THE FAERY YEAR 



us. We can barely translate a word in his difficult 

 tongue. But, so far as I have noticed, each rook is 

 for himself out of the courting and nesting season 

 that is as is each thrush. As fact, rook to rook is 

 often a robber, and I protest against the theory that 

 a rook that robs a neighbour, or breaks the rule of 

 the rookery, is hauled before the black justices of 

 the peace and punished. We might as well believe 

 in Radical and Tory rooks, rooks in business, and 

 rooks living on private means. 



The Aura of May 



The forest is leading up to its ferny perfection. 

 We cannot think of it without onsets of enthusiasm. 

 Each May day, in delicious weather like this, spent 

 apart from those lawns, oak dingles, high-set, breeze- 

 laden commons ashine with God's gold, the gorse, 

 seems frittered. Setting out for the forest from 

 one of the villages that lie around and encroach 

 upon it, we have an absorbing wish to get free of 

 the sight and sound of the last red-brick villa ; the 

 feeling is like a thirst in the burning summer. It 

 seems as if we never could reach the true loneliness 

 of the forest, its Ultima Thule. At last we cross 

 the soppy moor, and hide in the secret oak woods. 

 The summer is coming with a burst of life, huge 

 energy, heightening colour, strong scent everywhere. 

 The bogs are greening. They are dusky red too 

 with the dwarf willow, whose pollen makes subtle 



112 



