I
This morning, for the first time in the year, I found myself unconsciously taking the shady side of the way. It was a small thing, truly; but it stood as an index of something great, perhaps the most portentous thing that happens annually in the life of him who is a countryman at heart and not merely by name. Summer had come in. It was not only that the calendar told me the month was June. I felt it in the sunbeams, saw it in the hedgerows and trees, read it in the pure azure of the summer sky. I took the shady side of the lane unthinkingly, and laughed because I did it;—not that I laughed for that alone, but because gladness was welling up within me unbidden, irresistible: I laughed for the same reason that the nightingale sang in the green brier-thicket hard by.
I stopped to listen to the song. It was June, and the nightingales would not be singing much longer. Perhaps in a week’s time, at the worst, their music would be done. I silenced my footfall in the long grass by the wayside, and crept up close to the nightingale’s bower.
Every year a nightingale came to this brier-bush, and sang there as she was singing now. The hedge was a very old one, lifting its dense green barrier ten feet or more against the sunny southern sky; and, in all the years I could recall, the brier-bush had never been without its nightingale. This one must have her nest close by, where all her ancestors must have built their nests, for how many generations back, who can say? The life of this old hedge, towering far above me, and nearly as broad as it was high, could not be compassed by a man’s life. It was thick and tall when the oldest in the village was but a child. At long irregular intervals of years it had been trimmed, cut back; but the growth of the gnarled old stems, where they sprang from the ground, had not been checked. There its age stood recorded; and it would be little wide of the truth to think of it as already thick and tall, already the traditional singing-place of this race of nightingales, a full hundred years ago.
The brier-bush stood on the shady side of the way. The nightingale had her perch in the sunshine beyond, so that the song filtered down to me through the tangle of intervening leaves. And yet it was not so much a song as a detached, occasional reverie on the summer’s morning. There is always this about the music of the summer migrant birds. They are creatures of eternal sunshine. Their life is no give-and-take of good and evil, like that of the birds who stay with us all the year through. They have no need to hearten themselves with memories of bygone sunbeams, to bring brightness from within when all without is lowering and grey. Wisely following the sun about the world from season to season, they ensure for themselves that the joy they sing of is never a memory, but always the expression of the moment’s living fact: they have but to turn the vision, the aspect of the hour, into its equivalent of music.
More than all, you see this truth exemplified in the songs of chaffinch and willow-wren, which are so much alike in form, yet so strangely different in the spirit. The hardy chaffinch began his bubbling, rollicking song with the first warm day in March, and it was more than half a fiction: to-day it has the same hard, set quality, like a petrified laugh in the woods. But the little willow-wren is the slave of no long habit of pretences. She has followed the sun from the south, keeping up with his youth; and now, from the glowing wood-top, she sends down her slender echo of chaffinch music, as if, though she would fain be silent, she must sing for very joy of the light. There is in it all the verve and gaiety of the chaffinch, yet infinitely softened and etherealised. And the long bowling phrase is never finished: it falls away and fails in the end, as if the singer suddenly realised her impotence to convey in melody one fraction of the morning’s loveliness and light.
Invisible through the dense tangle of the brier-bush, to me a voice and nothing more, the nightingale sat in her nook on the sunny side of the hedgerow, pouring out her song on the already song-burdened morning as a gilder lays gold upon gold. All its sweetness, its wild purity, its slow, sorrowful strength, and its sudden overtripping, overmastering joy, drifted out upon the sunshine of the meadow, the varied phrases coming turn and turn about with long intervening silences, as though the singer ruminated on all the beauty before her, and unconsciously sang her thoughts aloud. It was good to stand there in the cool shade, and listen, and take the facts of the thronging meadow life and colour beyond the hedgerow at such tuneful second-hand. But at length the nightingale put such a call, such an insistence into her music, as sent me to the meadow-gate a little way down the lane, just to see with my own eyes what manner of beauty could be to her so great an inspiration. Shading my eyes with my hands, I looked out over the mowing-grass, and thanked God it was June.
