Field and Hedgerow

R >> Richard Jefferies >> Field and Hedgerow

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After this the cottages and houses came in little groups, some up crooked
lanes, hidden away by elms as if out of sight in a cupboard, and some
dotted along the brooks, scattered so that, unless you had connected them
all with a very long rope, no stranger could have told which belonged to
the village and which did not. They drifted into various tithings, and
yet it was all the same place. They were all thatched. It was a thatched
village. This is strictly accurate and strictly inaccurate, for I think
there were one or two tiled and one 'slated,' and perhaps a modern one
slated. Nothing is ever quite rigid or complete that is of man; all rules
have a chip in them. The way they builded the older thatched farmhouses
as to put up a very high wall in front and a very low one behind, and
then the roof in a general way sloped down from the high wall to the low
wall, an acre broad of thatch. These old thatched houses seemed to be
very healthy so long as the old folk lived in them in the old-fashioned
way. Thatch is believed to give an equable temperature. The air blew all
round them, and it might be said all through them; for the front door was
always open three parts of the year, and at the back the dairies were in
a continual blow. Upstairs the houses were only one room thick, so that
each wall was an outside wall, or rather it was a wall one side and
thatched the other, so that the wind went through if a window as open.
Modern houses are often built two rooms thick, so that the air does not
circulate from one side to the other. No one seemed to be ill, unless he
brought it home with him from some place where he had been visiting. The
diseases they used to have were long-lived, such as rheumatism, which may
keep a man comfortably in aches and pains forty years. My dear old
friend, however, taking them one by one, went through the lot and told me
of the ghosts. The forefathers I knew are all gone--the stout man, the
lame man, the paralysed man, the gruff old stick: not one left. There is
not one left of the old farmers, not a single one. The fathers, too, of
our own generation have been dropping away. The strong young man who used
to fill us with such astonishment at the feats he would achieve without a
thought, no gymnastic training, to whom a sack of wheat was a toy. The
strong young man went one day into the harvest-field, as he had done so
many times before. Suddenly he felt a little dizzy. By-and-by he went
home and became very ill with sunstroke; he recovered, but he was never
strong again; he gradually declined for twelve months, and next
harvest-time he was under the daisies. Just one little touch of the sun,
and the strength of man faded as a leaf. The hardy dark young man, built
of iron, broad, thick, and short, who looked as if frost, snow, and heat
were all the same to him, had something go wrong in his lung: one
twelvemonth, and there was an end. This was a very unhappy affair. The
pickaxe and the spade have made almost a full round to every door; I do
not want to think any more about this. Family changes and the pressure of
these hard times have driven out most of the rest; some seem to have
quite gone out of sight; some have crossed the sea; some have abandoned
the land as a livelihood. Of the few, the very few that still remain,
still fewer abide in their original homes. Time has shuffled them about
from house to house like a pack of cards. Of them all, I verily believe
there is but one soul living in the same old house. If the French had
landed in the mediaeval way to harry with fire and sword, they could not
have swept the place more clean.

Almost the first thing I did with pen and ink as a boy was to draw a map
of the hamlet with the roads and lanes and paths, and I think some of the
ponds, and with each of the houses marked and the occupier's name. Of
course it was very roughly done, and not to any scale, yet it was
perfectly accurate and full of detail. I wish I could find it, but the
confusion of time has scattered and mixed these early papers. A map by
Ptolemy would bear as much resemblance to the same country in a modern
atlas as mine to the present state of that locality. It is all
gone--rubbed out. The names against the whole of those houses have been
altered, one only excepted, and changes have taken place there. Nothing
remains. This is not in a century, half a century, or even in a quarter
of a century, but in a few ticks of the clock.

