Part 8

The bank swallow (_riparian_) or sand martin, which is so sociable with its own kind but not with man, digs horizontal and serpentine holes in banks, sloping upwards to avoid rain, where it lays in a careless nest four or six white eggs. It has sometimes, but perhaps not always, two broods. These are the smallest and wildest of our swallows; nearly mute, or with only a tiny chirp; and, when they can, frequent large spaces of water. They often fly waveringly with a quick fluttering of wings, somewhat like butterflies, and anon sail circling like other swallows. They use their old caves for some years, but may often be seen digging new ones. They are probably driven out sometimes by the fleas which, as I have often seen, abound in their habitations. Birds, indeed, free and airy as their life seems, suffer much from vermin, and the poor baby swallows are terribly preyed upon. The sand martin is mouse-coloured on the back and brownish-white below. It is the earliest to arrive in England, and may be expected now in three weeks or so. Next we may look for the chimney swallow with his long tail—then for the house martin, and latest of all comes the swift (_Cypselus_), which some naturalists say is no true swallow, having several anatomical peculiarities, the most noticeable being that all four toes go forward. No other bird, I think (save the Gibraltar swift), has a similar foot. The swift can cling well to the face of a wall, but cannot perch in the usual bird fashion, and gets on very badly on the ground, finding it difficult to rise on the wing. Once in the air, with its long wings in motion, it is truly master of the situation. It is one of the speediest, if not the speediest, and can keep on the wing for sixteen hours, which is longer than any other bird. The swifts are most active in sultry thundery weather. They fly in rain, but dislike wind. They are the latest day-birds in summer, and their one very shrill note may be heard up to nearly nine o’clock. Sometimes they get excited and dart about screaming, perhaps quarrelling, but usually the swallows, all of them, agree well among themselves, though they also keep a proper distance. The swifts build high in holes of walls and rocks. The Tower of London is one of their London palaces. The nest is bulky and has two white eggs. There is but one brood in the season, and the swift leaves town for Africa in August, going earliest, although he was the latest to come.

Swallows for several weeks after their arrival in England play about before beginning their nests—

“Like children coursing every room Of some new house.”

They wait for fit weather to go away, and may then be seen sitting in rows as though meditating on their journey, perhaps dimly sorry to part—

“With a birdish trouble, half-perplexed.”

Utterly mysterious and inscrutable to us are the feelings of our lower fellow-creatures on this earth, and how the bird of passage, “lone-wandering but not lost,” finds its distant goal, is beyond man’s wit to explain.

After this I fear tedious sketch of our four winged friends, I will only add another word or two as to the name swallow, a rather odd word, entirely different from the Greek _χελῖδών_, and the Latin _hirundo_ (which, unlike as it may appear, philologists tell us is formed from the Greek name). The Italians call the bird _rondine_ (evidently from the Latin), and the French _hirondelle_. We get our word from the Anglo-Saxon, _swalewe_, and the modern German is _schwalbe_. What does this mean? I must own with regret that it seems to me most likely that the name is given on account of the voracity of this bird, which is engaged in swallowing gnats, beetles, bees, may-flies, dragon-flies, and all kinds of flies from break of day till sunset. The Anglo-Saxon verb to swallow is _swelgan_. Fain would I take the word _swelgel_, air, sky; but the Spanish name for our bird seems conclusive for the baser derivation. The Spaniards call it golondrina (evidently from _gola_, throat); and it may be added, make a cruel kind of amusement out of the gulosity of the swallows, by angling for them with fishing-flies from the walls of the Alhambra, round which the birds dart in myriads on a summer’s day—descendants of those that played round the heads of the Moorish kings, who perhaps were kinder to their visitors.

THE RETURN OF THE SWALLOWS.

“OUT in the meadows the young grass springs, Shivering with sap,” said the larks, “and we Shoot into air with our strong young wings, Spirally up over level and lea; Come, O Swallows, and fly with us Now that horizons are luminous! Evening and morning the world of light, Spreading and kindling, is infinite!”

