We weren't the only happy couple that had spent a honeymoon at Twin
Chestnut Cottage. In point of fact, the chestnuts themselves had their
origin in a honeymoon; for in the same old-fashioned cottage, more than
one hundred and ninety years ago, there came to reside a youthful pair,
who, hand in hand, had just commenced life's journey together. They
each had a little dog, and those two little dogs were probably as fond
of each other, after their own fashion, as their master and mistress
were; and the name of the one dog was "Gip," and the name of the other
was "George"--Gip and George, there you have them. And it was very
funny that whatever Gip did, George immediately followed suit and did
the same; and, _vice versa_, whatever George did, Gip did. If Gip
harked, George barked; if George wagged his tail, so did Gip. Whenever
Gip was hungry, George found that he too could eat; and when George took
a drink of water, Gip always took a mouthful as well, whether she was
thirsty or not. Well, it happened one day in autumn, when the
beauty-tints were on the trees--the sunset glow of the dying year--that
the two lovers (for although they were married, they were lovers still)
were walking on the rustling leaves, and of course George and Gip were
no great way behind, and were having their own conversation, and their
own little larks all to themselves, when suddenly--
"I say, Georgie," said Gip.
"Well, my love?" replied George.
"I'm quite tired watching for that silly blind old mole, who I'm certain
won't come again to-night. Let us carry a chestnut home."
"All right," said George; "here goes."
So they each of them chose the biggest horse-chestnut they could find,
and they were only very small dogs, and went trotting home with them in
their mouths; and when they got there, they each laid their little gifts
at the feet of their loved master or mistress.
This they did with such a solemn air that, for the life of them, the
lovers could not help laughing outright. But the little dogs received
their due meed of praise nevertheless, and the two chestnuts were
carefully planted, one on each side of the large lawn window. And when
winter gave place to spring, lo! the chestnuts budded, budded and peeped
up through the earth, each one looking for all the world like a Hindoo
lady's little finger, which isn't a bit different, you know, from your
little finger, only it is dark-brown, and yours is white. Then the
little finger opened, and bright green leaves unfolded and peeped up at
the sun and the blue sky, and long before the summer was over they had
grown up into sprightly little trees, as straight as rushes, and very
nearly as tall, for they had been very carefully watered and tended.
Very pretty they looked too, although their leaves seemed a mile too big
for their stems, which made them look like two very small men with very
large hats; but the young chestnuts themselves didn't see anything
ridiculous in the matter.
These, then, were the infant chestnuts.
And as the years rolled on, and made those lovers old, the chestnuts
still grew in height and beauty. And in time poor Grip died, and as
George had always done exactly as Gip did, he died too; and Gip was laid
at the foot of one tree, and George at the foot of the other, and their
graves were watered with loving tears. And the trees grew lovelier
still. And when at last those lovers died, the trees showered their
flowers, pink-eyed and white, on the coffins, as they were borne away
from the old cottage to their long, quiet home in the "moots."
And time flew on, generation after generation was born, grew up, grew
old, and died, and still the twin chestnuts increased and flourished,
and they are flourishing now, on this sweet summer's day, and shading
all the cottage from the noonday sun.
It is a very old-fashioned cottage, wholly composed, one might almost
say, of gables, the thatch of some of which comes almost to the ground,
and I defy any one to tell which is the front of the cottage and which
isn't the front. There are gardens about the old cottage, fruit gardens
and flower gardens, and grey old walls half buried in ivy, which never
looked half so pretty as in autumn, when the soft leaves of the Virginia
creepers are changing to crimson, and blending sweetly with the ivy's
dusky green.
The principal gable is that abutting on to the green velvety lawn, which
goes sloping downwards to where the river, broad and still, glides
silently on its way to bear on its breast the ships of the greatest city
of the world, and carry them to the ocean.
But the main beauty of the cottage lies in those twin chestnuts. No
chestnuts in all the countryside like those two beautiful trees; none so
tall, so wide, so spreading; none have such broad green leaves, none
have such nuts--for each nutshell grows as big and spiny as a small
hedgehog, and contains some one nut, many two, but most three nuts
within the outer rind. I only wish you could see them, and you would
say, as I do, there are no trees like those twin chestnuts.
