He
pressed me to give my opinion of her, but I sneaked out of it by
declaring that I must see a good deal more of the lady than I was
ever likely to see before I could form an opinion at all.
On coming down from the sanctuary one afternoon I heard the
landlord's comic song, of which I have spoken above. It was about
the musical instruments in a band: the trumpet did this, the
clarinet did that, the flute went tootle, tootle, tootle, and there
was an appropriate motion of the hand for every instrument. I was
a little disappointed with it, but the landlord said I was too
serious and the only thing that would cure me was to learn the song
myself. He said the butcher had learned it already, so it was not
hard, which indeed it was not. It was about as hard as:
The battle of the Nile
I was there all the while
At the battle of the Nile.
I had to learn it and sing it (Heaven help me, for I have no more
voice than a mouse!), and the landlord said that the motion of my
little finger was very promising.
The chestnuts are never better than after harvest, when they are
heavy-laden with their pale green hedgehog-like fruit and alive
with people swarming among their branches, pruning them while the
leaves are still good winter food for cattle. Why, I wonder, is
there such an especial charm about the pruning of trees? Who does
not feel it? No matter what the tree is, the poplar of France, or
the brookside willow or oak coppice of England, or the chestnuts or
mulberries of Italy, all are interesting when being pruned, or when
pruned just lately. A friend once consulted me casually about a
picture on which he was at work, and complained that a row of trees
in it was without sufficient interest. I was fortunate enough to
be able to help him by saying: "Prune them freely and put a
magpie's nest in one of them," and the trees became interesting at
once. People in trees always look well, or rather, I should say,
trees always look well with people in them, or indeed with any
living thing in them, especially when it is of a kind that is not
commonly seen in them; and the measured lop of the bill-hook and,
by and by, the click as a bough breaks and the lazy crash as it
falls over on to the ground, are as pleasing to the ear as is the
bough-bestrewn herbage to the eye.
To what height and to what slender boughs do not these hardy
climbers trust themselves. It is said that the coming man is to be
toeless.
