Forestay

“ We struck into the forest, an old, untrodden forest, where generations of trees had rotted away, and strange flowers and lichens grew, and bats flew past us in the artificial darkness; and there were snakes too, ugly spotted things, which hissed at us, and put out their double tongues, and then coiled themselves away in the dim recesses of the forest. But on we went, climbing with difficulty over prostrate firs, or breaking through matted juniper, and still the spring was not, though we were "far away in the woods." ”

“ Down rushed the steep slopes to the plain, clad in the decaying leaf and mast of former years, and at the edges of these precipitous glades, or scattered at long intervals across them, great single trees emerged, the types and masters of the forest, their trunks, incomparably tall, and all their noble limbs, now thinly veiled by a departing leafage, drawn sharp, in black and silver, on the pale background of the chalk plain. ”

“ As the seasons went on, the branches of the tall trees grew so very thick that they shut out the light down in the forest. Then the Little Tree could not see the sun at all, and one by one the ferns and flowers at her roots died from the dampness, and the Little Tree was all alone! Nothing broke the silence of the dark, still forest save the calls of the birds when they returned each year to build their nests, or the sound of the branches swaying in the breeze. ”

“ The forests, the manifold forests that then spread over the fair land of France, showed nothing but bare branches, except where here and there the yoke-elm or tenacious beech retained in patches its red and withered leaves, while beneath the trees again, the ground was thickly carpeted with the fallen honours of the past summer, mingled with hoar frost and thin snow. A chilliness more piercing than mere frost pervaded the air; and the aspect of the whole scene was cheerless and melancholy. ”

“ Wandering through the forest with an Indian guide, we reach an igarape or stream, where the lofty branches of the trees do not completely meet overhead, but where the opening is as yet of no great width. Lying concealed, we hear a strange chattering and rustling among the foliage in the distance. Pieces of rotten wood, husks, and nuts come dropping down, and we may see the boughs alive with numberless dark-haired little creatures, their long lithe tails twisting and twirling, their active limbs stretched out in all directions, as they make their way through the forest. ”

“ Have you ever loitered in the woods on a fresh autumn day? When the sun shines calmly and clearly on the richly-tinted foliage; when the boughs creak, and the dry leaves rustle under foot. The forest seems weary of life; it can merely think, and lives in its memories of the past. A blue mist hangs about it like a dream, full of mysterious splendour, and the glistening gossamers float on the air with slow undulations—a sweet aimless musing. ”

“ The scenery perpetually grows more wonderful and sublime: pine forests of impenetrable thickness, and untrodden, nay, inaccessible expanse spread on every side. Sometimes the dark woods descending, follow the route into the vallies, the distorted trees struggling with knotted roots between the most barren clefts; sometimes the road winds high into the regions of frost, and then the forests become scattered, and the branches of the trees are loaded with snow, and half of the enormous pines themselves buried in the wavy drifts. ”

“ The whole forest seems marching to some wild tune{199} which the wind is playing; the long, vine-wreathed branches twine and sway and circle and swing in the twilight, like a troop of dancing girls, new born from their silent depths, their white arms flashing and curving, while the soft silver moss falls like a veil, hiding their laughing faces. They come out from the gloom like a phantasmagoria of living beauty down to the water’s edge; then they fade, mingle with earth, air, and sky, and we are in the wilderness again. ”

“ But there is a general silence, a present suspense, while the [Pg 6] lime yellows, and the birch takes on her pale gold, and oak and sycamore and ash slowly transmute their green multitudes into a new throng clad in russet or dull red or sunset-orange. The forest is full of loveliness: in her dusky ways faint azure mists gather. When the fawn leaps through the fern it is no longer soundlessly: there is a thin dry rustle, as of a dove brushing swiftly from its fastness in an ancient yew. One may pass from covert to covert, from glade to glade, and find the Secret just about to be revealed ... ”

“ The frost touches them, and, with the slightest breath of returning day or jarring of earth's axle, see in what showers they come floating down! The ground is all party-colored with them. But they still live in the soil, whose fertility and bulk they increase, and in the forests that spring from it. They stoop to rise, to mount higher in coming years, by subtle chemistry, climbing by the sap in the trees, and the sapling's first fruits thus shed, transmuted at last, may adorn its crown, when, in after-years, it has become the monarch of the forest. ”

“ This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest. ”

“ The sighing of the wind alone is heard among their sapless branches.
Thus much we know, that in all forest-trees the stages of vegetation are alike. But century after century must have rolled on, till the giant bulk of the noble trees were fully developed, till their stately columns, upheld an ample canopy of spreading boughs, beneath which the flocks that grazed in the open spaces of the forest might find a shelter from the storm. ”

“ They pulled up presently, dead beat to the world, on the ridge of rocks, and flung themselves down under the shelter of one of the great forest trees. Behind them the forest stretched away mile upon mile, and on the other side of the valley the sinister woodland was equally thick and forbidding. These two fringes of wood were not more than sixty or seventy yards apart, with a shelf of rock on either side trending sharply down into the flat valley, level as a pavement and feet deep in the leaves which the winter storms and gales had reaped from the forest. ”

“ The stillness of the forest is more striking and impressive at this season than at any other; one may glide along for miles over some quiet wood-road, without seeing or hearing a living thing, not even a bird, or a chipmuck. The passing of the sleigh seems almost an intrusion on the haunts of silence.
Dead and shrivelled leaves are still hanging on some trees, here and there; not all the storms of winter have been able to loosen their hold on the lower limbs of the beeches; they cling, also, at this late day to some oaks, and hickories, and maples. ”

