Somewhere within doors, in the huge beams or woodwork, the death-tick is sure to be heard in the silence of the night: even now the old folk listen with a lingering dread. Give the woodwork a smart tap, and the insect stops a few moments, but it rapidly gets accustomed to such taps, and after a few ceases to take notice of them. This manner of building houses with great beams visibly supporting the ceiling, passing across the roam underneath it, had one advantage. On a rainy day the children could go into the garrets or the cheese-loft and there form a swing, attaching the ropes to the hooks in the beam across the ceiling.
The brewhouse, humble though its object may be, is not without its claim to admiration. It is open from the floor to the rafters of the roof, and that roof in its pitch, the craft of the woodwork, the dull polish of the old oak, has an interest far surpassing the dead staring level of flat lath and plaster. Noble workmanship in wood may be found, too, in some of the ancient barns; sometimes the beams are of black oak, in others of chestnut.
In these modern days men have lost the pleasures of the orchard; yet an old-fashioned orchard is the most delicious of places wherein to idle away the afternoon of a hazy autumn day, when the sun seems to shine with a soft slumberous warmth without glare, as if the rays came through an aerial spider’s web spun across the sky, letting all the beauty, but not the heat, slip through its invisible meshes. There is a shadowy coolness in the recesses under the trees. On the damson trunks are yellowish crystalline knobs of gum which has exuded from the bark. Now and then a leaf rustles to the ground, and at longer intervals an apple falls with a decided thump. It is silent save for the gentle twittering of the swallows on the topmost branches—they are talking of their coming journey—and perhaps occasionally the distant echo of a shot where the lead has gone whistling among a covey. It is a place to dream in, bringing with you a chair to sit on—for it will be freer from insects than the garden seat—and a book. Put away all thought of time: often in striving to get the most value from our time it slips from us as the reality did from the dog that greedily grasped at the shadow: simply dream of what you will, with apples and plums, nuts and filberts within reach.
Dusky Blenheim oranges, with a gleam of gold under the rind; a warmer tint of yellow on the pippins. Here streaks of red, here a tawny hue. Yonder a load of great russets; near by heavy pears bending the strong branches; round black damsons; luscious egg-plums hanging their yellow ovals overhead; bullace, not yet ripe, but presently sweetly piquant. On the walnut trees bunches of round green balls—note those that show a dark spot or streak, and gently tap them with the tip of the tall slender pole placed there for the purpose. Down they come glancing from bough to bough, and, striking the hard turf, the thick green rind splits asunder, and the walnut itself rebounds upwards. Those who buy walnuts have no idea of the fine taste of the fruit thus gathered direct from the tree, when the kernel, though so curiously convoluted, slips its pale yellow skin easily and is so wondrously white. Surely it is an error to banish the orchard and the fruit garden from the pleasure-grounds of modern houses, strictly relegating them to the rear, as if something to be ashamed of.
Chapter Eleven.
The Home-Field—Hazel Corner—The Divining-Rod—Rabbits’ Holes—The Corncrake—Ventriloquism of Birds—Hedge Fruit.
A wicket-gate affords a private entrance from the orchard into the home-field, opening on the meadow close to the great hedge, the favourite highway of the birds. Tracing this hedge away from the homestead, in somewhat more than two hundred yards it is joined by another hedge crossing the top of the field, thus forming a sheltered nook or angle, which has been alluded to as the haunt of squirrels. Here the highway hedge is almost all of hazel, though one large hawthorn tree stands on the ‘shore’ of the ditch. Hazel grows tall, straight, and is not so bushy as some underwood; the lesser boughs do not interlace or make convenient platforms on which to build nests, and birds do not use it much.
The ancient divination by the hazel wand, or, rather, the method of searching for subterranean springs, is not yet forgotten; some of the old folk believe in it still. I have seen it tried myself, half in joke, half in earnest. A slender rod is cut, and so trimmed as to have a small fork at one end; this fork is placed under the little finger in such a way that the rod itself comes over the back of the other fingers; it is then lightly balanced, and vibrates easily. The magician walks slowly over the ground selected, watching the tip of the wand; and should it bend downwards without volition on his part, it is a sign that water is concealed beneath the spot.