I think I have heard that the oaks are down. They may be standing or
down, it matters nothing to me; the leaves I last saw upon them are gone
for evermore, nor shall I ever see them come there again ruddy in spring.
I would not see them again even if I could; they could never look again
as they used to do. There are too many memories there. The happiest days
become the saddest afterwards; let us never go back, lest we too die.
There are no such oaks anywhere else, none so tall and straight, and with
such massive heads, on which the sun used to shine as if on the globe of
the earth, one side in shadow, the other in bright light. How often I
have looked at oaks since, and yet have never been able to get the same
effect from them! Like an old author printed in another type, the words
are the same, but the sentiment is different. The brooks have ceased to
run. There is no music now at the old hatch where we used to sit in
danger of our lives, happy as kings, on the narrow bar over the deep
water. The barred pike that used to come up in such numbers are no more
among the flags. The perch used to drift down the stream, and then bring
up again. The sun shone there for a very long time, and the water rippled
and sang, and it always seemed to me that I could feel the rippling and
the singing and the sparkling back through the centuries. The brook is
dead, for when man goes nature ends. I dare say there is water there
still, but it is not the brook; the brook is gone like John Brown's soul.
There used to be clouds over the fields, white clouds in blue summer
skies. I have lived a good deal on clouds; they have been meat to me
often; they bring something to the spirit which even the trees do not. I
see clouds now sometimes when the iron grip of hell permits for a minute
or two; they are very different clouds, and speak differently. I long for
some of the old clouds that had no memories. There were nights in those
times over those fields, not darkness, but Night, full of glowing suns
and glowing richness of life that sprang up to meet them. The nights are
there still; they are everywhere, nothing local in the night; but it is
not the Night to me seen through the window.

There used to be footpaths. Following one of them, the first field always
had a good crop of grass; over the next stile there was a great oak
standing alone in the centre of the field, generally a great cart-horse
under it, and a few rushes scattered about the furrows; the fourth was
always full of the finest clover; in the fifth you could scent the beans
on the hill, and there was a hedge like a wood, and a nest of the
long-tailed tit; the sixth had a runnel and blue forget-me-nots; the
seventh had a brooklet and scattered trees along it; from the eighth you
looked back on the slope and saw the thatched houses you had left behind
under passing shadows, and rounded white clouds going straight for the
distant hills, each cloud visibly bulging and bowed down like a bag. I
cannot think how the distant thatched houses came to stand out with such
clear definition and etched outline and bluish shadows; and beyond these
was the uncertain vale that had no individuality, but the trees put their
arms together and became one. All these were meadows, every step was
among grass, beautiful grass, and the cuckoos sang as if they had found
paradise. A hundred years ago a little old man with silver buckles on his
shoes used to walk along this footpath once a week in summer, taking his
children over to drink milk at the farm; but though he set them every
time to note the number of fields, so busy were they with the nests and
the flowers, they could never be sure at the end of the journey whether
there were eight or nine. To make quite sure at last, he took with them a
pocket full of apples, one of which was eaten in each field, and so they
came to know for certain that the number of meadows was either eight or
nine, I forget which; and so you see this great experiment did not fix
the faith of mankind. Like other great truths, it has grown dim, but it
seems strange to think how this little incident could have been borne in
mind for a century. There was another footpath that led through the
peewit field, where the green plovers for evermore circle round in
spring; then past the nightingale field, by the largest maple trees that
grew in that country; this too was all grass. Another led along the water
to bluebell land; another into the coombs of the hills; all meadows,
which was the beauty of it; for though you could find wheat in plenty if
you liked, you always walked in grass. All round the compass you could
still step on sward. This is rare. Of one other path I have a faded
memory, like a silk marker in an old book; in truth, I don't want to
remember it except the end of it where it came down to the railway. So
full was the mind of romance in those days, that I used to get there
specially in time to see the express go up, the magnificent engine of the
broad gauge that swept along with such case and power to London. I wish I
could feel like that now. The feeling is not quite gone even now, and I
have often since seen these great broad-gauge creatures moving alive to
and fro like Ezekiel's wheel dream beside the platforms of Babylon with
much of the same old delight. Still I never went back with them to the
faded footpath. They are all faded now, these footpaths.

