The Lone Swallows - free ebook by Henry Williamson

THE LONE SWALLOWS

Copyright, 1922 Manufactured in Great Britain...

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COMPILER’S NOTE

Most of the papers in this volume are published for the first time. A few have appeared in The Daily Express , The London Evening News , The Field , The Saturday Review , The Outlook , The English Review , and The Wide World Magazine . I am indebted to the Editors of these publications for permission to reprint them; and I am personally grateful to Sir Theodore Cook, of The Field , and to Mr. Austin Harrison of The English Review for their encouragement and kindness in criticising and printing m

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THE LONE SWALLOWS

Along the trackless and uncharted airlines from the southern sun they came, a lone pair of swallows, arriving with weakly and uncertain flight from over the wastes of the sea. They rested on a gorse bush, their blue backs beautiful against the store of golden blossom guarded by the jade spikes. The last day of March had just blown with the wind into eternity. Symbols of summer and of loveliness, they came with young April, while yet the celandines were unbleached, while the wild white strawberry

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LADY DAY IN DEVON

The rooks are now busy in the elms of the churchyard, and drifting thwartwise the wind with sticks for their nests. Sometimes a young male bird comes with food for his mate as she pleaches the twigs with claw and beak; she flutters her wings like a fledgeling, gapes widely, and squawks with satisfaction. Daws come to the trees, perching head to the south-west breeze, ejaculating sharply. Periodical visitants are the starlings, their songs of mimicry swelling with sudden rush and wheezing. One bi

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THE INCOMING OF SUMMER

Where by the stream the towers of the wild hyacinth bore their clustered bells, sought by that gold-vestured hunchback the wild bee, the willow wren sang his little melody, pausing awhile to watch the running water. The early purple orchids grew with the bluebells, their spurs upraised, their green leaves mottled with purple. Already the blackthorn had put forth its blossoms, a sign of frostless nights and warm days; already the blackbird had planted its nest in the alder bush. Now the year woul

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When the first white flake falls from the hawthorn the immigrant birds of passage all have come to the countryside. Almost the last to arrive this year on the south-western coast of England were the mysterious nightjars, birds ever surrounded by romance on account of their weird song and phantom habits; and for me, after the experience I had in the late spring, birds of wonder and having a special claim to my affections. It was night, and on the broad smooth sands, whence the tide had ebbed, sho

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ii

Returning from inland fields, three gulls with tranquil evening flight passed over the hill towards the headland. A sheep path wound irregularly over the hill, amongst the heather and the uncurling brakeferns. From here the western ocean was seen afar, until it met the clouded heaven. A subdued roar, a growling under-current of sound, floated up the hillside, although the sea was calm. Night and day, for thousands of years, the same ceaseless mutter of the shifting tides upon the sands, the same

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A DESERTED QUARRY IN FEBRUARY

Many celandines are now showing a yellow cup to the sun; a dearly loved flower the celandine, braving the frosts and the loneliness, with only the windrifted leaves of a dead year for company. But its courage makes it beautiful—one of the first of the players in the country orchestra of scent and colour and loveliness to take its seat in the amphitheatre of spring. On the railway embankment the coltsfoot flowers are rising. How can one be sad when Proserpine will shortly float over the meadows a

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From their tussocks upon the sward the pink flowers of the sea-thrift are rising. In one clump a pippit has its nest. The male bird rises high in the air, then falls suddenly, singing his little sweet song; he regains height by mad flutterings, sing-sing-singing all the time. In the matted turf the leaves of the wild thyme give a faint fragrance to the hands. Near by is the skull of a finch, whitened by the sun and the rains. Perhaps the falcons left it there, or one of the buzzards; or a herrin

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ii

In spring the gulls throng to their colony upon the headland. When disturbed, they cry wildly, and circle in the air. Once as I lay in the sun listening to the sea-fret a sharp chattering overbore the wailing of the gulls, and a pair of peregrine falcons swept by. In but a moment, it seemed, they were half a mile high, flying with incredible swiftness, the male chasing the larger female. From the direction of Lundy Island a pair of stock-doves came across the sea, no mean fliers. They saw the wh