Knee-deep, almost, the grass stood under the morning sun; intensely green below, and above, white with the white of countless marguerites; and, higher still, rich rose-red with myriads of tremulous sorrel-plumes. A little way over the meadow, the green of the grass-blades was lost, and the eye saw only the white of the great moon-daisies, and the sorrel-red. Farther still, these two merged into one surface of formless pink, upon which the breath of the slow western air drew a rippling pattern like watered silk.
I passed through the gate, and waded into the grass to the farthest limit of the oak-shadow. All round the meadow these shadows lay upon the mowing-grass, blue and cool in the universal glare. It mattered nothing which way the sunshine fell. The green oak-boughs stretched out so far and so low that there was shadow beneath them everywhere. Just where I stood there was a patch of poor and stony soil. The tall-growing plants had shunned it, leaving it a little haven where the unconsidered trifles could see sunshine and flourish in their little might. Faced with the rich bewilderment of summer growth, a spot like this offers irresistible attraction. To look for long on great magnificence unwearied is a power not given to all. I know with what relief and pleasure, in other times, I have turned my back on snow-pinnacled mountains and soothed dazed eyes with a spot of grey-green lichen on a common stone. And now I turned from the boundless meadow radiance before me as from glory intolerable, and knelt to look awhile at the tiny, creviced beauties that lay among the clods.
There were scarlet pimpernel and lily-bind, gold-eyed cinquefoil and blue veronica—a score of nameless atoms starring the drab bare soil. Stooping lower, I noticed what I had never marked before—how the red of the pimpernel was centred with a crimson heart; crimson and scarlet—the military colours that I had always thought execrable, because unnaturally blended—here they were brought together, justified by the infallible artistry of the sun. The veronica seemed all pure cobalt blue as I stood gazing down upon it; but, looked at closely, each minute flower revealed a complication of colour. The blue of its petals was not a simple tint throughout, but was striped with a darker blue down in the cup. From its centre of sulphur-yellow three spires uprose, the one rich purple, the other two of a pale mauve. And, as if this were not enough beauty for so small a thing, the slender stalk upon which each blossom trembled was a shaft of delicate, translucent crimson, feathered over with white.
The cinquefoil was just as minutely wonderful in its way. Studded with little flat golden blossoms, its ferny growth mingled everywhere with the other rich-hued things, but it held itself aloof from them all. Even under the full noontide sun it preserved its chilly, star-like quality. Its pale silvery fronds seemed to quench the very sunbeams as they fell, and to make a cold spot on the earth in the midst of all the glowing soaring meadow-colour, like frost in fire. Many a time, in former years, I had looked at the cinquefoil thus, and marvelled at the ice-cold virtue of a thing that could so repel the fierce Tarquin of a summer sun. Nursing the fancy, I would grant it nothing at length but a senseless chastity done up in silver paper; as zealously guarded as little worth. But now I took the pains to pluck a few of its flowers, and discovered something new about it, something that raised its value to me a hundredfold. In all the meadow there was scarce another blossom with so sweet a scent; it was like the may, but at once more poignant and delicate. And, thinking of the may, I straightway forgot all about the cinquefoil, and turned to wander along the hedge.
The time had gone by when the hawthorn overran all the country-side with its billows of white blossom. These blinding masses of white—snow-white and cold as snow—are wonderful to look upon for a moment or two; but to me the hawthorn is always more lovely at the beginning, and, most of all, towards the end of its flowering life. At neither of these times is it really white. The new-opened blossom of the may is full of pink anthers that, in the aggregate, colour the whole bush. At this hour, for it is no more than an hour, the hawthorn-hedge is besieged by hordes of honey-sippers; hive-bees for the most part, but also every insect that can fly. Each flower keeps its rosy blush only so long as it remains unfertilised; and then colour and song forsake it together. The full-blown hedges of hawthorn have nothing for the ear, as they have little abiding solace to the eye.
But now again, as I roved along the narrow green way between the hedgerow and the tall grass of the meadow, the may, as of old, was beautiful to look upon. The pink anthers were dead, brown, shrivelled in their drained chalices; but the petals themselves, as they faded, had taken upon themselves a rich flush—the hectic of decay. Everywhere the hedgerow was wreathed and posied with this soft tint, the colour of old-rose. It was the colour of death, and that was often gay and bright enough, I knew. It seemed an ill thing wherein to delight on such a brave June morning. But the truth stuck fast in the mind, for all that: these festoons of dying may were nearly as beautiful as the best that youth and life could show.
