Wild Life in a Southern County Part 6

ya-hoop!' to which the cows, recognising the well-known call, respond very much in the same tones. Slowly they obey and gather together under the elms in the corner of the meadow, which in summer is used as the milking-place. About five or half-past another clattering tells of the milkers' return; and then the dairy is in full operation. The household breakfasts at half-past six or thereabouts, and while breakfast is going on the heavy tramp of feet may be heard pa.s.sing along the roadway through the rickyard--the haymakers marching to the fields. For the next two hours or so the sounds from the dairy are the only interruption of the silence: then come the first waggons loaded with hay, jolting and creaking, the carter's lads shouting, 'Woaght!' to the horses as they steer through the gateway and sweep round, drawing up under the rick.

Between eleven and twelve the waggons cease to arrive--it is luncheon time: the exact time for luncheon varies a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, or more, according to the state of the work. Messengers come home for cans of beer, and carry out also to the field wooden 'bottles'--small barrels holding a gallon or two. After a short interval work goes on again till nearly four o'clock, when it is dinner-time. One or two labourers, deputed by the rest and having leave and licence so to do, enter the farmhouse garden and pull up bundles of onions, lettuces, or radishes--sown over wide areas on purpose--and carry them out to the cart-house, or where-ever the men may be. If far from home, the women often boil a kettle for tea under the hedge, collecting dead sticks fallen from the trees. At six o'clock work is over: the women are allowed to leave half an hour or so previously, that they may prepare their husbands' suppers.

As the sunset approaches the long broad dusty road loses its white glare, and yonder by the hamlet a bright glistening banner reflects the level rays of the sun with dazzling sheen; it is the gilding on the swinging wayside sign transformed for the moment from a wooden board rudely ornamented with a gilt sun, all rays and rotund cheeks, into a veritable oriflamme.

There the men will a.s.semble by-and-by, on the forms about the trestle table, and share each other's quarts in the fellowship of labour. Or perhaps the work may be pressing, and the waggons are loaded till the white owl noiselessly flits along the hedgerow, and the round moon rises over the hills. Then those who have stayed to a.s.sist find their supper waiting for them in the brewhouse, and do it ample justice.

Once during the morning, while busy in the hay-field, not so much with his hands as his eyes, watching that the 'wallows' may be turned over properly, and the 'wakes' made at a just distance from each other, that the waggon may pa.s.s easily between, the farmer is sure to be summoned home with the news of a swarm of bees. If the work be pressing, they must be attended to by deputy; if not, he hurries home himself; for although in these days bee-keeping is no longer what it used to be, yet the old-fashioned folk take a deep interest in the bees still. They tell you that 'a swarm in May is worth a load of hay; a swarm in June is worth a silver spoon; but a swarm in July is not worth a fly'--for it is then too late for the young colony to store up a treasure of golden honey before the flowers begin to fade at the approach of autumn.

It is noticeable that those who labour on their own land (as at Wick) keep up the ancient customs much more vigorously than the tenant who knows that he is liable to receive a notice to quit. And farms, for one reason or another, change tenants much more frequently now than they used to do. Here at Wick the owner feels that every apple tree he grafts, every flower he plants, returns not only a money value, but a joy not to be measured by money. So the bees are carefully watched and tended, as the blue tomt.i.ts find to their cost if they become too venturesome.

These bold little bandits will sometimes make a dash for the hive, alighting on the miniature platform before the entrance, and playing havoc with the busy inmates. If alarmed they take refuge in the apple trees, as if conscious that the owner will not shoot them there, since every pellet may destroy potential fruit by cutting and breaking those tender twigs on which it would presently grow. It is a pleasant sight in autumn to see the room devoted to the honey--great broad milk-tins full to the brim of the translucent liquid, distilling slowly from pure white comb, from the top of whose cells the waxen covering has been removed.

All the summer through fresh beauties, indeed, wait upon the owner's footsteps. In the spring the mowing gra.s.s rises thick, strong, and richly green, or hidden by the cloth-of-gold thrown over it by the b.u.t.tercups! He knows when it is ready for the scythe without reference to the almanac, because of the brown tint which spreads over it from the ripening seeds, sometimes tinged with a dull red, when the stems of the sorrel are plentiful. At first the aftermath has a trace of yellow, as if it were fading; but a shower falls, and fresh green blades shoot up.

