It is little to a man's profit to go far afield if his chief pleasure
be in wild life, his main object to get nearer to the creatures, to grow
day by day more intimate with them, and to see each day some new thing.
Yet the distance has the same fascination for him as for another--the
call is as sweet and persistent in his ears. If he is on a green level
country with blue hills on the horizon, then, especially in the early
morning, is the call sweetest, most irresistible. Come away--come away:
this blue world has better things than any in that green, too familiar
place. The startling scream of the jay--you have heard it a thousand
times. It is pretty to watch the squirrel in his chestnut-red coat among
the oaks in their fresh green foliage, full of fun as a bright child,
eating his apple like a child, only it is an oak-apple, shining white
or white and rosy-red, in his little paws; but you have seen it so many
times--come away:
It was not this voice alone which made me forsake the green oaks of
Silchester and Pamber Forest, to ramble for a season hither and thither
in Wiltshire, Dorset, and Somerset; there was something for me to do
in those places, but the call made me glad to go. And long
weeks--months--went by in my wanderings, mostly in open downland
country, too often under gloomy skies, chilled by cold winds and wetted
by cold rains. Then, having accomplished my purpose and discovered
incidentally that the call had mocked me again, as on so many previous
occasions, I returned once more to the old familiar green place.
Crossing the common, I found that where it had been dry in spring one
might now sink to his knees in the bog; also that the snipe which had
vanished for a season were back at the old spot where they used to
breed. It was a bitter day near the end of an unpleasant summer, with
the wind back in the old hateful north-east quarter; but the sun shone,
the sky was blue, and the flying clouds were of a dazzling whiteness.
Shivering, I remembered the south wall, and went there, since to escape
from the wind and bask like some half-frozen serpent or lizard in the
heat was the highest good one could look for in such weather. To see
anything new in wild life was not to be hoped for.
That old grey, crumbling wall of ancient Calleva, crowned with big oak
and ash and thorn and holly, and draped with green bramble and trailing
ivy and creepers--how good a shelter it is on a cold, rough day! Moving
softly, so as not to disturb any creature, I yet disturbed a ring snake
lying close to the wall, into which it quickly vanished; and then from
their old place among the stones a pair of blue stock-doves rushed out
with clatter of wings. The same blue doves which I had known for three
years at that spot! A few more steps and I came upon as pretty a little
scene in bird life as one could wish for: twenty to twenty-five small
birds of different species--tits, wrens, dunnocks, thrushes, blackbirds,
chaffinches, yellowhammers--were congregated on the lower outside twigs
of a bramble bush and on the bare ground beside it close to the foot of
the wall. The sun shone full on that spot, and they had met for warmth
and for company. The tits and wrens were moving quietly about in the
bush; others were sitting idly or preening their feathers on the twigs
or the ground. Most of them were making some kind of small sound--little
exclamatory chirps, and a variety of chirrupings, producing the effect
of a pleasant conversation going on among them. This was suddenly
suspended on my appearance, but the alarm was soon over, and, seeing me
seated on a fallen stone and, motionless, they took no further notice
of me. Two blackbirds were there, sitting a little way apart on the bare
ground; these were silent, the raggedest, rustiest-looking members of
that little company; for they were moulting, and their drooping wings
and tails had many unsightly gaps in them where the old feathers had
dropped out before the new ones had grown. They were suffering from that
annual sickness with temporary loss of their brightest faculties which
all birds experience in some degree; the unseasonable rains and cold
winds had been bad for them, and now they were having their sun-bath,
their best medicine and cure.
By and by a pert-looking, bright-feathered, dapper cock chaffinch
dropped down from the bush, and, advancing to one of the two, the
rustiest and most forlorn-looking, started running round and round him
as if to make a close inspection of his figure, then began to tease
him. At first I thought it was all in fun--merely animal spirit which
in birds often discharges itself in this way in little pretended attacks
and fights. But the blackbird had no play and no fight in him, no heart
to defend himself; all he did was to try to avoid the strokes aimed at
him, and he could not always escape them. His spiritlessness served to
inspire the chaffinch with greater boldness, and then it appeared that
the gay little creature was really and truly incensed, possibly because
the rusty, draggled, and listless appearance of the larger bird was
offensive to him. Anyhow, the persecutions continued, increasing in
fury until they could not be borne, and the blackbird tried to escape
by hiding in the bramble. But he was not permitted to rest there; out he
was soon driven and away into another bush, and again into still another
further away, and finally he was hunted over the sheltering wall into
the bleak wind on the other side. Then the persecutor came back and
settled himself on his old perch on the bramble, well satisfied at his
victory over a bird so much bigger than himself. All was again peace and
harmony in the little social gathering, and the pleasant talkee-talkee
went on as before. About five minutes passed, then the hunted blackbird
returned, and, going to the identical spot from which he had been
driven, composed himself to rest; only now he sat facing his lively
little enemy.
