Chapter 12
The flight of the jay much resembles that of the magpie, the same jaunty, uncertain style, so that at a distance from the flight alone it would be difficult to distinguish them, though in fact the magpie's longer tail and white and black colours always mark him. One morning in July, standing for a moment in the shade beside a birch copse which borders the same road, a jay flew up into the tree immediately overhead, so near that the peculiar shape of the head and bill and all the plumage was visible. He looked down twice, and then flew. Another morning there was a jay on the ground, searching about, not five yards from the road, nor twenty from a row of houses. It was at the corner of a copse which adjoins them. If not so constantly shot at the jay would be anything but wild.
Notwithstanding all these magpies and jays, the partridges are numerous this year in the fields bordering the highway, and which are not watched by keepers. Thinking of the partridges makes me notice the anthills. There were comparatively few this season, but on the 4th of August, which was a sunny day, I saw the inhabitants of a hill beside the road bringing out the eggs into the sunshine. They could not do it fast enough; some ran out with eggs, and placed them on the top of the little mound, and others seized eggs that had been exposed sufficiently and hurried with them into the interior.
Woody nightshade grows in quantities along this road and, apparently, all about the outskirts of the town. There is not a hedge without it, and it creeps over the mounds of earth at the sides of the highways. Some fumitory appeared this summer in a field of barley; till then I had not observed any for some time in that district. This plant, once so common, but now nearly eradicated by culture, has a soft pleasant green. A cornflower, too, flowered in another field, quite a treasure to find where these beautiful blue flowers are so scarce. The last day of August there was a fierce combat on the footpath between a wasp and a brown moth. They rolled over and struggled, now one, now the other uppermost, and the wasp appeared to sting the moth repeatedly. The moth, however, got away.
There are so many jackdaws about the suburbs that, when a flock of rooks passes over, the caw-cawing is quite equalled by the jack-jucking. The daws are easily known by their lesser size and by their flight, for they use their wings three times to the rook's once. Numbers of daws build in the knot-holes and hollows of the horse-chestnut trees in Bushey Park, and in the elms of the grounds of Hampton Court.
To the left of the Diana Fountain there are a number of hawthorn trees, which stand apart, and are aged like those often found on village greens and commons. Upon some of these hawthorns mistletoe grows, not in such quantities as on the apples in Gloucester and Hereford, but in small pieces.
As late in the spring as May-day I have seen some berries, then very large, on the mistletoe here. Earlier in the year, when the adjoining fountain was frozen and crowded with skaters, there were a number of missel-thrushes in these hawthorns, but they appeared to be eating the haws. At all events, they left some of the mistletoe berries, which were on the plant months later.
Just above Molesey Lock, in the meadows beside the towing-path, the blue meadow geranium, or crane's-bill, flowers in large bunches in the summer. It is one of the most beautiful flowers of the field, and after having lost sight of it for some time, to see it again seemed to bring the old familiar far-away fields close to London. Between Hampton Court and Kingston the towing-path of the Thames is bordered by a broad green sward, sufficiently wide to be worth mowing. One July I found a man at work here in advance of the mowers, pulling up yarrow plants with might and main.
The herb grew in such quantities that it was necessary to remove it first, or the hay would be too coarse. On conversing with him, he said that a person came sometimes and took away a trap-load of yarrow; the flowers were to be boiled and mixed with cayenne pepper, as a remedy for cold in the chest. In spring the dandelions here are pulled in sackfuls, to be eaten as salad. These things have fallen so much into disuse in the country that country people are surprised to find the herbalists flourishing round the great city of progress.
The continued dry weather in the early summer of the present year, which was so favourable to partridges and game, was equally favourable to the increase of several other kinds of birds, and among these the jays. Their screeching is often heard in this district, quite as often as it is in country woodlands. One day in the spring I saw six all screeching and yelling together up and down a hedge near the road. Now in October they are plentiful. One flew across overhead with an acorn in its beak, and perched in an elm beside the highway. He pecked at the acorn on the bough, then glanced down, saw me, and fled, dropping the acorn, which fell tap tap from branch to branch till it reached the mound.
Another jay actually flew up into a fir in the green, or lawn, before a farm-house window, crossing the road to do so. Four together were screeching in an elm close to the road, and since then I have seen others with acorns, while walking there. Indeed, this autumn it is not possible to go far without hearing their discordant and unmistakable cry. They were never scarce here, but are unusually numerous this season, and in the scattered trees of hedgerows their ways can be better observed than in the close covert of copses and plantations, where you hear them, but cannot see for the thick fir boughs.
