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diff --git a/43061-0.txt b/43061-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5cf8f45 --- /dev/null +++ b/43061-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5689 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43061 *** + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +Original spelling and punctuation has been retained, with a few +exceptions. Some quotation mark errors were corrected. Italicised +text has been coded with underscores before and after. Small caps +were converted to uppercase. + +A few of the illustrations were untitled. Short descriptions have +been added, prefixed by "TN: ". On page 51, the passage "to the +deer-haunted heights of Dunkerry" is retained. There are five +mentions of "Dunkery" in the book, and only one of "Dunkerry". + + * * * * * + + + + + IN THE WEST COUNTRY. + + * * * * * + + [Illustration: CLOVELLY FROM THE SEA.] + + + + + In the West Country + + BY + + FRANCIS A. KNIGHT, + + AUTHOR OF + + _"By Leafy Ways," "Rambles of a Dominie," + "By Moorland and Sea," + &c., &c._ + + _ILLUSTRATED._ + + Bristol: + W. CROFTON HEMMONS, ST. STEPHEN STREET. + + London: + SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LTD. + + + + + _These sketches are, with alterations and additions, + reprinted from the "Daily News" and the "Speaker," by + kind permission of the editors._ + + + + + WITHOUT PERMISSION, + BUT WITH LOVE AND GRATITUDE + TOO DEEP FOR WORDS, + These Pages are Dedicated + TO + THE DEVOTED COMPANION + WHOSE RAMBLES WITH ME IN + The West Country + BEGAN NOW NEARLY + + "_... five and twenty years ago; + Alas, but time escapes! 'Tis even so._" + + + + + _Printed at the Publisher's Works, St. Stephen Street, Bristol._ + + [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] + + [Illustration: untitled. TN: Sailing Ships in Harbour.] + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + CLOVELLY: "WESTWARD HO!" COUNTRY 1 + + CLOVELLY: THE SOUND OF THE SEA 9 + + CLOVELLY: THE VIKINGS' SEAT 16 + + WESTWARD HO! AN OLD CARRONADE 25 + + DARTMOOR DAYS 36 + + EXMOOR--WYCHANGER: A FAR RETREAT 50 + + EXMOOR--LUCCOMBE: TWILIGHT IN THE + HOLLOW 59 + + EXMOOR: HORNER WATER 67 + + EXMOOR: WHERE RED DEER HIDE 75 + + TORR STEPS: A MOORLAND RIVER 82 + + EXMOOR--WINSFORD: VOICES THREE 90 + + BREAN DOWN: FLOTSAM AND JETSAM 98 + + THE COUNTRY LIFE 114 + + HALE WELL: A QUIET CORNER 128 + + THE GREENWOOD TREE 146 + + CHILL OCTOBER 162 + + TURF MOOR: A HAPPY HUNTING GROUND 176 + + TURF MOOR: THE FROZEN MARSHES 188 + + WINSCOMBE: A CAMP OF REFUGE 196 + + WINSCOMBE: A MIDSUMMER MEADOW 204 + + WINSCOMBE: HARVEST HOME 213 + + THE MENDIPS--WINTERHEAD: AFTERMATH 222 + + WOODSPRING: A GREY OLD HOUSE BY + THE SEA 235 + + KEWSTOKE: THE MONK'S STEPS 250 + + BY COACH TO TINTAGEL 258 + + [Illustration: untitled. TN: Bird, perhaps a heron, flying with + moon and clouds in background.] + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + + + PAGE + + CLOVELLY FROM THE SEA (_frontispiece_). + + CLOVELLY STREET 1 + + A ROCKY COAST 9 + + MOONLIGHT 16 + + OLD SAILOR AND CHILD _to face_ 22 + + AN OLD CARRONADE 25 + + DARTMOOR: CHAGFORD 36 + + DARTMOOR--EVENING: TAKING HOME + THE SHEEP _to face_ 48 + + A WEST COUNTRY COTTAGE 50 + + THE OLD MILL: TWILIGHT 59 + + EXMOOR: HORNER BRIDGE 67 + + WHERE RED DEER HIDE 75 + + TORR STEPS 82 + + AN EXMOOR SKETCH 90 + + A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA 98 + + MOORLAND NEAR THE SEA 114 + + A WEST COUNTRY MOLE CATCHER _to face_ 124 + + A QUIET CORNER 128 + + THE GREENWOOD TREE 146 + + THE HARVEST MOON 162 + + ON SEDGMOOR 176 + + WINTER IN THE MARSHES 188 + + WINSCOMBE--THE CHURCH PORCH 196 + + A MENDIP VILLAGE--WINSCOMBE _to face_ 200 + + THE MOWERS 204 + + A WEST COUNTRY REAPER 213 + + COUNTRY LIFE 222 + + WINTERHEAD: AN UPLAND PASTURE _to face_ 233 + + A GREY OLD HOUSE BY THE SEA 235 + + THE MONK'S RETREAT 250 + + TINTAGEL 258 + +[Illustration: untitled. TN: Farmstead.] + +[Illustration: CLOVELLY STREET.] + + + + +AT CLOVELLY. + + +There are few parts of English coast-line whose traditions are +more picturesque than those of the beautiful sea-board of Devon. +Its shores are haunted by memories of the great Armada, of the +deeds of Drake and Hawkins, of Howard and Raleigh, and of many +another old sea-dog, who played his part in the making of our +island story. It was the coast of Devonshire that was first +harried by the Danes, when, in the words of the Anglo-Saxon +chronicle, "three ships of Northmen, out of Denmark," put in to +plunder Teignmouth. The other side of the county suffered most. +Again and again the hamlets on the northern shore were wasted by +the merciless invaders. The isle of Lundy, that from the land +shows like a faint blue bar along the sky line, has a stirring +story of its own. It has served in its time as a stronghold even +of corsair Algerines. Pirates from Spain and Holland each held it +in their turn. On the beach of its only landing place there still +lies, buried in the shingle, an ancient gun that was hurled over +the cliff by the French when they were about to leave the island. +Its rightful lords themselves were, in the good old days, little +better, probably, than buccaneers. + +But there is a greater and more real interest linked with this +pleasant shore. The memory that, before all others, haunts the +coast of Devon is the memory of Charles Kingsley. The legends that +have most charm for us here are from the pages of "Westward Ho!" +If Bideford has regained nothing of its lost renown, Bideford that +in Queen Bess's time "was one of the chief ports in England ... +furnished seven ships to fight the Armada; and even more than a +century afterwards ... sent more vessels to the northern trade +than any port in England saving London and Topsham," we cannot +forget that it was there that "Westward Ho!" was written. As we +stroll along the streets of the little seaport that lies opposite, +we are less likely to think of Hubba and his vikings than of how +"the _Vengeance_ slid over the Bar, passed the sleeping sandhills, +and dropped anchor off Appledore with her flag floating half-mast +high, for the corpse of Salvation Yeo was on board." + +Kingsley's pictures of South American forests have fired the heart +of many a reader, old as well as young, to see for himself the +wonders of those enchanted regions, to gaze on a giant ceiba tree, +like that on the green steeps above La Guayra, where "Parrots +peeped in and out of every cranny, while, within the air of +woodland, brilliant lizards basked like living gems upon the bark, +gaudy finches flitted and chirrupped, butterflies of every size +and colour hovered over the topmost twigs, innumerable insects +hummed from morn till eve; and, when the sun went down, tree-toads +came out to snore and croak till dawn." + +But those descriptions, marvellous as they are, were borrowed from +books. It was not until fourteen years after that passage was +written that "the dream of forty years" was fulfilled; that the +author of "At Last" was able to see with his own eyes the West +Indies and the Spanish Main; could, as he says, "compare books +with facts, and judge for myself of the reported wonders of the +earthly paradise." But it is quite another thing when he is +talking of the coast of Devon. There his foot is on his native +heath. He was not, it is true, born within sound of the sea, but +some of his earliest memories were of Hartland and Welcombe, of +Bideford and Clovelly. Above all of Clovelly. To use his wife's +words, "His love for Clovelly was a passion." Even his well-loved +Eversley had hardly a warmer place in his regard. + +Kingsley was just eleven when his father became rector there, and +for some six years he doubtless spent most of his holidays at +least among the scenes which he describes so well. Thirteen years +passed before he went back. "I cannot believe my eyes," he wrote +to his wife; "the same place, the pavement, the same dear old +smells, the dear old handsome, loving faces again." The cottages +are much the same as when last he saw them, now nearly fifty years +ago, "with jessamine and fuchsia running up the windows." Just the +same as then is "the narrow paved cranny of a street, vanishing +downwards, stair below stair." Any change there is must be for the +better. The village has been drained; that is a substantial +improvement, and the fuchsias and climbers have wreathed half the +hamlet in a very bower of green. Clovelly Church--so far away that +the sound of its bells never reaches the village in the cleft +below--has few features of its own to recommend it. But the +grey-haired sexton remembers how he sat with young Kingsley in the +choir, sixty years since, when they were boys together. And the +churchyard is to us like a chapter of romance. Half the names we +know best in "Westward Ho!" are on its stones. + +Here are two names that conjure up those "five desperate minutes" +on the mountain road when the gold train was taken; when the +surviving Spaniards, "two only, who were behind the rest, +happening to be in full armour, escaped without mortal wound, and +fled down the hill again." They were chased by "Michael Evans and +Simon Heard ... two long and lean Clovelly men ... who ran two +feet for the Spaniards' one; and in ten minutes returned, having +done their work." Another stone reminds us of "the armourer, who +sat tinkering a head-piece," humming a ballad in honour of his +birthplace. "'Tis Sunderland, John Squire, to the song, and not +Bidevor," said his mate. "Well, Bidevor's as good as Sunderland +any day, for all there's no say-coals there blacking a place +about." + +The names of Ebbsworthy and Parracombe recall that scene by the +banks of the Meta, when Amyas went with Ayacanora in search of two +of his men, who had taken to the forest, each with an Indian +bride. It was Parracombe who asked only to be left "in peace, +alone with God and God's woods, and the good wives that God has +given us, to play a little like school children. It's long since +I've had play-hours, and now I'll be a little child once more, +with the flowers and the singing birds and the silver fishes in +the stream that are at peace and think no harm, and want neither +clothes, nor money, nor knighthood, nor peerage, but just take +what comes." + +Here are Yeo and Hamblyn. And if there are no Careys in the +churchyard, they lie in plenty in the church itself. Here, too, +is a Passmore. "Lucy Passmore, the white witch to Welcombe. Don't +you mind Lucy Passmore, as charmed your warts for you when you was +a boy?" It is a far cry from Clovelly to the deep gorge of +Welcombe: a good way even to Harty Point, with whose lesser +altitude the crew of the _Rose_ compared the towering heights +above the mangrove swamps of Higuerote. But the place is close to +the village where Frank and Amyas kept watch after that strange +missive had been left at the Court by some "country fellow"-- + + "Mister Carey, be you wary + By deer park end to-night + Yf Irish ffoxe com out of rocks + Grip and hold hym tight" + +We can stand there now and look out over just such a scene as +Amyas saw when, "outside, the south-west wind blew fresh and +strong, and the moonlight danced upon a thousand crests of foam; +but within the black, jagged point which sheltered the town, the +sea did but heave in long, oily swells of rolling silver, onward +into the black shadow of the hills, within which town and pier lay +invisible, save where a twinkling light gave token of some weary +fisher's wife, watching the weary night through for the boat which +would return with dawn." + +The beech below, the "steep hillside fenced with oak wood," are at +least the same as in Kingsley's time. And if the stout craft that +he used to watch putting out from the pier have not outlived the +gales of half a century, there are men on the fishing boats of +to-day that remember him well. There are those in the village who +recollect even his father, "a man who feared no danger, and could +steer a boat, hoist and lower a sail, shoot a herring net, and +haul a seine as one of themselves." Who that stands looking +seaward from the ancient quay, whose rude, unmortared masonry has +weathered full five hundred winters, and watches the great green +rollers thundering up the beach, but thinks of the bay as Kingsley +saw it, "darkened with the grey columns of the waterspouts, +stalking across the waves before the northern gale; and the tiny +herring-boats fleeing from their nets right for the breakers, +hoping more mercy even from those iron walls of rock than the +pitiless, howling waste of spray behind them?" Yes, it is +"Westward Ho!" country. Turn where we will--the bay, the cliffs, +the woods, the village--all remind us of Amyas Leigh, of Will +Carey, of Salvation Yeo. + +[Illustration: A ROCKY COAST.] + + + + +THE SOUND OF THE SEA. + + +The long curve of the shore on either side this little fishing +port, guarded here by a mighty wall of cliff, here by steep faces +of red rock, and bordered here with fields that come down nearly +to the water's edge, is fringed with a wide belt of shingle--no +smooth stretch of yellow sand, but miles and miles of great grey +pebbles, the ruins of old cliffs, the wreck of rocky battlements +shattered by the surges, and rolled and shaped and rounded by the +rude play of winds and waves. Down the long shore, headland beyond +headland shows fainter and more faint, until the shadowy outline +of the land fades into the far horizon. Westward from the harbour, +a long cliff towers above the shore, with strange curves and +mighty buttresses, of endless shades of red and brown, its seaworn +faces weathered to cool grey or stained to inky black, touched +with the gold of clinging lichens and the bright green of tiny +ferns. Along its ledges sturdy rowan trees are rooted, among +thickets of gorse and bracken and heather. Higher up there hangs +over the rocky brows a crown of dwarf oak trees, gnarled and +storm-beaten. + +At the foot of the vast wall, growing dim now as evening darkens, +is a little space of shingle-covered beach, that at high water is +altogether shut out from the world. When the tide is in there is +no way in or out. If on the steep side of the cliff there are +tracks up which a goat might clamber, yet round the points of rock +that fence it in, against which now the waves are breaking, there +will be no way for hours. For hours nor voice nor foot of man can +break the quiet of this lonely spot. A single gull, rocking idly +on the waves, over its double in the clear water under it, and one +solitary cormorant standing erect and motionless on a great rock +that is almost as dark as he, deepen the sense of solitude. +Solitude there is, but not silence. The warm air of the summer +twilight is full of the sound of the sea--"low at times, and loud +at times, and changing like a poet's rhymes;" and after each +wave-beat on the storm-worn rocks the dark cliff overhead so +flings back the answer that it seems as if + + "From each cave and rocky fastness, + In its vastness, + Floats some fragment of a song" + +The hour is late. The cliff grows cold and sombre. Darkness is +settling in its cavernous hollows. The shadow of the shore steals +slowly out over the pale green sea. Over the bay are scattered the +fishing-boats of the port, still far off, but making for home +towards the tiny quay that, from the shore below the village, +stretches out its sheltering arm. Far out at sea, beyond the +jagged line of tumbling waves against the sky, lies a great ocean +highway, whose white sails and drifting smoke show faintly through +the haze. Over the vast sea, here dark with shifting +cloud-shadows, there still bright in the clear sunshine, are hues +a painter might toil for in vain. Who could render the swift +changes of colour that wind and sun are weaving with their +magical loom over the wide expanse? Here a band of pale, clear +green stretches far across the bay; here a belt of soft amber; +there a long stretch of rich, imperial purple, with endless +interchange of brown and green and blue, ruffled with light flaws +of wind, and touched at far intervals with white points of foam, +as of waves that were fleeing from the rougher sea outside. + +The art of man might copy to the life the curve of that great +green wave, with scraps of seaweed showing darkly through its +cool, transparent depths; but not the deftest hand that ever drew +could give the low roar of the incoming roller, the sound of its +plunge on the unyielding rock. The painter might imitate the snowy +whiteness of the water beaten suddenly into foam, but not its +seething hiss as it rushes in among the boulders, not the rattle +of the pebbles as the wave draws back for its next plunge along +the beach. He might show us the glisten of the wet stones, rounded +and polished by the eternal chafing of the surges; he might make +the white foam flicker in the black shadows under them, but not +the sullen sound of boulders shaken to their stony roots by the +resistless tide--boulders that on rough nights of winter, when +the lighthouse tower is veiled in storm-drift, and great waves are +thundering on the bar, are hurled like play-things up and down the +beach. The cormorant on the canvas might be to the full as stately +and sombre as that dark figure yonder, brooding like some spirit +of evil; but no shout could startle him to flight, driving him, +with slow beat of his broad wings, to seek safety in some still +more secluded resting-place. The clearest colours of the palette, +the deftest touches of the brush, the highest ideal of the painter +can give us but one glimpse of what after all is one unending +change. His may be the ideal. This is the real, the restless, +seething, stormy sea. What is the sea without its sound? As we +gaze at the dumb fury of a painted storm--the fatal reef, the +doomed ship, the white lash of the pitiless surges, it is to Fancy +alone that we must look for + + "The sound of the trampling surf + On the rocks and the hard sea sand." + +But now the fishing-boats are coming in. Their brown sails, always +so dear to the soul of the artist, have taken colour from the +flaming west, and shine like fiery orange in the light of sunset. +Their dark hulls are glistening with spray, the white foam shines +like silver underneath their bows. One after one they near the +shore, and as they pass into the shadow of the cliff the silver +melts from the hissing foam below them, the borrowed colour fades +slowly from their sails, that, as each craft reaches her moorings, +rattle down, mere heaps of sombre, sea-beaten canvas. Boats are +putting out from the shore to bring in the fish. Groups of idlers +and fishing-folk gather on the quay. For the moment the hum of +voices rises louder through the narrow street of the little town, +half hidden now in the darkness of the hollow--the little town +that is like no other in the islands. + + "'Tis a stairway, not a street. + That ascends the deep ravine." + +The sun is down. Far off across the bay the lighthouse has mounted +guard over the bar,--the very bar over which + + "Three fishers went sailing away to the west, + Away to the west as the sun went down." + +Now silence begins to settle on the village. The bearded vikings +are gone from the seat where, night after night, they spin the +same old yarns; where night after night the wayfarer over-hears +scraps of seafaring talk--of prodigious hauls of fish, of +hairbreadth escapes, of trawlers that, fleeing from a storm, were +caught on the very threshold and dashed to flinders on the quay. + +A sound of the sea is in it all. And when the last group of idlers +has broken up, when the clatter of the last belated footsteps has +died away up the little, unlighted, stony street, and the hush of +night is brooding on this quaint old village, the song of the sea +grows louder still. Now through the quiet air comes faintly up the +cry of some wandering plover, the muttered croak of a solitary +heron. All night the little town is full of voices of the sea-- + + "The grand, majestic symphonies of ocean." + +[Illustration: MOONLIGHT.] + + + + +THE VIKINGS SEAT. + + +Half way down the one street of this "little wood-embosomed +fishing town--a steep stair of houses clinging to the cliff," as +Kingsley calls it, is one of the few level spaces that break the +otherwise abrupt descent. No better place could have been chosen +for a seat, for no point in all the village commands so wide a +view of the sea. There is no place so good as this for watching +the trawlers putting out, hauled slowly to the head of the quay, +and then spreading their great brown mainsails,--double-reefed of +late, for there is mostly a stiff breeze outside the bay. On the +left, in front of one of the prettiest of many pretty houses in +the village, half covered with a bower of creepers, is a low wall, +on which, when their day's work is done, the sailors and the old +sea captains gather for their nightly gossip. Below are groups of +cottages, scattered in picturesque confusion, with ancient roofs +of crumbling slate, and quaint old gables, all wreathed in +creepers and honeysuckle and tall fuchsias. Lower still is the old +quay, five centuries old, with brown fishing nets hung up to dry, +and with a half-score or so of trawlers moored to old corroded +guns embedded in the masonry, their tall masts swaying idly on the +long swell that now, at high tide, fills the little harbour. The +fishermen are still busy over their gear. When all is stowed they +will make their way up here, to the wall yonder, or to this bench, +to talk over the doings of the day. Here the old captains, +grey-headed, storm-beaten sea kings, sit, night after night, and +spin over and over their well-worn yarns. There is not so much in +their speech of + + "... the magic charm of foreign lands, + With shadows of palms, and shining sands;" + +not so much of the high seas, + + "Of ships dismasted, that were hailed, + And sent no answer back again," + +as of disasters nearer home, of some mishap among the boats. + +It is always the boats. The talk is ever and ever the same--of +spars carried away, of split mainsails, of the failure of the +fishing. A few days since the trawlers put out with a fair wind +and a smooth sea. The trawls were not yet down when clouds swept +off the land, the air was darkened by a great rush of rain, and a +sudden storm, with heavy squalls of wind, broke over the boats. +One by one the brown sails disappeared. On the quay stood a group +of anxious figures vainly endeavouring to peer through the storm. +When the weather cleared it was seen that one of the boats was in +trouble. A squall had laid her on her beam ends, and she shipped a +heavy sea. The men had given themselves up for lost, for no help +could have got to them in time, even had their plight been seen; +when, happily for them, the bowsprit carried away, some of the +strain was taken off, and the boat righted. All next day her +skipper was strolling idly on the quay, like a man dazed; and as +you pass the Vikings' Seat in the evening, or indeed any little +knot of sailors, you will still hear scraps of the story. + +The gravestones round the church on the hill are evidence enough +of the risks they run that go down to the sea in ships. More +eloquent still are the tales of the old fishermen:--how, for +instance, in one great storm, now "five-and-fifty years agone," as +they put it, twenty-one men from this port were drowned in the +bay, within sight of land. Still farther back, "a matter of +one-and-seventy years agone," no fewer than thirty-two were lost; +and the whole population of the port is even now not much over two +hundred. Of such great disasters the churchyard has few records. +So strong are the currents in the bay that bodies are seldom +recovered. Some of the stones are only in memory of those whose +rest remains unknown--not here, but somewhere in the stormy sea. + +Every son of the village is a fisherman born. Every man has been a +sailor almost since he could remember anything. Few as are the +inhabitants of the place, twenty of them are captains on the high +seas, or, having spent their lives in battling with the storm, +have put in for the last time to spend in this harbour of refuge +their few remaining days. These are the men of the old school, +who, from childhood to old age, have kept green the memory of +their native village, always cherishing the hope + + "... their long vexations past, + Here to return, and die at home at last." + +The modern captain is a more prosperous man. He knows more of the +world. He is not content with the narrow street, the tiny rooms, +the small affairs of this awkward out-of-the-way corner. His home +will be at some larger port. In twenty years there will be few of +the old race of sea captains left to rule the conclaves round the +Vikings' Seat. + +They are a kindly race, those West Country fishermen. Kingsley's +eulogies of his beloved Devon folk were never more deserved than +here, never were more true than now:--a warm-hearted, honest, +pleasant-spoken race, gentle and courteous, yet free and +independent as ever. A fine old figure is that venerable, +white-headed, white-bearded mariner, whose memories go back over +eighty years of seafaring life. He is never tired of the story of +a sailor of this village, who, returning home in a gold-ship, was +cast away on Norfolk Island--then entirely uninhabited--together +with his wife and a handful of the crew. The men saved nothing +from the wreck but one precious lucifer match, parent of all the +fires they had in many dreary years. Some of the party, in +despair, put off in a boat, but nothing was ever known as to their +fate. Years passed before a sealing brig put in and took off the +few survivors. The portrait of the castaway and his wife, in their +rude dress of skins, sewn with bone needles of their own making, +is still shewn in the village--he, with lifted hand, as if +pointing to the long-looked-for sail; she, with a bright look of +joy upon her pretty face. + +The white-haired sailor, for all his eighty years of sailing, has +never been out of sight of land; but that tall, grizzled sea +captain standing yonder has been round the Horn more times than he +can well reckon up. After forty years he came home, with every +intention of getting another ship, feeling that nothing could ever +part him from the sea. But the years have passed, and still he +lingers in the village. Nothing now could tempt him from the +shore. Of all the wonders of his forty years' experience, none +seems to have burnt itself so deep into his memory as a night in +the tropics, in a perfect calm, on a smooth and oily sea, in +which all the stars were copied with such perfect clearness that, +as he puts it, "you would almost think there really was another +world, and that you were in it." + +In a doorway hard by, festooned after the manner of the place with +creepers and tall fuchsias, is a picture for an artist. At the +threshold there sits, on the brick-floor, the grandfather, an old, +sunburnt, sea-beaten fisherman, nursing a fair-haired, +rosy-cheeked youngster, who laughs and crows and struggles to +escape the old man's careful arm, bent on setting off alone on a +voyage of discovery down the stony slope. Behind them, framed in +the darkness of the room beyond, stands the mother, looking on +well pleased. + +[Illustration: OLD SAILOR AND CHILD.] + +What have the years in store for that young fisherman? Will his +grave be here? Will days that are coming see one more stone set up +in memory of a sailor lost at sea? Perhaps not. As one of the old +captains says, "Boys don't take to the sea now. Going to be +artists. Learn to draw and all manner of things." In his time "the +schoolmaster was a very different sort from now. He had to be a +schoolmaster, land-measurer, pig-killer, all in one. You paid +three halfpence a week for learning to read, three halfpence +more for learning to write, and then you went to sea. Boys all +went to sea at twelve. They had their choice--work or starve." +Sailors of his day had rarely even as much schooling as that. He +had never, he said, courted but one woman in his life, and that +was for another man. He had had so much trouble reading and +writing other folks' love-letters that he never had the heart to +try it for himself. + +Round the Vikings' Seat the children of the village are playing. +Hard by, on a tiny stretch of level ground, half-a-dozen boys are +intent on some running game--nautical little figures in regulation +jerseys; sea boots too, some of them. Where will they be in twenty +years? If they are not to man the trawlers of the future there is +all the more chance that they will be scattered. If they are not +to be fishermen, there is no room for them here. Here there is +nothing but the fishing. + +And the girls? These laughing, sunny, bright-eyed little flowers +of Devon, absorbed in an old-world country game, singing as they +play-- + + "How many miles to London town? + Three score ten. + Shall us get there by candle light? + Oh yes, if your legs are long and straight." + +What of the girls? Below there, sleeping in the twilight, is the +sea, the cruel, treacherous, hungry sea, destined but too surely +to darken the sunshine of their simple lives. That small figure +now, that dainty little golden-haired darling, for her what have +the years in store? In days to be will she + + "... start from her slumber + When gusts shake the door?" + +Will she make her way against the storm, some winter's night, down +to the little quay, and peer with wild eyes through the rain and +the spray, amid a roar of wind and surge, and of great waves +thundering on the bar, hoping against hope for the home-coming of +the _Madcap_ or the _Village Girl_? What would you? It is an old +story, and + + "... men must work and women must weep, + Though the harbour bar be moaning." + +[Illustration: AN OLD CARRONADE.] + + + + +AN OLD CARRONADE. + + +Half-buried in the soft turf that clothes the rocky brows of a low +headland in the West there lies an ancient carronade. It is a +quiet spot. There is no sound save the lap of the tide along the +shore, the stir of the wind in the long grass, the cry of a +sea-gull wheeling over, or now and then the sharp clamour of a +troop of daws that flutter round their harbour in the cliff. About +it grow great tufts of sea-pink, whose flowers, save here and +there a belated bloom or two, have long since gone to seed. But in +summer the air is sweetened by the breath of thyme and crowfoot, +and at times, from the rocky steeps below, comes the strange smell +of blossoming samphire. There is no mark on the old gun. The rust +of years has eaten deep into its battered metal. No date remains, +no royal cipher. But there is a tradition that it was recovered +from the wreck of a Spanish warship that, in the flight of the +Armada, went to pieces on this rock-bound coast. In the face of +the cliff, a few hundred yards to the westward, there were found +embedded, many years ago, some corroded cannon-balls that once +might have fitted such a gun as this, but surrounded by so thick a +coat of rust that they were increased to nearly four times their +original calibre. The gun has at any rate seen some hard fighting. +It has been spiked. Some part at least it has played in our rough +island story, whether on pirate or privateer, or on one of the +unwieldy galleons of the Great Armada. But as it lies here now, +deep sunk in its green rest, it is a very emblem of peace and of +disarmament. + +The tide is at the full, almost "too full for sound or foam;" yet +along the broad beach below, + + "... where the sand like silver shines, + Flows the long, monotonous cadence of its unrhymed lyric lines." + +And round the rocky bases of the little island yonder--once, so +tradition says, a Viking stronghold--there is the low fret of pale +green waves. Beyond the island stretches away to the horizon a +vast sweep of sea, smooth, unbroken; an expanse of vivid blue, +more brilliant than the brightest sapphire. But + + "When descends on the Atlantic + The gigantic + Storm-wind of the equinox," + +then the huge green rollers come charging up this narrow strait, +and thunder in the caverns of the cliff, whirling great flakes of +foam a hundred feet into the air. They are gentle waves that lap +to-day against the rocky wall. But there is no stormier sea when, +on rough nights of winter, + + "The wild winds lift it in their grasp, + And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece." + +A few brown-sailed luggers are cruising in the bay,--mackerel +fishing perhaps. The pilchards have deserted this coast +altogether. Some of the men say that the constant passing of +steamers has disturbed them. Others declare "there have been no +pilchards since the new parson came, and there'll be none till +he's turned his back on the parish." + +On the verge of the next headland, a rampart of grey cliff that +stands out towards the open Atlantic, are two great grave mounds, +mere flaws on the horizon's edge, piled over the ashes of some +long-forgotten warriors. There is a legend here that, at midnight, +two kings in golden armour rise from these green barrows, and +fight on the short sward of the downs until the lighthouse on the +far point + + "... shows the matin to be near. + And 'gins to pale his ineffectual fire." + +Then the old sea-kings turn back to their rest, to lie till +nightfall, each + + "Arched over with a mound of grass, + Two handfuls of white dust shut in an urn of brass." + +On a ledge of rock below the barrows, a pair of ravens build. Year +after year their brood is reared in safety, beyond the reach even +of the most venturesome of climbers. The old birds patrol the +cliff for miles, like wandering spirits of two wreckers, +condemned to haunt for ever the scene of their ill deeds. Here +they come now, sailing slowly along on their broad wings, the +sunshine glancing on their glossy plumage. They go sweeping by, +uttering at times a crooning sound, not a croak at all, a soft, +low note, with no touch of harshness in it. Gracefully they wheel +and soar and glide, now turning over in the air, now poising like +a pair of kestrels. Below them, crouching on the hot sand of the +beach that skirts the bases of the cliff, a flock of gulls are +resting, like heaps of foam left stranded by the tide. They do not +shrink as the dark figures pass over. There are no eggs to plunder +from the rocks; no young broods to harry; and a full-grown herring +gull will show fight even to a raven. + +It is a noble wall of cliff that guards this sandy fringe of the +Atlantic; now light, now dark; here bare and weathered and +windswept, there overgrown with sea-pink and samphire; and here +again worn into deep clefts and cavernous hollows, which, when +this old gun was new, were thorns in the side of the Preventive +men. No shore in England has seen more smuggling than this. Many a +contraband cargo has been landed at the little village at the +head of the creek. It is whispered that more than one family of +standing here owes its rise to well-planned "runs" of silk and +spirits and tobacco. In the side of the Witan Stone--a grey old +Menhir that was old in Roman times--there is still pointed out a +hole called the "Gauger's Pocket," into which a bag of gold was +dropped when a "run" was coming off, with due notice to the +exciseman to go and look for it, and then to keep well in the +background. It was quite an open ceremony. "Please, sir," a +smuggler would say to the officer, "please, sir, your pocket's +unbuttoned." "Aye, aye," was the answer, "but I shan't lose my +money for all that." + +Those days are not so long ago. It is not really many years since +the clergyman who tells that story entered on that cure in the +West Country which, to use his own words "was a mixed multitude of +smugglers, wreckers, and dissenters," who still held that to shoot +the gauger was not only a venial but a meritorious deed. When a +man was hanged for murdering one of those hated representatives of +law and order, his death was regarded as a piece of flagrant +injustice, a crime in the eyes of Heaven itself; the very grass, +it was triumphantly pointed out, refusing to grow upon his grave. + +Those were days when the prosperity of a sea-board farm depended +less on its scanty grazing and its sterile corn-land than on its +ill-gotten harvest of the sea. They were all in it. Even a parson +has been known to hold the lantern while the spirit kegs were +hauled safely through the surf. And once, when a wreck came ashore +in church time, and the congregation had with one accord rushed +out of doors, the vicar stopped them on their way to the sea. +"Brethren," he shouted, "I have but five words more to say." Then +walking deliberately to the front, and taking off his surplice, he +said: "Now, let us start fair." + +This is a terrible coast. There are villages where half the +gardens are decorated with figure-heads of lost ships, where the +churchyards are strewn with sorrowful memorials of men, known or +nameless, whose