FEBRUARY is here, February fill-dyke; the month of purification, of cleansing rains and pulsing bounding streams, and white mist clinging insistent to field and hedgerow so that when her veil is withdrawn greenness may make us glad.
The river has been uniformly grey of late, with no wind to ruffle its surface or to speed the barges dropping slowly and sullenly down with the tide through a blurring haze.I watched one yesterday, its useless sails half-furled and no sign of life save the man at the helm.It drifted stealthily past, and a little behind, flying low, came a solitary seagull, grey as the river's haze - a following bird.
Once again I lay on my back in the bottom of the tarry old fishing smack, blue sky above and no sound but the knock, knock of the waves, and the thud and curl of falling foam as the old boat's blunt nose breasted the coming sea.Then Daddy Whiddon spoke.
"A follerin' burrd," he said.
I got up, and looked across the blue field we were ploughing into white furrows.Far away a tiny sail scarred the great solitude, and astern came a gull flying slowly close to the water's breast.
Daddy Whiddon waved his pipe towards it.
"A follerin' burrd," he said, again; and again I waited; questions were not grateful to him.
"There be a carpse there, sure enough, a carpse driftin' and shiftin' on the floor of the sea.There be those as can't rest, poor sawls, and her'll be mun, her'll be mun, and the sperrit of her is with the burrd."The clumsy boom swung across as we changed our course, and the water ran from us in smooth reaches on either side: the bird flew steadily on.
"What will the spirit do?" I said.
The old man looked at me gravely.
"Her'll rest in the Lard's time, in the Lard's gude time - but now her'll just be follerin' on with the burrd."The gull was flying close to us now, and a cold wind swept the sunny sea.I shivered: Daddy looked at me curiously.
"There be reason enough to be cawld if us did but knaw it, but I he mos' used to 'em, poor sawls." He shaded his keen old blue eyes, and looked away across the water.His face kindled."There be a skule comin', and by my sawl 'tis mackerel they be drivin'."I watched eagerly, and saw the dark line rise and fall in the trough of the sea, and, away behind, the stir and rush of tumbling porpoises as they chased their prey.
Again we changed our tack, and each taking an oar, pulled lustily for the beach.
"Please God her'll break inshore," said Daddy Whiddon; and he shouted the news to the idle waiting men who hailed us.
In a moment all was stir, for the fishing had been slack.Two boats put out with the lithe brown seine.The dark line had turned, but the school was still behind, churning the water in clumsy haste; they were coming in.
Then the brit broke in silvery leaping waves on the shelving beach.
The threefold hunt was over; the porpoises turned out to sea in search of fresh quarry; and the seine, dragged by ready hands, came slowly, stubbornly in with its quivering treasure of fish.They had sought a haven and found none; the brit lay dying in flickering iridescent heaps as the bare-legged babies of the village gathered them up; and far away over the water I saw a single grey speck; it was the following bird.
The curtain of river haze falls back; barge and bird are alike gone, and the lamplighter has lit the first gas-lamp on the far side of the bridge.Every night I watch him come, his progress marked by the great yellow eyes that wake the dark.Sometimes he walks quickly; sometimes he loiters on the bridge to chat, or stare at the dark water; but he always comes, leaving his watchful deterrent train behind him to police the night.
Once Demeter in the black anguish of her desolation searched for lost Persephone by the light of Hecate's torch; and searching all in vain, spurned beneath her empty feet an earth barren of her smile; froze with set brows the merry brooks and streams; and smote forest, and plain, and fruitful field, with the breath of her last despair, until even Iambe's laughing jest was still.And then when the desolation was complete, across the wasted valley where the starveling cattle scarcely longed to browse, came the dreadful chariot - and Persephone.The day of the prisoner of Hades had dawned; and as the sun flamed slowly up to light her thwarted eyes the world sprang into blossom at her feet.
