Woodbine

“ Should the lone wanderer, fainting on his way,
Rest for a moment of the sultry hours
And though his path through thorns and roughness lay,
Pluck the wild rose or woodbine's gadding flowers;
Weaving gay wreaths beneath some sheltering tree,
The sense of sorrow he awhile may lose ”

“ Between thickets of broom there is a glimpse down into a meadow shadowed by the trees of a wood. It is bordered with the cool green of brake fern, from which a rabbit has come forth to feed, and a pheasant strolls along with a mind, perhaps, to the barley yonder. Or a foxglove lifts its purple spire; or [Pg 182] woodbine crowns the bushes. The sickle has gone over, and the poppies which grew so thick a while ago in the corn no longer glow like a scarlet cloak thrown on the ground. But red spots in waste places and by the ways are where they have escaped the steel. ”

“ As the days grow warmer, the woodpile invites idlers as well as busy bees and wood-cutters. The big logs are comfortable seats to lounge on while whittling a pine chip, and breathing the mingled [248] odors of the many woods freshly cut and the indescribable woodsy smell brought home in the bark and moss, and listening to the hum of the bees and harsher music of the saws and axe, the sharp, quick swish of the whip-saw, the longer drawn and deeper ring of the crosscut, and the regular beat of the axe,—fiddle, bass-viol, and drum, each with its own time, but all somehow in tune. ”

“ During all this time the woodman and his wife stood helpless and trembling. The light spring cart was soon brought by Boddily and Palin through the wood and over the heath; Scammel was hoisted in, and Sir Henry Clavering and George Woodburn came and took a view of him. There the great strong fellow lay on the straw at the bottom of the cart with his eyes shut, and his features, rendered almost black with rage, wore a sullen air of dogged endurance. ”

“ Ah, there is magic in the pine forests! One hears untranslatable harmonies; one sees strange subtleties of colour, and the fragrance is the complement of both. Frances loved the pine glooms. She would sometimes spend hours within the shadowy aisles, an ascetic, black-robed figure, with pale, uplifted face, drawn back, it would seem, by the weight of hair; but there was nothing ascetic in her glowing eyes and smiling mouth as she listened to the sea-music the wind sang to the pines, and inhaled the pine fragrance with a rapture which no flower scents could give her ”

“ It was when hunting in this wild resort of deer in the short January days of 1464, that Edward IV. met Elizabeth Woodville, not more than two hundred yards to the rear of the spot where the old hunting-lodge stands. The place of meeting is still marked by the ancient and gigantic tree known far and wide as the “Queen’s Oak,” a gnarled and hollowed giant, whose trunk measures thirty-one feet round and whose cavernous interior can, and constantly does in summer-time, seat a tea-party of three or four persons. ”

“ The bees came and found no one but the Woodman to sting, so they flew at him and broke off all their stings against the tin, without hurting the Woodman at all. And as bees cannot live when their stings are broken that was the end of the black bees, and they lay scattered thick about the Woodman, like little heaps of fine coal.
Then Dorothy and the Lion got up, and the girl helped the Tin Woodman put the straw back into the Scarecrow again, until he was as good as ever. So they started upon their journey once more. ”

“ A little above Woodburn Grange, and nearer to Rockville, lies the village of Woodburn. It is not very large, and chiefly built round a spacious green, on which the young men in summer evenings enjoy their games [Pg 112] of cricket, ninepins, bowls, and quoits. At the corner where the road enters the green from Rockville, and, of course, from Castleborough, stands the blacksmith’s shop, where frequently two or three farm-horses stand waiting to be shod; and a number of ploughs and harrows lie expecting repairs. ”

“ He walked up to another tree, as he spoke, but its branches immediately seized him and tossed him back again.
"This is strange," exclaimed Dorothy. "What shall we do?"
"The trees seem to have made up their minds to fight us, and stop our journey," remarked the Lion.
"I believe I will try it myself," said the Woodman, and shouldering his axe, he marched up to the first tree that had handled the Scarecrow so roughly. When a big branch bent down to seize him the Woodman chopped at it so fiercely that he cut it in two. ”

