My wife wondered how many of our beloved little larks would be devoured in London alone in the course of this month. “Larks!” Yes; our poor little musical larks are caught and boned and made into dumplings, or stewed by dozens, by hundreds, and by thousands—not every year, but from time to time, when the fancy comes up again. Being plainly asked the question whether I had ever eaten larks, I could not deny the fact, nor refuse to say that they are good eating, though obtained, in my opinion, at too great a cost of one’s feelings.
From the common we gradually ascended the spurs of the Scar, about whose crest no vapour flitted. The sky was clear overhead, and round the whole horizon the clouds were white and shining—the snowy piles which, in spring, make the earth below seem all the greener for the clouds before they come down in rain as well as after. Over one part of the upland something like a shadow seemed to rest; but we discovered, when we came near, that it was only a new mass of colour.
Harebells—by which I mean the blue hyacinth, so called from the hare being supposed to feed on its roots—spread over the slope so thickly as to give it a distinct purple tinge. They gave us fine promise of the quantity we should presently see in the woods below; and, meantime, they tempted us to halt again for a few minutes. During those few minutes boys’ hats and girls’ bonnets were dressed in the blue blossoms, relieved by a few primroses and delicate sorrels. Here, where all was still, except the murmur of the bees in the flowers, we heard the cuckoo from below as distinctly as we had heard the cooing pigeons in the wood.
The boys said that at the next halt we should hear nothing but the wind whispering in the grass.
The next halt was, however, at the fold, where there ought to be bleating and baaing enough to be heard a long way off. But scarcely a sheep appeared: and it was evident that we were too early for the lambs. We could see them, as white specks, in the water-meadows below. As for the sheep, the pasture here was not yet sufficiently abundant for them, and the temptation to trespass was great. I have too good reason to know how hungry sheep can make their way in anywhere, and how much they can eat in a night, when wild with hunger in spring. The flocks which ought to be staring at us now, while we ate our luncheon under the wall of the fold, were probably laying waste some gardens, or feasting on the new grass of some neighbour in whose field they had no business.
We met with more life still higher up. There were cows which seemed to have a taste for an extensive prospect, for they were pacing about under the very highest crest of the Scar, or lying ruminating on hillocks of elastic moss. They were lean after the long winter, and the March scarcity which follows such a winter: but there was already herbage here which would improve their milk and cream; and a month would make them sleek enough.
The view was superb, when we had reached our pinnacle. We were not too high to discern the particulars of the scene below, while yet a bright blue line of sea, with two ships upon it, was seen as from a mountain-peak. Ned wondered whether either of these ships was on its way to the North Pole—exemplifying his speech in the recent debate. We agreed that if the one was going to the icy zone, and the other to the torrid, we would rather bid them good-speed, and stay where we were.
We stayed on that precise spot a little too long. One lad hunted out a snake or two from among the warm stones on the southern side; and the other ran round to a pool in a little hollow, where he had once found a bittern, and hoped for the chance a second time—this being just the season. We were startled by a sudden chill; and, looking up, found that heavy clouds were overtaking the sun, and threatening the earth. In a minute, the patter of the hail on the rocks drowned all other sounds to us; but my wife and the girls, lower down the steep, round whom a milder shower fell on the grass, heard the growl of thunder on the horizon. Though we scampered down to them at the top of our speed, the explosion was over before we reached the fold, and the sun cast blue shadows from every tuft of herbage upon the hail which lay beneath it.
As we descended, the woods of the park seemed to have grown greener since we mounted. The oak avenue was leafless as in winter, though softer in outline; and the fine ash-clumps, standing apart, looked barer than the oaks; but there was a tender tinting of foliage over the massed woods and the hedgerow lines. There was apple-blossom in the orchards of the farm-steads, and near the best of the cottages.
We were not cured of our loitering by the sound of the church clock, which came on the wind when we were still two miles from home; nor by the fatigue which we all felt—all, because it was caused less by the exercise we had taken than by the temperature of the sudden spring. The boys persisted in starting the tadpoles in the ditches and discovering birds’-nests; and the girls in gathering every spray of blackthorn that showed the remotest symptom of blossoming. When we went to bed that night we threatened one another with being too stiff to enjoy the fair to-morrow.
I need not describe the fair, because it is the same thing every year, and would be at any season of the year: and there is no use in describing the Easter Monday wedding, because it is just once and away—a single incident, not likely to happen again, nor to interest anybody but ourselves. I therefore stop here. Our Spring has fairly settled down around us; and the next change we see will be the advance into the fuller beauty of May.
APRÈS.
Down, down, Ellen, my little one—
Climbing so tenderly up to my knee;
Why should you add to the thoughts that are taunting me,
Dreams of your mother’s arms clinging to me?