“ There is no undergrowth as in our forests at home, but there are here and there gray rocks, large and small, covered with fresh green moss, or with gray, pink and yellow lichen. There were rustic benches all along, but the forest was quite deserted except for an occasional woodman with a fire and piles of neatly chopped wood, or some little boys drawing carts filled with bundles of sticks for winter use. ”

“ The forest was all made of frozen ferns and seaweed and feathers, like the white images on the glass. It stretched far, far away in alleys of fantastic sparkling fronds and glittering branches. How thick the strange, beautiful things grew! He had been once told that, if he was a good boy, when he died a white angel would come and take him to a place where he would never be sad or hungry any more. ”

“ It is surrounded by gigantic forest trees, whose shadows make it a cool retreat in the heat of noon, and whose dense foliage fills the air with freshness and fragrance when the sun is hot in the sky. Towards its head, a cold stream comes creeping around the boulders, and dancing and singing down the rocks from a copious spring, a short way back in the forest. ”

“ Let no one, however, think they know anything of the Forest by simply keeping to the high road and the beaten tracks. They must go into it, across the fern and the heather, and, if necessary, over the swamps, into such old woods as Barrow’s Moor, Mark Ash, Bushey Bratley, and Oakley, wandering at their own will among the trees. The best advice which I can give to see the Forest is to follow the course of one of its streams, to make it your friend and companion, and go wherever it goes. ”

“ It awakes the forest. When the voice of the woodpecker is heard it is the hour for Nature to celebrate her own Ides of March. Elsewhere the song-thrush and the skylark have been the first heralds. Even in the woods the missel-thrush may have flung a sudden storm of song out on the cold tides of the wind swaying the elm-tops like dusky airweed of the upper ocean. But, in the glades themselves, in the listening coverts, it is the call of the green woodpecker that has awakened the dreaming forest. ”

“ Presently a clear, ringing discharge of thunder is heard, followed by a rush of wind that comes sounding over the bending woods like the roar of the ocean, mingling raindrops, snow-flowers, honey-flowers, and bees in wild storm harmony.
Still more impressive are the warm, reviving days of spring in the mountain pastures. The blood of the plants throbbing beneath the life-giving sunshine seems to be heard and felt. Plant growth goes on before our eyes, and every tree in the woods, and every bush and flower is seen as a hive of restless industry. ”

“ Though meadow, arable, and hop-fields hold now the place of the forest, a goodly remnant remains, for every hedge is full of oak and elm and ash; maple too, and the lesser bushes. At a little distance, so thick are the trees, the whole country appears a wood, and it is easy to see what a forest it must have been centuries ago. ”

“ A deep lane, its banks a garden of ferns, its hedge matted with honeysuckle, and woven together with bryony, runs, winding along a side space of green, to the latch-gate, guarded by an enormous oak, its limbs now fast decaying, its rough bark grey with the perpetual snow of lichens, and here and there burnished with soft streaks of russet-coloured moss ”

“ As we come closer under the mountains the base emerges from the haze and the line of snowy peaks disappears behind the nearer outer ranges. Then we come to these ranges themselves, which rise with considerable abruptness out of the level plains with very little intermediate modulation of form, and we find them densely clothed in forest—true, rich, luxuriant, tropical forest with all the delights of glistening foliage, graceful ferns and palms, glorious orchids, and brilliant butterflies. ”

“ The forest spread an interminable canopy of shade over the dark soil on which the fat and useless vegetation rotted at ease, and through the dusky vistas of the wood only savage beasts and more savage men prowled in quest of prey. The whole land now blossoms like a garden. ”

“ A low forest skirts all the shores, succeeded by a broad belt of brushwood, above which, to the summits of the hills, extend grassy slopes. On a closer inspection of the forest, it is found to be composed of a dense thicket of stag-headed trees, so gnarled and stunted by the violence of the gales, as to afford an excellent shelter for a luxuriant under-growth of bright green feathery ferns, and several gay-flowered herbs. ”

“ The forest gloom is broken by gladdening beams of sunlight. They sketch a mazy fretwork pattern of light and shade on the dank underlay of rotting vegetation which the melting snow has laid bare. The air is weighted down with heavy, resinous odours, and an enervating warmth has descended to the depths of the lower forests. ”

“ It is pleasant driving through the woods, even in winter; once within their bounds, we feel the charm of the forest again. Though dark and sombre in the background, yet close at hand, the old pines and hemlocks are green as ever, with lights and shadows playing about them, which in the distance become imperceptible. The trunks and limbs of the leafless trees, also, never fail to be a source of much interest. The pure wintry air is still touched with the fragrance of bark and evergreens, and the woods have a winter-light of their own, filled with
pale gray shadows falling on the snow. ”

“ The finest beech-wood is that of Mark Ash. There you may see true beech-forms, the boles spangled with silver scales of lichen, and the roots—more fangs than roots—grasping the earth, feathered with the soft green down of moss.
But not in individual trees lies the beauty of the Forest, but in the masses of wood. There, in the long aisles, settles that depth of shade which no pencil can give, and that colouring which no canvas can retain, as the sunlight pierces through the green web of leaves, flinging, as it sets, a crown of gold round each tree-trunk. ”

“ Yet in all this seeming death lies hidden the life of myriads of insects, the huge beast of the forest, asleep in his lair, with many of the smaller quadrupeds, and forest-birds, that, hushed in lonely places, shall awake to life and activity as soon as the sun-beams shall once more dissolve the snow, unbind the frozen streams, and loosen the bands which held them in repose. ”

“ But the average forest is a mixture of these scenes. There will probably be groups of fifty trees standing like columns of a cathedral, grey and solemn in the twilight, and in the midst there will be a naked and gaunt patriarch, bleached white, and around it will have grown a young community, each young tree clambering upward to become heir to the area of light and sunshine once occupied by the sire. ”