Brendon Chase

by B. B.

  He scrabbled at the stones on the stream bed and the water clouded for a second, but it soon ran clear again so that he could see his fingers showing bluish-white against the pied stones and silver sand.

  Overhead a dragonfly passed to and fro, a bright blue dragonfly with dark spots on the ends of its wings like those he had seen by the Willow Pool at Cherry Walden. It settled on a reed in the full sun with its wings cocked high above its back. There were mayflies on the wing too, dancing up and down with their long graceful tails cocked up behind. When Robin was smaller he used to be rather afraid of them; he’d thought those long threadlike tails were stings.

  It was so dreamy and cool and summery in that miniature paradise that Robin felt he could stay there for ever and ever. But at last he had to get out and lie on the warm bracken to let the sun dry him. The green fronds felt quite hot against his body after the cold embrace of the limpid water.

  When he had dressed again he suddenly felt terribly hungry. You may have noticed that after a swim one often has a good appetite. And he had brought nothing with him to eat. They only had two meals a day, breakfast and supper. It was all they wanted and they were invariably ravenous for either.

  It was quite an effort to tear himself away from this little fairy glade with its amber pool, but soon he was pushing down the streamside again, his body still tingling and delightful after the bathe. It had not been a real swim – he would have liked to strike out into deep water and oar himself along like a very fat carp and nose among green water plants. Perhaps he could do this when he found the Blind Pool, if there was such a place.

  Then, quite miraculously, the trees thinned and he saw the object of his search. It was a long narrow pool, dark and very still, with beds of white water lilies growing near the banks. High oaks surrounded it on three sides. On the fourth were some tall and very gloomy pines whose tops were lit by the late afternoon sun so that their red branches seemed to be artificial, almost painted, or stained with blood.

  At the far end, backed by the dark trees, stood a heron, its head sunk in its shoulders. It was standing on a mossy log which was protruding from the water. The pool was so still that a faithful reflection of the bird was visible, perfect in every detail.

  Robin crawled through the bracken right up to the edge of the water and stared down into the depths. It was deep, so deep that he could see no bottom, and the water was a very, very dark green. By staring hard he could at last make out the steeply shelving sides diving down into the gloom. Robin saw his own reflection, curiously dark, so that his eyes were almost invisible, and behind his head an indigo sky, such as one sees in an old Umbrian painting, with the few white clouds which were passing slowly overhead mirrored very soft and dim. It was like looking at a richly coloured picture through a smoked glass.

  As he lay screened by the reeds and fern, staring down, down, into the green depths, a dim movement attracted his attention below and a grave procession of massive bronze fish passed silently by, some five feet down. In weight and girth they were larger than any freshwater fish he had ever seen, with the exception of a pike. They were tench.

  Robin was enthralled – bewitched! This place was even more magical than the tiny pool he had discovered a way back down the trail! He lifted his eyes again and saw that the heron had come to life and was walking rather awkwardly down the mossy log, clasping it with its long green claws and bobbing its head. It had not seen him, so well was he hidden in the reeds.

  Several moorhens, which have the sharpest eyes of any wild bird, were feeding on a little grassy bank on the shore opposite to where he lay in hiding. They quested about like chickens, flirting their white tails. Moorhens are good to eat and so far Robin had shot nothing for the pot all day.

  So he raised his rifle and took a steady sight on the nearest bird through the ’scope. It was not an easy shot for the moorhen was moving slowly forward, pecking as it went.

  But Robin chose his own time and at the right instant the finger obeyed the brain and the crack was followed by the welcome thud of the bullet going home. The bird rolled over, flapped a wing once, twice, and lay still.

  At the report of the rifle, muffled as it was, the heron sprang vertically into the air as if stung and came down again on the log. A moment before it had been hunched; now it was like a long slender grey reed and even from where Robin lay he could see its circular eye staring about it in the most comical manner. It had heard the muffled crack of the rifle but did not know from which direction it had come. Then it launched itself into the air and flapped away over the trees on wide cupped wings. One moment it was a grey bird against a wall of dark foliage, the next it was soaring into the sunlight and had vanished over the tops of the oaks.