Far away, by the sea in the south, The hills of olive and slopes of fern Whiten and glow in the sun’s long drouth, Under the heavens that beam and burn; And all the swallows were gathered there Flitting about in the fragrant air, And heard no sound from the larks, but flew Flashing under the blinding blue.

Out of the depth of their soft rich throats Languidly fluted the thrushes, and said: “Musical thought in the mild air floats, Spring is coming, and winter is dead! Come, O Swallows, and stir the air, For the buds are all bursting unaware, And the drooping eaves and the elm-trees long To hear the sound of your low sweet song.”

Over the roofs of the white Algiers, Flashingly shadowing the bright bazaar, Flitted the swallows, and not one hears The call of the thrushes from far, from far; Sighed the thrushes; then, all at once, Broke out singing the old sweet tones, Singing the bridal of sap and shoot, The tree’s slow life between root and fruit.

But just when the dingles of April flowers Shine with the earliest daffodils, When, before sunrise, the cold, clear hours Gleam with a promise that noon fulfils,— Deep in the leafage the cuckoo cried, Perched on a spray by a rivulet-side, “Swallows, O Swallows, come back again To swoop and herald the April rain!”

And something awoke in the slumbering heart Of the alien birds in their African air, And they paused, and alighted, and twittered apart, And met in the broad white dreamy square, And the sad slave woman, who lifted up From the fountain her broad-lipped earthen cup, Said to herself with a weary sigh, “To-morrow the swallows will northward fly!”

AULD LANG SYNE; OR, THE LAW IN 1874.

IN 1868 it was determined by Lord Cairns, then Lord Chancellor, that a revised edition of the statutes of the realm should be published containing only such statutes as were actually in force.

In looking over the first volume, which contains statutes passed between 1235 and 1685, one is struck by the number of stringent Acts of Parliament forming part of our present law, which nevertheless are habitually neglected.

Now that the destroying hands of the Gladstonian iconoclasts are stayed there can be no more useful task than to look around us and see how many of these relics of the embodied wisdom of our ancestors still remain to us, rusted indeed but ready for our use.

In enumerating a few of these enactments I have two objects in view. First, I would remind those whose province it is to administer law and justice to the subjects of Queen Victoria of powers with which they are armed; and, secondly, I would offer timely warning to those against whom these powers, when again exercised, which the present healthy state of public feeling assures us they will be, must inevitably be directed.

To begin then. Can there be a more appalling spectacle than the “Monstrous Regiment of Women?” Well, we have our weapons of defence ready in 3 Henry VIII. c. 11., 34 and 35 Henry VIII. c. 8, and 5 Elizabeth c. 4. s. 17. What a sound and vigorous ring is there in the first of these statutes with the pains and penalties it enacts against ignorant persons practising physic or surgery, “such,” it goes on to say, “as common artificers, smythes, wevers and women.” And how discreetly liberal is the second of these statutes, which indicates a legitimate field for women’s activity, and allows them, in common with all other unqualified persons, to cure outward sores, such as “a pyn and the web in the eye, uncoomes of hands, scaldings, burnings, sore mouths, saucelin, morfew” and the like, by herbs, ointments, baths, poultices, and plasters. But most practical, perhaps, of all these three statutes is the statute of Elizabeth, which, making no exception, sweeps within its enactments all women under the age of forty who have failed to fulfil the great end of their being, matrimony.

“And bee it further enacted that twoo justices of the peace the maior or other head officer of any citie burghe or towne corporate and twoo aldermen, or twoo other discrete burgesses of the same citie burghe or towne corporate yf ther be no aldermen, shall and may by vertue hereof appoint any suche woman as is of thage of twelfe yeres and under thage of fourtye yeres and unmarried and foorthe of service, as they shall thinck meete to serve, to be reteyned or serve by the yere or by the weeke or daye, for such wages and in such reasonable sorte and maner as they shall thinck meete: And yf any such woman shall refuse so to serve, then yt shalbe lawfull for the said justices of peace maior or head officers to comit suche woman to warde untill she shalbe bounden to serve as aforesaid.”

