Read Online Portrait of Elmbury by John Moore - Free Book Online

another attempt to catch the big carp in Brensham Pond; after that we’d hunt the old willows for Puss Moth caterpillars and Red Underwings; and when it grew dark we’d light lanterns and “sugar” the trees in the rides for moths. We must tar the bottom of our old boat and make it watertight; we must go cubhunting in September, and we must ask Keeper Smith if he’s let us beat when Squire started partridge-shooting; we must camp at the Hill Farm and help Farmer Jeffs with his harvest.
    Elmbury and its green-and-brown countryside were always the stuff of our dreams. I was getting to know the place as Highlanders know their deer-forests: “every stick and stone.” I was growing my roots.
Entomology and Port
    One evening in the summer holidays we were up in the larch plantation above Mr. Chorlton’s cottage. Donald and Dick were searching for caterpillars and I was trying to stalk some fallow-deer which had escaped from a neighbouring park and which dwelt there as shyly as fauns in the thickest part of the plantation. Dick found a huge grey hawk-moth sitting on a larch trunk, and hearing his yelp of delight we gathered round him, admiring the unfamiliar monster, while he stood at the ready with the net. At that moment along came Mr. Chorlton, out for his evening stroll.
    â€œHallo, you rascals,” he said. “What’s the excitement?”
    â€œBig moth, sir. Looks like a funny sort of Hawk.”
    Mr. Chorlton took one look over Dick’s shoulder. “Good God,” he said.
    â€œSir?”
    â€œSphinx convolvuli,”
said Mr. Chorlton, “come all the way from Africa; and you three rascals pounce on him as soon as he arrives.” He put his hand in his pocket and brought out a large glass-bottomed pill-box. We should not have been more surprised if he had produced a white rabbit or a cage of singing canaries; for although we were aware that Mr. Chorlton knew all about Greek accents we didn’t expect him to know anything about moths. “Now listen,” he said. “If Dicks nets him in his rugger-forward fashion he’ll spoil him as sure as eggs is eggs. I’ll box him for you. But in case I muff it Dick with his net must stand in the slips and you others at point and long stop.”
    We watched breathlessly while Mr. Chorlton with miraculous calm persuaded the great moth into the pill-box. He handed itto Dick. “Lucky beggar,” he said. “In thirty long years
I’ve
never found one.”
    â€œBut, sir, we didn’t know
you
were a bughunter!” It was as if Zeus himself had come down to earth and we mortals, discovering his divinity, had exclaimed in awe: “We didn’t know
you
were a god!”
    â€œCome back to the cottage,” he said, “and I’ll show you.”
    The cottage lay among shrubberies of rhododendrons and its garden was full of flowers, pentstemon and tobacco-flower and valerian, which we were sure had been planted specially for the moths. He took us inside and sat us down in a room which was lined with books from ceiling to floor. We had never seen so many books in a room before. They mostly had Latin and Greek titles, and it seemed to us that all the wisdom in the world was enclosed between those four walls. Mr. Chorlton said: “I’ll go and get the key of the cabinet,” and he left us free to explore the wonderful room. There was a net standing in the corner; and next to it a fishing-rod. In a jar on the window-still some caterpillars which none of us could recognise nibbled a sprig of birch. And Dick, wandering round the room, discovered a photograph entitled “Somerset C.C., 1895,” with Mr. Chorlton, in flannels and cricket-cap, sitting in the front row.
    He came back and opened the cabinet doors. The glass-topped drawers slid out silently one by one while we stood and gasped. There were long rows of Swallow-tails, Clouded Yellows, tawny Fritillaries in infinite