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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7032-0.txt b/7032-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e74269 --- /dev/null +++ b/7032-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7238 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Prose Idylls, by Charles Kingsley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Prose Idylls + New and Old + + +Author: Charles Kingsley + + + +Release Date: November 5, 2014 [eBook #7032] +[This file was first posted on February 25, 2003] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROSE IDYLLS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1882 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Eversley Rectory] + + + + + + PROSE IDYLLS, + NEW AND OLD. + + + * * * * * + + BY + REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY, + CANON OF WESTMINSTER. + + [Picture: Drawing of bird on branch, singing] + + _NEW EDITION_. + + * * * * * + + London: + MACMILLAN AND CO. + 1882. + + _The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved_. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + PAGE + I. +‘A Charm of Birds’ 1 + II. +Chalk-Stream Studies 27 + III. +The Fens 93 + IV. +My Winter-Garden 133 + V. +From Ocean to Sea 175 + VI. +North Devon 223 + + + + +I. +‘_A CHARM OF BIRDS_.’ {1} + + +IS it merely a fancy that we English, the educated people among us at +least, are losing that love for spring which among our old forefathers +rose almost to worship? That the perpetual miracle of the budding leaves +and the returning song-birds awakes no longer in us the astonishment +which it awoke yearly among the dwellers in the old world, when the sun +was a god who was sick to death each winter, and returned in spring to +life and health, and glory; when the death of Adonis, at the autumnal +equinox, was wept over by the Syrian women, and the death of Baldur, in +the colder north, by all living things, even to the dripping trees, and +the rocks furrowed by the autumn rains; when Freya, the goddess of youth +and love, went forth over the earth each spring, while the flowers broke +forth under her tread over the brown moors, and the birds welcomed her +with song; when, according to Olaus Magnus, the Goths and South Swedes +had, on the return of spring, a mock battle between summer and winter, +and welcomed the returning splendour of the sun with dancing and mutual +feasting, rejoicing that a better season for fishing and hunting was +approaching? To those simpler children of a simpler age, in more direct +contact with the daily and yearly facts of Nature, and more dependent on +them for their bodily food and life, winter and spring were the two great +facts of existence; the symbols, the one of death, the other of life; and +the battle between the two—the battle of the sun with darkness, of winter +with spring, of death with life, of bereavement with love—lay at the root +of all their myths and all their creeds. Surely a change has come over +our fancies. The seasons are little to us now. We are nearly as +comfortable in winter as in summer, or in spring. Nay, we have begun, of +late, to grumble at the two latter as much as at the former, and talk +(and not without excuse at times) of ‘the treacherous month of May,’ and +of ‘summer having set in with its usual severity.’ We work for the most +part in cities and towns, and the seasons pass by us unheeded. May and +June are spent by most educated people anywhere rather than among birds +and flowers. They do not escape into the country till the elm hedges are +growing black, and the song-birds silent, and the hay cut, and all the +virgin bloom of the country has passed into a sober and matronly +ripeness—if not into the sere and yellow leaf. Our very landscape +painters, till Creswick arose and recalled to their minds the fact that +trees were sometimes green, were wont to paint few but brown autumnal +scenes. As for the song of birds, of which in the middle age no poet +could say enough, our modern poets seem to be forgetting that birds ever +sing. + +It was not so of old. The climate, perhaps, was more severe than now; +the transition from winter to spring more sudden, like that of +Scandinavia now. Clearage of forests and drainage of land have equalized +our seasons, or rather made them more uncertain. More broken winters are +followed by more broken springs; and May-day is no longer a marked point +to be kept as a festival by all childlike hearts. The merry month of May +is merry only in stage songs. The May garlands and dances are all but +gone: the borrowed plate, and the milkmaids who borrowed it, gone +utterly. No more does Mrs. Pepys go to ‘lie at Woolwich, in order to a +little ayre and to gather May-dew’ for her complexion, by Mrs. Turner’s +advice. The Maypole is gone likewise; and never more shall the puritan +soul of a Stubbs be aroused in indignation at seeing ‘against Maie, every +parish, towne, and village assemble themselves together, both men, women, +and children, olde and young, all indifferently, and goe into the woodes +and groves, hilles and mountaines, where they spend the night in pastyme, +and in the morning they returne, bringing with them birch bowes and +braunches of trees to deck their assembly withal. . . . They have twentie +or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe having a sweete nosegay of flowers +tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these draw home this Maypole (this +stincking idol rather) which is covered all over with flowers and +hearbes, with two or three hundred men, women, and children following it +with great devotion. . . And then they fall to banquet and feast, daunce +and leap about it, as the heathen people did at the dedication of their +idolles, whereof this is a perfect pattern, or the thing itself.’ + +This, and much more, says poor Stubbs, in his ‘Anatomie of Abuses,’ and +had, no doubt, good reason enough for his virtuous indignation at May-day +scandals. But people may be made dull without being made good; and the +direct and only effect of putting down May games and such like was to cut +off the dwellers in towns from all healthy communion with Nature, and +leave them to mere sottishness and brutality. + +Yet perhaps the May games died out, partly because the feelings which had +given rise to them died out before improved personal comforts. Of old, +men and women fared hardly, and slept cold; and were thankful to Almighty +God for every beam of sunshine which roused them out of their long +hybernation; thankful for every flower and every bird which reminded them +that joy was stronger than sorrow, and life than death. With the spring +came not only labour, but enjoyment: + + ‘In the spring, the young man’s fancy lightly turned to thoughts of + love,’ + +as lads and lasses, who had been pining for each other by their winter +firesides, met again, like Daphnis and Chloe, by shaugh and lea; and +learnt to sing from the songs of birds, and to be faithful from their +faithfulness. + +Then went out troops of fair damsels to seek spring garlands in the +forest, as Scheffel has lately sung once more in his ‘Frau Aventiure;’ +and, while the dead leaves rattled beneath their feet, hymned ‘La Regine +Avrillouse’ to the music of some Minnesinger, whose song was as the song +of birds; to whom the birds were friends, fellow-lovers, teachers, +mirrors of all which he felt within himself of joyful and tender, true +and pure; friends to be fed hereafter (as Walther von der Vogelweide had +them fed) with crumbs upon his grave. + +True melody, it must be remembered, is unknown, at least at present, in +the tropics, and peculiar to the races of those temperate climes, into +which the song-birds come in spring. It is hard to say why. Exquisite +songsters, and those, strangely, of an European type, may be heard +anywhere in tropical American forests: but native races whose hearts +their song can touch, are either extinct or yet to come. Some of the old +German Minnelieder, on the other hand, seem actually copied from the +songs of birds. ‘Tanderadei’ does not merely ask the nightingale to tell +no tales; it repeats, in its cadences, the nightingale’s song, as the old +Minnesinger heard it when he nestled beneath the lime-tree with his love. +They are often almost as inarticulate, these old singers, as the birds +from whom they copied their notes; the thinnest chain of thought links +together some bird-like refrain: but they make up for their want of logic +and reflection by the depth of their passion, the perfectness of their +harmony with nature. The inspired Swabian, wandering in the pine-forest, +listens to the blackbird’s voice till it becomes his own voice; and he +breaks out, with the very carol of the blackbird + + ‘Vogele im Tannenwald pfeifet so hell. + Pfeifet de Wald aus und ein, wo wird mein Schätze sein? + Vogele im Tannenwald pfeitet so hell.’ + +And he has nothing more to say. That is his whole soul for the time +being; and, like a bird, he sings it over and over again, and never +tires. + +Another, a Nieder-Rheinischer, watches the moon rise over the Löwenburg, +and thinks upon his love within the castle hall, till he breaks out in a +strange, sad, tender melody—not without stateliness and manly confidence +in himself and in his beloved—in the true strain of the nightingale: + + ‘Verstohlen geht der Mond auf, + Blau, blau, Blümelein, + Durch Silberwölkchen führt sein Lauf. + Rosen im Thal, Mädel im Saal, O schönste Rosa! + * * * + Und siehst du mich, + Und siehst du sie, + Blau, blau, Blümelein, + Zwei treu’re Herzen sah’st du nie; + Rosen im Thal u. s. w.’ + +There is little sense in the words, doubtless, according to our modern +notions of poetry; but they are like enough to the long, plaintive notes +of the nightingale to say all that the poet has to say, again and again +through all his stanzas. + +Thus the birds were, to the mediæval singers, their orchestra, or rather +their chorus; from the birds they caught their melodies; the sounds which +the birds gave them they rendered into words. + +And the same bird keynote surely is to be traced in the early English and +Scotch songs and ballads, with their often meaningless refrains, sung for +the mere pleasure of singing: + + ‘Binnorie, O Binnorie. + +Or— + + ‘With a hey lillelu and a how lo lan, + And the birk and the broom blooms bonnie.’ + +Or— + + ‘She sat down below a thorn, + Fine flowers in the valley, + And there has she her sweet babe born, + And the green leaves they grow rarely.’ + +Or even those ‘fal-la-las,’ and other nonsense refrains, which, if they +were not meant to imitate bird-notes, for what were they meant? + +In the old ballads, too, one may hear the bird keynote. He who wrote +(and a great rhymer he was) + + ‘As I was walking all alane, + I heard twa corbies making a mane,’ + +had surely the ‘mane’ of the ‘corbies’ in his ears before it shaped +itself into words in his mind: and he had listened to many a ‘woodwele’ +who first thrummed on harp, or fiddled on crowd, how— + + ‘In summer, when the shawes be shene, + And leaves be large and long, + It is full merry in fair forest + To hear the fowlés’ song. + + ‘The wood-wele sang, and wolde not cease, + Sitting upon the spray; + So loud, it wakened Robin Hood + In the greenwood where he lay.’ + +And Shakespeare—are not his scraps of song saturated with these same +bird-notes? ‘Where the bee sucks,’ ‘When daisies pied,’ ‘Under the +greenwood tree,’ ‘It was a lover and his lass,’ ‘When daffodils begin to +peer,’ ‘Ye spotted snakes,’ have all a ring in them which was caught not +in the roar of London, or the babble of the Globe theatre, but in the +woods of Charlecote, and along the banks of Avon, from + + ‘The ouzel-cock so black of hue, + With orange-tawny bill; + The throstle with his note so true: + The wren with little quill; + The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, + The plain-song cuckoo gray’— + +and all the rest of the birds of the air. + +Why is it, again, that so few of our modern songs are truly songful, and +fit to be set to music? Is it not that the writers of them—persons often +of much taste and poetic imagination—have gone for their inspiration to +the intellect, rather than to the ear? That (as Shelley does by the +skylark, and Wordsworth by the cuckoo), instead of trying to sing like +the birds, they only think and talk about the birds, and therefore, +however beautiful and true the thoughts and words may be, they are not +song? Surely they have not, like the mediæval songsters, studied the +speech of the birds, the primæval teachers of melody; nor even melodies +already extant, round which, as round a framework of pure music, their +thoughts and images might crystallize themselves, certain thereby of +becoming musical likewise. The best modern song writers, Burns and +Moore, were inspired by their old national airs; and followed them, Moore +at least, with a reverent fidelity, which has had its full reward. They +wrote words to music and not, as modern poets are wont, wrote the words +first, and left others to set music to the words. They were right; and +we are wrong. As long as song is to be the expression of pure emotion, +so long it must take its key from music,—which is already pure emotion, +untranslated into the grosser medium of thought and speech—often (as in +the case of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words) not to be translated into +it at all. + +And so it may be, that in some simpler age, poets may go back, like the +old Minnesingers, to the birds of the forest, and learn of them to sing. + +And little do most of them know how much there is to learn; what variety +of character, as well as variety of emotion, may be distinguished by the +practised ear, in a ‘charm of birds’ (to use the old southern phrase), +from the wild cry of the missel-thrush, ringing from afar in the first +bright days of March, a passage of one or two bars repeated three or four +times, and then another and another, clear and sweet, and yet defiant—for +the great ‘stormcock’ loves to sing when rain and wind is coming on, and +faces the elements as boldly as he faces hawk and crow—down to the +delicate warble of the wren, who slips out of his hole in the brown bank, +where he has huddled through the frost with wife and children, all folded +in each other’s arms like human beings, for the sake of warmth,—which, +alas! does not always suffice; for many a lump of wrens may be found, +frozen and shrivelled, after a severe winter. Yet even he, sitting at +his house-door in the low sunlight, says grace for all mercies (as a +little child once worded it) in a song so rapid, so shrill, so loud, and +yet so delicately modulated, that you wonder at the amount of soul within +that tiny body; and then stops suddenly, as a child who has said its +lesson, or got to the end of the sermon, gives a self-satisfied flirt of +his tail, and goes in again to sleep. + +Character? I know not how much variety of character there may be between +birds of the same species but between species and species the variety is +endless, and is shown—as I fondly believe—in the difference of their +notes. Each has its own speech, inarticulate, expressing not thought but +hereditary feeling; save a few birds who, like those little dumb +darlings, the spotted flycatchers, seem to have absolutely nothing to +say, and accordingly have the wit to hold their tongues; and devote the +whole of their small intellect to sitting on the iron rails, flitting off +them a yard or two to catch a butterfly in air, and flitting back with it +to their nest. + +But listen to the charm of birds in any sequestered woodland, on a bright +forenoon in June. As you try to disentangle the medley of sounds, the +first, perhaps, which will strike your ear will be the loud, harsh, +monotonous, flippant song of the chaffinch; and the metallic clinking of +two or three sorts of titmice. But above the tree-tops, rising, +hovering, sinking, the woodlark is fluting, tender and low. Above the +pastures outside the skylark sings—as he alone can sing; and close by, +from the hollies rings out the blackbird’s tenor—rollicking, audacious, +humorous, all but articulate. From the tree above him rises the treble +of the thrush, pure as the song of angels: more pure, perhaps, in tone, +though neither so varied nor so rich, as the song of the nightingale. +And there, in the next holly, is the nightingale himself: now croaking +like a frog; now talking aside to his wife on the nest below; and now +bursting out into that song, or cycle of songs, in which if any man finds +sorrow, he himself surely finds none. All the morning he will sing; and +again at evening, till the small hours, and the chill before the dawn: +but if his voice sounds melancholy at night, heard all alone, or only +mocked by the ambitious black-cap, it sounds in the bright morning that +which it is, the fulness of joy and love. Milton’s + + ‘Sweet bird, that shun’st the noise of folly, + Most musical, most melancholy,’ + +is untrue to fact. So far from shunning the noise of folly, the +nightingale sings as boldly as anywhere close to a stage-coach road, or a +public path, as anyone will testify who recollects the ‘Wrangler’s Walk’ +from Cambridge to Trumpington forty years ago, when the covert, which has +now become hollow and shelterless, held, at every twenty yards, an +unabashed and jubilant nightingale. + +Coleridge surely was not far wrong when he guessed that— + + ‘Some night-wandering man, whose heart was pierced + With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, + Or slow distemper, or neglected love + (And so, poor wretch, filled all things with himself, + And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale + Of his own sorrow)—he, and such as he, + First named these sounds a melancholy strain, + And many a poet echoes the conceit.’ + +That the old Greek poets were right, and had some grounds for the myth of +Philomela, I do not dispute; though Sophocles, speaking of the +nightingales of Colonos, certainly does not represent them as lamenting. +The Elizabethan poets, however, when they talked of Philomel, ‘her breast +against a thorn,’ were unaware that they and the Greeks were talking of +two different birds; that our English Lusciola Luscinia is not Lusciola +Philomela, one of the various birds called Bulbul in the East. The true +Philomel hardly enters Venetia, hardly crosses the Swiss Alps, ventures +not into the Rhineland and Denmark, but penetrates (strangely enough) +further into South Sweden than our own Luscinia: ranging meanwhile over +all Central Europe, Persia, and the East, even to Egypt. Whether his +song be really sad, let those who have heard him say. But as for our own +Luscinia, who winters not in Egypt and Arabia, but in Morocco and +Algeria, the only note of his which can be mistaken for sorrow, is rather +one of too great joy; that cry, which is his highest feat of art; which +he cannot utter when he first comes to our shores, but practises +carefully, slowly, gradually, till he has it perfect by the beginning of +June; that cry, long, repeated, loudening and sharpening in the intensity +of rising passion, till it stops suddenly, exhausted at the point where +pleasure, from very keenness, turns to pain; and— + + ‘In the topmost height of joy + His passion clasps a secret grief.’ + +How different in character from his song is that of the gallant little +black-cap in the tree above him. A gentleman he is of a most ancient +house, perhaps the oldest of European singing birds. How perfect must +have been the special organization which has spread seemingly without +need of alteration or improvement, from Norway to the Cape of Good Hope, +from Japan to the Azores. How many ages must have passed since his +forefathers first got their black caps. And how intense and fruitful +must have been the original vitality which, after so many generations, +can still fill that little body with so strong a soul, and make him sing +as Milton’s new-created birds sang to Milton’s Eve in Milton’s Paradise. +Sweet he is, and various, rich, and strong, beyond all English warblers, +save the nightingale: but his speciality is his force, his rush, his +overflow, not so much of love as of happiness. The spirit carries him +away. He riots up and down the gamut till he cannot stop himself; his +notes tumble over each other; he chuckles, laughs, shrieks with delight, +throws back his head, droops his tail, sets up his back, and sings with +every fibre of his body: and yet he never forgets his good manners. He +is never coarse, never harsh, for a single note. Always graceful, always +sweet, he keeps perfect delicacy in his most utter carelessness. + +And why should we overlook, common though he be, yon hedge-sparrow, who +is singing so modestly, and yet so firmly and so true? Or cock-robin +himself, who is here, as everywhere, honest, self-confident, and +cheerful? Most people are not aware, one sometimes fancies, how fine a +singer is cock-robin now in the spring-time, when his song is drowned by, +or at least confounded with, a dozen other songs. We know him and love +him best in winter, when he takes up (as he does sometimes in cold wet +summer days) that sudden wistful warble, struggling to be happy, half in +vain, which surely contradicts Coleridge’s verse:— + + ‘In Nature there is nothing melancholy.’ + +But he who will listen carefully to the robin’s breeding song on a bright +day in May, will agree, I think, that he is no mean musician; and that +for force, variety and character of melody, he is surpassed only by +black-cap, thrush, and nightingale. + +And what is that song, sudden, loud, sweet, yet faltering, as if half +ashamed? Is it the willow wren or the garden warbler? The two birds, +though very remotely allied to each other, are so alike in voice, that it +is often difficult to distinguish them, unless we attend carefully to the +expression. For the garden warbler, beginning in high and loud notes, +runs down in cadence, lower and softer, till joy seems conquered by very +weariness; while the willow wren, with a sudden outbreak of cheerfulness, +though not quite sure (it is impossible to describe bird-songs without +attributing to the birds human passions and frailties) that he is not +doing a silly thing, struggles on to the end of his story with a +hesitating hilarity, in feeble imitation of the black-cap’s bacchanalian +dactyls. + +And now, again—is it true that + + ‘In Nature there is nothing melancholy’ + +Mark that slender, graceful, yellow warbler, running along the high oak +boughs like a perturbed spirit, seeking restlessly, anxiously, something +which he seems never to find; and uttering every now and then a long +anxious cry, four or five times repeated, which would be a squeal, were +it not so sweet. Suddenly he flits away, and flutters round the pendant +tips of the beech-sprays like a great yellow butterfly, picking the +insects from the leaves; then flits back to a bare bough, and sings, with +heaving breast and quivering wings, a short, shrill, feeble, tremulous +song; and then returns to his old sadness, wandering and complaining all +day long. + +Is there no melancholy in that cry? It sounds sad: why should it not be +meant to be sad? We recognize joyful notes, angry notes, fearful notes. +They are very similar (strangely enough) in all birds. They are very +similar (more strangely still) to the cries of human beings, especially +children, when influenced by the same passions. And when we hear a note +which to us expresses sadness, why should not the bird be sad? Yon wood +wren has had enough to make him sad, if only he recollects it; and if he +can recollect his road from Morocco hither, he may be recollects likewise +what happened on the road—the long weary journey up the Portuguese coast, +and through the gap between the Pyrenees and the Jaysquivel, and up the +Landes of Bordeaux, and across Brittany, flitting by night, and hiding +and feeding as he could by day; and how his mates flew against the +lighthouses, and were killed by hundreds; and how he essayed the British +Channel, and was blown back, shrivelled up by bitter blasts; and how he +felt, nevertheless, that ‘that wan water he must cross,’ he knew not why: +but something told him that his mother had done it before him, and he was +flesh of her flesh, life of her life, and had inherited her ‘instinct’—as +we call hereditary memory, in order to avoid the trouble of finding out +what it is, and how it comes. A duty was laid on him to go back to the +place where he was bred; and he must do it: and now it is done; and he is +weary, and sad, and lonely; and, for aught we know, thinking already that +when the leaves begin to turn yellow, he must go back again, over the +Channel, over the Landes, over the Pyrenees, to Morocco once more. Why +should he not be sad? He is a very delicate bird, as both his shape and +his note testify. He can hardly keep up his race here in England; and is +accordingly very uncommon, while his two cousins, the willow wren and the +chiffchaff, who, like him, build for some mysterious reason domed nests +upon the ground, are stout, and busy, and numerous, and thriving +everywhere. And what he has gone through may be too much for the poor +wood wren’s nerves; and he gives way; while willow wren, black-cap, +nightingale, who have gone by the same road and suffered the same +dangers, have stoutness of heart enough to throw off the past, and give +themselves up to present pleasure. Why not?—who knows? There is labour, +danger, bereavement, death in nature; and why should not some, at least, +of the so-called dumb things know it, and grieve at it as well as we? + +Why not?—Unless we yield to the assumption (for it is nothing more) that +these birds act by some unknown thing called instinct, as it might be +called _x_ or _y_; and are, in fact, just like the singing birds which +spring out of snuff-boxes, only so much better made, that they can eat, +grow, and propagate their species. The imputation of acting by instinct +cuts both ways. We, too, are creatures of instinct. We breathe and eat +by instinct: but we talk and build houses by reason. And so may the +birds. It is more philosophical, surely, to attribute actions in them to +the same causes to which we attribute them (from experience) in +ourselves. ‘But if so,’ some will say, ‘birds must have souls.’ We must +define what our own souls are, before we can define what kind of soul or +no-soul a bird may or may not have. The truth is, that we want to set up +some ‘dignity of human nature;’ some innate superiority to the animals, +on which we may pride ourselves as our own possession, and not return +thanks with fear and trembling for it, as the special gift of Almighty +God. So we have given the poor animals over to the mechanical +philosophy, and allowed them to be considered as only mere cunningly +devised pieces of watch-work, if philosophy would only spare us, and our +fine human souls, of which we are so proud, though they are doing all the +wrong and folly they can from one week’s end to the other. And now our +self-conceit has brought its own Nemesis; the mechanical philosophy is +turning on us, and saying, ‘The bird’s “nature” and your “human nature” +differ only in degree, but not in kind. If they are machines, so are +you. They have no souls, you confess. You have none either.’ + +But there are those who neither yield to the mechanical philosophy nor +desire to stifle it. While it is honest and industrious, as it is now, +it can do nought but good, because it can do nought but discover facts. +It will only help to divide the light from the darkness, truth from +dreams, health from disease. Let it claim for itself all that it can +prove to be of the flesh, fleshly. That which is spiritual will stand +out more clearly as of the Spirit. Let it thrust scalpel and microscope +into the most sacred penetralia of brain and nerve. It will only find +everywhere beneath brain and beneath nerve, that substance and form which +is not matter nor phenomenon, but the Divine cause thereof; and while it +helps, with ruthless but wholesome severity, to purge our minds from +idols of the cave and idols of the fane, it will leave untouched, more +clearly defined, and therefore more sacred and important than ever— + + ‘Those first affections, + Those shadowy recollections, + Which, be they what they may, + Are yet the fountain light of all our day, + Are yet the master light of all our seeing; + Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make + Our noisy years seem moments in the being + Of the eternal silence; truths that wake + To perish never; + Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, + Nor man nor boy, + Nor all that is at enmity with joy, + Can utterly abolish or destroy. + + * * * * * + + Then sing, ye birds, sing out with joyous sound, + +as the poet-philosopher bids you. Victorious analysis will neither +abolish you, nor the miraculous and unfathomable in you and in your song, +which has stirred the hearts of poets since first man was man. And if +anyone shall hint to us that we and the birds may have sprung originally +from the same type; that the difference between our intellect and theirs +is one of degree, and not of kind, we may believe or doubt: but in either +case we shall not be greatly moved. ‘So much the better for the birds,’ +we will say, ‘and none the worse for us. You raise the birds towards us: +but you do not lower us towards them. What we are, we are by the grace +of God. Our own powers and the burden of them we know full well. It +does not lessen their dignity or their beauty in our eyes to hear that +the birds of the air partake, even a little, of the same gifts of God as +we. Of old said St. Guthlac in Crowland, as the swallows sat upon his +knee, “He who leads his life according to the will of God, to him the +wild deer and the wild birds draw more near;” and this new theory of +yours may prove St. Guthlac right. St. Francis, too—he called the birds +his brothers. Whether he was correct, either theologically or +zoologically, he was plainly free from that fear of being mistaken for an +ape, which haunts so many in these modern times. Perfectly sure that he +himself was a spiritual being, he thought it at least possible that birds +might be spiritual beings likewise, incarnate like himself in mortal +flesh; and saw no degradation to the dignity of human nature in claiming +kindred lovingly with creatures so beautiful, so wonderful, who (as he +fancied in his old-fashioned way) praised God in the forest, even as +angels did in heaven. In a word, the saint, though he was an ascetic, +and certainly no man of science, was yet a poet, and somewhat of a +philosopher; and would have possibly—so do extremes meet—have hailed as +orthodox, while we hail as truly scientific, Wordsworth’s great saying— + + ‘Therefore am I still + A lover of the meadows and the woods + And mountains; and of all that we behold + From this green earth; of all the mighty world + Of eye and ear—both what they half create, + And what perceive; well pleased to recognize + In Nature and the language of the sense, + The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, + The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul + Of all my moral being.’ + + + + +II. +_CHALK-STREAM STUDIES_. {29} + + +FISHING is generally associated in men’s minds with wild mountain +scenery; if not with the alps and cataracts of Norway, still with the +moors and lochs of Scotland, or at least with the rocky rivers, the +wooded crags, the crumbling abbeys of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Hereford, or +the Lowlands. And it cannot be denied that much of the charm which +angling exercises over cultivated minds, is due to the beauty and novelty +of the landscapes which surround him; to the sense of freedom, the +exhilarating upland air. Who would prefer the certainty of taking trout +out of some sluggish preserve, to the chance of a brace out of Edno or +Llyn Dulyn? The pleasure lies not in the prize itself, but in the pains +which it has cost; in the upward climbs through the dark plantations, +beside the rock-walled stream; the tramp over the upland pastures, one +gay flower-bed of blue and purple butter-wort; the steady breathless +climb up the crags, which looked but one mile from you when you started, +so clear against the sky stood out every knoll and slab; the first stars +of the white saxifrage, golden-eyed, blood-bedropt, as if a fairy had +pricked her finger in the cup, which shine upon some green cushion of wet +moss, in a dripping crack of the cliff; the first grey tufts of the +Alpine club-moss, the first shrub of crowberry, or sea-green rose-root, +with its strange fleshy stems and leaves, which mark the +two-thousand-feet-line, and the beginning of the Alpine world; the +scramble over the arid waves of the porphyry sea aloft, as you beat round +and round like a weary pointer dog in search of the hidden lake; the last +despairing crawl to the summit of the Syenite pyramid on Moel Meirch; the +hasty gaze around, far away into the green vale of Ffestiniog, and over +wooded flats, and long silver river-reaches, and yellow sands, and blue +sea flecked with flying clouds, and isles and capes, and wildernesses of +mountain peaks, east, west, south, and north; one glance at the purple +gulf out of which Snowdon rises, thence only seen in full majesty from +base to peak: and then the joyful run, springing over bank and boulder, +to the sad tarn beneath your feet: the loosening of the limbs, as you +toss yourself, bathed in perspiration, on the turf; the almost awed pause +as you recollect that you are alone on the mountain-tops, by the side of +the desolate pool, out of all hope of speech or help of man; and, if you +break your leg among those rocks, may lie there till the ravens pick your +bones; the anxious glance round the lake to see if the fish are moving; +the still more anxious glance through your book to guess what they will +choose to take; what extravagant bundle of red, blue, and yellow +feathers, like no insect save perhaps some jewelled monster from Amboyna +or Brazil—may tempt those sulkiest and most capricious of trout to cease +for once their life-long business of picking leeches from among those +Syenite cubes which will twist your ankles and break your shins for the +next three hours. What matter (to a minute philosopher, at least) if, +after two hours of such enjoyment as that, he goes down again into the +world of man with empty creel, or with a dozen pounders and two-pounders, +shorter, gamer, and redder-fleshed than ever came out of Thames or +Kennet? What matter? If he has not caught them, he might have caught +them; he has been catching them in imagination all the way up; and if he +be a minute philosopher, he holds that there is no falser proverb than +that devil’s beatitude—‘Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall +not be disappointed.’ + +Say, rather, Blessed is he who expecteth everything, for he enjoys +everything once at least: and if it falls out true, twice also. + +Yes. Pleasant enough is mountain fishing. But there is one objection +against it, that it is hard work to get to it; and that the angler, often +enough half-tired before he arrives at his stream or lake, has left for +his day’s work only the lees of his nervous energy. + +Another objection, more important perhaps to a minute philosopher than to +the multitude, is, that there is in mountain-fishing an element of +excitement: an element which is wholesome enough at times for every one; +most wholesome at all times for the man pent up in London air and London +work; but which takes away from the angler’s most delicate enjoyment, +that dreamy contemplative repose, broken by just enough amusement to keep +his body active, while his mind is quietly taking in every sight and +sound of nature. Let the Londoner have his six weeks every year among +crag and heather, and return with lungs expanded and muscles braced to +his nine months’ prison. The countryman, who needs no such change of air +and scene, will prefer more homelike, though more homely, pleasures. +Dearer than wild cataracts or Alpine glens are the still hidden streams +which Bewick has immortalized in his vignettes, and Creswick in his +pictures; the long glassy shallow, paved with yellow gravel, where he +wades up between low walls of fern-fringed rock, beneath nut, and oak, +and alder, to the low bar over which the stream comes swirling and +dimpling, as the water-ouzel flits piping before him, and the murmur of +the ringdove comes soft and sleepy through the wood. There, as he wades, +he sees a hundred sights and hears a hundred tones, which are hidden from +the traveller on the dusty highway above. The traveller fancies that he +has seen the country. So he has; the outside of it, at least: but the +angler only sees the inside. The angler only is brought close face to +face with the flower, and bird, and insect life of the rich river banks, +the only part of the landscape where the hand of man has never +interfered, and the only part in general which never feels the drought of +summer, ‘the trees planted by the waterside whose leaf shall not wither.’ + +Pleasant are those hidden waterways: but yet are they the more pleasant +because the hand of man has not interfered with them? + +It is a question, and one which the older one grows the less one is +inclined to answer in the affirmative. The older one grows, the more +there grows on one the sense of waste and incompleteness in all scenery +where man has not fulfilled the commission of Eden, ‘to dress it and to +keep it;’ and with that, a sense of loneliness which makes one long for +home, and cultivation, and the speech of fellow men. + +Surely the influence of mountain scenery is exaggerated now-a-days. In +spite of the reverend name of Wordsworth (whose poetry, be it remembered, +too often wants that element of hardihood and manliness which is supposed +to be the birthright of mountaineers), one cannot help, as a lowlander, +hoping that there is a little truth in the threnodes of a certain peevish +friend who literally hates a mountain, and justifies his hatred in this +fashion:— + +‘I do hate mountains. I would not live among them for ten thousand a +year. If they look like paradise for three months in the summer, they +are a veritable inferno for the other nine; and I should like to condemn +my mountain-worshipping friends to pass a whole year under the shadow of +Snowdon, with that great black head of his shutting out the sunlight, +staring down into their garden, overlooking all they do in the most +impertinent way, sneezing and spitting at them with rain, hail, snow, and +bitter freezing blasts, even in the hottest sunshine. A mountain? He is +a great stupid giant, with a perpetual cold in his head, whose highest +ambition is to give you one also. As for his beauty, no natural object +has so little of its own; he owes it to the earthquakes that reared him +up, to the rains and storms which have furrowed him, to every gleam and +cloud which pass over him. In himself he is a mere helpless stone-heap. +Our old Scandinavian forefathers were right when they held the mountain +Yotuns to be helpless pudding-headed giants, the sport of gods and men: +and their English descendant, in spite of all his second-hand sentiment, +holds the same opinion at his heart; for his first instinct, jolly honest +fellow that he is, on seeing a snow alp, is to scramble up it and smoke +his cigar upon the top. And this great stupid braggart, pretending to be +a personage and an entity, which, like Pope’s monument on Fish-street +hill, + + “Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies,” + +I am called upon now-a-days to worship, as my better, my teacher. Shall +I, the son of Odin and Thor, worship Hrymir the frost giant, and his cows +the waterfalls? Shall I bow down to the stock of a stone? My better? I +have done an honest thing or two in my life, but I never saw a mountain +do one yet. As for his superiority to me, in what does it consist? His +strength? If he be stronger than I, let him cut stones out of my ribs, +as I can out of his. His size? Am I to respect a mountain the more for +being 10,000 feet high? As well ask me to respect Daniel Lambert for +weighing five-and-twenty stone. His cunning construction? There is not +a child which plays at his foot, not an insect which basks on his crags, +which is not more fearfully and wonderfully made; while as for his +grandeur of form, any college youth who scrambles up him, peel him out of +his shooting jacket and trousers, is a hundred times more beautiful, and +more grand too, by all laws of art. But so it is. In our prurient +prudery, we have got to despise the human, and therefore the truly +divine, element in art, and look for inspiration, not to living men and +women, but to leaves and straws, stocks and stones. It is an idolatry +baser than that of the old Canaanites; for they had the courage to go up +to the mountain tops, and thence worship the host of heaven: but we are +to stay at the bottom, and worship the mountains themselves. Byron began +the folly with his misanthropic “Childe Harold.” Sermons in stones? I +don’t believe in them. I have seen a better sermon in an old peasant +woman’s face than in all the Alps and Apennines of Europe. Did you ever +see any one who was the better for mountains? Have the Alps made * * * a +whit honester, or * * * a whit more good-natured, or Lady * * * a whit +cleverer? Do they alter one hair’s breadth for the better the characters +of the ten thousand male and female noodles who travel forth to stare at +them every year? Do mountains make them lofty-minded and +generous-hearted? No. Cælum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt. +Don’t talk to me of the moral and physical superiority of mountain races, +for I tell you it is a dream. Civilization, art, poetry, belong to the +lowlands. Are the English mountaineers, pray, or the French, or the +Germans? Were the Egyptians mountaineers, or the Romans, or the +Assyrians, as soon as they became a people? The Greeks lived among +mountains, but they took care to inhabit the plains; and it was the sea +and not the hills which made them the people which they were. Does +Scotland owe her life to the highlander, or to the lowlander? If you +want an experimentum crucis, there is one. As for poetry, will you +mention to me one mountain race which has written great poetry? You will +quote the Hebrews. I answer that the life of Palestine always kept to +the comparatively low lands to the west of Jordan, while the barbarous +mountaineers of the eastern range never did anything,—had but one Elijah +to show among them. Shakspeare never saw a hill higher than Malvern +Beacon; and yet I suppose you will call him a poet? Mountaineers look +well enough at a distance; seen close at hand you find their chief +distinctions to be starvation and ignorance, fleas and goitre, with an +utter unconsciousness—unless travellers put it into their heads—of the +“soul-elevating glories” by which they have been surrounded all their +lives.’ + +He was gently reminded of the existence of the Tyrolese. + +‘You may just as wisely remind me of the Circassians. What can prove my +theory more completely than the fact that in them you have the two finest +races of the world, utterly unable to do anything for humanity, utterly +unable to develop themselves, because, to their eternal misfortune, they +have got caged among those abominable stoneheaps, and have not yet been +able to escape?’ + +It was suggested that if mountain races were generally inferior ones, it +was because they were the remnants of conquered tribes driven up into the +highlands by invaders. + +‘And what does that prove but that the stronger and cunninger races +instinctively seize the lowlands, because they half know (and Providence +knows altogether) that there alone they can become nations, and fulfil +the primæval mission—to replenish the earth and subdue it? No, no, my +good sir. Mountains are very well when they are doing their only +duty—that of making rain and soil for the lowlands: but as for this +newfangled admiration of them, it is a proof that our senses are dulled +by luxury and books, and that we require to excite our palled organ of +marvellousness by signs and wonders, æsthetic brandy and cayenne. No. I +have remarked often that the most unimaginative people, who can see no +beauty in a cultivated English field or in the features of a new-born +babe, are the loudest ravers about glorious sunsets and Alpine panoramas; +just as the man with no music in his soul, to whom a fugue of Sebastian +Bach, or one of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words, means nothing, and is +nothing thinks a monster concert of drums and trumpets uncommonly fine.’ + +This is certainly a sufficiently one-sided diatribe. Still it is +one-sided: and we have heard so much of the other side of late, that it +may be worth while to give this side also a fair and patient hearing. + +At least he who writes wishes that it may have a fair hearing. He has a +sort of sympathy with Lord Macaulay’s traveller of a hundred and fifty +years since, who amid the ‘horrible desolation’ of the Scotch highlands, +sighs for ‘the true mountain scenery of Richmond-hill.’ The most +beautiful landscape he has ever seen, or cares to see, is the vale of +Thames from Taplow or from Cliefden, looking down towards Windsor, and up +toward Reading; to him Bramshill, looking out far and wide over the rich +lowland from its eyrie of dark pines, or Littlecote nestling between +deer-spotted upland and rich water-meadow, is a finer sight than any +robber castle of the Rhine. He would not complain, of course, were +either of the views backed, like those glorious ones of Turin or Venice, +by the white saw-edge of the distant Alps: but chiefly because the +perpetual sight of that Alp-wall would increase the sense of home, of +guarded security, which not the mountain, but the sea, or the very +thought of the sea, gives to all true Englishmen. + +Let others therefore (to come back to angling) tell of moor and loch. +But let it be always remembered that the men who have told of them best +have not been mountaineers, but lowlanders who carried up to the mountain +the taste and knowledge which they had gained below. Let them remember +that the great Sutherlandshire sportsman and sporting writer, the late +Mr. St. John, was once a fine gentleman about town; that Christopher +North was an Edinburgh Professor, a man of city learning and city +cultivation; and, as one more plea for our cockney chalk-streams of the +south, that Mr. Scrope (who passed many pleasant years respected and +beloved by Kennet side, with Purdy at his heels) enjoyed, they say, the +killing of a Littlecote trout as heartily as he did that of a Tweed +salmon. + +Come, then, you who want pleasant fishing-days without the waste of time +and trouble and expense involved in two hundred miles of railway journey, +and perhaps fifty more of highland road; and try what you can see and do +among the fish not sixty miles from town. Come to pleasant country inns, +where you can always get a good dinner; or, better still, to pleasant +country houses, where you can always get good society; to rivers which +will always fish, brimfull in the longest droughts of summer, instead of +being, as those mountain ones are, very like a turnpike-road for three +weeks, and then like bottled porter for three days; to streams on which +you have strong south-west breezes for a week together on a clear fishing +water, instead of having, as on those mountain ones, foul rain spate as +long as the wind is south-west, and clearing water when the wind chops up +to the north, and the chill blast of ‘Clarus Aquio’ sends all the fish +shivering to the bottom; streams, in a word, where you may kill fish (and +large ones) four days out of five from April to October, instead of +having, as you will most probably in the mountain, just one day’s sport +in the whole of your month’s holiday. Deluded friend, who suffered in +Scotland last year a month of Tantalus his torments, furnished by art and +nature with rods, flies, whisky, scenery, keepers, salmon innumerable, +and all that man can want, except water to fish in; and who returned, +having hooked accidentally by the tail one salmon—which broke all and +ween to sea—why did you not stay at home and take your two-pounders and +three-pounders out of the quiet chalk brook which never sank an inch +through all that drought, so deep in the caverns of the hills are hidden +its mysterious wells? Truly, wise men bide at home, with George Riddler, +while ‘a fool’s eyes are in the ends of the earth.’ + +Repent, then; and come with me, at least in fancy, at six o’clock upon +some breezy morning in June, not by roaring railway nor by smoking +steamer, but in the cosy four-wheel, along brown heather moors, down into +green clay woodlands, over white chalk downs, past Roman camps and +scattered blocks of Sarsden stone, till we descend into the long green +vale where, among groves of poplar and abele, winds silver Whit. Come +and breakfast at the neat white inn, of yore a posting-house of fame. +The stables are now turned into cottages; and instead of a dozen spruce +ostlers and helpers, the last of the postboys totters sadly about the +yard and looks up eagerly at the rare sight of a horse to feed. But the +house keeps up enough of its ancient virtue to give us a breakfast worthy +of Pantagruel’s self; and after it, while we are looking out our flies, +you can go and chat with the old postboy, and hear his tales, told with a +sort of chivalrous pride, of the noble lords and fair ladies before whom +he has ridden in the good old times gone by—even, so he darkly hints, +before ‘His Royal Highness the Prince’ himself. Poor old fellow, he +recollects not, and he need not recollect, that these great +posting-houses were centres of corruption, from whence the newest vices +of the metropolis were poured into the too-willing ears of village lads +and lasses; and that not even the New Poor Law itself has done more for +the morality of the South of England than the substitution of the rail +for coaches. + +Now we will walk down through the meadows some half mile, + + While all the land in flowery squares, + Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind + Smells of the coming summer,’ + +to a scene which, as we may find its antitype anywhere for miles round, +we may boldly invent for ourselves. + +A red brick mill (not new red brick, of course) shall hum for ever below +giant poplar-spires, which bend and shiver in the steady breeze. On its +lawn laburnums shall feather down like dropping wells of gold, and from +under them the stream shall hurry leaping and laughing into the light, +and spread at our feet into a broad bright shallow, in which the kine are +standing knee-deep already: a hint, alas! that the day means heat. And +there, to the initiated eye, is another and a darker hint of glaring +skies, perspiring limbs, and empty creels. Small fish are dimpling in +the central eddies: but here, in six inches of water, on the very edge of +the ford road, great tails and back-fins are showing above the surface, +and swirling suddenly among the tufts of grass, sure sign that the large +fish are picking up a minnow-breakfast at the same time that they warm +their backs, and do not mean to look at a fly for many an hour to come. + +Yet courage; for on the rail of yonder wooden bridge sits, chatting with +a sun-browned nymph, her bonnet pushed over her face, her hayrake in her +hand, a river-god in coat of velveteen, elbow on knee and pipe in mouth, +who, rising when he sees us, lifts his wide-awake, and halloas back a +roar of comfort to our mystic adjuration,— + +‘Keeper! Is the fly up?’ + +‘Mortial strong last night, gentlemen.’ + +Wherewith he shall lounge up to us, landing-net in hand, and we will +wander up stream and away. + +We will wander—for though the sun be bright, here are good fish to be +picked out of sharps and stop-holes—into the water-tables, ridged up +centuries since into furrows forty feet broad and five feet high, over +which the crystal water sparkles among the roots of the rich grass, and +hurries down innumerable drains to find its parent stream between tufts +of great blue geranium, and spires of purple loosestrife, and the +delicate white and pink comfrey-bells, and the avens—fairest and most +modest of all the waterside nymphs, who hangs her head all day long in +pretty shame, with a soft blush upon her tawny check. But at the mouth +of each of those drains, if we can get our flies in, and keep ourselves +unseen, we will have one cast at least. For at each of them, in some +sharp-rippling spot, lies a great trout or two, waiting for beetle, +caterpillar, and whatsoever else may be washed from among the long grass +above. Thence, and from brimming feeders, which slip along, weed-choked, +under white hawthorn hedges, and beneath the great roots of oak and elm, +shall we pick out full many a goodly trout. There, in yon stop-hole +underneath that tree, not ten feet broad or twenty long, where just +enough water trickles through the hatches to make a ripple, are a brace +of noble fish, no doubt; and one of them you may be sure of, if you will +go the proper way to work, and fish scientifically with the brace of +flies I have put on for you—a governor and a black alder. In the first +place, you must throw up into the little pool, not down. If you throw +down, they will see you in an instant; and besides, you will never get +your fly close under the shade of the brickwork, where alone you have a +chance. What use in throwing into the still shallow tail, shining like +oil in the full glare of the sun? + +‘But I cannot get below the pool without—’ + +Without crawling through that stiff stubbed hedge, well set with trees, +and leaping that ten-foot feeder afterwards. Very well. It is this sort +of thing which makes the stay-at-home cultivated chalk-fishing as much +harder work than mountain angling, as a gallop over a stiffly enclosed +country is harder than one over an open moor. You can do it or not, as +you like: but if you wish to catch large trout on a bright day, I should +advise you to employ the only method yet discovered. + +There—you are through; and the keeper shall hand you your rod. You have +torn your trousers, and got a couple of thorns in your shins. The one +can be mended, the other pulled out. Now, jump the feeder. There is no +run to it, so—you have jumped in. Never mind: but keep the point of your +rod up. You are at least saved the lingering torture of getting wet inch +by inch; and as for cold water hurting any one—Credat Judæus. + +Now make a circuit through the meadow forty yards away. Stoop down when +you are on the ridge of each table. A trout may be basking at the lower +end of the pool, who will see you, rush up, and tell all his neighbours. +Take off that absurd black chimney-pot, which you are wearing, I suppose, +for the same reason as Homer’s heroes wore their koruthous and phalerous, +to make yourself look taller and more terrible to your foes. Crawl up on +three legs; and when you are in position, kneel down. So. + +Shorten your line all you can—you cannot fish with too short a line +up-stream; and throw, not into the oil-basin near you, but right up into +the darkest corner. Make your fly strike the brickwork and drop in.—So? +No rise? Then don’t work or draw it, or your deceit is discovered +instantly. Lift it out, and repeat the throw. + +What? You have hooked your fly in the hatches? Very good. Pull at it +till the casting-line breaks; put on a fresh one, and to work again. +There! you have him. Don’t rise! fight him kneeling; hold him hard, and +give him no line, but shorten up anyhow. Tear and haul him down to you +before he can make to his home, while the keeper runs round with the net +. . . There, he is on shore. Two pounds, good weight. Creep back more +cautiously than ever, and try again. . . . There. A second fish, over a +pound weight. Now we will go and recover the flies off the hatches; and +you will agree that there is more cunning, more science, and therefore +more pleasant excitement, in ‘foxing’ a great fish out of a stop-hole, +than in whipping far and wide over an open stream, where a half-pounder +is a wonder and a triumph. As for physical exertion, you will be able to +compute for yourself how much your back, knees, and fore-arm will ache by +nine o’clock to-night, after some ten hours of this scrambling, +splashing, leaping, and kneeling upon a hot June day. This item in the +day’s work will of course be put to the side of loss or of gain, +according to your temperament: but it will cure you of an inclination to +laugh at us Wessex chalk-fishers as Cockneys. + +So we will wander up the streams, taking a fish here and a fish there, +till—Really it is very hot. We have the whole day before us; the fly +will not be up till five o’clock at least; and then the real fishing will +begin. Why tire ourselves beforehand? The squire will send us luncheon +in the afternoon, and after that expect us to fish as long as we can see, +and come up to the hall to sleep, regardless of the ceremony of dressing. +For is not the green drake on? And while he reigns, all hours, meals, +decencies, and respectabilities must yield to his caprice. See, here he +sits, or rather tens of thousands of him, one on each stalk of +grass—green drake, yellow drake, brown drake, white drake, each with his +gauzy wings folded over his back, waiting for some unknown change of +temperature, or something else, in the afternoon, to wake him from his +sleep, and send him fluttering over the stream; while overhead the black +drake, who has changed his skin and reproduced his species, dances in the +sunshine, empty, hard, and happy, like Festus Bailey’s Great Black Crow, +who all his life sings ‘Ho, ho, ho,’ + + ‘For no one will eat him,’ he well doth know. + +However, as we have insides, and he has actually none, and what is more +strange, not even a mouth wherewith to fill the said insides, we had +better copy his brothers and sisters below whose insides are still left, +and settle with them upon the grass awhile beneath you goodly elm. + +Comfort yourself with a glass of sherry and a biscuit, and give the +keeper one, and likewise a cigar. He will value it at five times its +worth, not merely for the pleasure of it, but because it raises him in +the social scale. ‘Any cad,’ so he holds, ‘smokes pipes; but a good +cigar is the mark of the quality,’ and of them who ‘keep company with the +quality,’ as keepers do. He puts it in his hat-crown, to smoke this +evening in presence of his compeers at the public-house, retires modestly +ten yards, lies down on his back in a dry feeder, under the shade of the +long grass, and instantly falls fast asleep. Poor fellow! he was up all +last night in the covers, and will be again to-night. Let him sleep +while he may, and we will chat over chalk-fishing. + +The first thing, probably, on which you will be inclined to ask +questions, is the size of the fish in these streams. We have killed this +morning four fish averaging a pound weight each. All below that weight +we throw in, as is our rule here; but you may have remarked that none of +them exceeded half a pound; that they were almost all about herring size. +The smaller ones I believe to be year-old fish, hatched last spring +twelvemonth; the pound fish two-year-olds. At what rate these last would +have increased depends very much, I suspect, on their chance of food. +The limit of life and growth in cold-blooded animals seems to depend very +much on their amount of food. The boa, alligator, shark, pike, and I +suppose the trout also, will live to a great age, and attain an enormous +size, give them but range enough; and the only cause why there are trout +of ten pounds and more in the Thames lashers, while one of four pounds is +rare here, is simply that the Thames fish has more to eat. Here, were +the fish not sufficiently thinned out every year by anglers, they would +soon become large-headed, brown, and flabby, and cease to grow. Many a +good stream has been spoilt in this way, when a squire has unwisely +preferred quantity to quality of fish. + +And if it be not the quantity of feed, I know no clear reason why chalk +and limestone trout should be so much larger and better flavoured than +any others. The cause is not the greater swiftness of the streams; for +(paradoxical as it may seem to many) a trout likes swift water no more +than a pike does, except when spawning or cleaning afterwards. At those +times his blood seems to require a very rapid oxygenation, and he goes to +the ‘sharps’ to obtain it: but when he is feeding and fattening, the +water cannot be too still for him. Streams which are rapid throughout +never produce large fish; and a hand-long trout transferred from his +native torrent to a still pond, will increase in size at a ten times +faster rate. In chalk streams the largest fish are found oftener in the +mill-heads than in the mill tails. It is a mistake, though a common one, +to fancy that the giant trout of the Thames lashers lie in swift water. +On the contrary, they lie in the very stillest spot of the whole pool, +which is just under the hatches. There the rush of the water shoots over +their heads, and they look up through it for every eatable which may be +swept down. At night they run down to the fan of the pool, to hunt +minnow round the shallows; but their home by day is the still deep; and +their preference of the lasher pool to the quiet water above is due +merely to the greater abundance of food. Chalk trout, then, are large +not merely because the water is swift. + +Whether trout have not a specific fondness for lime; whether water of +some dozen degrees of hardness is not necessary for their development? +are questions which may be fairly asked. Yet is not the true reason +this; that the soil on the banks of a chalk or limestone stream is almost +always rich—red loam, carrying an abundant vegetation, and therefore an +abundant crop of animal life, both in and out of the water? The +countless insects which haunt a rich hay meadow, all know who have eyes +to see; and if they will look into the stream they will find that the +water-world is even richer than the air-world. + +Every still spot in a chalk stream becomes so choked with weed as to +require moving at least thrice a year, to supply the mills with water. +Grass, milfoil, water crowfoot, hornwort, starwort, horsetail, and a +dozen other delicate plants, form one tangled forest, denser than those +of the Amazon, and more densely peopled likewise. + +To this list will soon be added our Transatlantic curse, _Babingtonia +diabolica_, alias _Anacharis alsin astrum_. It has already ascended the +Thames as high as Reading; and a few years more, owing to the present +aqua-vivarium mania, will see it filling every mill-head in England, to +the torment of all millers. Young ladies are assured that the only plant +for their vivariums is a sprig of anacharis, for which they pay +sixpence—the market value being that of a wasp, flea, or other scourge of +the human race; and when the vivarium fails, its contents, Anacharis and +all, are tost into the nearest ditch; for which the said young lady ought +to be fined five pounds; and would be, if Governments governed. What an +‘if’. + +But come; for the sun burns bright, and fishing is impossible: lie down +upon the bank, above this stop. There is a campshutting (a boarding in +English) on which you can put your elbows. Lie down on your face, and +look down through two or three feet of water clear as air into the water +forest where the great trout feed. + +Here; look into this opening in the milfoil and crowfoot bed. Do you see +a grey film around that sprig? Examine it through the pocket lens. It +is a forest of glass bells, on branching stalks. They are Vorticellæ; +and every one of those bells, by the ciliary current on its rim, is +scavenging the water—till a tadpole comes by and scavenges it. How many +millions of living creatures are there on that one sprig? Look here!—a +brown polype, with long waving arms—a gigantic monster, actually a full +half-inch long. He is _Hydra fusca_, most famous, and earliest described +(I think by Trembley). Ere we go home I may show you perhaps _Hydra +viridis_, with long pea-green arms; and _rosea_, most beautiful in form +and colour of all the strange family. You see that lump, just where his +stalk joins his bell-head? That is a budding baby. Ignorant of the joys +and cares of wedlock, he increases by gemmation. See! here is another, +with a full-sized young one growing on his back. You may tear it off if +you will—he cares not. You may cut him into a dozen pieces, they say, +and each one will grow, as a potato does. I suppose, however, that he +also sends out of his mouth little free ova—medusoids—call them what you +will, swimming by ciliæ, which afterwards, unless the water beetles stop +them on the way, will settle down as stalked polypes, and in their turn +practise some mystery of Owenian parthenogenesis, or Steenstruppian +alternation of generations, in which all traditional distinctions of +plant and animal, male and female, are laughed to scorn by the +magnificent fecundity of the Divine imaginations. + +That dusty cloud which shakes off in the water as you move the weed, +under the microscope would be one mass of exquisite forms—Desmidiæ and +Diatomaceæ, and what not? Instead of running over long names, take home +a little in a bottle, put it under your microscope, and if you think good +verify the species from Hassall, Ehrenberg, or other wise book; but +without doing that, one glance through the lens will show you why the +chalk trout grow fat. + +Do they, then, eat these infusoria? + +That is not clear. But minnows and small fry eat them by millions; and +so do tadpoles, and perhaps caddis baits and water crickets. + +What are they? + +Look on the soft muddy bottom. You see numberless bits of stick. Watch +awhile, and those sticks are alive, crawling and tumbling over each +other. The weed, too, is full of smaller ones. Those live sticks are +the larva-cases of the Caperers—Phryganeæ—of which one family nearly two +hundred species have been already found in Great Britain. Fish up one, +and you find, amid sticks and pebbles, a comfortable silk case, tenanted +by a goodly grub. Six legs he has, like all insects, and tufts of white +horns on each ring of his abdomen, which are his gills. A goodly pair of +jaws he has too, and does good service with them: for he is the great +water scavenger. Decaying vegetable matter is his food, and with those +jaws he will bark a dead stick as neatly as you will with a penknife. +But he does not refuse animal matter. A dead brother (his, not yours) +makes a savoury meal for him; and a party of those Vorticellæ would stand +a poor chance if he came across them. You may count these caddis baits +by hundreds of thousands; whether the trout eat them case and all, is a +question in these streams. In some rivers the trout do so; and what is +curious, during the spring, have a regular gizzard, a temporary +thickening of the coats of the stomach, to enable them to grind the +pebbly cases of the caddises. See! here is one whose house is closed at +both ends—‘grillé,’ as Pictet calls it, in his unrivalled monograph of +the Genevese Phryganeæ, on which he spent four years of untiring labour. +The grub has stopped the mouth of his case by an open network of silk, +defended by small pebbles, through which the water may pass freely, while +he changes into his nymph state. Open the case; you find within not a +grub, but a strange bird-beaked creature, with long legs and horns laid +flat by its sides, and miniature wings on its back. Observe that the +sides of the tail, and one pair of legs, are fringed with dark hairs. +After a fortnight’s rest in this prison this ‘nymph’ will gnaw her way +out and swim through the water on her back, by means of that fringed tail +and paddles, till she reaches the bank and the upper air. There, under +the genial light of day, her skin will burst, and a four-winged fly +emerge, to buzz over the water as a fawn-coloured Caperer—deadliest of +trout flies; if she be not snapped up beforehand under water by some +spotted monarch in search of supper. + +But look again among this tangled mass of weed. Here are more larvæ of +water-flies. Some have the sides fringed with what look like paddles, +but are gills. Of these one part have whisks at the tail, and swim +freely. They will change into ephemeræ, cock-winged ‘duns,’ with long +whisked tails. The larvæ of the famous green drake (_Ephemera vulgata_) +are like these: but we shall not find them. They are all changed by now +into the perfect fly; and if not, they burrow about the banks, and haunt +the crayfish-holes, and are not easily found. + +Some, again, have the gills on their sides larger and broader, and no +whisks at the tail. These are the larvæ of Sialis, the black alder, Lord +Stowell’s fly, shorm fly, hunch-back of the Welsh, with which we have +caught our best fish to-day. + +And here is one of a delicate yellow-green, whose tail is furnished with +three broad paddle-blades. These, I believe, are gills again. The larva +is probably that of the Yellow Sally—_Chrysoperla viridis_—a famous fly +on hot days in May and June. Among the pebbles there, below the fall, we +should have found, a month since, a similar but much larger grub, with +two paddles at his tail. He is the ‘creeper’ of the northern streams, +and changes to the great crawling stone fly (May-fly of Tweed), _Perla +bicaudata_, an ugly creature, which runs on stones and posts, and kills +right well on stormy days, when he is beaten into the stream. + +There. Now we have the larvæ of the four great trout-fly families, +Phryganeæ, Ephemeræ, Sialidæ, Perlidæ; so you have no excuse for +telling—as not only Cockneys, but really good sportsmen who write on +fishing, have done—such fibs as that the green drake comes out of a +caddis-bait, or giving such vague generalities as, ‘this fly comes from a +water-larva.’ + +These are, surely, in their imperfect and perfect states, food enough to +fatten many a good trout: but they are not all. See these transparent +brown snails, Limneæ and Succinæ, climbing about the posts; and these +other pretty ones, coil laid within coil as flat as a shilling, +Planorbis. Many a million of these do the trout pick off the weed day by +day; and no food, not even the leech, which swarms here, is more +fattening. The finest trout of the high Snowdon lakes feed almost +entirely on leech and snail—baits they have none—and fatten till they cut +as red as a salmon. + +Look here too, once more. You see a grey moving cloud about that pebble +bed, and underneath that bank. It is a countless swarm of ‘sug,’ or +water-shrimp; a bad food, but devoured greedily by the great trout in +certain overstocked preserves. + +Add to these plenty of minnow, stone-loach, and miller’s thumbs, a second +course of young crayfish, and for one gormandizing week of bliss, +thousands of the great green-drake fly: and you have food enough for a +stock of trout which surprise, by their size and number, an angler fresh +from the mountain districts of the north and west. To such a fisherman, +the tale of Mr. ** *, of Ramsbury, who is said to have killed in one day +in his own streams on Kennet, seventy-six trout, all above a pound, +sounds like a traveller’s imagination: yet the fact is, I believe, +accurately true. + +This, however, is an extraordinary case upon an extraordinary stream. In +general, if a man shall bring home (beside small fish) a couple of brace +of from one to three pounds apiece, he may consider himself as a happy +man, and that the heavens have not shone, but frowned, upon him very +propitiously. + +And now comes another and an important question. For which of all these +dainty eatables, if for any, do the trout take our flies? and from that +arises another. Why are the flies with which we have been fishing this +morning so large—of the size which is usually employed on a Scotch lake? +You are a North-country fisher, and are wont, upon your clear streams, to +fish with nothing but the smallest gnats. And yet our streams are as +clear as yours: what can be clearer? + +Whether fish really mistake our artificial flies for different species of +natural ones, as Englishmen hold; or merely for something good to eat, +the colour whereof strikes their fancy, as Scotchmen think—a theory which +has been stated in detail, and with great semblance of truth, in Mr. +Stewart’s admirable ‘Practical Angler,’—is a matter about which much good +sense has been written on both sides. + +Whosoever will, may find the great controversy fully discussed in the +pages of Ephemera. Perhaps (as in most cases) the truth lies between the +two extremes; at least, in a chalk-stream. + +Ephemera’s list of flies may be very excellent, but it is about ten times +as long as would be required for any of our southern streams. Six or +seven sort of flies ought to suffice for any fisherman; if they will not +kill, the thing which will kill is yet to seek. + +To name them:— + +1. The caperer. + +2. The March-brown. + +3. The governor. + +4. The black alder. + +And two or three large palmers, red, grizzled, and coch-a-bonddhu, each +with a tuft of red floss silk at the tail. These are enough to show +sport from March to October; and also like enough to certain natural +flies to satisfy the somewhat dull memory of a trout. + +But beyond this list there is little use in roaming, as far as my +experience goes. A yellow dun kills sometimes marvellously on +chalk-streams, and always upon rocky ones. A Turkey-brown ephemera, the +wing made of the bright brown tail of the cock partridge, will, even just +after the May-fly is off, show good sport in the forenoon, when he is on +the water; and so will in the evening the claret spinner, to which he +turns. Excellent patterns of these flies may be found in Ronalds: but, +after all, they are uncertain flies; and, as Harry Verney used to say, +‘they casualty flies be all havers;’ which sentence the reader, if he +understands good Wessex, can doubtless translate for himself. + +And there are evenings on which the fish take greedily small transparent +ephemeræ. But, did you ever see large fish rise at these ephemeræ? And +even if you did, can you imitate the natural fly? And after all, would +it not be waste of time? For the experience of many good fishers is, +that trout rise at these delicate duns, black gnats, and other +microscopic trash, simply _faute de mieux_. They are hungry, as trout +are six days in the week, just at sunset. A supper they must have, and +they take what comes; but if you can give them anything better than the +minute fairy, compact of equal parts of glass and wind, which naturalists +call an Ephemera or Bætis, it will be most thankfully received, if there +be ripple enough on the water (which there seldom is on a fine evening) +to hide the line: and even though the water be still, take boldly your +caperer or your white moth (either of them ten times as large as what the +trout are rising at), hurl it boldly into a likely place, and let it lie +quiet and sink, not attempting to draw or work it; and if you do not +catch anything by that means, comfort yourself with the thought that +there are others who can. + +And now to go through our list, beginning with— + +1. The caperer. + +This perhaps is the best of all flies; it is certainly the one which will +kill earliest and latest in the year; and though I would hardly go as far +as a friend of mine, who boasts of never fishing with anything else, I +believe it will, from March to October, take more trout, and possibly +more grayling, than any other fly. Its basis is the woodcock wing; red +hackle legs, which should be long and pale; and a thin mohair body, of +different shades of red-brown, from a dark claret to a pale sandy. It +may thus, tied of different sizes, do duty for half-a-dozen of the +commonest flies; for the early claret (red-brown of Ronalds; a Nemoura, +according to him), which is the first spring-fly; for the red spinner, or +perfect form of the March-brown ephemera; for the soldier, the +soft-winged reddish beetle which haunts the umbelliferous flowers, and +being as soft in spirit as in flesh, perpetually falls into the water, +and comes to grief therein; and last but not least, for the true +caperers, or whole tribe of Phryganidæ, of which a sketch was given just +now. As a copy of them, the body should be of a pale red brown, all but +sandy (but never snuff-coloured, as shop-girls often tie it), and its +best hour is always in the evening. It kills well when fish are gorged +with their morning meal of green drakes; and after the green drake is +off, it is almost the only fly at which large trout care to look; a fact +not to be wondered at when one considers that nearly two hundred species +of English Phryganidæ have been already described, and that at least half +of them are of the fawn-tint of the caperer. Under the title of +flame-brown, cinnamon, or red-hackle and rail’s wing, a similar fly kills +well in Ireland, and in Scotland also; and is sometimes the best +sea-trout fly which can be laid on the water. Let this suffice for the +caperer. + +2. Of the March-brown ephemera there is little to be said, save to +notice Ronalds’ and Ephemera’s excellent description, and Ephemera’s good +hint of fishing with more than one March-brown at once, viz., with a +sandy-bodied male, and a greenish-bodied female. The fly is a worthy +fly, and being easily imitated, gives great sport, in number rather than +in size; for when the March-brown is out, the two or three pound fish are +seldom on the move, preferring leeches, tom-toddies, and caddis-bait in +the nether deeps, to slim ephemeræ at the top; and if you should (as you +may) get hold of a big fish on the fly, ‘you’d best hit him in again,’ as +we say in Wessex; for he will be, like the Ancient Mariner— + + ‘Long, and lank, and brown, + As is the ribbed sea-sand.’ + +3. The ‘governor.’—In most sandy banks, and dry poor lawns, will be +found numberless burrows of ground bees who have a great trick of +tumbling into the water. Perhaps, like the honey bee, they are thirsty +souls, and must needs go down to the river and drink; perhaps, like the +honey bee, they rise into the air with some difficulty, and so in +crossing a stream are apt to strike the further bank, and fall in. Be +that as it may, an imitation of these little ground bees is a deadly fly +the whole year round; and if worked within six inches of the shore, will +sometimes fill a basket when there is not a fly on the water or a fish +rising. There are those who never put up a cast of flies without one; +and those, too, who have killed large salmon on him in the north of +Scotland, when the streams are low. + +His tie is simple enough. A pale partridge or woodcock wing, short red +hackle legs, a peacock-herl body, and a tail—on which too much artistic +skill can hardly be expended—of yellow floss silk, and gold twist or +tinsel. The orange-tailed governors ‘of ye shops,’ as the old drug-books +would say, are all ‘havers;’ for the proper colour is a honey yellow. +The mystery of this all-conquering tail seems to be, that it represents +the yellow pollen, or ‘bee bread’ in the thighs or abdomen of the bee; +whereof the bright colour, and perhaps the strong musky flavour, makes +him an attractive and savoury morsel. Be that as it may, there is no +better rule for a chalk stream than this—when you don’t know what to fish +with, try the governor. + +4. The black alder (_Sialis nigra_, or _Lutaria_). + +What shall be said, or not be said, of this queen of flies? And what of +Ephemera, who never mentions her? His alder fly is—I know not what; +certainly not that black alder, shorm fly, Lord Stowell’s fly, or +hunch-back, which kills the monsters of the deep, surpassed only by the +green drake for one fortnight; but surpassing him in this, that she will +kill on till September, from that happy day on which + + ‘You find her out on every stalk + Whene’er you take a river walk, + When swifts at eve begin to hawk.’ + +O thou beloved member of the brute creation! Songs have been written in +praise of thee; statues would ere now have been erected to thee, had that +hunch back and those flabby wings of thine been ‘susceptible of artistic +treatment.’ But ugly thou art in the eyes of the uninitiated vulgar; a +little stumpy old maid toddling about the world in a black bonnet and a +brown cloak, laughed at by naughty boys, but doing good wherever thou +comest, and leaving sweet memories behind thee; so sweet that the trout +will rise at the ghost or sham of thee, for pure love of thy past +kindnesses to them, months after thou hast departed from this sublunary +sphere. What hours of bliss do I not owe to thee! How have I seen, in +the rich meads of Wey, after picking out wretched quarter-pounders all +the morning on March-brown and red-hackle, the great trout rush from +every hover to welcome thy first appearance among the sedges and +buttercups! How often, late in August, on Thames, on Test, on Loddon +heads, have I seen the three and four pound fish prefer thy dead image to +any live reality. Have I not seen poor old Si. Wilder, king of Thames +fishermen (now gone home to his rest), shaking his huge sides with +delight over thy mighty deeds, as his fourteen-inch whiskers fluttered in +the breeze like the horsetail standard of some great Bashaw, while +crystal Thames murmured over the white flints on Monkey Island shallow, +and the soft breeze sighed in the colossal poplar spires, and the great +trout rose and rose, and would not cease, at thee, my alder-fly? Have I +not seen, after a day in which the earth below was iron, and the heavens +above as brass, as the three-pounders would have thee, and thee alone, in +the purple August dusk, old Moody’s red face grow redder with excitement, +half proud at having advised me to ‘put on’ thee, half fearful lest we +should catch all my lady’s pet trout in one evening? Beloved alder-fly! +would that I could give thee a soul (if indeed thou hast not one already, +thou, and all things which live), and make thee happy in all æons to +come! But as it is, such immortality as I can I bestow on thee here, in +small return for all the pleasant days thou hast bestowed on me. + +Bah! I am becoming poetical; let us think how to tie an alder-fly. + +The common tie is good enough. A brown mallard, or dark hen-pheasant +tail for wing, a black hackle for legs, and the necessary peacock-herl +body. A better still is that of Jones Jones Beddgelert, the famous +fishing clerk of Snowdonia, who makes the wing of dappled peacock-hen, +and puts the black hackle on before the wings, in order to give the +peculiar hunch-backed shape of the natural fly. Many a good fish has +this tie killed. But the best pattern of all is tied from the mottled +wing-feather of an Indian bustard; generally used, when it can be +obtained, only for salmon flies. The brown and fawn check pattern of +this feather seems to be peculiarly tempting to trout, especially to the +large trout of Thames; and in every river where I have tried the alder, I +have found the bustard wing _facile princeps_ among all patterns of the +fly. + +Of palmers (the hairy caterpillars) are many sorts. Ephemera gives by +far the best list yet published. Ronalds has also three good ones, but +whether they are really taken by trout instead of the particular natural +insects which he mentions, is not very certain. The little +coch-a-bonddhu palmer, so killing upon moor streams, may probably be +taken for young larvæ of the fox and oak-egger moths, abundant on all +moors, upon trefoils, and other common plants; but the lowland +caterpillars are so abundant and so various in colour that trout must be +good entomologists to distinguish them. Some distinction they certainly +make; for one palmer will kill where another does not: but this depends a +good deal on the colour of the water; the red palmer, being easily seen, +will kill almost anywhere and any when, simply because it is easily seen; +and both the grizzle and brown palmer may be made to kill by adding to +the tail a tuft of red floss silk; for red, it would seem, has the same +exciting effect on fish which it has upon many quadrupeds, possibly +because it is the colour of flesh. The mackerel will often run greedily +at a strip of scarlet cloth; and the most killing pike-fly I ever used +had a body made of remnants of the huntsman’s new ‘pink.’ Still, there +are local palmers. On Thames, for instance, I have seldom failed with +the grizzled palmer, while the brown has seldom succeeded, and the +usually infallible red never. There is one more palmer worth trying, +which Scotsmen, I believe, call the Royal Charlie; a coch-a-bonddhu or +furnace hackle, over a body of gold-coloured floss silk, ribbed with +broad gold tinsel. Both in Devonshire and in Hampshire this will kill +great quantities of fish, wherever furzy or otherwise wild banks or +oak-woods afford food for the oak-egger and fox moths, which children +call ‘Devil’s Gold Rings,’ and Scotsmen ‘Hairy Oubits.’ + +Two hints more about palmers. They must not be worked on the top of the +water, but used as stretchers, and allowed to sink as living caterpillars +do; and next, they can hardly be too large or rough, provided that you +have skill enough to get them into the water without a splash. I have +killed well on Thames with one full three inches long, armed of course +with two small hooks. With palmers—and perhaps with all baits—the rule +is, the bigger the bait the bigger the fish. A large fish does not care +to move except for a good mouthful. The best pike-fisher I know prefers +a half-pound chub when he goes after one of his fifteen-pound jack; and +the largest pike I ever ran—and lost, alas!—who seemed of any weight +above twenty pounds, was hooked on a live white fish of full +three-quarters of a pound. Still, no good angler will despise the minute +North-country flies. In Yorkshire they are said to kill the large chalk +trout of Driffield as well as the small limestone and grit fish of +Craven; if so, the gentlemen of the Driffield Club, who are said to think +nothing of killing three-pound fish on midge flies and cobweb tackle, +must be (as canny Yorkshiremen are likely enough to be) the best anglers +in England. + +In one spot only in Yorkshire, as far as I know, do our large chalk flies +kill: namely, in the lofty limestone tarn of Malham. There palmers, +caperers, and rough black flies, of the largest Thames and Kennet sizes, +seem the only attractive baits: and for this reason, that they are the +flies of the place. The cinnamon Phryganea comes up abundantly from +among the stones; and the large peat moss to the west of the tarn +abounds, as usual, in house-flies and bluebottles, and in the +caterpillars of the fox and oak-egger moths: another proof that the most +attractive flies are imitations of the real insects. On the other hand, +there are said to be times when midges, and nothing else, will rise fish +on some chalk streams. The delicate black hackle which Mr. Stewart +praises so highly (and which should always be tied on a square sneck-bend +hook) will kill in June and July; and on the Itchen, at Winchester, +hardly any flies but small ones are used after the green drake is off. +But there is one sad objection against these said midges—what becomes of +your fish when hooked on one in a stream full of weeds (as all chalk +streams are after June), save + + ‘One struggle more, and I am free + From pangs which rend my heart in twain’? + +Winchester fishers have confessed to me that they lose three good fish +out of every four in such cases; and as it seems pretty clear that chalk +fish approve of no medium between very large flies and very small ones, I +advise the young angler, whose temper is not yet schooled into perfect +resignation, to spare his own feelings by fishing with a single large +fly—say the governor in the forenoon, the caperer in the evening, +regardless of the clearness of the water. I have seen flies large enough +for April, raise fish excellently in Test and other clear streams in July +and August; and, what is more, drag them up out of the weeds and into the +landing-net, where midges would have lost them in the first scuffle. + +So much for our leading chalk flies; all copies of live insects. Of the +entomology of mountain streams little as yet is known: but a few +scattered hints may suffice to show that in them, as well as in the chalk +rivers, a little natural science might help the angler. + +The well-known fact that smaller flies are required on the moors than in +the lowlands, is easily explained by the fact that poorer soils and +swifter streams produce smaller insects. The large Phryganeæ, or true +caperers, whose caddis-baits love still pools and stagnant ditches, are +there rare; and the office of water-scavenger is fulfilled by the +Rhyacophiles (torrent-lovers) and Hydropsyches, whose tiny pebble-houses +are fixed to the stones to resist the violence of the summer floods. In +and out of them the tiny larva runs to find food, making in addition, in +some species, galleries of earth along the surface of the stones, in +which he takes his walks abroad in full security. In any of the brown +rivulets of Windsor forest, towards the middle of summer, the +pebble-houses of these little creatures may be seen in millions, studding +every stone. To the Hydropsyches (species _montana_? or _variegata_? of +Pictet) belongs that curious little Welsh fly, known in Snowdon by the +name of the Gwynnant, whose tesselated wing is best imitated by brown +mallard feather, and who so swarms in the lower lakes of Snowdon, that it +is often necessary to use three of them on the line at once, all other +flies being useless. It is perhaps the abundance of these tesselated +Hydropsyches which makes the mallard wing the most useful in mountain +districts, as the abundance of the fawn and grey Phryganidæ in the south +of England makes the woodcock wing justly the favourite. The +Rhyacophiles, on the other hand, are mostly of a shining soot-grey, or +almost black. These may be seen buzzing in hundreds over the pools on a +wet evening, and with them the sooty Mystacides, called silverhorns in +Scotland, from their antennæ, which are of preposterous length, and +ringed prettily enough with black and white. These delicate fairies make +moveable cases, or rather pipes, of the finest sand, generally curved, +and resembling in shape the Dentalium shell. Guarded by these, they hang +in myriads on the smooth ledges of rock, where the water runs gently a +few inches deep. These are abundant everywhere: but I never saw so many +of them as in the exquisite Cother brook, near Middleham, in Yorkshire. +In that delicious glen, while wading up beneath the ash-fringed crags of +limestone, out of which the great ring ouzel (too wild, it seemed, to be +afraid of man) hopped down fearlessly to feed upon the strand, or past +flower-banks where the golden globe-flower, and the great blue geranium, +and the giant campanula bloomed beneath the white tassels of the +bird-cherry, I could not tread upon the limestone slabs without crushing +at every step hundreds of the delicate Mystacide tubes, which literally +paved the shallow edge of the stream, and which would have been +metamorphosed in due time into small sooty moth-like fairies, best +represented, I should say, by the soft black-hackle which Mr. Stewart +recommends as the most deadly of North-country flies. Not to these, +however, but to the Phryganeæ (who, when sticks and pebbles fail, often +make their tubes of sand, e.g. _P. flava_), should I refer the red-cow +fly, which is almost the only autumn killer in the Dartmoor streams. A +red cowhair body and a woodcock wing is his type, and let those who want +West-country trout remember him. + +Another fly, common on some rocky streams, but more scarce in the chalk, +is the ‘Yellow Sally,’ which entomologists, with truer appreciation of +its colour, call _Chrysoperla viridis_. It may be bought at the shops; +at least a yellow something of that name, but bearing no more resemblance +to the delicate yellow-green natural fly, with its warm grey wings, than +a Pre-Raphaelite portrait to the human being for whom it is meant. +Copied, like most trout flies, from some traditional copy by the hands of +Cockney maidens, who never saw a fly in their lives, the mistake of a +mistake, a sham raised to its tenth power, it stands a signal proof that +anglers will never get good flies till they learn a little entomology +themselves, and then teach it to the tackle makers. But if it cannot be +bought, it can at least be made; and I should advise everyone who fishes +rocky streams in May and June, to dye for himself some hackles of a +brilliant greenish-yellow, and in the most burning sunshine, when fish +seem inclined to rise at no fly whatsoever, examine the boulders for the +Chrysoperla, who runs over them, her wings laid flat on her back, her +yellow legs moving as rapidly as a forest-fly’s; try to imitate her, and +use her on the stream, or on the nearest lake. Certain it is that in +Snowdon this fly and the Gwynnant Hydropsyche will fill a creel in the +most burning north-easter, when all other flies are useless; a sufficient +disproof of the Scotch theory—that fish do not prefer the fly which is on +the water. {74} + +Another disproof may be found in the ‘fern web,’ ‘bracken clock’ of +Scotland; the tiny cockchafer, with brown wing-cases and dark-green +thorax, which abounds in some years in the hay-meadows, on the fern, or +on the heads of umbelliferous flowers. The famous Loch-Awe fly, +described as an alder-fly with a rail’s wing, seems to be nothing but +this fat little worthy: but the best plan is to make the wings, either +buzz or hackle, of the bright neck-feather of the cock pheasant, thus +gaining the metallic lustre of the beetle tribe. Tied thus, either in +Devonshire or Snowdon, few flies surpass him when he is out. His fatness +proves an attraction which the largest fish cannot resist. + +The Ephemeræ, too, are far more important in rapid and rocky streams than +in the deeper, stiller waters of the south. It is worth while for a good +fish to rise at them there; the more luxurious chalk trout will seldom +waste himself upon them, unless he be lying in shallow water, and has but +to move a few inches upward. + +But these Ephemeræ, like all other naiads, want working out. The species +which Mr. Ronalds gives, are most of them, by his own confession, very +uncertain. Of the Phryganidæ he seems to know little or nothing, +mentioning but two species out of the two hundred which are said to +inhabit Britain; and his land flies and beetles are in several cases +quite wrongly named. However, the professed entomologists know but +little of the mountain flies; and the angler who would help to work them +out would confer a benefit on science, as well as on the ‘gentle craft.’ +As yet the only approach to such a good work which I know of, is a little +book on the trout flies of Ripon, with excellent engravings of the +natural fly. The author’s name is not given; but the book may be got at +Ripon, and most valuable it must be to any North-country fisherman. + +But come, we must not waste our time in talk, for here is a cloud over +the sun, and plenty more coming up behind, before a ruffling south-west +breeze, as Shelley has it— + + ‘Calling white clouds like flocks to feed in air.’ + +Let us up and onward to that long still reach, which is now curling up +fast before the breeze; there are large fish to be taken, one or two at +least, even before the fly comes on. You need not change your flies; the +cast which you have on—governor, and black alder—will take, if anything +will. Only do not waste your time and muscle, as you are beginning to +do, by hurling your flies wildly into the middle of the stream, on the +chance of a fish being there. Fish are there, no doubt, but not feeding +ones. They are sailing about and enjoying the warmth; but nothing more. +If you want to find the hungry fish and to kill them, you must stand well +back from the bank—or kneel down, if you are really in earnest about +sport; and throw within a foot of the shore, above you or below (but if +possible above), with a line short enough to manage easily; by which I +mean short enough to enable you to lift your flies out of the water at +each throw without hooking them in the docks and comfrey which grow along +the brink. You must learn to raise your hand at the end of each throw, +and lift the flies clean over the land-weeds: or you will lose time, and +frighten all the fish, by crawling to the bank to unhook them. Believe +me, one of the commonest mistakes into which young anglers fall is that +of fishing in ‘skipjack broad;’ in plain English, in mid-stream, where +few fish, and those little ones, are to be caught. Those who wish for +large fish work close under the banks, and seldom take a mid-stream cast, +unless they see a fish rise there. + +The reason of this is simple. Walking up the Strand in search of a +dinner, a reasonable man will keep to the trottoir, and look in at the +windows close to him, instead of parading up the mid-street. And even so +do all wise and ancient trout. The banks are their shops; and thither +they go for their dinners, driving their poor little children tyrannously +out into the mid-river to fare as hap may hap. Over these children the +tyro wastes his time, flogging the stream across and across for weary +hours, while the big papas and mammas are comfortably under the bank, +close at his feet, grubbing about the sides for water crickets, and not +refusing at times a leech or a young crayfish, but perfectly ready to +take a fly if you offer one large and tempting enough. They do but act +on experience. All the largest surface-food—beetles, bees, and +palmers—comes off the shore; and all the caperers and alders, after +emerging from their pupa-cases, swim to the shore in order to change into +the perfect insect in the open air. The perfect insects haunt sunny +sedges and tree-stems—whence the one is often called the sedge, the other +the alder-fly—and from thence drop into the trouts’ mouths; and within +six inches of the bank will the good angler work, all the more sedulously +and even hopefully if he sees no fish rising. I have known good men say +that they had rather _not_ see fish on the rise, if the day be good; that +they can get surer sport, and are less troubled with small fish, by +making them rise; and certain it is, that a day when the fish are rising +all over the stream is generally one of disappointment. + +Another advantage of bank fishing is, that the fish sees the fly only for +a moment. He has no long gaze at it, as it comes to him across the +water. It either drops exactly over his nose, or sweeps down the stream +straight upon him. He expects it to escape on shore the next moment, and +chops at it fiercely and hastily, instead of following and examining. +Add to this the fact that when he is under the bank there is far less +chance of his seeing you; and duly considering these things, you will +throw away no more time in drawing, at least in chalk-streams, flies over +the watery wastes, to be snapped at now and then by herring-sized +pinkeens. In rocky streams, where the quantity of bank food is far +smaller, this rule will perhaps not hold good; though who knows not that +his best fish are generally taken under some tree from which the little +caterpillars, having determined on slow and deliberate suicide are +letting themselves down gently by a silken thread into the mouth of the +spotted monarch, who has but to sail about and about, and pick them up +one by one as they touch the stream?—A sight which makes one think—as +does a herd of swine crunching acorns, each one of which might have +become a ‘builder oak’—how Nature is never more magnificent than in her +waste. + +The next mistake, natural enough to the laziness of fallen man, is that +of fishing down-stream, and not up. What Mr. Stewart says on this point +should be read by every tyro. By fishing up-stream, even against the +wind, he will on an average kill twice as many trout as when fishing +down. If trout are out and feeding on the shallows, up or down will +simply make the difference of fish or no fish; and even in deeps, where +the difference in the chance of not being seen is not so great, many more +fish will be hooked by the man who fishes up-stream, simply because when +he strikes he pulls the hook into the trout’s mouth instead of out of it. +But he who would obey Mr. Stewart in fishing up-stream must obey him also +in discarding his light London rod, which is in three cases out of four +as weak and ‘floppy’ in the middle as a waggon whip, and get to himself a +stiff and powerful rod, strong enough to spin a minnow; whereby he will +obtain, after some weeks of aching muscles, two good things—a fore-arm +fit for a sculptor’s model, and trout hooked and killed, instead of +pricked and lost. + +Killed, as well as hooked; for how large trout are to be killed in a +weedy chalk-stream without a stiff rod which will take them down, is a +question yet unsolved. Even the merest Cockney will know, if he thinks, +that weeds float with their points down-stream; and that therefore if a +fish is to be brought through them without entangling, he must be +‘combed’ through them in the same direction. But how is this to be done, +if a fish be hooked below you on a weak rod? With a strong rod indeed +you can, at the chance of tearing out the hook, keep him by main force on +the top of the water, till you have run past him and below him, +shortening your line anyhow in loops—there is no time to wind it up with +the reel—and then do what you might have done comfortably at first had +you been fishing up—viz., bring him down-stream, and let the water run +through his gills, and drown him. But with a weak rod—Alas for the tyro! +He catches one glimpse of a silver side plunging into the depths; he +finds his rod double in his hand; he finds fish and flies stop suddenly +somewhere; he rushes down to the spot, sees weeds waving around his line, +and guesses from what he feels and sees that the fish is grubbing +up-stream through them, five feet under water. He tugs downwards and +backwards, but too late; the drop-fly is fast wrapt in Ceratophyllum and +Glyceria, Callitriche and Potamogeton, and half-a-dozen more horrid +things with long names and longer stems; and what remains but the fate of +Campbell’s Lord Ullin?— + + ‘The waters wild went o’er his child, + And he was left lamenting.’ + +Unless, in fact, large fish can be got rapidly down-stream, the chance of +killing them is very small; and therefore the man who fishes a +willow-fringed brook downward, is worthy of no crown but Ophelia’s, +besides being likely enough, if he attempt to get down to his fish, to +share her fate. The best fisherman, however, will come to shame in +streams bordered by pollard willows, and among queer nooks, which can be +only fished down-stream. I saw, but the other day, a fish hooked +cleverly enough, by throwing to an inch where he ought to have been, and +indeed was, and from the only point whence the throw could be made. Out +of the water he came, head and tail, the moment he felt the hook, and +showed a fair side over two pounds weight . . . . and then? Instead of +running away, he ran right at the fisherman, for reasons which were but +too patent. Between man and fish were ten yards of shallow, then a deep +weedy shelf, and then the hole which was his house. And for that weedy +shelf the spotted monarch made, knowing that there he could drag himself +clear of the fly, as perhaps he had done more than once before. + +What was to be done? Take him down-stream through the weed? Alas, on +the man’s left hand an old pollard leant into the water, barring all +downward movement. Jump in and run round? He had rather to run back +from the bank, from fear of a loose line; the fish was coming at him so +fast that there was no time to wind up. Safe into the weeds hurls the +fish; the man, as soon as he finds the fish stop, jumps in mid-leg deep, +and staggers up to him, in hopes of clearing; finds the dropper fast in +the weeds, and the stretcher, which had been in the fish’s mouth, +wantoning somewhere in the depths—_Quid plura_? Let us draw a veil over +that man’s return to shore. + +No mortal skill could have killed that fish. Mortal luck (which is +sometimes, as most statesmen know, very great) might have done it, if the +fish had been irretrievably fast hooked; as, per contra, I once saw a +fish of nearly four pounds hooked just above an alder bush, on the same +bank as the angler. The stream was swift: there was a great weed-bed +above; the man had but about ten feet square of swift water to kill the +trout in. Not a foot down-stream could he take him; in fact, he had to +pull him hard up-stream to keep him out of his hover in the alder roots. +Three times that fish leapt into the air nearly a yard high; and yet, so +merciful is luck, and so firmly was he hooked, in five breathless minutes +he was in the landing-net; and when he was there and safe ashore, just of +the shape and colour of a silver spoon, his captor lay down panting upon +the bank, and with Sir Hugh Evans, manifested ‘a great disposition to +cry.’ But it was a beautiful sight. A sharper round between man and +fish never saw I fought in Merry England. + +I saw once, however, a cleverer, though not a more dashing feat. A handy +little fellow (I wonder where he is now?) hooked a trout of nearly three +pounds with his dropper, and at the same moment a post with his +stretcher. What was to be done? To keep the fish pulling on him, and +not on the post. And that, being favoured by standing on a four-foot +bank, he did so well that he tired out the fish in some six feet square +of water, stopping him and turning him beautifully whenever he tried to +run, till I could get in to him with the landing-net. That was +five-and-thirty years since. If the little man has progressed in his +fishing as he ought, he should be now one of the finest anglers in +England. + + * * * * * + +So. Thanks to bank fishing, we have, you see, landed three or four more +good fish in the last two hours—And! What is here? An ugly two-pound +chub, Chevin, ‘Echevin,’ or Alderman, as the French call him. How is +this, keeper? I thought you allowed no such vermin in this water? + +The keeper answers, with a grunt, that ‘they allow themselves. That +there always were chub hereabouts, and always will be; for the more he +takes out with the net, the more come next day.’ + +Probably. No nets will exterminate these spawn-eating, fry-eating, +all-eating pests, who devour the little trout, and starve the large ones, +and, at the first sign of the net, fly to hover among the most tangled +roots. There they lie, as close as rats in a bank, and work themselves +the farther in the more they are splashed and poked by the poles of the +beaters. But the fly, well used, will—if not exterminate them—still thin +them down greatly; and very good sport they give, in my opinion, in spite +of the contempt in which they are commonly held, as chicken-hearted fish, +who show no fight. True; but their very cowardice makes them the more +difficult to catch; for no fish must you keep more out of sight, and +further off. The very shadow of the line (not to mention that of the +rod) sends them flying to hover; and they rise so cautiously and quietly, +that they give excellent lessons in patience and nerve to a beginner. If +the fly is dragged along the surface, or jerked suddenly from them, they +flee from it in terror; and when they do, after due deliberation, take it +in, their rise is so quiet, that you can seldom tell whether your fish +weighs half a pound or four pounds and a half—unless you, like most +beginners, attempt to show your quickness by that most useless exertion, +a violent strike. Then, the snapping of your footlink, or—just as +likely—of the top of your rod, makes you fully aware, if not of the +pluck, at least of the brute strength, of the burly alderman of the +waters. No fish, therefore, will better teach the beginner the good old +lesson, ‘not to frighten a fish before you have tired him.’ + +For flies—chub will rise greedily at any large palmers, the larger and +rougher the better. A red and a grizzled hackle will always take them; +but the best fly of all is an imitation of the black beetle—the +‘undertaker’ of the London shops. He, too, can hardly be too large, and +should be made of a fat body of black wool, with the metallic black +feather of a cock’s tail wrapped loosely over it. A still better wing is +one of the neck feathers of any metallic-plumed bird, e.g., _Phlogophorus +Impeyanus_, the Menaul Pheasant, laid flat and whole on the back, to +imitate the wing-shells of the beetle, the legs being represented by any +loose black feathers—(not hackles, which are too fine.) Tied thus, it +will kill not only every chub in a pool (if you give the survivors a +quarter of an hour wherein to recover from their horror at their last +friend’s fate), but also, here and there, very large trout. + +Another slur upon the noble sport of chub fishing is the fact of his not +being worth eating—a fact which, in the true sportsman’s eyes, will go +for nothing. But though the man who can buy fresh soles and salmon may +despise chub, there are those who do not. True, you may make a most +accurate imitation of him by taking one of Palmer’s patent candles, wick +and all, stuffing it with needles and split bristles, and then stewing +the same in ditch-water. Nevertheless, strange to say, the agricultural +stomach digests chub; and if, after having filled your creel, or three +creels (as you may too often), with them, you will distribute them on +your way home to all the old women you meet, you will make many poor +souls happy, after having saved the lives of many trout. + +But here we come to a strip of thick cover, part of our Squire’s home +preserves, which it is impossible to fish, so closely do the boughs cover +the water. We will walk on through it towards the hall, and there +get—what we begin sorely to need—something to eat. It will be of little +use fishing for some time to come; for these hot hours of the afternoon, +from three till six, are generally the ‘deadest time’ of the whole day. + +And now, when we have struggled in imagination through the last bit of +copse, and tumbled over the palings into the lawn, we shall see a scene +quite as lovely, if you will believe it, as any alp on earth. + +What shall we see, as we look across the broad, still, clear river, where +the great dark trout sail to and fro lazily in the sun? For having +free-warren of our fancy and our paper, we may see what we choose. + +White chalk-fields above, quivering hazy in the heat. A park full of +merry haymakers; gay red and blue waggons; stalwart horses switching off +the flies; dark avenues of tall elms; groups of abele, ‘tossing their +whispering silver to the sun;’ and amid them the house. What manner of +house shall it be? Tudor or Elizabethan, with oriels, mullioned windows, +gables, and turrets of strange shape? No: that is commonplace. +Everybody builds Tudor houses now. Our house shall smack of Inigo Jones +or Christopher Wren; a great square red-brick mass, made light and +cheerful though, by quoins and windows of white Sarsden stone; with +high-peaked French roofs, broken by louvres and dormers, haunted by a +thousand swallows and starlings. Old walled gardens, gay with flowers, +shall stretch right and left. Clipt yew alleys shall wander away into +mysterious glooms: and out of their black arches shall come tripping +children, like white fairies, to laugh and talk with the girl who lies +dreaming and reading in the hammock there, beneath the black velvet +canopy of the great cedar-tree, like some fair Tropic flower hanging from +its boughs. Then they shall wander down across the smooth-shorn lawn, +where the purple rhododendrons hang double, bush and image, over the +water’s edge, and call to us across the stream, ‘What sport?’ and the old +Squire shall beckon the keeper over the long stone bridge, and return +with him bringing luncheon and good ale; and we will sit down, and eat +and drink among the burdock leaves, and then watch the quiet house, and +lawn, and flowers, and fair human creatures, and shining water, all +sleeping breathless in the glorious light beneath the glorious blue, till +we doze off, lulled by the murmur of a thousand insects, and the rich +minstrelsy of nightingale and black-cap, thrush and dove. + +Peaceful, graceful, complete English country life and country houses; +everywhere finish and polish; Nature perfected by the wealth and art of +peaceful centuries! Why should I exchange you, even for the sight of all +the Alps, for bad roads, bad carriages, bad inns, bad food, bad washing, +bad beds, and fleas, fleas, fleas? + +Let that last thought be enough. There may be follies, there may be +sorrows, there may be sins—though I know there are no very heavy ones—in +that fine old house opposite: but thanks to the genius of my native land, +there are at least no fleas. + +Think of that, wandering friend; and of this also, that you will find +your warm bath ready when you go to bed to-night, and your cold one when +you rise to-morrow morning; and in content and thankfulness, stay in +England, and be clean. + + * * * * + +Here, then, let us lounge a full two hours, too comfortable and too tired +to care for fishing, till the hall-bell rings for that dinner which we as +good anglers will despise. Then we will make our way to the broad +reaches above the house. The evening breeze should be ruffling them +gallantly; and see, the fly is getting up. Countless thousands are +rising off the grass, and flickering to and fro above the stream. Stand +still a moment, and you will hear the air full of the soft rustle of +innumerable wings. Hundreds more, even more delicate and gauzy, are +rising through the water, and floating helplessly along the surface, as +Aphrodite may have done when she rose in the Ægean, half frightened at +the sight of the new upper world. And, see, the great trout are moving +everywhere. Fish too large and well fed to care for the fly at any other +season, who have been lounging among the weeds all day and snapping at +passing minnows, have come to the surface; and are feeding steadily, +splashing five or six times in succession, and then going down awhile to +bolt their mouthful of victims; while here and there a heavy silent swirl +tells of a fly taken before it has reached the surface, untimely slain +before it has seen the day. + +Now—put your Green-drake on; and throw, regardless of bank-fishing or any +other rule, wherever you see a fish rise. Do not work your flies in the +least, but let them float down over the fish, or sink if they will; he is +more likely to take them under water than on the top. And mind this +rule: be patient with your fish; and do not fancy that because he does +not rise to you the first or the tenth time, therefore he will not rise +at all. He may have filled his mouth and gone down to gorge; and when he +comes up again, if your fly be the first which he meets, he will probably +seize it greedily, and all the more so if it be under water, so seeming +drowned and helpless. Besides, a fish seldom rises twice exactly in the +same place, unless he be lying between two weeds, or in the corner of an +eddy. His small wits, when he is feeding in the open, seem to hint to +him that after having found a fly in one place he must move a foot or two +on to find another; and therefore it may be some time before your turn +comes, and your fly passes just over his nose; which if it do not do, he +certainly will not, amid such an abundance, go out of his way for it. In +the meanwhile your footlink will very probably have hit him over the +back, or run foul of his nose, in which case you will not catch him at +all. A painful fact for you; but if you could catch every fish you saw, +where would be the trout for next season? + +Put on a dropper of some kind, say a caperer, as a second chance. I +almost prefer the dark claret-spinner, with which I have killed very +large fish alternately with the green-drake, even when it was quite dark; +and for your stretcher, of course a green-drake. + +For a blustering evening like this your drake can hardly be too large or +too rough; in brighter and stiller weather the fish often prefer a fly +half the size of the natural one. Only bear in mind that the most +tempting form among these millions of drakes is that one whose wings are +very little coloured at all, of a pale greenish yellow; whose body is +straw-coloured, and his head, thorax, and legs, spotted with dark +brown—best represented by a pheasant or coch-a-bonddhu hackle. + +The best imitation of this, or of any drake, which I have ever seen, is +one by Mr. Macgowan, whilome of Ballyshannon, now of No. 7, +Bruton-street, Berkeley-square, whose drakes, known by a waxy body of +some mysterious material, do surpass those of all other men, and should +be known and honoured far and wide. But failing them, you may do well +with a drake which is ribbed through the whole length with red hackle +over a straw-coloured body. A North-countryman would laugh at it, and +ask us how we fancy that fish will mistake for that delicate waxy fly a +heavy rough palmer, made heavier and rougher by two thick tufts of yellow +mallard wing: but if he will fish therewith, he will catch trout; and +mighty ones they will be. I have found, again and again, this drake, in +which the hackle is ribbed all down the body, beat a bare-bodied one in +the ratio of three fish to one. The reason is difficult to guess. +Perhaps the shining transparent hackle gives the fly more of the waxy +look of the natural insect; or perhaps the ‘buzzly’ look of the fly +causes the fish to mistake it for one half emerged from its pupa case, +fluttering, entangled, and helpless. But whatever be the cause, I am +sure of the fact. Now—silence and sport for the next three hours. + + * * * * * + +There! All things must end. It is so dark that I have been fishing for +the last five minutes without any end fly; and we have lost our two last +fish simply by not being able to guide them into the net. But what an +evening’s sport we have had! Beside several over a pound which I have +thrown in (I trust you have been generous and done likewise), there are +six fish averaging two pounds apiece; and what is the weight of that +monster with whom I saw you wrestling dimly through the dusk, your legs +stuck knee-deep in a mudbank, your head embowered in nettles, while the +keeper waltzed round you, roaring mere incoherencies?—four pounds full. +Now, is there any sherry left in the flask? No. Then we will give the +keeper five shillings; he is well worth his pay; and then drag our weary +limbs towards the hall to bath, supper, and bed; while you confess, I +trust, that you may get noble sport, hard exercise, and lovely scenery, +without going sixty miles from London town. + + + + +III. +_THE FENS_. + + +A CERTAIN sadness is pardonable to one who watches the destruction of a +grand natural phenomenon, even though its destruction bring blessings to +the human race. Reason and conscience tell us, that it is right and good +that the Great Fen should have become, instead of a waste and howling +wilderness, a garden of the Lord, where + + ‘All the land in flowery squares, + Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, + Smells of the coming summer.’ + +And yet the fancy may linger, without blame, over the shining meres, the +golden reed-beds, the countless water-fowl, the strange and gaudy +insects, the wild nature, the mystery, the majesty—for mystery and +majesty there were—which haunted the deep fens for many a hundred years. +Little thinks the Scotsman, whirled down by the Great Northern Railway +from Peterborough to Huntingdon, what a grand place, even twenty years +ago, was that Holme and Whittlesea, which is now but a black, unsightly, +steaming flat, from which the meres and reed-beds of the old world are +gone, while the corn and roots of the new world have not as yet taken +their place. + +But grand enough it was, that black ugly place, when backed by Caistor +Hanglands and Holme Wood, and the patches of the primæval forest; while +dark-green alders, and pale-green reeds, stretched for miles round the +broad lagoon, where the coot clanked, and the bittern boomed, and the +sedge-bird, not content with its own sweet song, mocked the notes of all +the birds around; while high overhead hung, motionless, hawk beyond hawk, +buzzard beyond buzzard, kite beyond kite, as far as eye could see. Far +off, upon the silver mere, would rise a puff of smoke from a punt, +invisible from its flatness and its white paint. Then down the wind came +the boom of the great stanchion-gun; and after that sound another sound, +louder as it neared; a cry as of all the bells of Cambridge, and all the +hounds of Cottesmore; and overhead rushed and whirled the skein of +terrified wild-fowl, screaming, piping, clacking, croaking, filling the +air with the hoarse rattle of their wings, while clear above all sounded +the wild whistle of the curlew, and the trumpet note of the great wild +swan. + +They are all gone now. No longer do the ruffs trample the sedge into a +hard floor in their fighting-rings, while the sober reeves stand round, +admiring the tournament of their lovers, gay with ears and tippets, no +two of them alike. Gone are ruffs and reeves, spoonbills, bitterns, +avosets; the very snipe, one hears, disdains to breed. Gone, too, not +only from Whittlesea but from the whole world, is that most exquisite of +English butterflies, _Lycæna dispar_—the great copper; and many a curious +insect more. Ah, well, at least we shall have wheat and mutton instead, +and no more typhus and ague; and, it is to be hoped, no more +brandy-drinking and opium-eating; and children will live and not die. +For it was a hard place to live in, the old Fen; a place wherein one +heard of ‘unexampled instances of longevity,’ for the same reason that +one hears of them in savage tribes—that few lived to old age at all, save +those iron constitutions which nothing could break down. + +And now, when the bold Fen-men, who had been fighting water by the help +of wind, have given up the more capricious element for that more +manageable servant fire; have replaced their wind-mills by steam-engines, +which will work in all weathers; and have pumped the whole fen dry—even +too dry, as the last hot summer proved; when the only bit of the primæval +wilderness left, as far as I know, is 200 acres of sweet sedge and +_Lastræa thelypteris_ in Wicken Fen: there can be no harm in lingering +awhile over the past, and telling of what the Great Fen was, and how it +came to be that great flat which reaches (roughly speaking) from +Cambridge to Peterborough on the south-west side, to Lynn and Tattershall +on the north-east, some forty miles and more each way. + +To do that rightly, and describe how the Fen came to be, one must go +back, it seems to me, to an age before all history; an age which cannot +be measured by years or centuries; an age shrouded in mystery, and to be +spoken of only in guesses. To assert anything positively concerning that +age, or ages, would be to show the rashness of ignorance. ‘I think that +I believe,’ ‘I have good reason to suspect,’ ‘I seem to see,’ are the +strongest forms of speech which ought to be used over a matter so vast +and as yet so little elaborated. + +‘I seem to see,’ then, an epoch after those strata were laid down with +which geology generally deals; after the Kimmeridge clay, Oxford clay, +and Gault clay, which form the impervious bedding of the fens, with their +intermediate beds of coral-rag and green sand, had been deposited; after +the chalk had been laid on the top of them, at the bottom of some ancient +ocean; after (and what a gulf of time is implied in that last ‘after!’) +the boulder-clay (coeval probably with the ‘till’ of Scotland) had been +spread out in the ‘age of ice’ on top of all; after the whole had been +upheaved out of the sea, and stood about the same level as it stands now: +but before the great valley of the Cam had been scooped out, and the +strata were still continuous, some 200 feet above Cambridge and its +colleges, from the top of the Gog-magogs to the top of Madingley Rise. + +In those ages—while the valleys of the Cam, the Ouse, the Nene, the +Welland, the Glen, and the Witham were sawing themselves out by no +violent convulsions, but simply, as I believe, by the same slow action of +rain and rivers by which they are sawing backward into the land even +now—I ‘seem to see’ a time when the Straits of Dover did not exist—a time +when a great part of the German Ocean was dry land. Through it, into a +great estuary between North Britain and Norway, flowed together all the +rivers of north-eastern Europe—Elbe, Weser, Rhine, Scheldt, Seine, +Thames, and all the rivers of east England, as far north as the Humber. + +And if a reason be required for so daring a theory—first started, if I +recollect right, by the late lamented Edward Forbes—a sufficient one may +be found in one look over a bridge, in any river of the East of England. +There we see various species of Cyprinidæ, ‘rough’ or ‘white’ fish—roach, +dace, chub, bream, and so forth, and with them their natural attendant +and devourer, the pike. + +Now these fish belong almost exclusively to the same system of +rivers—those of north-east Europe. They attain their highest development +in the great lakes of Sweden. Westward of the Straits of Dover they are +not indigenous. They may be found in the streams of south and western +England; but in every case, I believe, they have been introduced either +by birds or by men. From some now submerged ‘centre of creation’ (to use +poor Edward Forbes’s formula) they must have spread into the rivers where +they are now found; and spread by fresh water, and not by salt, which +would destroy them in a single tide. + +Again, there lingers in the Cam, and a few other rivers of north-eastern +Europe, that curious fish the eel-pout or ‘burbot’ (_Molva lota_). Now +he is utterly distinct from any other fresh-water fish of Europe. His +nearest ally is the ling (_Molva vulgaris_); a deep-sea fish, even as his +ancestors have been. Originally a deep-sea form, he has found his way up +the rivers, even to Cambridge, and there remains. The rivers by which he +came up, the land through which he passed, ages and ages since, have been +all swept away; and he has never found his way back to his native +salt-water, but lives on in a strange land, degraded in form, dwindling +in numbers, and now fast dying out. The explanation may be strange: but +it is the only one which I can offer to explain the fact—which is itself +much more strange—of the burbot being found in the Fen rivers. + +Another proof may be found in the presence of the edible frog of the +Continent at Foulmire, on the edge of the Cambridge Fans. It is a moot +point still with some, whether he was not put there by man. It is a +still stronger argument against his being indigenous, that he is never +mentioned as an article of food by the mediæval monks, who would have +known—Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, as many of them were—that he is as +dainty as ever was a spring chicken. But if he be indigenous, his +presence proves that once he could either hop across the Straits of +Dover, or swim across the German Ocean. + +But there can be no doubt of the next proof—the presence in the Fens +(where he is now probably extinct) and in certain spots in East Anglia, +which I shall take care not to mention, of that exquisite little bird the +‘Bearded Tit’ (_Calamophilus biarmicus_). Tit he is none; rather, it is +said, a finch, but connected with no other English bird. His central +home is in the marshes of Russia and Prussia; his food the mollusks which +swarm among the reed-beds where he builds; and feeding on those from +reed-bed to reed bed, all across what was once the German Ocean, has come +the beautiful little bird with long tail, orange tawny plumage, and black +moustache, which might have been seen forty years ago in hundreds on ever +reed-rond of the Fen. + +One more proof—for it is the heaping up of facts, each minute by itself, +which issues often in a sound and great result. In draining Wretham +Mere, in Norfolk, not so very far from the Fens, in the year 1856 there +were found embedded in the peat moss (which is not the Scotch and Western +_Sphagnum palustre_, but an altogether different moss, _Hypnum +fluitans_), remains of an ancient lake-dwelling, supported on piles. A +dwelling like those which have lately attracted so much notice in the +lakes of Switzerland: like those which the Dyaks make about the ports and +rivers of Borneo; dwellings invented, it seems to me, to enable the +inhabitants to escape not wild beasts only, but malaria and night frosts; +and, perched above the cold and poisonous fogs, to sleep, if not high and +dry, at least high and healthy. + +In the bottom of this mere were found two shells of the fresh-water +tortoise, _Emys lutaria_, till then unknown in England. + +These little animals, who may be seen in hundreds in the meres of eastern +Europe, sunning their backs on fallen logs, and diving into the water at +the sound of a footstep, are eaten largely in continental capitals (as is +their cousin the terrapin, _Emys picta_, in the Southern States). They +may be bought at Paris, at fashionable restaurants. Thither they may +have been sent from Vienna or Berlin; for in north France, Holland, and +north-west Germany they are unknown. A few specimens have been found +buried in peat in Sweden and Denmark; and there is a tale of a live one +having been found in the extreme south part of Sweden, some twenty years +ago. {103} Into Sweden, then, as into England, the little fresh-water +tortoise had wandered, as to an extreme limit, beyond which the change of +climate, and probably of food, killed him off. + +But the emys which came to the Wretham bog must have had a long journey; +and a journey by fresh water too. Down Elbe or Weser he must have +floated, ice-packed, or swept away by flood, till somewhere off the +Doggerbank, in that great network of rivers which is now open sea, he or +his descendants turned up Ouse and Little Ouse, till they found a mere +like their old Prussian one, and there founded a tiny colony for a few +generations, till they were eaten up by the savages of the table +dwelling; or died out—as many a human family has died out—because they +found the world too hard. + +And lastly, my friend Mr. Brady, well known to naturalists, has found +that many forms of Entomastraca are common to the estuaries of the east +of England and to those of Holland. + +It was thus necessary, in order to account for the presence of some of +the common animals of the fen, to go back to an epoch of immense +remoteness. + +And how was that great lowland swept away? Who can tell? Probably by no +violent convulsion. Slow upheavals, slow depressions, there may have +been—indeed must have been—as the sunken fir-forests of Brancaster, and +the raised beach of Hunstanton, on the extreme north-east corner of the +Wash, testify to this day. But the main agent of destruction has been, +doubtless, that same ever-gnawing sea-wash which devours still the soft +strata of the whole east coast of England, as far as Flamborough Head; +and that great scavenger, the tide-wave, which sweeps the fallen rubbish +out to sea twice in every twenty-four hours. Wave and tide by sea, rain +and river by land; these are God’s mighty mills in which He makes the old +world new. And as Longfellow says of moral things, so may we of +physical:— + + ‘Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding + small. + Though He sit, end wait with patience, with exactness grinds He all.’ + +The lighter and more soluble particles, during that slow but vast +destruction which is going on still to this day, have been carried far +out to sea, and deposited as ooze. The heavier and coarser have been +left along the shores, as the gravels which fill the old estuaries of the +east of England. + +From these gravels we can judge of the larger animals which dwelt in that +old world. About these lost lowlands wandered herds of the woolly +mammoth. _Elephas primigenius_, whose bones are common in certain +Cambridge gravels, whose teeth are brought up by dredgers, far out in the +German Ocean, off certain parts of the Norfolk coast. With them wandered +the woolly rhinoceros (_R. tichorhinus_), the hippopotamus, the lion—not +(according to some) to be distinguished from the recent lion of +Africa—the hyæna, the bear, the horse, the reindeer, and the musk ox; the +great Irish elk, whose vast horns are so well known in every museum of +northern Europe; and that mighty ox, the _Bos primigenius_, which still +lingered on the Continent in Cæsar’s time, as the urus, in magnitude less +only than the elephant,—and not to be confounded with the bison, a +relation of, if not identical with, the buffalo of North America,—which +still lingers, carefully preserved by the Czar, in the forests of +Lithuania. + +The remains of this gigantic ox, be it remembered, are found throughout +Britain, and even into the Shetland Isles. Would that any gentleman who +may see these pages would take notice of the fact, that we have not (so I +am informed) in these islands a single perfect skeleton of _Bos +primigenius_; while the Museum of Copenhagen, to its honour, possesses +five or six from a much smaller field than is open to us; and be +public-spirited enough, the next time he hears of ox-bones, whether in +gravel or in peat (as he may in the draining of any northern moss), to +preserve them for the museum of his neighbourhood—or send them to +Cambridge. + +But did all these animals exist at the same time? It is difficult to +say. The study of the different gravels is most intricate—almost a +special science in itself—in which but two or three men are adepts. It +is hard, at first sight, to believe that the hippopotamus could have been +the neighbour of the Arctic reindeer and musk ox: but that the woolly +mammoth not only may have been such, but was such, there can be no doubt. +His remains, imbedded in ice at the mouth of the great Siberian rivers, +with the wool, skin, and flesh (in some cases) still remaining on the +bones, prove him to have been fitted for a cold climate, and to have +browsed upon the scanty shrubs of Northern Asia. But, indeed, there is +no reason, _à priori_, why these huge mammals, now confined to hotter +countries, should not have once inhabited a colder region, or at least +have wandered northwards in whole herds in summer, to escape insects, and +find fresh food, and above all, water. The same is the case with the +lion, and other huge beasts of prey. The tiger of Hindostan ranges, at +least in summer, across the snows of the Himalaya, and throughout China. +Even at the river Amoor, where the winters are as severe as at St. +Petersburg, the tiger is an ordinary resident at all seasons. The lion +was, undoubtedly, an inhabitant of Thrace as late as the expedition of +Xerxes, whose camels they attacked; and the ‘Nemæan lion,’ and the other +lions which stand out in Grecian myth, as having been killed by Hercules +and the heroes, may have been the last remaining specimens of that _Felis +spelæa_ (undistinguishable, according to some, from the African lion), +whose bones are found in the gravels and the caverns of these isles. + +And how long ago were those days of mammoths and reindeer, lions and +hyænas? We must talk not of days, but of ages; we know nothing of days +or years. As the late lamented Professor Sedgwick has well said:— + +‘We allow that the great European oscillation, which ended in the +production of the drift (the boulder clay, or till), was effected during +a time of vast, but unknown length. And if we limit our inquiries, and +ask what was the interval of time between the newest bed of gravel near +Cambridge, and the oldest bed of bogland or silt in Cambridgeshire and +Norfolk, we are utterly at a loss for a definite answer. The interval of +time may have been very great. But we have no scale on which to measure +it.’ + +Let us suppose, then, the era of ‘gravels’ past; the valleys which open +into the fen sawn out by rivers to about their present depth. What was +the special cause of the fen itself? why did not the great lowland become +a fertile ‘carse’ of firm alluvial soil, like that of Stirling? + +One reason is, that the carse of Stirling has been upheaved some twenty +feet, and thereby more or less drained, since the time of the Romans. A +fact patent and provable from Cramond (the old Roman port of Alaterna) up +to Blair Drummond above Stirling, where whales’ skeletons, and bone tools +by them, have been found in loam and peat, twenty feet above high-water +mark. The alluvium of the fens, on the other hand, has very probably +suffered a slight depression. + +But the main reason is, that the silt brought down by the fen rivers +cannot, like that of the Forth and its neighbouring streams, get safe +away to sea. From Flamborough Head, in Yorkshire, all down the +Lincolnshire coast, the land is falling, falling for ever into the waves; +and swept southward by tide and current, the debris turns into the Wash +between Lincolnshire and Norfolk, there to repose, as in a quiet haven. + +Hence that vast labyrinth of banks between Lynn and Wisbeach, of mud +inside, brought down by the fen rivers; but outside (contrary to the +usual rule) of shifting sand, which has come inward from the sea, and +prevents the mud’s escape—banks parted by narrow gullies, the delight of +the gunner with his punt, haunted by million wild-fowl in winter, and in +summer hazy steaming flats, beyond which the trees of Lincolnshire loom +up, raised by refraction far above the horizon, while the masts and sails +of distant vessels quiver, fantastically distorted and lengthened, +sometimes even inverted, by a refraction like that which plays such +tricks with ships and coasts in the Arctic seas. Along the top of the +mud banks lounge the long black rows of seals, undistinguishable from +their reflection in the still water below; distorted too, and magnified +to the size of elephants. Long lines of sea-pies wing their way along at +regular tide-hours, from or to the ocean. Now and then a skein of geese +paddle hastily out of sight round a mud-cape; or a brown robber gull +(generally Richardson’s _Skua_) raises a tumult of screams, by making a +raid upon a party of honest white gulls, to frighten them into vomiting +up their prey for his benefit; or a single cormorant flaps along, close +to the water, towards his fishing ground. Even the fish are shy of +haunting a bottom which shifts with every storm; and innumerable shrimps +are almost the only product of the shallow barren sea: beside, all is +silence and desolation, as of a world waiting to be made. + +So strong is the barrier which these sea-borne sands oppose to the +river-borne ooze, that as soon as a seabank is built—as the projectors of +the ‘Victoria County’ have built them—across any part of the estuary, the +mud caught by it soon ‘warps’ the space within into firm and rich dry +land. But that same barrier, ere the fen was drained, backed up for ages +not only the silt, but the very water of the fens; and spread it inland +into a labyrinth of shifting streams, shallow meres, and vast peat bogs, +on those impervious clays which floor the fen. Each river contributed to +the formation of those bogs and meres, instead of draining them away; +repeating on a huge scale the process which may be seen in many a +highland strath, where the ground at the edge of the stream is firm and +high; the meadows near the hillfoot, a few hundred yards away, bogland +lower than the bank of the stream. For each flood deposits its silt upon +the immediate bank of the river, raising it year by year; till—as in the +case of the ‘Levée’ of the Mississippi, and probably of every one of the +old fen rivers—the stream runs at last between two natural dykes, at a +level considerably higher than that of the now swamped and undrainable +lands right and left of it. + +If we add to this, a slope in the fen rivers so extraordinarily slight, +that the river at Cambridge is only thirteen and a half feet above the +mean sea level, five-and-thirty miles away, and that if the great +sea-sluice of Denver, the key of all the eastern fen, were washed away, +the tide would back up the Cam to within ten miles of Cambridge; if we +add again the rainfall upon that vast flat area, utterly unable to escape +through rivers which have enough to do to drain the hills around; it is +easy to understand how peat, the certain product of standing water, has +slowly overwhelmed the rich alluvium, fattened by the washing of those +phosphatic greensand beds, which (discovered by the science of the +lamented Professor Henslow) are now yielding round Cambridge supplies of +manure seemingly inexhaustible. Easy it is to understand how the +all-devouring, yet all-preserving peat-moss swallowed up gradually the +stately forests of fir and oak, ash and poplar, hazel and yew, which once +grew on that rank land; how trees, torn down by flood or storm, floated +and lodged in rafts, damming the waters back still more; how streams, +bewildered in the flats, changed their channels, mingling silt and sand +with the peat-moss; how Nature, left to herself, ran into wild riot and +chaos more and more; till the whole fen became one ‘Dismal Swamp,’ in +which the ‘Last of the English’ (like Dred in Mrs. Stowe’s tale) took +refuge from their tyrants, and lived, like him, a free and joyous life +awhile. + +For there were islands, and are still, in that wide fen, which have +escaped the destroying deluge of peat-moss; outcrops of firm land, which +even in the Middle Age preserved the Fauna and Flora of the primæval +forest, haunted by the descendants of some at least of those wild beasts +which roamed on the older continent of the ‘gravel age.’ The +all-preserving peat, as well as the monkish records of the early Middle +Age, enable us to repeople, tolerably well, the primæval fen. + +The gigantic ox, _Bos primigenius_, was still there, though there is no +record of him in monkish tales. But with him had appeared (not unknown +toward the end of the gravel age) another ox, smaller and with shorter +horns, _Bos longifrons_; which is held to be the ancestor of our own +domestic short-horns, and of the wild cattle still preserved at +Chillingham and at Cadzow. The reindeer had disappeared, almost or +altogether. The red deer, of a size beside which the largest Scotch stag +is puny, and even the great Carpathian stag inferior, abound; so does the +roe, so does the goat, which one is accustomed to look on as a mountain +animal. In the Woodwardian Museum there is a portion of a skull of an +ibex—probably _Capra sibirica_—which was found in the drift gravel at +Fulbourne. Wild sheep are unknown. The horse occurs in the peat; but +whether wild or tame, who can tell? Horses enough have been mired and +drowned since the Romans set foot on this island, to account for the +presence of horses’ skulls, without the hypothesis of wild herds, such as +doubtless existed in the gravel times. The wolf, of course, is common; +wild cat, marten, badger, and otter all would expect; but not so the +beaver, which nevertheless is abundant in the peat; and damage enough the +busy fellows must have done, cutting trees, damming streams, flooding +marshes, and like selfish speculators in all ages, sacrificing freely the +public interest to their own. Here and there are found the skulls of +bears, in one case that of a polar bear, ice-drifted; and one of a +walrus, probably washed in dead after a storm. + +Beautiful, after their kind, were these fen-isles, in the eyes of the +monks who were the first settlers in the wilderness. + +The author of the History of Ramsey grows enthusiastic, and, after the +manner of old monks, somewhat bombastic also, as he describes the lonely +isle which got its name from the solitary ram who had wandered thither, +either in some extreme drought or over the winter ice, and never able to +return, was found, fat beyond the wont of rams, feeding among the wild +deer. He tells of the stately ashes—most of them cut in his time, to +furnish mighty beams for the church roof; of the rich pastures painted +with all gay flowers in spring; of the ‘green crown’ of reed and alder +which girdled round the isle; of the fair wide mere with its ‘sandy +beach’ along the forest side: ‘a delight,’ he says, ‘to all who look +thereon.’ + +In like humour, William of Malmesbury, writing in the first half of the +twelfth century, speaks of Thorney Abbey and isle. ‘It represents,’ he +says, ‘a very Paradise, for that in pleasure and delight it resembles +heaven itself. These marshes abound in trees, whose length without a +knot doth emulate the stars. The plain there is as level as the sea, +which with green grass allures the eye, and so smooth that there is +nought to hinder him who runs through it. Neither is therein any waste +place for in some parts are apple trees, in other vines, which are either +spread on the ground or raised on poles. A mutual strife is there +between nature and art; so that what one produces not, the other +supplies. What shall I say of those fair buildings, which ’tis so +wonderful to see the ground among those fens upbear?’ + +But the most detailed picture of a fen-isle is that in the second part of +the Book of Ely; wherein a single knight of all the French army forces +his way into the isle of St. Etheldreda, and, hospitably entertained +there by Hereward and his English, is sent back safe to William the +Conqueror, to tell him of the strength of Ely isle. + +He cannot praise enough—his speech may be mythical; but as written by +Richard of Ely, only one generation after, it must describe faithfully +what the place was like—the wonders of the isle: its soil the richest in +England, its pleasant pastures, its noble hunting-grounds, its store of +sheep and cattle (though its vines, he says, as a Frenchman had good +right to say, were not equally to be praised), its wide meres and bogs, +about it like a wall. In it was, to quote roughly, ‘abundance of tame +beasts and of wild stag, roe, and goat, in grove and marsh; martens, and +ermines, and fitchets, which in hard winter were caught in snares or +gins. But of the kind of fish and fowl which bred therein, what can I +say? In the pools around are netted eels innumerable, great water +wolves, and pickerel, perch, roach, burbot, lampreys, which the French +called sea-serpents; smelts, too; and the royal fish, the turbot [surely +a mistake for sturgeon], are said often to be taken. But of the birds +which haunt around, if you be not tired, as of the rest, we will expound. +Innumerable geese, gulls, coots, divers, water-crows, herons, ducks, of +which, when there is most plenty, in winter, or at moulting time, I have +seen hundreds taken at a time, by nets, springes, or birdlime,’ and so +forth till, as he assures William, the Frenchman may sit on Haddenham +field blockading Ely for seven years more, ‘ere they will make one +ploughman stop short in his furrow, one hunter cease to set his nets, or +one fowler to deceive the birds with springe and snare.’ + +And yet there was another side to the picture. Man lived hard in those +days, under dark skies, in houses—even the most luxurious of them—which +we should think, from draughts and darkness, unfit for felons’ cells. +Hardly they lived; and easily were they pleased, and thankful to God for +the least gleam of sunshine, the least patch of green, after the terrible +and long winters of the Middle Age. And ugly enough those winters must +have been, what with snow-storm and darkness, flood and ice, ague and +rheumatism; while through the long drear winter nights the whistle of the +wind and the wild cries of the water-fowl were translated into the howls +of witches and demons; and (as in St. Guthlac’s case) the delirious +fancies of marsh fever made fiends take hideous shapes before the inner +eye, and act fantastic horrors round the old fen-man’s bed of sedge. + +The Romans seem to have done something toward the draining and embanking +of this dismal swamp. To them is attributed the car-dyke, or catch-water +drain, which runs for many miles from Peterborough northward into +Lincolnshire, cutting off the land waters which flow down from the wolds +above. To them, too, is to be attributed the old Roman bank, or +‘vallum,’ along the sea-face of the marshlands, marked to this day by the +names of Walsoken, Walton, and Walpoole. But the English invaders were +incapable of following out, even of preserving, any public works. Each +village was isolated by its own ‘march’ of forest; each yeoman all but +isolated by the ‘eaves-drip,’ or green lane round his farm. Each ‘cared +for his own things, and none for those of others;’ and gradually, during +the early Middle Age, the fen—save those old Roman villages—returned to +its primæval jungle, under the neglect of a race which caricatured local +self-government into public anarchy, and looked on every stranger as an +alien enemy, who might be lawfully slain, if he came through the forest +without calling aloud or blowing a horn. Till late years, the English +feeling against the stranger lasted harsh and strong. The farmer, strong +in his laws of settlement, tried at once to pass him into the next +parish. The labourer, not being versed in law, hove half a brick at him, +or hooted him through the town. It was in the fens, perhaps, that the +necessity of combined effort for fighting the brute powers of nature +first awakened public spirit, and associate labour, and the sense of a +common interest between men of different countries and races. + +But the progress was very slow; and the first civilizers of the fen were +men who had nothing less in their minds than to conquer nature, or call +together round them communities of men. Hermits, driven by that passion +for isolated independence which is the mark of the Teutonic mind, fled +into the wilderness, where they might, if possible, be alone with God and +their own souls. Like St. Guthlac of Crowland, after wild fighting for +five-and-twenty years, they longed for peace and solitude; and from their +longing, carried out with that iron will which marked the mediæval man +for good or for evil, sprang a civilization of which they never dreamed. + +Those who wish to understand the old fen life, should read Ingulf’s +‘History of Crowland’ (Mr. Bohn has published a good and cheap +translation), and initiate themselves into a state of society, a form of +thought, so utterly different from our own, that we seem to be reading of +the inhabitants of another planet. Most amusing and most human is old +Ingulf and his continuator, ‘Peter of Blois;’ and though their facts are +not to be depended on as having actually happened, they are still +instructive, as showing what might, or ought to have happened, in the +opinion of the men of old. + +Even more naïve is the Anglo-Saxon life of St. Guthlac, written possibly +as early as the eighth century, and literally translated by Mr. Goodwin, +of Cambridge. + +There we may read how the young warrior-noble, Guthlac (‘The +Battle-Play,’ the ‘Sport of War’), tired of slaying and sinning, +bethought him to fulfil the prodigies seen at his birth; how he wandered +into the fen, where one Tatwin (who after became a saint likewise) took +him in his canoe to a spot so lonely as to be almost unknown, buried in +reeds and alders; and among the trees, nought but an old ‘law,’ as the +Scots still call a mound, which men of old had broken into seeking for +treasure, and a little pond; and how he built himself a hermit’s cell +thereon, and saw visions and wrought miracles; and how men came to him, +as to a fakir or shaman of the East; notably one Beccel, who acted as his +servant; and how as Beccel was shaving the saint one day, there fell on +him a great temptation: Why should he not cut St. Guthlac’s throat, and +install himself in his cell, that he might have the honour and glory of +sainthood? But St. Guthlac perceived the inward temptation (which is +told with the naïve honesty of those half-savage times), and rebuked the +offender into confession, and all went well to the end. + +There we may read, too, a detailed account of a Fauna now happily extinct +in the fens: of the creatures who used to hale St. Guthlac out of his +hut, drag him through the bogs, carry him aloft through frost and +fire—‘Develen and luther gostes’—such as tormented likewise St. Botolph +(from whom Botulfston=Boston, has its name), and who were supposed to +haunt the meres and fens, and to have an especial fondness for old +heathen barrows with their fancied treasure hoards; how they ‘filled the +house with their coming, and poured in on every side, from above, and +from beneath, and everywhere. They were in countenance horrible, and +they had great heads, and a long neck, and a lean visage; they were +filthy and squalid in their beards, and they had rough ears, and crooked +nebs, and fierce eyes, and foul mouths; and their teeth were like horses’ +tusks; and their throats were filled with flame, and they were grating in +their voice; they had crooked shanks, and knees big and great behind, and +twisted toes, and cried hoarsely with their voices; and they came with +such immoderate noise and immense horror, that him thought all between +heaven and earth resounded with their voices. And they tugged and led +him out of the cot, and led him to the swart fen, and threw and sunk him +in the muddy waters. After that they brought him into the wild places of +the wilderness, among the thick beds of brambles, that all his body was +torn. After that they took him and beat him with iron whips; and after +that they brought him on their creaking wings between the cold regions of +the air.’ + +But there are gentler and more human touches in that old legend. You may +read in it, how all the wild birds of the fen came to St. Guthlac, and he +fed them after their kind. How the ravens tormented him, stealing +letters, gloves, and what not, from his visitors; and then, seized with +compunction at his reproofs, brought them back, or hanged them on the +reeds; and how, as Wilfrid, a holy visitant, was sitting with him, +discoursing of the contemplative life, two swallows came flying in, and +lifted up their song, sitting now on the saint’s hand, now on his +shoulder, now on his knee. And how, when Wilfrid wondered thereat, +Guthlac made answer, ‘Know you not that he who hath led his life +according to God’s will, to him the wild beasts and the wild birds draw +the more near.’ + +After fifteen years of such a life, in fever, agues, and starvation, no +wonder if St. Guthlac died. They buried him in a leaden coffin (a grand +and expensive luxury in the seventh century) which had been sent to him +during his life by a Saxon princess; and then, over his sacred and +wonder-working corpse, as over that of a Buddhist saint, there rose a +chapel, with a community of monks, companies of pilgrims who came to +worship, sick who came to be healed; till, at last, founded on great +piles driven into the bog, arose the lofty wooden Abbey of Crowland; in +its sanctuary of the four rivers, its dykes, parks, vineyards, orchards, +rich ploughlands, from which, in time of famine, the monks of Crowland +fed all people of the neighbouring fens; with its tower with seven bells, +which had not their like in England; its twelve altars rich with the +gifts of Danish Vikings and princes, and even with twelve white +bear-skins, the gift of Canute’s self; while all around were the cottages +of the corrodiers, or folk who, for a corrody, or life pittance from the +abbey, had given away their lands, to the wrong and detriment of their +heirs. + +But within these four rivers, at least, was neither tyranny nor slavery. +Those who took refuge in St. Guthlac’s peace from cruel lords must keep +his peace toward each other, and earn their living like honest men, safe +while they did so; for between those four rivers St. Guthlac and his +abbot were the only lords, and neither summoner, nor sheriff of the king, +nor armed force of knight or earl, could enter ‘the inheritance of the +Lord, the soil of St. Mary and St. Bartholomew, the most holy sanctuary +of St. Guthlac and his monks; the minster free from worldly servitude; +the special almshouse of most illustrious kings; the sole refuge of +anyone in worldly tribulation; the perpetual abode of the saints; the +possession of religious men, specially set apart by the common council of +the realm; by reason of the frequent miracles of the holy confessor St. +Guthlac, an ever-fruitful mother of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi; +and by reason of the privileges granted by the kings, a city of grace and +safety to all who repent.’ + +Does not all this sound—as I said just now—like a voice from another +planet? It is all gone; and it was good and right that it should go when +it had done its work, and that the civilization of the fen should be +taken up and carried out by men like the good knight, Richard of Rulos, +who, two generations after the Conquest, marrying Hereward’s +granddaughter, and becoming Lord of Deeping (the deep meadow), thought +that he could do the same work from the hall of Bourne as the monks did +from their cloisters; got permission from the Crowland monks, for twenty +marks of silver, to drain as much as he could of the common marshes; and +then shut out the Welland by strong dykes, built cottages, marked out +gardens, and tilled fields, till ‘out of slough and bogs accursed, he +made a garden of pleasure.’ + +Yet one lasting work those monks of Crowland did, besides those firm +dykes and rich corn lands of the Porsand, which endure unto this day. +For within two generations of the Norman conquest, while the old wooden +abbey, destroyed by fire, was being replaced by that noble pile of stone +whose ruins are still standing, the French abbot of Crowland sent French +monks to open a school under the new French donjon, in the little Roman +town of Grante-brigge; whereby—so does all earnest work, however +mistaken, grow and spread in this world, infinitely and for ever—St. +Guthlac, by his canoe-voyage into Crowland Island, became the spiritual +father of the University of Cambridge in the old world; and therefore of +her noble daughter, the University of Cambridge, in the new world which +fen-men, sailing from Boston deeps, colonized and Christianized, 800 +years after St. Guthlac’s death. + +The drainage of the fens struggled on for these same 800 years slowly, +and often disastrously. Great mistakes were made; as when a certain +bishop, some 700 years ago, bethought him to make a cut from Littleport +drain to Rebeck (or Priests’-houses), and found, to his horror and that +of the fen-men, that he had let down upon Lynn the pent-up waters of the +whole higher bogs; that rivers were running backwards, brooks swelling to +estuaries, and the whole north-eastern fen ruinate, to be yet more +ruinate by banks confusedly thrown up in self-defence, till some order +was restored in 1332, and the fens prospered—such little of them as could +be drained at all—for nigh two hundred years. Honour, meanwhile, to +another prelate, good Bishop Morton, who cut the great learn from +Guyhirn—the last place at which one could see a standing gallows, and two +Irish reapers hanging in chains, having murdered the old witch of Guyhirn +for the sake of hidden treasure, which proved to be some thirty shillings +and a few silver spoons. + +The belief is more general than well-founded that the drainage of the +fens retrograded on account of the dissolution of the monasteries. The +state of decay into which those institutions had already fallen, and +which alone made their dissolution possible, must have extended itself to +these fen-lands. No one can read the account of their debts, neglect, +malversation of funds, in the time of Henry VIII., without seeing that +the expensive works necessary to keep fen-lands dry must have suffered, +as did everything else belonging to the convents. + +It was not till the middle or end of Elizabeth’s reign that the recovery +of these ‘drowned lands’ was proceeded with once more; and during the +first half of the seventeenth century there went on, more and more +rapidly, that great series of artificial works which, though often faulty +in principle, often unexpectedly disastrous in effect, have got the work +done, as all work is done in this world, not as well as it should have +been done, but at least done. + +To comprehend those works would be impossible without maps and plans; to +take a lively interest in them impossible, likewise, save to an engineer +or a fen-man. Suffice it to say, that in the early part of the +seventeenth century we find a great company of adventurers—more than one +Cromwell among them, and Francis, the great and good Earl of Bedford, at +their head—trying to start a great scheme for draining the drowned +‘middle level’ east of the Isle of Ely. How they sent for Vermuyden, the +Dutchman, who had been draining in North Lincolnshire, about Goole and +Axholme Isle; how they got into his hands, and were ruined by him; how +Francis of Bedford had to sell valuable estates to pay his share; how the +fen-men looked on Francis of Bedford as their champion; how Charles I. +persecuted him meanly, though indeed Bedford had, in the matter of the +‘Lynn Law’ of 1630, given way, as desperate men are tempted to do, to +something like sharp practice unworthy of him; how Charles took the work +into his hands, and made a Government job of it; how Bedford died, and +the fen-men looked on him as a martyr; how Oliver Cromwell arose to +avenge the good earl, as his family had supported him in past times; how +Oliver St. John came to the help of the fen-men, and drew up the +so-called ‘Pretended Ordinance’ of 1649, which was a compromise between +Vermuyden and the adventurers, so able and useful that Charles II.’s +Government were content to call it ‘pretended’ and let it stand, because +it was actually draining the fens; and how Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, after +doing mighty works, and taking mighty moneys, died a beggar, writing +petitions which never got answered; how William, Earl of Bedford, added, +in 1649, to his father’s ‘old Bedford River’ that noble parallel river, +the Hundred foot, both rising high above the land between dykes and +‘washes,’ _i.e._ waste spaces right and left, to allow for flood water; +how the Great Bedford Rivers silted up the mouth of the Ouse, and backed +the floods up the Cam; how Denver sluice was built to keep them back; and +so forth,—all is written, or rather only half or quarter written, in the +histories of the fens. + +Another matter equally, or even more important, is but half +written—indeed, only hinted at—the mixed population of the fens. + +The sturdy old ‘Girvii,’ ‘Gyrwas,’ men of the ‘gyras’ or marshes, who in +Hereward’s time sang their three-man glees, ‘More Girviorum tripliciter +canentes,’ had been crossed with the blood of Scandinavian Vikings in +Canute’s conquest; crossed again with English refugees from all quarters +during the French conquest under William. After the St. Bartholomew they +received a fresh cross of Huguenot, fleeing from France—dark-haired, +fiery, earnest folk, whose names and physiognomies are said still to +remain about Wisbeach, Whittlesea, and Thorney. Then came Vermuyden’s +Dutchmen, leaving some of their blood behind them. After the battle of +Dunbar another cross came among them, of Scotch prisoners, who, employed +by Cromwell’s Government on the dykes, settled down among the fen-men to +this day. Within the memory of man, Scotchmen used to come down into the +fens every year, not merely for harvest, but to visit their expatriated +kinsmen. + +To these successive immigrations of strong Puritan blood, more than even +the influence of the Cromwells and other Puritan gentlemen, we may +attribute that strong Calvinist element which has endured for now nigh +three centuries in the fen; and attribute, too, that sturdy independence +and self-help which drove them of old out of Boston town, to seek their +fortunes first in Holland, then in Massachusetts over sea. And that +sturdy independence and self-help is not gone. There still lives in them +some of the spirit of their mythic giant Hickafrid (the Hickathrift of +nursery rhymes), who, when the Marshland men (possibly the Romanized +inhabitants of the wall villages) quarrelled with him in the field, took +up the cart-axle for a club, smote them hip and thigh, and pastured his +cattle in their despite in the green cheese-fens of the Smeeth. No one +has ever seen a fen-bank break, without honouring the stern quiet temper +which there is in these men, when the north-easter is howling above, the +spring-tide roaring outside, the brimming tide-way lapping up to the +dyke-top, or flying over in sheets of spray; when round the one fatal +thread which is trickling over the dyke—or worse, through some forgotten +rat’s hole in its side—hundreds of men are clustered, without tumult, +without complaint, marshalled under their employers, fighting the brute +powers of nature, not for their employer’s sake alone, but for the sake +of their own year’s labour and their own year’s bread. The sheep have +been driven off the land below; the cattle stand ranged shivering on high +dykes inland; they will be saved in punts, if the worst befall. But a +hundred spades, wielded by practised hands, cannot stop that tiny +rat-hole. The trickle becomes a rush—the rush a roaring waterfall. The +dyke-top trembles—gives. The men make efforts, desperate, dangerous, as +of sailors in a wreck, with faggots, hurdles, sedge, turf: but the bank +will break; and slowly they draw off; sullen, but uncomplaining; beaten, +but not conquered. A new cry rises among them. Up, to save yonder +sluice; that will save yonder lode; that again yonder farm; that again +some other lode, some other farm, far back inland, but guessed at +instantly by men who have studied from their youth, as the necessity of +their existence, the labyrinthine drainage of lands which are all below +the water level, and where the inner lands, in many cases, are lower +still than those outside. + +So they hurry away to the nearest farms; the teams are harnessed, the +waggons filled, and drawn down and emptied; the beer-cans go round +cheerily, and the men work with a sort of savage joy at being able to do +something, if not all, and stop the sluice on which so much depends. As +for the outer land, it is gone past hope; through the breach pours a +roaring salt cataract, digging out a hole on the inside of the bank, +which remains as a deep sullen pond for years to come. Hundreds, +thousands of pounds are lost already, past all hope. Be it so, then. At +the next neap, perhaps, they will be able to mend the dyke, and pump the +water out; and begin again, beaten but not conquered, the same +everlasting fight with wind and wave which their forefathers have waged +for now 800 years. + +He who sees—as I have seen—a sight like that, will repine no more that +the primæval forest is cut down, the fair mere drained. For instead of +mammoth and urus, stag and goat, that fen feeds cattle many times more +numerous than all the wild venison of the primæval jungle; and produces +crops capable of nourishing a hundred times as many human beings; and +more—it produces men a hundred times as numerous as ever it produced +before; more healthy and long-lived—and if they will, more virtuous and +more happy—than ever was Girvian in his log-canoe, or holy hermit in his +cell. So we, who knew the deep fen, will breathe one sigh over the last +scrap of wilderness, and say no more; content to know that— + + ‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new, + And God fulfils himself in many ways, + Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.’ + + + + +IV. +MY WINTER GARDEN. {135} + + +SO, my friend: you ask me to tell you how I contrive to support this +monotonous country life; how, fond as I am of excitement, adventure, +society, scenery, art, literature, I go cheerfully through the daily +routine of a commonplace country profession, never requiring a six-weeks’ +holiday; not caring to see the Continent, hardly even to spend a day in +London; having never yet actually got to Paris. + +You wonder why I do not grow dull as those round me, whose talk is of +bullocks—as indeed mine is, often enough; why I am not by this time ‘all +over blue mould;’ why I have not been tempted to bury myself in my study, +and live a life of dreams among old books. + +I will tell you. I am a minute philosopher: though one, thank Heaven, of +a different stamp from him whom the great Bishop Berkeley silenced—alas! +only for a while. I am possibly, after all, a man of small mind, content +with small pleasures. So much the better for me. Meanwhile, I can +understand your surprise, though you cannot understand my content. You +have played a greater game than mine; have lived a life, perhaps more fit +for an Englishman; certainly more in accordance with the taste of our +common fathers, the Vikings, and their patron Odin ‘the goer,’ father of +all them that go ahead. You have gone ahead, and over many lands; and I +reverence you for it, though I envy you not. You have commanded a +regiment—indeed an army, and ‘drank delight of battle with your peers;’ +you have ruled provinces, and done justice and judgment, like a noble +Englishman as you are, old friend, among thousands who never knew before +what justice and judgment were. You have tasted (and you have deserved +to taste) the joy of old David’s psalm, when he has hunted down the last +of the robber lords of Palestine. You have seen ‘a people whom you have +not known, serve you. As soon as they heard of you, they obeyed you; but +the strange children dissembled with you:’ yet before you, too, ‘the +strange children failed, and trembled in their hill-forts.’ + +Noble work that was to do, and nobly you have done it; and I do not +wonder that to a man who has been set to such a task, and given power to +carry it through, all smaller work must seem paltry; that such a man’s +very amusements, in that grand Indian land, and that free adventurous +Indian life, exciting the imagination, calling out all the self-help and +daring of a man, should have been on a par with your work; that when you +go a sporting, you ask for no meaner preserve than the primæval forest, +no lower park wall than the snow-peaks of the Himalaya. + +Yes; you have been a ‘burra Shikarree’ as well as a ‘burra Sahib.’ You +have played the great game in your work, and killed the great game in +your play. How many tons of mighty monsters have you done to death, +since we two were schoolboys together, five-and-twenty years ago? How +many starving villages have you fed with the flesh of elephant or +buffalo? How many have you delivered from man-eating tigers, or wary old +alligators, their craws full of poor girls’ bangles? Have you not been +charged by rhinoceroses, all but ript up by boars? Have you not seen +face to face Ovis Ammon himself, the giant mountain sheep—primæval +ancestor, perhaps, of all the flocks on earth? Your memories must be +like those of Theseus and Hercules, full of slain monsters. Your brains +must be one fossiliferous deposit, in which gaur and sambur, hog and +tiger, rhinoceros and elephant, lie heaped together, as the old +ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs are heaped in the lias rocks at Lyme. And +therefore I like to think of you. I try to picture your feelings to +myself. I spell over with my boy Mayne Reid’s amusing books, or the ‘Old +Forest Ranger,’ or Williams’s old ‘Tiger Book,’ with Howitt’s plates; and +try to realize the glory of a burra Shikarree: and as I read and imagine, +feel, with Sir Hugh Evans, ‘a great disposition to cry.’ + +For there were times, full many a year ago, when my brains were full of +bison and grizzly bear, mustang and big-horn, Blackfoot and Pawnee, and +hopes of wild adventure in the Far West, which I shall never see; for ere +I was three-and-twenty, I discovered, plainly enough, that my lot was to +stay at home and earn my bread in a very quiet way; that England was to +be henceforth my prison or my palace, as I should choose to make it: and +I have made it, by Heaven’s help, the latter. + +I will confess to you, though, that in those first heats of youth, this +little England—or rather, this little patch of moor in which I have +struck roots as firm as the wild fir-trees do—looked at moments rather +like a prison than a palace; that my foolish young heart would sigh, ‘Oh! +that I had wings’—not as a dove, to fly home to its nest and croodle +there—but as an eagle, to swoop away over land and sea, in a rampant and +self-glorifying fashion, on which I now look back as altogether +unwholesome and undesirable. But the thirst for adventure and excitement +was strong in me, as perhaps it ought to be in all at twenty-one. Others +went out to see the glorious new worlds of the West, the glorious old +worlds of the East—why should not I? Others rambled over Alps and +Apennines, Italian picture-galleries and palaces, filling their minds +with fair memories—why should not I? Others discovered new wonders in +botany and zoology—why should not I? Others too, like you, fulfilled to +the utmost that strange lust after the burra shikar, which even now makes +my pulse throb as often as I see the stags’ heads in our friend A—’s +hall: why should not I? It is not learnt in a day, the golden lesson of +the Old Collect, to ‘love the thing which is commanded, and desire that +which is promised.’ Not in a day: but in fifteen years one can spell out +a little of its worth; and when one finds one’s self on the wrong side of +forty, and the first grey hairs begin to show on the temples, and one can +no longer jump as high as one’s third button—scarcely, alas! to any +button at all; and what with innumerable sprains, bruises, soakings, and +chillings, one’s lower limbs feel in a cold thaw much like an old +post-horse’s, why, one makes a virtue of necessity: and if one still +lusts after sights, takes the nearest, and looks for wonders, not in the +Himalayas or Lake Ngami, but in the turf on the lawn and the brook in the +park; and with good Alphonse Karr enjoys the macro-microcosm in one ‘Tour +autour de mon jardin.’ + +For there it is, friend, the whole infinite miracle of nature in every +tuft of grass, if we have only eyes to see it, and can disabuse our minds +of that tyrannous phantom of size. Only recollect that great and small +are but relative terms; that in truth nothing is great or small, save in +proportion to the quantity of creative thought which has been exercised +in making it; that the fly who basks upon one of the trilithons of +Stonehenge, is in truth infinitely greater than all Stonehenge together, +though he may measure the tenth of an inch, and the stone on which he +sits five-and-twenty feet. You differ from me? Be it so. Even if you +prove me wrong I will believe myself in the right: I cannot afford to do +otherwise. If you rob me of my faith in ‘minute philosophy,’ you rob me +of a continual source of content, surprise, delight. + +So go your way and I mine, each working with all his might, and playing +with all his might, in his own place and way. Remember only, that though +I never can come round to your sphere, you must some day come round to +me, when wounds, or weariness, or merely, as I hope, a healthy old age, +shall shut you out for once and for all from burra shikar, whether human +or quadruped.—For you surely will not take to politics in your old age? +You will not surely live to solicit (as many a fine fellow, alas! did but +last year) the votes, not even of the people, but merely of the +snobocracy, on the ground of your having neither policy nor principles, +nor even opinions, upon any matter in heaven or earth?—Then in that day +will you be forced, my friend, to do what I have done this many a year; +to refrain your soul, and keep it low. You will see more and more the +depth of human ignorance, the vanity of human endeavours. You will feel +more and more that the world is going God’s way, and not yours, or mine, +or any man’s; and that if you have been allowed to do good work on earth, +that work is probably as different from what you fancy it as the tree is +from the seed whence it springs. You will grow content, therefore, not +to see the real fruit of your labours; because if you saw it you would +probably be frightened at it, and what is very good in the eyes of God +would not be very good in yours; content, also, to receive your +discharge, and work and fight no more, sure that God is working and +fighting, whether you are in hospital or in the field. And with this +growing sense of the pettiness of human struggles will grow on you a +respect for simple labours, a thankfulness for simple pleasures, a +sympathy with simple people, and possibly, my trusty friend, with me and +my little tours about that moorland which I call my winter-garden, and +which is to me as full of glory and of instruction as the Himalaya or the +Punjab are to you, and in which I contrive to find as much health and +amusement as I have time for—and who ought to have more? + +I call the said garden mine, not because I own it in any legal sense (for +only in a few acres have I a life interest), but in that higher sense in +which ten thousand people can own the same thing, and yet no man’s right +interfere with another’s. To whom does the Apollo Belvedere belong, but +to all who have eyes to see its beauty? So does my winter-garden; and +therefore to me among the rest. + +Besides (which is a gain to a poor man) my pleasure in it is a very cheap +one. So are all those of a minute philosopher, except his microscope. +But my winter-garden, which is far larger, at all events, than that +famous one at Chatsworth, costs me not one penny in keeping up. Poor, +did I call myself? Is it not true wealth to have all I want without +paying for it? Is it not true wealth, royal wealth, to have some twenty +gentlemen and noblemen, nay, even royal personages, planting and +improving for me? Is it not more than royal wealth to have sun and +frost, Gulf-stream and south-westers, laws of geology, phytology, +physiology, and other ologies—in a word, the whole universe and the +powers thereof, day and night, paving, planting, roofing, lighting, +colouring my winter-garden for me, without my even having the trouble to +rub a magic ring and tell the genii to go to work? + +Yes. I am very rich, as every man may be who will. In the doings of our +little country neighbourhood I find tragedy and comedy, too fantastic, +sometimes too sad, to be written down. In the words of those whose talk +is of bullocks, I find the materials of all possible metaphysic, and long +weekly that I had time to work them out. In fifteen miles of moorland I +find the materials of all possible physical science, and long that I had +time to work out one smallest segment of that great sphere. How can I be +richer, if I have lying at my feet all day a thousand times more wealth +than I can use? + +Some people—most people—in these run-about railway days, would complain +of such a life, in such a ‘narrow sphere,’ so they call it, as +monotonous. Very likely it is so. But is it to be complained of on that +account? Is monotony in itself an evil? Which is better, to know many +places ill, or to know one place well? Certainly—if a scientific habit +of mind be a gain—it is only by exhausting as far as possible the +significance of an individual phenomenon (is not that sentence a true +scientific one in its magniloquence?) that you can discover any glimpse +of the significance of the universal. Even men of boundless knowledge, +like Humboldt, must have had once their speciality, their pet subject, or +they would have, strictly speaking, no knowledge at all. The volcanoes +of Mexico, patiently and laboriously investigated in his youth, were to +Humboldt, possibly, the key of the whole Cosmos. I learn more, studying +over and over again the same Bagshot sand and gravel heaps, than I should +by roaming all Europe in search of new geologic wonders. Fifteen years +have I been puzzling at the same questions and have only guessed at a few +of the answers. What sawed out the edges of the moors into long narrow +banks of gravel? What cut them off all flat atop? What makes _Erica +Tetralix_ grow in one soil, and the bracken in another? How did three +species of Club-moss—one of them quite an Alpine one—get down here, all +the way from Wales perhaps, upon this isolated patch of gravel? Why did +that one patch of _Carex arenaria_ settle in the only square yard for +miles and miles which bore sufficient resemblance to its native sandhill +by the seashore, to make it comfortable? Why did _Myosurus minimus_, +which I had hunted for in vain for fourteen years, appear by dozens in +the fifteenth, upon a new-made bank, which had been for at least two +hundred years a farm-yard gateway? Why does it generally rain here from +the south-west, not when the barometer falls, but when it begins to rise +again? Why—why is everything, which lies under my feet all day long? I +don’t know; and you can’t tell me. And till I have found out, I cannot +complain of monotony, with still undiscovered puzzles waiting to be +explained, and so to create novelty at every turn. + +Besides, monotony is pleasant in itself; morally pleasant, and morally +useful. Marriage is monotonous: but there is much, I trust, to be said +in favour of holy wedlock. Living in the same house is monotonous: but +three removes, say the wise, are as bad as a fire. Locomotion is +regarded as an evil by our Litany. The Litany, as usual, is right. +‘Those who travel by land or sea’ are to be objects of our pity and our +prayers; and I do pity them. I delight in that same monotony. It saves +curiosity, anxiety, excitement, disappointment, and a host of bad +passions. It gives a man the blessed, invigorating feeling that he is at +home; that he has roots, deep and wide, struck down into all he sees; and +that only The Being who will do nothing cruel or useless can tear them +up. It is pleasant to look down on the same parish day after day, and +say, I know all that lies beneath, and all beneath know me. If I want a +friend, I know where to find him; if I want work done, I know who will do +it. It is pleasant and good to see the same trees year after year; the +same birds coming back in spring to the same shrubs; the same banks +covered with the same flowers, and broken (if they be stiff ones) by the +same gaps. Pleasant and good it is to ride the same horse, to sit in the +same chair, to wear the same old coat. That man who offered twenty +pounds’ reward for a lost carpet-bag full of old boots was a sage, and I +wish I knew him. Why should one change one’s place, any more than one’s +wife or one’s children? Is a hermit-crab, slipping his tail out of one +strange shell into another, in the hopes of its fitting him a little +better, either a dignified, safe, or graceful animal? No; George Riddler +was a true philosopher. + + ‘Let vules go sarching vur and nigh, + We bides at Whum, my dog and I;’ + +and become there, not only wiser, but more charitable; for the oftener +one sees, the better one knows; and the better one knows, the more one +loves. + +It is an easy philosophy; especially in the case of the horse, where a +man cannot afford more than one, as I cannot. To own a stud of horses, +after all, is not to own horses at all, but riding-machines. Your rich +man who rides Crimæa in the morning, Sir Guy in the afternoon, and Sultan +to-morrow, and something else the next day, may be a very gallant rider: +but it is a question whether he enjoys the pleasure which one horse gives +to the poor man who rides him day after day; one horse, who is not a +slave, but a friend; who has learnt all his tricks of voice, hand, heel, +and knows what his master wants, even without being told; who will bear +with his master’s infirmities, and feels secure that his master will bear +with his in turn. + +Possibly, after all, the grapes are sour; and were one rich, one would do +even as the rich are wont to do: but still, I am a minute philosopher. +And therefore, this afternoon, after I have done the same work, visited +the same people, and said the same words to them, which I have done for +years past, and shall, I trust, for many a year to come, I shall go +wandering out into the same winter-garden on the same old mare; and think +the same thoughts, and see the same fir-trees, and meet perhaps the same +good fellows hunting of their fox, as I have done with full content this +many a year; and rejoice, as I said before, in my own boundless wealth, +who have the whole universe to look at, without being charged one penny +for the show. + +As I have said, the grapes may be sour, and I enjoy the want of luxuries +only because I cannot get them; but if my self-deception be useful to me, +leave it alone. + +No one is less inclined to depreciate that magnificent winter-garden at +the Crystal Palace: yet let me, if I choose, prefer my own; I argue that, +in the first place, it is far larger. You may drive, I hear, through the +grand one at Chatsworth for a quarter of a mile. You may ride through +mine for fifteen miles on end. I prefer, too, to any glass roof which +Sir Joseph Paxton ever planned, that dome above my head some three miles +high, of soft dappled grey and yellow cloud, through the vast +lattice-work whereof the blue sky peeps, and sheds down tender gleams on +yellow bogs, and softly rounded heather knolls, and pale chalk ranges +gleaming far away. But, above all, I glory in my evergreens. What +winter-garden can compare for them with mine? True, I have but four +kinds—Scotch fir, holly, furze, and the heath; and by way of relief to +them, only brows of brown fern, sheets of yellow bog-grass, and here and +there a leafless birch, whose purple tresses are even more lovely to my +eye than those fragrant green ones which she puts on in spring. Well: in +painting as in music, what effects are more grand than those produced by +the scientific combination, in endless new variety, of a few simple +elements? Enough for me is the one purple birch; the bright hollies +round its stem sparkling with scarlet beads; the furze-patch, rich with +its lacework of interwoven light and shade, tipped here and there with a +golden bud; the deep soft heather carpet, which invites you to lie down +and dream for hours; and behind all, the wall of red fir-stems, and the +dark fir-roof with its jagged edges a mile long, against the soft grey +sky. + +An ugly, straight-edged, monotonous fir-plantation? Well, I like it, +outside and inside. I need no saw-edge of mountain peaks to stir up my +imagination with the sense of the sublime, while I can watch the saw-edge +of those fir peaks against the red sunset. They are my Alps; little ones +it may be: but after all, as I asked before, what is size? A phantom of +our brain; an optical delusion. Grandeur, if you will consider wisely, +consists in form, and not in size: and to the eye of the philosopher, the +curve drawn on a paper two inches long, is just as magnificent, just as +symbolic of divine mysteries and melodies, as when embodied in the span +of some cathedral roof. Have you eyes to see? Then lie down on the +grass, and look near enough to see something more of what is to be seen; +and you will find tropic jungles in every square foot of turf; mountain +cliffs and debacles at the mouth of every rabbit burrow: dark strids, +tremendous cataracts, ‘deep glooms and sudden glories,’ in every +foot-broad rill which wanders through the turf. All is there for you to +see, if you will but rid yourself of ‘that idol of space;’ and Nature, as +everyone will tell you who has seen dissected an insect under the +microscope, is as grand and graceful in her smallest as in her hugest +forms. + +The March breeze is chilly: but I can be always warm if I like in my +winter-garden. I turn my horse’s head to the red wall of fir-stems, and +leap over the furze-grown bank into my cathedral, wherein if there be no +saints, there are likewise no priestcraft and no idols; but endless +vistas of smooth red green-veined shafts holding up the warm dark roof, +lessening away into endless gloom, paved with rich brown fir-needle—a +carpet at which Nature has been at work for forty years. Red shafts, +green roof, and here and there a pane of blue sky—neither Owen Jones nor +Willement can improve upon that ecclesiastical ornamentation,—while for +incense I have the fresh healthy turpentine fragrance, far sweeter to my +nostrils than the stifling narcotic odour which fills a Roman Catholic +cathedral. There is not a breath of air within: but the breeze sighs +over the roof above in a soft whisper. I shut my eyes and listen. +Surely that is the murmur of the summer sea upon the summer sands in +Devon far away. I hear the innumerable wavelets spend themselves gently +upon the shore, and die away to rise again. And with the innumerable +wave-sighs come innumerable memories, and faces which I shall never see +again upon this earth. I will not tell even you of that, old friend. + +It has two notes, two keys rather, that Eolian-harp of fir-needles above +my head; according as the wind is east or west, the needles dry or wet. +This easterly key of to-day is shriller, more cheerful, warmer in sound, +though the day itself be colder: but grander still, as well as softer, is +the sad soughing key in which the south-west wind roars on, rain-laden, +over the forest, and calls me forth—being a minute philosopher—to catch +trout in the nearest chalk-stream. + +The breeze is gone a while; and I am in perfect silence—a silence which +may be heard. Not a sound; and not a moving object; absolutely none. +The absence of animal life is solemn, startling. That ringdove, who was +cooing half a mile away, has hushed his moan; that flock of long-tailed +titmice, which were twinging and pecking about the fir-cones a few +minutes since, are gone: and now there is not even a gnat to quiver in +the slant sun-rays. Did a spider run over these dead leaves, I almost +fancy I could hear his footfall. The creaking of the saddle, the soft +step of the mare upon the fir-needles, jar my ears. I seem alone in a +dead world. A dead world: and yet so full of life, if I had eyes to see! +Above my head every fir-needle is breathing—breathing for ever; currents +unnumbered circulate in every bough, quickened by some undiscovered +miracle; around me every fir-stem is distilling strange juices, which no +laboratory of man can make; and where my dull eye sees only death, the +eye of God sees boundless life and motion, health and use. + +Slowly I wander on beneath the warm roof of the winter-garden, and +meditate upon that one word—Life; and specially on all that Mr. Lewes has +written so well thereon—for instance— + + ‘We may consider Life itself as an ever-increasing identification + with Nature. The simple cell, from which the plant or animal arises, + must draw light and heat from the sun, nutriment from the surrounding + world, or else it will remain quiescent, not alive, though latent + with life; as the grains in the Egyptian tombs, which after lying + thousands of years in those sepulchres, are placed in the earth, and + smile forth as golden wheat. What we call growth, is it not a + perpetual absorption of Nature, the identification of the individual + with the universal? And may we not, in speculative moods, consider + Death as the grand impatience of the soul to free itself from the + circle of individual activity—the yearning of the creature to be + united with the Creator? + + ‘As with Life, so with knowledge, which is intellectual life. In the + early days of man’s history, Nature and her marvellous ongoings were + regarded with but a casual and careless eye, or else with the merest + wonder. It was late before profound and reverent study of her laws + could wean man from impatient speculations; and now, what is our + intellectual activity based on, except on the more thorough mental + absorption of Nature? When that absorption is completed, the mystic + drama will be sunny clear, and all Nature’s processes be visible to + man, as a Divine Effluence and Life.’ + +True: yet not all the truth. But who knows all the truth? + +Not I. ‘We see through a glass darkly,’ said St. Paul of old; and what +is more, dazzle and weary our eyes, like clumsy microscopists, by looking +too long and earnestly through the imperfect and by no means achromatic +lens. Enough. I will think of something else. I will think of nothing +at all— + +Stay. There was a sound at last; a light footfall. + +A hare races towards us through the ferns, her great bright eyes full of +terror, her ears aloft to catch some sound behind. She sees us, turns +short, and vanishes into the gloom. The mare pricks up her ears too, +listens, and looks: but not the way the hare has gone. There is +something more coming; I can trust the finer sense of the horse, to which +(and no wonder) the Middle Age attributed the power of seeing ghosts and +fairies impalpable to man’s gross eyes. Beside, that hare was not +travelling in search of food. She was not loping along, looking around +her right and left; but galloping steadily. She has been frightened; she +has been put up: but what has put her up? And there, far away among the +fir-stems, rings the shriek of a startled blackbird. What has put him +up? + +That, old mare, at sight whereof your wise eyes widen till they are ready +to burst, and your ears are first shot forward towards your nose, and +then laid back with vicious intent. Stand still, old woman! Do you +think still, after fifteen winters, that you can catch a fox? + +A fox it is indeed; a great dog-fox, as red as the fir-stems between +which he glides. And yet his legs are black with fresh peat-stains. He +is a hunted fox: but he has not been up long. + +The mare stands like a statue: but I can feel her trembling between my +knees. Positively he does not see us. He sits down in the middle of a +ride, turns his great ears right and left, and then scratches one of them +with his hind foot, seemingly to make it hear the better. Now he is up +again and on. + +Beneath yon firs, some hundred yards away, standeth, or rather lieth, for +it is on dead flat ground, the famous castle of Malepartus, which beheld +the base murder of Lampe the hare, and many a seely soul beside. I know +it well; a patch of sand-heaps, mingled with great holes, amid the +twining fir-roots; ancient home of the last of the wild beasts. And +thither, unto Malepartus safe and strong, trots Reinecke, where he hopes +to be snug among the labyrinthine windings, and innumerable +starting-holes, as the old apologue has it, of his ballium, covert-way, +and donjon keep. Full blown in self-satisfaction he trots, lifting his +toes delicately, and carrying his brush aloft, as full of cunning and +conceit as that world-famous ancestor of his, whose deeds of unchivalry +were the delight, if not the model, of knight and kaiser, lady and +burgher, in the Middle Age. + +Suddenly he halts at the great gate of Malepartus; examines it with his +nose; goes on to a postern; examines that also, and then another, and +another; while I perceive afar, projecting from every cave’s mouth, the +red and green end of a new fir-faggot. Ah, Reinecke! fallen is thy +conceit, and fallen thy tail therewith. Thou hast worse foes to deal +with than Bruin the bear, or Isegrim the wolf, or any foolish brute whom +thy great ancestor outwitted. Man the many-counselled has been +beforehand with thee; and the earths are stopped. + +One moment he sits down to meditate, and scratches those trusty +counsellors, his ears, as if he would tear them off, ‘revolving swift +thoughts in a crafty mind.’ + +He has settled it now. He is up and off—and at what a pace! Out of the +way, Fauns and Hamadryads, if any be left in the forest. What a pace! +And with what a grace beside! + +Oh Reinecke, beautiful thou art, of a surety, in spite of thy great +naughtiness. Art thou some fallen spirit, doomed to be hunted for thy +sins in this life, and in some future life rewarded for thy swiftness, +and grace, and cunning, by being made a very messenger of the immortals? +Who knows? Not I. + +I am rising fast to Pistol’s vein. Shall I ejaculate? Shall I notify? +Shall I waken the echoes? Shall I break the grand silence by that scream +which the vulgar view-halloo call? + +It is needless; for louder and louder every moment swells up a sound +which makes my heart leap into my mouth, and my mare into the air. + +Music? Well-beloved soul of Hullah, would that thou wert here this day, +and not in St. Martin’s Hall, to hear that chorus, as it pours round the +fir-stems, rings against the roof above, shatters up into a hundred +echoes, till the air is live with sound! You love madrigals, and +whatever Weekes, or Wilbye, or Orlando Gibbons sang of old. So do I. +Theirs is music fit for men: worthy of the age of heroes, of Drake and +Raleigh, Spenser and Shakspeare: but oh that you could hear this +madrigal! If you must have ‘four parts,’ then there they are. +Deeped-mouthed bass, rolling along the ground; rich joyful tenor; wild +wistful alto; and leaping up here and there above the throng of sounds, +delicate treble shrieks and trills of trembling joy. I know not whether +you can fit it into your laws of music, any more than you can the song of +that Ariel sprite who dwells in the Eolian harp, or the roar of the waves +on the rock, or + + ‘Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn, + And murmur of innumerable bees.’ + +But music it is. A madrigal? Rather a whole opera of Der +Freischutz—dæmoniac element and all—to judge by those red lips, fierce +eyes, wild, hungry voices; and such as should make Reinecke, had he +strong æsthetic sympathies, well content to be hunted from his cradle to +his grave, that such sweet sounds might by him enrich the air. Heroes of +old were glad to die, if but some ‘vates sacer’ would sing their fame in +worthy strains: and shalt not thou too be glad, Reinecke? Content +thyself with thy fate. Music soothes care; let it soothe thine, as thou +runnest for thy life; thou shalt have enough of it in the next hour. For +as the Etruscans (says Athenæus) were so luxurious that they used to flog +their slaves to the sound of the flute, so shall luxurious Chanter and +Challenger, Sweet-lips and Melody, eat thee to the sound of rich +organ-pipes, that so thou mayest, + + ‘Like that old fabled swan, in music die.’ + +And now appear, dim at first and distant, but brightening and nearing +fast, many a right good fellow and many a right good horse. I know three +out of four of them, their private histories, the private histories of +their horses: and could tell you many a good story of them: but shall +not, being an English gentleman, and not an American littérateur. They +may not all be very clever, or very learned, or very anything except +gallant men; but they are all good enough company for me, or anyone; and +each has his own specialité, for which I like him. That huntsman I have +known for fifteen years, and sat many an hour beside his father’s +death-bed. I am godfather to that whip’s child. I have seen the +servants of the hunt, as I have the hounds, grow up round me for two +generations, and I feel for them as old friends; and like to look into +their brave, honest, weather-beaten faces. That red coat there, I knew +him when he was a schoolboy; and now he is a captain in the Guards, and +won his Victoria Cross at Inkermann: that bright green coat is the best +farmer, as well as the hardest rider, for many a mile round; one who +plays, as he works, with all his might, and might have been a beau +sabreur and colonel of dragoons. So might that black coat, who now brews +good beer, and stands up for the poor at the Board of Guardians, and +rides, like the green coat, as well as he works. That other black coat +is a county banker; but he knows more of the fox than the fox knows of +himself, and where the hounds are, there will he be this day. That red +coat has hunted kangaroo in Australia: that one, as clever and good as he +is brave and simple, has stood by Napier’s side in many an Indian fight: +that one won his Victoria at Delhi, and was cut up at Lucknow, with more +than twenty wounds: that one has—but what matter to you who each man is? +Enough that each can tell one a good story, welcome one cheerfully, and +give one out here, in the wild forest, the wholesome feeling of being at +home among friends. + +There is music, again, if you will listen, in the soft tread of these +hundred horse-hoofs upon the spongy vegetable soil. They are trotting +now in ‘common time.’ You may hear the whole Croats’ March (the finest +trotting march in the world) played by those iron heels; the time, as it +does in the Croats’ March, breaking now and then, plunging, jingling, +struggling through heavy ground, bursting for a moment into a jubilant +canter as it reaches a sound spot. + +The hounds feather a moment round Malepartus, puzzled by the windings of +Reinecke’s footsteps. You can hear the flap and snort of the dogs’ +nostrils as they canter round; and one likes it. It is exciting: but +why—who can tell? + +What beautiful creatures they are, too! Next to a Greek statue (I mean a +real old Greek one; for I am a thoroughly anti-preraphaelite benighted +pagan heathen in taste, and intend some day to get up a Cinque-Cento +Club, for the total abolition of Gothic art)—next to a Greek statue, I +say, I know few such combinations of grace and strength as in a fine +foxhound. It is the beauty of the Theseus—light and yet massive; and +light not in spite of its masses, but on account of the perfect +disposition of them. I do not care for grace in man, woman, or animal, +which is obtained (as in the old German painters) at the expense of +honest flesh and blood. It may be all very pure, and unearthly, and +saintly, and what not; but it is not healthy; and, therefore, it is not +really High Art, let it call itself such as much as it likes. The +highest art must be that in which the outward is the most perfect symbol +of the muward; and, therefore, a healthy soul can be only exprest by a +healthy body; and starved limbs and a hydrocephalous forehead must be +either taken as incorrect symbols of spiritual excellence, or as—what +they were really meant for—symbols of certain spiritual diseases which +were in the Middle Age considered as ecclesiastical graces and virtues. +Wherefore I like pagan and naturalist art; consider Titian and Correggio +as unappreciated geniuses, whose excellences the world will in some saner +mood rediscover; hold, in direct opposition to Rio, that Rafaelle +improved steadily all his life through, and that his noblest works are +not his somewhat simpering Madonnas and somewhat impish Bambinos (very +lovely though they are), but his great, coarse, naturalist, Protestant +cartoons, which (with Andrea Mantegna’s Heathen Triumph) Cromwell saved +for the British nation. Probably no one will agree with all this for the +next quarter of a century: but after that I have hopes. The world will +grow tired of pretending to admire Manichæan pictures in an age of +natural science; and Art will let the dead bury their dead, and beginning +again where Michael Angelo and Rafaelle left off work forward into a +nobler, truer, freer, and more divine school than the world has yet +seen—at least, so I hope. + +And all this has grown out of those foxhounds. Why not? Theirs is the +sort of form which expresses to me what I want Art to express—Nature not +limited, but developed, by high civilization. The old savage ideal of +beauty was the lion, type of mere massive force. That was succeeded by +an over-civilized ideal, say the fawn, type of delicate grace. By +cunning breeding and choosing, through long centuries, man has combined +both, and has created the foxhound, lion and fawn in one; just as he +might create noble human beings; did he take half as much trouble about +politics (in the true old sense of the word) as he does about fowls. +Look at that old hound, who stands doubtful, looking up at his master for +advice. Look at the severity, delicacy, lightness of every curve. His +head is finer than a deer’s; his hind legs tense as steel springs; his +fore-legs straight as arrows: and yet see the depth of chest, the sweep +of loin, the breadth of paw, the mass of arm and thigh; and if you have +an eye for form, look at the absolute majesty of his attitude at this +moment. Majesty is the only word for it. If he were six feet high, +instead of twenty-three inches, with what animal on earth could you +compare him? Is it not a joy to see such a thing alive? It is to me, at +least. I should like to have one in my study all day long, as I would +have a statue or a picture; and when Mr. Morrell gave (as they say) two +hundred guineas for Hercules alone, I believe the dog was well worth the +money, only to look at. But I am a minute philosopher. + +I cap them on to the spot at which Reinecke disappeared. Old Virginal’s +stern flourishes; instantly her pace quickens. One whimper, and she is +away full-mouthed through the wood, and the pack after her: but not I. + +I am not going with them. My hunting days are over. Let it suffice that +I have, in the days of my vanity, ‘drank delight of battle with my peers, +far on the ringing plains’ of many a county, grass and forest, down and +vale. No, my gallant friends. You know that I could ride, if I chose; +and I am vain enough to be glad that you know it. But useless are your +coaxings, solicitations, wavings of honest right hands. ‘Life,’ as my +friend Tom Brown says, ‘is not all beer and skittles;’ it is past two +now, and I have four old women to read to at three, and an old man to +bury at four; and I think, on the whole, that you will respect me the +more for going home and doing my duty. That I should like to see this +fox fairly killed, or even fairly lost, I deny not. That I should like +it as much as I can like any earthly and outward thing, I deny not. But +sugar to one’s bread and butter is not good; and if my winter-garden +represent the bread and butter, then will fox-hunting stand to it in the +relation of superfluous and unwholesome sugar: so farewell; and long may +your noble sport prosper—‘the image of war with only half its danger,’ to +train you and your sons after, into gallant soldiers—full of + + ‘The reason firm, the temperate will, + Endurance, foresight, strength and skill.’ + +So homeward I go through a labyrinth of fir-stems and, what is worse, +fir-stumps, which need both my eyes and my horse’s at every moment; and +woe to the ‘anchorite,’ as old Bunbury names him, who carries his nose in +the air, and his fore feet well under him. Woe to the self-willed or +hard-hided horse who cannot take the slightest hint of the heel, and +wince hind legs or fore out of the way of those jagged points which lie +in wait for him. Woe, in fact, to all who are clumsy or cowardly, or in +anywise not ‘masters of the situation.’ + +Pleasant riding it is, though, if you dare look anywhere but over your +horse’s nose, under the dark roof between the red fir-pillars, in that +rich subdued light. Now I plunge into a gloomy dell, wherein is no +tinkling rivulet, ever pure; but instead a bog, hewn out into a +chess-board of squares, parted by deep narrow ditches some twenty feet +apart. Blundering among the stems I go, fetlock-deep in peat, and +jumping at every third stride one of the said uncanny gripes, half hidden +in long hassock grass. Oh _Aira cæspitosa_, most stately and most +variable of British grasses, why will you always grow where you are not +wanted? Through you the mare all but left her hind legs in that last +gripe. Through you a red-coat ahead of me, avoiding one of your +hassocks, jumped with his horse’s nose full butt against a fir-stem, and +stopped, + + ‘As one that is struck dead + By lightning, ere he falls,’ + +as we shall soon, in spite of the mare’s cleverness. Would we were out +of this! + +Out of it we shall be soon. I see daylight ahead at last, bright between +the dark stems. Up a steep slope, and over a bank which is not very big, +but being composed of loose gravel and peat mould, gives down with me, +nearly sending me head over heels in the heather, and leaving me a sheer +gap to scramble through, and out on the open moor. + +Grand old moor! stretching your brown flats right away toward Windsor for +many a mile.