In the West Country

by Francis A. Knight

A tiny figure, and a simple song. But there is more of meaning in those few faint notes than in all the rest of the great chorus that day by day is gathering strength in the woodland. For in the chiff-chaff's call there is the Promise of Spring. It is said that when the Siberian exiles hear for the first time, after their long and bitter winter, the cry of the cuckoo, the familiar voice rouses in their weary souls a resistless longing to taste once more, if only for a day, the sweets of freedom; that there are always some who, at the summons, elude the vigilance of their guards, and take to the forest, lured by the magic of that wandering voice. And so, in our hearts, this feeble note rouses a longing for green fields and country lanes, for flowers and sunshine, for summer and the coming of the swallows.

Somewhere in the elms a nuthatch sounds at intervals his flute-like call—a wandering voice, now among the topmost branches, whose sunlit purple holds so well against the pallid blue, now near the ground, now in some mighty bough that leans far out over the field. Now the bird's figure shows darkly on the sky, and now, as he glides head foremost down, like the born acrobat that he is, his grey plumage lights up for a moment in the sunshine. And now he leaves the tree, still calling as he flies, and sinks down among that grey fringe of orchard, where his mate and he have, perhaps, already fixed on the hole in the old apple tree in which they mean to take up their quarters for the season.

The old hedge-rows round the orchard are but wintry still for the most part, save for a few buds of hawthorn just breaking into leaf, or an elder bush already tinged with green. But on the banks of the tiny stream that wanders leisurely along the lane below, celandine and sweet violet are in bloom; and primroses, no longer pale and stunted, as in the rougher days of March, lend their rare perfume to the air. Meadowsweet and brooklime are springing by the oozy shore, and on the dark boughs of the alders that lean over it the catkins cluster thick.

In a blackthorn bush, whose armed sprays are lightly touched with blossom as with new fallen snow, two wrens alight; two tiny figures, mere balls of brown feather, so near that every line of the wavy, shell-like marking on their backs is plain to see. Now one of them, poised on a briar stem, breaks suddenly into song, turning from side to side, his wings parted, his atom of a tail expanded to the full. The brief lyric ended, he flies down to join his mate, who waits demurely in the bush below, and for a minute or two they flutter and play, and whisper to each other soft notes of fond endearment—the sweetest bit of love-making imaginable.

Farther on, in a young oak tree in the hedge-row, two blackbirds have alighted. Not lovers, nothing like it, paying no manner of heed to each other's presence. One of them flies down—a splendid figure, with his new black coat, with the bright golden orange of his bill. Instantly the other is down too, in front of him. A moment they stand thus, motionless. Then, with loud notes of challenge, they tilt headlong at each other, beaks down, wings and tail spread wide, their whole dark plumage rough with rage. Again and again they meet in the shock of battle, rushing each on the other's weapon, rising at last into the air, fluttering and fighting, the snapping of their bills heard plainly fifty yards away. Five minutes only the conflict lasts. More than one historic field has been lost and won in time as brief. It is all over. The victor stands alone upon the grass. His beaten rival is in full flight far down the hedge-row. A moment later the queen of beauty, who from her perch among the blackthorns has watched the tournament unseen, flies down to the hero of her choice. It is the old story; a tale far older than the days of Thais—"None but the brave, none but the brave, none but the brave deserves the fair."

Here in this happy valley there has not been, for weeks past, one clouded hour. March has shown, all through, the temper of the lamb; nor now, in his last hours, does he show signs of changing mood. To seaward it is true the haze deepens to a cold grey fog, and the sullen booming of the distant fog guns is sounding faintly, at intervals, even now. On the hill the lapwings are calling, their plaintive voices softened by the distance, and at times their dark figures show against the pale blue sky, as they rise and fall above the limestone cliffs that skirt the hill.

Yonder crow, drifting up the slope, keeping low down, as if fearing to be seen, is making for his fastness among the fir-trees on the hill-crest higher up. He may well keep out of sight. Only last week two lambs were found in a field near the crow's nest, dying, with their eyes torn out. And the magpie, chuckling now and then in doubtful tone, somewhere at the foot of the orchard, has here a reputation almost as much blown upon. Terrible fellows, both of them, in lambing time or in the poultry yard. But they have been working hard and honestly enough all the rest of the year. Some people seem to think that the destruction of a chicken or two, or the theft of a few eggs, far outweighs a whole year of good deeds—the slaughter of unnumbered grubs, wire-worms, mice, and beetles.

At regular intervals, a few seconds apart, there sounds from a tall ash tree in the hollow the drone of a greenfinch, monotonous and unmusical. Was there ever such a drowsy sound? And yet when he breaks off presently in a stave of his own wild song, his voice is one of the sweetest of sweet sounds, a light and breezy ripple of love and sun and happiness. Pleasant, too, are the notes of the chaffinches that flit in and out of the hedgerow. And never surely was there sweeter blackbird's song than that wild lyric sounding now among the trees that overhang the well. In the top of the great elm that leans over the orchard stile there is such a chorus of tongues, such a babel of linnet and blackbird, of sparrow and jackdaw, with intervals of untuneful chattering, whistling, piping, that you fancy twenty performers at the least. But it is only a starling telling all the world in his quaint way of his joy in this unwonted sunshine. Now he breaks off into the song of a swallow, copied from the life. He may have heard it this very morning. Or it may be merely that the impulse of the spring time rouses in his heart a memory of the long absent wanderer, just as on rough days of autumn you may hear him mock the curlew's cry because the wind is roaring like the sea.

A very real note of spring is the hum of that burly bumble-bee sailing along the hedge-row in search of some convenient hollow, some abandoned mouse-hole it may be, in which to build her nest. Her nest, not his, or theirs. She has no mate. He died in the autumn, and on her alone devolves the labour of rearing the new generation.

Among the stones that years of patient toil have heaped under this straggling hedge-row, the long-hidden slaves of Nature are broad awake and busy, revelling in the brightness of these delightful days. A crowd of insects, flies, and bees, and beetles are coming out of their long hiding to sun their stiffened limbs. Butterflies flit lightly down the hedge-row, some newly waked from sleep, and some that have but just broken the dry husk of their chrysalis condition, and are spreading for the first time their beautiful wings.