But the
children were almost invariably too small for their years. The most
stunted specimen was a little boy I met near Hindhead. He was thin,
with a dry wizened face, and looked at the most about eight years old;
he assured me that he was twelve. I engaged this gnome-like creature to
carry something for me, and we had three or four miles ramble together.
A curious couple we must have seemed - a giant and a pigmy, the pigmy
looking considerably older than the giant. He was a heath-cutter's
child, the eldest of seven children! They were very poor, but he could
earn nothing himself, except by gathering whortleberries in their
season; then he said, all seven of them turned out with their parents,
the youngest in its mother's arms. I questioned him about the birds of
the district; he stoutly maintained that he recognised only four, and
proceeded to name them.
"Here is another," said I, "a fifth you didn't name, singing in the
bushes half a dozen yards from where we stand - the best singer of all."
"I did name it," he returned, "that's a thrush."
It was a nightingale, a bird he did not know. But he knew a thrush - it
was one of the four birds he knew, and he stuck to it that it was a
thrush singing. Afterwards he pointed out the squalid-looking cottage
he lived in. It was on the estate of a great lady.
"Tell me," I said, "is she much liked on the estate?"
He pondered the question for a few moments, then replied, "Some likes
her and some don't," and not a word more would he say on that subject.
A curious amalgam of stupidity and shrewdness; a bad observer of bird-
life, but a cautious little person in answering leading questions; he
was evidently growing up (or not doing so) in the wrong place.
Going out for a stroll in the evening, I came to a spot where two small
cottages stood on one side of the road, and a large pond fringed with
rushes and a coppice on the other. Just by the cottage five boys were
amusing themselves by throwing stones at a mark, talking, laughing and
shouting at their play. Not many yards from the noisy boys some fowls
were picking about on the turf close to the pond; presently out of the
rushes came a moorhen and joined them. It was in fine feather, very
glossy, the brightest nuptial yellow and scarlet on beak and shield. It
moved about, heedless of my presence and of the noisy stone-throwing
boys, with that pretty dignity and unconcern which make it one of the
most attractive birds. What a contrast its appearance and motions
presented to those of the rough-hewn, ponderous fowls, among which it
moved so daintily! I was about to say that he was "just like a modern
gentleman" in the midst of a group of clodhoppers in rough old coats,
hob-nailed boots, and wisps of straw round their corduroys, standing
with clay pipes in their mouths, each with a pot of beer in his hand.
Such a comparison would have been an insult to the moorhen.
Nevertheless some ambitious young gentleman of aesthetic tastes might
do worse than get himself up in this bird's livery. An open coat of
olive-brown silk, with an oblique white band at the side; waistcoat or
cummerbund, and knickerbockers, slaty grey; stockings and shoes of
olive green; and, for a touch of bright colour, an orange and scarlet
tie. It would be pleasant to meet him in Piccadilly. But he would
never, never be able to get that quaint pretty carriage. The "Buzzard
lope" and the crane's stately stride are imitable by man, but not the
moorhen's gait. And what a mess of it our young gentleman would make in
attempting at each step to throw up his coat tails in order to display
conspicuously the white silk underlining!
While I watched the pretty creature, musing sadly the while on the
ugliness of men's garments, a sudden storm of violent rasping screams
burst from some holly bushes a few yards away. It proceeded from three
excited jays, but whether they were girding at me, the shouting boys,
or a skulking cat among the bushes, I could not make out.
When I finally left this curious company - noisy boys, great yellow
feather-footed fowls, dainty moorhen and vociferous jays - it was late,
but another amusing experience was in store for me. Leaving the village
I went up the hill to the Devil's Jumps to see the sun set. The Devil,
as I have said, was much about these parts in former times; his habits
were quite familiar to the people, and his name became associated with
some of the principal landmarks and features of the landscape. It was
his custom to go up into these rocks, where, after drawing his long
tail over his shoulder to have it out of his way, he would take one of
his great flying leaps or jumps. On the opposite side of the village we
have the Poor Devil's Bottom - a deep treacherous hole that cuts like a
ravine through the moor, into which the unfortunate fellow once fell
and broke several of his bones. A little further away, on Hindhead, we
have the Devil's Punch Bowl, that huge basin-shaped hollow on the hill
which has now become almost as famous as Flamborough Head or the Valley
of Rocks.
At the Jumps a shower came on, and to escape a wetting I crept into a
hole or hollow in the rude mass of black basaltic rock which stands
like a fortress or ruined castle on the summit of the hill.