—Far to our right is the new Wellington College, looking +stately enough here all alone in the wilderness, in spite of its two ugly +towers and pinched waist. Close over me is the long fir-fringed ride of +Easthampstead, ending suddenly in Cæsar’s camp; and hounds and huntsmen +are already far ahead, and racing up the Roman road, which the clods of +these parts, unable to give a better account of it, call the Devil’s +Highway. + +Racing indeed; for as Reinecke gallops up the narrow heather-fringed +pathway, he brushes off his scent upon the twigs at every stride; and the +hounds race after him, showing no head indeed, and keeping, for +convenience, in one long line upon the track: but going heads up, sterns +down, at a pace which no horse can follow.—I only hope they may not +overrun the scent. + +They have overrun it; halt, and put their heads down a moment. But with +one swift cast in fall gallop they have hit it off again, fifty yards +away in the heather, long ere the horsemen are up to them; for those +hounds can hunt a fox because they are not hunted themselves, and so have +learnt to trust themselves, and act for themselves; as boys should learn +at school, even at the risk of a mistake or two. Now they are showing +head indeed, down a half-cleared valley, and over a few ineffectual +turnips withering in the peat, a patch of growing civilization in the +heart of the wilderness; and then over the brook, while I turn slowly +away, through a green wilderness of self-sown firs. + +There they stand in thousands, the sturdy Scots, colonizing the desert in +spite of frost, and gales, and barrenness; and clustering together, too, +as Scotsmen always do abroad, little and big, every one under his +neighbour’s lee, according to the good old proverb of their native land, +‘Caw me, and I’ll caw thee.’ + +I respect them, those Scotch firs. I delight in their forms, from James +the First’s gnarled giants up in Bramshill Park—the only place in England +where a painter can learn what Scotch firs are—down to the little green +pyramids which stand up out of the heather, triumphant over tyranny, and +the strange woes of an untoward youth. Seven years on an average have +most of them spent in ineffectual efforts to become a foot high. Nibbled +off by hares, trodden down by cattle, cut down by turf-parers, seeing +hundreds of their brethren cut up and carried off in the turf-fuel, they +are as gnarled and stubbed near the ground as an old thorn-bush in a +pasture. But they have conquered at last, and are growing away, eighteen +inches a year, with fair green brushes silvertipt, reclothing the +wilderness with a vegetation which it has not seen for—how many thousand +years? + +No man can tell. For when last the Scotch fir was indigenous to England, +and, mixed with the larch, stretched in one vast forest from Norfolk into +Wales, England was not as it is now. Snowdon was, it may be, fifteen +thousand feet in height, and from the edges of its glaciers the marmot +and the musk ox, the elk and the bear, wandered down into the Lowlands, +and the hyena and the lion dwelt in those caves where fox and badger only +now abide. And how did the Scotch fir die out? Did the whole land sink +slowly from its sub-Alpine elevation into a warmer climate below? Or was +it never raised at all? Did some change of the Atlantic sea-floor turn +for the first time the warm Gulf Stream to these shores; and with its +soft sea-breezes melt away the ‘Age of Ice,’ till glaciers and pines, +marmots and musk oxen, perspired to death, and vanished for an æon? Who +knows? Not I. But of the fact there can be no doubt. Whether, as we +hold traditionally here, the Scotch fir was re-introduced by James the +First when he built Bramshill for Raleigh’s hapless pet, Henry the +Prince, or whatever may have been the date of their re-introduction, here +they are, and no one can turn them out. In countless thousands the +winged seeds float down the south-west gales from the older trees; and +every seed which falls takes root in ground which, however unable to bear +broad-leaved trees, is ready by long rest for the seeds of the +needle-leaved ones. Thousands perish yearly; but the eastward march of +the whole, up hill and down dale, is sure and steady as that of Lynceus’ +Goths in Goethe’s Helena:— + + ‘Ein lang und breites Volkegewicht, + Der erate wusste vom letzen nicht. + + Der erste fiel, der zweite stand, + Des dritten Lanze war zur Hand, + Ein jeder hundertfach gestärkt; + Erschlagene Tausend unbemerkt— + +—till, as you stand upon some eminence, you see, stretching to the +eastward of each tract of older trees, a long cloud of younger ones, like +a green comet’s tail—I wish their substance was as yielding this day. +Truly beautiful—grand indeed to me it is—to see young live Nature thus +carrying on a great savage process in the heart of this old and seemingly +all-artificial English land; and reproducing here, as surely as in the +Australian bush, a native forest, careless of mankind. Still, I wish it +were easier to ride through. Stiff are those Scotchmen, and close and +stout they stand by each other, and claw at you as you twist through +them, the biggest aiming at your head, or even worse, at your knees; +while the middle-sized slip their brushes between your thigh and the +saddle, and the little babies tickle your horse’s stomach, or twine about +his fore-feet. Whish—whish; we are enveloped in what seems an atmosphere +of scrubbing-brushes. Fain would I shut my eyes: but dare not, or I +shall ride against a tree. Whish—whish; alas for the horse which cannot +wind and turn like a hare! Plunge—stagger. What is this? A broad line +of ruts; perhaps some Celtic track-way, two thousand years old, now +matted over with firs; dangerous enough out on the open moor, when only +masked by a line of higher and darker heath: but doubly dangerous now +when masked by dark undergrowth. You must find your own way here, mare. +I will positively have nothing to do with it. I disclaim all +responsibility. There are the reins on your neck; do what you will, only +do something—and if you can, get forward, and not back. + +There is daylight at last, and fresh air. I trot contemptuously through +the advanced skirmishers of the Scotch invading army; and watch my +friends some mile and a half off, who have threaded a practicable +track-way through a long dreary yellow bog, too wet for firs to root in, +and are away in ‘a streamer.’ Now a streamer is produced in this wise. +There is but one possible gap in a bank, one possible ford in a brook; +one possible path in a cover; and as each man has to wait till the man +before him gets through, and them gallops on, each man loses twenty yards +or more on the man before him: wherefore, by all laws of known +arithmetic, if ten men tail through a gap, then will the last of the ten +find himself two hundred yards behind the foremost, which process several +times repeated, produces the phenomenon called a streamer, viz. twenty +men galloping absurdly as hard as they can, in a line half a mile long, +and in humours which are celestial in the few foremost, contented in the +central, and gradually becoming darker in the hindmost; till in the last +man they assume a hue altogether Tartarean. Farewell, brave gentlemen! +I watch, half sadly, half self-contented, the red coats scattered like +sparks of fire over hill and dale, and turn slowly homeward, to visit my +old women. + +I pass through a gateway, out upon a village green, planted with rows of +oaks, surrounded by trim sunny cottages, a pleasant oasis in the middle +of the wilderness. Across the village cricket-ground—we are great +cricketers in these parts, and long may the good old game live among us; +and then up another hollow lane, which leads between damp shaughs and +copses toward the further moor. + +Curious things to a minute philosopher are these same hollow lanes. They +set him on archæological questions, more than he can solve; and I +meditate as I go, how many centuries it took to saw through the warm +sandbanks this dyke ten feet deep, up which he trots, with the oak boughs +meeting over his head. Was it ever worth men’s while to dig out the +soil? Surely not. The old method must have been, to remove the softer +upper spit, till they got to tolerably hard ground; and then, Macadam’s +metal being as yet unknown, the rains and the wheels of generations sawed +it gradually deeper and deeper, till this road-ditch was formed. But it +must have taken centuries to do it. Many of these hollow lanes, +especially those on flat ground, must be as old or older than the +Conquest. In Devonshire I am sure that they are. But there many of +them, one suspects, were made not of malice, but of cowardice prepense. +Your indigenous Celt was, one fears, a sneaking animal, and liked to keep +when he could under cover of banks and hill-sides; while your bold Roman +made his raised roads straight over hill and dale, as ‘ridge-ways’ from +which, as from an eagle’s eyrie, he could survey the conquered lowlands +far and wide. It marks strongly the difference between the two races, +that difference between the Roman paved road with its established common +way for all passengers, its regular stations and milestones, and the +Celtic track-way winding irresolutely along in innumerable ruts, parting +to meet again, as if each savage (for they were little better) had taken +his own fresh path when he found the next line of ruts too heavy for his +cattle. Around the spurs of Dartmoor I have seen many ancient roads, +some of them long disused, which could have been hollowed out for no +other purpose but that of concealment. + +So I go slowly up the hill, till the valley lies beneath me like a long +green garden between its two banks of brown moor; and on through a +cheerful little green, with red brick cottages scattered all round, each +with its large neat garden, and beehives, and pigs and geese, and +turf-stack, and clipt yews and hollies before the door, and rosy +dark-eyed children, and all the simple healthy comforts of a wild +‘heth-cropper’s’ home. When he can, the good man of the house works at +farm labour, or cuts his own turf; and when work is scarce, he cuts +copses and makes heath-brooms, and does a little poaching. True, he +seldom goes to church, save to be christened, married, or buried: but he +equally seldom gets drunk. For church and public stand together two +miles off; so that social wants sometimes bring their own compensations +with them, and there are two sides to every question. + +Hark! A faint, dreary hollo off the moor above. And then another, and +another. My friends may trust it; for the clod of these parts delights +in the chase like any bare-legged Paddy, and casts away flail and fork +wildly, to run, shout, assist, and interfere in all possible ways, out of +pure love. The descendant of many generations of broom-squires and +deer-stealers, the instinct of sport is strong within him still, though +no more of the king’s deer are to be shot in the winter turnip-fields, or +worse, caught by an apple-baited hook hung from an orchard bough. He now +limits his aspirations to hares and pheasants, and too probably once in +his life, ‘hits the keeper into the river,’ and reconsiders himself for a +while after over a crank in Winchester gaol. Well, he has his faults; +and I have mine. But he is a thorough good fellow nevertheless; quite as +good as I: civil, contented, industrious, and often very handsome; and a +far shrewder fellow too—owing to his dash of wild forest blood, from +gipsy, highwayman; and what not—than his bullet-headed and flaxen-polled +cousin, the pure South-Saxon of the Chalk-downs. Dark-haired he is, +ruddy, and tall of bone; swaggering in his youth; but when he grows old, +a thorough gentleman, reserved, stately, and courteous as a prince. +Sixteen years have I lived with him hail fellow well met, and never yet +had a rude word or action from him. + +With him I have cast in my lot, to live and die, and be buried by his +side; and to him I go home contented, to look after his petty interests, +cares, sorrows—Petty, truly—seeing that they include the whole primal +mysteries of life—Food, raiment, and work to earn them withal; love and +marriage, birth and death, right doing and wrong doing, ‘Schicksal und +eigene Schuld;’ and all those commonplaces of humanity which in the eyes +of a minute philosopher are most divine, because they are most +commonplace—catholic as the sunshine and the rain which come down from +the Heavenly Father, alike upon the evil and the good. As for doing fine +things, my friend, with you, I have learnt to believe that I am not set +to do fine things, simply because I am not able to do them; and as for +seeing fine things, with you, I have learnt to see the sight—as well as +to try to do the duty—which lies nearest me; and to comfort myself with +the fancy that if I make good use of my eyes and brain in this life, I +shall see—if it be of any use to me—all the fine things, or perhaps finer +still, in the life to come. But if not—what matter? In any life, in any +state, however simple or humble, there will be always sufficient to +occupy a Minute Philosopher; and if a man be busy, and busy about his +duty, what more does he require, for time or for eternity? + + + + +V. +_FROM OCEAN TO SEA_. + + +THE point from which to start, in order best to appreciate the change +from ocean to sea, is perhaps Biarritz. The point at which to stop is +Cette. And the change is important. Between the two points races are +changed, climates are changed, scenery is changed, the very plants under +your feet are changed, from a Western to an Eastern type. You pass from +the wild Atlantic into the heart of the Roman Empire—from the influences +which formed the discoverers of the New World, to those which formed the +civilizers of the Old. Gascony, not only in its scenery, but in its very +legends, reminds you of Devon and Cornwall; Languedoc of Greece and +Palestine. + +In the sea, as was to be expected, the change is even more complete. +From Biarritz to Cette, you pass from poor Edward Forbes’s Atlantic to +his Mediterranean centre of creation. In plain English and fact, whether +you agree with his theory or not, you pass from the region of respectable +whales, herrings, and salmon, to that of tunnies, sciænas, dorados, and +all the gorgons, hydras, and chimæras dire, which are said to grace the +fish-markets of Barcelona or Marseilles. + +But to this assertion, as to most concerning nature, there are +exceptions. Mediterranean fishes slip out of the Straits of Gibraltar, +and up the coast of Portugal, and, once in the Bay of Biscay, find the +feeding good and the wind against them, and stay there. + +So it befalls, that at worthy M. Gardère’s hotel at Biarritz (he has seen +service in England, and knows our English ways), you may have at dinner, +day after day, salmon, louvine, shad, sardine, dorado, tunny. The first +is unknown to the Mediterranean; for Fluellen mistook when he said that +there were salmons in Macedon, as well as Monmouth; the louvine is none +other than the nasty bass, or sea-perch of the Atlantic; the shad +(extinct in these islands, save in the Severn) is a gigantic herring +which comes up rivers to spawn; a fish common (with slight differences) +to both sides of the North Atlantic; while the sardine, the dorado, and +the tunny (whether he be the true tunny or the Alalonga) are +Mediterranean fish. + +The whale fishery of these shores is long extinct. The Biscayan whale +was supposed to be extinct likewise. But like the ibex, and some other +animals which man has ceased to hunt, because he fancies that he has +killed them all, they seem inclined to reappear. For in 1854 one was +washed ashore near St. Jean de Luz, at news whereof Eschricht, the great +Danish naturalist, travelled night and day from Copenhagen, and secured +the skeleton of the new-old monster. + +But during the latter part of the Middle Ages, and on—if I recollect +aright—into the seventeenth century, Bayonne, Biarritz, Guettary, and St. +Jean de Luz, sent forth their hardy whale-fishers, who slew all the +whales of the Biscayan seas, and then crossed the Atlantic, to attack +those of the frozen North. + +British and American enterprise drove them from the West coast of the +Atlantic; and now their descendants are content to stay at home and take +the sardine-shoals, and send them in to Bayonne on their daughters’ +heads. + +Pretty enough it was, at least in outward seeming, to meet a party of +those fisher-girls, bare-legged, high-kilted, lithe as deer, trotting, at +a long loping pace, up the high road toward Bayonne, each with her basket +on her head, as she laughed and sang, and tossed her black hair, and +flashed her brown eyes, full of life and the enjoyment of life. Pretty +enough. And yet who will blame the rail, which now sends her quickly +into Bayonne—or even her fish without her; and relieves the fair young +maiden from being degraded into a beast of burden? + +Handsome folk are these brown Basques. A mysterious people, who dwell +alone, and are not counted among the nations; speaking an unique +language, and keeping up unique customs, for which the curious must +consult M. Michel’s interesting book. There may be a cross of English +blood among them, too, about Biarritz and Bayonne; English features there +are, plainly to be seen. And whether or not, one accepts the story of +the country, that Anglets, near by, is an old English colony left by our +Black Prince, it is certain that Bayonne Cathedral was built in part by +English architects, and carries the royal arms of England; and every +school history will tell us how this corner of France was long in our +hands, and was indeed English long before it was properly French. +Moorish blood there may be, too, here and there, left behind by those who +built the little ‘atalaya’ or fire-beacon, over the old harbour, to +correspond, by its smoke column, with a long line of similar beacons down +the Spanish coast. The Basques resemble in look the Southern +Welsh—quick-eyed, neat in feature, neat in dress, often, both men and +women, beautiful. The men wear a flat Scotch cap of some bright colour, +and call it ‘berretta.’ The women tie a gaudy handkerchief round their +heads, and compel one corner to stand forward from behind the ear in a +triangle, in proportion to the size and stiffness whereof the lady seems +to think herself well dressed. But the pretty Basque handkerchief will +soon give place to the Parisian bonnet. For every cove among the rocks +is now filled with smart bathing-houses, from which, in summer, the gay +folk of Paris issue in ‘costume de bain,’ to float about all day on +calabashes—having literally no room for the soles of their feet on land. +Then are opened casinos, theatre, shops, which lie closed all the winter. +Then do the Basque house-owners flee into the moors, and camp out (it is +said) on the hills all night, letting their rooms for ten francs a night +as mere bed-chambers—for all eating and living is performed in public; +while the dove-coloured oxen, with brown holland pinafores over their +backs, who dawdle in pairs up and down the long street with their light +carts, have to make way for wondrous equipages from the Bois de Boulogne. + +Not then, for the wise man, is Biarritz a place to see and to love: but +in the winter, when a little knot of quiet pleasant English hold the +place against all comers, and wander, undisturbed by fashion, about the +quaint little rocks and caves and natural bridges—and watch tumbling into +the sea, before the Biscayan surges, the trim walks and summer-houses, +which were erected by the municipality in honour of the Empress and her +suite. Yearly they tumble in, and yearly are renewed, as the soft +greensand strata are graven away, and what must have been once a long +promontory becomes a group of fantastic pierced rocks, exactly like those +which are immortalized upon the willow-pattern plates. + +Owing to this rapid destruction, the rocks of Biarritz are very barren in +sea-beasts and sea-weeds. But there is one remarkable exception, where +the pools worn in a hard limestone are filled with what seem at first +sight beds of china-asters, of all loveliest colours—primrose, sea-green, +dove, purple, crimson, pink, ash-grey. They are all prickly sea-eggs +(presumably the _Echinus lividus_, which is found in similar places in +the west of Ireland), each buried for life in a cup-shaped hole which he +has excavated in the rock, and shut in by an overhanging lip of living +lime—seemingly a Nullipore coralline. What they do there, what they +think of, or what food is brought into their curious grinding-mills by +the Atlantic surges which thunder over them twice a day, who can tell? +However they form, without doubt, the most beautiful object which I have +ever seen in pool or cove. + +But the glory of Biarritz, after all, is the moors above, and the view to +be seen therefrom. Under blazing blue skies, tempered by soft dappled +cloud, for ever sliding from the Atlantic and the Asturias mountains, in +a climate soft as milk, and exhilarating withal as wine, one sees far and +wide a panorama which, from its variety as well as its beauty, can never +weary. + +To the north, the long sand-line of the Biscayan shore—the bar of the +Adour marked by a cloud of grey spray. Then the dark pine-flats of the +Landes, and the towers of Bayonne rising through rich woods. To the +eastward lies a high country, furred with woods, broken with glens; a +country exactly like Devon, through the heart of which, hidden in such a +gorge as that of Dart or Taw, runs the swift stream of the Nive, draining +the western Pyrenees. And beyond, to the south-east, in early spring, +the Pyrenean snows gleam bright, white clouds above the clouds. As one +turns southward, the mountains break down into brown heather-hills, like +Scottish grouse moors. The two nearest, and seemingly highest, are the +famous Rhune and Bayonette, where lie, to this day, amid the heath and +crags, hundreds of unburied bones. For those great hills, skilfully +fortified by Soult before the passage of the Bidassoa, were stormed, yard +by yard, by Wellington’s army in October 1813. That mighty deed must be +read in the pages of one who saw it with his own eyes, and fought there +with his own noble body, and even nobler spirit. It is not for me to +tell of victories, of which Sir William Napier has already told. + +Towards that hill, and the Nivelle at its foot, the land slopes down, +still wooded and broken, bounded by a long sweep of clayey crumbling +cliff. The eye catches the fort of Secoa, at the mouth of the +Nivelle—once Wellington’s sea-base for his great French campaign. Then +Fontarabia, at the Bidassoa mouth; and far off, the cove within which +lies the fatal citadel of St. Sebastian; all backed up by the fantastic +mountains of Spain; the four-horned “Quatre Couronnes,” the pyramidal +Jaysquivel, and beyond them again, sloping headlong into the sea, peak +after peak, each one more blue and tender than the one before, leading +the eye on and on for seemingly countless leagues, till they die away +into the ocean horizon and the boundless west. Not a sail, often for +days together, passes between those mountains and the shore on which we +stand, to break the solitude, and peace, and vast expanse; and we linger, +looking and looking at we know not what, and find repose in gazing +purposeless into the utter void. + +Very unlike France are these Basque uplands; very like the seaward parts +of Devon and Cornwall. Large oak-copses and boggy meadows fill the +glens; while above, the small fields, with their five-barred gates +(relics of the English occupation) and high furze and heath-grown banks, +make you fancy yourself for a moment in England. And the illusion is +strengthened, as you see that the heath of the banks is the Goonhilly +heath of the Lizard Point, and that of the bogs the orange-belled _Erica +ciliaris_, which lingers (though rare) both in Cornwall and in the south +of Ireland. But another glance undeceives you. The wild flowers are +new, saving those cosmopolitan seeds (like nettles and poppies) which the +Romans have carried all over Europe, and the British are now carrying +over the world. Every sandy bank near the sea is covered with the +creeping stems of a huge reed, which grows in summer tall enough to make +not only high fences, but fishing-rods. Poverty (though there is none of +what we call poverty in Britain) fills the little walled court before its +cottage with bay trees and standard figs; while wealth (though there is +nothing here of what we call wealth in Britain) asserts itself uniformly +by great standard magnolias, and rich trailing roses, in full bloom here +in April instead of—as with us—in July. Both on bank and in bog grow +Scorzoneras (dandelions with sword-shaped leaves) of which there are none +in these isles; and every common is ablaze with strange and lovely +flowers. Each dry spot is brilliant with the azure flowers of a +prostrate Lithospermum, so exquisite a plant, that it is a marvel why we +do not see it, as ‘spring-bedding,’ in every British garden. The heath +is almost hidden, in places, by the large white flowers and trailing +stems of the sage-leaved Cistus. Delicate purple Ixias, and yet more +delicate Hoop-petticoat Narcissus, spring from the turf. And here and +there among furze and heath, crop out great pink bunches of the _Daphne +Cneorum_ of our gardens, perfuming all the air. Yes, we are indeed in +foreign parts, in the very home of that Atlantic flora, of which only a +few species have reached the south-west of these isles; and on the limit +of another flora also—of that of Italy and Greece. For as we descend +into the glen, every lane-bank and low tree is entwined, not with ivy, +but with a still more beautiful evergreen, the Smilax of South-eastern +Europe, with its zigzag stems, and curving heart-shaped leaves, and +hooked thorns; the very oak-scrub is of species unknown to Britain. And +what are these tall lilies, which fill every glade breast-high with their +sword-like leaves, and spires of white flowers, lilac-pencilled? They +are the classic flower, the Asphodel of Greece and Grecian song; the +Asphodel through which the ghosts of Homer’s heroes strode: as heroes’ +ghosts might stride even here. + +For here we are on sacred ground. The vegetation is rank with the blood +of gallant invaders, and of no less gallant patriots. In the words of +Campbell’s ‘Hohenlinden’— + + ‘Every turf beneath our feet + May be a hero’s sepulchre.’ + +That little tarn below has ‘bubbled with crimson foam’ when the kings of +Europe arose to bring home the Bourbons, as did the Lake Regillus of old, +in the day when ‘the Thirty Cities swore to bring the Tarquins home.’ + +Turn to the left, above the tarn, and into the great Spanish road from +Bayonne to the frontier at what was lately ‘La Negresse,’ but is now a +gay railway station. Where that station is, was another tarn, now +drained. The road ran between the two. And that narrow space of two +hundred yards, on which we stand, was for three fearful days the gate of +France. + +For on the 10th of December, 1813, Soult, driven into Bayonne by +Wellington’s advance, rushed out again in the early morn, and poured a +torrent of living men down this road, and upwards again towards the +British army which crested that long ridge in front. + +The ridge slopes rapidly away at the back, toward the lowlands of the +Bidassoa; and once thrust from it, the English army would have been cut +in two—one half driven back upon their sea-base at St. Jean de Luz: the +other half left on the further side of the Adour. + +And this was the gate, which had to be defended during a three days’ +battle. That long copse which overhangs the road is the famous wood, +which was taken and retaken many times. You house above it, embowered in +trees, is the ‘Mayor’s house,’ in which Sir John Hope was so nearly +captured by the French. Somewhere behind the lane where we came down was +the battery which blasted off our troops as they ran up from the lowlands +behind, to support their fellows. + +Of the details of the fight you must read in Napier’s ‘Peninsular War,’ +and in Mr. Gleig’s ‘Subaltern.’ They are not to be described by one who +never saw a battle, great or small. + +And now, if you choose to start upon your journey from the ocean to the +sea, you will take the railroad here, and run five miles through the +battle-fields into Bayonne, the quaint old fortress city, girdled with a +labyrinth of walls, and turf-dykes, and outside them meadows as rich, and +trees as stately, as if war had never swept across the land. You may +stop, if you will, to look at the tall Spanish houses, with their piazzas +and jalousies, and the motley populace, French, Basques, Spaniards, Jews; +and, most worth seeing of all, the lovely ladies of Bayonne, who swarm +out when the sun goes down, for air and military music. You may try to +find (in which you will probably fail) the arms of England in the roof of +the ugly old cathedral; you may wander the bridges over which join the +three quarters of the city (for the Adour and the Nive meet within the +walls), and probably lose your way—a slight matter among folk who, if you +will but take off your hat, call them Monsieur, apologize for the trouble +you are giving, begin the laugh at your own stupidity, and compliment +them on their city and their fair ladies, will be delighted to walk a +mile out of their own way to show you yours. You will gaze up at the +rock-rooted citadel from whence, in the small hours of April 14, 1813, +after peace was agreed on, but unhappily not declared (for Napier has +fully exculpated the French Generals), three thousand of Thouvenot’s men +burst forth against Sir John Hope’s unsuspecting besiegers, with a +furious valour which cost the English more than 800 men. + +There, in the pine woods on the opposite side, is the Boucault, where our +besieging army lay. Across the reach below stretched Sir John Hope’s +famous bridge; and as you leave Bayonne by rail, you run beneath the +English cemetery, where lie the soldiers (officers of the Coldstream +Guards among them) who fell in the Frenchman’s last struggle to defend +his native land. + +But enough of this. I should not have recalled to mind one of these +battles, had they not, one and all, been as glorious for the French and +their great captain—wearied with long marches, disheartened by the apathy +of their own countrymen, and, as they went on, overpowered by mere +numbers—as they were for our veterans, and Wellington himself. + +And now, once through Bayonne, we are in the Pignadas and the Landes. + +To form a conception of these famous Landes, it is only necessary to run +down by the South-Western Railway, through the moors of Woking or Ascot; +spread them out flat, and multiply them to seeming infinity. The same +sea of brown heather, broken only by the same dark pignadas, or fir +plantations, extends for nigh a hundred miles; and when the traveller +northward has lost sight, first of the Spanish mountains, and then of the +Pyrenean snows, he seems to be rushing along a brown ocean, without wave +or shore. Only, instead of the three heaths of Surrey and Hants (the +same species as those of Scotland), larger and richer southern heaths +cover the grey sands; and notably the delicate upright spires of the +bruyère, or _Erica scoparia_, which grows full six feet high, and +furnishes from its roots those ‘bruyère’ pipes, which British shopkeepers +have rechristened ‘briar-roots.’ Instead, again, of the Scotch firs of +Ascot, the pines are all pinasters (miscalled _P. maritima_). Each has +the same bent stem, carrying at top, long, ragged, scanty, leaf-tufts, +instead of the straight stem and dense short foliage of the sturdier +Scotchman; and down each stem runs a long, fresh scar, and at the bottom +(in spring at least), hangs a lip of tin, and a neat earthen pipkin, into +which distils turpentine as clear as glass. The trees have mostly been +planted within the last fifty years, to keep the drifting sands from +being blown away. As timber they are about as valuable as those Jersey +cow-cabbage stalks, of which the curious will at times make +walking-sticks: but as producers of turpentine they have their use, and +give employment to the sad, stunted, ill-fed folk, unhealthy for want of +water, and barbarous from utter loneliness, whose only employment, in old +times, was the keeping ragged flocks about the moors. Few and far +between the natives may be seen from the railway, seemingly hung high in +air, till on nearer approach you find them to be stalking along on +stilts, or standing knitting on the same, a sheepskin over their +shoulders, an umbrella strapped to their side, and, stuck into the small +of the back, a long crutch, which serves, when resting, as a third wooden +leg. + +So run on the Landes, mile after mile, station after station, varied only +by an occasional stunted cork tree, or a starved field of barley or +maize. But the railroad is bringing to them, as elsewhere, labour, +civilization, agricultural improvement. Pretty villages, orchards, +gardens, are springing up round the lonely ‘gares.’ The late Emperor +helped forward, it is said, new pine plantations, and sundry schemes for +reclaiming the waste. Arcachon, on a pine-fringed lagoon of the +Atlantic, has great artificial ponds for oyster breeding, and is rising +into a gay watering-place, with a distinguished scientific society. Nay, +more: it saw a few years since an international exposition of fish, and +fish-culture, and fishing-tackle, and all things connected with the +fisheries, not only of Europe, but of America likewise. Heaven speed the +plan; and restore thereby oysters to our shores, and shad and salmon to +the rivers both of Western Europe and Eastern North America. + +As for the cause of the Landes, it may be easily divined, by the help of +a map and of common sense. + +The Gironde and the Adour carry to the sea the drainage of nearly a third +of France, including almost all the rain which falls on the north side of +the Pyrenees. What has become of all the sand and mud which has been +swept in the course of ages down their channels? What has become—a very +small part, be it recollected, of the whole amount—of all the rock which +has been removed by rain and thunder, frost and snow, in the process of +scooping out the deep valleys of the Pyrenees? Out of that one crack, +which men call the Val d’Ossau, stone has been swept enough to form a +considerable island. Where is it all? In these Landes. Carried down +year by year to the Atlantic, it has been driven back again, year by +year, by the fierce gales of the Bay of Biscay, and rolled up into banks +and dunes of loose sand, till it has filled up what was once a broad +estuary, 140 miles across and perhaps 70 miles in depth. Upheaved it may +have been also, slowly, from the sea, for recent sea-shells are found as +far inland as Dax; and thus the whole upper end of the Bay of Biscay has +transformed itself during the lapse of, it may be, countless ages, into a +desolate wilderness. + +It is at Dax that we leave the main line, and instead of running north +for Bordeaux and the land of clarets, turn south-east to Orthez and Pau, +and the Gaves, and the Pyrenees. + +And now we pass through ragged uplands, woody and moorish, with the long +yellow maize-stalks of last year’s crop rotting in the swampy glens. For +the ‘petite culture,’ whatever be its advantages, gives no capital or +power of combined action for draining wet lands; and the valleys of +Gascony and Bearn in the south, as well as great sheets of the Pas de +Calais in the north, are in a waterlogged state, equally shocking to the +eye of a British farmer, and injurious to the health and to the crops of +the peasants. + +Soon we strike the Adour, here of the shape and size of a second-class +Scotch salmon-stream, with swirling brown pools beneath grey crags, which +make one long to try in them the virtues of ‘Jock Scott,’ ‘the Butcher,’ +or the ‘Dusty Miller.’ And perhaps not without effect; for salmon are +there still; and will be more and more as French ‘pisciculture’ develops +itself under Government supervision. + +Here we touch again the line of that masterly retreat of Soult’s before +the superior forces of Wellington, to which Napier has done such ample +and deserved justice. + +There is Berenz, where the Sixth and Light divisions crossed the Gave, +and clambered into the high road up steep ravines; and there is Orthez +itself, with the beautiful old Gothic bridge which the French could not +blow up, as they did every other bridge on their retreat; and the ruins +of that robber den to which Gaston Phœbus, Count of Foix (of whom you may +read in Froissart), used to drag his victims; and there overhead, upon +the left of the rail and road, is the old Roman camp, and the hill of +Orthez, and St. Boes, and the High Church of Baights, the scene of the +terrible battle of Orthez. + +The Roman camp, then ‘open and grassy, with a few trees,’ says Napier, is +now covered with vineyards. Everywhere the fatal slopes are rich with +cultivation, plenty, and peace. God grant they may remain so for ever. + +And so, along the Gave de Pau, we run on to Pau, the ancient capital of +Bearn; the birthplace of Henri Quatre, and of Bernadotte, King of Sweden; +where, in the charming old château, restored by Louis Philippe, those who +list may see the tortoise which served as the great Henry’s cradle; and +believe, if they list also, the tale that that is the real shell. + +For in 1793, when the knights of the ‘bonnet rouge’ and ‘carmagnole +complete’ burst into the castle, to destroy every memorial of hated +royalty, the shell among the rest, there chanced—miraculous +coincidence—to be in Pau, in the collection of a naturalist, another +shell, of the same shape and size. Swiftly and deftly pious hands +substituted it for the real relic, leaving it to be battered in pieces +and trampled in the mud, while the royal cradle lay perdu for years in +the roof of a house, to reappear duly at the Restoration of the Bourbons. + +Of Pau I shall say nothing. It would be real impertinence in one who +only spent three days in it, to describe a city which is known to all +Europe; which is a permanent English colony, and boasts of one, and +sometimes two, packs of English foxhounds. But this I may be allowed to +say. That of all delectable spots I have yet seen, Pau is the most +delectable. Of all the landscapes which I have beheld, that from the +Place Royale is, for variety, richness, and grandeur, the most glorious; +at least as I saw it for the first time. + +Beneath the wall of the high terrace are rich meadows, vocal with frogs +rejoicing in the rain, and expressing their joy, not in the sober +monotone of our English frogs, but each according to his kind; one +bellowing, the next barking, the next cawing, and the next (probably the +little green Hylas, who has come down out of the trees to breed) quacking +in treble like a tiny drake. The bark (I suspect) is that of the +gorgeous edible frog; and so suspect the young recruits who lounge upon +the wall, and look down wistfully, longing, I presume, to eat him. And +quite right they are; for he (at least his thigh) is exceeding good to +eat, tenderer and sweeter than any spring chicken. + +Beyond the meadow, among the poplars, the broad Gave murmurs on over +shingly shallows, between aspen-fringed islets, grey with the melting +snows; and beyond her again rise broken wooded hills, dotted with +handsome houses; and beyond them a veil of mist and rain. + +On a sudden that veil lifts; and five-and-twenty miles away, beneath the +black edge of the cloud, against the clear blue sky, stands out the whole +snow-range of the Pyrenees; and in the midst, exactly opposite, filling +up a vast gap which is the Val d’Ossau, the huge cone, still snowy white, +of the Pic du Midi. + +He who is conversant with theatres will be unable to overlook the seeming +art—and even artifice—of such an effect. The clouds lift like a +drop-scene; the mountains are so utterly unlike any natural object in the +north, that for the moment one fancies them painted and not real; the Pic +du Midi stands so exactly where it ought, and is yet so fantastic and +unexpected in its shape, that an artist seems to have put it there. + +But lie who knows nothing, and cares less, about theatres and their sham +glories, and sees for the first time in his life the eternal snows of +which he has read since childhood, draws his breath deeply, and stands +astounded, whispering to himself that God is great. + +One hint more, ere we pass on from Pau. Here, at least in spring time, +of all places in Europe, may a man feed his ears with song of birds. The +copses by the Gave, the public walks and woods (wherein English +prejudices have happily protected what is elsewhere shot down as game, +even to the poor little cock-robins whose corpses lie by dozens in too +many French markets), are filled with all our English birds of passage, +finding their way northwards from Morocco and Algiers; and with our +English nightingales, black-caps, willow-wrens, and whitethroats, are +other songsters which never find their way to these isles, for which you +must consult the pages of Mr. Gould or Mr. Bree—and chief among them the +dark Orpheus, and the yellow Hippolais, surpassing the black-cap, and +almost equalling the nightingale, for richness and variety of song—the +polyglot warbler which penetrates, in summer, as far north as the shores +of the British Channel, and there stops short, scared by the twenty miles +of sea, after a land journey—and by night, too, as all the warblers +journey—from Africa. + +At Pau, the railroad ended when I was there; and who would go eastward +had to take carriage, and go by the excellent road (all public roads in +the south of France are excellent, and equal to our best English roads) +over the high Landes to Tarbes; and on again over fresh Landes to +Montrejeau; and thence by railway to Toulouse. + +They are very dreary, these high flat uplands, from which innumerable +streams pour down to swell the Adour and the Garonne; and as one rolls +along, listening to the eternal tinkle of the horse-bells, only two +roadside objects are particularly worthy of notice. First, the +cultivation, spreading rapidly since the Revolution, over what was open +moor; and next the great natural parks which one traverses here and +there; the remnants of those forests which were once sacred to the +seigneurs and their field sports. The seigneurs are gone now, and the +game with them; and the forests are almost gone—so ruinate, indeed, by +the peasantry, that the Government (I believe) has interfered to stop a +destruction of timber, which involves the destruction both of fire-wood +and of the annual fall of rain. But the trees which remain, whether in +forest or in homestead, are sadly mangled. The winters are sharp in +these high uplands, and firing scarce; and the country method of +obtaining it is to send a woman up a tree, where she hacks off, with +feeble arms and feeble tools, boughs halfway out from the stem, +disfiguring, and in time destroying by letting the wet enter, splendid +southern oaks, chestnuts, and walnuts. Painful and hideous, to an eye +accustomed to British parks, are the forms of these once noble trees. + +Suddenly we descend a brow into the Yale of Tarbes: a good land and +large; a labyrinth of clear streams, water-meadows, cherry-orchards, and +crops of every kind, and in the midst the pleasant old city, with its +once famous University. Of Tarbes, you may read in the pages of +Froissart—or, if you prefer a later authority, in those of Dumas, ‘Trois +Mousquetaires;’ for this is the native land of the immortal Ulysses of +Gascony, the Chevalier d’Artagnan. + +There you may see, to your surprise, not only gentlemen, but ladies, +taking their pleasure on horseback after the English fashion; for there +is close by a great ‘haras,’ or Government establishment for +horse-breeding. You may watch the quaint dresses in the marketplace; you +may rest, as Froissart rested of old, in a ‘right pleasant inn;’ you may +eat of the delicious cookery which is to be found, even in remote towns, +throughout the south of France, and even—if you dare—of ‘Coquilles aux +Champignons.’ You may sit out after dinner in that delicious climate, +listening to the rush of the clear Adour through streets, and yards, and +culverts; for the city, like Romsey, or Salisbury, is built over many +streams. You may watch the Pyrenees changing from white to rose, from +rose to lead colour, and then dying away into the night—for twilight +there is little or none, here in the far south. + + ‘The sun’s rim dips, the stars rush out, + At one stride comes the dark.’ + +And soon from street to street you hear the ‘clarion’ of the garrison, +that singularly wild and sweet trumpet-call which sends French soldiers +to their beds. And at that the whole populace swarms out, rich and poor, +and listens entranced beneath the trees in the Place Maubourguet, as if +they had never heard it before; with an order and a sobriety, and a good +humour, and a bowing to each other, and asking and giving of cigar-lights +between men of every class—and a little quiet modest love-making on the +outskirts of the crowd, which is very pleasant to behold. And when the +music is silent, and the people go off suddenly, silently, and soberly +withal (for there are no drunkards in these parts), to their early beds, +you stand and look up into the ‘purple night,’ as Homer calls it—that +southern sky, intensely dark, and yet transparent withal, through which +you seem to look beyond the stars into the infinite itself, and recollect +that beyond all that, and through all that likewise, there is an infinite +good God who cares for all these simple kindly folk; and that by Him all +their hearts are as well known, and all their infirmities as mercifully +weighed, as are, you trust, your own. + +And so you go to rest, content to say, with the wise American, ‘It takes +all sorts to make a world.’ + +The next morn you rise, to roll on over yet more weary uplands to +Montrejeau, over long miles of sandy heath, a magnified Aldershott, which +during certain summer months is gay, here and there, like Aldershott, +with the tents of an army at play. But in spring the desolation is +utter, and the loneliest grouse-moor, and the boggiest burn, are more +cheerful and varied than the Landes of Lannemezan, and the foul +streamlets which have sawn gorges through the sandy waste. + +But all the while, on your right hand, league after league, ever fading +into blue sky behind you, and growing afresh out of blue sky in front, +hangs high in air the white saw of the Pyrenees. High, I say, in air, +for the land slopes, or seems to slope, down from you to the mountain +range, and all their roots are lost in a dim sea of purple haze. But +shut out the snow line above, and you will find that the seeming haze is +none, but really a clear and richly varied distance of hills, and woods, +and towns, which have become invisible from the contrast of their greens, +and greys, and purples, with the glare and dazzle of the spotless snows +of spring. + +There they stand, one straight continuous jagged wall, of which no one +point seems higher than another. From the Pic d’Ossau, by the Mont Perdu +and the Maladetta to the Pic de Lart, are peaks past counting—hard clear +white against the hard clear blue, and blazing with keen light beneath +the high southern sun. Each peak carries its little pet cushion of +cloud, hanging motionless a few hundred yards above in the blue sky, a +row of them as far as eye can see. But, ever and anon, as afternoon +draws on, one of those little clouds, seeming tired of waiting at its +post ever since sunrise, loses its temper, boils, swells, settles down on +its own private peak, and explodes in a fierce thunderstorm down its own +private valley, without discomposing in the least its neighbour +cloud-cushions right and left. Faintly the roll of the thunder reaches +the ear. Across some great blackness of cloud and cliff, a tiny spark +darts down. A long wisp of mist sweeps rapidly toward you across the +lowlands, and a momentary brush of cold rain lays the dust. And then the +pageant is played out, and the disturbed peak is left clear again in the +blue sky for the rest of the day, to gather another cloud-cushion when +to-morrow’s sun shall rise. + +To him who looks, day after day, on this astonishing natural wall, +stretching, without visible gap, for nearly three hundred miles, it is +easy to see why France not only is, but must be, a different world from +Spain. Even human thought cannot, to any useful extent, fly over that +great wall of homeless rock and snow. On the other side there must needs +be another folk, with another tongue, other manners, other polities, and +if not another creed, yet surely with other, and utterly different, +conceptions of the universe, and of man’s business therein. Railroads +may do somewhat. But what of one railroad; or even of two, one on the +ocean, one on the sea, two hundred and seventy miles apart? Before +French civilization can inform and elevate the Spanish people you must +‘plane down the Pyrenees.’ + +At Montrejeau, a pretty town upon a hill which overhangs the Garonne, you +find, again, verdure and a railroad; and, turning your back upon the +Pyrenees, run down the rich ugly vale of the Garonne, through crops of +exceeding richness—wheat, which is reaped in July, to be followed by +buckwheat reaped in October; then by green crops to be cut in May, and +that again by maize, to be pulled in October, and followed by wheat and +the same rotation. + +Thus you reach Toulouse, a noble city, of which it ill befits a +passer-through to speak. Volumes have been written on its antiquities, +and volumes on its history; and all of either that my readers need know, +they will find in Murray’s hand-book. + +At Toulouse—or rather on leaving it to go eastward—you become aware that +you have passed into a fresh region. The change has been, of course, +gradual: but it has been concealed from you by passing over the chilly +dreary uplands of Lannemezan. Now you find yourself at once in +Languedoc. You have passed from the Atlantic region into the +Mediterranean; from the old highlands of the wild Vascones, into those +lowlands of Gallia Narbonensis, reaching from the head-waters of the +Garonne to the mouths of the Rhone, which were said to be more Italian +than Italy itself. + +The peculiarity of the district is its gorgeous colouring. Everywhere, +over rich plains, you look away to low craggy banks of limestone, the +grey whereof contrasts strongly with the green of the lowland, and with +the even richer green of the mulberry orchards; and beyond them again, +southward to the now distant snows of the Pyrenees, and northward to the +orange downs and purple glens of the Cevennes, all blazing in the blazing +sun. Green, grey, orange, purple, and, in the farthest distance, blue as +of the heaven itself, make the land one vast rainbow, and fit +dwelling-place for its sunny folk, still happy and industrious—once the +most cultivated and luxurious people in Europe. + +As for their industry, it is hereditary. These lands were, it may be, as +richly and carefully tilled in the days of Augustus Cæsar as they are +now; or rather, as they were at the end of the eighteenth century. For, +since then, the delver and sower—for centuries the slave of the Roman, +and, for centuries after, the slave of Teutonic or Saracenic +conquerors—has become his own master, and his own landlord; and an +impulse has been given to industry, which is shown by trim cottages, gay +gardens, and fresh olive orchards, pushed up into glens which in a state +of nature would starve a goat. + +The special culture of the country—more and more special as we run +eastward—is that of the mulberry, the almond, and the olive. Along every +hill-side, down every glen, lie orchard-rows of the precious pollards. +The mulberries are of richest dark velvet green; the almonds, one glory +of rose-colour in early spring, are now of a paler and colder green; the +olives (as all the world knows) of a dusty grey, which looks all the more +desolate in the pruning time of early spring, when half the boughs of the +evergreen are cut out, leaving the trees stripped as by a tempest, and +are carried home for fire-wood in the quaint little carts, with their +solid creaking wheels, drawn by dove-coloured kine. Very ancient are +some of these olives, or rather, olive-groups. For when the tree grows +old, it splits, and falls asunder, as do often our pollard willows; the +bark heals over on the inside of each fragment, and what was one tree +becomes many, springing from a single root, and bearing such signs of +exceeding age that one can well believe the country tale, how in the +olive grounds around Nismes are still fruiting olives which have +furnished oil for the fair Roman dames who cooled themselves in the +sacred fountain of Nemausa, in the days of the twelve Cæsars. + +Between the pollard rows are everywhere the rows of vines, or of what +will be vines when summer comes, but are now black knobbed and gnarled +clubs, without a sign of life save here and there one fat green shoot of +leaf and tendril bursting forth from the seemingly dead stick. + +One who sees that sight may find a new meaning and beauty in the mystic +words, ‘I am the vine, ye are the branches.’ It is not merely the +connection between branch and stem, common to all trees; not merely the +exhilarating and seemingly inspiring properties of the grape, which made +the very heathens look upon it as the sacred and miraculous fruit, the +special gift of God; not merely the pruning out of the unfruitful +branches, to be burned as fire-wood, or—after the old Roman fashion, +which I believe endures still in these parts—buried as manure at the foot +of the parent stem; not merely these, but the seeming death of the vine, +shorn of all its beauty, its fruitfulness, of every branch and twig which +it had borne the year before, and left unsightly and seemingly ruined, to +its winter’s sleep; and then bursting forth again, by an irresistible +inward life, into fresh branches spreading and trailing far and wide, and +tossing their golden tendrils to the sun. + +This thought, surely—the emblem of the living Church springing from the +corpse of the dead Christ, who yet should rise and be alive for +evermore—enters into, it may be forms an integral part of, the meaning +of, that prophecy of all prophecies. + +One ought to look, with something of filial reverence, on the agriculture +of the district into which we are penetrating; for it is the parent of +our own. From hence, or strictly speaking from the Mediterranean shore +beyond us, spread northward and westward through France, Belgium, and +Britain, all the tillage which we knew—at least till a hundred years +ago—beyond the primæval plan of clearing, or surface-burning, the +forests, growing miserable white crops as long as they would yield, and +then letting the land relapse, for twenty years, into miserable pasture. +This process (which lingered thirty years ago in remote parts of Devon), +and nothing better, seems to have been that change of cultivated lands +which Tacitus ascribes to the ancient Germans. Rotation of crops, in any +true sense, came to us from Provence and Languedoc; and with it, +subsoiling; irrigation; all our artificial grasses, with lucerne at the +head of the list; our peas and beans; some of our most important roots; +almost all our garden flowers, vegetables, fruits, the fig, the mulberry, +the vine—(the olive and the maize came with them from the East, but dared +go no further north)—and I know not what more; till we may say, +that—saving subsoil-draining, which their climate does not need—the +ancestors of these good folks were better farmers fifteen hundred years +ago, than too many of our countrymen are at this day. + +So they toil, and thrive, and bless God, under the glorious sun; and as +for rain—they have not had rain for these two months—(I speak of April, +1864)—and, though the white limestone dust is ankle deep on every road, +say that they want none for two months more, thanks, it is to be +presumed, to their deep tillage, which puts the plant-roots out of the +reach of drought. In spring they feed their silkworms, and wind their +silk. In summer they reap their crops, and hang the maize-heads from +their rafters for their own winter food, while they sell the wheat to the +poor creatures, objects of their pity, who live in towns, and are forced +to eat white bread. From spring to autumn they have fruit, and to spare, +for themselves and for their customers; and with the autumn comes the +vintage, and all its classic revelries. A happy folk—under a happy +clime; which yet has its drawbacks, like all climes on earth. Terrible +thunderstorms sweep over it, hail-laden, killing, battering, drowning, +destroying in an hour the labours of the year; and there are ugly mistral +winds likewise, of which it may be fairly said, that he who can face an +eight days’ mistral, without finding his life a burden, must be either a +very valiant man, or have neither liver nor mucous membrane. + +For on a sudden, after still and burning weather, the thermometer +suddenly falls from thirty to forty degrees; and out of the north-west +rushes a chilly hurricane, blowing fiercer and fiercer each day toward +nightfall, and lulling in the small hours, only to burst forth again at +sunrise. Parched are all lips and eyes; for the air is full of dust, +yea, even of gravel which cuts like hail. Aching are all right-sides; +for the sudden chill brings on all manner of liver complaints and +indigestions. All who can afford it, draw tight the jalousies, and sulk +in darkness; the leaves are parched, as by an Atlantic gale; the air is +filled with lurid haze, as in an English north-east wind; and no man can +breathe freely, or eat his bread with joy, until the plague is past. + +What is the cause of these mistrals; why all the cold air of Central +France should be suddenly seized with madness, and rush into the sea +between the Alps and the Pyrenees; whether the great heat of the sun, +acting on the Mediterranean basin, raises up thence—as from the Gulf of +Mexico—columns of warm light air, whose place has to be supplied by +colder and heavier air from inland; whether the north-west mistral is, or +is not, a diverted north-easter; an arctic current which, in its right +road toward the tropics across the centre of France, has been called to +the eastward of the Pyrenees (instead of, as usual, to the westward), by +the sudden demand for cold air,—all this let men of science decide; and +having discovered what causes the mistral, discover also what will +prevent it. That would be indeed a triumph of science, and a boon to +tortured humanity. + +But after all, man is a worse enemy to man than any of the brute forces +of nature: and a more terrible scourge than mistral or tempest swept over +this land six hundred years ago, when it was, perhaps, the happiest and +the most civilized portion of Europe. This was the scene of the +Albigense Crusade: a tragedy of which the true history will never, +perhaps, be written. It was not merely a persecution of real or supposed +heretics; it was a national war, embittered by the ancient jealousies of +race, between the Frank aristocracy of the north and the Gothic +aristocracy of the south, who had perhaps acquired, with their +half-Roman, half-Saracen civilization, mixtures both of Roman and of +Saracen blood. As “Aquitanians,” “Provençaux,”—Roman Provincials, as +they proudly called themselves, speaking the Langue d’Oc, and looking +down on the northerners who spoke the Langue d’Oil as barbarians, they +were in those days guilty of the capital crime of being foreigners; and +as foreigners they were exterminated. What their religious tenets were, +we shall never know. With the Vaudois, Waldenses, “poor men of Lyons,” +they must not be for a moment confounded. Their creed remains to us only +in the calumnies of their enemies. The confessions in the archives of +the Tolosan Inquisition, as elicited either under torture or fear of +torture, deserve no confidence whatsoever. And as for the licentiousness +of their poetry—which has been alleged as proof of their profligacy—I can +only say, that it is no more licentious than the _fabliaux_ of their +French conquerors, while it is far more delicate and refined. Humanity, +at least, has done justice to the Troubadours of the south; and +confessed, even in the Middle Age, that to them the races of the north +owed grace of expression, delicacy of sentiment, and that respect for +women which soon was named chivalry; which looks on woman, not with +suspicion and contempt, but with trust and adoration; and is not ashamed +to obey her as “mistress,” instead of treating her as a slave. + +But these Albigenses must have had something in their hearts for which it +was worth while to die. At Aviguonet, that little grey town on the crag +above the railway, they burst into the place, maddened by the cruelties +of the Inquisitor (an archdeacon, if I recollect rightly, from Toulouse), +and slew him then and there. They were shut up in the town, and +withstood heroically a long and miserable siege. At last they were +starved out. The conquerors offered them their lives—so say the French +stories—if they would recant. But they would not. They were thrust +together into one of those stone-walled enclosures below the town, heaped +over with vine-twigs and maize-stalks, and burned alive; and among them a +young lady of the highest rank, who had passed through all the horrors of +the siege, and was offered life, wealth, and honour, if she would turn. + +Surely profligate infidels do not so die; and these poor souls, whatever +were their sins or their confusions, must be numbered among the heroes of +the human race. + +But the world has mended since then, and so has the French character. +Even before the Revolution of 1793, it was softening fast. The massacres +of 1562 were not as horrible as those of the Albigense Crusade, though +committed—which the former were not—under severe provocation. The +massacres of 1793—in spite of all that has been said—were far less +horrible than those of 1562, though they were the outpouring of centuries +of pardonable fury and indignation. The crimes of the Terreur Blanche, +at the Restoration—though ugly things were done in the south, especially +in Nismes—were far less horrible again; though they were, for the most +part, acts of direct personal retaliation on the republicans of 1793. +And since then the French heart has softened fast. The irritating sense +of hereditary wrong has passed away. The Frenchman conceives that +justice is done to him, according to his own notions thereof. He has his +share of the soil, without which no Celtic populace will ever be content. +He has fair play in the battle of life; and a ‘Carrière ouverte aux +talens.’ He has equal law and justice between man and man. And he is +content; and under the sunshine of contentment and self-respect, his +native good-nature expands; and he shows himself what he is, not merely a +valiant and capable, but an honest, kindly, charitable man. + +Yes. France has grown better, and has been growing better, I believe, +for centuries past. And the difference between the France of the middle +age and the France of the present day, is fitly typified by the +difference between the new Carcassone below and the old Carcassone above, +where every traveller, even if he be no antiquarian, should stop and gaze +about a while. + +The contrast is complete; and one for which a man who loves his +fellow-men should surely return devout thanks to Almighty God. Below, on +the west bank of the river, is the new town, spreading and growing, +unwalled, for its fortifications are now replaced by boulevards and +avenues; full of handsome houses; squares where, beneath the plane-tree +shade, marble fountains pour out perpetual health and coolness; +manufactories of gay woollens; healthy, cheerful, market folk; +comfortable burghers; industry and peace. We pass outside to the great +basin of the Canal de Languedoc, and get more avenues of stately trees, +and among them the red marble statue of Riquet, whose genius planned and +carried out the mighty canal which joins the ocean to the sea; the wonder +of its day, which proved the French to be, at least in the eighteenth +century, the master-engineers of the world; the only people who still +inherited the mechanical skill and daring of their Roman civilizers. +Riquet bore the labour of that canal—and the calumny and obstructiveness, +too, which tried to prevent its formation; France bore the expense; Louis +Quatorze, of course, the glory; and no one, it is to be feared, the +profit: for the navigation of the Garonne at the one extremity, and of +the Mediterranean shallows at the other, were left unimproved till of +late years, and the canal has become practically useful only just in time +to be superseded by the railroads. + +Now cross the Aude. Look down upon the willow and aspen copses, where +over the heads of busy washerwomen, the nightingale and the hippolais +crowded together away from the dusty plains and downs, shake the copses +with their song; and then toil upward to the grey fortress tower on the +grey limestone knoll; and pass, out of nature and her pure sunshine, into +the black shadow of the unnatural Middle Age; into the region of dirt and +darkness, cruelty and fear; grim fortresses, crowded houses, narrow +streets, and pestilence. Pass through the outer circle of walls, of the +latter part of the thirteenth century, to examine—for their architecture +is a whole history engraved in stones—the ancient walls of the inner +enceinte; massive Roman below, patched with striped Visigothic work, with +mean and hasty Moorish, with graceful, though heavy, Romanesque of the +times of the Troubadours; a whole museum of ancient fortifications, which +has been restored, stone by stone, through the learning of M. Viollet le +Duc and the public spirit of the late Emperor. Pass in under the gateway +and give yourself up to legends. There grins down on you the broad image +of the mythic Dame Carcas, who defended the town single-handed against +Charlemagne, till this tower fell down by miracle, and let in the +Christian host. But do not believe that she gave to the place its name +of Carcassone; for the first syllable of the word is hint enough that it +was, long ere her days, a Celtic caer, or hill-fortress. Pause at the +inner gate; you need not exactly believe that when the English Crusader, +Simon de Montfort, burst it open, and behold, the town within was empty +and desolate, he cried: ‘Did I not tell you that those heretics were +devils; and behold, being devils, they have vanished into air.’ You must +believe, I fear, that of the great multitude who had been crowded, +starving, and fever-stricken within, he found four hundred poor wretches +who had lingered behind, and burnt them all alive. You need not believe +that that is the mouth of the underground passage which runs all the way +from the distant hills, through which the Vicomte de Beziers, after +telling Simon de Montfort and the Abbot of Citeaux that he would sooner +be flayed alive than betray the poor folk who had taken refuge with him, +got them all safe away, men, women, and children. You need not believe +that that great vaulted chamber was the ‘Chamber of the Inquisition.’ +But you must believe that those two ugly rings let into the roof were put +there for the torture of the cord; and that many a naked wretch has +dangled from them ere now, confessing anything and everything that he—or, +alas she—was bidden. But these and their like are the usual furniture of +every mediæval court of justice; and torture was not altogether abolished +in France till the latter part of the eighteenth century. You need not +believe, again, that that circular tower on the opposite side of the town +was really the ‘Tower of the Inquisition;’ for many a feudal lord, +besides the Inquisitors, had their dens of cruelty in those old times. +You need not even believe—though it is too likely to be true—that that +great fireplace in the little first-floor room served for the torture of +the scarpines. But you must believe that in that little round den +beneath it, only approached by a trap in the floor, two skeletons were +found fastened by those chains to that central pillar, having died and +rotted forgotten in that horrid oubliette—how many centuries ago? + +‘Plusieurs ont gemis là bas,’ said M. Viollet le Duc’s foreman of the +works, as he led us out of that evil hole, to look, with eyes and hearts +refreshed by the change, at a curious Visigothic tower, in which the good +bishop Sidonius Apollinaris may have told of the last Burgundian invasion +of his Auvergne to the good king Theodoric of the West Goths. + +If anyone wishes to learn what the Middle Ages were like, let him go to +Carcassone and see. + +And now onward to Narbonne—or rather, to what was once Narbonne; one of +the earliest colonies ever founded by the Romans; then the capital of the +Visigothic kingdom; then of an Arab kingdom: now a dull fortified town—of +a filth unspeakable, and not to be forgotten or forgiven. Stay not +therein an hour, lest you take fever, or worse: but come out of the gate +over the drawbridge, and stroll down the canal. Look back a moment, +though, across the ditch. The whole face of the wall is a museum of +Roman gods, tombs, inscriptions, bas-reliefs: the wreck of Martial’s +‘Pulcherrima Narbo,’ the old Roman city, which was demolished by Louis +XIII., to build the ugly fortifications of the then new fashion, now +antiquated and useless. Take one glance, and walk on, to look at live +Nature—far more interesting than dead Art. + +Everything fattens in the close damp air of the canal. The great flat, +with its heavy crops, puts you in mind of the richest English +lowland—save for the total want of old meadows. The weeds on the bank +are English in type, only larger and richer—as becomes the climate. But +as you look among them, you see forms utterly new and strange, whose +kinship you cannot fancy, but which remind you that you are nearing +Italy, and Greece, and Africa. And in the hedges are great bay-trees; +and inside them, orchards of standard fig and white mulberry, with its +long yearling shoots of glorious green—soon to be stripped bare for the +silkworms; and here and there long lines of cypresses, black against the +bright green plain and bright blue sky. No; you are not in Britain. +Certainly not; for there is a drake (not a duck) quacking with feeble +treble in that cypress, six feet over your head; and in Britain drakes do +not live in trees. You look for the climbing palmipede, and see nothing: +nor will you see; for the quacker is a tiny green tree-frog, who holds on +by the suckers at the ends of his toes (with which he can climb a pane of +glass, like a fly), and has learnt the squirrel’s art of going invisible, +without ‘the receipt of fern-seed,’ by simply keeping always on the +further side of the branch. + +But come back; for the air even here is suggestive of cholera and fever. +The uncleanliness of these Narbonnois is shameless and shocking; and +‘immondices’ of every kind lie festering in the rainless heat. The +sickened botanist retreats, and buys a bottle of Eau Bully—_alias_ +aromatic vinegar. + + * * * * * + +There, crowding yon hill, with handsome houses and churches, is +Beziers—the blood-stained city. Beneath the pavement of that church, it +is said, lie heaped together the remains of thousands of men, women, and +children, slaughtered around their own altars, on that fatal day, when +the Legate Amalric, asked by the knights how they should tell Catholics +from heretics, cried, “Kill them all—the Lord will know his own.” + +We will pass on. We have had enough of horrors. And, beside, we are +longing to hurry onward; for we are nearing the Mediterranean now. There +are small skiffs lying under the dark tower of Agde, another place of +blood, fitly built of black lava blocks, the offspring of the nether pit. +The railway cuts through rolling banks of dark lava; and now, ahead of +us, is the conical lava-hill of Cette, and the mouth of the Canal du +Midi. + + * * * * * + +There it is, at last. The long line of heavenly blue; and over it, far +away, the white-peaked lateen sails, which we have seen in pictures since +our childhood; and there, close to the rail, beyond the sand-hills, +delicate wavelets are breaking for ever on a yellow beach, each in +exactly the same place as the one which fell before. One glance shows us +children of the Atlantic, that we are on a tideless sea. + +There it is,—the sacred sea. The sea of all civilization, and almost all +history, girdled by the fairest countries in the world; set there that +human beings from all its shores might mingle with each other, and become +humane—the sea of Egypt, of Palestine, of Greece, of Italy, of Byzant, of +Marseilles, and this Narbonnaise, ‘more Roman than Rome herself,’ to +which we owe the greater part of our own progress; the sea, too, Algeria +and Carthage, and Cyrene, and fair lands now desolate, surely not to be +desolate for ever;—the sea of civilization. Not only to the Christian, +nor to the classic scholar, but to every man to whom the progress of his +race from barbarism toward humanity is dear, should the Mediterranean Sea +be one of the most august and precious objects on this globe; and the +first sight of it should inspire reverence and delight, as of coming +home—home to a rich inheritance in which he has long believed by hearsay, +but which he sees at last with his own mortal corporal eyes. + +Exceedingly beautiful is that first view of the sea from Cette, though +altogether different in character from the views of the Mediterranean +which are common in every gallery of pictures. There is nothing to +remind one of Claude, or Vernet, or Stanfield. No mountain-ranges far +aloft, no cliffs toppling into the water, with convents and bastides +perched on their crags; and seaports, with their land-locked harbours, +and quaint lighthouses, nestling on the brink. That scenery begins on +the other side of the Rhone mouth, and continues, I believe, almost +without interruption, to the shores of Southern Palestine, one girdle of +perpetual beauty. + +But here, the rail runs along a narrow strip of sand, covered with +straggling vines, and tall white iris, between the sea and the great +Etang de Thau, a long narrow salt-lake, beyond which the wide lowlands of +the Herault slide gently down, There is not a mountain, hardly a hill, +visible for miles: but all around is the great sheet of blue glassy +water: while the air is as glassy clear as the water, and through it, at +seemingly immense distances, the land shows purple and orange, blue and +grey, till the landscape is one great rainbow. White ships slide to and +from far-off towns; fishermen lounge on the marshes, drying long lines of +net. Everywhere is vastness, freedom, repose gentle and yet not +melancholy; because with all, under the burning blue, there is that fresh +wholesome heat, which in itself is life, and youth, and joy. + +Beyond, nearer the mouths of the Rhone, there are, so men say, desolate +marshes, tenanted by herds of half-wild horses; foul mud-banks, haunted +by the pelican and the flamingo, and waders from the African shore; a +region half land, half water, where dwell savage folk, decimated by fever +and ague. But short of those Bouches du Rhône, the railway turns to the +north, toward Montpellier and + + ‘Arli, dove il Rhodano stagna.’ + +And at Cette ends this little tour from Ocean to Sea, with the wish that +he who next travels that way may have as glorious weather, and as +agreeable a companion, as the writer of these lines had in 1864. + + + + +VI. +_NORTH DEVON_. {225a} + + +I.—EXMOOR. + + +WE were riding up from Lynmouth, on a pair of ragged ponies, Claude +Mellot and I, along the gorge of Watersmeet. And as we went we talked of +many things; and especially of some sporting book which we had found at +the Lyndale Hotel the night before, and which we had not by any means +admired. {225b} I do not object to sporting books in general, least of +all to one on Exmoor. No place in England is more worthy of one. There +is no place whose beauties and peculiarities are more likely to be thrown +into strong relief by being looked at with a sportsman’s eye. It is so +with all forests and moorlands. The spirit of Robin Hood and Johnny of +Breadislee is theirs. They are remnants of the home of man’s fierce +youth, still consecrated to the genius of animal excitement and savage +freedom; after all, not the most ignoble qualities of human nature. +Besides, there is no better method of giving a living picture of a whole +country than by taking some one feature of it as a guide, and bringing +all other observations into harmony with that original key. Even in +merely scientific books this is very possible. Look, for instance, at +Hugh Miller’s ‘Old Red Sandstone,’ ‘The Voyage of the Beagle,’ and +Professor Forbes’s work (we had almost said epic poem) on ‘Glaciers.’ +Even an agricultural writer, if he have a real insight in him—if he have +anything of that secret of the _più nel’ uno_, ‘the power of discovering +the infinite in the finite;’ of seeing, like a poet, trivial phenomena in +their true relation to the whole of the great universe into which they +are so cunningly fitted; if he has learned to look at all things and men, +down to the meanest, as living lessons written with the finger of God; +if, in short, he has any true dramatic power: then he may impart to that +apparently muddiest of sciences a poetic or a humorous tone, and give the +lie to Mephistopheles when he dissuades Faust from farming as an +occupation too mean and filthy for a man of genius. The poetry of +agriculture remains as yet, no doubt, unwritten, and the comedy of it +also; though its farce-tragedy has been too often extensively enacted in +practice—unconsciously to the players. As for the old ‘pastoral’ school, +it only flourished before agriculture really existed—that is, before +sound science, hard labour, and economy were necessary—and has been for +the last two hundred years simply a dream. Nevertheless, as signs of +what may be done even now by a genial man with so stubborn a subject as +‘turnips, barley, clover, wheat,’ it is worth while to look at old Arthur +Young’s books, both travels and treatises; and also at certain very +spirited ‘Chronicles of a Clay Farm,’ by Talpa, which teem with humour +and wisdom. + +In sporting literature—a tenth muse, exclusively indigenous to +England—the same observation holds good tenfold. Some of our most +perfect topographical sketches have been the work of sportsmen. Old +Izaak Walton, and his friend Cotton, of Dovedale, whose names will last +as long as their rivers, have been followed by a long train of worthy +pupils. White’s ‘History of Selborne;’ Sir Humphry Davy’s ‘Salmonia;’ +‘The Wild Sports of the West;’ Mr. St. John’s charming little works on +Highland Shooting; and, above all, Christopher North’s +‘Recreations’—delightful book! to be read and re-read, the tenth time +even as the first—an inexhaustible fairy well, springing out of the +granite rock of the sturdy Scotch heart, through the tender green turf of +a genial boyish old age. Sporting books, when they are not filled—as +they need never be—with low slang, and ugly sketches of ugly +characters—who hang on to the skirts of the sporting world, as they would +to the skirts of any other world, in default of the sporting one—form an +integral and significant, and, it may be, an honourable and useful part, +of the English literature of this day; and, therefore, all shallowness, +vulgarity, stupidity, or bookmaking in that class, must be as severely +attacked as in novels and poems. We English owe too much to our field +sports to allow people to talk nonsense about them. + +Claude smiled at some such words of mine that day. ‘You talk often of +the poetry of sport. I can see nothing in it but animal excitement, and +a certain quantity, I suppose, of that animal cunning which the Red +Indian possesses in common with the wolf and the cat, and any other beast +of prey. As a fact, the majority of sportsmen are of the most unpoetical +type of manhood.’ + +‘More unpoetical than the average man of business, or man of law, Claude? +Or even than the average preacher? I believe, on the contrary, that for +most of them it is sport which at once keeps alive and satisfies what you +would call their æsthetic faculties, and so—smile if you will—helps to +make them purer, simpler, more genial men.’ + +‘Little enough of æsthetic appears either in their conversation or their +writing.’ + +‘Esau is a dumb soul, especially here in England; but he has as deep a +heart in him as Jacob, nevertheless, and as tender. Do you fancy that +the gentleman over whose book we were grumbling last night, attached no +more to his own simple words than you do? His account of a stag’s run +looks bald enough to you: but to him (unless Diana struck him blind for +intruding on her privacy) what a whole poem of memories there must be in +those few words,—“Turned down * * Water for a mile, and crossed the +forest to Watersmeet, where he was run into after a gallant race.”’ + +‘A whole poem?’ + +‘Why not? How can there be less, if he had eyes to see?’ + +‘Does he fancy that it is an account of a run to tell us that “Found at * +* * * cover, held away at a slapping pace for * * * * Barn, then turned +down the * * * Water for a mile, and crossed the Forest; made for * * * +Hill, but being headed, went by ** ** woods to D * * * where he was run +into after a gallant race of * * * * hours and * * * *miles”? It is +nearly as dull as a history book!’ + +‘Nay, I never rode with those staghounds: and yet I can fill up his +outline for him, wherever the stag was roused. Do you think that he +never marked how the panting cavalcade rose and fell on the huge +mile-long waves of that vast heather sea; how one long brown hill after +another sunk down, greyer and greyer, behind them, and one long grey hill +after another swelled up browner and browner before them; and how the +sandstone rattled and flew beneath their feet, as the great horses, like +Homer’s of old, “devoured up the plain;” and how they struggled down the +hill-side, through bushes and rocks, and broad slipping rattling sheets +of screes, and saw beneath them stag and pack galloping down the shallow +glittering river-bed, throwing up the shingle, striking out the water in +long glistening sheets; and how they too swept after them, down the flat +valley, rounding crag and headland, which opened one after another in +interminable vista, along the narrow strip of sand and rushes, speckled +with stunted, moss-bearded, heather-bedded hawthorns, between the great +grim lifeless mountain walls? Did he feel no pleasant creeping of the +flesh that day at the sound of his own horse-hoofs, as they swept through +the long ling with a sound as soft as the brushing of a woman’s tresses, +and then rang down on the spongy, black, reverberating soil, chipping the +honey-laden fragrant heather blossoms, and tossing them out in a rosy +shower? Or, if that were really too slight a thing for the observation +of an average sportsman, surely he must recollect the dying away of the +hounds’ voices, as the woodland passes engulfed them, whether it were +Brendon or at Badger-worthy, or any other place; how they brushed through +the narrow forest paths, where the ashes were already golden, while the +oaks still kept their sombre green, and the red leaves and berries of the +mountain-ash showed bright beneath the dark forest aisles; and how all of +a sudden the wild outcry before them seemed to stop and concentrate, +thrown back, louder and louder as they rode, off the same echoing crag; +till at a sudden turn of the road there stood the stag beneath them in +the stream, his back against the black rock with its green cushions of +dripping velvet, knee-deep in the clear amber water, the hounds around +him, some struggling and swimming in the deep pool, some rolling and +tossing and splashing in a mad, half-terrified ring, as he reared into +the air on his great haunches, with the sparkling beads running off his +red mane, and dropping on his knees, plunged his antlers down among them, +with blows which would have each brought certain death with it if the +yielding water had not broken the shock. Do you think that he does not +remember the death? The huge carcass dragged out of the stream, followed +by dripping, panting dogs; the blowing of the mort, and the last wild +halloo, when the horn-note and the voices rang through the autumn woods, +and rolled up the smooth flat mountain sides; and Brendon answered +Countisbury, and Countisbury sent it on to Lynmouth hills, till it swept +out of the gorge and died away upon the Severn sea? And then, does he +not remember the pause, and the revulsion, and the feeling of sadness and +littleness, almost of shame, as he looked up for the first time—one can +pardon his not having done so before—and saw where he was, and the beauty +of the hill-sides, with the lazy autumn clouds crawling about their tops, +and the great sheets of screes, glaciers of stone covering acres and +acres of the smooth hill-side, eating far into the woods below, bowing +down the oak scrubs with their weight, and the circular sweeps of down, +flecked with innumerable dark spots of gorse, each of them guarded where +they open into the river chasm by two fortresses of “giant-snouted +crags,”—delicate pink and grey sandstone, from which blocks and crumbling +boulders have been toppling slowly down for ages, beneath the frost and +the whirlwind, and now lie in long downward streams upon the slope, as if +the mountain had been weeping tears of stone? And then, as the last +notes of the mort had died away, did not there come over him an awe at +the silence of the woods, not broken, but deepened, by the unvarying +monotone of the roaring stream beneath, which flashed and glittered, +half-hidden in the dark chasm, in clear brown pools reflecting every leaf +and twig, in boiling pits and walls of foam, ever changing, and yet for +ever the fleeting on past the poor dead reeking stag and the silent +hounds lying about on the moss-embroidered stones, their lolling tongues +showing like bright crimson sparkles in the deep rich Venetian air of the +green sombre shades; while the startled water-ousel, with his white +breast, flitted a few yards and stopped to stare from a rock’s point at +the strange intruders; and a single stock-dove, out of the bosom of the +wood, began calling sadly and softly, with a dreamy peaceful moan? Did +he not see and hear all this, for surely it was there to see and hear?’ + +‘Not he. The eye only sees that which it brings within the power of +seeing; and all I shall say of him is, that a certain apparition in white +leathers was at one period of its appearance dimly conscious of +equestrian motion towards a certain brown two-horned phenomenon, and +other spotted phenomena, at which he had been taught by habit to make the +articulate noises “stag” and “hounds,” among certain grey, and green, and +brown phenomena, at which the same habit and the example of his fellows +had taught him to say, “Rock, and wood, and mountain,” and perhaps the +further noises of “Lovely, splendid, majestic.”’ + +‘As usual, sir! You dwellers in Babylon fancy that you have the monopoly +of all the intellect, and all the taste, because you earn your livings by +talking about pretty things, and painting pretty things: little do you +suspect, shut up together in your little literary worlds, and your +artistic worlds, how many thousands of us outside barbarians there are +who see as clearly, and enjoy as deeply as you do: but hold their tongues +about their own feelings, simply because they have never been driven by +emptiness of pocket to look round for methods of expressing them. And, +after all—how much of nature can you express? You confest yourself +yesterday baffled by all the magnificence around you.’ + +‘Yes! to paint it worthily one would require to be a Turner, a Copley +Fielding, and a Creswick, all in one.’ + +‘And did you ever remark how such scenes as this gorge of the +“Watersmeet” stir up a feeling of shame, almost of peevishness, before +the sense of a mysterious meaning which we ought to understand and +cannot?’ + +He smiled. + +‘Our torments do by length of time become our elements; and painful as +that sensation is to the earnest artist, he will feel it, I fancy, at +last sublime itself into an habitually gentle, reverent, almost +melancholy tone of mind, as of a man bearing the burden of an infinite +and wonderful message which his own frivolity and laziness hinder him +from speaking out.’ + +‘Then it should beget in him, too, something of merciful indulgence +towards the seeming stupidity of those who see, after all, only a very +little shallower than he does into the unfathomable depths of nature.’ + +‘Well, sporting books and sportsmen seem to me, by their very object, not +to be worth troubling our heads about. Out of nothing, comes nothing. +See, my hands are as soft as any lady’s in Belgravia. I could not, to +save my life, lift a hundredweight a foot off the ground; while you have +been a wild man of the woods, a leaper of ditches, a rower of races, and +a wanton destroyer of all animal life: and yet—’ + +‘You would hint politely that you are as open as me to all noble, and +chivalrous, and truly manly emotions?’ + +‘What think you?’ + +‘That you are far worthier in such matters than I, friend. But do not +forget that it may be your intellect, and your profession—in one word, +Heaven’s mercy—which have steered you clear of shoals upon which you will +find the mass of our class founder. Woe to the class or the nation which +has no manly physical training! Look at the manners, the morals, the +faces of the young men of the shopkeeping classes, if you wish to see the +effects of utterly neglecting the physical development of man; {235} of +fancying that all the muscular activity he requires under the sun is to +be able to stand behind a counter, or sit on a desk-stool without +tumbling off. Be sure, be sure, that ever since the days of the Persians +of old, effeminacy, if not twin-sister of cowardice and dishonesty, has +always gone hand in hand with them. To that utter neglect of any +exercises which call out fortitude, patience, self-dependence, and +daring, I attribute a great deal of the low sensuality, the conceited +vulgarity, the want of a high sense of honour, which is increasing just +now among the middle classes; and from which the navigator, the engineer, +the miner, and the sailor are comparatively free.’ + +‘And perhaps, too, that similar want of a high sense of honour, which +seems, from the religious periodicals, to pervade a large proportion of a +certain more venerable profession?’ + +‘Seriously, Claude, I believe you are not far wrong. But we are getting +on delicate ground there: however I have always found, that of whatever +profession he may be—to travestie Shakspeare’s words,— + + “The man that hath not sporting in his soul, + Is fit for treason’s direst stratagems”— + +and so forth.’ + +‘Civil to me!’ + +‘Oh, you have a sporting soul in you, like hundreds of other Englishmen +who never handled rod or gun; or you would not be steering for Exmoor +to-day. If a lad be a genius, you may trust him to find some original +means for developing his manly energies, whether in art, agriculture, +science, or travels, discovery, and commerce. But if he be not, as there +are a thousand chances to one he will not be, then whatever you teach +him, let the two first things be, as they were with the old Persians, “To +speak the truth, and to draw the bow.”’ + +By this time we had reached the stream, just clearing from the last +night’s showers. A long transparent amber shallow, dimpled with fleeting +silver rings by rising trout; a low cascade of green-veined snow; a deep +dark pool of swirling orange-brown, walled in with heathery rocks, and +paved with sandstone slabs and boulders, distorted by the changing +refractions of the eddies,—sight delicious to the angler. + +I commenced my sport at once, while Claude wandered up the glen to sketch +a knoll of crags, on which a half-wild moorland pony, the only living +thing in sight, stood staring and snuffing at the intruder, his long mane +and tail streaming out wildly against the sky. + +I had fished on for some hour or two; Claude had long since disappeared +among the hills; I fancied myself miles from any human being, when a +voice at my elbow startled me:— + +‘A bleak place for fishing this, sir!’ + +I turned; it was an old grey-whiskered labouring man, with pick and spade +on shoulder, who had crept on me unawares beneath the wall of the +neighbouring deer-cover. Keen honest eyes gleamed out from his brown, +scarred, weather-beaten face; and as he settled himself against a rock +with the deliberate intention of a chat, I commenced by asking after the +landlord of those parts, well known and honoured both by sportsman and by +farmer. + +‘He was gone to Malta—a warmer place that than Exmoor.’ + +‘What! have you been in Malta?’ + +Yes, he had been in Malta, and in stranger places yet. He had been a +sailor: he had seen the landing in Egypt, and heard the French cannon +thundering vainly from the sand-hills on the English boats. He had +himself helped to lift Abercrombie up the ship’s side to the death-bed of +the brave. He had seen Caraccioli hanging at his own yard-arm, and heard +(so he said, I know not how correctly) Lady Hamilton order out the barge +herself, and row round the frigate of the murdered man, to glut her eyes +with her revenge. He had seen, too, the ghastly corpse floating upright, +when Nelson and the enchantress met their victim, returned from the +sea-depths to stare at them, as Banquo’s ghost upon Macbeth. But she was +‘a mortal fine woman, was Lady Hamilton, though she was a queer one, and +cruel kind to the sailors; and many a man she saved from flogging; and +one from hanging, too; that was a marine that got a-stealing; for Nelson, +though he was kind enough, yet it was a word and a blow with him; and +quite right he, sir; for there be such rascals on board ship, that if you +ain’t as sharp with them as with wild beastesses, no man’s life, nor the +ship’s neither, would be worth a day’s purchase.’ + +So he, with his simple straightforward notions of right and wrong worth, +much maudlin unmerciful indulgence which we hear in these days: and yet +not going to the bottom of the matter either, as we shall see in the next +war. But, rambling on, he told me how he had come home, war-worn and +crippled, to marry a wife and get tall sons, and lay his bones in his +native village; till which time (for death to the aged poor man is a +Sabbath, of which he talks freely, calmly, even joyously) ‘he just got +his bread, by the squire’s kindness, patching and mending at the stone +deer-fences.’ + +I gave him something to buy tobacco, and watched him as he crawled away, +with a sort of stunned surprise. And he had actually seen Nelson sit by +Lady Hamilton! It was so strange, to have that gay Italian bay, with all +its memories,—the orgies of Baiæ, and the unburied wrecks of ancient +towns, with the smoking crater far above; and the world-famous +Nile-mouths and those great old wars, big with the destinies of the +world; and those great old heroes, with their awful deeds for good and +evil, all brought so suddenly and livingly before me, up there in the +desolate moorland, where the deer, and birds, and heath, and rushes were +even as they had been from the beginning. Like Wordsworth with his +Leech-Gatherer (a poem which I, in spite of laughter, must rank among his +very highest),— + + ‘While he was talking thus, the lonely place, + The old man’s shape, and speech—all troubled me; + In my mind’s eye I seemed to see him pace + About the weary moors continually, + Wandering about alone and silently. + . . . and when he ended, + I could have laughed myself to scorn to find + In that decrepit man so firm a mind.’ + +Just then I heard a rustle, and turning, saw Claude toiling down to me +over the hill-side. He joined me, footsore and weary, but in great +excitement; for the first minute or two he could not speak, and at last,— + +‘Oh, I have seen such a sight!—but I will tell you how it all was. After +I left you I met a keeper. He spoke civilly to me—you know my antipathy +to game and those who live thereby: but there was a wild, bold, +self-helping look about him and his gun alone there in the waste—and +after all he was a man and a brother. Well, we fell into talk, and +fraternized; and at last he offered to take me to a neighbouring hill and +show me “sixty head of red-deer all together;” and as he spoke he looked +quite proud of his words. “I was lucky,” he said, “to come just then, +for the stags had all just got their heads again.” At which speech I +wondered; but was silent, and followed him, I, Claude the Cockney, such a +walk as I shall never take again. Behold these trousers—behold these +hands! scratched to pieces by crawling on all-fours through the heather. +But I saw them.’ + +‘A sight worth many pairs of plaid trousers?’ + +‘Worth Saint Chrysostom’s seven years’ nakedness on all-fours! And so I +told the fellow, who by some cunning calculations about wind, and sun, +and so forth, which he imparted to my uncomprehending ears, brought me +suddenly to the top of a little crag, below which, some hundred yards +off, the whole herd stood, stags, hinds—but I can’t describe them. I +have not brought away a scrap of sketch, though we watched them full ten +minutes undiscovered; and then the stare, and the toss of those antlers, +and the rush! That broke the spell with me; for I had been staring +stupidly at them, trying in vain to take in the sight, with the strangest +new excitement heaving and boiling up in my throat; and at the sound of +their hoofs on the turf I woke, and found the keeper staring, not at +them, but at me, who, I verily believe, had something very like a tear in +these excitable eyes of mine.’ + +‘“Ain’t you well, sir?” said he. “You needn’t be afeard; it’s only at +the fall of the year the stags is wicked.” + +‘I don’t know what I answered at first; but the fellow understood me when +I shook his hand frantically, and told him that I should thank him to the +last day of my life, and that I would not have missed it for a thousand +pounds. In part-proof whereof I gave him a sovereign on the spot, which +seemed to clear my character in his eyes as much as the crying at the +sight of a herd of deer had mystified it.’ + +‘Claude, well-beloved,’ said I, ‘will you ever speak contemptuously of +sportsmen any more?’ + +‘“Do manus,” I have been vilifying them, as one does most things in the +world, only for want of understanding them. How shall I do penance? Go +and take service with Edwin Landseer, as pupil, colour-grinder, footboy?’ + +‘You will then be very near to a very great poet,’ quoth I, ‘and one +whose works will become, as centuries roll on, more and more valuable to +art and to science, and, possibly, to something higher than either.’ + +‘I begin to guess your meaning,’ answered Claude. + +‘So we lounged, and dreamt, and fished, in heathery Highland,’ as Mr. +Clough would say, while the summer snipes flitted whistling up the +shallow before us, and the soft, south-eastern clouds slid lazily across +the sun, and the little trout snapped and dimpled at a tiny partridge +hackle, with a twist of orange silk, whose elegance for shape and colour +reconciled Claude’s heart somewhat to my everlasting whipping of the +water. When as last:— + +‘You seem to have given up catching anything. You have not stirred a +fish in this last two pools, except that little saucy yellow shrimp, who +jumped over your fly, and gave a spiteful slap at it with his tail.’ + +Too true; and what could be the cause? Had that impudent sand-piper +frightened all the fish on his way up? Had an otter paralysed them with +terror for the morning? Or had a stag been down to drink? We saw the +fresh slot of his broad claws, by the bye, in the mud a few yards back. + +‘We must have seen the stag himself, if he had been here lately,’ said +Claude. + +‘Mr. Landseer knows too well by this time that that is a non sequitur.’ + +‘“I am no more a non sequitur than you are,” answered the Cornish +magistrate to the barrister.’ + +‘Fish and deer, friend, see us purblind sons of men somewhat more quickly +than we see them, fear sharpening the senses. Perhaps, after all, the +fault is in your staring white-straw hat, a garment which has spoilt many +a good day’s fishing. Ah, no! there is the cause; the hat of a mightier +than you—the thunder-spirit himself. Thor is at hand, while the breeze, +awe-stricken, falls dead calm before his march. Behold, climbing above +that eastern ridge, his huge powdered cauliflower-wig, barred with a grey +horizontal handkerchief of mist.’ + +‘Oh, profane and uncomely simile!—which will next, I presume, liken the +coming hailstorm to hair-powder shaken from the said wig.’ + +‘To shot rather than to powder. Flee, oh, flee to yonder pile of crags, +and thank your stars that there is one at hand; for these mountain +tornadoes are at once Tropic in their ferocity and Siberian in their +cutting cold.’ + +Down it came. The brown hills vanished in white sheets of hail, first +falling perpendicularly, then slanting and driving furiously before the +cold blast which issued from the storm. The rock above us rang with the +thunder-peals; and the lightning, which might have fallen miles away, +seemed to our dazzled eyes to dive into the glittering river at our feet. +We sat silent some half-hour, listening to the voice of One more mighty +than ourselves; and it was long after the uproar had rolled away among +the hills, and a steady, sighing sheet of warmer rains, from banks of low +grey fog, had succeeded the rattling of the hail upon the crisp heather, +that I turned to Claude. + +‘And now, since your heart is softened towards these wild, stag-hunting, +trout fishing, jovial west-countrymen, consider whether it should not be +softened likewise toward those old outlaw ballads which I have never yet +been able to make you admire. They express feelings not yet extinct in +the minds of a large portion of the lower orders, as you would know had +you lived, like me, all your life in poaching counties, and on the edges +of one forest after another,—feelings which must be satisfied, even in +the highest development of the civilization of the future, for they are +innate in every thoughtful and energetic race,—feelings which, though +they have often led to crime, have far oftener delivered from swinish +sensuality; the feelings which drove into the merry greenwood “Robin +Hood, Scarlet, and John;” “Adam Bell, and Clym of the Cleugh, and William +of Cloudislee;” the feelings which prompted one half of his inspiration +to the nameless immortal who wrote the “Nutbrown Maid;”—feelings which +could not then, and cannot now, be satisfied by the drudgery of a +barbaric agriculture, which, without science, economy, or enterprise, +offers no food for the highest instincts of the human mind, its yearnings +after Nature, after freedom, and the noble excitement of self-dependent +energy.’ + +Our talk ended: but the rain did not: and we were at last fain to leave +our shelter, and let ourselves be blown by the gale (the difficulty being +not to progress forward, but to keep our feet) back to the shed where our +ponies were tied, and to canter home to Lynmouth, with the rain cutting +our faces like showers of pebbles, and our little mountain ponies +staggering against the wind, and more than once, if Londoners will +believe me, blown sheer up against the bank by some mad gust, which +rushed perpendicularly, not down, but up, the chasms of the glens below. + + + +II.—THE COAST LINE. + + +It is four o’clock on a May morning, and Claude and I are just embarking +on board a Clovelly trawling skiff, which, having disposed of her fish at +various ports along the Channel, is about to run leisurely homewards with +an ebb tide, and a soft north-easterly breeze. + +So farewell, fair Lynmouth; and ye storm-spirits, send us a propitious +day; and dismiss those fantastic clouds which are coquetting with your +thrones, crawling down one hill-side, and whirling and leaping up +another, in wreaths of snow, and dun, and amber, pierced every minute by +some long glittering upward arrow from the rising sun, which gilds grey +crags and downs a thousand feet above, while underneath the gorges still +sleep black and cold in shade. + +There, they have heard us! The cap rises off the ‘Summer-house hill,’ +that eight hundred feet of upright wall, which seems ready to topple down +into the nest of be-myrtled cottages at its foot; and as we sweep out +into the deeper water the last mist-flake streams up from the Foreland, +and vanishes in white threads into the stainless blue. + +‘Look at the colours of that Foreland!’ cried Claude. ‘The simple +monotone of pearly green, broken only at intervals by blood-red stains, +where the turf has slipped and left the fresh rock bare, and all +glimmering softly through a delicate blue haze, like the bloom on a +half-ripened plum!’ + +‘And look, too, how the grey pebble beach is already dancing and +quivering in the mirage which steams up, like the hot breath of a +limekiln, from the drying stones. Talk of “glazings and scumblings,” ye +artists! and bungle at them as you will, what are they to Nature’s own +glazings, deepening every instant there behind us?’ + +‘Mock me not. I have walked up and down here with a humbled and broken +spirit, and had nearly forsworn the audacity of painting anything beyond +a beech stem, or a frond of fern.’ + +‘The little infinite in them would have baffled you as much as the only +somewhat bigger infinite of just the hills on which they grow.’ + +‘Confest: and so farewell to unpaintable Lynmouth! Farewell to the +charming contrast of civilized English landscape-gardening, with its +villas, and its exotics, and its evergreens, thus strangely and yet +harmoniously confronted with the chaos of the rocks and mountain-streams. +Those grounds of Sir William H—’s are a double paradise, the wild Eden of +the Past side by side with the cultivated Eden of the Future. How its +alternations of Art and Savagery at once startle and relieve the sense, +as you pass suddenly out of wildernesses of piled boulders, and +torrent-shattered trees, and the roar of fern-fringed waterfalls, into +“trim walks, and fragrant alleys green;” and the door of a summer-house +transports you at a step from Richmond to the Alps. Happy he who +“possesses,” as the world calls it, and happier still he whose taste +could organize, that fairy bower.’ + +So he, magniloquently, as was his wont; and yet his declamations always +flowed with such a graceful ease,—a simple, smiling earnestness,—an +unpractised melody of voice, that what would have been rant from other +lips, from his showed only as the healthy enthusiasm of the passionate, +all-seeing, all-loving artist. + +‘Look yonder, again,’ said he, gazing up at the huge boulder-strewn +hill-side above us. ‘One wonders at that sight, whether the fable of the +giants be not true after all,—and that “Vale of Rocks,” hanging five +hundred feet in air, with all its crag-castles, and tottering +battlements, and colossal crumbling idols, and great blocks, which hang +sloping, caught in act to fall, be not some enormous Cyclopean temple +left half-disinterred: or is it a fragment of old Chaos, left +unorganized?—or, perhaps, the waste heap of the world, where, after the +rest of England had been made, some angel put up a notice for his +fellows, “Dry rubbish shot here”?’ + +‘Not so, unscientific! It is the grandfather of hills,—a fossil bone of +some old continent, which stood here ages before England was. And the +great earth-angel, who grinds up mountains into paint, as you do bits of +ochre, for his “Continental Sketches,” found in it the materials for a +whole dark ground-tone of coal-measures, and a few hundred miles of warm +high-lights, which we call New Red Sandstone.’ + +What a sea-wall they are, those Exmoor hills! Sheer upward from the sea +a thousand feet rise the downs; and as we slide and stagger lazily along +before the dying breeze, through the deep water which never leaves the +cliff, the eye ranges, almost dizzy, up some five hundred feet of rock, +dappled with every hue; from the intense dark of the tide-line, through +the warm green and brown rock-shadows, out of which the horizontal cracks +of the strata loom black, and the breeding gulls show like lingering +snow-flakes; up to the middle cliff, where delicate grey fades into pink, +pink into red, red into glowing purple; up to where the purple is +streaked with glossy ivy wreaths, and black-green yews; up to where all +the choir of colours vanishes abruptly on the mid-hill, to give place to +one yellowish-grey sheet of upward down, sweeping aloft smooth and +unbroken, except by a lonely stone, or knot of clambering sheep, and +stopped by one great rounded waving line, sharp-cut against the brilliant +blue. The sheep hang like white daisies upon the steep; and a solitary +falcon rides, a speck in air, yet far below the crest of that tall hill. +Now he sinks to the cliff edge, and hangs quivering, supported, like a +kite, by the pressure of his breast and long curved wings, against the +breeze. + +There he hangs, the peregrine—a true ‘falcon gentle,’ ‘sharp-notched, +long-taloned, crooked-winged,’ whose uncles and cousins, ages since, have +struck at duck and pheasant, and sat upon the wrists of kings. And now +he is full proud of any mouse or cliff-lark; like an old Chingachgook, +last of the Mohicans, he lingers round ‘the hunting-field of his +fathers.’ So all things end. + + ‘The old order changeth, giving place to the new; + And God fulfils Himself in many ways, + Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.’ + +‘Ay, and the day may come,’ said Claude, ‘when the brows of that huge +High Vere shall be crowned with golden wheat, and every rock-ledge on +Trentishoe, like those of Petra and the Rhine, support its garden-bed of +artificial soil.’ + +‘And when,’ I answered, ‘the shingly sides of that great chasm of +Headon’s Mouth may be clothed with the white mulberry, and the summer +limestone-skiffs shall go back freighted with fabrics which vie with the +finest woof of Italy and Lyons.’ + +‘You believe, then, in the late Mrs. Whitby of Lymington?’ + +‘Seeing is believing, Claude: through laughter, and failures, and the +stupidity of half-barbarous clods, she persevered in her silk-growing, +and succeeded; and I should like to put her book into the hands of every +squire in Devon, Cornwall, and the South of Ireland.’ + +‘Or require them to pass an examination in it, as one more among the many +books which I intend, in my ideal kingdom, all landlords to read and +digest, before they are allowed to take possession of their estates. In +the meantime, what is that noble conical hill, which has increased my +wonder at the infinite variety of beauty which The Spirit can produce by +combinations so simple as a few grey stones and a sheet of turf?’ + +‘The Hangman.’ + +‘An ominous name. What is its history?’ + +‘Some sheep-stealer, they say, clambering over a wall with his booty +slung round his neck, was literally hung by the poor brute’s struggles, +and found days after on the mountain-side, a blackened corpse on one side +of the wall, with the sheep on the other, and the ravens—You may fill up +the picture for yourself.’ + +But, see, as we round the Hangman, what a change of scene—the +square-blocked sandstone cliffs dip suddenly under dark slate-beds, +fantastically bent and broken by primeval earthquakes. Wooded combes, +and craggy ridges of rich pasture-land, wander and slope towards a +labyrinth of bush-fringed coves, black isolated tide-rocks, and +land-locked harbours. There shines among the woods the Castle of +Watermouth, on its lovely little salt-water loch, the safest harbour on +the coast; and there is Combe-Martin, mile-long man-stye, which seven +centuries of fruitless silver-mining, and of the right (now deservedly +lost) of ‘sending a talker to the national palaver,’ have neither +cleansed nor civilized. Turn, turn thy head away, dear Claude, lest even +at this distance some foul odour taint the summer airs, and complete the +misfortune already presaged by that pale, sad face, sickening in the +burning calm! For this great sun-roasted fire-brick of the Exmoor range +is fairly burning up the breeze, and we have nothing but the tide to +drift us slowly down to Ilfracombe. + +Now we open Rillage, and now Hillsborough, two of the most picturesque of +headlands; see how their round foreheads of glistening grey shale sink +down into two dark, jagged moles, running far out to seaward, and +tapering off, each into a long black horizontal line, vanishing at last +beneath its lace-fringe of restless hissing foam. How grand the contrast +of the lightness of those sea-lines, with the solid mass which rests upon +them! Look, too, at the glaring lights and Tartarean shadows of those +chasms and caves, which the tide never leaves, or the foot of man +explores; and listen how, at every rush of the long ground-swell, +mysterious mutterings, solemn sighs, sudden thunders, as of a pent-up +earthquake, boom out of them across the glassy swell. Look at those +blasts of delicate vapour that shoot up from hidden rifts, and hang a +moment, and vanish; and those green columns of wave which rush mast-high +up the perpendicular walls, and then fall back and outward in a waterfall +of foam, lacing the black rocks with a thousand snowy streams. There +they fall, and leap, and fall again. And so they did yesterday, and the +day before; and so they did centuries ago, when the Danes swept past +them, battleworn, and sad of heart for the loss of the magic raven flag, +from the fight at Appledore, to sit down and starve on ‘the island of +Bradanrelice, which men call Flat Holms.’ Ay, and even so they leapt and +fell, before a sail gleamed on the Severn sea, when the shark and the +ichthyosaur paddled beneath the shade of tropic forests—now scanty turf +and golden gorse. And so they will leap and fall on, on, through the +centuries and the ages. O dim abyss of Time, into which we peer +shuddering, what will be the end of thee, and of this ceaseless coil and +moan of waters? It is true, that when thou shalt be no more, then, too, +‘there shall be no more sea;’ and this ocean bed, this great grave of +fertility, into which all earth’s wasted riches stream, day and night, +from hill and town, shall rise and become fruitful soil, corn-field and +meadow-land; and earth shall teem as thick with living men as bean-fields +with the summer bees? What a consummation! At least there is One +greater than sea, or time: and the Judge of all the earth will do right. + +But there is Ilfracombe, with its rock-walled harbour, its little wood of +masts within, its white terraces, rambling up the hills, and its capstone +sea-walk, the finest ‘marine parade,’ as Cockneydom terms it, in all +England, except that splendid Hoe at Plymouth, ‘Lam Goemagot,’ +Gog-magog’s leap, as the old Britains called it, over which Corineus +threw that mighty giant. And there is the little isolated rock-chapel, +where seven hundred years ago, our west-country forefathers used to go to +pray St. Nicholas for deliverance from shipwreck,—a method lovingly +regretted by some, as a ‘pious idea of the Ages of faith.’ We, however, +shall prefer the method of lighthouses and the worthy Trinity Board, as +actually more godly and ‘faithful,’ as well as more useful; and, +probably, so do the sailors themselves. + +But Claude is by this time nearly sick of the roasting calm, and the +rolling ground-swell, and the smell of fish, and is somewhat sleepy also, +between early rising and incoherent sermons; wherefore, if he takes good +advice, he will stay and recruit himself at Ilfracombe, before he +proceeds further with his self-elected cicerone on the grand tour of +North Devon. Believe me, Claude, you will not stir from the place for a +month at least. For be sure, if you are sea-sick, or heart-sick, or +pocket-sick either, there is no pleasanter or cheaper place of cure (to +indulge in a puff of a species now well nigh obsolete, the puff honest +and true) than this same Ilfracombe, with its quiet nature and its quiet +luxury, its rock fairyland and its sea-walks, its downs and combes, its +kind people, and, if possible, its still kinder climate, which combines +the soft warmth of South Devon with the bracing freshness of the Welsh +mountains; where winter has slipped out of the list of the seasons, and +mother Earth makes up for her summer’s luxury by fasting, ‘not in +sackcloth and ashes, but in new silk and old sack;’ and instead of +standing three months chin-deep in ice, and christening great snowballs +her ‘friends and family,’ as St. Francis of Assisi did of old, knows no +severer asceticism than tepid shower-baths, and a parasol of soft grey +mist. + + + +III.—MORTE. + + +I had been wandering over the centre of Exmoor, killing trout as I went, +through a country which owes its civilization and tillage to the spirit +of one man, who has found stag-preserving by no means incompatible with +large agricultural improvements; among a population who still evince an +unpleasant partiality for cutting and carrying farmers’ crops by night, +without leave or licence, and for housebreaking after the true classic +method of Athens, by fairly digging holes through the house walls; a +little nook of primeval savagery fast reorganizing itself under the +influences of these better days. I had been on Dartmoor, too; but of +that noble moorland range so much has been said and sung of late, that I +really am afraid it is becoming somewhat cockney and trite. Far and wide +I had wandered, rod in hand, becoming a boy again in the land of my +boyhood, till, once more at Ilfracombe, opposite me sat Claude Mellot, +just beginning to bloom again into cheerfulness. + +We were on the point of starting for Morte, and so round to Saunton +Court, and the sands beyond it; where a Clovelly trawler, which we had +chartered for the occasion, had promised to send a boat on shore and take +us off, provided the wind lay off the land. + +But, indeed, the sea was calm as glass, the sky cloudless azure; and the +doubt was not whether we should be able to get on board through the surf, +but whether, having got on board, we should not lie till nightfall, as +idle + + ‘As a painted ship, + Upon a painted ocean.’ + +And now behold us on our way up lovely combes, with their green copses, +ridges of rock, golden furze, fruit-laden orchards, and slopes of emerald +pasture, pitched as steep as house-roofs, where the red longhorns are +feeding, with their tails a yard above their heads; and under us, seen in +bird’s-eye view, the ground-plans of the little snug farms and homesteads +of the Damnonii, ‘dwellers in the valley,’ as we West-countrymen were +called of old. Now we are leaving them far below us; the blue hazy sea +is showing far above the serrated ridge of the Tors, and their huge bank +of sunny green: and before us is a desolate table-land of rushy pastures +and mouldering banks, festooned with the delicate network of the little +ivy-leaved campanula, loveliest of British wild-flowers, fit with its +hair-like stems and tiny bells of blue to wreathe the temples of Titania. +Alas! we have passed out of the world into limbum patrum, and the region +of ineffectuality and incompleteness. The only cultivators here, and +through thousands of acres in the North of Devon, are the rook and mole: +and yet the land is rich enough—the fat deep crumbling of the shale and +ironstone returning year by year into the mud, from whence it hardened +ages since. There are scores of farms of far worse land in mid-England, +under ‘a four-course shift,’ yielding their load of wheat an acre. When +will that land do as much? When will the spirit of Smith of Deanston and +Grey of Dilston descend on North Devon? When will some true captain of +industry, and Theseus of the nineteenth century, like the late Mr. Warnes +of Trimmingham, teach the people here to annihilate poor-rates by growing +flax upon some of the finest flax land, and in the finest flax climate, +that we have in England? The shrewd Cornishmen of Launceston and Bodmin +have awakened long ago to ‘the new gospel of fertility.’ When will North +Devon awake? + +‘When landlords and farmers,’ said Claude, ‘at last acknowledge their +divine vocation, and feel it a noble and heaven-ordained duty to produce +food for the people of England; when they learn that to grow rushes where +they might grow corn, ay, to grow four quarters of wheat where they might +grow five, is to sin against God’s blessings and against the English +nation. No wonder that sluggards like these cry out for protection—that +those who cannot take care of the land feel that they themselves need +artificial care.’ + +‘We will not talk politics, Claude. Our modern expediency mongers have +made them _pro tempore_ an extinct science. “Let the dead bury their +dead.” The social questions are now-a-days becoming far more important +than the mere House of Commons ones.’ + +‘There does seem here and there,’ he said, ‘some sign of improvement. I +see the paring plough at work on one field and another.’ + +‘Swiftly goes the age, and slowly crawls improvement. The greater part +of that land will be only broken up to be exhausted by corn-crop after +corn-crop, till it can bear no more, and the very manure which is drawn +home from it in the shape of a few turnips will be wasted by every rain +of heaven, and the straw probably used to mend bad places in the road +with; while the land returns to twenty years of worse sterility than +ever; on the ground that— + +‘“Veather did zo, and gramfer did zo, and why shouldn’t Jan do the +zame?”’ * * * * + +‘But here is Morte below us. “The little grey church on the windy +shore,” which once belonged to William de Tracy, one of your friend +Thomas à Becket’s murderers. If you wish to vent your wrath against +those who cut off your favourite Saxon hero, there is a tomb in the +church which bears De Tracy’s name; over which rival Dryasdusts contend +fiercely with paper-arrows: the one party asserting that he became a +priest, and died here in the wilderness; the others that the tomb is of +later date, that he fled hence to Italy, under favour of a certain +easy-going Bishop of Exeter, and died penitent and duly shriven, +according to the attestations of a certain or uncertain Bishop of +Cosenza.’ + +‘Peace be with him and with the Bishop! The flight to Italy seems a very +needless precaution to a man who owned this corner of the world. A +bailiff would have had even less chance here then than in Connemara a +hundred years ago.’ + +‘He certainly would have fed the crabs and rock-cod in two hours after +his arrival. Nevertheless, I believe the Cosenza story is the safer +one.’ + +‘What a chaos of rock-ridges!—Old starved mother Earth’s bare-worn ribs +and joints peeping out through every field and down; and on three sides +of us, the sullen thunder of the unseen surge. What a place for some +“gloom-pampered man” to sit and misanthropize!’ + +‘“Morte,” says the Devonshire proverb, “is the place on earth which +heaven made last, and the devil will take first.”’ + +‘All the fitter for a misanthrope. But where are the trees? I have not +seen one for the last four miles.’ + +‘Nor will you for a few miles more. Whatever will grow here (and most +things will) they will not, except, at least, hereafter the sea-pine of +the Biscay shore. You would know why, if you had ever felt a +south-westerly gale here, when the foam-flakes are flying miles inland, +and you are fain to cling breathless to bank and bush, if you want to get +one look at those black fields of shark’s-tooth tide-rocks, champing and +churning the great green rollers into snow. Wild folk are these here, +gatherers of shell-fish and laver, and merciless to wrecked vessels, +which they consider as their own by immemorial usage, or rather right +divine. Significant, how an agricultural people is generally as cruel to +wrecked seamen, as a fishing one is merciful. I could tell you twenty +stories of the baysmen down there to the westward risking themselves like +very heroes to save strangers’ lives, and beating off the labouring folk +who swarmed down for plunder from the inland hills.’ + +‘Knowledge, you see, breeds sympathy and love. But what a merciless +coast!’ + +‘Hardly a winter passes without a wreck or two. You see there lying +about the timbers of more than one tall ship. You see, too, that black +rock a-wash far out at sea, apparently a submarine outlier of the north +horn of this wide rock-amphitheatre below us. That is the Morte stone, +the “Death-rock,” as the Normans christened it of old; and it does not +belie its name even now. See how, even in this calm, it hurls up its +column of spray at every wave; and then conceive being entrapped between +it and the cliffs, on some blinding, whirling winter’s night, when the +land is shrouded thick in clouds, and the roar of the breakers hardly +precedes by a minute the crash of your bows against the rocks.’ + +‘I never think, on principle, of things so painful, and yet so +irrelievable. Yet why does not your much-admired Trinity House erect a +light there?’ + +‘So ask the sailors; for it is indeed one of the gateway-jambs of the +Channel, and the deep water and the line of coast tempt all craft to pass +as close to it as possible.’ + +‘Look at that sheet of yellow sand below us now, banked to the inland +with sand-hills and sunny downs, and ending abruptly at the foot of that +sombre wall of slate-hill, which runs out like a huge pier into the sea +some two miles off.’ + +‘That is Woollacombe: but here on our right is a sight worth seeing. +Every gully and creek there among the rocks is yellow, but not with sand. +Those are shells; the sweepings of the ocean bed for miles around, piled +there, millions upon millions, yards deep, in every stage of destruction. +There they lie grinding to dust; and every gale brings in fresh myriads +from the inexhaustible sea-world, as if Death could be never tired of +devouring, or God of making. The brain grows dizzy and tired, as one’s +feet crunch over the endless variety of their forms.’ + +‘And then one recollects that every one of them has been a living thing—a +whole history of birth, and growth, and propagation, and death. Waste it +cannot be, or cruelty on the part of the Maker: but why this infinite +development of life, apparently only to furnish out of it now and then a +cartload of shell-sand to these lazy farmers? But after all, there is +not so much life in all those shells put together as in one little child: +and it may die the hour that it is born! What we call life is but an +appearance and a becoming; the true life of existence belongs only to +spirits. And whether or not we, or the sea-shell there, are at any given +moment helping to make up part of some pretty little pattern in this +great kaleidoscope called the material universe, yet, in the spirit all +live to Him, and shall do so for ever.’ + +And thereon he rambled off into a long lecture on ‘species-spirits,’ and +‘individual-spirits,’ and ‘personal spirits,’ doubtless most important. +But I, what between the sun, the luncheon, and the metaphysic, sank into +soft slumbers, from which I was only awakened by the carriage stopping, +according to our order, on the top of Saunton hill. + +We left the fly, and wandered down towards the old gabled court, nestling +amid huge walnuts in its southward glen; while before us spread a +panorama, half sea, half land, than which, perhaps, our England owns few +lovelier. + +At our feet was a sea of sand—for the half-mile to the right smooth as a +floor, bounded by a broad band of curling waves, which crept slowly +shorewards with the advancing tide. Right underneath us the sand was +drifted for miles into fantastic hills, which quivered in the heat, the +glaring yellow of its lights chequered by delicate pink shadows and +sheets of grey-green bent. To the left were rich alluvial marshes, +covered with red cattle sleeping in the sun, and laced with creeks and +flowery dykes; and here and there a scarlet line, which gladdened +Claude’s eye as being a ‘bit of positive colour in the foreground,’ and +mine, because they were draining tiles. Beyond again, two broad +tide-rivers, spotted with white and red-brown sails, gleamed like avenues +of silver, past knots of gay dwellings, and tall lighthouses, and +church-towers, and wandered each on its own road, till they vanished +among the wooded hills. On the eastern horizon the dark range of Exmoor +sank gradually into lower and more broken ridges, which rolled away, +woodland beyond woodland, till all outlines were lost in purple haze; +while, far beyond, the granite peaks of Dartmoor hung like a delicate +blue cloud, and enticed the eye away into infinity. From hence, as our +eyes swept round the horizon, the broken hills above the river’s mouth +gradually rose into the table-land of the ‘barren coal-measures’ some ten +miles off,—a long straight wall of cliffs which hounded the broad bay, +buried in deepest shadow, except where the opening of some glen revealed +far depths of sunlit wood. A faint perpendicular line of white houses, +midway along the range, marked our destination; and far to the westward, +the land ended sheer and suddenly at the cliffs of Hartland, the +‘Promontory of Hercules,’ as the old Romans called it, to reappear some +ten miles out in the Atlantic, in the blue flat-topped island of Lundy, +so exactly similar in height and form to the opposite cape, that it +required no scientific imagination to supply the vast gap which the +primeval currents had sawn out. There it all lay beneath us like a map; +its thousand hues toned down harmoniously into each other by the summer +haze, and ‘the eye was not filled with seeing,’ nor the spirit with the +intoxicating sight of infinitely various life and form in perfectest +repose. + +I was the first to break the silence. + +‘Claude, well-beloved, will you not sketch a little?’ + +No answer. + +‘Not even rhapsodize? call it “lovely, exquisite, grand, majestic”? +There are plenty of such words in worldlings’ mouths—not a Cockney but +would burst out with some enthusiastic commonplace at such a sight—surely +one or other of them must be appropriate.’ + +‘Silence, profane! and take me away from this. Let us go down, and hide +our stupidities among those sand-hills, and so forget the whole. What +use standing here to be maddened by this tantalizing earth-spirit, who +shows us such glorious things, and will not tell us what they mean?’ + +So down we went upon the burrows, among the sands, which hid from us +every object but their own chaotic curves and mounds. Above, a hundred +skylarks made the air ring with carollings; strange and gaudy plants +flecked the waste round us; and insects without number whirred over our +heads, or hung poised with their wings outspread on the tall stalks of +marram grass. All at once a cloud hid the sun, and a summer whirlwind, +presage of the thunderstorm, swept past us, carrying up with it a column +of dry sand, and rattling the dry bents over our heads. + +‘What a chill, doleful sigh comes from those reeds!’ said Claude. ‘I can +conceive this desert, beneath a driving winter’s sky instead of this +burning azure, one of the most desolate places on the earth.’ + +‘Ay, desolate enough,’ I said, as we walked down beyond the tide-mark, +over the vast fields of ribbed and splashy sands, ‘when the dead shells +are rolling and crawling up the beach in wreaths before the gale, with a +ghastly rattle as of the dry bones in the “Valley of Vision,” and when +not a flower shows on that sandcliff, which is now one broad bed of +yellow, scarlet, and azure.’ + +‘That is the first spot in England,’ said Claude, ‘except, of course, +“the meads of golden king-cups,” where I have seen wild flowers give a +tone to the colouring of the whole landscape, as they are said to do in +the prairies of Texas. And look how flowers and cliff are both glowing +in a warm green haze, like that of Cuyp’s wonderful sandcliff picture in +the Dulwich Gallery,—wonderful, as I think, and true, let some critics +revile it as much as they will.’ + +‘Strange, that you should have quoted that picture here; its curious +resemblance to this very place first awoke in me, years ago, a living +interest in landscape-painting. But look there; even in these grand +summer days there is a sight before us sad enough. There are the ribs of +some ill-fated ship, a man-of-war too, as the story goes, standing like +black fangs, half-buried in the sand. And off what are those two ravens +rising, stirring up with their obscene wings a sickly, putrescent odour? +A corpse?’ + +No, it was not a corpse; but the token of many corpses. A fragment of +some ship; its gay green paint and half-effaced gilding contrasting +mockingly with the long ugly feathered barnacle-shells, which clustered +on it, rotting into slime beneath the sun, and torn and scattered by the +greedy beaks of the ravens. + +In what tropic tornado, or on what coral-key of the Bahamas, months ago, +to judge by those barnacles, had that tall ship gone down? How long had +that scrap of wreck gone wandering down the Gulf Stream, from +Newfoundland into the Mid-Atlantic, and hitherward on its homeless voyage +toward the Spitzbergen shore? And who were all those living men who +“went down to Hades, even many stalwart souls of heroes,” to give no sign +until the sea shall render up her dead? And every one of them had a +father and mother—a wife, perhaps, and children, waiting for him—at least +a whole human life, childhood, boyhood, manhood, in him. All those years +of toil and education, to get him so far on his life-voyage; and here is +the end thereof!’ + +‘Say rather, the beginning thereof,’ Claude answered, stepping into the +boat. ‘This wreck is but a torn scrap of the chrysalis-cocoon; we may +meet the butterflies themselves hereafter.’ + + * * * * * + +And now we are on board; and alas! some time before the breeze will be +so. Take care of that huge boom, landsman Claude, swaying and sweeping +backwards and forwards across the deck, unless you wish to be knocked +overboard. Take care, too, of that loose rope’s end, unless you wish to +have your eyes cut out. Take my advice, lie down here across the deck, +as others are doing. Cover yourself with great-coats, like an Irishman, +to keep yourself cool, and let us meditate little on this strange thing, +and strange place, which holds us now. + +Look at those spars, how they creak and groan with every heave of the +long glassy swell. How those sails flap, and thunder, and rage, with +useless outcries and struggles—only because they are idle. Let the wind +take them, and they will be steady, silent in an instant—their deafening +dissonant grumbling exchanged for the soft victorious song of the breeze +through the rigging, musical, self-contented, as of bird on bough. So it +is through life; there is no true rest but labour. “No true misery,” as +Carlyle says, “but in that of not being able to work.” Some may call it +a pretty conceit. I call it a great worldwide law, which reaches from +earth to heaven. Whatever the Preacher may have thought it in a moment +of despondency, what is it but a blessing that “sun, and wind, and +rivers, and ocean,” as he says, and “all things, are full of labour—man +cannot utter it.” This sea which bears us would rot and poison, did it +not sweep in and out here twice a day in swift refreshing current; nay, +more, in the very water which laps against our bows troops of negro girls +may have hunted the purblind shark in West Indian harbours, beneath +glaring white-walled towns, with their rows of green jalousies, and +cocoa-nuts, and shaddock groves. For on those white sands there to the +left, year by year, are washed up foreign canes, cassia beans, and tropic +seeds; and sometimes, too, the tropic ocean snails, with their fragile +shells of amethystine blue, come floating in mysteriously in fleets from +the far west out of the passing Gulf Stream, where they have been sailing +out their little life, never touching shore or ground, but buoyed each by +his cluster of air-bubbles, pumped in at will under the skin of his tiny +foot, by some cunning machinery of valves—small creatures truly, but very +wonderful to men who have learned to reverence not merely the size of +things, but the wisdom of their idea, and raising strange longings and +dreams about that submarine ocean-world which stretches, teeming with +richer life than this terrestrial one, away, away there westward, down +the path of the sun, toward the future centre of the world’s destiny. + +Wonderful ocean-world! three-fifths of our planet! Can it be true that +no rational beings are denizens there? Science is severely silent—having +as yet seen no mermaids: our captain there forward is not silent—if he +has not seen them, plenty of his friends have. The young man here has +been just telling me that it was only last month one followed a West +Indiaman right across the Atlantic. “For,” says he, “there must be +mermaids, and such like. Do you think Heaven would have made all that +water there only for the herrings and mackerel?” + +I do not know, Tom: but I, too, suspect not; and I do know that honest +men’s guesses are sometimes found by science to have been prophecies, and +that there is no smoke without fire, and few universal legends without +their nucleus of fact. After all, those sea-ladies are too lovely a +dream to part with in a hurry, at the mere despotic fiat of stern old +Dame Analysis, divine and reverend as she is. Why, like Keats’s Lamia, + + ‘Must all charms flee, + At the mere touch of cold Philosophy,’ + +who will not even condescend to be awe-struck at the new wonders which +she herself reveals daily? Perhaps, too, according to the Duke of +Wellington’s great dictum, that each man must be the best judge in his +own profession, sailors may know best whether mermaids exist or not. +Besides, was it not here on Croyde Sands abreast of us, this very last +summer, that a maiden—by which beautiful old word West-country people +still call young girls—was followed up the shore by a mermaid who issued +from the breakers, green-haired, golden-combed, and all; and, fleeing +home, took to her bed and died, poor thing, of sheer terror in the course +of a few days, persisting in her account of the monster? True, the +mermaid may have been an overgrown Lundy Island seal, carried out of his +usual haunts by spring-tides and a school of fish. Be it so. Lundy and +its seals are wonderful enough in all reason to thinking men, as it looms +up there out of the Atlantic, with its two great square headlands, not +twenty miles from us, in the white summer haze. We will go there some +day, and pick up a wild tale or two about it. + +But, lo! a black line creeps up the western horizon. Tom, gesticulating, +swears that he sees ‘a billow break.’ True: there they come; the great +white horses, that ‘champ and chafe, and toss in the spray.’ That +long-becalmed trawler to seaward fills, and heels over, and begins to tug +and leap impatiently at the weight of her heavy trawl. Five minutes +more, and the breeze will be down upon us. The young men whistle openly +to woo it; the old father thinks such a superstition somewhat beneath +both his years and his religion, but cannot help pursing up his lips into +a sly ‘whe-eugh’ when he has got well forward out of sight. + + * * * * + +Five long minutes; there is a breath of air; a soft distant murmur; the +white horses curve their necks, and dive and vanish; and rise again like +snowy porpoises, nearer, and nearer, and nearer. Father and sons are +struggling with that raving, riotous, drunken squaresail forward; while +we haul away upon the main-sheet. + +When will it come? It is dying back—sliding past us. ‘Hope deferred +maketh the heart sick.’ No, louder and nearer swells ‘the voice of many +waters,’ ‘the countless laugh of ocean,’ like the mirth of ten thousand +girls, before us, behind us, round us; and the oily swell darkens into +crisp velvet-green, till the air strikes us, and heels us over; and +leaping, plunging, thrashing our bows into the seas, we spring away +close-hauled upon the ever-freshening breeze, while Claude is holding on +by ropes and bulwarks, and some, whose sea-legs have not yet forgot their +craft, are swinging like a pendulum as they pace the deck, enjoying, as +the Norse vikings would have called it, ‘the gallop of the flying +sea-horse, and the shiver of her tawny wings.’ + +Exquisite motion! more maddening than the smooth floating stride of the +race-horse, or the crash of the thorn-hedges before the stalwart hunter, +or the swaying of the fir-boughs in the gale, when we used to climb as +schoolboys after the lofty hawk’s nest; but not so maddening as the new +motion of our age—the rush of the express-train, when the live iron pants +and leaps and roars through the long chalk cutting; and white mounds +gleam cold a moment against the sky and vanish; and rocks, and grass, and +bushes, fleet by in dim blended lines; and the long hedges revolve like +the spokes of a gigantic wheel; and far below, meadows, and streams, and +homesteads, with all their lazy old-world life, open for an instant, and +then flee away; while awe-struck, silent, choked with the mingled sense +of pride and helplessness, we are swept on by that great pulse of +England’s life-blood, rushing down her iron veins; and dimly out of the +future looms the fulfilment of our primæval mission, to conquer and +subdue the earth, and space too, and time, and all things,—even, hardest +of all tasks, yourselves, my cunning brothers ever learning some fresh +lesson, except that hardest one of all, that it is the Spirit of God +which giveth you understanding. + +Yes, great railroads, and great railroad age, who would exchange you, +with all your sins, for any other time? For swiftly as rushes matter, +more swiftly rushes mind; more swiftly still rushes the heavenly dawn up +the eastern sky. ‘The night is far spent, the day is at hand.’ ‘Blessed +is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching!’ + +But come, my poor Claude, I see you are too sick for such deep subjects; +so let us while away the time by picking the brains of this tall handsome +boy at the helm, who is humming a love-song to himself sotto voce, lest +it should be overheard by the grey-headed father, who is forward, poring +over his Wesleyan hymn-book. He will have something to tell you; he has +a soul in him looking out of those wild dark eyes, and delicate aquiline +features of his. He is no spade-drudge or bullet-headed Saxon clod: he +has in his veins the blood of Danish rovers and passionate southern +Milesians, who came hither from Teffrobani, the Isle of Summer, as the +old Fenic myths inform us. Come and chat with him. You dare not stir? +Perhaps you are in the right. I shall go and fraternize, and bring you +reports. + + * * * * + +He has been, at all events, ‘up the Straits’ as the Mediterranean voyage +is called here, and seen ‘Palermy’ and the Sicilians. But, for his +imagination, what seems to have struck it most was that it was a ‘fine +place for Jack, for a man could get mools there for a matter of +three-halfpence a-day.’ + +‘And was that all you got out of him?’ asked Claude, sickly and sulkily. + +‘Oh, you must not forget the halo of glory and excitement which in a +sailor’s eyes surrounds the delights of horseback. But he gave me +besides a long glowing account of the catechism which they had there, +three-quarters of a mile long.’ + +‘Pope Pius’s catechism, I suppose?’ + +So thought I, at first; but it appeared that all the dead of the city +were arranged therein, dried and dressed out in their finest clothes, +‘every sect and age,’ as Tom said, ‘by itself; as natural as life!’ We +may hence opine that he means some catacombs or other. + +Poor Claude could not even get up a smile: but his sorrows were coming +swiftly to an end. The rock clefts grew sharper and sharper before us. +The soft masses of the lofty bank of wooded cliff rose higher and higher. +The white houses of Clovelly, piled stair above stair up the rocks, +gleamed more and more brightly out of the green round bosoms of the +forest. As we shut in headland after headland, one tall conical rock +after another darkened with its black pyramid the bright orb of the +setting sun. Soon we began to hear the soft murmur of the snowy surf +line; then the merry voices of the children along the shore; and running +straight for the cliff-foot, we shipped into the little pier, from whence +the red-sailed herring-boats were swarming forth like bees out of a hive, +full of gay handsome faces, and all the busy blue-jacketed life of +seaport towns, to their night’s fishing in the bay. + + + +IV.—CLOVELLY. + + +A couple of days had passed, and I was crawling up the paved stairs +inaccessible to cart or carriage, which are flatteringly denominated +‘Clovelly-street,’ a landing-net full of shells in one hand, and a couple +of mackerel lines in the other; behind me a sheer descent, roof below +roof; at an angle of 45°, to the pier and bay, 200 feet below, and in +front, another hundred feet above, a green amphitheatre of oak, and ash, +and larch, shutting out all but a narrow slip of sky, across which the +low, soft, formless mist was crawling, opening every instant to show some +gap of intense dark rainy blue, and send down a hot vaporous gleam of +sunshine upon the white cottages, with their grey steaming roofs, and +bright green railings, packed one above another upon the ledges of the +cliff; and on the tall tree-fuchsias and gaudy dahlias in the little +scraps of court-yard, calling the rich faint odour out of the verbenas +and jessamines, and, alas! out of the herring-heads and tails also, as +they lay in the rivulet; and lighting up the wings of the gorgeous +butterflies, almost unknown in our colder eastern climate, which +fluttered from woodland down to garden, and from garden up to woodland, +and seemed to form the connecting link between that swarming hive of +human industry and the deep wild woods in which it was embosomed. So up +I was crawling, to dine off gurnards of my own catching,—excellent fish, +despised by deluded Cockneys, who fancy that because its head is large +and prickly, therefore its flesh is not as firm, and sweet, and white, as +that of any cod who ever gobbled shell-fish,—when down the stair front of +me, greasy as ice from the daily shower, came slipping and staggering, my +friend Claude, armed with camp-stool and portfolio. + +‘Where have you been wandering to-day?’ I asked. ‘Have you yet been as +far as the park, which, as I told you, would supply such endless subjects +for your pencil?’ + +‘Not I. I have been roaming up and down this same “New Road” above us; +and find there materials for a good week’s more work, if I could afford +it. Indeed, it was only to-day, for the first time, that I got as far as +the lodge at the end of it, and then was glad enough to turn back +shuddering at the first glimpse of the flat, dreary moorland beyond,—as +Adam may have turned back into Eden after a peep out of the gates of +Paradise.’ + +He should have taken courage and gone a half-mile further,—to the +furze-grown ruins of a great Roman camp, which gives its name to the +place, ‘Clovelly,’—Vallum Clausum, or Vallis Clausa, as antiquarians +derive it; perhaps, ‘the hidden camp,’ or glen,—perhaps something else. +Who cares? The old Romans were there, at least 10,000 strong: and some +sentimental tribune or other of them had taste enough to perch his +summer-house out on a conical point of the Hartland Cliffs, now tumbling +into the sea, tesselated pavement, baths and all. And strange work, no +doubt, went on in that lonely nook, looking out over the Atlantic +swell,—nights and days fit for Petronius’s own pen, among a seraglio of +dark Celtic beauties. Perhaps it could not be otherwise. An ugly state +of things—as heathen conquests always must have been; yet even in it +there was a use and meaning. But they are past like a dream, those +10,000 stalwart men, who looked far and wide over the Damnonian moors +from a station which would be, even in these days, a first-rate military +position. Gone, too, are the old Saxon Franklins who succeeded. Old +Wrengils, or some such name, whoever he was, at last found some one’s +bill too hard for his brain-pan; and there he lies on the hill above, in +his ‘barrow’ of Wrinklebury. And gone, too, the gay Norman squire, who, +as tradition says, kept his fair lady in the old watch-tower, on the +highest point of the White Cliff—‘Gallantry Bower,’ as they call it to +this day—now a mere ring of turf-covered stones, and a few low stunted +oaks, shorn by the Atlantic blasts into the shape of two huge cannon, +which form a favourite landmark for the fisherman of the bay. Gone they +all are, Cymry and Roman, Saxon and Norman; and upon the ruins of their +accumulated labour we stand here. Each of them had his use,—planted a +few more trees or cleared a few more, tilled a fresh scrap of down, +organized a scrap more of chaos. Who dare wish the tide of improvement, +which has been flowing for nineteen centuries, swifter and swifter still +as it goes on, to stop, just because it is not convenient to us just now +to move on? It will not take another nineteen hundred years, be sure, to +make even this lovely nook as superior to what it is now as it is now to +the little knot of fishing huts where naked Britons peeped out, trembling +at the iron tramp of each insolent legionary from the camp above. It +will not take another nineteen hundred years to develope the capabilities +of this place,—to make it the finest fishery in England, next to +Torbay,—the only safe harbour of refuge for West Indiamen, along sixty +miles of ruthless coast,—and a commercial centre for a vast tract of +half-tilled land within, which only requires means of conveyance to be as +fertile and valuable as nine-tenths of England. Meanwhile Claude ought +to have seen the deer-park. The panorama from that old ruined ‘bower’ of +cliff and woodland, down and sea, is really unique in its way. + +‘So is the whole place, in my eyes,’ said Claude. ‘I have seen nothing +in England to be compared to this little strip of paradise between two +great waste worlds of sea and moor. Lynmouth might be matched among the +mountains of Wales and Ireland. The first three miles of the Rheidol, +from the Devil’s Bridge towards Aberystwith, or the gorge of the Wye, +down the opposite watershed of the same mountains, from Castle Dufferin +down to Rhaiadyr, are equal to it in magnificence of form and colour, and +superior in size. But I question whether anything ever charmed me more +than did the return to the sounds of nature which greeted me to-day, as I +turned back from the dreary, silent moorland turnpike into this new road, +terraced along the cliffs and woods—those who first thought of cutting it +must have had souls in them above the herd—and listened to a glorious +concert in four parts, blending and supporting each other in exquisite +harmony, from the shrill treble of a thousand birds, and the soft +melancholy alto of the moaning woods, downward through the rich tenor hum +of innumerable insects, who hung like sparks of fire beneath the glades +of oak, to the bass of the unseen surge below, + + “Whose deep and dreadful organ-pipe,” + +far below me, contrasted strangely with the rich soft inland character of +the deep woods, luxuriant ferns, and gaudy flowers. It is that very +contrast which makes the place so unique. One is accustomed to connect +with the notion of the sea bare cliffs, breezy downs, stunted shrubs +struggling for existence: and instead of them behold a forest wall, 500 +feet high, of almost semi-tropic luxuriance. At one turn, a deep glen, +with its sea of green woods, filled up at the mouth with the bright azure +sheet of ocean.—Then some long stretch of the road would be banked on one +side with crumbling rocks, festooned with heath, and golden hawkweed, and +London pride, like velvet cushions covered with pink lace, and beds of +white bramble blossom alive with butterflies; while above my head, and on +my right, the cool canopy of oak and birch leaves shrouded me so close, +that I could have fancied myself miles inland, buried in some glen +unknown to any wind of heaven, but that everywhere between green sprays +and grey stems, gleamed that same boundless ocean blue, seeming, from the +height at which I was, to mount into the very sky. It looked but a step +out of the leafy covert into blank infinity. And then, as the road wound +round some point, one’s eye could fall down, down, through the abyss of +perpendicular wood, tree below tree clinging to and clothing the cliff, +or rather no cliff; but perpendicular sheet of deep wood sedge, and broad +crown ferns, spreading their circular fans.—But there is no describing +them, or painting them either.—And then to see how the midday sunbeams +leapt past one down the abyss, throwing out here a grey stem by one point +of burnished silver, there a hazel branch by a single leaf of glowing +golden green, shooting long bright arrows down, through the dim, hot, +hazy atmosphere of the wood, till it rested at last upon the dappled +beach of pink and grey pebbles, and the dappled surge which wandered up +and down among them, and broke up into richer intricacy with its +chequer-work of woodland shadows, the restless net of snowy foam.’ + +‘You must be fresh from reading Mr. Ruskin’s book, Claude, to be able to +give birth to such a piece of complex magniloquence as that last period +of yours.’ + +‘Why, I saw all that, and ten thousand things more; and yet do you +complain of me for having tried to put one out of all those thousand +things into words? And what do you mean by sneering at Mr. Ruskin? Are +there not in his books more and finer passages of descriptive +poetry—word-painting—call them what you will, than in any other prose +book in the English language?’ + +‘Not a doubt of it, my dear Claude; but it will not do for every one to +try Mr. Ruskin’s tools. Neither you nor I possess that almost Roman +severity, that stern precision of conception and expression, which +enables him to revel in the most gorgeous language, without ever letting +it pall upon the reader’s taste by affectation or over-lusciousness. His +style is like the very hills along which you have been travelling, whose +woods enrich, without enervating, the grand simplicity of their forms.’ + +‘The comparison is just,’ said Claude. ‘Mr. Ruskin’s style, like those +very hills, and like, too, the Norman cathedrals of which he is so fond, +is rather magnified than concealed by the innumerable multiplicity of its +ornamental chasing and colouring.’ + +‘And is not that,’ I asked, ‘the very highest achievement of artistic +style?’ + +‘Doubtless. The severe and grand simplicity, of which folks talk so +much, is great indeed; but only the greatest as long as men are still +ignorant of Nature’s art of draping her forms with colour, chiaroscuro, +ornament, not at the expense of the original design, but in order to +perfect it by making it appeal to every faculty instead of those of form +and size alone.’ + +‘Still you will allow the beauty of a bare rock, a down, a church spire, +a sheet or line of horizontal water,—their necessity to the completion of +a landscape. I recollect well having the value of a stern straight line +in Nature brought home to me, when, during a long ride in the New Forest, +after my eye had become quite dulled and wearied with the monotonous +softness of rolling lawns, feathery heath, and rounded oak and beech +woods, I suddenly caught sight of the sharp peaked roof of Rhinefield +Lodge, and its row of tall stiff poplar-spires, cutting the endless sea +of curves. The relief to my eye was delicious. I really believe it +heightened the pleasure with which I reined in my mare for a chat with +old Toomer the keeper, and the noble bloodhound who eyed me from between +his master’s legs.’ + +‘I can well believe it. Simple lines in a landscape are of the same +value as the naked parts of a richly-clothed figure. They act both as +contrasts and as indications of the original substratum of the figure; +but to say that severe simplicity is the highest ideal is mere pedantry +and Manicheism.’ + +‘Oh, everything is Manicheism with you, Claude!’ + +‘And no wonder, while the world is as full of it now as it was in the +thirteenth century. But let that pass. This craving after so-called +classic art, whether it be Manicheism or not, is certainly a fighting +against God,—a contempt of everything which He has taught us artists +since the introduction of Christianity. I abominate this setting up of +Sculpture above Painting, of the Greeks above the Italians,—as if all +Eastern civilization, all Christian truth, had taught art nothing,—as if +there was not more real beauty in a French cathedral or a Venetian +palazzo than in a dozen Parthenons, and more soul in one Rafaelle, or +Titian either, than in all the Greek statues of the Tribune or Vatican.’ + +‘You have changed your creed, I see, and, like all converts, are somewhat +fierce and fanatical. You used to believe in Zeuxis and Parrhasius in +old times.’ + +‘Yes, as long as I believed in Fuseli’s “Lectures;” but when I saw at +Pompeii the ancient paintings which still remain to us, my faith in their +powers received its first shock; and when I re-read in the Lectures of +Fuseli and his school all their extravagant praises of the Greek +painters, and separated their few facts fairly out from among the floods +of rant on which they floated, I came to the conclusion that the ancients +knew as little of colour or chiaroscuro as they did of perspective, and +as little of spiritual expression as they did of landscape-painting. +What do I care for the birds pecking at Zeuxis’s grapes, or Zeuxis +himself trying to draw back Parrhasius’s curtain? Imitative art is the +lowest trickery. There are twenty men in England now capable of the same +sleight of hand; and yet these are recorded as the very highest triumphs +of ancient art by the only men who have handed down to us any record of +it.’ + +‘It may be so; or again, it may not. But do not fancy, Claude, that +classic sculpture has finished its work on earth. You know that it has +taught you what Gothic art could never teach,—the ideal of physical +health and strength. Believe that it exists, and will exist, to remind +the puny town-dweller of the existence of that ideal; to say to the +artisan, every time he looks upon a statue—such God intended you to be; +such you may be; such your class will be, in some future healthy state of +civilization, when Sanitary Reform and Social Science shall be accepted +and carried out as primary duties of a government toward the nation. + +‘Surely, classic sculpture remains, as a witness of the primæval +paradise; a witness that man and woman were created at first healthy, and +strong, and fair, and innocent; just as classic literature remains for a +witness that the heathen of old were taught of God; that we have +something to learn of them, summed up in that now obsolete word +“virtue”—true and wholesome manhood, which we are likely to forget, and +are forgetting daily, under the enervating shadow of popular +superstitions. {287} And till we have learnt that, may Greek books still +form the basis of our liberal education, and may Greek statues, or even +English attempts to copy them, fill public halls and private houses. +This generation may not understand their divine and eternal significance; +but a future generation, doubt it not, will spell it out right well.’ + +Claude and I went forth along the cliffs of a park, which, though not of +the largest, is certainly of the loveliest in England,—perhaps unique, +from that abrupt contact of the richest inland scenery with the open sea, +which is its distinctive feature. As we wandered along the edge of the +cliff, beneath us on our left lay wooded valleys, lawns spotted with +deer, stately timber trees, oak and beech, birch and alder, growing as +full and round-headed as if they had been buried in some Shropshire +valley fifty miles inland, instead of having the Atlantic breezes all the +winter long sweeping past a few hundred feet above their still seclusion. +Glens of forest wound away into the high inner land, with silver burns +sparkling here and there under their deep shadows; while from the lawns +beneath, the ground sloped rapidly upwards towards us, to stop short in a +sheer wall of cliff, over which the deer were leaning to crop the shoots +of ivy, where the slipping of a stone would have sent them 400 feet +perpendicular into the sea. On our right, from our very feet, the sea +spread out to the horizon; a single falcon was wheeling about the ledges +below; a single cormorant was fishing in the breakers, diving and rising +again like some tiny water-beetle; + + ‘The murmuring surge + That on the unnumbered pebbles idly chafed + Could not be heard so high.’ + +The only sound beside the rustle of the fern before the startled deer was +the soft mysterious treble of the wind as it swept over the face of the +cliff beneath us; but the cool air was confined to the hill-tops round +beneath, from within a short distance of the shore, the sea was shrouded +in soft summer haze. The far Atlantic lay like an ocean of white wool, +out of which the Hartland Cliffs and the highest point of Lundy just +showed their black peaks. Here and there the western sun caught one +white bank of mist after another, and tinged them with glowing gold; +while nearer us long silvery zigzag tide-lines, which we could have +fancied the tracks of water-fairies, wandered away under the smoky +grey-brown shadows of the fog, and seemed to vanish hundreds of miles off +into the void of space, so completely was all notion of size or distance +destroyed by the soft gradations of the mist. Suddenly, as we stood +watching, a breeze from the eastward dived into the basin of the bay, +swept the clouds out, packed them together, rolled them over each other, +and hurled them into the air miles high in one Cordillera of snowy +mountains, sailing slowly out into the Atlantic; and behold, instead of +the chaos of mist, the whole amphitheatre of cliffs, with their gay green +woods and spots of bright red marl and cold black ironstone, and the +gleaming white sands of Braunton, and the hills of Exmoor bathed in +sunshine, so near and clear we almost fancied we could see the pink +heather-hue upon them; and the bay one vast rainbow, ten miles of +flame-colour and purple, emerald and ultramarine, flecked with a thousand +spots of flying snow. No one knows what gigantic effects of colour even +our temperate zone can show, till they have been in Devonshire and +Cornwall; and last, but not least, in Ireland—the Emerald Isle, in truth. +No stay-at-home knows the colour of the sea till he has seen the West of +England; and no one, either stay-at-home or traveller, I suspect, knows +what the colour of a green field can be till he has seen it among the +magic smiles and tears of an Irish summer shower in county Down. + +Down we wandered from our height through ‘trim walks and alleys green,’ +where the arbutus and gumcistus fringed the cliffs, and through the deep +glades of the park, towards the delicious little cove which bounds it.—A +deep crack in the wooded hills, an old mill half buried in rocks and +flowers, a stream tinkling on from one rock-basin to another towards the +beach, a sandy lawn gay with sea-side flowers over which wild boys and +bare-footed girls were driving their ponies with panniers full of sand, +and as they rattled back to the beach for a fresh load, standing upright +on the backs of their steeds, with one foot in each pannier, at full trot +over rocks and stones where a landsman would find it difficult to walk on +his own legs. + +Enraptured with the place and people, Claude pulled out his sketch-book +and sat down. + +‘What extraordinary rocks!’ said he, at length. ‘How different from +those Cyclopean blocks and walls along the Exmoor cliffs are these rich +purple and olive ironstone layers, with their sharp serrated lines and +polished slabs, set up on edge, snapped, bent double, twisted into +serpentine curves, every sheet of cliff scored with sharp parallel lines +at some fresh fantastic angle!’ + +Yes; there must have been strange work here when all these strata were +being pressed and squeezed together like a ream of wet paper between the +rival granite pincers of Dartmoor and Lundy. They must have suffered +enough then in a few years to give them a fair right to lie quiet till +Doomsday, as they seem likely to do. But it is only old Mother Earth who +has fallen asleep hereabouts. Air and sea are just as live as ever. Ay, +lovely and calm enough spread beneath us there the broad semicircle of +the bay; but to know what it can be, it should be seen as I have seen it, +when, in the roaring December morning, we have been galloping along the +cliffs, wreck-hunting.—One morning I can remember well, how we watched +from the Hartland Cliffs a great barque, which came drifting and rolling +in before the western gale, while we followed her up the coast, parsons +and sportsmen, farmers and Preventive men, with the Manby’s mortar +lumbering behind us in a cart, through stone gaps and track-ways, from +headland to headland.—The maddening excitement of expectation as she ran +wildly towards the cliffs at our feet, and then sheered off again +inexplicably;—her foremast and bowsprit, I recollect, were gone short off +by the deck; a few rags of sail fluttered from her main and mizen. But +with all straining of eyes and glasses, we could discern no sign of man +on board. Well I recollect the mingled disappointment and admiration of +the Preventive men, as a fresh set of salvors appeared in view, in the +form of a boat’s crew of Clovelly fishermen; how we watched breathlessly +the little black speck crawling and struggling up in the teeth of the +gale, under the shelter of the land, till, when the ship had rounded a +point into smoother water, she seized on her like some tiny spider on a +huge unwieldy fly; and then how one still smaller black speck showed +aloft on the main-yard, and another—and then the desperate efforts to get +the topsail set—and how we saw it tear out of their hands again, and +again, and again, and almost fancied we could hear the thunder of its +flappings above the roar of the gale, and the mountains of surf which +made the rocks ring beneath our feet;—and how we stood silent, +shuddering, expecting every moment to see whirled into the sea from the +plunging yards one of those same tiny black specks, in each one of which +was a living human soul, with sad women praying for him at home! And +then how they tried to get her head round to the wind, and disappeared +instantly in a cloud of white spray—and let her head fall back again—and +jammed it round again, and disappeared again—and at last let her drive +helplessly up the bay, while we kept pace with her along the cliffs; and +how at last, when she had been mastered and fairly taken in tow, and was +within two miles of the pier, and all hearts were merry with the hopes of +a prize which would make them rich, perhaps, for years to come—one-third, +I suppose, of the whole value of her cargo—how she broke loose from them +at the last moment, and rushed frantically in upon those huge rocks below +us, leaping great banks of slate at the blow of each breaker, tearing off +masses of ironstone which lie there to this day to tell the tale, till +she drove up high and dry against the cliff, and lay, like an enormous +stranded whale, grinding and crashing herself to pieces against the walls +of her adamantine cage. And well I recollect the sad records of the +log-book which was left on board the deserted ship; how she had been +waterlogged for weeks and weeks, buoyed up by her timber cargo, the crew +clinging in the tops, and crawling down, when they dared, for putrid +biscuit-dust and drops of water, till the water was washed overboard and +gone; and then notice after notice, ‘On this day such an one died,’ ‘On +this day such an one was washed away’—the log kept up to the last, even +when there was only that to tell, by the stern business-like merchant +skipper, whoever he was; and how at last, when there was neither food nor +water, the strong man’s heart seemed to have quailed, or perhaps risen, +into a prayer, jotted down in the log—‘The Lord have mercy on us!’—and +then a blank of several pages, and, scribbled with a famine-shaken hand, +‘Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth;’—and so the log and the +ship were left to the rats, which covered the deck when our men boarded +her. And well I remember the last act of that tragedy; for a ship has +really, as sailors feel, a personality, almost a life and soul of her +own; and as long as her timbers hold together, all is not over. You can +hardly call her a corpse, though the human beings who inhabited her, and +were her soul, may have fled into the far eternities; and so we felt that +night, as we came down along the woodland road, with the north-west wind +hurling dead branches and showers of crisp oak-leaves about our heads; +till suddenly, as we staggered out of the wood, we came upon such a piece +of chiaroscuro as would have baffled Correggio, or Rembrandt, himself. +Under a wall was a long tent of sails and spars, filled with Preventive +men, fishermen, Lloyd’s underwriters, lying about in every variety of +strange attitude and costume; while candles, stuck in bayonet-handles in +the wall, poured out a wild glare over shaggy faces and glittering +weapons, and piles of timber, and rusty iron cable, that glowed red-hot +in the light, and then streamed up the glen towards us through the salt +misty air in long fans of light, sending fiery bars over the brown +transparent oak foliage and the sad beds of withered autumn flowers, and +glorifying the wild flakes of foam, as they rushed across the +light-stream, into troops of tiny silver angels, that vanished into the +night and hid themselves among the woods from the fierce spirit of the +storm. And then, just where the glare of the lights and watch-fires was +most brilliant, there too the black shadows of the cliff had placed the +point of intensest darkness, lightening gradually upwards right and left, +between the two great jaws of the glen, into a chaos of grey mist, where +the eye could discern no form of sea or cloud, but a perpetual shifting +and quivering as if the whole atmosphere was writhing with agony in the +clutches of the wind. + +The ship was breaking up; and we sat by her like hopeless physicians by a +deathbed-side, to watch the last struggle,—and ‘the effects of the +deceased.’ I recollect our literally warping ourselves down to the +beach, holding on by rocks and posts. There was a saddened awe-struck +silence, even upon the gentleman from Lloyd’s with the pen behind his +ear. A sudden turn of the clouds let in a wild gleam of moonshine upon +the white leaping heads of the breakers, and on the pyramid of the +Black-church Rock, which stands in summer in such calm grandeur gazing +down on the smiling bay, with the white sand of Braunton and the red +cliffs of Portledge shining through its two vast arches; and against a +slab of rock on the right, for years afterwards discoloured with her +paint, lay the ship, rising slowly on every surge, to drop again with a +piteous crash as the wave fell back from the cliff, and dragged the +roaring pebbles back with it under the coming wall of foam. You have +heard of ships at the last moment crying aloud like living things in +agony? I heard it then, as the stumps of her masts rocked and reeled in +her, and every plank and joint strained and screamed with the dreadful +tension. + +A horrible image—a human being shrieking on the rack, rose up before me +at those strange semi-human cries, and would not be put away—and I tried +to turn, and yet my eyes were riveted on the black mass, which seemed +vainly to implore the help of man against the stern ministers of the +Omnipotent. + +Still she seemed to linger in the death-struggle, and we turned at last +away; when, lo! a wave, huger than all before it, rushed up the boulders +towards us.—We had just time to save ourselves.—A dull, thunderous groan, +as if a mountain had collapsed, rose above the roar of the tempest; and +we all turned with an instinctive knowledge of what had happened, just in +time to see the huge mass melt away into the boiling white, and vanish +for evermore. And then the very raving of the wind seemed hushed with +awe; the very breakers plunged more silently towards the shore, with +something of a sullen compunction; and as we stood and strained our eyes +into the gloom, one black plank after another crawled up out of the +darkness upon the head of the coming surge, and threw itself at our feet +like the corpse of a drowning man, too spent to struggle more. + +There is another subject for a picture for you, my friend Claude: but +your gayer fancy will prefer the scene just as you are sketching it now, +as still and bright as if this coast had never seen the bay 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 from the pitiless howling waste of spray behind them; and that merry +beach beside the town covered with shrieking women and old men casting +themselves on the pebbles in fruitless agonies of prayer, as corpse after +corpse swept up at the feet of wife and child, till in one case alone a +single dawn saw upwards of sixty widows and orphans weeping over those +who had gone out the night before in the fulness of strength and courage. +Hardly an old playmate of mine, but is drowned and gone:— + + ‘Their graves are scattered far and wide + By mount, by stream, and sea.’ + +One poor little fellow’s face starts out of the depths of memory as fresh +as ever, my especial pet and bird-nesting companion as a boy—a little +delicate, precocious, large-brained child, who might have written books +some day, if he had been a gentleman’s son: but when his father’s ship +was wrecked, they found him, left alone of all the crew, just as he had +been lashed into the rigging by loving and dying hands, but cold and +stiff, the little soul beaten out of him by the cruel waves before it had +time to show what growth there might have been in it. We will talk no +more of such things. It is thankless to be sad when all heaven and earth +are keeping holiday under the smile of God. + +‘And now let us return. At four o’clock to-morrow morning, you know, we +are to start for Lundy.’ + + + +V.—LUNDY. + + +It was four o’clock on an August morning. Our little party had made the +sleeping streets ring with jests and greetings, as it collected on the +pier. Some dozen young men and women, sons and daughters of the +wealthier coasting captains and owners of fishing-smacks, chaperoned by +our old landlord, whose delicate and gentlemanlike features and figure +were strangely at variance with the history of his life,—daring smuggler, +daring man-of-war sailor, and then most daring and successful of +coastguard-men. After years of fighting and shipwreck and creeping for +kegs of brandy; after having seen, too—sight not to be forgotten—the +Walcheren dykes and the Walcheren fever, through weary months of +pestilence, he had come back with a little fortune of prize-money to be a +village oracle, loving and beloved, as gentle and courteous as if he had +never ‘stato al inferno,’ and looked Death in the face. Heaven bless +thee, shrewd loyal heart, a gentleman of God’s making, not unrecognized +either by many of men’s making. + +The other chaperone was a lady of God’s making, too; one who might have +been a St. Theresa, had she been born there and then; but as it was, had +been fated to become only the Wesleyan abbess of the town, and, like +Deborah, ‘a mother in Israel.’ With her tall, slim, queenly figure, +massive forehead, glittering eyes, features beaming with tenderness and +enthusiasm, and yet overcast with a peculiar expression of +self-consciousness and restraint, well known to those who have studied +the physiognomies of ‘saints,’ she seemed to want only the dress of some +monastic order to make her the ideal of a mediæval abbess, watching with +a half-pitying, half-complacent smile, the gambols of a group of innocent +young worldlings. I saw Claude gazing at her full of admiration and +surprise, which latter was certainly not decreased when, as soon as all +had settled themselves comfortably on board, and the cutter was slipping +quietly away under the magnificent deer-park cliffs, the Lady Abbess, +pulling out her Wesleyan hymn-book, gave out the Morning Hymn, apparently +as a matter of course. + +With hardly a demur one sweet voice after another arose; then a man +gained courage, and chimed in with a full harmonious bass; then a rich +sad alto made itself heard, as it wandered in and out between the voices +of the men and women; and at last a wild mellow tenor, which we +discovered after much searching to proceed from the most unlikely-looking +lips of an old dry, weather-bleared, mummified chrysalis of a man, who +stood aft, steering with his legs, and showing no sign of life except +when he slowly and solemnly filled his nose with snuff. + +‘What strange people have you brought me among?’ asked Claude. ‘I have +been wondering ever since I came here at the splendid faces and figures +of men, women, and children, which popped out upon me from every door in +that human rabbit-burrow above. I have been in raptures at the +gracefulness, the courtesy, the intelligence of almost everyone I meet; +and now, to crown all, everyone among them seems to be a musician.’ + +‘Really you are not far wrong, and you will find them as remarkable +morally as they are physically and intellectually. The simplicity and +purity of the women here put one more in mind of the valleys of the Tyrol +than of an English village.’ + +‘And in proportion to their purity, I suppose,’ said Claude, ‘is their +freedom and affectionateness?’ + +‘Exactly. It would do your “naturalist” heart good, Claude, to see a +young fellow just lauded from a foreign voyage rolling up the street +which we have just descended, and availing himself of the immemorial +right belonging to such cases of kissing and being kissed by every woman +whom he meets, young and old. You will find yourself here among those +who are too simple-minded, and too full of self-respect, to be either +servile or uncourteous.’ + +‘I have found out already that Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality, in such +company as this, are infinitely pleasanter, as well as cheaper, than the +aristocratic seclusion of a cutter hired for our own behoof.’ + +‘True; and now you will not go home and, as most tourists do, say that +you know a place, without knowing the people who live in it—as if the +human inhabitants of a range of scenery were not among its integral and +most important parts—’ + +‘What! are Copley Fielding’s South Down landscapes incomplete without a +half-starved seven shillings a-week labourer in the foreground?’ + +‘Honestly, are they not a text without a sermon? a premise without a +conclusion? Is it not partly because the land is down, and not +well-tilled arable, that the labourer is what he is? And yet, perhaps, +the very absence of human beings in his vast sheets of landscape, when +one considers that they are scraps of great, overcrowded, scientific +England in the nineteenth century, is in itself the bitterest of satires. +But, hush! there is another hymn commencing—not to be the last by many.’ + + * * * * * + +We had landed, and laughed, and scrambled, eaten and drunk, seen all the +sights of Lundy, and heard all the traditions. Are they not written in +Mr. Bamfield’s Ilfracombe Guide? Why has not some one already written a +fire-and-brimstone romance about them? ‘Moresco Castle; or, the Pirate +Knight of the Atlantic Wave.’ What a title! Or again—‘The Seal Fiend; +or, the Nemesis of the Scuttled West Indiaman.’—If I had paper and +lubricité enough, and that delightful carelessness of any moral or +purpose, except that of fine writing and money-making, which possesses +some modern scribblers—I could tales unfold—But neither pirate legends, +nor tales of cheated insurance offices, nor wrecks and murders, will make +us understand Lundy—what it is ‘considered in its idea,’ as the new argot +is. It may be defined as a lighthouse-bearing island. The whole three +miles of granite table-land, seals, sea-birds, and human beings, are mere +accidents and appendages—the pedestal and the ornaments of that great +white tower in the centre, whose sleepless fiery eye blinks all night +long over the night-mists of the Atlantic. If, as a wise man has said, +the days will come when our degenerate posterity will fall down and +worship rusty locomotives and fossil electric-telegraphs, the relics of +their ancestors’ science, grown to them mythic and impossible, as the +Easter-islanders bow before the colossal statues left by a nobler and +extinct race, then surely there will be pilgrimages to Lundy, and prayers +to that white granite tower, with its unglazed lantern and rusting +machinery, to light itself up again, and help poor human beings! Really, +my dear brothers, I am not in jest: you seem but too likely now-a-days to +arrive at some such catastrophe—sentimental philosophy for the +‘enlightened’ few, and fetish-worship (of which nominally Christian forms +are as possible as heathen ones) for the masses.—At that you may only too +probably arrive—unless you repent, and ‘get back your souls.’ + + * * * * * + +We had shot along the cliffs a red-legged chough or two, and one of the +real black English rat, exterminated on the mainland by the grey +Hanoverian newcomer; and weary with sight-seeing and scrambling, we sat +down to meditate on a slab of granite, which hung three hundred feet in +air above the western main. + +‘This is even more strange and new to me,’ said Claude, at length, ‘than +anything I have yet seen in this lovely West. I now appreciate Ruskin’s +advice to oil-painters to go and study the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, +instead of lingering about the muddy seas and tame cliffs of the Channel +and the German Ocean.’ + +‘How clear and brilliant,’ said I, ‘everything shows through this +Atlantic atmosphere. The intensity of colouring may vie with that of the +shores of the Mediterranean. The very raininess of the climate, by +condensing the moisture into an ever-changing phantasmagoria of clouds, +leaves the clear air and sunshine, when we do get a glimpse of them, all +the more pure and transparent.’ + +‘The distinctive feature of the scene is, in my eyes, the daring +juxtaposition of large simple masses of positive colour. There are none +of the misty enamelled tones of Lynmouth, or the luscious richness of +Clovelly. The forms are so simple and severe, that they would be +absolutely meagre, were it not for the rich colouring with which Nature +has so lovingly made up for the absence of all softness, all picturesque +outline. One does not regret or even feel the want of trees here, while +the eye ranges down from that dappled cloud-world above, over that sheet +of purple heather, those dells bedded with dark green fern, of a depth +and richness of hue which I never saw before—over those bright grey +granite rocks, spangled with black glittering mica and golden lichens, to +rest at last on that sea below, which streams past the island in a swift +roaring torrent of tide.’ + +‘Sea, Claude? say, ocean. This is real Atlantic blue here beneath us. +No more Severn mud, no more grass-green bay-water, but real ocean +sapphire—dark, deep, intense, Homeric purple, it spreads away, away, +there before us, without a break or islet, to the shores of America. You +are sitting on one of the last points of Europe; and therefore all things +round you are stern and strange with a barbaric pomp, such as befits the +boundary of a world.’ + +‘Ay, the very form of the cliffs shows them to be the breakwaters of a +continent. No more fantastic curves and bands of slate, such as +harmonize so well with the fairyland which we left this morning; the +cliffs, with their horizontal rows of cubical blocks, seem built up by +Cyclopean hands.’ + +‘Yet how symbolic is the difference between them and that equally +Cyclopic masonry of the Exmoor coast. There every fracture is fresh, +sharp-edged, crystalline; the worn-out useless hills are dropping to +pieces with their own weight. Here each cube is delicately rounded off +at the edges, every crack worn out into a sinuous furrow, like the scars +of an everlasting warfare with the winds and waves.’ + +‘Does it not raise strange longings in you,’ said Claude, ‘to gaze out +yonder over the infinite calm, and then to remember that beyond it lies +America!—the new world; the future world; the great Titan-baby, who will +be teeming with new Athens and Londons, with new Bacons and Shakspeares, +Newtons and Goethes, when this old worn-out island will be—what? Oh! +when I look out here, like a bird from its cage, a captive from his +dungeon, and remember what lies behind me, to what I must return +to-morrow—the over-peopled Babylon of misery and misrule, puffery and +covetousness—and there before me great countries untilled, uncivilized, +unchristianized, crying aloud for man to come and be man indeed, and +replenish the earth and subdue it. “Oh that I had wings as a dove, then +would I flee away and be at rest!” Here, lead me away; my body is +growing as dizzy as my mind. I feel coming over me that horrible longing +of which I have heard, to leap out into empty space. How the blank air +whispers, “Be free!” How the broad sea smiles, and calls, with its ten +thousand waves, “Be free!”—As I live, if you do not take me away I shall +throw myself over the cliff.’ + +I did take him away, for I knew the sensation and its danger well. It +has nothing to do with physical giddiness. Those who are cliff-bred, and +who never were giddy for an instant in their lives, have often felt +themselves impelled to leap from masts, and tree-tops, and cliffs; and +nothing but the most violent effort of will could break the fascination. +I cannot but think, by the bye, that many a puzzling suicide might be +traced to this same emotion acting on a weak and morbid brain. + +We returned to the little landing cove. The red-sailed cutter lay +sleeping below us—‘floating double, ship and shadow.’ Shoals of +innumerable mackerel broke up, making acres of water foam and sparkle +round their silvery sides, with a soft roar (call it ‘a bull’ if you +like, it is the only expression for that mysterious sound), while among +them the black head of a huge seal was slowly and silently appearing and +vanishing, as he got his dinner, in a quiet business-like way, among the +unhappy wanderers. + +We put off in the boat, and just halfway from the cutter Claude gave a +start, and the women a scream, as the enormous brute quietly raised his +head and shoulders out of the water ten yards off, with a fish kicking in +his mouth, and the water running off his nose, to take a deliberate stare +at us, after the fashion of seals, whose ruling passion is curiosity. +The sound of a musical instrument, the sight of a man bathing—anything, +in short, which their small wits cannot explain at first sight, is enough +to make them forget all their cunning, and thrust their heads suicidally +into any danger; and even so it fared with the ‘black man,’ as the girls, +in their first terror, declared him to be. Some fellow’s gun went off—of +itself I should like to believe—but the whole charge disappeared into his +sleek round visage, knocking the mackerel from between his teeth; and he +turned over, a seven-foot lump of lifeless blubber. + +‘Wretch!’ cried Claude, as we dragged the seal into the boat, where he +lay with his head and arms hanging helplessly over the bows, like a +sea-sick alderman on board a Margate steamer. ‘What excuse can he give +for such a piece of wanton cruelty?’ + +‘I assure you his skin and oil are very valuable.’ + +‘Pish!—Was he thinking of skin and oil when he pulled the trigger? or +merely obeying the fleshly lust of destructiveness—the puppet of two +bumps on the back of his head?’ + +‘My dear Claude, man is the microcosm; and as the highest animal, the +ideal type of the mammalia, he, like all true types, comprises in himself +the attributes of all lower species. Therefore he must have a tiger-vein +in him, my dear Claude, as well as a beaver-vein and a spider-vein; and +no more shame to him. You are a butterfly; that good fellow a beast of +prey; both may have their own work to do in this age just as they had in +the old ones; and if you do not like that explanation, all I can say is, +I can sympathise with you and with him too. Homo sum—humani nihil a me +alienum puto. Trim the boat, lads, or the seal will swamp us, and, like +Samson, slay more in his death than ever he slew in his life.’ + +We slipped on homeward. The cliff-wall of Lundy stood out blacker and +blacker every moment against the gay western sky; greens, greys, and +purples, dyeing together into one deep rich monotone, for which our +narrow colour-vocabulary has no word; and threw a long cold shadow +towards us across the golden sea; suddenly above its dark ridge a wild +wreath of low rack caught the rays of the setting sun, and flamed up like +a volcano towards the dun and purple canopy of upper clouds. Before us +the blue sea and the blue land-line were fading into mournful grey, on +which one huge West Indiaman blazed out, orange and scarlet, her crowded +canvas all a-flame from the truck to the water’s edge.—A few moments and +she, too, had vanished into the grey twilight, and a chill night-wind +crisped the sea. It was a relief to hear the Evening Hymn rise rich and +full from one voice, and then another and another, till the men chimed in +one by one, and the whole cutter, from stem to stern, breathed up its +melody into the silent night. + +But the hymn soon flagged—there was more mirth on board than could vent +itself in old Charles Wesley’s words; and one began to hum a song tune, +and then another, with a side glance at the expression of the Lady +Abbess’s face, till at last, when a fair wife took courage, and burst out +with full pipe into ‘The sea, the sea,’ the ice was fairly broken; and +among jests and laughter one merry harmless song after another rang out, +many of them, to Claude’s surprise, fashionable London ones, which +sounded strangely enough out there on the wild western sea. At +last—‘Claude, friend,’ I whispered, ‘you must sing your share too—and +mine also, for that matter.’ + +‘What shall I sing?’ + +‘Anything you will, from the sublime to the ridiculous. They will +understand and appreciate it as well as yourself. Recollect, you are not +among bullet-headed South Saxon clods, but among wits as keen and +imaginations as rich as those of any Scotch shepherd or Manchester +operative.’ + +And up rose his exquisite tenor. + +This was his first song, but it was not allowed to be his last. German +ballads, Italian Opera airs, were all just as warmly, and perhaps far +more sincerely appreciated, as they would have been by any London +evening-party; and the singing went on, hour after hour, as we slipped +slowly on upon the tide, till it grew late, and the sweet voices died +away one by one; and then the Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity which had +reigned so pleasantly throughout the day took a new form, as the women +huddled together to sleep in each other’s arms; and the men and we +clustered forwards, while from every mouth fragrant incense steamed +upwards into the air. ‘Man a cooking animal?’ my dear Doctor +Johnson—pooh! man is a smoking animal. There is his ergon, his +‘differential energy,’ as the Aristotelians say—his true distinction from +the ourang-outang. Ponder it well. + +The men were leaning on the trawl capstan, while our old landlord, with +half-a-dozen pipes within a foot of his face, droned out some long +sea-yarn about Ostend, and muds, and snow-storms, and revenue-cruisers +going down stern foremost, kegs of brandy and French prisons, which I +shall not repeat; for indeed the public has been surfeited with +sea-stories of late, from many sufficiently dull ones up to the genial +wisdom of ‘Peter Simple,’ and the gorgeous word-painting of ‘Tom +Cringle’s Log.’ And now the subject is stale—the old war and the wonders +thereof have died away into the past, like the men who fought in it; and +Trafalgar and the Bellerophon are replaced by Manchester and ‘Mary +Barton.’ We have solved the old sea-going problems pretty well—thanks to +wise English-hearted Captain Marryat, now gone to his rest, just when his +work was done; and we must turn round and face a few land-going problems +not quite so easy of solution. So Claude and I thought, as we leant over +the sloop’s bows, listening neither to the Ostend story forwards nor the +forty-stanza ballad aft, which the old steersman was moaning on, careless +of listeners, to keep himself awake at the helm. Forty stanzas or so we +did count from curiosity; the first line of each of which ended +infallibly with + + ‘Says the commodo—ore; + +and the third with + + ‘Says the female smuggler;’ + +and then gave up in despair; and watched in a dreamy, tired, half-sad +mood, the everlasting sparkle of the water as our bows threw it gently +off in sheets of flame and ‘tender curving lines of creamy’ fire, that +ran along the glassy surface, and seemed to awaken the sea for yards +round into glittering life, as countless diamonds, and emeralds, and +topazes, leaped and ran and dived round us, while we slipped slowly by; +and then a speck of light would show far off in the blank darkness, and +another, and another, and slide slowly up to us—shoals of medusæ, every +one of them a heaving globe of flame; and some unseen guillemot would +give a startled squeak, or a shearwater close above our heads suddenly +stopped the yarn, and raised a titter among the men, by his ridiculously +articulate, and not over-complimentary, cry; and then a fox’s bark from +the cliffs came wild and shrill, although so faint and distant; or the +lazy gaff gave a sad uneasy creak; and then a soft warm air, laden with +heather honey, and fragrant odours of sedge, and birch, and oak, came +sighing from the land; while all around us was the dense blank of the +night, except where now and then some lonely gleam through the southern +clouds showed the cliff-tops on our right.—It was all most unearthly, +dreamlike, a strange phantasmagoria, like some scene from ‘The Ancient +Mariner’—all the world shut out, silent, invisible, and we floating along +there alone, like a fairy ship creeping through Chaos and the unknown +Limbo. Was it an evil thought that rose within me as I said to +Claude—‘Is not this too like life? Our only light the sparkles that rise +up round us at every step, and die behind us; and all around, and all +before, the great black unfathomable eternities? A few souls brought +together as it were by chance, for a short friendship and mutual +dependence in this little ship of earth, so soon to land her passengers +and break up the company for ever?’ + +He smiled. + +‘There is a devil’s meaning to everything in nature, and a God’s meaning, +too. Your friends, the zoologists, have surely taught you better than +that. As I read Nature’s parable to-night, I find nothing in it but +hope. What if there be darkness, the sun will rise to-morrow. What if +there seem a chaos: the great organic world is still living, and growing, +and feeding, unseen by us, all the black night through; and every +phosphoric atom there below is a sign that even in the darkest night +there is still the power of light, ready to flash out, wherever and +however it is stirred. Does the age seem to you dark? Do you, too, feel +as I do at times, the awful sadness of that text,—“The time shall come +when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Lord, and shall not +see it”? Then remember that + + “The night is never so long + But at last it ringeth for matin song.” + +And even as it is around us here, so it is in the world of men. The +night is peopled not merely with phantoms and wizards, superstitions and +spirits of evil, but under its shadow all sciences, methods, social +energies, are taking rest, and growing, and feeding, unknown to +themselves, that they may awake into a new life, and intermarry, and +beget children nobler than themselves, when “the day-spring from on high +comes down.” Even now, see! the dawn is gilding the highest souls, as it +is those Exmoor peaks afar; and we are in the night only because we crawl +below. What if we be unconscious of all the living energies which are +fermenting round us now? Have you not shown me in this last week every +moorland pool, every drop of the summer sea, alive with beautiful +organizations, multiplying as fast as the thoughts of man? Is not every +leaf breathing still, every sap vein drinking still, though we may not +see them? “Even so is the kingdom of God; like seed sown in the ground; +and men rise, and lie down and sleep; and it groweth up they know not +how.”’ + +We both fell into a reverie. The story and the ballad were finished, and +not a sound broke the silence except the screaming of the sea-fowl, which +led my thoughts wandering back to nights long past, when we dragged the +seine up to our chins in water through the short midsummer night, and +scrambled and rolled over on the beach in boyish glee, after the skate +and mullet, with those now gone; and as I thought and thought, old voices +seemed to call me, old faces looked at me, of playmates, and those nearer +than playmates, now sleeping in the deep deep sea, amid far coral +islands; and old figures seemed to glide out of the mysterious dark along +the still sea floor, as if the ocean were indeed giving up her dead. I +shook myself, turned away, and tried to persuade myself that I was +dreaming. Perhaps I had been doing so. At least, I remember very little +more, till I was roused by the rattling of the chain-cable through the +hawse-hole, opposite the pier-head. + +And now, gentle readers, farewell; and farewell, Clovelly, and all the +loving hearts it holds; and farewell, too, the soft still summer weather. +Claude and I are taking our last walk together along the deer-park +cliffs. Lundy is shrouded in the great grey fan of dappled haze which +streams up from the westward, dimming the sickly sun. ‘There is not a +breath the blue wave to curl.’ Yet lo! round Chapman’s Head creeps a +huge bank of polished swell, and bursts in thunder on the cliffs.—Another +follows, and another.—The Atlantic gales are sending in their +avant-courriers of ground-swell: six hours more, and the storm which has +been sweeping over ‘the still-vexed Bermoöthes,’ and bending the tall +palms on West Indian isles, will be roaring through the oak woods of +Devon. The old black buck is calling his does with ominous croakings, +and leading the way slowly into the deepest coverts of the glens. The +stormy petrels, driven in from the Atlantic, are skimming like black +swallows over the bay beneath us. Long strings of sea-fowl are flagging +on steadily at railroad pace, towards the sands and salt-marshes of +Braunton. The herring-boats are hastily hauling their nets—you may see +the fish sparkling like flakes of silver as they come up over the +gunwale; all craft, large and small, are making for the shelter of the +pier. Claude starts this afternoon to sit for six months in Babylonic +smoke, working up his sketches into certain unspeakable pictures, with +which the world will be astonished, or otherwise, at the next Royal +Academy Exhibition; while I, for whom another fortnight of pure western +air remains, am off to well-known streams, to be in time for the autumn +floods, and the shoals of fresh-run salmon trout. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{1} _Fraser’s Magazine_, June 1867. + +{29} _Fraser’s Magazine_, September 1858. + +{74} The Ripon list of natural flies contains several other species of +small Nemouridæ unknown to me, save one brown one, which is seen in the +South, though rarely, in June. + +{103} For these details I am indebted to a paper in the ‘Annals of +Natural History,’ for September 1862, by my friend, Professor Alfred +Newton, of Cambridge. + +{135} _Fraser’s Magazine_, January 1858. + +{225a} _Fraser’s Magazine_, July 1849. + +{225b} Some years after this was written, the very book which was needed +appeared, as “The Chase of the Red Deer,” by Mr. Palk Collyns. + +{235} Written before the Volunteer movement. + +{287} Most wise and noble words upon this matter, worth the attention of +all thinking men, and above all of clergymen, have been written by Mr. J. +S. Mill, in his tract on ‘Liberty.’ + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROSE IDYLLS*** + + +******* This file should be named 7032-0.txt or 7032-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/7/0/3/7032 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive +specific permission. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Prose Idylls + New and Old + + +Author: Charles Kingsley + + + +Release Date: November 5, 2014 [eBook #7032] +[This file was first posted on February 25, 2003] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROSE IDYLLS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1882 Macmillan and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/fpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Eversley Rectory" +title= +"Eversley Rectory" + src="images/fps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>PROSE IDYLLS,<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">NEW AND OLD.</span></h1> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY,<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">CANON OF WESTMINSTER.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/tpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Drawing of bird on branch, singing" +title= +"Drawing of bird on branch, singing" + src="images/tps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall"><i>NEW +EDITION</i></span><span class="GutSmall">.</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">London:<br /> +MACMILLAN AND CO.<br /> +1882.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>The Right of Translation and +Reproduction is Reserved</i>.</p> +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="smcap">Page</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">I.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>‘A Charm of Birds’</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">II.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Chalk-Stream Studies</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page27">27</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">III.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Fens</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page93">93</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">IV.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>My Winter-Garden</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page133">133</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">V.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>From Ocean to Sea</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page175">175</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">VI.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>North Devon</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page223">223</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>I.<br /> +‘<i>A CHARM OF BIRDS</i>.’ <a name="citation1"></a><a +href="#footnote1" class="citation">[1]</a></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Is</span> it merely a fancy that we +English, the educated people among us at least, are losing that +love for spring which among our old forefathers rose almost to +worship? That the perpetual miracle of the budding leaves +and the returning song-birds awakes no longer in us the +astonishment which it awoke yearly among the dwellers in the old +world, when the sun was a god who was sick to death each winter, +and returned in spring to life and health, and glory; when the +death of Adonis, at the autumnal equinox, was wept over by the +Syrian women, and the death of Baldur, in the colder north, by +all living things, even to the dripping trees, and the rocks +furrowed by the autumn rains; when Freya, the goddess of youth +and love, went forth over the earth each spring, while the +flowers broke forth under her tread over the brown moors, and the +birds welcomed her with song; when, according to Olaus Magnus, +the Goths and South Swedes had, on the return of spring, a mock +battle between summer and winter, and welcomed the returning +splendour of the sun with dancing and mutual feasting, rejoicing +that a better season for fishing and hunting was +approaching? To those simpler children of a simpler age, in +more direct contact with the daily and yearly facts of Nature, +and more dependent on them for their bodily food and life, winter +and spring were the two great facts of existence; the symbols, +the one of death, the other of life; and the battle between the +two—the battle of the sun with darkness, of winter with +spring, of death with life, of bereavement with love—lay at +the root of all their myths and all their creeds. Surely a +change has come over our fancies. The seasons are little to +us now. We are nearly as comfortable in winter as in +summer, or in spring. Nay, we have begun, of late, to +grumble at the two latter as much as at the former, and talk (and +not without excuse at times) of ‘the treacherous month of +May,’ and of ‘summer having set in with its usual +severity.’ We work for the most part in cities and +towns, and the seasons pass by us unheeded. May and June +are spent by most educated people anywhere rather than among +birds and flowers. They do not escape into the country till +the elm hedges are growing black, and the song-birds silent, and +the hay cut, and all the virgin bloom of the country has passed +into a sober and matronly ripeness—if not into the sere and +yellow leaf. Our very landscape painters, till Creswick +arose and recalled to their minds the fact that trees were +sometimes green, were wont to paint few but brown autumnal +scenes. As for the song of birds, of which in the middle +age no poet could say enough, our modern poets seem to be +forgetting that birds ever sing.