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CALtfORNIA
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THE OPEN AIR

BOOKS BY THE AUTHOK OF "THE OPEN AIR."

Crown 8vo, cloth extra, Gs.
NATURE NEAR LONDON. By RICHAKD JEFFEKIES

" From end to end ' Natui'e near London ' is full of Ijappy touches aud
pleasant fancies, as well as of instruction." — St. James's Gazette.

" All pleasant alike, and all instinct with that minutely artistic power of
sketching from nature in the most careful detail which forms Mr. Jefferies'
characteristic gift in literary handicraft."— Pall Mall Gazette.

" In his new book Mr. Jefferies breaks new ground ; his report reads like
a romance, so full of strange matter is it. ... His book is good in itself, and
a book for everybody to read and enjoy." — Athenwum.

" A very charming book." — Tablet .

" This book is in some respects the most interesting of any which Mr.
Jefferies has produced ; a book which crams more observation into a single
page than most people have been able to make in all their lives."

Saturday fieview.

Crown Svo, cloth extra, ds.
THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. By RICHARD JEFFEKIES.

" Mr. Jefferies presents us with another of those books which he seems
able to produce at will, of which we can never tire so long as he does not repeat
himself. Up to the present there has been, so far as we can remember, no
repetition, and there is as yet no sign of fatigue or of exhaustion. We owe to
Mr. Jefferies many delightful hours, but none more delightful than those spent
in reading this dainty volume." — Saturday Review.

" We have here some of the most enjoyable specimens of his writing —
enjoyable both on account of their variety of subject and their intrinsic merit.
It is almost impossible to give any idea of the pleasure to ba derived from this
volume." — Derby Mercury.

" The charm that may be found in pure and admirably modulated prose
could scarcely find better example than in ' The Life of the Fields,' a number
of delightful essays by Mr. Richard Jefferies."— Society.

LONDON: CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY.

THE OPEN AIR

BY

RICHARD JEFFERIES
HI

AUTHOR OF

" THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME," " NATURE NEAR LONDON,"

THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS," "AFTER LONDON," "RED DEER,

"THE DEWY MORN," ETC.

Honfcon

CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1885

[ The right of translation is reserved}

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BKCCI.ES.

<Sri

NOTE.

FOB permission to collect these papers ray thanks
are due to the Editors of the following publica-
tions : The Standard, English Illustrated Magazine,
Longman's Magazine, St. James's Gazette, Chambers 's
Journal, Manchester Guardian, Good Words, and
Pall Matt Gazette.

E, J.

CONTENTS

PAttE

SAINT GUIDO I

GOLDEN-BKOWN ... 24

WILD FLOWERS 30

SUNNY BRIGHTON 50

THE PINE WOOD 70

NATURE ON THE ROOF 81

ONE OF THE NEW VOTERS 94

THE MODERN THAMES ... ... 112

THE SINGLE-BARREL GUN 139

THE HAUNT OF THE HARE 144

THE BATHING SEASON 150

UNDER THE ACORNS 167

DOWNS 177

FOREST 185

BEAUTY IN THE COUNTRY 193

OUT OF DOORS IN FEBRUARY 206

HAUNTS OF THE LAPWING 221

OUTSIDE LONDON 231

ON THE LONDON ROAD 252

RED ROOFS OF LONDON 259

A WET NIGHT IN LONDON , 264

THE OPEN AI R.

SAINT GUIDO.

ST. GUIDO ran out at the garden gate into a sandy
lane, and down the lane till he came to a grassy bank.
He caught hold of the bunches of grass and so pulled
himself up. There was a footpath on the top which
went straight in between fir-trees, and as he ran
along they stood on each side of him like green walls.
They were very near together, and even at the top
the space between them was so narrow that the sky
seemed to come down, and the clouds to be sailing
but just over them, as if they would catch and tear
in the fir-trees. The path was so little used that it
had grown green, and as he ran he knocked dead
branches out of his way. Just as he was getting
tired of running be reached the end of the path, and
came out into a wheat-field. The wheat did not grow
very closely, and the spaces were filled with azure
corn-flowers. St. Guido thought he was safe away
now, so he stopped to look.

Those thoughts and feelings which are not sharply
defined but have a haze of distance and beauty about
them are alwavs the dearest. His name was not

2 THE OPEN AITt.

really Guido, but those who loved him had called him
so in order to try and express their hearts about him.
For they thought if a great painter could be a little
boy, then he would be something like this one. They
were not very learned in the history of painters : they
had heard of Kaphael, but Raphael was too elevated,
too much of the sky, and of Titian, but Titian was
fond of feminine loveliness, and in the^ end somebody
said Guido was a dreamy name, as if it belonged to
one who was full of faith. Those golden curls shaking
about his head as he ran and filling the air with
radiance round his brow, looked like a Nimbus or
circlet of glory. So they called him St. Guido, and
a very, very wild saint he was.

St. Guido stopped in the cornfield, and looked all
round. There were the fir-trees behind him — a thick
wall of green — hedges on the right and the left, and
the wheat sloped down towards an ash-copse in the
hollow. No one was in the field, only the fir-trees,
the green hedges, the yellow wheat, and the sun over-
head. Guido kept quite still, because he expected
that in a minute the magic would begin, and some-
thing would speak to him. His cheeks which had
been flushed with running grew less hot, but I cannot
tell you the exact colour they were, for his skin was
so white and clear, it would not tan under the sun,
yet being always out of doors it had taken the faintest
tint of golden brown mixed with rosiness. His blue
eyes which had been wide open, as they always were
when full of mischief, became softer, and his long
eyelashes drooped over them. But as the magic did
not begin, Guido walked on slowly into the wheat,

SAINT GUIDO. 3

which rose nearly to his head, though it was not yet
so tall as it would be before the reapers came. He
did not break any of the stalks, or bend them down
and step on them ; he passed between them, and they
yielded on either side. The wheat-ears were pale
gold, having only just left off their green, and they
surrounded him on all sides as if he were bathing.

A butterfly painted a velvety red with white spots
came floating along the surface of the corn, and
played round his cap, which was a little higher, and
was so tinted by the sun that the butterfly was
inclined to settle on it. Guido put up his hand to
catch the butterfly, forgetting his secret in his desire
to touch it. The butterfly was too quick — with a snap
of his wings disdainfully mocking the idea of catching
him, away he went. Guido nearly stepped on a
humble-bee — buzz-zz ! — the bee was so alarmed he
actually crept up Guide's knickers to the knee, and
even then knocked himself against a wheat-ear when he
started to fly. Guido kept quite still while the humble-
bee was on his knee, knowing that he should not be
stung if he did not move. He knew, too, that humble-
bees have stings though people often say they have
not, and the reason people think they do not possess
them is because humble-bees are so good-natured and
never sting unless they are very much provoked.

Next he picked a corn buttercup ; the flowers
were much smaller than the great buttercups which
grew in the meadows, and these were not golden
but coloured like brass. His foot caught in a
creeper, and he nearly tumbled — it was a bine of
bindweed which went twisting round and round two

4 TEE OPEN AIR.

stalks of wheat in a spiral, binding them together as
if some one had wound string about them. There
was one ear of wheat which had black specks on it,
and another which had so much black that the grains
seemed changed and gone leaving nothing but black-
ness. He touched it and it stained his hands like a
dark powder, and then he saw that it was not perfectly
black as charcoal is, it was a little red. Something
was burning up the corn there just as if fire had been
set to the ears. Guido went on and found another
place where there was hardly any wheat at all, and
those stalks that grew were so short they only came
above his knee. The wheat-ears were thin and small,
and looked as if there was nothing but chaff. But
this place being open was full of flowers, such lovely
azure cornflowers which the people call bluebottles.

Guido took two; they were curious flowers with
knobs surrounded with little blue flowers like a
lady's bonnet. They were a beautiful blue, not like
any other blue, not like the violets in the garden,
or the sky over the trees, or the geranium in the
grass, or the bird's-eyes by the path. He loved them
and held them tight in his hand, and went on, leaving
the red pimpernel wide open to the dry air behind
him, but the May-weed was everywhere. The May-
weed had white flowers like a moon-daisy, but not so
large, and leaves like moss. He could not walk
without stepping on these mossy tufts, though he did
not want to hurt them. So he stooped and stroked
the moss-like leaves and said, " I do not want to hurt
you, but you grow so thick I cannot help it." In a
minute afterwards as he was walking he heard a quick

SAINT GUIDO. 5

rush, and saw the wheat-ears sway this way and that
as if a puff of wind had struck them.

Guido stood still and his eyes opened very wide, he
had forgotten to cut a stick to fight with : he watched
the wheatears sway, and could see them move for some
distance, and he did not know what it was. Perhaps
it was a wild boar or a yellow lion, or some creature
no one had ever seen ; he would not go back, but he
wished he had cut a nice stick. Just then a swallow
swooped down and came flying over the wheat so
close that Guido almost felt the flutter of his wings,
and as he passed he whispered to Guido that it was
only a hare. " Then why did he run away?" said
Guido; "I should not have hurt him." But the
swallow had gone up high into the sky again, and did
not hear him. All the time Guido was descending the
slope, for little feet always go down the hill as water
does, and when he looked back he found that he had
left the fir-trees so far behind he was in the middle of
the field. If any one had looked they could hardly
have seen him, and if he had taken his cap off they
could not have done so because the yellow curls would
be so much the same colour as the yellow corn. He
stooped to see how nicely he could hide himself, then
he knelt, and in a minute sat down, so that the wheat
rose up high above him.

Another humble-bee went over along the tips of the
wheat — burr-rr — as he passed ; then a scarlet fly, and
next a bright yellow wasp who was telling a friend fly-
ing behind him that he knew where there was such a
capital piece of wood to bite up into tiny pieces and
make into paper for the nest in the thatch, but his

6 THE OPEN AIR.

friend wanted to go to the house because there was a
pear quite ripe there on the wall. Next came a moth,
and after the moth a golden fly, and three gnats, and
a mouse ran along the dry ground with a curious
sniffling rustle close to Guido. A shrill cry came
down out of the air, and looking up he saw two swifts
turning circles, and as they passed each other they
shrieked — their voices were so shrill irhey shrieked.
They were only saying that in a month their little
swifts in the slates would be able to fly. While- he
sat so quiet on the ground and hidden by the wheat,
he heard a cuckoo such a long way off it sounded like
a watch when it is covered up. " Cuckoo " did not
come full and distinct — it was such a tiny little
" cuckoo " caught in the hollow of Guide's ear. The
cuckoo must have been a mile away.

Suddenly he thought something went over, and
yet he did not see it — perhaps it was the shadow
— and he looked up and saw a large bird not very
far up, not farther than he could fling, or shoot
his arrows, and the bird was fluttering his wings,
but did not move away farther, as if he had been
tied in the air. Guido knew it was a hawk, and
the hawk was staying there to see if there was a
mouse or a little bird in the wheat. After a minute
the hawk stopped fluttering and lifted his wings
together as a butterfly does when he shuts his, and
down the hawk came, straight into the corn. " Go
away ! " shouted Guido jumping up, and flinging his
cap, and the hawk, dreadfully frightened and terribly
cross, checked himself and rose again with an angry
rush. So the mouse escaped, but Guido could not

SAINT GUIDO. 7

find his cap for some time. Then lie went on, and
still the ground sloping sent him down the hill till he
came close to the copse.

Some sparrows came out from the copse, and he
stopped and saw one of them perch on a stalk of
wheat, with one foot above the other sideways, so that
he could pick at the ear and get the corn. Guido
watched the sparrow clear the ear, then he moved,
and the sparrows flew back to the copse, where
they chattered at him for disturbing them. There
was a ditch between the corn and the copse, and a
streamlet ; he picked up a stone and threw it in, and
the splash frightened a rabbit, who slipped over the
bank and into a hole. The boughs of an oak reached
out across to the corn, and made so pleasant a shade
that Guido, who was very hot from walking in the sun,
sat down on the bank of the streamlet with his feet
dangling over it, and watched the floating grass sway
slowly as the water ran. Gently he leaned back till
his back rested on the sloping ground — he raised one
knee, and left the other foot over the verge where the
tip of the tallest rushes touched it* Before he had
been there a minute he remembered the secret which
a fern had taught him.

First, if he wanted to know anything, or to hear
a story, or what the grass was saying, or the oak-
leaves sing'ing, he must be careful not to interfere
as he had done just now with the butterfly by trying
to catch him. Fortunately, that butterfly was a
nice butterfly, and very kindhearted, but sometimes,
if you interfered with one thing, it would tell another
thing, and they would all know in a moment, and

8 THE OPEN AIR.

stop talking, and never say a word. Once, while
they were all talking pleasantly, Guido caught a fly
in his hand, he felt his hand tickle as the fly
stepped on it, and he shut up his little fist so
quickly he caught the fly in the hollow between the
palm and his fingers. The fly went buzz, and rushed
to get out, but Guido laughed, so the fly buzzed
again, and just told the grass, and the 'grass told the
bushes, and everything knew in a moment, and Guido
never heard another word all that day. Yet sometimes
now they all knew something about him ; they would
go on talking. You see, they all rather petted and
spoiled him. Next, if Guido did not hear them
conversing, the fern said he must touch a little piece
of grass and put it against his cheek, or a leaf, and
kiss it, and say, "Leaf, leaf, tell them I am here."
Now, while he was lying down, and the tip of the
rushes touched his foot, he remembered this, so he
moved the rush with his foot and said, " Bush, rush,
tell them I am here." Immediately there came a
little wind, and the wheat swung to and fro, the oak-
leaves rustled, the rushes bowed, and the shadows
slipped forwards and back again. Then it was still,
and the nearest wheat-ear to Guido nodded his head,
and said in a very low tone, " Guido, dear, just this
minute I do not feel very happy, although the sun-
shine is so warm, because I have been thinking, for
we have been in one or other of these fields of your
papa's a thousand years this very year. Every year
we have been sown, and weeded, and reaped, and
garnered. Every year the sun has ripened us, and the
rain made us grow ; every year for a thousand years."

SAINT GUIDO. 9

" What did you see all that time ? " said Guide.

"The swallows came," said the Wheat, "and flew
over us, and sang a little sweet song, and then they
went up into the chimneys and built their nests."

" At my house ?" said Guido.

" Oh, no, dear, the house I was then thinking of is
gone, like a leaf withered and lost. But we have not
forgotten any of the songs they sang us, nor have the
swallows that you see to-day — one of them spoke to
you just now — forgotten what we said to their
ancestors. Then the blackbirds came out in us and
ate the creeping creatures, so that they should not
hurt us, and went up into the oaks and whistled
such beautiful sweet low whistles. Not in those oaks,
dear, where the blackbirds whistle to-day ; even the
very oaks have gone, though they were so strong that
one of them defied the lightning, and lived years and
years after it struck him. One of the very oldest of
the old oaks in the copse, dear, is his grandchild. If
you go into the copse you will find an oak which has
only one branch ; he is so old, he has only that branch
left. He sprang up from an acorn dropped from an
oak that grew from an acorn dropped from the oak
the lightning struck. So that is three oak lives,
Guido dear, back to the time I was thinking of just
now. And that oak under whose shadow you are now
lying is the fourth of them, and he is quite young,
though he is so big.

"A jay sowed the acorn from which he grew up ;
the jay was in the oak with one branch, and some
one frightened him, and as he flew he dropped the
acorn which he had in his bill just there, and now

10 TEE OPEN AIR.

you are lying in the shadow of the tree. So you
see, it is a very long time ago, when the blackbirds
came and whistled up in those oaks I was thinking
of, and that was why I was not very happy."

" But you have heard the blackbirds whistling ever
since?" said Guido; "and there was such a big
black one up in our cherry tree this morning, and I
shot my arrow at him and very nearly hit him.
Besides, there is a blackbird whistling now— you
listen. There, he's somewhere in the copse. Why
can't you listen to him, and be happy now ? "

" I will be happy, dear, as you are here, but still it
is a long, long time, and then I think, after I am dead,
and there is more wheat in my place, the blackbirds
will go on whistling for another thousand years after
me. For of course I did not hear them all that time
ago myself, dear, but the wheat which was before me
heard them and told me. They told me, too, and I
know it is true, that the cuckoo came and called all
day till the moon shone at night, and began again in
the morning before the dew had sparkled in the sun-
rise. The dew dries very soon on wheat, Guido dear,
because wheat is so dry ; first the sunrise makes the
tips of the wheat ever so faintly rosy, then it grows
yellow, then as the heat increases it becomes white at
noon, and golden in the afternoon, and white again
under the moonlight. Besides which wide shadows
come over from the clouds, and a wind always follows
the shadow and waves us, and every time we sway to
and fro that alters our colour. A rough wind gives us
one tint, and heavy rain another, and we look different
on a cloudy day to what we do on a sunny one. All

SAINT GUIDO. 11

these colours changed on us when the blackbird was
whistling in the oak the lightning struck, the fourth
one backwards from me; and it makes me sad to
think that after four more oaks have gone, the same
colours will come on the wheat that will grow then.
It is thinking about those past colours, and songs,
and leaves, and of the colours and the sunshine, and
the songs, and the leaves that will come in the future
that makes to-day so much. It makes to-day a thou-
sand years long backwards, and a thousand years
long forwards, and makes the sun so warm, and the
air so sweet, and the butterflies so lovely, and the
hum of the bees, and everything so delicious. We
cannot have enough of it."

"No, that we cannot," said Guido. "Go on, you
talk so nice and low. I feel sleepy and jolly. Talk
away, old Wheat."

" Let me see," said the Wheat. " Once on a time
while the men were knocking us out of the ear on a
floor with flails, which are sticks with little hinges "

"As if I did not know what a flail was ! " said
Guido. "I hit old John with the flail, and Ma gave
him a shilling not to be cross."

"While they were knocking us with the hard
sticks," the Wheat went on, "we heard them talking
about a king who was shot with an arrow like yours
in the forest — it slipped from a tree, and went into
him instead of into the deer. And long before that
the men came up the river — the stream in the ditch
there runs into the river — in rowing ships — how you
would like one to play in, Guido ! For they were not
like the ships now which are machines, they were

12 THE OPEN AIR.

rowing ships — men's ships — and came right up into
the land ever so far, all along the river up to the
place where the stream in the ditch runs in; just
where your papa took you in the punt, and you got
the waterlilies, the white ones."

"And wetted my sleeve right up my arm — oh, I
know ! I can row you, old Wheat ; I can row as well
as my papa can."

"But since the rowing ships came, the ploughs
have turned up this ground a thousand times," said
the Wheat ; " and each time the furrows smelt
sweeter, and this year they smelt sweetest of all.
The horses have such glossy coats, and such fine
manes, and they are so strong and beautiful. They
drew the ploughs along and made the ground give up
its sweetness and savour, and while they were doing
it, the spiders in the copse spun their silk along from
the ashpoles, and the mist in the morning weighed
down their threads. It was so delicious to come out
of the clods as we pushed our green leaves up and
felt the rain, and the wind, and the warm sun. Then
a little bird came in the copse and called, ' Sip — sip
sip, sip, sip,' such a sweet low song, and the larks
ran along the ground in between us, and there were
blue-bells in the copse, and anemones ; till by-and-by
the sun made us yellow, and the blue flowers that
you have in your hand came out. I cannot tell you
how many there have been of these flowers since the
oak was struck by the lightning, in all the thousand
years there must have been altogether — I cannot tell
you how many."

" Why didn't I pick them all ? " said Guido.

SAINT GUIDO. 13

" Do you know," said the Wheat, " we have thought
so much more, and felt so much more, since your
people took us, and ploughed for us, and sowed us,
and reaped us. We are not like the same wheat we
used to be before your people touched us, when we
grew wild, and there were huge great things in the
woods and marshes which I will not tell you about
lest you should be frightened. Since we have felt
your hands, and you have touched us, we have felt so
much more. Perhaps that was why I was not very
happy till you came, for I was thinking quite as much
about your people as about us, and how all the flowers
of all those thousand years, and all the songs, and the
sunny days were gone, and all the people were gone
too, who had heard the blackbirds whistle in the oak
the lightning struck. And those that are alive now —
there will be cuckoos calling, and the eggs in the
thrush's nests, and blackbirds whistling, and blue corn-
flowers, a thousand years after every one of them is
gone.

" So that is why it is so sweet this minute, and
why I want you, and your people, dear, to be happy
now and to have all these things, and to agree so as
not to be so anxious and careworn, but to come out
with us, or sit by us, and listen to the blackbirds, and
hear the wind rustle us, and be happy. Oh, I wish I
could make them happy, and do away with all their
care and anxiety, and give you all heaps and heaps
of flowers ! Don't go away, darling, do you lie still,
and I will talk and sing to you, and you can pick
some more flowers when you get up. There is a
beautiful shadow there, and I heard the streamlet say

14 THE OPEN AIR.

that lie would sing a little to you ; he is not very big,
he cannot sing very loud. By-and-by, I know, the
sun will make us as dry as dry, and darker, and then
the reapers will come while the spiders are spinning
their silk again — this time it will come floating in the
blue air, for the air seems blue if you look up.

"It is a great joy to your people, dear, when the
reaping time arrives : the harvest is a great joy to you
when the thistledown comes rolling along in the wind.
So that I shall be happy even when the reapers cut me
down, because I know it is for you, and your people,
my love. The strong men will come to us gladly, and
the women, and the little children will sit in the shade
and gather great white trumpets of convolvulus, and
come to tell their mothers how they saw the young
partridges in the next field. But there is one thing
we do not like, and that is, all the labour and the
misery. Why cannot your people have us without so
much labour, and why are so many of you unhappy ?
Why cannot they be all happy with us as you are,
dear ? For hundreds and hundreds of years now the
wheat every year has been sorrowful for your people,
and I think we get more sorrowful every year about it,
because as I was telling you just now the flowers go,
and the swallows go, the old, old oaks go, and that
oak will go, under the shade of which you are lying,
Guido ; and if your people do not gather the flowers
now, and watch the swallows, and listen to the black-
birds whistling, as you are listening now while I talk,
then Guido, my love, they will never pick any flowers,
nor hear any birds' songs. They think they will,
they think that when they have toiled, and worked a

SAINT GUIDO. 15

long time, almost all their lives, then they will come
to the flowers, and the birds, and be joyful in the
sunshine. But no, it will not be so, for then they will
be old themselves, and their ears dull, and their eyes
dim, so that the birds will sound a great distance off,
and the flowers will not seem bright.

" Of course, we know that the greatest part of your
people cannot help themselves, and must labour on
like the reapers till their ears are full of the dust of
age. That only makes us more sorrowful, and anxious
that things should be different. I do not suppose we
should think about them had we not been in man's
hand so long that now we have got to feel with man.
Every year makes it more pitiful because then there
are more flowers gone, and added to the vast numbers
of those gone before, and never gathered, or looked at,
though they could have given so much pleasure. And
all the work and labour, and thinking, and reading
and learning that your people do ends in nothing —
not even one flower. We cannot understand why it
should be so. There are thousands of wheat-ears in
this field, more than you would know how to write
down with your pencil, though you have learned your
tables, sir. Yet all of us thinking, and talking, can-
not understand why it is when we consider how clever
your people are, and how they bring ploughs, and
steam-engines, and put up wires along the roads to
tell you things when you are miles away, and some-
times we are sown where we can hear the hum, hum,
all day of the children learning in the school. The
butterflies flutter over us, and the sun shines, and
the cloves are very, very happy at their nest, but the

16 THE OPEN AIR.

children go on hum, hum inside this house, and learn,
learn. So we suppose you must be very clever, and yet
you cannot manage this. All your work is wasted, and
you labour in vain — you dare not leave it a minute.

"If you left it a minute it would all be gone; it
does not mount up and make a store, so that all of
you could sit by it and be happy. Directly you leave
off you are hungry, and thirsty, and miserable like the
beggars that tramp along the dusty road here. All
the thousand years of labour since this field was first
ploughed have not stored up anything for you. It
would not matter about the work so much if you were
only happy ; the bees work every year, but they are
happy ; the doves build a nest every year, but they
are very, very happy. "We think it must be because
you do not come out to us and be with us, and think
more as we do. It is not because your people have
not got plenty to eat and drink — you have as much
as the bees. Why just look at us ! Look at the wheat
that grows all over the world ; all the figures that
were ever written in pencil could not tell how much,
it is such an immense quantity. Yet your people
starve and die of hunger every now and then, and we-
have seen the wretched beggars tramping along the
road. We have known of times when there was a
great pile of us, almost a hill piled up, it was not in
this country, it was in another warmer country, and
yet no one dared to touch it — they died at the bottom
of the hill of wheat. The earth is full of skeletons
of people who have died of hunger. They are dying
now this minute in your big cities, with nothing but
stones all round them, stone walls and stone streets ;

SAINT GUIDO. 17

not jolly stones like those you threw in the water,
dear — hard, unkind stones that make them cold and
let them die, while we are growing here, millions of us,
in the sunshine with the butterflies floating over us.
This makes us unhappy ; I was very unhappy this
morning till you came running over and played
with us.

"It is not because there is not enough : it is
because your people are so short-sighted, so jealous
and selfish, and so curiously infatuated with things
that are not so good as your old toys which you
have flung away and forgotten. And you teach the
children hum, hum, all day to care about such silly
things, and to work for them and to look to them
as the object of their lives. It is because you do not
share us among you without price or difference ;
because you do not share the great earth among
you fairly, without spite and jealousy and avarice ;
because you will not agree ; you silly, foolish people
to let all the flowers wither for a thousand years
while you keep each other at a distance, instead of
agreeing and sharing them ! Is there something in
you — as there is poison in the nightshade, you know
it, dear, your papa told you not to touch it — is there
a sort of poison in your people that works them up
into a hatred of one another? Why, then, do you
not agree and have all things, all the great earth can
give you, just as we have the sunshine and the rain ?
How happy your people could be if they would only
agree ! But you go on teaching even the little children
to follow the same silly objects, hum, hum, hum, all
the day, and they will grow up to hate each other,

18 THE OPEN AIR.

and to try which can get the most round things — you
have one in your pocket."

" Sixpence," said Guido. "It's quite a new one."

"And other things quite as silly," the Wheat
continued. " All the time the flowers are flowering,
but they will go, even the oaks will go. We think
the reason you do not all have plenty, and why you
do not do only just a little work, and why you die
of hunger if you leave off, and why so many of you
are unhappy in body and mind, and all the misery
is because you have not got a spirit like the wheat,
like us ; you will not agree, and you will not share,
and you will hate each other, and you will be so
avaricious, and you will not touch the flowers, or go
into the sunshine (you would rather half of you died
among the hard stones first), and you will teach your
children hum, hum, to follow in some foolish course
that has caused you all this unhappiness a thousand
years, and you will not have a spirit like us, and feel
like us. Till you have a spirit like us, and feel like
us, you will never, never be happy. Lie still, dear ;
the shadow of the oak is broad and will not move
from you for a long time yet."

" But perhaps Paul will come up to my house, and
Percy and Morna."

" Look up in the oak very quietly, don't move, just
open your eyes and look," said the Wheat, who was
very cunning. Guido looked and saw a lovely little
bird climbing up a branch. It was chequered, black
and white, like a very small magpie, only without
such a long tail, and it had a spot of red about its
neck. It was a pied woodpecker, not the large green

SAINT GUIDO. 19

woodpecker, but another kind. Guido saw it go
round the branch, and then some way up, and round
again till it came to a place that pleased it, and then
the woodpecker struck the bark with its bill, tap-
tap. The sound was quite loud, ever so much more
noise than such a tiny bill seemed able to make.
Tap-tap ! If Guido had not been still so that the
bird had come close he would never have found it
among the leaves. Tap — tap ! After it had picked
out all the insects there, the woodpecker flew away
over the ashpoles of the copse.

"I should just like to stroke him.," said Guido.
" If I climbed up into the oak perhaps he would
come again, and I could catch him."

" No," said the Wheat, " he only comes once a day."

" Then tell me stories," said Guido, imperiously.

"I will if I can," said the Wheat. "Once upon
a time, when the oak the lightning struck was still
living, and when the wheat was green in this very
field, a man came staggering out of the wood, and
walked out into it. He had an iron helmet on, and
he was wounded, and his blood stained the green
wheat red as he walked. He tried to get to the
streamlet, which was wider then, Guido dear, to
drink, for he knew it was there, but he could not
reach it. He fell down and died in the green wheat,
dear, for he was very much hurt with a sharp spear,
but more so with hunger and thirst.

"I am so sorry," said Guido; "and now I look
at you, why you are all thirsty and dry, you nice old
Wheat, and the ground is as dry as dry under you ;
I will get you something to drink."

20 THE OPEN1 AIR.

And down he scrambled into the ditch, setting his
foot firm on a root, for though he was so young, he
knew how to get down to the water without wetting
his feet, or falling in, and how to climb up a tree,
and everything jolly. Guido dipped his hand in the
streamlet, and flung the water over the wheat five or
s ix good sprinklings till the drops hung on the wheat-
ears. Then he said, "Now you are better."

"Yes, dear, thank you, my love," said the Wheat,
who was very pleased, though of course the water
was not enough to wet its roots. Still it was pleasant,
like a very little shower. Guido lay down on his
chest this time, with his elbows on the ground,
propping his head up, and as he now faced the wheat,
he could see in between the stalks.

"Lie still," said the Wheat, "the corncrake is not
very far off, he has come up here since your papa told
the mowers to mow the meadow, and very likely if you
stay quiet you will see him. If you do not understand
all I say, never mind, dear ; the sunshine is warm,
but not too warm in the shade, and we all love you,
and want you to be as happy as ever you can be."

"It is jolly to be quite hidden like this," said
Guido. " No one could find me ; if Paul were to look
all day he would never find me ; even Papa could
not find me. Now go on and tell me stories."

"Ever so many times, when the oak the lightning
struck was young," said the Wheat, "great stags
used to come out of the wood and feed on the green
wheat ; it was -early in the morning when they came.
Such great stags, and so proud, and yet so timid, the
least thing made them go bound, bound, bound."

SAINT GUIDO. 21

" Oh, I know ! " said Guido ; " I saw some jump
over the fence in the forest — I am going there again
soon. If I take my bow I will shoot one ! "

"But there are no deer here now," said the "Wheat;
"they have been gone a long, long time; though
I think your papa has one of their antlers."

"Now, how did you know that?" said Guido;
"you have never been to our house, and you cannot
see in from here because the fir copse is in the way ;
how do you find out these things ? "

"Oh!" said the Wheat, laughing, "we have lots
of ways of finding out things. Don't you remember
the swallow that swooped down and told you not to
be 'frightened at the hare ? The swallow has his nest
at your house, and he often flies by your windows
and looks in, and he told me. The birds tell us lots
of things, and all about what is over the sea."

" But that is not a story," said Guido.

"Once upon a time," said the Wheat, "when the
oak the lightning struck was alive, your papa's papa's
papa, ever so much farther back than that, had all
the fields round here, all that you can see from Acre
Hill. And do you know it happened that in time
every one of them was lost or sold, and your family,
Guido dear, were homeless — no house, no garden or
orchard, and no dogs or guns, or anything jolly.
One day the papa that was then came along the road
with his little Guido, and they were beggars, dear,
and had no place to sleep, and they slept all night
in the wheat in this very field close to where the
hawthorn bush grows now — where you picked the May
flowers, you know, my love. They slept there all the

22 THE OPEN AIR,

summer night, and the fern owls flew to and fro, and
the bats and crickets chirped, and the stars shone
faintly, as if they were made pale by the heat. The
poor papa never had a house, but that little Guido
lived to grow up a great man, and he worked so hard,
and he was so clever, and every one loved him, which
was the best of all things. He bought this very field
and then another, and another, and got. such a lot of
the old fields back again, and the goldfinches sang
for joy, and so did the larks and the thrushes, beca-use
they said what a kind man he was. Then his son
got some more of them, till at last your papa bought
ever so many more. But we often talk about the
little boy who slept in the wheat in this field, which
was his father's father's field. If only the wheat
then could have helped him, and been kind to him,
you may be sure it would. We love you so much
we like to see the very crumbs left by the men who
do the hoeing when they eat their crusts ; we wish
they could have more to eat, but we like to see their
crumbs, which you know are made of wheat, so that
we have done them some good at least."

" That's not a story," said Guido.

" There's a gold coin here somewhere," said the
Wheat, " such a pretty one, it would make a capital
button for your jacket, dear, or for your mamma;
that is all any sort of money, is good for ; I wish all
the coins were made into buttons for little Guido."

" Where is it ? " said Guido.

"I can't exactly tell where it is," said the Wheat.
"It was very near me once, and I thought the next
thunder's rain would wash it down into the streamlet

SAINT GUIDO. 23

—it lias been here ever so long, it came here first
just after the oak the lightning split died. And it
has been rolled about by the ploughs ever since, and
no one has ever seen it; I thought it must go into
the ditch at last, but when the men came to hoe one
of them knocked it back, and then another kicked it
along — it was covered with earth — and then, one day,
a rook came and split the clod open with his bill,
and pushed the pieces first one side and then the
other, and the coin went one way, but I did not see ;
I must ask a humble-bee, or a mouse, or a mole, or
some one who knows more about it. It is very thin,
so that if the rook's bill had struck it, his strong bill
would have made a dint in it, and there is, I think,
a ship marked on it."

"Oh, I must have it ! A ship ! Ask a humble-bee
directly ; be quick ! "

Bang ! There was a loud report, a gun had gone
off in the copse.

" That's my papa," shouted Guido. "I'm sure
that was my papa's gun ! " Up he jumped, and
getting down the ditch, stepped across the water,
and. seizing a hazel-bough to help himself, climbed
up the bank. At the top he slipped through the
fence by the oak and so into the copse. He was in
such a hurry he did not mind the thistles or the
boughs that whipped him as they sprang back, he
scrambled through, meeting the vapour of the gun-
powder and the smell of sulphur. In a minute he
found a green path, and in the path was his papa, who
had just shot a cruel crow. The crow had been eating
the birds' eggs, and picking the little birds to pieces.

24 THE OPEN A IE.

GOLDEN-BROWN.

THREE fruit-pickers — women — were the first people
I met near the village (in Kent) . They were clad . in
"rags and jags," and the face of the eldest was in
"jags" also. It was torn and scarred by time and
weather ; wrinkled, and in a manner twisted like the
fantastic turns of a gnarled tree-trunk, hollow and
decayed. Through these jags and tearings of weather,
wind, and work, the nakedness of the countenance—
the barren framework — was visible ; the cheekbones
like knuckles, the chin of brown stoneware, the
upper-lip smooth, and without the short groove which
should appear between lip and nostrils. Black
shadows dwelt in the hollows of the cheeks and
temples, and there was a blackness about the eyes.
This blackness gathers in the faces of the old who
have been much exposed to the sun, the fibres of the
skin are scorched and half-charred, like a stick thrust
in the fire and withdrawn before the flames seize it.
Beside her were two young women, both in the
freshness of youth and health. Their faces glowed
with a golden-brown, and so great is the effect of
colour that their plain features were transfigured.
The sunlight under their faces made them beautiful.
The summer light had been absorbed by the skin,

GOLDEN-BROWN. 25

and now shone forth from it again; as certain sub-
stances exposed to the day absorb light and emit a
phosphorescent gleam in the darkness of night, so
the sunlight had been drunk up by the surface of the
skin, and emanated from it.

Hour after hour in the gardens and orchards they
worked in the full beams of the sun, gathering fruit
for the London market, resting at midday in the shade
of the elms in the corner. Even then they were in
the sunshine — even in the shade, for the air carries it,
or its influence, as it carries the perfumes of flowers.
The heated air undulates over the field in waves which
are visible at a distance ; near at hand they are not
seen, but roll in endless ripples through the shadows
of the trees, bringing with them the actinic power
of the sun. Not actinic — alchemic — some intangible,
mysterious power which cannot be supplied in any
other form but the sun's rays. It reddens the cherry,
it -gilds the apple, it colours the rose, it ripens the
wheat, it touches a woman's face with the golden-
brown of ripe life — ripe as a plum. There is no
other hue so beautiful as this human sunshine tint.

The great painters knew it — Eubens, for instance ;
perhaps he saw it on the faces of the women who
gathered fruit or laboured at the harvest in the Low
Countries centuries since. He could never have seen
it in a city of these northern climes, that is certain.
Nothing in nature that I know, except the human
face, ever attains this colour. Nothing like it is ever
seen in the sky, either at dawn or sunset ; the dawn
is often golden, often scarlet, or purple and gold;
the sunset crimson, flaming bright, or delicately gray

26 THE OPEN AIR.

and scarlet ; lovely colours all of them, but not like
this. Nor is there any flower comparable to it, nor
any gem. It is purely human, and it is only found
on the human face which has felt the sunshine
continually. There must, too, I suppose, be a dis-
position towards it, a peculiar and exceptional con-
dition of the fibres which build up the skin ; for of
the numbers who work out of doors, very, very few
possess it ; they become brown, red, or tanned,
sometimes of a parchment hue — they do not get this
colour.

These two women from the fruit gardens had
the golden-brown in their faces, and their plain
features were transfigured. They were walking in
the dusty road ; there was as background a high,
dusty hawthorn hedge which had lost the freshness
of spring and was browned by the work of caterpillars ;
they were in rags and jags, their shoes had split, and
their feet looked twice as wide in consequence. Their
hands were black; not grimy, but absolutely black,
and neither hands nor necks ever knew water, I am
sure. There was not the least shape to their
garments ; their dresses simply hung down in straight
ungraceful lines ; there was no colour of ribbon or
flower, to light up the dinginess. But they had the
golden-brown in their faces, and they were beautiful.

The feet, as they walked, were set firm on the ground,
and the body advanced with measured, deliberate,
yet lazy and confident grace ; shoulders thrown back
—square, but not over-square (as those who have
been drilled) ; hips swelling at the side in lines like
the full bust, though longer drawn ; busts well filled

GOLDEN-SHOWN. 27

and shapely, despite the rags and jags and the
washed-out gaudiness of the shawl. There was that
in their cheeks that all the wealth of London could
not purchase — a superb health in their carriage
princesses could not obtain. It came, then, from the
air and sunlight, and still more, from some alchemy
unknown to the physician or the physiologist, some
faculty exercised by the body, happily endowed with
a special power of extracting the utmost richness and
benefit from the rudest elements. Thrice blessed
and fortunate, beautiful golden-brown in their cheeks,
superb health in their gait, they walked as the
immortals on earth.

As they passed they regarded me with bitter envy,
jealousy, and hatred written in their eyes ; they cursed
me in their hearts. I verily believe — so unmistakably
hostile were their glances — that had opportunity been
given, in the dead of night and far from help, they
would gladly have taken me unawares with some
blow of stone or club, and, having rendered me
senseless, would have robbed me, and considered it
a righteous act. Not that there was any bloodthirsti-
ness or exceptional evil in their nature more than in
that of the thousand-and-one toilers that are met on
the highway, but simply because they worked — such
hard work of hands and stooping backs, and I was
idle, for all they knew. Because they were going
from one field of labour to another field of labour,
and I walked slowly and did no visible work. My
dress showed no stain, the weather had not battered
it ; there was no rent, no rags and jags. At an hour
when they were merely changing one place of work

28 THE OPEN AIR.

for another place of work, to them it appeared that
I had found idleness indoors wearisome and had just
come forth to exchange it for another idleness. They
saw no end to their labour; they had worked from
childhood, and could see no possible end to labour
until limbs failed or life closed. Why should they be
like this? Why should I do nothing? They were
as good as I was, and they hated me. Their indignant
glances spoke it as plain as words, and far more dis-
tinctly than I can write it. You cannot read it v/ith
such feeling as I received their looks.

Beautiful golden-brown, superb health, what would
I not give for these ? To be the thrice-blessed and
chosen of nature, what inestimable fortune! To be
indifferent to any circumstances — to be quite thought-
less as to draughts and chills, careless of heat,
indifferent to the character of dinners, able to do well
on hard, dry bread, capable of sleeping in the open
under a rick, or some slight structure of a hurdle,
propped on a few sticks and roughly thatched with
straw, and to sleep sound as an oak, and wake strong
as an oak in the morning — gods, what a glorious life !
I envied them ; they fancied I looked askance at their
rags and jags. I envied them, and considered their
health and hue ideal. I envied them that unwearied
step, that firm uprightness, and measured yet lazy
gait, but most of all the power which they possessed,
though they did not exercise it intentionally, of being
always in the sunlight, the air, and abroad upon the
earth. If so they chose, and without stress or strain,
they could see the sunrise, they could be with him as
it were — unwearied and without distress — the livelong

GOLDEN-BROWN. 29

day ; they could stay on while the moon rose over the
corn, and till the silent stars at silent midnight shone
in the cool summer night, and on and on till the cock
crew and the faint dawn appeared. The whole time
in the open air, resting at mid-day under the elms
with the ripple of heat flowing through the shadow ;
at midnight between the ripe corn and the hawthorn
hedge on the white wild camomile and the poppy pale
in the duskiness, with face upturned to the thoughtful
heaven.

Consider the glory of it, the life above this life to
be obtained from constant presence with the sunlight
and the stars. I thought of them all day, and envied
them (as they envied me), and in the evening I found
them again. It was growing dark, and the shadow
took away something of the coarseness of the group
outside one of the village "pothouses." Green foliage
overhung them and the men with whom they were
drinking ; the white pipes, the blue smoke, the flash
of a match, the red sign which had so often swung
to and fro in the gales now still in the summer eve,
the rude seats and blocks, the reaping-hooks bound
about the edge with hay, the white dogs creeping
from knee to knee, some such touches gave an interest
to the scene. But a quarrel had begun; the men
swore, but the women did worse. It it impossible to
give a hint of the language they used, especially the
elder of the three whose hollow face was blackened
by time and exposure. The two golden-brown girls
where so heavily intoxicated they could but stagger
to and fro and mouth and gesticulate, and one held a
quart from which, as she moved, she spilled the ale.

30 THE OPEN AIR.

WILD FLOWERS. .

A FIR-TREE is not a flower, and yet it is associated
in my mind with primroses. There was a narrow
lane leading into a wood, where I used to go almost
every day in the early months of the year, and at one
corner it was overlooked by three spruce firs. The
rugged lane there began to ascend the hill, and I
paused a moment to look back. Immediately the
high fir-trees guided the eye upwards, and from their
tops to the deep azure of the March sky over, but
a step from the tree to the heavens. So it has ever
been to me, by day or by night, summer or winter,
beneath trees the heart feels nearer to that depth of
life the far sky means. The rest of spirit found only
in beauty, ideal and pure, comes there because the
distance seems within touch of thought. To the
heaven thought can reach lifted by the strong arms
of the oak, carried up by the ascent of the flame-
shaped fir. Kound the spruce top the blue was
deepened, concentrated by the fixed point; the
memory of that spot, as it were, of the sky is still
fresh — I can see it distinctly — still beautiful and full
of meaning. It is painted in bright colour in my
mind, colour thrice laid, and indelible ; as one passes

WILD FLOWERS. 31

a shrine and bows the head to the Madonna, so I
recall the picture and stoop in spirit to the aspiration
it yet arouses. For there is no saint like the sky,
sunlight shining from its face.

The fir-tree flowered thus before the primroses—
the first of all to give me a bloom, beyond reach but
visible, while even the hawthorn buds hesitated to
open. Primroses were late there, a high district and
thin soil ; you could read of them as found elsewhere
in January; they rarely came much before March,
and but sparingly then. On the warm red sand (red,
at least, to look at, but green by geological courtesy,
I think) of Sussex, round about Hurst of the Pierre-
points, primroses are seen soon after the year has
turned. In the lanes about that curious old mansion,
with its windows reaching from floor to roof, that
stands at the base of Wolstanbury Hill, they grow
early, and ferns linger in sheltered overhung banks.
The South Down range, like a great wall, shuts
off the sea, and has a different climate on either
hand; south by the sea — hard, harsh, flowerless,
almost grassless, bitter, and cold ; on the north side,
just over the hill — warm, soft, with primroses and
fern, willows budding and birds already busy. It is
a double England there, two countries side by side.

On a summer's day Wolstanbury Hill is an island in
sunshine ; you may lie on the grassy rampart, high
up in the most delicate air— Grecian air, pellucid —
alone, among the butterflies and humming bees at
the thyme, alone and isolated ; endless masses of hills
on three sides, endless weald or valley on the fourth ;
all warmly lit with sunshine, deep under liquid sun-

32 THE OPEN AIR.

shine like the sands under the liquid sea, no harsh-
ness of mau-naade sound to break the insulation amid
nature, on an island in a far Pacific of sunshine.
Some people would hesitate to walk down the stair-
case cut in the turf to the beech-trees beneath ; the
woods look so small beneath, so far clown and steep,
and no handrail. Many go to the Dyke, but none to
Wolstanbury Hill. To come over the range reminds
one of what travellers say of coming over the Alps
into Italy ; from harsh sea-slopes, made dry with salt
as they sow salt on razed cities that naught may
grow, to warm plains rich in all things, and with
great hills as pictures hung on a wall to gaze at.
Where there are beech-trees the land is always
beautiful ; beech -trees at the foot of this hill, beech -
trees at Arundel in that lovely park which the Duke
of Norfolk, to his glory, leaves open to all the world,
and where the anemones flourish in unusual size and
number ; beech-trees in Marlborough Forest ; beech-
trees at the summit to which the lane leads that was
spoken of just now. Beech and beautiful scenery go
together.

But the primroses by that lane did not appear till
late; they covered the banks under the thousand
thousand ash-poles ; foxes slipped along there fre-
quently, whose friends' in scarlet coats could not
endure the pale flowers, for they might chink their
spurs homewards. In one meadow near primroses
were thicker than the grass, with gorse interspersed,
and the rabbits that came out fed among flowers.
The primroses last on to the celandines and cowslips,
through the time of the bluebells, past the violets —

WILD FLO WEES. 33

one dies but passes on the life to another, one sets
light to the next, till the ruddy oaks and singing
cuckoos call up the tall mowing grass to fringe
summer.

Before I had any conscious thought it was a delight
to me to find wild flowers, just to see them. It was
a pleasure to gather them and to take them home ;
a pleasure to show them to others — to keep them as
long as they would live, to decorate the room with
them, to arrange them carelessly with grasses,
green sprays, tree-bloom — large branches of chestnut
snapped off, and set by a picture perhaps. Without
conscious thought of seasons and the advancing hours
to light on the white wild violet, the meadow orchis,
the blue veronica, the blue meadow cranesbill ; feeling
the warmth and delight of the increasing sun-rays,
but not recognizing whence or why it was joy. All
the world is young to a boy, and thought has not
entered into it ; even the old men with gray hair do
not seem old ; different but not aged, the idea of age
has not been mastered. A boy has to frown and
study, and then does not grasp what long years mean.
The various hues of the petals pleased without any
knowledge of colour-contrasts, no note even of colour
except that it was bright, and the mind was made
happy without consideration of those ideals and hopes
afterwards associated with the azure sky above the
fir-tree. A fresh footpath, a fresh flower, a fresh
delight. The reeds, the grasses, the rushes — unknown
and new things at every step — something always to
find ; no barren spot anywhere, or sameness. Every
day the grass painted anew, and its green seen for

84 THE OPEN AIR.

the first time ; not the old green, but a novel hue and
spectacle, like the first view of the sea.

