Afoot in England Part 5

The next day I ventured out again to look for the sun, and found it not, but my ramble was not without its reward. In a pine wood three miles from the town I stood awhile to listen to the sound as of copious rain of the moisture dropping from the trees, when a sudden tempest of loud, sharp metallic notes--a sound dear to the ornithologist's ears--made me jump; and down into the very tree before which I was standing dropped a flock of about twenty crossbills. So excited and noisy when coming down, the instant they touched the tree they became perfectly silent and motionless. Seven of their number had settled on the outside shoots, and sat there within forty feet of me, looking like painted wooden images of small green and greenish-yellow parrots; for a s.p.a.ce of fifteen minutes not the slightest movement did they make, and at length, before going, I waved my arms about and shouted to frighten them, and still they refused to stir.

Next morning that memorable fog lifted, to England's joy, and quitting my refuge I went out once more into the region of high sheep-walks, adorned with beechen woods and traveller's-joy in the hedges, rambling by Highclere, Burghclere, and Kingsclere. The last--Hamps.h.i.+re's little Cuzco--is a small and village-like old red brick town, unapproached by a railroad and unimproved, therefore still beautiful, as were all places in other, better, less civilized days. Here in the late afternoon a chilly grey haze crept over the country and set me wis.h.i.+ng for a fireside and the sound of friendly voices, and I turned my face towards beloved Silchester. Leaving the hills behind me I got away from the haze and went my devious way by serpentine roads through a beautiful, wooded, undulating country. And I wish that for a hundred, nay, for a thousand years to come, I could on each recurring November have such an afternoon ride, with that autumnal glory in the trees. Sometimes, seeing the road before me carpeted with pure yellow, I said to myself, now I am coming to elms; but when the road shone red and russet-gold before me I knew it was overhung by beeches. But the oak is the common tree in this place, and from every high point on the road I saw far before me and on either hand the woods and copses all a tawny yellow gold--the hue of the dying oak leaf. The tall larches were lemon-yellow, and when growing among tall pines produced a singular effect. Best of all was it where beeches grew among the firs, and the low sun on my left hand s.h.i.+ning through the wood gave the coloured translucent leaves an unimaginable splendour.

This was the very effect which men, inspired by a sacred pa.s.sion, had sought to reproduce in their n.o.blest work--the Gothic cathedral and church, its dim interior lit by many-coloured stained gla.s.s. The only choristers in these natural fanes were the robins and the small lyrical wren; but on pa.s.sing through the rustic village of Wolverton I stopped for a couple of minutes to listen to the lively strains of a cirl-bunting among some farm buildings.

Then on to Silchester, its furzy common and scattered village and the vast ruinous walls, overgrown with ivy, bramble, and thorn, of ancient Roman Calleva. Inside the walls, at one spot, a dozen men were still at work in the fading light; they were just finis.h.i.+ng--shovelling earth in to obliterate all that had been opened out during the year. The old flint foundations that had been revealed; the houses with porches and corridors and courtyards and pillared hypocausts; the winter room with its wide beautiful floor--red and black and white and grey and yellow, with geometric pattern and twist and scroll and flower and leaf and quaint figures of man and beast and bird--all to be covered up with earth so that the plough may be driven over it again, and the wheat grow and ripen again as it has grown and ripened there above the dead city for so many centuries. The very earth within those walls had a reddish cast owing to the innumerable fragments of red tile and tessera mixed with it. Larks and finches were busily searching for seeds in the reddish-brown soil. They would soon be gone to their roosting-places and the tired men to their cottages, and the white owl coming from his hiding-place in the walls would have old Silchester to himself, as he has had it since the cries and moans of the conquered died into silence so long ago.

Chapter Ten: The Last of His Name

I came by chance to the village--Norton, we will call it, just to call it something, but the county in which it is situated need not be named.

It happened that about noon that day I planned to pa.s.s the night at a village where, as I was informed at a small country town I had rested in, there was a nice inn--"The Fox and Grapes"--to put up at, but when I arrived, tired and hungry, I was told that I could not have a bed and that the only thing to do was to try Norton, which also boasted an inn.

