Part 23

The late Grinder, whatever his disqualifications for the honourable title thrust upon him may have been, was undoubtedly a lusty worker. But the Great Clearance was too great a task for one man. It was thus, by the way, that Caliban ‹likewise now “the late”› was introduced as labouring assistant, and, from the nature of his labours, known as the Woodman.

The elimination of underwoods, however, was by no means the most arduous task. Let once the good light of day and the free airs penetrate to the ground hitherto obscured and choked, and in a given time grass will make its appearance. And it will spread healthily if the lower branches of all standing trees are lopped, up to a suitable height. But we wanted grass not only in the glades, but, if possible, upon every stretch of soil not devoted to flowering beds or ornamental bush. And, to that end, the Heather and the Gorse had likewise to be banished in perpetuity. With miles of Heather and Gorse-clad moors about one, Ericas of any kind, and certainly Ulex, however delightful in themselves and in their native habitat, are distinctly de trop in the garden.

Seen in wide masses, and whether in the brown, green, or purple stage, Heather, as we know, is an ever beautiful cloak to the earth. But except at the height of its flowering richness, when it occurs in scattered patches, its effect is apt to be rusty and unkempt. As for the Gorse—gorgeous as it undoubtedly be at its full golden time when seen in clumps on down or roadside—it has, at close quarters, a ragged, dusty, almost leprous appearance which quite unfits it for cultivation. It would seem as though all its vital beauty were driven out to the flowering tops: its inner and lower portions are always dried up, and scabby as from some withering sickness. Such, at least, is always the case with the full-grown plant; though, when very young, or when springing anew from a shorn stump, it remains for some time pleasingly green all over.

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To the uninitiated it may appear simple enough to pluck up the Heather; but how soon will he be brought face to face with the dismal fact that, for grass-growing purposes, this superficial treatment is of no avail whatsoever! The peaty soil, product of untold generations of Heather, spongy to a depth of many inches, matted with the fibrils of roots, is absolutely antagonistic to grass of any description. The roots of the Furze, on their side, deep-reaching, far-spreading and tenacious, are simply rejuvenated and rejoiced by the lopping of the plant above ground. You may think you have done with it: behold! within a very few weeks saucy spriglets of brightest green Gorse will merrily make their appearance and claim the land again as their own!

Any seed sown on such a bed is merely so much food offered to the fowls of the air. The Master of the House had to learn that lesson practically, and lost a couple of seasons in so doing. ‹As may plainly be seen, he was a thoroughgoing ignoramus in that quarter; and he was not likely to be set right by Mr. Grinder!› It was only when Adam supervened and pointed out the necessity of trenching the ground, ridding it of its centuries-old tangle of fibre, overturning and pressing it, that the desired green result could at length be obtained. But the overturning demanded the combined work of pickaxe, fork, and cutting spade. It produced an incredible amount of underground wood, tough, sappy, and seemingly incombustible; and it kept Caliban occupied for many a long week.

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We have now many promising verdant roods, destined in time to be improved into lawns, where hitherto Heath and Whin held their sway. But the spaces lately freed from underwoods, which we so fondly hoped would turn of themselves into grassy glades and dells, provided us with new Heraclean labours.

Have I named Bracken?—Bracken! an everlasting problem on such a piece of land as ours, which less than a century back was undoubtedly part of the wild moorland itself. Nothing, it seems, but thorough overturning will really and finally rid the soil of the unconscionable Bracken—the ubiquitous, the imperishable, the exasperating Pteris Aquilina!

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This knowledge has been impressed on us by the experience of successive years. Our first inkling of it was when, returning to the Villino after a few months’ absence and fondly anticipating to find our precious glades ‹which, after the Great Clearance, had been generously sown with grass› covered with a tender-green, thickly-piled carpet, we were confronted with waving fields of lusty Brake already breast high.

In itself the sight was not displeasing; the young verdure was cool to the eye and did not greatly impede the view. But what we wanted was Grass. Grass which, in course of time and at their proper seasons, Crocus Vernus, Primrose, Blue-bell and Daffodil, Foxglove, and Colchicum Autumnale would star and illumine with colour.

Now, where the Brake thrives, it takes unto itself the whole bounty of the sun, and stifles all plant-life of lesser height than itself.

We disconsolately took advice from presumably competent persons.

“Oh,” said Everybody, with confidence, “you can get rid of Bracken if you cut it twice in the same year.”

“Can you?”—and here the Master of Villino Loki, in a state of inveteracy and resentment foreign to his usually placid character, feels he must again speak in the first person—“Can you?” ‹this is sarcastic› “I tell you, sir, that for the last three years I have cut that infernal Bracken, not twice in the twelvemonth, but four times and more—and look at it!”

You may imagine me pointing, with an indignation difficult to repress, to some corner of the cleared ground that does not happen to have been visited quite lately by the spud or the furze-cutter.

“This,” I say with emphasis, “I myself purged of all visible Bracken only last month!”

Now, as a matter of fact, the space in question, if not actually covered with the pertinacious fronds, is dotted with scores, nay hundreds, of forceful shoots; some still cosily curled up in their “crosier” stage, others impudently stretching themselves under the sun and persisting, in spite of all edicts, in screening its rays from the hard-struggling grass. What chance has humble grass against a thing that will sprout three inches in one night? And, if you look closer, you perceive a host of baby offshoots cheerfully pushing from some deep-burrowing ancient subterranean body, its innumerable little bald heads between the sorely tried, recently established grass settlements.

Twice cut, forsooth!—Why, to this day, in the very middle of paths made three years ago ‹“Three—years-ago—sir!”›, you will discover here, there, and there again, a healthy shoot, sappy and erect, balancing its bright green plume right in the way, as if in defiance of all extermination.

No—the most that can be claimed as a result of the war which is still being waged upon the Brake is that, perhaps, this pertinacious growth is beginning to betray some signs of discouragement. The ranks of the legions, as they make their periodical reappearance with an obstinacy worthy of a better cause, grow a trifle thinner year by year.

“If you only cut them young,” says Adam, consolingly but with cruel imagery, “they say the roots will bleed to death.”

This—Corporal Nym would hint—is as may be. As in the case of our wonderful forbears, bloodletting in the Spring, if not really conducive to better health, seems to interfere little with their thriving. Meanwhile, happily, as no scion of Pteris Aquilina ‹if it cannot really be prevented from cropping up where it chooses› is now allowed ever to reach its baleful maturity, the desired and much-petted grass is gradually establishing itself. And, with that eager optimism in gardening matters which is a characteristic of the family at Villino Loki, we look forward, in a few years, to the prospect of a succession of grassy carpets from crest to foot on our hillside.

But this consummation, much desired, can, we are aware, only be secured by unremitting labour. Sometimes the Master of the House ‹who, having rashly vowed to achieve the task, considers himself bound to see it through himself› is assailed by something very like misdoubt as he rests awhile upon his spud, blunted by some two hours’ punching at sporadic croziers, and computes the remaining roods, nay, the acres, still to be dealt with ...

If seven men, with seven spuds Should punch for half a year ... ...?

Rock of Sisyphus!—Cask of the Danaides!—Hydra of Argolis, with the unquenchable heads!—these and others are similes that fatally drift into his meditations.

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When engaged upon work of protracted and futile iteration—such as “Bracken-chivvying”—tags of inane rhymes are apt to invade the hypnotized brain: of the kind that sometimes rise in accompaniment to the steady bumping of railway wheels on certain slow journeys. A particularly haunting one—to be conjured off if possible—is the “Nightmare” jingle, Mark Twain’s, I believe: