Grain and Chaff from an English Manor Part 20

"From July 18 to 22 I was at Thorney Hill in the New Forest, some seven miles behind Christchurch. Owing to the abnormal drought the bogs and bog-streams at the foot of the hill westward were all but dry; a dense mist, however, sometimes rose from them at night. On July 19, and the three following nights, the Will-o'-the-wisps were in great form over the bog. They were like small b.a.l.l.s of bluish fire, which projected themselves with hops and jerks across the most inaccessible parts of the bog, starting always, so far as could be told, from where a little stagnant moisture still remained. They moved with an erratic velocity, so to speak, appearing and reappearing at distances of several hundred yards. There wasn't the slightest doubt of their authenticity.

"The inhabitants of Thorney Hill, I believe, regarded these appearances with alarm, as being, though not exactly novelties, harbingers of much misfortune. But the drought was quite bad enough, without having the Jack-o'-lanterns to accentuate it!"

This instance was the more remarkable as I have never succeeded in finding anyone, even among people who are constantly on duty in the Forest, who could testify to having seen a Will-o'-the-wisp.

Waterspouts are, I believe, more frequently seen at sea than on land, but I have an account from my brother, Mr. F.E. Savory, of one he saw many years ago in Wiltshire. He writes:

"When I was at Manningford Bruce in 1873 or 1874, I saw a dense black cloud travelling towards the southeast, the lower part of which became pointed like a funnel in shape, waving about as it descended until, I suppose, the attraction of the earth overcame the cohesion of the cloud's vapour, and it discharged itself. I could see it looking lighter and lighter, from the middle outwards, until it was entirely dispersed. I heard that the water fell on the side of the Down near Collingbourne, about five miles off, and washed some of the soil away, but I did not see that. The weather was stormy, but I do not remember the time of year or any other particulars."

It would seem that a waterspout is caused by a whirlwind entering a cloud and gathering vapour together by its rotary action into such a heavy ma.s.s that it descends in the funnel shape described. We are all familiar with the small whirlwinds that travel across a road in summer, carrying the dust round and round with them; these are called "whirly-curlies" in Worcestershire, and are regarded as a sign of fine weather. I have sometimes seen quite a strong one crossing rows of hay just ready to carry, cutting a clean track through each row, and leaving the ground bare where it pa.s.sed. The hay is often carried to a great height, and sometimes dropped in an adjoining field.

On a bright morning in summer one often sees, a little distance away, a tremulous or flickering movement in the air, not far from the ground, which Tennyson refers to in _In Memoriam_, as, "The landscape winking thro' the heat"; and again in _The Princess_:

"All the rich to come Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels Athwart the smoke of burning weeds."

I am told that this appearance is "due to layers of air of different degrees of refracting power, in motion, relative to one another. Air at different temperatures will refract light differently." In Hampshire this phenomenon is known by the pretty name of "the summer dance."

Since I came to the Forest I have seen two very curious and, I think, unusual natural appearances. As I was cycling one rather dull afternoon from Wimborne to Ringwood, I noticed a colourless rainbow, or perhaps I should say, "mist-bow," for there was no rain, and the sun was partially obscured. The sun was about south-west, and the bow was north-east; it was merely a series of well-defined but colourless segments of circles, close to each other but shaded so as to make them distinguishable, arranged exactly like a rainbow but without a trace of colour beyond a grey uniformity. It was on my left for several miles, perhaps half of the total distance of nine miles between the two towns.

Cycling another day between Lyndhurst and Burley, I reached the east entrance of Burley Lodge, which is on higher ground than the farm spread out to the right in the valley. The whole valley was filled with thick white mist, as level as a lake, so that nothing could be seen of the fields. The setting sun was low down at the further extremity of the valley, and the surface of the mist-lake reflected its rays in a rosy sheen, with a track of brighter light in the middle, stretching from the far end of the lake in a broad path almost to where I was standing; just as we see the track of sunlight or moonlight, sometimes, on the sea, from the sh.o.r.e. This phenomenon is not uncommon when one is looking down from the top of a hill in the sunshine, upon a valley full of mist, but I have never seen it before from comparatively low ground, as on this occasion.

