The Horse-Chestnuts Showed The Little Green Knobs Which
Would Soon Enlarge And Hang All Prickly, Like The Spiked Balls Of A
Holy-Water Sprinkle, Such As Was Once Used In The Wars.
Of old the folk,
having no books, watched every living thing, from the moss to the oak,
from the mouse to the deer; and all that we know now of animals and
plants is really founded upon their acute and patient observation.
How
many years it took even to find out a good salad may be seen from ancient
writings, wherein half the plants about the hedges are recommended as
salad herbs: dire indeed would be our consternation if we had to eat
them. As the beech-nuts appear, and the horse-chestnuts enlarge, and the
fig swells, the apples turn red and become visible in the leafy branches
of the apple-trees. Like horses, deer are fond of apples, and in former
times, when deer-stealing was possible, they were often decoyed with
them.
There is no tree so much of the forest as the beech. On the verge of
woods the oaks are far apart, the ashes thin; the verge is like a
wilderness and scrubby, so that the forest does not seem to begin till
you have penetrated some distance. Under the beeches the forest begins at
once. They stand at the edge of the slope, huge round boles rising from
the mossy ground, wide fans of branches - a shadow under them, a greeny
darkness beyond. There is depth there - depth to be explored, depth to
hide in. If there is a path, it is arched over like a tunnel with boughs;
you know not whither it goes. The fawns are sweetest in the sunlight,
moving down from the shadow; the doe best partly in shadow, partly in
sun, when the branch of a tree casts its interlaced work, fine as
Algerian silverwork, upon the back; the buck best when he stands among
the fern, alert, yet not quite alarmed - for he knows the length of his
leap - his horns up, his neck high, his dark eye bent on you, and every
sinew strung to spring away. One spot of sunlight, bright and white,
falls through the branches upon his neck, a fatal place, or near it: a
guide, that bright white spot, to the deadly bullet, as in old days to
the cross-bow bolt. It was needful even then to be careful of the aim,
for the herd, as Shakespeare tells us, at once recognised the sound of a
cross-bow: the jar of the string, tight-strained to the notch by the
goat's-foot lever, the slight whiz of the missile, were enough to startle
them and to cause the rest to swerve and pass out of range. Yet the
cross-bow was quiet indeed compared with the gun which took its place.
The cross-bow was the beginning of shooting proper, as we now understand
it; that is, of taking an aim by the bringing of one point into a line
with another. With the long-bow aim indeed was taken, but quite
differently, for if the arrow were kept waiting with the string drawn,
the eye and the hand would not go true together. The quicker the arrow
left the bow the moment that it was full drawn, the better the result. On
the other hand, the arblast was in no haste, but was adjusted
deliberately - so deliberately that it gave rise to a proverb, 'A fool's
bolt is soon shot.' This could not apply to the long-bow, with which the
arrow was discharged swiftly, while an arblast was slowly brought to the
level like a rifle. As it was hard to draw again, that added strength to
the saying; but it arose from the deliberation with which a good
cross-bowman aimed. To the long-bow the cross-bow was the express rifle.
The express delivers its bullet accurately point-blank - the bullet flies
straight to its mark up to a certain distance. So the cross-bow bolt flew
point-blank, and thus its application to hunting when the deer were
really killed for their venison. The hunter stole through the fern, or
crept about the thickets - thickets and fern exactly like those here
to-day - or waited Indian-like in ambush behind an oak as the herd fed
that way, and, choosing the finest buck, aimed his bolt so as either to
slay at once or to break the fore-leg. Like the hare, if the fore-leg is
injured, deer cannot progress; if only the hind-quarter is hit, there is
no telling how far they may go. Therefore the cross-bow, as enabling the
hunter to choose the exact spot where his bolt should strike, became the
weapon of the chase, and by its very perfection began the extermination
of the deer. Instead of the hounds and the noisy hunt, any man who could
use the cross-bow could kill a buck. The long-bow, of all weapons,
requires the most practice, and practice begun in early youth. Some of
the extraordinary feats attributed to the outlaws in the woods and to the
archers of the ancient English army are quite possible, but must have
necessitated the constant use of a bow from childhood, so that it became
second nature. But almost any man who has strength to set a cross-bow,
with moderate practice, and any idea at all of shooting, could become a
fairly good shot with it. From the cross-bow to a gun was a comparatively
easy step, and it was the knowledge of the power of the one that led to
the quick introduction of the other. For gunpowder was hardly discovered
before hand-guns were thought of, and no discovery ever spread so
swiftly. Then the arquebuse swept away the old English chase.
These deer exist by permission. They are protected with jealous care; or
rather they have been protected so long that by custom they have grown
semi-consecrated, and it is rare for anyone to think of touching them.
The fawns wander, and a man, if he choose, might often knock one over
with his axe as he comes home from his work.
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