Nearly—yet as I wandered on, creeping from bay to bay of green shadow, and edging round the great jutting promontories of hedgerow-growth, I came at once upon a sight and a sound that brought me to a more wondering halt than ever. It was my brier-bush again, and the nightingale was still singing, as I had heard her from the lane an hour ago. But now I no longer stood outside her concert-hall. I was here with her on the meadow side of her bower, and understood at last the full import of her singing. While on the shaded northern flank of the hedge there was nothing but greenery, here, on the sunny side, the brier-sprays were putting forth antlered buds, and one of them, close to my hand, had opened into the perfect flower. It was the first wild rose. If I had been Rip van Winkle, there and then waking from an age-long sleep, I should have known the day of the month, almost the very hour. Rarely, six days of June may pass in southern England, but never a seventh, without this master-sign of summer. Though storm and chill hold back the music of the migrant birds, they cannot daunt the English roses.
II
A stranger observant of trifles, coming into Windlecombe any time during early summer, might note one common feature of the place, not remarkable at other seasons. All the garden-gates were kept carefully closed; and all houses abutting on the street had their doors either shut altogether, or replaced by low boards or fence-bars. Even the gate of the churchyard, open day and night at other times, was now closed as heedfully as any; and, more curious still, the entrance to the inn, where there were no children to come wandering out and none dare intrude, was as cautiously barriered as the rest.
Plainly these obstructions were not set up against absconding babies, for the tiniest of them was invariably out-of-doors playing in the dust of the street. And yet there was no other visible explanation of the phenomenon. It was a puzzle of a mildly interesting kind, giving just that gentle spur needed by the tired brain of a citizen holiday-maker, escaped into villagedom for awhile, and lolling there, genially, yet rather contemptuously, agape at the silence and sloth of country things.
But if tide and weather served, any moment of the day might bring the desired solution of the mystery. From afar over the hills, a deep low clamour would begin to invade the songful village quiet. Then, on the crest of the nearest hilltop, a column of white dust would suddenly spurt up against the blue, and spread slowly downwards, marking the winding course of the lane as with smoke from a travelling fire. Now by degrees the tumult would grow louder and deeper, revealing itself at last as the hoarse medley of voices from a flock of sheep; a flock so vast that, while the first ewes were already charging into the village, the last ones had not yet breasted the top of the hill.
There would be no doubt now of the wisdom of the gate-shutting policy. Any of these that by chance had remained open, would be hastily clapped to; and all about him the stranger would see the children scramble into corners, and mount upon doorsteps out of the way of the tornading host. He himself, indeed, would be glad to take shelter in the nearest doorway, where he could look on at a spectacle, stirring even to a nature dulled by the din of a town.
Now the hoarse note has swelled to a veritable hurricane of sound. The whole village bids fair to be submerged and swept away by an avalanche of wool. In the forefront marches a shepherd-boy, straw knapsack on back and blue cotton umbrella under arm. Behind him the street is packed with the jostling, vociferating crowd of sheep, a solid mass of woolly life extending as far as eye can penetrate the cloud of dust. At intervals in the throng walk the under shepherds, each with his dog, all—dogs and men—adding their voices to the general uproar. And at the end of the procession, when at length it has stormed its way past, comes the master-shepherd, a figure shadowy, indistinct in the dust-laden air; nothing certain about him but the glint of the sun on his crook, and his easy, hearty replies to the shouted greetings of old acquaintance by the way.
Every day in June, while the tides last, and there is water enough in the river for the work of sheep-washing, these great flocks pour through Windlecombe, some of them coming from lonely farmsteads miles away over the Downs. Today it was the Ambledown wash, one of the largest of the year; and when the sheep had gone through, and the dust had cleared from the sunshine, I set off myself, in oldest garb and thickest boots, to join the string of onlookers drifting from all parts of the village towards the washing-creek. But on these sheep-wash days, there is much more to do than look on at one of the most fascinating and exhilarating sights in all the round of farm work. A helping hand from every man used to the task is alike expected and freely given as a point of honour at these times. Each of us has his favourite wash, in which, as a matter of old custom, he takes his share of the heat and burden of the day; and to me, when Ambledown’s turn comes round, is given, now by old-established and hard-won right, the long crook by the plunge.