Or, pa.s.sing from the hollow meads up on the rising slopes where the plough rules the earth, what so beautiful to watch as the wheat through its various phases of colour?

First green and succulent; then, presently, see a modest ear comes forth with promise of the future. By-and-by, when every stalk is tipped like a sceptre, the lower stalk leaves are still green, but the stems have a faint bluish tinge, and the ears are paling into yellow. Next the white pollen--the bloom--shows under the warm sunshine, and then the birds begin to grow busy among it. They perch on the stalk itself--it is at that time strong and stiff enough to uphold their weight, one on a stem--but not now for mischief. You may see the sparrow carry away with him caterpillars for his young upon the housetop hard by; later on, it is true, he will revel on the ripe grains.

Yesterday you came to the wheat and found it pale like this (it seems but twenty-four hours ago--it is really only a little longer); to-day, when you look again, lo! there is a fleeting yellow already on the ears.

They have so quickly caught the hue of the bright sunshine pouring on them. Yet another day or two, and the faint fleeting yellow has become fixed and certain, as the colours are deepened by the great artist.

Only when the wind blows and the ears bend in those places where the breeze takes most; it looks paler because the under part of the ear is shown and part of the stalk. Finally comes that rich hue for which no exact similitude exists. In it there is somewhat of the red of the orange, somewhat of the tint of bronze, and somewhat of the hue of maize; but these are poor words wherewith to render fixed a colour that plays over the surface of this yellow sea, for if you take one, two, or a dozen ears you shall not find it, but must look abroad, and let your gaze travel to and fro. Nor is every field alike; here are acres and acres more yellow, yonder a s.p.a.ce whiter, beyond that a slope richly ruddy, according to the kind of seed that was sown.

Out of the depths of what to it must seem an impenetrable jungle, from visiting a flower hidden below, a humble-bee climbs rapidly up a stalk a yard or two away while you look, and mounting to the top of the ear, as a post of vantage clear of obstructions, sails away upon the wind.

"We be all jolly vellers what vollers th' plough!"--but not to listen to, and take literally according to the letter of the discourse. It runs something like this the seasons through as the weather changes: "Terrible dry weather this here to be sure; we got so much work to do uz can't get drough it. The fly be swarming in the turmots--the s.m.u.t be on the wheat--the wuts be amazing weak in the straw. Got a fine crop of wheat this year, and prices be low, so uz had better drow it to th'

pigs. Last year uz had no wheat fit to speak on, and prices was high.

Drot this here wet weather! the osses be all in the stable eating their heads off, and the chaps be all idling about and can't do no work: a pretty penny for wages and not a job done. Them summer ricks be all rotten at bottom. The ploughing engine be stuck fast up to the axle, the land be so soft and squishey. Us never gets no good old frosts now, like they used to have. Drot these here frosty mornings! a-cutting up everything. There'll be another rate out soon, a' reckon. Us had better give up this here trade, neighbour!"

And so on for a thousand and one grumbles, fitting into every possible condition of things, which must not, however, be taken too seriously; for of all other men the farmer is the most deeply attached to the labour by which he lives, and loves the earth on which he walks like a true autochthon. He will not leave it unless he is suffering severely.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

BIRDS OF THE FARMHOUSE--SPEECH OF A STARLING--POPULATION OF A GABLE--THE KING OF THE HEDGE--THE THRUSHES' ANVIL.

Wick farmhouse is thatched, and has many gables hidden with ivy. In these broad expanses of thatch, on the great 'chimney-tuns' as country folk call them, and in the ivy, tribes of birds have taken up their residence. The thatch has grown so thick in the course of years by the addition of fresh coats that it projects far from the walls and forms wide, far-reaching eaves. Over the cellar the roof descends within three or four feet of the ground, the wall being low, and the eaves here cast a shadow with the sun nearly at the zenith.