“ While they paused, hesitating and wondering, the Tin Woodman uttered a cry of impatience and advanced with swinging axe to cut down the stalks before him. But now the sunflowers suddenly stopped their rapid whirling, and the travelers plainly saw a girl's face appear in the center of each flower. These lovely faces looked upon the astonished band with mocking smiles, and then burst into a chorus of merry laughter at the dismay their appearance caused.
"Stop! stop!" cried Tip, seizing the Woodman's arm; "they're alive! they're girls!" ”

“ Burning like a clear oil, it has none of the heaviness and fatness of the pine and the balsam. Woodsmen are at a loss to account for its intense and yet chaste flame, since the bark has no oily appearance. The heat from it is fierce, and the light dazzling. It flares up eagerly like young love, and then dies away; the wood does not keep up the promise of the bark. The woodsmen, it is proper to say, have not considered it in its relation to young love. In the remote settlements the pine-knot is still the torch of courtship; it endures to sit up by. ”

“ First-quality pine costs more than any other soft wood used for joinery.
American Red Pine.—This is the wood of the Pinus mitis, which is called in America the yellow pine, and is very like the wood of the Scotch fir, though it does not equal it in strength or durability, neither does it grow so large as the Dantzic and Memel timber. Being very straight-grained and free from knots, it is valuable for joiners' work, when a stronger wood than yellow pine (described in the previous paragraph) is required. It is more expensive than Baltic fir, consequently is not so largely used in England. ”

“ It has been the belief that the woodcock has two broods in the year, because young ones have been found, just hatched, in the month of August; but I think the cause of the supposition is this,—that as woodcock shooting, at flight time, continues till late in the summer, some of the males may have been shot, and a new pair may have been formed later than usual. If in shooting you meet with a brood of woodcocks, and the young ones cannot fly, the old bird takes the young ones separately between her feet, and flies from the dogs with a moaning cry. ”

“ Crossing the tiny stream, a path dim with the shade of low, dense evergreens and soft and elastic underfoot from their fallen leaves, leads through the woods. Here among the partridge-vine that runs over the rocks, growing from the soft, spongy soil, are groups of the sterile fronds only of this Woodwardia, charming little clumps of fresh green that invite one to dig them up and plant them in boxes or baskets for decorative purposes. ”

“ Scarcely were the young amateur haymakers, who, by-the-by, were furnished with light forks and rakes suited to such delicate hands as those of the ladies—scarcely were all engaged in raking and throwing up the hay into wainrow under the generalship of George Woodburn, with much mutual merriment over one another’s awkwardness, and over Thorsby’s mercurial capers and flourishes—when a novel sight arrested their attention, and brought them all to a full stand. ”

“ The trees grew less thickly, the ground more broken, strewn with flinty bowlders. Through the clear moonlight could be seen distant hills rising darkly, with their covering of trees, or bleak and bare, their rocky summits scarce affording subsistence for a scant growth of shriveled, prematurely-growing grass.
True to his latter calculation, the Wood King reached the gorge at a point only a few steps from the vine-wreathed elm tree, and then one stroke of his keen knife severed the pendent grape-vine close to its root. ”

“ Woodburn might be seen daily riding on a good sturdy horse about his farm, and in harvest time he did not hesitate to take a hand at raking or forking in the hay-field, or binding after his reapers in the corn-field; and on such occasions his children would turn out for a frolic, rather than for serious work. His harvest done, Leonard Woodburn shot over his own land, accompanied by his son George, now just come of age, and who was treading in his father’s steps, being fond of both agricultural pursuits and of the gun. ”

“ At that the girls all cried:
“How! How!”
Then a handful of inflammable wild-wood material was touched to the spark and as the smoke curled upward filling the immediate vicinity with an aromatic pine odour, a tiny flame shot out.
“How! How!” again chorused the Woodcrafters, and the tinder now burning brightly, was placed in the earthen dish and the dish set in the enclosure made by the logs. ”