My summers at Aldington were nearly always too busy to allow me to take a holiday, except for a very few days, but when the urgent work of the year was over, the harvest completed, and the hops and the fruit picked, we always had a clear month away from home, about the middle of October to the middle of November; and, as we found the autumn much less advanced in the south than in the midlands, we often spent the time on the south coast or in the Isle of Wight, and we were nearly always favoured by fine weather. On one of these occasions, when we were exploring the whole island on bicycles, I never once found it necessary to carry a waterproof cape, though in the course of this visit we rode over 600 miles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NOTE. THE CHANGING COURSE OF STREAMS.]

CHAPTER XXI.

BIRDS: PEAc.o.c.kS--A WHITE PHEASANT--ROOKS' ARITHMETIC.

"Hail to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert, That from heaven or near it, Pourest thy full heart."

--Sh.e.l.lEY: _To a Skylark_.

We read of the peac.o.c.ks which Solomon's navy of Tarshish brought once in three years with other rare and precious commodities to contribute to the splendour of his court; and doubtless their magnificence added a distinct feature even where so much that was beautiful was to be seen; but, to show itself off to the best advantage, one cannot imagine a better place for a peac.o.c.k than a grey old English home, round whose mellow stone walls time is lingering lovingly. The touch of brilliant life beside the appeal of the venerable past adds perfection to the picture. I have always had an immense admiration for peac.o.c.ks, and soon after I came to Aldington I bought a pair. The c.o.c.k we named Gabriel Junks, after the famous bird in one of Scrutator's books; he was a grand presence, and loved to display the huge fan of his gorgeously-eyed tail, quivering his rattling quills in all the glory of its greens and blues, and cinnamon-coloured wing feathers, on the little piece of lawn under the chestnut trees in front of the Manor.

He learned to come to the window every morning at breakfast-time for a piece of bread-and-b.u.t.ter, and if the window was closed he would rap impatiently upon it with his beak. He roosted in the orchard just across the road on the trunk of an ancient leaning apple-tree. One night Bell heard a terrible fluttering, and looking out saw a fox making off with the peac.o.c.k; he shouted and the fox dropped the peac.o.c.k and bolted. Gabriel was not hurt, but sadly ruffled inwardly and outwardly, though, next day, he was quite happy and apparently unconscious of his narrow escape. But alas! some months later Reynard paid another visit, and poor Gabriel was never seen again. Some years after we bought another pair, not nearly so tame as the first, and sometimes flying on to the cottage roofs and sc.r.a.ping holes in the thatch in which to bask in the sun. The villagers complained that the birds sat under their black currant bushes, and devoured the currants as fast as they ripened! We could not keep them within bounds, and later sold them to St. John's College, Oxford, where we saw them soon afterwards in good plumage, and exactly in keeping with their beautiful surroundings.

One of my neighbours appeared to find these birds a special infliction, and complained of the invasion of his premises by "them payc.o.c.ks." The word "pea" is always rendered "pay" in Worcestershire, and, like "tay" for "tea," is probably the old correct p.r.o.nunciation.

I lately saw a notice on some tumble-down premises near Southampton, "Pay and bane stiks for sale." Another notice, not too happily composed, is to be seen at a Forest village; after the owner's name, "Carpenter, builder and undertaker--_repairs neatly executed_."

The neighbour referred to was exercised in his mind as to my position in various unwelcome parochial offices, but I was completely mystified when he told me that he had read in history of a King Alfred, but had never heard of a King Arthur. I did not grasp the force of his remark, possibly because King Arthur was a familiar character to me, until I was nearly at my own door, when it dawned upon me to my intense enjoyment. If the reader fails, like me, to see the point, let him turn to the t.i.tle-page of this book, and read the name of the writer.

The only real objection to peac.o.c.ks, under ordinary conditions, is the discordance of their cries, especially in thundery weather, when they scream in answer to every thunder-clap. c.o.c.k pheasants, relatives of the peac.o.c.k, crow loudly at any unusual noise; and I have known them expostulate at the report of a gun; they took flight, after running to a safe distance, and their crow appeared to be in the nature of a challenge or defiance, just as a barn-door c.o.c.k will exult if you give him the idea that he has driven you away.

When the vessel which carried the coffin of Queen Victoria was crossing the Solent, in 1901, some very heavy salutes were fired from the battleships, and, the day being still and the air clear, the detonations carried to an immense distance. They were distinctly heard at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, only fourteen miles from Aldington and a distance of nearly one hundred miles from the guns, in a direct line.

