CHAPTER IV

_APRIL_

"Strowe me the ground with daffodoundilles

And cowslips and king-cups, and loved lillies,

The pretie pawnce,

And the cheveraunce

Shall match with the fayre flowre Delice."

SPENSER, _Shepherd's Calendar_.

A soft sweet day. A gentle rain had fallen all through the night, and

the sense of spring was everywhere. Soft mellow sunshine flooded into

the house. How the chestnut buds glistened in the sunlight, all damp,

and sticky, and a few even had begun to uncurl.

The almonds were out in sheets of rosy pink blossom. Bees were

humming everywhere, and thrushes were piping their jubilant strains

on every gnarled apple tree.

I asked at breakfast for my little maid, but I was told that she was

not yet down, and even our irreproachable butler Fremantle seemed

almost inclined to laugh, if such a sedate and irreproachable person

can descend to such levity, as he told me that Miss Bess, he feared,

would be a little late that morning.

I had, as it happened, many letters to answer, and so forgot to

trouble about Bess, for I had heard her chirp like a bird between six

and seven in the morning, and therefore was not anxious. I remembered

now that Bess had been often up to tea at the Red House of late, and

that when Constance and she had met, they had whispered much, and

that Bess had often caught her hand and held it tightly before

parting, and then bubbled over with happy laughter. Once, when I

asked Bess the cause of all this mystery, she replied, "Only white

secrets, mum," and Constance had laughed too, and repeated the

child's words, "Only white secrets."

Whilst I stuck down my letters, I recalled these little

half-forgotten episodes, when suddenly the door was flung open with a

bang, and Bess stood before me; but not my every-day little Bess in

short petticoats, and white pinafore, and her locks hanging round

her, with a mane like a Church Stretton pony's, but my little Bess

clothed in a fancy-ball costume, in that of a diminutive jester of

the fourteenth century, with cap and bells, in little yellow and pink

tights with satin embroidered vest, and her luxuriant locks confined

in a cap.

She entered shaking her bells merrily, and as I started up in

surprise, she exclaimed, "Don't say anything, mamsie, please don't.

Wait till you have heard my verse, or you will spoil everything.

Constance has learnt it me, and I have said it over and over again.

You see it is All Fools' Day, and I must give you a surprise, for

Nana says, a surprise is next best to a birthday."

And then my little girl faced me, in the middle of the old chamber,

with the great stone altar as a background, and piped aloud in her

gay childish way. The old rhyme somewhat altered--

"When April her Folly's throne exalts,

While Dob calls Nell, and laughs because she halts,

While Nell meets Tom, and says he too must play,

Then laughs in turn, and laughing runs away,

Let us my muse thro' Folly's harvest range

And glean some moral into Wisdom's grange."

[Sidenote: AN APRIL FOOL]

It is an old rhyme, and I am told that Constance had taught it to my

little maid. I stood looking at my dear little fool, all blushes and

sweet smiles. "Constance," continued Bess, "was sure it would make

you laugh." And then, after a pause, she added, "I have not done yet.

Listen; I know all the funny things, pit-pat. Miss Weldon may not

find me clever, but Constance says I learnt at once what she taught

me. You see, mum, it is all fun, and fun with Constance is better

than boxes of sugar-plums;" and here my little lass began to cut a

hundred capers, to jingle her bells, and to dance gaily, calling out,

"There are heaps of funny things to do. I must send Burbidge on a

sleeveless errand, tell Absalom to go for the map of the Undiscovered

Islands, and send Célestine for pigeons' milk, and won't she be

cross! Crabs won't be in it, no, not if they were steeped in vinegar

for a month, Nana says." And away danced my little lass into the

brilliant April sunshine.

[Illustration:

_Photo by Miss K. Wintour._

THE CHAPEL HALL.]

I did not catch what she said to the old gardener outside, but I

heard a deep roar of laughter from Burbidge, and a bass duet of

guffaws, from Absalom and Roderick; and a minute later Burbidge

entered from the garden and told me, his face beaming with honest

pleasure, that "Miss Bess was the gayest little Folly that had ever

come to Wenlock, and would surely make folks laugh like an ecall come

what might."

A few minutes later, and Bess flew off to her old nurse and to

Auguste, and both I heard, by their shrill exclamations, affected to

be overcome with laughter at her approach. Inside and outside, on

this first of April, I heard sounds of merriment, as if a return to

old customs had come back, and as if loud and jocund mirth had not

died out of simple hearts. I thought of all the old games, plays,

quips, and pranks, that the old walls of the Abbey Farmery must have

heard and seen in the Middle Ages, for even the monks allowed times

of folly and revelry, at Yule-tide and Candlemas, I have read; and on

the first of April, All Fools' Day, many must have been the hearty

laugh, and simple joke, that folks made and passed on each other in

Wenlock town, and all over old England.

I popped my letters into the box for post, and stepped out, as my

task for the day was accomplished. The morning was enchantingly

beautiful. "Old Adam" glistened beneath the sundial like a wondrous

jewel, the eyes in his tail seemed of a hundred tints. He appeared,

as Buffon said, "to combine all that delights the eye in the soft,

and delicate tints of the finest flowers, all that dazzles it in the

sparkling lustre of gems, and all that astonishes it, in the grand

display of the rainbow." His tail appeared of a hundred tints, and

the red gold of the featherlets round the eyes flashed as if

illuminated by fire. His grey, subdued wives, walked meekly beside

him, and cast upon him humble glances of admiration, while he

strutted before them with the pride of a Scotch piper, and expanded

his tail with a strange mechanical whirr, that recalled the

winding-up of some rich, elaborate, modern toy.