The effect of enforcing this law would be salutary indeed. Under the existing state of things men are frequently employed upon duties so disagreeable and ill-paid that Providence can only have intended them for women. Why then do we not take advantage of the power, nay, the duty of sending women to their proper sphere and mission which is entrusted to our magistrates and discreet burgesses? As the wages will be fixed by these authorities, the burden to the rate-payers need not be great. And we should thus silence the demand which, I am told, women are beginning to make not only for work (as if their male relations were not always ready and willing to find them plenty), but even for remunerative work.

But I pass from our women to our agricultural labourers. We have lately heard much debate on the conduct of commanding officers who, when labourers at harvest-time were holding out for wages, allowed their soldiers to help in getting in the harvest. But such aid would never have been required had not the fifteenth section of the same statute of Elizabeth been unaccountably overlooked.

“Provided always that in the time of hey or corne harvest, the justices of peace and every of them, and also the cunstable or other head officer of every towneshipe, upon request and for thavoyding of the los of any corne grayne or heye, shall and may cause all suche artificers and persons as be meete to labour, by the discretions of the said justices or cunstables or other head officers or by any of them, to serve by the daye for the mowing reaping shearing getting or inning of corne grayne and heye, according to the skill and qualite of the person; and that none of the said persons shall refuse so to doo, upon payne to suffer imprisonement in the stockes by the space of twoo dayes and one night.”

Nor need our farmers at any other times in the year fear a deficiency of labour if they will but invoke the aid of the fifth section of the same statute, whereby every person between the ages of twelve and sixty not being employed in any of a few callings mentioned in the Act, nor being a gentleman born, nor being a student or scholar in any of the universities or in any school, nor having real estate worth forty shillings a year or goods and chattels worth £10, nor being the heir-apparent of any one with real estate worth £10 a year or goods and chattels worth £40, is declared compellable to be retained to serve in husbandry by the year with any person that keepeth husbandry.

Again we have Acts of 1275 and 1378 (3 Edward I., and 2 Richard II.), as our defences against those who are described as “devisors of false news and of horrible and false lies of prelates dukes earls barons” and, comprehensively, “other nobles and great men of the realm,” and also of various officials enumerated, with a like comprehensive “and of other great officers of the realm.” The Act of Richard II. reiterates and confirms that of Edward I., and under these Acts “all persons so hardy as to devise speak or tell any false news, lies, or such other false things” about great people, incur the penalty of imprisonment “until they have brought him into Court who was the first author of the tale.” What a check would the carrying out of these provisions put upon the impertinences of Own Correspondents, social reformers, gossips, novelists, caricaturists, and moralists! It will be a happy day for England when the many thoughtless or malignant persons who now permit themselves to retail stories inconvenient to members of the aristocracy or to the dignitaries of the country, suffer the punishment of their infraction of the law. To take but one instance of the great need there exists for the protection of our upper classes—an instance, as it chances, which enables me to show that I would not wish the private character of even a political enemy to be traduced—I may remind you that if the statutes of _Scandalum Magnatum_ were enforced there would not now be at large persons ascribing to the late Prime Minister himself the authorship of the Greenwich stanza on the Straits of Malacca.

There are many other statutes on which I might enlarge. I might remind coroners of duties which they have forgotten, and the clergy of rights which they are allowing to lapse, but time will not permit me.

It is true that when I read my Statute Book I meet with some provisions of which I do not comprehend the necessity. As a Protestant I do not see why I should be imprisoned for three years and fined besides, if I carry off a nun from a convent with her consent; and as a botanist I do not see why, since January, 1660, I have been prohibited from setting or planting so much as a single tobacco plant in my garden. Still, all are parts of one stupendous whole, parts of the sacred fabric built by our forefathers in “Auld Lang Syne.” Touch one stone and the British Constitution may crumble. And as a humble member of the Great Constitutional Party I desire to raise my protest against the canker of decay being left to eat insidiously into our ancient and revered legislative code, by our suffering any Acts of Parliament which appear on our Statute Book as parts of the living Law of the Land to drop into disuse, as if, contrary to the doctrine of the highest legal authorities, an Act of Parliament unrepealed _could_ become obsolete.