lifeless bodies have been given up by the sea. It +is not long since corpses that were washed ashore were buried with +scant ceremony just above high-water mark. But of recent years +these wasted relics of mortality have been treated with more +reverence, and in some villages it has become a custom to use +figure-heads of wrecked vessels as memorials of the dead. In one +place the white effigy of an armed warrior guards the grave of +thirteen sailors, whose bodies the sea had laid upon the shore. In +another graveyard the stern of a ship's boat has been set up over +the remains of ten seamen "who were drifted on shore in a boat, +frozen to death, at Beacon Cove, in this parish," one Sunday in +December, now nearly fifty years ago. The rock-bound coast is as +perilous as ever, but the days have gone when the shipwrecked +mariner was dashed ashore alive only to meet his death from +enemies more relentless than the waves. It was the height of +rashness in the good old wrecking times to rescue a drowning +man:-- + + "Save a stranger from the sea, + And he'll turn your enemy." + +In our time, at any rate, no shipwrecked sailor would meet with +anything but kindness at the hands of Englishmen. The real race of +wreckers has died out--that is to say, the cold-blooded wretches +who would lure a ship ashore, and then murder the crew by way of +precaution before proceeding to plunder the cargo. But the spirit +of plunder at least is not dead. Coastguardsmen and agents of +insurance companies know only too well how cleverly the Cornish +fishermen even of to-day, though ready to lend willing hands in +salving, and though fairly well paid for it too, contrive to +appropriate stray things that take their fancy. It is not long +since a large ship went ashore at the Lizard, and finally ground +herself to pieces on the rocks. The closest watch was kept by the +agents and preventive men, but next spring a perfect epidemic of +musical instruments broke out in every village in the district, +proving audibly enough that the light-fingered wreckers had been +at their tricks all the time. How it is done the rambler in the +West Country, who can use his eyes and ears, will soon discover; +will agree too, with the remark made the other day in a Western +village, that people who talked of wrecking as a thing of the past +knew very little about it. + +"You see, sir," said a weather-beaten fisherman, "a great deal +drifts out of a wreck, and although there are salvage men always +on the watch, there's many a cask and bale that's picked up by our +boats. One man with a long pair of tongs and another with a +water-telescope can make a good thing of it between them. There +was an Italian steamer, now, that went ashore at Mullion. She was +full of fruit and wine and all sorts of things--enough for +everybody. There was great cases of champagne lying about, and the +word went round among our men that it was 'real' pain, with no +'sham' to it, for when we did knock the tops of the bottles off, +the wine all went out at one spurt, and we couldn't get a drop. +But at last we got corkscrews, and then we was happy. Well, I had +a cask of sherry wine out of her," he went on, "and I got it safe +in by the back way, and you see I've a coastguardsman living on +each side of me. But, law bless you, sir! they be just the same as +we.... Oh, yes, sir, everything is supposed to be given up, but +everything isn't, not by a good way. And when we risk our lives to +save the cargo, who has a better right to a share of it than we?" + +He was near the _Mosel_, he said, when she ran full speed upon the +rocks, and the sound of it was like a thousand tons of cliff +falling into the sea, and such shrieks as never were heard.... +Might he have stopped her? Well, perhaps he might. But a mate of +his who put out at the risk of his life, and warned a big liner +that was too close in shore--she was backed off and saved--never +got so much as a word of thanks, let alone any reward, for saving +her. "Another man," he went on, "warned a steamer from his boat, +and, as I'm a living man, they tried to swamp him for fear the +captain should be blamed for his bad sailing. No, sir, we'll never +do nothing to risk life, but if we can't get fair pay for saving a +ship, we'll get fair share by helping ourselves." ... Might +anything be kept that was picked up? Oh yes, pieces of timber +below a certain length. He was pressed further as to how the +particular length was settled. "Well," he said slowly, "we do keep +a saw in our boat." + +[Illustration: DARTMOOR: CHAGFORD.] + + + + +DARTMOOR DAYS. + + +The dwellers in the picturesque homesteads scattered at wide +intervals over this countryside would hardly be content to hear +these hills of theirs called a wilderness. But up yonder against +the sky line, with grey clouds trailing low along its topmost +ridges, is a brow of the wildest wilderness in England, and these +hillside pastures are the fringe of Dartmoor. One might well +imagine, too, looking out over this beautiful landscape, that the +lines of these West Country yeomen were fallen to them in pleasant +places. And, indeed, fortunes have been made here in the "good old +days," when bread was dear and wages were at starvation point. But +times are hard. And there are sons of the soil here now working +for hire on other farms, whose sires held broad acres of their +own. + +The wayfarer who, making his way up from Chagford towards the +moorland, should chance to pass this little settlement, might well +pause in wonder as he passed the gate, and stand and rub his eyes +in doubt whether it was a dream or not. So unlike the old country +is this log hut and all about it that a settler from the Bush +might, if he saw it, almost fancy himself upon his native heath. +The very trees that flourish here are strange. Among shrubs that +have been brought from the slopes of the Himalaya, grow tall +bamboos whose feathery crowns look over the topmost ridges of the +roof. And yet on every hand there are suggestions of the +moorland--those stacks of peat, with their picturesque coverings +of furze and straw; that granite roller, so thickly set with +crystals of felspar. The very props of the clothes-line are +untrimmed birch poles from the wood, wearing still their silvery +bark. It is moorland earth that made those rhododendron thickets +so broad and strong. It is moorland air that has draped the trees +with shaggy lichens, adding centuries of age to oaks yet hardly in +their prime, and lending to the sturdy fruit bushes of the borders +the air of hoary patriarchs. Furze bushes, in whose thorny depths +the yellow-hammers build in springtime, and willow-warblers weave +their domes of grass, flourish in the garden precincts. And all +the banks are overgrown with a green jungle of fern and broom and +bilberry--children of the moorland, stealing down to regain their +lost dominions. + +This is winter by the calendar. But it is a day of clear shining +after rain. The air is full of the sound of streams--of the roar +of moorland torrents, of the deeper voice of the river plunging +through the wooded gorge below. The stems of the tall birches in +the wood below the house, still wet with last night's rain, shine +as if they were sheathed in silver, and their branches glitter as +if every twig were hung with silver beads--as, indeed, they are, +the silver of the clinging raindrops. + +A graceful, yellow-breasted wagtail, still lingering here when the +rest of her kindred are across the sea, flutters down now and then +from the top of the dovecot to catch the flies that are sunning +themselves against the wall. On the roof above the pigeons sit in +conclave, their slumbrous voices just in keeping with the music of +the streams. In his cage against the wall of the hut I can hear, +now and then, a raven stirring. He is a silent bird for the most +part: + + "He speaketh not; and yet there lies + A conversation in his eyes-- + The golden silence of the Greek, + The gravest wisdom of the wise, + As if he could, but would not speak." + +Some day he will talk, and then perhaps we shall learn what +strange things he has been hoarding in the dark places of his +memory. Again and again last night he woke me by rattling the bars +of his prison, or by sharpening that great bill of his against his +perch. I doubt if he slept a wink before daylight. It was strange +to hear him thus in the darkness. At times, too, I heard the +mellow voices of the owls, sounding clear above the rush of the +streams and the patter of rain upon the roof. + +Birds pass and repass now in the sunlight. At times the pigeons +sweep down from their rest overhead, with sudden clatter of wings, +and as they wheel round the house they rouse into speech for a +moment the taciturn jackdaw, whose cage adjoins the prison of the +yet more silent raven. + +From far up the moorland sounds the hoarse clamour of crows. And +magpies go by, carefully keeping clear of the precincts, as if +they were aware that the Master of the House had a keen eye and a +steady hand. But they might lay aside their fears. No beast or +bird is vermin in this corner of Arcadia. No jay or magpie ever +suffered here the penalty of evil deeds or tarnished reputation. +One night the Master of the House was roused by the sounds of a +slight scuffle outside. An owl had swooped on a rat in a corner of +the verandah, and through the wooden wall of the hut was plainly +heard the rustle of feathers as the bird spread its broad wings +over the body of its victim. Weasels find sanctuary under the very +flooring of the shanty, and stoats may hunt the covers at their +will without fear of trap or gun. The Hunt know well that there is +no surer spot to find a fox than the larch plantations up yonder +on the hill. And there, too, the badgers pursue in safety the even +tenour of their harmless lives. + +When the larches were first planted, and were but just struggling +to get their heads above the hillside jungle, +grasshopper-warblers hid their nests on the ground among them, and +chats, and tree-pipits. A few years later blackbirds came and +built among the branches. Now the ring-doves trust their frail +platforms of stick to the strong young arms. And in a year or two +sparrow-hawks and magpies will build in the green tops. The trees +have already killed the grass about their feet, and the bare earth +beneath their shadow is a favourite haunt of the woodcock. + +But in spite of crows and magpies, stoats and weasels, and all the +creatures of the wild that are too often branded as vermin, there +is no want of pheasants in the cover. And the Master of the House, +with his man behind him, and three eager little terriers dancing +at his heels, has but this moment left me to look for a woodcock. +The dogs are much keener for the sport than their owner, master of +woodcraft though he be. He is always readier to use his +field-glass than his gun. Many a time, as he stood motionless, gun +in hand, has a rabbit cantering by paused to look up at him, or a +woodcock settled near, and come and gone unharmed. The moor-folk +here are sportsmen born, with the keenest eyes for the whereabouts +of hare or pheasant, and far too much given to the setting of +gins. The Master of the House--who says that half the pheasants he +shoots have already lost a leg--showed me yesterday an illustrated +price-list of the traps made by a man who boasts of supplying the +Queen and the Prince of Wales, and who reckons in his long list of +noble patrons not a few distinguished names that we have been +accustomed to think of as belonging to champions of the "brute" +creation. Yet here were not only rat-traps and rabbit-traps, traps +for foxes and even for tigers, but traps--of horrible device, and +certain to inflict the most cruel tortures--for killing hawks and +herons. Surely, if some keepers are still ignorant and brutal, +better things might have been expected of their masters. And his +must be a mean and sordid soul who would grudge the kingfisher his +meed of beauty--even supposing that so rare a bird can do any +appreciable amount of harm. Yet in this list of fiendish enginry +is figured a kingfisher-trap. This the purchaser is directed "to +screw to a stump in the water where the birds resort, and place a +piece of wood on the fork for them to alight on, or a small fish +may be used as bait." + +In the last few days, when from other parts of the island have +come reports of bitter weather, of rough winds and frosty airs, +the climate here has been almost summer-like. Yesterday, as I sat +in the verandah, more than one wasp, roused by the sunshine from +her winter slumber, was buzzing among the rafters overhead. But, +as the day wore on, there were signs of a change. Ominous-looking +clouds began to gather up from the southward. And, in the late +afternoon, as we rode slowly up the steep track towards the moor, +there came now and then a spurt of wind and rain. + +The road, like so many of the Dartmoor roads, was fenced by rude +walls of granite, built of blocks so ponderous as to suggest that +only giants could have reared such cyclopean masonry. Every chink +between the stones was fringed with fern and bilberry. Clinging +lichens made the grey faces of the granite greyer still; while +others, nestling in mossy hollows, were tipped with scarlet, +recalling the vivid touches of colour over the eyes of a moorfowl. + +High up on the moorland, looking down on one of the most beautiful +of its many river valleys, we came on a great stone circle, known +to the moor men as the Roundy Pound--a double ring of unhewn, +irregular blocks of granite, shaggy with ages' growth of lichens, +and with a single thorn tree standing in the midst, mantled from +base to crest with grey--a hoary patriarch, like the lone priest +of long-forgotten rites. Far below lay the valley of the Teign, +winding away into the hills. To the right rose the sad-coloured +slopes of the moorland, here darkened with dead bracken, and there +brightened by pale sheets of withered grass. On the left was a +birch wood, with a rare purple bloom upon its leafless boughs, +like the purple of far hills at sunset. Here and there a dead +birch stem glimmered white against the dark. And about the feet of +the bare trees was a wealth of colour almost more marvellous +still--the rich brown, lustrous velvet of mosses and dead leaves, +the fiery red of withered brake fern, beaten down by wind and +rain. Below the wood, on a little island in the river, was a group +of old Scotch firs, with the water gleaming white between the +ruddy branches. Over all there stretched away the far-reaching +wastes of the moorland, lifeless, desolate, with a fringe of mist +along the sky line. + +Night closed in grey and wet. As the hours passed, I woke at times +to hear the rush of the rain, the growing sounds of multitudinous +streams, the deepening voice of the river roaring through its +wooded passes. Morning broke on a day of undoubted Dartmoor +weather--no gleam of sunshine anywhere; cold, clinging mists on +every hand; grey sheets of rain stalking like ghosts across the +landscape. + +The day was at its very worst when the keeper, who had been at +work since daylight rescuing trout that, in struggling up the +swollen streams, had got themselves into difficulties in +unexpected shallows, came up to the house and stood for a minute +in the rain, the water streaming from every outlying point in his +figure, and looked inquiringly at the Master of the House. The +Master groaned. But he threw on his old shooting-coat, picked up a +handful of cartridges, and took his gun from the corner, and the +two men sallied out into the rain. + +It was, in truth, a dreary morning. There was no sunshine now to +light the dripping birch stems. But even under that grey sky there +was marvellous beauty in the bare boughs, in the brown oak leaves, +in the streaming ferns on the green bank below. Under the bank was +a new gleam of silver, where the swollen brook went swirling by +under a grey brow of granite. Hour after hour fell the pitiless +rain. Every thread of water on the hillside was a headlong +torrent. The road below the house was deep under a rushing flood. + +It was late when the little shooting party came back, their coming +heralded by the screaming of a troop of jays that apparently kept +pace with them as they plodded through the underwood. But the +birds were not inveighing against the sportsmen. When my friend +returned, he told me that as he passed under a pollard oak an owl +flew out, almost brushing him with its wings. The jays, who were +hanging about among the thickets on the edge of the wood, espied +it in a moment. And, raising a hue and cry that was caught up by +every finch and tit and blackbird within hearing, they chased the +bewildered bird from tree to tree, scolding and storming, and +buffeting it with their wings. Earlier in the afternoon a rabbit +passed, unnoticed by the dogs, not running, but leaping, across +the wood; and close at its heels a weasel, following in hot +pursuit. + +The rain was slackening a little as we turned into the hut. But a +heavy fog was closing in from the moor, blotting out even the near +woodland with its wall of grey. Pleasant, indeed, after the mist +and the rain was the glow of lamplight. And pleasanter still the +glow of roaring oak logs, as we sat that night, each with a +terrier on his knee, before the great wood fire. The dogs have +taken kindly to the casual stranger, and one of them in particular +is fond of sitting by me on a chair at meal times, resting her +head on my arm in the most engaging manner. The two are on the +best of terms for the most part, but a little attention paid to +one is apt to lead to trouble with the other. I am told that there +is sometimes a good deal of jealousy shown in the retrieving of a +rabbit--a circumstance which, as may readily be guessed, does not +tend to improve the condition of the game. And the slippers which +we threw to distant corners of the hut for the dogs to bring back +to us suffered severely in the bringing. + +As we sat by the fire I heard something of the dangers of the +moor, and of the reality of getting lost at night or in a Dartmoor +fog. The oldest hand, said the Master of the House, would be +helpless in such a fog as now lay round the house. A good plan, he +added, is to follow a stream if you are fortunate enough to find +one. Sooner or later you are sure to come to a house. He himself +was on the moor once, with two companions, far away from any path, +when a dense mist came on. After long walking, he happened, by +great good fortune, on the wall that bounded his own common, and +came at length to a familiar gate that he knew was only half a +mile from home. + +The three wanderers drew a breath of relief. They were all right +now. The haunting fear of having to pass a night upon the moor, as +many a lost wayfarer has done, was forgotten in a moment. With +confident steps they marched through the mist straight down the +slope towards this bungalow. But after going steadily for three +hours, with a gradually growing conviction that something after +all must be wrong, they found themselves back at the same wall, +and at the very identical gate. They had been walking in a +circle--an experience only too familiar to travellers who have +lost their way in the desert. They now followed the wall until it +turned abruptly down the hill. My friend then walked close to it, +while the others kept abreast of him, at a distance of a hundred +yards or so, that they might avoid a bog which skirted the +enclosure. In this way, shouting to each other now and then, they +reached here in safety, not having seen each other since they +parted company. + +[Illustration: DARTMOOR--EVENING: TAKING HOME THE SHEEP.] + +Another man, well known in the district--a man who rather prides +himself on his acquaintance with Dartmoor--will not soon be +allowed to forget how he set off on horseback one day in the mist, +taking a short cut across the moor, by which he expected in half +an hour to strike the Princetown road, and how, after an hour and +a half of pretty hard riding, he too, found himself at the spot +from which he had started. + +[Illustration: A WEST COUNTRY COTTAGE.] + + + + +WYCHANGER: A FAR RETREAT. + + +On the northern edge of Exmoor, parted from the outer world by a +long ridge of wooded hills that die away into a bold headland by +the grey sea, there lies a spacious valley--fair even for the West +Country, a valley that for its beauty of broad fields and noble +trees and old-world villages, may rank among the fairest in all +England. The traveller by the well-kept coach road that passes +along the foot of the hills, almost from end to end of it, looking +across its green meadows and its red corn-lands to the +deer-haunted heights of Dunkerry, sees something of its beauty, of +its picturesque cottages, its wooded slopes, its rich pasture +lands; may even catch a glimpse in passing of that old mill that, +with its pointed gables, its rambling outbuildings, its rude +bridges, and its + + "Dark wheel that toils amid the hurry + And rushing of the flume," + +is like an artist's dream. + +He who fares through on foot will know more of its charm, but even +he is hardly likely to discover the best of its lovely lanes, deep +set under over-arching hedgerows, the oldest and most magnificent +of its trees, the most picturesque and retiring of its cottages. +While hidden behind a rampart of low hills on the very skirts of +Dunkery, the most beautiful village of all, an ideal West Country +hamlet, will escape him altogether:--a village in a nest of hills, +with brown gables all embowered in green. By the church, whose +grey tower rises in the midst, two poplars stand, their young +leaves trembling in the sunshine, their tall forms just swaying in +the wind. + +The old manor house, whose traditions go back beyond the days of +the Armada, seems to stand at the very limit of the world. So near +the wilderness is it that the creatures of the wild, the birds, +the beasts, share with man the possession of its barns and +outbuildings. Its lawns, its thick-growing bays and laurels, its +broad eaves, the masonry of its old walls are haunted by +innumerable birds. + +In the early morning, an hour or more before the sunrise, the +whole air about the house is filled with sweet sounds, with the +sunny ripple of the goldfinch's song, with the mingled chorus of +thrush and blackbird, of wrens and robins and warblers, with the +call of the cuckoo, the pipe of the wryneck, the croon of doves +among the larches on the hill. At times, from far up the moorland +comes down even the strange cry of a buzzard, or the croak of a +wandering raven. All day the garden is full of pleasant sounds and +sweet suggestions of the woodland, of the hushed whispers of swift +moorland streams, of the stir of winds among the restless pines. + +Even after sundown life is still stirring. Long after the mists of +evening have begun to gather on the darkening hills the cuckoo +calls. The musical halloo of wandering owls breaks in through the +vespers of the blackbird, and the shrill challenge of the +black-cock sounds loud on the fringe of the moorland. Instead of +the swallows, that all day float singing round the eaves, the bats +come out of hiding in old barns and ruinous outbuildings, and +flutter on silent wings through vacant windows. + +In the twilight even the wild red deer stray down from their +fastness to the very precincts of the garden. It is not long +since, in the hind-hunting time, the "tufters" broke away after a +stag and followed it, in spite of all the efforts of the huntsmen, +far across the moor and down into the lowland. And, when at length +the hounds were beaten off, two sheep-dogs from the village took +up the chase and drove the stag up here to the Manor House. There +it stood for hours in a narrow passage near the stables, showing a +bold front to its pursuers, and undismayed by the curious +villagers who came thronging up to gaze at it--a noble beast, with +all its honours. Someone at length opened the door of an empty +stable, and the stag walked quietly in. Tired out with the long +chase over the slopes of Dunkery, it stayed in its strange asylum +two days and nights, entirely unmoved by efforts to dislodge it, +but lowering its antlers in a moment if one of its visitors made +an attempt to cross the threshold; though when one of the men, +thinking it had gone, went into the stable after dark and actually +brushed against it, the stag, happily for him, took no notice. The +door was left open; the noble beast was free to go when it would. +On the third morning the stable was empty; the strange guest had +gone. A line of footprints across the lawn to the fence that parts +the garden from the paddock, and up the long meadow towards the +hanger, showed how it had made its way back unmolested to its +haunt upon the moor. + +Guests almost as strange are two wild ducks that built a nest in a +pool in the field below the house. The eggs were hatched not many +days since, and the young brood were caught and given in charge to +a hen, who, so far, has proved herself but an indifferent +foster-mother. The drake, after the manner of his kind, has +another mate, and she is still sitting on her eggs on a small +island in another pond near by. And he and the mother of the lost +family still linger about the farm. You may see them flying past +the windows on their way down from one of the moorland streams, +or watch them in the meadow by the empty nest. Or you may even +chance upon them among the outbuildings, the drake a little way in +advance, walking slowly forward, looking this way and that, +pausing now and then at some strange sound; while his sober-tinted +mate follows meekly a yard or so behind him. Now they stand +doubtful, uncertain whether or no it is safe to enter the +precincts. At length they venture in. Now walk quietly after them. +There they stand, a gallant pair, he splendid with the rich green +velvet of his glossy head, the white ring about his neck, the dark +chocolate of his breast, his brilliant orange legs, and all the +exquisite shades of grey upon his beautiful back: she with quiet +plumage, streaked and mottled with soft tones of brown, looking +for all the world like a dry heap of reeds and withered sedges. In +a moment they are aware of danger. They move closer together. The +drake utters a low warning call, nodding his head, slowly at +first, then faster and faster until, with a loud note the two +birds spread their beautiful wings, wheel round the house, and +sail down to their old haunt by the pool. + +By the same pool, not fifty yards from the road, there is another +nest--a moorhen's; and if you creep quietly up you may see the +old bird on her nest of rushes under the bank, her dark figure +looking little more than a patch of shadow in the heart of the +bramble bush that overhangs her home. Her, too, you may watch in +the early mornings wading among the long grass of the meadow, or +you may even catch a glimpse of her as she paddles fast across the +pool, keeping time with her glossy head to the rapid movement of +her feet. + +Hood has told us how, in his "Haunted House," + + "A wren had built within the porch, she found + The quiet loneliness so sure and thorough." + +It is almost more strange that here a pair of chaffinches have +made a sanctuary of this porch, and have built their nest just +over the door, within arm's reach of every passer-by. It is an +exquisite work of art, whose moss and lichen, felted with cobwebs +and fine strands of wool fitted deftly on the curve of a level +larch pole, and woven among the young shoots of the climbing rose +tree, whose leaves hang down as if to hide it, might have escaped +notice altogether were it not that the little builders are busy +all day upon the grass before the windows, now taking short +flights among the laurels or the branches of the old arbutus, or +the great bay tree that overhangs the lawn, scenting all the air +with its abundant bloom, and that now and then they fly up to +their nest over the doorway. + +A far retreat--a spot in which the lover of nature would only too +gladly settle down, content, amid this gracious scenery and these +pleasant sights and sounds, to end his days in one of the little +old-world cottages of "the sweetest village in the world," with +their tiny windows, their quaint gables, their roofs of russet +thatch. A far retreat, upon whose dreamlike quiet no ripple of +unrest could surely enter. + +We can hardly realise that it was a lord of this very manor who, +though long past his three score years and ten, held a fortress +for King Charles until the last extremity, marching out at length +with all the honours of war. + +It is stranger still that a marble tablet on the chancel wall of +the old church records how a rector of this peaceful parish left +his charge and followed his master to the war; how he raised a +troop of horse for the King's service; how four of his sons were +captains in the Royal army; and how he himself, after Worcester's +Crowning Fight, went with the second Charles across the sea, +giving up all, with a devotion worthy of a better cause, for a +prince whom the clearer vision of our time justly brands as +"immoral, dishonourable, and contemptible." + +[Illustration: THE OLD MILL: TWILIGHT.] + + + + +LUCCOMBE: TWILIGHT IN THE HOLLOW. + + +Round the old mill that stands like a drowsy sentinel at the gate +of the valley, quiet reigns. Silenced is the plash of the wheel; +hushed the low rumble of the rude machinery. Through the rich +grass of the meadow by the stream the red cattle are trooping home +in answer to the milking call. The sun, already sunk below the +fringe of woodland on the hill, shows like a fiery cloud through +the dark lattice work of branches. Light still lingers on the +steep slope across the glen, on tawny grass and golden furze, and +on points of grey rock that here and there break through the short +turf. There is sunshine still upon the dark tops of the highest +ridge of pines, and there are lines of silver on the branches of a +giant oak whose crest towers far above his fellows. But here in +the hollow the mist of evening gathers. All along the stream are +drawn grey lines of vapour that, in the far recesses of the +valley, deepen to a shadowy gloom. + +The birds, with whose notes the whole glen was ringing, grow +silent one by one. Their brief vesper hour is almost over. The +hush of night is settling on the woodland. Far up the slope there +still sounds the clear whistle of a blackbird. A thrush, too, is +singing, as if moved to rivalry. His is a song less wild and +thrilling, less powerful and passionate, yet a masterpiece of +melody. Still through the deepening shadows rings the clear treble +of the robin, and through all, like a whisper of peace, one hears +the slumbrous voices of the doves. + +Two cuckoos are still calling; one near at hand, whose loud notes, +clear and mellow, seem to linger among the trees, dying slowly, +like music in the roof of a cathedral. Another, more distant, +answers him. They keep such perfect time that the stronger voice +overpowers half the answer, and, for the most part three notes +alone are audible, the last one faint and low, and like a soft +refrain: + + Cuckoo! Cuckoo! + Cuckoo! + +The cuckoo's life is like that of no other bird that flies. There +are no household cares for him; no nest to build, no eggs to warm, +no brood to forage for. His sole business seems but to call his +own name all day among the tree tops. It is a beautiful sound. And +yet there are times when the cuckoo, as much as any bandit of the +air, any crow, or sparrow-hawk, or prowling magpie, breaks the +peace of the sylvan solitude. He may call all day if he will, +without let or hindrance, or the least attempt at interruption. +The birds pay little heed to him, save now and then in an idle +moment to mob him and jeer at and hustle him, as they love to do +to an owl, who by some mischance has sallied out into the +daylight. + +But the moment his mate is suspected of designs on the nest of +some defenceless hedge-sparrow, or robin, or wagtail, with an eye +to finding foster parents for her own discarded offspring, the +whole neighbourhood is up in arms. A few days since a cuckoo, who +had evidently set her heart on a robin's nest in the thick growth +of ivy round the chimney of one of the houses in the village, +alighted in the top of a tall aspen that overlooked the spot. She +settled on the roof of the house to reconnoitre. She even perched +on the ledge of the garret window to get a better view. And all +the while she was followed by an excited mob of redstarts, +wagtails, and robins, scolding, storming, chattering. Sometimes, +as if dismayed by their persistent clamour, the cuckoo made a half +circuit of the garden, diving in and out among the bushes, +swooping down to avoid the attack of some pursuer more importunate +than the rest, and uttering now and then a strange, inarticulate +cry, as if--which is likely enough--she were carrying in her mouth +the egg she wanted to leave in the robin's nest. She gave it up at +last, plunging down into a great bay tree, seeking in its +thick-growing foliage some respite from pursuit. + +The darkness deepens. But there is still light enough to follow +the deer-path among the trees, whose thick carpeting of brown dry +pine-needles is soft as velvet to the feet. It is not yet too dark +to see the black-cock that gets up from the bilberry jungle by the +path, or the wood pigeons that, when you pause beneath their +roosting place, go crashing out from the branches overhead. You +can still watch the two squirrels that chase each other round the +stem of a giant ash tree; can follow them, when, startled from +their frolic, they take a short cut homeward through the +larch-tops. They leap from the firm footing of one tree to the +drooping bough beyond, and when it goes down, down beneath them +like a blade of grass, they go on, without a moment's pause, +towards their nest in the heart of the wood. So few wayfarers +disturb the quiet here--or else the brown woodlanders have had +such scant experience of the ways of man, of his love of capture +and annexation--that the squirrels have not thought it worth while +to build their stronghold high among the trees. It is not twenty +feet from the ground. It is like a great wren's nest, a ball of +moss, thick and closely felted, and marvellously laced round and +round with long pliant larch twigs, and with only the least trace +of an entrance at the side. + +A flock of swifts are careering down the glen, like a troop of +noisy revellers; their wild chorus sounding shrill and clear in +the deepening hush of night. They wheel, with loud rustle of keen +wings, and dash upwards towards the moor. Again that swift career +along the grass-grown road; again that wild exultant scream, so +fierce, so beautiful. Deride it if you will. Call it hoarse, +discordant, savage. It is a victorious pæan, a song of triumph, an +exultant chorus proclaiming the empire of the air. + +The dark forms vanish; the wild notes die away. It is the last +sound of daylight. + + "Far away, some belfry chime + Breathes a prayer across the moors." + +The last sound of daylight. The children of the night are abroad. +White moths, painted boldly on the shadows, flit by like phantoms. +Ghost-like, too, is the soundless flutter of a bat that, by the +dark archway of the old bridge, chases the insects that hover on +the stream. The long, low, monotonous call of the +grasshopper-warbler among the furze bushes on the edge of the +wood, is a strange sound;--the voice of a cricket, one might +think, and not of a bird at all. Strange, too, is the droning note +of a nightjar, rising and falling as if the bird, wheeling this +way and that, were chasing moths among the trees. The bats have +voices, though their flight is soundless, and their faint shrill +cries grow in the stillness louder and more clear. At intervals an +owl hoots, startling from their half sleep the drowsy birds among +the thickets over which he passes, so that one may follow his +flight by the clamour he leaves behind him. Among the trees there +sounds at times the crash of a belated ring-dove, settling down +for the night, followed by a murmur of soft love notes, an +answering whisper, and then silence. + +Yet the air is full of faint, indistinguishable sounds, the +opening of leaves perhaps, the patter of spent petals, the fall of +pine needles, and the movements of night-wandering creatures. And +to every sound the darkness lends a touch of mystery. Fancy could +paint almost anything of strange and startling among the black +shadows of the wood. You stop, almost in terror, when a pheasant +rises, under your very feet, with a great rush of wings, and +vanishes into the gloom. A blackbird, flying over unseen, sounds +his loud alarm in passing, ringing, musical, metallic, like the +throbbing string of some wild instrument. + +There is another sound, the sound as of some large