  All the other moorhens had run for cover when Robin had fired and now the pool was deserted, not a movement anywhere save some ripples on the water where a moorhen had dived. These came wheeling out towards him, breaking up the dark green shadow reflections.

  He did not retrieve his bird at once. He still lay hidden among the thick reeds watching and listening. On the far green bank he could see the dark sooty spot of the dead moorhen. It would be delicious roast. Robin was so hungry he almost felt he could eat it raw with the greatest of gusto!

  After a while he was aware of another bird moving among the sturdy reed swords at the far end of the pond, close to the sunken green log where the heron had stood. For some time Robin was puzzled as to what it could be and after a while he tried to see through the telescope of the rifle. At last he made out what it was: a mallard duck. Close behind her swam a lot of cheeping striped babies. She was threading her way in between the reed palisades.

  What a heavenly place! How the others would love it! The white water lilies, so perfect and waxy, looked as though they were artificial. And those fascinating flat circular leaves! Strange fleshy leaves like dishes, how they seemed the very spirit of the water itself! There was a very faint smell of wild thyme and heated pond water. Earlier in the day the sun must have been shining full on the pool, for when Robin dipped a finger in it was quite warm. Another time they must come here and swim and fish. Alas! Robin Hood’s day was nearly over. Why did the sun sink so soon? He had a long weary march back to camp. He must be starting. But as the sun dipped lower and lower behind the trees the powerful magic of the scene held him all the more. This place was surely far more lovely than Thoreau’s pond he talked so much about. There was something mysterious, almost a little sinister about it. Why should it be set away in the heart of this ancient forest? The deer drank here perhaps, and all the woodland creatures – foxes, badgers, stoats and the like; pheasants, too, and all the wild forest birds. When Robin looked again in his magic mirror he saw no white clouds sailing, he saw a sky of rarest aquamarine and, as he watched, against that background a bird swam into view, a wide-winged bird, which wheeled and wheeled in vast circles.

  Robin looked up at the sky above and saw the whole scene, only more distinctly and in clearer and more vivid colours. The bird was wheeling like a buzzard, the sunlight shining on the spread fingers of the wide-extended rigid wings. Could it be a honey buzzard? If so, perhaps it had a nest somewhere in the forest!

  At last it soared from view behind the oak tops and was gone. He knew what he wanted to complete the picture of this dark green lake, set among the trees, starred with ivory lilies. Why, of course, it wanted this one thing, a moose, a huge black moose, pulling at the water lilies! He could imagine it so clearly, the loose pendulous lips dribbling sparkling drops, its echoing sloshings as it moved about in the shallow water of that remote and silent place.

  Sadly Robin turned back upon his trail, the moorhen safely in his pocket. He took one last look at the Blind Pool. It was the loveliest thing he had seen in the forest, and he had enjoyed this day more than any other they had had so far.

  He did not know then that years afterwards he would remember that picture; the dark pool set among the trees, so still, so calm, starred with those waxlike lilies, and
the grey heron sitting on the log. Some things we see pass out of the mind, or, at least are forgotten; others, little things, little glimpses such as this never depart. And the memory of that first view of the Blind Pool would still be in his mind forty years afterwards, rather faded, perhaps, like an old photograph in an album, but still there, an imperishable masterpiece.

  The glimpse of the wheeling honey buzzard, mirrored in the waters of the Blind Pool stuck in Robin’s mind. There was a chance it was one of a pair and that its mate was sitting somewhere in the forest. But eleven thousand acres was a large expanse to search and finding the nesting tree would be like trying to find the proverbial needle. Robin knew that honey buzzards were late breeders, June being the usual month. He knew also that they were in the habit of using the old nest of other species such as crows and sparrow hawks, for he had made a deep study of the birds of prey; they were his favourite species. There was something fascinating about their fierce proud eyes and regal bearing; even the gentle little red kestrels which hovered in the wind over the Weald were lovely birds. Their rosy brown plumage was of a peculiarly beautiful tint.

