Page images
PDF
EPUB

the sluice-gates in the sea-wall. The force of the tide opens these in flowing up, and fills all the dykes; when the ebb takes place the gates close again. Four, five to eight feet in depth these runs and dykes are; only a marshman can go safely over these places.

Nothing is to be seen yet but a few hooded crows on the prowl. It is no use to think of shooting the Saltings just now, so we turn into the marsh to look about for a bit; and the curlews (Numenius arquata) screaming will let us know when the tide has turned. What a long, dreary space it is, covered with glittering snow! Here and there the reeds and flags along the dykes have been bowed right over, and form a rough kind of tunneling roofed with snow. It is not of the least use to exercise caution, for the crunch, crunch of the foot tells its tale. But the cold is fearful, and a bird will not leave shelter if he can possibly help it; so we tramp on in the hope of a chance shot.

A dark patch shows on the snow; reaching it we find it is a marsh spring not frozen. Here and there you come upon such; also the footprints of the heron, for the snow is soft round the margins of these springs. There are no signs of the web-footed or hen-footed fowl here; only the heron is about.

The other birds do not like him; for he is always hungry, and his stomach is very accommodating. Near some pollard willows some starved-out fieldfares are bunched up. They utter a feeble "chuck" at times; their feathers are puffed out, making them look twice their natural size. A gull comes flapping over on the hunt, for a dead or wounded bird is a nice meal for him. From a bunch of dead flags, with a scape-scape-scape up springs a snipe with that twist-and-turn-about flight peculiar to himself and his relatives. He is not fired at, for if there are any fowl in hiding anywhere in his line of flight that cry will move them. It has done so; three mallards rise from a dyke; they are low down and fly straight to where I am standing by the willows; three in a line, their green heads glistening in the sun, and the red brown of their breasts show ing distinctly. They are near enough now, I think, two of them at any rate. Bang!" "Quack, quack;" a twist and turn of their necks and bodies tells that they have been hit, but neither bird falls. It serves one right, for it is almost useless firing at fowl coming right at you; the breast feathers are so thick. It is a warning to resist temptation for the future.

66

As we near the Saltings something springs from a patch of dead flag, which we shoot, and it proves to be a fine specimen of the short-eared owl (Strix brachyotos), or "woodcock owl" of the marshman. His light body and hawk-like flight often lead folks to take him for some other bird. He hunts by day as well as in the evening; any hen-footed fowl, not too big for him, is his prey. The shore shooters know him well; they see him, just as the light begins to fade, come skimming over the flats, now high up, the next moment close to the ground. All at once he stops, and fans with his wings like a kestrel over a tuft of rushes. That fanning of the wings is remarkable; it causes a current of air, much stronger than any one would imagine, which rattles and stirs the dry rushes, so that any creature that has sheltered there comes out and the owl gets it. His near relative, the long-eared owl, has the same tactics on the heaths and commons which are his hunting-ground. He makes the leaves and twigs rattle with the fanning of his wings in the same way. They do not eat all that they catch at the time, but hide it till wanted, and the contents of their larder would surprise many people.

As we near the sea-wall something shoots over it: a male sparrow-hawk, in full plumage - -a fine little fellow. We crouch down in between the hillocks and observe his movements; the bird he was after has taken cover. After a sharp turn or two he settles on a clod of broken-up turf a perfect study; if you had not seen him perch you might pass close, and not notice him. That tuft of grey seablite matches his grey back, and a stem of broken bulrush, reddish-yellow, tallies with the hue of his barred breast. To all intents and purposes he is invisible. There is a quick movement, for he has just caught sight of what he had lost for a time; one rapid motion of the head and neck, and the hawk is on the wing. A little "cheep!" and you see him fly past with a dead pipit (Anthus pratensis) in his claws. We do not stay to fire at him now, for the curlews are heard crying, a sure sign that the tide has turned. The wind has changed, too, from east to north-east, and blows against the tide, sending the salt-drift driving over the flats, and making the eyes run; a blinding salt-drift is not pleasant any way.

