Round About a Great Estate

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In August, when the reapers began to call and ask for work, she found
the arum stalks, left alone without leaves, surrounded with berries,
some green, some ripening red. As the berries ripen, the stalk grows
weak and frequently falls prone of its own weight among the grasses.
This noisome fruit of clustering berries, like an ear of maize stained
red, they told her was 'snake's victuals,' and to be avoided; for,
bright as was its colour, it was only fit for a reptile's food.

She knew, too, where to find the first 'crazy Betties,' whose large
yellow flowers do not wait for the sun, but shine when the March wind
scatters king's ransoms over the fields. These are the marsh
marigolds: there were two places where she gathered them, one beside
the streamlet flowing through the 'Mash,' a meadow which was almost a
water-meadow; and the other inside a withy-bed. She pulled the
'cat's-tails,' as she learned to call the horse-tails, to see the stem
part at the joints; and when the mowing-grass began to grow long,
picked the cuckoo-flowers and nibbled the stalk and leaflets to essay
the cress-like taste. In the garden, which was full of old-fashioned
shrubs and herbs, she watched the bees busy at the sweet-scented
'honey-plant,' and sometimes peered under the sage-bush to look at the
'effets' that hid there.

By the footpath through the meadows there were now small places where
the mowers had tried their new scythes as they came home, a little
warm with ale perhaps, from the market town. They cut a yard or two of
grass as they went through the fields, just to get the swing of the
scythe and as a hint to the farmer that it was time to begin. With the
first June rose in the hedge the haymaking commenced--the two usually
coincide--and then Cicely fluctuated between the haymakers and the
mowers, now watching one and now the other. One of the haymaking girls
was very proud because she had not lost a single wooden tooth out of
her rake, for it is easy to break or pull them out. In the next field
the mowers, one behind the other in echelon, left each his swathe as
he went. The tall bennets with their purplish anthers, the sorrel, and
the great white 'moon-daisies' fell before them. Cicely would watch
till perhaps the sharp scythe cut a frog, and the poor creature
squealed with the pain.

Then away along the hedge to the pond in the corner, all green with
'creed,' or duckweed, when one of the boys about the place would come
timidly up to offer a nest of eggs just taken, and if she would speak
to him would tell her about his exploits 'a-nisting,' about the
bombarrel tit--a corruption apparently of nonpareil--and how he had
put the yellow juice of the celandine on his 'wurrut' to cure it. Then
they pulled the plantain leaves, those that grew by the path, to see
which could draw out the longest 'cat-gut;' the sinews, as it were, of
the plant stretching out like the strings of a fiddle.

In the next meadow the cows had just been turned into fresh grass, and
were lazily rioting in it. They fed in the sunshine with the golden
buttercups up above their knees, literally wading in gold, their horns
as they held their heads low just visible among the flowers. Some that
were standing in the furrows were hidden up to their middles by the
buttercups. Their sleek roan and white hides contrasted with the green
grass and the sheen of the flowers: one stood still, chewing the cud,
her square face expressive of intense content, her beautiful
eye--there is no animal with a more beautiful eye than the
cow--following Cicely's motions. At this time of the year, as they
grazed far from the pens, the herd were milked in the corner of the
field, instead of driving them to the yard.

One afternoon Cicely came quietly through a gap in the hedge by this
particular corner, thinking to laugh at Aaron's voice, for he milked
there and sang to the cows, when she saw him sitting on the
three-legged milking-stool, stooping in the attitude of milking, with
the bucket between his knees, but firm asleep, and quite alone in his
glory. He had had too much ale, and dropped asleep while milking the
last cow, and the herd had left him and marched away in stately single
file down to the pond, as they always drink after the milking. Cicely
stole away and said nothing; but presently Aaron was missed and a
search made, and he was discovered by the other men still sleeping.
Poor 'young Aaron' got into nearly as much disgrace through the brown
jug as a poaching uncle of his through his ferrets and wires.

When the moon rose full and lit up the Overboro'-road as bright as
day, and the children came out from the cottages to their play,
Cicely, though she did not join, used to watch their romping dances
and picked up the old rhymes they chanted. When the full moon shone in
at her bedroom window, Cicely was very careful to turn away or cover
her face; for she had heard one of the mowers declare that after
sleeping on the hay in the moonlight one night he woke up in the
morning almost blind. Besides the meadows around Lucketts' Place, she
sometimes wandered further to the edge of Hilary's great open arable
fields, where the green corn, before it came out in ear, seemed to
flutter, flutter like innumerable tiny flags, as the wind rushed over
it.

