Morgan George Watkins

“ As we pass by their graves the tender hare-bells and sweet-scented clover tell of nothing but what is beautiful and of good report. We cannot then quarrel with buried foibles, and “sit tibi terra levis” is our only thought. Thus I would rather not mention the true character of last summer in Devon, and the watery weeks of the present one, so far as it has yet advanced. Their souls have passed into the daisies of Time’s grave, and I would fain only recal them as glad summer hours of sunshine and bee-murmurings, and pleasant lime-tree fragrance, and airy whisperings of the mountain firs. ”

“ The moral of which seems to be that just as we admire the unclouded calmness and honour which attends that man’s old age who has lived well, so our feelings are insensibly tinged with some such tender regard for dying Nature, and the certainty that we shall lose in a short time the green foliage makes us cast more lingering glances at it while it yet stays. Most people, however, are contented to admire the colours of leaves when massed together, and rendered more effective by distant haze. Yet, without being microscopic, much beauty may be discerned in the fading hues of each tree. ”

“ None of the ancients seem to have appreciated the luxury of a lawn. Homer praises the fabulous gardens of Alcinous, but they were more what we should call orchards. The Grecian idea of a garden was a sacred grove planted with flowers to supply garlands for the deities, while the Romans thought less of lawns than of fountains and rows of stately trees shading terraced walks. It was only in the Elizabethan era with ourselves that grass began to be considered a component part of a garden. The tilt-yard passing insensibly into the bowling-green, as the days of chivalry died out, left us the lawn ”

“ Of course there is pleny of sunshine, where else are you to look for it if not in Devon? Sometimes stealing gently over the land from the distant peaks of Dartmoor, and streaming over meadow, lawn and moor, with its gentle influences, it lulls all nature into serenity, only broken by the hum of insects, which seems reflected in the seas round the coast, as the gentle ripple just stirs their blue expanse. ”

“ On Cornwall’s coast I must land them to-night,
Or I dare not face the morrow!”
“Ah! stay this night—but once I pray!”
“I may not linger, sweet!”
One kiss, and he speeds to the gusty shore,
But the spirits are far more fleet.
Afloat is his skiff, to her gunwale sunk
(Though empty to mortal sight) ;
He hoists her sail to the furious gale,
And drifts into blackest night.
Strange shrieks, deep groans from the boat resound—
The ghosts who have died to day—
Babes, women, and men—they wail as they sail
From their loved ones far away. ”

“ Summer brings its showers as well as April, and if I dislike, as much as you do, the unvarying rains of last year, I gladly welcome many a stray shower. We cannot put up with perpetual ill-temper even in the greatest beauty, but willingly abide her chance caprices of smile and frown. And if you insist on a southern serenity, always brooding over Devon, the deep azure would rob my favourite county of half its charms. It is impossible to obtain its cloud-scenery unless you welcome these passing showers. ”

“ Though to the sportsman Siluria will be most pleasing in winter, when the snipe rises from every wet meadow, and a woodcock may be flushed in every other coppice, we venture to recommend it in its summer dress to everyone tired of home and business. Then the wheat-ear flits over the commons, and the mountains look greener and brighter than at other times, for the light strikes up from the cultivated vales below, and is caught on their rugged sides. After spending a few days in Siluria, we prophesy that your notions on the country will be revolutionised. ”

“ The fireside forms the centre of an Englishman’s idea of home during winter, and in summer his garden, and undoubtedly the largest share of his affections is there given to his lawn. The hotbeds belong to the gardener, the flowers to his wife, but his special delight is to survey the smooth-shaven expanse of turf from his window, and saunter over its soft surface lord of all he surveys.
A well-kept lawn is a peculiar feature of our domestic life. ”

“ At the present season when, turn which way we will, we are so strongly reminded that the year is in its sere and yellow leaf, it is impossible to view these autumn leaves without remembering Mr. Millais’s beautiful picture of their dying grace. And then, because all art tends to call forth solemn emotions, and is not indeed worth the name of art unless it implants in us higher thoughts and calms the world-wearied spirit, we naturally fall into a few serious reflections respecting the withered leaves which strew our path. ”

“ Let us conclude these legends with one of special interest to the ladies. For the peace and quietness’ sake of the poor wolves in the Zoological Gardens, we have half a mind to forbear; but remembering the fate of Orpheus, and having once aroused a woman’s curiosity, perhaps the safer plan will be to go on. Well, then, there is a love-charm of peculiar virtue resident in one hair of a wolf’s tail. It is even more potent than the fabled hippomanes, more quick than the drug the “caitiff wretch” of an apothecary sold Romeo in his need. Alas, that we should throw any obstacles in a lady’s way! ”

“ FOOTSTEPS OF SPRING.
As soon as the shortest day is past, most people look out for spring. There is a certain gratification in computing from the almanack how many more minutes of daylight each morning brings, though our eyes, even if we scan the east as critically as the new weather prophets look for a “high” or “low” dawn, can discern no difference. Most men would also plead guilty to catching at the faintest gleam of sunshine, when the year has once turned, as the earliest smile of spring. These delights are at the best short lived. Soon February lays his iron grasp upon the earth ”

“ As our orchids and ferns are our closest link to tropical vegetation, so the stag-beetle, from its habits and economy, forms the best British representative of the myriads of beetles that prey on the foliage of hot climes. It is by no means so scarce as many other of our large insects, and thus may hope to escape extinction at the hands of those enthusiastic collectors who bid fair to thin the ranks of British insects as their brother ornithologists have helped to exterminate many of our native birds. A true naturalist always prefers an animal at freedom to its mummy in a glass case. ”

“ Just as the eye is charmed in spring with observing the different tints of the opening leaves, so in autumn a similar variety of colours may be noticed, one tree varying in shades of the same hue from another of a different kind, even if they do not differ more strikingly in utterly diverse hues. ”