AULD LANG SYNE, WHERE HOME WAS.

’TWAS yesterday; ’twas long ago: And for this flaunting grimy street, And for this crowding to and fro, And thud and roar of wheels and feet, Were elm-trees and the linnet’s trill, The little gurgles of the rill, And breath of meadow flowers that blow Ere roses make the summer sweet.

’Twas long ago; ’twas yesterday. Our peach would just be new with leaves, The swallow pair that used to lay Their glimmering eggs beneath our eaves Would flutter busy with their brood, And, haply, in our hazel-wood, Small village urchins hide at play, And girls sit binding bluebell sheaves.

Was the house here, or there, or there? No landmark tells. All changed; all lost; As when the waves that fret and tear The fore-shores of some level coast Roll smoothly where the sea-pinks grew. All changed, and all grown old anew; And I pass over, unaware, The memories I am seeking most.

But where these huddled house-rows spread, And where this thickened air hangs murk And the dim sun peers round and red On stir and haste and cares and work, For me were baby’s daisy-chains, For me the meetings in the lanes, The shy good-morrows softly said That paid my morning’s lying lurk.

Oh lingering days of long ago, Not until now you passed away. Years wane between and we unknow; Our youth is always yesterday. But, like a traveller home who craves For friends and finds forgotten graves, I seek you where you dwelled, and, lo, Even farewells not left to say!

RIVER. AN AUTUMN IDYL.

“Sweet Thames! ran softly, till I end my song.”

SPENSER, _Prothalamion_.

LAURENCE. FRANK. JACK.

LAURENCE.

HERE, where the beech-nuts drop among the grasses, Push the boat in, and throw the rope ashore. Jack, hand me out the claret and the glasses;— Here let us sit. We landed here before.

FRANK.

Jack’s undecided. Say, _formose puer_, Bent in a dream above the “water wan;” Shall we row higher, for the reeds are fewer, There by the pollards, where you see the swan?

JACK.

Hist! That’s a pike. Look,—note against the river, Gaunt as a wolf,—the sly old privateer, Enter a gudgeon. Snap,—a gulp, a shiver;— Exit the gudgeon. Let us anchor here.

FRANK. (_In the grass_.)

Jove, what a day! Black Care upon the crupper Nods at his post, and slumbers in the sun, Half of Theocritus, with a touch of Tupper Churns in my head. The frenzy has begun.

LAURENCE.

Sing to us then. Damoetas in a choker Much out of tune, will edify the rooks.

FRANK.

Sing you again. So musical a croaker Surely will draw the fish upon the hooks.

JACK.

Sing while you may. The beard of manhood still is Faint on your cheeks, but I, alas! am old. Doubtless you yet believe in Amaryllis;— Sing me of Her, whose name may not be told.

FRANK.

Listen, O Thames. His budding beard is riper Say, by a week. Well, Laurence, shall we sing?

LAURENCE.

Yes, if you will. But, ere I play the piper, Let him declare the prize he has to bring.

JACK.

Hear then, my Shepherds. Lo to him accounted First in the song—a Pipe I will impart; This, my Belovèd, marvellously mounted, Amber and foam—a miracle of art.

LAURENCE.

Lordly the gift. O Muse of many numbers, Grant me a soft alliterative song.

FRANK.

Me, too, O Muse. And when the umpire slumbers, Sting him with gnats a summer evening long.

LAURENCE.

Not in a cot, begarlanded of spiders, Not where the brook traditionally purls, No; in the Row, supreme among the riders, Seek I the gem, the paragon of girls.

FRANK.

Not in the waste of column and of coping, Not in the sham and stucco of a square; No; on a June-lawn to the water sloping Stands she I honour, beautifully fair.

LAURENCE.

