CASTLES IN THE AIR.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7341, 20 June 1889, Page 2

CASTLES IN THE AIR.

. Daily Neresi The winds of March have passed into a proverb. There is no time in all the year when the cruel east blows with keener and more pitiless breath. Spring is in her most capricious mood. She is indeed a wayward damsel at her best. Year by year we watch her smile turn swiftly to a frown; we upbraid her for a jilt and a deceiver; we swear that her vaunted graces are nothing bat a fraud. But she has, even in March, her moods of sweetness. Right royal favours, after all, are her day 3 of genial sunshine, when the vanea veer Idly to the westward, and the air is almost still; when the long birds find voice again, when butterflies begin to stir abroad, and the bees are busy gilding their brown coats in the wide crocus blooms. The bitter memories are nothing to us then. Who could doabt when looking at aiace so fair? Sorely no malice underlies tStat kindly smile. Yes, it is a hard experience; it is long ere we wholly learn thejessoa of distrust. But March this year las had more in it of westward than of east after all. Though bitter winds have chilled the generous sunshine of the lengthening days, there have been softer airs during the month, and there is the prospect of a warm and Xenial close. Under this influence benign the purple blossoms jewel all the branches of the elms, a mist of green is gathering in the thickets, the blue-bell leaves are springing in ttie underwood. Under every hedgerow the celandine spreads its I petals to the utmost, as if to gather from the sunlight an added touch of gold. There are speedwells by the wayside; there are primroses in $be co pae. Stray violets begin to scent the lanes, and the fair faces of the wood anemones are peering through the deep, dead leaves. Everywhere the birds are busy. On the housetop sits the chattering starling; his half-finished nest in the gable beneath him abandoned fpr the moment; while in his own quaint way he gives utterance to the love that stirs his pulses. In the warm sun the chaffinch sings, with hardly a pause between the endless verses of his simple ballad. A sober hedge-sparrow, {creeping mouse-like through the bushes, searching the leaves for snail or insecfe looks up from his work now and then, and sings with "all his might; or, as his mate draws near* lowers his voice until the listener can hardly catch the notes of the tender little lov e song that he whispers in her ear, as if jealous lest some idle nuschief-raaker strolling by should overhear him, and mock the story of his love. Farther down the hedge there sits another pair of lovers—two blue tits -in-their bright spring dress, now circling round each 1 other, now chattering softly, now fluttering a little way into the air, and now flying off in company to see if the old hole in! the ruined wall yonder, where this ivy , hangs its friendly veil before the door, i 3: vacant again this season. Overhead a lark Is singing, not with the full flood of melody that later in the year will charm us with its magical music, but with sweet snatches of most exquisite eong-; and, ac he ginks downward tp; the wintry fields. again, anothejqHses, and follows with-e' few bars at lefa§ of that strain th£6,"fieard under uftfamiliWieldesj has roused in the , softened hearts of rugged settlers long ; buried .memories of home and childhood/ ; The songs of birds are to them the i prelude of the little drama of their lives that each returning spring is acted and reacted }n the greenwood, in the meadow, by theeea, by masters of the art. Still, through, the .opening scenes the music lingers, rising higher, sweeter, clearer ere: its close, when the long vigil of the mother bird is ended, and 'when she and her mate have time for nothingbut to minister to the needs of their little family of gaping, goggle-eyed, naked nestling*. We watch the old birds carrying food ; we hear the querulous voices of their young, but we seei comparatively little of their domestic arrangements. Sometimes the nest is hidden away from sight altogether, here in a hole in an overhanging bank, there deep in a<,crevice in the wall. Some birds, again, conceal their nests by: ekilfally harmonising' the materials with the surrouddings. A wonderful charm there is in looking on as the work pro gresses; to watch the creeper glide up the rugged bark of the tall elm with a feather fluttering in her beak, and disappear behind the knotted ivy sterna that hold her cosy nest; to see the starling carry hi 8 untidy odds and ends into the woodpecker's hole in the walnut-tree; to watch; the woodpecker nintself, the rightful owner, venture near now and then to look on with unmistakable signs of indignation. But conspicuous now the busy throng are the rooks, and, loud above the notes of shyer builders rises the clamour of the rookery. The magpie and the crow, birds of the same outlawed clan, are as ehy in their building work as they are i n other waya. The; choose the darkest corner of the v "wooa," the most" solitary clump of trees, the tallest elm on the farm, and it la as bard to watch, .them, at their work as it is to stalk them i a the opea. But it H quite' otherwise with the, rook. It ia.no uncommon thing to find -among the busy streets of a town a row of elms where the great ungainly birds build with perfect confidence* ; tfheir huge nests, and sit, ajhd wrangle, and make love careless ot the roar of traffic, and atrunconscioua of the passers-by. High up in the roekinK top s all day the birds are workipg repairing a foundation here, making, gop4ja;;bre«ch there, now patting fresh touches to the lining. Every mairent arrives a party of foragers, greeted with new clamour from their friends at home recognise faroff their mates among fhedueky crowd' WheeUdg on broad wings.across the wind that'drives the white clouds fast acros 3 the pale blue 'overhead, the great birds bring homer/their plunder. Here comes one grasping in bis beak a stick so long and heavy that he can scarcely reach his neat. Another carries to his mate a seed, potato plundered from some newly-planted field. The solemn cays of dignified citizens mingle with,the sharper clamour of irreverent youth—some are hoarse from ace or temper—while r one bird, whose vocaj organs have perhaps been damaged in that baptism of fire that yearly waits the haplesayoung, uttera aery like the shriek of There eeemg to be the slenderest idea of .the rights of propertyjamong the members of the commonwealth. Now one bird, leaving his own nest where he has been honestly a 4 work for the last ten minutes, sidles ap to another—the pro. perty, probably, of a newly-married pair who have yet to learn the ways of their friends and. neighbours—seizes « handful of the lining that has taken so much trouble to collect, and then ecrambles off across the branches to make vie of bia illgotten gains in his own abode., when due ot the aggrieved couple returns, and make* an effort to pro tect hl9 property, the Impudent thief actually boflets him off and helps himself to another handful. There is. no honour amone these thieves, and tbat ia t^e