It was hard to have to turn some two or three miles out of my road at that late hour on a chance of a shelter for the night, but there was nothing else to do, so on to Norton I went with heavy steps, and arrived a little after sunset, more tired and hungry than ever, only to be told at the inn that they had no accommodation for me, that their one spare room had been engaged! "What am I to do, then?" I demanded of the landlord. "Beyond this village I cannot go to-night--do you want me to go out and sleep under a hedge?" He called his spouse, and after some conversation they said the village baker might be able to put me up, as he had a spare bedroom in his house. So to the baker's I went, and found it a queer, ramshackle old place, standing a little back from the village street in a garden and green plot with a few fruit trees growing on it. To my knock the baker himself came out--a mild-looking, flabby-faced man, with his mouth full, in a very loose suit of pyjama-like garments of a bluish floury colour. I told him my story, and he listened, swallowing his mouthful, then cast his eyes down and rubbed his chin, which had a small tuft of hairs growing on it, and finally said, "I don't know. I must ask my wife. But come in and have a cup of tea--we're just having a cup ourselves, and perhaps you'd like one."

I could have told him that I should like a dozen cups and a great many slices of bread-and-b.u.t.ter, if there was nothing else more substantial to be had. However, I only said, "Thank you," and followed him in to where his wife, a nice-looking woman, with black hair and olive face, was seated behind the teapot. Imagine my surprise when I found that besides tea there was a big hot repast on the table--a ham, a roast fowl, potatoes and cabbage, a rice pudding, a dish of stewed fruit, bread-and-b.u.t.ter, and other things.

"You call this a cup of tea!" I exclaimed delightedly. The woman laughed, and he explained in an apologetic way that he had formerly suffered grievously from indigestion, so that for many years his life was a burden to him, until he discovered that if he took one big meal a day, after the work was over, he could keep perfectly well.

I was never hungrier than on this evening, and never, I think, ate a bigger or more enjoyable meal; nor have I ever ceased to remember those two with grat.i.tude, and if I were to tell here what they told me--the history of their two lives--I think it would be a more interesting story than the one I am about to relate. I stayed a whole week in their hospitable house; a week which pa.s.sed only too quickly, for never had I been in a sweeter haunt of peace than this village in a quiet, green country remote from towns and stations. It was a small rustic place, a few old houses and thatched cottages, and the ancient church with square Norman tower hard to see amid the immense old oaks and elms that grew all about it. At the end of the village were the park gates, and the park, a solitary, green place with n.o.ble trees, was my favourite haunt; for there was no one to forbid me, the squire being dead, the old red Elizabethan house empty, with only a caretaker in the gardener's lodge to mind it, and the estate for sale. Three years it had been in that condition, but n.o.body seemed to want it; occasionally some important person came rus.h.i.+ng down in a motor-car, but after running over the house he would come out and, remarking that it was a "rummy old place,"

remount his car and vanish in a cloud of dust to be seen no more.

The dead owner, I found, was much in the village mind; and no wonder, since Norton had never been without a squire until he pa.s.sed away, leaving no one to succeed him. It was as if some ancient landmark, or an immemorial oak tree on the green in whose shade the villagers had been accustomed to sit for many generations, had been removed. There was a sense of something wanting something gone out of their lives. Moreover, he had been a man of a remarkable character, and though they never loved him they yet reverenced his memory.