Gaining the foot of the sea-wall, we crouch down for shelter, and listen for the notes of the fowl, driven by the fierce wind off the open sea to seek harbor in the bays

and creeks. The curlews are heard above | ing myself together, I look first to see that all the rest; then comes the screaming of my gun is right, and fire. Five dunlins the red-shanks, the cackle of gulls, and the and three sanderlings (Arenaria calidris) cry of tern (Sterna hirundo); all combined to the shot, while one bird flies out to the with the peculiar chatter of thousands of water's edge and drops. He is not allowed dunlins or oxbirds (Tringa variabilis). to stop there long, for a grey gull drops The fowl are coming up with the wind, so, down by the side of the bird and swallows crawling up the bank, we peep very cau- him whole. These gulls are continually tiously out over the Saltings and down the beating up and down on the ebb and flow; creek. The whole place is alive with hen their bills can dig and tear like a raven's. and web-footed fowl; about a mile away When wounded they will throw up all they a line of birds is to be seen coming over have eaten, and fight for their life on a from the opposite shore; we get quickly light stomach. They require careful hanback to the bottom of the wall and wait for dling; folks not used to them will put them them. The whistle of their wings is first down quicker than they picked them up, heard, and then we can distinguish them. and give them the butt-end of the gun on Widgeon they are, the feathers underneath the head for nipping their fingers. These shine like white satin. Picking out the large gulls, the great black-backed, the leader as he passes by, and aiming a yard lesser black-backed (Larus fuscus), and the in front, we bring him down with a thud, grey or herring gull (Larus argentatus), dead. And now the fowl are on the Salt- are not numerous here. They work up ings; their scream, chatter, quack, and and down singly or in pairs, knowing well whistle all mixed up together, while from how to take care of number one. As a the other side of the water comes the rule, they only get shot from the fishing sound of the heavy duck-guns hard at boats. The common and the black-headed work. We slip over the wall, and begin gull are all over; that is to say, the blackto crawl on hands and knees to the fowl headed gull in winter plumage. The fishfeeding on the very edge of the ebb-tide. ermen catch as many as they require with Curlews are not to be thought of; they hook and line; it is like spinning for pike, know exactly how far a gun will reach, as the boat sails along. The line is played and keep just the right distance out of out with a small fish on the hook, the gull harm's way. Besides, they post one of pounces down, and is caught in the upper their number for sentry duty. The red- mandible. The hooks are made of soft shanks are nearly as bad, for they kick up iron, so that they bend freely, and beyond a noise and let all the other birds know the slight touch of the hook the bird is that something is crawling along. not injured in the least. The fishermen know exactly when to pull, so that the bird shall not swallow the hook. They eat them, after having buried them for twenty-four hours to take the fishy taste out of them. I have known hooded crows shot and treated in the same manner, and a farmer once told me they were as good as his fowls. His farm-lands faced the sea, and when the dun crows paid their visits to his fields he would take his old flint-locked fowling-piece down from over the chimney, and bring home a couple. I dined with him many times, but prejudice is strong, and I always declined crow with thanks.

A winged curlew, when he runs screaming and wailing over the ooze, will disturb all the birds for a mile or more. Strange to say, they do not fear the fishing-boats, and, concealed from sight by the nets, the men kill them from the deck as they feed on the edge of the tide. If one drops on the water and goes off with the tide, they have him, for a skiff with oars in her is always in tow. In the autumn the curlews visit the turnip-fields in quest of snails, worms, and slugs. One of my old friends has frequently shot them before his pointers, as well as the thickknee, or stone Curlew. A large flock of dunlins have settled on the edge of a pool left by the tide, and look pretty little creatures as they run nimbly about, picking up the small things it has left behind it; a few more yards and they will be near enough to hit, but just as the gun is raised to my shoulder, and my finger touches the trigger, I feel myself very gently sinking. The water has undermined the frozen snow and let me through. The hole forms a hiding-place, leaving my head and shoulders free. Pull

Getting under the shelter of the wall, I made my way lower down to the tide, where, crouching under the remains of a stack of reeds, I found a "shore-shooter

one who makes his living by means of his gun. By some unlucky chance he had forgotten to fill his powder-flask. The birds are well up on the Saltings, and he has only enough for another charge for his duck-gun. Could I oblige him with a charge? he asked.

