Spring in a Shropshire Abbey
by Lady Catherine Henrietta Milnes Gaskell · English · Gutenberg #46676 · 625,295 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Spring in a Shropshire Abbey
Author: Lady Catherine Henrietta Milnes Gaskell
Release date: August 25, 2014 [eBook #46676]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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SPRING IN A SHROPSHIRE ABBEY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: WENLOCK ABBEY IN 1778.
_From an Engraving after a Drawing by Paul Sandby, R.A._
_Frontispiece._]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPRING IN A SHROPSHIRE ABBEY
by
LADY C. MILNES GASKELL
Author of
"The New Cinderella," and "Old Shropshire Life."
With Eighteen Illustrations
London
Smith, Elder & Co., 15, Waterloo Place
1905
(All rights reserved)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Printed by
William Clowes and Sons, Limited,
London and Beccles.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_I dedicate this book to dear
Mrs. Boyle (E. V. B.), in affectionate
and grateful memory of
many charming talks that we
had together one sunny winter
in the far South._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
_JANUARY_
PAGE
A day in the heart of winter--I lie in bed--My books, my dogs--My
daughter Bess--Flowers from Mentone--Cromwell's cabinet--My dog
Mouse--The feeding of the birds--The recollection of the beautiful
garden at La Mortola--The violets there--The Wenlock chimes--My
curtain, its strange devices--Colouring borrowed from the macaws--All
flowers not only have different shades but many colours--Mouse
runs downstairs--Visitors call--The children get wet--The German
governess's indignation--Bess offers to pay--Hals is carried off in
Henry's dressing-gown--The next day--My friend Constance comes down
and embroiders with me--Billy Buttons the robin--Bess and I visit the
gardens--A word about canaries in an aviary--Discussion with Bess on
saints--Auguste has cleaned Hals' suit--Burbidge walks with us--A talk
about gardening--An old gardener's view of dogs--Constance has a chat
with me--We talk on matters relating to the kitchen garden--Vegetables,
and how to cook them--Constance's future quilt, designs from Gerard's
flowers to be worked on old Shropshire hand-made linen--The servant
problem--Bess's request--Nana on dogs--Alone in the chapel hall--Thomas
à Kempis's book--The stone altar--The next day--The seed list--My
future borders--Bess and I go sledging--Bess tries to understand what
real poverty is--How to be happy a hard matter--Bess's offer of toys
1
CHAPTER II
_FEBRUARY_
The beginning of spring--The spring of the North--The story of
St. Milburgha--Legends of her sanctity--Belief in the efficacy
of the saint's water--Wishing Well at Wenlock--First spring
flowers in the red-walled garden--I see starlings--The cock
chaffinch--Hals' visit--"Sister Helen" in the mouth of babes--Bess's
remorse--Constance's quilt from "Gerard's Herbal"--The peace of
Wenlock--Bess and her future--The difficulties of education--An
interview with Burbidge--How his brother was "overlooked"--I go to
Homer--Beautiful view--The story of Banister's Coppice--The arrest of
the Duke of Buckingham--The Duke's curse--Its effect upon the Banister
family--A visit to an old cottager--A noble life, and unclouded
faith--Nanny Morgan the witch--Her life and death--Bess returns--The
first snowdrops of the year--A walk home in the gloaming
58
CHAPTER III
_MARCH_
The first signs of spring--Birds sing and call--Life
everywhere--Throstle and blackbird--Nature everywhere hard at
work--The monastic snails--Their use now--Only used for thrushes'
breakfasts--Terror of village folks at the thought that they might
be put in "ragouts"--Crocuses--Cloth of Gold--Rizzio--Sir W.
Scott--White Daphne--Hellebores--Arabis--Jenny Wren--Legends about
the bird--The pet robin's nest in the kettle--Stories and folklore
about the robin--Lambs at play--The gentle science of angling--Dame
Berners' book--The Abbot's walk--Peter "on ounts"--A talk about
rooks and their ways--The carrion crow and his eërie cry--I return
late for breakfast--Prince Charming--Talk about the pug-pup--Nana
hostile--Bess's suggestions of how and where to keep the pup--A talk
with a child about letters--Hours in the garden--Pear tree in sheets
of snow--Two hedges of roses--A bed of ranunculi--Burbidge takes me
aside--"The boys" are sent to garden in the distance, and I hear about
his brother and Sal--How the cure was effected--We go to Wenlock
station--Arrival of the pug--Mouse jealous--Mouse appeased--Even Nana
is kind to Prince Charming--An hour with Montaigne--A word about the
sword flower or Gladiolus--The arrival of the swans--Bess believes
them to be fairy princes--We feed them--Bess carried off by Nana--Bess
will not walk with me--Bess tells me that Fräulein has met with an
accident--A long walk alone over the fields with Mouse, after a
bunch of white violets--Favourite flowers--Rapture of the birds--The
lark a speck in the sky--Wood-sorrel--St. Patrick's plant--How Bess
spent the afternoon--Bess's purchase--The next morning--Nana's
indignation--Bess's full confession, and how she paid her debt
93
CHAPTER IV
_APRIL_
A spring day--The Abbey fool--An old country rhyme--The old custom
of All Fools' Day revived--Old Adam full of splendour--A visit to
the Abbey pool--Clematises "opened out" to the light--The borders
full of spring flowers--Rose pruning--How roses should be pruned
differently--Something about bees--The tool-house--Bright colours
for the beehives--Scotch bees and their favourite colour--The old
Shropshire bee--Bess and I attend the removal of the bees--Masks
and bee-veils worn by gardeners--Burbidge whispers the charm--Bee
folklore--Bess and I help to paint the bee-houses--The bees are
freed--Thady Malone--His message--Mrs. Harley has sent for me--I
go off to Homer--The last scene--A death of brilliant hope and
happiness--Mouse and I return--The cuckoo--The joy of life, and the
beauty of spring--The Sunday before Easter, or Palm Sunday--The old
rite of the blessing of the boughs--All the young people in church wear
the golden willow--The walk in the churchyard--After luncheon I read
extracts from Sir Thomas Botelar's "Church Registers"--Wenlock history
in Tudor times--A word about Constance's quilt--The revival of the
May dance at Wenlock--A village _fête_--Bess to be May Queen--Marsh
marigold the special flower--Bess's delight at the thought of the
_fête_--Burbidge gives his consent--Virtuous indignation of old
Hester his wife--Easter Sunday--The Sacrament in the old church--In
the afternoon we visit Thady, who is down with a bad leg--Bess
takes him an Easter Egg--The mead of daffodils--"A bunch of daffs"
for luck--How Burbidge had planted them--Our visit to old Timothy
Theobalds--His tales of the old ways--Bull-baiting--Rejoicings at
Loppington--The Madeley bull-baitings--Courage of the Vicar of
Madeley and his eloquence--Stories of old May Day--Stories and old
accounts locally--Puritan dislike of the festival--A beautiful spring
morning--The summer flowers growing in strength--Beauty of the
cloister-garth--Division of the violet roots--The great daffodils
and their splendour--The gooseberry and currant cages--Burbidge's
dislike to bullfinches--The double primroses, their beauty and
charm--Preparations for the May dance--All the old servants are
occupied in making the May dance a success--A talk with Thady through
the window--A day in the woods--Birds' nests--Luncheon under the
greenwood tree--Fairy-stories--We wander home--Quotations about
sleep--The delights of a long day in the woods
131
CHAPTER V
_MAY_
The May-pole--The dances--Bess's dress--Burbidge's fears for
his garden--Old Master Theobalds is taken ill--He revives,
thanks to Auguste's broth--A talk of old days--Wakes and Wishing
Wells--Grinning through a horse-collar, a rustic accomplishment in
the past--A walk to the Wrekin to drink out of the bird-bowls--Susie
Langford--Cock-fighting at Wenlock and elsewhere--Old customs and
sinful practices--Traditions about winners of the ring--Tom Moody--His
pet horse "Old Soul"--Tom's wild drives and leaps--How Tom was once
found in a bog--Tom and the Squire--Tom's funeral--View-holloa over the
grave--An afternoon in the ruined church--The story of St. Milburgha
as told by William of Malmesbury--Words about the monasteries from
many sources--The pity of the wreckage and destruction of so much that
was beautiful in the Reformation--Thady brings me a "Jack Squealer"--I
am taken off bird-nesting--I am shown the nest of a redstart, that
of a black ouzel, and one of a Jack Smut (black cap) on a bramble--A
beautiful night in the ruins--Narcissi in blossom like a mist of stars
at my feet--I think of all who have passed through the cloisters--The
end of the Abbey Church, a quarry for road-mending and for the
building of pigsties and cottages--My late tulips--A long walk in the
early morning--Beauty of the early hours of the day--The country in
full splendour--Oak Apple Day--Little boys going to school with the
badge of Stuart loyalty in their caps--The chevy--I pluck a bunch of
anemones--Poor Bess in disgrace--High words between Célestine and Mrs.
Langdale--How pleasant life would be without its worries--Silence in
dogs one of their chief charms and merits
189
CHAPTER VI
_JUNE_
Peace again in the household--Bedding-out the east garden--"Cherry-pie"
geraniums--Scarlet verbenas--Clematis up the pillars, a future
glory--Planting the tubs--Sweet-smelling plants for the evening--The
hedgehog--Mouse and it are reconciled--A talk about hedgehogs--Auguste
and "les escargots"--What Auguste will do with them--The growing
demand in London--Bess and I enjoy the summer--The forsaken thrush's
nest--Old Timothy and the yellow water wagtail's nest--A youthful
memory--Old customs in Shropshire--Apple howlers--The old belief in
the devil--Modern thought has blotted him out--The old Pagan Belief
and how apple howling was but the last act of a Pagan rite--Domestic
service and old Timothy's views--Servants old and new--How man and maid
were engaged in the old days--A talk about stocks, and pillory--The
old punishments at Wenlock--Judy Cookson in the scold's bridle--The
sale of a wife--With a happy ending--A turn in the bee garden--White
Martagon lilies, English peonies, briars, columbines, lupins, Oriental
poppies, all about to open--A letter from Mrs. Stanley--Bess's views
on London--A walk in the garden after a night's rain--The beauty of
the rose--Old and new all are always welcome--A bush of rosemary--Old
saws and customs--Evelyn's enjoyment of sweet plants--The old Hampshire
garden--The burning bush--Laon Cathedral--Pinks, their delicious
scent--Many sorts, but all delightful--The herb garden--A word about
herbs--The single peony--Old beliefs about it--A drink of "peonina
tea" from the Witch--Mustard as a manure for tulips--Woodruff, its
sweet scent--Wormwood--Hester Burbidge a culler of herbs--Burbidge's
despotic rule--Camomile, clove-basil, and mallow, all grown for
medicinal purposes--Bess's views "on cherubims"--Bess's dream--A talk
about a butterfly collection--Mrs. Eccles and her request--The sprig of
bay--The old Roman belief--We meet Hals--Delight of the children--Bess
wishes to buy a brother--A week of holidays--Charles Kingsley's
Water-Babies--Long summer days--Walks and rides in the twilight--The
wonderful glory of June--Thady Malone--The field on the Edge--The
leveret--Mouse retrieves it, but does it no harm--Heaven--Bess declares
there must be dogs there--Thady's tale
232
CHAPTER VII
_JULY_
A perfect summer's day--Wild birds strong on the wing--They can
mock at the terriers--My roses in full glory--My collection of Moss
roses--Chinese larkspurs or delphiniums--Larkspurs of many strange
colours--Chinese peonies--The glory of the tree peony--A hedge of
Austrian briar--The hybrid teas--The charm and excellence--The gorgeous
hybrid perpetuals--Irises and their beauty--Crimson ramblers and
Penzance briars--The bower garden--The charm of annuals--The border
beneath the old greengages--Marigolds--Stocks--Love-in-the-Mist--Sweet
sultan and cockscomb--Sweet peas in lines for picking--Bess's
treasure--Great excitement--A great twittering in the great yew
hedge--A cat the suspected cause--Greenfinches hover round us--I see
a nest--We fetch the garden steps--A moment of glory--Alas! I fall,
and heavily, in securing the prize--The treasure proves to be a
young cuckoo--Terror of the children--Help at last arrives--I cannot
spend the week, as I had intended, seeing friends framed in their
gardens--The children flit off to Constance, and I am left alone--An
afternoon of happy daydreams, past and present--The old Hampshire
garden--The great gardens of England--Shipton and its charms--James I.
of Scotland and his Quhair--The garden at Westminster where Chaucer
wrote--Lord Bacon's stately conception of what a garden should
be--The charms of wild gardening--A talk about Bacon--His greatness
and his baseness--Nonsuch--John Evelyn and his love of a garden--His
ride along the Mediterranean coast--Elizabeth of York's bower--Sir
Thomas More's garden--The gardens at Hampton Court--Moor Park and
its beauties in Hereford--Sheen--Sir William Temple's Moor Park in
Surrey--His sundial--The gardens of the ancients--The garden where
Epicurus walked--Where Solomon wrote--The Hesperides--The garden of
Alcinous--Chaucer's earthly paradise--Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia--The
wreaths of other centuries--The extent of Theobalds--Kenilworth and
its garden--The old delight of sweet scents--Bacon's suggestion
to surround the house with pleasant perfumes--Markham's nosegay
garden--Lawson's delight in a garden--A word about the gardeners of
the Middle Ages--Many of the gardens of the past are gone--The old
home of the Newports--The old gazebo at Eyton--The garden in which the
Masque of Flowers was given in 1613--The children return to me--How
they spent the afternoon--Shropshire games--Kiss-in-the-ring--Dog
Bingo--Bell-horses--Green Gravel--Wallflowers--Nuts in May--Three
Dukes a-riding--Ring of roses--A-walking up the green grass--I lie
awake--A volume of Milton--The charm of "Comus"--The beauty of the
masque--The stately ruins of Ludlow Castle--Princes who have visited
it in its days of splendour--The little murdered Princes--Prince
Arthur--The Lady Alice--John Milton--His learning--Musician and poet,
and a fine swordsman--Auguste's gift--Burbidge's roses--A word about
roses--Stories about ladies who have disliked them in the past--Hals'
visit draws to a close--Bess broken-hearted--We leave for the seaside
280
INDEX
323
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE PAGE
WENLOCK ABBEY IN 1778 _Frontispiece_
_From an engraving after a drawing by Paul Sandby, R.A._
THE ABBEY FARMERY } 18
}
THE CLOISTER GARDEN } _From photographs by kind permission 32
} of Messrs. F. Frith & Co., Ltd._
THE RED WALLED GARDEN } 62
WENLOCK ABBEY IN 1731 94
_From Buck's view._
"MOUSE" AT HOME }
} _From photographs by Miss Gaskell_ 114
"MOUSE" ON A VISIT }
THE CHAPEL HALL 132
_From a photograph by Miss K. Wintour._
SIR THOMAS BOTELAR'S HOUSE 152
_From a photograph by Mr. W. Golling._
THE ABBEY RUINS 174
_From a photograph by kind permission of Messrs. F. Frith & Co.,
Ltd._
NEST OF GREENFINCH { }
{ _From photographs by kind permission of_ } 186
NEST OF RING-OUZEL { _Mrs. New._ }
RUINS OF WENLOCK ABBEY IN 1778 202
_From an engraving after a drawing by Paul Sandby, R.A._
THE LAVABo 224
_From a photograph by Mr. W. Golling._
THE OLD GUILDHALL 246
_From a photograph by kind permission of Messrs. F. Frith & Co.,
Ltd._
THE ORATORY 264
_From a photograph by Mr. W. Golling._
CHAPTER HOUSE AT WENLOCK { _From photographs by kind permission } 292
{ of Messrs. F. Frith & Co., }
OLD WENLOCK TOWN { Ltd._ } 304
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPRING IN A SHROPSHIRE ABBEY
CHAPTER I
_JANUARY_
Here, winter holds his unrejoicing court,
And through his airy hall the loud misrule
Of driving tempest is for ever heard.
THOMSON'S _Seasons_.
It was a dark, dismal day. Thick black clouds hung across the sky.
There was a faint chirping of sparrows amongst the lifeless creepers,
and that was all. A roaring fire burnt in my grate; before which my
dog, a great tawny creature of the boarhound breed, lay sleeping at
her ease. It was cold, very cold; in all nature there seemed no life.
A white, thick covering rested upon the ground. Snow had fallen
heavily the last week of the old year, and much, I feared, must fall
again, judging by the yellowish grey, leaden pall I saw overhead.
I lay in bed; the doctor had just been, and had prescribed for me a
day of rest, and a day in the house, on account of a chill caught the
week before.
How immortal we should feel, I reflected, if it were not for
influenza, colds, and rheumatism, and such like small deer amongst
diseases. What a glory life would be in their absence! Alas! we poor
mortals, we spend much time in trivial illness; not maladies of the
heroic and grand mediæval school, such as the Black Death or the
sweating sickness, but in weary, long episodes of chills, and colds,
which make us feel ill, and low, and produce irritability and
heart-searchings. It is sad also to think how many days slip by for
all of us in the English winter--unloved and dreary days of twilight,
and of little pleasure unless taken rightly and softened by letters
to, and from old friends, and by hours spent with favourite books.
Yet each cloud has its silver lining, if we have but eyes to see; and
as an old cottager once said to me, "Yer might do worse than be in
bed when Mother Shipton plucks her geese." Yes, I reflected, I might
be worse, and I looked round my Norman-windowed chamber--for to-day
should be spent with my books.
Life to a woman, as has been justly said, is a series of interrupted
sentences; and in these days of hurry and scurry, life seems almost
more interrupted than it did to our mothers twenty years ago, and
leisure, of all delightful things, is the most delightful, the rarest
and the most difficult to obtain. Leisure with thought is a necessity
for mental development, and yet in these days of motor-driving,
flying-machines, and radium we only think of getting on--getting
on--but where?
I lay back comfortably and looked with pleasure at the pile of books
by my bedside. They were all dear, tried, and trusted friends. There
was Malory. How I love his pictures of forest and castle, and his
battles, while his last scenes of Launcelot and Arthur, are almost
the greatest, and grandest that I know.
[Sidenote: FLOWERS FROM THE SOUTH]
How pathetic they are! and yet how simple, instinct with living
poetry, and noble passion! Then I saw my much-worn Shakespeare, and I
looked forward to a dip in _The Tempest_, and later on meant to
refresh my mind with the story of the ill-fated Duke of Buckingham,
who was betrayed near here by his treacherous steward, Banister. I
looked round and saw other friends close to hand. Amiel's beautiful
story of a noble life, teeming with highest thought; "Gerontius'
Dream," by England's great poet and ecclesiastic; Tennyson's "Idylls
of the King;" and a few of Montaigne's admirable essays, "that
charming old man" of whom, Madame de Sévigné wrote, "it was
impossible to weary, for, old friend as he was, he seemed always so
fresh and new." I shall never be dull, I said with a laugh, and I
shall live in fairy-land with my dogs and my poets. "You might do
worse than lie in bed, as my old friend said," I repeated to myself;
and I realized that even for days spent in bed there were
compensations. Just as I was preparing to stretch out my arm and take
a volume of Amiel, there came a loud knock at the door, and my
daughter, a child of seven, ran in with the news--
"Oh, mama, here is a box of flowers for you, and they have come all
the way from France; I know it, for Célestine said so."
"Flowers," I cried; "how delightful!" On hearing me speak, the big
dog jumped up with a friendly growl, and insisted upon standing up
with her forepaws on the bed and inspecting the flowers.
"See!" cried Bess, "carnations and roses. Now, why can't we always
have carnations and roses? Miss Weldon says there is a time for
everything; but I'm sure there's never half time enough for flowers
and play."
"Perhaps not, Bess," I said. "But the snow and the frost make us long
for and love the flowers all the more, and if you did no lessons you
wouldn't enjoy your playtime half as much as you do now."
Bess laughed contemptuously; she is a somewhat modern child, and has
no time to look "ahead," as she calls it, nor any belief in the
glories of adversity. Gravely she seated herself on my bed and
enunciated the following sentences--
"Mama," she said in her clear bird-like voice, "I worry a little
about something every day."
"No, not really, dear," I answered, rather horrified at this unusual
display of gravity on her part. And I began to fear that there had
been too many lessons of late, and had a terrible vision of
over-pressure and undue precocity, as I took the little thing's hand
and said, "Tell me, what is it?" Whereupon Bess replied solemnly, her
eyes looking into space--
"I worry about something every day, and that is, wasting so much good
time on lessons, when I might be quite happy, and do nothing but
play."
"But, my dear," I began, "if it was all play, how would you ever
learn to read or to write? And when you grew up and got quite big,
you wouldn't like to be quite ignorant and to know nothing, would
you?"
"I should know as much as I ought," replied Bess, sturdily.
"No, dear, you wouldn't," I said. "You couldn't talk as a lady, you
wouldn't know any history or geography, or know how to speak French
or German, or be able to read nice books, or do any of the things
which are going to be very nice, but which perhaps are not very nice
just at the beginning."
"I should know what Burbidge knows," replied Bess, stoutly; "besides
which," she added, "dogs don't know French, and no dates, and yet
papa doesn't call them ignorant." And then my little maid turned with
a scarlet face, and feeling perhaps a little worsted in the argument
said, "Mama, let me scurry off for your maid."