If we had never before looked upon the earth, but
suddenly came to it man or woman grown, set down in
the midst of a summer mead, would it not seem to us
a radiant vision? The hues, the shapes, the song
and life of birds, above all the sunlight, the breath of
heaven, resting on it ; the mind would be filled with
its glory, unable to grasp it, hardly believing that such
things could be mere matter and no more. Like a
dream of some spirit-land it would appear, scarce fit
to be touched lest it should fall to pieces, too beauti-
ful to be long watched lest it should fade away. So it
seemed to me as a boy, sweet and new like this each
morning; and even now, after the years that have
passed, and the lines they have worn in the forehead,
the summer mead shines as bright and fresh as when
rny foot first touched the grass. It has another
meaning now ; the sunshine and the flowers speak
differently, for a heart that has once known sorrow
reads behind the page, and sees sadness in joy. But
the freshness is still there, the dew washes the
colours before dawn. Unconscious happiness in find-
ing wild flowers — unconscious and unquestioning, and
therefore unbounded.

I used to stand by the mower and follow the scythe
sweeping down thousands of the broad-flowered
daisies, the knotted knapweeds, the blue scabious,
the yellow rattles, sweeping so close and true that
nothing escaped; and yet, although I had seen so
many hundreds of each, although I had lifted armfnls
day after day, still they were fresh. They never

WILD FLO WEES. 35

lost their newness, and even now each time I gather
a wild flower it feels a new thing. The greenfinches
came to the fallen swathe so near to us they seemed
to have no fear ; but I remember the yellowhammers
most, whose colour, like that of the wild flowers and
the sky, has never faded from my memory. The
greenfinches sank into the fallen swathe, the loose
grass gave under their weight and let them bathe in
flowers.

One yellowhammer sat on a branch of ash the live-
long morning, still singing in the sun"; his bright
head, his clean bright yellow, gaudy as Spain, was
drawn like a brush charged heavily with colour
across the retina, painting it deeply, for there on
the eye's memory it endures, though that was boy-
hood and this is manhood, still unchanged. The
field — Stewart's Mash — the very tree, young ash
timber, the branch projecting over the sward, I
could make a map of them. Sometimes I think
sun-painted colours are brighter to me than to
many, and more strongly affect the nerves of the
eye. Straw going by the road on a dusky winter's
day seems so pleasantly golden, the sheaves lying
aslant at the top, and these bundles of yellow tubes
thrown up against the dark ivy on the opposite wall.
Tiles, red burned, or orange coated, the sea sometimes
cleanly definite, the shadows of trees in a thin wood
where there is room for shadows to form and fall;
some such shadows are sharper than light, and have
a faint blue tint. Not only in summer but in cold
winter, and not only romantic things but plain matter-
of-fact things, as a waggon freshly .painted red beside

3G THE OPEN AIR.

the Wright's shop, stand out as if wet with colour and
delicately pencilled at the edges. It must be out of
doors ; nothing indoors looks like this.

Pictures are very dull and gloomy to it, and very
contrasted colours like those the French use are neces-
sary to fix the attention. Their dashes of pink and
scarlet bring the faint shadow of the sun into the room.
As for our painters, their works are hung behind a
curtain, and we have to peer patiently through the
dusk of evening to see what they mean. Out-of-door
colours do not need to be gaudy — a mere dull stake
of wood thrust in the ground often stands out sharper
than the pink flashes of the French studio ; a faggot ;
the outline of a leaf; low tints without reflecting
power strike the eye as a bell the ear. To me they
are intensely clear, and the clearer the greater the
pleasure. It is often too great, for it takes me away
from solid pursuits merely to^receive the impression,
as water is still to reflect the trees. To me it is very
painful when illness blots the definition of outdoor
things, so wearisome not to see them rightly, and
more oppressive than actual pain. I feel as if I was
struggling to wake up with dim, half-opened lids and
heavy mind. This one yellowhammer still sits on
the ash branch in Stewart's Mash over the sward,
singing in the sun, his feathers freshly wet with
colour, the same sun-song, and will sing to me so
long as the heart shall beat.

The first conscious thought about wild flowers was
to find out their names — the first conscious pleasure,
— and then I began to see so many that I had not
previously noticed. Once you wish to identify them

WILD FLOWEES. 37

there is nothing escapes, down to the little white
chickweed of the path and the moss of the wall.
I put my hand on the bridge across the brook to lean
over and look down into the water. Are there any
fish ? The bricks of the pier are covered with green,
like a wall-painting to the surface of the stream,
mosses along the lines of the mortar, and among the
moss little plants — what are these ? In the dry sun-
lit lane I look up to the top of the great wall about
some domain, where the green figs look over upright
on their stalks ; there are dry plants on the coping —
what are these ? Some growing thus, high in the air,
on stone, and in the chinks of the tower, suspended
in dry air and sunshine ; some low down under the
arch of the bridge over the brook, out of sight utterly,
unless you stoop by the brink of the water and project
yourself forward to examine under. The kingfisher
sees them as he shoots through the barrel of the
culvert. There the sun direct never shines upon
them, but the sunlight thrown up by the ripples runs
all day in bright bars along the vault of the arch,
playing on them. The stream arranges the sand in
the shallow in bars, minute fixed undulations ; the
stream, arranges the sunshine in successive flashes,
undulating as if the sun, drowsy in the heat, were
idly closing and unclosing his eyelids for sleep.
Plants everywhere, hiding behind every tree, under
the leaves, in the shady places, beside the dry furrows
of the field; they are only just behind something,
hidden openly. The instant you look for them they
multiply a hundredfold ; if you sit on the beach and
begin to count the pebbles by you, their number

38 THE OPEN AIR.

instantly increases to infinity by virtue of that
conscious act.

The bird's-foot lotus was the first. The boy must
have seen it, must have trodden on it in the bare
woodland pastures, certainly run about on it, with
wet naked feet from the bathing; but the boy was
not conscious of it. This was the first, when the
desire came to identify and to know, fixing upon
it by means of a pale and feeble picture. In the
largest pasture there were different soils and climates ;
it was so large it seemed a little country of itself
then— the more so because the ground rose and fell,
making a ridge to divide the view and enlarge by
uncertainty. The high sandy soil on the ridge where
the rabbits had their warren; the rocky soil of the
quarry ; the long grass by the elms where the rooks
built, under whose nests there were vast unpalatable
mushrooms — the true mushrooms with salmon gills
grew nearer the warren; the slope towards the nut-
tree hedge and spring. Several climates in one field :
the wintry ridge over which leaves were always driving
in all four seasons of the year ; the level sunny plain
and fallen cromlech still tall enough for a gnomon
and to cast its shadow in the treeless drought ; the
moist, warm, grassy depression ; the lotus -grown
slope, warm and dry.

If you have been living in one house in the country
for some time, and then go on a visit to another,
though hardly half a mile distant, you will find a
change in the air, the feeling, and tone of the place.
It is close by, but it is not the same. To discover
these minute differences, which make one locality

WILD FLOWERS. 39

healthy and home happy, and the next adjoining
unhealthy, the Chinese have invented the science of
Feng-shui, spying about with cahalistic mystery, cast-
ing the horoscope of an acre. There is something
in all superstitions ; they are often the foundation of
science. Superstition having made the discovery,
science composes a lecture on the reason why, and
claims the credit. Bird's-foot lotus means a for-
tunate spot, dry, warm — so far as soil is concerned.
If you were going to live out of doors, you might
safely build your kibitka where you found it.
Wandering with the pictured flower-book, just pur-
chased, over the windy ridge where last year's
skeleton leaves, blown out from the alder copse
below, came on with grasshopper motion — lifted and
laid down by the wind, lifted and laid down — I sat
on the sward of the sheltered slope, and instantly
recognized the orange-red claws of the flower beside
me. That was the first; and this very morning,
I dread to consider how many years afterwards,
I found a plant on a wall which I do not know. I
shall have to trace out its genealogy and emblazon
its shield. So many years and still only at the
beginning — the beginning, too, of the beginning — for
as yet I have not thought of the garden or conserva-
tory flowers (which are wild flowers somewhere),
or of the tropics, or the prairies.

The great stone of the fallen cromlech, crouching
down afar off in the plain behind me, cast its shadow
in the sunny morn as it had done, so many summers,
for centuries — for thousands of years : worn white
by the endless sunbeams — the ceaseless flood of light

40 THE OPEN AIR.

— the sunbeams of centuries, the impalpable beams
polishing and grinding like rushing water : silent,
yet witnessing of the Past ; shadowing the Present
on the dial of the field : a mere dull stone ; but what
is it the mind will not employ to express to itself
its own thoughts ?

There was a hollow near in which hundreds of
skeleton leaves had settled, a stage on .their journey
from the alder copse, so thick as to cover the thin
grass, and at the side of the hollow a wasp's nest
had been torn out by a badger. On the soft and
spreading sand thrown out from his burrow the
print of his foot looked as large as an elephant
might make. The wild animals of our fields are
so small that the badger's foot seemed foreign in
its size, calling up the thought of the great game
of distant forests. He was a bold badger to make
his burrow there in the open warren, unprotected
by park walls or preserve laws, where every one
might see who chose. I never saw him by daylight :
that they do get about in daytime is, however,
certain, for one was shot in Surrey recently by
sportsmen ; they say he weighed forty pounds.

In the mind all things are written in pictures-
there is no alphabetical combination of letters and
words; all things are pictures and symbols. The
bird's-foot lotus is the picture to me of sunshine and
summer, and of that summer in the heart which
is known only in youth, and then not alone. No
words could write that feeling: the bird's-foot lotus
writes it.

When the efforts to photograph began, the difficulty

WILD FLOWERS. 41

was to fix the scene thrown by the lens upon the plate.
There the view appeared perfect to the least of details,
worked out by the sun, and made as complete in
miniature as that he shone upon in nature. But
it faded like the shadows as the summer sun declines.
Have you watched them in the fields among the
flowers? — the deep strong mark of the noonday
shadow of a tree such as the pen makes drawn
heavily on the paper ; gradually it loses its darkness
and becomes paler and thinner at the edge as it
lengthens and spreads, till shadow and grass mingle
together. Image after image faded from the plates,
no more to be fixed than the reflection in water of the
trees by the shore. Memory, like the sun, paints to
me bright pictures of the golden summer time of
lotus ; I can see them, but how shall I fix them for
you? By no process can that be accomplished.
It is like a story that cannot be told because he who
knows it is tongue-tied and dumb. Motions of hands,
wavings and gestures, rudely convey the framework,
but the finish is not there.

To-day, and day after day, fresh pictures are
coloured instantaneously in the retina as bright and
perfect in detail and hue. This very power is often,
I think, the cause of pain to me. To see so clearly
is to value so highly and to feel too deeply. The
smallest of the pencilled branches of the bare ash-
tree drawn distinctly against the winter sky, waving
lines one within the other, yet following and partly
parallel, reproducing in the curve of the twig the
curve of the great trunk; is it not a pleasure to
trace each to its ending? The raindrops as they

42 THE OPEN AIR.

slide from leaf to leaf in June, the balmy shower that
reperfumes each wild flower and green thing, drops
lit with the sun, and falling to the chorus of the
refreshed birds ; is not this beautiful to see ? On
the grasses tall and heavy the purplish blue pollen,
a shimmering dust, sown broadcast over the ripening
meadow from July's warm hand — the bluish pollen,
the lilac pollen of the grasses, a delicate mist of blue
floating on the surface, has always been an especial
delight to me. Finches shake it from the stalks
as they rise. No day, no hour of summer, no step
but brings new mazes — there is no word to express
design without plan, and these designs of flower and
leaf and colours of the sun cannot be reduced to set
order. The eye is for ever drawn onward and finds
no end. To see these always so sharply, wet and
fresh, is almost too much sometimes for the wearied
yet insatiate eye. I am obliged to turn away — to
shut my eyes and say I ivill not see, I will not
observe; I will concentrate my mind on my own
little path of life, and steadily gaze downwards.
In vain. Who can do so ? who can care alone for
his or her petty trifles of existence, that has once
entered amongst the wild flowers ? How shall I shut
out the sun ? Shall I deny the constellations of the
night ? They are there ; the Mystery is for ever
about us—the question, the hope, the aspiration
cannot be put out. So that it is almost a pain
not to be able to cease observing and tracing the
untraceable maze of beauty.

Blue veronica was the next identified, sometimes
called germander speedwell, sometimes bird's-eye,

WILD FLOWERS. 43

•whose leaves are so plain and petals so blue. Many
names increase the trouble of identification, and
confusion is made certain by the use of various
systems of classification. The flower itself I knew,
its] name I could not be sure of — not even from the
illustration, which was incorrectly coloured; the
central white spot of the flower was reddish in the
plate. This incorrect colouring spoils much of the
flower-picturing done; pictures of flowers and birds
are rarely accurate unless hand-painted. Any one
else, however, would have been quite satisfied that the
identification was right. I was too desirous to be
-correct, too conscientious, and thus a summer went
by with little progress. If you really wish to identify
with certainty, and have no botanist friend and no
magnum opus of Sowerby to refer to, it is very difficult
indeed to be quite sure. There was no Sowerby, no
Bentham, no botanist friend — no one even to give the
common country names ; for it is a curious fact that
the country people of the time rarely know the names
put down as the vernacular for flowers in the books.
No one there could tell me the name of the marsh-
marigold which grew thickly in the water-meadows —
"A sort of big buttercup," that was all they knew.
Commonest of common plants is the " sauce alone " — in
every hedge, on every bank, the whitish -green leaf is
found — yet I could not make certain of it. If some
one tells you a plant, you know it at once and never
forget it, but to learn it from a book is another
matter ; it does not at once take root in the mind, it
has to be seen several times before you are satisfied —
you waver in your convictions. The leaves were

44 THE OPEN A1B.

described as large and heart-shaped, and to remain
green (at the ground) through the winter; but the
colour of the flower was omitted, though it was stated
that the petals of the hedge-mustard were yellow.
The plant that seemed to me to be probably " sauce
alone" had leaves somewhat heart-shaped, but so
confusing is partial description that I began to think
I had hit on "ramsons" instead of "sauce alone,"
especially as ramsons was said to be a very common
plant. So it is in some counties, but, as I afterwards
found, there was not a plant of ramsons, or garlic,
throughout the whole of that district. When, some
years afterwards, I saw a white-flowered plant with
leaves like the lily of the valley, smelling of garlic, in
the woods of Somerset, I recognized it immediately.
The plants that are really common — common every-
where— are not numerous, and if you are studying
you must be careful to understand that word locally.
My " sauce alone " identification was right ; to be right
and not certain is still unsatisfactory.

There shone on the banks white stars among the
grass. Petals delicately white in a whorl of rays —
light that had started radiating from a centre and
become fixed — shining among the floweiiess green.
The slender stem had grown so fast it had drawn its
own root partly out of the ground, and when I tried
to gather it, flower, stem and root came away together.
The wheat was springing, the soft air full of the
growth and moisture, blackbirds whistling, wood-
pigeons nesting, young oak-leaves out; a sense of
swelling, sunny fulness in the atmosphere. The plain
road was made beautiful by the advanced boughs that.

WILD FLO WEES. 45

overhung and cast their shadows on the dust — boughs
of ash-green, shadows that lay still, listening to the
nightingale. A place of enchantment in the mornings,
where was felt the power of some subtle influence
working behind bough and grass and bird- song.
The orange-golden dandelion in the sward was deeply
laden with colour brought to it anew again and again
by the ships of the flowers, the humble-bees — to their
quays they come, unlading priceless essences of sweet
odours brought from the East over the green seas of
wheat, unlading priceless colours on the broad dande-
lion disks, bartering these things for honey and pollen.
Slowly tacking aslant, the pollen ship hums in the
south wind. The little brown wren finds her way
through the great thicket of hawthorn. How does
she know her path, hidden by a thousand thousand
leaves ? Tangled and crushed together by their own
growth, a crown of thorns hangs over the thrush's
nest ; thorns for the mother, hope for the young. Is
there a crowns of thorns over your heart ? A spike
has gone deep enough into mine. The stile looks
farther away because boughs have pushed forward
and made it smaller. The willow scarce holds the sap
that tightens the bark and would burst it if it did not
enlarge to the pressure.

Two things can go through the solid oak; the
lightning of the clouds that rends the iron timber, the
lightning of the spring — the electricity of the sun-
beams forcing him to stretch forth and lengthen his
arms with joy. Bathed in buttercups to the dewlap,
the roan cows standing in the golden lake watched
the hours with calm frontlet; watched the light

46 THE OPEN AIR.

descending, the meadows filling, with knowledge of
long months of succulent clover. On their broad brows
the year falls gently; their great, beautiful eyes,
which need but a tear or a smile to make them
human,' — without these, such eyes, so large and full,
seem above human life, eyes of the immortals enduring
without passion, — in these eyes, as a mirror, nature is.
reflected.

I came every day to walk slowly up and down the
plain road, by the starry flowers under the ash-green
boughs; ash is the coolest, softest green. The bees
went drifting over by my head ; as they cleared the
hedges they passed by my ears, the wind singing in
their shrill wings. White tent-walls of cloud — a warm
white, being full to overflowing of sunshine — stretched
across from ash-top to ash-top, a cloud-canvas roof, a
tent-palace of the delicious air. For of all things
there is none so sweet as sweet air — one great flower
it is, drawn round about, over, and enclosing, like
Aphrodite's arms ; as if the dome of the sky were a
bell-flower drooping down over us, and the magical
essence of it filling all the room of the earth.
Sweetest of all things is wild-flower air. Full of their
ideal the starry flowers strained upwards on the bank,
striving to keep above the rude grasses that pushed
by them ; genius has ever had such a struggle. The
plain road was made beautiful by the many thoughts
it gave. I came every morning to stay by the star-lit
bank.

A friend said, " Why do you go the same road
every day? Why not have a change and walk
somewhere else sometimes ? Why keep on up and

WILD FLO WEES. 47

down the same place ? " I could not answer ; till
then it had not occurred to me that I did always
go one way; as for the reason of it I could not tell ;
I continued in my old mind while the summers went
away. Not till years afterwards was I able to see
why I went the same round and did not care for
change. I do not want change : I want the same
old and loved things, the same wild-flowers, the
same trees and soft ash-green ; the turtle-doves, the
blackbirds, the coloured yellowharnmer sing, sing,
singing so long as there is light to cast a shadow
on the dial, for such is the measure of his song,
and I want them in the same place. Let me find
them morning after morning, the starry-white petals
radiating, striving upwards to their ideal. Let me
see the idle shadows resting on the white dust ; let
me hear the humble-bees, and stay to look down
on the rich dandelion disk. Let me see the very
thistles opening their great crowns — I should miss
the thistles ; the reed-grasses hiding the moorhen ;
the bryony bine, at first crudely ambitious and lifted
by force of youthful sap straight above the hedgerow
to sink of its own weight presently and progress with
crafty tendrils ; swifts shot through the air with
outstretched wings like crescent-headed shaftless
arrows darted from the clouds; the chaffinch with
a feather in her bill ; all the living staircase of the
spring, step by step, upwards to the great gallery
of the summer — let me watch the same succession
year by year.

Why, I knew the very dates of them all — the red-
dening elm, the arum, the hawthorn leaf, the

48 THE OPEN A1E.

celandine, the may; the yellow iris of the waters,
the heath of the hillside. The time of the nightingale
— the place to hear the first note ; onwards to the
drooping fern and the time of the redwing — the place
of his first note, so welcome to the sportsman as the
acorn ripens and the pheasant, come to the age of
manhood, feeds himself; onwards to the shadowless
days — the long shadowless winter, for t in winter it
is the shadows we miss as much as the light. They
lie over the summer sward, design upon design, dark
lace on green and gold ; they glorify the sunlight :
they repose on the distant hills like gods upon
Olympus ; without shadow, what even is the sun ?
At the foot of the great cliffs by the sea you may
know this, it is dry glare ; mighty ocean is clearer
as the shadows of the clouds sweep over as they
sweep over the green corn. Past the shadowless
winter, when it is all shade, and therefore no shadow;
onwards to the first coltsfoot and on to the seed-
time again ; I knew the dates of all of them. I did
not want change ; I wanted the same flowers to
return on the same day, the titlark to rise soaring
from the same oak to fetch down love with a song
from heaven to his mate on the nest beneath. No
change, no new thing ; if I found a fresh wildflower
in a fresh place, still it wove at once into the old
garland. In vain, the very next year was different
even in the same place — that had been a year of
rain, and the flag flowers were wonderful to see ; this
was a dry year, and the flags not half the height,
the gold of the flower not so deep; next year the
fatal billhook came and swept away a slow-grown

WILD FLO WEES. 49

hedge that had given me crab -blossom in cuckoo-time
and hazelnuts in harvest. Never again the same,
even in the same place.

A little feather droops downwards to the ground — a
swallow's feather fuller of miracle than the Pentateuch
—how shall that feather be placed again in the breast
where it grew? Nothing twice. Time changes the
places that knew us, and if we go back in after years,
still even then it is not the old spot ; the gate swings
differently, new thatch has been put on the old gables,
the road has been widened, and the sward the driven
sheep lingered on is gone. Who dares to think then ?
For faces fade as flowers, and there is no consolation.
So now I am sure I was right in always walking
the same way by the starry flowers striving upwards
on a slender ancestry of stem ; I would follow the
plain old road to-day if I could. Let change be far
from me ; that irresistible change must come is bitter
indeed. Give me the old road, the same flowers —
they were only stitchwort — the old succession of days
and garland, ever weaving into it fresh wildflowers
from far and near. Fetch them from distant moun-
tains, discover them on decaying walls, in unsuspected
corners ; though never seen before, still they are the
same : there has been a place in the heart waiting
for them.

50 THE OPEN AIR.

SUNNY BRIGHTON.

SOME of the old streets opening out of the King's
Eoad look very pleasant on a snnny day. They run
to the north, so that the sun over the sea shines
nearly straight up them, and at the farther end,
where the houses close in on higher ground, the deep
blue sky descends to the rooftrees. The old red tiles,
the red chimneys, the green jalousies, give some
colour ; and beneath there are shadowy corners and
archways. They are not too wide to whisper across,
for it is curious that to be interesting a street must
be narrow, and the pavements are but two or three
bricks broad. These pavements are not for the
advantage of foot passengers ; they are merely to
prevent cart-wheels from grating against the houses.
There is nothing ancient or carved in these streets,
they are but moderately old, yet turning from the
illuminated sea it is pleasant to glance up them as
you pass, in their stillness and shadow, lying outside
the inconsiderate throng walking to and fro, and
contrasting in their irregularity with the set facades
of the front. Opposite, across the King's Eoad, the
mastheads of the fishing boats on the beach just rise
above the rails of the cliff, tipped with fluttering
pennants, or fish-shaped vanes changing to the wind.

SUNNY BRIGHTON. 51

They have a pulley at the end of a curved piece of
iron for hauling up the lantern to the top of the
mast when trawling ; this thin curve, with a dot at
the extremity surmounting the straight and rigid
mast, suits the artist's pencil. The gold-plate shop —
there is a bust of Psyche in the doorway — often
attracts the eye in passing ; gold and silver plate in
large masses is striking, and it is a very good place
to stand a minute and watch the passers-by.

It is a Piccadilly crowd by the sea — exactly the same
style of people you meet in Piccadilly, but freer in
dress, and particularly in hats. All fashionable Brigh-
ton parades the King's Koad twice a day, morning
and afternoon, always on the side of the shops. The
route is up and down the King's Eoad as far as
Preston Street, back again and up East Street.
Biding and driving Brighton extends its Eotten Eow
sometimes to Third Avenue, Hove. These well-
dressed and leading people never look at the sea.
Watching by the gold-plate shop you will not observe
a single glance in the direction of the sea, beautiful
as it is, gleaming under the sunlight. They do not
take the slightest interest in sea, or sun, or sky, or
the fresh breeze calling white horses from the deep.
Their pursuits are purely " social," and neither ladies
nor gentlemen ever go on the beach or lie where
the surge comes to the feet. The beach is ignored ;
it is almost, perhaps quite vulgar ; or rather it is
entirely outside the pale. No one rows, very few
sail; the sea is not " the thing" in Brighton, which
is the least nautical of seaside places. There is more
talk of horses.

52 THE OPEN AW.

The wind coming up the cliff seems to bring with
it whole armfuls of sunshine, and to throw the warmth
and light against you as you linger. The walls and
glass reflect the light and push back the wind in
puffs and eddies ; the awning flutters ; light and
wind spring upwards from the pavement ; the sky is
richly blue against the parapets overhead ; there are
houses on one side, but on the other open space and
sea, and dim clouds in the extreme distance. The
atmosphere is full of light, and gives a sense of
liveliness; every atom of it is in motion. How
delicate are the fore legs of these thoroughbred horses
passing ! Small and slender, the hoof, as the limb
rises, seems to hang by a thread, yet there is- strength
and speed in those sinews. Strength is often asso-
ciated with size, with the mighty flank, the round
barrel, the great shoulder. But I marvel more at
the manner in which that strength is conveyed
through these slender sinews; the huge brawn and
breadth of flesh all depend upon these little cords.
It is at these junctions that the wonder of life is most
evident. The succession of well-shaped horses, over-
taking and passing, crossing, meeting, their high-
raised heads and action increase the impression of
pleasant movement. Quick wheels, sometimes a
tandem, or a painted coach, towering over the line, —
so rolls the procession of busy pleasure. There is
colour in hat and bonnet, feathers, flowers, and
mantles, not brilliant but rapidly changing, and in
that sense bright. Faces on which the sun shines
and the wind blows whether cared for or not, and
lit up thereby ; faces seen for a moment and inime-

SUNNY BRIGHTON. 53

diately followed by others as interesting; a flowing
gallery of portraits ; all life, life ! Waiting un-
observed under the awning, occasionally, too, I hear
voices as the throng goes by on the pavement —
pleasant tones of people chatting and the human
sunshine of laughter. The atmosphere is full of
movement, full of light, and life streams to and fro.

Yonder, over the road, a row of fishermen lean
against the rails of the cliff, some with their backs
to the sea, some facing it, "The cliff" is rather a
misnomer, it is more like a sea-wall in height. This
row of stout men in blue jerseys, or copper-hued tan
frocks, seems to be always there, always waiting
for the tide — or nothing. Each has his particular
position; one, shorter than the rest, leans with his
elbows backwards on the low rail; another hangs
over and looks down at the site of the fish market ;
an older man stands upright, and from long habit
looks steadily out to sea. They have their hands in
their pockets ; they appear fat and jolly, as round as
the curves of their smacks drawn up on the beach
beneath them. They are of such that "sleep o'
nights ; " no anxious ambition disturbs their placiditj*.
No man in this world knows how to absolutely do
— nothing, like a fisherman. Sometimes he turns
round, sometimes he does not, that is all. The sun
shines, the breeze comes up the cliff, far away a
French fishing lugger is busy enough. The boats
on the beach are idle, and swarms of boys are
climbing over them, swinging on a rope from the
bowsprit, or playing at marbles under the cliff.
Bigger boys collect under the lee of a smack, and do

54 THE OPEN AIR.

nothing cheerfully. The fashionable throng hastens
to and fro, but the row leaning against the railings
do not stir.

Doleful tales they have to tell any one who inquires
about the fishing. There have been " no herrings "
these two years. One man went out with his smack,
and after working for hours returned with one sole.
I can never get this one sole out of my mind when
I see the row by the rails. While the fisherman was
telling me this woeful story, I fancied I heard voices
from a crowd of the bigger boys collected under a
smack, voices that said, "Ho! ho! Go on! you're
kidding the man ! " Is there much " kidding " in this
business of fish ? Another man told me (but he was
not a smack proprietor) that £50, £70, or £80 was a
common night's catch. Some people say that the
smacks never put to sea until the men have spent
every shilling they have got, and are obliged to sail.
If truth lies at the bottom of a well, it is the well of
a fishing boat, for there is nothing so hard to get at
as the truth about fish. At the time when society
was pluming itself on the capital results attained by
the Fisheries Exhibition in London, and gentlemen
described in the papers how they had been to market
and purchased cod at sixpence a pound, one shilling
and eightpence a pound was the price in the Brighton
fishmongers' shops, close to the sea. Not the least
effect was produced in Brighton; fish remains at
precisely the same price as before all this ridiculous
trumpeting. But while the fishmongers charge two-
pence each for fresh herrings, the old women bring
them to the door at sixteen a shilling. The poor who

SUNNY BE1GHTON. 55

live in the old part of Brighton, near the markets,
use great quantities of the smaller and cheaper fish,
and their children weary of the taste to such a degree
that when the girls go out to service they ask to be
excused from eating it.

The fishermen say they can often find a better
market by sending their fish to Paris ; much of the
fish caught off Brighton goes there. It is fifty miles
to London, and 250 to Paris ; how then can this be ?
Fish somehow slip through ordinary rules, being
slimy of surface; the maxims of the writers on
demand and supply are quite ignored, and there is
no groping to the bottom of this well of truth.

Just at the corner of some of the old streets that
come down to the King's Koad one or two old fisher-
men often stand. The front one props himself
against the very edge of the buildings, and peers
round into the broad sunlit thoroughfare ; his brown
copper frock makes a distinct patch of colour at the
edge of the house. There is nothing in common
between him and the moving throng : he is quite
separate and belongs to another race ; he has come
down from the shadow of the old street, and his
copper-hued frock might have come out of the last
century.

The fishing-boats and the fishing, the nets, and all
the fishing work are a great ornament to Brighton.
They are real; there is something about them that
forms a link with the facts of the sea, with the forces
of the tides and winds, and the sunlight gleaming
on the white crests of the waves. They speak to
thoughts lurking in the mind ; they float between life

56 THE OPEN AIE.

and death as with a billow on either hand ; their
anchors go down to the roots of existence. This is
real work, real labour of man, to draw forth food
from the deep as the plough draws it from the earth,
It is in utter contrast to the artificial work — the
feathers, the jewellery, the writing at desks of the
town. The writings of a thousand clerks, the busy
factory work, the trimmings and feathers, and
counter-attendance do not touch the real. They are
all artificial. For food you must still go to the earth
and to the sea, as in primeval days. Where would
your thousand clerks, your trimmers, and counter-
salesmen be without a loaf of bread, without meat,
without fish? The old brown sails and the nets,
the anchors and tarry ropes, go straight to nature.
You do not care for nature now ? Well ! all I can
say is, you will have to go to nature one day — when
you die : you will find nature very real then. I rede
you to recognize the sunlight and the sea, the
flowers and woods now.

I like to go down on the beach among the fishing
boats, and to recline on the shingle by a smack when
the wind comes gently from the west, and the low
wave breaks but a few yards from my feet. I like
the occasional passing scent of pitch : they are
melting it close by. 1 confess I like tar : one's hands
smell nice after touching ropes. It is more like
home down on the beach here ; the men are doing
something real, sometimes there is the clink of a
hammer ; behind me there is a screen of brown net,
in which rents are being repaired ; a big rope yonder
stretches as the horse goes round, and the heavy

SUNNY BRIGHTON. 57

smack is drawn slowly up over tlie pebbles. The
full curves of the rounded bows beside me are
pleasant to the eye, as any curve is that recalls those
of woman. Mastheads stand up against the sky,
and a loose rope swings as the breeze strikes it ; a
veer of the wind brings a puff of smoke from the
funnel of a cabin, where some one is cooking, but
it is not disagreeable, like smoke from a house
chimney-pot ; another veer carries it away again, —
depend upon it the simplest thing cooked there is
nice. Shingle rattles as it is shovelled up for ballast
— the sound of labour makes me more comfortably
lazy. They are not in a hurry, nor "chivy" over
their work either ; the tides rise and fall slowly, and
they work in correspondence. No infernal fidget and
fuss. Wonder how long it would take me to pitch
a pebble so as to lodge on the top of that large brown
pebble there ? I try, once now and then.

Far out over the sea there is a peculiar bank of
clouds. I was always fond of watching clouds ; these
do not move much. In my pocket-book I see I have
several notes about these peculiar sea-clouds. They
form a band not far above the horizon, not very thick
but elongated laterally. The upper edge is curled or
wavy, not so heavily as what is called mountainous,
not in the least threatening ; this edge is white. The
body of the vapour is a little darker, either because
thicker, or because the light is reflected at a different
angle. But it is the lower edge which is singular : in
direct contrast with the curled or wavy edge above, the
under edge is perfectly straight and parallel to the
line of the horizon. It looks as if the level of the sea

58 THE OPEN AIR

made this under line. This bank moves very slowly —
scarcely perceptibly — but in course of hours rises, and
as it rises spreads, when the extremities break off in
detached pieces, and these gradually vanish. Some-
times when travelling I have pointed out the direction
of the sea, feeling sure it was there, and not far off,
though invisible, on account of the appearance of the
clouds, whose under edge was cut across so straight.
When this peculiar bank appears at Brighton it is an
almost certain sign of continued fine weather, and I
have noticed the same thing elsewhere ; once particu-
larly it remained fine after this appearance despite
every threat the sky could offer of a storm. All the
threats came to nothing for three weeks, -not even
thunder and lightning could break it up, — " deceitful
flashes," as the Arabs say ; for, like the sons of the
desert, just then the farmers longed for rain on their
parched fields. To me, while on the beach among the
boats, the value of these clouds lies in their slow-
ness of movement, and consequent effect in sooth-
ing the mind. Outside the hurry and drive of life
a rest comes through the calm of nature. As the
swell of the sea carries up the pebbles, and arranges
the largest farthest inland, where they accumulate
and stay unmoved, so the drifting of the clouds, and
the touch of the wind, the sound of the surge, arrange
the molecules of the mind in still layers. It is then
that a dream fills it, and a dream is sometimes better
than the best reality. Laugh at the idea of dreaming
where there is an odour of tar if you like, but you see
it is outside intolerable civilization. It is a hundred
miles from the King's Eoad, though but just under it.

SUNNY BRIGHTON. 59

There is a scheme on foot for planking over the
-ocean, beginning at the bottom of West Street. An
immense central pier is proposed, which would occupy
the only available site for beaching the smacks. If
carried out, the whole fishing industry must leave
Brighton, — to the fishermen the injury would be be-
yond compensation, and the aspect of Brighton itself
would be destroyed. Brighton ought to rise in revolt
against it.

All Brighton chimney-pots are put on with giant
cement, in order to bear the strain of the tremendous
winds rushing up from the sea. Heavy as the gales
are, they seldom do much mischief to the roofs, such
as are recorded inland. On the King's Koad a plate-
glass window is now and then blown in, so that on
hurricane days the shutters are generally half shut.
It is said that the wind gets between the iron shutters
and the plate glass and shakes the windows loose.
The heaviest waves roll in by the West Pier, and at
the bottom of East Street. Both sides of the West
Pier are washed by larger waves than can be seen all
along the coast from the Quarter Deck. Great rollers
come in at the concrete groyne at the foot of East
Street. Exposed as the coast is, the waves do not
convey so intense an idea of wildness, confusion, and
power as they do at Dover. To see waves in their
full vigour go to the Admiralty Pier and watch the seas
broken by the granite wall. Windy Brighton has not
an inch of shelter anywhere in a gale, and the salt
rain driven by the wind penetrates the thickest coat.
The windiest spot is at the corner of Second Avenue,
Hove ; the wind just there is almost enough to choke

60 THE OPEN AIE.

those who face it. Double windows — Kussian fashion
— are common all along the sea-front, and are needed.
After a gale, when the wind changes, as it usually
does, it is pleasant to see the ships work in to the
verge of the shore. The sea is turbid and yellow with
sand beaten up by the recent billows, — this yellow-
ness extends outwards to a certain line, and is there
succeeded by the green of clearer water: Beyond this
again the surface looks dark, as if still half angry, and
clouds hang over it, loth to retire from the strife. • As
bees come out of their hives when the rain ceases and
the sun shines, so the vessels which have been lying-to
in harbour, or under shelter of promontories, are now
eagerly making their way down Channel, and, in order
to get as long a tack and as much advantage as
possible, they are brought to the edge of the shallow
water. Sometimes fifteen or twenty or more stand
in ; all sizes from the ketch to the three-master. The
wind is not strong, but that peculiar drawing breeze
which seems to pull a ship along as if with a tow-
rope. The brig stands straight for the beach, with
all sail set ; she heels a little, not much ; she scarcely
heaves to the swell, and is not checked by meeting
waves ; she comes almost to the yellow line of turbid
water, when round she goes, and you can see the sails
shiver as the breeze touches them on both surfaces
for a moment. Then again she shows her stern and
away she glides, while another approaches : and all day
long they pass. There is always something shadowy,
not exactly unreal, but shadowy about a ship ; it
seems to carry a romance, and the imagination
fashions a story to the swelling sails.

SUNNY BRIGHTON. 61

The bright light of Brighton brings all things into
clear relief, giving them an edge and outline ; as steel
burns with a flame like wood in oxygen, so the minute
particles of iron in the atmosphere seem to burn and
glow in the sunbeams, and a twofold illumination fills
the air. Coming back to the place after a journey
this brilliant light is very striking, and most new
visitors notice it. Even a room with a northern
aspect is full of light, too strong for some eyes, till
accustomed to it. I am a great believer in light —
sunlight — and of my free will never let it be shut out
with curtains. Light is essential to life, like air;
life is thought ; light is as fresh air to the mind.
Brilliant sunshine is reflected from the houses and
fills the streets. The walls of the houses are clean
and less discoloured by the deposit of carbon than
usual in most towns, so that the reflection is stronger
from these white surfaces. Shadow there is none in
summer, for the shadows are lit up by diffusion.
Something in the atmosphere throws light down into
shaded places as if from a mirror. Waves beat
ceaselessly on the beach, and the undulations of light
flow continuously forwards into the remotest corners.
Pure air, free from suspended matter, lets the light
pass freely, and perhaps this absence of suspended
material is the reason that the heat is not so oppres-
sive as would be supposed considering the glare.
Certainly it is not so hot as London ; on going up to
town on a July or August day it seems much hotter
there, so much so that one pants for air. Conversely
in winter, London appears much colder, the thick
dark atmosphere seems to increase the bitterness of

62 THE OPEN AIR.

the easterly winds, and returning to Brighton is enter-
ing a warmer because clearer air. Many complain of
the brilliance of the light ; they say the glare is over-
powering, but the eyes soon become acclimatized.
This glare is one of the great recommendations of
Brighton ; the strong light is evidently one of the
causes of its healthfulness to those who need change.
There is no such glowing light elsewhere along the
south coast ; these things are very local.

A demand has been made for trees, to plant the
streets and turn them into boulevards for shade, than
which nothing could be more foolish. It is the dry-
ness of the place that gives it its character. After a
storm, after heavy rain for days, in an. hour the
pavements are not only dry but clean ; no dirt, sticky
and greasy, remains. The only dirt in Brighton, for
three-fourths of the year, is that made by the water-
carts. Too much water is used, and a good clean road
covered with mud an inch thick in August ; but this
is not the fault of Brighton — it is the lack of observa-
tion on the part of the Cadi who ought to have noticed
the wretched condition of ladies' boots when com-
pelled to cross these miry promenades. Trees are
not wanted in Brighton ; it is the peculiar glory of
Brighton to be treeless. Trees are the cause of damp,
they suck down moisture, and fill a circle round them
with humidity. Places full of trees are very trying
in spring and autumn even to robust people, much
more so to convalescents and delicate persons. Have
nothing to do with trees, if Brighton is to retain its
value. Glowing light, dry, clear, and clean air,
general dryness — these are the qualities that rendered

SUNNY BRIGHTON. 63

Brighton a sanatorium ; light and glow without
oppressive, moist heat ; in winter a clear cold. Most
terrible of all to bear is cold when the atmosphere is
saturated with water. If any reply that trees have
no leaves in winter and so do not condense moisture,
I at once deny the conclusion ; they have no leaves,
but they condense moisture nevertheless. This is
effected by the minute twigs, thousands of twigs and
little branches, on which the mists condense, and distil
in drops. Under a large tree, in winter, there is often
a perfect shower, enough to require an umbrella, and
it lasts for hours. Eastbourne is a pleasant place,
but visit Eastbourne, which is proud of its trees, in
October, and feel the damp fallen leaves under your
feet, and you would prefer no trees.

Let nothing check the descent of those glorious
beams of sunlight which fall at Brighton. Watch
the pebbles on the beach ; the foam runs up and
wets them, almost before it can slip back the sun-
shine has dried them again. So they are alternately
wetted and dried. Bitter sea and glowing light,
bright clear air, dry as dry, — that describes the
place. Spain is the country of sunlight, burning
sunlight ; Brighton is a Spanish town in England, a
Seville. Very bright colours can be worn in summer
because of this powerful light ; the brightest are
scarcely noticed, for they seem to be in concert with
the sunshine. Is it difficult to paint in so strong a
light ? Pictures in summer look dull and out of tune
when this Seville sun is shining. Artificial colours
of the palette cannot live in it. As a race we do not
seem to care much for colour or art — I mean in the

64 THE OPEN AW.

common things of daily life — else a great deal of
colour might be effectively used in Brighton in
decorating houses and woodwork. Much more colour
might be put in the windows, brighter flowers and
curtains; more, too, inside the rooms; the sober
hues of London furniture and carpets are not in
accord with Brighton light. Gold and ruby and
blue, the blue of transparent glass, or. purple, might
be introduced, and the romance of colour freely
indulged. At high tide of summer Spanish mantillas,
Spanish fans, would not be out of place in the open
air. No tint is too bright — scarlet, cardinal, anything
the imagination fancies ; the brightest parasol is a
matter of course. Stand, for instance, by the West
Pier, on the Esplanade, looking east on a full-lit
August day. The sea is blue, streaked with green,
and is stilled with heat ; the low undulations can
scarcely rise and fall for somnolence. The distant
cliffs are white ; the houses yellowish-white ; the sky
blue, more blue than fabled Italy. Light pours down,
and the bitter salt sea wets the pebbles ; to look at
them makes the mouth dry, in the unconscious
recollection of the saltness and bitterness. The flags
droop, the sails of the fishing-boats hang idle ; the
land and the sea are conquered by the great light of
the sun.

Some people become famous by being always in
one attitude. Meet them when you will, they have
invariably got an arm — the same arm — crossed over
the breast, and the hand thrust in between the buttons
of the coat to support it. Morning, noon, or evening,
in the street, the carriage, sitting, reading the paper,

8UNN7 BRIGHTON. 65

always the same attitude ; thus they achieve social
distinction ; it takes the place of a medal or the red
ribbon. What is a general or a famous orator com-
pared to a man always in the same attitude ? Simply
nobody, nobody knows him, everybody knows the
mono-attitude man. Some people make their mark
by invariably wearing the same short pilot coat.
Doubtless it has been many times renewed, still it is
the same coat. In winter it is thick, in summer
thin, but identical in cut and colour. Some people
sit at the same window of the reading-room at the
same hour every day, all the year round. This is the
way to become marked and famous ; winning a battle
is nothing to it. When it was arranged that a
military band should play on the Brunswick Lawns,
it became the fashion to stop carriages in the road
and listen to it. Frequently there were carriages
four deep, while the gale blew the music out to sea
and no one heard a note. Still they sat content.

There are more handsome women in Brighton
than anywhere else in the world. They are so
common that gradually the standard of taste in the
mind rises, and good-looking women who would be
admired in other places pass by without notice.
Where all the flowers are roses, you do not see a rose.
They are all plump, not to say fat, which would be
rude ; very plump, and have the glow and bloom of
youth upon the cheeks. They do not suffer from
"pernicious anaimia," that evil bloodlessness which
London physicians are not unfrequently called upon
to cure, when the cheeks are white as paper and
have to be rosied with minute doses of arsenic. They

F

66 THE OPEN AIR.

extract their arsenic from the air. The way they
step and the carriage of the form show how full
they are of life and spirits. Sarah Bernhardt will
not come to Brighton if she can help it, lest she
should lose that high art angularity and slipperiness
of shape which suits her role. Dresses seem always
to fit well, because people somehow expand to them.
It is pleasant to see the girls walk, because the limbs
do not drag, the feet are lifted gaily and with ease.
Horse-exercise adds a deeper glow to the face ; they
ride up on the Downs first, out of pure cunning, for
the air there is certain to impart a freshness to the
features like dew on a flower, and then return and
walk their horses to and fro the King's Eoad, certain
of admiration. However often these tricks are
played, they are always successful. Those philan-
thropic folk who want to reform women's dress, and
call upon the world to observe how the present style
contracts the chest, and forces the organs of the body
out of place (what a queer expression it seems,
" organs " !) have not a chance in Brighton. Girls
lace tight and " go in " for the tip of the fashion, yet
they bloom and flourish as green bay trees, and do
not find their skirts any obstacle in walking or tennis.
The horse-riding that goes on is a thing to be
chronicled ; they are always on horseback, and you
may depend upon it that it is better for them than all
the gymnastic exercises ever invented. The liability
to strain, and even serious internal injury, which is
incurred in gymnastic exercises, ought to induce
sensible people to be extremely careful how they
permit their daughters to sacrifice themselves on this

SUNNY BRIGHTON. 67

scientific altar. Buy them horses to ride, if you want
them to enjoy good health and sound constitutions.
Nothing like horses for women. Send the professors
to Suakim, and put the girls on horseback. Whether
Brighton grows handsome girls, or whether they
flock there drawn by instinct, or become lovely by
staying there, is an inquiry too difficult to pursue.

There they are, one at least in every group, and you
have to walk, as the Spaniards say, with your beard
over your shoulder, continually looking back at those
who have passed. The only antidote known is to get
married before you visit the place, and doubts have
been expressed as to its efficacy. In the south-coast
Seville there is nothing done but heart-breaking ; it
is so common it is like hammering flints for road-
mending ; nobody cares if your heart is in pieces.
They break hearts on horseback, and while walking,
playing tennis, shopping — actually at shopping, not
to mention parties of every kind. No one knows
where the next danger will be encountered — at the
very next corner perhaps. Feminine garments have
an irresistible flutter in the sea-breeze ; feathers
have a beckoning motion. No one can be altogether
good in Brighton, and that is the great charm of it.
The language of the eyes is cultivated to a marvellous
degree ; as we say of dogs, they quite talk with their
eyes. Even when you do not chance to meet an
exceptional beauty, still the plainer women are not
plain like the plain women in other places. The
average is higher among them, and they are not so
irredeemably uninteresting. The flash of an eye, the
shape of a shoulder, the colour of the hair — something

G8 THE OPEN AIE.

or other pleases. Women without a single good
feature are often good-looking in New Seville because
of an indescribable style or manner. They catch the
charm of the good-looking by living among them, so
that if any young lady desires to acquire the art of
attraction she has only to take train and join them.
Delighted with our protectorate of Paphos, Venus has
lately decided to reside on these shores. Every
morning the girls' schools go for their constitutional
walks ; there seem no end of these schools — the place
has a garrison of girls, and the same thing is notice-
able in their ranks. Too young to have developed
actual loveliness, some in each band distinctly promise
future success. After long residence the people
become accustomed to good looks, and do not see
anything especial around them, but on going away
for a few days soon miss these pleasant faces.