Down by the Abbey pond I saw the two swans swimming, but, every now

and then, the male bird seemed almost to leap out of the water in the

delight of spring, and beat the water with his great snowy wings as

he drove across the glass-like expanse at a furious rate, making the

little wavelets rise and fall and dance, in a crystal shimmer over

reeds and grass.

Suddenly a little moor-hen dipped and bobbed out of the reeds. With

an angry cry, one of the swans went for her, and I thought, for a

moment, the poor little bird must have fallen a victim to his

murderous beak; but the little black bird, as Burbidge would have

said, "was nimble as ninepence," and doubled, and dived, before her

enemy could reach her. It was very good to be out. Life seemed

enough. The island in the centre of the Abbot's pond had become a

sheet of primroses, and looked as if it had been sown with stars; and

as I stood in the garden, the scent of the crimson ribes reached me.

What a rich perfume it was! and what a distance it carried. In the

full sunshine it was almost like incense, swung before the high altar

of some old-world cathedral. I wandered away into the red-walled

garden. How busy Burbidge was! The fir branches and matting were to

be taken down off the tea-roses, and away from the beautiful purple

and lavender clematises, my autumn splendours.

[Sidenote: WINTER COVERINGS REMOVED]

Beautiful Mrs. George Jackman, that shone like a great full moon in

the dusk on clear summer nights, was now to be allowed "to open out,"

as gardeners say, and the sun and soft winds were once more to play

with her tender leaves, and delicate tendrils.

Then the exquisite tea hybrid roses, such as Augustine Guinoiseau la

France, and that richest of all the noisettes, William Allen

Richardson, were to dispense with their protecting fir branches. The

time had come for them to feel the joy of full sunlight again, and

the tree peonies were no longer to be enveloped in tawny fern

branches, or to lie smothered in litter.

As I stood in the pathway, I heard Burbidge walking up and down the

paths, giving orders in the Shropshire tongue that I love so well.

A mantle of spring splendour had fallen upon all. Lines of yellow

crocuses shone like threads of gold. Crown Imperials were opening

their rich brown, metallic-looking blossoms. Pink and white daphne

bushes perfumed the air, and I noted that a host of hungry bees were

humming greedily round them. Chionodoxas of all shades, were looking

enchantingly fair. The blue Sardensis was opening its petals, of the

same wonderful sapphire-blue shade as the Alpine gentian. Then in

blossom also I noted Chionodoxa Luciliæ, that had the delicacy and

daintiness of a piece of china, and lovely Alleni, that recalled the

beauty of a sunset sky when the gold is dying, and when celestial

amber is dissolving and melting into exquisite tones of mauve and

lavender.

A little later, I found Burbidge hard at work pruning my great bed of

hybrid teas, and hybrid perpetual roses, that I have planted with

alternate rows of old Dutch and Darwin tulips, with English and

Spanish irises, and with lines of grape and Botryoides hyacinths. "Us

must get a bit of the bush off," said my old gardener, as he plied

his pruning scissors. I begged him, however, not to cut my hybrid

teas too hard, as now so many gardeners are inclined to do, for roses

in Shropshire, it seemed to me, did not like too much of the knife,

or of the French drastic treatment. "Let it be a rose _bush_ in

England," I pleaded.

"Right you are, ma'am," replied Burbidge, "for there's many as uses

the knife as a child the whip. Most of the roses here be on their own

roots, and so, healthy and abiding. Manetti stuff have blooms big as

saucers the first year, but go out the next year like candles as the

wind's overmastered. They be like most fandangles--no stay in them."

[Sidenote: THE VERMILLION ROSE]

So saying, my old friend plied his scissors vigorously, and the

click, click, resounded all through the garden. Before I left the

red-walled garden, I had a word with my old gardener about my hedge

of Austrian briars. What a wonderful single rose it is, and the

variety is very ancient. Parkinson mentions it in his "Theatre of

Plants," and calls it "the vermilion rose of Austria." If we prune it

this year, we shall get no flowers, I lamented, and I am always very

loth to let the pruning shears work their will with my pet rose. Then

I turned to my moss roses: pink, white, purple, and the most

beautiful variety of all, the old crested. They were all big bushes

and must be kept in shape, but should not be pruned in the ordinary

sense.

Besides these sorts already named, I grow in my garden the beautiful

roses of Japan--the purple and white, and the semi-duplex kinds, all

of which bear such superb hips in the autumn. I told Burbidge that we

must net some of the bushes in autumn, and that I would try later and

get some German recipes for making them into preserves. In

Elizabethan days, I have read, "Cooks and their ladies did know how

to prepare from hips many fine dishes for their tables." Burbidge

scoffed at this notion. "Let the wild things be, marm," he said to

me; and added, "I never heard of much that was good wild, but nuts."

At this I laughed and replied, "Wait and see--and taste."

Burbidge told me, that he proposed to carry out the bees in their

little wooden houses next week. "Come next Thursday, bee operations

should begin," my old friend assured me. Nine was the hour chosen,

and, if fine, "us will have the masks, so that come a breakage the

little brown folk can't come to us--and the vermin make sore flesh of

us." To-day, as I went into the tool-house I heard the bees buzzing

angrily, as if they could not keep quiet for anger.