So much was he in their minds that I could not be in the village and not hear the story of his life--the story which, I said, interested me less than that of the good baker and his wife. On his father's death at a very advanced age he came, a comparative stranger, to Norton, the first half of his life having been spent abroad. He was then a middle-aged man, unmarried, and a bachelor he remained to the end. He was of a reticent disposition and was said to be proud; formal, almost cold, in manner; furthermore, he did not share his neighbours' love of sport of any description, nor did he care for society, and because of all this he was regarded as peculiar, not to say eccentric. But he was deeply interested in agriculture, especially in cattle and their improvement, and that object grew to be his master pa.s.sion. It was a period of great depression, and as his farms fell vacant he took them into his own hands, increased his stock and built model cowhouses, and came at last to be known throughout his own country, and eventually everywhere, as one of the biggest cattle-breeders in England. But he was famous in a peculiar way. Wise breeders and buyers shook their heads and even touched their foreheads significantly, and predicted that the squire of Norton would finish by ruining himself. They were right, he ruined himself; not that he was mentally weaker than those who watched and cunningly exploited him; he was ruined because his object was a higher one than theirs. He saw clearly that the prize system is a vicious one and that better results may be obtained without it. He proved this at a heavy cost by breeding better beasts than his rivals, who were all exhibitors and prizewinners, and who by this means got their advertis.e.m.e.nts and secured the highest prices, while he, who disdained prizes and looked with disgust at the overfed and polished animals at shows, got no advertis.e.m.e.nts and was compelled to sell at unremunerative prices. The buyers, it may be mentioned, were always the breeders for shows, and they made a splendid profit out of it.

He carried on the fight for a good many years, becoming more and more involved, until his creditors took possession of the estate, sold off the stock, let the farms, and succeeded in finding a tenant for the furnished house. He went to a cottage in the village and there pa.s.sed his remaining years. To the world he appeared unmoved by his reverses.

The change from mansion and park to a small thatched cottage, with a labourer's wife for attendant, made no change in the man, nor did he resign his seat on the Bench of Magistrates or any other unpaid office he held. To the last he was what he had always been, formal and ceremonious, more gracious to those beneath him than to equals; strict in the performance of his duties, living with extreme frugality and giving freely to those in want, and very regular in his attendance at church, where he would sit facing the tombs and memorials of his ancestors, among the people but not of them--a man alone and apart, respected by all but loved by none.

Finally he died and was buried with the others, and one more memorial with the old name, which he bore last was placed on the wall. That was the story as it was told me, and as it was all about a man who was without charm and had no love interest it did not greatly interest me, and I soon dismissed it from my thoughts. Then one day coming through a grove in the park and finding myself standing before the ancient, empty, desolate house--for on the squire's death everything had been sold and taken away--I remembered that the caretaker had begged me to let him show me over the place. I had not felt inclined to gratify him, as I had found him a young man of a too active mind whose only desire was to capture some person to talk to and unfold his original ideas and schemes, but now having come to the house I thought I would suffer him, and soon found him at work in the vast old walled garden. He joyfully threw down his spade and let me in and then up to the top floor, determined that I should see everything. By the time we got down to the ground floor I was pretty tired of empty rooms, oak panelled, and pa.s.sages and oak staircases, and of talk, and impatient to get away. But no, I had not seen the housekeeper's room--I must see that!--and so into another great vacant room I was dragged, and to keep me as long as possible in that last room he began unlocking and flinging open all the old oak cupboards and presses. Glancing round at the long array of empty shelves, I noticed a small brown-paper parcel, thick with dust, in a corner, and as it was the only movable thing I had seen in that vacant house I asked him what the parcel contained. Books, he replied--they had been left as of no value when the house was cleared of furniture. As I wished to see the books he undid the parcel; it contained forty copies of a small quarto-shaped book of sonnets, with the late squire's name as author on the t.i.tle page. I read a sonnet, and told him I should like to read them all. "You can have a copy, of course," he exclaimed. "Put it in your pocket and keep it." When I asked him if he had any right to give one away he laughed and said that if any one had thought the whole parcel worth twopence it would not have been left behind. He was quite right; a cracked dinner--plate or a saucepan with a hole in it or an earthenware teapot with a broken spout would not have been left, but the line was drawn at a book of sonnets by the late squire. n.o.body wanted it, and so without more qualms I put it in my pocket, and have it before me now, opened at page 63, on which appears, without a headline, the sonnet I first read, and which I quote:--

How beautiful are birds, of G.o.d's sweet air Free denizens; no ugly earthly spot Their boundless happiness doth seem to blot.

The swallow, swiftly flying here and there, Can it be true that dreary household care Doth goad her to incessant flight?

