare. Swish! The north wind darkens the
sky, and the fly-wheel moans in the gloom; the wood-pigeons go a mile a
minute on the wind, hardly using their wings; the brown woods below
huddle together, rounding their shoulders to the blast; a great
air-shadow, not mist, a shadow of thickness in the air looms behind a
tiled roof in the valley. The vast profound is full of the rushing air.
These are days of autumn; but earlier than this, when the wheat that is
now being threshed was ripe, the reaping-machine went round and round
the field, beginning at the outside by the hedges. Red arms, not unlike
a travelling windmill on a small scale, sweep the corn as it is cut and
leave it spread on the ground. The bright red fans, the white jacket of
the man driving, the brown and iron-grey horses, and yellow wheat are
toned--melted together at their edges--with warm sunlight. The machine
is lost in the corn, and nothing is visible but the colours, and the
fact that it is the reaping, the time of harvest, dear to man these how
many thousand years! There is nothing new in it; it is all old as the
hills. The straw covers over the knives, the rims of the wheels sink
into pimpernel, convolvulus, veronica; the dry earth powders them, and
so all beneath is concealed. Above the sunlight (and once now and then
the shadow of a tree) throws its mantle over, and, like the hand of an
enchanter softly waving, surrounds it with a charm. So the cranks, and
wheels, and knives, and mechanism do not exist--it was a machine in the
workshop, but it is not a machine in the wheat-field. For the
wheat-field you see is very, very old, and the air is of old time, and
the shadow, the flowers, and the sunlight, and that which moves among
them becomes of them. The solitary reaper alone in the great field goes
round and round, the red fans striking beside him, alone with the
sunlight, and the blue sky, and the distant hills; and he and his
reaper are as much of the corn-field as the long-forgotten sickle or
the reaping-hook.
The sharp rattle of the mowing-machine disturbs the corncrake in the
meadow. Crake! crake! for many a long day since the grass began to grow
fast in April till the cowslips flowered, and white parsley flourished
like a thicket, blue scabious came up, and yonder the apple trees drop
their bloom. Crake! crake! nearly day and night; but now the rattle
begins, and the bird must take refuge in the corn. Like the reaper, the
mowing-machine is buried under the swathe it cuts, and flowers fall
over it--broad ox-eye daisies and red sorrel. Upon the hedge June roses
bloom; blackbirds whistle in the oaks; now and again come the soft
hollow notes of the cuckoo. Angles and wheels, cranks and cogs, where
are they? They are lost; it is not these we see, but the flowers and
the pollen on the grass. There is an odour of new-made hay; there is
the song of birds, and the trees are beautiful.
As for the drill in spring-time, it is ancient indeed, and ancients
follow it--aged men stepping after over the clods, and watching it as
if it were a living thing, that the grains may fall each in its
appointed place. Their faces, their gait, nay, the very planting of
their heavy shoes' stamp on the earth, are full of the importance of
this matter. On this the year depends, and the harvest, and all our
lives, that the sowing be accomplished in good order, as is meet.
Therefore they are in earnest, and do not turn aside to gaze at
strangers, like those do who hoe, being of no account. This is a
serious matter, needing men of days, little of speech, but long of
experience. So the heavy drill, with its hanging rows of funnels,
travels across the field well tended, and there is not one who notes
the deep azure of the March sky above the elms.
Still another step, tracing the seasons backwards, brings in the
steam-plough. When the spotted arum leaves unfold on the bank, before
the violets or the first celandine, while the "pussies" hang on the
hazel, the engines roll into the field, pressing the earth into barred
ruts. The massive wheels leave their imprint, the footsteps of steam,
behind them. By the hedges they stand, one on either side, and they
hold the field between them with their rope of iron. Like the claws of
some prehistoric monster, the shares rout up the ground; the solid
ground is helpless before them; they tear and rend it. One engine is
under an oak, dark yet with leafless boughs, up through which the black
smoke rises; the other overtops a low hedge, and is in full profile. By
the panting, and the humming, and the clanking as the drum revolves, by
the smoke hanging in the still air, by the trembling of the monster as
it strains and tugs, by the sense of heat, and effort, and pent-up
energy bubbling over in jets of steam that struggle through crevices
somewhere, by the straightened rope and the jerking of the plough as it
comes, you know how mighty is the power that thus in narrow space works
its will upon the earth. Planted broadside, its four limbs--the massive
wheels--hold the ground like a wrestler drawing to him the unwilling
opponent. Humming, panting, trembling, with stretched but irresistible
muscles, the iron creature conquers, and the plough approaches. All the
field for the minute seems concentrated in this thing of power. There
are acres and acres, scores of acres around, but they are surface only.
This is the central spot: they are nothing, mere matter. This is
force--Thor in another form. If you are near you cannot take your eyes
off the sentient iron, the wrestler straining. But now the plough has
come over, and the signal given reverses its way. The lazy monotonous
clanking as the drum unwinds on this side, the rustling of the rope as
it is dragged forth over the clods, the quiet rotation of the
fly-wheel--these sounds let the excited thought down as the rotating
fly-wheel works off the maddened steam. The combat over, you can look
round.
It is the February summer that comes, and lasts a week or so between
the January frosts and the east winds that rush through the thorns.
Some little green is even now visible along the mound where seed-leaves
are springing up. The sun is warm, and the still air genial, the sky
only dotted with a few white clouds. Wood-pigeons are busy in the elms,
where the ivy is thick with ripe berries. There is a feeling of spring
and of growth; in a day or two we shall find violets; and listen, how
sweetly the larks are singing! Some chase each other, and then hover
fluttering above the hedge. The stubble, whitened by exposure to the
weather, looks lighter in the sunshine, and the distant view is
softened by haze. A water-tank approaches, and the cart-horse steps in
the pride of strength. The carter's lad goes to look at the engine and
to wonder at the uses of the gauge. All the brazen parts gleam in the
bright sun, and the driver presses some waste against the piston now it
works slowly, till it shines like polished silver. The red glow within,
as the furnace-door is opened, lights up the lad's studious face
beneath like sunset. A few brown leaves yet cling to one bough of the
oak, and the rooks come over cawing happily in the unwonted warmth. The
low hum and the monotonous clanking, the rustling of the wire rope,
give a sense of quiet. Let us wander along the hedge, and look for
signs of spring. This is to-day. To-morrow, if we come, the engines are
half hidden from afar by driving sleet and scattered snow-flakes
fleeting aslant the field. Still sternly they labour in the cold and
gloom. A third time you may find them, in September or bright October,
with acorns dropping from the oaks, the distant sound of the gun, and
perhaps a pheasant looking out from the corner. If the moon be full and
bright they work on an hour or so by her light, and the vast shadows of
the engines are thrown upon the stubble.
II