Читать книгу Friendly Acres - Peter McArthur - Страница 12

Table of Contents

Some of my Celtic ancestors must have been sun and tree worshippers, for when the spring comes back I am conscious of promptings that are not accounted for in my philosophy. I want to see the sun rise and to see it set, and to chum with it all through the day. A few hours of such sunshine as we are having makes me feel as if I had never done anything wrong in my life. And when the trees begin to show signs of rousing from their winter sleep I want to shake hands—or limbs—with them and bid them "welcome to our city." I think that much could be said in favour of my Druidical forefathers. Perhaps there was more that was human than inhuman in their rites. But instead of a grove of many-centuried oaks and a mystic circle of stones, I have a nicely orientated sugar bush and an arch of broken bricks, and instead of a Beltane fire on a mountain top I have a fire under a sheet-iron pan. The poet priest who gives me counsel and comfort while at my work is that glorious modern Pagan St. Kavin, for

"With his own smile he absolved

Every sin he ever sinned."

In spite of the frosty nights, the hepaticas are back, and the spring beauties are back, and the birds are back and the grass is showing green everywhere. There is life everywhere and joy everywhere and poetry everywhere until Shakespeare's passionate cry becomes a commonplace of this perfect day.

"O Helicanus, strike me, honoured sir;

Give me a gash, put me to present pain,

Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me

O'erbear the shores of my mortality

And drown me with their sweetness."

Lambs really deserve all the pretty and poetic things that have been said of them. As far as my experience goes they have no bad habits, and their playfulness adds a joy to Nature. No farm should be without a flock of sheep, if for no other reason than to have a little flock of lambs gamboling in the pasture every spring. They play king of the castle like children, and when they have a falling out and bunt one another, it seems like another part of the game. Their fighting is mainly done by pushing with their foreheads, and in this respect they have a charm lacked by some human children. The lambs do not pull their hair and scratch one another when they have a dispute over a game, and they never bawl. And if one of them leaves the game to tell mother that it is not getting fair play, the whole flock is likely to accompany it in a foot race in which the trouble will be forgotten.

There is nothing about them that suggests bad temper or selfishness, and their young lives are entirely devoted to play. In spite of the fact that their legs are too big for them they manage to look graceful, and when they start jumping with all four legs held stiffly, I am full of wonder as to how they manage the trick.