Wargrave backwater is one of the most noted on the river, and in summer, or early spring, is a fairyland of greenery. The entrance is behind the large willow-covered island that lies below the hotel. The tiny arched bridge, not far in, is so low that one has to lie full length in a boat in order to pass under it. This is called Fiddler's bridge, though no local tradition keeps alive the origin of the name. The gentle light shimmers down between the spear-leaved willows in a veil of glory, and the stream is so narrow, one can almost touch the banks with both hands at once. In the main stream meantime, there are several islands decorated with the new rough stuccoed houses now so popular in river architecture, and, at the end where the backwater emerges again, there is a brightly-coloured boat-house. Beyond this, again, is a long stretch where there are generally house-boats. In winter, a little creek on the left bank is a kind of storehouse for them. This is a fine wide reach, and above it rises Wargrave Hill with its large white house conspicuously placed.
Further down, the river makes a succession of curves; and facing up stream is Bolney Court, in a solid, old-fashioned style, of a dull yellow colour, while, behind and around it, the deep blue-green of Scotch firs is seen among the lighter foliage, and on the curving heights which block the vista to the north, the heights above Henley, these trees are conspicuous everywhere. Indeed, evergreens of all kinds flourish well in the chalky soil about Wargrave.
The late C. J. Cornish said somewhere that Thames eyots always seem to have been put in place by a landscape gardener, and those about Bolney recall the words. They are thickly grown over by sedge and osiers, and overshadowed by taller trees; between them, the channels of shining water, half hidden half revealed, gain all the charm of elusiveness. Has anyone ever reflected what a kindly thought it was of Nature's, to arrange that trees growing on the water's edge should invariably take an outward angle, so as to lean over the water? How much less effective the result would have been had they grown inward, may be pictured by imagining a river without reflections. In the stillness of a backwater, or in the narrowed channel beside a large island, the beautiful effect of this outward angle is best seen. If the channel be very narrow, the trunks fold one behind the other in perspective, so as to form an arch over a shining aisle. In the water, all the many-coloured gnarled stems are smoothed by the gentle movement into something softer than the rigid reality, with its hard knots of shadow. The different colouring on the stems of the same species of tree is a thing to marvel at. From the deep mahogany of a joint where the damp has made an open wound, to the faint biscuit-colour of the place where a strip of bark has been newly peeled off, the stems of pollarded willows furnish every brown and yellow on a painter's palette. Many of them are richly crowned by a head of ivy, whose satin-smooth leaves fall in garlands like locks, and sway with every touch of air. These are reflected in the water as a shaded mass of green with no detail.
There are so many varieties of willow that it is difficult for the lay mind to remember them all, and numbers of them are to be seen about Wargrave. It is the Crack willow and the White willow, with long slender leaves, that are commonly pollarded as osiers, though they will grow tall enough if they are allowed to. There is a legend that the mournful droop of the leaves of the weeping willow is a reminiscence of the sad time of the Captivity:
By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, O Sion;
As for our harps, we hanged them up upon the willow trees that grow therein.
Besides the willows, there are their cousins, the poplars, chief among which, is the fine Populus tremula, whose leaves whisper perpetual secrets, even on the stillest days. This is caused by the broad leaves being attached to a slender flattened stalk. They are silky on the wrong side, and when the wind blows through the foliage it turns a soft greyish white, like a cottony mass. There is a legend that the wood of this tree was used for the Cross, and that in consequence it has trembled ever since, and so its leaves are in a perpetual state of quivering.
The poplar, like the ash, is not kind to neighbouring trees, its numerous suckers taking more than their share of nourishment and moisture from the ground, and the leaves, when they fall, seem to be as destructive as those of the beech, for grass will not grow where they lie.
In spring, these trees shed their long catkins, like hairy caterpillars, all over the water, and they are swept up in heaps into every eddy.
In spite of the delights of summer, there is a time which well bears comparison with it; I mean the first fine days of early spring, before the rest of the world has awakened to the fact that winter is over. And about Wargrave at such times there is to be found great charm by those whose senses are alert. It is true that the splendid hedge that lines the tow-path shows only the long withes of the creepers and no starry flowers; that the graceful sprays of the wild rose now appear barbed and polished and ferocious, instead of sweet and enticing. A bush of barberry or berberis is not often seen in hedges, for the old folk-lore taught that wheat never throve when the barberry was in the hedge; therefore the farmers grubbed it up whenever they found it. But science has confirmed the empirical wisdom of our fathers, for it was discovered that the barberry furnishes the intermediate host for rust in wheat. On the green river bank there are quivering blades of tender green, but no flowers with their umbrella heads of white, or bunchy yellow, or pale mauve. Yet still there are compensations. To begin with, the river itself talks in spring as it never does in summer, and what is better, one can hear it without the interruption of human chatter or noise. One has the whole stretch to one's self, and attuning one's ear to the key of that conversation, one can listen to it sucking at the bank, flop-flopping under the prow of one's punt, chuckling as it races past the pole, and, laughing a little silvery laugh of merriment, that we call rippling—a word we have learnt to adapt to our poor human attempts in the same direction. The river sprites are with us, and very busy they are—ceaselessly busy about nothing at all, and so happy in their activity that to hear them is to laugh for right good fellowship. The wind is in the water, urging them on faster and faster; each wavelet has its crest of foam, and, in the heights and hollows ahead there is every shade of green, from emerald to olive. One must be very still in order to imbibe the real spirit of the scene, for they are shy, these river nymphs, as shy as the birds and beasts that live around them, and have learned the fear of tempestuous man. A shy-bold wren, with a sudden glint of sunlight on his rich brown back, flies to the edge of the water where the punt lies drifting, and then darts back in haste to the shelter of that commanding hedge he never likes to leave. His pertness is all in his appearance; never did looks so belie a timid character! A water-hen, startled by the sudden dip of the pole, flies out of the reeds close by, and skims in a swift low line to the islet opposite; her smooth dark body, with the elongated neck and scant tail, resembles an Eastern water skin.