[Sidenote: BESS ON EDUCATION]
A moment later Bess returned in company with Célestine, my French
maid. Célestine entered like a whirlwind; she was sure that "Madame
se fatigue." "With one cold in de head un repos absolu is necessary,"
she declared. However, when she saw the flowers, and I explained that
they came from "la belle France," she affirmed "que tout allait
bien," and was mollified. She brought me water and some vases, and
Bess and I proceeded to sort out the beautiful Neapolitan violets and
snip the ends of the rose and carnation stalks. "I like cutting,"
cried Bess, eagerly. "It's doing something, Burbidge says," and just
now the gardener is my little daughter's hero, and Burbidge's reasons
for everything in her eyes rule the universe. I like to think of the
poor stalks in water, I said; they are so thirsty, like poor tired
men who have travelled over sandy deserts. Then I asked Célestine to
hand me some water, and begged her to let it be tepid and to add a
few drops of eau-de-Cologne in each glass.
"Madame will spoil the rose and the carnation, his own smell is all
that is needed," answered my waiting-woman severely. But I begged her
to comply with my request, for I wanted my dear friend's gifts to
live in water as long as possible, and to revive quickly.
"Ah, they are charming," I said, as Célestine and Bess triumphantly
arranged the vases around my bed. They placed a bowl of roses on
Oliver Cromwell's cabinet, at least it was said to be his, a cabinet
of rose and walnut wood which has innumerable secret drawers. What
papers, I wondered, have lain there? Perhaps State papers from Master
Secretary Milton, poet and minister; ambitious, aspiring letters from
his wife; tear-stained appeals from Royalists; pretty notes from his
best beloved daughter, gentle Mistress Claypole. Who knows? And that
day it held my little pieces of jewelry, my fans, odds and ends of
ribbon, shoes, bows, and collars, and on it, filling the air with
sweet perfume, rested a bowl of January roses. How fragrant they
were, carrying with them all the breath of summer. Roses are the
sweetest of all flowers--the triumph of summer suns, and summer
rains, at least so they seemed to me. Those that I gazed on were a
selection of exquisite teas: pink, fawn, copper, and creamy white,
all the various tints of dying suns were represented, as they stood
in an old Caughley bowl; and then I looked at the carnations and
buried my nose in their sweet aromatic scent--some of these were of
absolute pearl grey, and make me think of the doves of St. Mark when
they circle or alight in the Piazza of the City of Lagoons.
"That's a beauty," said Bess, authoritatively. "Why it's the colour
of Smokey." Smokey is the nursery Persian cat. "I did not know,
mama," continued Bess, "that flowers was grey--I thought they was
always red, white, or blue. Burbidge would call that a dust-bin blow."
"Flowers are all colours--at least gardeners make them so," I
answered.
"Ah, madame forgets," interrupted Célestine, who with Gallic vivacity
always likes her share of the conversation, "there are no blue roses."
"You are right," I answered, "there are no blue roses; they are only
the flowers of our imaginations, but they never fade," and I laughed.
I spoke in French, and this irritated Bess. Bess has a Shropshire
nurse, Winifrede Milner, who has unfortunately an invincible
objection to Célestine, in fact to foreigners of all kinds. It is a
religion of hatred and objections, and creates continual
disagreements in the household. Bess, owing to the nursery feud,
sternly sets her face against everything foreign, and, above all,
against speaking another tongue.
[Sidenote: BESS DISLIKES FOREIGNERS]
"I won't jabber like Célestine when she talks," she cried, "it sounds
like shaking up a money-box, only no money comes out. Burbidge says
'foreigners are like sparrows when a cat's about. They talk when
they've nothing to say, and go on when they've done.'"
"Oh, Bess, you must not be rude. If you were in France, you wouldn't
like to hear rude things said about England, or English people."
"I shouldn't mind," replied Bess, sturdily, "because they wouldn't be
true. When things aren't true, Miss Weldon says, you should rise
above such considerations, and take no notice."
To divert the child I asked her abruptly what she was going to do.
"You must go out, Bess," I said, "if the sun shines, and take poor
Mouse." Mouse looked at me reproachfully as I spoke--she understood
my reference to outdoor exercise, but hated the idea of wetting her
feet, besides which she considered going out with any one except me
beneath her dignity. Of all boarhounds that I have ever known, mine
is the most self-indulgent and the most self-satisfied of my
acquaintance. Besides which, secretly I felt convinced she was
hopeful of sharing my meals, and lying later on the bed when no one
was looking.
"Old Mouse is no good," retorted Bess, disdainfully. "She only
follows grown-up people. If I lived in heaven," she added dreamily,
"I should have a real, live dog, that would walk with me, although I
was only a child cherubim."
"Well," I pursued, "but what are you going to do?"
"Me?" inquired Bess, with small attention to grammatical niceties.
"When I've done my lessons I shall go out with Burbidge. We are going
to put up cocoa-nuts for tom-tits, and hang up some pieces of fat
bacon for the starlings, besides which we are going to sweep round
the sundial for the rooks. Papa said they were to be fed, and we are
going to do it--Burbidge and me."
"What will Miss Weldon do?" I asked.
"Oh, she will read," with great contempt said Bess; "she reads, and
never sees anything. Burbidge says that there are many who would know
more if they read less."
"See after my canaries," I cried, as Bess flew off to finish her
lessons, buoyed up with the hope later of going out with our old
gardener. Outside I heard him, our faithful old retainer of some
seventy years, tramping heavily on the red Ercal gravel. He was about
to sweep a place by the sundial on which to feed my birds.
[Sidenote: FEEDING THE BIRDS]
Birds of all kinds come to this outside dining-hall--tom-tits, the
beautiful little blue and green variety, perky and no larger than a
wren; wrens with deep guttural bell-like notes and brown tails
up-tilted; robins with flaming breasts; ill-bred, iridescent,
chattering starlings; a few salmon-breasted chaffinches, the tamest
of all wild birds; spotted thrushes, and raven-hued blackbirds;
besides an army of grey sparrows, very tame, very cheeky, and very
quarrelsome. Added to all these were the rooks, and a flight of
grey-pated hungry jackdaws who uttered short sharp cries when they
saw the corn and scraps of bread, but who dared not approach as near
as the other and smaller birds.
Across my latticed windows dark shadows passed and repassed; they
were caused by the jackdaws and the rooks who swept down at
intervals, and carried off a big piece of bread when nobody was at
hand. The old gardener fed this strange feathered crew, and then
stood aside to see the fun. How the starlings jabbered and screamed,
and what an ill-bred, ill-conditioned lot they were, as they all
talked at once, screamed, scolded--vulgar, loud, noisy, common, and
essentially of low origin.
A few of the Watch Tower pigeons swept down with a flutter of musical
wings, and were about to fall upon the food, when crowds of jackdaws
left the old stone tiled roof and dashed in for their share, uttering
as they went their weird ghostly cry. For a moment the noise was
chaotic--the pigeons cooed and strutted, the starlings screamed, and
the jackdaws pressed greedily forward to seize and carry off all they
could get. Suddenly there was a noise, hungry, passionate, furious,
like an angry motor pressing forward in a race and bent on dealing
death on all sides; and I saw the peacock dash forward, his tail up,
and his neck outstretched. He fell upon the food and would allow none
to partake of any, till he had had his fill. Behind him followed his
three wives, but at a respectful distance; he was not gallant like a
barndoor cock, in fact he was much too fine a fellow to think of any
one but himself. His tail feathers were not yet quite perfect, and
they seemed swathed in places in silver paper, but his neck was
glorious, of a brilliant blue with shimmers of golden reflections,
and of a colour that has no equal. He had a viperish head, and was
gloriously beautiful, and morally, a collection of all the
vices--greedy, spiteful, and furiously ill-tempered. He slew, last
spring, a whole clutch of young "widdies," as the country people call
ducklings, and killed, in a fit of anger, two of his own chicks.
Burbidge dislikes him on account of the damage he does in a garden,
but respects him for his beauty.
"He is like an army of 'blows'" (blossoms), he says, "and creates
more damage than a tempest at harvest time, does old Adam."
Mouse, whilst I was watching the scene outside through the long
lancet window, seized upon her opportunity and leapt up upon the bed.
"I wish you wouldn't," I said feebly. "I am sure the fire was nice
enough, even for a dog." But Mouse thought differently; she turned
round in a distracting, disagreeable way, some three or four times,
as wild dogs are said to do in the prairies, on the bed--my bed, and
then flumped down heavily across my feet. I wriggled uneasily, but
Mouse had gained her point and had no feelings for my discomfort; she
rested upon the bed, which to every well-constituted dog-mind is a
great achievement, almost an acknowledgment of sovereignty. There she
would lie, I knew, until some divertisement could be suggested that
would appeal to her palate, or some suggestion of danger outside. For
Mouse is greedy and lazy, but faithful as most dogs are, and few
human beings. I dared not slap or speak rudely, for great Danes are
gifted with acute sensibilities; and if I were to be so ill-judged as
to express displeasure by an unpleasant gesture, she would remain
broken-hearted and aggrieved for the rest of the day.
Alas! for the liberty of the subject. I groaned for folks who indulge
their dogs in caprice and greed, but I had not the courage to fight
for myself and so had to suffer. There is really much to be urged in
favour of the fortunate people who are dog-less.
[Sidenote: A GARDEN OF EDEN]
I turned my head and looked with delight at my flowers. While I
gazed, my mind flew back, and away to the land of sunshine from
whence they came. I thought of sunny Mentone with its blue sky, and
glittering groves of oranges and lemons that hung in the sunlight
like balls of fire and light; of Cap St. Martin stretching seaward,
and, above all, of the beautiful garden of La Mortola that I visited
several times when I stayed at the Bellevue. How wonderfully
exquisite that garden was, running down to the turquoise sea, a
perfect fairy-land of delight--the old villa, once a mediæval palace,
in the centre, with its well, with its marble floors, its cypress
groves and fir pines, its sheets of brilliant anemones, its agaves
and aloes, and its cacti.
It made me think of the garden of Eden before the Fall, that garden
of La Mortola--it seemed hardly a real place, so beautiful was it;
and its thirty maidens that weeded the paths and watered the
blossoms, seemed scarcely more real.
How well I remembered walking round the garden, with the kind and
courteous owner of this land of enchantment; how he showed us all his
rare and strange plants, plants from all parts of the world, old and
new. There were many varieties of oranges and lemons, and the air, as
we walked in the golden light of a March day, was laden with the
entrancing sweetness of the Pittosporum. But above all, what
interested me most in the Enchanted Land was the old Roman road,
which runs just above the kitchen garden, and below the flower
garden. Here, it is recorded on a tablet let into the wall, is the
place where Napoleon and his victorious army passed into Italy. It is
a narrow little path on which the whole of the French army passed,
with scarcely room for two men to ride abreast. Below lay the sea
like a lake, of that wonderful delicate blue that is only to be seen
in Mediterranean waters, tideless and brilliant, and beyond were the
purple coasts of Corsica.
I remembered at the end of my first visit my kind host asking me
amongst his rare and beautiful flowers, what I had most admired? I
replied, the sheets of violets, but violets as it is impossible to
imagine in chilly England, sheets of purple, unhidden by leaves, and
gorgeous in their amethystine glory--violets growing in great beds
many yards long in the middle of the garden, like mantles of purple.
They were a glorious vision, a sight of beauty that I shall never
forget, a revelation of colour. As I looked at the bunches that my
friend had sent, I thought of those exquisite perfumed _parterres_,
of the song of the blackcaps amongst the olives, of the golden
sunlight, and of the radiant beauty of sea and sky. Yes, the garden
of La Mortola was wonderfully, marvellously beautiful, and it even
then seemed to me doubly beautiful, seeing it as I did in my mental
vision, across sheets of snow and in the grim atmosphere of an
English winter.
What a true joy beautiful memories are! the real jewels of the soul
that no robber can steal, and that no moth or rust can corrupt, the
great education of sense and heart. Then I took my books and enjoyed
a browse. What a good thing leisure is, leisure to read and think.
Nobody interrupted me, only the chimes of the old parish church told
me the hour from time to time.
With measured cadence, drowsily and melodiously they sounded across
the snow-bound earth. "Time to dream, time to dream," they seemed to
say.
Later on came my luncheon, cutlets with onion chips and jelly. Mouse
got the bones. She was polite enough to leap off the bed and to crack
them on the floor--and I was grateful for small mercies. A minute
afterwards, and I rang my hand-bell, and Célestine scurried down.
"Madame a froid, madame est malade," and in her impetuous Gallic way,
waited for no reply. However, when I could make myself heard, I told
her that I meant to get up, as my friend was coming down from the Red
House to embroider with me.
[Sidenote: THE GREAT CURTAINS]
When my toilet was completed, I begged Célestine to bring my big
basket from the chapel hall below, and the curtain that I was engaged
in embroidering for my oratory. The background is of yellow linen and
is thickly covered with fourteenth and fifteenth century birds,
beasts, and flowers, and in the centre of each there is an angel.
Each curtain is three yards four inches, by two yards four inches.
The birds, beasts, and flowers are all finely shaded and are worked
in crewels, tapestry wools divided, in darning and fine Berlin wools,
and all these various sorts seem to harmonize and mingle wonderfully
well together.
The picture, for it really is a picture, was drawn out for me by a
very skilful draughtsman. The birds, beasts, and angels have been
taken from old Italian work, from mediæval stained-glass windows, and
from old missals, and then drawn out to scale. There are Tudor roses,
Italian carnations, sprays of shadowy love-in-the-mist, dusky
wallflowers, and delightful half-heraldic birds and beasts, running
up and hanging down the stems. It is a great work. Constance, who is
good enough to admire it, says that she is sure that the Water-poet
would have said, if he could have seen it--
"Flowers, plants and fishes, beasts, birds, flies and bees,
Hills, dales, plains, pastures, skies, seas, rivers, trees:
There's nothing near at hand or farthest sought
But with the needle may be shaped and wrought.
Moreover, posies rare and anagrams,
Art's life included, within Nature's bounds."
There are four curtains to do, and alas, I have only one pair of
hands!
I keep all carefully covered up with old damask napkins as I go
along, so that neither ground nor work can get rubbed or soiled, and
embroider, myself, in what my old housekeeper calls pie-crust
sleeves, to save the slightest friction from my dress on the yellow
linen.
As to the cherubim's and seraphim's wings, they have been my great
and constant delight. I dreamt of a wild glory of colour which I
hardly dared to realize, but of which I found wonderful examples one
sunny day in the macaw grove at the Zoo. I went up and down and
inspected the marvellous birds for an hour, drinking in with rapture
the extraordinary richness of their plumage. How marvellous they
were! Red, blue, mauve, green, scarlet, rose, and yellow, all pure
unsullied colours, and like flashes of light. They seemed to me like
a triumphant tune set to pealing chords. There seemed in those
glorious creatures to be no drawbacks, no shadows, no trivialities of
daily life. In their resplendent feathers they appeared to gather
light and to reproduce the majesty of the sun itself.
[Sidenote: THE JOY OF COLOUR]
I went home, my eyes almost dazzled with their radiancy, and a week
after attempted to work into my curtain something of what I had
seen--a feeble reflection, I fear, but still a reflection. In my
angels and cherubim I have allowed no greys or browns, no twilight
shades. Everywhere I have introduced a pure warm note of intense
joyous colour, and if I have not always succeeded, at least the wings
of my celestial beings have been a great source of delight to
imagine, and to execute. In my colouring it has been always morning.
Bess was charmed to run and fetch me the different wools
needed--"Summer suns," she called them.
I have often noticed that to a young child, pure brilliant colours
are an intense joy and a source of gaiety. It is only as the shades
of the prison-house draw near, and press upon us, that the lack of
appreciation creeps in for what to children and to primitive man is a
great and constant glory. That day I was going to embroider some
anemones, such as I remembered in the old market-place of Mentone,
and a sprig of stocks, such as I recollected once having seen on a
drive to Brigg. The eye of the mind can be a great pleasure if
properly cultivated. It may not be actually correct, but it can give
the soul and the life of things remembered, even through the mist of
years.
And now one word, dear sister-devotees of the needle, about
embroidery. Do not imagine that shading in five or six shades of the
same colour, which is the way that nine people out of ten work, is
the true and natural one. This only produces a sad and wooden flower,
without life or gladness, and conceived and worked amongst the shades
of twilight. Take any flower and place it in the sunlight, and you
will see in any purple flower, for instance, that there are not only
different shades, but different colours--red, mauve, blue, lavender,
and violet. I realized as I gazed at my anemone, that it must be
embroidered in greyish lavenders, with here and there pure notes of
violet with heather tints, in red purples, in greyish whites, and
with a vivid apple-green centre. All these were strikingly different
colours, but were necessary in the shading to make my blossom look as
if it had grown amidst sunlight and shower.
I stood my bunch of real flowers in water in as strong a light as
possible; as to the sunshine, alas! of that there was but a scanty
supply, and I had to imagine that mostly, as also the scent of the
orange groves and the thrilling song of the blackcaps overhead, for
in our northern world, let it be written with sorrow, many and long
are the dull leaden months between each summer. Still light did
something, and imagination did the rest. I imagined myself back under
the brilliant sky of southern France, and I thought I saw the bowls
of brilliant flowers as I had known them, whilst I threaded my needle.
Suddenly Mouse slipped off the bed, and whined at the door. I
understood her anxiety to run out, for I, too, had heard a tramp on
the gravel path outside, and had seen the keeper Gregson go off
towards the back-door laden with a string of rabbits, a plover or
two, and a brace of partridges neatly fastened to a stick, as is the
way of keepers.
[Sidenote: MOUSE, POUR LE SPORT]
The black retriever that was following Gregson is a dear friend of
Mouse's. Once my dog went out shooting. In the cells of her brain
that day has always remained a red letter day; I believe on this
celebrated occasion she ran in, and did all that a sporting dog
should not do, knocked down a beater who was endeavouring to lead
"the great beast," fought a yellow retriever, but did find and
successfully bring back, puffing and panting like a grampus, a
wounded bird that had escaped keepers, beaters, and trained dogs.
"Her's like a great colt in the plough, but her has a beautiful
nose," Gregson always declared, "and if so be her had been brought up
proper, would have been an ornament to her profession."
The memory of this "jour de gloire," as Célestine called it, had
never left my canine friend, and my gigantic watch-dog had ever since
retained a devouring passion for field sports. To humour my dog, I
opened the door, and Mouse disappeared, and swept by like a
hurricane, ponderous and terrible, down the newel staircase heaving
and whining with impatience. A second later and I saw her below
greeting Gregson effusively.
Our old keeper was pleased at her welcome. "Good Mouse," I heard him
call. And then I heard him cry out to our French cook, Auguste,
"Mouse, she seems like a bobby off duty when she finds me. There's
nature in the dog for all her lives in the drawing-room, lies on
sofas and feeds on kickshaws." Auguste agreed, and then seeing the
game, gesticulated and exclaimed, "Quelle chasse! C'est splendide, et
vous----" A moment later I heard the door close, and Gregson
disappeared into the old Abbey kitchen to smoke, doubtless, the pipe
of peace, after partaking liberally of a certain game pie, that we
had the day before at luncheon.
The voices grew faint, and I returned to my work. I threaded several
needles with different colours, pricked them handy for use in a
pincushion, and then began to copy my flowers on the table as deftly
as I could, and awaited my friend.
It was very peaceful outside. All looked grey and cold, the snow lay
white and pure, and the only note of colour was the glistening ivy.
There was no sound, the starlings had vanished. Far away I saw a
flock of rooks, dim specks against the leaden sky. I sat and
embroidered in silence, when suddenly the calm of the winter
afternoon was broken by the gay laughter of a child, and I discerned
my Bess, chattering below with our old gardener Burbidge.
In one hand he carried a pole, whilst Bess had tightly clutched hold
of the other. I opened my lattice window and inquired what they were
about to do?
The reply came back from Burbidge that he and the gardeners were
going to shake off the snow from the great yew hedge by the
bowling-green. "The snow be like lead to my balls," said the old man,
"and as to the peacock's tail, I fear it will damage the poor bird
unless it be knocked off dang-swang"--which is Burbidge's Shropshire
way of saying "at once."
Burbidge always speaks of the yew peacock as the real bird, and of
Adam, our blue-necked pet, as "him that plagues us in the garden."
Bess laughed with joy at the thought of so congenial an occupation.
"I shall help too," she cried, as she waved her hand to me, "for Ben"
(the odd man) "has cut me a stick, and I am going to knock as well as
anybody. I have done all my lessons, mamsie," she bawled. "I know
enough for one day, and now I'm going to work, really work."
I kissed my hand, and Bess passed off the scene accompanied by a
train of gardeners.
[Sidenote: A COUNTRY BRINGING UP]
Just before Bess was quite out of sight Célestine poked out her head
from a top window above, and I heard her raise her voice to scold
angrily but ineffectually. Célestine has an unfortunate habit of
giving unasked, her advice freely. Like a cat, she has a horror of
getting wet, and has a rooted belief that _une petite fille bien
élevée_ should remain in, in bad weather, nurse her doll by the fire,
or learn to make her dolly's clothes. I did not catch all that my
maid said, but some of her stray words of indignation reached me. I
heard that something was not _gentil_, and something else was
_infâme_, and Bess in particular "une petite fille impolie." In
answer to this I caught a defiant laugh from Bess, and then Célestine
banged down her window above.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Frith._
THE ABBEY FARMERY.]
I sat down and worked in silence. Bess is an only child--and will
come to no harm under old Burbidge's care, I said to myself. In fact,
she will learn under his tutorship many of the delightful things that
make life worth having afterwards. She will so acquire the knowledge
of the things that are seen, and not learnt by book; she will get to
know the different notes of the birds, and to distinguish their eggs.