"To-morrow," Burbidge then informed me, he and the boys would paint

all the "bees' homes over, save the lips, in different colours."

These must, in his language, remain "simple;" but "come Thursday, us

will take off the zinc stopper on each, and then the little brown uns

can roam as they list."

All last winter, since November, the bees had lived in the

tool-house, and had been artificially fed for the last fortnight, so

that, to use my old friend's words, "they be fair nasty with temper,

and buzzin' like an organ on fire." And now nothing remained but for

Auguste, as he always did, to make them one last meal of burnt sugar,

and solemnly to "inviter ces messieurs à faire leur miel." Their

appointed time of liberty was at hand, and in a few days the little

brown folk would fly into the sunshine with pæans of joy.

I went into the tool-house with Burbidge. Burbidge is a man of order.

Every night he makes "his boys" hang up the tools, after cleaning

them with care. Those not in use shine brightly against the wall.

Every night they are rubbed clean with a rag steeped in oil. Great

strings of onions hung from the massive oak beams. During bad days in

winter, when the snow lay on the ground, Burbidge and his men mended

the fruit nets, painted the water-cans a brilliant red, or green,

made wooden labels, and got ready, as they called it, "for the comin'

of summer."

There, along one side, were the beehives, some eight in all--all to

be painted in different colours. Burbidge holds the view that no two

should be painted the same colour, so that each hive, as he calls it,

"should drop on their own colour sharp." What truth there may be in

this idea I cannot say, but I was delighted to oblige my old friend

in this respect, for I, too, like bright colours in a garden.

Burbidge took out of an oak locker his colour board for the year. "I

know, marm, as yer be tasty with a needle," he said, "and I'll leave

it to you to say what pleases you and the brown folk most." I

suggested shades of blue, and told him of the Scotch belief that bees

of all colours love blue best. But Burbidge would not admit this. "I

never heard _that_ in Shropshire," he said stoutly. "Don't believe

it, nor a letter of it. Orange or purple, I believe, be every bit as

good as blue." Then I asked Burbidge about the old Shropshire bees

that learned folks in bee-lore have told me were descended from the

old wild bees that the British had, and of which there are still

swarms in straw skeps in far-away farmhouses nestling against the

Clee. But about these wild bees Burbidge knew nothing, but only felt

certain that anything "as be Shropshire born be bound to be good."

Then I chose the colours--red, flame, crimson, salmon, mauve, pink,

the delicate shade of the autumn crocus, jonquil yellow, and one or

two shades of blue--and particularly the dear old-fashioned bleu de

Marie that one meets in an Italian sky, as beautiful in its way as

the breast of "old Adam" (the peacock) against a yew hedge on a fine

March morning in full sunlight.

It was a lovely spring morning on that Thursday, the appointed day

for the removal of the bees to summer quarters.

[Sidenote: MOONLIGHTERS AT WORK]

Bess and I had a cup of milk and a slice of bread and butter, the

best of all morning breakfasts, and ran out to see the sport.

Burbidge was there with his boys, looking all of them like marauders,

or moonlighters, for their faces were clothed with masks and their

hands were covered with thick gloves.

Bess grasped tight hold of my hand. "Mamsie, how wicked they look, as

if they meant to kill some one," she whispered.

As to Mouse, she could not contain her displeasure. She gave a series

of low growls, and, for all she knew them, did not like their coming

too near us.

Burbidge propped back the garden gate with a stout staff. Then they

carried the little wooden houses out. What an angry sound of buzzing

went on inside, as the men bore them along. "Steady, steady!" cried

Burbidge, in a tone of command, "or the little brown people will

burst themselves with rage, and then, boys, it will be run for it who

can."

After this note of warning, "the two boys" advanced very gently and

placed the beehives in turn along the side of a path under the shade

of an apple grove, and stood them facing south and east. "That be

your home," said Burbidge, and then gravely proceeded to whisper "a

charm." What that was I have never been able to discover, for

Burbidge declared it to be a secret between him and the little brown

'uns, and if it was known the good would go with "gossamer wings."

There is something about spring and blossom, and sun, and gentle

rain, an old woman once told me, but the exact words old Nelly Fetch

wouldn't tell me, and declared, like Burbidge, "that charms and

rhymes were best kept between bees and bee-keepers, same as words to

the bees when death had visited a family." It is believed in

Shropshire that bees are canny, touchy folk, and that those who wish

to keep them must be civil and knowledgeable, and, "plaize 'em as

little sweethearts," as an old cottager once said to me, "or the bees

wud mak' yer rue it."

"Whispering a death" is still a common custom. I remember once asking

a farmer's wife, who used to be noted for her bees, if she had any

honey to sell, and being gravely told that she was out of bees, for

that they had forgotten when the master died to whisper his death to

them, and in consequence the bees had taken to the woods in

displeasure.

[Sidenote: "PAINTS NEXT BEST TO WATER"]

Bess and I watched the proceedings, and when all the hives were fixed

in their places, we put on old aprons and helped to daub on the

paint. Burbidge had mixed little cans of each colour, pink, yellow

scarlet, and flame, crimson, jonquil, and blue. Bess was delighted

with the little pots and the brushes. "Mamsie, I am certain of one

thing," she said, "paints are next best to water." And in a few

moments the little face, hands, and pinafore, reflected all the

colours of the rainbow.

In ten minutes or so, we had given each hive one coat of colour, and

we never give more. Then we all went and stood at the other end of

the garden to see the effect of our handiwork.