It is curious to note the number of creatures to whom the oak furnishes food. The jays, for instance, are now visiting them for acorns; in the summer they fluttered round the then green branches for the chafers, and in the evenings the fern owls or goat-suckers wheeled about the verge for these and for moths. Rooks come to the oaks in crowds for the acorns; wood-pigeons are even more fond of them, and from their crops quite a handful may sometimes be taken when shot in the trees.
They will carry off at once as many acorns as old-fashioned economical farmers used to walk about with in their pockets, "chucking" them one, two, or three at a time to the pigs in the stye as a _bonne bouche_ and an encouragement to fatten well. Never was there such a bird to eat as the wood-pigeon. Pheasants roam out from the preserves after the same fruit, and no arts can retain them at acorn time. Swine are let run out about the hedgerows to help themselves. Mice pick up the acorns that fall, and hide them for winter use, and squirrels select the best.
If there is a decaying bough, or, more particularly, one that has been sawn off, it slowly decays into a hollow, and will remain in that state for years, the resort of endless woodlice, snapped up by insect-eating birds. Down from the branches in spring there descend long, slender threads, like gossamer, with a caterpillar at the end of each--the insect-eating birds decimate these. So that in various ways the oaks give more food to the birds than any other tree. Where there are oaks there are sure to be plenty of birds. Beeches come next. Is it possible that the severe frosts we sometimes have split oak trees? Some may be found split up the trunk, and yet not apparently otherwise injured, as they probably would be if it had been done by lightning. Trees are said to burst in America under frost, so that it is not impossible in this country.
There is a young oak beside the highway which in autumn was wreathed as artistically as could have been done by hand. A black bryony plant grew up round it, rising in a spiral. The heart-shaped leaves have dropped from the bine, leaving thick bunches of red and green berries clustering about the greyish stem of the oak.
Every one must have noticed that some trees have a much finer autumn tint than others. This, it will often be found, is an annual occurrence, and the same elm, or beech, or oak that has delighted the eye with its hues this autumn, will do the same next year, and excel its neighbours in colour. Oaks and beeches, perhaps, are the best examples of this, as they are also the trees that present the most beautiful appearance in autumn.
There are oaks on villa lawns near London whose glory of russet foliage in October or November is not to be surpassed in the parks of the country. There are two or three such oaks in Long Ditton. All oaks do not become russet, or buff; some never take those tints. An oak, for instance, not far from those just mentioned never quite loses its green; it cannot be said, indeed, to remain green, but there is a trace of it somewhere; the leaves must, I suppose, be partly buff and partly green; and the mixture of these colours in bright sunshine produces a tint for which I know no accurate term.
In the tops of the poplars, where most exposed, the leaves stay till the last, those growing on the trunk below disappearing long before those on the spire, which bends to every blast. The keys of the hornbeam come twirling down: the hornbeam and the birch are characteristic trees of the London landscape--the latter reaches a great height and never loses its beauty, for when devoid of leaves the feathery spray-like branches only come into view the more.
The abundant bird life is again demonstrated as the evening approaches. Along the hedgerows, at the corners of the copses, wherever there is the least cover, so soon as the sun sinks, the blackbirds announce their presence by their calls. Their "ching-chinging" sounds everywhere; they come out on the projecting branches and cry, then fly fifty yards farther down the hedge, and cry again. During the day they may not have been noticed, scattered as they were under the bushes, but the dusky shadows darkening the fields send them to roost, and before finally retiring, they "ching-ching" to each other.
Then, almost immediately after the sun has gone down, looking to the south-west the sky seen above the trees (which hide the yellow sunset) becomes a delicate violet. Soon a speck of light gleams faintly through it--the merest speck. The first appearance of a star is very beautiful; the actual moment of first contact as it were of the ray with the eye is always a surprise, however often you may have enjoyed it, and notwithstanding that you are aware it will happen. Where there was only the indefinite violet before, the most intense gaze into which could discover nothing, suddenly, as if at that moment born, the point of light arrives.
So glorious is the night that not all London, with its glare and smoke, can smother the sky; in the midst of the gas, and the roar and the driving crowd, look up from the pavement, and there, straight above, are the calm stars. I never forget them, not even in the restless Strand; they face one coming down the hill of the Haymarket; in Trafalgar Square, looking towards the high dark structure of the House at Westminster, the clear bright steel silver of the planet Jupiter shines unwearied, without sparkle or flicker.
Apart from the grand atmospheric changes caused by a storm wave from the Atlantic, or an anti-cyclone, London produces its own sky. Put a shepherd on St. Paul's, allow him three months to get accustomed to the local appearances and the deceptive smoke clouds, and he would then tell what the weather of the day was going to be far more efficiently than the very best instrument ever yet invented. He would not always be right; but he would predict the local London weather with far more accuracy than any one reading the returns from the barometers at Valentia, Stornoway, Brest, or Christiansand.