animal moving +heavily among the thickets near the stream, with now and then a +crash of branches. The noise draws nearer. Some red deer are +making their way down to the water. The light wind is blowing +straight this way. There is nothing to warn them. The leader +pauses, not five yards away, fetlock deep in the soft green morass +along one of the small streams that vein the hill. His shape is +dark and indistinct, yet there is just light enough to see that he +has antlers still. Behind him is a troop of hinds, a mingled mass +of stately, slow-moving, shadowy figures, leisurely crashing +through the thickets. One strolls idly this way, closer still, +pausing to browse on the leaves of the very willow that spreads +its long boughs overhead. Another follows, and another. There are +ten of them, at least, and not one aware of danger. Like Ajax, one +longs for daylight. Yet daylight must have revealed the ambush. +They are passing on. Another moment and they will have taken the +alarm. Stand up and shout. What headlong rush, what wild stampede, +what thunder of swift hoofs, what gallop of flying feet. Away they +go, crashing through the underwood, up the slope, into the black, +impenetrable shadows--sanctuary as safe as the very densest covert +of the forest. + +[Illustration: HORNER BRIDGE.] + + + + +HORNER WATER. + + +The man who knows Exmoor only in the pride of its summer beauty, +who has, it may be, followed the staghounds over its far-reaching +slopes through a splendour of heath and ling and blossomed furze, +who has never seen the broad shoulders of Dunkery save when they +were wrapped about with royal purple, would find the moorland now +in very different mood, would think it even now, far on towards +the summer, desolate and sad-coloured and forlorn. The gorse, +indeed, is in its prime. Its fragrant gold is as full of beauty as +when the mingled mob of horse and foot and carriages gathers, for +the first Meet of the season, on the smooth crown of Cloutsham +Ball. + +The gorse is a flower of the year. It is in bloom even in January. +There is an old saw that declares it to be, like kissing, never +out of season. But the heather that covers so much of the slopes +of Dunkery wears at this moment its very somberest of hues. +Standing on the fringe of the moorland, on the brink of one of the +deep glens that run into the heart of the hills, and looking up +the slope towards the dark summit, one might think that winter was +not over even yet. There is a touch of vivid green here and there, +round the birthplace of some mountain stream. There is colour on +the young birches that one by one are feeling their way up out of +the hollow. But in the sober brown of the heather, in the pearl +grey of the peat moss, in the dark hue of the gaunt and twisted +pines scattered at far intervals in front of the advancing forest, +there is no sign of the sweet influences of the spring. + +A lonely spot. There is not a house in sight, no farm, no +hedgerow, no sign of man's dominion anywhere, beyond faint traces +of bridle paths, like dark lines along the heath, or a broader +track whose warm red shows a moment as it climbs some rising of +the moor. A solitary skylark sings over the brown heather. At +times a buzzard wails, as on broad wings he drifts in mighty +circles overhead, a dark spot against the pale blue heaven. Sounds +like these but deepen the sense of loneliness. But there is charm +in the very solitude. There is charm in the dark heath and in the +golden furze--in the play of the cloud-shadows that each moment +change the tones of brown and green and grey. There is charm in +the sweet breath of the gorse, and above all, in the bright, fresh +air of the open moorland. And however bare and voiceless these +sombre slopes, each hollow that wanders away into the hills is +filled to overflowing with a sea of mingled foliage, all astir +with life and movement. + +The path that leads down from the highland to the hollow looks +upon a different world. The steep sides of the glen are green to +the very brim, are covered, right up to the brown fringe of +heather, with noble oaks in the pride of fresh, young foliage, +among whose golden green, all shimmering in a haze of sunlight, +shows the shadowy grey of boughs still bare, and in the open +spaces are all carpeted with the rich red of dead bracken, or the +vivid green of bilberry leaves. From far below, out of the mist of +green and grey, rises the song of a swift mountain stream, whose +pools and white cascades and brawling rapids gleam among the trees +like scattered links of silver. + +There is a sudden clatter of stones upon the farther slope. Two +stags and four attendant hinds are making their way up from Horner +Water. They pause and look this way; the head of the leader +lifted, his antlers clear against the foliage behind him. This is +Exmoor. Here the red deer are on their native heath. This is their +last stronghold south of the Border. And it is in glens like this +that they find the sanctuary they love. The noble beasts stand +long at gaze. At last the leader turns, and moves slowly up the +slope, the others falling into line behind him. They quicken the +pace as they gain more easy ground, and breaking into a canter, +wind in gallant style across the heath. They pause for a last look +as they reach the summit of the ridge, their figures darkly cut +against the sky. + +The road sinks lower, lower yet, down into the green heart of the +glen. Noble trees they are that fill the hollow. Some have long +since passed their prime. Their mighty branches are thick with +moss and lichen, and fringed with green tongues of fern. In rifts +that time and storm have carved in their huge columns, rowan and +bramble and young holly trees are rooted. Grey arms of ivy, almost +as broad and vigorous as they, are twined with fatal clasp about +their sturdy stems. Where the pathway crosses at the ford, there +stands a blasted tree: a giant oak, whose top, wrecked and +shattered though it is, rises high above its forest brothers. Its +bark has all fallen away. Its bare limbs glimmer ghost-like +through the green gloom. + +The whole glen is full of life. Solitude there may be, but not +silence. The air is musical with the ripple of the stream, and +with the songs of sweet-voiced warblers. Over the tree tops +clamorous daws are passing, and the light wings of homeward-flying +doves. Among the boulders that winter floods have heaped along the +torrent--that even now, before the patient, eternal, resistless +chafing of the water, are moving slowly down the stream--you may +startle a heron from his noonday dreaming. Or you may come +unaware upon a pair of wild ducks, paddling softly on one of the +smooth and sheltered reaches, the mallard still splendid in the +nuptial plumage he is so soon to lose. Only a few weeks longer +will he wear it. Summer will find him in a quiet-coloured garb, a +suit of brown and grey as plain and unpretending as the dress of +his sober-tinted mate. + +This, too, is the dipper's haunt. Again and again you will meet +him on his way up stream, flying swift and straight, with sharp +note of warning on spying a stranger near his fishing grounds. Or +you may watch him as he stands on some small island in the +torrent, his white breast gleaming like a patch of silver in the +water under him, bowing and calling, and now breaking off into +that sweet, wild song so dear to the soul of the fisherman. The +dipper's nest of moss and leaves and withered sedges, hidden +deftly in some old stump by the shore, is empty and deserted. His +mate and he are out all day on the river with their little mob of +dusky children. + +It is a pleasant path that winds leisurely along the glen, now +wandering with the stream, now passing it by a ford, now loitering +among the trees, now fenced on either hand with tall thickets of +gorse and briar and hawthorn, now keeping close by the grey +willows that overhang the water. It is not a wide stream to cross, +for all the rain. The deer, whose fresh footmarks are printed deep +in the moist earth all along its banks, can easily leap over it. +The squirrels on their airy highway along meeting oak boughs far +above it, have no need to think of it at all. But for the rabbits +there is no way over but through the stream itself. And here, a +few days since, a rabbit, startled from the herbage on the brink, +took to the water without a moment's hesitation; a mere baby of a +rabbit, so small and slight that it was carried along for yards by +the swift current before it could get into shallow water and +struggle up the bank. + +Suddenly two birds rise soaring from the trees, better seen when +they are clear of the valley, and sharply drawn against the sky. +One slow-winged and heavy, one quick and active, and deft in every +movement. A crow and a sparrow-hawk. They are fighting. Sounds of +battle float downwards through the air--the fierce defiance of the +hawk, the hoarse answer of his black antagonist. Round and round +they go, wheeling, sinking, soaring, now the hawk uppermost, and +now the crow. To watch the skilful man[oe]uvres of the hawk, one +might think there was little doubt about the issue. How easily he +sweeps past his lumbering enemy, how he clutches at him with +talons, how he flouts him with his strong wings. Yet the crow, for +all his awkwardness, is armed with no mean weapon. The hawk knows +well the value of that black dagger of a bill. And so they drift +over the rim of the valley to the open moorland, fighting to the +last. + +[Illustration: WHERE RED DEER HIDE.] + + + + +ON EXMOOR: WHERE RED DEER HIDE. + + +High up on the moorland, in a wilderness of dead heather--surely +beyond all power of spring-time to call back to life--with dead +gorse bushes scattered over it, gaunt and spectral, unlighted by +any touch of golden bloom, there stands an ancient grave-mound. It +is the merest flaw in the wide landscape. A roadway passes near +it. But from elsewhere, unless it chanced to cut the sky line, you +might search for it in vain. Looking across the grassy rim of the +hollow space within it, a space like the crater of some spent +volcano, you see nothing but the pale summer sky above you, and, +stretching away on every side, a waste of desolate, far-reaching +undulations, to whose wintry hues the scanty patches of grass and +the tender tone of the late bilberry plants have hardly, even yet, +lent any tinge of green. + +This is the very heart of the wilderness. There is not a house in +sight. There are no fields, no fences, no horses, no red cattle, +not a sheep even; no single moving figure, save of a bird that +flits restlessly among the gorse. This is almost as bleak and bare +a landscape as the haunt of the "Dead Drummer" upon Salisbury +Plain. + +Yet it is a beautiful landscape, still and lonely though it be. +There is no gold of blossomed gorse, no rich Tyrian of early +heather. But there is marvellous wealth of colour even in these +sheets of dead ling, whose varied greys and browns are +strengthened here to deep shades of purple, and there,--by a +carpet of withered brake fern, beaten down by wind and rain, and +with stout young fronds but just beginning to uncurl,--are fairly +kindled into red. At one point a belt of dry sedges gleams like a +grey river. At another a patch of vivid green betrays the +birthplace of some moorland stream. Round the old hawthorns, +dotted here and there over the waste, a green mist is gathering. +But the starved and stunted trees of this high upland country are +slow to answer to the sunshine, and there are hardly leaves enough +yet to hide the shaggy tufts of lichen, silver grey and golden +yellow, that hang so thickly on the boughs. In the thorny depths +of these storm-beaten trees, even carrion crows venture to build +fastnesses, fearing nothing, though with thresholds not six feet +above ground, short of an avenging volley from the keeper's gun. + +As the hours go by you grow conscious, by degrees, of companions +of your solitude. You hear notes of larks and pipits as they flit +here and there among the heather. You catch the faint far call of +a wandering cuckoo. A stone-chat settles near, on a tall, dead +furze bush, and sings over and over his brief roundelay. There are +few dwellers on the heath more smart than he, with his coal-black +head, his neat white collar, and his ruddy breast. This, too, is +the native heath of yonder curlews, wheeling idly across the sky, +sounding now and then that musical, clear call, that is one of the +most characteristic voices of the moorland. + +The black-cock, the true children of the wilderness, are lying +close among the heather. The grey dawn is the time to see them +best, when they come down to drink and bathe at favourite points +along the streams. Towards nightfall, too, you will hear on all +sides, but especially on the fringe of the wooded valleys where +they come to feed, their strange, hoarse crying, which it is hard +to credit is the note of bird at all. In the twilight each old +black-cock will take his stand on some hillock, or even on the +level ground, and spreading wide his splendid tail, drooping his +wings, and sinking his head, like a stag preparing to give battle, +will utter strange, almost weird, sounds, which, as you watch his +odd figure, and fantastic attitudes, you would hardly think were +meant as notes of challenge to his rivals, intended to be full of +defiance and contempt. + +Beyond the white cart-track, that just shows for a moment before +it sinks behind a rising in the heath, runs a deep valley--a great +hollow filled almost to the brim with oaks and beeches and tall +larch trees;--they, at least, are in the full pride of their +magnificent young beauty, with long branches thickly hung with +tufts of fragrant green. It is a valley of streams, that, drawn in +silver threads from every hill-slope near, set all along with +alder and willow, with ferns and rushes, and cool water plants, go +plunging through at last out of the narrow gateway of the glen, to +widen farther down into a broad, smooth flood, that sweeps in +silence among the worn stepping-stones of a village way. + +The valley is full of life; full as the moorland here is bare of +it. In the great bank that skirts the wood badgers have their +holt. Hard by it is a famous "earth," to which every hunted fox +for miles round flees for sanctuary. The woodmen have been busy +here. The ground is strewn with red larch chips, whose sweet, +resinous fragrance hangs heavy on the air. And from the welcome +rest of some new-felled tree, whose shorn plumes lie heaped about +it in well-ordered faggots, you may listen to the pleasant voices +of the doves, and the blithe notes of warblers in the boughs above +you. You may watch the pheasants stalking solemnly among the +underwood, may see the brown squirrels romping on the grass, or +playing follow the leader up and down the smooth-stemmed beech +trees. A charméd spot. A spot such as the poet sang of, who + + "... heard the cushies croon + Through the gowden afternoon, + And the Quhair burn singing on its way down to the Tweed." + +The red deer love this quiet glen. You may see their sharp +footprints along every woodman's path, and by the oozy marge of +every stream. Their hour is not yet. Like the fox and the badger, +they are lovers of the twilight. It is not till evening darkens +that they leave their lairs in the cool depths of the larch copse +or the shadowy heart of the oak plantation, and cross the high +dyke that parts the farm lands from the cover, and sally out to +raid the young corn and the turnips in outlying fields. This is +the Red Deer Country. Empty as the landscape is at noon, there are +times when this wild heath is all alive with moving figures, horse +and hound, and all the bravery of the shouting chase. Many a time +has the hunt swept past this solitary tumulus, the gallant stag +seen for a moment, perhaps, upon the sky line, as + + "With anxious eye he wandered o'er + Mountain and meadow, moss and moor." + +There is no hamlet for miles around but has its legends, old and +new, of a sport that is dear to all the country side. In one of +the moorland churches it is recorded how, some six hundred years +since, a villager slew one of the King's deer; how the culprit was +"not found," and how, in the end, four neighbouring parishes paid +fine to the royal foresters. It is but a mile as the crow flies to +a hamlet, lying deep in a hollow of the hills, where last year, +when the chase went thundering through the quiet street, the stag, +in his despair, sought refuge in the inn, and was pulled down by +the hounds within the doorway of the hostelry. It is the most +picturesque of inns, with its rambling buildings, its thatched +roofs, mossed and lichen stained, its tiny dormer windows, and a +sign that has puzzled many an idler on the village +green;--uncertain whether, as some would have it, the figure in +scarlet is meant for a woman seated on a stile; whether it is a +nabob mounted on an elephant; or whether, as the words that run +above it would suggest, it is a Roundhead trooper drawing rein +under the oak of Boscobel. + +[Illustration: TORR STEPS.] + + + + +TORR STEPS: A MOORLAND RIVER. + + +Down a deep valley in the West Country winds a swift moorland +stream. Mile after mile of sombre, heath-clad solitudes stretch +away on either side of it, broken with gorse and bracken, and with +here and there a few stunted and storm-beaten trees. Well-ordered +farm lands slope down to it. At far intervals it roars under the +ancient bridges of solitary hamlets. Here, in the heart of the +great hills, it runs between wooded slopes, covered with thick +growth of sturdy oak trees--leafless still, but with purple of +fast opening blossoms that, with the rich red brown of dead +leaves and withered fern about their feet, lends to the whole glen +a glow of warmth and colour. + +Here the red deer steal out after sundown over the ruinous wall +and through the untended hedgerow to the broad meadow that for a +space divides the river from the wood. Here in the twilight the +otters play, rolling over and over in the water like great grey +cats. The beautiful moorland sheep that lift their horned heads to +watch the solitary wayfarer, with half-curious, half-supercilious +gaze, seem hardly less the true creatures of the wild than the +grey rabbit that you startle from his noonday dreaming among the +long grass by the hedgerow, or than the brown squirrel, coming +down for a frolic on the soft, green turf. + +Below the wooded slope runs the river, here foaming over great +blocks of stone lying prostrate in its bed, there eddying round a +jutting bar of rock, now loitering in quiet backwaters, where dead +leaves and tufts of grass and all the smaller flotsam of the +stream spin slowly on the tranquil surface. At one point it roars +through a narrow channel between two ponderous stones, which lie +calm and unmoved in all the headlong rush; at another it pauses, +silent, in a deep, dark pool. Now it is broken all across in a +tumultuous cataract, and now again it widens to a broad sheet of +waving glass. At a bend in the river bank--a little hollow worn by +the floods of many winters--three alders overhang. And at their +feet, close to the margin of the stream, sheltered by a screen of +strong young branches growing upward from the base of the trees, +is a pleasant resting-place from which to watch unseen the life +and movement of this bird-haunted hollow--the warblers that throng +the thickets by the shore, the dippers that on swift wings pass +and repass along the watery highway, the graceful wagtails that +with dainty steps run up and down upon the strips of sand. + +Looking down from the edge of the slope at the far end of the +meadow, framed by the broad arms of giant trees, show the +buildings of a farm, that with its wide eaves and crested gables, +its deep-sunk dormer windows, its rows of hives, and its ruinous +sheds, is a picture in itself. Close by it one of the moorland +highways, a narrow country lane, slopes steeply down, crossing the +river by a ford. And by the road, its grey masonry clearly drawn +against the shadowy spires of thick-growing alder trees, is an old +stone bridge--so old that no clue remains, no legend even, to its +history or its builders. Two thousand years, perhaps, has the +river run beneath these ponderous slabs of stone, laid flat across +rude, unmortared piers. + +Beyond the bridge, through a purple mist of branches, show silver +glimpses of the river, then a broad stretch of meadow with dark +pine woods above it, among which the young larch foliage floats in +feathery clouds of green, and above these again, the brown and +desolate moorland. Near the bridge a little party of wanderers +have made their camp. The blue smoke of their fire drifts slowly +this way, with the pleasant scent of burning pine wood, the +pleasanter voices of girls and the shouts of children. It is a +perfect day for camping in the open; with warm air, and blue sky, +and soft white clouds sailing slowly over,--a day of clear shining +after rain. + +The air over the stream is full of insect life, of flies of many +shapes and various hues, of browns, and drakes, and duns, so dear +to the brown river trout; and, in counterfeit presentment at any +rate, almost dearer to the soul of the trout-fisher. And as you +watch the myriad wingèd things that sail along the water, that +settle on the warm stones, or on the alder boughs, or even on your +hand, you will think it small ground for wonder that the thickets +by the stream should be so full of birds. + +One might think that the roar of the river would be enough to +drown all other sounds. But, clear above it rise the notes of tits +and finches and warblers. The breezy chatter of the swallows, the +call of the dipper, the woodwren's hasty little stave of song, the +whistle of the blackbird, the mellow call of the cuckoo, are as +plain as if the great voice of the river were not heard at all. In +the next tree two finches have alighted; their restless movements +and sharp challenge of alarm betraying only too plainly what they +are so anxious to conceal, that their nest is somewhere near. Two +beautiful birds they are; one with the red flush on his breast, +the broad bar of white in either wing, the slate-blue feathers of +his lifted crest. The other, hardly less charming, with all her +colours pitched in soberer key. With anxious and persistent +iteration of their one shrill note of protest, they flit from +branch to branch; and when you rise, and peer into the tangle of +ivy-mantled boughs above you, the birds grow more clamorous still. +There is the nest, its mossy cup woven deftly among the slender +twigs, studded all over with lichen points of silver--as ever, a +miracle of beauty. + +There are many birds preparing for the great event of the year. It +is not for nothing, you may be sure, that that old blackbird has +stayed out at the same corner of the hedge every day for a week +past; there is some good reason for his stealing towards it now +across the wood, a moving shadow, quiet for once. We can read the +signs of the times in the notes of the birds no less than in the +heightened colours of their plumage. It is a love-song pure and +simple that yonder hedge sparrow, poised on a straying spray of +bramble, is singing so softly to himself. The ringing call of an +oxeye overhead never was more clear, and blithe, and musical. But +the soft notes of a flock of long-tailed tits, not yet disbanded, +have a still softer tone to-day. Their light-hearted gossip seems +subdued and low, as if they knew the days were near when every +woodlander will go about his work with all the stealth he may. +There is a gold-crest rummaging among the ivy that clings about an +old elm hard by, almost within arm's length, so near that the +touch of vivid yellow on his crown gleams like very gold. + +Smoke is still rising from the white ashes of the fire, but it is +proof enough that the little group has moved away, and that no one +is visible from the highway of the river, when a kingfisher +flashes across the bridge, straight up the stream, a swift gleam +of azure through the sunlit air. As you follow its flight to the +bend where the river vanishes behind its fringing alders, you are +aware of a moving point of light on one of the great boulders far +out from shore. Then the shape of a dipper shows clearly on the +top of the stone. A moment later it dives straight down into the +water, reappearing some yards nearer this way, pausing on another +great block of sandstone, to bow and curtsey, uttering now and +then a loud, clear note, its white gorget glowing like a star, +whiter even than the very foam of the river. Now it swims lightly +across a smooth backwater. Now it works its way sidelong across a +rapid rush of the current, stooping now and then to pick some +dainty morsel from among the stones, and all the while moving +slowly with the stream, until at last it stands on a stone in +mid-channel, not thirty yards away--a graceful, charming, dainty +little figure, the very naiad of the mountain stream. + +But alas, there is another spectator of its movements. Across the +meadow sails a dark, hawk-like figure, swift and silent, +disappearing in the oak wood on the farther shore. In a moment +every voice is hushed. Not a bird calls. Not even a wren dares to +utter an alarm. There is a sudden rush of wings. A merlin dashes +from the thicket by the shore, catches up the dipper in its cruel +claws, and, alighting on a great flat stone, in the middle of the +river, it buries its merciless bill again and again in the white +breast of its struggling captive. What a picture! The sunlight is +full on the blue back of the beautiful little falcon, as it leans +forward a little, half hiding its prey under its drooping wings. +Giving a swift glance to right and left--the sparkle of its keen +eyes plain to see--it tears out a little cloud of feathers that +flutter lightly down, and sail away upon the stream. Again the +merlin looks up. Something has startled him. He gives one glance +this way. He catches sight of a figure under the alder trees. Like +a flash he is gone. The dead dipper falls into the water, sailing +down the river, in which but a few minutes since it was playing, +full of life and happiness, the white feathers from its +blood-stained gorget floating away from it at every swirl of the +current; a sorrowful little heap of ruffled plumage, whirling with +the whirling stream. + +[Illustration: AN EXMOOR SKETCH.] + + + + +WINSFORD: VOICES THREE. + + +On the slopes of a great hollow in the heart of Exmoor, a hot sun +beats fiercely down. True that it is an April sky whose clouds and +sunshine weave their changing web of lights and shadows over the +landscape. True that the landscape, even yet, wears but little of +the guise of springtime. But to-day no touch of east is in the +air, and the smoke columns, rising slowly from the chimneys of the +village, and showing so blue against the oak plantation on a +distant shoulder of the moorland, are drifting slowly from the +southward. From this upland country, over which the snow lay deep +for two whole months, the grip of winter has been slow to loosen. +But the trees and hedgerows are answering at last to the magical +influence of the sunshine, and "the useful trouble of the rain." +The grass of these rich meadow lands--for months past all burnt +and brown, as if after a long, rainless summer--wears now its very +loveliest hue. There is a fringe of pale blue violets along the +edge of every woodland path. Stars of celandine are scattered over +every field, and among the tangle of the withered hedge-row +grasses. Marsh marigolds are gleaming in the wet earth about the +roots of the alders by the river. Even at this distance, the great +clumps of primroses show like points of light on the slope of the +orchard by the vicarage. Surely never were there such beautiful +masses of wood-sorrel as, with their vivid leaves and dainty, +purple-veined flowers, brighten now the banks of every deep-worn +lane. + +The tall chestnut by the church, but yesterday just dusted over +with fine points of gold, is now a very cloud of fresh young +foliage. Each day strengthens the green hue of the larches +crowning the bold spur beyond the village. Each day deepens the +warm purple of fast-opening blossoms round the heads of the tall +elms of the village, and the great oaks of this warm slope. Noble +trees they are, these hoary patriarchs that the woodman's axe has +spared. Their mighty branches, gnarled and twisted and +storm-beaten, towering far up against the pale blue heaven, are +shaggy with ages' growth of lichens. Moss grows thick over the +furrowed rind, not of their broad stems alone, but almost of their +topmost branches. In the crannies of the bark, fringed with +grey-green tongues of fern, woodbine and briar and slim +mountain-ash have found anchorage. Over their old arms the +nuthatches wander up and down, calling to each other with that +loud musical trill so characteristic of the springtime. + +On every side, among the broad stumps of vanished forest monarchs, +long dethroned, are springing the sturdy forms of another +generation, young pines and oaks and beeches, that are doing their +best to fill the places of the fallen, and although the giant +sycamore that overhangs the path is still all bare and leafless, +everywhere in the grass beneath its shadow, its children, tiny +double blades of tender green, are springing, thousands strong. + +It is a scene of marvellous beauty upon which the eye looks down +from the welcome rest of this fallen tree beside the woodland +path. Below, at the foot of the slope, the border line between the +wild life of the covert and the order of the well-kept farm lands, +runs a swift moorland stream, whose broad band of silver is broken +again and again by the rude stone bridges of the village streets. +Every reach of the river seems to have its several sound, that, + + "Low at times, and loud at times + And changing like a poet's rhymes," + +seems, with the rush of the wind among the rocking tops, and with +the songs and call-notes of a hundred birds, to fill the hollow. +In the pauses of the roar of the white lasher by the mill, a roar +that sinks and swells with every flaw that blows, the ear may +catch now the sound of the swift current brawling over its brown +pebbles, now the swirl of water round a bar of shingle, now the +chafing of the stream among the alder roots, and now the soft +sound of ripples on a sandy shallow. Round the broad green knoll +that rises from the river, filling all the centre of the valley, +and almost islanded by wandering streams, cluster the houses of +the hamlet, whose white walls and brown and moss-grown roofs of +thatch, whose pointed gables and quaint deep-sunk dormer windows +show plainly now among sheltering elms, that in the summer-time +will hide them in a very bower of green. + +High over the roofs of the village, high even above the topmost +trees, rises the grey tower of the church. Round its turrets a +troop of daws are fluttering. Is it only fancy, or is there really +a note of protest and impatience in their snatches of clear-cut +speech? For weeks past these bold frequenters of the church have +been piling sticks upon the turret stair, by way of foundation for +their great untidy nests. They had strewn a cartload of rubbish +over the floor of the belfry, when the sexton arose in his wrath +and blocked up all the tower windows and the loophole lights of +the stairway, so that the daws were compelled to change their +quarters to the roofs of the village. But they still linger round +their ancestral homestead, and one pair, determined not to quit +altogether the sacred precincts that have sheltered them and +theirs for generations, have established themselves in a niche +behind the iron pipe of the stove. It is a hole that might just +contain the nest, but the birds have thought it necessary to fill +up with sticks a yard or more of the space between the chimney and +the tower wall, as if by way of outworks to their fortress. + +A flood of sunshine is falling at this moment on the ancient +tower, on the brown thatch of the old houses, on the purple +lacework of the budding elms, until the whole beautiful picture +stands clear-drawn against the soft background of the far +hillside, still all in shadow. The sunlight glitters on the slate +roofs of houses lower down, and flashes on the winding river until +every reach of it is a sheet of burnished silver. Now it brightens +yet more the vivid green of the meadows, now it touches the red +slopes of distant corn-lands, and now it seems to linger on a far +shoulder of the moor, whose brown heath and dead grey gorse +bushes, and ancient thorn trees straggling up the hill, are +transfigured to a very vision of glory by the dreamy, sunlit haze. + +Dream-like, too, is the quiet that broods over this peaceful +valley--a quiet even deepened by those Voices Three, of the wind, +and the birds, and the river. No sound of toil or traffic rises +from the village, save the clink of iron in the smithy, the thud +of a woodman's axe among the young alders by the water, or, still +more rarely, the lumbering of a cart along one of the deep lanes +that slope upward to the moor, or that wander with the winding +streams. The wind that sways the oak boughs overhead has a stormy +sound. But this sheltered corner under the hill, with its screen +of thick-growing fir and holly, is full of the warm south, of soft +and gentle airs, scented with the sweet resinous fragrance of the +pines. + +And all the while, louder than the rush of the wind, clearer far +than the sound of the river, there float from tree to tree the +happy voices of the woodland singers. Everywhere among the +leafless boughs the chiff-chaffs are calling. Here and there along +the slope a tree pipit, rising high above his station upon some +yet wintry branch, sinks slowly downward through the sunny air, +singing as he sinks, till he alights again upon his windy perch. +Loud above all other sounds there strikes in now and then the +whistle of a blackbird, wild and clear, and at times the yet +sweeter carol of the blackcap. Rooks call hoarsely to each other +as they pass, on the way to their great settlement far down the +river. At times the white pigeons of the vicarage, hovering a +moment in mid-air, descend like a shower of snowflakes on their +dovecot. From the shelter of the old Scotch firs at the far end of +the wood, where the trees have long been left untouched, come now +and then the deep notes of carrion crows, low-toned, sullen, +unmirthful. They are ill neighbours for all the weaker children of +the wood. Later on in the season, the edge of the Punch Bowl, that +great hollow beyond the oak coppice, whose rim just shows against +the sky line, the hollow where the red deer are so fond of lying, +will be strewn with broken eggs of black game and pheasant, the +spoil of raids in the heather and the covert. And here, too, +scattered under the trees, are broken ringdoves' eggs, bearing +plainly the marks of those black-coated, merciless marauders. From +that corner too, out of the jungle of broom, and hazel, and +wild-briar, comes at intervals the crow of a pheasant--a strident +and far-reaching cry, different altogether from all other woodland +voices. And in every tree along the slope willow warblers are +crooning, over and over, their dainty snatches of sweet, low-toned +song. It is a sleepy tune; a leisurely cadence of soft sounds, +suggestive of sunshine and the summer, of + + "Music, that gentlier on the spirit lies, + Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes." + +[Illustration: A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA.] + + + + +BREAN DOWN: FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. + + +It is a cold, grey world that lies waiting for the dawn--a misty +sky, in which one pale planet glimmers; a hazy sea, whose fretted +levels shine faintly in the moonlight; shadowy hills, along whose +winding line, here darkened with clustering woodlands, and there +whitened by still slumbering hamlets, a grey mist hangs. It hangs, +too, like a vast canopy, over the wide plain, whose sunburnt +meadows seem to melt away into an infinite distance; and along +the wandering river whose brown flood loiters idly to the sea. + +A silent world, for the most part. Even the voice of the river, +that but now was chafing loud against the shingle bar piled high +along the shore, is failing in the swift inrush of the tide. It is +a slow moving and taciturn stream that, as it wound along the +level fringes of the hills, long since forgot the sunshine and the +laughter and the crystal clearness of its youth, when, under banks +that were hung with fern and meadow-sweet, it sang over the brown +pebbles of its bed, round + + "... Many a fairy foreland, set + With willow-weed and mallow." + +But the tide, that is hushing the hoarse song of the river, swells +louder every moment the troubled roar of the sea, whose