In reconstructing Brighton station, one thing was
omitted — a balcony from which to view the arrival
and departure of the trains in summer and autumn.
The scene is as lively and interesting as the stage
when a good play is proceeding. So many happy
expectant faces, often very beautiful ; such a mingling
of colours, and succession of different figures; now
a brunette, now golden hair : it is a stage, only it is
real. The bustle, which is not the careworn anxious
haste of business ; the rushing to and fro ; the
greetings of friends ; the smiles ; the shifting of the
groups, some coming, and some going — plump and
rosy, — it is really charming. One has a fancy dog,
another a bright-bound novel ; very many have
cavaliers ; and look at the piles of luggage !

SUNNY BRIGHTON. 69

What dresses, what changes and elegance concealed
therein ! — conjurors' trunks out of which wonders
will spring. Can anything look jollier than a cab
overgrown with luggage, like huge barnacles, just
starting away with its freight ? One can imagine
such a fund of enjoyment on its way in that cab.
This happy throng seems to express something that
delights the heart. I often used to walk up to the
station just to see it, and left feeling better.

70 THE OPEN AIR.

THE PINE WOOD. '

THEKE was a humming in the tops of the young pines
as if a swarm of bees were busy at the green cones.
They were not visible through the thick needles, and
on listening longer it seemed as if the sound was not
exactly the note of the bee — a slightly different pitch,
and the hum was different, while bees have a habit
of working close together. Where there is one bee
there are usually five or six, and the hum is that of
a group ; here there only appeared one or two insects
to a pine. Nor was the buzz like that of the humble-
bee, for every now and then one came along low down,
flying between the stems, and his note was much
deeper. By-and-by, crossing to the edge of the
plantation, where the boughs could be examined,
being within reach, I found it was wasps. A yellow
wasp wandered over the blue-green needles till he
found a pair with a drop of liquid like dew between
them. There he fastened himself and sucked at it ;
you could see the drop gradually drying up till it
was gone. The largest of these drops were generally
between two needles— those of the Scotch fir or pine
grow in pairs — but there were smaller drops on the
outside of other needles. In searching for this exuding

THE PINE WOOD. 71

turpentine the wasps filled the whole plantation with
the sound of their wings. There must have been
many thousands of them. They caused no inconve-
nience to any one walking in the copse, because they
were high overhead.

Watching these wasps I found two cocoons of pale
yellow silk on a branch of larch, and by them a green
spider. He was quite green — two shades, lightest on
the back, but little lighter than the green larch bough.
An ant had climbed up a pine and over to the extreme
end of a bough ; she seemed slow and stupefied in her
motions, as if she had drunken of the turpentine and
had lost her intelligence. The soft cones of the larch
could be easily cut down the centre with a penknife,
showing the structure of the cone and the seeds inside
each scale. It is for these seeds that birds frequent
the fir copses, shearing off the scales with their beaks.
One larch cone had still the tuft at the top — a pine-
apple in miniature. The loudest sound in the wood
was the humming in the trees ; there was no wind,
no sunshine ; a summer day, still and shadowy, under
large clouds high up. To this low humming the
sense of hearing soon became accustomed, and it
served but to render the silence deeper. In time, as
I sat waiting and listening, there came the faintest
far-off song of a bird away in the trees ; the merest
thin upstroke of sound, slight in structure, the echo
of the strong spring singing. This was the summer
repetition, dying away. A willow-wren still remem-
bered his love, and whispered about it to the silent
fir tops, as in after days we turn over the pages of
letters, withered as leaves, and sigh. So gentle, so

72 THE OPEN AIR.

low, so tender a song the willow-wren sang that it
could scarce be known as the voice of a bird, but was
like that of some yet more delicate creature with the
heart of a woman.

A butterfly with folded wings clung to a sialk of
grass ; upon the under side of his wing thus exposed
there were buff spots, and dark dots and streaks drawn
on the finest ground of pearl-grey, through which
there came a tint of blue; there was a blue, too,
shut up between the wings, visible at the edges.
The spots, and dots, and streaks were not exactly
the same on each wing ; at first sight they appeared
similar, but, on comparing one with the other, differ-
ences could be traced. The pattern was not mechani-
cal ; it was hand-painted by Nature, and the painter's
eye and fingers varied in their work.

How fond Nature is of spot-markings! — the wings of
butterflies, the feathers of birds, the surface of eggs,
the leaves and petals of plants are constantly spotted ;
so, too, fish — as trout. From the wing of the butter-
fly I looked involuntarily at the foxglove I had just
gathered ; inside, the bells were thickly spotted — dots
and dustings that might have been transferred to a
butterfly's wing. The spotted meadow-orchis ; the
brown dots on the cowslips ; brown, black, greenish,
reddish dots and spots and dustings on the eggs of the
finches, the whitethroats, and so many others — some of
the spots seem as if they had been splashed on and had
run into short streaks, some mottled, some gathered
together at the end; all spots, dots, dustings of
minute specks, mottlings, and irregular markings.
The histories, the stories, the library of knowledge

THE PINE WOOD. 73

contained in those signs ! It was thought a wonderful
thing when at last the strange inscriptions of Assyria
were read, made of nail-headed characters whose sound
was lost ; it was thought a triumph when the yet older
hieroglyphics of Egypt were compelled to give up their
messages, and the world hoped that we should know
the secrets of life. That hope was disappointed; there
was nothing in the records but superstition and useless
ritual. But here we go back to the beginning; the
antiquity of Egypt is nothing to the age of these
signs — they date from unfathomable time. In them
the sun has written his commands, and the wind
inscribed deep thought. They were before superstition
began; they were composed in the old, old world,
when the Immortals walked on earth. They have
been handed down thousands upon thousands of years
to tell us that to-day we are still in the presence of
the heavenly visitants, if only we will give up the
soul to these pure influences. The language in which
they are written has no alphabet, and cannot be
reduced to order. It can only be understood by the
heart and spirit. Look down into this foxglove bell
and you will know that ; look long and lovingly at
this blue butterfly's underwing, and a feeling will
rise to your consciousness.

Some time passed, but the butterfly did not move ;
a touch presently disturbed him, and flutter, flutter
went his blue wings, only for a few seconds, to another
grass-stalk, and so on from grass-stalk to grass-stalk
as compelled, a yard flight at most. He would not
go farther ; he settled as if it had been night. There
was no sunshine, and under the clouds he had no

74 THE OPEN AIR.

animation. A swallow went by singing in the air, and
as he flew his forked tail was shut, and but one streak
of feathers drawn past. Though but young trees, there
was a coating of fallen needles under the firs an inch
thick, and beneath it the dry earth touched warm. A
fern here and there came up through it, the palest of
pale green, quite a different colour to the same species
growing in the hedges away from the copse. A yellow
fungus, streaked with scarlet as if blood had soaked
into it, stood at the foot of a tree occasionally. Black
fungi, dry, shrivelled, and dead, lay fallen about,
detached from the places where they had grown, and
crumbling if handled. Still more silent after sunset,
the wood was utterly quiet; the swallows no longer
passed twittering, the willow- wren was gone, there was
no hum or rustle ; the wood was as silent as a shadow.

But before the darkness a song and an answer
arose in a tree, one bird singing a few notes and
another replying side by side. Two goldfinches sat
on the cross of a larch-fir and sang, looking towards
the west, where the light lingered. High up, the
larch-fir boughs with the top shoot form a cross ; on
this one goldfinch sat, the other was immediately
beneath. At even the birds often turn to the west
as they sing.

Next morning the August sun shone, and the wood
was all a-hum with insects. The wasps were working
at the pine boughs high overhead; the bees by dozens
were crowding to the bramble flowers ; swarming on
them, they seemed so delighted ; humble-bees went
wandering among the ferns in the copse and in the
ditches — they sometimes alight on fern — and calling

TEE PINE WOOD. 75

at every purple heath-blossom, at the purple knap-
weeds, purple thistles, and broad handfuls of yellow-
weed flowers. Wasp-like flies barred with yellow
suspended themselves in the air between the pine-
trunks like hawks hovering, and suddenly shot
themselves a yard forward or to one side, as if the
rapid vibration of their wings while hovering had
accumulated force which drove them as if discharged
from a cross-bow. The sun had set all things in
motion.

There was a hum under the oak by the hedge,
a hum in the pine wood, a humming among the heath
and the dry grass which heat had browned. The air
was alive and merry with sound, so that the day
seemed quite different and twice as pleasant. Three
blue butterflies fluttered in one flowery corner, the
warmth gave them vigour ; two had a silvery edging
to their wings, one was brown and blue. The nuts
reddening at the tips appeared ripening like apples
in the sunshine. This corner is a favourite with wild
bees and butterflies ; if the sun shines they are sure
to be found there at the heath-bloom and tall yellow-
weed, and among the dry seeding bennets or grass-
stalks. All things, even butterflies, are local in their
habits. Far up on the hillside the blue green of the
pines beneath shone in the sun — a burnished colour ;
the high hillside is covered with heath and heather.
Where there are open places a small species of gorse,
scarcely six inches high, is in bloom, the yellow
blossom on the extremity of the stalk.

Some of these gorse plants seemed to have a different
flower growing at the side of the stem, instead of at

76 THE OPEN AIR.

the extremity. These florets were cream-coloured, so
that it looked like a new species of gorse. On gather-
ing it to examine the thick-set florets, it was found
that a slender runner or creeper had been torn up with
it. Like a thread the creeper had wound itself round
and round the furze, buried in and hidden by the
prickles, and it was this creeper that bore the white
or cream-florets. It was tied round- as tightly as
thread could be, so that the florets seemed to start
from the stem, deceiving the eye at first. In some
places this parasite plant had grown up the heath and
strangled it, so that the tips turned brown and died.
The runners extended in every direction across the
ground, like those of strawberries. One creeper had
climbed up a bennet, or seeding grass-stalk, binding
the stalk and a blade of the grass together, and flower-
ing there. On the ground there were patches of grey
lichen; many of the pillar -like stems were crowned
with a red top. Under a small boulder stone there
was an ants' nest. These boulders, or, as they are
called locally, "bowlers," were scattered about the
heath. Many of the lesser stones were spotted with
dark dots of lichen, not unlike a toad.
• Thoughtlessly turning over a boulder about nine
inches square, lo! there was subject enough for
thinking underneath it — a subject that has been
thought about many thousand years; for this piece
of rock had formed the roof of an ants' nest. The
stone had sunk three inches deep into the dry soil
of sand and peaty mould, and in the floor of the hole
the ants had worked out their excavations, which
resembled an outline map. The largest excavation

THE PINE WOOD. 77

was like England ; at the top, or north, they had
left a narrow bridge, an eighth of an inch wide, under
which to pass into Scotland, and from Scotland again
another narrow arch led to the Orkney Islands ; these
last, however, were dug in the perpendicular side of
the hole. In the corners of these excavations tunnels
ran deeper into the ground, and the ants immediately
began hurrying their treasures, the eggs, down into
these cellars. At one angle a tunnel went beneath
the heath into further excavations beneath a second
boulder stone. Without, a fern grew, and the dead
dry stems of heather crossed each other.

This discovery led to the turning over of another
boulder stone not far off, and under it there appeared
a much more extensive and complete series of galleries,
bridges, cellars and tunnels. In these the whole life-
history of the ant was exposed at a single glance, as
if one had taken off the roofs of a city. One cell
contained a dust-like deposit, another a collection
resembling the dust, but now elongated and a little
greenish ; a third treasury, much larger, was piled
up with yellowish grains about the size of wheat,
each with a black dot on the top, and looking like
minute hop-pockets. Besides these, there was a pure
white substance in a corridor, which the irritated
ants seemed particularly anxious to remove out of
sight, and quickly carried away. Among the ants
rushing about there were several with wings ; one
took flight ; one was seized by a wingless ant and
dragged down into a cellar, as if to prevent its taking
wing. A helpless green fly was in the midst, and
round the outside galleries there crept a creature like

78 THE OPEN AIR.

a spider, seeming to try to hide itself. If the nest
had been formed under glass, it could not have been
more open to view. The stone was carefully replaced.
Below the pine wood on the slope of the hill a plough
was already at work, the crop of peas having been
harvested. The four horses came up the slope, and
at the ridge swept round in a fine curve to go back
and open a fresh furrow. As soon .as they faced
down-hill they paused, well aware of what had to be
done, and the ploughman in a manner knocked his
plough to pieces, putting it together again the opposite
way, that the earth he was about to cut with the
share might fall on what he had just turned. With
a piece of iron he hammered the edge of the share,
to set it, for the hard ground had bent the edge, and
it did not cut properly. I said his team looked light ;
they were not so heavily built as the cart-horses used
in many places. No, he said, they did not want
heavy horses. " Dese yer thick-boned bosses be
more clutter-headed over the clots," as he expressed
it, i.e. more clumsy or thick-headed over the clods.
He preferred comparatively light cart-horses to step
well. In the heat of the sun the furze-pods kept
popping and bursting open ; they are often as full of
insects as seeds, which come creeping out. A green
and black lady-bird — exactly like a tortoise — flew on
to my hand. Again on the heath, and the grass-
hoppers rose at every step, sometimes three or four
springing in as many directions. They were winged,
and as soon as they were up spread their vanes and
floated forwards. As the force of the original hop
decreased, the wind took their wings and turned them

THE PINE WOOD. 79

aside from the straight course before they fell. Down
the dusty road, inches deep in sand, comes a sulphur
butterfly, rushing as quick as if hastening to a butter-
fly-fair. If only rare, how valued he would be ! His
colour is so evident and visible ; he fills the road,
being brighter than all, and for the moment is more
than the trees and flowers.

Coming so suddenly over the hedge into the road
close to me, he startled me as if I had been awakened
from a dream — I had been thinking it was August,
and woke to find it February — for the sulphur butterfly
is the February pleasure. Between the dark storms
and wintry rains there is a warm sunny interval of
a week in February. Away one goes for a walk, and
presently there appears a bright yellow spot among
the furze, dancing along like a flower let loose. It is
a sulphur butterfly, who thus comes before the earliest
chiffchaff— before the watch begins for the first
swallow. I call it the February pleasure, as each
month has its delight. So associated as this butterfly
is with early spring, to see it again after months
of leaf and flower — after June and July — with the
wheat in shock and the scent of harvest in the land,
is startling. The summer, then, is a dream ! It is
still winter; but no, here are the trees in leaf, the
nuts reddening, the hum of bees, and dry summer
dust on the high wiry grass. The sulphur butterfly
comes twice ; there is a second brood ; but there are
some facts that are always new and surprising,
however well known. I may say again, if only rare,
how this butterfly would be prized ! Along the hedge-
row there are several spiders' webs. In the centre

80 THE OPEN AIR

they are drawn inwards, forming a funnel, which
goes back a few inches into the hedge, and at the
bottom of this the spider waits. If you look down
the funnel you see his claws at the bottom, ready to
run up and seize a fly.

Sitting in the garden after a walk, it is pleasant to
watch the eave-swallows feeding their young on the
wing. The young bird follows the old one ; then they
face each other and stay a moment in the air, while
the insect food is transferred from beak to beak ; with
a loud note they part. There was a constant warfare
between the eave-swallows and the sparrows frequent-
ing a house where I was staying during the early part
of the summer. The sparrows strove their utmost to
get possession of the nests the swallows built, and there
was no peace between them. It is common enough
for one or two swallows' nests to be attacked in this
way, but here every nest along the eaves was fought
for, and the sparrows succeeded in conquering many
of them. The driven-out swallows after a while began
to build again, and I noticed that more than a pair
seemed to work at the same nest. One nest was
worked at by four swallows ; often all four came
together and twittered at it.

NATURE ON THE ROOF.

INCREASED activity on the housetop marks the approach
of spring and summer exactly as in the woods and
hedges, for the roof has its migrants, its semi-
migrants, and its residents. When the first dandelion
is opening on a sheltered bank, and the pale-blue
field veronica flowers in the waste corner, the whistle
of the starling comes from his favourite ledge. Day
by day it is heard more and more, till, when the
first green spray appears on the hawthorn, he visits
the roof continually. Besides the roof-tree and the
chimney-pot, he has his own special place, sometimes
tinder an eave, sometimes between two gables ; and
as I sit writing, I can see a pair who have a ledge
which slightly projects from the wall between the
eave and the highest window. This was made by
the builder for an ornament ; but my two starlings
consider it their own particular possession. They
alight with a sort of half-scream half-whistle just
over the window, flap their wings, and whistle again,
run along the ledge to a spot where there is a gable,
and with another note, rise up and enter an aperture
between the slates and the wall. There their nest
will be in a little time, and busy indeed they will

82 THE OPEN AIR.

be when the young require to be fed, to and fro the
fields and the gable the whole day through ; the
busiest and the most useful of birds, for they destroy
thousands upon thousands of insects, and if farmers
were wise, they would never have one shot, no matter
how the thatch was pulled about.

My pair of starlings were frequently at this ledge
last autumn, very late in autumn, «and I suspect
they had a winter brood there. The starling does
rear a brood sometimes in the midst of the winter,
contrary as that may seem to our general ideas of
natural history. They may be called roof-residents,
as they visit it all the year round ; they nest in the
roof, rearing two and sometimes three broods; and
use it as their club and place of meeting. Towards
July the young starlings and those that have for
the time at least finished nesting, flock together, and
pass the day in the fields, returning now and then
to their old home. These flocks gradually increase ;
the starling is so prolific that the flocks become
immense, till in the latter part of the autumn in
southern fields it is common to see a great elm-tree
black with them, from the highest bough downwards,
and the noise of their chattering can be heard a
long distance. They roost in firs or in osier-beds.
But in the blackest days of winter, when frost binds
the ground hard as iron, the starlings return to the
roof almost every day ; they do not whistle much,
but have a peculiar chuckling whistle at the instant
of alighting. In very hard weather, especially snow,
the starlings find it difficult to obtain a living, and
at such times will come to the premises at the rear,

NATURE ON THE ROOF. 83

and at farmhouses where cattle are in the yards,
search about among them for insects.

The whole history of the starling is interesting,
but I must here only mention it as a roof-bird.
They are very handsome in their full plumage, which
gleams bronze and green among the darker shades ;
quick in their motions, and full of spirit ; loaded to
the muzzle with energy, and never still. I hope
none of those who are so good as to read what I have
written will ever keep a starling in a cage; the
cruelty is extreme. As for shooting pigeons at a
trap, it is mercy in comparison.

Even before the starling whistles much, the sparrows
begin to chirp : in the dead of winter they are silent ;
but so soon as the warmer winds blow, if only for
a day, they begin to chirp. In January this year
I used to listen to the sparrows chirping, the starlings
whistling, and the chaffinches' "chink, chink" about
eight o'clock, or earlier, in the morning : the first
two on the roof; the latter, which is not a roof-bird,
in some garden shrubs. As the spring advances, the
sparrows sing — it is a short song, it is true, but still
it is singing — perched at the edge of a sunny wall.
There is not a place about the house where they will
not build — under the eaves, on the roof, anywhere
where there is a projection or shelter, deep in the
thatch, under the tiles, in old eave-swallows' nests.
The last place I noticed as a favourite one in towns
is on the half-bricks left projecting in perpendicular
rows at the sides of unfinished houses. Half a dozen
nests may be counted at the side of a house on these
bricks ; and like the starlings, they rear several

84 THE OPEN AIM.

broods, and some are nesting late in the autumn.
By degrees as the summer advances they leave the
houses for the corn, and gather in vast flocks, rivalling
those of the starlings. At this time they desert the
roofs, except those who still have nesting duties. In
winter and in the beginning of the new year, they
gradually return ; migration thus goes on under the
eyes of those who care to notice it. In London, some
who fed sparrows on the roof found that rooks also
came for the crumbs placed out. I sometimes see
a sparrow chasing a rook, as if angry, and trying
to drive it away over the roofs where I live. The
thief does not retaliate, but, like a thief, flees from
the scene of his guilt. This is not only in the
breeding season, when the rook steals eggs, but in
winter. Town residents are apt to despise the
sparrow, seeing him always black ; but in the country
the sparrows are as clean as a pink ; and in them-
selves they are the most animated, clever little
creatures.

They are easily tamed. The Parisians are fond
of taming them. At a certain hour in the Tuileries
Gardens, you may see a man perfectly surrounded
with a crowd of sparrows — some perching on his
shoulder; some fluttering in the air immediately
before his face ; some on the ground like a tribe
of followers; and others on the marble seats. He
jerks a crumb of bread into the air — a sparrow dex-
terously seizes it as he would a flying insect; he
puts a crumb between his lips — a sparrow takes it
out and feeds from his mouth. Meantime they keep
up a constant chirping ; those that are satisfied still

NATURE ON THE EOOF. 85

stay by and adjust their feathers. He walks on,
giving a little chirp with his mouth, and they follow
him along the path — a cloud ahout his shoulders,
and the rest flying from shrub to shrub, perching,
and then following again. They are all perfectly
clean — a contrast to the London sparrow. I came
across one of these sparrow-tamers by chance, and
was much amused at the scene, which, to any one
not acquainted with birds, appears marvellous; but
it is really as simple as possible, and you can repeat
it for yourself if you have patience, for they are
so sharp they soon understand you. They seem to
play at nest-making before they really begin ; taking
up straws in their beaks, and carrying them half-way
to the roof, then letting the straws float away ; and
the same with stray feathers. Neither of these,
starlings nor sparrows, seem to like the dark. Under
the roof, between it and the first ceiling, there is
a large open space ; if the slates or tiles are kept
in good order, very little light enters, and this space
is nearly dark in daylight. Even if chinks admit
a beam of light, it is not enough ; they seldom
enter or fly about there, though quite accessible to
them. But if the roof is in bad order, and this space
light, they enter freely. Though nesting in holes, yet
they like light. The swallows could easily go in and
make nests upon the beams, but they will not, unless
the place is well lit. They do not like darkness in
the daytime.

The swallows bring us the sunbeams on their wings
from Africa to fill the fields with flowers. From
the time of the arrival of the first swallow the flowers

8G THE OPEN AIE.

take heart ; the few and scanty plants that had
braved the earlier cold are succeeded by a constantly
enlarging list, till the banks and lanes are full of
them. The chimney-swallow is usually the fore-
runner of the three house-swallows ; and perhaps no
fact in natural history has been so much studied as
the migration of these tender birds. The commonest
things are always the most interesting. In summer
there is no bird so common everywhere as the
swallow, and for that reason, many overlook it, though
they rush to see a " white " elephant. But the
deepest thinkers have spent hours and hours in con-
sidering the problem of the swallow — its migrations,
its flight, its habits ; great poets have loved it ; great
artists and art-writers have curiously studied it. The
idea that it is necessary to seek the wilderness or
the thickest woods for nature is a total mistake ;
nature is at home, on the roof, close to every one.
Eave-swallows, or house-martins (easily distinguished
by the white bar across the tail), build sometimes in
the shelter of the porches of old houses.

As you go in or out, the swallows visiting or
leaving their nests fly so closely as almost to brush
the face. Swallow means porch-bird, and for centuries
and centuries their nests have been placed in the
closest proximity to man. They might be called
man's birds, so attached are they to the human race.
I think the greatest ornament a house can have is the
nest of an eave-swallow under the eaves — far superior
to the most elaborate carving, colouring, or arrange-
ment the architect can devise. There is no ornament
like the swallow's nest ; the home of a messenger

NATURE ON THE HOOF. 87

between man and the blue heavens, between us and
the sunlight, and all the promise of the sky. The
joy of life, the highest and tenderest feelings, thoughts
that soar on the swallow's wings, come to the round
nest under the roof. Not only to-day, not only the
hopes of future years, but all the past dwells there.
Year after year the generations and descent of the
swallow have been associated with our homes, and
all the events of successive lives have taken place
under their guardianship. The swallow is the genius
of good to a house. Let its nest, then, stay; to
me it seems the extremity of barbarism, or rather
stupidity, to knock it down. I wish I could induce
them to build under the eaves of this house ; I would
if I could discover some means of communicating
with them.

It is a peculiarity of the swallow that you cannot
make it afraid of you ; just the reverse of other
birds. The swallow does not understand being
repulsed, but comes back again. Even knocking
the nest down will not drive it away, until the
stupid process has been repeated several years. The
robin must be coaxed ; the sparrow is suspicious, and
though easy to tame, quick to notice the least alarm-
ing movement. The swallow will not be driven away.
He has not the slightest fear of man ; he flies to
his nest close to the window, under the low eave,
or on the beams in the out-houses, no matter if you
are looking on or not. Bold as the starlings are,
they will seldom do this. But in the swallow,
the instinct of suspicion is reversed ; an instinct of
confidence occupies its place. In addition to the

88 THE OPEN AIR,

eave-swallow, to which I have chiefly alluded, and the
chimney- swallow, there is the swift, also a roof-bird,
and making its nest in the slates of houses in the
midst of towns. These three are migrants in the
fullest sense, and come to our houses over thousands
of miles of land and sea.

Eobins frequently visit the roof for insects, especi-
ally when it is thatched ; so do wrens ; and the latter,
after they have peered along, have a habit of perching
at the extreme angle of a gable, or the extreme edge
of a corner, and uttering their song. Finches occa-
sionally fly up to the roofs of country-houses if
shrubberies are near, also in pursuit of insects ; but
they are not truly roof-birds. Wagtails perch on roofs ;
they often have their nests in the ivy, or creepers
trained against walls ; they are quite at home, and
are frequently seen on the ridges of farmhouses. Tits
of several species, particularly the great titmouse and
the blue tit, come to thatch for insects, both in
summer and winter. In some districts where they
are common, it is not unusual to see a goatsucker or
fern-owl hawk along close to the eaves in the dusk of
the evening for moths. The white owl is a roof-bird
(though not often of the house), building inside the
roof, and sitting there all day in some shaded corner.
They do sometimes take up their residence in the
roofs of outhouses attached to dwellings, but not often
nowadays, though still residing in the roofs of old
castles. Jackdaws, again, are roof-birds, building in
the roofs of towers. Bats live in roofs, and hang
there wrapped up in their membranous wings till
the evening calls them forth. They are residents in

NATURE ON THE ROOF. 89

the full sense, remaining all the year round, though
principally seen in the warmer months ; hut they are
there in the colder, hidden away, and if the tempera-
ture rises, will venture out and hawk to and fro in the
midst of the winter. Tame pigeons and doves hardly
come into this paper, but still it is their habit to use
roofs as tree -tops. Eats and mice creep through the
crevices of roofs, and in old country-houses hold a
sort of nightly carnival, racing to and fro under the
roof. Weasels sometimes follow them indoors and up
to their roof strongholds.

When the first warm rays of spring sunshine strike
against the southern side of the chimney, sparrows
perch there and enjoy it; and again in autumn, when
the general warmth of the atmosphere is declining,
they still find a little pleasant heat there. They make
use of the radiation of heat, as the gardener does who
trains his fruit-trees to a wall. Before the autumn
has thinned the leaves, the swallows gather on the
highest ridge of the roof in a row and twitter to each
other ; they know the time is approaching when they
must depart for another climate. In winter, many
birds seek the thatched roofs to roost. Wrens, tits,
and even blackbirds roost in the holes left by sparrows
or starlings.

Every crevice is the home of insects, or used by
them for the deposit of their eggs — under the tiles or
slates, where mortar has dropped out between the
bricks, in the holes of thatch, and on the straws.
The number of insects that frequent a large roof must
be very great — all the robins, wrens, bats, and so on,
can scarcely affect them; nor the spiders, though

90 THE OPEN AIR.

these, too, are numerous. Then there are the moths,
and those creeping creatures that work out of sight,
boring their way through the rafters and hearns.
Sometimes a sparrow may be seen clinging to the bare
wall of the house ; tits do the same thing. It is sur-
prising how they manage to hold on. They are taking
insects from the apertures of the mortar. Where the
slates slope to the south, the sunshine soon heats them,
and passing butterflies alight on the warm surface, and
spread out their wings, as if hovering over the heat.
Flies are attracted in crowds sometimes to heated
slates and tiles, and wasps will occasionally pause
there. Wasps are addicted to haunting houses, and,
in the autumn, feed on the flies. Floating germs
carried by the air must necessarily lodge in numbers
against roofs ; so do dust and invisible particles ; and
together, these make the rain-water collected in
water-butts after a storm turbid and dark; and it
soon becomes full of living organisms.

Lichen and moss grow on the mortar wherever it
has become slightly disintegrated ; and if any mould,
however minute, by any means accumulates between
the slates, there, too, they spring up, and even on the
slates themselves. Tiles are often coloured yellow
by such growths. On some old roofs, which have
decayed, and upon which detritus has accumulated,
wallflowers may be found ; and the house-leek takes
capricious root where it fancies. The stonecrop is
the finest of roof-plants, sometimes forming a broad
patch of brilliant yellow. Birds carry up seeds and
grains, and these germinate in moist thatch.
Groundsel, for instance, and stray stalks of wheat,

NATURE ON THE ROOF. 91

thin and drooping for lack of soil, are sometimes seen
there, besides grasses. Ivy is familiar as a roof-
creeper. Some ferns and the pennywort will grow
on the wall close to the roof. A correspondent
tells me that in Wales he found a cottage perfectly
roofed with fern — it grew so thickly as to conceal the
roof. Had a painter put this in a picture, many
would have exclaimed: "How fanciful! He must
have made it up ; it could never have grown like
that!" Not long after receiving my correspondent's
kind letter, I chanced to find a roof near London upon
which the same fern was growing in lines along the
tiles. It grew plentifully, but was not in so flourish-
ing a condition as that found in Wales. Painters are
sometimes accused of calling upon their imagination
when they are really depicting fact, for the ways of
nature vary very much in different localities, and that
which may seem impossible in one place is common
enough in another.

Where will not ferns grow ? We saw one attached
to the under- side of a glass coal-hole cover ; its green
could be seen through the thick glass on which people
stepped daily.

Recently, much attention has been paid to the dust
which is found on roofs and ledges at great heights.
This meteoric dust, as it is called, consists of minute
particles of iron, which are thought to fall from the
highest part of the atmosphere, or possibly to be
attracted to the earth from space. Lightning usually
strikes the roof. The whole subject of lightning-
conductors has been re-opened of late years, there
being reason to think that mistakes have been made

92 THE OPEN AIR.

in the manner of their erection. The reason English
roofs are high-pitched is not only because of the rain,
that it may shoot off quickly, but on account of snow.
Once now and then there comes a snow-year, and
those who live in houses with flat surfaces anywhere
on the roof soon discover how inconvenient they are.
The snow is sure to find its way through, damaging
ceilings, and doing other mischief. Sometimes, in
fine summer weather, people remark how pleasant it
would be if the roof were flat, so that it could be used
as a terrace, as it is in warmer climates. But the
fact is, the English roof, although now merely copied
and repeated without a thought of the reason of its
shape, grew up from experience of severe -winters.
Of old, great care and ingenuity — what we should
now call artistic skill — were employed in constructing
the roof. It was not only pleasant to the eye with
its gables, but the woodwork was wonderfully well
done. Such roofs may still be seen on ancient
mansions, having endured for centuries. They are
splendid pieces of workmanship, and seen from afar
among foliage, are admired by every one who has the
least taste. Draughtsmen and painters value them
highly. No matter whether reproduced on a large
canvas or in a little woodcut, their proportions please.
The roof is much neglected in modern houses ; it is
either conventional, or it is full indeed of gables, but
gables that do not agree, as it were, with each other
— that are obviously put there on purpose to look
artistic, and fail altogether. Now, the ancient roofs
were true works of art, consistent, and yet each varied
to its particular circumstances, and each impressed

NATURE ON THE ROOF. 93

with the individuality of the place and of the designer.
The finest old roofs were built of oak or chestnut ; the
beams are black with age, and, in that condition, oak
is scarcely distinguishable from chestnut.

So the roof has its natural history, its science, and
art ; it has its seasons, its migrants and residents, of
whom a housetop calendar might be made. The fine
old roofs which have just been mentioned are often
associated with historic events and the rise of
families; and the roof-tree, like the hearth, has a
range of proverbs or sayings and ancient lore to itself.
More than one great monarch has been slain by a tile
thrown from the housetop, and numerous other inci-
dents have occurred in connection with it. The most
interesting is the story of the Grecian mother who,
with her infant, was on the roof, when, in a moment
of inattention, the child crept to the edge, and was
balanced on the very verge. To call to it, to touch
it, would have insured its destruction; but the
mother, without a second's thought, bared her breast,
and the child eagerly turning to it, was saved !

94 THE OPEN AIM.

ONE OF THE NEW VOTERS.

I.

IF any one were to get up about half-past five on
an August morning and look out of an eastern
window in the country, he would see the distant trees
almost hidden by a white mist. The tops of the
larger groups of elms would appear above it, and
by these the line of the hedgerows could be traced.
Tier after tier they stretch along, rising by degrees
on a gentle slope, the space between filled with haze.
Whether there were corn-fields or meadows under this
white cloud he could not tell — a cloud that might
have come down from the sky, leaving it a clear
azure. This morning haze means intense heat in
the day. It is hot already, very hot, for the sun
is shining with all his strength, and if you wish
the house to be cool it is time to set the sunblinds.

Eoger, the reaper, had slept all night in the cow-
house, lying on the raised platform of narrow planks
put up for cleanliness when the cattle were there.
He had set the wooden window wide open and left
the door ajar when he came stumbling in overnight,
long after the late swallows had settled in their nests
on the beams, and the bats had wearied of moth
catching. One of the swallows twittered a little,

ONE OF THE NEW VOTERS. 95

as much as to say to his mate, " My love, it is only
a reaper, we need not be afraid," and all was silence
and darkness. Eoger did not so much as take off his
boots, but flung himself on the boards crash, curled
himself up hedgehog fashion with some old sacks,
and immediately began to breathe heavily. He had
no difficulty in sleeping, first because his muscles
had been tried to the utmost, and next because his
skin was full to the brim, not of jolly "good ale
and old," but of the very smallest and poorest of
wish-washy beer. In his own words, it " blowed
him up till he very nigh bust." Now the great
authorities on dyspepsia, so eagerly studied by the
wealthy folk whose stomachs are deranged, tell us
that a very little flatulence will make the heart beat
irregularly and cause the most distressing symptoms.
Koger had swallowed at least a gallon of a liquid
chemically designed, one might say, on purpose to
utterly upset the internal economy. Harvest beer
is probably the vilest drink in the world. The men
say it is made by pouring muddy water into empty
casks returned sour from use, and then brushing
them round and round inside with a besom. This
liquid leaves a stickiness on the tongue and a harsh
feeling at the back of the mouth which soon turns
to thirst, so that having once drunk a pint the
drinker must go on drinking. The peculiar dryness
caused by this beer is not like any other throat
drought — worse than dust, or heat, or thirst from
work; there is no satisfying it. With it there go
down the germs of fermentation, a sour, yeasty, and,
as it were, secondary fermentation ; not that kind

96 THE OPEN AIR.

which is necessary to make beer, but the kind that
unmakes and spoils beer. It is beer rotting and
decomposing in the stomach. Violent diarrhoea
often follows, and then the exhaustion thus caused
induces the men to drink more in order to regain
the strength necessary to do their work. The great
heat of the sun and the heat of hard labour, the
strain and perspiration, of course try the body and
weaken the digestion. To distend the stomach with
half a gallon of this liquor, expressly compounded
to ferment, is about the most murderous thing a
man could do — murderous because it exposes him
to the risk of sunstroke. So vile a drink there is
not elsewhere in the world ; arrack, and potato-spirit,
and all the other killing extracts of the distiller are
not equal to it. Upon this abominable mess the
golden harvest of English fields is gathered in.

Some people have in consequence endeavoured to
induce the harvesters to accept a money payment
in place of beer, and to a certain extent successfully.
Even then, however, they must drink something.
Many manage on weak tea after a fashion, but not
so well as the abstainers would have us think.
Others have brewed for their men a miserable
stuff in buckets, an infusion of oatmeal, and got a
few to drink it ; but English labourers will never
drink oatmeal-water unless they are paid to do it.
If they are paid extra beer-money and oatmeal-
water is made for them gratis, some will, of course,
imbibe it, especially if they see that thereby they
may obtain little favours from their employer by
yielding to his fad, By drinking the crotchet perhaps

ONE OF THE NEW VOTERS. 97

they may get a present now and then— food for them-
selves, cast-off clothes for their families, and so on.
For it is a remarkable feature of human natural
history, the desire to proselytize. The spectacle of
John Bull — jovial John Bull — offering his men a
bucket of oatmeal liquor is not a pleasant one. Such
a John Bull ought to be ashamed of himself.

The truth is the English farmer's man was and
is, and will be, a drinker of beer. Neither tea,
nor oatmeal, nor vinegar and water (coolly recom-
mended by indoor folk) will do for him. His natural
constitution rebels against such ''peevish" drink.
In winter he wants beer against the cold and the
frosty rime and the heavy raw mist that hangs about
the hollows ; in spring and autumn against the rain,
and in summer to support him under the pressure
of additional work and prolonged hours. Those who
really wish well to the labourer cannot do better than
see that he really has beer to drink — real beer,
genuine brew of malt and hops, a moderate quantity
of which will supply force to his thews and sinews,
and will not intoxicate or injure. If by giving him a
small money payment in lieu of such large quantities
you can induce him to be content with a little, so much
the better. If an employer followed that plan, and at
the same time once or twice a day sent out a moderate
supply of genuine beer as a gift to his men, he would
do them all the good in the world, and at the same
time obtain for himself their goodwill and hearty
assistance, that hearty work which is worth so much.

Eoger breathed heavily in his sleep in the cow-
house, because the vile stuff he had taken puffed

H

93 THE OPEN AIR.

him up and obstructed nature. The tongue in his
open mouth became parched and cracked, swollen
and dry ; he slept indeed, but he did not rest ; he
groaned heavily at times and rolled aside. Once
he awoke choking — he could not swallow, his tongue
was so dry and large; he sat up, swore, and again
lay down. The rats in the sties had already dis-
covered that a man slept in the cowhouse, a place
they rarely visited, as there was nothing there to eat ;
how they found it out no one knows. They are clever
creatures, the despised rats. They came across in
the night and looked under his bed, supposing that
he might have eaten his bread-and-cheese for supper
there, and that fragments might have dropped between
the boards. There were none. They mounted the
boards and sniffed round him ; they would have
stolen the food from his very pocket if it had been
there. Nor could they find a bundle in a handker-
chief, which they would have gnawn through
speedily. Not a scrap of food was there to be smelt
at, so they left him. Koger had indeed gone supper-
less, as usual; his supper he had swilled and not
eaten. His own fault ; he should have exercised
self-control. Well, I don't know; let us consider
further before we judge.

In houses the difficulty often is to get the servants
up in the morning; one cannot wake, and the rest
sleep too sound — much the same thing; yet they
have clocks and alarums. The reapers are never
behind. Eoger got off his planks, shook himself,
went outside the shed, and tightened his shoelaces
in the bright light. His rough hair he just pushed

ONE OF THE NEW VOTERS. 09

back from his forehead, and that was his toilet. His
dry throat sent him to the pump, but he did not
swallow much of the water — he washed his mouth
out, and that was enough ; and so without breakfast
he went to his work. Looking down from the stile
on the high ground there seemed to be a white cloud
resting on the valley, through which the tops of the
high trees penetrated; the hedgerows beneath were
concealed, and their course could only be traced by
the upper branches of the elms. Under this cloud
the wheat-fields were blotted out; there seemed
neither corn nor grass, work for man nor food for
animal; there could be nothing doing there surely.
In the stillness of the August morning, without song
of bird, the sun, shining brilliantly high above the
mist, seemed to be the only living thing, to possess
the whole and reign above absolute peace. It is a
curious sight to see the early harvest morn — all
hushed under the burning sun, a morn that you
know is full of life and meaning, yet quiet as if man's
foot had never trodden the land. Only the sun is
there, rolling on his endless way.

Koger's head was bound with brass, but had it
not been he would not have observed anything in
the aspect of the earth. Had a brazen band been
drawn firmly round his forehead it could not have
felt more stupefied. His eyes blinked in the sun-
light; every now and then he stopped to save him-
self from staggering; he was not in a condition to
think. It would have mattered not at all if his head
had been clear; earth, sky, and sun were nothing
to him; he knew the footpath, and saw that the

100 THE OPEN AIE.

day would be fine and hot, and that was sufficient
for him, because his eyes had never been opened.

The reaper had risen early to his labour, but the
birds had preceded him hours. Before the sun was
up the swallows had left their beams in the cow-
shed and twittered out into the air. The rooks and
wood-pigeons and doves had gone to the corn, the
blackbird to the stream, the finch to the hedgerow,
the bees to the heath on the hills, the humble-
bees to the clover in the plain. Butterflies rose
from the flowers by the footpath, and fluttered
before him to and fro and round and back again
to the place whence they had been driven. Gold-
finches tasting the first thistledown rose from the
corner where the thistles grew thickly. A hundred
sparrows came rushing up into the hedge, suddenly
filling the boughs with brown fruit ; they chirped
and quarrelled in their talk, and rushed away again
back to the corn as he stepped nearer. The boughs
were stripped of their winged brown berries as
quickly as they had grown. Starlings ran before
the cows feeding in the aftermath, so close to their
mouths as to seem in danger of being licked up by
their broad tongues. All creatures, from the tiniest
insect upward, were in reality busy under that
curtain of white-heat haze. It looked so still, so
quiet, from afar ; entering it and passing among the
fields, all that lived was found busy at its long day's
work. Eoger did not interest himself in these things,
in the wasps that left the gate as he approached —
they were making papier-mache from the wood of
the top bar, — in the bright poppies brushing against

ONE OF THE NEW VOTERS. 101

his drab unpolished boots, in the hue of the wheat
or the white convolvulus ; they were nothing to him.

Why should they be ? His life was work without
skill or thought, the work of the horse, of the crane
that lifts stones and timber. His food was rough,
his drink rougher, his lodging dry planks. His
books were — none; his picture-gallery a coloured
print at the alehouse — a dog, dead, by a barrel,
"Trust is dead; Bad Pay killed him." Of thought
he thought nothing ; of hope his idea was a shilling
a week more wages ; of any future for himself of
comfort such as even a good cottage can give — of any
future whatever — he had no more conception than
the horse in the shafts of the waggon. A human
animal simply in all this, yet if you reckoned upon
him as simply an animal — as has been done these
centuries — you would now be mistaken. But why
should he note the colour of the butterfly, the bright
light of the sun, the hue of the wheat ? This loveli-
ness gave him no cheese for breakfast ; of beauty
in itself, for itself, he had no idea. How should he ?
To many of us the harvest — the summer — is a time
of joy in light and colour ; to him it was a time for
adding yet another crust of hardness to the thick
skin of his hands.

Though the haze looked like a mist it was per-
fectly dry; the wheat was as dry as noon; not a
speck of dew, and the pimpernels wide open for a
burning day. The reaping-machine began to rattle
as he came up, and work was ready for him. At
breakfast-time his fellows lent him a quarter of a
loaf, some young onions, and a drink from their

102 THE OPEN AIR.

tea. He ate little, and the tea slipped from his hot
tongue like water from the bars of a grate; his
tongue was like the heated iron the housemaid tries
before using it on the linen. As the reaping-machine
went about the gradually decreasing square of corn,
narrowing it by a broad band each time, the wheat
fell flat on the short stubble. Eoger stooped, and,
gathering sufficient together, took a- few straws,
knotted them to another handful as you might tie
two pieces of string, and twisted the band round
the sheaf. He worked stooping to gather the wheat,
bending to tie it in sheaves ; stooping, bending — •
stooping, bending, — and so across the field. Upon
his head and back the fiery sun poured down the
ceaseless and increasing heat of the August day.
His face grew red, his neck black; the drought of
the dry ground rose up and entered his mouth and
nostrils, a warm air seemed to rise from the earth
and fill his chest. His body ached from the ferment
of the vile beer, his back ached with stooping, his
forehead was bound tight with a brazen band. They
brought some beer at last ; it was like the spring in
the desert to him. The vicious liquor — "a hair of
the dog that bit him " — sank down his throat,
grateful and refreshing to his disordered palate as
if he had drunk the very shadow of green boughs.
Good ale would have seemed nauseous to him at that
moment, his taste and stomach destroyed by so many
gallons of this. He was "pulled together," and
worked easier; the slow hours went on, and it was
luncheon. He could have borrowed more food, but
he was content instead with a screw of tobacco for
his pipe and his allowance of beer.

ONE OF THE NEW VOTERS. 103

They sat in the corner of the field. There were no
trees for shade ; they had been cut down as injurious
to corn, but there were a few maple bushes and thin
ash sprays, which seemed better than the open. The
bushes cast no shade at all, the sun being so nearly
overhead, but they formed a kind of enclosure, an open-
air home, for men seldom sit down if they can help
it on the bare and level plain ; they go to the bushes,
to the corner, or even to some hollow. It is not
really any advantage ; it is habit ; or shall we not rather
say that it is nature ? Brought back as it were in
the open field to the primitive conditions of life, they
resumed the same instincts that controlled man in
the ages past. Ancient man sought the shelter of
trees and banks, of caves and hollows, and so the
labourers under somewhat the same conditions came
to the corner where the bushes grew. There they
left their coats and slung up their luncheon-bundles
to the branches ; there the children played and took
charge of the infants; there the women had their
hearth and hung their kettle over a fire of sticks.

II.

In August the unclouded sun, when there is no
wind, shines as fervently in the harvest-field as in
Spain. It is doubtful if the Spanish people feel the
heat so much as our reapers ; they have their siesta ;
their habits have become attuned to the sun, and it
is no special strain upon them. In India our troops
are carefully looked after in the hot weather, and
everything made as easy for them as possible ; with-
out care and special clothing and coverings for the

104 TEE OPEN AIR.

head they could not long endure. The English simoon
of heat drops suddenly on the heads of the harvesters
and finds them entirely unprepared ; they have not
so much as a cooling drink ready ; they face it, as it
were, unarmed. The sun spares not ; it is fire from,
morn till night. Afar in the town the sunblinds are
up, there is a tent on the lawn in the shade, people
drink claret-cup and use ice ; ice has neyer been seen
in the harvest-field. Indoors they say they are melt-
ing lying on a sofa in a darkened room, made dusky
to keep out the heat. The fire falls straight from the
sky on the heads of the harvesters — men, women, and
children — and the white-hot light beats up again from
the dry straw and the hard ground.

The tender flowers endure ; the wide petal of the
poppy, which withers between the fingers, lies afloat
on the air as the lilies on water, afloat and open
to the weight of the heat. The red pimpernel looks
straight up at the sky from the early morning till its
hour of closing in the afternoon. Pale blue speed-
well does not fade ; the pale blue stands the warmth
equally with the scarlet. Far in the thick wheat the
streaked convolvulus winds up the stalks, and is not
smothered for want of air though wrapped and circled
with corn. Beautiful though they are, they are blood-
less, not sensitive ; we have given to them our feelings,
they do not share our pain or pleasure. Heat has
gone into the hollow stalks of the wheat and down the
yellow tubes to the roots, drying them in the earth.
Heat has dried the leaves upon the hedge, and they
touch rough — dusty rough, as books touch that have
been lying unused ; the plants on the bank are drying

ONE OF THE NEW VOTERS. 105

up and turning white. Heat has gone down into the
cracks of the ground ; the bar of the stile is so dry
and powdery in the crevices that if a reaper chanced
to drop a match on it there would seern risk of fire.
The still atmosphere is laden with heat, and does not
move in the corner of the field between the bushes.