"Fine, very fine," exclaimed Burbidge, admiringly. "A horse in bells

couldn't look smarter." And Bess added, "Mamsie, it's like a bunch of

flowers, only there are no leaves." As we remained there, Auguste

came on the scene. He appeared with a pail of syrup to feed the bees,

for bees will always feed with avidity when put out first into the

air, however dainty or reluctant they have been to eat when kept in

confinement. A large bottle with a broad opening, full of thick

syrup, was filled, and fixed upside down on the top of each hive. We

heard behind the perforated zinc a mighty din. "Messieurs les

abeilles crient pour leur dîner," said Auguste.

Overhead was the sunshine, and the bees scented the breeze. Burbidge

filled each bottle, and then replaced the wooden lid of each hive.

"Stand back, marm!" he cried, "and you, too, Monsieur." Then Burbidge

called his "boys," and they removed the little pieces of zinc that

had kept the bees so long prisoners. Out they flew with exultant hums

and buzzes.

"They wud have liked to cut their way through," cried Absalom, "but

zinc, for all their cunning, be the masters of they."

"They'll be contented now," laughed Burbidge. "Sugar and sunshine,

what more can a bee desire?"

There is a great art in making bee syrup, like there is in doing most

country things. Syrup should be clear and of the right thickness, and

not too liquid; above all, it should not be too thin, so as to pass

too quickly through the muslin, or, in Burbidge's words, "it would

drown the bees like flies in a jar of cream."

After watching the bees come out and fly round in exultant joy, Bess

and I returned to the house, for, as Bess said, the "bee play" was

over for to-day. How busy the little brown people will be gathering

fresh honey, flying amongst the arabis and searching for celandines

and primroses.

We went in, and Bess ran up to her lessons. Alas! study to my little

maid is always a period of sadness. "Real children never like

lessons," is my little girl's dictum. They don't like useless things;

and to Bess, French, geography, history, and music are all useless

and worthless acquisitions. As I sat and embroidered in the Chapel

Hall, I was suddenly told that a boy outside wished to speak to me. I

left a carnation spray, a copy of a design of one of Mary Queen of

Scots', and looked up to welcome Thady Malone, a little Irish lad,

who, with his father and mother, had lately come into the parish.

Thady is the terror of the locality, and the hero of all the

naughty-boy stories of the neighbourhood.

[Sidenote: "MORE DEVIL THAN BOY"]

According to my old gardener, who looks at him with an evil eye,

"Thady be more devil than boy." Burbidge declares that Thady is a

plague, and a sore to the town, and "wull be the death of some 'un,

unless he kills hisself first." The fact is, Thady has done every

naughty thing conceivable. He has fired woods, put strings across

roads, I have been told, to try and trip up his natural enemy, James

Grogan, the reigning policeman, and even put logs across the little

local line, I have been assured; but this he stoutly denies himself.

He has been thrashed by indignant farmers for running their sheep,

and yet, as Bess says, always turns up "naughty and nice," with the

politest of manners, which he gets from "auld Oireland," and the

sweetest and most innocent of baby faces out of which natural

wickedness ever peeped.

A minute later and Thady stood before me, bare-legged and bonny, with

an expectant smile in his eyes. I opened the conversation by asking

him from where he came? "Right from Mrs. Harley." And he added, with

a catch in his throat, "The poor lady is like to die entirely,

judging by what Mrs. Betty said, and so I have come to you to see

what your leddyship can do to stop the disease."

Thady spoke in the most engaging brogue, and he had the sunniest,

pleasantest smile in the world. He stood before me, with his little

bare feet shyly touching the fringe of the carpet.

No other child in the old town goes barefoot. He is known at Wenlock

by the nickname of "Naughty Bare-legs," and has a shock of curly hair

and dancing grey-blue eyes.

"I'll come at once," I said. "But why, Thady, have they sent you?"

Thady scratched his head and looked puzzled, declared he didn't know,

but protested there was nothing he wouldn't do to oblige Mrs. Harley,

for all, he averred, "she's a hathan, and never says a prayer to the

blessed Virgin."

It appeared that once some naughty boys at Homer nearly succeeded in

drowning Mrs. Harley's tortoiseshell kitten, but that Thady, hearing

the poor little beast mew, fearlessly came to its rescue, fought his

way through the thick of the band of miscreants, and told them they

were nothing but base robbers, that they should be the death of

something bigger; and before they had recovered from their surprise,

had dashed through the ring, plunged out of the brook, and carried

off poor pussie victoriously. After this, Mrs. Harley had always been

a friend of his, filled his pockets with damsons in autumn, and

apples, and when the world turned a cold shoulder on him, never

failed to hold out to him the hand of friendship.

"For all I'm bad," Thady would say, with a twinkle in his eye, "Mrs.

Harley never believes the worst of me, and says (God bless her!) the

day will come when the country will be proud of me."

There was no time to be lost, so I followed the little bare-legged

messenger out of the room, ran upstairs, put on my hat and cape, and

whistled my great dog to heel. I said before starting, "Is there

nothing I ought to take to her?"

Whereupon Thady answered impetuously, with the romance of his people,

"There's just nothing at all. It's just your face, my leddy, which

the poor body wants to get a sight of, considerin' it's never the

shadow of the blessed Virgin that she can bless her eyes with."