grey waves +are plunging in over the rattling shingle and the shining sand. + +And as the light of dawning strengthens over the low grey hills to +the eastward, other sounds break in upon the stillness. Far off +across the moor a curlew calls. A heron who all night long, it may +be, has been keeping his lone vigil in the marshes, and who is now +flying leisurely home-ward to the hills, lets fall a muttered +croak in passing--midnight revellers both. But the white gulls +that rise and fall and toy like butterflies above the broadening +stream calling to each other with discordant voices, are children +of the sunshine. + +Of the sunshine, too, is the music of a lark, who, high up in the +grey mist, brooding like a fate over the brown and thirsty +meadows, seems to hover at the very gates of dawn. Yet there is a +sound of the sea even on his silvery tongue. Among the sweet notes +of his familiar "babble of green fields," he brings in at times +the cry of the curlew and the whistle of the plover. + +A breath of the sea there is, too, in the chatter of the starling +on the roof above. The croak of the heron and the call of the +whimbrel are common speech with him. And now he even imitates the +creak of the cordage on the coasting smack swinging in the stream +yonder, where two men are busy setting the old brown sails. + +From the cliffs that break the round swell of the hill a line of +daws are streaming, eager, clamorous, on the wing for their +hunting ground upon the moor. One troop has wheeled aside to +alight among the boughs of a cherry-tree in a little walled-in +space of garden at some distance from the house. The farmer, who +has just appeared, with his milking-pail upon his shoulder, and +who looks up to nod a friendly greeting, pauses a moment in the +doorway to watch the marauders at their work, while the old +sheep-dog waits wondering at his side. + +Suddenly, far out on the moor, beyond the cattle that stand +motionless, expectant, all looking this way, a tall figure looms +out of the mist, and across the fields comes a strange cry: + + "Leave your meadow grasses mellow, + Mellow, mellow; + Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow." + +The old dog hears, and bounds forward to his work. But the sleek +and sober herd, never turning their heads to look behind them, +move slowly, as by common impulse, converging fanwise to the gate. +Men in white smocks, and with shining pails upon their backs, are +striding through the meadows towards the farm. And all the while +the milking call sounds at intervals across the fields:-- + + "Quit your pipes of parsley hollow, + Hollow, hollow; + Come uppe Lightfoot, rise and follow; + Lightfoot, Whitefoot, + From your clovers lift the head." + +But along the side of the green headland that, beyond the old +farm-buildings stretches a mile or more into the sea, silence +still reigns, save for the sound of the waves, for the plaintive +cry of a curlew or the clamour of a troop of gulls. + +When a gleam of sunshine breaks the grey veil of cloud, changing +the sombre hues of the mud flats to warm tones of brown and +purple, turning to gold the broad beach and the ragged sand-hills, +birds, unseen before, start swiftly into view. Here a tall curlew +stalks solemnly along, erect and watchful. There an inky crow is +picking dainty morsels from the ooze. And here a party of trim +black-headed gulls have collected round some treasure trove left +by the last tide. A troop of sandpipers sweeps along, now flashing +in a hundred points of silver in the sunlight; now, as they wheel, +all lost again in the brown hues of their haunts. As far as the +eye can reach are scattered gulls, shieldrakes, oyster-catchers, +rock-doves even, foraging by the edge of the water, falling back +before the rising tide. + +But sounds of life are faint, even now. Among the boulders pipits +flit at times with feeble cries. And a brood of young kestrels +lately fledged, sail and soar along the cliff farther on, and +scream as if in defiance of the wind, against which their keen +wings are beating. The rocky brows that overhang the shore are +thick with grasses and sweet bedstraw, with flags and mullein, and +tall evening primrose. In the crannies campion and sea-pink are +rooted. Here a yellow poppy trembles in the wind, and there a +great cluster of samphire fills a rocky cleft. There are tufts of +it quite low down, but it is a plant that always grows above +high-water mark, and many a shipwrecked sailor, thrown ashore +among the rocks, has taken heart again when, in the darkness, his +despairing grasp has tightened on those strangely smelling leaves. +It is St. Peter's plant--Saint Pierre, sampier, samphire. + +Now the shrill screaming of the kestrels rises louder still, the +fierce cry of the old birds mingling with the plaintive clamour of +their brood. Now one of them, sweeping round the headland, poises +a moment in the air, his wings motionless, his tail spread wide, +his figure dark upon the western sky. Slowly stooping, he alights +on the crown of a rocky pinnacle, a crag that stands out from the +cliff like the tower of some old stronghold; and, with feet spread +wide, clutching with his strong claws the rifted rock, his head +lowered to the wind, stands a splendid figure, as still as if he +were the living rock. Many a keen-eyed falcon has looked out over +the sea from that high watch tower, round whose base wander grey +arms of ivy, gnarled and wrinkled, centuries old. + +Nor do hawks alone find sanctuary here. So quiet is this lonely +shore, so complete its solitude, that among these cliffs even the +raven and the peregrine are safe. + +In the shelter of a long line of sand-hills that centuries have +heaped over the old sea-wall, there stands a solitary cottage. Its +brown eaves just peer over the dyke of sand. No window looks to +seaward through its massy wall. It is close above high-water mark. +Often, on wild nights of winter, + + "The startled waves leap over it; the storm + Smites it with all the scourges of the rain, + And steadily against its solid form + Press the great shoulders of the hurricane." + +Close by it runs a belt of shingle, and, beyond, there stretches +away to the brown sea a wide sweep of sand, on whose wet surface +the heron and the curlew leave their traces, where whole armies of +sandpipers weave a maze of tiny footprints. To them this barren +shore is a land of plenty. This open beach is to them the very +safest of sanctuaries. No wildfowler can get within range of them +unobserved. Their only foes are the herring-gull--the pirate of +the sea--or the keen-eyed falcon that has his hold in yonder +cliff. + +Except at times of very high tides--even then only when +accompanied by stormy weather--the sea never quite reaches to the +sand-hills; but in summer especially, a mirage is occasionally +seen on this wide beach,--a phantom sea, in whose smooth surface +are reflected the jagged line of sand-hills, the church of the +distant village, and the few houses scattered at far intervals +along the coast. + +It is a fruitful plain, whose level meadows stretch away from the +old farm, fading only on the far horizon. So low it lies that, +were it not for yonder mounds of sand, whose jagged fringes line +the coast for miles, the high October tides would often, when a +strong wind is blowing, find their way among the hamlets far +inland. Many a time has the old wall given way; never, perhaps, +with quite such dire results as in the great flood of 1607, when +the salt water was twelve feet deep in villages five miles from +the sea. Thirty hamlets were overwhelmed. Scores of unhappy +villagers perished. So swift was the rush of the water that there +was no chance of escape, and for many--in the words of a +black-letter chap-book of the time, "their last refuge was +patiently to die. Cattle were drowned in droves. Rabbits being +driven out of their burroughes by the tyde, were seene to sit for +safety on the backs of sheepe, as they swom up and downe, and at +last were drowned with them.... Deade bodies floate hourely above +water, and are continually taken uppe. It cannot yet be knowne +howe manye have fell in this Tempest of God's fearful judgement." + +Life here was not always quiet. The green slopes of the hill above +are scarred all along with old earthworks, so defaced by plough +and spade, so trampled down by men and cattle, so worn by the +storms of untold centuries, that the eye can hardly trace their +outlines in the smooth short sward. Not even a tradition survives +of the lost inhabitants whose rude pottery and flint arrow-heads +the rabbits bring up among the red earth of their burrows. +Compared with this old hill fortress, the earthworks round the +tower of the church yonder, the square lines of a Roman camp, the +last fort on the well-guarded road down which was brought metal +from the mines among the hills, are works of yesterday. + +Again and again this coast was wasted by the Danes, who plundered +not the hamlets by the shore alone, but villages twenty miles from +the sea. Victory was not always with the invaders. Athelney is not +far distant. Ethandune was on that low line of hills to the +southward. And in the very year of that crowning victory, a few +miles farther down, "the brother of Hingwar and Halfdene came with +twenty-three ships ... and he was there slain, and with him eight +hundred and forty of his army, and there was taken the war-flag +which they called the Raven." By the river that loiters seaward +under the blue hills across the bay, whose broad mouth shines like +silver in the sun, still stands the green mound of Hubbalowe, +which the vikings piled over the ashes of the dead sea-rover. On +every hill-top in the West Country + + "The brake and the tufted grass are high + On the low mounds where warriors lie." + +Each point of vantage on the hills has its time-worn lines of old +entrenchments. There is hardly a lofty crest but has had its +cluster of green grave mounds. But of the builders there remains +little but the shapes of their ruined strongholds, their rude +pottery, and still ruder weapons, from which to build up our dim +conjectures of what manner of men they were who held these hill +tops against the arms of Claudius and Vespasian. Even of the +legionaries who forced their way thus far into the West, our +knowledge has been gained by fragments. It is by accident that we +have obtained our most vivid glimpses of their arts, their arms, +their way of life. Massive ingots of lead have from time to time +been found in the fields or along the line of one or other of the +old military roads, whose stamps showed clearly how soon, after +the landing of Claudius, the conquerors took possession of the +mining country. + +Again, when the plough struck on a stone coffin in a field remote +from any sign of human occupation; and when further search +revealed the ruins of a Roman villa, with beautiful pavements +still undisturbed, it was possible to guess, from the lettering of +the coins which were strewn among broken amphoræ and scraps of +Samian, the very year in which the house was last inhabited. Many +a hoard of silver pieces has been found among these hills, buried +doubtless in some "dark hour of doubt and dread," to wait for +better times that never came. Many a time the labourer's spade has +clashed on a rusted spear-head, a broken urn, a handful of +denarii. At times even on + + "A tarnished ring, whose fiery gems, + Still on its circle set, + From the far sands of Indus brought, + Gleam through their setting, rudely wrought, + As if the sky, their hues had caught, + Flamed in their glory yet." + +Relics like these--a flint arrowhead, a fragment of pottery, a +handful of denarii, a camp, a tumulus--eke out the scanty records +of the time, the pages of Asser, the meagre outlines of the Saxon +chronicle. + +Hardly a point in all the landscape but is linked with some +stirring memory. It was on the little island lying off the point +here that Githa found refuge after Hastings. Two years later all +this shore was ravaged by the sons of Harold; and in the Domesday +record, made eighteen years afterwards, we still can trace their +handiwork in the lessened values of villages they had plundered. +Over and over again after the brief sketch of a hamlet, its list +of boors and villeins, its corn and grass land, its mill, its +fishpond--perhaps even its patch of vineyard--follow such words +as these: "it was worth 100s., now only 60"; or "it was worth four +pounds, now only 40 shillings." + +In the Armada days--for half a century, indeed, before the sailing +of "that great fleet invincible"--there stood, on the high ground +across the river, according to a quaint map of the period, "The +Coste of England uppon Seuerne," a tower, in which a gun was +mounted, as a defence against invasion. Not a stone remains of the +tower which in King Harry's time guarded the little port. But all +this coast was armed and ready, years before the sailing of the +Armada, watching for the red glow on Dawnsboro' that should call +up the bold yeomen of the moors to face the "Inquisition dogs, and +the devildoms of Spain." + +"The trewthe is," wrote the Muster-Master, in his report to the +Government--"after having vewed and trayned the nombers bothe of +foote and horse twyce since my coming into this countie--the +trewthe is, it is a most gallaunte contrey for the men, armor, and +rediness." The authorities were constantly furnished with +"Certyffycathes," showing the numbers of duly qualified pikemen +and archers. Again and again were the justices urged to keep +everything in readiness, since "the wings of man's life are plumed +with the feathers of death"; and to train their men to meet any +emergency, because "great dilatory wants are found upon all sudden +hurly-burlies." Early Orders in Council declared that any +able-bodied man between seventeen and fifty-nine who should be +found to "lacke a bowe and fower arrowes" was to be fined. + +Later, in Elizabeth's reign, more attention was paid to the use of +firearms, and most minute instructions were issued from +headquarters as to the training of marksmen. The musket was to be +fired at first with priming only, then with half a charge, and +finally, when the men were ready for it, the full amount of powder +was to be used. This was with an eye to the right training of men +who, "by reason of the churlishness of their pieces, and not being +made acquainted therewith by degrees, are ever after so +discouraged as either they wincke or pull their heades from the +piece, whereby they take no perfect level, but shoot at random, +and so never prove good shottes." + +Among the seaweed on the bank of shingle by the cottage all kinds +of strange things are found--palm wood, long bamboos, seeds from +the West Indies, sabots, children's toys. Once even a clock was +washed up on the beach. A few months since the sands were strewn +with parts of carriages from the wreck of a vessel that was +carrying railway plant to South America. As you stand in the +little garden, whose broad edges are none too good protection for +it against the wind, you will notice that everything about the +place has a touch of this sombre local colouring. Every piece of +woodwork is part of a wreck. There is not a hinge or a bolt, +hardly a nail even that did not come out of some ship's fittings. +The posts on which the garden gate is hung are pieces of a mast. +The gate itself is made of planks that have been picked up on the +sand. Mahogany panels from the saloon of some steamship have been +worked into the walling of the garden shed. No coal is ever needed +here. A little peat is all that is wanted. The sea brings an +endless store of firewood almost to the door. + +Too often, alas! the ebbing tide leaves yet sadder jetsam on the +shore--white, still figures, lying face down on the yellow sand; +to be lifted reverently, perhaps, but yet by stranger hands, and +committed with brief rites to the corner of the ancient +burial-ground on the headland yonder, where "the little grey +church on the windy hill" stands among the green graves of +centuries, roofless, dismantled, and forlorn. + +[Illustration: MOORLAND NEAR THE SEA.] + + + + +THE COUNTRY LIFE. + + +The man who can look back over thirty years of rural life, of life +spent among woods and meadows, has doubtless learnt something at +least of the ways of the wild creatures of his district, of its +beasts and birds, of its reptiles, and fish, and insects, even of +forms of life still lower in the scale. In the works of Nature, +her lovers find a never-failing charm. There is no book like hers, +as we read it in green field and country lane, in copse, and +stream, and hedge-row. There is no voice like hers, as we hear it +in the sounds of the wood, in the sounds of the sea, in the sounds +of the night. No poet ever breathed such songs. No writer of +romance has ever woven such tales of mystery and wonder. + +There are few of us probably who, looking back on the country life +of our early days, would not be ready to admit that among its +pursuits and pleasures, many and various as they were, the art and +craft of birds'-nesting stood supreme. It is a pursuit that has a +charm peculiarly its own. It may be that, in the days of our +youth, the love of having and holding was one chief motive; a love +that some of us have not shaken off yet, though perhaps, it is +lavished on more useful things. Even the lust of plunder and +destruction may have had its weight with us, as we feel sure it +has with the village children. Not every nest-robber, it is true, +is really a lover of Nature. But the birds'-nester who is a +naturalist born soon wakens, not only to the beauty, but to the +significance, of his fragile treasures. + +Perhaps few young collectors pay much conscious attention to the +construction of the nest, or notice how skilfully its materials +are made to harmonise with its surroundings, or see how +wonderfully some eggs are protected by their colouring. But his +would be a dull soul on whom these things did not, sooner or +later, make some impression. There are some birds'-nesters who are +no longer young--no longer able to climb a tree or ford a river, +to whom, year after year, the season of nests brings new delight; +to whom the exquisite workmanship of the chaffinch seems each year +more wonderful than ever, and in whose eyes the blue of a +song-thrush's egg will never lose its charm. + +These two nightjars' eggs, for example, are exquisitely beautiful, +with their soft shades of brown and grey, veined like some rare +marble. But as you look at them you think less of their beauty +than of the moment when, in the corner of the old orchard, the +bird got up, almost under your feet, and you watched it sail away +to one of the fir-trees in the hedge-row, and crouch down on a low +branch to watch your movements. Then, looking down, you saw, on +the bare earth, these eggs, so near that another step would have +crushed them. This is only a magpie's egg, but the date on it +reminds you of that stiff climb up the giant fir-tree in the +coppice, when for want of a box to carry them in, you had to bring +your spoil down in your cap held between your teeth; while the +farmer below shouted encouragingly: "Bring 'em all, sir; doän't +'ee leave none on 'em. I doän't want none o' they varmint on my +ground." + +Here is a kestrel's egg on which there is a date written, and a +name--the name of a once-familiar hill-top. As you look, the +scene of long ago comes back. It was an early morning in May. The +dew lay heavy on the bracken, whose stout young fronds joined +hands across the path. And as you paused on the hill slope and +looked back, you saw how all the upland pastures, and the broad +meadow lands below, were glistening in the light of the just risen +sun. Through the grey haze that veiled the distance showed, +faintly and more faint, range after range of low blue hills, with +white hamlets glimmering here and there. The light of sunrise had +just caught the windows of the old manor house on the slope, some +mile away, and they flashed and flamed like fire. The grey cliffs +above you had the flush of dawn upon their storm-worn steeps, and +the light air tossed the leaves of the wayfaring trees rooted in +the crannies, till they glittered like blades of silver. Among the +elms about the farmstead, on the knoll below, sounded the uneasy +chatter of a magpie. A crow was flying leisurely up to his +fastness in the clump of old Scotch firs on the low hill-top. From +a belt of coppice further down there rose at intervals, above the +low sweet notes of the warblers, the clear call of a cuckoo. +Overhead a woodlark drifted in vast circles, singing as he flew. + +When at length you gained the hill crest, you heard the challenge +of a black-cock. Over the wide pasture the lapwings were calling. +Now they wheeled across the pale blue heaven, now they swooped +swiftly almost to the ground, turning over and over in the air. +Now one flew by, so near that you saw clearly the long plume upon +his glossy head, and heard the musical throb of his strong wings +sounding loud in the quiet morning air. + +As you paused on the short turf close to the brow of the cliff, +and looking down once more, saw your shadow falling on the young +corn of the ploughed land far below, a hawk dashed out from the +cliff below you, and then, staying its swift course, hovered a +moment in mid air, while the sunshine lighted up its rich brown +plumage. As you peered over the brink of the cliff there were no +signs of a nest. But a tall sapling rooted in a ledge some ten +feet below looked safe to hold by. Cautiously you slid over the +edge, and dropped within reach of the branches, and so, from ledge +to ledge, you climbed slowly down, holding on by points of rock or +tufts of grass, or stems of ivy, until--yes, there, at your feet, +in an arched crevice of the cliff, on a little earth, with no sort +of nest, lay the four exquisite eggs, whose radiant beauty--so +much richer five-and-twenty years since--seemed to your enraptured +gaze to light up the little hollow. As you stooped to take one of +them in your hand--how warm it was--and clung there, gloating over +the beauty of your treasure, the old hawk hovered near, sounding +at times her wild cry of anger and alarm, answered far off by her +fierce mate, hurrying homeward on his swift, keen wings. + +It is not given to all alike to be able to appreciate the true +pleasure of a country walk. It is a thing that many of us prize, +and that even more of us long for. And yet there are some people, +really fond of walking, to whom it seems to make little difference +whether their road goes evenly along the Queen's highway, and is +hemmed in by straight stone walls, or loiters through winding +by-ways, under banks crowned with straggling hedge-rows, overhung +with sheltering elms. There are those who take their weekly tramp, +and who say they like it best so, on Sunday, through the +monotonous dreariness of London streets. To them a country walk, +with its possible mud, and with its certain solitude and tameness, +is, at least in fancy, flat and stale and altogether profitless. + +It is largely a matter of training. We may learn to love bricks +and mortar and the traffic of the town more than the quiet of +woods and meadows, and the companionship of the everlasting hills. +But there are others who cannot breathe amid the stir and noise +and money-grubbing fever of the city; to whom the air of the open +country is the Elixir of Life; who love its restful quietude, and +who, at each turn along the favourite path, look for some old +friend, some familiar bird, or flower, or insect. + +With those who are really fond of rural life, other things have +weight besides the mere landscape, besides the beauty of the view +or the exhilaration of the keen air of the hill-tops. The charm of +woodland walk, of river path, of quiet lanes, or of lonely places +in the hills, is increased a hundredfold by some knowledge of +rural sights and sounds. A power to recognise the songs of birds, +some acquaintance with insect life, a little plant lore, a little +knowledge of rocks and fossils--in a word, some tincture of +Natural History--combine to make a ramble in the country one of +the best things that life can offer us. + +This love of Nature is again largely a matter of training. +Schoolboys, as a race, are strangely slow at first to see plants, +or shells, or fossils. But the young birds'-nester, for instance, +whose first motive was, it may be, nothing nobler than the lust of +having and holding, the love of plunder, or even the savage +pleasure of destruction, may soon be trained to see the meaning of +the shape and tints and markings of the eggs; not only to +appreciate the beauty of the nest and the skill with which it was +put together, but to learn in time the song of the builder and to +know something of its habits. The butterfly hunter may be taught +to recognise not merely the beauty of his captives, but to see +something of those marvellous devices by which Nature hides +caterpillar and chrysalis, and even perfect insect, from prying +eyes. + +The boy who has acquired a love for Natural History has something +to be thankful for, all the days of his life, a possession that +may be the means of bringing more comfort to his soul than all the +wisdom of the ancients. Of no man can it be so truly said as of +the naturalist that he + + "Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, + Sermons in stones, and good in everything." + +It is true enough that, to most men, a knowledge of flowers or +fossils, of insect life or of the habits of birds, will bring no +return in hard cash. But there are other things in life besides a +balance at the banker's. And a love of art is not more lucrative, +or a taste for music or for books. + +There are people who, if they would, might do much to aid the +study of Natural History; people whose avocations take them much +into the open air, and who have opportunities which some of us +long for in vain. The fisherman, the keeper, the shepherd, and the +farm labourer might, if they could be won over to take interest in +such things, contribute not a little to our knowledge of the life +history of even the most familiar of animals. Fishermen along the +coast see things sometimes the description of which rouses envy in +the breasts of less fortunate listeners. Not long since a man was +rowing out to his nets in the early morning just outside the bar +of a small tidal river in the West Country, when he saw a raven +sweeping slowly along the hill-slope near by--the grassy side of a +long promontory stretching far out into the sea, muttering to +itself at times with that deep voice that, happily, is still +familiar to the long-shore dwellers on that coast. Suddenly the +bird paused, and with swift descent swooped down among the brown +heather and the stunted bushes of the hill, seizing in its strong +claws a hare that had been lying crouched among the herbage. But +the bird was too late in using its beak or else missed its stroke +altogether, for in a moment the hare and the raven, locked fast +together, rolled over and over, kicking, struggling, flapping down +the rough slope below; until the bird, dismayed by such an +unwonted experience and the buffeting of the rocks and broken +ground, let go its hold. The hare was on its feet and had vanished +like a flash, while the baffled raven, rising slowly in the air, +sailed reluctantly away. + +The naturalist is not now, even in country districts, looked upon +quite in the same light as he once was--but one degree removed +from the state of lunatic. The old order of things, the prejudice, +the bigotry, the superstition of half a century ago has to a great +degree disappeared. There are many English parishes still without +a railway; there is none probably without a newspaper. The +presence of a single naturalist, parson or village doctor, or what +not, has been known, like the little leaven that leaveneth the +whole lump, to rouse a real interest among the neighbours in birds +and beasts and even insects. A man's reputation for being fond of +strange creatures may perhaps be laughed at, at first, and +perhaps be always a little looked down on. But by degrees, very +slow it may be, the influence spreads. The keeper brings him a +strange bird, the labourer a nest of dormice found in stubbing up +a hedge-row, or a clutch of quails' eggs he has come upon among +the clover. The old mole catcher, too, is a very mine of stories +about the strange beasts he has seen in his sixty years' +experience. One of his most wonderful tales is about the great +snake--"more 'n _that_ long,"--a matter of five feet or so,--which +he killed as it was sucking the milk of a cow: "and" as he will +add triumphantly, "there were more 'n a pint of milk in him":--the +crushed eggs of the unfortunate reptile no doubt, but it is +altogether useless to suggest any such paltry explanation. + +One autumn a boy at work among the potatoes turned up with his +spade something that instantly, so he declared, became a bird and +flew away. The boy ran home in horror. His parents would not +believe a word of the story, but the boy was too big to be flogged +as a mere liar. They were greatly relieved on learning that +something of the kind was at least possible, and regarded with no +little interest a Death's Head hawkmoth, for such no doubt the +apparition was, preserved in a collection. + +[Illustration: A WEST COUNTRY MOLE CATCHER.] + +The change from egg to caterpillar is a thing with which every +rustic is probably familiar; but in remote rural districts there +are still men who cannot believe that a caterpillar can ever +become a butterfly, and who still entertain strange superstitions +about toads and snakes and slow worms. + +Perhaps in time the County Councils may do something for the +rustic enlightenment, by means of lectures and the limelight. The +rural population is, however, notoriously hard of belief; is the +most difficult of all populations to move from the faiths of their +fathers. There is many a farmer's wife even yet who will labour +with the churn from morning till night,--lamenting all the while +that the butter will not come,--rather than by the use of a +thermometer so regulate the temperature that the whole process +would be over in half-an-hour. A series of lectures lately given +in Somersetshire on the management of farm stock was, however, +well attended by the younger farmers at any rate. They were keenly +interested, and although they may, perhaps, have mostly adjourned +afterwards to discuss each discourse at the public-house, it was +not as sceptics; and the local ironmonger always found it +necessary to lay in a stock of thermometers as soon as the +lectures had begun. The older men mostly kept aloof. They had no +faith in any new-fangled ways. They are a stiff-necked generation. +As their fathers did, so do they. One burly, red-faced farmer of +the old school was lately heard to express his contempt for the +educational efforts of the County Council. "What be the use," said +he, "of wasting the public money sending round men to talk about a +dairy as don't know a cow from a elephant? And these yar cook'ry +classes. 'Tis my belief that if a man have got summat to cook, +he'll soon find out how to cook un." + +With a few popular lectures and a little practical help and +guidance the farmer and the farm labourer might render untold +service to science, with all their long hours in the open air, +summer and winter, seedtime and harvest. They see some strange +things now, or think they see them. Snakes are the theme of many +marvellous tales. "I were walking along the path through the +wheat," said an old villager, "when I heard a rustling, like a +robbut: I thought 'twere a robbut. But a gurt viper come out of +the wheat and jumped across the path so high's my head." + +A captive tortoise escaped one day into the road, and was soon the +centre of a knot of astonished villagers. After long debate they +concluded it was either "a tremendous gurt tooad, or some +wendimous warmint"; and they decided to kill it on the spot--a +task of no small difficulty, as may well be imagined. + +[Illustration: A QUIET CORNER.] + + + + +HALE WELL: A QUIET CORNER. + + +On the south slope of an old West Country orchard there is a +sheltered corner lying open to the sun. Above it rises a broad, +unkempt, straggling hedge-row--holly and hawthorn, bramble and +sweetbriar--and behind this again the green slopes of the hill. On +the left, rising at intervals through the tangled thickets that +form the eastern limit of the orchard, is a line of old Scotch +firs, and beyond them, dimly seen through the haze that broods +over the landscape, are the grey ramparts of a range of limestone +cliffs. The wind of March is in the dark foliage of the firs, +tossing their gnarled arms against the pallid sky. But here the +golden blossoms of the gorse, the brown stems of last year's +bracken, stand unmoved. The dark firs are stirring with a sound as +of the sea, but here, on this sunlit slope, is the very air of +summer, + + "... the grace, + The golden smile of June, + With bloom and sun in every place, + And all the world in tune." + +Butterflies flit idly by--dark-winged peacocks, soft brown +tortoise-shells, pale yellow brimstones like flying gleams of +sunshine. The apple boughs are fretted all over with fine points +of green, the purple mist round the heads of the great elms +deepens in the warm air, the old hedge-row wears already the +bright garb of spring. The air is full of spring time, of the +breath of primroses and violets, full of pleasant sounds of +country life, of the wakening of the world, of the happy voices of +a hundred birds, whose glad hearts are revelling in the golden +weather. + +The birds know well this sunny hollow. Here spring comes early, +and summer lingers late. While the fields without are white with +wintry rime, + + "... here the glancing sunbeams throng, + And tasselled larches droop to hear + A grace of fleeting song." + +To-day, on every side, the feathered woodlanders are stirring. +From an old Scotch fir that towers out of the hedge-row--its dark +shape showing like a shadow through the leafless boughs of the +apple-trees--falls the rich music of a blackbird's song, clear and +wild and flute-like. He is a noble singer; less great, indeed, +than the song-thrush, but yet a master of his art. And there are +those who hold that there is more beauty in the depth and +richness, in the power and passion, of his few brief bars, than in +all the magnificent anthem of his rival. Farther off, low down in +a leafless elm by the border of the orchard, is the thrush +himself, flooding the whole glade with his wonderful melody. Over +and over there sounds the polished lyric of the wren; over and +over again the metallic clink of a coaltit rings out above the +plaintive carol of the robin, the sober ditty of the +hedge-sparrow. Over all the fields the larks are singing. In the +hedges that skirt the orchard sounds the sweet cadence of the +chaffinch, the wild warble of the missel-thrush, at times the +ringing call of some light-hearted oxeye. From farther up the +hollow, from his sanctuary in the old, neglected wilderness of +unpruned, lichen-coated trees, floats down the soft laugh of a +woodpecker, a mellow sound, a note of peace and solitude, and +sylvan greenness. Is it only fancy that here, among these hills, +in this sweet country air, among these untarnished immemorial +elms, there is more melody in the skylark's song, that there is a +finer tone in the cool, clear singing of the robin, that there is +a touch of music in the chatter of the very sparrows? But hark, a +fainter note floats lightly down from the tree-tops; a note not +strong or musical, but heard through all the blended harmonies of +a score of singers. It is the call of the chiff-chaff, the first +returning wanderer from the warm south, fresh from the orange +groves of Sorrento, or the sunny slopes of the Sabine hills. When +his small figure shows presently against the dark foliage of a +Scotch fir, there is that about him which seems to suggest that he +is well content with his home-coming, even though woods are bare +and skies are cheerless. He flutters up and down among the +branches, never still for a moment. Even when he pauses,--looking +like a point of light against the sombre leaves behind him,--to +call his own name over and over, it is easy to see that his whole +small figure is trembling with the ardour of his eager little +soul. + +A tiny figure, and a simple song. But there is more of meaning in +those few faint notes than in all the rest of the great chorus +that day by day is gathering strength in the woodland. For in the +chiff-chaff's call there is the Promise of Spring. It is said that +when the Siberian exiles hear for the first time, after their long +and bitter winter, the cry of the cuckoo, the familiar voice +rouses in their weary souls a resistless longing to taste once +more, if only