On the higher parts of the roof, especially round the chimneys, the starlings have made their holes, and in the early summer are continuously flying to and fro their young, who never cease crying form food the whole day through. A tall ash tree stands in the hedgerow, about fifty yards from the house. On this tree, which is detached, so that they can see all round, the starlings perch before they come to the roof, as if to reconnoitre and to exchange pourparlers with their friends already on the roof; for if ever birds talk together starlings do. Many birds utter the same notes over and over again; others sit on a branch and sing the same song, as the thrush; but the starling has a whole syllabary of his own, every note of which evidently has its meaning, and can be varied and accented at pleasure.

His whistle ranges from a shrill, piercing treble to a low, hollow ba.s.s; he runs a complete gamut, with 'shakes,' trills, tremulous vibrations, every possible variation. He intersperses a peculiar clucking sound, which seems to come from the depths of his breast, fluttering his wings all the while against his sides as he stands bolt upright on the edge of the chimney. Other birds seem to sing for the pure pleasure of singing, shedding their notes broadcast, or at most they are meant for a mate hidden in the bush. The starling addresses himself direct to his fellows: I think I may say he never sings when alone, without a companion in sight. He literally speaks to his fellows. I am persuaded you may almost follow the dialogue and guess the tenor of the discourse.

A starling is on the chimney-top; yonder on the ash tree are four or five of his acquaintance. Suddenly he begins to pour forth a flood of eloquence--facing them as he speaks: Will they come with him down to the field where the cows are grazing? There will be sure to be plenty of insects settling on the gra.s.s round the cows, and every now and then they tear up the herbage by the roots and expose creeping things.

"Come," you may hear him say, modulating his tones to persuasion, "come quickly; you see it is a fresh piece of gra.s.s into which the cows have been turned only a few hours since; it was too long for us before, but where they have eaten we can get at the ground comfortably. The water-wagtail is there already; he always accompanies the herd, and will have the pick and choice of everything. Or what do you say to the meadow by the brook? The mowers have begun, and the swathe has fallen before their scythes; there are acres of ground there which we could not touch for weeks; now it is open, and the place is teeming with good food. The finches are there as busy as may be between the swathes-- chaffinch and greenfinch, hedge-sparrow, thrushes, and blackbirds too.

Are you afraid? Why, no one shoots in the middle of a summer's day.

Still irresolute? (with an angry shrillness). Will you or will you not? (a sharp short whistle of interrogation). You are simply idiots (finishing with a scream of abuse). I'm off!"

Seeing him start, the rest follow at once, jealous lest he should enjoy these pleasures alone. As he flies every few minutes he closes his wings, so that for half a dozen yards he shoots like an arrow through the air; then rapidly uses them, and again closes and shoots forward, all the timekeeping a level straight course; going direct to his object.

The starlings that breed in the roof, though they leave the place later on and congregate in flocks roosting in trees, still come back now and then to revisit their homes, especially as the new year opens, when they alight on the house frequently and consult on the approaching important period of nesting. If you should be sitting near a window close under the roof where they are busy, reading a book, with the summer sunshine streaming in, now and then a flash like lightning will pa.s.s across the page. It is a starling rapidly vibrating his wings before he perches on the thatch; the swift succession of light and shadow as the wings intercept the rays of the sun causes an impression on the eye like that left by a flash of lightning. They are beautiful birds: on their plumage, when seen quite close, the light plays in iridescent gleams.

Upon the roof of the old farmstead, too, the chirp of the sparrow never ceases the livelong day. It is amusing to see these birds in the nesting season carrying up long straws--towing their burden through the air with evident labour--or feathers. These they sometimes drop just as they arrive at their destination. Eager to utter a chirp to their mates, they open their beaks, and away floats the feather, but they catch it again before it reaches the ground. Fluffy feathers are great favourites. The fowls, as they fly up to roost on the beams in the sheds, beat out feathers from their clumsy wings; these lie scattered on the ground, marking the spot. These roosting-places are magazines from which the small birds draw their supplies for domestic purposes. The sparrows have their nests in lesser holes in the thatch: sometimes they use a swallow's nest built of mortar under the eaves, to which the owners have not returned.