She learned to rub the ripe ears in her hands to work the grain out of
the husk, and then to winnow away the chaff by letting the corn slowly
drop in a stream from one palm to the other, blowing gently with her
mouth the while. The grain remained on account of its weight, the
chaff floating away, and the wheat, still soft though fully formed,
could thus be pleasantly tasted. The plaintive notes of the
yellowhammer fell from the scanty trees of the wheat-field hedge,
and the ploughboy who was put there to frighten away the rooks told
her the bird said, repeating the song over and over again, 'A little
bit of bread and _no_ cheese.' And indeed these syllables, with a
lengthening emphasis on the 'no,' come ludicrously near to represent
the notes. The ploughboy understood them very well, for to have only a
hunch of bread and little or no cheese was often his own case.

Two meadows distant from the lower woods of the Chace there is what
seems from afar a remarkably wide hedge irregularly bordered with
furze. But on entering a gateway in it you find a bridge over a brook,
which for some distance flows with a hedge on either side. The low
parapet of the bridge affords a seat--one of Cicely's favourite
haunts--whence in spring it is pleasant to look up the brook; for the
banks sloping down from the bushes to the water are yellow with
primroses, and hung over with willow boughs. As the brook is straight,
the eye can see under these a long way up; and presently a kingfisher,
bright with azure and ruddy hues, comes down the brook, flying but
just above the surface on which his reflection travels too. He perches
for a moment on a branch close to the bridge, but the next sees that
he is not alone, and instantly retreats with a shrill cry.

A moorhen ventures forth from under the arches, her favourite
hiding-place, and feeds among the weeds by the shore, but at the least
movement rushes back to shelter. A wood-pigeon comes over, flying
slowly; he was going to alight on the ash tree yonder, but suddenly
espying some one under the cover of the boughs increases his pace and
rises higher. Two bright bold bullfinches pass; they have a nest
somewhere in the thick hawthorn. A jay, crossing from the fir
plantations, stays awhile in the hedge, and utters his loud harsh
scream like the tearing of linen. For a few hours the winds are still
and the sunshine broods warm over the mead. It is a delicious snatch
of spring.

Every now and then a rabbit emerges from the burrows which are
scattered thickly along the banks, and, passing among the primroses,
goes through the hedge into the border of furze, and thence into the
meadow-grass. Some way down the brook they are so numerous as to have
destroyed the vegetation on the banks, excepting a few ferns, by their
constant movements and scratching of the sand; so that there is a
small warren on either side of the water. It is said that they
occasionally swim across the broad brook, which is much too wide to
jump; but I have never seen such a thing but once. A rabbit already
stung with shot and with a spaniel at his heels did once leap at the
brook here, and, falling short, swam the remainder without apparent
trouble, and escaped into a hole on the opposite shore with his wet
fur laid close to the body. But they usually cross at the bridge,
where the ground bears the marks of their incessant nightly travels to
and fro.

Passing now in the other direction, up the stream from the bridge, the
hedges after a while cease, and the brook winds through the open
fields. Here there is a pond, to which at night the heron resorts; for
he does not care to trust himself between the high hedgerows. In the
still shallow, but beyond reach, there floats on the surface a small
patch of green vegetation formed of the treble leaves of the water
crow-foot. Towards June it will be a brilliant white spot. The slender
stems uphold the cup-like flowers two or three inches above the
surface, the petals of the purest white with a golden centre. They are
the silver buttercups of the brook. Where the current flows slowly the
long and somewhat spear-shaped leaves of the water-plantain stand up,
and in the summer will be surmounted by a tall stalk with three small
pale pink petals on its branches. The leaf can be written on with a
pencil, the point tracing letters by removing the green colouring
where it passes.

Far larger are the leaves of the water-docks; they sometimes attain to
immense size. By the bank the 'wild willow,' or water-betony, with its
woody stem, willow-shaped leaves, and pale red flowers, grows thickly.
Across where there is a mud-bank the stout stems of the willow herb
are already tall. They quite cover the shoal, and line the brook like
shrubs. They are the strongest and the most prominent of all the brook
plants. At the end of March or beginning of April the stalks appear a
few inches high, and they gradually increase in size, until in July
they reach above the waist, and form a thicket by the shore. Not till
July does the flower open, so that, though they make so much show of
foliage, it is months before any colour brightens it. The red flower
comes at the end of a pod, and has a tiny white cross within it; it is
welcome, because by August so many of the earlier flowers are fading.
The country folk call it the sod-apple, and say the leaves crushed in
the fingers have something of the scent of apple-pie.