reason, no doubt, why so many nests are guarded by one owner while the other is foraging abroad. Sometimes three or four pirates will put their dark heads together and make a sudden descent on even a guarded nest, driving the owner, dismayed by the odds against him, off in headlong flight, and then coolly help themselves to anj handy sticks that may take their fancy. Quarrels of this kind are not con. ducted in silence, and there is a good deal of plain language when a nest is approached, whether with peaceable intentions or not, by those who are not on visiting terms"with the tenants.

It is a peaceful spot the birds hav e chosen for their home. One is tempted to fancy that these stately elms, screening with sheltering arms the old church that -nestles close under the shadow of the hill, were standing here, in the pride of youth and beauty, when the ill news travelled fast across the marshes from the ow blue hills to the eastward that the bolt had fallen at last, and that the glory of the great abbey had departed. The knoll above is crowned by the ramparts o E a Celtic camp. Traditions of King Arthur's time peopled the fortress with a race of giants. Stray handfule of coins found from time to time among the earth - worke on its summit, the rusted arms of Dane and Saxon turned up among the rich black earth of the meadows at its foot, are clearer evidence that the Eagle and the Raven folded here for a space their conquering wings. Here around the ancient tower the rooks find safe asylum. Here, as the sun sinks in the west f the black-coated citizens gather in the tree-tops and talk in hushed and solemn tones, as if the clamour of the daylight were a thing to be forgotten. Through the western windows of the church the light of sunset falls like a glory round .the kneeling figure of a long forgotten cavalier. There week by week the sounds of that labour that knows no day of rest are heard in the pauses of the hymn i while at times above the Babel in the tree-tops rises the loud twitter of a nuthatch or the shrill cry of a restless starling. The sun is down. The far-off hills are growing cold and dark, the silver of the sea i 3 changing into sullen grey, the mist that rises from the marsh land gathers round the hill like the waters of a silent sea. Suddenly from his retreat in a hollow elm near by flies out an owl, and on noiseless wings flits like a phantom across the darkening graves. He has vanished in the dusk; but as the night settles softly down among the clustering trees there sounds along the hill afc intervals his mournful mellow call.