"Certainly; with half a dozen, if you like," was my reply.

"I can't afford to shoot them little henfooted things," he remarked; "powder and shot cost money. Are you after something to stuff? You seems to have some little things done up careful like."

"Well, yes; something in that way." "Ah, I fancied you was by your shootin'. You let some fowl go by that I should have pulled at. You don't shoot for a livin'?"

[blocks in formation]

"What, the cliffs and the bays? Well, just out from the cliffs, a sort of cloud was movin' about, and then goin' out of sight for a time. Never in my life had I seen such a lot as that; and by the way they flew I could tell they was black geese." (Brent geese he meant.) "Well, I said never a word, but went home and thought about it. Things was lookin' rather glum with me just then, for there was precious little to do. Next mornin' I starts early with my gun and somethin' to eat, and gets there about eight o'clock. You know the place, do you?"

"I know it, a shallow part, covered over with sea grass and weed, and a good nine miles from here."

"Ah, that's it; the geese was well sheltered there, with plenty of food, and they'd gathered from all parts. I brought home three couple that night and sold 'em. Then I bought myself powder and shot and a few other things, and went to work. Of course, the farmer what rented the marsh near the place got as many as he liked to have; he lived five miles from there. I used to leave them for him as I passed on the way home at night, and sometimes ducks for a change. There was a rare lot of coots as well; they are

good to eat, they are, but they clapperclaw and scratch like cats if they ain't shot dead. Well, all through the winter I managed middlin'; rough work at times, mind you, but I lived, and that's somethin'. Mind your own line of work and keep your tongue between your teeth is the best plan when you drop on a lot of fowl like that. If you let out one-half a word you'll have plenty to help you do the work. My line of work is shootin' fowl, an' I don't want anybody to help

me."

"

The Kentish plover, he told me, was shot accidentally when he fired at some fowl that had pitched. The wind was blowing a gale when I bade him good-bye; I had my back to it, which was some little comfort.

Presently. I heard a little twittering chatter, and some small birds darted past and over the sea-wall into the marsh. There was just light enough to see them as they stood huddled up by the withered flags. I fired my load off at them, and killed two stints (Tringa pusilla).

On my way home, I met the flight-shooters coming down for the night shooting. They carried guns of wonderful make and length, from the very long duck-gun to the short bell-mouthed musquetoon. One would think they had ransacked some old armory. These are handed down from father to son; many of them have flint locks. They are regarded with the greatest respect, and their killing power is considered wonderful. If they go off, a thing that is by no means certain, when the trigger is pulled, the men do kill fowl with them; but they never fire at a single bird; they would term that throwing away a charge. To see the way they are wrapped up you would fancy their owners were afraid of their getting the rheumatics or ague, which evils the guns escape, but their owners do not. No man shoots the flats for any length of time without scraping acquaintance with the bailiffs of marshland-ague and intermittent fever.

From The Fortnightly Review.

MADEMOISELLE AISSE.

LITERATURE presents us with no more pathetic figure of a waif or stray than that of the poor little Circassian slave whom her friends called Mademoiselle Aïssé. But interesting and touching as is the romance of her history, it is surpassed by the rare distinction of her character and

about two years old, and the birth or L'Espinasse, which happened a few months before Aïssé's death. During this period of nearly forty years no woman in France wrote letters which could be placed beside theirs except our Circassian. They form a singularly interesting trio; and if Aïssé can no more pretend to possess the breadth of vision and rich imagination of Madame de Sévigné than to command the incomparable accent of passion which cries through the correspondence of Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse, she has qualities which are not unworthy to be named with these, - an exquisite sincerity, an observation of men and things which could hardly be more picturesque, a note of pensive and thrilling tenderness, and a candor which melts the very soul to pity.

delicacy of her mind. Placed in the cen- | fills the space between the death of Sétre of the most depraved society of mod- vigné, which occurred when Aïssé was ern Europe, protected from ruin by none of those common bulwarks which proved too frail to sustain the high-born virtues of the Tencins and the Parabères, exposed by her wit and beauty to all the treachery of fashionable Paris unabashed, this little Oriental orphan preserved an exquisite refinement of nature, a conscience as sensitive as a nerve. If she had been dévote, if she had retired to a nunnery, the lesson of her life would have been less wholesome than it is; we may go farther and admit that it would be less poignant than it is but for the single frailty of her conduct. She sinned once, and expiated her sin with tears; but in an age when love was reduced to a caprice and intrigue governed by cynical maxims, Aïssé's fault, her solitary abandonment to a sincere passion, almost takes the proportions of a virtue. Mr. Ruskin has somewhere recommended Swiss travellers who find themselves physically exhausted by the pomp of Alpine landscape, to sink on their knees and concentrate their attention on the petals of a rock-rose. Ia comparison with the vast expanse of French literature the pretensions of Aïssé are little more than those of a flower, but she has no small share of a flower's perfume and beauty.

In her lifetime Mademoiselle Aïssé associated with some of the great writers of her time. Yet if any one had told her that she would live in literature with such friends as Montesquieu and Destouches her modesty would have been overwhelmed with confusion. She made no pretensions to being a blue-stocking; she would have told us that she did not know how to write a page. An exact coeval of hers was the sarcastic and brilliant young man who called himself Voltaire; he was strangely gentle to Aïssé, but she would have been amazed to learn that he would long survive her, and would annotate her works in his old age. Her works! Her only works, she would have told us, were the colored embroideries with which, in some tradition of a Turkish taste, she adorned her own rooms in the Hôtel Ferriol. Notwithstanding all this, no history of French literature would have any pretensions to completeness if it omitted Aïsse's name. Among all the memoirwriters, letter-writers, and pamphleteers of the early eighteenth century she stands in some respects pre-eminent. As a correspondent pure and simple there is a sig. nificance in the fact that her life exactly

In the winter of 1697 or spring of 1698, a dissipated and eccentric old bachelor, Charles de Ferriol, Baron d'Argental, who was French envoy at the court of the grand vizier, bought a little Circassian child of about four years old in one of the bazaars of Constantinople. He had often bought slaves in the Turkish market before, and not to the honor of his memory. But this time he was actuated by a genuine kindly impulse. He was fifty-one years of age; he did not intend to marry, and he seems to have thought that he would supply himself with a beautiful daughter for the care of his old age. Sainte-Beuve, with his unfailing intuition, insisted on this interpretation, and since his essay was written in 1846, various documents have turned up, proving beyond a doubt that the intentions of the envoy were parental. The little girl said that her name was Haidée. She preserved in later life an impression of a large house, and many servants running hither and thither. Her friends agreed to consider her as the daughter of a Circassian prince, and the very large price (fifteen hundred livres) which M. de Ferriol paid for her, as well as the singular distinction of her beauty, to some extent supports the legend. In August, 1698, M. de Ferriol, who had held temporary missions in Turkey for seven years, was recalled to France, to be sent out again as French ambassador to the Porte in 1699. He brought his little Circassian orphan with him, and placed her in the charge of his sister-in-law, Madame de Ferriol, in Paris. She was immediately christened as Charlotte Haidée, but she preserved neither of these names in ordinary life; Charlotte was dropped

at once, and Haidée on the lips of her new French relations became the softer Aïssé.

