With these expeditions is associated another first acquaintance that made a singularly strong impression.
There was, at the end of one of those heavenly grassed alleys, a group of brushwood greenery from which the unmistakable fragrance flowed deliciously across the path when the wind blew from a certain direction—I should say, now, from the west; for the path led to Garches, a place which, some eight years later, during the siege of Paris, became notorious as the scene of some very ferocious bayonet fighting. Undoubtedly there was a wealth of the desirable “Reinette” amid that underwood. But, to the mild surprise of nurse or mother, or whoever it might be who escorted the child upon his daily constitutional in the wood, nothing could induce him to draw that particular cover. He developed an ingenuity ‹or rather should it be called a disingenuousness› for pushing investigations or carrying on a game in paths that gave this spot a wide berth. Whenever possible, even, he found some specious argument for avoiding the Garches-ward alley altogether. No one, I believe, ever knew the reason.
THE BLANCHING, LAUGHING ASPEN
The fact is that, hard thereby, as if standing sentinel, rose a company of tall, slender Aspens—trees that, in a small boy’s estimation, did not behave as mere trees should. He had realised this, with a suddenness that first made his heart jump, and then rooted him on the spot, one day when, having caught up his scent, he was rushing with a whoop to the capture of his bush. The Aspens, up to that instant quite placid, palely green, grew all at once white with excitement and nodded their heads to each other; after which came the noise of their leaves; not the honest rustle of green trees, but derisive laughter; sounds, too, weirdly human, ringing as though in mockery of the discomfited invader.
Mark you, there is something decidedly uncanny in the deportment of the Aspen and its gracile, long-stalked trembling leaves, the white undersides of which any puff of wind exposes simultaneously to view—turning, on the instant, the whole of the green to foaming silver. There was no doubt about the matter then. These paling and odd rustling trees completely overawed Master Louis ‹Louis is Loki’s grandpa’s baptismal name, now sunk into disuse›, though, in his budding masculine pride, he kept the secret of his abhorrence very close within his own little bosom.
On one occasion, however, when he had had to make up his mind to walk past the blanching, murmuring group unless he were prepared ‹which he was not› to explain the nature of his objection, he asked, with a fair show of indifference, what manner of tree it was which “made that funny noise: he-he-he-he.” “One would say,” he added with elaborate airiness, “that they make a mock of one!”
When informed that “Tremble” was the name thereof, he became sunk in fresh unpleasant musings, and was fain to look back, fascinated, over his shoulder, each time the chuckling called after him.
The sound of the breeze, as it ruffles through the leaves of “Populus tremula,” is like nothing else in the woods. I have always retained my interest in the “Tremble” of my young days; and in the course of time it became one of delight instead of terror. I would give a good deal to have one of my own: one living not far from my bedroom window. It would be good to hear it laughing gently outside, when one first woke, and to know that it was powdering itself, so to speak, under the rays of the rising sun. But there are no Aspens in our part of the world. And, as for planting a council of these in the hope of silvery rustle and light effects, why, it is perhaps somewhat too late in the day! But I still seem to hear and see them with the ears and eyes of that dawning spring of life in the St. Cloud days.