The older folk still retain some faint superst.i.tions about swallows, looking upon them as semi-consecrated and not to be killed or interfered with. They will not have their nests knocked down. If they do not return to the eaves but desert their nests it is a sign of misfortune impending over the household. So, too, if the rooks quit the rookery or the colonies of bees in the hives on the sunny side of the orchard decay and do not swarm, but seem to die off, it is an evil omen. If at night a bird flutters against the window-pane in the darkness--as they will sometimes in a great storm of wind, driven, perhaps, from their roosting-places by the breaking of the boughs, and attracted by a light within--the knocking of their wings betokens that something sad is about to happen. If an invalid asks for a pigeon--taking a fancy to a dish of pigeons to eat--it is a sign either of coming dissolution or of extreme illness.

But the swallows rarely fail to come in the spring, and soon begin to repair their nests or build new ones with mortar from the roads; a rainy day is very useful to them, and they alight at the edge of the puddles, finding the mud already mixed and tempered for them there. In such weather they will fly backwards and forwards by the side of a hedge for a length of time, skimming just above the gra.s.s, when, looking down on them instead of up at them, the white bar across the lower part of the body just before the tail forks is very noticeable. The darker feathers have a glossy bluish tinge on the black. They seem fond of flying round and near horses and cattle, as if insects were more numerous near animals. While driving on a sultry day I have watched a swallow follow the horse for a mile or more.

It is a pleasant sight to watch them gliding just above the surface of smooth water, dipping every now and then. Once, while observing some swallows flying over a lake, on a windy day, when there were waves of some size, I saw a swallow struck by the crest of a wave and overwhelmed. It was about twenty yards from a lee sh.o.r.e, and the bird floated on the water, rising and sinking with the waves till they threw it on the bank. It was much exhausted, but when placed on a stone in the warm sunshine soon recovered and flew off.

As another proof that quick as they are on the wing, they do not always judge their position or course precisely, I know a case where a swallow, in less than ten yards after leaving her nest under the eaves of a house, flew with great force against a door in the garden wall painted a dull blue. The beak was partly broken and the bird completely stunned: she died in a few minutes. There was some one in the garden close by at the time: his presence may have frightened the swallow; yet they are not usually timid where their nests are undisturbed. Perhaps in her hurry the dull blue colour of the gate may have deceived her sight; but she must have travelled that way a hundred times before.

Swallows frequently come down the great chimneys at the farmhouse and are found in the rooms, but are always allowed to escape from the window. Swallows are said not to perch; but I have seen them repeatedly perch on those sticks which, where the thatch has somewhat decayed, project a few inches above the roof-tree. Sometimes a row of half a dozen may be observed settled on the roof here. You may see them, too, perch on the topmost boughs of the tall damson trees in the orchard; and again, later in the autumn, after nesting is over, they a.s.semble in hundreds--one might almost say thousands--in the withy bed by the brook, settling on the slender willow wands. There they twitter together for an hour or more every evening. They can rise without the slightest difficulty from the ground, if it is level and not enc.u.mbered with gra.s.s, as from the surface of the roads. On dull cold days they settle on the house more frequently than when it is bright and sunny.

At one end of the farmhouse, which is an irregular building, there is a quiet gable, and in it a cas.e.m.e.nt arched over by the thatch, and shaded by a thick growth of ivy. The cas.e.m.e.nt is low, and not more than eight or nine feet from the ground; the ivy has climbed the wall, it has spread too over the ma.s.sive wall of the garden which just there abuts upon the house, so that there is a secluded corner formed by the angle.

Here some time ago a number of logs of timber--oak, such as are sawn up into posts for field gateways--were left leaning half against the garden wall, half against the house, just under the window. There they have remained (there is never any hurry about things in the country) so long that the moss has begun to encase the lower portions. What with the projecting thatch, the thick ivy, the timber thrown carelessly beneath, the lichen-grown garden wall, and a large bush of lilac in the angle, the place could hardly be more quiet, and is consequently a favourite resort of the birds.

Within reach from the window the swallows have their nests, and the sparrows their holes, on the right hand; within reach on the left hand, among the ivy, the water-wagtail has built her nest year after year.

The wagtail may always be seen about the place--now in the cow-yards among the cattle, now in the rickyard, and even close to the door of the dwelling-house, especially frequenting the courtyard in front of the dairy. As he flies he rises up and then sinks again, in a succession of undulations, now spreading the tail out and now closing it. On the ground he generally alights near water; he is continually jerking the tail up and down.

