6 Spring 



The Dene begins about a hundred paces from the 

 door ; but none ever goes straight to it but girls after 

 a basket of lilies or primroses, or mechanical egg- 

 collectors. Those indeed who best love its slopes and 

 shadowy recesses never go thither of set purpose at 

 all, but are surprised to find themselves there after a 

 wander in which their steps have been guided not by 

 any determining will, but only as impulse ruled, or 

 they were lured from field to field by a memory of 

 things old, or the hope of something new. It is a 

 soft, idle Spring morning, and you know not what it 

 is that woos you forth the oxeye darting in and out 

 of his chink on the sunny garden wall, the ' full, sweet 

 deep, loud and wild pipe' of the blackcap in the 

 shrubbery, or the call of the turtle to his mate hid in 

 the holly. But in the middle of the building season 

 the very lanes are concert-rooms and nurseries in one. 

 The highway is set with elms whose crevices have, 

 from time immemorial, been peopled with starlings 

 and jackdaws, that country folk think glossier of 

 plumage than tenants of the crannied wall. Only a 

 jackdaw of character and originality would dream of 

 dividing from the crowding and chattering of his clan 

 to settle in a lonely tree. And there can be no doubt 

 of his wiliness. With what manifest unconcern he 

 will sit on while a farm-cart rumbles by over the 

 stones ! Yet let a couple of urchins intent on ' clap- 

 ping him in ' steal ever so softly across the grass to 

 him, and long ere they are within shot his duskiness 



