Grain and Chaff from an English Manor Part 15

What is known as "heart of oak" in Worcestershire is called "spine-oak" in the New Forest, and the latter is perhaps the better name of the two as expressive of greater durability. The outer part of the trunk is called "the sap," and whilst the heart or spine is almost indestructible, the sap-wood quickly decays, and is rejected in using the timber for any important purpose. Pieces of the sap adhering to the heart-wood of which the old oak coffers were made, may often be found riddled with worm holes and almost gone to dust, while the remainder of the chest is as sound as the day it was made two or three hundred years ago.

It is interesting, too, to notice marks of charring on the edge of the lids of these coffers; it is said that they were caused by placing the rushlight in that position, the flame just overhanging the edge, to give time to jump into bed by its light leaving it to be automatically extinguished on reaching the wood; and that the charring occurred when sometimes the flame continued to burn a little longer than expected.

Oak is usually felled in the spring when the sap is rising, to allow of the easier removal of the bark for tanning. It is a pretty sight to see, amidst the greenery of the standing trees, the stripped and gleaming trunks and larger limbs stretched upon the ground, with the neatly piled stacks of bark arranged for the air to draw through and dry them before removal. This is called "rining" in the New Forest, and good wages are earned at it by the men employed.

It is perhaps the only timber, with the exception of sweet chestnut, that is worthy to be used for the roofs of ecclesiastical buildings.

At Badsey, when we removed the roof of the church prior to restoration, we found the oak timbers on the north side as sound as when placed there many years further back than living memory could recall, and of which no record or tradition existed. These timbers were all used again in the new roof, but those from the south side had to be discarded, having been much more exposed to driving rain and daily changes of temperature.

I had a number of oak field-gates made, but as the timber was barely seasoned, we were afraid shrinkage might take place in the mortises and tenons, and it was an agreeable surprise to find in a year or two that nothing of the kind had happened. The mortise hole had apparently got smaller, and still fitted the shrunken tenon to perfection. Oak gates will last, if kept occasionally painted, sixty or seventy years in farm use, and there were gates on my land fully that age and still quite serviceable.

The acorns from oaks in pastures are a trouble, as cattle are very fond of them and sometimes gorge themselves to such an extent as to prove fatal, if allowed unrestricted access to them when really hungry; but in the New Forest they are welcomed by the commoners (occupiers of private lands), some of whom possess the right of "pannage" (turning out pigs on the Crown property).

In old days the oak timbers of which our battleships were constructed were supplied from the New Forest; and the saw-pit in which the timbers of the _Victory_ were sawn by hand is still to be seen in Burley New Plantation. But Government methods appear to have been generally conducted in later times somewhat on the independent lines which distinguished them in the Great War. Some years ago it was said that a department requiring oak timber advertised for tenders in a newspaper, in which also appeared an advertis.e.m.e.nt of another department offering oak for sale. A dealer who obtained an option to purchase from the latter, submitted a tender to the former, succeeded in obtaining the business, and cleared a large profit.

The oak has figured repeatedly in English history and occupies a unique place in our national tradition, commencing with its Druidical worship as a sacred tree. It was from an oak that the arrow of Walter Tyrrel which struck down William Rufus is said to have glanced, and Magna Charta was signed beneath an oak by the unwilling hand of King John. It is a.s.sociated in all ages with preachings, political meetings, and with parish and county boundaries. These boundary oaks were called Gospel-trees, it is said, because the gospel for the day was read beneath them by the parochial priest during the annual perambulation of the parish boundaries by the leading inhabitants in Rogation week. Herrick alludes to the practice in the lines addressed to Anthea in _Hesperides_:

"Dearest, bury me Under that Holy-oke or Gospel-tree, Where (though thou see'st not) thou may'st think upon Me, when thou yeerly go'st Procession."

But perhaps the oak that appeals most to the lively imagination venerating old tales of merry England, and with whose story generous hearts are most in sympathy, is that

"Wherein the younger Charles abode Till all the paths were dim, And far below the Roundhead rode, And hummed a surly hymn."

The beech is not a common tree in the Vale of Evesham, preferring the dryer soils of the Cotswold Hills. It is said to have been introduced by the Romans, and is familiar as the tree mentioned by Virgil in the opening line of his first Pastoral:

"_t.i.tyre tu patulae recubans sub tegmine f.a.gi_;"

the metre, and the words of which, apart from their signification, suggest so accurately the pattering of the leaves of the tree in a gentle breeze. This device like alliteration is a method of intensifying the expression of a pa.s.sage, and is frequently adopted by the poets.