If not How can it be that she doth cast her lot Now there, now here, pursuing summer everywhere?

I sadly fear that shallow, tiny brain Is not exempt from anxious cares and fears, That mingled heritage of joy and pain That for some reason everywhere appears; And yet those birds, how beautiful they are!

Sure beauty is to happiness no bar.

This has a fault that doth offend the reader of modern verse, and there are many of the eighty sonnets in the book which do not equal it in merit. He was manifestly an amateur; he sometimes writes with labour, and he not infrequently ends with the unpardonable weak line.

Nevertheless he had rightly chosen this difficult form in which to express his inner self. It suited his grave, concentrated thought, and each little imperfect poem of fourteen lines gives us a glimpse into a wise, beneficent mind. He had fought his fight and suffered defeat, and had then withdrawn himself silently from the field to die. But if he had been embittered he could have relieved himself in this little book.

There is no trace of such a feeling. He only asks, in one sonnet, where can a balm be found for the heart fretted and torn with eternal cares; when we have thought and striven for some great and good purpose, when all our striving has ended in disaster? His plan, he concludes, is to go out in the quiet night-time and look at the stars.

Here let me quote two more sonnets written in contemplative mood, just to give the reader a fuller idea not of the verse, as verse, but of the spirit in the old squire. There is no t.i.tle to these two:--

I like a fire of wood; there is a kind Of artless poetry in all its ways: When first 'tis lighted, how it roars and plays, And sways to every breath its flames, refined By fancy to some shape by life confined.

And then how touching are its latter days; When, all its strength decayed, and spent the blaze Of fiery youth, grey ash is all we find.

Perhaps we know the tree, of which the pile Once formed a part, and oft beneath its shade Have sported in our youth; or in quaint style Have carved upon its rugged bark a name Of which the memory doth alone remain A memory doomed, alas! in turn to fade.

Bad enough as verse, the critic will say; refined, confined, find--what poor rhymes are these! and he will think me wrong to draw these frailties from their forgotten abode. But I like to think of the solitary old man sitting by his wood fire in the old house, not brooding bitterly on his frustrate life, but putting his quiet thoughts into the form of a sonnet. The other is equally good--or bad, if the critic will have it so:--

The clock had just struck five, and all was still Within my house, when straight I open threw With eager hand the cas.e.m.e.nt dim with dew.

Oh, what a glorious flush of light did fill That old staircase! and then and there did kill All those black doubts that ever do renew Their civil war with all that's good and true Within our hearts, when body and mind are ill From this slight incident I would infer A cheerful truth, that men without demur, In times of stress and doubt, throw open wide The windows of their breast; nor stung by pride In stifling darkness gloomily abide; But bid the light flow in on either side.

A "slight incident" and a beautiful thought. But all I have so far said about the little book is preliminary to what I wish to say about another sonnet which must also be quoted. It is perhaps, as a sonnet, as ill done as the others, but the subject of it specially attracted me, as it happened to be one which was much in my mind during my week's stay at Norton. That remote little village without a squire or any person of means or education in or near it capable of feeling the slightest interest in the people, except the parson, an old infirm man who was never seen but once a week--how wanting in some essential thing it appeared! It seemed to me that the one thing which might be done in these small centres of rural life to brighten and beautify existence is precisely the thing which is never done, also that what really is being done is of doubtful value and sometimes actually harmful.

Leaving Norton one day I visited other small villages in the neighbourhood and found they were no better off. I had heard of the rector of one of these villages as a rather original man, and went and discussed the subject with him. "It is quite useless thinking about it,"

he said. "The people here are clods, and will not respond to any effort you can make to introduce a little light and sweetness into their lives." There was no more to be said to him, but I knew he was wrong. I found the villagers in that part of the country the most intelligent and responsive people of their cla.s.s I had ever encountered. It was a delightful experience to go into their cottages, not to read them a homily or to present them with a book or a s.h.i.+lling, nor to inquire into their welfare, material and spiritual, but to converse intimately with a human interest in them, as would be the case in a country where there are no caste distinctions. It was delightful, because they were so responsive, so sympathetic, so alive. Now it was just at this time, when the subject was in my mind, that the book of sonnets came into my hands--given to me by the generous caretaker--and I read in it this one on "Innocent Amus.e.m.e.nts":--

There lacks a something to complete the round Of our fair England's homely happiness A something, yet how oft do trifles bless When greater gifts by far redound To honours lone, but no responsive sound Of joy or mirth awake, nay, oft oppress, While gifts of which we scarce the moment guess In never-failing joys abound.