So without another word, Thady and I passed out of the Abbey, hurried

across the emerald velvet of the Cloister lawn, and let ourselves out

by the little side wicket, and so up the meadow past the station and

away to the top of the hill. "I cannot run any more," at last I cried

to Thady, who had set the pace. "We must walk. See, even Mouse is

panting." Thady stopped, and then we settled down into a walk, and

began after a few minutes to chat.

Thady looked at Mouse. "Proud I'd be, my leddy," he said, "if I owned

such a dog. The constable, I'm thinking, would look a small man

beside me then."

At this sally I had the ill-nature to suggest the constable could

shoot Mouse. Whereupon Thady, with Hibernian readiness, replied, "Now

I'm thinking the dog would bite first."

[Sidenote: "A KITTY WREN, BEGORRA!"]

A little later a bird flew across the path, upon which Thady cried

out, "A Kitty wren, begorra!" and before I could stop him, had picked

up a pebble to throw at a little golden-crested wren that I saw

running up a spray of yew.

"Stop, stop," I cried; "don't throw it."

"Why not?" said Thady. "There's no law in England or Oireland against

killin' a wren, beside"--and he what the Shropshire folks call

"rippled over" with laughter--"'twould be a pretty shot."

But I begged him to desist, and Thady, who is civility itself, or, as

he quaintly expresses it, "born dutiful entirely to a leddy," dropped

his stone and we walked on. After a few minutes' conversation, I

discovered that Thady Malone was a naturalist of no mean repute, that

he could imitate the call and various notes of most of the wild

birds, and that he knew where to find their nests. "And if it's after

such," he added gallantly, "that yer fancy takes yer, I'll lead yer

and show yer the rarest birds that fly. Only wait another fortnight,

pheasants, hawks, magpies, jays, blackcaps, blue-bonnets, Nanny

washtails, heather lenties, red-poles, cutty wrens, corbie crows,

Harry redcaps, and scores of others." Many of Thady's names I did not

know, but Thady was graciously inclined, and assured me that he would

"learn my leddyship the true names." "I don't call them after the

books whatever," he asserted, "but same as the gipsy folks, and by

the names known by the people that lived in London, and elsewhere,

before us settled in Wenlock."

So it was agreed that Thady and I were to spend a day in the woods.

"Let it be Saturday," said Thady, authoritatively, "for then there's

no school to plague the life out of a fellow. I can climb and you can

cap," by which Thady meant that I was to carry the eggs.

"Thady," I said, as we parted at Mrs. Harley's wicket, "you must come

for me some Saturday. We will go into the woods, and I will bring out

luncheon, and you shall climb the trees, whilst I and Bess will

search the ground; but we will take no nests, only look at them and

see the eggs."

"Leave the eggs, and what for will her leddyship do that?" asked

Thady, surprised. "That wud be like catching a hare and not finding

it in the pot the night after."

"Well," I remonstrated, "when you come with me, you must play my game

of bird-nesting. Anyway, I can promise there will be nothing sick, or

sorry, where we have gone."

Thady at this laughed a little contemptuously, and a second later

vanished behind a hedgerow, and I entered Mrs. Harley's cottage.

It was a lovely morning, bright and joyous. The air was full of

spring odours, and in the song of the birds I only heard the echo of

universal joy. Yet I knew, the moment I entered the cottage, that the

hand of Death was about to beckon my old friend away from the good

and useful life, that she had led so well and bravely, to the other

side of the bourn from which no man returns.

Old Bessie met me. "Her's goin' fast," she whispered, and stood a

moment in the sunlight, hot tears almost blinding her poor old eyes.

Then, as I hesitated, she touched me gently on the arm and murmured,

"Come up, come up. Glad her'll be to see you, for all her's done with

Homer, and this world too." So I mounted the stairs and again found

myself in Mrs. Harley's presence.

Outside beyond the Severn and the Wrekin, the sun was shining gaily.

Inside the little chamber, all was spotlessly clean, I noted, as I

entered the bed-chamber. I saw the dying woman wanted something, from

the way in which her face moved.

[Sidenote: "A FAIR DAY TO GO HOME"]

"Light, light," she murmured as I touched her hand; and then, very

low, "A fair day to go Home."

"Her's been talking of nothing but goin' home," said Betsy,

reverently; "and her's goin' sure, same as gospel truth."

"All's at peace," whispered my old friend, and took a long, far look

of the great hill of which all Shropshire men are so proud. So,

smiling tenderly and loving the distant scene, her head sank back,

and she seemed gently to fall asleep.

"How peaceful!" I said, awestruck.

"The Lord have a-called her, and her work be done," said Betty

solemnly, a little later. "'Tis a good thing," she added, "to have

done good work, and I think the Lord loved her for all she was lowly

and never trod in high places."

Then I left Betty, and the triumphant serene face, in the little

whitewashed chamber. As I departed, I was conscious of having touched

the fringe of a very holy garment.

I passed out. And as I met the gladness of the outside world, I knew

that some of my old friend's radiance was still lighting my path.

After all, I know no better or more blessed things than simple faith,

and a noble life, ended by His supreme grace.

Mouse followed at my heels, dutifully walking close behind me. It is

curious, the way in which a dog that is often our companion, reflects

our mood. The great hound knew that I was absorbed, and gave way to

no frolic, chased no rabbit, but kept near, watching me out of her

topaz eyes solemnly and with marked concern.

A great stillness seemed to belong to the afternoon. The sun was

hidden beneath tender lavender clouds. I crossed a stile and walked

amongst the budding grass. Suddenly out of a wood, for the first time

in the year, I heard the mystic voice of the cuckoo, calling, calling

as if out of a dream.