In another famous onomatopoeic line--

"_Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quat.i.t ungula campum_"

--Virgil imitates the sound of a galloping horse, and the shaking of the ground beneath its hoofs.

Tennyson renders very naturally the action of the northern farmer's nag and the sound of its movement, by--

"Proputty, proputty sticks an' proputty, proputty graws."

And an excellent example of the effect of well-chosen words, to express the sound produced by the subject referred to, occurs in the _Morte d'Arthur_:

"The many-knotted waterflags, That whistled stiff and dry about the marge."

Blackmore's pa.s.sage in _Lorna Doone_, describing the superlative ease and speed of Tom f.a.ggus's mare, when John Ridd as a boy was allowed to ride her--after a rough experience at the beginning of the venture--is, though printed as prose, perhaps better poetry than most similar efforts. To emphasize its full force it may be allowable to divide the phrases as follows:

"I never had dreamed of such delicate motion, Fluent, and graceful, and ambient, Soft as the breeze flitting over the flowers, But swift as the summer lightning.

I sat up again, but my strength was all spent, And no time left to recover it, And though she rose at our gate like a bird, I tumbled off into the mixen."

The last line is a delightful bathos, adding immensely to the completeness of the catastrophe.

In spring the beech is the most beautiful of forest trees, putting forth individual horizontal sprays of tender green from the lower branches about the end of April as heralds of the later full glory of the tree. These increase day by day upwards in verdant clouds, until the whole unites into a complete bower of dense greenery. The beech is known as the "groaning tree," because the branches often cross each other, and where the tree is exposed to the wind sometimes groan as they rub together. The rubbing often causes a wound where one of the branches will eventually break off, or occasionally automatic grafting takes place, and they unite. In the Verderer's Hall at Lyndhurst specimens are to be seen which have crossed and joined a second time, so that a complete hollow oval, or irregular circle of the wood could be cut out of the branch.

Estates where extensive beech woods existed have been bought by speculative timber dealers, who shortly installed a gang of wood cutters and a steam saw, on which the timber was sawn into suitable pieces, to be afterwards turned on a lathe into chair legs and other domestic furniture, and very often finally dyed to represent mahogany.

There are beeches in the New Forest which vie with the oak for premier place, measuring over 20 feet in circ.u.mference, and the mast together with the acorns affords abundant harvest, or "ovest," as it is called, for the commoners' pigs.

There was a curious saying in use by persons on the road to Persh.o.r.e, when asked their destination. In a good plum year the reply was, "Persh.o.r.e, where d'ye think?" And in a year of scarcity, "Persh.o.r.e, G.o.d help us!" The same expressions were formerly current regarding Burley in the New Forest referring to the abundance or scarcity of beech-mast and acorns, called collectively "akermast."

When the nation had presented the Duke of Wellington, after the Battle of Waterloo, with Strathfieldsaye, an estate between Basingstoke and Reading, the Duke wishing to commemorate the event planted a number of beech trees as a lasting memorial, which were known as "the Waterloo beeches." Some years later, the eminent arboricultural author, John Loudon, writing on the subject of the relative ages and sizes of trees, wrote to the Duke for permission to view his Waterloo beeches.

The Duke had never heard of Loudon, and his writing being somewhat illegible he deciphered the signature "J. Loudon" as "J. London" (the Bishop of London), and the word "beeches" as "breeches." "For what on earth can the Bishop want to see the breeches I wore at Waterloo?"

said the Duke; but taking a charitable view of the matter he decided that the poor old Bishop must be getting irresponsible and replied that he was giving his valet instructions to show the Bishop the garments in question, whenever it suited him to inspect them. The Bishop was equally amazed, but took exactly the same view about the Duke as the latter had decided upon concerning the Bishop. No doubt the mystery was eventually cleared up, and Bishop and Duke must have both enjoyed the joke.

The shade of the beech is so dense that gra.s.s will not grow beneath it; it gradually kills even holly, which is comparatively flourishing under the oak. The beech woods in the Forest are thus quite free from undergrowth, and the n.o.ble trees with their smooth ash-coloured stems can be seen in perfection, giving a cathedral aisle effect, which is erroneously said to have suggested the ma.s.sive columns and groined roofs of Gothic architecture.

"Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise."