“ But now that we are diverging to the romantic, we cannot better end our summer tour than by visiting the Haunted House of Chambercombe. It is just the place for a ghost, hidden among trees, and smothered by the foliage of narrow lanes, and withdrawn from the haunts of men. ”

“ This is the weather in which Devon looks its best. This is spring, almost visibly flushing into summer. The constant alternation of light and shade brings out the varied tints of the foliage and the splendour of the wild flowers to perfection, while the sun is not too hot to rob you of their enjoyment. ”

“ As if to compensate for the havoc they make with tender plants, they are admirable fertilisers of a lawn, constantly withdrawing the surface-earth and piercing the soil in all directions, so much so as in a few years entirely to change its surface.
Without worms in our lawns we should have no blackbirds or thrushes haunting them, and to most people birds are peculiarly associated with lawns. Watching their strange ways is an untiring source of quiet pleasure. ”

“ I need not describe the visitors promenading underneath us, the scientific searching for anemones near low-water mark, while the idle ones watch them from above, maliciously hoping that a chance wave may break over them—visitors are always the same at a sea-side place. Perhaps more hats and novels distinguish them here from others, for the sun is stronger and the climate softer than elsewhere. One local guide-book proves to its own satisfaction, I see, that Ilfracombe is as cool in summer as any other English town, and in winter actually half a degree warmer than Torquay! ”

“ Footpads are never heard of in that part of the country where the fair took place, but the true agriculturist is a cautious man, and always returns home early on such occasions.
Still the streams of country lads and lasses, all with merry faces and wonderful head-gear, wend their way from the outlying villages to the great attraction, the event of their year. Still the cracking that told of shots for nuts went on more energetically each hour, and the street-vendors became more importunate in offering you walnuts as the hours slipped on. ”

“ It is a very unsatisfactory country for a farmer, this; but how grateful to an eye that loves Nature in all her wildness! This kind of scenery follows us for miles, as we climb under walls of shale with hedges and rocks high over our heads, or dip into secluded valleys beneath, till at length the glitter of the sea and the calm grandeur of her surrounding Tors, tells us we are at Ilfracombe.
This is especially the place at which to enjoy August in summer. ”

“ If the unfortunate wryneck was the bird sacred to the softer impulses of love, and when bound to a wheel and slowly turned round was believed to bring a recreant lover to his languishing admirer’s feet, the wolf was universally consecrated to darker deeds of blood and vengeance. ”

“ It seems to span the whole of life in an instant. Memory flies back to the days when, as a child, you sported on such a lawn, and looks on to the time when, seated old and feeble by its edge, some one who may be slumbering all unconscious as yet in the neighbouring wing, shall catch your lightest fancies and forestall your every wish. And, last scene of all, the level turf before you is inseparably connected with final rest. ”

“ Siluria is fruitful in hospitality, prodigal in natural beauty, and peopled with the strangest superstitions. As you listen to the old crones telling of corpse-candles, portents of death, and haunted houses lighted up by bluish flickers more thrilling than even the superstitions of Jersey, you feel yourself at once transported to the dark ages. ”

“ Flumina amem sylvasque inglorius.
Would you linger awhile on the terraced walk of Tiverton Castle, or visit the fair ruins of Berry Pomeroy? I should much like to take you from where Dart winds beneath walls of waving trees to where its salmon peel leap joyously in that sheltered harbour at its mouth, which erst witnessed a fleet of crusaders set sail for the Holy Land. From here we might, perchance with classic Rowe or poetic Carrington, spend a happy hour on Dartmoor, and discourse of the geology of the granitic Yes Tor, the highest mountain peak in the county. ”

“ Next, we arrived at a range of sheds, where scattered heaps of salt, like driven snow, suggested agreeable reminiscences of ices. Dismounting here, we made our way to a large room at the head of the mine. There stood the inevitable bucket-like cage in which we were to descend to Erebus, with a chain, at what may be called its handle, communicating through the roof with the machinery which lowered it. At this sight everyone’s courage began to evaporate. Unknown perils, which might befall dresses and hats, were now gravely mooted. Even in the men’s faces the colour fell visibly a shade or two. ”

“ White of Selborne remarks that all lopped trees, while their heads are young, carry their leaves a long time. In the garden, currant-bushes and laburnums decay first, even while the foliage round them is still green. Indeed, most fruit-bearing trees and bushes begin to lose their leaves as soon as the fruit is mature. Apple trees, however, are an exception, the young summer shoots fluttering their bravery of verdure through all the early frosts until quite the end of November. When these leaves fall the pruner knows he may use his knife. ”

“ But even in the mineral district Siluria is not without a beauty of her own. I do not know whether the contrast as you walk from a busy colliery up the hill-side above it, and a new plant, or the gleam of a bright flower strikes you, is not on the whole more enjoyable than the richer landscapes further up the country. ”

“ Often, too, a strawberry flower, large, white, and lustrous, may be detected lurking in the garden amongst leaves scorched with autumn’s fiery breath,—
Fair as a star when only one
Is shining in the sky. ”

“ But it is in the country that Spring leaves her footsteps most. By lonely woodland ways, adown dingles daily soothed by the queest’s soft notes, where the woodcock and the owl resort at night, flits her airy presence. ”

“ Horses are rendered torpid if they do but tread on its tracks. With some glimmering, we suppose, of the mediæval doctrine of signatures, he goes on to tell us its liver is shaped like a horse’s hoof. If any one wished for an infallible receipt to keep wolves off his premises, he had only to cut off a wolf’s feet, sprinkle the blood round his grounds, and take care to bury the animal itself at the place where the operation commenced. ”