As life journeys on, we tend to make ever less and less of our rare moments of swelling pride and self-satisfaction, or even to abrogate them altogether. But on this one day of the year, when I exchange a less noble tool for the long crook at Ambledown sheep-wash, and feel the cares of my office gathering upon me, I go back nearer to the child’s pure joy in a paper cocked-hat and tin epaulettes than at any other moment of my life. If you have never stood wide-legged, like a ship-captain in a gale, on a rickety hurdle six feet above a chaos of swirling, glittering water, crowded with the bobbing heads of sheep, your charge being not only to keep each ewe swimming down the wash to the tubmen, but to sustain a constant watch on the weaklings and prevent them drowning—you have never known responsibility’s true zest. Picture to yourself an old chalk-quarry on the river’s brink, long disused and abandoned to every form of wild life—a shy, green place overgrown with brier and bramble, merged at all other times of the year in eternal quiet, but now the scene of brisk activity, crowded with busy folk and innumerable sheep, and echoing with voices and laughter. The washing-creek is a sort of bay of the river, a long strip of water caged in by lofty fences, topped by a platform of hurdles, whence the crookmen manœuvre the struggling, gasping sheep in the water below. At one end of the creek is the plunge, where the sheep are thrown in; midway down the wash two tubs are sunk to within a foot of the water’s level, wherein stand the washers; and at the far end appears a gradually rising slope up which the dripping, water-logged ewes struggle inch by inch towards safety and the green feed awaiting them beyond.
It is nearing the top of the tide, but the work has not begun yet, nor will it begin until the flock has rested and cooled from its long journey over the Downs. As I come down the zigzag path into the chalk-quarry, the place seems almost as shy and still as ever. There is the multitude of sheep, a thousand or more, quietly nibbling in the great pen. The shepherds, the washing-gang, the little crowd of onlookers, are lounging on the green river-bank, chatting idly together as if there were no more weighty business in hand than to enjoy the summer morning. The dogs are mostly asleep on their chains. Only the old captain of the wash is astir. He roves about, here tightening up a girth in his tackle, and there straightening a crooked hurdle; and every minute or two he goes and looks over the plunge, measuring the depth of water with his eye. At last he gives the signal, every man goes to his post, and the silence of the old quarry breaks as with the crash of a sudden storm.
For it is nearly impossible to convey a real idea of the hubbub and turmoil of the scene under any less decided simile. From the moment the first sheep is thrown in, until the last terrified, bedraggled ewe staggers up the slippery incline at the other end of the creek, there is one long, unceasing babel of sound. Often a score of sheep are in the water at the same time, each one rending the air with her piteous calling. Those that have passed through the ordeal crowd together on the bank above, still lifting to the skies their mingled note of indignation and alarm; and those as yet dry in the great pen anticipate their sufferings with a like deafening tumult. The yapping chorus of the dogs punctuates the entire symphony; and every man engaged in the work joins in a general running fire of comment and mutual encouragement, although hardly any sound less forceful than the bellow of a bull can be heard above the din.
Not the least onerous and responsible part in a great sheep-wash is the element of danger to the sheep—the risk of drowning always present when a large number have to be put through the creek at a swinging pace. The head shepherd, and often the flock-master himself, stands at the plunge and keeps a vigilant eye on the whole proceedings. Yet, even with the greatest care, sheep are sometimes drowned. It is a lucky day, for washers and shepherds alike, if the flock gets back to the farm without a single casualty.
But there is a humorous as well as a tragic side to sheep-washing. The continual splashing of the water soon drenches all the approaches to the creek, making them as slippery as ice. The platform of hurdles running the whole length of the wash is a particularly hazardous place from which to look on at the fun; and many a spectator, venturing too near, has received an impromptu ducking. This is an accident to which the throwers-in, as well as all the crook-men, are specially liable; and the day is hardly complete unless some one has succeeded in dipping himself as well as the sheep. The time-honoured joke then is to force him down the creek with his woolly companions in misfortune, and send him under the bar with all the rest.