She will hear from him the names of the hedge-row flowers, and learn
where to find the rare ones, and know by country names all the sweet
natural things that enable us to appreciate a long walk in the
country, or a turn round our gardens. She will thus unconsciously
learn to love simple wild things, and homely pleasures, and these
will be for her stepping-stones to the higher education in the future.
Why is the society of old servants so delightful to children? I asked
myself this question, as I asked it also of my little maid, a few
weeks before, when she gave me her definition of a happy day--a day
to be spent, if I remember rightly, in the company of Burbidge with
Ben the odd boy, and in driving with Crawley, the Yorkshire coachman.
"I should like to be swung by Ben from the old walnut tree, to
garden, and catch tadpoles with Burbidge, and to drive the old grey
mare all by myself with Crawley." And Bess added: "Then, mamsie, I
should be quite happy; and mummie, do let it come true on my first
holiday, or on my next birthday." "If there could be no 'don'ts,'"
another time Bess told me, "I should be always good; and if I had no
nurse, or governess, I should never be naughty." I try to implant in
Bess's mind that nurse and governess are her duties in life. She
agrees but sadly, and like most modern people, poor child, wishes to
get rid of life's duties as quickly as possible. "I never mean to be
naughty," Bess asserts, "but naughtiness comes to me like spoiling a
frock, when I least expect it." And she once added, "I know, mummy,
if people didn't think me naughty I never should be."
I pondered over these nursery problems as the work grew under my
hands. How delicate and exquisite were all the shades of grey and
lavender in the real flowers. I inspected my threaded needles, but I
could not find amongst my crewels the necessary tints. I took a
thread of tapestry wool, divided it carefully, and then turning to a
box of Scotch fingering on cards, found exactly what was needed, a
warm shade of heather. Embroidery is so much to me. It is part of my
life, and flowers and birds when done recall thoughts and joys and
pains, as scents are said to bring back the past to most people. A
story is told of a French lady who, when they told her that her
daughter-in-law did not like needlework, replied, "She is very
young--she has never known real sorrow."
[Sidenote: A PLAYMATE FOR BESS]
All of a sudden I dropped my work and started up, for all the dogs
had begun to bark in chorus. I ran to the window. I heard the crunch
of the gravel, and a minute later I saw a carriage drawn by a pair of
greys stop before our old front door.
Out of the brougham there emerged the little figure of Harry, Colonel
Stanley's only little boy and Bess's playmate. He was accompanied by
his German governess, a fat, phlegmatic personage, Fräulein
Schliemann by name. As she got out, I heard her say, "I have one
letter to leave, most important," and she stood waiting on the
doorstep for Fremantle to show her into the house. In the selfsame
moment, Harry, hearing voices in the rose garden, without a word, and
nimble as a rabbit, darted through the wrought-iron gates and waved
his hand to Bess. In a second Bess appeared, a shower of snow upon
her cap and amongst her locks, but redolent of health, and full of
gaiety. "Is that you, Hals?" she cried, and the children dashed off
to the end of the garden together.
Fräulein in the mean time discoursed with Fremantle and gave up her
letter. All this I noticed from my room. Through my window I heard
peals of laughter, and I saw Hals on the back of an under-gardener,
pursued by Bess, who was engaged in throwing handfuls of snow at him.
Happily this spectacle was not witnessed by Fräulein Schliemann, for
water and snow are always repellent to her, and incomprehensible as
sources of pleasure or amusement. She heaved a big sigh and then,
preceded by the butler, went into the old chapel hall and plumped her
fat self down on an old oak chair. A quick knock at my door, and
Fremantle brought me the letter. The note contained an invitation for
Bess to go over and spend the following Saturday afternoon at
Hawkmoor, Colonel Stanley's country house, some six miles away. It
would be little Harry's birthday, I was told, and the diversions and
amusements in his honour, were to be great, and varied.
Punch and Judy in the front hall, a conjuror, a magic-lantern, and
later on a birthday cake, with lighted candles, as many as the years
that little Hals (as Bess calls him) would have attained to.
"Do," wrote my cousin, Venetia Stanley, "let little Bess be at
Harry's eighth birthday. I often feel my little lad is very lonely,
and Bess's presence would make his birthday a double joy."
In a moment I had scribbled back an answer. Of course Bess must go, I
wrote. Harry was a dear little boy, and being entertained and the art
of entertaining are parts of the higher and necessary education of
children. I carried down my note myself, and assured Fräulein of my
delight in accepting so charming an invitation for my little girl.
Fräulein simpered, and I called for tea. At the Abbey there are no
bells on the ground floor. Then I remembered the children, and turned
to Fräulein and asked her if she knew where they were.
"Heinrich is with Bess," I was told. About a quarter of an hour
later, when a hissing urn was brought in, I begged Fremantle to ring
my hand-bell, as a signal to the loiterers that tea was ready.
For some time this summons received no answer, but at last,
breathless but blissful, the children appeared. But in what a plight!
Heinrich's deep red velvet suit was soaked and sadly soiled, and his
cap and long flaxen curls dripped with moisture, whilst Bess's
garments were running with mud and wet, and as they both stood in the
chapel hall, little pools of water guttered down beside them.
[Sidenote: FRÄULEIN IS FURIOUS]
Fräulein started up and screamed hysterically, and I darted forward.
"My dears, how wet you are," I cried. "You must go and change at
once." And without another word I hurried off both children to the
nursery. It was an easy matter to put Bess into a fresh dry frock and
into a clean white pinafore, but what could be done with Harry? I
asked myself. He is a delicate child, and must not remain in damp
clothes, so I turned to him resolutely, and asked, "Which will you
do, Harry: get into one of Bess' dresses, or go to bed?"
"Oh, auntie," he answered, blushing furiously, for he always calls me
"auntie," although I am not his real aunt, "I would much rather go to
bed than wear a girl's dress."
So we were about to put him into bed when a sudden brilliant idea
flashed through my brain. "My husband's dressing-gown," I murmured.
In a moment, kindly Fremantle, who heard me, had fetched it. It was
yards too long, but it was turned up with an army of safety-pins, and
so Hals' vanity was not humiliated. At least he was clothed in male
attire! And we must always remember that self-respect in a little lad
is even more easily wounded than love.
Five minutes later both children were dry, and clad in other
costumes. "I don't think that they will be any the worse," I said to
my old nurse, Milner. But as I entered the chapel hall I noticed that
Fräulein looked as black as thunder. In her eyes the episode was a
most disagreeable, even a disgraceful occurrence.
Hals paused on the threshold for a moment and looked at me
beseechingly out of his pretty, round, short-sighted eyes.
"I am so sorry," I said apologetically, and felt really for a second
a transitory shame, Fräulein looked so fierce and injured. "How did
it happen?" I asked of Bess, by way of lifting the leaden pall of
silence.
"Only a rat hunt," answered that young lady, jauntily, with her mouth
full of buttered toast, for she had not waited for grace, but had
slipped into her seat at the head of the tea-table. "There was a
rat," she continued to explain, "in the potting-shed, and Trump and
Tartar smelt him out and ran after him, and Hals joined in and
tumbled over. He shouldn't wear smart clothes when he comes here.
Nobody wants him to. Gregson says, 'By gum, give me the varminty
sort,'" and Bess laughed rather rudely, after which there was an
awkward and prolonged pause.
"Hals is your guest," at last I said severely; upon which Bess turned
scarlet, and a second later plied Hals with seed and sponge cake at
once.
I had the velvet suit taken to the kitchen fire to dry, but I must
honestly confess that its magnificence was, I feared, a thing of the
past. While we sat on, Fremantle entered, and in his most
irreproachable voice informed us that Mrs. Langdale (the housekeeper)
was of opinion that Master Harry's suit would not be fit for him to
wear again that day. At this Fräulein wrung her hands and broke out
into ejaculations. "Mein Gott! mein Gott!" she cried, and began to
scold Harry furiously.
At this, Bess could keep down her wrath no longer. With flashing eyes
she confronted Hals' governess. "It was my fault, all my fault," she
said. "I told Hals to run like mad, and not to miss the fun."
Fräulein did not deign to answer Bess' justification of her pupil,
but glared at Hals; and we all remained on in silence, and I noted
that poor little Hals had a white face, and that both slices of cake
on his plate remained untouched.
[Sidenote: FRIENDSHIP'S OFFER]
"I will write and explain all to Mrs. Stanley," I said at last;
"only," and here I turned to Harry, "you must go back in the
dressing-gown, dear, and be wrapped up warmly in a rug. No colds must
be caught, and the suit shall be sent back to-morrow."
Hals nodded his head. Whatever happened he was not going to cry; only
girls and muffs cried, but he knew that there was a bad time coming,
when he would have to face the music.
Bess watched his face. She was up in arms. Directly after grace was
said, and this time by her in a jiffy, she flung herself off her
chair, flew upstairs defiant, and breathless. A minute later she
reappeared, her face crimson, but her mouth set.
"How much?" she asked of Fräulein, in a hostile spirit. "How much? I
say, if I _pay_, you mayn't punish."
But here Hals dashed forward, and would not let Bess put her purse
into his governess's hand. "Don't," he said; "boys can't take money
from girls." And Bess was left stammering and confused, with her own
sky-blue purse left in her little fat paw. I pretended not to see
what had happened as I sat down and wrote a note to my friend,
Venetia Stanley, to explain all, and to beg forgiveness for the
little culprit. I pleaded that tumbles, like accidents, would happen
in the best regulated nurseries. I addressed my letter, and stuck
down the envelope. This done, we all sat on in sombre silence round
the fire. All conversation died upon our lips, Fräulein looked so
sour and forbidding.
At last our gloomy interview was broken up by Fremantle entering the
room and announcing the fact that Colonel Stanley's carriage was at
the door, and a message from the coachman to the effect that he hoped
the greys would not be kept waiting.
Then without more ado, Fremantle lifted Hals in his arms, for the
dressing-gown was too long to permit the little boy to walk, and Tom,
the footman, followed with a thick fur rug to wrap round him. "Give
Master Hals my note," I called, as the little party vanished through
the outside door.
Fräulein went last, an evil glare on her fat face, and "as dark as
tempest," Burbidge would have said if he had seen her, and I noted
that she would not take my hand at parting. She evidently thought the
disaster that had befallen the red suit was due to me. I was _wae_
for the little man, as he vanished from my sight; that stupid German
woman had no more sympathy with the young life that throbbed and beat
in him, than if she were a table or a chair, and he would certainly
have what the French call a bad quarter of an hour with her before
she had done.
Bess stood for a minute or two after they were gone, and we looked
blankly at each other. Bess cried, "Beast, beast!" and then burst
into floods of tears. "She will punish him," she moaned, "she will
punish him," and she buried her face amongst the sofa cushions of the
great settee.
At first I felt powerless to soothe her, or to induce her to take a
less gloomy view of the situation. "It is unfair and mean of the old
Fräulein," she kept on calling out, "for I did offer to pay on the
nail" (Bess has acquired a considerable amount of slang); "and I
offered her all the money I had. Five shillings that came at
Christmas, half a crown from Uncle St. John, and sixpence which I won
in good marks from Miss Weldon." Bess was of opinion that so
magnificent a sum was enough for a king's ransom, and ought to have
bought all, or any attires, and to have silenced all voices of
reproof.
I did not undeceive my little maid. After all, it was all her earthly
wealth, and all that she possessed she had offered to save her little
friend from punishment. Later on darkness fell, Fremantle appeared
with a lamp, and Bess fetched her work, a kettle on a vermilion
ground of cross-stitch, which I have often been told "will be so
useful to papa on his birthday;" and I started reading aloud, for
Bess's edification, one of Hans Andersen's beautiful stories.
[Sidenote: "BETTER THAN TRUE"]
As I closed the book, Bess exclaimed, "It is not true, but it is
better than true--beautiful stories always are--and there, at least,
is no horrid German governess. If I chose," my little girl said, "I
should only have a Yorkshire, or a Shropshire governess. Burbidge
says there's many wise folks as cannot understand foreigners; and
Crawley says, 'Give me plain Yorkshire, and I'll knock sense into any
one's head.'" Then we discussed the story. I had read the tale of the
Ugly Duckling, perhaps the most beautiful story of all fairy-land.
Bess listened open-mouthed, and her eyes glistened like stars with
joy at the end. "I shall always think a swan is a fairy prince," she
murmured. "Why don't beautiful things happen much oftener? Only
lessons, nursery tea, stains, and mistakes come every day." As she
spoke, the old church clock struck seven, and Bess put away her work
in a little crimson bag.
I sat before the great open fireplace and listened to my little
girl's talk. Through the latticed windows of the oratory shone a soft
mist of stars.
"Sometimes beautiful things really happen," I said; and then through
the open door I saw old Nana standing. A hurried kiss from Bess, and
the child was gone.
Later on, in the evening, after dinner, I mounted the old newel
staircase and made my way to the old nursery up in the roof with its
latticed dormer windows. There, to my surprise, I found Bess wide
awake.
"I have told Miss Bess not to talk no more," said Nana, rather
sourly; "but she will run on about Master Harry and his German
punishments."
My old body's sympathy for once was with Fräulein, for spoiling a
vest and a velvet suit can never be otherwise than a crime in any
nurse's eyes.
I went and sat by my little maid's white dimity hung cot.
"I think he will be forgiven," I said.
"P'raps he'll turn into a fairy prince," said Bess, and she took my
hand, "and then it will all come right." In a few moments I saw that
she was getting drowsy, for she looked at me with half-closed
eyes--one eye tinnin' and the other carrin' trout, as Shropshire
folks say when you are overcome with sleep. Then Bess went on in the
sing-song voice that so often immediately precedes sleep with
children, "Hals was an ugly duck to-day, but he'll turn into a swan
or something nice some day."
"Some day," I nodded.
"Yes, when Hals' birthday comes." And Bess's eyes closed gently, and
she slipped away into the blessed land of dreams.
When I went downstairs I found a letter from my friend Constance of
the Red House, to tell me that at the last moment she was detained by
a visit from a poor old body whose son was ill, and so couldn't come
down to tea; but that she trusted on the morrow to find me, what Bess
calls, "quite better."
[Sidenote: BILLY FIRE-DEW COMES]
The following day fresh snow fell. All nature lay covered up with
what Burbidge calls "a fine hoodin'." Before my eyes a pure white
dazzling plain of snow extended, and even the old stone roof and the
ruined church glistened white and wonderful. As soon as I was called,
I opened my window and saw my tame robin, who one summer was hatched
in a yew hedge, appear on my window-sill. Billy Fire-Dew, Bess has
christened him, and Billy Buttons he is known as, by Burbidge and the
gardeners. He has a brilliant flame-coloured breast, soft rich brown
wings, and large round liquid eyes. For a minute he rested upon the
window, then with a joyous chirp he spread his wings and hopped upon
a great Spanish chestnut sixteenth-century chest, which stands in the
centre of my bedroom. On the chest are figures of gods and goddesses,
burnt in by an iron.
Happily I was not unprovided with suitable refreshment to offer my
little guest. A scrap of sponge cake in a wine glass, saved from last
night's dinner, met with his entire approval. It had been intended
for Mouse, but as at the last moment she could not be found, so Bill
was in luck. I sprinkled some crumbs about the chest, and on my
writing-table, and he hopped about puffing himself out, quite
unabashed, and partook freely of the breakfast I offered him. I did
not move as I watched him, but remained standing stock-still. I have
always found one of the great secrets of bird taming is to keep
immovable, till all sense of fear is lost by constant familiarity.
How beautiful he was, with his great hazel eyes, and his scarlet
waistcoat beneath his sober hood.
He chirped loudly as he ate, and then flew joyfully from table to
bed, and from bed to table, and so at last back to the window-sill,
uttering at moments his clear bell-like cry. Whilst I was engaged in
watching my little feathered friend, I heard the click of the latch
of my door, and Bess entered bearing in her arms the nursery cat Grey
Smokey.
"Oh, beware!" I cried alarmed. "Billy Fire-Dew is here." In an
instant Bess had opened the door again and evicted her favourite, but
not without noise; and Bill had caught fright, and with a loud shrill
cry, had flown into the garden.
Then, outside the door, Smokey began to mew piteously. "Let her in,"
I said, "she can do no harm now. Bill is quite safe." So the puss
entered, and although habitually the gentlest of creatures, I saw
that the instinct of an animal of prey was strong within her.
For Smokey paced up and down my room; her eyes shone like topazes in
the sunlight, and as she walked, she lashed her tail like a lioness
at the Zoo.
"She'd kill poor Bill if she could get him," I said.
"Yes," answered Bess, "and eat him up, without pepper and salt. Cats
are never really kind, not right through, for all their purring."
Then Bess asked me what I meant to do, now that I was well again.
"Papa," she said, "told me that I might go sledging some day; but
this morning you must take me and show me where St. Milburgha was
buried, and tell me also about the old monks. Do you know, mama, I
often think of the monks in bed. Last night--I don't remember all,
but there was something that happened with a man in a black gown, and
Hals did something as a swan--I rather disremember," continued my
little maid, with _naïveté_, "for I fell asleep before I could
rightly recollect. But Burbidge perhaps will tell me; he knows a lot
about monks. It is fine, as Nana says, to be such a scholard."
"Ah! now I remember," said Bess, after a pause. "Burbidge declares
that they walled up Christians, the monks, and drank out of golden
cups, and hunted the deer."
I was amused at Burbidge's views--they were obviously those of the
very primitive Protestant.
"Come into the garden this morning, child, and I will tell you a
little about the monks."
A few hours later I called "Bess!" from the gravel below. "Are you
ready?" Then I heard a buzz of excited voices from the nursery, and a
great fight, going on over the winding round of a comforter, and Bess
leapt down two stairs at a time and joined me in the garden.
[Sidenote: A WALK IN THE CLOISTERS]
I had my snowshoes on, so I had no sense of cold, and round my
shoulders heavy furs. Mouse sported before us rather like a
benevolent luggage train, whilst the two terriers, Tramp and Tartar,
cut capers, barked, and sniffed and frisked. These hunted in the
bushes, darted in and out, and sought for rabbits under every stone
and tree. They yelped and put their noses frantically into holes and
corners. Whether the rabbits were real or imaginary it was impossible
to say.
Bright sunshine fell upon the old red sandstone of which the later
part of the old Abbey Farmery is built, and cast an opalescent glare
on the snow-covered roof. The old yew hedges stood forth like banks
of verdant statuary, in places where the snow had melted, and on the
top of a stone ball stood the blue-necked peacock.
The day was deliciously crisp, clear, and invigorating, and Bess, as
she ran along, laughed and snowballed me and the dogs, and so we
wandered away into the cloisters.
"Tell me about it all," said Bess at last, confidentially, after a
time of breathless frolicking with the dogs. "Miss Weldon talks so
much that I can never understand her."
Then I told Bess in a few simple words about the cloisters. "There
was, first of all, dear," I said, "a party of Saxon ladies who lived
at the abbey, and the most beautiful was Milburgha, their abbess. She
came here to avoid a wicked Welsh prince, and she rode a beautiful
milk-white steed. And she was very holy."
"I should be holy, if I rode a milk-white steed," said Bess,
impulsively, "I am sure I should."
And then I added rather irrelevantly, "St. Milburgha kept geese."
"Saints and princesses always do," answered Bess, authoritatively. "I
know what they did, they combed their hair with golden combs, and
talked to emperors in back gardens. Then they always had flocks of
goats or geese. I don't think they could get on without that, mama,"
said my little maid, with a gasp. "It must be very amusing," she
continued, "to be a saint or a princess and have a crown. They have
them in Bible picture-books. Anyway, they never have any lessons or
governesses, hardly mamas, and they only talk to the animals."
[Illustration:
_Photo by Frith._
THE CLOISTER GARDEN.]
"But, my little girl," I urged, "saints have to be _very_ good; and
then you must remember, Bess, that princesses in all the stories have
to accomplish terrible tasks, and saints to endure terrible pains."
"Worse," asked Bess, "than taking horrible, nasty, filthy medicines,
worse than going to have teeth taken out by the dentist?"
"Worse than that," I answered.
[Sidenote: THE CROWN OF MARTYRDOM]
"Then I think I'll wait a little," replied Bess, with composure,
"before I change; for I should not like a crown after losing my
teeth, or worse, or even jam-rolly, if I had to take tumblers of
horrid physic first. And I have heard Burbidge say that, 'them as
wins a crown must walk on hot ploughshares first.' Still," she added,
"I should sometimes like to be good."
"How about doing disagreeable things, Bess? For I fear, at first,
that is what has to be done."
"Well, mama," answered Bess, "not too good; not good enough to die,
but just good enough to get a little more money for good marks than I
have ever got before."
And I saw by Bess's saucy smile that the day was a long, long way off
when she would ever be what she calls very, very good, _i.e._--
Never dirty her hands;
Never ruffle her hair; and
Never answer back those in authority.
For a moment we ceased talking, and looked at the old carved stone
basin in which the successors of Roger de Montgomery's Clugniac monks
bathed in the twelfth century. On the broken shaft which supported
the basin are three carved panels; one represents the miraculous
draught of fishes and the other two St. Paul and St. Peter.
Bess shook her head and repeated sadly, "Of course I should like to
be a saint, but there must not be too much pain. It isn't fair of God
to want _too much_."
Then we wandered round to the east side of the old house, and I
looked up and pointed out to Bess the old stone gargoyles. And Bess
looked too.
"Those," she said, "are Christian devils. Nana says we never could
get on here without a Devil, and the monks had theirs too."
