Part 2 (2/2)
It is difficult to decide at what time of the year the park is in its glory. The may-flower on the great hawthorn trees in spring may perhaps claim the pre-eminence, filling the soft breeze with exquisite odour.
These here are trees, not bushes, standing separate, with thick gnarled stems so polished by the constant rubbing of cattle as almost to s.h.i.+ne like varnish. The may-bloom, pure white in its full splendour, takes a dull reddish tinge as it fades, when a sudden shake will bring it down in showers. A flowering tree, I fancy, looks best when apart and not one of a row. In the latter case you can only see two sides and not all round it. Here tall horse-chestnut trees stand single--one great silvery candelabrum of blossom. Wood-pigeons appear to have a liking for this tree. Nor must the humble crab-tree be forgotten; a crab-tree in bloom is a lovely sight.
The idea of a park is a.s.sociated with peace and pleasure, yet even here there is one spot where the pa.s.sions of men have left their mark. As previously hinted, the gamekeeper, like most persons with little book-learning and who take their impressions from nature, is somewhat superst.i.tious, and regards this place as ”unkid”--i.e. weird, uncanny.
One particular green ”drive” into the wood opening on the park had always been believed to be a part of a military track used many ages ago, but long since ploughed up for the greater part of its length, and only preserved here by the accident of pa.s.sing through a wood. At last some labourers grubbing trees near the mouth of the drive came upon a number of human skeletons, close beneath the surface, and in their confused arrangement presenting every sign of hasty interment, as if after battle. Since then the keeper avoids the spot; nor will he, hardy as he is, go near it at night; not even in the summer moonlight, when the night is merely a prolongation of the day.
There is nothing unusual in such a discovery: skeletons are found in all manner of places. I recollect seeing one dug out from the bank of a brook within two feet of the stream. The place was perhaps in the olden time covered with forest (traces of forest are to be found everywhere, as in the names of hamlets), and therefore more concealed than at present. Or, possibly, the stream, in the slow pa.s.sage of centuries, may have worn its way far from its original bed.
It is strange to think of, yet it is true enough, that, beautiful as the country is, with its green meadows and graceful trees, its streams and forests and peaceful homesteads, it would be difficult to find an acre of ground that has not been stained with blood. A melancholy reflection this, that carries the mind backwards, while the thrush sings on the bough, through the nameless skirmishes of the Civil War, the cruel a.s.sa.s.sinations of the rival Roses, down to the axes of the Saxons and the ghastly wounds they made. Everywhere under the flowers are the dead.
Not this park in particular, but others as well form pages of history.
The keeper, in fact, can claim an ancient origin for his office, dating back to the forester with a ”mark” a year and a suit of green as his wages, and numbering in his predecessors Joscelin, the typical keeper in Scott's novel of ”Woodstock,” who aided the escape of King Charles.
Ever since the days of the Norman King who loved the tall deer as if he were their father--in the words of his contemporary--and set store by the hares that they too should go free, the keeper has not ceased out of the land.
There are always more small birds at the edge or just outside a wood than inside it; so that after leaving a meadow with blackbird, thrush, and finches merry in the hedges, the wood seems quite silent and deserted save by a solitary robin. This is speaking of the smaller birds. The great missel-thrush especially delights in the open s.p.a.ce of the park dotted with groups of trees. The missel-thrush is a lonely bird, and somehow seems like an outlaw--as if, though not precisely dangerous, he was looked upon with suspicion by the other birds, which will frequently quit a bush or tree directly he alights upon it. Yet he builds near houses, and year after year in the same spot. I knew a large yew-tree which stood almost in front and within a few yards of a sitting-room window in which the missel-thrush had regularly built its nest for twelve successive years. These birds are singularly bold in defence of the nest, flying round and chattering at those who would disturb it.
In the ha-ha wall of the park, which is made of loose stones or without mortar, the tomt.i.t, or t.i.tmouse, has his nest. He creeps in between the stones, following the crannies for a surprising distance. Near here the partridges roost on the ground; they like an open s.p.a.ce far from hedges, afraid, perhaps, of weasels and rats. On the other side, where the wood comes up, if you watch quietly, the pheasants step in lordly pride out into the gra.s.s; so that there is no place without its especial cla.s.s of life.
Perhaps with the exception of our parks and hills, there is scarcely any portion of southern England now where a grand charge of cavalry could take place--scarcely any open champaign country fit for operations of that kind with horse. In the Civil War even, how constantly we read of ”lining the hedge with match,” and now with enclosures everywhere the difficulty would apparently be great, despite good roads.
Park-fed beef is thought by many to be superior, because the cattle run free--almost wild--the entire year through, winter and summer, and have nothing but their natural food, gra.s.s and hay: in strong contrast with the bullocks shut up in stalls and forced forward with artificial food.
A great number of parks have been curtailed in size as land became more valuable--the best ground being selected and hedged off for purely agricultural purposes; so that it not uncommonly happens that the actual park is the poorest soil in the district, having for that reason remained longest in a condition nearly resembling the original state of the country. So that when agitators of Communistic views lay stress upon the waste of land used for pleasure purposes they frequently declaim in utter ignorance of the facts, which are in exact opposition to their theories.