The reason is this--the barometer foretells the cloud in the sky, but cannot tell where it will burst. The practised eye can judge with very considerable accuracy where the discharge will take place. Some idea of what the local weather of London will be for the next few hours may often be obtained by observation on either of the bridges--Westminster, Waterloo, or London Bridge: there is on the bridges something like a horizon, the best to be got in the City itself, and the changes announce themselves very clearly there. The difference in the definition is really wonderful.
From Waterloo Bridge the golden cross on St. Paul's and the dome at one time stand out as if engraved upon the sky, clear and with a white aspect. At the same time, the brick of the old buildings at the back of the Strand is red and bright. The structures of the bridges appear light, and do not press upon their arches. The yellow straw stacked on the barges is bright, the copper-tinted sails bright, the white wall of the Embankment clear, and the lions' heads distinct. Every trace of colour, in short, is visible.
At another time the dome is murky, the cross tarnished, the outline dim, the red brick dull, the whiteness gone. In summer there is occasionally a bluish haze about the distant buildings. These are the same changes presented by the Downs in the country, and betoken the state of the atmosphere as clearly. The London atmosphere is, I should fancy, quite as well adapted to the artist's uses as the changeless glare of the Continent. The smoke itself is not without its interest.
Sometimes upon Westminster Bridge at night the scene is very striking. Vast rugged columns of vapour rise up behind and over the towers of the House, hanging with threatening aspect; westward the sky is nearly clear, with some relic of the sunset glow: the river itself, black or illuminated with the electric light, imparting a silvery blue tint, crossed again with the red lamps of the steamers. The aurora of dark vapour, streamers extending from the thicker masses, slowly moves and yet does not go away; it is just such a sky as a painter might give to some tremendous historical event, a sky big with presage, gloom, tragedy. How bright and clear, again, are the mornings in summer! I once watched the sun rise on London Bridge, and never forgot it.
In frosty weather, again, when the houses take hard, stern tints, when the sky is clear over great part of its extent, but with heavy thunderous-looking clouds in places--clouds full of snow--the sun becomes of a red or orange hue, and reminds one of the lines of Longfellow when Othere reached the North Cape--
"Round in a fiery ring Went the great sun, oh King! With red and lurid light."
The redness of the winter sun in London is, indeed, characteristic.
A sunset in winter or early spring floods the streets with fiery glow. It comes, for instance, down Piccadilly; it is reflected from the smooth varnished roofs of the endless carriages that roll to and fro like the flicker of a mighty fire; it streaks the side of the street with rosiness. The faces of those who are passing are lit up by it, all unconscious as they are. The sky above London, indeed, is as full of interest as above the hills. Lunar rainbows occasionally occur; two to my knowledge were seen in the direction and apparently over the metropolis recently.
When a few minutes on the rail has carried you outside the hub as it were of London, among the quiet tree-skirted villas, the night reigns as completely as in the solitudes of the country. Perhaps even more so, for the solitude is somehow more apparent. The last theatre-goer has disappeared inside his hall door, the last dull roll of the brougham, with its happy laughing load, has died away--there is not so much as a single footfall. The cropped holly hedges, the leafless birches, the limes and acacias are still and distinct in the moonlight. A few steps farther out on the highway the copse or plantation sleeps in utter silence.
But the tall elms are the most striking; the length of the branches and their height above brings them across the light, so that they stand out even more shapely than when in leaf. The blue sky (not, of course, the blue of day), the white moonlight, the bright stars--larger at midnight and brilliant, in despite of the moon, which cannot overpower them in winter as she does in summer evenings--all are as beautiful as on the distant hills of old. By night, at least, even here, in the still silence, Heaven has her own way.
When the oak leaves first begin to turn buff, and the first acorns drop, the redwings arrive, and their "kuk-kuk" sound in the hedges and the shrubberies in the gardens of suburban villas. They seem to come very early to the neighbourhood of London, and before the time of their appearance in other districts. The note is heard before they are seen; the foliage of the shrubberies, still thick, though changing colour, concealing them. Presently, when the trees are bare, with the exception of a few oaks, they have disappeared, passing on towards the west. The fieldfares, too, as I have previously observed, do not stay. But missel-thrushes seem more numerous near town than in the country.
Every mild day in November the thrushes sing; there are meadows where one may be certain to hear the song-thrush. In the dip or valley at Long Ditton there are several meadows well timbered with elm, which are the favourite resorts of thrushes, and their song may be heard just there in the depth of winter, when it would be possible to go a long distance on the higher ground without hearing one. If you hear the note of the song-thrush during frost it is sure to rain within a few hours; it is the first sign of the weather breaking up.
Another autumn sign is the packing (in a sense) of the moorhens. During the summer the numerous brooks and ponds about town are apparently partially deserted by these birds; at least they are not to be seen by casual wayfarers. But directly the winter gets colder they gather together in the old familiar places, and five or six, or even more, come out at once to feed in the meadows or on the lawns by the water.