</p> +<p>It was not so of old. The climate, perhaps, was more +severe than now; the transition from winter to spring more +sudden, like that of Scandinavia now. Clearage of forests +and drainage of land have equalized our seasons, or rather made +them more uncertain. More broken winters are followed by +more broken springs; and May-day is no longer a marked point to +be kept as a festival by all childlike hearts. The merry +month of May is merry only in stage songs. The May garlands +and dances are all but gone: the borrowed plate, and the +milkmaids who borrowed it, gone utterly. No more does Mrs. +Pepys go to ‘lie at Woolwich, in order to a little ayre and +to gather May-dew’ for her complexion, by Mrs. +Turner’s advice. The Maypole is gone likewise; and +never more shall the puritan soul of a Stubbs be aroused in +indignation at seeing ‘against Maie, every parish, towne, +and village assemble themselves together, both men, women, and +children, olde and young, all indifferently, and goe into the +woodes and groves, hilles and mountaines, where they spend the +night in pastyme, and in the morning they returne, bringing with +them birch bowes and braunches of trees to deck their assembly +withal. . . . They have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every +oxe having a sweete nosegay of flowers tyed on the tippe of his +hornes, and these draw home this Maypole (this stincking idol +rather) which is covered all over with flowers and hearbes, with +two or three hundred men, women, and children following it with +great devotion. . . And then they fall to banquet and +feast, daunce and leap about it, as the heathen people did at the +dedication of their idolles, whereof this is a perfect pattern, +or the thing itself.’</p> +<p>This, and much more, says poor Stubbs, in his ‘Anatomie +of Abuses,’ and had, no doubt, good reason enough for his +virtuous indignation at May-day scandals. But people may be +made dull without being made good; and the direct and only effect +of putting down May games and such like was to cut off the +dwellers in towns from all healthy communion with Nature, and +leave them to mere sottishness and brutality.</p> +<p>Yet perhaps the May games died out, partly because the +feelings which had given rise to them died out before improved +personal comforts. Of old, men and women fared hardly, and +slept cold; and were thankful to Almighty God for every beam of +sunshine which roused them out of their long hybernation; +thankful for every flower and every bird which reminded them that +joy was stronger than sorrow, and life than death. With the +spring came not only labour, but enjoyment:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘In the spring, the young man’s fancy +lightly turned to thoughts of love,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>as lads and lasses, who had been pining for each other by +their winter firesides, met again, like Daphnis and Chloe, by +shaugh and lea; and learnt to sing from the songs of birds, and +to be faithful from their faithfulness.</p> +<p>Then went out troops of fair damsels to seek spring garlands +in the forest, as Scheffel has lately sung once more in his +‘Frau Aventiure;’ and, while the dead leaves rattled +beneath their feet, hymned ‘La Regine Avrillouse’ to +the music of some Minnesinger, whose song was as the song of +birds; to whom the birds were friends, fellow-lovers, teachers, +mirrors of all which he felt within himself of joyful and tender, +true and pure; friends to be fed hereafter (as Walther von der +Vogelweide had them fed) with crumbs upon his grave.</p> +<p>True melody, it must be remembered, is unknown, at least at +present, in the tropics, and peculiar to the races of those +temperate climes, into which the song-birds come in spring. +It is hard to say why. Exquisite songsters, and those, +strangely, of an European type, may be heard anywhere in tropical +American forests: but native races whose hearts their song can +touch, are either extinct or yet to come. Some of the old +German Minnelieder, on the other hand, seem actually copied from +the songs of birds. ‘Tanderadei’ does not +merely ask the nightingale to tell no tales; it repeats, in its +cadences, the nightingale’s song, as the old Minnesinger +heard it when he nestled beneath the lime-tree with his +love. They are often almost as inarticulate, these old +singers, as the birds from whom they copied their notes; the +thinnest chain of thought links together some bird-like refrain: +but they make up for their want of logic and reflection by the +depth of their passion, the perfectness of their harmony with +nature. The inspired Swabian, wandering in the pine-forest, +listens to the blackbird’s voice till it becomes his own +voice; and he breaks out, with the very carol of the +blackbird</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Vogele im Tannenwald pfeifet so hell.<br /> +Pfeifet de Wald aus und ein, wo wird mein Schätze sein?<br +/> +Vogele im Tannenwald pfeitet so hell.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And he has nothing more to say. That is his whole soul +for the time being; and, like a bird, he sings it over and over +again, and never tires.</p> +<p>Another, a Nieder-Rheinischer, watches the moon rise over the +Löwenburg, and thinks upon his love within the castle hall, +till he breaks out in a strange, sad, tender melody—not +without stateliness and manly confidence in himself and in his +beloved—in the true strain of the nightingale:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Verstohlen geht der Mond auf,<br /> +Blau, blau, Blümelein,<br /> +Durch Silberwölkchen führt sein Lauf.<br /> +Rosen im Thal, Mädel im Saal, O schönste Rosa!<br /> +* * *<br /> +Und siehst du mich,<br /> +Und siehst du sie,<br /> +Blau, blau, Blümelein,<br /> +Zwei treu’re Herzen sah’st du nie;<br /> +Rosen im Thal u. s. w.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There is little sense in the words, doubtless, according to +our modern notions of poetry; but they are like enough to the +long, plaintive notes of the nightingale to say all that the poet +has to say, again and again through all his stanzas.</p> +<p>Thus the birds were, to the mediæval singers, their +orchestra, or rather their chorus; from the birds they caught +their melodies; the sounds which the birds gave them they +rendered into words.</p> +<p>And the same bird keynote surely is to be traced in the early +English and Scotch songs and ballads, with their often +meaningless refrains, sung for the mere pleasure of singing:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">‘Binnorie, O +Binnorie.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Or—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘With a hey lillelu and a how lo lan,<br /> +And the birk and the broom blooms bonnie.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Or—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘She sat down below a thorn,<br /> + Fine flowers in the valley,<br /> +And there has she her sweet babe born,<br /> + And the green leaves they grow rarely.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Or even those ‘fal-la-las,’ and other nonsense +refrains, which, if they were not meant to imitate bird-notes, +for what were they meant?</p> +<p>In the old ballads, too, one may hear the bird keynote. +He who wrote (and a great rhymer he was)</p> +<blockquote><p>‘As I was walking all alane,<br /> +I heard twa corbies making a mane,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>had surely the ‘mane’ of the ‘corbies’ +in his ears before it shaped itself into words in his mind: and +he had listened to many a ‘woodwele’ who first +thrummed on harp, or fiddled on crowd, how—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘In summer, when the shawes be shene,<br /> + And leaves be large and long,<br /> +It is full merry in fair forest<br /> + To hear the fowlés’ song.</p> +<p>‘The wood-wele sang, and wolde not cease,<br /> + Sitting upon the spray;<br /> +So loud, it wakened Robin Hood<br /> + In the greenwood where he lay.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And Shakespeare—are not his scraps of song saturated +with these same bird-notes? ‘Where the bee +sucks,’ ‘When daisies pied,’ ‘Under the +greenwood tree,’ ‘It was a lover and his lass,’ +‘When daffodils begin to peer,’ ‘Ye spotted +snakes,’ have all a ring in them which was caught not in +the roar of London, or the babble of the Globe theatre, but in +the woods of Charlecote, and along the banks of Avon, from</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The ouzel-cock so black of hue,<br /> + With orange-tawny bill;<br /> +The throstle with his note so true:<br /> + The wren with little quill;<br /> +The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,<br /> + The plain-song cuckoo gray’—</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and all the rest of the birds of the air.</p> +<p>Why is it, again, that so few of our modern songs are truly +songful, and fit to be set to music? Is it not that the +writers of them—persons often of much taste and poetic +imagination—have gone for their inspiration to the +intellect, rather than to the ear? That (as Shelley does by +the skylark, and Wordsworth by the cuckoo), instead of trying to +sing like the birds, they only think and talk about the birds, +and therefore, however beautiful and true the thoughts and words +may be, they are not song? Surely they have not, like the +mediæval songsters, studied the speech of the birds, the +primæval teachers of melody; nor even melodies already +extant, round which, as round a framework of pure music, their +thoughts and images might crystallize themselves, certain thereby +of becoming musical likewise. The best modern song writers, +Burns and Moore, were inspired by their old national airs; and +followed them, Moore at least, with a reverent fidelity, which +has had its full reward. They wrote words to music and not, +as modern poets are wont, wrote the words first, and left others +to set music to the words. They were right; and we are +wrong. As long as song is to be the expression of pure +emotion, so long it must take its key from music,—which is +already pure emotion, untranslated into the grosser medium of +thought and speech—often (as in the case of +Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words) not to be translated +into it at all.</p> +<p>And so it may be, that in some simpler age, poets may go back, +like the old Minnesingers, to the birds of the forest, and learn +of them to sing.</p> +<p>And little do most of them know how much there is to learn; +what variety of character, as well as variety of emotion, may be +distinguished by the practised ear, in a ‘charm of +birds’ (to use the old southern phrase), from the wild cry +of the missel-thrush, ringing from afar in the first bright days +of March, a passage of one or two bars repeated three or four +times, and then another and another, clear and sweet, and yet +defiant—for the great ‘stormcock’ loves to sing +when rain and wind is coming on, and faces the elements as boldly +as he faces hawk and crow—down to the delicate warble of +the wren, who slips out of his hole in the brown bank, where he +has huddled through the frost with wife and children, all folded +in each other’s arms like human beings, for the sake of +warmth,—which, alas! does not always suffice; for many a +lump of wrens may be found, frozen and shrivelled, after a severe +winter. Yet even he, sitting at his house-door in the low +sunlight, says grace for all mercies (as a little child once +worded it) in a song so rapid, so shrill, so loud, and yet so +delicately modulated, that you wonder at the amount of soul +within that tiny body; and then stops suddenly, as a child who +has said its lesson, or got to the end of the sermon, gives a +self-satisfied flirt of his tail, and goes in again to sleep.</p> +<p>Character? I know not how much variety of character +there may be between birds of the same species but between +species and species the variety is endless, and is shown—as +I fondly believe—in the difference of their notes. +Each has its own speech, inarticulate, expressing not thought but +hereditary feeling; save a few birds who, like those little dumb +darlings, the spotted flycatchers, seem to have absolutely +nothing to say, and accordingly have the wit to hold their +tongues; and devote the whole of their small intellect to sitting +on the iron rails, flitting off them a yard or two to catch a +butterfly in air, and flitting back with it to their nest.</p> +<p>But listen to the charm of birds in any sequestered woodland, +on a bright forenoon in June. As you try to disentangle the +medley of sounds, the first, perhaps, which will strike your ear +will be the loud, harsh, monotonous, flippant song of the +chaffinch; and the metallic clinking of two or three sorts of +titmice. But above the tree-tops, rising, hovering, +sinking, the woodlark is fluting, tender and low. Above the +pastures outside the skylark sings—as he alone can sing; +and close by, from the hollies rings out the blackbird’s +tenor—rollicking, audacious, humorous, all but +articulate. From the tree above him rises the treble of the +thrush, pure as the song of angels: more pure, perhaps, in tone, +though neither so varied nor so rich, as the song of the +nightingale. And there, in the next holly, is the +nightingale himself: now croaking like a frog; now talking aside +to his wife on the nest below; and now bursting out into that +song, or cycle of songs, in which if any man finds sorrow, he +himself surely finds none. All the morning he will sing; +and again at evening, till the small hours, and the chill before +the dawn: but if his voice sounds melancholy at night, heard all +alone, or only mocked by the ambitious black-cap, it sounds in +the bright morning that which it is, the fulness of joy and +love. Milton’s</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Sweet bird, that shun’st the noise of +folly,<br /> +Most musical, most melancholy,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>is untrue to fact. So far from shunning the noise of +folly, the nightingale sings as boldly as anywhere close to a +stage-coach road, or a public path, as anyone will testify who +recollects the ‘Wrangler’s Walk’ from Cambridge +to Trumpington forty years ago, when the covert, which has now +become hollow and shelterless, held, at every twenty yards, an +unabashed and jubilant nightingale.</p> +<p>Coleridge surely was not far wrong when he guessed +that—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Some night-wandering man, whose heart was +pierced<br /> +With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,<br /> +Or slow distemper, or neglected love<br /> +(And so, poor wretch, filled all things with himself,<br /> +And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale<br /> +Of his own sorrow)—he, and such as he,<br /> +First named these sounds a melancholy strain,<br /> +And many a poet echoes the conceit.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>That the old Greek poets were right, and had some grounds for +the myth of Philomela, I do not dispute; though Sophocles, +speaking of the nightingales of Colonos, certainly does not +represent them as lamenting. The Elizabethan poets, +however, when they talked of Philomel, ‘her breast against +a thorn,’ were unaware that they and the Greeks were +talking of two different birds; that our English Lusciola +Luscinia is not Lusciola Philomela, one of the various birds +called Bulbul in the East. The true Philomel hardly enters +Venetia, hardly crosses the Swiss Alps, ventures not into the +Rhineland and Denmark, but penetrates (strangely enough) further +into South Sweden than our own Luscinia: ranging meanwhile over +all Central Europe, Persia, and the East, even to Egypt. +Whether his song be really sad, let those who have heard him +say. But as for our own Luscinia, who winters not in Egypt +and Arabia, but in Morocco and Algeria, the only note of his +which can be mistaken for sorrow, is rather one of too great joy; +that cry, which is his highest feat of art; which he cannot utter +when he first comes to our shores, but practises carefully, +slowly, gradually, till he has it perfect by the beginning of +June; that cry, long, repeated, loudening and sharpening in the +intensity of rising passion, till it stops suddenly, exhausted at +the point where pleasure, from very keenness, turns to pain; +and—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘In the topmost height of joy<br /> +His passion clasps a secret grief.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>How different in character from his song is that of the +gallant little black-cap in the tree above him. A gentleman +he is of a most ancient house, perhaps the oldest of European +singing birds. How perfect must have been the special +organization which has spread seemingly without need of +alteration or improvement, from Norway to the Cape of Good Hope, +from Japan to the Azores. How many ages must have passed +since his forefathers first got their black caps. And how +intense and fruitful must have been the original vitality which, +after so many generations, can still fill that little body with +so strong a soul, and make him sing as Milton’s new-created +birds sang to Milton’s Eve in Milton’s +Paradise. Sweet he is, and various, rich, and strong, +beyond all English warblers, save the nightingale: but his +speciality is his force, his rush, his overflow, not so much of +love as of happiness. The spirit carries him away. He +riots up and down the gamut till he cannot stop himself; his +notes tumble over each other; he chuckles, laughs, shrieks with +delight, throws back his head, droops his tail, sets up his back, +and sings with every fibre of his body: and yet he never forgets +his good manners. He is never coarse, never harsh, for a +single note. Always graceful, always sweet, he keeps +perfect delicacy in his most utter carelessness.</p> +<p>And why should we overlook, common though he be, yon +hedge-sparrow, who is singing so modestly, and yet so firmly and +so true? Or cock-robin himself, who is here, as everywhere, +honest, self-confident, and cheerful? Most people are not +aware, one sometimes fancies, how fine a singer is cock-robin now +in the spring-time, when his song is drowned by, or at least +confounded with, a dozen other songs. We know him and love +him best in winter, when he takes up (as he does sometimes in +cold wet summer days) that sudden wistful warble, struggling to +be happy, half in vain, which surely contradicts +Coleridge’s verse:—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">‘In Nature there +is nothing melancholy.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But he who will listen carefully to the robin’s breeding +song on a bright day in May, will agree, I think, that he is no +mean musician; and that for force, variety and character of +melody, he is surpassed only by black-cap, thrush, and +nightingale.</p> +<p>And what is that song, sudden, loud, sweet, yet faltering, as +if half ashamed? Is it the willow wren or the garden +warbler? The two birds, though very remotely allied to each +other, are so alike in voice, that it is often difficult to +distinguish them, unless we attend carefully to the +expression. For the garden warbler, beginning in high and +loud notes, runs down in cadence, lower and softer, till joy +seems conquered by very weariness; while the willow wren, with a +sudden outbreak of cheerfulness, though not quite sure (it is +impossible to describe bird-songs without attributing to the +birds human passions and frailties) that he is not doing a silly +thing, struggles on to the end of his story with a hesitating +hilarity, in feeble imitation of the black-cap’s +bacchanalian dactyls.</p> +<p>And now, again—is it true that</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">‘In Nature there +is nothing melancholy’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mark that slender, graceful, yellow warbler, running along the +high oak boughs like a perturbed spirit, seeking restlessly, +anxiously, something which he seems never to find; and uttering +every now and then a long anxious cry, four or five times +repeated, which would be a squeal, were it not so sweet. +Suddenly he flits away, and flutters round the pendant tips of +the beech-sprays like a great yellow butterfly, picking the +insects from the leaves; then flits back to a bare bough, and +sings, with heaving breast and quivering wings, a short, shrill, +feeble, tremulous song; and then returns to his old sadness, +wandering and complaining all day long.</p> +<p>Is there no melancholy in that cry? It sounds sad: why +should it not be meant to be sad? We recognize joyful +notes, angry notes, fearful notes. They are very similar +(strangely enough) in all birds. They are very similar +(more strangely still) to the cries of human beings, especially +children, when influenced by the same passions. And when we +hear a note which to us expresses sadness, why should not the +bird be sad? Yon wood wren has had enough to make him sad, +if only he recollects it; and if he can recollect his road from +Morocco hither, he may be recollects likewise what happened on +the road—the long weary journey up the Portuguese coast, +and through the gap between the Pyrenees and the Jaysquivel, and +up the Landes of Bordeaux, and across Brittany, flitting by +night, and hiding and feeding as he could by day; and how his +mates flew against the lighthouses, and were killed by hundreds; +and how he essayed the British Channel, and was blown back, +shrivelled up by bitter blasts; and how he felt, nevertheless, +that ‘that wan water he must cross,’ he knew not why: +but something told him that his mother had done it before him, +and he was flesh of her flesh, life of her life, and had +inherited her ‘instinct’—as we call hereditary +memory, in order to avoid the trouble of finding out what it is, +and how it comes. A duty was laid on him to go back to the +place where he was bred; and he must do it: and now it is done; +and he is weary, and sad, and lonely; and, for aught we know, +thinking already that when the leaves begin to turn yellow, he +must go back again, over the Channel, over the Landes, over the +Pyrenees, to Morocco once more. Why should he not be +sad? He is a very delicate bird, as both his shape and his +note testify. He can hardly keep up his race here in +England; and is accordingly very uncommon, while his two cousins, +the willow wren and the chiffchaff, who, like him, build for some +mysterious reason domed nests upon the ground, are stout, and +busy, and numerous, and thriving everywhere. And what he +has gone through may be too much for the poor wood wren’s +nerves; and he gives way; while willow wren, black-cap, +nightingale, who have gone by the same road and suffered the same +dangers, have stoutness of heart enough to throw off the past, +and give themselves up to present pleasure. Why +not?—who knows? There is labour, danger, bereavement, +death in nature; and why should not some, at least, of the +so-called dumb things know it, and grieve at it as well as +we?</p> +<p>Why not?—Unless we yield to the assumption (for it is +nothing more) that these birds act by some unknown thing called +instinct, as it might be called <i>x</i> or <i>y</i>; and are, in +fact, just like the singing birds which spring out of +snuff-boxes, only so much better made, that they can eat, grow, +and propagate their species. The imputation of acting by +instinct cuts both ways. We, too, are creatures of +instinct. We breathe and eat by instinct: but we talk and +build houses by reason. And so may the birds. It is +more philosophical, surely, to attribute actions in them to the +same causes to which we attribute them (from experience) in +ourselves. ‘But if so,’ some will say, +‘birds must have souls.’ We must define what +our own souls are, before we can define what kind of soul or +no-soul a bird may or may not have. The truth is, that we +want to set up some ‘dignity of human nature;’ some +innate superiority to the animals, on which we may pride +ourselves as our own possession, and not return thanks with fear +and trembling for it, as the special gift of Almighty God. +So we have given the poor animals over to the mechanical +philosophy, and allowed them to be considered as only mere +cunningly devised pieces of watch-work, if philosophy would only +spare us, and our fine human souls, of which we are so proud, +though they are doing all the wrong and folly they can from one +week’s end to the other. And now our self-conceit has +brought its own Nemesis; the mechanical philosophy is turning on +us, and saying, ‘The bird’s “nature” and +your “human nature” differ only in degree, but not in +kind. If they are machines, so are you. They have no +souls, you confess. You have none either.’</p> +<p>But there are those who neither yield to the mechanical +philosophy nor desire to stifle it. While it is honest and +industrious, as it is now, it can do nought but good, because it +can do nought but discover facts. It will only help to +divide the light from the darkness, truth from dreams, health +from disease. Let it claim for itself all that it can prove +to be of the flesh, fleshly. That which is spiritual will +stand out more clearly as of the Spirit. Let it thrust +scalpel and microscope into the most sacred penetralia of brain +and nerve. It will only find everywhere beneath brain and +beneath nerve, that substance and form which is not matter nor +phenomenon, but the Divine cause thereof; and while it helps, +with ruthless but wholesome severity, to purge our minds from +idols of the cave and idols of the fane, it will leave untouched, +more clearly defined, and therefore more sacred and important +than ever—</p> +<blockquote><p> ‘Those +first affections,<br /> + Those shadowy recollections,<br /> + Which, be they what they may,<br /> +Are yet the fountain light of all our day,<br /> + Are yet the master light of all our seeing;<br /> +Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make<br /> + Our noisy years seem moments in the being<br /> +Of the eternal silence; truths that wake<br /> + To perish never;<br /> +Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,<br /> + Nor man nor boy,<br /> + Nor all that is at enmity with joy,<br /> + Can utterly abolish or destroy.</p> + +<p> * +* * * *</p> +<p>Then sing, ye birds, sing out with joyous sound,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>as the poet-philosopher bids you. Victorious analysis +will neither abolish you, nor the miraculous and unfathomable in +you and in your song, which has stirred the hearts of poets since +first man was man. And if anyone shall hint to us that we +and the birds may have sprung originally from the same type; that +the difference between our intellect and theirs is one of degree, +and not of kind, we may believe or doubt: but in either case we +shall not be greatly moved. ‘So much the better for +the birds,’ we will say, ‘and none the worse for +us. You raise the birds towards us: but you do not lower us +towards them. What we are, we are by the grace of +God. Our own powers and the burden of them we know full +well. It does not lessen their dignity or their beauty in +our eyes to hear that the birds of the air partake, even a +little, of the same gifts of God as we. Of old said St. +Guthlac in Crowland, as the swallows sat upon his knee, “He +who leads his life according to the will of God, to him the wild +deer and the wild birds draw more near;” and this new +theory of yours may prove St. Guthlac right. St. Francis, +too—he called the birds his brothers. Whether he was +correct, either theologically or zoologically, he was plainly +free from that fear of being mistaken for an ape, which haunts so +many in these modern times. Perfectly sure that he himself +was a spiritual being, he thought it at least possible that birds +might be spiritual beings likewise, incarnate like himself in +mortal flesh; and saw no degradation to the dignity of human +nature in claiming kindred lovingly with creatures so beautiful, +so wonderful, who (as he fancied in his old-fashioned way) +praised God in the forest, even as angels did in heaven. In +a word, the saint, though he was an ascetic, and certainly no man +of science, was yet a poet, and somewhat of a philosopher; and +would have possibly—so do extremes meet—have hailed +as orthodox, while we hail as truly scientific, +Wordsworth’s great saying—</p> +<blockquote><p> ‘Therefore am I still<br +/> +A lover of the meadows and the woods<br /> +And mountains; and of all that we behold<br /> +From this green earth; of all the mighty world<br /> +Of eye and ear—both what they half create,<br /> +And what perceive; well pleased to recognize<br /> +In Nature and the language of the sense,<br /> +The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,<br /> +The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul<br /> +Of all my moral being.’</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>II.<br +/> +<a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +29</span><i>CHALK-STREAM STUDIES</i>. <a name="citation29"></a><a +href="#footnote29" class="citation">[29]</a></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Fishing</span> is generally associated in +men’s minds with wild mountain scenery; if not with the +alps and cataracts of Norway, still with the moors and lochs of +Scotland, or at least with the rocky rivers, the wooded crags, +the crumbling abbeys of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Hereford, or the +Lowlands. And it cannot be denied that much of the charm +which angling exercises over cultivated minds, is due to the +beauty and novelty of the landscapes which surround him; to the +sense of freedom, the exhilarating upland air. Who would +prefer the certainty of taking trout out of some sluggish +preserve, to the chance of a brace out of Edno or Llyn +Dulyn? The pleasure lies not in the prize itself, but in +the pains which it has cost; in the upward climbs through the +dark plantations, beside the rock-walled stream; the tramp over +the upland pastures, one gay flower-bed of blue and purple +butter-wort; the steady breathless climb up the crags, which +looked but one mile from you when you started, so clear against +the sky stood out every knoll and slab; the first stars of the +white saxifrage, golden-eyed, blood-bedropt, as if a fairy had +pricked her finger in the cup, which shine upon some green +cushion of wet moss, in a dripping crack of the cliff; the first +grey tufts of the Alpine club-moss, the first shrub of crowberry, +or sea-green rose-root, with its strange fleshy stems and leaves, +which mark the two-thousand-feet-line, and the beginning of the +Alpine world; the scramble over the arid waves of the porphyry +sea aloft, as you beat round and round like a weary pointer dog +in search of the hidden lake; the last despairing crawl to the +summit of the Syenite pyramid on Moel Meirch; the hasty gaze +around, far away into the green vale of Ffestiniog, and over +wooded flats, and long silver river-reaches, and yellow sands, +and blue sea flecked with flying clouds, and isles and capes, and +wildernesses of mountain peaks, east, west, south, and north; one +glance at the purple gulf out of which Snowdon rises, thence only +seen in full majesty from base to peak: and then the joyful run, +springing over bank and boulder, to the sad tarn beneath your +feet: the loosening of the limbs, as you toss yourself, bathed in +perspiration, on the turf; the almost awed pause as you recollect +that you are alone on the mountain-tops, by the side of the +desolate pool, out of all hope of speech or help of man; and, if +you break your leg among those rocks, may lie there till the +ravens pick your bones; the anxious glance round the lake to see +if the fish are moving; the still more anxious glance through +your book to guess what they will choose to take; what +extravagant bundle of red, blue, and yellow feathers, like no +insect save perhaps some jewelled monster from Amboyna or +Brazil—may tempt those sulkiest and most capricious of +trout to cease for once their life-long business of picking +leeches from among those Syenite cubes which will twist your +ankles and break your shins for the next three hours. What +matter (to a minute philosopher, at least) if, after two hours of +such enjoyment as that, he goes down again into the world of man +with empty creel, or with a dozen pounders and two-pounders, +shorter, gamer, and redder-fleshed than ever came out of Thames +or Kennet? What matter? If he has not caught them, he +might have caught them; he has been catching them in imagination +all the way up; and if he be a minute philosopher, he holds that +there is no falser proverb than that devil’s +beatitude—‘Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for +he shall not be disappointed.’</p> +<p>Say, rather, Blessed is he who expecteth everything, for he +enjoys everything once at least: and if it falls out true, twice +also.</p> +<p>Yes. Pleasant enough is mountain fishing. But +there is one objection against it, that it is hard work to get to +it; and that the angler, often enough half-tired before he +arrives at his stream or lake, has left for his day’s work +only the lees of his nervous energy.</p> +<p>Another objection, more important perhaps to a minute +philosopher than to the multitude, is, that there is in +mountain-fishing an element of excitement: an element which is +wholesome enough at times for every one; most wholesome at all +times for the man pent up in London air and London work; but +which takes away from the angler’s most delicate enjoyment, +that dreamy contemplative repose, broken by just enough amusement +to keep his body active, while his mind is quietly taking in +every sight and sound of nature. Let the Londoner have his +six weeks every year among crag and heather, and return with +lungs expanded and muscles braced to his nine months’ +prison. The countryman, who needs no such change of air and +scene, will prefer more homelike, though more homely, +pleasures. Dearer than wild cataracts or Alpine glens are +the still hidden streams which Bewick has immortalized in his +vignettes, and Creswick in his pictures; the long glassy shallow, +paved with yellow gravel, where he wades up between low walls of +fern-fringed rock, beneath nut, and oak, and alder, to the low +bar over which the stream comes swirling and dimpling, as the +water-ouzel flits piping before him, and the murmur of the +ringdove comes soft and sleepy through the wood. There, as +he wades, he sees a hundred sights and hears a hundred tones, +which are hidden from the traveller on the dusty highway +above. The traveller fancies that he has seen the +country. So he has; the outside of it, at least: but the +angler only sees the inside. The angler only is brought +close face to face with the flower, and bird, and insect life of +the rich river banks, the only part of the landscape where the +hand of man has never interfered, and the only part in general +which never feels the drought of summer, ‘the trees planted +by the waterside whose leaf shall not wither.’</p> +<p>Pleasant are those hidden waterways: but yet are they the more +pleasant because the hand of man has not interfered with +them?</p> +<p>It is a question, and one which the older one grows the less +one is inclined to answer in the affirmative. The older one +grows, the more there grows on one the sense of waste and +incompleteness in all scenery where man has not fulfilled the +commission of Eden, ‘to dress it and to keep it;’ and +with that, a sense of loneliness which makes one long for home, +and cultivation, and the speech of fellow men.</p> +<p>Surely the influence of mountain scenery is exaggerated +now-a-days. In spite of the reverend name of Wordsworth +(whose poetry, be it remembered, too often wants that element of +hardihood and manliness which is supposed to be the birthright of +mountaineers), one cannot help, as a lowlander, hoping that there +is a little truth in the threnodes of a certain peevish friend +who literally hates a mountain, and justifies his hatred in this +fashion:—</p> +<p>‘I do hate mountains. I would not live among them +for ten thousand a year. If they look like paradise for +three months in the summer, they are a veritable inferno for the +other nine; and I should like to condemn my mountain-worshipping +friends to pass a whole year under the shadow of Snowdon, with +that great black head of his shutting out the sunlight, staring +down into their garden, overlooking all they do in the most +impertinent way, sneezing and spitting at them with rain, hail, +snow, and bitter freezing blasts, even in the hottest +sunshine. A mountain? He is a great stupid giant, +with a perpetual cold in his head, whose highest ambition is to +give you one also. As for his beauty, no natural object has +so little of its own; he owes it to the earthquakes that reared +him up, to the rains and storms which have furrowed him, to every +gleam and cloud which pass over him. In himself he is a +mere helpless stone-heap. Our old Scandinavian forefathers +were right when they held the mountain Yotuns to be helpless +pudding-headed giants, the sport of gods and men: and their +English descendant, in spite of all his second-hand sentiment, +holds the same opinion at his heart; for his first instinct, +jolly honest fellow that he is, on seeing a snow alp, is to +scramble up it and smoke his cigar upon the top. And this +great stupid braggart, pretending to be a personage and an +entity, which, like Pope’s monument on Fish-street +hill,</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“Like a tall +bully, lifts the head and lies,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I am called upon now-a-days to worship, as my better, my +teacher. Shall I, the son of Odin and Thor, worship Hrymir +the frost giant, and his cows the waterfalls? Shall I bow +down to the stock of a stone? My better? I have done +an honest thing or two in my life, but I never saw a mountain do +one yet. As for his superiority to me, in what does it +consist? His strength? If he be stronger than I, let +him cut stones out of my ribs, as I can out of his. His +size? Am I to respect a mountain the more for being 10,000 +feet high? As well ask me to respect Daniel Lambert for +weighing five-and-twenty stone. His cunning +construction? There is not a child which plays at his foot, +not an insect which basks on his crags, which is not more +fearfully and wonderfully made; while as for his grandeur of +form, any college youth who scrambles up him, peel him out of his +shooting jacket and trousers, is a hundred times more beautiful, +and more grand too, by all laws of art. But so it is. +In our prurient prudery, we have got to despise the human, and +therefore the truly divine, element in art, and look for +inspiration, not to living men and women, but to leaves and +straws, stocks and stones. It is an idolatry baser than +that of the old Canaanites; for they had the courage to go up to +the mountain tops, and thence worship the host of heaven: but we +are to stay at the bottom, and worship the mountains +themselves. Byron began the folly with his misanthropic +“Childe Harold.” Sermons in stones? I +don’t believe in them. I have seen a better sermon in +an old peasant woman’s face than in all the Alps and +Apennines of Europe. Did you ever see any one who was the +better for mountains? Have the Alps made * * * a whit +honester, or * * * a whit more good-natured, or Lady * * * a whit +cleverer? Do they alter one hair’s breadth for the +better the characters of the ten thousand male and female noodles +who travel forth to stare at them every year? Do mountains +make them lofty-minded and generous-hearted? No. +Cælum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt. +Don’t talk to me of the moral and physical superiority of +mountain races, for I tell you it is a dream. Civilization, +art, poetry, belong to the lowlands. Are the English +mountaineers, pray, or the French, or the Germans? Were the +Egyptians mountaineers, or the Romans, or the Assyrians, as soon +as they became a people? The Greeks lived among mountains, +but they took care to inhabit the plains; and it was the sea and +not the hills which made them the people which they were. +Does Scotland owe her life to the highlander, or to the +lowlander? If you want an experimentum crucis, there is +one. As for poetry, will you mention to me one mountain +race which has written great poetry? You will quote the +Hebrews. I answer that the life of Palestine always kept to +the comparatively low lands to the west of Jordan, while the +barbarous mountaineers of the eastern range never did +anything,—had but one Elijah to show among them. +Shakspeare never saw a hill higher than Malvern Beacon; and yet I +suppose you will call him a poet? Mountaineers look well +enough at a distance; seen close at hand you find their chief +distinctions to be starvation and ignorance, fleas and goitre, +with an utter unconsciousness—unless travellers put it into +their heads—of the “soul-elevating glories” by +which they have been surrounded all their lives.’</p> +<p>He was gently reminded of the existence of the Tyrolese.</p> +<p>‘You may just as wisely remind me of the +Circassians. What can prove my theory more completely than +the fact that in them you have the two finest races of the world, +utterly unable to do anything for humanity, utterly unable to +develop themselves, because, to their eternal misfortune, they +have got caged among those abominable stoneheaps, and have not +yet been able to escape?’</p> +<p>It was suggested that if mountain races were generally +inferior ones, it was because they were the remnants of conquered +tribes driven up into the highlands by invaders.</p> +<p>‘And what does that prove but that the stronger and +cunninger races instinctively seize the lowlands, because they +half know (and Providence knows altogether) that there alone they +can become nations, and fulfil the primæval +mission—to replenish the earth and subdue it? No, no, +my good sir. Mountains are very well when they are doing +their only duty—that of making rain and soil for the +lowlands: but as for this newfangled admiration of them, it is a +proof that our senses are dulled by luxury and books, and that we +require to excite our palled organ of marvellousness by signs and +wonders, æsthetic brandy and cayenne. No. I +have remarked often that the most unimaginative people, who can +see no beauty in a cultivated English field or in the features of +a new-born babe, are the loudest ravers about glorious sunsets +and Alpine panoramas; just as the man with no music in his soul, +to whom a fugue of Sebastian Bach, or one of Mendelssohn’s +Songs without Words, means nothing, and is nothing thinks a +monster concert of drums and trumpets uncommonly fine.’</p> +<p>This is certainly a sufficiently one-sided diatribe. +Still it is one-sided: and we have heard so much of the other +side of late, that it may be worth while to give this side also a +fair and patient hearing.</p> +<p>At least he who writes wishes that it may have a fair +hearing. He has a sort of sympathy with Lord +Macaulay’s traveller of a hundred and fifty years since, +who amid the ‘horrible desolation’ of the Scotch +highlands, sighs for ‘the true mountain scenery of +Richmond-hill.’ The most beautiful landscape he has +ever seen, or cares to see, is the vale of Thames from Taplow or +from Cliefden, looking down towards Windsor, and up toward +Reading; to him Bramshill, looking out far and wide over the rich +lowland from its eyrie of dark pines, or Littlecote nestling +between deer-spotted upland and rich water-meadow, is a finer +sight than any robber castle of the Rhine. He would not +complain, of course, were either of the views backed, like those +glorious ones of Turin or Venice, by the white saw-edge of the +distant Alps: but chiefly because the perpetual sight of that +Alp-wall would increase the sense of home, of guarded security, +which not the mountain, but the sea, or the very thought of the +sea, gives to all true Englishmen.</p> +<p>Let others therefore (to come back to angling) tell of moor +and loch. But let it be always remembered that the men who +have told of them best have not been mountaineers, but lowlanders +who carried up to the mountain the taste and knowledge which they +had gained below. Let them remember that the great +Sutherlandshire sportsman and sporting writer, the late Mr. St. +John, was once a fine gentleman about town; that Christopher +North was an Edinburgh Professor, a man of city learning and city +cultivation; and, as one more plea for our cockney chalk-streams +of the south, that Mr. Scrope (who passed many pleasant years +respected and beloved by Kennet side, with Purdy at his heels) +enjoyed, they say, the killing of a Littlecote trout as heartily +as he did that of a Tweed salmon.</p> +<p>Come, then, you who want pleasant fishing-days without the +waste of time and trouble and expense involved in two hundred +miles of railway journey, and perhaps fifty more of highland +road; and try what you can see and do among the fish not sixty +miles from town. Come to pleasant country inns, where you +can always get a good dinner; or, better still, to pleasant +country houses, where you can always get good society; to rivers +which will always fish, brimfull in the longest droughts of +summer, instead of being, as those mountain ones are, very like a +turnpike-road for three weeks, and then like bottled porter for +three days; to streams on which you have strong south-west +breezes for a week together on a clear fishing water, instead of +having, as on those mountain ones, foul rain spate as long as the +wind is south-west, and clearing water when the wind chops up to +the north, and the chill blast of ‘Clarus Aquio’ +sends all the fish shivering to the bottom; streams, in a word, +where you may kill fish (and large ones) four days out of five +from April to October, instead of having, as you will most +probably in the mountain, just one day’s sport in the whole +of your month’s holiday. Deluded friend, who suffered +in Scotland last year a month of Tantalus his torments, furnished +by art and nature with rods, flies, whisky, scenery, keepers, +salmon innumerable, and all that man can want, except water to +fish in; and who returned, having hooked accidentally by the tail +one salmon—which broke all and ween to sea—why did +you not stay at home and take your two-pounders and +three-pounders out of the quiet chalk brook which never sank an +inch through all that drought, so deep in the caverns of the +hills are hidden its mysterious wells? Truly, wise men bide +at home, with George Riddler, while ‘a fool’s eyes +are in the ends of the earth.’</p> +<p>Repent, then; and come with me, at least in fancy, at six +o’clock upon some breezy morning in June, not by roaring +railway nor by smoking steamer, but in the cosy four-wheel, along +brown heather moors, down into green clay woodlands, over white +chalk downs, past Roman camps and scattered blocks of Sarsden +stone, till we descend into the long green vale where, among +groves of poplar and abele, winds silver Whit. Come and +breakfast at the neat white inn, of yore a posting-house of +fame. The stables are now turned into cottages; and instead +of a dozen spruce ostlers and helpers, the last of the postboys +totters sadly about the yard and looks up eagerly at the rare +sight of a horse to feed. But the house keeps up enough of +its ancient virtue to give us a breakfast worthy of +Pantagruel’s self; and after it, while we are looking out +our flies, you can go and chat with the old postboy, and hear his +tales, told with a sort of chivalrous pride, of the noble lords +and fair ladies before whom he has ridden in the good old times +gone by—even, so he darkly hints, before ‘His Royal +Highness the Prince’ himself. Poor old fellow, he +recollects not, and he need not recollect, that these great +posting-houses were centres of corruption, from whence the newest +vices of the metropolis were poured into the too-willing ears of +village lads and lasses; and that not even the New Poor Law +itself has done more for the morality of the South of England +than the substitution of the rail for coaches.</p> +<p>Now we will walk down through the meadows some half mile,</p> +<blockquote><p>While all the land in flowery squares,<br /> +Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind<br /> +Smells of the coming summer,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>to a scene which, as we may find its antitype anywhere for +miles round, we may boldly invent for ourselves.</p> +<p>A red brick mill (not new red brick, of course) shall hum for +ever below giant poplar-spires, which bend and shiver in the +steady breeze. On its lawn laburnums shall feather down +like dropping wells of gold, and from under them the stream shall +hurry leaping and laughing into the light, and spread at our feet +into a broad bright shallow, in which the kine are standing +knee-deep already: a hint, alas! that the day means heat. +And there, to the initiated eye, is another and a darker hint of +glaring skies, perspiring limbs, and empty creels. Small +fish are dimpling in the central eddies: but here, in six inches +of water, on the very edge of the ford road, great tails and +back-fins are showing above the surface, and swirling suddenly +among the tufts of grass, sure sign that the large fish are +picking up a minnow-breakfast at the same time that they warm +their backs, and do not mean to look at a fly for many an hour to +come.</p> +<p>Yet courage; for on the rail of yonder wooden bridge sits, +chatting with a sun-browned nymph, her bonnet pushed over her +face, her hayrake in her hand, a river-god in coat of velveteen, +elbow on knee and pipe in mouth, who, rising when he sees us, +lifts his wide-awake, and halloas back a roar of comfort to our +mystic adjuration,—</p> +<p>‘Keeper! Is the fly up?’</p> +<p>‘Mortial strong last night, gentlemen.’</p> +<p>Wherewith he shall lounge up to us, landing-net in hand, and +we will wander up stream and away.</p> +<p>We will wander—for though the sun be bright, here are +good fish to be picked out of sharps and stop-holes—into +the water-tables, ridged up centuries since into furrows forty +feet broad and five feet high, over which the crystal water +sparkles among the roots of the rich grass, and hurries down +innumerable drains to find its parent stream between tufts of +great blue geranium, and spires of purple loosestrife, and the +delicate white and pink comfrey-bells, and the +avens—fairest and most modest of all the waterside nymphs, +who hangs her head all day long in pretty shame, with a soft +blush upon her tawny check. But at the mouth of each of +those drains, if we can get our flies in, and keep ourselves +unseen, we will have one cast at least. For at each of +them, in some sharp-rippling spot, lies a great trout or two, +waiting for beetle, caterpillar, and whatsoever else may be +washed from among the long grass above. Thence, and from +brimming feeders, which slip along, weed-choked, under white +hawthorn hedges, and beneath the great roots of oak and elm, +shall we pick out full many a goodly trout. There, in yon +stop-hole underneath that tree, not ten feet broad or twenty +long, where just enough water trickles through the hatches to +make a ripple, are a brace of noble fish, no doubt; and one of +them you may be sure of, if you will go the proper way to work, +and fish scientifically with the brace of flies I have put on for +you—a governor and a black alder. In the first place, +you must throw up into the little pool, not down. If you +throw down, they will see you in an instant; and besides, you +will never get your fly close under the shade of the brickwork, +where alone you have a chance. What use in throwing into +the still shallow tail, shining like oil in the full glare of the +sun?</p> +<p>‘But I cannot get below the pool +without—’</p> +<p>Without crawling through that stiff stubbed hedge, well set +with trees, and leaping that ten-foot feeder afterwards. +Very well. It is this sort of thing which makes the +stay-at-home cultivated chalk-fishing as much harder work than +mountain angling, as a gallop over a stiffly enclosed country is +harder than one over an open moor. You can do it or not, as +you like: but if you wish to catch large trout on a bright day, I +should advise you to employ the only method yet discovered.</p> +<p>There—you are through; and the keeper shall hand you +your rod. You have torn your trousers, and got a couple of +thorns in your shins. The one can be mended, the other +pulled out. Now, jump the feeder. There is no run to +it, so—you have jumped in. Never mind: but keep the +point of your rod up. You are at least saved the lingering +torture of getting wet inch by inch; and as for cold water +hurting any one—Credat Judæus.</p> +<p>Now make a circuit through the meadow forty yards away. +Stoop down when you are on the ridge of each table. A trout +may be basking at the lower end of the pool, who will see you, +rush up, and tell all his neighbours. Take off that absurd +black chimney-pot, which you are wearing, I suppose, for the same +reason as Homer’s heroes wore their koruthous and +phalerous, to make yourself look taller and more terrible to your +foes. Crawl up on three legs; and when you are in position, +kneel down. So.</p> +<p>Shorten your line all you can—you cannot fish with too +short a line up-stream; and throw, not into the oil-basin near +you, but right up into the darkest corner. Make your fly +strike the brickwork and drop in.—So? No rise? +Then don’t work or draw it, or your deceit is discovered +instantly. Lift it out, and repeat the throw.</p> +<p>What? You have hooked your fly in the hatches? +Very good. Pull at it till the casting-line breaks; put on +a fresh one, and to work again. There! you have him. +Don’t rise! fight him kneeling; hold him hard, and give him +no line, but shorten up anyhow. Tear and haul him down to +you before he can make to his home, while the keeper runs round +with the net . . . There, he is on shore. Two pounds, good +weight. Creep back more cautiously than ever, and try +again. . . . There. A second fish, over a pound +weight. Now we will go and recover the flies off the +hatches; and you will agree that there is more cunning, more +science, and therefore more pleasant excitement, in +‘foxing’ a great fish out of a stop-hole, than in +whipping far and wide over an open stream, where a half-pounder +is a wonder and a triumph. As for physical exertion, you +will be able to compute for yourself how much your back, knees, +and fore-arm will ache by nine o’clock to-night, after some +ten hours of this scrambling, splashing, leaping, and kneeling +upon a hot June day. This item in the day’s work will +of course be put to the side of loss or of gain, according to +your temperament: but it will cure you of an inclination to laugh +at us Wessex chalk-fishers as Cockneys.</p> +<p>So we will wander up the streams, taking a fish here and a +fish there, till—Really it is very hot. We have the +whole day before us; the fly will not be up till five +o’clock at least; and then the real fishing will +begin. Why tire ourselves beforehand? The squire will +send us luncheon in the afternoon, and after that expect us to +fish as long as we can see, and come up to the hall to sleep, +regardless of the ceremony of dressing. For is not the +green drake on? And while he reigns, all hours, meals, +decencies, and respectabilities must yield to his caprice. +See, here he sits, or rather tens of thousands of him, one on +each stalk of grass—green drake, yellow drake, brown drake, +white drake, each with his gauzy wings folded over his back, +waiting for some unknown change of temperature, or something +else, in the afternoon, to wake him from his sleep, and send him +fluttering over the stream; while overhead the black drake, who +has changed his skin and reproduced his species, dances in the +sunshine, empty, hard, and happy, like Festus Bailey’s +Great Black Crow, who all his life sings ‘Ho, ho, +ho,’</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">‘For no one will +eat him,’ he well doth know.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>However, as we have insides, and he has actually none, and +what is more strange, not even a mouth wherewith to fill the said +insides, we had better copy his brothers and sisters below whose +insides are still left, and settle with them upon the grass +awhile beneath you goodly elm.</p> +<p>Comfort yourself with a glass of sherry and a biscuit, and +give the keeper one, and likewise a cigar. He will value it +at five times its worth, not merely for the pleasure of it, but +because it raises him in the social scale. ‘Any +cad,’ so he holds, ‘smokes pipes; but a good cigar is +the mark of the quality,’ and of them who ‘keep +company with the quality,’ as keepers do. He puts it +in his hat-crown, to smoke this evening in presence of his +compeers at the public-house, retires modestly ten yards, lies +down on his back in a dry feeder, under the shade of the long +grass, and instantly falls fast asleep. Poor fellow! he was +up all last night in the covers, and will be again +to-night. Let him sleep while he may, and we will chat over +chalk-fishing.</p> +<p>The first thing, probably, on which you will be inclined to +ask questions, is the size of the fish in these streams. We +have killed this morning four fish averaging a pound weight +each. All below that weight we throw in, as is our rule +here; but you may have remarked that none of them exceeded half a +pound; that they were almost all about herring size. The +smaller ones I believe to be year-old fish, hatched last spring +twelvemonth; the pound fish two-year-olds. At what rate +these last would have increased depends very much, I suspect, on +their chance of food. The limit of life and growth in +cold-blooded animals seems to depend very much on their amount of +food. The boa, alligator, shark, pike, and I suppose the +trout also, will live to a great age, and attain an enormous +size, give them but range enough; and the only cause why there +are trout of ten pounds and more in the Thames lashers, while one +of four pounds is rare here, is simply that the Thames fish has +more to eat. Here, were the fish not sufficiently thinned +out every year by anglers, they would soon become large-headed, +brown, and flabby, and cease to grow. Many a good stream +has been spoilt in this way, when a squire has unwisely preferred +quantity to quality of fish.</p> +<p>And if it be not the quantity of feed, I know no clear reason +why chalk and limestone trout should be so much larger and better +flavoured than any others. The cause is not the greater +swiftness of the streams; for (paradoxical as it may seem to +many) a trout likes swift water no more than a pike does, except +when spawning or cleaning afterwards. At those times his +blood seems to require a very rapid oxygenation, and he goes to +the ‘sharps’ to obtain it: but when he is feeding and +fattening, the water cannot be too still for him. Streams +which are rapid throughout never produce large fish; and a +hand-long trout transferred from his native torrent to a still +pond, will increase in size at a ten times faster rate. In +chalk streams the largest fish are found oftener in the +mill-heads than in the mill tails. It is a mistake, though +a common one, to fancy that the giant trout of the Thames lashers +lie in swift water. On the contrary, they lie in the very +stillest spot of the whole pool, which is just under the +hatches. There the rush of the water shoots over their +heads, and they look up through it for every eatable which may be +swept down. At night they run down to the fan of the pool, +to hunt minnow round the shallows; but their home by day is the +still deep; and their preference of the lasher pool to the quiet +water above is due merely to the greater abundance of food. +Chalk trout, then, are large not merely because the water is +swift.</p> +<p>Whether trout have not a specific fondness for lime; whether +water of some dozen degrees of hardness is not necessary for +their development? are questions which may be fairly asked. +Yet is not the true reason this; that the soil on the banks of a +chalk or limestone stream is almost always rich—red loam, +carrying an abundant vegetation, and therefore an abundant crop +of animal life, both in and out of the water? The countless +insects which haunt a rich hay meadow, all know who have eyes to +see; and if they will look into the stream they will find that +the water-world is even richer than the air-world.</p> +<p>Every still spot in a chalk stream becomes so choked with weed +as to require moving at least thrice a year, to supply the mills +with water. Grass, milfoil, water crowfoot, hornwort, +starwort, horsetail, and a dozen other delicate plants, form one +tangled forest, denser than those of the Amazon, and more densely +peopled likewise.</p> +<p>To this list will soon be added our Transatlantic curse, +<i>Babingtonia diabolica</i>, alias <i>Anacharis alsin +astrum</i>. It has already ascended the Thames as high as +Reading; and a few years more, owing to the present aqua-vivarium +mania, will see it filling every mill-head in England, to the +torment of all millers. Young ladies are assured that the +only plant for their vivariums is a sprig of anacharis, for which +they pay sixpence—the market value being that of a wasp, +flea, or other scourge of the human race; and when the vivarium +fails, its contents, Anacharis and all, are tost into the nearest +ditch; for which the said young lady ought to be fined five +pounds; and would be, if Governments governed. What an +‘if’.</p> +<p>But come; for the sun burns bright, and fishing is impossible: +lie down upon the bank, above this stop. There is a +campshutting (a boarding in English) on which you can put your +elbows. Lie down on your face, and look down through two or +three feet of water clear as air into the water forest where the +great trout feed.</p> +<p>Here; look into this opening in the milfoil and crowfoot +bed. Do you see a grey film around that sprig? +Examine it through the pocket lens. It is a forest of glass +bells, on branching stalks. They are Vorticellæ; and +every one of those bells, by the ciliary current on its rim, is +scavenging the water—till a tadpole comes by and scavenges +it. How many millions of living creatures are there on that +one sprig? Look here!—a brown polype, with long +waving arms—a gigantic monster, actually a full half-inch +long. He is <i>Hydra fusca</i>, most famous, and earliest +described (I think by Trembley). Ere we go home I may show +you perhaps <i>Hydra viridis</i>, with long pea-green arms; and +<i>rosea</i>, most beautiful in form and colour of all the +strange family. You see that lump, just where his stalk +joins his bell-head? That is a budding baby. Ignorant +of the joys and cares of wedlock, he increases by +gemmation. See! here is another, with a full-sized young +one growing on his back. You may tear it off if you +will—he cares not. You may cut him into a dozen +pieces, they say, and each one will grow, as a potato does. +I suppose, however, that he also sends out of his mouth little +free ova—medusoids—call them what you will, swimming +by ciliæ, which afterwards, unless the water beetles stop +them on the way, will settle down as stalked polypes, and in +their turn practise some mystery of Owenian parthenogenesis, or +Steenstruppian alternation of generations, in which all +traditional distinctions of plant and animal, male and female, +are laughed to scorn by the magnificent fecundity of the Divine +imaginations.</p> +<p>That dusty cloud which shakes off in the water as you move the +weed, under the microscope would be one mass of exquisite +forms—Desmidiæ and Diatomaceæ, and what +not? Instead of running over long names, take home a little +in a bottle, put it under your microscope, and if you think good +verify the species from Hassall, Ehrenberg, or other wise book; +but without doing that, one glance through the lens will show you +why the chalk trout grow fat.</p> +<p>Do they, then, eat these infusoria?</p> +<p>That is not clear. But minnows and small fry eat them by +millions; and so do tadpoles, and perhaps caddis baits and water +crickets.</p> +<p>What are they?</p> +<p>Look on the soft muddy bottom. You see numberless bits +of stick. Watch awhile, and those sticks are alive, +crawling and tumbling over each other. The weed, too, is +full of smaller ones. Those live sticks are the larva-cases +of the Caperers—Phryganeæ—of which one family +nearly two hundred species have been already found in Great +Britain. Fish up one, and you find, amid sticks and +pebbles, a comfortable silk case, tenanted by a goodly +grub. Six legs he has, like all insects, and tufts of white +horns on each ring of his abdomen, which are his gills. A +goodly pair of jaws he has too, and does good service with them: +for he is the great water scavenger. Decaying vegetable +matter is his food, and with those jaws he will bark a dead stick +as neatly as you will with a penknife. But he does not +refuse animal matter. A dead brother (his, not yours) makes +a savoury meal for him; and a party of those Vorticellæ +would stand a poor chance if he came across them. You may +count these caddis baits by hundreds of thousands; whether the +trout eat them case and all, is a question in these +streams. In some rivers the trout do so; and what is +curious, during the spring, have a regular gizzard, a temporary +thickening of the coats of the stomach, to enable them to grind +the pebbly cases of the caddises. See! here is one whose +house is closed at both ends—‘grillé,’ +as Pictet calls it, in his unrivalled monograph of the Genevese +Phryganeæ, on which he spent four years of untiring +labour. The grub has stopped the mouth of his case by an +open network of silk, defended by small pebbles, through which +the water may pass freely, while he changes into his nymph +state. Open the case; you find within not a grub, but a +strange bird-beaked creature, with long legs and horns laid flat +by its sides, and miniature wings on its back. Observe that +the sides of the tail, and one pair of legs, are fringed with +dark hairs. After a fortnight’s rest in this prison +this ‘nymph’ will gnaw her way out and swim through +the water on her back, by means of that fringed tail and paddles, +till she reaches the bank and the upper air. There, under +the genial light of day, her skin will burst, and a four-winged +fly emerge, to buzz over the water as a fawn-coloured +Caperer—deadliest of trout flies; if she be not snapped up +beforehand under water by some spotted monarch in search of +supper.</p> +<p>But look again among this tangled mass of weed. Here are +more larvæ of water-flies. Some have the sides +fringed with what look like paddles, but are gills. Of +these one part have whisks at the tail, and swim freely. +They will change into ephemeræ, cock-winged +‘duns,’ with long whisked tails. The +larvæ of the famous green drake (<i>Ephemera vulgata</i>) +are like these: but we shall not find them. They are all +changed by now into the perfect fly; and if not, they burrow +about the banks, and haunt the crayfish-holes, and are not easily +found.</p> +<p>Some, again, have the gills on their sides larger and broader, +and no whisks at the tail. These are the larvæ of +Sialis, the black alder, Lord Stowell’s fly, shorm fly, +hunch-back of the Welsh, with which we have caught our best fish +to-day.</p> +<p>And here is one of a delicate yellow-green, whose tail is +furnished with three broad paddle-blades. These, I believe, +are gills again. The larva is probably that of the Yellow +Sally—<i>Chrysoperla viridis</i>—a famous fly on hot +days in May and June. Among the pebbles there, below the +fall, we should have found, a month since, a similar but much +larger grub, with two paddles at his tail. He is the +‘creeper’ of the northern streams, and changes to the +great crawling stone fly (May-fly of Tweed), <i>Perla +bicaudata</i>, an ugly creature, which runs on stones and posts, +and kills right well on stormy days, when he is beaten into the +stream.</p> +<p>There. Now we have the larvæ of the four great +trout-fly families, Phryganeæ, Ephemeræ, +Sialidæ, Perlidæ; so you have no excuse for +telling—as not only Cockneys, but really good sportsmen who +write on fishing, have done—such fibs as that the green +drake comes out of a caddis-bait, or giving such vague +generalities as, ‘this fly comes from a +water-larva.’</p> +<p>These are, surely, in their imperfect and perfect states, food +enough to fatten many a good trout: but they are not all. +See these transparent brown snails, Limneæ and +Succinæ, climbing about the posts; and these other pretty +ones, coil laid within coil as flat as a shilling, +Planorbis. Many a million of these do the trout pick off +the weed day by day; and no food, not even the leech, which +swarms here, is more fattening. The finest trout of the +high Snowdon lakes feed almost entirely on leech and +snail—baits they have none—and fatten till they cut +as red as a salmon.</p> +<p>Look here too, once more. You see a grey moving cloud +about that pebble bed, and underneath that bank. It is a +countless swarm of ‘sug,’ or water-shrimp; a bad +food, but devoured greedily by the great trout in certain +overstocked preserves.</p> +<p>Add to these plenty of minnow, stone-loach, and miller’s +thumbs, a second course of young crayfish, and for one +gormandizing week of bliss, thousands of the great green-drake +fly: and you have food enough for a stock of trout which +surprise, by their size and number, an angler fresh from the +mountain districts of the north and west. To such a +fisherman, the tale of Mr. ** *, of Ramsbury, who is said to have +killed in one day in his own streams on Kennet, seventy-six +trout, all above a pound, sounds like a traveller’s +imagination: yet the fact is, I believe, accurately true.</p> +<p>This, however, is an extraordinary case upon an extraordinary +stream. In general, if a man shall bring home (beside small +fish) a couple of brace of from one to three pounds apiece, he +may consider himself as a happy man, and that the heavens have +not shone, but frowned, upon him very propitiously.</p> +<p>And now comes another and an important question. For +which of all these dainty eatables, if for any, do the trout take +our flies? and from that arises another. Why are the flies +with which we have been fishing this morning so large—of +the size which is usually employed on a Scotch lake? You +are a North-country fisher, and are wont, upon your clear +streams, to fish with nothing but the smallest gnats. And +yet our streams are as clear as yours: what can be clearer?</p> +<p>Whether fish really mistake our artificial flies for different +species of natural ones, as Englishmen hold; or merely for +something good to eat, the colour whereof strikes their fancy, as +Scotchmen think—a theory which has been stated in detail, +and with great semblance of truth, in Mr. Stewart’s +admirable ‘Practical Angler,’—is a matter about +which much good sense has been written on both sides.</p> +<p>Whosoever will, may find the great controversy fully discussed +in the pages of Ephemera. Perhaps (as in most cases) the +truth lies between the two extremes; at least, in a +chalk-stream.</p> +<p>Ephemera’s list of flies may be very excellent, but it +is about ten times as long as would be required for any of our +southern streams. Six or seven sort of flies ought to +suffice for any fisherman; if they will not kill, the thing which +will kill is yet to seek.</p> +<p>To name them:—</p> +<p>1. The caperer.</p> +<p>2. The March-brown.</p> +<p>3. The governor.</p> +<p>4. The black alder.</p> +<p>And two or three large palmers, red, grizzled, and +coch-a-bonddhu, each with a tuft of red floss silk at the +tail. These are enough to show sport from March to October; +and also like enough to certain natural flies to satisfy the +somewhat dull memory of a trout.</p> +<p>But beyond this list there is little use in roaming, as far as +my experience goes. A yellow dun kills sometimes +marvellously on chalk-streams, and always upon rocky ones. +A Turkey-brown ephemera, the wing made of the bright brown tail +of the cock partridge, will, even just after the May-fly is off, +show good sport in the forenoon, when he is on the water; and so +will in the evening the claret spinner, to which he turns. +Excellent patterns of these flies may be found in Ronalds: but, +after all, they are uncertain flies; and, as Harry Verney used to +say, ‘they casualty flies be all havers;’ which +sentence the reader, if he understands good Wessex, can doubtless +translate for himself.</p> +<p>And there are evenings on which the fish take greedily small +transparent ephemeræ. But, did you ever see large +fish rise at these ephemeræ? And even if you did, can +you imitate the natural fly? And after all, would it not be +waste of time? For the experience of many good fishers is, +that trout rise at these delicate duns, black gnats, and other +microscopic trash, simply <i>faute de mieux</i>. They are +hungry, as trout are six days in the week, just at sunset. +A supper they must have, and they take what comes; but if you can +give them anything better than the minute fairy, compact of equal +parts of glass and wind, which naturalists call an Ephemera or +Bætis, it will be most thankfully received, if there be +ripple enough on the water (which there seldom is on a fine +evening) to hide the line: and even though the water be still, +take boldly your caperer or your white moth (either of them ten +times as large as what the trout are rising at), hurl it boldly +into a likely place, and let it lie quiet and sink, not +attempting to draw or work it; and if you do not catch anything +by that means, comfort yourself with the thought that there are +others who can.</p> +<p>And now to go through our list, beginning with—</p> +<p>1. The caperer.</p> +<p>This perhaps is the best of all flies; it is certainly the one +which will kill earliest and latest in the year; and though I +would hardly go as far as a friend of mine, who boasts of never +fishing with anything else, I believe it will, from March to +October, take more trout, and possibly more grayling, than any +other fly. Its basis is the woodcock wing; red hackle legs, +which should be long and pale; and a thin mohair body, of +different shades of red-brown, from a dark claret to a pale +sandy. It may thus, tied of different sizes, do duty for +half-a-dozen of the commonest flies; for the early claret +(red-brown of Ronalds; a Nemoura, according to him), which is the +first spring-fly; for the red spinner, or perfect form of the +March-brown ephemera; for the soldier, the soft-winged reddish +beetle which haunts the umbelliferous flowers, and being as soft +in spirit as in flesh, perpetually falls into the water, and +comes to grief therein; and last but not least, for the true +caperers, or whole tribe of Phryganidæ, of which a sketch +was given just now. As a copy of them, the body should be +of a pale red brown, all but sandy (but never snuff-coloured, as +shop-girls often tie it), and its best hour is always in the +evening. It kills well when fish are gorged with their +morning meal of green drakes; and after the green drake is off, +it is almost the only fly at which large trout care to look; a +fact not to be wondered at when one considers that nearly two +hundred species of English Phryganidæ have been already +described, and that at least half of them are of the fawn-tint of +the caperer. Under the title of flame-brown, cinnamon, or +red-hackle and rail’s wing, a similar fly kills well in +Ireland, and in Scotland also; and is sometimes the best +sea-trout fly which can be laid on the water. Let this +suffice for the caperer.</p> +<p>2. Of the March-brown ephemera there is little to be +said, save to notice Ronalds’ and Ephemera’s +excellent description, and Ephemera’s good hint of fishing +with more than one March-brown at once, viz., with a sandy-bodied +male, and a greenish-bodied female. The fly is a worthy +fly, and being easily imitated, gives great sport, in number +rather than in size; for when the March-brown is out, the two or +three pound fish are seldom on the move, preferring leeches, +tom-toddies, and caddis-bait in the nether deeps, to slim +ephemeræ at the top; and if you should (as you may) get +hold of a big fish on the fly, ‘you’d best hit him in +again,’ as we say in Wessex; for he will be, like the +Ancient Mariner—</p> +<blockquote><p> ‘Long, and lank, and +brown,<br /> +As is the ribbed sea-sand.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>3. The ‘governor.’—In most sandy +banks, and dry poor lawns, will be found numberless burrows of +ground bees who have a great trick of tumbling into the +water. Perhaps, like the honey bee, they are thirsty souls, +and must needs go down to the river and drink; perhaps, like the +honey bee, they rise into the air with some difficulty, and so in +crossing a stream are apt to strike the further bank, and fall +in. Be that as it may, an imitation of these little ground +bees is a deadly fly the whole year round; and if worked within +six inches of the shore, will sometimes fill a basket when there +is not a fly on the water or a fish rising. There are those +who never put up a cast of flies without one; and those, too, who +have killed large salmon on him in the north of Scotland, when +the streams are low.</p> +<p>His tie is simple enough. A pale partridge or woodcock +wing, short red hackle legs, a peacock-herl body, and a +tail—on which too much artistic skill can hardly be +expended—of yellow floss silk, and gold twist or +tinsel. The orange-tailed governors ‘of ye +shops,’ as the old drug-books would say, are all +‘havers;’ for the proper colour is a honey +yellow. The mystery of this all-conquering tail seems to +be, that it represents the yellow pollen, or ‘bee +bread’ in the thighs or abdomen of the bee; whereof the +bright colour, and perhaps the strong musky flavour, makes him an +attractive and savoury morsel. Be that as it may, there is +no better rule for a chalk stream than this—when you +don’t know what to fish with, try the governor.</p> +<p>4. The black alder (<i>Sialis nigra</i>, or +<i>Lutaria</i>).</p> +<p>What shall be said, or not be said, of this queen of +flies? And what of Ephemera, who never mentions her? +His alder fly is—I know not what; certainly not that black +alder, shorm fly, Lord Stowell’s fly, or hunch-back, which +kills the monsters of the deep, surpassed only by the green drake +for one fortnight; but surpassing him in this, that she will kill +on till September, from that happy day on which</p> +<blockquote><p>‘You find her out on every stalk<br /> +Whene’er you take a river walk,<br /> +When swifts at eve begin to hawk.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>O thou beloved member of the brute creation! Songs have +been written in praise of thee; statues would ere now have been +erected to thee, had that hunch back and those flabby wings of +thine been ‘susceptible of artistic treatment.’ +But ugly thou art in the eyes of the uninitiated vulgar; a little +stumpy old maid toddling about the world in a black bonnet and a +brown cloak, laughed at by naughty boys, but doing good wherever +thou comest, and leaving sweet memories behind thee; so sweet +that the trout will rise at the ghost or sham of thee, for pure +love of thy past kindnesses to them, months after thou hast +departed from this sublunary sphere. What hours of bliss do +I not owe to thee! How have I seen, in the rich meads of +Wey, after picking out wretched quarter-pounders all the morning +on March-brown and red-hackle, the great trout rush from every +hover to welcome thy first appearance among the sedges and +buttercups! How often, late in August, on Thames, on Test, +on Loddon heads, have I seen the three and four pound fish prefer +thy dead image to any live reality. Have I not seen poor +old Si. Wilder, king of Thames fishermen (now gone home to his +rest), shaking his huge sides with delight over thy mighty deeds, +as his fourteen-inch whiskers fluttered in the breeze like the +horsetail standard of some great Bashaw, while crystal Thames +murmured over the white flints on Monkey Island shallow, and the +soft breeze sighed in the colossal poplar spires, and the great +trout rose and rose, and would not cease, at thee, my +alder-fly? Have I not seen, after a day in which the earth +below was iron, and the heavens above as brass, as the +three-pounders would have thee, and thee alone, in the purple +August dusk, old Moody’s red face grow redder with +excitement, half proud at having advised me to ‘put +on’ thee, half fearful lest we should catch all my +lady’s pet trout in one evening? Beloved alder-fly! +would that I could give thee a soul (if indeed thou hast not one +already, thou, and all things which live), and make thee happy in +all æons to come! But as it is, such immortality as I +can I bestow on thee here, in small return for all the pleasant +days thou hast bestowed on me.</p> +<p>Bah! I am becoming poetical; let us think how to tie an +alder-fly.</p> +<p>The common tie is good enough. A brown mallard, or dark +hen-pheasant tail for wing, a black hackle for legs, and the +necessary peacock-herl body. A better still is that of +Jones Jones Beddgelert, the famous fishing clerk of Snowdonia, +who makes the wing of dappled peacock-hen, and puts the black +hackle on before the wings, in order to give the peculiar +hunch-backed shape of the natural fly. Many a good fish has +this tie killed. But the best pattern of all is tied from +the mottled wing-feather of an Indian bustard; generally used, +when it can be obtained, only for salmon flies. The brown +and fawn check pattern of this feather seems to be peculiarly +tempting to trout, especially to the large trout of Thames; and +in every river where I have tried the alder, I have found the +bustard wing <i>facile princeps</i> among all patterns of the +fly.</p> +<p>Of palmers (the hairy caterpillars) are many sorts. +Ephemera gives by far the best list yet published. Ronalds +has also three good ones, but whether they are really taken by +trout instead of the particular natural insects which he +mentions, is not very certain. The little coch-a-bonddhu +palmer, so killing upon moor streams, may probably be taken for +young larvæ of the fox and oak-egger moths, abundant on all +moors, upon trefoils, and other common plants; but the lowland +caterpillars are so abundant and so various in colour that trout +must be good entomologists to distinguish them. Some +distinction they certainly make; for one palmer will kill where +another does not: but this depends a good deal on the colour of +the water; the red palmer, being easily seen, will kill almost +anywhere and any when, simply because it is easily seen; and both +the grizzle and brown palmer may be made to kill by adding to the +tail a tuft of red floss silk; for red, it would seem, has the +same exciting effect on fish which it has upon many quadrupeds, +possibly because it is the colour of flesh. The mackerel +will often run greedily at a strip of scarlet cloth; and the most +killing pike-fly I ever used had a body made of remnants of the +huntsman’s new ‘pink.’ Still, there are +local palmers. On Thames, for instance, I have seldom +failed with the grizzled palmer, while the brown has seldom +succeeded, and the usually infallible red never. There is +one more palmer worth trying, which Scotsmen, I believe, call the +Royal Charlie; a coch-a-bonddhu or furnace hackle, over a body of +gold-coloured floss silk, ribbed with broad gold tinsel. +Both in Devonshire and in Hampshire this will kill great +quantities of fish, wherever furzy or otherwise wild banks or +oak-woods afford food for the oak-egger and fox moths, which +children call ‘Devil’s Gold Rings,’ and +Scotsmen ‘Hairy Oubits.’</p> +<p>Two hints more about palmers. They must not be worked on +the top of the water, but used as stretchers, and allowed to sink +as living caterpillars do; and next, they can hardly be too large +or rough, provided that you have skill enough to get them into +the water without a splash. I have killed well on Thames +with one full three inches long, armed of course with two small +hooks. With palmers—and perhaps with all +baits—the rule is, the bigger the bait the bigger the +fish. A large fish does not care to move except for a good +mouthful. The best pike-fisher I know prefers a half-pound +chub when he goes after one of his fifteen-pound jack; and the +largest pike I ever ran—and lost, alas!—who seemed of +any weight above twenty pounds, was hooked on a live white fish +of full three-quarters of a pound. Still, no good angler +will despise the minute North-country flies. In Yorkshire +they are said to kill the large chalk trout of Driffield as well +as the small limestone and grit fish of Craven; if so, the +gentlemen of the Driffield Club, who are said to think nothing of +killing three-pound fish on midge flies and cobweb tackle, must +be (as canny Yorkshiremen are likely enough to be) the best +anglers in England.</p> +<p>In one spot only in Yorkshire, as far as I know, do our large +chalk flies kill: namely, in the lofty limestone tarn of +Malham. There palmers, caperers, and rough black flies, of +the largest Thames and Kennet sizes, seem the only attractive +baits: and for this reason, that they are the flies of the +place. The cinnamon Phryganea comes up abundantly from +among the stones; and the large peat moss to the west of the tarn +abounds, as usual, in house-flies and bluebottles, and in the +caterpillars of the fox and oak-egger moths: another proof that +the most attractive flies are imitations of the real +insects. On the other hand, there are said to be times when +midges, and nothing else, will rise fish on some chalk +streams. The delicate black hackle which Mr. Stewart +praises so highly (and which should always be tied on a square +sneck-bend hook) will kill in June and July; and on the Itchen, +at Winchester, hardly any flies but small ones are used after the +green drake is off. But there is one sad objection against +these said midges—what becomes of your fish when hooked on +one in a stream full of weeds (as all chalk streams are after +June), save</p> +<blockquote><p>‘One struggle more, and I am free<br /> +From pangs which rend my heart in twain’?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Winchester fishers have confessed to me that they lose three +good fish out of every four in such cases; and as it seems pretty +clear that chalk fish approve of no medium between very large +flies and very small ones, I advise the young angler, whose +temper is not yet schooled into perfect resignation, to spare his +own feelings by fishing with a single large fly—say the +governor in the forenoon, the caperer in the evening, regardless +of the clearness of the water. I have seen flies large +enough for April, raise fish excellently in Test and other clear +streams in July and August; and, what is more, drag them up out +of the weeds and into the landing-net, where midges would have +lost them in the first scuffle.</p> +<p>So much for our leading chalk flies; all copies of live +insects. Of the entomology of mountain streams little as +yet is known: but a few scattered hints may suffice to show that +in them, as well as in the chalk rivers, a little natural science +might help the angler.</p> +<p>The well-known fact that smaller flies are required on the +moors than in the lowlands, is easily explained by the fact that +poorer soils and swifter streams produce smaller insects. +The large Phryganeæ, or true caperers, whose caddis-baits +love still pools and stagnant ditches, are there rare; and the +office of water-scavenger is fulfilled by the Rhyacophiles +(torrent-lovers) and Hydropsyches, whose tiny pebble-houses are +fixed to the stones to resist the violence of the summer +floods. In and out of them the tiny larva runs to find +food, making in addition, in some species, galleries of earth +along the surface of the stones, in which he takes his walks +abroad in full security. In any of the brown rivulets of +Windsor forest, towards the middle of summer, the pebble-houses +of these little creatures may be seen in millions, studding every +stone. To the Hydropsyches (species <i>montana</i>? or +<i>variegata</i>? of Pictet) belongs that curious little Welsh +fly, known in Snowdon by the name of the Gwynnant, whose +tesselated wing is best imitated by brown mallard feather, and +who so swarms in the lower lakes of Snowdon, that it is often +necessary to use three of them on the line at once, all other +flies being useless. It is perhaps the abundance of these +tesselated Hydropsyches which makes the mallard wing the most +useful in mountain districts, as the abundance of the fawn and +grey Phryganidæ in the south of England makes the woodcock +wing justly the favourite. The Rhyacophiles, on the other +hand, are mostly of a shining soot-grey, or almost black. +These may be seen buzzing in hundreds over the pools on a wet +evening, and with them the sooty Mystacides, called silverhorns +in Scotland, from their antennæ, which are of preposterous +length, and ringed prettily enough with black and white. +These delicate fairies make moveable cases, or rather pipes, of +the finest sand, generally curved, and resembling in shape the +Dentalium shell. Guarded by these, they hang in myriads on +the smooth ledges of rock, where the water runs gently a few +inches deep. These are abundant everywhere: but I never saw +so many of them as in the exquisite Cother brook, near Middleham, +in Yorkshire. In that delicious glen, while wading up +beneath the ash-fringed crags of limestone, out of which the +great ring ouzel (too wild, it seemed, to be afraid of man) +hopped down fearlessly to feed upon the strand, or past +flower-banks where the golden globe-flower, and the great blue +geranium, and the giant campanula bloomed beneath the white +tassels of the bird-cherry, I could not tread upon the limestone +slabs without crushing at every step hundreds of the delicate +Mystacide tubes, which literally paved the shallow edge of the +stream, and which would have been metamorphosed in due time into +small sooty moth-like fairies, best represented, I should say, by +the soft black-hackle which Mr. Stewart recommends as the most +deadly of North-country flies. Not to these, however, but +to the Phryganeæ (who, when sticks and pebbles fail, often +make their tubes of sand, e.g. <i>P. flava</i>), should I refer +the red-cow fly, which is almost the only autumn killer in the +Dartmoor streams. A red cowhair body and a woodcock wing is +his type, and let those who want West-country trout remember +him.</p> +<p>Another fly, common on some rocky streams, but more scarce in +the chalk, is the ‘Yellow Sally,’ which +entomologists, with truer appreciation of its colour, call +<i>Chrysoperla viridis</i>. It may be bought at the shops; +at least a yellow something of that name, but bearing no more +resemblance to the delicate yellow-green natural fly, with its +warm grey wings, than a Pre-Raphaelite portrait to the human +being for whom it is meant. Copied, like most trout flies, +from some traditional copy by the hands of Cockney maidens, who +never saw a fly in their lives, the mistake of a mistake, a sham +raised to its tenth power, it stands a signal proof that anglers +will never get good flies till they learn a little entomology +themselves, and then teach it to the tackle makers. But if +it cannot be bought, it can at least be made; and I should advise +everyone who fishes rocky streams in May and June, to dye for +himself some hackles of a brilliant greenish-yellow, and in the +most burning sunshine, when fish seem inclined to rise at no fly +whatsoever, examine the boulders for the Chrysoperla, who runs +over them, her wings laid flat on her back, her yellow legs +moving as rapidly as a forest-fly’s; try to imitate her, +and use her on the stream, or on the nearest lake. Certain +it is that in Snowdon this fly and the Gwynnant Hydropsyche will +fill a creel in the most burning north-easter, when all other +flies are useless; a sufficient disproof of the Scotch +theory—that fish do not prefer the fly which is on the +water. <a name="citation74"></a><a href="#footnote74" +class="citation">[74]</a></p> +<p>Another disproof may be found in the ‘fern web,’ +‘bracken clock’ of Scotland; the tiny cockchafer, +with brown wing-cases and dark-green thorax, which abounds in +some years in the hay-meadows, on the fern, or on the heads of +umbelliferous flowers. The famous Loch-Awe fly, described +as an alder-fly with a rail’s wing, seems to be nothing but +this fat little worthy: but the best plan is to make the wings, +either buzz or hackle, of the bright neck-feather of the cock +pheasant, thus gaining the metallic lustre of the beetle +tribe. Tied thus, either in Devonshire or Snowdon, few +flies surpass him when he is out. His fatness proves an +attraction which the largest fish cannot resist.</p> +<p>The Ephemeræ, too, are far more important in rapid and +rocky streams than in the deeper, stiller waters of the +south. It is worth while for a good fish to rise at them +there; the more luxurious chalk trout will seldom waste himself +upon them, unless he be lying in shallow water, and has but to +move a few inches upward.</p> +<p>But these Ephemeræ, like all other naiads, want working +out. The species which Mr. Ronalds gives, are most of them, +by his own confession, very uncertain. Of the +Phryganidæ he seems to know little or nothing, mentioning +but two species out of the two hundred which are said to inhabit +Britain; and his land flies and beetles are in several cases +quite wrongly named. However, the professed entomologists +know but little of the mountain flies; and the angler who would +help to work them out would confer a benefit on science, as well +as on the ‘gentle craft.’ As yet the only +approach to such a good work which I know of, is a little book on +the trout flies of Ripon, with excellent engravings of the +natural fly. The author’s name is not given; but the +book may be got at Ripon, and most valuable it must be to any +North-country fisherman.</p> +<p>But come, we must not waste our time in talk, for here is a +cloud over the sun, and plenty more coming up behind, before a +ruffling south-west breeze, as Shelley has it—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">‘Calling white +clouds like flocks to feed in air.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Let us up and onward to that long still reach, which is now +curling up fast before the breeze; there are large fish to be +taken, one or two at least, even before the fly comes on. +You need not change your flies; the cast which you have +on—governor, and black alder—will take, if anything +will. Only do not waste your time and muscle, as you are +beginning to do, by hurling your flies wildly into the middle of +the stream, on the chance of a fish being there. Fish are +there, no doubt, but not feeding ones. They are sailing +about and enjoying the warmth; but nothing more. If you +want to find the hungry fish and to kill them, you must stand +well back from the bank—or kneel down, if you are really in +earnest about sport; and throw within a foot of the shore, above +you or below (but if possible above), with a line short enough to +manage easily; by which I mean short enough to enable you to lift +your flies out of the water at each throw without hooking them in +the docks and comfrey which grow along the brink. You must +learn to raise your hand at the end of each throw, and lift the +flies clean over the land-weeds: or you will lose time, and +frighten all the fish, by crawling to the bank to unhook +them. Believe me, one of the commonest mistakes into which +young anglers fall is that of fishing in ‘skipjack +broad;’ in plain English, in mid-stream, where few fish, +and those little ones, are to be caught. Those who wish for +large fish work close under the banks, and seldom take a +mid-stream cast, unless they see a fish rise there.</p> +<p>The reason of this is simple. Walking up the Strand in +search of a dinner, a reasonable man will keep to the trottoir, +and look in at the windows close to him, instead of parading up +the mid-street. And even so do all wise and ancient +trout. The banks are their shops; and thither they go for +their dinners, driving their poor little children tyrannously out +into the mid-river to fare as hap may hap. Over these +children the tyro wastes his time, flogging the stream across and +across for weary hours, while the big papas and mammas are +comfortably under the bank, close at his feet, grubbing about the +sides for water crickets, and not refusing at times a leech or a +young crayfish, but perfectly ready to take a fly if you offer +one large and tempting enough. They do but act on +experience. All the largest surface-food—beetles, +bees, and palmers—comes off the shore; and all the caperers +and alders, after emerging from their pupa-cases, swim to the +shore in order to change into the perfect insect in the open +air. The perfect insects haunt sunny sedges and +tree-stems—whence the one is often called the sedge, the +other the alder-fly—and from thence drop into the +trouts’ mouths; and within six inches of the bank will the +good angler work, all the more sedulously and even hopefully if +he sees no fish rising. I have known good men say that they +had rather <i>not</i> see fish on the rise, if the day be good; +that they can get surer sport, and are less troubled with small +fish, by making them rise; and certain it is, that a day when the +fish are rising all over the stream is generally one of +disappointment.</p> +<p>Another advantage of bank fishing is, that the fish sees the +fly only for a moment. He has no long gaze at it, as it +comes to him across the water. It either drops exactly over +his nose, or sweeps down the stream straight upon him. He +expects it to escape on shore the next moment, and chops at it +fiercely and hastily, instead of following and examining. +Add to this the fact that when he is under the bank there is far +less chance of his seeing you; and duly considering these things, +you will throw away no more time in drawing, at least in +chalk-streams, flies over the watery wastes, to be snapped at now +and then by herring-sized pinkeens. In rocky streams, where +the quantity of bank food is far smaller, this rule will perhaps +not hold good; though who knows not that his best fish are +generally taken under some tree from which the little +caterpillars, having determined on slow and deliberate suicide +are letting themselves down gently by a silken thread into the +mouth of the spotted monarch, who has but to sail about and +about, and pick them up one by one as they touch the +stream?—A sight which makes one think—as does a herd +of swine crunching acorns, each one of which might have become a +‘builder oak’—how Nature is never more +magnificent than in her waste.</p> +<p>The next mistake, natural enough to the laziness of fallen +man, is that of fishing down-stream, and not up. What Mr. +Stewart says on this point should be read by every tyro. By +fishing up-stream, even against the wind, he will on an average +kill twice as many trout as when fishing down. If trout are +out and feeding on the shallows, up or down will simply make the +difference of fish or no fish; and even in deeps, where the +difference in the chance of not being seen is not so great, many +more fish will be hooked by the man who fishes up-stream, simply +because when he strikes he pulls the hook into the trout’s +mouth instead of out of it. But he who would obey Mr. +Stewart in fishing up-stream must obey him also in discarding his +light London rod, which is in three cases out of four as weak and +‘floppy’ in the middle as a waggon whip, and get to +himself a stiff and powerful rod, strong enough to spin a minnow; +whereby he will obtain, after some weeks of aching muscles, two +good things—a fore-arm fit for a sculptor’s model, +and trout hooked and killed, instead of pricked and lost.</p> +<p>Killed, as well as hooked; for how large trout are to be +killed in a weedy chalk-stream without a stiff rod which will +take them down, is a question yet unsolved. Even the merest +Cockney will know, if he thinks, that weeds float with their +points down-stream; and that therefore if a fish is to be brought +through them without entangling, he must be ‘combed’ +through them in the same direction. But how is this to be +done, if a fish be hooked below you on a weak rod? With a +strong rod indeed you can, at the chance of tearing out the hook, +keep him by main force on the top of the water, till you have run +past him and below him, shortening your line anyhow in +loops—there is no time to wind it up with the +reel—and then do what you might have done comfortably at +first had you been fishing up—viz., bring him down-stream, +and let the water run through his gills, and drown him. But +with a weak rod—Alas for the tyro! He catches one +glimpse of a silver side plunging into the depths; he finds his +rod double in his hand; he finds fish and flies stop suddenly +somewhere; he rushes down to the spot, sees weeds waving around +his line, and guesses from what he feels and sees that the fish +is grubbing up-stream through them, five feet under water. +He tugs downwards and backwards, but too late; the drop-fly is +fast wrapt in Ceratophyllum and Glyceria, Callitriche and +Potamogeton, and half-a-dozen more horrid things with long names +and longer stems; and what remains but the fate of +Campbell’s Lord Ullin?—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The waters wild went o’er his +child,<br /> + And he was left lamenting.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Unless, in fact, large fish can be got rapidly down-stream, +the chance of killing them is very small; and therefore the man +who fishes a willow-fringed brook downward, is worthy of no crown +but Ophelia’s, besides being likely enough, if he attempt +to get down to his fish, to share her fate. The best +fisherman, however, will come to shame in streams bordered by +pollard willows, and among queer nooks, which can be only fished +down-stream. I saw, but the other day, a fish hooked +cleverly enough, by throwing to an inch where he ought to have +been, and indeed was, and from the only point whence the throw +could be made. Out of the water he came, head and tail, the +moment he felt the hook, and showed a fair side over two pounds +weight . . . . and then? Instead of running away, he ran +right at the fisherman, for reasons which were but too +patent. Between man and fish were ten yards of shallow, +then a deep weedy shelf, and then the hole which was his +house. And for that weedy shelf the spotted monarch made, +knowing that there he could drag himself clear of the fly, as +perhaps he had done more than once before.</p> +<p>What was to be done? Take him down-stream through the +weed? Alas, on the man’s left hand an old pollard +leant into the water, barring all downward movement. Jump +in and run round? He had rather to run back from the bank, +from fear of a loose line; the fish was coming at him so fast +that there was no time to wind up. Safe into the weeds +hurls the fish; the man, as soon as he finds the fish stop, jumps +in mid-leg deep, and staggers up to him, in hopes of clearing; +finds the dropper fast in the weeds, and the stretcher, which had +been in the fish’s mouth, wantoning somewhere in the +depths—<i>Quid plura</i>? Let us draw a veil over +that man’s return to shore.</p> +<p>No mortal skill could have killed that fish. Mortal luck +(which is sometimes, as most statesmen know, very great) might +have done it, if the fish had been irretrievably fast hooked; as, +per contra, I once saw a fish of nearly four pounds hooked just +above an alder bush, on the same bank as the angler. The +stream was swift: there was a great weed-bed above; the man had +but about ten feet square of swift water to kill the trout +in. Not a foot down-stream could he take him; in fact, he +had to pull him hard up-stream to keep him out of his hover in +the alder roots. Three times that fish leapt into the air +nearly a yard high; and yet, so merciful is luck, and so firmly +was he hooked, in five breathless minutes he was in the +landing-net; and when he was there and safe ashore, just of the +shape and colour of a silver spoon, his captor lay down panting +upon the bank, and with Sir Hugh Evans, manifested ‘a great +disposition to cry.’ But it was a beautiful +sight. A sharper round between man and fish never saw I +fought in Merry England.</p> +<p>I saw once, however, a cleverer, though not a more dashing +feat. A handy little fellow (I wonder where he is now?) +hooked a trout of nearly three pounds with his dropper, and at +the same moment a post with his stretcher. What was to be +done? To keep the fish pulling on him, and not on the +post. And that, being favoured by standing on a four-foot +bank, he did so well that he tired out the fish in some six feet +square of water, stopping him and turning him beautifully +whenever he tried to run, till I could get in to him with the +landing-net. That was five-and-thirty years since. If +the little man has progressed in his fishing as he ought, he +should be now one of the finest anglers in England.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>So. Thanks to bank fishing, we have, you see, landed +three or four more good fish in the last two +hours—And! What is here? An ugly two-pound +chub, Chevin, ‘Echevin,’ or Alderman, as the French +call him. How is this, keeper? I thought you allowed +no such vermin in this water?</p> +<p>The keeper answers, with a grunt, that ‘they allow +themselves. That there always were chub hereabouts, and +always will be; for the more he takes out with the net, the more +come next day.’</p> +<p>Probably. No nets will exterminate these spawn-eating, +fry-eating, all-eating pests, who devour the little trout, and +starve the large ones, and, at the first sign of the net, fly to +hover among the most tangled roots. There they lie, as +close as rats in a bank, and work themselves the farther in the +more they are splashed and poked by the poles of the +beaters. But the fly, well used, will—if not +exterminate them—still thin them down greatly; and very +good sport they give, in my opinion, in spite of the contempt in +which they are commonly held, as chicken-hearted fish, who show +no fight. True; but their very cowardice makes them the +more difficult to catch; for no fish must you keep more out of +sight, and further off. The very shadow of the line (not to +mention that of the rod) sends them flying to hover; and they +rise so cautiously and quietly, that they give excellent lessons +in patience and nerve to a beginner. If the fly is dragged +along the surface, or jerked suddenly from them, they flee from +it in terror; and when they do, after due deliberation, take it +in, their rise is so quiet, that you can seldom tell whether your +fish weighs half a pound or four pounds and a half—unless +you, like most beginners, attempt to show your quickness by that +most useless exertion, a violent strike. Then, the snapping +of your footlink, or—just as likely—of the top of +your rod, makes you fully aware, if not of the pluck, at least of +the brute strength, of the burly alderman of the waters. No +fish, therefore, will better teach the beginner the good old +lesson, ‘not to frighten a fish before you have tired +him.’</p> +<p>For flies—chub will rise greedily at any large palmers, +the larger and rougher the better. A red and a grizzled +hackle will always take them; but the best fly of all is an +imitation of the black beetle—the ‘undertaker’ +of the London shops. He, too, can hardly be too large, and +should be made of a fat body of black wool, with the metallic +black feather of a cock’s tail wrapped loosely over +it. A still better wing is one of the neck feathers of any +metallic-plumed bird, e.g., <i>Phlogophorus Impeyanus</i>, the +Menaul Pheasant, laid flat and whole on the back, to imitate the +wing-shells of the beetle, the legs being represented by any +loose black feathers—(not hackles, which are too +fine.) Tied thus, it will kill not only every chub in a +pool (if you give the survivors a quarter of an hour wherein to +recover from their horror at their last friend’s fate), but +also, here and there, very large trout.</p> +<p>Another slur upon the noble sport of chub fishing is the fact +of his not being worth eating—a fact which, in the true +sportsman’s eyes, will go for nothing. But though the +man who can buy fresh soles and salmon may despise chub, there +are those who do not. True, you may make a most accurate +imitation of him by taking one of Palmer’s patent candles, +wick and all, stuffing it with needles and split bristles, and +then stewing the same in ditch-water. Nevertheless, strange +to say, the agricultural stomach digests chub; and if, after +having filled your creel, or three creels (as you may too often), +with them, you will distribute them on your way home to all the +old women you meet, you will make many poor souls happy, after +having saved the lives of many trout.</p> +<p>But here we come to a strip of thick cover, part of our +Squire’s home preserves, which it is impossible to fish, so +closely do the boughs cover the water. We will walk on +through it towards the hall, and there get—what we begin +sorely to need—something to eat. It will be of little +use fishing for some time to come; for these hot hours of the +afternoon, from three till six, are generally the ‘deadest +time’ of the whole day.</p> +<p>And now, when we have struggled in imagination through the +last bit of copse, and tumbled over the palings into the lawn, we +shall see a scene quite as lovely, if you will believe it, as any +alp on earth.</p> +<p>What shall we see, as we look across the broad, still, clear +river, where the great dark trout sail to and fro lazily in the +sun? For having free-warren of our fancy and our paper, we +may see what we choose.</p> +<p>White chalk-fields above, quivering hazy in the heat. A +park full of merry haymakers; gay red and blue waggons; stalwart +horses switching off the flies; dark avenues of tall elms; groups +of abele, ‘tossing their whispering silver to the +sun;’ and amid them the house. What manner of house +shall it be? Tudor or Elizabethan, with oriels, mullioned +windows, gables, and turrets of strange shape? No: that is +commonplace. Everybody builds Tudor houses now. Our +house shall smack of Inigo Jones or Christopher Wren; a great +square red-brick mass, made light and cheerful though, by quoins +and windows of white Sarsden stone; with high-peaked French +roofs, broken by louvres and dormers, haunted by a thousand +swallows and starlings. Old walled gardens, gay with +flowers, shall stretch right and left. Clipt yew alleys +shall wander away into mysterious glooms: and out of their black +arches shall come tripping children, like white fairies, to laugh +and talk with the girl who lies dreaming and reading in the +hammock there, beneath the black velvet canopy of the great +cedar-tree, like some fair Tropic flower hanging from its +boughs. Then they shall wander down across the smooth-shorn +lawn, where the purple rhododendrons hang double, bush and image, +over the water’s edge, and call to us across the stream, +‘What sport?’ and the old Squire shall beckon the +keeper over the long stone bridge, and return with him bringing +luncheon and good ale; and we will sit down, and eat and drink +among the burdock leaves, and then watch the quiet house, and +lawn, and flowers, and fair human creatures, and shining water, +all sleeping breathless in the glorious light beneath the +glorious blue, till we doze off, lulled by the murmur of a +thousand insects, and the rich minstrelsy of nightingale and +black-cap, thrush and dove.</p> +<p>Peaceful, graceful, complete English country life and country +houses; everywhere finish and polish; Nature perfected by the +wealth and art of peaceful centuries! Why should I exchange +you, even for the sight of all the Alps, for bad roads, bad +carriages, bad inns, bad food, bad washing, bad beds, and fleas, +fleas, fleas?</p> +<p>Let that last thought be enough. There may be follies, +there may be sorrows, there may be sins—though I know there +are no very heavy ones—in that fine old house opposite: but +thanks to the genius of my native land, there are at least no +fleas.</p> +<p>Think of that, wandering friend; and of this also, that you +will find your warm bath ready when you go to bed to-night, and +your cold one when you rise to-morrow morning; and in content and +thankfulness, stay in England, and be clean.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * *</p> +<p>Here, then, let us lounge a full two hours, too comfortable +and too tired to care for fishing, till the hall-bell rings for +that dinner which we as good anglers will despise. Then we +will make our way to the broad reaches above the house. The +evening breeze should be ruffling them gallantly; and see, the +fly is getting up. Countless thousands are rising off the +grass, and flickering to and fro above the stream. Stand +still a moment, and you will hear the air full of the soft rustle +of innumerable wings. Hundreds more, even more delicate and +gauzy, are rising through the water, and floating helplessly +along the surface, as Aphrodite may have done when she rose in +the Ægean, half frightened at the sight of the new upper +world. And, see, the great trout are moving +everywhere. Fish too large and well fed to care for the fly +at any other season, who have been lounging among the weeds all +day and snapping at passing minnows, have come to the surface; +and are feeding steadily, splashing five or six times in +succession, and then going down awhile to bolt their mouthful of +victims; while here and there a heavy silent swirl tells of a fly +taken before it has reached the surface, untimely slain before it +has seen the day.</p> +<p>Now—put your Green-drake on; and throw, regardless of +bank-fishing or any other rule, wherever you see a fish +rise. Do not work your flies in the least, but let them +float down over the fish, or sink if they will; he is more likely +to take them under water than on the top. And mind this +rule: be patient with your fish; and do not fancy that because he +does not rise to you the first or the tenth time, therefore he +will not rise at all. He may have filled his mouth and gone +down to gorge; and when he comes up again, if your fly be the +first which he meets, he will probably seize it greedily, and all +the more so if it be under water, so seeming drowned and +helpless. Besides, a fish seldom rises twice exactly in the +same place, unless he be lying between two weeds, or in the +corner of an eddy. His small wits, when he is feeding in +the open, seem to hint to him that after having found a fly in +one place he must move a foot or two on to find another; and +therefore it may be some time before your turn comes, and your +fly passes just over his nose; which if it do not do, he +certainly will not, amid such an abundance, go out of his way for +it. In the meanwhile your footlink will very probably have +hit him over the back, or run foul of his nose, in which case you +will not catch him at all. A painful fact for you; but if +you could catch every fish you saw, where would be the trout for +next season?</p> +<p>Put on a dropper of some kind, say a caperer, as a second +chance. I almost prefer the dark claret-spinner, with which +I have killed very large fish alternately with the green-drake, +even when it was quite dark; and for your stretcher, of course a +green-drake.</p> +<p>For a blustering evening like this your drake can hardly be +too large or too rough; in brighter and stiller weather the fish +often prefer a fly half the size of the natural one. Only +bear in mind that the most tempting form among these millions of +drakes is that one whose wings are very little coloured at all, +of a pale greenish yellow; whose body is straw-coloured, and his +head, thorax, and legs, spotted with dark brown—best +represented by a pheasant or coch-a-bonddhu hackle.</p> +<p>The best imitation of this, or of any drake, which I have ever +seen, is one by Mr. Macgowan, whilome of Ballyshannon, now of No. +7, Bruton-street, Berkeley-square, whose drakes, known by a waxy +body of some mysterious material, do surpass those of all other +men, and should be known and honoured far and wide. But +failing them, you may do well with a drake which is ribbed +through the whole length with red hackle over a straw-coloured +body. A North-countryman would laugh at it, and ask us how +we fancy that fish will mistake for that delicate waxy fly a +heavy rough palmer, made heavier and rougher by two thick tufts +of yellow mallard wing: but if he will fish therewith, he will +catch trout; and mighty ones they will be. I have found, +again and again, this drake, in which the hackle is ribbed all +down the body, beat a bare-bodied one in the ratio of three fish +to one. The reason is difficult to guess. Perhaps the +shining transparent hackle gives the fly more of the waxy look of +the natural insect; or perhaps the ‘buzzly’ look of +the fly causes the fish to mistake it for one half emerged from +its pupa case, fluttering, entangled, and helpless. But +whatever be the cause, I am sure of the fact. +Now—silence and sport for the next three hours.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>There! All things must end. It is so dark that I +have been fishing for the last five minutes without any end fly; +and we have lost our two last fish simply by not being able to +guide them into the net. But what an evening’s sport +we have had! Beside several over a pound which I have +thrown in (I trust you have been generous and done likewise), +there are six fish averaging two pounds apiece; and what is the +weight of that monster with whom I saw you wrestling dimly +through the dusk, your legs stuck knee-deep in a mudbank, your +head embowered in nettles, while the keeper waltzed round you, +roaring mere incoherencies?—four pounds full. Now, is +there any sherry left in the flask? No. Then we will +give the keeper five shillings; he is well worth his pay; and +then drag our weary limbs towards the hall to bath, supper, and +bed; while you confess, I trust, that you may get noble sport, +hard exercise, and lovely scenery, without going sixty miles from +London town.</p> +<h2><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>III.<br /> +<a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 95</span><i>THE +FENS</i>.</h2> +<p>A <span class="smcap">certain</span> sadness is pardonable to +one who watches the destruction of a grand natural phenomenon, +even though its destruction bring blessings to the human +race. Reason and conscience tell us, that it is right and +good that the Great Fen should have become, instead of a waste +and howling wilderness, a garden of the Lord, where</p> +<blockquote><p>‘All the land in flowery squares,<br /> +Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind,<br /> +Smells of the coming summer.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And yet the fancy may linger, without blame, over the shining +meres, the golden reed-beds, the countless water-fowl, the +strange and gaudy insects, the wild nature, the mystery, the +majesty—for mystery and majesty there were—which +haunted the deep fens for many a hundred years. Little +thinks the Scotsman, whirled down by the Great Northern Railway +from Peterborough to Huntingdon, what a grand place, even twenty +years ago, was that Holme and Whittlesea, which is now but a +black, unsightly, steaming flat, from which the meres and +reed-beds of the old world are gone, while the corn and roots of +the new world have not as yet taken their place.</p> +<p>But grand enough it was, that black ugly place, when backed by +Caistor Hanglands and Holme Wood, and the patches of the +primæval forest; while dark-green alders, and pale-green +reeds, stretched for miles round the broad lagoon, where the coot +clanked, and the bittern boomed, and the sedge-bird, not content +with its own sweet song, mocked the notes of all the birds +around; while high overhead hung, motionless, hawk beyond hawk, +buzzard beyond buzzard, kite beyond kite, as far as eye could +see. Far off, upon the silver mere, would rise a puff of +smoke from a punt, invisible from its flatness and its white +paint. Then down the wind came the boom of the great +stanchion-gun; and after that sound another sound, louder as it +neared; a cry as of all the bells of Cambridge, and all the +hounds of Cottesmore; and overhead rushed and whirled the skein +of terrified wild-fowl, screaming, piping, clacking, croaking, +filling the air with the hoarse rattle of their wings, while +clear above all sounded the wild whistle of the curlew, and the +trumpet note of the great wild swan.</p> +<p>They are all gone now. No longer do the ruffs trample +the sedge into a hard floor in their fighting-rings, while the +sober reeves stand round, admiring the tournament of their +lovers, gay with ears and tippets, no two of them alike. +Gone are ruffs and reeves, spoonbills, bitterns, avosets; the +very snipe, one hears, disdains to breed. Gone, too, not +only from Whittlesea but from the whole world, is that most +exquisite of English butterflies, <i>Lycæna +dispar</i>—the great copper; and many a curious insect +more. Ah, well, at least we shall have wheat and mutton +instead, and no more typhus and ague; and, it is to be hoped, no +more brandy-drinking and opium-eating; and children will live and +not die. For it was a hard place to live in, the old Fen; a +place wherein one heard of ‘unexampled instances of +longevity,’ for the same reason that one hears of them in +savage tribes—that few lived to old age at all, save those +iron constitutions which nothing could break down.</p> +<p>And now, when the bold Fen-men, who had been fighting water by +the help of wind, have given up the more capricious element for +that more manageable servant fire; have replaced their wind-mills +by steam-engines, which will work in all weathers; and have +pumped the whole fen dry—even too dry, as the last hot +summer proved; when the only bit of the primæval wilderness +left, as far as I know, is 200 acres of sweet sedge and +<i>Lastræa thelypteris</i> in Wicken Fen: there can be no +harm in lingering awhile over the past, and telling of what the +Great Fen was, and how it came to be that great flat which +reaches (roughly speaking) from Cambridge to Peterborough on the +south-west side, to Lynn and Tattershall on the north-east, some +forty miles and more each way.</p> +<p>To do that rightly, and describe how the Fen came to be, one +must go back, it seems to me, to an age before all history; an +age which cannot be measured by years or centuries; an age +shrouded in mystery, and to be spoken of only in guesses. +To assert anything positively concerning that age, or ages, would +be to show the rashness of ignorance. ‘I think that I +believe,’ ‘I have good reason to suspect,’ +‘I seem to see,’ are the strongest forms of speech +which ought to be used over a matter so vast and as yet so little +elaborated.</p> +<p>‘I seem to see,’ then, an epoch after those strata +were laid down with which geology generally deals; after the +Kimmeridge clay, Oxford clay, and Gault clay, which form the +impervious bedding of the fens, with their intermediate beds of +coral-rag and green sand, had been deposited; after the chalk had +been laid on the top of them, at the bottom of some ancient +ocean; after (and what a gulf of time is implied in that last +‘after!’) the boulder-clay (coeval probably with the +‘till’ of Scotland) had been spread out in the +‘age of ice’ on top of all; after the whole had been +upheaved out of the sea, and stood about the same level as it +stands now: but before the great valley of the Cam had been +scooped out, and the strata were still continuous, some 200 feet +above Cambridge and its colleges, from the top of the Gog-magogs +to the top of Madingley Rise.</p> +<p>In those ages—while the valleys of the Cam, the Ouse, +the Nene, the Welland, the Glen, and the Witham were sawing +themselves out by no violent convulsions, but simply, as I +believe, by the same slow action of rain and rivers by which they +are sawing backward into the land even now—I ‘seem to +see’ a time when the Straits of Dover did not exist—a +time when a great part of the German Ocean was dry land. +Through it, into a great estuary between North Britain and +Norway, flowed together all the rivers of north-eastern +Europe—Elbe, Weser, Rhine, Scheldt, Seine, Thames, and all +the rivers of east England, as far north as the Humber.</p> +<p>And if a reason be required for so daring a theory—first +started, if I recollect right, by the late lamented Edward +Forbes—a sufficient one may be found in one look over a +bridge, in any river of the East of England. There we see +various species of Cyprinidæ, ‘rough’ or +‘white’ fish—roach, dace, chub, bream, and so +forth, and with them their natural attendant and devourer, the +pike.</p> +<p>Now these fish belong almost exclusively to the same system of +rivers—those of north-east Europe. They attain their +highest development in the great lakes of Sweden. Westward +of the Straits of Dover they are not indigenous. They may +be found in the streams of south and western England; but in +every case, I believe, they have been introduced either by birds +or by men. From some now submerged ‘centre of +creation’ (to use poor Edward Forbes’s formula) they +must have spread into the rivers where they are now found; and +spread by fresh water, and not by salt, which would destroy them +in a single tide.</p> +<p>Again, there lingers in the Cam, and a few other rivers of +north-eastern Europe, that curious fish the eel-pout or +‘burbot’ (<i>Molva lota</i>). Now he is utterly +distinct from any other fresh-water fish of Europe. His +nearest ally is the ling (<i>Molva vulgaris</i>); a deep-sea +fish, even as his ancestors have been. Originally a +deep-sea form, he has found his way up the rivers, even to +Cambridge, and there remains. The rivers by which he came +up, the land through which he passed, ages and ages since, have +been all swept away; and he has never found his way back to his +native salt-water, but lives on in a strange land, degraded in +form, dwindling in numbers, and now fast dying out. The +explanation may be strange: but it is the only one which I can +offer to explain the fact—which is itself much more +strange—of the burbot being found in the Fen rivers.</p> +<p>Another proof may be found in the presence of the edible frog +of the Continent at Foulmire, on the edge of the Cambridge +Fans. It is a moot point still with some, whether he was +not put there by man. It is a still stronger argument +against his being indigenous, that he is never mentioned as an +article of food by the mediæval monks, who would have +known—Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, as many of them +were—that he is as dainty as ever was a spring +chicken. But if he be indigenous, his presence proves that +once he could either hop across the Straits of Dover, or swim +across the German Ocean.</p> +<p>But there can be no doubt of the next proof—the presence +in the Fens (where he is now probably extinct) and in certain +spots in East Anglia, which I shall take care not to mention, of +that exquisite little bird the ‘Bearded Tit’ +(<i>Calamophilus biarmicus</i>). Tit he is none; rather, it +is said, a finch, but connected with no other English bird. +His central home is in the marshes of Russia and Prussia; his +food the mollusks which swarm among the reed-beds where he +builds; and feeding on those from reed-bed to reed bed, all +across what was once the German Ocean, has come the beautiful +little bird with long tail, orange tawny plumage, and black +moustache, which might have been seen forty years ago in hundreds +on ever reed-rond of the Fen.</p> +<p>One more proof—for it is the heaping up of facts, each +minute by itself, which issues often in a sound and great +result. In draining Wretham Mere, in Norfolk, not so very +far from the Fens, in the year 1856 there were found embedded in +the peat moss (which is not the Scotch and Western <i>Sphagnum +palustre</i>, but an altogether different moss, <i>Hypnum +fluitans</i>), remains of an ancient lake-dwelling, supported on +piles. A dwelling like those which have lately attracted so +much notice in the lakes of Switzerland: like those which the +Dyaks make about the ports and rivers of Borneo; dwellings +invented, it seems to me, to enable the inhabitants to escape not +wild beasts only, but malaria and night frosts; and, perched +above the cold and poisonous fogs, to sleep, if not high and dry, +at least high and healthy.</p> +<p>In the bottom of this mere were found two shells of the +fresh-water tortoise, <i>Emys lutaria</i>, till then unknown in +England.</p> +<p>These little animals, who may be seen in hundreds in the meres +of eastern Europe, sunning their backs on fallen logs, and diving +into the water at the sound of a footstep, are eaten largely in +continental capitals (as is their cousin the terrapin, <i>Emys +picta</i>, in the Southern States). They may be bought at +Paris, at fashionable restaurants. Thither they may have +been sent from Vienna or Berlin; for in north France, Holland, +and north-west Germany they are unknown. A few specimens +have been found buried in peat in Sweden and Denmark; and there +is a tale of a live one having been found in the extreme south +part of Sweden, some twenty years ago. <a +name="citation103"></a><a href="#footnote103" +class="citation">[103]</a> Into Sweden, then, as into +England, the little fresh-water tortoise had wandered, as to an +extreme limit, beyond which the change of climate, and probably +of food, killed him off.</p> +<p>But the emys which came to the Wretham bog must have had a +long journey; and a journey by fresh water too. Down Elbe +or Weser he must have floated, ice-packed, or swept away by +flood, till somewhere off the Doggerbank, in that great network +of rivers which is now open sea, he or his descendants turned up +Ouse and Little Ouse, till they found a mere like their old +Prussian one, and there founded a tiny colony for a few +generations, till they were eaten up by the savages of the table +dwelling; or died out—as many a human family has died +out—because they found the world too hard.</p> +<p>And lastly, my friend Mr. Brady, well known to naturalists, +has found that many forms of Entomastraca are common to the +estuaries of the east of England and to those of Holland.</p> +<p>It was thus necessary, in order to account for the presence of +some of the common animals of the fen, to go back to an epoch of +immense remoteness.</p> +<p>And how was that great lowland swept away? Who can +tell? Probably by no violent convulsion. Slow +upheavals, slow depressions, there may have been—indeed +must have been—as the sunken fir-forests of Brancaster, and +the raised beach of Hunstanton, on the extreme north-east corner +of the Wash, testify to this day. But the main agent of +destruction has been, doubtless, that same ever-gnawing sea-wash +which devours still the soft strata of the whole east coast of +England, as far as Flamborough Head; and that great scavenger, +the tide-wave, which sweeps the fallen rubbish out to sea twice +in every twenty-four hours. Wave and tide by sea, rain and +river by land; these are God’s mighty mills in which He +makes the old world new. And as Longfellow says of moral +things, so may we of physical:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet +they grind exceeding small.<br /> +Though He sit, end wait with patience, with exactness grinds He +all.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The lighter and more soluble particles, during that slow but +vast destruction which is going on still to this day, have been +carried far out to sea, and deposited as ooze. The heavier +and coarser have been left along the shores, as the gravels which +fill the old estuaries of the east of England.</p> +<p>From these gravels we can judge of the larger animals which +dwelt in that old world. About these lost lowlands wandered +herds of the woolly mammoth. <i>Elephas primigenius</i>, +whose bones are common in certain Cambridge gravels, whose teeth +are brought up by dredgers, far out in the German Ocean, off +certain parts of the Norfolk coast. With them wandered the +woolly rhinoceros (<i>R. tichorhinus</i>), the hippopotamus, the +lion—not (according to some) to be distinguished from the +recent lion of Africa—the hyæna, the bear, the horse, +the reindeer, and the musk ox; the great Irish elk, whose vast +horns are so well known in every museum of northern Europe; and +that mighty ox, the <i>Bos primigenius</i>, which still lingered +on the Continent in Cæsar’s time, as the urus, in +magnitude less only than the elephant,—and not to be +confounded with the bison, a relation of, if not identical with, +the buffalo of North America,—which still lingers, +carefully preserved by the Czar, in the forests of Lithuania.</p> +<p>The remains of this gigantic ox, be it remembered, are found +throughout Britain, and even into the Shetland Isles. Would +that any gentleman who may see these pages would take notice of +the fact, that we have not (so I am informed) in these islands a +single perfect skeleton of <i>Bos primigenius</i>; while the +Museum of Copenhagen, to its honour, possesses five or six from a +much smaller field than is open to us; and be public-spirited +enough, the next time he hears of ox-bones, whether in gravel or +in peat (as he may in the draining of any northern moss), to +preserve them for the museum of his neighbourhood—or send +them to Cambridge.</p> +<p>But did all these animals exist at the same time? It is +difficult to say. The study of the different gravels is +most intricate—almost a special science in itself—in +which but two or three men are adepts. It is hard, at first +sight, to believe that the hippopotamus could have been the +neighbour of the Arctic reindeer and musk ox: but that the woolly +mammoth not only may have been such, but was such, there can be +no doubt. His remains, imbedded in ice at the mouth of the +great Siberian rivers, with the wool, skin, and flesh (in some +cases) still remaining on the bones, prove him to have been +fitted for a cold climate, and to have browsed upon the scanty +shrubs of Northern Asia. But, indeed, there is no reason, +<i>à priori</i>, why these huge mammals, now confined to +hotter countries, should not have once inhabited a colder region, +or at least have wandered northwards in whole herds in summer, to +escape insects, and find fresh food, and above all, water. +The same is the case with the lion, and other huge beasts of +prey. The tiger of Hindostan ranges, at least in summer, +across the snows of the Himalaya, and throughout China. +Even at the river Amoor, where the winters are as severe as at +St. Petersburg, the tiger is an ordinary resident at all +seasons. The lion was, undoubtedly, an inhabitant of Thrace +as late as the expedition of Xerxes, whose camels they attacked; +and the ‘Nemæan lion,’ and the other lions +which stand out in Grecian myth, as having been killed by +Hercules and the heroes, may have been the last remaining +specimens of that <i>Felis spelæa</i> (undistinguishable, +according to some, from the African lion), whose bones are found +in the gravels and the caverns of these isles.</p> +<p>And how long ago were those days of mammoths and reindeer, +lions and hyænas? We must talk not of days, but of +ages; we know nothing of days or years. As the late +lamented Professor Sedgwick has well said:—</p> +<p>‘We allow that the great European oscillation, which +ended in the production of the drift (the boulder clay, or till), +was effected during a time of vast, but unknown length. And +if we limit our inquiries, and ask what was the interval of time +between the newest bed of gravel near Cambridge, and the oldest +bed of bogland or silt in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, we are +utterly at a loss for a definite answer. The interval of +time may have been very great. But we have no scale on +which to measure it.’</p> +<p>Let us suppose, then, the era of ‘gravels’ past; +the valleys which open into the fen sawn out by rivers to about +their present depth. What was the special cause of the fen +itself? why did not the great lowland become a fertile +‘carse’ of firm alluvial soil, like that of +Stirling?</p> +<p>One reason is, that the carse of Stirling has been upheaved +some twenty feet, and thereby more or less drained, since the +time of the Romans. A fact patent and provable from Cramond +(the old Roman port of Alaterna) up to Blair Drummond above +Stirling, where whales’ skeletons, and bone tools by them, +have been found in loam and peat, twenty feet above high-water +mark. The alluvium of the fens, on the other hand, has very +probably suffered a slight depression.</p> +<p>But the main reason is, that the silt brought down by the fen +rivers cannot, like that of the Forth and its neighbouring +streams, get safe away to sea. From Flamborough Head, in +Yorkshire, all down the Lincolnshire coast, the land is falling, +falling for ever into the waves; and swept southward by tide and +current, the debris turns into the Wash between Lincolnshire and +Norfolk, there to repose, as in a quiet haven.</p> +<p>Hence that vast labyrinth of banks between Lynn and Wisbeach, +of mud inside, brought down by the fen rivers; but outside +(contrary to the usual rule) of shifting sand, which has come +inward from the sea, and prevents the mud’s +escape—banks parted by narrow gullies, the delight of the +gunner with his punt, haunted by million wild-fowl in winter, and +in summer hazy steaming flats, beyond which the trees of +Lincolnshire loom up, raised by refraction far above the horizon, +while the masts and sails of distant vessels quiver, +fantastically distorted and lengthened, sometimes even inverted, +by a refraction like that which plays such tricks with ships and +coasts in the Arctic seas. Along the top of the mud banks +lounge the long black rows of seals, undistinguishable from their +reflection in the still water below; distorted too, and magnified +to the size of elephants. Long lines of sea-pies wing their +way along at regular tide-hours, from or to the ocean. Now +and then a skein of geese paddle hastily out of sight round a +mud-cape; or a brown robber gull (generally Richardson’s +<i>Skua</i>) raises a tumult of screams, by making a raid upon a +party of honest white gulls, to frighten them into vomiting up +their prey for his benefit; or a single cormorant flaps along, +close to the water, towards his fishing ground. Even the +fish are shy of haunting a bottom which shifts with every storm; +and innumerable shrimps are almost the only product of the +shallow barren sea: beside, all is silence and desolation, as of +a world waiting to be made.</p> +<p>So strong is the barrier which these sea-borne sands oppose to +the river-borne ooze, that as soon as a seabank is built—as +the projectors of the ‘Victoria County’ have built +them—across any part of the estuary, the mud caught by it +soon ‘warps’ the space within into firm and rich dry +land. But that same barrier, ere the fen was drained, +backed up for ages not only the silt, but the very water of the +fens; and spread it inland into a labyrinth of shifting streams, +shallow meres, and vast peat bogs, on those impervious clays +which floor the fen. Each river contributed to the +formation of those bogs and meres, instead of draining them away; +repeating on a huge scale the process which may be seen in many a +highland strath, where the ground at the edge of the stream is +firm and high; the meadows near the hillfoot, a few hundred yards +away, bogland lower than the bank of the stream. For each +flood deposits its silt upon the immediate bank of the river, +raising it year by year; till—as in the case of the +‘Levée’ of the Mississippi, and probably of +every one of the old fen rivers—the stream runs at last +between two natural dykes, at a level considerably higher than +that of the now swamped and undrainable lands right and left of +it.</p> +<p>If we add to this, a slope in the fen rivers so +extraordinarily slight, that the river at Cambridge is only +thirteen and a half feet above the mean sea level, +five-and-thirty miles away, and that if the great sea-sluice of +Denver, the key of all the eastern fen, were washed away, the +tide would back up the Cam to within ten miles of Cambridge; if +we add again the rainfall upon that vast flat area, utterly +unable to escape through rivers which have enough to do to drain +the hills around; it is easy to understand how peat, the certain +product of standing water, has slowly overwhelmed the rich +alluvium, fattened by the washing of those phosphatic greensand +beds, which (discovered by the science of the lamented Professor +Henslow) are now yielding round Cambridge supplies of manure +seemingly inexhaustible. Easy it is to understand how the +all-devouring, yet all-preserving peat-moss swallowed up +gradually the stately forests of fir and oak, ash and poplar, +hazel and yew, which once grew on that rank land; how trees, torn +down by flood or storm, floated and lodged in rafts, damming the +waters back still more; how streams, bewildered in the flats, +changed their channels, mingling silt and sand with the +peat-moss; how Nature, left to herself, ran into wild riot and +chaos more and more; till the whole fen became one ‘Dismal +Swamp,’ in which the ‘Last of the English’ +(like Dred in Mrs. Stowe’s tale) took refuge from their +tyrants, and lived, like him, a free and joyous life awhile.</p> +<p>For there were islands, and are still, in that wide fen, which +have escaped the destroying deluge of peat-moss; outcrops of firm +land, which even in the Middle Age preserved the Fauna and Flora +of the primæval forest, haunted by the descendants of some +at least of those wild beasts which roamed on the older continent +of the ‘gravel age.’ The all-preserving peat, +as well as the monkish records of the early Middle Age, enable us +to repeople, tolerably well, the primæval fen.</p> +<p>The gigantic ox, <i>Bos primigenius</i>, was still there, +though there is no record of him in monkish tales. But with +him had appeared (not unknown toward the end of the gravel age) +another ox, smaller and with shorter horns, <i>Bos +longifrons</i>; which is held to be the ancestor of our own +domestic short-horns, and of the wild cattle still preserved at +Chillingham and at Cadzow. The reindeer had disappeared, +almost or altogether. The red deer, of a size beside which +the largest Scotch stag is puny, and even the great Carpathian +stag inferior, abound; so does the roe, so does the goat, which +one is accustomed to look on as a mountain animal. In the +Woodwardian Museum there is a portion of a skull of an +ibex—probably <i>Capra sibirica</i>—which was found +in the drift gravel at Fulbourne. Wild sheep are +unknown. The horse occurs in the peat; but whether wild or +tame, who can tell? Horses enough have been mired and +drowned since the Romans set foot on this island, to account for +the presence of horses’ skulls, without the hypothesis of +wild herds, such as doubtless existed in the gravel times. +The wolf, of course, is common; wild cat, marten, badger, and +otter all would expect; but not so the beaver, which nevertheless +is abundant in the peat; and damage enough the busy fellows must +have done, cutting trees, damming streams, flooding marshes, and +like selfish speculators in all ages, sacrificing freely the +public interest to their own. Here and there are found the +skulls of bears, in one case that of a polar bear, ice-drifted; +and one of a walrus, probably washed in dead after a storm.</p> +<p>Beautiful, after their kind, were these fen-isles, in the eyes +of the monks who were the first settlers in the wilderness.</p> +<p>The author of the History of Ramsey grows enthusiastic, and, +after the manner of old monks, somewhat bombastic also, as he +describes the lonely isle which got its name from the solitary +ram who had wandered thither, either in some extreme drought or +over the winter ice, and never able to return, was found, fat +beyond the wont of rams, feeding among the wild deer. He +tells of the stately ashes—most of them cut in his time, to +furnish mighty beams for the church roof; of the rich pastures +painted with all gay flowers in spring; of the ‘green +crown’ of reed and alder which girdled round the isle; of +the fair wide mere with its ‘sandy beach’ along the +forest side: ‘a delight,’ he says, ‘to all who +look thereon.’</p> +<p>In like humour, William of Malmesbury, writing in the first +half of the twelfth century, speaks of Thorney Abbey and +isle. ‘It represents,’ he says, ‘a very +Paradise, for that in pleasure and delight it resembles heaven +itself. These marshes abound in trees, whose length without +a knot doth emulate the stars. The plain there is as level +as the sea, which with green grass allures the eye, and so smooth +that there is nought to hinder him who runs through it. +Neither is therein any waste place for in some parts are apple +trees, in other vines, which are either spread on the ground or +raised on poles. A mutual strife is there between nature +and art; so that what one produces not, the other supplies. +What shall I say of those fair buildings, which ’tis so +wonderful to see the ground among those fens upbear?’</p> +<p>But the most detailed picture of a fen-isle is that in the +second part of the Book of Ely; wherein a single knight of all +the French army forces his way into the isle of St. Etheldreda, +and, hospitably entertained there by Hereward and his English, is +sent back safe to William the Conqueror, to tell him of the +strength of Ely isle.</p> +<p>He cannot praise enough—his speech may be mythical; but +as written by Richard of Ely, only one generation after, it must +describe faithfully what the place was like—the wonders of +the isle: its soil the richest in England, its pleasant pastures, +its noble hunting-grounds, its store of sheep and cattle (though +its vines, he says, as a Frenchman had good right to say, were +not equally to be praised), its wide meres and bogs, about it +like a wall. In it was, to quote roughly, ‘abundance +of tame beasts and of wild stag, roe, and goat, in grove and +marsh; martens, and ermines, and fitchets, which in hard winter +were caught in snares or gins. But of the kind of fish and +fowl which bred therein, what can I say? In the pools +around are netted eels innumerable, great water wolves, and +pickerel, perch, roach, burbot, lampreys, which the French called +sea-serpents; smelts, too; and the royal fish, the turbot [surely +a mistake for sturgeon], are said often to be taken. But of +the birds which haunt around, if you be not tired, as of the +rest, we will expound. Innumerable geese, gulls, coots, +divers, water-crows, herons, ducks, of which, when there is most +plenty, in winter, or at moulting time, I have seen hundreds +taken at a time, by nets, springes, or birdlime,’ and so +forth till, as he assures William, the Frenchman may sit on +Haddenham field blockading Ely for seven years more, ‘ere +they will make one ploughman stop short in his furrow, one hunter +cease to set his nets, or one fowler to deceive the birds with +springe and snare.’</p> +<p>And yet there was another side to the picture. Man lived +hard in those days, under dark skies, in houses—even the +most luxurious of them—which we should think, from draughts +and darkness, unfit for felons’ cells. Hardly they +lived; and easily were they pleased, and thankful to God for the +least gleam of sunshine, the least patch of green, after the +terrible and long winters of the Middle Age. And ugly +enough those winters must have been, what with snow-storm and +darkness, flood and ice, ague and rheumatism; while through the +long drear winter nights the whistle of the wind and the wild +cries of the water-fowl were translated into the howls of witches +and demons; and (as in St. Guthlac’s case) the delirious +fancies of marsh fever made fiends take hideous shapes before the +inner eye, and act fantastic horrors round the old +fen-man’s bed of sedge.</p> +<p>The Romans seem to have done something toward the draining and +embanking of this dismal swamp. To them is attributed the +car-dyke, or catch-water drain, which runs for many miles from +Peterborough northward into Lincolnshire, cutting off the land +waters which flow down from the wolds above. To them, too, +is to be attributed the old Roman bank, or ‘vallum,’ +along the sea-face of the marshlands, marked to this day by the +names of Walsoken, Walton, and Walpoole. But the English +invaders were incapable of following out, even of preserving, any +public works. Each village was isolated by its own +‘march’ of forest; each yeoman all but isolated by +the ‘eaves-drip,’ or green lane round his farm. +Each ‘cared for his own things, and none for those of +others;’ and gradually, during the early Middle Age, the +fen—save those old Roman villages—returned to its +primæval jungle, under the neglect of a race which +caricatured local self-government into public anarchy, and looked +on every stranger as an alien enemy, who might be lawfully slain, +if he came through the forest without calling aloud or blowing a +horn. Till late years, the English feeling against the +stranger lasted harsh and strong. The farmer, strong in his +laws of settlement, tried at once to pass him into the next +parish. The labourer, not being versed in law, hove half a +brick at him, or hooted him through the town. It was in the +fens, perhaps, that the necessity of combined effort for fighting +the brute powers of nature first awakened public spirit, and +associate labour, and the sense of a common interest between men +of different countries and races.</p> +<p>But the progress was very slow; and the first civilizers of +the fen were men who had nothing less in their minds than to +conquer nature, or call together round them communities of +men. Hermits, driven by that passion for isolated +independence which is the mark of the Teutonic mind, fled into +the wilderness, where they might, if possible, be alone with God +and their own souls. Like St. Guthlac of Crowland, after +wild fighting for five-and-twenty years, they longed for peace +and solitude; and from their longing, carried out with that iron +will which marked the mediæval man for good or for evil, +sprang a civilization of which they never dreamed.</p> +<p>Those who wish to understand the old fen life, should read +Ingulf’s ‘History of Crowland’ (Mr. Bohn has +published a good and cheap translation), and initiate themselves +into a state of society, a form of thought, so utterly different +from our own, that we seem to be reading of the inhabitants of +another planet. Most amusing and most human is old Ingulf +and his continuator, ‘Peter of Blois;’ and though +their facts are not to be depended on as having actually +happened, they are still instructive, as showing what might, or +ought to have happened, in the opinion of the men of old.</p> +<p>Even more naïve is the Anglo-Saxon life of St. Guthlac, +written possibly as early as the eighth century, and literally +translated by Mr. Goodwin, of Cambridge.</p> +<p>There we may read how the young warrior-noble, Guthlac +(‘The Battle-Play,’ the ‘Sport of War’), +tired of slaying and sinning, bethought him to fulfil the +prodigies seen at his birth; how he wandered into the fen, where +one Tatwin (who after became a saint likewise) took him in his +canoe to a spot so lonely as to be almost unknown, buried in +reeds and alders; and among the trees, nought but an old +‘law,’ as the Scots still call a mound, which men of +old had broken into seeking for treasure, and a little pond; and +how he built himself a hermit’s cell thereon, and saw +visions and wrought miracles; and how men came to him, as to a +fakir or shaman of the East; notably one Beccel, who acted as his +servant; and how as Beccel was shaving the saint one day, there +fell on him a great temptation: Why should he not cut St. +Guthlac’s throat, and install himself in his cell, that he +might have the honour and glory of sainthood? But St. +Guthlac perceived the inward temptation (which is told with the +naïve honesty of those half-savage times), and rebuked the +offender into confession, and all went well to the end.</p> +<p>There we may read, too, a detailed account of a Fauna now +happily extinct in the fens: of the creatures who used to hale +St. Guthlac out of his hut, drag him through the bogs, carry him +aloft through frost and fire—‘Develen and luther +gostes’—such as tormented likewise St. Botolph (from +whom Botulfston=Boston, has its name), and who were supposed to +haunt the meres and fens, and to have an especial fondness for +old heathen barrows with their fancied treasure hoards; how they +‘filled the house with their coming, and poured in on every +side, from above, and from beneath, and everywhere. They +were in countenance horrible, and they had great heads, and a +long neck, and a lean visage; they were filthy and squalid in +their beards, and they had rough ears, and crooked nebs, and +fierce eyes, and foul mouths; and their teeth were like +horses’ tusks; and their throats were filled with flame, +and they were grating in their voice; they had crooked shanks, +and knees big and great behind, and twisted toes, and cried +hoarsely with their voices; and they came with such immoderate +noise and immense horror, that him thought all between heaven and +earth resounded with their voices. And they tugged and led +him out of the cot, and led him to the swart fen, and threw and +sunk him in the muddy waters. After that they brought him +into the wild places of the wilderness, among the thick beds of +brambles, that all his body was torn. After that they took +him and beat him with iron whips; and after that they brought him +on their creaking wings between the cold regions of the +air.’</p> +<p>But there are gentler and more human touches in that old +legend. You may read in it, how all the wild birds of the +fen came to St. Guthlac, and he fed them after their kind. +How the ravens tormented him, stealing letters, gloves, and what +not, from his visitors; and then, seized with compunction at his +reproofs, brought them back, or hanged them on the reeds; and +how, as Wilfrid, a holy visitant, was sitting with him, +discoursing of the contemplative life, two swallows came flying +in, and lifted up their song, sitting now on the saint’s +hand, now on his shoulder, now on his knee. And how, when +Wilfrid wondered thereat, Guthlac made answer, ‘Know you +not that he who hath led his life according to God’s will, +to him the wild beasts and the wild birds draw the more +near.’</p> +<p>After fifteen years of such a life, in fever, agues, and +starvation, no wonder if St. Guthlac died. They buried him +in a leaden coffin (a grand and expensive luxury in the seventh +century) which had been sent to him during his life by a Saxon +princess; and then, over his sacred and wonder-working corpse, as +over that of a Buddhist saint, there rose a chapel, with a +community of monks, companies of pilgrims who came to worship, +sick who came to be healed; till, at last, founded on great piles +driven into the bog, arose the lofty wooden Abbey of Crowland; in +its sanctuary of the four rivers, its dykes, parks, vineyards, +orchards, rich ploughlands, from which, in time of famine, the +monks of Crowland fed all people of the neighbouring fens; with +its tower with seven bells, which had not their like in England; +its twelve altars rich with the gifts of Danish Vikings and +princes, and even with twelve white bear-skins, the gift of +Canute’s self; while all around were the cottages of the +corrodiers, or folk who, for a corrody, or life pittance from the +abbey, had given away their lands, to the wrong and detriment of +their heirs.</p> +<p>But within these four rivers, at least, was neither tyranny +nor slavery. Those who took refuge in St. Guthlac’s +peace from cruel lords must keep his peace toward each other, and +earn their living like honest men, safe while they did so; for +between those four rivers St. Guthlac and his abbot were the only +lords, and neither summoner, nor sheriff of the king, nor armed +force of knight or earl, could enter ‘the inheritance of +the Lord, the soil of St. Mary and St. Bartholomew, the most holy +sanctuary of St. Guthlac and his monks; the minster free from +worldly servitude; the special almshouse of most illustrious +kings; the sole refuge of anyone in worldly tribulation; the +perpetual abode of the saints; the possession of religious men, +specially set apart by the common council of the realm; by reason +of the frequent miracles of the holy confessor St. Guthlac, an +ever-fruitful mother of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi; and +by reason of the privileges granted by the kings, a city of grace +and safety to all who repent.’</p> +<p>Does not all this sound—as I said just now—like a +voice from another planet? It is all gone; and it was good +and right that it should go when it had done its work, and that +the civilization of the fen should be taken up and carried out by +men like the good knight, Richard of Rulos, who, two generations +after the Conquest, marrying Hereward’s granddaughter, and +becoming Lord of Deeping (the deep meadow), thought that he could +do the same work from the hall of Bourne as the monks did from +their cloisters; got permission from the Crowland monks, for +twenty marks of silver, to drain as much as he could of the +common marshes; and then shut out the Welland by strong dykes, +built cottages, marked out gardens, and tilled fields, till +‘out of slough and bogs accursed, he made a garden of +pleasure.’</p> +<p>Yet one lasting work those monks of Crowland did, besides +those firm dykes and rich corn lands of the Porsand, which endure +unto this day. For within two generations of the Norman +conquest, while the old wooden abbey, destroyed by fire, was +being replaced by that noble pile of stone whose ruins are still +standing, the French abbot of Crowland sent French monks to open +a school under the new French donjon, in the little Roman town of +Grante-brigge; whereby—so does all earnest work, however +mistaken, grow and spread in this world, infinitely and for +ever—St. Guthlac, by his canoe-voyage into Crowland Island, +became the spiritual father of the University of Cambridge in the +old world; and therefore of her noble daughter, the University of +Cambridge, in the new world which fen-men, sailing from Boston +deeps, colonized and Christianized, 800 years after St. +Guthlac’s death.</p> +<p>The drainage of the fens struggled on for these same 800 years +slowly, and often disastrously. Great mistakes were made; +as when a certain bishop, some 700 years ago, bethought him to +make a cut from Littleport drain to Rebeck (or +Priests’-houses), and found, to his horror and that of the +fen-men, that he had let down upon Lynn the pent-up waters of the +whole higher bogs; that rivers were running backwards, brooks +swelling to estuaries, and the whole north-eastern fen ruinate, +to be yet more ruinate by banks confusedly thrown up in +self-defence, till some order was restored in 1332, and the fens +prospered—such little of them as could be drained at +all—for nigh two hundred years. Honour, meanwhile, to +another prelate, good Bishop Morton, who cut the great learn from +Guyhirn—the last place at which one could see a standing +gallows, and two Irish reapers hanging in chains, having murdered +the old witch of Guyhirn for the sake of hidden treasure, which +proved to be some thirty shillings and a few silver spoons.</p> +<p>The belief is more general than well-founded that the drainage +of the fens retrograded on account of the dissolution of the +monasteries. The state of decay into which those +institutions had already fallen, and which alone made their +dissolution possible, must have extended itself to these +fen-lands. No one can read the account of their debts, +neglect, malversation of funds, in the time of Henry VIII., +without seeing that the expensive works necessary to keep +fen-lands dry must have suffered, as did everything else +belonging to the convents.</p> +<p>It was not till the middle or end of Elizabeth’s reign +that the recovery of these ‘drowned lands’ was +proceeded with once more; and during the first half of the +seventeenth century there went on, more and more rapidly, that +great series of artificial works which, though often faulty in +principle, often unexpectedly disastrous in effect, have got the +work done, as all work is done in this world, not as well as it +should have been done, but at least done.</p> +<p>To comprehend those works would be impossible without maps and +plans; to take a lively interest in them impossible, likewise, +save to an engineer or a fen-man. Suffice it to say, that +in the early part of the seventeenth century we find a great +company of adventurers—more than one Cromwell among them, +and Francis, the great and good Earl of Bedford, at their +head—trying to start a great scheme for draining the +drowned ‘middle level’ east of the Isle of Ely. +How they sent for Vermuyden, the Dutchman, who had been draining +in North Lincolnshire, about Goole and Axholme Isle; how they got +into his hands, and were ruined by him; how Francis of Bedford +had to sell valuable estates to pay his share; how the fen-men +looked on Francis of Bedford as their champion; how Charles I. +persecuted him meanly, though indeed Bedford had, in the matter +of the ‘Lynn Law’ of 1630, given way, as desperate +men are tempted to do, to something like sharp practice unworthy +of him; how Charles took the work into his hands, and made a +Government job of it; how Bedford died, and the fen-men looked on +him as a martyr; how Oliver Cromwell arose to avenge the good +earl, as his family had supported him in past times; how Oliver +St. John came to the help of the fen-men, and drew up the +so-called ‘Pretended Ordinance’ of 1649, which was a +compromise between Vermuyden and the adventurers, so able and +useful that Charles II.’s Government were content to call +it ‘pretended’ and let it stand, because it was +actually draining the fens; and how Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, +after doing mighty works, and taking mighty moneys, died a +beggar, writing petitions which never got answered; how William, +Earl of Bedford, added, in 1649, to his father’s ‘old +Bedford River’ that noble parallel river, the Hundred foot, +both rising high above the land between dykes and +‘washes,’ <i>i.e.</i> waste spaces right and left, to +allow for flood water; how the Great Bedford Rivers silted up the +mouth of the Ouse, and backed the floods up the Cam; how Denver +sluice was built to keep them back; and so forth,—all is +written, or rather only half or quarter written, in the histories +of the fens.</p> +<p>Another matter equally, or even more important, is but half +written—indeed, only hinted at—the mixed population +of the fens.</p> +<p>The sturdy old ‘Girvii,’ ‘Gyrwas,’ men +of the ‘gyras’ or marshes, who in Hereward’s +time sang their three-man glees, ‘More Girviorum +tripliciter canentes,’ had been crossed with the blood of +Scandinavian Vikings in Canute’s conquest; crossed again +with English refugees from all quarters during the French +conquest under William. After the St. Bartholomew they +received a fresh cross of Huguenot, fleeing from +France—dark-haired, fiery, earnest folk, whose names and +physiognomies are said still to remain about Wisbeach, +Whittlesea, and Thorney. Then came Vermuyden’s +Dutchmen, leaving some of their blood behind them. After +the battle of Dunbar another cross came among them, of Scotch +prisoners, who, employed by Cromwell’s Government on the +dykes, settled down among the fen-men to this day. Within +the memory of man, Scotchmen used to come down into the fens +every year, not merely for harvest, but to visit their +expatriated kinsmen.</p> +<p>To these successive immigrations of strong Puritan blood, more +than even the influence of the Cromwells and other Puritan +gentlemen, we may attribute that strong Calvinist element which +has endured for now nigh three centuries in the fen; and +attribute, too, that sturdy independence and self-help which +drove them of old out of Boston town, to seek their fortunes +first in Holland, then in Massachusetts over sea. And that +sturdy independence and self-help is not gone. There still +lives in them some of the spirit of their mythic giant Hickafrid +(the Hickathrift of nursery rhymes), who, when the Marshland men +(possibly the Romanized inhabitants of the wall villages) +quarrelled with him in the field, took up the cart-axle for a +club, smote them hip and thigh, and pastured his cattle in their +despite in the green cheese-fens of the Smeeth. No one has +ever seen a fen-bank break, without honouring the stern quiet +temper which there is in these men, when the north-easter is +howling above, the spring-tide roaring outside, the brimming +tide-way lapping up to the dyke-top, or flying over in sheets of +spray; when round the one fatal thread which is trickling over +the dyke—or worse, through some forgotten rat’s hole +in its side—hundreds of men are clustered, without tumult, +without complaint, marshalled under their employers, fighting the +brute powers of nature, not for their employer’s sake +alone, but for the sake of their own year’s labour and +their own year’s bread. The sheep have been driven +off the land below; the cattle stand ranged shivering on high +dykes inland; they will be saved in punts, if the worst +befall. But a hundred spades, wielded by practised hands, +cannot stop that tiny rat-hole. The trickle becomes a +rush—the rush a roaring waterfall. The dyke-top +trembles—gives. The men make efforts, desperate, +dangerous, as of sailors in a wreck, with faggots, hurdles, +sedge, turf: but the bank will break; and slowly they draw off; +sullen, but uncomplaining; beaten, but not conquered. A new +cry rises among them. Up, to save yonder sluice; that will +save yonder lode; that again yonder farm; that again some other +lode, some other farm, far back inland, but guessed at instantly +by men who have studied from their youth, as the necessity of +their existence, the labyrinthine drainage of lands which are all +below the water level, and where the inner lands, in many cases, +are lower still than those outside.</p> +<p>So they hurry away to the nearest farms; the teams are +harnessed, the waggons filled, and drawn down and emptied; the +beer-cans go round cheerily, and the men work with a sort of +savage joy at being able to do something, if not all, and stop +the sluice on which so much depends. As for the outer land, +it is gone past hope; through the breach pours a roaring salt +cataract, digging out a hole on the inside of the bank, which +remains as a deep sullen pond for years to come. Hundreds, +thousands of pounds are lost already, past all hope. Be it +so, then. At the next neap, perhaps, they will be able to +mend the dyke, and pump the water out; and begin again, beaten +but not conquered, the same everlasting fight with wind and wave +which their forefathers have waged for now 800 years.</p> +<p>He who sees—as I have seen—a sight like that, will +repine no more that the primæval forest is cut down, the +fair mere drained. For instead of mammoth and urus, stag +and goat, that fen feeds cattle many times more numerous than all +the wild venison of the primæval jungle; and produces crops +capable of nourishing a hundred times as many human beings; and +more—it produces men a hundred times as numerous as ever it +produced before; more healthy and long-lived—and if they +will, more virtuous and more happy—than ever was Girvian in +his log-canoe, or holy hermit in his cell. So we, who knew +the deep fen, will breathe one sigh over the last scrap of +wilderness, and say no more; content to know that—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The old order changeth, yielding place to +new,<br /> +And God fulfils himself in many ways,<br /> +Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.’</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><a name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +133</span>IV.<br /> +<a name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 135</span>MY +WINTER GARDEN. <a name="citation135"></a><a href="#footnote135" +class="citation">[135]</a></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">So</span>, my friend: you ask me to tell +you how I contrive to support this monotonous country life; how, +fond as I am of excitement, adventure, society, scenery, art, +literature, I go cheerfully through the daily routine of a +commonplace country profession, never requiring a +six-weeks’ holiday; not caring to see the Continent, hardly +even to spend a day in London; having never yet actually got to +Paris.</p> +<p>You wonder why I do not grow dull as those round me, whose +talk is of bullocks—as indeed mine is, often enough; why I +am not by this time ‘all over blue mould;’ why I have +not been tempted to bury myself in my study, and live a life of +dreams among old books.</p> +<p>I will tell you. I am a minute philosopher: though one, +thank Heaven, of a different stamp from him whom the great Bishop +Berkeley silenced—alas! only for a while. I am possibly, +after all, a man of small mind, content with small +pleasures. So much the better for me. Meanwhile, I +can understand your surprise, though you cannot understand my +content. You have played a greater game than mine; have +lived a life, perhaps more fit for an Englishman; certainly more +in accordance with the taste of our common fathers, the Vikings, +and their patron Odin ‘the goer,’ father of all them +that go ahead. You have gone ahead, and over many lands; +and I reverence you for it, though I envy you not. You have +commanded a regiment—indeed an army, and ‘drank +delight of battle with your peers;’ you have ruled +provinces, and done justice and judgment, like a noble Englishman +as you are, old friend, among thousands who never knew before +what justice and judgment were. You have tasted (and you +have deserved to taste) the joy of old David’s psalm, when +he has hunted down the last of the robber lords of +Palestine. You have seen ‘a people whom you have not +known, serve you. As soon as they heard of you, they obeyed +you; but the strange children dissembled with you:’ yet +before you, too, ‘the strange children failed, and trembled +in their hill-forts.’</p> +<p>Noble work that was to do, and nobly you have done it; and I +do not wonder that to a man who has been set to such a task, and +given power to carry it through, all smaller work must seem +paltry; that such a man’s very amusements, in that grand +Indian land, and that free adventurous Indian life, exciting the +imagination, calling out all the self-help and daring of a man, +should have been on a par with your work; that when you go a +sporting, you ask for no meaner preserve than the primæval +forest, no lower park wall than the snow-peaks of the +Himalaya.</p> +<p>Yes; you have been a ‘burra Shikarree’ as well as +a ‘burra Sahib.’ You have played the great game +in your work, and killed the great game in your play. How +many tons of mighty monsters have you done to death, since we two +were schoolboys together, five-and-twenty years ago? How +many starving villages have you fed with the flesh of elephant or +buffalo? How many have you delivered from man-eating +tigers, or wary old alligators, their craws full of poor +girls’ bangles? Have you not been charged by +rhinoceroses, all but ript up by boars? Have you not seen +face to face Ovis Ammon himself, the giant mountain +sheep—primæval ancestor, perhaps, of all the flocks +on earth? Your memories must be like those of Theseus and +Hercules, full of slain monsters. Your brains must be one +fossiliferous deposit, in which gaur and sambur, hog and tiger, +rhinoceros and elephant, lie heaped together, as the old +ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs are heaped in the lias rocks at +Lyme. And therefore I like to think of you. I try to +picture your feelings to myself. I spell over with my boy +Mayne Reid’s amusing books, or the ‘Old Forest +Ranger,’ or Williams’s old ‘Tiger Book,’ +with Howitt’s plates; and try to realize the glory of a +burra Shikarree: and as I read and imagine, feel, with Sir Hugh +Evans, ‘a great disposition to cry.’</p> +<p>For there were times, full many a year ago, when my brains +were full of bison and grizzly bear, mustang and big-horn, +Blackfoot and Pawnee, and hopes of wild adventure in the Far +West, which I shall never see; for ere I was three-and-twenty, I +discovered, plainly enough, that my lot was to stay at home and +earn my bread in a very quiet way; that England was to be +henceforth my prison or my palace, as I should choose to make it: +and I have made it, by Heaven’s help, the latter.</p> +<p>I will confess to you, though, that in those first heats of +youth, this little England—or rather, this little patch of +moor in which I have struck roots as firm as the wild fir-trees +do—looked at moments rather like a prison than a palace; +that my foolish young heart would sigh, ‘Oh! that I had +wings’—not as a dove, to fly home to its nest and +croodle there—but as an eagle, to swoop away over land and +sea, in a rampant and self-glorifying fashion, on which I now +look back as altogether unwholesome and undesirable. But +the thirst for adventure and excitement was strong in me, as +perhaps it ought to be in all at twenty-one. Others went +out to see the glorious new worlds of the West, the glorious old +worlds of the East—why should not I? Others rambled +over Alps and Apennines, Italian picture-galleries and palaces, +filling their minds with fair memories—why should not +I? Others discovered new wonders in botany and +zoology—why should not I? Others too, like you, +fulfilled to the utmost that strange lust after the burra shikar, +which even now makes my pulse throb as often as I see the +stags’ heads in our friend A—’s hall: why +should not I? It is not learnt in a day, the golden lesson +of the Old Collect, to ‘love the thing which is commanded, +and desire that which is promised.’ Not in a day: but +in fifteen years one can spell out a little of its worth; and +when one finds one’s self on the wrong side of forty, and +the first grey hairs begin to show on the temples, and one can no +longer jump as high as one’s third button—scarcely, +alas! to any button at all; and what with innumerable sprains, +bruises, soakings, and chillings, one’s lower limbs feel in +a cold thaw much like an old post-horse’s, why, one makes a +virtue of necessity: and if one still lusts after sights, takes +the nearest, and looks for wonders, not in the Himalayas or Lake +Ngami, but in the turf on the lawn and the brook in the park; and +with good Alphonse Karr enjoys the macro-microcosm in one +‘Tour autour de mon jardin.’</p> +<p>For there it is, friend, the whole infinite miracle of nature +in every tuft of grass, if we have only eyes to see it, and can +disabuse our minds of that tyrannous phantom of size. Only +recollect that great and small are but relative terms; that in +truth nothing is great or small, save in proportion to the +quantity of creative thought which has been exercised in making +it; that the fly who basks upon one of the trilithons of +Stonehenge, is in truth infinitely greater than all Stonehenge +together, though he may measure the tenth of an inch, and the +stone on which he sits five-and-twenty feet. You differ +from me? Be it so. Even if you prove me wrong I will +believe myself in the right: I cannot afford to do +otherwise. If you rob me of my faith in ‘minute +philosophy,’ you rob me of a continual source of content, +surprise, delight.</p> +<p>So go your way and I mine, each working with all his might, +and playing with all his might, in his own place and way. +Remember only, that though I never can come round to your sphere, +you must some day come round to me, when wounds, or weariness, or +merely, as I hope, a healthy old age, shall shut you out for once +and for all from burra shikar, whether human or +quadruped.—For you surely will not take to politics in your +old age? You will not surely live to solicit (as many a +fine fellow, alas! did but last year) the votes, not even of the +people, but merely of the snobocracy, on the ground of your +having neither policy nor principles, nor even opinions, upon any +matter in heaven or earth?—Then in that day will you be +forced, my friend, to do what I have done this many a year; to +refrain your soul, and keep it low. You will see more and +more the depth of human ignorance, the vanity of human +endeavours. You will feel more and more that the world is +going God’s way, and not yours, or mine, or any +man’s; and that if you have been allowed to do good work on +earth, that work is probably as different from what you fancy it +as the tree is from the seed whence it springs. You will +grow content, therefore, not to see the real fruit of your +labours; because if you saw it you would probably be frightened +at it, and what is very good in the eyes of God would not be very +good in yours; content, also, to receive your discharge, and work +and fight no more, sure that God is working and fighting, whether +you are in hospital or in the field. And with this growing +sense of the pettiness of human struggles will grow on you a +respect for simple labours, a thankfulness for simple pleasures, +a sympathy with simple people, and possibly, my trusty friend, +with me and my little tours about that moorland which I call my +winter-garden, and which is to me as full of glory and of +instruction as the Himalaya or the Punjab are to you, and in +which I contrive to find as much health and amusement as I have +time for—and who ought to have more?</p> +<p>I call the said garden mine, not because I own it in any legal +sense (for only in a few acres have I a life interest), but in +that higher sense in which ten thousand people can own the same +thing, and yet no man’s right interfere with +another’s. To whom does the Apollo Belvedere belong, +but to all who have eyes to see its beauty? So does my +winter-garden; and therefore to me among the rest.</p> +<p>Besides (which is a gain to a poor man) my pleasure in it is a +very cheap one. So are all those of a minute philosopher, +except his microscope. But my winter-garden, which is far +larger, at all events, than that famous one at Chatsworth, costs +me not one penny in keeping up. Poor, did I call +myself? Is it not true wealth to have all I want without +paying for it? Is it not true wealth, royal wealth, to have +some twenty gentlemen and noblemen, nay, even royal personages, +planting and improving for me? Is it not more than royal +wealth to have sun and frost, Gulf-stream and south-westers, laws +of geology, phytology, physiology, and other ologies—in a +word, the whole universe and the powers thereof, day and night, +paving, planting, roofing, lighting, colouring my winter-garden +for me, without my even having the trouble to rub a magic ring +and tell the genii to go to work?</p> +<p>Yes. I am very rich, as every man may be who will. +In the doings of our little country neighbourhood I find tragedy +and comedy, too fantastic, sometimes too sad, to be written +down. In the words of those whose talk is of bullocks, I +find the materials of all possible metaphysic, and long weekly +that I had time to work them out. In fifteen miles of +moorland I find the materials of all possible physical science, +and long that I had time to work out one smallest segment of that +great sphere. How can I be richer, if I have lying at my +feet all day a thousand times more wealth than I can use?</p> +<p>Some people—most people—in these run-about railway +days, would complain of such a life, in such a ‘narrow +sphere,’ so they call it, as monotonous. Very likely +it is so. But is it to be complained of on that +account? Is monotony in itself an evil? Which is +better, to know many places ill, or to know one place well? +Certainly—if a scientific habit of mind be a gain—it +is only by exhausting as far as possible the significance of an +individual phenomenon (is not that sentence a true scientific one +in its magniloquence?) that you can discover any glimpse of the +significance of the universal. Even men of boundless +knowledge, like Humboldt, must have had once their speciality, +their pet subject, or they would have, strictly speaking, no +knowledge at all. The volcanoes of Mexico, patiently and +laboriously investigated in his youth, were to Humboldt, +possibly, the key of the whole Cosmos. I learn more, +studying over and over again the same Bagshot sand and gravel +heaps, than I should by roaming all Europe in search of new +geologic wonders. Fifteen years have I been puzzling at the +same questions and have only guessed at a few of the +answers. What sawed out the edges of the moors into long +narrow banks of gravel? What cut them off all flat +atop? What makes <i>Erica Tetralix</i> grow in one soil, +and the bracken in another? How did three species of +Club-moss—one of them quite an Alpine one—get down +here, all the way from Wales perhaps, upon this isolated patch of +gravel? Why did that one patch of <i>Carex arenaria</i> +settle in the only square yard for miles and miles which bore +sufficient resemblance to its native sandhill by the seashore, to +make it comfortable? Why did <i>Myosurus minimus</i>, which +I had hunted for in vain for fourteen years, appear by dozens in +the fifteenth, upon a new-made bank, which had been for at least +two hundred years a farm-yard gateway? Why does it +generally rain here from the south-west, not when the barometer +falls, but when it begins to rise again? Why—why is +everything, which lies under my feet all day long? I +don’t know; and you can’t tell me. And till I +have found out, I cannot complain of monotony, with still +undiscovered puzzles waiting to be explained, and so to create +novelty at every turn.</p> +<p>Besides, monotony is pleasant in itself; morally pleasant, and +morally useful. Marriage is monotonous: but there is much, +I trust, to be said in favour of holy wedlock. Living in +the same house is monotonous: but three removes, say the wise, +are as bad as a fire. Locomotion is regarded as an evil by +our Litany. The Litany, as usual, is right. +‘Those who travel by land or sea’ are to be objects +of our pity and our prayers; and I do pity them. I delight +in that same monotony. It saves curiosity, anxiety, +excitement, disappointment, and a host of bad passions. It +gives a man the blessed, invigorating feeling that he is at home; +that he has roots, deep and wide, struck down into all he sees; +and that only The Being who will do nothing cruel or useless can +tear them up. It is pleasant to look down on the same +parish day after day, and say, I know all that lies beneath, and +all beneath know me. If I want a friend, I know where to +find him; if I want work done, I know who will do it. It is +pleasant and good to see the same trees year after year; the same +birds coming back in spring to the same shrubs; the same banks +covered with the same flowers, and broken (if they be stiff ones) +by the same gaps. Pleasant and good it is to ride the same +horse, to sit in the same chair, to wear the same old coat. +That man who offered twenty pounds’ reward for a lost +carpet-bag full of old boots was a sage, and I wish I knew +him. Why should one change one’s place, any more than +one’s wife or one’s children? Is a hermit-crab, +slipping his tail out of one strange shell into another, in the +hopes of its fitting him a little better, either a dignified, +safe, or graceful animal? No; George Riddler was a true +philosopher.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Let vules go sarching vur and nigh,<br /> +We bides at Whum, my dog and I;’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and become there, not only wiser, but more charitable; for the +oftener one sees, the better one knows; and the better one knows, +the more one loves.</p> +<p>It is an easy philosophy; especially in the case of the horse, +where a man cannot afford more than one, as I cannot. To +own a stud of horses, after all, is not to own horses at all, but +riding-machines. Your rich man who rides Crimæa in +the morning, Sir Guy in the afternoon, and Sultan to-morrow, and +something else the next day, may be a very gallant rider: but it +is a question whether he enjoys the pleasure which one horse +gives to the poor man who rides him day after day; one horse, who +is not a slave, but a friend; who has learnt all his tricks of +voice, hand, heel, and knows what his master wants, even without +being told; who will bear with his master’s infirmities, +and feels secure that his master will bear with his in turn.</p> +<p>Possibly, after all, the grapes are sour; and were one rich, +one would do even as the rich are wont to do: but still, I am a +minute philosopher. And therefore, this afternoon, after I +have done the same work, visited the same people, and said the +same words to them, which I have done for years past, and shall, +I trust, for many a year to come, I shall go wandering out into +the same winter-garden on the same old mare; and think the same +thoughts, and see the same fir-trees, and meet perhaps the same +good fellows hunting of their fox, as I have done with full +content this many a year; and rejoice, as I said before, in my +own boundless wealth, who have the whole universe to look at, +without being charged one penny for the show.</p> +<p>As I have said, the grapes may be sour, and I enjoy the want +of luxuries only because I cannot get them; but if my +self-deception be useful to me, leave it alone.</p> +<p>No one is less inclined to depreciate that magnificent +winter-garden at the Crystal Palace: yet let me, if I choose, +prefer my own; I argue that, in the first place, it is far +larger. You may drive, I hear, through the grand one at +Chatsworth for a quarter of a mile. You may ride through +mine for fifteen miles on end. I prefer, too, to any glass +roof which Sir Joseph Paxton ever planned, that dome above my +head some three miles high, of soft dappled grey and yellow +cloud, through the vast lattice-work whereof the blue sky peeps, +and sheds down tender gleams on yellow bogs, and softly rounded +heather knolls, and pale chalk ranges gleaming far away. +But, above all, I glory in my evergreens. What +winter-garden can compare for them with mine? True, I have +but four kinds—Scotch fir, holly, furze, and the heath; and +by way of relief to them, only brows of brown fern, sheets of +yellow bog-grass, and here and there a leafless birch, whose +purple tresses are even more lovely to my eye than those fragrant +green ones which she puts on in spring. Well: in painting +as in music, what effects are more grand than those produced by +the scientific combination, in endless new variety, of a few +simple elements? Enough for me is the one purple birch; the +bright hollies round its stem sparkling with scarlet beads; the +furze-patch, rich with its lacework of interwoven light and +shade, tipped here and there with a golden bud; the deep soft +heather carpet, which invites you to lie down and dream for +hours; and behind all, the wall of red fir-stems, and the dark +fir-roof with its jagged edges a mile long, against the soft grey +sky.</p> +<p>An ugly, straight-edged, monotonous fir-plantation? +Well, I like it, outside and inside. I need no saw-edge of +mountain peaks to stir up my imagination with the sense of the +sublime, while I can watch the saw-edge of those fir peaks +against the red sunset. They are my Alps; little ones it +may be: but after all, as I asked before, what is size? A +phantom of our brain; an optical delusion. Grandeur, if you +will consider wisely, consists in form, and not in size: and to +the eye of the philosopher, the curve drawn on a paper two inches +long, is just as magnificent, just as symbolic of divine +mysteries and melodies, as when embodied in the span of some +cathedral roof. Have you eyes to see? Then lie down +on the grass, and look near enough to see something more of what +is to be seen; and you will find tropic jungles in every square +foot of turf; mountain cliffs and debacles at the mouth of every +rabbit burrow: dark strids, tremendous cataracts, ‘deep +glooms and sudden glories,’ in every foot-broad rill which +wanders through the turf. All is there for you to see, if +you will but rid yourself of ‘that idol of space;’ +and Nature, as everyone will tell you who has seen dissected an +insect under the microscope, is as grand and graceful in her +smallest as in her hugest forms.</p> +<p>The March breeze is chilly: but I can be always warm if I like +in my winter-garden. I turn my horse’s head to the +red wall of fir-stems, and leap over the furze-grown bank into my +cathedral, wherein if there be no saints, there are likewise no +priestcraft and no idols; but endless vistas of smooth red +green-veined shafts holding up the warm dark roof, lessening away +into endless gloom, paved with rich brown fir-needle—a +carpet at which Nature has been at work for forty years. +Red shafts, green roof, and here and there a pane of blue +sky—neither Owen Jones nor Willement can improve upon that +ecclesiastical ornamentation,—while for incense I have the +fresh healthy turpentine fragrance, far sweeter to my nostrils +than the stifling narcotic odour which fills a Roman Catholic +cathedral. There is not a breath of air within: but the +breeze sighs over the roof above in a soft whisper. I shut +my eyes and listen. Surely that is the murmur of the summer +sea upon the summer sands in Devon far away. I hear the +innumerable wavelets spend themselves gently upon the shore, and +die away to rise again. And with the innumerable wave-sighs +come innumerable memories, and faces which I shall never see +again upon this earth. I will not tell even you of that, +old friend.</p> +<p>It has two notes, two keys rather, that Eolian-harp of +fir-needles above my head; according as the wind is east or west, +the needles dry or wet. This easterly key of to-day is +shriller, more cheerful, warmer in sound, though the day itself +be colder: but grander still, as well as softer, is the sad +soughing key in which the south-west wind roars on, rain-laden, +over the forest, and calls me forth—being a minute +philosopher—to catch trout in the nearest chalk-stream.</p> +<p>The breeze is gone a while; and I am in perfect +silence—a silence which may be heard. Not a sound; +and not a moving object; absolutely none. The absence of +animal life is solemn, startling. That ringdove, who was +cooing half a mile away, has hushed his moan; that flock of +long-tailed titmice, which were twinging and pecking about the +fir-cones a few minutes since, are gone: and now there is not +even a gnat to quiver in the slant sun-rays. Did a spider +run over these dead leaves, I almost fancy I could hear his +footfall. The creaking of the saddle, the soft step of the +mare upon the fir-needles, jar my ears. I seem alone in a +dead world. A dead world: and yet so full of life, if I had +eyes to see! Above my head every fir-needle is +breathing—breathing for ever; currents unnumbered circulate +in every bough, quickened by some undiscovered miracle; around me +every fir-stem is distilling strange juices, which no laboratory +of man can make; and where my dull eye sees only death, the eye +of God sees boundless life and motion, health and use.</p> +<p>Slowly I wander on beneath the warm roof of the winter-garden, +and meditate upon that one word—Life; and specially on all +that Mr. Lewes has written so well thereon—for +instance—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘We may consider Life itself as an +ever-increasing identification with Nature. The simple +cell, from which the plant or animal arises, must draw light and +heat from the sun, nutriment from the surrounding world, or else +it will remain quiescent, not alive, though latent with life; as +the grains in the Egyptian tombs, which after lying thousands of +years in those sepulchres, are placed in the earth, and smile +forth as golden wheat. What we call growth, is it not a +perpetual absorption of Nature, the identification of the +individual with the universal? And may we not, in +speculative moods, consider Death as the grand impatience of the +soul to free itself from the circle of individual +activity—the yearning of the creature to be united with the +Creator?</p> +<p>‘As with Life, so with knowledge, which is intellectual +life. In the early days of man’s history, Nature and +her marvellous ongoings were regarded with but a casual and +careless eye, or else with the merest wonder. It was late +before profound and reverent study of her laws could wean man +from impatient speculations; and now, what is our intellectual +activity based on, except on the more thorough mental absorption +of Nature? When that absorption is completed, the mystic +drama will be sunny clear, and all Nature’s processes be +visible to man, as a Divine Effluence and Life.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>True: yet not all the truth. But who knows all the +truth?</p> +<p>Not I. ‘We see through a glass darkly,’ said +St. Paul of old; and what is more, dazzle and weary our eyes, +like clumsy microscopists, by looking too long and earnestly +through the imperfect and by no means achromatic lens. +Enough. I will think of something else. I will think +of nothing at all—</p> +<p>Stay. There was a sound at last; a light footfall.</p> +<p>A hare races towards us through the ferns, her great bright +eyes full of terror, her ears aloft to catch some sound +behind. She sees us, turns short, and vanishes into the +gloom. The mare pricks up her ears too, listens, and looks: +but not the way the hare has gone. There is something more +coming; I can trust the finer sense of the horse, to which (and +no wonder) the Middle Age attributed the power of seeing ghosts +and fairies impalpable to man’s gross eyes. Beside, +that hare was not travelling in search of food. She was not +loping along, looking around her right and left; but galloping +steadily. She has been frightened; she has been put up: but +what has put her up? And there, far away among the +fir-stems, rings the shriek of a startled blackbird. What +has put him up?</p> +<p>That, old mare, at sight whereof your wise eyes widen till +they are ready to burst, and your ears are first shot forward +towards your nose, and then laid back with vicious intent. +Stand still, old woman! Do you think still, after fifteen +winters, that you can catch a fox?</p> +<p>A fox it is indeed; a great dog-fox, as red as the fir-stems +between which he glides. And yet his legs are black with +fresh peat-stains. He is a hunted fox: but he has not been +up long.</p> +<p>The mare stands like a statue: but I can feel her trembling +between my knees. Positively he does not see us. He +sits down in the middle of a ride, turns his great ears right and +left, and then scratches one of them with his hind foot, +seemingly to make it hear the better. Now he is up again +and on.</p> +<p>Beneath yon firs, some hundred yards away, standeth, or rather +lieth, for it is on dead flat ground, the famous castle of +Malepartus, which beheld the base murder of Lampe the hare, and +many a seely soul beside. I know it well; a patch of +sand-heaps, mingled with great holes, amid the twining fir-roots; +ancient home of the last of the wild beasts. And thither, +unto Malepartus safe and strong, trots Reinecke, where he hopes +to be snug among the labyrinthine windings, and innumerable +starting-holes, as the old apologue has it, of his ballium, +covert-way, and donjon keep. Full blown in +self-satisfaction he trots, lifting his toes delicately, and +carrying his brush aloft, as full of cunning and conceit as that +world-famous ancestor of his, whose deeds of unchivalry were the +delight, if not the model, of knight and kaiser, lady and +burgher, in the Middle Age.</p> +<p>Suddenly he halts at the great gate of Malepartus; examines it +with his nose; goes on to a postern; examines that also, and then +another, and another; while I perceive afar, projecting from +every cave’s mouth, the red and green end of a new +fir-faggot. Ah, Reinecke! fallen is thy conceit, and fallen +thy tail therewith. Thou hast worse foes to deal with than +Bruin the bear, or Isegrim the wolf, or any foolish brute whom +thy great ancestor outwitted. Man the many-counselled has +been beforehand with thee; and the earths are stopped.</p> +<p>One moment he sits down to meditate, and scratches those +trusty counsellors, his ears, as if he would tear them off, +‘revolving swift thoughts in a crafty mind.’</p> +<p>He has settled it now. He is up and off—and at +what a pace! Out of the way, Fauns and Hamadryads, if any +be left in the forest. What a pace! And with what a +grace beside!</p> +<p>Oh Reinecke, beautiful thou art, of a surety, in spite of thy +great naughtiness. Art thou some fallen spirit, doomed to +be hunted for thy sins in this life, and in some future life +rewarded for thy swiftness, and grace, and cunning, by being made +a very messenger of the immortals? Who knows? Not +I.</p> +<p>I am rising fast to Pistol’s vein. Shall I +ejaculate? Shall I notify? Shall I waken the +echoes? Shall I break the grand silence by that scream +which the vulgar view-halloo call?</p> +<p>It is needless; for louder and louder every moment swells up a +sound which makes my heart leap into my mouth, and my mare into +the air.</p> +<p>Music? Well-beloved soul of Hullah, would that thou wert +here this day, and not in St. Martin’s Hall, to hear that +chorus, as it pours round the fir-stems, rings against the roof +above, shatters up into a hundred echoes, till the air is live +with sound! You love madrigals, and whatever Weekes, or +Wilbye, or Orlando Gibbons sang of old. So do I. +Theirs is music fit for men: worthy of the age of heroes, of +Drake and Raleigh, Spenser and Shakspeare: but oh that you could +hear this madrigal! If you must have ‘four +parts,’ then there they are. Deeped-mouthed bass, +rolling along the ground; rich joyful tenor; wild wistful alto; +and leaping up here and there above the throng of sounds, +delicate treble shrieks and trills of trembling joy. I know +not whether you can fit it into your laws of music, any more than +you can the song of that Ariel sprite who dwells in the Eolian +harp, or the roar of the waves on the rock, or</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the +lawn,<br /> +And murmur of innumerable bees.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But music it is. A madrigal? Rather a whole opera +of Der Freischutz—dæmoniac element and all—to +judge by those red lips, fierce eyes, wild, hungry voices; and +such as should make Reinecke, had he strong æsthetic +sympathies, well content to be hunted from his cradle to his +grave, that such sweet sounds might by him enrich the air. +Heroes of old were glad to die, if but some ‘vates +sacer’ would sing their fame in worthy strains: and shalt +not thou too be glad, Reinecke? Content thyself with thy +fate. Music soothes care; let it soothe thine, as thou +runnest for thy life; thou shalt have enough of it in the next +hour. For as the Etruscans (says Athenæus) were so +luxurious that they used to flog their slaves to the sound of the +flute, so shall luxurious Chanter and Challenger, Sweet-lips and +Melody, eat thee to the sound of rich organ-pipes, that so thou +mayest,</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">‘Like that old +fabled swan, in music die.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And now appear, dim at first and distant, but brightening and +nearing fast, many a right good fellow and many a right good +horse. I know three out of four of them, their private +histories, the private histories of their horses: and could tell +you many a good story of them: but shall not, being an English +gentleman, and not an American littérateur. They may +not all be very clever, or very learned, or very anything except +gallant men; but they are all good enough company for me, or +anyone; and each has his own specialité, for which I like +him. That huntsman I have known for fifteen years, and sat +many an hour beside his father’s death-bed. I am +godfather to that whip’s child. I have seen the +servants of the hunt, as I have the hounds, grow up round me for +two generations, and I feel for them as old friends; and like to +look into their brave, honest, weather-beaten faces. That +red coat there, I knew him when he was a schoolboy; and now he is +a captain in the Guards, and won his Victoria Cross at Inkermann: +that bright green coat is the best farmer, as well as the hardest +rider, for many a mile round; one who plays, as he works, with +all his might, and might have been a beau sabreur and colonel of +dragoons. So might that black coat, who now brews good +beer, and stands up for the poor at the Board of Guardians, and +rides, like the green coat, as well as he works. That other +black coat is a county banker; but he knows more of the fox than +the fox knows of himself, and where the hounds are, there will he +be this day. That red coat has hunted kangaroo in +Australia: that one, as clever and good as he is brave and +simple, has stood by Napier’s side in many an Indian fight: +that one won his Victoria at Delhi, and was cut up at Lucknow, +with more than twenty wounds: that one has—but what matter +to you who each man is? Enough that each can tell one a +good story, welcome one cheerfully, and give one out here, in the +wild forest, the wholesome feeling of being at home among +friends.</p> +<p>There is music, again, if you will listen, in the soft tread +of these hundred horse-hoofs upon the spongy vegetable +soil. They are trotting now in ‘common +time.’ You may hear the whole Croats’ March +(the finest trotting march in the world) played by those iron +heels; the time, as it does in the Croats’ March, breaking +now and then, plunging, jingling, struggling through heavy +ground, bursting for a moment into a jubilant canter as it +reaches a sound spot.</p> +<p>The hounds feather a moment round Malepartus, puzzled by the +windings of Reinecke’s footsteps. You can hear the +flap and snort of the dogs’ nostrils as they canter round; +and one likes it. It is exciting: but why—who can +tell?</p> +<p>What beautiful creatures they are, too! Next to a Greek +statue (I mean a real old Greek one; for I am a thoroughly +anti-preraphaelite benighted pagan heathen in taste, and intend +some day to get up a Cinque-Cento Club, for the total abolition +of Gothic art)—next to a Greek statue, I say, I know few +such combinations of grace and strength as in a fine +foxhound. It is the beauty of the Theseus—light and +yet massive; and light not in spite of its masses, but on account +of the perfect disposition of them. I do not care for grace +in man, woman, or animal, which is obtained (as in the old German +painters) at the expense of honest flesh and blood. It may +be all very pure, and unearthly, and saintly, and what not; but +it is not healthy; and, therefore, it is not really High Art, let +it call itself such as much as it likes. The highest art +must be that in which the outward is the most perfect symbol of +the muward; and, therefore, a healthy soul can be only exprest by +a healthy body; and starved limbs and a hydrocephalous forehead +must be either taken as incorrect symbols of spiritual +excellence, or as—what they were really meant +for—symbols of certain spiritual diseases which were in the +Middle Age considered as ecclesiastical graces and virtues. +Wherefore I like pagan and naturalist art; consider Titian and +Correggio as unappreciated geniuses, whose excellences the world +will in some saner mood rediscover; hold, in direct opposition to +Rio, that Rafaelle improved steadily all his life through, and +that his noblest works are not his somewhat simpering Madonnas +and somewhat impish Bambinos (very lovely though they are), but +his great, coarse, naturalist, Protestant cartoons, which (with +Andrea Mantegna’s Heathen Triumph) Cromwell saved for the +British nation. Probably no one will agree with all this +for the next quarter of a century: but after that I have +hopes. The world will grow tired of pretending to admire +Manichæan pictures in an age of natural science; and Art +will let the dead bury their dead, and beginning again where +Michael Angelo and Rafaelle left off work forward into a nobler, +truer, freer, and more divine school than the world has yet +seen—at least, so I hope.</p> +<p>And all this has grown out of those foxhounds. Why +not? Theirs is the sort of form which expresses to me what +I want Art to express—Nature not limited, but developed, by +high civilization. The old savage ideal of beauty was the +lion, type of mere massive force. That was succeeded by an +over-civilized ideal, say the fawn, type of delicate grace. +By cunning breeding and choosing, through long centuries, man has +combined both, and has created the foxhound, lion and fawn in +one; just as he might create noble human beings; did he take half +as much trouble about politics (in the true old sense of the +word) as he does about fowls. Look at that old hound, who +stands doubtful, looking up at his master for advice. Look +at the severity, delicacy, lightness of every curve. His +head is finer than a deer’s; his hind legs tense as steel +springs; his fore-legs straight as arrows: and yet see the depth +of chest, the sweep of loin, the breadth of paw, the mass of arm +and thigh; and if you have an eye for form, look at the absolute +majesty of his attitude at this moment. Majesty is the only +word for it. If he were six feet high, instead of +twenty-three inches, with what animal on earth could you compare +him? Is it not a joy to see such a thing alive? It is +to me, at least. I should like to have one in my study all +day long, as I would have a statue or a picture; and when Mr. +Morrell gave (as they say) two hundred guineas for Hercules +alone, I believe the dog was well worth the money, only to look +at. But I am a minute philosopher.</p> +<p>I cap them on to the spot at which Reinecke disappeared. +Old Virginal’s stern flourishes; instantly her pace +quickens. One whimper, and she is away full-mouthed through +the wood, and the pack after her: but not I.</p> +<p>I am not going with them. My hunting days are +over. Let it suffice that I have, in the days of my vanity, +‘drank delight of battle with my peers, far on the ringing +plains’ of many a county, grass and forest, down and +vale. No, my gallant friends. You know that I could +ride, if I chose; and I am vain enough to be glad that you know +it. But useless are your coaxings, solicitations, wavings +of honest right hands. ‘Life,’ as my friend Tom +Brown says, ‘is not all beer and skittles;’ it is +past two now, and I have four old women to read to at three, and +an old man to bury at four; and I think, on the whole, that you +will respect me the more for going home and doing my duty. +That I should like to see this fox fairly killed, or even fairly +lost, I deny not. That I should like it as much as I can +like any earthly and outward thing, I deny not. But sugar +to one’s bread and butter is not good; and if my +winter-garden represent the bread and butter, then will +fox-hunting stand to it in the relation of superfluous and +unwholesome sugar: so farewell; and long may your noble sport +prosper—‘the image of war with only half its +danger,’ to train you and your sons after, into gallant +soldiers—full of</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The reason firm, the temperate will,<br /> +Endurance, foresight, strength and skill.