Farther up the stream, where a hawthorn bush shelters it, stands a
knotted fig-wort with a square stem and many branches, each with small
velvety flowers. If handled, the leaves emit a strong odour, like the
leaves of the elder-bush; it is a coarse-growing plant, and
occasionally reaches to a height of between four and five feet, with a
stem more than half an inch square. Some ditches are full of it. By
the rushes the long purple spike of the loose-strife rises, and on the
mud-banks among the willows there grows a tall plant with bunches of
flower, the petals a bright yellow: this is the yellow loose-strife.
Near it is a herb with a much-divided leaf, and curious flowers like
small yellow buttons. Rub one of these gently, and it will give forth
a most peculiar perfume--aromatic, and not to be compared with
anything else; the tansy once scented will always be recognised.

The large rough leaves of the wild comfrey grow in bunches here and
there; the leaves are attached to the stem for part of their length,
and the stem is curiously flanged. The bells are often greenish,
sometimes white, occasionally faintly lilac; they are partly hidden
under the dark-green leaves. Where undisturbed the comfrey grows to a
great size, the stems becoming very thick. Green flags hide and almost
choke the shallow mouth of a streamlet that joins the brook coming
from the woods. Though green above, the flag where it enters its
sheath is white.

Tracing it upwards, the brook becomes narrower and the stream less,
though running more swiftly; and here there is a marshy spot with
willows, and between them some bulrushes and great bunches of
bullpolls. This coarse grass forms tufts or cushions, on which snakes
often coil in the sunshine. Yet though so rough, in June the bullpoll
sends up tall slender stalks with graceful feathery heads, reed-like,
surrounded with long ribbons of grass. In the ditches hereabout, and
beside the brook itself, the meadow-sweet scents the air; the
country-folk call it 'meadow-soot.' And in those ditches are numerous
coarse stems and leaves which, if crushed in the fingers, yield a
strong parsnip-like smell. The water-parsnip, which is poisonous, is
said to be sometimes gathered for watercress; but the palate must be
dull, one would think, to eat it, and the smell is a sure test. The
blue flower of the brooklime is not seen here; you must look for it
where the springs break forth, where its foliage sometimes quite
conceals the tiny rill.

These flowers do not, of course, all appear together; but they may be
all found in the summer season along the brook, and you should begin
to look for them when the brown scum, that sign of coming warmth,
rises from the bottom of the waters. Returning to the pond, it may be
noticed that the cart-horses when they walk in of a summer's day paw
the stream, as if they enjoyed the cool sound of the splash; but the
cows stand quite still with the water up to their knees.

There is a spot by a yet more quiet bridge, where the little
water-shrews play to and fro where the bank overhangs. As they dive
and move under water the reddish-brown back looks of a lighter colour;
when they touch the ground they thrust their tiny nostrils up just
above the surface. There are many holes of water-rats, but no one
would imagine how numerous these latter creatures are. One of Hilary's
sons, Hugh, kept some ferrets, and in the summer was put to it to find
them enough food. The bird-keepers brought in a bird occasionally, and
there were cruel rumours of a cat having disappeared. Still there was
not sufficient till he hit on the idea of trapping the water-rats; and
this is how he did it.

He took three small twigs and ran them into the bank of the brook at
the mouth of the water-rat's hole and just beneath the surface of the
stream. These made a platform upon which the gin was placed--the pan,
and indeed all the trap, just under the water, which prevented any
scent. Whether the rat came out of his hole and plunged to dive or
started to swim, or whether he came swimming noiselessly round the
bend and was about to enter the burrow, it made no difference; he was
certain to pass over and throw the gin. The instant the teeth struck
him he gave a jump which lifted the trap off the twig platform, and it
immediately sank in the deep water and soon drowned him; for the
water-rat, though continually diving, can only stay a short time under
water. It proved a fatal contrivance, chiefly, as was supposed,
because the gin, being just under the water, could not be smelt. No
fewer than eleven rats were thus captured in succession at the mouth
of one hole. Altogether 150 were taken in the course of that summer.

