Reclining on the sweet short sward under the hawthorn on the Down I looked over the Idover plain, and thought of the olden times. As I gazed I presently observed, far away beside some ricks, the short black funnel of an engine, and made it out to be a steam-plough waiting till the corn should be garnered to tear up the stubble. How much meaning there lay in the presence of that black funnel! There were the same broad open fields, the same beautiful crops of golden wheat, the same green hills, and the same sun ripening the grain. But how strangely changed all human affairs since old Jonathan, in his straight-made shoes, with his pike-staff, and the acorns in his pocket, trudged along the footpaths!
THE CUCKOO-FIELDS.
The cuckoos came so frequently to some grass-land just outside the Chace and sloping down to the brook that I gave the spot the name of the Cuckoo-fields. There were two detached copses in them of no great extent, and numerous oaks and hawthorns, while the brook below was bordered with willow-stoles. This stretch of grass was divided into two large fields by a line of decaying posts and rails, and it became a favourite resort of mine in the warm days of spring, because I could almost always see and hear the cuckoos there.
Why they should love it so much is not easy to tell, unless on account of the comparatively barren character of the soil. The earth seemed to be of a very different kind to that in the rich and fertile meadows and fields close by; for the grass was rough, short, and thin, and soon became greyish or brown as the summer advanced, burning or drying up under the sun. It may often be observed that a piece of waste, like furze, when in the midst of good land, is much frequented by all birds and animals, though where there is nothing else but waste they are often almost entirely absent.
As the oaks come out into full leaf, the time when the meadows become beautiful, the notes of the cuckoo sound like a voice crying 'Come hither' from the trees. Then, sitting on the grey and lichen-covered rail under the cover of a hawthorn, I saw sometimes two and sometimes three cuckoos following each other courting, now round the copse, now by the hedge or the brook, and presently along the rails where they constantly perched. Occasionally one would alight on the sward among the purple flowers of the meadow orchis. From the marshy meadow across the brook apeew it rose from time to time, uttering his plaintive call and wheeling to and fro on the wing. At the sound a second and a third appeared in succession, and after beating up and down for a few minutes settled again in the grass. The meadow might have been called a plovery—as we say rookery and heronry—for the green plovers or peewits always had several nests in it.
The course of the humble bees that went by could be watched for some way—their large size and darker colour made them visible—as they now went down into the grass, and now started forward again. The honey bees, small and somewhat lighter in colour, could not be seen so far. They were busy in the sunshine, for the hive bee must gather most of its honey before the end of July, before the scythe has laid the grass in the last meadow low. Few if any flowers come up after the scythe has gone over, except the white clover, which almost alone shows in the aftermath, or, as country people call it, the 'lattermath.' Near me a titlark every few minutes rose from the sward, and spreading his wings came down aslant, singing with all his might.
Some sarsen stones just showed above the grass: the old folk say that these boulders grow in size and increase in number. The fact is that in some soils the boulder protrudes more and more above the surface in the course of time, and others come into view that were once hidden; while in another place the turf rises, and they seem to slowly sink into the earth. The monotonous and yet pleasing cry of the peewits, the sweet titlark singing overhead, and the cuckoos flying round, filled the place with the magic charm of spring.
Coming to these Cuckoo-fields day after day, there was always something to interest me, either in the meadows themselves or on the way thither. The very dust of the road had something to show. For under the shadowy elms a little seed or grain had jolted down through the chinks in the bed of a passing waggon, and there the chaffinches and sparrows had congregated. As they moved to and fro they had left the marks of their feet in the thick white dust, so crossed and intertangled in a maze of tracks that no one could have designed so delicate and intricate a pattern. If it was cloudy, still, glancing over the cornfields, just as you turned partly round to look, there seemed a brilliant streak of sunshine across them. This was a broad band of charlock: its light yellow is so gaudy and glaring in the mass that as it first catches the eye it seems as if the land were lit up by the sun. After it the buttercups appear of a quiet colour, like dead gold in contrast.