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HAWK NOTES

A cloud from the sea dragged over the mountain so that the buzzards wheeling in the upper air were hidden, and only their mewling cries came down. I suppose they outsoared the cold autumnal vapours; they often sail in the heavenly freeness a mile and more above the earth, broad wings for ever lifted by the winds. These big hawks are quite common in the West Country; I have seen as many as ten pairs on the wing at once. They are clumsy in the lower air, flapping heavily and beating over the slope

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PROPHET BIRDS

One September morning there wheeled a great concourse of gulls over the headland. Through the mist their cries came wild and plaintive. Old men in the village said that it meant a big storm. I did not believe that birds could prophesy. Having studied the phenomena of nature for many years, I have come to know that everything happens by chance. For instance, during the autumn of 1920 severe wintry weather was forecasted because the hawthorn peggles were plentiful, and the granaries of squirrels w

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A BIRD MYSTIC

Every year the ragtailed swallows are fewer, for many are destroyed as the hosts sweep southward in autumn, killed by electric wires on the Continent “for food” (I have seen them, with thrushes and blackbirds, laid out, pitifully small and gentle, in the Italian shop-windows—Nero in hell must be awfully pleased with this sure sign of degeneracy among the descendants of that race of which he declared himself to be “a genius.”) In all the tallats [1] of my Devon village there were but four swallow

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SAMARITANS

Towards the end of August a pair of house-martins (or eave-swallows—I prefer the name given them by Richard Jefferies) came to my cottage wall, and clung, two slim, black-and-white fairies, to the rough cob surface. Excited twitterings and peckings for a minute, then they flew away. Almost immediately one returned with a beakful of mud, taken from the verge of a ruddle-red pool in the roadway. This was tacked to the wall, close under the ragged fringe of thatch, and away sped the bird as her mat

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SPORTSMEN OF THE RUBBISH-HEAPS

An old, faded notice board, bearing the legend that trespassers will be prosecuted, leans at a low angle in the hedge; newer and larger boards announce that the land is “admirable for building purposes” and for sale. A gate guards a gap in the hedge, over which bold boys swarm on Saturdays and Sundays when no policeman is in sight. This preserve, as the crow flies, is about eight miles from London Bridge in a south-easterly direction. It is known to dustmen, who dump their loads upon its once-gr

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RUNAWAYS

Many pet birds escape from captivity every year, and their distressed owners wonder how they fare. For it is generally understood that the wild creatures resent one who has had long association with man, and usually do their best to kill it. But this, I think, is merely a fiction. It is said that should a canary join a flock of goldfinches, they will taboo it, and even fall upon it and eventually kill it with their beaks. Cases that I have known prove exactly the reverse. I know that a canary am

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LONDON CHILDREN AND WILD FLOWERS

The sphere-blooms of the dandelion have left their anchorage and are floating away in the warm wind. That same wind bears with it a vague scent, for the wild flowers are open to the sun, while the white buds of the may-tree and the lilac-blossom of the keeper’s cottage yonder have come before their time. The yellow celandine petals have gone from the meadow, already their little heart-shaped leaves are tinged at the edge with the rust of decay; the brighter buttercups drink deeply of the poured

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A brimstone butterfly drifted with the wind over the waving grasses, and settled on the shallow cup of a tall flower, John-go-to-bed-at-noon. The bright flowers were closing, for the sun was high. It paused for an instant only, and then fluttered over the hedge and was gone. Came a common white butterfly—a weed of the air, hated by the countrymen: yet part of summer’s heart as it flickered like a strayed snowflake in the sunshine, passing the whorled spires of red-green sorrel and glazed petals

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One morning, when the cuckoo was silent and the young partridges were following their parents through the culms of the meadow-forest, two labourers arrived with the mowing machine, drawn by a pair of chestnut horses. The overture to the midsummer hum was beginning to be heard in the fields: wild and tame bees ceased not from their labours; the wolf spiders were everywhere in the long grass, searching for fly or insect in their blood lust. Another kind of spider had erected a net-like web between

