Here, Too, The
Burrows Had Probably Existed First And Had Attracted The
Wheatears, And The Birds Had Brought The Seed From Some
Distant Bush.
Crouching down in one of the big burrows at the roots of an
old elder I remained for half an hour, listening to the
thump-thump of the alarmed rabbits about me, and the
accompanying hiss and swish of the wind and sleet and rain in
the ragged branches.
The storm over I continued my rambles on Whitesheet Hill, and
coming back an hour or two later to the very spot where I had
seen and followed the wheatear, I all at once caught sight of
a second bird, lying dead on the turf close to my feet! The
sudden sight gave me a shock of astonishment, mingled with
admiration and grief. For how pretty it looked, though dead,
lying on its back, the little black legs stuck stiffly up, the
long wings pressed against the sides, their black tips
touching together like the clasped hands of a corpse; and the
fan-like black and white tail, half open as in life, moved
perpetually up and down by the wind, as if that tail-flirting
action of the bird had continued after death. It was very
beautiful in its delicate shape and pale harmonious colouring,
resting on the golden-green mossy turf. And it was a male,
undoubtedly the mate of the wheatear I had seen at the spot,
and its little mate, not knowing what death is, had probably
been keeping watch near it, wondering at its strange stillness
and greatly fearing for its safety when I came that way, and
passed by without seeing it.
Poor little migrant, did you come back across half the world
for this - back to your home on Whitesheet Hill to grow cold
and fail in the cold April wind, and finally to look very
pretty, lying stiff and cold, to the one pair of human eyes
that were destined to see you! The little birds that come
and go and return to us over such vast distances, they perish
like this in myriads annually; flying to and from us they
are blown away by death like sere autumn leaves, "the
pestilence-stricken multitudes" whirled away by the wind!
They die in myriads: that is not strange; the strange, the
astonishing thing is the fact of death; what can they tell
us of it - the wise men who live or have ever lived on the
earth - what can they say now of the bright intelligent spirit,
the dear little emotional soul, that had so fit a tenement and
so fitly expressed itself in motions of such exquisite grace,
in melody so sweet! Did it go out like the glow-worm's lamp,
the life and sweetness of the flower? Was its destiny not
like that of the soul, specialized in a different direction,
of the saint or poet or philosopher! Alas, they can tell us
nothing!
I could not go away leaving it in that exposed place on the
turf, to be found a little later by a magpie or carrion crow
or fox, and devoured. Close by there was a small round
hillock, an old forsaken nest of the little brown ants, green
and soft with moss and small creeping herbs - a suitable grave
for a wheatear. Cutting out a round piece of turf from the
side, I made a hole with my stick and put the dead bird in and
replacing the turf left it neatly buried.
It was not that I had or have any quarrel with the creatures
I have named, or would have them other than they are
- carrion-eaters and scavengers, Nature's balance-keepers and
purifiers. The only creatures on earth I loathe and hate are
the gourmets, the carrion-crows and foxes of the human kind
who devour wheatears and skylarks at their tables.
Chapter Thirteen: Bath and Wells Revisited
'Tis so easy to get from London to Bath, by merely stepping
into a railway carriage which takes you smoothly without a
stop in two short hours from Paddington, that I was amazed at
myself in having allowed five full years to pass since my
previous visit. The question was much in my mind as I
strolled about noting the old-remembered names of streets and
squares and crescents. Quiet Street was the name inscribed on
one; it was, to me, the secret name of them all. The old
impressions were renewed, an old feeling partially recovered.
The wide, clean ways; the solid, stone-built houses with their
dignified aspect; the large distances, terrace beyond terrace;
mansions and vast green lawns and parks and gardens; avenues
and groups of stately trees, especially that unmatched clump
of old planes in the Circus; the whole town, the design in the
classic style of one master mind, set by the Avon, amid green
hills, produced a sense of harmony and repose which cannot be
equalled by any other town in the kingdom.
This idle time was delightful so long as I gave my attention
exclusively to houses from the outside, and to hills, rocks,
trees, waters, and all visible nature, which here harmonizes
with man's works. To sit on some high hill and look down on
Bath, sun-flushed or half veiled in mist; to lounge on Camden
Crescent, or climb Sion Hill, or take my ease with the
water-drinkers in the spacious, comfortable Pump Room; or,
better still, to rest at noon in the ancient abbey - all this
was pleasure pure and simple, a quiet drifting back until I
found myself younger by five years than I had taken myself to
be.
I haunted the abbey, and the more I saw of it the more I loved
it. The impression it had made on me during my former visits
had faded, or else I had never properly seen it, or had not
seen it in the right emotional mood. Now I began to think it
the best of all the great abbey churches of England and the
equal of the cathedrals in its effect on the mind.
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