  It was some days before the honey buzzard was seen again. Then Big John brought news of a large barred hawk with rounded wings which he had seen fly into the top of one of the tall firs by the Blind Pool. It had swept up into the crown of the tree and Big John said that it made a noise like a spitting cat.

  At the first opportunity all three boys paid a visit to the firs but Robin, sceptical of Big John’s story, would not climb the tree. It was a tremendous height. Standing at its rough red base the topmost branches seemed a ghastly distance overhead. But there was a nest up there. Robin soon saw it, a mass of black sticks right in the tree’s crown.

  ‘Pooh, it’s a pigeon’s nest or a crow’s,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to climb up there on the chance of even a honey buzzard; all Scotch firs have pigeons’ nests in the top.’ Robin was right, few such trees are without a pigeon’s nest. ‘If I could only see the bird I’d have a shot at getting up. Let’s throw sticks and try and scare her off.’

  So they gathered sticks and stones and bombarded the tree. But the nest was so high even Robin could not get a stone anywhere near it and Big John had foolishly left his catapult back in camp.

  It was not very long, however, before proof was forthcoming. Robin, fishing in the Blind Pool the following day, saw the bird again.

  It was a beautiful calm evening with not a cloud in the sky and the lowering sun lit the red trunks of the firs so that they were reflected in the still waters.

  As he fished he heard a mewing note and looking up he saw two honey buzzards come over the tops of the oaks behind him. One of them carried a spray of green leaves in its beak; even though they were flying at a good height, Robin, with his sharp eyes, could see that at once.

  The bird with the spray flew straight into the top of the fir and its mate followed!

  The sight of those beautiful barred buzzards sweeping overhead against the soft sky was breathtaking. Big John had been right, they had a nest in the pine! Robin was so excited that he wanted to climb right away but the light was going and he had to curb his impatience.

  That night he could hardly sleep for excitement and as soon as they had finished breakfast the following morning they all set out.

  The pine was a difficult tree to climb for there were no branches for the first ten feet or so and their climbing irons were, of course, eight miles away in Cherry Walden. Robin was so keen to climb that he almost thought of going back that night to fetch them. He knew exactly where they were: in the white cupboard on the top landing of the Dower House, next to the schoolroom.

  It was most tantalizing to stand there under the nest and know that up above a clutch of handsome eggs were reposing in a cup of beech leaves. Honey buzzards nearly always line their nests with beech.

  Robin got Big John to stand against the trunk, with his head against it and his arms clasped round so as to give him a ‘back’. But when he at last struggled upright, with his feet on Big John’s shoulders, there was nothing to hold on to; the nearest branch was still beyond his reach.

  He tried swarming, but the trunk was far too wide, and he slithered down, scratching his arms and knees.

  ‘It’s no good,’ he said, ‘we shall never get up this way. We shall have to get the climbing irons.’

  ‘Let’s try and find a branch to give you a start,’ said Big John. ‘If we can find a dead tree or something we might manage it that way.’ So they searched about far and wide in the underbrush. At last Little John found a dead fir branch lying in some brambles near the pool. It was so big and heavy it took their united strength to drag it along, but after a terrific struggle they managed it, and reared it up against the rough trunk of the fir.

  It made a precarious perch, but after some difficulty Robin got up among its topmost ‘tines’ and then, standing on the very tip, he found he could just reach the lowest branch. With all his strength he hauled himself up and the next moment the climb began.

  The honey buzzard’s nest

  Robin had a bad head for heights. After the first twenty feet or so he had to take a rest. It was fairly straightforward work now, if he could only keep his wits, for the branches were plentiful, almost like the rungs of a ladder, going up and up above his head. He made up his mind that he would not look down. He said to himself, ‘I won’t look down! I won’t look down!’ But at last, exhausted, he reached a thick branch where he had to rest. Then he inadvertently glanced below.