There are many times in life, I find, when it is wiser not to answer
a child, and this was just one. Strong light often dazzles, and,
after all, are we not all children groping in the dark?
We peeped into the kitchen from outside, and saw the coppers
glimmering like red gold on the shelves of the old oak dresser.
Auguste, the cook, was chopping some meat, and the blows he gave
resounded merrily through the crisp frosty air. I called through the
mullion window and asked if the little soiled suit of yesterday was
dry, as Fred the groom was to ride over to Hawkmoor and take it there
in the afternoon.
"Oui, madame la comtesse," cried Auguste, for by that title he always
addressed me; not that I have a title, but that Auguste thinks it
kind and polite so to address me. Besides, he has a confused belief
that every English woman has a title of some kind, and that its exact
nature is immaterial. As he spoke he opened the little oak door that
communicates with the garden and exclaimed joyously--
[Sidenote: AUGUSTE'S SECRET]
"Voyez, madame, le jeune comte will still be a joli garçon in it.
See, he will still rejoice the heart of his father and mother in
grenat foncé." So saying good-natured Auguste passed into the garden
displaying in his arms the red suit. A miracle seemed to have been
performed. There it was, spotless and dry, and as good as it was when
made by Messrs. Tags and Buttons of New Bond Street. Auguste laughed
and talked excitedly, gesticulated wildly, and assured me that he had
saved the costume by un secret--mais un secret suprême known alone to
him and to his family. "See, madame," he cried superbly, "le bon Dieu
ne pourrait pas mieux faire." Then he told me in confidence that it
was not in vain that his mother had been over thirty years
gouvernante in the household of Madame la Princesse de P----. She
knew everything, he asserted, "mais tous les secrets de ménage."
I bowed my head, and happily had the tact not to press for an
explanation, for I knew Auguste's recipes were real secrets, and as
jealously guarded as those of any War Office in Europe.
Bess clapped her hands. "Hals will be pleased," she said. "Because
now old Fräulein need not be cross, and there will be no punishments."
Auguste bowed solemnly. "Madame is satisfied," he said, and retired
like a beneficent fairy god-mother into the depth of his culinary
kingdom.
The difference between our people and the Latin races is great. I
have often noticed that Frenchmen or Italians are delighted to know
any housewifely trick or wile--and that ignorance of all other
departments but their own does not, in their eyes, constitute
intrinsic merit. Foreigners seldom say, "That was not my business,
sir," or "not my department." Whereas, in every well-constituted
English domestic mind, "not my business," or "not my work" is a creed
to be cherished firmly, whatever else dissolves or changes, and is
treated as the bulwark of English domestic life.
Before I left the kitchen door I asked for a saucer of chopped egg, a
slice of sponge cake, a roast potato, and half an apple for the
inhabitants of my aviary. Tramp and Tartar started barking furiously,
in a noisy inconsequent way; and off Bess and I went armed with
dainties. Mouse followed gravely, but not without misgivings, for she
took no interest in birds, and felt, I am sure, that they enjoyed far
too much consideration from me. Bess and I descended the steps which
led down from the garden to the field, but held on tightly to the
rails, for it was slippery.
"Mummie," cried out Bess, "mind, for it is slippery all over, like
walking over a glass door." However, we neither of us fell, and
reached the aviary door in safety. Then we saw rather a wonderful
sight: some forty canaries of all colours--green, cinnamon, jonquil,
clear and mealy, yellow, spotted and flaked, were all to be found
there. Poor little dears! They were making the most of the wintry
gleams of sunshine, and some of them looked rather hunched up and
puffy from the cold. They have a thatched shed, and in front, facing
due south, a long flight of some twenty feet for exercise, beneath
fine wire netting. But their playground was cold, as Bess said. As we
entered the cage, they flew round us with cries of joy. Canaries are
very easily tamed, and they perched on the saucer containing the
food. They ate greedily the chopped egg, and pecked at the sponge
cake and apple. Bess ran into their "bedroom" as she calls it, and
squeezed on "their dressing table" the "heart" of a big potato cooked
"in his jacket." One cock was singing sweetly. Burbidge must have
given them water only a few minutes before, for it was still tepid in
the dish, and some were drinking with avidity. We dropped a few drops
of sherry into the water to act as a cordial, from a flask that
Burbidge had got stowed away in a little box of what he calls
"extras," and I added a couple of rusty nails from the same store. I
noted that my dear old cock canary, "Bourton Boy," that I have had
some ten years and known from an egg, looked a little mopish--what
Bess calls "fat and fluffy." I watched him in silence, and tried to
discover what it was he lacked. There was an ample supply of egg,
apple, and of potato, not to speak of canary, rape, and hemp seed,
but he fluttered round and at last pecked violently at a crystal
button on my coat; then I knew what he was after, and called out
"sugar." Bess echoed the cry, and darted off like a little fairy for
some, finely pounded, in a scrap of paper from kind Auguste, who
adores "toutes les bêtes de madame." We had discovered rightly what
it was that the Bourton Boy was in need of. He uttered a note of joy,
and fell upon the sugar with a right good will directly we had placed
it in the cage, whilst Bess watched him.
[Sidenote: BOURTON BOY'S REQUEST]
"Why don't you give him lettuce, too? Auguste offered me some salad,"
she asked.
"It is not good for canaries till the spring," I replied. Then I went
to the end of the shed to see if there was plenty of fat bacon
hanging up--the birds' cod liver oil, as old Nana calls it. I
inspected a piece some three inches long and two wide. It was pecked
all over by voracious little beaks, and was quite thin in places. Fat
bacon is an excellent adjunct to an aviary, and is one of the best
means of keeping birds in health, and of special value to hens during
the nesting season. In winter, also, it seems to be very nourishing,
and to give great gloss and lustre to their plumage. After seeing
that their larder was well supplied, I turned to their baking-tin,
full of red sand and very fine oyster grit. It is really astonishing,
what an amount of grit all birds require to keep them in health. I
poked up the contents of the tin with my walking-stick. It was
amusing to watch the birds. In a moment all had left the seed, egg,
or potato, and were engaged in picking up the freshly turned sand. A
few months ago I was obliged to have the floor of the aviary firmly
cemented down, as otherwise I found that mice burrowed from
underneath and effected an entrance, and then attacked my pets. The
cement in a few days hardened, and now is like a rock, and I am glad
to say inroads from the furry little barbarians have become
impossible.
"My children of light," as I call them, having been visited, I turned
away and escaped with Bess out of the aviary, but not without great
care, and having resource to some stratagems, for my little feathered
friends all followed me closely, curious, and always hoping for fresh
delights. At a given signal, Bess slipped under my arm, and we closed
the door like lightning behind us.
As we mounted the stairs, we saw the old gardener Burbidge waiting
for us at the top. He looked like a picture of Old Time, with his
grey hair, his worn brown overcoat, his long grey beard, and behind
all, the background of snow.
"They are all well," I called out to him, "in spite of the cold."
"They was matted up yesterday," answered the old man, pointing
downwards to my pets. Then he went on to say how he and the gardeners
strengthened the artificial hedge on the east side, by adding fir
branches and some mats, "for it was fit to blow their feathers out,
that mortal sharp was the eastwinder;" and Burbidge looked at my pets
with indulgent pity, and added, "They be nesh folks, be canaries, for
all they write about them." Then he suspected Bess of giving them
forbidden food. "They mustn't have no green food. It be as bad for
'em as spring showers be for sucking gulleys" (goslings), he added,
"and that be certain death."
"But I haven't given them anything not allowed," stammered out Bess,
indignantly; "mama and I have only given them what we always do."
"Ah!" said Burbidge, softening, "that won't be no hurt then; and as
to potato and apple, they be the best quill revivers out, come
winter. But what sort of apple was it?"
I replied that the apple was a "Blenheim Orange" and no American.
[Sidenote: "NO NEED OF FOREIGN STUFF"]
"No need of foreign stuff in Shropshire," answered Burbidge, proudly.
"Our late apples are as sound as if they were only fruited yesterday."
Then I told him that the potato was one of the same sort that I had
last night at dinner--floury, sweet and mealy.
"Then I'll be bound," he replied, "you had an Up-to-Dater, or may be
a Sutton's Abundance; they be both sound as a sovereign, real gold
all through. No blotches or specks in they. We had four roods of both
on the farm. Fresh land, no manure and a dusty summer, and tatters
will take care of theirselves; but come a wet year, a field potato is
worth two in a garden, although I says it as shouldn't, but truth is
truth, although you have to look up a black chimney to find it, as
folks say."
Then old Burbidge went on to tell me how "Potatoes be right house
wenches in a garden, or same as clouts to floors; but don't you go to
takin' 'em from their nature too early, for when the tops bleed the
tubers will never be fit for squire's food, only fit for a petty
tradesman's table," and this with Burbidge is always a dark, and
outer land of disgrace.
Bess, Burbidge and I paced along the neat swept paths. At last I got
my word in. "No damage done by the snow?" I asked.
"I don't allow no damage," was our old retainer's stern reply;
"leastways, not after daylight. I and lads were out again with poles
this morning."
We wandered round the close-clipped yews, and peeped over into the
borders beyond, while Burbidge talked of "how all had been put to
bed" with pride. "Them as wants next year must mind this," he
exclaimed.
All my tea-roses, Chinese peonies, and tender plants had been duly
covered up with fern; and branches of spruce and Austrian fir had
been carefully placed in front of my clematises Flammula, Montana,
and Jackmanni, and round the posts on which my Crimson Rambler,
jessamine, and vine ramped in summer.
"They are just resting comfortable," said Burbidge, complacently. "We
all want sleep--plants and men--but let the plants have it suitable,
same as childer in their beds."
We had come to the end of the red-walled garden, and as he said this,
Burbidge opened the wrought-iron gate, and I passed down the flight
of stairs which leads to the front drive.
"To-morrow we must talk about the list of flowers," I cried, before
he was out of sight and hearing; "we must not forget the
butter-beans, and the foreign golden lettuces."
Burbidge nodded, but not enthusiastically. He doesn't what he calls
"hold to foreign things." England is his country, and, above all,
Shropshire his county, but being very faithful, he is indulgent to my
foibles. As Bess and I walked along the pathway, we lingered in the
cloisters, and for a moment looked away at the far distance.
We saw nothing but white fields which lay glittering in the sunshine,
and the spire of the parish church to the west, which shone like a
lance under the clear sky.
"Some day," Bess said, "take me right away, mamsie, far away with the
dogs," and she pointed to the snow-clad meadows that stretched round
the old Abbey precincts. "I like fields," she added, "better than
gardens to walk in, for there are no 'don'ts' there for the dogs."
[Sidenote: A RUINED HEDGE]
This remark from Bess alluded to my dislike of broken hedges, for, as
Burbidge says, "A yew hedge broken, is a kingdom ruined." I remember
this scathing remark was made on a terrible occasion when the great
Mouse dashed through a yew hedge in hot pursuit of a very young
rabbit, and indeed training down and replacing the broken limb of the
yew was no slight matter. It was, in Burbidge's phraseology, "a long
and break-back job, bad as sorting sheep on the Long-Mynd in a
snow-storm;" for, as our old gardener expressed it, "Nature be often
full of quirks, and sometimes disobliging as a maiden aunt that's got
long in the tooth, and that walks snip-snappy, with an empty purse."
Ever since this mishap my great hound's sporting habits have been,
therefore, somewhat restricted in the Pleasaunce. But if things have
gone wrong by evil chance, and large, very large, paw-marks can be
detected on the beds, Burbidge is not without his passing sarcasm. "I
prefer a bullock," or "Big dogs be made for kennels," he will say. I
recalled these reminiscences of spring and summer days, but felt
sure, for all he said, that Burbidge would never hurt a hair of my
dog's tail. Gradually the sunlight failed, and Bess and I went
indoors. I found my friend Constance, of the Red House, awaiting my
return.
Her eye fell on my garden catalogues. "One wants in life many good
ways of using common things," she said; "a variety in fact, without
the expense of change." And then Constance agreed with me that
vegetables in England were often only a waste material. "Many of us,"
I held, "only know sodden potatoes and cabbage, or salad with an
abominable, heavy cream sauce that reminds one of a furniture polish."
"Vegetables our side of the Channel," laughed Constance, "are a
serious difficulty, partly on account of the cook, and partly on
account of the gardener."
We agreed that the gardener would hardly ever pick them young or
tender enough, and that this applies to beans, carrots, peas and
artichokes. This set me thinking, and I mentioned a visit I once paid
to Chartres some years ago. It was in early June, and I saw several
waiters all shelling peas in the courtyard of the principal hotel. I
was surprised to note that each man had three little baskets in front
of him into which he threw his peas. I was astonished to see so many
little baskets, and asked why all the peas could not be put into one
basket. "Oh, madame," said the man in authority, "at Chartres we
acknowledge three qualities of peas, and then there are the pods, for
the pea-soup." In what English household would it be possible to get
the same amount of trouble taken?
"The methods adopted in England are different," said Constance dryly.
"As regards peas--generally the gardener leaves them till they have
attained the hardness of bullets, and then the cook cooks them solely
with water, and so a very good vegetable is made as nasty as it is
possible to make it."
Then we both came to the conclusion that peas, "as a fine art,"
should be picked very young, or else they were very unwholesome, and
that they should have mixed with them a little gravy, cream, or fresh
butter. After this Constance asked me about my butter-beans, which,
she told me, she thought excellent one day when she lunched with us
last September. I told her that the variety that I grew chiefly was
Wax Flageolet, and that my seed came from the foreign seedsman, Oskar
Knopff, but that now all sorts of butter-beans can be got from
English nurserymen, and that Messrs. Barr and Veitch have those and
many other excellent sorts.
"They are also as easy to grow, Burbidge says, as the old-fashioned
French kinds," I remarked, "but more juicy and mellow, although they
do not look quite so nice on the table. Auguste likes to give them a
few minutes longer in boiling, and invariably adds, as is the French
and Italian habit, some haricot beans of last year of the old scarlet
runner sort boiled quite soft." Then I praised the foreign habit of
serving all vegetables in cream, oil, or a little gravy, and added it
is setting the vegetable picture in a good frame. Then from beans we
turned to potatoes, and we discussed the best kinds to grow in a
moderate-sized garden.
From vegetables we wandered off to embroidery.
[Sidenote: A "WROUGHT SHEET" PLANNED]
"I want," Constance told me, "to design a quilt for a big
'four-poster.' What they would in the seventeenth century have called
a 'great wrought sheet.' I am thinking of doing," she said, "a great
border of old-world flowers all round my 'bed-spread,' as it is now
called in the art shops."
"What more enchanting," I cried enthusiastically, and recalled to her
mind the beautiful woodcuts that illustrate "Gerard's Herbal." "There
are there, all the flowers and herbs," I said, "that you could
possibly wish for, and they are all exquisitely drawn and well
adapted for such a purpose. The Great Holland, the single Velvet, the
Cinnamon, the Provence and the Damask roses, the very names are full
of poetry; then of wild flowers, you must think of the Wolfe's Bane,
the Mede Safron, Ladies' Smock, and Golden Mousear. In the garden,
there is the Guinny Hen, and, above all, the gilly-flowers of sorts,
and May pinks; and round you might work scrolls of words from poets
and philosophers about the joys of sleep." Then we talked the matter
over, and I got quite keen about the colour of the background, and
suggested a particular tint of jonquil canary. But Constance would
not hear of this, declared she preferred white, and meant to use the
hand-made "homespun," as Shropshire folks call the sheets of the
country that were made formerly at Westwood and round Wenlock up to
the second half of the last century. "I bought," she told me,
"several old pairs of large hand-made linen sheets at a sale two
years ago, and I feel sure they will be delightful to work on. They
are not unlike the Langdale linen, only not so fine." Then Constance
went on to say how, in the eighteenth century, every farmhouse in
Shropshire had its spinning wheels, and every cottager her love
spinning, when her neighbours would come and spin with her out of
love and good-fellowship. Besides the good wife's spinning, many a
maiden's wedding garments were thus made for her by her own
playmates, while it was with her own hands that the lass's wedding
sheets were always spun.
Was it a better world, I have often asked myself, when women loved
their spinning-wheels and tambour-frames?
Anyway it was a simpler world we both agreed, and probably a more
contented one, for all ladies then took delight in superintending,
and in the perfection of household work; and the world, high and low,
did not commonly feel wasted as it so often does now; and our tongues
ran on, on the servant problem.
[Sidenote: THE SERVANT PROBLEM DISCUSSED]
"A little more education," argued Constance, "and perhaps the world
will move more smoothly. If all the girls could play a tune or two
and knew a little more French, the world would not be so proud of
one-finger melodies, or isolated syllables of Gallic, that we can
vouch are incomprehensible to the native understanding. 'Tis not to
be expected, as old Betty in the Dingle says, 'as the sun can find
all the crannies at once.' Education is slow because gentility is
great, and real love or desire for knowledge rare. What we want is
not, as Montaigne said, 'more education, but better education.'"
Then we wandered on to what is knowledge and what are the things
worth knowing, and no doubt the hour till tea would have passed all
too quickly, if we had not been interrupted by Bess, who dashed
downstairs breathless, and bubbling over with excitement.
"A letter," she cried, "and a letter all for me. Nana," she
explained, "said I must not say 'yes' without your leave. But why
should papa only have dogs as a matter of course? Here is the note."
I took the little crumpled paper from Bess's hands. It was from
Maimie Armstrong and written to Bess by a friend's little girl. I
read that "there are several little pups. Mamma," continued Maimie,
"says you are to have one when it is old enough to leave old
Nick-nack. They are all blind now and cannot see, but suck all day.
One shall be sent in a basket.
"P.S.--I didn't write all this myself, because ink often goes wrong
with me and I can't spell, but James, the footman, has done it for
me." And then in a very large round child's hand. "Your loving
friend, Maimie Armstrong."
I straightened out the little sheet and then looked round at Bess.
She was literally trembling with excitement and she could hardly
speak, but somehow she managed to gasp out, "Mama, I cannot live
without a pug-pup." For the moment I believed she was speaking the
truth, so I answered, "Yes, dear, we must have even a pug-pup if it
is a necessity."
"Yes, yes," cried Bess, with rapture; "and then I shall be quite,
quite happy ever afterwards."
"What a good thing it is to be a child," said Constance, softly. "One
wants everything so badly."
At my acceding to Bess's request, Bess ran to me and hugged me
rapturously, and called out to old Nana, who had just appeared at the
head of the stairs, "I told you so; and the pug-pup is to live in the
nursery."
Nana did not greet this news with the pleasure expected of her, and
as the two mounted the stairs, I heard my old female retainer grumble
something to herself. But give her time, as Bess always says, "and
Nana will always come round, and find you a sweet out of some
cupboard before she's done."
My old Nana keeps her chamber spotless, tells my little maid long old
stories of Shropshire, and wages ceaseless war against fringes and
furbelows in her nursery maid. "God made me a good servant," she
always says, with austere pride. And I add reverently, "The Lord only
knows the extent of her long devotion." It has weathered many storms,
and has bid defiance to the blasts of misfortune, and to the frosts
of adversity. Like the gnarled oak of one of her native forests, Nan
has sheltered many young generations of saplings, and in her master's
family have centred her interests, her pleasures: to their well-being
she has given her life.
In the evening, after dinner, I went up the old stone staircase that
leads to the nursery. Bess was sleeping peacefully, but she was not
hugging, as is her wont, her favourite old doll "Sambo."
[Sidenote: THE PUG PRINCE]
"Her wouldn't to-night," explained Nana, "my little lamb; her thinks
of nothing but the pug-pup. I holds to dolls for little ladies, but
Miss Bess, she holds to dogs for herself. 'Oh, Nana,' her said, when
I was bathing her, 'I could not live without dogs. God makes them
into brothers for me.'
"Then I said, 'Why do you like 'em like that? 'Tis almost a sin.' She
answered, 'God never makes them answer back; and then we can do with
different toys.'
"Well," concluded Nan, pensively, as she took up her sewing, "my old
aunt said God Almighty made caterpillars for something, and I suppose
even dogs b'aint made for nought, leastways, they be pleasures to
some."
I laughed, for behind me, padding up the stairs reluctantly, but
faithfully, I saw through the open door my great Dane.
"I should miss Mouse dreadfully. Bess is right," I cried, "one's dog
never answers back, and is loving and sympathetic at all times, in
and out of season." I passed gently out of the room and went
downstairs. I left the dimity-hung chamber, and as I did so I had a
vision of a little bright, happy face. At seven, a pug-pup may seem
almost a fairy prince, or possess all the gifts of the philosopher's
stone. "Oh, happy childhood," I said, "which asks so little and wants
it so badly."
Great logs of wood blazed gaily on the great open hearth of the
chapel hall, between delicate bronze Italian dogs. The moon was
shining down from a sky of placid splendour, and the little oratory
looked in the evening light wonderful, and mystic. Through the old
irregular lattice windows I felt as if a message of peace was being
brought to me. No sound of bird or cry of beast greeted my ears. A
copy of Thomas à Kempis' immortal book lay near me on the table. I
took it up and read.
"In the Cross is Salvation, in the Cross is life. In the Cross is the
perfection of sanctity." I read the beautiful words over, and over
again. How exquisite the language is. What hope and radiance beam
through every syllable. "Yes," I said, in the stillness of this
wonderful place, "I too can hear His message, for this once also was
a holy and austere place, where men poured out their lives in the
ecstasies of prayer." Then I thought of the monk of St. Agnes as I
saw him in imagination across the long centuries, denying himself all
that makes life sweet, and welcome to most men, and devoting himself
heart and soul to holy meditation, and still holier penmanship.