I was astonished to see him back; so, apparently, was the chaffinch. He
started, craned his neck, and regarded his adversary first with one eye
then with the other. "What, rags and tatters, back again so soon!" I
seem to hear him say. "You miserable travesty of a bird, scarcely fit
for a weasel to dine on! Your presence is an insult to us, but I'll soon
settle you. You'll feel the cold on the other, side of the wall when
I've knocked off a few more of your rusty rags."
Down from his perch he came, but no sooner had he touched his feet to
the ground than the blackbird went straight at him with extraordinary
fury. The chaffinch, taken by surprise, was buffeted and knocked over,
then, recovering himself, fled in consternation, hotly pursued by the
sick one. Into the bush they went, but in a moment they were out again,
darting this way and that, now high up in the trees, now down to the
ground, the blackbird always close behind; and no little bird flying
from a hawk could have exhibited a greater terror than that pert
chaffinch--that vivacious and most pugnacious little cock bantam.
At last they went quite away, and were lost to sight. By and by the
blackbird returned alone, and, going once more to his place near the
second bird, he settled down comfortably to finish his sunbath in peace
and quiet.
I had assuredly witnessed a new thing on that unpromising day, something
quite different from anything witnessed in my wide rambles; and, though
a little thing, it had been a most entertaining comedy in bird life with
a very proper ending. It was clear that the sick blackbird had bitterly
resented the treatment he had received; that, brooding on it out in the
cold, his anger had made him strong, and that he came back determined
to fight, with his plan of action matured. He was not going to be made a
fool every time!
The birds all gone their several ways at last, I got up from my stone
and wondered if the old Romans ever dreamed that this wall which
they made to endure would after seventeen hundred years have no more
important use than this--to afford shelter to a few little birds and to
the solitary man that watched them--from the bleak wind. Many a strange
Roman curse on this ungenial climate must these same stones have heard.
Looking through a gap in the wall I saw, close by, on the other side, a
dozen men at work with pick and shovel throwing up huge piles of earth.
They were uncovering a small portion of that ancient buried city and
were finding the foundations and floors and hypocausts of Silchester's
public baths; also some broken pottery and trifling ornaments of bronze
and bone. The workmen in that bitter wind were decidedly better off than
the gentlemen from Burlington House in charge of the excavations.
These stood with coats buttoned up and hands thrust deep down in their
pockets. It seemed to me that it was better to sit in the shelter of the
wall and watch the birds than to burrow in the crumbling dust for that
small harvest. Yet I could understand and even appreciate their
work, although it is probable that the glow I experienced was in part
reflected. Perhaps my mental attitude, when standing in that sheltered
place, and when getting on to the windy wall I looked down on the
workers and their work, was merely benevolent. I had pleasure in their
pleasure, and a vague desire for a better understanding, a closer
alliance and harmony. It was the desire that we might all see
nature--the globe with all it contains--as one harmonious whole, not as
groups of things, or phenomena, unrelated, cast there by chance or by
careless or contemptuous gods. This dust of past ages, dug out of a
wheat-field, with its fragments of men's work--its pottery and tiles and
stones--this is a part, too, even as the small birds, with their little
motives and passions, so like man's, are a part. I thought with self
shame of my own sins in this connection; then, considering the lesser
faults on the other side, I wished that Mr. St. John Hope would
experience a like softening mood and regret that he had abused the ivy.
It grieves me to hear it called a "noxious weed." That perished people,
whose remains in this land so deeply interest him, were the
mightiest "builders of ruins" the world has known; but who except
the archaeologist would wish to see these piled stones in their naked
harshness, striking the mind with dismay at the thought of Time and
its perpetual desolations! I like better the old Spanish poet who says,
"What of Rome; its world-conquering power, and majesty and glory--what
has it come to?" The ivy on the wall, the yellow wallflower, tell it. A
"deadly parasite" quotha! Is it not well that this plant, this evergreen
tapestry of innumerable leaves, should cover and partly hide and partly
reveal the "strange defeatures" the centuries have set on man's greatest
works? I would have no ruin nor no old and noble building without it;
for not only does it beautify decay, but from long association it has
come to be in the mind a very part of such scenes and so interwoven
with the human tragedy, that, like the churchyard yew, it seems the most
human of green things.
Here in September great masses of the plant are already showing a
greenish cream-colour of the opening blossoms, which will be at their
perfection in October. Then, when the sun shines, there will be no
lingering red admiral, nor blue fly or fly of any colour, nor yellow
wasp, nor any honey-eating or late honey-gathering insect that will
not be here to feed on the ivy's sweetness. And behind the blossoming
curtain, alive with the minute, multitudinous, swift-moving, glittering
forms, some nobler form will be hidden in a hole or fissure in the wall.
Here on many a night I have listened to the sibilant screech of the
white owl and the brown owl's clear, long-drawn, quavering lamentation:
"Good Ivy, what byrdys hast thou?"
"Non but the Howlet, that How! How!"