On Easter Saturday the roadsides and copses by the little
river Nadder were full of children gathering primroses; they
might have filled a thousand baskets without the flowers being
missed, so abundant were they in that place. Cold though it
was the whole air was laden with the delicious fragrance. It
was pleasant to see and talk with the little people occupied
with the task they loved so well, and I made up my mind to see
the result of all this flower-gathering next day in some of
the village churches in the neighbourhood - Fovant, Teffant
Evias, Chilmark, Swallowcliffe, Tisbury, and Fonthill Bishop.
I had counted on some improvement in the weather - some
bright sunshine to light up the flower-decorated interiors;
but Easter Sunday proved colder than ever, with the bitter
north-east still blowing, the grey travelling cloud still
covering the sky; and so to get the full benefit of the
bitterness I went instead to spend my day on the top of the
biggest down above the valley. That was Whitesheet Hill, and
forms the highest part of the long ridge dividing the valleys
of the Ebble and Nadder.
It was roughest and coldest up there, and suited my temper
best, for when the weather seems spiteful one finds a grim
sort of satisfaction in defying it. On a genial day it would
have been very pleasant on that lofty plain, for the flat top
of the vast down is like a plain in appearance, and the
earthworks on it show that it was once a populous habitation
of man. Now because of the wind and cloud its aspect was bare
and bleak and desolate, and after roaming about for an hour,
exploring the thickest furze patches, I began to think that my
day would have to be spent in solitude, without a living
creature to keep me company. The birds had apparently all
been blown away and the rabbits were staying at home in their
burrows. Not even an insect could I see, although the furze
was in full blossom; the honey-suckers were out of sight
and torpid, and the bloom itself could no longer look
"unprofitably gay," as the poet says it does. "Not even a
wheatear!" I said, for I had counted on that bird in the
intervals between the storms, although I knew I should not
hear his wild delightful warble in such weather.
Then, all at once, I beheld that very bird, a solitary female,
flittering on over the flat ground before me, perching on the
little green ant-mounds and flirting its tail and bobbing as
if greatly excited at my presence in that lonely place. I
wondered where its mate was, following it from place to place
as it flew, determined now I had found a bird to keep it in
sight. Presently a great blackness appeared low down in the
cloudy sky, and rose and spread, travelling fast towards me,
and the little wheatear fled in fear from it and vanished from
sight over the rim of the down.
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