  Immediately he felt a horrible wave of sickness pass through him. Far beneath he glimpsed his two brothers, their faces absurdly dwarfed and white, gazing up at him, and behind them the Blind Pool – a bird’s eye view of the Blind Pool – with the tops of the sallows and the green reed beds hedging it round.

  Robin gasped and shut his eyes tightly. Then he looked above. He was not yet halfway up! He could never do it! ‘What’s the matter?’ called Big John. ‘What are you stopping for?’

  Robin could not answer. He still kept his eyes tight shut, his cheek pressed tightly against the rough red trunk. The feel of that massive breadth of wood gave him comfort.

  A small breeze was stirring among the tasselled needles and he felt the trunk sway ever so slightly. ‘I’m all right, only a bit puffed,’ he managed to gasp at last.

  ‘You’re nearly there,’ called Little John to comfort him.

  ‘Nearly there!’ thought Robin, and he was not halfway! For quite five minutes he sat immovable, staring up at the nest above him. It certainly seemed much closer. He could see the individual sticks in the nest bottom and the tangled red boughs below it.

  But no, he could not do it; he knew he could not. Yet if he was to come down now the others would know he was in a funk. He could never look them in the face again. He set his teeth and then continued to climb, vowing he would not look beneath him.

  But as he climbed higher he could not help catching sideways glimpses of the forest below. Horror on horror! He was now looking down into the tops of some of the smaller oaks, and there, on all sides, stretched the unbroken surface of the Chase. It stretched away endlessly and beyond its outermost misty fringes he could see the open fields and yes, sure enough, there was Brendon away to the south, a cluster of red roofs and factory chimneys and over there Cheshunt Toller. He could see the tower of the church!

  There was more wind up here now – he could hear it sighing in the pine top. He took another rest, fixedly gazing at the nest above. White clouds passed over against the blue sky; the fir needles whipped and tossed. He could never do it. ‘How are you getting on?’ came the voice of Big John. It sounded very far away. ‘All right!’ shouted Robin, without looking down. But he was not all right. His arms, hugging the trunk, were trembling, his whole body quivered as though he had an ague and his teeth chattered.

  The nest was now some fifteen feet above. It looked a good deal closer. He could see much of its detail now. But Robin was all in. He could not
climb another foot. His head swam and his mouth felt like an old boot.

  For quite ten minutes he sat there motionless, not heeding the cries of his brothers below. Then he swung his leg over a branch. He was going to come down. It was no good, he could not go an inch higher!

  At that moment the hen buzzard left the nest. There was an indescribable sound, a sort of blustering rush, and he saw the great barred bird sweep off the nest and she was gone.

  ‘There she goes!’ yelled Big John excitedly. ‘There she goes!’

  Robin, his eyes full of bark, and his hands and face scratched and torn, felt a sudden gleam of renewed enthusiasm. But it went as quickly as it had come. He felt like an amateur climber on a high mountain. He didn’t care whether there were eggs or not; all he wanted was to get down again on to the ground, feel the firm earth under him and the yielding bracken brushing his bare knees.

  ‘Go on!’ called Big John again. ‘You’re nearly there.’ Robin set his teeth. He reached up and caught the next branch above and for the next five minutes he climbed grimly and steadily, trembling so violently he could hardly grip the boughs. The great nest grew nearer and nearer; he could see it through his half-closed eyes. At last, Robin’s grimy claw went up until it touched the rim. Even then he wanted to be back, back again on the good firm earth.

  He gave another hunch and his hand felt over the rim. His fingers felt cold crisp leaves and then they encountered something hard, round and warm. ‘EGGS!’ he shouted.

  ‘Good man,’ shouted Little John. ‘How many?’

  ‘Can’t say,’ gasped Robin. His shaky fingers would not keep still. Only two! With a superhuman effort he managed to grasp one of them and without glancing at it he put it in his jacket pocket.

  ‘Don’t break ’em,’ shouted Big John, ‘put them in your mouth.’

  ‘Silly little ass,’ thought Robin. ‘What did he think they were, robin’s eggs?’