Idleness he abhorred; labour, as he said, was his companion, silence
his friend, prayer his auxiliary. There seemed almost an overpowering
sense of holiness in the serene calm of the Abbey, and I strove
against it as if the air were unduly burdened with an incense too
strong to bear. I rose and went to the door and let in the night air.
I saw the dim outline of the trees and the dimmer outline of
garden-bed and bush. As I looked, in strange contrast, the glory of
the summer days returned to me. In the cold of January my mind
floated back to the joy of faintly budding woods, to deep red roses,
to the rich perfume of bee-haunted limes, and to pure lines of
blossoming lilies. All these I saw in my soul as I stood and gazed
into the chill darkness. The flowers seemed to laugh at me, and were
accompanied by fair visions of Joy, Love, and Life; but grim forlorn
winter, the symbol of the lonely soul in the mountain heights, has
also its own beauties. I looked round again, and the mystic sides of
Renunciation held me fast. The peace and devotion of the past seemed
to hold and chain me with irresistible force. I shut the door and
stood again in the place where saints had stood.
[Sidenote: THE HOLY PLACE]
Beside me was the great stone altar with its seven holy crosses,
before which kneeling kings had received the sacrament, and where
saint and sinner had received alike absolution. Outside alone the
stars were witnesses of my presence. They shone as they had shone a
thousand years ago, as they will shine a thousand years to come.
Pale, mystic, and eternal, a holy dew of wonder seemed to fall upon
my shoulders, the Peace of God is not of this world, nor can it be
culled from the joys of life.
It is the Christian's revelation of glory, but those that serve can
hear at times the still calm voice of benediction in such silent
places as this, or in the supreme moment of duty, "for in the cross
is the invincible sanctuary of the humble, in the cross of Christ is
the key of Paradise."
The next morning I rose early. There was much to do, for life can be
as busy in the country as in town. I wrote my letters, and according
to my constant custom--much laughed at, be it said, by many
friends--jotted down my engagements, duties, and pleasurable
excitements for the day. There were--
Some blankets to send to the poor. My list of flower seeds. And then
Bess and I were to go sledging in the lanes.
To English people sledging never seems a quite real amusement, and
always to belong a little to the region of a fairy-story.
Punctual to the moment, Burbidge appeared with long sheets of
foolscap, and we made out the list of seeds.
"Burbidge," I said grandly, as he handed to me the sheets of paper,
"I leave the vegetables to you, save just my foreign pets."
Burbidge bowed graciously and we were about to begin, when he could
not resist his usual speech about disliking foreign men, foreign
flowers, and foreign seeds.
"Yes," I rejoined slyly; "but you must remember how many people liked
the Mont D'Or beans and praised your Berlin lettuces."
"Well, so long as you and the squire were pleased, I know my duty,"
replied Burbidge, mollified.
"Which is?" I could not refrain from asking, for the old man has
always his old-fashioned formula at the tip of his tongue.
"Which is," repeated old Burbidge, rehearsing his old-fashioned
catechism solemnly, "watering in droughts, weeding all weathers, and
keeping a garden throughout peart and bobbish as if it war the Lord's
parlour."
"It is a very good duty," I said.
"Yes," answered Burbidge, complacently; "new fangled scholards
haven't got far beyond that, not even when they puts Latin names to
the job. They have County Councils now, and new tricks of all sorts,
but 'tis a pity as so many get up so early to misinform themselves,
but there be some as allus will live underground and call it light,
and there be none so ignorant as they as only reads books. They be
born bats for all the garnish of their words."
After which there followed a long pause--then Burbidge handed me his
list of vegetables.
"I haven't forgotten the foreigneerers," he said indulgently,
"carrots, potatoes, peas, onions, celery, and greens, sprouts, and
curls--enough even for a kitchen man, and the Lord Almighty would
have a job to know what a Froggy cannot chop up or slip into a sauce.
One might stock a county with extras, if one listened to they."
[Sidenote: LOVE IN THE MIST]
Then we turned to the flower list. Burbidge pointed with a big brown
finger to my entry of "Love in the Mist," as I wrote, for I proposed
having great patches of it in front of my lines of Madonna lilies,
varied by patches of carnations, stocks, and zinnias in turns.
"I don't hold," he said severely, "to so much bluery greenery before
my lilies. There won't be no colour in my borders." Then when I
protested, he added, "You like it, mam, 'cause it has a pretty name.
There's a deal in a name, but 'tisn't all that call it 'Love in the
Mist.' 'Devil in the Bush' was what my mother used to call it, and
other folks 'Laddie in a Hole.' But there's a deal too much talked
about such nonsense. Leave the maids alone, and eat your vittals, is
what I tell my boys, and then there'd be a lot of cakey nonsense left
out of the world."
Then Burbidge, knowing my heart was, what he terms, "set on blows,"
bowed slowly, and vanished.
Left to myself, I looked down the catalogue of flower seeds and
ordered to my heart's content; packets of shadowy Love in the Mist,
and Eckford's delightful sweet peas in exquisite shades of red,
mauve, lavender, rose, pink, scarlet, and pale yellow. Then I thought
of the sweetness of Centaury, the brilliant yellow of the Coreopsis,
the perfume of the mulberry-tinted Scabious, and the azure glory of
the Convolvulus Minor. I recalled the beauty of the godetias and the
opal splendour of the larkspurs, while the gorgeous shades of the
Malopes seemed to make an imaginary background of magnificence in my
borders, and in my mind's eye the diaphanous beauty of the Shirley
poppies seemed to add to the gorgeous sunlight of even sovereign
summer itself. And lastly, as the latest annuals of the year, I did
not forget to add some single moon-faced sunflowers, such as I once
saw at Linley in the old garden there--worn, white, shadowy creatures
with the tears of autumn in their veins.
It is a great delight to order your own flower list. It means a true
wealth of beauty in the future, brilliant colours and sweet odours,
and the promise of so much in the present. Promise is often like the
petals of last year's roses, and yet full of delights is the garden
of imagination. I sat on and dreamt of my future borders, in which no
frost nor hail, nor any evil thing would fall, and sat on drawing
little squares and rounds on white paper borders when my leisure was
suddenly disturbed. Too much leisure is not given to any mother of
the twentieth century. And Bess entered like a thunder clap.
"Mama," she called, "Mama, Crawley declares that you are going out
sledging. May I come--I want to, I want to?"
"Yes," I answered; "but you must do just as I tell you, get out if I
tell you, and not do anything foolish."
Bess agreed to all my stipulations. What would she not have agreed
to, to gain her point? And conditions, before they happen, do not sit
heavily on a child's soul.
At last even luncheon was over, and Bess awaited the sledge,
expectant and triumphant on the mounting-block.
Just as Bess was sure for the hundredth time that it must be almost
tea time, and that something must have happened to Bluebell, the
sound of the bells rang out across the frosty air.
"It comes, it comes," cried Bess, rapturously, "and oh, mama, isn't
it fun. It's better than walnuts on Sundays, or damming up a stream
with Burbidge, or even helping to wash Mouse with Fred," and my
little maid, in a flame-coloured serge mantle trimmed with grey
Chinchilla fur, leapt about with excitement.
[Sidenote: WE JOURNEY IN A SLEDGE]
A minute later, and Fremantle and the footman ran out with blankets,
which they carried in their arms in great brown-paper parcels. Each
parcel bore the name of one of the seven old women who were that
afternoon to receive a pair of blankets. We got in, and then somehow
all the parcels were piled up and round us--how I cannot really say,
but like a conjuring trick somehow it was done. At last, when all was
put in and Bess screamed out "safe," I shook the reins, old Bluebell
looked round demurely, and then trotted off. Mouse gave a deep bay of
exultation, Tramp and Tartar yelped frantically, and away we went.
The dogs barked, the bells jingled, and a keen, crisp wind played
upon us, packages and pony.
We drove along the old town. We passed the old Town Hall with its
whipping-post, and so up High Street past the beautiful old house
known as Ashfield Hall, once the old town house of the Lawleys, where
Charles I. is said to have slept during his wars, and where Prince
Rupert another time dined and rested with some of the gentlemen of
his guard. Ashfield Hall is a striking old house, with a gateway,
mullion and latticed windows, and beyond extends the old street,
known since the days of the pilgrims as Hospital Street.
Overhead stretched a laughing blue sky, and all round was what Bess
was pleased to term the Snow Queen's Kingdom. First of all, we went
to Newtown. We passed the red vicarage with its great dark green
ilex, and then up by the picturesque forge, where the blacksmith was
hammering on a shoe, away by the strange old cottages on the
Causeway, with a fall below them into the road of some seven or eight
feet, on we went as quickly as fat Bluebell could be persuaded to
trot. Then we mounted the hill, and I got out and led the old pony to
ease its burden, for a sledge is always a heavy weight when it has to
be dragged up hill. At last old Jenny James's cottage was reached,
and her parcel duly handed out.
"I like giving things," said Bess, superbly. "It seems to make you
happier."
"Yes," I answered; "but gifts are best when we give something that we
want ourselves."
"Don't you want the blankets, mama?" asked Bess, abruptly.
"Well, not exactly, dear," I answered. "Giving them didn't mean that
I had to go without my dinner, or even had to give up ordering my
seed list this morning."
"Must one really do that," asked Bess sadly, "before one can give
anything?"
"Perhaps, little one," I said, "to taste the very best happiness."
Then there was a little pause, which was at last broken by Bess
turning crimson and saying--
"Mamsie, I think it must be very, very difficult to be quite, quite
happy."
[Sidenote: GIFTS TO THE POOR]
I did not explain, but saw from Bess's expression that I had sown a
grain of a seed, and wondered when it would blossom. Then we turned
round and slipped down the hill at a brisk rattle, all the dogs
following hotly behind, to an old dame who had long had a promise of
a blanket. The old body came out joyfully and stood by her wicket
gate, beaming with pleasure. It is an awful thing, sometimes, the joy
of the poor over some little gift. It brings home to us at times our
own unworthiness more than anything else.
Old Sukey, as she is called by her neighbours, took her blankets from
Bess with delight. "I shall sleep now," she said, "like a cat by the
hearth, come summer come winter," and her old wrinkled face began to
twitch, and tears to rise in her poor old rheumy eyes. "Pretty dear,"
she said to Bess, "'tis most like a blow itself. I wish I had a bloom
to offer, but 'tis only a blessing now that I can give thee."
Again we turned, and pattered back post-haste up the Barrow Road to a
distant cottage.
"Is it a good thing to get a blessing?" asked Bess, suddenly.
"A very good thing, for it makes even the richest richer."
"Then," answered Bess, "when I grow up I mean to get a great many
blessings."
"How, little one, will you do that?"
"Why," answered Bess, "I shall give to everybody everything they
want, and buy for all the children all the toys that I can find."
"But supposing that you are not rich, that you haven't money in your
purse, or a cheque-book from the bank like papa?"
"Then I shall have to pray--and that will do it, for I'm sure the
good Lord wouldn't like to disoblige me."
At last all our visits were paid, and we had left seven happy old
souls, whom it was a comfort to think would all sleep the sounder for
our visit of that day.
As we drove home, Bess suddenly turned round and said--
"Mamsie, why can't they buy blankets?"
It is very hard for the child-mind to grasp that the necessities of
life--bread, blankets, and beds--do not come, in a child's language,
"all by themselves."
Puppies, pets, and chocolates, children can understand have to be
paid for; but the dull things, they consider, surely ought to grow
quite naturally, like the trees outside the nursery windows, all by
themselves, and of their own accord, as they would say.
I tried to explain to Bess what poverty really was, and told her what
it would mean to have no money, but to buy the absolute bare
necessities of life. Bess listened open-mouthed, and at the end
exclaimed--
"Why has God given me so much, and to poor children, then, so little?"
"I wonder," I replied; "but, anyway, as you have got so much, you
must do what you can to make other little boys and girls happier. For
God, when he gives much, will also ask much some day."
Bess did not answer, and we drove back in silence. It was very still
along the country lanes, save for the tinkling of the joyous bells.
Behind us followed our pack, Mouse panting somewhat, for she had fed
at luncheon time, not wisely, but too well; but Tramp and Tartar
scampered gaily after us. The whole country seemed enveloped in a
white winding-sheet, and the sunlight was dying out of the west. A
soft white mist was stealing up over all, but the voice of death was
gentle, calm, almost sweet, across the silent world. Cottages looked
out by their windows, blinking, and appeared almost as white as the
snow beneath them.
Old Bluebell seemed to know that her trot to the Abbey was her last
journey, and went with a good will. We passed the new hospital,
dashed down Sheinton Street, and so into the Italian gates by the old
Watch Tower of the abbot's, beyond the old Bull Ring where, through
many centuries, bulls were baited by dogs.
[Sidenote: "I WANT TO BE HAPPY"]
As we drew up before the door, Bess exclaimed, regretfully--
"Oh, mama, why has it all stopped? I should like driving in a sledge
to go on for ever and ever."
I kissed the little maid, and we went into tea. Bess hardly spoke,
and I thought her wearied by the excitement of the drive, but that
night, when I went up to see her in bed, she called out--
"Mamsie, mamsie, come quite close. A secret." So I sat down on the
little bed, and the little arms went round my neck. "Mama, I have
looked out a heap--a heap of toys--to send off to poor children. My
new doll Sabrina, my blue pig, my little box of tea things, the new
Noah's Ark, but Nana will not pack them up. She says they're too good
for poor children. Isn't she wicked, for I want to give them all, and
to be happy--happy as you mean me to be."
CHAPTER II
FEBRUARY
"The Hag is astride
This night for to ride,
The devil and she together,
Through thick and through thin,
Now out, and now in,
Though ne'er so foule be the weather."
HERRICK'S _Hesperides_.
Some weeks had passed, and I had been away from home. Rain had
fallen, and the snow had vanished like a dream--the first dawn of
spring had come. Not spring as we know her in the South of France or
in Southern Italy--gorgeous, gay, debonair--but shy, coy, and timid.
The spring of the North is like a maiden of the hills, timid and
reserved, yet infinitely attractive, what our French friends would
call "une sensitive."
There was, as yet, very little appearance that winter "brear Winter,"
as Spenser calls him, was routed and obliged with his legions of
frost and snow, to fly before the arrival of youth and life, and the
breath of triumphant zephyrs. A spring in the North is chiefly
proclaimed by the voice of the stormcock in some apple tree, by the
green peering noses of snowdrops, and here and there a crimson tassel
on the hazel tree and larch; but, above all, by the splendour of
golden and purple lights which come and go across the hillsides and
athwart wood and coppice. The turf, as I walked along, I noticed was
moist and soft, and oozed up under my feet. February fill-dyke, as
she is called, had come in due order, and in appointed form. Little
puddles glistened on the drive, and for all the patches here and
there of blue, there were leaden shadows and grey clouds, and it was
wise, if you wandered abroad, to have at hand the protecting
influence of an umbrella. I walked up the back drive, till I stood
before the well of our patron saint.
[Sidenote: THE "HOLY ONE OF WENLOCK"]
Long centuries ago the holy and beautiful daughter of Merewald, King
of Hereford, according to old tradition, came here and founded a
nunnery. The story runs that St. Milburgha, pursued by the
importunities of a Welsh prince, found a refuge at Wenlock, and
gathered round her a community of devoted women.
Tradition tells the story of how the saint fled on one occasion to
Stoke, a hamlet in the Clee Hills. The legend says that she fell
fainting from her milk-white steed as she neared a spring there. As
she did so she struck her head against a stone, causing blood to flow
freely from the wound. At that time, about the middle of February,
some countrymen were occupied in sowing barley in a field which was
called the Placks, and seeing the lovely lady in so sad a plight,
they ran to her assistance.
"Water," she wailed, but none seemed at hand. Then St. Milburgha bade
her steed strike his hoof against the rock, and, believed the
hagiologists, water, clear, wonderful and blessed, leapt forth at her
command. As it flowed, the lady is reported to have said: "Holy
water, flow now, and from all time." Then she stretched forth her
hands and blessed the fields where the barley had been sown, and
immediately, before the astonished eyes of all beholders, the grain
burst forth into tender blades of grass. Then St. Milburgha turned to
the countrymen.
"The wicked prince," she said, "and his pack of bloodhounds are close
upon me, therefore I must fly." And she bade them adieu, but not till
she had told them to sharpen their scythes, for the reaping of the
barley should take place that night.
All came to pass as the Blessed One had foretold, for as the
countrymen were busy reaping their grain, the heathen prince and his
followers arrived on the scene.
But the labourers were true and faithful hearts, and neither threats
nor promises could extract from them in what direction the Lady
Milburgha had fled.
When the prince saw that the peasants had begun to reap the grain
that had been sown the self-same day, a great awe fell upon him and
his lords, and he vowed that it was a vain and foolish thing to fight
against the Lord, and his anointed.
Other old writers tell how the river Corve, at the voice of God,
saved Lady Milburgha; and how, as soon as she had passed over its
waters, from an insignificant little brooklet it swelled into a
mighty flood which effectually barred the prince's progress. Amongst
other incidents mentioned by Saxon chroniclers, we hear that St.
Milburgha drove away the wild geese from the plots of the poor. Many
are the legends of the beautiful Shropshire saint that are still
cherished in the wild country between the Severn and the Clee. She
was as fair as she was good, it was said, and old writers told how,
when a veil once fell from her head in the early morning sunshine, it
remained suspended in the air until replaced by her own hand, and how
she wrought a miracle by prayer and brought back to life the son of a
poor widow; while all the while, a mystic and sacred flame burnt
beside her, a visible manifestation of her sanctity, for all to see.
[Sidenote: THE SAINT'S WELL]
I thought of all these beautiful old legends, fairy-stories of grace,
they seemed to me, as I wandered up the back lane and paused before
the saint's well at Wenlock, which is still said to cure sore eyes.
As I stopped to gaze down upon the deep well below, I noticed that
the little wicket gate was open, and that a child with a little jug
was about to descend the stairs to fetch what she termed in the
Shropshire tongue, "a spot o' water."
"Have you no water at home, my child, that you come here?" I asked.
"Oh yes," replied the little maiden, Fanny Milner by name, "there be
a hougy drop in our well after the rains; but grandam says I must get
some from here, or she'll never be able to read her chapter come
Sunday afternoon, with glasses or no glasses. Grandam says as it have
a greater power of healin' than ever lies in doctor's messes, or than
in bought stuffs neither. It be a _blessed_ water, grandam says, and
was washed in by a saint--and when saints meddle with water, they
makes, grandam says, a better job of it than any doctor, let him be
fit to burst with learning."
I smiled at the apple-cheeked little lass's quaint talk, and helped
her to fill her jar. The belief in the healing powers of the old well
lingers on, and many of the inhabitants of Much Wenlock are still of
opinion that water fetched from St. Milburgha's well can cure many
diseases, and particularly all malign affections of the eyes.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the holy wells of many
Welsh and Shropshire wells degenerated into Wishing wells. They then
lost their sacred character, and became centres of rural festivities.
It is said that at Much Wenlock on "Holy Thursday," high revels were
held formerly at St. Milburgha's well; that the young men after
service in the church bore green branches round the town, and that
they stopped at last before St. Milburgha's well. There, it is
alleged, the young maidens threw in crooked pins and "wished" for
sweethearts. Round the well, young men drank toasts in beer brewed
from water collected from the church roof, whilst the women sipped
sugar and water, and ate cakes. After many songs and much merriment,
the day ended with games such as "Pop the Green Man down," "Sally
Water," and "The Bull in the Ring," which games were followed by
country dances, such as "The Merry Millers of Ludlow," "John, come
and kiss me," "Tom Tizler," "Put on your smock o' Monday," and
"Sellingers all."
Such was the custom at Chirbury, at Churchstoke, and at many of the
Hill wakes, and from lonely cottage and village hamlets the boys and
girls gathered together, and danced and played in village and town.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Frith._
THE RED WALLED GARDEN.]
After shopping in the town, I entered the little old red-walled
garden where my annuals blossom in the lovely long June days. All
looked sad and brown, and "packed by" for rest, as Burbidge calls it.
I noticed, however, a few signs of returning life. The snowdrops had
little green noses, which peered above the ground, and here and there
the winter aconites had bubbled up into blossom. What funny little
prim things they were with their bonnets of gold, and their frills of
emerald green. I noted, also, that the "Mezeron-tree," as Bacon calls
it, was budding. How sweet would be its fragrance a few weeks later,
I thought, under the glow of a warm March sun.
I passed along, and looked at a line of yellow crocuses. The most
beautiful of all crocuses, veritable lamps of fire in a garden, are
those known as the Cloth of Gold. The golden thread was full of
promise, but as yet no blossom was expanded. How glorious they would
be when they opened to the sunshine. There is indeed almost heat in
their colour, it is so warm and splendid.
[Sidenote: MANY-COLOURED STARLINGS FLIT]
As I stood before these signs of dawning life, two starlings flitted
across the garden. How gay they were in their brilliant iridescent
plumage! The sun, as they passed me, struck the sheen of their backs,
and they seemed to shine a hundred colours, all at once. I tried to
count the colours that the sun brought forth in them, gold, red,
green, blue, gray and black with silver lights; but as I named the
colours, words seemed bald and inadequate to describe the beauty and
mutability of their hundred tints, for, as they moved, each colour
changed, dissolved, reappeared and vanished, to grow afresh in some
more wonderful and even more exquisite tint. And then suddenly the
sun was obscured behind a cloud, and my starlings, that seemed a
minute ago to hold in their plumage the beauty of the sun and the
moon and of the stars, became in a twinkling poor brown, everyday,
common little creatures. Like Ashputtel when the charm was gone, they
looked common little vulgar creatures, and as they flew over the wall
into the depths of the ivy on the ruined church, I wondered why I had
ever admired them.