for a day, the sweets of freedom; that there are +always some who, at the summons, elude the vigilance of their +guards, and take to the forest, lured by the magic of that +wandering voice. And so, in our hearts, this feeble note rouses a +longing for green fields and country lanes, for flowers and +sunshine, for summer and the coming of the swallows. + +Somewhere in the elms a nuthatch sounds at intervals his +flute-like call--a wandering voice, now among the topmost +branches, whose sunlit purple holds so well against the pallid +blue, now near the ground, now in some mighty bough that leans +far out over the field. Now the bird's figure shows darkly on the +sky, and now, as he glides head foremost down, like the born +acrobat that he is, his grey plumage lights up for a moment in the +sunshine. And now he leaves the tree, still calling as he flies, +and sinks down among that grey fringe of orchard, where his mate +and he have, perhaps, already fixed on the hole in the old apple +tree in which they mean to take up their quarters for the season. + +The old hedge-rows round the orchard are but wintry still for the +most part, save for a few buds of hawthorn just breaking into +leaf, or an elder bush already tinged with green. But on the banks +of the tiny stream that wanders leisurely along the lane below, +celandine and sweet violet are in bloom; and primroses, no longer +pale and stunted, as in the rougher days of March, lend their rare +perfume to the air. Meadowsweet and brooklime are springing by the +oozy shore, and on the dark boughs of the alders that lean over it +the catkins cluster thick. + +In a blackthorn bush, whose armed sprays are lightly touched with +blossom as with new fallen snow, two wrens alight; two tiny +figures, mere balls of brown feather, so near that every line of +the wavy, shell-like marking on their backs is plain to see. Now +one of them, poised on a briar stem, breaks suddenly into song, +turning from side to side, his wings parted, his atom of a tail +expanded to the full. The brief lyric ended, he flies down to join +his mate, who waits demurely in the bush below, and for a minute +or two they flutter and play, and whisper to each other soft notes +of fond endearment--the sweetest bit of love-making imaginable. + +Farther on, in a young oak tree in the hedge-row, two blackbirds +have alighted. Not lovers, nothing like it, paying no manner of +heed to each other's presence. One of them flies down--a splendid +figure, with his new black coat, with the bright golden orange of +his bill. Instantly the other is down too, in front of him. A +moment they stand thus, motionless. Then, with loud notes of +challenge, they tilt headlong at each other, beaks down, wings and +tail spread wide, their whole dark plumage rough with rage. Again +and again they meet in the shock of battle, rushing each on the +other's weapon, rising at last into the air, fluttering and +fighting, the snapping of their bills heard plainly fifty yards +away. Five minutes only the conflict lasts. More than one +historic field has been lost and won in time as brief. It is all +over. The victor stands alone upon the grass. His beaten rival is +in full flight far down the hedge-row. A moment later the queen of +beauty, who from her perch among the blackthorns has watched the +tournament unseen, flies down to the hero of her choice. It is the +old story; a tale far older than the days of Thais--"None but the +brave, none but the brave, none but the brave deserves the fair." + +Here in this happy valley there has not been, for weeks past, one +clouded hour. March has shown, all through, the temper of the +lamb; nor now, in his last hours, does he show signs of changing +mood. To seaward it is true the haze deepens to a cold grey fog, +and the sullen booming of the distant fog guns is sounding +faintly, at intervals, even now. On the hill the lapwings are +calling, their plaintive voices softened by the distance, and at +times their dark figures show against the pale blue sky, as they +rise and fall above the limestone cliffs that skirt the hill. + +Yonder crow, drifting up the slope, keeping low down, as if +fearing to be seen, is making for his fastness among the +fir-trees on the hill-crest higher up. He may well keep out of +sight. Only last week two lambs were found in a field near the +crow's nest, dying, with their eyes torn out. And the magpie, +chuckling now and then in doubtful tone, somewhere at the foot of +the orchard, has here a reputation almost as much blown upon. +Terrible fellows, both of them, in lambing time or in the poultry +yard. But they have been working hard and honestly enough all the +rest of the year. Some people seem to think that the destruction +of a chicken or two, or the theft of a few eggs, far outweighs a +whole year of good deeds--the slaughter of unnumbered grubs, +wire-worms, mice, and beetles. + +At regular intervals, a few seconds apart, there sounds from a +tall ash tree in the hollow the drone of a greenfinch, monotonous +and unmusical. Was there ever such a drowsy sound? And yet when he +breaks off presently in a stave of his own wild song, his voice is +one of the sweetest of sweet sounds, a light and breezy ripple of +love and sun and happiness. Pleasant, too, are the notes of the +chaffinches that flit in and out of the hedgerow. And never surely +was there sweeter blackbird's song than that wild lyric sounding +now among the trees that overhang the well. In the top of the +great elm that leans over the orchard stile there is such a chorus +of tongues, such a babel of linnet and blackbird, of sparrow and +jackdaw, with intervals of untuneful chattering, whistling, +piping, that you fancy twenty performers at the least. But it is +only a starling telling all the world in his quaint way of his joy +in this unwonted sunshine. Now he breaks off into the song of a +swallow, copied from the life. He may have heard it this very +morning. Or it may be merely that the impulse of the spring time +rouses in his heart a memory of the long absent wanderer, just as +on rough days of autumn you may hear him mock the curlew's cry +because the wind is roaring like the sea. + +A very real note of spring is the hum of that burly bumble-bee +sailing along the hedge-row in search of some convenient hollow, +some abandoned mouse-hole it may be, in which to build her nest. +Her nest, not his, or theirs. She has no mate. He died in the +autumn, and on her alone devolves the labour of rearing the new +generation. + +Among the stones that years of patient toil have heaped under this +straggling hedge-row, the long-hidden slaves of Nature are broad +awake and busy, revelling in the brightness of these delightful +days. A crowd of insects, flies, and bees, and beetles are coming +out of their long hiding to sun their stiffened limbs. Butterflies +flit lightly down the hedge-row, some newly waked from sleep, and +some that have but just broken the dry husk of their chrysalis +condition, and are spreading for the first time their beautiful +wings. + +To the lover of the sights and sounds of Nature, life has few +better things to offer than a quiet hour, some bright spring +morning, under the shadow of a green arch of blossomed boughs, in +company with gentle, beautiful, sweet-voiced poets of the air, +glad, like him, in the sunshine and the fragrance. Is it a mere +flight of fancy that the feathered architects, no less than the +ballad singers, of this out-of-the-way corner of the world are +masters of their art above the birds of less favoured regions? +Look at this chaffinch's nest, cradled in the end of an +apple-bough, so dexterously woven in among the twigs in which it +rests, so daintily touched with silvery points of lichen, so +perfect a harmony with its surroundings that one might well fancy +it had grown there, some strange product of the tree. While just +above it, an apple bough in bloom, the rich gold of clustered +stamens just showing through the white and pink of still half-open +flowers, lends the crowning touch of beauty. + +Few birds, perhaps, have employed more curious decoration than a +pair of hedge sparrows, who, this spring, attached to their nest +with strands of bass a label, bearing in large letters the legend, +"Early English." In a crevice of the old wall, just outside the +orchard, is the work of another master-builder, a wren. The dry +grass and skeleton leaves of its framework match exactly with the +weather-worn and lichen-stained masonry about it. And slender +sprays of ivy, clinging to the rough surface of the stone, spread +round it their beautiful young leaves. Another wren's nest, in an +old stump, just filling a space among great grey ivy stems, is +built wholly of moss, so fresh and green, so true a copy of the +natural growths on the dead wood, that the eye would hardly have +discovered it, had not the little architect itself betrayed it. +But there is a third wren's nest, in the old cart-shed in the +corner of the orchard, that surpasses even these. It is built of +dry grass, in the straw of the thatch, framed by the rough +rafters, and around it, and over it, there hang down as if to hide +it the threshed-out ears that have been left upon the straw. And +within the small round entrance is the builder's tiny head, her +bright eyes showing plainly in the ring of shadow. Wrens are among +the shyest and most fastidious of birds. Many a one has abandoned +her nest, and all the eggs in it, because some curious passer-by +has touched it in her absence, never so gently. But this one, as +if confiding in the honour of her visitors, sits on unmoved. There +is a ringdove's nest quite low down in a holly tree in the orchard +hedge, and not only will the bird allow you to stand beneath and +watch her, but when, a few days since, a ladder was placed against +the tree, she waited until she was within arm's reach before she +left her nest. She made a fine picture as she sat there, proudly +unconscious of the intruders, not even deigning to turn her head +to look at them, the soft lavender of her beautiful plumage +relieved by the clouding of white feathers on her neck. At length +she could bear it no longer. She went crashing off through the +holly twigs, her great wings clattering as she flew. So shallow +and insecure was the frail platform on which she had been +sitting, that her sudden start threw one of her two nestlings over +the side. It was handed up again, apparently none the worse for +its adventure; and the two youngsters crouched trembling in the +slight hollow; two blind, helpless, hideous, evil-looking little +creatures; a whole world of difference between them and the +stately, fearless bird who, a minute before, had covered them with +the shadow of her wings. + +More fearless still is a blue-tit that has her dwelling in a +crevice in the wall some fifty yards further on. It is a tiny +hole, and the nest is far in, but you can see her sitting there, +her pretty head and one of her bright eyes just showing over the +mossy rim. She is not in the least shy of being looked at. Indeed, +if you touch her nest with a straw she will spar at it and hiss, +making a noise for all the world like the spitting of an angry +kitten, even coming to the door to storm at the intruder, but +without the least idea of leaving her unprotected offspring to his +mercy. + +But other tenants of the hollow revel in the sunshine besides the +birds and the bees and the butterflies. These straggling +hedge-rows are the haunt of finch and blackbird. Crow and magpie +and squirrel hide their homes among the thick foliage of the firs. +Nightjars love this quiet corner, and the nuthatch and the wryneck +find sanctuary in the hollows of the trees. But the stony bank +along the hedge, sweet now with violets, and strewn with stars of +celandine spreading wide their golden petals to the sun, is of all +spots the viper's favourite haunt. + +All along the bank and far in among the thickets are heaped +fragments of red sandstone that by slow degrees have been cleared +from these sterile pastures. The sun is on them from dawn till +sunset. They are quite hot to the touch. Here, then, the viper +loves to lie, warming his cold heart upon the heated stone. On a +day like this he is wide awake, quick in his movements, and off +like a flash, especially if once alarmed. Slowly, silently, with +stealthy steps must you approach his haunt. + +There he is, loosely coiled against a flat slab of sandstone, his +cold, unwinking eye set in a fixed stare, looking straight this +way. The broad zigzag stripe along his back is boldly drawn on the +pale brown of his coat. Plain even at this distance is the V-like +mark upon his head. But he has begun to move. Before you can reach +him he has vanished among the stones. There is nothing for it but +to sit down a few yards away, hidden by a dwarf blackthorn bush, +and wait patiently for his re-appearing. How quiet it all is. The +hamlet on the hill-slope yonder-- + + "One of those little places that have run + Half up the hill beneath a burning sun, + And then sat down to rest, as if to say, + 'I climb no further upward, come what may'"-- + +looms faintly through the haze. The white houses scattered through +the valley melt away into the mist. But the sun is still warm. The +cones of the old firs crackle in the sunshine. Still sweeter grows +the faint perfume of the gorse, still more beautiful its radiant +gold. A bullfinch settles in a tree hard by. There is no colour in +Nature more beautiful than the exquisite flush of crimson on his +breast. Quite in keeping with his beauty is the soft sweetness of +the tender love note that now and then he whispers to his mate, +who, in colours far less bright than his, sits just below him on a +lichened apple bough. Hark! a faint sound among the dry brambles +on the bank, a long rustle, and then through the blackthorn stems +the slender shape of the viper glides softly down to the warm +stones. + +Here he comes, gliding boldly from his harbour in the bank. His +brown mail glistens in the sun, his red eyes glance swiftly right +and left, his long tongue flickers through his fast shut lips. He +coils his long body round between two stones, whose warm red seems +warmer still to-day, fitting himself comfortably in the angle of +the stones, there he lies motionless. Small beetles creep over him +unseen and unregarded. He pays no heed when a butterfly settles +close by him to sun its splendid wings. But he is broad awake. + +Now move slowly towards the spot. Some sound startles him. He +lifts his head and gives a swift glance this way. He is going. +Twitch him out on the grass with your stick, hold him down a +moment, and then, watching your opportunity, take him up by the +tail. An angry beast he is, hissing and struggling, making vain +attempts to reach his captor's hand. He can only lift his head a +few inches, and there is no fear at all of his doing any harm. +There is no doubt about the harm he can do. A viper's bite, +especially in hot weather, is painful enough, though seldom +dangerous. But the farmer who comes up at this moment eyes the +captive with grim satisfaction. Heifers, he says, are often +bitten, even horses. "Doän't 'ee let un go," he adds anxiously; "I +doän't like none o' they beasts about." + +[Illustration: THE GREENWOOD TREE.] + + + + +THE GREENWOOD TREE. + + +It is a very blaze of sunshine that fills the open spaces of the +wood. The tall ash saplings that join hands across the path, now +almost lost among the briar sprays, the trailing woodbine, and the +long arms of wandering bryony, sway slowly in the hot and heavy +air. But the stir of the leaves that flutter lightly overhead, +their green lacework all dark against the summer sky, is a +restful, soothing sound. + +It is a pleasant relief to turn aside a little from the pathway, +to wade breast high through the green jungle of the underwood to a +little place out of the sunshine, a hollow walled half way round +by a line of low grey rocks, almost hidden by thick tapestries of +ivy. Two noble trees that stand on either side, two stately +Spanish chestnuts, spread their arms over it, as if in +benediction. Overhead, their + + "... dark foliage interweaves + In one unbroken roof of leaves. + Underneath whose sloping eaves + The shadows hardly move." + +A cool and quiet spot. Like the poet who found it pleasant, +through the loopholes of retreat, "To see the tumult and not feel +the stir," we too, from the kindly shadow of these great chestnut +trees, can look out on the woodland in its pride of summer glory, +with its flowers and its fragrance and its greenness, nor feel the +heat and glare and the pitiless weight of the sunshine. + +Day after day, week after week, there has been + + "... that nameless splendour everywhere + That makes the passers in the city street + Congratulate each other as they meet." + +Yet perhaps the full beauty of such weather, its wealth of +flowers and foliage, its abundance of bird and insect life, above +all its half-tropic heat, is for the country rather than the town. +Among stone walls and pavements summer days are too often +weariness, and summer nights but stifling. In the country the +glare of noon is tempered by cool winds, softened by grass and +foliage. There, too, the hot air of night is sweetened with the +breath of honeysuckle and jasmine; and through wide open windows +the scent of the roses floats up to us + + "Like sweet thoughts in a dream." + +If the town is close and sultry, woodland and green lane are at +their best and sweetest. In the country at any rate-- + + "There is no price set on the lavish summer, + And June may be had by the poorest comer." + +Though the flowers of May have passed into a proverb, it is June +after all that gives to the fields and by ways their crowning +grace and beauty. May draped all the trees with fresh young +foliage, deepened April's mist of bluebells, and whitened the +hedge-rows with blossoming hawthorn. May was a month of broad +effects and lavish colouring. Here she silvered a whole field with +daisies, as with a light fall of snow. And here, like a cunning +alchemist, she changed with her buttercups the green of a rich +pasture-land to a blaze of living gold. But there is yet more of +beauty in the fields of June. Even in the Tropics, travellers tell +us, there is nothing so superbly beautiful as an English midsummer +meadow--whether an upland pasture, with its hawkweed and lotus, +its scented grasses and sweet clover blooms; or a low-lying field +along some loitering stream, where, in the swampy soil, among the +tasselled sedges, spring fiery spikes of orchis, foamy +meadow-sweet, and tall flower-de-luce. + +If June is the most flowery of months, May is certainly the most +musical. The days are drawing near when there will settle on the +green world of woods and lanes and meadows the silence of the +summer. The grey dawn is still almost as full as ever of sweet +sounds. The songs of thrush and blackbird are still glorious in +the evening twilight. Wren and robin still sing to us at intervals +from dawn to sunset. But through the long hours of daylight we +miss already the notes of many a wandering singer, for whom June +is the limit of the season. Already the cuckoo's voice is +breaking. We have but another week, at the farthest, of the +nightingale's song. His is a superb and matchless melody. Many a +time, it is true, have the notes of thrush or blackcap, or even of +sedge-warbler, been mistaken for it. Sweet singers, all of them. +Yet it is strange that anyone who has ever fairly listened to the +chief of song could confuse with his magnificent strains the note +of the most musical of thrushes. + +But it is to singers less skilled and less famous than the +nightingale that the woodland owes its greatest charm: light +wingèd dryads of the trees, without whose songs and call notes, +and mere life and movement, the lover of Nature thinks that +"summer is not summer, nor can be." The willow-warbler's song, a +little careless cadence of soft notes that at intervals seems to +filter lightly down among the branches, is the very soul of +sunshine and sweet air. The wood wren's call is like no other +sylvan sound. Its plaintive, long-drawn, monotonous notes, often +growing louder towards the close, are sometimes so sonorous and +far-reaching that it is hard to credit they can come from so +diminutive a singer. His actual song is a little gush of simple +notes again and again repeated, from his perch on the end of some +leafless bough high up among the trees. It is not remarkable for +melody, though now and then there is a very real touch of +sweetness in it, and after the first rather deliberate beginning +it is so hurried as to give the listener the impression that the +bird is trying to crowd twenty notes into a single beat. + +The whitethroat is another hasty singer, but he has a greater gift +of music, and his manner of singing--sometimes taking short +flights into the air the while, and then diving back into the +thicket--his quick movements, the almost luminous whiteness of his +swelling throat, rank him among the most charming of woodlanders. +Yet his haunt is rather on the skirts of the wood than in the +heart of it. He is still more a roadside singer, and greatly given +to building his frail nest of grass in the thorny depths of some +old hedge-row, or even among the nettles on the bank. + +But of all the sylvan minstrels the blackcap has, after the +nightingale, the most silvery tongue, and we hear so much more of +him in the country generally--not only is he more widely +distributed, but he sings again when his brood are fledged and +flown, which the nightingale never does--that to most of us he is +much the more familiar, perhaps we might even say he is more +highly prized than the acknowledged chief of song himself. Watch +him now, before household cares have for the time taken up all his +care and attention. See him balanced, with his breast of tender +grey, his black crest slightly lifted, on a spray of briar that, +swaying underneath his weight, trembles with the energy of his +wild and mellow notes--now clear and loud, and reaching, it may +be, far beyond the limits of the wood; now tender and soft and +low, and low and lower yet, until at a yard's distance hardly +heard. A beautiful song. A song that to White of Selborne, as +doubtless to many a Nature lover since his day, always brought +back with its wild sweetness the lines of Amien's song: + + "Under the greenwood tree, + Who loves to lie with me + And turn his merry note + Unto the sweet bird's throat: + Come hither, come hither, come hither." + +A bird flies into the tree near by. A blue-tit, smartest of his +race. He stands a moment on the edge of a hole in the level bough, +looks round twice, then dives in and disappears. And out of that +stronghold of his, snugly lined with moss, and hair, and +feathers, he will not stir for you or any man. But yonder is a +figure, in a tree some twenty yards away, from which perhaps even +the bold blue-tit would fly in terror. A lithe brown creature is +climbing leisurely out of a hole high up in the trunk--a weasel, +searching for eggs, no doubt. Up the tree he goes, more lightly +even than a squirrel, right to the very topmost branches. Now down +he comes again, head first, and makes his way to another tree. As +he canters lightly through the long grass he pauses now and then +to rear on his hind legs and peer sharply round over the green +jungle, looking for the moment, quite bird-like. Two more trees he +climbs, searching every likely spot among the boughs, prying into +every hole and cranny--clearly a birds'-nester born. A master of +woodcraft, too, for when you move nearer for a better view, he +vanishes. He is there all right, lying close behind some branch, +no doubt; but he is as completely screened from sight as if he +wore the magic cap of Perseus. He is a tiny figure at the most. +The birds take no notice of him. The yellow-hammer goes on with +his sleepy tune, and the greenfinch in the elm above him with his +yet sleepier drawl, while a linnet in the tree near by sings +undisturbed his sweet and dainty song, that in itself is like a +gleam of sunshine. + +The whole woodland is astir with life and movement and sweet +sounds of song. Look at that bullfinch yonder, balanced on a spray +of woodbine, that swings lightly beneath his weight. Leaning +forward a little, with his black head turned slightly on one side, +he picks off, as if in pure mischief, the dainty tufts that +cluster on the branches near him, while the ruined leaves fall in +a very shower. A beautiful figure. There is not in Nature a hue +more lovely than the exquisite flush of crimson on his breast. +Close by him, as if by way of foil to his perfect beauty, sit two +sober-clad companions, dull and grey and colourless, yet to the +full as mischievous as he. + +Sunny spaces in the wood are filled with hovering insects, whose +tiny figures rise and fall like motes in the warm air; beetles for +the most part, not flies; small, black, long-bodied beetles, the +very same that give us such annoyance by getting in our eyes in +the twilight. + +Butterflies cross and recross the clearing--some so brilliant in +their whiteness that they almost suggest yet brighter gleams of +sunshine. Some, again, are dark and sombre, and like patches of +moving shadow. Now one brave in black and scarlet flashes past. +Now one on wings of golden brown sails leisurely along. And some +there are, small, sylph-like figures, that float lightly by, as +blue as the unclouded heaven overhead. Some moths, too, are +abroad, even at this hour and in this fierce sunshine--moths clad +in the very softest tints, the most ethereal tones of fawn and +grey, of brown and yellow. Some are without a mark on their pure +colouring, and some are daintily pencilled with shell-like lines +and bars. To and fro in the sunbeams, whose misty shafts slant +through the thickets, hover a crowd of winged things--of great +bees, black or yellow or tipped with fiery red, flies of many +hues, beetles light and dark--and the sound of their multitudinous +wings seems to fill the hot summer air. Insects make up no small +part, perhaps even the larger part, of the life of the woodland. + +The woods just now are swarming with caterpillars, many of which, +perhaps even the majority, belong to the class called geometers, +from the curious way in which they move along, arching their +bodies in a fashion that reminds the observer of a man measuring +a distance by "spanning" it with his hand. A much more curious +point about them is their wonderful mimicry of the twigs of the +tree on which they live: a fact which has earned for them the name +of "stick" caterpillars. Their skins are the colour of the bark, +their bodies have knots and markings exactly like twigs. And when +one of them waits motionless, standing erect on its hinder set of +feet--an attitude it can preserve for hours together, it looks so +like a piece of stick that even a naturalist has related how he +was about to prune a twig from one of his fruit trees, and had +even touched it with his knife before he saw that it was not +vegetable at all, but one of these "stick" caterpillars. One +cannot help wondering if birds are taken in too. + +The curious movements of these geometers are due to their +comparatively scant supply of legs. There is an amusing ballad +called "The Bishop and the Caterpillar," which describes, after +the manner of "Ingoldsby," how a great dignitary of the Church +inspected a village school. The children acquitted themselves +well:-- + + "For the Bishop, to his great pleasure, found + That they knew the date when our Queen was crowned. + And the number of pence which make up a pound; + + And the oceans and seas which our island bound; + That the earth is nearly, but not quite, round; + Their orthography, also, was equally sound." + +The gratified examiner, declaring that it was only fair for the +scholars to have their turn, proposed they should question him. A +small boy in the audience, unawed even by a Bishop, instantly + + "... raised his head + And abruptly said: + How many legs has a caterpillar got?" + +Here was a poser indeed. Kings of Israel, now, his lordship might +have known; very likely the date of the Second Punic War; perhaps +even some of the counties of England. But caterpillars were beyond +his ken. It was to no purpose that he privately invoked, under +cover of making a speech, the aid of the rector, of the curates, +of the schoolmaster. Not one of them knew. In vain was the beadle +sent out in hot haste to interrogate passers-by. He returned +disconsolate, and whispered to the anxious Bishop "Nobody knows." +In the end the questioner himself supplied the information, and + + "... with a countenance gay, + Said 'Six, for I counted 'em yesterday.'" + +It rather spoils the point of the story that, although +caterpillars have indeed, on one-half of the body, the six legs of +the perfect or winged condition, most of them have ten more, very +substantial ones too, on the other half, making not six, but +sixteen. Some, indeed, have only fourteen; while these geometers +are driven to adopt the attitudes they do because they have to +shuffle along as best they can, on no more than ten legs +altogether. + +There are few points of brighter colour among the world of green. +Not many brilliant flowers grow well in the very heart of the +woods. Along the paths there is a fringe of hawkweed and crowfoot +and yellow cistus. And where the sunlight is less broken by the +trees there are patches of red lychnis and tall crowns of white +cow parsley. In the clearings strawberries run riot, in flower +still, but with scantier harvest than usual of the small sweet +fruit, in whose pleasant flavour is a dash of woodland wildness. +There is honeysuckle everywhere, trailing on the ground, creeping +among the bushes, and climbing up out of the green tangle, laying +hold of trees and saplings to help it to the light. And as it +climbs it twines with fatal clasp about the friendly stems, slowly +tightening its embrace, sometimes cutting deep into the wood, +sometimes even killing the branch outright, and going up until at +times a green canopy of it crowns boughs thirty feet above the +ground, while its flowery clusters scent the woodland. And as +evening darkens, "What time the blackbird pipes to vespers from +his perch," when the heat of the long summer day gives place to +the cooler, sweeter air of night, the fragrance grows until the +whole glade is conscious of its subtle charm. Briar bushes there +are in plenty, and some of them are lightly set with delicate +blossoms. But the dog-roses are at their best, not here, but on +the skirts of the wood, where the long, swaying sprays are crowded +with those sweetest flowers of June. + +But the glory of the woodland is in its trees; in its sturdy oaks, +and stately beeches, its old Scotch firs and graceful larch trees. +There is no season when the larch is without some charm. It is +beautiful in the springtime, when its sprays are set with +exquisite red blossoms, like fairy jewel-work. It is beautiful +when among soft tufts of green the brown cones harden in the +pleasant sun of May. It is beautiful now, when the flowing, +feathery plumes wear the soberer hue of summer. Nor is the beauty +greatly less when, in the chill autumn days, that hue changes +slowly into yellow. Nor is it wholly lost, even in the dead of +winter, when, in the frosty sunshine, the bare boughs seem to glow +like gold against the pale blue sky. + +The mist of bluebells, that lingered here so late, has vanished. +The fiery spikes of early orchis are all spent and faded. The +'lords and ladies' have given place to little clusters of green +berries, that these sunny days will swiftly ripen to red beads of +coral. Yet there are other flowers, with even more of beauty, that +love the greater heat of summer. Few are more lovely than the +white butterfly orchis; fewer still more fragrant. It has allies +that mimic with marvellous faithfulness the forms of bees and +flies and spiders. They are plants of the heath, of the sunny +meadow, and the open hill. But here is one, perhaps the least +striking of the clan, that will flourish in the shadow, and that +grows well even here in the half twilight of the trees. The +quiet-coloured petals of the tway-blade are not like fly or bee or +any insect. Each floweret on its plain, unscented spike is the +little green figure of a man, a man with outstretched arms. One +might almost fancy that the plant was copying shapes long lost to +our dulled vision; that this quiet nook was not alone + + "... for pretty cares + With mate and nest, + A lurking-place of tender airs + From south and west;" + +but that it was peopled still by the green-clad gnomes of old +belief; that these woodland aisles were even now a place + + "Where elves hold midnight revel, + And fairies linger still." + +[Illustration: THE HARVEST MOON.] + + + + +CHILL OCTOBER. + + +It is the heavy rain no less than the chilly air, the wet days as +well as the frosty nights, which have earned for October its added +name, and which mark this month so clearly as the real end of a +season. We often get a long spell of warm weather in September; it +may linger even over the opening of October; but it is October +that sets for good and all its fiery seal upon the ruins of the +summer. Yet October has been a delightful month; a month of golden +dawns, bright days, and fiery sunsets. And it is closing with +quiet moonlight nights under whose gauzy veil the landscape lies +transfigured, and far hills show faintly as through mists of +dreamland. This is St. Martin's Summer: + + "The summer and the winter here + Midway a truce are holding. + A soft, consenting atmosphere + Their tents of peace enfolding." + +The colours of the leaves, that so long seemed cold and sullen, +are swiftly changing in the sharpening air of night. Among the +tattered foliage there broaden, day after day, gleams of that +fiery splendour that in a few weeks will flare through the length +and breadth of the woodland, like the afterglow of summer. The few +last leaves of the wild cherry shine like fire in the coppice, and +the horse chestnuts in the meadow are all gold from base to crown. +Dead leaves lie thick upon the rustling pathway, where brown of +oakleaf, crimson of beech, russet of maple, and gold of elm, lends +each its own particular note of colour to the splendid carpet; +while the foliage of the sycamore, still clinging to its brilliant +stalks, is painted with such varied tints, such greens and browns, +such inky blacks and flaming yellows, that one might almost fancy +some young dryad had been wandering through the woodland with her +brush and had tried her colours on the leaves. + +So bright the days have been, so warm is the lingering sunshine, +that even the thrush has been trying over his old sweet songs, yet +to airs so quiet and subdued that they seemed but a reverie of +springtime. All day the robin sings. He is the minstrel of the +autumn. Now when other birds are silent his voice rings clear +through the deserted woods, and we realise more fully how passing +sweet are his familiar melodies. + +There are few signs of life among the autumn trees. The jays +wrangle as they gather the acorns, and at times a troop of +fieldfares chatter as they pass. But the sounds of the October +woodland are the patter of falling leaves--now filling the air +like rain, and now whirled along the path in fiery eddy; the rush +of the wind among the rocking tops; and now and then the creak of +branches interlocked, that chafe and fret almost with a cry of +pain, such as in old days, ere Pan was dead, startled the +woodcutter on the slopes of Apennine. + +We wander in the woods, however, with senses unattuned to sights +and sounds about us. Had we but eyes we could not fail to see some +life stirring even now. Were our ears but trained aright we should +be aware of ceaseless sounds of movement. The birds are here, had +we but the gift to see them. If no ringdove coos in the shadow of +the pines, we may hear as our footsteps rustle on the leafy ways, +the crash of wings among distant branches. If no woodpecker's +shout breaks in upon the stillness, we may watch the silent figure +of the forester in green close crouched against the giant elm. If +no magpie chatters in the tree-tops we may at least catch a +glimpse of black and white plumage as the wary old campaigner +dives into the thickets. This old fir just off the pathway, with +its close growing foliage and its canopies of ivy and woodbine, is +a screen at once from the wind and the keen eyes of the +woodlanders. In its shadow we may stand aside and watch the life +of the woods go by, perhaps even overhear some of the secrets of +the + + "Light wingèd dryads of the trees." + +Jays, that just now were busy over the acorns, are moving +leisurely down the slope, absorbed in gossip, wholly unconscious +of any spectator of their movements. There is a wide difference +between the quick, impetuous