Ravenshoe

by Henry Kingsley

It was spring. On the sea-coast, the watchers at the lighthouses and the preventive stations began to walk about in their shirt-sleeves, and trim up their patches of spray-beaten garden, hedged with tree-mallow and tamarisk, and to thank God that the long howling winter nights were past for a time. The fishermen shouted merrily one to another as they put off from the shore, no longer dreading a twelve hours' purgatory of sleet and freezing mist and snow; saying to one another how green the land looked, and how pleasant mackerel time was after all. Their wives, light-hearted at the thought that the wild winter was past, and that they were not widows, brought their work out to the doors, and gossiped pleasantly in the sun, while some of the bolder boys began to paddle about in the surf, and try to believe that the Gulf Stream had come in, and that it was summer again, and not only spring.

In inland country places the barley was all in and springing, the meadows were all bush-harrowed, rolled, and laid up for hay; nay, in early places, brimful of grass, spangled with purple orchises, and in moist rich places golden with marsh marigold, over which the south-west wind passed pleasantly, bringing a sweet perfume of growing vegetation, which gave those who smelt it a tendency to lean against gates, and stiles, and such places, and think what a delicious season it was, and wish it were to last for ever. The young men began to slip away from work somewhat early of an evening, not (as now) to the parade ground, or the butts, but to take their turn at the wicket on the green, where Sir John (our young landlord) was to be found in a scarlet flannel shirt, bowling away like a catapult, at all comers, till the second bell began to ring, and he had to dash off and dress. Now lovers walking by moonlight in deep banked lanes began to notice how dark and broad the shadows grew, and to wait at the lane's end by the river, to listen to the nightingale, with his breast against the thorn, ranging on from height to height of melodious passion, petulant at his want of art, till he broke into one wild jubilant burst, and ceased, leaving night silent, save for the whispering of new-born insects, and the creeping sound of reviving vegetation.

Spring. The great renewal of the lease. The time when nature-worshippers made good resolutions, to be very often broken before the leaves fall. The time the country becomes once more habitable and agreeable. Does it make any difference in the hundred miles of brick and mortar called London, save, in so far as it makes every reasonable Christian pack up his portmanteau and fly to the green fields, and lover's lanes before-mentioned (though it takes two people for the latter sort of business)? Why, yes; it makes a difference to London certainly, by bringing somewhere about 10,000 people, who have got sick of shooting and hunting through the winter months, swarming into the west end of it, and making it what is called full.

I don't know that they are wrong after all, for London is a mighty pleasant place in the season (we don't call it spring on the paving-stones). At this time the windows of the great houses in the squares begin to be brilliant with flowers; and, under the awnings of the balconies, one sees women moving about in the shadow. Now, all through the short night, one hears the ceaseless low rolling thunder of beautiful carriages, and in the daytime also the noise ceases not. All through the west end of the town there is a smell of flowers, of fresh-watered roads, and Macassar oil; while at Covent Garden, the scent of the peaches and pine-apples begins to prevail over that of rotten cabbage-stalks. The fiddlers are all fiddling away at concert pitch for their lives, the actors are all acting their very hardest, and the men who look after the horses have never a minute to call their own, day or night.

It is neither to dukes nor duchesses, to actors nor fiddlers, that we must turn our attention just now, but to a man who was sitting in a wheelbarrow, watching a tame jackdaw.

The place was a London mews, behind one of the great squares—the time was afternoon. The weather was warm and sunny. All the proprietors of the horses were out riding or driving, and so the stables were empty, and the mews were quiet.

This was about a week after Charles's degradation, almost the first hour he had to himself in the daytime, and so he sat pondering on his unhappy lot.

Lord Ballyroundtower's coachman's wife was hanging out the clothes. She was an Irishwoman off the estate (his lordship's Irish residences, I see, on referring to the peerage, are, "The Grove," Blarney, and "Swatewathers," near Avoca). When I say that she was hanging out the clothes, I am hardly correct, for she was only fixing the lines up to do so, and being of short stature, and having to reach was naturally showing her heels, and the jackdaw, perceiving this, began to hop stealthily across the yard. Charles saw what was coming, and became deeply interested. He would not have spoken for his life. The jackdaw sidled up to her, and began digging into her tendon Achilles with his hard bill with a force and rapidity which showed that he was fully aware of the fact, that the amusement, like most pleasant things, could not last long, and must therefore be made the most of. Some women would have screamed and faced round at the first assault. Not so our Irish friend. She endured the anguish until she had succeeded in fastening the clothes-line round the post, and then she turned round on the jackdaw, who had fluttered away to a safe distance, and denounced him.

"Bad cess to ye, ye impident divvle, sure it's Sathan's own sister's son, ye are, ye dirty prothestant, pecking at the hales of an honest woman, daughter of my lord's own man, Corny O'Brine, as was a dale bether nor them as sits on whalebarrows, and sets ye on too't—" (this was levelled at Charles, so he politely took off his cap, and bowed).

"Though, God forgive me, there's some sitting on whalebarrows as should be sitting in drawing-rooms, may be (here the jackdaw raised one foot, and said 'Jark'). Get out, ye baste; don't ye hear me blessed lady's own bird swearing at ye, like a gentleman's bird as he is. A pretty dear."