No nation can be truly great That hath not something childlike in its life Of every day; it should its youth renew With simple joys that sweetly recreate The jaded mind, conjoined in friendly strife The pleasures of its childhood days pursue.

What wise and kindly thoughts he had--the old squire of Norton! Surely, when telling me the story of his life, they had omitted something! I questioned them on the point. Did he not in all the years he was at Norton House, and later when he lived among them in a cottage in the village--did he not go into their homes and meet them as if he knew and felt that they were all of the same flesh, children of one universal Father, and did he not make them feel this about him--that the differences in fortune and position and education were mere accidents?

And the answer was: No, certainly not! as if I had asked a preposterous question. He was the squire, a gentleman--any one might understand that he could not come among them like that! That is what a parson can do because he is, so to speak, paid to keep an eye on them, and besides it's religion there and a different thing. But the squire!--their squire, that dignified old gentleman, so upright in his saddle, so considerate and courteous to every one--but he never forgot his position--never in that way! I also asked if he had never tried to establish, or advocated, or suggested to them any kind of reunions to take place from time to time, or an entertainment or festival to get them to come pleasantly together, making a brightness in their lives--something which would not be cricket or football, nor any form of sport for a few of the men, all the others being mere lookers-on and the women and children left out altogether; something which would be for and include everyone, from the oldest grey labourer no longer able to work to the toddling little ones; something of their own invention, peculiar to Norton, which would be their pride and make their village dearer to them? And the answer was still no, and no, and no. He had never attempted, never suggested, anything of the sort. How could he--the squire! Yet he wrote those wise words:--

No nation can be truly great That hath not something childlike in its life Of every day.

Why are we lacking in that which others undoubtedly have, a something to complete the round of homely happiness in our little rural centres; how is it that we do not properly encourage the things which, albeit childlike, are essential, which sweetly recreate? It is not merely the selfishness of those who are well placed and prefer to live for themselves, or who have light but care not to shed it on those who are not of their cla.s.s. Selfishness is common enough everywhere, in men of all races. It is not selfishness, nor the growth of towns or decay of agriculture, which as a fact does not decay, nor education, nor any of the other causes usually given for the dullness, the greyness of village life. The chief cause, I take it, is that gulf, or barrier, which exists between men and men in different cla.s.ses in our country, or a considerable portion of it--the caste feeling which is becoming increasingly rigid in the rural world, if my own observation, extending over a period of twenty-five years, is not all wrong.

Chapter Eleven: Salisbury and Its Doves

Never in my experience has there been a worse spring season than that of 1903 for the birds, more especially for the short-winged migrants. In April I looked for the woodland warblers and found them not, or saw but a few of the commonest kinds. It was only too easy to account for this rarity. The bitter north-east wind had blown every day and all day long during those weeks when birds are coming, and when nearing the end of their journey, at its most perilous stage, the wind had been dead against them; its coldness and force was too much for these delicate travellers, and doubtless they were beaten down in thousands into the grey waters of a bitter sea. The stronger-winged wheatear was more fortunate, since he comes in March, and before that spell of deadly weather he was already back in his breeding haunts on Salisbury Plain, and, in fact, everywhere on that open down country. I was there to hear him sing his wild notes to the listening waste--singing them, as his pretty fas.h.i.+on is, up in the air, suspended on quickly vibrating wings like a great black and white moth. But he was in no singing mood, and at last, in desperation, I fled to Salisbury to wait for loitering spring in that unattractive town.