Eoger the reaper smoked out his tobacco ; the
children played round and watched for scraps of food ;
the women complained of the heat ; the men said
nothing. It is seldom that a labourer grumbles much
at the weather, except as interfering with his work.
Let the heat increase, so it would only keep fine.
The fire in the sky meant money. Work went on
again ; Eoger had now to go to another field to pitch
—that is, help to load the waggon ; as a young man,
that was one of the jobs allotted to him. This was
the reverse. Instead of stooping he had now to strain
himself upright and lift sheaves over his head. His
stomach empty of everything but small ale did not
like this any more than his back had liked the other ;
but those who work for bare food must not question
their employment. Heavily the day drove on ; there
was more beer, and again more beer, because it was
desired to clear some fields that evening. Mono-
tonously pitching the sheaves, Eoger laboured by the
waggon till the last had been loaded — till the moon
was shining. His brazen forehead was unbound now ;
in spite of the beer the work and the perspiration had
driven off the aching. He was weary but well. Nor
had he been dull during the day ; he had talked and
joked — cumbrously in labourers' fashion — with his
fellows. His aches, his empty stomach, his labour,

10G THE OPEN Alii.

and the heat had not evercome the vitality of his
spirits. There was life enough left for a little rough
play as the group gathered together and passed out
through the gateway. Life enough left in him to go
with the rest to the alehouse ; and what else, oh
moralist, would you have done in his place 7 This,
rememher, is not a fancy sketch of rural poetry ; this
is the reaper's real existence.

He had been in the harvest-field fourteen hours,
exposed to the intense heat, not even shielded by a
pith helmet ; he had worked the day through with
thew and sinew ; he had had for food a little dry
bread and a few onions, for drink a little weak tea
and a great deal of small beer. The moon. was now
shining in the sky, still bright with sunset colours.
Fourteen hours of sun and labour and hard fare!
Now tell him what to do. To go straight to his plank-
bed in the cowhouse ; to eat a little more dry bread,
borrow some cheese or greasy bacon, munch it alone,
and sit musing till sleep came — he who had nothing
to muse about. I think it would need a very clever
man indeed to invent something for him to do, some
way for him to spend his evening. Eead ! To
recommend a man to read after fourteen hours burn-
ing sun is indeed a mockery ; darn his stockings
would be better. There really is nothing whatsoever
that the cleverest and most benevolent person could
suggest. Before any benevolent or well-meaning sug-
gestions could be effective the preceding circum-
stances must be changed — the hours and conditions
of labour, everything ; and can that be done ? The
world has been working these thousands of years, and

ONE OF THE NEW VOTERS. 107

still it is the same ; with our engines, our electric
light, our printing press, still the coarse lahour of the
mine, the quarry, the field has to be carried out by
human hands. While that is so, it is useless to
recommend the weary reaper to read. For a man is
not a horse : the horse's day's work is over ; taken to
his stable he is content, his mind goes no deeper than
the bottom of his manger, and so long as his nose
does not feel the wood, so long as it is met by corn
and hay, he will endure happily. But Koger the
reaper is not a horse.

Just as his body needed food and drink, so did his
mind require recreation, and that chiefly consists of
conversation. The drinking and the smoking are in
truth but the attributes of the labourer's public-house
evening. It is conversation that draws him thither,
just as it draws men with money in their pockets to the
club and the houses of their friends. Any one can
drink or smoke alone; it needs several for conversation,
for company. You pass a public-house — the reaper's
house — in the summer evening. You see a number of
men grouped about trestle-tables out of doors, and
others sitting at the open window; there is an odour of
tobacco, a chink of glasses and mugs. You can smell
the tobacco and see the ale ; you cannot see the indefi-
nite power which holds men there — the magnetism of
company and conversation. Their conversation, not
your conversation ; not the last book, the last play ;
not saloon conversation; but theirs — talk in which
neither you nor any one of your condition could really
join. To us there would seem nothing at all in that
conversation, vapid and subjectless ; to them it means

108 THE OPEN AIB.

much. We have not been through the same circum-
stances : our day has been differently spent, and the
same words have therefore a varying value. Certain
it is, that it is conversation that takes men to the
public-house. Had Koger been a horse he would
have hastened to borrow some food, and, having eaten
that, would have cast himself at once upon his rude
bed. Not being an animal, though his -life and work
were animal, he went with his friends to talk. Let
none unjustly condemn him as a blackguard for that
— no, not even though they had seen him at ten
o'clock unsteadily walking to his shed, and guiding
himself occasionally with his hands to save himself
from stumbling. He blundered against the door, and
the noise set the swallows on the beams twittering.
He reached his bedstead, and sat down and tried to
unlace his boots, but could not. He threw himself
upon the sacks and fell asleep. Such was one twenty-
four hours of harvest-time.

The next and the next, for weeks, were almost
exactly similar; now a little less beer, now a little
more ; now tying up, now pitching, now cutting a
small field or corner with a fagging-hook. Once now
and then there was a great supper at the farm. Once
he fell out with another fellow, and they had a fight ;
Koger, however, had had so much ale, and his oppo-
nent so much whisky, that their blows were soft and
helpless. They both fell — that is, they stumbled,
— they were picked up, there was some more beer,
and it was settled. One afternoon Koger became
suddenly giddy, and was so ill that he did no more
work that day, and very little on the following. It

ONE OF THE NEW VOTERS. 109

was something like a sunstroke, but fortunately a
slight attack ; on the third day he resumed his place.
Continued labour in the sun, little food and much
drink, stomach derangement, in short, accounted for
his illness. Though he resumed his place and worked
on, he was not so well afterwards ; the work was more
of an effort to him, and his face lost its fulness, and
became drawn and pointed. Still he laboured, and
would not miss an hour, for harvest was coming to
an end, and the extra wages would soon cease. For
the first week or so of haymaking or reaping the men
usually get drunk, delighted with the prospect before
them, then they settle down fairly well. Towards the
end they struggle hard to recover lost time and the
money spent in ale.

As the last week approached, Koger went up into
the village and ordered the shoemaker to make him a
good pair of boots. He paid partly for them then, and
the rest next pay-day. This was a tremendous effort.
The labourer usually pays a shilling at a time, but
Eoger mistrusted himself. Harvest was practically
over, and after all the labour and the long hours, the
exposure to the sun and the rude lodging, he found
he should scarcely have thirty shillings. With the
utmost ordinary care he could nave saved a good lump
of money. He was a single man, and his actual keep
cost but little. Many married labourers, who had been
forced by hard necessity to economy, contrived to put
by enough to buy clothes for their families. The
single man, with every advantage, hardly had thirty
shillings, and even then it showed extraordinary
prudence on his part to go and purchase a pair of

110 THE OPEN ATE.

boots for the winter. Very few in his place would
have been as thoughtful as that ; they would have
got boots somehow in the end, but not beforehand.
This life of animal labour does not grow the spirit
of economy. Not only in farming, but in navvy work,
in the rougher work of factories and mines, the same
fact is evident. The man who labours with thew and
sinew at horse labour — crane labour — not for himself,
but for others, is not the man who saves. If he
worked for his own hand possibly he might, no
matter how rough his labour and fare; not while
working for another. Eoger reached his distant
home among the meadows at last, with one golden
half-sovereign in his pocket. That and his new pair
of boots, not yet finished, represented the golden
harvest to him. He lodged with his parents when at
home ; he was so far fortunate that he had a bed to
go to ; therefore in the estimation of his class he was
not badly off. But if we consider his position as
regards his own life we must recognize that he was
very badly off indeed, so much precious time and the
strength of his youth having been wasted.

Often it is stated that the harvest wages recoup
the labourer for the low weekly receipts of the year,
and if the money be put down in figures with pen and
ink it is so. But in actual fact the pen-and-ink figures
do not represent the true case; these extra figures
have been paid for, and gold may be bought too
dear. Eoger had paid heavily for his half-sovereign
and his boots ; his pinched face did not look as if he
had benefited greatly. His cautious old father, ren-
dered frugal by forty years of labour, had done fairly

ONE OF THE NEW VOTERS. Ill

well ; the young man not at all. The old man,
having a cottage, in a measure worked for his own
hand. The young man, with none but himself to
think of, scattered his money to the winds. Is money
earned with such expenditure of force worth the
having? Look at the arm of a woman labouring
in the harvest-field — thin, muscular, sinewy, black
almost, it tells of continual strain. After much of
this she becomes pulled out of shape, the neck loses
its roundness and shows the sinews, the chest flattens.
In time the women find the strain of it tell severely.
I am not trying to make out a case of special hard-
ship, being aware that both men, women, and children
work as hard and perhaps suffer more in cities ; I am
simply describing the realities of rural life behind the
scenes. The golden harvest is the first scene ; the
golden wheat, glorious under the summer sun. Bright
poppies flower in its depths, and convolvulus climbs
the stalks. Butterflies float slowly over the yellow
surface as they might over a lake of colour. To linger
by it, to visit it day by day, at even to watch the sun-
set by it, and see it pale under the changing light, is a
delight to the thoughtful mind. There is so much in
the wheat, there are books of meditation in it, it is
dear to the heart. Behind these beautiful aspects
comes the reality of human labour — hours upon
hours of heat and strain ; there comes the reality
of a rude life, and in the end little enough of gain.
The wheat is beautiful, but human life is labour.

112 THE OPEN AIR

THE MODERN THAMES.

I.

THE wild red deer can never again come down to drink
at the Thames in the dusk of the evening as once
they did. While modern civilization endures, the
larger fauna must necessarily be confined, to parks
or restrained to well-marked districts ; but for that
very reason the lesser creatures of the wood, the field,
and the river should receive the more protection. If
this applies to the secluded country, far from the stir
of cities, still more does it apply to the neighbourhood
of London. From a sportsman's point of view, or from
that of a naturalist, the state of the river is one of
chaos. There is no order. The Thames appears free
even from the usual rules which are in force upon
every highway. A man may not fire a gun within a
certain distance of a road under a penalty — a law
enacted for the safety of passengers, who were formerly
endangered by persons shooting small birds along the
hedges bordering roads. Nor may he shoot at all,
not so much as fire off a pistol (as recently publicly
proclaimed by the Metropolitan police to restrain the
use of revolvers), without a licence. But on the river
people do as they choose, and there does not seem to

THE MODERN THAMES. 113

be any law at all— or at least there is no authority to
enforce it, if it exists. Shooting from boats and from
the towing-path is carried on in utter defiance of the
licensing law, of the game law (as applicable to wild
fowl), and of the safety of persons who may be passing.
The moorhens are shot, the kingfishers have been
nearly exterminated or driven away from some parts,
the once common black-headed bunting is com-
paratively scarce in the more frequented reaches,
and if there is nothing else to shoot at, then the
swallows are slaughtered. Some have even taken to
shooting at the rooks in the trees or fields by the
river with small-bore rifles — a most dangerous thing
to do. The result is that the osier-beds on the eyots
and by the backwaters — the copses of the river — are
almost devoid of life. A few moorhens creep under
the aquatic grasses and conceal themselves beneath
the bushes, water-voles hide among the flags, but the
once extensive host of water-fowl and river life has
been reduced to the smallest limits. Water-fowl
cannot breed because they are shot on the nest, or
their eggs taken. As for rarer birds, of course they
have not the slightest chance.

The fish have fared better because they have re-
ceived the benefit of close seasons, enforced with more
or less vigilance all along the river. They are also
protected by regulations making it illegal to capture
them except in a sportsmanlike manner; snatching,
for instance, is unlawful. Eiverside proprietors pre-
serve some reaches, piscatorial societies preserve others*
and the complaint indeed is that the rights of the
public have been encroached upon. The too exclusive

1H THE OPEN AIR.

preservation of fish is in a measure responsible for
the destruction of water-fowl, which are cleared off
preserved places in order that they may not help
themselves to fry or spawn. On the other hand, the
societies may claim to have saved parts of the river
from being entirely deprived of fish, for it is not long
since it appeared as if the stream would be quite
cleared out. Large quantities of fish have also been
placed in the river taken from ponds and bodily trans-
ported to the Thames. So that upon the whole the
fish have been well looked after of recent years.

The more striking of the aquatic plants — such as
white water-lilies — have been much diminished in
quantity by the constant plucking, and inj.ury is said
to have been done by careless navigation. In things
of this kind a few persons can do a great deal of
damage. Two or three men with guns, and indifferent
to the interests of sport or natural history, at work
every day, can clear a long stretch of river of water-
fowl, by scaring if not by actually killing them.
Imagine three or four such gentry allowed to wander
at will in a large game preserve — in a week they
would totally destroy it as a preserve. The river,
after all, is but a narrow band as it were, and is
easily commanded by a gun. So, too, with fish
poachers ; a very few men with nets can quickly
empty a good piece of water : and flowers like water-
lilies, which grow only in certain spots, are soon
pulled or spoiled. This aspect of the matter — the
immense mischief which can be effected by a very
few persons — should be carefully borne in mind in
framing any regulations. For the mischief done on

THE MODERN THAMES. 115

the river is really the work of a small number, a mere
fraction of the thousands of all classes who frequent
it. Not one in a thousand probably perpetrates any
intentional damage to fish, fowl, or flowers.

As the river above all things is, and ought to be, a
place of recreation, care must be particularly taken
that in restraining these practices the enjoyment of
the many be not interfered with. The rational pleasure
of 999 people ought not to be checked because the last
of the thousand acts as a blackguard. This point, too,
bears upon the question of steam-launches. A launch
can pass as softly and quietly as a skiff floating with
the stream. And there is a good deal to be said on
the other side, for the puntsmen stick themselves very
often in the way of every one else ; and if you analyse
fishing for minnows from a punt you will not find it a
noble sport. A river like the Thames, belonging as it
does — or as it ought — to a city like London, should be
managed from the very broadest standpoint. There
should be pleasure for all, and there certainly is no
real difficulty in arranging matters to that end. The
Thames should be like a great aquarium, in which a
certain balance of life has to be kept up. When aquaria
first came into favour such things as snails and weeds
were excluded as eyesores and injurious. But it was
soon discovered that the despised snails and weeds
were absolutely necessary ; an aquarium could not be
maintained in health without them, and now the most
perfect aquarium is the one in which the natural state
is most completely copied. On the same principle it
is evident that too exclusive preservation must be
injurious to the true interests of the river. Fish

116 THE OPEN AIR.

enthusiasts, for instance, desire the extinction of
water-fowl — there is not a single aquatic bird which
they do not accuse of damage to fry, spawn, or full-
grown fish ; no, not one, from the heron down to the
tiny grebe. They are nearly as bitter against animals ;
the poor water-vole (or water-rat) even is denounced
and shot. Any one who chooses may watch the water-
rat feeding on aquatic vegetation ; nev.er mind, shoot
him because he's there. There is no other reason.
Bitterest, harshest, most envenomed of all is the
outcry and hunt directed against the otter. It is as
if the otter were a wolf — as if he were as injurious as
the mighty boar whom Meleager and his companions
chased in the days of dim antiquity. What, then,
has the otter done ? Has he ravaged the fields ? does
he threaten the homesteads ? is he at Temple Bar ?
are we to run, as the old song says, from the Dragon ?
The fact is, the ravages attributed to the otter are of
a local character. They are chiefly committed in
those places where fish are more or less confined. If
you keep sheep close together in a pen the wolf who
leaps the hurdles can kill the flock if he chooses.
In narrow waters, and where fish are maintained in
quantities out of proportion to extent, an otter can
work doleful woe. That is to say, those who want too
many fish are those who give the otter his opportunity.
In a great river like the Thames a few otters cannot
do much or lasting injury except in particular places.
The truth, is, that the otter is an ornament to the
river, and more worthy of preservation than any other
creature. He is the last and largest of the wild
creatures who once roamed so freely in the forests

THE MODERN THAMES. 117

which enclosed Londinium, that fort in the woods
and marshes — marshes which to this day, though
drained and built over, enwrap the nineteenth century
city in thick mists. The red deer are gone, the boar
is gone, the wolf necessarily destroyed — the red deer
can never again drink at the Thames in the dusk
of the evening while our civilization endures. The
otter alone remains — the wildest, the most thoroughly
self-supporting of all living things left — a living link
going back to the days of Cassivelaunus. London
ought to take the greatest interest in the otters of its
river. The shameless way in which every otter that
dares to show itself is shot, trapped, beaten to death,
and literally battered out of existence, should rouse
the indignation of every sportsman and every lover
of nature. The late Eev. John Eussell, who, it will
be admitted, was a true sportsman, walked three
thousand miles to see an otter. That was a different
spirit, was it not ?

That is the spirit in which the otter in the Thames
should be regarded. Those who offer money rewards
for killing Thames otters ought to be looked on as
those who would offer rewards for poisoning foxes in
Leicestershire. I suppose we shall not see the ospreys
again ; but I should like to. Again, on the other side
of the boundary, in the tidal waters, the same sort of
ravenous destruction is carried on against everything
that ventures up. A short time ago a porpoise
came up to Mortlake ; now, just think, a porpoise up
from the great sea — that sea to which Londoners
rush with such joy — past Gravesend, past Green-
wich, past the Tower, under London Bridge, past

118 THE OPEN AIR.

Westminster and the Houses of Parliament, right up
to Mortlake. It is really a wonderful thing that
a denizen of the sea, so large and interesting as a
porpoise, should come right through the vast City of
London. In an aquarium, people would go to see it
and admire it, and take their children to see it. What
happened ? Some one hastened out in a boat, armed
with a gun or a rifle, and occupied: himself with
shooting at it. He did not succeed in killing it,
but it was wounded. Some difference here to" the
spirit of John Kussell. If I may be permitted to
express an 'opinion, I think that there is not a single
creature, from the sand-marten and the black-headed
bunting to the broad-winged heron, from the water-
vole to the otter, from the minnow on one side of the
tidal boundary to the porpoise on the other — big and
little, beasts and birds (of prey or not) — that should
not be encouraged and protected on this beautiful river,
morally the property of the greatest city in the world.

II.

I looked forward to living by the river with delight,
anticipating the long rows I should have past the
green eyots and the old houses red-tiled among the
trees. I should pause below the weir and listen to
the pleasant roar, and watch the fisherman cast again
and again with the " transcendent patience " of genius
by which alone the Thames trout is captured. Twist-
ing the end of a willow bough round my wrist I could
moor myself and rest at ease, though the current
roared under the skiff, fresh from the waterfall. A

THE MODERN THAMES. 119

thousand thousand bubbles rising to the surface would
whiten the stream— a thousand thousand succeeded
by another thousand thousand — and still flowing, no
multiple could express the endless number. That
which flows continuously by some sympathy is ac-
ceptable to the mind, as if thereby it realised its own
existence without an end. Swallows would skim the
water to and fro as yachts tack, the sandpiper would
run along the strand, a black-headed bunting would
perch upon the willow ; perhaps, as the man of genius
fishing and myself made no noise, a kingfisher might
come, and we might see him take his prey.

Or I might quit hold of the osier and, entering a
shallow backwater, disturb shoals of roach playing
where the water was transparent to the bottom, after
their wont. Winding in and out like an Indian in his
canoe, perhaps traces of an otter might be found — his
kitchen modding — and in the sedges moorhens and
wildfowl would hide from me. From its banks I should
gather many a flower and notice many a plant, there
would be, too, the beautiful water-lily. Or I should
row on up the great stream by meadows full of golden
buttercups, past fields crimson with trifolium or green
with young wheat. Handsome sailing craft would
come down spanking before the breeze, laden with
bright girls — laughter on board, and love the golden
fleece of their argosy.

I should converse with the ancient men of the
ferries, and listen to their river lore; they would
show me the mark to which, the stream rose in
the famous year of floods. On again to the cool
hostelry whose sign was reflected in the water, where

120 THE OPEN AIR.

there would be a draught of fine ale for the heated
and thirsty sculler. On again till steeple or tower
rising over the trees marked my journey's end for the
day, some old town where, after rest and refreshment,
there would he a ruin or a timbered house to look at,
where I should meet folk full of former days and
quaint tales of yore. Thus to journey on from place
to place would be the great charm of the river —
travelling by water, not merely sculling to and fro,
but really travelling. Upon a lake I could but .row
across and back again, and however lovely the scenery
might be, still it would always be the same. But the
Thames, upon the river I could really travel, day after
day, from Teddington Lock upwards to Windsor, to
Oxford, on to quiet Lechlade, or even farther deep
into the meadows by Cricklade. Every hour there
would be something interesting, all the freshwater
life to study, the very barges would amuse me, and
at last there would be the delicious ease of floating
home carried by the stream, repassing all that had
pleased before.

The time came. I lived by the river, not far from
its widest reaches, before the stream meets its tide.
I went down to the eyot for a boat, and my difficulties
began. The crowd of boats lashed to each other in
strings ready for the hirer disconcerted me. There
were so many I could not choose ; the whole together
looked like a broad raft. Others were hauled on the
shore. Over on the eyot, a little island, there were
more boats, boats launched, boats being launched,
boats being carried by gentlemen in coloured flannels
as carefully as mothers handle their youngest infants,

THE MODERN THAMES. 121

boats covered in canvas mummy-cases, and dim boats
under roofs, their sharp prows projecting like croco-
diles' snouts. Tricksy outriggers, ready to upset on
narrow keel, were held firmly for the sculler to step
daintily into his place. A strong eight shot by up
the stream, the men all pulling together as if they
had been one animal. A strong sculler shot by down
the stream, his giant arms bare and the muscles
visible as they rose, knotting and unknotting with the
stroke. Every one on the bank and eyot stopped to
watch him — they knew him, he was training. How
could an amateur venture out and make an exhibition
of himself after such splendid rowing ! Still it was
noticeable that plenty of amateurs did venture out,
till the waterway was almost concealed — boated over
instead of bridged — and how they managed to escape
locking their oars together, I could not understand.

I looked again at the boats. Some were outriggers.
I could not get into an outrigger after seeing the great
sculler. The rest were one and all after the same
pattern, i.e. with the stern cushioned and prepared
for a lady. Some were larger, and could carry three
or four ladies, but they were all intended for the same
purpose. If the sculler went out in such a boat by
himself he must either sit too forward and so depress
the stem and dig himself, as it were, into the water
at each stroke, or he must sit too much to the rear
and depress the stern, and row with the stem lifted
up, sniffing the air. The whole crowd of boats on hire
were exactly the same ; in short, they were built for
woman and not for man, for lovely woman to recline,
parasol in one hand and tiller ropes in the other,

122 THE OPEN AIE.

while man — inferior man — pulled and pulled and
pulled as an ox yoked to the plough. They could
only be balanced by man and woman, that was the
only way they could be trimmed on an even keel;
they were like scales, in which the weight on one side
must be counterpoised by a weight in the other.
They were dead against bachelors. They belonged to
woman, and she was absolute mistress -of the river.

As I looked, the boats ground together a little,
chafing, laughing at me, making game of me, asking
distinctly what business a man had there without at
least one companion in petticoats ? My courage ebbed,
and it was in a feeble voice that I inquired whether
there was no such thing as a little skiff a fellow might
paddle about in ? No, nothing of the kind ; would a
canoe do ? Somehow a canoe would not do. I never
took kindly to canoes, excepting always the Canadian
birch-bark pattern; evidently there was no boat for
rne. There was no place on the great river for an
indolent, dreamy particle like myself, apt to drift up
into nooks, and to spend much time absorbing those
pleasures which enter by the exquisite sensitiveness
of the eye — colour, and shade, and form, and the
cadence of glittering ripple and moving leaf. You
must be prepared to pull and push, and struggle for
your existence on the river, as in the vast city hard
by men push and crush for money. You must assert
yourself, and insist upon having your share of the
waterway; you must be perfectly convinced that
yours is the very best style of rowing to be seen;
every one ought to get out of your way. You must
consult your own convenience only, and drive right

THE MODERN THAMES. 123

into other people's boats, forcing them up' into the
willows, or against the islands. Never slip along the
shore, or into quiet backwaters ; always select the more
frequented parts, not because you want to go there,
but to make your presence known, and go amongst the
crowd ; and if a few sculls get broken, it only proves
how very inferior and how very clumsy other people are.
If you see another boat coming down stream in the
centre of the river with a broad space on either side
for others to pass, at once head your own boat straight
at her, and take possession of the way. Or, better
still, never look ahead, but pull straight on, and let
things happen as they may. Annoy everybody, and
you are sure to be right, and to be respected ; splash
the ladies as you pass with a dexterous flip of the
scull, and soak their summer costumes ; it is capital
sport, and they look so sulky — or is it contemptuous ?
There was no such thing as a skiff in which one
could quietly paddle about, or gently make way — mile
after mile— up the beautiful stream. The boating
throng grew thicker, and my courage less and less,
till I desperately resorted to the ferry — at all events,
I could be rowed over in the ferry-boat, that would be
something ; I should be on the water, after a fashion
— and the ferryman would know a good deal. The
burly ferryman cared nothing at all about the river,
and merely answered "Yes," or "No;" he was full
of the Derby and Sandown; didn't know about the
fishing ; supposed there were fish ; didn't see 'em, nor
eat 'em; want a punt? No. So he landed me,
desolate and hopeless, on the opposite bank, and I
began to understand how the souls felt after Charon

124 THE OPEN AIR,

had got them over. They could not have been more
unhappy than I was on the towing-path, as the ferry-
boat receded and left me watching the continuous
succession of boats passing up and down the river.

By-and-by an immense black hulk came drifting
round the bend — an empty barge — almost broadside
across the stream, for the current at the curve
naturally carried it out from the shore. This huge
helpless monster occupied the whole river, and had
no idea where it was going, for it had no fins or
sweeps to guide its course, and the rudder could only
induce it to submit itself lengthways to the stream
after the lapse of some time. The fairway of the
river was entirely taken up by this irresponsible
Frankenstein of the Thames, which some one had
started, but which now did as it liked. Some of the
small craft got up into the willows and waited ; some
seemed to narrowly escape being crushed against a
wall on the opposite bank. The bright white sails
of a yacht shook and quivered as its steersman tried
all he knew to coax his vessel an inch more into the
wind out of the monster's path. In vain ! He had
to drop down the stream, and lose what it had taken
him half an hour's skill to gain. What a pleasing
monster to meet in the narrow arches of a bridge !
The man in charge leaned on the tiller, and placidly
gazed at the wild efforts of some unskilful oarsmen
to escape collision. In fact, the monster had charge
of the man, and did as it liked with him.

Down the river they drifted together, Frankenstein
swinging round and thrusting his blunt nose first
this way and then that ; down the river, blocking

THE MODERN THAMES. 125

up the narrow passage by the eyot; stopping the
traffic at the lock ; out at last into the tidal stream,
there to begin a fresh life of annoyance, and finally
to endanger the good speed of many a fine three-
master and ocean steamer off the docks. The Thames
barge knows no law. No judge, no jury, no Palace
of Justice, no Chancery, no appeal to the Lords has
any terror for the monster barge. It drifts by the
Houses of Parliament with no more respect than it
shows for the lodge of the lock-keeper. It drifts by
Eoyal Windsor, and cares not. The guns of the
Tower are of no account. There is nothing in the
world so utterly free as this monster.

Often have I asked myself if the bargee at the
tiller, now sucking at his short black pipe, now
munching onions and cheese (the little onions he
pitches on the lawns by the river side, there to take
root and flourish) — if this amiable man has any
notion of his own incomparable position. Just some
inkling of the irony of the situation must, I fancy,
now and then dimly dawn within his grimy brow.
To see all these gentlemen shoved on one side ; to be
lying in the way of a splendid Australian clipper;
to stop an incoming vessel, impatient for her berth ;
to swing, and sway, and roll as he goes ; to bump
the big ships, and force the little ones aside ; to slip,
and slide, and glide with the tide, ripples dancing
under the prow, and be master of the world-famed
Thames from source to mouth, is not this a joy for
ever ? Liberty is beyond price ; now no one is really
free unless he can crush his neighbour's interest
underfoot, like a horse-roller going over a daisy.

126 THE OPEN AIR.

Bargee is free, and the ashes of his pipe are worth a
king's ransom.

Imagine a great van loaded at the East-end of
London with the heaviest merchandise, with hags
of iron nails, shot, leaden sheets in rolls, and pig
iron; imagine four strong horses — dray-horses —
harnessed thereto. Then let the waggoner mount
behind in a seat comfortably contrived for him facing
the rear, and settle himself down happily among his
sacks, light his pipe, and fold his hands untroubled
with any worry of reins. Away they go through the
crowded city, by the Bank of England, and across
into Cheapside, cabs darting this way, carriages that,
omnibuses forced up into side-streets, foot traffic
suspended till the monster has passed ; up Fleet-
street, clearing the road in front of them — right
through the stream of lawyers always rushing to and
fro the Temple and the New Law Courts, along the
Strand, and finally in triumph into Rotten Eow at
five o'clock on a June afternoon. See how they
scatter ! see how they run ! The Eow is swept clear
from end to end — beauty, fashion, rank, — what are
such trifles of an hour? The monster vans grind
them all to powder. What such a waggoner might
do on land, bargee does on the river.

Of olden time the silver Thames was the chosen
mode of travel of Eoyalty— the highest in the land
were rowed from palace to city, or city to palace,
between its sunlit banks. Noblemen had their special
oarsmen, and were in like manner conveyed, and
could any other mode of journeying be equally
pleasant ? The coal-barge has bumped them all out
of the way.

THE MODEEN THAMES. 127

No man dares send forth the commonest cart
unless in proper charge, and if the horse is not under
control a fine is promptly administered. The coal-
barge rolls and turns and drifts as chance and the
varying current please. How huge must be the rent
in the meshes of the law to let so large a fish go
through ! But in truth there is no law about it, and
to this day no man can confidently affirm that he
knows to whom the liver belongs. These curious
anomalies are part and parcel of our political system,
and as I watched the black monster slowly go by
with the stream it occurred to me that grimy bargee,
with his short pipe and his onions, was really the
guardian of the British Constitution.

Hardly had he gone past than a loud Pant !
pant ! pant ! began some way down the river ; it
came from a tug, whose short puffs of steam produced
a giant echo against the walls and quays and houses
on the bank. These angry pants sounded high above
the splash of oars and laughter, and the chorus of
singers in a boat ; they conquered all other sounds
and noises, and domineered the place. It was im-
possible to shut the ears to them, or to persuade the
mind not to heed. The swallows dipped their breasts ;
how gracefully they drank on the wing ! Pant !
pant ! pant ! The sunlight gleamed on the wake
of a four-oar. Pant ! pant ! pant ! The soft wind
blew among the trees and over the hawthorn hedge.
Pant ! pant ! pant ! Neither the eye nor ear could
attend to aught but this hideous uproar. The tug
was weak, the stream strong, the barges behind
heavy, broad, and deeply laden, so that each puff

128 THE OPEN AIR.

and pant and turn of the screw barely advanced the
mass a foot. There are many feet in a mile, and
for all that weary time — Pant ! pant ! pant ! This
dreadful uproar, like that which Don Quixote and
Sancho Panza heard proceeding from the fulling
mill, must be endured. Could not philosophy by
stoic firmness shut out the sound? Can philosophy
shut out anything that is real ? A long black streak
of smoke hung over the water, fouling the gleaming
surface. A noise of Dante — hideous, uncompromising
as the rusty hinge of the gate which forbids hope.
Pant ! pant ! pant !

Once upon a time a Queen of England was rowed
adown the silver Thames to the sweet low sound of
the flute.

At last the noise grew fainter in the distance,
and the black hulls disappeared round the bend.
I walked on up the towing-path. Accidentally lifting
my hand to shade my eyes, I was hailed by a ferry-
man on the watch. He conveyed me over without
much volition on my part, and set me ashore by the
inn of my imagination. The rooms almost overhung
the water : so far my vision was fulfilled. Within
there was an odour of spirits and spilled ale, a rustle
of sporting papers, talk of racings, and the click of
billiard-balls. Without there were two or three
loafers, half boatmen, half vagabonds, waiting to pick
up stray sixpences — a sort of leprosy of rascal and
sneak in their faces and the lounge of their bodies.
These Thames-side "beach-combers" are a sorry lot,
a special Pariah class of themselves. Some of them
have been men once : perhaps one retains his sculling

THE MODEMN THAMES. 129

skill, and is occasionally engaged by a gentleman to
give him lessons. They regarded me eagerly — they
"spotted" a Thames freshman who might be made
to yield silver ; but I walked away down the road
into the village. The spire of the church interested
me, being of shingles — i.e. of wooden slates — as the
houses are roofed in America, as houses were roofed
in Elizabethan England; for Young America repro-
duces Old England even in roofs. Some of the
houses so closely approached the churchyard that
the pantry windows on a level with the ground were
partly blocked up by the green mounds of graves.
Borage grew thickly all over the yard, dropping its
blue flowers on the dead. The sharp note of a bugle
rang in the air : they were changing guard, I suppose,
in Wolsey's Palace.

III.

In time I did discover a skiff moored in a little-
visited creek, which the boatman got out for me.
The sculls were rough and shapeless — it is a remark-
able fact that sculls always are, unless you have them
made and keep them for your own use. I paddled
up the river ; I paused by an osier-grown islet ; I
slipped past the barges, and avoided an unskilful
party ; it was the morning, and none of the uproarious
as yet were about. Certainly, it was very pleasant.
The sunshine gleamed on the water, broad shadows
of trees fell across ; swans floated in the by-channels.
A peacefulness which peculiarly belongs to water
hovered above the river. A house-boat was moored
near the willow-grown shore, and it was evidently

K

130 THE OPEN AIE.

inhabited, for there was a fire smouldering on the
bank, and some linen that had been washed spread
on the bushes to bleach. All the windows of this
gipsy-van of the river were wide open, and the air
and light entered freely into every part of the dwelling-
house under which flowed the stream. A lady was
dressing herself before one of these open windows,
twining up large braids of dark hair,. her large arms
bare to the shoulder, and somewhat farther. I
immediately steered out into the -channel to avoid
intrusion; but I felt that she was regarding me
with all a matron's contempt for an unknown man
— a mere member of the opposite sex, not introduced,
or of her "set." I was merely a man — no more
than a horse on the bank, — and had she been in her
smock she would have been just as indifferent.

Certainly it was a lovely morning ; the old red
palace of the Cardinal seemed to slumber amid its
trees, as if the passage of the centuries had stroked and
soothed it into indolent peace. The meadows rested ;
even the swallows, the restless swallows, glided in an
effortless way through the busy air. I could see this,
and yet I did not quite enjoy it ; something drew me
away from perfect contentment, and gradually it
dawned upon me that it was the current causing an
unsuspected amount of labour in sculling. The force-
less particles of water, so yielding to the touch, which
slipped aside at the motion of the oar, in their count-
less myriads ceaselessly flowing grew to be almost a
solid obstruction to the boat. I had not noticed it
for a mile or so; now the pressure of the stream was
becoming evident. I persuaded myself that it was

THE MODERX THAMES. 131

nothing. I held on by the boathook to a root and
rested, and so went on again. Another mile or
more ; another rest : decidedly sculling against a
swift current is work — downright work. You have
no energy to spare over and above that needed for
the labour of rowing, not enough even to look round
and admire the green loveliness of the shore. I began
to think that I should not get as far as Oxford after
all.

By-and-by, I began to question if rowing on a
river is as pleasant as rowing on a lake, where
you can rest on your oars without losing ground,
where no current opposes progress, and after the
stroke the boat slips ahead some distance of its own
impetus. On the river the boat only travels as
far as you actually pull it at each stroke ; there
is no life in it after the scull is lifted, the impetus dies,
and the craft first pauses and then drifts backward.
I crept along the shore, so near that one scull occasion-
ally grounded, to avoid the main force of the water,
which is in the middle of the river. I slipped behind
eyots and tried all I knew. In vain, the river was
stronger than I, and my arms could not for many
hours contend with the Thames. So faded another
part of my dream. The idea of rowing from one
town to another — of expeditions and travelling across
the country, so pleasant to think of— in practice
became impossible. An athlete bent on nothing but
athleticism — a canoeist thinking of nothing but his
canoe — could accomplish it, setting himself daily so
much work to do, and resolutely performing it. A
dreamer, who wanted to enjoy his passing moment,

132 THE OPEN AIR.

and not to keep regular time with his strokes, who
wanted to gather flowers, and indulge his luxurious
eyes with effects of light and shadow and colour,
could not succeed. The river is for the man of might.
With a weary back at last I gave up the struggle
at the foot of a weir, almost in the splash of the
cascade. My best friend, the boathook, kept me
stationary without effort, and in time rest restored
the strained muscles to physical equanimity. The
roar of the river falling over the dam soothed the
mind — the sense of an immense power at hand,
working with all its might while you are at ease, has
a strangely soothing influence. It makes me sleepy
to see the vast beam of an engine regularly rise and
fall in ponderous irresistible labour. Now at last
some fragment of my fancy was realised — a myriad
myriad rushing bubbles whitening the stream burst,
and were instantly succeeded by myriads more ; the
boat faintly vibrated as the wild waters shot beneath
it; the green cascade, smooth at its first curve,
dashed itself into the depth beneath, broken to a
million million particles ; the eddies whirled, and
sucked, and sent tiny whirlpools rotating along the
surface ; the roar rose or lessened in intensity as
the velocity of the wind varied ; sunlight sparkled —
the warmth inclined the senses to a drowsy idleness.
Yonder was the trout fisherman, just as I had
imagined him, casting and casting again with that
transcendental patience which is genius ; .his line
and the top of his rod formed momentary curves
pleasant to look at. The kingfisher did not come —
no doubt he had been shot — but a reed-sparrow did,

THE MODERN THAMES. 133

in velvet black cap and dainty brown, pottering about
the willow near me. This was really like the beauti-
ful river I had dreamed of. If only we could persuade
ourselves to remain quiescent when we are happy !
If only we would remain still in the armchair as the
last curl of vapour rises from a cigar that has been
enjoyed ! If only we would sit still in the shadow
and not go indoors to write that letter ! Let happi-
ness alone. Stir not an inch ; speak not a word :
happiness is a coy maiden — hold her hand and be
still.

In an evil moment I spied the corner of a news-
paper projecting from the pocket of my coat in the
stern-sheets. Folly led me to open that newspaper,
and in it I saw and read a ghastly paragraph. Two
ladies and a gentleman while boating had been carried
by the current against the piles of a weir. The
boat upset; the ladies were rescued, but the unfor-
tunate gentleman was borne over the fall and drowned.
His body had not been recovered ; men were watching
the pool day and night till some chance eddy should
bring it to the surface. So perished my dream, and
the coy-maiden happiness left me because I could
not be content to be silent and still. The accident
had not happened at this weir, but it made no differ-
ence ; I could see all as plainly. A white face, blurred
and indistinct, seemed to rise up from beneath the
rushing bubbles till, just as it was about to jump to
the surface, as things do that come up, down it was
drawn again by that terrible underpull which has
been fatal to so many good swimmers.

Who can keep afloat with a force underneath drag-

13J: THE OPEN AIE.

ging at the feet ? Who can swim when the water — all
bubbles, that is air — gives no resistance to the hands ?
Hands and feet slip through the bubbles. You might
as well spring from the parapet of a house and think
to float by striking out as to swim in such a medium.
Sinking under, a hundred tons of water drive the
body to the bottom ; there it rotates, it rises, it is
forced down again, a hundred tons pf water beat
upon it ; the foot, perhaps, catches among stones or
woodwork, and what was once a living being is
imprisoned in death. Enough of this. I unloosed
the boathook, and drifted down with the stream,
anxious to get away from the horrible weir.

These accidents, which are entirely preventable,
happen year after year with lamentable monotony.
Each weir is a little Niagara, and a boat once within
its influence is certain to be driven to destruction.
The current carries it against the piles, where it is
either broken or upset, the natural and reasonable
alarm of the occupants increasing the risk. In
descending the river every boat must approach the
weir, and must pass within a few yards of the
dangerous current. If there is a press of boats one
is often forced out of the proper course into the rapid
part of the stream without any negligence on the part
of those in it. There is nothing to prevent this —
no fence, or boom; no mark, even, between what is
dangerous and what is not; no division whatever.
Persons ignorant of the river may just as likely as
not row right into danger. A vague caution on a
notice-board may or may not be seen ; in either case
it gives no directions, and is certainly no protection.

THE MODEEN THAMES. 135

Let the matter be argued from whatever point of view,
the fact remains that these accidents occur from the
want of an efficient division between the dangerous
and the safe part of the approach to a weir. A boom
or some kind of fence is required, and how extra-
ordinary it seems that nothing of the kind is done !
It is not done because there is no authority, no
control, no one responsible. Two or three gentlemen
acquainted with aquatics could manage the river from
end to end, to the safety and satisfaction of all, if
they were entrusted with discretionary powers. Stiff
rules and rigid control are not needed; what is
wanted is a rational power freely using its discretion.
I do not mean a Board with its attendant follies ;
I mean a small committee, unfettered, untrammelled
by "legal advisers" and so forth, merely using their
own good sense.

I drifted away from the weir — now grown hideous
— and out of hearing of its wailing dirge for the
unfortunate. I drifted past more barges coming up,
and more steam-tugs; past river lawns, where gay
parties were now sipping claret-cup or playing tennis.
By-and-by, I began to meet pleasure-boats and to
admire their manner of progress. First there came
a gentleman in white flannels, walking on the tow-
path, with a rope round his waist, towing a boat in
which two ladies were comfortably seated. In a
while came two more gentlemen in striped flannels,
one streaked with gold the other with scarlet, striding
side by side and towing a boat in which sat one lady.
They were very earnestly at work, pacing in step,
their bodies slightly leaning forwards, and every now

13(5 THE OPEN AIR

and then they mopped their faces with handkerchiefs
which they carried in their girdles. Something in
their slightly-bowed attitude reminded me of the
captives depicted on Egyptian monuments, with cords
about their necks. How curious is that instinct which
makes each sex, in different ways, the willing slave
of the other ! These human steam-tugs paced and
pulled, and drew the varnished craft swiftly against
the stream, evidently determined to do a certain
distance by a certain hour. As I drifted by without
labour, I admired them very much. An interval, and
still more gentlemen in flannel, labouring like galley-
slaves at the tow-rope, hot, perspiring, and happy
after their kind, and ladies under parasols, comfort-
ably seated, cool, and happy after their kind.

Considering upon these things, I began to discern
the true and only manner in which the modern
Thames is to be enjoyed. Above all things — nothing
heroic. Don't scull — don't row — don't haul at tow-
ropes — don't swim — don't flourish a fishing-rod. Set
your mind at ease. Make friends with two or more
athletes, thorough good fellows, good-natured, delight-
ing in their thews and sinews. Explain to them that
somehow, don't you see, nature did not bless you
with such superabundant muscularity, although there
is nothing under the sun you admire so much.
Forthwith these good fellows will pet you, and your
Thames fortune is made. You take your place in the
stern-sheets, happily protected on either side by
feminine human nature, and the parasols meeting
above shield you from the sun. The tow-rope is
adjusted, and the tugs start. The gliding motion

THE MODERN THAMES. 137

soothes the soul. Feminine boating nature has no-
antipathy to the cigarette. A delicious odour, soft as
new-mown hay, a hint of spices and distant flowers
—sunshine dried and preserved, sunshine you can
handle — rises from the smouldering fibres. This is
smoking summer itself. Yonder in the fore part of
the craft I espy certain vessels of glass on which
is the label of Epernay. And of such is peace.

Drifting ever downwards, I approached the creek
where my skiff had to be left ; but before I reached
it a " beach-comber," with a coil of cord over his
shoulder, asked me if he should tow me "up to
'Ampton." I shook my head, whereupon he abused
me in such choice terms that I listened abashed at
my ignorance. It had never occurred to me that
swearing could be done like that. It is true we have
been swearing now, generation after generation, these
eight thousand years for certain, and language
expands with use. It is also true that we are all
educated now. Shakespeare is credited with knowing
everything, past or future, but I doubt if he knew how
a Thames "beach-comber" can curse in these days.

The Thames is swearing free. You must moderate
your curses on the Queen's highway; you must not
be even profane in the streets, lest you be taken
before the magistrates ; but on the Thames you may
swear as the wind blows — howsoever you list. You
may begin at the mouth, off the Nore, and curse your
way up to Cricklade. A hundred miles for swearing
is a fine preserve. It is one of the marvels of our
civilization.

Aided by scarce a touch of the sculls the stream

138 THE OPEN AIR.

drifted me up into the creek, and the boatman took
charge of his skiff. " Shall I keep her handy for
you, sir?" he said, thinking to get me down every
day as a newcomer. I begged him not to put himself
to any trouble, still he repeated that he would keep
her ready. But in the road I shook off the dust of
my feet against the river, and earnestly resolved
never, never again to have anything to do with it (in
the heroic way) lower down than Henley.

139 )

THE SINGLE-BARREL GUN.

THE single-barrel gun has passed out of modern sport;
but I remember mine with regret, and think I shall
some day buy another. I still find that the best
double-barrel seems top-heavy in comparison; in
poising it the barrels have a tendency to droop.
Guns, of course, are built to balance and lie level in
ihe hand, so as to almost aim themselves as they
€ome to the shoulder; and those who have always
shot with a double-barrel are probably quite satisfied
with the gun on that score. To me there seems too
much weight in the left hand and towards the end of
the gun. Quickness of firing keeps the double-barrel
to the front; but suppose a repeater were to be
invented, some day, capable of discharging two
cartridges in immediate succession? And if two
cartridges, why not three ? An easy thought, but a
very difficult one to realise. Something in the power
of the double-barrel — the overwhelming odds it affords
the sportsman over bird and animal- — pleases. A
man feels master of the copse with a double-barrel ;
and such a sense of power, though only over feeble
creatures, is fascinating. Besides, there is the delight
of effect ; for a clever right and left is sure of applause,

140 THE OPEN AIR.

and makes the gunner feel "good" in himself.
Doubtless, if three barrels could be managed, three
barrels would be more salable than doubles. One
gun-maker has a four-barrel gun, quite a light weight
too, which would be a tremendous success if the
creatures would obligingly run and fly a little slower,
so that all four cartridges could be got in. But that
they will not do. For the present, the ^double-barrel
is the gun of the time.

Still I mean some day to buy a single-barrel, and
wander with it as of old along the hedges, aware that
if I am not skilful enough to bring down with the first
shot I shall lose my game. It is surprising how
confident of that one shot you may get after a while.
On the one hand, it is necessary to be extremely
keen ; on the other, to be sure of your own self-control,
not to fire uselessly. The bramble-bushes on the
shore of the ditch ahead might cover a hare. Through
the dank and dark-green aftermath a rabbit might
suddenly come bounding, disturbed from the furrow
where he had been feeding. On the sandy paths
which the rabbits have made aslant up the mound,
and on their terraces, where they sit and look out
from under the boughs, acorns have dropped ripe
from the tree. Where there are acorns there may be
pheasants ; they may crouch in the fern and dry
grey grass of the hedge thinking you do not see them,
or else rush through and take wing on the opposite
side. The only chance of a shot is as the bird passes
a gap — visible while flying a yard — just time to pull
the trigger. But I would rather have that chance
than have to fire between the bars of a gate ; for the

THE SINGLE-BAEEEL GUN. 141

horizontal lines cause an optical illusion, making
the object appear in a different position from what
it really is in, and half the pellets are sure to be
buried in the rails. Wood-pigeons, when eagerly
stuffing their crops with acorns, sometimes forget
their usual caution ; and, walking slowly, I have often
got right underneath one — as unconscious of his
presence as he was of mine, till a sudden dashing
of wings against boughs and leaves announced his
departure. This he always makes on the opposite
side of the oak, so as to have the screen of the thick
branches between himself and the gunner. The wood-
pigeon, starting like this from a tree, usually descends
in the first part of his flight, a gentle downward curve
followed by an upward rise, and thus comes into view
at the lower part of the curve. He still seems within
shot, and to afford a good mark ; and yet experience
has taught me that it is generally in vain to fire.
His stout quills protect him at the full range of the
gun. Besides, a wasted shot alarms everything
within several hundred yards ; and in stalking with a
single-barrel it needs as much knowledge to choose
when not to fire as when you may.