One spring a cuckoo came to this nest in the ivy close to the cas.e.m.e.nt; she was seen flying near the house several times, and, being observed to visit the ivy-covered gable, was finally traced to the wagtail's nest.

For several days in succession, and several times a day, the cuckoo came, and would doubtless have left an egg had not she been shot by a person who wanted a cuckoo to stuff.

It is difficult to understand upon what principle the cuckoo selected a nest thus placed. The ordinary considerations put forward as guiding birds and animals in their actions quite fail. Instinct would scarcely choose a spot so close to a house--actually on it; the desire of safety would not lead to it either, nor the idea of concealment. She might, no doubt, have found nests enough at a distance from houses, and much more likely to escape observation. Was there any kind of feeling that this particular wagtail was more likely to take care of the offspring than others?

I doubt the cuckoo's alleged total indifference to her young. They certainly linger in the neighbourhood of the nests which they have selected to deposit their eggs in. On another occasion a cuckoo used a wagtail's nest in a different part of the garden here--in some ivy that had grown round the decaying stump of an old fir tree. This bird was watched, but not interfered with; she came repeatedly, and was seen on the nest, and the egg observed. Afterwards a cuckoo sang continuously day after day on an ash tree close to the garden.

Lower down in the ivy, behind the logs of timber under the cas.e.m.e.nt, the hedge-sparrow builds every year; and on the wood itself where the trunks formed a little recess was a robin's nest. The hedge-sparrow, unlike his noisy namesake, is one of the quietest of birds: he slips about in the hedges and bushes all round the garden so quietly and un.o.btrusively that unless you watch carefully you will not see him. Yet he does not seem shy, and if you sit still will come along the hawthorn within a yard.

In the thatch--under the eaves of the cellar, which are not more than four feet from the ground and come up to the ivy of the gable--the wren has a nest. Some birds seem always to make their nests in one particular kind of way, and generally in the same kind of tree or bush; robins, house-sparrows, and starlings, on the other hand, adjust their nests to all sorts of places.

The window of a room in which I used to sleep overlooked the orchard, and there was a pear tree trained against the wall, some of the boughs of which came up to the window-sill. This pear tree acted as a ladder, up which the birds came. Pear trees are a good deal frequented by many birds; their rough bark seems to shelter numerous insects. The window was left open all night in the sultry summer weather, and presently a robin began to come in very early in the morning. Encouraged by finding that no one disturbed him, at last he grew bold enough to perch morning after morning on the rail at the foot of my bed. First he seemed to examine the inside of the window, then went on the floor, and, after a good look round, finally finished by sitting on the wooden framework for a few minutes before departing.

This went on some time; then a wren came too; she likewise looked to see if anything edible could be found in the window first. Old-fashioned windows often have a broad sill inside--the window frame being placed nearly at the outer edge of the wall, so that the thickness of the wall forms a recess, which is lined with board along the bottom. Now this wooden lining was decayed and drilled with innumerable holes by boring insects, which threw up tiny heaps of sawdust, as one might say, just as moles throw up mounds of earth where they tunnel. Perhaps these formed an attraction to the wren. She also frequently visited an old-fashioned bookcase, on the top of which--it was very low--I often left some old worm-eaten folios and quartos, and may have occasionally picked up something there. Once only she ventured to the foot of the bed. After leaving the room she always perched on a thin iron projection which held the window open, and uttered her singularly loud notes, their metallic clearness seeming to make the chamber ring. Starlings often perched on the same iron slide, and sparrows continually; but only the robin and wren came inside. Tomt.i.ts occasionally entered and explored the same board-lining of the window, but no farther. They will, however, sometimes explore a room.

I know a parlour the window of which was partly overhung by a similar pear tree, besides which there were some shrubs just outside, and into this room, being quiet and little used, the tomt.i.ts ventured every now and then. I fancy the placing of flowers in vases, on the table or on the mantelpiece attracts birds to rooms, if they are still. Insects visit the flowers; birds look for the insects: and this room generally abounded with cut flowers. Entering it suddenly one day, a tomt.i.t flew from side to side in great agitation, and then dropped on the floor and allowed me to pick it up without an effort to escape. The bird had swooned from fright, and was quite helpless--the eyes closed. On being placed outside the window, in five minutes it came to itself and flew off feebly. In this way birds may frequently become a prey to cats and hawks when to all appearance they might easily escape--becoming so overwhelmed with alarm as to lose the power of motion.

