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Albinism is not uncommon in the blackbird; I have seen two partial instances lately; one was constantly visible in my garden and meadows, with head nearly all white, and the other I saw in the public garden at Bournemouth, with the peculiarity still more developed. A white martin, or swallow, came into the house of a friend near Aldington, and was regarded as an unfavourable omen.
October 14, 1877, was memorable for the most terrific south-west gale that happened in all the years I passed at Aldington; thirteen trees, mostly old apple trees and elms, were blown down, including the splendid veteran "Chate boy" pear tree at Blackminster, an exceedingly sad and irreparable loss.
If I had only filled my barns with Jacobean and Stuart oak and walnut, William and Mary, and Queen Ann marquetry, and Chippendale, Sheraton and Hepplewhite mahogany, instead of wheat for an unsympathetic British public, and at the end of my time at Aldington offered a few of the least interesting specimens for sale by auction, I might still have carried away a houseful of treasures which would have cost me less than nothing.
There was an instance of this on the farm I owned and occupied adjoining the Aldington Manor property, and the owner and the tenant of the piece transferred to my side could not reach it without walking through the brook. In this case, however, the tenant had wisely planted the ground with withies, which he managed to get at for lopping when its turn came round every seven years.
It is an excellent example of "mimicry," whereby a harmless insect acquires the distinctive appearance of a harmful one, and so secures immunity from the attacks of its natural enemies. The larva of the Death's Head was not uncommon at Aldington and Badsey on potatoes; I had a standing offer of threepence each for any that the village children could bring me.
So this miracle was finished and solemnly sung; and a book was written of all the whole story thereof, and put into print; which ever since that time was commonly sold, and went abroad among the people." The miracle successfully accomplished, the residence at Aldington was no longer adapted for an acknowledged and favoured saint.
Zoe and I lived happily together until the rage of the influenza in 1889; then she died. Mr. Williams, Abigail, Aldington passed away and were buried in a cemetery about a mile north of the river. Then their bodies were removed somewhere, for the cemetery was turned into a park. Lincoln Park it is now. Reverdy, Sarah, gave up the battle years ago.
"If Fairyland's inside Aldington Knoll," I said, "why don't you dig it out?" "That's what I says," said the young ploughboy. "There's a-many have tried to dig on Aldington Knoll," said the respectable elder, solemnly, "one time and another. But there's none as goes about to-day to tell what they got by digging."
Many specialists, in distinct professions, visited the farm in the course of every twelve months, and each appeared at the season when his particular services were likely to be required. Among these an ancient grafter was one of the most important, and April was the month which brought him to Aldington.
In severe winters wood-pigeons did much damage at Aldington to young clover a few inches high; they roosted in "the island" adjoining my garden.
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