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>So homeward I go through a labyrinth of fir-stems and, what is +worse, fir-stumps, which need both my eyes and my horse’s +at every moment; and woe to the ‘anchorite,’ as old +Bunbury names him, who carries his nose in the air, and his fore +feet well under him. Woe to the self-willed or hard-hided +horse who cannot take the slightest hint of the heel, and wince +hind legs or fore out of the way of those jagged points which lie +in wait for him. Woe, in fact, to all who are clumsy or +cowardly, or in anywise not ‘masters of the +situation.’</p> +<p>Pleasant riding it is, though, if you dare look anywhere but +over your horse’s nose, under the dark roof between the red +fir-pillars, in that rich subdued light. Now I plunge into +a gloomy dell, wherein is no tinkling rivulet, ever pure; but +instead a bog, hewn out into a chess-board of squares, parted by +deep narrow ditches some twenty feet apart. Blundering +among the stems I go, fetlock-deep in peat, and jumping at every +third stride one of the said uncanny gripes, half hidden in long +hassock grass. Oh <i>Aira cæspitosa</i>, most stately +and most variable of British grasses, why will you always grow +where you are not wanted? Through you the mare all but left +her hind legs in that last gripe. Through you a red-coat +ahead of me, avoiding one of your hassocks, jumped with his +horse’s nose full butt against a fir-stem, and stopped,</p> +<blockquote><p>‘As one that is struck dead<br /> +By lightning, ere he falls,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>as we shall soon, in spite of the mare’s +cleverness. Would we were out of this!</p> +<p>Out of it we shall be soon. I see daylight ahead at +last, bright between the dark stems. Up a steep slope, and +over a bank which is not very big, but being composed of loose +gravel and peat mould, gives down with me, nearly sending me head +over heels in the heather, and leaving me a sheer gap to scramble +through, and out on the open moor.</p> +<p>Grand old moor! stretching your brown flats right away toward +Windsor for many a mile.—Far to our right is the new +Wellington College, looking stately enough here all alone in the +wilderness, in spite of its two ugly towers and pinched +waist. Close over me is the long fir-fringed ride of +Easthampstead, ending suddenly in Cæsar’s camp; and +hounds and huntsmen are already far ahead, and racing up the +Roman road, which the clods of these parts, unable to give a +better account of it, call the Devil’s Highway.</p> +<p>Racing indeed; for as Reinecke gallops up the narrow +heather-fringed pathway, he brushes off his scent upon the twigs +at every stride; and the hounds race after him, showing no head +indeed, and keeping, for convenience, in one long line upon the +track: but going heads up, sterns down, at a pace which no horse +can follow.—I only hope they may not overrun the scent.</p> +<p>They have overrun it; halt, and put their heads down a +moment. But with one swift cast in fall gallop they have +hit it off again, fifty yards away in the heather, long ere the +horsemen are up to them; for those hounds can hunt a fox because +they are not hunted themselves, and so have learnt to trust +themselves, and act for themselves; as boys should learn at +school, even at the risk of a mistake or two. Now they are +showing head indeed, down a half-cleared valley, and over a few +ineffectual turnips withering in the peat, a patch of growing +civilization in the heart of the wilderness; and then over the +brook, while I turn slowly away, through a green wilderness of +self-sown firs.</p> +<p>There they stand in thousands, the sturdy Scots, colonizing +the desert in spite of frost, and gales, and barrenness; and +clustering together, too, as Scotsmen always do abroad, little +and big, every one under his neighbour’s lee, according to +the good old proverb of their native land, ‘Caw me, and +I’ll caw thee.’</p> +<p>I respect them, those Scotch firs. I delight in their +forms, from James the First’s gnarled giants up in +Bramshill Park—the only place in England where a painter +can learn what Scotch firs are—down to the little green +pyramids which stand up out of the heather, triumphant over +tyranny, and the strange woes of an untoward youth. Seven +years on an average have most of them spent in ineffectual +efforts to become a foot high. Nibbled off by hares, +trodden down by cattle, cut down by turf-parers, seeing hundreds +of their brethren cut up and carried off in the turf-fuel, they +are as gnarled and stubbed near the ground as an old thorn-bush +in a pasture. But they have conquered at last, and are +growing away, eighteen inches a year, with fair green brushes +silvertipt, reclothing the wilderness with a vegetation which it +has not seen for—how many thousand years?</p> +<p>No man can tell. For when last the Scotch fir was +indigenous to England, and, mixed with the larch, stretched in +one vast forest from Norfolk into Wales, England was not as it is +now. Snowdon was, it may be, fifteen thousand feet in +height, and from the edges of its glaciers the marmot and the +musk ox, the elk and the bear, wandered down into the Lowlands, +and the hyena and the lion dwelt in those caves where fox and +badger only now abide. And how did the Scotch fir die +out? Did the whole land sink slowly from its sub-Alpine +elevation into a warmer climate below? Or was it never +raised at all? Did some change of the Atlantic sea-floor +turn for the first time the warm Gulf Stream to these shores; and +with its soft sea-breezes melt away the ‘Age of Ice,’ +till glaciers and pines, marmots and musk oxen, perspired to +death, and vanished for an æon? Who knows? Not +I. But of the fact there can be no doubt. Whether, as +we hold traditionally here, the Scotch fir was re-introduced by +James the First when he built Bramshill for Raleigh’s +hapless pet, Henry the Prince, or whatever may have been the date +of their re-introduction, here they are, and no one can turn them +out. In countless thousands the winged seeds float down the +south-west gales from the older trees; and every seed which falls +takes root in ground which, however unable to bear broad-leaved +trees, is ready by long rest for the seeds of the needle-leaved +ones. Thousands perish yearly; but the eastward march of +the whole, up hill and down dale, is sure and steady as that of +Lynceus’ Goths in Goethe’s Helena:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Ein lang und breites Volkegewicht,<br /> +Der erate wusste vom letzen nicht.</p> +<p>Der erste fiel, der zweite stand,<br /> +Des dritten Lanze war zur Hand,<br /> +Ein jeder hundertfach gestärkt;<br /> +Erschlagene Tausend unbemerkt—</p> +</blockquote> +<p>—till, as you stand upon some eminence, you see, +stretching to the eastward of each tract of older trees, a long +cloud of younger ones, like a green comet’s tail—I +wish their substance was as yielding this day. Truly +beautiful—grand indeed to me it is—to see young live +Nature thus carrying on a great savage process in the heart of +this old and seemingly all-artificial English land; and +reproducing here, as surely as in the Australian bush, a native +forest, careless of mankind. Still, I wish it were easier +to ride through. Stiff are those Scotchmen, and close and +stout they stand by each other, and claw at you as you twist +through them, the biggest aiming at your head, or even worse, at +your knees; while the middle-sized slip their brushes between +your thigh and the saddle, and the little babies tickle your +horse’s stomach, or twine about his fore-feet. +Whish—whish; we are enveloped in what seems an atmosphere +of scrubbing-brushes. Fain would I shut my eyes: but dare +not, or I shall ride against a tree. Whish—whish; +alas for the horse which cannot wind and turn like a hare! +Plunge—stagger. What is this? A broad line of +ruts; perhaps some Celtic track-way, two thousand years old, now +matted over with firs; dangerous enough out on the open moor, +when only masked by a line of higher and darker heath: but doubly +dangerous now when masked by dark undergrowth. You must +find your own way here, mare. I will positively have +nothing to do with it. I disclaim all responsibility. +There are the reins on your neck; do what you will, only do +something—and if you can, get forward, and not back.</p> +<p>There is daylight at last, and fresh air. I trot +contemptuously through the advanced skirmishers of the Scotch +invading army; and watch my friends some mile and a half off, who +have threaded a practicable track-way through a long dreary +yellow bog, too wet for firs to root in, and are away in ‘a +streamer.’ Now a streamer is produced in this +wise. There is but one possible gap in a bank, one possible +ford in a brook; one possible path in a cover; and as each man +has to wait till the man before him gets through, and them +gallops on, each man loses twenty yards or more on the man before +him: wherefore, by all laws of known arithmetic, if ten men tail +through a gap, then will the last of the ten find himself two +hundred yards behind the foremost, which process several times +repeated, produces the phenomenon called a streamer, viz. twenty +men galloping absurdly as hard as they can, in a line half a mile +long, and in humours which are celestial in the few foremost, +contented in the central, and gradually becoming darker in the +hindmost; till in the last man they assume a hue altogether +Tartarean. Farewell, brave gentlemen! I watch, half +sadly, half self-contented, the red coats scattered like sparks +of fire over hill and dale, and turn slowly homeward, to visit my +old women.</p> +<p>I pass through a gateway, out upon a village green, planted +with rows of oaks, surrounded by trim sunny cottages, a pleasant +oasis in the middle of the wilderness. Across the village +cricket-ground—we are great cricketers in these parts, and +long may the good old game live among us; and then up another +hollow lane, which leads between damp shaughs and copses toward +the further moor.</p> +<p>Curious things to a minute philosopher are these same hollow +lanes. They set him on archæological questions, more +than he can solve; and I meditate as I go, how many centuries it +took to saw through the warm sandbanks this dyke ten feet deep, +up which he trots, with the oak boughs meeting over his +head. Was it ever worth men’s while to dig out the +soil? Surely not. The old method must have been, to +remove the softer upper spit, till they got to tolerably hard +ground; and then, Macadam’s metal being as yet unknown, the +rains and the wheels of generations sawed it gradually deeper and +deeper, till this road-ditch was formed. But it must have +taken centuries to do it. Many of these hollow lanes, +especially those on flat ground, must be as old or older than the +Conquest. In Devonshire I am sure that they are. But +there many of them, one suspects, were made not of malice, but of +cowardice prepense. Your indigenous Celt was, one fears, a +sneaking animal, and liked to keep when he could under cover of +banks and hill-sides; while your bold Roman made his raised roads +straight over hill and dale, as ‘ridge-ways’ from +which, as from an eagle’s eyrie, he could survey the +conquered lowlands far and wide. It marks strongly the +difference between the two races, that difference between the +Roman paved road with its established common way for all +passengers, its regular stations and milestones, and the Celtic +track-way winding irresolutely along in innumerable ruts, parting +to meet again, as if each savage (for they were little better) +had taken his own fresh path when he found the next line of ruts +too heavy for his cattle. Around the spurs of Dartmoor I +have seen many ancient roads, some of them long disused, which +could have been hollowed out for no other purpose but that of +concealment.</p> +<p>So I go slowly up the hill, till the valley lies beneath me +like a long green garden between its two banks of brown moor; and +on through a cheerful little green, with red brick cottages +scattered all round, each with its large neat garden, and +beehives, and pigs and geese, and turf-stack, and clipt yews and +hollies before the door, and rosy dark-eyed children, and all the +simple healthy comforts of a wild +‘heth-cropper’s’ home. When he can, the +good man of the house works at farm labour, or cuts his own turf; +and when work is scarce, he cuts copses and makes heath-brooms, +and does a little poaching. True, he seldom goes to church, +save to be christened, married, or buried: but he equally seldom +gets drunk. For church and public stand together two miles +off; so that social wants sometimes bring their own compensations +with them, and there are two sides to every question.</p> +<p>Hark! A faint, dreary hollo off the moor above. +And then another, and another. My friends may trust it; for +the clod of these parts delights in the chase like any +bare-legged Paddy, and casts away flail and fork wildly, to run, +shout, assist, and interfere in all possible ways, out of pure +love. The descendant of many generations of broom-squires +and deer-stealers, the instinct of sport is strong within him +still, though no more of the king’s deer are to be shot in +the winter turnip-fields, or worse, caught by an apple-baited +hook hung from an orchard bough. He now limits his +aspirations to hares and pheasants, and too probably once in his +life, ‘hits the keeper into the river,’ and +reconsiders himself for a while after over a crank in Winchester +gaol. Well, he has his faults; and I have mine. But +he is a thorough good fellow nevertheless; quite as good as I: +civil, contented, industrious, and often very handsome; and a far +shrewder fellow too—owing to his dash of wild forest blood, +from gipsy, highwayman; and what not—than his bullet-headed +and flaxen-polled cousin, the pure South-Saxon of the +Chalk-downs. Dark-haired he is, ruddy, and tall of bone; +swaggering in his youth; but when he grows old, a thorough +gentleman, reserved, stately, and courteous as a prince. +Sixteen years have I lived with him hail fellow well met, and +never yet had a rude word or action from him.</p> +<p>With him I have cast in my lot, to live and die, and be buried +by his side; and to him I go home contented, to look after his +petty interests, cares, sorrows—Petty, truly—seeing +that they include the whole primal mysteries of life—Food, +raiment, and work to earn them withal; love and marriage, birth +and death, right doing and wrong doing, ‘Schicksal und +eigene Schuld;’ and all those commonplaces of humanity +which in the eyes of a minute philosopher are most divine, +because they are most commonplace—catholic as the sunshine +and the rain which come down from the Heavenly Father, alike upon +the evil and the good. As for doing fine things, my friend, +with you, I have learnt to believe that I am not set to do fine +things, simply because I am not able to do them; and as for +seeing fine things, with you, I have learnt to see the +sight—as well as to try to do the duty—which lies +nearest me; and to comfort myself with the fancy that if I make +good use of my eyes and brain in this life, I shall see—if +it be of any use to me—all the fine things, or perhaps +finer still, in the life to come. But if not—what +matter? In any life, in any state, however simple or +humble, there will be always sufficient to occupy a Minute +Philosopher; and if a man be busy, and busy about his duty, what +more does he require, for time or for eternity?</p> +<h2><a name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +175</span>V.<br /> +<a name="page177"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 177</span><i>FROM +OCEAN TO SEA</i>.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> point from which to start, in +order best to appreciate the change from ocean to sea, is perhaps +Biarritz. The point at which to stop is Cette. And +the change is important. Between the two points races are +changed, climates are changed, scenery is changed, the very +plants under your feet are changed, from a Western to an Eastern +type. You pass from the wild Atlantic into the heart of the +Roman Empire—from the influences which formed the +discoverers of the New World, to those which formed the +civilizers of the Old. Gascony, not only in its scenery, +but in its very legends, reminds you of Devon and Cornwall; +Languedoc of Greece and Palestine.</p> +<p>In the sea, as was to be expected, the change is even more +complete. From Biarritz to Cette, you pass from poor Edward +Forbes’s Atlantic to his Mediterranean centre of +creation. In plain English and fact, whether you agree with +his theory or not, you pass from the region of respectable +whales, herrings, and salmon, to that of tunnies, sciænas, +dorados, and all the gorgons, hydras, and chimæras dire, +which are said to grace the fish-markets of Barcelona or +Marseilles.</p> +<p>But to this assertion, as to most concerning nature, there are +exceptions. Mediterranean fishes slip out of the Straits of +Gibraltar, and up the coast of Portugal, and, once in the Bay of +Biscay, find the feeding good and the wind against them, and stay +there.</p> +<p>So it befalls, that at worthy M. Gardère’s hotel +at Biarritz (he has seen service in England, and knows our +English ways), you may have at dinner, day after day, salmon, +louvine, shad, sardine, dorado, tunny. The first is unknown +to the Mediterranean; for Fluellen mistook when he said that +there were salmons in Macedon, as well as Monmouth; the louvine +is none other than the nasty bass, or sea-perch of the Atlantic; +the shad (extinct in these islands, save in the Severn) is a +gigantic herring which comes up rivers to spawn; a fish common +(with slight differences) to both sides of the North Atlantic; +while the sardine, the dorado, and the tunny (whether he be the +true tunny or the Alalonga) are Mediterranean fish.</p> +<p>The whale fishery of these shores is long extinct. The +Biscayan whale was supposed to be extinct likewise. But +like the ibex, and some other animals which man has ceased to +hunt, because he fancies that he has killed them all, they seem +inclined to reappear. For in 1854 one was washed ashore +near St. Jean de Luz, at news whereof Eschricht, the great Danish +naturalist, travelled night and day from Copenhagen, and secured +the skeleton of the new-old monster.</p> +<p>But during the latter part of the Middle Ages, and on—if +I recollect aright—into the seventeenth century, Bayonne, +Biarritz, Guettary, and St. Jean de Luz, sent forth their hardy +whale-fishers, who slew all the whales of the Biscayan seas, and +then crossed the Atlantic, to attack those of the frozen +North.</p> +<p>British and American enterprise drove them from the West coast +of the Atlantic; and now their descendants are content to stay at +home and take the sardine-shoals, and send them in to Bayonne on +their daughters’ heads.</p> +<p>Pretty enough it was, at least in outward seeming, to meet a +party of those fisher-girls, bare-legged, high-kilted, lithe as +deer, trotting, at a long loping pace, up the high road toward +Bayonne, each with her basket on her head, as she laughed and +sang, and tossed her black hair, and flashed her brown eyes, full +of life and the enjoyment of life. Pretty enough. And +yet who will blame the rail, which now sends her quickly into +Bayonne—or even her fish without her; and relieves the fair +young maiden from being degraded into a beast of burden?</p> +<p>Handsome folk are these brown Basques. A mysterious +people, who dwell alone, and are not counted among the nations; +speaking an unique language, and keeping up unique customs, for +which the curious must consult M. Michel’s interesting +book. There may be a cross of English blood among them, +too, about Biarritz and Bayonne; English features there are, +plainly to be seen. And whether or not, one accepts the +story of the country, that Anglets, near by, is an old English +colony left by our Black Prince, it is certain that Bayonne +Cathedral was built in part by English architects, and carries +the royal arms of England; and every school history will tell us +how this corner of France was long in our hands, and was indeed +English long before it was properly French. Moorish blood +there may be, too, here and there, left behind by those who built +the little ‘atalaya’ or fire-beacon, over the old +harbour, to correspond, by its smoke column, with a long line of +similar beacons down the Spanish coast. The Basques +resemble in look the Southern Welsh—quick-eyed, neat in +feature, neat in dress, often, both men and women, +beautiful. The men wear a flat Scotch cap of some bright +colour, and call it ‘berretta.’ The women tie a +gaudy handkerchief round their heads, and compel one corner to +stand forward from behind the ear in a triangle, in proportion to +the size and stiffness whereof the lady seems to think herself +well dressed. But the pretty Basque handkerchief will soon +give place to the Parisian bonnet. For every cove among the +rocks is now filled with smart bathing-houses, from which, in +summer, the gay folk of Paris issue in ‘costume de +bain,’ to float about all day on calabashes—having +literally no room for the soles of their feet on land. Then +are opened casinos, theatre, shops, which lie closed all the +winter. Then do the Basque house-owners flee into the +moors, and camp out (it is said) on the hills all night, letting +their rooms for ten francs a night as mere bed-chambers—for +all eating and living is performed in public; while the +dove-coloured oxen, with brown holland pinafores over their +backs, who dawdle in pairs up and down the long street with their +light carts, have to make way for wondrous equipages from the +Bois de Boulogne.</p> +<p>Not then, for the wise man, is Biarritz a place to see and to +love: but in the winter, when a little knot of quiet pleasant +English hold the place against all comers, and wander, +undisturbed by fashion, about the quaint little rocks and caves +and natural bridges—and watch tumbling into the sea, before +the Biscayan surges, the trim walks and summer-houses, which were +erected by the municipality in honour of the Empress and her +suite. Yearly they tumble in, and yearly are renewed, as +the soft greensand strata are graven away, and what must have +been once a long promontory becomes a group of fantastic pierced +rocks, exactly like those which are immortalized upon the +willow-pattern plates.</p> +<p>Owing to this rapid destruction, the rocks of Biarritz are +very barren in sea-beasts and sea-weeds. But there is one +remarkable exception, where the pools worn in a hard limestone +are filled with what seem at first sight beds of china-asters, of +all loveliest colours—primrose, sea-green, dove, purple, +crimson, pink, ash-grey. They are all prickly sea-eggs +(presumably the <i>Echinus lividus</i>, which is found in similar +places in the west of Ireland), each buried for life in a +cup-shaped hole which he has excavated in the rock, and shut in +by an overhanging lip of living lime—seemingly a Nullipore +coralline. What they do there, what they think of, or what +food is brought into their curious grinding-mills by the Atlantic +surges which thunder over them twice a day, who can tell? +However they form, without doubt, the most beautiful object which +I have ever seen in pool or cove.</p> +<p>But the glory of Biarritz, after all, is the moors above, and +the view to be seen therefrom. Under blazing blue skies, +tempered by soft dappled cloud, for ever sliding from the +Atlantic and the Asturias mountains, in a climate soft as milk, +and exhilarating withal as wine, one sees far and wide a panorama +which, from its variety as well as its beauty, can never +weary.</p> +<p>To the north, the long sand-line of the Biscayan +shore—the bar of the Adour marked by a cloud of grey +spray. Then the dark pine-flats of the Landes, and the +towers of Bayonne rising through rich woods. To the +eastward lies a high country, furred with woods, broken with +glens; a country exactly like Devon, through the heart of which, +hidden in such a gorge as that of Dart or Taw, runs the swift +stream of the Nive, draining the western Pyrenees. And +beyond, to the south-east, in early spring, the Pyrenean snows +gleam bright, white clouds above the clouds. As one turns +southward, the mountains break down into brown heather-hills, +like Scottish grouse moors. The two nearest, and seemingly +highest, are the famous Rhune and Bayonette, where lie, to this +day, amid the heath and crags, hundreds of unburied bones. +For those great hills, skilfully fortified by Soult before the +passage of the Bidassoa, were stormed, yard by yard, by +Wellington’s army in October 1813. That mighty deed +must be read in the pages of one who saw it with his own eyes, +and fought there with his own noble body, and even nobler +spirit. It is not for me to tell of victories, of which Sir +William Napier has already told.</p> +<p>Towards that hill, and the Nivelle at its foot, the land +slopes down, still wooded and broken, bounded by a long sweep of +clayey crumbling cliff. The eye catches the fort of Secoa, +at the mouth of the Nivelle—once Wellington’s +sea-base for his great French campaign. Then Fontarabia, at +the Bidassoa mouth; and far off, the cove within which lies the +fatal citadel of St. Sebastian; all backed up by the fantastic +mountains of Spain; the four-horned “Quatre +Couronnes,” the pyramidal Jaysquivel, and beyond them +again, sloping headlong into the sea, peak after peak, each one +more blue and tender than the one before, leading the eye on and +on for seemingly countless leagues, till they die away into the +ocean horizon and the boundless west. Not a sail, often for +days together, passes between those mountains and the shore on +which we stand, to break the solitude, and peace, and vast +expanse; and we linger, looking and looking at we know not what, +and find repose in gazing purposeless into the utter void.</p> +<p>Very unlike France are these Basque uplands; very like the +seaward parts of Devon and Cornwall. Large oak-copses and +boggy meadows fill the glens; while above, the small fields, with +their five-barred gates (relics of the English occupation) and +high furze and heath-grown banks, make you fancy yourself for a +moment in England. And the illusion is strengthened, as you +see that the heath of the banks is the Goonhilly heath of the +Lizard Point, and that of the bogs the orange-belled <i>Erica +ciliaris</i>, which lingers (though rare) both in Cornwall and in +the south of Ireland. But another glance undeceives +you. The wild flowers are new, saving those cosmopolitan +seeds (like nettles and poppies) which the Romans have carried +all over Europe, and the British are now carrying over the +world. Every sandy bank near the sea is covered with the +creeping stems of a huge reed, which grows in summer tall enough +to make not only high fences, but fishing-rods. Poverty +(though there is none of what we call poverty in Britain) fills +the little walled court before its cottage with bay trees and +standard figs; while wealth (though there is nothing here of what +we call wealth in Britain) asserts itself uniformly by great +standard magnolias, and rich trailing roses, in full bloom here +in April instead of—as with us—in July. Both on +bank and in bog grow Scorzoneras (dandelions with sword-shaped +leaves) of which there are none in these isles; and every common +is ablaze with strange and lovely flowers. Each dry spot is +brilliant with the azure flowers of a prostrate Lithospermum, so +exquisite a plant, that it is a marvel why we do not see it, as +‘spring-bedding,’ in every British garden. The +heath is almost hidden, in places, by the large white flowers and +trailing stems of the sage-leaved Cistus. Delicate purple +Ixias, and yet more delicate Hoop-petticoat Narcissus, spring +from the turf. And here and there among furze and heath, +crop out great pink bunches of the <i>Daphne Cneorum</i> of our +gardens, perfuming all the air. Yes, we are indeed in +foreign parts, in the very home of that Atlantic flora, of which +only a few species have reached the south-west of these isles; +and on the limit of another flora also—of that of Italy and +Greece. For as we descend into the glen, every lane-bank +and low tree is entwined, not with ivy, but with a still more +beautiful evergreen, the Smilax of South-eastern Europe, with its +zigzag stems, and curving heart-shaped leaves, and hooked thorns; +the very oak-scrub is of species unknown to Britain. And +what are these tall lilies, which fill every glade breast-high +with their sword-like leaves, and spires of white flowers, +lilac-pencilled? They are the classic flower, the Asphodel +of Greece and Grecian song; the Asphodel through which the ghosts +of Homer’s heroes strode: as heroes’ ghosts might +stride even here.</p> +<p>For here we are on sacred ground. The vegetation is rank +with the blood of gallant invaders, and of no less gallant +patriots. In the words of Campbell’s +‘Hohenlinden’—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Every turf beneath our feet<br /> +May be a hero’s sepulchre.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>That little tarn below has ‘bubbled with crimson +foam’ when the kings of Europe arose to bring home the +Bourbons, as did the Lake Regillus of old, in the day when +‘the Thirty Cities swore to bring the Tarquins +home.’</p> +<p>Turn to the left, above the tarn, and into the great Spanish +road from Bayonne to the frontier at what was lately ‘La +Negresse,’ but is now a gay railway station. Where +that station is, was another tarn, now drained. The road +ran between the two. And that narrow space of two hundred +yards, on which we stand, was for three fearful days the gate of +France.</p> +<p>For on the 10th of December, 1813, Soult, driven into Bayonne +by Wellington’s advance, rushed out again in the early +morn, and poured a torrent of living men down this road, and +upwards again towards the British army which crested that long +ridge in front.</p> +<p>The ridge slopes rapidly away at the back, toward the lowlands +of the Bidassoa; and once thrust from it, the English army would +have been cut in two—one half driven back upon their +sea-base at St. Jean de Luz: the other half left on the further +side of the Adour.</p> +<p>And this was the gate, which had to be defended during a three +days’ battle. That long copse which overhangs the +road is the famous wood, which was taken and retaken many +times. You house above it, embowered in trees, is the +‘Mayor’s house,’ in which Sir John Hope was so +nearly captured by the French. Somewhere behind the lane +where we came down was the battery which blasted off our troops +as they ran up from the lowlands behind, to support their +fellows.</p> +<p>Of the details of the fight you must read in Napier’s +‘Peninsular War,’ and in Mr. Gleig’s +‘Subaltern.’ They are not to be described by +one who never saw a battle, great or small.</p> +<p>And now, if you choose to start upon your journey from the +ocean to the sea, you will take the railroad here, and run five +miles through the battle-fields into Bayonne, the quaint old +fortress city, girdled with a labyrinth of walls, and turf-dykes, +and outside them meadows as rich, and trees as stately, as if war +had never swept across the land. You may stop, if you will, +to look at the tall Spanish houses, with their piazzas and +jalousies, and the motley populace, French, Basques, Spaniards, +Jews; and, most worth seeing of all, the lovely ladies of +Bayonne, who swarm out when the sun goes down, for air and +military music. You may try to find (in which you will +probably fail) the arms of England in the roof of the ugly old +cathedral; you may wander the bridges over which join the three +quarters of the city (for the Adour and the Nive meet within the +walls), and probably lose your way—a slight matter among +folk who, if you will but take off your hat, call them Monsieur, +apologize for the trouble you are giving, begin the laugh at your +own stupidity, and compliment them on their city and their fair +ladies, will be delighted to walk a mile out of their own way to +show you yours. You will gaze up at the rock-rooted citadel +from whence, in the small hours of April 14, 1813, after peace +was agreed on, but unhappily not declared (for Napier has fully +exculpated the French Generals), three thousand of +Thouvenot’s men burst forth against Sir John Hope’s +unsuspecting besiegers, with a furious valour which cost the +English more than 800 men.</p> +<p>There, in the pine woods on the opposite side, is the +Boucault, where our besieging army lay. Across the reach +below stretched Sir John Hope’s famous bridge; and as you +leave Bayonne by rail, you run beneath the English cemetery, +where lie the soldiers (officers of the Coldstream Guards among +them) who fell in the Frenchman’s last struggle to defend +his native land.</p> +<p>But enough of this. I should not have recalled to mind +one of these battles, had they not, one and all, been as glorious +for the French and their great captain—wearied with long +marches, disheartened by the apathy of their own countrymen, and, +as they went on, overpowered by mere numbers—as they were +for our veterans, and Wellington himself.</p> +<p>And now, once through Bayonne, we are in the Pignadas and the +Landes.</p> +<p>To form a conception of these famous Landes, it is only +necessary to run down by the South-Western Railway, through the +moors of Woking or Ascot; spread them out flat, and multiply them +to seeming infinity. The same sea of brown heather, broken +only by the same dark pignadas, or fir plantations, extends for +nigh a hundred miles; and when the traveller northward has lost +sight, first of the Spanish mountains, and then of the Pyrenean +snows, he seems to be rushing along a brown ocean, without wave +or shore. Only, instead of the three heaths of Surrey and +Hants (the same species as those of Scotland), larger and richer +southern heaths cover the grey sands; and notably the delicate +upright spires of the bruyère, or <i>Erica scoparia</i>, +which grows full six feet high, and furnishes from its roots +those ‘bruyère’ pipes, which British +shopkeepers have rechristened ‘briar-roots.’ +Instead, again, of the Scotch firs of Ascot, the pines are all +pinasters (miscalled <i>P. maritima</i>). Each has the same +bent stem, carrying at top, long, ragged, scanty, leaf-tufts, +instead of the straight stem and dense short foliage of the +sturdier Scotchman; and down each stem runs a long, fresh scar, +and at the bottom (in spring at least), hangs a lip of tin, and a +neat earthen pipkin, into which distils turpentine as clear as +glass. The trees have mostly been planted within the last +fifty years, to keep the drifting sands from being blown +away. As timber they are about as valuable as those Jersey +cow-cabbage stalks, of which the curious will at times make +walking-sticks: but as producers of turpentine they have their +use, and give employment to the sad, stunted, ill-fed folk, +unhealthy for want of water, and barbarous from utter loneliness, +whose only employment, in old times, was the keeping ragged +flocks about the moors. Few and far between the natives may +be seen from the railway, seemingly hung high in air, till on +nearer approach you find them to be stalking along on stilts, or +standing knitting on the same, a sheepskin over their shoulders, +an umbrella strapped to their side, and, stuck into the small of +the back, a long crutch, which serves, when resting, as a third +wooden leg.</p> +<p>So run on the Landes, mile after mile, station after station, +varied only by an occasional stunted cork tree, or a starved +field of barley or maize. But the railroad is bringing to +them, as elsewhere, labour, civilization, agricultural +improvement. Pretty villages, orchards, gardens, are +springing up round the lonely ‘gares.’ The late +Emperor helped forward, it is said, new pine plantations, and +sundry schemes for reclaiming the waste. Arcachon, on a +pine-fringed lagoon of the Atlantic, has great artificial ponds +for oyster breeding, and is rising into a gay watering-place, +with a distinguished scientific society. Nay, more: it saw +a few years since an international exposition of fish, and +fish-culture, and fishing-tackle, and all things connected with +the fisheries, not only of Europe, but of America likewise. +Heaven speed the plan; and restore thereby oysters to our shores, +and shad and salmon to the rivers both of Western Europe and +Eastern North America.</p> +<p>As for the cause of the Landes, it may be easily divined, by +the help of a map and of common sense.</p> +<p>The Gironde and the Adour carry to the sea the drainage of +nearly a third of France, including almost all the rain which +falls on the north side of the Pyrenees. What has become of +all the sand and mud which has been swept in the course of ages +down their channels? What has become—a very small +part, be it recollected, of the whole amount—of all the +rock which has been removed by rain and thunder, frost and snow, +in the process of scooping out the deep valleys of the +Pyrenees? Out of that one crack, which men call the Val +d’Ossau, stone has been swept enough to form a considerable +island. Where is it all? In these Landes. +Carried down year by year to the Atlantic, it has been driven +back again, year by year, by the fierce gales of the Bay of +Biscay, and rolled up into banks and dunes of loose sand, till it +has filled up what was once a broad estuary, 140 miles across and +perhaps 70 miles in depth. Upheaved it may have been also, +slowly, from the sea, for recent sea-shells are found as far +inland as Dax; and thus the whole upper end of the Bay of Biscay +has transformed itself during the lapse of, it may be, countless +ages, into a desolate wilderness.</p> +<p>It is at Dax that we leave the main line, and instead of +running north for Bordeaux and the land of clarets, turn +south-east to Orthez and Pau, and the Gaves, and the +Pyrenees.</p> +<p>And now we pass through ragged uplands, woody and moorish, +with the long yellow maize-stalks of last year’s crop +rotting in the swampy glens. For the ‘petite +culture,’ whatever be its advantages, gives no capital or +power of combined action for draining wet lands; and the valleys +of Gascony and Bearn in the south, as well as great sheets of the +Pas de Calais in the north, are in a waterlogged state, equally +shocking to the eye of a British farmer, and injurious to the +health and to the crops of the peasants.</p> +<p>Soon we strike the Adour, here of the shape and size of a +second-class Scotch salmon-stream, with swirling brown pools +beneath grey crags, which make one long to try in them the +virtues of ‘Jock Scott,’ ‘the Butcher,’ +or the ‘Dusty Miller.’ And perhaps not without +effect; for salmon are there still; and will be more and more as +French ‘pisciculture’ develops itself under +Government supervision.</p> +<p>Here we touch again the line of that masterly retreat of +Soult’s before the superior forces of Wellington, to which +Napier has done such ample and deserved justice.</p> +<p>There is Berenz, where the Sixth and Light divisions crossed +the Gave, and clambered into the high road up steep ravines; and +there is Orthez itself, with the beautiful old Gothic bridge +which the French could not blow up, as they did every other +bridge on their retreat; and the ruins of that robber den to +which Gaston Phœbus, Count of Foix (of whom you may read in +Froissart), used to drag his victims; and there overhead, upon +the left of the rail and road, is the old Roman camp, and the +hill of Orthez, and St. Boes, and the High Church of Baights, the +scene of the terrible battle of Orthez.</p> +<p>The Roman camp, then ‘open and grassy, with a few +trees,’ says Napier, is now covered with vineyards. +Everywhere the fatal slopes are rich with cultivation, plenty, +and peace. God grant they may remain so for ever.</p> +<p>And so, along the Gave de Pau, we run on to Pau, the ancient +capital of Bearn; the birthplace of Henri Quatre, and of +Bernadotte, King of Sweden; where, in the charming old +château, restored by Louis Philippe, those who list may see +the tortoise which served as the great Henry’s cradle; and +believe, if they list also, the tale that that is the real +shell.</p> +<p>For in 1793, when the knights of the ‘bonnet +rouge’ and ‘carmagnole complete’ burst into the +castle, to destroy every memorial of hated royalty, the shell +among the rest, there chanced—miraculous +coincidence—to be in Pau, in the collection of a +naturalist, another shell, of the same shape and size. +Swiftly and deftly pious hands substituted it for the real relic, +leaving it to be battered in pieces and trampled in the mud, +while the royal cradle lay perdu for years in the roof of a +house, to reappear duly at the Restoration of the Bourbons.</p> +<p>Of Pau I shall say nothing. It would be real +impertinence in one who only spent three days in it, to describe +a city which is known to all Europe; which is a permanent English +colony, and boasts of one, and sometimes two, packs of English +foxhounds. But this I may be allowed to say. That of +all delectable spots I have yet seen, Pau is the most +delectable. Of all the landscapes which I have beheld, that +from the Place Royale is, for variety, richness, and grandeur, +the most glorious; at least as I saw it for the first time.</p> +<p>Beneath the wall of the high terrace are rich meadows, vocal +with frogs rejoicing in the rain, and expressing their joy, not +in the sober monotone of our English frogs, but each according to +his kind; one bellowing, the next barking, the next cawing, and +the next (probably the little green Hylas, who has come down out +of the trees to breed) quacking in treble like a tiny +drake. The bark (I suspect) is that of the gorgeous edible +frog; and so suspect the young recruits who lounge upon the wall, +and look down wistfully, longing, I presume, to eat him. +And quite right they are; for he (at least his thigh) is +exceeding good to eat, tenderer and sweeter than any spring +chicken.</p> +<p>Beyond the meadow, among the poplars, the broad Gave murmurs +on over shingly shallows, between aspen-fringed islets, grey with +the melting snows; and beyond her again rise broken wooded hills, +dotted with handsome houses; and beyond them a veil of mist and +rain.</p> +<p>On a sudden that veil lifts; and five-and-twenty miles away, +beneath the black edge of the cloud, against the clear blue sky, +stands out the whole snow-range of the Pyrenees; and in the +midst, exactly opposite, filling up a vast gap which is the Val +d’Ossau, the huge cone, still snowy white, of the Pic du +Midi.</p> +<p>He who is conversant with theatres will be unable to overlook +the seeming art—and even artifice—of such an +effect. The clouds lift like a drop-scene; the mountains +are so utterly unlike any natural object in the north, that for +the moment one fancies them painted and not real; the Pic du Midi +stands so exactly where it ought, and is yet so fantastic and +unexpected in its shape, that an artist seems to have put it +there.</p> +<p>But lie who knows nothing, and cares less, about theatres and +their sham glories, and sees for the first time in his life the +eternal snows of which he has read since childhood, draws his +breath deeply, and stands astounded, whispering to himself that +God is great.</p> +<p>One hint more, ere we pass on from Pau. Here, at least +in spring time, of all places in Europe, may a man feed his ears +with song of birds. The copses by the Gave, the public +walks and woods (wherein English prejudices have happily +protected what is elsewhere shot down as game, even to the poor +little cock-robins whose corpses lie by dozens in too many French +markets), are filled with all our English birds of passage, +finding their way northwards from Morocco and Algiers; and with +our English nightingales, black-caps, willow-wrens, and +whitethroats, are other songsters which never find their way to +these isles, for which you must consult the pages of Mr. Gould or +Mr. Bree—and chief among them the dark Orpheus, and the +yellow Hippolais, surpassing the black-cap, and almost equalling +the nightingale, for richness and variety of song—the +polyglot warbler which penetrates, in summer, as far north as the +shores of the British Channel, and there stops short, scared by +the twenty miles of sea, after a land journey—and by night, +too, as all the warblers journey—from Africa.</p> +<p>At Pau, the railroad ended when I was there; and who would go +eastward had to take carriage, and go by the excellent road (all +public roads in the south of France are excellent, and equal to +our best English roads) over the high Landes to Tarbes; and on +again over fresh Landes to Montrejeau; and thence by railway to +Toulouse.</p> +<p>They are very dreary, these high flat uplands, from which +innumerable streams pour down to swell the Adour and the Garonne; +and as one rolls along, listening to the eternal tinkle of the +horse-bells, only two roadside objects are particularly worthy of +notice. First, the cultivation, spreading rapidly since the +Revolution, over what was open moor; and next the great natural +parks which one traverses here and there; the remnants of those +forests which were once sacred to the seigneurs and their field +sports. The seigneurs are gone now, and the game with them; +and the forests are almost gone—so ruinate, indeed, by the +peasantry, that the Government (I believe) has interfered to stop +a destruction of timber, which involves the destruction both of +fire-wood and of the annual fall of rain. But the trees +which remain, whether in forest or in homestead, are sadly +mangled. The winters are sharp in these high uplands, and +firing scarce; and the country method of obtaining it is to send +a woman up a tree, where she hacks off, with feeble arms and +feeble tools, boughs halfway out from the stem, disfiguring, and +in time destroying by letting the wet enter, splendid southern +oaks, chestnuts, and walnuts. Painful and hideous, to an +eye accustomed to British parks, are the forms of these once +noble trees.</p> +<p>Suddenly we descend a brow into the Yale of Tarbes: a good +land and large; a labyrinth of clear streams, water-meadows, +cherry-orchards, and crops of every kind, and in the midst the +pleasant old city, with its once famous University. Of +Tarbes, you may read in the pages of Froissart—or, if you +prefer a later authority, in those of Dumas, ‘Trois +Mousquetaires;’ for this is the native land of the immortal +Ulysses of Gascony, the Chevalier d’Artagnan.</p> +<p>There you may see, to your surprise, not only gentlemen, but +ladies, taking their pleasure on horseback after the English +fashion; for there is close by a great ‘haras,’ or +Government establishment for horse-breeding. You may watch +the quaint dresses in the marketplace; you may rest, as Froissart +rested of old, in a ‘right pleasant inn;’ you may eat +of the delicious cookery which is to be found, even in remote +towns, throughout the south of France, and even—if you +dare—of ‘Coquilles aux Champignons.’ You +may sit out after dinner in that delicious climate, listening to +the rush of the clear Adour through streets, and yards, and +culverts; for the city, like Romsey, or Salisbury, is built over +many streams. You may watch the Pyrenees changing from +white to rose, from rose to lead colour, and then dying away into +the night—for twilight there is little or none, here in the +far south.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The sun’s rim dips, the stars rush +out,<br /> +At one stride comes the dark.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And soon from street to street you hear the +‘clarion’ of the garrison, that singularly wild and +sweet trumpet-call which sends French soldiers to their +beds. And at that the whole populace swarms out, rich and +poor, and listens entranced beneath the trees in the Place +Maubourguet, as if they had never heard it before; with an order +and a sobriety, and a good humour, and a bowing to each other, +and asking and giving of cigar-lights between men of every +class—and a little quiet modest love-making on the +outskirts of the crowd, which is very pleasant to behold. +And when the music is silent, and the people go off suddenly, +silently, and soberly withal (for there are no drunkards in these +parts), to their early beds, you stand and look up into the +‘purple night,’ as Homer calls it—that southern +sky, intensely dark, and yet transparent withal, through which +you seem to look beyond the stars into the infinite itself, and +recollect that beyond all that, and through all that likewise, +there is an infinite good God who cares for all these simple +kindly folk; and that by Him all their hearts are as well known, +and all their infirmities as mercifully weighed, as are, you +trust, your own.</p> +<p>And so you go to rest, content to say, with the wise American, +‘It takes all sorts to make a world.’</p> +<p>The next morn you rise, to roll on over yet more weary uplands +to Montrejeau, over long miles of sandy heath, a magnified +Aldershott, which during certain summer months is gay, here and +there, like Aldershott, with the tents of an army at play. +But in spring the desolation is utter, and the loneliest +grouse-moor, and the boggiest burn, are more cheerful and varied +than the Landes of Lannemezan, and the foul streamlets which have +sawn gorges through the sandy waste.</p> +<p>But all the while, on your right hand, league after league, +ever fading into blue sky behind you, and growing afresh out of +blue sky in front, hangs high in air the white saw of the +Pyrenees. High, I say, in air, for the land slopes, or +seems to slope, down from you to the mountain range, and all +their roots are lost in a dim sea of purple haze. But shut +out the snow line above, and you will find that the seeming haze +is none, but really a clear and richly varied distance of hills, +and woods, and towns, which have become invisible from the +contrast of their greens, and greys, and purples, with the glare +and dazzle of the spotless snows of spring.</p> +<p>There they stand, one straight continuous jagged wall, of +which no one point seems higher than another. From the Pic +d’Ossau, by the Mont Perdu and the Maladetta to the Pic de +Lart, are peaks past counting—hard clear white against the +hard clear blue, and blazing with keen light beneath the high +southern sun. Each peak carries its little pet cushion of +cloud, hanging motionless a few hundred yards above in the blue +sky, a row of them as far as eye can see. But, ever and +anon, as afternoon draws on, one of those little clouds, seeming +tired of waiting at its post ever since sunrise, loses its +temper, boils, swells, settles down on its own private peak, and +explodes in a fierce thunderstorm down its own private valley, +without discomposing in the least its neighbour cloud-cushions +right and left. Faintly the roll of the thunder reaches the +ear. Across some great blackness of cloud and cliff, a tiny +spark darts down. A long wisp of mist sweeps rapidly toward +you across the lowlands, and a momentary brush of cold rain lays +the dust. And then the pageant is played out, and the +disturbed peak is left clear again in the blue sky for the rest +of the day, to gather another cloud-cushion when +to-morrow’s sun shall rise.</p> +<p>To him who looks, day after day, on this astonishing natural +wall, stretching, without visible gap, for nearly three hundred +miles, it is easy to see why France not only is, but must be, a +different world from Spain. Even human thought cannot, to +any useful extent, fly over that great wall of homeless rock and +snow. On the other side there must needs be another folk, +with another tongue, other manners, other polities, and if not +another creed, yet surely with other, and utterly different, +conceptions of the universe, and of man’s business +therein. Railroads may do somewhat. But what of one +railroad; or even of two, one on the ocean, one on the sea, two +hundred and seventy miles apart? Before French civilization +can inform and elevate the Spanish people you must ‘plane +down the Pyrenees.’</p> +<p>At Montrejeau, a pretty town upon a hill which overhangs the +Garonne, you find, again, verdure and a railroad; and, turning +your back upon the Pyrenees, run down the rich ugly vale of the +Garonne, through crops of exceeding richness—wheat, which +is reaped in July, to be followed by buckwheat reaped in October; +then by green crops to be cut in May, and that again by maize, to +be pulled in October, and followed by wheat and the same +rotation.</p> +<p>Thus you reach Toulouse, a noble city, of which it ill befits +a passer-through to speak. Volumes have been written on its +antiquities, and volumes on its history; and all of either that +my readers need know, they will find in Murray’s +hand-book.</p> +<p>At Toulouse—or rather on leaving it to go +eastward—you become aware that you have passed into a fresh +region. The change has been, of course, gradual: but it has +been concealed from you by passing over the chilly dreary uplands +of Lannemezan. Now you find yourself at once in +Languedoc. You have passed from the Atlantic region into +the Mediterranean; from the old highlands of the wild Vascones, +into those lowlands of Gallia Narbonensis, reaching from the +head-waters of the Garonne to the mouths of the Rhone, which were +said to be more Italian than Italy itself.</p> +<p>The peculiarity of the district is its gorgeous +colouring. Everywhere, over rich plains, you look away to +low craggy banks of limestone, the grey whereof contrasts +strongly with the green of the lowland, and with the even richer +green of the mulberry orchards; and beyond them again, southward +to the now distant snows of the Pyrenees, and northward to the +orange downs and purple glens of the Cevennes, all blazing in the +blazing sun. Green, grey, orange, purple, and, in the +farthest distance, blue as of the heaven itself, make the land +one vast rainbow, and fit dwelling-place for its sunny folk, +still happy and industrious—once the most cultivated and +luxurious people in Europe.</p> +<p>As for their industry, it is hereditary. These lands +were, it may be, as richly and carefully tilled in the days of +Augustus Cæsar as they are now; or rather, as they were at +the end of the eighteenth century. For, since then, the +delver and sower—for centuries the slave of the Roman, and, +for centuries after, the slave of Teutonic or Saracenic +conquerors—has become his own master, and his own landlord; +and an impulse has been given to industry, which is shown by trim +cottages, gay gardens, and fresh olive orchards, pushed up into +glens which in a state of nature would starve a goat.</p> +<p>The special culture of the country—more and more special +as we run eastward—is that of the mulberry, the almond, and +the olive. Along every hill-side, down every glen, lie +orchard-rows of the precious pollards. The mulberries are +of richest dark velvet green; the almonds, one glory of +rose-colour in early spring, are now of a paler and colder green; +the olives (as all the world knows) of a dusty grey, which looks +all the more desolate in the pruning time of early spring, when +half the boughs of the evergreen are cut out, leaving the trees +stripped as by a tempest, and are carried home for fire-wood in +the quaint little carts, with their solid creaking wheels, drawn +by dove-coloured kine. Very ancient are some of these +olives, or rather, olive-groups. For when the tree grows +old, it splits, and falls asunder, as do often our pollard +willows; the bark heals over on the inside of each fragment, and +what was one tree becomes many, springing from a single root, and +bearing such signs of exceeding age that one can well believe the +country tale, how in the olive grounds around Nismes are still +fruiting olives which have furnished oil for the fair Roman dames +who cooled themselves in the sacred fountain of Nemausa, in the +days of the twelve Cæsars.</p> +<p>Between the pollard rows are everywhere the rows of vines, or +of what will be vines when summer comes, but are now black +knobbed and gnarled clubs, without a sign of life save here and +there one fat green shoot of leaf and tendril bursting forth from +the seemingly dead stick.</p> +<p>One who sees that sight may find a new meaning and beauty in +the mystic words, ‘I am the vine, ye are the +branches.’ It is not merely the connection between +branch and stem, common to all trees; not merely the exhilarating +and seemingly inspiring properties of the grape, which made the +very heathens look upon it as the sacred and miraculous fruit, +the special gift of God; not merely the pruning out of the +unfruitful branches, to be burned as fire-wood, or—after +the old Roman fashion, which I believe endures still in these +parts—buried as manure at the foot of the parent stem; not +merely these, but the seeming death of the vine, shorn of all its +beauty, its fruitfulness, of every branch and twig which it had +borne the year before, and left unsightly and seemingly ruined, +to its winter’s sleep; and then bursting forth again, by an +irresistible inward life, into fresh branches spreading and +trailing far and wide, and tossing their golden tendrils to the +sun.</p> +<p>This thought, surely—the emblem of the living Church +springing from the corpse of the dead Christ, who yet should rise +and be alive for evermore—enters into, it may be forms an +integral part of, the meaning of, that prophecy of all +prophecies.</p> +<p>One ought to look, with something of filial reverence, on the +agriculture of the district into which we are penetrating; for it +is the parent of our own. From hence, or strictly speaking +from the Mediterranean shore beyond us, spread northward and +westward through France, Belgium, and Britain, all the tillage +which we knew—at least till a hundred years +ago—beyond the primæval plan of clearing, or +surface-burning, the forests, growing miserable white crops as +long as they would yield, and then letting the land relapse, for +twenty years, into miserable pasture. This process (which +lingered thirty years ago in remote parts of Devon), and nothing +better, seems to have been that change of cultivated lands which +Tacitus ascribes to the ancient Germans. Rotation of crops, +in any true sense, came to us from Provence and Languedoc; and +with it, subsoiling; irrigation; all our artificial grasses, with +lucerne at the head of the list; our peas and beans; some of our +most important roots; almost all our garden flowers, vegetables, +fruits, the fig, the mulberry, the vine—(the olive and the +maize came with them from the East, but dared go no further +north)—and I know not what more; till we may say, +that—saving subsoil-draining, which their climate does not +need—the ancestors of these good folks were better farmers +fifteen hundred years ago, than too many of our countrymen are at +this day.</p> +<p>So they toil, and thrive, and bless God, under the glorious +sun; and as for rain—they have not had rain for these two +months—(I speak of April, 1864)—and, though the white +limestone dust is ankle deep on every road, say that they want +none for two months more, thanks, it is to be presumed, to their +deep tillage, which puts the plant-roots out of the reach of +drought. In spring they feed their silkworms, and wind +their silk. In summer they reap their crops, and hang the +maize-heads from their rafters for their own winter food, while +they sell the wheat to the poor creatures, objects of their pity, +who live in towns, and are forced to eat white bread. From +spring to autumn they have fruit, and to spare, for themselves +and for their customers; and with the autumn comes the vintage, +and all its classic revelries. A happy folk—under a +happy clime; which yet has its drawbacks, like all climes on +earth. Terrible thunderstorms sweep over it, hail-laden, +killing, battering, drowning, destroying in an hour the labours +of the year; and there are ugly mistral winds likewise, of which +it may be fairly said, that he who can face an eight days’ +mistral, without finding his life a burden, must be either a very +valiant man, or have neither liver nor mucous membrane.</p> +<p>For on a sudden, after still and burning weather, the +thermometer suddenly falls from thirty to forty degrees; and out +of the north-west rushes a chilly hurricane, blowing fiercer and +fiercer each day toward nightfall, and lulling in the small +hours, only to burst forth again at sunrise. Parched are +all lips and eyes; for the air is full of dust, yea, even of +gravel which cuts like hail. Aching are all right-sides; +for the sudden chill brings on all manner of liver complaints and +indigestions. All who can afford it, draw tight the +jalousies, and sulk in darkness; the leaves are parched, as by an +Atlantic gale; the air is filled with lurid haze, as in an +English north-east wind; and no man can breathe freely, or eat +his bread with joy, until the plague is past.</p> +<p>What is the cause of these mistrals; why all the cold air of +Central France should be suddenly seized with madness, and rush +into the sea between the Alps and the Pyrenees; whether the great +heat of the sun, acting on the Mediterranean basin, raises up +thence—as from the Gulf of Mexico—columns of warm +light air, whose place has to be supplied by colder and heavier +air from inland; whether the north-west mistral is, or is not, a +diverted north-easter; an arctic current which, in its right road +toward the tropics across the centre of France, has been called +to the eastward of the Pyrenees (instead of, as usual, to the +westward), by the sudden demand for cold air,—all this let +men of science decide; and having discovered what causes the +mistral, discover also what will prevent it. That would be +indeed a triumph of science, and a boon to tortured humanity.</p> +<p>But after all, man is a worse enemy to man than any of the +brute forces of nature: and a more terrible scourge than mistral +or tempest swept over this land six hundred years ago, when it +was, perhaps, the happiest and the most civilized portion of +Europe. This was the scene of the Albigense Crusade: a +tragedy of which the true history will never, perhaps, be +written. It was not merely a persecution of real or +supposed heretics; it was a national war, embittered by the +ancient jealousies of race, between the Frank aristocracy of the +north and the Gothic aristocracy of the south, who had perhaps +acquired, with their half-Roman, half-Saracen civilization, +mixtures both of Roman and of Saracen blood. As +“Aquitanians,” +“Provençaux,”—Roman Provincials, as they +proudly called themselves, speaking the Langue d’Oc, and +looking down on the northerners who spoke the Langue d’Oil +as barbarians, they were in those days guilty of the capital +crime of being foreigners; and as foreigners they were +exterminated. What their religious tenets were, we shall +never know. With the Vaudois, Waldenses, “poor men of +Lyons,” they must not be for a moment confounded. +Their creed remains to us only in the calumnies of their +enemies. The confessions in the archives of the Tolosan +Inquisition, as elicited either under torture or fear of torture, +deserve no confidence whatsoever. And as for the +licentiousness of their poetry—which has been alleged as +proof of their profligacy—I can only say, that it is no +more licentious than the <i>fabliaux</i> of their French +conquerors, while it is far more delicate and refined. +Humanity, at least, has done justice to the Troubadours of the +south; and confessed, even in the Middle Age, that to them the +races of the north owed grace of expression, delicacy of +sentiment, and that respect for women which soon was named +chivalry; which looks on woman, not with suspicion and contempt, +but with trust and adoration; and is not ashamed to obey her as +“mistress,” instead of treating her as a slave.</p> +<p>But these Albigenses must have had something in their hearts +for which it was worth while to die. At Aviguonet, that +little grey town on the crag above the railway, they burst into +the place, maddened by the cruelties of the Inquisitor (an +archdeacon, if I recollect rightly, from Toulouse), and slew him +then and there. They were shut up in the town, and +withstood heroically a long and miserable siege. At last +they were starved out. The conquerors offered them their +lives—so say the French stories—if they would +recant. But they would not. They were thrust together +into one of those stone-walled enclosures below the town, heaped +over with vine-twigs and maize-stalks, and burned alive; and +among them a young lady of the highest rank, who had passed +through all the horrors of the siege, and was offered life, +wealth, and honour, if she would turn.</p> +<p>Surely profligate infidels do not so die; and these poor +souls, whatever were their sins or their confusions, must be +numbered among the heroes of the human race.</p> +<p>But the world has mended since then, and so has the French +character. Even before the Revolution of 1793, it was +softening fast. The massacres of 1562 were not as horrible +as those of the Albigense Crusade, though committed—which +the former were not—under severe provocation. The +massacres of 1793—in spite of all that has been +said—were far less horrible than those of 1562, though they +were the outpouring of centuries of pardonable fury and +indignation. The crimes of the Terreur Blanche, at the +Restoration—though ugly things were done in the south, +especially in Nismes—were far less horrible again; though +they were, for the most part, acts of direct personal retaliation +on the republicans of 1793. And since then the French heart +has softened fast. The irritating sense of hereditary wrong +has passed away. The Frenchman conceives that justice is +done to him, according to his own notions thereof. He has +his share of the soil, without which no Celtic populace will ever +be content. He has fair play in the battle of life; and a +‘Carrière ouverte aux talens.’ He has +equal law and justice between man and man. And he is +content; and under the sunshine of contentment and self-respect, +his native good-nature expands; and he shows himself what he is, +not merely a valiant and capable, but an honest, kindly, +charitable man.</p> +<p>Yes. France has grown better, and has been growing +better, I believe, for centuries past. And the difference +between the France of the middle age and the France of the +present day, is fitly typified by the difference between the new +Carcassone below and the old Carcassone above, where every +traveller, even if he be no antiquarian, should stop and gaze +about a while.</p> +<p>The contrast is complete; and one for which a man who loves +his fellow-men should surely return devout thanks to Almighty +God. Below, on the west bank of the river, is the new town, +spreading and growing, unwalled, for its fortifications are now +replaced by boulevards and avenues; full of handsome houses; +squares where, beneath the plane-tree shade, marble fountains +pour out perpetual health and coolness; manufactories of gay +woollens; healthy, cheerful, market folk; comfortable burghers; +industry and peace. We pass outside to the great basin of +the Canal de Languedoc, and get more avenues of stately trees, +and among them the red marble statue of Riquet, whose genius +planned and carried out the mighty canal which joins the ocean to +the sea; the wonder of its day, which proved the French to be, at +least in the eighteenth century, the master-engineers of the +world; the only people who still inherited the mechanical skill +and daring of their Roman civilizers. Riquet bore the +labour of that canal—and the calumny and obstructiveness, +too, which tried to prevent its formation; France bore the +expense; Louis Quatorze, of course, the glory; and no one, it is +to be feared, the profit: for the navigation of the Garonne at +the one extremity, and of the Mediterranean shallows at the +other, were left unimproved till of late years, and the canal has +become practically useful only just in time to be superseded by +the railroads.</p> +<p>Now cross the Aude. Look down upon the willow and aspen +copses, where over the heads of busy washerwomen, the nightingale +and the hippolais crowded together away from the dusty plains and +downs, shake the copses with their song; and then toil upward to +the grey fortress tower on the grey limestone knoll; and pass, +out of nature and her pure sunshine, into the black shadow of the +unnatural Middle Age; into the region of dirt and darkness, +cruelty and fear; grim fortresses, crowded houses, narrow +streets, and pestilence. Pass through the outer circle of +walls, of the latter part of the thirteenth century, to +examine—for their architecture is a whole history engraved +in stones—the ancient walls of the inner enceinte; massive +Roman below, patched with striped Visigothic work, with mean and +hasty Moorish, with graceful, though heavy, Romanesque of the +times of the Troubadours; a whole museum of ancient +fortifications, which has been restored, stone by stone, through +the learning of M. Viollet le Duc and the public spirit of the +late Emperor. Pass in under the gateway and give yourself +up to legends. There grins down on you the broad image of +the mythic Dame Carcas, who defended the town single-handed +against Charlemagne, till this tower fell down by miracle, and +let in the Christian host. But do not believe that she gave +to the place its name of Carcassone; for the first syllable of +the word is hint enough that it was, long ere her days, a Celtic +caer, or hill-fortress. Pause at the inner gate; you need +not exactly believe that when the English Crusader, Simon de +Montfort, burst it open, and behold, the town within was empty +and desolate, he cried: ‘Did I not tell you that those +heretics were devils; and behold, being devils, they have +vanished into air.’ You must believe, I fear, that of +the great multitude who had been crowded, starving, and +fever-stricken within, he found four hundred poor wretches who +had lingered behind, and burnt them all alive. You need not +believe that that is the mouth of the underground passage which +runs all the way from the distant hills, through which the +Vicomte de Beziers, after telling Simon de Montfort and the Abbot +of Citeaux that he would sooner be flayed alive than betray the +poor folk who had taken refuge with him, got them all safe away, +men, women, and children. You need not believe that that +great vaulted chamber was the ‘Chamber of the +Inquisition.’ But you must believe that those two +ugly rings let into the roof were put there for the torture of +the cord; and that many a naked wretch has dangled from them ere +now, confessing anything and everything that he—or, alas +she—was bidden. But these and their like are the +usual furniture of every mediæval court of justice; and +torture was not altogether abolished in France till the latter +part of the eighteenth century. You need not believe, +again, that that circular tower on the opposite side of the town +was really the ‘Tower of the Inquisition;’ for many a +feudal lord, besides the Inquisitors, had their dens of cruelty +in those old times. You need not even believe—though +it is too likely to be true—that that great fireplace in +the little first-floor room served for the torture of the +scarpines. But you must believe that in that little round +den beneath it, only approached by a trap in the floor, two +skeletons were found fastened by those chains to that central +pillar, having died and rotted forgotten in that horrid +oubliette—how many centuries ago?</p> +<p>‘Plusieurs ont gemis là bas,’ said M. +Viollet le Duc’s foreman of the works, as he led us out of +that evil hole, to look, with eyes and hearts refreshed by the +change, at a curious Visigothic tower, in which the good bishop +Sidonius Apollinaris may have told of the last Burgundian +invasion of his Auvergne to the good king Theodoric of the West +Goths.</p> +<p>If anyone wishes to learn what the Middle Ages were like, let +him go to Carcassone and see.</p> +<p>And now onward to Narbonne—or rather, to what was once +Narbonne; one of the earliest colonies ever founded by the +Romans; then the capital of the Visigothic kingdom; then of an +Arab kingdom: now a dull fortified town—of a filth +unspeakable, and not to be forgotten or forgiven. Stay not +therein an hour, lest you take fever, or worse: but come out of +the gate over the drawbridge, and stroll down the canal. +Look back a moment, though, across the ditch. The whole +face of the wall is a museum of Roman gods, tombs, inscriptions, +bas-reliefs: the wreck of Martial’s ‘Pulcherrima +Narbo,’ the old Roman city, which was demolished by Louis +XIII., to build the ugly fortifications of the then new fashion, +now antiquated and useless. Take one glance, and walk on, +to look at live Nature—far more interesting than dead +Art.</p> +<p>Everything fattens in the close damp air of the canal. +The great flat, with its heavy crops, puts you in mind of the +richest English lowland—save for the total want of old +meadows. The weeds on the bank are English in type, only +larger and richer—as becomes the climate. But as you +look among them, you see forms utterly new and strange, whose +kinship you cannot fancy, but which remind you that you are +nearing Italy, and Greece, and Africa. And in the hedges +are great bay-trees; and inside them, orchards of standard fig +and white mulberry, with its long yearling shoots of glorious +green—soon to be stripped bare for the silkworms; and here +and there long lines of cypresses, black against the bright green +plain and bright blue sky. No; you are not in +Britain. Certainly not; for there is a drake (not a duck) +quacking with feeble treble in that cypress, six feet over your +head; and in Britain drakes do not live in trees. You look +for the climbing palmipede, and see nothing: nor will you see; +for the quacker is a tiny green tree-frog, who holds on by the +suckers at the ends of his toes (with which he can climb a pane +of glass, like a fly), and has learnt the squirrel’s art of +going invisible, without ‘the receipt of fern-seed,’ +by simply keeping always on the further side of the branch.</p> +<p>But come back; for the air even here is suggestive of cholera +and fever. The uncleanliness of these Narbonnois is +shameless and shocking; and ‘immondices’ of every +kind lie festering in the rainless heat. The sickened +botanist retreats, and buys a bottle of Eau +Bully—<i>alias</i> aromatic vinegar.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>There, crowding yon hill, with handsome houses and churches, +is Beziers—the blood-stained city. Beneath the +pavement of that church, it is said, lie heaped together the +remains of thousands of men, women, and children, slaughtered +around their own altars, on that fatal day, when the Legate +Amalric, asked by the knights how they should tell Catholics from +heretics, cried, “Kill them all—the Lord will know +his own.”</p> +<p>We will pass on. We have had enough of horrors. +And, beside, we are longing to hurry onward; for we are nearing +the Mediterranean now. There are small skiffs lying under +the dark tower of Agde, another place of blood, fitly built of +black lava blocks, the offspring of the nether pit. The +railway cuts through rolling banks of dark lava; and now, ahead +of us, is the conical lava-hill of Cette, and the mouth of the +Canal du Midi.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>There it is, at last. The long line of heavenly blue; +and over it, far away, the white-peaked lateen sails, which we +have seen in pictures since our childhood; and there, close to +the rail, beyond the sand-hills, delicate wavelets are breaking +for ever on a yellow beach, each in exactly the same place as the +one which fell before. One glance shows us children of the +Atlantic, that we are on a tideless sea.</p> +<p>There it is,—the sacred sea. The sea of all +civilization, and almost all history, girdled by the fairest +countries in the world; set there that human beings from all its +shores might mingle with each other, and become humane—the +sea of Egypt, of Palestine, of Greece, of Italy, of Byzant, of +Marseilles, and this Narbonnaise, ‘more Roman than Rome +herself,’ to which we owe the greater part of our own +progress; the sea, too, Algeria and Carthage, and Cyrene, and +fair lands now desolate, surely not to be desolate for +ever;—the sea of civilization. Not only to the +Christian, nor to the classic scholar, but to every man to whom +the progress of his race from barbarism toward humanity is dear, +should the Mediterranean Sea be one of the most august and +precious objects on this globe; and the first sight of it should +inspire reverence and delight, as of coming home—home to a +rich inheritance in which he has long believed by hearsay, but +which he sees at last with his own mortal corporal eyes.</p> +<p>Exceedingly beautiful is that first view of the sea from +Cette, though altogether different in character from the views of +the Mediterranean which are common in every gallery of +pictures. There is nothing to remind one of Claude, or +Vernet, or Stanfield. No mountain-ranges far aloft, no +cliffs toppling into the water, with convents and bastides +perched on their crags; and seaports, with their land-locked +harbours, and quaint lighthouses, nestling on the brink. +That scenery begins on the other side of the Rhone mouth, and +continues, I believe, almost without interruption, to the shores +of Southern Palestine, one girdle of perpetual beauty.</p> +<p>But here, the rail runs along a narrow strip of sand, covered +with straggling vines, and tall white iris, between the sea and +the great Etang de Thau, a long narrow salt-lake, beyond which +the wide lowlands of the Herault slide gently down, There is not +a mountain, hardly a hill, visible for miles: but all around is +the great sheet of blue glassy water: while the air is as glassy +clear as the water, and through it, at seemingly immense +distances, the land shows purple and orange, blue and grey, till +the landscape is one great rainbow. White ships slide to +and from far-off towns; fishermen lounge on the marshes, drying +long lines of net. Everywhere is vastness, freedom, repose +gentle and yet not melancholy; because with all, under the +burning blue, there is that fresh wholesome heat, which in itself +is life, and youth, and joy.</p> +<p>Beyond, nearer the mouths of the Rhone, there are, so men say, +desolate marshes, tenanted by herds of half-wild horses; foul +mud-banks, haunted by the pelican and the flamingo, and waders +from the African shore; a region half land, half water, where +dwell savage folk, decimated by fever and ague. But short +of those Bouches du Rhône, the railway turns to the north, +toward Montpellier and</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">‘Arli, dove il +Rhodano stagna.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And at Cette ends this little tour from Ocean to Sea, with the +wish that he who next travels that way may have as glorious +weather, and as agreeable a companion, as the writer of these +lines had in 1864.</p> +<h2><a name="page223"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +223</span>VI.<br /> +<a name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 225</span><i>NORTH +DEVON</i>. <a name="citation225a"></a><a href="#footnote225a" +class="citation">[225a]</a></h2> +<h3>I.—<span class="smcap">Exmoor</span>.</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">We</span> were riding up from Lynmouth, on +a pair of ragged ponies, Claude Mellot and I, along the gorge of +Watersmeet. And as we went we talked of many things; and +especially of some sporting book which we had found at the +Lyndale Hotel the night before, and which we had not by any means +admired. <a name="citation225b"></a><a href="#footnote225b" +class="citation">[225b]</a> I do not object to sporting +books in general, least of all to one on Exmoor. No place +in England is more worthy of one. There is no place whose +beauties and peculiarities are more likely to be thrown into +strong relief by being looked at with a sportsman’s +eye. It is so with all forests and moorlands. The +spirit of Robin Hood and Johnny of Breadislee is theirs. +They are remnants of the home of man’s fierce youth, still +consecrated to the genius of animal excitement and savage +freedom; after all, not the most ignoble qualities of human +nature. Besides, there is no better method of giving a +living picture of a whole country than by taking some one feature +of it as a guide, and bringing all other observations into +harmony with that original key. Even in merely scientific +books this is very possible. Look, for instance, at Hugh +Miller’s ‘Old Red Sandstone,’ ‘The Voyage +of the Beagle,’ and Professor Forbes’s work (we had +almost said epic poem) on ‘Glaciers.’ Even an +agricultural writer, if he have a real insight in him—if he +have anything of that secret of the <i>più nel’ +uno</i>, ‘the power of discovering the infinite in the +finite;’ of seeing, like a poet, trivial phenomena in their +true relation to the whole of the great universe into which they +are so cunningly fitted; if he has learned to look at all things +and men, down to the meanest, as living lessons written with the +finger of God; if, in short, he has any true dramatic power: then +he may impart to that apparently muddiest of sciences a poetic or +a humorous tone, and give the lie to Mephistopheles when he +dissuades Faust from farming as an occupation too mean and filthy +for a man of genius. The poetry of agriculture remains as +yet, no doubt, unwritten, and the comedy of it also; though its +farce-tragedy has been too often extensively enacted in +practice—unconsciously to the players. As for the old +‘pastoral’ school, it only flourished before +agriculture really existed—that is, before sound science, +hard labour, and economy were necessary—and has been for +the last two hundred years simply a dream. Nevertheless, as +signs of what may be done even now by a genial man with so +stubborn a subject as ‘turnips, barley, clover, +wheat,’ it is worth while to look at old Arthur +Young’s books, both travels and treatises; and also at +certain very spirited ‘Chronicles of a Clay Farm,’ by +Talpa, which teem with humour and wisdom.</p> +<p>In sporting literature—a tenth muse, exclusively +indigenous to England—the same observation holds good +tenfold. Some of our most perfect topographical sketches +have been the work of sportsmen. Old Izaak Walton, and his +friend Cotton, of Dovedale, whose names will last as long as +their rivers, have been followed by a long train of worthy +pupils. White’s ‘History of Selborne;’ +Sir Humphry Davy’s ‘Salmonia;’ ‘The Wild +Sports of the West;’ Mr. St. John’s charming little +works on Highland Shooting; and, above all, Christopher +North’s ‘Recreations’—delightful book! to +be read and re-read, the tenth time even as the first—an +inexhaustible fairy well, springing out of the granite rock of +the sturdy Scotch heart, through the tender green turf of a +genial boyish old age. Sporting books, when they are not +filled—as they need never be—with low slang, and ugly +sketches of ugly characters—who hang on to the skirts of +the sporting world, as they would to the skirts of any other +world, in default of the sporting one—form an integral and +significant, and, it may be, an honourable and useful part, of +the English literature of this day; and, therefore, all +shallowness, vulgarity, stupidity, or bookmaking in that class, +must be as severely attacked as in novels and poems. We +English owe too much to our field sports to allow people to talk +nonsense about them.</p> +<p>Claude smiled at some such words of mine that day. +‘You talk often of the poetry of sport. I can see +nothing in it but animal excitement, and a certain quantity, I +suppose, of that animal cunning which the Red Indian possesses in +common with the wolf and the cat, and any other beast of +prey. As a fact, the majority of sportsmen are of the most +unpoetical type of manhood.’</p> +<p>‘More unpoetical than the average man of business, or +man of law, Claude? Or even than the average +preacher? I believe, on the contrary, that for most of them +it is sport which at once keeps alive and satisfies what you +would call their æsthetic faculties, and so—smile if +you will—helps to make them purer, simpler, more genial +men.’</p> +<p>‘Little enough of æsthetic appears either in their +conversation or their writing.’</p> +<p>‘Esau is a dumb soul, especially here in England; but he +has as deep a heart in him as Jacob, nevertheless, and as +tender. Do you fancy that the gentleman over whose book we +were grumbling last night, attached no more to his own simple +words than you do? His account of a stag’s run looks +bald enough to you: but to him (unless Diana struck him blind for +intruding on her privacy) what a whole poem of memories there +must be in those few words,—“Turned down * * Water +for a mile, and crossed the forest to Watersmeet, where he was +run into after a gallant race.”’</p> +<p>‘A whole poem?’</p> +<p>‘Why not? How can there be less, if he had eyes to +see?’</p> +<p>‘Does he fancy that it is an account of a run to tell us +that “Found at * * * * cover, held away at a slapping pace +for * * * * Barn, then turned down the * * * Water for a mile, +and crossed the Forest; made for * * * Hill, but being headed, +went by ** ** woods to D * * * where he was run into after a +gallant race of * * * * hours and * * * *miles”? It +is nearly as dull as a history book!’</p> +<p>‘Nay, I never rode with those staghounds: and yet I can +fill up his outline for him, wherever the stag was roused. +Do you think that he never marked how the panting cavalcade rose +and fell on the huge mile-long waves of that vast heather sea; +how one long brown hill after another sunk down, greyer and +greyer, behind them, and one long grey hill after another swelled +up browner and browner before them; and how the sandstone rattled +and flew beneath their feet, as the great horses, like +Homer’s of old, “devoured up the plain;” and +how they struggled down the hill-side, through bushes and rocks, +and broad slipping rattling sheets of screes, and saw beneath +them stag and pack galloping down the shallow glittering +river-bed, throwing up the shingle, striking out the water in +long glistening sheets; and how they too swept after them, down +the flat valley, rounding crag and headland, which opened one +after another in interminable vista, along the narrow strip of +sand and rushes, speckled with stunted, moss-bearded, +heather-bedded hawthorns, between the great grim lifeless +mountain walls? Did he feel no pleasant creeping of the +flesh that day at the sound of his own horse-hoofs, as they swept +through the long ling with a sound as soft as the brushing of a +woman’s tresses, and then rang down on the spongy, black, +reverberating soil, chipping the honey-laden fragrant heather +blossoms, and tossing them out in a rosy shower? Or, if +that were really too slight a thing for the observation of an +average sportsman, surely he must recollect the dying away of the +hounds’ voices, as the woodland passes engulfed them, +whether it were Brendon or at Badger-worthy, or any other place; +how they brushed through the narrow forest paths, where the ashes +were already golden, while the oaks still kept their sombre +green, and the red leaves and berries of the mountain-ash showed +bright beneath the dark forest aisles; and how all of a sudden +the wild outcry before them seemed to stop and concentrate, +thrown back, louder and louder as they rode, off the same echoing +crag; till at a sudden turn of the road there stood the stag +beneath them in the stream, his back against the black rock with +its green cushions of dripping velvet, knee-deep in the clear +amber water, the hounds around him, some struggling and swimming +in the deep pool, some rolling and tossing and splashing in a +mad, half-terrified ring, as he reared into the air on his great +haunches, with the sparkling beads running off his red mane, and +dropping on his knees, plunged his antlers down among them, with +blows which would have each brought certain death with it if the +yielding water had not broken the shock. Do you think that +he does not remember the death? The huge carcass dragged +out of the stream, followed by dripping, panting dogs; the +blowing of the mort, and the last wild halloo, when the horn-note +and the voices rang through the autumn woods, and rolled up the +smooth flat mountain sides; and Brendon answered Countisbury, and +Countisbury sent it on to Lynmouth hills, till it swept out of +the gorge and died away upon the Severn sea? And then, does +he not remember the pause, and the revulsion, and the feeling of +sadness and littleness, almost of shame, as he looked up for the +first time—one can pardon his not having done so +before—and saw where he was, and the beauty of the +hill-sides, with the lazy autumn clouds crawling about their +tops, and the great sheets of screes, glaciers of stone covering +acres and acres of the smooth hill-side, eating far into the +woods below, bowing down the oak scrubs with their weight, and +the circular sweeps of down, flecked with innumerable dark spots +of gorse, each of them guarded where they open into the river +chasm by two fortresses of “giant-snouted +crags,”—delicate pink and grey sandstone, from which +blocks and crumbling boulders have been toppling slowly down for +ages, beneath the frost and the whirlwind, and now lie in long +downward streams upon the slope, as if the mountain had been +weeping tears of stone? And then, as the last notes of the +mort had died away, did not there come over him an awe at the +silence of the woods, not broken, but deepened, by the unvarying +monotone of the roaring stream beneath, which flashed and +glittered, half-hidden in the dark chasm, in clear brown pools +reflecting every leaf and twig, in boiling pits and walls of +foam, ever changing, and yet for ever the fleeting on past the +poor dead reeking stag and the silent hounds lying about on the +moss-embroidered stones, their lolling tongues showing like +bright crimson sparkles in the deep rich Venetian air of the +green sombre shades; while the startled water-ousel, with his +white breast, flitted a few yards and stopped to stare from a +rock’s point at the strange intruders; and a single +stock-dove, out of the bosom of the wood, began calling sadly and +softly, with a dreamy peaceful moan? Did he not see and +hear all this, for surely it was there to see and +hear?’</p> +<p>‘Not he. The eye only sees that which it brings +within the power of seeing; and all I shall say of him is, that a +certain apparition in white leathers was at one period of its +appearance dimly conscious of equestrian motion towards a certain +brown two-horned phenomenon, and other spotted phenomena, at +which he had been taught by habit to make the articulate noises +“stag” and “hounds,” among certain grey, +and green, and brown phenomena, at which the same habit and the +example of his fellows had taught him to say, “Rock, and +wood, and mountain,” and perhaps the further noises of +“Lovely, splendid, majestic.”’</p> +<p>‘As usual, sir! You dwellers in Babylon fancy that +you have the monopoly of all the intellect, and all the taste, +because you earn your livings by talking about pretty things, and +painting pretty things: little do you suspect, shut up together +in your little literary worlds, and your artistic worlds, how +many thousands of us outside barbarians there are who see as +clearly, and enjoy as deeply as you do: but hold their tongues +about their own feelings, simply because they have never been +driven by emptiness of pocket to look round for methods of +expressing them. And, after all—how much of nature +can you express? You confest yourself yesterday baffled by +all the magnificence around you.’</p> +<p>‘Yes! to paint it worthily one would require to be a +Turner, a Copley Fielding, and a Creswick, all in one.’</p> +<p>‘And did you ever remark how such scenes as this gorge +of the “Watersmeet” stir up a feeling of shame, +almost of peevishness, before the sense of a mysterious meaning +which we ought to understand and cannot?’</p> +<p>He smiled.</p> +<p>‘Our torments do by length of time become our elements; +and painful as that sensation is to the earnest artist, he will +feel it, I fancy, at last sublime itself into an habitually +gentle, reverent, almost melancholy tone of mind, as of a man +bearing the burden of an infinite and wonderful message which his +own frivolity and laziness hinder him from speaking +out.’</p> +<p>‘Then it should beget in him, too, something of merciful +indulgence towards the seeming stupidity of those who see, after +all, only a very little shallower than he does into the +unfathomable depths of nature.’</p> +<p>‘Well, sporting books and sportsmen seem to me, by their +very object, not to be worth troubling our heads about. Out +of nothing, comes nothing. See, my hands are as soft as any +lady’s in Belgravia. I could not, to save my life, +lift a hundredweight a foot off the ground; while you have been a +wild man of the woods, a leaper of ditches, a rower of races, and +a wanton destroyer of all animal life: and yet—’</p> +<p>‘You would hint politely that you are as open as me to +all noble, and chivalrous, and truly manly emotions?’</p> +<p>‘What think you?’</p> +<p>‘That you are far worthier in such matters than I, +friend. But do not forget that it may be your intellect, +and your profession—in one word, Heaven’s +mercy—which have steered you clear of shoals upon which you +will find the mass of our class founder. Woe to the class +or the nation which has no manly physical training! Look at +the manners, the morals, the faces of the young men of the +shopkeeping classes, if you wish to see the effects of utterly +neglecting the physical development of man; <a +name="citation235"></a><a href="#footnote235" +class="citation">[235]</a> of fancying that all the muscular +activity he requires under the sun is to be able to stand behind +a counter, or sit on a desk-stool without tumbling off. Be +sure, be sure, that ever since the days of the Persians of old, +effeminacy, if not twin-sister of cowardice and dishonesty, has +always gone hand in hand with them. To that utter neglect +of any exercises which call out fortitude, patience, +self-dependence, and daring, I attribute a great deal of the low +sensuality, the conceited vulgarity, the want of a high sense of +honour, which is increasing just now among the middle classes; +and from which the navigator, the engineer, the miner, and the +sailor are comparatively free.’</p> +<p>‘And perhaps, too, that similar want of a high sense of +honour, which seems, from the religious periodicals, to pervade a +large proportion of a certain more venerable +profession?’</p> +<p>‘Seriously, Claude, I believe you are not far +wrong. But we are getting on delicate ground there: however +I have always found, that of whatever profession he may +be—to travestie Shakspeare’s words,—</p> +<blockquote><p>“The man that hath not sporting in his +soul,<br /> +Is fit for treason’s direst stratagems”—</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and so forth.’</p> +<p>‘Civil to me!’</p> +<p>‘Oh, you have a sporting soul in you, like hundreds of +other Englishmen who never handled rod or gun; or you would not +be steering for Exmoor to-day. If a lad be a genius, you +may trust him to find some original means for developing his +manly energies, whether in art, agriculture, science, or travels, +discovery, and commerce. But if he be not, as there are a +thousand chances to one he will not be, then whatever you teach +him, let the two first things be, as they were with the old +Persians, “To speak the truth, and to draw the +bow.”’</p> +<p>By this time we had reached the stream, just clearing from the +last night’s showers. A long transparent amber +shallow, dimpled with fleeting silver rings by rising trout; a +low cascade of green-veined snow; a deep dark pool of swirling +orange-brown, walled in with heathery rocks, and paved with +sandstone slabs and boulders, distorted by the changing +refractions of the eddies,—sight delicious to the +angler.</p> +<p>I commenced my sport at once, while Claude wandered up the +glen to sketch a knoll of crags, on which a half-wild moorland +pony, the only living thing in sight, stood staring and snuffing +at the intruder, his long mane and tail streaming out wildly +against the sky.</p> +<p>I had fished on for some hour or two; Claude had long since +disappeared among the hills; I fancied myself miles from any +human being, when a voice at my elbow startled me:—</p> +<p>‘A bleak place for fishing this, sir!’</p> +<p>I turned; it was an old grey-whiskered labouring man, with +pick and spade on shoulder, who had crept on me unawares beneath +the wall of the neighbouring deer-cover. Keen honest eyes +gleamed out from his brown, scarred, weather-beaten face; and as +he settled himself against a rock with the deliberate intention +of a chat, I commenced by asking after the landlord of those +parts, well known and honoured both by sportsman and by +farmer.</p> +<p>‘He was gone to Malta—a warmer place that than +Exmoor.’</p> +<p>‘What! have you been in Malta?’</p> +<p>Yes, he had been in Malta, and in stranger places yet. +He had been a sailor: he had seen the landing in Egypt, and heard +the French cannon thundering vainly from the sand-hills on the +English boats. He had himself helped to lift Abercrombie up +the ship’s side to the death-bed of the brave. He had +seen Caraccioli hanging at his own yard-arm, and heard (so he +said, I know not how correctly) Lady Hamilton order out the barge +herself, and row round the frigate of the murdered man, to glut +her eyes with her revenge. He had seen, too, the ghastly +corpse floating upright, when Nelson and the enchantress met +their victim, returned from the sea-depths to stare at them, as +Banquo’s ghost upon Macbeth. But she was ‘a +mortal fine woman, was Lady Hamilton, though she was a queer one, +and cruel kind to the sailors; and many a man she saved from +flogging; and one from hanging, too; that was a marine that got +a-stealing; for Nelson, though he was kind enough, yet it was a +word and a blow with him; and quite right he, sir; for there be +such rascals on board ship, that if you ain’t as sharp with +them as with wild beastesses, no man’s life, nor the +ship’s neither, would be worth a day’s +purchase.’</p> +<p>So he, with his simple straightforward notions of right and +wrong worth, much maudlin unmerciful indulgence which we hear in +these days: and yet not going to the bottom of the matter either, +as we shall see in the next war. But, rambling on, he told +me how he had come home, war-worn and crippled, to marry a wife +and get tall sons, and lay his bones in his native village; till +which time (for death to the aged poor man is a Sabbath, of which +he talks freely, calmly, even joyously) ‘he just got his +bread, by the squire’s kindness, patching and mending at +the stone deer-fences.’</p> +<p>I gave him something to buy tobacco, and watched him as he +crawled away, with a sort of stunned surprise. And he had +actually seen Nelson sit by Lady Hamilton! It was so +strange, to have that gay Italian bay, with all its +memories,—the orgies of Baiæ, and the unburied wrecks +of ancient towns, with the smoking crater far above; and the +world-famous Nile-mouths and those great old wars, big with the +destinies of the world; and those great old heroes, with their +awful deeds for good and evil, all brought so suddenly and +livingly before me, up there in the desolate moorland, where the +deer, and birds, and heath, and rushes were even as they had been +from the beginning. Like Wordsworth with his Leech-Gatherer +(a poem which I, in spite of laughter, must rank among his very +highest),—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘While he was talking thus, the lonely +place,<br /> +The old man’s shape, and speech—all troubled me;<br +/> +In my mind’s eye I seemed to see him pace<br /> +About the weary moors continually,<br /> +Wandering about alone and silently.<br /> +. . . and when he ended,<br /> +I could have laughed myself to scorn to find<br /> +In that decrepit man so firm a mind.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Just then I heard a rustle, and turning, saw Claude toiling +down to me over the hill-side. He joined me, footsore and +weary, but in great excitement; for the first minute or two he +could not speak, and at last,—</p> +<p>‘Oh, I have seen such a sight!—but I will tell you +how it all was. After I left you I met a keeper. He +spoke civilly to me—you know my antipathy to game and those +who live thereby: but there was a wild, bold, self-helping look +about him and his gun alone there in the waste—and after +all he was a man and a brother. Well, we fell into talk, +and fraternized; and at last he offered to take me to a +neighbouring hill and show me “sixty head of red-deer all +together;” and as he spoke he looked quite proud of his +words. “I was lucky,” he said, “to come +just then, for the stags had all just got their heads +again.” At which speech I wondered; but was silent, +and followed him, I, Claude the Cockney, such a walk as I shall +never take again. Behold these trousers—behold these +hands! scratched to pieces by crawling on all-fours through the +heather. But I saw them.’</p> +<p>‘A sight worth many pairs of plaid trousers?’</p> +<p>‘Worth Saint Chrysostom’s seven years’ +nakedness on all-fours! And so I told the fellow, who by +some cunning calculations about wind, and sun, and so forth, +which he imparted to my uncomprehending ears, brought me suddenly +to the top of a little crag, below which, some hundred yards off, +the whole herd stood, stags, hinds—but I can’t +describe them. I have not brought away a scrap of sketch, +though we watched them full ten minutes undiscovered; and then +the stare, and the toss of those antlers, and the rush! +That broke the spell with me; for I had been staring stupidly at +them, trying in vain to take in the sight, with the strangest new +excitement heaving and boiling up in my throat; and at the sound +of their hoofs on the turf I woke, and found the keeper staring, +not at them, but at me, who, I verily believe, had something very +like a tear in these excitable eyes of mine.’</p> +<p>‘“Ain’t you well, sir?” said he. +“You needn’t be afeard; it’s only at the fall +of the year the stags is wicked.”</p> +<p>‘I don’t know what I answered at first; but the +fellow understood me when I shook his hand frantically, and told +him that I should thank him to the last day of my life, and that +I would not have missed it for a thousand pounds. In +part-proof whereof I gave him a sovereign on the spot, which +seemed to clear my character in his eyes as much as the crying at +the sight of a herd of deer had mystified it.’</p> +<p>‘Claude, well-beloved,’ said I, ‘will you +ever speak contemptuously of sportsmen any more?’</p> +<p>‘“Do manus,” I have been vilifying them, as +one does most things in the world, only for want of understanding +them. How shall I do penance? Go and take service +with Edwin Landseer, as pupil, colour-grinder, +footboy?’</p> +<p>‘You will then be very near to a very great poet,’ +quoth I, ‘and one whose works will become, as centuries +roll on, more and more valuable to art and to science, and, +possibly, to something higher than either.’</p> +<p>‘I begin to guess your meaning,’ answered +Claude.</p> +<p>‘So we lounged, and dreamt, and fished, in heathery +Highland,’ as Mr. Clough would say, while the summer snipes +flitted whistling up the shallow before us, and the soft, +south-eastern clouds slid lazily across the sun, and the little +trout snapped and dimpled at a tiny partridge hackle, with a +twist of orange silk, whose elegance for shape and colour +reconciled Claude’s heart somewhat to my everlasting +whipping of the water. When as last:—</p> +<p>‘You seem to have given up catching anything. You +have not stirred a fish in this last two pools, except that +little saucy yellow shrimp, who jumped over your fly, and gave a +spiteful slap at it with his tail.’</p> +<p>Too true; and what could be the cause? Had that impudent +sand-piper frightened all the fish on his way up? Had an +otter paralysed them with terror for the morning? Or had a +stag been down to drink? We saw the fresh slot of his broad +claws, by the bye, in the mud a few yards back.</p> +<p>‘We must have seen the stag himself, if he had been here +lately,’ said Claude.</p> +<p>‘Mr. Landseer knows too well by this time that that is a +non sequitur.’</p> +<p>‘“I am no more a non sequitur than you are,” +answered the Cornish magistrate to the barrister.’</p> +<p>‘Fish and deer, friend, see us purblind sons of men +somewhat more quickly than we see them, fear sharpening the +senses. Perhaps, after all, the fault is in your staring +white-straw hat, a garment which has spoilt many a good +day’s fishing. Ah, no! there is the cause; the hat of +a mightier than you—the thunder-spirit himself. Thor +is at hand, while the breeze, awe-stricken, falls dead calm +before his march. Behold, climbing above that eastern +ridge, his huge powdered cauliflower-wig, barred with a grey +horizontal handkerchief of mist.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, profane and uncomely simile!—which will next, +I presume, liken the coming hailstorm to hair-powder shaken from +the said wig.’</p> +<p>‘To shot rather than to powder. Flee, oh, flee to +yonder pile of crags, and thank your stars that there is one at +hand; for these mountain tornadoes are at once Tropic in their +ferocity and Siberian in their cutting cold.’</p> +<p>Down it came. The brown hills vanished in white sheets +of hail, first falling perpendicularly, then slanting and driving +furiously before the cold blast which issued from the +storm. The rock above us rang with the thunder-peals; and +the lightning, which might have fallen miles away, seemed to our +dazzled eyes to dive into the glittering river at our feet. +We sat silent some half-hour, listening to the voice of One more +mighty than ourselves; and it was long after the uproar had +rolled away among the hills, and a steady, sighing sheet of +warmer rains, from banks of low grey fog, had succeeded the +rattling of the hail upon the crisp heather, that I turned to +Claude.</p> +<p>‘And now, since your heart is softened towards these +wild, stag-hunting, trout fishing, jovial west-countrymen, +consider whether it should not be softened likewise toward those +old outlaw ballads which I have never yet been able to make you +admire. They express feelings not yet extinct in the minds +of a large portion of the lower orders, as you would know had you +lived, like me, all your life in poaching counties, and on the +edges of one forest after another,—feelings which must be +satisfied, even in the highest development of the civilization of +the future, for they are innate in every thoughtful and energetic +race,—feelings which, though they have often led to crime, +have far oftener delivered from swinish sensuality; the feelings +which drove into the merry greenwood “Robin Hood, Scarlet, +and John;” “Adam Bell, and Clym of the Cleugh, and +William of Cloudislee;” the feelings which prompted one +half of his inspiration to the nameless immortal who wrote the +“Nutbrown Maid;”—feelings which could not then, +and cannot now, be satisfied by the drudgery of a barbaric +agriculture, which, without science, economy, or enterprise, +offers no food for the highest instincts of the human mind, its +yearnings after Nature, after freedom, and the noble excitement +of self-dependent energy.’</p> +<p>Our talk ended: but the rain did not: and we were at last fain +to leave our shelter, and let ourselves be blown by the gale (the +difficulty being not to progress forward, but to keep our feet) +back to the shed where our ponies were tied, and to canter home +to Lynmouth, with the rain cutting our faces like showers of +pebbles, and our little mountain ponies staggering against the +wind, and more than once, if Londoners will believe me, blown +sheer up against the bank by some mad gust, which rushed +perpendicularly, not down, but up, the chasms of the glens +below.</p> +<h3>II.—<span class="smcap">The Coast Line</span>.</h3> +<p>It is four o’clock on a May morning, and Claude and I +are just embarking on board a Clovelly trawling skiff, which, +having disposed of her fish at various ports along the Channel, +is about to run leisurely homewards with an ebb tide, and a soft +north-easterly breeze.</p> +<p>So farewell, fair Lynmouth; and ye storm-spirits, send us a +propitious day; and dismiss those fantastic clouds which are +coquetting with your thrones, crawling down one hill-side, and +whirling and leaping up another, in wreaths of snow, and dun, and +amber, pierced every minute by some long glittering upward arrow +from the rising sun, which gilds grey crags and downs a thousand +feet above, while underneath the gorges still sleep black and +cold in shade.</p> +<p>There, they have heard us! The cap rises off the +‘Summer-house hill,’ that eight hundred feet of +upright wall, which seems ready to topple down into the nest of +be-myrtled cottages at its foot; and as we sweep out into the +deeper water the last mist-flake streams up from the Foreland, +and vanishes in white threads into the stainless blue.</p> +<p>‘Look at the colours of that Foreland!’ cried +Claude. ‘The simple monotone of pearly green, broken +only at intervals by blood-red stains, where the turf has slipped +and left the fresh rock bare, and all glimmering softly through a +delicate blue haze, like the bloom on a half-ripened +plum!’</p> +<p>‘And look, too, how the grey pebble beach is already +dancing and quivering in the mirage which steams up, like the hot +breath of a limekiln, from the drying stones. Talk of +“glazings and scumblings,” ye artists! and bungle at +them as you will, what are they to Nature’s own glazings, +deepening every instant there behind us?’</p> +<p>‘Mock me not. I have walked up and down here with +a humbled and broken spirit, and had nearly forsworn the audacity +of painting anything beyond a beech stem, or a frond of +fern.’</p> +<p>‘The little infinite in them would have baffled you as +much as the only somewhat bigger infinite of just the hills on +which they grow.’</p> +<p>‘Confest: and so farewell to unpaintable Lynmouth! +Farewell to the charming contrast of civilized English +landscape-gardening, with its villas, and its exotics, and its +evergreens, thus strangely and yet harmoniously confronted with +the chaos of the rocks and mountain-streams. Those grounds +of Sir William H—’s are a double paradise, the wild +Eden of the Past side by side with the cultivated Eden of the +Future. How its alternations of Art and Savagery at once +startle and relieve the sense, as you pass suddenly out of +wildernesses of piled boulders, and torrent-shattered trees, and +the roar of fern-fringed waterfalls, into “trim walks, and +fragrant alleys green;” and the door of a summer-house +transports you at a step from Richmond to the Alps. Happy +he who “possesses,” as the world calls it, and +happier still he whose taste could organize, that fairy +bower.’</p> +<p>So he, magniloquently, as was his wont; and yet his +declamations always flowed with such a graceful ease,—a +simple, smiling earnestness,—an unpractised melody of +voice, that what would have been rant from other lips, from his +showed only as the healthy enthusiasm of the passionate, +all-seeing, all-loving artist.</p> +<p>‘Look yonder, again,’ said he, gazing up at the +huge boulder-strewn hill-side above us. ‘One wonders +at that sight, whether the fable of the giants be not true after +all,—and that “Vale of Rocks,” hanging five +hundred feet in air, with all its crag-castles, and tottering +battlements, and colossal crumbling idols, and great blocks, +which hang sloping, caught in act to fall, be not some enormous +Cyclopean temple left half-disinterred: or is it a fragment of +old Chaos, left unorganized?—or, perhaps, the waste heap of +the world, where, after the rest of England had been made, some +angel put up a notice for his fellows, “Dry rubbish shot +here”?’</p> +<p>‘Not so, unscientific! It is the grandfather of +hills,—a fossil bone of some old continent, which stood +here ages before England was. And the great earth-angel, +who grinds up mountains into paint, as you do bits of ochre, for +his “Continental Sketches,” found in it the materials +for a whole dark ground-tone of coal-measures, and a few hundred +miles of warm high-lights, which we call New Red +Sandstone.’</p> +<p>What a sea-wall they are, those Exmoor hills! Sheer +upward from the sea a thousand feet rise the downs; and as we +slide and stagger lazily along before the dying breeze, through +the deep water which never leaves the cliff, the eye ranges, +almost dizzy, up some five hundred feet of rock, dappled with +every hue; from the intense dark of the tide-line, through the +warm green and brown rock-shadows, out of which the horizontal +cracks of the strata loom black, and the breeding gulls show like +lingering snow-flakes; up to the middle cliff, where delicate +grey fades into pink, pink into red, red into glowing purple; up +to where the purple is streaked with glossy ivy wreaths, and +black-green yews; up to where all the choir of colours vanishes +abruptly on the mid-hill, to give place to one yellowish-grey +sheet of upward down, sweeping aloft smooth and unbroken, except +by a lonely stone, or knot of clambering sheep, and stopped by +one great rounded waving line, sharp-cut against the brilliant +blue. The sheep hang like white daisies upon the steep; and +a solitary falcon rides, a speck in air, yet far below the crest +of that tall hill. Now he sinks to the cliff edge, and +hangs quivering, supported, like a kite, by the pressure of his +breast and long curved wings, against the breeze.</p> +<p>There he hangs, the peregrine—a true ‘falcon +gentle,’ ‘sharp-notched, long-taloned, +crooked-winged,’ whose uncles and cousins, ages since, have +struck at duck and pheasant, and sat upon the wrists of +kings. And now he is full proud of any mouse or cliff-lark; +like an old Chingachgook, last of the Mohicans, he lingers round +‘the hunting-field of his fathers.’ So all +things end.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The old order changeth, giving place to the +new;<br /> +And God fulfils Himself in many ways,<br /> +Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>‘Ay, and the day may come,’ said Claude, +‘when the brows of that huge High Vere shall be crowned +with golden wheat, and every rock-ledge on Trentishoe, like those +of Petra and the Rhine, support its garden-bed of artificial +soil.’</p> +<p>‘And when,’ I answered, ‘the shingly sides +of that great chasm of Headon’s Mouth may be clothed with +the white mulberry, and the summer limestone-skiffs shall go back +freighted with fabrics which vie with the finest woof of Italy +and Lyons.’</p> +<p>‘You believe, then, in the late Mrs. Whitby of +Lymington?’</p> +<p>‘Seeing is believing, Claude: through laughter, and +failures, and the stupidity of half-barbarous clods, she +persevered in her silk-growing, and succeeded; and I should like +to put her book into the hands of every squire in Devon, +Cornwall, and the South of Ireland.’</p> +<p>‘Or require them to pass an examination in it, as one +more among the many books which I intend, in my ideal kingdom, +all landlords to read and digest, before they are allowed to take +possession of their estates. In the meantime, what is that +noble conical hill, which has increased my wonder at the infinite +variety of beauty which The Spirit can produce by combinations so +simple as a few grey stones and a sheet of turf?’</p> +<p>‘The Hangman.’</p> +<p>‘An ominous name. What is its history?’</p> +<p>‘Some sheep-stealer, they say, clambering over a wall +with his booty slung round his neck, was literally hung by the +poor brute’s struggles, and found days after on the +mountain-side, a blackened corpse on one side of the wall, with +the sheep on the other, and the ravens—You may fill up the +picture for yourself.’</p> +<p>But, see, as we round the Hangman, what a change of +scene—the square-blocked sandstone cliffs dip suddenly +under dark slate-beds, fantastically bent and broken by primeval +earthquakes. Wooded combes, and craggy ridges of rich +pasture-land, wander and slope towards a labyrinth of +bush-fringed coves, black isolated tide-rocks, and land-locked +harbours. There shines among the woods the Castle of +Watermouth, on its lovely little salt-water loch, the safest +harbour on the coast; and there is Combe-Martin, mile-long +man-stye, which seven centuries of fruitless silver-mining, and +of the right (now deservedly lost) of ‘sending a talker to +the national palaver,’ have neither cleansed nor +civilized. Turn, turn thy head away, dear Claude, lest even +at this distance some foul odour taint the summer airs, and +complete the misfortune already presaged by that pale, sad face, +sickening in the burning calm! For this great sun-roasted +fire-brick of the Exmoor range is fairly burning up the breeze, +and we have nothing but the tide to drift us slowly down to +Ilfracombe.</p> +<p>Now we open Rillage, and now Hillsborough, two of the most +picturesque of headlands; see how their round foreheads of +glistening grey shale sink down into two dark, jagged moles, +running far out to seaward, and tapering off, each into a long +black horizontal line, vanishing at last beneath its lace-fringe +of restless hissing foam. How grand the contrast of the +lightness of those sea-lines, with the solid mass which rests +upon them! Look, too, at the glaring lights and Tartarean +shadows of those chasms and caves, which the tide never leaves, +or the foot of man explores; and listen how, at every rush of the +long ground-swell, mysterious mutterings, solemn sighs, sudden +thunders, as of a pent-up earthquake, boom out of them across the +glassy swell. Look at those blasts of delicate vapour that +shoot up from hidden rifts, and hang a moment, and vanish; and +those green columns of wave which rush mast-high up the +perpendicular walls, and then fall back and outward in a +waterfall of foam, lacing the black rocks with a thousand snowy +streams. There they fall, and leap, and fall again. +And so they did yesterday, and the day before; and so they did +centuries ago, when the Danes swept past them, battleworn, and +sad of heart for the loss of the magic raven flag, from the fight +at Appledore, to sit down and starve on ‘the island of +Bradanrelice, which men call Flat Holms.’ Ay, and +even so they leapt and fell, before a sail gleamed on the Severn +sea, when the shark and the ichthyosaur paddled beneath the shade +of tropic forests—now scanty turf and golden gorse. +And so they will leap and fall on, on, through the centuries and +the ages. O dim abyss of Time, into which we peer +shuddering, what will be the end of thee, and of this ceaseless +coil and moan of waters? It is true, that when thou shalt +be no more, then, too, ‘there shall be no more sea;’ +and this ocean bed, this great grave of fertility, into which all +earth’s wasted riches stream, day and night, from hill and +town, shall rise and become fruitful soil, corn-field and +meadow-land; and earth shall teem as thick with living men as +bean-fields with the summer bees? What a +consummation! At least there is One greater than sea, or +time: and the Judge of all the earth will do right.</p> +<p>But there is Ilfracombe, with its rock-walled harbour, its +little wood of masts within, its white terraces, rambling up the +hills, and its capstone sea-walk, the finest ‘marine +parade,’ as Cockneydom terms it, in all England, except +that splendid Hoe at Plymouth, ‘Lam Goemagot,’ +Gog-magog’s leap, as the old Britains called it, over which +Corineus threw that mighty giant. And there is the little +isolated rock-chapel, where seven hundred years ago, our +west-country forefathers used to go to pray St. Nicholas for +deliverance from shipwreck,—a method lovingly regretted by +some, as a ‘pious idea of the Ages of faith.’ +We, however, shall prefer the method of lighthouses and the +worthy Trinity Board, as actually more godly and +‘faithful,’ as well as more useful; and, probably, so +do the sailors themselves.</p> +<p>But Claude is by this time nearly sick of the roasting calm, +and the rolling ground-swell, and the smell of fish, and is +somewhat sleepy also, between early rising and incoherent +sermons; wherefore, if he takes good advice, he will stay and +recruit himself at Ilfracombe, before he proceeds further with +his self-elected cicerone on the grand tour of North Devon. +Believe me, Claude, you will not stir from the place for a month +at least. For be sure, if you are sea-sick, or heart-sick, +or pocket-sick either, there is no pleasanter or cheaper place of +cure (to indulge in a puff of a species now well nigh obsolete, +the puff honest and true) than this same Ilfracombe, with its +quiet nature and its quiet luxury, its rock fairyland and its +sea-walks, its downs and combes, its kind people, and, if +possible, its still kinder climate, which combines the soft +warmth of South Devon with the bracing freshness of the Welsh +mountains; where winter has slipped out of the list of the +seasons, and mother Earth makes up for her summer’s luxury +by fasting, ‘not in sackcloth and ashes, but in new silk +and old sack;’ and instead of standing three months +chin-deep in ice, and christening great snowballs her +‘friends and family,’ as St. Francis of Assisi did of +old, knows no severer asceticism than tepid shower-baths, and a +parasol of soft grey mist.</p> +<h3>III.—<span class="smcap">Morte</span>.</h3> +<p>I had been wandering over the centre of Exmoor, killing trout +as I went, through a country which owes its civilization and +tillage to the spirit of one man, who has found stag-preserving +by no means incompatible with large agricultural improvements; +among a population who still evince an unpleasant partiality for +cutting and carrying farmers’ crops by night, without leave +or licence, and for housebreaking after the true classic method +of Athens, by fairly digging holes through the house walls; a +little nook of primeval savagery fast reorganizing itself under +the influences of these better days. I had been on +Dartmoor, too; but of that noble moorland range so much has been +said and sung of late, that I really am afraid it is becoming +somewhat cockney and trite. Far and wide I had wandered, +rod in hand, becoming a boy again in the land of my boyhood, +till, once more at Ilfracombe, opposite me sat Claude Mellot, +just beginning to bloom again into cheerfulness.</p> +<p>We were on the point of starting for Morte, and so round to +Saunton Court, and the sands beyond it; where a Clovelly trawler, +which we had chartered for the occasion, had promised to send a +boat on shore and take us off, provided the wind lay off the +land.</p> +<p>But, indeed, the sea was calm as glass, the sky cloudless +azure; and the doubt was not whether we should be able to get on +board through the surf, but whether, having got on board, we +should not lie till nightfall, as idle</p> +<blockquote><p>‘As a painted ship,<br /> +Upon a painted ocean.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And now behold us on our way up lovely combes, with their +green copses, ridges of rock, golden furze, fruit-laden orchards, +and slopes of emerald pasture, pitched as steep as house-roofs, +where the red longhorns are feeding, with their tails a yard +above their heads; and under us, seen in bird’s-eye view, +the ground-plans of the little snug farms and homesteads of the +Damnonii, ‘dwellers in the valley,’ as we +West-countrymen were called of old. Now we are leaving them +far below us; the blue hazy sea is showing far above the serrated +ridge of the Tors, and their huge bank of sunny green: and before +us is a desolate table-land of rushy pastures and mouldering +banks, festooned with the delicate network of the little +ivy-leaved campanula, loveliest of British wild-flowers, fit with +its hair-like stems and tiny bells of blue to wreathe the temples +of Titania. Alas! we have passed out of the world into +limbum patrum, and the region of ineffectuality and +incompleteness. The only cultivators here, and through +thousands of acres in the North of Devon, are the rook and mole: +and yet the land is rich enough—the fat deep crumbling of +the shale and ironstone returning year by year into the mud, from +whence it hardened ages since. There are scores of farms of +far worse land in mid-England, under ‘a four-course +shift,’ yielding their load of wheat an acre. When +will that land do as much? When will the spirit of Smith of +Deanston and Grey of Dilston descend on North Devon? When +will some true captain of industry, and Theseus of the nineteenth +century, like the late Mr. Warnes of Trimmingham, teach the +people here to annihilate poor-rates by growing flax upon some of +the finest flax land, and in the finest flax climate, that we +have in England? The shrewd Cornishmen of Launceston and +Bodmin have awakened long ago to ‘the new gospel of +fertility.’ When will North Devon awake?</p> +<p>‘When landlords and farmers,’ said Claude, +‘at last acknowledge their divine vocation, and feel it a +noble and heaven-ordained duty to produce food for the people of +England; when they learn that to grow rushes where they might +grow corn, ay, to grow four quarters of wheat where they might +grow five, is to sin against God’s blessings and against +the English nation. No wonder that sluggards like these cry +out for protection—that those who cannot take care of the +land feel that they themselves need artificial care.’</p> +<p>‘We will not talk politics, Claude. Our modern +expediency mongers have made them <i>pro tempore</i> an extinct +science. “Let the dead bury their dead.” +The social questions are now-a-days becoming far more important +than the mere House of Commons ones.’</p> +<p>‘There does seem here and there,’ he said, +‘some sign of improvement. I see the paring plough at +work on one field and another.’</p> +<p>‘Swiftly goes the age, and slowly crawls +improvement. The greater part of that land will be only +broken up to be exhausted by corn-crop after corn-crop, till it +can bear no more, and the very manure which is drawn home from it +in the shape of a few turnips will be wasted by every rain of +heaven, and the straw probably used to mend bad places in the +road with; while the land returns to twenty years of worse +sterility than ever; on the ground that—</p> +<p>‘“Veather did zo, and gramfer did zo, and why +shouldn’t Jan do the zame?”’ * * * *</p> +<p>‘But here is Morte below us. “The little +grey church on the windy shore,” which once belonged to +William de Tracy, one of your friend Thomas à +Becket’s murderers. If you wish to vent your wrath +against those who cut off your favourite Saxon hero, there is a +tomb in the church which bears De Tracy’s name; over which +rival Dryasdusts contend fiercely with paper-arrows: the one +party asserting that he became a priest, and died here in the +wilderness; the others that the tomb is of later date, that he +fled hence to Italy, under favour of a certain easy-going Bishop +of Exeter, and died penitent and duly shriven, according to the +attestations of a certain or uncertain Bishop of +Cosenza.’</p> +<p>‘Peace be with him and with the Bishop! The flight +to Italy seems a very needless precaution to a man who owned this +corner of the world. A bailiff would have had even less +chance here then than in Connemara a hundred years +ago.’</p> +<p>‘He certainly would have fed the crabs and rock-cod in +two hours after his arrival. Nevertheless, I believe the +Cosenza story is the safer one.’</p> +<p>‘What a chaos of rock-ridges!—Old starved mother +Earth’s bare-worn ribs and joints peeping out through every +field and down; and on three sides of us, the sullen thunder of +the unseen surge. What a place for some +“gloom-pampered man” to sit and +misanthropize!’</p> +<p>‘“Morte,” says the Devonshire proverb, +“is the place on earth which heaven made last, and the +devil will take first.”’</p> +<p>‘All the fitter for a misanthrope. But where are +the trees? I have not seen one for the last four +miles.’</p> +<p>‘Nor will you for a few miles more. Whatever will +grow here (and most things will) they will not, except, at least, +hereafter the sea-pine of the Biscay shore. You would know +why, if you had ever felt a south-westerly gale here, when the +foam-flakes are flying miles inland, and you are fain to cling +breathless to bank and bush, if you want to get one look at those +black fields of shark’s-tooth tide-rocks, champing and +churning the great green rollers into snow. Wild folk are +these here, gatherers of shell-fish and laver, and merciless to +wrecked vessels, which they consider as their own by immemorial +usage, or rather right divine. Significant, how an +agricultural people is generally as cruel to wrecked seamen, as a +fishing one is merciful. I could tell you twenty stories of +the baysmen down there to the westward risking themselves like +very heroes to save strangers’ lives, and beating off the +labouring folk who swarmed down for plunder from the inland +hills.’</p> +<p>‘Knowledge, you see, breeds sympathy and love. But +what a merciless coast!’</p> +<p>‘Hardly a winter passes without a wreck or two. +You see there lying about the timbers of more than one tall +ship. You see, too, that black rock a-wash far out at sea, +apparently a submarine outlier of the north horn of this wide +rock-amphitheatre below us. That is the Morte stone, the +“Death-rock,” as the Normans christened it of old; +and it does not belie its name even now. See how, even in +this calm, it hurls up its column of spray at every wave; and +then conceive being entrapped between it and the cliffs, on some +blinding, whirling winter’s night, when the land is +shrouded thick in clouds, and the roar of the breakers hardly +precedes by a minute the crash of your bows against the +rocks.’</p> +<p>‘I never think, on principle, of things so painful, and +yet so irrelievable. Yet why does not your much-admired +Trinity House erect a light there?’</p> +<p>‘So ask the sailors; for it is indeed one of the +gateway-jambs of the Channel, and the deep water and the line of +coast tempt all craft to pass as close to it as +possible.’</p> +<p>‘Look at that sheet of yellow sand below us now, banked +to the inland with sand-hills and sunny downs, and ending +abruptly at the foot of that sombre wall of slate-hill, which +runs out like a huge pier into the sea some two miles +off.’</p> +<p>‘That is Woollacombe: but here on our right is a sight +worth seeing. Every gully and creek there among the rocks +is yellow, but not with sand. Those are shells; the +sweepings of the ocean bed for miles around, piled there, +millions upon millions, yards deep, in every stage of +destruction. There they lie grinding to dust; and every +gale brings in fresh myriads from the inexhaustible sea-world, as +if Death could be never tired of devouring, or God of +making. The brain grows dizzy and tired, as one’s +feet crunch over the endless variety of their forms.’</p> +<p>‘And then one recollects that every one of them has been +a living thing—a whole history of birth, and growth, and +propagation, and death. Waste it cannot be, or cruelty on +the part of the Maker: but why this infinite development of life, +apparently only to furnish out of it now and then a cartload of +shell-sand to these lazy farmers? But after all, there is +not so much life in all those shells put together as in one +little child: and it may die the hour that it is born! What +we call life is but an appearance and a becoming; the true life +of existence belongs only to spirits. And whether or not +we, or the sea-shell there, are at any given moment helping to +make up part of some pretty little pattern in this great +kaleidoscope called the material universe, yet, in the spirit all +live to Him, and shall do so for ever.’</p> +<p>And thereon he rambled off into a long lecture on +‘species-spirits,’ and +‘individual-spirits,’ and ‘personal +spirits,’ doubtless most important. But I, what +between the sun, the luncheon, and the metaphysic, sank into soft +slumbers, from which I was only awakened by the carriage +stopping, according to our order, on the top of Saunton hill.</p> +<p>We left the fly, and wandered down towards the old gabled +court, nestling amid huge walnuts in its southward glen; while +before us spread a panorama, half sea, half land, than which, +perhaps, our England owns few lovelier.</p> +<p>At our feet was a sea of sand—for the half-mile to the +right smooth as a floor, bounded by a broad band of curling +waves, which crept slowly shorewards with the advancing +tide. Right underneath us the sand was drifted for miles +into fantastic hills, which quivered in the heat, the glaring +yellow of its lights chequered by delicate pink shadows and +sheets of grey-green bent. To the left were rich alluvial +marshes, covered with red cattle sleeping in the sun, and laced +with creeks and flowery dykes; and here and there a scarlet line, +which gladdened Claude’s eye as being a ‘bit of +positive colour in the foreground,’ and mine, because they +were draining tiles. Beyond again, two broad tide-rivers, +spotted with white and red-brown sails, gleamed like avenues of +silver, past knots of gay dwellings, and tall lighthouses, and +church-towers, and wandered each on its own road, till they +vanished among the wooded hills. On the eastern horizon the +dark range of Exmoor sank gradually into lower and more broken +ridges, which rolled away, woodland beyond woodland, till all +outlines were lost in purple haze; while, far beyond, the granite +peaks of Dartmoor hung like a delicate blue cloud, and enticed +the eye away into infinity. From hence, as our eyes swept +round the horizon, the broken hills above the river’s mouth +gradually rose into the table-land of the ‘barren +coal-measures’ some ten miles off,—a long straight +wall of cliffs which hounded the broad bay, buried in deepest +shadow, except where the opening of some glen revealed far depths +of sunlit wood. A faint perpendicular line of white houses, +midway along the range, marked our destination; and far to the +westward, the land ended sheer and suddenly at the cliffs of +Hartland, the ‘Promontory of Hercules,’ as the old +Romans called it, to reappear some ten miles out in the Atlantic, +in the blue flat-topped island of Lundy, so exactly similar in +height and form to the opposite cape, that it required no +scientific imagination to supply the vast gap which the primeval +currents had sawn out. There it all lay beneath us like a +map; its thousand hues toned down harmoniously into each other by +the summer haze, and ‘the eye was not filled with +seeing,’ nor the spirit with the intoxicating sight of +infinitely various life and form in perfectest repose.</p> +<p>I was the first to break the silence.</p> +<p>‘Claude, well-beloved, will you not sketch a +little?’</p> +<p>No answer.</p> +<p>‘Not even rhapsodize? call it “lovely, exquisite, +grand, majestic”? There are plenty of such words in +worldlings’ mouths—not a Cockney but would burst out +with some enthusiastic commonplace at such a sight—surely +one or other of them must be appropriate.’</p> +<p>‘Silence, profane! and take me away from this. Let +us go down, and hide our stupidities among those sand-hills, and +so forget the whole. What use standing here to be maddened +by this tantalizing earth-spirit, who shows us such glorious +things, and will not tell us what they mean?’</p> +<p>So down we went upon the burrows, among the sands, which hid +from us every object but their own chaotic curves and +mounds. Above, a hundred skylarks made the air ring with +carollings; strange and gaudy plants flecked the waste round us; +and insects without number whirred over our heads, or hung poised +with their wings outspread on the tall stalks of marram +grass. All at once a cloud hid the sun, and a summer +whirlwind, presage of the thunderstorm, swept past us, carrying +up with it a column of dry sand, and rattling the dry bents over +our heads.</p> +<p>‘What a chill, doleful sigh comes from those +reeds!’ said Claude. ‘I can conceive this +desert, beneath a driving winter’s sky instead of this +burning azure, one of the most desolate places on the +earth.’</p> +<p>‘Ay, desolate enough,’ I said, as we walked down +beyond the tide-mark, over the vast fields of ribbed and splashy +sands, ‘when the dead shells are rolling and crawling up +the beach in wreaths before the gale, with a ghastly rattle as of +the dry bones in the “Valley of Vision,” and when not +a flower shows on that sandcliff, which is now one broad bed of +yellow, scarlet, and azure.’</p> +<p>‘That is the first spot in England,’ said Claude, +‘except, of course, “the meads of golden +king-cups,” where I have seen wild flowers give a tone to +the colouring of the whole landscape, as they are said to do in +the prairies of Texas. And look how flowers and cliff are +both glowing in a warm green haze, like that of Cuyp’s +wonderful sandcliff picture in the Dulwich +Gallery,—wonderful, as I think, and true, let some critics +revile it as much as they will.’</p> +<p>‘Strange, that you should have quoted that picture here; +its curious resemblance to this very place first awoke in me, +years ago, a living interest in landscape-painting. But +look there; even in these grand summer days there is a sight +before us sad enough. There are the ribs of some ill-fated +ship, a man-of-war too, as the story goes, standing like black +fangs, half-buried in the sand. And off what are those two +ravens rising, stirring up with their obscene wings a sickly, +putrescent odour? A corpse?’</p> +<p>No, it was not a corpse; but the token of many corpses. +A fragment of some ship; its gay green paint and half-effaced +gilding contrasting mockingly with the long ugly feathered +barnacle-shells, which clustered on it, rotting into slime +beneath the sun, and torn and scattered by the greedy beaks of +the ravens.</p> +<p>In what tropic tornado, or on what coral-key of the Bahamas, +months ago, to judge by those barnacles, had that tall ship gone +down? How long had that scrap of wreck gone wandering down +the Gulf Stream, from Newfoundland into the Mid-Atlantic, and +hitherward on its homeless voyage toward the Spitzbergen +shore? And who were all those living men who “went +down to Hades, even many stalwart souls of heroes,” to give +no sign until the sea shall render up her dead? And every +one of them had a father and mother—a wife, perhaps, and +children, waiting for him—at least a whole human life, +childhood, boyhood, manhood, in him. All those years of +toil and education, to get him so far on his life-voyage; and +here is the end thereof!’</p> +<p>‘Say rather, the beginning thereof,’ Claude +answered, stepping into the boat. ‘This wreck is but +a torn scrap of the chrysalis-cocoon; we may meet the butterflies +themselves hereafter.’</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>And now we are on board; and alas! some time before the breeze +will be so. Take care of that huge boom, landsman Claude, +swaying and sweeping backwards and forwards across the deck, +unless you wish to be knocked overboard. Take care, too, of +that loose rope’s end, unless you wish to have your eyes +cut out. Take my advice, lie down here across the deck, as +others are doing. Cover yourself with great-coats, like an +Irishman, to keep yourself cool, and let us meditate little on +this strange thing, and strange place, which holds us now.</p> +<p>Look at those spars, how they creak and groan with every heave +of the long glassy swell. How those sails flap, and +thunder, and rage, with useless outcries and struggles—only +because they are idle. Let the wind take them, and they +will be steady, silent in an instant—their deafening +dissonant grumbling exchanged for the soft victorious song of the +breeze through the rigging, musical, self-contented, as of bird +on bough. So it is through life; there is no true rest but +labour. “No true misery,” as Carlyle says, +“but in that of not being able to work.” Some +may call it a pretty conceit. I call it a great worldwide +law, which reaches from earth to heaven. Whatever the +Preacher may have thought it in a moment of despondency, what is +it but a blessing that “sun, and wind, and rivers, and +ocean,” as he says, and “all things, are full of +labour—man cannot utter it.” This sea which +bears us would rot and poison, did it not sweep in and out here +twice a day in swift refreshing current; nay, more, in the very +water which laps against our bows troops of negro girls may have +hunted the purblind shark in West Indian harbours, beneath +glaring white-walled towns, with their rows of green jalousies, +and cocoa-nuts, and shaddock groves. For on those white +sands there to the left, year by year, are washed up foreign +canes, cassia beans, and tropic seeds; and sometimes, too, the +tropic ocean snails, with their fragile shells of amethystine +blue, come floating in mysteriously in fleets from the far west +out of the passing Gulf Stream, where they have been sailing out +their little life, never touching shore or ground, but buoyed +each by his cluster of air-bubbles, pumped in at will under the +skin of his tiny foot, by some cunning machinery of +valves—small creatures truly, but very wonderful to men who +have learned to reverence not merely the size of things, but the +wisdom of their idea, and raising strange longings and dreams +about that submarine ocean-world which stretches, teeming with +richer life than this terrestrial one, away, away there westward, +down the path of the sun, toward the future centre of the +world’s destiny.</p> +<p>Wonderful ocean-world! three-fifths of our planet! Can +it be true that no rational beings are denizens there? +Science is severely silent—having as yet seen no mermaids: +our captain there forward is not silent—if he has not seen +them, plenty of his friends have. The young man here has +been just telling me that it was only last month one followed a +West Indiaman right across the Atlantic. “For,” +says he, “there must be mermaids, and such like. Do +you think Heaven would have made all that water there only for +the herrings and mackerel?”</p> +<p>I do not know, Tom: but I, too, suspect not; and I do know +that honest men’s guesses are sometimes found by science to +have been prophecies, and that there is no smoke without fire, +and few universal legends without their nucleus of fact. +After all, those sea-ladies are too lovely a dream to part with +in a hurry, at the mere despotic fiat of stern old Dame Analysis, +divine and reverend as she is. Why, like Keats’s +Lamia,</p> +<blockquote><p> ‘Must +all charms flee,<br /> +At the mere touch of cold Philosophy,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>who will not even condescend to be awe-struck at the new +wonders which she herself reveals daily? Perhaps, too, +according to the Duke of Wellington’s great dictum, that +each man must be the best judge in his own profession, sailors +may know best whether mermaids exist or not. Besides, was +it not here on Croyde Sands abreast of us, this very last summer, +that a maiden—by which beautiful old word West-country +people still call young girls—was followed up the shore by +a mermaid who issued from the breakers, green-haired, +golden-combed, and all; and, fleeing home, took to her bed and +died, poor thing, of sheer terror in the course of a few days, +persisting in her account of the monster? True, the mermaid +may have been an overgrown Lundy Island seal, carried out of his +usual haunts by spring-tides and a school of fish. Be it +so. Lundy and its seals are wonderful enough in all reason +to thinking men, as it looms up there out of the Atlantic, with +its two great square headlands, not twenty miles from us, in the +white summer haze. We will go there some day, and pick up a +wild tale or two about it.</p> +<p>But, lo! a black line creeps up the western horizon. +Tom, gesticulating, swears that he sees ‘a billow +break.’ True: there they come; the great white +horses, that ‘champ and chafe, and toss in the +spray.’ That long-becalmed trawler to seaward fills, +and heels over, and begins to tug and leap impatiently at the +weight of her heavy trawl. Five minutes more, and the +breeze will be down upon us. The young men whistle openly +to woo it; the old father thinks such a superstition somewhat +beneath both his years and his religion, but cannot help pursing +up his lips into a sly ‘whe-eugh’ when he has got +well forward out of sight.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * *</p> +<p>Five long minutes; there is a breath of air; a soft distant +murmur; the white horses curve their necks, and dive and vanish; +and rise again like snowy porpoises, nearer, and nearer, and +nearer. Father and sons are struggling with that raving, +riotous, drunken squaresail forward; while we haul away upon the +main-sheet.</p> +<p>When will it come? It is dying back—sliding past +us. ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart +sick.’ No, louder and nearer swells ‘the voice +of many waters,’ ‘the countless laugh of +ocean,’ like the mirth of ten thousand girls, before us, +behind us, round us; and the oily swell darkens into crisp +velvet-green, till the air strikes us, and heels us over; and +leaping, plunging, thrashing our bows into the seas, we spring +away close-hauled upon the ever-freshening breeze, while Claude +is holding on by ropes and bulwarks, and some, whose sea-legs +have not yet forgot their craft, are swinging like a pendulum as +they pace the deck, enjoying, as the Norse vikings would have +called it, ‘the gallop of the flying sea-horse, and the +shiver of her tawny wings.’</p> +<p>Exquisite motion! more maddening than the smooth floating +stride of the race-horse, or the crash of the thorn-hedges before +the stalwart hunter, or the swaying of the fir-boughs in the +gale, when we used to climb as schoolboys after the lofty +hawk’s nest; but not so maddening as the new motion of our +age—the rush of the express-train, when the live iron pants +and leaps and roars through the long chalk cutting; and white +mounds gleam cold a moment against the sky and vanish; and rocks, +and grass, and bushes, fleet by in dim blended lines; and the +long hedges revolve like the spokes of a gigantic wheel; and far +below, meadows, and streams, and homesteads, with all their lazy +old-world life, open for an instant, and then flee away; while +awe-struck, silent, choked with the mingled sense of pride and +helplessness, we are swept on by that great pulse of +England’s life-blood, rushing down her iron veins; and +dimly out of the future looms the fulfilment of our +primæval mission, to conquer and subdue the earth, and +space too, and time, and all things,—even, hardest of all +tasks, yourselves, my cunning brothers ever learning some fresh +lesson, except that hardest one of all, that it is the Spirit of +God which giveth you understanding.</p> +<p>Yes, great railroads, and great railroad age, who would +exchange you, with all your sins, for any other time? For +swiftly as rushes matter, more swiftly rushes mind; more swiftly +still rushes the heavenly dawn up the eastern sky. +‘The night is far spent, the day is at hand.’ +‘Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, +shall find watching!’</p> +<p>But come, my poor Claude, I see you are too sick for such deep +subjects; so let us while away the time by picking the brains of +this tall handsome boy at the helm, who is humming a love-song to +himself sotto voce, lest it should be overheard by the +grey-headed father, who is forward, poring over his Wesleyan +hymn-book. He will have something to tell you; he has a +soul in him looking out of those wild dark eyes, and delicate +aquiline features of his. He is no spade-drudge or +bullet-headed Saxon clod: he has in his veins the blood of Danish +rovers and passionate southern Milesians, who came hither from +Teffrobani, the Isle of Summer, as the old Fenic myths inform +us. Come and chat with him. You dare not stir? +Perhaps you are in the right. I shall go and fraternize, +and bring you reports.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * *</p> +<p>He has been, at all events, ‘up the Straits’ as +the Mediterranean voyage is called here, and seen +‘Palermy’ and the Sicilians. But, for his +imagination, what seems to have struck it most was that it was a +‘fine place for Jack, for a man could get mools there for a +matter of three-halfpence a-day.’</p> +<p>‘And was that all you got out of him?’ asked +Claude, sickly and sulkily.</p> +<p>‘Oh, you must not forget the halo of glory and +excitement which in a sailor’s eyes surrounds the delights +of horseback. But he gave me besides a long glowing account +of the catechism which they had there, three-quarters of a mile +long.’</p> +<p>‘Pope Pius’s catechism, I suppose?’</p> +<p>So thought I, at first; but it appeared that all the dead of +the city were arranged therein, dried and dressed out in their +finest clothes, ‘every sect and age,’ as Tom said, +‘by itself; as natural as life!’ We may hence +opine that he means some catacombs or other.</p> +<p>Poor Claude could not even get up a smile: but his sorrows +were coming swiftly to an end. The rock clefts grew sharper +and sharper before us. The soft masses of the lofty bank of +wooded cliff rose higher and higher. The white houses of +Clovelly, piled stair above stair up the rocks, gleamed more and +more brightly out of the green round bosoms of the forest. +As we shut in headland after headland, one tall conical rock +after another darkened with its black pyramid the bright orb of +the setting sun. Soon we began to hear the soft murmur of +the snowy surf line; then the merry voices of the children along +the shore; and running straight for the cliff-foot, we shipped +into the little pier, from whence the red-sailed herring-boats +were swarming forth like bees out of a hive, full of gay handsome +faces, and all the busy blue-jacketed life of seaport towns, to +their night’s fishing in the bay.</p> +<h3>IV.—<span class="smcap">Clovelly</span>.</h3> +<p>A couple of days had passed, and I was crawling up the paved +stairs inaccessible to cart or carriage, which are flatteringly +denominated ‘Clovelly-street,’ a landing-net full of +shells in one hand, and a couple of mackerel lines in the other; +behind me a sheer descent, roof below roof; at an angle of +45°, to the pier and bay, 200 feet below, and in front, +another hundred feet above, a green amphitheatre of oak, and ash, +and larch, shutting out all but a narrow slip of sky, across +which the low, soft, formless mist was crawling, opening every +instant to show some gap of intense dark rainy blue, and send +down a hot vaporous gleam of sunshine upon the white cottages, +with their grey steaming roofs, and bright green railings, packed +one above another upon the ledges of the cliff; and on the tall +tree-fuchsias and gaudy dahlias in the little scraps of +court-yard, calling the rich faint odour out of the verbenas and +jessamines, and, alas! out of the herring-heads and tails also, +as they lay in the rivulet; and lighting up the wings of the +gorgeous butterflies, almost unknown in our colder eastern +climate, which fluttered from woodland down to garden, and from +garden up to woodland, and seemed to form the connecting link +between that swarming hive of human industry and the deep wild +woods in which it was embosomed. So up I was crawling, to +dine off gurnards of my own catching,—excellent fish, +despised by deluded Cockneys, who fancy that because its head is +large and prickly, therefore its flesh is not as firm, and sweet, +and white, as that of any cod who ever gobbled +shell-fish,—when down the stair front of me, greasy as ice +from the daily shower, came slipping and staggering, my friend +Claude, armed with camp-stool and portfolio.</p> +<p>‘Where have you been wandering to-day?’ I +asked. ‘Have you yet been as far as the park, which, +as I told you, would supply such endless subjects for your +pencil?’</p> +<p>‘Not I. I have been roaming up and down this same +“New Road” above us; and find there materials for a +good week’s more work, if I could afford it. Indeed, +it was only to-day, for the first time, that I got as far as the +lodge at the end of it, and then was glad enough to turn back +shuddering at the first glimpse of the flat, dreary moorland +beyond,—as Adam may have turned back into Eden after a peep +out of the gates of Paradise.’</p> +<p>He should have taken courage and gone a half-mile +further,—to the furze-grown ruins of a great Roman camp, +which gives its name to the place, +‘Clovelly,’—Vallum Clausum, or Vallis Clausa, +as antiquarians derive it; perhaps, ‘the hidden +camp,’ or glen,—perhaps something else. Who +cares? The old Romans were there, at least 10,000 strong: +and some sentimental tribune or other of them had taste enough to +perch his summer-house out on a conical point of the Hartland +Cliffs, now tumbling into the sea, tesselated pavement, baths and +all. And strange work, no doubt, went on in that lonely +nook, looking out over the Atlantic swell,—nights and days +fit for Petronius’s own pen, among a seraglio of dark +Celtic beauties. Perhaps it could not be otherwise. +An ugly state of things—as heathen conquests always must +have been; yet even in it there was a use and meaning. But +they are past like a dream, those 10,000 stalwart men, who looked +far and wide over the Damnonian moors from a station which would +be, even in these days, a first-rate military position. +Gone, too, are the old Saxon Franklins who succeeded. Old +Wrengils, or some such name, whoever he was, at last found some +one’s bill too hard for his brain-pan; and there he lies on +the hill above, in his ‘barrow’ of Wrinklebury. +And gone, too, the gay Norman squire, who, as tradition says, +kept his fair lady in the old watch-tower, on the highest point +of the White Cliff—‘Gallantry Bower,’ as they +call it to this day—now a mere ring of turf-covered stones, +and a few low stunted oaks, shorn by the Atlantic blasts into the +shape of two huge cannon, which form a favourite landmark for the +fisherman of the bay. Gone they all are, Cymry and Roman, +Saxon and Norman; and upon the ruins of their accumulated labour +we stand here. Each of them had his use,—planted a +few more trees or cleared a few more, tilled a fresh scrap of +down, organized a scrap more of chaos. Who dare wish the +tide of improvement, which has been flowing for nineteen +centuries, swifter and swifter still as it goes on, to stop, just +because it is not convenient to us just now to move on? It +will not take another nineteen hundred years, be sure, to make +even this lovely nook as superior to what it is now as it is now +to the little knot of fishing huts where naked Britons peeped +out, trembling at the iron tramp of each insolent legionary from +the camp above. It will not take another nineteen hundred +years to develope the capabilities of this place,—to make +it the finest fishery in England, next to Torbay,—the only +safe harbour of refuge for West Indiamen, along sixty miles of +ruthless coast,—and a commercial centre for a vast tract of +half-tilled land within, which only requires means of conveyance +to be as fertile and valuable as nine-tenths of England. +Meanwhile Claude ought to have seen the deer-park. The +panorama from that old ruined ‘bower’ of cliff and +woodland, down and sea, is really unique in its way.</p> +<p>‘So is the whole place, in my eyes,’ said +Claude. ‘I have seen nothing in England to be +compared to this little strip of paradise between two great waste +worlds of sea and moor. Lynmouth might be matched among the +mountains of Wales and Ireland. The first three miles of +the Rheidol, from the Devil’s Bridge towards Aberystwith, +or the gorge of the Wye, down the opposite watershed of the same +mountains, from Castle Dufferin down to Rhaiadyr, are equal to it +in magnificence of form and colour, and superior in size. +But I question whether anything ever charmed me more than did the +return to the sounds of nature which greeted me to-day, as I +turned back from the dreary, silent moorland turnpike into this +new road, terraced along the cliffs and woods—those who +first thought of cutting it must have had souls in them above the +herd—and listened to a glorious concert in four parts, +blending and supporting each other in exquisite harmony, from the +shrill treble of a thousand birds, and the soft melancholy alto +of the moaning woods, downward through the rich tenor hum of +innumerable insects, who hung like sparks of fire beneath the +glades of oak, to the bass of the unseen surge below,</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“Whose deep and +dreadful organ-pipe,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>far below me, contrasted strangely with the rich soft inland +character of the deep woods, luxuriant ferns, and gaudy +flowers. It is that very contrast which makes the place so +unique. One is accustomed to connect with the notion of the +sea bare cliffs, breezy downs, stunted shrubs struggling for +existence: and instead of them behold a forest wall, 500 feet +high, of almost semi-tropic luxuriance. At one turn, a deep +glen, with its sea of green woods, filled up at the mouth with +the bright azure sheet of ocean.—Then some long stretch of +the road would be banked on one side with crumbling rocks, +festooned with heath, and golden hawkweed, and London pride, like +velvet cushions covered with pink lace, and beds of white bramble +blossom alive with butterflies; while above my head, and on my +right, the cool canopy of oak and birch leaves shrouded me so +close, that I could have fancied myself miles inland, buried in +some glen unknown to any wind of heaven, but that everywhere +between green sprays and grey stems, gleamed that same boundless +ocean blue, seeming, from the height at which I was, to mount +into the very sky. It looked but a step out of the leafy +covert into blank infinity. And then, as the road wound +round some point, one’s eye could fall down, down, through +the abyss of perpendicular wood, tree below tree clinging to and +clothing the cliff, or rather no cliff; but perpendicular sheet +of deep wood sedge, and broad crown ferns, spreading their +circular fans.—But there is no describing them, or painting +them either.—And then to see how the midday sunbeams leapt +past one down the abyss, throwing out here a grey stem by one +point of burnished silver, there a hazel branch by a single leaf +of glowing golden green, shooting long bright arrows down, +through the dim, hot, hazy atmosphere of the wood, till it rested +at last upon the dappled beach of pink and grey pebbles, and the +dappled surge which wandered up and down among them, and broke up +into richer intricacy with its chequer-work of woodland shadows, +the restless net of snowy foam.’</p> +<p>‘You must be fresh from reading Mr. Ruskin’s book, +Claude, to be able to give birth to such a piece of complex +magniloquence as that last period of yours.’</p> +<p>‘Why, I saw all that, and ten thousand things more; and +yet do you complain of me for having tried to put one out of all +those thousand things into words? And what do you mean by +sneering at Mr. Ruskin? Are there not in his books more and +finer passages of descriptive +poetry—word-painting—call them what you will, than in +any other prose book in the English language?’</p> +<p>‘Not a doubt of it, my dear Claude; but it will not do +for every one to try Mr. Ruskin’s tools. Neither you +nor I possess that almost Roman severity, that stern precision of +conception and expression, which enables him to revel in the most +gorgeous language, without ever letting it pall upon the +reader’s taste by affectation or over-lusciousness. +His style is like the very hills along which you have been +travelling, whose woods enrich, without enervating, the grand +simplicity of their forms.’</p> +<p>‘The comparison is just,’ said Claude. +‘Mr. Ruskin’s style, like those very hills, and like, +too, the Norman cathedrals of which he is so fond, is rather +magnified than concealed by the innumerable multiplicity of its +ornamental chasing and colouring.’</p> +<p>‘And is not that,’ I asked, ‘the very +highest achievement of artistic style?’</p> +<p>‘Doubtless. The severe and grand simplicity, of +which folks talk so much, is great indeed; but only the greatest +as long as men are still ignorant of Nature’s art of +draping her forms with colour, chiaroscuro, ornament, not at the +expense of the original design, but in order to perfect it by +making it appeal to every faculty instead of those of form and +size alone.’</p> +<p>‘Still you will allow the beauty of a bare rock, a down, +a church spire, a sheet or line of horizontal water,—their +necessity to the completion of a landscape. I recollect +well having the value of a stern straight line in Nature brought +home to me, when, during a long ride in the New Forest, after my +eye had become quite dulled and wearied with the monotonous +softness of rolling lawns, feathery heath, and rounded oak and +beech woods, I suddenly caught sight of the sharp peaked roof of +Rhinefield Lodge, and its row of tall stiff poplar-spires, +cutting the endless sea of curves. The relief to my eye was +delicious. I really believe it heightened the pleasure with +which I reined in my mare for a chat with old Toomer the keeper, +and the noble bloodhound who eyed me from between his +master’s legs.’</p> +<p>‘I can well believe it. Simple lines in a +landscape are of the same value as the naked parts of a +richly-clothed figure. They act both as contrasts and as +indications of the original substratum of the figure; but to say +that severe simplicity is the highest ideal is mere pedantry and +Manicheism.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, everything is Manicheism with you, +Claude!’</p> +<p>‘And no wonder, while the world is as full of it now as +it was in the thirteenth century. But let that pass. +This craving after so-called classic art, whether it be +Manicheism or not, is certainly a fighting against God,—a +contempt of everything which He has taught us artists since the +introduction of Christianity. I abominate this setting up +of Sculpture above Painting, of the Greeks above the +Italians,—as if all Eastern civilization, all Christian +truth, had taught art nothing,—as if there was not more +real beauty in a French cathedral or a Venetian palazzo than in a +dozen Parthenons, and more soul in one Rafaelle, or Titian +either, than in all the Greek statues of the Tribune or +Vatican.’</p> +<p>‘You have changed your creed, I see, and, like all +converts, are somewhat fierce and fanatical. You used to +believe in Zeuxis and Parrhasius in old times.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, as long as I believed in Fuseli’s +“Lectures;” but when I saw at Pompeii the ancient +paintings which still remain to us, my faith in their powers +received its first shock; and when I re-read in the Lectures of +Fuseli and his school all their extravagant praises of the Greek +painters, and separated their few facts fairly out from among the +floods of rant on which they floated, I came to the conclusion +that the ancients knew as little of colour or chiaroscuro as they +did of perspective, and as little of spiritual expression as they +did of landscape-painting. What do I care for the birds +pecking at Zeuxis’s grapes, or Zeuxis himself trying to +draw back Parrhasius’s curtain? Imitative art is the +lowest trickery. There are twenty men in England now +capable of the same sleight of hand; and yet these are recorded +as the very highest triumphs of ancient art by the only men who +have handed down to us any record of it.’</p> +<p>‘It may be so; or again, it may not. But do not +fancy, Claude, that classic sculpture has finished its work on +earth. You know that it has taught you what Gothic art +could never teach,—the ideal of physical health and +strength. Believe that it exists, and will exist, to remind +the puny town-dweller of the existence of that ideal; to say to +the artisan, every time he looks upon a statue—such God +intended you to be; such you may be; such your class will be, in +some future healthy state of civilization, when Sanitary Reform +and Social Science shall be accepted and carried out as primary +duties of a government toward the nation.</p> +<p>‘Surely, classic sculpture remains, as a witness of the +primæval paradise; a witness that man and woman were +created at first healthy, and strong, and fair, and innocent; +just as classic literature remains for a witness that the heathen +of old were taught of God; that we have something to learn of +them, summed up in that now obsolete word +“virtue”—true and wholesome manhood, which we +are likely to forget, and are forgetting daily, under the +enervating shadow of popular superstitions. <a +name="citation287"></a><a href="#footnote287" +class="citation">[287]</a> And till we have learnt that, +may Greek books still form the basis of our liberal education, +and may Greek statues, or even English attempts to copy them, +fill public halls and private houses. This generation may +not understand their divine and eternal significance; but a +future generation, doubt it not, will spell it out right +well.’</p> +<p>Claude and I went forth along the cliffs of a park, which, +though not of the largest, is certainly of the loveliest in +England,—perhaps unique, from that abrupt contact of the +richest inland scenery with the open sea, which is its +distinctive feature. As we wandered along the edge of the +cliff, beneath us on our left lay wooded valleys, lawns spotted +with deer, stately timber trees, oak and beech, birch and alder, +growing as full and round-headed as if they had been buried in +some Shropshire valley fifty miles inland, instead of having the +Atlantic breezes all the winter long sweeping past a few hundred +feet above their still seclusion. Glens of forest wound +away into the high inner land, with silver burns sparkling here +and there under their deep shadows; while from the lawns beneath, +the ground sloped rapidly upwards towards us, to stop short in a +sheer wall of cliff, over which the deer were leaning to crop the +shoots of ivy, where the slipping of a stone would have sent them +400 feet perpendicular into the sea. On our right, from our +very feet, the sea spread out to the horizon; a single falcon was +wheeling about the ledges below; a single cormorant was fishing +in the breakers, diving and rising again like some tiny +water-beetle;</p> +<blockquote><p> ‘The murmuring surge<br /> +That on the unnumbered pebbles idly chafed<br /> +Could not be heard so high.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The only sound beside the rustle of the fern before the +startled deer was the soft mysterious treble of the wind as it +swept over the face of the cliff beneath us; but the cool air was +confined to the hill-tops round beneath, from within a short +distance of the shore, the sea was shrouded in soft summer +haze. The far Atlantic lay like an ocean of white wool, out +of which the Hartland Cliffs and the highest point of Lundy just +showed their black peaks. Here and there the western sun +caught one white bank of mist after another, and tinged them with +glowing gold; while nearer us long silvery zigzag tide-lines, +which we could have fancied the tracks of water-fairies, wandered +away under the smoky grey-brown shadows of the fog, and seemed to +vanish hundreds of miles off into the void of space, so +completely was all notion of size or distance destroyed by the +soft gradations of the mist. Suddenly, as we stood +watching, a breeze from the eastward dived into the basin of the +bay, swept the clouds out, packed them together, rolled them over +each other, and hurled them into the air miles high in one +Cordillera of snowy mountains, sailing slowly out into the +Atlantic; and behold, instead of the chaos of mist, the whole +amphitheatre of cliffs, with their gay green woods and spots of +bright red marl and cold black ironstone, and the gleaming white +sands of Braunton, and the hills of Exmoor bathed in sunshine, so +near and clear we almost fancied we could see the pink +heather-hue upon them; and the bay one vast rainbow, ten miles of +flame-colour and purple, emerald and ultramarine, flecked with a +thousand spots of flying snow. No one knows what gigantic +effects of colour even our temperate zone can show, till they +have been in Devonshire and Cornwall; and last, but not least, in +Ireland—the Emerald Isle, in truth. No stay-at-home +knows the colour of the sea till he has seen the West of England; +and no one, either stay-at-home or traveller, I suspect, knows +what the colour of a green field can be till he has seen it among +the magic smiles and tears of an Irish summer shower in county +Down.</p> +<p>Down we wandered from our height through ‘trim walks and +alleys green,’ where the arbutus and gumcistus fringed the +cliffs, and through the deep glades of the park, towards the +delicious little cove which bounds it.—A deep crack in the +wooded hills, an old mill half buried in rocks and flowers, a +stream tinkling on from one rock-basin to another towards the +beach, a sandy lawn gay with sea-side flowers over which wild +boys and bare-footed girls were driving their ponies with +panniers full of sand, and as they rattled back to the beach for +a fresh load, standing upright on the backs of their steeds, with +one foot in each pannier, at full trot over rocks and stones +where a landsman would find it difficult to walk on his own +legs.</p> +<p>Enraptured with the place and people, Claude pulled out his +sketch-book and sat down.</p> +<p>‘What extraordinary rocks!’ said he, at +length. ‘How different from those Cyclopean blocks +and walls along the Exmoor cliffs are these rich purple and olive +ironstone layers, with their sharp serrated lines and polished +slabs, set up on edge, snapped, bent double, twisted into +serpentine curves, every sheet of cliff scored with sharp +parallel lines at some fresh fantastic angle!’</p> +<p>Yes; there must have been strange work here when all these +strata were being pressed and squeezed together like a ream of +wet paper between the rival granite pincers of Dartmoor and +Lundy. They must have suffered enough then in a few years +to give them a fair right to lie quiet till Doomsday, as they +seem likely to do. But it is only old Mother Earth who has +fallen asleep hereabouts. Air and sea are just as live as +ever. Ay, lovely and calm enough spread beneath us there +the broad semicircle of the bay; but to know what it can be, it +should be seen as I have seen it, when, in the roaring December +morning, we have been galloping along the cliffs, +wreck-hunting.—One morning I can remember well, how we +watched from the Hartland Cliffs a great barque, which came +drifting and rolling in before the western gale, while we +followed her up the coast, parsons and sportsmen, farmers and +Preventive men, with the Manby’s mortar lumbering behind us +in a cart, through stone gaps and track-ways, from headland to +headland.—The maddening excitement of expectation as she +ran wildly towards the cliffs at our feet, and then sheered off +again inexplicably;—her foremast and bowsprit, I recollect, +were gone short off by the deck; a few rags of sail fluttered +from her main and mizen. But with all straining of eyes and +glasses, we could discern no sign of man on board. Well I +recollect the mingled disappointment and admiration of the +Preventive men, as a fresh set of salvors appeared in view, in +the form of a boat’s crew of Clovelly fishermen; how we +watched breathlessly the little black speck crawling and +struggling up in the teeth of the gale, under the shelter of the +land, till, when the ship had rounded a point into smoother +water, she seized on her like some tiny spider on a huge unwieldy +fly; and then how one still smaller black speck showed aloft on +the main-yard, and another—and then the desperate efforts +to get the topsail set—and how we saw it tear out of their +hands again, and again, and again, and almost fancied we could +hear the thunder of its flappings above the roar of the gale, and +the mountains of surf which made the rocks ring beneath our +feet;—and how we stood silent, shuddering, expecting every +moment to see whirled into the sea from the plunging yards one of +those same tiny black specks, in each one of which was a living +human soul, with sad women praying for him at home! And +then how they tried to get her head round to the wind, and +disappeared instantly in a cloud of white spray—and let her +head fall back again—and jammed it round again, and +disappeared again—and at last let her drive helplessly up +the bay, while we kept pace with her along the cliffs; and how at +last, when she had been mastered and fairly taken in tow, and was +within two miles of the pier, and all hearts were merry with the +hopes of a prize which would make them rich, perhaps, for years +to come—one-third, I suppose, of the whole value of her +cargo—how she broke loose from them at the last moment, and +rushed frantically in upon those huge rocks below us, leaping +great banks of slate at the blow of each breaker, tearing off +masses of ironstone which lie there to this day to tell the tale, +till she drove up high and dry against the cliff, and lay, like +an enormous stranded whale, grinding and crashing herself to +pieces against the walls of her adamantine cage. And well I +recollect the sad records of the log-book which was left on board +the deserted ship; how she had been waterlogged for weeks and +weeks, buoyed up by her timber cargo, the crew clinging in the +tops, and crawling down, when they dared, for putrid biscuit-dust +and drops of water, till the water was washed overboard and gone; +and then notice after notice, ‘On this day such an one +died,’ ‘On this day such an one was washed +away’—the log kept up to the last, even when there +was only that to tell, by the stern business-like merchant +skipper, whoever he was; and how at last, when there was neither +food nor water, the strong man’s heart seemed to have +quailed, or perhaps risen, into a prayer, jotted down in the +log—‘The Lord have mercy on us!’—and then +a blank of several pages, and, scribbled with a famine-shaken +hand, ‘Remember thy Creator in the days of thy +youth;’—and so the log and the ship were left to the +rats, which covered the deck when our men boarded her. And +well I remember the last act of that tragedy; for a ship has +really, as sailors feel, a personality, almost a life and soul of +her own; and as long as her timbers hold together, all is not +over. You can hardly call her a corpse, though the human +beings who inhabited her, and were her soul, may have fled into +the far eternities; and so we felt that night, as we came down +along the woodland road, with the north-west wind hurling dead +branches and showers of crisp oak-leaves about our heads; till +suddenly, as we staggered out of the wood, we came upon such a +piece of chiaroscuro as would have baffled Correggio, or +Rembrandt, himself. Under a wall was a long tent of sails +and spars, filled with Preventive men, fishermen, Lloyd’s +underwriters, lying about in every variety of strange attitude +and costume; while candles, stuck in bayonet-handles in the wall, +poured out a wild glare over shaggy faces and glittering weapons, +and piles of timber, and rusty iron cable, that glowed red-hot in +the light, and then streamed up the glen towards us through the +salt misty air in long fans of light, sending fiery bars over the +brown transparent oak foliage and the sad beds of withered autumn +flowers, and glorifying the wild flakes of foam, as they rushed +across the light-stream, into troops of tiny silver angels, that +vanished into the night and hid themselves among the woods from +the fierce spirit of the storm. And then, just where the +glare of the lights and watch-fires was most brilliant, there too +the black shadows of the cliff had placed the point of intensest +darkness, lightening gradually upwards right and left, between +the two great jaws of the glen, into a chaos of grey mist, where +the eye could discern no form of sea or cloud, but a perpetual +shifting and quivering as if the whole atmosphere was writhing +with agony in the clutches of the wind.</p> +<p>The ship was breaking up; and we sat by her like hopeless +physicians by a deathbed-side, to watch the last +struggle,—and ‘the effects of the +deceased.’ I recollect our literally warping +ourselves down to the beach, holding on by rocks and posts. +There was a saddened awe-struck silence, even upon the gentleman +from Lloyd’s with the pen behind his ear. A sudden +turn of the clouds let in a wild gleam of moonshine upon the +white leaping heads of the breakers, and on the pyramid of the +Black-church Rock, which stands in summer in such calm grandeur +gazing down on the smiling bay, with the white sand of Braunton +and the red cliffs of Portledge shining through its two vast +arches; and against a slab of rock on the right, for years +afterwards discoloured with her paint, lay the ship, rising +slowly on every surge, to drop again with a piteous crash as the +wave fell back from the cliff, and dragged the roaring pebbles +back with it under the coming wall of foam. You have heard +of ships at the last moment crying aloud like living things in +agony? I heard it then, as the stumps of her masts rocked +and reeled in her, and every plank and joint strained and +screamed with the dreadful tension.</p> +<p>A horrible image—a human being shrieking on the rack, +rose up before me at those strange semi-human cries, and would +not be put away—and I tried to turn, and yet my eyes were +riveted on the black mass, which seemed vainly to implore the +help of man against the stern ministers of the Omnipotent.</p> +<p>Still she seemed to linger in the death-struggle, and we +turned at last away; when, lo! a wave, huger than all before it, +rushed up the boulders towards us.—We had just time to save +ourselves.—A dull, thunderous groan, as if a mountain had +collapsed, rose above the roar of the tempest; and we all turned +with an instinctive knowledge of what had happened, just in time +to see the huge mass melt away into the boiling white, and vanish +for evermore. And then the very raving of the wind seemed +hushed with awe; the very breakers plunged more silently towards +the shore, with something of a sullen compunction; and as we +stood and strained our eyes into the gloom, one black plank after +another crawled up out of the darkness upon the head of the +coming surge, and threw itself at our feet like the corpse of a +drowning man, too spent to struggle more.</p> +<p>There is another subject for a picture for you, my friend +Claude: but your gayer fancy will prefer the scene just as you +are sketching it now, as still and bright as if this coast had +never seen the bay 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 from the pitiless howling waste of spray behind them; and +that merry beach beside the town covered with shrieking women and +old men casting themselves on the pebbles in fruitless agonies of +prayer, as corpse after corpse swept up at the feet of wife and +child, till in one case alone a single dawn saw upwards of sixty +widows and orphans weeping over those who had gone out the night +before in the fulness of strength and courage. Hardly an +old playmate of mine, but is drowned and gone:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Their graves are scattered far and wide<br +/> + By mount, by stream, and sea.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One poor little fellow’s face starts out of the depths +of memory as fresh as ever, my especial pet and bird-nesting +companion as a boy—a little delicate, precocious, +large-brained child, who might have written books some day, if he +had been a gentleman’s son: but when his father’s +ship was wrecked, they found him, left alone of all the crew, +just as he had been lashed into the rigging by loving and dying +hands, but cold and stiff, the little soul beaten out of him by +the cruel waves before it had time to show what growth there +might have been in it. We will talk no more of such +things. It is thankless to be sad when all heaven and earth +are keeping holiday under the smile of God.</p> +<p>‘And now let us return. At four o’clock +to-morrow morning, you know, we are to start for +Lundy.’</p> +<h3>V.—<span class="smcap">Lundy</span>.</h3> +<p>It was four o’clock on an August morning. Our +little party had made the sleeping streets ring with jests and +greetings, as it collected on the pier. Some dozen young +men and women, sons and daughters of the wealthier coasting +captains and owners of fishing-smacks, chaperoned by our old +landlord, whose delicate and gentlemanlike features and figure +were strangely at variance with the history of his +life,—daring smuggler, daring man-of-war sailor, and then +most daring and successful of coastguard-men. After years +of fighting and shipwreck and creeping for kegs of brandy; after +having seen, too—sight not to be forgotten—the +Walcheren dykes and the Walcheren fever, through weary months of +pestilence, he had come back with a little fortune of prize-money +to be a village oracle, loving and beloved, as gentle and +courteous as if he had never ‘stato al inferno,’ and +looked Death in the face. Heaven bless thee, shrewd loyal +heart, a gentleman of God’s making, not unrecognized either +by many of men’s making.</p> +<p>The other chaperone was a lady of God’s making, too; one +who might have been a St. Theresa, had she been born there and +then; but as it was, had been fated to become only the Wesleyan +abbess of the town, and, like Deborah, ‘a mother in +Israel.’ With her tall, slim, queenly figure, massive +forehead, glittering eyes, features beaming with tenderness and +enthusiasm, and yet overcast with a peculiar expression of +self-consciousness and restraint, well known to those who have +studied the physiognomies of ‘saints,’ she seemed to +want only the dress of some monastic order to make her the ideal +of a mediæval abbess, watching with a half-pitying, +half-complacent smile, the gambols of a group of innocent young +worldlings. I saw Claude gazing at her full of admiration +and surprise, which latter was certainly not decreased when, as +soon as all had settled themselves comfortably on board, and the +cutter was slipping quietly away under the magnificent deer-park +cliffs, the Lady Abbess, pulling out her Wesleyan hymn-book, gave +out the Morning Hymn, apparently as a matter of course.</p> +<p>With hardly a demur one sweet voice after another arose; then +a man gained courage, and chimed in with a full harmonious bass; +then a rich sad alto made itself heard, as it wandered in and out +between the voices of the men and women; and at last a wild +mellow tenor, which we discovered after much searching to proceed +from the most unlikely-looking lips of an old dry, +weather-bleared, mummified chrysalis of a man, who stood aft, +steering with his legs, and showing no sign of life except when +he slowly and solemnly filled his nose with snuff.</p> +<p>‘What strange people have you brought me among?’ +asked Claude. ‘I have been wondering ever since I +came here at the splendid faces and figures of men, women, and +children, which popped out upon me from every door in that human +rabbit-burrow above. I have been in raptures at the +gracefulness, the courtesy, the intelligence of almost everyone I +meet; and now, to crown all, everyone among them seems to be a +musician.’</p> +<p>‘Really you are not far wrong, and you will find them as +remarkable morally as they are physically and +intellectually. The simplicity and purity of the women here +put one more in mind of the valleys of the Tyrol than of an +English village.’</p> +<p>‘And in proportion to their purity, I suppose,’ +said Claude, ‘is their freedom and +affectionateness?’</p> +<p>‘Exactly. It would do your +“naturalist” heart good, Claude, to see a young +fellow just lauded from a foreign voyage rolling up the street +which we have just descended, and availing himself of the +immemorial right belonging to such cases of kissing and being +kissed by every woman whom he meets, young and old. You +will find yourself here among those who are too simple-minded, +and too full of self-respect, to be either servile or +uncourteous.’</p> +<p>‘I have found out already that Liberty, Fraternity, and +Equality, in such company as this, are infinitely pleasanter, as +well as cheaper, than the aristocratic seclusion of a cutter +hired for our own behoof.’</p> +<p>‘True; and now you will not go home and, as most +tourists do, say that you know a place, without knowing the +people who live in it—as if the human inhabitants of a +range of scenery were not among its integral and most important +parts—’</p> +<p>‘What! are Copley Fielding’s South Down landscapes +incomplete without a half-starved seven shillings a-week labourer +in the foreground?’</p> +<p>‘Honestly, are they not a text without a sermon? a +premise without a conclusion? Is it not partly because the +land is down, and not well-tilled arable, that the labourer is +what he is? And yet, perhaps, the very absence of human +beings in his vast sheets of landscape, when one considers that +they are scraps of great, overcrowded, scientific England in the +nineteenth century, is in itself the bitterest of satires. +But, hush! there is another hymn commencing—not to be the +last by many.’</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>We had landed, and laughed, and scrambled, eaten and drunk, +seen all the sights of Lundy, and heard all the traditions. +Are they not written in Mr. Bamfield’s Ilfracombe +Guide? Why has not some one already written a +fire-and-brimstone romance about them? ‘Moresco +Castle; or, the Pirate Knight of the Atlantic Wave.’ +What a title! Or again—‘The Seal Fiend; or, the +Nemesis of the Scuttled West Indiaman.’—If I had +paper and lubricité enough, and that delightful +carelessness of any moral or purpose, except that of fine writing +and money-making, which possesses some modern scribblers—I +could tales unfold—But neither pirate legends, nor tales of +cheated insurance offices, nor wrecks and murders, will make us +understand Lundy—what it is ‘considered in its +idea,’ as the new argot is. It may be defined as a +lighthouse-bearing island. The whole three miles of granite +table-land, seals, sea-birds, and human beings, are mere +accidents and appendages—the pedestal and the ornaments of +that great white tower in the centre, whose sleepless fiery eye +blinks all night long over the night-mists of the Atlantic. +If, as a wise man has said, the days will come when our +degenerate posterity will fall down and worship rusty locomotives +and fossil electric-telegraphs, the relics of their +ancestors’ science, grown to them mythic and impossible, as +the Easter-islanders bow before the colossal statues left by a +nobler and extinct race, then surely there will be pilgrimages to +Lundy, and prayers to that white granite tower, with its unglazed +lantern and rusting machinery, to light itself up again, and help +poor human beings! Really, my dear brothers, I am not in +jest: you seem but too likely now-a-days to arrive at some such +catastrophe—sentimental philosophy for the +‘enlightened’ few, and fetish-worship (of which +nominally Christian forms are as possible as heathen ones) for +the masses.—At that you may only too probably +arrive—unless you repent, and ‘get back your +souls.’</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>We had shot along the cliffs a red-legged chough or two, and +one of the real black English rat, exterminated on the mainland +by the grey Hanoverian newcomer; and weary with sight-seeing and +scrambling, we sat down to meditate on a slab of granite, which +hung three hundred feet in air above the western main.</p> +<p>‘This is even more strange and new to me,’ said +Claude, at length, ‘than anything I have yet seen in this +lovely West. I now appreciate Ruskin’s advice to +oil-painters to go and study the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, +instead of lingering about the muddy seas and tame cliffs of the +Channel and the German Ocean.’</p> +<p>‘How clear and brilliant,’ said I, +‘everything shows through this Atlantic atmosphere. +The intensity of colouring may vie with that of the shores of the +Mediterranean. The very raininess of the climate, by +condensing the moisture into an ever-changing phantasmagoria of +clouds, leaves the clear air and sunshine, when we do get a +glimpse of them, all the more pure and transparent.’</p> +<p>‘The distinctive feature of the scene is, in my eyes, +the daring juxtaposition of large simple masses of positive +colour. There are none of the misty enamelled tones of +Lynmouth, or the luscious richness of Clovelly. The forms +are so simple and severe, that they would be absolutely meagre, +were it not for the rich colouring with which Nature has so +lovingly made up for the absence of all softness, all picturesque +outline. One does not regret or even feel the want of trees +here, while the eye ranges down from that dappled cloud-world +above, over that sheet of purple heather, those dells bedded with +dark green fern, of a depth and richness of hue which I never saw +before—over those bright grey granite rocks, spangled with +black glittering mica and golden lichens, to rest at last on that +sea below, which streams past the island in a swift roaring +torrent of tide.’</p> +<p>‘Sea, Claude? say, ocean. This is real Atlantic +blue here beneath us. No more Severn mud, no more +grass-green bay-water, but real ocean sapphire—dark, deep, +intense, Homeric purple, it spreads away, away, there before us, +without a break or islet, to the shores of America. You are +sitting on one of the last points of Europe; and therefore all +things round you are stern and strange with a barbaric pomp, such +as befits the boundary of a world.’</p> +<p>‘Ay, the very form of the cliffs shows them to be the +breakwaters of a continent. No more fantastic curves and +bands of slate, such as harmonize so well with the fairyland +which we left this morning; the cliffs, with their horizontal +rows of cubical blocks, seem built up by Cyclopean +hands.’</p> +<p>‘Yet how symbolic is the difference between them and +that equally Cyclopic masonry of the Exmoor coast. There +every fracture is fresh, sharp-edged, crystalline; the worn-out +useless hills are dropping to pieces with their own weight. +Here each cube is delicately rounded off at the edges, every +crack worn out into a sinuous furrow, like the scars of an +everlasting warfare with the winds and waves.’</p> +<p>‘Does it not raise strange longings in you,’ said +Claude, ‘to gaze out yonder over the infinite calm, and +then to remember that beyond it lies America!—the new +world; the future world; the great Titan-baby, who will be +teeming with new Athens and Londons, with new Bacons and +Shakspeares, Newtons and Goethes, when this old worn-out island +will be—what? Oh! when I look out here, like a bird +from its cage, a captive from his dungeon, and remember what lies +behind me, to what I must return to-morrow—the over-peopled +Babylon of misery and misrule, puffery and covetousness—and +there before me great countries untilled, uncivilized, +unchristianized, crying aloud for man to come and be man indeed, +and replenish the earth and subdue it. “Oh that I had +wings as a dove, then would I flee away and be at +rest!” Here, lead me away; my body is growing as +dizzy as my mind. I feel coming over me that horrible +longing of which I have heard, to leap out into empty +space. How the blank air whispers, “Be +free!” How the broad sea smiles, and calls, with its +ten thousand waves, “Be free!”—As I live, if +you do not take me away I shall throw myself over the +cliff.’</p> +<p>I did take him away, for I knew the sensation and its danger +well. It has nothing to do with physical giddiness. +Those who are cliff-bred, and who never were giddy for an instant +in their lives, have often felt themselves impelled to leap from +masts, and tree-tops, and cliffs; and nothing but the most +violent effort of will could break the fascination. I +cannot but think, by the bye, that many a puzzling suicide might +be traced to this same emotion acting on a weak and morbid +brain.</p> +<p>We returned to the little landing cove. The red-sailed +cutter lay sleeping below us—‘floating double, ship +and shadow.’ Shoals of innumerable mackerel broke up, +making acres of water foam and sparkle round their silvery sides, +with a soft roar (call it ‘a bull’ if you like, it is +the only expression for that mysterious sound), while among them +the black head of a huge seal was slowly and silently appearing +and vanishing, as he got his dinner, in a quiet business-like +way, among the unhappy wanderers.</p> +<p>We put off in the boat, and just halfway from the cutter +Claude gave a start, and the women a scream, as the enormous +brute quietly raised his head and shoulders out of the water ten +yards off, with a fish kicking in his mouth, and the water +running off his nose, to take a deliberate stare at us, after the +fashion of seals, whose ruling passion is curiosity. The +sound of a musical instrument, the sight of a man +bathing—anything, in short, which their small wits cannot +explain at first sight, is enough to make them forget all their +cunning, and thrust their heads suicidally into any danger; and +even so it fared with the ‘black man,’ as the girls, +in their first terror, declared him to be. Some +fellow’s gun went off—of itself I should like to +believe—but the whole charge disappeared into his sleek +round visage, knocking the mackerel from between his teeth; and +he turned over, a seven-foot lump of lifeless blubber.</p> +<p>‘Wretch!’ cried Claude, as we dragged the seal +into the boat, where he lay with his head and arms hanging +helplessly over the bows, like a sea-sick alderman on board a +Margate steamer. ‘What excuse can he give for such a +piece of wanton cruelty?’</p> +<p>‘I assure you his skin and oil are very +valuable.’</p> +<p>‘Pish!—Was he thinking of skin and oil when he +pulled the trigger? or merely obeying the fleshly lust of +destructiveness—the puppet of two bumps on the back of his +head?’</p> +<p>‘My dear Claude, man is the microcosm; and as the +highest animal, the ideal type of the mammalia, he, like all true +types, comprises in himself the attributes of all lower +species. Therefore he must have a tiger-vein in him, my +dear Claude, as well as a beaver-vein and a spider-vein; and no +more shame to him. You are a butterfly; that good fellow a +beast of prey; both may have their own work to do in this age +just as they had in the old ones; and if you do not like that +explanation, all I can say is, I can sympathise with you and with +him too. Homo sum—humani nihil a me alienum +puto. Trim the boat, lads, or the seal will swamp us, and, +like Samson, slay more in his death than ever he slew in his +life.’</p> +<p>We slipped on homeward. The cliff-wall of Lundy stood +out blacker and blacker every moment against the gay western sky; +greens, greys, and purples, dyeing together into one deep rich +monotone, for which our narrow colour-vocabulary has no word; and +threw a long cold shadow towards us across the golden sea; +suddenly above its dark ridge a wild wreath of low rack caught +the rays of the setting sun, and flamed up like a volcano towards +the dun and purple canopy of upper clouds. Before us the +blue sea and the blue land-line were fading into mournful grey, +on which one huge West Indiaman blazed out, orange and scarlet, +her crowded canvas all a-flame from the truck to the +water’s edge.—A few moments and she, too, had +vanished into the grey twilight, and a chill night-wind crisped +the sea. It was a relief to hear the Evening Hymn rise rich +and full from one voice, and then another and another, till the +men chimed in one by one, and the whole cutter, from stem to +stern, breathed up its melody into the silent night.</p> +<p>But the hymn soon flagged—there was more mirth on board +than could vent itself in old Charles Wesley’s words; and +one began to hum a song tune, and then another, with a side +glance at the expression of the Lady Abbess’s face, till at +last, when a fair wife took courage, and burst out with full pipe +into ‘The sea, the sea,’ the ice was fairly broken; +and among jests and laughter one merry harmless song after +another rang out, many of them, to Claude’s surprise, +fashionable London ones, which sounded strangely enough out there +on the wild western sea. At last—‘Claude, +friend,’ I whispered, ‘you must sing your share +too—and mine also, for that matter.’</p> +<p>‘What shall I sing?’</p> +<p>‘Anything you will, from the sublime to the +ridiculous. They will understand and appreciate it as well +as yourself. Recollect, you are not among bullet-headed +South Saxon clods, but among wits as keen and imaginations as +rich as those of any Scotch shepherd or Manchester +operative.’</p> +<p>And up rose his exquisite tenor.</p> +<p>This was his first song, but it was not allowed to be his +last. German ballads, Italian Opera airs, were all just as +warmly, and perhaps far more sincerely appreciated, as they would +have been by any London evening-party; and the singing went on, +hour after hour, as we slipped slowly on upon the tide, till it +grew late, and the sweet voices died away one by one; and then +the Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity which had reigned so +pleasantly throughout the day took a new form, as the women +huddled together to sleep in each other’s arms; and the men +and we clustered forwards, while from every mouth fragrant +incense steamed upwards into the air. ‘Man a cooking +animal?’ my dear Doctor Johnson—pooh! man is a +smoking animal. There is his ergon, his ‘differential +energy,’ as the Aristotelians say—his true +distinction from the ourang-outang. Ponder it well.</p> +<p>The men were leaning on the trawl capstan, while our old +landlord, with half-a-dozen pipes within a foot of his face, +droned out some long sea-yarn about Ostend, and muds, and +snow-storms, and revenue-cruisers going down stern foremost, kegs +of brandy and French prisons, which I shall not repeat; for +indeed the public has been surfeited with sea-stories of late, +from many sufficiently dull ones up to the genial wisdom of +‘Peter Simple,’ and the gorgeous word-painting of +‘Tom Cringle’s Log.’ And now the subject +is stale—the old war and the wonders thereof have died away +into the past, like the men who fought in it; and Trafalgar and +the Bellerophon are replaced by Manchester and ‘Mary +Barton.’ We have solved the old sea-going problems +pretty well—thanks to wise English-hearted Captain Marryat, +now gone to his rest, just when his work was done; and we must +turn round and face a few land-going problems not quite so easy +of solution. So Claude and I thought, as we leant over the +sloop’s bows, listening neither to the Ostend story +forwards nor the forty-stanza ballad aft, which the old steersman +was moaning on, careless of listeners, to keep himself awake at +the helm. Forty stanzas or so we did count from curiosity; +the first line of each of which ended infallibly with</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">‘Says the +commodo—ore;</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and the third with</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">‘Says the female +smuggler;’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and then gave up in despair; and watched in a dreamy, tired, +half-sad mood, the everlasting sparkle of the water as our bows +threw it gently off in sheets of flame and ‘tender curving +lines of creamy’ fire, that ran along the glassy surface, +and seemed to awaken the sea for yards round into glittering +life, as countless diamonds, and emeralds, and topazes, leaped +and ran and dived round us, while we slipped slowly by; and then +a speck of light would show far off in the blank darkness, and +another, and another, and slide slowly up to us—shoals of +medusæ, every one of them a heaving globe of flame; and +some unseen guillemot would give a startled squeak, or a +shearwater close above our heads suddenly stopped the yarn, and +raised a titter among the men, by his ridiculously articulate, +and not over-complimentary, cry; and then a fox’s bark from +the cliffs came wild and shrill, although so faint and distant; +or the lazy gaff gave a sad uneasy creak; and then a soft warm +air, laden with heather honey, and fragrant odours of sedge, and +birch, and oak, came sighing from the land; while all around us +was the dense blank of the night, except where now and then some +lonely gleam through the southern clouds showed the cliff-tops on +our right.—It was all most unearthly, dreamlike, a strange +phantasmagoria, like some scene from ‘The Ancient +Mariner’—all the world shut out, silent, invisible, +and we floating along there alone, like a fairy ship creeping +through Chaos and the unknown Limbo. Was it an evil thought +that rose within me as I said to Claude—‘Is not this +too like life? Our only light the sparkles that rise up +round us at every step, and die behind us; and all around, and +all before, the great black unfathomable eternities? A few +souls brought together as it were by chance, for a short +friendship and mutual dependence in this little ship of earth, so +soon to land her passengers and break up the company for +ever?’</p> +<p>He smiled.</p> +<p>‘There is a devil’s meaning to everything in +nature, and a God’s meaning, too. Your friends, the +zoologists, have surely taught you better than that. As I +read Nature’s parable to-night, I find nothing in it but +hope. What if there be darkness, the sun will rise +to-morrow. What if there seem a chaos: the great organic +world is still living, and growing, and feeding, unseen by us, +all the black night through; and every phosphoric atom there +below is a sign that even in the darkest night there is still the +power of light, ready to flash out, wherever and however it is +stirred. Does the age seem to you dark? Do you, too, +feel as I do at times, the awful sadness of that +text,—“The time shall come when ye shall desire to +see one of the days of the Lord, and shall not see +it”? Then remember that</p> +<blockquote><p>“The night is never so long<br /> +But at last it ringeth for matin song.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And even as it is around us here, so it is in the world of +men. The night is peopled not merely with phantoms and +wizards, superstitions and spirits of evil, but under its shadow +all sciences, methods, social energies, are taking rest, and +growing, and feeding, unknown to themselves, that they may awake +into a new life, and intermarry, and beget children nobler than +themselves, when “the day-spring from on high comes +down.” Even now, see! the dawn is gilding the highest +souls, as it is those Exmoor peaks afar; and we are in the night +only because we crawl below. What if we be unconscious of +all the living energies which are fermenting round us now? +Have you not shown me in this last week every moorland pool, +every drop of the summer sea, alive with beautiful organizations, +multiplying as fast as the thoughts of man? Is not every +leaf breathing still, every sap vein drinking still, though we +may not see them? “Even so is the kingdom of God; +like seed sown in the ground; and men rise, and lie down and +sleep; and it groweth up they know not how.”’</p> +<p>We both fell into a reverie. The story and the ballad +were finished, and not a sound broke the silence except the +screaming of the sea-fowl, which led my thoughts wandering back +to nights long past, when we dragged the seine up to our chins in +water through the short midsummer night, and scrambled and rolled +over on the beach in boyish glee, after the skate and mullet, +with those now gone; and as I thought and thought, old voices +seemed to call me, old faces looked at me, of playmates, and +those nearer than playmates, now sleeping in the deep deep sea, +amid far coral islands; and old figures seemed to glide out of +the mysterious dark along the still sea floor, as if the ocean +were indeed giving up her dead. I shook myself, turned +away, and tried to persuade myself that I was dreaming. +Perhaps I had been doing so. At least, I remember very +little more, till I was roused by the rattling of the chain-cable +through the hawse-hole, opposite the pier-head.</p> +<p>And now, gentle readers, farewell; and farewell, Clovelly, and +all the loving hearts it holds; and farewell, too, the soft still +summer weather. Claude and I are taking our last walk +together along the deer-park cliffs. Lundy is shrouded in +the great grey fan of dappled haze which streams up from the +westward, dimming the sickly sun. ‘There is not a +breath the blue wave to curl.’ Yet lo! round +Chapman’s Head creeps a huge bank of polished swell, and +bursts in thunder on the cliffs.—Another follows, and +another.—The Atlantic gales are sending in their +avant-courriers of ground-swell: six hours more, and the storm +which has been sweeping over ‘the still-vexed +Bermoöthes,’ and bending the tall palms on West Indian +isles, will be roaring through the oak woods of Devon. The +old black buck is calling his does with ominous croakings, and +leading the way slowly into the deepest coverts of the +glens. The stormy petrels, driven in from the Atlantic, are +skimming like black swallows over the bay beneath us. Long +strings of sea-fowl are flagging on steadily at railroad pace, +towards the sands and salt-marshes of Braunton. The +herring-boats are hastily hauling their nets—you may see +the fish sparkling like flakes of silver as they come up over the +gunwale; all craft, large and small, are making for the shelter +of the pier. Claude starts this afternoon to sit for six +months in Babylonic smoke, working up his sketches into certain +unspeakable pictures, with which the world will be astonished, or +otherwise, at the next Royal Academy Exhibition; while I, for +whom another fortnight of pure western air remains, am off to +well-known streams, to be in time for the autumn floods, and the +shoals of fresh-run salmon trout.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1" +class="footnote">[1]</a> <i>Fraser’s Magazine</i>, +June 1867.</p> +<p><a name="footnote29"></a><a href="#citation29" +class="footnote">[29]</a> <i>Fraser’s Magazine</i>, +September 1858.</p> +<p><a name="footnote74"></a><a href="#citation74" +class="footnote">[74]</a> The Ripon list of natural flies +contains several other species of small Nemouridæ unknown +to me, save one brown one, which is seen in the South, though +rarely, in June.</p> +<p><a name="footnote103"></a><a href="#citation103" +class="footnote">[103]</a> For these details I am indebted +to a paper in the ‘Annals of Natural History,’ for +September 1862, by my friend, Professor Alfred Newton, of +Cambridge.</p> +<p><a name="footnote135"></a><a href="#citation135" +class="footnote">[135]</a> <i>Fraser’s Magazine</i>, +January 1858.</p> +<p><a name="footnote225a"></a><a href="#citation225a" +class="footnote">[225a]</a> <i>Fraser’s Magazine</i>, +July 1849.