The most exciting work with the single-barrel was
woodcock shooting ; woodcock being by virtue of rarity
a sort of royal game, and a miss at a woodcock a
terrible disappointment. They have a trick of skim-
ming along the very summit of a hedge, and looking
so easy to kill ; but, as they fly, the tops of tall briers
here, willow-rods next, or an ash -pole often intervene,
and the result is apt to be a bough cut off and nothing
more. Snipes, on the contrary, I felt sure of with

142 THE OPEN A IK.

the single-barrel, and never could hit them so
with a double. Either at starting, before the snipe
got into his twist, or waiting till he had finished that
uncertain movement, the single-barrel seemed to drop
the shot with certainty. This was probably because
of its perfect natural balance, so that it moved as if
on a pivot. With the single I had nothing to manage
but my own arms ; with the other I was conscious
that I had a gun also. With the single I could kill
farther, no matter what it was. The single was
quicker at short shots — snap-shots, as at rabbits
darting across a narrow lane ; and surer at long shots,
as at a hare put out a good way ahead by the dog.

For everything but the multiplication of .slaughter
I liked the single best ; I had more of the sense of
woodcraft with it. When we consider how helpless
a partridge is, for instance, before the fierce blow of
shot, it does seem fairer that the gunner should have
but one chance at the bird. Partridges at least might
be kept for single-barrels : great bags of partridges
never seemed to me quite right. Somehow it seems
to me that to take so much advantage as the double -
barrel confers is not altogether in the spirit of sport.
The double-barrel gives no "law." At least to those
who love the fields, the streams, and woods for their
own sake, the single-barrel will fill the bag sufficiently,
and will permit them to enjoy something of the zest
men knew before the invention of weapons not only
of precision but of repetition : inventions that rendered
them too absolute masters of the situation. A single-
barrel will soon make a sportsman the keenest of
shots. The gun itself can be built to an exquisite

THE SINGLE-BARBEL GUN. 143

perfection — lightness, handiness, workmanship, and
performance of the very best. It is said that you can
change from a single-barrel shot-gun to a sporting
rifle and shoot with the rifle almost at once; while
many who have been used to the slap-dash double
cannot do anything for some time with a rifle. More
than one African explorer has found his single-barrel
smooth-bore the most useful of all the pieces in his
battery; though, of course, of much larger calibre
than required in our fields.

144 THE OPEN AIR.

THE HAUNT OF THE HARE.

IT is never so much winter in the country as it is
in the town. The trees are still there, and in and
about them birds remain. " Quip ! whip ! " sounds
from the elms ; "Whip ! quip ! " Eedwing thrushes
threaten with the " whip " those who advance towards
them ; they spend much of the day in the elm-tops.
Thick tussocks of old grass are conspicuous at the
skirt of a hedge ; half green, half grey, they contrast
with the bare thorn. From behind one of these tus-
socks a hare starts, his black-tipped ears erect, his
long hinder limbs throwing him almost like a grass-
hopper over the sward — no creature looks so hand-
some or startling, and it is always a pleasant surprise
to see him. Pheasant or partridge do not surprise in
the least — they are no more than any other bird ; but
a hare causes quite a different feeling. He is per-
fectly wild, unfed, untended, and then he is the
largest animal to be shot in the fields. A rabbit slips
along the mound, under bushes and behind stoles,
but a hare bolts for the open, and hopes in his speed.
He leaves the straining spaniel behind, and the
distance between them increases as they go. The
spaniel's broad hind paws are thrown wide apart
as he runs, striking outwards as well as backwards,

THE HAUNT OF THE HARE. 145

and his large ears are lifted by the 'wind of his
progress. Overtaken by the cartridge, still the hare,
us he lies in the dewy grass, is handsome ; lift him
up and his fur is full of colour, there are layers of
tint, shadings of brown within it, one under the other,
and the surface is exquisitely clean. The colours are
not really bright, at least not separately; but they
are so clean and so clear that they give an impression
of warmth and brightness. Even in the excitement
of sport regret cannot but be felt at the sight of those
few drops of blood about the mouth which indicate
that all this beautiful workmanship must now cease
to be. Had he escaped the sportsman would not
have been displeased.

The black bud-sheaths of the ash may furnish a com-
parison for his ear-tips ; the brown brake in October
might give one hue for his fur; the yellow or buff
bryony leaf perhaps another ; the clematis is not whiter
than the white part. His colours, as those of so many
of our native wild creatures, appear selected from the
woods, as if they had been gathered and skilfully
mingled together. They can be traced or paralleled
in the trees, the bushes, grasses, or flowers, as if ex-
tracted from them by a secret alchemy. In the
plumage of the partridge there are tints that may be
compared with the brown corn, the brown ripe grains
rubbed from the ear ; it is in the corn-fields that
the partridge delights. There the young brood are
sheltered, there they feed and grow plump. The red
tips of other feathers are reflections of the red sorrel
of the meadows. The grey fur of the rabbit resembles
the grey ash hue of the underwood in which he hides.

L

146 THE OPEN AIR.

A common plant in moist places, the figwort, bears
small velvety flowers, much the colour of the red
velvet topknot of the goldfinch, the yellow on whose
wings is like the yellow bloom of the furze which
he frequents in the winter, perching cleverly on its
prickly extremities. In the woods, in the bark of the
trees, the varied shades of the branches as their size
diminishes, the adhering lichens, the, stems of the
underwood, now grey, now green ; the dry stalks of
plants, brown, white, or dark, all the innumerable
minor hues that cross and interlace, there is sug-
gested the woven texture of tints found on the wings
of birds. For brighter tones the autumn leaves can
be resorted to, and in summer the finches rising from
the grass spring upwards from among flowers that
could supply them with all their colours. But it is
not so much the brighter as the undertones that
seem to have been drawn from the woodlands or
fields. Although no such influence has really been
exerted by the trees and plants upon the living
creatures, yet it is pleasant to trace the analogy.
Those who would convert it into a scientific fact
are met with a dilemma to which they are usually
oblivious, i.e. that most birds migrate, and the very
tints which in this country might perhaps, by a
stretch of argument, be supposed to conceal them,
in a distant climate with a different foliage, or none,
would render them conspicuous. Yet it is these
analogies and imaginative comparisons which make
the country so delightful.

One day in autumn, after toiling with their guns,
which are heavy in the September heats, across the

THE HAUNT OF THE 1TARE. w

fields and over the hills, the hospitable owner of th<
from home or any house

champagne. He had several of these stores
mvanous parts of the domain readv wl^

ground, almost free of obstruction

S5

is no use to
year's cove, The

148 THE OPEN AIR.

where the needles have fallen and strew the surface
thickly. Outside the wood, in the waggon-track, the
beech leaves lie on the side of the mound, dry and
shrivelled at the top, but stir them, and under the top
layer they still retain the clear brown of autumn.

The ivy trailing on the bank is moist and freshly
green. There are two tints of moss; one light, the
other deeper — both very pleasant and restful to
the eye. These beds of moss are the greenest and
brightest of the winter's colours. Besides these
there are ale-hoofj or ground-ivy leaves (not the ivy
that climbs trees), violet leaves, celandine mars,
primrose mars, foxglove mars, teazle mars, and
barren strawberry leaves, all green in the midst of
winter. One tiny white flower of barren strawberry
has ventured to bloom. Bound about the lower end
of each maple stick, just at the ground, is a green
wrap of moss. Though leafless above, it is green at
the foot. At the verge of the ploughed field below,
exposed as it is, chickweed, groundsel, and shepherd's-
purse are flowering. About a little thorn there hang
withered red berries of bryony, as if the bare thorn
bore fruit ; the bine of the climbing plant clings to
it still; there are traces of "old man's beard," the
white fluffy relics of clematis bloom, stained brown
by the weather ; green catkins droop thickly on the
hazel. Every step presents some item of interest,
and thus it is that it is never so much winter in the
country. Where fodder has been thrown down in a
pasture field for horses, a black congregation of rooks
has crowded together in a ring. A solitary pole for
trapping hawks stands on the sloping ground outside

THE HAUNT OF THE HARE: 149

the cover. These poles are visited every morning
when the trap is there, and the captured creature
put out of pain. Of the cruelty of the trap itself
there can be no doubt ; but it is very unjust to assume
that therefore those connected with sport are person-
ally cruel. In a farmhouse much frequented by rats,
and from which they cannot be driven out, these
animals are said to have discovered a means of defy-
ing the gin set for them. One such gin was placed
in the cheese-room, near a hole from which they
issued, but they dragged together pieces of straw,
little fragments of wood, and various odds and ends,
and so covered the pan that the trap could not spring.
They formed, in fact, a bridge over it.

Eed and yellow fungi mark decaying places on the
trunks and branches of the trees ; their colour is
brightest when the boughs are bare. By a streamlet
wandering into the osier beds the winter gnats dance
in the sunshine, round about an old post covered
with ivy, on which green berries are thick. The
warm sunshine gladdens the hearts of the moorhens
floating on the water yonder by the bushes, and their
singular note, " coorg-coorg," is uttered at intervals.
In the plantation close to the house a fox resides as
safe as King Louis in " Quentin Durward," sur-
rounded with his guards and archers and fortified
towers, though tokens of his midnight rambles, in
the shape of bones, strew the front of his castle. He
crosses the lawn in sight of the windows occasionally,
as if he really knew and understood that his life is
absolutely safe at ordinary times, and that he need
beware of nothing but the hounds.

THE OPEN AIR

THE BATHING SEASON.

MOST people who go on the West Pier at Brighton
walk at once straight to the farthest part. This is
the order and custom of pier promenading ; you are
to stalk along the deck till you reach the end, and
there go round and round the band in a circle like a
horse tethered to an iron pin, or else sit down and
admire those who do go round and round. No one
looks back at the gradually extending beach and the
fine curve of the shore. No one lingers where the
surf breaks — immediately above it — listening to the
remorseful sigh of the dying wave as it sobs back to
the sea. There, looking downwards, the white edge
of the surf recedes in hollow crescents, curve after
curve for a mile or more, one succeeding before the
first can disappear and be replaced by a fresh wave.
A faint mistiness hangs above the beach at some
distance, formed of the salt particles dashed into the
air and suspended. At night, if the tide chances to
be up, the white surf rushing in and returning imme-
diately beneath has a strange effect, especially in its
pitiless regularity. If one wave seems to break a
little higher it is only in appearance, and because
you have not watched long enough. In a certain

THE BATHING SEASON. 151

number of times another will break there again;
presently one will encroach the merest trifle ; after
a while another encroaches again, and the apparent
irregularity is really sternly regular. The free wave
has no liberty — it does not act for itself, — no real
generous wildness. " Thus far and no farther," is
not a merciful saying. Cold and dread and pitiless,
the wave claims its due — it stretches its arms to the
fullest length, and does not pause or hearken to the
desire of any human heart. Hopeless to appeal to
is the unseen force that sends the white surge under-
neath to darken the pebbles to a certain line. The
wetted pebbles are darker than the dry ; even in the
dusk they are easily distinguished. Something merci-
less is there not in this conjunction of restriction
and impetus ? Something outside human hope and
thought — indifferent — cold ?

Considering in this way, I wandered about fifty
yards along the pier, and sat down in an abstracted
way on the seat on the right side. Beneath, the clear
green sea rolled in crestless waves towards the shore
— they were moving " without the animation of the
wind," which had deserted them two days ago, and
a hundred miles out at sea. Slower and slower, with
an indolent undulation, rising and sinking of mere
weight and devoid of impetus, the waves passed on,
scarcely seeming to break the smoothness of the
surface. At a little distance it seemed level; yet
the boats every now and then sank deeply into the
trough, and even a large fishing- smack rolled heavily.
For it is the nature of a groundswell to be exceedingly
deceptive. Sometimes the waves are so far apart

152 THE OPEN All?.

that the sea actually is level — smooth as the surface
of a polished dining-table — till presently there appears
a darker line slowly approaching, and a wave of
considerable size comes in, advancing exactly like the
crease in the cloth which the housemaid spreads 011
the table — the air rolling along underneath it forms
a linen imitation of the groundswell. These un-
expected rollers are capital at upsetting boats just
touching the beach ; the boat is broadside on and
the occupants in the water in a second. To-day the
groundswell was more active, the waves closer together,
not having had time to forget the force of the extinct
gale. Yet the sea looked calm as a millpond— just
the morning for a bath.

Along the yellow line where sand and pebbles meet
there stood a gallant band, in gay uniforms, facing the
water. Like the imperial legions who were ordered
to charge the ocean, and gather the shells as spoils
of war, the cohorts gleaming in purple and gold
extended their front rank — their fighting line one to
a yard — along the strand. Some tall and stately;
some tall and slender ; some well developed and firm
on their limbs ; some gentle in attitude, even in their
war dress; some defiant; perhaps forty or fifty,
perhaps more, ladies ; a splendid display of woman-
hood in the bright sunlight. Blue dresses, pink
dresses, purple dresses, trimmings of every colour; a
gallant show. The eye had but just time to receive
these impressions as it were with a blow of the
camera — instantaneous photography — when, boom !
the groundswell was on them, and, heavens, what a
change ! They disappeared. An arm projected here,

THE BATHING SEASON. 153

possibly a foot yonder, tresses floated on the surface
like seaweed, but bodily they were gone. The whole
rank from end to end was overthrown — more than
that, overwhelmed, buried, interred in water like
Pharaoh's army in the Ked Sea. Crush ! It had
come on them like a mountain. The wave so clear,
so beautifully coloured, so cool and refreshing, had
struck their delicate bodies with the force of a ton
weight. Crestless and smooth to look at, in reality
that treacherous roller weighed at least a ton to a
yard.

Down went each fair bather as if hit with shot
from a Gatling gun. Down she went, frantically, and
vainly grasping at a useless rope ; down with water
driven into her nostrils, with a fragment, a tiny blade,
of seaweed forced into her throat, choking her ; crush
on the hard pebbles, no feather bed, with the pressure
of a ton of water overhead, and the strange rushing
roar it makes in the ears. Down she went, and at
the same time was dragged head foremost, sideways,
anyhow, but dragged — ground along on the bitter
pebbles some yards higher up the beach, each pebble
leaving its own particular bruise, and the suspended
sand filling the eyes. Then the wave left her, and
she awoke from the watery nightmare to the bright
sunlight, and the hissing foam as it subsided, prone
at full length, high and dry like a stranded wreck.
Perhaps her head had tapped the wheel of the machine
in a friendly way — a sort of genial battering ram.
The defeat was a perfect rout; yet they recovered
position immediately. I fancy I did see one slip
limply to cover; but the main body rose manfully,

154 THE OPEN AIR.

and picked their way with delicate feet on the hard,
hard stones back again to the water, again to meet
their inevitable fate.

The white ankles of the blonde gleaming in the
sunshine were distinguishable, even at that distance,
from the flesh tint of the brunette beside her, and
these again from the swarthiness of still darker ankles,
which did not gleam, but had a subdued colour like
dead gold. The foam of a lesser wave ran up and
touched their feet submissively. Three young girls
in pink clustered together; one crouched with her
back to the sea and glanced over her timorous
shoulder. Another lesser wave ran up and left a
fringe of foam before them. I looked for a moment
out to sea and saw the smack roll heavily, the big
wave was coming. By now the bathers had gathered
confidence, and stepped, a little way at a time, closer
and closer down to the water. Some even stood where
each lesser wave rose to their knees. Suddenly a few
leant forwards, pulling their ropes taut, and others
turned sideways ; these were the more experienced or
observant. Boom ! The big roller broke near the
pier and then ran along the shore ; it did not strike
the whole length at once, it came in aslant and
rushed sideways. The three in pink went first — they
were not far enough from their machine to receive its
full force, it barely reached to the waist, and really
I think it was worse for them. They were lifted off
their feet and shot forward with their heads under
water; one appeared to be under the two others, a
-confused mass of pink. Their white feet emerged
behind the roller, and as it sank it drew them back,

THE BATHING SEASON. 155

grinding them over the pebbles : every one knows how
pebbles grate and grind their teeth as a wave subsides.
Left lying on their faces, I guessed from their attitudes
that they had dug their finger-nails into the pebbles
in an effort to seize something that would hold.
Somehow they got on their knees and crept up the
slope of the beach. Beyond these three some had
been standing about up to their knees; these were
simply buried as before — quite concealed and thrown
like beams of timber, head first, feet first, high up on
shore. Group after group went down as the roller
reached them, and the sea was dyed for a minute with
blue dresses, purple dresses, pink dresses; they
coloured the wave which submerged them. From
-end to end the whole rank was again overwhelmed,
nor did any position prove of advantage ; those who
sprang up as the wave came were simply turned over
:and carried on their backs, those who tried to dive
under were swept back by the tremendous under-rush.
Sitting on the beach, lying at full length, on hands
and knees, lying on this side or that, doubled up —
there they were, as the roller receded, in every dis-
consolate attitude imaginable; the curtain rose and
disclosed the stage in disorder. Again I thought I
saw one or two limp to their machines, but the main
body adjusted themselves and faced the sea.

Was there ever such courage ? National untaught
•courage — inbred, and not built of gradual instruction
as it were in hardihood. Yet some people hesitate
to give women the franchise ! actually, a miserable
privilege which any poor fool of a man may exercise.

I was philosophizing admirably in this strain when

156 THE OPEN AIR.

first a shadow came and then the substance, that is,
a gentleman sat down by me and wished me good
morning, in a slightly different accent to that we
usually hear. I looked wistfully at the immense
length of empty seats ; on both sides of the pier for
two hundred yards or more there extended an
endless empty seat. Why could not he have chosen
a spot to himself? Why must he place .himself just
here, so close as to touch me ? Four hundred yards
of vacant seats, and he could not find room for
himself.

It is a remarkable fact in natural history that
one's elbow is sure to be jogged. It does not matter
what you do; suppose you paint in the most
secluded spot, and insert yourself, moreover, in the
most inconspicuous part of that spot, some vacant
physiognomy is certain to intrude, glaring at you
with glassy eye. Suppose you do nothing (like
myself), no matter where you do it some inane
humanity obtrudes itself. I took out rny note-book
once in a great open space at the Tower of London,
a sort of court or place of arms, quite open and a
gunshot across; there was no one in sight, and if
there -had been half a regiment they could have
passed (and would have passed) without interference.
I had scarcely written three lines when the pencil
flew up the page, some hulking lout having brushed
against me. He could not find room for himself.
A hundred yards of width was not room enough for
him to go by. He meant no harm ; it did not occur-
to him that he could be otherwise than welcome.
He was the sort of man who calmly sleeps on your

THE BATHING SEASON. 157

shoulder in a train, and merely replaces his head
if you wake him twenty times. The very same thing
has happened to me in the parks, and in country
fields ; particularly it happens at the British Museum
and the picture galleries, there is room sufficient in
all conscience ; but if you try to make a note or a
rough memorandum sketch you get a jog. There is
a jogger everywhere, just as there is a buzzing fly
everywhere in summer. The jogger travels, too.

One day, while studying in the Louvre, I am certain
three or four hundred French people went by me,
mostly provincials I fancy, country-folk, in short,
from their dress, which was not Parisian, and their
accent, which was not of the Boulevards. Of all
these not one interfered with me ; they did not
approach within four or five feet. How grateful I
felt towards them ! One man and his sweetheart, a
fine southern girl with dark eyes and sun-browned
cheeks, sat down near me on one of the scanty seats
provided. The man put his umbrella and his hat
on the seat beside him. What could be more natural ?
No one else was there, and there was room for three
more couples. Instantly an official — an authority !
—stepped hastily forward from the shadow of some
sculpture (beasts of prey abide in darkness), snatched
up the umbrella and hat, and rudely dashed them
on the floor. In a flow of speech he explained that
nothing must be placed on the seats. The man, who
had his handkerchief in his hand, quietly dropped it
into his hat on the floor and replied nothing. This
was an official "jogger." I felt indignant to see and
hear people treated in this rough manner; but the

158 THE OPEN AIR.

provincial was used to the jogger system and heeded
it not. My own jogger was coming. Three to four
hundred country-folk had gone by gently and in a
gentlemanly way. Then came an English gentleman,
middle-aged, florid, not much tinctured with art or
letters, but garnished with huge gold watchchain and
with wealth as it were bulging out of his waistcoat
pocket. This gentleman positively walked into me,
pushed me — literally pushed me aside and took my
place, a place valuable to me at that moment -for
one special aspect, and having shoved me aside,
gazed about him through his eyeglass, I suppose to
discover what it was interested me. He was a
genuine, thoroughbred jogger. The vast galleries of
the Louvre had not room enough for him. He was
one of the most successful joggers in the world, I feel
sure; any family might be proud of him. While
I am thus digressing, the bathers have gone over
thrice.

The individual who had sat himself down by me
produced a little box and offered me a lozenge. I
did not accept it ; he took one himself in token that
they were harmless. Then he took a second, and
a third, and began to tell me of their virtues ; they
cured this and they alleviated that, they were the
greatest discovery of the age ; this universal lozenge
was health in the waistcoat pocket, a medicine-chest
between finger and thumb; the secret had been
extracted at last, and nature had given up the ghost
as it were of her hidden physic. His eloquence
conjured up in my mind a vision of the rocks beside
the Hudson river papered over with acres of adver-

THE BATHING SEASON. 15£

tising posters. But no ; by bis further conversation
I found that I bad mentally slandered him ; he was
not a proprietor of patent medicine; he was a man
of education and private means; he belonged to a,
much higher profession, in fact he was a "jogger"
travelling about from place to place — " globe-trotting "
from capital city to watering-place — all over the
world in the exercise of his function. I had wondered
if his accent was American (petroleum- American),
or German, or Italian, or Kussian, or what. Now I
wondered no longer, for the jogger is cosmopolitan.
When he had exhausted his lozenge he told me how
many times the screw of the steamer revolved while
carrying him across the Pacific from Yokohama to
San Francisco. I nearly suggested that it was about
equal to the number of times his tongue had vibrated
in the last ten minutes. The bathers went over twice
more. I was anxious to take note of their bravery,
and turned aside, leaning over the iron back of the
seat. He went on just the same ; a hint was no
more to him than a feather bed to an ironclad.

My rigid silence was of no avail ; so long as my ears
were open he did not care. He was a very energetic
jogger. However, it occurred to me to try another
plan: I turned towards him (he would much rather
have had my back) and began to talk in the most
strident tones I could command. I pointed out to
him that the pier was decked like a vessel, that the
cliffs were white, that a lady passing had a dark blue
dress on, which did not suit with the green sea, not
because it was blue, but because it was the wrong
tint of blue ; I informed him that the Pavilion was

160 THE OPEN AIR.

once the residence of royalty, and similar novelties ;
all in a string without a semicolon. His eyes opened ;
he fumbled with his lozenge-box, said "Good morn-
ing," and went on up the pier. I watched him go-
English- Americano- Germano - Franco - Prussian - Kus-
sian-Chinese-New Zealander that he was. But he
was not a man of genius; you could choke him off
by talking. Still he had effectually jogged me and
spoiled my contemplative enjoyment of the bathers'
courage ; upon the whole I thought I would go down
on the beach now and see them a little closer. The
truth is, I suppose, that it is people like myself who
are in the wrong, or are in the way. What business
had I to make a note in the Tower yard, or study in
the Louvre? what business have I to think, or
indulge myself in an idea ? What business has any
man to paint, or sketch, or do anything of the sort ?
I suppose the joggers are in the right.

Dawdling down Whitehall one day a jogger nailed
me — they come to me like flies to honey — and got
me to look at his pamphlet. He went about, he said,
all his time distributing them as a duty for the
safety of the nation. The pamphlet was printed in
the smallest type, and consisted of extracts from
various prophetical authors, pointing out the enormity
of the Babylonian Woman, or the City of Scarlet,
or some such thing; the gist being the bitterest —
almost scurrilous — attack on the Church of Eome.
The jogger told me, with tears of pride in his eyes
and a glorified countenance, that only a few days
before, in the waiting-room of a railway station, he
had the pleasure to present his pamphlet to Cardinal

THE BATHING SEASON. 1G1

Manning. And the Cardinal bowed and put it in his
pocket.

Just as everybody walks on the sunny side of
Begent-street, so there are certain spots on the beach
where people crowd together. This is one of them ;
just west of the West Pier there is a fair between
eleven and one every bright morning. Everybody
goes because everybody else does. Mamma goes down
to bathe with her daughters and the little ones ; they
take two machines at least ; the pater comes to smoke
his cigar ; the young fellows of the family-party come
to look at " the women," as they irreverently speak
of the sex. So the story runs on ad infinitum, down
to the shoeless ones that turn up everywhere. Every
seat is occupied; the boats and small yachts are filled;
some of the children pour pebbles into the boats, some
carefully throw them out ; wooden spades are busy ;
sometimes they knock each other on the head with
them, sometimes they empty pails of sea-water on a
sister's frock. There is a squealing, squalling, scream-
ing, shouting, singing, bawling, howling, whistling,
tin-trumpeting, and every luxury of noise. Two or
three bands work away ; niggers clatter their bones ;
a conjurer in red throws his heels in the air ; several
harps strum merrily different strains ; fruit-sellers
push baskets into folks' faces ; sellers of wretched
needlework and singular baskets coated with shells
thrust their rubbish into people's laps. These shell
baskets date from George IV. The gingerbeer men
and the newsboys cease not from troubling. Such a
volume of uproar, such a complete organ of discord —
I mean a whole organful — cannot be found anywhere

M

1G2 THE OPEN AIR

else on the face of the earth in so comparatively small
a space. It is a sort of triangular plot of beach
crammed with everything that ordinarily annoys the
ears and offends the sight.

Yet you hear nothing and see nothing; it is per-
fectly comfortable, perfectly jolly and exhilarating, a
preferable spot to any other. A sparkle of sunshine
on the breakers, a dazzling gleam fr,om the white
foam, a warm sweet air, light and brightness and
champagniness; altogether lovely. The way in which
people lie about on the beach, their legs this way, and
their arms that, their hats over their eyes, their utter
give-themselves-up expression of attitude is enough in
itself to make a reasonable being contented. Nobody
cares for anybody ; they drowned Mrs. Grundy long-
ago. The ancient philosopher (who had a mind to
eat a fig) held that a nail driven into wood could only
support a certain weight. After that weight was
exceeded either the wood must break or the nail
come out. Yonder is a wooden seat put together
with nails — a flimsy contrivance, which defies all
rules of gravity and adhesion. One leg leans one
way, the other in the opposite direction ; very lame
legs indeed. Careful folk would warn you not to sit
on it lest it should come to pieces. The music, I
suppose, charms it, for it holds together in the most
marvellous manner. Four people are sitting on it,
four big ones, middle-aged, careful people; every
moment the legs gape wide apart, the structure
visibly stretches and yields and sinks in the pebbles,
yet it does not come down. The stoutest of all sits
actually over the lame legs, reading his paper quite

THE BATHING SEASON. 163

oblivious of the odd angle his plump person makes,
quite unconscious of the threatened crack — crash ! It
does not happen. A sort of magnetism sticks it
together ; it is in the air ; it makes things go right
that ought to go wrong. Awfully naughty place ; no
sort of idea of rightness here. Humming and strum-
ming, and singing and smoking, splashing, and
sparkling ; a buzz of voices and booming of sea ! If
they could only be happy like this always !

Mamma has a tremendous fight over the bathing-
dresses, her own, of course ; the bathing woman
cannot find them, and denies that she had them,
and by-and-by, after half an hour's exploration, finds
them all right, and claims commendation for having
put them away so safely. Then there is the battle
for a machine. The nurse has been keeping guard
on the steps, to seize it the instant the occupant
comes out. At last they get it, and the wonder is
how they pack themselves in it. Boom ! The bathers
have gone over again, I know. The rope stretches as
the men at the capstan go round, and heave up the
machines one by one before the devouring tide.

As it is not at all rude, but the proper thing to do,
I thought I would venture a little nearer (not too
obtrusively near) and see closer at hand how brave
womanhood faced the rollers. There was a young girl
lying at full length at the edge of the foam. She
reclined parallel to the beach, not with her feet to-
wards the sea, but so that it came to her side. She
was clad in some material of a gauzy and yet opaque
texture, permitting the full outline and the least move-
ment to be seen. The colour I do not exactly know

164 THE OPEN AW.

how to name ; they could tell you at the Magasin du
Louvre, where men understand the hues of garments
as well as women. I presume it was one of the many
tints that are called at large "creamy." It suited
her perfectly. Her complexion was in the faintest
degree swarthy, and yet not in the least like what a
lady would associate with that word. The difficulty
in describing a colour is that different people take
different views of the terms employed ; ladies have
one scale founded a good deal on dress, men another,
and painters have a special (and accurate) gamut
which they use in the studio. This was a clear
swarthiness — a translucent swarthiness — clear as the
most delicate white. There was something in the
hue of her neck as freely shown by the loose bathing
dress, of her bare arms and feet, somewhat recalling
to mind the kind of beauty attributed to the Queen
of Egypt. But it was more delicate. Her form was
almost fully developed, more so than usual at her
age. Again and again the foam rushed up deep
enough to cover her limbs, but not sufficiently so to
hide her chest, as she was partly raised on one
arm. Washed thus with the purest whiteness of the
sparkling foam, her beauty gathered increase from
the touch of the sea. She swayed slightly as the
water reached her, she was luxuriously recked to and
fro. The waves toyed with her; they came and
retired, happy in her presence ; the breeze and the
sunshine were there.

Standing somewhat back, the machines hid the
waves from rne till they reached the shore, so that
I did not observe the heavy roller till it came and

TEE BATHING SEASON. 165

broke. A ton of water fell on her, crush ! The edge
of the wave curled and dropped over her, the arch
bowed itself above her, the keystone of the wave fell
in. She was under the surge while it rushed up and
while it rushed back; it carried her up to the steps
of the machine and back again to her original position.
When it subsided she simply shook her head, raised
herself on one arm, and adjusted herself parallel to
the beach as before.

Let any one try this, let any one lie for a few
minutes just where the surge bursts, and he will
understand what it means. Men go out to the length
of their ropes — past and outside the line of the
breakers, or they swim still farther out and ride at
ease where the wave, however large, merely lifts them
pleasantly as it rolls under. But the smashing force
of the wave is where it curls and breaks, and it is
there that the ladies wait for it. It is these breakers
in a gale that tear to pieces and destroy the best-built
ships once they touch the shore, scattering their
timbers as the wind scatters leaves. The courage
and the endurance women must possess to face a
groundswell like this !

All the year they live in luxury and ease, and are
shielded from everything that could hurt. A bruise —
a lady to receive a bruise ; it is not to be thought of !
If a ruffian struck a lady in Hyde Park the world
would rise from its armchair in a fury of indignation.
These waves and pebbles bruise them as they list.
They do not even flinch. There must, then, be a
natural power of endurance in them.

It is unnecessary, and yet I was proud to see it. An

160 THE OPEN AIE.

English lady could do it ; but could any other ? —
unless, indeed, an American of English descent. Still,
it is a barbarous thing, for bathing could be easily
rendered pleasant. The cruel roller receded, the soft
breeze blew, the sunshine sparkled, the gleaming
foam rushed up and gently rocked her. The Infanta
Cleopatra lifted her arm gleaming wet with spray,
and extended it indolently; the sun had only given
her a more seductive loveliness. How much more
enjoyable the sea and breeze and sunshine when one
is gazing at something so beautiful. That arm,

rounded and soft

" Excuse me, sir, but your immortal soul " — a hand
was placed on my elbow. I turned, and saw a beam-
ing face ; a young lady, elegantly dressed, placed a
fly-sheet of good intentions in my fingers. The fair
jogger beamed yet more sweetly as I took it, and
went on among the crowd. When I looked back
the Infanta Cleopatra had ascended into her machine.
I had lost the last few moments of loveliness.

( 167 )

UNDER THE ACORNS.

COMING along a woodland lane, a small round and
glittering object in the brushwood caught my atten-
tion. The ground was but just hidden in that part
of the wood with a thin growth of brambles, low, and
more like creepers than anything else. These scarcely
hid the surface, which was brown with the remnants
of oak-leayes ; there seemed so little cover, indeed,
that a mouse might have been seen. But at that
spot some great spurge-plants hung this way and
that, leaning aside, as if the stems were too weak to
uphold the heads of dark-green leaves. Thin grasses,
perfectly white, bleached by sun and dew, stood in
a bunch by the spurge ; their seeds had fallen, the
last dregs of sap had dried within them, there was
nothing left but the bare stalks. A creeper of
bramble fenced round one side of the spurge and
white grass bunch, and brown leaves were visible
on the surface of the ground through the interstices
of the spray. It was in the midst of this little
thicket that a small, dark, and glittering object
caught my attention. I knew it was the eye of some
creature at once, but, supposing it nothing more than
a young rabbit, was passing on, thinking of other

168 THE OPEN AIR.

matters, when it occurred to me, before I could finish
the step I had taken, so quick is thought, that the
eye was not large enough to be that of a rabbit.
I stopped; the black glittering eye had gone — the
creature had lowered its neck, but immediately
noticing that I was looking in that direction, it
cautiously raised itself a little, and I saw at once
that the eye was the eye of a bird. -This I knew
first by its size, and next by its position in relation
to the head, which was invisible — for had it been
a rabbit or hare, its ears would have projected.
The moment after, the eye itself confirmed this —
the nictitating membrane was rapidly drawn over
it, and as rapidly removed. This membiane is the
distinguishing mark of a bird's eye. But what bird ?
Although I was within two yards, I could not even
see its head, nothing but the glittering eyeball, on
which the light of the sun glinted. The sunbeams
came over my shoulder straight into the bird's face.

Without moving — which I did not wish to do, as it
would disturb the bird — I could not see its plumage ;
the bramble spray in front, th-3 spurge behind, and
the bleached grasses at the side, perfectly concealed
it. Only two birds I considered would be likely to
squat and remain quiescent like this — partridge or
pheasant ; but I could not contrive to view the least
portion of the neck. A moment afterwards the eye
came up again, and the bird slightly moved its head,
when I saw its beak, and knew it was a pheasant
immediately. I then stepped forward — almost on
the bird — and a young pheasant rose, and flew
bstween the tree-trunks to a deep dry watercourse,

UNDER THE ACORNS. 109

where it disappeared under some withering yellow
ferns.

Of course I could easily have solved the problem
long before, merely by startling the bird ; but what
would have been the pleasure of that ? Any plough-
lad could have forced the bird to rise, and would have
recognized it as a pheasant; to me, the pleasure
consisted in discovering it under every difficulty.
That was woodcraft ; to kick the bird up would have
been simply nothing at all. Now I found why I
could not see the pheasant's neck or body ; it was not
really concealed, but shaded out by the mingled hues
of white grasses, the brown leaves of the surface, and
the general gray-brown tints. Now it was gone, there
was a vacant space — its plumage had filled up that
vacant space with hues so similar, that, at no farther
distance than two yards, I did not recognize it by
colour. Had the bird fully carried out its instinct
of concealment, and kept its head down as well as
its body, I should have passed it. Nor should I have
seen its head if it had looked the other way ; the eye
betrayed its presence. The dark glittering eye, which
the sunlight touched, caught my .attention instantly.
There is nothing like an eye in inanimate nature;
no flower, no speck on a bough, no gleaming stone
wet with dew, nothing, indeed, to which it can be
compared. The eye betrayed it ; I could not overlook
an eye. Neither nature nor inherited experience had
taught the pheasant to hide its eye ; the bird not only
wished to conceal itself, but to watch my motions,
and, looking up from its cover, was immediately
observed.

170 THE OPEN AIR.

At a turn of the lane there was a great heap of oak
"chumps," crooked logs, sawn in lengths, and piled
together. They were so crooked, it was difficult to
find a seat, till I hit on one larger than the rest.
The pile of "chunks" rose halfway up the stem of
an oak-tree, and formed a wall of wood at my back ;
the oak-houghs reached over and made a pleasant
shade. The sun was warm enough to render resting
in the open air delicious, the wind cool enough to
prevent the heat becoming too great ; the pile of
timber kept off the draught, so that I could stay and
listen to the gentle "hush, rush" of the breeze in the
oak above me; "hush" as it came slowly, "rush"
as it came fast, and a low undertone as it nearly
ceased. So thick were the haws on a bush of thorn
opposite, that they tinted the hedge a red colour
among the yellowing hawthorn-leaves. To this red
hue the blackberries that were not ripe, the thick dry
red sorrel stalks, a bright canker on a brier almost as
bright as a rose, added their colours. Already the
foliage of the bushes had been thinned, and it was
possible to see through the upper parts of the boughs.
The sunlight, therefore, not only touched their outer
surfaces, but passed through and lit up the branches
within, and the wild-fruit upon them. Though the
sky was clear and blue between the clouds, that is,
without mist or haze, the sunbeams were coloured
the faintest yellow, as they always are on a ripe
autumn day. This yellow shone back from grass
and leaves, from bough and tree-trunk, and seemed
to stain the ground. It is very pleasant to the eyes,
a soft, delicate light, that gives another beauty to the

UNDER TEE ACORNS. 171

atmosphere. Some roan cows were wandering down
the lane, feeding on the herbage at the side ; their
colour, too, was lit up by the peculiar light, which gave
a singular softness to the large shadows of the trees
upon the sward. In a meadow by the wood the oaks
cast broad shadows on the short velvety sward, not so
sharp and definite as those of summer, but tender,
and, as it were, drawn with a loving hand. They
were large shadows, though it was mid-day— a sign
that the sun was no longer at his greatest height,
but declining. In July, they would scarcely have
extended beyond the rim of the boughs; the rays
would have dropped perpendicularly, now they
slanted. Pleasant as it was, there was regret in the
thought that the summer was going fast. Another
sign — the grass by the gateway, an acre of it, was
brightly yellow with hawkweeds, and under these
were the last faded brown heads of meadow clover;
the brown, the bright yellow disks, the green grass,
the tinted sunlight falling upon it, caused a wavering
colour that fleeted before the glance.

All things brown, and yellow, and red, are brought
out by the autumn sun; the brown furrows freshly
turned where the stubble was yesterday, the brown
bark of trees, the brown fallen leaves, the brown
stalks of plants ; the red haws, the red unripe
blackberries, red bryony berries, reddish-yellow
fungi; yellow hawkweed, yellow ragwort, yellow
hazel-leaves, elms, spots in lime or beech; not a
speck of yellow, red, or brown the yellow sunlight
does not find out. And these make autumn, with
the caw of rooks, the peculiar autumn caw of laziness

172 THE OPEN AIE.

and full feeding, the sky blue as March between the
great masses of dry cloud floating over, the mist in
the distant valleys, the tinkle of traces as the plough
turns, and the silence of the woodland birds. The
lark calls as he rises from the earth, the swallows
still wheeling call as they go over, but the woodland
birds are mostly still, and the restless sparrows gone
forth in a cloud to the stubble. Dry clouds, because
they evidently contain no moisture that will fall as
rain here ; thick mists, condensed haze only, floating
on before the wind. The oaks were not yet yellow,
their leaves were half green, half brown ; Time had
begun to invade them, but had not yet indented his
full mark.

Of the year there are two most pleasurable seasons :
the spring, when the oak-leaves come russet-brown
on the great oaks ; the autumn, when the oak-leaves
begin to turn. At the one, I enjoy the summer that
is coming ; at the other, the summer that is going.
At either, there is a freshness in the atmosphere,
a colour everywhere, a depth of blue in the sky, a
welcome in the woods. The redwings had not yet
come ; the acorns were full, but still green ; the
greedy rooks longed to see them riper. They
were very numerous, the oaks covered with them,
a crop for the greedy rooks, the greedier pigeons, the
pheasants, and the jays.

One thing I missed — the corn. So quickly was the
harvest gathered, that those who delight in the colour
of the wheat had no time to enjoy it. If any painter
had been looking forward to August to enable him
to paint the corn, he must have been disappointed.

UNDER THE ACORNS. 173

There was no time ; the sun came, saw, and
conquered, and the sheaves were swept from the field.
Before yet the reapers had entered one field of ripe
wheat, I did indeed for a hrief evening obtain a
glimpse of the richness and still beauty of an English
harvest. The sun was down, and in the west a
pearly gray light spread widely, with a little scarlet
drawn along its lower border. Heavy shadows hung
in the foliage of the elms ; the clover had closed, and
the quiet moths had taken the place of the humming
bees. Southwards, the full moon, a red-yellow disk,
shone over the wheat, which appeared the finest pale
amber. A quiver of colour — an undulation — seemed
to stay in the air, left from the heated day; the
sunset hues and those of the red-tinted moon fell
as it were into the remnant of day, and filled the
wheat; they were poured into it, so that it grew in
their colours. Still heavier the shadows deepened
in the elms ; all was silence, save for the sound of
the reapers on the other side of the hedge, slash —
rustle, slash — rustle, and the drowsy night came down
as softly as an eyelid.

While I sat on the log under the oak, every now
and then wasps came to the crooked pieces of sawn
timber, which had been barked. They did not
appear to be biting it — they can easily snip off
fragments of the hardest oak, — they merely alighted
and examined it, and went on again. Looking at
them, I did not notice the lane till something moved,
and two young pheasants ran by along the middle
of the track and into the cover at the side. The grass
at the edge which they pushed through closed behind

171 THE OPEN AIR.

them, and feeble as it was — grass only — it shut off
the interior of the cover as firmly as iron bars. The
pheasant is a strong lock upon the woods ; like one
of Chubb's patent locks, he closes the woods as firmly
as an iron safe can be shut. Wherever the pheasant
is artificially reared, and a great " head " kept up
for battue-shooting, there the woods are sealed. No
matter if the wanderer approach with the most
harmless of intentions, it is exactly the same as if
he were a species of burglar. The botanist, the
painter, the student of nature, all are met with the
high-barred gate and the threat of law. Of course,
the pheasant-lock can be opened by the silver key;
still, there is the fact, that since pheasants have been
bred on so large a scale, half the beautiful woodlands
of England have been fastened up. Where there is
no artificial rearing there is much more freedom ;
those who love the forest can roam at their pleasure,
for it is not the fear of damage that locks the gate,
but the pheasant. In every sense, the so-called sport
of battue-shooting is injurious — injurious to the
sportsman, to the poorer class, to the community.
Every true sportsman should discourage it, and indeed
does. I was talking with a thorough sportsman
recently, who told me, to my delight, that he never
reared birds by hand ; yet he had a fair supply, and
could always give a good day's sport, judged as any
reasonable man would judge sport. Nothing must
enter the domains of the hand-reared pheasant ; even
the nightingale is not safe. A naturalist has recorded
that in a district he visited, the nightingales were
always shot by the keepers and their eggs smashed,

UNDER THE ACORNS. 175

because the singing of these birds at night disturbed
the repose of the pheasants ! They also always
stepped on the eggs of the fern-owl, which are laid
on the ground, and shot the bird if they saw it, for
the same reason, as it makes a jarring sound at dusk.
The fern-owl, or goatsucker, is one of the most harm-
less of birds — a sort of evening swallow — living on
moths, chafers, and similar night-flying insects.

Continuing my walk, still under the oaks and green
acorns, I wondered why I did not meet any one.
There was a man cutting fern in the wood — a labourer
— and another cutting up thistles in a field ; but with
the exception of men actually employed and paid,
I did not meet a single person, though the lane I was
following is close to several well-to-do places. I call
that a well-to-do place where there are hundreds of
large villas inhabited by wealthy people. It is true
that the great majority of persons have to attend to
business, even if they enjoy a good income ; still,
making every allowance for such a necessity, it is
singular how few, how very few, seem to appreciate
the quiet beauty of this lovely country. Somehow,
they do not seem to see it — to look over it ; there is
no excitement in it, for one thing. They can see a
great deal in Paris, but nothing in an English meadow.
I have often wondered at the rarity of meeting any
one in the fields, and yet — curious anomaly — if you
point out anything, or describe it, the interest ex-
hibited is marked. Every one takes an interest, but
no one goes to see for himself. For instance, since
the natural history collection was removed from the
British Museum to a separate building at South

17G THE OPEN AIR.

Kensington, it is stated that the visitors to the Museum
have fallen from an average of twenty-five hundred a
day to one thousand; the inference is, that out of
every twenty-five, fifteen came to see the natural
history cases. Indeed, it is difficult to find a person
who does not take an interest in some department of
natural history, and yet I scarcely ever meet any one
in the fields. You may meet many in the autumn
far away in places famous for scenery, but almost
none in the meadows at home.

I stayed by a large pond to look at the shadows of
the trees on the green surface of duckweed. The
soft green of the smooth weed received the shadows
as if specially prepared to show them to advantage.
The more the tree was divided — the more interlaced
its branches and less laden with foliage, the more it
" came out " on the green surface ; each slender twig
was reproduced, and sometimes even the leaves.
From an oak, and from a lime, leaves had fallen,
and remained on the green weed ; the flags by the
shore were turning brown ; a tint of yellow was creep-
ing up the rushes, and the great trunk of a fir shone
reddish brown in the sunlight. There was colour
even about the still pool, where the weeds grew so
thickly that the moorhens could scarcely swim through
them.

( 177 )

DO WNS.

A GOOD road is recognized as the groundwork of
civilization. So long as there is a firm and artificial
track under his feet the traveller may be said to be
in contact with city and town, no matter how far
they may be distant. A yard or two out&ide the
railway in America the primeval forest or prairie
often remains untouched, and much in the same way,
though in a less striking degree at first sight, some
of our own highways winding through Down districts
are bounded by undisturbed soil. Such a road wears
for itself a hollow, and the bank at the top is fringed
with long rough grass hanging over the crumbling
chalk. Broad discs of greater knapweed with stalks
like wire, and yellow toad-flax with spotted lip grow
among it. Grasping this tough grass as a handle
to climb up by, the explorer finds a rising slope of
sward, and having walked over the first ridge,
shutting off the road behind him, is at once out of
civilization. There is no noise. Wherever there
are men there is a hum, even in the harvest-field;
and in the road below, though lonely, there is some-
times the sharp clatter of hoofs or the grating of
wheels on flints. But here the long, long slopes, the

N

178 THE OPEN AIR.

endless ridges, the gaps between, hazy and indistinct,
are absolutely without noise. In the sunny autumn
day the peace of the sky overhead is reflected in the
silent earth. Looking out over the steep hills, the
first impression is of an immense void like the sea ;
but there are sounds in detail, the twitter of passing
swallows, the restless buzz of bees at the thyme, the
rush of the air beaten by a ringdove's, wings. These
only increase the sense of silent peace, for in them-
selves they soothe ; and how minute the bee beside
this hill, and the dove to the breadth of the sky ! A
white speck of thistledown comes upon a current too
light to swing a harebell or be felt by the cheek.
The furze-bushes are lined with thistledown, blown
there by a breeze now still; it is glossy in the
sunbeams, and the yellow hawkweeds cluster beneath.
The sweet, clear air, though motionless at this height,
cools the rays; but the sun seems to pause and
neither to rise higher nor decline. It is the space
open to the eye which apparently arrests his move-
ment. There is no noise, and there are no men.

