The great painter, Autumn, has just touched with the tip of his brush a branch of the beech-tree, here and there leaving an orange spot, and the green acorns are tinged with a faint yellow. The hedges, perfect mines of beauty, look almost red from a distance, so innumerable are the peggles.[1] Let not the modern Goths destroy our hedges, so typical of an English landscape, so full of all that can delight the eye and please the mind. Spare them, if only for the sake of the 'days when we went gipsying--a long time ago'; spare them for the children to gather the flowers of May and the blackberries of September.
[1] A Wiltshire name for hawthorn-berries.
When the orange spot glows upon the beech, then the nuts are ripe, and the hawthorn-bushes are hung with festoons of the buff-coloured, heart-shaped leaves of a once-green creeper. That 'deepe and enclosed country of Northe Wiltes,' which old Clarendon, in his famous 'Civill Warre,' says the troops of King Charles had so much difficulty to hurry through, is pleasant to those who can linger by the wayside and the copse, and do not fear to hear the ordnance make the 'woods ring again,' though to this day a rusty old cannon-ball may sometimes be found under the dead brown leaves of Aldbourne Chase, where the skirmish took place before 'Newbury Battle.'
Perhaps it is because no such outbursts of human passions have swept along beneath its trees that the 'Forest' is unsung by the poet and unvisited by the artist. Yet its very name is poetical--Savernake--
i.e., savernes-acres--like the God's-acres of Longfellow. Saverne--a peculiar species of sweet fern; acre--land.' So we may call it 'Fern-land Forest,' and with truth, for but one step beneath those beeches away from the path plunges us to our shoulders in an ocean of bracken.
The yellow stalks, stout and strong as wood, make walking through the brake difficult, and the route pursued devious, till, from the constant turning and twisting, the way is lost. For this is no narrow copse, but a veritable forest in which it is easy to lose oneself; and the stranger who attempts to pass it away from the beaten track must possess some of the Indian instinct which sees signs and directions in the sun and wind, in the trees and humble plants of the ground.
And this is its great charm. The heart has a yearning for the unknown, a longing to penetrate the deep shadow and the winding glade, where, as it seems, no human foot has been.
High overhead in the beech-tree the squirrel peeps down from behind a bough, his long bushy tail curled up over his back, and his bright eyes full of mischievous cunning. Listen, and you will hear the tap, tap of the woodpecker, and see! away he goes in undulating flight with a wild, unearthly chuckle, his green and gold plumage glancing in the sun, like the parrots of far-distant lands. He will alight in some open space upon an ant-hill, and lick up the red insects with his tongue. In the fir-tree there, what a chattering and fluttering of gaily-painted wings!--three or four jays are quarrelling noisily. These beautiful birds are slain by scores because of their hawk-like capacities for destruction of game, and because of the delicate colours of their feathers, which are used in fly-fishing.
There darts across the glade a scared rabbit, straining each little limb for speed, almost rushing against us, a greater terror overcoming the less. In a moment there darts forth from the dried grass a fierce red-furred hunter, a very tiger to the rabbit tribe, with back slightly arched, bounding along, and sniffing the scent; another, and another, still a fourth--a whole pack of stoats (elder brothers of the smaller weasels). In vain will the rabbit trust to his speed, these untiring wolves will overtake him. In vain will he turn and double: their unerring noses will find him out. In vain the tunnels of the 'bury,' they will as surely come under ground as above. At last, wearied, panting, frightened almost to death, the timid creature will hide in a cul-de-sac, a hole that has no outlet, burying its head in the sand. Then the tiny bloodhounds will steal with swift, noiseless rush, and fasten upon the veins of the neck. What a rattling the wings of the pigeons make as they rise out of the trees in hot haste and alarm! As we pass a fir-copse we stoop down and look along the ground under the foliage. The sharp 'needles' or leaves which fall will not decay, and they kill all vegetation, so that there is no underwood or herbage to obstruct the view. It is like looking into a vast cellar supported upon innumerable slender columns. The pheasants run swiftly away underneath.
High up the cones are ripening--those mysterious emblems sculptured in the hands of the gods at Nineveh, perhaps typifying the secret of life. More bracken. What a strong, tall fern! it is like a miniature tree. So thick is the cover, a thousand archers might be hid in it easily. In this wild solitude, utterly separated from civilization, the whistle of an arrow would not surprise us--the shout of a savage before he hurled his spear would seem natural, and in keeping. What are those strange, clattering noises, like the sound of men fighting with wooden 'backswords'? Now it is near--now afar off--a spreading battle seems to be raging all round, but the combatants are out of sight. But, gently--step lightly, and avoid placing the foot on dead sticks, which break with a loud crack--softly peep round the trunk of this noble oak, whose hard furrowed bark defends it like armour.