There is, too, an unearthly effect at times to be seen beneath them, so exaggerated as to remind one of the stage setting of a pastoral play, with all the enhancing artificial contrivance of light and shade. It is to be seen only on a brilliantly sunny day, where the contour of the s.p.a.ce around the stem and below the branches takes the form of an arched cavern, flooded by a single shaft of sunlight, piercing the foliage at one particular spot, lighting up the floor carpeted with last year's red-brown leaves, and emphasizing the gloom of the walls and roof. Imagination instantly supplies the players, for a more perfect setting for Rosalind and Celia, Orlando and the melancholy Jaques, it would be impossible to conceive. It is said that the ancient Greeks could see with their ears and hear with their eyes, a privilege doubtless granted to the nature lover in all ages. In the Forest some of the most ancient and remarkable trees have borne for generations descriptive names such as the King and Queen oaks at Boldrewood, and the Eagle oak in Knightwood. The communion between human and tree life is well ill.u.s.trated by a pa.s.sage from Th.o.r.eau's _Walden_: "I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines."

At Aldington a most valuable tree was the willow, or "withy," as it is called in Worcestershire, though in Hampshire the latter name is given to the Goat willow, or sallow ("sally," in Worcestershire), bearing the pretty blossoms known as palms, which in former times were worn by men and boys in country places on Palm Sunday. My brooks were bordered on both sides by pollard withies, the whole being divided into seven parts or annual cuts, so that, as they are lopped every seven years a cut came in for lopping each year. They were then well furnished with long and heavy poles, which were severed close to the head of the pollard with a sharp axe. When on the ground, the brushwood was cut off and tied into "kids" (f.a.ggots) for fire-lighting, the poles being made into hurdles or sold to the crate-makers in the potteries for crates in which to pack earthenware goods of all descriptions. The men employed at the lopping had to stand on the heads of the pollards, and it was sometimes quite an acrobatic feat to maintain their balance on a small swaying tree, or on one which overhung the water.

There was a local saying that "the withy tree would buy the horse, while the oak would only buy the halter," and I believe it to be perfectly true; for the uses of the withy are innumerable, and throughout its seven years' growth from one lopping to another there is always something useful to be had from it, with its final harvest of full-grown poles. One year after lopping the superfluous shoots are cut out and used or sold for "bonds" for tying up "kids" or the mouths of corn sacks. As the shoots grow stronger more can be taken--with ultimate benefit to the development of the full-grown poles--for use as rick pegs and "buckles" in thatching. The buckles are the wooden pins made of a small strip of withy, twisted at the centre so that it can be doubled in half like a hairpin, and used to fix the rods which secure the thatch by pressing the buckles firmly into it. In Hampshire these are called "spars," and they are sold in bundles containing a fixed number.

I heard an amusing story about these spars. A certain thatcher, we may call him Joe, was engaged upon the roof of a cottage, when the parson of the parish chanced to pa.s.s that way. Joe had of late neglected his attendance at church, and the vicar saw his way to a word of advice.

After "pa.s.sing the time of day" he took Joe to task for his neglected attendance and waxing warm expressed his fears that Joe had forgotten all his Sunday-school lessons; he was doubtful even, he said, if Joe could tell him the number of the Commandments. Joe confessed his ignorance. "Dear me," said the vicar, "to think that in this nineteenth century any man could be found so ignorant as not to know the number of the Commandments!" Joe bided his time until the vicar's attention had been called to the spars, when Joe asked him how many a bundle contained. It was a problem that the vicar could not solve.

"Dear me," said Joe, "to think that in this 'ere nineteenth century any man could be found so ignorant as not to know the number of spars in a bundle!" Joe always added when telling the story, "But there," I says, "every beggar," I says, "to his trade," I says.

Sometimes a picturesque gipsy would come to the Manor House with clothes-pegs for sale, and she generally negotiated a deal, for everybody has a sneaking regard for the gipsies and their romantic life _sub Jove_. Walking round the farm shortly afterwards I would come upon the remains of their fire and deserted camp by the roadside close to the brook, the ground strewn with the peel and refuse from the materials with which they had supplied themselves gratis, and I recognized that we had been buying goods made from my own withies.

Even so we did not complain, for no real harm was done to the trees.

The heads of these old pollards are favourite places for birds'-nests, and all kinds of plants and bushes take root in their decaying fibre, the seeds having been carried by the birds; so that ivy, brambles, wild gooseberries, currants, raspberries, nut bushes and elders, can be seen growing there. Whenever the foxhounds ran a fox to Aldington he was always lost near the brookside, and it was said that the cunning beast eluded the hounds by mounting a pollard and jumping from one to another, until the scent was dissipated. It was also a tradition that when hunting began on the Cotswolds the experienced foxes left for the Vale, leaving the less crafty to fight it out with the hounds; for the Evesham district was seldom visited by the hunt, owing to possible damage to the highly cultivated winter crops of the market-gardeners.