Glance along the slope, up the ridge, across to the
next, endeavour to penetrate the hazy gap, but no
one is visible. In reality it is not quite so vacant ;
there may, perhaps, be four or five men between this
spot and the gap, which would be a pass if the Downs
were high enough. One is not far distant ; he is
digging flints over the ridge, and, perhaps, at this
moment rubbing the earth from a corroded Eoman
coin which he has found in the pit. Another is
thatching, for there are three detached wheat-ricks
round a spur of the Down a mile away, where the

DOWNS. 170

plain is arable, and there, too, a plough is at work.
A shepherd is asleep on his back behind the furze
a mile in the other direction. The fifth is a lad
trudging with a message; he is in the nut-copse,
over the next hill, very happy. By walking a mile
the explorer may, perhaps, sight one of these, if they
have not moved by then and disappeared in another
hollow. And when you have walked the mile —
knowing the distance by the time occupied in
traversing it — if you look back you will sigh at the
hopelessness of getting over the hills. The mile is
such a little way, only just along one slope and
down into the narrow valley strewn with flints and
small boulders. If that is a mile, it must be another
up to the white chalk quarry yonder, another to the
copse on the ridge ; and how far is the hazy horizon
where the ridges crowd on and hide each other?
Like rowing at sea, you row and row and row, and
seem where you started — waves in front and waves
behind; so you may walk and walk and walk, and
still there is the intrenchment on the summit, at the
foot of which, well in sight, you were resting some
hours ago.

Best again by the furze, and some goldfinches
come calling shrilly and feasting undisturbed upon
the seeds of thistles and other plants. The bird-
catcher does not venture so far; he would if there
was a rail near ; but he is a lazy fellow, fortunately,
and likes not the weight of his own nets. When
the stubbles are ploughed there will be troops of
finches and linnets up here, leaving the hedgerows
of the valley almost deserted. Shortly the fieldfares

180 TEE OPEN AIE.

will coine, but not generally till the redwings have
appeared below in the valleys ; while the fieldfares
go upon the hills, the green plovers, as autumn
comes on, gather in flocks and go down to the plains.
Hawks regularly beat along the furze, darting on a
finch now and then, and owls pass by at night.
Nightjars, too, are down-land birds, staying in woods
or fern by day, and swooping on the moths which
flutter about the furze in the evening. Crows are too
common, and work on late into the shadows. Some-
times, in getting over the low hedges which divide
the uncultivated sward from the ploughed lands, you
almost step on a crow, and it is difficult to guess
what he can have been about so earnestly, for search
reveals nothing — no dead lamb, hare, or carrion, or
anything else is visible. Books, of course, are seen,
and larks, and once or twice in a morning a magpie,
seldom seen in the cultivated and preserved valley.
There are more partridges than rigid game preservers
would deem possible where the overlooking, if done
at all, is done so carelessly. Partridges will never
cease out of the land while there are untouched
downs. Of all southern inland game, they afford
the finest sport ; for sport in its genuine sense cannot
be had without labour, and those who would get
partridges on the hills must work for them. Shot
idown, coursed, poached, killed before maturity in
the corn, still hares are fairly plentiful, and couch
in the furze and coarse grasses. Babbits have much
decreased; still there are some. But the larger fir
copses, when they are enclosed, are the resort of all
kinds of birds of prey yet left in the south, and,

DOWNS. 181

perhaps, more rare visitors are found there than
anywhere else. Isolated on the open hills, such a
copse to birds is like an island in the sea. Only a
very few pheasants frequent it, and little effort is
made to exterminate the wilder creatures, while
they are continually replenished by fresh arrivals.
Even ocean birds driven inland by stress of weather
seem to prefer the downs to rest on, and feel safer
there.

The sward is the original sward, untouched,
unploughed, centuries old. It is that which was
formed when the woods that covered the hills were
cleared, whether by British tribes whose markings
are still to be found, by Eoman smiths working the
ironstone (slag is sometimes discovered), by Saxon
settlers, or however it came about in the process of
the years. Probably the trees would grow again were
it not for sheep and horses, but these preserve the
sward. The plough has nibbled at it and gnawed
away great slices, but it extends mile after mile ;
these are mere notches on its breadth. It is as wild
as wild can be without deer or savage beasts. The
bees like it, and the finches come. It is silent and
peaceful like the sky above. By night the stars
shine, not only overhead and in a narrow circle
round the zenith, but down to the horizon ; the walls
of the sky are built up of them as well as the roof.
The sliding meteors go silently over the gleaming
surface ; silently the planets rise ; silently the earth
moves to the unfolding east. Sometimes a lunar
rainbow appears ; a strange scene at midnight,
arching over almost from the zenith down into the

182 THE OPEN AIR.

dark hollow of the valley. At the first glance it
seems white, but presently faint prismatic colours
are discerned.

Already as the summer changes into autumn there
are orange specks on the beeches in the copses, and
the firs will presently be leafless. Then those who
live in the farmsteads placed at long intervals begin
to prepare for the possibilities of the winter. There
must be a good store of fuel and provisions, for it
will be difficult to go down to the villages. The
ladies had best add as many new volumes as they
can to the bookshelf, for they may be practically
imprisoned for weeks together. Wind and rain are
very different here from what they are where the
bulwark of the houses shelters one side of the street,
or the thick hedge protects half the road. The fury
of the storm is unchecked, and nothing can keep out
the raindrops which come with the velocity of shot.
If snow falls, as it does frequently, it does not need
much to obscure the path ; at all times the path is
merely a track, and the ruts worn down to the white
chalk and the white snow confuse the eyes. Flecks
of snow catch against the bunches of grass, against
the furze-bushes, and boulders ; if there is a ploughed
field, against every clod, and the result is bewildering.
There is nothing to guide the steps, nothing to give
the general direction, and once off the track, unless
well accustomed to the district, the traveller may
wander in vain. After a few inches have fallen the
roads are usually blocked, for all the flakes on miles
of hills are swept along and deposited into hollows
where the highways run. To be dug out now and

DOWNS. 183

then in the winter is a contingency the mail-driver
reckons as part of his daily life, and the waggons
going to and fro frequently pass between high walls
of frozen snow. In these wild places, which can
scarcely be said to be populated at all, a snow-storm,
however, does not block the King's highways and
paralyse traffic as London permits itself to be
paralysed under similar circumstances. Men are set
to work and cut a way through in a very short time,
and no one makes the least difficulty about it. But
with the tracks that lead to isolated farmsteads it
is different ; there is not enough traffic to require the
removal of the obstruction, and the drifts occasionally
accumulate to twenty feet deep. The ladies are im-
prisoned, and must be thankful if they have got down
a box of new novels.

The dread snow-tempest of 1880-81 swept over
these places with tremendous fury, and the most
experienced shepherds, whose whole lives had been
spent going to and fro on the downs, frequently lost
their way. There is a story of a waggoner and his
lad going slowly along the road after the thaw, and
noticing an odd-looking scarecrow in a field. They
went to it, and found it was a man, dead, and still
standing as he had stiffened in the snow, the clothes
hanging on his withered body, and the eyes gone
from the sockets, picked out by the crows. It is
only one of many similar accounts, and it is thought
between twenty and thirty unfortunate persons
perished. Such miserable events are of rare
occurrence, but show how open, wild, and succour-
less the country still remains. In ordinary winters

184 THE OPEN AIR.

it is only strangers who need be cautions, and
strangers seldom appear. Even in summer time,
however, a stranger, if he stays till dusk, may
easily wander for hours. Once off the highway, all
the ridges and slopes seem alike, and there is no end
to them.

( 185 )

FOREST.

THE beechnuts are already falling in the forest, and
the swine are beginning to search for them while
yet the harvest lingers. The nuts are formed by
midsummer, and now, the husk opening, the brown
angular kernel drops out. Many of the husks fall,
too ; others remain on the branches till next spring.
Under the beeches the ground is strewn with the
mast as hard almost to walk on as pebbles. Kude
and uncouth as swine are in themselves, somehow
they look different under trees. The brown leaves
amid which they rout, and the brown-tinted fern
behind lend something of their colour and smooth
away their ungainliness. Snorting as they work
with very eagerness of appetite, they are almost
wild, approaching in a measure to their ancestors,
the savage boars. Under the trees the imagination
plays unchecked, and calls up the past as if yew
bow and broad arrow were still in the hunter's hands.
So little is changed since then. The deer are here
still. Sit down on the root of this oak (thinly covered
with moss), and on that very spot it is quite possible
a knight fresh home from the Crusades may have
rested and feasted his eyes on the lovely green glades

186 THE OPEN AIR.

of his own unsurpassed England. The oak was there
then, young and strong ; it is here now, ancient, but
sturdy. Barely do you see an oak fall of itself. It
decays to the last stump ; it does not fall. The
sounds are the same — the tap as a ripe acorn drops,
the rustle of a leaf which comes down slowly, the
quick rushes of mice playing in the fern. A move-
ment at one side attracts the glance, and there is a
squirrel darting about. There is another at the very
top of the beech yonder out on the boughs, nibbling
the nuts. A brown spot a long distance down the
glade suddenly moves, and thereby shows itself to
be a rabbit. The bellowing sound that comes now
and then is from the stags, which are preparing to
fight. The swine snort, and the mast and leaves
rustle as they thrust them aside. So little is changed :
these are the same sounds and the same movements,
just as in the olden time.

The soft autumn sunshine, shorn of summer glare,
lights up with colour the fern, the fronds of which
are yellow and brown, the leaves, the gray grass,
and hawthorn sprays already turned. It seems as
if the early morning's mists have the power of tinting
leaf and fern, for so soon as they commence the
green hues begin to disappear. There are swathes
of fern yonder, cut down like grass or corn, the
harvest of the forest. It will be used for litter
and for thatching sheds. The yellow stalks — the
stubble — will turn brown and wither through the
winter, till the strong spring shoot comes up and
the anemones flower. Though the sunbeams reach
the ground here, half the green glade is in shadow,

FOREST. 187

and for one step that you walk in sunlight ten are
in shade. Thus, partly concealed in full day, the
forest always contains a mystery. The idea that
there may be something in the dim arches held up by
the round columns of the beeches lures the footsteps
onwards. Something must have been lately in the
circle under the oak where the fern and bushes
remain at a distance and wall in a lawn of green.
There is nothing on the grass but the upheld leaves
that have dropped, no mark of any creature, but this
is not decisive ; if there are no physical signs, there
is a feeling that the shadow is not vacant. In the
thickets, perhaps — the shadowy thickets with front
of thorn — it has taken refuge and eluded us. Still
onward the shadows lead us in vain but pleasant
chase.

These endless trees are a city to the tree-building
birds. The round knot-holes in the beeches, the
holes in the elms and oaks ; they find them all out.
From these issue the immense flocks of starlings
which, when they alight on an isolated elm in winter,
make it suddenly black. From these, too, come
forth the tits, not so welcome to the farmer, as he
considers they reduce his fruit crop ; and in these
the gaudy woodpeckers breed. With starlings, wood-
pigeons, and rooks the forest is crowded like a city
in spring, but now in autumn it is comparatively
deserted. The birds are away in the fields, some at
the grain, others watching the plough, and following
it so soon as a furrow is opened. But the stoats are
busy — they have not left, nor the weasels; and so
eager are they that, though they hide in the fern at

188 THE OPEN AIR.

first, in a minute or two they come out again, and
so get shot.

Like the fields, which can only support a certain
proportion of cattle, the forest, wide as it seems, can
only maintain a certain number of deer. Carrying
the same thought further, it will be obvious that
the forest, or England in a natural state, could only
support a limited human population. Is this why
the inhabitants of countries like France, where they
cultivate every rood and try to really keep a man 'to
a rood, do not increase in number ? Certainly there
is a limit in nature which can only be overcome by
artificial aid. After wandering for some time in a
forest like this, the impression arises that the fauna
is not now large enough to be in thorough keeping
with the trees — their age and size and number. The
breadth of the arboreal landscape requires a longer
list of living creatures, and creatures of greater bulk.
The stoat and weasel are lost in bramble and fern,
the squirrels in the branches ; the fox is concealed,
and the badger ; the rabbit, too, is small. There are
only the deer, and there is a wide gap between them
and the hares. Even the few cattle which are per-
mitted to graze are better than nothing ; though not
wild, yet standing in fern to their shoulders and
browsing on the lower branches, they are, at all
events, animals for the time in nearly a natural
state. By watching them it is apparent how well
the original wild cattle agreed with the original
scenery of the island. One almost regrets the marten
and polecat, though both small creatures, and wishes
that the fox would come forth more by day. These

FOREST. 180

acres of bracken and impenetrable thickets need
more inhabitants ; how well they are fitted for the
wild boar ! Such thoughts are, of course, only
thoughts, and we must be thankful that we have as
many wild creatures left as we have.

Looking at the soil as we walk, where it is exposed
by the roots of a fallen tree, or where there is an
old gravel pit, the question occurs whether forests,
managed as they are in old countries, ever really
increase the fertility of the earth? That decaying
vegetation produces a fine mould cannot be disputed ;
but it seems here that there is no more decaying
vegetation than is required for the support of the trees
themselves. The leaves that fall — the million million
leaves — blown to and fro, at last disappear, absorbed
into the ground. So with quantities of the lesser
twigs and branches; but these together do not
supply more material to the soil than is annually
abstracted by the extensive roots of trees, of bushes,
and by the fern. If timber is felled, it is removed,
and the bark and boughs with it ; the stump, too, is
grubbed and split for firewood. If a tree dies it is
presently sawn off and cut up for some secondary use
or other. The great branches which occasionally fall
are some one's perquisite. When the thickets are
thinned out, the fagots are carted away, and much
of the fern is also removed. How, then, can there
be any accumulation of fertilizing material ? Bather
the reverse ; it is, if anything, taken away, and the
soil must be less rich now than it was in bygone
centuries. Left to itself the process would be the
reverse, every tree as it fell slowly enriching the spot

190 THE OPEN AIR.

where it mouldered, and all the bulk of the timber
converted into fertile earth. It was in this way
that the American forests laid the foundation of the
inexhaustible wheat-lands there. But the modern
management of a forest tends in the opposite direc-
tion— too much is removed ; for if it is wished to im-
prove a soil by the growth of timber, something must
be left in it besides the mere roots. The. leaves, even,
are not all left ; they have a value for gardening pur-
poses : though, of course, the few cartloads collected
make no appreciable difference.

There is always something going on in the forest ;
and more men are employed than would be supposed.
In the winter the selected elms are thrown .and the
ash poles cut; in the spring the oak timber comes
down and is barked; in the autumn the fern is cut.
Splitting up wood goes on nearly all the year round,
so that you may always hear the axe. No charcoal-
burning is practised, but the mere maintenance of
the fences, as, for instance, round the pheasant
enclosures, gives much to do. Deer need attention
in winter, like cattle ; the game has its watchers ; and
ferreting lasts for months. So that the forest is not
altogether useless from the point of view of work. But
in so many hundred acres of trees these labourers are
lost to sight, and do not in the least detract from its
wild appearance. Indeed, the occasional ring of the
axe or the smoke rising from the woodman's fire
accentuates the fact that it is a forest. The oaks
keep a circle round their base and stand at a majestic
distance from each other, so that the wind and the
sunshine enter, and their precincts are sweet and

FOREST. 191

pleasant. The elms gather together, rubbing their
branches in the gale till the bark is worn off and the
boughs die ; the shadow is deep under them, and
moist, favourable to rank grass and coarse mushrooms.
Beneath the ashes, after the first frost, "the air is
full of the bitterness of their blackened leaves, which
have all come down at once. By .the beeches there
is little underwood, and the hollows are filled ankle-
deep with their leaves. From the pines comes a
fragrant odour, and thus the character of each group
dominates the surrounding ground. The shade is
too much for many flowers, which prefer the nooks
of hedgerows. If there is no scope for the use of
" express" rifles, this southern forest really is a
forest and not an open hillside. It is a forest of
trees, and there are no woodlands so beautiful and
enjoyable as these, where it is possible to be lost
a while without fear of serious consequences; where
you can walk without stepping up to the waist in a
decayed tree-trunk, or floundering in a bog; where
neither venomous snake nor torturing mosquito causes
constant apprehensions and constant irritation. To
the eye there is nothing but beauty ; to the imagina-
tion pleasant pageants of old time ; to the ear the
soothing cadence of the leaves as the gentle breeze
goes over. The beeches rear their Gothic architecture ;
the oaks are planted firm like castles, unassailable.
Quick squirrels climb and dart hither and thither,
deer cross the distant glade, and, occasionally, a
hawk passes like thought.

The something that may be in the shadow or the
thicket, the vain, pleasant chase that beckons us on,

192 TEE OPEN Alti.

still leads the footsteps from tree to tree, till by-and-
by a lark sings, and, going to look for it, we find the
stubble outside the forest — stubble still bright with
the blue and white flowers of gray speedwell. One
of the earliest to bloom in the spring, it continues
till the plough comes again in autumn. Now looking
back from the open stubble on the high wall of trees,
the touch of autumn here and there, is the more
visible — oaks dotted with brown, horse chestnuts
yellow, maples orange, and the bushes beneath red
with haws.

( 193 )

BEAUTY IN THE COUNTRY.

I. — THE MAKING OF BEAUTY.

IT takes a hundred and fifty years to make a
beauty — a hundred and fifty years out-of-doors. Open
air, hard manual labour or continuous exercise,
good food, good clothing, some degree of comfort, all
of these, but most especially open air, must play their
part for five generations before a beautiful woman
can appear. These conditions can only be found in
the country, and consequently all beautiful women
come from the country. Though the accident of
birth may cause their register to be signed in town,
they are always of country extraction.

Let us glance back a hundred and fifty years,
say to 1735, and suppose a yeoman to have a son
about that time. That son would be bred upon the
hardest fare, but, though hard, it would be plentiful
and of honest sort. The bread would be home-baked,
the beef salted at home, the ale home-brewed. He
would work all day in the fields with the labourers,
but he would have three great advantages over them
—in good and plentiful food, in good clothing, and in
home comforts. He would ride, and join all the

athletic sports of the time. Mere manual labour

o

191 THE OPEN AIR.

stiffens the limbs, gymnastic exercises render them
supple. Thus he would obtain immense strength
from simple hard work, and agility from exercise.
Here, then, is a sound constitution, a powerful
frame, well knit, hardened — an almost perfect
physical existence.

He would marry, if fortunate, at thirty or thirty-
five, naturally choosing the most charming of his
acquaintances. She would be equally healthy and
proportionally as strong, for the ladies of those .days
were accustomed to work from childhood. By cus-
tom soon after marriage she would work harder than
before, notwithstanding her husband's fair store of
guineas in the iron-bound box. The house, the
dairy, the cheese-loft, would keep her arms in train-
ing. Even since I recollect, the work done by ladies
in country houses was something astonishing, ladies
by right of well-to-do parents, by right of education
and manners. Eeally, it seems that there is no work
a woman cannot do with the best results for her-
self, always provided that it does not throw a strain
upon the loins. Healthy children sprung from such
parents, while continuing the general type, usually
tend towards a refinement of the features. Under
such natural and healthy conditions, if the mother
have a good shape, the daughter is finer ; if the
father be of good height, the son is taller. These
children in their turn go through the same open-air
training. In the course of years, the family guineas
increasing, home comforts increase, and manners
are polished. Another generation sees the cast of
countenance smoothed of its original ruggedness,

BEAUTY IN THE COUNTRY. 195

while preserving its good proportion. The hard
chin becomes rounded and not too prominent, the
cheek-bones sink, the ears are smaller, a softness
spreads itself over the whole face. That which was
only honest now grows tender. Again another gene-
ration, and it is a settled axiom that the family are
handsome. The country-side as it gossips agrees
that the family are marked out as good-looking.
Like seeks like, as we know ; the handsome inter-
marry with the handsome. Still, the beauty has not
arrived yet, nor is it possible to tell whether she
will appear from the female or male branches. But
in the fifth generation appear she does, with the
original features so moulded and softened by time,
so worked and refined and sweetened, so delicate
and yet so rich in blood, that she seems like a new
creation that has suddenly started into being. No
one has watched and recorded the slow process which
has thus finally resulted. No one could do so,
because it has spread over a century and a half.
If any one will consider, they will agree that the
sentiment at the sight of a perfect beauty is as
much amazement as admiration. It is so astound-
ing, so outside ordinary experience, that it wears the
aspect of magic.

A stationary home preserves the family intact, so
that the influences already described have time to
produce their effect. There is nothing uncommon
in a yeoman's family continuing a hundred and
fifty years in the same homestead. Instances are
known of such occupation extending for over two
hundred years ; cases of three hundred years may be

196 THE OPEN AIR.

found: now and then one is known to exceed that,
and there is said to be one that has not moved for six
hundred. Granting the stock in its origin to have
been fairly well proportioned, and to have been subject
for such a lapse of time to favourable conditions, the
rise of beauty becomes intelligible.

Cities labour under every disadvantage. First,
families have no stationary home, but constantly
move, so that it is rare to find one occupying a house
fifty years, and will probably become' much rarer in
the future. Secondly, the absence of fresh air, and
that volatile essence, as it were, of woods, and fields,
and hills, which can be felt .but not fixed. Thirdly,
the sedentary employment. Let a family be never so
robust, these must ultimately affect the constitution.
If beauty appears it is too often of the unhealthy
order; there is no physique, no vigour, no richness
of blood. Beauty of the highest order is inseparable
from health ; ic is the outcome of health — centuries
of health — and a really beautiful woman is, in pro-
portion, stronger than a man. It is astonishing
with what persistence a type of beauty once estab-
lished in the country will struggle to perpetuate itself
against all the drawbacks of town life after the
family has removed thither.

When such results are produced under favourable
conditions at the yeoman's homestead, no difficulty
arises in explaining why loveliness so frequently
appears in the houses of landed proprietors. En-
tailed estates fix the family in one spot, and tend,
by intermarriage, to deepen any original physical
excellence. Constant out-of-door exercise, riding,

BEAUTY IN THE COUNTRY. 197

hunting, shooting, takes the place of manual labour.
All the refinements that money can purchase, travel,
education, are here at work. That the culture of the
mind can alter the expression of the individual is
certain; if continued for many generations, possibly
it may leave its mark upon the actual bodily frame.
Selection exerts a most powerful influence in these
cases. The rich and titled have so wide a range to
choose from. Consider these things working through
centuries, perhaps in a more or less direct manner,
since the Norman Conquest. The fame of some such
families for handsome features and well-proportioned
frames is widely spread, so much so that a descend-
ant not handsome is hardly regarded by the out-
side world as legitimate. But even with all these
advantages beauty in the fullest sense does not
appear regularly. Few indeed are those families
that can boast of more than one. It is the best of
all boasts ; it is almost as if the Immortals had
especially favoured their house. Beauty has no
period; it comes at intervals, unexpected; it cannot
be fixed. No wonder the earth is at its feet.

The fisherman's daughter ere now has reached
very high in the scale of beauty. Hardihood is the
fisherman's talent by which he wins his living from
the sea. Tribal in his ways, his settlements are
almost exclusive, and his descent pure. The wind
washed by the sea enriches his blood, and of labour
he has enough. Here are the same constant factors ;
the stationary home keeping the family intact, the
out-door life, the air, the sea, the sun. Eefinement
is absent, but these alone are so powerful that now

108 THE OPEN AIR.

and then beauty appears. The lovely Irish girls,
again : their forefathers have dwelt on the mountain-
side since the days of Fingal, and all the hardships
of their lot cannot destroy the natural tendency to
shape and enchanting feature. Without those con-
stant factors beauty cannot be, but yet they will not
alone produce it. There must be something in the
blood which these influences gradually "ripen. If it
is not there centuries are in vain ; but if it is there
then it needs these conditions. Erratic, meteor-like
beauty ! for how many thousand years has man
been your slave ! Let me repeat, the sentiment at
the sight of a perfect beauty is as much amazement
as admiration. It so draws the heart out of itself as
to seem like magic.

She walks, and the very earth smiles beneath her
feet. Something comes with her that is more than
mortal ; witness the yearning welcome that stretches
towards her from all. As the sunshine lights up the
aspect of things, so her presence sweetens the very
flowers like dew. But the yearning welcome is, I
think, the most remarkable of the evidence that may
be accumulated about it. So deep, so earnest, so
forgetful of the rest, the passion of beauty is almost
sad in its intense abstraction. It is a passion, this
yearning. She walks in the glory of young life ; she
is really centuries old.

A hundred and fifty years at the least — more
probably twice that — have passed away, while from
all enchanted things of earth and air this precious -
ness has been drawn. From the south wind that
breathed a century and a half ago over the green wheat.

BEAUTY IN THE COUNTRY. 199

From the perfume of the growing grasses waving
over honey-laden clover and laughing veronica, hiding
the greenfinches, baffling the bee. From rose-loved
hedges, woodbine, and cornflower azure-blue, where
yellowing wheat- stalks crowd up under the shadow
of green firs. All the devious brooklet's sweetness
where the iris stays the sunlight ; all the wild woods
hold of beauty ; all the broad hill's thyme and free-
dom: thrice a hundred years repeated. A hundred
years of cowslips, blue-bells, violets; purple spring
and golden autumn ; sunshine, shower, and dewy
mornings; the night immortal; all the rhythm of
Time unrolling. A chronicle unwritten and past all
power of writing : who shall preserve a record of the
petals that fell from the roses a century ago ? The
swallows to the housetop three hundred times — think
a moment of that. Thence she sprang, and the world
yearns towards her beauty as to flowers that are past.
The loveliness of seventeen is centuries old. Is this
why passion is almost sad ?

II.— THE FORCE OF FORM.

Her shoulders were broad, but not too broad— just
enough to accentuate the waist, and to give a pleasant
sense of ease and power. She was strong, upright,
self-reliant, finished in herself. Her bust was full,
but not too prominent — more after nature than the
dressmaker. There was something, though, of the
corset-maker in her waist, it appeared naturally fine,
and had been assisted to be finer. But it was in the
hips that the woman was perfect : — fulness without

200 THE OPEN AIR.

coarseness ; large but not big : in a word, nobly
proportioned. Now imagine a black dress adhering
to this form. From the shoulders to the ankles it
fitted " like a glove." There was not a wrinkle, a
fold, a crease, smooth as if cast in a mould, and yet
so managed that she moved without effort. Every
undulation of her figure as she stepped lightly forward
flowed to the surface. The slight sway x>f the hip as
the foot was lifted, the upward and inward movement
of the limb as the knee was raised, the straightening
as the instep felt her weight, each change as the limb
described the curves of walking was repeated in her
dress. At every change of position she was as grace-
fully draped as before. All was revealed, yet all
concealed. As she passed there was the sense of a
presence — the presence of perfect form. She was
lifted as she moved above the ground by the curves
of beauty as rapid revolution in a curve suspends the
down-dragging of gravity. A force went by — the force
of animated perfect form.

Merely as an animal, how grand and beautiful is
a perfect woman ! Simply as a living, breathing
creature, can anything imaginable come near her ?

There is such strength in shape — such force in form.
"Without muscular development shape conveys the
impression of the greatest of all strength — that is,
of completeness in itself. The ancient philosophy
regarded a globe as the most perfect of all bodies,
because it was the same — that is, it was perfect and
complete in itself — from whatever point it was con-
templated. Such is woman's form when nature's
intent is fulfilled in beauty, and that beauty gives the
idea of self-contained power.

BEAUTY IN THE COUNTRY. 201

A full-grown woman is, too, physically stronger
than a man. Her physique excels man's. Look at
her torso, at the size, the fulness, the rounded firm-
ness, the depth of the chest. There is a nobleness
about it. Shoulders, arms, limbs, all reach a breadth
of make seldom seen in man. There is more than
merely sufficient — there is a luxuriance indicating a
surpassing vigour. And this occurs without effort.
She needs no long manual labour, no exhaustive
gymnastic exercise, nor any special care in food or
training. It is difficult not to envy the superb
physique and beautiful carriage of some women.
They are so strong without effort.

III. — AN ABM.

A large white arm, bare, in the sunshine, to the
shoulder, carelessly leant against a low red wall,
lingers in my memory. There was a house roofed
with old gray stone slates in the background, and
peaches trained up by the window. The low garden
wall of red brick — ancient red brick, not the pale,
dusty blocks of these days — was streaked with dry
mosses hiding the mortar. Clear and brilliant, the
gaudy sun of morning shone down upon her as she
stood in the gateway, resting her arm on the red wall,
and pressing on the mosses which the heat had dried.
Her face I do not remember, only the arm. She had
come out from dairy work, which needs bare arms,
and stood facing the bold sun. It was very large —
some might have called it immense — and yet natural
and justly proportioned to the woman, her work, and

202 THE OPEN AIR.

her physique. So immense an arm was like a revela-
tion of the vast physical proportions which our race
is capable of attaining under favourable conditions.
Perfectly white — white as the milk in which it was
often plunged — smooth and pleasant in the texture of
the skin, it was entirely removed from coarseness.
The might of its size was chiefly by the shoulder;
the wrist was not large, nor the hand. Colossal,
white, sunlit, bare — among the trees and the meads
around — it was a living embodiment of the limbs we
attribute to the first dwellers on earth.

IV.— LIPS.

The mouth is the centre of woman's beauty. To
the lips the glance is attracted the moment she
approaches, and their shape remains in the memory
longest. Curve, colour, and substance are the three
essentials of the lips, but these are nothing without
mobility, the soul of the mouth. If neither sculpture,
nor the palette with its varied resources, can convey
the spell of perfect lips, how can it be done in black
letters of ink only? Nothing is so difficult, nothing
so beautiful. There are lips which have an elongated
curve (of the upper one), ending with a slight curl,
like a ringlet at the end of a tress, like those tiny
wavelets on a level sand which float in before the
tide, or like a frond of fern unrolling. In this curl
there lurks a smile, so that she can scarcely open her
mouth without a laugh, or the look of one. These
upper lips are drawn with parallel lines, the verge
is denned by two lines near together, enclosing the

BEAUTY IN THE COUNTRY. 203

narrowest space possible, which is ever so faintly
less coloured than the substance of the lip. This
makes the mouth appear larger than it really is ; the
bow, too, is more flattened than in the pure Greek
lip. It is beautiful, but not perfect, tempting,
mischievous, not retiring, and belongs to a woman
who is never long alone. To describe it first is
natural, because this mouth is itself the face, and
the rest of the features are grouped to it. If you
think of her you think of her mouth only — the face
appears as memory acts, but the mouth is distinct,
the remainder uncertain. She laughs and the curl
runs upwards, so that you must laugh too, you
cannot help it. Had the curl gone downwards, as
with habitually melancholy people, you might have
withstood her smile. The room is never dull where
she is, for there is a distinct character in it — a
woman — and not a mere living creature, and it is
noticeable that if there are five or six or more present,
somehow the conversation centres round her.

There was a lady I knew who had lips like these.
Of the kind they were perfect. Though she was
barely fourteen she was the woman of that circle
by the magnetism of her mouth. When we all met
together in the evening all that went on in some way
or other centred about her. By consent the choice
of what game should be played was left to her to
decide. She was asked if it was not time for some
one to sing, and the very mistress of the household
referred to her whether we should have another round
or go in to supper. Of course, she always decided as
she supposed the hostess wished. At supper, if there

201 THE OPEN AIR.

was a delicacy on the table it was invariably offered
to her. The eagerness of the elderly gentlemen, who
presumed on their gray locks and conventional harm-
lessness to press their attentions upon her, showed
who was the most attractive person in the room.
Younger men feel a certain reserve, and do not reveal
their inclinations before a crowd, but the harmless
old gentleman makes no secret of his admiration.
She managed them all, old and young, with un-
conscious tact, and never left the ranks of the other
ladies as a crude flirt would have done. This tact
and way of modestly holding back when so many
would have pushed her too much to the front retained
for her the good word of her own sex. If a dance
was proposed it was left to her to say yes or no,
and if it was not too late the answer was usually
in the affirmative. So in the morning, should we
make an excursion to some view or pleasant wood,
all eyes rested upon her, and if she thought it fine
enough away we went.

Her features were rather fine, but not especially so ;
her complexion a little dusky, eyes gray, and dark
hair ; her figure moderately tall, slender but shapely.
She was always dressed well ; a certain taste marked
her in everything. Upon introduction no one would
have thought anything of her ; they would have said,
"insignificant — plain;" in half an hour, "different
to most girls;" in an hour, "extremely pleasant;"
in a day, "a singularly attractive girl;" and so on,
till her empire was established. It was not the
features — it was the mouth, the curling lips, the
vivacity and life that sparkled in them. There is

BEAUTY IN THE COUNTRY. 205

wine, deep-coloured, strong, but smooth at the
surface. There is champagne with its richness
continually rushing to the rim. Her lips flowed
with champagne. It requires a clever man indeed
to judge of men ; now how could so young and in-
experienced a creature distinguish the best from so
many suitors ?

206 THE OPEN AIR.

OUT OF DOORS IN FEBRUARY.

THE cawing of the rooks in February shows that the
time is coming when their nests will be re-occupied.
They resort to the trees, and perch above the old
nests to indicate their rights ; for in the rookery pos-
session is the law, and not nine-tenths of it only. In
the slow dull cold of winter even these noisy birds
are quiet, and as the vast flocks pass over, night and
morning, to and from the woods in which they roost,
there is scarcely a sound. Through the mist their
black wings advance in silence, the jackdaws with
them are chilled into unwonted quiet, and unless you
chance to look up the crowd may go over unnoticed.
But so soon as the waters begin to make a sound in
February, running in the ditches and splashing over
stones, the rooks commence the speeches and conver-
sations which will continue till late into the following
autumn.

The general idea is that they pair in February,
but there are some reasons for thinking that the
rooks, in fact, choose their mates at the end of the
preceding summer. They are then in large flocks,
and if only casually glanced at appear mixed together
without any order or arrangement. They move on
the ground and fly in the air so close; one beside

OUT OF DOORS IN FEBRUARY. 207

the other, that at the first glance or so you cannot
distinguish them apart. Yet if you should be linger-
ing along the by-ways of the fields as the acorns fall,
and the leaves come rustling down in the warm sunny
autumn afternoons, and keep an observant eye upon
the rooks in the trees, or on the fresh-turned furrows,
they will be seen to act in couples. On the ground
couples alight near each other, on the trees they perch
near each other, and in the air fly side by side. Like
soldiers each has his comrade. Wedged in the ranks
every man looks like his fellow, and there seems no
tie between them but a common discipline. Intimate
acquaintance with barrack or camp life would show
that every one had his friend. There is also the
mess, or companionship of half a dozen, a dozen, or
more, and something like this exists part of the year
in the armies of the rooks. After the nest time is
over they flock together, and each family of three or
four flies in concert. Later on they apparently choose
their own particular friends, that is the young birds
do so. All through the winter after, say October,
these pairs keep together, though lost in the general
mass to the passing spectator. If you alarm them
while feeding on the ground in winter, supposing you
have not got a gun, they merely rise up to the nearest
tree, and it may then be observed that they do this in
pairs. One perches on a branch and a second comes
to him. When February arrives, and they resort to
the nests to look after or seize on the property there,
they are in fact already paired, though the almanacs
put down St. Valentine's day as the date of courtship.
There is very often a warm interval in February,

208 THE OPEN AIR.

sometimes a few days earlier and sometimes later,
but as a rule it happens that a week or so of mild
sunny weather occurs about this time. Eeleased
from the grip of the frost, the streams trickle
forth from the fields and pour into the ditches, so
that while walking along the footpath there is a
murmur all around coming from the rush of water.
The murmur of the poets is indeed louder in February
than in the more pleasant days of summer, for then
the growth of aquatic grasses checks the flow and
stills it, whilst in February, every stone, or flint, or
lump of chalk divides the current and causes a vibra-
tion. With this murmur of water, and mild time,
the rooks caw incessantly, and the birds at large
essay to utter their welcome of the sun. The wet
furrows reflect the rays so that the dark earth gleams,
and in the slight mist that stays farther away the
light pauses and fills the vapour with radiance.
Through this luminous mist the larks race after each
other twittering, and as they turn aside, swerving in
their swift flight, their white breasts appear for a
moment. As while standing by a pool the fishes
come into sight, emerging as they swim round from
the shadow of the deeper water, so the larks dart over
the low hedge, and through the mist, and pass before
you, and are gone again. All at once one checks his
pursuit, forgets the immediate object, and rises,
singing as he soars. The notes fall from the air over
the dark wet earth, over the dank grass, and broken
withered fern of the hedges, and listening to them it
seems for a moment spring. There is sunshine in the
song : the lark and the light are one. He gives us a

OUT OF DOORS IN FEBRUARY. 209

few minutes of summer in February days. In May
he rises before as yet the dawn is come, and the sun-
rise flows down to us under through his notes. On
his breast, high above the earth, the first rays fall as
the rim of the sun edges up at the eastward hill. The
lark and the light are as one, and wherever he glides
over the wet furrows the glint of the sun goes with
him. Anon alighting he runs between the lines of
the green corn. In hot summer, when the open hill-
side is burned with bright light, the larks are then
singing and soaring. Stepping up the hill laboriously,
suddenly a lark starts into the light and pours forth
a rain of unwearied notes overhead. With bright
light, and sunshine, and sunrise, and blue skies the
bird is so associated in the mind, that even to see him
in the frosty days of winter, at least assures us that
summer will certainly return.

Ought not winter, in allegorical designs, the rather
to be represented with such things that might suggest
hope than such as convey a cold and grim despair ?
The withered leaf, the snowflake, the hedging bill that
cuts and destroys, why these ? Why not rather the
dear larks for one ? They fly in flocks, and amid the
white expanse of snow (in the south) their pleasant
twitter or call is heard as they sweep along seeking
some grassy spot cleared by the wind. The lark, the
bird of the light, is there in the bitter short days.
Put the lark then for winter, a sign of hope, a
certainty of summer. Put, too, the sheathed bud,
for if you search the hedge you will find the buds
there, on tree and bush, carefully wrapped around
with the case which protects them as a cloak. Put,

p

210 THE OPEN AIR.

too, the sharp needles of the green corn ; let the wind
clear it of snow a little way, and show that under cold
clod and colder snow the green thing pushes up,
knowing that summer must come. Nothing despairs
but man. Set the sharp curve of the white new nioon
in the sky : she is white in true frost, and yellow a
little if it is devising change. Set the new moon as
something that symbols an increase. . Set the shep-
herd's crook in a corner as a token that the flocks are
already enlarged in number. The shepherd is the
symbolic man of the hardest winter time. His work
is never more important than then. Those that only
roam the fields when they are pleasant in May, see
the lambs at play in the meadow, and naturally think
of lambs and May flowers. But the lamb was born in
the adversity of snow. Or you might set the morning
star, for it burns and burns and glitters in the winter
dawn, and throws forth beams like those of metal
consumed in oxygen. There is nought that I know
by comparison with which I might indicate the glory
of the morning star, while yet the dark night hides in
the hollows. The lamb is born in the fold. The
morning star glitters in the sky. The bud is alive in
its sheath ; the green corn under the snow ; the lark
twitters as he passes. Now these to me are the
allegory of winter.

These mild hours in February check the hold which
winter has been gaining, and as it were, tear his claws
out of the earth, their prey. If it has not been so
bitter previously, when this Gulf stream or current of
warmer air enters the expanse it may bring forth a
butterfly and tenderly woo the first violet into flower.

OUT OF DOORS IN FEBRUARY. 211

But this depends on its having been only moderately
cold before, and also upon the stratum, whether it is
backward clay, or forward gravel and sand. Spring
dates are quite different according to the locality, and
when violets may be found in one district, in another
there is hardly a woodbine-leaf out. The border line
may be traced, and is occasionally so narrow, one may
cross over it almost at a step. It would sometimes
seem as if even the nut-tree bushes bore larger and
finer nuts on the warmer soil, and that they ripened
quicker. Any curious in the first of things, whether
it be a leaf, or flower, or a bird, should bear this in
mind, and not be discouraged because he hears some
one else has already discovered or heard something.

A little note taken now at this bare time of the
kind of earth may lead to an understanding of the
district. It is plain where the plough has turned
it, where the rabbits have burrowed and thrown it
out, where a tree has been felled by the gales, by
the brook where the bank is worn away, or by the
sediment at the shallow places. Before the grass
and weeds, and corn and flowers have hidden it,
the character of the soil is evident at these natural
sections without the aid of a spade. Going slowly
along the footpath — indeed you cannot go fast in
moist February — it is a good time to select the
places and map them out where herbs and flowers
will most likely come first. All the autumn lies
prone on the ground. Dead dark leaves, some
washed to their woody frames, short gray stalks,
some few decayed hulls of hedge fruit, and among
these the mars or stocks of the plants that do not

212 THE OPEN AIR.

die away, but lie as it were on the surface waiting.
Here the strong teazle will presently stand high;
here the ground-ivy will dot the mound with bluish -
purple. But it will be necessary to walk slowly
to find the ground-ivy flowers under the cover
of the briers. These bushes will be a likely place
for a blackbird's nest ; this thick close hawthorn
for a bullfinch ; these bramble thickets-with remnants
of old nettle stalks will be frequented by the white-
throat after a while. The hedge is now but a lattice-
work which will before long be hung with green.
Now it can be seen through, and now is the time
to arrange for future discovery. In May everything
will be hidden, and unless the most promising places
are selected beforehand, it will not be easy to search
them out. The broad ditch will be arched over,
the plants rising on the mound will meet the green
boughs drooping, and all- the vacancy will be filled.
But having observed the spot in winter you can
almost make certain of success in spring.

It is this previous knowledge which invests those
who are always on the spot, those who work much
in the fields or have the care of woods, with their
apparent prescience. They lead the new comer to
a hedge, or the corner of a copse, or a bend of the
brook, announcing beforehand that they feel assured
something will be found there; and so it is. This,
too, is one reason why a fixed observer usually sees
more than one who rambles a great deal and covers
ten times the space. The fixed observer who hardly
goes a mile from home is like the man who sits still
by the edge of a crowd, and by-and-by his lost

OUT OF DOORS IN FEBRUARY. 213

companion returns to him. To walk about in search
of persons in a crowd is well known to be the worst
way of recovering them. Sit still and they will often
come by. In a far more certain manner this is the
case with birds and animals. They all come back.
During a twelvemonth probably every creature would
pass over a given locality : every creature that is not
confined to certain places. The whole army of the
woods and hedges marches across a single farm
in twelve months. A single tree — especially an old
tree — is visited by four-fifths of the birds that ever
perch in the course of that period. Every year, too,
brings something fresh, and adds new visitors to the
list. Even the wild sea birds are found inland, and
some that scarce seem able to fly at all are cast far
ashore by the gales. It is difficult to believe that one
would not see more by extending the journey, but,
in fact, experience proves that the longer a single
locality is studied the more is found in it. But you
should know the places in winter as well as in
tempting summer, when song and shade and colour
attract every one to the field. You should face
the mire and slippery path. Nature yields nothing
to the sybarite. The meadow glows with buttercups
in spring, the hedges are green, the woods lovely ;
but these are not to be enjoyed in their full signifi-
cance unless you have traversed the same places
when bare, and have watched the slow fulfilment
of the flowers.

The moist leaves that remain upon the mounds
do not rustle, and the thrush moves among them
unheard. The sunshine may bring out a rabbit,

214 THE OPEN AIR.

feeding along the slope of the mound, following the
paths or runs. He picks his way, he does not like
wet. Though out at night in the dewy grass of
summer, in the rain-soaked grass of winter, and
living all his life in the earth, often damp nearly
to his burrows, no time, and no succession of
generations can make him like wet. He endures
it, but he picks his Way round the dead fern and
the decayed leaves. He sits in the bunches of long
grass, but he does not like the drops of rain or dew
on it to touch him. Water lays his fur close, and
mats it, instead of running off and leaving him sleek.
As he hops a little way at a time on the mound he
chooses his route almost as we pick ours in the mud
and pools of February. By the shore of the ditch
there still stand a few dry, dead dock stems, with
some dry reddish-brown seed adhering. Some dry
brown nettle stalks remain ; some gray and broken
thistles; some teazles leaning on the bushes. The
power of winter has reached its utmost now, and can
go no farther. These bines which still hang in the
bushes are those of the greater bindweed, and will
be used in a month or so by many birds as con-
veniently curved to fit about their nests. The stem
of wild clematis, grey and bowed, could scarcely
look more dead. Fibres are peeling from it, they
come off at the touch of the fingers. The few brown
feathers that perhaps still adhere where the flowers
once were are stained and discoloured by the beating
of the rain. It is not dead : it will flourish again
ere long. It is the sturdiest of creepers, facing the
ferocious winds of the hills, the tremendous rains

OUT OF DOORS IN FEBRUARY, 215

that blow up from the sea, and bitter frost, if only
it can get its roots into soil that suits it. In some
places it takes the place of the hedge proper and
becomes itself the hedge. Many of the trunks of the
elms are swathed in minute green vegetation which
has flourished in the winter, as the clematis will in
the summer. Of all, the brambles bear the wild
works of winter best. Given only a little shelter, in
the corner of the hedges or under trees and copses
they retain green leaves till the buds burst again.
The frosts tint them in autumn with crimson, but
not all turn colour or fall. The brambles are the
bowers of the birds ; in these still leafy bowers they
do the courting of the spring, and under the brambles
the earliest arum, and cleaver, or avens, push up.
Bound about them the first white nettle flowers, not
long now; latest too, in the autumn. The white
nettle sometimes blooms so soon (always according
to locality), and again so late, that there seems but
a brief interval between, as if it flowered nearly all
the year round. So the berries on the holly if let
alone often stay till summer is in, and new berries
begin' to appear shortly afterwards. The ivy, too,-
bears its berries far into the summer. Perhaps if
the country be taken at large there is never a time
when there is not a flower of some kind out, in this
or that warm southern nook. The sun never sets,
nor do the flowers ever die. There is life always,
even in the dry fir-cone that looks so brown and
sapless.