What a delightful eërie sound it is! Not like a real bird, but like

some voice from another world, with its strange power of reiteration,

a voice which we cannot do otherwise than listen to; for, as Sir

Philip Sidney said, "The cuckoo cometh to you with a tale to hold

children from their play, and old men from the chimney corner." From

all time men have loved his cry. In the "Exeter Book" occurs the

passage--

"Sweet was the song of birds,

The earth was covered with flowers,

Cuckoos announced the year."

[Sidenote: THE CRY OF THE CUCKOO]

I did not see the bird, which lent enchantment to his song. I

listened, with budding daisies at my feet, and over Wenlock spire a

magic purple light. He seemed to me no bird, but a spirit calling to

the world with a gladness that we cannot know. Death and winter must

come, but for all that, spring is here, he seemed to say.

Death had come near me, even touched me half an hour ago, but for all

the solemn sadness I felt a brief time ago, the joy of life seized me

afresh.

As I wandered home across the peaceful fields, the Cuckoo's call

seemed spoken and repeated from coppice to hedgerow, and in every

mossy dingle. The old nursery rhyme I used to say in childhood came

back to me--

"In April

The Cuckoo shows his bill;

In May

He sings all day;

In June

He alters his tune;

In July

Away he'll fly;

Come August

Fly he must."

Yes, I say, fly he must, with summer which is "the sovereign joy of

all things," as Piers Ploughman wrote long years ago, and then

autumn, and the long chill nights of winter.

There is always a mystery about the cuckoo, as to where he comes

from, and where he goes. Far down in the south of India, I have been

told, is the only place where the cuckoo is to be found summer and

winter alike, calling in the tropics his strange, mystic cry. Be this

as it may, he is never with us in Shropshire till the second week in

April, and vanishes like a ghost early in August.

Some days later, and it was Palm Sunday, one of the great festivals

of old England during the Middle Ages.

There is but little sign left now of the blessing of the boughs, as

the rite was performed in mediæval times, save that nearly all the

boys present had cut sprigs of the wild willow and placed them in

their button-holes, and my little maid, by her old Nana's wish, had a

spray pinned in also, amongst the ribbons of her hat. What a lovely

blossom it is, that of the wild willow. How delicate the soft grey,

and how lovely the brilliant shades of gold. How wonderful is the

mixture of both colours, and how exquisitely gold and grey melt into

each other.

As I sat in our pew on the northern side of the church, I thought of

the old Church Service that once was held there. After the Mass, I

have read, it was usual that there should follow the hallowing of the

branches and flowers by the priest. I thought, as I sat in church in

Protestant England, of how the priest, up to the first half of the

sixteenth century, and for long centuries before, stood forth in

scarlet cope and blessed the sweet branches and the first flowers of

the year. I liked to recall the old rite and custom of entreating the

Almighty to bless and sanctify "his creatures," by which was meant

branch and blossom, which were laid by lay brothers and novices at

the foot of the altar, and then it was nice to think how branch and

blossom were broken up and blest, and a spray given to all the devout

people assembled. It was a pretty and holy usage, and I could not but

feel regret, that so gracious a rite was lost. It must have been a

delightful service for little children to witness, and a sweet memory

for the old who could remember the happy springs of years gone by.

As we came out of church, I told Bess about the old custom. And Bess

said dryly, "Now we have to bless our palm branches ourselves;" and

added with the strange intuition of a child, "I think it was better

when God did part of it, don't you, mamsie?"

[Sidenote: A STROLL IN THE CHURCHYARD]

After the service, we took a stroll into the picturesque old

churchyard, surrounded by old black and white timber, and Georgian

houses of glowing red brick. There was standing by the door by which

we entered the church, the remains of an old stone cross and several

tombs, which, I have been told, were brought from the ruined Abbey

Church. The grass was full of glittering daffodils, which shone like

stars, and the scent from the ribes and Daphne bushes filled God's

acre with sweetness. Bess and I walked round the churchyard.

I told her of the little room over the church-porch with its little

narrow window. Such a holy little room, I said. In such a room, I

think, holy Master George Herbert must have written; and from that I

went on to tell my little girl about Sir Thomas Botelar, the first

priest who lived at Much Wenlock after the expulsion of the monks.

[Illustration:

_Photo by Mr. W. Golling._

SIR THOMAS BOTELAR'S HOUSE.]

"Tell me about him," said Bess, eagerly. "I like to hear about good

monks and priests from you, although Nana says they were all wicked,

and walled up poor girls. But perhaps," added Bess, thoughtfully,

"they were not all as wicked as she thinks; leastways, there may have

been a few good ones just sometimes."

After luncheon I took down the printed sheets in which are preserved

Sir Thomas Botelar's entries, for, alas! his original manuscript

perished in the great fire at Wynnstay in 1859. And I read aloud such

passages as I thought my little girl would follow, at least in places.

As I read aloud, Constance was ushered in. She did not know Sir

Thomas's register and begged me to go on reading, so I continued to

read. The old papers, I told her in a pause, embraced eight years of

Henry VIII.'s reign, went through that of Edward VI.'s, took in the

whole of Queen Mary's, and gave the four opening years of Queen

Elizabeth's reign. All Sir Thomas's sympathies were with the old

order of things, I begged her to remember, and then I went on reading.

"'In February, 1546, on the 5th day of the month, word and knowledge

came to the borough of Much Wenlock that our Sovereign Lord King

Henry VIII. was departed out of this transitory life, whose soul,'"

Sir Thomas added, "'God Almighty pardon.'"