Green plovers, or peewits, come in small flocks to the fields recently ploughed; sometimes scarcely a gunshot from the walls of the villas. The tiny golden-crested wrens are comparatively numerous near town--the heaths with their bramble thickets doubtless suit them; so soon as the leaves fall they may often be seen.
HERBS
A great green book, whose broad pages are illuminated with flowers, lies open at the feet of Londoners. This volume, without further preface, lies ever open at Kew Gardens, and is most easily accessible from every part of the metropolis. A short walk from Kew station brings the visitor to Cumberland Gate. Resting for a moment upon the first seat that presents itself, it is hard to realise that London has but just been quitted.
Green foliage around, green grass beneath, a pleasant sensation--not silence, but absence of jarring sound--blue sky overhead, streaks and patches of sunshine where the branches admit the rays, wide, cool shadows, and clear, sweet atmosphere. High in a lime tree, hidden from view by the leaves, a chiffchaff sings continually, and from the distance comes the softer note of a thrush. On the close-mown grass a hedge-sparrow is searching about within a few yards, and idle insects float to and fro, visible against the background of a dark yew tree--they could not be seen in the glare of the sunshine. The peace of green things reigns.
It is not necessary to go farther in; this spot at the very entrance is equally calm and still, for there is no margin of partial disturbance--repose begins at the edge. Perhaps it is best to be at once content, and to move no farther; to remain, like the lime tree, in one spot, with the sunshine and the sky, to close the eyes and listen to the thrush. Something, however, urges exploration.
The majority of visitors naturally follow the path, and go round into the general expanse; but I will turn from here sharply to the right, and crossing the sward there is, after a few steps only, another enclosing wall. Within this enclosure, called the Herbaceous Ground, heedlessly passed and perhaps never heard of by the thousands who go to see the Palm Houses, lies to me the real and truest interest of Kew. For here is a living dictionary of English wild flowers.
The meadow and the cornfield, the river, the mountain and the woodland, the seashore, the very waste place by the roadside, each has sent its peculiar representatives, and glancing for the moment, at large, over the beds, noting their number and extent, remembering that the specimens are not in the mass but individual, the first conclusion is that our own country is the true Flowery Land.
But the immediate value of this wonderful garden is in the clue it gives to the most ignorant, enabling any one, no matter how unlearned, to identify the flower that delighted him or her, it may be, years ago, in faraway field or copse. Walking up and down the green paths between the beds, you are sure to come upon it presently, with its scientific name duly attached and its natural order labelled at the end of the patch.
Had I only known of this place in former days, how gladly I would have walked the hundred miles hither! For the old folk, aged men and countrywomen, have for the most part forgotten, if they ever knew, the plants and herbs in the hedges they had frequented from childhood. Some few, of course, they can tell you; but the majority are as unknown to them, except by sight, as, the ferns of New Zealand or the heaths of the Cape. Since books came about, since the railways and science destroyed superstition, the lore of herbs has in great measure decayed and been lost. The names of many of the commonest herbs are quite forgotten--they are weeds, and nothing more. But here these things are preserved; in London, the centre of civilisation and science, is a garden which restores the ancient knowledge of the monks and the witches of the villages.
Thus, on entering to-day, the first plant which I observed is hellebore--a not very common wild herb perhaps, but found in places, and a traditionary use of which is still talked of in the country, a use which I must forbear to mention. What would the sturdy mowers whom I once watched cutting their way steadily through the tall grass in June say, could they see here the black knapweed cultivated as a garden treasure? Its hard woody head with purple florets lifted high above the ground, was greatly disliked by them, as, too, the blue scabious, and indeed most other flowers. The stalks of such plants were so much harder to mow than the grass.
Feathery yarrow sprays, which spring up by the wayside and wherever the foot of man passes, as at the gateway, are here. White and lilac-tinted yarrow flowers grow so thickly along the roads round London as often to form a border between the footpath and the bushes of the hedge. Dandelions lift their yellow heads, classified and cultivated--the same dandelions whose brilliant colour is admired and imitated by artists, and whose prepared roots are still in use in country places to improve the flavour of coffee.
Groundsel, despised groundsel--the weed which cumbers the garden patch, and is hastily destroyed, is here fully recognised. These harebells--they have flowered a little earlier than in their wild state--how many scenes they recall to memory! We found them on the tops of the glorious Downs when the wheat was ripe in the plains and the earth beneath seemed all golden. Some, too, concealed themselves on the pastures behind those bunches of tough grass the cattle left untouched. And even in cold November, when the mist lifted, while the dewdrops clustered thickly on the grass, one or two hung their heads under the furze.