The robin is a most pugnacious creature. He will fight furiously with a rival; in fact, he never misses an opportunity of fighting. But he always chooses the very early morning for these encounters, and so escapes suspicion, except, of course, from people who rise early too.

It is even said that the young c.o.c.k robins, when they are full-grown, turn round on their own parents and fight with them vigorously. Neither is he a favourite with the upper cla.s.s of cottagers--for there is an 'upper ten' even among cottagers--who have large fruit-gardens. In these they grow quant.i.ties of currants for preserving purposes. The robin is accused of being a terrible thief of currants, and meets with scant mercy.

Sometimes while walking slowly along the footpath in a lane with hedges each side a robin will dart out of the hawthorn and pick up a worm or grub almost under your feet; then in his alarm at your presence drop it, and rush back in a flutter. Other birds will do the same thing, from which it would seem that the old saying that the eye sees what it comes to see is as applicable to them as to human beings. Their eyes, ever on the watch for food, instantly detect a tiny creeping thing several yards distant, though concealed by gra.s.s; but the comparatively immense bulk of a man appears to escape notice till they fly almost up against it.

I fancy that the hive-bee and some kindred insects have a special faculty of seeing colour at a distance, and that colours attract them.

It can hardly be scent, because when flowers are placed in a room and the window left open the wind generally blows strongly into the apartment, and odours will not travel against a breeze. It seems natural that in both cases the continual watch for certain things should enable bird and insect to observe the faintest indication. Slugs, caterpillars, and such creatures, too, in moving among the gra.s.s, cause a slight agitation of the gra.s.s-blades; they lift up a leaf by crawling under it, or depress it with their weight by getting on it. This may enable the bird to detect their presence, even when quite hidden by the herbage, experience having taught it that when gra.s.s is moved by the wind broad patches sway simultaneously, but when an insect or caterpillar is the agent only a single leaf or blade is stirred.

At the farmhouse here, robins, wrens, and tomt.i.ts are always hanging about the courtyard, especially close to the dairy, where one or other may be constantly seen perched on the palings; neither do they scruple to enter the dairy, the brewhouse, or wood-house adjacent, when they see a chance. The logs (for fuel) stored in the latter doubtless afford them insects from under the dead bark.

Among the most constant residents in the garden at Wick Farm are the song thrushes. They are the tamest of the larger birds; they come every morning right under the old bay-window of the sitting-room on the shady side of the house, where the musk-plant has spread abroad and covered the stone-pitching for many yards, except just a narrow path paved with broad flagstones. The musk finds root in every interstice of the pitching, but cannot push up through the solid flat flags; a fungus, however, has attempted even that, and has succeeded in forcing a great stone, weighing perhaps fifteen or twenty pounds, from its bed, so that instead of being level it forms an inclined plane. The carpet of musk yields a pleasant odour; in one corner, too, the 'monkey-plant' grows luxuriously, and the gra.s.s of the green or lawn is for ever trying to encroach upon the paving. In the centre of the green is a bed of gooseberries and a cherry tree; and though the fruit is so close to the window, both thrush and blackbird make as free with it as if it was in the hedgerow.

The thrush, when he wishes to approach the house, flies first to the cover of these gooseberries; then, after reconnoitring a few minutes, comes out on the green and gradually works his way across it to the stone-pitching, and so along under the very window. The blackbird comes almost as often to the lawn, but it is in a different way. His manner is that of a bold marauder, conscious that he has no right, and aware that a shot from an ambuscade may lay him low, but defiantly risking the danger. He perches first on a bush, or on the garden wall, under the sheltering boughs of the lime trees, at a distance of some twenty yards; then, waiting till all is clear, he makes a desperate rush for the fruit trees or the lawn. The moment he has succeeded in violently seizing some delicious morsel off he goes, uttering a loud chuckle--half as a challenge, half as a vent for his pent-up anxiety.