The path crosses the uplands where the lapwings
stand on the parallel ridges of the ploughed field like

216 THE OPEN AIR.

a drilled company ; if they rise they wheel as one,
and in the twilight move across the fields in bands,
invisible as they sweep near the ground, but seen
against the sky in rising over the trees and the
hedges. There is a plantation of fir and ash on the
slope, and a narrow waggon-way enters it, and seems
to lose itself in the wood. Always approach this spot
quietly, for whatever is in the wood is sure at
some time or other to come to the open space of the
track. Wood-pigeons, pheasants, squirrels, magpies,
hares, everything feathered or furred, down to the
mole, is sure to seek the open way. Butterflies
flutter through the copse by it in summer, just as
you or I might use the passage between the trees.
Towards the evening the partridges may run through
to join their friends before roost-time on the ground.
Or you may see a covey there now and then, creeping
slowly with humped backs, and at a distance not
unlike hedgehogs in their motions. The spot there-
fore should be approached with care; if it is only
a thrush out it is a pleasure to see him at his ease
and, as he deems, unobserved. If a bird or animal
thinks itself noticed it seldom does much, some will
cease singing immediately they are looked at. The
day is perceptibly longer already. As the sun goes
down, the western sky often takes a lovely green tint
in this month, and one stays to look at it, forgetting
the dark and miry way homewards. I think the
moments when we forget the mire of the world are
the most precious. After a while the green corn rises
higher out of the rude earth.
Pure colour almost always gives the idea of fire, or

OUT OF DOORS IN FEBRUARY. 217

rather it is perhaps as if a light shone through as well
as colour itself. The fresh green blade of corn is like
this, so pellucid, so clear and pure in its green as to
seem to shine with colour. It is not brilliant — not a
surface gleam or an enamel, — it is stained through.
Beside the moist clods the slender flags arise filled
with the sweetness of the earth. Out of the darkness
under — that darkness which knows no day save when
the ploughshare opens its chinks — they have come to
the light. To the light they have brought a colour
which will attract the sunbeams from now till harvest.
They fall more pleasantly on the corn, toned, as if
they mingled with it. Seldom do we realize that the
world is practically no thicker to us than the print of
our footsteps on the path. Upon that surface we walk
and act our comedy of life, and what is beneath is
nothing to us. But it is out from that under-world,
from the dead and the unknown, from the cold moist
ground, that these green blades have sprung. Yonder
a steam-plough pants up the hill, groaning with its
own strength, yet all that strength and might of
wheels, and piston, and chains, cannot drag from the
earth one single blade like these. Force cannot make
it ; it must grow — an easy word to speak or write,
in fact full of potency. It is this mystery of growth
and life, of beauty, and sweetness, and colour, starting
forth from the clods that gives the corn its power
over me. Somehow I identify myself with it ; I live
again as I see it. Year by year it is the same, and
when I see it I feel that I have once more entered on
a new life. And I think the spring, with its green
corn, its violets, and hawthorn-leaves, and increasing

218 THE OPEN AIR.

song, grows yearly dearer and more dear to this our
ancient earth. So many centuries have flown ! Now
it is the manner with all natural things to gather as
it were by smallest particles. The merest grain of
sand drifts unseen into a crevice, and by-and-by
another; after a while there is a heap ; a century and
it is a mound, and then every one observes and
comments on it. Time itself has gone, on like this;
the years have accumulated, first in drifts, then in
heaps, and now a vast mound, to which the mountains
are knolls, rises up and overshadows us. Time lies
heavy on the world. The old, old earth is glad to
turn from the cark and care of drifted centuries to the
first sweet blades of green.

There is sunshine to-day after rain, and every lark
is singing. Across the vale a broad cloud-shadow
descends the hillside, is lost in the hollow, and
presently, without warning, slips over the edge,
corning swiftly along the green tips. The sunshine
follows — the warmer for its momentary absence.
Far, far down in a grassy coomb stands a solitary
cornrick, conical roofed, casting a lonely shadow-
marked because so solitary, and beyond it on the
rising slope is a brown copse. The leafless branches
take a brown tint in the sunlight ; on the summit
above there is furze; then more hill lines drawn
against the sky. In the tops of the dark pines at the
corner of the copse, could the glance sustain itself to
see them, there are finches warming themselves in the
sunbeams. The thick needles shelter them from the
current of air, and the sky is bluer above the pines.
Their hearts are full already of the happy days to

OUT OF DOORS IN FEBRUARY. 219

come, when the moss yonder by the beech, and the
lichen on the fir-trunk, and the loose fibres caught in
the fork of an unbending bough, shall furnish forth a
sufficient mansion for their young. Another broad
cloud- shadow, and another warm embrace of sunlight.
All the serried ranks of the green corn bow at the
word of command as the wind rushes over them.

There is largeness and freedom here. Broad as the
down and free as the wind, the thought can roam
high over the narrow roofs in the vale. Nature has
affixed no bounds to thought. All the palings, and
walls, and crooked fences deep down yonder are
artificial. The fetters and traditions, the routine, the
dull roundabout which deadens the spirit like the cold
moist earth, are the merest nothings. Here it is easy
with the physical eye to look over the highest roof.
The moment the eye of the mind is filled with the
beauty of things natural an equal freedom and width
of view come to it. Step aside from the trodden
footpath of personal experience, throwing away the
petty cynicism born of petty hopes disappointed.
Step out upon the broad down beside the green corn,
and let its freshness become part of life.

The wind passes, and it bends — let the wind, too,
pass over the spirit. From the cloud-shadow it
emerges to the sunshine — let the heart come out from
the shadow of roofs to the open glow of the sky. High
above, the songs of the larks fall as rain — receive it
with open hands. Pure is the colour of the green
flags, the slender-pointed blades — let the thought be
pure as the light that shines through that colour.
Broad are the downs and open the aspect — gather the

220 THE OPEN AIE.

breadth and largeness of view. Never can that view
be wide enough and large enough, there will always
be room to aim higher. As the air of the hills en-
riches the blood, so let the presence of these beautiful
things enrich the inner sense. One memory of the
green corn, fresh beneath the sun and wind, will lift
up the heart from the clods.

( 221

HAUNTS OF THE LAPWING.

I. — WlNTEK.

COMING like a white wall the rain reaches me, and in
an instant everything is gone from sight that is more
than ten yards distant. The narrow upland road
is beaten to a darker hue, and two runnels of water
rush along at the sides, where, when the chalk-laden
streamlets dry, blue splinters of flint will be exposed
in the channels. For a moment the air seems driven
away by the sudden pressure, and I catch my breath
and stand still with one shoulder forward to receive
the blow. Hiss, the land shudders under the cold
onslaught ; hiss, and on the blast goes, and the
sound with it, for the very fury of the rain, after
the first second, drowns its own noise. There is
not a single creature visible, the low and stunted
hedgerows, bare of leaf, could conceal nothing; the
rain passes straight through to the ground. Crooked
and gnarled, the bushes are locked together as if in
no other way could they hold themselves against the
gales. Such little grass as there is on the mounds
is thin and short, and could not hide a mouse.
There is no finch, sparrow, thrush, blackbird. As

222 THE OPEN AIR.

the wave of rain passes over and leaves a hollow
between the waters, that which has gone and that
to come, the ploughed lands on either side are seen
to be equally bare. In furrows full of water, a hare
would -not sit, nor partridge run; the larks, the
patient larks which endure almost everything, even
they have gone. Furrow on furrow with flints dotted
on their slopes, and chalk lumps, that- is all. The
cold earth gives no sweet petal of flower, nor can
any bud of thought or bloom of imagination start
forth in the mind. But step by step, forcing a way
through the rain and over the ridge, I find a small
and stunted copse down in the next hollow. It is
rather a wide hedge than a copse, and stands by the
road in the corner of a field. The boughs are bare ;
still they break the storm, and it is a relief to wait
a while there and rest. After a minute or so the eye
gets accustomed to the branches and finds a line of
sight through the narrow end of the copse. Within
twenty yards — just outside the copse — there are a
number of lapwings, dispersed about the furrows.
One runs a few feet forward and picks something
from the ground; another runs in the same manner
to one side; a third rushes in still a third direction.
Their crests, their green-tinted wings, and white
breasts are not disarranged by the torrent. Some-
thing in the style of the birds recalls the wagtail,
though they are so much larger. Beyond these
are half a dozen more, and in a straggling line
others extend out into the field. They have found
some slight shelter here from the sweeping of the
rain and wind, and are not obliged to face it as in

HAUNTS OF THE LAPWING. 223

the open. Minutely searching every clod they gather
their food in imperceptible items from the surface.

Sodden leaves lie in the furrows along the side
of the copse; broken and decaying burdocks still
uphold their jagged stems, but will be soaked away
by degrees; dank grasses droop outwards; the red
seed of a dock is all that remains of the berries and
fruit, the seeds and grain of autumn. Like the
hedge, the copse is vacant. Nothing moves within,
watch as carefully as I may. The boughs are
blackened by wet and would touch cold. From the
grasses to the branches there is nothing any one
would like to handle, and I stand apart even from
the bush that keeps away the rain. The green
plovers are the only things of life that save the earth
from utter loneliness. Heavily as the rain may fall,
cold as the saturated wind may blow, the plovers
remind us of the beauty of shape, colour, and
animation. They seem too slender to withstand
the blast — they should have gone with the swallows
—too delicate for these rude hours; yet they alone
face them.

Once more the wave of rain has passed, and yonder
the hills appear ; these are but uplands. The nearest
and highest has a green rampart, visible for a
moment against the dark sky, and then again
wrapped in a toga of misty cloud. So the chilled
Eoman drew his toga around him in ancient days as
from that spot he looked wistfully southwards and
thought of Italy. Wee-ah-wee ! Some chance move-
ment has been noticed by the nearest bird, and away
they go at once as if with the same wings, sweeping

224 THE OPEN AW.

overhead, then to the right, then to the left, and
then hack again, till at last lost in the coming shower.
After they have thus vibrated to and fro long enough,
like a pendulum coming to rest, they will alight in
the open field on the ridge behind. There in drilled
ranks, well closed together, all facing the same way,
they will stand for hours. Let us go also and let
the shower conceal them. Another time my path
leads over the hills.

It is afternoon, which in winter is evening. The
sward of the down is dry under foot, but hard, and
does not lift the instep with the springy feel of
summer. The sky is gone, it is not clouded, it is
swathed in gloom. Upwards the still air .thickens,
and there is no arch or vault of heaven. Formless
and vague, it seems some vast shadow descending.
The sun has disappeared, and the light there still
is, is left in the atmosphere enclosed by the gloomy
mist as pools are left by a receding tide. Through
the sand the water slips, and through the mist the
light glides away. Nearer comes the formless
shadow, and the visible earth grows smaller. The
path has faded, and there are no means on the open
downs of knowing whether the direction pursued is
right or wrong, till a boulder (which is a landmark)
is perceived. Thence the way is down the slope,
the last and limit of the hills there. It is a rough
descent, the paths worn by sheep may at any moment
cause a stumble. At the foot is a waggon-track
beside a low hedge, enclosing the first arable field.
The hedge is a guide, but the ruts are deep, and it
still needs slow and careful walking. Wee -ah-

HAUNTS OF THE LAPWING. 225

wee ! Up from the dusky surface of the arable
field springs a plover, and the notes are immediately
repeated by another. They can just be seen as
darker bodies against the shadow as they fly over-
head. Wee-ah-wee ! The sound grows fainter as
they fetch a longer circle in the gloom.

There is another winter resort of plovers in the
valley where a barren waste was ploughed some years
ago. A few furze bushes still stand in the hedges
about it, and the corners are full of rushes. Not
all the grubbing of furze and bushes, the deep
ploughing and draining, has succeeded in rendering
the place fertile like the adjacent fields. The
character of a marsh adheres to it still. So long
as there is a crop, the lapwings keep away, but as
soon as the ploughs turn up the ground in autumn
they return. The place lies low, and level with the
waters in the ponds and streamlets. A mist hangs
about it in the evening, and even when there is none,
there is a distinct difference in the atmosphere while
passing it. From their hereditary home the lapwings
cannot be entirely driven away. Out of the mist
comes their plaintive cry; they are hidden, and
their exact locality is not to be discovered. Where
winter rules most ruthlessly, where darkness is
deepest in daylight, there the slender plovers stay
undaunted.

II. — SPUING.

A soft sound of water moving among thousands
of grass-blades — to the hearing it is as the sweetness
of spring air to the scent. It is so faint and so

Q

226 THE OPEN AIR.

diffused that the exact spot whence it issues cannot
be discerned, yet it is distinct, and my footsteps are
slower- as I listen. Yonder, in the corners of the
mead, the atmosphere is full of some ethereal vapour.
The sunshine stays in the air there, as if the green
hedges held the wind from brushing it away. Low
and plaintive come the notes of a lapwing ; the same
notes, but tender with love.

On this side, by the hedge, the ground is a little
higher and dry, hung over with the lengthy boughs
of an oak, which give some shade. I always feel
a sense of regret when I see a seedling oak in the
grass. The two green leaves — the little stem so
upright and confident, and, though but a few inches
high, already so completely a tree — are in them-
selves beautiful. Power, endurance, grandeur are
there ; you can grasp all with your hand, and take
a ship between the finger and thumb. Time, that
sweeps away everything, is for a while repelled ;"^the
oak will grow when the time we know is forgotten,
and when felled will be the mainstay and safety
of a generation in a future century. That the plant
should start among the grass, to be severed by the
scythe or crushed by cattle, is very pitiful ; I cannot
help wishing that it could be transplanted and pro-
tected. Of the countless acorns that drop in autumn
not one in a million is permitted to become a tree —
a vast waste of strength and beauty. From the
bushes by the stile on the left hand, which I have
just passed, follows the long whistle of a nightingale.
His nest is near; he sings night and day. Had I
waited on the stile, in a few minutes, becoming used

HAUNTS OF THE LAPWING. 227

to my presence, he would have made the hawthorn
vibrate, so powerful is his voice when heard close at
hand. There is not another nightingale along this
path for at least a mile, though it crosses meadows
and runs hy hedges to all appearance equally suitable ;
but nightingales will not pass their limits ; they seem
to have a marked-out range as strictly denned as the
lines of a geological map. They will not go over to
the next hedge — hardly into the field on one side of a
favourite spot, nor a yard farther along the mound.
Opposite the oak is a low fence of serrated green.
Just projecting above the edge of a brook, fast-growing
flags have thrust up their bayonet-tips. Beneath their
stalks are so thick in the shallow places that a pike
can scarcely push a way between them. Over the
brook stand some high maple trees ; to their thick
foliage wood-pigeons come. The entrance to a coomb,
the widening mouth of a valley, is beyond, with copses
on the slopes.

Again the plover's notes; this time in the field
immediately behind ; repeated, too, in the field on
the right hand. One comes over, and as he flies
he jerks a wing upwards and partly turns on his
side in the air, rolling like a vessel in a swell. He
seems to beat the air sideways, as if against a wall,
not downwards. This habit makes his course appear
so uncertain; he may go there, or yonder, or in a
third direction, more undecided than a startled snipe.
Is there a little vanity in that wanton flight ? Is
there a little consciousness of the spring-freshened
colours of his plumage, and pride in the dainty touch
of his wings on the sweet wind ? His love is watching

228 THE OPEN AIR.

his wayward course. He prolongs it. He has but
a few yards to fly to reach the well-known feeding-
ground by the brook where the grass is short ; perhaps
it has been eaten off by sheep. It is a straight and
easy line as a starling would fly. The plover thinks
nothing of a straight line ; he winds first with the
course of the hedge, then rises aslant, uttering his
cry, wheels, and returns ; now this way, direct at me,
as if his object was to display his snowy breast;
suddenly rising aslant again, he wheels once more,
and goes right away from his object over above the
field whence he came. Another moment and he
returns ; and so to and fro, and round and round,
till with a sidelong, unexpected sweep he alights
by the brook. He stands a minute, then utters his
cry, and runs a yard or so forward. In a little while
a second plover arrives from the field behind. He
too dances a maze in the air before he settles. Soon
a third joins them. They are visible at that spot
because the grass is short, elsewhere they would
be hidden. If one of these rises and flies to and
fro almost instantly another follows, and then it is,
indeed, a dance before they alight. The wheeling,
maze -tracing, devious windings continue till the eye
wearies and rests with pleasure on a passing butter-
fly. These birds have nests in the meadows adjoin-
ing; they meet here as a common feeding-ground.
Presently they will disperse, each returning to his
mate at the nest. Half an hour afterwards they will
meet once more, either here or on the wing.

In this manner they spend their time from dawn

HAUNTS OF THE LAPWING. 229

through the flower-growing day till dusk. When the
sun arises over the hill into the sky already blue the
plovers have been tip a long while. All the busy
morning they go to and fro — the busy morning, when
the wood-pigeons cannot rest in the copses on the
coomb-side, but continually fly in and out; when
the blackbirds whistle in the oaks, when the bluebells
gleam with purplish lustre. At noontide, in the dry
heat, it is pleasant to listen to the sound of water
moving among the thousand thousand grass-blades
of the mead. The flower-growing day lengthens out
beyond the sunset, and till the hedges are dim the
lapwings do not cease.

Leaving now the shade of the oak, I follow the
path into the meadow on the right, stepping by the
way over a streamlet, which diffuses its rapid current
broadcast over the sward till it collects again and
pours into the brook. This next meadow is some-
what more raised, and not watered; the grass is
high and full of buttercups. Before I have gone
twenty yards a lapwing rises out in the field, rushes
towards me through the air, and circles round my
head, making as if to dash at me, and uttering
shrill cries. Immediately another comes from the
mead behind the oak ; then a third from over the
hedge, and all those that have been feeding by
the brook, till I am encircled with them. They
wheel round, dive, rise aslant, cry, and wheel
again, always close over me, till I have walked
some distance, when, one by one, they fall off, and,
still uttering threats, retire. There is a nest in this

230 THE OPEN AIR.

meadow, and, although it is, no doubt, a long way
from the path, my presence even in the field, large
as it is, is resented. The couple who imagine their
possessions threatened are quickly joined by their
friends, and there is no rest till I have left their
treasures far behind.

( 231 )

OUTSIDE LONDON.

I.

THEKE was something dark on the grass under an
elm in the field by the barn. It rose and fell; and
we saw that it was a wing — a single black wing,
striking the ground instead of the air; indeed, it
seemed to come out of the earth itself, the body of
the bird being hidden by the grass. This black wing
flapped and flapped, but could not lift itself — a single
wing of course could not fly. A rook had dropped
out of the elm and was lying helpless at the foot of
the tree — it is a favourite tree with rooks ; they build
in it, and at that moment there were twenty or more
perched aloft, cawing and conversing comfortably,
without the least thought of their dying comrade.
Not one of all the number descended to see what was
the matter, nor even fluttered half-way down. This
elm is their clubhouse, where they meet every after-
noon as the sun gets low to discuss the scandals of
the day, before retiring to roost in the avenues and
tree-groups of the park adjacent. While we looked,
a peacock came round the corner of the barn ; he
had caught sight of the flapping wing, and approached

232 THE OPJEV AIE.

with long deliberate steps and outstretched neck.
"Ee-aw! Ee-aw! What's this? What's this?" he
inquired in bird-language. "Ee-aw! Ee-aw! My
friends, see here ! " Gravely, and step by step, he came
nearer and nearer, slowly, and not without some fear,
till curiosity had brought him within a yard. In a
moment or two a peahen followed and also stretched
out her neck — the two long necks pointing at the
black flapping wing. A second peacock and peahen
approached, and the four great birds stretched out
their necks towards the dying rook — a "erowner's
quest " upon the unfortunate creature.

If any one had been at hand to sketch it, the
scene would have been very grotesque, and not with-
out a ludicrous sadness. There was the tall elm
tinted with yellow, the black rooks high above flying
in and out, yellow leaves twirling down, the blue
peacocks with their crests, the red barn behind, the
golden sun afar shining low through the trees of the
park, the brown autumn sward, a gray horse, orange
maple bushes. There was the quiet tone of the
coming evening — the early evening of October — such
an evening as the rook had seen many a time from
the tops of the trees. A man dies, and the crowd
goes on passing under the window along the street
without a thought. The rook died, and his friends,
who had that day been with him in the oaks feasting
on acorns, who had been with him in the fresh-turned
furrows, born perhaps in the same nest, utterly for-
got him before he was dead. With a great common
caw — a common shout — they suddenly left the tree in
a bevy and flew towards the park. The peacocks

OUTSIDE LONDON. 233

having brought in their verdict, departed, and the
dead bird was left alone.

In falling out of the elm, the rook had alighted
partly on his side and partly on his back, so that he
could only flutter one wing, the other being held
down by his own weight. He had probably died
from picking up poisoned gram somewhere, or from
a parasite. The weather had been open, and he
could not have been starved. At a distance, the
rook's plumage appears black; but close at hand it
will be found a fine blue-black, glossy, and handsome.

These peacocks are the best " rain-makers " in
the place ; whenever they cry much, it is sure to
rain ; and if they persist day after day, the rain is
equally continuous. From the wall by the barn, or
the elm-branch above their cry resounds like the
wail of a gigantic cat, and is audible half a mile
or more. In the summer, I found one of them,
a peacock in the full brilliance of his colours, on
a rail in the hedge under a spreading maple bush.
His rich-hued neck, the bright light and shadow,
the tall green meadow grass, brought together the
finest colours. It is curious that a bird so distinctly
foreign, plumed for the Asiatic sun, should fit so well
with English meads. His splendid neck immediately
pleases, pleases the first time it is seen, and on the
fiftieth occasion. I see these every day, and always
stop to look at them ; the colour excites the sense of
beauty in the eye, and the shape satisfies the idea
of form. The undulating curve of the neck is at once
approved by the intuitive judgment of the mind, and
it is a pleasure to the mind to reiterate that judgment

234 THE OPEN AIR

frequently. It needs no teaching to see its beauty
— the feeling comes of itself.

How different with the turkey-cock which struts
round the tsame barn ! A fine big bird he is, no
doubt ; but there is no intrinsic beauty about him ;
on the contrary, there is something fantastic in his
style and plumage. He has a way of drooping his
wings as if they were armour-plates -to shield him
from a shot. The ornaments upon his head and
beak are in the most awkward position. He was
put together in a dream, of uneven and odd pieces
that live and move, but do not fit. Ponderously
gawky, he steps as if the world was his, like a
"motley" crowned in sport. He is good eating,
but he is not beautiful. After the eye has been
accustomed to him for some time — after you have
fed him every day and come to take an interest in
him — after you have seen a hundred turkey-cocks,
then he may become passable, or, if you have the
fancier's taste, exquisite. Education is requisite first ;
you do not fall in love at first sight. The same
applies to fancy-pigeons, and indeed many pet
animals, as pugs, which come in time to be ani-
mated with a soul in some people's eyes. Compare
a pug with a greyhound straining at the leash.
Instantly he is slipped, he is gone as a wave let
loose. His flexible back bends and undulates, arches
and unarches, rises and falls as a wave rises and
rolls on. His pliant ribs open; his whole frame
"gives" and stretches, and closing again in a curve,
springs forward. Movement is as easy to him as
to the wave, which melting, is re-moulded, and sways

OUTSIDE LONDON. 235

onward. The curve of the greyhound is not only
the line of beauty, but a line which suggests motion ;
and it is the idea of motion, I think, which so strongly
appeals to the mind.

We are often scornfully treated as a nation by
people who write about art, because they say we
have no taste; we cannot make art jugs for the
mantelpiece, crockery for the bracket, screens for
the fire ; we cannot even decorate the wall of a room
as it should be done. If these are the standards by
which a sense of art is to be tried, their scorn is to a
certain degree just. But suppose we try another
standard. Let us put aside the altogether false
opinion that art consists alone in something actually
made, or painted, or decorated, in carvings, colour-
ings, touches of brush or chisel. Let us look at our
lives. I mean to say that there is no nation so
thoroughly and earnestly artistic as the English in
their lives, their joys, their thoughts, their hopes.
Who loves nature like an Englishman ? Do Italians
care for their pale skies ? I never heard so. We go
all over the world in search of beauty — to the keen
north, to the cape whence the midnight sun is visible,
to the extreme south, to the interior of Africa, gazing
at the vast expanse of Tanganyika or the marvellous
falls of the Zambesi. We admire the temples and
tombs and palaces of India ; we speak of the Alham-
bra of Spain almost in whispers, so deep is our
reverent admiration ; we visit the Parthenon. There
is not a picture or a statue in Europe we have not
sought. We climb the mountains for their views and
the sense of grandeur they inspire ; we roam over the

23G THE OPEN AIR.

wide ocean to the coral islands of the far Pacific ; we
go deep into the woods of the West ; and we stand
dreamily under the Pyramids of the East. What part
is there of the English year which has not heen sung
by the poets ? all of whom are full of its loveliness ;
and our greatest of all, Shakspeare, carries, as it
were, arrnfuls of violets, and scatters roses and golden
wheat across his pages, which are- simply fields
written with human life.

This is art indeed — art in the mind and soul,
infinitely deeper, surely, than the construction of
crockery, jugs for the mantelpiece, dados, or even
of paintings. The lover of nature has the highest
art in his soul. So, I think, the bluff English farmer
who takes such pride and delight in his dogs and
horses, is a much greater man of art than any
Frenchman preparing with cynical dexterity of hand
some coloured presentment of flashy beauty for the
salon. The English girl who loves her horse — and
English girls do love their horses most intensely — is
infinitely more artistic in that fact than the cleverest
painter on enamel. They who love nature are the
real artists ; the " artists " are copyists. St. John
the naturalist, when exploring the recesses of the
Highlands, relates how he frequently came in contact
with men living in the rude Highland way-^forty
years since, no education then — whom at first you
would suppose to be morose, unobservant, almost
stupid. But when they found out that their visitor
would stay for hours gazing in admiration at their
glens and mountains, their demeanour changed.
Then the truth appeared: they were fonder than he

OUTSIDE LONDON. 237

was himself of the beauties of their hills and lakes ;
they could see the art there, though perhaps they
had never seen a picture in their lives, certainly not
any blue-and-white crockery. The Frenchman flings
his fingers dexterously over the canvas, but he has
never had that in his heart which the rude Highlander
had.

The path across the arable field was covered with
a design of birds' feet. The reversed broad arrow of
the fore-claws, and the straight line of the hinder
claw, trailed all over it in curving lines. In the dry
dust, their feet were marked as clearly as a seal on
wax — their trails wound this way and that, and
crossed as their quick eyes had led them to turn to
find something. For fifty or sixty yards the path
was worked with an inextricable design; it was a
pity to step on it and blot out the traces of those
little feet. Their hearts so happy, their eyes so
observant, the earth so bountiful to them with its
supply of food, and the late warmth of the autumn
sun lighting up their life. They know and feel the
different loveliness of the seasons as much as we
do. Every one must have noticed their joyous-
ness in spring ; they are quiet, but so very, very
busy in the height of summer; as autumn comes
on they obviously delight in the occasional hours
of warmth. The marks of their little feet are almost
sacred — a joyous life has been there — do not obliterate
it. It is so delightful to know that something is
happy.

The hawthorn hedge that goes down the slope is
more coloured than the hedges in the sheltered plain.

238 THE OPEN AIR.

Yonder, a low bush on the brow is a deep crimson ;
the hedge as it descends varies from brown to yellow,
dotted with red haws, and by the gateway has another
spot of crimson. The lime trees turn yellow from, top
to bottom, all the leaves together ; the elms by one or
two branches at a time. A lime tree thus entirely
coloured stands side by side with an elm, their boughs
intermingling ; the elm is green except a line at the
outer extremity of its branches. A red light as of
fire plays in the beeches, so deep is their orange tint
in which the sunlight is caught. An oak is dotted
with buff, while yet the main body of the foliage is
untouched. With these tints and sunlight, nature
gives us so much more than the tree gives. A tree is
nothing but a tree in itself: but with light and
shadow, green leaves moving, a bird singing, another
moving to and fro — in autumn with colour — the
boughs are filled with imagination. There then
seems so much more than the mere tree ; the timber
of the trunk, the mere sticks of the branches, the
wooden framework is animated with a life. High
above, a lark sings, not for so long as in spring — the
October song is shorter — but still he sings. If you
love colour, plant maple ; maple bushes colour a
whole hedge. Upon the bank of. a pond, the brown
oak-leaves which have fallen are reflected in the still
deep water.

It is from the hedges that taste must be learned.
A garden abuts on these fields, and being on slightly
rising ground, the maple bushes, the brown and
yellow and crimson hawthorn, the limes and elms,
are all visible from it ; yet it is surrounded by stiff,

OUTSIDE LONDON. 239

straight iron railings, unconcealed even by the grasses,
which are carefully cut down with the docks and
nettles, that do their best, three or four times in the
summer, to hide the blank iron. Within these iron
railings stands a row of arbor vitae, upright, and stiff
likewise, and among them a few other evergreens ;
and that is all the shelter the lawn and flower-beds
have from the east wind, blowing for miles over open
country, or from the glowing sun of August. This
garden belongs to a gentleman who would certainly
spare no moderate expense to improve it, and yet
there it remains, the blankest, barest, most miserable-
looking square of ground the eye can find ; the only
piece of ground from which the eye turns away ; for
even the potato-field close by, the common potato-
field, had its colour in bright poppies, and there were
partridges in it, and at the edges, fine growths of
mallow and its mauve flowers. Wild parsley, still
green in the shelter of the hazel stoles, is there now
on the bank, a thousand times sweeter to the eye than
bare iron and cold evergreens. Along that hedge,
the white byrony wound itself in the most beautiful
manner, completely covering the upper part of the
thick brambles, a robe thrown over the bushes ; its
deep cut leaves, its countless tendrils, its flowers, and
presently the berries, giving pleasure every time one
passed it. Indeed, you could not pass without
stopping to look at it, and wondering if any one ever
so skilful, even those sure-handed Florentines Mr.
Euskin thinks so much of, could ever draw that
intert angled mass of lines. Nor could you easily draw
the leaves and head of the great parsley — commonest

240 THE OPEN AIR.

of hedge-plants — the deep indented leaves, and the
shadow by which to express them. There was work
enough in that short piece of hedge by the potato-field
for a good pencil every day the whole summer. And
when done, you would not have been satisfied with it,
but only have learned how complex and how thought-
ful and far reaching Nature is in the simplest of
things. But with a straight-edge or « ruler, any one
could draw the iron railings in half an hour, and a
surveyor's pupil could make them look as well as
Millais himself. Stupidity to stupidity, genius to
genius ; any hard fist can manage iron railings ; a
hedge is a task for the greatest.

Those, therefore, who really wish their gardens or
grounds, or any place, beautiful, must get that greatest
of geniuses, Nature, to help them, and give their
artist freedom to paint to fancy, for it is Nature's
imagination which delights us — as I tried to explain
about the tree, the imagination, and not the fact of
the timber and sticks. For those white bryony leaves
and slender spirals and exquisitely defined flowers,
are full of imagination, products of a sunny dream,
and tinted so tastefully, that although they are green,
and all about them is green too, yet the plant is quite
distinct, and in no degree confused or lost in the mass
of leaves under and by it. It stands out, and yet
without violent contrast. All these beauties of form
and colour surround the place, and try, as it were, to
march in and take possession, but are shut out by
straight iron railings. Wonderful it is that education
should make folk tasteless ! Such, certainly, seems
to be the case in a great measure, and not in our

OUTSIDE LONDON. 211

own country only, for those who know Italy tell us
that the fine old gardens there, dating back to the
clays of the Medici, are being despoiled of ilex and
made formal and straight. Is all the world to be
Versaillised ?

Scarcely two hundred yards from these cold iron
railings, which even nettles and docks would hide if
they could, and thistles strive to conceal, but are not
permitted, there is an old cottage by the roadside.
The roof is of old tile, once red, now dull from
weather ; the walls some tone of yellow ; the folk are
poor. Against it there grows a vigorous plant of
jessamine, a still finer rose, a vine covers the lean-to
at one end, and tea-plant the corner of the wall;
beside these, there is a yellow-flowering plant, the
name of which I forget at the moment, also trained to
the walls ; and ivy. Altogether, six plants grow up
the walls of the cottage; and over the wicket-gate
there is a rude arch — a framework of tall sticks —
from which droop thick bunches of hops. It is a very
commonplace sort of cottage; nothing artistically
picturesque about it, no effect of gable or timber-work ;
it stands by the roadside in the most commonplace
way, and yet it pleases. They have called in Nature,
that great genius, and let the artist have his own
way. In Italy, the art-country, they cut down the
ilex trees, andjget the surveyor's pupil with straight-
edge and ruler to put it right and square for them.
Our over-educated and well-to-do people set iron
railings round about their blank pleasure-grounds,
which the potato-field laughs at in bright poppies ;
and actually one who has some fine park-grounds has

242 THE OPEN AIE.

lifted up on high a mast and weather-vane ! a thing
useful on the sea-board at coastguard stations for
signalling, but oh ! how repellent and straight and
stupid among clumps of graceful elms !

II.

The dismal pits in a disused brickfield, unsightly
square holes in a waste, are full in the shallow
places of an aquatic grass, Eeed Canary Grass, I
think, which at this time of mists stretches forth
sharp-pointed tongues over the stagnant water.
These sharp-pointed leaf-tongues are all on one side
of the stalks, so that the most advanced project
across the surface, as if the water were the canvas,
and the leaves drawn on it. For water seems always
to rise away from you — to slope slightly upwards ;
even a pool has that appearance, and therefore
anything standing in it is drawn on it as you might
sketch on this paper. You see the water beyond and
above the top of the plant, and the smooth surface
gives the leaf and stalk a sharp, clear definition.
But the mass of the tall grass crowds together, every
leaf painted yellow by the autumn, a thick cover at
the pit-side. This tall grass always awakes my
fancy, its shape partly, partly its thickness, perhaps ;
and yet these feelings are not to be analysed. I like
to look at it ; I like to stand or move among it on
the bank of a brook, to feel it touch and rustle
against me. A sense of wildness comes with its
touch, and I feel a little as I might feel if there was
a vast forest round about. As a few strokes from

OUTSIDE LONDON. 243

a loving hand will soothe a weary forehead, so the
gentle pressure of the wild grass soothes and strokes ^
away the nervous tension born of civilized life.

I could write a whole history of it ; the time when
the leaves were fresh and green, and the sedge-birds
frequented it ; the time when the moorhen's young
crept after their mother through its recesses ; from
the singing of the cuckoo by the river, till now
brown and yellow leaves strew the water. They
strew, too, the dry brown grass of the land, thick
tuffets, and lie even among the rushes, blown hither
from the distant trees. The wind works its full will
over the exposed waste, and drives through the reed-
grass, scattering the stalks aside, and scarce giving
them time to spring together again, when the follow-
ing blast a second time divides them.

A cruder piece of ground, ruder and more dismal
in its unsightly holes, could not be found ; and yet,
because of the reed-grass, it is made as it were full
of thought. I wonder the painters, of whom there
are so many nowadays, armies of amateurs, do not
sometimes take these scraps of earth and render into
them the idea which fills a clod with beauty. In one
such dismal pit — not here — I remember there grew
a great quantity of bulrushes. Another was sur-
rounded with such masses of swamp-foliage that it
reminded those who saw it of the creeks in semi-
tropical countries. But somehow they do not seem
to see these things, but go on the old mill-round oi
scenery, exhausted many a year since. They do not
see them, perhaps, because most of those who have
educated themselves in the technique of painting are

214 THE OPEN AIR.

city-bred, and can never have the feeling of the
country, however fond they may be of it.

In those fields of which I was writing the other
day, I found an artist at work at his easel; and a
pleasant nook he had chosen. His brush did its
work with a steady and sure stroke that indicated
command of his materials. He could delineate
whatever he selected with technical skill at all
events. He had pitched his easel where two hedges
formed an angle, and one of them was full of oak-
trees. The hedge was singularly full of "bits" —
bryony, tangles of grasses, berries, boughs half-
tinted and boughs green, hung as it were with
pictures like the wall of a room. Standing as near
as I could without disturbing him, I found that the
subject of his canvas was none of these. It was that
old stale and dull device of a rustic bridge spanning
a shallow stream crossing a lane. Some figure stood
on the bridge — the old, old trick. He was filling up
the hedge of the lane with trees from the hedge, and
they were cleverly executed. But why drag them
into this fusty scheme, which has appeared in every
child's sketch-book for fifty years? Why not have
simply painted the beautiful hedge at hand, purely
and simply, a hedge hung with pictures for any one
to copy? The field in which he had pitched his
easel is full of fine trees and good " effects." But
no; we must have the ancient and effete old story.
This is not all the artist's fault, because he must
in many cases paint what he can sell; and if his
public will only buy effete old stories, he cannot
help it. Still, I think if a painter did paint that

OUTSIDE LONDON. 245

hedge in its fulness of beauty, just simply as it
stands in the mellow autumn light, it would win
approval of the best people, and that ultimately, a
succession of such work would pay.

The clover was dying down, and the plough would
soon be among it — the earth was visible in patches.
Out in one of these bare patches there was a young
mouse, so chilled by the past night that his dull
senses did not appear conscious of my presence. He
had crept out on the bare earth evidently to feel the
warmth of the sun, almost the last hour he would
enjoy. He looked about for food, but found none;
his short span of life was drawing to a close ; even
when at last he saw me, he could only run a few
inches under cover of a dead clover-plant. Thousands
upon thousands of mice perish like this as the winter
draws on, born too late in the year to grow strong
enough or clever enough to prepare a store. Other
kinds of mice perish like leaves at the first blast
of cold air. Though but a mouse, to me it was very
wretched to see the chilled creature, so benumbed
as to have almost lost its sense of danger. There is
something so ghastly in birth that immediately leads
to death ; a sentient creature born only to wither.
The earth offered it no help, nor the declining sun ;
all things organized seem to depend so much on cir-
cumstances. Nothing but pity can be felt for thou-
sands upon thousands of such organisms. But thus,
too, many a miserable human being has perished in
the great Metropolis, dying, chilled and benumbed, of
starvation, and finding the hearts of fellow-creatures
as bare and cold as the earth of the clover-field.

246 THE OPEN AIR.

In these fields outside London the flowers are
peculiarly rich in colour. The common mallow,
whose flower is usually a light mauve, has here a
deep, almost purple bloom; the bird's-foot lotus
is a deep orange. The figwort, which is generally
two or three feet high, stands in one ditch fully eight
feet, and the stem is more than half an inch square.
A fertile soil has doubtless something 'to do with this
colour and vigour. The red admiral butterflies, too,
seemed in the summer more brilliant than usual.
One very fine one, whose broad wings stretched out
like fans, looked simply splendid floating round and
round the willows which marked the margin of a
dry pool. His blue markings were really blue — blue
velvet— his red, and the white stroke shone as if
sunbeams were in his wings. I wish there were more
of these butterflies; in summer, dry summer, when
the flowers seem gone and the grass is not so dear
to us, and the leaves are dull with heat, a little
colour is so pleasant. To me, colour is a sort of
food ; every spot of colour is a drop of wine to the
spirit. I used to take my folding-stool on those long,
heated days, which made the summer of 1884 so
conspicuous among summers, down to the shadow of
a row of elms by a common cabbage-field. Their
shadow was nearly as hot as the open sunshine ; the
dry leaves did not absorb the heat that entered them,
and the dry hedge and dry earth poured heat up as
the sun poured it down. Dry, dead leaves— dead
with heat, as with frost — strewed the grass, dry, too,
and withered at my feet.

But among the cabbages, which were very small,

OUTSIDE LONDON. 247

there grew thousands of poppies, fifty times more
poppies than cabbage, so that the pale green of the
cabbage-leaves was hidden by the scarlet petals
falling wide open to the dry air. There was a broad
band of scarlet colour all along the side of the field,
and it was this which brought me to the shade of
those particular elms. The use of the cabbages was
in this way : they fetched for me all the white
butterflies of the neighbourhood, and they fluttered,
hundreds and hundreds of white butterflies, a
constant stream and flow of them over the broad
band of scarlet. Humble-bees came too ; bur-bur-
bur; and the buzz, and the flutter of the white
wings over those fixed red butterflies the poppies,
the flutter and sound and colour pleased me in the
dry heat of the day. Sometimes I set my camp-
stool by a humble-bee's nest. I like to see and hear
them go in and out, so happy, busy, and wild ; the
humble-bee is a favourite. That summer their nests
were very plentiful; but although the heat might
have seemed so favourable to them, the flies were
not at all numerous, I mean out-of-doors. Wasps,
on the contrary, flourished to an extraordinary
degree. One willow tree particularly took their
fancy; there was a swarm in the tree for weeks,
attracted by some secretion; the boughs and leaves
were yellow with wasps. But it seemed curious that
flies should not be more numerous than usual ; they
are dying now fast enough, except a few of the large
ones, that still find some sugar in the flowers of the
ivy. The finest show of ivy flower is among some
yew trees ; the dark ivy has filled the dark yew tree,

248 THE OPEN AIfi.

and brought out its pale yellow-green flowers in the
sombre boughs. Last night, a great fly, the last
in the house, buzzed into my candle. I detest flies,
but I was sorry for his scorched wings ; the fly itself
hateful, its wings so beautifully made. I have some-
times picked a feather from the dirt of the road and
placed it on the grass. It is contrary to one's feelings
to see so beautiful a thing lying in the mud. Towards
my window now, as I write, there comes suddenly a
shower of yellow leaves, wrested out by main force
from the high elms ; the blue sky behind them, they
droop slowly, borne onward, twirling, fluttering to-
wards me — a cloud of autumn butterflies.

A spring rises on the summit of a green brow that
overlooks the meadows for miles. The spot is not
really very high, still it is the highest ground in that
direction for a long distance, and it seems singular
to find water on the top of the hill, a thing common
enough, but still sufficiently opposed to general im-
pressions to appear remarkable. In this shallow
water, says a faint story — far off, faint, and uncertain,
like the murmur of a distant cascade — two ladies and
some soldiers lost their lives. The brow is defended
by thick bramble-bushes, which bore a fine crop of
blackberries that autumn, to the delight of the boys ;
and these bushes partly conceal the sharpness of the
short descent. But once your attention is drawn to
it, you see that it has all the appearance of having
been artificially sloped, like a rampart, or rather
a glacis. The grass is green and the sward soft,
being moistened by the spring, except in one spot,
where the grass is burnt up under the heat of the

OVTSIDE LONDON. 249

summer sun, indicating the existence of foundations
beneath.

There is a beautiful view from this spot ; but
leaving that now, and wandering on among the fields,
presently you may find a meadow of peculiar shape,
extremely long and narrow, half a mile long, perhaps ;
and this the folk will tell you was the King's Drive,
or ride. Stories there are, too, of subterranean
passages — there are always such stories in the
neighbourhood of ancient buildings — I remember one,
said to be three miles long ; it led to an abbey. The
lane leads on, bordered with high hawthorn hedges,
and occasionally a stout hawthorn tree, hardy and
twisted by the strong hands of the passing years;
thick now with red haws, and the haunt of the red-
wings, whose " chuck- chuck" is heard every minute;
but the birds themselves always perch on the outer
side of the hedge. They are not far ahead, but they
always keep on the safe side, flying on twenty yards
or so, but never coming to my side.

The little pond, which in summer was green with
weed, is now yellow with the fallen hawthorn-leaves ;
the pond is choked with them. The lane has been
slowly descending; and now, on looking through a
gateway, an ancient building stands up on the hill,
sharply defined against the sky. It is the banqueting
hall of a palace of old times, in which kings and
princes once sat at their meat after the chase. This
is the centre of those dim stories which float like haze
over the meadows around. Many a wild red stag has
been carried thither after the hunt, and many a wild
boar slain in the glades of the forest.

250 THE OPEN AW.

The acorns are dropping now as they dropped five
centuries since, in the days when the wild boars fed
so greedily upon them ; the oaks are broadly touched
with brown ; the bramble thickets in which the boars
hid, green, but strewn with the leaves that have fallen
from the lofty trees. Though meadow, arable, and
hop-fields hold now the place of the forest, a goodly
remnant remains, for every hedge is full of oak and
elm and ash ; maple too, and the lesser bushes. At
a little distance, so thick are the trees, the whole
country appears a wood, and it is easy to see what a
forest it must have been centuries ago.

The Prince leaving the grim walls of the Tower of
London by the Water-gate, and dropping but a short
way down with the tide, could mount his horse on
the opposite bank, and reach his palace here, in the
midst of the thickest woods and wildest country, in
half an hour. Thence every morning setting forth
upon the chase, he could pass the day in joyous
labours, and the evening in feasting, still within call
— almost within sound of horn — of the Tower, if any
weighty matter demanded his presence.

In our time, the great city has widened out, and
comes at this day down to within three miles of the
hunting-palace. There still intervenes a narrow space
between the last house of London and the ancient
Forest Hall, a space of corn-field and meadow; the
last house, for although not nominally London, there
is no break of continuity in the bricks and mortar
thence to London Bridge. London is within a stone's-
throw, as it were, and yet, to this day the forest
lingers, and it is country. The very atmosphere is

OUTSIDE LONDON. 251

different. That smoky thickness characteristic of the
suburbs ceases as you ascend the gradual rise, and
leave the outpost of bricks and mortar behind. The
air becomes clear and strong, till on the brow by the
spring on a windy day it is almost like sea-air. It
comes over the trees, over the hills, and is sweet with
the touch of grass nnd leaf. There is no gas, no
sulphurous acid in that. As the Edwards and Henries
breathed it centuries since, so it can be inhaled now.
The sun that shone on the red deer is as bright now
as then ; the berries are thick on the bushes ; there is
colour in the^ leaf. The forest is gone ; but the spirit
of nature stays, and can be found by those who search
for it. Dearly as I love the open air, I cannot regret
the mediaeval days. I do not wish them back again ;
I would sooner fight in the foremost ranks of Time.
Nor do we need them, for the spirit of nature stays,
and will always be here, no matter to how high a
pinnacle of thought the human mind may attain ; still
the sweet air, and the hills, and the sea, and the sun,
will always be with us.

252 THE OPEN AIR.

ON THE LONDON ROAD.

THE road comes straight from London, which is but
a very short distance off, within a walk, yet the
village it passes is thoroughly a village, and not
suburban, not in the least like Sydenham, or Croydon,
or Balham, or Norwood, as perfect a village in every
sense as if it stood fifty miles in the country. There
is one long street, just as would be found in the far
west, with fields at each end. But through this long
street, and on and out into the open, is continually
pouring the human living undergrowth of that vast
forest of life, London. The nondescript inhabitants
of the thousand and one nameless streets of the
unknown east are great travellers, and come forth
into the country by this main desert route. For
what end ? Why this tramping and ceaseless move-
ment ? what do they buy, what do they sell, how do
they live ? They pass through the village street and
out into the country in an endless stream on the
shutter on wheels. This is the true London vehicle,
the characteristic conveyance, as characteristic as the
Kussian droshky, the gondola at Venice, or the caique
at Stamboul. It is the camel of the London desert
routes ; routes which run right through civilization,
but of which daily paper civilization is ignorant.

ON THE LONDON ROAD. 253

People who can pay for a daily paper are so far above
it ; a daily paper is the mark of the man who is in
civilization.

Take an old-fashioned shutter and balance it
on the axle of a pair of low wheels, and you have
the London camel in principle. To complete it add
shafts in front, and at the rear run a low free-
board, as a sailor would say, along the edge, that
the cargo may not be shaken off. All the skill of the
fashionable brougham-builders in Long Acre could
not contrive a vehicle which would meet the require-
ments of the case so well as this. On the desert
routes of Palestine a donkey becomes romantic ; in
a costermonger's barrow he is only an ass; the
donkey himself doesn't see the distinction. He draws
a good deal of human nature about in these barrows,
and perhaps finds it very much the same in Surrey
and Syria. For if any one thinks the familiar barrow
is merely a truck for the conveyance of cabbages and
carrots, and for the exposure of the same to the choice
of housewives in Bermondsey he is mistaken. Far
beyond that, it is the symbol, the solid expression,
of life itself to the owner, his family, and circle of
connections, more so than even the ship to the sailor,
as the sailor, no matter how he may love his ship,
longs for port, and the joys of the shore, but the
barrow folk are always at sea on land. Such care
has to be taken of the miserable pony or the shame-
faced jackass ; he has to be groomed, and fed, and
looked to in his shed, and this occupies three or four
of the family at least, lads and strapping young girls,
night and morning. Besides which, the circle of

254 THE OPEN AIR.

connections look in to see how he is going on, and
to hear the story of the day's adventures, and what
is proposed for to-morrow. Perhaps one is invited
to join the next excursion, and thinks as much of it
as others might do of an invitation for a cruise in
the Mediterranean. Any one who watches the suc-
cession of barrows driving along through the village
out into the fields of Kent can easily, see how they
bear upon their wheels the fortunes of whole families
and of their hangers-on. Sometimes there is a load
of pathos, of which the race of the ass has carried
a good deal in all ages. More often it is a heavy
lump of dull, evil, and exceedingly stupid cunning.
The wild evil of the Spanish contrabandistas seems
atoned by that wildness ; bat this dull wickedness
has no flush of colour, no poppy on its dirt heaps.

