"Hail to thee, blithe spirit!Bird thou never wert,That from heaven or near it,Pourest thy full heart."—SHELLEY:To a Skylark.
We read of the peacocks which Solomon's navy of Tarshish brought once in three years with other rare and precious commodities to contribute to the splendour of his court; and doubtless their magnificence added a distinct feature even where so much that was beautiful was to be seen; but, to show itself off to the best advantage, one cannot imagine a better place for a peacock than a grey old English home, round whose mellow stone walls time is lingering lovingly. The touch of brilliant life beside the appeal of the venerable past adds perfection to the picture. I have always had an immense admiration for peacocks, and soon after I came to Aldington I bought a pair. The cock we named Gabriel Junks, after the famous bird in one of Scrutator's books; he was a grand presence, and loved to display the huge fan of his gorgeously-eyed tail, quivering his rattling quills in all the glory of its greens and blues, and cinnamon-coloured wing feathers, on the little piece of lawn under the chestnut trees in front of the Manor.
He learned to come to the window every morning at breakfast-time for a piece of bread-and-butter, and if the window was closed he would rap impatiently upon it with his beak. He roosted in the orchard just across the road on the trunk of an ancient leaning apple-tree. One night Bell heard a terrible fluttering, and looking out saw a fox making off with the peacock; he shouted and the fox dropped the peacock and bolted. Gabriel was not hurt, but sadly ruffled inwardly and outwardly, though, next day, he was quite happy and apparently unconscious of his narrow escape. But alas! some months later Reynard paid another visit, and poor Gabriel was never seen again. Some years after we bought another pair, not nearly so tame as the first, and sometimes flying on to the cottage roofs and scraping holes in the thatch in which to bask in the sun. The villagers complained that the birds sat under their black currant bushes, and devoured the currants as fast as they ripened! We could not keep them within bounds, and later sold them to St. John's College, Oxford, where we saw them soon afterwards in good plumage, and exactly in keeping with their beautiful surroundings.
One of my neighbours appeared to find these birds a special infliction, and complained of the invasion of his premises by "them paycocks." The word "pea" is always rendered "pay" in Worcestershire, and, like "tay" for "tea," is probably the old correct pronunciation. I lately saw a notice on some tumble-down premises near Southampton, "Pay and bane stiks for sale." Another notice, not too happily composed, is to be seen at a Forest village; after the owner's name, "Carpenter, builder and undertaker—repairs neatly executed."
The neighbour referred to was exercised in his mind as to my position in various unwelcome parochial offices, but I was completely mystified when he told me that he had read in history of a King Alfred, but had never heard of a King Arthur. I did not grasp the force of his remark, possibly because King Arthur was a familiar character to me, until I was nearly at my own door, when it dawned upon me to my intense enjoyment. If the reader fails, like me, to see the point, let him turn to the title-page of this book, and read the name of the writer.
The only real objection to peacocks, under ordinary conditions, is the discordance of their cries, especially in thundery weather, when they scream in answer to every thunder-clap. Cock pheasants, relatives of the peacock, crow loudly at any unusual noise; and I have known them expostulate at the report of a gun; they took flight, after running to a safe distance, and their crow appeared to be in the nature of a challenge or defiance, just as a barn-door cock will exult if you give him the idea that he has driven you away.
When the vessel which carried the coffin of Queen Victoria was crossing the Solent, in 1901, some very heavy salutes were fired from the battleships, and, the day being still and the air clear, the detonations carried to an immense distance. They were distinctly heard at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, only fourteen miles from Aldington and a distance of nearly one hundred miles from the guns, in a direct line. The reports were so loud at Woodstock, near Oxford, that the pheasants began crowing in the Blenheim preserves.
At Alton there were some extensive woods and coppices on the farm, which were favourite breeding-places for pheasants, being dry and sunny. Some months before October 1, when pheasant shooting begins, a white pheasant was seen, and although he disappeared for a time, he fell eventually to the gun of the tenant. He was a beautiful bird, and was considered worth stuffing as a rarity. Albinism is not uncommon in the blackbird; I have seen two partial instances lately; one was constantly visible in my garden and meadows, with head nearly all white, and the other I saw in the public garden at Bournemouth, with the peculiarity still more developed. A white martin, or swallow, came into the house of a friend near Aldington, and was regarded as an unfavourable omen. Melanism, the opposite of albinism, is rarer, and the only instance I have seen was that of a black bullfinch at Aldington; it had evidently been mobbed as a stranger by other birds of its kind, as it was injured and nearly dead when captured. I had the specimen stuffed as a curiosity, though I am not fond of stuffed birds. It is said that hemp-seed, if given in undue quantities to cage bullfinches, will produce the black colour, even upon a bird of quite natural plumage originally, and a case of the kind is mentioned by Gilbert White.
Aldington, with its quiet apple orchards and the "island" and shrubberies below my garden, was a happy refuge for birds of all kinds, and the old pollard-willow heads a favourite nesting-place. Worcestershire people have some very curious names for birds, and some of these are also heard in Hampshire and Dorset. The green woodpecker is the "stock-eagle," "ekal," or "hickle," both in Worcestershire and Hampshire, and the word survives too in "Hickle Brook" in the Forest, and in "Hickle Street," a part of Buckle Street in Worcestershire. As a boy I once marked a green woodpecker into one of the round holes we see quite newly cut by the bird in an oak; getting a butterfly net I clapped it over the hole, caught the bird, took it home and placed it in a wicker cage. Then, returning to the tree with a chisel and mallet, I cut a hole about a foot below the entrance to the nest, only to find young birds instead of the eggs for which I had hoped. I went home to see how my captive was getting on; she was gone, and her method of escape was plain, one or two of the wicker bars being neatly cut through. I had forgotten the power of "stocking" of a "stock-eagle," for that is the meaning of the prefix in the name.
The laughing cry of the green woodpecker, or "yaffle," as the bird is by onomatopoeia called in some parts, is regarded as a sign of rain. I doubt whether it should be always so interpreted, for I know it is sometimes a sign of distress or call for help, having heard it from one in full flight from a pursuing hawk. Other curious local names of birds in Worcestershire are "Blue Isaac" for hedge sparrow, "mumruffin" for long-tailed tit, "maggot" for magpie, and the heron is always called "bittern" (really quite a distinct bird). There are innumerable rhymes as to the signification of numbers where magpies are concerned, but the most complete I have heard runs thus:
"One's joy, two's grief,Three's marriage, four's death,Five's heaven, six is hell,Seven's the devil his own sel'."
Other rhymes make "one" an unlucky number, and there are many people in Worcestershire who never see a solitary magpie without touching their hats to avert the omen, and convert it to one of good-luck; as a man once said to me, "It is as well not to lose a chance."