The red-deer! Two splendid stags are fighting--fighting for their lady-love, the timid doe. They rush at each other with head down and horns extended; the horns meet and rattle; they fence with them skilfully. This was the cause of the noise. It is the tilting season--these tournaments between the knights of the forest are going on all around. There is just a trifle of danger in approaching these combatants, but not much, just enough to make the forest still more enticing; none whatever to those who use common caution. At the noise of our footsteps away go the stags, their 'branching antlers' seen high above the tall fern, bounding over the ground in a series of jumps, all four feet leaving the earth at once. There are immense oaks that we come to now, each with an open space beneath it, where Titania and the fairies may dance their rings at night. These enormous trunks--what
time they represent! To us, each hour is of consequence, especially in this modern day, which has invented the detestable creed that time is money. But time is not money to Nature. She never hastens. Slowly from the tiny acorn grew up this gigantic trunk, and spread abroad those limbs which in themselves are trees. And from the trunk itself to the smallest leaf, every infinitesimal atom of which it is composed was perfected slowly, gradually--there was no hurry, no attempt to discount effect. A little farther and the ground declines; through the tall fern we come upon a valley. But the soft warm sunshine, the stillness, the solitude, have induced an irresistible idleness. Let us lie down upon the fern, on the edge of the green vale, and gaze up at the slow clouds as they drift across the blue vault.
The subtle influence of Nature penetrates every limb and every vein, fills the soul with a perfect contentment, an absence of all wish except to lie there, half in sunshine, half in shade, for ever in a Nirvana of indifference to all but the exquisite delight of simply
living. The wind in the tree-tops overhead sighs in soft music, and ever and anon a leaf falls with a slight rustle to mark time.
The clouds go by in rhythmic motion, the ferns whisper verses in the ear, the beams of the wondrous sun in endless song, for he, also,
In his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim,
Such harmony is in immortal souls!
Time is to us now no more than it was to the oak; we have no consciousness of it. Only we feel the broad earth beneath us, and as to the ancient giant, so there passes through us a strength renewing itself, of vital energy flowing into the frame. It may be an hour, it may be two hours, when, without the aid of sound or sight, we become aware by an indescribable, supersensuous perception that living creatures are approaching. Sit up without noise and look: there is a herd of deer feeding down the narrow valley close at hand, within a stone's-throw. And these are deer indeed--no puny creatures, but the 'tall deer' that William the Conqueror loved 'as if he were their father.' Fawns are darting here and there, frisking round the does. How many may there be in this herd? Fifty, perhaps more. Nor is this a single isolated instance, but dozens more of such herds may be found in this true old English forest, all running free and unconstrained.
But the sun gets low. Following this broad green drive, it leads us past vistas of endless glades, going no man knows where, into shadow and gloom; past grand old oaks; past places where the edge of a veritable wilderness comes up to the trees--a wilderness of gnarled hawthorn trunks of unknown ages, of holly with shining metallic-green leaves, and hazel-bushes. Past tall trees bearing the edible chestnut in prickly clusters; past maples which in a little while will be painted in crimson and gold, with the deer peeping out of the fern everywhere, and once, perhaps, catching a glimpse of a shy, beautiful, milk-white doe. Past a huge hollow trunk in the midst of a greensward, where merry picnic parties under the 'King Oak' tread the social quadrille, or whirl waltzes to the harp and flute. For there are certain spots even in this grand solitude consecrated to Cytherea and Bacchus, as he is now worshipped in champagne. And where can graceful forms look finer, happy eyes more bright, than in this natural ballroom, under its incomparable roof of blue, supported upon living columns of stately trees? Still onward, into a gravel carriage-road now, returning by degrees to civilization, and here, with happy judgment, the hand of man has aided Nature. Far as the eye can see extends an avenue of beech, passing right through the forest. The tall, smooth trunks rise up to a great height, and then branch overhead, looking like the roof of a Gothic cathedral. The growth is so regular and so perfect that the comparison springs unbidden to the lip, and here, if anywhere, that order of architecture might have taken its inspiration. There is a continuous Gothic arch of green for miles, beneath which one may drive or walk, as in the aisles of a forest abbey. But it is impossible to even mention all the beauties of this place within so short a space. It must suffice to say that the visitor may walk for whole days in this great wood, and never pass the same spot twice. No gates or jealous walls will bar his progress. As the fancy seizes him, so he may wander. If he has a taste for archaeological studies, especially the prehistoric, the edge of the forest melts away upon downs that bear grander specimens than can be seen elsewhere. Stonehenge and Avebury are near. The trout-fisher can approach very close to it. The rail gives easy communication, but has not spoilt the seclusion.
Monsieur Lesseps, of Suez Canal fame, is reported to have said that Marlborough Forest was the finest he had seen in Europe. Certainly no one who had not seen it would believe that a forest still existed in the very heart of Southern England so completely recalling those woods and 'chases' upon which the ancient feudal monarchs set such store.
[The end]
Richard Jefferies's essay: Marlborough Forest