</p> +<p><a name="footnote225b"></a><a href="#citation225b" +class="footnote">[225b]</a> Some years after this was +written, the very book which was needed appeared, as “The +Chase of the Red Deer,” by Mr. Palk Collyns.</p> +<p><a name="footnote235"></a><a href="#citation235" +class="footnote">[235]</a> Written before the Volunteer +movement.</p> +<p><a name="footnote287"></a><a href="#citation287" +class="footnote">[287]</a> Most wise and noble words upon +this matter, worth the attention of all thinking men, and above +all of clergymen, have been written by Mr. J. S. Mill, in his +tract on ‘Liberty.’</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROSE IDYLLS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 7032-h.htm or 7032-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/7/0/3/7032 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Prose Idylls + +Author: Charles Kingsley + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7032] +[This file was first posted on February 25, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, PROSE IDYLLS *** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1882 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +PROSE IDYLLS, NEW AND OLD + + + + +Contents: + A Charm of Birds + Chalk-Stream Studies + The Fens + My Winter-Garden + From Ocean to Sea + North Devon + + + +I. 'A CHARM OF BIRDS.' {1} + + + +Is it merely a fancy that we English, the educated people among us at +least, are losing that love for spring which among our old +forefathers rose almost to worship? That the perpetual miracle of +the budding leaves and the returning song-birds awakes no longer in +us the astonishment which it awoke yearly among the dwellers in the +old world, when the sun was a god who was sick to death each winter, +and returned in spring to life and health, and glory; when the death +of Adonis, at the autumnal equinox, was wept over by the Syrian +women, and the death of Baldur, in the colder north, by all living +things, even to the dripping trees, and the rocks furrowed by the +autumn rains; when Freya, the goddess of youth and love, went forth +over the earth each spring, while the flowers broke forth under her +tread over the brown moors, and the birds welcomed her with song; +when, according to Olaus Magnus, the Goths and South Swedes had, on +the return of spring, a mock battle between summer and winter, and +welcomed the returning splendour of the sun with dancing and mutual +feasting, rejoicing that a better season for fishing and hunting was +approaching? To those simpler children of a simpler age, in more +direct contact with the daily and yearly facts of Nature, and more +dependent on them for their bodily food and life, winter and spring +were the two great facts of existence; the symbols, the one of death, +the other of life; and the battle between the two--the battle of the +sun with darkness, of winter with spring, of death with life, of +bereavement with love--lay at the root of all their myths and all +their creeds. Surely a change has come over our fancies. The +seasons are little to us now. We are nearly as comfortable in winter +as in summer, or in spring. Nay, we have begun, of late, to grumble +at the two latter as much as at the former, and talk (and not without +excuse at times) of 'the treacherous month of May,' and of 'summer +having set in with its usual severity.' We work for the most part in +cities and towns, and the seasons pass by us unheeded. May and June +are spent by most educated people anywhere rather than among birds +and flowers. They do not escape into the country till the elm hedges +are growing black, and the song-birds silent, and the hay cut, and +all the virgin bloom of the country has passed into a sober and +matronly ripeness--if not into the sere and yellow leaf. Our very +landscape painters, till Creswick arose and recalled to their minds +the fact that trees were sometimes green, were wont to paint few but +brown autumnal scenes. As for the song of birds, of which in the +middle age no poet could say enough, our modern poets seem to be +forgetting that birds ever sing. + +It was not so of old. The climate, perhaps, was more severe than +now; the transition from winter to spring more sudden, like that of +Scandinavia now. Clearage of forests and drainage of land have +equalized our seasons, or rather made them more uncertain. More +broken winters are followed by more broken springs; and May-day is no +longer a marked point to be kept as a festival by all childlike +hearts. The merry month of May is merry only in stage songs. The +May garlands and dances are all but gone: the borrowed plate, and +the milkmaids who borrowed it, gone utterly. No more does Mrs. Pepys +go to 'lie at Woolwich, in order to a little ayre and to gather May- +dew' for her complexion, by Mrs. Turner's advice. The Maypole is +gone likewise; and never more shall the puritan soul of a Stubbs be +aroused in indignation at seeing 'against Maie, every parish, towne, +and village assemble themselves together, both men, women, and +children, olde and young, all indifferently, and goe into the woodes +and groves, hilles and mountaines, where they spend the night in +pastyme, and in the morning they returne, bringing with them birch +bowes and braunches of trees to deck their assembly withal. . . . +They have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe having a sweete +nosegay of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these draw +home this Maypole (this stincking idol rather) which is covered all +over with flowers and hearbes, with two or three hundred men, women, +and children following it with great devotion. . . And then they +fall to banquet and feast, daunce and leap about it, as the heathen +people did at the dedication of their idolles, whereof this is a +perfect pattern, or the thing itself.' + +This, and much more, says poor Stubbs, in his 'Anatomie of Abuses,' +and had, no doubt, good reason enough for his virtuous indignation at +May-day scandals. But people may be made dull without being made +good; and the direct and only effect of putting down May games and +such like was to cut off the dwellers in towns from all healthy +communion with Nature, and leave them to mere sottishness and +brutality. + +Yet perhaps the May games died out, partly because the feelings which +had given rise to them died out before improved personal comforts. +Of old, men and women fared hardly, and slept cold; and were thankful +to Almighty God for every beam of sunshine which roused them out of +their long hybernation; thankful for every flower and every bird +which reminded them that joy was stronger than sorrow, and life than +death. With the spring came not only labour, but enjoyment: + + +'In the spring, the young man's fancy lightly turned to thoughts of +love,' + + +as lads and lasses, who had been pining for each other by their +winter firesides, met again, like Daphnis and Chloe, by shaugh and +lea; and learnt to sing from the songs of birds, and to be faithful +from their faithfulness. + +Then went out troops of fair damsels to seek spring garlands in the +forest, as Scheffel has lately sung once more in his 'Frau +Aventiure;' and, while the dead leaves rattled beneath their feet, +hymned 'La Regine Avrillouse' to the music of some Minnesinger, whose +song was as the song of birds; to whom the birds were friends, +fellow-lovers, teachers, mirrors of all which he felt within himself +of joyful and tender, true and pure; friends to be fed hereafter (as +Walther von der Vogelweide had them fed) with crumbs upon his grave. + +True melody, it must be remembered, is unknown, at least at present, +in the tropics, and peculiar to the races of those temperate climes, +into which the song-birds come in spring. It is hard to say why. +Exquisite songsters, and those, strangely, of an European type, may +be heard anywhere in tropical American forests: but native races +whose hearts their song can touch, are either extinct or yet to come. +Some of the old German Minnelieder, on the other hand, seem actually +copied from the songs of birds. 'Tanderadei' does not merely ask the +nightingale to tell no tales; it repeats, in its cadences, the +nightingale's song, as the old Minnesinger heard it when he nestled +beneath the lime-tree with his love. They are often almost as +inarticulate, these old singers, as the birds from whom they copied +their notes; the thinnest chain of thought links together some bird- +like refrain: but they make up for their want of logic and +reflection by the depth of their passion, the perfectness of their +harmony with nature. The inspired Swabian, wandering in the pine- +forest, listens to the blackbird's voice till it becomes his own +voice; and he breaks out, with the very carol of the blackbird + + +'Vogele im Tannenwald pfeifet so hell. +Pfeifet de Wald aus und ein, wo wird mein Schatze sein? +Vogele im Tannenwald pfeitet so hell.' + + +And he has nothing more to say. That is his whole soul for the time +being; and, like a bird, he sings it over and over again, and never +tires. + +Another, a Nieder-Rheinischer, watches the moon rise over the +Lowenburg, and thinks upon his love within the castle hall, till he +breaks out in a strange, sad, tender melody--not without stateliness +and manly confidence in himself and in his beloved--in the true +strain of the nightingale: + + +'Verstohlen geht der Mond auf, +Blau, blau, Blumelein, +Durch Silberwolkchen fuhrt sein Lauf. +Rosen im Thal, Madel im Saal, O schonste Rosa! +* * * +Und siehst du mich, +Und siehst du sie, +Blau, blau, Blumelein, +Zwei treu're Herzen sah'st du nie; +Rosen im Thal u. s. w.' + + +There is little sense in the words, doubtless, according to our +modern notions of poetry; but they are like enough to the long, +plaintive notes of the nightingale to say all that the poet has to +say, again and again through all his stanzas. + +Thus the birds were, to the mediaeval singers, their orchestra, or +rather their chorus; from the birds they caught their melodies; the +sounds which the birds gave them they rendered into words. + +And the same bird keynote surely is to be traced in the early English +and Scotch songs and ballads, with their often meaningless refrains, +sung for the mere pleasure of singing: + + +'Binnorie, O Binnorie. + + +Or - + + +'With a hey lillelu and a how lo lan, +And the birk and the broom blooms bonnie.' + + +Or - + + +'She sat down below a thorn, + Fine flowers in the valley, +And there has she her sweet babe born, + And the green leaves they grow rarely.' + + +Or even those 'fal-la-las,' and other nonsense refrains, which, if +they were not meant to imitate bird-notes, for what were they meant? + +In the old ballads, too, one may hear the bird keynote. He who wrote +(and a great rhymer he was) + + +'As I was walking all alane, +I heard twa corbies making a mane,' + + +had surely the 'mane' of the 'corbies' in his ears before it shaped +itself into words in his mind: and he had listened to many a +'woodwele' who first thrummed on harp, or fiddled on crowd, how - + + +'In summer, when the shawes be shene, + And leaves be large and long, +It is full merry in fair forest + To hear the fowles' song. + +'The wood-wele sang, and wolde not cease, + Sitting upon the spray; +So loud, it wakened Robin Hood + In the greenwood where he lay.' + + +And Shakespeare--are not his scraps of song saturated with these same +bird-notes? 'Where the bee sucks,' 'When daisies pied,' 'Under the +greenwood tree,' 'It was a lover and his lass,' 'When daffodils begin +to peer,' 'Ye spotted snakes,' have all a ring in them which was +caught not in the roar of London, or the babble of the Globe theatre, +but in the woods of Charlecote, and along the banks of Avon, from + + +'The ouzel-cock so black of hue, + With orange-tawny bill; +The throstle with his note so true: + The wren with little quill; +The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, + The plain-song cuckoo gray' - + + +and all the rest of the birds of the air. + +Why is it, again, that so few of our modern songs are truly songful, +and fit to be set to music? Is it not that the writers of them-- +persons often of much taste and poetic imagination--have gone for +their inspiration to the intellect, rather than to the ear? That (as +Shelley does by the skylark, and Wordsworth by the cuckoo), instead +of trying to sing like the birds, they only think and talk about the +birds, and therefore, however beautiful and true the thoughts and +words may be, they are not song? Surely they have not, like the +mediaeval songsters, studied the speech of the birds, the primaeval +teachers of melody; nor even melodies already extant, round which, as +round a framework of pure music, their thoughts and images might +crystallize themselves, certain thereby of becoming musical likewise. +The best modern song writers, Burns and Moore, were inspired by their +old national airs; and followed them, Moore at least, with a reverent +fidelity, which has had its full reward. They wrote words to music +and not, as modern poets are wont, wrote the words first, and left +others to set music to the words. They were right; and we are wrong. +As long as song is to be the expression of pure emotion, so long it +must take its key from music,--which is already pure emotion, +untranslated into the grosser medium of thought and speech--often (as +in the case of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words) not to be +translated into it at all. + +And so it may be, that in some simpler age, poets may go back, like +the old Minnesingers, to the birds of the forest, and learn of them +to sing. + +And little do most of them know how much there is to learn; what +variety of character, as well as variety of emotion, may be +distinguished by the practised ear, in a 'charm of birds' (to use the +old southern phrase), from the wild cry of the missel-thrush, ringing +from afar in the first bright days of March, a passage of one or two +bars repeated three or four times, and then another and another, +clear and sweet, and yet defiant--for the great 'stormcock' loves to +sing when rain and wind is coming on, and faces the elements as +boldly as he faces hawk and crow--down to the delicate warble of the +wren, who slips out of his hole in the brown bank, where he has +huddled through the frost with wife and children, all folded in each +other's arms like human beings, for the sake of warmth,--which, alas! +does not always suffice; for many a lump of wrens may be found, +frozen and shrivelled, after a severe winter. Yet even he, sitting +at his house-door in the low sunlight, says grace for all mercies (as +a little child once worded it) in a song so rapid, so shrill, so +loud, and yet so delicately modulated, that you wonder at the amount +of soul within that tiny body; and then stops suddenly, as a child +who has said its lesson, or got to the end of the sermon, gives a +self-satisfied flirt of his tail, and goes in again to sleep. + +Character? I know not how much variety of character there may be +between birds of the same species but between species and species the +variety is endless, and is shown--as I fondly believe--in the +difference of their notes. Each has its own speech, inarticulate, +expressing not thought but hereditary feeling; save a few birds who, +like those little dumb darlings, the spotted flycatchers, seem to +have absolutely nothing to say, and accordingly have the wit to hold +their tongues; and devote the whole of their small intellect to +sitting on the iron rails, flitting off them a yard or two to catch a +butterfly in air, and flitting back with it to their nest. + +But listen to the charm of birds in any sequestered woodland, on a +bright forenoon in June. As you try to disentangle the medley of +sounds, the first, perhaps, which will strike your ear will be the +loud, harsh, monotonous, flippant song of the chaffinch; and the +metallic clinking of two or three sorts of titmice. But above the +tree-tops, rising, hovering, sinking, the woodlark is fluting, tender +and low. Above the pastures outside the skylark sings--as he alone +can sing; and close by, from the hollies rings out the blackbird's +tenor--rollicking, audacious, humorous, all but articulate. From the +tree above him rises the treble of the thrush, pure as the song of +angels: more pure, perhaps, in tone, though neither so varied nor so +rich, as the song of the nightingale. And there, in the next holly, +is the nightingale himself: now croaking like a frog; now talking +aside to his wife on the nest below; and now bursting out into that +song, or cycle of songs, in which if any man finds sorrow, he himself +surely finds none. All the morning he will sing; and again at +evening, till the small hours, and the chill before the dawn: but if +his voice sounds melancholy at night, heard all alone, or only mocked +by the ambitious black-cap, it sounds in the bright morning that +which it is, the fulness of joy and love. Milton's + + +'Sweet bird, that shun'st the noise of folly, +Most musical, most melancholy,' + + +is untrue to fact. So far from shunning the noise of folly, the +nightingale sings as boldly as anywhere close to a stage-coach road, +or a public path, as anyone will testify who recollects the +'Wrangler's Walk' from Cambridge to Trumpington forty years ago, when +the covert, which has now become hollow and shelterless, held, at +every twenty yards, an unabashed and jubilant nightingale. + +Coleridge surely was not far wrong when he guessed that - + + +'Some night-wandering man, whose heart was pierced +With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, +Or slow distemper, or neglected love +(And so, poor wretch, filled all things with himself, +And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale +Of his own sorrow)--he, and such as he, +First named these sounds a melancholy strain, +And many a poet echoes the conceit.' + + +That the old Greek poets were right, and had some grounds for the +myth of Philomela, I do not dispute; though Sophocles, speaking of +the nightingales of Colonos, certainly does not represent them as +lamenting. The Elizabethan poets, however, when they talked of +Philomel, 'her breast against a thorn,' were unaware that they and +the Greeks were talking of two different birds; that our English +Lusciola Luscinia is not Lusciola Philomela, one of the various birds +called Bulbul in the East. The true Philomel hardly enters Venetia, +hardly crosses the Swiss Alps, ventures not into the Rhineland and +Denmark, but penetrates (strangely enough) further into South Sweden +than our own Luscinia: ranging meanwhile over all Central Europe, +Persia, and the East, even to Egypt. Whether his song be really sad, +let those who have heard him say. But as for our own Luscinia, who +winters not in Egypt and Arabia, but in Morocco and Algeria, the only +note of his which can be mistaken for sorrow, is rather one of too +great joy; that cry, which is his highest feat of art; which he +cannot utter when he first comes to our shores, but practises +carefully, slowly, gradually, till he has it perfect by the beginning +of June; that cry, long, repeated, loudening and sharpening in the +intensity of rising passion, till it stops suddenly, exhausted at the +point where pleasure, from very keenness, turns to pain; and - + + +'In the topmost height of joy +His passion clasps a secret grief.' + + +How different in character from his song is that of the gallant +little black-cap in the tree above him. A gentleman he is of a most +ancient house, perhaps the oldest of European singing birds. How +perfect must have been the special organization which has spread +seemingly without need of alteration or improvement, from Norway to +the Cape of Good Hope, from Japan to the Azores. How many ages must +have passed since his forefathers first got their black caps. And +how intense and fruitful must have been the original vitality which, +after so many generations, can still fill that little body with so +strong a soul, and make him sing as Milton's new-created birds sang +to Milton's Eve in Milton's Paradise. Sweet he is, and various, +rich, and strong, beyond all English warblers, save the nightingale: +but his speciality is his force, his rush, his overflow, not so much +of love as of happiness. The spirit carries him away. He riots up +and down the gamut till he cannot stop himself; his notes tumble over +each other; he chuckles, laughs, shrieks with delight, throws back +his head, droops his tail, sets up his back, and sings with every +fibre of his body: and yet he never forgets his good manners. He is +never coarse, never harsh, for a single note. Always graceful, +always sweet, he keeps perfect delicacy in his most utter +carelessness. + +And why should we overlook, common though he be, yon hedge-sparrow, +who is singing so modestly, and yet so firmly and so true? Or cock- +robin himself, who is here, as everywhere, honest, self-confident, +and cheerful? Most people are not aware, one sometimes fancies, how +fine a singer is cock-robin now in the spring-time, when his song is +drowned by, or at least confounded with, a dozen other songs. We +know him and love him best in winter, when he takes up (as he does +sometimes in cold wet summer days) that sudden wistful warble, +struggling to be happy, half in vain, which surely contradicts +Coleridge's verse:- + + +'In Nature there is nothing melancholy.' + + +But he who will listen carefully to the robin's breeding song on a +bright day in May, will agree, I think, that he is no mean musician; +and that for force, variety and character of melody, he is surpassed +only by black-cap, thrush, and nightingale. + +And what is that song, sudden, loud, sweet, yet faltering, as if half +ashamed? Is it the willow wren or the garden warbler? The two +birds, though very remotely allied to each other, are so alike in +voice, that it is often difficult to distinguish them, unless we +attend carefully to the expression. For the garden warbler, +beginning in high and loud notes, runs down in cadence, lower and +softer, till joy seems conquered by very weariness; while the willow +wren, with a sudden outbreak of cheerfulness, though not quite sure +(it is impossible to describe bird-songs without attributing to the +birds human passions and frailties) that he is not doing a silly +thing, struggles on to the end of his story with a hesitating +hilarity, in feeble imitation of the black-cap's bacchanalian +dactyls. + +And now, again--is it true that + + +'In Nature there is nothing melancholy' + + +Mark that slender, graceful, yellow warbler, running along the high +oak boughs like a perturbed spirit, seeking restlessly, anxiously, +something which he seems never to find; and uttering every now and +then a long anxious cry, four or five times repeated, which would be +a squeal, were it not so sweet. Suddenly he flits away, and flutters +round the pendant tips of the beech-sprays like a great yellow +butterfly, picking the insects from the leaves; then flits back to a +bare bough, and sings, with heaving breast and quivering wings, a +short, shrill, feeble, tremulous song; and then returns to his old +sadness, wandering and complaining all day long. + +Is there no melancholy in that cry? It sounds sad: why should it +not be meant to be sad? We recognize joyful notes, angry notes, +fearful notes. They are very similar (strangely enough) in all +birds. They are very similar (more strangely still) to the cries of +human beings, especially children, when influenced by the same +passions. And when we hear a note which to us expresses sadness, why +should not the bird be sad? Yon wood wren has had enough to make him +sad, if only he recollects it; and if he can recollect his road from +Morocco hither, he may be recollects likewise what happened on the +road--the long weary journey up the Portuguese coast, and through the +gap between the Pyrenees and the Jaysquivel, and up the Landes of +Bordeaux, and across Brittany, flitting by night, and hiding and +feeding as he could by day; and how his mates flew against the +lighthouses, and were killed by hundreds; and how he essayed the +British Channel, and was blown back, shrivelled up by bitter blasts; +and how he felt, nevertheless, that 'that wan water he must cross,' +he knew not why: but something told him that his mother had done it +before him, and he was flesh of her flesh, life of her life, and had +inherited her 'instinct'--as we call hereditary memory, in order to +avoid the trouble of finding out what it is, and how it comes. A +duty was laid on him to go back to the place where he was bred; and +he must do it: and now it is done; and he is weary, and sad, and +lonely; and, for aught we know, thinking already that when the leaves +begin to turn yellow, he must go back again, over the Channel, over +the Landes, over the Pyrenees, to Morocco once more. Why should he +not be sad? He is a very delicate bird, as both his shape and his +note testify. He can hardly keep up his race here in England; and is +accordingly very uncommon, while his two cousins, the willow wren and +the chiffchaff, who, like him, build for some mysterious reason domed +nests upon the ground, are stout, and busy, and numerous, and +thriving everywhere. And what he has gone through may be too much +for the poor wood wren's nerves; and he gives way; while willow wren, +black-cap, nightingale, who have gone by the same road and suffered +the same dangers, have stoutness of heart enough to throw off the +past, and give themselves up to present pleasure. Why not?--who +knows? There is labour, danger, bereavement, death in nature; and +why should not some, at least, of the so-called dumb things know it, +and grieve at it as well as we? + +Why not?--Unless we yield to the assumption (for it is nothing more) +that these birds act by some unknown thing called instinct, as it +might be called x or y; and are, in fact, just like the singing birds +which spring out of snuff-boxes, only so much better made, that they +can eat, grow, and propagate their species. The imputation of acting +by instinct cuts both ways. We, too, are creatures of instinct. We +breathe and eat by instinct: but we talk and build houses by reason. +And so may the birds. It is more philosophical, surely, to attribute +actions in them to the same causes to which we attribute them (from +experience) in ourselves. 'But if so,' some will say, 'birds must +have souls.' We must define what our own souls are, before we can +define what kind of soul or no-soul a bird may or may not have. The +truth is, that we want to set up some 'dignity of human nature;' some +innate superiority to the animals, on which we may pride ourselves as +our own possession, and not return thanks with fear and trembling for +it, as the special gift of Almighty God. So we have given the poor +animals over to the mechanical philosophy, and allowed them to be +considered as only mere cunningly devised pieces of watch-work, if +philosophy would only spare us, and our fine human souls, of which we +are so proud, though they are doing all the wrong and folly they can +from one week's end to the other. And now our self-conceit has +brought its own Nemesis; the mechanical philosophy is turning on us, +and saying, 'The bird's "nature" and your "human nature" differ only +in degree, but not in kind. If they are machines, so are you. They +have no souls, you confess. You have none either.' + +But there are those who neither yield to the mechanical philosophy +nor desire to stifle it. While it is honest and industrious, as it +is now, it can do nought but good, because it can do nought but +discover facts. It will only help to divide the light from the +darkness, truth from dreams, health from disease. Let it claim for +itself all that it can prove to be of the flesh, fleshly. That which +is spiritual will stand out more clearly as of the Spirit. Let it +thrust scalpel and microscope into the most sacred penetralia of +brain and nerve. It will only find everywhere beneath brain and +beneath nerve, that substance and form which is not matter nor +phenomenon, but the Divine cause thereof; and while it helps, with +ruthless but wholesome severity, to purge our minds from idols of the +cave and idols of the fane, it will leave untouched, more clearly +defined, and therefore more sacred and important than ever - + + + 'Those first affections, + Those shadowy recollections, + Which, be they what they may, +Are yet the fountain light of all our day, + Are yet the master light of all our seeing; +Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make + Our noisy years seem moments in the being +Of the eternal silence; truths that wake + To perish never; +Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, + Nor man nor boy, + Nor all that is at enmity with joy, + Can utterly abolish or destroy. +* * * +Then sing, ye birds, sing out with joyous sound, + + +as the poet-philosopher bids you. Victorious analysis will neither +abolish you, nor the miraculous and unfathomable in you and in your +song, which has stirred the hearts of poets since first man was man. +And if anyone shall hint to us that we and the birds may have sprung +originally from the same type; that the difference between our +intellect and theirs is one of degree, and not of kind, we may +believe or doubt: but in either case we shall not be greatly moved. +'So much the better for the birds,' we will say, 'and none the worse +for us. You raise the birds towards us: but you do not lower us +towards them. What we are, we are by the grace of God. Our own +powers and the burden of them we know full well. It does not lessen +their dignity or their beauty in our eyes to hear that the birds of +the air partake, even a little, of the same gifts of God as we. Of +old said St. Guthlac in Crowland, as the swallows sat upon his knee, +"He who leads his life according to the will of God, to him the wild +deer and the wild birds draw more near;" and this new theory of yours +may prove St. Guthlac right. St. Francis, too--he called the birds +his brothers. Whether he was correct, either theologically or +zoologically, he was plainly free from that fear of being mistaken +for an ape, which haunts so many in these modern times. Perfectly +sure that he himself was a spiritual being, he thought it at least +possible that birds might be spiritual beings likewise, incarnate +like himself in mortal flesh; and saw no degradation to the dignity +of human nature in claiming kindred lovingly with creatures so +beautiful, so wonderful, who (as he fancied in his old-fashioned way) +praised God in the forest, even as angels did in heaven. In a word, +the saint, though he was an ascetic, and certainly no man of science, +was yet a poet, and somewhat of a philosopher; and would have +possibly--so do extremes meet--have hailed as orthodox, while we hail +as truly scientific, Wordsworth's great saying - + + + 'Therefore am I still +A lover of the meadows and the woods +And mountains; and of all that we behold +From this green earth; of all the mighty world +Of eye and ear--both what they half create, +And what perceive; well pleased to recognize +In Nature and the language of the sense, +The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, +The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul +Of all my moral being.' + + + +II. CHALK-STREAM STUDIES. {29} + + + +Fishing is generally associated in men's minds with wild mountain +scenery; if not with the alps and cataracts of Norway, still with the +moors and lochs of Scotland, or at least with the rocky rivers, the +wooded crags, the crumbling abbeys of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, +Hereford, or the Lowlands. And it cannot be denied that much of the +charm which angling exercises over cultivated minds, is due to the +beauty and novelty of the landscapes which surround him; to the sense +of freedom, the exhilarating upland air. Who would prefer the +certainty of taking trout out of some sluggish preserve, to the +chance of a brace out of Edno or Llyn Dulyn? The pleasure lies not +in the prize itself, but in the pains which it has cost; in the +upward climbs through the dark plantations, beside the rock-walled +stream; the tramp over the upland pastures, one gay flower-bed of +blue and purple butter-wort; the steady breathless climb up the +crags, which looked but one mile from you when you started, so clear +against the sky stood out every knoll and slab; the first stars of +the white saxifrage, golden-eyed, blood-bedropt, as if a fairy had +pricked her finger in the cup, which shine upon some green cushion of +wet moss, in a dripping crack of the cliff; the first grey tufts of +the Alpine club-moss, the first shrub of crowberry, or sea-green +rose-root, with its strange fleshy stems and leaves, which mark the +two-thousand-feet-line, and the beginning of the Alpine world; the +scramble over the arid waves of the porphyry sea aloft, as you beat +round and round like a weary pointer dog in search of the hidden +lake; the last despairing crawl to the summit of the Syenite pyramid +on Moel Meirch; the hasty gaze around, far away into the green vale +of Ffestiniog, and over wooded flats, and long silver river-reaches, +and yellow sands, and blue sea flecked with flying clouds, and isles +and capes, and wildernesses of mountain peaks, east, west, south, and +north; one glance at the purple gulf out of which Snowdon rises, +thence only seen in full majesty from base to peak: and then the +joyful run, springing over bank and boulder, to the sad tarn beneath +your feet: the loosening of the limbs, as you toss yourself, bathed +in perspiration, on the turf; the almost awed pause as you recollect +that you are alone on the mountain-tops, by the side of the desolate +pool, out of all hope of speech or help of man; and, if you break +your leg among those rocks, may lie there till the ravens pick your +bones; the anxious glance round the lake to see if the fish are +moving; the still more anxious glance through your book to guess what +they will choose to take; what extravagant bundle of red, blue, and +yellow feathers, like no insect save perhaps some jewelled monster +from Amboyna or Brazil--may tempt those sulkiest and most capricious +of trout to cease for once their life-long business of picking +leeches from among those Syenite cubes which will twist your ankles +and break your shins for the next three hours. What matter (to a +minute philosopher, at least) if, after two hours of such enjoyment +as that, he goes down again into the world of man with empty creel, +or with a dozen pounders and two-pounders, shorter, gamer, and +redder-fleshed than ever came out of Thames or Kennet? What matter? +If he has not caught them, he might have caught them; he has been +catching them in imagination all the way up; and if he be a minute +philosopher, he holds that there is no falser proverb than that +devil's beatitude--'Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall +not be disappointed.' + +Say, rather, Blessed is he who expecteth everything, for he enjoys +everything once at least: and if it falls out true, twice also. + +Yes. Pleasant enough is mountain fishing. But there is one +objection against it, that it is hard work to get to it; and that the +angler, often enough half-tired before he arrives at his stream or +lake, has left for his day's work only the lees of his nervous +energy. + +Another objection, more important perhaps to a minute philosopher +than to the multitude, is, that there is in mountain-fishing an +element of excitement: an element which is wholesome enough at times +for every one; most wholesome at all times for the man pent up in +London air and London work; but which takes away from the angler's +most delicate enjoyment, that dreamy contemplative repose, broken by +just enough amusement to keep his body active, while his mind is +quietly taking in every sight and sound of nature. Let the Londoner +have his six weeks every year among crag and heather, and return with +lungs expanded and muscles braced to his nine months' prison. The +countryman, who needs no such change of air and scene, will prefer +more homelike, though more homely, pleasures. Dearer than wild +cataracts or Alpine glens are the still hidden streams which Bewick +has immortalized in his vignettes, and Creswick in his pictures; the +long glassy shallow, paved with yellow gravel, where he wades up +between low walls of fern-fringed rock, beneath nut, and oak, and +alder, to the low bar over which the stream comes swirling and +dimpling, as the water-ouzel flits piping before him, and the murmur +of the ringdove comes soft and sleepy through the wood. There, as he +wades, he sees a hundred sights and hears a hundred tones, which are +hidden from the traveller on the dusty highway above. The traveller +fancies that he has seen the country. So he has; the outside of it, +at least: but the angler only sees the inside. The angler only is +brought close face to face with the flower, and bird, and insect life +of the rich river banks, the only part of the landscape where the +hand of man has never interfered, and the only part in general which +never feels the drought of summer, 'the trees planted by the +waterside whose leaf shall not wither.' + +Pleasant are those hidden waterways: but yet are they the more +pleasant because the hand of man has not interfered with them? + +It is a question, and one which the older one grows the less one is +inclined to answer in the affirmative. The older one grows, the more +there grows on one the sense of waste and incompleteness in all +scenery where man has not fulfilled the commission of Eden, 'to dress +it and to keep it;' and with that, a sense of loneliness which makes +one long for home, and cultivation, and the speech of fellow men. + +Surely the influence of mountain scenery is exaggerated now-a-days. +In spite of the reverend name of Wordsworth (whose poetry, be it +remembered, too often wants that element of hardihood and manliness +which is supposed to be the birthright of mountaineers), one cannot +help, as a lowlander, hoping that there is a little truth in the +threnodes of a certain peevish friend who literally hates a mountain, +and justifies his hatred in this fashion:- + +'I do hate mountains. I would not live among them for ten thousand a +year. If they look like paradise for three months in the summer, +they are a veritable inferno for the other nine; and I should like to +condemn my mountain-worshipping friends to pass a whole year under +the shadow of Snowdon, with that great black head of his shutting out +the sunlight, staring down into their garden, overlooking all they do +in the most impertinent way, sneezing and spitting at them with rain, +hail, snow, and bitter freezing blasts, even in the hottest sunshine. +A mountain? He is a great stupid giant, with a perpetual cold in his +head, whose highest ambition is to give you one also. As for his +beauty, no natural object has so little of its own; he owes it to the +earthquakes that reared him up, to the rains and storms which have +furrowed him, to every gleam and cloud which pass over him. In +himself he is a mere helpless stone-heap. Our old Scandinavian +forefathers were right when they held the mountain Yotuns to be +helpless pudding-headed giants, the sport of gods and men: and their +English descendant, in spite of all his second-hand sentiment, holds +the same opinion at his heart; for his first instinct, jolly honest +fellow that he is, on seeing a snow alp, is to scramble up it and +smoke his cigar upon the top. And this great stupid braggart, +pretending to be a personage and an entity, which, like Pope's +monument on Fish-street hill, + + +"Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies," + + +I am called upon now-a-days to worship, as my better, my teacher. +Shall I, the son of Odin and Thor, worship Hrymir the frost giant, +and his cows the waterfalls? Shall I bow down to the stock of a +stone? My better? I have done an honest thing or two in my life, +but I never saw a mountain do one yet. As for his superiority to me, +in what does it consist? His strength? If he be stronger than I, +let him cut stones out of my ribs, as I can out of his. His size? +Am I to respect a mountain the more for being 10,000 feet high? As +well ask me to respect Daniel Lambert for weighing five-and-twenty +stone. His cunning construction? There is not a child which plays +at his foot, not an insect which basks on his crags, which is not +more fearfully and wonderfully made; while as for his grandeur of +form, any college youth who scrambles up him, peel him out of his +shooting jacket and trousers, is a hundred times more beautiful, and +more grand too, by all laws of art. But so it is. In our prurient +prudery, we have got to despise the human, and therefore the truly +divine, element in art, and look for inspiration, not to living men +and women, but to leaves and straws, stocks and stones. It is an +idolatry baser than that of the old Canaanites; for they had the +courage to go up to the mountain tops, and thence worship the host of +heaven: but we are to stay at the bottom, and worship the mountains +themselves. Byron began the folly with his misanthropic "Childe +Harold." Sermons in stones? I don't believe in them. I have seen a +better sermon in an old peasant woman's face than in all the Alps and +Apennines of Europe. Did you ever see any one who was the better for +mountains? Have the Alps made * * * a whit honester, or * * * a whit +more good-natured, or Lady * * * a whit cleverer? Do they alter one +hair's breadth for the better the characters of the ten thousand male +and female noodles who travel forth to stare at them every year? Do +mountains make them lofty-minded and generous-hearted? No. Caelum, +non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt. Don't talk to me of the +moral and physical superiority of mountain races, for I tell you it +is a dream. Civilization, art, poetry, belong to the lowlands. Are +the English mountaineers, pray, or the French, or the Germans? Were +the Egyptians mountaineers, or the Romans, or the Assyrians, as soon +as they became a people? The Greeks lived among mountains, but they +took care to inhabit the plains; and it was the sea and not the hills +which made them the people which they were. Does Scotland owe her +life to the highlander, or to the lowlander? If you want an +experimentum crucis, there is one. As for poetry, will you mention +to me one mountain race which has written great poetry? You will +quote the Hebrews. I answer that the life of Palestine always kept +to the comparatively low lands to the west of Jordan, while the +barbarous mountaineers of the eastern range never did anything,--had +but one Elijah to show among them. Shakspeare never saw a hill +higher than Malvern Beacon; and yet I suppose you will call him a +poet? Mountaineers look well enough at a distance; seen close at +hand you find their chief distinctions to be starvation and +ignorance, fleas and goitre, with an utter unconsciousness--unless +travellers put it into their heads--of the "soul-elevating glories" +by which they have been surrounded all their lives.' + +He was gently reminded of the existence of the Tyrolese. + +'You may just as wisely remind me of the Circassians. What can prove +my theory more completely than the fact that in them you have the two +finest races of the world, utterly unable to do anything for +humanity, utterly unable to develop themselves, because, to their +eternal misfortune, they have got caged among those abominable +stoneheaps, and have not yet been able to escape?' + +It was suggested that if mountain races were generally inferior ones, +it was because they were the remnants of conquered tribes driven up +into the highlands by invaders. + +'And what does that prove but that the stronger and cunninger races +instinctively seize the lowlands, because they half know (and +Providence knows altogether) that there alone they can become +nations, and fulfil the primaeval mission--to replenish the earth and +subdue it? No, no, my good sir. Mountains are very well when they +are doing their only duty--that of making rain and soil for the +lowlands: but as for this newfangled admiration of them, it is a +proof that our senses are dulled by luxury and books, and that we +require to excite our palled organ of marvellousness by signs and +wonders, aesthetic brandy and cayenne. No. I have remarked often +that the most unimaginative people, who can see no beauty in a +cultivated English field or in the features of a new-born babe, are +the loudest ravers about glorious sunsets and Alpine panoramas; just +as the man with no music in his soul, to whom a fugue of Sebastian +Bach, or one of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words, means nothing, and +is nothing thinks a monster concert of drums and trumpets uncommonly +fine.' + +This is certainly a sufficiently one-sided diatribe. Still it is +one-sided: and we have heard so much of the other side of late, that +it may be worth while to give this side also a fair and patient +hearing. + +At least he who writes wishes that it may have a fair hearing. He +has a sort of sympathy with Lord Macaulay's traveller of a hundred +and fifty years since, who amid the 'horrible desolation' of the +Scotch highlands, sighs for 'the true mountain scenery of Richmond- +hill.' The most beautiful landscape he has ever seen, or cares to +see, is the vale of Thames from Taplow or from Cliefden, looking down +towards Windsor, and up toward Reading; to him Bramshill, looking out +far and wide over the rich lowland from its eyrie of dark pines, or +Littlecote nestling between deer-spotted upland and rich water- +meadow, is a finer sight than any robber castle of the Rhine. He +would not complain, of course, were either of the views backed, like +those glorious ones of Turin or Venice, by the white saw-edge of the +distant Alps: but chiefly because the perpetual sight of that Alp- +wall would increase the sense of home, of guarded security, which not +the mountain, but the sea, or the very thought of the sea, gives to +all true Englishmen. + +Let others therefore (to come back to angling) tell of moor and loch. +But let it be always remembered that the men who have told of them +best have not been mountaineers, but lowlanders who carried up to the +mountain the taste and knowledge which they had gained below. Let +them remember that the great Sutherlandshire sportsman and sporting +writer, the late Mr. St. John, was once a fine gentleman about town; +that Christopher North was an Edinburgh Professor, a man of city +learning and city cultivation; and, as one more plea for our cockney +chalk-streams of the south, that Mr. Scrope (who passed many pleasant +years respected and beloved by Kennet side, with Purdy at his heels) +enjoyed, they say, the killing of a Littlecote trout as heartily as +he did that of a Tweed salmon. + +Come, then, you who want pleasant fishing-days without the waste of +time and trouble and expense involved in two hundred miles of railway +journey, and perhaps fifty more of highland road; and try what you +can see and do among the fish not sixty miles from town. Come to +pleasant country inns, where you can always get a good dinner; or, +better still, to pleasant country houses, where you can always get +good society; to rivers which will always fish, brimfull in the +longest droughts of summer, instead of being, as those mountain ones +are, very like a turnpike-road for three weeks, and then like bottled +porter for three days; to streams on which you have strong south-west +breezes for a week together on a clear fishing water, instead of +having, as on those mountain ones, foul rain spate as long as the +wind is south-west, and clearing water when the wind chops up to the +north, and the chill blast of 'Clarus Aquio' sends all the fish +shivering to the bottom; streams, in a word, where you may kill fish +(and large ones) four days out of five from April to October, instead +of having, as you will most probably in the mountain, just one day's +sport in the whole of your month's holiday. Deluded friend, who +suffered in Scotland last year a month of Tantalus his torments, +furnished by art and nature with rods, flies, whisky, scenery, +keepers, salmon innumerable, and all that man can want, except water +to fish in; and who returned, having hooked accidentally by the tail +one salmon--which broke all and ween to sea--why did you not stay at +home and take your two-pounders and three-pounders out of the quiet +chalk brook which never sank an inch through all that drought, so +deep in the caverns of the hills are hidden its mysterious wells? +Truly, wise men bide at home, with George Riddler, while 'a fool's +eyes are in the ends of the earth.' + +Repent, then; and come with me, at least in fancy, at six o'clock +upon some breezy morning in June, not by roaring railway nor by +smoking steamer, but in the cosy four-wheel, along brown heather +moors, down into green clay woodlands, over white chalk downs, past +Roman camps and scattered blocks of Sarsden stone, till we descend +into the long green vale where, among groves of poplar and abele, +winds silver Whit. Come and breakfast at the neat white inn, of yore +a posting-house of fame. The stables are now turned into cottages; +and instead of a dozen spruce ostlers and helpers, the last of the +postboys totters sadly about the yard and looks up eagerly at the +rare sight of a horse to feed. But the house keeps up enough of its +ancient virtue to give us a breakfast worthy of Pantagruel's self; +and after it, while we are looking out our flies, you can go and chat +with the old postboy, and hear his tales, told with a sort of +chivalrous pride, of the noble lords and fair ladies before whom he +has ridden in the good old times gone by--even, so he darkly hints, +before 'His Royal Highness the Prince' himself. Poor old fellow, he +recollects not, and he need not recollect, that these great posting- +houses were centres of corruption, from whence the newest vices of +the metropolis were poured into the too-willing ears of village lads +and lasses; and that not even the New Poor Law itself has done more +for the morality of the South of England than the substitution of the +rail for coaches. + +Now we will walk down through the meadows some half mile, + + +While all the land in flowery squares, +Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind +Smells of the coming summer,' + + +to a scene which, as we may find its antitype anywhere for miles +round, we may boldly invent for ourselves. + +A red brick mill (not new red brick, of course) shall hum for ever +below giant poplar-spires, which bend and shiver in the steady +breeze. On its lawn laburnums shall feather down like dropping wells +of gold, and from under them the stream shall hurry leaping and +laughing into the light, and spread at our feet into a broad bright +shallow, in which the kine are standing knee-deep already: a hint, +alas! that the day means heat. And there, to the initiated eye, is +another and a darker hint of glaring skies, perspiring limbs, and +empty creels. Small fish are dimpling in the central eddies: but +here, in six inches of water, on the very edge of the ford road, +great tails and back-fins are showing above the surface, and swirling +suddenly among the tufts of grass, sure sign that the large fish are +picking up a minnow-breakfast at the same time that they warm their +backs, and do not mean to look at a fly for many an hour to come. + +Yet courage; for on the rail of yonder wooden bridge sits, chatting +with a sun-browned nymph, her bonnet pushed over her face, her +hayrake in her hand, a river-god in coat of velveteen, elbow on knee +and pipe in mouth, who, rising when he sees us, lifts his wide-awake, +and halloas back a roar of comfort to our mystic adjuration, - + +'Keeper! Is the fly up?' + +'Mortial strong last night, gentlemen.' + +Wherewith he shall lounge up to us, landing-net in hand, and we will +wander up stream and away. + +We will wander--for though the sun be bright, here are good fish to +be picked out of sharps and stop-holes--into the water-tables, ridged +up centuries since into furrows forty feet broad and five feet high, +over which the crystal water sparkles among the roots of the rich +grass, and hurries down innumerable drains to find its parent stream +between tufts of great blue geranium, and spires of purple +loosestrife, and the delicate white and pink comfrey-bells, and the +avens--fairest and most modest of all the waterside nymphs, who hangs +her head all day long in pretty shame, with a soft blush upon her +tawny check. But at the mouth of each of those drains, if we can get +our flies in, and keep ourselves unseen, we will have one cast at +least. For at each of them, in some sharp-rippling spot, lies a +great trout or two, waiting for beetle, caterpillar, and whatsoever +else may be washed from among the long grass above. Thence, and from +brimming feeders, which slip along, weed-choked, under white hawthorn +hedges, and beneath the great roots of oak and elm, shall we pick out +full many a goodly trout. There, in yon stop-hole underneath that +tree, not ten feet broad or twenty long, where just enough water +trickles through the hatches to make a ripple, are a brace of noble +fish, no doubt; and one of them you may be sure of, if you will go +the proper way to work, and fish scientifically with the brace of +flies I have put on for you--a governor and a black alder. In the +first place, you must throw up into the little pool, not down. If +you throw down, they will see you in an instant; and besides, you +will never get your fly close under the shade of the brickwork, where +alone you have a chance. What use in throwing into the still shallow +tail, shining like oil in the full glare of the sun? + +'But I cannot get below the pool without--' + +Without crawling through that stiff stubbed hedge, well set with +trees, and leaping that ten-foot feeder afterwards. Very well. It +is this sort of thing which makes the stay-at-home cultivated chalk- +fishing as much harder work than mountain angling, as a gallop over a +stiffly enclosed country is harder than one over an open moor. You +can do it or not, as you like: but if you wish to catch large trout +on a bright day, I should advise you to employ the only method yet +discovered. + +There--you are through; and the keeper shall hand you your rod. You +have torn your trousers, and got a couple of thorns in your shins. +The one can be mended, the other pulled out. Now, jump the feeder. +There is no run to it, so--you have jumped in. Never mind: but keep +the point of your rod up. You are at least saved the lingering +torture of getting wet inch by inch; and as for cold water hurting +any one--Credat Judaeus. + +Now make a circuit through the meadow forty yards away. Stoop down +when you are on the ridge of each table. A trout may be basking at +the lower end of the pool, who will see you, rush up, and tell all +his neighbours. Take off that absurd black chimney-pot, which you +are wearing, I suppose, for the same reason as Homer's heroes wore +their koruthous and phalerous, to make yourself look taller and more +terrible to your foes. Crawl up on three legs; and when you are in +position, kneel down. So. + +Shorten your line all you can--you cannot fish with too short a line +up-stream; and throw, not into the oil-basin near you, but right up +into the darkest corner. Make your fly strike the brickwork and drop +in.--So? No rise? Then don't work or draw it, or your deceit is +discovered instantly. Lift it out, and repeat the throw. + +What? You have hooked your fly in the hatches? Very good. Pull at +it till the casting-line breaks; put on a fresh one, and to work +again. There! you have him. Don't rise! fight him kneeling; hold +him hard, and give him no line, but shorten up anyhow. Tear and haul +him down to you before he can make to his home, while the keeper runs +round with the net . . . There, he is on shore. Two pounds, good +weight. Creep back more cautiously than ever, and try again. . . . +There. A second fish, over a pound weight. Now we will go and +recover the flies off the hatches; and you will agree that there is +more cunning, more science, and therefore more pleasant excitement, +in 'foxing' a great fish out of a stop-hole, than in whipping far and +wide over an open stream, where a half-pounder is a wonder and a +triumph. As for physical exertion, you will be able to compute for +yourself how much your back, knees, and fore-arm will ache by nine +o'clock to-night, after some ten hours of this scrambling, splashing, +leaping, and kneeling upon a hot June day. This item in the day's +work will of course be put to the side of loss or of gain, according +to your temperament: but it will cure you of an inclination to laugh +at us Wessex chalk-fishers as Cockneys. + +So we will wander up the streams, taking a fish here and a fish +there, till--Really it is very hot. We have the whole day before us; +the fly will not be up till five o'clock at least; and then the real +fishing will begin. Why tire ourselves beforehand? The squire will +send us luncheon in the afternoon, and after that expect us to fish +as long as we can see, and come up to the hall to sleep, regardless +of the ceremony of dressing. For is not the green drake on? And +while he reigns, all hours, meals, decencies, and respectabilities +must yield to his caprice. See, here he sits, or rather tens of +thousands of him, one on each stalk of grass--green drake, yellow +drake, brown drake, white drake, each with his gauzy wings folded +over his back, waiting for some unknown change of temperature, or +something else, in the afternoon, to wake him from his sleep, and +send him fluttering over the stream; while overhead the black drake, +who has changed his skin and reproduced his species, dances in the +sunshine, empty, hard, and happy, like Festus Bailey's Great Black +Crow, who all his life sings 'Ho, ho, ho,' + + +'For no one will eat him,' he well doth know. + + +However, as we have insides, and he has actually none, and what is +more strange, not even a mouth wherewith to fill the said insides, we +had better copy his brothers and sisters below whose insides are +still left, and settle with them upon the grass awhile beneath you +goodly elm. + +Comfort yourself with a glass of sherry and a biscuit, and give the +keeper one, and likewise a cigar. He will value it at five times its +worth, not merely for the pleasure of it, but because it raises him +in the social scale. 'Any cad,' so he holds, 'smokes pipes; but a +good cigar is the mark of the quality,' and of them who 'keep company +with the quality,' as keepers do. He puts it in his hat-crown, to +smoke this evening in presence of his compeers at the public-house, +retires modestly ten yards, lies down on his back in a dry feeder, +under the shade of the long grass, and instantly falls fast asleep. +Poor fellow! he was up all last night in the covers, and will be +again to-night. Let him sleep while he may, and we will chat over +chalk-fishing. + +The first thing, probably, on which you will be inclined to ask +questions, is the size of the fish in these streams. We have killed +this morning four fish averaging a pound weight each. All below that +weight we throw in, as is our rule here; but you may have remarked +that none of them exceeded half a pound; that they were almost all +about herring size. The smaller ones I believe to be year-old fish, +hatched last spring twelvemonth; the pound fish two-year-olds. At +what rate these last would have increased depends very much, I +suspect, on their chance of food. The limit of life and growth in +cold-blooded animals seems to depend very much on their amount of +food. The boa, alligator, shark, pike, and I suppose the trout also, +will live to a great age, and attain an enormous size, give them but +range enough; and the only cause why there are trout of ten pounds +and more in the Thames lashers, while one of four pounds is rare +here, is simply that the Thames fish has more to eat. Here, were the +fish not sufficiently thinned out every year by anglers, they would +soon become large-headed, brown, and flabby, and cease to grow. Many +a good stream has been spoilt in this way, when a squire has unwisely +preferred quantity to quality of fish. + +And if it be not the quantity of feed, I know no clear reason why +chalk and limestone trout should be so much larger and better +flavoured than any others. The cause is not the greater swiftness of +the streams; for (paradoxical as it may seem to many) a trout likes +swift water no more than a pike does, except when spawning or +cleaning afterwards. At those times his blood seems to require a +very rapid oxygenation, and he goes to the 'sharps' to obtain it: +but when he is feeding and fattening, the water cannot be too still +for him. Streams which are rapid throughout never produce large +fish; and a hand-long trout transferred from his native torrent to a +still pond, will increase in size at a ten times faster rate. In +chalk streams the largest fish are found oftener in the mill-heads +than in the mill tails. It is a mistake, though a common one, to +fancy that the giant trout of the Thames lashers lie in swift water. +On the contrary, they lie in the very stillest spot of the whole +pool, which is just under the hatches. There the rush of the water +shoots over their heads, and they look up through it for every +eatable which may be swept down. At night they run down to the fan +of the pool, to hunt minnow round the shallows; but their home by day +is the still deep; and their preference of the lasher pool to the +quiet water above is due merely to the greater abundance of food. +Chalk trout, then, are large not merely because the water is swift. + +Whether trout have not a specific fondness for lime; whether water of +some dozen degrees of hardness is not necessary for their +development? are questions which may be fairly asked. Yet is not the +true reason this; that the soil on the banks of a chalk or limestone +stream is almost always rich--red loam, carrying an abundant +vegetation, and therefore an abundant crop of animal life, both in +and out of the water? The countless insects which haunt a rich hay +meadow, all know who have eyes to see; and if they will look into the +stream they will find that the water-world is even richer than the +air-world. + +Every still spot in a chalk stream becomes so choked with weed as to +require moving at least thrice a year, to supply the mills with +water. Grass, milfoil, water crowfoot, hornwort, starwort, +horsetail, and a dozen other delicate plants, form one tangled +forest, denser than those of the Amazon, and more densely peopled +likewise. + +To this list will soon be added our Transatlantic curse, Babingtonia +diabolica, alias Anacharis alsin astrum. It has already ascended the +Thames as high as Reading; and a few years more, owing to the present +aqua-vivarium mania, will see it filling every mill-head in England, +to the torment of all millers. Young ladies are assured that the +only plant for their vivariums is a sprig of anacharis, for which +they pay sixpence--the market value being that of a wasp, flea, or +other scourge of the human race; and when the vivarium fails, its +contents, Anacharis and all, are tost into the nearest ditch; for +which the said young lady ought to be fined five pounds; and would +be, if Governments governed. What an 'if'. + +But come; for the sun burns bright, and fishing is impossible: lie +down upon the bank, above this stop. There is a campshutting (a +boarding in English) on which you can put your elbows. Lie down on +your face, and look down through two or three feet of water clear as +air into the water forest where the great trout feed. + +Here; look into this opening in the milfoil and crowfoot bed. Do you +see a grey film around that sprig? Examine it through the pocket +lens. It is a forest of glass bells, on branching stalks. They are +Vorticellae; and every one of those bells, by the ciliary current on +its rim, is scavenging the water--till a tadpole comes by and +scavenges it. How many millions of living creatures are there on +that one sprig? Look here!--a brown polype, with long waving arms--a +gigantic monster, actually a full half-inch long. He is Hydra fusca, +most famous, and earliest described (I think by Trembley). Ere we go +home I may show you perhaps Hydra viridis, with long pea-green arms; +and rosea, most beautiful in form and colour of all the strange +family. You see that lump, just where his stalk joins his bell-head? +That is a budding baby. Ignorant of the joys and cares of wedlock, +he increases by gemmation. See! here is another, with a full-sized +young one growing on his back. You may tear it off if you will--he +cares not. You may cut him into a dozen pieces, they say, and each +one will grow, as a potato does. I suppose, however, that he also +sends out of his mouth little free ova--medusoids--call them what you +will, swimming by ciliae, which afterwards, unless the water beetles +stop them on the way, will settle down as stalked polypes, and in +their turn practise some mystery of Owenian parthenogenesis, or +Steenstruppian alternation of generations, in which all traditional +distinctions of plant and animal, male and female, are laughed to +scorn by the magnificent fecundity of the Divine imaginations. + +That dusty cloud which shakes off in the water as you move the weed, +under the microscope would be one mass of exquisite forms--Desmidiae +and Diatomaceae, and what not? Instead of running over long names, +take home a little in a bottle, put it under your microscope, and if +you think good verify the species from Hassall, Ehrenberg, or other +wise book; but without doing that, one glance through the lens will +show you why the chalk trout grow fat. + +Do they, then, eat these infusoria? + +That is not clear. But minnows and small fry eat them by millions; +and so do tadpoles, and perhaps caddis baits and water crickets. + +What are they? + +Look on the soft muddy bottom. You see numberless bits of stick. +Watch awhile, and those sticks are alive, crawling and tumbling over +each other. The weed, too, is full of smaller ones. Those live +sticks are the larva-cases of the Caperers--Phryganeae--of which one +family nearly two hundred species have been already found in Great +Britain. Fish up one, and you find, amid sticks and pebbles, a +comfortable silk case, tenanted by a goodly grub. Six legs he has, +like all insects, and tufts of white horns on each ring of his +abdomen, which are his gills. A goodly pair of jaws he has too, and +does good service with them: for he is the great water scavenger. +Decaying vegetable matter is his food, and with those jaws he will +bark a dead stick as neatly as you will with a penknife. But he does +not refuse animal matter. A dead brother (his, not yours) makes a +savoury meal for him; and a party of those Vorticellae would stand a +poor chance if he came across them. You may count these caddis baits +by hundreds of thousands; whether the trout eat them case and all, is +a question in these streams. In some rivers the trout do so; and +what is curious, during the spring, have a regular gizzard, a +temporary thickening of the coats of the stomach, to enable them to +grind the pebbly cases of the caddises. See! here is one whose house +is closed at both ends--'grille,' as Pictet calls it, in his +unrivalled monograph of the Genevese Phryganeae, on which he spent +four years of untiring labour. The grub has stopped the mouth of his +case by an open network of silk, defended by small pebbles, through +which the water may pass freely, while he changes into his nymph +state. Open the case; you find within not a grub, but a strange +bird-beaked creature, with long legs and horns laid flat by its +sides, and miniature wings on its back. Observe that the sides of +the tail, and one pair of legs, are fringed with dark hairs. After a +fortnight's rest in this prison this 'nymph' will gnaw her way out +and swim through the water on her back, by means of that fringed tail +and paddles, till she reaches the bank and the upper air. There, +under the genial light of day, her skin will burst, and a four-winged +fly emerge, to buzz over the water as a fawn-coloured Caperer-- +deadliest of trout flies; if she be not snapped up beforehand under +water by some spotted monarch in search of supper. + +But look again among this tangled mass of weed. Here are more larvae +of water-flies. Some have the sides fringed with what look like +paddles, but are gills. Of these one part have whisks at the tail, +and swim freely. They will change into ephemerae, cock-winged +'duns,' with long whisked tails. The larvae of the famous green +drake (Ephemera vulgata) are like these: but we shall not find them. +They are all changed by now into the perfect fly; and if not, they +burrow about the banks, and haunt the crayfish-holes, and are not +easily found. + +Some, again, have the gills on their sides larger and broader, and no +whisks at the tail. These are the larvae of Sialis, the black alder, +Lord Stowell's fly, shorm fly, hunch-back of the Welsh, with which we +have caught our best fish to-day. + +And here is one of a delicate yellow-green, whose tail is furnished +with three broad paddle-blades. These, I believe, are gills again. +The larva is probably that of the Yellow Sally--Chrysoperla viridis-- +a famous fly on hot days in May and June. Among the pebbles there, +below the fall, we should have found, a month since, a similar but +much larger grub, with two paddles at his tail. He is the 'creeper' +of the northern streams, and changes to the great crawling stone fly +(May-fly of Tweed), Perla bicaudata, an ugly creature, which runs on +stones and posts, and kills right well on stormy days, when he is +beaten into the stream. + +There. Now we have the larvae of the four great trout-fly families, +Phryganeae, Ephemerae, Sialidae, Perlidae; so you have no excuse for +telling--as not only Cockneys, but really good sportsmen who write on +fishing, have done--such fibs as that the green drake comes out of a +caddis-bait, or giving such vague generalities as, 'this fly comes +from a water-larva.' + +These are, surely, in their imperfect and perfect states, food enough +to fatten many a good trout: but they are not all. See these +transparent brown snails, Limneae and Succinae, climbing about the +posts; and these other pretty ones, coil laid within coil as flat as +a shilling, Planorbis. Many a million of these do the trout pick off +the weed day by day; and no food, not even the leech, which swarms +here, is more fattening. The finest trout of the high Snowdon lakes +feed almost entirely on leech and snail--baits they have none--and +fatten till they cut as red as a salmon. + +Look here too, once more. You see a grey moving cloud about that +pebble bed, and underneath that bank. It is a countless swarm of +'sug,' or water-shrimp; a bad food, but devoured greedily by the +great trout in certain overstocked preserves. + +Add to these plenty of minnow, stone-loach, and miller's thumbs, a +second course of young crayfish, and for one gormandizing week of +bliss, thousands of the great green-drake fly: and you have food +enough for a stock of trout which surprise, by their size and number, +an angler fresh from the mountain districts of the north and west. +To such a fisherman, the tale of Mr. ** *, of Ramsbury, who is said +to have killed in one day in his own streams on Kennet, seventy-six +trout, all above a pound, sounds like a traveller's imagination: yet +the fact is, I believe, accurately true. + +This, however, is an extraordinary case upon an extraordinary stream. +In general, if a man shall bring home (beside small fish) a couple of +brace of from one to three pounds apiece, he may consider himself as +a happy man, and that the heavens have not shone, but frowned, upon +him very propitiously. + +And now comes another and an important question. For which of all +these dainty eatables, if for any, do the trout take our flies? and +from that arises another. Why are the flies with which we have been +fishing this morning so large--of the size which is usually employed +on a Scotch lake? You are a North-country fisher, and are wont, upon +your clear streams, to fish with nothing but the smallest gnats. And +yet our streams are as clear as yours: what can be clearer? + +Whether fish really mistake our artificial flies for different +species of natural ones, as Englishmen hold; or merely for something +good to eat, the colour whereof strikes their fancy, as Scotchmen +think--a theory which has been stated in detail, and with great +semblance of truth, in Mr. Stewart's admirable 'Practical Angler,'-- +is a matter about which much good sense has been written on both +sides. + +Whosoever will, may find the great controversy fully discussed in the +pages of Ephemera. Perhaps (as in most cases) the truth lies between +the two extremes; at least, in a chalk-stream. + +Ephemera's list of flies may be very excellent, but it is about ten +times as long as would be required for any of our southern streams. +Six or seven sort of flies ought to suffice for any fisherman; if +they will not kill, the thing which will kill is yet to seek. + +To name them:- + +1. The caperer. + +2. The March-brown. + +3. The governor. + +4. The black alder. + +And two or three large palmers, red, grizzled, and coch-a-bonddhu, +each with a tuft of red floss silk at the tail. These are enough to +show sport from March to October; and also like enough to certain +natural flies to satisfy the somewhat dull memory of a trout. + +But beyond this list there is little use in roaming, as far as my +experience goes. A yellow dun kills sometimes marvellously on chalk- +streams, and always upon rocky ones. A Turkey-brown ephemera, the +wing made of the bright brown tail of the cock partridge, will, even +just after the May-fly is off, show good sport in the forenoon, when +he is on the water; and so will in the evening the claret spinner, to +which he turns. Excellent patterns of these flies may be found in +Ronalds: but, after all, they are uncertain flies; and, as Harry +Verney used to say, 'they casualty flies be all havers;' which +sentence the reader, if he understands good Wessex, can doubtless +translate for himself. + +And there are evenings on which the fish take greedily small +transparent ephemerae. But, did you ever see large fish rise at +these ephemerae? And even if you did, can you imitate the natural +fly? And after all, would it not be waste of time? For the +experience of many good fishers is, that trout rise at these delicate +duns, black gnats, and other microscopic trash, simply faute de +mieux. They are hungry, as trout are six days in the week, just at +sunset. A supper they must have, and they take what comes; but if +you can give them anything better than the minute fairy, compact of +equal parts of glass and wind, which naturalists call an Ephemera or +Baetis, it will be most thankfully received, if there be ripple +enough on the water (which there seldom is on a fine evening) to hide +the line: and even though the water be still, take boldly your +caperer or your white moth (either of them ten times as large as what +the trout are rising at), hurl it boldly into a likely place, and let +it lie quiet and sink, not attempting to draw or work it; and if you +do not catch anything by that means, comfort yourself with the +thought that there are others who can. + +And now to go through our list, beginning with - + +1. The caperer. + +This perhaps is the best of all flies; it is certainly the one which +will kill earliest and latest in the year; and though I would hardly +go as far as a friend of mine, who boasts of never fishing with +anything else, I believe it will, from March to October, take more +trout, and possibly more grayling, than any other fly. Its basis is +the woodcock wing; red hackle legs, which should be long and pale; +and a thin mohair body, of different shades of red-brown, from a dark +claret to a pale sandy. It may thus, tied of different sizes, do +duty for half-a-dozen of the commonest flies; for the early claret +(red-brown of Ronalds; a Nemoura, according to him), which is the +first spring-fly; for the red spinner, or perfect form of the March- +brown ephemera; for the soldier, the soft-winged reddish beetle which +haunts the umbelliferous flowers, and being as soft in spirit as in +flesh, perpetually falls into the water, and comes to grief therein; +and last but not least, for the true caperers, or whole tribe of +Phryganidae, of which a sketch was given just now. As a copy of +them, the body should be of a pale red brown, all but sandy (but +never snuff-coloured, as shop-girls often tie it), and its best hour +is always in the evening. It kills well when fish are gorged with +their morning meal of green drakes; and after the green drake is off, +it is almost the only fly at which large trout care to look; a fact +not to be wondered at when one considers that nearly two hundred +species of English Phryganidae have been already described, and that +at least half of them are of the fawn-tint of the caperer. Under the +title of flame-brown, cinnamon, or red-hackle and rail's wing, a +similar fly kills well in Ireland, and in Scotland also; and is +sometimes the best sea-trout fly which can be laid on the water. Let +this suffice for the caperer. + +2. Of the March-brown ephemera there is little to be said, save to +notice Ronalds' and Ephemera's excellent description, and Ephemera's +good hint of fishing with more than one March-brown at once, viz., +with a sandy-bodied male, and a greenish-bodied female. The fly is a +worthy fly, and being easily imitated, gives great sport, in number +rather than in size; for when the March-brown is out, the two or +three pound fish are seldom on the move, preferring leeches, tom- +toddies, and caddis-bait in the nether deeps, to slim ephemerae at +the top; and if you should (as you may) get hold of a big fish on the +fly, 'you'd best hit him in again,' as we say in Wessex; for he will +be, like the Ancient Mariner - + + +'Long, and lank, and brown, +As is the ribbed sea-sand.' + + +3. The 'governor.'--In most sandy banks, and dry poor lawns, will be +found numberless burrows of ground bees who have a great trick of +tumbling into the water. Perhaps, like the honey bee, they are +thirsty souls, and must needs go down to the river and drink; +perhaps, like the honey bee, they rise into the air with some +difficulty, and so in crossing a stream are apt to strike the further +bank, and fall in. Be that as it may, an imitation of these little +ground bees is a deadly fly the whole year round; and if worked +within six inches of the shore, will sometimes fill a basket when +there is not a fly on the water or a fish rising. There are those +who never put up a cast of flies without one; and those, too, who +have killed large salmon on him in the north of Scotland, when the +streams are low. + +His tie is simple enough. A pale partridge or woodcock wing, short +red hackle legs, a peacock-herl body, and a tail--on which too much +artistic skill can hardly be expended--of yellow floss silk, and gold +twist or tinsel. The orange-tailed governors 'of ye shops,' as the +old drug-books would say, are all 'havers;' for the proper colour is +a honey yellow. The mystery of this all-conquering tail seems to be, +that it represents the yellow pollen, or 'bee bread' in the thighs or +abdomen of the bee; whereof the bright colour, and perhaps the strong +musky flavour, makes him an attractive and savoury morsel. Be that +as it may, there is no better rule for a chalk stream than this--when +you don't know what to fish with, try the governor. + +4. The black alder (Sialis nigra, or Lutaria). + +What shall be said, or not be said, of this queen of flies? And what +of Ephemera, who never mentions her? His alder fly is--I know not +what; certainly not that black alder, shorm fly, Lord Stowell's fly, +or hunch-back, which kills the monsters of the deep, surpassed only +by the green drake for one fortnight; but surpassing him in this, +that she will kill on till September, from that happy day on which + + +'You find her out on every stalk +Whene'er you take a river walk, +When swifts at eve begin to hawk.' + + +O thou beloved member of the brute creation! Songs have been written +in praise of thee; statues would ere now have been erected to thee, +had that hunch back and those flabby wings of thine been 'susceptible +of artistic treatment.' But ugly thou art in the eyes of the +uninitiated vulgar; a little stumpy old maid toddling about the world +in a black bonnet and a brown cloak, laughed at by naughty boys, but +doing good wherever thou comest, and leaving sweet memories behind +thee; so sweet that the trout will rise at the ghost or sham of thee, +for pure love of thy past kindnesses to them, months after thou hast +departed from this sublunary sphere. What hours of bliss do I not +owe to thee! How have I seen, in the rich meads of Wey, after +picking out wretched quarter-pounders all the morning on March-brown +and red-hackle, the great trout rush from every hover to welcome thy +first appearance among the sedges and buttercups! How often, late in +August, on Thames, on Test, on Loddon heads, have I seen the three +and four pound fish prefer thy dead image to any live reality. Have +I not seen poor old Si. Wilder, king of Thames fishermen (now gone +home to his rest), shaking his huge sides with delight over thy +mighty deeds, as his fourteen-inch whiskers fluttered in the breeze +like the horsetail standard of some great Bashaw, while crystal +Thames murmured over the white flints on Monkey Island shallow, and +the soft breeze sighed in the colossal poplar spires, and the great +trout rose and rose, and would not cease, at thee, my alder-fly? +Have I not seen, after a day in which the earth below was iron, and +the heavens above as brass, as the three-pounders would have thee, +and thee alone, in the purple August dusk, old Moody's red face grow +redder with excitement, half proud at having advised me to 'put on' +thee, half fearful lest we should catch all my lady's pet trout in +one evening? Beloved alder-fly! would that I could give thee a soul +(if indeed thou hast not one already, thou, and all things which +live), and make thee happy in all aeons to come! But as it is, such +immortality as I can I bestow on thee here, in small return for all +the pleasant days thou hast bestowed on me. + +Bah! I am becoming poetical; let us think how to tie an alder-fly. + +The common tie is good enough. A brown mallard, or dark hen-pheasant +tail for wing, a black hackle for legs, and the necessary peacock- +herl body. A better still is that of Jones Jones Beddgelert, the +famous fishing clerk of Snowdonia, who makes the wing of dappled +peacock-hen, and puts the black hackle on before the wings, in order +to give the peculiar hunch-backed shape of the natural fly. Many a +good fish has this tie killed. But the best pattern of all is tied +from the mottled wing-feather of an Indian bustard; generally used, +when it can be obtained, only for salmon flies. The brown and fawn +check pattern of this feather seems to be peculiarly tempting to +trout, especially to the large trout of Thames; and in every river +where I have tried the alder, I have found the bustard wing facile +princeps among all patterns of the fly. + +Of palmers (the hairy caterpillars) are many sorts. Ephemera gives +by far the best list yet published. Ronalds has also three good +ones, but whether they are really taken by trout instead of the +particular natural insects which he mentions, is not very certain. +The little coch-a-bonddhu palmer, so killing upon moor streams, may +probably be taken for young larvae of the fox and oak-egger moths, +abundant on all moors, upon trefoils, and other common plants; but +the lowland caterpillars are so abundant and so various in colour +that trout must be good entomologists to distinguish them. Some +distinction they certainly make; for one palmer will kill where +another does not: but this depends a good deal on the colour of the +water; the red palmer, being easily seen, will kill almost anywhere +and any when, simply because it is easily seen; and both the grizzle +and brown palmer may be made to kill by adding to the tail a tuft of +red floss silk; for red, it would seem, has the same exciting effect +on fish which it has upon many quadrupeds, possibly because it is the +colour of flesh. The mackerel will often run greedily at a strip of +scarlet cloth; and the most killing pike-fly I ever used had a body +made of remnants of the huntsman's new 'pink.' Still, there are +local palmers. On Thames, for instance, I have seldom failed with +the grizzled palmer, while the brown has seldom succeeded, and the +usually infallible red never. There is one more palmer worth trying, +which Scotsmen, I believe, call the Royal Charlie; a coch-a-bonddhu +or furnace hackle, over a body of gold-coloured floss silk, ribbed +with broad gold tinsel. Both in Devonshire and in Hampshire this +will kill great quantities of fish, wherever furzy or otherwise wild +banks or oak-woods afford food for the oak-egger and fox moths, which +children call 'Devil's Gold Rings,' and Scotsmen 'Hairy Oubits.' + +Two hints more about palmers. They must not be worked on the top of +the water, but used as stretchers, and allowed to sink as living +caterpillars do; and next, they can hardly be too large or rough, +provided that you have skill enough to get them into the water +without a splash. I have killed well on Thames with one full three +inches long, armed of course with two small hooks. With palmers--and +perhaps with all baits--the rule is, the bigger the bait the bigger +the fish. A large fish does not care to move except for a good +mouthful. The best pike-fisher I know prefers a half-pound chub when +he goes after one of his fifteen-pound jack; and the largest pike I +ever ran--and lost, alas!--who seemed of any weight above twenty +pounds, was hooked on a live white fish of full three-quarters of a +pound. Still, no good angler will despise the minute North-country +flies. In Yorkshire they are said to kill the large chalk trout of +Driffield as well as the small limestone and grit fish of Craven; if +so, the gentlemen of the Driffield Club, who are said to think +nothing of killing three-pound fish on midge flies and cobweb tackle, +must be (as canny Yorkshiremen are likely enough to be) the best +anglers in England. + +In one spot only in Yorkshire, as far as I know, do our large chalk +flies kill: namely, in the lofty limestone tarn of Malham. There +palmers, caperers, and rough black flies, of the largest Thames and +Kennet sizes, seem the only attractive baits: and for this reason, +that they are the flies of the place. The cinnamon Phryganea comes +up abundantly from among the stones; and the large peat moss to the +west of the tarn abounds, as usual, in house-flies and bluebottles, +and in the caterpillars of the fox and oak-egger moths: another +proof that the most attractive flies are imitations of the real +insects. On the other hand, there are said to be times when midges, +and nothing else, will rise fish on some chalk streams. The delicate +black hackle which Mr. Stewart praises so highly (and which should +always be tied on a square sneck-bend hook) will kill in June and +July; and on the Itchen, at Winchester, hardly any flies but small +ones are used after the green drake is off. But there is one sad +objection against these said midges--what becomes of your fish when +hooked on one in a stream full of weeds (as all chalk streams are +after June), save + + +'One struggle more, and I am free +From pangs which rend my heart in twain'? + + +Winchester fishers have confessed to me that they lose three good +fish out of every four in such cases; and as it seems pretty clear +that chalk fish approve of no medium between very large flies and +very small ones, I advise the young angler, whose temper is not yet +schooled into perfect resignation, to spare his own feelings by +fishing with a single large fly--say the governor in the forenoon, +the caperer in the evening, regardless of the clearness of the water. +I have seen flies large enough for April, raise fish excellently in +Test and other clear streams in July and August; and, what is more, +drag them up out of the weeds and into the landing-net, where midges +would have lost them in the first scuffle. + +So much for our leading chalk flies; all copies of live insects. Of +the entomology of mountain streams little as yet is known: but a few +scattered hints may suffice to show that in them, as well as in the +chalk rivers, a little natural science might help the angler. + +The well-known fact that smaller flies are required on the moors than +in the lowlands, is easily explained by the fact that poorer soils +and swifter streams produce smaller insects. The large Phryganeae, +or true caperers, whose caddis-baits love still pools and stagnant +ditches, are there rare; and the office of water-scavenger is +fulfilled by the Rhyacophiles (torrent-lovers) and Hydropsyches, +whose tiny pebble-houses are fixed to the stones to resist the +violence of the summer floods. In and out of them the tiny larva +runs to find food, making in addition, in some species, galleries of +earth along the surface of the stones, in which he takes his walks +abroad in full security. In any of the brown rivulets of Windsor +forest, towards the middle of summer, the pebble-houses of these +little creatures may be seen in millions, studding every stone. To +the Hydropsyches (species montana? or variegata? of Pictet) belongs +that curious little Welsh fly, known in Snowdon by the name of the +Gwynnant, whose tesselated wing is best imitated by brown mallard +feather, and who so swarms in the lower lakes of Snowdon, that it is +often necessary to use three of them on the line at once, all other +flies being useless. It is perhaps the abundance of these tesselated +Hydropsyches which makes the mallard wing the most useful in mountain +districts, as the abundance of the fawn and grey Phryganidae in the +south of England makes the woodcock wing justly the favourite. The +Rhyacophiles, on the other hand, are mostly of a shining soot-grey, +or almost black. These may be seen buzzing in hundreds over the +pools on a wet evening, and with them the sooty Mystacides, called +silverhorns in Scotland, from their antennae, which are of +preposterous length, and ringed prettily enough with black and white. +These delicate fairies make moveable cases, or rather pipes, of the +finest sand, generally curved, and resembling in shape the Dentalium +shell. Guarded by these, they hang in myriads on the smooth ledges +of rock, where the water runs gently a few inches deep. These are +abundant everywhere: but I never saw so many of them as in the +exquisite Cother brook, near Middleham, in Yorkshire. In that +delicious glen, while wading up beneath the ash-fringed crags of +limestone, out of which the great ring ouzel (too wild, it seemed, to +be afraid of man) hopped down fearlessly to feed upon the strand, or +past flower-banks where the golden globe-flower, and the great blue +geranium, and the giant campanula bloomed beneath the white tassels +of the bird-cherry, I could not tread upon the limestone slabs +without crushing at every step hundreds of the delicate Mystacide +tubes, which literally paved the. shallow edge of the stream, and +which would have been metamorphosed in due time into small sooty +moth-like fairies, best represented, I should say, by the soft black- +hackle which Mr. Stewart recommends as the most deadly of North- +country flies. Not to these, however, but to the Phryganeae (who, +when sticks and pebbles fail, often make their tubes of sand, e.g. P. +flava), should I refer the red-cow fly, which is almost the only +autumn killer in the Dartmoor streams. A red cowhair body and a +woodcock wing is his type, and let those who want West-country trout +remember him. + +Another fly, common on some rocky streams, but more scarce in the +chalk, is the 'Yellow Sally,' which entomologists, with truer +appreciation of its colour, call Chrysoperla viridis. It may be +bought at the shops; at least a yellow something of that name, but +bearing no more resemblance to the delicate yellow-green natural fly, +with its warm grey wings, than a Pre-Raphaelite portrait to the human +being for whom it is meant. Copied, like most trout flies, from some +traditional copy by the hands of Cockney maidens, who never saw a fly +in their lives, the mistake of a mistake, a sham raised to its tenth +power, it stands a signal proof that anglers will never get good +flies till they learn a little entomology themselves, and then teach +it to the tackle makers. But if it cannot be bought, it can at least +be made; and I should advise everyone who fishes rocky streams in May +and June, to dye for himself some hackles of a brilliant greenish- +yellow, and in the most burning sunshine, when fish seem inclined to +rise at no fly whatsoever, examine the boulders for the Chrysoperla, +who runs over them, her wings laid flat on her back, her yellow legs +moving as rapidly as a forest-fly's; try to imitate her, and use her +on the stream, or on the nearest lake. Certain it is that in Snowdon +this fly and the Gwynnant Hydropsyche will fill a creel in the most +burning north-easter, when all other flies are useless; a sufficient +disproof of the Scotch theory--that fish do not prefer the fly which +is on the water. {74} + +Another disproof may be found in the 'fern web,' 'bracken clock' of +Scotland; the tiny cockchafer, with brown wing-cases and dark-green +thorax, which abounds in some years in the hay-meadows, on the fern, +or on the heads of umbelliferous flowers. The famous Loch-Awe fly, +described as an alder-fly with a rail's wing, seems to be nothing but +this fat little worthy: but the best plan is to make the wings, +either buzz or hackle, of the bright neck-feather of the cock +pheasant, thus gaining the metallic lustre of the beetle tribe. Tied +thus, either in Devonshire or Snowdon, few flies surpass him when he +is out. His fatness proves an attraction which the largest fish +cannot resist. + +The Ephemerae, too, are far more important in rapid and rocky streams +than in the deeper, stiller waters of the south. It is worth while +for a good fish to rise at them there; the more luxurious chalk trout +will seldom waste himself upon them, unless he be lying in shallow +water, and has but to move a few inches upward. + +But these Ephemerae, like all other naiads, want working out. The +species which Mr. Ronalds gives, are most of them, by his own +confession, very uncertain. Of the Phryganidae he seems to know +little or nothing, mentioning but two species out of the two hundred +which are said to inhabit Britain; and his land flies and beetles are +in several cases quite wrongly named. However, the professed +entomologists know but little of the mountain flies; and the angler +who would help to work them out would confer a benefit on science, as +well as on the 'gentle craft.' As yet the only approach to such a +good work which I know of, is a little book on the trout flies of +Ripon, with excellent engravings of the natural fly. The author's +name is not given; but the book may be got at Ripon, and most +valuable it must be to any North-country fisherman. + +But come, we must not waste our time in talk, for here is a cloud +over the sun, and plenty more coming up behind, before a ruffling +south-west breeze, as Shelley has it - + + +'Calling white clouds like flocks to feed in air.' + + +Let us up and onward to that long still reach, which is now curling +up fast before the breeze; there are large fish to be taken, one or +two at least, even before the fly comes on. You need not change your +flies; the cast which you have on--governor, and black alder--will +take, if anything will. Only do not waste your time and muscle, as +you are beginning to do, by hurling your flies wildly into the middle +of the stream, on the chance of a fish being there. Fish are there, +no doubt, but not feeding ones. They are sailing about and enjoying +the warmth; but nothing more. If you want to find the hungry fish +and to kill them, you must stand well back from the bank--or kneel +down, if you are really in earnest about sport; and throw within a +foot of the shore, above you or below (but if possible above), with a +line short enough to manage easily; by which I mean short enough to +enable you to lift your flies out of the water at each throw without +hooking them in the docks and comfrey which grow along the brink. +You must learn to raise your hand at the end of each throw, and lift +the flies clean over the land-weeds: or you will lose time, and +frighten all the fish, by crawling to the bank to unhook them. +Believe me, one of the commonest mistakes into which young anglers +fall is that of fishing in 'skipjack broad;' in plain English, in +mid-stream, where few fish, and those little ones, are to be caught. +Those who wish for large fish work close under the banks, and seldom +take a mid-stream cast, unless they see a fish rise there. + +The reason of this is simple. Walking up the Strand in search of a +dinner, a reasonable man will keep to the trottoir, and look in at +the windows close to him, instead of parading up the mid-street. And +even so do all wise and ancient trout. The banks are their shops; +and thither they go for their dinners, driving their poor little +children tyrannously out into the mid-river to fare as hap may hap. +Over these children the tyro wastes his time, flogging the stream +across and across for weary hours, while the big papas and mammas are +comfortably under the bank, close at his feet, grubbing about the +sides for water crickets, and not refusing at times a leech or a +young crayfish, but perfectly ready to take a fly if you offer one +large and tempting enough. They do but act on experience. All the +largest surface-food--beetles, bees, and palmers--comes off the +shore; and all the caperers and alders, after emerging from their +pupa-cases, swim to the shore in order to change into the perfect +insect in the open air. The perfect insects haunt sunny sedges and +tree-stems--whence the one is often called the sedge, the other the +alder-fly--and from thence drop into the trouts' mouths; and within +six inches of the bank will the good angler work, all the more +sedulously and even hopefully if he sees no fish rising. I have +known good men say that they had rather NOT see fish on the rise, if +the day be good; that they can get surer sport, and are less troubled +with small fish, by making them rise; and certain it is, that a day +when the fish are rising all over the stream is generally one of +disappointment. + +Another advantage of bank fishing is, that the fish sees the fly only +for a moment. He has no long gaze at it, as it comes to him across +the water. It either drops exactly over his nose, or sweeps down the +stream straight upon him. He expects it to escape on shore the next +moment, and chops at it fiercely and hastily, instead of following +and examining. Add to this the fact that when he is under the bank +there is far less chance of his seeing you; and duly considering +these things, you will throw away no more time in drawing, at least +in chalk-streams, flies over the watery wastes, to be snapped at now +and then by herring-sized pinkeens. In rocky streams, where the +quantity of bank food is far smaller, this rule will perhaps not hold +good; though who knows not that his best fish are generally taken +under some tree from which the little caterpillars, having determined +on slow and deliberate suicide are letting themselves down gently by +a silken thread into the mouth of the spotted monarch, who has but to +sail about and about, and pick them up one by one as they touch the +stream?--A sight which makes one think--as does a herd of swine +crunching acorns, each one of which might have become a 'builder +oak'--how Nature is never more magnificent than in her waste. + +The next mistake, natural enough to the laziness of fallen man, is +that of fishing down-stream, and not up. What Mr. Stewart says on +this point should be read by every tyro. By fishing up-stream, even +against the wind, he will on an average kill twice as many trout as +when fishing down. If trout are out and feeding on the shallows, up +or down will simply make the difference of fish or no fish; and even +in deeps, where the difference in the chance of not being seen is not +so great, many more fish will be hooked by the man who fishes up- +stream, simply because when he strikes he pulls the hook into the +trout's mouth instead of out of it. But he who would obey Mr. +Stewart in fishing up-stream must obey him also in discarding his +light London rod, which is in three cases out of four as weak and +'floppy' in the middle as a waggon whip, and get to himself a stiff +and powerful rod, strong enough to spin a minnow; whereby he will +obtain, after some weeks of aching muscles, two good things--a fore- +arm fit for a sculptor's model, and trout hooked and killed, instead +of pricked and lost. + +Killed, as well as hooked; for how large trout are to be killed in a +weedy chalk-stream without a stiff rod which will take them down, is +a question yet unsolved. Even the merest Cockney will know, if he +thinks, that weeds float with their points down-stream; and that +therefore if a fish is to be brought through them without entangling, +he must be 'combed' through them in the same direction. But how is +this to be done, if a fish be hooked below you on a weak rod? With a +strong rod indeed you can, at the chance of tearing out the hook, +keep him by main force on the top of the water, till you have run +past him and below him, shortening your line anyhow in loops--there +is no time to wind it up with the reel--and then do what you might +have done comfortably at first had you been fishing up--viz., bring +him down-stream, and let the water run through his gills, and drown +him. But with a weak rod--Alas for the tyro! He catches one glimpse +of a silver side plunging into the depths; he finds his rod double in +his hand; he finds fish and flies stop suddenly somewhere; he rushes +down to the spot, sees weeds waving around his line, and guesses from +what he feels and sees that the fish is grubbing up-stream through +them, five feet under water. He tugs downwards and backwards, but +too late; the drop-fly is fast wrapt in Ceratophyllum and Glyceria, +Callitriche and Potamogeton, and half-a-dozen more horrid things with +long names and longer stems; and what remains but the fate of +Campbell's Lord Ullin? - + + +'The waters wild went o'er his child, + And he was left lamenting.' + + +Unless, in fact, large fish can be got rapidly down-stream, the +chance of killing them is very small; and therefore the man who +fishes a willow-fringed brook downward, is worthy of no crown but +Ophelia's, besides being likely enough, if he attempt to get down to +his fish, to share her fate. The best fisherman, however, will come +to shame in streams bordered by pollard willows, and among queer +nooks, which can be only fished down-stream. I saw, but the other +day, a fish hooked cleverly enough, by throwing to an inch where he +ought to have been, and indeed was, and from the only point whence +the throw could be made. Out of the water he came, head and tail, +the moment he felt the hook, and showed a fair side over two pounds +weight . . . . and then? Instead of running away, he ran right at +the fisherman, for reasons which were but too patent. Between man +and fish were ten yards of shallow, then a deep weedy shelf, and then +the hole which was his house. And for that weedy shelf the spotted +monarch made, knowing that there he could drag himself clear of the +fly, as perhaps he had done more than once before. + +What was to be done? Take him down-stream through the weed? Alas, +on the man's left hand an old pollard leant into the water, barring +all downward movement. Jump in and run round? He had rather to run +back from the bank, from fear of a loose line; the fish was coming at +him so fast that there was no time to wind up. Safe into the weeds +hurls the fish; the man, as soon as he finds the fish stop, jumps in +mid-leg deep, and staggers up to him, in hopes of clearing; finds the +dropper fast in the weeds, and the stretcher, which had been in the +fish's mouth, wantoning somewhere in the depths--Quid plura? Let us +draw a veil over that man's return to shore. + +No mortal skill could have killed that fish. Mortal luck (which is +sometimes, as most statesmen know, very great) might have done it, if +the fish had been irretrievably fast hooked; as, per contra, I once +saw a fish of nearly four pounds hooked just above an alder bush, on +the same bank as the angler. The stream was swift: there was a +great weed-bed above; the man had but about ten feet square of swift +water to kill the trout in. Not a foot down-stream could he take +him; in fact, he had to pull him hard up-stream to keep him out of +his hover in the alder roots. Three times that fish leapt into the +air nearly a yard high; and yet, so merciful is luck, and so firmly +was he hooked, in five breathless minutes he was in the landing-net; +and when he was there and safe ashore, just of the shape and colour +of a silver spoon, his captor lay down panting upon the bank, and +with Sir Hugh Evans, manifested 'a great disposition to cry.' But it +was a beautiful sight. A sharper round between man and fish never +saw I fought in Merry England. + +I saw once, however, a cleverer, though not a more dashing feat. A +handy little fellow (I wonder where he is now?) hooked a trout of +nearly three pounds with his dropper, and at the same moment a post +with his stretcher. What was to be done? To keep the fish pulling +on him, and not on the post. And that, being favoured by standing on +a four-foot bank, he did so well that he tired out the fish in some +six feet square of water, stopping him and turning him beautifully +whenever he tried to run, till I could get in to him with the +landing-net. That was five-and-thirty years since. If the little +man has progressed in his fishing as he ought, he should be now one +of the finest anglers in England. + +* * * * * + +So. Thanks to bank fishing, we have, you see, landed three or four +more good fish in the last two hours--And! What is here? An ugly +two-pound chub, Chevin, 'Echevin,' or Alderman, as the French call +him. How is this, keeper? I thought you allowed no such vermin in +this water? + +The keeper answers, with a grunt, that 'they allow themselves. That +there always were chub hereabouts, and always will be; for the more +he takes out with the net, the more come next day.' + +Probably. No nets will exterminate these spawn-eating, fry-eating, +all-eating pests, who devour the little trout, and starve the large +ones, and, at the first sign of the net, fly to hover among the most +tangled roots. There they lie, as close as rats in a bank, and work +themselves the farther in the more they are splashed and poked by the +poles of the beaters. But the fly, well used, will--if not +exterminate them--still thin them down greatly; and very good sport +they give, in my opinion, in spite of the contempt in which they are +commonly held, as chicken-hearted fish, who show no fight. True; but +their very cowardice makes them the more difficult to catch; for no +fish must you keep more out of sight, and further off. The very +shadow of the line (not to mention that of the rod) sends them flying +to hover; and they rise so cautiously and quietly, that they give +excellent lessons in patience and nerve to a beginner. If the fly is +dragged along the surface, or jerked suddenly from them, they flee +from it in terror; and when they do, after due deliberation, take it +in, their rise is so quiet, that you can seldom tell whether your +fish weighs half a pound or four pounds and a half--unless you, like +most beginners, attempt to show your quickness by that most useless +exertion, a violent strike. Then, the snapping of your footlink, or- +-just as likely--of the top of your rod, makes you fully aware, if +not of the pluck, at least of the brute strength, of the burly +alderman of the waters. No fish, therefore, will better teach the +beginner the good old lesson, 'not to frighten a fish before you have +tired him.' + +For flies--chub will rise greedily at any large palmers, the larger +and rougher the better. A red and a grizzled hackle will always take +them; but the best fly of all is an imitation of the black beetle-- +the 'undertaker' of the London shops. He, too, can hardly be too +large, and should be made of a fat body of black wool, with the +metallic black feather of a cock's tail wrapped loosely over it. A +still better wing is one of the neck feathers of any metallic-plumed +bird, e.g., Phlogophorus Impeyanus, the Menaul Pheasant, laid flat +and whole on the back, to imitate the wing-shells of the beetle, the +legs being represented by any loose black feathers--(not hackles, +which are too fine.) Tied thus, it will kill not only every chub in +a pool (if you give the survivors a quarter of an hour wherein to +recover from their horror at their last friend's fate), but also, +here and there, very large trout. + +Another slur upon the noble sport of chub fishing is the fact of his +not being worth eating--a fact which, in the true sportsman's eyes, +will go for nothing. But though the man who can buy fresh soles and +salmon may despise chub, there are those who do not. True, you may +make a most accurate imitation of him by taking one of Palmer's +patent candles, wick and all, stuffing it with needles and split +bristles, and then stewing the same in ditch-water. Nevertheless, +strange to say, the agricultural stomach digests chub; and if, after +having filled your creel, or three creels (as you may too often), +with them, you will distribute them on your way home to all the old +women you meet, you will make many poor souls happy, after having +saved the lives of many trout. + +But here we come to a strip of thick cover, part of our Squire's home +preserves, which it is impossible to fish, so closely do the boughs +cover the water. We will walk on through it towards the hall, and +there get--what we begin sorely to need--something to eat. It will +be of little use fishing for some time to come; for these hot hours +of the afternoon, from three till six, are generally the 'deadest +time' of the whole day. + +And now, when we have struggled in imagination through the last bit +of copse, and tumbled over the palings into the lawn, we shall see a +scene quite as lovely, if you will believe it, as any alp on earth. + +What shall we see, as we look across the broad, still, clear river, +where the great dark trout sail to and fro lazily in the sun? For +having free-warren of our fancy and our paper, we may see what we +choose. + +White chalk-fields above, quivering hazy in the heat. A park full of +merry haymakers; gay red and blue waggons; stalwart horses switching +off the flies; dark avenues of tall elms; groups of abele, 'tossing +their whispering silver to the sun;' and amid them the house. What +manner of house shall it be? Tudor or Elizabethan, with oriels, +mullioned windows, gables, and turrets of strange shape? No: that +is commonplace. Everybody builds Tudor houses now. Our house shall +smack of Inigo Jones or Christopher Wren; a great square red-brick +mass, made light and cheerful though, by quoins and windows of white +Sarsden stone; with high-peaked French roofs, broken by louvres and +dormers, haunted by a thousand swallows and starlings. Old walled +gardens, gay with flowers, shall stretch right and left. Clipt yew +alleys shall wander away into mysterious glooms: and out of their +black arches shall come tripping children, like white fairies, to +laugh and talk with the girl who lies dreaming and reading in the +hammock there, beneath the black velvet canopy of the great cedar- +tree, like some fair Tropic flower hanging from its boughs. Then +they shall wander down across the smooth-shorn lawn, where the purple +rhododendrons hang double, bush and image, over the water's edge, and +call to us across the stream, 'What sport?' and the old Squire shall +beckon the keeper over the long stone bridge, and return with him +bringing luncheon and good ale; and we will sit down, and eat and +drink among the burdock leaves, and then watch the quiet house, and +lawn, and flowers, and fair human creatures, and shining water, all +sleeping breathless in the glorious light beneath the glorious blue, +till we doze off, lulled by the murmur of a thousand insects, and the +rich minstrelsy of nightingale and black-cap, thrush and dove. + +Peaceful, graceful, complete English country life and country houses; +everywhere finish and polish; Nature perfected by the wealth and art +of peaceful centuries! Why should I exchange you, even for the sight +of all the Alps, for bad roads, bad carriages, bad inns, bad food, +bad washing, bad beds, and fleas, fleas, fleas? + +Let that last thought be enough. There may be follies, there may be +sorrows, there may be sins--though I know there are no very heavy +ones--in that fine old house opposite: but thanks to the genius of +my native land, there are at least no fleas. + +Think of that, wandering friend; and of this also, that you will find +your warm bath ready when you go to bed to-night, and your cold one +when you rise to-morrow morning; and in content and thankfulness, +stay in England, and be clean. + +* * * * + +Here, then, let us lounge a full two hours, too comfortable and too +tired to care for fishing, till the hall-bell rings for that dinner +which we as good anglers will despise. Then we will make our way to +the broad reaches above the house. The evening breeze should be +ruffling them gallantly; and see, the fly is getting up. Countless +thousands are rising off the grass, and flickering to and fro above +the stream. Stand still a moment, and you will hear the air full of +the soft rustle of innumerable wings. Hundreds more, even more +delicate and gauzy, are rising through the water, and floating +helplessly along the surface, as Aphrodite may have done when she +rose in the AEgean, half frightened at the sight of the new upper +world. And, see, the great trout are moving everywhere. Fish too +large and well fed to care for the fly at any other season, who have +been lounging among the weeds all day and snapping at passing +minnows, have come to the surface; and are feeding steadily, +splashing five or six times in succession, and then going down awhile +to bolt their mouthful of victims; while here and there a heavy +silent swirl tells of a fly taken before it has reached the surface, +untimely slain before it has seen the day. + +Now--put your Green-drake on; and throw, regardless of bank-fishing +or any other rule, wherever you see a fish rise. Do not work your +flies in the least, but let them float down over the fish, or sink if +they will; he is more likely to take them under water than on the +top. And mind this rule: be patient with your fish; and do not +fancy that because he does not rise to you the first or the tenth +time, therefore he will not rise at all. He may have filled his +mouth and gone down to gorge; and when he comes up again, if your fly +be the first which he meets, he will probably seize it greedily, and +all the more so if it be under water, so seeming drowned and +helpless. Besides, a fish seldom rises twice exactly in the same +place, unless he be lying between two weeds, or in the corner of an +eddy. His small wits, when he is feeding in the open, seem to hint +to him that after having found a fly in one place he must move a foot +or two on to find another; and therefore it may be some time before +your turn comes, and your fly passes just over his nose; which if it +do not do, he certainly will not, amid such an abundance, go out of +his way for it. In the meanwhile your footlink will very probably +have hit him over the back, or run foul of his nose, in which case +you will not catch him at all. A painful fact for you; but if you +could catch every fish you saw, where would be the trout for next +season? + +Put on a dropper of some kind, say a caperer, as a second chance. I +almost prefer the dark claret-spinner, with which I have killed very +large fish alternately with the green-drake, even when it was quite +dark; and for your stretcher, of course a green-drake. + +For a blustering evening like this your drake can hardly be too large +or too rough; in brighter and stiller weather the fish often prefer a +fly half the size of the natural one. Only bear in mind that the +most tempting form among these millions of drakes is that one whose +wings are very little coloured at all, of a pale greenish yellow; +whose body is straw-coloured, and his head, thorax, and legs, spotted +with dark brown--best represented by a pheasant or coch-a-bonddhu +hackle. + +The best imitation of this, or of any drake, which I have ever seen, +is one by Mr. Macgowan, whilome of Ballyshannon, now of No. 7, +Bruton-street, Berkeley-square, whose drakes, known by a waxy body of +some mysterious material, do surpass those of all other men, and +should be known and honoured far and wide. But failing them, you may +do well with a drake which is ribbed through the whole length with +red hackle over a straw-coloured body. A North-countryman would +laugh at it, and ask us how we fancy that fish will mistake for that +delicate waxy fly a heavy rough palmer, made heavier and rougher by +two thick tufts of yellow mallard wing: but if he will fish +therewith, he will catch trout; and mighty ones they will be. I have +found, again and again, this drake, in which the hackle is ribbed all +down the body, beat a bare-bodied one in the ratio of three fish to +one. The reason is difficult to guess. Perhaps the shining +transparent hackle gives the fly more of the waxy look of the natural +insect; or perhaps the 'buzzly' look of the fly causes the fish to +mistake it for one half emerged from its pupa case, fluttering, +entangled, and helpless. But whatever be the cause, I am sure of the +fact. Now--silence and sport for the next three hours. + +* * * * * + +There! All things must end. It is so dark that I have been fishing +for the last five minutes without any end fly; and we have lost our +two last fish simply by not being able to guide them into the net. +But what an evening's sport we have had! Beside several over a pound +which I have thrown in (I trust you have been generous and done +likewise), there are six fish averaging two pounds apiece; and what +is the weight of that monster with whom I saw you wrestling dimly +through the dusk, your legs stuck knee-deep in a mudbank, your head +embowered in nettles, while the keeper waltzed round you, roaring +mere incoherencies?--four pounds full. Now, is there any sherry left +in the flask? No. Then we will give the keeper five shillings; he +is well worth his pay; and then drag our weary limbs towards the hall +to bath, supper, and bed; while you confess, I trust, that you may +get noble sport, hard exercise, and lovely scenery, without going +sixty miles from London town. + + + +III. THE FENS. + + + +A certain sadness is pardonable to one who watches the destruction of +a grand natural phenomenon, even though its destruction bring +blessings to the human race. Reason and conscience tell us, that it +is right and good that the Great Fen should have become, instead of a +waste and howling wilderness, a garden of the Lord, where + + +'All the land in flowery squares, +Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, +Smells of the coming summer.' + + +And yet the fancy may linger, without blame, over the shining meres, +the golden reed-beds, the countless water-fowl, the strange and gaudy +insects, the wild nature, the mystery, the majesty--for mystery and +majesty there were--which haunted the deep fens for many a hundred +years. Little thinks the Scotsman, whirled down by the Great +Northern Railway from Peterborough to Huntingdon, what a grand place, +even twenty years ago, was that Holme and Whittlesea, which is now +but a black, unsightly, steaming flat, from which the meres and reed- +beds of the old world are gone, while the corn and roots of the new +world have not as yet taken their place. + +But grand enough it was, that black ugly place, when backed by +Caistor Hanglands and Holme Wood, and the patches of the primaeval +forest; while dark-green alders, and pale-green reeds, stretched for +miles round the broad lagoon, where the coot clanked, and the bittern +boomed, and the sedge-bird, not content with its own sweet song, +mocked the notes of all the birds around; while high overhead hung, +motionless, hawk beyond hawk, buzzard beyond buzzard, kite beyond +kite, as far as eye could see. Far off, upon the silver mere, would +rise a puff of smoke from a punt, invisible from its flatness and its +white paint. Then down the wind came the boom of the great +stanchion-gun; and after that sound another sound, louder as it +neared; a cry as of all the bells of Cambridge, and all the hounds of +Cottesmore; and overhead rushed and whirled the skein of terrified +wild-fowl, screaming, piping, clacking, croaking, filling the air +with the hoarse rattle of their wings, while clear above all sounded +the wild whistle of the curlew, and the trumpet note of the great +wild swan. + +They are all gone now. No longer do the ruffs trample the sedge into +a hard floor in their fighting-rings, while the sober reeves stand +round, admiring the tournament of their lovers, gay with ears and +tippets, no two of them alike. Gone are ruffs and reeves, +spoonbills, bitterns, avosets; the very snipe, one hears, disdains to +breed. Gone, too, not only from Whittlesea but from the whole world, +is that most exquisite of English butterflies, Lycaena dispar--the +great copper; and many a curious insect more. Ah, well, at least we +shall have wheat and mutton instead, and no more typhus and ague; +and, it is to be hoped, no more brandy-drinking and opium-eating; and +children will live and not die. For it was a hard place to live in, +the old Fen; a place wherein one heard of 'unexampled instances of +longevity,' for the same reason that one hears of them in savage +tribes--that few lived to old age at all, save those iron +constitutions which nothing could break down. + +And now, when the bold Fen-men, who had been fighting water by the +help of wind, have given up the more capricious element for that more +manageable servant fire; have replaced their wind-mills by steam- +engines, which will work in all weathers; and have pumped the whole +fen dry--even too dry, as the last hot summer proved; when the only +bit of the primaeval wilderness left, as far as I know, is 200 acres +of sweet sedge and Lastraea thelypteris in Wicken Fen: there can be +no harm in lingering awhile over the past, and telling of what the +Great Fen was, and how it came to be that great flat which reaches +(roughly speaking) from Cambridge to Peterborough on the south-west +side, to Lynn and Tattershall on the north-east, some forty miles and +more each way. + +To do that rightly, and describe how the Fen came to be, one must go +back, it seems to me, to an age before all history; an age which +cannot be measured by years or centuries; an age shrouded in mystery, +and to be spoken of only in guesses. To assert anything positively +concerning that age, or ages, would be to show the rashness of +ignorance. 'I think that I believe,' 'I have good reason to +suspect,' 'I seem to see,' are the strongest forms of speech which +ought to be used over a matter so vast and as yet so little +elaborated. + +'I seem to see,' then, an epoch after those strata were laid down +with which geology generally deals; after the Kimmeridge clay, Oxford +clay, and Gault clay, which form the impervious bedding of the fens, +with their intermediate beds of coral-rag and green sand, had been +deposited; after the chalk had been laid on the top of them, at the +bottom of some ancient ocean; after (and what a gulf of time is +implied in that last 'after!') the boulder-clay (coeval probably with +the 'till' of Scotland) had been spread out in the 'age of ice' on +top of all; after the whole had been upheaved out of the sea, and +stood about the same level as it stands now: but before the great +valley of the Cam had been scooped out, and the strata were still +continuous, some 200 feet above Cambridge and its colleges, from the +top of the Gog-magogs to the top of Madingley Rise. + +In those ages--while the valleys of the Cam, the Ouse, the Nene, the +Welland, the Glen, and the Witham were sawing themselves out by no +violent convulsions, but simply, as I believe, by the same slow +action of rain and rivers by which they are sawing backward into the +land even now--I 'seem to see' a time when the Straits of Dover did +not exist--a time when a great part of the German Ocean was dry land. +Through it, into a great estuary between North Britain and Norway, +flowed together all the rivers of north-eastern Europe--Elbe, Weser, +Rhine, Scheldt, Seine, Thames, and all the rivers of east England, as +far north as the Humber. + +And if a reason be required for so daring a theory--first started, if +I recollect right, by the late lamented Edward Forbes--a sufficient +one may be found in one look over a bridge, in any river of the East +of England. There we see various species of Cyprinidae, 'rough' or +'white' fish--roach, dace, chub, bream, and so forth, and with them +their natural attendant and devourer, the pike. + +Now these fish belong almost exclusively to the same system of +rivers--those of north-east Europe. They attain their highest +development in the great lakes of Sweden. Westward of the Straits of +Dover they are not indigenous. They may be found in the streams of +south and western England; but in every case, I believe, they have +been introduced either by birds or by men. From some now submerged +'centre of creation' (to use poor Edward Forbes's formula) they must +have spread into the rivers where they are now found; and spread by +fresh water, and not by salt, which would destroy them in a single +tide. + +Again, there lingers in the Cam, and a few other rivers of north- +eastern Europe, that curious fish the eel-pout or 'burbot' (Molva +lota). Now he is utterly distinct from any other fresh-water fish of +Europe. His nearest ally is the ling (Molva vulgaris); a deep-sea +fish, even as his ancestors have been. Originally a deep-sea form, +he has found his way up the rivers, even to Cambridge, and there +remains. The rivers by which he came up, the land through which he +passed, ages and ages since, have been all swept away; and he has +never found his way back to his native salt-water, but lives on in a +strange land, degraded in form, dwindling in numbers, and now fast +dying out. The explanation may be strange: but it is the only one +which I can offer to explain the fact--which is itself much more +strange--of the burbot being found in the Fen rivers. + +Another proof may be found in the presence of the edible frog of the +Continent at Foulmire, on the edge of the Cambridge Fans. It is a +moot point still with some, whether he was not put there by man. It +is a still stronger argument against his being indigenous, that he is +never mentioned as an article of food by the mediaeval monks, who +would have known--Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, as many of them were- +-that he is as dainty as ever was a spring chicken. But if he be +indigenous, his presence proves that once he could either hop across +the Straits of Dover, or swim across the German Ocean. + +But there can be no doubt of the next proof--the presence in the Fens +(where he is now probably extinct) and in certain spots in East +Anglia, which I shall take care not to mention, of that exquisite +little bird the 'Bearded Tit' (Calamophilus biarmicus). Tit he is +none; rather, it is said, a finch, but connected with no other +English bird. His central home is in the marshes of Russia and +Prussia; his food the mollusks which swarm among the reed-beds where +he builds; and feeding on those from reed-bed to reed bed, all across +what was once the German Ocean, has come the beautiful little bird +with long tail, orange tawny plumage, and black moustache, which +might have been seen forty years ago in hundreds on ever reed-rond of +the Fen. + +One more proof--for it is the heaping up of facts, each minute by +itself, which issues often in a sound and great result. In draining +Wretham Mere, in Norfolk, not so very far from the Fens, in the year +1856 there were found embedded in the peat moss (which is not the +Scotch and Western Sphagnum palustre, but an altogether different +moss, Hypnum fluitans), remains of an ancient lake-dwelling, +supported on piles. A dwelling like those which have lately +attracted so much notice in the lakes of Switzerland: like those +which the Dyaks make about the ports and rivers of Borneo; dwellings +invented, it seems to me, to enable the inhabitants to escape not +wild beasts only, but malaria and night frosts; and, perched above +the cold and poisonous fogs, to sleep, if not high and dry, at least +high and healthy. + +In the bottom of this mere were found two shells of the fresh-water +tortoise, Emys lutaria, till then unknown in England. + +These little animals, who may be seen in hundreds in the meres of +eastern Europe, sunning their backs on fallen logs, and diving into +the water at the sound of a footstep, are eaten largely in +continental capitals (as is their cousin the terrapin, Emys picta, in +the Southern States). They may be bought at Paris, at fashionable +restaurants. Thither they may have been sent from Vienna or Berlin; +for in north France, Holland, and north-west Germany they are +unknown. A few specimens have been found buried in peat in Sweden +and Denmark; and there is a tale of a live one having been found in +the extreme south part of Sweden, some twenty years ago. {103} Into +Sweden, then, as into England, the little fresh-water tortoise had +wandered, as to an extreme limit, beyond which the change of climate, +and probably of food, killed him off. + +But the emys which came to the Wretham bog must have had a long +journey; and a journey by fresh water too. Down Elbe or Weser he +must have floated, ice-packed, or swept away by flood, till somewhere +off the Doggerbank, in that great network of rivers which is now open +sea, he or his descendants turned up Ouse and Little Ouse, till they +found a mere like their old Prussian one, and there founded a tiny +colony for a few generations, till they were eaten up by the savages +of the table dwelling; or died out--as many a human family has died +out--because they found the world too hard. + +And lastly, my friend Mr. Brady, well known to naturalists, has found +that many forms of Entomastraca are common to the estuaries of the +east of England and to those of Holland. + +It was thus necessary, in order to account for the presence of some +of the common animals of the fen, to go back to an epoch of immense +remoteness. + +And how was that great lowland swept away? Who can tell? Probably +by no violent convulsion. Slow upheavals, slow depressions, there +may have been--indeed must have been--as the sunken fir-forests of +Brancaster, and the raised beach of Hunstanton, on the extreme north- +east corner of the Wash, testify to this day. But the main agent of +destruction has been, doubtless, that same ever-gnawing sea-wash +which devours still the soft strata of the whole east coast of +England, as far as Flamborough Head; and that great scavenger, the +tide-wave, which sweeps the fallen rubbish out to sea twice in every +twenty-four hours. Wave and tide by sea, rain and river by land; +these are God's mighty mills in which He makes the old world new. +And as Longfellow says of moral things, so may we of physical:- + + +'Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding +small. +Though He sit, end wait with patience, with exactness grinds He all.' + + +The lighter and more soluble particles, during that slow but vast +destruction which is going on still to this day, have been carried +far out to sea, and deposited as ooze. The heavier and coarser have +been left along the shores, as the gravels which fill the old +estuaries of the east of England. + +From these gravels we can judge of the larger animals which dwelt in +that old world. About these lost lowlands wandered herds of the +woolly mammoth. Elephas primigenius, whose bones are common in +certain Cambridge gravels, whose teeth are brought up by dredgers, +far out in the German Ocean, off certain parts of the Norfolk coast. +With them wandered the woolly rhinoceros (R. tichorhinus), the +hippopotamus, the lion--not (according to some) to be distinguished +from the recent lion of Africa--the hyaena, the bear, the horse, the +reindeer, and the musk ox; the great Irish elk, whose vast horns are +so well known in every museum of northern Europe; and that mighty ox, +the Bos primigenius, which still lingered on the Continent in +Caesar's time, as the urus, in magnitude less only than the +elephant,--and not to be confounded with the bison, a relation of, if +not identical with, the buffalo of North America,--which still +lingers, carefully preserved by the Czar, in the forests of +Lithuania. + +The remains of this gigantic ox, be it remembered, are found +throughout Britain, and even into the Shetland Isles. Would that any +gentleman who may see these pages would take notice of the fact, that +we have not (so I am informed) in these islands a single perfect +skeleton of Bos primigenius; while the Museum of Copenhagen, to its +honour, possesses five or six from a much smaller field than is open +to us; and be public-spirited enough, the next time he hears of ox- +bones, whether in gravel or in peat (as he may in the draining of any +northern moss), to preserve them for the museum of his neighbourhood- +-or send them to Cambridge. + +But did all these animals exist at the same time? It is difficult to +say. The study of the different gravels is most intricate--almost a +special science in itself--in which but two or three men are adepts. +It is hard, at first sight, to believe that the hippopotamus could +have been the neighbour of the Arctic reindeer and musk ox: but that +the woolly mammoth not only may have been such, but was such, there +can be no doubt. His remains, imbedded in ice at the mouth of the +great Siberian rivers, with the wool, skin, and flesh (in some cases) +still remaining on the bones, prove him to have been fitted for a +cold climate, and to have browsed upon the scanty shrubs of Northern +Asia. But, indeed, there is no reason, a priori, why these huge +mammals, now confined to hotter countries, should not have once +inhabited a colder region, or at least have wandered northwards in +whole herds in summer, to escape insects, and find fresh food, and +above all, water. The same is the case with the lion, and other huge +beasts of prey. The tiger of Hindostan ranges, at least in summer, +across the snows of the Himalaya, and throughout China. Even at the +river Amoor, where the winters are as severe as at St. Petersburg, +the tiger is an ordinary resident at all seasons. The lion was, +undoubtedly, an inhabitant of Thrace as late as the expedition of +Xerxes, whose camels they attacked; and the 'Nemaean lion,' and the +other lions which stand out in Grecian myth, as having been killed by +Hercules and the heroes, may have been the last remaining specimens +of that Felis spelaea (undistinguishable, according to some, from the +African lion), whose bones are found in the gravels and the caverns +of these isles. + +And how long ago were those days of mammoths and reindeer, lions and +hyaenas? We must talk not of days, but of ages; we know nothing of +days or years. As the late lamented Professor Sedgwick has well +said:- + +'We allow that the great European oscillation, which ended in the +production of the drift (the boulder clay, or till), was effected +during a time of vast, but unknown length. And if we limit our +inquiries, and ask what was the interval of time between the newest +bed of gravel near Cambridge, and the oldest bed of bogland or silt +in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, we are utterly at a loss for a +definite answer. The interval of time may have been very great. But +we have no scale on which to measure it.' + +Let us suppose, then, the era of 'gravels' past; the valleys which +open into the fen sawn out by rivers to about their present depth. +What was the special cause of the fen itself? why did not the great +lowland become a fertile 'carse' of firm alluvial soil, like that of +Stirling? + +One reason is, that the carse of Stirling has been upheaved some +twenty feet, and thereby more or less drained, since the time of the +Romans. A fact patent and provable from Cramond (the old Roman port +of Alaterna) up to Blair Drummond above Stirling, where whales' +skeletons, and bone tools by them, have been found in loam and peat, +twenty feet above high-water mark. The alluvium of the fens, on the +other hand, has very probably suffered a slight depression. + +But the main reason is, that the silt brought down by the fen rivers +cannot, like that of the Forth and its neighbouring streams, get safe +away to sea. From Flamborough Head, in Yorkshire, all down the +Lincolnshire coast, the land is falling, falling for ever into the +waves; and swept southward by tide and current, the debris turns into +the Wash between Lincolnshire and Norfolk, there to repose, as in a +quiet haven. + +Hence that vast labyrinth of banks between Lynn and Wisbeach, of mud +inside, brought down by the fen rivers; but outside (contrary to the +usual rule) of shifting sand, which has come inward from the sea, and +prevents the mud's escape--banks parted by narrow gullies, the +delight of the gunner with his punt, haunted by million wild-fowl in +winter, and in summer hazy steaming flats, beyond which the trees of +Lincolnshire loom up, raised by refraction far above the horizon, +while the masts and sails of distant vessels quiver, fantastically +distorted and lengthened, sometimes even inverted, by a refraction +like that which plays such tricks with ships and coasts in the Arctic +seas. Along the top of the mud banks lounge the long black rows of +seals, undistinguishable from their reflection in the still water +below; distorted too, and magnified to the size of elephants. Long +lines of sea-pies wing their way along at regular tide-hours, from or +to the ocean. Now and then a skein of geese paddle hastily out of +sight round a mud-cape; or a brown robber gull (generally +Richardson's Skua) raises a tumult of screams, by making a raid upon +a party of honest white gulls, to frighten them into vomiting up +their prey for his benefit; or a single cormorant flaps along, close +to the water, towards his fishing ground. Even the fish are shy of +haunting a bottom which shifts with every storm; and innumerable +shrimps are almost the only product of the shallow barren sea: +beside, all is silence and desolation, as of a world waiting to be +made. + +So strong is the barrier which these sea-borne sands oppose to the +river-borne ooze, that as soon as a seabank is built--as the +projectors of the 'Victoria County' have built them--across any part +of the estuary, the mud caught by it soon 'warps' the space within +into firm and rich dry land. But that same barrier, ere the fen was +drained, backed up for ages not only the silt, but the very water of +the fens; and spread it inland into a labyrinth of shifting streams, +shallow meres, and vast peat bogs, on those impervious clays which +floor the fen. Each river contributed to the formation of those bogs +and meres, instead of draining them away; repeating on a huge scale +the process which may be seen in many a highland strath, where the +ground at the edge of the stream is firm and high; the meadows near +the hillfoot, a few hundred yards away, bogland lower than the bank +of the stream. For each flood deposits its silt upon the immediate +bank of the river, raising it year by year; till--as in the case of +the 'Levee' of the Mississippi, and probably of every one of the old +fen rivers--the stream runs at last between two natural dykes, at a +level considerably higher than that of the now swamped and +undrainable lands right and left of it. + +If we add to this, a slope in the fen rivers so extraordinarily +slight, that the river at Cambridge is only thirteen and a half feet +above the mean sea level, five-and-thirty miles away, and that if the +great sea-sluice of Denver, the key of all the eastern fen, were +washed away, the tide would back up the Cam to within ten miles of +Cambridge; if we add again the rainfall upon that vast flat area, +utterly unable to escape through rivers which have enough to do to +drain the hills around; it is easy to understand how peat, the +certain product of standing water, has slowly overwhelmed the rich +alluvium, fattened by the washing of those phosphatic greensand beds, +which (discovered by the science of the lamented Professor Henslow) +are now yielding round Cambridge supplies of manure seemingly +inexhaustible. Easy it is to understand how the all-devouring, yet +all-preserving peat-moss swallowed up gradually the stately forests +of fir and oak, ash and poplar, hazel and yew, which once grew on +that rank land; how trees, torn down by flood or storm, floated and +lodged in rafts, damming the waters back still more; how streams, +bewildered in the flats, changed their channels, mingling silt and +sand with the peat-moss; how Nature, left to herself, ran into wild +riot and chaos more and more; till the whole fen became one 'Dismal +Swamp,' in which the 'Last of the English' (like Dred in Mrs. Stowe's +tale) took refuge from their tyrants, and lived, like him, a free and +joyous life awhile. + +For there were islands, and are still, in that wide fen, which have +escaped the destroying deluge of peat-moss; outcrops of firm land, +which even in the Middle Age preserved the Fauna and Flora of the +primaeval forest, haunted by the descendants of some at least of +those wild beasts which roamed on the older continent of the 'gravel +age.' The all-preserving peat, as well as the monkish records of the +early Middle Age, enable us to repeople, tolerably well, the +primaeval fen. + +The gigantic ox, Bos primigenius, was still there, though there is no +record of him in monkish tales. But with him had appeared (not +unknown toward the end of the gravel age) another ox, smaller and +with shorter horns, Bos longifrons; which is held to be the ancestor +of our own domestic short-horns, and of the wild cattle still +preserved at Chillingham and at Cadzow. The reindeer had +disappeared, almost or altogether. The red deer, of a size beside +which the largest Scotch stag is puny, and even the great Carpathian +stag inferior, abound; so does the roe, so does the goat, which one +is accustomed to look on as a mountain animal. In the Woodwardian +Museum there is a portion of a skull of an ibex--probably Capra +sibirica--which was found in the drift gravel at Fulbourne. Wild +sheep are unknown. The horse occurs in the peat; but whether wild or +tame, who can tell? Horses enough have been mired and drowned since +the Romans set foot on this island, to account for the presence of +horses' skulls, without the hypothesis of wild herds, such as +doubtless existed in the gravel times. The wolf, of course, is +common; wild cat, marten, badger, and otter all would expect; but not +so the beaver, which nevertheless is abundant in the peat; and damage +enough the busy fellows must have done, cutting trees, damming +streams, flooding marshes, and like selfish speculators in all ages, +sacrificing freely the public interest to their own. Here and there +are found the skulls of bears, in one case that of a polar bear, ice- +drifted; and one of a walrus, probably washed in dead after a storm. + +Beautiful, after their kind, were these fen-isles, in the eyes of the +monks who were the first settlers in the wilderness. + +The author of the History of Ramsey grows enthusiastic, and, after +the manner of old monks, somewhat bombastic also, as he describes the +lonely isle which got its name from the solitary ram who had wandered +thither, either in some extreme drought or over the winter ice, and +never able to return, was found, fat beyond the wont of rams, feeding +among the wild deer. He tells of the stately ashes--most of them cut +in his time, to furnish mighty beams for the church roof; of the rich +pastures painted with all gay flowers in spring; of the 'green crown' +of reed and alder which girdled round the isle; of the fair wide mere +with its 'sandy beach' along the forest side: 'a delight,' he says, +'to all who look thereon.' + +In like humour, William of Malmesbury, writing in the first half of +the twelfth century, speaks of Thorney Abbey and isle. 'It +represents,' he says, 'a very Paradise, for that in pleasure and +delight it resembles heaven itself. These marshes abound in trees, +whose length without a knot doth emulate the stars. The plain there +is as level as the sea, which with green grass allures the eye, and +so smooth that there is nought to hinder him who runs through it. +Neither is therein any waste place for in some parts are apple trees, +in other vines, which are either spread on the ground or raised on +poles. A mutual strife is there between nature and art; so that what +one produces not, the other supplies. What shall I say of those fair +buildings, which 'tis so wonderful to see the ground among those fens +upbear?' + +But the most detailed picture of a fen-isle is that in the second +part of the Book of Ely; wherein a single knight of all the French +army forces his way into the isle of St. Etheldreda, and, hospitably +entertained there by Hereward and his English, is sent back safe to +William the Conqueror, to tell him of the strength of Ely isle. + +He cannot praise enough--his speech may be mythical; but as written +by Richard of Ely, only one generation after, it must describe +faithfully what the place was like--the wonders of the isle: its +soil the richest in England, its pleasant pastures, its noble +hunting-grounds, its store of sheep and cattle (though its vines, he +says, as a Frenchman had good right to say, were not equally to be +praised), its wide meres and bogs, about it like a wall. In it was, +to quote roughly, 'abundance of tame beasts and of wild stag, roe, +and goat, in grove and marsh; martens, and ermines, and fitchets, +which in hard winter were caught in snares or gins. But of the kind +of fish and fowl which bred therein, what can I say? In the pools +around are netted eels innumerable, great water wolves, and pickerel, +perch, roach, burbot, lampreys, which the French called sea-serpents; +smelts, too; and the royal fish, the turbot [surely a mistake for +sturgeon], are said often to be taken. But of the birds which haunt +around, if you be not tired, as of the rest, we will expound. +Innumerable geese, gulls, coots, divers, water-crows, herons, ducks, +of which, when there is most plenty, in winter, or at moulting time, +I have seen hundreds taken at a time, by nets, springes, or +birdlime,' and so forth till, as he assures William, the Frenchman +may sit on Haddenham field blockading Ely for seven years more, 'ere +they will make one ploughman stop short in his furrow, one hunter +cease to set his nets, or one fowler to deceive the birds with +springe and snare.' + +And yet there was another side to the picture. Man lived hard in +those days, under dark skies, in houses--even the most luxurious of +them--which we should think, from draughts and darkness, unfit for +felons' cells. Hardly they lived; and easily were they pleased, and +thankful to God for the least gleam of sunshine, the least patch of +green, after the terrible and long winters of the Middle Age. And +ugly enough those winters must have been, what with snow-storm and +darkness, flood and ice, ague and rheumatism; while through the long +drear winter nights the whistle of the wind and the wild cries of the +water-fowl were translated into the howls of witches and demons; and +(as in St. Guthlac's case) the delirious fancies of marsh fever made +fiends take hideous shapes before the inner eye, and act fantastic +horrors round the old fen-man's bed of sedge. + +The Romans seem to have done something toward the draining and +embanking of this dismal swamp. To them is attributed the car-dyke, +or catch-water drain, which runs for many miles from Peterborough +northward into Lincolnshire, cutting off the land waters which flow +down from the wolds above. To them, too, is to be attributed the old +Roman bank, or 'vallum,' along the sea-face of the marshlands, marked +to this day by the names of Walsoken, Walton, and Walpoole. But the +English invaders were incapable of following out, even of preserving, +any public works. Each village was isolated by its own 'march' of +forest; each yeoman all but isolated by the 'eaves-drip,' or green +lane round his farm. Each 'cared for his own things, and none for +those of others;' and gradually, during the early Middle Age, the +fen--save those old Roman villages--returned to its primaeval jungle, +under the neglect of a race which caricatured local self-government +into public anarchy, and looked on every stranger as an alien enemy, +who might be lawfully slain, if he came through the forest without +calling aloud or blowing a horn. Till late years, the English +feeling against the stranger lasted harsh and strong. The farmer, +strong in his laws of settlement, tried at once to pass him into the +next parish. The labourer, not being versed in law, hove half a +brick at him, or hooted him through the town. It was in the fens, +perhaps, that the necessity of combined effort for fighting the brute +powers of nature first awakened public spirit, and associate labour, +and the sense of a common interest between men of different countries +and races. + +But the progress was very slow; and the first civilizers of the fen +were men who had nothing less in their minds than to conquer nature, +or call together round them communities of men. Hermits, driven by +that passion for isolated independence which is the mark of the +Teutonic mind, fled into the wilderness, where they might, if +possible, be alone with God and their own souls. Like St. Guthlac of +Crowland, after wild fighting for five-and-twenty years, they longed +for peace and solitude; and from their longing, carried out with that +iron will which marked the mediaeval man for good or for evil, sprang +a civilization of which they never dreamed. + +Those who wish to understand the old fen life, should read Ingulf's +'History of Crowland' (Mr. Bohn has published a good and cheap +translation), and initiate themselves into a state of society, a form +of thought, so utterly different from our own, that we seem to be +reading of the inhabitants of another planet. Most amusing and most +human is old Ingulf and his continuator, 'Peter of Blois;' and though +their facts are not to be depended on as having actually happened, +they are still instructive, as showing what might, or ought to have +happened, in the opinion of the men of old. + +Even more naive is the Anglo-Saxon life of St. Guthlac, written +possibly as early as the eighth century, and literally translated by +Mr. Goodwin, of Cambridge. + +There we may read how the young warrior-noble, Guthlac ('The Battle- +Play,' the 'Sport of War'), tired of slaying and sinning, bethought +him to fulfil the prodigies seen at his birth; how he wandered into +the fen, where one Tatwin (who after became a saint likewise) took +him in his canoe to a spot so lonely as to be almost unknown, buried +in reeds and alders; and among the trees, nought but an old 'law,' as +the Scots still call a mound, which men of old had broken into +seeking for treasure, and a little pond; and how he built himself a +hermit's cell thereon, and saw visions and wrought miracles; and how +men came to him, as to a fakir or shaman of the East; notably one +Beccel, who acted as his servant; and how as Beccel was shaving the +saint one day, there fell on him a great temptation: Why should he +not cut St. Guthlac's throat, and install himself in his cell, that +he might have the honour and glory of sainthood? But St. Guthlac +perceived the inward temptation (which is told with the naive honesty +of those half-savage times), and rebuked the offender into +confession, and all went well to the end. + +There we may read, too, a detailed account of a Fauna now happily +extinct in the fens: of the creatures who used to hale St. Guthlac +out of his hut, drag him through the bogs, carry him aloft through +frost and fire--'Develen and luther gostes'--such as tormented +likewise St. Botolph (from whom Botulfston=Boston, has its name), and +who were supposed to haunt the meres and fens, and to have an +especial fondness for old heathen barrows with their fancied treasure +hoards; how they 'filled the house with their coming, and poured in +on every side, from above, and from beneath, and everywhere. They +were in countenance horrible, and they had great heads, and a long +neck, and a lean visage; they were filthy and squalid in their +beards, and they had rough ears, and crooked nebs, and fierce eyes, +and foul mouths; and their teeth were like horses' tusks; and their +throats were filled with flame, and they were grating in their voice; +they had crooked shanks, and knees big and great behind, and twisted +toes, and cried hoarsely with their voices; and they came with such +immoderate noise and immense horror, that him thought all between +heaven and earth resounded with their voices. And they tugged and +led him out of the cot, and led him to the swart fen, and threw and +sunk him in the muddy waters. After that they brought him into the +wild places of the wilderness, among the thick beds of brambles, that +all his body was torn. After that they took him and beat him with +iron whips; and after that they brought him on their creaking wings +between the cold regions of the air.' + +But there are gentler and more human touches in that old legend. You +may read in it, how all the wild birds of the fen came to St. +Guthlac, and he fed them after their kind. How the ravens tormented +him, stealing letters, gloves, and what not, from his visitors; and +then, seized with compunction at his reproofs, brought them back, or +hanged them on the reeds; and how, as Wilfrid, a holy visitant, was +sitting with him, discoursing of the contemplative life, two swallows +came flying in, and lifted up their song, sitting now on the saint's +hand, now on his shoulder, now on his knee. And how, when Wilfrid +wondered thereat, Guthlac made answer, 'Know you not that he who hath +led his life according to God's will, to him the wild beasts and the +wild birds draw the more near.' + +After fifteen years of such a life, in fever, agues, and starvation, +no wonder if St. Guthlac died. They buried him in a leaden coffin (a +grand and expensive luxury in the seventh century) which had been +sent to him during his life by a Saxon princess; and then, over his +sacred and wonder-working corpse, as over that of a Buddhist saint, +there rose a chapel, with a community of monks, companies of pilgrims +who came to worship, sick who came to be healed; till, at last, +founded on great piles driven into the bog, arose the lofty wooden +Abbey of Crowland; in its sanctuary of the four rivers, its dykes, +parks, vineyards, orchards, rich ploughlands, from which, in time of +famine, the monks of Crowland fed all people of the neighbouring +fens; with its tower with seven bells, which had not their like in +England; its twelve altars rich with the gifts of Danish Vikings and +princes, and even with twelve white bear-skins, the gift of Canute's +self; while all around were the cottages of the corrodiers, or folk +who, for a corrody, or life pittance from the abbey, had given away +their lands, to the wrong and detriment of their heirs. + +But within these four rivers, at least, was neither tyranny nor +slavery. Those who took refuge in St. Guthlac's peace from cruel +lords must keep his peace toward each other, and earn their living +like honest men, safe while they did so; for between those four +rivers St. Guthlac and his abbot were the only lords, and neither +summoner, nor sheriff of the king, nor armed force of knight or earl, +could enter 'the inheritance of the Lord, the soil of St. Mary and +St. Bartholomew, the most holy sanctuary of St. Guthlac and his +monks; the minster free from worldly servitude; the special almshouse +of most illustrious kings; the sole refuge of anyone in worldly +tribulation; the perpetual abode of the saints; the possession of +religious men, specially set apart by the common council of the +realm; by reason of the frequent miracles of the holy confessor St. +Guthlac, an ever-fruitful mother of camphire in the vineyards of +Engedi; and by reason of the privileges granted by the kings, a city +of grace and safety to all who repent.' + +Does not all this sound--as I said just now--like a voice from +another planet? It is all gone; and it was good and right that it +should go when it had done its work, and that the civilization of the +fen should be taken up and carried out by men like the good knight, +Richard of Rulos, who, two generations after the Conquest, marrying +Hereward's granddaughter, and becoming Lord of Deeping (the deep +meadow), thought that he could do the same work from the hall of +Bourne as the monks did from their cloisters; got permission from the +Crowland monks, for twenty marks of silver, to drain as much as he +could of the common marshes; and then shut out the Welland by strong +dykes, built cottages, marked out gardens, and tilled fields, till +'out of slough and bogs accursed, he made a garden of pleasure.' + +Yet one lasting work those monks of Crowland did, besides those firm +dykes and rich corn lands of the Porsand, which endure unto this day. +For within two generations of the Norman conquest, while the old +wooden abbey, destroyed by fire, was being replaced by that noble +pile of stone whose ruins are still standing, the French abbot of +Crowland sent French monks to open a school under the new French +donjon, in the little Roman town of Grante-brigge; whereby--so does +all earnest work, however mistaken, grow and spread in this world, +infinitely and for ever--St. Guthlac, by his canoe-voyage into +Crowland Island, became the spiritual father of the University of +Cambridge in the old world; and therefore of her noble daughter, the +University of Cambridge, in the new world which fen-men, sailing from +Boston deeps, colonized and Christianized, 800 years after St. +Guthlac's death. + +The drainage of the fens struggled on for these same 800 years +slowly, and often disastrously. Great mistakes were made; as when a +certain bishop, some 700 years ago, bethought him to make a cut from +Littleport drain to Rebeck (or Priests'-houses), and found, to his +horror and that of the fen-men, that he had let down upon Lynn the +pent-up waters of the whole higher bogs; that rivers were running +backwards, brooks swelling to estuaries, and the whole north-eastern +fen ruinate, to be yet more ruinate by banks confusedly thrown up in +self-defence, till some order was restored in 1332, and the fens +prospered--such little of them as could be drained at all--for nigh +two hundred years. Honour, meanwhile, to another prelate, good +Bishop Morton, who cut the great learn from Guyhirn--the last place +at which one could see a standing gallows, and two Irish reapers +hanging in chains, having murdered the old witch of Guyhirn for the +sake of hidden treasure, which proved to be some thirty shillings and +a few silver spoons. + +The belief is more general than well-founded that the drainage of the +fens retrograded on account of the dissolution of the monasteries. +The state of decay into which those institutions had already fallen, +and which alone made their dissolution possible, must have extended +itself to these fen-lands. No one can read the account of their +debts, neglect, malversation of funds, in the time of Henry VIII., +without seeing that the expensive works necessary to keep fen-lands +dry must have suffered, as did everything else belonging to the +convents. + +It was not till the middle or end of Elizabeth's reign that the +recovery of these 'drowned lands' was proceeded with once more; and +during the first half of the seventeenth century there went on, more +and more rapidly, that great series of artificial works which, though +often faulty in principle, often unexpectedly disastrous in effect, +have got the work done, as all work is done in this world, not as +well as it should have been done, but at least done. + +To comprehend those works would be impossible without maps and plans; +to take a lively interest in them impossible, likewise, save to an +engineer or a fen-man. Suffice it to say, that in the early part of +the seventeenth century we find a great company of adventurers--more +than one Cromwell among them, and Francis, the great and good Earl of +Bedford, at their head--trying to start a great scheme for draining +the drowned 'middle level' east of the Isle of Ely. How they sent +for Vermuyden, the Dutchman, who had been draining in North +Lincolnshire, about Goole and Axholme Isle; how they got into his +hands, and were ruined by him; how Francis of Bedford had to sell +valuable estates to pay his share; how the fen-men looked on Francis +of Bedford as their champion; how Charles I. persecuted him meanly, +though indeed Bedford had, in the matter of the 'Lynn Law' of 1630, +given way, as desperate men are tempted to do, to something like +sharp practice unworthy of him; how Charles took the work into his +hands, and made a Government job of it; how Bedford died, and the +fen-men looked on him as a martyr; how Oliver Cromwell arose to +avenge the good earl, as his family had supported him in past times; +how Oliver St. John came to the help of the fen-men, and drew up the +so-called 'Pretended Ordinance' of 1649, which was a compromise +between Vermuyden and the adventurers, so able and useful that +Charles II.'s Government were content to call it 'pretended' and let +it stand, because it was actually draining the fens; and how Sir +Cornelius Vermuyden, after doing mighty works, and taking mighty +moneys, died a beggar, writing petitions which never got answered; +how William, Earl of Bedford, added, in 1649, to his father's 'old +Bedford River' that noble parallel river, the Hundred foot, both +rising high above the land between dykes and 'washes,' i.e. waste +spaces right and left, to allow for flood water; how the Great +Bedford Rivers silted up the mouth of the Ouse, and backed the floods +up the Cam; how Denver sluice was built to keep them back; and so +forth,--all is written, or rather only half or quarter written, in +the histories of the fens. + +Another matter equally, or even more important, is but half written-- +indeed, only hinted at--the mixed population of the fens. + +The sturdy old 'Girvii,' 'Gyrwas,' men of the 'gyras' or marshes, who +in Hereward's time sang their three-man glees, 'More Girviorum +tripliciter canentes,' had been crossed with the blood of +Scandinavian Vikings in Canute's conquest; crossed again with English +refugees from all quarters during the French conquest under William. +After the St. Bartholomew they received a fresh cross of Huguenot, +fleeing from France--dark-haired, fiery, earnest folk, whose names +and physiognomies are said still to remain about Wisbeach, +Whittlesea, and Thorney. Then came Vermuyden's Dutchmen, leaving +some of their blood behind them. After the battle of Dunbar another +cross came among them, of Scotch prisoners, who, employed by +Cromwell's Government on the dykes, settled down among the fen-men to +this day. Within the memory of man, Scotchmen used to come down into +the fens every year, not merely for harvest, but to visit their +expatriated kinsmen. + +To these successive immigrations of strong Puritan blood, more than +even the influence of the Cromwells and other Puritan gentlemen, we +may attribute that strong Calvinist element which has endured for now +nigh three centuries in the fen; and attribute, too, that sturdy +independence and self-help which drove them of old out of Boston +town, to seek their fortunes first in Holland, then in Massachusetts +over sea. And that sturdy independence and self-help is not gone. +There still lives in them some of the spirit of their mythic giant +Hickafrid (the Hickathrift of nursery rhymes), who, when the +Marshland men (possibly the Romanized inhabitants of the wall +villages) quarrelled with him in the field, took up the cart-axle for +a club, smote them hip and thigh, and pastured his cattle in their +despite in the green cheese-fens of the Smeeth. No one has ever seen +a fen-bank break, without honouring the stern quiet temper which +there is in these men, when the north-easter is howling above, the +spring-tide roaring outside, the brimming tide-way lapping up to the +dyke-top, or flying over in sheets of spray; when round the one fatal +thread which is trickling over the dyke--or worse, through some +forgotten rat's hole in its side--hundreds of men are clustered, +without tumult, without complaint, marshalled under their employers, +fighting the brute powers of nature, not for their employer's sake +alone, but for the sake of their own year's labour and their own +year's bread. The sheep have been driven off the land below; the +cattle stand ranged shivering on high dykes inland; they will be +saved in punts, if the worst befall. But a hundred spades, wielded +by practised hands, cannot stop that tiny rat-hole. The trickle +becomes a rush--the rush a roaring waterfall. The dyke-top trembles- +-gives. The men make efforts, desperate, dangerous, as of sailors in +a wreck, with faggots, hurdles, sedge, turf: but the bank will +break; and slowly they draw off; sullen, but uncomplaining; beaten, +but not conquered. A new cry rises among them. Up, to save yonder +sluice; that will save yonder lode; that again yonder farm; that +again some other lode, some other farm, far back inland, but guessed +at instantly by men who have studied from their youth, as the +necessity of their existence, the labyrinthine drainage of lands +which are all below the water level, and where the inner lands, in +many cases, are lower still than those outside. + +So they hurry away to the nearest farms; the teams are harnessed, the +waggons filled, and drawn down and emptied; the beer-cans go round +cheerily, and the men work with a sort of savage joy at being able to +do something, if not all, and stop the sluice on which so much +depends. As for the outer land, it is gone past hope; through the +breach pours a roaring salt cataract, digging out a hole on the +inside of the bank, which remains as a deep sullen pond for years to +come. Hundreds, thousands of pounds are lost already, past all hope. +Be it so, then. At the next neap, perhaps, they will be able to mend +the dyke, and pump the water out; and begin again, beaten but not +conquered, the same everlasting fight with wind and wave which their +forefathers have waged for now 800 years. + +He who sees--as I have seen--a sight like that, will repine no more +that the primaeval forest is cut down, the fair mere drained. For +instead of mammoth and urus, stag and goat, that fen feeds cattle +many times more numerous than all the wild venison of the primaeval +jungle; and produces crops capable of nourishing a hundred times as +many human beings; and more--it produces men a hundred times as +numerous as ever it produced before; more healthy and long-lived--and +if they will, more virtuous and more happy--than ever was Girvian in +his log-canoe, or holy hermit in his cell. So we, who knew the deep +fen, will breathe one sigh over the last scrap of wilderness, and say +no more; content to know that - + + +'The old order changeth, yielding place to new, +And God fulfils himself in many ways, +Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.' + + + +IV. MY WINTER GARDEN. {135} + + + +So, my friend: you ask me to tell you how I contrive to support this +monotonous country life; how, fond as I am of excitement, adventure, +society, scenery, art, literature, I go cheerfully through the daily +routine of a commonplace country profession, never requiring a six- +weeks' holiday; not caring to see the Continent, hardly even to spend +a day in London; having never yet actually got to Paris. + +You wonder why I do not grow dull as those round me, whose talk is of +bullocks--as indeed mine is, often enough; why I am not by this time +'all over blue mould;' why I have not been tempted to bury myself in +my study, and live a life of dreams among old books. + +I will tell you. I am a minute philosopher: though one, thank +Heaven, of a different stamp from him whom the great Bishop Berkeley +silenced--alas! only for a while. I am possibly, after all, a man of +small mind, content with small pleasures. So much the better for me. +Meanwhile, I can understand your surprise, though you cannot +understand my content. You have played a greater game than mine; +have lived a life, perhaps more fit for an Englishman; certainly more +in accordance with the taste of our common fathers, the Vikings, and +their patron Odin 'the goer,' father of all them that go ahead. You +have gone ahead, and over many lands; and I reverence you for it, +though I envy you not. You have commanded a regiment--indeed an +army, and 'drank delight of battle with your peers;' you have ruled +provinces, and done justice and judgment, like a noble Englishman as +you are, old friend, among thousands who never knew before what +justice and judgment were. You have tasted (and you have deserved to +taste) the joy of old David's psalm, when he has hunted down the last +of the robber lords of Palestine. You have seen 'a people whom you +have not known, serve you. As soon as they heard of you, they obeyed +you; but the strange children dissembled with you:' yet before you, +too, 'the strange children failed, and trembled in their hill-forts.' + +Noble work that was to do, and nobly you have done it; and I do not +wonder that to a man who has been set to such a task, and given power +to carry it through, all smaller work must seem paltry; that such a +man's very amusements, in that grand Indian land, and that free +adventurous Indian life, exciting the imagination, calling out all +the self-help and daring of a man, should have been on a par with +your work; that when you go a sporting, you ask for no meaner +preserve than the primaeval forest, no lower park wall than the snow- +peaks of the Himalaya. + +Yes; you have been a 'burra Shikarree' as well as a 'burra Sahib.' +You have played the great game in your work, and killed the great +game in your play. How many tons of mighty monsters have you done to +death, since we two were schoolboys together, five-and-twenty years +ago? How many starving villages have you fed with the flesh of +elephant or buffalo? How many have you delivered from man-eating +tigers, or wary old alligators, their craws full of poor girls' +bangles? Have you not been charged by rhinoceroses, all but ript up +by boars? Have you not seen face to face Ovis Ammon himself, the +giant mountain sheep--primaeval ancestor, perhaps, of all the flocks +on earth? Your memories must be like those of Theseus and Hercules, +full of slain monsters. Your brains must be one fossiliferous +deposit, in which gaur and sambur, hog and tiger, rhinoceros and +elephant, lie heaped together, as the old ichthyosaurs and +plesiosaurs are heaped in the lias rocks at Lyme. And therefore I +like to think of you. I try to picture your feelings to myself. I +spell over with my boy Mayne Reid's amusing books, or the 'Old Forest +Ranger,' or Williams's old 'Tiger Book,' with Howitt's plates; and +try to realize the glory of a burra Shikarree: and as I read and +imagine, feel, with Sir Hugh Evans, 'a great disposition to cry.' + +For there were times, full many a year ago, when my brains were full +of bison and grizzly bear, mustang and big-horn, Blackfoot and +Pawnee, and hopes of wild adventure in the Far West, which I shall +never see; for ere I was three-and-twenty, I discovered, plainly +enough, that my lot was to stay at home and earn my bread in a very +quiet way; that England was to be henceforth my prison or my palace, +as I should choose to make it: and I have made it, by Heaven's help, +the latter. + +I will confess to you, though, that in those first heats of youth, +this little England--or rather, this little patch of moor in which I +have struck roots as firm as the wild fir-trees do--looked at moments +rather like a prison than a palace; that my foolish young heart would +sigh, 'Oh! that I had wings'--not as a dove, to fly home to its nest +and croodle there--but as an eagle, to swoop away over land and sea, +in a rampant and self-glorifying fashion, on which I now look back as +altogether unwholesome and undesirable. But the thirst for adventure +and excitement was strong in me, as perhaps it ought to be in all at +twenty-one. Others went out to see the glorious new worlds of the +West, the glorious old worlds of the East--why should not I? Others +rambled over Alps and Apennines, Italian picture-galleries and +palaces, filling their minds with fair memories--why should not I? +Others discovered new wonders in botany and zoology--why should not +I? Others too, like you, fulfilled to the utmost that strange lust +after the burra shikar, which even now makes my pulse throb as often +as I see the stags' heads in our friend A---'s hall: why should not +I? It is not learnt in a day, the golden lesson of the Old Collect, +to 'love the thing which is commanded, and desire that which is +promised.' Not in a day: but in fifteen years one can spell out a +little of its worth; and when one finds one's self on the wrong side +of forty, and the first grey hairs begin to show on the temples, and +one can no longer jump as high as one's third button--scarcely, alas! +to any button at all; and what with innumerable sprains, bruises, +soakings, and chillings, one's lower limbs feel in a cold thaw much +like an old post-horse's, why, one makes a virtue of necessity: and +if one still lusts after sights, takes the nearest, and looks for +wonders, not in the Himalayas or Lake Ngami, but in the turf on the +lawn and the brook in the park; and with good Alphonse Karr enjoys +the macro-microcosm in one 'Tour autour de mon jardin.' + +For there it is, friend, the whole infinite miracle of nature in +every tuft of grass, if we have only eyes to see it, and can disabuse +our minds of that tyrannous phantom of size. Only recollect that +great and small are but relative terms; that in truth nothing is +great or small, save in proportion to the quantity of creative +thought which has been exercised in making it; that the fly who basks +upon one of the trilithons of Stonehenge, is in truth infinitely +greater than all Stonehenge together, though he may measure the tenth +of an inch, and the stone on which he sits five-and-twenty feet. You +differ from me? Be it so. Even if you prove me wrong I will believe +myself in the right: I cannot afford to do otherwise. If you rob me +of my faith in 'minute philosophy,' you rob me of a continual source +of content, surprise, delight. + +So go your way and I mine, each working with all his might, and +playing with all his might, in his own place and way. Remember only, +that though I never can come round to your sphere, you must some day +come round to me, when wounds, or weariness, or merely, as I hope, a +healthy old age, shall shut you out for once and for all from burra +shikar, whether human or quadruped.--For you surely will not take to +politics in your old age? You will not surely live to solicit (as +many a fine fellow, alas! did but last year) the votes, not even of +the people, but merely of the snobocracy, on the ground of your +having neither policy nor principles, nor even opinions, upon any +matter in heaven or earth?--Then in that day will you be forced, my +friend, to do what I have done this many a year; to refrain your +soul, and keep it low. You will see more and more the depth of human +ignorance, the vanity of human endeavours. You will feel more and +more that the world is going God's way, and not yours, or mine, or +any man's; and that if you have been allowed to do good work on +earth, that work is probably as different from what you fancy it as +the tree is from the seed whence it springs. You will grow content, +therefore, not to see the real fruit of your labours; because if you +saw it you would probably be frightened at it, and what is very good +in the eyes of God would not be very good in yours; content, also, to +receive your discharge, and work and fight no more, sure that God is +working and fighting, whether you are in hospital or in the field. +And with this growing sense of the pettiness of human struggles will +grow on you a respect for simple labours, a thankfulness for simple +pleasures, a sympathy with simple people, and possibly, my trusty +friend, with me and my little tours about that moorland which I call +my winter-garden, and which is to me as full of glory and of +instruction as the Himalaya or the Punjab are to you, and in which I +contrive to find as much health and amusement as I have time for--and +who ought to have more? + +I call the said garden mine, not because I own it in any legal sense +(for only in a few acres have I a life interest), but in that higher +sense in which ten thousand people can own the same thing, and yet no +man's right interfere with another's. To whom does the Apollo +Belvedere belong, but to all who have eyes to see its beauty? So +does my winter-garden; and therefore to me among the rest. + +Besides (which is a gain to a poor man) my pleasure in it is a very +cheap one. So are all those of a minute philosopher, except his +microscope. But my winter-garden, which is far larger, at all +events, than that famous one at Chatsworth, costs me not one penny in +keeping up. Poor, did I call myself? Is it not true wealth to have +all I want without paying for it? Is it not true wealth, royal +wealth, to have some twenty gentlemen and noblemen, nay, even royal +personages, planting and improving for me? Is it not more than royal +wealth to have sun and frost, Gulf-stream and south-westers, laws of +geology, phytology, physiology, and other ologies--in a word, the +whole universe and the powers thereof, day and night, paving, +planting, roofing, lighting, colouring my winter-garden for me, +without my even having the trouble to rub a magic ring and tell the +genii to go to work? + +Yes. I am very rich, as every man may be who will. In the doings of +our little country neighbourhood I find tragedy and comedy, too +fantastic, sometimes too sad, to be written down. In the words of +those whose talk is of bullocks, I find the materials of all possible +metaphysic, and long weekly that I had time to work them out. In +fifteen miles of moorland I find the materials of all possible +physical science, and long that I had time to work out one smallest +segment of that great sphere. How can I be richer, if I have lying +at my feet all day a thousand times more wealth than I can use? + +Some people--most people--in these run-about railway days, would +complain of such a life, in such a 'narrow sphere,' so they call it, +as monotonous. Very likely it is so. But is it to be complained of +on that account? Is monotony in itself an evil? Which is better, to +know many places ill, or to know one place well? Certainly--if a +scientific habit of mind be a gain--it is only by exhausting as far +as possible the significance of an individual phenomenon (is not that +sentence a true scientific one in its magniloquence?) that you can +discover any glimpse of the significance of the universal. Even men +of boundless knowledge, like Humboldt, must have had once their +speciality, their pet subject, or they would have, strictly speaking, +no knowledge at all. The volcanoes of Mexico, patiently and +laboriously investigated in his youth, were to Humboldt, possibly, +the key of the whole Cosmos. I learn more, studying over and over +again the same Bagshot sand and gravel heaps, than I should by +roaming all Europe in search of new geologic wonders. Fifteen years +have I been puzzling at the same questions and have only guessed at a +few of the answers. What sawed out the edges of the moors into long +narrow banks of gravel? What cut them off all flat atop? What makes +Erica Tetralix grow in one soil, and the bracken in another? How did +three species of Club-moss--one of them quite an Alpine one--get down +here, all the way from Wales perhaps, upon this isolated patch of +gravel? Why did that one patch of Carex arenaria settle in the only +square yard for miles and miles which bore sufficient resemblance to +its native sandhill by the seashore, to make it comfortable? Why did +Myosurus minimus, which I had hunted for in vain for fourteen years, +appear by dozens in the fifteenth, upon a new-made bank, which had +been for at least two hundred years a farm-yard gateway? Why does it +generally rain here from the south-west, not when the barometer +falls, but when it begins to rise again? Why--why is everything, +which lies under my feet all day long? I don't know; and you can't +tell me. And till I have found out, I cannot complain of monotony, +with still undiscovered puzzles waiting to be explained, and so to +create novelty at every turn. + +Besides, monotony is pleasant in itself; morally pleasant, and +morally useful. Marriage is monotonous: but there is much, I trust, +to be said in favour of holy wedlock. Living in the same house is +monotonous: but three removes, say the wise, are as bad as a fire. +Locomotion is regarded as an evil by our Litany. The Litany, as +usual, is right. 'Those who travel by land or sea' are to be objects +of our pity and our prayers; and I do pity them. I delight in that +same monotony. It saves curiosity, anxiety, excitement, +disappointment, and a host of bad passions. It gives a man the +blessed, invigorating feeling that he is at home; that he has roots, +deep and wide, struck down into all he sees; and that only The Being +who will do nothing cruel or useless can tear them up. It is +pleasant to look down on the same parish day after day, and say, I +know all that lies beneath, and all beneath know me. If I want a +friend, I know where to find him; if I want work done, I know who +will do it. It is pleasant and good to see the same trees year after +year; the same birds coming back in spring to the same shrubs; the +same banks covered with the same flowers, and broken (if they be +stiff ones) by the same gaps. Pleasant and good it is to ride the +same horse, to sit in the same chair, to wear the same old coat. +That man who offered twenty pounds' reward for a lost carpet-bag full +of old boots was a sage, and I wish I knew him. Why should one +change one's place, any more than one's wife or one's children? Is a +hermit-crab, slipping his tail out of one strange shell into another, +in the hopes of its fitting him a little better, either a dignified, +safe, or graceful animal? No; George Riddler was a true philosopher. + + +'Let vules go sarching vur and nigh, +We bides at Whum, my dog and I;' + + +and become there, not only wiser, but more charitable; for the +oftener one sees, the better one knows; and the better one knows, the +more one loves. + +It is an easy philosophy; especially in the case of the horse, where +a man cannot afford more than one, as I cannot. To own a stud of +horses, after all, is not to own horses at all, but riding-machines. +Your rich man who rides Crimaea in the morning, Sir Guy in the +afternoon, and Sultan to-morrow, and something else the next day, may +be a very gallant rider: but it is a question whether he enjoys the +pleasure which one horse gives to the poor man who rides him day +after day; one horse, who is not a slave, but a friend; who has +learnt all his tricks of voice, hand, heel, and knows what his master +wants, even without being told; who will bear with his master's +infirmities, and feels secure that his master will bear with his in +turn. + +Possibly, after all, the grapes are sour; and were one rich, one +would do even as the rich are wont to do: but still, I am a minute +philosopher. And therefore, this afternoon, after I have done the +same work, visited the same people, and said the same words to them, +which I have done for years past, and shall, I trust, for many a year +to come, I shall go wandering out into the same winter-garden on the +same old mare; and think the same thoughts, and see the same fir- +trees, and meet perhaps the same good fellows hunting of their fox, +as I have done with full content this many a year; and rejoice, as I +said before, in my own boundless wealth, who have the whole universe +to look at, without being charged one penny for the show. + +As I have said, the grapes may be sour, and I enjoy the want of +luxuries only because I cannot get them; but if my self-deception be +useful to me, leave it alone. + +No one is less inclined to depreciate that magnificent winter-garden +at the Crystal Palace: yet let me, if I choose, prefer my own; I +argue that, in the first place, it is far larger. You may drive, I +hear, through the grand one at Chatsworth for a quarter of a mile. +You may ride through mine for fifteen miles on end. I prefer, too, +to any glass roof which Sir Joseph Paxton ever planned, that dome +above my head some three miles high, of soft dappled grey and yellow +cloud, through the vast lattice-work whereof the blue sky peeps, and +sheds down tender gleams on yellow bogs, and softly rounded heather +knolls, and pale chalk ranges gleaming far away. But, above all, I +glory in my evergreens. What winter-garden can compare for them with +mine? True, I have but four kinds--Scotch fir, holly, furze, and the +heath; and by way of relief to them, only brows of brown fern, sheets +of yellow bog-grass, and here and there a leafless birch, whose +purple tresses are even more lovely to my eye than those fragrant +green ones which she puts on in spring. Well: in painting as in +music, what effects are more grand than those produced by the +scientific combination, in endless new variety, of a few simple +elements? Enough for me is the one purple birch; the bright hollies +round its stem sparkling with scarlet beads; the furze-patch, rich +with its lacework of interwoven light and shade, tipped here and +there with a golden bud; the deep soft heather carpet, which invites +you to lie down and dream for hours; and behind all, the wall of red +fir-stems, and the dark fir-roof with its jagged edges a mile long, +against the soft grey sky. + +An ugly, straight-edged, monotonous fir-plantation? Well, I like it, +outside and inside. I need no saw-edge of mountain peaks to stir up +my imagination with the sense of the sublime, while I can watch the +saw-edge of those fir peaks against the red sunset. They are my +Alps; little ones it may be: but after all, as I asked before, what +is size? A phantom of our brain; an optical delusion. Grandeur, if +you will consider wisely, consists in form, and not in size: and to +the eye of the philosopher, the curve drawn on a paper two inches +long, is just as magnificent, just as symbolic of divine mysteries +and melodies, as when embodied in the span of some cathedral roof. +Have you eyes to see? Then lie down on the grass, and look near +enough to see something more of what is to be seen; and you will find +tropic jungles in every square foot of turf; mountain cliffs and +debacles at the mouth of every rabbit burrow: dark strids, +tremendous cataracts, 'deep glooms and sudden glories,' in every +foot-broad rill which wanders through the turf. All is there for you +to see, if you will but rid yourself of 'that idol of space;' and +Nature, as everyone will tell you who has seen dissected an insect +under the microscope, is as grand and graceful in her smallest as in +her hugest forms. + +The March breeze is chilly: but I can be always warm if I like in my +winter-garden. I turn my horse's head to the red wall of fir-stems, +and leap over the furze-grown bank into my cathedral, wherein if +there be no saints, there are likewise no priestcraft and no idols; +but endless vistas of smooth red green-veined shafts holding up the +warm dark roof, lessening away into endless gloom, paved with rich +brown fir-needle--a carpet at which Nature has been at work for forty +years. Red shafts, green roof, and here and there a pane of blue +sky--neither Owen Jones nor Willement can improve upon that +ecclesiastical ornamentation,--while for incense I have the fresh +healthy turpentine fragrance, far sweeter to my nostrils than the +stifling narcotic odour which fills a Roman Catholic cathedral. +There is not a breath of air within: but the breeze sighs over the +roof above in a soft whisper. I shut my eyes and listen. Surely +that is the murmur of the summer sea upon the summer sands in Devon +far away. I hear the innumerable wavelets spend themselves gently +upon the shore, and die away to rise again. And with the innumerable +wave-sighs come innumerable memories, and faces which I shall never +see again upon this earth. I will not tell even you of that, old +friend. + +It has two notes, two keys rather, that Eolian-harp of fir-needles +above my head; according as the wind is east or west, the needles dry +or wet. This easterly key of to-day is shriller, more cheerful, +warmer in sound, though the day itself be colder: but grander still, +as well as softer, is the sad soughing key in which the south-west +wind roars on, rain-laden, over the forest, and calls me forth--being +a minute philosopher--to catch trout in the nearest chalk-stream. + +The breeze is gone a while; and I am in perfect silence--a silence +which may be heard. Not a sound; and not a moving object; absolutely +none. The absence of animal life is solemn, startling. That +ringdove, who was cooing half a mile away, has hushed his moan; that +flock of long-tailed titmice, which were twinging and pecking about +the fir-cones a few minutes since, are gone: and now there is not +even a gnat to quiver in the slant sun-rays. Did a spider run over +these dead leaves, I almost fancy I could hear his footfall. The +creaking of the saddle, the soft step of the mare upon the fir- +needles, jar my ears. I seem alone in a dead world. A dead world: +and yet so full of life, if I had eyes to see! Above my head every +fir-needle is breathing--breathing for ever; currents unnumbered +circulate in every bough, quickened by some undiscovered miracle; +around me every fir-stem is distilling strange juices, which no +laboratory of man can make; and where my dull eye sees only death, +the eye of God sees boundless life and motion, health and use. + +Slowly I wander on beneath the warm roof of the winter-garden, and +meditate upon that one word--Life; and specially on all that Mr. +Lewes has written so well thereon--for instance - + + +'We may consider Life itself as an ever-increasing identification +with Nature. The simple cell, from which the plant or animal arises, +must draw light and heat from the sun, nutriment from the surrounding +world, or else it will remain quiescent, not alive, though latent +with life; as the grains in the Egyptian tombs, which after lying +thousands of years in those sepulchres, are placed in the earth, and +smile forth as golden wheat. What we call growth, is it not a +perpetual absorption of Nature, the identification of the individual +with the universal? And may we not, in speculative moods, consider +Death as the grand impatience of the soul to free itself from the +circle of individual activity--the yearning of the creature to be +united with the Creator? + +'As with Life, so with knowledge, which is intellectual life. In the +early days of man's history, Nature and her marvellous ongoings were +regarded with but a casual and careless eye, or else with the merest +wonder. It was late before profound and reverent study of her laws +could wean man from impatient speculations; and now, what is our +intellectual activity based on, except on the more thorough mental +absorption of Nature? When that absorption is completed, the mystic +drama will be sunny clear, and all Nature's processes be visible to +man, as a Divine Effluence and Life.' + + +True: yet not all the truth. But who knows all the truth? + +Not I. 'We see through a glass darkly,' said St. Paul of old; and +what is more, dazzle and weary our eyes, like clumsy microscopists, +by looking too long and earnestly through the imperfect and by no +means achromatic lens. Enough. I will think of something else. I +will think of nothing at all - + +Stay. There was a sound at last; a light footfall. + +A hare races towards us through the ferns, her great bright eyes full +of terror, her ears aloft to catch some sound behind. She sees us, +turns short, and vanishes into the gloom. The mare pricks up her +ears too, listens, and looks: but not the way the hare has gone. +There is something more coming; I can trust the finer sense of the +horse, to which (and no wonder) the Middle Age attributed the power +of seeing ghosts and fairies impalpable to man's gross eyes. Beside, +that hare was not travelling in search of food. She was not loping +along, looking around her right and left; but galloping steadily. +She has been frightened; she has been put up: but what has put her +up? And there, far away among the fir-stems, rings the shriek of a +startled blackbird. What has put him up? + +That, old mare, at sight whereof your wise eyes widen till they are +ready to burst, and your ears are first shot forward towards your +nose, and then laid back with vicious intent. Stand still, old +woman! Do you think still, after fifteen winters, that you can catch +a fox? + +A fox it is indeed; a great dog-fox, as red as the fir-stems between +which he glides. And yet his legs are black with fresh peat-stains. +He is a hunted fox: but he has not been up long. + +The mare stands like a statue: but I can feel her trembling between +my knees. Positively he does not see us. He sits down in the middle +of a ride, turns his great ears right and left, and then scratches +one of them with his hind foot, seemingly to make it hear the better. +Now he is up again and on. + +Beneath yon firs, some hundred yards away, standeth, or rather lieth, +for it is on dead flat ground, the famous castle of Malepartus, which +beheld the base murder of Lampe the hare, and many a seely soul +beside. I know it well; a patch of sand-heaps, mingled with great +holes, amid the twining fir-roots; ancient home of the last of the +wild beasts. And thither, unto Malepartus safe and strong, trots +Reinecke, where he hopes to be snug among the labyrinthine windings, +and innumerable starting-holes, as the old apologue has it, of his +ballium, covert-way, and donjon keep. Full blown in self- +satisfaction he trots, lifting his toes delicately, and carrying his +brush aloft, as full of cunning and conceit as that world-famous +ancestor of his, whose deeds of unchivalry were the delight, if not +the model, of knight and kaiser, lady and burgher, in the Middle Age. + +Suddenly he halts at the great gate of Malepartus; examines it with +his nose; goes on to a postern; examines that also, and then another, +and another; while I perceive afar, projecting from every cave's +mouth, the red and green end of a new fir-faggot. Ah, Reinecke! +fallen is thy conceit, and fallen thy tail therewith. Thou hast +worse foes to deal with than Bruin the bear, or Isegrim the wolf, or +any foolish brute whom thy great ancestor outwitted. Man the many- +counselled has been beforehand with thee; and the earths are stopped. + +One moment he sits down to meditate, and scratches those trusty +counsellors, his ears, as if he would tear them off, 'revolving swift +thoughts in a crafty mind.' + +He has settled it now. He is up and off--and at what a pace! Out of +the way, Fauns and Hamadryads, if any be left in the forest. What a +pace! And with what a grace beside! + +Oh Reinecke, beautiful thou art, of a surety, in spite of thy great +naughtiness. Art thou some fallen spirit, doomed to be hunted for +thy sins in this life, and in some future life rewarded for thy +swiftness, and grace, and cunning, by being made a very messenger of +the immortals? Who knows? Not I. + +I am rising fast to Pistol's vein. Shall I ejaculate? Shall I +notify? Shall I waken the echoes? Shall I break the grand silence +by that scream which the vulgar view-halloo call? + +It is needless; for louder and louder every moment swells up a sound +which makes my heart leap into my mouth, and my mare into the air. + +Music? Well-beloved soul of Hullah, would that thou wert here this +day, and not in St. Martin's Hall, to hear that chorus, as it pours +round the fir-stems, rings against the roof above, shatters up into a +hundred echoes, till the air is live with sound! You love madrigals, +and whatever Weekes, or Wilbye, or Orlando Gibbons sang of old. So +do I. Theirs is music fit for men: worthy of the age of heroes, of +Drake and Raleigh, Spenser and Shakspeare: but oh that you could +hear this madrigal! If you must have 'four parts,' then there they +are. Deeped-mouthed bass, rolling along the ground; rich joyful +tenor; wild wistful alto; and leaping up here and there above the +throng of sounds, delicate treble shrieks and trills of trembling +joy. I know not whether you can fit it into your laws of music, any +more than you can the song of that Ariel sprite who dwells in the +Eolian harp, or the roar of the waves on the rock, or + + +'Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn, +And murmur of innumerable bees.' + + +But music it is. A madrigal? Rather a whole opera of Der +Freischutz--daemoniac element and all--to judge by those red lips, +fierce eyes, wild, hungry voices; and such as should make Reinecke, +had he strong aesthetic sympathies, well content to be hunted from +his cradle to his grave, that such sweet sounds might by him enrich +the air. Heroes of old were glad to die, if but some 'vates sacer' +would sing their fame in worthy strains: and shalt not thou too be +glad, Reinecke? Content thyself with thy fate. Music soothes care; +let it soothe thine, as thou runnest for thy life; thou shalt have +enough of it in the next hour. For as the Etruscans (says Athenaeus) +were so luxurious that they used to flog their slaves to the sound of +the flute, so shall luxurious Chanter and Challenger, Sweet-lips and +Melody, eat thee to the sound of rich organ-pipes, that so thou +mayest, + + +'Like that old fabled swan, in music die. + + +And now appear, dim at first and distant, but brightening and nearing +fast, many a right good fellow and many a right good horse. I know +three out of four of them, their private histories, the private +histories of their horses: and could tell you many a good story of +them: but shall not, being an English gentleman, and not an American +litterateur. They may not all be very clever, or very learned, or +very anything except gallant men; but they are all good enough +company for me, or anyone; and each has his own specialite, for which +I like him. That huntsman I have known for fifteen years, and sat +many an hour beside his father's death-bed. I am godfather to that +whip's child. I have seen the servants of the hunt, as I have the +hounds, grow up round me for two generations, and I feel for them as +old friends; and like to look into their brave, honest, weather- +beaten faces. That red coat there, I knew him when he was a +schoolboy; and now he is a captain in the Guards, and won his +Victoria Cross at Inkermann: that bright green coat is the best +farmer, as well as the hardest rider, for many a mile round; one who +plays, as he works, with all his might, and might have been a beau +sabreur and colonel of dragoons. So might that black coat, who now +brews good beer, and stands up for the poor at the Board of +Guardians, and rides, like the green coat, as well as he works. That +other black coat is a county banker; but he knows more of the fox +than the fox knows of himself, and where the hounds are, there will +he be this day. That red coat has hunted kangaroo in Australia: +that one, as clever and good as he is brave and simple, has stood by +Napier's side in many an Indian fight: that one won his Victoria at +Delhi, and was cut up at Lucknow, with more than twenty wounds: that +one has--but what matter to you who each man is? Enough that each +can tell one a good story, welcome one cheerfully, and give one out +here, in the wild forest, the wholesome feeling of being at home +among friends. + +There is music, again, if you will listen, in the soft tread of these +hundred horse-hoofs upon the spongy vegetable soil. They are +trotting now in 'common time.' You may hear the whole Croats' March +(the finest trotting march in the world) played by those iron heels; +the time, as it does in the Croats' March, breaking now and then, +plunging, jingling, struggling through heavy ground, bursting for a +moment into a jubilant canter as it reaches a sound spot. + +The hounds feather a moment round Malepartus, puzzled by the windings +of Reinecke's footsteps. You can hear the flap and snort of the +dogs' nostrils as they canter round; and one likes it. It is +exciting: but why--who can tell? + +What beautiful creatures they are, too! Next to a Greek statue (I +mean a real old Greek one; for I am a thoroughly anti-preraphaelite +benighted pagan heathen in taste, and intend some day to get up a +Cinque-Cento Club, for the total abolition of Gothic art)--next to a +Greek statue, I say, I know few such combinations of grace and +strength as in a fine foxhound. It is the beauty of the Theseus-- +light and yet massive; and light not in spite of its masses, but on +account of the perfect disposition of them. I do not care for grace +in man, woman, or animal, which is obtained (as in the old German +painters) at the expense of honest flesh and blood. It may be all +very pure, and unearthly, and saintly, and what not; but it is not +healthy; and, therefore, it is not really High Art, let it call +itself such as much as it likes. The highest art must be that in +which the outward is the most perfect symbol of the muward; and, +therefore, a healthy soul can be only exprest by a healthy body; and +starved limbs and a hydrocephalous forehead must be either taken as +incorrect symbols of spiritual excellence, or as--what they were +really meant for--symbols of certain spiritual diseases which were in +the Middle Age considered as ecclesiastical graces and virtues. +Wherefore I like pagan and naturalist art; consider Titian and +Correggio as unappreciated geniuses, whose excellences the world will +in some saner mood rediscover; hold, in direct opposition to Rio, +that Rafaelle improved steadily all his life through, and that his +noblest works are not his somewhat simpering Madonnas and somewhat +impish Bambinos (very lovely though they are), but his great, coarse, +naturalist, Protestant cartoons, which (with Andrea Mantegna's +Heathen Triumph) Cromwell saved for the British nation. Probably no +one will agree with all this for the next quarter of a century: but +after that I have hopes. The world will grow tired of pretending to +admire Manichaean pictures in an age of natural science; and Art will +let the dead bury their dead, and beginning again where Michael +Angelo and Rafaelle left off work forward into a nobler, truer, +freer, and more divine school than the world has yet seen--at least, +so I hope. + +And all this has grown out of those foxhounds. Why not? Theirs is +the sort of form which expresses to me what I want Art to express-- +Nature not limited, but developed, by high civilization. The old +savage ideal of beauty was the lion, type of mere massive force. +That was succeeded by an over-civilized ideal, say the fawn, type of +delicate grace. By cunning breeding and choosing, through long +centuries, man has combined both, and has created the foxhound, lion +and fawn in one; just as he might create noble human beings; did he +take half as much trouble about politics (in the true old sense of +the word) as he does about fowls. Look at that old hound, who stands +doubtful, looking up at his master for advice. Look at the severity, +delicacy, lightness of every curve. His head is finer than a deer's; +his hind legs tense as steel springs; his fore-legs straight as +arrows: and yet see the depth of chest, the sweep of loin, the +breadth of paw, the mass of arm and thigh; and if you have an eye for +form, look at the absolute majesty of his attitude at this moment. +Majesty is the only word for it. If he were six feet high, instead +of twenty-three inches, with what animal on earth could you compare +him? Is it not a joy to see such a thing alive? It is to me, at +least. I should like to have one in my study all day long, as I +would have a statue or a picture; and when Mr. Morrell gave (as they +say) two hundred guineas for Hercules alone, I believe the dog was +well worth the money, only to look at. But I am a minute +philosopher. + +I cap them on to the spot at which Reinecke disappeared. Old +Virginal's stern flourishes; instantly her pace quickens. One +whimper, and she is away full-mouthed through the wood, and the pack +after her: but not I. + +I am not going with them. My hunting days are over. Let it suffice +that I have, in the days of my vanity, 'drank delight of battle with +my peers, far on the ringing plains' of many a county, grass and +forest, down and vale. No, my gallant friends. You know that I +could ride, if I chose; and I am vain enough to be glad that you know +it. But useless are your coaxings, solicitations, wavings of honest +right hands. 'Life,' as my friend Tom Brown says, 'is not all beer +and skittles;' it is past two now, and I have four old women to read +to at three, and an old man to bury at four; and I think, on the +whole, that you will respect me the more for going home and doing my +duty. That I should like to see this fox fairly killed, or even +fairly lost, I deny not. That I should like it as much as I can like +any earthly and outward thing, I deny not. But sugar to one's bread +and butter is not good; and if my winter-garden represent the bread +and butter, then will fox-hunting stand to it in the relation of +superfluous and unwholesome sugar: so farewell; and long may your +noble sport prosper--'the image of war with only half its danger,' to +train you and your sons after, into gallant soldiers--full of + + +'The reason firm, the temperate will, +Endurance, foresight, strength and skill.' + + +So homeward I go through a labyrinth of fir-stems and, what is worse, +fir-stumps, which need both my eyes and my horse's at every moment; +and woe to the 'anchorite,' as old Bunbury names him, who carries his +nose in the air, and his fore feet well under him. Woe to the self- +willed or hard-hided horse who cannot take the slightest hint of the +heel, and wince hind legs or fore out of the way of those jagged +points which lie in wait for him. Woe, in fact, to all who are +clumsy or cowardly, or in anywise not 'masters of the situation.' + +Pleasant riding it is, though, if you dare look anywhere but over +your horse's nose, under the dark roof between the red fir-pillars, +in that rich subdued light. Now I plunge into a gloomy dell, wherein +is no tinkling rivulet, ever pure; but instead a bog, hewn out into a +chess-board of squares, parted by deep narrow ditches some twenty +feet apart. Blundering among the stems I go, fetlock-deep in peat, +and jumping at every third stride one of the said uncanny gripes, +half hidden in long hassock grass. Oh Aira caespitosa, most stately +and most variable of British grasses, why will you always grow where +you are not wanted? Through you the mare all but left her hind legs +in that last gripe. Through you a red-coat ahead of me, avoiding one +of your hassocks, jumped with his horse's nose full butt against a +fir-stem, and stopped, + + +'As one that is struck dead +By lightning, ere he falls,' + + +as we shall soon, in spite of the mare's cleverness. Would we were +out of this! + +Out of it we shall be soon. I see daylight ahead at last, bright +between the dark stems. Up a steep slope, and over a bank which is +not very big, but being composed of loose gravel and peat mould, +gives down with me, nearly sending me head over heels in the heather, +and leaving me a sheer gap to scramble through, and out on the open +moor. + +Grand old moor! stretching your brown flats right away toward Windsor +for many a mile.