Hugh kept a record of them by drawing a stroke with chalk for every
rat on the red brick wall of the stable, near his ferret-hutch. He
only used a few traps--one was set not at a hole, but at a sharp curve
of the brook--and the whole of these rats were taken in a part of the
brook about 250 or 300 yards in length, just where it ran through a
single field. The great majority were water-rats, but there were
fifteen or twenty house-rats among them: these were very thin though
large, and seemed to be caught as they were migrating; for sometimes
several were trapped the same day, and then none (of this kind) for a
week or more. Three moorhens were also caught; a fourth was only held
by its claw in the gin; this one, not being in the least injured, he
let go again.

It had been observed previously that the water-rats, either in making
their burrows or for food, gnawed off the young withy-stoles
underneath the ground in the withy-beds, and thus killed a
considerable amount of withy; but after all this slaughter the
withy-beds recovered and bore the finest crop they ever grew. But who
could have imagined in walking by the brook that only in its course
through a single meadow it harboured 150 rats? Probably, though, some
of them came up or down the stream. The ferrets fared sumptuously all
the summer.

CHAPTER III.

A PACK OF STOATS. BIRDS.

The sweet scent from a beanfield beside the road caused me to linger
one summer morning in a gateway under the elms. A gentle south wind
came over the beans, bearing with it the odour of their black-and-white
bloom. The Overboro' road ran through part of the Okebourne property
(which was far too extensive to be enclosed in a ring fence), and the
timber had therefore been allowed to grow so that there was an
irregular avenue of trees for some distance. I faced the beanfield,
which was on the opposite side, leaning back against the gate which
led into some of Hilary's wheat. The silence of the highway, the soft
wind, the alternate sunshine and shade as the light clouds passed
over, induced a dreamy feeling; and I cannot say how long I had been
there when something seemed as it were to cross the corners of my
half-closed eyes.

Looking up I saw three stoats gallop across the road, not more than
ten yards away. They issued from under the footpath, which was raised
and had a drain through it to relieve the road of flood-water in
storm. The drain was faced with a flat stone, with a small round hole
cut in it. Coming from the wheat at my back, the stoats went down into
the ditch; thence entered the short tunnel under the footpath, and out
at its stone portal, over the road to the broad sward on the opposite
side; then along a furrow in the turf to the other hedge, and so into
the beanfield. They galloped like racehorses straining for the
victory; the first leading, the second but a neck behind, and the
third not half a length. The smooth road rising slightly in the centre
showed them well; and thus, with the neck stretched out in front and
the tail extended in the rear, the stoat appears much longer than on a
mound or in the grass.

A second or so afterwards two more started from the same spot; but I
was perhaps in the act to move, for before they had gone three yards
they saw me and rushed back to the drain. After a few minutes the
larger of these two, probably the male, ventured forth again and
reached the middle of the road, when he discovered that his more
timorous companion had not followed but was only just peeping out. He
stopped and elevated his neck some five or six inches, planting the
fore-feet so as to lift him up high to see round, while his
hindquarters were flush with the road, quite flat in the dust in which
his tail was trailing. His reddish body and white neck, the clear-cut
head, the sharp ears, and dark eye were perfectly displayed in that
erect attitude. As his companion still hesitated he cried twice, as if
impatiently, 'check, check'--a sound like placing the tongue against
the teeth and drawing it away. But she feared to follow, and he
returned to her. Thinking they would attempt to cross again presently,
I waited quietly.

A lark came over from the wheat, and, alighting, dusted herself in the
road, hardly five yards from the mouth of the drain, and was there
some minutes. A robin went still closer--almost opposite the hole;
both birds apparently quite unconscious of the bloodthirsty creatures
concealed within it. Some time passed, but the two stoats did not come
out, and I saw no more of them: they probably retreated to the wheat
as I left the gateway, and would remain there till the noise and jar
of my footsteps had ceased in the distance. Examining the road, there
was a trail where the first three had crossed in quick succession. In
the thick white dust their swift feet had left a line drawn roughly
yet lightly, the paws leaving not an exact but an elongated,
ill-defined impression. But where the fourth stopped, elevated his
neck, and cried to his mate, there was a perfect print of the
fore-feet side by side. So slight a track would be obliterated by the
first cart that came by.