The reports were so loud at Woodstock, near Oxford, that the pheasants began crowing in the Blenheim preserves.

At Alton there were some extensive woods and coppices on the farm, which were favourite breeding-places for pheasants, being dry and sunny. Some months before October 1, when pheasant shooting begins, a white pheasant was seen, and although he disappeared for a time, he fell eventually to the gun of the tenant. He was a beautiful bird, and was considered worth stuffing as a rarity. Albinism is not uncommon in the blackbird; I have seen two partial instances lately; one was constantly visible in my garden and meadows, with head nearly all white, and the other I saw in the public garden at Bournemouth, with the peculiarity still more developed. A white martin, or swallow, came into the house of a friend near Aldington, and was regarded as an unfavourable omen. Melanism, the opposite of albinism, is rarer, and the only instance I have seen was that of a black bullfinch at Aldington; it had evidently been mobbed as a stranger by other birds of its kind, as it was injured and nearly dead when captured. I had the specimen stuffed as a curiosity, though I am not fond of stuffed birds. It is said that hemp-seed, if given in undue quant.i.ties to cage bullfinches, will produce the black colour, even upon a bird of quite natural plumage originally, and a case of the kind is mentioned by Gilbert White.

Aldington, with its quiet apple orchards and the "island" and shrubberies below my garden, was a happy refuge for birds of all kinds, and the old pollard-willow heads a favourite nesting-place.

Worcestershire people have some very curious names for birds, and some of these are also heard in Hampshire and Dorset. The green woodp.e.c.k.e.r is the "stock-eagle," "ekal," or "hickle," both in Worcestershire and Hampshire, and the word survives too in "Hickle Brook" in the Forest, and in "Hickle Street," a part of Buckle Street in Worcestershire. As a boy I once marked a green woodp.e.c.k.e.r into one of the round holes we see quite newly cut by the bird in an oak; getting a b.u.t.terfly net I clapped it over the hole, caught the bird, took it home and placed it in a wicker cage. Then, returning to the tree with a chisel and mallet, I cut a hole about a foot below the entrance to the nest, only to find young birds instead of the eggs for which I had hoped. I went home to see how my captive was getting on; she was gone, and her method of escape was plain, one or two of the wicker bars being neatly cut through. I had forgotten the power of "stocking" of a "stock-eagle," for that is the meaning of the prefix in the name.

The laughing cry of the green woodp.e.c.k.e.r, or "yaffle," as the bird is by onomatopoeia called in some parts, is regarded as a sign of rain. I doubt whether it should be always so interpreted, for I know it is sometimes a sign of distress or call for help, having heard it from one in full flight from a pursuing hawk. Other curious local names of birds in Worcestershire are "Blue Isaac" for hedge sparrow, "mumruffin" for long-tailed t.i.t, "maggot" for magpie, and the heron is always called "bittern" (really quite a distinct bird). There are innumerable rhymes as to the signification of numbers where magpies are concerned, but the most complete I have heard runs thus:

"One's joy, two's grief, Three's marriage, four's death, Five's heaven, six is h.e.l.l, Seven's the devil his own sel'."

Other rhymes make "one" an unlucky number, and there are many people in Worcestershire who never see a solitary magpie without touching their hats to avert the omen, and convert it to one of good-luck; as a man once said to me, "It is as well not to lose a chance."

The kingfisher, I suppose the most beautiful of British birds, was, with all my brooks, a common bird at Aldington. Its steady flight, following the course of a stream, and its brilliant colouring make it very conspicuous, its turquoise blue varying to dark green, and its orange breast flashing in the sun. I found a nest in a water-rat's old hole, with six very transparent white eggs, deriving a rosy tint from the yolk, almost visible, within the sh.e.l.l. The hole had an entrance above the bank, descended vertically, turned at a right angle where the nest, merely a layer of small fish-bones, was placed, and ended horizontally on the side of the bank. I once saw six young kingfishers sitting side by side on a dead branch, close together, evidently just out of the nest. And I was fortunate in seeing a kingfisher dart upon the water, hover for an instant like a hawk-moth over honeysuckle, and, having caught a small gudgeon, fly away with it in its beak.