The kingfisher, I suppose the most beautiful of British birds, was, with all my brooks, a common bird at Aldington. Its steady flight, following the course of a stream, and its brilliant colouring make it very conspicuous, its turquoise blue varying to dark green, and its orange breast flashing in the sun. I found a nest in a water-rat's old hole, with six very transparent white eggs, deriving a rosy tint from the yolk, almost visible, within the shell. The hole had an entrance above the bank, descended vertically, turned at a right angle where the nest, merely a layer of small fish-bones, was placed, and ended horizontally on the side of the bank. I once saw six young kingfishers sitting side by side on a dead branch, close together, evidently just out of the nest. And I was fortunate in seeing a kingfisher dart upon the water, hover for an instant like a hawk-moth over honeysuckle, and, having caught a small gudgeon, fly away with it in its beak. They, like the martin, always perch on leafless wood, so that the leaves shall not impede their flight when pouncing upon a fish, and no doubt this is the reason they sometimes perch on the top joint of the rod of a hidden fisherman.
The nuthatch, called here the "mud-dauber," from its habit of narrowing the hole of a starling's old nest, with mud, for its own use as a nesting-place, is a more common bird in the Forest than in Worcestershire. It is a provident bird, firmly wedging hazel nuts in the autumn into crevices of the Scots-fir, for a winter store, Bewick mentions that it uses these crevices as vices, to hold the nut securely, while it cracks it; but he does not recognize the fact that they have been stored long previously. I have seen a great number of nuts so stored and quite sound.
Bewick, by the way, who wrote hisHistory of British Birdsin 1797, presents in one of his inimitable "tailpiece" wood-cuts a prevision of the aeroplane. The picture shows the airman seated in a winged car, guiding with reins thirteen harnessed herons as the motive power, and mounting upwards, apparently very near the moon. If he can see the modern interpretation of his dream he must be pleasantly surprised. Bewick's woodcock is one of the most beautiful portraits in the book: the accurate detail of the feather markings of the wings and back and the softer tone of the breast are as nearly perfection as possible. A woodcock visited Aldington in one of the very severe winters but managed to elude all pursuers. It has been said, and also contradicted, that the woodcock when rising from the ground uses its long bill as a lever to assist its starting, just as an oarsman pushes off from the bank with a boat-hook or oar; I myself have seen one rising from a bare and marshy place, and the position of its bill certainly gave me the impression that the idea was well founded.
The woodcock often breeds in the south of England, but is usually a migrating bird, arriving during the first moon in November; it is not difficult to shoot when it first rises, but when steam is really up and it is zig-zagging between the branches of an oak, it takes a good shot to make sure of it. I shall never forget the first woodcock I shot as a boy; it was a thick misty day in November, I fired, and though I felt certain I had not missed, the smoke hung and the air was too thick to see, and, after a long search, I left the wood and was going home when our old spaniel, Flush, turned his head to examine something in a deep cart rut. Following the direction of his eyes, I saw my woodcock; it must have flown 100 yards or more after I fired. I was still more pleased with the last shot I fired in our old Surrey covers at a woodcock going like an express train—and faster, for they are said to fly at the rate of 150 miles an hour—with all his tricks, through thick branches in the adjoining cover, where he fell at least 65 yards from where I stood. A friend of mine had the good-fortune to see an old woodcock, which had evidently bred in his woods, flying, followed by five or six young ones; he said it was one of the prettiest bits of natural history he had ever seen.
"If a woodcock had a partridge's breastHe'd be the best bird that ever was dressed;If a partridge had a woodcock's thighHe'd be the best bird that ever did fly."
is a very old description, and fairly divides the honours between the two birds.
The hawfinch is very easily recognized by its distinct and beautiful colouring; it is a shy bird, and though it bred regularly at Aldington, we rarely saw it. It is commoner here, and is sometimes very destructive, its powerful beak making havoc with the "marrowfats"; but, though I am partial to green peas of this description, I would sooner suffer some damage than have the hawfinches shot.
In 1918 the cuckoos were exceedingly numerous here, and round my house they were calling all day long. Owing to the terrible winter and early spring months of the previous year, so many of the insectivorous birds had been destroyed, that the caterpillars had escaped, and were more numerous than ever in the following spring. The oaks in places were completely stripped of their foliage by the larvae ofTortrix viridana, almost as soon as the leaves were out. The cuckoos discovered them, but were not in sufficient numbers to keep them down, and it was midsummer before the trees recovered. I have referred to the damage in my plum orchard at Aldington from the attack of the larvae of the winter-moth; the damage is not confined to the actual year of its occurrence, the crop suffers the following year owing to the previous defoliation of the tree, which is weakened and is unable to mature healthy fruit buds. At Aldington, in a hot summer, the cuckoos used to call nearly all night, and I have heard them when it was quite dark.
For some years, until 1918, goldfinches were quite common in Hampshire and Dorsetshire. I have seen a flock of over forty together. I had seven nests on my premises here one summer; they go on breeding very late, and I have found their nests with young birds half-fledged while summer-pruning apple trees in August. They come into my garden close to the windows in May, after the ripening seeds of the myosotis (forget-me-not) in the spring-bedding. I never remember seeing a goldfinch at Aldington, which should show that the thistles were well under control, for the seed is a great attraction. One often hears the practice of allowing thistles to run to seed condemned as criminal, for everybody knows that each thistle-down, carried by the wind, contains a seed, and that the attachment of a light structure of plumes is one of Nature's methods of ensuring dissemination. But, in Worcestershire, it is always asserted that thistle seed will not germinate—I am referring toCnicus arvensis—and it is said that a prize of £50 offered for a seedling thistle remains unclaimed to this day. I failed, myself, in trying to obtain young plants from seeds sown in a flower-pot, and I have never seen a seedling in all the thousands of miles I must have walked over young cornfields when my men were hoeing.
I have heard an interesting story about rooks which were causing a farmer much damage in a field newly sown with peas. He erected a small shelter of hurdles, from which to shoot them, and for a time the shelter was sufficient to scare them, until they got used to it; but, when he entered it with his gun, they would not come near. Thinking to deceive their sentinel, watching from a tree, he took a companion to the shelter, who remained for a time and then left, but still no rooks came near. The farmer then took two companions, and presently sent them both away. The arithmetic was too much for the rooks, and the scheme succeeded. He concluded that their powers of enumeration were limited to counting "two," and that "three" was beyond them.
Nightingales are scarce in the Forest; they do not like the solitude of the great woods, apparently preferring to inhabit roadsides and places where people and traffic are constantly passing. They are specially abundant at the foot of the Cotswolds, and it is a treat to cycle steadily along the road between Broadway and Weston Subedge on a summer evening, where you no sooner lose the liquid notes of one, than you enter the territory of another, so continuous is the song for miles together.