Till that day I had never seen so many as five stoats together hunting
in a pack. It would seem as if stoats and weasels had regular routes;
for I now recollected that in the previous winter, when the snow was
on the ground, I surprised two weasels almost exactly in the same
spot. At other times, too, I have seen solitary stoats and weasels
(which may have had companions in the hedge) hunting along that mound,
both before and since. I was at first going to tell Hilary about the
pack, but afterwards refrained, as he would at once proceed to set up
gins in the run, while I thought I should like to see the animals
again. But I got him to talk about stoats and weasels, and found that
he had not himself seen so many together. There was, however, a man
about the place who told a tale of some weasels he had seen. It was
'that rascal old Aaron;' but he could not listen to such a fellow.
Hilary would tell me nothing further, having evidently a strong
dislike to the man.

It seems there were two Aarons--uncle and nephew: old Aaron was the
arch-poacher of the parish, young Aaron worked regularly at Lucketts'
Place. This young labourer (the man who fell asleep on the
milking-stool) was one of the best of his class--a great, powerful
fellow, but good-natured, willing, and pleasant to speak to. He was a
favourite with many, and with reason, for he had a gentleness of
manner beyond his station; and, till you knew his weakness, you could
not but take an interest in him. His vice was drink. He was always
down at Lucketts' Place; and through him I made acquaintance with his
disreputable uncle, who was at first rather shy of me, for he had seen
me about with Hilary, and between the two there was a mortal feud. Old
Aaron could not keep out of Okebourne Chace, and Hilary was 'down'
upon him. Hilary was, indeed, keener than the keepers.

The old poacher saw the weasels in the 'Pitching.' This was a private
lane, which ran through the recesses of the Chace where the wood was
thickest and most secluded. It had been made for the convenience of
communication between the upper and lower farms, and for hauling
timber; the gates at each end being kept locked. In one place the lane
descended the steepest part of the wooded hill, and in frosty weather
it was not easy even to walk down it there. Sarsen stones, gathered
out of the way of the plough in the arable fields, had been thrown
down in it at various times with the object of making a firm bottom.
Rounded and smooth and very hard, these stones, irregularly placed,
with gaps and intervals, when slippery with hoar frost were most
difficult to walk on. Once or twice men out hunting had been known to
gallop down this hill: the extreme of headlong bravado; for if there
was any frost it was sure to linger in that shady lane, and a slip of
the iron-shod hoof could scarcely fail to result in a broken neck. It
was like riding down a long steep flight of steps.

Aaron one day was engaged with his ferret and nets in the Pitching,
just at the bottom of the hill, where there grew a quantity of
brake-fern as tall as the shoulder. It was shrivelled and yellow, but
thick enough to give him very good cover. Every now and then he looked
out into the lane to see if any one was about, and on one of these
occasions saw what he imagined at first to be a colony of rats
migrating; but when they came near, racing down the lane, he found
they were weasels. He counted fourteen, and thought there were one or
two more.

Aaron also told me a curious incident that happened to him very early
one morning towards the beginning of spring. The snow was on the
ground and the moon was shining brightly as he got on the railway (a
few miles from Okebourne) and walked some distance up it: he did not
say what for, but probably as the nearest way to a cover. As he
entered a deep cutting where the line came round a sharp curve he
noticed strange spots upon the snow, and upon examination found it was
blood. For the moment he thought there had been an accident; but
shortly afterwards he picked up a hare's pad severed from the leg, and
next a hare's head, and presently came on a quantity of similar
fragments, all fresh. He collected them, and found they had belonged
to six hares which had been cut to pieces by a passing train. The
animals were so mutilated as not to be of the least use.

When I told Hilary of this, he at once pronounced it impossible, and
nothing but one of Aaron's lies. On reflection, however, I am not so
sure that it is impossible, nor can I see any reason why the old
poacher should invent a falsehood of the kind. It was just a time of
the year when hares are beginning to go 'mad,' and, as they were not
feeding but playing together, they might have strayed up the line just
as they do along roads. Most persons must have observed how quietly a
train sometimes steals up--so quietly as to be inaudible: a fact that
has undoubtedly been the death of many unfortunates. Now, just at this
spot there was a sharp curve, and if the driver shut off steam as he
ran round it the train very likely came up without a sound. The sides
of the cutting being very steep, the hares, when at last they
perceived their danger, would naturally rush straight away along the
metals. Coming at great speed, the engine would overtake and destroy
them: a miserable end for the poor creatures in the midst of their
moonlight frolic. But what Aaron laid stress on was the fact that he
could not even sell the skins, they were so cut to pieces.

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