The walnut trees are dead at home. They gave such a thick shade when the
fruit was juicy ripe, and the hoods cracked as they fell; they peeled as
easy as taking off a glove; the sweetest and nuttiest of fruit. It was
delicious to sit there with a great volume of Sir Walter Scott, half in
sunshine, half in shade, dreaming of 'Kenilworth' and Wayland Smith's
cave; only the difficulty was to balance the luxuries, when to peel the
walnuts and when to read the book, and how to adjust oneself to
perfection so as to get the exact amount of sunshine and shadow. Too much
luxury. There was a story, too, told by one Abu-Kaka ibn Ja'is, of the
caravan that set forth in 1483 to cross the desert, and being overwhelmed
by a sandstorm, lost their way. They wandered for some time till hunger
and thirst began to consume them, and then suddenly lit on an oasis
unknown to the oldest merchant of Bagdad. There they found refreshing
waters and palms and a caravanserai; and, what was most pleasant, the
people at the bazaar and the prince hastened to fill them with
hospitality; sheep were killed, and kids were roasted, and all was joy.
They were not permitted to depart till they had feasted, when they set
out again on their journey, and each at leaving was presented with
strings of pearls and bags of rubies, so that at last they came home with
all the magnificence of kings. They found, however, that instead of
having been absent only a month or two they had been gone twenty years,
so swiftly had time sped. As they grew old, and their beards grey, and
their frames withered, and the pearls were gone, and the rubies spent,
they said, 'We will go back to the city of the oasis.' They set out, each
on his camel, one lame, the other paralytic, and the third blind, but
still the way was plain, for had they not trodden it before? and they had
with them the astrolabe of the astronomer that fixes the track by the
stars. Time wore on, and presently the camels' feet brought them nearer
and nearer the wished-for spot. One saw the water, and another the palms,
but when they came near, it was the mirage, and deep sand covered the
place. Then they separated, and each hastened home; but the blind had no
leader, and the lame fell from his camel, and the paralytic had no more
dates, and their whited bones have disappeared. [Footnote: The Arabian
commentator thinks this story a myth: the oasis in the desert is the time
of youth, which passes so quickly, and is not recognised till it is gone;
the pearls and rubies, the joys of love, which make the fortunate lover
as a king. In old age every man is afflicted with disease or infirmity,
every one is paralytic, lame, or blind. They set out to find a second
youth--the dream of immortality--with the astrolabe, which is the creed
or Koran all take as their guide. And death separated the company. This
is only his pragmatic way; the circumstance is doubtless historic.] Many
another tale, too, I read under the trees that are gone like human
beings. Sometimes I went forth to the nooks in the deep meadows by the
hazel mounds, and sometimes I parted the ash-tree wands. In my waist-coat
pocket I had a little red book, made square; I never read it out of
doors, but I always carried it in my pocket till it was frayed and the
binding broken; the smallest of red books, but very much therein--the
poems and sonnets of Mr. William Shakespeare. Some books are alive. The
book I have still, it cannot die: the ash copses are cut, and the hazel
mounds destroyed.

Was every one, then, so pleasant to me in those days? were the people all
so beneficent and kindly that I must needs look back; all welcoming with
open hand and open door? No, the reverse; there was not a single one
friendly to me. Still that has nothing to do with it; I never thought
about them, and I am quite certain they never thought about me. They are
all gone, and there is an end. Incompatibility would describe our
connection best. Nothing to do with them at all; it was me. I planted
myself every where--in all the fields and under all the trees. The
curious part of it is that though they are all dead, and 'worms have
eaten them, but not for love,' we continually meet them in other shapes.
We say, 'Holloa, here is old So-and-so coming; that is exactly his jaw,
that's his Flemish face;' or, 'By Jove, yonder is So-and-so; that's his
very walk:' one almost expects them to speak as one meets them in the
street. There seem to be certain set types which continually crop up
again whithersoever you go, and even certain tricks of speech and curves
of the head---a set of family portraits walking about the world. It was
not the people, neither for good, for evil, nor indifference.