Starlings, some fifty years ago, were often kept as pets. Burbidge
has told me that they are the cleverest mimics that breathe, being
"born apes," so to speak. Now, however, my old friend declares, "none
will do with them, for nobody cares for nought but popinjays, and
then they must have the colours of a gladiolus married to the voice
of a piano." So the English starling is no longer a village pet. A
few minutes later, and Burbidge told me that a spray of Chionodoxa
Luciliæ was out.
I peered round and I saw some little hard china like buttons, folded
tight in a sheath, and beyond, a cluster of bronze noses, about a
quarter of an inch above the ground. How lovely they will be, I
thought, all these delicate spring flowers. All blue, and all
wonderfully beautiful from the deep sapphire blue of the Chionodoxa
Sardensis, to the pale lavender of the dainty and exquisite Alleni.
Yes, the world is alive, I said, and laughed; for I knew that spring
must come in spite of snows and frosts, that the breath of life had
gone forth, mysterious, wonderful, the miracle of all the miracles,
and that the joy of spring and the glory of summer must come, as
inevitably as death and winter.
I turned and inspected a large bed of Chinese Peonies. I moved a
little of the protecting bracken placed there by the loving hand of
Burbidge, and peeped into the litter. Yes, they too, had heard the
call of spring. A few shoots had pierced through the soil, and they
were of the richest blood-red colour, like the shoots of the
tea-roses on the verandah of our hotel at Mentone. They were of the
deepest crimson, with a light in them that recalled the splendour of
a dying sun. Then I covered up the shoots quickly for fear of night
frosts, but with hope in my heart, for everywhere I knew the earth
must burst into bud and blossom; and as I listened to the storm-cock
in the plantation, I rejoiced with him in the lengthening days, and
in the growing sunshine.
[Sidenote: A JOYOUS CHAFFINCH]
I passed out of the garden, and walked down the stone stairs, through
the old wrought-iron gate, that is said to have belonged to the house
where the Rye House Plot was hatched. Just outside, and perched on a
silver holly, I saw a lovely cock chaffinch. A second later, he was
strutting gaily up and down on the grass! What a grand fellow he was,
with his lavender head, his greenish-grey back, his salmon breast,
and the brilliant white bars on his wings! What a cheery,
light-hearted little creature! "Joyeux comme un pinson," the French
say, and he is certainly the most light-hearted of English birds. The
Twink, or Bachelor bird he is often nicknamed, for when winter comes,
many of the cocks stretch their wings and fly off to foreign parts
and leave the hens behind. The pied-finch is his name in the village.
By nature a most joyous bird, the pied-finch is the last of the
summer singers, singing gaily into July, when the thrush and
blackbird are mute. I stood and watched him as he hopped about the
sward. He took no notice that I was near, for the Bachelor bird is
very fearless and curiously little apprehensive, or timid. All of a
sudden, I turned round and saw my great hound Mouse behind me.
"Mouse!" I cried, and with a bound she was beside me. For the first
twenty-four hours after my return, Mouse is miserable out of my
sight. She always gives me a boisterous welcome, and will not leave
me for a moment. She sniffs at my boxes, watches me out of the corner
of her eye, and wanders round me, trying often in a foolish, dumb way
to block my passage, if she thinks I wish to leave the room.
Panting, and running behind my dog, followed Bess.
"Mums," she said, "we couldn't think where you was gone. We hunted
everywhere. 'Like enough,' Burbidge said, 'you was hunting for
flowers.' But don't bother about little spikes and green things, for
Mouse and I want you badly."
"Hals is coming," continued Bess, "and this time without his
crab-tree governess. Burbidge says, 'Give me a Fräulein to turn the
cream sour;' and declares that 'You could make vinegar out of her!'"
"Well, then, my dear," I said, "you and Hals can thoroughly enjoy
yourselves, for you will be alone."
"Yes," answered Bess, "for when I saw Hals I said, 'Nothing but old,
old clothes--clothes that will nearly want gum to stick them on, and
that won't mind any mud.'"
"Did you enjoy yourself at Hals' birthday?" I asked, for on that
eventful day I was away.
"I should think I did, mamsie," and Bess's eyes glistened at the
recollection. "There was no conjurer, but the dearest little white
dog in the world, that did tricks, and he knew more tricks than a pig
at a fair, Nana said; and after that Cousin Alice, Miss Jordan, read
us some stories and poetry. First of all, she sang us such nice old
songs about 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary,' 'Little Boy Blue,' and 'I
saw Three Ships come Sailing,' and then she went on reading poetry.
She read us the 'Ancient Mariner,' and 'Sister Helen,' and I sat on
her knee; but Hals wouldn't sit on his mother's, because he said
people were looking, and boys had better sit on their own chairs. And
'Sister Helen' was quite real, and made me feel creepy, creepy. It
was all about two sisters--they hated some one, and made an image,
and they dug pins into it, and then they repeated bad words, and the
person for whom it was meant got iller and iller and died; and Hals
and me we liked it." So, chattering all the way, Bess and I regained
the house.
"Will there be cake--my favourite cake?" inquired Bess, "the one that
Hals likes best of all, with apricot jam and chocolate on the top?"
"Yes," I answered, "and Auguste has promised to make it himself. But
only one helping. You must try and be wise, little girl."
"I must try," said Bess, but not very hopefully.
Half an hour later and Hals arrived, without Fräulein Schliemann. We
all felt relieved; the two children embraced hurriedly, as if life
was all too short to get in all the fun of an afternoon spent in each
other's company; and then Bess said, "You can go now," sharply to the
little maid who had brought him over. "We don't want to be unkind,
but we want to be quite, quite alone, please;" then, thinking that
she had not been quite courteous, Bess ran impetuously out of the
room. "Poor thing!" she explained to me a minute after, "she must
read, because she cannot play; she cannot help it;" and Bess gave
Jane a story-book.
"You will find that very amusing," I heard her say through the open
door. "It is all about a naughty girl, but she couldn't help being
naughty, 'cause it was her nature."
Then Jane went up to the nursery, and a minute later Bess and Harry
bounced off together. Before leaving me she whispered something into
his ear.
An hour later and Fremantle rang the bell for tea.
[Sidenote: A GREAT, GREAT SECRET]
After a few moments of waiting Bess and Hals reappeared. They
whispered loudly, but I pretended not to hear what they said, for
Bess told me with flashing eyes that they had a great, great secret.
"The greatest secret, Mum Mum, that we ever had in our lives."
Their faces looked scarlet, and as to their hands, it is hard to say
of what colour they were originally. It was, however, Bess's special
_fête_, so I said nothing tactless about cleanliness, nor did I
allude to whispering being against the canons of good manners; for
there are moments when a mother should have eyes not to see, and ears
not to hear, and as a wise friend once said to me, "half the wisdom
of life is knowing when to be indulgent."
I need not have feared any excess on the part of the children as
regarded the cake and the jam, for they hardly ate any, and Auguste's
_chef d'oeuvre_ had only two small slices cut out of it.
Bess, I saw, was under the influence of some great excitement. She
could hardly sit still a moment, and fidgeted on her chair
repeatedly, till I feared she would topple backwards, chair and all.
At last tea was over, and grace was said, and the two children,
breathless, and absorbed, begged leave to go off.
"Yes," I answered, "but not out of doors; for, see, it is raining,
and I promised your mother, Hals, that you should not get wet."
"Oh no, it's nothing to do with puddles," cried Bess. "But, mum, may
I take some pins from your pincushion? Nurse won't let me have as
many as I want. And then will you say that nobody--nobody is to go
near us?"
"Very well," I answered, "only don't do anything that is really
wrong."
Bess avoided my gaze, and did not answer, and a minute later I heard
the two children scuttle up the newel staircase, and shortly after
heard the muffled sound of voices in the old tower of the Abbey that
a Lawley is said to have erected in the middle of the seventeenth
century.
[Sidenote: THE FAIRY-STORY]
About half an hour after, the children returned to me in the chapel
hall. Bess, I noticed, looked white and fagged, and both children
seemed exhausted by their play, whatever it was, so I made them sit
quiet, fetched my embroidery, and began to tell them a fairy-story. I
meandered along the paths of fiction. I fear my story had but little
plot, but it had fiery dragons, wild beasts, a fairy prince, and a
beautiful fairy princess, and, in the background, a wicked ogre. And
as I talked, the children sat entranced.
"You see," I said, as I heard the front-door bell ring, and heard the
tramp of horses outside, "the prince was to have everything, all that
his heart could wish--dogs, the golden bow and arrows, the azure
ball, and the deathless crimson rose--as long as he restrained his
temper, and never gave way to fits of violent passion. But if he
swore at his old nurse, Ancoretta, or struck the goat-herd, Fritz, or
even pinched the goose-girl, Mopsa, palace, dogs, bow, ball and rose
were all to disappear like a flash of lightning, and he was to become
again the poor little bare-legged village lad. Then the princess was
to be carried off by fiery dragons, and never return till he,
Florizel, had been able to grow good and pitiful again, and to do
some lowly, humble service to some poor old dame that everybody else
despised, and was unkind to."
At this point of my story, Fremantle entered and announced the
carriage.
"Go on, go on," cried the children in one breath. "We want to hear
what happened!"
But I answered, shaking my head, "How Prince Florizel was rude to his
tutor, ungrateful to his old nurse, and beat his faithful
foster-brother, Fritz, is another story, as Mr. Kipling would say;
and all this you must wait to hear in the second volume of my mind,
which will appear on Easter Monday, when Hals shall come over, if his
mother can spare him, and we three will all sail off in fairy barks
with silken sails to the far and happy land of Fancy."
So Harry departed, attended by Jane, and Bess sat on in silence
looking hard into the fire, and then early, and of her own accord,
pleaded fatigue and slipped off to bed.
Just as I was finishing dinner I saw old Nurse Milner standing in the
doorway.
"Nothing wrong, nurse?" I asked, starting up.
"Nothing very wrong," answered old Nana, cautiously; "leastways, Miss
Bess is not ill, but she seems out of sorts and won't say her prayers
to-night, and will keep throwing herself about, till I think she's
bound to fall out of bed. I have asked her what's the matter, but
she's as secret as a state door. She and Master Harry have been up to
some tricks, I'll be bound, for I don't hold to children playin' by
themselves, as if they were nothing but lambkins in a meadow. You
can't tell what they won't be up to, but this you may be sure of, to
childers left by themselves, mischief is natural sport." And old Nana
glared, and made me feel very small.
"No great harm done this time," I said, and went upstairs.
"What's the matter, little girl?" I asked. I took a little hot,
feverish hand and pressed her to tell me why she would not say her
prayers.
At first Bess was sullen--turned her head away, and would not speak;
but she could not resist my kiss, and at last confession bubbled up
to her lips.
[Sidenote: A LITTLE MAID'S CONFESSION]
"Mama," she exclaimed vehemently, "I have been wicked, very
wicked--wicked as an ogre or a she-dragon. Can you love me really and
truly when you know what I've done--really love me again?"
"I am sure I can," I answered, "only tell me. When I know, I can help
you."
Bess buried her head against my shoulder, and then rambled on rather
incoherently--
"Do you remember what I told you about Hals' birthday--how there
wasn't a conjurer but a white dog, and how, after the tricks were
done, Miss Jordan read us stories and told us poems? Well, there was
one bit of poetry that I wish I had never heard, nor Hals either, and
that was Sister Helen, because it has made me very wicked. It has
made me think of how I could pay out Fräulein. We both hate her, she
does nothing but punish; not punish you to make you good, but to make
you horrid. Hals catches it for not washing his hands, for not
brushing his hair, for not putting on his coat, for losing his
blotting-paper, for dropping his pencil. Everything means a
punishment with Fräulein. She pounces on him like a cat, and she has
him everywhere." Then, after a pause, Bess began again. "Hals and I
thought we would punish her, too--once and for all."
"Yes, Bess," I inquired; "but what did you do?"
"Mum, I was very naughty," replied my little girl, tearfully.
"To-day, Hals and I went upstairs, up to the tower, and I got a
dustpan and two candle-ends, and we lighted some sticks and some
paper in the dustpan--I stole some matches out of papa's room--and
then we melted up the wax."
"And then, Bess?"
"Then, when the wax was sticky and horrid, we stuck pins into it, and
I said, 'Please, God, let Fräulein die.' And Hals did not want to say
it, but I made him, for I said I wouldn't have God angry with only me.
"And then I called out, 'Let her die, God, in horrid pain, like the
snake last year that Burbidge killed and that wouldn't die straight
off; and then, dear Lord, let her go to hell and be kept there ever
afterwards.' But Hals wouldn't say that, because he had heard
Parsons, their stud groom, say you must give every beggar a chance,
so he bargained that she should come out one day and have some
chocolates. To which I said, if the Lord lets her out of hell, it
shall be only common chocolates, not like those that Uncle Paul
brought me back from Paris. Then Hals agreed, Mum Mum; only he said,
for all she was a German woman, the chock was not to be too nasty,
seeing that she would only have some once a year.
"Then Hals wanted to go away; but I said he shouldn't till we had
done the whole job.
"Then he and I blew out the fire and stamped upon the wax, and it was
quite soft and squashy and I pricked my foot; but nurse does not
know, for Eliza bathed me to-night, and Eliza did not notice."
"And after that?" I asked.
"Oh," sobbed Bess, "you will be very angry."
"Never mind, go on," I said.
"Then," said Bess, steeled to the point, in a penetrating broken
chirp, "after that I told Hals we must say bad words, for I knew that
bad words can do a great deal. But Hals couldn't think of any, so I
called him a muff and a milksop, and I told him to repeat after me
all that I said."
[Sidenote: HOW COULD I BE SO NAUGHTY?]
"What did you say?"
"Mama, I called out 'damn' three times."
"My dear, what a dreadful word! How did you know it?"
"Oh, once I heard Uncle Paul say it when he ran a nail in his boot;
and once I remembered that Crawley said it when he got his foot
caught in a gate-post out riding, and I have never forgotten it. And
worse," continued Bess, "I called out, 'hell! hell! hell!' and then I
was frightened; but I didn't let Hals see it, or he would have said
girls were only funks after all."
"Well, little girl, you have done wrong, and you know it; for it is
always wicked to curse anybody, and mean to pray that some evil may
befall them. But," I added, as I saw Bess's tear-stained little face,
"I am sure you're sorry; for think what a terrible thing it would be
if anything dreadful happened to Fräulein, and if you thought your
wicked words had brought it about."
Bess's composure by this time had quite broken down, she broke out
into a passionate fit of tears.
"Why don't you beat me, why don't you shake me, or do something?" she
cried.
"My poor little girl," I answered, and I took her in my arms and
prayed God that He would purify my little girl's heart, and give her
a pure white soul.
At last Bess's sobs grew less violent, and she lay quiet.
"Do you feel better now?" I asked.
"Yes," came back from Bess; "for the curses, Mum Mum, seem to have
gone out of the room and to be dying away. Before you came, the whole
place seemed full of them, and eyes, great horrid eyes, seemed to be
looking at me everywhere, and I couldn't rest, do what I would."
"Now you can sleep," I said with a smile, "and I will sit by you till
all the evil spirits are gone, and guard you."
So I sat on without speaking, and held Bess's hands till the dustman
of children's fancy came with his sandbags and threw the sand of
kindly oblivion into my little maiden's eyes, and she fell asleep.
Then softly and as delicately as I could, I untwined the little
network of fingers that had twined themselves so cunningly around
mine, and gave little Bess a parting kiss as I glided out of the room.
When I returned to the chapel hall I found a letter from Constance.
In a postscript she told me that the idea of the quilt was taking
form.
"From 'Gerard's Herbal' I have chosen," she wrote, "the King's
Chalice, or Serins' Cade; the Dalmatian Cap; the Guinny Hen; the
Broad-leaved Saffron; Goat's Rue, or the Herb of Grace; Ladies'
Smock; Golden Mouse-ear; Solomon's Seal; Star of Bethlehem; Sops in
Wine; Ales-hoof; Wolf's Bane and Golden Rod. I give you all the old
names. On a scroll I propose round the quilt or 'bed hoddin,' as
Shropshire folks would call it, to work wise and beautiful words
about sleep;" and her letter ended with an appeal to me, to help her,
by finding some apt saws and quotations for this purpose. Of course I
will; what a delightful excuse for looking through the poets, I said
to myself.
I looked at the old Dutch clock. Ten minutes, I said, before going to
bed. Ten minutes, ten golden minutes, when it is not a duty to do
anything, or a matter of reproach to be idle. The fire was dying
softly down. I saw all faintly by the dim light of the lamp--the dark
panelling, the two Turners, the old Bohemian bench, the stern outline
of the altar, and outside the still night.
[Sidenote: THE COMPANY OF SAINTS]
"Are you not afraid to sit by yourself?" a somewhat foolish friend
once asked me. "I should be terribly alarmed of ghosts."
"Afraid of holy spirits?" I remember answering. "No crime is
associated with Wenlock. There is only an atmosphere of prayer and
saintliness there, a fragrance from holy lives rising up to God in
perpetual intercession; surely such thoughts should make nobody
uneasy or unhappy."
"I don't know," my friend had replied. "But lancet windows, I know,
always make me creepy--and living in a church," she added
inconsequently, "would be almost as bad as having a house with a
curse. I am sure I should always be dreaming of finding a walled-up
skeleton, or something mediæval and uncomfortable."
At which we had both laughed, and I confessed that I liked being left
to my angels and my prayers, and that it was good to believe that one
had a soul, and that all the forces of God's world were not comprised
in steam, the Press, and electricity.
Then, as I sat on, my mind reverted to the little child, sleeping, I
hoped, peacefully upstairs. "Poor little impetuous Bess," I said to
myself, "I trust some day she will not break her heart against the
bars of earth. She wills, and wants, so strongly when the fit is on
her, and then afterwards, remorse, sorrow, and despair."
The child is the father of the man, and in my mind's eye I saw my
little maiden as she would be in womanhood--dark, passionate,
devoted, generous, impulsive, with a golden heart, but self-willed
and not easy to guide. Heaven grant her pathway may not lie across
many briars, and that I may be able to protect, and water the
flowers, in the garden of her soul.
All education is a hard matter, and we parents are often like
children groping in the dark. It takes all that mother and father can
do, friends and contemporaries, and, after all, in Burbidge's homely
language, is often "a parlous and weedy job." We so often give the
wrong thing to our children, and, what is worse, the wrong thing out
of love and affection. We so often, as Montaigne wrote, "stuff the
memory and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and
void." We are too often knowing only in what makes present knowledge,
"and not at all in what is past, no more than which is to come." We
do not think sufficiently of the development and growth of character.
Above all, few fathers and mothers try simply to make their children
good men and women, without which all is lost; for, as the great
essayist said, "all other knowledge is hurtful to him or her who has
not the science of goodness."
We must not be afraid of emotion, at least, not of right emotion; nor
must we be shy of offering our highest tributes of admiration to
honour, virtue, and real greatness. We must not be ashamed to mention
honourable deeds, and we must teach our children that honourable
failure is better than dishonourable success.
Life is not all an armchair for youth to rest in, or a country of
roast larks even for the youngest, and there are higher and better
things even than having "a good time." Such were the thoughts that
flashed through my brain as I lighted my yellow Broseley-ware
candlestick and went up the oak stairs to bed.
---------------------
The next day, as soon as I had finished breakfast, I got a message
from our old gardener, Burbidge, to the effect that he wished to
speak to me, and that at once.
[Sidenote: BROTHER BEN IS "OVERLOOKED"]
I found the old man in the long lower passage of the monks.
"What is it?" I asked. "Nothing wrong in the garden?"
"Not so bad as that; but 'tis about my brother as I've come."
"Your brother, Burbidge?" I repeated. "I did not even know that you
had one."
"Well," replied Burbidge, "'tisn't often as I speak of him, and 'tis
twenty year agone since I've seen 'im, for when folks be hearty yer
needn't trot round the country like a setter to see 'em; but now as
Benjamin is old and in danger, I think as I'd better have a day off,
and go and see him."
"Where does he live?" I asked.
"At Clun, just outside the town," was Burbidge's reply. "He's been
there these seventy year, and more. When he were quite a lad he lived
at Bridgnorth, but over seventy year he have a-lived with Farmers
Benson--first with Farmer James, then with his son Joshua, and lastly
with his grandson, Farmer Caleb. Benjamin he have a-buried two wives
and thirteen childer, and the berrial of the lot have a-come upon him
like tempest in summer. But he have allus kept hale and hearty--till
this year."
"Has Benjamin been able to work all these years?" I inquired.
"Of course he 'ave," replied Burbidge, scornfully. "Of course he did,
till he war _overlooked_."
"Overlooked?" I said, and turned to Burbidge puzzled.
After a pause, Burbidge, seeing that I did not realize the full
importance of his statement, repeated, "Overlooked, and by a _black_
witch too." And then he lowered his voice and added, "For all their
education, parsons, newspapers and what not, there be black witches,
and some of 'em has hearts as black as hell, and can suck the very
life out of a fellow."
"But surely your brother doesn't believe that _now_?"
