Anyhow, The Persecutions Continued,
Increasing In Fury Until They Could Not Be Borne, And The
Blackbird Tried To Escape By Hiding In The Bramble.
But he
was not permitted to rest there; out he was soon driven and
away into another bush, and again into still another further
away, and finally he was hunted over the sheltering wall into
the bleak wind on the other side.
Then the persecutor came
back and settled himself on his old perch on the bramble, well
satisfied at his victory over a bird so much bigger than
himself. All was again peace and harmony in the little social
gathering, and the pleasant talkee-talkee went on as before.
About five minutes passed, then the hunted blackbird returned,
and, going to the identical spot from which he had been
driven, composed himself to rest; only now he sat facing his
lively little enemy.
I was astonished to see him back; so, apparently, was the
chaffinch. He started, craned his neck, and regarded his
adversary first with one eye then with the other. "What, rags
and tatters, back again so soon!" I seem to hear him say.
"You miserable travesty of a bird, scarcely fit for a weasel
to dine on! Your presence is an insult to us, but I'll soon
settle you. You'll feel the cold on the other, side of the
wall when I've knocked off a few more of your rusty rags."
Down from his perch he came, but no sooner had he touched his
feet to the ground than the blackbird went straight at him
with extraordinary fury. The chaffinch, taken by surprise,
was buffeted and knocked over, then, recovering himself, fled
in consternation, hotly pursued by the sick one. Into the
bush they went, but in a moment they were out again, darting
this way and that, now high up in the trees, now down to the
ground, the blackbird always close behind; and no little bird
flying from a hawk could have exhibited a greater terror than
that pert chaffinch - that vivacious and most pugnacious little
cock bantam. At last they went quite away, and were lost to
sight. By and by the blackbird returned alone, and, going
once more to his place near the second bird, he settled down
comfortably to finish his sunbath in peace and quiet.
I had assuredly witnessed a new thing on that unpromising day,
something quite different from anything witnessed in my wide
rambles; and, though a little thing, it had been a most
entertaining comedy in bird life with a very proper ending.
It was clear that the sick blackbird had bitterly resented the
treatment he had received; that, brooding on it out in the
cold, his anger had made him strong, and that he came back
determined to fight, with his plan of action matured. He was
not going to be made a fool every time!
The birds all gone their several ways at last, I got up from
my stone and wondered if the old Romans ever dreamed that this
wall which they made to endure would after seventeen hundred
years have no more important use than this - to afford shelter
to a few little birds and to the solitary man that watched
them - from the bleak wind. Many a strange Roman curse on this
ungenial climate must these same stones have heard.
Looking through a gap in the wall I saw, close by, on the
other side, a dozen men at work with pick and shovel throwing
up huge piles of earth. They were uncovering a small portion
of that ancient buried city and were finding the foundations
and floors and hypocausts of Silchester's public baths; also
some broken pottery and trifling ornaments of bronze and bone.
The workmen in that bitter wind were decidedly better off than
the gentlemen from Burlington House in charge of the
excavations. These stood with coats buttoned up and hands
thrust deep down in their pockets. It seemed to me that
it was better to sit in the shelter of the wall and watch the
birds than to burrow in the crumbling dust for that small
harvest. Yet I could understand and even appreciate their
work, although it is probable that the glow I experienced was
in part reflected. Perhaps my mental attitude, when standing
in that sheltered place, and when getting on to the windy wall
I looked down on the workers and their work, was merely
benevolent. I had pleasure in their pleasure, and a vague
desire for a better understanding, a closer alliance and
harmony. It was the desire that we might all see nature - the
globe with all it contains - as one harmonious whole, not as
groups of things, or phenomena, unrelated, cast there by
chance or by careless or contemptuous gods. This dust of past
ages, dug out of a wheat-field, with its fragments of men's
work - its pottery and tiles and stones - this is a part, too,
even as the small birds, with their little motives and
passions, so like man's, are a part. I thought with self
shame of my own sins in this connection; then, considering
the lesser faults on the other side, I wished that Mr. St.
John Hope would experience a like softening mood and regret
that he had abused the ivy. It grieves me to hear it called a
"noxious weed." That perished people, whose remains in this
land so deeply interest him, were the mightiest "builders of
ruins" the world has known; but who except the archaeologist
would wish to see these piled stones in their naked harshness,
striking the mind with dismay at the thought of Time and its
perpetual desolations! I like better the old Spanish poet who
says, "What of Rome; its world-conquering power, and majesty
and glory - what has it come to?" The ivy on the wall, the
yellow wallflower, tell it. A "deadly parasite" quotha! Is
it not well that this plant, this evergreen tapestry of
innumerable leaves, should cover and partly hide and partly
reveal the "strange defeatures" the centuries have set on
man's greatest works?
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