“At the very top of its strength!” Cold as it has been of late, I hardly
expected to find no garden left when I got up to-day! So it is however.
Late last night everything seemed normal. This morning our little Dutch
garden has vanished utterly; swept out of existence as though it had
never existed. From centre to margin--beds, borders, walks, red walls,
everything--the entire little depression has been covered with a uniform
white blanket, effacing it completely, and restoring the landscape to
what it was before man, woman, or measuring tapes arrived to trouble it.
For the plants this new state of things is an improvement, but how about
our work? Behold us suddenly reduced to a state of deadlock; all our
various little activities brought to an absolute standstill. The paths
that were being cut through the copse; the ground that was being got
ready for grass-sowing; the flower-beds that had to be clipped into the
right shape; the heather that was being brought from a distant common,
where it could be cut discreetly; the entire bustle of the garden has
been brought to a condition of arrest. Into the middle of our fussy
little rhythm Nature has dropped her own imperious full-stop. Against
that full-stop there is no appeal. In vain one protests that one is
really in a great hurry; that unless these flower-beds are made, unless
yonder piece of ground is got ready for grass-sowing, March will be upon
us, and close at its heels, April; that the spring is coming on, and
that we _must_ get our work done. To this remonstrance Nature merely
opens her eyes with a mildly sarcastic air, and replies, “Must you?” It
is the case of the old woman of the nursery tale over again, who _had_
to get her pig over the stile in order to give her old man his supper.
In that case she did, after many repulses, find a complacent beast, I
think, who undertook the task. The right spring was touched; the spell
broken, and the whole state of deadlock dissolved at once. How we are to
obtain so desirable a dissolution I have yet to learn. I see no spring
to touch; no bird, beast, or element that could be appealed to with the
slightest hope of success. The sky, iron-grey, with vicious, inky
streaks across it, does not seem promising; neither does the wind, which
keeps to its beloved north-east. The earth is invisible, consequently is
for the moment out of reckoning; while as for the birds and beasts,
they are much more disposed to turn to us for help, than to make any
friendly propositions the other way.
It may be mere vanity upon my part, but it always seems to me that small
birds recognise their heavy, wingless, two-legged kinsfolk with less
difficulty during this sort of weather than at any other time of the
year. The fact that one bribes them to such recognition by vulgar doles
of breadcrumbs may have something to say to the matter, but I fancy that
I read a distinctly kindlier expression in their eyes. They glance at us
with an air of comparative condescension. They perceive that we share
their own helplessness; that we are not so very different from
themselves, only bigger and stupider. For instance, I have been publicly
snubbed this whole winter by the tomtits. Under the eye and to the
knowledge of the entire garden I set up a large post, hung over with
cocoa-nuts for their convenience. Some of these cocoa-nuts were sawn
into slices, others, more artfully, into rings, and I pleased myself by
believing that they would sit and swing in them, as they pecked an
unfamiliar, but not unpalatable meal. Will it be believed that not one
tomtit has deigned to touch those cocoa-nuts? They have hopped to and
fro on the boughs almost within peck of them, yet never so much as tried
to ascertain whether they were eatable or not. They preferred, in fact,
not to do so; in _their_ family, they practically sent me word, they
never ate victuals that had not been selected by themselves; other
people might do so, and they had heard that sparrows were less
particular, but it had never been _their_ custom. I felt--as anyone
would feel under the circumstances! To-day for the first time, thanks to
the friendly connivance of the snow, this fastidiousness has broken
down. With elation I perceive my disdainful blue neighbours, not only
pecking at, but actually sitting and swinging in the long-despised brown
rings. I am trying to bear my triumph meekly, and am helped towards
doing so by reminding myself of the well-known fact that in times of
stress and famine social distinctions are apt to break down. I shall
have to wait till the weather relaxes to see whether this amiability is
anything more than a truce, born of the hour of trouble, and not
intended to last beyond it.
We are apt to talk as if the hyperborean conditions were no concern of
ours, yet, as Alphonse Karr long ago remarked, we have only to sit still
to find that these, and most other extremes of climate have come round
to us. It was the tropical or sub-tropical regions of the globe that not
long ago were good enough to send us specimens of their weather, as
enterprising trades-people enclose samples of their goods in envelopes.
There were many days last summer--to be accurate, I believe, there were
forty-three--when it was by no means necessary to go to the Sahara in
order to ascertain what a condition of almost unendurable drought could
be like. For the present I feel that these two samples will suffice me.
I cannot, unfortunately, return them, since I do not know their sender’s
address, but I feel under no obligation to charter either camels or
whale-boats, in order to go and make their acquaintance upon a larger
scale.
As for the mere ferocity and killing powers of Nature we are not without
a taste of her capacity even in that respect. Apart from the wild
creatures, which have to look out for themselves, she exacts in weather
like this a pretty stiff list of victims from the old, the weakly, and
the very young. My energetic chow Mongo insisted upon my taking him for
a late run through the snow this afternoon, and, as we stood for a
moment near the stile, there came up a melancholy little chorus of
bleatings from some sheepfold in the valley below us. I peered over into
the white darkness, but could see nothing; Mongo licked his lips, and I
earnestly trust that he was not thinking of mutton. It may be mere
weakness on my part, but I have always felt glad that in my various
communings with the good green earth I have stopped short at the garden,
the wood, the bog, the hillside, and have never once stepped into the
paddock or the farmyard. In reading lately Mr. Rider Haggard’s _Farmer’s
Year_, I found my pleasure a good deal interfered with by the eternal
and the detestable apparition of the butcher! Whenever the small lambs,
that frisked so delicately, were beginning to grow plump; whenever
certain Irish bullocks, whose vicissitudes one followed, were pronounced
to be not improving as they ought; even when the old milch cow, who had
given so much good milk, and had brought so many calves into the world,
began to flag--always there was that abominable apparition in a smeared
apron waiting for them close at hand, or peering in sinister fashion
from round a corner. No, whatever other functionary I might be willing
to share my pursuits with, assuredly I could never consent to share them
with Mr. Bones! The objection may be merely sentimental, but so are most
of our likings and dislikings merely sentimental. As for these green
clients of ours, it is true that they do die pretty frequently upon our
hands, and the fact is, no doubt, very distressing, the more so as in
nine cases out of ten we are aware that it is entirely our own fault. In
their case there are at least no heartrending cries or groans, heard or
unheard. They go to their own place in peace, wafted as it were by slow
music towards the gentlest of dissolutions. While as for ourselves, if
we are their murderers, well, we manage to hold up our heads, and take
particular care never to allude to the subject. On the contrary, we put
on an air of extra cheerfulness, and make haste to plant something
else!