Jarge had a very narrow escape when grubbing out an old willow overhanging a pool. He had been at work some hours, and had a deep trench dug out all round the tree, to attack the roots with a stock-axe. He had cut them all through except the tough tap-root, when I reached him, and he was standing in the trench at work upon it. He was certain that it would be some time before the tree fell, the tap-root being very large; but, as I stood watching on the ground above, I thought I saw a suspicious tremor pa.s.s over the tree, and an instant later I was certain it was coming down. I shouted to him to get out of the trench. It took a second or two to get clear, as the trench was deep, and he was not a tall man, so he was scarcely out when the tree fell with a crash on the exact spot where he had been at work. Had I not been present it must have fallen upon him, for not expecting the end was so near he had not been watching the signs.

Though not a tall tree, it was a very stout and heavy trunk, and the tap-root on inspection proved to be partly rotten.

"Forth into the fields I went, And Nature's living motion lent The pulse of hope to discontent.

"I wonder'd at the bounteous hours, The slow result of winter showers: You scarce could see the gra.s.s for flowers.

"I wonder'd, while I paced along: The woods were fill'd so full with song, There seemed no room for sense of wrong."

Such is Tennyson's description of a spring day in the fields and woods, and nothing more beautiful could be written. And so it was with joy that my men and carter boys with waggons and teams started early on the spring mornings to bring home the newly purchased hop-poles from the distant woods. These poles are sold by auction in stacks where they are cut, and the buyer has to cart them home. Usually, after a successful hop year they were in great demand; prices would rise in proportion, and the early seller did well, but when the later sales came sometimes, the demand being satisfied, there would be a heavy fall in values, and as a cunning buyer expressed it, "The poles lasted longer than the money."

The dainty catkins of the hazel are the first sign of awakening life in the woods; they are well out by the end of January or early in February, and as they ripen, clouds of pollen are disseminated by the wind. Tennyson speaks of "Native hazels ta.s.sel-hung." The female bloom, which is the immediate precursor of the nut itself, is a pretty little pink star, which can be found on the same branch as the catkin but is much less conspicuous; and both are a very welcome sight, as almost the earliest hint of spring. The hazel bloom is shortly followed by the green leaves of the woodbine, which climbs so exultingly to the tops of the highest trees and breathes its fragrance on a summer evening. In the New Forest the green h.e.l.lebore is early and noticeable from its peculiar green blossoms, but I have not seen it in Worcestershire.

My men and teams were generally off to the hills, Blockley, Broadway, Winchcombe, Farmcote, and suchlike out-of-the-way places, when the wet "rides" in the woods were drying up. The boys especially revelled in the flowers--primroses and wild hyacinths--and came home with huge bunches; they enjoyed the novelty of the woods and the wild hill-country, which is such a contrast to the flat and highly cultivated Vale.

When unloaded at home the poles have to be trimmed, cut to the proper length, 12 to 14 feet, "sharped," "shaved" at the b.u.t.t 2 or 3 feet upwards, and finally boiled so far for twenty-four hours, standing upright in creosote, which doubles the lasting period of their existence. They were chiefly ash, larch, maple, wych elm, and sallow, and the rough b.u.t.ts, when sawn off before the sharping, supplied the firing for the boiling. Green ash is splendid for burning: "The ash when green is fuel for a Queen." Later, when I adopted a Kentish system of hop-growing on coco-nut yarn supported by steel wire on heavy larch poles, our visits to the woods were less frequent, and much wear and tear of horses and waggons was saved. Some of our journeys, in the earlier days, took us to the estate of the Duc d'Aumale, on the Worcester side of Evesham, where some excellent ash poles were grown. In one lot of some thousands I bought, every pole had a crook in it ("like a dog's hind leg," my men said), about 2 or 3 feet from the ground, which was caused by the Duc having given orders some years previously, on the occasion of a visit from the Prince of Wales (the late King Edward), to have a large area of young coppice cut off at that height, to make a specially convenient piece of walking and pheasant shooting for the Prince.

On this occasion many people went to Evesham Station to see the arrival of the Prince and retinue, and their departure for Wood Norton in the Duc's carriages. Our old vicar was returning full of loyalty, and pa.s.sing an ancient Badsey radical inquired if he had been to see the Prince. "Noa, sir," was the reply, "I been a-working hard to get some money to keep 'e with." In some of the Wood Norton woods there are large numbers of fir trees, planted, it was said, as roosting places for the pheasants, so that they might not be visible to the night poacher; but it was found that the birds preferred the leafless trees, where they offer an easy pot shot in the moonlight or in the grey of the dawn.