diff options
Diffstat (limited to '7032-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 7032-0.txt | 7238 |
1 files changed, 7238 insertions, 0 deletions
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. If you do not charge anything for copies of this +eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook +for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, +performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given +away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks +not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the +trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. + +START: FULL LICENSE + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the +person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph +1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the +Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when +you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country outside the United States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work +on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: + + 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. + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format +other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain +Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +provided that + +* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation." + +* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm + works. + +* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + +* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The +Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at +www.gutenberg.org + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the +mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its +volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous +locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt +Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to +date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and +official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular +state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + |