Part 8

All this, however, is merely preliminary. Our invasion is no problematic peril this time, but a peril that has actually arrived. They have _come_, the aggressors! they are already standing upon our sacred shore! the question now is what are we to do with them? Can there be any doubt upon that subject? Up, arm yourselves, and away! high and low, young and old, brave and the reverse--women first, as befits their daring! Up, and at the villains! Let them not carry their purpose an inch further. Let not one of them return to boast of where he has been! Yet hark! what sound is that? Surely it is not the luncheon bell? How _exceedingly_ inconvenient! Well, our invasion must be postponed for the moment. After all, as Peter Plymley wrote to his brother Abraham, “It is three centuries since an English pig has fallen in a fair battle upon English ground”; so, though this particular struggle is coming off not on English but Irish ground, it is not likely to be all over before this afternoon.

MARCH 20, 1900. 3 P.M.

That interruption disposed of, we now return to our Invasion. Owing, perhaps, to the dilatory nature of our proceedings, the invaders have already left the coast, and pushed their way some distance inland, the result being that matters are beginning to look exceedingly uncomfortable for the unfortunate invaded. The regular army in Ireland happens to be at an exceptionally low ebb. It has been heavily drawn on lately to fill up vacancies at the seat of war, no one in authority having of course dreamt of anything so improbable as a sudden incursion into Dublin Bay. The Commander-in-Chief is reported to be half dead with work and worry at the Royal Hospital. His subordinates are behaving like heroes. The “Polis"--otherwise the Royal Irish Constabulary--are doing soldiers’ work, and doing it a good deal better than most soldiers. Dublin is believed to be for the moment safe, but the condition of the country immediately south of it is critical to a degree. No one seems to be certain what the opinion of the bulk of the people really is. Invaders, especially French ones, are historically dear to their hearts, but the thing has been sprung upon them this time with rather uncomfortable rapidity, and there is something extremely sickening, so everybody admits, about the smell of burning roofs.

Immediately upon landing, the enemy established their headquarters, with no little strategical discretion, in a naturally defensible position upon the Wicklow Hills, from which point they are cheerfully engaged in sending out raiding parties over the whole of the adjacent country. The portion of Kildare nearest Wicklow has already been overrun, and most of its villages burnt, despite their nearness to the Curragh; Naas and Sallins are reported as likely to be the next assailed. The suddenness of the catastrophe has strained the military resources almost to breaking point, and the soldiers are forced to be kept together, not only to defend the approaches to the metropolis, but also in the hope of being able to bring on a general engagement in some more hopeful position than against the fortified camp in Wicklow. The result is that, beyond a limited number of constabulary, the general in command of the district is unable to spare a man for the protection of the smaller places.

Before that harassed and overdriven officer there suddenly appears--the Civilian! How many, or how few, is a detail. Few or many they are all civilians, undiluted, country-bred civilians, good shots and good riders; men of varying ages, but all with a more or less intimate knowledge of the local conditions. They are--but generalities are so unsatisfactory--let me take one of them, and suppose myself to be him, and I can be multiplied afterwards as required. Here I am; big and strong, level-headed and resolute; no boy--far from it--but sound in health and vigorous, a local magnate in a small way, fairly good at most sports, rather more than fairly good at rifle-shooting; a familiar figure formerly at Wimbledon, more recently at Bisley. Nothing can be further from my intentions than to obtrude my services; I wish that clearly to be understood. At the same time if I can be of any use under the circumstances, you had better say so!

With South Africa fresh in all our minds, can there be any question as to the answer? What more desirable material could unfortunate, under-manned commander have, or desire? As to what he could do with me there are plenty of answers ready. He might place me in certain chosen positions, rifle and field-glass beside me, and desire me to pick off certain of the enemy’s officers, who are known to be surveying the country. He might fill a country house or two with me and others like me, and so prepare pleasant little surprises for those who expected to find them vacant. He might do many things, only--and this is the point I am trying to arrive at--would he venture to do any of them? If such a man as I am representing myself to be were liable to be treated as the Germans in 1870 treated French fighting civilians, including women, and as the French would no doubt have treated German ones, in such a case it is hard to see how any responsible commander dare run such a risk, however great his need, or our willingness to serve. Risks are of course of the essence of war, but there are risks and risks. No one proposes to hunt with the hounds, and then run with the hares; to fight while fighting is reasonably safe, and afterwards slip hurriedly back into mufti; to play a soldier’s part, yet claim the immunities of civilians. Let the risks be no worse than those which any soldier runs, and our faithful civilian is satisfied, and asks no more. There are, however, risks which it is hardly proper, hardly I may say decent, for any self-respecting man to run. That our typical civilian would be really liable in these days to be shot in cold blood, most people would find a difficulty in conceiving, yet how does he stand officially? above all, how does he stand internationally? Have the risks of so monstrous, so utterly abhorrent a contingency, been once and for ever removed? and if so, since when? This is the point that one would like extremely to have authoritatively cleared up, seeing that the number of civilians, capable at a pinch of defending their own homes, possibly even their own fields and parishes, seem likely as the years go on to increase. Organised, or unorganised, the straight-shooting civilian has arrived, and he proposes to stay. He is still, however, an entirely new factor in the body politic, and, like other new-comers, he requires therefore to be neatly adjusted to the rest. That under no circumstances he could be of any use, few, I take it, would be bold enough to assert. These are hardly days when any possibly useful national asset can be left with safety upon the shelf. Let our sturdy civilian be able, in case of capture, to claim the same amount of amenity that is accorded in all decent warfare to the captured soldier, in that case I should say--speaking, of course, merely as a fool--that the more of him we had the better and the more comfortable for all of us.

MARCH 26, 1900

A view, a brand-new view, and in a garden supposed to be viewless! That our best point as regards scenery lies in the direction of the Dorking downs, is I think beyond question. The worst of it is that lying as they do nearly due north of us, the more of them we show the more the wind catches at our plants. Openings upon this side have, consequently, to be thought out with care, and executed only after long deliberation.

This time I think we are safe. A space of copse, ending in a fence, over which in summer tree-lupins and everlasting peas tumble together in friendly confusion, has been cleared. What was lately solid copse, fifteen to twenty feet high, has sunk to a mere russet-coloured growth, just bracken height, no more; three feet to four feet, that is to say, rising occasionally to five. This makes a broadish space, in which bracken and bramble, stunted elder, seedling birch, two or three low thorns, and some wild guelder-roses sprout together. Past this, sweeping up from the region of the larches, comes our new grass walk, eleven feet wide, consequently a walk of pride to people who have hitherto subsisted upon two-foot tracks! With a fine easy curve it turns away to the south, making for the gate which divides the garden from the copse. That turn being shared by the new opening, will I think ensure that no new rush of cold air can come tearing in upon the flower-beds. But for this no hatchet or billhook would have been conducted to the spot by me. Our new little view is--_pace_ our neighbour’s opinions--a remarkably nice little view, but did it display Alps or Andes, in place of the despised Dorking downs, the right-minded gardener would in the latter case hesitate; might even feel in the end that it would be too dearly purchased.

Now for the next question, and a serious one. Are we to allow ourselves to make any garden use of this new clearing or not? This touches upon the larger question of meddling generally. To meddle, or not to meddle? Is it permissible--as regards what lies outside the strict garden boundaries--to interfere, or ought we to leave the whole matter to Nature, in other words to Chance?

To lay down the law dogmatically upon this point would be to lay it down for every garden in Great Britain, or all not girded by kitchen gardens, or ploughed fields. Such a prospect, though enticing, might take some little time to carry out. Confining oneself for the moment to the immediate case, one finds that like most other cases, political, or horticultural, it is mainly one of compromise. Were our copse beginning to dwindle perilously, then, with a politician of the last generation, I should exclaim “_Can’t_ you leave it alone?” Seeing that, though we have been chopping assiduously ever since we came, two-thirds of our space is still covered with uninvaded copse, the case seems to me to be a fair one for experiment.

That being decided upon, what to experiment with becomes the next question, and here aspect is clearly the ruling factor. That no early morning sun will reach the place even in summer is certain. Four respectable oaks, of quite a gentlemanly girth, stand along the fence, and forbid it. They are not near enough for their roots to do much damage, but the firstlings of the sun’s rays they will certainly keep to themselves. This being so, there is a limit clearly as to what will answer. All things considered, especially with regard to the fact that the brambles could hardly be dislodged without a wrench which would disorganise everything, I am inclined to give my vote for more brambles, only this time civilised ones. There are plenty fortunately to choose from. There is, for instance, Rubus odoratus, showing a vigour, and a turn for colonisation hardly to be exceeded by the very wildest of wild brambles. There is the cut-leafed bramble; there is the bramble of the Nootka Sound; there is the whitewashed bramble; there is the salmon-berry; the cloudberry; the bramble of the Rocky Mountains, and others, all of which I already in fancy see tossing themselves up and down the bracken, and over their wilder brethren, in one delicious froth of white or rose-coloured blossom.

Another, and a yet more fascinating vision, sweeping over the field of my mind, has for a moment given it pause. What of a jungle, not of brambles, but of roses? None of your trim standards, of course, but some of the freer kinds--Rosa alba, Rosa lucida, Rosa brunonis, with some Ayrshires, some Dundee ramblers, and one commanding thicket of the biggest of the Polyanthas? It is a heady vision, and as a portion of the natural “wildness” might intoxicate the brain of Lord Bacon himself. In gardening it does not do, however, to be too easily intoxicated. We have to keep a sober head; we have to look at the matter from all its points of view; there is the question of aspect, already touched upon; there is the question of soil; above all there is the question of fertilisation--dear, delicate word! No, we must not allow ourselves to be carried off our feet by any vision, however roseate. We have always been a pair of sober horticulturists, and we will continue to be so still. Our rose-jungle must wait. It is only postponed: we will have it yet, and in a better place. Even if we never _did_ have it, even if the postponement had to be an eternal one, is it not, one sometimes asks oneself, the gardens that never have been planted--“whose flowers ne’er fed the bee”; whose dusky scented walks no foot has ever trod, that yield the deepest, the most unqualified enjoyment? “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.” What then of unseen gardens? What wealth of blossoms! what a flood of sunshine, which yet never scorches! what green and translucent groves, which at the same time are never damp! what order, without the faintest touch of formality! what wildness, what heavenly entanglements, without so much as an approach to confusion! But I perceive that I am again wandering out of the domain of horticulture, into a much less attainable region, and it may be as well, therefore, to pause.

MARCH 28, 1900

Had we embarked upon a little stone house, instead of a little red-brick one, should we, I wonder, have had the energy to bestow upon ourselves a small flagged and stonewalled garden as an adjunct to it? I doubt it. For one thing flagged gardens are, I imagine, costly affairs. Moreover I have never myself seen a new one that appealed to me as quite satisfactory. An old, grey-walled, and grey-flagged garden, as part of an old, grey farmhouse, or manor, is one of the most ideal possessions that the heart of man could sigh after. Like most other ideal possessions, to have it, it is, unfortunately, necessary as a rule to have been born to it.

Be this as it may, I have never ceased to rejoice that we had the energy to embark at once upon our little red-brick garden. The comfort of knowing that there is always one spot sure to be clean, sure to be dry, sure to be a satisfaction to step into, even in such weather as we have of late been afflicted with, is a boon that can hardly be overrated. As a mere matter of appearance, the red-brick garden seems to be at least as “natural” an appanage of the red-brick house as the little grey-stone garden of the grey-stone one. Both require a certain amount of thought and contrivance, especially as regards proportion, but once this is attained, they soon learn to wear that inevitable aspect, which in garden making, as in all the other arts, great and small, is the first, and surely the least dispensable of all requirements?

That the grey-stone garden is on the whole the higher species of the two I admit. At the same time the red-brick one has this great advantage over its stony brother that it is essentially a winter’s day garden, whereas the stone one may, and in bad weather does, look grim, to the point of being almost forbidding. In both gardens some amount of hindrance is apt to arise with regard to the laying down of the walks. Flagging is a costly process, and where the walks are very narrow, the laying down of stone flags must be a matter of some difficulty. The same applies, though not quite to the same extent, to the red-brick garden. That it ought to be tiled, just as the other ought to be flagged, I feel sure. At the same time good, red gravel, or even bricks, broken fine, mixed with sand, and rolled, answers fairly. Another question arises in the matter of vases. Terra-cotta ones of the right design are not easily come by in this country, and, when come by, they often cost more than if imported direct from Italy. These, however, are details, while the question of what to plant in such gardens is still more obviously an open one. That the more of glaucous, grey-blue tints--such as that found in the foliage of carnations--we have the better, is I think certain, while if small bushes are wanted, lavender will provide the same shade. Where both walls and walks are of red brick, blue, white and violet seem to be the right prevailing colours; reds and yellows only to be admitted slowly, and with precaution. All this, however, savours of dogmatism!

The supreme moment for such little plots is of course their spring-bulb time. Most people call them Dutch gardens, and whether common in Holland or not, the tulip undoubtedly seems born to flourish in them. When the tulips are over, plenty of other things come on however to take their places. Pansies, for instance, never look better than in such gardens, whether as a carpet for tea-roses, or in beds by themselves. The smaller campanulas, especially the white hairbells, the small double daisies, and a host of other things of the same sort, answer perfectly, while, if we want to stretch out our bulb season all we can, sparaxis, ixias, bobartias, the early white gladioli, and others, are all ready to hand, followed by the various lesser irises, winding up, at perhaps their best point, with xiphium and xiphioides.

The one indispensable point--here again dogmatism appears!--is that such gardens should be so close to the house as to keep up the idea of being merely an adjunct, or flowery courtyard to it. With this idea in our minds anything like distance is fatal. You must be free to step into your garden from your door, or with no more interval than two or three steps, or the breadth of a gravel walk. Garden fanatics as many of us already are, and--as life increases in strenuousness--more and more will yearly become, it is our interest obviously to spin out our playtime all we can. Now nothing so helps us towards this, or so effectually counteracts our Arch-enemy, as to have some little settled place so cunningly contrived that even _his_ malignity, backed by its worst agents--sleet, hail, fierce winds, cutting rains,--fails to reduce it to a condition of mere despairing sloppiness; mere forlorn, and death-suggesting desolation.

MARCH 29, 1900

Who would believe in being seriously tormented by a plague of oaks? Such nevertheless has been our lot for the last few weeks. As plagues go they are certainly better than locusts, not to speak of others that we read of in the Bible. For all that we find them quite troublesome enough. Although so young that they were only dropped from the parent bough last autumn, they already cling to the ground with all the tenacity of their ancestors; the most exasperated pull causing considerable fatigue to the puller, but producing no effect whatever upon the youthful athlete. Many of them are in the engaging condition of being still attached to their natal acorn, which, acting as a sort of grappling iron, effectually hinders their being drawn up, even through the soft soil of our flower-borders. Last year was a most bountiful one for acorns, and every sty in the neighbourhood revelled in plenty. Since we do not ourselves keep pigs, we hope that another season we may be less blessed!

Biologists have a theory--they would call it a law--which they call the law of “Multiplication in Geometrical Progression.” By that law the plants of any region would, under favouring conditions, increase from a hundred to a thousandfold every year. Happily for people who wish to walk about they never really do anything of the sort; on the contrary, the population of any given district, apart from man’s interference, remains for the most part all but stationary. Until a parent is considerate enough to die, and make way for it, every green child that is born is bound to die in its infancy. These little oaks of ours are an excellent example of that fact, as well as of the summary fashion with which Nature is in the habit of wielding her maternal sceptre. They are, as anyone can see, as hale and as vigorous as could be desired; hearts of oak, every one of them, and they know it. Not an oaklet amongst them but sees itself in nightly visions as an umbrageous giant, lifting high in air a mighty trunk, and spreading out branches that all the fowls of the air could lodge upon with comfort. Alas, for so much prospective dignity! Every one of these youthful monarchs is doomed to an early death, and it is merely a question of what stage of immaturity he will be called upon to perish at!

There is yet another biological dictum which these deluded young sovereigns may serve to illustrate. Before Darwin, or any other expositor, laid it down in prose, it had been already laid down in unforgettable verse--thus:--

“No being on this earthly ball Is like another, all and all.”

Nothing certainly on this earthly ball can be truer. Never two living beings came into the world precisely alike, and these baby oaks differ each of them in some imperceptible fashion from its baby brother. Here is a handful plucked at random out of the flower-beds that will prove it. In this one that I hold in my fingers, it is easy to see that the future giant would have been a somewhat thick-set, and stunted colossus. This one again has already a tendency to self-division, and would probably have ended by becoming forked. Yet again this one would, if it had been spared--appropriate phrase--have grown up to be the very ideal of oaks; a glory of the woods; star-proof; sun-proof; magnificent in its life, and in its death destined to be converted into the very straightest and most wind-defying of masts. This last, by the way, is not a loss that we need delay to weep over, seeing that long before it could have reached maturity, masts will in all probability have gone to join the other relics of the past; even yachts being converted probably by that time into little electrical monsters, with ingenious arrangements for enabling them to become submarine ones, whenever the wars of that date threaten to interfere with the comfort of their owners.

Poor baby oaks! They gave me a great deal of trouble to pull up, and now, with that inopportune remorse, sometimes ascribed to murderers, I am disposed to grow quite pitiful over them. They have been so spoilt, moreover, in the process, that they are not even worth putting into a flower-vase. Imagine having been potentially capable of serving as the tutelary deity, the beloved shade, the _rendezvous_ of all the lovers of a parish for possibly half a dozen generations, and being found actually unfit to fill a bow-pot for an hour! Could poet or pessimist hit upon instance of malicious destiny more dramatically or tragically complete?

APRIL 2, 1900

At last we are in April. The winter corner is turned, and a new era entered upon. But April this year is an incongruous sort of an April, though the incongruity is possibly only in one’s own fancy. We are apt to fashion our notions of the becoming, and to expect Nature to conform to them. A desperately dry April it certainly is. The days are hard, and cold, parched, and nipping; at night the wind howls, but with no accompaniment of desirable drops. The garden cries to the sky for rain, but no rain falls upon it, yet the only days I have spent in London were days of unceasing downpour. Such favouring of the Metropolis at the expense of the country is manifestly unjust.