The streets were cold as the open plain, and there was no comfort indoors; to haunt the cathedral during those vacant days was the only occupation left to me. There was some shelter to be had under the walls, and the empty, vast interior would seem almost cosy on coming in from the wind. At service my due feet never failed, while morning, noon, and evening I paced the smooth level green by the hour, standing at intervals to gaze up at the immense pile with its central soaring spire, asking myself why I had never greatly liked it in the past and did not like it much better now when grown familiar with it. Undoubtedly it is one of the n.o.blest structures of its kind in England--even my eyes that look coldly on most buildings could see it; and I could admire, even reverence, but could not love. It suffers by comparison with other temples into which my soul has wandered. It has not the majesty and appearance of immemorial age, the dim religious richness of the interior, with much else that goes to make up, without and within, the expression which is so marked in other mediaeval fanes--Winchester, Ely, York, Canterbury, Exeter, and Wells. To the dry, mechanical mind of the architect these great cathedrals are in the highest degree imperfect, according to the rules of his art: to all others this imperfectness is their chief excellence and glory; for they are in a sense a growth, a flower of many minds and many periods, and are imperfect even as Nature is, in her rocks and trees; and, being in harmony with Nature and like Nature, they are inexpressibly beautiful and satisfying beyond all buildings to the aesthetic as well as to the religious sense.

Occasionally I met and talked with an old man employed at the cathedral.

One day, closing one eye and shading the other with his hand, he gazed up at the building for some time, and then remarked: "I'll tell you what's wrong with Salisbury--it looks too noo." He was near the mark; the fault is that to the professional eye it is faultless; the lack of expression is due to the fact that it came complete from its maker's brain, like a coin from the mint, and being all on one symmetrical plan it has the trim, neat appearance of a toy cathedral carved out of wood and set on a green-painted square.

After all, my thoughts and criticisms on the cathedral, as a building, were merely incidental; my serious business was with the feathered people to be seen there. Few in the woods and fewer on the windy downs, here birds were abundant, not only on the building, where they were like seafowl congregated on a precipitous rock, but they were all about me.

The level green was the hunting ground of many thrushes--a dozen or twenty could often be seen at one time--and it was easy to spot those that had young. The worm they dragged out was not devoured; another was looked for, then another; then all were cut up in proper lengths and beaten and bruised, and finally packed into a bundle and carried off.

Rooks, too, were there, breeding on the cathedral elms, and had no time and spirit to wrangle, but could only caw-caw distressfully at the wind, which tossed them hither and thither in the air and lashed the tall trees, threatening at each fresh gust to blow their nests to pieces. Small birds of half a dozen kinds were also there, and one tinkle-tinkled his spring song quite merrily in spite of the cold that kept the others silent and made me blue. One day I spied a big queen b.u.mble-bee on the ground, looking extremely conspicuous in its black and chestnut coat on the fresh green sward; and thinking it numbed by the cold I picked it up. It moved its legs feebly, but alas! its enemy had found and struck it down, and with its hard, sharp little beak had drilled a hole in one of the upper plates of its abdomen, and from that small opening had cunningly extracted all the meat. Though still alive it was empty as a blown eggsh.e.l.l. Poor queen and mother, you survived the winter in vain, and went abroad in vain in the bitter weather in quest of bread to nourish your few first-born--the grubs that would help you by and by; now there will be no bread for them, and for you no populous city in the flowery earth and a great crowd of children to rise up each day, when days are long, to call you blessed! And he who did this thing, the unspeakable oxeye with his black and yellow breast--"catanic black and amber"--even while I made my lamentation was tinkling his merry song overhead in the windy elms.

The birds that lived on the huge cathedral itself had the greatest attraction for me; and here the daws, if not the most numerous, were the most noticeable, as they ever are on account of their conspicuousness in their black plumage, their loquacity and everlasting restlessness. Far up on the ledge from which the spire rises a kestrel had found a cosy corner in which to establish himself, and one day when I was there a number of daws took it on themselves to eject him: they gathered near and flew this way and that, and cawed and cawed in anger, and swooped at him, until he could stand their insults no longer, and, suddenly das.h.i.+ng out, he struck and buffeted them right and left and sent them screaming with fear in all directions. After this they left him in peace: they had forgotten that he was a hawk, and that even the gentle mousing wind-hover has a n.o.bler spirit than any crow of them all.