"Doesn't he," answered Burbidge. "My brother knows better than to
disbelieve in devils and witches. You don't catch him going against
the Word of God like that. Yer might as well try to stir a puddin'
with an awl, or to repeat a verse of Hebrew under a moonless sky, as
tear up the old belief in the old Shropshire folk. The devil he won't
go out of Shropshire for all the papers daily, and weekly, as ever
town people read or write; no, not even to make place for trains, and
motors. He 'ave his place here, and he'll keep his wenches, the
witches, near him."
"But what has happened to your brother?" I asked, as soon as I could
get a word in.
"Why, just the same as has been happening for years, and thousands of
years to others, and which will happen, whether Shropshire be ruled
by a king or a queen, and which be Gospel truth whatever they say,
and which may come dwang-swang to any Christian man."
And thereupon I heard the story of how old Benjamin Burbidge had been
bewitched. I listened amazed, for the tale was more like an incident
in some witch's trial in James I.'s time than a story of modern life.
[Sidenote: BECKY SMOUT, THE WITCH]
"Yer must know," continued our old gardener, "as Benjamin war
waggoner at Bottomly Farm--and he have a-been so for years and years.
And a fine team his war--a team of roans and all mares--to get foals
off at the close. Well, and fat they war, and for all he war old,
horse and harness Benjamin minded surely. His horses were to him like
gold, and he put in elbow grease as if he war a lusty lad of twenty
in minding 'em. Well, one day his granddaughter Sally, who keeps
house for him, war mixin' meal for the poultry, when up comes Becky
Smout as they call her there, an old gangrel body, weazen, dark as
walnut juice, and the look of a vixen in her eyes. Some folks say she
came to Shropshire on a broomstick, and some seventy year agone from
Silverton on the Clee-side. 'Tis a land of witches that Clee Hill,
and allus have been a stronghold of the devil, as old Parson Jackson
used to say. When Becky saw the poultry meat, her belly craved for
it. Her held out both hands ape-like and her cried out, 'Let it be a
howgy sup, my wench.' But Sal war in a temper it seems. 'Let be,' she
sang out; 'dost think I've nought to do but to cram thy belly as if
thee were a yule-tide hog;' and folks say with both bowl, and spoon,
Sal flung out in a fanteag, because it seems Benjamin had promised
her for her own gewgaws what her could make by the sale of the fat
hens and the widdies come Christmas. And Becky her let her rage and
never, they say, spoke one single word, but looked at her darkly,
speered round, and wrote some devil's characters in the dust outside
the door; and as she passed down the lane they heard her laughin',
laughin' like an ecall on an April morning, fit to split her sides in
half. The next morning, when Sal got out to feed her poultry, she
picked up the speckled hen, and a morning or two arter she found the
yellow cock all stiff and cold with a kind of white froth round his
mouth. And after that, her war all of a tremble, war Sal. Her began
to hear voices, and to see things as folks shouldn't see, and to hear
bits of noises everywhere. And a kind of sweat seemed to ooze out
from her hands and feet, and her felt cold and hot all to a time, and
the doctor's physic did her no good, nor could any of Mrs. Benson's
draughts ease her. And they sent her off to the sea to stay with a
sister at Rhyl; but Sal her came back queerer than ever, and her
wouldn't speak, but would sit gaping and blinking as if her couldn't
mak' nothin' out, nor understood nought. And all the while Becky
would prance about aunty-pranty, and speer over the hedge, and laugh
and jabber and talk a heathen tongue."
"What is that?" I asked.
"_Why, their own tongue._"
"What is it like?"
"Oh, never you ask, marm," replied Burbidge sternly. "No pure-minded
woman ever spoke that tongue, but witches they take to it like
widdies" (ducklings) "to a horse pond. And for all Ben had cried
'Fudge,' and 'You don't catch an old fox nappin',' as he did at the
first when Sal were overtaken, he got mighty fidgety and couldn't
stop still. He took to dropping his pipe, wud begin a story and then
wud break off and laugh afore the joke was come, and his speech got
queer like Sal's, and at last he could bear it no longer, and he went
off to Becky. And he took a golden guinea that he had had off the
first Mrs. Benson, her as they called madam, for folks said that she
war a parson's daughter, and that she had given him for pulling her
lad out of a brook over seventy years agone, and that he valued like
the apple of his eye, and he pulled out the guinea from his waistcoat
pocket and he said 'This be yourn,' to Becky, 'if for the love of God
you'll take the curse off me and mine.' But her wudn't, wudn't Becky,
and her only laughed and laughed, same as an ecall in the Edge wood.
And then Ben ran out frightened, so that his legs seemed to give
under him, same as a hop shoot that has no stake, and he came home
jabbering, crying, and laughing like a frightened child, and nobody
could do nought with him.
[Sidenote: BURBIDGE SEEKS HIS BROTHER]
"Farmer Benson, he tried to do what he could as _maister_; but
Benjamin had lost all respect, and laughed at him same as if he had
been his gossip. Nor could any of his childers bring him to reason,
neither Frank nor Moses, his grown sons who live at Wolverhampton,
and have families of their own. So at last Mrs. Benson, her has
a-wrote to me, to come and try what I can do. And seeing that Ben and
I we be true brothers, and he so down in his luck, I thought as I'd
like to go and see him, and look in at a Craven Arms bit of a show of
a few spring things, and so get a holiday and a sight of poor Ben at
the same time, if so be I can be free to-day."
I assured Burbidge that he was quite free, as he expressed it, and I
trusted that he would find his brother better than he expected. "Only
make him believe that Becky Smout is an impostor," I said, "and has
no real power to injure him or his granddaughter, and all will go
well."
But at this advice Burbidge solemnly shook his head.
"They ideas does for the Quality," he grumbled, "but workin' folks
know better. Us wouldn't hold such creeds if they warn't deadly
real." And so saying, my old friend clumped down the mediæval
passage, and I was left thinking how little Shropshire was changed,
in spite of board schools and daily papers, from the Shropshire of
the Stuarts.
A minute later and I heard a child's voice close to my elbow, and saw
a little girl, Susie Rowe by name. "You here, Susie?" I said, and
asked the reason of her visit.
I was told "that grandam was but poorly," and Susie begged for a bit
of tea and a drop of broth. "Grandam doesn't know," added Susie,
blushing, "for her don't hold to begging; but Betty Beaman, the old
body what lives with her, her says, 'Hasten up, my maid, and bring
her something nice from the Abbey.'"
"Of course," I answered, "Mrs. Harley shall have anything I have."
And I called to Auguste to fill the basket with good things.
He filled a little can with milk, got a packet of tea and filled a
gallipot with _crême de Volaille_ from the larder. Susie passed me a
few minutes later, weighed down by her basket, but all smiles, and
she promised she would tell her grandmother to expect a visit from me
in the course of the afternoon.
Just before luncheon my little maiden appeared. She was sad, and
silent, and I did not allude to what had taken place yesterday; but
at luncheon-time I told her I was going to Homer, and invited her to
ride Jill whilst I walked.
It was a lovely afternoon, sweet and almost warm, but there was
little sunshine. All was enveloped in a soft grey mist. We walked
along the lanes, Jill nosing me at intervals for lumps of sugar.
Mouse was of the party, and ran backwards and forwards very pleased
and gay. A pony is always a pleasure to a dog; it seems to give state
and importance to a walk. Tramp and Tartar scampered ahead, and
sniffed and skurried round, and up, and down the high banks that
skirted the track.
At length we reached the lane that turns off from the Wenlock Road,
and Farley Dingle, and we stood on the top of the edge before dipping
down into the valley to the little hamlet below known as Homer.
[Sidenote: BANISTER'S COPPICE]
I stopped to look at, and admire the view; even in the subdued light
of a grey winter's day it was enchantingly beautiful. The little
cottages of Homer clustered in a circle at my feet, whilst round them
nestled orchards of apple trees and damsons, which last would soon be
out in a mist of white blossom, like a maze of stars on a frosty
night. Far away I saw Harley church, the woods of Belswardine, the
smoke of Shrewsbury lying like a mantle of vapour on the distant
plain, and to the west rose the great hills of Carodoc and the Long
Mynde, whilst immediately before me stretched the ill-fated spot
known as Banister's Coppice.
It was here, according to old tradition, that the unfortunate Duke of
Buckingham, in Richard III.'s reign, was betrayed by his faithless
steward at his house at Shinewood. The story ran that the duke's
cause did not prosper, and that his Welsh allies melted away, so that
he, finding himself hard pressed by the royal forces, and not able to
collect fresh troops, hurriedly disbanded his followers and fled to
the house of his servant Banister, or Banaistre, as he was called by
some of the old chroniclers.
Buckingham thought, having conferred great benefits on his servant,
that he could count upon his loyalty; but Banister was tempted by the
great reward, £1000, offered by the king for his master's
apprehension, and told "Master Mytton," then sheriff, where he was
concealed.
The duke, according to the old story, lay in a ditch near the house,
on the outskirts of the coppice, disguised, it is said, in the smock
of a countryman, and was arrested at night by John Mytton, who came
over from the old hall at Shipton, with a force of armed men. When
Buckingham knew that his arrest was due to the treachery of his
servant, he broke forth and cursed his faithless steward in the most
awful, and terrible manner. He cursed his goings in, and goings out,
the air he breathed, the liquor he drank, and the very bread he ate,
and with the same curse, he cursed all his family. According to
tradition, they all ended miserably.
An old writer declares, "Shortly after Banister had betrayed his
master, his son and heir waxed mad, and died in a boar's stye; his
eldest daughter, of excellent beauty, was suddenly stricken of a foul
leprosy; his second son became very marvellously deformed in his
limbs, whilst his youngest son was drowned 'and strangled' in a very
small puddle of water. And Banister himself, when he became of
extreme old age, was found guilty of a murder, and was only saved by
the intervention of the clergy, to whom he had paid large sums. As
for the £1000, the king," says the same old writer, "gave him not one
farthing, saying 'that a servant who had been so untrue to so good a
master, would be false to all other.'"
Shinewood House--for the old manor of the duke's time has gone--I
could not see, but I knew the place, and as I looked across wood and
meadow, all the old story and its tragedy came back to me. Some
writers say that Buckingham was executed at Shrewsbury, but
Shakespeare and Sir Thomas More declare that he was executed at
Salisbury on the feast of All Souls.
[Sidenote: A VISIT TO DONKEYLAND]
Bess and I walked down the cart-track and looked below. Five or six
donkeys were browsing on the scant herbage, for every one at Homer
keeps a donkey, and the common name of the hamlet is Donkeyland.
After a few minutes' walking, we left the main track, and made our
way to a little homestead that nestles close against the hill, and is
surrounded by a bower of fruit trees. As we turned through the wicket
a band of dark-eyed children quitted the little school and greeted
us. The children looked as if they belonged to another race than
those at Much Wenlock. They had dark, almost black eyes, and swarthy
skins. I have been told that in the end of the eighteenth century a
gang of gipsies came and settled at Homer, built huts for themselves,
married and settled there; and that is why the good folks of Homer
seem of a different race from the rest of the neighbourhood. I paused
before knocking at the cottage door, and begged Fred, the groom who
had followed us, to take my little maiden for a ride, and bring her
back in half an hour.
"Mayn't I come in?" asked Bess.
"Not to-day, for Mrs. Harley is really ill," I answered. "Take the
dogs, and come back presently."
Bess and her pony, followed by Tramp and Tartar, vanished, and old
Betty opened the cottage door. All was irreproachably clean. The
brass warming-pan over the chimney piece shone like gold, and the
old-fashioned dresser was garnished with spotless blue and white
china. There was a mug or two of lustre-ware, a few embroidered
samplers on the walls, and a pot or two of budding geraniums behind
the windows. Upon the hob a copper kettle hissed gaily.
I asked after Mrs. Harley, the owner of the cottage. But Betty shook
her head. "She 'ave a-heard the Lord's call," she replied; "but she's
ready--been ready this forty years, and her wants to go."
A minute later I found myself by my old friend's bedside. She had a
wonderful face, this old village woman. Through it shone the inner
light which once to see is never to forget. I sat down by her, at a
sign from Betty, and asked her how she did.
For all answer Mrs. Harley smiled.
"I fear you suffer?"
"That does not matter," came back from her, "for I am going home."
The room was a plain little room with old oak beams across the
ceiling, the covering on the bed was old and worn, there were only
the barest necessities of life, and yet as I sat watching my old
friend, I could almost hear the sound of angels' wings.
In spite of pain, long nights of sleeplessness, and a long and weary
illness, my old friend's face glowed with happiness, and in her eyes
was that perfect look of peace, which remains as a beacon to every
pilgrim who has ever met it. I offered to read to Mrs. Harley, but
she declined.
"No readin', dear, for I can hear Him myself. There's no need now to
speak or pray, I'm goin' Home. I, what be so tired." Then she thanked
me for coming, and asked me with an ethereal smile about "the little
one. Mak' her grow up worth havin'," she added seriously. "Every
child is made in the image of God, and it isn't parents as ought to
deface His image. 'Tisn't only book learning, and fine dressing, as
will make her a lady, but you'll do yer best," and she patted my hand
affectionately.
[Sidenote: TWO OLD FRIENDS]
Then my old friend began to talk of her past life, of her early
marriage, "fifty years agone," with a right God-fearing man; of her
happy married life, and then, calmly and bravely, of her joyous and
approaching death.
"I am going Home," were her last words, and I shall never forget the
exquisite certainty of her tone, as I left the room and followed
Betty downstairs.
A minute later, and Betty and I found ourselves in the little kitchen
below.
"I shall miss her terrible," she said in a husky voice. "Nell and I,
years and years agone, were scholards together when old Madam
Challoner taught in the little white house yonder, afore the new
school was built. We growed up and we married, the same year. Her got
a good man; I got a beauty, and a bad one. When Harley died, he left
his missus the cottage, garden, a few fields, and a tight bit of
money. Soon after her was left a widow, I went to see her, for
Marnwood Beaman, my man, he fell off a waggon, dead drunk, and was
killed, and I was left without a penny. I couldn't do much, for I had
got cripply ever since I had got the rheumatics, so I made up my mind
it war to the poor-house I war bound. One day (when I had stomached a
resolution to carry this through, and it costs the poorest body a lot
to do), I went, as I said, to see Nell afore I spoke to the overseer.
"When I got in, Nell, her comed up to me and her says, 'What ails
thee, Betty?' for my eyes were red and bulgy. Then I told her what
war on my mind, and that for all my cottage war a poor place, it went
sadly against the grain to leave it and to have a mistress to knopple
over me, and give me orders same as if I war a little maid at school.
"Then," added Betty, "Nell her brought me the greatest peace as I
have ever felt.
"Her said, with one of her grand smiles, and sometimes, for all her
war but poor folk, Nell looked a born duchess, but with a bit of an
angel too, 'Don't you think, Betty, of leaving and goin' to the
poor-house or any other institution, but stay you at home with me.
Pick up your duds and us two will live together, for my daughter be
married.
"'I don't want exactly a serving wench, nor a daughter, nor a sister,
but some one as is betwixt and between, and a bit of all three. Thee
can work a bit, give thee time, and we can crack an old tale together
after tea; I shan't be timid with thee, nor thee of me. Us shall be
just two old folks goin' down the hill together--and the getting down
shall be natural, and friendly. I can take thy hand, and thou canst
take mine.'
"And her did give me a hand," exclaimed old Betty, warmly, "a hand
that has kape me safe all these years; and I bless the Lord for such
a true and good friend."
We sat on in silence, and I could not but think how sweet, and loyal,
had been the friendship of these two old people. Suddenly Betty got
up and poked the fire.
"Last time as yer war callin'," she said, "yer asked me, mam, what I
could say about that Nanny Morgan, her as war a known witch. Nell
won't name her, for her says Nan was given up to the devil, and all
his works, and that her has something else to think of. But since yer
are wishful to know, and the little lady is not here, I'll tell yer
what I can.
[Sidenote: THE STORY OF THE WITCH]
"Nanny Morgan was the daughter of Richard Williams, and she war born
and bred in a little house up at Westwood, on the way to Presthope.
Yer must often have seen the place, as yer go to Five Chimneys. Nan
war a fine, strapping lass when first I remembered her. Dark, tall,
with steel-grey eyes. Her got into trouble when quite a maid for
having a finger in the pie of robbing Mrs. Powell at Bourton. Her was
tried at Shrewsbury for the robbery, and lay in prison, they said, a
long time. When her got out of prison her own people wouldn't harbour
her, they said, and she went and lived with the gipsies. There she
learnt card tricks, tellin' of fortunes, and took to wandering and
unchristian ways. Us didn't see her at Wenlock for a long while, but
one day she turned up at Wenlock Market on a Monday, and told a
friend that her had taken 'dad's old house' and meant to settle down
and bide in the old place.
"Her called herself then Nanny Morgan, though who Morgan war I never
rightly knew, most like some tinker man. Anyway, her went to
Westwood, and there her lived, told fortunes by cards and by
hand-readin', sold love drinks, and was hired out as a curser--and of
all the cursers, there war none that could curse with Nan. For her
cursed the goin's in and the goin's out of folks, the betwixt and
between, the side-ways and slip-slaps, till, as they said, there
wasn't foot-room for folks to stand on, nor a thimbleful of air for a
creature to breathe, that hard could Nanny curse.
"She was terrible to meet," continued Betty. "Once as I war walkin'
back to Homer after marketing at Wenlock, I looked up and Nan was
full in my road, straight against the sky. How her had comed there, I
don't know, but there her war, terrible fierce and sudden, and her
great eyes seemed to look through and through me, and I fair quailed
before her, as they say a partridge does afore a hawk. Every one war
feared of Nanny," added old Betty, "for they felt before her as
innocent as a child, and what war there as she couldn't do to them?
"Nan lived on at Westwood and none dared say her nay, or to refuse
her ought, and all the while she went on practising devil's arts,
till her got her death."
"How was that?" I asked.
"Well, it war years agone." And Betty thought for a moment and then
added, "'Twas in the year 1857 that Nan got her deserts.
"There war a young lodger as had a bed at Nan's, and Nan took to him
terrible, and the lovinger her got the more he held back; and the
witch played with 'um same as a cat does with a mouse, and wouldn't
let 'un off to marry his own sweetheart. So one evening, he went into
Wenlock, and he bought a knife, and he stole back to her house, and
she called him soft like a throstle. Then while she stirred her pot,
he stabbed her to get free of her love philters. When Mr. Yates, who
war mace-bearer and barber, comed up, he found Nan, they said, lying
in a pool of blood, but they durst not undress her for fear of
getting witch's blood, and we all know that that is a special
damnation.
"Her led a bad life, did Nan," pursued old Betty; "her kept a swarm
of cats, and one she called Hellblow and another Satan's Smile, and
her had a box of toads to work mysteries with, and these, they said,
would hop at night, and leer and talk familiar as spirits, and
besides these, there war a pack of wicked books. You yourself, mam,
have her card-table where her used to sit. One leg of it higher than
the rest, and the ledge below, was where her wickedest toad used to
perch--it as they called 'Dew,' and that had been bred up on
communion bread, to reveal secrets. Sometimes, I've heard, Nan would
fall a-kissin' that toad and whisper to it all sorts of unclean
spells. I couldn't abear the table. It might fall to speaking itself
at nights, and then the devil only knows what it would say."
There was a pause, and then old Betty went on to say--
"After Nan war buried, the books one and all war brought down to the
Falcon's Yard Inn and burnt publicly. So that war her end, and a
wickeder woman never lived."
As the sound of Betty's last words died away, I heard the noise of
horses' feet gaily trotting up the lane.
"That will be my Bess," I said, "and as the twilight is beginning, I
must return." Then I begged that Susie might come and tell me if
there is anything I could send for Mrs. Harley, and we passed out of
the door.
[Sidenote: THE FIRST FLOWERS OF THE YEAR]
As we neared the wicket, Bess called out, "Look, look, and see what I
have found. Three snowdrops all white, a hazel nut-tail, and a nice
sticky bud of a horse-chestnut; but never mind anything but the
snowdrops, for they bring luck, Nana says."
I took the first flowers of the year; what a dazzling white they
were! And I recalled, as I held them, the old legend of the "white
purification" as it was once called.
"And to think," said Betty, smiling and noting our joy over the
flowers, "as I haven't a blow to give my pretty," and she smiled at
Bess; "but us has nought in blow, save a bud or two of the damsons,
and I dursn't pull it, for folks say, him as pulls fruit blossom
deserves the same as her as burns bread-crumbs, and I wouldn't bring
her any ill-chance."
Then I passed out of the little cottage precincts. I saw old Betty
still holding the gate, a dim figure with a red shawl. Bess blew her
a kiss, the dogs barked furiously; even Mouse joined in her deep bell
notes, and once more we were under way on our own homeward journey.
A soft grey mist gathered round us, with the growing darkness. All
was very still after a few minutes, and the only sound that we heard
was the baying of a dog in the distance at some lonely farm.
Far away in the west gleamed a golden light. Once we passed a brown
figure of some labouring man returning to his cottage, and as we
neared a thicket of budding blackthorn we were greeted by the voice
of a throstle singing his evening hymn. I carried my flowers
reverently, for were they not the first promise of spring, the smile,
as it were, of the scarce known year?
"Mum," said Bess, as I lifted her off Jill's back, "could you spare
me one of the snowdrops to keep in my own nursery?"
I nodded acquiescence.
"Because," pursued the child, "I should like one. Just one. It would
help me, I think, to keep away eyes, and bad words, and perhaps might
make me good and happy. Nan says they used to bring in snowdrops to
make the children good, let me try, too."