The earth was clad in its white cocoon when first we went to Twin
Chestnut Cottage, and the two giant trees pointed their skeleton fingers
upwards to the murky sky; but long before any of the other
chestnut-trees that grew in the parks and the avenues, had even dreamt
of awakening from their deep winter sleep, the twin chestnuts had sent
forth large brown buds, bigger and longer than rifle bullets, and all
gummed over with some sticky substance, as if the fairies had painted
them all with glycerine and treacle. With the first sunshine of April
those bonnie buds grew thicker, and burst, disclosing little bundles of
light-green foliage, that matched _so_ sweetly with the brown of the
buds and the dark grey of the parent tree.
Day by day we watched the folded leaves expanding; and other eyes than
ours were watching them too; for occasionally a large hornet or an early
bee would fly round the trees and examine the buds, then off he would go
again with a satisfied hum, which said plainly enough, "You're getting
on beautifully, and you'll be all in flower in a fortnight."
And, indeed, hardly had a fortnight elapsed, from the time the buds
first opened, till the twin chestnuts were hung in robes of drooping
green. Such a tender green! such a light and lovely green! and the
pendent, crumply leaves seemed as yet incapable of supporting their own
weight, like the wings of the moth when it first bursts from its
chrysalis. Then, oh! to hear the _frou-frou_ of the gentle wind through
the silken foliage! And every tree around was bare and brown save them.
Even the river seemed to whisper fondly to the bending reeds as it
glided past those chestnuts twain; and I know that the mavis and the
merle sung in a louder, gladder key when they awoke in the dewy dawn of
morn, and their bright eyes rested on those two clouds of living green.
And now crocuses peeping through the dun earth, and primroses on mossy
banks, had long since told that spring had come; but the chestnut-trees
said to all the birds that summer too was on the wing. Cock-robin
marked the change, and came no more for crumbs--for he thought it was
high time to build his nest; only there were times when he seated
himself on the old apple-tree, and sung his little song, just to show
that he hadn't forgotten us, and that he meant to come again when family
cares were ended and summer had flown away.
Meanwhile, the flower-stems grew brown and mossy, and in a week or two
the flowers themselves were all in bloom. Had you seen either of those
twin chestnuts then, you would have seen a thing of beauty which would
have dwelt in your mind as a joy for ever. It was summer now. Life and
love were everywhere. The bloom was on the may--pink-eyed may and white
may. The yellow laburnum peeped out from the thickets of evergreen, the
yellow broom dipped its tassels in the river, and elder-flowers perfumed
the wind. I couldn't tell you half the beautiful creatures that visited
the blossoms on the twin chestnut-trees, and sang about them, and
floated around them, and sipped the honey from every calyx. Great
droning, velvety bees; white-striped and red busy little hive-bees;
large-winged butterflies, gaudy in crimson and black; little white
butterflies, with scarlet-tipped wings; little blue butterflies, that
glanced in the sunshine like chips of polished steel; and big
slow-floating butterflies, so intensely yellow that they looked for all
the world as if they had been fed on cayenne, like the canaries, you
know. In the gloaming, "Drowsy beetles wheeled their droning flight"
around the trees, and noisy cockchafers went whirring up among the
blossoms, and imagined they had reached the stars.
When the roses, purple, red, and yellow, clung around the cottage porch,
climbed over the thatch, and clung around the chimneys, when the mauve
wisterias clustered along the walls, when the honeysuckle scented the
green lanes, when daisies and tulips had faded in the garden, and
crimson poppies shone through the corn's green, a breeze blew soft and
cool from the south-east, and lo! for days and days the twin chestnuts
snowed their petals on the lawn and path. And now we listened every
night for the nightingale's song. They came at last, all in one night
it seemed: "Whee, whee, whee." What are those slow and mournful notes
ringing out from the grove in the stillness of night? A lament for
brighter skies born of memories of glad Italy?
"Churl, churl; chok, wee, cho!" This in a low and beautiful key; then
higher and more joyful, "Wheedle, wheedle, wheedle; wheety, wheety,
wheety; chokee, okee, okee-whee!"