They, like the martin, always perch on leafless wood, so that the leaves shall not impede their flight when pouncing upon a fish, and no doubt this is the reason they sometimes perch on the top joint of the rod of a hidden fisherman.

The nuthatch, called here the "mud-dauber," from its habit of narrowing the hole of a starling's old nest, with mud, for its own use as a nesting-place, is a more common bird in the Forest than in Worcestershire. It is a provident bird, firmly wedging hazel nuts in the autumn into crevices of the Scots-fir, for a winter store, Bewick mentions that it uses these crevices as vices, to hold the nut securely, while it cracks it; but he does not recognize the fact that they have been stored long previously. I have seen a great number of nuts so stored and quite sound.

Bewick, by the way, who wrote his _History of British Birds_ in 1797, presents in one of his inimitable "tailpiece" wood-cuts a prevision of the aeroplane. The picture shows the airman seated in a winged car, guiding with reins thirteen harnessed herons as the motive power, and mounting upwards, apparently very near the moon. If he can see the modern interpretation of his dream he must be pleasantly surprised.

Bewick's woodc.o.c.k is one of the most beautiful portraits in the book: the accurate detail of the feather markings of the wings and back and the softer tone of the breast are as nearly perfection as possible. A woodc.o.c.k visited Aldington in one of the very severe winters but managed to elude all pursuers. It has been said, and also contradicted, that the woodc.o.c.k when rising from the ground uses its long bill as a lever to a.s.sist its starting, just as an oarsman pushes off from the bank with a boat-hook or oar; I myself have seen one rising from a bare and marshy place, and the position of its bill certainly gave me the impression that the idea was well founded.

The woodc.o.c.k often breeds in the south of England, but is usually a migrating bird, arriving during the first moon in November; it is not difficult to shoot when it first rises, but when steam is really up and it is zig-zagging between the branches of an oak, it takes a good shot to make sure of it. I shall never forget the first woodc.o.c.k I shot as a boy; it was a thick misty day in November, I fired, and though I felt certain I had not missed, the smoke hung and the air was too thick to see, and, after a long search, I left the wood and was going home when our old spaniel, Flush, turned his head to examine something in a deep cart rut. Following the direction of his eyes, I saw my woodc.o.c.k; it must have flown 100 yards or more after I fired. I was still more pleased with the last shot I fired in our old Surrey covers at a woodc.o.c.k going like an express train--and faster, for they are said to fly at the rate of 150 miles an hour--with all his tricks, through thick branches in the adjoining cover, where he fell at least 65 yards from where I stood. A friend of mine had the good-fortune to see an old woodc.o.c.k, which had evidently bred in his woods, flying, followed by five or six young ones; he said it was one of the prettiest bits of natural history he had ever seen.

"If a woodc.o.c.k had a partridge's breast He'd be the best bird that ever was dressed; If a partridge had a woodc.o.c.k's thigh He'd be the best bird that ever did fly."

is a very old description, and fairly divides the honours between the two birds.

The hawfinch is very easily recognized by its distinct and beautiful colouring; it is a shy bird, and though it bred regularly at Aldington, we rarely saw it. It is commoner here, and is sometimes very destructive, its powerful beak making havoc with the "marrowfats"; but, though I am partial to green peas of this description, I would sooner suffer some damage than have the hawfinches shot.

In 1918 the cuckoos were exceedingly numerous here, and round my house they were calling all day long. Owing to the terrible winter and early spring months of the previous year, so many of the insectivorous birds had been destroyed, that the caterpillars had escaped, and were more numerous than ever in the following spring. The oaks in places were completely stripped of their foliage by the larvae of _Tortrix viridana_, almost as soon as the leaves were out. The cuckoos discovered them, but were not in sufficient numbers to keep them down, and it was midsummer before the trees recovered. I have referred to the damage in my plum orchard at Aldington from the attack of the larvae of the winter-moth; the damage is not confined to the actual year of its occurrence, the crop suffers the following year owing to the previous defoliation of the tree, which is weakened and is unable to mature healthy fruit buds. At Aldington, in a hot summer, the cuckoos used to call nearly all night, and I have heard them when it was quite dark.