CHAPTER III
_MARCH_
"To birdes and beestes
That no blisse ne knoweth,
And wild worms in wodes
Through wynter thou them grievest,
And makest hem welneigh meke,
And mylde for defaute,
And after thou sendest hem somer,
That is hiz sovereign joye,
And blisse to all that be,
Both wilde and tame."
_Vision of Piers Ploughman._
The winds of heaven were blowing, blowing; dust was flying on the
roads. The old saying that "a peck is worth a king's ransom" returned
to my mind. February fill-dyke had filled the springs and the
streams, and now March with his gay sun, and wild winds was drying
them as hard as he could. How pleasant it was to see the sun again!
He had been almost a stranger in the cold dark months of the young
year. Yet early as it was, Phoebus was proud and glorious and at his
fiery darts all nature seemed to begin and start life afresh.
Man, beast, and bird, all felt the mysterious influence of spring,
whilst up the stems of all the trees and plants, the sap began to
mount again.
I woke up early, but the world had already commenced its work, golden
rays of sunlight were pouring into the windows and I found, too, that
the restlessness of nature had seized me also, so I went and peeped
out of an old chamber that commanded the eastern garden.
Outside, there was a sense of great awakening--the sun flashed
merrily down on the frosty turf, and the congealed drops were already
fast disappearing into the ground. Starlings hurried, hither and
thither, like iridescent jewels, snowdrops lifted their heads and
waved them triumphantly in the breeze. The quice, as Shropshire folk
call wood-pigeons, I heard cooing in their sweet persuasive note in a
distant chestnut, and as I fastened back the window the musical hum
of bees sporting in the crocuses, caught my ear.
From the end of the border ascended the fragrance of a clump of
violets. How sweet is the return of spring, I murmured, and how
wonderful. What a joy, one of the joys we can never grow tired of, or
too old to feel afresh each year. Winter seems so long, and the
awakening and sweet summer all too short.
I returned to my room, dressed quickly, and then went out into the
garden.
[Sidenote: THE SONG OF BIRDS]
Life, life seemed everywhere. The wild birds were singing, calling,
flying backwards and forwards and seeking food. The speckled
storm-cock, as they call the missel thrush in Shropshire, was singing
gloriously on the top branch of a gnarled apple tree, whilst from a
bush of ribes as I passed along, a frightened blackbird lumbered away
with his angry protesting rattle. How handsome he is, the cock
blackbird, with his plumage of raven hue, and his golden dagger of a
beak. In the twilight how irresistible is the deep regret of his
song. It is a song, sweet, tender, full of old memories, and brings
back in its subtle melancholy, dear faces, and the touch of dear lost
hands that helped and loved us once. The blackbird's note is quite
different from the thrush; the thrush's song is all pure joy, and
glad expectation. He sings of morning, and all his notes are in a
major key. He chants of wholesome work, of brave endeavour, and of
spring gladness. His rapture is like that of the early poets. No note
of sorrow dulls his glorious morning. Joy, health, happiness, these
are the keynotes of his rhapsody--and we are grateful to him as we
are grateful for the sunshine, for the laughter of children, and for
the scent of flowers. It is hard to say which song we love best. But
why choose, for are not both God's feathered choristers, and their
songs our earliest melodies of childhood?
How feverishly busy everything was that morning, and how seriously
all living things took the annual dawn of life. The birds on the
lawns were pecking, pecking everywhere, finding food and seeking
materials for the future homes of their young.
[Illustration:
_THE SOUTH WEST VIEW OF WENLOCK ABBEY. IN THE COUNTY OF SALOP._
_From Buck's View._
WENLOCK ABBEY IN 1731.]
I stood quite still, against an ivied wall, and watched an old thrush
bring up a fat snail in her beak. In a second she had cracked the
shell upon a monastic stone, and was feasting greedily on the
contents. When she had flown away, I examined the bits of broken
shell, and discovered that they were of a dull brownish colour, and
that the snail was one of the kind that the Clugniac monks are said
to have brought with them from France, when Roger the great Earl of
Montgomery, brought over his band of monks from La Charité sur Loire,
and founded his monastery at Wenlock soon after the Conquest.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth century snails of this kind,
"Escargots" as they were then termed, and still are called in France,
were constantly used as a remedy "for restoring a right motion of the
heart, and for casting out melancholy." A cure, it is said, was also
wrought by a "cunning jelly" made from them, and this was supposed to
be "proper" food for those who "dwindered" or who were "subject to a
weak, or queasy stomach."
In the fourteenth century, I have been told, snails were sold at Bath
and in other towns in the west, to such as had consumptive
tendencies. Knowing this, and seeing how much escargots were used in
the Middle Ages, not only as a delicacy by the monks and nobles, but
also in medicine with herbs, presumably amongst the poor, it is
curious now, the horror that exists at the thought of eating either
snails or frogs. At first, when I gave some dinners to the very
needy, they would hardly dare come for them, and declared that they
were sure that in Auguste's ragouts there would be found some
lurking, somewhere.
"Us doesn't dare to search in the broth," one old man said, "for us
doesn't know what low beasts, slugs, snails, tadpoles, and what not a
foreigner mightn't mix in." But now happily they are reassured, and
old Ged Bebb told me only last week, "That, for all that they war
heathan (the cook men), the meat war good, and proper, and what
Christian folks cud eat."
[Sidenote: FLOWERS OF TWILIGHT]
I passed into the old red-walled garden and stopped to admire the
long line of brilliant yellow crocuses. They were all aglow in the
brilliant sunlight, and stood drawn up like a regiment of soldiers in
line. I stood entranced, for each soldier seemed to be holding a
lamp, and in each lamp, or cup, the sun was reflected in a wonderful
golden glory. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the beauty of
golden crocuses in golden sunlight. They seem to fill the world with
gladness and to be March's crowning glory. I stopped and looked at my
clumps of crocuses, they were coming up gaily, but were yet hardly in
blossom.
Burbidge put in for me strong clumps of Sir Walter Scott, Rizzio, and
of beautiful Mont Blanc. All these were pushing up bravely, out of
their mother earth. In fact, they were bursting, as Bess calls it, to
be out.
A minute later, I turned to inspect my chionodoxas and scillas. A few
were coming into bloom. Luciliae had several sprays of delicate china
blue and white flowers, and coppery two-blade leaves, and a patch of
blue _Scilla Sibirica_ had reared already a spray or two of gorgeous
ultramarine blossoms; but it was still early in March, and that is
the time of the promise of beautiful things, not yet the realization
of Flora's _fête_.
As I went by a bush of white Daphne, I heard that the bees had
discovered this spring delight--they were buzzing quite fiercely
round its tiny flowerets. What a perfume the Daphne has! What an
enchantment of rich odours! The pink bush on the other side of the
garden I noted would blossom shortly, but there is quite ten days'
difference in the flowering of the two varieties. The white follows
"on the feet of snow," as Burbidge expresses it, and the pink, "when
the spring has come." Of daffodils there was no sign as yet, save the
little hard green spikes, but the purple hellebores were proud in
their sombre magnificence. These always seem to me flowers that might
fitly have decked the brows of some great enchantress, Morgan le Fay,
or the Lady of the Lake. They vary from green to darkest purple, and
they seem hardly flowers of gaiety or morning, but rather the shadowy
blooms of twilight. Unlike their sister, the beautiful _Helleborus
niger_, they will not live, plucked, in water. When gathered, they
fade almost instantaneously and hang their heads in spite of salt or
charcoal being added to the water. I have heard it said that if the
stalks be cunningly split first, before being put in water, that they
will last some time; but I cannot say I have ever found this plan
successful, and have come to the conclusion that if you want to see
your purple hellebores in beauty, you must go into the garden to do
so.
Then, as I walked on, I noted that the white arabis was flowering in
places. Such a dear, homely little flower as it is, much loved by the
bees who had gathered to it like to a honey jar. As I stood watching
"the little brown people," I heard the guttural click-click of the
little common wren. What a tiny little bird she is, the Jenny Wren of
the old nursery rhyme--"God Almighty's hen," some of the old folk
still call her here. It is wonderful to think that so deep a note can
come out of so small a body.
Jenny hopped about from twig to twig, gaily enough, cocked her tail,
and was, according to Burbidge, as "nimble as ninepence."
[Sidenote: THE NEST IN THE KETTLE]
Here in Shropshire, in spite of the superstition that she was under
special Divine Providence, the wren was often hunted at Yule-tide.
Gangs of boys used formerly to chase poor Jenny with sticks, in and
out of hedgerows, and over banks and stones. Particularly did this
ignoble sport take place on the sides of the Clee Hills, and on the
flanks of the Wrekin. Now, happily, the time of persecution is past,
and Jenny no longer suffers ill from the hands of men. Hopping
fearlessly near me was the pet robin that I fed through the evil days
of snow and frost. How gorgeous he looked, with his scarlet
waistcoat, how sleek and plump; and how full and liquid was his great
brown eye. I begged Burbidge to leave, as last year, the old iron
kettle in the arbour of honeysuckle, where he and Madam had their
nest and reared their offspring last spring. How tame she was, with
her little breast of yellowish brown and her liquid great eyes that
used to watch me so keenly when I looked down upon her in the kettle.
How patiently she sat, and how sweetly he sang to her, amongst the
blossoms, his whole throat moving with his trilling rapture. For two
years he and "Madam Buttons" have built in the kettle and brought up
their nestlings there, and preferred that site to a hole in bank or
wall, branch of tree, or to the thick shelter of the yews.
The robin is looked upon in Shropshire as a sacred bird. Folks here
believe that some terrible calamity will surely overtake him who robs
a nest or kills "God's cock." A poor woman once gravely told me that
her little son's arm was withered, "be like," she considered, "that
he had robbed a robin's nest."
"Him who slays a robin, may look to his special damnation," an old
man once said to me, who had seen what he termed a "gallous lad"
throw a stone at one.
"Why thee cannot be content to rob the other birds, and leave God
Almighty's fowls alone, I canna' understand," was also an angry
remark I once heard addressed by a mother to a seven-year-old lad,
and the remark was followed by sharp correction with a hazel switch.
The old fear of, and reverence for the robin comes doubtless from the
legend that the robin pricked his breast against the nails of the
cross, and ministered by song and devotion to the Divine Master in
His agony, and thus gained for himself and for all his posterity the
affection of God, and the gratitude of man. In the old miracle plays
the robin was often spoken of as "God's bird," and this also may have
gained for him the love of many generations.
I passed out of the wrought-iron gates, and went into the meadows on
the east side of the Abbey. The fields lay brown still, and were as
bare as a billiard-table. They had been closely nipped by industrious
sheep during long winter months, and now there was but little for the
young life to feed on. Old, heavy, grey-faced ewes were bleating and
baaing, whilst skipping, capering and leaping about were some eight
or nine lambs. What jocund games theirs were, what heights they
jumped, and with all four legs off the ground at once. As I looked, I
wondered what were the rules of the game, and what impulse directed
their sport; for there seemed to be a leader in the revels, who ran
and skipped first, after which they all ran round, mounted an
incline, descended and mounted it afresh, cutting a hundred capers,
and playing a hundred pranks, but all according to some old unwritten
law and regulation. After a few moments of watching the pretty little
creatures, I made my way to the old embankment which runs across the
meadows on the southern side, and which formed once the mighty dam of
the artificial lake from which the prior of Wenlock drew up his fish
in Lent and on special fast days. There probably during the Middle
Ages the lake was well supplied with carp, eels, trout, and perch.
Old Dame Juliana Berners, the prioress of Sopwell, near St. Albans,
wrote much and praised warmly the pleasures of angling.
"If the sport fail," she wrote, "at least the angler hath his holsom
walke, and may enjoy at his ease the ayre and swete savoure of the
medes of floures that maketh him hungry and he may hear also the
melodious harmony of fowles." She then goes on to say that he can see
also, thus happily employed, "the wild broods of young swannes,
heerons, duckes, cotes and all other fowles," and declares that a
silent walk by stream or lake in her eyes confers a greater and
deeper happiness upon the angler "than all the noyse of hounds," than
"the blasts of hornes," or "the wilde scrye that hunters of fawkeners
can make."
I like to think of the holy brothers fishing here in their hours of
recreation, after their vigils, fasts, and prayers. As I walked along
I saw the group of willows that had turned crimson and brilliant
amber, and far away I heard the cawing of the rooks as they flew over
the plantation of poplars, which, too, were turning red. I followed
along the Abbot's Walk, as the townspeople term the dam, and then
passed through a hunting gate across a wild field of scrubby bushes
and rough herbage where the wild plover was uttering her melancholy
cry and wheeled in circles overhead. The mole-catcher had been at
work, a string of velvety moles hung like grapes upon a thorn.
Some years ago, "the ount catcher," as he is called here, old Peter
Purslowe, appeared in a moleskin waistcoat. Since then, however, he
has never worn another. "The missus," I was told, "found it too weedy
a job ever to make a second, although it furnishes well, but it had
more stitches than ever there be stones at the Abbey."
[Sidenote: THE RETURN OF THE ROOKS]
I approached the rookery; what a babel greeted my ears, yet if you
have ever listened carefully you will perceive that each rook has a
different note of voice, and I suspect, if you knew rooks
individually, you would notice, like in the songs of canaries, that
no two rooks ever caw precisely alike.
What a wonderful thing it is, the return of the rooks to any given
place.
For months they had been absent from this spot, gone nobody knows
where. Not a sign of them. And then, almost to a day, they
reappeared, and claimed their own tree and branch; and each pair, I
fancy, went back to the site of its former nest. Curious stories are
told of the sagacity of rooks, of their self-government, and of how
offenders who have disobeyed some common law have been executed
before large numbers, evidently as a judgment, and as a warning to
others.
As I watched them, a story bearing out the truth of this statement
came back to me. In the rookery of a friend there was hatched, I was
told, a rook with white wings. The community did not make any
objection to the youngster being reared there; but when, the
following year, the white-winged bird returned to an old avenue of
elms, where he had been hatched, exception was taken to his desire to
nest there. It seemed, said my friend, as if a congress was called,
and as if the strangely marked rook and his mate were given the
option to fly elsewhere, or receive some dire punishment; for at
intervals they were chased away, but kept on returning to the same
spot. All day, rooks seemed, said my informant, to flock to the
avenue, till the air seemed almost black with them. They flew, cawed
wildly, and seemed in a highly excited state. This went on hour after
hour, without any apparent change; until at last one old bird
descended from the branch on which he had been perched, and standing
on the grass, flapped his wings slowly, uttering a strange, low,
mysterious cry, more like the husky croaking of a carrion crow than
the cawing of a rook. In a moment the whole grove, said my informant,
resounded with the cries of the rooks, and one and all simultaneously
fell upon the unfortunate bird with the white wings, screaming and
cawing, and never rested until they had pecked him to death, and torn
almost every feather out of his helpless body.
I recalled this curious story, and then watched the birds as they
flew round, finding sticks for their nests. Ash sticks seemed to be
their favourite material, or twigs from the great wych-elm a field
away.
The rooks seemed, to quote a boyish expression, "to build fair,"
quite different from the mischievous jackdaws, "who will allus rather
thieve than work," as an old keeper once said to me.
It is curious how rooks change their food during the different months
of the year. They feed their young almost entirely on animal food
till they leave the nest. As a rule, they give the young rooks,
grubs, worms and cockchafers; but during the very dry summers that
closed the nineteenth century, being short of insect food, the old
birds took to robbing hen-coops, and fell also upon young pheasants
and partridges in the grass. Several keepers have told me that they
were obliged to destroy whole rookeries on this account, for when a
rook once takes to chickens or pheasants, like a man-eating tiger, he
will never return to humbler diet.
It is wonderful how tenacious rooks are, of returning year after year
to the same place, and how difficult it is for any one to start a new
colony. Nests may be put up, and young birds partially tamed, but it
is a hard matter, as a gardener once said to me, "to 'tice the rooks
against their will; 'tis like callin' the wild geese, unless they
wish to hear."
[Sidenote: ROOKS LEAVE FOR A DEATH]
In the South there is a strong belief that when the rooks abandon a
rookery some misfortune will happen to the owner. At Chilton Candover
it is said, there was much excitement because the rooks in Lady
Ashburton's park unaccountably forsook their nests. Almost
immediately afterwards occurred Lady Ashburton's death, and many
stories of a similar character are told.
As I leant over the fence, watching what was going on in the rookery,
I heard a strange low cry in the distance, as of something unearthly
and eërie--what Bess once said sounded like the "call-note of a
witch." I remarked in the great black bird that came overhead, a
different flight, slower and heavier than that of a rook, and I
recognized in the bird approaching a carrion crow.
I stood motionless. The rooks were too much occupied with their
building operations to notice the enemy, but the peewits, who lay
earlier in the meadow beyond, were calling uneasily, uttering that
strange cry of alarm which is their special note of warning. On flew
the carrion crow, the bird of ill-omen in the old ballads and a
messenger of death according to old belief. Anyway, if not quite so
evil as he has been represented, the crow is a bird that does great
damage to keepers and farmers and has few friends. As he flew away, I
heard at regular intervals, his creepy wicked cry.
Old Shropshire folks still repeat to their grandchildren, when they
see a carrion crow--
"Dead 'orse, dead 'orse,
Where? Where?
Prolly Moor. Prolly Moor.
We'll come, we'll come.
There's nought but bones."
In old days, Shropshire children used to imagine that carrion crows
flew off at night to Prolly Moor, there to roost. Prolly Moor is a
great tract of wild land that lies at the foot of the Longmynd, and
is said to be the sleeping-ground of crows and the place where
witches hold midnight revels. I kept my eyes on the bird, and saw him
sail away, skirting in his flight the old town, and at last I noted
that he flew over the top of the Edge, at the back of Wenlock Town.
[Sidenote: LIFE IS A DREAM]
As I retraced my steps homewards, I was greeted by the soft music of
the chimes. How prettily they sounded across the meadows; "Life is a
dream, life is a dream," they seemed to say; yet for all their dreamy
sound I remembered that they are calling out the hour of nine, and in
spite of the joy of spring, the cry of birds, and the charm of beast
and flower, I hurried up the stairs to the east garden and regained
the house.
On the threshold of the east entrance to the Abbey I met Bess.
"Mama," she said reprovingly, "where have you been? Your breakfast is
getting cold, and it is to-day, to-day I tell you."
The last part of Bess's speech referred to the gift--the present of
all the presents, as my little girl called it--which was to arrive;
in other words, to the pug puppy.
"Listen, mama," she cried, "it is to come by the train this
afternoon; and Mamie has sent me a ribbon, all blue," and my little
girl showed me a ribbon and a letter announcing the fact in a
childish round hand. "Pups," continued Bess, gravely, "cannot be
dressed in anything but blue. Then there is the day-bed to discuss,
his saucer and his supper plate--mamsie, there is a great deal to
do," and Bess hurried me upstairs to see the preparations.
We found together a white saucer, and Bess looked forward to washing
it. But Nan said severely, "Best let Liza, she understands such
things." And I feared, from the pursed-down corners of Nan's mouth,
poor master pug would get but a scant welcome. Bess noticed the
expression on old Nana's face and whispered, "Specs God never gave
Nan a dog-brother in all her life." Nan sat on stitching as if
nothing could move her from her seat, as she always does in moments
of irritation, and I must agree with Bess, that she was neither kind
nor helpful in her preparations for the arrival of Prince Charming,
as we christened our expected visitor.
As we left the room, Nan lifted her eyes from her work, and said
severely, "Might be a baby, I'm sure." We both felt rather chilled at
this, and Bess took my hand, and, while she jumped down two steps at
a time, asked if I didn't think my own bedroom would be better for
the Prince than hers.
"One dog more, mamsie," she urged, "couldn't make much difference.
Where there's place for Mouse, mams, I am sure there is place for a
pup."
"But supposing Mouse objected?" I said. "What a big mouth she has, and
what sharp teeth, and what a poor little thing the Prince would be in
her jaws! Besides," I asserted, "I must introduce them carefully; what
if our old friend should be jealous or 'unsympathetic' like another old
friend?"
"Whatever Mouse may be, she can never," declared Bess, "be real
cross, like a real live woman. Dogs aren't made that way." And so
that part of the subject dropped.
[Sidenote: PRINCE CHARMING IS COME]
I went down to breakfast, and Bess sat by me talking twelve by the
dozen; her whole soul was engrossed as to where the Prince's
day-basket was to be kept, and whether the miniature blanket was to
be tucked round his infinitesimal serene highness--or not.
As I got up from my breakfast, I saw to my dismay that the post had
brought me, what a friend calls, "an avenging pile of letters." How
many hours' writing they meant, and other people's work! Bess
standing by cried, "I wish they were all mine, I never get letters
except on my birthday, and at Christmas."
"And never have to answer them," I said. "Ah, my dear, when one grows
up, letters mean other things besides invitations and presents. They
can mean requests, bothers, worries, other people's work--and are
always sharp scissors for cutting up leisure, and preventing happy
hours in the garden or with one's embroidery."
"I shouldn't have them, then," retorted Bess, stolidly.
"What would you do?"
"Burn them and see what happened."
I looked at Bess and laughed. After all, the idea may be more
"Philosophe qu'on ne pense." But I was not strong enough to carry her
suggestion into action, so I kissed Bess, told her I could not carry
out her plan, and said I must write all the morning, but hoped by
industry to save the afternoon for myself, and to spend it as I
wished.
At last all the letters were answered--invitations, requests,
permissions, "characters," money sent to charities, and a great
packet was assembled in th
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