In severe winters wood-pigeons did much damage at Aldington to young clover a few inches high; they roosted in "the island" adjoining my garden. When they first descended they alighted in the wide-spreading branches of the leafless black poplars, where they could see all round, and reconnoitre the position; then, if all was quiet, in about ten minutes they took to the shelter of the fir trees for the night with much fluttering and beating of wings against the thick branches. They devour the acorns in the Forest very greedily in the autumn, and I have seen one with crop so full that on my approach it could only with difficulty fly away to a short distance. I found it near a small pond where, apparently, it had been drinking, and the acorns had expanded to an inconvenient extent.
The golden-crested wren was a common bird here before the severe winter of 1916-1917, but it has since become comparatively rare; it is the smallest of British birds, and could often be seen in the hedges exploring every twig and crevice for insects, and it was a great pleasure to watch the nimble movements of such a sweet little fairy. Its first cousin, the fire-crest, which is almost its exact counterpart, except for the flame-coloured crest, is much rarer; and I only remember seeing one specimen, to which with great circumspection I managed to approach quite closely, in the wood near my house.
One morning, at Aldington, the gardener came in to say there was a hawk in the greenhouse near the rickyard; we found a pane of glass broken, where it had unintentionally entered in pursuit of a sparrow; the hawk was uninjured, and flew away quite unconcernedly on the opening of the door. Another hawk, here in Burley, was found dead near my drawing-room bow-window. It had dashed itself against a pane of thick plate-glass while in pursuit of a starling, I think; seeing the light through the bow, it had not recognized the glass, and must have collided with it in the act of swooping. I have several times seen hawks descend like a flash from a tree, and select an unlucky starling from a flock; one blow on the head settled the victim before I could reach the spot, but sometimes the hawk had to leave its prize behind it.
I was watching a number of young chicks feeding outside the coops containing the mother hens, when there suddenly arose a great disturbance, and a hawk, which had pounced upon a chick, was seen flying away with it in its talons. Its flight was impeded by the weight of the chicken, and we gave chase shouting. Flying very low it carried its prey to the further side of the meadow, but, seeing that it could not get quickly through the trees there, it dropped the chicken and escaped; we picked up the poor frightened infant, which was not injured, and restored it to a perturbed but joyful mother. "As yaller as a kite's claw," is a simile one hears in the country, and it is common to both Hampshire and Worcestershire.
I never saw the wheatear in Worcestershire, but here I notice several pairs on the moors in summer. They were once very plentiful on the Sussex Downs and seaside cliffs, and as a boy walking from my first school at Rottingdean to visit my people at Brighton, from Saturday to Sunday night, I have passed hundreds of traps consisting of rectangular holes cut in the turf, having horsehair nooses inside, set by the shepherds who took thousands of wheatears to the poulterers' shops in the town. They were then considered a great delicacy. Other professional bird-catchers operated with large clap-nets, and a string attached in the hands of the catcher some distance away. When they were after larks a revolving mirror, flashing in the sun, was considered very attractive; I suppose the birds approached from motives of curiosity.[3] Many thousands were caught for the London and Brighton markets for lark pies and puddings, a wicked bathos, when we remember Wordsworth's lines:
"There is madness about thee, and joy divineIn that song of thine."
One severe winter an immense flock of golden plovers haunted my land and neighbouring farms for some weeks, but they were exceedingly shy, and being perfect strangers, they were difficult to identify, until I brought one down by a very long shot, and we could see what a beautiful bird it was. We could always tell when really severe winter weather was coming, by the flocks of wild geese that passed overhead in V-shaped formation. They were said to be leaving the mouth of the Humber and the East Coast for the warmer shores of the Bristol Channel, evidently quite aware that the latter, within the influence of the Gulf Stream, were more desirable as winter-quarters. Evesham is in the direct line between the two places, and we often heard them calling at night as they passed. In the early spring when the severe weather was-over they returned by the same route.
"The heart is hard in nature and unfitFor human fellowship, as being voidOf sympathy, and therefore dead alikeTo love and friendship both, that is not pleasedWith sight of animals enjoying life,Nor feels their happiness augment his own."—COWPER.
There are many stories of the affection of the domestic goose for man, and I knew of one which was very fond of a friend of mine. The goose followed him like a dog, and would come with him on to the lawn where we were playing tennis, and sitting close beside him on a garden seat with great dignity would apparently watch the game with interest. My friend was fond of unusual pets; he had a tame hedgehog, for whom he made a most comfortable house with living-room downstairs and sleeping apartment on the first floor. His pet's name was Jacob, suggested I think by the ladder which night and morning he used for ascending to or descending from his bedroom. Hedgehogs have a bad character as robbers of partridges' nests, and in our old parish accounts, under the name of "urchins," we find entries of payments for their destruction at the rate of 4d. apiece.
My younger daughter had a tame duck, Susie by name, who gravely waddled behind her round the garden. In summer at tea-time Susie would much enjoy the company under the wych-elm on the lawn, and took her "dish of tea" out of the saucer in the antique and orthodox manner. Another amusing pet was a jackdaw who had an outdoor residence, though often allowed to be loose. He acquired an exact imitation of my old gardener's chronic cough, and enjoyed the exhibition of his achievement when the old man was working near the cage, somewhat to the man's annoyance. He was full of mischief, and was not allowed in the house; but he once got in at my study window, picked out every sheet of notepaper from my stationery case, and scattered them in all directions.
A still more accomplished mimic, a lemon-crested cockatoo, reproduced the voices of little hungry pigs. He lived indoors on a stand over a tray, with a chain round one leg, and was very clever at mounting and descending by the combined use of beak and claws, without complicating himself with his chain. He got loose one day, and ascended one of the chestnut trees, and a volunteer went up after him by a ladder. Cocky resented his interference, flew at him and bit his finger to the bone. His beak was a very powerful weapon, and, until I made him a new tray with a zinc-covered ledge, he demolished any unprotected wood or even furniture within reach.
This spring we had a blackbird's nest in some ivy near the house, and many times each day the cock bird came to watch over his household, and discourse sweet music from a neighbouring tree. A pair of jays however appeared, and seemed too much interested in the nest for the parents' comfort, approaching so near one morning that first the cock blackbird, and then the hen attacked them; and though they returned again during the day, evidently bent on mischief, the courageous parents eventually drove them from the field, and they were seen no more. Owing to the cutting of great fir woods in the Forest for timber supplies for the war, jays have become much more common here than formerly, and seem to have migrated from their former haunts and taken to the beeches and oaks in the undisturbed woods.