"Sir Thomas Botelar," I told Constance, "was the last Abbot of St.

Peter and St. Paul's Monastery at Shrewsbury. After the Dissolution,

the King turned away all the monks, and Sir Thomas became, after a

short time, Vicar of Much Wenlock, but his heart remained in the

cloisters of his former abbey."

Then I turned to a notice a little further down the page--

"'On the 13th April of the same year three convicts were buried, and

one was a child of eleven.' Poor little girl," I said, "what a

terrible bald statement of misery! What could so young a child have

done to merit death?"

"I cannot think," exclaimed Bess. "Perhaps cursed and swore and

scratched; but, even then, had she no father or mother to forgive

her?"

"Only God," said Constance, softly.

And then I begged them to listen to an account of a funeral of an

excellent priest, and obviously a very learned man.

[Sidenote: THE OLD CHURCH REGISTERS]

"'Sir William Corvehill, priest,'" I read, "'was laid in a tomb of

lime and stone, which he had caused to be made for himself. Sir W.

Corvehill was excellently and singularly expert in divers of the VIJ

liberal sciences, especially in geometry. He was also skilled in the

making of organs and in the carving of masonry, in the weaving of

silk, and in printing. Besides he was,'" adds Sir Thomas, "'a very

patient man and full honest in his conversation and living.'" Then,

after commending his soul to the care of God, Sir Thomas wound up

quaintly by declaring that, "'All this country hath a great loss from

the death of Sir William Corvehill, for he was a good bell-founder

and a maker and framer of bells.'"

Then I found a notice of a marriage. "'Here was married,'" ran the

old register, "'Thomas Munslow Smith and Alice Nycols;'" and added,

"'The bride was wedded in her smock, and barehead.'"

"When I'm married," said Bess, loftily, "I'll have a veil and some

flowers. Nana says it isn't proper to be married without a veil.

'Twould be as silly as papa ploughing, or you, mama, plucking fowls."

I didn't enter into the question of parental ridicule, but I looked

down the vicar's entries and read, "'Poor Sir John Baily Clerke,

otherwise called John Cressage, died. It was about 9 of the clock,'"

wrote Sir Thomas, "'and at the manor place of Madeley.'"

Bess had often heard the story from me of the poor old man who, after

surrendering his monastery, retired broken-hearted to die at Madeley.

When I came to this part of the register, she broke out indignantly

with--

"Why couldn't they leave _our_ abbot alone? I can't abear that old

Henry VIII. He did nothing but wicked things: cut off his wives'

heads and pulled down churches and nice buildings. Yet Nan and

Burbidge call him a good man. I think people ought to be good in a

different way."

Bess was quite excited, and Constance had to take her on her knee to

soothe her, and thus she sat on listening, with a scarlet face.

Then I read how, after the death of King Edward, Sir Thomas and all

the people made great joy over the proclaiming of the Lady Mary Queen

of England. I read also how the people of Bridgnorth "fair cast up

their caps and hats, lauding, thanking, and praising God Almighty,

with ringing of bells and making of bonfires in the streets," and how

the same joy was evinced at Shrewsbury, and at Much Wenlock.

In the first year of Mary's reign on June 16th, I read that the altar

of our blessed Lady within this church (of the Holy Trinity) was

again built up and consecrated afresh, and evidently Sir Thomas

rejoiced.

A month later, the Bishop of Worcester, the Lord President of the

Marches, coming with Justice Townesynde, stopped on their road to

Bridgnorth at Much Wenlock, and were entertained by Richard Lawley at

the Ash, the fine old timber house in Spital Street, where, at a

later date, Charles I. and Prince Rupert both slept on different

occasions.

Then followed a description of the _fête_ held in their honour. We

learnt how the house was gaily decked with cloths of Arras, with the

covering of beds, bancards, carpets and cushions, and how the table

was laden with pears and dishes of apples of the previous year. We

wondered how they could have been kept. Also with cakes, fine wafers,

claret, sack and white wine, and after much pleasant feasting and

pleasant intercourse, how "Mr. Justice rose and gave the Burgesses

great and gentle thanks for their cost and cheer."

"I wish that I, too, mamsie, had been there, for I, too, would like

to have eaten pears in summer, and have seen all their gay carpets,"

exclaimed Bess.

A little later on in the pamphlet I found the announcement of Queen

Elizabeth's being proclaimed Queen after the death of her sister. Sir

Thomas made this entry evidently with rather a heavy heart.

As I closed the little book, Constance took it in her hand and looked

over the pages.

"How many were hanged in those days!" she said sadly. "There are

mentions of executions for sheep stealing, for murder, for robbery;

and what a number of convicts, even children of quite tender years."

Then she alluded to the immense age of many of the parishioners

named. Agnes Pyner was said to be seven score years when she received

the blessed sacrament just before death. John Trussingham declared

that he was seven score years, and that at the age of four-score

years he had witnessed the battle of Blore Heath; whilst John

Francis, chief farmer at Callaughton, Sir Thomas declared, was aged

107 years when he was buried.

[Sidenote: JOAN OF POSENHALL]

Then Constance's fingers flitted back to a past page, and she read

aloud a touching little entry about Joan of Posenhall, a fair maiden

of twenty-two years, who, it was believed, "died of a canker in the

mouth, which disease her father ascribed to the smelling of rose

flowers."

