“My dear sir, they would not mind such an attack. They could always repel it by throwing stones down from the top—it's ten feet thick there—yes, heavy stones, and melted lead, and boiling water.”
I did not want to throw cold water upon his researches as to the defence of a mediæval stronghold, so I thanked him for his information. He disclaimed all pretensions to exclusive knowledge, and said that he would be happy to tell me anything else that I wanted to learn about such things.
I could not resist expressing my fear to him, as we were parting, that the Water Company would not sanction the domestic supply from the kitchen boiler being used outside the house for defensive purposes; but he stilled my doubts by an assurance that in those days there was no Water Company. This was well enough so far as it went, but when I asked where the Castle folk got their water if there was no Company to supply it, he was slightly staggered, I could see; but, recovering himself, he said there would certainly have been a Sussex dew-pond within the precincts, and, as every one knew, this was never known to dry up.
I did not say that in this respect they had something in common with local antiquarians; but asked him if it was true that swallows spent the winter in the mud at the bottom of these ponds. He told me gravely that he doubted if this could be; for there was not enough mud in even the largest dew-pond to accommodate all the swallows. So I saw that he was as sound a naturalist as he was an antiquarian.
By the way, I wonder how White of Selborne got that idea about the swallows hibernating in the mud at the bottom of ponds. When so keen a naturalist as White could believe that, one feels tempted to ask what is truth, and if it really is to be found, as the swallows are not, at the bottom of a well. One could understand Dr. Johnson's crediting the swallow theory, and discrediting the story of the great earthquake at Lisbon, for he had his own lines of credence and incredulity, and he was what somebody called “a harbitrary gent”; but for White to have accepted and promulgated such an absurdity is indeed an amazing thing.
But, for that matter, who, until trustworthy evidence was forthcoming a few months ago, ever fancied that English swallows went as far south as the Cape of Good Hope? This is now, however, an established fact; but I doubt if White of Selborne would have accepted it, no matter what evidence was claimed for its accuracy. Several times when aboard ship off the Cape I have made pets of swallows that came to us and remained in the chief saloon so long as there was a fly to be found; and once in the month of October, on the island of St. Helena, I watched the sudden appearance of a number of the same birds; but it was never suggested that they had come from England. I think I have seen them at Madeira in the month of January, but I am not quite certain about my dates in regard to this island; but I know that when riding through Baines' Kloof in South Africa, quite early in January, swallows were flying about me in scores.
What a pity it seems that people with a reputation for wisdom were for so long content to think of the swallows only as the messengers of a love poem: the “swallow sister—oh, fleet, sweet swallow,” or the “swallow, swallow, flying, flying south”—instead of piling up data respecting the wonder of their ways! The same may be said of the nightingale, and may the Lord have mercy on the souls of those who say it!