Birds as a rule are not well represented in books, though the drawing is more correct than the colouring. Examine Randolph Caldecott'sSing a Song for Sixpencefor a really clever sketch of the four and twenty blackbirds, every one a characteristic likeness, and a different attitude; and look at his rookery inBracebridge Hall, where, in three sketches he shows some equally exact rooks.
I always walked when on my farming rounds, for one of the first lessons I learned at Alton was that for that purpose "one walk is better than three rides." My predecessor being a hunting man and fond of horses, generally rode, but for careful observation, especially in the matter of plant diseases, one wants to "potter about" with a magnifying glass sometimes, and of course in entomology and ornithology there is no room for a horse. One of the remarks made by my men about me on my arrival was, "His mother larned him to walk," with quite a note of admiration to emphasize it. It is really remarkable how farmers and country people scorn the idea of walking either for pleasure or business, if "a lift" can be had. I was at Cheltenham with a brother, and finding we had done our business in good time, we decided to walk to the next station—Cleeve—instead of waiting for the train at Cheltenham. We asked a native the way, who replied with great contempt, "Cleeve station? Oh, I wouldn't walk to Cleeve to save tuppence!"
One of our ventures in the way of pets was a well-bred poodle; he was very amiable, handsome, and clever, but exceedingly mischievous. He thought it great fun to pull up neatly written and carefully disposed garden labels and carry them away to the lawn, for which, though a nuisance, he was forgiven; but his next achievement was a more serious matter. Finding his way about the village he would take advantage of an open door to explore the cottage larders and when a chance offered, would make off with half a pound of butter or a cherished piece of meat and bring his plunder to my house in triumph. He was succeeded by "Trump," a Dandie Dinmont, a very charming dog with a delightful disposition, and perfectly honest until my elder daughter acquired a fox terrier, "Chips," well-bred but highly nervous. Chips was a born sportsman and most useful so long as he confined his activities to rats and was busy when the thrashing-machine was at work, but when he took to corrupting Trump's morals he required watching. Trump would be lying quietly in the house or garden as good as possible, when the insinuating tempter would find him, whisper a few words in his ear, and off they went together. It was plainly an invitation, and later a dead duckling or chicken would show where they had spent their time. Trump became as bad as Chips and had to be given away. Chips was very sensitive to discordant sounds, he must have had a musical ear; his chief aversion was the sound of a gong, the beater for which was too hard and, unless very carefully manipulated, produced a jangle. My hall was paved with hexagonal stone sections called "quarries," which appeared to intensify the discordance. Chips felt it keenly, and would stand quite rigid for some minutes until the last reverberation and its effect had passed off. He was uncertain in temper and disliked some of the villagers. An old man complained that he had been bitten, and told me with great feeling, "Folks say that if ever the dog goes mad, I shall go mad too." I had much difficulty in appeasing him and assuring him that there was no truth in the statement.
How shall I do justice to the infinite variety of "Wendy," the dainty little Chinese princess who now rules my household? There are people who cannot see in an old Worcester tea-cup and saucer the eighteenth-century beauty, fastidiously sipping, what she called in the same language as the Aldington cottager of to-day, her dish of "tay." There are people who regard with indifference an ancient chair, except as an object to be sat upon, and who fail to realize its historical charm, or even the credit due to the maker of a piece of furniture that has survived two hundred and fifty spring cleanings.
And there are people who can see nothing in the Pekingese, nothing of the distinction and "the claims of long descent," nothing of the possibilities of transmigration, or of present ever-changing and human moods. Such are the people who suppose that the "dulness of the country," and the attraction of the shams and inanities of the picture palace induced the starving agricultural labourer willingly to exchange the blue vault of heaven for the leaden pall of London fogs, cool green pastures for the scorching pavement, and the fragrant shelter of the hedgerow blossoms for the stifling slum and the crowded factory.
There is nothing of the democrat about Wendy; watch her elevate an already tip-tilted nose at displeasing food, or a tainted dish, and notice her look of abject contempt for the giver as she turns away in disgust. No lover of the Pekingese should be without a charming little bookSome Pekingese Petsby M.N. Daniel, with delightful sketches by the author, in which we are told that, "Until the year, 1860, so far as is known, no 'Foreign Devil' had ever seen one of these Imperial Lion Dogs. In that year, however, the sacking of the Imperial Palace at Pekin took place, and amongst the treasures looted and brought to England were five little Lion or Sun Dogs."
The author also says: "It is certain that the same type of Lion Dog as our Western Pekingese must have existed in China for at least a thousand years: that they were regarded as sacred or semi-sacred is proved by the Idols and Kylons (many of them known to be at least a thousand years old) representing the same type of Lion Dog." I have an old Nankin blue teapot, the lid of which is surmounted by one of these Kylons.
I can only describe Wendy's moods and characteristics by giving a bare catalogue: she is mirthful, hopeful, playful, despairing, bored, defiant, roguish, cunning, penitent, sensitive, aggressive, offended, reproachful, angry, pleased, trustful, loving, disobedient, determined, puzzled, faithful, naughty, dignified, impudent, proud, luxurious, fearless, disappointed, docile, fierce, independent, mischievous; and she often illustrates the rhyme:
"The dog will come when he's called,And the cat will stay away,But the Pekingese will do as he pleaseWhatever you do or say."
Wendy is cat-like in some of her habits, prefers fish to meat, sleeps all day in wet weather but is lively towards night, is very particular about her toilet and washes her face with moistened paws passed over her ears. She is very sensitive to the weather, loves the sun, lying stretched at full length on the hot gravel so that she can enjoy the comforting warmth to her little body. She is wretched in a thunderstorm, shivering and taking refuge beneath a table or sofa; then she comes to me for sympathy, and lies on my knee, covered with a rug or a newspaper, but after a bad storm she is not herself for many hours. Anyone who does not know her may think the moods I have detailed an impossible category, but there is not one which we have not personally witnessed again and again, and no one can see her loving caresses of my wife without being assured of the soul that animates her mind and body.
Wendy is never allowed to "sit in damp clothes," or even with feet wet with rain or dew, and looks very reproachful if not attended to at once with a rough towel on coming indoors. "Whydon'tyou dry me?" is exactly the expression her looks convey. She has a lined basket, on four short legs to keep her from draughts when sleeping, but she is often uneasy alone at night, evidently "seeing things," and, in Worcestershire language, finding it "unked," so she is now always allowed a night-light.
It is said that the dog's habit of turning round several times before settling to sleep is a survival from remote ages when they made themselves a comfortable bed by smoothing down the grass around them, but I am quite sure that Wendy does the same thing to get her coat unruffled, and in the best condition to protect her from draughts. She likes to lie curled up into a circle, so that her hind paws may come under her chin for warmth, and support her head, as her neck is so short that without a pillow of some sort she could not rest in comfort; as an alternative, she will sometimes arrange the rug in her sleeping basket to act in the same way.
We had various cobs and ponies from time to time; quite a good pony could be bought at six months old for about £12, and one of the best we had was Taffy, from a drove of Welsh. Returning from Evesham Station with my man we passed a labourer with something in a hamper on his shoulder that rattled, just as we reached the Aldington turning; Taffy started, swerved across the road in the narrowest part, and jumped through the hedge, taking cart and all; we found ourselves in a wheat-field, but were not overturned, and reached a gate in safety none the worse.
On an old May Day (May 12) I was at Bretforton Manor playing tennis and shooting rooks. About 10.30 p.m. the cart and Taffy were brought round; I had all my things in and was about to mount when, the pony fidgeting to be off, my friend's groom caught at the rein, but he had omitted to buckle it on one side of the bit. In an instant pony and trap had disappeared, and the man was lying in the drive with a broken leg. We had to carry him home on a door, and then went in search of the pony, expecting every moment to find it and the trap in a ditch; about half a mile from Aldington we met my own man who had come in search of my remains. He told us that the pony and trap were quite safe and uninjured. The clever animal had trotted the whole distance, over two miles, with the reins dragging behind him, taken the turning from the highroad, and again at my gate, and pulled up in front of the house, where someone passing saw him and brought my man out to the rescue.
"How like a rainbow, sparkling as a dewdrop,Glittering as gold, and lively as a swallow,Each left his grave-shroud and in rapture winged himUp to the heavens."—ANON.
I have always been fascinated by the beauty of butterflies and moths, and I think I began collecting when I was about eleven, as I remember having a net when I was at school at Rottingdean. My first exciting capture was a small tortoiseshell, and I was much disappointed when I discovered that it was quite a common insect. In 1917 some nettles here were black with the larvæ of this species, but I think they must have been nearly all visited by the ichneumons, which pierce the skin, laying their eggs in the living body of the larva, as the butterflies were not specially common later. I was, however, fortunate in identifying a specimen of the curious variety figured in Newman'sBritish Butterflies, variety 2, from one in Mr. Bond's collection; it has a dark band crossing the middle of the upper wings, but, though interesting, it is not so handsome as the type. I did not catch this specimen, as I do not like killing butterflies now, but I had ample leisure to observe it quite closely on the haulm of potatoes. It was decidedly smaller than the type.
The old garden at Aldington in the repose of a June evening was a place of fragrant joy from honeysuckle on poles and arches, and just as the light was fading the huge privet hawk-moths, with quivering wings and extended probosces, used to sip the honey from the long blossoms. I could catch them in a net, but these specimens were nearly all damaged from their energetic flight among the flowers, and perfect ones are easy to rear from the larvæ, feeding in autumn on privet in the hedges.
Later in the summer the Ghost Swift appeared about twilight, the white colour of the male making it very conspicuous. Twilight at Aldington is called "owl light," and moths of all kinds are "bob-owlets," from their uneven flight when trying to evade the owls in pursuit. We often see these birds "hawking" at nightfall in my meadows round the edge of the Forest after moths.
The martagon lily flourished in the Aldington garden, and when they were blooming the overpowering scent was particularly attractive to moths of thePlusiagenus, including the Burnished Brass, the Golden Y, and the Beautiful Golden Y, all exhibiting very distinctive markings of burnished gold; and otherNoctuæin great variety. The latter are best taken by "sugaring"—painting patches of mixed beer and sugar on a series of tree trunks, and making several rounds at twilight with a lantern and a cyanide bottle. We had a sugaring range of about seventy pollard withies by the brook side, and being well sheltered, it was such a favourite place for moths, that it was often difficult to select from each patch, swarming with sixty or seventy specimens, those really worth taking. At sugaring moths are found in a locality where they are never seen at other times, and rarities occur quite unexpectedly. I took some specimens ofCymatophora ocularis(figure of 80). Newman says: "It is always esteemed a rarity," and mentions Worcester as a locality.Mamestra abjectawas quite a common catch, of which Newman writes:
"It seems to be very local, and so imperfectly known that the recorded habitats must be received with great doubt; it is certainly abundant on the banks of the Thames, near Gravesend, and also on the Irish coast, near Waterford."
The marks of sugaring remain on tree trunks for many years. I lately saw the faint remains on about sixty trees in Set Thorns plantation, in the Forest, which a friend and I painted on nearly forty years ago. This friend was fortunate in capturing the black variety of the White Admiral, in which the white markings are entirely absent on the upper side; and, thirty years later, his son took another near Burley. The son also caught a Camberwell Beauty on one of his sugared patches in the day-time. I believe this to be the only recorded instance of the occurrence of this rare and beautiful insect in the Forest.
The Hornet Clearwing (Sesia Apiformis) is a very interesting moth, and it was common at Aldington; the larva feeds on the wood of the black poplar. The colouring of the moth so resembles the hornet, that at first sight it is easily mistaken for the latter. It is an excellent example of "mimicry," whereby a harmless insect acquires the distinctive appearance of a harmful one, and so secures immunity from the attacks of its natural enemies.
The larva of the Death's Head was not uncommon at Aldington and Badsey on potatoes; I had a standing offer of threepence each for any that the village children could bring me. These large caterpillars require very careful handling, and I fear the children were not gentle enough with them, as I only had one perfect specimen moth from all the larvae they brought.
One of my hop-pickers captured and presented me with a very fine specimen of the Convolvulus Hawk-moth at Aldington; they were generally comparatively common that year (1901) and a collector took no less than seventeen in a few days in the public garden at Bournemouth.
The Clouded Yellow butterfly, whose appearance is very capricious, occurred one summer in Worcestershire in considerable numbers; it is strong on the wing and could easily reach the Midlands in fine weather from the south of England, where it is more often seen. Those I saw were flying high over clover fields, apparently in a hurry to get further north-west.
The Marbled White is a somewhat local butterfly; there was a spot along the Terrace on Cleeve Hill, near North Littleton and Cleeve Prior, where, at the proper time, this insect was plentiful, but I never saw it anywhere else in the neighbourhood.
One of the entomological prizes of the New Forest is the Purple Emperor; it is impossible to do justice to the wonderful sheen of its powerful wings. It inhabits the tops of lofty oaks, but does not disdain to come down for a drink of water, sometimes from a muddy pool, or even to feast on dead vermin which the keepers have destroyed.
The Comma, so called from the C-mark on the under side of the hind wings, is fairly plentiful in Worcestershire and Herefordshire in the hop-districts, for the hop is its food plant; but it is curious that, with the abundance of hops in Kent, Sussex, and Hants, it is quite a rare insect in the south of England. The ragged edge of its hind wings is probably an arrangement to baffle birds in pursuit, offering more difficulty to securing a sure hold than is afforded by the even margin of the hind wings of most butterflies.