Dark-haired is mine, with splendid tresses plaited Back from the brows, imperially curled; Calm as a grand, far-looking Caryatid Holding the roof that covers in a world.

FRANK.

Dark-haired is mine, with breezy ripples swinging Loose as a vine-branch blowing in the morn; Eyes like the morning, mouth for ever singing,— Blythe as a bird, new risen from the corn.

LAURENCE.

Best is the song with music interwoven; Mine’s a musician, musical at heart, Throbs to the gathered grieving of Beethoven— Sways to the right coquetting of Mozart.

FRANK.

Best? You should hear mine trilling out a ballad, Queen at a picnic, leader of the glees; Not too divine to toss you up a salad, Great in “Sir Roger” danced among the trees.

LAURENCE.

Ah, when the thick night flares with dropping torches, Ah, when the crush-room empties of the swarm, Pleasant the hand that, in the gusty porches, Light as a snowflake, settles on your arm.

FRANK.

Better the twilight and the cheery chatting,— Better the dim, forgotten garden-seat, Where one may lie, and watch the fingers tatting, Lounging with Bran or Bevis at her feet.

LAURENCE.

All worship mine. Her purity doth hedge her Round with so delicate divinity, that men Stained to the soul with money-bag and ledger Bend to the Goddess, manifest again.

FRANK.

None worship mine. But some, I fancy, love her, Cynics to boot, I know the children run Seeing her come, for naught that I discover Save that she brings the summer and the sun.

LAURENCE.

Mine is a Lady, beautiful and queenly, Crown’d with a sweet, continual control, Grandly forbearing, lifting life serenely E’en to her own nobility of soul.

FRANK.

Mine is a Woman, kindly beyond measure, Fearless in praising; faltering in blame, Simply devoted to other people’s pleasure. Jack’s sister Florence. Now you know her name.

LAURENCE.

“Jack’s sister Florence!” Never, Francis, never! Jack, do you hear? Why, it was She I meant. She like the country! Ah! she’s far too clever.

FRANK.

There you are wrong. I know her down in Kent.

LAURENCE.

You’ll get a sunstroke, standing with your head bare. Sorry to differ. Jack, the word’s with you.

FRANK.

How is it, umpire? Though the motto’s threadbare, “_Cœlum non animum_,” is, I take it, true.

JACK.

“_Souvent femme varie_,” as a rule, is truer. Flatter’d, I’m sure—but both of you romance. Happy to further suit of either wooer, Merely observing—you haven’t got a chance.

LAURENCE.

Yes. But the Pipe—

FRANK.

The Pipe is what we care for.

JACK.

Well, in this case, I scarcely need explain. Judgment of mine were indiscreet, and therefore— Peace to you both.—The pipe I shall retain.

RIVER.

THREE rivers fell to strife, about their own renown, Producing rival claims to wear the rivers’ crown. Proud Amazon was one, and yellow Tiber next, And third, an English Thames—all three most fierce and vex’d.

Said Amazon: “The length of my majestic stream Makes me amazed that you, two tiny rills, should deem You can be e’en compared with me—enormous _me_! Of rivers I’m the king!—Let that acknowledged be!”

“Absurd!” cried Tiber. “_Size_—and all that sort of thing Are never reckon’d points in fixing on a king. But Rome was _mine_! And _mine_ her conquests, laws, and fame, In fact, her total past is coupled with _my_ name!”

“Be silent!” said the Thames; “I’m greater than you both! Not hist’ry and not miles can match with present growth. I’m proud to say _I_ own a trading wealthy place, By Anglo-Saxons built—that fearless, active race!”

The contest grew more sharp, they roll’d their waves in storm; Thermometers, if there, had shown the waters warm. Thames wreck’d some twenty ships, and Amazon still more, While Tiber caused dire dread to Romans as of yore.

At length the mighty sea, lamenting such a fray, By these wise words prevailed their envious wrath to stay. “Dear streams! you once were one—to me you all return. Oh! cease then—being one—with jealousies to burn!”

FOOTPATH BETWEEN THE PATHWAY AND RIVER.