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TIGER’S TEETH

The story of the Tiger’s great climb is still told in the village, although it happened a dozen or more years ago. The headland runs out into the Atlantic for nearly two miles, and is a mile wide across its base. They grow oats there, for the ground is starved. Some of it, indeed, is so poor that the plough never furrows it, and only sheep stray upon the sward. Gorse grows plentifully, hiding many rabbits’ holes, and in summer near the cliff-edge at the Point the curled cast feathers of the gull

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THE OUTLAW:

The beechwood was ten miles from London. One morning in late September a strange visitor came to it, and perched upon a low branch. A blackbird, feeding below among the dried moss and brown leaves, shrilled a sudden alarm. The blackbird had never seen such an apparition before, but he recognised the family. The newcomer remained still. He was tired and exhausted after a long journey. Since dawn he had flown high up, his pinions urged on and on by a fierce despair. For his mate had been shot upon

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PEREGRINES IN LOVE

In the salt winds of the Atlantic, and above their ancient eyrie, the peregrine falcons anchor their flight with easy mastery of the gusty uptrends of the precipitous headland face. When first the celandine came below the hedges, the male hawk mounted high, and stooped at his larger mate like a black and shaftless arrowhead of iron, uttering shrill love-notes the while. Now the dog violets and the red campion flowers are among the grasses; the pink sea-thrift blooms in sheltered places; and stil

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MIDSUMMER NIGHT

Against the deep blue of the sky a little money spider was taking a line from one veined ash leaf to another. Although so small, he was easily seen in the waning light, a dark speck moving with great care. It was evening time, and the vesper hymn of warblers and thrushes, pippits and blackbirds, was all but sung. Throughout the day the great vibrant waves of sunlight were plangent on the cornfields and rushing with golden swell over the bee-visited hedgerows and green meadows, vitalising the sle

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A FEATHERED WASTER

No bird-lovers can but desire the destruction of the Little Owl ( Athene Noctua ), a prolific bird introduced into England half a century ago by Lord Lilford. It has no redeeming trait. I have watched several pairs, and my observations show without doubt that he is not worth his salt, and deserves not the slightest mercy. Old Bob, a keeper with whom I am very friendly, showed me a pollard oak standing at the side of a hazel covert, which he suspected as the home of a pair of these birds. I sat d

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INVOCATION

Throughout the long glaring days of July pitiful cries quiver in the heat; the sheep are dying of thirst. Even some of the hill-springs are now mere trickles. This north coast of Devon is mocked by the vision of the bluest of seas, calm and shining under the summer sun. The fields stretching down to the sands are parched and brown, the grasses mere ghosts, dry and sapless. Even the sea-breeze has little of refreshment in its motion; it is merely heated air. Many of the sheep are dead. Jackdaws,

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COCKNEY BIRD TRIPPERS

My work necessitated long hours in London, and I used to bless the sparrows; I was never tired of watching them. They lifted my mind from dusty pavements and the smell of motor traffic. A favourite place to see them was a garden adjoining a church in Gracechurch Street; another was by the fountains of Trafalgar Square. About the time of harvest in the country, for which I pined, I used to notice an absence of the winged urchins. Where before a noisy, squabbling party congregated in the park or n

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“FULLNESS AFTER DEARTH”

Where the fields were scorched and drab during the drought the sweet green grass is growing. Gone are those gaping fissures in the slopes by the sea, those swarms of flies about the dead sheep, and the crows and jackdaws ever glutted with carrion. Many summery flowers that should have formed their seeds had no chance to bloom; but now the rains have blessed them, and everywhere their colours and scents have been made from cold earth, sunshine, and a dot of life. In mythology the goddess of sprin