In some years wasps were exceedingly troublesome at Aldington, and fruit picking became a hazardous business. One of my men ploughed up a nest in an open field, and was badly stung, though the horses, being further from the nest when turned up, escaped. It is quite necessary to destroy any nests on or near land where fruit is grown, as the insects increase in numbers at a surprising rate, and they travel great distances after food for the grubs. I had an instructive walk over the fruit farm of my son-in-law, Mr. C.S. Martin, of Dunnington Heath, near Alcester, with his cousin, Mr. William Martin, who is extraordinarily clever at locating the nests. He quickly recognizes a line of flight in which numbers of wasps can be seen going backwards and forwards, in a well-defined cross-country track, follows it up and locates the nest a long distance from where he first perceived the line. In this way during our walk he found a dozen or more nests. In the evening, when the inmates were at home, they were treated with a strong solution of cyanide of potassium to destroy the winged insects; and the next day the nests were dug out and the grubs destroyed, which otherwise would become perfect wasps.
Lately it has become a custom to pay a half-penny each for all queen wasps in the spring, but Mr. C.S. Martin, who had many years' experience on the fruit plantations of the Toddington Orchard Company, extending to about 700 acres, as well as on his own plantations at Dunnington, writes to me as follows on the subject:
"To catch the queens in the spring is to my mind a waste of time, and I discontinued paying for their capture, as the number visible in the spring appeared to bear no relation to the resulting summer nests. In the first place, the number of queens in spring is always greatly in excess of the numbers of nests, and to attempt to catch all the queens is a hopeless job. As a rule, I don't think one per cent, ever gets as far as a nest unless the weather conditions are very favourable. Heavy rain, when the broods begin, may easily wipe out 99 per cent., and only those on a dry bank will survive. To pay a halfpenny per queen may be equivalent to the payment of four and twopence per nest!"
Referring to the payment of school-children for the destruction of white butterflies he writes:
"The white butterfly is extraordinarily prolific, and to catch a few in the garden is a complete waste of time. Again, weather conditions are largely responsible for the occurrence of a bad attack, and the only possible time to reduce the plague is in the caterpillar stage, with hellebore powder, or one of the proprietary remedies, applied to the young plants. Scientists recommend the catching of queen wasps, and also butterflies, but I regard this as a case where science is not strictly practical."
There is, of course, the danger, too, that children will not recognize the difference between the female of the Orange Tip butterfly, which is practically colourless, and the cabbage whites, and it would be worse than a crime to destroy so joyous and welcome a creature, whose advent is one of the pleasantest signs that summer is nigh at hand. I have watched these fairy sprites dancing along the hedge sides at Aldington year by year, and in May they were extraordinarily abundant here, happily coursing round and round my meadow, and chasing each other in the sunshine. The Orange Tip is quite innocent of designs upon the homely cabbage, the food-plant of the caterpillar beingCardamine pratensis(the cuckoo flower), which Shakespeare speaks of so prettily in the lines:
"When daisies pied and violets blue,And lady-smocks all silver-white."
Possibly Hood was thinking of the Orange Tip when he wrote the lines that seem so well suited to them:
"These be the pretty genii of the flowersDaintily fed with honey and pure dew."
A story is told of an undergraduate who united the hind wings of a butterfly to the body and fore wings of one of a different species, and, thinking to puzzle Professor Westwood, then the entomological authority at Oxford, asked if the Professor could tell him "what kind of a bug" it was. "Yes," was the immediate reply—"a humbug!"
One of my schoolfellows, a boy about eleven, at Rottingdean school, and quite a novice at butterfly collecting, met a professional "naturalist" on the Warren at Folkestone, who inquired what he had taken. "Only a few whites," said the boy. The man looked at them and, eventually, they negotiated an exchange, the boy accepting three or four others for an equal number of the whites. On reaching home he found that he had parted with specimens of the rare Bath White,Pieris daplidice, for some quite common butterflies. The Bath White is not recognized as a British species, Newman supposing the specimens taken in this country to have been blown over or migrated from the northern coast of France, as they have been rarely met with away from the shores of Kent and Sussex.
It is surprising to find so many people who seem unable to exercise their powers of observation to the extent of noticing the butterflies they daily pass in the garden, or along the roads. One would expect that the marvellous colouring of even our common butterflies would arrest attention, and that interest in the names and life-history would follow.
In June in the Forest the rather alarming stag-beetle is to be seen on the wing on a warm evening; though really harmless, its size and habit of buzzing round frightens people who are not acquainted with its ways. They are called locally, "pinch-bucks," as their horns resemble the antlers of a buck, and they can nip quite hard by pressing them together. I once saw a fight between a stag-beetle and a toad, it had evidently been proceeding for some time as both combatants were exhausted, but neither had gained any special advantage.
"I may soberly confess that sometimes, walking abroad aftermy studies, I have been almost mad with pleasure—the effectof nature upon my soul having been inexpressibly ravishingand beyond what I can convey to you."—JOHN INGLESANT.
I suppose that the bicycle has given, and gives, as much pleasure to fairly active people as any machine ever invented. I must have been one of the first cyclists in England, as my experience dates from the days when bicycles were first imported from France. The high bicycle appeared later, but the earlier machines were about the height of the present safety, with light wooden wheels and iron tyres. The safety, with pneumatic tyres, did not arrive till nearly thirty years later, and it was the latter invention that brought about the popularity of cycling.
The difference between cycling and walking has been stated thus:
"When a man walks a mile he takes on an average 2,263 steps, lifting the weight of his body with each step. When he rides a bicycle of the average gear he covers a mile with the equivalent of 627 steps, bears no burden, and covers the same distance in less than one third of the time."
People constantly tell me that cycling is all very well for getting from place to place, but otherwise they don't care about it, which I can only account for by supposing that they find it a labour more or less irksome, or that they have never developed their perceptive faculties, and have no real sympathy with the life of woods and fields or the spirit of the ancient farms and villages.
Cycling to me is a very easy and pleasant exercise, but it is far more than that; it is like passing through an endless picture-gallery filled with masterpieces of form and colour. The roads of England not only present these delights to the physical sense, but they stir the imagination with historic visions from the earliest times. There are the ancient camps, now silent and deserted, which become at the bidding of fancy peopled with the unkempt and savage British, and later with their well-disciplined and well-equipped Roman conquerers: archers and men in armour appear; pilgrims' processions such as we read of in Chaucer; knights and ladies on their stately steeds. There are the ghosts of royal progresses, kings and queens, and wonderful pageantry gorgeous in array; decorously ambling cardinals and abbots with their trains of servitors; hawking parties with hawks and attendants; soldiers after Sedgemoor in pursuit of Monmouth's ill-fated followers; George IV. and his gay courtiers on the Brighton road; beaux and beauties in their well-appointed carriages bound for Tunbridge Wells, Cheltenham, or Bath; splendid teams with crowded coaches, and great covered waggons laden with merchandise; the highwayman at dusk in quest of belated travellers, and companies of farmers and cattle-dealers riding home from market together for safety.
I often see a vision here in the ancient Forest tracks of a gang of wild and armed smugglers, and among them still more savage-looking foreign sailors. They have two or three Forest trucks, made especially to fit the ruts in the little-used tracks, laden with casks of spirits and drawn by rough Forest ponies. I can hear the shouts of the drivers as they urge them forward, and I can see the steaming sides of the ponies in the misty moonlight of a winter night. The spirits were landed at Poole or Christchurch, and they are on their way to Burley where, under the old house I bought with my land, there is still the cellar, then cleverly concealed, where the casks were stored in safety from the watchful eyes of the Excise; a quaint old place built of the local rock.
There is one vision of the roads in the Forest which nobody who saw it can ever forget: the companies of infantry, the serious officers, the ruddy-faced men, and the then untried guns of the glorious Seventh Division, on their route marches, with fife and drum to cheer the way with the now classic strains of "It's a long, long way to Tipperary." There are spots where I met them in the autumn of 1914 that I never pass without feeling that for all time these places are sacred to the memory of heroes.
Besides the fancied pageantry of the roads there are the natural objects of the woods, the lanes, and the fields; the blossoming hawthorn and the wild roses trailing from the hedges, the hares and rabbits, the birds, the butterflies, and the flowers; sturdy teams with the time-honoured ploughs and harrows, the sowing of the seed, the young gleaming corn, the scented hayfields or the golden harvest; every man at his honourable labour, happy children dashing out of school; noble timber, hazel coppices, grey old villages; cattle in the pastures, or enjoying the cool waters of shallow pools or brooks; sheep in the field or the fold, the shepherd and his dog; apple blossom, or the ripe and ruddy fruit, bowery hop-gardens, mellow old cottages, country-folk going to market, fat beasts, cows and calves, carriers' carts full of gossips.
Pictures, real pictures, everywhere, endless in variety. Steady! go steady past these woods; see the blue haze of wild hyacinths, the cool carpet of primroses. Look at the cowslips yellowing that meadow; do you see the heron standing patiently in the marsh? Look overhead, watch the hovering hawk; hark! there is the nightingale. Stop a moment at the bridge; can you see the speckled beauties with their heads upstream? Thank God for the blue, blue sky! thank God for the glory of the sun, for the lights and shadows beneath the trees! Thank God for the live air, the growth, the life of plant and tree, the fragrance and the beauty! Thank God for rural England!
One can tell the most ancient, apart from the scientifically made Roman roads, by the way they were worn down from the original level, especially on hillsides, by the constant and heavy traffic. Every passing wheel abraded a portion of the surface, and the next rain carried thedébrisdown the hill, forming in time a deep depression, between banks at the sides, often many feet deep, and giving the impression of the track having been purposely dug out to lessen the gradient. In places where the road became impassable from long use and wet, deviations on either side were made, so that ten or a dozen disused tracks can be seen side by side, often extending laterally quite a long distance from the existing road in unenclosed surroundings.
A great charm of the bicycle is its noiselessness which, with its speed, affords peeps of wild creatures under natural conditions. Cycling on the Cotswolds I came upon two hares at a boxing match; they were so absorbed that I was able to get quite close, and it was amusing to watch them standing upright on their hind legs, and sparring with their little fists like professionals. I have often seen the pursuit of a rabbit by a persistent stoat; the rabbit has little chance of escape, as the stoat can follow it underground as well as over; finally the rabbit appears to be paralyzed with fright, lies down and makes no further effort. Weasels, which probably make up for depredations of game by their destruction of rats, often cross the road, and sometimes whole families may be seen playing by the roadside. I was shooting in Surrey when I once had an excellent view of an ermine—the stoat in its winter dress. I did not recognize it until it was out of sight, but I should not have shot it in any case, for the ermine is a very rare occurrence in the south of England. I believe that further north it is not unusual, as is natural where the light colour would protect it from observation in snow, but as far south as Surrey this would be a danger, and I should scarcely have noticed it in the thick undergrowth had it been normal in colour.
We had a squirrel's nest, or "drey," as it is called, near my house last year, and the squirrels have been about my lawn and the Forest trees ever since. It was charming, in the summer, to watch them nibbling the fleshy galls produced on the young oaks by a gall-fly(Cynips). They chattered to each other all the time, holding the galls between their fore feet, fragments dropping to the ground beneath the trees. Squirrels are fond of animal food, and I wondered, as there was so much apparent waste, whether they were not really searching for the grubs in the galls. Of late years squirrels have been scarce here; they were formerly abundant, but their numbers were much reduced by an epidemic. They seem to be increasing again, possibly the felling of so many Scots-firs has driven them from their former haunts into adjoining oak and beech woods, such as those which almost surround my land.
During lunch in a meadow by the roadside, on a cycling ride, we found a snake with a toad almost down its throat; the snake disgorged the toad and escaped, but before we had finished lunch it returned and repeated the process. This time I carried the toad, none the worse for the adventure, some distance away, where I hope it was safe. Hedgehogs are said to eat toads, frogs, beetles, and snakes, as well as the eggs of game, to which I have already referred (p. 264); it is curious that the old name "urchin" has been superseded in some places by "hedgehog," but still survives in the "sea-urchin," and is also used for a troublesome boy.
It is very interesting, when cycling, to notice the changes in passing from one geological formation to another, and in railway travelling, with a geological map, one can quickly observe the transition; the cuttings give an immediate clue, and the contours of the surface and the agriculture are further guides. The alteration in the flora is particularly marked in passing from the Bagshot Sands, for instance, to the Chalk, or from the Lias Clay to the Lias Limestone or the Oolite; the lime-loving plants appear on the Chalk and Limestone, and disappear on the Sands and Clays.
The sunken appearance of the old roads is one of the best proofs of their antiquity, and one is inclined to wonder at their windings, but in following the tracks across the Forest moors one gets an insight into the way roads originated. The ancients simply adopted the line of least resistance by avoiding hills, boggy places, and the deep parts of streams, choosing the shallow fordable spots for crossing. The winding road is, of course, much more interesting and beautiful than the later straight roads of the Romans, though no doubt many of the former were improved by the invaders for their more important traffic. It is to be regretted that the formal lines of telegraph and telephone poles and wires have vulgarized so many of our beautiful roads, and destroyed their retired and venerable expression; more especially as in many places these were erected against the will of the inhabitants, and under the mistaken idea that the farmer's business is retail, and that he is prepared to deal in and deliver small quantities of goods daily, receiving urgent orders and enquiries by telephone.
The villages in the Vale of Evesham and the Cotswolds afford an excellent illustration of building in harmony with surroundings, and the suitability of making use of local materials. Thus, in the Vale we find mellow old brick, has limestone, half timber and thatch; while on the Cotswolds, oolite freestone and "stone slates" of the same freestone seem the only suitable material. Where the ugly pink bricks and blue slates have of late years been introduced, they appear out of place and contemptible. There is an immense charm about these old villages of hill and vale, and it is curious to think that Aldington was an established community with, probably, as many inhabitants as at the present day, when London and Westminster were divided by green fields.
A story is told of the time before the line to Oxford from Wolverhampton and Worcester was built, when persons visiting Oxford from the Vale of Evesham had to travel by road. An old yeoman family, having decided upon the Church as the vocation for one of the sons, sent him, in the year 1818, on an old pony, under the protection of an ancient retainer for his matriculation examination. On their return, in reply to the question, "Well, did you get the young master through?" "Oh, yes," he said, "and we could have got the old pony passed too, if we'd only had enough money!"
Partly as an excuse for a bicycle ride I used often to visit distant villages where auction sales at farm-houses were proceeding, and sometimes I came home with old china and other treasures. Wherever there are old villages with manor houses and long occupied rich land, wealth formerly accumulated and evidenced itself in well-designed and well-made furniture, upon which time has had comparatively little destructive effect. As old fashions were superseded, as oak gave way to walnut, and walnut to Spanish mahogany, the out-of-date furniture found its way to the smaller farm-houses and cottages, in which it descended from generation to generation. Now that the cottages have been ransacked by dealers and collectors, the treasures have not only been absorbed by wealthy townspeople, but are finding their way with those of impoverished landowners and occupiers to the millionaire mansions on the other side of the Atlantic.
There is no limit to the temptation to collect when once the fascination of such old things has made itself felt—furniture, china, earthenware, glass, paintings, brass and pewter become an obsession. If I had only filled my barns with Jacobean and Stuart oak and walnut, William and Mary, and Queen Ann marquetry, and Chippendale, Sheraton and Hepplewhite mahogany, instead of wheat for an unsympathetic British public, and at the end of my time at Aldington offered a few of the least interesting specimens for sale by auction, I might still have carried away a houseful of treasures which would have cost me less than nothing.
An old friend of mine, who had been collecting for many years, and in comparison with whom I was a novice, though my enthusiasm long preceded the fashion of the last twenty-five years, told me that he once discovered a warehouse in a Cotswold village crammed with Chippendale, and that the owner, having no sale for it, was glad to exchange a waggon-load for the same quantity of hay and straw chaff.
Among the more interesting articles which my cycling excursions and previous pilgrimages on foot produced, I have a charming blue and white carnation pattern, Worcester china cider mug with the crescent mark. These mugs are said to have been specially made for the Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769 at Stratford-on-Avon when Garrick was present. The date corresponds with the time when the mark was in use, and establishes the age of the mug as 150 years. The china in my old neighbourhood was naturally Worcester, Bristol and Salopian, of which I have many specimens—of the Worcester more especially—ranging from the earliest days of unmarked pieces through the Dr. Wall period, Barr, Flight and Barr, down to the later Chamberlain.
An old pair of bellows is a favourite of mine; it is made of pear-tree wood, decorated with an incised pattern of thistles and foliage, referring possibly to the Union of England and Scotland in 1707, or as a Jacobite emblem of a few years later. The carving is surrounded by the motto:
These old bellows show unmistakable signs of their more than 200 years of honourable service, and they have literally breathed their last though still surviving; but it would be sacrilege to renew the leather, and might disturb the ghosts of generations of old ladies who blew the dying embers into a ruddy glow when awaiting, in the twilight of a winter's evening, their good-men's return from the field or the chase.
One of my greatest finds was a pair of Chippendale chairs at a sale at Mickleton at the foot of the Cotswolds; they belong to the early part of the Chippendale period, before the Chinese style was abandoned. That influence appears in incised fretted designs on the legs, and the frieze below the seats. The seats are covered with the original tapestry, adding much to the interest, and the backs present examples of the most spirited carving of the maker. At the sale, when I went to have a second look, I found two dealers sitting on them and chatting quite casually; the intention was evidently to prevent possible purchasers from noticing them, and more especially to hide the tapestry coverings. The value of the chairs immediately rose in my estimation, and I increased the limit which I had given to a bidder on my behalf, so that I made sure of buying them. The old chairs looked very shabby when they came out into the light of day, and they fell to my representative's bid amid roars of laughter from the rustic crowd. What a price for "them two old cheers"! they "never heard talk of such a job!" It would surprise them to know that I have been offered five times what they then cost.
My wife has had to do with many parochial committees from time to time, and I have often trembled for my Chippendale chairs when these meetings, accompanied by tea, have been held at my house, for it is not everybody who regards them with the reverence due to their external beauty and true inwardness, or who recognizes in them the
"Tea-cup times of hood and hoop,Or while the patch was worn."
A very successful afternoon was one I spent at a sale at North Littleton. I remember the beautiful spring day, and the old weather-worn grey house in an orchard of immense pear-trees covered with sheets of snowy blossom. I secured a Jacobean elm chest with well-carved panels, a Jacobean oak chest of drawers on a curious stand, a complete tea set of Staffordshire ware, including twelve cups and saucers, teapot, and other pieces, with Chinese decoration; four Nankin blue handleless tea-cups, a Delft plate, and a Battersea enamel patch-box. My bill was a very moderate one, but the executor who had the matter of the sale in hand was well pleased that these old family relics had passed into the possession of someone who would value them, and not to careless and indifferent neighbours, and was more than satisfied with the amount realized. Next morning, as a token of his satisfaction, he brought me a charming old brass Dutch tobacco box, with an oil painting inside the lid, of a smoker enjoying a pipe.
I have seen some amusing incidents at sales of household goods in remote places; incredulous smiles as to the possibility of the usefulness of anything in the shape of a bath generally greeted the appearance of such an article, and on one of these occasions an ancient, with great gravity, and as an apology for its existence, remarked that it was "A very good thing for an invalid!" I am reminded thereby of an old-fashioned hunting man in Surrey, who was astonished to hear from a friend of mine that he enjoyed a cold bath every morning. He "didn't think," he said, "that cold water was at all a good thing—next to the skin!"