“ When traveling in the northern bush during cold weather I frequently carried a bunch of birch bark in the top of my pack, so that if I wanted to build a fire quickly I would not have to hunt for kindling.
There is one more woodcraft trick that I think everybody who goes into the woods should know. While the woodsman invariably carries an axe with which to cut firewood, there may come a time when he has no axe and is obliged to camp out over night. Then getting together sufficient wood to keep fire over night is a real problem. ”

“ Is it not sad to know that the brave, bold dogwood, holding out its spring flag of truce [Pg 200] from arduous weather, and its autumn store of sustenance for our feathered friends, is in danger of extinction from the forest because its hardy, smooth, even-grained white wood has been found to be especially available in the "arts"? I feel like begging for the life of every dogwood, as too beautiful to be destroyed for any mere utility. ”

“ The work of all who practise the art—the draughtsmen who draw in black line, and the engravers who draw in white line—has worth just in proportion as they acquire the power to put intention into their lines and to express something by every stroke; and, other things being equal, he who conveys most meaning in the fewest lines, like Holbein and Bewick, is the greatest master. By means of such lines so arranged wood-engraving does represent form with great power, and also texture, which is only a finer form ”

“ Downy or logcock or goldenwing, a woodpecker is an independent chap that I have never been able to call fairly; not even in spring, when he is all ears for a mate or a rival. Like many other birds, he will come quickly to an excited and deceptive squeaking between my [81] fingers, but to my best drumming he remains deaf or indifferent.
“Ye haven’t the right combination, b’y,” said Bob when I gave over my fruitless attempt, and using his hunting knife as a hammer he began talking woodpecker-talk on a dry stub. ”

“ Where shadows on clover heads fall;
And the wind with leaf-tipped fingers,
Is playing in concert with all."
Eliza Cook.
Now grandpapa's house, Woodside, stood on the side of a wood; in fact there was only a grassy road between the gates and the wood itself.
Such a wood! with large old elms and oaks and other trees. In the more open spaces were trees and bushes of hawthorn, now completely covered with white blossom, the pretty May-bloom. There too grew prim [Pg 18] roses, violets, wild hyacinths, besides a long list of other wild flowers, ferns, and feathery green moss. ”

“ It would be but a humble post indeed to open the park gates to them good people, a very decent family too, I mean to say nothing disrespectful, but Woodlands, bless your heart, Woodlands is one of the principalest houses in the whole countryside. Do you see that beautiful great house standing on the height there, with the broad terrace and the pleasure-grounds sloping down to the river, and them grand woods on each side, shutting out the summer’s sun and the winter’s blasts?—that’s Woodlands, and it’s not every day you will see its like ”

“ The art of design in white line, however, is but little developed; but, not to depreciate the older method of black line, which is extremely valuable, nevertheless it is clear that white line -work is the peculiar province of the wood-engraver, and that in developing its capacities the future of the art mainly lies, so far as it rests with him. The merit of all line -work, whether black or white, fine or broad, bold or subtle, depends upon the certainty with which the lines serve their purposes. If, as with Holbein, every line has its work to do, and does that work perfectly ”

“ The last day of haymaking was always a sort of haymaking fête at Woodburn Grange. A tent was pitched under a huge-spreading oak-tree, in a pretty hilly field opposite to the house. A number of young people of the neighbourhood were invited to dine in the tent in rural fashion, and also to take tea, if the weather was warm, on the grass in front. On this occasion there appeared on the ground, Miss Millicent Heritage, under the guardianship of her mother; and Sylvanus [Pg 185] Crook drove them thither, and was to assist at the haymaking, which he liked. ”

“ Wood-engravers, if the design given them to reproduce is in black line, fit for engraving in wood, must copy it simply, and then, should artist-draughtsmen arise, the art in this manner will again produce works of permanent value as in the days of Holbein; if, on the other hand, the design given them is in color or washed tints, or anything of that sort, they must interpret it by lines of their own creation, and then, too, should any engraver-draughtsmen arise among them, the art will possess a similarly high value ”