actions of a startled jay, on the +look-out for danger, and his lazy, loitering manner when he is +quite at his ease, and thinks no one is watching him. Now, as +they come nearer, they break into a chorus of loud, harsh notes, +mingling with their own wild sylvan speech scraps borrowed from +magpie and missel-thrush. Now one mimics the hoarse cry of a crow +just sailing over. Now they all join in a babel of odd, +inarticulate, indescribable sounds. Still nearer they come. +Suddenly one alights close by, three yards off at farthest. He is +off again in a moment, too scared to speak. Here comes another. +He, too, settles near, but notices nothing. What a handsome fellow +he is! What a splendid touch of blue there is in his wing--a blue +such as no sapphire or lapis or turquoise could really rival for a +moment. His crest is slightly lifted; the sunlight glistens on his +polished bill. Easily he sways on a tall ash sapling, looking idly +round. Suddenly he starts--is gone. One by one his comrades reach +the tree. One after one the startled birds take wing again and +vanish in the thickets. The rustle of their quick movements dies +away. Their clamorous cries grow fainter, and then cease. Silence +settles down once more--the silence of a sleep. + +The sharp touch of winter in October has changed the whole face of +things. Cold and wind and wet have set their mark alike on +woodland and on garden border. Everywhere there is change. The +birds of summer have all left us. No bee or wasp is stirring. In +this pallid sunshine are no gnats to poise in cloudy column. No +moths hover on quivering wings among the ruined flowers. Of the +shy four-footed creatures of whose lives we know so little, some +are still broad awake and busy, caring nothing for the cold; but +some have already entered on their winter sleep. The dormouse is +rolled in his snug ball of moss, the hedgehog is buried in his bed +of leaves. Grass-snake and viper have crawled away into warm +hiding places in banks or among the roots of trees. The frog has +buried himself in his cold bed of mud at the bottom of the pond. +The toad has squeezed his burly figure into a hole in a tree +stump, or under some sheltering stone. It is the fondness of the +toad for hiding in holes and corners--not only in winter, but to +some extent all the year--which has given rise to so many +marvellous tales of the discovery of toads in the heart of trees +or in solid blocks of marble. Toads may often be found in holes. +But never yet was one found living in any cavity whatsoever where +there was no communication with the outer world, no chink through +which insects might make their way after the manner of the fly +into the parlour of the spider. + +Long before the frosts of October, and while the weather was still +warm and sunny, snails were to be seen collected in hundreds on +the fences of fields and lanes--on their way, no doubt, to winter +quarters. Though whether they expected to find suitable lodgings +up there at the tops of the palings, or whether they were only +sunning themselves for the last time before crawling down to earth +to bury themselves in the holes into which the posts were driven, +is perhaps less clear. + +Some few snails are provided already with close-fitting doors. +Others will seal up their gates with a temporary barricade, behind +which they will sleep until the trumpet-call of spring shall break +on their dull senses. Do they dream, these snails? Do visions of +plump cabbages and brilliant dahlias flit through their molluscous +minds? Do they in slumber enjoy again the midnight raid upon the +marrow-bed, or cry havoc on the choicest lilies of the garden? + +There is a strange stillness in the woods these autumn days; a +mournful silence, as of regret for the lost summer. The birds are +quiet; the insects, whose life and beauty lent so much to the +brightness of the summer, are dying in the sharpening air, or are +creeping away to hide themselves for the winter. October is a +fatal month for the lower forms of life. The different species of +our native insects are numbered by tens of thousands, and of the +myriads of these with which the air of August, and even of +September, teemed, only a few, a very few, will survive the +chillier dawns and sunsets of this month, which marks the limit of +their lives. At the best their lives are brief. The lives of +insects, in their perfect condition, are more often numbered only +by months, or even weeks: while the little sad-coloured +stone-flies that haunt the banks of streams, entering on their +last stage without mouths, spend only a few days of strange +existence; and there are other flies which, born after sunset and +dying before sunrise, never see the full light of day at all. + +Those insects which survive the winter do so as a rule by retiring +into the shelter of buildings, into crevices in walls, or into +hollow trees, and there remaining, motionless and apparently +lifeless, all through the cold season, coming out again at the +return of spring. Some butterflies are especially fond of taking +up their quarters for the winter in the roofs of houses; and the +cornices of unoccupied rooms seem particularly favourite +resting-places. There is a case on record in which a Small +Tortoiseshell butterfly, having entered a church during +service-time one Sunday in August, settled calmly on a rafter over +the heads of the congregation, closed its wings, and then and +there took up its quarters for the season. It was happily beyond +the reach of the verger's broom, though under the eyes of the +clergyman,--himself a naturalist, and there it hung, week after +week, all the winter through. At length, on a warm Sunday in May, +after a sleep of just nine months' duration, the little creature +opened its wings again and fluttered down from its perch, +"apparently as fresh in colour and condition as if just out of the +chrysalis". + +In the same way another of the race flew into a sitting-room in a +little country town, one day during the hot weather of September, +and finally established itself in the cornice, where for six long +months it hung motionless. One fine morning in the following March +it was fluttering at the window. The sash was lifted. The little +creature dashed out into the sunshine, almost with the speed of a +swallow. + +A striking feature of the autumn garden some years is the +multitude of sober-coloured moths hovering among the flower-beds, +morning, noon, and night. The moths themselves not only do no harm +in the garden, but are of no small service to the gardener by +carrying pollen on their tufted heads from flower to flower, and +thus unconsciously fertilising many a blossom that might otherwise +have borne no seed at all. But it is quite otherwise with the +caterpillars, insignificant but noxious little grubs, which, in +some seasons, appear in such hosts as to devastate whole fields. +In Germany it has been found necessary to use a machine, drawn by +horses, to sweep up these caterpillars, which are collected from +it in sacks and then destroyed. + +The perfect insect, the commonest perhaps of all the moths, is a +beautiful little creature, though there is nothing striking in its +colouring. It is known as the "Silver Y," from a conspicuous mark +on each of its front wings. Its scientific name of "Gamma" has +been given to it from another and more learned reading of the +letter. + +It has been found very difficult to bestow a rational English +"popular name" on each of the two thousand species of moths that +inhabit these islands. Some of the names, indeed, appear almost, +if not quite, meaningless, while some, on the other hand, are +highly appropriate. The Humming-bird Hawk moth is marvellously +like the bird whose name it bears, as every one must admit who +watches it poise with outstretched trunk before a flower, on wings +that move so swiftly that they show like a halo round it. Two +other Hawk moths are called Elephants, but this is because of the +strange-looking head of the caterpillar, which can be extended +like a sort of dwarf proboscis. Another moth, the Death's Head, +bears a skull and cross-bones on its back. + +The moths of the large class known as Geometers are so called +because the caterpillars, as they loop themselves along, have the +air of measuring the space they traverse, as a man might span it +with his hand. The Tiger is a moth of brilliant colouring. The +Widow and the Old Lady are clad in sombre hues. The Quakers are +mostly dressed in soft shades of sober brown, while the sixteen +varieties of Footmen wear among them almost as many varieties of +livery. + +Such names might, indeed, give rise to misconception. We can well +understand the feelings of the old market-woman who, toiling up +the steep path through the wood with her eggs and butter, +overheard a party of schoolboys talking over their captures of the +day. We can picture her dismay as she heard one youngster describe +how he had chased a small Elephant through the wood, and just +missed capturing a Tiger. We can imagine her alarm at hearing +another boy boast of having killed two Quakers and a Footman. And +how, at a distant shout from another member of the party that he +had just knocked down an Old Lady, she dropped her basket and fled +for her life. + +But of all the signs in Nature's calendar that mark, like figures +on a dial, the movement of the seasons, there is none more +certain, none more full of mournful augury, than the passing of +the birds. + +Their going is secret, silent; they vanish unseen and unheard. We +have learnt much in recent years with regard to migration. With +one single exception, we know where every one of the summer +migrants goes to rear its brood. The haunt of one only--the +curlew-sandpiper--still defies discovery. But there is as much +cause for wonder as ever that the stork and the swallow observe +the time of their coming. And how some birds contrive to find +their way over vast stretches of unbroken sea is as great a +mystery as when Anacreon saw the + + "Cranes from hoary winter fly, + To flutter in a kinder sky;" + +or when the Hebrew watched the wandering hawk stretch her wings +toward the south. + +Among the few sounds that break the stillness of the autumn night +is a faint and hurried cry, that at times may be heard out of the +darkness--the note of some bird passing over unseen. It is the cry +of the redwing--a feeble note, and yet the very trumpet-call of +coming winter. In the spring the sight of the first swallow raises +hopes of better times, of sunshine and warm weather. In autumn +this voice calling out of the dark is a warning that cold and +hunger are driving the redwing from its Northern home, that the +Arctic night is settling down among the Norway hills. + +Vast indeed is the array of these feathered fugitives. And if most +of us see but little of plover or wild duck, of goose or swan or +sandpiper, we may perhaps hear them as they pass. Often in the +silence of these autumn nights, or even when the wind is blowing, +we may hear the swift flight of the mallard overhead, or the +musical voices of plovers; perhaps at times the trumpet-notes of +geese, or even the whistling of the whooper's wings. Now and then, +too, there floats down out of the starlit stillness the wild call +of some unknown bird, the voice of some nameless stranger crying +in the dark: + + "And with no language but a cry." + +[Illustration: ON SEDGMOOR.] + + + + +TURF MOOR: A HAPPY HUNTING GROUND. + + +The traveller who at this season of the year is whirled along the +iron highway of the northern part of Somersetshire will perhaps be +led to form but a poor opinion of West Country scenery, for he +sees little from the rail of the heath-covered heights of Exmoor, +of the wooded glens of Quantock, or of the green heart of Mendip. +The line is laid for many miles across a wide stretch of low-lying +moorland--so low that it would be flooded each high tide were it +not for the old sea wall by the shore. There are parts of the +monotonous expanse that may well remind the wayfarer of the +opening lines of one of Ingoldsby's ballads: + + "O, Salisbury Plain is bleak and bare, + At least so I've heard many people declare, + For I fairly confess that I never was there. + Not a shrub nor a tree, nor a bush can you see, + No hedges, no ditches, no gates, no stiles, + Much less a house or a cottage for miles." + +There are indeed parts of this great plain that are almost +absolutely bare of timber save for a few scanty rows of pollard +willow trees. There are hardly any hedge-rows, there are few +gates, and fewer stiles. The cottages are far apart, built only on +the low risings--once islands in the Severn sea, which the +moorfolk fondly call "hills," because they are not "drownded out" +in flood time. + +Yet there is one striking difference. The Somersetshire +marshes--far more level than the green waves of the great +Wiltshire Down--are cut up by a network of innumerable ditches, +narrow indeed, yet not always easily passed, as the little army of +King Monmouth proved only too well. These "rhines," as they are +called in the West Country, take the place of hedge-rows, and +serve also to drain away into the sluggish moorland stream the +water which in rainy seasons would collect on the low ground. Turf +Moor is a strange looking country, with its interminable stacks of +black peat, its great hollows from which turf has been taken, its +miles of straight-cut dykes by which the water is drained away +into the rivers. The sombre hue of the great plain is relieved by +picturesque groups of turf-cutters, by dense masses of noble +Scotch firs--trees that flourish well in the peaty soil--and by an +occasional belt of coppice that runs in among the peat workings--a +jungle of reeds and bulrushes, of bracken and tall royal fern, a +sort of No-Man's Land, a very paradise for beast and bird. + +The moormen happen on strange things sometimes when they are +digging in the peat. It is no very rare thing for the +turf-cutter's tool to clash on pottery or rude weapons far below +the present level of the moor. Some years since a bow was thus +discovered, whose once heavy yew wood was so altered by its long +soaking that it was as light as cork. At one place an iron anchor +was found, at another the paddle of an old canoe. + +There is a tradition in the marshes that, years ago, whenever +after a dry summer the water was low in one of the great rhines, a +boat became visible, embedded in the bank. "Squire Phippen's Big +Ship," as it was called, has long been lost sight of, but in more +recent times another canoe has been found on the moor, which +happily has met with the attention it deserves. + +Some labourers who had been employed every autumn to clear out the +rhines on Cranhill Moor, near Glastonbury, had often been +inconvenienced at one point by what they thought was the trunk of +an old tree--such as are frequently found buried in the peat. The +place was pointed out to a local archæologist, Mr. Arthur Bulleid, +of Glastonbury, and he saw at once that the supposed tree-trunk +was an old British canoe, in splendid preservation, most skilfully +worked out of a single log. The end which had projected from the +bank is damaged by the spades with which the labourers had +repeatedly in past years tried to cut it away, but the rest is +uninjured. This curious old craft is flat-bottomed, and pointed at +each end, just as are the boats that still navigate the rhines of +the district. It measures about seventeen feet in length, is +perhaps thirty inches broad, and ten or eleven inches deep. + +This canoe might have continued for years a mere obstacle to the +clearing of the rhine--now a small ditch, but once a navigable +water-way--were it not that the whole district was interested in +the recent discovery of an ancient British village, of which it is +safe to say that few things of more importance have rewarded +recent archæological research in this country. + +The ancient Lake Dwellings of Switzerland and Northern Italy, +though our knowledge of them is not yet half-a-century old, are +familiar wherever Archæology is studied. In the forty years which +have elapsed since they were first examined, it has been found +that there are many places, even now, where huts, constructed on +the same plan, are still in use. Such dwellings exist in the +shallows along the Amazon and the Orinoco. Travellers have +described them, as they are at this moment, in Borneo and New +Guinea. Cameron found them in the heart of the Dark Continent. To +this very day Roumelian fishermen inhabit huts built on piles over +the water, in the same spot where, twenty-five centuries ago, the +children of the Paeonian Lake Dwellers were, according to +Herodotus, tied by the leg to prevent them falling into the water. + +But, long before the discovery of the Swiss Lake Villages in 1853, +another somewhat similar form of primitive habitation was known, +confined, as far as can be at present ascertained, to countries +inhabited by Celtic races. This was the Crannog, or Marsh Village, +from the Celtic word _crann_, a tree--not built on piles in the +water, but on platforms of timber laid over brushwood arranged on +the soft soil of a morass. The existence of such dwellings had +long been known, but little attention was paid to them before the +famous researches of Keller, in Switzerland. Modern Archæologists +have, however, explored at least a hundred of these Villages in +Ireland, and about half that number in Scotland; and many most +interesting remains have been recovered from them. + +The Scotch and Irish Crannogs appear to belong to the Iron Age. +Implements of the more primitive materials have, it is true, been +found in them, but they were not such as were in use in the Bronze +or Stone Ages. They differ both in shape and in the style of their +ornamentation. A few stone celts have been found in Irish +Crannogs, but no object belonging to a time earlier than the Age +of Iron has yet been met with in the Marsh Villages of Scotland. +The metal objects are, as a rule, characteristic of the period +between the 9th and the 12th centuries, though we have evidence +that some of the Irish Crannogs were in use long after that time. +Allusions to them frequently occur in the old writers. We learn +from "The Annals of the Four Masters" that the historic Crannog of +Lough Gabhor--the first that was examined in Ireland--was burnt +A.D. 848, and again, by the Danes, in 933. An account, written at +the time, of the expedition sent by Queen Elizabeth to put down +the rebel Earl of Tyrone, describes a Crannog in County Down, +which "was seated in the midst of a great bog, and no way +accessible but through thick woods, hardly passable. It had about +it two deep ditches, both encompassed with strong pallisadoes, a +very high and thick rampart of timber, and well flanked with +bulwarks. For defence of the place, forty-two musqueteers and some +twenty swordsmen were lodged in it." This was in 1602. Later +still, Sir Felim O'Neill, who had headed the rebellion of 1641, +was captured in a Crannog, in 1642. + +Until recent years no Crannog had been found in this country. The +discovery of a very extensive Settlement of this kind, in the turf +moor near Glastonbury, is thus an event of great Archæological +interest, which is much increased by the fact that, whereas the +remains found in the Scotch and Irish Crannogs point to a period +so recent as from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries, the +Marsh Village discovered in Somersetshire has yielded, so far, no +object which appears to be so late even as the Roman occupation. + +But these broad flats on Turf Moor, their patches of coppice, the +edges of the green "droves," the waste lands where turf has been +cut, and which have been left to recover themselves by the rest +and growth of perhaps half a century, even the very ditches of the +moor, are in summer-time a happy hunting-ground for the +naturalist. + +The plants of these monotonous marshes, the birds, the beasts, the +insects, have a character of their own. In summer-time the meadows +that stretch from rhine to rhine are crimson with orchis and +clover, with sheep sorrel and ragged robin, are golden with +flower-de-luce, whitened with tall oxeye daisies and soft tufts of +cotton grass. Now the whole moorland is sobered to a dull, +monotonous hue of mingled browns and greys tinged with a +sad-coloured note of green. The rhines that to-day are but +straight-cut belts of water, with no beauty and hardly more of +interest, were filled then to the very brim with sedges and iris +and tall stems of flowering rush. Along their hedges grew teazels +and skullcap and comfrey, and down their steep banks the moneywort +poured its lavish streams of gold. Few plants of any sort are +to-day visible in the water. But the still depths were covered +then with a green film of weed, crossed and re-crossed with a very +labyrinth of tracks, where rat or moorhen or water-rail had cut +its devious way. Here grew the arrow-head, with its beautiful +white flowers. Here floated the star-like blossoms of the frogbit. +And here the bladderwort, that now rests unseen on the mud at the +bottom, buoyed up by multitudinous little floats of air, lifted +its exquisite spike above the surface. + +The busy life that in the summer filled these interminable ditches +has ebbed away. The green jungle of flags and water plants where +the sedge warbler sang--not from dawn till nightfall only, but +from sundown till the east was grey--is gone. The reeds among +whose slender stems the warbler wove her exquisite nest are +beaten down. The peewits who reared their scanty broods among +these open meadows are here still. Even the quails that hid their +beautiful eggs among the summer clover may still be couching in +the withered grass; and water-rails find shelter still among the +brown and broken reeds. + +The banks are honeycombed with the burrows of water-rats--as most +people call them. Beautiful creatures, not really rats at all, and +having little in common with their evil-minded, mischievous, +objectionable namesakes. Their habit of burrowing is perhaps their +one fault, and has more than once helped to break down the bank of +a river here, and so deluge the moors with miles of tawny water. +Water-rats are out at all times, all the year, except in the very +coldest weather. But twilight is their favourite hour. Then as you +steal quietly along by the bank you may watch the soft brown balls +of fur crouched on the narrow fringe of shore; may envy their +incomparable feats of diving; may follow their course by a slight +ripple on the surface as they swim to some secret hiding place. +The owls know their habits well. This very month a barn owl was +seen in the twilight, flying over the moor on its soft and +soundless wings. Suddenly it swooped below the bank of a rhine, +reappearing a moment later with a water-rat in its claws. Scared +by a shout, it dropped its prey, but the rat, though warm, was +stone dead. + +Much less often seen are the water-shrews, whose frolics you may +watch in broad daylight if you are so very fortunate as to come +upon a party of them at play, swimming round and round like the +tiny beetles that spin in mazy circles on the surface. The water +itself is, in the summer-time, crowded with life. Over the surface +skim rowing-flies and water-spiders. Under it a countless crowd of +creatures live out their little day--beetles and water-scorpions, +active little boatmen that paddle up and down with dexterous oars, +caddis larvæ carrying about with them their houses built of grains +of sand, or scraps of reed, or of a multitude of tiny shells. +Shells there are everywhere, small some of them, but even the very +smallest revealing under the microscope forms as marvellous as +that of the nautilus itself. Slender newts, too, swarm in the +still water, and great black tritons, the terror of the moorfolk, +in whose eyes even the viper is hardly more venomous. + +Not to every one is it given to appreciate the beauty and the +wonder of the inhabitants of this happy hunting-ground. In such a +paradise two naturalists had been hard at work through a hot +summer afternoon. They were stretched contentedly by the roadside, +when a burly, red-faced farmer driving by drew rein, and seeing +their nets upon the grass asked them what sport they had had, and +if it was eels or flounders they had been catching. They proceeded +to explain. "Oh, bitles," said the farmer, somewhat +contemptuously. "And what be they vur, then?" This was a more +difficult point. It was not at all easy to make him see that there +could be any use in hoarding up such "common ornery rubbish" as +that. Butterflies, now, he could understand, or "bird eggs." He +himself had collected "bird eggs" when he was a boy. But "bitles! +Well," said he at last, "good day. I must be gwine"; and he drove +slowly off. He had not got more than fifty yards along the road, +however, when he pulled up again, and turning half round in his +seat, called out, "Hi! but I can't think what ee can want they +bitles vur!" + +[Illustration: WINTER IN THE MARSHES.] + + + + +TURF MOOR: THE FROZEN MARSHES. + + +It is now some years since, through the giving way of the bank of +one of the moorland rivers, a large part of the low-lying land in +the heart of Somersetshire was under water all through the autumn. +Many tenants of cottages on the moor were, as they would put it, +"drownded out," and there were outlying villages that for a long +while could only be reached by means of boats. During a recent +autumn another wide area in the same county was flooded. Frost +set in while a vast tract of land was still inundated. Miles of +flooded marshland were entirely frozen over, and many cottages, +after standing in the water for months past, were surrounded by +the ice. So sharp was the cold that, on the second day of the +frost, the fortunate few who were able to avail themselves of the +opportunity had a perfect skating-ground, which must have measured +thousands of acres. + +A heavy snowfall, however, has changed the face of things +altogether. Some of the moor men, whose ordinary avocations have +long been at a standstill, have cleared a pretty fair piece of +ice. But the rest is covered with snow. Much of it has sunk and +broken, owing to the draining away of the water from beneath it; +so that, vast as is still the frozen area, comparatively little of +it is good enough to satisfy a fastidious performer. + +But it is a wonderful landscape that, on every side of the little +house which skaters on this part of the marshes use as their +headquarters, lies glistening in the sunshine. A few old alder +trees and storm-beaten Scotch firs shelter the cottage a little +from the wind. And its all too scanty stacks and its picturesque +sheds and outbuildings, whose roof of tiles are weathered to +every imaginable shade of red and brown, help to give an air of +warmth and comfort. A primitive place. A place such as might have +given shelter to King Alfred before that desperate fight yonder on +the hills of Ethandune. The master of the house is a neatherd too, +as it happens, and his heifers are at this moment all huddled in +the byres about the cottage, only too glad to make the +acquaintance of a sympathetic stranger. There is no entrance at +the front. The frozen ground has "lifted" and has jammed the door. +You must make your way in through the hospitable-looking +brick-floored kitchen at the back. + +Before the frost began the water was over the garden, and even on +the cottage floor. And now, though the house is clear, the ice +stretches away almost from the threshold, as far as the eye can +see over the level country. It would be hard to picture a scene +more absolutely desolate. On the skyline to the southward, just +seen through the wintry haze, is a long line of low bluehills, +with patches of snow on them dimly showing. Over a dark belt of +fir trees to the eastward rises the Tor of Glastonbury, snow +covered, too, for once. And right to the bases of the hills, over +field after field, stretches for miles the great white plain, +broken only by lines of pollard willows, by tall aspens and clumps +of alder; with patches of furze that look strangely out of place +rising up through the ice, with here and there a gate, +half-hidden, with haystacks standing forlorn upon the wintry +level, and, sadder still, with cottages that, long since rendered +uninhabitable by the water, are now completely surrounded by the +ice. + +In that cottage, some hundred yards farther on, whose walls have +settled so much in the soft peat that there is not a straight line +in all its primitive architecture, the water is still nine inches +deep in all the rooms. The tenant of it is that moor man standing +yonder, lending a helping hand to the skaters preparing for the +ice. A picturesque figure, whose old brown coat, with its endless +varieties of shade would delight the soul of an artist. You can +understand why he wears boots up to his knees when you learn that +every day, from the beginning of December until a fortnight since, +he waded to his door through more than a foot of water. He is +better off since the frost, for now he can slide in. + +A characteristic touch about these cottages is the store of winter +fuel, the stacks of peat heaped against the wall. Almost more +characteristic still is the quaintly-shaped boat, flat-bottomed, +sharp at both ends, that you see in so many gardens; for not only +are floods here far too common, but the innumerable ditches make +convenient waterways for bringing home grass or peat. + +A strange silence broods over the landscape. No birds are visible +save the few that hang about the outbuildings. The flocks of gulls +and the few ducks that were here before the floods were frozen +have all disappeared. Multitudes of skylarks, too, passed over +when the snow set in, but they soon vanished. This was once a +great country for wild-duck. Twenty years ago there were four +decoys almost in sight from this cottage. Now they are all +drained--"let off" as the moor folk put it. The only sound besides +the low lament of the wind among the alders, the plaintive +protests of the heifers in the byres, and the laughter and voices +and occasional clink of steel where the skaters are preparing for +work, is a strange, hollow, booming sound under the ice, or the +sharper crash when it gives way because the water has gone from +under it. It is strange to see great sheets of ice caught in the +bushes or among the alder stems, feet above the general level. + +It is a wintry wind that sweeps over the frozen marshes. But here, +in this sunny corner, with a heap of dry peats to sit on, in the +shelter of a stable on whose door is nailed a lucky horseshoe, +there is the warmth of very summer. + +But hark, the ring of skates upon the ice! And see, the skaters +are leaving their little camping ground just outside the garden. +Already there are moving figures far out on the frozen meadows. As +you watch them start, some bold and fearless, as to the manner +born, some doubtful and hesitating, and hardly venturing to lift +their feet, you might almost read something of their story in +their very movements. + +That tall figure yonder, so absolutely at home upon his skates, +had more time in one long Canadian winter to learn the art he +practises so well than most of us get in a lifetime. And to one +who, in a forced march across the Dominion in the dead of winter, +has tried in vain to sleep on the snow with the thermometer forty +degrees below zero, and who has put down his boiling can of grog +to take it up next minute frozen solid, cold like this is +nothing. And you might have known that the stalwart skater further +out, whose wife is the most graceful among many graceful figures +in the moving throng, gained his first experiences on skates in +latitudes where the frost sometimes holds unbroken for twelve long +dreary weeks. + +The frozen-out moor men are ready enough to volunteer assistance. +And as the day wears on it is really marvellous to see with what +dexterity they carry cups of tea to the skaters; while their dogs, +with an eye to biscuits, make friends with each little group in +turn. A kindly race, these Somerset folks, sunny of face, and +pleasant of speech, in spite of the hard times, and the enforced +idleness and the bitter weather. But they hold strong views as to +the incapacity of engineers who fail to guard against such floods +as this. "What be the use," said one, "of they Drainage +Commissioners, what charges we two and eightpence poundage for +keeping the water off of we? This here flood have lasted since +before Christmas. Here be the rent going on all the time, and the +land won't be no use till May." + +Pleasant it is to watch from this sheltered corner the evolutions +of the skaters. The wind that blows so keen over the miles of +frozen marshland, and that lends a heightened colour to their +glowing faces, cannot reach you here. Pleasant, too, is the scent +of the hay and the breath of cattle from the byres. But pleasanter +still is the ingle nook within the cottage, in a tiny room, so low +that the beam across its ceiling is a trap for even the shortest +of the group on the old settle, by the fragrant fire of peat. By +such a fire it was that Alfred sat. Yet there is a long gap +between the half-shaped bow of the old story and the gun, ancient +as it is, hanging yonder on the wall; and if there are cakes about +this hearth, you will not hear the tall, blue-eyed, winsome damsel +who dispenses them + + "... scold with kindling eye, + In good broad Somerset," + +as the neatherd's wife, a thousand years since, scolded the Royal +fugitive in these very marshes. + +[Illustration: WINSCOMBE--THE CHURCH PORCH.] + + + + +WINSCOMBE: A CAMP OF REFUGE + + +On the edge of a broad valley in the Mendips, on the gentle slope +of a line of low green hills, there stands a quiet hamlet, almost +hidden now among its clustering trees. At the foot of the slope, +standing some way back from the village street, is a white-walled +cottage, whose lawns and garden grounds only a slender fence +divides from the fields that fringe the village. + +On one side of the garden runs a narrow lane, losing itself +presently in the meadows, a quieter backwater of the quiet village +life, in whose old walls and deep-browed hedgerows many birds find +lodging. On the other side, beyond a row of picturesque old sheds +and ruinous old buildings, with brown roofs of thatch and crowns +of thick-growing ivy, stretch the bird-haunted aisles of an +orchard. The nuthatches love its cavernous trees. Its shades are +musical, long before the dawn, with the songs of thrush and +blackbird, of redstart and willow-wren. Among the old buildings +tits and wagtails and robins hide their nests in crannies of the +crumbling masonry. + +But to the garden itself, islanded by lanes and meadows, with its +trees and shrubs, its broad thickets of laurel and rhododendron +and arbutus, the birds come as to a Camp of Refuge. In the tall +evergreen above the gate, wreathed in a great bower of ivy, +blackbirds even now are feeding their young. There are nests in +the lilacs, in the laurels, in the hedges, in the trellis on the +wall. + +Through the open windows the warm air brings all pleasant scents +and sounds. The low of cattle, on distant farms, the mellow +chiming of the old church bells, the rich strains of thrush and +blackbird, the sweet song of the swallow, clink of oxeye, call of +cuckoo, jay's harsh cry, and wood-pecker's light-hearted laughter, +mingle with the perfume of the roses and the woodruff. The +swallows that sing on the brown gable of the barn beyond the +precincts may have their nests plundered by prowling schoolboys. +The hollow trees in the orchard, the chinks in the old wall of the +lane, are not wholly safe from the village birds'-nester. But here +is sanctuary inviolate, from which no bird was ever driven. + +Year after year the fly-catchers repair their nest in the plum +tree trained against the wall. No hand disturbs the martins that +build under the broad eaves. No sweet singer ever here paid with +his life the penalty of his taste for cherries. + +Here no blackbird ever suffered for his raids upon the strawberry +beds. This garden is to him the garden of the laureate: + + "The espaliers and the standards tall + Are thine; the range of lawn and park; + The un-netted black-hearts ripen dark, + All thine, against the garden wall." + +Here the bullfinch may pillage at his will. The only unpardonable +crime that even the house-sparrow can commit is to take wrongful +possession of a martin's nest. Even then the culprit has never +suffered anything but reproaches. Even when, with its own untidy +heap of hay and feathers, it has blocked up a rain-water pipe, the +disaster that it caused was not held warrant for eviction. And +never surely were there sparrows quite so bright of plumage--so +glossy their sleek heads, so rich their chestnut feathers, so +stainless the white bars across their wings. + +Here, too, in the hard winter weather, the birds have learnt by +long experience to come as for corn in Egypt. The missel-thrush +and the nuthatch, the marsh-tit and the oxeye, know well the +brilliant berries they may plunder at their will from the tall +Irish yew before the window. In the very bearing of the birds that +haunt the garden, of the robin and the sparrow and the +song-thrush, that in hard times come to the very window to be fed, +with firm faith in their gentle almoners, you may read the +confidence born of long experience, the result of years of welcome +and protection. + +The fly-catcher brooding on her nest, her glossy head just +showing over the rim of the little cradle she has slung between +the plum-tree and the wall, watches your approach without the +least alarm. And as you stroll between the borders, bright with +thickets of peonies, covered with great rose-like blooms, with +their flags and pansies and pale yellow poppies, and with all +their hundred flowers, she will flicker lightly by to her +favourite resting-place on the rose-hung arch over the garden +path, or to the handle of the walking-stick set upright in the +grass for her sovereign pleasure, or to the leafless laurel bough +that, while shears and pruning-knife are merciless to every other +dead wood in the garden, is spared for her sake alone. + +Watch her for a moment. See how she turns her head this way and +that, keeping a sharp look-out for passing fly or beetle. See how +suddenly she darts from her watch tower, how she hovers for a +moment in the air, with faint click of her sharp bill, flying +lightly back, perhaps beating her prey against the bough a time or +two before she swallows it. There is a saying here that fortune +hangs on giving shelter to the flycatcher: + + "If you scare the flycatcher away, + No good luck will with you stay." + +[Illustration: A MENDIP VILLAGE: WINSCOMBE.] + +But there is no thought of fortune, good or ill, mingled with the +kindly care that has made for so many years a sanctuary of this +quiet spot. The very cat seems to have learnt that--under the eyes +of the family at least--there is close time here, all the year +round, for every bird that flies. + +When Jock is lying at the door, stretched out at length in the +sunshine, you may see a thrush alight within a yard of him, the +picture of righteous indignation, feathers ruffled, wings adroop, +and storm and scold and flutter and gesticulate; while he, his +conscience pricked perhaps--who knows?