I planted myself every here under the trees in the fields and footpaths,
by day and by night, and that is why I have never put myself into the
charge of the many wheeled creatures that move on the rails and gone back
thither, lest I might find the trees look small, and the elms mere
switches, and the fields shrunken, and the brooks dry, and no voice
anywhere. Nothing but my own ghost to meet me by every hedge. I fear lest
I should find myself more dead than all the rest And verily I wish, could
it be without injury to others, that the sand of the desert would rise
and roll over and obliterate the place for ever and ever.

I need not wish, for I have been conversing again with learned folk about
this place, and they begin to draw my view to certain considerations.
These very learned men point out to me a number of objections, for the
question they sceptically put is this: are you quite certain that such a
village ever existed? In the first place, they say, you have only got one
other witness beside yourself, and she is aged, and has defective sight;
and really we don't know what to say to accepting such evidence
unsupported. Secondly, John Brown cannot be found to bear testimony.
Thirdly, there are no ghosts there; that can be demonstrated. It renders
a case unsubstantial to introduce these flimsy spirits. Fourthly, the map
is lost, and it might be asked was there ever such a map? Fifthly, the
people are all gone. Sixthly, no one ever saw any particular sparkle on
the brook there, and the clouds appear to be of the same commonplace
order that go about everywhere. Seventhly, no one can find these
footpaths, which probably led nowhere; and as for the little old man with
silver buckles on his shoes, it is a story only fit for some one in his
dotage. You can't expect grave and considerate men to take your story as
it stands; they must consult the Ordnance Survey and Domesday Book; and
the fact is, you have not got the shadow of a foundation on which to
carry your case into court. I may resent this, but I cannot deny that the
argument is very black against me, and I begin to think that my senses
have deceived me. It is as they say. No one else seems to have seen the
sparkle on the brook, or heard the music at the hatch, or to have felt
back through the centuries; and when I try to describe these things to
them they look at me with stolid incredulity. No one seems to understand
how I got food from the clouds, nor what there was in the night, nor why
it is not so good to look at it out of window. They turn their faces away
from me, so that perhaps after all I was mistaken, and there never was
any such place or any such meadows, and I was never there. And perhaps in
course of time I shall find out also, when I pass away physically, that
as a matter of fact there never was any earth.

MY CHAFFINCH

His hours he spends upon a fragrant fir;
His merry 'chink,' his happy 'Kiss me, dear,'
Each moment sounded, keeps the copse astir.
Loudly he challenges his rivals near,
Anon aslant down to the ground he springs,
Like to a sunbeam made of coloured wings.

The firm and solid azure of the ceil
That struck by hand would give a hollow sound,
A dome turned perfect by the sun's great wheel,
Whose edges rest upon the hills around,
Rings many a mile with blue enamelled wall;
His fir-tree is the centre of it all.

A lichened cup he set against the side
High up this mast, earth-stepped, that could not fail,
But swung a little as a ship might ride,
Keeping an easy balance in the gale;
Slow-heaving like a gladiator's breast,
Whose strength in combat feels an idle rest.

Whether the cuckoo or the chaffinch most
Do triumph in the issuing of their song?
I say not this, but many a swelling boast
They throw each at the other all day long.
Soon as the nest had cradled eggs a-twin
The jolly squirrel climbed to look therein.

Adown the lane athwart this pleasant wood
The broad-winged butterflies their solace sought;
A green-necked pheasant in the sunlight stood,
Nor could the rushes hide him as he thought.
A humble-bee through fern and thistle made
A search for lowly flowers in the shade.

A thing of many wanderings, and loss,
Like to Ulysses on his poplar raft,
His treasure hid beneath the tunnelled moss
Lest that a thief his labour steal with craft,
Up the round hill, sheep-dotted, was his way,
Zigzagging where some new adventure lay.

'My life and soul,' as if he were a Greek,
His heart was Grecian in his greenwood fane;
'My life and soul,' through all the sunny week
The chaffinch sang with beating heart amain,
'The humble-bee the wide wood-world may roam;
One feather's breadth I shall not stir from home.'

No note he took of what the swallows said
About the firing of some evil gun,
Nor if the butterflies were blue or red,
For all his feelings were intent in one.
The loving soul, a-thrill in all his nerves,
A life immortal as a man's deserves.

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