" This name is still the local term for all side
streams and artificial cuts from the Upper Thames. The men of a now
vanished village of Seckworth broke the banks of the "lake" when Odo,
Bishop of Bayeux, was being besieged in Rochester Castle. The lord of the
manor was subsequently sued for this by the abbot of Abingdon, and had to
pay ten shillings damages. Doubtless the men of Seckworth had to
contribute to pay for their indulgence in this mischief, but it looks as
if the abbot's miller had been cheating them.
THE BIRDS THAT STAY
In the Vision of the Lots and Lives, when the souls chose their careers on
a fresh register before taking another chance in the world above, Ulysses
chose that of a stay-at-home proprietor, with a resolve, born of
experience, never again to roam. If Plato had made a Myth of the Birds, he
might have alleged some such reason to explain how it is that while most
of them are incessant wanderers, ever flitting uncertain between momentary
points of rest, so few remain fixed and constant, as if they had sworn at
some distant date never more to make trial of the wine-dark sea. In the
still, November woods, when the vapours curl like smoke among the dripping
boughs, leaving a diamond on each sprouting bud where next year's leaf is
hid; by the moorland river, on bright December mornings, when the grayling
are lying on the shallows below the ripple where the rock breaks the
surface; by the frozen shore where the land-springs lie fast, drawn into
icicles or smeared in slippery slabs on the cliff faces, and hoar frost
powders the black sea-wrack; on the lawns of gardens, where the winter
roses linger and open dew-drenched and rain-washed in the watery
sunbeams--there we see, hear, and welcome the birds that stay.
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