Over one barrow the sailors had fixed up a tent —
canvas stretched from corner poles, two fellows sat
almost on the shafts outside ; they were well. Under
the canvas there lay a young fellow white and
emaciated, whose face was drawn down with severe
suffering of some kind, and his dark eyes, enlarged
and accentuated, looked as if touched with belladonna.
The family council at home in the close and fetid
court had resolved themselves into a medical board
and ordered him to the sunny Eiviera. The ship
having been fitted up for the invalid, away they
sailed for the south, out from the ends of the earth
of London into the ocean of green fields and trees,
thence past many an island village, and so to the
shores where the Kentish hops were yellowing fast
for the pickers. There, in the vintage days, doubtless

ON THE LONDON EOAD. 255

he found solace, and possibly recovery. To catch a
glimpse of that dark and cavernous eye under the
shade of the travelling tent reminded me of the eyes
of the wounded in the ambulance- waggons that came
pouring into Brussels after Sedan. In the dusk of
the lovely September evenings — it was a beautiful
September, the lime-leaves were just tinted with
orange — the waggons came in a long string, the
wounded and maimed lying in them, packed carefully,
and rolled round, as it were, with wadding to save
them from the jolts of the ruts and stones. It is
fifteen years ago, and yet I can still distinctly see
the eyes of one soldier looking at me from his berth
in the waggon. The glow of intense pain — the glow
of long-continued agony — lit them up as coals that
smouldering are suddenly fanned. Pain brightens
the eyes as much as joy, there is a fire in the brain
behind it; it is the flame in the mind you see, and
not the eyeball. A thought that might easily be
rendered romantic, but consider how these poor
fellows appeared afterwards. Bevies of them hopped
about Brussels in their red-and-blue uniforms, some
on crutches, some with two sticks, some with sleeves
pinned to their breasts, looking exactly like a company
of dolls a cruel child had mutilated, snapping a foot
off here, tearing out a leg here, and battering the
face of a third. Little men most of them — the bowl
of a German pipe inverted would have covered them
all, within which, like bees in a hive, they might hum
" Te Deurn Bismarckum Laudamus." But the
romantic flame in the eye is not always so beautiful
to feel as to read about.

256 THE OPEN AIR.

Another shutter on wheels went by one day with
one little pony in the shafts, and a second harnessed
in some way at the side, so as to assist in pulling,
but without bearing any share of the load. On this
shutter eight men and boys balanced themselves;
enough for the Olympian height of a four-in-hand.
Eight fellows perched round the edge like shipwrecked
mariners, clinging to one plank. ."They were so
balanced as to weigh chiefly on the axle, yet in front
of such a mountain of men, such a vast bundle of
ragged clothes, the ponies appeared like rats.

On a Sunday morning two fellows came along on
their shutter : they overtook a girl who was walking
on the pavement, and one of them, more sallow and
cheeky than his companion, began to talk to her.
" That's a nice nosegay, now — give us a rose. Come
and ride — there's plenty of room. Won't speak ?
Now, you'll tell us if this is the road to London
Bridge." She nodded. She was dressed in full satin
for Sunday ; her class think much of satin. She was
leading two children, one in each hand, clean and
well-dressed. She walked more lightly than a servant
does, and evidently lived at home ; she did not go to
service. Tossing her head, she looked the other way,
for you see the fellow on the shutter was dirty, not
" dressed" at all, though it was Sunday, poor folks'
ball-day ; a dirty, rough fellow, with a short clay pipe
in his mouth, a chalky-white face — apparently from
low dissipation — a disreputable rascal, a monstrously
impudent " chap," a true London mongrel. He
" cheeked " her ; she tossed her head, and looked the
other way. But by-and-by she could not help a sly

ON THE LONDON ROAD. 257

glance at him, not an angry glance — a look as much
as to say, "You're a man, anyway, and you've the
good taste to admire me, and the courage to speak to
me ; you're dirty, but you're a man. If you were well-
dressed, or if it wasn't Sunday, or if it was dark,
or nobody about, I wouldn't mind; I'd let you
* cheek ' me, though I have got satin on." The fellow
" cheeked" her again, told her she had a pretty face,
" cheeked " her right and left. She looked away, but
half smiled ; she had to keep up her dignity, she did
not feel it. She would have liked to have joined
company with him. His leer grew leerier — the low,
cunning leer, so peculiar to the London mongrel, that
seems to say, " I am so intensely knowing ; I am so
very much all there ; " and yet the leerer always
remains in a dirty dress, always smokes the coarsest
tobacco in the nastiest of pipes, and rides on a barrow
to the end of his life. For his leery cunning is so
intensely stupid that, in fact, he is as " green " as
grass : his leer and his foul mouth keep him in the
gutter to his very last day. How much more success-
ful plain, simple straightforwardness would be ! The
pony went on a little, but they drew rein and waited
for the girl again; and again he "cheeked" her.
Still, she looked away, but she did not make any
attempt to escape by the side-path, nor show resent-
ment. No ; her face began to glow, and once or twice
she answered him, but still she would not quite join
company. If only it had not been Sunday — if it had
been a lonely road, and not so near the village, if she
had not had the two tell-tale children with her — she
would have been very good friends with the dirty,

258 THE OPEN AIR.

chalky, ill-favoured, and ill-savoured wretch. At the
parting of the roads each went different ways, but she
could not help looking back.

He was a thorough specimen of the leery London
mongrel. That hideous leer is so repulsive — one
cannot endure it — but it is so common ; you see it on
the faces of four-fifths of the ceaseless stream that
runs out from the ends of the earth of London into
the green sea of the country. It disfigures the faces
of the carters who go with the waggons and other
vehicles — not nomads, but men in steady employ ; it
defaces — absolutely defaces — the workmen who go
forth with vans, with timber, with carpenters' work,
and the policeman standing at the corners, in London
itself particularly. The London leer hangs on their
faces. The Mosaic account of the Creation is dis-
credited in these days, the last revelation took place
at Beckenham ; the Beckenham revelation is superior
to Mount Sinai, yet the consideration of that leer
might suggest the idea of a fall of man even to an
Amcebist. The horribleness of it is in this way, it
hints — it does more than hint, it conveys the leerer's
decided opinion — that you, whether you may be man
or woman, must necessarily be as coarse as himself.
Especially he wants to impress that view upon every
woman who chances to cross his glance. The fist
of Hercules is needed to dash it out of his face.

( 259 )

RED ROOFS OF LONDON.

TILES and tile roofs have a curious way of tumbling
to pieces in an irregular and eye-pleasing manner.
The roof-tree bends, bows a little under the weight,
curves in, and yet preserves a sharpness at each end.
The Chinese exaggerate this curve of set purpose.
Our English curve is softer, being the product of
time, which always works in true taste. The mystery
of tile-laying is not known to every one; for to all
appearance tiles seem to be put on over a thin bed
of hay or hay-like stuff. Lately they have begun to
use some sort of tarpaulin or a coarse material of
that kind ; but the old tiles, I fancy, were comfortably
placed on a shake-down of hay. When one slips
off, little bits of hay stick up; and to these the
sparrows come, removing it bit by bit to line their
nests. If they can find a gap they get in, and a
fresh couple is started in life. By-and-by a chimney
is overthrown during a twist of the wind, and half
a dozen tiles are shattered. Time passes; and at
last the tiler arrives to mend the mischief. His labour
leaves a light red patch on the dark dull red of the
breadth about it. After another while the leaks
along the ridge need plastering : mortar is laid on

200 THE OPEN AIR.

to stay the inroad of wet, adding a dull white and
forming a rough, uncertain undulation along the
general drooping curve. Yellow edgings of straw
project under the eaves — the work of the sparrows.
A cluster of blue-tinted pigeons gathers about the
chimney-side ; the smoke that comes out of the stack
droops and floats sideways, downwards, as if the
chimney enjoyed the smother as a man enjoys his
pipe. Shattered here and cracked yonder, some
missing, some overlapping in curves, the tiles have
an aspect of irregular existence. They are not fixed,
like slates, as it were for ever : they have a newness,
and then a middle-age, and a time of decay like
human beings.

One roof is not much ; but it is often a study.
Put a thousand roofs, say rather thousands of red-
tiled roofs, and overlook them — not at a great altitude,
but at a pleasant easy angle — and then you have the
groundwork of the first view of London over Ber-
mondsey from the railway. I say groundwork,
because the roofs seem the level and surface of the
earth, while the glimpses of streets are glimpses
of catacombs. A city — as something to look at —
depends very much on its roofs. If a city have no
character in its roofs it stirs neither heart nor thought.
These red-tiled roofs of Bermondsey, stretching away
mile upon mile, and brought up at the extremity with
thin masts rising above the mist — these red-tiled
roofs have a distinctiveness, a character; they are
something to think about. Nowhere else is there an
entrance to a city like this. The roads by which you
approach them give you distant aspects — minarets,

EED ROOFS OF LONDON. 261

perhaps, in the East, domes in Italy; but, coming
nearer, the highway somehow plunges into houses,
confounding you with facades, and the real place is
hidden. Here from the railway you see at once the
vastness of London. Eoof-tree behind roof-tree, ridge
behind ridge, is drawn along in succession, line behind
line till they become as close together as the test-lines
used for microscopes. Under this surface of roofs
what a profundity of life there is ! Just as the great
horses in the waggons of London streets convey the
idea of strength, so the endlessness of the view
conveys the idea of a mass of life. Life converges
from every quarter. The iron way has many ruts :
the rails are its ruts ; and by each of these a cease-
less stream of men and women pours over the tiled
roofs into London. They come from the populous
suburbs, from far-away towns and quiet villages, and
from over sea.

Glance down as you pass into the excavations, the
streets, beneath the red surface : you catch a glimpse
of men and women hastening to and fro, of vehicles,
of horses struggling with mighty loads, of groups at
the corners, and fragments, as it were, of crowds.
Busy life everywhere : no stillness, no quiet, no
repose. Life crowded and crushed together ; life
that has hardly room to live. If the train slackens,
look in at the open windows of the houses level with
the line — they are always open for air, smoke-laden
as it is — and see women and children with scarce
room to move, the bed and the dining-table in the
same apartment. For they dine and sleep and work
and play all at the same time. A man works at

262 THE OPEN AIR.

night and sleeps by day : he lies yonder as calmly
as if in a quiet country cottage. The children
have no place to play in but the living-room or
the street. It is not squalor — it is crowded life.
The people are pushed together by the necessities
of existence. These people have no dislike to it at
all : it is right enough to them, and so long as
business is brisk they are happy. The man who lies
sleeping so calmly seems to me to indicate the
immensity of the life around more than all the -rest.
He is oblivious of it all ; it does not make him nervous
or wakeful ; he is so used to it, and bred to it, that
it seems to him nothing. When he is awake he
does not see it ; now he sleeps he does not hear it.
It is only in great woods that you cannot see the
trees. He is like a leaf in a forest — he is not
conscious of it. Long hours of work have given him
slumber; and as he sleeps he seems to express by
contrast the immensity and endlessness of the life
around him.

Sometimes a floating haze, now thicker here, and
now lit up yonder by the sunshine, brings out objects
more distinctly than a clear atmosphere. Away there
tall thin masts stand out, rising straight up above
the red roofs. There is a faint colour on them ; the
yards are dark — being inclined, they do not reflect
the light at an angle to reach us. Half- furled canvas
droops in folds, now swelling a little as the wind
blows, now heavily sinking. One white sail is set
and gleams alone among the dusky folds ; for the
canvas at large is dark with coal-dust, with smoke,
with the grime that settles everywhere where men

RED ROOFS OF LONDON. 263

labour with bare arms and chests. Still and quiet
as trees the masts rise into the hazy air ; who would
think, merely to look at them, of the endless labour
they mean ? The labour to load, and the labour to
unload; the labour at sea, and the long hours of
ploughing the waves by night ; the labour at the
warehouses ; the labour in the fields, the mines, the
mountains ; the labour in the factories. Ever and
again the sunshine gleams now on this group of
masts, now on that ; for they stand in groups as
trees often grow, a thicket here and a thicket yonder.
Labour to obtain the material, labour to bring it
hither, labour to force it into shape — work without
end. Masts are always dreamy to look at : they
speak a romance of the sea ; of unknown lands ; of
distant forests aglow with tropical colours and
abounding with strange forms of life. In the, hearts
of most of us there is always a desire for something
beyond experience. Hardly any of us but have
thought, Some day I will go on a long voyage ; but
the years go by, and still we have not sailed.

264 THE OPEN AIll.

A WET NIGHT IN LONDON.

OPAQUE from rain drawn in slant streaks by wind and'
speed across the pane, the window of the railway
carriage lets nothing be seen but stray flashes of red
lights^the signals rapidly passed. Wrapped in thick
overcoat, collar turned up to his ears, warm gloves
on his hands, and a rug across his knees, the
traveller may well wonder how those red signals and
the points are worked out in the storms of wintry
London. Kain blown in gusts through the misty
atmosphere, gas and smoke-laden, deepens the dark-
ness ; the howl of the blast humming in the telegraph
wires, hurtling round the chimney-pots on a level
with the line, rushing up from the archways ; steam
from the engines, roar, and whistle, shrieking brakes,
and grinding wheels — how is the traffic worked at
night in safety over the inextricable windings of the
iron roads into the City ?

At London Bridge the door is opened by some one
who gets out, and the cold air comes in; there is
a rush of people in damp coats, with dripping um-
brellas, and time enough to notice the archseologically
interesting wooden beams which support the roof of
the South-E astern station. Antique beams they are,.

A WET NIGHT IN' LONDON. 265

good old Norman oak, such as you may sometimes
find in very old country churches that have not been
restored, such as yet exist in Westminster Hall,
temp. Eufus or Stephen, or so. Genuine old wood-
work, worth your while to go and see. Take a.
sketch-book and make much of the ties and angles
and bolts ; ask Whistler or Macbeth, or some one to
etch them, get the Eoyal Antiquarian Society to pay
a visit and issue a pamphlet ; gaze at them reverently
and earnestly, for they are not easily to be matched
in London. Iron girders and spacious roofs are the
modern fashion ; here we have the Middle Ages well-
preserved — slam ! the door is banged-to, onwards,
over the invisible river, more red signals and rain,
and finally the terminus. Five hundred well-dressed
and civilized savages, wet, cross, weary, all anxious
to get in — eager for home and dinner ; five hundred
stiffened and cramped folk equally eager to get out —
mix on a narrow platform, with a train running off
one side, and a detached engine gliding gently after
it. Push, wriggle, wind in and out, bumps from
portmanteaus, and so at last out into the street.

Now, how are you going to get into an omnibus^
The street is "up," the traffic confined to half a
narrow thoroughfare, the little space available at the
side crowded with newsvendors whose contents bills
are spotted and blotted with wet, crowded, too, with
young girls, bonnetless, with aprons over their heads,
whose object is simply to do nothing — just to stand
in the rain and chaff; the newsvendors yell their
news in your ears, then, finding you don't purchase,
they " Yah ! " at you ; an aged crone begs you to buy

266 THE OPEN AIR.

"lights"; a miserable young crone, with pinched
face, offers artificial flowers — oh, Naples ! Kush
comes the rain, and the gas-lamps are dimmed ;
whoo-oo comes the wind like a smack ; cold drops get
in the ears and eyes ; clean wristbands are splotched ;
greasy mud splashed over shining boots; some one
knocks the umbrella round, and the blast all but
turns it. "Wake up!" — "Now then-7-stop here all
night ?"—" Gone to sleep?" They shout, they
curse, they put their hands to their mouths trumpet-
wise and bellow at each other, these cabbies, vanmen,
busmen, all angry at the block in the narrow way.
The 'bus-driver, with London stout, and plenty of it,
polishing his round cheeks like the brasswork of a
locomotive, his neck well wound and buttressed with
thick comforter and collar, heedeth not, but goes on
his round, now fast, now slow, always stolid and
rubicund, the rain running harmlessly from him as if
he were oiled. The conductor, perched like the
showman's monkey behind, hops and twists, and
turns now on one foot and now on the other as if the
plate were red-hot ; now holds on with one hand, and
now dexterously shifts his grasp ; now shouts to the
crowd and waves his hands towards the pavement, and
again looks round the edge of the 'bus forwards and
curses somebody vehemently. " Near side up ! Look
alive ! Full inside " — curses, curses, curses ; rain,
rain, rain, and no one can tell which is most plentiful.
The cab-horse's head comes nearly inside the
'bus, the 'bus-pole threatens to poke the hansom
in front ; the brougham would be careful, for varnish
sake, but is wedged and must take its chance ; van-

A WET NIGHT IN LONDON. 267

wheels catch omnibus hubs ; hurry, scurry, whip,
and drive; slip, slide, bump, rattle, jar, jostle, an
endless stream clattering on, in, out, and round.
On, on — " Stanley, on" — the first and last words of
cabby's life; on, on, the one law of existence in a
London street — drive on, stumble or stand, drive on
— strain sinews, crack, splinter — drive on ; what a
sight to watch as you wait amid the newsvendors and
bonnetless girls for the 'bus that will not come ! Is
it real ? It seems like a dream, those nightmare
dreams in which you know that you must run, and
do run, and yet cannot lift the legs that are heavy as
lead, with the demon behind pursuing, the demon of
Drive-on. Move, or cease to be — pass out of Time
or be stirring quickly; if you stand you must suffer
even here on the pavement, splashed with greasy
mud, shoved by coarse ruffianism, however good your
intentions — just dare to stand still ! Ideas here for
moralizing, but I can't preach with the roar and the
din and the wet in my ears, and the flickering street
lamps flaring. That's the 'bus — no ; the tarpaulin
hangs down and obscures the inscription ; yes. Hi !
No heed ; how could you be so confiding as to
imagine conductor or driver would deign to see a
signalling passenger ; the game is to drive on.

A gentleman makes a desperate rush and grabs
the handrail ; his foot slips on the asphalte or wood,
which is like oil, he slides, his hat totters; happily
he recovers himself and gets in. In the block the
'bus is stayed a moment, and somehow we follow,
and are landed — "somehow" advisedly. For how
>do we get into a 'bus ? After the pavement, even this

268 THE OPEN A IE.

hard seat would be nearly an easy-chair, were it not
for the damp smell of soaked overcoats, the ceaseless
rumble, and the knockings overhead outside. The
noise is immensely worse than the shaking or the
steamy atmosphere, the noise ground into the ears,
and wearying the mind to a state of drowsy narcotism
— you become chloroformed through the sense of
hearing, a condition of dreary resignation and uncom-
fortable ease. The illuminated shops seem to pass
like an endless window without division of doors ;
there are groups of people staring in at them in spite
of the rain ; ill-clad, half-starving people for the most
part ; the well-dressed hurry onwards ; they have
homes. A dull feeling of satisfaction creeps over you
that you are at least in shelter ; the rumble is a little
better than the wind and the rain and the puddles.
If the Greek sculptors were to come to life again and
cut us out in bas-relief for another Parthenon, they
would have to represent us shuffling along, heads
down and coat-tails flying, splash- splosh — a nation of
umbrellas.

Under a broad archway, gaily lighted, the broad
and happy way to a theatre, there is a small crowd
waiting, and among them two ladies, with their backs
to the photographs and bills, looking out into the
street. They stand side by side, evidently quite
oblivious and indifferent to the motley folk about
them, chatting and laughing, taking the wet and
windy wretchedness of the night as a joke. They
are both plump and rosy-cheeked, dark eyes gleaming
and red lips parted; both decidedly good-looking,
much too rosy and full-faced, too well fed and;

A WET NIGHT IN LONDON. 269

comfortable to take a prize from Burne-Jones, very
worldly people in the roast-beef sense. Their faces
glow in the bright light — merry sea coal-fire faces;
they have never turned their backs on the good
things of this life. "Never shut the door on good
fortune," as Queen Isabella of Spain says. Wind
and rain may howl and splash, but here are two
faces they never have touched — rags and battered
shoes drift along the pavement — no wet feet or
cold necks here. Best of all they glow with good
spirits, they laugh, they chat ; they are full of
enjoyment, clothed thickly with health and happi-
ness, as their shoulders — good wide shoulders — are
thickly wrapped in warmest furs. The 'bus goes
on, and they are lost to view; if you came back
in an hour you would find them still there without
doubt — still jolly, chatting, smiling, waiting perhaps
for the stage, but anyhow far removed, like the
goddesses on Olympus, from the splash and misery
of London. Drive on.

The head ~of a great gray horse in a van drawn up
by the pavement, the head and neck stand out and
conquer the rain and misty dinginess by sheer force of
of beauty, sheer strength of character. He turns his
head — his neck forms a fine curve, his face is full of
intelligence, in spite of the half dim light and the
driving rain, of the thick atmosphere, and the black
hollow of the covered van behind, his head and neck
stand out, just as in old portraits the face is still
bright, though surrounded with crusted varnish. It
would be a glory to any man to paint him. Drive on.

How strange the dim, uncertain faces of the crowd,

270 THE OPEN AIR.

half-seen, seem in the hurry and rain ; faces held
downwards and muffled by the darkness — not quite
human in their eager and intensely concentrated
haste. No one thinks of or notices another — on,
on — splash, shove, and scramble ; an intense selfish-
ness, so selfish as not to be selfish, if that can be
understood, so absorbed as to be past observing
that any one lives but themselves. -Human beings
reduced to mere hurrying machines, worked by wind
and rain, and stern necessities of life ; driven on ;
something very hard and unhappy in the thought of
this. They seem reduced to the condition of the
wooden cabs — the mere vehicles — pulled along by the
irresistible horse Circumstance. They shut their
eyes mentally, wrap themselves in the overcoat of
indifference, and drive on, drive on. It is time
to get out at last. The 'bus stops on one side
of the street, and you have to cross to the other.
Look up and down — lights are rushing each way, but
for the moment none are close. The gas-lamps shine
in the puddles of thick greasy water, and by their
gleam you can guide yourself round them. Cab
coming ! Surely he will give way a little and not
force you into that great puddle ; no, he neither sees,
nor cares, Drive on, drive on. Quick ! the shafts !
Step in the puddle and save your life !

THE END.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

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Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 6s.; post 8vo,
illustrated boards, 2s.
The Englishman of the Rue Cai'n.
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Woolley.— Rachel Armstrong;

or, Love and Theology. By CELIA
PARKER WOOLLEY. Post 8vo, illus-
trated boards, 2s. ; cloth, 2s. 6d.

Words, Facts, and Phrases:

A Dictionary of Curious, Quaint, and
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EDWARDS. New and cheaper issue,
cr. 8vo,cl. ex., 7s. 6d. ; half-bound, 9s.

Wright (Thomas), Works by:

Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7s. 6d. each.

Caricature History of the Georges.
(The House of Hanover.) With 400
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History of Caricature and of the
Grotesque in Art, Literature,
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Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2s. each.

Castaway.
Land at Last. | The Forlorn Hope

CHATTO (S- IV INDUS, PICCADILLY,

27

NEW NOVELS AT

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THE PICCADILLY NOVELS.

Popular Stories by the Best Authors. LIBRARY EDITIONS, many Illustrated,
crown 8vo, cloth extra, 3s. 6d. each.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN

HERRING."
Red Spider. | Eve.

BY GRANT ALLEN.
Phllistia.

For Maimie1 Sake.
The Devil's Die.
The Tents of Shem.

BY WALTER BESANT & J. RICE.
Ready-Money Mortiboy.
My Little Girl.
The Case of Mr. Lucraft.
This Son of Vulcan.
With Harp and Crown.
The Golden Butterfly.
By Celia's Arbour.
The Monks of Thelema.
'Twas in Trafalgar's Bay.
The Seamy Side.
The Ten Years' Tenant.
The Chaplain of the Fleet.

BY WALTER BESANT.
All Sorts and Conditions of Men.
The Captains' Room.
All in a Garden Fair.
Dorothy Forster. | Uncle Jack.
Children of Gibeon.
The World Went Very Well Then.
Herr Paulus.
For Faith and Freedom.

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN.
A Child of Nature.
God and the Man.
The Shadow of the Sword.
The Martyrdom of Madeline.
Love Me for Ever.

Annan Water. I The New Abelard
Matt. | Foxglove Manor.

The Master of the Mine.
The Heir of Llnne.

BY HALL CAINE.
The Shadow of a Crime.
A Son of Hagar. | The Deemster.

BY MRS. H. LOVETT CAMERON.
Juliet's Guardian. | Deceivers Ever

BY MORTIMER COLLINS.
Sweet Anne Page. | Transmigration.
From Midnight to Midnight.
MORTIMER &• FRANCES COLLINS.
Blacksmith and Scholar.
The Village Comedy,
You Play me False.

BY WILKIE COLLINS.

The Law and the

Lady.

TheTwo Destinies
Haunted Hotel.
The Fallen Leaves
Jezebel'sDaughter
The Black Robe.
Heart and Science
" I Say No."
Little Novels.
The Evil Genius.
The Legacy of

Cain.

Antonlna.
Basil.

Hide and Seek.
The Dead Secret
Queen of Hearts.
My Miscellanies.
Woman in White.
The Moonstone.
Man and Wife.
Poor Miss Finch.
Miss or Mrs. ?
New Magdalen.
The Frozen Deep.

BY BUTTON COOK.
Paul Foster's Daughter.

BY WILLIAM CYPLES.
Hearts of Gold.

BY ALPHONSE DAUDET.
The Evangelist; or, Port Salvation.

BY JAMES DE MILLE.
A Castle in Spain.

BY J. LEITH DERWENT.
Our Lady of Tears.
Circe's Lovers.

BY M. BETHAM-EDWARDS.
Felicia.

BY MRS. ANNIE EDWARDES.
Archie Lovell.

BY PERCY FITZGERALD.
Fatal Zero.

BY R. E. FRANCILLON.
Queen Cophetua. I A Real Queen.
One by One. | King or Knave ?

Prefaced by Sir BARTLE FRERE.
Pandurang Hart

23

BOOKS PUBLISHED BY

PICCADILLY NOVELS, continued—

BY EDWARD GARRETT.
The Capel Girls.

BY CHARLES GIBBON.
Robin Gray.

What will the World Say?
In Honour Bound.
Queen of the Meadow.
The Flower of the Forest.
A Heart's Problem.
The Braes of Yarrow.
The Golden Shaft.
Of High Degree.
Loving a Dream.

BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
Garth.

Ellice Quentln.
Sebastian Strome.
Dust.

Fortune's Fool.
Beatrix Randolph.
David Poindexter's Disappearance
The Spectre of the Camera.

BY SIR A. HELPS.
Ivan de Biron.

BY ISAAC HENDERSON.
Agatha Page.

BY MRS. ALFRED HUNT.
Thornicroft's Model.
The Leaden Casket.
Self-Condemned.
That other Person.

BY JEAN INGELOW.
Fated to be Free.

BY R. ASHE KING.
A Drawn Game.
"The Wearing of the Green."

BY HENRY KINGSLEY.
Number Seventeen.

BY E. LYNN LINTON.
Patricia Kemball.
Atonement of Learn Dundas.
The World Well Lost.
Under which Lord?
" My Love !"
lone.
Paston Carew.

BY HENRY W. LUCY.
Gideon Fleyce.

BY JUSTIN MCCARTHY.

The Waterdale Neighbours.
A Fair Saxon.
Dear Lady Disdain.
Miss Misanthrope.
Donna Quixote.
The Comet of a Season.
Maid of Athens.
Camiola.

BY MRS. MACDONELL.
Quaker Cousins.

PICCADILLY NOVELS c&ntinued—
BY FLORENCE MARRY AT.

Open ! Sesame !

BY D. CHRISTIE MURRAY.

Life's Atonement. I Coals of Fire.

Joseph's Coat. Val Strange.

A Model Father*. | Hearts.

By the Gate of the Sea.

A Bit of Human Nature.

First Person Singular.

Cynic Fortune.

The Way of the World.

BY MRS. OLIPHANT.

Whiteladies.

BY QUID A.

Held In Bondage.

TwoLittleWooden

Strathmore. -

Shoes.

Chandos.
Under Two Flags.

In a Winter City.
Ariadne.

Id alia.

Friendship.

Cecil Castle-

Moths.

maine's Gage.
Tricotrin.

Pipistrello.
A Village Com-

Puck.

mune.

Folle Farlne.

Bimbi.

ADog of Flanders

Wanda.

Pascarel.

Frescoes.

Signa.

In Maremma

Princess Naprax-

Othmar.

ine. 'Guilderoy.

BY MARGARET A. PAUL.

Gentle and Simple.

BY JAMES PAYN.

Lost Sir Massing-

A Grape from a

berd.

Thorn.

Less Black than

Some Private

We're Painted.

Views.

By Proxy.

TheCanon'sWard.

High Spirits.

Glow-worm Tales.

Under One Roof.

In Peril and Pri-

A Confidential

vation.

Agent.

Holiday Tasks.

From Exile.

The Mystery of

Mirbridge.

BY E. C. PRICE.
Valentlna. | The Foreigners.

Mrs. Lancaster's Rival.

BY CHARLES READS.
It Is Never Too Late to Mend.
Hard Cash. j Peg Wofflngton.
Christie Johnstone.
Griffith Gaunt. | Foul Play.
The Double Marriage.
Love Me Little, Love Me Long.
The Cloister and the Hearth.
The Course of True Love
The Autobiography of a Thief.
Put Yourself in His Place.
A Terrible Temptation
The Wandering Heir. I A Simpleton.
A Woman-Hater. | Readlana.
Singleheart and Doubleface.
The Jilt.

Good Stories of Men and othe*
Animals.

CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY.

PICCADILLY NOVELS, continued—

BY MRS. J. H. RID DELL.
Her Mother's Darling.
Prince of Wales's Garden-Party.
Weird Stories.^

Women are Strange.
The Hands of Justice.

BY JOHN SAUNDERS.
Bound to the Wheel.
Guy Waterman. | Two Dreamers.
The Lion In the Path.

BY KATHARINE SAUNDERS.
Margaret and Elizabeth.
Gideon's Rock. I Heart Salvage,
The High Mills. Sebastian.

BY T. W. SPEIGHT.
The Mysteries of Heron Dyke.
BY R. A. STERN DALE.
The Afghan Knife.

BY BERTHA THOMAS.
Proud Maisie. | Cresslda.
The Violin-Player.

PICCADILLY NOVELS, continued—
BY ANTHONY TROLLOPS.

The Way we Live Now.

Frau Frohmann. I Marion Fay.

Kept in the Dark.

Mr. Scarborough's Family.

The Land-Leaguers.

BY FRANCES E. TROLLOPS.

Like Ships upon the Sea.

Anne Furness. | Mabel's Progress.
BY IVAN TURGENIEFF, &c.

Stories from Foreign Novelists.
BY SARAH TYTLER.

What She Came Through.

The Bride's Pass. | Saint Mungo's City.

Beauty and the Beast.

Noblesse Oblige.

Cltoyenne Jacqueline.

Lady Bell. | Buried Diamonds.

The Blackhall Ghosts.

BY C. C. FRASER-TYTLER.

Mistress Judith.

CHEAP EDITIONS OF POPULAR NOVELS.

Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2s. each.

BY THE A UTHOR OF"MEHALAH."
Red Spider.

BY EDMOND ABOUT.
The Fellah.

BY HAMILTON AIDE.
Carr of Carrlyon. | Confidences.

BY MRS. ALEXANDER.
Maid, Wife, or Widow ?
Valerie's Fate.

BY GRANT ALLEN.
Strange Stories.
Philistia.
Babylon.
In all Shades.
The Beckoning'Hand.
For Maimie's Sake.

BY SHELSLEY BEAUCHAMP.
Grantley Grange.

BY WALTER BESANT &• J. RICE.
Ready-Money Mortiboy.
With Harp and Crown.
This Son of Vulcan. | My Little Girl.
The Case of Mr. Lucraft.
The Golden Butterfly.
By Celia's Arbour
The Monks of Thelema.
'Twas in Trafalgar's Bay.
The Seamy Side.
The Ten Years' Tenant.
The Chaplain of the Fleet.

BY WALTER BESANT.
All Sorts and Conditions of Men.
The Captains' Room.
All In a Garden Fair.
Dorothy Forster.
Uncle Jack.
Children of Glbeon.
The World Went Very Well Then.

BY FREDERICK BOYLE.
Camp Notes. | Savage Life.
Chronicles of No-man's Land.

BY BRET HARTE.
An Heiress of Red Dog.
The Luck of Roaring Camp.
Californlan Stories.
Gabriel Conroy. | Flip.
Maruja. | A Phyllis of the Sierras*
A Waif of the Plains.

BY HAROLD BRYDGES.
Uncle Sam at Home.

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN.

The Shadow of The Martyrdom

the Sword. of Madeline.

A Child of Nature. Annan Water.

God and the Man. The New Abelard

Love Me for Ever. Matt.

Foxglove Manor. TheHelrof Llnne
The Master of the Mine.

BY HALL CAINE.
The Shadow of a Crime.
A Son of Hagar. | The Deemster.
BY COMMANDER CAMERON.
The Cruise of the " Black Prince."
BY MRS. LOVETT CAMERON
Deceivers Ever. | Juliet's Guardian.

BY MACLAREN COBBAN.
The Cure of Souls.

BY C. ALLSTON COLLINS.
The Bar Sinister.

BY WILKIB COLLINS.
Antonina, My Miscellanies.

Basil. Woman In White

Hide and Seek. The Moonstone
The Dead Secret. Man and Wife
Queen of Hearts. POOP Miss Finch.

BOOKS PUBLISHED BY

CHEAP POPULAR NOVELS, continued—
WILKIE COLLINS, continued.

Miss OP Mrs.P
New Magdalen.
The Frozen Deep.
The Law and the

Lady.

TheTwo Destinies
Haunted Hotel.

The Fallen Leave
Jezebel'sDaughte
The Black Robe.
Heart and Scienc
"I Say No."
The Evil Genius.
Little Novels.

BY MORTIMER COLLINS.
Sweet Anne Page. I From Midnight to
Transmigration. | Midnight.
A Fight with Fortune.
MORTIMER & FRANCES COLLINS.
Sweet and Twenty. | Frances.
Blacksmith and Scholar.
The Village Comedy.
You Play me False.

BY M. J. COLQUHOUN.
Every Inch a Soldier.

BY MONCURE D. CON WAY.
Pine and Palm.

BY BUTTON COOK.
Leo. | Paul Foster's Daughter.

BY C. EGBERT CRADDOCK.
The Prophet of the Great Smoky
Mountains.

BY WILLIAM CYPLES.
Hearts of Gold.

BY ALPHONSE DAUDET.
The Evangelist; or, Port Salvation.

BY JAMES DE MILLE.
A Castle In Spain

BY J. LEITH DERWENT.
Our Lady of Tears. I Circe's Lovers.

BY CHARLES DICKENS.
Sketches by Boz. I Oliver Twist.
Pickwick Papers. | Nicholas Nickleby

BY DICK DONOVAN.
The Man-Hunter.
Caught at Last !

BY MRS. ANNIE EDWARDES.
Point of Honour. | Archie Lovell.

BY M. BETHAM-EDWARDS.
Felicia. | Kitty.

BY EDWARD EGGLESTON.
Roxy.

BY PERCY FITZGERALD.
Bella Donna. | Never Forgotten.
The Second Mrs. Tiilotson.
Polly. | Fatal Zero.

Seventy-five Brooke Street.
The Lady of Brantome.
BY ALBANY DE FONBLANQUE.
Filthy Lucre.

BY R. E. FRANCILLON.
Olympia. I Queen Cophetua.

One by One. I A Real Queen.

BY HAROLD FREDERIC.
Seth's Brother's Wife.

BY HA IN FRISWELL.
One of Two.

BY EDWARD GARRETT,
The Capel Girls.

CHEAP POPULAR NOVELS, continued-'
BY CHARLES GIBBON.

Robin Gray.

For Lack of Gold.

What will the
World Say?

In Love and War.

For the King.

In Pastures Green

Queen of the Mea-
dow.

A Heart's Problem

The Flower of the

Forest.

Braes of Yarrow.
The Golden Shaft.
Of High Degree.
Mead and Stream.
Loving a Dream.
A Hard Knot.
Heart's Delight.
Blood-Money.

The Dead Heart.

BY WILLIAM GILBERT.
Dr. Austin's Guests. | James Duke.
The Wizard of the Mountain.

BY JOHN HABBERTON.
Brueton's Bayoli. | Country Luck.

BY ANDREW HALLWAY.
Every-Day Papers.

BY LADY DUFFUS HARDY.
Paul Wynter's Sacrifice.

BY THOMAS HARDY.
Under the Greenwood Tree.

BY J. BERWICK HARWOOD.
The Tenth Earl.

BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
Garth. I Sebastian Strome

ElliceQuentin. | Dust.
Fortune's Fool. I Beatrix Randolph.
Miss Cadogna. | Love— or a Name.
David Poindexter's Disappearance.

BYSIR ARTHUR HELPS.
Ivan de Biron.

BY MRS. CASHEL HOEY.
The Lover's Creed.

BY MRS. GEORGE HOOPER.
The House of Raby.

BY TIGHE HOPKINS.
'Twixt Love and Duty.

BY MRS. ALFRED HUNT.
Thornicroft's Model.
The Leaden Casket.
Self-Condemned. | That other Person

BY JEAN INGELOW.
Fated to be Free.

BY HARRIETT JAY.
The Dark Colleen.
The Queen of Connaught.

BY MARK KERSHAW,
Colonial Facts and Fictions.
BY R. A SHE KING.
A Drawn Game.
'The Wearing of the Green."

BY HENRY KINGSLEY.
Oakshott Castle

BY JOHN LEYS.
The Lindsays.

BY MARY LI NS KILL.
n Exchange for a Soul.

BY E. LYNN LINTON.
atricla Kemball.
he Atonement of Leam Dunda*.

CtiATtO &• WINDUS, PICCADILLY.

CHEAP POPULAR NOVELS, continued—

E. LYNN LINTON, continued —
The World Well Lost.
Under which Lord ? | Paston Carew.
With a Silken Thread.
The Rebel of the Family.
"My Love." | lone.

BY HENRY W. LUCY.
Gideon Ffeyce.

BY JUSTIN MCCARTHY.

MissMisanthrope
Donna Quixote.
The Comet of a

Season.

Maid of Athens.
Car lola.

Dear Lady Disdain
The Waterdale

Neighbours.
My Enemy's

Daughter.
A Fair Saxon.
Linley Rochford.

BY MRS. MACDONELL.

Quaker Cousins.

BY KATHARINE S. MACQUOID.
The Evil Eye. | Lost Rose.

BY W.H. MAL^OCK.
The New Republic.

BY FLORENCE MARRY AT.

Fighting the Air,
Written in Fire.

Open! Sesame.
A Harvest o£ Wild
Oats.

BY J. MASTERMANt
•Half-a-dozen Daughters.

BY BRANDER MATTHEWS.
A Secret of the Sea.

BY JEAN MIDDLEMASS.
Touch and Go. | Mr. Dorillion.

BY MRS. MOLESWORTH.
Hathercourt Rectory.

BY J. E. MUDDOCK.
Stories Weird and Wonderful.

BY D. CHRISTIE MURRAY.
ALIfe'sAtonement Hearts.
A Model Father. Way of the World/
Joseph's Coat. A Bit of Human
Coals of Fire. Nature.

By the Gate of the First Person Sin-
Val Strange. [Sea. gular.
Old Blazer's Hero. Cynic Fortune.

BY ALICE O'HANLON,
The Unforeseen. | Chance ? or Fate P

BY MRS. OLIPHANT.
Whlteladies. | The Primrose Path.
The Greatest Heiress In England.
BY MRS. ROBERT O'REILLY.
Phoebe's Fortunes.

BY OUIDA.

Held In Bondage. TwoLlttleWooden
Strathmore.
Chandos.
Under Two Flags.
Idalla.

Cecil Castle-
on alne's Gage.
Tricotrin. | Puck.
Folle Farlne.
A Dog of Flanders.

Pascarel.
Sign a. (Jne.

Princess Naprax-
In a Winter City.

Shoes.

Ariadne.

Friendship.

Moths.

Pipistrello.

A Village Com-
mune.

Bimbi. | Wanda.

Frescoes.

In Maremma.

Othmar.

Wisdom, Wit, and
Pathos.

CHEAP POPULAR NOVELS, continued—'
BY MARGARET AGNES PAUL.
Gentle and Simple.

BY JAMES PAYN.

Marine Residence.
Married Beneath

Him.

Mirk Abbey.
Not Wooed, but

Won.
Less Black than

We're Painted.
By Proxy.
Under One Roof.
High Spirits.
Carlyon's Year.
A Confidential

Agent.
Some Private

Views.
From Exile.
A Grape from a

Thorn.

For Cash Only.
Kit: A Memory.
The Canon's Ward
Talk of the Town.
Holiday Tasks.
Glow-worm Tales

Lost Sir Massing-
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APerfectTreasure

Bentlnck's Tutor.

Murphy's Master.

A County Family.

At Her Mercy.

A Woman's Ven-
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Cecil's Tryst.

Clyffards of Clyffe

The Family Scape-
grace.

Foster Brothers.

Found Dead.

Best of Husbands.

Walter's Word.

Halves.

Fallen Fortunes.

What He Cost Her

HumorousStorles

Gwendoline's Har-
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£200 Reward.

Like Father, Like
Son.

BY C. L. PIRKIS.

Lady Lovelace.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

The Mystery of Marie Roget.
BY E. C. PRICE.

Valentlna. | The Foreigners

Mrs. Lancaster's Rival.

Gerald.

BY CHARLES READS.

It Is Never Too Late to Mend.

Hard Cash. | Peg Wofflngtor

Christie Johnstone.

Griffith Gaunt.

Put Yourself in His Place.

The Douole Marriage.

Love Me Little, Love Me Long.

Foul Play.

The Cloister and the Hearth.

The Course of True Love.

Autobiography of a Thief.

A Terrible Temptation.

The Wandering Heir.

A Simpleton. I A Woman-Hater*,

Readiana. The Jilt.

Slngieheart and Doubleface.

Good Stories of Men and other
Animals.

BY MRS. J. H. RIDDELL.

Her Mother's Darling.

Prince of Wales's Garden Party.

Weird Stories. | Fairy Water-.

The Uninhabited House.

The Mystery in Palace Gardens.
BY F. W. ROBINSON.

Women are Strange.

The Hands of Justice.

34 BOOKS PUBLISHED J3Y CHATfO & WltfDVS.

CHEAP POPULAR NOVELS, continued —

BY JAMES RUNCIMAN.
Skippers and Shellbacks.
Grace Balmalgn's Sweetheart.
Schools and Scholars.

BY W. CLARK RUSSELL
Round the Galley Fire.
On the Fo'k'sle Head.
In the Middle Watch.
A Voyage to the Cape-
A Book for the Hammock.

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Gaslight and Daylight.

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Bound to the Wheel.
Guy Waterman. | Two Dreamers.
The Lion in the Path.

BY KATHARINE SAUNDERS.
Joan Merry weat hen. | The High Mills.
Margaret and Elizabeth.
Heart Salvage. | Sebastian.

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Rogues and Vagabonds.
The Ring o' Bells.l Mary Jane Married.
Mary Jane's Memoirs.
Tales of To-day.

BY ARTHUR SKETCHLEY.
A Match in the Dark.

BY T. W. SPEIGHT.
The Mysteries of Heron Dyke.
The Golden Hoop. | By Devious Ways.

BY R. A. STERNDALE.
The Afghan Knife.

BY R. LOUIS STEVENSON.
New Arabian Nights. | Prince Otto.

BY BERTHA THOMAS.
Cressida. | Proud Maisle.

The Violin-Player.

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A Fight for Life.

BY WALTER THORNBURY.
Tales for the Marines.
Old Stories Re-told.

BY T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.
Diamond Cut Diamond.

BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE.
The Way We Live Now.
The American Senator.
Frau Frohmann. | Marlon Fay.
Kept In the Dark.
Mr. Scarborough's Family.
The Land-Leaguers.! John Cald igate
The Golden Lion of Granpere.

By F. ELEANOR TROLLOPE.
Like Ships upon the Sea.
Anne Furness. | Mabel's Progress.

BY J.T. TROW BRIDGE.
Farnell's Folly.

BY IVAN TURGENIEFF, &c.
Stories from Foreign Novelists.

CHEAP POPULAR NOVELS, continued-*

BY MARK TWAIN.
Tom Sawyer. | A Tramp Abroad.
The Stolen White Elephant.
APIeasure Trip on the Continent.
Huckleberry Finn. [of Europe.

Life on the Mississippi.
The Prince and the Pauper.

BY C. C. FRASER-TYTLER.
Mistress Judith.

BY SARAH TYTLER.
What She Came Through.
The Bride's Pass.j Buried Diamonds
Saint Mungo's City.
Beauty and the Beast.
Lady Bell. | Noblesse Oblige.
Citoyenne Jacqueline | Disappeared
The Huguenot Family.

BY J. S. WINTER.
Cavalry Life. | Regimental Legends.

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The Passenger from Scotland Yard.

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Sablna.

BY CELIA PARKER WOOLLEY.

Rachel Armstrong; or.Love&Theology.

BY EDMUND YATES.

Castaway.
The Forlorn Hope. | Land at Last.

ANONYMOUS.
Why Paul Per roll Killed his Wife.

POPULAR SHILLING BOOKS.
Jeff Briggs's Love Story. By BRET

HARTE.
The Twins of Table Mountain. By

BRET HARTE.

A Day's Tour. By PERCY FITZGERALD.
Mrs. Gainsborough's Diamonds. By

JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
A Romance of the Queen's Hounds.

By CHARLES JAMES.
Trooping with Crows. ByC. L. PIRKIS
The Professor's Wife. By L. GRAHAM.
A Double Bond. By LINDA VILLARI.
Esther's Glove. By R. E. FRANCILLON.
The Garden that Paid the Rent.

By TOM JERROLD.

Beyond the Gates. By E. S. PHELPS.
Old Maid's Paradise. By E. S. PHELPS.
Burglars in Paradise. ByE.S.PHELPS.
Jack the Fisherman. ByE.S.PHELPS.
Our Sensation Novel. Edited by

JUSTIN H. MCCARTHY, M.P.
Dolly. By ditto. [WORTH.

That Girl in Black. By Mrs. MOLES-
Was She Good or Bad P ByW.MiNTO.
Bible Characters. By CHAS. READE.
TheDagonet Reciter. ByG.R. SIMS.
How the Poor Live. By G. R. SIMS.

J. OGDBM AND CO, MMITBDi PWHTBRS, GREAT BAFFROH HILL, E.C,

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