--by the remembrance of an +early breakfast some fine morning among the lilac bushes, when +that brood of young thrushes disappeared so strangely, blinks with +affected sleepiness at his fierce little accuser. She has even +been seen to perch upon his back, when he, as if remembering some +previous engagement, stretched himself, and yawned, and meekly +walked away. + +At the far end of the lawn, in a nook between the meeting lines of +hedge-row, stand four sheltering elms, joining their heads in a +green canopy, cool and restful. From the seat beneath them you +look out over a broad meadow to the misty hills. The long grass +is bright with myriad flowers, with lotus and hawkweed, and with +yellow crowns of dandelion, whose silvery parachutes now and then +sail over, sinking slowly down the summer air. Somewhere in the +grass, that in a few short weeks will fill the house with the +sweet incense of the hay, a corncrake is calling. It is a strange +note, harsh and unmusical always; heard at night, sometimes +irritating beyond words to paint; yet here, and now, a pleasant +country sound. + +You may watch the shrike yonder, perched motionless on his +favourite hawthorn, in whose shadow his mate is doubtless already +brooding on her eggs. You may listen to the goldfinch singing in +the green mist of meeting branches overhead; see the grey cuckoo +alight on the topmost crest of the great elm that towers above the +meadow; watch the busy starlings as they pass and repass with +hurried flight. And, as through the great masses of lilac, now +beginning to abate their rare perfume, you catch glimpses of hills +and meadows, of the white houses of the village, with its orchards +and its elms, and, crowning these, the grey tower of the church, +looking down like a watchful sentinel on the hamlet lying at its +feet, you feel it was to no fairer spot than this that the poet +called his friend, when he sang: + + "Or if thou tarry, come with the summer. + That welcome comer + Welcome as he. + When noontide sunshine beats on the meadow + A seat in shadow, + We'll keep for thee." + +[Illustration: THE MOWERS.] + + + + +WINSCOMBE: A MIDSUMMER MEADOW. + + +The whirr of the iron mower has ceased at length. Hour after hour +the clashing blades swept in still narrowing circles round and +round the spacious meadow. Now the last swath has fallen. Now in +the centre of the field the machine stands silent; the tired +horses taking toll of the sweet grass that is strewn about their +feet. + +The men lie motionless, their sunburned faces buried in the +fragrant coolness. A few short hours ago this broad field was a +sea of nodding grasses, whose tasselled points lent soft and +changing tints of purple to the long waves that betrayed the light +movements of the air. Sheets of great moon-daisies whitened it. +Here it was golden with dyer's weed and lingering buttercups; and +there it was crimson with fiery touches of red sorrel. Under the +hot noonday sun each waft of air that stirred across it was +fragrant with mingled perfumes, of the scent of hawkweed and lotus +and sweet clover blooms. Its cool depths were stirred by +honey-hunting bees. Wandering butterflies floated over it. Burnet +moths in black and crimson sailed across it on their silken wings. +Now the close shaven sward is strewn with drying grass and fading +flowers. Bee nor butterfly will visit it more. To-morrow night not +a touch of colour will remain of all its mingled beauty, ruined +now past all hope; not a petal of its oxeye daisies, not a +hawkweed unwithered, not a lingering clover bloom. + +The hour is late. Along the low hills that bound the valley hangs +the haze of sunset. There is a faint flush of rose colour on the +soft clouds that drift slowly overhead. The air is still filled +with fragrance. Instead of the sweet incense of the clover, there +is the scent of new-mown hay. + +For the breath of the lost flowers of the meadow there are all the +perfumes of the one garden that gives upon the field--of roses all +in bloom on arch and trellis, of clumps of tall sweet peas, white +and red and rich imperial purple, of the delicate wild pinks, +rooted at will in the old garden wall. And, although the last +blossom has faded from the hawthorns round the meadow, slowly, and +as with reluctance, delicate dog-roses are scattered broadcast all +along the hedge-rows, and the woodbine sprays are rich already +with pale sweet clusters. + +This is a flowery haytime. Surely there was never more lavish +wealth of roses on the hedges, nor can one even fancy broader +sheets of oxeye daisies in the mowing grass. + +Along the hedges the machine has left a fringe of tall grasses +still unmown. And this green jungle, and the broad thickets behind +it, are all astir with birds, some of them gaining now their first +experiences of the great green world--a world of warmth and +beauty, such as rarely, even in the noon of summer, greets the +young children of the air. Linnets and finches, thrushes and +blackbirds, and a host of other wingèd toilers of the field, are +busy among the fallen swaths--not plundering the seeds, but +seeking treasure-trove of slugs and wire-worms, and all the myriad +creatures whose haunts the fall of the grass forest has laid bare. + +Here forages a troop of starlings; the old birds in dark and +glossy plumage, the young brood in sober, unpretending brown. Now +a little cloud of martins wheel over the meadow, fluttering down +to hover above the grass with soft, sweet notes. Now a singing +swallow floats along. And now on dark wings a troop of swifts sail +swarming down the field--labourers in man's service one and all. + +On the end of a dead ivy branch that stands out of the garden +hedge sits a solitary flycatcher; a small grey figure that, in her +shape and attitude, is like no other bird that haunts the +precincts. She is silent for the most part, only uttering now and +then a weak, half querulous note, that is answered by notes weaker +and more querulous from the heart of the thick laurel near. Again +and again she takes short flights into the air across the garden, +and even a dozen yards or more out over the grass, fluttering in +the air a moment, and then lightly flitting back to her perch on +the dead ivy stem, or to the rail that parts the garden from the +meadow. + +In a plum tree on the cottage wall, half hidden among clustering +roses, is the empty nest from which the grey youngsters hiding now +among the bushes have but just spread wings to fly. For once they +tried their powers too soon. They ventured over the edge of their +small nursery on wings not yet strong enough for flight, and they +were found one morning on the ground among the stocks and poppies +and sweet-williams underneath the nest, while the anxious parents, +with plaintive cries, fluttered over them with vain attempts at +rescue. + +The fall had been fatal to one of the little aeronauts, but three +were rescued, and, in a small basket filled with hay, were slung +close up under the deserted nest. They made no effort to get back +to their old quarters, but sat content on the edge of the basket, +three little odd owl-like figures; while the old birds, their +minds at rest again, foraged for them all day, from dawn till +dark, chasing moths and flies along the garden paths, in vain +attempts to satisfy their insatiable needs. + +Under the eaves above the flycatcher's tree there is a martin's +nest. At least, martins built it, but there was a dispute this +year about the tenancy. It is not a new nest. It is in fact a +tenement of many years' standing. And while two rival couples of +martins were still discussing the question of proprietorship, a +pair of prowling house sparrows stepped in and took possession. +Perhaps they were the arbitrators--who knows? + +And now these house sparrows, bent on fitting a warmer lining to +their stolen habitation, cast covetous glances on the young +flycatchers' basket, and when the parent birds were +away--sometimes even under their very eyes--the unscrupulous +brigands carried off the hay by handsful. + +Fine fellows, these country sparrows: so very different from their +grimy, scurrilous, soot-stained cousins of the city streets, with +even a note of music on their ready tongues, and with plumage of +such pure white and velvety black, of such rich warm tones of +chestnut, that you would say they were among the handsomest of +birds, might perhaps even go the length of wondering what strange +species they might be. + +And now the men, rising reluctantly from their lair among the +grass, unship the long blades of the machine. It goes slowly +jingling up the field, and through the gate at the far end, ready +for more mowing on the morrow. + +The sun low down in the west, showing for a brief space through +the trees his face of fiery gold barred with the dark branches, +throws far across the grass the shadows of a group of tall elms +out in the meadow, whose green heads tower a hundred feet into the +clear, pale blue. Motionless they stand, or seem to stand. The +light wafts of scented air may flutter the leaves upon their lofty +crests, but have no power to sway their giant branches. From far +up among their green crown of foliage floats a goldfinch's song--a +pleasant sound, a note of summer and green fields and open +country. Pleasant, too, is the slow clink of a whetted scythe, +sounding faintly from a distant meadow, where some tired haymaker, +perhaps for the last time in the long summer day, is putting a +better edge upon his worn old blade. + +Along the hedge yonder a man is finishing off the ragged edges +the machine has left, and the swish, swish of the grass that falls +before his sweeping strokes has almost as sweet a sound to-night +as the vesper of the song-thrush over there, high up among the +branches of a hedgerow elm. + +The gentle nurse of the foundling flycatchers is moving slowly +across the meadow, the light of sunset on her white dress, sweet +face, and graceful figure. She is carrying a great handful of +oxeye daisies, gleaned from the new-mown hay--adding now a tall +spray of quaking grass, now a leaf of bright red sorrel, and +looking now and then with wistful eyes at the flowers for whose +brief life she thus provides a little longer span. The sun is +down. The long day's work is ended. In the combe yonder, the +little sleepy hollow that dies away among the quiet hills, the +purple shadows deepen, and the last faint lingering glow fades +slowly from the cliffs along its southern verge. + +No clink of scythe-blade now, no sound of toil. The last note of +labour and of daylight is the shouting from some distant farm, +where the last load is being cheered into the stack-yard. A +restless corncrake cries among the long grass of the next meadow +that stands waiting for the scythe. Far off among the elms beyond +the church an owl hoots. It is the hour of rest; the hour when, +over the blue vault above, + + "... The brooding twilight + Unfolds her starry wings, + And warm hearts bless with tenderness + The peace that evetide brings:" + +--the peace of God, for this broad hollow in the hills. Slowly on +the quiet landscape falls the restful stillness of the summer +night. + +[Illustration: A WEST COUNTRY REAPER.] + + + + +WINSCOMBE: HARVEST HOME. + + +It is strange to sit, this bright September morning, under the +shadow of a noble row of limes, and listen to the whirr of the +iron mower as it rattles round and round the wide meadow yonder. +It is late for haymaking. Among the branches overhead are the red +and gold of autumn, and the grass at the feet of the old trees is +strewn with withered leaves. These fly-catchers that flit across +the lawn and sail back to their stations along the fence will soon +be leaving us. It cannot be long before the chiff-chaffs, now +calling so blithely in the limes, are silent. The clear, sweet +singing of the robins is far more in keeping with the spirit of +autumn, than the sound of the machine. But the rain and the sun +between them have brought a noble aftermath to gladden the hearts +of the farmers, whose case will, after all, not be quite so evil +as they feared. + +It is a strange experience to hear, in the pauses of the iron +reaper, the mellow sound of bells that are ringing for the Harvest +Home. Strange to cheer the last load into the stack-yard, and to +assemble for a Harvest Festival, while fresh-cut hay is still +lying in the fields. Towards the grand old tower on the hill-slope +yonder, that for so many ages has kept watch and ward over the +parish, the village folk, in all their holiday attire, are +trooping across this pleasantest of Mendip valleys. As we make our +way with them along the green country lanes, we can see how the +hedge-rows are beginning already to wear the hues of autumn. The +Old Man's Beard is all grey with its feathery seeds. Dogwood and +Guelder Rose are bright with wayside fruit. The banks are gay with +St. John's wort and Golden Rod and tall Canterbury Bells. + +Pausing a minute under the old churchyard yew, that for unknown +centuries has spread its dark arms over the dust of the +forefathers of the hamlet, the little knots of villagers file into +the church. The porch is hung with oat sheaves and red apples; and +over the door are hung boughs of wild hedge-row plums, bullace, +not sloes, so thickly clustered and with so rare a bloom that they +might pass easily for grapes. + +There are but few farmers in the congregation. The hay is "down" +in the meadows; that is one reason. Some farmers, too, have no +mind for thanksgiving--forgetful that half a loaf is, at any rate, +better than no bread at all. But some at least of the villagers +have agreed to carry out the injunction expressed in the wheaten +letters that lie on a green fringe of ferns all along under the +south wall--"Honour the Lord with thy first "fruits"--for the +windows are heaped with fruit and vegetables, with apples and +'taters, and huge marrows--the best of each man's field or garden. +The pulpit is draped with heather and brown bracken, hung with +grapes and apples, and long trails of bryony; while the font, with +which generations of parishioners have made early and perhaps not +altogether agreeable acquaintance, is lost in a great pile of +ferns and flowers. The chancel is a very bower of green. Lectern +and reading-desk are wreathed with creepers and corn sheaves and +trophies of the harvest. + +The hour of service is drawing near. The chimes, that just now +were swinging softly overhead, break off into the homing-bell. The +rest of the congregation troop slowly in. Young village beauties, +conscious of admiring glances, are scattered here and +there--bright reliefs of light and colour among the darker +costumes of the men. The choir-boys, conscious too, but more +sheepish as they run the gauntlet of less sympathetic eyes, muster +under the tower, where presently the tall curate joins them, and +the curtain is drawn across like a sort of gigantic conjuring-box. +Young folks they are, for the most part, that fill up the benches. +Yet there is a good sprinkling of the older generation. That is a +fine sample of a West Country farmer yonder, that burly red-faced +figure, glancing idly at the tablets on the wall in "memory" of +long-forgotten yeomen, "late of this parish," or the stony +figures weeping silently into colossal urns--that doubtless are as +great a wonder to him now as when he was a boy. + +The bell stops. The whispers cease. A solemn hush falls on the +gathered worshippers. And now the Vicar, from his station under +the tower, calls on his flock to join in the thanksgiving hymn-- + + "Come, ye thankful people, come; + Raise the song of Harvest Home." + +Two and two the choir-boys pass, singing, up the aisle, their +clear tones mingling with the deeper voices of their elders. The +old men, no longer strong enough to swing a scythe or turn a +furrow, sit silent. The lines on their reverent faces seem like +records of hard times and bitter weather. Their working days are +done. In the words the choir are singing, they are waiting to + + "... be gathered in, + Free from sorrow, free from sin: + All upon the Golden Floor, + Praising Thee for evermore" + +The sweet notes of the anthem, "I will lift up mine eyes to the +hills," roll among the dark rafters overhead. The preacher +exhorts us to thankfulness, even for what we may look on as +adversity. Should we be so ungracious, he asks, as to return no +thanks at all because a gift turned out to be smaller than we +expected? Farmers as a rule certainly have, rightly or wrongly, a +reputation for, let us say, not always being so thankful as they +might be. It was a yeoman of this very parish who, when +congratulated once upon the extraordinary crops, all good alike, +replied--"That's where 'tis; 'tis all so good we shan't have +nothing to give to the _poor_ stock!" A good discourse, +straightforward and hard-hitting, true and telling. + +We file out under the ancient doorway, and pass in procession +under the flags and streamers and mottoes that the villagers have +hung at intervals across the green lanes, to the place where, in +less serious fashion, the people of the hamlet, of all sorts and +conditions, are to meet on equal terms--Vicar and Lady Bountiful +and dames of high degree on the one side, and farmers and +labourers on the other--for a frolic in the spacious meadow. It is +an ideal day for it; the air is warm, the grass is dry. Tea in the +tent is the first business; a tent brave with festoons and flags +and decorations. There is a hint in one of the mottoes at the +shortcomings of the season-- + + "May the year '93 + Be the worst we shall see." + +Follows then a game of rounders, in which the Vicar, after much +persuasion, agrees to play, if another somewhat elderly pillar of +the Church will take a hand too. It were long to tell the varying +fortunes of the game; how the portly figure of the wheelwright was +hampered by the unwonted dignity--as to workadays, that is--of a +long frock coat; how the village butcher, glorious in a white +waistcoat, forgets it in the heat of battle; how a tall young lady +in grey makes the most brilliant of catches; and how the pillar of +the Church was thrown out by the long curate. And if the Vicar +plays no very conspicuous part in the game, his boys are the life +of it; and it is his daughter too, who, in a far corner of the +field, leads a dance of village children, to the old-world ditty, +"As we go gathering nuts in May, nuts in May, nuts in May," their +sweet young voices sounding clear above the shouts of the players. + +But the game is ended. The next move is to the tent, hung now +with clusters of lamps, and with everything cleared ready for a +dance. The band on a daïs in the centre, an uncommonly good band +too, strikes up a lively air. There is a little shyness at first +starting--not more than fifty couples, perhaps, to begin with; a +little awkwardness, and a few collisions; but the company is +pervaded with such imperturbable good humour that no one cares for +any mishap. As the evening wears on the gaps on the seats against +the canvas walls grow wider. And when the first square dance is +about to begin there is a good deal of active searching for +partners. "Have you got a 'vizzyvizze'?" says a young farmer to a +village belle. The Vicar pleads that his dancing days are over; +but it is clear that no one takes more delight than he in the +innocent merry-making of his flock. A hundred pairs of dancers are +footing merrily on the short, dry turf. "Warm, b'aint it?" says +one sturdy young farmer to another, who stands mopping his brow at +the end of the set. + +But as the summer night wears on, and the revellers settle to +their work in earnest, it is a warmer business still. Hats are +tilted further and further back; waistcoats are loosened; and at +length, in the closing reel, hats are tossed aside and coats even +are discarded. It is an orderly company, quiet and well-behaved to +the very last, breaking off their revels on the stroke of +midnight, trooping out of the tent that, with its multitudinous +lamps, is bright against the moonless sky, its festoons of flags +and creepers showing clearly through the canvas walls. They go +their several ways across the wide parish, along the dim, +unlighted lanes, to meet no more, under such conditions at any +rate, until next year brings round another Harvest Home. + +[Illustration: COUNTRY LIFE.] + + + + +WINTERHEAD: AFTERMATH. + + +There are many symbols on the dial of Nature to mark the changing +of the year. Such signs are the brightening colours of the +meadows, and the growing hosts of insect life. Such a sign is the +strange, noonday silence of the woodland; and such, too, is the +change in the cuckoo's cry--faltering, even before the longest +day. Such signs are the gathering of the swallows, the purple mist +on the plumed reeds by the river, the blackberry clusters ripening +fast along the hedge-row, the butterflies that flutter in through +the open windows, seeking already some dark nook in which to hide +themselves in good time before the setting in of winter. + +But plainer even than these, for most of us at any rate, is the +altered tone of the hedge-rows--ever ready to answer to the +influence of the sunshine. It is under the hedge-row that spring +leaves her fairest traces--violets white and blue, and primroses, +with their soft, delicate perfume. May crowns the thickets with +the foamy fragrance of the hawthorn. June studs the long briar +sprays with sweet wild roses, fairest of all flowers of summer. +And now, again, these hot summer days are lending new beauty to +the country lanes; not of flowers or of fresh young foliage, but +of mellow leaves and gleaming berries. + +There is a special charm about these old West Country lanes, worn, +sometimes, by the clumsy wheels and toiling feet of many +centuries, deep down below the fields on either hand; lanes that +lead perhaps to nowhere, or that lose themselves in the meadows; +lanes that in our fathers' time were, it may be, King's highways, +and that now grass-grown and neglected, with deep ruts and +broadening hollows, where water lies in winter, are known only to +the birds'-nester, or to village children in quest of nuts or +blackberries. For most of us these quests are but memories of +childhood. Most of us can but echo the lament of the poet: + + "And blackberries, so mawkish now, + Were finely flavoured then; + And nuts, such reddening clusters ripe, + I ne'er shall pull again." + +And yet, perhaps, though the feast of to-day is for the eye rather +than the palate, we welcome as keenly as we ever did, nutting +time, or days of blackberry harvest. We think less of the rich, +ripe clusters, no doubt, but we are more alive to the beauty of +the leaves, of the red stems that show so well among the green +shadows, of the withering foliage, torn and ragged, yet touched in +the autumn with gold and russet and fiery crimson. + +The old yew yonder, by the church on the hillside, under whose +broad shadow so many centuries of village folk have gathered week +by week, when service was over, to talk of the haying, and the +weather, and even, it may be, of the business of their neighbours, +stands out a dark, funereal mass against the grey masonry behind +it. A nearer view would show that its heavy green is relieved by a +thousand points of gold, not yet wholly tarnished, but at this +distance they are lost in the surrounding gloom. The copper +beeches by the manor house, that of late gleamed like metal in the +brilliant sunshine, are darkening into black. The larch +plantations, marshalled in well-ordered phalanx along the old road +half up the hill, have long since lost their freshness, and the +leaves of this great pollard oak, whose maimed boughs throw a +shadow none too wide, are bright no longer. + +For centuries has the old tree cooled its knotted roots in the +black earth of this swampy hollow. Signs of age are only too plain +to read. The furrowed bark has been split away in patches, +revealing underneath the galleries of wood-boring creatures; and +the old trunk is scarred with pits that the wood-peckers have been +digging, searching for fat white beetle grubs, or for the +evil-smelling caterpillar of the goat-moth. And just below the +pollarded branches there is a woodpecker's hole, whose well-worn +threshold suggests years of occupation. + +Round the broad base of the tree marsh plants are +growing--spearwort and water-plantain, broad blades of iris, and +cool green plumes of marestail. In the long grass of the field +that stretches far on either hand, there are crimson spikes of +orchis, pale marsh valerian, and bright ragged robin, and here and +there nods a white plume of early cotton grass. It is a mere +thread of water that, loitering slowly through the meadow, seems +to pause round the roots of this old tree; the very slenderest of +streams. Even the reedy hollow where it steals along, a broken +line of silver, lost at times among sedges and brooklime and +strong meadow grasses, is hardly noticed as it wanders idly +through the field. Yet the birds know it well. Here the snipe lie +in the hard weather. Here, too, in winter, you may watch the +water-rail stealing in and out among the leafless thickets, +through the jungle of dead stems of fig-wort, and hemlock, and +tall hemp agrimony. On the black mud of the shore you may trace +to-day the light footprints of the wagtails that have their +lodging in a cranny of the ruined mill in the next meadow, the +broad sign manual of the moorhens whose nest is nearer still, and +the tracks of many a water-loving bird beside. + +And, though the listening ear can but just catch the faint tinkle +of the tiny ripples that fret among the hemlock stems, there is as +much life along this little streamlet as by the mill pool yonder, +though the rumble of the old wheel and the plash of the mill-race +seem louder, even at this distance, than the low murmur of these +tiny waves. There, among the rafters of the boat-house, the +swallows build, and white-breasted martins have their nests under +the broad eaves of the mill. But it is here, by this oozy margin, +that they find the clay to frame their dwellings. + +The moorhen rides in company with the little fleet of ducks upon +the pool, though she draws hastily away when the miller lounges +through the door to open the sluice, her nodding head keeping time +to the quick beating of her paddles. But it is here that she hides +her nest. It is behind the stems of that hazel bush, close down by +the stream. Last night, when the old bird went off with a splash +like a water-rat, there was just light enough to count the seven +eggs. But now, when you steal quietly up, there is no old bird on +guard. No eggs are in the nest. It is filled to the very brim with +something dark, like a black shadow. All at once, as you stand +peering down at it from the farther shore, hardly a yard away, the +shadow breaks into fragments that struggle over the edge and +plunge down into the water--seven fluffy little balls of sable +down, each with a touch of scarlet for a beak; seven bold young +moorhens, making their first venture into the great world; +argonauts born, paddling along the diminutive reaches of their +tiny river, and scrambling away into the green jungle on the shore +with a skill and readiness that is the heir-loom of untold +generations. + +The sedge-warbler, too, loves the reedy fringe of the mill pond, +and he never shows to more advantage than when he balances on one +of those tall spears of bulrush. But his nest is here, in yonder +bush, whose foliage the cows have cropped so close. A strange song +is his, copied now from the skylark, and now from the swallow; and +now again you might think that a party of house-sparrows were +having a real good gossip down by the water. + +Sparrow-like, too, is the note of a bird that sits motionless on +the topmost twig of a maple tree that leans over the brook. His +shape and his smart plumage, the flatness of his head and the rich +red brown of his back, mark him for a shrike, a butcher-bird. He, +too, is fond of this quiet corner. Year after year his mate and he +come back to the hawthorn bush below the maple, to repair the +great nest in which so many families have been reared. On a broad +flat stone that serves for a bridge over the meadow ditch near by +are strewn some broken snail shells and a half-eaten cockchafer. +But that was not his doing. If you look closely at the bush below +his perch, the bush that shelters his well-hidden nest, you may +discover the butcher-bird's "larder;" may see spitted on the long +thorns that help to guard his dwelling, beetles, or bees, or even +a young bird, or, it may be, a dragon-fly, who surely must have +been taken unaware, since with those strong gauzy wings it is said +he can distance even the swallow in his swift career. + +A man with a pail slung on his shoulder, and with a milking stool +in his hand, comes slowly out from the farm buildings, a dog +following at his heels; a dog grey and shabby and unkempt, of +breed altogether past description. But he is a master of his art, +mongrel though he be. The man points to a group of cattle in the +far corner of the field. At once the dog goes off to bring them +in, heading and turning, and then urging them gently homeward, +with marvellous skill and patience, encouraged now and again by +his master's strange and inarticulate shouts. A troop of goslings +is grazing in the middle of the field, goose and gander standing +sentinel at either end of the extended line. The old birds sound a +challenge as the dog goes by, and lower their silly heads, and +hiss and charge at him; while he, his mind set wholly on the +business of the moment, canters past unmoved. An angry gander is +by no means an antagonist to be despised. There is something +particularly irritating, too, in the style of the attack. We can +hardly wonder at the village urchin who, having been sorely +harassed as to his unprotected legs by vicious digs of the old +bird's beak, tried to soothe his wounded feelings by stoning at +long range the unoffending goslings, blubbering out in mingled +pain and rage to the indignant farmer who presently seized on him +red-handed: "What for they goschicks' fayther bite I, then?" + +Round the old farm yonder, whose weather-stained roofs and walls +half ruinous just show among its clustering trees, there is a +picture of quiet autumn life. In the spacious stack-yard a party +of labourers, whose sunburnt faces glow against the green +background of the trees like so many round red autumn suns, are +standing about a great waggon, tossing hay to men at work on the +fast-growing ricks of new, sweet-smelling aftermath. It is an +ancient homestead. A thousand summers, it may be, has hay been +cleared from these broad meadows. A thousand times, at the season +of mists and mellow fruitfulness, have the sheaves been piled in +this old stack-yard. The hamlet of three houses is little changed, +either in name or character, since the days of Edward the +Confessor, when Brictric held it, paying geld for one hide of +land; when two villeins, with as many boors and serfs, made up all +its scanty population. A pleasant place, this warm autumn +afternoon, is the hollow at the back of the farm; a broad space of +level grass land, once an orchard, and with a few forlorn old +apple trees still standing in it; bordered on one side by a green +lane, and on the other by a broken line of hedge-row, through +whose wide gaps the thistles and brake-fern are marching down like +caterans from the hills, bent on reconquering the pasture-land and +turning it once more into a wilderness. All round it rise the +hills, robbing it of some hours of sunshine indeed, yet sheltering +it from every wind that blows. Just showing over a steep brow +above are the white houses of a hill-side village, once in the +heart of a great mining field--the very place Macaulay had in +view when he described how + + "The rugged miners poured to war from Mendip's sunless caves." + +The mines have long been deserted. But here and there among the +villages you still may happen on some son of the soil, some +time-worn and bent and wrinkled patriarch, who, in his young days, +dug for ore among these hills; who remembers the time when a +miner, working here for his own hand, could earn a sovereign a +day. But although the miners have been gone these fifty years, the +whole country side is seamed and scarred with traces of their old +workings. There are fields on this farm where the ground is so +broken with heaps of rubbish from the pits, and so full of +barely-covered shafts, that the land is almost valueless. But +there are no buildings to spoil the landscape. There was no +machinery but the windlass and the bucket. And here, as ever, +Nature has done her best to hide the traces of man's ravages. The +heaps of stone and earth she has changed to grassy knolls, covered +them with lotus and burnet and scented clusters of the thyme, and +scattered over them little clumps of dark campanula. Under her +kindly touch the stony shafts are turned to bowery hollows, +green with moss and stone-crop, and long plumes of fern. + +[Illustration: WINTERHEAD: AN UPLAND PASTURE.] + +A bird-haunted spot is this little hollow in the hills. The clump +of old Scotch firs looking down from the hill-slope yonder is the +harbour of crow and magpie, ever the hangers-on of a West Country +farm. The straggling hedge-rows that part these broad fields are +full of empty nests. Here, among the red fruit of rowan and +whitebeam, the ring-ousel lingers on his southward journey. In +this old apple tree, whose withered arms are hung for once with +fruit, like little golden balls, is a woodpecker's hole, with +marks of the maker's tool about it yet. That stately oak tree, +springing straight and tall in the line of the old +hedge-row--touched above with a hundred points of light where the +pale green acorns hang, and laced below, across its drooping +branches, with silver lines of gossamer--is a resting place for +all the birds of the air. In the spring the cuckoo alights upon +its topmost crown and calls his name to all the neighbourhood. +From its leafy crest the magpie looks down, meditating another +raid upon the hencoop. The brown squirrels too, love to frolic in +its dim green shadows, playing hide and seek among the branches, +and racing headlong down its wrinkled bark to scamper over the +short turf of the meadow. At this moment two linnets on its +topmost spray are filling the air with such a chorus of sweet +notes and breezy chattering that you might think a score of birds +were in the tree. + +The sun is sinking low. The shadows of the hedge-row elms are +stealing far down the grassy slope. Sparrows that have been +gleaning in outlying stubble-fields are flying home to roost in +the ivy on the old barn wall, or in the sides of the stacks, or in +snug tunnels that they have made for themselves in the thatched +roof of their thankless lord and suzerain:--quarters infinitely +cleaner and sweeter and more wholesome altogether than those of +their smoke-blackened cousins in the city. The sun is down. A soft +blue mist is gathering in the red heart of the pines. And now + + "The shadows veil the meadows, + And the sunset's golden ladders + Sink from twilight's walls of grey." + +[Illustration: A GREY OLD HOUSE BY THE SEA.] + + + + +WOODSPRING: A GREY OLD HOUSE BY THE SEA. + + +The heat-glimmer is still quivering on the sand, and over the vast +mud-flats, bared by the retreating tide, a soft haze hangs. Yet +the sun, sinking slowly through a cloudless sky, reddens as it +nears the low horizon, and the grey grass of the old sea wall is +brightening in the glow of sunset. Over the long curve of the +sand-hills shows a wide sweep of plain, whose level meadows, +freshened by the welcome rain, are still a very blaze of gold. +Against the sky, where, at the far limit of the bay, the ragged +hillocks die away into the shore, stands the white shaft of a +lighthouse. Farther still, across the hazy mud-flats, rise the +faint shapes of shadowy hills. The tide is out. A sea of boulders, +shaggy with dark weed, look like a herd of strange monsters come +ashore to bask upon the sand. There is no sign of human presence +anywhere, save a house roof just showing here and there above the +sand-hills, the distant hamlets scattered at far intervals over +the moor, and the black stakes of fishing nets that stand out on +the grey mud like webs of giant spiders. There is no figure on the +shore, no stranded boat, no idle sail. Nor is there sound, save +the low monotonous murmur of the sea. But here and there over the +desolate expanse dark shapes of birds are moving. Now and then a +troop of dunlins careers along the sand. Surely they are soon back +after their brief northern summer. One can hardly think that they +and the brown whimbrels whose musical trill at times falls softly +on the ear can have been away at all. Now a party of gulls get up +with wild stormy crying, and wheel and eddy in the air, now light, +now dark on the grey sky of the horizon. All the while to the +cliff ledges overhead clamorous daws are drifting, passing to +their nests, or settling on storm-worn pinnacles of rock. That +shrill pipe was the cry of a kestrel. Two rock doves hurrying +homeward, cliff-dwellers like the rest, pay no heed. They know him +well, too well to fear at any time his beak or claw. Here he +comes, wheeling round the headland. With wings and tail spread +wide, he pauses a moment to hover in the air; then sails slowly +by. No shrill clamour from the cliff answers his challenge. No +fierce young eyases yet are on the watch for his return. He +alights on a ledge far overhead, where his mate no doubt is +brooding on her rich brown eggs. Over the sea, trembling in the +sinking sun, lies a gleam as of frosted silver. Suddenly, far out +on the grey level, breaks a line of light. A faint sound falls on +the ear--the low roar of the returning sea, the first wave of the +rising tide. Now troops of daws, rising from the fields along the +shore, fly homeward--a gathering cloud of dusky figures sweeping +towards the cliff, that echoes with their musical clamour. + +Right overhead they go, clustering like bees on ledges and +pinnacles and grassy slopes, and settle down to gossip over the +experiences of the day. Again they rise into the air, and wheel +over the sea, and again turn homeward, darkening the cliff as with +innumerable points of shadow. Once more they rise in eddying +crowd. The troop divides. With sharp chorus of farewell one party +flies straight over the hill. Their resting-place is farther on. +They are not dwellers in the cliff. They are making for the low +hills to the northward, a ridge of limestone dwindling into such +another rocky headland. There, in the shelter of the hills, stand +the ruins of a priory, in the niches of whose crumbling tower, or +on the dusty floor of its neglected belfry, their sires and they +have built for generations their untidy nests. It is an ancient +pile. Founded now nearly seven centuries ago, its grey walls +harboured for three hundred years a handful of monks, +black-stoled, black-hooded, darker even than these daws. It has +long been an article of faith in the countryside that the old +tower was + + "... built + To purge de Traci's soul from guilt, + Of Becket foully slain." + +But in the original letter, still to be read in the Cottonian +library, in which William de Curtenai, grandson of Traci, made +known to the Bishop of the diocese his intention of founding a +"monastic house of the order of monks of St. Augustine," there is +no hint at all of expiation. Nor, indeed, have we any evidence +that the guilt of murder ever did lie heavy on de Traci's soul: +though there is an old tradition that, after a brief reappearance +at Court, he spent the remainder of his stormy life in seclusion +on his manor near Morthoe, where in the old churchyard by the sea + + "Lie all the Tracies, with the wind in their faces." + +The founder of the priory seems to have had no other object in +view than "the welfare of the soul of Robert de Curtenai, my +father, ... and of my mother and myself; also of my wife, my +ancestors and descendants." For rather more than three centuries +the "Worspryng" canons, never probably more than ten in number, +lived and died in this grey old house by the sea. We know little +of their story; but the document is still in existence to which +the last of their priors set his name in acknowledgment that the +Pope was a usurper, and that King Henry alone was true head of the +Church. Two years later all the minor monasteries were forfeited +to the Crown--"forasmoche as manifest synne, vicious, carnall and +abomynable lyving is dayly used and comitted amonges the lytell +Abbeys and Pryories." This was one of the "lytell Pryories." Its +revenues from all sources, whether from rents that were reckoned +in horseshoes, or from "arable at iv_d._," or from "wode and waste +at j_d._ the acre," amounted to rather under a hundred a year. + +When the little party of friars turned their backs upon their +home, they appear to have carried with them what was probably the +most sacred of their relics: one of those small wooden cups which, +filled with "Canterbury Water"--that is, with water containing a +minute quantity of the martyr's blood--were sold to visitors at +Becket's shrine. Marvellous are the tales related by the +chroniclers of the time as to the virtue of this wonderful water. +By its use sight, hearing, speech, reason, and even life were +restored. + +The pavement was in fact still sprinkled with his blood when those +supernatural manifestations began, which were to make the martyr's +shrine the richest in the world. On the very day of the murder, a +blind man on his way to seek aid at the church of St. Nicholas, +was accosted by "an appearance in the form of a man, who warned +him to betake himself to the new martyr of Christ." He groped his +way to Becket's body. He touched his own sightless eyes with the +sacred blood, and his vision was immediately restored. This was +the first of many miracles. The pious chroniclers record how men, +women, and children flocked to the shrine from every corner of the +Kingdom, some to ask aid, others to return thanks for favours +granted: as Chaucer puts it: + + "The holy, blisful martyr for to seke, + That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke." + +Captives, who had been taken by the Saracens, travelled all the +way from Damascus, to return thanks at the shrine of Canterbury, +because St. Thomas had appeared to them in the visions of the +night and helped them to escape. + +Five writers of the time did their best to record for the benefit +of future ages the miracles of the blessed martyr. These were +Benedict, sometime Prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, and +afterwards Abbot of Peterborough; William of Canterbury, who, +perhaps, held office at the shrine after Benedict; Alan, Abbot of +Tewkesbury; John of Salisbury, who witnessed the murder, and whom +de Traci thought was the man he had wounded; and Grim of +Cambridge,--not a monk, in all probability, nor really connected +in any way with Becket, but his great admirer. It was Grim, it +will be remembered, who was wounded in the vain attempt to save +the Archbishop. The minutest particulars are given in these +chronicles. The names and professions, the counties, the native +towns of many of the pilgrims are recorded. + +There are exceptions. In the case of a man who came from "the +province of Surrey," Benedict says "the barbarous name of the town +has not stuck in my memory." The miracles were of every imaginable +description. A sick monk, near Sedan, too ill to leave his cell, +was touched with a mere list of the Saint's achievements, and in a +short time he was able to resume his duties. A monk of Byland was +dying. He had already received the _Viaticum_, when the Abbot, +having made the sign of the Cross in water upon a piece of +Becket's hair-shirt, caused the dying man's mouth to be opened, +and the water administered. Instantly, we are told, the sick man +recovered speech and appetite. It was a common thing to promise a +candle to the Saint. There were men who were too ill to go in +person to Canterbury, and who dated their recovery from the +instant that the candle was lighted for them at the shrine. + +There is a description of five widows who tried in vain to restore +life to a child who had been three hours under water. They held +him up by the feet; they repeated nine Paternosters over him in +the name of the blessed St. Thomas, but all with no effect. Then +one of them said to the child's mother: "Run and fetch a piece of +string and measure the child, and promise to the martyr a candle +of the same length." It was done, and the boy at once recovered. + +The smallest offerings were not disdained. A Flemish bird-catcher, +having tried in vain for some days to trap a certain falcon, cried +out, "O Blessed Thomas, glorious martyr, I will give thee a penny +if thou wilt give me the falcon." Benedict tells us that "it came +instantly to the bird-catcher, as if used to his hand. We both saw +the falcon," he goes on, "and received the money." + +Even more marvellous still are the legends that passed current as +to the wonders wrought by the martyr's blood, which in quantities +about the bulk of a hazel nut, and largely diluted, were sold to +pilgrims under the name of Canterbury Water. A man, journeying +home after visiting the shrine, was belated at Rochester. In vain +he sought shelter for the night. At door after door he was refused +admittance. At last, "for the sake of the blessed martyr," he was +taken in. In the night the town caught fire. When the citizens +were fleeing, panic-stricken, "the pilgrim, whose faith was more +fervent than the material flame, remaining boldly on the roof, +called for a spear, or something long. A fork (hayfork, perhaps) +was handed up to him. Then, taking the reliquary (containing +Canterbury Water) from his neck ... he fastened it to the fork, +held it out towards the fire," and thus kept the flames at bay. +For "the fire, as if fearing a contrary element, turned aside." +Finally the whole town was burnt, with the single exception of its +one hospitable house. + +A few drops of Canterbury Water swallowed or administered +externally sufficed to cure the most desperate diseases, and were +quite as efficacious as the pilgrimage itself. By its use the +blind, the deaf, the lame, the palsied, were cured, and even the +dead brought back to life. + +The precious liquid was sold at first in small wooden vessels, +fitted with lids, in which mirrors were sometimes fixed, "_specula +mulierum_," as the monkish writer puts it. But as the wood was apt +to split, flasks of lead or earthenware were used instead. These +were hung from the neck, and came to be regarded, like the palm +branch of Jerusalem or the escalop shell of Compostella, as an +emblem of the pilgrimage. It was not an uncommon practice, in old +days, to place in a martyr's tomb a small vessel filled with his +blood. Many such have been discovered in the Catacombs. In the +Kircher Museum at Rome there is an agate cup, containing the +remains of blood, which was found in the Catacombs of St. +Callixtus. + +A special point of interest attaches to these legends in that +there is reason to think that one of these very reliquaries, one +of the earliest and most primitive form and still actually +containing traces of blood, has been preserved to the present day. +Forty years ago, or rather more--the actual date was 1849--some +workmen, while repairing the interior of a little West Country +church, at Kewstoke in Somersetshire, had occasion to remove an +old carved stone, which had been built into the masonry. It was +apparently the head of a column, worked in Caen stone, a material +not used elsewhere in the building, and the style was earlier than +anything else in the church. + +In front of this capital is a niche enclosing a battered effigy, +apparently the half length figure of a veiled woman. At the back, +where it was embedded in the wall, is an arched cavity, about +eight inches high, closed by an oaken panel, and containing a +small cylindrical wooden vessel, three inches in diameter, and but +slightly more in height, broken and decayed, and containing at the +bottom a layer of some dark substance, pronounced, after careful +examination, to be the remains of blood. It is a bold guess, but +still a guess that has much to support it, that this cup was one +of the very reliquaries dispersed through the country after +Becket's martyrdom; that it once held no less precious a relic +than "Canterbury Water"; in short, that the dark layer at the +bottom is what passed, seven centuries ago, for the blood of the +blessed St. Thomas himself. + +The monastery is now a dwelling-house. The windows of a modern +farm look out through the walled-up arches of the priory. Quaint +gargoyles peer through the mantling creepers of the ruined +cloister. Grey stems of ivy have sapped right through the +crumbling masonry. Wallflowers bloom on the worn crowns of the +turrets. It is a quiet spot, "here, at the farthest limit of the +world." Yet it is not strange that a corner so remote should have +been chosen for the site of a monastery dedicated "to God, the +blessed Mary, and the blessed Martyr Thomas." All four of Becket's +murderers were men of the West Country. + +De Brito and Fitzurse were landowners of this district; De Traci +and De Morville belonged, at farthest, to the neighbouring county. +This crumbling relic is to us but an item on the shelf of a +museum. The great churchman himself is to most of us nothing but a +name, a mere figure in a page of history. And although poet and +player, past and present masters of their art, have done their +best to bring him again before the world; although his counterfeit +presentment stands to-day before us as full of fire, of valour, of +resolute determination as on that fatal Tuesday more than seven +centuries ago--yet the Becket of the players is but "a fable, a +phantom, a show." When the curtain falls upon that last sad +scene, we are conscious of no sinking of heart at the remembrance +of an awful figure lying white and still upon the bloodstained +pavement. The curtain down, our Becket is alive again. The actor +lives, the martyr is forgotten. + +There is another figure in the play whose memory lingers in this +far-off spot. At the foot of the low blue hills yonder lies the +village which was the ancient home of the Cliffords. + +Rosamund herself,--the fair girl over whose tomb at Godstow her +royal lover wrote-- + + "Hic jacet in tumba Rosa mundi non Rosa munda," + +was born almost within sight of Curtenai's tower. When the fair +fugitive pleaded, in excuse for wandering out unguarded, that + + "... there stole into the city a breath + Full of the meadows," + +she was, it may be, thinking of the hamlet where, in quiet +cloisters, long since gone to ruin, she passed her girlish days. +There by the + + "... river, widening through the meadows green, + To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen," + +there may have come to her in vision some glimmer of the coming +time, some forerunning shadow of the + + "Love that is born of the deep, coming up with the sun from + the sea." + +[Illustration: THE MONK'S RETREAT.] + + + + +KEWSTOKE: THE MONK'S STEPS. + + +A grey November day, with sad-coloured clouds hanging low over a +grey and sullen sea. At intervals there rolls across the water the +dull boom of distant fog-guns, echoing like thunder under the +heavy veil of mist. From the shore below comes the ceaseless fret +of waves sweeping swiftly in across the sand. Along the edge of +the tide and over the wide mud-flats are scattered the white +figures of gulls; and at times there comes faintly up the low +musical call of a whimbrel, or the plaintive wail of a curlew. At +times, too, there rises in the air a great flock of sandpipers, +like a thin smoke-cloud drifting down the shore, until, as they +wheel, their snowy breasts and upturned wings gleam for a moment +silver white on the grey sky behind them. + +It is a grey world altogether; grey sea, grey shore, grey shingle. +Grey, too, are the ragged sand hills, whose shifting ramparts the +gales of many winters have piled so high over the old sea wall. +Below this hollow--a narrow gorge worn deep into the hill--there +lies a little hamlet, still half-hidden by the trees, thinned and +tattered though they are, and nestling close under the shelter of +the hill;--a score or so of white-walled houses, with roofs of red +tiles weathered to soft shades of brown and russet, with plumes of +blue smoke all trailing seawards, and with a fringe of orchards +round it, where the mellow fruit is still glowing on the boughs. +High over the roofs of the village rises the grey tower of the +church, its turrets just clear above the clustering elms, in whose +shadow lies the crowded graveyard, + + "Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap." + +A wide stretch of pasture-land divides the village from the sea. +Yet, in old days--before the coming of the friars to the priory +yonder, whose tower shows faintly against the low green hill that +dies in a rocky headland by the sea, perhaps even before the +legionaries stormed the great stronghold whose ruins crown this +breezy hill-top--the little hamlet, now so far above the tide +line, was, if antiquaries read its name aright, a place of boats. +The fields about it are still below high-water mark. A high spring +tide, before a gale from the westward, would even now reach right +up to the village, were it not for the sea wall and the sand +hills. + +The sand hills are mere desert now. Yet they are pleasant enough +in the summer time, when their short turf is bright with +rest-harrow and crowfoot, when the great bells of the +sea-convolvulus open wide on the hot sand, when tufts of pale +thrift blossom in the shingle, and clumps of white campion, and +frail flowers of yellow poppy. Pleasant then is the sweet breath +of thyme and clover. Pleasanter still the smell of the sea, blown +by soft summer airs over the wide mud-flats and the trampled sand. + +The little hamlet, high and dry this many a day, is a port no +longer. The only harvest of the sea that the villagers can glean +in our time is that which wind and wave bring ashore upon this +sandy beach. In the broken spars, the splintered timbers, the +nameless waifs and strays of wreckage which the storm brings to +their doors, the dwellers in the cottages that seem to crouch for +shelter behind the old sea wall, find all their winter fuel. + +There are traditions that many a cargo of spirits was run ashore +here in smuggling days. Tales are still current of the hiding +places where the goods were stored. It is said that even the +church tower has in its time afforded sanctuary to bales of lace +and kegs of liquor that never paid the King his due. This narrow +pass may well have served the "free-traders" as a secret way into +the hills. + +But the long flight of rude stone steps that leads down it towards +the village dates from an earlier time. To its use and history no +clue remains. It is likely enough that it was the pathway to the +camp from the long-vanished port below. + +There is a legend in the country-side that it led up to the cell +of an anchorite, a solitary who inhabited this ravine, and who, +with his own hands, hewed and fitted the stones of the old +stairway, now worn smooth by the feet of many centuries. Half-way +up the pass, under the shelter of the limestone cliff, is his +traditional dwelling place, a chamber hollowed in the living rock +and roughly faced with masonry. + +Who was he? A monk from the old priory yonder,--an outlaw with +blood upon his soul? + + "Had you, Father, hid away + In your heart, some load to bury, + That you chose so long to stay, + World-forgot and solitary?" + +It is a quiet spot. The crumbling walls look down through the +rocky gateway of the gorge to the village at its foot; over the +grey curve of shingle to the wet sands that, as the cloud veil +lifts and scatters, are beginning now to shine like silver in the +sunlight; to the grey sea, with sails showing ghost-like here and +there; to the far shore, whose rugged outline looms faintly +through the haze. + +The brown elms of the village redden in the sunshine. There is a +flush of colour on the belfry walls, on the limestone battlements +above the pass, on the worn steps of the old stairway winding +downward to the sea. + +Yes, a quiet spot. There is no sound but the slumbrous music of +the waves, at times the bark of a sheep-dog, a cattle-call from +distant meadows, or the chatter of linnets on the hill. + +On such a scene the old monk looked down. Such sounds were in his +ears. Such rest and calm brooded over his rude dwelling--beast and +bird his sole companions, the busy world shut out. + +Was he the Father of the village, summoned from his cell to +shrieve the dying, bless the dead? Was he a surly recluse, fond of +solitude and silence? + + "Tell, when all the boughs were bare, + Did you dread each dreary waking? + Hewing out your stony stair, + Were you glad at thorn-buds breaking? + + Did you mark the flashing white + On the breast of earliest swallows, + Or the wavering, yellow light + On the cowslips in the hollows? + + As day grew 'twixt dawn and dark + Did the shy birds learn to love you? + Sang the silver-throated lark + Out of sight in skies above you? + + When the burning noontide sun + Made the gorge grow hot and hazy + Did you wish your work were done? + Were you ever tired--or lazy? + + When you sat beside your door + In the dusk, you ancient man, you, + Did the broad-leaved sycamore + Wave and rustle low to fan you? + + Did you sometimes, in the night, + Rise and quit your quiet shieling, + Climbing up the grassy height + With a still, expectant feeling? + + Where the wind went whispering by + Underneath pale stars that glisten, + From the open, upper sky + Did God speak, and did you listen?" + +From the rocky brow above the hermit's chamber the eye looks out +over a wider world. A world no longer cold and colourless. The +clouds have lifted from the sea; the sky has cleared; a flood of +sunshine covers the whole landscape. It kindles on the red roofs +of the village, it gilds the sombre leafage of the elms, it +brightens the green meadows, turning all their straight-cut +waterways to lines of silver. A tall beech that lifts its stately +head above its fellows in the wood yonder reddens in the sunset. +And the bright foliage of a row of Spanish chestnuts along the +path that winds upwards from the shore flames like a river of +light among the quiet-coloured elms and larches. A passing sail +gleams white upon an opal sea. Over the wide west is spread a soft +and golden glow; while far hills, range beyond range, are wrought +in amethyst upon the lighted sky. + +[Illustration: TINTAGEL.] + + + + +BY COACH TO TINTAGEL. + + +The traveller from Clovelly, making his way by coach towards the +northern coast of Cornwall, pays no slight penalty, in the early +stages of his ride at any rate, for the ease and comfort of his +journey. It is but a dull and featureless road that crosses the +miles of windswept moorland which fill so wide a stretch of the +Devonshire marches. We have to leave unseen some of the grandest +coast scenery in the county. We miss altogether the pleasant Vale +of Hartland and the precipitous rocks of Black Mouth; and, above +all, we see nothing of the world-forgotten nook of Hartland Quay, +nestling close under its mighty wall of cliff. + +It is a pleasant mode of travelling. There is a much greater charm +about the box-seat of a coach than there is in the cosiest corner +of a railway carriage. There is the charm of freshness and the +open air, of hills and meadows and deep country lanes. But a man +on a coach is not entirely his own master. The coach-ride gives no +opportunity for anything like a leisurely survey. There is little +time for exploring church or manor-house or abbey ruin. The old +encampment, the cluster of grave-mounds, or the ancient cross of +which perhaps the traveller may have caught a glimpse in passing, +appeals to him in vain. + +Morwenstow is among the spots we have to pass unseen. Yet it is +well worth a pilgrimage. No picture, either of pen or pencil, can +give a fair idea of that grey old tower by the sea, among its +gnarled and storm-beaten trees, and set round with old +figure-heads,--the sorrowful memorials of lost ships and of +drowned mariners. And as at Clovelly, Kingsley is the central +figure of all legends, old or new, so Morwenstow is haunted by +memories of Hawker, for forty years the Vicar of the parish. He +left his mark there in many ways. He built the vicarage, and above +the vicarage door he traced these lines:-- + + "A house, a glebe, a pound a day, + A pleasant place to watch and pray. + Be true to Church, be kind to poor + O minister for evermore." + +Morwenstow we have to take on trust. But the coach goes through +Kilkhampton, and here again it is the Church that is the centre of +interest. Outside the old grey walls we are reminded of Hervey, +sometime curate in Bideford, who in this quiet churchyard wrote +his once famous _Meditations_. Within the building lie the ashes +of a line of Grenvilles;--the greatest of them, indeed, rests not +here, but somewhere in the Spanish Main. One monument is in memory +of Sir Beville Grenville, who, after routing on Stamford Hill a +Roundhead army twice as numerous as his own, was killed, a few +weeks later, in the fight on Lansdowne. The field of battle is +only four miles to the southward; and there, on the wall of the +village inn, may still be seen this inscription, from the +monument,--long since destroyed,--which was set up on the scene of +conflict:-- + + "In this Place + Ye Army of ye Rebells under ye command of + ye Earl of Stamford + Received a signal Overthrow by the Valor + Of Sir Bevill Grenville and ye Cornish Army, + On Tuesday, ye 16th of May, 1643." + +As we drove out of Kilkhampton a brilliant sunset was flaming in +the west, and the shadow of the coast was strangely lengthened on +the grassy fringes of the road. By the time we had entered on the +last league of the journey, the air, that all day long had been +sweetened by the breath of wide sheets of gorse and heather, was +blowing cool across the moors. And as we slowly descended the long +hill to Bude, darkness was fairly settling down over the +landscape. + +Morning broke almost without a cloud. It was still summer, but +there was a sign of coming change in the great flights of swallows +that had assembled in the village street, clustering in thousands +on roofs and telegraph wires, as if pausing for rest, or waiting +until some coming storm should be overpast. + +The sea was in quiet mood as we stood on the grassy brow of the +cliff that skirts the shore; and they were the very gentlest of +waves that rolled lazily in across the shining sand. But on every +side there were tokens, only too plain to read, that this is among +the most perilous of shores. Here a party of men were breaking up +the iron frame-work of a wreck. There the life-boat crew, cleaning +and painting and overhauling, stood ready by their gear. In many +of the gardens by the canal are the battered figure-heads of +ships, half hidden among shrubs and flowers. And in the churchyard +above the village the white effigy of a turbaned warrior that once +looked proudly down from the bows of the _Bencoolen_, now guards +the grave of thirteen of her crew, lost when she came ashore here +on these smooth sands some five-and-thirty years ago. In one of +the houses of the village are preserved some arms--cutlases and +muskets--that have been recovered from the wreck, so corroded and +so encrusted with sand that their original shapes are hardly +recognizable. + +The sun went down behind an ominous-looking bank of cloud. That +night the wind roared in the chimneys of the inn, and clouds of +driving sand rattled like shot against the windows. Next morning +found the sea in another temper altogether. Great green rollers +were thundering up the beach, and leaping over the break-water in +sheets of spray. Heavy clouds were rolling up from the southward, +and altogether it was sufficiently clear that the swallows were +well advised to put in for calmer weather. + +The day's ride began under no pleasant conditions. Cold squalls of +pitiless rain drove fiercely in our faces as we sat huddled +together on the coach, glad to make use of every wrap and rug we +had, and forcibly reminded of the old fisherman, who surveying the +prostrate forms of his party of holiday makers, lying helpless in +the boat, overcome by dire extremity of sickness, muttered softly +to himself: "And they calls this goin' a-pleasurin!" + +But the sun came out again as we went down the long slope into +Boscastle; and, at length, when we drew up before the inn, the sky +was clear. But the wind was blowing harder than ever as we made +our way along the strange little harbour; and by the look-out +station on the cliff it was as much as we could do to hold our +own against the gale. A tremendous sea was breaking on the reefs +outside, and thundering against the rocky wall below. Before us, +far as eye could reach, stretched away the sunlit levels of the +Atlantic, touched with a thousand twinkling points of light, and +shot with changing tones of green and blue and amethyst. + +Boscastle Minster lies in an ideal setting in its quiet woodland +valley. But some travellers, at any rate, will look with less +interest on its massive walls, on the decorated timbers of its +noble roof, or on the time-blackened carvings of its beautiful +bench-ends, than on the other church of Boscastle, at Forrabury, a +mile or so to the westward. For this is the Silent Tower of +Bottreaux, whose bells lie at the bottom of the sea, just outside +the harbour. + +All the world knows the story. How, when the church was first +built, the village folk petitioned the Lord of Bottreaux for a +peal of bells to hang in the new tower. How the bells were cast, +and were on their way by sea from London. How, as the ship drew +near Boscastle harbour, the pilot, a Tintagel man, heard the +chimes of his own village ringing, and thanked God for fine +weather and a prosperous voyage. How the captain scoffed: "Thank +your own skill," said he, "and our stout craft and able +seamanship." How the words were hardly uttered, when a sudden +storm caught the vessel and dashed her to pieces on the rocks. How +only the pilot reached land alive. And how, on wild nights of +winter, when a storm is coming up from the Atlantic, the fisherman +on the shore still hears the muffled tones of the long-lost +Bottreaux bells, as the unquiet surges swing them in their ocean +rest. + +But the glory of the whole coast is Tintagel,--the birth-place of +Arthur, the palace of King Marc of Cornwall. Though the village of +Tintagel is half a mile or more inland, the ruins of the ancient +stronghold stand partly on the brink of a cliff that overhangs the +sea, but mainly on a bold headland almost surrounded by the waves. +Some of the masonry is older even than the days of the Round +Table, for in St. Juliet's Chapel there are, it is said, traces of +Roman workmanship. Tintagel was still inhabited, either as a +fortress or a prison until early Tudor times; but Leland describes +it as having wholly gone to ruin. "It hath bene," he says in his +gossiping _Itinerary_, "a marvelus strong and notable forteres, +and almost _situ loci inexpugnabile_, especially for the donjon +that is on the great high terrible cragge. But the residue of the +buildinges of the castel be sore wether-beten an yn mine." + +Standing on the brink of the tremendous cliff, with the waves and +the wave-girt rock before, with the wind-swept downs behind, where +the lonely church seems to crouch upon the short turf like a +storm-driven sea-bird, and with the whole air full of the fretful +murmur of the sea, we look down upon a page of old romance. + +His must be a dull soul who, when the stern lines of the headland +are dark against the glowing west, cannot people the old halls +with shadowy figures, with the shapes of Arthur and his Knights, +who, more than all other heroes, have been so + + "Magnified by the purple mist + The dusk of centuries and of song." + +As we look over the perilous verge we have no eyes for the dark +hues of the rock, for the whiteness of the leaping foam-cloud, or +for the beauty of the blue levels of "the unquiet, bright Atlantic +main." We have no ears for the croak of the raven, or the wail of +the herring-gull, or even for the thunder of the sea. Our souls +are with the past. As we climb the steep pathway to the summit of +the headland, we think of Uther Pendragon and of Merlin. We see +Sir Bedivere stooping beneath his burden. We hear the clink of + + "... harness in the icy caves + And barren chasms," + +when + + "... all to left and right + The bare, black cliff clanged round him, as he based + His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang + Sharp-smitten with the dint of armèd heels." + +We see in fancy the prostrate figure of the guilty queen. We see + + "Wet with the mists and smitten by the lights, + The Dragon of the great Pendragonship + Blaze, making all the night a steam of fire." + +We hear the shock of that last battle in the west when + + "... friend and foe were shadows in the mist, + And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew; + And some had visions out of golden youth, + And some beheld the faces of old ghosts + Look in upon the battle." + +And when at length we stand within the windswept ruin we remember +that it was here King Marc of Cornwall kept his court. It was to +this sea-girt rock that Tristram of Lyonesse, the peerless +hunter, harper, knight, brought home his master's bride, Iseult of +Ireland. Within these very walls stood the two helpless, hapless +lovers, caught all unaware in the fatal mesh of the enchanter. For +among the treasures on board the ship that brought them to +Tintagel was a golden cup, with a love-potion in it, prepared by +the bride's mother, for Iseult and King Marc to drink upon their +marriage day, "and for ever love each other." + +But, alas, Iseult and Sir Tristram, in all innocence, drained the +magic cup. The subtle potion fired their veins; + + "... their hands + Tremble, and their cheeks are flame + As they feel the fatal bands + Of a love they dare not name." + +In fancy we see that other chamber, far off upon the coast of +Brittany, where, after long years the Knight lay dying. We see him + + "... weak and pale, + Though the locks are yet brown on his noble head, + Propt on pillows on his bed, + Gazing sea-ward for the light + Of some ship that fights the gale + On this wild December night." + +We see Iseult standing in the moonlight, the spray of the +sea-voyage on her cloak and hair. We hear her singing, in sweet +voice and low, the promised + + "... tales of true, long-parted lovers, + Joined at evening of their days again." + +We catch the last low murmur of the dying Knight:-- + + "Now to sail the seas of Death I leave thee-- + One last kiss upon the living shore." + + + + +_Printed at the Office of the Publisher, St. Stephen Street, +Bristol._ + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's In the West Country, by Francis A. Knight + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43061 *** |