Like animals and birds, plants have their favourite haunts: violets love a bank with a southern aspect, especially if there be a hedge at the back for further shelter. Where you have by chance lighted upon a wild flower once you may generally reckon upon finding it again next year-- such as the white variety of the bluebell or wild hyacinth, for which, unless you mark the place, you may search in vain amid the crowded blue bloom of the commoner sort. The orchis, with its purple flower and dark green spotted leaf, in the virtue of whose roots as a love-potion the old people still believe, the strange-looking adder's tongue, the modest wild strawberry, with its tiny but piquant flavoured fruit, all have their special resorts. Even the cowslips have their ways: by brooks sometimes a larger variety grows; nor is there a sweeter flower than its delicate yellow with small velvety brown spots, like moles on beauty's cheek.
In autumn, when the leaves turn colour, the groups of trees in the park are more effective in an artistic point of view than those in the woods (unless overlooked from a hill close by, when it is like glancing along a roof of gold), because they stand out clear, and are not confused or lost in the general glow. But it is evening now; and see--yonder the fox steals out from the cover, wending his way down into the meadows, where he will follow the furrows along their course, mousing as he goes.
CHAPTER FOUR.
HIS DOMINIONS:--THE WOODS--MEADOWS--AND WATER.
There is a part of the wood where the bushes grow but thinly and the ash-stoles are scattered at some distance from each other. It is on a steep slope--almost cliff--where the white chalk comes to the surface.
On the edge above rise tall beech trees with smooth round trunks, whose roots push and project through the wall of chalk, and bend downwards, sometimes dislodging lumps of rubble to roll headlong among the bushes below. A few small firs cling half-way up, and a tangled, matted ma.s.s of briar and bramble climbs nearly to them, with many a stout thistle flouris.h.i.+ng vigorously.
To get up this cliff is a work of some little difficulty: it is done by planting the foot on the ledges of rubble, or in the holes which the rabbits have made, holding tight to roots which curl and twist in fantastic shapes, or to the woodbine hanging in festoons from branch to branch. The rubble under foot crumbles and slips, the roots tear up bodily from the thin soil, the branches bend, and the woodbine ”gives,”
and the wayfarer may readily descend much more rapidly than he desires.
Not that serious consequences would ensue from a roll down forty feet of slope; but the bed of briar and bramble at the bottom is not so soft as it might be. The rabbits seem quite at home upon the steepest spot; they may be found upon much higher and more precipitous chalk cliffs than this, darting from point to point with ease.
Once at the summit under the beeches, and there a comfortable seat may be found upon the moss. The wood stretches away beneath for more than a mile in breadth, and beyond, it winds the narrow mere glittering in the rays of the early spring suns.h.i.+ne. The bloom is on the blackthorn, but not yet on the may; the hedges are but just awakening from their long winter sleep, and the trees have hardly put forth a sign. But the rooks are busily engaged in the trees of the park, and away yonder at the distant colony in the elms of the meadows.
The wood is restless with life: every minute a pigeon rises, clattering his wings, and after him another; and so there is a constant fluttering and motion above the ash-poles. The number of wood-pigeons breeding here must be immense. Later on, if you walk among the ash, you may find a nest every half-dozen yards. It is formed of a few twigs making a slender platform, on which the glossy white egg is laid, and where the bird will sit till you literally thrust her off her nest with your walking-stick. Such slender platforms, if built in the hedgerow, so soon as the breeze comes would a.s.suredly be dashed to pieces; but here the wind only touches the tops of the poles, and causes them to sway gently with a rattling noise, and the frail nest is not injured. When the pigeon or dove builds in the more exposed hedgerows the nest is stronger, and more twigs seem to be used, so that it is heavier.
Boys steal these eggs by scores, yet it makes no difference apparently to the endless numbers of these birds, who fill the wood with their peculiar hoa.r.s.e notes, which some country people say resemble the words ”Take two cows, Taffy.” The same good folk will have it that when the weather threatens rain the pigeon's note changes to ”Joe's toe bleeds, Betty.” The boys who steal the eggs have to swarm up the ash-poles for the purpose, and in so doing often stain their clothes with red marks.
Upon the bark of the ash are innumerable little excrescences which when rubbed exude a small quant.i.ty of red juice.
The keeper detests this bird's-nesting; not that he cares much about the pigeons, but because his pheasants are frequently disturbed just at the season when he wishes them to enjoy perfect quiet. It is easy to tell from this post of vantage if any one be pa.s.sing through the section of the wood within view, though they may be hidden by the boughs. The blackbirds utter a loud cry and scatter; the pigeons rise and wheel about; a pheasant gets up with a scream audible for a long distance, and goes with swift flight skimming away just above the ash-poles; a pair of jays jabber round the summit of a tall fir tree, and thus the intruder's course is made known. But the wind, though light, is still too cold and chilly as it sweeps between the beech trunks to remain at this elevation; it is warmer below in the wood.
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