On first coming to the cathedral I noticed a few pigeons sitting on the roof and ledges very high up, and, not seeing them well, I a.s.sumed that they were of the common or domestic kind. By and by one cooed, then another; and recognizing the stock-dove note I began to look carefully, and found that all the birds on the building--about thirty pairs--were of this species. It was a great surprise, for though we occasionally find a pair of stock-doves breeding on the ivied wall of some inhabited mansion in the country, it was a new thing to find a considerable colony of this shy woodland species established on a building in a town.

They lived and bred there just as the common pigeon--the vari-coloured descendant of the blue rock--does on St. Paul's, the Law Courts, and the British Museum in London. Only, unlike our metropolitan doves, both the domestic kind and the ringdove in the parks, the Salisbury doves though in the town are not of it. They come not down to mix with the currents of human life in the streets and open s.p.a.ces; they fly away to the country to feed, and dwell on the cathedral above the houses and people just as sea-birds--kittiwake and guillemot and gannet--dwell on the ledges of some vast ocean-fronting cliff.

The old man mentioned above told me that the birds were called "rocks"

by the townspeople, also that they had been there for as long as he could remember. Six or seven years ago, he said, when the repairs to the roof and spire were started, the pigeons began to go away until there was not one left. The work lasted three years, and immediately on its conclusion the doves began to return, and were now as numerous as formerly. How, I inquired, did these innocent birds get on with their black neighbours, seeing that the daw is a cunning creature much given to persecution--a crow, in fact, as black as any of his family? They got on badly, he said; the doves were early breeders, beginning in March, and were allowed to have the use of the holes until the daws wanted them at the end of April, when they forcibly ejected the young doves. He said that in spring he always picked up a good many young doves, often unfledged, thrown down by the dawn. I did not doubt his story. I had just found a young bird myself--a little blue-skinned, yellow-mouthed fledgling which had fallen sixty or seventy feet on to the gravel below.

But in June, he said, when the daws brought off their young, the doves entered into possession once more, and were then permitted to rear their young in peace.

I returned to Salisbury about the middle of May in better weather, when there were days that were almost genial, and found the cathedral a greater "habitacle of birds" than ever: starlings, swifts, and swallows were there, the lively little martins in hundreds, and the doves and daws in their usual numbers. All appeared to be breeding, and for some time I saw no quarreling. At length I spied a pair of doves with a nest in a small cavity in the stone at the back of a narrow ledge about seventy feet from the ground, and by standing back some distance I could see the hen bird sitting on the nest, while the c.o.c.k stood outside on the ledge keeping guard. I watched this pair for some hours and saw a jackdaw sweep down on them a dozen or more times at long intervals.

Sometimes after swooping down he would alight on the ledge a yard or two away, and the male dove would then turn and face him, and if he then began sidling up the dove would dash at and buffet him with his wings with the greatest violence and throw him off. When he swooped closer the dove would spring up and meet him in the air, striking him at the moment of meeting, and again the daw would be beaten. When I left three days after witnessing this contest, the doves were still in possession of their nest, and I concluded that they were not so entirely at the mercy of the jackdaw as the old man had led me to believe.

It was, on this occasion, a great pleasure to listen to the doves. The stock-dove has no set song, like the ringdove, but like all the other species in the typical genus Columba it has the cooing or family note, one of the most human-like sounds which birds emit. In the stock-dove this is a better, more musical, and a more varied sound than in any other Columba known to me. The pleasing quality of the sound as well as the variety in it could be well noted here where the birds were many, scattered about on ledges and projections high above the earth, and when bird after bird uttered its plaint, each repeating his note half a dozen to a dozen times, one in slow measured time, and deep-voiced like the rock-dove, but more musical; another rapidly, with shorter, impetuous notes in a higher key, as if carried away by excitement. There were not two birds that cooed in precisely the same way, and the same bird would often vary its manner of cooing.