--Far to our right is the new Wellington College, +looking stately enough here all alone in the wilderness, in spite of +its two ugly towers and pinched waist. Close over me is the long +fir-fringed ride of Easthampstead, ending suddenly in Caesar's camp; +and hounds and huntsmen are already far ahead, and racing up the +Roman road, which the clods of these parts, unable to give a better +account of it, call the Devil's Highway. + +Racing indeed; for as Reinecke gallops up the narrow heather-fringed +pathway, he brushes off his scent upon the twigs at every stride; and +the hounds race after him, showing no head indeed, and keeping, for +convenience, in one long line upon the track: but going heads up, +sterns down, at a pace which no horse can follow.--I only hope they +may not overrun the scent. + +They have overrun it; halt, and put their heads down a moment. But +with one swift cast in fall gallop they have hit it off again, fifty +yards away in the heather, long ere the horsemen are up to them; for +those hounds can hunt a fox because they are not hunted themselves, +and so have learnt to trust themselves, and act for themselves; as +boys should learn at school, even at the risk of a mistake or two. +Now they are showing head indeed, down a half-cleared valley, and +over a few ineffectual turnips withering in the peat, a patch of +growing civilization in the heart of the wilderness; and then over +the brook, while I turn slowly away, through a green wilderness of +self-sown firs. + +There they stand in thousands, the sturdy Scots, colonizing the +desert in spite of frost, and gales, and barrenness; and clustering +together, too, as Scotsmen always do abroad, little and big, every +one under his neighbour's lee, according to the good old proverb of +their native land, 'Caw me, and I'll caw thee.' + +I respect them, those Scotch firs. I delight in their forms, from +James the First's gnarled giants up in Bramshill Park--the only place +in England where a painter can learn what Scotch firs are--down to +the little green pyramids which stand up out of the heather, +triumphant over tyranny, and the strange woes of an untoward youth. +Seven years on an average have most of them spent in ineffectual +efforts to become a foot high. Nibbled off by hares, trodden down by +cattle, cut down by turf-parers, seeing hundreds of their brethren +cut up and carried off in the turf-fuel, they are as gnarled and +stubbed near the ground as an old thorn-bush in a pasture. But they +have conquered at last, and are growing away, eighteen inches a year, +with fair green brushes silvertipt, reclothing the wilderness with a +vegetation which it has not seen for--how many thousand years? + +No man can tell. For when last the Scotch fir was indigenous to +England, and, mixed with the larch, stretched in one vast forest from +Norfolk into Wales, England was not as it is now. Snowdon was, it +may be, fifteen thousand feet in height, and from the edges of its +glaciers the marmot and the musk ox, the elk and the bear, wandered +down into the Lowlands, and the hyena and the lion dwelt in those +caves where fox and badger only now abide. And how did the Scotch +fir die out? Did the whole land sink slowly from its sub-Alpine +elevation into a warmer climate below? Or was it never raised at +all? Did some change of the Atlantic sea-floor turn for the first +time the warm Gulf Stream to these shores; and with its soft sea- +breezes melt away the 'Age of Ice,' till glaciers and pines, marmots +and musk oxen, perspired to death, and vanished for an aeon? Who +knows? Not I. But of the fact there can be no doubt. Whether, as +we hold traditionally here, the Scotch fir was re-introduced by James +the First when he built Bramshill for Raleigh's hapless pet, Henry +the Prince, or whatever may have been the date of their re- +introduction, here they are, and no one can turn them out. In +countless thousands the winged seeds float down the south-west gales +from the older trees; and every seed which falls takes root in ground +which, however unable to bear broad-leaved trees, is ready by long +rest for the seeds of the needle-leaved ones. Thousands perish +yearly; but the eastward march of the whole, up hill and down dale, +is sure and steady as that of Lynceus' Goths in Goethe's Helena:- + + +'Ein lang und breites Volkegewicht, +Der erate wusste vom letzen nicht. + +Der erste fiel, der zweite stand, +Des dritten Lanze war zur Hand, +Ein jeder hundertfach gestarkt; +Erschlagene Tausend unbemerkt - + + +- till, as you stand upon some eminence, you see, stretching to the +eastward of each tract of older trees, a long cloud of younger ones, +like a green comet's tail--I wish their substance was as yielding +this day. Truly beautiful--grand indeed to me it is--to see young +live Nature thus carrying on a great savage process in the heart of +this old and seemingly all-artificial English land; and reproducing +here, as surely as in the Australian bush, a native forest, careless +of mankind. Still, I wish it were easier to ride through. Stiff are +those Scotchmen, and close and stout they stand by each other, and +claw at you as you twist through them, the biggest aiming at your +head, or even worse, at your knees; while the middle-sized slip their +brushes between your thigh and the saddle, and the little babies +tickle your horse's stomach, or twine about his fore-feet. Whish-- +whish; we are enveloped in what seems an atmosphere of scrubbing- +brushes. Fain would I shut my eyes: but dare not, or I shall ride +against a tree. Whish--whish; alas for the horse which cannot wind +and turn like a hare! Plunge--stagger. What is this? A broad line +of ruts; perhaps some Celtic track-way, two thousand years old, now +matted over with firs; dangerous enough out on the open moor, when +only masked by a line of higher and darker heath: but doubly +dangerous now when masked by dark undergrowth. You must find your +own way here, mare. I will positively have nothing to do with it. I +disclaim all responsibility. There are the reins on your neck; do +what you will, only do something--and if you can, get forward, and +not back. + +There is daylight at last, and fresh air. I trot contemptuously +through the advanced skirmishers of the Scotch invading army; and +watch my friends some mile and a half off, who have threaded a +practicable track-way through a long dreary yellow bog, too wet for +firs to root in, and are away in 'a streamer.' Now a streamer is +produced in this wise. There is but one possible gap in a bank, one +possible ford in a brook; one possible path in a cover; and as each +man has to wait till the man before him gets through, and them +gallops on, each man loses twenty yards or more on the man before +him: wherefore, by all laws of known arithmetic, if ten men tail +through a gap, then will the last of the ten find himself two hundred +yards behind the foremost, which process several times repeated, +produces the phenomenon called a streamer, viz. twenty men galloping +absurdly as hard as they can, in a line half a mile long, and in +humours which are celestial in the few foremost, contented in the +central, and gradually becoming darker in the hindmost; till in the +last man they assume a hue altogether Tartarean. Farewell, brave +gentlemen! I watch, half sadly, half self-contented, the red coats +scattered like sparks of fire over hill and dale, and turn slowly +homeward, to visit my old women. + +I pass through a gateway, out upon a village green, planted with rows +of oaks, surrounded by trim sunny cottages, a pleasant oasis in the +middle of the wilderness. Across the village cricket-ground--we are +great cricketers in these parts, and long may the good old game live +among us; and then up another hollow lane, which leads between damp +shaughs and copses toward the further moor. + +Curious things to a minute philosopher are these same hollow lanes. +They set him on archaeological questions, more than he can solve; and +I meditate as I go, how many centuries it took to saw through the +warm sandbanks this dyke ten feet deep, up which he trots, with the +oak boughs meeting over his head. Was it ever worth men's while to +dig out the soil? Surely not. The old method must have been, to +remove the softer upper spit, till they got to tolerably hard ground; +and then, Macadam's metal being as yet unknown, the rains and the +wheels of generations sawed it gradually deeper and deeper, till this +road-ditch was formed. But it must have taken centuries to do it. +Many of these hollow lanes, especially those on flat ground, must be +as old or older than the Conquest. In Devonshire I am sure that they +are. But there many of them, one suspects, were made not of malice, +but of cowardice prepense. Your indigenous Celt was, one fears, a +sneaking animal, and liked to keep when he could under cover of banks +and hill-sides; while your bold Roman made his raised roads straight +over hill and dale, as 'ridge-ways' from which, as from an eagle's +eyrie, he could survey the conquered lowlands far and wide. It marks +strongly the difference between the two races, that difference +between the Roman paved road with its established common way for all +passengers, its regular stations and milestones, and the Celtic +track-way winding irresolutely along in innumerable ruts, parting to +meet again, as if each savage (for they were little better) had taken +his own fresh path when he found the next line of ruts too heavy for +his cattle. Around the spurs of Dartmoor I have seen many ancient +roads, some of them long disused, which could have been hollowed out +for no other purpose but that of concealment. + +So I go slowly up the hill, till the valley lies beneath me like a +long green garden between its two banks of brown moor; and on through +a cheerful little green, with red brick cottages scattered all round, +each with its large neat garden, and beehives, and pigs and geese, +and turf-stack, and clipt yews and hollies before the door, and rosy +dark-eyed children, and all the simple healthy comforts of a wild +'heth-cropper's' home. When he can, the good man of the house works +at farm labour, or cuts his own turf; and when work is scarce, he +cuts copses and makes heath-brooms, and does a little poaching. +True, he seldom goes to church, save to be christened, married, or +buried: but he equally seldom gets drunk. For church and public +stand together two miles off; so that social wants sometimes bring +their own compensations with them, and there are two sides to every +question. + +Hark! A faint, dreary hollo off the moor above. And then another, +and another. My friends may trust it; for the clod of these parts +delights in the chase like any bare-legged Paddy, and casts away +flail and fork wildly, to run, shout, assist, and interfere in all +possible ways, out of pure love. The descendant of many generations +of broom-squires and deer-stealers, the instinct of sport is strong +within him still, though no more of the king's deer are to be shot in +the winter turnip-fields, or worse, caught by an apple-baited hook +hung from an orchard bough. He now limits his aspirations to hares +and pheasants, and too probably once in his life, 'hits the keeper +into the river,' and reconsiders himself for a while after over a +crank in Winchester gaol. Well, he has his faults; and I have mine. +But he is a thorough good fellow nevertheless; quite as good as I: +civil, contented, industrious, and often very handsome; and a far +shrewder fellow too--owing to his dash of wild forest blood, from +gipsy, highwayman; and what not--than his bullet-headed and flaxen- +polled cousin, the pure South-Saxon of the Chalk-downs. Dark-haired +he is, ruddy, and tall of bone; swaggering in his youth; but when he +grows old, a thorough gentleman, reserved, stately, and courteous as +a prince. Sixteen years have I lived with him hail fellow well met, +and never yet had a rude word or action from him. + +With him I have cast in my lot, to live and die, and be buried by his +side; and to him I go home contented, to look after his petty +interests, cares, sorrows--Petty, truly--seeing that they include the +whole primal mysteries of life--Food, raiment, and work to earn them +withal; love and marriage, birth and death, right doing and wrong +doing, 'Schicksal und eigene Schuld;' and all those commonplaces of +humanity which in the eyes of a minute philosopher are most divine, +because they are most commonplace--catholic as the sunshine and the +rain which come down from the Heavenly Father, alike upon the evil +and the good. As for doing fine things, my friend, with you, I have +learnt to believe that I am not set to do fine things, simply because +I am not able to do them; and as for seeing fine things, with you, I +have learnt to see the sight--as well as to try to do the duty--which +lies nearest me; and to comfort myself with the fancy that if I make +good use of my eyes and brain in this life, I shall see--if it be of +any use to me--all the fine things, or perhaps finer still, in the +life to come. But if not--what matter? In any life, in any state, +however simple or humble, there will be always sufficient to occupy a +Minute Philosopher; and if a man be busy, and busy about his duty, +what more does he require, for time or for eternity? + + + +V. FROM OCEAN TO SEA. + + + +The point from which to start, in order best to appreciate the change +from ocean to sea, is perhaps Biarritz. The point at which to stop +is Cette. And the change is important. Between the two points races +are changed, climates are changed, scenery is changed, the very +plants under your feet are changed, from a Western to an Eastern +type. You pass from the wild Atlantic into the heart of the Roman +Empire--from the influences which formed the discoverers of the New +World, to those which formed the civilizers of the Old. Gascony, not +only in its scenery, but in its very legends, reminds you of Devon +and Cornwall; Languedoc of Greece and Palestine. + +In the sea, as was to be expected, the change is even more complete. +From Biarritz to Cette, you pass from poor Edward Forbes's Atlantic +to his Mediterranean centre of creation. In plain English and fact, +whether you agree with his theory or not, you pass from the region of +respectable whales, herrings, and salmon, to that of tunnies, +sciaenas, dorados, and all the gorgons, hydras, and chimaeras dire, +which are said to grace the fish-markets of Barcelona or Marseilles. + +But to this assertion, as to most concerning nature, there are +exceptions. Mediterranean fishes slip out of the Straits of +Gibraltar, and up the coast of Portugal, and, once in the Bay of +Biscay, find the feeding good and the wind against them, and stay +there. + +So it befalls, that at worthy M. Gardere's hotel at Biarritz (he has +seen service in England, and knows our English ways), you may have at +dinner, day after day, salmon, louvine, shad, sardine, dorado, tunny. +The first is unknown to the Mediterranean; for Fluellen mistook when +he said that there were salmons in Macedon, as well as Monmouth; the +louvine is none other than the nasty bass, or sea-perch of the +Atlantic; the shad (extinct in these islands, save in the Severn) is +a gigantic herring which comes up rivers to spawn; a fish common +(with slight differences) to both sides of the North Atlantic; while +the sardine, the dorado, and the tunny (whether he be the true tunny +or the Alalonga) are Mediterranean fish. + +The whale fishery of these shores is long extinct. The Biscayan +whale was supposed to be extinct likewise. But like the ibex, and +some other animals which man has ceased to hunt, because he fancies +that he has killed them all, they seem inclined to reappear. For in +1854 one was washed ashore near St. Jean de Luz, at news whereof +Eschricht, the great Danish naturalist, travelled night and day from +Copenhagen, and secured the skeleton of the new-old monster. + +But during the latter part of the Middle Ages, and on--if I recollect +aright--into the seventeenth century, Bayonne, Biarritz, Guettary, +and St. Jean de Luz, sent forth their hardy whale-fishers, who slew +all the whales of the Biscayan seas, and then crossed the Atlantic, +to attack those of the frozen North. + +British and American enterprise drove them from the West coast of the +Atlantic; and now their descendants are content to stay at home and +take the sardine-shoals, and send them in to Bayonne on their +daughters' heads. + +Pretty enough it was, at least in outward seeming, to meet a party of +those fisher-girls, bare-legged, high-kilted, lithe as deer, +trotting, at a long loping pace, up the high road toward Bayonne, +each with her basket on her head, as she laughed and sang, and tossed +her black hair, and flashed her brown eyes, full of life and the +enjoyment of life. Pretty enough. And yet who will blame the rail, +which now sends her quickly into Bayonne--or even her fish without +her; and relieves the fair young maiden from being degraded into a +beast of burden? + +Handsome folk are these brown Basques. A mysterious people, who +dwell alone, and are not counted among the nations; speaking an +unique language, and keeping up unique customs, for which the curious +must consult M. Michel's interesting book. There may be a cross of +English blood among them, too, about Biarritz and Bayonne; English +features there are, plainly to be seen. And whether or not, one +accepts the story of the country, that Anglets, near by, is an old +English colony left by our Black Prince, it is certain that Bayonne +Cathedral was built in part by English architects, and carries the +royal arms of England; and every school history will tell us how this +corner of France was long in our hands, and was indeed English long +before it was properly French. Moorish blood there may be, too, here +and there, left behind by those who built the little 'atalaya' or +fire-beacon, over the old harbour, to correspond, by its smoke +column, with a long line of similar beacons down the Spanish coast. +The Basques resemble in look the Southern Welsh--quick-eyed, neat in +feature, neat in dress, often, both men and women, beautiful. The +men wear a flat Scotch cap of some bright colour, and call it +'berretta.' The women tie a gaudy handkerchief round their heads, +and compel one corner to stand forward from behind the ear in a +triangle, in proportion to the size and stiffness whereof the lady +seems to think herself well dressed. But the pretty Basque +handkerchief will soon give place to the Parisian bonnet. For every +cove among the rocks is now filled with smart bathing-houses, from +which, in summer, the gay folk of Paris issue in 'costume de bain,' +to float about all day on calabashes--having literally no room for +the soles of their feet on land. Then are opened casinos, theatre, +shops, which lie closed all the winter. Then do the Basque house- +owners flee into the moors, and camp out (it is said) on the hills +all night, letting their rooms for ten francs a night as mere bed- +chambers--for all eating and living is performed in public; while the +dove-coloured oxen, with brown holland pinafores over their backs, +who dawdle in pairs up and down the long street with their light +carts, have to make way for wondrous equipages from the Bois de +Boulogne. + +Not then, for the wise man, is Biarritz a place to see and to love: +but in the winter, when a little knot of quiet pleasant English hold +the place against all comers, and wander, undisturbed by fashion, +about the quaint little rocks and caves and natural bridges--and +watch tumbling into the sea, before the Biscayan surges, the trim +walks and summer-houses, which were erected by the municipality in +honour of the Empress and her suite. Yearly they tumble in, and +yearly are renewed, as the soft greensand strata are graven away, and +what must have been once a long promontory becomes a group of +fantastic pierced rocks, exactly like those which are immortalized +upon the willow-pattern plates. + +Owing to this rapid destruction, the rocks of Biarritz are very +barren in sea-beasts and sea-weeds. But there is one remarkable +exception, where the pools worn in a hard limestone are filled with +what seem at first sight beds of china-asters, of all loveliest +colours--primrose, sea-green, dove, purple, crimson, pink, ash-grey. +They are all prickly sea-eggs (presumably the Echinus lividus, which +is found in similar places in the west of Ireland), each buried for +life in a cup-shaped hole which he has excavated in the rock, and +shut in by an overhanging lip of living lime--seemingly a Nullipore +coralline. What they do there, what they think of, or what food is +brought into their curious grinding-mills by the Atlantic surges +which thunder over them twice a day, who can tell? However they +form, without doubt, the most beautiful object which I have ever seen +in pool or cove. + +But the glory of Biarritz, after all, is the moors above, and the +view to be seen therefrom. Under blazing blue skies, tempered by +soft dappled cloud, for ever sliding from the Atlantic and the +Asturias mountains, in a climate soft as milk, and exhilarating +withal as wine, one sees far and wide a panorama which, from its +variety as well as its beauty, can never weary. + +To the north, the long sand-line of the Biscayan shore--the bar of +the Adour marked by a cloud of grey spray. Then the dark pine-flats +of the Landes, and the towers of Bayonne rising through rich woods. +To the eastward lies a high country, furred with woods, broken with +glens; a country exactly like Devon, through the heart of which, +hidden in such a gorge as that of Dart or Taw, runs the swift stream +of the Nive, draining the western Pyrenees. And beyond, to the +south-east, in early spring, the Pyrenean snows gleam bright, white +clouds above the clouds. As one turns southward, the mountains break +down into brown heather-hills, like Scottish grouse moors. The two +nearest, and seemingly highest, are the famous Rhune and Bayonette, +where lie, to this day, amid the heath and crags, hundreds of +unburied bones. For those great hills, skilfully fortified by Soult +before the passage of the Bidassoa, were stormed, yard by yard, by +Wellington's army in October 1813. That mighty deed must be read in +the pages of one who saw it with his own eyes, and fought there with +his own noble body, and even nobler spirit. It is not for me to tell +of victories, of which Sir William Napier has already told. + +Towards that hill, and the Nivelle at its foot, the land slopes down, +still wooded and broken, bounded by a long sweep of clayey crumbling +cliff. The eye catches the fort of Secoa, at the mouth of the +Nivelle--once Wellington's sea-base for his great French campaign. +Then Fontarabia, at the Bidassoa mouth; and far off, the cove within +which lies the fatal citadel of St. Sebastian; all backed up by the +fantastic mountains of Spain; the four-horned "Quatre Couronnes," the +pyramidal Jaysquivel, and beyond them again, sloping headlong into +the sea, peak after peak, each one more blue and tender than the one +before, leading the eye on and on for seemingly countless leagues, +till they die away into the ocean horizon and the boundless west. +Not a sail, often for days together, passes between those mountains +and the shore on which we stand, to break the solitude, and peace, +and vast expanse; and we linger, looking and looking at we know not +what, and find repose in gazing purposeless into the utter void. + +Very unlike France are these Basque uplands; very like the seaward +parts of Devon and Cornwall. Large oak-copses and boggy meadows fill +the glens; while above, the small fields, with their five-barred +gates (relics of the English occupation) and high furze and heath- +grown banks, make you fancy yourself for a moment in England. And +the illusion is strengthened, as you see that the heath of the banks +is the Goonhilly heath of the Lizard Point, and that of the bogs the +orange-belled Erica ciliaris, which lingers (though rare) both in +Cornwall and in the south of Ireland. But another glance undeceives +you. The wild flowers are new, saving those cosmopolitan seeds (like +nettles and poppies) which the Romans have carried all over Europe, +and the British are now carrying over the world. Every sandy bank +near the sea is covered with the creeping stems of a huge reed, which +grows in summer tall enough to make not only high fences, but +fishing-rods. Poverty (though there is none of what we call poverty +in Britain) fills the little walled court before its cottage with bay +trees and standard figs; while wealth (though there is nothing here +of what we call wealth in Britain) asserts itself uniformly by great +standard magnolias, and rich trailing roses, in full bloom here in +April instead of--as with us--in July. Both on bank and in bog grow +Scorzoneras (dandelions with sword-shaped leaves) of which there are +none in these isles; and every common is ablaze with strange and +lovely flowers. Each dry spot is brilliant with the azure flowers of +a prostrate Lithospermum, so exquisite a plant, that it is a marvel +why we do not see it, as 'spring-bedding,' in every British garden. +The heath is almost hidden, in places, by the large white flowers and +trailing stems of the sage-leaved Cistus. Delicate purple Ixias, and +yet more delicate Hoop-petticoat Narcissus, spring from the turf. +And here and there among furze and heath, crop out great pink bunches +of the Daphne Cneorum of our gardens, perfuming all the air. Yes, we +are indeed in foreign parts, in the very home of that Atlantic flora, +of which only a few species have reached the south-west of these +isles; and on the limit of another flora also--of that of Italy and +Greece. For as we descend into the glen, every lane-bank and low +tree is entwined, not with ivy, but with a still more beautiful +evergreen, the Smilax of South-eastern Europe, with its zigzag stems, +and curving heart-shaped leaves, and hooked thorns; the very oak- +scrub is of species unknown to Britain. And what are these tall +lilies, which fill every glade breast-high with their sword-like +leaves, and spires of white flowers, lilac-pencilled? They are the +classic flower, the Asphodel of Greece and Grecian song; the Asphodel +through which the ghosts of Homer's heroes strode: as heroes' ghosts +might stride even here. + +For here we are on sacred ground. The vegetation is rank with the +blood of gallant invaders, and of no less gallant patriots. In the +words of Campbell's 'Hohenlinden' - + + +'Every turf beneath our feet +May be a hero's sepulchre.' + + +That little tarn below has 'bubbled with crimson foam' when the kings +of Europe arose to bring home the Bourbons, as did the Lake Regillus +of old, in the day when 'the Thirty Cities swore to bring the +Tarquins home.' + +Turn to the left, above the tarn, and into the great Spanish road +from Bayonne to the frontier at what was lately 'La Negresse,' but is +now a gay railway station. Where that station is, was another tarn, +now drained. The road ran between the two. And that narrow space of +two hundred yards, on which we stand, was for three fearful days the +gate of France. + +For on the 10th of December, 1813, Soult, driven into Bayonne by +Wellington's advance, rushed out again in the early morn, and poured +a torrent of living men down this road, and upwards again towards the +British army which crested that long ridge in front. + +The ridge slopes rapidly away at the back, toward the lowlands of the +Bidassoa; and once thrust from it, the English army would have been +cut in two--one half driven back upon their sea-base at St. Jean de +Luz: the other half left on the further side of the Adour. + +And this was the gate, which had to be defended during a three days' +battle. That long copse which overhangs the road is the famous wood, +which was taken and retaken many times. You house above it, +embowered in trees, is the 'Mayor's house,' in which Sir John Hope +was so nearly captured by the French. Somewhere behind the lane +where we came down was the battery which blasted off our troops as +they ran up from the lowlands behind, to support their fellows. + +Of the details of the fight you must read in Napier's 'Peninsular +War,' and in Mr. Gleig's 'Subaltern.' They are not to be described +by one who never saw a battle, great or small. + +And now, if you choose to start upon your journey from the ocean to +the sea, you will take the railroad here, and run five miles through +the battle-fields into Bayonne, the quaint old fortress city, girdled +with a labyrinth of walls, and turf-dykes, and outside them meadows +as rich, and trees as stately, as if war had never swept across the +land. You may stop, if you will, to look at the tall Spanish houses, +with their piazzas and jalousies, and the motley populace, French, +Basques, Spaniards, Jews; and, most worth seeing of all, the lovely +ladies of Bayonne, who swarm out when the sun goes down, for air and +military music. You may try to find (in which you will probably +fail) the arms of England in the roof of the ugly old cathedral; you +may wander the bridges over which join the three quarters of the city +(for the Adour and the Nive meet within the walls), and probably lose +your way--a slight matter among folk who, if you will but take off +your hat, call them Monsieur, apologize for the trouble you are +giving, begin the laugh at your own stupidity, and compliment them on +their city and their fair ladies, will be delighted to walk a mile +out of their own way to show you yours. You will gaze up at the +rock-rooted citadel from whence, in the small hours of April 14, +1813, after peace was agreed on, but unhappily not declared (for +Napier has fully exculpated the French Generals), three thousand of +Thouvenot's men burst forth against Sir John Hope's unsuspecting +besiegers, with a furious valour which cost the English more than 800 +men. + +There, in the pine woods on the opposite side, is the Boucault, where +our besieging army lay. Across the reach below stretched Sir John +Hope's famous bridge; and as you leave Bayonne by rail, you run +beneath the English cemetery, where lie the soldiers (officers of the +Coldstream Guards among them) who fell in the Frenchman's last +struggle to defend his native land. + +But enough of this. I should not have recalled to mind one of these +battles, had they not, one and all, been as glorious for the French +and their great captain--wearied with long marches, disheartened by +the apathy of their own countrymen, and, as they went on, overpowered +by mere numbers--as they were for our veterans, and Wellington +himself. + +And now, once through Bayonne, we are in the Pignadas and the Landes. + +To form a conception of these famous Landes, it is only necessary to +run down by the South-Western Railway, through the moors of Woking or +Ascot; spread them out flat, and multiply them to seeming infinity. +The same sea of brown heather, broken only by the same dark pignadas, +or fir plantations, extends for nigh a hundred miles; and when the +traveller northward has lost sight, first of the Spanish mountains, +and then of the Pyrenean snows, he seems to be rushing along a brown +ocean, without wave or shore. Only, instead of the three heaths of +Surrey and Hants (the same species as those of Scotland), larger and +richer southern heaths cover the grey sands; and notably the delicate +upright spires of the bruyere, or Erica scoparia, which grows full +six feet high, and furnishes from its roots those 'bruyere' pipes, +which British shopkeepers have rechristened 'briar-roots.' Instead, +again, of the Scotch firs of Ascot, the pines are all pinasters +(miscalled P. maritima). Each has the same bent stem, carrying at +top, long, ragged, scanty, leaf-tufts, instead of the straight stem +and dense short foliage of the sturdier Scotchman; and down each stem +runs a long, fresh scar, and at the bottom (in spring at least), +hangs a lip of tin, and a neat earthen pipkin, into which distils +turpentine as clear as glass. The trees have mostly been planted +within the last fifty years, to keep the drifting sands from being +blown away. As timber they are about as valuable as those Jersey +cow-cabbage stalks, of which the curious will at times make walking- +sticks: but as producers of turpentine they have their use, and give +employment to the sad, stunted, ill-fed folk, unhealthy for want of +water, and barbarous from utter loneliness, whose only employment, in +old times, was the keeping ragged flocks about the moors. Few and +far between the natives may be seen from the railway, seemingly hung +high in air, till on nearer approach you find them to be stalking +along on stilts, or standing knitting on the same, a sheepskin over +their shoulders, an umbrella strapped to their side, and, stuck into +the small of the back, a long crutch, which serves, when resting, as +a third wooden leg. + +So run on the Landes, mile after mile, station after station, varied +only by an occasional stunted cork tree, or a starved field of barley +or maize. But the railroad is bringing to them, as elsewhere, +labour, civilization, agricultural improvement. Pretty villages, +orchards, gardens, are springing up round the lonely 'gares.' The +late Emperor helped forward, it is said, new pine plantations, and +sundry schemes for reclaiming the waste. Arcachon, on a pine-fringed +lagoon of the Atlantic, has great artificial ponds for oyster +breeding, and is rising into a gay watering-place, with a +distinguished scientific society. Nay, more: it saw a few years +since an international exposition of fish, and fish-culture, and +fishing-tackle, and all things connected with the fisheries, not only +of Europe, but of America likewise. Heaven speed the plan; and +restore thereby oysters to our shores, and shad and salmon to the +rivers both of Western Europe and Eastern North America. + +As for the cause of the Landes, it may be easily divined, by the help +of a map and of common sense. + +The Gironde and the Adour carry to the sea the drainage of nearly a +third of France, including almost all the rain which falls on the +north side of the Pyrenees. What has become of all the sand and mud +which has been swept in the course of ages down their channels? What +has become--a very small part, be it recollected, of the whole +amount--of all the rock which has been removed by rain and thunder, +frost and snow, in the process of scooping out the deep valleys of +the Pyrenees? Out of that one crack, which men call the Val d'Ossau, +stone has been swept enough to form a considerable island. Where is +it all? In these Landes. Carried down year by year to the Atlantic, +it has been driven back again, year by year, by the fierce gales of +the Bay of Biscay, and rolled up into banks and dunes of loose sand, +till it has filled up what was once a broad estuary, 140 miles across +and perhaps 70 miles in depth. Upheaved it may have been also, +slowly, from the sea, for recent sea-shells are found as far inland +as Dax; and thus the whole upper end of the Bay of Biscay has +transformed itself during the lapse of, it may be, countless ages, +into a desolate wilderness. + +It is at Dax that we leave the main line, and instead of running +north for Bordeaux and the land of clarets, turn south-east to Orthez +and Pau, and the Gaves, and the Pyrenees. + +And now we pass through ragged uplands, woody and moorish, with the +long yellow maize-stalks of last year's crop rotting in the swampy +glens. For the 'petite culture,' whatever be its advantages, gives +no capital or power of combined action for draining wet lands; and +the valleys of Gascony and Bearn in the south, as well as great +sheets of the Pas de Calais in the north, are in a waterlogged state, +equally shocking to the eye of a British farmer, and injurious to the +health and to the crops of the peasants. + +Soon we strike the Adour, here of the shape and size of a second- +class Scotch salmon-stream, with swirling brown pools beneath grey +crags, which make one long to try in them the virtues of 'Jock +Scott,' 'the Butcher,' or the 'Dusty Miller.' And perhaps not +without effect; for salmon are there still; and will be more and more +as French 'pisciculture' develops itself under Government +supervision. + +Here we touch again the line of that masterly retreat of Soult's +before the superior forces of Wellington, to which Napier has done +such ample and deserved justice. + +There is Berenz, where the Sixth and Light divisions crossed the +Gave, and clambered into the high road up steep ravines; and there is +Orthez itself, with the beautiful old Gothic bridge which the French +could not blow up, as they did every other bridge on their retreat; +and the ruins of that robber den to which Gaston Phoebus, Count of +Foix (of whom you may read in Froissart), used to drag his victims; +and there overhead, upon the left of the rail and road, is the old +Roman camp, and the hill of Orthez, and St. Boes, and the High Church +of Baights, the scene of the terrible battle of Orthez. + +The Roman camp, then 'open and grassy, with a few trees,' says +Napier, is now covered with vineyards. Everywhere the fatal slopes +are rich with cultivation, plenty, and peace. God grant they may +remain so for ever. + +And so, along the Gave de Pau, we run on to Pau, the ancient capital +of Bearn; the birthplace of Henri Quatre, and of Bernadotte, King of +Sweden; where, in the charming old chateau, restored by Louis +Philippe, those who list may see the tortoise which served as the +great Henry's cradle; and believe, if they list also, the tale that +that is the real shell. + +For in 1793, when the knights of the 'bonnet rouge' and 'carmagnole +complete' burst into the castle, to destroy every memorial of hated +royalty, the shell among the rest, there chanced--miraculous +coincidence--to be in Pau, in the collection of a naturalist, another +shell, of the same shape and size. Swiftly and deftly pious hands +substituted it for the real relic, leaving it to be battered in +pieces and trampled in the mud, while the royal cradle lay perdu for +years in the roof of a house, to reappear duly at the Restoration of +the Bourbons. + +Of Pau I shall say nothing. It would be real impertinence in one who +only spent three days in it, to describe a city which is known to all +Europe; which is a permanent English colony, and boasts of one, and +sometimes two, packs of English foxhounds. But this I may be allowed +to say. That of all delectable spots I have yet seen, Pau is the +most delectable. Of all the landscapes which I have beheld, that +from the Place Royale is, for variety, richness, and grandeur, the +most glorious; at least as I saw it for the first time. + +Beneath the wall of the high terrace are rich meadows, vocal with +frogs rejoicing in the rain, and expressing their joy, not in the +sober monotone of our English frogs, but each according to his kind; +one bellowing, the next barking, the next cawing, and the next +(probably the little green Hylas, who has come down out of the trees +to breed) quacking in treble like a tiny drake. The bark (I suspect) +is that of the gorgeous edible frog; and so suspect the young +recruits who lounge upon the wall, and look down wistfully, longing, +I presume, to eat him. And quite right they are; for he (at least +his thigh) is exceeding good to eat, tenderer and sweeter than any +spring chicken. + +Beyond the meadow, among the poplars, the broad Gave murmurs on over +shingly shallows, between aspen-fringed islets, grey with the melting +snows; and beyond her again rise broken wooded hills, dotted with +handsome houses; and beyond them a veil of mist and rain. + +On a sudden that veil lifts; and five-and-twenty miles away, beneath +the black edge of the cloud, against the clear blue sky, stands out +the whole snow-range of the Pyrenees; and in the midst, exactly +opposite, filling up a vast gap which is the Val d'Ossau, the huge +cone, still snowy white, of the Pic du Midi. + +He who is conversant with theatres will be unable to overlook the +seeming art--and even artifice--of such an effect. The clouds lift +like a drop-scene; the mountains are so utterly unlike any natural +object in the north, that for the moment one fancies them painted and +not real; the Pic du Midi stands so exactly where it ought, and is +yet so fantastic and unexpected in its shape, that an artist seems to +have put it there. + +But lie who knows nothing, and cares less, about theatres and their +sham glories, and sees for the first time in his life the eternal +snows of which he has read since childhood, draws his breath deeply, +and stands astounded, whispering to himself that God is great. + +One hint more, ere we pass on from Pau. Here, at least in spring +time, of all places in Europe, may a man feed his ears with song of +birds. The copses by the Gave, the public walks and woods (wherein +English prejudices have happily protected what is elsewhere shot down +as game, even to the poor little cock-robins whose corpses lie by +dozens in too many French markets), are filled with all our English +birds of passage, finding their way northwards from Morocco and +Algiers; and with our English nightingales, black-caps, willow-wrens, +and whitethroats, are other songsters which never find their way to +these isles, for which you must consult the pages of Mr. Gould or Mr. +Bree--and chief among them the dark Orpheus, and the yellow +Hippolais, surpassing the black-cap, and almost equalling the +nightingale, for richness and variety of song--the polyglot warbler +which penetrates, in summer, as far north as the shores of the +British Channel, and there stops short, scared by the twenty miles of +sea, after a land journey--and by night, too, as all the warblers +journey--from Africa. + +At Pau, the railroad ended when I was there; and who would go +eastward had to take carriage, and go by the excellent road (all +public roads in the south of France are excellent, and equal to our +best English roads) over the high Landes to Tarbes; and on again over +fresh Landes to Montrejeau; and thence by railway to Toulouse. + +They are very dreary, these high flat uplands, from which innumerable +streams pour down to swell the Adour and the Garonne; and as one +rolls along, listening to the eternal tinkle of the horse-bells, only +two roadside objects are particularly worthy of notice. First, the +cultivation, spreading rapidly since the Revolution, over what was +open moor; and next the great natural parks which one traverses here +and there; the remnants of those forests which were once sacred to +the seigneurs and their field sports. The seigneurs are gone now, +and the game with them; and the forests are almost gone--so ruinate, +indeed, by the peasantry, that the Government (I believe) has +interfered to stop a destruction of timber, which involves the +destruction both of fire-wood and of the annual fall of rain. But +the trees which remain, whether in forest or in homestead, are sadly +mangled. The winters are sharp in these high uplands, and firing +scarce; and the country method of obtaining it is to send a woman up +a tree, where she hacks off, with feeble arms and feeble tools, +boughs halfway out from the stem, disfiguring, and in time destroying +by letting the wet enter, splendid southern oaks, chestnuts, and +walnuts. Painful and hideous, to an eye accustomed to British parks, +are the forms of these once noble trees. + +Suddenly we descend a brow into the Yale of Tarbes: a good land and +large; a labyrinth of clear streams, water-meadows, cherry-orchards, +and crops of every kind, and in the midst the pleasant old city, with +its once famous University. Of Tarbes, you may read in the pages of +Froissart--or, if you prefer a later authority, in those of Dumas, +'Trois Mousquetaires;' for this is the native land of the immortal +Ulysses of Gascony, the Chevalier d'Artagnan. + +There you may see, to your surprise, not only gentlemen, but ladies, +taking their pleasure on horseback after the English fashion; for +there is close by a great 'haras,' or Government establishment for +horse-breeding. You may watch the quaint dresses in the marketplace; +you may rest, as Froissart rested of old, in a 'right pleasant inn;' +you may eat of the delicious cookery which is to be found, even in +remote towns, throughout the south of France, and even--if you dare-- +of 'Coquilles aux Champignons.' You may sit out after dinner in that +delicious climate, listening to the rush of the clear Adour through +streets, and yards, and culverts; for the city, like Romsey, or +Salisbury, is built over many streams. You may watch the Pyrenees +changing from white to rose, from rose to lead colour, and then dying +away into the night--for twilight there is little or none, here in +the far south. + + +'The sun's rim dips, the stars rush out, +At one stride comes the dark.' + + +And soon from street to street you hear the 'clarion' of the +garrison, that singularly wild and sweet trumpet-call which sends +French soldiers to their beds. And at that the whole populace swarms +out, rich and poor, and listens entranced beneath the trees in the +Place Maubourguet, as if they had never heard it before; with an +order and a sobriety, and a good humour, and a bowing to each other, +and asking and giving of cigar-lights between men of every class--and +a little quiet modest love-making on the outskirts of the crowd, +which is very pleasant to behold. And when the music is silent, and +the people go off suddenly, silently, and soberly withal (for there +are no drunkards in these parts), to their early beds, you stand and +look up into the 'purple night,' as Homer calls it--that southern +sky, intensely dark, and yet transparent withal, through which you +seem to look beyond the stars into the infinite itself, and recollect +that beyond all that, and through all that likewise, there is an +infinite good God who cares for all these simple kindly folk; and +that by Him all their hearts are as well known, and all their +infirmities as mercifully weighed, as are, you trust, your own. + +And so you go to rest, content to say, with the wise American, 'It +takes all sorts to make a world.' + +The next morn you rise, to roll on over yet more weary uplands to +Montrejeau, over long miles of sandy heath, a magnified Aldershott, +which during certain summer months is gay, here and there, like +Aldershott, with the tents of an army at play. But in spring the +desolation is utter, and the loneliest grouse-moor, and the boggiest +burn, are more cheerful and varied than the Landes of Lannemezan, and +the foul streamlets which have sawn gorges through the sandy waste. + +But all the while, on your right hand, league after league, ever +fading into blue sky behind you, and growing afresh out of blue sky +in front, hangs high in air the white saw of the Pyrenees. High, I +say, in air, for the land slopes, or seems to slope, down from you to +the mountain range, and all their roots are lost in a dim sea of +purple haze. But shut out the snow line above, and you will find +that the seeming haze is none, but really a clear and richly varied +distance of hills, and woods, and towns, which have become invisible +from the contrast of their greens, and greys, and purples, with the +glare and dazzle of the spotless snows of spring. + +There they stand, one straight continuous jagged wall, of which no +one point seems higher than another. From the Pic d'Ossau, by the +Mont Perdu and the Maladetta to the Pic de Lart, are peaks past +counting--hard clear white against the hard clear blue, and blazing +with keen light beneath the high southern sun. Each peak carries its +little pet cushion of cloud, hanging motionless a few hundred yards +above in the blue sky, a row of them as far as eye can see. But, +ever and anon, as afternoon draws on, one of those little clouds, +seeming tired of waiting at its post ever since sunrise, loses its +temper, boils, swells, settles down on its own private peak, and +explodes in a fierce thunderstorm down its own private valley, +without discomposing in the least its neighbour cloud-cushions right +and left. Faintly the roll of the thunder reaches the ear. Across +some great blackness of cloud and cliff, a tiny spark darts down. A +long wisp of mist sweeps rapidly toward you across the lowlands, and +a momentary brush of cold rain lays the dust. And then the pageant +is played out, and the disturbed peak is left clear again in the blue +sky for the rest of the day, to gather another cloud-cushion when to- +morrow's sun shall rise. + +To him who looks, day after day, on this astonishing natural wall, +stretching, without visible gap, for nearly three hundred miles, it +is easy to see why France not only is, but must be, a different world +from Spain. Even human thought cannot, to any useful extent, fly +over that great wall of homeless rock and snow. On the other side +there must needs be another folk, with another tongue, other manners, +other polities, and if not another creed, yet surely with other, and +utterly different, conceptions of the universe, and of man's business +therein. Railroads may do somewhat. But what of one railroad; or +even of two, one on the ocean, one on the sea, two hundred and +seventy miles apart? Before French civilization can inform and +elevate the Spanish people you must 'plane down the Pyrenees.' + +At Montrejeau, a pretty town upon a hill which overhangs the Garonne, +you find, again, verdure and a railroad; and, turning your back upon +the Pyrenees, run down the rich ugly vale of the Garonne, through +crops of exceeding richness--wheat, which is reaped in July, to be +followed by buckwheat reaped in October; then by green crops to be +cut in May, and that again by maize, to be pulled in October, and +followed by wheat and the same rotation. + +Thus you reach Toulouse, a noble city, of which it ill befits a +passer-through to speak. Volumes have been written on its +antiquities, and volumes on its history; and all of either that my +readers need know, they will find in Murray's hand-book. + +At Toulouse--or rather on leaving it to go eastward--you become aware +that you have passed into a fresh region. The change has been, of +course, gradual: but it has been concealed from you by passing over +the chilly dreary uplands of Lannemezan. Now you find yourself at +once in Languedoc. You have passed from the Atlantic region into the +Mediterranean; from the old highlands of the wild Vascones, into +those lowlands of Gallia Narbonensis, reaching from the head-waters +of the Garonne to the mouths of the Rhone, which were said to be more +Italian than Italy itself. + +The peculiarity of the district is its gorgeous colouring. +Everywhere, over rich plains, you look away to low craggy banks of +limestone, the grey whereof contrasts strongly with the green of the +lowland, and with the even richer green of the mulberry orchards; and +beyond them again, southward to the now distant snows of the +Pyrenees, and northward to the orange downs and purple glens of the +Cevennes, all blazing in the blazing sun. Green, grey, orange, +purple, and, in the farthest distance, blue as of the heaven itself, +make the land one vast rainbow, and fit dwelling-place for its sunny +folk, still happy and industrious--once the most cultivated and +luxurious people in Europe. + +As for their industry, it is hereditary. These lands were, it may +be, as richly and carefully tilled in the days of Augustus Caesar as +they are now; or rather, as they were at the end of the eighteenth +century. For, since then, the delver and sower--for centuries the +slave of the Roman, and, for centuries after, the slave of Teutonic +or Saracenic conquerors--has become his own master, and his own +landlord; and an impulse has been given to industry, which is shown +by trim cottages, gay gardens, and fresh olive orchards, pushed up +into glens which in a state of nature would starve a goat. + +The special culture of the country--more and more special as we run +eastward--is that of the mulberry, the almond, and the olive. Along +every hill-side, down every glen, lie orchard-rows of the precious +pollards. The mulberries are of richest dark velvet green; the +almonds, one glory of rose-colour in early spring, are now of a paler +and colder green; the olives (as all the world knows) of a dusty +grey, which looks all the more desolate in the pruning time of early +spring, when half the boughs of the evergreen are cut out, leaving +the trees stripped as by a tempest, and are carried home for fire- +wood in the quaint little carts, with their solid creaking wheels, +drawn by dove-coloured kine. Very ancient are some of these olives, +or rather, olive-groups. For when the tree grows old, it splits, and +falls asunder, as do often our pollard willows; the bark heals over +on the inside of each fragment, and what was one tree becomes many, +springing from a single root, and bearing such signs of exceeding age +that one can well believe the country tale, how in the olive grounds +around Nismes are still fruiting olives which have furnished oil for +the fair Roman dames who cooled themselves in the sacred fountain of +Nemausa, in the days of the twelve Caesars. + +Between the pollard rows are everywhere the rows of vines, or of what +will be vines when summer comes, but are now black knobbed and +gnarled clubs, without a sign of life save here and there one fat +green shoot of leaf and tendril bursting forth from the seemingly +dead stick. + +One who sees that sight may find a new meaning and beauty in the +mystic words, 'I am the vine, ye are the branches.' It is not merely +the connection between branch and stem, common to all trees; not +merely the exhilarating and seemingly inspiring properties of the +grape, which made the very heathens look upon it as the sacred and +miraculous fruit, the special gift of God; not merely the pruning out +of the unfruitful branches, to be burned as fire-wood, or--after the +old Roman fashion, which I believe endures still in these parts-- +buried as manure at the foot of the parent stem; not merely these, +but the seeming death of the vine, shorn of all its beauty, its +fruitfulness, of every branch and twig which it had borne the year +before, and left unsightly and seemingly ruined, to its winter's +sleep; and then bursting forth again, by an irresistible inward life, +into fresh branches spreading and trailing far and wide, and tossing +their golden tendrils to the sun. + +This thought, surely--the emblem of the living Church springing from +the corpse of the dead Christ, who yet should rise and be alive for +evermore--enters into, it may be forms an integral part of, the +meaning of, that prophecy of all prophecies. + +One ought to look, with something of filial reverence, on the +agriculture of the district into which we are penetrating; for it is +the parent of our own. From hence, or strictly speaking from the +Mediterranean shore beyond us, spread northward and westward through +France, Belgium, and Britain, all the tillage which we knew--at least +till a hundred years ago--beyond the primaeval plan of clearing, or +surface-burning, the forests, growing miserable white crops as long +as they would yield, and then letting the land relapse, for twenty +years, into miserable pasture. This process (which lingered thirty +years ago in remote parts of Devon), and nothing better, seems to +have been that change of cultivated lands which Tacitus ascribes to +the ancient Germans. Rotation of crops, in any true sense, came to +us from Provence and Languedoc; and with it, subsoiling; irrigation; +all our artificial grasses, with lucerne at the head of the list; our +peas and beans; some of our most important roots; almost all our +garden flowers, vegetables, fruits, the fig, the mulberry, the vine-- +(the olive and the maize came with them from the East, but dared go +no further north)--and I know not what more; till we may say, that-- +saving subsoil-draining, which their climate does not need--the +ancestors of these good folks were better farmers fifteen hundred +years ago, than too many of our countrymen are at this day. + +So they toil, and thrive, and bless God, under the glorious sun; and +as for rain--they have not had rain for these two months--(I speak of +April, 1864)--and, though the white limestone dust is ankle deep on +every road, say that they want none for two months more, thanks, it +is to be presumed, to their deep tillage, which puts the plant-roots +out of the reach of drought. In spring they feed their silkworms, +and wind their silk. In summer they reap their crops, and hang the +maize-heads from their rafters for their own winter food, while they +sell the wheat to the poor creatures, objects of their pity, who live +in towns, and are forced to eat white bread. From spring to autumn +they have fruit, and to spare, for themselves and for their +customers; and with the autumn comes the vintage, and all its classic +revelries. A happy folk--under a happy clime; which yet has its +drawbacks, like all climes on earth. Terrible thunderstorms sweep +over it, hail-laden, killing, battering, drowning, destroying in an +hour the labours of the year; and there are ugly mistral winds +likewise, of which it may be fairly said, that he who can face an +eight days' mistral, without finding his life a burden, must be +either a very valiant man, or have neither liver nor mucous membrane. + +For on a sudden, after still and burning weather, the thermometer +suddenly falls from thirty to forty degrees; and out of the north- +west rushes a chilly hurricane, blowing fiercer and fiercer each day +toward nightfall, and lulling in the small hours, only to burst forth +again at sunrise. Parched are all lips and eyes; for the air is full +of dust, yea, even of gravel which cuts like hail. Aching are all +right-sides; for the sudden chill brings on all manner of liver +complaints and indigestions. All who can afford it, draw tight the +jalousies, and sulk in darkness; the leaves are parched, as by an +Atlantic gale; the air is filled with lurid haze, as in an English +north-east wind; and no man can breathe freely, or eat his bread with +joy, until the plague is past. + +What is the cause of these mistrals; why all the cold air of Central +France should be suddenly seized with madness, and rush into the sea +between the Alps and the Pyrenees; whether the great heat of the sun, +acting on the Mediterranean basin, raises up thence--as from the Gulf +of Mexico--columns of warm light air, whose place has to be supplied +by colder and heavier air from inland; whether the north-west mistral +is, or is not, a diverted north-easter; an arctic current which, in +its right road toward the tropics across the centre of France, has +been called to the eastward of the Pyrenees (instead of, as usual, to +the westward), by the sudden demand for cold air,--all this let men +of science decide; and having discovered what causes the mistral, +discover also what will prevent it. That would be indeed a triumph +of science, and a boon to tortured humanity. + +But after all, man is a worse enemy to man than any of the brute +forces of nature: and a more terrible scourge than mistral or +tempest swept over this land six hundred years ago, when it was, +perhaps, the happiest and the most civilized portion of Europe. This +was the scene of the Albigense Crusade: a tragedy of which the true +history will never, perhaps, be written. It was not merely a +persecution of real or supposed heretics; it was a national war, +embittered by the ancient jealousies of race, between the Frank +aristocracy of the north and the Gothic aristocracy of the south, who +had perhaps acquired, with their half-Roman, half-Saracen +civilization, mixtures both of Roman and of Saracen blood. As +"Aquitanians," "Provencaux,"--Roman Provincials, as they proudly +called themselves, speaking the Langue d'Oc, and looking down on the +northerners who spoke the Langue d'Oil as barbarians, they were in +those days guilty of the capital crime of being foreigners; and as +foreigners they were exterminated. What their religious tenets were, +we shall never know. With the Vaudois, Waldenses, "poor men of +Lyons," they must not be for a moment confounded. Their creed +remains to us only in the calumnies of their enemies. The +confessions in the archives of the Tolosan Inquisition, as elicited +either under torture or fear of torture, deserve no confidence +whatsoever. And as for the licentiousness of their poetry--which has +been alleged as proof of their profligacy--I can only say, that it is +no more licentious than the fabliaux of their French conquerors, +while it is far more delicate and refined. Humanity, at least, has +done justice to the Troubadours of the south; and confessed, even in +the Middle Age, that to them the races of the north owed grace of +expression, delicacy of sentiment, and that respect for women which +soon was named chivalry; which looks on woman, not with suspicion and +contempt, but with trust and adoration; and is not ashamed to obey +her as "mistress," instead of treating her as a slave. + +But these Albigenses must have had something in their hearts for +which it was worth while to die. At Aviguonet, that little grey town +on the crag above the railway, they burst into the place, maddened by +the cruelties of the Inquisitor (an archdeacon, if I recollect +rightly, from Toulouse), and slew him then and there. They were shut +up in the town, and withstood heroically a long and miserable siege. +At last they were starved out. The conquerors offered them their +lives--so say the French stories--if they would recant. But they +would not. They were thrust together into one of those stone-walled +enclosures below the town, heaped over with vine-twigs and maize- +stalks, and burned alive; and among them a young lady of the highest +rank, who had passed through all the horrors of the siege, and was +offered life, wealth, and honour, if she would turn. + +Surely profligate infidels do not so die; and these poor souls, +whatever were their sins or their confusions, must be numbered among +the heroes of the human race. + +But the world has mended since then, and so has the French character. +Even before the Revolution of 1793, it was softening fast. The +massacres of 1562 were not as horrible as those of the Albigense +Crusade, though committed--which the former were not--under severe +provocation. The massacres of 1793--in spite of all that has been +said--were far less horrible than those of 1562, though they were the +outpouring of centuries of pardonable fury and indignation. The +crimes of the Terreur Blanche, at the Restoration--though ugly things +were done in the south, especially in Nismes--were far less horrible +again; though they were, for the most part, acts of direct personal +retaliation on the republicans of 1793. And since then the French +heart has softened fast. The irritating sense of hereditary wrong +has passed away. The Frenchman conceives that justice is done to +him, according to his own notions thereof. He has his share of the +soil, without which no Celtic populace will ever be content. He has +fair play in the battle of life; and a 'Carriere ouverte aux talens.' +He has equal law and justice between man and man. And he is content; +and under the sunshine of contentment and self-respect, his native +good-nature expands; and he shows himself what he is, not merely a +valiant and capable, but an honest, kindly, charitable man. + +Yes. France has grown better, and has been growing better, I +believe, for centuries past. And the difference between the France +of the middle age and the France of the present day, is fitly +typified by the difference between the new Carcassone below and the +old Carcassone above, where every traveller, even if he be no +antiquarian, should stop and gaze about a while. + +The contrast is complete; and one for which a man who loves his +fellow-men should surely return devout thanks to Almighty God. +Below, on the west bank of the river, is the new town, spreading and +growing, unwalled, for its fortifications are now replaced by +boulevards and avenues; full of handsome houses; squares where, +beneath the plane-tree shade, marble fountains pour out perpetual +health and coolness; manufactories of gay woollens; healthy, +cheerful, market folk; comfortable burghers; industry and peace. We +pass outside to the great basin of the Canal de Languedoc, and get +more avenues of stately trees, and among them the red marble statue +of Riquet, whose genius planned and carried out the mighty canal +which joins the ocean to the sea; the wonder of its day, which proved +the French to be, at least in the eighteenth century, the master- +engineers of the world; the only people who still inherited the +mechanical skill and daring of their Roman civilizers. Riquet bore +the labour of that canal--and the calumny and obstructiveness, too, +which tried to prevent its formation; France bore the expense; Louis +Quatorze, of course, the glory; and no one, it is to be feared, the +profit: for the navigation of the Garonne at the one extremity, and +of the Mediterranean shallows at the other, were left unimproved till +of late years, and the canal has become practically useful only just +in time to be superseded by the railroads. + +Now cross the Aude. Look down upon the willow and aspen copses, +where over the heads of busy washerwomen, the nightingale and the +hippolais crowded together away from the dusty plains and downs, +shake the copses with their song; and then toil upward to the grey +fortress tower on the grey limestone knoll; and pass, out of nature +and her pure sunshine, into the black shadow of the unnatural Middle +Age; into the region of dirt and darkness, cruelty and fear; grim +fortresses, crowded houses, narrow streets, and pestilence. Pass +through the outer circle of walls, of the latter part of the +thirteenth century, to examine--for their architecture is a whole +history engraved in stones--the ancient walls of the inner enceinte; +massive Roman below, patched with striped Visigothic work, with mean +and hasty Moorish, with graceful, though heavy, Romanesque of the +times of the Troubadours; a whole museum of ancient fortifications, +which has been restored, stone by stone, through the learning of M. +Viollet le Duc and the public spirit of the late Emperor. Pass in +under the gateway and give yourself up to legends. There grins down +on you the broad image of the mythic Dame Carcas, who defended the +town single-handed against Charlemagne, till this tower fell down by +miracle, and let in the Christian host. But do not believe that she +gave to the place its name of Carcassone; for the first syllable of +the word is hint enough that it was, long ere her days, a Celtic +caer, or hill-fortress. Pause at the inner gate; you need not +exactly believe that when the English Crusader, Simon de Montfort, +burst it open, and behold, the town within was empty and desolate, he +cried: 'Did I not tell you that those heretics were devils; and +behold, being devils, they have vanished into air.' You must +believe, I fear, that of the great multitude who had been crowded, +starving, and fever-stricken within, he found four hundred poor +wretches who had lingered behind, and burnt them all alive. You need +not believe that that is the mouth of the underground passage which +runs all the way from the distant hills, through which the Vicomte de +Beziers, after telling Simon de Montfort and the Abbot of Citeaux +that he would sooner be flayed alive than betray the poor folk who +had taken refuge with him, got them all safe away, men, women, and +children. You need not believe that that great vaulted chamber was +the 'Chamber of the Inquisition.' But you must believe that those +two ugly rings let into the roof were put there for the torture of +the cord; and that many a naked wretch has dangled from them ere now, +confessing anything and everything that he--or, alas she--was bidden. +But these and their like are the usual furniture of every mediaeval +court of justice; and torture was not altogether abolished in France +till the latter part of the eighteenth century. You need not +believe, again, that that circular tower on the opposite side of the +town was really the 'Tower of the Inquisition;' for many a feudal +lord, besides the Inquisitors, had their dens of cruelty in those old +times. You need not even believe--though it is too likely to be +true--that that great fireplace in the little first-floor room served +for the torture of the scarpines. But you must believe that in that +little round den beneath it, only approached by a trap in the floor, +two skeletons were found fastened by those chains to that central +pillar, having died and rotted forgotten in that horrid oubliette-- +how many centuries ago? + +'Plusieurs ont gemis la bas,' said M. Viollet le Duc's foreman of the +works, as he led us out of that evil hole, to look, with eyes and +hearts refreshed by the change, at a curious Visigothic tower, in +which the good bishop Sidonius Apollinaris may have told of the last +Burgundian invasion of his Auvergne to the good king Theodoric of the +West Goths. + +If anyone wishes to learn what the Middle Ages were like, let him go +to Carcassone and see. + +And now onward to Narbonne--or rather, to what was once Narbonne; one +of the earliest colonies ever founded by the Romans; then the capital +of the Visigothic kingdom; then of an Arab kingdom: now a dull +fortified town--of a filth unspeakable, and not to be forgotten or +forgiven. Stay not therein an hour, lest you take fever, or worse: +but come out of the gate over the drawbridge, and stroll down the +canal. Look back a moment, though, across the ditch. The whole face +of the wall is a museum of Roman gods, tombs, inscriptions, bas- +reliefs: the wreck of Martial's 'Pulcherrima Narbo,' the old Roman +city, which was demolished by Louis XIII., to build the ugly +fortifications of the then new fashion, now antiquated and useless. +Take one glance, and walk on, to look at live Nature--far more +interesting than dead Art. + +Everything fattens in the close damp air of the canal. The great +flat, with its heavy crops, puts you in mind of the richest English +lowland--save for the total want of old meadows. The weeds on the +bank are English in type, only larger and richer--as becomes the +climate. But as you look among them, you see forms utterly new and +strange, whose kinship you cannot fancy, but which remind you that +you are nearing Italy, and Greece, and Africa. And in the hedges are +great bay-trees; and inside them, orchards of standard fig and white +mulberry, with its long yearling shoots of glorious green--soon to be +stripped bare for the silkworms; and here and there long lines of +cypresses, black against the bright green plain and bright blue sky. +No; you are not in Britain. Certainly not; for there is a drake (not +a duck) quacking with feeble treble in that cypress, six feet over +your head; and in Britain drakes do not live in trees. You look for +the climbing palmipede, and see nothing: nor will you see; for the +quacker is a tiny green tree-frog, who holds on by the suckers at the +ends of his toes (with which he can climb a pane of glass, like a +fly), and has learnt the squirrel's art of going invisible, without +'the receipt of fern-seed,' by simply keeping always on the further +side of the branch. + +But come back; for the air even here is suggestive of cholera and +fever. The uncleanliness of these Narbonnois is shameless and +shocking; and 'immondices' of every kind lie festering in the +rainless heat. The sickened botanist retreats, and buys a bottle of +Eau Bully--alias aromatic vinegar. + +There, crowding yon hill, with handsome houses and churches, is +Beziers--the blood-stained city. Beneath the pavement of that +church, it is said, lie heaped together the remains of thousands of +men, women, and children, slaughtered around their own altars, on +that fatal day, when the Legate Amalric, asked by the knights how +they should tell Catholics from heretics, cried, "Kill them all--the +Lord will know his own." + +We will pass on. We have had enough of horrors. And, beside, we are +longing to hurry onward; for we are nearing the Mediterranean now. +There are small skiffs lying under the dark tower of Agde, another +place of blood, fitly built of black lava blocks, the offspring of +the nether pit. The railway cuts through rolling banks of dark lava; +and now, ahead of us, is the conical lava-hill of Cette, and the +mouth of the Canal du Midi. + + +There it is, at last. The long line of heavenly blue; and over it, +far away, the white-peaked lateen sails, which we have seen in +pictures since our childhood; and there, close to the rail, beyond +the sand-hills, delicate wavelets are breaking for ever on a yellow +beach, each in exactly the same place as the one which fell before. +One glance shows us children of the Atlantic, that we are on a +tideless sea. + +There it is,--the sacred sea. The sea of all civilization, and +almost all history, girdled by the fairest countries in the world; +set there that human beings from all its shores might mingle with +each other, and become humane--the sea of Egypt, of Palestine, of +Greece, of Italy, of Byzant, of Marseilles, and this Narbonnaise, +'more Roman than Rome herself,' to which we owe the greater part of +our own progress; the sea, too, Algeria and Carthage, and Cyrene, and +fair lands now desolate, surely not to be desolate for ever;--the sea +of civilization. Not only to the Christian, nor to the classic +scholar, but to every man to whom the progress of his race from +barbarism toward humanity is dear, should the Mediterranean Sea be +one of the most august and precious objects on this globe; and the +first sight of it should inspire reverence and delight, as of coming +home--home to a rich inheritance in which he has long believed by +hearsay, but which he sees at last with his own mortal corporal eyes. + +Exceedingly beautiful is that first view of the sea from Cette, +though altogether different in character from the views of the +Mediterranean which are common in every gallery of pictures. There +is nothing to remind one of Claude, or Vernet, or Stanfield. No +mountain-ranges far aloft, no cliffs toppling into the water, with +convents and bastides perched on their crags; and seaports, with +their land-locked harbours, and quaint lighthouses, nestling on the +brink. That scenery begins on the other side of the Rhone mouth, and +continues, I believe, almost without interruption, to the shores of +Southern Palestine, one girdle of perpetual beauty. + +But here, the rail runs along a narrow strip of sand, covered with +straggling vines, and tall white iris, between the sea and the great +Etang de Thau, a long narrow salt-lake, beyond which the wide +lowlands of the Herault slide gently down, There is not a mountain, +hardly a hill, visible for miles: but all around is the great sheet +of blue glassy water: while the air is as glassy clear as the water, +and through it, at seemingly immense distances, the land shows purple +and orange, blue and grey, till the landscape is one great rainbow. +White ships slide to and from far-off towns; fishermen lounge on the +marshes, drying long lines of net. Everywhere is vastness, freedom, +repose gentle and yet not melancholy; because with all, under the +burning blue, there is that fresh wholesome heat, which in itself is +life, and youth, and joy. + +Beyond, nearer the mouths of the Rhone, there are, so men say, +desolate marshes, tenanted by herds of half-wild horses; foul mud- +banks, haunted by the pelican and the flamingo, and waders from the +African shore; a region half land, half water, where dwell savage +folk, decimated by fever and ague. But short of those Bouches du +Rhone, the railway turns to the north, toward Montpellier and + + +'Arli, dove il Rhodano stagna.' + + +And at Cette ends this little tour from Ocean to Sea, with the wish +that he who next travels that way may have as glorious weather, and +as agreeable a companion, as the writer of these lines had in 1864. + + + +VI. NORTH DEVON {225a} + + + +I.--EXMOOR. + +We were riding up from Lynmouth, on a pair of ragged ponies, Claude +Mellot and I, along the gorge of Watersmeet. And as we went we +talked of many things; and especially of some sporting book which we +had found at the Lyndale Hotel the night before, and which we had not +by any means admired. {225b} I do not object to sporting books in +general, least of all to one on Exmoor. No place in England is more +worthy of one. There is no place whose beauties and peculiarities +are more likely to be thrown into strong relief by being looked at +with a sportsman's eye. It is so with all forests and moorlands. +The spirit of Robin Hood and Johnny of Breadislee is theirs. They +are remnants of the home of man's fierce youth, still consecrated to +the genius of animal excitement and savage freedom; after all, not +the most ignoble qualities of human nature. Besides, there is no +better method of giving a living picture of a whole country than by +taking some one feature of it as a guide, and bringing all other +observations into harmony with that original key. Even in merely +scientific books this is very possible. Look, for instance, at Hugh +Miller's 'Old Red Sandstone,' 'The Voyage of the Beagle,' and +Professor Forbes's work (we had almost said epic poem) on 'Glaciers.' +Even an agricultural writer, if he have a real insight in him--if he +have anything of that secret of the piu nel' uno, 'the power of +discovering the infinite in the finite;' of seeing, like a poet, +trivial phenomena in their true relation to the whole of the great +universe into which they are so cunningly fitted; if he has learned +to look at all things and men, down to the meanest, as living lessons +written with the finger of God; if, in short, he has any true +dramatic power: then he may impart to that apparently muddiest of +sciences a poetic or a humorous tone, and give the lie to +Mephistopheles when he dissuades Faust from farming as an occupation +too mean and filthy for a man of genius. The poetry of agriculture +remains as yet, no doubt, unwritten, and the comedy of it also; +though its farce-tragedy has been too often extensively enacted in +practice--unconsciously to the players. As for the old 'pastoral' +school, it only flourished before agriculture really existed--that +is, before sound science, hard labour, and economy were necessary-- +and has been for the last two hundred years simply a dream. +Nevertheless, as signs of what may be done even now by a genial man +with so stubborn a subject as 'turnips, barley, clover, wheat,' it is +worth while to look at old Arthur Young's books, both travels and +treatises; and also at certain very spirited 'Chronicles of a Clay +Farm,' by Talpa, which teem with humour and wisdom. + +In sporting literature--a tenth muse, exclusively indigenous to +England--the same observation holds good tenfold. Some of our most +perfect topographical sketches have been the work of sportsmen. Old +Izaak Walton, and his friend Cotton, of Dovedale, whose names will +last as long as their rivers, have been followed by a long train of +worthy pupils. White's 'History of Selborne;' Sir Humphry Davy's +'Salmonia;' 'The Wild Sports of the West;' Mr. St. John's charming +little works on Highland Shooting; and, above all, Christopher +North's 'Recreations'--delightful book! to be read and re-read, the +tenth time even as the first--an inexhaustible fairy well, springing +out of the granite rock of the sturdy Scotch heart, through the +tender green turf of a genial boyish old age. Sporting books, when +they are not filled--as they need never be--with low slang, and ugly +sketches of ugly characters--who hang on to the skirts of the +sporting world, as they would to the skirts of any other world, in +default of the sporting one--form an integral and significant, and, +it may be, an honourable and useful part, of the English literature +of this day; and, therefore, all shallowness, vulgarity, stupidity, +or bookmaking in that class, must be as severely attacked as in +novels and poems. We English owe too much to our field sports to +allow people to talk nonsense about them. + +Claude smiled at some such words of mine that day. 'You talk often +of the poetry of sport. I can see nothing in it but animal +excitement, and a certain quantity, I suppose, of that animal cunning +which the Red Indian possesses in common with the wolf and the cat, +and any other beast of prey. As a fact, the majority of sportsmen +are of the most unpoetical type of manhood.' + +'More unpoetical than the average man of business, or man of law, +Claude? Or even than the average preacher? I believe, on the +contrary, that for most of them it is sport which at once keeps alive +and satisfies what you would call their aesthetic faculties, and so-- +smile if you will--helps to make them purer, simpler, more genial +men.' + +'Little enough of aesthetic appears either in their conversation or +their writing.' + +'Esau is a dumb soul, especially here in England; but he has as deep +a heart in him as Jacob, nevertheless, and as tender. Do you fancy +that the gentleman over whose book we were grumbling last night, +attached no more to his own simple words than you do? His account of +a stag's run looks bald enough to you: but to him (unless Diana +struck him blind for intruding on her privacy) what a whole poem of +memories there must be in those few words,--"Turned down * * Water +for a mile, and crossed the forest to Watersmeet, where he was run +into after a gallant race."' + +'A whole poem?' + +'Why not? How can there be less, if he had eyes to see?' + +'Does he fancy that it is an account of a run to tell us that "Found +at * * * * cover, held away at a slapping pace for * * * * Barn, then +turned down the * * * Water for a mile, and crossed the Forest; made +for * * * Hill, but being headed, went by ** ** woods to D * * * +where he was run into after a gallant race of * * * * hours and * * * +*miles"? It is nearly as dull as a history book!' + +'Nay, I never rode with those staghounds: and yet I can fill up his +outline for him, wherever the stag was roused. Do you think that he +never marked how the panting cavalcade rose and fell on the huge +mile-long waves of that vast heather sea; how one long brown hill +after another sunk down, greyer and greyer, behind them, and one long +grey hill after another swelled up browner and browner before them; +and how the sandstone rattled and flew beneath their feet, as the +great horses, like Homer's of old, "devoured up the plain;" and how +they struggled down the hill-side, through bushes and rocks, and +broad slipping rattling sheets of screes, and saw beneath them stag +and pack galloping down the shallow glittering river-bed, throwing up +the shingle, striking out the water in long glistening sheets; and +how they too swept after them, down the flat valley, rounding crag +and headland, which opened one after another in interminable vista, +along the narrow strip of sand and rushes, speckled with stunted, +moss-bearded, heather-bedded hawthorns, between the great grim +lifeless mountain walls? Did he feel no pleasant creeping of the +flesh that day at the sound of his own horse-hoofs, as they swept +through the long ling with a sound as soft as the brushing of a +woman's tresses, and then rang down on the spongy, black, +reverberating soil, chipping the honey-laden fragrant heather +blossoms, and tossing them out in a rosy shower? Or, if that were +really too slight a thing for the observation of an average +sportsman, surely he must recollect the dying away of the hounds' +voices, as the woodland passes engulfed them, whether it were Brendon +or at Badger-worthy, or any other place; how they brushed through the +narrow forest paths, where the ashes were already golden, while the +oaks still kept their sombre green, and the red leaves and berries of +the mountain-ash showed bright beneath the dark forest aisles; and +how all of a sudden the wild outcry before them seemed to stop and +concentrate, thrown back, louder and louder as they rode, off the +same echoing crag; till at a sudden turn of the road there stood the +stag beneath them in the stream, his back against the black rock with +its green cushions of dripping velvet, knee-deep in the clear amber +water, the hounds around him, some struggling and swimming in the +deep pool, some rolling and tossing and splashing in a mad, half- +terrified ring, as he reared into the air on his great haunches, with +the sparkling beads running off his red mane, and dropping on his +knees, plunged his antlers down among them, with blows which would +have each brought certain death with it if the yielding water had not +broken the shock. Do you think that he does not remember the death? +The huge carcass dragged out of the stream, followed by dripping, +panting dogs; the blowing of the mort, and the last wild halloo, when +the horn-note and the voices rang through the autumn woods, and +rolled up the smooth flat mountain sides; and Brendon answered +Countisbury, and Countisbury sent it on to Lynmouth hills, till it +swept out of the gorge and died away upon the Severn sea? And then, +does he not remember the pause, and the revulsion, and the feeling of +sadness and littleness, almost of shame, as he looked up for the +first time--one can pardon his not having done so before--and saw +where he was, and the beauty of the hill-sides, with the lazy autumn +clouds crawling about their tops, and the great sheets of screes, +glaciers of stone covering acres and acres of the smooth hill-side, +eating far into the woods below, bowing down the oak scrubs with +their weight, and the circular sweeps of down, flecked with +innumerable dark spots of gorse, each of them guarded where they open +into the river chasm by two fortresses of "giant-snouted crags,"-- +delicate pink and grey sandstone, from which blocks and crumbling +boulders have been toppling slowly down for ages, beneath the frost +and the whirlwind, and now lie in long downward streams upon the +slope, as if the mountain had been weeping tears of stone? And then, +as the last notes of the mort had died away, did not there come over +him an awe at the silence of the woods, not broken, but deepened, by +the unvarying monotone of the roaring stream beneath, which flashed +and glittered, half-hidden in the dark chasm, in clear brown pools +reflecting every leaf and twig, in boiling pits and walls of foam, +ever changing, and yet for ever the fleeting on past the poor dead +reeking stag and the silent hounds lying about on the moss- +embroidered stones, their lolling tongues showing like bright crimson +sparkles in the deep rich Venetian air of the green sombre shades; +while the startled water-ousel, with his white breast, flitted a few +yards and stopped to stare from a rock's point at the strange +intruders; and a single stock-dove, out of the bosom of the wood, +began calling sadly and softly, with a dreamy peaceful moan? Did he +not see and hear all this, for surely it was there to see and hear?' + +'Not he. The eye only sees that which it brings within the power of +seeing; and all I shall say of him is, that a certain apparition in +white leathers was at one period of its appearance dimly conscious of +equestrian motion towards a certain brown two-horned phenomenon, and +other spotted phenomena, at which he had been taught by habit to make +the articulate noises "stag" and "hounds," among certain grey, and +green, and brown phenomena, at which the same habit and the example +of his fellows had taught him to say, "Rock, and wood, and mountain," +and perhaps the further noises of "Lovely, splendid, majestic."' + +'As usual, sir! You dwellers in Babylon fancy that you have the +monopoly of all the intellect, and all the taste, because you earn +your livings by talking about pretty things, and painting pretty +things: little do you suspect, shut up together in your little +literary worlds, and your artistic worlds, how many thousands of us +outside barbarians there are who see as clearly, and enjoy as deeply +as you do: but hold their tongues about their own feelings, simply +because they have never been driven by emptiness of pocket to look +round for methods of expressing them. And, after all--how much of +nature can you express? You confest yourself yesterday baffled by +all the magnificence around you.' + +'Yes! to paint it worthily one would require to be a Turner, a Copley +Fielding, and a Creswick, all in one.' + +'And did you ever remark how such scenes as this gorge of the +"Watersmeet" stir up a feeling of shame, almost of peevishness, +before the sense of a mysterious meaning which we ought to understand +and cannot?' + +He smiled. + +'Our torments do by length of time become our elements; and painful +as that sensation is to the earnest artist, he will feel it, I fancy, +at last sublime itself into an habitually gentle, reverent, almost +melancholy tone of mind, as of a man bearing the burden of an +infinite and wonderful message which his own frivolity and laziness +hinder him from speaking out.' + +'Then it should beget in him, too, something of merciful indulgence +towards the seeming stupidity of those who see, after all, only a +very little shallower than he does into the unfathomable depths of +nature.' + +'Well, sporting books and sportsmen seem to me, by their very object, +not to be worth troubling our heads about. Out of nothing, comes +nothing. See, my hands are as soft as any lady's in Belgravia. I +could not, to save my life, lift a hundredweight a foot off the +ground; while you have been a wild man of the woods, a leaper of +ditches, a rower of races, and a wanton destroyer of all animal life: +and yet--' + +'You would hint politely that you are as open as me to all noble, and +chivalrous, and truly manly emotions?' + +'What think you?' + +'That you are far worthier in such matters than I, friend. But do +not forget that it may be your intellect, and your profession--in one +word, Heaven's mercy--which have steered you clear of shoals upon +which you will find the mass of our class founder. Woe to the class +or the nation which has no manly physical training! Look at the +manners, the morals, the faces of the young men of the shopkeeping +classes, if you wish to see the effects of utterly neglecting the +physical development of man; {235} of fancying that all the muscular +activity he requires under the sun is to be able to stand behind a +counter, or sit on a desk-stool without tumbling off. Be sure, be +sure, that ever since the days of the Persians of old, effeminacy, if +not twin-sister of cowardice and dishonesty, has always gone hand in +hand with them. To that utter neglect of any exercises which call +out fortitude, patience, self-dependence, and daring, I attribute a +great deal of the low sensuality, the conceited vulgarity, the want +of a high sense of honour, which is increasing just now among the +middle classes; and from which the navigator, the engineer, the +miner, and the sailor are comparatively free.' + +'And perhaps, too, that similar want of a high sense of honour, which +seems, from the religious periodicals, to pervade a large proportion +of a certain more venerable profession?' + +'Seriously, Claude, I believe you are not far wrong. But we are +getting on delicate ground there: however I have always found, that +of whatever profession he may be--to travestie Shakspeare's words, - + + +"The man that hath not sporting in his soul, +Is fit for treason's direst stratagems" - + + +and so forth.' + +'Civil to me!' + +'Oh, you have a sporting soul in you, like hundreds of other +Englishmen who never handled rod or gun; or you would not be steering +for Exmoor to-day. If a lad be a genius, you may trust him to find +some original means for developing his manly energies, whether in +art, agriculture, science, or travels, discovery, and commerce. But +if he be not, as there are a thousand chances to one he will not be, +then whatever you teach him, let the two first things be, as they +were with the old Persians, "To speak the truth, and to draw the +bow."' + +By this time we had reached the stream, just clearing from the last +night's showers. A long transparent amber shallow, dimpled with +fleeting silver rings by rising trout; a low cascade of green-veined +snow; a deep dark pool of swirling orange-brown, walled in with +heathery rocks, and paved with sandstone slabs and boulders, +distorted by the changing refractions of the eddies,--sight delicious +to the angler. + +I commenced my sport at once, while Claude wandered up the glen to +sketch a knoll of crags, on which a half-wild moorland pony, the only +living thing in sight, stood staring and snuffing at the intruder, +his long mane and tail streaming out wildly against the sky. + +I had fished on for some hour or two; Claude had long since +disappeared among the hills; I fancied myself miles from any human +being, when a voice at my elbow startled me + +'A bleak place for fishing this, sir!' + +I turned; it was an old grey-whiskered labouring man, with pick and +spade on shoulder, who had crept on me unawares beneath the wall of +the neighbouring deer-cover. Keen honest eyes gleamed out from his +brown, scarred, weather-beaten face; and as he settled himself +against a rock with the deliberate intention of a chat, I commenced +by asking after the landlord of those parts, well known and honoured +both by sportsman and by farmer. + +'He was gone to Malta--a warmer place that than Exmoor.' + +'What! have you been in Malta?' + +Yes, he had been in Malta, and in stranger places yet. He had been a +sailor: he had seen the landing in Egypt, and heard the French +cannon thundering vainly from the sand-hills on the English boats. +He had himself helped to lift Abercrombie up the ship's side to the +death-bed of the brave. He had seen Caraccioli hanging at his own +yard-arm, and heard (so he said, I know not how correctly) Lady +Hamilton order out the barge herself, and row round the frigate of +the murdered man, to glut her eyes with her revenge. He had seen, +too, the ghastly corpse floating upright, when Nelson and the +enchantress met their victim, returned from the sea-depths to stare +at them, as Banquo's ghost upon Macbeth. But she was 'a mortal fine +woman, was Lady Hamilton, though she was a queer one, and cruel kind +to the sailors; and many a man she saved from flogging; and one from +hanging, too; that was a marine that got a-stealing; for Nelson, +though he was kind enough, yet it was a word and a blow with him; and +quite right he, sir; for there be such rascals on board ship, that if +you ain't as sharp with them as with wild beastesses, no man's life, +nor the ship's neither, would be worth a day's purchase.' + +So he, with his simple straightforward notions of right and wrong +worth, much maudlin unmerciful indulgence which we hear in these +days: and yet not going to the bottom of the matter either, as we +shall see in the next war. But, rambling on, he told me how he had +come home, war-worn and crippled, to marry a wife and get tall sons, +and lay his bones in his native village; till which time (for death +to the aged poor man is a Sabbath, of which he talks freely, calmly, +even joyously) 'he just got his bread, by the squire's kindness, +patching and mending at the stone deer-fences.' + +I gave him something to buy tobacco, and watched him as he crawled +away, with a sort of stunned surprise. And he had actually seen +Nelson sit by Lady Hamilton! It was so strange, to have that gay +Italian bay, with all its memories,--the orgies of Baiae, and the +unburied wrecks of ancient towns, with the smoking crater far above; +and the world-famous Nile-mouths and those great old wars, big with +the destinies of the world; and those great old heroes, with their +awful deeds for good and evil, all brought so suddenly and livingly +before me, up there in the desolate moorland, where the deer, and +birds, and heath, and rushes were even as they had been from the +beginning. Like Wordsworth with his Leech-Gatherer (a poem which I, +in spite of laughter, must rank among his very highest), - + + +'While he was talking thus, the lonely place, +The old man's shape, and speech--all troubled me; +In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace +About the weary moors continually, +Wandering about alone and silently. +. . . and when he ended, +I could have laughed myself to scorn to find +In that decrepit man so firm a mind.' + + +Just then I heard a rustle, and turning, saw Claude toiling down to +me over the hill-side. He joined me, footsore and weary, but in +great excitement; for the first minute or two he could not speak, and +at last, - + +'Oh, I have seen such a sight!--but I will tell you how it all was. +After I left you I met a keeper. He spoke civilly to me--you know my +antipathy to game and those who live thereby: but there was a wild, +bold, self-helping look about him and his gun alone there in the +waste--and after all he was a man and a brother. Well, we fell into +talk, and fraternized; and at last he offered to take me to a +neighbouring hill and show me "sixty head of red-deer all together;" +and as he spoke he looked quite proud of his words. "I was lucky," +he said, "to come just then, for the stags had all just got their +heads again." At which speech I wondered; but was silent, and +followed him, I, Claude the Cockney, such a walk as I shall never +take again. Behold these trousers--behold these hands! scratched to +pieces by crawling on all-fours through the heather. But I saw +them.' + +'A sight worth many pairs of plaid trousers?' + +'Worth Saint Chrysostom's seven years' nakedness on all-fours! And +so I told the fellow, who by some cunning calculations about wind, +and sun, and so forth, which he imparted to my uncomprehending ears, +brought me suddenly to the top of a little crag, below which, some +hundred yards off, the whole herd stood, stags, hinds--but I can't +describe them. I have not brought away a scrap of sketch, though we +watched them full ten minutes undiscovered; and then the stare, and +the toss of those antlers, and the rush! That broke the spell with +me; for I had been staring stupidly at them, trying in vain to take +in the sight, with the strangest new excitement heaving and boiling +up in my throat; and at the sound of their hoofs on the turf I woke, +and found the keeper staring, not at them, but at me, who, I verily +believe, had something very like a tear in these excitable eyes of +mine.' + +'"Ain't you well, sir?" said he. "You needn't be afeard; it's only +at the fall of the year the stags is wicked." + +'I don't know what I answered at first; but the fellow understood me +when I shook his hand frantically, and told him that I should thank +him to the last day of my life, and that I would not have missed it +for a thousand pounds. In part-proof whereof I gave him a sovereign +on the spot, which seemed to clear my character in his eyes as much +as the crying at the sight of a herd of deer had mystified it.' + +'Claude, well-beloved,' said I, 'will you ever speak contemptuously +of sportsmen any more?' + +'"Do manus," I have been vilifying them, as one does most things in +the world, only for want of understanding them. How shall I do +penance? Go and take service with Edwin Landseer, as pupil, colour- +grinder, footboy?' + +'You will then be very near to a very great poet,' quoth I, 'and one +whose works will become, as centuries roll on, more and more valuable +to art and to science, and, possibly, to something higher than +either.' + +'I begin to guess your meaning,' answered Claude. + +'So we lounged, and dreamt, and fished, in heathery Highland,' as Mr. +Clough would say, while the summer snipes flitted whistling up the +shallow before us, and the soft, south-eastern clouds slid lazily +across the sun, and the little trout snapped and dimpled at a tiny +partridge hackle, with a twist of orange silk, whose elegance for +shape and colour reconciled Claude's heart somewhat to my everlasting +whipping of the water. When as last:- + +'You seem to have given up catching anything. You have not stirred a +fish in this last two pools, except that little saucy yellow shrimp, +who jumped over your fly, and gave a spiteful slap at it with his +tail.' + +Too true; and what could be the cause? Had that impudent sand-piper +frightened all the fish on his way up? Had an otter paralysed them +with terror for the morning? Or had a stag been down to drink? We +saw the fresh slot of his broad claws, by the bye, in the mud a few +yards back. + +'We must have seen the stag himself, if he had been here lately,' +said Claude. + +'Mr. Landseer knows too well by this time that that is a non +sequitur.' + +'"I am no more a non sequitur than you are," answered the Cornish +magistrate to the barrister.' + +'Fish and deer, friend, see us purblind sons of men somewhat more +quickly than we see them, fear sharpening the senses. Perhaps, after +all, the fault is in your staring white-straw hat, a garment which +has spoilt many a good day's fishing. Ah, no! there is the cause; +the hat of a mightier than you--the thunder-spirit himself. Thor is +at hand, while the breeze, awe-stricken, falls dead calm before his +march. Behold, climbing above that eastern ridge, his huge powdered +cauliflower-wig, barred with a grey horizontal handkerchief of mist.' + +'Oh, profane and uncomely simile!--which will next, I presume, liken +the coming hailstorm to hair-powder shaken from the said wig.' + +'To shot rather than to powder. Flee, oh, flee to yonder pile of +crags, and thank your stars that there is one at hand; for these +mountain tornadoes are at once Tropic in their ferocity and Siberian +in their cutting cold.' + +Down it came. The brown hills vanished in white sheets of hail, +first falling perpendicularly, then slanting and driving furiously +before the cold blast which issued from the storm. The rock above us +rang with the thunder-peals; and the lightning, which might have +fallen miles away, seemed to our dazzled eyes to dive into the +glittering river at our feet. We sat silent some half-hour, +listening to the voice of One more mighty than ourselves; and it was +long after the uproar had rolled away among the hills, and a steady, +sighing sheet of warmer rains, from banks of low grey fog, had +succeeded the rattling of the hail upon the crisp heather, that I +turned to Claude. + +'And now, since your heart is softened towards these wild, stag- +hunting, trout fishing, jovial west-countrymen, consider whether it +should not be softened likewise toward those old outlaw ballads which +I have never yet been able to make you admire. They express feelings +not yet extinct in the minds of a large portion of the lower orders, +as you would know had you lived, like me, all your life in poaching +counties, and on the edges of one forest after another,--feelings +which must be satisfied, even in the highest development of the +civilization of the future, for they are innate in every thoughtful +and energetic race,--feelings which, though they have often led to +crime, have far oftener delivered from swinish sensuality; the +feelings which drove into the merry greenwood "Robin Hood, Scarlet, +and John;" "Adam Bell, and Clym of the Cleugh, and William of +Cloudislee;" the feelings which prompted one half of his inspiration +to the nameless immortal who wrote the "Nutbrown Maid;"--feelings +which could not then, and cannot now, be satisfied by the drudgery of +a barbaric agriculture, which, without science, economy, or +enterprise, offers no food for the highest instincts of the human +mind, its yearnings after Nature, after freedom, and the noble +excitement of self-dependent energy.' + +Our talk ended: but the rain did not: and we were at last fain to +leave our shelter, and let ourselves be blown by the gale (the +difficulty being not to progress forward, but to keep our feet) back +to the shed where our ponies were tied, and to canter home to +Lynmouth, with the rain cutting our faces like showers of pebbles, +and our little mountain ponies staggering against the wind, and more +than once, if Londoners will believe me, blown sheer up against the +bank by some mad gust, which rushed perpendicularly, not down, but +up, the chasms of the glens below. + + +II.--THE COAST LINE. + + +It is four o'clock on a May morning, and Claude and I are just +embarking on board a Clovelly trawling skiff, which, having disposed +of her fish at various ports along the Channel, is about to run +leisurely homewards with an ebb tide, and a soft north-easterly +breeze. + +So farewell, fair Lynmouth; and ye storm-spirits, send us a +propitious day; and dismiss those fantastic clouds which are +coquetting with your thrones, crawling down one hill-side, and +whirling and leaping up another, in wreaths of snow, and dun, and +amber, pierced every minute by some long glittering upward arrow from +the rising sun, which gilds grey crags and downs a thousand feet +above, while underneath the gorges still sleep black and cold in +shade. + +There, they have heard us! The cap rises off the 'Summer-house +hill,' that eight hundred feet of upright wall, which seems ready to +topple down into the nest of be-myrtled cottages at its foot; and as +we sweep out into the deeper water the last mist-flake streams up +from the Foreland, and vanishes in white threads into the stainless +blue. + +'Look at the colours of that Foreland!' cried Claude. 'The simple +monotone of pearly green, broken only at intervals by blood-red +stains, where the turf has slipped and left the fresh rock bare, and +all glimmering softly through a delicate blue haze, like the bloom on +a half-ripened plum!' + +'And look, too, how the grey pebble beach is already dancing and +quivering in the mirage which steams up, like the hot breath of a +limekiln, from the drying stones. Talk of "glazings and scumblings," +ye artists! and bungle at them as you will, what are they to Nature's +own glazings, deepening every instant there behind us?' + +'Mock me not. I have walked up and down here with a humbled and +broken spirit, and had nearly forsworn the audacity of painting +anything beyond a beech stem, or a frond of fern.' + +'The little infinite in them would have baffled you as much as the +only somewhat bigger infinite of just the hills on which they grow.' + +'Confest: and so farewell to unpaintable Lynmouth! Farewell to the +charming contrast of civilized English landscape-gardening, with its +villas, and its exotics, and its evergreens, thus strangely and yet +harmoniously confronted with the chaos of the rocks and mountain- +streams. Those grounds of Sir William H---'s are a double paradise, +the wild Eden of the Past side by side with the cultivated Eden of +the Future. How its alternations of Art and Savagery at once startle +and relieve the sense, as you pass suddenly out of wildernesses of +piled boulders, and torrent-shattered trees, and the roar of fern- +fringed waterfalls, into "trim walks, and fragrant alleys green; and +the door of a summer-house transports you at a step from Richmond to +the Alps. Happy he who "possesses," as the world calls it, and +happier still he whose taste could organize, that fairy bower.' + +So he, magniloquently, as was his wont; and yet his declamations +always flowed with such a graceful ease,--a simple, smiling +earnestness,--an unpractised melody of voice, that what would have +been rant from other lips, from his showed only as the healthy +enthusiasm of the passionate, all-seeing, all-loving artist. + +'Look yonder, again,' said he, gazing up at the huge boulder-strewn +hill-side above us. 'One wonders at that sight, whether the fable of +the giants be not true after all,--and that "Vale of Rocks," hanging +five hundred feet in air, with all its crag-castles, and tottering +battlements, and colossal crumbling idols, and great blocks, which +hang sloping, caught in act to fall, be not some enormous Cyclopean +temple left half-disinterred: or is it a fragment of old Chaos, left +unorganized?--or, perhaps, the waste heap of the world, where, after +the rest of England had been made, some angel put up a notice for his +fellows, "Dry rubbish shot here"?' + +'Not so, unscientific! It is the grandfather of hills,--a fossil +bone of some old continent, which stood here ages before England was. +And the great earth-angel, who grinds up mountains into paint, as you +do bits of ochre, for his "Continental Sketches," found in it the +materials for a whole dark ground-tone of coal-measures, and a few +hundred miles of warm high-lights, which we call New Red Sandstone.' + +What a sea-wall they are, those Exmoor hills! Sheer upward from the +sea a thousand feet rise the downs; and as we slide and stagger +lazily along before the dying breeze, through the deep water which +never leaves the cliff, the eye ranges, almost dizzy, up some five +hundred feet of rock, dappled with every hue; from the intense dark +of the tide-line, through the warm green and brown rock-shadows, out +of which the horizontal cracks of the strata loom black, and the +breeding gulls show like lingering snow-flakes; up to the middle +cliff, where delicate grey fades into pink, pink into red, red into +glowing purple; up to where the purple is streaked with glossy ivy +wreaths, and black-green yews; up to where all the choir of colours +vanishes abruptly on the mid-hill, to give place to one yellowish- +grey sheet of upward down, sweeping aloft smooth and unbroken, except +by a lonely stone, or knot of clambering sheep, and stopped by one +great rounded waving line, sharp-cut against the brilliant blue. The +sheep hang like white daisies upon the steep; and a solitary falcon +rides, a speck in air, yet far below the crest of that tall hill. +Now he sinks to the cliff edge, and hangs quivering, supported, like +a kite, by the pressure of his breast and long curved wings, against +the breeze. + +There he hangs, the peregrine--a true 'falcon gentle,' 'sharp- +notched, long-taloned, crooked-winged,' whose uncles and cousins, +ages since, have struck at duck and pheasant, and sat upon the wrists +of kings. And now he is full proud of any mouse or cliff-lark; like +an old Chingachgook, last of the Mohicans, he lingers round 'the +hunting-field of his fathers.' So all things end. + + +'The old order changeth, giving place to the new; +And God fulfils Himself in many ways, +Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.' + + +'Ay, and the day may come,' said Claude, 'when the brows of that huge +High Vere shall be crowned with golden wheat, and every rock-ledge on +Trentishoe, like those of Petra and the Rhine, support its garden-bed +of artificial soil.' + +'And when,' I answered, 'the shingly sides of that great chasm of +Headon's Mouth may be clothed with the white mulberry, and the summer +limestone-skiffs shall go back freighted with fabrics which vie with +the finest woof of Italy and Lyons.' + +'You believe, then, in the late Mrs. Whitby of Lymington?' + +'Seeing is believing, Claude: through laughter, and failures, and +the stupidity of half-barbarous clods, she persevered in her silk- +growing, and succeeded; and I should like to put her book into the +hands of every squire in Devon, Cornwall, and the South of Ireland.' + +'Or require them to pass an examination in it, as one more among the +many books which I intend, in my ideal kingdom, all landlords to read +and digest, before they are allowed to take possession of their +estates. In the meantime, what is that noble conical hill, which has +increased my wonder at the infinite variety of beauty which The +Spirit can produce by combinations so simple as a few grey stones and +a sheet of turf?' + +'The Hangman.' + +'An ominous name. What is its history?' + +'Some sheep-stealer, they say, clambering over a wall with his booty +slung round his neck, was literally hung by the poor brute's +struggles, and found days after on the mountain-side, a blackened +corpse on one side of the wall, with the sheep on the other, and the +ravens--You may fill up the picture for yourself.' + +But, see, as we round the Hangman, what a change of scene--the +square-blocked sandstone cliffs dip suddenly under dark slate-beds, +fantastically bent and broken by primeval earthquakes. Wooded +combes, and craggy ridges of rich pasture-land, wander and slope +towards a labyrinth of bush-fringed coves, black isolated tide-rocks, +and land-locked harbours. There shines among the woods the Castle of +Watermouth, on its lovely little salt-water loch, the safest harbour +on the coast; and there is Combe-Martin, mile-long man-stye, which +seven centuries of fruitless silver-mining, and of the right (now +deservedly lost) of 'sending a talker to the national palaver,' have +neither cleansed nor civilized. Turn, turn thy head away, dear +Claude, lest even at this distance some foul odour taint the summer +airs, and complete the misfortune already presaged by that pale, sad +face, sickening in the burning calm! For this great sun-roasted +fire-brick of the Exmoor range is fairly burning up the breeze, and +we have nothing but the tide to drift us slowly down to Ilfracombe. + +Now we open Rillage, and now Hillsborough, two of the most +picturesque of headlands; see how their round foreheads of glistening +grey shale sink down into two dark, jagged moles, running far out to +seaward, and tapering off, each into a long black horizontal line, +vanishing at last beneath its lace-fringe of restless hissing foam. +How grand the contrast of the lightness of those sea-lines, with the +solid mass which rests upon them! Look, too, at the glaring lights +and Tartarean shadows of those chasms and caves, which the tide never +leaves, or the foot of man explores; and listen how, at every rush of +the long ground-swell, mysterious mutterings, solemn sighs, sudden +thunders, as of a pent-up earthquake, boom out of them across the +glassy swell. Look at those blasts of delicate vapour that shoot up +from hidden rifts, and hang a moment, and vanish; and those green +columns of wave which rush mast-high up the perpendicular walls, and +then fall back and outward in a waterfall of foam, lacing the black +rocks with a thousand snowy streams. There they fall, and leap, and +fall again. And so they did yesterday, and the day before; and so +they did centuries ago, when the Danes swept past them, battleworn, +and sad of heart for the loss of the magic raven flag, from the fight +at Appledore, to sit down and starve on 'the island of Bradanrelice, +which men call Flat Holms.' Ay, and even so they leapt and fell, +before a sail gleamed on the Severn sea, when the shark and the +ichthyosaur paddled beneath the shade of tropic forests--now scanty +turf and golden gorse. And so they will leap and fall on, on, +through the centuries and the ages. O dim abyss of Time, into which +we peer shuddering, what will be the end of thee, and of this +ceaseless coil and moan of waters? It is true, that when thou shalt +be no more, then, too, 'there shall be no more sea;' and this ocean +bed, this great grave of fertility, into which all earth's wasted +riches stream, day and night, from hill and town, shall rise and +become fruitful soil, corn-field and meadow-land; and earth shall +teem as thick with living men as bean-fields with the summer bees? +What a consummation! At least there is One greater than sea, or +time: and the Judge of all the earth will do right. + +But there is Ilfracombe, with its rock-walled harbour, its little +wood of masts within, its white terraces, rambling up the hills, and +its capstone sea-walk, the finest 'marine parade,' as Cockneydom +terms it, in all England, except that splendid Hoe at Plymouth, 'Lam +Goemagot,' Gog-magog's leap, as the old Britains called it, over +which Corineus threw that mighty giant. And there is the little +isolated rock-chapel, where seven hundred years ago, our west-country +forefathers used to go to pray St. Nicholas for deliverance from +shipwreck,--a method lovingly regretted by some, as a 'pious idea of +the Ages of faith.' We, however, shall prefer the method of +lighthouses and the worthy Trinity Board, as actually more godly and +'faithful,' as well as more useful; and, probably, so do the sailors +themselves. + +But Claude is by this time nearly sick of the roasting calm, and the +rolling ground-swell, and the smell of fish, and is somewhat sleepy +also, between early rising and incoherent sermons; wherefore, if he +takes good advice, he will stay and recruit himself at Ilfracombe, +before he proceeds further with his self-elected cicerone on the +grand tour of North Devon. Believe me, Claude, you will not stir +from the place for a month at least. For be sure, if you are sea- +sick, or heart-sick, or pocket-sick either, there is no pleasanter or +cheaper place of cure (to indulge in a puff of a species now well +nigh obsolete, the puff honest and true) than this same Ilfracombe, +with its quiet nature and its quiet luxury, its rock fairyland and +its sea-walks, its downs and combes, its kind people, and, if +possible, its still kinder climate, which combines the soft warmth of +South Devon with the bracing freshness of the Welsh mountains; where +winter has slipped out of the list of the seasons, and mother Earth +makes up for her summer's luxury by fasting, 'not in sackcloth and +ashes, but in new silk and old sack;' and instead of standing three +months chin-deep in ice, and christening great snowballs her 'friends +and family,' as St. Francis of Assisi did of old, knows no severer +asceticism than tepid shower-baths, and a parasol of soft grey mist. + + +III.--MORTE. + + +I had been wandering over the centre of Exmoor, killing trout as I +went, through a country which owes its civilization and tillage to +the spirit of one man, who has found stag-preserving by no means +incompatible with large agricultural improvements; among a population +who still evince an unpleasant partiality for cutting and carrying +farmers' crops by night, without leave or licence, and for +housebreaking after the true classic method of Athens, by fairly +digging holes through the house walls; a little nook of primeval +savagery fast reorganizing itself under the influences of these +better days. I had been on Dartmoor, too; but of that noble moorland +range so much has been said and sung of late, that I really am afraid +it is becoming somewhat cockney and trite. Far and wide I had +wandered, rod in hand, becoming a boy again in the land of my +boyhood, till, once more at Ilfracombe, opposite me sat Claude +Mellot, just beginning to bloom again into cheerfulness. + +We were on the point of starting for Morte, and so round to Saunton +Court, and the sands beyond it; where a Clovelly trawler, which we +had chartered for the occasion, had promised to send a boat on shore +and take us off, provided the wind lay off the land. + +But, indeed, the sea was calm as glass, the sky cloudless azure; and +the doubt was not whether we should be able to get on board through +the surf, but whether, having got on board, we should not lie till +nightfall, as idle + + +'As a painted ship, +Upon a painted ocean.' + + +And now behold us on our way up lovely combes, with their green +copses, ridges of rock, golden furze, fruit-laden orchards, and +slopes of emerald pasture, pitched as steep as house-roofs, where the +red longhorns are feeding, with their tails a yard above their heads; +and under us, seen in bird's-eye view, the ground-plans of the little +snug farms and homesteads of the Damnonii, 'dwellers in the valley,' +as we West-countrymen were called of old. Now we are leaving them +far below us; the blue hazy sea is showing far above the serrated +ridge of the Tors, and their huge bank of sunny green: and before us +is a desolate table-land of rushy pastures and mouldering banks, +festooned with the delicate network of the little ivy-leaved +campanula, loveliest of British wild-flowers, fit with its hair-like +stems and tiny bells of blue to wreathe the temples of Titania. +Alas! we have passed out of the world into limbum patrum, and the +region of ineffectuality and incompleteness. The only cultivators +here, and through thousands of acres in the North of Devon, are the +rook and mole: and yet the land is rich enough--the fat deep +crumbling of the shale and ironstone returning year by year into the +mud, from whence it hardened ages since. There are scores of farms +of far worse land in mid-England, under 'a four-course shift,' +yielding their load of wheat an acre. When will that land do as +much? When will the spirit of Smith of Deanston and Grey of Dilston +descend on North Devon? When will some true captain of industry, and +Theseus of the nineteenth century, like the late Mr. Warnes of +Trimmingham, teach the people here to annihilate poor-rates by +growing flax upon some of the finest flax land, and in the finest +flax climate, that we have in England? The shrewd Cornishmen of +Launceston and Bodmin have awakened long ago to 'the new gospel of +fertility.' When will North Devon awake? + +'When landlords and farmers,' said Claude, 'at last acknowledge their +divine vocation, and feel it a noble and heaven-ordained duty to +produce food for the people of England; when they learn that to grow +rushes where they might grow corn, ay, to grow four quarters of wheat +where they might grow five, is to sin against God's blessings and +against the English nation. No wonder that sluggards like these cry +out for protection--that those who cannot take care of the land feel +that they themselves need artificial care.' + +'We will not talk politics, Claude. Our modern expediency mongers +have made them pro tempore an extinct science. "Let the dead bury +their dead." The social questions are now-a-days becoming far more +important than the mere House of Commons ones.' + +'There does seem here and there,' he said, 'some sign of improvement. +I see the paring plough at work on one field and another.' + +'Swiftly goes the age, and slowly crawls improvement. The greater +part of that land will be only broken up to be exhausted by corn-crop +after corn-crop, till it can bear no more, and the very manure which +is drawn home from it in the shape of a few turnips will be wasted by +every rain of heaven, and the straw probably used to mend bad places +in the road with; while the land returns to twenty years of worse +sterility than ever; on the ground that - + +'"Veather did zo, and gramfer did zo, and why shouldn't Jan do the +zame?"' * * * * + +'But here is Morte below us. "The little grey church on the windy +shore," which once belonged to William de Tracy, one of your friend +Thomas a Becket's murderers. If you wish to vent your wrath against +those who cut off your favourite Saxon hero, there is a tomb in the +church which bears De Tracy's name; over which rival Dryasdusts +contend fiercely with paper-arrows: the one party asserting that he +became a priest, and died here in the wilderness; the others that the +tomb is of later date, that he fled hence to Italy, under favour of a +certain easy-going Bishop of Exeter, and died penitent and duly +shriven, according to the attestations of a certain or uncertain +Bishop of Cosenza.' + +'Peace be with him and with the Bishop! The flight to Italy seems a +very needless precaution to a man who owned this corner of the world. +A bailiff would have had even less chance here then than in Connemara +a hundred years ago.' + +'He certainly would have fed the crabs and rock-cod in two hours +after his arrival. Nevertheless, I believe the Cosenza story is the +safer one.' + +'What a chaos of rock-ridges!--Old starved mother Earth's bare-worn +ribs and joints peeping out through every field and down; and on +three sides of us, the sullen thunder of the unseen surge. What a +place for some "gloom-pampered man" to sit and misanthropize!' + +'"Morte," says the Devonshire proverb, "is the place on earth which +heaven made last, and the devil will take first."' + +'All the fitter for a misanthrope. But where are the trees? I have +not seen one for the last four miles.' + +'Nor will you for a few miles more. Whatever will grow here (and +most things will) they will not, except, at least, hereafter the sea- +pine of the Biscay shore. You would know why, if you had ever felt a +south-westerly gale here, when the foam-flakes are flying miles +inland, and you are fain to cling breathless to bank and bush, if you +want to get one look at those black fields of shark's-tooth tide- +rocks, champing and churning the great green rollers into snow. Wild +folk are these here, gatherers of shell-fish and laver, and merciless +to wrecked vessels, which they consider as their own by immemorial +usage, or rather right divine. Significant, how an agricultural +people is generally as cruel to wrecked seamen, as a fishing one is +merciful. I could tell you twenty stories of the baysmen down there +to the westward risking themselves like very heroes to save +strangers' lives, and beating off the labouring folk who swarmed down +for plunder from the inland hills.' + +'Knowledge, you see, breeds sympathy and love. But what a merciless +coast!' + +'Hardly a winter passes without a wreck or two. You see there lying +about the timbers of more than one tall ship. You see, too, that +black rock a-wash far out at sea, apparently a submarine outlier of +the north horn of this wide rock-amphitheatre below us. That is the +Morte stone, the "Death-rock," as the Normans christened it of old; +and it does not belie its name even now. See how, even in this calm, +it hurls up its column of spray at every wave; and then conceive +being entrapped between it and the cliffs, on some blinding, whirling +winter's night, when the land is shrouded thick in clouds, and the +roar of the breakers hardly precedes by a minute the crash of your +bows against the rocks.' + +'I never think, on principle, of things so painful, and yet so +irrelievable. Yet why does not your much-admired Trinity House erect +a light there?' + +'So ask the sailors; for it is indeed one of the gateway-jambs of the +Channel, and the deep water and the line of coast tempt all craft to +pass as close to it as possible.' + +'Look at that sheet of yellow sand below us now, banked to the inland +with sand-hills and sunny downs, and ending abruptly at the foot of +that sombre wall of slate-hill, which runs out like a huge pier into +the sea some two miles off.' + +'That is Woollacombe: but here on our right is a sight worth seeing. +Every gully and creek there among the rocks is yellow, but not with +sand. Those are shells; the sweepings of the ocean bed for miles +around, piled there, millions upon millions, yards deep, in every +stage of destruction. There they lie grinding to dust; and every +gale brings in fresh myriads from the inexhaustible sea-world, as if +Death could be never tired of devouring, or God of making. The brain +grows dizzy and tired, as one's feet crunch over the endless variety +of their forms.' + +'And then one recollects that every one of them has been a living +thing--a whole history of birth, and growth, and propagation, and +death. Waste it cannot be, or cruelty on the part of the Maker: but +why this infinite development of life, apparently only to furnish out +of it now and then a cartload of shell-sand to these lazy farmers? +But after all, there is not so much life in all those shells put +together as in one little child: and it may die the hour that it is +born! What we call life is but an appearance and a becoming; the +true life of existence belongs only to spirits. And whether or not +we, or the sea-shell there, are at any given moment helping to make +up part of some pretty little pattern in this great kaleidoscope +called the material universe, yet, in the spirit all live to Him, and +shall do so for ever.' + +And thereon he rambled off into a long lecture on 'species-spirits,' +and 'individual-spirits,' and 'personal spirits,' doubtless most +important. But I, what between the sun, the luncheon, and the +metaphysic, sank into soft slumbers, from which I was only awakened +by the carriage stopping, according to our order, on the top of +Saunton hill. + +We left the fly, and wandered down towards the old gabled court, +nestling amid huge walnuts in its southward glen; while before us +spread a panorama, half sea, half land, than which, perhaps, our +England owns few lovelier. + +At our feet was a sea of sand--for the half-mile to the right smooth +as a floor, bounded by a broad band of curling waves, which crept +slowly shorewards with the advancing tide. Right underneath us the +sand was drifted for miles into fantastic hills, which quivered in +the heat, the glaring yellow of its lights chequered by delicate pink +shadows and sheets of grey-green bent. To the left were rich +alluvial marshes, covered with red cattle sleeping in the sun, and +laced with creeks and flowery dykes; and here and there a scarlet +line, which gladdened Claude's eye as being a 'bit of positive colour +in the foreground,' and mine, because they were draining tiles. +Beyond again, two broad tide-rivers, spotted with white and red-brown +sails, gleamed like avenues of silver, past knots of gay dwellings, +and tall lighthouses, and church-towers, and wandered each on its own +road, till they vanished among the wooded hills. On the eastern +horizon the dark range of Exmoor sank gradually into lower and more +broken ridges, which rolled away, woodland beyond woodland, till all +outlines were lost in purple haze; while, far beyond, the granite +peaks of Dartmoor hung like a delicate blue cloud, and enticed the +eye away into infinity. From hence, as our eyes swept round the +horizon, the broken hills above the river's mouth gradually rose into +the table-land of the 'barren coal-measures' some ten miles off,--a +long straight wall of cliffs which hounded the broad bay, buried in +deepest shadow, except where the opening of some glen revealed far +depths of sunlit wood. A faint perpendicular line of white houses, +midway along the range, marked our destination; and far to the +westward, the land ended sheer and suddenly at the cliffs of +Hartland, the 'Promontory of Hercules,' as the old Romans called it, +to reappear some ten miles out in the Atlantic, in the blue flat- +topped island of Lundy, so exactly similar in height and form to the +opposite cape, that it required no scientific imagination to supply +the vast gap which the primeval currents had sawn out. There it all +lay beneath us like a map; its thousand hues toned down harmoniously +into each other by the summer haze, and 'the eye was not filled with +seeing,' nor the spirit with the intoxicating sight of infinitely +various life and form in perfectest repose. + +I was the first to break the silence. + +'Claude, well-beloved, will you not sketch a little?' + +No answer. + +'Not even rhapsodize? call it "lovely, exquisite, grand, majestic"? +There are plenty of such words in worldlings' mouths--not a Cockney +but would burst out with some enthusiastic commonplace at such a +sight--surely one or other of them must be appropriate.' + +'Silence, profane! and take me away from this. Let us go down, and +hide our stupidities among those sand-hills, and so forget the whole. +What use standing here to be maddened by this tantalizing earth- +spirit, who shows us such glorious things, and will not tell us what +they mean?' + +So down we went upon the burrows, among the sands, which hid from us +every object but their own chaotic curves and mounds. Above, a +hundred skylarks made the air ring with carollings; strange and gaudy +plants flecked the waste round us; and insects without number whirred +over our heads, or hung poised with their wings outspread on the tall +stalks of marram grass. All at once a cloud hid the sun, and a +summer whirlwind, presage of the thunderstorm, swept past us, +carrying up with it a column of dry sand, and rattling the dry bents +over our heads. + +'What a chill, doleful sigh comes from those reeds!' said Claude. 'I +can conceive this desert, beneath a driving winter's sky instead of +this burning azure, one of the most desolate places on the earth.' + +'Ay, desolate enough,' I said, as we walked down beyond the tide- +mark, over the vast fields of ribbed and splashy sands, 'when the +dead shells are rolling and crawling up the beach in wreaths before +the gale, with a ghastly rattle as of the dry bones in the "Valley of +Vision," and when not a flower shows on that sandcliff, which is now +one broad bed of yellow, scarlet, and azure.' + +'That is the first spot in England,' said Claude, 'except, of course, +"the meads of golden king-cups," where I have seen wild flowers give +a tone to the colouring of the whole landscape, as they are said to +do in the prairies of Texas. And look how flowers and cliff are both +glowing in a warm green haze, like that of Cuyp's wonderful sandcliff +picture in the Dulwich Gallery,--wonderful, as I think, and true, let +some critics revile it as much as they will.' + +'Strange, that you should have quoted that picture here; its curious +resemblance to this very place first awoke in me, years ago, a living +interest in landscape-painting. But look there; even in these grand +summer days there is a sight before us sad enough. There are the +ribs of some ill-fated ship, a man-of-war too, as the story goes, +standing like black fangs, half-buried in the sand. And off what are +those two ravens rising, stirring up with their obscene wings a +sickly, putrescent odour? A corpse?' + +No, it was not a corpse; but the token of many corpses. A fragment +of some ship; its gay green paint and half-effaced gilding +contrasting mockingly with the long ugly feathered barnacle-shells, +which clustered on it, rotting into slime beneath the sun, and torn +and scattered by the greedy beaks of the ravens. + +In what tropic tornado, or on what coral-key of the Bahamas, months +ago, to judge by those barnacles, had that tall ship gone down? How +long had that scrap of wreck gone wandering down the Gulf Stream, +from Newfoundland into the Mid-Atlantic, and hitherward on its +homeless voyage toward the Spitzbergen shore? And who were all those +living men who "went down to Hades, even many stalwart souls of +heroes," to give no sign until the sea shall render up her dead? And +every one of them had a father and mother--a wife, perhaps, and +children, waiting for him--at least a whole human life, childhood, +boyhood, manhood, in him. All those years of toil and education, to +get him so far on his life-voyage; and here is the end thereof!' + +'Say rather, the beginning thereof,' Claude answered, stepping into +the boat. 'This wreck is but a torn scrap of the chrysalis-cocoon; +we may meet the butterflies themselves hereafter.' + +* * * * * + +And now we are on board; and alas! some time before the breeze will +be so. Take care of that huge boom, landsman Claude, swaying and +sweeping backwards and forwards across the deck, unless you wish to +be knocked overboard. Take care, too, of that loose rope's end, +unless you wish to have your eyes cut out. Take my advice, lie down +here across the deck, as others are doing. Cover yourself with +great-coats, like an Irishman, to keep yourself cool, and let us +meditate little on this strange thing, and strange place, which holds +us now. + +Look at those spars, how they creak and groan with every heave of the +long glassy swell. How those sails flap, and thunder, and rage, with +useless outcries and struggles--only because they are idle. Let the +wind take them, and they will be steady, silent in an instant--their +deafening dissonant grumbling exchanged for the soft victorious song +of the breeze through the rigging, musical, self-contented, as of +bird on bough. So it is through life; there is no true rest but +labour. "No true misery," as Carlyle says, "but in that of not being +able to work." Some may call it a pretty conceit. I call it a great +worldwide law, which reaches from earth to heaven. Whatever the +Preacher may have thought it in a moment of despondency, what is it +but a blessing that "sun, and wind, and rivers, and ocean," as he +says, and "all things, are full of labour--man cannot utter it." +This sea which bears us would rot and poison, did it not sweep in and +out here twice a day in swift refreshing current; nay, more, in the +very water which laps against our bows troops of negro girls may have +hunted the purblind shark in West Indian harbours, beneath glaring +white-walled towns, with their rows of green jalousies, and cocoa- +nuts, and shaddock groves. For on those white sands there to the +left, year by year, are washed up foreign canes, cassia beans, and +tropic seeds; and sometimes, too, the tropic ocean snails, with their +fragile shells of amethystine blue, come floating in mysteriously in +fleets from the far west out of the passing Gulf Stream, where they +have been sailing out their little life, never touching shore or +ground, but buoyed each by his cluster of air-bubbles, pumped in at +will under the skin of his tiny foot, by some cunning machinery of +valves--small creatures truly, but very wonderful to men who have +learned to reverence not merely the size of things, but the wisdom of +their idea, and raising strange longings and dreams about that +submarine ocean-world which stretches, teeming with richer life than +this terrestrial one, away, away there westward, down the path of the +sun, toward the future centre of the world's destiny. + +Wonderful ocean-world! three-fifths of our planet! Can it be true +that no rational beings are denizens there? Science is severely +silent--having as yet seen no mermaids: our captain there forward is +not silent--if he has not seen them, plenty of his friends have. The +young man here has been just telling me that it was only last month +one followed a West Indiaman right across the Atlantic. "For," says +he, "there must be mermaids, and such like. Do you think Heaven +would have made all that water there only for the herrings and +mackerel?" + +I do not know, Tom: but I, too, suspect not; and I do know that +honest men's guesses are sometimes found by science to have been +prophecies, and that there is no smoke without fire, and few +universal legends without their nucleus of fact. After all, those +sea-ladies are too lovely a dream to part with in a hurry, at the +mere despotic fiat of stern old Dame Analysis, divine and reverend as +she is. Why, like Keats's Lamia, + + + 'Must all charms flee, +At the mere touch of cold Philosophy,' + + +who will not even condescend to be awe-struck at the new wonders +which she herself reveals daily? Perhaps, too, according to the Duke +of Wellington's great dictum, that each man must be the best judge in +his own profession, sailors may know best whether mermaids exist or +not. Besides, was it not here on Croyde Sands abreast of us, this +very last summer, that a maiden--by which beautiful old word West- +country people still call young girls--was followed up the shore by a +mermaid who issued from the breakers, green-haired, golden-combed, +and all; and, fleeing home, took to her bed and died, poor thing, of +sheer terror in the course of a few days, persisting in her account +of the monster? True, the mermaid may have been an overgrown Lundy +Island seal, carried out of his usual haunts by spring-tides and a +school of fish. Be it so. Lundy and its seals are wonderful enough +in all reason to thinking men, as it looms up there out of the +Atlantic, with its two great square headlands, not twenty miles from +us, in the white summer haze. We will go there some day, and pick up +a wild tale or two about it. + +But, lo! a black line creeps up the western horizon. Tom, +gesticulating, swears that he sees 'a billow break.' True: there +they come; the great white horses, that 'champ and chafe, and toss in +the spray.' That long-becalmed trawler to seaward fills, and heels +over, and begins to tug and leap impatiently at the weight of her +heavy trawl. Five minutes more, and the breeze will be down upon us. +The young men whistle openly to woo it; the old father thinks such a +superstition somewhat beneath both his years and his religion, but +cannot help pursing up his lips into a sly 'whe-eugh' when he has got +well forward out of sight. + +* * * * + +Five long minutes; there is a breath of air; a soft distant murmur; +the white horses curve their necks, and dive and vanish; and rise +again like snowy porpoises, nearer, and nearer, and nearer. Father +and sons are struggling with that raving, riotous, drunken squaresail +forward; while we haul away upon the main-sheet. + +When will it come? It is dying back--sliding past us. 'Hope +deferred maketh the heart sick.' No, louder and nearer swells 'the +voice of many waters,' 'the countless laugh of ocean,' like the mirth +of ten thousand girls, before us, behind us, round us; and the oily +swell darkens into crisp velvet-green, till the air strikes us, and +heels us over; and leaping, plunging, thrashing our bows into the +seas, we spring away close-hauled upon the ever-freshening breeze, +while Claude is holding on by ropes and bulwarks, and some, whose +sea-legs have not yet forgot their craft, are swinging like a +pendulum as they pace the deck, enjoying, as the Norse vikings would +have called it, 'the gallop of the flying sea-horse, and the shiver +of her tawny wings.' + +Exquisite motion! more maddening than the smooth floating stride of +the race-horse, or the crash of the thorn-hedges before the stalwart +hunter, or the swaying of the fir-boughs in the gale, when we used to +climb as schoolboys after the lofty hawk's nest; but not so maddening +as the new motion of our age--the rush of the express-train, when the +live iron pants and leaps and roars through the long chalk cutting; +and white mounds gleam cold a moment against the sky and vanish; and +rocks, and grass, and bushes, fleet by in dim blended lines; and the +long hedges revolve like the spokes of a gigantic wheel; and far +below, meadows, and streams, and homesteads, with all their lazy old- +world life, open for an instant, and then flee away; while awe- +struck, silent, choked with the mingled sense of pride and +helplessness, we are swept on by that great pulse of England's life- +blood, rushing down her iron veins; and dimly out of the future looms +the fulfilment of our primaeval mission, to conquer and subdue the +earth, and space too, and time, and all things,--even, hardest of all +tasks, yourselves, my cunning brothers ever learning some fresh +lesson, except that hardest one of all, that it is the Spirit of God +which giveth you understanding. + +Yes, great railroads, and great railroad age, who would exchange you, +with all your sins, for any other time? For swiftly as rushes +matter, more swiftly rushes mind; more swiftly still rushes the +heavenly dawn up the eastern sky. 'The night is far spent, the day +is at hand.' 'Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, +shall find watching!' + +But come, my poor Claude, I see you are too sick for such deep +subjects; so let us while away the time by picking the brains of this +tall handsome boy at the helm, who is humming a love-song to himself +sotto voce, lest it should be overheard by the grey-headed father, +who is forward, poring over his Wesleyan hymn-book. He will have +something to tell you; he has a soul in him looking out of those wild +dark eyes, and delicate aquiline features of his. He is no spade- +drudge or bullet-headed Saxon clod: he has in his veins the blood of +Danish rovers and passionate southern Milesians, who came hither from +Teffrobani, the Isle of Summer, as the old Fenic myths inform us. +Come and chat with him. You dare not stir? Perhaps you are in the +right. I shall go and fraternize, and bring you reports. + +* * * * + +He has been, at all events, 'up the Straits' as the Mediterranean +voyage is called here, and seen 'Palermy' and the Sicilians. But, +for his imagination, what seems to have struck it most was that it +was a 'fine place for Jack, for a man could get mools there for a +matter of three-halfpence a-day.' + +'And was that all you got out of him?' asked Claude, sickly and +sulkily. + +'Oh, you must not forget the halo of glory and excitement which in a +sailor's eyes surrounds the delights of horseback. But he gave me +besides a long glowing account of the catechism which they had there, +three-quarters of a mile long.' + +'Pope Pius's catechism, I suppose?' + +So thought I, at first; but it appeared that all the dead of the city +were arranged therein, dried and dressed out in their finest clothes, +'every sect and age,' as Tom said, 'by itself; as natural as life!' +We may hence opine that he means some catacombs or other. + +Poor Claude could not even get up a smile: but his sorrows were +coming swiftly to an end. The rock clefts grew sharper and sharper +before us. The soft masses of the lofty bank of wooded cliff rose +higher and higher. The white houses of Clovelly, piled stair above +stair up the rocks, gleamed more and more brightly out of the green +round bosoms of the forest. As we shut in headland after headland, +one tall conical rock after another darkened with its black pyramid +the bright orb of the setting sun. Soon we began to hear the soft +murmur of the snowy surf line; then the merry voices of the children +along the shore; and running straight for the cliff-foot, we shipped +into the little pier, from whence the red-sailed herring-boats were +swarming forth like bees out of a hive, full of gay handsome faces, +and all the busy blue-jacketed life of seaport towns, to their +night's fishing in the bay. + + +IV.--CLOVELLY. + + +A couple of days had passed, and I was crawling up the paved stairs +inaccessible to cart or carriage, which are flatteringly denominated +'Clovelly-street,' a landing-net full of shells in one hand, and a +couple of mackerel lines in the other; behind me a sheer descent, +roof below roof; at an angle of 45 degrees, to the pier and bay, 200 +feet below, and in front, another hundred feet above, a green +amphitheatre of oak, and ash, and larch, shutting out all but a +narrow slip of sky, across which the low, soft, formless mist was +crawling, opening every instant to show some gap of intense dark +rainy blue, and send down a hot vaporous gleam of sunshine upon the +white cottages, with their grey steaming roofs, and bright green +railings, packed one above another upon the ledges of the cliff; and +on the tall tree-fuchsias and gaudy dahlias in the little scraps of +court-yard, calling the rich faint odour out of the verbenas and +jessamines, and, alas! out of the herring-heads and tails also, as +they lay in the rivulet; and lighting up the wings of the gorgeous +butterflies, almost unknown in our colder eastern climate, which +fluttered from woodland down to garden, and from garden up to +woodland, and seemed to form the connecting link between that +swarming hive of human industry and the deep wild woods in which it +was embosomed. So up I was crawling, to dine off gurnards of my own +catching,--excellent fish, despised by deluded Cockneys, who fancy +that because its head is large and prickly, therefore its flesh is +not as firm, and sweet, and white, as that of any cod who ever +gobbled shell-fish,--when down the stair front of me, greasy as ice +from the daily shower, came slipping and staggering, my friend +Claude, armed with camp-stool and portfolio. + +'Where have you been wandering to-day?' I asked. 'Have you yet been +as far as the park, which, as I told you, would supply such endless +subjects for your pencil?' + +'Not I. I have been roaming up and down this same "New Road" above +us; and find there materials for a good week's more work, if I could +afford it. Indeed, it was only to-day, for the first time, that I +got as far as the lodge at the end of it, and then was glad enough to +turn back shuddering at the first glimpse of the flat, dreary +moorland beyond,--as Adam may have turned back into Eden after a peep +out of the gates of Paradise.' + +He should have taken courage and gone a half-mile further,--to the +furze-grown ruins of a great Roman camp, which gives its name to the +place, 'Clovelly,'--Vallum Clausum, or Vallis Clausa, as antiquarians +derive it; perhaps, 'the hidden camp,' or glen,--perhaps something +else. Who cares? The old Romans were there, at least 10,000 strong: +and some sentimental tribune or other of them had taste enough to +perch his summer-house out on a conical point of the Hartland Cliffs, +now tumbling into the sea, tesselated pavement, baths and all. And +strange work, no doubt, went on in that lonely nook, looking out over +the Atlantic swell,--nights and days fit for Petronius's own pen, +among a seraglio of dark Celtic beauties. Perhaps it could not be +otherwise. An ugly state of things--as heathen conquests always must +have been; yet even in it there was a use and meaning. But they are +past like a dream, those 10,000 stalwart men, who looked far and wide +over the Damnonian moors from a station which would be, even in these +days, a first-rate military position. Gone, too, are the old Saxon +Franklins who succeeded. Old Wrengils, or some such name, whoever he +was, at last found some one's bill too hard for his brain-pan; and +there he lies on the hill above, in his 'barrow' of Wrinklebury. And +gone, too, the gay Norman squire, who, as tradition says, kept his +fair lady in the old watch-tower, on the highest point of the White +Cliff--'Gallantry Bower,' as they call it to this day--now a mere +ring of turf-covered stones, and a few low stunted oaks, shorn by the +Atlantic blasts into the shape of two huge cannon, which form a +favourite landmark for the fisherman of the bay. Gone they all are, +Cymry and Roman, Saxon and Norman; and upon the ruins of their +accumulated labour we stand here. Each of them had his use,--planted +a few more trees or cleared a few more, tilled a fresh scrap of down, +organized a scrap more of chaos. Who dare wish the tide of +improvement, which has been flowing for nineteen centuries, swifter +and swifter still as it goes on, to stop, just because it is not +convenient to us just now to move on? It will not take another +nineteen hundred years, be sure, to make even this lovely nook as +superior to what it is now as it is now to the little knot of fishing +huts where naked Britons peeped out, trembling at the iron tramp of +each insolent legionary from the camp above. It will not take +another nineteen hundred years to develope the capabilities of this +place,--to make it the finest fishery in England, next to Torbay,-- +the only safe harbour of refuge for West Indiamen, along sixty miles +of ruthless coast,--and a commercial centre for a vast tract of half- +tilled land within, which only requires means of conveyance to be as +fertile and valuable as nine-tenths of England. Meanwhile Claude +ought to have seen the deer-park. The panorama from that old ruined +'bower' of cliff and woodland, down and sea, is really unique in its +way. + +'So is the whole place, in my eyes,' said Claude. 'I have seen +nothing in England to be compared to this little strip of paradise +between two great waste worlds of sea and moor. Lynmouth might be +matched among the mountains of Wales and Ireland. The first three +miles of the Rheidol, from the Devil's Bridge towards Aberystwith, or +the gorge of the Wye, down the opposite watershed of the same +mountains, from Castle Dufferin down to Rhaiadyr, are equal to it in +magnificence of form and colour, and superior in size. But I +question whether anything ever charmed me more than did the return to +the sounds of nature which greeted me to-day, as I turned back from +the dreary, silent moorland turnpike into this new road, terraced +along the cliffs and woods--those who first thought of cutting it +must have had souls in them above the herd--and listened to a +glorious concert in four parts, blending and supporting each other in +exquisite harmony, from the shrill treble of a thousand birds, and +the soft melancholy alto of the moaning woods, downward through the +rich tenor hum of innumerable insects, who hung like sparks of fire +beneath the glades of oak, to the bass of the unseen surge below, + + +"Whose deep and dreadful organ-pipe," + + +far below me, contrasted strangely with the rich soft inland +character of the deep woods, luxuriant ferns, and gaudy flowers. It +is that very contrast which makes the place so unique. One is +accustomed to connect with the notion of the sea bare cliffs, breezy +downs, stunted shrubs struggling for existence: and instead of them +behold a forest wall, 500 feet high, of almost semi-tropic +luxuriance. At one turn, a deep glen, with its sea of green woods, +filled up at the mouth with the bright azure sheet of ocean.--Then +some long stretch of the road would be banked on one side with +crumbling rocks, festooned with heath, and golden hawkweed, and +London pride, like velvet cushions covered with pink lace, and beds +of white bramble blossom alive with butterflies; while above my head, +and on my right, the cool canopy of oak and birch leaves shrouded me +so close, that I could have fancied myself miles inland, buried in +some glen unknown to any wind of heaven, but that everywhere between +green sprays and grey stems, gleamed that same boundless ocean blue, +seeming, from the height at which I was, to mount into the very sky. +It looked but a step out of the leafy covert into blank infinity. +And then, as the road wound round some point, one's eye could fall +down, down, through the abyss of perpendicular wood, tree below tree +clinging to and clothing the cliff, or rather no cliff; but +perpendicular sheet of deep wood sedge, and broad crown ferns, +spreading their circular fans.--But there is no describing them, or +painting them either.--And then to see how the midday sunbeams leapt +past one down the abyss, throwing out here a grey stem by one point +of burnished silver, there a hazel branch by a single leaf of glowing +golden green, shooting long bright arrows down, through the dim, hot, +hazy atmosphere of the wood, till it rested at last upon the dappled +beach of pink and grey pebbles, and the dappled surge which wandered +up and down among them, and broke up into richer intricacy with its +chequer-work of woodland shadows, the restless net of snowy foam.' + +'You must be fresh from reading Mr. Ruskin's book, Claude, to be able +to give birth to such a piece of complex magniloquence as that last +period of yours.' + +'Why, I saw all that, and ten thousand things more; and yet do you +complain of me for having tried to put one out of all those thousand +things into words? And what do you mean by sneering at Mr. Ruskin? +Are there not in his books more and finer passages of descriptive +poetry--word-painting--call them what you will, than in any other +prose book in the English language?' + +'Not a doubt of it, my dear Claude; but it will not do for every one +to try Mr. Ruskin's tools. Neither you nor I possess that almost +Roman severity, that stern precision of conception and expression, +which enables him to revel in the most gorgeous language, without +ever letting it pall upon the reader's taste by affectation or over- +lusciousness. His style is like the very hills along which you have +been travelling, whose woods enrich, without enervating, the grand +simplicity of their forms.' + +'The comparison is just,' said Claude. 'Mr. Ruskin's style, like +those very hills, and like, too, the Norman cathedrals of which he is +so fond, is rather magnified than concealed by the innumerable +multiplicity of its ornamental chasing and colouring.' + +'And is not that,' I asked, 'the very highest achievement of artistic +style?' + +'Doubtless. The severe and grand simplicity, of which folks talk so +much, is great indeed; but only the greatest as long as men are still +ignorant of Nature's art of draping her forms with colour, +chiaroscuro, ornament, not at the expense of the original design, but +in order to perfect it by making it appeal to every faculty instead +of those of form and size alone.' + +'Still you will allow the beauty of a bare rock, a down, a church +spire, a sheet or line of horizontal water,--their necessity to the +completion of a landscape. I recollect well having the value of a +stern straight line in Nature brought home to me, when, during a long +ride in the New Forest, after my eye had become quite dulled and +wearied with the monotonous softness of rolling lawns, feathery +heath, and rounded oak and beech woods, I suddenly caught sight of +the sharp peaked roof of Rhinefield Lodge, and its row of tall stiff +poplar-spires, cutting the endless sea of curves. The relief to my +eye was delicious. I really believe it heightened the pleasure with +which I reined in my mare for a chat with old Toomer the keeper, and +the noble bloodhound who eyed me from between his master's legs.' + +'I can well believe it. Simple lines in a landscape are of the same +value as the naked parts of a richly-clothed figure. They act both +as contrasts and as indications of the original substratum of the +figure; but to say that severe simplicity is the highest ideal is +mere pedantry and Manicheism.' + +'Oh, everything is Manicheism with you, Claude!' + +'And no wonder, while the world is as full of it now as it was in the +thirteenth century. But let that pass. This craving after so-called +classic art, whether it be Manicheism or not, is certainly a fighting +against God,--a contempt of everything which He has taught us artists +since the introduction of Christianity. I abominate this setting up +of Sculpture above Painting, of the Greeks above the Italians,--as if +all Eastern civilization, all Christian truth, had taught art +nothing,--as if there was not more real beauty in a French cathedral +or a Venetian palazzo than in a dozen Parthenons, and more soul in +one Rafaelle, or Titian either, than in all the Greek statues of the +Tribune or Vatican.' + +'You have changed your creed, I see, and, like all converts, are +somewhat fierce and fanatical. You used to believe in Zeuxis and +Parrhasius in old times.' + +'Yes, as long as I believed in Fuseli's "Lectures;" but when I saw at +Pompeii the ancient paintings which still remain to us, my faith in +their powers received its first shock; and when I re-read in the +Lectures of Fuseli and his school all their extravagant praises of +the Greek painters, and separated their few facts fairly out from +among the floods of rant on which they floated, I came to the +conclusion that the ancients knew as little of colour or chiaroscuro +as they did of perspective, and as little of spiritual expression as +they did of landscape-painting. What do I care for the birds pecking +at Zeuxis's grapes, or Zeuxis himself trying to draw back +Parrhasius's curtain? Imitative art is the lowest trickery. There +are twenty men in England now capable of the same sleight of hand; +and yet these are recorded as the very highest triumphs of ancient +art by the only men who have handed down to us any record of it.' + +'It may be so; or again, it may not. But do not fancy, Claude, that +classic sculpture has finished its work on earth. You know that it +has taught you what Gothic art could never teach,--the ideal of +physical health and strength. Believe that it exists, and will +exist, to remind the puny town-dweller of the existence of that +ideal; to say to the artisan, every time he looks upon a statue--such +God intended you to be; such you may be; such your class will be, in +some future healthy state of civilization, when Sanitary Reform and +Social Science shall be accepted and carried out as primary duties of +a government toward the nation. + +'Surely, classic sculpture remains, as a witness of the primaeval +paradise; a witness that man and woman were created at first healthy, +and strong, and fair, and innocent; just as classic literature +remains for a witness that the heathen of old were taught of God; +that we have something to learn of them, summed up in that now +obsolete word "virtue"--true and wholesome manhood, which we are +likely to forget, and are forgetting daily, under the enervating +shadow of popular superstitions. {287} And till we have learnt that, +may Greek books still form the basis of our liberal education, and +may Greek statues, or even English attempts to copy them, fill public +halls and private houses. This generation may not understand their +divine and eternal significance; but a future generation, doubt it +not, will spell it out right well.' + +Claude and I went forth along the cliffs of a park, which, though not +of the largest, is certainly of the loveliest in England,--perhaps +unique, from that abrupt contact of the richest inland scenery with +the open sea, which is its distinctive feature. As we wandered along +the edge of the cliff, beneath us on our left lay wooded valleys, +lawns spotted with deer, stately timber trees, oak and beech, birch +and alder, growing as full and round-headed as if they had been +buried in some Shropshire valley fifty miles inland, instead of +having the Atlantic breezes all the winter long sweeping past a few +hundred feet above their still seclusion. Glens of forest wound away +into the high inner land, with silver burns sparkling here and there +under their deep shadows; while from the lawns beneath, the ground +sloped rapidly upwards towards us, to stop short in a sheer wall of +cliff, over which the deer were leaning to crop the shoots of ivy, +where the slipping of a stone would have sent them 400 feet +perpendicular into the sea. On our right, from our very feet, the +sea spread out to the horizon; a single falcon was wheeling about the +ledges below; a single cormorant was fishing in the breakers, diving +and rising again like some tiny water-beetle; + + + 'The murmuring surge +That on the unnumbered pebbles idly chafed +Could not be heard so high.' + + +The only sound beside the rustle of the fern before the startled deer +was the soft mysterious treble of the wind as it swept over the face +of the cliff beneath us; but the cool air was confined to the hill- +tops round beneath, from within a short distance of the shore, the +sea was shrouded in soft summer haze. The far Atlantic lay like an +ocean of white wool, out of which the Hartland Cliffs and the highest +point of Lundy just showed their black peaks. Here and there the +western sun caught one white bank of mist after another, and tinged +them with glowing gold; while nearer us long silvery zigzag tide- +lines, which we could have fancied the tracks of water-fairies, +wandered away under the smoky grey-brown shadows of the fog, and +seemed to vanish hundreds of miles off into the void of space, so +completely was all notion of size or distance destroyed by the soft +gradations of the mist. Suddenly, as we stood watching, a breeze +from the eastward dived into the basin of the bay, swept the clouds +out, packed them together, rolled them over each other, and hurled +them into the air miles high in one Cordillera of snowy mountains, +sailing slowly out into the Atlantic; and behold, instead of the +chaos of mist, the whole amphitheatre of cliffs, with their gay green +woods and spots of bright red marl and cold black ironstone, and the +gleaming white sands of Braunton, and the hills of Exmoor bathed in +sunshine, so near and clear we almost fancied we could see the pink +heather-hue upon them; and the bay one vast rainbow, ten miles of +flame-colour and purple, emerald and ultramarine, flecked with a +thousand spots of flying snow. No one knows what gigantic effects of +colour even our temperate zone can show, till they have been in +Devonshire and Cornwall; and last, but not least, in Ireland--the +Emerald Isle, in truth. No stay-at-home knows the colour of the sea +till he has seen the West of England; and no one, either stay-at-home +or traveller, I suspect, knows what the colour of a green field can +be till he has seen it among the magic smiles and tears of an Irish +summer shower in county Down. + +Down we wandered from our height through 'trim walks and alleys +green,' where the arbutus and gumcistus fringed the cliffs, and +through the deep glades of the park, towards the delicious little +cove which bounds it.--A deep crack in the wooded hills, an old mill +half buried in rocks and flowers, a stream tinkling on from one rock- +basin to another towards the beach, a sandy lawn gay with sea-side +flowers over which wild boys and bare-footed girls were driving their +ponies with panniers full of sand, and as they rattled back to the +beach for a fresh load, standing upright on the backs of their +steeds, with one foot in each pannier, at full trot over rocks and +stones where a landsman would find it difficult to walk on his own +legs. + +Enraptured with the place and people, Claude pulled out his sketch- +book and sat down. + +'What extraordinary rocks!' said he, at length. 'How different from +those Cyclopean blocks and walls along the Exmoor cliffs are these +rich purple and olive ironstone layers, with their sharp serrated +lines and polished slabs, set up on edge, snapped, bent double, +twisted into serpentine curves, every sheet of cliff scored with +sharp parallel lines at some fresh fantastic angle!' + +Yes; there must have been strange work here when all these strata +were being pressed and squeezed together like a ream of wet paper +between the rival granite pincers of Dartmoor and Lundy. They must +have suffered enough then in a few years to give them a fair right to +lie quiet till Doomsday, as they seem likely to do. But it is only +old Mother Earth who has fallen asleep hereabouts. Air and sea are +just as live as ever. Ay, lovely and calm enough spread beneath us +there the broad semicircle of the bay; but to know what it can be, it +should be seen as I have seen it, when, in the roaring December +morning, we have been galloping along the cliffs, wreck-hunting.--One +morning I can remember well, how we watched from the Hartland Cliffs +a great barque, which came drifting and rolling in before the western +gale, while we followed her up the coast, parsons and sportsmen, +farmers and Preventive men, with the Manby's mortar lumbering behind +us in a cart, through stone gaps and track-ways, from headland to +headland.--The maddening excitement of expectation as she ran wildly +towards the cliffs at our feet, and then sheered off again +inexplicably;--her foremast and bowsprit, I recollect, were gone +short off by the deck; a few rags of sail fluttered from her main and +mizen. But with all straining of eyes and glasses, we could discern +no sign of man on board. Well I recollect the mingled disappointment +and admiration of the Preventive men, as a fresh set of salvors +appeared in view, in the form of a boat's crew of Clovelly fishermen; +how we watched breathlessly the little black speck crawling and +struggling up in the teeth of the gale, under the shelter of the +land, till, when the ship had rounded a point into smoother water, +she seized on her like some tiny spider on a huge unwieldy fly; and +then how one still smaller black speck showed aloft on the main-yard, +and another--and then the desperate efforts to get the topsail set-- +and how we saw it tear out of their hands again, and again, and +again, and almost fancied we could hear the thunder of its flappings +above the roar of the gale, and the mountains of surf which made the +rocks ring beneath our feet;--and how we stood silent, shuddering, +expecting every moment to see whirled into the sea from the plunging +yards one of those same tiny black specks, in each one of which was a +living human soul, with sad women praying for him at home! And then +how they tried to get her head round to the wind, and disappeared +instantly in a cloud of white spray--and let her head fall back +again--and jammed it round again, and disappeared again--and at last +let her drive helplessly up the bay, while we kept pace with her +along the cliffs; and how at last, when she had been mastered and +fairly taken in tow, and was within two miles of the pier, and all +hearts were merry with the hopes of a prize which would make them +rich, perhaps, for years to come--one-third, I suppose, of the whole +value of her cargo--how she broke loose from them at the last moment, +and rushed frantically in upon those huge rocks below us, leaping +great banks of slate at the blow of each breaker, tearing off masses +of ironstone which lie there to this day to tell the tale, till she +drove up high and dry against the cliff, and lay, like an enormous +stranded whale, grinding and crashing herself to pieces against the +walls of her adamantine cage. And well I recollect the sad records +of the log-book which was left on board the deserted ship; how she +had been waterlogged for weeks and weeks, buoyed up by her timber +cargo, the crew clinging in the tops, and crawling down, when they +dared, for putrid biscuit-dust and drops of water, till the water was +washed overboard and gone; and then notice after notice, 'On this day +such an one died,' 'On this day such an one was washed away'--the log +kept up to the last, even when there was only that to tell, by the +stern business-like merchant skipper, whoever he was; and how at +last, when there was neither food nor water, the strong man's heart +seemed to have quailed, or perhaps risen, into a prayer, jotted down +in the log--'The Lord have mercy on us!'--and then a blank of several +pages, and, scribbled with a famine-shaken hand, 'Remember thy +Creator in the days of thy youth;'--and so the log and the ship were +left to the rats, which covered the deck when our men boarded her. +And well I remember the last act of that tragedy; for a ship has +really, as sailors feel, a personality, almost a life and soul of her +own; and as long as her timbers hold together, all is not over. You +can hardly call her a corpse, though the human beings who inhabited +her, and were her soul, may have fled into the far eternities; and so +we felt that night, as we came down along the woodland road, with the +north-west wind hurling dead branches and showers of crisp oak-leaves +about our heads; till suddenly, as we staggered out of the wood, we +came upon such a piece of chiaroscuro as would have baffled +Correggio, or Rembrandt, himself. Under a wall was a long tent of +sails and spars, filled with Preventive men, fishermen, Lloyd's +underwriters, lying about in every variety of strange attitude and +costume; while candles, stuck in bayonet-handles in the wall, poured +out a wild glare over shaggy faces and glittering weapons, and piles +of timber, and rusty iron cable, that glowed red-hot in the light, +and then streamed up the glen towards us through the salt misty air +in long fans of light, sending fiery bars over the brown transparent +oak foliage and the sad beds of withered autumn flowers, and +glorifying the wild flakes of foam, as they rushed across the light- +stream, into troops of tiny silver angels, that vanished into the +night and hid themselves among the woods from the fierce spirit of +the storm. And then, just where the glare of the lights and watch- +fires was most brilliant, there too the black shadows of the cliff +had placed the point of intensest darkness, lightening gradually +upwards right and left, between the two great jaws of the glen, into +a chaos of grey mist, where the eye could discern no form of sea or +cloud, but a perpetual shifting and quivering as if the whole +atmosphere was writhing with agony in the clutches of the wind. + +The ship was breaking up; and we sat by her like hopeless physicians +by a deathbed-side, to watch the last struggle,--and 'the effects of +the deceased.' I recollect our literally warping ourselves down to +the beach, holding on by rocks and posts. There was a saddened awe- +struck silence, even upon the gentleman from Lloyd's with the pen +behind his ear. A sudden turn of the clouds let in a wild gleam of +moonshine upon the white leaping heads of the breakers, and on the +pyramid of the Black-church Rock, which stands in summer in such calm +grandeur gazing down on the smiling bay, with the white sand of +Braunton and the red cliffs of Portledge shining through its two vast +arches; and against a slab of rock on the right, for years afterwards +discoloured with her paint, lay the ship, rising slowly on every +surge, to drop again with a piteous crash as the wave fell back from +the cliff, and dragged the roaring pebbles back with it under the +coming wall of foam. You have heard of ships at the last moment +crying aloud like living things in agony? I heard it then, as the +stumps of her masts rocked and reeled in her, and every plank and +joint strained and screamed with the dreadful tension. + +A horrible image--a human being shrieking on the rack, rose up before +me at those strange semi-human cries, and would not be put away--and +I tried to turn, and yet my eyes were riveted on the black mass, +which seemed vainly to implore the help of man against the stern +ministers of the Omnipotent. + +Still she seemed to linger in the death-struggle, and we turned at +last away; when, lo! a wave, huger than all before it, rushed up the +boulders towards us.--We had just time to save ourselves.--A dull, +thunderous groan, as if a mountain had collapsed, rose above the roar +of the tempest; and we all turned with an instinctive knowledge of +what had happened, just in time to see the huge mass melt away into +the boiling white, and vanish for evermore. And then the very raving +of the wind seemed hushed with awe; the very breakers plunged more +silently towards the shore, with something of a sullen compunction; +and as we stood and strained our eyes into the gloom, one black plank +after another crawled up out of the darkness upon the head of the +coming surge, and threw itself at our feet like the corpse of a +drowning man, too spent to struggle more. + +There is another subject for a picture for you, my friend Claude: +but your gayer fancy will prefer the scene just as you are sketching +it now, as still and bright as if this coast had never seen the bay +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 from the pitiless howling +waste of spray behind them; and that merry beach beside the town +covered with shrieking women and old men casting themselves on the +pebbles in fruitless agonies of prayer, as corpse after corpse swept +up at the feet of wife and child, till in one case alone a single +dawn saw upwards of sixty widows and orphans weeping over those who +had gone out the night before in the fulness of strength and courage. +Hardly an old playmate of mine, but is drowned and gone + + +'Their graves are scattered far and wide + By mount, by stream, and sea.' + + +One poor little fellow's face starts out of the depths of memory as +fresh as ever, my especial pet and bird-nesting companion as a boy--a +little delicate, precocious, large-brained child, who might have +written books some day, if he had been a gentleman's son: but when +his father's ship was wrecked, they found him, left alone of all the +crew, just as he had been lashed into the rigging by loving and dying +hands, but cold and stiff, the little soul beaten out of him by the +cruel waves before it had time to show what growth there might have +been in it. We will talk no more of such things. It is thankless to +be sad when all heaven and earth are keeping holiday under the smile +of God. + +'And now let us return. At four o'clock to-morrow morning, you know, +we are to start for Lundy.' + + +V.--LUNDY. + + +It was four o'clock on an August morning. Our little party had made +the sleeping streets ring with jests and greetings, as it collected +on the pier. Some dozen young men and women, sons and daughters of +the wealthier coasting captains and owners of fishing-smacks, +chaperoned by our old landlord, whose delicate and gentlemanlike +features and figure were strangely at variance with the history of +his life,--daring smuggler, daring man-of-war sailor, and then most +daring and successful of coastguard-men. After years of fighting and +shipwreck and creeping for kegs of brandy; after having seen, too-- +sight not to be forgotten--the Walcheren dykes and the Walcheren +fever, through weary months of pestilence, he had come back with a +little fortune of prize-money to be a village oracle, loving and +beloved, as gentle and courteous as if he had never 'stato al +inferno,' and looked Death in the face. Heaven bless thee, shrewd +loyal heart, a gentleman of God's making, not unrecognized either by +many of men's making. + +The other chaperone was a lady of God's making, too; one who might +have been a St. Theresa, had she been born there and then; but as it +was, had been fated to become only the Wesleyan abbess of the town, +and, like Deborah, 'a mother in Israel.' With her tall, slim, +queenly figure, massive forehead, glittering eyes, features beaming +with tenderness and enthusiasm, and yet overcast with a peculiar +expression of self-consciousness and restraint, well known to those +who have studied the physiognomies of 'saints,' she seemed to want +only the dress of some monastic order to make her the ideal of a +mediaeval abbess, watching with a half-pitying, half-complacent +smile, the gambols of a group of innocent young worldlings. I saw +Claude gazing at her full of admiration and surprise, which latter +was certainly not decreased when, as soon as all had settled +themselves comfortably on board, and the cutter was slipping quietly +away under the magnificent deer-park cliffs, the Lady Abbess, pulling +out her Wesleyan hymn-book, gave out the Morning Hymn, apparently as +a matter of course. + +With hardly a demur one sweet voice after another arose; then a man +gained courage, and chimed in with a full harmonious bass; then a +rich sad alto made itself heard, as it wandered in and out between +the voices of the men and women; and at last a wild mellow tenor, +which we discovered after much searching to proceed from the most +unlikely-looking lips of an old dry, weather-bleared, mummified +chrysalis of a man, who stood aft, steering with his legs, and +showing no sign of life except when he slowly and solemnly filled his +nose with snuff. + +'What strange people have you brought me among?' asked Claude. 'I +have been wondering ever since I came here at the splendid faces and +figures of men, women, and children, which popped out upon me from +every door in that human rabbit-burrow above. I have been in +raptures at the gracefulness, the courtesy, the intelligence of +almost everyone I meet; and now, to crown all, everyone among them +seems to be a musician.' + +'Really you are not far wrong, and you will find them as remarkable +morally as they are physically and intellectually. The simplicity +and purity of the women here put one more in mind of the valleys of +the Tyrol than of an English village.' + +'And in proportion to their purity, I suppose,' said Claude, 'is +their freedom and affectionateness?' + +'Exactly. It would do your "naturalist" heart good, Claude, to see a +young fellow just lauded from a foreign voyage rolling up the street +which we have just descended, and availing himself of the immemorial +right belonging to such cases of kissing and being kissed by every +woman whom he meets, young and old. You will find yourself here +among those who are too simple-minded, and too full of self-respect, +to be either servile or uncourteous.' + +'I have found out already that Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality, in +such company as this, are infinitely pleasanter, as well as cheaper, +than the aristocratic seclusion of a cutter hired for our own +behoof.' + +'True; and now you will not go home and, as most tourists do, say +that you know a place, without knowing the people who live in it--as +if the human inhabitants of a range of scenery were not among its +integral and most important parts--' + +'What! are Copley Fielding's South Down landscapes incomplete without +a half-starved seven shillings a-week labourer in the foreground?' + +'Honestly, are they not a text without a sermon? a premise without a +conclusion? Is it not partly because the land is down, and not well- +tilled arable, that the labourer is what he is? And yet, perhaps, +the very absence of human beings in his vast sheets of landscape, +when one considers that they are scraps of great, overcrowded, +scientific England in the nineteenth century, is in itself the +bitterest of satires. But, hush! there is another hymn commencing-- +not to be the last by many.' + +* * * * * + +We had landed, and laughed, and scrambled, eaten and drunk, seen all +the sights of Lundy, and heard all the traditions. Are they not +written in Mr. Bamfield's Ilfracombe Guide? Why has not some one +already written a fire-and-brimstone romance about them? 'Moresco +Castle; or, the Pirate Knight of the Atlantic Wave.' What a title! +Or again--'The Seal Fiend; or, the Nemesis of the Scuttled West +Indiaman.'--If I had paper and lubricite enough, and that delightful +carelessness of any moral or purpose, except that of fine writing and +money-making, which possesses some modern scribblers--I could tales +unfold--But neither pirate legends, nor tales of cheated insurance +offices, nor wrecks and murders, will make us understand Lundy--what +it is 'considered in its idea,' as the new argot is. It may be +defined as a lighthouse-bearing island. The whole three miles of +granite table-land, seals, sea-birds, and human beings, are mere +accidents and appendages--the pedestal and the ornaments of that +great white tower in the centre, whose sleepless fiery eye blinks all +night long over the night-mists of the Atlantic. If, as a wise man +has said, the days will come when our degenerate posterity will fall +down and worship rusty locomotives and fossil electric-telegraphs, +the relics of their ancestors' science, grown to them mythic and +impossible, as the Easter-islanders bow before the colossal statues +left by a nobler and extinct race, then surely there will be +pilgrimages to Lundy, and prayers to that white granite tower, with +its unglazed lantern and rusting machinery, to light itself up again, +and help poor human beings! Really, my dear brothers, I am not in +jest: you seem but too likely now-a-days to arrive at some such +catastrophe--sentimental philosophy for the 'enlightened' few, and +fetish-worship (of which nominally Christian forms are as possible as +heathen ones) for the masses.--At that you may only too probably +arrive--unless you repent, and 'get back your souls.' + +* * * * * + +We had shot along the cliffs a red-legged chough or two, and one of +the real black English rat, exterminated on the mainland by the grey +Hanoverian newcomer; and weary with sight-seeing and scrambling, we +sat down to meditate on a slab of granite, which hung three hundred +feet in air above the western main. + +'This is even more strange and new to me,' said Claude, at length, +'than anything I have yet seen in this lovely West. I now appreciate +Ruskin's advice to oil-painters to go and study the coasts of Devon +and Cornwall, instead of lingering about the muddy seas and tame +cliffs of the Channel and the German Ocean.' + +'How clear and brilliant,' said I, 'everything shows through this +Atlantic atmosphere. The intensity of colouring may vie with that of +the shores of the Mediterranean. The very raininess of the climate, +by condensing the moisture into an ever-changing phantasmagoria of +clouds, leaves the clear air and sunshine, when we do get a glimpse +of them, all the more pure and transparent.' + +'The distinctive feature of the scene is, in my eyes, the daring +juxtaposition of large simple masses of positive colour. There are +none of the misty enamelled tones of Lynmouth, or the luscious +richness of Clovelly. The forms are so simple and severe, that they +would be absolutely meagre, were it not for the rich colouring with +which Nature has so lovingly made up for the absence of all softness, +all picturesque outline. One does not regret or even feel the want +of trees here, while the eye ranges down from that dappled cloud- +world above, over that sheet of purple heather, those dells bedded +with dark green fern, of a depth and richness of hue which I never +saw before--over those bright grey granite rocks, spangled with black +glittering mica and golden lichens, to rest at last on that sea +below, which streams past the island in a swift roaring torrent of +tide.' + +'Sea, Claude? say, ocean. This is real Atlantic blue here beneath +us. No more Severn mud, no more grass-green bay-water, but real +ocean sapphire--dark, deep, intense, Homeric purple, it spreads away, +away, there before us, without a break or islet, to the shores of +America. You are sitting on one of the last points of Europe; and +therefore all things round you are stern and strange with a barbaric +pomp, such as befits the boundary of a world.' + +'Ay, the very form of the cliffs shows them to be the breakwaters of +a continent. No more fantastic curves and bands of slate, such as +harmonize so well with the fairyland which we left this morning; the +cliffs, with their horizontal rows of cubical blocks, seem built up +by Cyclopean hands.' + +'Yet how symbolic is the difference between them and that equally +Cyclopic masonry of the Exmoor coast. There every fracture is fresh, +sharp-edged, crystalline; the worn-out useless hills are dropping to +pieces with their own weight. Here each cube is delicately rounded +off at the edges, every crack worn out into a sinuous furrow, like +the scars of an everlasting warfare with the winds and waves.' + +'Does it not raise strange longings in you,' said Claude, 'to gaze +out yonder over the infinite calm, and then to remember that beyond +it lies America!--the new world; the future world; the great Titan- +baby, who will be teeming with new Athens and Londons, with new +Bacons and Shakspeares, Newtons and Goethes, when this old worn-out +island will be--what? Oh! when I look out here, like a bird from its +cage, a captive from his dungeon, and remember what lies behind me, +to what I must return to-morrow--the over-peopled Babylon of misery +and misrule, puffery and covetousness--and there before me great +countries untilled, uncivilized, unchristianized, crying aloud for +man to come and be man indeed, and replenish the earth and subdue it. +"Oh that I had wings as a dove, then would I flee away and be at +rest!" Here, lead me away; my body is growing as dizzy as my mind. +I feel coming over me that horrible longing of which I have heard, to +leap out into empty space. How the blank air whispers, "Be free!" +How the broad sea smiles, and calls, with its ten thousand waves, "Be +free!"--As I live, if you do not take me away I shall throw myself +over the cliff.' + +I did take him away, for I knew the sensation and its danger well. +It has nothing to do with physical giddiness. Those who are cliff- +bred, and who never were giddy for an instant in their lives, have +often felt themselves impelled to leap from masts, and tree-tops, and +cliffs; and nothing but the most violent effort of will could break +the fascination. I cannot but think, by the bye, that many a +puzzling suicide might be traced to this same emotion acting on a +weak and morbid brain. + +We returned to the little landing cove. The red-sailed cutter lay +sleeping below us--'floating double, ship and shadow.' Shoals of +innumerable mackerel broke up, making acres of water foam and sparkle +round their silvery sides, with a soft roar (call it 'a bull' if you +like, it is the only expression for that mysterious sound), while +among them the black head of a huge seal was slowly and silently +appearing and vanishing, as he got his dinner, in a quiet business- +like way, among the unhappy wanderers. + +We put off in the boat, and just halfway from the cutter Claude gave +a start, and the women a scream, as the enormous brute quietly raised +his head and shoulders out of the water ten yards off, with a fish +kicking in his mouth, and the water running off his nose, to take a +deliberate stare at us, after the fashion of seals, whose ruling +passion is curiosity. The sound of a musical instrument, the sight +of a man bathing--anything, in short, which their small wits cannot +explain at first sight, is enough to make them forget all their +cunning, and thrust their heads suicidally into any danger; and even +so it fared with the 'black man,' as the girls, in their first +terror, declared him to be. Some fellow's gun went off--of itself I +should like to believe--but the whole charge disappeared into his +sleek round visage, knocking the mackerel from between his teeth; and +he turned over, a seven-foot lump of lifeless blubber. + +'Wretch!' cried Claude, as we dragged the seal into the boat, where +he lay with his head and arms hanging helplessly over the bows, like +a sea-sick alderman on board a Margate steamer. 'What excuse can he +give for such a piece of wanton cruelty?' + +'I assure you his skin and oil are very valuable.' + +'Pish!--Was he thinking of skin and oil when he pulled the trigger? +or merely obeying the fleshly lust of destructiveness--the puppet of +two bumps on the back of his head?' + +'My dear Claude, man is the microcosm; and as the highest animal, the +ideal type of the mammalia, he, like all true types, comprises in +himself the attributes of all lower species. Therefore he must have +a tiger-vein in him, my dear Claude, as well as a beaver-vein and a +spider-vein; and no more shame to him. You are a butterfly; that +good fellow a beast of prey; both may have their own work to do in +this age just as they had in the old ones; and if you do not like +that explanation, all I can say is, I can sympathise with you and +with him too. Homo sum--humani nihil a me alienum puto. Trim the +boat, lads, or the seal will swamp us, and, like Samson, slay more in +his death than ever he slew in his life.' + +We slipped on homeward. The cliff-wall of Lundy stood out blacker +and blacker every moment against the gay western sky; greens, greys, +and purples, dyeing together into one deep rich monotone, for which +our narrow colour-vocabulary has no word; and threw a long cold +shadow towards us across the golden sea; suddenly above its dark +ridge a wild wreath of low rack caught the rays of the setting sun, +and flamed up like a volcano towards the dun and purple canopy of +upper clouds. Before us the blue sea and the blue land-line were +fading into mournful grey, on which one huge West Indiaman blazed +out, orange and scarlet, her crowded canvas all a-flame from the +truck to the water's edge.--A few moments and she, too, had vanished +into the grey twilight, and a chill night-wind crisped the sea. It +was a relief to hear the Evening Hymn rise rich and full from one +voice, and then another and another, till the men chimed in one by +one, and the whole cutter, from stem to stern, breathed up its melody +into the silent night. + +But the hymn soon flagged--there was more mirth on board than could +vent itself in old Charles Wesley's words; and one began to hum a +song tune, and then another, with a side glance at the expression of +the Lady Abbess's face, till at last, when a fair wife took courage, +and burst out with full pipe into 'The sea, the sea,' the ice was +fairly broken; and among jests and laughter one merry harmless song +after another rang out, many of them, to Claude's surprise, +fashionable London ones, which sounded strangely enough out there on +the wild western sea. At last--'Claude, friend,' I whispered, 'you +must sing your share too--and mine also, for that matter.' + +'What shall I sing?' + +'Anything you will, from the sublime to the ridiculous. They will +understand and appreciate it as well as yourself. Recollect, you are +not among bullet-headed South Saxon clods, but among wits as keen and +imaginations as rich as those of any Scotch shepherd or Manchester +operative.' + +And up rose his exquisite tenor. + +This was his first song, but it was not allowed to be his last. +German ballads, Italian Opera airs, were all just as warmly, and +perhaps far more sincerely appreciated, as they would have been by +any London evening-party; and the singing went on, hour after hour, +as we slipped slowly on upon the tide, till it grew late, and the +sweet voices died away one by one; and then the Liberty, Equality, +and Fraternity which had reigned so pleasantly throughout the day +took a new form, as the women huddled together to sleep in each +other's arms; and the men and we clustered forwards, while from every +mouth fragrant incense steamed upwards into the air. 'Man a cooking +animal?' my dear Doctor Johnson--pooh! man is a smoking animal. +There is his ergon, his 'differential energy,' as the Aristotelians +say--his true distinction from the ourang-outang. Ponder it well. + +The men were leaning on the trawl capstan, while our old landlord, +with half-a-dozen pipes within a foot of his face, droned out some +long sea-yarn about Ostend, and muds, and snow-storms, and revenue- +cruisers going down stern foremost, kegs of brandy and French +prisons, which I shall not repeat; for indeed the public has been +surfeited with sea-stories of late, from many sufficiently dull ones +up to the genial wisdom of 'Peter Simple,' and the gorgeous word- +painting of 'Tom Cringle's Log.' And now the subject is stale--the +old war and the wonders thereof have died away into the past, like +the men who fought in it; and Trafalgar and the Bellerophon are +replaced by Manchester and 'Mary Barton.' We have solved the old +sea-going problems pretty well--thanks to wise English-hearted +Captain Marryat, now gone to his rest, just when his work was done; +and we must turn round and face a few land-going problems not quite +so easy of solution. So Claude and I thought, as we leant over the +sloop's bows, listening neither to the Ostend story forwards nor the +forty-stanza ballad aft, which the old steersman was moaning on, +careless of listeners, to keep himself awake at the helm. Forty +stanzas or so we did count from curiosity; the first line of each of +which ended infallibly with + + +'Says the commodo--ore; + + +and the third with + + +'Says the female smuggler;' + + +and then gave up in despair; and watched in a dreamy, tired, half-sad +mood, the everlasting sparkle of the water as our bows threw it +gently off in sheets of flame and 'tender curving lines of creamy' +fire, that ran along the glassy surface, and seemed to awaken the sea +for yards round into glittering life, as countless diamonds, and +emeralds, and topazes, leaped and ran and dived round us, while we +slipped slowly by; and then a speck of light would show far off in +the blank darkness, and another, and another, and slide slowly up to +us--shoals of medusae, every one of them a heaving globe of flame; +and some unseen guillemot would give a startled squeak, or a +shearwater close above our heads suddenly stopped the yarn, and +raised a titter among the men, by his ridiculously articulate, and +not over-complimentary, cry; and then a fox's bark from the cliffs +came wild and shrill, although so faint and distant; or the lazy gaff +gave a sad uneasy creak; and then a soft warm air, laden with heather +honey, and fragrant odours of sedge, and birch, and oak, came sighing +from the land; while all around us was the dense blank of the night, +except where now and then some lonely gleam through the southern +clouds showed the cliff-tops on our right.--It was all most +unearthly, dreamlike, a strange phantasmagoria, like some scene from +'The Ancient Mariner'--all the world shut out, silent, invisible, and +we floating along there alone, like a fairy ship creeping through +Chaos and the unknown Limbo. Was it an evil thought that rose within +me as I said to Claude--'Is not this too like life? Our only light +the sparkles that rise up round us at every step, and die behind us; +and all around, and all before, the great black unfathomable +eternities? A few souls brought together as it were by chance, for a +short friendship and mutual dependence in this little ship of earth, +so soon to land her passengers and break up the company for ever?' + +He smiled. + +'There is a devil's meaning to everything in nature, and a God's +meaning, too. Your friends, the zoologists, have surely taught you +better than that. As I read Nature's parable to-night, I find +nothing in it but hope. What if there be darkness, the sun will rise +to-morrow. What if there seem a chaos: the great organic world is +still living, and growing, and feeding, unseen by us, all the black +night through; and every phosphoric atom there below is a sign that +even in the darkest night there is still the power of light, ready to +flash out, wherever and however it is stirred. Does the age seem to +you dark? Do you, too, feel as I do at times, the awful sadness of +that text,--"The time shall come when ye shall desire to see one of +the days of the Lord, and shall not see it"? Then remember that + + +"The night is never so long +But at last it ringeth for matin song." + + +And even as it is around us here, so it is in the world of men. The +night is peopled not merely with phantoms and wizards, superstitions +and spirits of evil, but under its shadow all sciences, methods, +social energies, are taking rest, and growing, and feeding, unknown +to themselves, that they may awake into a new life, and intermarry, +and beget children nobler than themselves, when "the day-spring from +on high comes down." Even now, see! the dawn is gilding the highest +souls, as it is those Exmoor peaks afar; and we are in the night only +because we crawl below. What if we be unconscious of all the living +energies which are fermenting round us now? Have you not shown me in +this last week every moorland pool, every drop of the summer sea, +alive with beautiful organizations, multiplying as fast as the +thoughts of man? Is not every leaf breathing still, every sap vein +drinking still, though we may not see them? "Even so is the kingdom +of God; like seed sown in the ground; and men rise, and lie down and +sleep; and it groweth up they know not how."' + +We both fell into a reverie. The story and the ballad were finished, +and not a sound broke the silence except the screaming of the sea- +fowl, which led my thoughts wandering back to nights long past, when +we dragged the seine up to our chins in water through the short +midsummer night, and scrambled and rolled over on the beach in boyish +glee, after the skate and mullet, with those now gone; and as I +thought and thought, old voices seemed to call me, old faces looked +at me, of playmates, and those nearer than playmates, now sleeping in +the deep deep sea, amid far coral islands; and old figures seemed to +glide out of the mysterious dark along the still sea floor, as if the +ocean were indeed giving up her dead. I shook myself, turned away, +and tried to persuade myself that I was dreaming. Perhaps I had been +doing so. At least, I remember very little more, till I was roused +by the rattling of the chain-cable through the hawse-hole, opposite +the pier-head. + +And now, gentle readers, farewell; and farewell, Clovelly, and all +the loving hearts it holds; and farewell, too, the soft still summer +weather. Claude and I are taking our last walk together along the +deer-park cliffs. Lundy is shrouded in the great grey fan of dappled +haze which streams up from the westward, dimming the sickly sun. +'There is not a breath the blue wave to curl.' Yet lo! round +Chapman's Head creeps a huge bank of polished swell, and bursts in +thunder on the cliffs.--Another follows, and another.--The Atlantic +gales are sending in their avant-courriers of ground-swell: six +hours more, and the storm which has been sweeping over 'the still- +vexed Bermoothes,' and bending the tall palms on West Indian isles, +will be roaring through the oak woods of Devon. The old black buck +is calling his does with ominous croakings, and leading the way +slowly into the deepest coverts of the glens. The stormy petrels, +driven in from the Atlantic, are skimming like black swallows over +the bay beneath us. Long strings of sea-fowl are flagging on +steadily at railroad pace, towards the sands and salt-marshes of +Braunton. The herring-boats are hastily hauling their nets--you may +see the fish sparkling like flakes of silver as they come up over the +gunwale; all craft, large and small, are making for the shelter of +the pier. Claude starts this afternoon to sit for six months in +Babylonic smoke, working up his sketches into certain unspeakable +pictures, with which the world will be astonished, or otherwise, at +the next Royal Academy Exhibition; while I, for whom another +fortnight of pure western air remains, am off to well-known streams, +to be in time for the autumn floods, and the shoals of fresh-run +salmon trout. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} Fraser's Magazine, June 1867. + +{29} Fraser's Magazine, September 1858. + +{74} The Ripon list of natural flies contains several other species +of small Nemouridae unknown to me, save one brown one, which is seen +in the South, though rarely, in June. + +{103} For these details I am indebted to a paper in the 'Annals of +Natural History,' for September 1862, by my friend, Professor Alfred +Newton, of Cambridge. + +{135} Fraser's Magazine, January 1858. + +{225a} Fraser's Magazine, July 1849. + +{225b} Some years after this was written, the very book which was +needed appeared, as "The Chase of the Red Deer," by Mr. Palk Collyns. + +{235} Written before the Volunteer movement. + +{287} Most wise and noble words upon this matter, worth the +attention of all thinking men, and above all of clergymen, have been +written by Mr. J. S. Mill, in his tract on 'Liberty.' + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, PROSE IDYLLS *** + +This file should be named prid10.txt or prid10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, prid11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, prid10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/prid10.zip b/old/prid10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3fc2614 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/prid10.zip diff --git a/old/prid10h.htm b/old/prid10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e642184 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/prid10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6812 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Prose Idylls</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Prose Idylls, by Charles Kingsley</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Prose Idylls, by Charles Kingsley + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Prose Idylls + +Author: Charles Kingsley + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7032] +[This file was first posted on February 25, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1882 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>PROSE IDYLLS, NEW AND OLD</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>Contents:<br /> A Charm of Birds<br /> Chalk-Stream +Studies<br /> The Fens<br /> My Winter-Garden<br /> From +Ocean to Sea<br /> North Devon</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>I. ‘A CHARM OF BIRDS.’ <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a></h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Is it merely a fancy that we English, the educated people among us +at least, are losing that love for spring which among our old forefathers +rose almost to worship? That the perpetual miracle of the budding +leaves and the returning song-birds awakes no longer in us the astonishment +which it awoke yearly among the dwellers in the old world, when the +sun was a god who was sick to death each winter, and returned in spring +to life and health, and glory; when the death of Adonis, at the autumnal +equinox, was wept over by the Syrian women, and the death of Baldur, +in the colder north, by all living things, even to the dripping trees, +and the rocks furrowed by the autumn rains; when Freya, the goddess +of youth and love, went forth over the earth each spring, while the +flowers broke forth under her tread over the brown moors, and the birds +welcomed her with song; when, according to Olaus Magnus, the Goths and +South Swedes had, on the return of spring, a mock battle between summer +and winter, and welcomed the returning splendour of the sun with dancing +and mutual feasting, rejoicing that a better season for fishing and +hunting was approaching? To those simpler children of a simpler +age, in more direct contact with the daily and yearly facts of Nature, +and more dependent on them for their bodily food and life, winter and +spring were the two great facts of existence; the symbols, the one of +death, the other of life; and the battle between the two - the battle +of the sun with darkness, of winter with spring, of death with life, +of bereavement with love - lay at the root of all their myths and all +their creeds. Surely a change has come over our fancies. +The seasons are little to us now. We are nearly as comfortable +in winter as in summer, or in spring. Nay, we have begun, of late, +to grumble at the two latter as much as at the former, and talk (and +not without excuse at times) of ‘the treacherous month of May,’ +and of ‘summer having set in with its usual severity.’ +We work for the most part in cities and towns, and the seasons pass +by us unheeded. May and June are spent by most educated people +anywhere rather than among birds and flowers. They do not escape +into the country till the elm hedges are growing black, and the song-birds +silent, and the hay cut, and all the virgin bloom of the country has +passed into a sober and matronly ripeness - if not into the sere and +yellow leaf. Our very landscape painters, till Creswick arose +and recalled to their minds the fact that trees were sometimes green, +were wont to paint few but brown autumnal scenes. As for the song +of birds, of which in the middle age no poet could say enough, our modern +poets seem to be forgetting that birds ever sing.</p> +<p>It was not so of old. The climate, perhaps, was more severe +than now; the transition from winter to spring more sudden, like that +of Scandinavia now. Clearage of forests and drainage of land have +equalized our seasons, or rather made them more uncertain. More +broken winters are followed by more broken springs; and May-day is no +longer a marked point to be kept as a festival by all childlike hearts. +The merry month of May is merry only in stage songs. The May garlands +and dances are all but gone: the borrowed plate, and the milkmaids who +borrowed it, gone utterly. No more does Mrs. Pepys go to ‘lie +at Woolwich, in order to a little ayre and to gather May-dew’ +for her complexion, by Mrs. Turner’s advice. The Maypole +is gone likewise; and never more shall the puritan soul of a Stubbs +be aroused in indignation at seeing ‘against Maie, every parish, +towne, and village assemble themselves together, both men, women, and +children, olde and young, all indifferently, and goe into the woodes +and groves, hilles and mountaines, where they spend the night in pastyme, +and in the morning they returne, bringing with them birch bowes and +braunches of trees to deck their assembly withal. . . . They have twentie +or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe having a sweete nosegay of flowers +tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these draw home this Maypole (this +stincking idol rather) which is covered all over with flowers and hearbes, +with two or three hundred men, women, and children following it with +great devotion. . . And then they fall to banquet and feast, daunce +and leap about it, as the heathen people did at the dedication of their +idolles, whereof this is a perfect pattern, or the thing itself.’