Nature Near London | Page 9

upon his labour, as a good and
true man should be. But when I spoke to him he answered me in clear,
well-chosen language, well pronounced, "in good set terms."
No slurring of consonants and broadening of vowels, no involved and
backward construction depending on the listener's previous knowledge
for comprehension, no half sentences indicating rather than explaining,
but correct sentences. With his shoes almost covered by the muddy
water, his hands black and grimy, his brown face splashed with mud,
leaning on his shovel he stood and talked from the deep ditch, not much
more than head and shoulders visible above it. It seemed a voice from
the very earth, speaking of education, change, and possibilities.
The copse is now filling up with undergrowth; the brambles are
spreading, the briars extending, masses of nettles, and thistles like
saplings in size and height, crowding the spaces between the ash-stoles.
By the banks great cow-parsnips or "gix" have opened their broad
heads of white flowers; teazles have lifted themselves into view, every
opening is occupied. There is a scent of elder flowers, the
meadow-sweet is pushing up, and will soon be out, and an odour of
new-mown hay floats on the breeze.

From the oak green caterpillars slide down threads of their own making
to the bushes below, but they are running terrible risk. For a pair of
white-throats or "nettle-creepers" are on the watch, and seize the green
creeping things crossways in their beaks. Then they perch on a branch
three or four yards only from where I stand, silent and motionless, and
glance first at me and next at a bush of bramble which projects out to
the edge of the footpath. So long as my eyes are turned aside, or half
closed, the bird perches on the branch, gaining confidence every
moment. The instant I open my eyes, or move them, or glance towards
him, without either movement of head, hand, or foot, he is off to the
oak.
His tiny eyes are intent on mine; the moment he catches my glance he
retires. But in half a minute affection brings him back, still with the
caterpillar in his beak, to the same branch. Whilst I have patience to
look the other way there he stays, but again a glance sends him away.
This is repeated four or five times, till, finally, convinced that I mean
no harm and yet timorous and fearful of betrayal even in the act, he
dives down into the bramble bush.
After a brief interval he reappears on the other side of it, having
travelled through and left his prey with his brood in the nest there.
Assured by his success his mate follows now, and once having done it,
they continue to bring caterpillars, apparently as fast as they can pass
between the trees and the bush. They always enter the bush, which is
scarcely two yards from me, on one side, pass through in the same
direction, and emerge on the other side, having thus regular places of
entrance and exit.
As I stand watching these birds a flock of rooks goes over, they have
left the nesting trees, and fly together again. Perhaps this custom of
nesting together in adjacent trees and using the same one year after year
is not so free from cares and jealousies as the solitary plan of the little
white-throats here. Last March I was standing near a rookery, noting
the contention and quarrelling, the downright tyranny, and brigandage
which is carried on there. The very sound of the cawing, sharp and
angry, conveys the impression of hate and envy.

Two rooks in succession flew to a nest the owners of which were
absent, and deliberately picked a great part of it to pieces, taking the
twigs for their own use. Unless the rook, therefore, be ever in his castle
his labour is torn down, and, as with men in the fierce struggle for
wealth, the meanest advantages are seized on. So strong is the rook's
bill that he tears living twigs of some size with it from the bough. The
white-throats were without such envy and contention.
From hence the footpath, leaving the copse, descends into a hollow,
with a streamlet flowing through a little meadow, barely an acre, with a
pollard oak in the centre, the rising ground on two sides shutting out all
but the sky, and on the third another wood. Such a dreamy hollow
might be painted for a glade in the Forest of Arden, and there on the
sward and leaning against the ancient oak one might read the play
through without being disturbed by a single passer-by. A few steps
farther and the stile opens on a road.
There the teams travel with rows of brazen spangles down their necks,