It Is, In Fact, The
Inter-Marriages That Have Kept The Falsely So-Called Pure Races Of These
Human Parasites Alive.
The mixing is continually going on.
The gipsies
who still stay in their tents, however, look askance upon those who
desert them for the roof. Two gipsy women, thorough-bred, came into a
village shop and bought a variety of groceries, ending with a pound of
biscuits and a Guy Fawkes mask for a boy. They were clad in dirty jackets
and hats, draggle-tails, unkempt and unwashed, with orange and red
kerchiefs round their necks (the gipsy colours). Happening to look out of
window, they saw a young servant girl with a perambulator on the opposite
side of the 'street;' she was tidy and decently dressed, looking after
her mistress's children in civilised fashion; but they recognised her as
a deserter from tribe, and blazed with contempt. 'Don't - she - look a
figure!' exclaimed these dirty creatures.
The short hours shorten, and the leaf-crop is gathered to the great barn
of the earth; the oaks alone, more tenacious, retain their leaves, that
have now become a colour like new leather. It is too brown for buff - it
is more like fresh harness. The berries are red on the holly bushes and
holly trees that grow, whole copses of them, on the forest slopes - 'the
Great Rough;' the half-wild sheep have polished the stems of these holly
trees till they shine, by rubbing their fleeces against them. The farmers
have been drying their damp wheat in the oast-houses over charcoal fires,
and wages are lowered, and men discharged. Vast loads of brambles and
thorns, dead firs, useless hop-poles and hop-bines, and gorse are drawn
together for the great bonfire on the green. The 5th of November bonfires
are still vital institutions, and from the top of the hill you may see
them burning in all directions, as if an enemy had set fire to the
hamlets.
LOCALITY AND NATURE.
By the side of the rivers of Exmoor there grows a great leaf, so large it
almost calls to mind those tropical leaves of which umbrellas and even
tents are made. This is of a rounder shape than those of the palm, it is
an elephant's ear among the foliage. The sweet river slips on with a
murmuring song, for these are the rivers of the poets, and talk in verse
for ever. Purple-tinted stones are strewn about the shallows flat like
tiles, and out among the grass and the white orchis of the meadow. The
floods carried them there and left them dry in the sun. Among these grows
a thick bunch of mimulus or monkey-plant, well known in gardens, here
flourishing alone beside the stream. These two plants greatly interested
me: the last because it had long been a favourite in an old garden and I
had not before seen it growing wild; the other because though I knew its
large leaf by repute, this was the first time I had come upon it. Now
that little spot in the bend of the river by means of these two plants is
firmly impressed in my memory, and is a joy to me whenever I think of it.
The sunshine, the song of the water, the pleasant green grass, the white
orchis, and the purplish stones were thereby rendered permanent to me.
Such is the wonderful power of plants. To any one who takes a delight in
wild flowers some spot or other of the earth is always becoming
consecrated.
There is, however, something curious about this butterbur. It is related
to the coltsfoot of the arable fields, and the coltsfoot sends up a stalk
without a leaf, and flowers before any green appears. So, too, the
butterbur of the river flowers before its great leaf comes. Nothing is
really common either, for everything is so local that you may spend
years, and in fact a lifetime, in a district and never see a flower
plentiful enough in another. Just where I am staying now the pennywort
grows on every wall attached to the mortar between the cobbles. In some
places you may search the roads in vain for this little plant, which has
this merit, that its rounded leaf presents a fresh green in February. It
does not die away, it appears as green as spring, and pieces of the wall
are ornamented with it as thickly as the iron-headed nails in old doors.
One plant grows out of the hard stem of a hawthorn tree, as if it were a
parasite like the mistletoe; probably there is some crack which the plant
itself has hidden. If every plant and every flower were found in all
places the charm of locality would not exist. Everything varies, and that
gives the interest. These purplish stones, where they lie in the water,
seem to have a kind of growth upon them - small knobs on the surface. On
examination each small roughness or knob will be found composed of a
number of very minute fragments of stone. It is a sort of cell, probably
built by a species of caddis. There was hardly a stone in the rivers that
was not dotted with these little habitations, so that it seemed difficult
to overlook them; but upon showing one to a mighty hunter to know the
local name, he declared he had never noticed it before, and added that he
did not care for such little things. It is of such little things that
great nature is made.
On the highest part of the Forest Ridge in Sussex, where the soil is
sandy and covered with heath, fern, and fir trees, there never seemed to
be any rooks. These birds, so very characteristic of the country,
appeared to be almost absent over several miles. They went by sometimes,
sailing down into the vale, but never stopped on the hill, not even to
walk the furrows behind the plough.
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