Answering each other all the livelong night, bursting into song at
intervals all the day, when, we wondered, did they sleep? Did they take
it in turns to make night and day melodious, keeping watches like the
sailors at sea? We thought the song of the mavis so tame now; but
cock-robin's had not lost its charm, just as the dear old simple "lilts"
of bonnie Scotland, or the sadder ditties of the Green Isle, never pall
on our ear, love we ever so well the lays of sunny Italy.
As the summer waned apace, and the leaves on the chestnuts changed to a
darker, hardier green, the nightingales ceased their song; but, somehow,
we never missed them much, there were so many other songsters. We used
to wonder how many different sorts of birds found shelter in those twin
chestnuts, apart from the bickering sparrows, who colonised it; apart
from the merle and thrush, who merely came home to roost; apart from the
starling, who was continually having quarrels with his wife about
something or other; and apart from the noisy jackdaw, who was such an
argumentative fellow, and made himself such a general nuisance that it
always ended in his being forcibly ejected.
Robin was invariably the first to awake in the morning. As the first
faint tinge of dawning day began to broaden in the east, he shook the
dew from his wings, and gave vent to a little peevish twitter. Then he
would hop down from the tree, perch on the gate, and begin his sweet wee
song: "Twitter, twitter, twee!" We used to wonder if it really was a
song of praise to Him who maketh the sun to rise and gladden all the
earth.
"Twitter, twitter, twee!" Little birdies are so happy, and awake every
morning as fresh and joyous as innocent children.
"Twitter, twitter, twitter, twee!" went the song for fully half an hour,
till it was so light that even the lazy sparrows began to awake, and
squabble, and scold, and fight; for you must know that sparrows hold
about the same social rank in the feathered creation, that the dwellers
around Billingsgate do among human beings.
Then there would be such a chorus of squabbling from the big trees, that
poor robin had to give up singing in disgust, and come down to have his
breakfast.
"Hullo!" he would cry, addressing a humble-bee, who with his wings all
bedraggled in dew, was slowly moving across the gravel, thinking the sun
would soon rise and dry him--for poor bees often do stay too long on
thistles at night, get drugged with the sweet-scented ambrosia, and are
unable to get home till morning--"Hullo!" robin would say; "do you know
you're wanted?"
The poor bee would hold up one arm in mute appeal.
"Keep down your hands," robin would say; "I'll do it ever so gently;"
and off the bee's head would go in a twinkling. Then robin would eye
his victim till the sting ceased to work out and in, then quietly
swallow it. This, with an earthworm or two, and a green caterpillar by
way of relish, washed down with a bill-full of water from a little pool
in a cabbage-leaf, would form robin's breakfast; then away he would fly
to the woods, where he could sing all day in peace.
And so the summer sped away in that quiet spot, and anon the fields were
all ablaze with the golden harvest, and the sturdy leaves of our
chestnut-trees turned yellow and brown, and the great nuts came tumbling
down in a steady cannonade each time the wind shook the branches. And
the twin chestnuts, perhaps, looked more lovely now than ever they had
looked--they had borrowed the tints of the autumn sunset; yet their very
beauty told us now that the end was not far away.
The wind of a night now moved the branches with a harsher, drier
rustling, like the sound of breaking waves or falling water, and we
often used to dream we were away at sea, tossed up and down on the
billows. "Heigho!" we [Part of this page missing.]
There were days when the sun set in an ochrey haze, when the evening
star with its dimmed eye looked down from a sky of emerald green, where
as the gloaming deepened into night, not a cloud was there to hide the
glittering orbs; then the fairies set to work to adorn the trees, and
when morning came, lo! what a sight was there! All around the
hoar-frost lay, white and deep on bush and brake, on the hedgerows and
brambles; and every twiglet and thorn was studded with starry jewels on
tit twin chestnuts, and they were trees no more--every branchlet and
spray was changed to glittering coral; and garlands of silver and
lace-work, lovelier far than human brains could ever plan or fingers
weave, were looped from bough to bough, and hung in sheeny radiance
around the sturdy stems.
Those dear old chestnut-trees!
And as the seasons pass o'er the chestnut-trees, and each one clothes
them in a beauty of its own, so across the seasons of our life Time
spreads his varied joys: childhood, in its innocence, hath its joys,
youth in its hope of brighter days, manhood in its strength and
ambition, and old age in the peaceful trust of a better world to come.