While I was engaged in these reflections, my aunt awoke, and having taken her medicine, she desired me to read to her some of the Old and New Testament; and then, as she insisted on it, I went out for a short time, leaving her maid in the room.
My mind, of course, dwelt on that good and amiable aunt, to whom I owe so much; and every turn I made in the garden brought me to some object that reminded me of the kind things she had said to me in our walks, and the many opportunities she had taken of giving my mind a right direction. Her religion is always cheerful, and she has the art of introducing little useful reflections into common conversation, so as to double the impression they make. Just where I was then sauntering, she had said to me only a few hours before she was taken ill, “You see that the embryo plant contained in this seed will not vegetate without heat and moisture—and so, my dear niece, our good dispositions, whatever they may be, will wither away without the continual help of Him who is ever ready to assist us, and to open our minds to the high views of a future state which He has set before us; nor, Bertha, can it be considered one whit more wonderful that we should hereafter change into a life of immortality, than that the larva should burst into a beautiful butterfly, or that these little black seeds should expand into luxuriant foliage, and deck their branches with splendid flowers.”
The wind had been very high all that morning, and many broken branches were scattered about the shrubbery: my aunt seemed to delight in the “wild music of the wind-swept grove;” and as we sheltered ourselves from the blast, she pointed out to me the numbers of minute insects that were enjoying their short day of existence, unmindful of its terrors; and the birds that were struggling through it with materials for their nests; and the bees who could scarcely withstand its power, yet were urged on by their instinctive industry to begin their winter’s store. “How that hoarse storm,” she exclaimed, “and all these tokens of the opening spring, remind one of the Almighty power and benevolence!”
I immediately quoted the well known line,
Which Nature’s works through all their parts proclaim.
“Well applied, Bertha. In every department of nature we find sufficient proofs of that omnipotence and goodness. The astonishing force of an unseen agent, like the wind, comes home indeed to the feelings at this moment, and leads one to reflect on its wonderful causes and its beneficial effects; but when we view with the astronomer the countless stars and the regular movement of the planets in their orbits; or, with the chemist, trace the infinite variety of matter up to the different proportions in which a few elementary substances are combined; or if we examine the microscopic perfection of the commonest of these flowers; or the young leaves already formed and wrapped up for months in the buds; or the beautiful preparation of hard scales and downy net-work for the preservation of the young plant inclosed in the seeds,—the mind is absolutely lost in admiration!
I read His awful name emblazoned high,
With golden letters on the illumined sky,
Nor less the mystic characters I see
Wrought in each flower, inscribed on every tree;
In every leaf that trembles in the breeze,
I hear the voice of God among the trees.”
20th.—For some days past, the rooks have been very busy, building their nests.—There are a few tall trees near this, which stand in a clump apart from the rest; Frederick says that the rooks have a fancy for them, and build there year after year. No creatures seem to be more attached to the place where they have lived; nor can any be more sociable, as they generally place several nests together. But their sociable disposition does not imply honesty towards each other; for when a pair are constructing their nest, one always remains to guard it while the other goes in search of materials, lest it might be pillaged by the neighbouring rooks. Frederick and I observed a transaction of this nature to-day; and it caused a great uproar, for the crime is always punished by expelling the thieves from the society.
White of Selborne says, they depart on foraging excursions in the morning, and return in the evening; and that, after the young have taken wing, there is a general desertion of the nest trees; but he says the families return in October, to repair their dwellings.
Among their favourite food is the grub of the chaffer-beetle, which, if allowed to multiply, would lay waste the corn-fields and meadows;—and yet how many mistaken people accuse these poor rooks of doing mischief!