"Too soon for sweet mace--a bunch for sweet Mace," said Gil Carr as he
bent down amongst the sedges to pick the bright blue scorpion grass, its
delicate flowers relieved with yellow, "so she must have forget-me-not.
I wonder whether she'll keep some when I'm far away."
He stopped and smiled and listened, for the morning concert was
beginning two hundred and fifty years ago, at four o'clock in the
morning and down in a Sussex valley near the sea.
A long while since? Nay, a mere instant of time in this world's life;
and spite of all some writers say, and though we now have steam and
electric current to our hand, two hundred and fifty years ago men
thought and spoke the same--perhaps a little more roughly than they do
now.
There was the pleasant gurgle of water at Gil Carr's feet, and as he
drew back from where the stream rippled and swirled, and a trout darted
into sight, saw him, and flashed away beneath the shelter of a jutting
stone, he paused beneath the spreading branches of the trees,
half-closed his eyes, thought of sweet Mace, and revelled, as young men
of eight-and-twenty can who love to place one object in the chiefest
spot of all they see.
Here is the site of Gil Carr's musings, for untouched Nature shows
little change. Overhead there is a fabric of tenderest green leaves,
laced with pearly cobweb and flashing threads of sunshine, which run in
and out like sheaves of glorified asbestos, and weave the whole into a
wondrous shelter beneath whose delicious dream-shadow one wanders in a
haze of green. For Nature's own colour is lavishly used to decorate
this glorious amphitheatre for the first concert in spring, and there it
is in every shade, from the sweet pale ash-green of the opening willow
to the rich hue of the dogs' mercury and hemlock. Green everywhere, for
the delicate curtains of the trees are green, the carpet is verdant, and
the banks that rise tier upon tier are of the richest velvet moss.
There is no uniformity here, there are no rows of seats, but a grand
confusion, upon which the eye lingers restfully and which it refuses to
quit.
Lest there should be too much green, Nature has been lavish with other
colours. There rise up the fascines of osiers from the lowest part of
the gurgling stream, light leafy smooth stems of a golden yellow; there
are the oak boles creamy and grey with wondrous lichens; grey, silvery,
and golden tassels hang from sallow, alder, and willow, and the carpet
is dotted with delicious patches of tint. Yonder, harmoniously blended
with the green, is the purple of the wild hyacinth, amidst which, and
dotting the carpet everywhere with its delicate sulphur stars, is the
primrose, with the burnished bullion yellow of the celandine close by,
amidst which, bending gracefully over, half modest, half vain, are the
silver stars of the wood anemone, displaying their outer tints of
delicate violet mauve.
Talk of violets too, there they are, not the scented sweets of earliest
spring, but the larger, bluer, more plentiful _Viola canina_, growing in
patches with the purple orchids. Colour? There is ample to relieve the
greenest green, untiring though it be, and were brighter tints wanted
they are here, such as put to shame the brightest gems of our greatest
jewellers' shops. There they are, whenever the silvery arrows of the
sun flash through the delicate leafage like a wondrous rain--there they
are, bright, dazzling, flashing, and sparkling, the vivid transparent
grouped rays of Iris herself on every pearly drop of dew, lying waiting
for the sun to gather it to his bosom, and feel the daily fire of his
life-giving ray. Nature has surpassed herself, and all is bright,
while, bright though the decorations be, the most aesthetic critic could
not find one that offends. There could be no want of finish where
Nature has worked, and here, where all harmonises to the eye, she has
prepared, for the grand burst of harmony for the ear, that wondrous
concert that surely begins on one particular undated morning in spring,
when, as if moved by a single impulse, all bird-dom breaks forth into
song--a song of praise so sweet and glorious that the heart seems to
leap, ay, and does leap, back over the gulf of years, to feel as in
childhood's days, before rust, canker, and the world's own wear had
hardened it to what it is.
There are no bills issued. If there were, they would say, "Come early."
If you do not, the loss is yours. There are no programmes, for the
oratorio is Nature's song of praise. As to tickets, they are _minus_
too, for the cost of entrance is the effort to drag yourself from the
drowsy pillow. And seats? No, you must stand. Lean here against this
mossy old bole, and listen. Nature, the great conductress of the
orchestra, has arrived, and in a few moments she will raise her _baton_,
and the concert will begin. Rehearsal has been going on for weeks, and
various artists have been tuning up. Night after night, till quite
dark, the thrush has piped; the robin has worked hard in a low subdued
voice to recollect the plaintive little song he sang so well while the
apples were gathered and the leaves turned to crimson and gold on the
medlar tree; while every here and there, where the buds began to swell,
the chaffinch--Coelebs, the bachelor--in his pretty tinted suit of grey
and green and neutral hues, seemed busy day by day carrying up little
buckets of silver sound, and pouring them tinkling down amidst the
leafless sprays. But this morning, rehearsal is over, and the concert
is to begin--the full burst from every chorister, solo singer, and
instrumentalist, many of whom have been practising since the first faint
grey of dawn, when the blackbird first scattered the spray from the
leaves, and darted, like a streak of black velvet following a point of
fire, down amidst the hazel stubbs, crying "chink, chink," to the waking
birds.