</p> +<p>This, and much more, says poor Stubbs, in his ‘Anatomie of +Abuses,’ and had, no doubt, good reason enough for his virtuous +indignation at May-day scandals. But people may be made dull without +being made good; and the direct and only effect of putting down May +games and such like was to cut off the dwellers in towns from all healthy +communion with Nature, and leave them to mere sottishness and brutality.</p> +<p>Yet perhaps the May games died out, partly because the feelings which +had given rise to them died out before improved personal comforts. +Of old, men and women fared hardly, and slept cold; and were thankful +to Almighty God for every beam of sunshine which roused them out of +their long hybernation; thankful for every flower and every bird which +reminded them that joy was stronger than sorrow, and life than death. +With the spring came not only labour, but enjoyment:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘In the spring, the young man’s fancy lightly turned +to thoughts of love,’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>as lads and lasses, who had been pining for each other by their winter +firesides, met again, like Daphnis and Chloe, by shaugh and lea; and +learnt to sing from the songs of birds, and to be faithful from their +faithfulness.</p> +<p>Then went out troops of fair damsels to seek spring garlands in the +forest, as Scheffel has lately sung once more in his ‘Frau Aventiure;’ +and, while the dead leaves rattled beneath their feet, hymned ‘La +Regine Avrillouse’ to the music of some Minnesinger, whose song +was as the song of birds; to whom the birds were friends, fellow-lovers, +teachers, mirrors of all which he felt within himself of joyful and +tender, true and pure; friends to be fed hereafter (as Walther von der +Vogelweide had them fed) with crumbs upon his grave.</p> +<p>True melody, it must be remembered, is unknown, at least at present, +in the tropics, and peculiar to the races of those temperate climes, +into which the song-birds come in spring. It is hard to say why. +Exquisite songsters, and those, strangely, of an European type, may +be heard anywhere in tropical American forests: but native races whose +hearts their song can touch, are either extinct or yet to come. +Some of the old German Minnelieder, on the other hand, seem actually +copied from the songs of birds. ‘Tanderadei’ does +not merely ask the nightingale to tell no tales; it repeats, in its +cadences, the nightingale’s song, as the old Minnesinger heard +it when he nestled beneath the lime-tree with his love. They are +often almost as inarticulate, these old singers, as the birds from whom +they copied their notes; the thinnest chain of thought links together +some bird-like refrain: but they make up for their want of logic and +reflection by the depth of their passion, the perfectness of their harmony +with nature. The inspired Swabian, wandering in the pine-forest, +listens to the blackbird’s voice till it becomes his own voice; +and he breaks out, with the very carol of the blackbird</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Vogele im Tannenwald pfeifet so hell.<br />Pfeifet de Wald +aus und ein, wo wird mein Schätze sein?<br />Vogele im Tannenwald +pfeitet so hell.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And he has nothing more to say. That is his whole soul for +the time being; and, like a bird, he sings it over and over again, and +never tires.</p> +<p>Another, a Nieder-Rheinischer, watches the moon rise over the Löwenburg, +and thinks upon his love within the castle hall, till he breaks out +in a strange, sad, tender melody - not without stateliness and manly +confidence in himself and in his beloved - in the true strain of the +nightingale:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Verstohlen geht der Mond auf,<br />Blau, blau, Blümelein,<br />Durch +Silberwölkchen führt sein Lauf.<br />Rosen im Thal, Mädel +im Saal, O schönste Rosa!<br />* * *<br />Und siehst du mich,<br />Und +siehst du sie,<br />Blau, blau, Blümelein,<br />Zwei treu’re +Herzen sah’st du nie;<br />Rosen im Thal u. s. w.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>There is little sense in the words, doubtless, according to our modern +notions of poetry; but they are like enough to the long, plaintive notes +of the nightingale to say all that the poet has to say, again and again +through all his stanzas.</p> +<p>Thus the birds were, to the mediæval singers, their orchestra, +or rather their chorus; from the birds they caught their melodies; the +sounds which the birds gave them they rendered into words.</p> +<p>And the same bird keynote surely is to be traced in the early English +and Scotch songs and ballads, with their often meaningless refrains, +sung for the mere pleasure of singing:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Binnorie, O Binnorie.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Or -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘With a hey lillelu and a how lo lan,<br />And the birk and +the broom blooms bonnie.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Or -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘She sat down below a thorn,<br /> Fine flowers +in the valley,<br />And there has she her sweet babe born,<br /> And +the green leaves they grow rarely.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Or even those ‘fal-la-las,’ and other nonsense refrains, +which, if they were not meant to imitate bird-notes, for what were they +meant?</p> +<p>In the old ballads, too, one may hear the bird keynote. He +who wrote (and a great rhymer he was)</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘As I was walking all alane,<br />I heard twa corbies making +a mane,’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>had surely the ‘mane’ of the ‘corbies’ in +his ears before it shaped itself into words in his mind: and he had +listened to many a ‘woodwele’ who first thrummed on harp, +or fiddled on crowd, how -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘In summer, when the shawes be shene,<br /> And +leaves be large and long,<br />It is full merry in fair forest<br /> To +hear the fowlés’ song.</p> +<p>‘The wood-wele sang, and wolde not cease,<br /> Sitting +upon the spray;<br />So loud, it wakened Robin Hood<br /> In +the greenwood where he lay.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And Shakespeare - are not his scraps of song saturated with these +same bird-notes? ‘Where the bee sucks,’ ‘When +daisies pied,’ ‘Under the greenwood tree,’ ‘It +was a lover and his lass,’ ‘When daffodils begin to peer,’ +‘Ye spotted snakes,’ have all a ring in them which was caught +not in the roar of London, or the babble of the Globe theatre, but in +the woods of Charlecote, and along the banks of Avon, from</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘The ouzel-cock so black of hue,<br /> With +orange-tawny bill;<br />The throstle with his note so true:<br /> The +wren with little quill;<br />The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,<br /> The +plain-song cuckoo gray’ -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>and all the rest of the birds of the air.</p> +<p>Why is it, again, that so few of our modern songs are truly songful, +and fit to be set to music? Is it not that the writers of them +- persons often of much taste and poetic imagination - have gone for +their inspiration to the intellect, rather than to the ear? That +(as Shelley does by the skylark, and Wordsworth by the cuckoo), instead +of trying to sing like the birds, they only think and talk about the +birds, and therefore, however beautiful and true the thoughts and words +may be, they are not song? Surely they have not, like the mediæval +songsters, studied the speech of the birds, the primæval teachers +of melody; nor even melodies already extant, round which, as round a +framework of pure music, their thoughts and images might crystallize +themselves, certain thereby of becoming musical likewise. The +best modern song writers, Burns and Moore, were inspired by their old +national airs; and followed them, Moore at least, with a reverent fidelity, +which has had its full reward. They wrote words to music and not, +as modern poets are wont, wrote the words first, and left others to +set music to the words. They were right; and we are wrong. +As long as song is to be the expression of pure emotion, so long it +must take its key from music, - which is already pure emotion, untranslated +into the grosser medium of thought and speech - often (as in the case +of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words) not to be translated into +it at all.</p> +<p>And so it may be, that in some simpler age, poets may go back, like +the old Minnesingers, to the birds of the forest, and learn of them +to sing.</p> +<p>And little do most of them know how much there is to learn; what +variety of character, as well as variety of emotion, may be distinguished +by the practised ear, in a ‘charm of birds’ (to use the +old southern phrase), from the wild cry of the missel-thrush, ringing +from afar in the first bright days of March, a passage of one or two +bars repeated three or four times, and then another and another, clear +and sweet, and yet defiant - for the great ‘stormcock’ loves +to sing when rain and wind is coming on, and faces the elements as boldly +as he faces hawk and crow - down to the delicate warble of the wren, +who slips out of his hole in the brown bank, where he has huddled through +the frost with wife and children, all folded in each other’s arms +like human beings, for the sake of warmth, - which, alas! does not always +suffice; for many a lump of wrens may be found, frozen and shrivelled, +after a severe winter. Yet even he, sitting at his house-door +in the low sunlight, says grace for all mercies (as a little child once +worded it) in a song so rapid, so shrill, so loud, and yet so delicately +modulated, that you wonder at the amount of soul within that tiny body; +and then stops suddenly, as a child who has said its lesson, or got +to the end of the sermon, gives a self-satisfied flirt of his tail, +and goes in again to sleep.</p> +<p>Character? I know not how much variety of character there may +be between birds of the same species but between species and species +the variety is endless, and is shown - as I fondly believe - in the +difference of their notes. Each has its own speech, inarticulate, +expressing not thought but hereditary feeling; save a few birds who, +like those little dumb darlings, the spotted flycatchers, seem to have +absolutely nothing to say, and accordingly have the wit to hold their +tongues; and devote the whole of their small intellect to sitting on +the iron rails, flitting off them a yard or two to catch a butterfly +in air, and flitting back with it to their nest.</p> +<p>But listen to the charm of birds in any sequestered woodland, on +a bright forenoon in June. As you try to disentangle the medley +of sounds, the first, perhaps, which will strike your ear will be the +loud, harsh, monotonous, flippant song of the chaffinch; and the metallic +clinking of two or three sorts of titmice. But above the tree-tops, +rising, hovering, sinking, the woodlark is fluting, tender and low. +Above the pastures outside the skylark sings - as he alone can sing; +and close by, from the hollies rings out the blackbird’s tenor +- rollicking, audacious, humorous, all but articulate. From the +tree above him rises the treble of the thrush, pure as the song of angels: +more pure, perhaps, in tone, though neither so varied nor so rich, as +the song of the nightingale. And there, in the next holly, is +the nightingale himself: now croaking like a frog; now talking aside +to his wife on the nest below; and now bursting out into that song, +or cycle of songs, in which if any man finds sorrow, he himself surely +finds none. All the morning he will sing; and again at evening, +till the small hours, and the chill before the dawn: but if his voice +sounds melancholy at night, heard all alone, or only mocked by the ambitious +black-cap, it sounds in the bright morning that which it is, the fulness +of joy and love. Milton’s</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Sweet bird, that shun’st the noise of folly,<br />Most +musical, most melancholy,’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>is untrue to fact. So far from shunning the noise of folly, +the nightingale sings as boldly as anywhere close to a stage-coach road, +or a public path, as anyone will testify who recollects the ‘Wrangler’s +Walk’ from Cambridge to Trumpington forty years ago, when the +covert, which has now become hollow and shelterless, held, at every +twenty yards, an unabashed and jubilant nightingale.</p> +<p>Coleridge surely was not far wrong when he guessed that -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Some night-wandering man, whose heart was pierced<br />With +the remembrance of a grievous wrong,<br />Or slow distemper, or neglected +love<br />(And so, poor wretch, filled all things with himself,<br />And +made all gentle sounds tell back the tale<br />Of his own sorrow) - +he, and such as he,<br />First named these sounds a melancholy strain,<br />And +many a poet echoes the conceit.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>That the old Greek poets were right, and had some grounds for the +myth of Philomela, I do not dispute; though Sophocles, speaking of the +nightingales of Colonos, certainly does not represent them as lamenting. +The Elizabethan poets, however, when they talked of Philomel, ‘her +breast against a thorn,’ were unaware that they and the Greeks +were talking of two different birds; that our English Lusciola Luscinia +is not Lusciola Philomela, one of the various birds called Bulbul in +the East. The true Philomel hardly enters Venetia, hardly crosses +the Swiss Alps, ventures not into the Rhineland and Denmark, but penetrates +(strangely enough) further into South Sweden than our own Luscinia: +ranging meanwhile over all Central Europe, Persia, and the East, even +to Egypt. Whether his song be really sad, let those who have heard +him say. But as for our own Luscinia, who winters not in Egypt +and Arabia, but in Morocco and Algeria, the only note of his which can +be mistaken for sorrow, is rather one of too great joy; that cry, which +is his highest feat of art; which he cannot utter when he first comes +to our shores, but practises carefully, slowly, gradually, till he has +it perfect by the beginning of June; that cry, long, repeated, loudening +and sharpening in the intensity of rising passion, till it stops suddenly, +exhausted at the point where pleasure, from very keenness, turns to +pain; and -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘In the topmost height of joy<br />His passion clasps a secret +grief.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>How different in character from his song is that of the gallant little +black-cap in the tree above him. A gentleman he is of a most ancient +house, perhaps the oldest of European singing birds. How perfect +must have been the special organization which has spread seemingly without +need of alteration or improvement, from Norway to the Cape of Good Hope, +from Japan to the Azores. How many ages must have passed since +his forefathers first got their black caps. And how intense and +fruitful must have been the original vitality which, after so many generations, +can still fill that little body with so strong a soul, and make him +sing as Milton’s new-created birds sang to Milton’s Eve +in Milton’s Paradise. Sweet he is, and various, rich, and +strong, beyond all English warblers, save the nightingale: but his speciality +is his force, his rush, his overflow, not so much of love as of happiness. +The spirit carries him away. He riots up and down the gamut till +he cannot stop himself; his notes tumble over each other; he chuckles, +laughs, shrieks with delight, throws back his head, droops his tail, +sets up his back, and sings with every fibre of his body: and yet he +never forgets his good manners. He is never coarse, never harsh, +for a single note. Always graceful, always sweet, he keeps perfect +delicacy in his most utter carelessness.</p> +<p>And why should we overlook, common though he be, yon hedge-sparrow, +who is singing so modestly, and yet so firmly and so true? Or +cock-robin himself, who is here, as everywhere, honest, self-confident, +and cheerful? Most people are not aware, one sometimes fancies, +how fine a singer is cock-robin now in the spring-time, when his song +is drowned by, or at least confounded with, a dozen other songs. +We know him and love him best in winter, when he takes up (as he does +sometimes in cold wet summer days) that sudden wistful warble, struggling +to be happy, half in vain, which surely contradicts Coleridge’s +verse:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘In Nature there is nothing melancholy.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>But he who will listen carefully to the robin’s breeding song +on a bright day in May, will agree, I think, that he is no mean musician; +and that for force, variety and character of melody, he is surpassed +only by black-cap, thrush, and nightingale.</p> +<p>And what is that song, sudden, loud, sweet, yet faltering, as if +half ashamed? Is it the willow wren or the garden warbler? +The two birds, though very remotely allied to each other, are so alike +in voice, that it is often difficult to distinguish them, unless we +attend carefully to the expression. For the garden warbler, beginning +in high and loud notes, runs down in cadence, lower and softer, till +joy seems conquered by very weariness; while the willow wren, with a +sudden outbreak of cheerfulness, though not quite sure (it is impossible +to describe bird-songs without attributing to the birds human passions +and frailties) that he is not doing a silly thing, struggles on to the +end of his story with a hesitating hilarity, in feeble imitation of +the black-cap’s bacchanalian dactyls.</p> +<p>And now, again - is it true that</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘In Nature there is nothing melancholy’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Mark that slender, graceful, yellow warbler, running along the high +oak boughs like a perturbed spirit, seeking restlessly, anxiously, something +which he seems never to find; and uttering every now and then a long +anxious cry, four or five times repeated, which would be a squeal, were +it not so sweet. Suddenly he flits away, and flutters round the +pendant tips of the beech-sprays like a great yellow butterfly, picking +the insects from the leaves; then flits back to a bare bough, and sings, +with heaving breast and quivering wings, a short, shrill, feeble, tremulous +song; and then returns to his old sadness, wandering and complaining +all day long.</p> +<p>Is there no melancholy in that cry? It sounds sad: why should +it not be meant to be sad? We recognize joyful notes, angry notes, +fearful notes. They are very similar (strangely enough) in all +birds. They are very similar (more strangely still) to the cries +of human beings, especially children, when influenced by the same passions. +And when we hear a note which to us expresses sadness, why should not +the bird be sad? Yon wood wren has had enough to make him sad, +if only he recollects it; and if he can recollect his road from Morocco +hither, he may be recollects likewise what happened on the road - the +long weary journey up the Portuguese coast, and through the gap between +the Pyrenees and the Jaysquivel, and up the Landes of Bordeaux, and +across Brittany, flitting by night, and hiding and feeding as he could +by day; and how his mates flew against the lighthouses, and were killed +by hundreds; and how he essayed the British Channel, and was blown back, +shrivelled up by bitter blasts; and how he felt, nevertheless, that +‘that wan water he must cross,’ he knew not why: but something +told him that his mother had done it before him, and he was flesh of +her flesh, life of her life, and had inherited her ‘instinct’ +- as we call hereditary memory, in order to avoid the trouble of finding +out what it is, and how it comes. A duty was laid on him to go +back to the place where he was bred; and he must do it: and now it is +done; and he is weary, and sad, and lonely; and, for aught we know, +thinking already that when the leaves begin to turn yellow, he must +go back again, over the Channel, over the Landes, over the Pyrenees, +to Morocco once more. Why should he not be sad? He is a +very delicate bird, as both his shape and his note testify. He +can hardly keep up his race here in England; and is accordingly very +uncommon, while his two cousins, the willow wren and the chiffchaff, +who, like him, build for some mysterious reason domed nests upon the +ground, are stout, and busy, and numerous, and thriving everywhere. +And what he has gone through may be too much for the poor wood wren’s +nerves; and he gives way; while willow wren, black-cap, nightingale, +who have gone by the same road and suffered the same dangers, have stoutness +of heart enough to throw off the past, and give themselves up to present +pleasure. Why not? - who knows? There is labour, danger, +bereavement, death in nature; and why should not some, at least, of +the so-called dumb things know it, and grieve at it as well as we?</p> +<p>Why not? - Unless we yield to the assumption (for it is nothing more) +that these birds act by some unknown thing called instinct, as it might +be called <i>x</i> or <i>y</i>; and are, in fact, just like the singing +birds which spring out of snuff-boxes, only so much better made, that +they can eat, grow, and propagate their species. The imputation +of acting by instinct cuts both ways. We, too, are creatures of +instinct. We breathe and eat by instinct: but we talk and build +houses by reason. And so may the birds. It is more philosophical, +surely, to attribute actions in them to the same causes to which we +attribute them (from experience) in ourselves. ‘But if so,’ +some will say, ‘birds must have souls.’ We must define +what our own souls are, before we can define what kind of soul or no-soul +a bird may or may not have. The truth is, that we want to set +up some ‘dignity of human nature;’ some innate superiority +to the animals, on which we may pride ourselves as our own possession, +and not return thanks with fear and trembling for it, as the special +gift of Almighty God. So we have given the poor animals over to +the mechanical philosophy, and allowed them to be considered as only +mere cunningly devised pieces of watch-work, if philosophy would only +spare us, and our fine human souls, of which we are so proud, though +they are doing all the wrong and folly they can from one week’s +end to the other. And now our self-conceit has brought its own +Nemesis; the mechanical philosophy is turning on us, and saying, ‘The +bird’s “nature” and your “human nature” +differ only in degree, but not in kind. If they are machines, +so are you. They have no souls, you confess. You have none +either.’</p> +<p>But there are those who neither yield to the mechanical philosophy +nor desire to stifle it. While it is honest and industrious, as +it is now, it can do nought but good, because it can do nought but discover +facts. It will only help to divide the light from the darkness, +truth from dreams, health from disease. Let it claim for itself +all that it can prove to be of the flesh, fleshly. That which +is spiritual will stand out more clearly as of the Spirit. Let +it thrust scalpel and microscope into the most sacred penetralia of +brain and nerve. It will only find everywhere beneath brain and +beneath nerve, that substance and form which is not matter nor phenomenon, +but the Divine cause thereof; and while it helps, with ruthless but +wholesome severity, to purge our minds from idols of the cave and idols +of the fane, it will leave untouched, more clearly defined, and therefore +more sacred and important than ever -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p> ‘Those first affections,<br /> Those +shadowy recollections,<br /> Which, be they what they +may,<br />Are yet the fountain light of all our day,<br /> Are +yet the master light of all our seeing;<br />Uphold us, cherish, and +have power to make<br /> Our noisy years seem moments +in the being<br />Of the eternal silence; truths that wake<br /> To +perish never;<br />Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,<br /> Nor +man nor boy,<br /> Nor all that is at enmity with joy,<br /> Can +utterly abolish or destroy.<br />* * *<br />Then sing, ye birds, sing +out with joyous sound,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>as the poet-philosopher bids you. Victorious analysis will +neither abolish you, nor the miraculous and unfathomable in you and +in your song, which has stirred the hearts of poets since first man +was man. And if anyone shall hint to us that we and the birds +may have sprung originally from the same type; that the difference between +our intellect and theirs is one of degree, and not of kind, we may believe +or doubt: but in either case we shall not be greatly moved. ‘So +much the better for the birds,’ we will say, ‘and none the +worse for us. You raise the birds towards us: but you do not lower +us towards them. What we are, we are by the grace of God. +Our own powers and the burden of them we know full well. It does +not lessen their dignity or their beauty in our eyes to hear that the +birds of the air partake, even a little, of the same gifts of God as +we. Of old said St. Guthlac in Crowland, as the swallows sat upon +his knee, “He who leads his life according to the will of God, +to him the wild deer and the wild birds draw more near;” and this +new theory of yours may prove St. Guthlac right. St. Francis, +too - he called the birds his brothers. Whether he was correct, +either theologically or zoologically, he was plainly free from that +fear of being mistaken for an ape, which haunts so many in these modern +times. Perfectly sure that he himself was a spiritual being, he +thought it at least possible that birds might be spiritual beings likewise, +incarnate like himself in mortal flesh; and saw no degradation to the +dignity of human nature in claiming kindred lovingly with creatures +so beautiful, so wonderful, who (as he fancied in his old-fashioned +way) praised God in the forest, even as angels did in heaven. +In a word, the saint, though he was an ascetic, and certainly no man +of science, was yet a poet, and somewhat of a philosopher; and would +have possibly - so do extremes meet - have hailed as orthodox, while +we hail as truly scientific, Wordsworth’s great saying -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p> ‘Therefore am I still<br />A lover of the +meadows and the woods<br />And mountains; and of all that we behold<br />From +this green earth; of all the mighty world<br />Of eye and ear - both +what they half create,<br />And what perceive; well pleased to recognize<br />In +Nature and the language of the sense,<br />The anchor of my purest thoughts, +the nurse,<br />The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul<br />Of +all my moral being.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>II. CHALK-STREAM STUDIES. <a name="citation29"></a><a href="#footnote29">{29}</a></h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Fishing is generally associated in men’s minds with wild mountain +scenery; if not with the alps and cataracts of Norway, still with the +moors and lochs of Scotland, or at least with the rocky rivers, the +wooded crags, the crumbling abbeys of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Hereford, +or the Lowlands. And it cannot be denied that much of the charm +which angling exercises over cultivated minds, is due to the beauty +and novelty of the landscapes which surround him; to the sense of freedom, +the exhilarating upland air. Who would prefer the certainty of +taking trout out of some sluggish preserve, to the chance of a brace +out of Edno or Llyn Dulyn? The pleasure lies not in the prize +itself, but in the pains which it has cost; in the upward climbs through +the dark plantations, beside the rock-walled stream; the tramp over +the upland pastures, one gay flower-bed of blue and purple butter-wort; +the steady breathless climb up the crags, which looked but one mile +from you when you started, so clear against the sky stood out every +knoll and slab; the first stars of the white saxifrage, golden-eyed, +blood-bedropt, as if a fairy had pricked her finger in the cup, which +shine upon some green cushion of wet moss, in a dripping crack of the +cliff; the first grey tufts of the Alpine club-moss, the first shrub +of crowberry, or sea-green rose-root, with its strange fleshy stems +and leaves, which mark the two-thousand-feet-line, and the beginning +of the Alpine world; the scramble over the arid waves of the porphyry +sea aloft, as you beat round and round like a weary pointer dog in search +of the hidden lake; the last despairing crawl to the summit of the Syenite +pyramid on Moel Meirch; the hasty gaze around, far away into the green +vale of Ffestiniog, and over wooded flats, and long silver river-reaches, +and yellow sands, and blue sea flecked with flying clouds, and isles +and capes, and wildernesses of mountain peaks, east, west, south, and +north; one glance at the purple gulf out of which Snowdon rises, thence +only seen in full majesty from base to peak: and then the joyful run, +springing over bank and boulder, to the sad tarn beneath your feet: +the loosening of the limbs, as you toss yourself, bathed in perspiration, +on the turf; the almost awed pause as you recollect that you are alone +on the mountain-tops, by the side of the desolate pool, out of all hope +of speech or help of man; and, if you break your leg among those rocks, +may lie there till the ravens pick your bones; the anxious glance round +the lake to see if the fish are moving; the still more anxious glance +through your book to guess what they will choose to take; what extravagant +bundle of red, blue, and yellow feathers, like no insect save perhaps +some jewelled monster from Amboyna or Brazil - may tempt those sulkiest +and most capricious of trout to cease for once their life-long business +of picking leeches from among those Syenite cubes which will twist your +ankles and break your shins for the next three hours. What matter +(to a minute philosopher, at least) if, after two hours of such enjoyment +as that, he goes down again into the world of man with empty creel, +or with a dozen pounders and two-pounders, shorter, gamer, and redder-fleshed +than ever came out of Thames or Kennet? What matter? If +he has not caught them, he might have caught them; he has been catching +them in imagination all the way up; and if he be a minute philosopher, +he holds that there is no falser proverb than that devil’s beatitude +- ‘Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.’</p> +<p>Say, rather, Blessed is he who expecteth everything, for he enjoys +everything once at least: and if it falls out true, twice also.</p> +<p>Yes. Pleasant enough is mountain fishing. But there is +one objection against it, that it is hard work to get to it; and that +the angler, often enough half-tired before he arrives at his stream +or lake, has left for his day’s work only the lees of his nervous +energy.</p> +<p>Another objection, more important perhaps to a minute philosopher +than to the multitude, is, that there is in mountain-fishing an element +of excitement: an element which is wholesome enough at times for every +one; most wholesome at all times for the man pent up in London air and +London work; but which takes away from the angler’s most delicate +enjoyment, that dreamy contemplative repose, broken by just enough amusement +to keep his body active, while his mind is quietly taking in every sight +and sound of nature. Let the Londoner have his six weeks every +year among crag and heather, and return with lungs expanded and muscles +braced to his nine months’ prison. The countryman, who needs +no such change of air and scene, will prefer more homelike, though more +homely, pleasures. Dearer than wild cataracts or Alpine glens +are the still hidden streams which Bewick has immortalized in his vignettes, +and Creswick in his pictures; the long glassy shallow, paved with yellow +gravel, where he wades up between low walls of fern-fringed rock, beneath +nut, and oak, and alder, to the low bar over which the stream comes +swirling and dimpling, as the water-ouzel flits piping before him, and +the murmur of the ringdove comes soft and sleepy through the wood. +There, as he wades, he sees a hundred sights and hears a hundred tones, +which are hidden from the traveller on the dusty highway above. +The traveller fancies that he has seen the country. So he has; +the outside of it, at least: but the angler only sees the inside. +The angler only is brought close face to face with the flower, and bird, +and insect life of the rich river banks, the only part of the landscape +where the hand of man has never interfered, and the only part in general +which never feels the drought of summer, ‘the trees planted by +the waterside whose leaf shall not wither.’</p> +<p>Pleasant are those hidden waterways: but yet are they the more pleasant +because the hand of man has not interfered with them?</p> +<p>It is a question, and one which the older one grows the less one +is inclined to answer in the affirmative. The older one grows, +the more there grows on one the sense of waste and incompleteness in +all scenery where man has not fulfilled the commission of Eden, ‘to +dress it and to keep it;’ and with that, a sense of loneliness +which makes one long for home, and cultivation, and the speech of fellow +men.</p> +<p>Surely the influence of mountain scenery is exaggerated now-a-days. +In spite of the reverend name of Wordsworth (whose poetry, be it remembered, +too often wants that element of hardihood and manliness which is supposed +to be the birthright of mountaineers), one cannot help, as a lowlander, +hoping that there is a little truth in the threnodes of a certain peevish +friend who literally hates a mountain, and justifies his hatred in this +fashion:-</p> +<p>‘I do hate mountains. I would not live among them for +ten thousand a year. If they look like paradise for three months +in the summer, they are a veritable inferno for the other nine; and +I should like to condemn my mountain-worshipping friends to pass a whole +year under the shadow of Snowdon, with that great black head of his +shutting out the sunlight, staring down into their garden, overlooking +all they do in the most impertinent way, sneezing and spitting at them +with rain, hail, snow, and bitter freezing blasts, even in the hottest +sunshine. A mountain? He is a great stupid giant, with a +perpetual cold in his head, whose highest ambition is to give you one +also. As for his beauty, no natural object has so little of its +own; he owes it to the earthquakes that reared him up, to the rains +and storms which have furrowed him, to every gleam and cloud which pass +over him. In himself he is a mere helpless stone-heap. Our +old Scandinavian forefathers were right when they held the mountain +Yotuns to be helpless pudding-headed giants, the sport of gods and men: +and their English descendant, in spite of all his second-hand sentiment, +holds the same opinion at his heart; for his first instinct, jolly honest +fellow that he is, on seeing a snow alp, is to scramble up it and smoke +his cigar upon the top. And this great stupid braggart, pretending +to be a personage and an entity, which, like Pope’s monument on +Fish-street hill,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies,”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I am called upon now-a-days to worship, as my better, my teacher. +Shall I, the son of Odin and Thor, worship Hrymir the frost giant, and +his cows the waterfalls? Shall I bow down to the stock of a stone? +My better? I have done an honest thing or two in my life, but +I never saw a mountain do one yet. As for his superiority to me, +in what does it consist? His strength? If he be stronger +than I, let him cut stones out of my ribs, as I can out of his. +His size? Am I to respect a mountain the more for being 10,000 +feet high? As well ask me to respect Daniel Lambert for weighing +five-and-twenty stone. His cunning construction? There is +not a child which plays at his foot, not an insect which basks on his +crags, which is not more fearfully and wonderfully made; while as for +his grandeur of form, any college youth who scrambles up him, peel him +out of his shooting jacket and trousers, is a hundred times more beautiful, +and more grand too, by all laws of art. But so it is. In +our prurient prudery, we have got to despise the human, and therefore +the truly divine, element in art, and look for inspiration, not to living +men and women, but to leaves and straws, stocks and stones. It +is an idolatry baser than that of the old Canaanites; for they had the +courage to go up to the mountain tops, and thence worship the host of +heaven: but we are to stay at the bottom, and worship the mountains +themselves. Byron began the folly with his misanthropic “Childe +Harold.” Sermons in stones? I don’t believe +in them. I have seen a better sermon in an old peasant woman’s +face than in all the Alps and Apennines of Europe. Did you ever +see any one who was the better for mountains? Have the Alps made +* * * a whit honester, or * * * a whit more good-natured, or Lady * +* * a whit cleverer? Do they alter one hair’s breadth for +the better the characters of the ten thousand male and female noodles +who travel forth to stare at them every year? Do mountains make +them lofty-minded and generous-hearted? No. Cælum, +non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt. Don’t talk to +me of the moral and physical superiority of mountain races, for I tell +you it is a dream. Civilization, art, poetry, belong to the lowlands. +Are the English mountaineers, pray, or the French, or the Germans? +Were the Egyptians mountaineers, or the Romans, or the Assyrians, as +soon as they became a people? The Greeks lived among mountains, +but they took care to inhabit the plains; and it was the sea and not +the hills which made them the people which they were. Does Scotland +owe her life to the highlander, or to the lowlander? If you want +an experimentum crucis, there is one. As for poetry, will you +mention to me one mountain race which has written great poetry? +You will quote the Hebrews. I answer that the life of Palestine +always kept to the comparatively low lands to the west of Jordan, while +the barbarous mountaineers of the eastern range never did anything, +- had but one Elijah to show among them. Shakspeare never saw +a hill higher than Malvern Beacon; and yet I suppose you will call him +a poet? Mountaineers look well enough at a distance; seen close +at hand you find their chief distinctions to be starvation and ignorance, +fleas and goitre, with an utter unconsciousness - unless travellers +put it into their heads - of the “soul-elevating glories” +by which they have been surrounded all their lives.’</p> +<p>He was gently reminded of the existence of the Tyrolese.</p> +<p>‘You may just as wisely remind me of the Circassians. +What can prove my theory more completely than the fact that in them +you have the two finest races of the world, utterly unable to do anything +for humanity, utterly unable to develop themselves, because, to their +eternal misfortune, they have got caged among those abominable stoneheaps, +and have not yet been able to escape?’</p> +<p>It was suggested that if mountain races were generally inferior ones, +it was because they were the remnants of conquered tribes driven up +into the highlands by invaders.</p> +<p>‘And what does that prove but that the stronger and cunninger +races instinctively seize the lowlands, because they half know (and +Providence knows altogether) that there alone they can become nations, +and fulfil the primæval mission - to replenish the earth and subdue +it? No, no, my good sir. Mountains are very well when they +are doing their only duty - that of making rain and soil for the lowlands: +but as for this newfangled admiration of them, it is a proof that our +senses are dulled by luxury and books, and that we require to excite +our palled organ of marvellousness by signs and wonders, æsthetic +brandy and cayenne. No. I have remarked often that the most +unimaginative people, who can see no beauty in a cultivated English +field or in the features of a new-born babe, are the loudest ravers +about glorious sunsets and Alpine panoramas; just as the man with no +music in his soul, to whom a fugue of Sebastian Bach, or one of Mendelssohn’s +Songs without Words, means nothing, and is nothing thinks a monster +concert of drums and trumpets uncommonly fine.’</p> +<p>This is certainly a sufficiently one-sided diatribe. Still +it is one-sided: and we have heard so much of the other side of late, +that it may be worth while to give this side also a fair and patient +hearing.</p> +<p>At least he who writes wishes that it may have a fair hearing. +He has a sort of sympathy with Lord Macaulay’s traveller of a +hundred and fifty years since, who amid the ‘horrible desolation’ +of the Scotch highlands, sighs for ‘the true mountain scenery +of Richmond-hill.’ The most beautiful landscape he has ever +seen, or cares to see, is the vale of Thames from Taplow or from Cliefden, +looking down towards Windsor, and up toward Reading; to him Bramshill, +looking out far and wide over the rich lowland from its eyrie of dark +pines, or Littlecote nestling between deer-spotted upland and rich water-meadow, +is a finer sight than any robber castle of the Rhine. He would +not complain, of course, were either of the views backed, like those +glorious ones of Turin or Venice, by the white saw-edge of the distant +Alps: but chiefly because the perpetual sight of that Alp-wall would +increase the sense of home, of guarded security, which not the mountain, +but the sea, or the very thought of the sea, gives to all true Englishmen.</p> +<p>Let others therefore (to come back to angling) tell of moor and loch. +But let it be always remembered that the men who have told of them best +have not been mountaineers, but lowlanders who carried up to the mountain +the taste and knowledge which they had gained below. Let them +remember that the great Sutherlandshire sportsman and sporting writer, +the late Mr. St. John, was once a fine gentleman about town; that Christopher +North was an Edinburgh Professor, a man of city learning and city cultivation; +and, as one more plea for our cockney chalk-streams of the south, that +Mr. Scrope (who passed many pleasant years respected and beloved by +Kennet side, with Purdy at his heels) enjoyed, they say, the killing +of a Littlecote trout as heartily as he did that of a Tweed salmon.</p> +<p>Come, then, you who want pleasant fishing-days without the waste +of time and trouble and expense involved in two hundred miles of railway +journey, and perhaps fifty more of highland road; and try what you can +see and do among the fish not sixty miles from town. Come to pleasant +country inns, where you can always get a good dinner; or, better still, +to pleasant country houses, where you can always get good society; to +rivers which will always fish, brimfull in the longest droughts of summer, +instead of being, as those mountain ones are, very like a turnpike-road +for three weeks, and then like bottled porter for three days; to streams +on which you have strong south-west breezes for a week together on a +clear fishing water, instead of having, as on those mountain ones, foul +rain spate as long as the wind is south-west, and clearing water when +the wind chops up to the north, and the chill blast of ‘Clarus +Aquio’ sends all the fish shivering to the bottom; streams, in +a word, where you may kill fish (and large ones) four days out of five +from April to October, instead of having, as you will most probably +in the mountain, just one day’s sport in the whole of your month’s +holiday. Deluded friend, who suffered in Scotland last year a +month of Tantalus his torments, furnished by art and nature with rods, +flies, whisky, scenery, keepers, salmon innumerable, and all that man +can want, except water to fish in; and who returned, having hooked accidentally +by the tail one salmon - which broke all and ween to sea - why did you +not stay at home and take your two-pounders and three-pounders out of +the quiet chalk brook which never sank an inch through all that drought, +so deep in the caverns of the hills are hidden its mysterious wells? +Truly, wise men bide at home, with George Riddler, while ‘a fool’s +eyes are in the ends of the earth.’</p> +<p>Repent, then; and come with me, at least in fancy, at six o’clock +upon some breezy morning in June, not by roaring railway nor by smoking +steamer, but in the cosy four-wheel, along brown heather moors, down +into green clay woodlands, over white chalk downs, past Roman camps +and scattered blocks of Sarsden stone, till we descend into the long +green vale where, among groves of poplar and abele, winds silver Whit. +Come and breakfast at the neat white inn, of yore a posting-house of +fame. The stables are now turned into cottages; and instead of +a dozen spruce ostlers and helpers, the last of the postboys totters +sadly about the yard and looks up eagerly at the rare sight of a horse +to feed. But the house keeps up enough of its ancient virtue to +give us a breakfast worthy of Pantagruel’s self; and after it, +while we are looking out our flies, you can go and chat with the old +postboy, and hear his tales, told with a sort of chivalrous pride, of +the noble lords and fair ladies before whom he has ridden in the good +old times gone by - even, so he darkly hints, before ‘His Royal +Highness the Prince’ himself. Poor old fellow, he recollects +not, and he need not recollect, that these great posting-houses were +centres of corruption, from whence the newest vices of the metropolis +were poured into the too-willing ears of village lads and lasses; and +that not even the New Poor Law itself has done more for the morality +of the South of England than the substitution of the rail for coaches.</p> +<p>Now we will walk down through the meadows some half mile,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>While all the land in flowery squares,<br />Beneath a broad and equal-blowing +wind<br />Smells of the coming summer,’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>to a scene which, as we may find its antitype anywhere for miles +round, we may boldly invent for ourselves.</p> +<p>A red brick mill (not new red brick, of course) shall hum for ever +below giant poplar-spires, which bend and shiver in the steady breeze. +On its lawn laburnums shall feather down like dropping wells of gold, +and from under them the stream shall hurry leaping and laughing into +the light, and spread at our feet into a broad bright shallow, in which +the kine are standing knee-deep already: a hint, alas! that the day +means heat. And there, to the initiated eye, is another and a +darker hint of glaring skies, perspiring limbs, and empty creels. +Small fish are dimpling in the central eddies: but here, in six inches +of water, on the very edge of the ford road, great tails and back-fins +are showing above the surface, and swirling suddenly among the tufts +of grass, sure sign that the large fish are picking up a minnow-breakfast +at the same time that they warm their backs, and do not mean to look +at a fly for many an hour to come.</p> +<p>Yet courage; for on the rail of yonder wooden bridge sits, chatting +with a sun-browned nymph, her bonnet pushed over her face, her hayrake +in her hand, a river-god in coat of velveteen, elbow on knee and pipe +in mouth, who, rising when he sees us, lifts his wide-awake, and halloas +back a roar of comfort to our mystic adjuration, -</p> +<p>‘Keeper! Is the fly up?’</p> +<p>‘Mortial strong last night, gentlemen.’</p> +<p>Wherewith he shall lounge up to us, landing-net in hand, and we will +wander up stream and away.</p> +<p>We will wander - for though the sun be bright, here are good fish +to be picked out of sharps and stop-holes - into the water-tables, ridged +up centuries since into furrows forty feet broad and five feet high, +over which the crystal water sparkles among the roots of the rich grass, +and hurries down innumerable drains to find its parent stream between +tufts of great blue geranium, and spires of purple loosestrife, and +the delicate white and pink comfrey-bells, and the avens - fairest and +most modest of all the waterside nymphs, who hangs her head all day +long in pretty shame, with a soft blush upon her tawny check. +But at the mouth of each of those drains, if we can get our flies in, +and keep ourselves unseen, we will have one cast at least. For +at each of them, in some sharp-rippling spot, lies a great trout or +two, waiting for beetle, caterpillar, and whatsoever else may be washed +from among the long grass above. Thence, and from brimming feeders, +which slip along, weed-choked, under white hawthorn hedges, and beneath +the great roots of oak and elm, shall we pick out full many a goodly +trout. There, in yon stop-hole underneath that tree, not ten feet +broad or twenty long, where just enough water trickles through the hatches +to make a ripple, are a brace of noble fish, no doubt; and one of them +you may be sure of, if you will go the proper way to work, and fish +scientifically with the brace of flies I have put on for you - a governor +and a black alder. In the first place, you must throw up into +the little pool, not down. If you throw down, they will see you +in an instant; and besides, you will never get your fly close under +the shade of the brickwork, where alone you have a chance. What +use in throwing into the still shallow tail, shining like oil in the +full glare of the sun?</p> +<p>‘But I cannot get below the pool without - ’</p> +<p>Without crawling through that stiff stubbed hedge, well set with +trees, and leaping that ten-foot feeder afterwards. Very well. +It is this sort of thing which makes the stay-at-home cultivated chalk-fishing +as much harder work than mountain angling, as a gallop over a stiffly +enclosed country is harder than one over an open moor. You can +do it or not, as you like: but if you wish to catch large trout on a +bright day, I should advise you to employ the only method yet discovered.</p> +<p>There - you are through; and the keeper shall hand you your rod. +You have torn your trousers, and got a couple of thorns in your shins. +The one can be mended, the other pulled out. Now, jump the feeder. +There is no run to it, so - you have jumped in. Never mind: but +keep the point of your rod up. You are at least saved the lingering +torture of getting wet inch by inch; and as for cold water hurting any +one - Credat Judæus.</p> +<p>Now make a circuit through the meadow forty yards away. Stoop +down when you are on the ridge of each table. A trout may be basking +at the lower end of the pool, who will see you, rush up, and tell all +his neighbours. Take off that absurd black chimney-pot, which +you are wearing, I suppose, for the same reason as Homer’s heroes +wore their koruthous and phalerous, to make yourself look taller and +more terrible to your foes. Crawl up on three legs; and when you +are in position, kneel down. So.</p> +<p>Shorten your line all you can - you cannot fish with too short a +line up-stream; and throw, not into the oil-basin near you, but right +up into the darkest corner. Make your fly strike the brickwork +and drop in. - So? No rise? Then don’t work or draw +it, or your deceit is discovered instantly. Lift it out, and repeat +the throw.</p> +<p>What? You have hooked your fly in the hatches? Very good. +Pull at it till the casting-line breaks; put on a fresh one, and to +work again. There! you have him. Don’t rise! fight +him kneeling; hold him hard, and give him no line, but shorten up anyhow. +Tear and haul him down to you before he can make to his home, while +the keeper runs round with the net . . . There, he is on shore. +Two pounds, good weight. Creep back more cautiously than ever, +and try again. . . . There. A second fish, over a pound weight. +Now we will go and recover the flies off the hatches; and you will agree +that there is more cunning, more science, and therefore more pleasant +excitement, in ‘foxing’ a great fish out of a stop-hole, +than in whipping far and wide over an open stream, where a half-pounder +is a wonder and a triumph. As for physical exertion, you will +be able to compute for yourself how much your back, knees, and fore-arm +will ache by nine o’clock to-night, after some ten hours of this +scrambling, splashing, leaping, and kneeling upon a hot June day. +This item in the day’s work will of course be put to the side +of loss or of gain, according to your temperament: but it will cure +you of an inclination to laugh at us Wessex chalk-fishers as Cockneys.</p> +<p>So we will wander up the streams, taking a fish here and a fish there, +till - Really it is very hot. We have the whole day before us; +the fly will not be up till five o’clock at least; and then the +real fishing will begin. Why tire ourselves beforehand? +The squire will send us luncheon in the afternoon, and after that expect +us to fish as long as we can see, and come up to the hall to sleep, +regardless of the ceremony of dressing. For is not the green drake +on? And while he reigns, all hours, meals, decencies, and respectabilities +must yield to his caprice. See, here he sits, or rather tens of +thousands of him, one on each stalk of grass - green drake, yellow drake, +brown drake, white drake, each with his gauzy wings folded over his +back, waiting for some unknown change of temperature, or something else, +in the afternoon, to wake him from his sleep, and send him fluttering +over the stream; while overhead the black drake, who has changed his +skin and reproduced his species, dances in the sunshine, empty, hard, +and happy, like Festus Bailey’s Great Black Crow, who all his +life sings ‘Ho, ho, ho,’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘For no one will eat him,’ he well doth know.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>However, as we have insides, and he has actually none, and what is +more strange, not even a mouth wherewith to fill the said insides, we +had better copy his brothers and sisters below whose insides are still +left, and settle with them upon the grass awhile beneath you goodly +elm.</p> +<p>Comfort yourself with a glass of sherry and a biscuit, and give the +keeper one, and likewise a cigar. He will value it at five times +its worth, not merely for the pleasure of it, but because it raises +him in the social scale. ‘Any cad,’ so he holds, ‘smokes +pipes; but a good cigar is the mark of the quality,’ and of them +who ‘keep company with the quality,’ as keepers do. +He puts it in his hat-crown, to smoke this evening in presence of his +compeers at the public-house, retires modestly ten yards, lies down +on his back in a dry feeder, under the shade of the long grass, and +instantly falls fast asleep. Poor fellow! he was up all last night +in the covers, and will be again to-night. Let him sleep while +he may, and we will chat over chalk-fishing.</p> +<p>The first thing, probably, on which you will be inclined to ask questions, +is the size of the fish in these streams. We have killed this +morning four fish averaging a pound weight each. All below that +weight we throw in, as is our rule here; but you may have remarked that +none of them exceeded half a pound; that they were almost all about +herring size. The smaller ones I believe to be year-old fish, +hatched last spring twelvemonth; the pound fish two-year-olds. +At what rate these last would have increased depends very much, I suspect, +on their chance of food. The limit of life and growth in cold-blooded +animals seems to depend very much on their amount of food. The +boa, alligator, shark, pike, and I suppose the trout also, will live +to a great age, and attain an enormous size, give them but range enough; +and the only cause why there are trout of ten pounds and more in the +Thames lashers, while one of four pounds is rare here, is simply that +the Thames fish has more to eat. Here, were the fish not sufficiently +thinned out every year by anglers, they would soon become large-headed, +brown, and flabby, and cease to grow. Many a good stream has been +spoilt in this way, when a squire has unwisely preferred quantity to +quality of fish.</p> +<p>And if it be not the quantity of feed, I know no clear reason why +chalk and limestone trout should be so much larger and better flavoured +than any others. The cause is not the greater swiftness of the +streams; for (paradoxical as it may seem to many) a trout likes swift +water no more than a pike does, except when spawning or cleaning afterwards. +At those times his blood seems to require a very rapid oxygenation, +and he goes to the ‘sharps’ to obtain it: but when he is +feeding and fattening, the water cannot be too still for him. +Streams which are rapid throughout never produce large fish; and a hand-long +trout transferred from his native torrent to a still pond, will increase +in size at a ten times faster rate. In chalk streams the largest +fish are found oftener in the mill-heads than in the mill tails. +It is a mistake, though a common one, to fancy that the giant trout +of the Thames lashers lie in swift water. On the contrary, they +lie in the very stillest spot of the whole pool, which is just under +the hatches. There the rush of the water shoots over their heads, +and they look up through it for every eatable which may be swept down. +At night they run down to the fan of the pool, to hunt minnow round +the shallows; but their home by day is the still deep; and their preference +of the lasher pool to the quiet water above is due merely to the greater +abundance of food. Chalk trout, then, are large not merely because +the water is swift.</p> +<p>Whether trout have not a specific fondness for lime; whether water +of some dozen degrees of hardness is not necessary for their development? +are questions which may be fairly asked. Yet is not the true reason +this; that the soil on the banks of a chalk or limestone stream is almost +always rich - red loam, carrying an abundant vegetation, and therefore +an abundant crop of animal life, both in and out of the water? +The countless insects which haunt a rich hay meadow, all know who have +eyes to see; and if they will look into the stream they will find that +the water-world is even richer than the air-world.</p> +<p>Every still spot in a chalk stream becomes so choked with weed as +to require moving at least thrice a year, to supply the mills with water. +Grass, milfoil, water crowfoot, hornwort, starwort, horsetail, and a +dozen other delicate plants, form one tangled forest, denser than those +of the Amazon, and more densely peopled likewise.</p> +<p>To this list will soon be added our Transatlantic curse, <i>Babingtonia +diabolica</i>, alias <i>Anacharis alsin astrum</i>. It has already +ascended the Thames as high as Reading; and a few years more, owing +to the present aqua-vivarium mania, will see it filling every mill-head +in England, to the torment of all millers. Young ladies are assured +that the only plant for their vivariums is a sprig of anacharis, for +which they pay sixpence - the market value being that of a wasp, flea, +or other scourge of the human race; and when the vivarium fails, its +contents, Anacharis and all, are tost into the nearest ditch; for which +the said young lady ought to be fined five pounds; and would be, if +Governments governed. What an ‘if’.</p> +<p>But come; for the sun burns bright, and fishing is impossible: lie +down upon the bank, above this stop. There is a campshutting (a +boarding in English) on which you can put your elbows. Lie down +on your face, and look down through two or three feet of water clear +as air into the water forest where the great trout feed.</p> +<p>Here; look into this opening in the milfoil and crowfoot bed. +Do you see a grey film around that sprig? Examine it through the +pocket lens. It is a forest of glass bells, on branching stalks. +They are Vorticellæ; and every one of those bells, by the ciliary +current on its rim, is scavenging the water - till a tadpole comes by +and scavenges it. How many millions of living creatures are there +on that one sprig? Look here! - a brown polype, with long waving +arms - a gigantic monster, actually a full half-inch long. He +is <i>Hydra fusca</i>, most famous, and earliest described (I think +by Trembley). Ere we go home I may show you perhaps <i>Hydra viridis</i>, +with long pea-green arms; and<i> rosea</i>, most beautiful in form and +colour of all the strange family. You see that lump, just where +his stalk joins his bell-head? That is a budding baby. Ignorant +of the joys and cares of wedlock, he increases by gemmation. See! +here is another, with a full-sized young one growing on his back. +You may tear it off if you will - he cares not. You may cut him +into a dozen pieces, they say, and each one will grow, as a potato does. +I suppose, however, that he also sends out of his mouth little free +ova - medusoids - call them what you will, swimming by ciliæ, +which afterwards, unless the water beetles stop them on the way, will +settle down as stalked polypes, and in their turn practise some mystery +of Owenian parthenogenesis, or Steenstruppian alternation of generations, +in which all traditional distinctions of plant and animal, male and +female, are laughed to scorn by the magnificent fecundity of the Divine +imaginations.</p> +<p>That dusty cloud which shakes off in the water as you move the weed, +under the microscope would be one mass of exquisite forms - Desmidiæ +and Diatomaceæ, and what not? Instead of running over long +names, take home a little in a bottle, put it under your microscope, +and if you think good verify the species from Hassall, Ehrenberg, or +other wise book; but without doing that, one glance through the lens +will show you why the chalk trout grow fat.</p> +<p>Do they, then, eat these infusoria?</p> +<p>That is not clear. But minnows and small fry eat them by millions; +and so do tadpoles, and perhaps caddis baits and water crickets.</p> +<p>What are they?</p> +<p>Look on the soft muddy bottom. You see numberless bits of stick. +Watch awhile, and those sticks are alive, crawling and tumbling over +each other. The weed, too, is full of smaller ones. Those +live sticks are the larva-cases of the Caperers - Phryganeæ - +of which one family nearly two hundred species have been already found +in Great Britain. Fish up one, and you find, amid sticks and pebbles, +a comfortable silk case, tenanted by a goodly grub. Six legs he +has, like all insects, and tufts of white horns on each ring of his +abdomen, which are his gills. A goodly pair of jaws he has too, +and does good service with them: for he is the great water scavenger. +Decaying vegetable matter is his food, and with those jaws he will bark +a dead stick as neatly as you will with a penknife. But he does +not refuse animal matter. A dead brother (his, not yours) makes +a savoury meal for him; and a party of those Vorticellæ would +stand a poor chance if he came across them. You may count these +caddis baits by hundreds of thousands; whether the trout eat them case +and all, is a question in these streams. In some rivers the trout +do so; and what is curious, during the spring, have a regular gizzard, +a temporary thickening of the coats of the stomach, to enable them to +grind the pebbly cases of the caddises. See! here is one whose +house is closed at both ends - ‘grillé,’ as Pictet +calls it, in his unrivalled monograph of the Genevese Phryganeæ, +on which he spent four years of untiring labour. The grub has +stopped the mouth of his case by an open network of silk, defended by +small pebbles, through which the water may pass freely, while he changes +into his nymph state. Open the case; you find within not a grub, +but a strange bird-beaked creature, with long legs and horns laid flat +by its sides, and miniature wings on its back. Observe that the +sides of the tail, and one pair of legs, are fringed with dark hairs. +After a fortnight’s rest in this prison this ‘nymph’ +will gnaw her way out and swim through the water on her back, by means +of that fringed tail and paddles, till she reaches the bank and the +upper air. There, under the genial light of day, her skin will +burst, and a four-winged fly emerge, to buzz over the water as a fawn-coloured +Caperer - deadliest of trout flies; if she be not snapped up beforehand +under water by some spotted monarch in search of supper.</p> +<p>But look again among this tangled mass of weed. Here are more +larvæ of water-flies. Some have the sides fringed with what +look like paddles, but are gills. Of these one part have whisks +at the tail, and swim freely. They will change into ephemeræ, +cock-winged ‘duns,’ with long whisked tails. The larvæ +of the famous green drake (<i>Ephemera vulgata</i>) are like these: +but we shall not find them. They are all changed by now into the +perfect fly; and if not, they burrow about the banks, and haunt the +crayfish-holes, and are not easily found.</p> +<p>Some, again, have the gills on their sides larger and broader, and +no whisks at the tail. These are the larvæ of Sialis, the +black alder, Lord Stowell’s fly, shorm fly, hunch-back of the +Welsh, with which we have caught our best fish to-day.</p> +<p>And here is one of a delicate yellow-green, whose tail is furnished +with three broad paddle-blades. These, I believe, are gills again. +The larva is probably that of the Yellow Sally - <i>Chrysoperla viridis</i> +- a famous fly on hot days in May and June. Among the pebbles +there, below the fall, we should have found, a month since, a similar +but much larger grub, with two paddles at his tail. He is the +‘creeper’ of the northern streams, and changes to the great +crawling stone fly (May-fly of Tweed), <i>Perla bicaudata</i>, an ugly +creature, which runs on stones and posts, and kills right well on stormy +days, when he is beaten into the stream.</p> +<p>There. Now we have the larvæ of the four great trout-fly +families, Phryganeæ, Ephemeræ, Sialidæ, Perlidæ; +so you have no excuse for telling - as not only Cockneys, but really +good sportsmen who write on fishing, have done - such fibs as that the +green drake comes out of a caddis-bait, or giving such vague generalities +as, ‘this fly comes from a water-larva.’</p> +<p>These are, surely, in their imperfect and perfect states, food enough +to fatten many a good trout: but they are not all. See these transparent +brown snails, Limneæ and Succinæ, climbing about the posts; +and these other pretty ones, coil laid within coil as flat as a shilling, +Planorbis. Many a million of these do the trout pick off the weed +day by day; and no food, not even the leech, which swarms here, is more +fattening. The finest trout of the high Snowdon lakes feed almost +entirely on leech and snail - baits they have none - and fatten till +they cut as red as a salmon.</p> +<p>Look here too, once more. You see a grey moving cloud about +that pebble bed, and underneath that bank. It is a countless swarm +of ‘sug,’ or water-shrimp; a bad food, but devoured greedily +by the great trout in certain overstocked preserves.</p> +<p>Add to these plenty of minnow, stone-loach, and miller’s thumbs, +a second course of young crayfish, and for one gormandizing week of +bliss, thousands of the great green-drake fly: and you have food enough +for a stock of trout which surprise, by their size and number, an angler +fresh from the mountain districts of the north and west. To such +a fisherman, the tale of Mr. ** *, of Ramsbury, who is said to have +killed in one day in his own streams on Kennet, seventy-six trout, all +above a pound, sounds like a traveller’s imagination: yet the +fact is, I believe, accurately true.</p> +<p>This, however, is an extraordinary case upon an extraordinary stream. +In general, if a man shall bring home (beside small fish) a couple of +brace of from one to three pounds apiece, he may consider himself as +a happy man, and that the heavens have not shone, but frowned, upon +him very propitiously.</p> +<p>And now comes another and an important question. For which +of all these dainty eatables, if for any, do the trout take our flies? +and from that arises another. Why are the flies with which we +have been fishing this morning so large - of the size which is usually +employed on a Scotch lake? You are a North-country fisher, and +are wont, upon your clear streams, to fish with nothing but the smallest +gnats. And yet our streams are as clear as yours: what can be +clearer?</p> +<p>Whether fish really mistake our artificial flies for different species +of natural ones, as Englishmen hold; or merely for something good to +eat, the colour whereof strikes their fancy, as Scotchmen think - a +theory which has been stated in detail, and with great semblance of +truth, in Mr. Stewart’s admirable ‘Practical Angler,’ +- is a matter about which much good sense has been written on both sides.</p> +<p>Whosoever will, may find the great controversy fully discussed in +the pages of Ephemera. Perhaps (as in most cases) the truth lies +between the two extremes; at least, in a chalk-stream.</p> +<p>Ephemera’s list of flies may be very excellent, but it is about +ten times as long as would be required for any of our southern streams. +Six or seven sort of flies ought to suffice for any fisherman; if they +will not kill, the thing which will kill is yet to seek.</p> +<p>To name them:-</p> +<p>1. The caperer.</p> +<p>2. The March-brown.</p> +<p>3. The governor.</p> +<p>4. The black alder.</p> +<p>And two or three large palmers, red, grizzled, and coch-a-bonddhu, +each with a tuft of red floss silk at the tail. These are enough +to show sport from March to October; and also like enough to certain +natural flies to satisfy the somewhat dull memory of a trout.</p> +<p>But beyond this list there is little use in roaming, as far as my +experience goes. A yellow dun kills sometimes marvellously on +chalk-streams, and always upon rocky ones. A Turkey-brown ephemera, +the wing made of the bright brown tail of the cock partridge, will, +even just after the May-fly is off, show good sport in the forenoon, +when he is on the water; and so will in the evening the claret spinner, +to which he turns. Excellent patterns of these flies may be found +in Ronalds: but, after all, they are uncertain flies; and, as Harry +Verney used to say, ‘they casualty flies be all havers;’ +which sentence the reader, if he understands good Wessex, can doubtless +translate for himself.</p> +<p>And there are evenings on which the fish take greedily small transparent +ephemeræ. But, did you ever see large fish rise at these +ephemeræ? And even if you did, can you imitate the natural +fly? And after all, would it not be waste of time? For the +experience of many good fishers is, that trout rise at these delicate +duns, black gnats, and other microscopic trash, simply <i>faute de mieux</i>. +They are hungry, as trout are six days in the week, just at sunset. +A supper they must have, and they take what comes; but if you can give +them anything better than the minute fairy, compact of equal parts of +glass and wind, which naturalists call an Ephemera or Bætis, it +will be most thankfully received, if there be ripple enough on the water +(which there seldom is on a fine evening) to hide the line: and even +though the water be still, take boldly your caperer or your white moth +(either of them ten times as large as what the trout are rising at), +hurl it boldly into a likely place, and let it lie quiet and sink, not +attempting to draw or work it; and if you do not catch anything by that +means, comfort yourself with the thought that there are others who can.</p> +<p>And now to go through our list, beginning with -</p> +<p>1. The caperer.</p> +<p>This perhaps is the best of all flies; it is certainly the one which +will kill earliest and latest in the year; and though I would hardly +go as far as a friend of mine, who boasts of never fishing with anything +else, I believe it will, from March to October, take more trout, and +possibly more grayling, than any other fly. Its basis is the woodcock +wing; red hackle legs, which should be long and pale; and a thin mohair +body, of different shades of red-brown, from a dark claret to a pale +sandy. It may thus, tied of different sizes, do duty for half-a-dozen +of the commonest flies; for the early claret (red-brown of Ronalds; +a Nemoura, according to him), which is the first spring-fly; for the +red spinner, or perfect form of the March-brown ephemera; for the soldier, +the soft-winged reddish beetle which haunts the umbelliferous flowers, +and being as soft in spirit as in flesh, perpetually falls into the +water, and comes to grief therein; and last but not least, for the true +caperers, or whole tribe of Phryganidæ, of which a sketch was +given just now. As a copy of them, the body should be of a pale +red brown, all but sandy (but never snuff-coloured, as shop-girls often +tie it), and its best hour is always in the evening. It kills +well when fish are gorged with their morning meal of green drakes; and +after the green drake is off, it is almost the only fly at which large +trout care to look; a fact not to be wondered at when one considers +that nearly two hundred species of English Phryganidæ have been +already described, and that at least half of them are of the fawn-tint +of the caperer. Under the title of flame-brown, cinnamon, or red-hackle +and rail’s wing, a similar fly kills well in Ireland, and in Scotland +also; and is sometimes the best sea-trout fly which can be laid on the +water. Let this suffice for the caperer.</p> +<p>2. Of the March-brown ephemera there is little to be said, +save to notice Ronalds’ and Ephemera’s excellent description, +and Ephemera’s good hint of fishing with more than one March-brown +at once, viz., with a sandy-bodied male, and a greenish-bodied female. +The fly is a worthy fly, and being easily imitated, gives great sport, +in number rather than in size; for when the March-brown is out, the +two or three pound fish are seldom on the move, preferring leeches, +tom-toddies, and caddis-bait in the nether deeps, to slim ephemeræ +at the top; and if you should (as you may) get hold of a big fish on +the fly, ‘you’d best hit him in again,’ as we say +in Wessex; for he will be, like the Ancient Mariner -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Long, and lank, and brown,<br />As is the ribbed sea-sand.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>3. The ‘governor.’ - In most sandy banks, and dry +poor lawns, will be found numberless burrows of ground bees who have +a great trick of tumbling into the water. Perhaps, like the honey +bee, they are thirsty souls, and must needs go down to the river and +drink; perhaps, like the honey bee, they rise into the air with some +difficulty, and so in crossing a stream are apt to strike the further +bank, and fall in. Be that as it may, an imitation of these little +ground bees is a deadly fly the whole year round; and if worked within +six inches of the shore, will sometimes fill a basket when there is +not a fly on the water or a fish rising. There are those who never +put up a cast of flies without one; and those, too, who have killed +large salmon on him in the north of Scotland, when the streams are low.</p> +<p>His tie is simple enough. A pale partridge or woodcock wing, +short red hackle legs, a peacock-herl body, and a tail - on which too +much artistic skill can hardly be expended - of yellow floss silk, and +gold twist or tinsel. The orange-tailed governors ‘of ye +shops,’ as the old drug-books would say, are all ‘havers;’ +for the proper colour is a honey yellow. The mystery of this all-conquering +tail seems to be, that it represents the yellow pollen, or ‘bee +bread’ in the thighs or abdomen of the bee; whereof the bright +colour, and perhaps the strong musky flavour, makes him an attractive +and savoury morsel. Be that as it may, there is no better rule +for a chalk stream than this - when you don’t know what to fish +with, try the governor.</p> +<p>4. The black alder (<i>Sialis nigra</i>, or <i>Lutaria</i>).</p> +<p>What shall be said, or not be said, of this queen of flies? +And what of Ephemera, who never mentions her? His alder fly is +- I know not what; certainly not that black alder, shorm fly, Lord Stowell’s +fly, or hunch-back, which kills the monsters of the deep, surpassed +only by the green drake for one fortnight; but surpassing him in this, +that she will kill on till September, from that happy day on which</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘You find her out on every stalk<br />Whene’er you take +a river walk,<br />When swifts at eve begin to hawk.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>O thou beloved member of the brute creation! Songs have been +written in praise of thee; statues would ere now have been erected to +thee, had that hunch back and those flabby wings of thine been ‘susceptible +of artistic treatment.’ But ugly thou art in the eyes of +the uninitiated vulgar; a little stumpy old maid toddling about the +world in a black bonnet and a brown cloak, laughed at by naughty boys, +but doing good wherever thou comest, and leaving sweet memories behind +thee; so sweet that the trout will rise at the ghost or sham of thee, +for pure love of thy past kindnesses to them, months after thou hast +departed from this sublunary sphere. What hours of bliss do I +not owe to thee! How have I seen, in the rich meads of Wey, after +picking out wretched quarter-pounders all the morning on March-brown +and red-hackle, the great trout rush from every hover to welcome thy +first appearance among the sedges and buttercups! How often, late +in August, on Thames, on Test, on Loddon heads, have I seen the three +and four pound fish prefer thy dead image to any live reality. +Have I not seen poor old Si. Wilder, king of Thames fishermen (now gone +home to his rest), shaking his huge sides with delight over thy mighty +deeds, as his fourteen-inch whiskers fluttered in the breeze like the +horsetail standard of some great Bashaw, while crystal Thames murmured +over the white flints on Monkey Island shallow, and the soft breeze +sighed in the colossal poplar spires, and the great trout rose and rose, +and would not cease, at thee, my alder-fly? Have I not seen, after +a day in which the earth below was iron, and the heavens above as brass, +as the three-pounders would have thee, and thee alone, in the purple +August dusk, old Moody’s red face grow redder with excitement, +half proud at having advised me to ‘put on’ thee, half fearful +lest we should catch all my lady’s pet trout in one evening? +Beloved alder-fly! would that I could give thee a soul (if indeed thou +hast not one already, thou, and all things which live), and make thee +happy in all æons to come! But as it is, such immortality +as I can I bestow on thee here, in small return for all the pleasant +days thou hast bestowed on me.</p> +<p>Bah! I am becoming poetical; let us think how to tie an alder-fly.</p> +<p>The common tie is good enough. A brown mallard, or dark hen-pheasant +tail for wing, a black hackle for legs, and the necessary peacock-herl +body. A better still is that of Jones Jones Beddgelert, the famous +fishing clerk of Snowdonia, who makes the wing of dappled peacock-hen, +and puts the black hackle on before the wings, in order to give the +peculiar hunch-backed shape of the natural fly. Many a good fish +has this tie killed. But the best pattern of all is tied from +the mottled wing-feather of an Indian bustard; generally used, when +it can be obtained, only for salmon flies. The brown and fawn +check pattern of this feather seems to be peculiarly tempting to trout, +especially to the large trout of Thames; and in every river where I +have tried the alder, I have found the bustard wing <i>facile princeps</i> +among all patterns of the fly.</p> +<p>Of palmers (the hairy caterpillars) are many sorts. Ephemera +gives by far the best list yet published. Ronalds has also three +good ones, but whether they are really taken by trout instead of the +particular natural insects which he mentions, is not very certain. +The little coch-a-bonddhu palmer, so killing upon moor streams, may +probably be taken for young larvæ of the fox and oak-egger moths, +abundant on all moors, upon trefoils, and other common plants; but the +lowland caterpillars are so abundant and so various in colour that trout +must be good entomologists to distinguish them. Some distinction +they certainly make; for one palmer will kill where another does not: +but this depends a good deal on the colour of the water; the red palmer, +being easily seen, will kill almost anywhere and any when, simply because +it is easily seen; and both the grizzle and brown palmer may be made +to kill by adding to the tail a tuft of red floss silk; for red, it +would seem, has the same exciting effect on fish which it has upon many +quadrupeds, possibly because it is the colour of flesh. The mackerel +will often run greedily at a strip of scarlet cloth; and the most killing +pike-fly I ever used had a body made of remnants of the huntsman’s +new ‘pink.’ Still, there are local palmers. +On Thames, for instance, I have seldom failed with the grizzled palmer, +while the brown has seldom succeeded, and the usually infallible red +never. There is one more palmer worth trying, which Scotsmen, +I believe, call the Royal Charlie; a coch-a-bonddhu or furnace hackle, +over a body of gold-coloured floss silk, ribbed with broad gold tinsel. +Both in Devonshire and in Hampshire this will kill great quantities +of fish, wherever furzy or otherwise wild banks or oak-woods afford +food for the oak-egger and fox moths, which children call ‘Devil’s +Gold Rings,’ and Scotsmen ‘Hairy Oubits.’</p> +<p>Two hints more about palmers. They must not be worked on the +top of the water, but used as stretchers, and allowed to sink as living +caterpillars do; and next, they can hardly be too large or rough, provided +that you have skill enough to get them into the water without a splash. +I have killed well on Thames with one full three inches long, armed +of course with two small hooks. With palmers - and perhaps with +all baits - the rule is, the bigger the bait the bigger the fish. +A large fish does not care to move except for a good mouthful. +The best pike-fisher I know prefers a half-pound chub when he goes after +one of his fifteen-pound jack; and the largest pike I ever ran - and +lost, alas! - who seemed of any weight above twenty pounds, was hooked +on a live white fish of full three-quarters of a pound. Still, +no good angler will despise the minute North-country flies. In +Yorkshire they are said to kill the large chalk trout of Driffield as +well as the small limestone and grit fish of Craven; if so, the gentlemen +of the Driffield Club, who are said to think nothing of killing three-pound +fish on midge flies and cobweb tackle, must be (as canny Yorkshiremen +are likely enough to be) the best anglers in England.</p> +<p>In one spot only in Yorkshire, as far as I know, do our large chalk +flies kill: namely, in the lofty limestone tarn of Malham. There +palmers, caperers, and rough black flies, of the largest Thames and +Kennet sizes, seem the only attractive baits: and for this reason, that +they are the flies of the place. The cinnamon Phryganea comes +up abundantly from among the stones; and the large peat moss to the +west of the tarn abounds, as usual, in house-flies and bluebottles, +and in the caterpillars of the fox and oak-egger moths: another proof +that the most attractive flies are imitations of the real insects. +On the other hand, there are said to be times when midges, and nothing +else, will rise fish on some chalk streams. The delicate black +hackle which Mr. Stewart praises so highly (and which should always +be tied on a square sneck-bend hook) will kill in June and July; and +on the Itchen, at Winchester, hardly any flies but small ones are used +after the green drake is off. But there is one sad objection against +these said midges - what becomes of your fish when hooked on one in +a stream full of weeds (as all chalk streams are after June), save</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘One struggle more, and I am free<br />From pangs which rend +my heart in twain’?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Winchester fishers have confessed to me that they lose three good +fish out of every four in such cases; and as it seems pretty clear that +chalk fish approve of no medium between very large flies and very small +ones, I advise the young angler, whose temper is not yet schooled into +perfect resignation, to spare his own feelings by fishing with a single +large fly - say the governor in the forenoon, the caperer in the evening, +regardless of the clearness of the water. I have seen flies large +enough for April, raise fish excellently in Test and other clear streams +in July and August; and, what is more, drag them up out of the weeds +and into the landing-net, where midges would have lost them in the first +scuffle.</p> +<p>So much for our leading chalk flies; all copies of live insects. +Of the entomology of mountain streams little as yet is known: but a +few scattered hints may suffice to show that in them, as well as in +the chalk rivers, a little natural science might help the angler.</p> +<p>The well-known fact that smaller flies are required on the moors +than in the lowlands, is easily explained by the fact that poorer soils +and swifter streams produce smaller insects. The large Phryganeæ, +or true caperers, whose caddis-baits love still pools and stagnant ditches, +are there rare; and the office of water-scavenger is fulfilled by the +Rhyacophiles (torrent-lovers) and Hydropsyches, whose tiny pebble-houses +are fixed to the stones to resist the violence of the summer floods. +In and out of them the tiny larva runs to find food, making in addition, +in some species, galleries of earth along the surface of the stones, +in which he takes his walks abroad in full security. In any of +the brown rivulets of Windsor forest, towards the middle of summer, +the pebble-houses of these little creatures may be seen in millions, +studding every stone. To the Hydropsyches (species <i>montana</i>? +or <i>variegata</i>? of Pictet) belongs that curious little Welsh fly, +known in Snowdon by the name of the Gwynnant, whose tesselated wing +is best imitated by brown mallard feather, and who so swarms in the +lower lakes of Snowdon, that it is often necessary to use three of them +on the line at once, all other flies being useless. It is perhaps +the abundance of these tesselated Hydropsyches which makes the mallard +wing the most useful in mountain districts, as the abundance of the +fawn and grey Phryganidæ in the south of England makes the woodcock +wing justly the favourite. The Rhyacophiles, on the other hand, +are mostly of a shining soot-grey, or almost black. These may +be seen buzzing in hundreds over the pools on a wet evening, and with +them the sooty Mystacides, called silverhorns in Scotland, from their +antennæ, which are of preposterous length, and ringed prettily +enough with black and white. These delicate fairies make moveable +cases, or rather pipes, of the finest sand, generally curved, and resembling +in shape the Dentalium shell. Guarded by these, they hang in myriads +on the smooth ledges of rock, where the water runs gently a few inches +deep. These are abundant everywhere: but I never saw so many of +them as in the exquisite Cother brook, near Middleham, in Yorkshire. +In that delicious glen, while wading up beneath the ash-fringed crags +of limestone, out of which the great ring ouzel (too wild, it seemed, +to be afraid of man) hopped down fearlessly to feed upon the strand, +or past flower-banks where the golden globe-flower, and the great blue +geranium, and the giant campanula bloomed beneath the white tassels +of the bird-cherry, I could not tread upon the limestone slabs without +crushing at every step hundreds of the delicate Mystacide tubes, which +literally paved the. shallow edge of the stream, and which would have +been metamorphosed in due time into small sooty moth-like fairies, best +represented, I should say, by the soft black-hackle which Mr. Stewart +recommends as the most deadly of North-country flies. Not to these, +however, but to the Phryganeæ (who, when sticks and pebbles fail, +often make their tubes of sand, e.g. <i>P. flava</i>), should I refer +the red-cow fly, which is almost the only autumn killer in the Dartmoor +streams. A red cowhair body and a woodcock wing is his type, and +let those who want West-country trout remember him.</p> +<p>Another fly, common on some rocky streams, but more scarce in the +chalk, is the ‘Yellow Sally,’ which entomologists, with +truer appreciation of its colour, call <i>Chrysoperla viridis</i>. +It may be bought at the shops; at least a yellow something of that name, +but bearing no more resemblance to the delicate yellow-green natural +fly, with its warm grey wings, than a Pre-Raphaelite portrait to the +human being for whom it is meant. Copied, like most trout flies, +from some traditional copy by the hands of Cockney maidens, who never +saw a fly in their lives, the mistake of a mistake, a sham raised to +its tenth power, it stands a signal proof that anglers will never get +good flies till they learn a little entomology themselves, and then +teach it to the tackle makers. But if it cannot be bought, it +can at least be made; and I should advise everyone who fishes rocky +streams in May and June, to dye for himself some hackles of a brilliant +greenish-yellow, and in the most burning sunshine, when fish seem inclined +to rise at no fly whatsoever, examine the boulders for the Chrysoperla, +who runs over them, her wings laid flat on her back, her yellow legs +moving as rapidly as a forest-fly’s; try to imitate her, and use +her on the stream, or on the nearest lake. Certain it is that +in Snowdon this fly and the Gwynnant Hydropsyche will fill a creel in +the most burning north-easter, when all other flies are useless; a sufficient +disproof of the Scotch theory - that fish do not prefer the fly which +is on the water. <a name="citation74"></a><a href="#footnote74">{74}</a></p> +<p>Another disproof may be found in the ‘fern web,’ ‘bracken +clock’ of Scotland; the tiny cockchafer, with brown wing-cases +and dark-green thorax, which abounds in some years in the hay-meadows, +on the fern, or on the heads of umbelliferous flowers. The famous +Loch-Awe fly, described as an alder-fly with a rail’s wing, seems +to be nothing but this fat little worthy: but the best plan is to make +the wings, either buzz or hackle, of the bright neck-feather of the +cock pheasant, thus gaining the metallic lustre of the beetle tribe. +Tied thus, either in Devonshire or Snowdon, few flies surpass him when +he is out. His fatness proves an attraction which the largest +fish cannot resist.</p> +<p>The Ephemeræ, too, are far more important in rapid and rocky +streams than in the deeper, stiller waters of the south. It is +worth while for a good fish to rise at them there; the more luxurious +chalk trout will seldom waste himself upon them, unless he be lying +in shallow water, and has but to move a few inches upward.</p> +<p>But these Ephemeræ, like all other naiads, want working out. +The species which Mr. Ronalds gives, are most of them, by his own confession, +very uncertain. Of the Phryganidæ he seems to know little +or nothing, mentioning but two species out of the two hundred which +are said to inhabit Britain; and his land flies and beetles are in several +cases quite wrongly named. However, the professed entomologists +know but little of the mountain flies; and the angler who would help +to work them out would confer a benefit on science, as well as on the +‘gentle craft.’ As yet the only approach to such a +good work which I know of, is a little book on the trout flies of Ripon, +with excellent engravings of the natural fly. The author’s +name is not given; but the book may be got at Ripon, and most valuable +it must be to any North-country fisherman.</p> +<p>But come, we must not waste our time in talk, for here is a cloud +over the sun, and plenty more coming up behind, before a ruffling south-west +breeze, as Shelley has it -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Calling white clouds like flocks to feed in air.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Let us up and onward to that long still reach, which is now curling +up fast before the breeze; there are large fish to be taken, one or +two at least, even before the fly comes on. You need not change +your flies; the cast which you have on - governor, and black alder - +will take, if anything will. Only do not waste your time and muscle, +as you are beginning to do, by hurling your flies wildly into the middle +of the stream, on the chance of a fish being there. Fish are there, +no doubt, but not feeding ones. They are sailing about and enjoying +the warmth; but nothing more. If you want to find the hungry fish +and to kill them, you must stand well back from the bank - or kneel +down, if you are really in earnest about sport; and throw within a foot +of the shore, above you or below (but if possible above), with a line +short enough to manage easily; by which I mean short enough to enable +you to lift your flies out of the water at each throw without hooking +them in the docks and comfrey which grow along the brink. You +must learn to raise your hand at the end of each throw, and lift the +flies clean over the land-weeds: or you will lose time, and frighten +all the fish, by crawling to the bank to unhook them. Believe +me, one of the commonest mistakes into which young anglers fall is that +of fishing in ‘skipjack broad;’ in plain English, in mid-stream, +where few fish, and those little ones, are to be caught. Those +who wish for large fish work close under the banks, and seldom take +a mid-stream cast, unless they see a fish rise there.</p> +<p>The reason of this is simple. Walking up the Strand in search +of a dinner, a reasonable man will keep to the trottoir, and look in +at the windows close to him, instead of parading up the mid-street. +And even so do all wise and ancient trout. The banks are their +shops; and thither they go for their dinners, driving their poor little +children tyrannously out into the mid-river to fare as hap may hap. +Over these children the tyro wastes his time, flogging the stream across +and across for weary hours, while the big papas and mammas are comfortably +under the bank, close at his feet, grubbing about the sides for water +crickets, and not refusing at times a leech or a young crayfish, but +perfectly ready to take a fly if you offer one large and tempting enough. +They do but act on experience. All the largest surface-food - +beetles, bees, and palmers - comes off the shore; and all the caperers +and alders, after emerging from their pupa-cases, swim to the shore +in order to change into the perfect insect in the open air. The +perfect insects haunt sunny sedges and tree-stems - whence the one is +often called the sedge, the other the alder-fly - and from thence drop +into the trouts’ mouths; and within six inches of the bank will +the good angler work, all the more sedulously and even hopefully if +he sees no fish rising. I have known good men say that they had +rather <i>not</i> see fish on the rise, if the day be good; that they +can get surer sport, and are less troubled with small fish, by making +them rise; and certain it is, that a day when the fish are rising all +over the stream is generally one of disappointment.</p> +<p>Another advantage of bank fishing is, that the fish sees the fly +only for a moment. He has no long gaze at it, as it comes to him +across the water. It either drops exactly over his nose, or sweeps +down the stream straight upon him. He expects it to escape on +shore the next moment, and chops at it fiercely and hastily, instead +of following and examining. Add to this the fact that when he +is under the bank there is far less chance of his seeing you; and duly +considering these things, you will throw away no more time in drawing, +at least in chalk-streams, flies over the watery wastes, to be snapped +at now and then by herring-sized pinkeens. In rocky streams, where +the quantity of bank food is far smaller, this rule will perhaps not +hold good; though who knows not that his best fish are generally taken +under some tree from which the little caterpillars, having determined +on slow and deliberate suicide are letting themselves down gently by +a silken thread into the mouth of the spotted monarch, who has but to +sail about and about, and pick them up one by one as they touch the +stream? - A sight which makes one think - as does a herd of swine crunching +acorns, each one of which might have become a ‘builder oak’ +- how Nature is never more magnificent than in her waste.</p> +<p>The next mistake, natural enough to the laziness of fallen man, is +that of fishing down-stream, and not up. What Mr. Stewart says +on this point should be read by every tyro. By fishing up-stream, +even against the wind, he will on an average kill twice as many trout +as when fishing down. If trout are out and feeding on the shallows, +up or down will simply make the difference of fish or no fish; and even +in deeps, where the difference in the chance of not being seen is not +so great, many more fish will be hooked by the man who fishes up-stream, +simply because when he strikes he pulls the hook into the trout’s +mouth instead of out of it. But he who would obey Mr. Stewart +in fishing up-stream must obey him also in discarding his light London +rod, which is in three cases out of four as weak and ‘floppy’ +in the middle as a waggon whip, and get to himself a stiff and powerful +rod, strong enough to spin a minnow; whereby he will obtain, after some +weeks of aching muscles, two good things - a fore-arm fit for a sculptor’s +model, and trout hooked and killed, instead of pricked and lost.</p> +<p>Killed, as well as hooked; for how large trout are to be killed in +a weedy chalk-stream without a stiff rod which will take them down, +is a question yet unsolved. Even the merest Cockney will know, +if he thinks, that weeds float with their points down-stream; and that +therefore if a fish is to be brought through them without entangling, +he must be ‘combed’ through them in the same direction. +But how is this to be done, if a fish be hooked below you on a weak +rod? With a strong rod indeed you can, at the chance of tearing +out the hook, keep him by main force on the top of the water, till you +have run past him and below him, shortening your line anyhow in loops +- there is no time to wind it up with the reel - and then do what you +might have done comfortably at first had you been fishing up - viz., +bring him down-stream, and let the water run through his gills, and +drown him. But with a weak rod - Alas for the tyro! He catches +one glimpse of a silver side plunging into the depths; he finds his +rod double in his hand; he finds fish and flies stop suddenly somewhere; +he rushes down to the spot, sees weeds waving around his line, and guesses +from what he feels and sees that the fish is grubbing up-stream through +them, five feet under water. He tugs downwards and backwards, +but too late; the drop-fly is fast wrapt in Ceratophyllum and Glyceria, +Callitriche and Potamogeton, and half-a-dozen more horrid things with +long names and longer stems; and what remains but the fate of Campbell’s +Lord Ullin? -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘The waters wild went o’er his child,<br /> And +he was left lamenting.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Unless, in fact, large fish can be got rapidly down-stream, the chance +of killing them is very small; and therefore the man who fishes a willow-fringed +brook downward, is worthy of no crown but Ophelia’s, besides being +likely enough, if he attempt to get down to his fish, to share her fate. +The best fisherman, however, will come to shame in streams bordered +by pollard willows, and among queer nooks, which can be only fished +down-stream. I saw, but the other day, a fish hooked cleverly +enough, by throwing to an inch where he ought to have been, and indeed +was, and from the only point whence the throw could be made. Out +of the water he came, head and tail, the moment he felt the hook, and +showed a fair side over two pounds weight . . . . and then? Instead +of running away, he ran right at the fisherman, for reasons which were +but too patent. Between man and fish were ten yards of shallow, +then a deep weedy shelf, and then the hole which was his house. +And for that weedy shelf the spotted monarch made, knowing that there +he could drag himself clear of the fly, as perhaps he had done more +than once before.</p> +<p>What was to be done? Take him down-stream through the weed? +Alas, on the man’s left hand an old pollard leant into the water, +barring all downward movement. Jump in and run round? He +had rather to run back from the bank, from fear of a loose line; the +fish was coming at him so fast that there was no time to wind up. +Safe into the weeds hurls the fish; the man, as soon as he finds the +fish stop, jumps in mid-leg deep, and staggers up to him, in hopes of +clearing; finds the dropper fast in the weeds, and the stretcher, which +had been in the fish’s mouth, wantoning somewhere in the depths +- <i>Quid plura</i>? Let us draw a veil over that man’s +return to shore.</p> +<p>No mortal skill could have killed that fish. Mortal luck (which +is sometimes, as most statesmen know, very great) might have done it, +if the fish had been irretrievably fast hooked; as, per contra, I once +saw a fish of nearly four pounds hooked just above an alder bush, on +the same bank as the angler. The stream was swift: there was a +great weed-bed above; the man had but about ten feet square of swift +water to kill the trout in. Not a foot down-stream could he take +him; in fact, he had to pull him hard up-stream to keep him out of his +hover in the alder roots. Three times that fish leapt into the +air nearly a yard high; and yet, so merciful is luck, and so firmly +was he hooked, in five breathless minutes he was in the landing-net; +and when he was there and safe ashore, just of the shape and colour +of a silver spoon, his captor lay down panting upon the bank, and with +Sir Hugh Evans, manifested ‘a great disposition to cry.’ +But it was a beautiful sight. A sharper round between man and +fish never saw I fought in Merry England.</p> +<p>I saw once, however, a cleverer, though not a more dashing feat. +A handy little fellow (I wonder where he is now?) hooked a trout of +nearly three pounds with his dropper, and at the same moment a post +with his stretcher. What was to be done? To keep the fish +pulling on him, and not on the post. And that, being favoured +by standing on a four-foot bank, he did so well that he tired out the +fish in some six feet square of water, stopping him and turning him +beautifully whenever he tried to run, till I could get in to him with +the landing-net. That was five-and-thirty years since. If +the little man has progressed in his fishing as he ought, he should +be now one of the finest anglers in England.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>So. Thanks to bank fishing, we have, you see, landed three +or four more good fish in the last two hours - And! What is here? +An ugly two-pound chub, Chevin, ‘Echevin,’ or Alderman, +as the French call him. How is this, keeper? I thought you +allowed no such vermin in this water?</p> +<p>The keeper answers, with a grunt, that ‘they allow themselves. +That there always were chub hereabouts, and always will be; for the +more he takes out with the net, the more come next day.’</p> +<p>Probably. No nets will exterminate these spawn-eating, fry-eating, +all-eating pests, who devour the little trout, and starve the large +ones, and, at the first sign of the net, fly to hover among the most +tangled roots. There they lie, as close as rats in a bank, and +work themselves the farther in the more they are splashed and poked +by the poles of the beaters. But the fly, well used, will - if +not exterminate them - still thin them down greatly; and very good sport +they give, in my opinion, in spite of the contempt in which they are +commonly held, as chicken-hearted fish, who show no fight. True; +but their very cowardice makes them the more difficult to catch; for +no fish must you keep more out of sight, and further off. The +very shadow of the line (not to mention that of the rod) sends them +flying to hover; and they rise so cautiously and quietly, that they +give excellent lessons in patience and nerve to a beginner. If +the fly is dragged along the surface, or jerked suddenly from them, +they flee from it in terror; and when they do, after due deliberation, +take it in, their rise is so quiet, that you can seldom tell whether +your fish weighs half a pound or four pounds and a half - unless you, +like most beginners, attempt to show your quickness by that most useless +exertion, a violent strike. Then, the snapping of your footlink, +or - just as likely - of the top of your rod, makes you fully aware, +if not of the pluck, at least of the brute strength, of the burly alderman +of the waters. No fish, therefore, will better teach the beginner +the good old lesson, ‘not to frighten a fish before you have tired +him.’</p> +<p>For flies - chub will rise greedily at any large palmers, the larger +and rougher the better. A red and a grizzled hackle will always +take them; but the best fly of all is an imitation of the black beetle +- the ‘undertaker’ of the London shops. He, too, can +hardly be too large, and should be made of a fat body of black wool, +with the metallic black feather of a cock’s tail wrapped loosely +over it. A still better wing is one of the neck feathers of any +metallic-plumed bird, e.g., <i>Phlogophorus Impeyanus</i>, the Menaul +Pheasant, laid flat and whole on the back, to imitate the wing-shells +of the beetle, the legs being represented by any loose black feathers +- (not hackles, which are too fine.) Tied thus, it will kill not +only every chub in a pool (if you give the survivors a quarter of an +hour wherein to recover from their horror at their last friend’s +fate), but also, here and there, very large trout.</p> +<p>Another slur upon the noble sport of chub fishing is the fact of +his not being worth eating - a fact which, in the true sportsman’s +eyes, will go for nothing. But though the man who can buy fresh +soles and salmon may despise chub, there are those who do not. +True, you may make a most accurate imitation of him by taking one of +Palmer’s patent candles, wick and all, stuffing it with needles +and split bristles, and then stewing the same in ditch-water. +Nevertheless, strange to say, the agricultural stomach digests chub; +and if, after having filled your creel, or three creels (as you may +too often), with them, you will distribute them on your way home to +all the old women you meet, you will make many poor souls happy, after +having saved the lives of many trout.</p> +<p>But here we come to a strip of thick cover, part of our Squire’s +home preserves, which it is impossible to fish, so closely do the boughs +cover the water. We will walk on through it towards the hall, +and there get - what we begin sorely to need - something to eat. +It will be of little use fishing for some time to come; for these hot +hours of the afternoon, from three till six, are generally the ‘deadest +time’ of the whole day.</p> +<p>And now, when we have struggled in imagination through the last bit +of copse, and tumbled over the palings into the lawn, we shall see a +scene quite as lovely, if you will believe it, as any alp on earth.</p> +<p>What shall we see, as we look across the broad, still, clear river, +where the great dark trout sail to and fro lazily in the sun? +For having free-warren of our fancy and our paper, we may see what we +choose.</p> +<p>White chalk-fields above, quivering hazy in the heat. A park +full of merry haymakers; gay red and blue waggons; stalwart horses switching +off the flies; dark avenues of tall elms; groups of abele, ‘tossing +their whispering silver to the sun;’ and amid them the house. +What manner of house shall it be? Tudor or Elizabethan, with oriels, +mullioned windows, gables, and turrets of strange shape? No: that +is commonplace. Everybody builds Tudor houses now. Our house +shall smack of Inigo Jones or Christopher Wren; a great square red-brick +mass, made light and cheerful though, by quoins and windows of white +Sarsden stone; with high-peaked French roofs, broken by louvres and +dormers, haunted by a thousand swallows and starlings. Old walled +gardens, gay with flowers, shall stretch right and left. Clipt +yew alleys shall wander away into mysterious glooms: and out of their +black arches shall come tripping children, like white fairies, to laugh +and talk with the girl who lies dreaming and reading in the hammock +there, beneath the black velvet canopy of the great cedar-tree, like +some fair Tropic flower hanging from its boughs. Then they shall +wander down across the smooth-shorn lawn, where the purple rhododendrons +hang double, bush and image, over the water’s edge, and call to +us across the stream, ‘What sport?’ and the old Squire shall +beckon the keeper over the long stone bridge, and return with him bringing +luncheon and good ale; and we will sit down, and eat and drink among +the burdock leaves, and then watch the quiet house, and lawn, and flowers, +and fair human creatures, and shining water, all sleeping breathless +in the glorious light beneath the glorious blue, till we doze off, lulled +by the murmur of a thousand insects, and the rich minstrelsy of nightingale +and black-cap, thrush and dove.</p> +<p>Peaceful, graceful, complete English country life and country houses; +everywhere finish and polish; Nature perfected by the wealth and art +of peaceful centuries! Why should I exchange you, even for the +sight of all the Alps, for bad roads, bad carriages, bad inns, bad food, +bad washing, bad beds, and fleas, fleas, fleas?</p> +<p>Let that last thought be enough. There may be follies, there +may be sorrows, there may be sins - though I know there are no very +heavy ones - in that fine old house opposite: but thanks to the genius +of my native land, there are at least no fleas.</p> +<p>Think of that, wandering friend; and of this also, that you will +find your warm bath ready when you go to bed to-night, and your cold +one when you rise to-morrow morning; and in content and thankfulness, +stay in England, and be clean.</p> +<p>* * * *</p> +<p>Here, then, let us lounge a full two hours, too comfortable and too +tired to care for fishing, till the hall-bell rings for that dinner +which we as good anglers will despise. Then we will make our way +to the broad reaches above the house. The evening breeze should +be ruffling them gallantly; and see, the fly is getting up. Countless +thousands are rising off the grass, and flickering to and fro above +the stream. Stand still a moment, and you will hear the air full +of the soft rustle of innumerable wings. Hundreds more, even more +delicate and gauzy, are rising through the water, and floating helplessly +along the surface, as Aphrodite may have done when she rose in the Ægean, +half frightened at the sight of the new upper world. And, see, +the great trout are moving everywhere. Fish too large and well +fed to care for the fly at any other season, who have been lounging +among the weeds all day and snapping at passing minnows, have come to +the surface; and are feeding steadily, splashing five or six times in +succession, and then going down awhile to bolt their mouthful of victims; +while here and there a heavy silent swirl tells of a fly taken before +it has reached the surface, untimely slain before it has seen the day.</p> +<p>Now - put your Green-drake on; and throw, regardless of bank-fishing +or any other rule, wherever you see a fish rise. Do not work your +flies in the least, but let them float down over the fish, or sink if +they will; he is more likely to take them under water than on the top. +And mind this rule: be patient with your fish; and do not fancy that +because he does not rise to you the first or the tenth time, therefore +he will not rise at all. He may have filled his mouth and gone +down to gorge; and when he comes up again, if your fly be the first +which he meets, he will probably seize it greedily, and all the more +so if it be under water, so seeming drowned and helpless. Besides, +a fish seldom rises twice exactly in the same place, unless he be lying +between two weeds, or in the corner of an eddy. His small wits, +when he is feeding in the open, seem to hint to him that after having +found a fly in one place he must move a foot or two on to find another; +and therefore it may be some time before your turn comes, and your fly +passes just over his nose; which if it do not do, he certainly will +not, amid such an abundance, go out of his way for it. In the +meanwhile your footlink will very probably have hit him over the back, +or run foul of his nose, in which case you will not catch him at all. +A painful fact for you; but if you could catch every fish you saw, where +would be the trout for next season?</p> +<p>Put on a dropper of some kind, say a caperer, as a second chance. +I almost prefer the dark claret-spinner, with which I have killed very +large fish alternately with the green-drake, even when it was quite +dark; and for your stretcher, of course a green-drake.</p> +<p>For a blustering evening like this your drake can hardly be too large +or too rough; in brighter and stiller weather the fish often prefer +a fly half the size of the natural one. Only bear in mind that +the most tempting form among these millions of drakes is that one whose +wings are very little coloured at all, of a pale greenish yellow; whose +body is straw-coloured, and his head, thorax, and legs, spotted with +dark brown - best represented by a pheasant or coch-a-bonddhu hackle.</p> +<p>The best imitation of this, or of any drake, which I have ever seen, +is one by Mr. Macgowan, whilome of Ballyshannon, now of No. 7, Bruton-street, +Berkeley-square, whose drakes, known by a waxy body of some mysterious +material, do surpass those of all other men, and should be known and +honoured far and wide. But failing them, you may do well with +a drake which is ribbed through the whole length with red hackle over +a straw-coloured body. A North-countryman would laugh at it, and +ask us how we fancy that fish will mistake for that delicate waxy fly +a heavy rough palmer, made heavier and rougher by two thick tufts of +yellow mallard wing: but if he will fish therewith, he will catch trout; +and mighty ones they will be. I have found, again and again, this +drake, in which the hackle is ribbed all down the body, beat a bare-bodied +one in the ratio of three fish to one. The reason is difficult +to guess. Perhaps the shining transparent hackle gives the fly +more of the waxy look of the natural insect; or perhaps the ‘buzzly’ +look of the fly causes the fish to mistake it for one half emerged from +its pupa case, fluttering, entangled, and helpless. But whatever +be the cause, I am sure of the fact. Now - silence and sport for +the next three hours.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>There! All things must end. It is so dark that I have +been fishing for the last five minutes without any end fly; and we have +lost our two last fish simply by not being able to guide them into the +net. But what an evening’s sport we have had! Beside +several over a pound which I have thrown in (I trust you have been generous +and done likewise), there are six fish averaging two pounds apiece; +and what is the weight of that monster with whom I saw you wrestling +dimly through the dusk, your legs stuck knee-deep in a mudbank, your +head embowered in nettles, while the keeper waltzed round you, roaring +mere incoherencies? - four pounds full. Now, is there any sherry +left in the flask? No. Then we will give the keeper five +shillings; he is well worth his pay; and then drag our weary limbs towards +the hall to bath, supper, and bed; while you confess, I trust, that +you may get noble sport, hard exercise, and lovely scenery, without +going sixty miles from London town.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>III. THE FENS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>A certain sadness is pardonable to one who watches the destruction +of a grand natural phenomenon, even though its destruction bring blessings +to the human race. Reason and conscience tell us, that it is right +and good that the Great Fen should have become, instead of a waste and +howling wilderness, a garden of the Lord, where</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘All the land in flowery squares,<br />Beneath a broad and +equal-blowing wind,<br />Smells of the coming summer.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And yet the fancy may linger, without blame, over the shining meres, +the golden reed-beds, the countless water-fowl, the strange and gaudy +insects, the wild nature, the mystery, the majesty - for mystery and +majesty there were - which haunted the deep fens for many a hundred +years. Little thinks the Scotsman, whirled down by the Great Northern +Railway from Peterborough to Huntingdon, what a grand place, even twenty +years ago, was that Holme and Whittlesea, which is now but a black, +unsightly, steaming flat, from which the meres and reed-beds of the +old world are gone, while the corn and roots of the new world have not +as yet taken their place.</p> +<p>But grand enough it was, that black ugly place, when backed by Caistor +Hanglands and Holme Wood, and the patches of the primæval forest; +while dark-green alders, and pale-green reeds, stretched for miles round +the broad lagoon, where the coot clanked, and the bittern boomed, and +the sedge-bird, not content with its own sweet song, mocked the notes +of all the birds around; while high overhead hung, motionless, hawk +beyond hawk, buzzard beyond buzzard, kite beyond kite, as far as eye +could see. Far off, upon the silver mere, would rise a puff of +smoke from a punt, invisible from its flatness and its white paint. +Then down the wind came the boom of the great stanchion-gun; and after +that sound another sound, louder as it neared; a cry as of all the bells +of Cambridge, and all the hounds of Cottesmore; and overhead rushed +and whirled the skein of terrified wild-fowl, screaming, piping, clacking, +croaking, filling the air with the hoarse rattle of their wings, while +clear above all sounded the wild whistle of the curlew, and the trumpet +note of the great wild swan.</p> +<p>They are all gone now. No longer do the ruffs trample the sedge +into a hard floor in their fighting-rings, while the sober reeves stand +round, admiring the tournament of their lovers, gay with ears and tippets, +no two of them alike. Gone are ruffs and reeves, spoonbills, bitterns, +avosets; the very snipe, one hears, disdains to breed. Gone, too, +not only from Whittlesea but from the whole world, is that most exquisite +of English butterflies, <i>Lycæna dispar</i> - the great copper; +and many a curious insect more. Ah, well, at least we shall have +wheat and mutton instead, and no more typhus and ague; and, it is to +be hoped, no more brandy-drinking and opium-eating; and children will +live and not die. For it was a hard place to live in, the old +Fen; a place wherein one heard of ‘unexampled instances of longevity,’ +for the same reason that one hears of them in savage tribes - that few +lived to old age at all, save those iron constitutions which nothing +could break down.</p> +<p>And now, when the bold Fen-men, who had been fighting water by the +help of wind, have given up the more capricious element for that more +manageable servant fire; have replaced their wind-mills by steam-engines, +which will work in all weathers; and have pumped the whole fen dry - +even too dry, as the last hot summer proved; when the only bit of the +primæval wilderness left, as far as I know, is 200 acres of sweet +sedge and <i>Lastræa thelypteris</i> in Wicken Fen: there can +be no harm in lingering awhile over the past, and telling of what the +Great Fen was, and how it came to be that great flat which reaches (roughly +speaking) from Cambridge to Peterborough on the south-west side, to +Lynn and Tattershall on the north-east, some forty miles and more each +way.</p> +<p>To do that rightly, and describe how the Fen came to be, one must +go back, it seems to me, to an age before all history; an age which +cannot be measured by years or centuries; an age shrouded in mystery, +and to be spoken of only in guesses. To assert anything positively +concerning that age, or ages, would be to show the rashness of ignorance. +‘I think that I believe,’ ‘I have good reason to suspect,’ +‘I seem to see,’ are the strongest forms of speech which +ought to be used over a matter so vast and as yet so little elaborated.</p> +<p>‘I seem to see,’ then, an epoch after those strata were +laid down with which geology generally deals; after the Kimmeridge clay, +Oxford clay, and Gault clay, which form the impervious bedding of the +fens, with their intermediate beds of coral-rag and green sand, had +been deposited; after the chalk had been laid on the top of them, at +the bottom of some ancient ocean; after (and what a gulf of time is +implied in that last ‘after!’) the boulder-clay (coeval +probably with the ‘till’ of Scotland) had been spread out +in the ‘age of ice’ on top of all; after the whole had been +upheaved out of the sea, and stood about the same level as it stands +now: but before the great valley of the Cam had been scooped out, and +the strata were still continuous, some 200 feet above Cambridge and +its colleges, from the top of the Gog-magogs to the top of Madingley +Rise.</p> +<p>In those ages - while the valleys of the Cam, the Ouse, the Nene, +the Welland, the Glen, and the Witham were sawing themselves out by +no violent convulsions, but simply, as I believe, by the same slow action +of rain and rivers by which they are sawing backward into the land even +now - I ‘seem to see’ a time when the Straits of Dover did +not exist - a time when a great part of the German Ocean was dry land. +Through it, into a great estuary between North Britain and Norway, flowed +together all the rivers of north-eastern Europe - Elbe, Weser, Rhine, +Scheldt, Seine, Thames, and all the rivers of east England, as far north +as the Humber.</p> +<p>And if a reason be required for so daring a theory - first started, +if I recollect right, by the late lamented Edward Forbes - a sufficient +one may be found in one look over a bridge, in any river of the East +of England. There we see various species of Cyprinidæ, ‘rough’ +or ‘white’ fish - roach, dace, chub, bream, and so forth, +and with them their natural attendant and devourer, the pike.</p> +<p>Now these fish belong almost exclusively to the same system of rivers +- those of north-east Europe. They attain their highest development +in the great lakes of Sweden. Westward of the Straits of Dover +they are not indigenous. They may be found in the streams of south +and western England; but in every case, I believe, they have been introduced +either by birds or by men. From some now submerged ‘centre +of creation’ (to use poor Edward Forbes’s formula) they +must have spread into the rivers where they are now found; and spread +by fresh water, and not by salt, which would destroy them in a single +tide.</p> +<p>Again, there lingers in the Cam, and a few other rivers of north-eastern +Europe, that curious fish the eel-pout or ‘burbot’ (<i>Molva +lota</i>). Now he is utterly distinct from any other fresh-water +fish of Europe. His nearest ally is the ling (<i>Molva vulgaris</i>); +a deep-sea fish, even as his ancestors have been. Originally a +deep-sea form, he has found his way up the rivers, even to Cambridge, +and there remains. The rivers by which he came up, the land through +which he passed, ages and ages since, have been all swept away; and +he has never found his way back to his native salt-water, but lives +on in a strange land, degraded in form, dwindling in numbers, and now +fast dying out. The explanation may be strange: but it is the +only one which I can offer to explain the fact - which is itself much +more strange - of the burbot being found in the Fen rivers.</p> +<p>Another proof may be found in the presence of the edible frog of +the Continent at Foulmire, on the edge of the Cambridge Fans. +It is a moot point still with some, whether he was not put there by +man. It is a still stronger argument against his being indigenous, +that he is never mentioned as an article of food by the mediæval +monks, who would have known - Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, as many +of them were - that he is as dainty as ever was a spring chicken. +But if he be indigenous, his presence proves that once he could either +hop across the Straits of Dover, or swim across the German Ocean.</p> +<p>But there can be no doubt of the next proof - the presence in the +Fens (where he is now probably extinct) and in certain spots in East +Anglia, which I shall take care not to mention, of that exquisite little +bird the ‘Bearded Tit’ (<i>Calamophilus biarmicus</i>). +Tit he is none; rather, it is said, a finch, but connected with no other +English bird. His central home is in the marshes of Russia and +Prussia; his food the mollusks which swarm among the reed-beds where +he builds; and feeding on those from reed-bed to reed bed, all across +what was once the German Ocean, has come the beautiful little bird with +long tail, orange tawny plumage, and black moustache, which might have +been seen forty years ago in hundreds on ever reed-rond of the Fen.</p> +<p>One more proof - for it is the heaping up of facts, each minute by +itself, which issues often in a sound and great result. In draining +Wretham Mere, in Norfolk, not so very far from the Fens, in the year +1856 there were found embedded in the peat moss (which is not the Scotch +and Western <i>Sphagnum</i> <i>palustre</i>, but an altogether different +moss, <i>Hypnum</i> <i>fluitans</i>), remains of an ancient lake-dwelling, +supported on piles. A dwelling like those which have lately attracted +so much notice in the lakes of Switzerland: like those which the Dyaks +make about the ports and rivers of Borneo; dwellings invented, it seems +to me, to enable the inhabitants to escape not wild beasts only, but +malaria and night frosts; and, perched above the cold and poisonous +fogs, to sleep, if not high and dry, at least high and healthy.</p> +<p>In the bottom of this mere were found two shells of the fresh-water +tortoise, <i>Emys lutaria</i>, till then unknown in England.</p> +<p>These little animals, who may be seen in hundreds in the meres of +eastern Europe, sunning their backs on fallen logs, and diving into +the water at the sound of a footstep, are eaten largely in continental +capitals (as is their cousin the terrapin, <i>Emys</i> <i>picta</i>, +in the Southern States). They may be bought at Paris, at fashionable +restaurants. Thither they may have been sent from Vienna or Berlin; +for in north France, Holland, and north-west Germany they are unknown. +A few specimens have been found buried in peat in Sweden and Denmark; +and there is a tale of a live one having been found in the extreme south +part of Sweden, some twenty years ago. <a name="citation103"></a><a href="#footnote103">{103}</a> +Into Sweden, then, as into England, the little fresh-water tortoise +had wandered, as to an extreme limit, beyond which the change of climate, +and probably of food, killed him off.</p> +<p>But the emys which came to the Wretham bog must have had a long journey; +and a journey by fresh water too. Down Elbe or Weser he must have +floated, ice-packed, or swept away by flood, till somewhere off the +Doggerbank, in that great network of rivers which is now open sea, he +or his descendants turned up Ouse and Little Ouse, till they found a +mere like their old Prussian one, and there founded a tiny colony for +a few generations, till they were eaten up by the savages of the table +dwelling; or died out - as many a human family has died out - because +they found the world too hard.</p> +<p>And lastly, my friend Mr. Brady, well known to naturalists, has found +that many forms of Entomastraca are common to the estuaries of the east +of England and to those of Holland.</p> +<p>It was thus necessary, in order to account for the presence of some +of the common animals of the fen, to go back to an epoch of immense +remoteness.</p> +<p>And how was that great lowland swept away? Who can tell? +Probably by no violent convulsion. Slow upheavals, slow depressions, +there may have been - indeed must have been - as the sunken fir-forests +of Brancaster, and the raised beach of Hunstanton, on the extreme north-east +corner of the Wash, testify to this day. But the main agent of +destruction has been, doubtless, that same ever-gnawing sea-wash which +devours still the soft strata of the whole east coast of England, as +far as Flamborough Head; and that great scavenger, the tide-wave, which +sweeps the fallen rubbish out to sea twice in every twenty-four hours. +Wave and tide by sea, rain and river by land; these are God’s +mighty mills in which He makes the old world new. And as Longfellow +says of moral things, so may we of physical:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding +small.<br />Though He sit, end wait with patience, with exactness grinds +He all.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The lighter and more soluble particles, during that slow but vast +destruction which is going on still to this day, have been carried far +out to sea, and deposited as ooze. The heavier and coarser have +been left along the shores, as the gravels which fill the old estuaries +of the east of England.</p> +<p>From these gravels we can judge of the larger animals which dwelt +in that old world. About these lost lowlands wandered herds of +the woolly mammoth. <i>Elephas primigenius</i>, whose bones are +common in certain Cambridge gravels, whose teeth are brought up by dredgers, +far out in the German Ocean, off certain parts of the Norfolk coast. +With them wandered the woolly rhinoceros (<i>R. tichorhinus</i>), the +hippopotamus, the lion - not (according to some) to be distinguished +from the recent lion of Africa - the hyæna, the bear, the horse, +the reindeer, and the musk ox; the great Irish elk, whose vast horns +are so well known in every museum of northern Europe; and that mighty +ox, the <i>Bos</i> <i>primigenius</i>, which still lingered on the Continent +in Cæsar’s time, as the urus, in magnitude less only than +the elephant, - and not to be confounded with the bison, a relation +of, if not identical with, the buffalo of North America, - which still +lingers, carefully preserved by the Czar, in the forests of Lithuania.</p> +<p>The remains of this gigantic ox, be it remembered, are found throughout +Britain, and even into the Shetland Isles. Would that any gentleman +who may see these pages would take notice of the fact, that we have +not (so I am informed) in these islands a single perfect skeleton of +<i>Bos</i> <i>primigenius</i>; while the Museum of Copenhagen, to its +honour, possesses five or six from a much smaller field than is open +to us; and be public-spirited enough, the next time he hears of ox-bones, +whether in gravel or in peat (as he may in the draining of any northern +moss), to preserve them for the museum of his neighbourhood - or send +them to Cambridge.</p> +<p>But did all these animals exist at the same time? It is difficult +to say. The study of the different gravels is most intricate - +almost a special science in itself - in which but two or three men are +adepts. It is hard, at first sight, to believe that the hippopotamus +could have been the neighbour of the Arctic reindeer and musk ox: but +that the woolly mammoth not only may have been such, but was such, there +can be no doubt. His remains, imbedded in ice at the mouth of +the great Siberian rivers, with the wool, skin, and flesh (in some cases) +still remaining on the bones, prove him to have been fitted for a cold +climate, and to have browsed upon the scanty shrubs of Northern Asia. +But, indeed, there is no reason, <i>à priori</i>, why these huge +mammals, now confined to hotter countries, should not have once inhabited +a colder region, or at least have wandered northwards in whole herds +in summer, to escape insects, and find fresh food, and above all, water. +The same is the case with the lion, and other huge beasts of prey. +The tiger of Hindostan ranges, at least in summer, across the snows +of the Himalaya, and throughout China. Even at the river Amoor, +where the winters are as severe as at St. Petersburg, the tiger is an +ordinary resident at all seasons. The lion was, undoubtedly, an +inhabitant of Thrace as late as the expedition of Xerxes, whose camels +they attacked; and the ‘Nemæan lion,’ and the other +lions which stand out in Grecian myth, as having been killed by Hercules +and the heroes, may have been the last remaining specimens of that <i>Felis +spelæa</i> (undistinguishable, according to some, from the African +lion), whose bones are found in the gravels and the caverns of these +isles.</p> +<p>And how long ago were those days of mammoths and reindeer, lions +and hyænas? We must talk not of days, but of ages; we know +nothing of days or years. As the late lamented Professor Sedgwick +has well said:-</p> +<p>‘We allow that the great European oscillation, which ended +in the production of the drift (the boulder clay, or till), was effected +during a time of vast, but unknown length. And if we limit our +inquiries, and ask what was the interval of time between the newest +bed of gravel near Cambridge, and the oldest bed of bogland or silt +in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, we are utterly at a loss for a definite +answer. The interval of time may have been very great. But +we have no scale on which to measure it.’</p> +<p>Let us suppose, then, the era of ‘gravels’ past; the +valleys which open into the fen sawn out by rivers to about their present +depth. What was the special cause of the fen itself? why did not +the great lowland become a fertile ‘carse’ of firm alluvial +soil, like that of Stirling?</p> +<p>One reason is, that the carse of Stirling has been upheaved some +twenty feet, and thereby more or less drained, since the time of the +Romans. A fact patent and provable from Cramond (the old Roman +port of Alaterna) up to Blair Drummond above Stirling, where whales’ +skeletons, and bone tools by them, have been found in loam and peat, +twenty feet above high-water mark. The alluvium of the fens, on +the other hand, has very probably suffered a slight depression.</p> +<p>But the main reason is, that the silt brought down by the fen rivers +cannot, like that of the Forth and its neighbouring streams, get safe +away to sea. From Flamborough Head, in Yorkshire, all down the +Lincolnshire coast, the land is falling, falling for ever into the waves; +and swept southward by tide and current, the debris turns into the Wash +between Lincolnshire and Norfolk, there to repose, as in a quiet haven.</p> +<p>Hence that vast labyrinth of banks between Lynn and Wisbeach, of +mud inside, brought down by the fen rivers; but outside (contrary to +the usual rule) of shifting sand, which has come inward from the sea, +and prevents the mud’s escape - banks parted by narrow gullies, +the delight of the gunner with his punt, haunted by million wild-fowl +in winter, and in summer hazy steaming flats, beyond which the trees +of Lincolnshire loom up, raised by refraction far above the horizon, +while the masts and sails of distant vessels quiver, fantastically distorted +and lengthened, sometimes even inverted, by a refraction like that which +plays such tricks with ships and coasts in the Arctic seas. Along +the top of the mud banks lounge the long black rows of seals, undistinguishable +from their reflection in the still water below; distorted too, and magnified +to the size of elephants. Long lines of sea-pies wing their way +along at regular tide-hours, from or to the ocean. Now and then +a skein of geese paddle hastily out of sight round a mud-cape; or a +brown robber gull (generally Richardson’s <i>Skua</i>) raises +a tumult of screams, by making a raid upon a party of honest white gulls, +to frighten them into vomiting up their prey for his benefit; or a single +cormorant flaps along, close to the water, towards his fishing ground. +Even the fish are shy of haunting a bottom which shifts with every storm; +and innumerable shrimps are almost the only product of the shallow barren +sea: beside, all is silence and desolation, as of a world waiting to +be made.</p> +<p>So strong is the barrier which these sea-borne sands oppose to the +river-borne ooze, that as soon as a seabank is built - as the projectors +of the ‘Victoria County’ have built them - across any part +of the estuary, the mud caught by it soon ‘warps’ the space +within into firm and rich dry land. But that same barrier, ere +the fen was drained, backed up for ages not only the silt, but the very +water of the fens; and spread it inland into a labyrinth of shifting +streams, shallow meres, and vast peat bogs, on those impervious clays +which floor the fen. Each river contributed to the formation of +those bogs and meres, instead of draining them away; repeating on a +huge scale the process which may be seen in many a highland strath, +where the ground at the edge of the stream is firm and high; the meadows +near the hillfoot, a few hundred yards away, bogland lower than the +bank of the stream. For each flood deposits its silt upon the +immediate bank of the river, raising it year by year; till - as in the +case of the ‘Levée’ of the Mississippi, and probably +of every one of the old fen rivers - the stream runs at last between +two natural dykes, at a level considerably higher than that of the now +swamped and undrainable lands right and left of it.</p> +<p>If we add to this, a slope in the fen rivers so extraordinarily slight, +that the river at Cambridge is only thirteen and a half feet above the +mean sea level, five-and-thirty miles away, and that if the great sea-sluice +of Denver, the key of all the eastern fen, were washed away, the tide +would back up the Cam to within ten miles of Cambridge; if we add again +the rainfall upon that vast flat area, utterly unable to escape through +rivers which have enough to do to drain the hills around; it is easy +to understand how peat, the certain product of standing water, has slowly +overwhelmed the rich alluvium, fattened by the washing of those phosphatic +greensand beds, which (discovered by the science of the lamented Professor +Henslow) are now yielding round Cambridge supplies of manure seemingly +inexhaustible. Easy it is to understand how the all-devouring, +yet all-preserving peat-moss swallowed up gradually the stately forests +of fir and oak, ash and poplar, hazel and yew, which once grew on that +rank land; how trees, torn down by flood or storm, floated and lodged +in rafts, damming the waters back still more; how streams, bewildered +in the flats, changed their channels, mingling silt and sand with the +peat-moss; how Nature, left to herself, ran into wild riot and chaos +more and more; till the whole fen became one ‘Dismal Swamp,’ +in which the ‘Last of the English’ (like Dred in Mrs. Stowe’s +tale) took refuge from their tyrants, and lived, like him, a free and +joyous life awhile.</p> +<p>For there were islands, and are still, in that wide fen, which have +escaped the destroying deluge of peat-moss; outcrops of firm land, which +even in the Middle Age preserved the Fauna and Flora of the primæval +forest, haunted by the descendants of some at least of those wild beasts +which roamed on the older continent of the ‘gravel age.’ +The all-preserving peat, as well as the monkish records of the early +Middle Age, enable us to repeople, tolerably well, the primæval +fen.</p> +<p>The gigantic ox, <i>Bos</i> <i>primigenius</i>, was still there, +though there is no record of him in monkish tales. But with him +had appeared (not unknown toward the end of the gravel age) another +ox, smaller and with shorter horns, <i>Bos</i> <i>longifrons</i>; which +is held to be the ancestor of our own domestic short-horns, and of the +wild cattle still preserved at Chillingham and at Cadzow. The +reindeer had disappeared, almost or altogether. The red deer, +of a size beside which the largest Scotch stag is puny, and even the +great Carpathian stag inferior, abound; so does the roe, so does the +goat, which one is accustomed to look on as a mountain animal. +In the Woodwardian Museum there is a portion of a skull of an ibex - +probably <i>Capra sibirica</i> - which was found in the drift gravel +at Fulbourne. Wild sheep are unknown. The horse occurs in +the peat; but whether wild or tame, who can tell? Horses enough +have been mired and drowned since the Romans set foot on this island, +to account for the presence of horses’ skulls, without the hypothesis +of wild herds, such as doubtless existed in the gravel times. +The wolf, of course, is common; wild cat, marten, badger, and otter +all would expect; but not so the beaver, which nevertheless is abundant +in the peat; and damage enough the busy fellows must have done, cutting +trees, damming streams, flooding marshes, and like selfish speculators +in all ages, sacrificing freely the public interest to their own. +Here and there are found the skulls of bears, in one case that of a +polar bear, ice-drifted; and one of a walrus, probably washed in dead +after a storm.</p> +<p>Beautiful, after their kind, were these fen-isles, in the eyes of +the monks who were the first settlers in the wilderness.</p> +<p>The author of the History of Ramsey grows enthusiastic, and, after +the manner of old monks, somewhat bombastic also, as he describes the +lonely isle which got its name from the solitary ram who had wandered +thither, either in some extreme drought or over the winter ice, and +never able to return, was found, fat beyond the wont of rams, feeding +among the wild deer. He tells of the stately ashes - most of them +cut in his time, to furnish mighty beams for the church roof; of the +rich pastures painted with all gay flowers in spring; of the ‘green +crown’ of reed and alder which girdled round the isle; of the +fair wide mere with its ‘sandy beach’ along the forest side: +‘a delight,’ he says, ‘to all who look thereon.’</p> +<p>In like humour, William of Malmesbury, writing in the first half +of the twelfth century, speaks of Thorney Abbey and isle. ‘It +represents,’ he says, ‘a very Paradise, for that in pleasure +and delight it resembles heaven itself. These marshes abound in +trees, whose length without a knot doth emulate the stars. The +plain there is as level as the sea, which with green grass allures the +eye, and so smooth that there is nought to hinder him who runs through +it. Neither is therein any waste place for in some parts are apple +trees, in other vines, which are either spread on the ground or raised +on poles. A mutual strife is there between nature and art; so +that what one produces not, the other supplies. What shall I say +of those fair buildings, which ’tis so wonderful to see the ground +among those fens upbear?’</p> +<p>But the most detailed picture of a fen-isle is that in the second +part of the Book of Ely; wherein a single knight of all the French army +forces his way into the isle of St. Etheldreda, and, hospitably entertained +there by Hereward and his English, is sent back safe to William the +Conqueror, to tell him of the strength of Ely isle.</p> +<p>He cannot praise enough - his speech may be mythical; but as written +by Richard of Ely, only one generation after, it must describe faithfully +what the place was like - the wonders of the isle: its soil the richest +in England, its pleasant pastures, its noble hunting-grounds, its store +of sheep and cattle (though its vines, he says, as a Frenchman had good +right to say, were not equally to be praised), its wide meres and bogs, +about it like a wall. In it was, to quote roughly, ‘abundance +of tame beasts and of wild stag, roe, and goat, in grove and marsh; +martens, and ermines, and fitchets, which in hard winter were caught +in snares or gins. But of the kind of fish and fowl which bred +therein, what can I say? In the pools around are netted eels innumerable, +great water wolves, and pickerel, perch, roach, burbot, lampreys, which +the French called sea-serpents; smelts, too; and the royal fish, the +turbot [surely a mistake for sturgeon], are said often to be taken. +But of the birds which haunt around, if you be not tired, as of the +rest, we will expound. Innumerable geese, gulls, coots, divers, +water-crows, herons, ducks, of which, when there is most plenty, in +winter, or at moulting time, I have seen hundreds taken at a time, by +nets, springes, or birdlime,’ and so forth till, as he assures +William, the Frenchman may sit on Haddenham field blockading Ely for +seven years more, ‘ere they will make one ploughman stop short +in his furrow, one hunter cease to set his nets, or one fowler to deceive +the birds with springe and snare.’</p> +<p>And yet there was another side to the picture. Man lived hard +in those days, under dark skies, in houses - even the most luxurious +of them - which we should think, from draughts and darkness, unfit for +felons’ cells. Hardly they lived; and easily were they pleased, +and thankful to God for the least gleam of sunshine, the least patch +of green, after the terrible and long winters of the Middle Age. +And ugly enough those winters must have been, what with snow-storm and +darkness, flood and ice, ague and rheumatism; while through the long +drear winter nights the whistle of the wind and the wild cries of the +water-fowl were translated into the howls of witches and demons; and +(as in St. Guthlac’s case) the delirious fancies of marsh fever +made fiends take hideous shapes before the inner eye, and act fantastic +horrors round the old fen-man’s bed of sedge.</p> +<p>The Romans seem to have done something toward the draining and embanking +of this dismal swamp. To them is attributed the car-dyke, or catch-water +drain, which runs for many miles from Peterborough northward into Lincolnshire, +cutting off the land waters which flow down from the wolds above. +To them, too, is to be attributed the old Roman bank, or ‘vallum,’ +along the sea-face of the marshlands, marked to this day by the names +of Walsoken, Walton, and Walpoole. But the English invaders were +incapable of following out, even of preserving, any public works. +Each village was isolated by its own ‘march’ of forest; +each yeoman all but isolated by the ‘eaves-drip,’ or green +lane round his farm. Each ‘cared for his own things, and +none for those of others;’ and gradually, during the early Middle +Age, the fen - save those old Roman villages - returned to its primæval +jungle, under the neglect of a race which caricatured local self-government +into public anarchy, and looked on every stranger as an alien enemy, +who might be lawfully slain, if he came through the forest without calling +aloud or blowing a horn. Till late years, the English feeling +against the stranger lasted harsh and strong. The farmer, strong +in his laws of settlement, tried at once to pass him into the next parish. +The labourer, not being versed in law, hove half a brick at him, or +hooted him through the town. It was in the fens, perhaps, that +the necessity of combined effort for fighting the brute powers of nature +first awakened public spirit, and associate labour, and the sense of +a common interest between men of different countries and races.</p> +<p>But the progress was very slow; and the first civilizers of the fen +were men who had nothing less in their minds than to conquer nature, +or call together round them communities of men. Hermits, driven +by that passion for isolated independence which is the mark of the Teutonic +mind, fled into the wilderness, where they might, if possible, be alone +with God and their own souls. Like St. Guthlac of Crowland, after +wild fighting for five-and-twenty years, they longed for peace and solitude; +and from their longing, carried out with that iron will which marked +the mediaeval man for good or for evil, sprang a civilization of which +they never dreamed.</p> +<p>Those who wish to understand the old fen life, should read Ingulf’s +‘History of Crowland’ (Mr. Bohn has published a good and +cheap translation), and initiate themselves into a state of society, +a form of thought, so utterly different from our own, that we seem to +be reading of the inhabitants of another planet. Most amusing +and most human is old Ingulf and his continuator, ‘Peter of Blois;’ +and though their facts are not to be depended on as having actually +happened, they are still instructive, as showing what might, or ought +to have happened, in the opinion of the men of old.</p> +<p>Even more naïve is the Anglo-Saxon life of St. Guthlac, written +possibly as early as the eighth century, and literally translated by +Mr. Goodwin, of Cambridge.</p> +<p>There we may read how the young warrior-noble, Guthlac (‘The +Battle-Play,’ the ‘Sport of War’), tired of slaying +and sinning, bethought him to fulfil the prodigies seen at his birth; +how he wandered into the fen, where one Tatwin (who after became a saint +likewise) took him in his canoe to a spot so lonely as to be almost +unknown, buried in reeds and alders; and among the trees, nought but +an old ‘law,’ as the Scots still call a mound, which men +of old had broken into seeking for treasure, and a little pond; and +how he built himself a hermit’s cell thereon, and saw visions +and wrought miracles; and how men came to him, as to a fakir or shaman +of the East; notably one Beccel, who acted as his servant; and how as +Beccel was shaving the saint one day, there fell on him a great temptation: +Why should he not cut St. Guthlac’s throat, and install himself +in his cell, that he might have the honour and glory of sainthood? +But St. Guthlac perceived the inward temptation (which is told with +the naive honesty of those half-savage times), and rebuked the offender +into confession, and all went well to the end.</p> +<p>There we may read, too, a detailed account of a Fauna now happily +extinct in the fens: of the creatures who used to hale St. Guthlac out +of his hut, drag him through the bogs, carry him aloft through frost +and fire - ‘Develen and luther gostes’ - such as tormented +likewise St. Botolph (from whom Botulfston=Boston, has its name), and +who were supposed to haunt the meres and fens, and to have an especial +fondness for old heathen barrows with their fancied treasure hoards; +how they ‘filled the house with their coming, and poured in on +every side, from above, and from beneath, and everywhere. They +were in countenance horrible, and they had great heads, and a long neck, +and a lean visage; they were filthy and squalid in their beards, and +they had rough ears, and crooked nebs, and fierce eyes, and foul mouths; +and their teeth were like horses’ tusks; and their throats were +filled with flame, and they were grating in their voice; they had crooked +shanks, and knees big and great behind, and twisted toes, and cried +hoarsely with their voices; and they came with such immoderate noise +and immense horror, that him thought all between heaven and earth resounded +with their voices. And they tugged and led him out of the cot, +and led him to the swart fen, and threw and sunk him in the muddy waters. +After that they brought him into the wild places of the wilderness, +among the thick beds of brambles, that all his body was torn. +After that they took him and beat him with iron whips; and after that +they brought him on their creaking wings between the cold regions of +the air.’</p> +<p>But there are gentler and more human touches in that old legend. +You may read in it, how all the wild birds of the fen came to St. Guthlac, +and he fed them after their kind. How the ravens tormented him, +stealing letters, gloves, and what not, from his visitors; and then, +seized with compunction at his reproofs, brought them back, or hanged +them on the reeds; and how, as Wilfrid, a holy visitant, was sitting +with him, discoursing of the contemplative life, two swallows came flying +in, and lifted up their song, sitting now on the saint’s hand, +now on his shoulder, now on his knee. And how, when Wilfrid wondered +thereat, Guthlac made answer, ‘Know you not that he who hath led +his life according to God’s will, to him the wild beasts and the +wild birds draw the more near.’</p> +<p>After fifteen years of such a life, in fever, agues, and starvation, +no wonder if St. Guthlac died. They buried him in a leaden coffin +(a grand and expensive luxury in the seventh century) which had been +sent to him during his life by a Saxon princess; and then, over his +sacred and wonder-working corpse, as over that of a Buddhist saint, +there rose a chapel, with a community of monks, companies of pilgrims +who came to worship, sick who came to be healed; till, at last, founded +on great piles driven into the bog, arose the lofty wooden Abbey of +Crowland; in its sanctuary of the four rivers, its dykes, parks, vineyards, +orchards, rich ploughlands, from which, in time of famine, the monks +of Crowland fed all people of the neighbouring fens; with its tower +with seven bells, which had not their like in England; its twelve altars +rich with the gifts of Danish Vikings and princes, and even with twelve +white bear-skins, the gift of Canute’s self; while all around +were the cottages of the corrodiers, or folk who, for a corrody, or +life pittance from the abbey, had given away their lands, to the wrong +and detriment of their heirs.</p> +<p>But within these four rivers, at least, was neither tyranny nor slavery. +Those who took refuge in St. Guthlac’s peace from cruel lords +must keep his peace toward each other, and earn their living like honest +men, safe while they did so; for between those four rivers St. Guthlac +and his abbot were the only lords, and neither summoner, nor sheriff +of the king, nor armed force of knight or earl, could enter ‘the +inheritance of the Lord, the soil of St. Mary and St. Bartholomew, the +most holy sanctuary of St. Guthlac and his monks; the minster free from +worldly servitude; the special almshouse of most illustrious kings; +the sole refuge of anyone in worldly tribulation; the perpetual abode +of the saints; the possession of religious men, specially set apart +by the common council of the realm; by reason of the frequent miracles +of the holy confessor St. Guthlac, an ever-fruitful mother of camphire +in the vineyards of Engedi; and by reason of the privileges granted +by the kings, a city of grace and safety to all who repent.’</p> +<p>Does not all this sound - as I said just now - like a voice from +another planet? It is all gone; and it was good and right that +it should go when it had done its work, and that the civilization of +the fen should be taken up and carried out by men like the good knight, +Richard of Rulos, who, two generations after the Conquest, marrying +Hereward’s granddaughter, and becoming Lord of Deeping (the deep +meadow), thought that he could do the same work from the hall of Bourne +as the monks did from their cloisters; got permission from the Crowland +monks, for twenty marks of silver, to drain as much as he could of the +common marshes; and then shut out the Welland by strong dykes, built +cottages, marked out gardens, and tilled fields, till ‘out of +slough and bogs accursed, he made a garden of pleasure.’</p> +<p>Yet one lasting work those monks of Crowland did, besides those firm +dykes and rich corn lands of the Porsand, which endure unto this day. +For within two generations of the Norman conquest, while the old wooden +abbey, destroyed by fire, was being replaced by that noble pile of stone +whose ruins are still standing, the French abbot of Crowland sent French +monks to open a school under the new French donjon, in the little Roman +town of Grante-brigge; whereby - so does all earnest work, however mistaken, +grow and spread in this world, infinitely and for ever - St. Guthlac, +by his canoe-voyage into Crowland Island, became the spiritual father +of the University of Cambridge in the old world; and therefore of her +noble daughter, the University of Cambridge, in the new world which +fen-men, sailing from Boston deeps, colonized and Christianized, 800 +years after St. Guthlac’s death.</p> +<p>The drainage of the fens struggled on for these same 800 years slowly, +and often disastrously. Great mistakes were made; as when a certain +bishop, some 700 years ago, bethought him to make a cut from Littleport +drain to Rebeck (or Priests’-houses), and found, to his horror +and that of the fen-men, that he had let down upon Lynn the pent-up +waters of the whole higher bogs; that rivers were running backwards, +brooks swelling to estuaries, and the whole north-eastern fen ruinate, +to be yet more ruinate by banks confusedly thrown up in self-defence, +till some order was restored in 1332, and the fens prospered - such +little of them as could be drained at all - for nigh two hundred years. +Honour, meanwhile, to another prelate, good Bishop Morton, who cut the +great learn from Guyhirn - the last place at which one could see a standing +gallows, and two Irish reapers hanging in chains, having murdered the +old witch of Guyhirn for the sake of hidden treasure, which proved to +be some thirty shillings and a few silver spoons.</p> +<p>The belief is more general than well-founded that the drainage of +the fens retrograded on account of the dissolution of the monasteries. +The state of decay into which those institutions had already fallen, +and which alone made their dissolution possible, must have extended +itself to these fen-lands. No one can read the account of their +debts, neglect, malversation of funds, in the time of Henry VIII., without +seeing that the expensive works necessary to keep fen-lands dry must +have suffered, as did everything else belonging to the convents.</p> +<p>It was not till the middle or end of Elizabeth’s reign that +the recovery of these ‘drowned lands’ was proceeded with +once more; and during the first half of the seventeenth century there +went on, more and more rapidly, that great series of artificial works +which, though often faulty in principle, often unexpectedly disastrous +in effect, have got the work done, as all work is done in this world, +not as well as it should have been done, but at least done.</p> +<p>To comprehend those works would be impossible without maps and plans; +to take a lively interest in them impossible, likewise, save to an engineer +or a fen-man. Suffice it to say, that in the early part of the +seventeenth century we find a great company of adventurers - more than +one Cromwell among them, and Francis, the great and good Earl of Bedford, +at their head - trying to start a great scheme for draining the drowned +‘middle level’ east of the Isle of Ely. How they sent +for Vermuyden, the Dutchman, who had been draining in North Lincolnshire, +about Goole and Axholme Isle; how they got into his hands, and were +ruined by him; how Francis of Bedford had to sell valuable estates to +pay his share; how the fen-men looked on Francis of Bedford as their +champion; how Charles I. persecuted him meanly, though indeed Bedford +had, in the matter of the ‘Lynn Law’ of 1630, given way, +as desperate men are tempted to do, to something like sharp practice +unworthy of him; how Charles took the work into his hands, and made +a Government job of it; how Bedford died, and the fen-men looked on +him as a martyr; how Oliver Cromwell arose to avenge the good earl, +as his family had supported him in past times; how Oliver St. John came +to the help of the fen-men, and drew up the so-called ‘Pretended +Ordinance’ of 1649, which was a compromise between Vermuyden and +the adventurers, so able and useful that Charles II.’s Government +were content to call it ‘pretended’ and let it stand, because +it was actually draining the fens; and how Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, +after doing mighty works, and taking mighty moneys, died a beggar, writing +petitions which never got answered; how William, Earl of Bedford, added, +in 1649, to his father’s ‘old Bedford River’ that +noble parallel river, the Hundred foot, both rising high above the land +between dykes and ‘washes,’ <i>i.e</i>. waste spaces right +and left, to allow for flood water; how the Great Bedford Rivers silted +up the mouth of the Ouse, and backed the floods up the Cam; how Denver +sluice was built to keep them back; and so forth, - all is written, +or rather only half or quarter written, in the histories of the fens.</p> +<p>Another matter equally, or even more important, is but half written +- indeed, only hinted at - the mixed population of the fens.</p> +<p>The sturdy old ‘Girvii,’ ‘Gyrwas,’ men of +the ‘gyras’ or marshes, who in Hereward’s time sang +their three-man glees, ‘More Girviorum tripliciter canentes,’ +had been crossed with the blood of Scandinavian Vikings in Canute’s +conquest; crossed again with English refugees from all quarters during +the French conquest under William. After the St. Bartholomew they +received a fresh cross of Huguenot, fleeing from France - dark-haired, +fiery, earnest folk, whose names and physiognomies are said still to +remain about Wisbeach, Whittlesea, and Thorney. Then came Vermuyden’s +Dutchmen, leaving some of their blood behind them. After the battle +of Dunbar another cross came among them, of Scotch prisoners, who, employed +by Cromwell’s Government on the dykes, settled down among the +fen-men to this day. Within the memory of man, Scotchmen used +to come down into the fens every year, not merely for harvest, but to +visit their expatriated kinsmen.</p> +<p>To these successive immigrations of strong Puritan blood, more than +even the influence of the Cromwells and other Puritan gentlemen, we +may attribute that strong Calvinist element which has endured for now +nigh three centuries in the fen; and attribute, too, that sturdy independence +and self-help which drove them of old out of Boston town, to seek their +fortunes first in Holland, then in Massachusetts over sea. And +that sturdy independence and self-help is not gone. There still +lives in them some of the spirit of their mythic giant Hickafrid (the +Hickathrift of nursery rhymes), who, when the Marshland men (possibly +the Romanized inhabitants of the wall villages) quarrelled with him +in the field, took up the cart-axle for a club, smote them hip and thigh, +and pastured his cattle in their despite in the green cheese-fens of +the Smeeth. No one has ever seen a fen-bank break, without honouring +the stern quiet temper which there is in these men, when the north-easter +is howling above, the spring-tide roaring outside, the brimming tide-way +lapping up to the dyke-top, or flying over in sheets of spray; when +round the one fatal thread which is trickling over the dyke - or worse, +through some forgotten rat’s hole in its side - hundreds of men +are clustered, without tumult, without complaint, marshalled under their +employers, fighting the brute powers of nature, not for their employer’s +sake alone, but for the sake of their own year’s labour and their +own year’s bread. The sheep have been driven off the land +below; the cattle stand ranged shivering on high dykes inland; they +will be saved in punts, if the worst befall. But a hundred spades, +wielded by practised hands, cannot stop that tiny rat-hole. The +trickle becomes a rush - the rush a roaring waterfall. The dyke-top +trembles - gives. The men make efforts, desperate, dangerous, +as of sailors in a wreck, with faggots, hurdles, sedge, turf: but the +bank will break; and slowly they draw off; sullen, but uncomplaining; +beaten, but not conquered. A new cry rises among them. Up, +to save yonder sluice; that will save yonder lode; that again yonder +farm; that again some other lode, some other farm, far back inland, +but guessed at instantly by men who have studied from their youth, as +the necessity of their existence, the labyrinthine drainage of lands +which are all below the water level, and where the inner lands, in many +cases, are lower still than those outside.</p> +<p>So they hurry away to the nearest farms; the teams are harnessed, +the waggons filled, and drawn down and emptied; the beer-cans go round +cheerily, and the men work with a sort of savage joy at being able to +do something, if not all, and stop the sluice on which so much depends. +As for the outer land, it is gone past hope; through the breach pours +a roaring salt cataract, digging out a hole on the inside of the bank, +which remains as a deep sullen pond for years to come. Hundreds, +thousands of pounds are lost already, past all hope. Be it so, +then. At the next neap, perhaps, they will be able to mend the +dyke, and pump the water out; and begin again, beaten but not conquered, +the same everlasting fight with wind and wave which their forefathers +have waged for now 800 years.</p> +<p>He who sees - as I have seen - a sight like that, will repine no +more that the primæval forest is cut down, the fair mere drained. +For instead of mammoth and urus, stag and goat, that fen feeds cattle +many times more numerous than all the wild venison of the primæval +jungle; and produces crops capable of nourishing a hundred times as +many human beings; and more - it produces men a hundred times as numerous +as ever it produced before; more healthy and long-lived - and if they +will, more virtuous and more happy - than ever was Girvian in his log-canoe, +or holy hermit in his cell. So we, who knew the deep fen, will +breathe one sigh over the last scrap of wilderness, and say no more; +content to know that -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new,<br />And God +fulfils himself in many ways,<br />Lest one good custom should corrupt +the world.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>IV. MY WINTER GARDEN. <a name="citation135"></a><a href="#footnote135">{135}</a></h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>So, my friend: you ask me to tell you how I contrive to support this +monotonous country life; how, fond as I am of excitement, adventure, +society, scenery, art, literature, I go cheerfully through the daily +routine of a commonplace country profession, never requiring a six-weeks’ +holiday; not caring to see the Continent, hardly even to spend a day +in London; having never yet actually got to Paris.</p> +<p>You wonder why I do not grow dull as those round me, whose talk is +of bullocks - as indeed mine is, often enough; why I am not by this +time ‘all over blue mould;’ why I have not been tempted +to bury myself in my study, and live a life of dreams among old books.</p> +<p>I will tell you. I am a minute philosopher: though one, thank +Heaven, of a different stamp from him whom the great Bishop Berkeley +silenced - alas! only for a while. I am possibly, after all, a man of +small mind, content with small pleasures. So much the better for +me. Meanwhile, I can understand your surprise, though you cannot +understand my content. You have played a greater game than mine; +have lived a life, perhaps more fit for an Englishman; certainly more +in accordance with the taste of our common fathers, the Vikings, and +their patron Odin ‘the goer,’ father of all them that go +ahead. You have gone ahead, and over many lands; and I reverence +you for it, though I envy you not. You have commanded a regiment +- indeed an army, and ‘drank delight of battle with your peers;’ +you have ruled provinces, and done justice and judgment, like a noble +Englishman as you are, old friend, among thousands who never knew before +what justice and judgment were. You have tasted (and you have +deserved to taste) the joy of old David’s psalm, when he has hunted +down the last of the robber lords of Palestine. You have seen +‘a people whom you have not known, serve you. As soon as +they heard of you, they obeyed you; but the strange children dissembled +with you:’ yet before you, too, ‘the strange children failed, +and trembled in their hill-forts.’</p> +<p>Noble work that was to do, and nobly you have done it; and I do not +wonder that to a man who has been set to such a task, and given power +to carry it through, all smaller work must seem paltry; that such a +man’s very amusements, in that grand Indian land, and that free +adventurous Indian life, exciting the imagination, calling out all the +self-help and daring of a man, should have been on a par with your work; +that when you go a sporting, you ask for no meaner preserve than the +primæval forest, no lower park wall than the snow-peaks of the +Himalaya.</p> +<p>Yes; you have been a ‘burra Shikarree’ as well as a ‘burra +Sahib.’ You have played the great game in your work, and +killed the great game in your play. How many tons of mighty monsters +have you done to death, since we two were schoolboys together, five-and-twenty +years ago? How many starving villages have you fed with the flesh +of elephant or buffalo? How many have you delivered from man-eating +tigers, or wary old alligators, their craws full of poor girls’ +bangles? Have you not been charged by rhinoceroses, all but ript +up by boars? Have you not seen face to face Ovis Ammon himself, +the giant mountain sheep - primæval ancestor, perhaps, of all +the flocks on earth? Your memories must be like those of Theseus +and Hercules, full of slain monsters. Your brains must be one +fossiliferous deposit, in which gaur and sambur, hog and tiger, rhinoceros +and elephant, lie heaped together, as the old ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs +are heaped in the lias rocks at Lyme. And therefore I like to +think of you. I try to picture your feelings to myself. +I spell over with my boy Mayne Reid’s amusing books, or the ‘Old +Forest Ranger,’ or Williams’s old ‘Tiger Book,’ +with Howitt’s plates; and try to realize the glory of a burra +Shikarree: and as I read and imagine, feel, with Sir Hugh Evans, ‘a +great disposition to cry.’</p> +<p>For there were times, full many a year ago, when my brains were full +of bison and grizzly bear, mustang and big-horn, Blackfoot and Pawnee, +and hopes of wild adventure in the Far West, which I shall never see; +for ere I was three-and-twenty, I discovered, plainly enough, that my +lot was to stay at home and earn my bread in a very quiet way; that +England was to be henceforth my prison or my palace, as I should choose +to make it: and I have made it, by Heaven’s help, the latter.</p> +<p>I will confess to you, though, that in those first heats of youth, +this little England - or rather, this little patch of moor in which +I have struck roots as firm as the wild fir-trees do - looked at moments +rather like a prison than a palace; that my foolish young heart would +sigh, ‘Oh! that I had wings’ - not as a dove, to fly home +to its nest and croodle there - but as an eagle, to swoop away over +land and sea, in a rampant and self-glorifying fashion, on which I now +look back as altogether unwholesome and undesirable. But the thirst +for adventure and excitement was strong in me, as perhaps it ought to +be in all at twenty-one. Others went out to see the glorious new +worlds of the West, the glorious old worlds of the East - why should +not I? Others rambled over Alps and Apennines, Italian picture-galleries +and palaces, filling their minds with fair memories - why should not +I? Others discovered new wonders in botany and zoology - why should +not I? Others too, like you, fulfilled to the utmost that strange +lust after the burra shikar, which even now makes my pulse throb as +often as I see the stags’ heads in our friend A---’s hall: +why should not I? It is not learnt in a day, the golden lesson +of the Old Collect, to ‘love the thing which is commanded, and +desire that which is promised.’ Not in a day: but in fifteen +years one can spell out a little of its worth; and when one finds one’s +self on the wrong side of forty, and the first grey hairs begin to show +on the temples, and one can no longer jump as high as one’s third +button - scarcely, alas! to any button at all; and what with innumerable +sprains, bruises, soakings, and chillings, one’s lower limbs feel +in a cold thaw much like an old post-horse’s, why, one makes a +virtue of necessity: and if one still lusts after sights, takes the +nearest, and looks for wonders, not in the Himalayas or Lake Ngami, +but in the turf on the lawn and the brook in the park; and with good +Alphonse Karr enjoys the macro-microcosm in one ‘Tour autour de +mon jardin.’</p> +<p>For there it is, friend, the whole infinite miracle of nature in +every tuft of grass, if we have only eyes to see it, and can disabuse +our minds of that tyrannous phantom of size. Only recollect that +great and small are but relative terms; that in truth nothing is great +or small, save in proportion to the quantity of creative thought which +has been exercised in making it; that the fly who basks upon one of +the trilithons of Stonehenge, is in truth infinitely greater than all +Stonehenge together, though he may measure the tenth of an inch, and +the stone on which he sits five-and-twenty feet. You differ from +me? Be it so. Even if you prove me wrong I will believe +myself in the right: I cannot afford to do otherwise. If you rob +me of my faith in ‘minute philosophy,’ you rob me of a continual +source of content, surprise, delight.</p> +<p>So go your way and I mine, each working with all his might, and playing +with all his might, in his own place and way. Remember only, that +though I never can come round to your sphere, you must some day come +round to me, when wounds, or weariness, or merely, as I hope, a healthy +old age, shall shut you out for once and for all from burra shikar, +whether human or quadruped. - For you surely will not take to politics +in your old age? You will not surely live to solicit (as many +a fine fellow, alas! did but last year) the votes, not even of the people, +but merely of the snobocracy, on the ground of your having neither policy +nor principles, nor even opinions, upon any matter in heaven or earth? +- Then in that day will you be forced, my friend, to do what I have +done this many a year; to refrain your soul, and keep it low. +You will see more and more the depth of human ignorance, the vanity +of human endeavours. You will feel more and more that the world +is going God’s way, and not yours, or mine, or any man’s; +and that if you have been allowed to do good work on earth, that work +is probably as different from what you fancy it as the tree is from +the seed whence it springs. You will grow content, therefore, +not to see the real fruit of your labours; because if you saw it you +would probably be frightened at it, and what is very good in the eyes +of God would not be very good in yours; content, also, to receive your +discharge, and work and fight no more, sure that God is working and +fighting, whether you are in hospital or in the field. And with +this growing sense of the pettiness of human struggles will grow on +you a respect for simple labours, a thankfulness for simple pleasures, +a sympathy with simple people, and possibly, my trusty friend, with +me and my little tours about that moorland which I call my winter-garden, +and which is to me as full of glory and of instruction as the Himalaya +or the Punjab are to you, and in which I contrive to find as much health +and amusement as I have time for - and who ought to have more?</p> +<p>I call the said garden mine, not because I own it in any legal sense +(for only in a few acres have I a life interest), but in that higher +sense in which ten thousand people can own the same thing, and yet no +man’s right interfere with another’s. To whom does +the Apollo Belvedere belong, but to all who have eyes to see its beauty? +So does my winter-garden; and therefore to me among the rest.</p> +<p>Besides (which is a gain to a poor man) my pleasure in it is a very +cheap one. So are all those of a minute philosopher, except his +microscope. But my winter-garden, which is far larger, at all +events, than that famous one at Chatsworth, costs me not one penny in +keeping up. Poor, did I call myself? Is it not true wealth +to have all I want without paying for it? Is it not true wealth, +royal wealth, to have some twenty gentlemen and noblemen, nay, even +royal personages, planting and improving for me? Is it not more +than royal wealth to have sun and frost, Gulf-stream and south-westers, +laws of geology, phytology, physiology, and other ologies - in a word, +the whole universe and the powers thereof, day and night, paving, planting, +roofing, lighting, colouring my winter-garden for me, without my even +having the trouble to rub a magic ring and tell the genii to go to work?</p> +<p>Yes. I am very rich, as every man may be who will. In +the doings of our little country neighbourhood I find tragedy and comedy, +too fantastic, sometimes too sad, to be written down. In the words +of those whose talk is of bullocks, I find the materials of all possible +metaphysic, and long weekly that I had time to work them out. +In fifteen miles of moorland I find the materials of all possible physical +science, and long that I had time to work out one smallest segment of +that great sphere. How can I be richer, if I have lying at my +feet all day a thousand times more wealth than I can use?</p> +<p>Some people - most people - in these run-about railway days, would +complain of such a life, in such a ‘narrow sphere,’ so they +call it, as monotonous. Very likely it is so. But is it +to be complained of on that account? Is monotony in itself an +evil? Which is better, to know many places ill, or to know one +place well? Certainly - if a scientific habit of mind be a gain +- it is only by exhausting as far as possible the significance of an +individual phenomenon (is not that sentence a true scientific one in +its magniloquence?) that you can discover any glimpse of the significance +of the universal. Even men of boundless knowledge, like Humboldt, +must have had once their speciality, their pet subject, or they would +have, strictly speaking, no knowledge at all. The volcanoes of +Mexico, patiently and laboriously investigated in his youth, were to +Humboldt, possibly, the key of the whole Cosmos. I learn more, +studying over and over again the same Bagshot sand and gravel heaps, +than I should by roaming all Europe in search of new geologic wonders. +Fifteen years have I been puzzling at the same questions and have only +guessed at a few of the answers. What sawed out the edges of the +moors into long narrow banks of gravel? What cut them off all +flat atop? What makes <i>Erica Tetralix</i> grow in one soil, +and the bracken in another? How did three species of Club-moss +- one of them quite an Alpine one - get down here, all the way from +Wales perhaps, upon this isolated patch of gravel? Why did that +one patch of <i>Carex arenaria</i> settle in the only square yard for +miles and miles which bore sufficient resemblance to its native sandhill +by the seashore, to make it comfortable? Why did <i>Myosurus minimus</i>, +which I had hunted for in vain for fourteen years, appear by dozens +in the fifteenth, upon a new-made bank, which had been for at least +two hundred years a farm-yard gateway? Why does it generally rain +here from the south-west, not when the barometer falls, but when it +begins to rise again? Why - why is everything, which lies under +my feet all day long? I don’t know; and you can’t +tell me. And till I have found out, I cannot complain of monotony, +with still undiscovered puzzles waiting to be explained, and so to create +novelty at every turn.</p> +<p>Besides, monotony is pleasant in itself; morally pleasant, and morally +useful. Marriage is monotonous: but there is much, I trust, to +be said in favour of holy wedlock. Living in the same house is +monotonous: but three removes, say the wise, are as bad as a fire. +Locomotion is regarded as an evil by our Litany. The Litany, as +usual, is right. ‘Those who travel by land or sea’ +are to be objects of our pity and our prayers; and I do pity them. +I delight in that same monotony. It saves curiosity, anxiety, +excitement, disappointment, and a host of bad passions. It gives +a man the blessed, invigorating feeling that he is at home; that he +has roots, deep and wide, struck down into all he sees; and that only +The Being who will do nothing cruel or useless can tear them up. +It is pleasant to look down on the same parish day after day, and say, +I know all that lies beneath, and all beneath know me. If I want +a friend, I know where to find him; if I want work done, I know who +will do it. It is pleasant and good to see the same trees year +after year; the same birds coming back in spring to the same shrubs; +the same banks covered with the same flowers, and broken (if they be +stiff ones) by the same gaps. Pleasant and good it is to ride +the same horse, to sit in the same chair, to wear the same old coat. +That man who offered twenty pounds’ reward for a lost carpet-bag +full of old boots was a sage, and I wish I knew him. Why should +one change one’s place, any more than one’s wife or one’s +children? Is a hermit-crab, slipping his tail out of one strange +shell into another, in the hopes of its fitting him a little better, +either a dignified, safe, or graceful animal? No; George Riddler +was a true philosopher.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Let vules go sarching vur and nigh,<br />We bides at Whum, +my dog and I;’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>and become there, not only wiser, but more charitable; for the oftener +one sees, the better one knows; and the better one knows, the more one +loves.</p> +<p>It is an easy philosophy; especially in the case of the horse, where +a man cannot afford more than one, as I cannot. To own a stud +of horses, after all, is not to own horses at all, but riding-machines. +Your rich man who rides Crimæa in the morning, Sir Guy in the +afternoon, and Sultan to-morrow, and something else the next day, may +be a very gallant rider: but it is a question whether he enjoys the +pleasure which one horse gives to the poor man who rides him day after +day; one horse, who is not a slave, but a friend; who has learnt all +his tricks of voice, hand, heel, and knows what his master wants, even +without being told; who will bear with his master’s infirmities, +and feels secure that his master will bear with his in turn.</p> +<p>Possibly, after all, the grapes are sour; and were one rich, one +would do even as the rich are wont to do: but still, I am a minute philosopher. +And therefore, this afternoon, after I have done the same work, visited +the same people, and said the same words to them, which I have done +for years past, and shall, I trust, for many a year to come, I shall +go wandering out into the same winter-garden on the same old mare; and +think the same thoughts, and see the same fir-trees, and meet perhaps +the same good fellows hunting of their fox, as I have done with full +content this many a year; and rejoice, as I said before, in my own boundless +wealth, who have the whole universe to look at, without being charged +one penny for the show.</p> +<p>As I have said, the grapes may be sour, and I enjoy the want of luxuries +only because I cannot get them; but if my self-deception be useful to +me, leave it alone.</p> +<p>No one is less inclined to depreciate that magnificent winter-garden +at the Crystal Palace: yet let me, if I choose, prefer my own; I argue +that, in the first place, it is far larger. You may drive, I hear, +through the grand one at Chatsworth for a quarter of a mile. You +may ride through mine for fifteen miles on end. I prefer, too, +to any glass roof which Sir Joseph Paxton ever planned, that dome above +my head some three miles high, of soft dappled grey and yellow cloud, +through the vast lattice-work whereof the blue sky peeps, and sheds +down tender gleams on yellow bogs, and softly rounded heather knolls, +and pale chalk ranges gleaming far away. But, above all, I glory +in my evergreens. What winter-garden can compare for them with +mine? True, I have but four kinds - Scotch fir, holly, furze, +and the heath; and by way of relief to them, only brows of brown fern, +sheets of yellow bog-grass, and here and there a leafless birch, whose +purple tresses are even more lovely to my eye than those fragrant green +ones which she puts on in spring. Well: in painting as in music, +what effects are more grand than those produced by the scientific combination, +in endless new variety, of a few simple elements? Enough for me +is the one purple birch; the bright hollies round its stem sparkling +with scarlet beads; the furze-patch, rich with its lacework of interwoven +light and shade, tipped here and there with a golden bud; the deep soft +heather carpet, which invites you to lie down and dream for hours; and +behind all, the wall of red fir-stems, and the dark fir-roof with its +jagged edges a mile long, against the soft grey sky.</p> +<p>An ugly, straight-edged, monotonous fir-plantation? Well, I +like it, outside and inside. I need no saw-edge of mountain peaks +to stir up my imagination with the sense of the sublime, while I can +watch the saw-edge of those fir peaks against the red sunset. +They are my Alps; little ones it may be: but after all, as I asked before, +what is size? A phantom of our brain; an optical delusion. +Grandeur, if you will consider wisely, consists in form, and not in +size: and to the eye of the philosopher, the curve drawn on a paper +two inches long, is just as magnificent, just as symbolic of divine +mysteries and melodies, as when embodied in the span of some cathedral +roof. Have you eyes to see? Then lie down on the grass, +and look near enough to see something more of what is to be seen; and +you will find tropic jungles in every square foot of turf; mountain +cliffs and debacles at the mouth of every rabbit burrow: dark strids, +tremendous cataracts, ‘deep glooms and sudden glories,’ +in every foot-broad rill which wanders through the turf. All is +there for you to see, if you will but rid yourself of ‘that idol +of space;’ and Nature, as everyone will tell you who has seen +dissected an insect under the microscope, is as grand and graceful in +her smallest as in her hugest forms.</p> +<p>The March breeze is chilly: but I can be always warm if I like in +my winter-garden. I turn my horse’s head to the red wall +of fir-stems, and leap over the furze-grown bank into my cathedral, +wherein if there be no saints, there are likewise no priestcraft and +no idols; but endless vistas of smooth red green-veined shafts holding +up the warm dark roof, lessening away into endless gloom, paved with +rich brown fir-needle - a carpet at which Nature has been at work for +forty years. Red shafts, green roof, and here and there a pane +of blue sky - neither Owen Jones nor Willement can improve upon that +ecclesiastical ornamentation, - while for incense I have the fresh healthy +turpentine fragrance, far sweeter to my nostrils than the stifling narcotic +odour which fills a Roman Catholic cathedral. There is not a breath +of air within: but the breeze sighs over the roof above in a soft whisper. +I shut my eyes and listen. Surely that is the murmur of the summer +sea upon the summer sands in Devon far away. I hear the innumerable +wavelets spend themselves gently upon the shore, and die away to rise +again. And with the innumerable wave-sighs come innumerable memories, +and faces which I shall never see again upon this earth. I will +not tell even you of that, old friend.</p> +<p>It has two notes, two keys rather, that Eolian-harp of fir-needles +above my head; according as the wind is east or west, the needles dry +or wet. This easterly key of to-day is shriller, more cheerful, +warmer in sound, though the day itself be colder: but grander still, +as well as softer, is the sad soughing key in which the south-west wind +roars on, rain-laden, over the forest, and calls me forth - being a +minute philosopher - to catch trout in the nearest chalk-stream.</p> +<p>The breeze is gone a while; and I am in perfect silence - a silence +which may be heard. Not a sound; and not a moving object; absolutely +none. The absence of animal life is solemn, startling. That +ringdove, who was cooing half a mile away, has hushed his moan; that +flock of long-tailed titmice, which were twinging and pecking about +the fir-cones a few minutes since, are gone: and now there is not even +a gnat to quiver in the slant sun-rays. Did a spider run over +these dead leaves, I almost fancy I could hear his footfall. The +creaking of the saddle, the soft step of the mare upon the fir-needles, +jar my ears. I seem alone in a dead world. A dead world: +and yet so full of life, if I had eyes to see! Above my head every +fir-needle is breathing - breathing for ever; currents unnumbered circulate +in every bough, quickened by some undiscovered miracle; around me every +fir-stem is distilling strange juices, which no laboratory of man can +make; and where my dull eye sees only death, the eye of God sees boundless +life and motion, health and use.</p> +<p>Slowly I wander on beneath the warm roof of the winter-garden, and +meditate upon that one word - Life; and specially on all that Mr. Lewes +has written so well thereon - for instance -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘We may consider Life itself as an ever-increasing identification +with Nature. The simple cell, from which the plant or animal arises, +must draw light and heat from the sun, nutriment from the surrounding +world, or else it will remain quiescent, not alive, though latent with +life; as the grains in the Egyptian tombs, which after lying thousands +of years in those sepulchres, are placed in the earth, and smile forth +as golden wheat. What we call growth, is it not a perpetual absorption +of Nature, the identification of the individual with the universal? +And may we not, in speculative moods, consider Death as the grand impatience +of the soul to free itself from the circle of individual activity - +the yearning of the creature to be united with the Creator?</p> +<p>‘As with Life, so with knowledge, which is intellectual life. +In the early days of man’s history, Nature and her marvellous +ongoings were regarded with but a casual and careless eye, or else with +the merest wonder. It was late before profound and reverent study +of her laws could wean man from impatient speculations; and now, what +is our intellectual activity based on, except on the more thorough mental +absorption of Nature? When that absorption is completed, the mystic +drama will be sunny clear, and all Nature’s processes be visible +to man, as a Divine Effluence and Life.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>True: yet not all the truth. But who knows all the truth?</p> +<p>Not I. ‘We see through a glass darkly,’ said St. +Paul of old; and what is more, dazzle and weary our eyes, like clumsy +microscopists, by looking too long and earnestly through the imperfect +and by no means achromatic lens. Enough. I will think of +something else. I will think of nothing at all -</p> +<p>Stay. There was a sound at last; a light footfall.</p> +<p>A hare races towards us through the ferns, her great bright eyes +full of terror, her ears aloft to catch some sound behind. She +sees us, turns short, and vanishes into the gloom. The mare pricks +up her ears too, listens, and looks: but not the way the hare has gone. +There is something more coming; I can trust the finer sense of the horse, +to which (and no wonder) the Middle Age attributed the power of seeing +ghosts and fairies impalpable to man’s gross eyes. Beside, +that hare was not travelling in search of food. She was not loping +along, looking around her right and left; but galloping steadily. +She has been frightened; she has been put up: but what has put her up? +And there, far away among the fir-stems, rings the shriek of a startled +blackbird. What has put him up?</p> +<p>That, old mare, at sight whereof your wise eyes widen till they are +ready to burst, and your ears are first shot forward towards your nose, +and then laid back with vicious intent. Stand still, old woman! +Do you think still, after fifteen winters, that you can catch a fox?</p> +<p>A fox it is indeed; a great dog-fox, as red as the fir-stems between +which he glides. And yet his legs are black with fresh peat-stains. +He is a hunted fox: but he has not been up long.</p> +<p>The mare stands like a statue: but I can feel her trembling between +my knees. Positively he does not see us. He sits down in +the middle of a ride, turns his great ears right and left, and then +scratches one of them with his hind foot, seemingly to make it hear +the better. Now he is up again and on.</p> +<p>Beneath yon firs, some hundred yards away, standeth, or rather lieth, +for it is on dead flat ground, the famous castle of Malepartus, which +beheld the base murder of Lampe the hare, and many a seely soul beside. +I know it well; a patch of sand-heaps, mingled with great holes, amid +the twining fir-roots; ancient home of the last of the wild beasts. +And thither, unto Malepartus safe and strong, trots Reinecke, where +he hopes to be snug among the labyrinthine windings, and innumerable +starting-holes, as the old apologue has it, of his ballium, covert-way, +and donjon keep. Full blown in self-satisfaction he trots, lifting +his toes delicately, and carrying his brush aloft, as full of cunning +and conceit as that world-famous ancestor of his, whose deeds of unchivalry +were the delight, if not the model, of knight and kaiser, lady and burgher, +in the Middle Age.</p> +<p>Suddenly he halts at the great gate of Malepartus; examines it with +his nose; goes on to a postern; examines that also, and then another, +and another; while I perceive afar, projecting from every cave’s +mouth, the red and green end of a new fir-faggot. Ah, Reinecke! +fallen is thy conceit, and fallen thy tail therewith. Thou hast +worse foes to deal with than Bruin the bear, or Isegrim the wolf, or +any foolish brute whom thy great ancestor outwitted. Man the many-counselled +has been beforehand with thee; and the earths are stopped.</p> +<p>One moment he sits down to meditate, and scratches those trusty counsellors, +his ears, as if he would tear them off, ‘revolving swift thoughts +in a crafty mind.’</p> +<p>He has settled it now. He is up and off - and at what a pace! +Out of the way, Fauns and Hamadryads, if any be left in the forest. +What a pace! And with what a grace beside!</p> +<p>Oh Reinecke, beautiful thou art, of a surety, in spite of thy great +naughtiness. Art thou some fallen spirit, doomed to be hunted +for thy sins in this life, and in some future life rewarded for thy +swiftness, and grace, and cunning, by being made a very messenger of +the immortals? Who knows? Not I.</p> +<p>I am rising fast to Pistol’s vein. Shall I ejaculate? +Shall I notify? Shall I waken the echoes? Shall I break +the grand silence by that scream which the vulgar view-halloo call?</p> +<p>It is needless; for louder and louder every moment swells up a sound +which makes my heart leap into my mouth, and my mare into the air.</p> +<p>Music? Well-beloved soul of Hullah, would that thou wert here +this day, and not in St. Martin’s Hall, to hear that chorus, as +it pours round the fir-stems, rings against the roof above, shatters +up into a hundred echoes, till the air is live with sound! You +love madrigals, and whatever Weekes, or Wilbye, or Orlando Gibbons sang +of old. So do I. Theirs is music fit for men: worthy of +the age of heroes, of Drake and Raleigh, Spenser and Shakspeare: but +oh that you could hear this madrigal! If you must have ‘four +parts,’ then there they are. Deeped-mouthed bass, rolling +along the ground; rich joyful tenor; wild wistful alto; and leaping +up here and there above the throng of sounds, delicate treble shrieks +and trills of trembling joy. I know not whether you can fit it +into your laws of music, any more than you can the song of that Ariel +sprite who dwells in the Eolian harp, or the roar of the waves on the +rock, or</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn,<br />And murmur +of innumerable bees.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>But music it is. A madrigal? Rather a whole opera of +Der Freischutz - dæmoniac element and all - to judge by those +red lips, fierce eyes, wild, hungry voices; and such as should make +Reinecke, had he strong æsthetic sympathies, well content to be +hunted from his cradle to his grave, that such sweet sounds might by +him enrich the air. Heroes of old were glad to die, if but some +‘vates sacer’ would sing their fame in worthy strains: and +shalt not thou too be glad, Reinecke? Content thyself with thy +fate. Music soothes care; let it soothe thine, as thou runnest +for thy life; thou shalt have enough of it in the next hour. For +as the Etruscans (says Athenæus) were so luxurious that they used +to flog their slaves to the sound of the flute, so shall luxurious Chanter +and Challenger, Sweet-lips and Melody, eat thee to the sound of rich +organ-pipes, that so thou mayest,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Like that old fabled swan, in music die.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And now appear, dim at first and distant, but brightening and nearing +fast, many a right good fellow and many a right good horse. I +know three out of four of them, their private histories, the private +histories of their horses: and could tell you many a good story of them: +but shall not, being an English gentleman, and not an American littérateur. +They may not all be very clever, or very learned, or very anything except +gallant men; but they are all good enough company for me, or anyone; +and each has his own specialité, for which I like him. +That huntsman I have known for fifteen years, and sat many an hour beside +his father’s death-bed. I am godfather to that whip’s +child. I have seen the servants of the hunt, as I have the hounds, +grow up round me for two generations, and I feel for them as old friends; +and like to look into their brave, honest, weather-beaten faces. +That red coat there, I knew him when he was a schoolboy; and now he +is a captain in the Guards, and won his Victoria Cross at Inkermann: +that bright green coat is the best farmer, as well as the hardest rider, +for many a mile round; one who plays, as he works, with all his might, +and might have been a beau sabreur and colonel of dragoons. So +might that black coat, who now brews good beer, and stands up for the +poor at the Board of Guardians, and rides, like the green coat, as well +as he works. That other black coat is a county banker; but he +knows more of the fox than the fox knows of himself, and where the hounds +are, there will he be this day. That red coat has hunted kangaroo +in Australia: that one, as clever and good as he is brave and simple, +has stood by Napier’s side in many an Indian fight: that one won +his Victoria at Delhi, and was cut up at Lucknow, with more than twenty +wounds: that one has - but what matter to you who each man is? +Enough that each can tell one a good story, welcome one cheerfully, +and give one out here, in the wild forest, the wholesome feeling of +being at home among friends.</p> +<p>There is music, again, if you will listen, in the soft tread of these +hundred horse-hoofs upon the spongy vegetable soil. They are trotting +now in ‘common time.’ You may hear the whole Croats’ +March (the finest trotting march in the world) played by those iron +heels; the time, as it does in the Croats’ March, breaking now +and then, plunging, jingling, struggling through heavy ground, bursting +for a moment into a jubilant canter as it reaches a sound spot.</p> +<p>The hounds feather a moment round Malepartus, puzzled by the windings +of Reinecke’s footsteps. You can hear the flap and snort +of the dogs’ nostrils as they canter round; and one likes it. +It is exciting: but why - who can tell?</p> +<p>What beautiful creatures they are, too! Next to a Greek statue +(I mean a real old Greek one; for I am a thoroughly anti-preraphaelite +benighted pagan heathen in taste, and intend some day to get up a Cinque-Cento +Club, for the total abolition of Gothic art) - next to a Greek statue, +I say, I know few such combinations of grace and strength as in a fine +foxhound. It is the beauty of the Theseus - light and yet massive; +and light not in spite of its masses, but on account of the perfect +disposition of them. I do not care for grace in man, woman, or +animal, which is obtained (as in the old German painters) at the expense +of honest flesh and blood. It may be all very pure, and unearthly, +and saintly, and what not; but it is not healthy; and, therefore, it +is not really High Art, let it call itself such as much as it likes. +The highest art must be that in which the outward is the most perfect +symbol of the muward; and, therefore, a healthy soul can be only exprest +by a healthy body; and starved limbs and a hydrocephalous forehead must +be either taken as incorrect symbols of spiritual excellence, or as +- what they were really meant for - symbols of certain spiritual diseases +which were in the Middle Age considered as ecclesiastical graces and +virtues. Wherefore I like pagan and naturalist art; consider Titian +and Correggio as unappreciated geniuses, whose excellences the world +will in some saner mood rediscover; hold, in direct opposition to Rio, +that Rafaelle improved steadily all his life through, and that his noblest +works are not his somewhat simpering Madonnas and somewhat impish Bambinos +(very lovely though they are), but his great, coarse, naturalist, Protestant +cartoons, which (with Andrea Mantegna’s Heathen Triumph) Cromwell +saved for the British nation. Probably no one will agree with +all this for the next quarter of a century: but after that I have hopes. +The world will grow tired of pretending to admire Manichæan pictures +in an age of natural science; and Art will let the dead bury their dead, +and beginning again where Michael Angelo and Rafaelle left off work +forward into a nobler, truer, freer, and more divine school than the +world has yet seen - at least, so I hope.</p> +<p>And all this has grown out of those foxhounds. Why not? +Theirs is the sort of form which expresses to me what I want Art to +express - Nature not limited, but developed, by high civilization. +The old savage ideal of beauty was the lion, type of mere massive force. +That was succeeded by an over-civilized ideal, say the fawn, type of +delicate grace. By cunning breeding and choosing, through long +centuries, man has combined both, and has created the foxhound, lion +and fawn in one; just as he might create noble human beings; did he +take half as much trouble about politics (in the true old sense of the +word) as he does about fowls. Look at that old hound, who stands +doubtful, looking up at his master for advice. Look at the severity, +delicacy, lightness of every curve. His head is finer than a deer’s; +his hind legs tense as steel springs; his fore-legs straight as arrows: +and yet see the depth of chest, the sweep of loin, the breadth of paw, +the mass of arm and thigh; and if you have an eye for form, look at +the absolute majesty of his attitude at this moment. Majesty is +the only word for it. If he were six feet high, instead of twenty-three +inches, with what animal on earth could you compare him? Is it +not a joy to see such a thing alive? It is to me, at least. +I should like to have one in my study all day long, as I would have +a statue or a picture; and when Mr. Morrell gave (as they say) two hundred +guineas for Hercules alone, I believe the dog was well worth the money, +only to look at. But I am a minute philosopher.</p> +<p>I cap them on to the spot at which Reinecke disappeared. Old +Virginal’s stern flourishes; instantly her pace quickens. +One whimper, and she is away full-mouthed through the wood, and the +pack after her: but not I.</p> +<p>I am not going with them. My hunting days are over. Let +it suffice that I have, in the days of my vanity, ‘drank delight +of battle with my peers, far on the ringing plains’ of many a +county, grass and forest, down and vale. No, my gallant friends. +You know that I could ride, if I chose; and I am vain enough to be glad +that you know it. But useless are your coaxings, solicitations, +wavings of honest right hands. ‘Life,’ as my friend +Tom Brown says, ‘is not all beer and skittles;’ it is past +two now, and I have four old women to read to at three, and an old man +to bury at four; and I think, on the whole, that you will respect me +the more for going home and doing my duty. That I should like +to see this fox fairly killed, or even fairly lost, I deny not. +That I should like it as much as I can like any earthly and outward +thing, I deny not. But sugar to one’s bread and butter is +not good; and if my winter-garden represent the bread and butter, then +will fox-hunting stand to it in the relation of superfluous and unwholesome +sugar: so farewell; and long may your noble sport prosper - ‘the +image of war with only half its danger,’ to train you and your +sons after, into gallant soldiers - full of</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘The reason firm, the temperate will,<br />Endurance, foresight, +strength and skill.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>So homeward I go through a labyrinth of fir-stems and, what is worse, +fir-stumps, which need both my eyes and my horse’s at every moment; +and woe to the ‘anchorite,’ as old Bunbury names him, who +carries his nose in the air, and his fore feet well under him. +Woe to the self-willed or hard-hided horse who cannot take the slightest +hint of the heel, and wince hind legs or fore out of the way of those +jagged points which lie in wait for him. Woe, in fact, to all +who are clumsy or cowardly, or in anywise not ‘masters of the +situation.’