THE HERON AS A TABLE-BIRD

In reading the Hampshire children’s Bird and Tree Essays for 1916 I came upon one by a little boy which ends as follows: “One of our schoolboys had a heron given him, so his mother cooked it and when it was done it was tough and had a NASTY TASTE.”

Mine are the capitals, but the concluding words seemed crying for them; they also served to remind me of a story about eating heron told me by the only person I had ever met who had some first-hand knowledge about the heron as a table-bird. It is a rather long story; perhaps a painful one to persons of a squeamish stomach, but as it is pure natural history I must be allowed to tell it.

I was staying at Bath, and wishing to get some work copied I set out with the name and address of a lady typist, furnished by a bookseller of the town, to look for her in the Camden Road. A long road it proved. Like Pope’s wounded serpent it dragged its slow length along to the distant horizon and beyond it. It also reminded me of Upper Wigmore Street, as it seemed to poor dying Sydney Smith, except that Camden Road was about a thousand times longer. At length, a mile or so short of the far end, I came to the number I was looking for on the door of a small, pretty, old-looking vine-clad cottage set well back from the road with trees and flowers about it, and there I found my typist and her sister--two little unmarried ladies, no longer young, who in their gentle subdued manner, low soft speech, and quiet movements appeared to harmonise very well with the old-world little house they lived in. They were, I fancy, somewhat startled at the apparition of so big a man in their small interior--one whose head came within an inch or two of the low ceiling: they seemed timid and troubled and anxious in their minds when I gave them my scrawl to decipher and copy.

One day, wanting a good long walk, I paid them a second visit, to find them less shy and reticent than at first; and afterwards I went again on several occasions, until we became quite friendly, and they gratified my De Quincey-like craving to know everything about the life of every person I meet from its birth onwards, by telling me all about themselves.

They had been left with very little to live on, and one was an invalid; yet they had to do something, and typewriting at home was the only thing, as this enabled them to keep together, so that the invalid would always have her sister with her. The work they had done hitherto, they said, was copying tradesmen’s circulars, also some copying for two of the local clergy and for an attorney of the town. My work had come as a relief to them. The very first thing I had given them was a paper about the sheldrake. What a strange subject--they could hardly believe their eyes when they saw it. The sheldrake!--that bird about which they had so many memories, pleasant, and some not quite pleasant. It was all very wonderful. Before they came to Bath they lived with a bachelor brother who had come into a small farm, left him by a distant relation, on the Welsh coast. As he had nothing else in the world he went to live on it and work it himself, and kindly took them to keep house and do the indoor work. The farm was on a very wild, lonely spot, close to the sea, and abounded in birds of many kinds--sea and shore and land--they had never seen before. And though it was a rough place they loved it because of the sea and woods and hills and the birds, and they wished they had never had anything to do with the birds except just to see and admire them. But there was their brother, who was a great sportsman and who had some very strange ideas. One was that most birds were good to eat, and he was always shooting some queer-looking bird and bringing it in to them to dress and cook it for dinner. And the sheldrake was one he often shot. He said it was a sort of duck, and therefore just as good to eat as a mallard, or widgeon, or teal, and that it was nothing but a silly prejudice which prevented people from eating them. And though they never had one on the table that wasn’t tough and dry and fishy-tasted he would still bring them in and argue that they were very good. “We loved,” they said, “to see the sheldrakes flying about on the coast, but how we hated to see them brought in to be cooked for dinner! But he was always very masterful with us and we never dared to go against his wishes.”

One day he brought in a heron, and they were quite startled at the sight of such a huge, lank, grey, loose-feathered creature with such immense legs and such a dreadful beak. But when he said it would be a grand experience for them to eat heron they thought he must be joking, although it was not a common thing for him to say anything in fun. He was a very serious sort of man. Finally they ventured to ask him if he really meant that this upsetting bird was to be eaten? He was quite indignant: of course it was to be eaten, he said; did they imagine that he killed birds just for the pleasure of killing them! He said it would be a grand day for them when they sat down to a heron on the table. Didn’t they know that it was one of the most famous birds of the old time--that the heron was regarded as a noble, a royal bird, that it was a great dish at the feast in baronial halls; and that’s how he went on until they were quite ashamed of their ignorance of the old days and humbly promised to cook the bird. Very well, he said, he was going to hang it in the big empty room next the dairy and let it remain until fit to cook. The longer it hung the more tender it would be.

There was an iron hook in the central beam of the big vacant room he had spoken of, and on this hook he suspended the heron by its legs, its long pointed beak nearly touching the tiled floor, and hanging there with nothing else in the room it looked bigger than ever. It troubled them greatly to have to go through this room many times a day, but it was far worse at night. They were accustomed, especially on moonlight nights, to go that way to the dairy without a candle; and they sometimes forgot about the bird, and then the sight of it in its pale grey plumage would startle them as if they had seen a ghost. How awful it looked, with its wings like great arms half-open as if to scare them!

Days and weeks went by, and still the heron was suspended in the big vacant room to make their life on the farm a burden to them, then one morning after finishing his breakfast their brother said that he had been looking at the heron and found it was just about in perfect condition to be cooked, and that they would have it for dinner that day. Then he added: “I don’t mean at our twelve o’clock dinner. There would be no time to prepare it and it would not be proper to eat it at such an hour. To-day we must have a real eight o’clock dinner so as to do honour to the heron.”

Then he went out and left them staring into each other’s pale face. However, the painful task had to be performed, and they loyally went to work and plucked it, but in cleaning it received a shock at finding a trout about a foot in length in a semi-decomposed condition in its gullet. After refreshing themselves with sal-volatile and half an hour in the garden, they finished the hateful business by singeing it and pumping many gallons of water over its carcase, and then towards evening put it in the oven to roast or bake. The smell of it was very trying and not only made the kitchen atmosphere almost not to be borne but pervaded the whole house, causing them to look forward more and more apprehensively to the evening dinner. Still, they were determined to do everything to please their brother, and got out their best table-cloth and silver, flowers for decoration, and wine and coloured glasses; and the brother when he sat down smiled on them approvingly. Then the heron on a big dish was brought in, and the brother rose to carve it, and heaped their plates with generous slices of the lean black flesh, and helped himself even more generously. They having been helped first had to begin, but to put even the smallest morsel into their mouths was more than they could do. They pretended to cut and eat it while confining themselves to the vegetables on their plates. Their brother was not affected with such squeamishness and straightway started operations, and did honour to the heron by taking a tremendous mouthful. The sisters exchanged frightened glances and watched him furtively, wondering at his courage--wondering, too, if he would be able to keep it up and consume the whole monstrous plateful. Then something happened: a change came over his face, he turned pale, and stopped chewing; then, with mouth still full, he suddenly rose and fled from the room.

That was the end of their gorgeous dinner! Feeling pretty sure that he would not call for the cold remains of the bird next morning for breakfast they took it out and buried it in the garden, then threw all the doors and windows in the house open to get rid of the savour. It was late that evening when they next saw their brother; he was looking pale as if but lately recovering from a serious illness; but he sauntered in with an air of not knowing anything about it, and remarked casually that he had been for a stroll and didn’t know it was so late. But never a word about the heron he had dined on, nor did he ever after allude to the subject.