For some years, until 1918, goldfinches were quite common in Hampshire and Dorsetshire. I have seen a flock of over forty together. I had seven nests on my premises here one summer; they go on breeding very late, and I have found their nests with young birds half-fledged while summer-pruning apple trees in August. They come into my garden close to the windows in May, after the ripening seeds of the myosotis (forget-me-not) in the spring-bedding. I never remember seeing a goldfinch at Aldington, which should show that the thistles were well under control, for the seed is a great attraction. One often hears the practice of allowing thistles to run to seed condemned as criminal, for everybody knows that each thistle-down, carried by the wind, contains a seed, and that the attachment of a light structure of plumes is one of Nature's methods of ensuring dissemination. But, in Worcestershire, it is always a.s.serted that thistle seed will not germinate--I am referring to _Cnicus arvensis_--and it is said that a prize of 50 offered for a seedling thistle remains unclaimed to this day. I failed, myself, in trying to obtain young plants from seeds sown in a flower-pot, and I have never seen a seedling in all the thousands of miles I must have walked over young cornfields when my men were hoeing.

I have heard an interesting story about rooks which were causing a farmer much damage in a field newly sown with peas. He erected a small shelter of hurdles, from which to shoot them, and for a time the shelter was sufficient to scare them, until they got used to it; but, when he entered it with his gun, they would not come near. Thinking to deceive their sentinel, watching from a tree, he took a companion to the shelter, who remained for a time and then left, but still no rooks came near. The farmer then took two companions, and presently sent them both away. The arithmetic was too much for the rooks, and the scheme succeeded. He concluded that their powers of enumeration were limited to counting "two," and that "three" was beyond them.

Nightingales are scarce in the Forest; they do not like the solitude of the great woods, apparently preferring to inhabit roadsides and places where people and traffic are constantly pa.s.sing. They are specially abundant at the foot of the Cotswolds, and it is a treat to cycle steadily along the road between Broadway and Weston Subedge on a summer evening, where you no sooner lose the liquid notes of one, than you enter the territory of another, so continuous is the song for miles together.

In severe winters wood-pigeons did much damage at Aldington to young clover a few inches high; they roosted in "the island" adjoining my garden. When they first descended they alighted in the wide-spreading branches of the leafless black poplars, where they could see all round, and reconnoitre the position; then, if all was quiet, in about ten minutes they took to the shelter of the fir trees for the night with much fluttering and beating of wings against the thick branches.

They devour the acorns in the Forest very greedily in the autumn, and I have seen one with crop so full that on my approach it could only with difficulty fly away to a short distance. I found it near a small pond where, apparently, it had been drinking, and the acorns had expanded to an inconvenient extent.

The golden-crested wren was a common bird here before the severe winter of 1916-1917, but it has since become comparatively rare; it is the smallest of British birds, and could often be seen in the hedges exploring every twig and crevice for insects, and it was a great pleasure to watch the nimble movements of such a sweet little fairy.

Its first cousin, the fire-crest, which is almost its exact counterpart, except for the flame-coloured crest, is much rarer; and I only remember seeing one specimen, to which with great circ.u.mspection I managed to approach quite closely, in the wood near my house.

One morning, at Aldington, the gardener came in to say there was a hawk in the greenhouse near the rickyard; we found a pane of gla.s.s broken, where it had unintentionally entered in pursuit of a sparrow; the hawk was uninjured, and flew away quite unconcernedly on the opening of the door. Another hawk, here in Burley, was found dead near my drawing-room bow-window. It had dashed itself against a pane of thick plate-gla.s.s while in pursuit of a starling, I think; seeing the light through the bow, it had not recognized the gla.s.s, and must have collided with it in the act of swooping. I have several times seen hawks descend like a flash from a tree, and select an unlucky starling from a flock; one blow on the head settled the victim before I could reach the spot, but sometimes the hawk had to leave its prize behind it.

I was watching a number of young chicks feeding outside the coops containing the mother hens, when there suddenly arose a great disturbance, and a hawk, which had pounced upon a chick, was seen flying away with it in its talons. Its flight was impeded by the weight of the chicken, and we gave chase shouting. Flying very low it carried its prey to the further side of the meadow, but, seeing that it could not get quickly through the trees there, it dropped the chicken and escaped; we picked up the poor frightened infant, which was not injured, and restored it to a perturbed but joyful mother. "As yaller as a kite's claw," is a simile one hears in the country, and it is common to both Hampshire and Worcestershire.