</p> +<p>Pleasant riding it is, though, if you dare look anywhere but over +your horse’s nose, under the dark roof between the red fir-pillars, +in that rich subdued light. Now I plunge into a gloomy dell, wherein +is no tinkling rivulet, ever pure; but instead a bog, hewn out into +a chess-board of squares, parted by deep narrow ditches some twenty +feet apart. Blundering among the stems I go, fetlock-deep in peat, +and jumping at every third stride one of the said uncanny gripes, half +hidden in long hassock grass. Oh <i>Aira cæspitosa</i>, +most stately and most variable of British grasses, why will you always +grow where you are not wanted? Through you the mare all but left +her hind legs in that last gripe. Through you a red-coat ahead +of me, avoiding one of your hassocks, jumped with his horse’s +nose full butt against a fir-stem, and stopped,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘As one that is struck dead<br />By lightning, ere he falls,’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>as we shall soon, in spite of the mare’s cleverness. +Would we were out of this!</p> +<p>Out of it we shall be soon. I see daylight ahead at last, bright +between the dark stems. Up a steep slope, and over a bank which +is not very big, but being composed of loose gravel and peat mould, +gives down with me, nearly sending me head over heels in the heather, +and leaving me a sheer gap to scramble through, and out on the open +moor.</p> +<p>Grand old moor! stretching your brown flats right away toward Windsor +for many a mile. - Far to our right is the new Wellington College, looking +stately enough here all alone in the wilderness, in spite of its two +ugly towers and pinched waist. Close over me is the long fir-fringed +ride of Easthampstead, ending suddenly in Cæsar’s camp; +and hounds and huntsmen are already far ahead, and racing up the Roman +road, which the clods of these parts, unable to give a better account +of it, call the Devil’s Highway.</p> +<p>Racing indeed; for as Reinecke gallops up the narrow heather-fringed +pathway, he brushes off his scent upon the twigs at every stride; and +the hounds race after him, showing no head indeed, and keeping, for +convenience, in one long line upon the track: but going heads up, sterns +down, at a pace which no horse can follow. - I only hope they may not +overrun the scent.</p> +<p>They have overrun it; halt, and put their heads down a moment. +But with one swift cast in fall gallop they have hit it off again, fifty +yards away in the heather, long ere the horsemen are up to them; for +those hounds can hunt a fox because they are not hunted themselves, +and so have learnt to trust themselves, and act for themselves; as boys +should learn at school, even at the risk of a mistake or two. +Now they are showing head indeed, down a half-cleared valley, and over +a few ineffectual turnips withering in the peat, a patch of growing +civilization in the heart of the wilderness; and then over the brook, +while I turn slowly away, through a green wilderness of self-sown firs.</p> +<p>There they stand in thousands, the sturdy Scots, colonizing the desert +in spite of frost, and gales, and barrenness; and clustering together, +too, as Scotsmen always do abroad, little and big, every one under his +neighbour’s lee, according to the good old proverb of their native +land, ‘Caw me, and I’ll caw thee.’</p> +<p>I respect them, those Scotch firs. I delight in their forms, +from James the First’s gnarled giants up in Bramshill Park - the +only place in England where a painter can learn what Scotch firs are +- down to the little green pyramids which stand up out of the heather, +triumphant over tyranny, and the strange woes of an untoward youth. +Seven years on an average have most of them spent in ineffectual efforts +to become a foot high. Nibbled off by hares, trodden down by cattle, +cut down by turf-parers, seeing hundreds of their brethren cut up and +carried off in the turf-fuel, they are as gnarled and stubbed near the +ground as an old thorn-bush in a pasture. But they have conquered +at last, and are growing away, eighteen inches a year, with fair green +brushes silvertipt, reclothing the wilderness with a vegetation which +it has not seen for - how many thousand years?</p> +<p>No man can tell. For when last the Scotch fir was indigenous +to England, and, mixed with the larch, stretched in one vast forest +from Norfolk into Wales, England was not as it is now. Snowdon +was, it may be, fifteen thousand feet in height, and from the edges +of its glaciers the marmot and the musk ox, the elk and the bear, wandered +down into the Lowlands, and the hyena and the lion dwelt in those caves +where fox and badger only now abide. And how did the Scotch fir +die out? Did the whole land sink slowly from its sub-Alpine elevation +into a warmer climate below? Or was it never raised at all? +Did some change of the Atlantic sea-floor turn for the first time the +warm Gulf Stream to these shores; and with its soft sea-breezes melt +away the ‘Age of Ice,’ till glaciers and pines, marmots +and musk oxen, perspired to death, and vanished for an æon? +Who knows? Not I. But of the fact there can be no doubt. +Whether, as we hold traditionally here, the Scotch fir was re-introduced +by James the First when he built Bramshill for Raleigh’s hapless +pet, Henry the Prince, or whatever may have been the date of their re-introduction, +here they are, and no one can turn them out. In countless thousands +the winged seeds float down the south-west gales from the older trees; +and every seed which falls takes root in ground which, however unable +to bear broad-leaved trees, is ready by long rest for the seeds of the +needle-leaved ones. Thousands perish yearly; but the eastward +march of the whole, up hill and down dale, is sure and steady as that +of Lynceus’ Goths in Goethe’s Helena:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Ein lang und breites Volkegewicht,<br />Der erate wusste vom +letzen nicht.</p> +<p>Der erste fiel, der zweite stand,<br />Des dritten Lanze war zur +Hand,<br />Ein jeder hundertfach gestärkt;<br />Erschlagene Tausend +unbemerkt -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>- till, as you stand upon some eminence, you see, stretching to the +eastward of each tract of older trees, a long cloud of younger ones, +like a green comet’s tail - I wish their substance was as yielding +this day. Truly beautiful - grand indeed to me it is - to see +young live Nature thus carrying on a great savage process in the heart +of this old and seemingly all-artificial English land; and reproducing +here, as surely as in the Australian bush, a native forest, careless +of mankind. Still, I wish it were easier to ride through. +Stiff are those Scotchmen, and close and stout they stand by each other, +and claw at you as you twist through them, the biggest aiming at your +head, or even worse, at your knees; while the middle-sized slip their +brushes between your thigh and the saddle, and the little babies tickle +your horse’s stomach, or twine about his fore-feet. Whish +- whish; we are enveloped in what seems an atmosphere of scrubbing-brushes. +Fain would I shut my eyes: but dare not, or I shall ride against a tree. +Whish - whish; alas for the horse which cannot wind and turn like a +hare! Plunge - stagger. What is this? A broad line +of ruts; perhaps some Celtic track-way, two thousand years old, now +matted over with firs; dangerous enough out on the open moor, when only +masked by a line of higher and darker heath: but doubly dangerous now +when masked by dark undergrowth. You must find your own way here, +mare. I will positively have nothing to do with it. I disclaim +all responsibility. There are the reins on your neck; do what +you will, only do something - and if you can, get forward, and not back.</p> +<p>There is daylight at last, and fresh air. I trot contemptuously +through the advanced skirmishers of the Scotch invading army; and watch +my friends some mile and a half off, who have threaded a practicable +track-way through a long dreary yellow bog, too wet for firs to root +in, and are away in ‘a streamer.’ Now a streamer is +produced in this wise. There is but one possible gap in a bank, +one possible ford in a brook; one possible path in a cover; and as each +man has to wait till the man before him gets through, and them gallops +on, each man loses twenty yards or more on the man before him: wherefore, +by all laws of known arithmetic, if ten men tail through a gap, then +will the last of the ten find himself two hundred yards behind the foremost, +which process several times repeated, produces the phenomenon called +a streamer, viz. twenty men galloping absurdly as hard as they can, +in a line half a mile long, and in humours which are celestial in the +few foremost, contented in the central, and gradually becoming darker +in the hindmost; till in the last man they assume a hue altogether Tartarean. +Farewell, brave gentlemen! I watch, half sadly, half self-contented, +the red coats scattered like sparks of fire over hill and dale, and +turn slowly homeward, to visit my old women.</p> +<p>I pass through a gateway, out upon a village green, planted with +rows of oaks, surrounded by trim sunny cottages, a pleasant oasis in +the middle of the wilderness. Across the village cricket-ground +- we are great cricketers in these parts, and long may the good old +game live among us; and then up another hollow lane, which leads between +damp shaughs and copses toward the further moor.</p> +<p>Curious things to a minute philosopher are these same hollow lanes. +They set him on archæological questions, more than he can solve; +and I meditate as I go, how many centuries it took to saw through the +warm sandbanks this dyke ten feet deep, up which he trots, with the +oak boughs meeting over his head. Was it ever worth men’s +while to dig out the soil? Surely not. The old method must +have been, to remove the softer upper spit, till they got to tolerably +hard ground; and then, Macadam’s metal being as yet unknown, the +rains and the wheels of generations sawed it gradually deeper and deeper, +till this road-ditch was formed. But it must have taken centuries +to do it. Many of these hollow lanes, especially those on flat +ground, must be as old or older than the Conquest. In Devonshire +I am sure that they are. But there many of them, one suspects, +were made not of malice, but of cowardice prepense. Your indigenous +Celt was, one fears, a sneaking animal, and liked to keep when he could +under cover of banks and hill-sides; while your bold Roman made his +raised roads straight over hill and dale, as ‘ridge-ways’ +from which, as from an eagle’s eyrie, he could survey the conquered +lowlands far and wide. It marks strongly the difference between +the two races, that difference between the Roman paved road with its +established common way for all passengers, its regular stations and +milestones, and the Celtic track-way winding irresolutely along in innumerable +ruts, parting to meet again, as if each savage (for they were little +better) had taken his own fresh path when he found the next line of +ruts too heavy for his cattle. Around the spurs of Dartmoor I +have seen many ancient roads, some of them long disused, which could +have been hollowed out for no other purpose but that of concealment.</p> +<p>So I go slowly up the hill, till the valley lies beneath me like +a long green garden between its two banks of brown moor; and on through +a cheerful little green, with red brick cottages scattered all round, +each with its large neat garden, and beehives, and pigs and geese, and +turf-stack, and clipt yews and hollies before the door, and rosy dark-eyed +children, and all the simple healthy comforts of a wild ‘heth-cropper’s’ +home. When he can, the good man of the house works at farm labour, +or cuts his own turf; and when work is scarce, he cuts copses and makes +heath-brooms, and does a little poaching. True, he seldom goes +to church, save to be christened, married, or buried: but he equally +seldom gets drunk. For church and public stand together two miles +off; so that social wants sometimes bring their own compensations with +them, and there are two sides to every question.</p> +<p>Hark! A faint, dreary hollo off the moor above. And then +another, and another. My friends may trust it; for the clod of +these parts delights in the chase like any bare-legged Paddy, and casts +away flail and fork wildly, to run, shout, assist, and interfere in +all possible ways, out of pure love. The descendant of many generations +of broom-squires and deer-stealers, the instinct of sport is strong +within him still, though no more of the king’s deer are to be +shot in the winter turnip-fields, or worse, caught by an apple-baited +hook hung from an orchard bough. He now limits his aspirations +to hares and pheasants, and too probably once in his life, ‘hits +the keeper into the river,’ and reconsiders himself for a while +after over a crank in Winchester gaol. Well, he has his faults; +and I have mine. But he is a thorough good fellow nevertheless; +quite as good as I: civil, contented, industrious, and often very handsome; +and a far shrewder fellow too - owing to his dash of wild forest blood, +from gipsy, highwayman; and what not - than his bullet-headed and flaxen-polled +cousin, the pure South-Saxon of the Chalk-downs. Dark-haired he +is, ruddy, and tall of bone; swaggering in his youth; but when he grows +old, a thorough gentleman, reserved, stately, and courteous as a prince. +Sixteen years have I lived with him hail fellow well met, and never +yet had a rude word or action from him.</p> +<p>With him I have cast in my lot, to live and die, and be buried by +his side; and to him I go home contented, to look after his petty interests, +cares, sorrows - Petty, truly - seeing that they include the whole primal +mysteries of life - Food, raiment, and work to earn them withal; love +and marriage, birth and death, right doing and wrong doing, ‘Schicksal +und eigene Schuld;’ and all those commonplaces of humanity which +in the eyes of a minute philosopher are most divine, because they are +most commonplace - catholic as the sunshine and the rain which come +down from the Heavenly Father, alike upon the evil and the good. +As for doing fine things, my friend, with you, I have learnt to believe +that I am not set to do fine things, simply because I am not able to +do them; and as for seeing fine things, with you, I have learnt to see +the sight - as well as to try to do the duty - which lies nearest me; +and to comfort myself with the fancy that if I make good use of my eyes +and brain in this life, I shall see - if it be of any use to me - all +the fine things, or perhaps finer still, in the life to come. +But if not - what matter? In any life, in any state, however simple +or humble, there will be always sufficient to occupy a Minute Philosopher; +and if a man be busy, and busy about his duty, what more does he require, +for time or for eternity?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>V. FROM OCEAN TO SEA.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The point from which to start, in order best to appreciate the change +from ocean to sea, is perhaps Biarritz. The point at which to +stop is Cette. And the change is important. Between the +two points races are changed, climates are changed, scenery is changed, +the very plants under your feet are changed, from a Western to an Eastern +type. You pass from the wild Atlantic into the heart of the Roman +Empire - from the influences which formed the discoverers of the New +World, to those which formed the civilizers of the Old. Gascony, +not only in its scenery, but in its very legends, reminds you of Devon +and Cornwall; Languedoc of Greece and Palestine.</p> +<p>In the sea, as was to be expected, the change is even more complete. +From Biarritz to Cette, you pass from poor Edward Forbes’s Atlantic +to his Mediterranean centre of creation. In plain English and +fact, whether you agree with his theory or not, you pass from the region +of respectable whales, herrings, and salmon, to that of tunnies, sciænas, +dorados, and all the gorgons, hydras, and chimæras dire, which +are said to grace the fish-markets of Barcelona or Marseilles.</p> +<p>But to this assertion, as to most concerning nature, there are exceptions. +Mediterranean fishes slip out of the Straits of Gibraltar, and up the +coast of Portugal, and, once in the Bay of Biscay, find the feeding +good and the wind against them, and stay there.</p> +<p>So it befalls, that at worthy M. Gardère’s hotel at +Biarritz (he has seen service in England, and knows our English ways), +you may have at dinner, day after day, salmon, louvine, shad, sardine, +dorado, tunny. The first is unknown to the Mediterranean; for +Fluellen mistook when he said that there were salmons in Macedon, as +well as Monmouth; the louvine is none other than the nasty bass, or +sea-perch of the Atlantic; the shad (extinct in these islands, save +in the Severn) is a gigantic herring which comes up rivers to spawn; +a fish common (with slight differences) to both sides of the North Atlantic; +while the sardine, the dorado, and the tunny (whether he be the true +tunny or the Alalonga) are Mediterranean fish.</p> +<p>The whale fishery of these shores is long extinct. The Biscayan +whale was supposed to be extinct likewise. But like the ibex, +and some other animals which man has ceased to hunt, because he fancies +that he has killed them all, they seem inclined to reappear. For +in 1854 one was washed ashore near St. Jean de Luz, at news whereof +Eschricht, the great Danish naturalist, travelled night and day from +Copenhagen, and secured the skeleton of the new-old monster.</p> +<p>But during the latter part of the Middle Ages, and on - if I recollect +aright - into the seventeenth century, Bayonne, Biarritz, Guettary, +and St. Jean de Luz, sent forth their hardy whale-fishers, who slew +all the whales of the Biscayan seas, and then crossed the Atlantic, +to attack those of the frozen North.</p> +<p>British and American enterprise drove them from the West coast of +the Atlantic; and now their descendants are content to stay at home +and take the sardine-shoals, and send them in to Bayonne on their daughters’ +heads.</p> +<p>Pretty enough it was, at least in outward seeming, to meet a party +of those fisher-girls, bare-legged, high-kilted, lithe as deer, trotting, +at a long loping pace, up the high road toward Bayonne, each with her +basket on her head, as she laughed and sang, and tossed her black hair, +and flashed her brown eyes, full of life and the enjoyment of life. +Pretty enough. And yet who will blame the rail, which now sends +her quickly into Bayonne - or even her fish without her; and relieves +the fair young maiden from being degraded into a beast of burden?</p> +<p>Handsome folk are these brown Basques. A mysterious people, +who dwell alone, and are not counted among the nations; speaking an +unique language, and keeping up unique customs, for which the curious +must consult M. Michel’s interesting book. There may be +a cross of English blood among them, too, about Biarritz and Bayonne; +English features there are, plainly to be seen. And whether or +not, one accepts the story of the country, that Anglets, near by, is +an old English colony left by our Black Prince, it is certain that Bayonne +Cathedral was built in part by English architects, and carries the royal +arms of England; and every school history will tell us how this corner +of France was long in our hands, and was indeed English long before +it was properly French. Moorish blood there may be, too, here +and there, left behind by those who built the little ‘atalaya’ +or fire-beacon, over the old harbour, to correspond, by its smoke column, +with a long line of similar beacons down the Spanish coast. The +Basques resemble in look the Southern Welsh - quick-eyed, neat in feature, +neat in dress, often, both men and women, beautiful. The men wear +a flat Scotch cap of some bright colour, and call it ‘berretta.’ +The women tie a gaudy handkerchief round their heads, and compel one +corner to stand forward from behind the ear in a triangle, in proportion +to the size and stiffness whereof the lady seems to think herself well +dressed. But the pretty Basque handkerchief will soon give place +to the Parisian bonnet. For every cove among the rocks is now +filled with smart bathing-houses, from which, in summer, the gay folk +of Paris issue in ‘costume de bain,’ to float about all +day on calabashes - having literally no room for the soles of their +feet on land. Then are opened casinos, theatre, shops, which lie +closed all the winter. Then do the Basque house-owners flee into +the moors, and camp out (it is said) on the hills all night, letting +their rooms for ten francs a night as mere bed-chambers - for all eating +and living is performed in public; while the dove-coloured oxen, with +brown holland pinafores over their backs, who dawdle in pairs up and +down the long street with their light carts, have to make way for wondrous +equipages from the Bois de Boulogne.</p> +<p>Not then, for the wise man, is Biarritz a place to see and to love: +but in the winter, when a little knot of quiet pleasant English hold +the place against all comers, and wander, undisturbed by fashion, about +the quaint little rocks and caves and natural bridges - and watch tumbling +into the sea, before the Biscayan surges, the trim walks and summer-houses, +which were erected by the municipality in honour of the Empress and +her suite. Yearly they tumble in, and yearly are renewed, as the +soft greensand strata are graven away, and what must have been once +a long promontory becomes a group of fantastic pierced rocks, exactly +like those which are immortalized upon the willow-pattern plates.</p> +<p>Owing to this rapid destruction, the rocks of Biarritz are very barren +in sea-beasts and sea-weeds. But there is one remarkable exception, +where the pools worn in a hard limestone are filled with what seem at +first sight beds of china-asters, of all loveliest colours - primrose, +sea-green, dove, purple, crimson, pink, ash-grey. They are all +prickly sea-eggs (presumably the <i>Echinus lividus</i>, which is found +in similar places in the west of Ireland), each buried for life in a +cup-shaped hole which he has excavated in the rock, and shut in by an +overhanging lip of living lime - seemingly a Nullipore coralline. +What they do there, what they think of, or what food is brought into +their curious grinding-mills by the Atlantic surges which thunder over +them twice a day, who can tell? However they form, without doubt, +the most beautiful object which I have ever seen in pool or cove.</p> +<p>But the glory of Biarritz, after all, is the moors above, and the +view to be seen therefrom. Under blazing blue skies, tempered +by soft dappled cloud, for ever sliding from the Atlantic and the Asturias +mountains, in a climate soft as milk, and exhilarating withal as wine, +one sees far and wide a panorama which, from its variety as well as +its beauty, can never weary.</p> +<p>To the north, the long sand-line of the Biscayan shore - the bar +of the Adour marked by a cloud of grey spray. Then the dark pine-flats +of the Landes, and the towers of Bayonne rising through rich woods. +To the eastward lies a high country, furred with woods, broken with +glens; a country exactly like Devon, through the heart of which, hidden +in such a gorge as that of Dart or Taw, runs the swift stream of the +Nive, draining the western Pyrenees. And beyond, to the south-east, +in early spring, the Pyrenean snows gleam bright, white clouds above +the clouds. As one turns southward, the mountains break down into +brown heather-hills, like Scottish grouse moors. The two nearest, +and seemingly highest, are the famous Rhune and Bayonette, where lie, +to this day, amid the heath and crags, hundreds of unburied bones. +For those great hills, skilfully fortified by Soult before the passage +of the Bidassoa, were stormed, yard by yard, by Wellington’s army +in October 1813. That mighty deed must be read in the pages of +one who saw it with his own eyes, and fought there with his own noble +body, and even nobler spirit. It is not for me to tell of victories, +of which Sir William Napier has already told.</p> +<p>Towards that hill, and the Nivelle at its foot, the land slopes down, +still wooded and broken, bounded by a long sweep of clayey crumbling +cliff. The eye catches the fort of Secoa, at the mouth of the +Nivelle - once Wellington’s sea-base for his great French campaign. +Then Fontarabia, at the Bidassoa mouth; and far off, the cove within +which lies the fatal citadel of St. Sebastian; all backed up by the +fantastic mountains of Spain; the four-horned “Quatre Couronnes,” +the pyramidal Jaysquivel, and beyond them again, sloping headlong into +the sea, peak after peak, each one more blue and tender than the one +before, leading the eye on and on for seemingly countless leagues, till +they die away into the ocean horizon and the boundless west. Not +a sail, often for days together, passes between those mountains and +the shore on which we stand, to break the solitude, and peace, and vast +expanse; and we linger, looking and looking at we know not what, and +find repose in gazing purposeless into the utter void.</p> +<p>Very unlike France are these Basque uplands; very like the seaward +parts of Devon and Cornwall. Large oak-copses and boggy meadows +fill the glens; while above, the small fields, with their five-barred +gates (relics of the English occupation) and high furze and heath-grown +banks, make you fancy yourself for a moment in England. And the +illusion is strengthened, as you see that the heath of the banks is +the Goonhilly heath of the Lizard Point, and that of the bogs the orange-belled +<i>Erica ciliaris</i>, which lingers (though rare) both in Cornwall +and in the south of Ireland. But another glance undeceives you. +The wild flowers are new, saving those cosmopolitan seeds (like nettles +and poppies) which the Romans have carried all over Europe, and the +British are now carrying over the world. Every sandy bank near +the sea is covered with the creeping stems of a huge reed, which grows +in summer tall enough to make not only high fences, but fishing-rods. +Poverty (though there is none of what we call poverty in Britain) fills +the little walled court before its cottage with bay trees and standard +figs; while wealth (though there is nothing here of what we call wealth +in Britain) asserts itself uniformly by great standard magnolias, and +rich trailing roses, in full bloom here in April instead of - as with +us - in July. Both on bank and in bog grow Scorzoneras (dandelions +with sword-shaped leaves) of which there are none in these isles; and +every common is ablaze with strange and lovely flowers. Each dry +spot is brilliant with the azure flowers of a prostrate Lithospermum, +so exquisite a plant, that it is a marvel why we do not see it, as ‘spring-bedding,’ +in every British garden. The heath is almost hidden, in places, +by the large white flowers and trailing stems of the sage-leaved Cistus. +Delicate purple Ixias, and yet more delicate Hoop-petticoat Narcissus, +spring from the turf. And here and there among furze and heath, +crop out great pink bunches of the <i>Daphne Cneorum</i> of our gardens, +perfuming all the air. Yes, we are indeed in foreign parts, in +the very home of that Atlantic flora, of which only a few species have +reached the south-west of these isles; and on the limit of another flora +also - of that of Italy and Greece. For as we descend into the +glen, every lane-bank and low tree is entwined, not with ivy, but with +a still more beautiful evergreen, the Smilax of South-eastern Europe, +with its zigzag stems, and curving heart-shaped leaves, and hooked thorns; +the very oak-scrub is of species unknown to Britain. And what +are these tall lilies, which fill every glade breast-high with their +sword-like leaves, and spires of white flowers, lilac-pencilled? +They are the classic flower, the Asphodel of Greece and Grecian song; +the Asphodel through which the ghosts of Homer’s heroes strode: +as heroes’ ghosts might stride even here.</p> +<p>For here we are on sacred ground. The vegetation is rank with +the blood of gallant invaders, and of no less gallant patriots. +In the words of Campbell’s ‘Hohenlinden’ -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Every turf beneath our feet<br />May be a hero’s sepulchre.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>That little tarn below has ‘bubbled with crimson foam’ +when the kings of Europe arose to bring home the Bourbons, as did the +Lake Regillus of old, in the day when ‘the Thirty Cities swore +to bring the Tarquins home.’</p> +<p>Turn to the left, above the tarn, and into the great Spanish road +from Bayonne to the frontier at what was lately ‘La Negresse,’ +but is now a gay railway station. Where that station is, was another +tarn, now drained. The road ran between the two. And that +narrow space of two hundred yards, on which we stand, was for three +fearful days the gate of France.</p> +<p>For on the 10th of December, 1813, Soult, driven into Bayonne by +Wellington’s advance, rushed out again in the early morn, and +poured a torrent of living men down this road, and upwards again towards +the British army which crested that long ridge in front.</p> +<p>The ridge slopes rapidly away at the back, toward the lowlands of +the Bidassoa; and once thrust from it, the English army would have been +cut in two - one half driven back upon their sea-base at St. Jean de +Luz: the other half left on the further side of the Adour.</p> +<p>And this was the gate, which had to be defended during a three days’ +battle. That long copse which overhangs the road is the famous +wood, which was taken and retaken many times. You house above +it, embowered in trees, is the ‘Mayor’s house,’ in +which Sir John Hope was so nearly captured by the French. Somewhere +behind the lane where we came down was the battery which blasted off +our troops as they ran up from the lowlands behind, to support their +fellows.</p> +<p>Of the details of the fight you must read in Napier’s ‘Peninsular +War,’ and in Mr. Gleig’s ‘Subaltern.’ +They are not to be described by one who never saw a battle, great or +small.</p> +<p>And now, if you choose to start upon your journey from the ocean +to the sea, you will take the railroad here, and run five miles through +the battle-fields into Bayonne, the quaint old fortress city, girdled +with a labyrinth of walls, and turf-dykes, and outside them meadows +as rich, and trees as stately, as if war had never swept across the +land. You may stop, if you will, to look at the tall Spanish houses, +with their piazzas and jalousies, and the motley populace, French, Basques, +Spaniards, Jews; and, most worth seeing of all, the lovely ladies of +Bayonne, who swarm out when the sun goes down, for air and military +music. You may try to find (in which you will probably fail) the +arms of England in the roof of the ugly old cathedral; you may wander +the bridges over which join the three quarters of the city (for the +Adour and the Nive meet within the walls), and probably lose your way +- a slight matter among folk who, if you will but take off your hat, +call them Monsieur, apologize for the trouble you are giving, begin +the laugh at your own stupidity, and compliment them on their city and +their fair ladies, will be delighted to walk a mile out of their own +way to show you yours. You will gaze up at the rock-rooted citadel +from whence, in the small hours of April 14, 1813, after peace was agreed +on, but unhappily not declared (for Napier has fully exculpated the +French Generals), three thousand of Thouvenot’s men burst forth +against Sir John Hope’s unsuspecting besiegers, with a furious +valour which cost the English more than 800 men.</p> +<p>There, in the pine woods on the opposite side, is the Boucault, where +our besieging army lay. Across the reach below stretched Sir John +Hope’s famous bridge; and as you leave Bayonne by rail, you run +beneath the English cemetery, where lie the soldiers (officers of the +Coldstream Guards among them) who fell in the Frenchman’s last +struggle to defend his native land.</p> +<p>But enough of this. I should not have recalled to mind one +of these battles, had they not, one and all, been as glorious for the +French and their great captain - wearied with long marches, disheartened +by the apathy of their own countrymen, and, as they went on, overpowered +by mere numbers - as they were for our veterans, and Wellington himself.</p> +<p>And now, once through Bayonne, we are in the Pignadas and the Landes.</p> +<p>To form a conception of these famous Landes, it is only necessary +to run down by the South-Western Railway, through the moors of Woking +or Ascot; spread them out flat, and multiply them to seeming infinity. +The same sea of brown heather, broken only by the same dark pignadas, +or fir plantations, extends for nigh a hundred miles; and when the traveller +northward has lost sight, first of the Spanish mountains, and then of +the Pyrenean snows, he seems to be rushing along a brown ocean, without +wave or shore. Only, instead of the three heaths of Surrey and +Hants (the same species as those of Scotland), larger and richer southern +heaths cover the grey sands; and notably the delicate upright spires +of the bruyère, or <i>Erica scoparia</i>, which grows full six +feet high, and furnishes from its roots those ‘bruyère’ +pipes, which British shopkeepers have rechristened ‘briar-roots.’ +Instead, again, of the Scotch firs of Ascot, the pines are all pinasters +(miscalled <i>P. maritima</i>). Each has the same bent stem, carrying +at top, long, ragged, scanty, leaf-tufts, instead of the straight stem +and dense short foliage of the sturdier Scotchman; and down each stem +runs a long, fresh scar, and at the bottom (in spring at least), hangs +a lip of tin, and a neat earthen pipkin, into which distils turpentine +as clear as glass. The trees have mostly been planted within the +last fifty years, to keep the drifting sands from being blown away. +As timber they are about as valuable as those Jersey cow-cabbage stalks, +of which the curious will at times make walking-sticks: but as producers +of turpentine they have their use, and give employment to the sad, stunted, +ill-fed folk, unhealthy for want of water, and barbarous from utter +loneliness, whose only employment, in old times, was the keeping ragged +flocks about the moors. Few and far between the natives may be +seen from the railway, seemingly hung high in air, till on nearer approach +you find them to be stalking along on stilts, or standing knitting on +the same, a sheepskin over their shoulders, an umbrella strapped to +their side, and, stuck into the small of the back, a long crutch, which +serves, when resting, as a third wooden leg.</p> +<p>So run on the Landes, mile after mile, station after station, varied +only by an occasional stunted cork tree, or a starved field of barley +or maize. But the railroad is bringing to them, as elsewhere, +labour, civilization, agricultural improvement. Pretty villages, +orchards, gardens, are springing up round the lonely ‘gares.’ +The late Emperor helped forward, it is said, new pine plantations, and +sundry schemes for reclaiming the waste. Arcachon, on a pine-fringed +lagoon of the Atlantic, has great artificial ponds for oyster breeding, +and is rising into a gay watering-place, with a distinguished scientific +society. Nay, more: it saw a few years since an international +exposition of fish, and fish-culture, and fishing-tackle, and all things +connected with the fisheries, not only of Europe, but of America likewise. +Heaven speed the plan; and restore thereby oysters to our shores, and +shad and salmon to the rivers both of Western Europe and Eastern North +America.</p> +<p>As for the cause of the Landes, it may be easily divined, by the +help of a map and of common sense.</p> +<p>The Gironde and the Adour carry to the sea the drainage of nearly +a third of France, including almost all the rain which falls on the +north side of the Pyrenees. What has become of all the sand and +mud which has been swept in the course of ages down their channels? +What has become - a very small part, be it recollected, of the whole +amount - of all the rock which has been removed by rain and thunder, +frost and snow, in the process of scooping out the deep valleys of the +Pyrenees? Out of that one crack, which men call the Val d’Ossau, +stone has been swept enough to form a considerable island. Where +is it all? In these Landes. Carried down year by year to +the Atlantic, it has been driven back again, year by year, by the fierce +gales of the Bay of Biscay, and rolled up into banks and dunes of loose +sand, till it has filled up what was once a broad estuary, 140 miles +across and perhaps 70 miles in depth. Upheaved it may have been +also, slowly, from the sea, for recent sea-shells are found as far inland +as Dax; and thus the whole upper end of the Bay of Biscay has transformed +itself during the lapse of, it may be, countless ages, into a desolate +wilderness.</p> +<p>It is at Dax that we leave the main line, and instead of running +north for Bordeaux and the land of clarets, turn south-east to Orthez +and Pau, and the Gaves, and the Pyrenees.</p> +<p>And now we pass through ragged uplands, woody and moorish, with the +long yellow maize-stalks of last year’s crop rotting in the swampy +glens. For the ‘petite culture,’ whatever be its advantages, +gives no capital or power of combined action for draining wet lands; +and the valleys of Gascony and Bearn in the south, as well as great +sheets of the Pas de Calais in the north, are in a waterlogged state, +equally shocking to the eye of a British farmer, and injurious to the +health and to the crops of the peasants.</p> +<p>Soon we strike the Adour, here of the shape and size of a second-class +Scotch salmon-stream, with swirling brown pools beneath grey crags, +which make one long to try in them the virtues of ‘Jock Scott,’ +‘the Butcher,’ or the ‘Dusty Miller.’ +And perhaps not without effect; for salmon are there still; and will +be more and more as French ‘pisciculture’ develops itself +under Government supervision.</p> +<p>Here we touch again the line of that masterly retreat of Soult’s +before the superior forces of Wellington, to which Napier has done such +ample and deserved justice.</p> +<p>There is Berenz, where the Sixth and Light divisions crossed the +Gave, and clambered into the high road up steep ravines; and there is +Orthez itself, with the beautiful old Gothic bridge which the French +could not blow up, as they did every other bridge on their retreat; +and the ruins of that robber den to which Gaston Phœbus, Count +of Foix (of whom you may read in Froissart), used to drag his victims; +and there overhead, upon the left of the rail and road, is the old Roman +camp, and the hill of Orthez, and St. Boes, and the High Church of Baights, +the scene of the terrible battle of Orthez.</p> +<p>The Roman camp, then ‘open and grassy, with a few trees,’ +says Napier, is now covered with vineyards. Everywhere the fatal +slopes are rich with cultivation, plenty, and peace. God grant +they may remain so for ever.</p> +<p>And so, along the Gave de Pau, we run on to Pau, the ancient capital +of Bearn; the birthplace of Henri Quatre, and of Bernadotte, King of +Sweden; where, in the charming old château, restored by Louis +Philippe, those who list may see the tortoise which served as the great +Henry’s cradle; and believe, if they list also, the tale that +that is the real shell.</p> +<p>For in 1793, when the knights of the ‘bonnet rouge’ and +‘carmagnole complete’ burst into the castle, to destroy +every memorial of hated royalty, the shell among the rest, there chanced +- miraculous coincidence - to be in Pau, in the collection of a naturalist, +another shell, of the same shape and size. Swiftly and deftly +pious hands substituted it for the real relic, leaving it to be battered +in pieces and trampled in the mud, while the royal cradle lay perdu +for years in the roof of a house, to reappear duly at the Restoration +of the Bourbons.</p> +<p>Of Pau I shall say nothing. It would be real impertinence in +one who only spent three days in it, to describe a city which is known +to all Europe; which is a permanent English colony, and boasts of one, +and sometimes two, packs of English foxhounds. But this I may +be allowed to say. That of all delectable spots I have yet seen, +Pau is the most delectable. Of all the landscapes which I have +beheld, that from the Place Royale is, for variety, richness, and grandeur, +the most glorious; at least as I saw it for the first time.</p> +<p>Beneath the wall of the high terrace are rich meadows, vocal with +frogs rejoicing in the rain, and expressing their joy, not in the sober +monotone of our English frogs, but each according to his kind; one bellowing, +the next barking, the next cawing, and the next (probably the little +green Hylas, who has come down out of the trees to breed) quacking in +treble like a tiny drake. The bark (I suspect) is that of the +gorgeous edible frog; and so suspect the young recruits who lounge upon +the wall, and look down wistfully, longing, I presume, to eat him. +And quite right they are; for he (at least his thigh) is exceeding good +to eat, tenderer and sweeter than any spring chicken.</p> +<p>Beyond the meadow, among the poplars, the broad Gave murmurs on over +shingly shallows, between aspen-fringed islets, grey with the melting +snows; and beyond her again rise broken wooded hills, dotted with handsome +houses; and beyond them a veil of mist and rain.</p> +<p>On a sudden that veil lifts; and five-and-twenty miles away, beneath +the black edge of the cloud, against the clear blue sky, stands out +the whole snow-range of the Pyrenees; and in the midst, exactly opposite, +filling up a vast gap which is the Val d’Ossau, the huge cone, +still snowy white, of the Pic du Midi.</p> +<p>He who is conversant with theatres will be unable to overlook the +seeming art - and even artifice - of such an effect. The clouds +lift like a drop-scene; the mountains are so utterly unlike any natural +object in the north, that for the moment one fancies them painted and +not real; the Pic du Midi stands so exactly where it ought, and is yet +so fantastic and unexpected in its shape, that an artist seems to have +put it there.</p> +<p>But lie who knows nothing, and cares less, about theatres and their +sham glories, and sees for the first time in his life the eternal snows +of which he has read since childhood, draws his breath deeply, and stands +astounded, whispering to himself that God is great.</p> +<p>One hint more, ere we pass on from Pau. Here, at least in spring +time, of all places in Europe, may a man feed his ears with song of +birds. The copses by the Gave, the public walks and woods (wherein +English prejudices have happily protected what is elsewhere shot down +as game, even to the poor little cock-robins whose corpses lie by dozens +in too many French markets), are filled with all our English birds of +passage, finding their way northwards from Morocco and Algiers; and +with our English nightingales, black-caps, willow-wrens, and whitethroats, +are other songsters which never find their way to these isles, for which +you must consult the pages of Mr. Gould or Mr. Bree - and chief among +them the dark Orpheus, and the yellow Hippolais, surpassing the black-cap, +and almost equalling the nightingale, for richness and variety of song +- the polyglot warbler which penetrates, in summer, as far north as +the shores of the British Channel, and there stops short, scared by +the twenty miles of sea, after a land journey - and by night, too, as +all the warblers journey - from Africa.</p> +<p>At Pau, the railroad ended when I was there; and who would go eastward +had to take carriage, and go by the excellent road (all public roads +in the south of France are excellent, and equal to our best English +roads) over the high Landes to Tarbes; and on again over fresh Landes +to Montrejeau; and thence by railway to Toulouse.</p> +<p>They are very dreary, these high flat uplands, from which innumerable +streams pour down to swell the Adour and the Garonne; and as one rolls +along, listening to the eternal tinkle of the horse-bells, only two +roadside objects are particularly worthy of notice. First, the +cultivation, spreading rapidly since the Revolution, over what was open +moor; and next the great natural parks which one traverses here and +there; the remnants of those forests which were once sacred to the seigneurs +and their field sports. The seigneurs are gone now, and the game +with them; and the forests are almost gone - so ruinate, indeed, by +the peasantry, that the Government (I believe) has interfered to stop +a destruction of timber, which involves the destruction both of fire-wood +and of the annual fall of rain. But the trees which remain, whether +in forest or in homestead, are sadly mangled. The winters are +sharp in these high uplands, and firing scarce; and the country method +of obtaining it is to send a woman up a tree, where she hacks off, with +feeble arms and feeble tools, boughs halfway out from the stem, disfiguring, +and in time destroying by letting the wet enter, splendid southern oaks, +chestnuts, and walnuts. Painful and hideous, to an eye accustomed +to British parks, are the forms of these once noble trees.</p> +<p>Suddenly we descend a brow into the Yale of Tarbes: a good land and +large; a labyrinth of clear streams, water-meadows, cherry-orchards, +and crops of every kind, and in the midst the pleasant old city, with +its once famous University. Of Tarbes, you may read in the pages +of Froissart - or, if you prefer a later authority, in those of Dumas, +‘Trois Mousquetaires;’ for this is the native land of the +immortal Ulysses of Gascony, the Chevalier d’Artagnan.</p> +<p>There you may see, to your surprise, not only gentlemen, but ladies, +taking their pleasure on horseback after the English fashion; for there +is close by a great ‘haras,’ or Government establishment +for horse-breeding. You may watch the quaint dresses in the marketplace; +you may rest, as Froissart rested of old, in a ‘right pleasant +inn;’ you may eat of the delicious cookery which is to be found, +even in remote towns, throughout the south of France, and even - if +you dare - of ‘Coquilles aux Champignons.’ You may +sit out after dinner in that delicious climate, listening to the rush +of the clear Adour through streets, and yards, and culverts; for the +city, like Romsey, or Salisbury, is built over many streams. You +may watch the Pyrenees changing from white to rose, from rose to lead +colour, and then dying away into the night - for twilight there is little +or none, here in the far south.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘The sun’s rim dips, the stars rush out,<br />At one +stride comes the dark.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And soon from street to street you hear the ‘clarion’ +of the garrison, that singularly wild and sweet trumpet-call which sends +French soldiers to their beds. And at that the whole populace +swarms out, rich and poor, and listens entranced beneath the trees in +the Place Maubourguet, as if they had never heard it before; with an +order and a sobriety, and a good humour, and a bowing to each other, +and asking and giving of cigar-lights between men of every class - and +a little quiet modest love-making on the outskirts of the crowd, which +is very pleasant to behold. And when the music is silent, and +the people go off suddenly, silently, and soberly withal (for there +are no drunkards in these parts), to their early beds, you stand and +look up into the ‘purple night,’ as Homer calls it - that +southern sky, intensely dark, and yet transparent withal, through which +you seem to look beyond the stars into the infinite itself, and recollect +that beyond all that, and through all that likewise, there is an infinite +good God who cares for all these simple kindly folk; and that by Him +all their hearts are as well known, and all their infirmities as mercifully +weighed, as are, you trust, your own.</p> +<p>And so you go to rest, content to say, with the wise American, ‘It +takes all sorts to make a world.’</p> +<p>The next morn you rise, to roll on over yet more weary uplands to +Montrejeau, over long miles of sandy heath, a magnified Aldershott, +which during certain summer months is gay, here and there, like Aldershott, +with the tents of an army at play. But in spring the desolation +is utter, and the loneliest grouse-moor, and the boggiest burn, are +more cheerful and varied than the Landes of Lannemezan, and the foul +streamlets which have sawn gorges through the sandy waste.</p> +<p>But all the while, on your right hand, league after league, ever +fading into blue sky behind you, and growing afresh out of blue sky +in front, hangs high in air the white saw of the Pyrenees. High, +I say, in air, for the land slopes, or seems to slope, down from you +to the mountain range, and all their roots are lost in a dim sea of +purple haze. But shut out the snow line above, and you will find +that the seeming haze is none, but really a clear and richly varied +distance of hills, and woods, and towns, which have become invisible +from the contrast of their greens, and greys, and purples, with the +glare and dazzle of the spotless snows of spring.</p> +<p>There they stand, one straight continuous jagged wall, of which no +one point seems higher than another. From the Pic d’Ossau, +by the Mont Perdu and the Maladetta to the Pic de Lart, are peaks past +counting - hard clear white against the hard clear blue, and blazing +with keen light beneath the high southern sun. Each peak carries +its little pet cushion of cloud, hanging motionless a few hundred yards +above in the blue sky, a row of them as far as eye can see. But, +ever and anon, as afternoon draws on, one of those little clouds, seeming +tired of waiting at its post ever since sunrise, loses its temper, boils, +swells, settles down on its own private peak, and explodes in a fierce +thunderstorm down its own private valley, without discomposing in the +least its neighbour cloud-cushions right and left. Faintly the +roll of the thunder reaches the ear. Across some great blackness +of cloud and cliff, a tiny spark darts down. A long wisp of mist +sweeps rapidly toward you across the lowlands, and a momentary brush +of cold rain lays the dust. And then the pageant is played out, +and the disturbed peak is left clear again in the blue sky for the rest +of the day, to gather another cloud-cushion when to-morrow’s sun +shall rise.</p> +<p>To him who looks, day after day, on this astonishing natural wall, +stretching, without visible gap, for nearly three hundred miles, it +is easy to see why France not only is, but must be, a different world +from Spain. Even human thought cannot, to any useful extent, fly +over that great wall of homeless rock and snow. On the other side +there must needs be another folk, with another tongue, other manners, +other polities, and if not another creed, yet surely with other, and +utterly different, conceptions of the universe, and of man’s business +therein. Railroads may do somewhat. But what of one railroad; +or even of two, one on the ocean, one on the sea, two hundred and seventy +miles apart? Before French civilization can inform and elevate +the Spanish people you must ‘plane down the Pyrenees.’</p> +<p>At Montrejeau, a pretty town upon a hill which overhangs the Garonne, +you find, again, verdure and a railroad; and, turning your back upon +the Pyrenees, run down the rich ugly vale of the Garonne, through crops +of exceeding richness - wheat, which is reaped in July, to be followed +by buckwheat reaped in October; then by green crops to be cut in May, +and that again by maize, to be pulled in October, and followed by wheat +and the same rotation.</p> +<p>Thus you reach Toulouse, a noble city, of which it ill befits a passer-through +to speak. Volumes have been written on its antiquities, and volumes +on its history; and all of either that my readers need know, they will +find in Murray’s hand-book.</p> +<p>At Toulouse - or rather on leaving it to go eastward - you become +aware that you have passed into a fresh region. The change has +been, of course, gradual: but it has been concealed from you by passing +over the chilly dreary uplands of Lannemezan. Now you find yourself +at once in Languedoc. You have passed from the Atlantic region +into the Mediterranean; from the old highlands of the wild Vascones, +into those lowlands of Gallia Narbonensis, reaching from the head-waters +of the Garonne to the mouths of the Rhone, which were said to be more +Italian than Italy itself.</p> +<p>The peculiarity of the district is its gorgeous colouring. +Everywhere, over rich plains, you look away to low craggy banks of limestone, +the grey whereof contrasts strongly with the green of the lowland, and +with the even richer green of the mulberry orchards; and beyond them +again, southward to the now distant snows of the Pyrenees, and northward +to the orange downs and purple glens of the Cevennes, all blazing in +the blazing sun. Green, grey, orange, purple, and, in the farthest +distance, blue as of the heaven itself, make the land one vast rainbow, +and fit dwelling-place for its sunny folk, still happy and industrious +- once the most cultivated and luxurious people in Europe.</p> +<p>As for their industry, it is hereditary. These lands were, +it may be, as richly and carefully tilled in the days of Augustus Cæsar +as they are now; or rather, as they were at the end of the eighteenth +century. For, since then, the delver and sower - for centuries +the slave of the Roman, and, for centuries after, the slave of Teutonic +or Saracenic conquerors - has become his own master, and his own landlord; +and an impulse has been given to industry, which is shown by trim cottages, +gay gardens, and fresh olive orchards, pushed up into glens which in +a state of nature would starve a goat.</p> +<p>The special culture of the country - more and more special as we +run eastward - is that of the mulberry, the almond, and the olive. +Along every hill-side, down every glen, lie orchard-rows of the precious +pollards. The mulberries are of richest dark velvet green; the +almonds, one glory of rose-colour in early spring, are now of a paler +and colder green; the olives (as all the world knows) of a dusty grey, +which looks all the more desolate in the pruning time of early spring, +when half the boughs of the evergreen are cut out, leaving the trees +stripped as by a tempest, and are carried home for fire-wood in the +quaint little carts, with their solid creaking wheels, drawn by dove-coloured +kine. Very ancient are some of these olives, or rather, olive-groups. +For when the tree grows old, it splits, and falls asunder, as do often +our pollard willows; the bark heals over on the inside of each fragment, +and what was one tree becomes many, springing from a single root, and +bearing such signs of exceeding age that one can well believe the country +tale, how in the olive grounds around Nismes are still fruiting olives +which have furnished oil for the fair Roman dames who cooled themselves +in the sacred fountain of Nemausa, in the days of the twelve Cæsars.</p> +<p>Between the pollard rows are everywhere the rows of vines, or of +what will be vines when summer comes, but are now black knobbed and +gnarled clubs, without a sign of life save here and there one fat green +shoot of leaf and tendril bursting forth from the seemingly dead stick.</p> +<p>One who sees that sight may find a new meaning and beauty in the +mystic words, ‘I am the vine, ye are the branches.’ +It is not merely the connection between branch and stem, common to all +trees; not merely the exhilarating and seemingly inspiring properties +of the grape, which made the very heathens look upon it as the sacred +and miraculous fruit, the special gift of God; not merely the pruning +out of the unfruitful branches, to be burned as fire-wood, or - after +the old Roman fashion, which I believe endures still in these parts +- buried as manure at the foot of the parent stem; not merely these, +but the seeming death of the vine, shorn of all its beauty, its fruitfulness, +of every branch and twig which it had borne the year before, and left +unsightly and seemingly ruined, to its winter’s sleep; and then +bursting forth again, by an irresistible inward life, into fresh branches +spreading and trailing far and wide, and tossing their golden tendrils +to the sun.</p> +<p>This thought, surely - the emblem of the living Church springing +from the corpse of the dead Christ, who yet should rise and be alive +for evermore - enters into, it may be forms an integral part of, the +meaning of, that prophecy of all prophecies.</p> +<p>One ought to look, with something of filial reverence, on the agriculture +of the district into which we are penetrating; for it is the parent +of our own. From hence, or strictly speaking from the Mediterranean +shore beyond us, spread northward and westward through France, Belgium, +and Britain, all the tillage which we knew - at least till a hundred +years ago - beyond the primæval plan of clearing, or surface-burning, +the forests, growing miserable white crops as long as they would yield, +and then letting the land relapse, for twenty years, into miserable +pasture. This process (which lingered thirty years ago in remote +parts of Devon), and nothing better, seems to have been that change +of cultivated lands which Tacitus ascribes to the ancient Germans. +Rotation of crops, in any true sense, came to us from Provence and Languedoc; +and with it, subsoiling; irrigation; all our artificial grasses, with +lucerne at the head of the list; our peas and beans; some of our most +important roots; almost all our garden flowers, vegetables, fruits, +the fig, the mulberry, the vine - (the olive and the maize came with +them from the East, but dared go no further north) - and I know not +what more; till we may say, that - saving subsoil-draining, which their +climate does not need - the ancestors of these good folks were better +farmers fifteen hundred years ago, than too many of our countrymen are +at this day.</p> +<p>So they toil, and thrive, and bless God, under the glorious sun; +and as for rain - they have not had rain for these two months - (I speak +of April, 1864) - and, though the white limestone dust is ankle deep +on every road, say that they want none for two months more, thanks, +it is to be presumed, to their deep tillage, which puts the plant-roots +out of the reach of drought. In spring they feed their silkworms, +and wind their silk. In summer they reap their crops, and hang +the maize-heads from their rafters for their own winter food, while +they sell the wheat to the poor creatures, objects of their pity, who +live in towns, and are forced to eat white bread. From spring +to autumn they have fruit, and to spare, for themselves and for their +customers; and with the autumn comes the vintage, and all its classic +revelries. A happy folk - under a happy clime; which yet has its +drawbacks, like all climes on earth. Terrible thunderstorms sweep +over it, hail-laden, killing, battering, drowning, destroying in an +hour the labours of the year; and there are ugly mistral winds likewise, +of which it may be fairly said, that he who can face an eight days’ +mistral, without finding his life a burden, must be either a very valiant +man, or have neither liver nor mucous membrane.</p> +<p>For on a sudden, after still and burning weather, the thermometer +suddenly falls from thirty to forty degrees; and out of the north-west +rushes a chilly hurricane, blowing fiercer and fiercer each day toward +nightfall, and lulling in the small hours, only to burst forth again +at sunrise. Parched are all lips and eyes; for the air is full +of dust, yea, even of gravel which cuts like hail. Aching are +all right-sides; for the sudden chill brings on all manner of liver +complaints and indigestions. All who can afford it, draw tight +the jalousies, and sulk in darkness; the leaves are parched, as by an +Atlantic gale; the air is filled with lurid haze, as in an English north-east +wind; and no man can breathe freely, or eat his bread with joy, until +the plague is past.</p> +<p>What is the cause of these mistrals; why all the cold air of Central +France should be suddenly seized with madness, and rush into the sea +between the Alps and the Pyrenees; whether the great heat of the sun, +acting on the Mediterranean basin, raises up thence - as from the Gulf +of Mexico - columns of warm light air, whose place has to be supplied +by colder and heavier air from inland; whether the north-west mistral +is, or is not, a diverted north-easter; an arctic current which, in +its right road toward the tropics across the centre of France, has been +called to the eastward of the Pyrenees (instead of, as usual, to the +westward), by the sudden demand for cold air, - all this let men of +science decide; and having discovered what causes the mistral, discover +also what will prevent it. That would be indeed a triumph of science, +and a boon to tortured humanity.</p> +<p>But after all, man is a worse enemy to man than any of the brute +forces of nature: and a more terrible scourge than mistral or tempest +swept over this land six hundred years ago, when it was, perhaps, the +happiest and the most civilized portion of Europe. This was the +scene of the Albigense Crusade: a tragedy of which the true history +will never, perhaps, be written. It was not merely a persecution +of real or supposed heretics; it was a national war, embittered by the +ancient jealousies of race, between the Frank aristocracy of the north +and the Gothic aristocracy of the south, who had perhaps acquired, with +their half-Roman, half-Saracen civilization, mixtures both of Roman +and of Saracen blood. As “Aquitanians,” “Provençaux,” +- Roman Provincials, as they proudly called themselves, speaking the +Langue d’Oc, and looking down on the northerners who spoke the +Langue d’Oil as barbarians, they were in those days guilty of +the capital crime of being foreigners; and as foreigners they were exterminated. +What their religious tenets were, we shall never know. With the +Vaudois, Waldenses, “poor men of Lyons,” they must not be +for a moment confounded. Their creed remains to us only in the +calumnies of their enemies. The confessions in the archives of +the Tolosan Inquisition, as elicited either under torture or fear of +torture, deserve no confidence whatsoever. And as for the licentiousness +of their poetry - which has been alleged as proof of their profligacy +- I can only say, that it is no more licentious than the <i>fabliaux</i> +of their French conquerors, while it is far more delicate and refined. +Humanity, at least, has done justice to the Troubadours of the south; +and confessed, even in the Middle Age, that to them the races of the +north owed grace of expression, delicacy of sentiment, and that respect +for women which soon was named chivalry; which looks on woman, not with +suspicion and contempt, but with trust and adoration; and is not ashamed +to obey her as “mistress,” instead of treating her as a +slave.</p> +<p>But these Albigenses must have had something in their hearts for +which it was worth while to die. At Aviguonet, that little grey +town on the crag above the railway, they burst into the place, maddened +by the cruelties of the Inquisitor (an archdeacon, if I recollect rightly, +from Toulouse), and slew him then and there. They were shut up +in the town, and withstood heroically a long and miserable siege. +At last they were starved out. The conquerors offered them their +lives - so say the French stories - if they would recant. But +they would not. They were thrust together into one of those stone-walled +enclosures below the town, heaped over with vine-twigs and maize-stalks, +and burned alive; and among them a young lady of the highest rank, who +had passed through all the horrors of the siege, and was offered life, +wealth, and honour, if she would turn.</p> +<p>Surely profligate infidels do not so die; and these poor souls, whatever +were their sins or their confusions, must be numbered among the heroes +of the human race.</p> +<p>But the world has mended since then, and so has the French character. +Even before the Revolution of 1793, it was softening fast. The +massacres of 1562 were not as horrible as those of the Albigense Crusade, +though committed - which the former were not - under severe provocation. +The massacres of 1793 - in spite of all that has been said - were far +less horrible than those of 1562, though they were the outpouring of +centuries of pardonable fury and indignation. The crimes of the +Terreur Blanche, at the Restoration - though ugly things were done in +the south, especially in Nismes - were far less horrible again; though +they were, for the most part, acts of direct personal retaliation on +the republicans of 1793. And since then the French heart has softened +fast. The irritating sense of hereditary wrong has passed away. +The Frenchman conceives that justice is done to him, according to his +own notions thereof. He has his share of the soil, without which +no Celtic populace will ever be content. He has fair play in the +battle of life; and a ‘Carrière ouverte aux talens.’ +He has equal law and justice between man and man. And he is content; +and under the sunshine of contentment and self-respect, his native good-nature +expands; and he shows himself what he is, not merely a valiant and capable, +but an honest, kindly, charitable man.</p> +<p>Yes. France has grown better, and has been growing better, +I believe, for centuries past. And the difference between the +France of the middle age and the France of the present day, is fitly +typified by the difference between the new Carcassone below and the +old Carcassone above, where every traveller, even if he be no antiquarian, +should stop and gaze about a while.</p> +<p>The contrast is complete; and one for which a man who loves his fellow-men +should surely return devout thanks to Almighty God. Below, on +the west bank of the river, is the new town, spreading and growing, +unwalled, for its fortifications are now replaced by boulevards and +avenues; full of handsome houses; squares where, beneath the plane-tree +shade, marble fountains pour out perpetual health and coolness; manufactories +of gay woollens; healthy, cheerful, market folk; comfortable burghers; +industry and peace. We pass outside to the great basin of the +Canal de Languedoc, and get more avenues of stately trees, and among +them the red marble statue of Riquet, whose genius planned and carried +out the mighty canal which joins the ocean to the sea; the wonder of +its day, which proved the French to be, at least in the eighteenth century, +the master-engineers of the world; the only people who still inherited +the mechanical skill and daring of their Roman civilizers. Riquet +bore the labour of that canal - and the calumny and obstructiveness, +too, which tried to prevent its formation; France bore the expense; +Louis Quatorze, of course, the glory; and no one, it is to be feared, +the profit: for the navigation of the Garonne at the one extremity, +and of the Mediterranean shallows at the other, were left unimproved +till of late years, and the canal has become practically useful only +just in time to be superseded by the railroads.</p> +<p>Now cross the Aude. Look down upon the willow and aspen copses, +where over the heads of busy washerwomen, the nightingale and the hippolais +crowded together away from the dusty plains and downs, shake the copses +with their song; and then toil upward to the grey fortress tower on +the grey limestone knoll; and pass, out of nature and her pure sunshine, +into the black shadow of the unnatural Middle Age; into the region of +dirt and darkness, cruelty and fear; grim fortresses, crowded houses, +narrow streets, and pestilence. Pass through the outer circle +of walls, of the latter part of the thirteenth century, to examine - +for their architecture is a whole history engraved in stones - the ancient +walls of the inner enceinte; massive Roman below, patched with striped +Visigothic work, with mean and hasty Moorish, with graceful, though +heavy, Romanesque of the times of the Troubadours; a whole museum of +ancient fortifications, which has been restored, stone by stone, through +the learning of M. Viollet le Duc and the public spirit of the late +Emperor. Pass in under the gateway and give yourself up to legends. +There grins down on you the broad image of the mythic Dame Carcas, who +defended the town single-handed against Charlemagne, till this tower +fell down by miracle, and let in the Christian host. But do not +believe that she gave to the place its name of Carcassone; for the first +syllable of the word is hint enough that it was, long ere her days, +a Celtic caer, or hill-fortress. Pause at the inner gate; you +need not exactly believe that when the English Crusader, Simon de Montfort, +burst it open, and behold, the town within was empty and desolate, he +cried: ‘Did I not tell you that those heretics were devils; and +behold, being devils, they have vanished into air.’ You +must believe, I fear, that of the great multitude who had been crowded, +starving, and fever-stricken within, he found four hundred poor wretches +who had lingered behind, and burnt them all alive. You need not +believe that that is the mouth of the underground passage which runs +all the way from the distant hills, through which the Vicomte de Beziers, +after telling Simon de Montfort and the Abbot of Citeaux that he would +sooner be flayed alive than betray the poor folk who had taken refuge +with him, got them all safe away, men, women, and children. You +need not believe that that great vaulted chamber was the ‘Chamber +of the Inquisition.’ But you must believe that those two +ugly rings let into the roof were put there for the torture of the cord; +and that many a naked wretch has dangled from them ere now, confessing +anything and everything that he - or, alas she - was bidden. But +these and their like are the usual furniture of every mediæval +court of justice; and torture was not altogether abolished in France +till the latter part of the eighteenth century. You need not believe, +again, that that circular tower on the opposite side of the town was +really the ‘Tower of the Inquisition;’ for many a feudal +lord, besides the Inquisitors, had their dens of cruelty in those old +times. You need not even believe - though it is too likely to +be true - that that great fireplace in the little first-floor room served +for the torture of the scarpines. But you must believe that in +that little round den beneath it, only approached by a trap in the floor, +two skeletons were found fastened by those chains to that central pillar, +having died and rotted forgotten in that horrid oubliette - how many +centuries ago?</p> +<p>‘Plusieurs ont gemis là bas,’ said M. Viollet +le Duc’s foreman of the works, as he led us out of that evil hole, +to look, with eyes and hearts refreshed by the change, at a curious +Visigothic tower, in which the good bishop Sidonius Apollinaris may +have told of the last Burgundian invasion of his Auvergne to the good +king Theodoric of the West Goths.</p> +<p>If anyone wishes to learn what the Middle Ages were like, let him +go to Carcassone and see.</p> +<p>And now onward to Narbonne - or rather, to what was once Narbonne; +one of the earliest colonies ever founded by the Romans; then the capital +of the Visigothic kingdom; then of an Arab kingdom: now a dull fortified +town - of a filth unspeakable, and not to be forgotten or forgiven. +Stay not therein an hour, lest you take fever, or worse: but come out +of the gate over the drawbridge, and stroll down the canal. Look +back a moment, though, across the ditch. The whole face of the +wall is a museum of Roman gods, tombs, inscriptions, bas-reliefs: the +wreck of Martial’s ‘Pulcherrima Narbo,’ the old Roman +city, which was demolished by Louis XIII., to build the ugly fortifications +of the then new fashion, now antiquated and useless. Take one +glance, and walk on, to look at live Nature - far more interesting than +dead Art.</p> +<p>Everything fattens in the close damp air of the canal. The +great flat, with its heavy crops, puts you in mind of the richest English +lowland - save for the total want of old meadows. The weeds on +the bank are English in type, only larger and richer - as becomes the +climate. But as you look among them, you see forms utterly new +and strange, whose kinship you cannot fancy, but which remind you that +you are nearing Italy, and Greece, and Africa. And in the hedges +are great bay-trees; and inside them, orchards of standard fig and white +mulberry, with its long yearling shoots of glorious green - soon to +be stripped bare for the silkworms; and here and there long lines of +cypresses, black against the bright green plain and bright blue sky. +No; you are not in Britain. Certainly not; for there is a drake +(not a duck) quacking with feeble treble in that cypress, six feet over +your head; and in Britain drakes do not live in trees. You look +for the climbing palmipede, and see nothing: nor will you see; for the +quacker is a tiny green tree-frog, who holds on by the suckers at the +ends of his toes (with which he can climb a pane of glass, like a fly), +and has learnt the squirrel’s art of going invisible, without +‘the receipt of fern-seed,’ by simply keeping always on +the further side of the branch.</p> +<p>But come back; for the air even here is suggestive of cholera and +fever. The uncleanliness of these Narbonnois is shameless and +shocking; and ‘immondices’ of every kind lie festering in +the rainless heat. The sickened botanist retreats, and buys a +bottle of Eau Bully <i>- alias</i> aromatic vinegar.</p> +<p>There, crowding yon hill, with handsome houses and churches, is Beziers +- the blood-stained city. Beneath the pavement of that church, +it is said, lie heaped together the remains of thousands of men, women, +and children, slaughtered around their own altars, on that fatal day, +when the Legate Amalric, asked by the knights how they should tell Catholics +from heretics, cried, “Kill them all - the Lord will know his +own.”</p> +<p>We will pass on. We have had enough of horrors. And, +beside, we are longing to hurry onward; for we are nearing the Mediterranean +now. There are small skiffs lying under the dark tower of Agde, +another place of blood, fitly built of black lava blocks, the offspring +of the nether pit. The railway cuts through rolling banks of dark +lava; and now, ahead of us, is the conical lava-hill of Cette, and the +mouth of the Canal du Midi.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>There it is, at last. The long line of heavenly blue; and over +it, far away, the white-peaked lateen sails, which we have seen in pictures +since our childhood; and there, close to the rail, beyond the sand-hills, +delicate wavelets are breaking for ever on a yellow beach, each in exactly +the same place as the one which fell before. One glance shows +us children of the Atlantic, that we are on a tideless sea.</p> +<p>There it is, - the sacred sea. The sea of all civilization, +and almost all history, girdled by the fairest countries in the world; +set there that human beings from all its shores might mingle with each +other, and become humane - the sea of Egypt, of Palestine, of Greece, +of Italy, of Byzant, of Marseilles, and this Narbonnaise, ‘more +Roman than Rome herself,’ to which we owe the greater part of +our own progress; the sea, too, Algeria and Carthage, and Cyrene, and +fair lands now desolate, surely not to be desolate for ever; - the sea +of civilization. Not only to the Christian, nor to the classic +scholar, but to every man to whom the progress of his race from barbarism +toward humanity is dear, should the Mediterranean Sea be one of the +most august and precious objects on this globe; and the first sight +of it should inspire reverence and delight, as of coming home - home +to a rich inheritance in which he has long believed by hearsay, but +which he sees at last with his own mortal corporal eyes.</p> +<p>Exceedingly beautiful is that first view of the sea from Cette, though +altogether different in character from the views of the Mediterranean +which are common in every gallery of pictures. There is nothing +to remind one of Claude, or Vernet, or Stanfield. No mountain-ranges +far aloft, no cliffs toppling into the water, with convents and bastides +perched on their crags; and seaports, with their land-locked harbours, +and quaint lighthouses, nestling on the brink. That scenery begins +on the other side of the Rhone mouth, and continues, I believe, almost +without interruption, to the shores of Southern Palestine, one girdle +of perpetual beauty.</p> +<p>But here, the rail runs along a narrow strip of sand, covered with +straggling vines, and tall white iris, between the sea and the great +Etang de Thau, a long narrow salt-lake, beyond which the wide lowlands +of the Herault slide gently down, There is not a mountain, hardly a +hill, visible for miles: but all around is the great sheet of blue glassy +water: while the air is as glassy clear as the water, and through it, +at seemingly immense distances, the land shows purple and orange, blue +and grey, till the landscape is one great rainbow. White ships +slide to and from far-off towns; fishermen lounge on the marshes, drying +long lines of net. Everywhere is vastness, freedom, repose gentle +and yet not melancholy; because with all, under the burning blue, there +is that fresh wholesome heat, which in itself is life, and youth, and +joy.</p> +<p>Beyond, nearer the mouths of the Rhone, there are, so men say, desolate +marshes, tenanted by herds of half-wild horses; foul mud-banks, haunted +by the pelican and the flamingo, and waders from the African shore; +a region half land, half water, where dwell savage folk, decimated by +fever and ague. But short of those Bouches du Rhône, the +railway turns to the north, toward Montpellier and</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Arli, dove il Rhodano stagna.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And at Cette ends this little tour from Ocean to Sea, with the wish +that he who next travels that way may have as glorious weather, and +as agreeable a companion, as the writer of these lines had in 1864.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>VI. NORTH DEVON <a name="citation225a"></a><a href="#footnote225a">{225a}</a></h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>I. - EXMOOR.</h3> +<p>We were riding up from Lynmouth, on a pair of ragged ponies, Claude +Mellot and I, along the gorge of Watersmeet. And as we went we +talked of many things; and especially of some sporting book which we +had found at the Lyndale Hotel the night before, and which we had not +by any means admired. <a name="citation225b"></a><a href="#footnote225b">{225b}</a> +I do not object to sporting books in general, least of all to one on +Exmoor. No place in England is more worthy of one. There +is no place whose beauties and peculiarities are more likely to be thrown +into strong relief by being looked at with a sportsman’s eye. +It is so with all forests and moorlands. The spirit of Robin Hood +and Johnny of Breadislee is theirs. They are remnants of the home +of man’s fierce youth, still consecrated to the genius of animal +excitement and savage freedom; after all, not the most ignoble qualities +of human nature. Besides, there is no better method of giving +a living picture of a whole country than by taking some one feature +of it as a guide, and bringing all other observations into harmony with +that original key. Even in merely scientific books this is very +possible. Look, for instance, at Hugh Miller’s ‘Old +Red Sandstone,’ ‘The Voyage of the Beagle,’ and Professor +Forbes’s work (we had almost said epic poem) on ‘Glaciers.’ +Even an agricultural writer, if he have a real insight in him - if he +have anything of that secret of the <i>più nel’ uno</i>, +‘the power of discovering the infinite in the finite;’ of +seeing, like a poet, trivial phenomena in their true relation to the +whole of the great universe into which they are so cunningly fitted; +if he has learned to look at all things and men, down to the meanest, +as living lessons written with the finger of God; if, in short, he has +any true dramatic power: then he may impart to that apparently muddiest +of sciences a poetic or a humorous tone, and give the lie to Mephistopheles +when he dissuades Faust from farming as an occupation too mean and filthy +for a man of genius. The poetry of agriculture remains as yet, +no doubt, unwritten, and the comedy of it also; though its farce-tragedy +has been too often extensively enacted in practice - unconsciously to +the players. As for the old ‘pastoral’ school, it +only flourished before agriculture really existed - that is, before +sound science, hard labour, and economy were necessary - and has been +for the last two hundred years simply a dream. Nevertheless, as +signs of what may be done even now by a genial man with so stubborn +a subject as ‘turnips, barley, clover, wheat,’ it is worth +while to look at old Arthur Young’s books, both travels and treatises; +and also at certain very spirited ‘Chronicles of a Clay Farm,’ +by Talpa, which teem with humour and wisdom.</p> +<p>In sporting literature - a tenth muse, exclusively indigenous to +England - the same observation holds good tenfold. Some of our +most perfect topographical sketches have been the work of sportsmen. +Old Izaak Walton, and his friend Cotton, of Dovedale, whose names will +last as long as their rivers, have been followed by a long train of +worthy pupils. White’s ‘History of Selborne;’ +Sir Humphry Davy’s ‘Salmonia;’ ‘The Wild Sports +of the West;’ Mr. St. John’s charming little works on Highland +Shooting; and, above all, Christopher North’s ‘Recreations’ +- delightful book! to be read and re-read, the tenth time even as the +first - an inexhaustible fairy well, springing out of the granite rock +of the sturdy Scotch heart, through the tender green turf of a genial +boyish old age. Sporting books, when they are not filled - as +they need never be - with low slang, and ugly sketches of ugly characters +- who hang on to the skirts of the sporting world, as they would to +the skirts of any other world, in default of the sporting one - form +an integral and significant, and, it may be, an honourable and useful +part, of the English literature of this day; and, therefore, all shallowness, +vulgarity, stupidity, or bookmaking in that class, must be as severely +attacked as in novels and poems. We English owe too much to our +field sports to allow people to talk nonsense about them.</p> +<p>Claude smiled at some such words of mine that day. ‘You +talk often of the poetry of sport. I can see nothing in it but +animal excitement, and a certain quantity, I suppose, of that animal +cunning which the Red Indian possesses in common with the wolf and the +cat, and any other beast of prey. As a fact, the majority of sportsmen +are of the most unpoetical type of manhood.’</p> +<p>‘More unpoetical than the average man of business, or man of +law, Claude? Or even than the average preacher? I believe, +on the contrary, that for most of them it is sport which at once keeps +alive and satisfies what you would call their æsthetic faculties, +and so - smile if you will - helps to make them purer, simpler, more +genial men.’</p> +<p>‘Little enough of æsthetic appears either in their conversation +or their writing.’</p> +<p>‘Esau is a dumb soul, especially here in England; but he has +as deep a heart in him as Jacob, nevertheless, and as tender. +Do you fancy that the gentleman over whose book we were grumbling last +night, attached no more to his own simple words than you do? His +account of a stag’s run looks bald enough to you: but to him (unless +Diana struck him blind for intruding on her privacy) what a whole poem +of memories there must be in those few words, - “Turned down * +* Water for a mile, and crossed the forest to Watersmeet, where he was +run into after a gallant race.”’</p> +<p>‘A whole poem?’</p> +<p>‘Why not? How can there be less, if he had eyes to see?’</p> +<p>‘Does he fancy that it is an account of a run to tell us that +“Found at * * * * cover, held away at a slapping pace for * * +* * Barn, then turned down the * * * Water for a mile, and crossed the +Forest; made for * * * Hill, but being headed, went by ** ** woods to +D * * * where he was run into after a gallant race of * * * * hours +and * * * *miles”? It is nearly as dull as a history book!’</p> +<p>‘Nay, I never rode with those staghounds: and yet I can fill +up his outline for him, wherever the stag was roused. Do you think +that he never marked how the panting cavalcade rose and fell on the +huge mile-long waves of that vast heather sea; how one long brown hill +after another sunk down, greyer and greyer, behind them, and one long +grey hill after another swelled up browner and browner before them; +and how the sandstone rattled and flew beneath their feet, as the great +horses, like Homer’s of old, “devoured up the plain;” +and how they struggled down the hill-side, through bushes and rocks, +and broad slipping rattling sheets of screes, and saw beneath them stag +and pack galloping down the shallow glittering river-bed, throwing up +the shingle, striking out the water in long glistening sheets; and how +they too swept after them, down the flat valley, rounding crag and headland, +which opened one after another in interminable vista, along the narrow +strip of sand and rushes, speckled with stunted, moss-bearded, heather-bedded +hawthorns, between the great grim lifeless mountain walls? Did +he feel no pleasant creeping of the flesh that day at the sound of his +own horse-hoofs, as they swept through the long ling with a sound as +soft as the brushing of a woman’s tresses, and then rang down +on the spongy, black, reverberating soil, chipping the honey-laden fragrant +heather blossoms, and tossing them out in a rosy shower? Or, if +that were really too slight a thing for the observation of an average +sportsman, surely he must recollect the dying away of the hounds’ +voices, as the woodland passes engulfed them, whether it were Brendon +or at Badger-worthy, or any other place; how they brushed through the +narrow forest paths, where the ashes were already golden, while the +oaks still kept their sombre green, and the red leaves and berries of +the mountain-ash showed bright beneath the dark forest aisles; and how +all of a sudden the wild outcry before them seemed to stop and concentrate, +thrown back, louder and louder as they rode, off the same echoing crag; +till at a sudden turn of the road there stood the stag beneath them +in the stream, his back against the black rock with its green cushions +of dripping velvet, knee-deep in the clear amber water, the hounds around +him, some struggling and swimming in the deep pool, some rolling and +tossing and splashing in a mad, half-terrified ring, as he reared into +the air on his great haunches, with the sparkling beads running off +his red mane, and dropping on his knees, plunged his antlers down among +them, with blows which would have each brought certain death with it +if the yielding water had not broken the shock. Do you think that +he does not remember the death? The huge carcass dragged out of +the stream, followed by dripping, panting dogs; the blowing of the mort, +and the last wild halloo, when the horn-note and the voices rang through +the autumn woods, and rolled up the smooth flat mountain sides; and +Brendon answered Countisbury, and Countisbury sent it on to Lynmouth +hills, till it swept out of the gorge and died away upon the Severn +sea? And then, does he not remember the pause, and the revulsion, +and the feeling of sadness and littleness, almost of shame, as he looked +up for the first time - one can pardon his not having done so before +- and saw where he was, and the beauty of the hill-sides, with the lazy +autumn clouds crawling about their tops, and the great sheets of screes, +glaciers of stone covering acres and acres of the smooth hill-side, +eating far into the woods below, bowing down the oak scrubs with their +weight, and the circular sweeps of down, flecked with innumerable dark +spots of gorse, each of them guarded where they open into the river +chasm by two fortresses of “giant-snouted crags,” - delicate +pink and grey sandstone, from which blocks and crumbling boulders have +been toppling slowly down for ages, beneath the frost and the whirlwind, +and now lie in long downward streams upon the slope, as if the mountain +had been weeping tears of stone? And then, as the last notes of +the mort had died away, did not there come over him an awe at the silence +of the woods, not broken, but deepened, by the unvarying monotone of +the roaring stream beneath, which flashed and glittered, half-hidden +in the dark chasm, in clear brown pools reflecting every leaf and twig, +in boiling pits and walls of foam, ever changing, and yet for ever the +fleeting on past the poor dead reeking stag and the silent hounds lying +about on the moss-embroidered stones, their lolling tongues showing +like bright crimson sparkles in the deep rich Venetian air of the green +sombre shades; while the startled water-ousel, with his white breast, +flitted a few yards and stopped to stare from a rock’s point at +the strange intruders; and a single stock-dove, out of the bosom of +the wood, began calling sadly and softly, with a dreamy peaceful moan? +Did he not see and hear all this, for surely it was there to see and +hear?’</p> +<p>‘Not he. The eye only sees that which it brings within +the power of seeing; and all I shall say of him is, that a certain apparition +in white leathers was at one period of its appearance dimly conscious +of equestrian motion towards a certain brown two-horned phenomenon, +and other spotted phenomena, at which he had been taught by habit to +make the articulate noises “stag” and “hounds,” +among certain grey, and green, and brown phenomena, at which the same +habit and the example of his fellows had taught him to say, “Rock, +and wood, and mountain,” and perhaps the further noises of “Lovely, +splendid, majestic.”’</p> +<p>‘As usual, sir! You dwellers in Babylon fancy that you +have the monopoly of all the intellect, and all the taste, because you +earn your livings by talking about pretty things, and painting pretty +things: little do you suspect, shut up together in your little literary +worlds, and your artistic worlds, how many thousands of us outside barbarians +there are who see as clearly, and enjoy as deeply as you do: but hold +their tongues about their own feelings, simply because they have never +been driven by emptiness of pocket to look round for methods of expressing +them. And, after all - how much of nature can you express? +You confest yourself yesterday baffled by all the magnificence around +you.’</p> +<p>‘Yes! to paint it worthily one would require to be a Turner, +a Copley Fielding, and a Creswick, all in one.’</p> +<p>‘And did you ever remark how such scenes as this gorge of the +“Watersmeet” stir up a feeling of shame, almost of peevishness, +before the sense of a mysterious meaning which we ought to understand +and cannot?’</p> +<p>He smiled.</p> +<p>‘Our torments do by length of time become our elements; and +painful as that sensation is to the earnest artist, he will feel it, +I fancy, at last sublime itself into an habitually gentle, reverent, +almost melancholy tone of mind, as of a man bearing the burden of an +infinite and wonderful message which his own frivolity and laziness +hinder him from speaking out.’</p> +<p>‘Then it should beget in him, too, something of merciful indulgence +towards the seeming stupidity of those who see, after all, only a very +little shallower than he does into the unfathomable depths of nature.’</p> +<p>‘Well, sporting books and sportsmen seem to me, by their very +object, not to be worth troubling our heads about. Out of nothing, +comes nothing. See, my hands are as soft as any lady’s in +Belgravia. I could not, to save my life, lift a hundredweight +a foot off the ground; while you have been a wild man of the woods, +a leaper of ditches, a rower of races, and a wanton destroyer of all +animal life: and yet - ’</p> +<p>‘You would hint politely that you are as open as me to all +noble, and chivalrous, and truly manly emotions?’</p> +<p>‘What think you?’</p> +<p>‘That you are far worthier in such matters than I, friend. +But do not forget that it may be your intellect, and your profession +- in one word, Heaven’s mercy - which have steered you clear of +shoals upon which you will find the mass of our class founder. +Woe to the class or the nation which has no manly physical training! +Look at the manners, the morals, the faces of the young men of the shopkeeping +classes, if you wish to see the effects of utterly neglecting the physical +development of man; <a name="citation235"></a><a href="#footnote235">{235}</a> +of fancying that all the muscular activity he requires under the sun +is to be able to stand behind a counter, or sit on a desk-stool without +tumbling off. Be sure, be sure, that ever since the days of the +Persians of old, effeminacy, if not twin-sister of cowardice and dishonesty, +has always gone hand in hand with them. To that utter neglect +of any exercises which call out fortitude, patience, self-dependence, +and daring, I attribute a great deal of the low sensuality, the conceited +vulgarity, the want of a high sense of honour, which is increasing just +now among the middle classes; and from which the navigator, the engineer, +the miner, and the sailor are comparatively free.’</p> +<p>‘And perhaps, too, that similar want of a high sense of honour, +which seems, from the religious periodicals, to pervade a large proportion +of a certain more venerable profession?’</p> +<p>‘Seriously, Claude, I believe you are not far wrong. +But we are getting on delicate ground there: however I have always found, +that of whatever profession he may be - to travestie Shakspeare’s +words, -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“The man that hath not sporting in his soul,<br />Is fit for +treason’s direst stratagems” -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>and so forth.’</p> +<p>‘Civil to me!’</p> +<p>‘Oh, you have a sporting soul in you, like hundreds of other +Englishmen who never handled rod or gun; or you would not be steering +for Exmoor to-day. If a lad be a genius, you may trust him to +find some original means for developing his manly energies, whether +in art, agriculture, science, or travels, discovery, and commerce. +But if he be not, as there are a thousand chances to one he will not +be, then whatever you teach him, let the two first things be, as they +were with the old Persians, “To speak the truth, and to draw the +bow.”’</p> +<p>By this time we had reached the stream, just clearing from the last +night’s showers. A long transparent amber shallow, dimpled +with fleeting silver rings by rising trout; a low cascade of green-veined +snow; a deep dark pool of swirling orange-brown, walled in with heathery +rocks, and paved with sandstone slabs and boulders, distorted by the +changing refractions of the eddies, - sight delicious to the angler.</p> +<p>I commenced my sport at once, while Claude wandered up the glen to +sketch a knoll of crags, on which a half-wild moorland pony, the only +living thing in sight, stood staring and snuffing at the intruder, his +long mane and tail streaming out wildly against the sky.</p> +<p>I had fished on for some hour or two; Claude had long since disappeared +among the hills; I fancied myself miles from any human being, when a +voice at my elbow startled me</p> +<p>‘A bleak place for fishing this, sir!’</p> +<p>I turned; it was an old grey-whiskered labouring man, with pick and +spade on shoulder, who had crept on me unawares beneath the wall of +the neighbouring deer-cover. Keen honest eyes gleamed out from +his brown, scarred, weather-beaten face; and as he settled himself against +a rock with the deliberate intention of a chat, I commenced by asking +after the landlord of those parts, well known and honoured both by sportsman +and by farmer.</p> +<p>‘He was gone to Malta - a warmer place that than Exmoor.’</p> +<p>‘What! have you been in Malta?’</p> +<p>Yes, he had been in Malta, and in stranger places yet. He had +been a sailor: he had seen the landing in Egypt, and heard the French +cannon thundering vainly from the sand-hills on the English boats. +He had himself helped to lift Abercrombie up the ship’s side to +the death-bed of the brave. He had seen Caraccioli hanging at +his own yard-arm, and heard (so he said, I know not how correctly) Lady +Hamilton order out the barge herself, and row round the frigate of the +murdered man, to glut her eyes with her revenge. He had seen, +too, the ghastly corpse floating upright, when Nelson and the enchantress +met their victim, returned from the sea-depths to stare at them, as +Banquo’s ghost upon Macbeth. But she was ‘a mortal +fine woman, was Lady Hamilton, though she was a queer one, and cruel +kind to the sailors; and many a man she saved from flogging; and one +from hanging, too; that was a marine that got a-stealing; for Nelson, +though he was kind enough, yet it was a word and a blow with him; and +quite right he, sir; for there be such rascals on board ship, that if +you ain’t as sharp with them as with wild beastesses, no man’s +life, nor the ship’s neither, would be worth a day’s purchase.’</p> +<p>So he, with his simple straightforward notions of right and wrong +worth, much maudlin unmerciful indulgence which we hear in these days: +and yet not going to the bottom of the matter either, as we shall see +in the next war. But, rambling on, he told me how he had come +home, war-worn and crippled, to marry a wife and get tall sons, and +lay his bones in his native village; till which time (for death to the +aged poor man is a Sabbath, of which he talks freely, calmly, even joyously) +‘he just got his bread, by the squire’s kindness, patching +and mending at the stone deer-fences.’</p> +<p>I gave him something to buy tobacco, and watched him as he crawled +away, with a sort of stunned surprise. And he had actually seen +Nelson sit by Lady Hamilton! It was so strange, to have that gay +Italian bay, with all its memories, - the orgies of Baiæ, and +the unburied wrecks of ancient towns, with the smoking crater far above; +and the world-famous Nile-mouths and those great old wars, big with +the destinies of the world; and those great old heroes, with their awful +deeds for good and evil, all brought so suddenly and livingly before +me, up there in the desolate moorland, where the deer, and birds, and +heath, and rushes were even as they had been from the beginning. +Like Wordsworth with his Leech-Gatherer (a poem which I, in spite of +laughter, must rank among his very highest), -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘While he was talking thus, the lonely place,<br />The old +man’s shape, and speech - all troubled me;<br />In my mind’s +eye I seemed to see him pace<br />About the weary moors continually,<br />Wandering +about alone and silently.<br />. . . and when he ended,<br />I could +have laughed myself to scorn to find<br />In that decrepit man so firm +a mind.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Just then I heard a rustle, and turning, saw Claude toiling down +to me over the hill-side. He joined me, footsore and weary, but +in great excitement; for the first minute or two he could not speak, +and at last, -</p> +<p>‘Oh, I have seen such a sight! - but I will tell you how it +all was. After I left you I met a keeper. He spoke civilly +to me - you know my antipathy to game and those who live thereby: but +there was a wild, bold, self-helping look about him and his gun alone +there in the waste - and after all he was a man and a brother. +Well, we fell into talk, and fraternized; and at last he offered to +take me to a neighbouring hill and show me “sixty head of red-deer +all together;” and as he spoke he looked quite proud of his words. +“I was lucky,” he said, “to come just then, for the +stags had all just got their heads again.” At which speech +I wondered; but was silent, and followed him, I, Claude the Cockney, +such a walk as I shall never take again. Behold these trousers +- behold these hands! scratched to pieces by crawling on all-fours through +the heather. But I saw them.’</p> +<p>‘A sight worth many pairs of plaid trousers?’</p> +<p>‘Worth Saint Chrysostom’s seven years’ nakedness +on all-fours! And so I told the fellow, who by some cunning calculations +about wind, and sun, and so forth, which he imparted to my uncomprehending +ears, brought me suddenly to the top of a little crag, below which, +some hundred yards off, the whole herd stood, stags, hinds - but I can’t +describe them. I have not brought away a scrap of sketch, though +we watched them full ten minutes undiscovered; and then the stare, and +the toss of those antlers, and the rush! That broke the spell +with me; for I had been staring stupidly at them, trying in vain to +take in the sight, with the strangest new excitement heaving and boiling +up in my throat; and at the sound of their hoofs on the turf I woke, +and found the keeper staring, not at them, but at me, who, I verily +believe, had something very like a tear in these excitable eyes of mine.’</p> +<p>‘“Ain’t you well, sir?” said he. “You +needn’t be afeard; it’s only at the fall of the year the +stags is wicked.”</p> +<p>‘I don’t know what I answered at first; but the fellow +understood me when I shook his hand frantically, and told him that I +should thank him to the last day of my life, and that I would not have +missed it for a thousand pounds. In part-proof whereof I gave +him a sovereign on the spot, which seemed to clear my character in his +eyes as much as the crying at the sight of a herd of deer had mystified +it.’</p> +<p>‘Claude, well-beloved,’ said I, ‘will you ever +speak contemptuously of sportsmen any more?’</p> +<p>‘“Do manus,” I have been vilifying them, as one +does most things in the world, only for want of understanding them. +How shall I do penance? Go and take service with Edwin Landseer, +as pupil, colour-grinder, footboy?’</p> +<p>‘You will then be very near to a very great poet,’ quoth +I, ‘and one whose works will become, as centuries roll on, more +and more valuable to art and to science, and, possibly, to something +higher than either.’</p> +<p>‘I begin to guess your meaning,’ answered Claude.</p> +<p>‘So we lounged, and dreamt, and fished, in heathery Highland,’ +as Mr. Clough would say, while the summer snipes flitted whistling up +the shallow before us, and the soft, south-eastern clouds slid lazily +across the sun, and the little trout snapped and dimpled at a tiny partridge +hackle, with a twist of orange silk, whose elegance for shape and colour +reconciled Claude’s heart somewhat to my everlasting whipping +of the water. When as last:-</p> +<p>‘You seem to have given up catching anything. You have +not stirred a fish in this last two pools, except that little saucy +yellow shrimp, who jumped over your fly, and gave a spiteful slap at +it with his tail.’</p> +<p>Too true; and what could be the cause? Had that impudent sand-piper +frightened all the fish on his way up? Had an otter paralysed +them with terror for the morning? Or had a stag been down to drink? +We saw the fresh slot of his broad claws, by the bye, in the mud a few +yards back.</p> +<p>‘We must have seen the stag himself, if he had been here lately,’ +said Claude.</p> +<p>‘Mr. Landseer knows too well by this time that that is a non +sequitur.’</p> +<p>‘“I am no more a non sequitur than you are,” answered +the Cornish magistrate to the barrister.’</p> +<p>‘Fish and deer, friend, see us purblind sons of men somewhat +more quickly than we see them, fear sharpening the senses. Perhaps, +after all, the fault is in your staring white-straw hat, a garment which +has spoilt many a good day’s fishing. Ah, no! there is the +cause; the hat of a mightier than you - the thunder-spirit himself. +Thor is at hand, while the breeze, awe-stricken, falls dead calm before +his march. Behold, climbing above that eastern ridge, his huge +powdered cauliflower-wig, barred with a grey horizontal handkerchief +of mist.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, profane and uncomely simile! - which will next, I presume, +liken the coming hailstorm to hair-powder shaken from the said wig.’</p> +<p>‘To shot rather than to powder. Flee, oh, flee to yonder +pile of crags, and thank your stars that there is one at hand; for these +mountain tornadoes are at once Tropic in their ferocity and Siberian +in their cutting cold.’</p> +<p>Down it came. The brown hills vanished in white sheets of hail, +first falling perpendicularly, then slanting and driving furiously before +the cold blast which issued from the storm. The rock above us +rang with the thunder-peals; and the lightning, which might have fallen +miles away, seemed to our dazzled eyes to dive into the glittering river +at our feet. We sat silent some half-hour, listening to the voice +of One more mighty than ourselves; and it was long after the uproar +had rolled away among the hills, and a steady, sighing sheet of warmer +rains, from banks of low grey fog, had succeeded the rattling of the +hail upon the crisp heather, that I turned to Claude.</p> +<p>‘And now, since your heart is softened towards these wild, +stag-hunting, trout fishing, jovial west-countrymen, consider whether +it should not be softened likewise toward those old outlaw ballads which +I have never yet been able to make you admire. They express feelings +not yet extinct in the minds of a large portion of the lower orders, +as you would know had you lived, like me, all your life in poaching +counties, and on the edges of one forest after another, - feelings which +must be satisfied, even in the highest development of the civilization +of the future, for they are innate in every thoughtful and energetic +race, - feelings which, though they have often led to crime, have far +oftener delivered from swinish sensuality; the feelings which drove +into the merry greenwood “Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John;” +“Adam Bell, and Clym of the Cleugh, and William of Cloudislee;” +the feelings which prompted one half of his inspiration to the nameless +immortal who wrote the “Nutbrown Maid;” - feelings which +could not then, and cannot now, be satisfied by the drudgery of a barbaric +agriculture, which, without science, economy, or enterprise, offers +no food for the highest instincts of the human mind, its yearnings after +Nature, after freedom, and the noble excitement of self-dependent energy.’</p> +<p>Our talk ended: but the rain did not: and we were at last fain to +leave our shelter, and let ourselves be blown by the gale (the difficulty +being not to progress forward, but to keep our feet) back to the shed +where our ponies were tied, and to canter home to Lynmouth, with the +rain cutting our faces like showers of pebbles, and our little mountain +ponies staggering against the wind, and more than once, if Londoners +will believe me, blown sheer up against the bank by some mad gust, which +rushed perpendicularly, not down, but up, the chasms of the glens below.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h3>II. - THE COAST LINE.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>It is four o’clock on a May morning, and Claude and I are just +embarking on board a Clovelly trawling skiff, which, having disposed +of her fish at various ports along the Channel, is about to run leisurely +homewards with an ebb tide, and a soft north-easterly breeze.</p> +<p>So farewell, fair Lynmouth; and ye storm-spirits, send us a propitious +day; and dismiss those fantastic clouds which are coquetting with your +thrones, crawling down one hill-side, and whirling and leaping up another, +in wreaths of snow, and dun, and amber, pierced every minute by some +long glittering upward arrow from the rising sun, which gilds grey crags +and downs a thousand feet above, while underneath the gorges still sleep +black and cold in shade.</p> +<p>There, they have heard us! The cap rises off the ‘Summer-house +hill,’ that eight hundred feet of upright wall, which seems ready +to topple down into the nest of be-myrtled cottages at its foot; and +as we sweep out into the deeper water the last mist-flake streams up +from the Foreland, and vanishes in white threads into the stainless +blue.</p> +<p>‘Look at the colours of that Foreland!’ cried Claude. +‘The simple monotone of pearly green, broken only at intervals +by blood-red stains, where the turf has slipped and left the fresh rock +bare, and all glimmering softly through a delicate blue haze, like the +bloom on a half-ripened plum!’</p> +<p>‘And look, too, how the grey pebble beach is already dancing +and quivering in the mirage which steams up, like the hot breath of +a limekiln, from the drying stones. Talk of “glazings and +scumblings,” ye artists! and bungle at them as you will, what +are they to Nature’s own glazings, deepening every instant there +behind us?’</p> +<p>‘Mock me not. I have walked up and down here with a humbled +and broken spirit, and had nearly forsworn the audacity of painting +anything beyond a beech stem, or a frond of fern.’</p> +<p>‘The little infinite in them would have baffled you as much +as the only somewhat bigger infinite of just the hills on which they +grow.’</p> +<p>‘Confest: and so farewell to unpaintable Lynmouth! Farewell +to the charming contrast of civilized English landscape-gardening, with +its villas, and its exotics, and its evergreens, thus strangely and +yet harmoniously confronted with the chaos of the rocks and mountain-streams. +Those grounds of Sir William H---’s are a double paradise, the +wild Eden of the Past side by side with the cultivated Eden of the Future. +How its alternations of Art and Savagery at once startle and relieve +the sense, as you pass suddenly out of wildernesses of piled boulders, +and torrent-shattered trees, and the roar of fern-fringed waterfalls, +into “trim walks, and fragrant alleys green; and the door of a +summer-house transports you at a step from Richmond to the Alps. +Happy he who “possesses,” as the world calls it, and happier +still he whose taste could organize, that fairy bower.’</p> +<p>So he, magniloquently, as was his wont; and yet his declamations +always flowed with such a graceful ease, - a simple, smiling earnestness, +- an unpractised melody of voice, that what would have been rant from +other lips, from his showed only as the healthy enthusiasm of the passionate, +all-seeing, all-loving artist.</p> +<p>‘Look yonder, again,’ said he, gazing up at the huge +boulder-strewn hill-side above us. ‘One wonders at that +sight, whether the fable of the giants be not true after all, - and +that “Vale of Rocks,” hanging five hundred feet in air, +with all its crag-castles, and tottering battlements, and colossal crumbling +idols, and great blocks, which hang sloping, caught in act to fall, +be not some enormous Cyclopean temple left half-disinterred: or is it +a fragment of old Chaos, left unorganized? - or, perhaps, the waste +heap of the world, where, after the rest of England had been made, some +angel put up a notice for his fellows, “Dry rubbish shot here”?’</p> +<p>‘Not so, unscientific! It is the grandfather of hills, +- a fossil bone of some old continent, which stood here ages before +England was. And the great earth-angel, who grinds up mountains +into paint, as you do bits of ochre, for his “Continental Sketches,” +found in it the materials for a whole dark ground-tone of coal-measures, +and a few hundred miles of warm high-lights, which we call New Red Sandstone.’</p> +<p>What a sea-wall they are, those Exmoor hills! Sheer upward +from the sea a thousand feet rise the downs; and as we slide and stagger +lazily along before the dying breeze, through the deep water which never +leaves the cliff, the eye ranges, almost dizzy, up some five hundred +feet of rock, dappled with every hue; from the intense dark of the tide-line, +through the warm green and brown rock-shadows, out of which the horizontal +cracks of the strata loom black, and the breeding gulls show like lingering +snow-flakes; up to the middle cliff, where delicate grey fades into +pink, pink into red, red into glowing purple; up to where the purple +is streaked with glossy ivy wreaths, and black-green yews; up to where +all the choir of colours vanishes abruptly on the mid-hill, to give +place to one yellowish-grey sheet of upward down, sweeping aloft smooth +and unbroken, except by a lonely stone, or knot of clambering sheep, +and stopped by one great rounded waving line, sharp-cut against the +brilliant blue. The sheep hang like white daisies upon the steep; +and a solitary falcon rides, a speck in air, yet far below the crest +of that tall hill. Now he sinks to the cliff edge, and hangs quivering, +supported, like a kite, by the pressure of his breast and long curved +wings, against the breeze.</p> +<p>There he hangs, the peregrine - a true ‘falcon gentle,’ +‘sharp-notched, long-taloned, crooked-winged,’ whose uncles +and cousins, ages since, have struck at duck and pheasant, and sat upon +the wrists of kings. And now he is full proud of any mouse or +cliff-lark; like an old Chingachgook, last of the Mohicans, he lingers +round ‘the hunting-field of his fathers.’ So all things +end.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘The old order changeth, giving place to the new;<br />And +God fulfils Himself in many ways,<br />Lest one good custom should corrupt +the world.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Ay, and the day may come,’ said Claude, ‘when +the brows of that huge High Vere shall be crowned with golden wheat, +and every rock-ledge on Trentishoe, like those of Petra and the Rhine, +support its garden-bed of artificial soil.’</p> +<p>‘And when,’ I answered, ‘the shingly sides of that +great chasm of Headon’s Mouth may be clothed with the white mulberry, +and the summer limestone-skiffs shall go back freighted with fabrics +which vie with the finest woof of Italy and Lyons.’</p> +<p>‘You believe, then, in the late Mrs. Whitby of Lymington?’</p> +<p>‘Seeing is believing, Claude: through laughter, and failures, +and the stupidity of half-barbarous clods, she persevered in her silk-growing, +and succeeded; and I should like to put her book into the hands of every +squire in Devon, Cornwall, and the South of Ireland.’</p> +<p>‘Or require them to pass an examination in it, as one more +among the many books which I intend, in my ideal kingdom, all landlords +to read and digest, before they are allowed to take possession of their +estates. In the meantime, what is that noble conical hill, which +has increased my wonder at the infinite variety of beauty which The +Spirit can produce by combinations so simple as a few grey stones and +a sheet of turf?’</p> +<p>‘The Hangman.’</p> +<p>‘An ominous name. What is its history?’</p> +<p>‘Some sheep-stealer, they say, clambering over a wall with +his booty slung round his neck, was literally hung by the poor brute’s +struggles, and found days after on the mountain-side, a blackened corpse +on one side of the wall, with the sheep on the other, and the ravens +- You may fill up the picture for yourself.’</p> +<p>But, see, as we round the Hangman, what a change of scene - the square-blocked +sandstone cliffs dip suddenly under dark slate-beds, fantastically bent +and broken by primeval earthquakes. Wooded combes, and craggy +ridges of rich pasture-land, wander and slope towards a labyrinth of +bush-fringed coves, black isolated tide-rocks, and land-locked harbours. +There shines among the woods the Castle of Watermouth, on its lovely +little salt-water loch, the safest harbour on the coast; and there is +Combe-Martin, mile-long man-stye, which seven centuries of fruitless +silver-mining, and of the right (now deservedly lost) of ‘sending +a talker to the national palaver,’ have neither cleansed nor civilized. +Turn, turn thy head away, dear Claude, lest even at this distance some +foul odour taint the summer airs, and complete the misfortune already +presaged by that pale, sad face, sickening in the burning calm! +For this great sun-roasted fire-brick of the Exmoor range is fairly +burning up the breeze, and we have nothing but the tide to drift us +slowly down to Ilfracombe.</p> +<p>Now we open Rillage, and now Hillsborough, two of the most picturesque +of headlands; see how their round foreheads of glistening grey shale +sink down into two dark, jagged moles, running far out to seaward, and +tapering off, each into a long black horizontal line, vanishing at last +beneath its lace-fringe of restless hissing foam. How grand the +contrast of the lightness of those sea-lines, with the solid mass which +rests upon them! Look, too, at the glaring lights and Tartarean +shadows of those chasms and caves, which the tide never leaves, or the +foot of man explores; and listen how, at every rush of the long ground-swell, +mysterious mutterings, solemn sighs, sudden thunders, as of a pent-up +earthquake, boom out of them across the glassy swell. Look at +those blasts of delicate vapour that shoot up from hidden rifts, and +hang a moment, and vanish; and those green columns of wave which rush +mast-high up the perpendicular walls, and then fall back and outward +in a waterfall of foam, lacing the black rocks with a thousand snowy +streams. There they fall, and leap, and fall again. And +so they did yesterday, and the day before; and so they did centuries +ago, when the Danes swept past them, battleworn, and sad of heart for +the loss of the magic raven flag, from the fight at Appledore, to sit +down and starve on ‘the island of Bradanrelice, which men call +Flat Holms.’ Ay, and even so they leapt and fell, before +a sail gleamed on the Severn sea, when the shark and the ichthyosaur +paddled beneath the shade of tropic forests - now scanty turf and golden +gorse. And so they will leap and fall on, on, through the centuries +and the ages. O dim abyss of Time, into which we peer shuddering, +what will be the end of thee, and of this ceaseless coil and moan of +waters? It is true, that when thou shalt be no more, then, too, +‘there shall be no more sea;’ and this ocean bed, this great +grave of fertility, into which all earth’s wasted riches stream, +day and night, from hill and town, shall rise and become fruitful soil, +corn-field and meadow-land; and earth shall teem as thick with living +men as bean-fields with the summer bees? What a consummation! +At least there is One greater than sea, or time: and the Judge of all +the earth will do right.</p> +<p>But there is Ilfracombe, with its rock-walled harbour, its little +wood of masts within, its white terraces, rambling up the hills, and +its capstone sea-walk, the finest ‘marine parade,’ as Cockneydom +terms it, in all England, except that splendid Hoe at Plymouth, ‘Lam +Goemagot,’ Gog-magog’s leap, as the old Britains called +it, over which Corineus threw that mighty giant. And there is +the little isolated rock-chapel, where seven hundred years ago, our +west-country forefathers used to go to pray St. Nicholas for deliverance +from shipwreck, - a method lovingly regretted by some, as a ‘pious +idea of the Ages of faith.’ We, however, shall prefer the +method of lighthouses and the worthy Trinity Board, as actually more +godly and ‘faithful,’ as well as more useful; and, probably, +so do the sailors themselves.</p> +<p>But Claude is by this time nearly sick of the roasting calm, and +the rolling ground-swell, and the smell of fish, and is somewhat sleepy +also, between early rising and incoherent sermons; wherefore, if he +takes good advice, he will stay and recruit himself at Ilfracombe, before +he proceeds further with his self-elected cicerone on the grand tour +of North Devon. Believe me, Claude, you will not stir from the +place for a month at least. For be sure, if you are sea-sick, +or heart-sick, or pocket-sick either, there is no pleasanter or cheaper +place of cure (to indulge in a puff of a species now well nigh obsolete, +the puff honest and true) than this same Ilfracombe, with its quiet +nature and its quiet luxury, its rock fairyland and its sea-walks, its +downs and combes, its kind people, and, if possible, its still kinder +climate, which combines the soft warmth of South Devon with the bracing +freshness of the Welsh mountains; where winter has slipped out of the +list of the seasons, and mother Earth makes up for her summer’s +luxury by fasting, ‘not in sackcloth and ashes, but in new silk +and old sack;’ and instead of standing three months chin-deep +in ice, and christening great snowballs her ‘friends and family,’ +as St. Francis of Assisi did of old, knows no severer asceticism than +tepid shower-baths, and a parasol of soft grey mist.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h3>III. - MORTE.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I had been wandering over the centre of Exmoor, killing trout as +I went, through a country which owes its civilization and tillage to +the spirit of one man, who has found stag-preserving by no means incompatible +with large agricultural improvements; among a population who still evince +an unpleasant partiality for cutting and carrying farmers’ crops +by night, without leave or licence, and for housebreaking after the +true classic method of Athens, by fairly digging holes through the house +walls; a little nook of primeval savagery fast reorganizing itself under +the influences of these better days. I had been on Dartmoor, too; +but of that noble moorland range so much has been said and sung of late, +that I really am afraid it is becoming somewhat cockney and trite. +Far and wide I had wandered, rod in hand, becoming a boy again in the +land of my boyhood, till, once more at Ilfracombe, opposite me sat Claude +Mellot, just beginning to bloom again into cheerfulness.</p> +<p>We were on the point of starting for Morte, and so round to Saunton +Court, and the sands beyond it; where a Clovelly trawler, which we had +chartered for the occasion, had promised to send a boat on shore and +take us off, provided the wind lay off the land.</p> +<p>But, indeed, the sea was calm as glass, the sky cloudless azure; +and the doubt was not whether we should be able to get on board through +the surf, but whether, having got on board, we should not lie till nightfall, +as idle</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘As a painted ship,<br />Upon a painted ocean.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And now behold us on our way up lovely combes, with their green copses, +ridges of rock, golden furze, fruit-laden orchards, and slopes of emerald +pasture, pitched as steep as house-roofs, where the red longhorns are +feeding, with their tails a yard above their heads; and under us, seen +in bird’s-eye view, the ground-plans of the little snug farms +and homesteads of the Damnonii, ‘dwellers in the valley,’ +as we West-countrymen were called of old. Now we are leaving them +far below us; the blue hazy sea is showing far above the serrated ridge +of the Tors, and their huge bank of sunny green: and before us is a +desolate table-land of rushy pastures and mouldering banks, festooned +with the delicate network of the little ivy-leaved campanula, loveliest +of British wild-flowers, fit with its hair-like stems and tiny bells +of blue to wreathe the temples of Titania. Alas! we have passed +out of the world into limbum patrum, and the region of ineffectuality +and incompleteness. The only cultivators here, and through thousands +of acres in the North of Devon, are the rook and mole: and yet the land +is rich enough - the fat deep crumbling of the shale and ironstone returning +year by year into the mud, from whence it hardened ages since. +There are scores of farms of far worse land in mid-England, under ‘a +four-course shift,’ yielding their load of wheat an acre. +When will that land do as much? When will the spirit of Smith +of Deanston and Grey of Dilston descend on North Devon? When will +some true captain of industry, and Theseus of the nineteenth century, +like the late Mr. Warnes of Trimmingham, teach the people here to annihilate +poor-rates by growing flax upon some of the finest flax land, and in +the finest flax climate, that we have in England? The shrewd Cornishmen +of Launceston and Bodmin have awakened long ago to ‘the new gospel +of fertility.’ When will North Devon awake?</p> +<p>‘When landlords and farmers,’ said Claude, ‘at +last acknowledge their divine vocation, and feel it a noble and heaven-ordained +duty to produce food for the people of England; when they learn that +to grow rushes where they might grow corn, ay, to grow four quarters +of wheat where they might grow five, is to sin against God’s blessings +and against the English nation. No wonder that sluggards like +these cry out for protection - that those who cannot take care of the +land feel that they themselves need artificial care.’</p> +<p>‘We will not talk politics, Claude. Our modern expediency +mongers have made them <i>pro</i> <i>tempore</i> an extinct science. +“Let the dead bury their dead.” The social questions +are now-a-days becoming far more important than the mere House of Commons +ones.’</p> +<p>‘There does seem here and there,’ he said, ‘some +sign of improvement. I see the paring plough at work on one field +and another.’</p> +<p>‘Swiftly goes the age, and slowly crawls improvement. +The greater part of that land will be only broken up to be exhausted +by corn-crop after corn-crop, till it can bear no more, and the very +manure which is drawn home from it in the shape of a few turnips will +be wasted by every rain of heaven, and the straw probably used to mend +bad places in the road with; while the land returns to twenty years +of worse sterility than ever; on the ground that -</p> +<p>‘“Veather did zo, and gramfer did zo, and why shouldn’t +Jan do the zame?”’ * * * *</p> +<p>‘But here is Morte below us. “The little grey church +on the windy shore,” which once belonged to William de Tracy, +one of your friend Thomas à Becket’s murderers. If +you wish to vent your wrath against those who cut off your favourite +Saxon hero, there is a tomb in the church which bears De Tracy’s +name; over which rival Dryasdusts contend fiercely with paper-arrows: +the one party asserting that he became a priest, and died here in the +wilderness; the others that the tomb is of later date, that he fled +hence to Italy, under favour of a certain easy-going Bishop of Exeter, +and died penitent and duly shriven, according to the attestations of +a certain or uncertain Bishop of Cosenza.’</p> +<p>‘Peace be with him and with the Bishop! The flight to +Italy seems a very needless precaution to a man who owned this corner +of the world. A bailiff would have had even less chance here then +than in Connemara a hundred years ago.’</p> +<p>‘He certainly would have fed the crabs and rock-cod in two +hours after his arrival. Nevertheless, I believe the Cosenza story +is the safer one.’</p> +<p>‘What a chaos of rock-ridges! - Old starved mother Earth’s +bare-worn ribs and joints peeping out through every field and down; +and on three sides of us, the sullen thunder of the unseen surge. +What a place for some “gloom-pampered man” to sit and misanthropize!’</p> +<p>‘“Morte,” says the Devonshire proverb, “is +the place on earth which heaven made last, and the devil will take first.”’</p> +<p>‘All the fitter for a misanthrope. But where are the +trees? I have not seen one for the last four miles.’</p> +<p>‘Nor will you for a few miles more. Whatever will grow +here (and most things will) they will not, except, at least, hereafter +the sea-pine of the Biscay shore. You would know why, if you had +ever felt a south-westerly gale here, when the foam-flakes are flying +miles inland, and you are fain to cling breathless to bank and bush, +if you want to get one look at those black fields of shark’s-tooth +tide-rocks, champing and churning the great green rollers into snow. +Wild folk are these here, gatherers of shell-fish and laver, and merciless +to wrecked vessels, which they consider as their own by immemorial usage, +or rather right divine. Significant, how an agricultural people +is generally as cruel to wrecked seamen, as a fishing one is merciful. +I could tell you twenty stories of the baysmen down there to the westward +risking themselves like very heroes to save strangers’ lives, +and beating off the labouring folk who swarmed down for plunder from +the inland hills.’</p> +<p>‘Knowledge, you see, breeds sympathy and love. But what +a merciless coast!’</p> +<p>‘Hardly a winter passes without a wreck or two. You see +there lying about the timbers of more than one tall ship. You +see, too, that black rock a-wash far out at sea, apparently a submarine +outlier of the north horn of this wide rock-amphitheatre below us. +That is the Morte stone, the “Death-rock,” as the Normans +christened it of old; and it does not belie its name even now. +See how, even in this calm, it hurls up its column of spray at every +wave; and then conceive being entrapped between it and the cliffs, on +some blinding, whirling winter’s night, when the land is shrouded +thick in clouds, and the roar of the breakers hardly precedes by a minute +the crash of your bows against the rocks.’</p> +<p>‘I never think, on principle, of things so painful, and yet +so irrelievable. Yet why does not your much-admired Trinity House +erect a light there?<i>’</i></p> +<p>‘So ask the sailors; for it is indeed one of the gateway-jambs +of the Channel, and the deep water and the line of coast tempt all craft +to pass as close to it as possible.’</p> +<p>‘Look at that sheet of yellow sand below us now, banked to +the inland with sand-hills and sunny downs, and ending abruptly at the +foot of that sombre wall of slate-hill, which runs out like a huge pier +into the sea some two miles off.’</p> +<p>‘That is Woollacombe: but here on our right is a sight worth +seeing. Every gully and creek there among the rocks is yellow, +but not with sand. Those are shells; the sweepings of the ocean +bed for miles around, piled there, millions upon millions, yards deep, +in every stage of destruction. There they lie grinding to dust; +and every gale brings in fresh myriads from the inexhaustible sea-world, +as if Death could be never tired of devouring, or God of making. +The brain grows dizzy and tired, as one’s feet crunch over the +endless variety of their forms.’</p> +<p>‘And then one recollects that every one of them has been a +living thing - a whole history of birth, and growth, and propagation, +and death. Waste it cannot be, or cruelty on the part of the Maker: +but why this infinite development of life, apparently only to furnish +out of it now and then a cartload of shell-sand to these lazy farmers? +But after all, there is not so much life in all those shells put together +as in one little child: and it may die the hour that it is born! +What we call life is but an appearance and a becoming; the true life +of existence belongs only to spirits. And whether or not we, or +the sea-shell there, are at any given moment helping to make up part +of some pretty little pattern in this great kaleidoscope called the +material universe, yet, in the spirit all live to Him, and shall do +so for ever.’</p> +<p>And thereon he rambled off into a long lecture on ‘species-spirits,’ +and ‘individual-spirits,’ and ‘personal spirits,’ +doubtless most important. But I, what between the sun, the luncheon, +and the metaphysic, sank into soft slumbers, from which I was only awakened +by the carriage stopping, according to our order, on the top of Saunton +hill.</p> +<p>We left the fly, and wandered down towards the old gabled court, +nestling amid huge walnuts in its southward glen; while before us spread +a panorama, half sea, half land, than which, perhaps, our England owns +few lovelier.</p> +<p>At our feet was a sea of sand - for the half-mile to the right smooth +as a floor, bounded by a broad band of curling waves, which crept slowly +shorewards with the advancing tide. Right underneath us the sand +was drifted for miles into fantastic hills, which quivered in the heat, +the glaring yellow of its lights chequered by delicate pink shadows +and sheets of grey-green bent. To the left were rich alluvial +marshes, covered with red cattle sleeping in the sun, and laced with +creeks and flowery dykes; and here and there a scarlet line, which gladdened +Claude’s eye as being a ‘bit of positive colour in the foreground,’ +and mine, because they were draining tiles. Beyond again, two +broad tide-rivers, spotted with white and red-brown sails, gleamed like +avenues of silver, past knots of gay dwellings, and tall lighthouses, +and church-towers, and wandered each on its own road, till they vanished +among the wooded hills. On the eastern horizon the dark range +of Exmoor sank gradually into lower and more broken ridges, which rolled +away, woodland beyond woodland, till all outlines were lost in purple +haze; while, far beyond, the granite peaks of Dartmoor hung like a delicate +blue cloud, and enticed the eye away into infinity. From hence, +as our eyes swept round the horizon, the broken hills above the river’s +mouth gradually rose into the table-land of the ‘barren coal-measures’ +some ten miles off, - a long straight wall of cliffs which hounded the +broad bay, buried in deepest shadow, except where the opening of some +glen revealed far depths of sunlit wood. A faint perpendicular +line of white houses, midway along the range, marked our destination; +and far to the westward, the land ended sheer and suddenly at the cliffs +of Hartland, the ‘Promontory of Hercules,’ as the old Romans +called it, to reappear some ten miles out in the Atlantic, in the blue +flat-topped island of Lundy, so exactly similar in height and form to +the opposite cape, that it required no scientific imagination to supply +the vast gap which the primeval currents had sawn out. There it +all lay beneath us like a map; its thousand hues toned down harmoniously +into each other by the summer haze, and ‘the eye was not filled +with seeing,’ nor the spirit with the intoxicating sight of infinitely +various life and form in perfectest repose.</p> +<p>I was the first to break the silence.</p> +<p>‘Claude, well-beloved, will you not sketch a little?’</p> +<p>No answer.</p> +<p>‘Not even rhapsodize? call it “lovely, exquisite, grand, +majestic”? There are plenty of such words in worldlings’ +mouths - not a Cockney but would burst out with some enthusiastic commonplace +at such a sight - surely one or other of them must be appropriate.’</p> +<p>‘Silence, profane! and take me away from this. Let us +go down, and hide our stupidities among those sand-hills, and so forget +the whole. What use standing here to be maddened by this tantalizing +earth-spirit, who shows us such glorious things, and will not tell us +what they mean?’</p> +<p>So down we went upon the burrows, among the sands, which hid from +us every object but their own chaotic curves and mounds. Above, +a hundred skylarks made the air ring with carollings; strange and gaudy +plants flecked the waste round us; and insects without number whirred +over our heads, or hung poised with their wings outspread on the tall +stalks of marram grass. All at once a cloud hid the sun, and a +summer whirlwind, presage of the thunderstorm, swept past us, carrying +up with it a column of dry sand, and rattling the dry bents over our +heads.</p> +<p>‘What a chill, doleful sigh comes from those reeds!’ +said Claude. ‘I can conceive this desert, beneath a driving +winter’s sky instead of this burning azure, one of the most desolate +places on the earth.’</p> +<p>‘Ay, desolate enough,’ I said, as we walked down beyond +the tide-mark, over the vast fields of ribbed and splashy sands, ‘when +the dead shells are rolling and crawling up the beach in wreaths before +the gale, with a ghastly rattle as of the dry bones in the “Valley +of Vision,” and when not a flower shows on that sandcliff, which +is now one broad bed of yellow, scarlet, and azure.’</p> +<p>‘That is the first spot in England,’ said Claude, ‘except, +of course, “the meads of golden king-cups,” where I have +seen wild flowers give a tone to the colouring of the whole landscape, +as they are said to do in the prairies of Texas. And look how +flowers and cliff are both glowing in a warm green haze, like that of +Cuyp’s wonderful sandcliff picture in the Dulwich Gallery, - wonderful, +as I think, and true, let some critics revile it as much as they will.’</p> +<p>‘Strange, that you should have quoted that picture here; its +curious resemblance to this very place first awoke in me, years ago, +a living interest in landscape-painting. But look there; even +in these grand summer days there is a sight before us sad enough. +There are the ribs of some ill-fated ship, a man-of-war too, as the +story goes, standing like black fangs, half-buried in the sand. +And off what are those two ravens rising, stirring up with their obscene +wings a sickly, putrescent odour? A corpse?’</p> +<p>No, it was not a corpse; but the token of many corpses. A fragment +of some ship; its gay green paint and half-effaced gilding contrasting +mockingly with the long ugly feathered barnacle-shells, which clustered +on it, rotting into slime beneath the sun, and torn and scattered by +the greedy beaks of the ravens.</p> +<p>In what tropic tornado, or on what coral-key of the Bahamas, months +ago, to judge by those barnacles, had that tall ship gone down? +How long had that scrap of wreck gone wandering down the Gulf Stream, +from Newfoundland into the Mid-Atlantic, and hitherward on its homeless +voyage toward the Spitzbergen shore? And who were all those living +men who “went down to Hades, even many stalwart souls of heroes,” +to give no sign until the sea shall render up her dead? And every +one of them had a father and mother - a wife, perhaps, and children, +waiting for him - at least a whole human life, childhood, boyhood, manhood, +in him. All those years of toil and education, to get him so far +on his life-voyage; and here is the end thereof!’</p> +<p>‘Say rather, the beginning thereof,’ Claude answered, +stepping into the boat. ‘This wreck is but a torn scrap +of the chrysalis-cocoon; we may meet the butterflies themselves hereafter.’</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>And now we are on board; and alas! some time before the breeze will +be so. Take care of that huge boom, landsman Claude, swaying and +sweeping backwards and forwards across the deck, unless you wish to +be knocked overboard. Take care, too, of that loose rope’s +end, unless you wish to have your eyes cut out. Take my advice, +lie down here across the deck, as others are doing. Cover yourself +with great-coats, like an Irishman, to keep yourself cool, and let us +meditate little on this strange thing, and strange place, which holds +us now.</p> +<p>Look at those spars, how they creak and groan with every heave of +the long glassy swell. How those sails flap, and thunder, and +rage, with useless outcries and struggles - only because they are idle. +Let the wind take them, and they will be steady, silent in an instant +- their deafening dissonant grumbling exchanged for the soft victorious +song of the breeze through the rigging, musical, self-contented, as +of bird on bough. So it is through life; there is no true rest +but labour. “No true misery,” as Carlyle says, “but +in that of not being able to work.” Some may call it a pretty +conceit. I call it a great worldwide law, which reaches from earth +to heaven. Whatever the Preacher may have thought it in a moment +of despondency, what is it but a blessing that “sun, and wind, +and rivers, and ocean,” as he says, and “all things, are +full of labour - man cannot utter it.” This sea which bears +us would rot and poison, did it not sweep in and out here twice a day +in swift refreshing current; nay, more, in the very water which laps +against our bows troops of negro girls may have hunted the purblind +shark in West Indian harbours, beneath glaring white-walled towns, with +their rows of green jalousies, and cocoa-nuts, and shaddock groves. +For on those white sands there to the left, year by year, are washed +up foreign canes, cassia beans, and tropic seeds; and sometimes, too, +the tropic ocean snails, with their fragile shells of amethystine blue, +come floating in mysteriously in fleets from the far west out of the +passing Gulf Stream, where they have been sailing out their little life, +never touching shore or ground, but buoyed each by his cluster of air-bubbles, +pumped in at will under the skin of his tiny foot, by some cunning machinery +of valves - small creatures truly, but very wonderful to men who have +learned to reverence not merely the size of things, but the wisdom of +their idea, and raising strange longings and dreams about that submarine +ocean-world which stretches, teeming with richer life than this terrestrial +one, away, away there westward, down the path of the sun, toward the +future centre of the world’s destiny.</p> +<p>Wonderful ocean-world! three-fifths of our planet! Can it be +true that no rational beings are denizens there? Science is severely +silent - having as yet seen no mermaids: our captain there forward is +not silent - if he has not seen them, plenty of his friends have. +The young man here has been just telling me that it was only last month +one followed a West Indiaman right across the Atlantic. “For,” +says he, “there must be mermaids, and such like. Do you +think Heaven would have made all that water there only for the herrings +and mackerel?”</p> +<p>I do not know, Tom: but I, too, suspect not; and I do know that honest +men’s guesses are sometimes found by science to have been prophecies, +and that there is no smoke without fire, and few universal legends without +their nucleus of fact. After all, those sea-ladies are too lovely +a dream to part with in a hurry, at the mere despotic fiat of stern +old Dame Analysis, divine and reverend as she is. Why, like Keats’s +Lamia,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p> ‘Must all charms flee,<br />At the mere touch +of cold Philosophy,’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>who will not even condescend to be awe-struck at the new wonders +which she herself reveals daily? Perhaps, too, according to the +Duke of Wellington’s great dictum, that each man must be the best +judge in his own profession, sailors may know best whether mermaids +exist or not. Besides, was it not here on Croyde Sands abreast +of us, this very last summer, that a maiden - by which beautiful old +word West-country people still call young girls - was followed up the +shore by a mermaid who issued from the breakers, green-haired, golden-combed, +and all; and, fleeing home, took to her bed and died, poor thing, of +sheer terror in the course of a few days, persisting in her account +of the monster? True, the mermaid may have been an overgrown Lundy +Island seal, carried out of his usual haunts by spring-tides and a school +of fish. Be it so. Lundy and its seals are wonderful enough +in all reason to thinking men, as it looms up there out of the Atlantic, +with its two great square headlands, not twenty miles from us, in the +white summer haze. We will go there some day, and pick up a wild +tale or two about it.</p> +<p>But, lo! a black line creeps up the western horizon. Tom, gesticulating, +swears that he sees ‘a billow break.’ True: there +they come; the great white horses, that ‘champ and chafe, and +toss in the spray.’ That long-becalmed trawler to seaward +fills, and heels over, and begins to tug and leap impatiently at the +weight of her heavy trawl. Five minutes more, and the breeze will +be down upon us. The young men whistle openly to woo it; the old +father thinks such a superstition somewhat beneath both his years and +his religion, but cannot help pursing up his lips into a sly ‘whe-eugh’ +when he has got well forward out of sight.</p> +<p>* * * *</p> +<p>Five long minutes; there is a breath of air; a soft distant murmur; +the white horses curve their necks, and dive and vanish; and rise again +like snowy porpoises, nearer, and nearer, and nearer. Father and +sons are struggling with that raving, riotous, drunken squaresail forward; +while we haul away upon the main-sheet.</p> +<p>When will it come? It is dying back - sliding past us. +‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.’ No, louder +and nearer swells ‘the voice of many waters,’ ‘the +countless laugh of ocean,’ like the mirth of ten thousand girls, +before us, behind us, round us; and the oily swell darkens into crisp +velvet-green, till the air strikes us, and heels us over; and leaping, +plunging, thrashing our bows into the seas, we spring away close-hauled +upon the ever-freshening breeze, while Claude is holding on by ropes +and bulwarks, and some, whose sea-legs have not yet forgot their craft, +are swinging like a pendulum as they pace the deck, enjoying, as the +Norse vikings would have called it, ‘the gallop of the flying +sea-horse, and the shiver of her tawny wings.’</p> +<p>Exquisite motion! more maddening than the smooth floating stride +of the race-horse, or the crash of the thorn-hedges before the stalwart +hunter, or the swaying of the fir-boughs in the gale, when we used to +climb as schoolboys after the lofty hawk’s nest; but not so maddening +as the new motion of our age - the rush of the express-train, when the +live iron pants and leaps and roars through the long chalk cutting; +and white mounds gleam cold a moment against the sky and vanish; and +rocks, and grass, and bushes, fleet by in dim blended lines; and the +long hedges revolve like the spokes of a gigantic wheel; and far below, +meadows, and streams, and homesteads, with all their lazy old-world +life, open for an instant, and then flee away; while awe-struck, silent, +choked with the mingled sense of pride and helplessness, we are swept +on by that great pulse of England’s life-blood, rushing down her +iron veins; and dimly out of the future looms the fulfilment of our +primæval mission, to conquer and subdue the earth, and space too, +and time, and all things, - even, hardest of all tasks, yourselves, +my cunning brothers ever learning some fresh lesson, except that hardest +one of all, that it is the Spirit of God which giveth you understanding.</p> +<p>Yes, great railroads, and great railroad age, who would exchange +you, with all your sins, for any other time? For swiftly as rushes +matter, more swiftly rushes mind; more swiftly still rushes the heavenly +dawn up the eastern sky. ‘The night is far spent, the day +is at hand.’ ‘Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, +when He cometh, shall find watching!’</p> +<p>But come, my poor Claude, I see you are too sick for such deep subjects; +so let us while away the time by picking the brains of this tall handsome +boy at the helm, who is humming a love-song to himself sotto voce, lest +it should be overheard by the grey-headed father, who is forward, poring +over his Wesleyan hymn-book. He will have something to tell you; +he has a soul in him looking out of those wild dark eyes, and delicate +aquiline features of his. He is no spade-drudge or bullet-headed +Saxon clod: he has in his veins the blood of Danish rovers and passionate +southern Milesians, who came hither from Teffrobani, the Isle of Summer, +as the old Fenic myths inform us. Come and chat with him. +You dare not stir? Perhaps you are in the right. I shall +go and fraternize, and bring you reports.</p> +<p>* * * *</p> +<p>He has been, at all events, ‘up the Straits’ as the Mediterranean +voyage is called here, and seen ‘Palermy’ and the Sicilians. +But, for his imagination, what seems to have struck it most was that +it was a ‘fine place for Jack, for a man could get mools there +for a matter of three-halfpence a-day.’</p> +<p>‘And was that all you got out of him?’ asked Claude, +sickly and sulkily.</p> +<p>‘Oh, you must not forget the halo of glory and excitement which +in a sailor’s eyes surrounds the delights of horseback. +But he gave me besides a long glowing account of the catechism which +they had there, three-quarters of a mile long.’</p> +<p>‘Pope Pius’s catechism, I suppose?’</p> +<p>So thought I, at first; but it appeared that all the dead of the +city were arranged therein, dried and dressed out in their finest clothes, +‘every sect and age,’ as Tom said, ‘by itself; as +natural as life!’ We may hence opine that he means some +catacombs or other.</p> +<p>Poor Claude could not even get up a smile: but his sorrows were coming +swiftly to an end. The rock clefts grew sharper and sharper before +us. The soft masses of the lofty bank of wooded cliff rose higher +and higher. The white houses of Clovelly, piled stair above stair +up the rocks, gleamed more and more brightly out of the green round +bosoms of the forest. As we shut in headland after headland, one +tall conical rock after another darkened with its black pyramid the +bright orb of the setting sun. Soon we began to hear the soft +murmur of the snowy surf line; then the merry voices of the children +along the shore; and running straight for the cliff-foot, we shipped +into the little pier, from whence the red-sailed herring-boats were +swarming forth like bees out of a hive, full of gay handsome faces, +and all the busy blue-jacketed life of seaport towns, to their night’s +fishing in the bay.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h3>IV. - CLOVELLY.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>A couple of days had passed, and I was crawling up the paved stairs +inaccessible to cart or carriage, which are flatteringly denominated +‘Clovelly-street,’ a landing-net full of shells in one hand, +and a couple of mackerel lines in the other; behind me a sheer descent, +roof below roof; at an angle of 45°, to the pier and bay, 200 feet +below, and in front, another hundred feet above, a green amphitheatre +of oak, and ash, and larch, shutting out all but a narrow slip of sky, +across which the low, soft, formless mist was crawling, opening every +instant to show some gap of intense dark rainy blue, and send down a +hot vaporous gleam of sunshine upon the white cottages, with their grey +steaming roofs, and bright green railings, packed one above another +upon the ledges of the cliff; and on the tall tree-fuchsias and gaudy +dahlias in the little scraps of court-yard, calling the rich faint odour +out of the verbenas and jessamines, and, alas! out of the herring-heads +and tails also, as they lay in the rivulet; and lighting up the wings +of the gorgeous butterflies, almost unknown in our colder eastern climate, +which fluttered from woodland down to garden, and from garden up to +woodland, and seemed to form the connecting link between that swarming +hive of human industry and the deep wild woods in which it was embosomed. +So up I was crawling, to dine off gurnards of my own catching, - excellent +fish, despised by deluded Cockneys, who fancy that because its head +is large and prickly, therefore its flesh is not as firm, and sweet, +and white, as that of any cod who ever gobbled shell-fish, - when down +the stair front of me, greasy as ice from the daily shower, came slipping +and staggering, my friend Claude, armed with camp-stool and portfolio.</p> +<p>‘Where have you been wandering to-day?’ I asked. +‘Have you yet been as far as the park, which, as I told you, would +supply such endless subjects for your pencil?’</p> +<p>‘Not I. I have been roaming up and down this same “New +Road” above us; and find there materials for a good week’s +more work, if I could afford it. Indeed, it was only to-day, for +the first time, that I got as far as the lodge at the end of it, and +then was glad enough to turn back shuddering at the first glimpse of +the flat, dreary moorland beyond, - as Adam may have turned back into +Eden after a peep out of the gates of Paradise.’</p> +<p>He should have taken courage and gone a half-mile further, - to the +furze-grown ruins of a great Roman camp, which gives its name to the +place, ‘Clovelly,’ - Vallum Clausum, or Vallis Clausa, as +antiquarians derive it; perhaps, ‘the hidden camp,’ or glen, +- perhaps something else. Who cares? The old Romans were +there, at least 10,000 strong: and some sentimental tribune or other +of them had taste enough to perch his summer-house out on a conical +point of the Hartland Cliffs, now tumbling into the sea, tesselated +pavement, baths and all. And strange work, no doubt, went on in +that lonely nook, looking out over the Atlantic swell, - nights and +days fit for Petronius’s own pen, among a seraglio of dark Celtic +beauties. Perhaps it could not be otherwise. An ugly state +of things - as heathen conquests always must have been; yet even in +it there was a use and meaning. But they are past like a dream, +those 10,000 stalwart men, who looked far and wide over the Damnonian +moors from a station which would be, even in these days, a first-rate +military position. Gone, too, are the old Saxon Franklins who +succeeded. Old Wrengils, or some such name, whoever he was, at +last found some one’s bill too hard for his brain-pan; and there +he lies on the hill above, in his ‘barrow’ of Wrinklebury. +And gone, too, the gay Norman squire, who, as tradition says, kept his +fair lady in the old watch-tower, on the highest point of the White +Cliff - ‘Gallantry Bower,’ as they call it to this day - +now a mere ring of turf-covered stones, and a few low stunted oaks, +shorn by the Atlantic blasts into the shape of two huge cannon, which +form a favourite landmark for the fisherman of the bay. Gone they +all are, Cymry and Roman, Saxon and Norman; and upon the ruins of their +accumulated labour we stand here. Each of them had his use, - +planted a few more trees or cleared a few more, tilled a fresh scrap +of down, organized a scrap more of chaos. Who dare wish the tide +of improvement, which has been flowing for nineteen centuries, swifter +and swifter still as it goes on, to stop, just because it is not convenient +to us just now to move on? It will not take another nineteen hundred +years, be sure, to make even this lovely nook as superior to what it +is now as it is now to the little knot of fishing huts where naked Britons +peeped out, trembling at the iron tramp of each insolent legionary from +the camp above. It will not take another nineteen hundred years +to develope the capabilities of this place, - to make it the finest +fishery in England, next to Torbay, - the only safe harbour of refuge +for West Indiamen, along sixty miles of ruthless coast, - and a commercial +centre for a vast tract of half-tilled land within, which only requires +means of conveyance to be as fertile and valuable as nine-tenths of +England. Meanwhile Claude ought to have seen the deer-park. +The panorama from that old ruined ‘bower’ of cliff and woodland, +down and sea, is really unique in its way.</p> +<p>‘So is the whole place, in my eyes,’ said Claude. +‘I have seen nothing in England to be compared to this little +strip of paradise between two great waste worlds of sea and moor. +Lynmouth might be matched among the mountains of Wales and Ireland. +The first three miles of the Rheidol, from the Devil’s Bridge +towards Aberystwith, or the gorge of the Wye, down the opposite watershed +of the same mountains, from Castle Dufferin down to Rhaiadyr, are equal +to it in magnificence of form and colour, and superior in size. +But I question whether anything ever charmed me more than did the return +to the sounds of nature which greeted me to-day, as I turned back from +the dreary, silent moorland turnpike into this new road, terraced along +the cliffs and woods - those who first thought of cutting it must have +had souls in them above the herd - and listened to a glorious concert +in four parts, blending and supporting each other in exquisite harmony, +from the shrill treble of a thousand birds, and the soft melancholy +alto of the moaning woods, downward through the rich tenor hum of innumerable +insects, who hung like sparks of fire beneath the glades of oak, to +the bass of the unseen surge below,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Whose deep and dreadful organ-pipe,”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>far below me, contrasted strangely with the rich soft inland character +of the deep woods, luxuriant ferns, and gaudy flowers. It is that +very contrast which makes the place so unique. One is accustomed +to connect with the notion of the sea bare cliffs, breezy downs, stunted +shrubs struggling for existence: and instead of them behold a forest +wall, 500 feet high, of almost semi-tropic luxuriance. At one +turn, a deep glen, with its sea of green woods, filled up at the mouth +with the bright azure sheet of ocean. - Then some long stretch of the +road would be banked on one side with crumbling rocks, festooned with +heath, and golden hawkweed, and London pride, like velvet cushions covered +with pink lace, and beds of white bramble blossom alive with butterflies; +while above my head, and on my right, the cool canopy of oak and birch +leaves shrouded me so close, that I could have fancied myself miles +inland, buried in some glen unknown to any wind of heaven, but that +everywhere between green sprays and grey stems, gleamed that same boundless +ocean blue, seeming, from the height at which I was, to mount into the +very sky. It looked but a step out of the leafy covert into blank +infinity. And then, as the road wound round some point, one’s +eye could fall down, down, through the abyss of perpendicular wood, +tree below tree clinging to and clothing the cliff, or rather no cliff; +but perpendicular sheet of deep wood sedge, and broad crown ferns, spreading +their circular fans. - But there is no describing them, or painting +them either. - And then to see how the midday sunbeams leapt past one +down the abyss, throwing out here a grey stem by one point of burnished +silver, there a hazel branch by a single leaf of glowing golden green, +shooting long bright arrows down, through the dim, hot, hazy atmosphere +of the wood, till it rested at last upon the dappled beach of pink and +grey pebbles, and the dappled surge which wandered up and down among +them, and broke up into richer intricacy with its chequer-work of woodland +shadows, the restless net of snowy foam.’</p> +<p>‘You must be fresh from reading Mr. Ruskin’s book, Claude, +to be able to give birth to such a piece of complex magniloquence as +that last period of yours.’</p> +<p>‘Why, I saw all that, and ten thousand things more; and yet +do you complain of me for having tried to put one out of all those thousand +things into words? And what do you mean by sneering at Mr. Ruskin? +Are there not in his books more and finer passages of descriptive poetry +- word-painting - call them what you will, than in any other prose book +in the English language?’</p> +<p>‘Not a doubt of it, my dear Claude; but it will not do for +every one to try Mr. Ruskin’s tools. Neither you nor I possess +that almost Roman severity, that stern precision of conception and expression, +which enables him to revel in the most gorgeous language, without ever +letting it pall upon the reader’s taste by affectation or over-lusciousness. +His style is like the very hills along which you have been travelling, +whose woods enrich, without enervating, the grand simplicity of their +forms.’</p> +<p>‘The comparison is just,’ said Claude. ‘Mr. +Ruskin’s style, like those very hills, and like, too, the Norman +cathedrals of which he is so fond, is rather magnified than concealed +by the innumerable multiplicity of its ornamental chasing and colouring.’</p> +<p>‘And is not that,’ I asked, ‘the very highest achievement +of artistic style?’</p> +<p>‘Doubtless. The severe and grand simplicity, of which +folks talk so much, is great indeed; but only the greatest as long as +men are still ignorant of Nature’s art of draping her forms with +colour, chiaroscuro, ornament, not at the expense of the original design, +but in order to perfect it by making it appeal to every faculty instead +of those of form and size alone.’</p> +<p>‘Still you will allow the beauty of a bare rock, a down, a +church spire, a sheet or line of horizontal water, - their necessity +to the completion of a landscape. I recollect well having the +value of a stern straight line in Nature brought home to me, when, during +a long ride in the New Forest, after my eye had become quite dulled +and wearied with the monotonous softness of rolling lawns, feathery +heath, and rounded oak and beech woods, I suddenly caught sight of the +sharp peaked roof of Rhinefield Lodge, and its row of tall stiff poplar-spires, +cutting the endless sea of curves. The relief to my eye was delicious. +I really believe it heightened the pleasure with which I reined in my +mare for a chat with old Toomer the keeper, and the noble bloodhound +who eyed me from between his master’s legs.’</p> +<p>‘I can well believe it. Simple lines in a landscape are +of the same value as the naked parts of a richly-clothed figure. +They act both as contrasts and as indications of the original substratum +of the figure; but to say that severe simplicity is the highest ideal +is mere pedantry and Manicheism.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, everything is Manicheism with you, Claude!’</p> +<p>‘And no wonder, while the world is as full of it now as it +was in the thirteenth century. But let that pass. This craving +after so-called classic art, whether it be Manicheism or not, is certainly +a fighting against God, - a contempt of everything which He has taught +us artists since the introduction of Christianity. I abominate +this setting up of Sculpture above Painting, of the Greeks above the +Italians, - as if all Eastern civilization, all Christian truth, had +taught art nothing, - as if there was not more real beauty in a French +cathedral or a Venetian palazzo than in a dozen Parthenons, and more +soul in one Rafaelle, or Titian either, than in all the Greek statues +of the Tribune or Vatican.’</p> +<p>‘You have changed your creed, I see, and, like all converts, +are somewhat fierce and fanatical. You used to believe in Zeuxis +and Parrhasius in old times.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, as long as I believed in Fuseli’s “Lectures;” +but when I saw at Pompeii the ancient paintings which still remain to +us, my faith in their powers received its first shock; and when I re-read +in the Lectures of Fuseli and his school all their extravagant praises +of the Greek painters, and separated their few facts fairly out from +among the floods of rant on which they floated, I came to the conclusion +that the ancients knew as little of colour or chiaroscuro as they did +of perspective, and as little of spiritual expression as they did of +landscape-painting. What do I care for the birds pecking at Zeuxis’s +grapes, or Zeuxis himself trying to draw back Parrhasius’s curtain? +Imitative art is the lowest trickery. There are twenty men in +England now capable of the same sleight of hand; and yet these are recorded +as the very highest triumphs of ancient art by the only men who have +handed down to us any record of it.’</p> +<p>‘It may be so; or again, it may not. But do not fancy, +Claude, that classic sculpture has finished its work on earth. +You know that it has taught you what Gothic art could never teach, - +the ideal of physical health and strength. Believe that it exists, +and will exist, to remind the puny town-dweller of the existence of +that ideal; to say to the artisan, every time he looks upon a statue +- such God intended you to be; such you may be; such your class will +be, in some future healthy state of civilization, when Sanitary Reform +and Social Science shall be accepted and carried out as primary duties +of a government toward the nation.</p> +<p>‘Surely, classic sculpture remains, as a witness of the primæval +paradise; a witness that man and woman were created at first healthy, +and strong, and fair, and innocent; just as classic literature remains +for a witness that the heathen of old were taught of God; that we have +something to learn of them, summed up in that now obsolete word “virtue” +- true and wholesome manhood, which we are likely to forget, and are +forgetting daily, under the enervating shadow of popular superstitions. +<a name="citation287"></a><a href="#footnote287">{287}</a> And +till we have learnt that, may Greek books still form the basis of our +liberal education, and may Greek statues, or even English attempts to +copy them, fill public halls and private houses. This generation +may not understand their divine and eternal significance; but a future +generation, doubt it not, will spell it out right well.’</p> +<p>Claude and I went forth along the cliffs of a park, which, though +not of the largest, is certainly of the loveliest in England, - perhaps +unique, from that abrupt contact of the richest inland scenery with +the open sea, which is its distinctive feature. As we wandered +along the edge of the cliff, beneath us on our left lay wooded valleys, +lawns spotted with deer, stately timber trees, oak and beech, birch +and alder, growing as full and round-headed as if they had been buried +in some Shropshire valley fifty miles inland, instead of having the +Atlantic breezes all the winter long sweeping past a few hundred feet +above their still seclusion. Glens of forest wound away into the +high inner land, with silver burns sparkling here and there under their +deep shadows; while from the lawns beneath, the ground sloped rapidly +upwards towards us, to stop short in a sheer wall of cliff, over which +the deer were leaning to crop the shoots of ivy, where the slipping +of a stone would have sent them 400 feet perpendicular into the sea. +On our right, from our very feet, the sea spread out to the horizon; +a single falcon was wheeling about the ledges below; a single cormorant +was fishing in the breakers, diving and rising again like some tiny +water-beetle;</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p> ‘The murmuring surge<br />That on the unnumbered +pebbles idly chafed<br />Could not be heard so high.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The only sound beside the rustle of the fern before the startled +deer was the soft mysterious treble of the wind as it swept over the +face of the cliff beneath us; but the cool air was confined to the hill-tops +round beneath, from within a short distance of the shore, the sea was +shrouded in soft summer haze. The far Atlantic lay like an ocean +of white wool, out of which the Hartland Cliffs and the highest point +of Lundy just showed their black peaks. Here and there the western +sun caught one white bank of mist after another, and tinged them with +glowing gold; while nearer us long silvery zigzag tide-lines, which +we could have fancied the tracks of water-fairies, wandered away under +the smoky grey-brown shadows of the fog, and seemed to vanish hundreds +of miles off into the void of space, so completely was all notion of +size or distance destroyed by the soft gradations of the mist. +Suddenly, as we stood watching, a breeze from the eastward dived into +the basin of the bay, swept the clouds out, packed them together, rolled +them over each other, and hurled them into the air miles high in one +Cordillera of snowy mountains, sailing slowly out into the Atlantic; +and behold, instead of the chaos of mist, the whole amphitheatre of +cliffs, with their gay green woods and spots of bright red marl and +cold black ironstone, and the gleaming white sands of Braunton, and +the hills of Exmoor bathed in sunshine, so near and clear we almost +fancied we could see the pink heather-hue upon them; and the bay one +vast rainbow, ten miles of flame-colour and purple, emerald and ultramarine, +flecked with a thousand spots of flying snow. No one knows what +gigantic effects of colour even our temperate zone can show, till they +have been in Devonshire and Cornwall; and last, but not least, in Ireland +- the Emerald Isle, in truth. No stay-at-home knows the colour +of the sea till he has seen the West of England; and no one, either +stay-at-home or traveller, I suspect, knows what the colour of a green +field can be till he has seen it among the magic smiles and tears of +an Irish summer shower in county Down.</p> +<p>Down we wandered from our height through ‘trim walks and alleys +green,’ where the arbutus and gumcistus fringed the cliffs, and +through the deep glades of the park, towards the delicious little cove +which bounds it. - A deep crack in the wooded hills, an old mill half +buried in rocks and flowers, a stream tinkling on from one rock-basin +to another towards the beach, a sandy lawn gay with sea-side flowers +over which wild boys and bare-footed girls were driving their ponies +with panniers full of sand, and as they rattled back to the beach for +a fresh load, standing upright on the backs of their steeds, with one +foot in each pannier, at full trot over rocks and stones where a landsman +would find it difficult to walk on his own legs.</p> +<p>Enraptured with the place and people, Claude pulled out his sketch-book +and sat down.</p> +<p>‘What extraordinary rocks!’ said he, at length. +‘How different from those Cyclopean blocks and walls along the +Exmoor cliffs are these rich purple and olive ironstone layers, with +their sharp serrated lines and polished slabs, set up on edge, snapped, +bent double, twisted into serpentine curves, every sheet of cliff scored +with sharp parallel lines at some fresh fantastic angle!’</p> +<p>Yes; there must have been strange work here when all these strata +were being pressed and squeezed together like a ream of wet paper between +the rival granite pincers of Dartmoor and Lundy. They must have +suffered enough then in a few years to give them a fair right to lie +quiet till Doomsday, as they seem likely to do. But it is only +old Mother Earth who has fallen asleep hereabouts. Air and sea +are just as live as ever. Ay, lovely and calm enough spread beneath +us there the broad semicircle of the bay; but to know what it can be, +it should be seen as I have seen it, when, in the roaring December morning, +we have been galloping along the cliffs, wreck-hunting. - One morning +I can remember well, how we watched from the Hartland Cliffs a great +barque, which came drifting and rolling in before the western gale, +while we followed her up the coast, parsons and sportsmen, farmers and +Preventive men, with the Manby’s mortar lumbering behind us in +a cart, through stone gaps and track-ways, from headland to headland. +- The maddening excitement of expectation as she ran wildly towards +the cliffs at our feet, and then sheered off again inexplicably; - her +foremast and bowsprit, I recollect, were gone short off by the deck; +a few rags of sail fluttered from her main and mizen. But with +all straining of eyes and glasses, we could discern no sign of man on +board. Well I recollect the mingled disappointment and admiration +of the Preventive men, as a fresh set of salvors appeared in view, in +the form of a boat’s crew of Clovelly fishermen; how we watched +breathlessly the little black speck crawling and struggling up in the +teeth of the gale, under the shelter of the land, till, when the ship +had rounded a point into smoother water, she seized on her like some +tiny spider on a huge unwieldy fly; and then how one still smaller black +speck showed aloft on the main-yard, and another - and then the desperate +efforts to get the topsail set - and how we saw it tear out of their +hands again, and again, and again, and almost fancied we could hear +the thunder of its flappings above the roar of the gale, and the mountains +of surf which made the rocks ring beneath our feet; - and how we stood +silent, shuddering, expecting every moment to see whirled into the sea +from the plunging yards one of those same tiny black specks, in each +one of which was a living human soul, with sad women praying for him +at home! And then how they tried to get her head round to the +wind, and disappeared instantly in a cloud of white spray - and let +her head fall back again - and jammed it round again, and disappeared +again - and at last let her drive helplessly up the bay, while we kept +pace with her along the cliffs; and how at last, when she had been mastered +and fairly taken in tow, and was within two miles of the pier, and all +hearts were merry with the hopes of a prize which would make them rich, +perhaps, for years to come - one-third, I suppose, of the whole value +of her cargo - how she broke loose from them at the last moment, and +rushed frantically in upon those huge rocks below us, leaping great +banks of slate at the blow of each breaker, tearing off masses of ironstone +which lie there to this day to tell the tale, till she drove up high +and dry against the cliff, and lay, like an enormous stranded whale, +grinding and crashing herself to pieces against the walls of her adamantine +cage. And well I recollect the sad records of the log-book which +was left on board the deserted ship; how she had been waterlogged for +weeks and weeks, buoyed up by her timber cargo, the crew clinging in +the tops, and crawling down, when they dared, for putrid biscuit-dust +and drops of water, till the water was washed overboard and gone; and +then notice after notice, ‘On this day such an one died,’ +‘On this day such an one was washed away’ - the log kept +up to the last, even when there was only that to tell, by the stern +business-like merchant skipper, whoever he was; and how at last, when +there was neither food nor water, the strong man’s heart seemed +to have quailed, or perhaps risen, into a prayer, jotted down in the +log - ‘The Lord have mercy on us!’ - and then a blank of +several pages, and, scribbled with a famine-shaken hand, ‘Remember +thy Creator in the days of thy youth;’ - and so the log and the +ship were left to the rats, which covered the deck when our men boarded +her. And well I remember the last act of that tragedy; for a ship +has really, as sailors feel, a personality, almost a life and soul of +her own; and as long as her timbers hold together, all is not over. +You can hardly call her a corpse, though the human beings who inhabited +her, and were her soul, may have fled into the far eternities; and so +we felt that night, as we came down along the woodland road, with the +north-west wind hurling dead branches and showers of crisp oak-leaves +about our heads; till suddenly, as we staggered out of the wood, we +came upon such a piece of chiaroscuro as would have baffled Correggio, +or Rembrandt, himself. Under a wall was a long tent of sails and +spars, filled with Preventive men, fishermen, Lloyd’s underwriters, +lying about in every variety of strange attitude and costume; while +candles, stuck in bayonet-handles in the wall, poured out a wild glare +over shaggy faces and glittering weapons, and piles of timber, and rusty +iron cable, that glowed red-hot in the light, and then streamed up the +glen towards us through the salt misty air in long fans of light, sending +fiery bars over the brown transparent oak foliage and the sad beds of +withered autumn flowers, and glorifying the wild flakes of foam, as +they rushed across the light-stream, into troops of tiny silver angels, +that vanished into the night and hid themselves among the woods from +the fierce spirit of the storm. And then, just where the glare +of the lights and watch-fires was most brilliant, there too the black +shadows of the cliff had placed the point of intensest darkness, lightening +gradually upwards right and left, between the two great jaws of the +glen, into a chaos of grey mist, where the eye could discern no form +of sea or cloud, but a perpetual shifting and quivering as if the whole +atmosphere was writhing with agony in the clutches of the wind.</p> +<p>The ship was breaking up; and we sat by her like hopeless physicians +by a deathbed-side, to watch the last struggle, - and ‘the effects +of the deceased.’ I recollect our literally warping ourselves +down to the beach, holding on by rocks and posts. There was a +saddened awe-struck silence, even upon the gentleman from Lloyd’s +with the pen behind his ear. A sudden turn of the clouds let in +a wild gleam of moonshine upon the white leaping heads of the breakers, +and on the pyramid of the Black-church Rock, which stands in summer +in such calm grandeur gazing down on the smiling bay, with the white +sand of Braunton and the red cliffs of Portledge shining through its +two vast arches; and against a slab of rock on the right, for years +afterwards discoloured with her paint, lay the ship, rising slowly on +every surge, to drop again with a piteous crash as the wave fell back +from the cliff, and dragged the roaring pebbles back with it under the +coming wall of foam. You have heard of ships at the last moment +crying aloud like living things in agony? I heard it then, as +the stumps of her masts rocked and reeled in her, and every plank and +joint strained and screamed with the dreadful tension.</p> +<p>A horrible image - a human being shrieking on the rack, rose up before +me at those strange semi-human cries, and would not be put away - and +I tried to turn, and yet my eyes were riveted on the black mass, which +seemed vainly to implore the help of man against the stern ministers +of the Omnipotent.</p> +<p>Still she seemed to linger in the death-struggle, and we turned at +last away; when, lo! a wave, huger than all before it, rushed up the +boulders towards us. - We had just time to save ourselves. - A dull, +thunderous groan, as if a mountain had collapsed, rose above the roar +of the tempest; and we all turned with an instinctive knowledge of what +had happened, just in time to see the huge mass melt away into the boiling +white, and vanish for evermore. And then the very raving of the +wind seemed hushed with awe; the very breakers plunged more silently +towards the shore, with something of a sullen compunction; and as we +stood and strained our eyes into the gloom, one black plank after another +crawled up out of the darkness upon the head of the coming surge, and +threw itself at our feet like the corpse of a drowning man, too spent +to struggle more.</p> +<p>There is another subject for a picture for you, my friend Claude: +but your gayer fancy will prefer the scene just as you are sketching +it now, as still and bright as if this coast had never seen the bay +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 from the pitiless howling waste of spray behind +them; and that merry beach beside the town covered with shrieking women +and old men casting themselves on the pebbles in fruitless agonies of +prayer, as corpse after corpse swept up at the feet of wife and child, +till in one case alone a single dawn saw upwards of sixty widows and +orphans weeping over those who had gone out the night before in the +fulness of strength and courage. Hardly an old playmate of mine, +but is drowned and gone</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Their graves are scattered far and wide<br /> By +mount, by stream, and sea.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>One poor little fellow’s face starts out of the depths of memory +as fresh as ever, my especial pet and bird-nesting companion as a boy +- a little delicate, precocious, large-brained child, who might have +written books some day, if he had been a gentleman’s son: but +when his father’s ship was wrecked, they found him, left alone +of all the crew, just as he had been lashed into the rigging by loving +and dying hands, but cold and stiff, the little soul beaten out of him +by the cruel waves before it had time to show what growth there might +have been in it. We will talk no more of such things. It +is thankless to be sad when all heaven and earth are keeping holiday +under the smile of God.</p> +<p>‘And now let us return. At four o’clock to-morrow +morning, you know, we are to start for Lundy.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h3>V. - LUNDY.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>It was four o’clock on an August morning. Our little +party had made the sleeping streets ring with jests and greetings, as +it collected on the pier. Some dozen young men and women, sons +and daughters of the wealthier coasting captains and owners of fishing-smacks, +chaperoned by our old landlord, whose delicate and gentlemanlike features +and figure were strangely at variance with the history of his life, +- daring smuggler, daring man-of-war sailor, and then most daring and +successful of coastguard-men. After years of fighting and shipwreck +and creeping for kegs of brandy; after having seen, too - sight not +to be forgotten - the Walcheren dykes and the Walcheren fever, through +weary months of pestilence, he had come back with a little fortune of +prize-money to be a village oracle, loving and beloved, as gentle and +courteous as if he had never ‘stato al inferno,’ and looked +Death in the face. Heaven bless thee, shrewd loyal heart, a gentleman +of God’s making, not unrecognized either by many of men’s +making.</p> +<p>The other chaperone was a lady of God’s making, too; one who +might have been a St. Theresa, had she been born there and then; but +as it was, had been fated to become only the Wesleyan abbess of the +town, and, like Deborah, ‘a mother in Israel.’ With +her tall, slim, queenly figure, massive forehead, glittering eyes, features +beaming with tenderness and enthusiasm, and yet overcast with a peculiar +expression of self-consciousness and restraint, well known to those +who have studied the physiognomies of ‘saints,’ she seemed +to want only the dress of some monastic order to make her the ideal +of a mediæval abbess, watching with a half-pitying, half-complacent +smile, the gambols of a group of innocent young worldlings. I +saw Claude gazing at her full of admiration and surprise, which latter +was certainly not decreased when, as soon as all had settled themselves +comfortably on board, and the cutter was slipping quietly away under +the magnificent deer-park cliffs, the Lady Abbess, pulling out her Wesleyan +hymn-book, gave out the Morning Hymn, apparently as a matter of course.</p> +<p>With hardly a demur one sweet voice after another arose; then a man +gained courage, and chimed in with a full harmonious bass; then a rich +sad alto made itself heard, as it wandered in and out between the voices +of the men and women; and at last a wild mellow tenor, which we discovered +after much searching to proceed from the most unlikely-looking lips +of an old dry, weather-bleared, mummified chrysalis of a man, who stood +aft, steering with his legs, and showing no sign of life except when +he slowly and solemnly filled his nose with snuff.</p> +<p>‘What strange people have you brought me among?’ asked +Claude. ‘I have been wondering ever since I came here at +the splendid faces and figures of men, women, and children, which popped +out upon me from every door in that human rabbit-burrow above. +I have been in raptures at the gracefulness, the courtesy, the intelligence +of almost everyone I meet; and now, to crown all, everyone among them +seems to be a musician.’</p> +<p>‘Really you are not far wrong, and you will find them as remarkable +morally as they are physically and intellectually. The simplicity +and purity of the women here put one more in mind of the valleys of +the Tyrol than of an English village.’</p> +<p>‘And in proportion to their purity, I suppose,’ said +Claude, ‘is their freedom and affectionateness?’</p> +<p>‘Exactly. It would do your “naturalist” heart +good, Claude, to see a young fellow just lauded from a foreign voyage +rolling up the street which we have just descended, and availing himself +of the immemorial right belonging to such cases of kissing and being +kissed by every woman whom he meets, young and old. You will find +yourself here among those who are too simple-minded, and too full of +self-respect, to be either servile or uncourteous.’</p> +<p>‘I have found out already that Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality, +in such company as this, are infinitely pleasanter, as well as cheaper, +than the aristocratic seclusion of a cutter hired for our own behoof.’</p> +<p>‘True; and now you will not go home and, as most tourists do, +say that you know a place, without knowing the people who live in it +- as if the human inhabitants of a range of scenery were not among its +integral and most important parts - ’</p> +<p>‘What! are Copley Fielding’s South Down landscapes incomplete +without a half-starved seven shillings a-week labourer in the foreground?’</p> +<p>‘Honestly, are they not a text without a sermon? a premise +without a conclusion? Is it not partly because the land is down, +and not well-tilled arable, that the labourer is what he is? And +yet, perhaps, the very absence of human beings in his vast sheets of +landscape, when one considers that they are scraps of great, overcrowded, +scientific England in the nineteenth century, is in itself the bitterest +of satires. But, hush! there is another hymn commencing - not +to be the last by many.’</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>We had landed, and laughed, and scrambled, eaten and drunk, seen +all the sights of Lundy, and heard all the traditions. Are they +not written in Mr. Bamfield’s Ilfracombe Guide? Why has +not some one already written a fire-and-brimstone romance about them? +‘Moresco Castle; or, the Pirate Knight of the Atlantic Wave.’ +What a title! Or again - ‘The Seal Fiend; or, the Nemesis +of the Scuttled West Indiaman.’ - If I had paper and lubricité +enough, and that delightful carelessness of any moral or purpose, except +that of fine writing and money-making, which possesses some modern scribblers +- I could tales unfold - But neither pirate legends, nor tales of cheated +insurance offices, nor wrecks and murders, will make us understand Lundy +- what it is ‘considered in its idea,’ as the new argot +is. It may be defined as a lighthouse-bearing island. The +whole three miles of granite table-land, seals, sea-birds, and human +beings, are mere accidents and appendages - the pedestal and the ornaments +of that great white tower in the centre, whose sleepless fiery eye blinks +all night long over the night-mists of the Atlantic. If, as a +wise man has said, the days will come when our degenerate posterity +will fall down and worship rusty locomotives and fossil electric-telegraphs, +the relics of their ancestors’ science, grown to them mythic and +impossible, as the Easter-islanders bow before the colossal statues +left by a nobler and extinct race, then surely there will be pilgrimages +to Lundy, and prayers to that white granite tower, with its unglazed +lantern and rusting machinery, to light itself up again, and help poor +human beings! Really, my dear brothers, I am not in jest: you +seem but too likely now-a-days to arrive at some such catastrophe - +sentimental philosophy for the ‘enlightened’ few, and fetish-worship +(of which nominally Christian forms are as possible as heathen ones) +for the masses. - At that you may only too probably arrive - unless +you repent, and ‘get back your souls.’</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>We had shot along the cliffs a red-legged chough or two, and one +of the real black English rat, exterminated on the mainland by the grey +Hanoverian newcomer; and weary with sight-seeing and scrambling, we +sat down to meditate on a slab of granite, which hung three hundred +feet in air above the western main.</p> +<p>‘This is even more strange and new to me,’ said Claude, +at length, ‘than anything I have yet seen in this lovely West. +I now appreciate Ruskin’s advice to oil-painters to go and study +the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, instead of lingering about the muddy +seas and tame cliffs of the Channel and the German Ocean.’</p> +<p>‘How clear and brilliant,’ said I, ‘everything +shows through this Atlantic atmosphere. The intensity of colouring +may vie with that of the shores of the Mediterranean. The very +raininess of the climate, by condensing the moisture into an ever-changing +phantasmagoria of clouds, leaves the clear air and sunshine, when we +do get a glimpse of them, all the more pure and transparent.’</p> +<p>‘The distinctive feature of the scene is, in my eyes, the daring +juxtaposition of large simple masses of positive colour. There +are none of the misty enamelled tones of Lynmouth, or the luscious richness +of Clovelly. The forms are so simple and severe, that they would +be absolutely meagre, were it not for the rich colouring with which +Nature has so lovingly made up for the absence of all softness, all +picturesque outline. One does not regret or even feel the want +of trees here, while the eye ranges down from that dappled cloud-world +above, over that sheet of purple heather, those dells bedded with dark +green fern, of a depth and richness of hue which I never saw before +- over those bright grey granite rocks, spangled with black glittering +mica and golden lichens, to rest at last on that sea below, which streams +past the island in a swift roaring torrent of tide.’</p> +<p>‘Sea, Claude? say, ocean. This is real Atlantic blue +here beneath us. No more Severn mud, no more grass-green bay-water, +but real ocean sapphire - dark, deep, intense, Homeric purple, it spreads +away, away, there before us, without a break or islet, to the shores +of America. You are sitting on one of the last points of Europe; +and therefore all things round you are stern and strange with a barbaric +pomp, such as befits the boundary of a world.’</p> +<p>‘Ay, the very form of the cliffs shows them to be the breakwaters +of a continent. No more fantastic curves and bands of slate, such +as harmonize so well with the fairyland which we left this morning; +the cliffs, with their horizontal rows of cubical blocks, seem built +up by Cyclopean hands.’</p> +<p>‘Yet how symbolic is the difference between them and that equally +Cyclopic masonry of the Exmoor coast. There every fracture is +fresh, sharp-edged, crystalline; the worn-out useless hills are dropping +to pieces with their own weight. Here each cube is delicately +rounded off at the edges, every crack worn out into a sinuous furrow, +like the scars of an everlasting warfare with the winds and waves.’</p> +<p>‘Does it not raise strange longings in you,’ said Claude, +‘to gaze out yonder over the infinite calm, and then to remember +that beyond it lies America! - the new world; the future world; the +great Titan-baby, who will be teeming with new Athens and Londons, with +new Bacons and Shakspeares, Newtons and Goethes, when this old worn-out +island will be - what? Oh! when I look out here, like a bird from +its cage, a captive from his dungeon, and remember what lies behind +me, to what I must return to-morrow - the over-peopled Babylon of misery +and misrule, puffery and covetousness - and there before me great countries +untilled, uncivilized, unchristianized, crying aloud for man to come +and be man indeed, and replenish the earth and subdue it. “Oh +that I had wings as a dove, then would I flee away and be at rest!” +Here, lead me away; my body is growing as dizzy as my mind. I +feel coming over me that horrible longing of which I have heard, to +leap out into empty space. How the blank air whispers, “Be +free!” How the broad sea smiles, and calls, with its ten +thousand waves, “Be free!” - As I live, if you do not take +me away I shall throw myself over the cliff.’</p> +<p>I did take him away, for I knew the sensation and its danger well. +It has nothing to do with physical giddiness. Those who are cliff-bred, +and who never were giddy for an instant in their lives, have often felt +themselves impelled to leap from masts, and tree-tops, and cliffs; and +nothing but the most violent effort of will could break the fascination. +I cannot but think, by the bye, that many a puzzling suicide might be +traced to this same emotion acting on a weak and morbid brain.</p> +<p>We returned to the little landing cove. The red-sailed cutter +lay sleeping below us - ‘floating double, ship and shadow.’ +Shoals of innumerable mackerel broke up, making acres of water foam +and sparkle round their silvery sides, with a soft roar (call it ‘a +bull’ if you like, it is the only expression for that mysterious +sound), while among them the black head of a huge seal was slowly and +silently appearing and vanishing, as he got his dinner, in a quiet business-like +way, among the unhappy wanderers.</p> +<p>We put off in the boat, and just halfway from the cutter Claude gave +a start, and the women a scream, as the enormous brute quietly raised +his head and shoulders out of the water ten yards off, with a fish kicking +in his mouth, and the water running off his nose, to take a deliberate +stare at us, after the fashion of seals, whose ruling passion is curiosity. +The sound of a musical instrument, the sight of a man bathing - anything, +in short, which their small wits cannot explain at first sight, is enough +to make them forget all their cunning, and thrust their heads suicidally +into any danger; and even so it fared with the ‘black man,’ +as the girls, in their first terror, declared him to be. Some +fellow’s gun went off - of itself I should like to believe - but +the whole charge disappeared into his sleek round visage, knocking the +mackerel from between his teeth; and he turned over, a seven-foot lump +of lifeless blubber.</p> +<p>‘Wretch!’ cried Claude, as we dragged the seal into the +boat, where he lay with his head and arms hanging helplessly over the +bows, like a sea-sick alderman on board a Margate steamer. ‘What +excuse can he give for such a piece of wanton cruelty?’</p> +<p>‘I assure you his skin and oil are very valuable.’</p> +<p>‘Pish! - Was he thinking of skin and oil when he pulled the +trigger? or merely obeying the fleshly lust of destructiveness - the +puppet of two bumps on the back of his head?’</p> +<p>‘My dear Claude, man is the microcosm; and as the highest animal, +the ideal type of the mammalia, he, like all true types, comprises in +himself the attributes of all lower species. Therefore he must +have a tiger-vein in him, my dear Claude, as well as a beaver-vein and +a spider-vein; and no more shame to him. You are a butterfly; +that good fellow a beast of prey; both may have their own work to do +in this age just as they had in the old ones; and if you do not like +that explanation, all I can say is, I can sympathise with you and with +him too. Homo sum - humani nihil a me alienum puto. Trim +the boat, lads, or the seal will swamp us, and, like Samson, slay more +in his death than ever he slew in his life.’</p> +<p>We slipped on homeward. The cliff-wall of Lundy stood out blacker +and blacker every moment against the gay western sky; greens, greys, +and purples, dyeing together into one deep rich monotone, for which +our narrow colour-vocabulary has no word; and threw a long cold shadow +towards us across the golden sea; suddenly above its dark ridge a wild +wreath of low rack caught the rays of the setting sun, and flamed up +like a volcano towards the dun and purple canopy of upper clouds. +Before us the blue sea and the blue land-line were fading into mournful +grey, on which one huge West Indiaman blazed out, orange and scarlet, +her crowded canvas all a-flame from the truck to the water’s edge. +- A few moments and she, too, had vanished into the grey twilight, and +a chill night-wind crisped the sea. It was a relief to hear the +Evening Hymn rise rich and full from one voice, and then another and +another, till the men chimed in one by one, and the whole cutter, from +stem to stern, breathed up its melody into the silent night.</p> +<p>But the hymn soon flagged - there was more mirth on board than could +vent itself in old Charles Wesley’s words; and one began to hum +a song tune, and then another, with a side glance at the expression +of the Lady Abbess’s face, till at last, when a fair wife took +courage, and burst out with full pipe into ‘The sea, the sea,’ +the ice was fairly broken; and among jests and laughter one merry harmless +song after another rang out, many of them, to Claude’s surprise, +fashionable London ones, which sounded strangely enough out there on +the wild western sea. At last - ‘Claude, friend,’ +I whispered, ‘you must sing your share too - and mine also, for +that matter.’</p> +<p>‘What shall I sing?’</p> +<p>‘Anything you will, from the sublime to the ridiculous. +They will understand and appreciate it as well as yourself. Recollect, +you are not among bullet-headed South Saxon clods, but among wits as +keen and imaginations as rich as those of any Scotch shepherd or Manchester +operative.’</p> +<p>And up rose his exquisite tenor.</p> +<p>This was his first song, but it was not allowed to be his last. +German ballads, Italian Opera airs, were all just as warmly, and perhaps +far more sincerely appreciated, as they would have been by any London +evening-party; and the singing went on, hour after hour, as we slipped +slowly on upon the tide, till it grew late, and the sweet voices died +away one by one; and then the Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity which +had reigned so pleasantly throughout the day took a new form, as the +women huddled together to sleep in each other’s arms; and the +men and we clustered forwards, while from every mouth fragrant incense +steamed upwards into the air. ‘Man a cooking animal?’ +my dear Doctor Johnson - pooh! man is a smoking animal. There +is his ergon, his ‘differential energy,’ as the Aristotelians +say - his true distinction from the ourang-outang. Ponder it well.</p> +<p>The men were leaning on the trawl capstan, while our old landlord, +with half-a-dozen pipes within a foot of his face, droned out some long +sea-yarn about Ostend, and muds, and snow-storms, and revenue-cruisers +going down stern foremost, kegs of brandy and French prisons, which +I shall not repeat; for indeed the public has been surfeited with sea-stories +of late, from many sufficiently dull ones up to the genial wisdom of +‘Peter Simple,’ and the gorgeous word-painting of ‘Tom +Cringle’s Log.’ And now the subject is stale - the +old war and the wonders thereof have died away into the past, like the +men who fought in it; and Trafalgar and the Bellerophon are replaced +by Manchester and ‘Mary Barton.’ We have solved the +old sea-going problems pretty well - thanks to wise English-hearted +Captain Marryat, now gone to his rest, just when his work was done; +and we must turn round and face a few land-going problems not quite +so easy of solution. So Claude and I thought, as we leant over +the sloop’s bows, listening neither to the Ostend story forwards +nor the forty-stanza ballad aft, which the old steersman was moaning +on, careless of listeners, to keep himself awake at the helm. +Forty stanzas or so we did count from curiosity; the first line of each +of which ended infallibly with</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Says the commodo - ore;</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>and the third with</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Says the female smuggler;’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>and then gave up in despair; and watched in a dreamy, tired, half-sad +mood, the everlasting sparkle of the water as our bows threw it gently +off in sheets of flame and ‘tender curving lines of creamy’ +fire, that ran along the glassy surface, and seemed to awaken the sea +for yards round into glittering life, as countless diamonds, and emeralds, +and topazes, leaped and ran and dived round us, while we slipped slowly +by; and then a speck of light would show far off in the blank darkness, +and another, and another, and slide slowly up to us - shoals of medusæ, +every one of them a heaving globe of flame; and some unseen guillemot +would give a startled squeak, or a shearwater close above our heads +suddenly stopped the yarn, and raised a titter among the men, by his +ridiculously articulate, and not over-complimentary, cry; and then a +fox’s bark from the cliffs came wild and shrill, although so faint +and distant; or the lazy gaff gave a sad uneasy creak; and then a soft +warm air, laden with heather honey, and fragrant odours of sedge, and +birch, and oak, came sighing from the land; while all around us was +the dense blank of the night, except where now and then some lonely +gleam through the southern clouds showed the cliff-tops on our right. +- It was all most unearthly, dreamlike, a strange phantasmagoria, like +some scene from ‘The Ancient Mariner’ - all the world shut +out, silent, invisible, and we floating along there alone, like a fairy +ship creeping through Chaos and the unknown Limbo. Was it an evil +thought that rose within me as I said to Claude - ‘Is not this +too like life? Our only light the sparkles that rise up round +us at every step, and die behind us; and all around, and all before, +the great black unfathomable eternities? A few souls brought together +as it were by chance, for a short friendship and mutual dependence in +this little ship of earth, so soon to land her passengers and break +up the company for ever?’</p> +<p>He smiled.</p> +<p>‘There is a devil’s meaning to everything in nature, +and a God’s meaning, too. Your friends, the zoologists, +have surely taught you better than that. As I read Nature’s +parable to-night, I find nothing in it but hope. What if there +be darkness, the sun will rise to-morrow. What if there seem a +chaos: the great organic world is still living, and growing, and feeding, +unseen by us, all the black night through; and every phosphoric atom +there below is a sign that even in the darkest night there is still +the power of light, ready to flash out, wherever and however it is stirred. +Does the age seem to you dark? Do you, too, feel as I do at times, +the awful sadness of that text, - “The time shall come when ye +shall desire to see one of the days of the Lord, and shall not see it”? +Then remember that</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“The night is never so long<br />But at last it ringeth for +matin song.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And even as it is around us here, so it is in the world of men. +The night is peopled not merely with phantoms and wizards, superstitions +and spirits of evil, but under its shadow all sciences, methods, social +energies, are taking rest, and growing, and feeding, unknown to themselves, +that they may awake into a new life, and intermarry, and beget children +nobler than themselves, when “the day-spring from on high comes +down.” Even now, see! the dawn is gilding the highest souls, +as it is those Exmoor peaks afar; and we are in the night only because +we crawl below. What if we be unconscious of all the living energies +which are fermenting round us now? Have you not shown me in this +last week every moorland pool, every drop of the summer sea, alive with +beautiful organizations, multiplying as fast as the thoughts of man? +Is not every leaf breathing still, every sap vein drinking still, though +we may not see them? “Even so is the kingdom of God; like +seed sown in the ground; and men rise, and lie down and sleep; and it +groweth up they know not how.”’</p> +<p>We both fell into a reverie. The story and the ballad were +finished, and not a sound broke the silence except the screaming of +the sea-fowl, which led my thoughts wandering back to nights long past, +when we dragged the seine up to our chins in water through the short +midsummer night, and scrambled and rolled over on the beach in boyish +glee, after the skate and mullet, with those now gone; and as I thought +and thought, old voices seemed to call me, old faces looked at me, of +playmates, and those nearer than playmates, now sleeping in the deep +deep sea, amid far coral islands; and old figures seemed to glide out +of the mysterious dark along the still sea floor, as if the ocean were +indeed giving up her dead. I shook myself, turned away, and tried +to persuade myself that I was dreaming. Perhaps I had been doing +so. At least, I remember very little more, till I was roused by +the rattling of the chain-cable through the hawse-hole, opposite the +pier-head.</p> +<p>And now, gentle readers, farewell; and farewell, Clovelly, and all +the loving hearts it holds; and farewell, too, the soft still summer +weather. Claude and I are taking our last walk together along +the deer-park cliffs. Lundy is shrouded in the great grey fan +of dappled haze which streams up from the westward, dimming the sickly +sun. ‘There is not a breath the blue wave to curl.’ +Yet lo! round Chapman’s Head creeps a huge bank of polished swell, +and bursts in thunder on the cliffs. - Another follows, and another. +- The Atlantic gales are sending in their avant-courriers of ground-swell: +six hours more, and the storm which has been sweeping over ‘the +still-vexed Bermoöthes,’ and bending the tall palms on West +Indian isles, will be roaring through the oak woods of Devon. +The old black buck is calling his does with ominous croakings, and leading +the way slowly into the deepest coverts of the glens. The stormy +petrels, driven in from the Atlantic, are skimming like black swallows +over the bay beneath us. Long strings of sea-fowl are flagging +on steadily at railroad pace, towards the sands and salt-marshes of +Braunton. The herring-boats are hastily hauling their nets - you +may see the fish sparkling like flakes of silver as they come up over +the gunwale; all craft, large and small, are making for the shelter +of the pier. Claude starts this afternoon to sit for six months +in Babylonic smoke, working up his sketches into certain unspeakable +pictures, with which the world will be astonished, or otherwise, at +the next Royal Academy Exhibition; while I, for whom another fortnight +of pure western air remains, am off to well-known streams, to be in +time for the autumn floods, and the shoals of fresh-run salmon trout.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Footnotes:</p> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> <i>Fraser’s +Magazine</i>, June 1867.</p> +<p><a name="footnote29"></a><a href="#citation29">{29}</a> <i>Fraser’s +Magazine</i>, September 1858.</p> +<p><a name="footnote74"></a><a href="#citation74">{74}</a> The +Ripon list of natural flies contains several other species of small +Nemouridæ unknown to me, save one brown one, which is seen in +the South, though rarely, in June.</p> +<p><a name="footnote103"></a><a href="#citation103">{103}</a> +For these details I am indebted to a paper in the ‘Annals of Natural +History,’ for September 1862, by my friend, Professor Alfred Newton, +of Cambridge.</p> +<p><a name="footnote135"></a><a href="#citation135">{135}</a> +<i>Fraser’s Magazine</i>, January 1858.</p> +<p><a name="footnote225a"></a><a href="#citation225a">{225a}</a> +<i>Fraser’s Magazine</i>, July 1849.</p> +<p><a name="footnote225b"></a><a href="#citation225b">{225b}</a> +Some years after this was written, the very book which was needed appeared, +as “The Chase of the Red Deer,” by Mr. Palk Collyns.</p> +<p><a name="footnote235"></a><a href="#citation235">{235}</a> Written +before the Volunteer movement.</p> +<p><a name="footnote287"></a><a href="#citation287">{287}</a> +Most wise and noble words upon this matter, worth the attention of all +thinking men, and above all of clergymen, have been written by Mr. J. +S. Mill, in his tract on ‘Liberty.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, PROSE IDYLLS ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named prid10h.htm or prid10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, prid11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, prid10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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