Hark! the company is all expectation for the concert to begin; there is
the deep low humming buzz and murmur as of thousands speaking in a vasty
hall. Tell me it is the bees and other insects honey and pollen
gathering amidst the willow blossoms if you will, but I prefer to dream
of being in a grand amphitheatre with an oratorio about to commence, and
the whim fits me as I stand and listen here, fancy stricken, weak, if
you will, but with swelling heart, dew-moistened eyes, and so wondrous a
feeling of rapture pervading every sense, that, forgetful of the bitter,
biting past--the cruel winter and its aches and ails, the soul seems to
rise in gratitude from its very being for the wondrous sense of joy it
feels, and here in the sacred stillness of the early morn to cry, "Thank
God!" and compare the country with the town.
Tuning up still. There is the strange harsh, reedy, repeated,
hautboy-like minor note of the wryneck--the cuckoo's mate not long
arrived; the willow-wren jerks forth two notes from its piccolo; and the
black bird, dropping its alarm note, begins to flute so softly and
sweetly that it needs no programme to tell that the theme is love. Up
rises the lark, then, after a short chorus to sing his solo, a song of
silver broken into seed, a song that the sweet bird seems to carry
higher and higher, scattering as it goes, for the notes to fall here,
there, and everywhere, to be wafted away by winds for the silver grains
to fall into human beings' ears, where they take root and stay, never to
be forgotten; for, though the possessor roam the wide world round, the
song of the lark once heard is never lost.
Another soloist, the foreign musician from over the sea, with its mellow
cuckoo note; and then comes an introduction from the orchestra, where
the starlings wheeze and drum, and play castanets. There are strange
effects, too, introduced by the great composer, harsh trumpet brays by
the blue-barred jays, answered by gentle cooings from the doves, as if
tyranny and love sang duets, and then a grand chorale rises as the
thrush leaves off its stirring recitative.
Again a solo, morning though it be, and you say "the thrush." But no,
those notes were somewhat like those of the great contralto _merulus_;
but listen, they are sweeter far, and they are soprano, for it is
Philomel herself. Hark! After those long-complaining notes there is a
familiar "Weep, weep, weep, chug-chug-chug-chug-chug!" The very
orchestra seems hardly to breathe and not a chorister to move as this
wondrous strain of richest melody goes rising, falling, thrilling the
breast, till one breathes the sweet fresh balmy air in sobs, and drinks
in the sweet draught of music--a drink for the gods till it is ended,
and there are no dregs. Here come the harsh notes, though, from the
orchestra--a short sharp jerky recitative from the magpie, followed by
the angry declamation of the jay, leading up to those little fiddlers
the chaffinches, with their seconds, the finches of green, and the
linnets on the outer edge. There is a short running chorus here,
followed by a short chorale that is even slow and solemn, and then there
is a pause--twelve bars rest--Nature's _baton_ is suspended, and one
seems to see the grand dame with her attendant train of nymphs, with
Flora and Iris looking on. Then come once more the soft long thrilling
notes of the nightingale, reciting the song with which at night the
grove will ring. It is recitative of inexpressible sweetness, and it
leads up to the grand chorus, the great song of praise from thousands of
birds' throats, beneath which seems to sigh like the murmur of the
deepest pedal-pipes of an organ the low buzz of insect life, blending,
supporting, and adding grandeur to that which is already great.
It is the great spring chorus of the year, when every bird seems to sing
his best, and vie with his fellow in the effort to produce the sweetest
sounds. Once heard never forgotten, it is a something that the greatest
traveller will tell you cannot be surpassed, while there are millions
year by year, who from neglect or compulsion fail to hear, though the
concert is free to every one who will trouble himself to get a place and
fill his heart with joy that is without a care.
When is this concert? Perhaps in April, perhaps in May. It is when the
east wind ceases to dry, and the balmy south breathes sweetness over the
awakened earth. It is indeed a "sensation" matchless in itself and
particular to our land, though some such harmony must have greeted the
senses of the first man when he opened his eyes to the flowers of the
new-made earth, and drank in its sweets and joys.
"My hands are hot," said Gil Carr, the Adam of the little Eden of a
wilderness, as he thought upon his Eve; and returning to the stream once
more, he dipped the bunch of forget-me-nots beneath the gurgling
current, afterwards wrapping the stems round with the broad leaf of a
dock, and walked away trying to imitate the piping of the nightingale,
and wondering how long it would be before the glow-worms would begin to
light their lamps in the soft warm evenings; while he smiled as he
thought of the signals they had made upon the sloping bank that
stretched up to the hedge of hawthorn fronting Mace's casement, where
the pale white roses grew.
Volume 1, Chapter II.