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CUCKOO NOTES

Most people know that the “cuckoo lays its eggs in another bird’s nest.” The few will say that the cuckoo does nothing of the sort, that she will lay her egg on the ground somewhere, and then carry it either by beak or foot to the selected nest, deposit it there, and fly away. They will say (once I said the same thing) that “it never actually lays in another nest.” They are wrong, in one case, at any rate. This spring a hedge-sparrow built its nest in the rough edge of a pile of faggots. In the

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DAYS OF AUTUMN

One morning in the hollows of the meadow land below the wood lay a silver mist. The sun sweeping upwards in its curve beat this away towards noon, but it was a sign. The fire of autumn was kindled: already the little notched leaves of the hawthorn were tinged with the rust of decay, already a bramble leaf was turning red: soon the flames would mount the mightier trees and fan their pale heat among the willows and ash trees round the lake, lick among the drooping elms and the lacquered oaks, and

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SWALLOW BROW: A Fantasy

That morning as she brushed her hair little Jo felt a great joy in her heart, for the sunlight was making bright the room. Her real name was Mary, but they called her Jo for short. She dropped her brush and leaned out, while a blackbird with a yellow bill flew to the top of one of the apple trees in the garden and commenced to flute in a rich, beautiful voice. Then a wild bee crawled on the window-sill and began to clean gauzy wings with his legs. Little Jo watched him with the eager look that s

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WINTER’S EVE

“ Woo—oo—oo—. ” Long drawn out as though the note is bubbling through water, it quavers from the dark wood yonder, seen in the dim light of the stars. From the other wood, across the grass land, a plain hoot floats back. Woo-loo, woo-loo! No sound of wings beating—the flight of the wood owl is silent, his broad wings, covered with the softest down, fan the air as he proceeds through the wood. Woo—oo! Woo—oo! There is mystery in the cry. All other creatures are silent, except the field mice and v

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ERNIE

My Devon hermitage is only a sixteenth-century cottage rented at four pounds a year. There are two bedrooms, very small and lime-washed, and a living room with a stone floor and open hearth. A simple place, built of cob, and thatched, with a walled-in garden before it, and then the village street. The churchyard with its elm-rookery is on one side, a small brook below the wall. Even in the hot summer the water runs; I have made a pool of stones where the swallows and martins can go for the mud t

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A SEED IN WASTE PLACES

To and fro over the heated surface of Fleet Street passed the red omnibuses, a sickly pale vapour coming from the engines. It was a Saturday afternoon in August, and there were few people about. For myself, I had to toil at my useless and fretting work of getting material for one of the big Sunday newspapers. Saturday was the day when the paper became alive, and the Editor more exacting and more like an Egyptian slave-driver than ever. This was from the point of view of the wretched hack-writers

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THE CHANGE: A Fantasy of Whitefoot Lane

He was standing at the edge of the strip of wood, quite still, and looking towards the east as though at something far away. No wind was blowing. As I approached he did not move, although my feet made a sighing in the long grass. Abruptly he turned. “When I was last here, the field swept away, open and free, for many miles. In summer, the wheat grew yellow in the sunshine. Now the houses are nearly to the wood, and the little piece of land left is turned into allotments. But even those are deser

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PROSERPINE’S MESSAGE

( Written during the spring-like days of October, 1921, when the prolonged drought had been broken by the rains following the equinoctial gales. ) Some happy goldfinches flew twittering to the loosened thistle-heads on the sward of the promontory. Their wings fluttered as they took the seeds; they were timorous of alighting on the down, such a soft couch it was, too; their lives were wild and restless. Soon the flock rose and went to other haunts. The brief visitation gave me time to observe the

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STRIX FLAMMEA

“ Where man goes nature ends,” wrote Richard Jefferies. But the wild creatures cling to their ancient places with stubbornness, especially in and around London. One day in summer, intolerably weary, I left Fleet Street very late—or very early. The morning star, Eosphoros the Light-bringer, was sweeping above the eastern line of buildings, the spectral dawn flooding into the concave dusk above. Pausing by the Temple Gardens near the Embankment I became aware of glints of sound from the lawns and

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