Aïssé's adopted aunt, as we may call her, Madame de Ferriol, was a very fair aver age specimen of the fashionable lady of the regency. She belonged to the notorious family of Tencin, whose mark on the early part of the eighteenth century is so ineffaceable. Of Madame de Ferriol it may be said by her defenders that she was not so openly scandalous as her sister the canoness, who appears in a very curious light in the letters of Aïssé. Born in 1674, Madame de Ferriol was still quite a young woman, and her sons, the Marquis de Pont-de-Veyle and the Comte d'Argental, were little children, fit to become the playmates of Aïssé. Indeed these two boys were regarded almost as the Circassian's brothers, and the family documents speak of all three as "nos enfants." She was put to school it is believed, from a phrase of her own, "Je viens de me ressouvenir - with the Nouvelles Catholiques, a community of nuns, whose house was a few doors away from the Hôtel Ferriol, and there for a few years we may suppose her to have passed the happy life of a child. From this life she herself, in one of the most charming of her letters, draws aside the curtain for a moment. In 1731 some gossip accused her of a passion for the Duc de Gesvres, and her jealous mentor in Geneva wrote to know if there was any truth in the report. Aïssé, then about thirty-seven years of age, wrote back as follows:

I admit, Madame, notwithstanding your anger and the respect which I owe you, that I have had a violent fancy for M. le Duc de Gesvres, and that I even carried this great sin to confession. It is true that my confessor did not think it necessary to impose any penance on me. I was eight years old when this passion began, and at twelve I laughed at the whole affair, not that I did not still like M. de Gesvres, but that I saw how ludicrous it had been of me to be so anxious to be talking and playing in the garden with him and his broth

ers.

He was two or three years older than I, and we thought ourselves a great deal more grown up than the rest. We liked to be conversing while the others were playing at hideand-seek. We set up for reasonable people; we met regularly every day: we never talked about love, for the fact was that neither of us knew what that meant. The window of the little drawing-room opened upon a balcony, where he often came; we made signs to each other; he took us out to see the fireworks, and often to Saint Ouen. As we were always together, the people in charge of us began to joke about us and it came to the ears of my

aga (the ambassador), who, as you can im agine, made a fine romance out of all this. I found it out; it distressed me; I thought that, as a discreet person, I ought to watch my own behavior, and the result was that I persuaded

myself that I must really be in love with M. de Gesvres. I was dévote, and went to confession; I first mentioned all my little sins, and then I had to mention this big sin; I could scarcely make up my mind to do so, but as a girl that had been well brought up, I determined to hide nothing. I confessed that I was in love with a young man. My director seemed astonished: he asked me how old he and told me that there was no penance for I told him he was eleven. He laughed, that sin; that I had only to keep on being a good girl, and that he had nothing more to say to me for the time being.

was.

It is like a page of Hans Andersen; there is the same innocence, the same suspicion that all the world may not be so innocent.

The incidents of the early womanhood of Aïssé are known to us only through an anonymous sketch of her life, printed in 1787, when her "Letters" first appeared. This short life, which has been attributed to Mademoiselle Rieu, the granddaughter of the lady to whom the letters were addressed, informs us that Aïssé was carefully educated, so far as the head went, but more than neglected in the lessons of the heart. "From the moment when Mademoiselle Aïssé began to lisp," says this rather pedantic memoir, "she heard none but dangerous maxims. Surrounded by voluptuous and intriguing women, she was constantly being reminded that the only occupation of a woman without a forfound protectors. The two sons of Matune ought to be to secure one." But she dame de Ferriol, though themselves no better than their neighbors, guarded her as though she had really been their sister; and in her own soul there were no germs of the fashionable depravity. When she was seventeen, her "aga" came back from his long exile in Constantinople, broken in health, even, it is said, more than a little disturbed in intellect. To the annoyance of his relatives he nourished the design of being made a cardinal; he was lodged, for safety's sake, close to the family of his brother. From Ferriol's return in 1711, to his death in 1722, we have considerable difficulty in realizing what Aissé's existence was.

There is some reason to suppose that it was Lord Bolingbroke who first per ceived the exceptional charm of Aisse's mind. When the illustrious English exile came to France in 1715, he was almost immediately drawn into the society of the

« PreviousContinue »