"Could it have been a poisoned rose?" I asked, for in those days many

and subtle were the poisons used to get rid of a fair rival.

But Bess could not understand how a rose by its scent could injure

any one. "In my true fairy-stories," she said, "roses can only do

good. They are only good fairies' gifts, and I know they can only

come out of the mouths of good girls--real good girls," Bess

repeated, "so I don't see how a rose could have hurt poor Joan."

Whereupon I explained matters to my little maid. After a pause Bess

exclaimed--

"Well, I think 'tis best to live now, for anyhow we've only doctors

to kill us."

"To save us," laughed Constance.

But Bess would not allow this. "To kill us is what Mrs. Burbidge

says; and Nana says she won't have a doctor in at no price for

herself."

Then Bess jumped up from her chair, and declared inconsequently that

it was time to feed her puppy, and darted out of the room, and

Constance and I were left alone. Upon which we fell to chatting about

the great quilt. "I have chosen the flowers, as you know," she said.

And she enumerated one after another their old-world musical names.

"And now I want charming words about sleep," she added.

I suggested from Sir Thomas Browne's "Religio Medici": "Make my sleep

a holy trance," or "On my temples sentry keep," again from the same

author "Come as thou wilt, or what thou wilt bequeath," from Drummond

of Hawthornden, or again, "Men like visions are, Time all doth

claim," or "He lives who dies to win a lasting fame."

"You must not also," I said, "forget a beautiful line from Mrs.

Barrett Browning: 'He giveth His beloved sleep.'"

Before leaving me, Constance told me that she and Bess had a little

game in hand--a real May frolic--"but you must not know yet, it must

be a surprise."

[Sidenote: THE QUEEN OF THE MAY]

To this I at once gave my maternal sanction, and then the nature of

the "secret" was revealed to me. Constance told me that she proposed

to have a little May dance for some eight of the little school

maidens, and that she would like Bess to take a part in the

festivities. Eight little maidens are to dance round the maypole,

which is to be decked with ribbons and many flowers, and are to sing

some old songs; and she added, "If you have no objection, Bess is to

say us a verse or two from some old poets in honour of May morning."

I fell in readily with Constance's little plans for a village _fête_,

and offered the old bowling green as a site for it to take place.

"The bowling green," I said, "is very sheltered; it is surrounded on

three sides with yew hedges, and I am delighted at the idea of Bess

appearing as the queen of the revels."

Bess is to be attired all in white with a crown of flaming marsh

marigolds on her head, and to bear in her hand a staff decorated with

primroses, cowslips, and sprays of beech and willow.

Just as Constance was leaving, Bess rushed in and seized my friend's

hand, and called out impetuously, "Have you told mamsie? May I? May

I?"

I nodded "yes," and told my little maid that she was to have a white

muslin, a white wand of office, posies of primroses and shining shoe

buckles. Bess was delighted, she hugged me and Constance rapturously

in turns, and said "it will be the best day of my life."

"All we must hope will be a success," laughed Constance, as she

departed up the pathway to the old gate-house; "and we must pray for

sunshine for the sake of the little expectant maidens and anxious

mothers."

Next morning I confided to Burbidge the plan of our proposed revels,

and informed him that I should like to ask in the villagers. Burbidge

remarked in a lofty way that he had no objection--a Yorkshire

expression which he acquired when a lad from a Yorkshire gardener;

but added severely, that they that come must keep to the paths, not

spoil _his_ lawns, and scatter no lollipop papers, or such-like dirt.

But Burbidge's old wife, Hester, showed a less conciliatory spirit.

In a foolish moment, as I happened to meet her carrying Burbidge's

dinner to the tool-house, I confided our secret. Upon which she told

me sourly that she was sorry to think "as there is to be play-acting,

and even dancing on the property--the monks," she declared, "were bad

enough, but this would beat all."

Hester is descended from old Puritan stock, and disapproves of all

laughter and merriment. Burbidge, who overheard her last words of

censure, exclaimed--

"Tut, tut, my dear, you was young once. I can mind thee fine as a

horse in bells, for all thee's old now and that the rheumatics lay

hold on thee, sharp as scissor points. But the young uns they want

their games and their plays, for all as us is getting miller's bags

on our pates."

"Speak for yourself," replied Hester, with acidity, puckering up her

withered visage. And then she added with severity, "I never knew yet

any good come out, or wisdom, of play-acting. They be devil's works,

and take my word for it," and there she held up a bony emphatic

finger, "that the devil will claim toll, for all as they seem mild

and innocent."

With which ominous remark Hester made over to Burbidge his dinner,

and hobbled up the back drive homeward.

"'Tis a pity," said Burbidge, looking after his old wife, "as good

wine can turn to vinegay like that. The Lord made her, but the old

'un" (the devil) "guides her eyesight sure enough, and most times

directs her tongue. The fact is," and the old man drew himself up

straight, "when yer think too much about hell, yer can never see

heaven. My mother used to say that, and for all she was a Methody

body, it be gospel truth."

[Sidenote: EASTER SUNDAY]

A few days later it was Easter Sunday. The bells rang merrily, but we

hurried off to church almost late; for, according to Shropshire

fashion, Bess had got a new frock on for the occasion.

It consisted of a pale mauve serge of the colour of the autumn crocus

blossoms which flower in the aftermath in this neighbourhood.

For the last fortnight dear old Nanny had been too busy "to draw a

breath," to use her favourite expression, and had sewn morning,

afternoon, and evening, to get my little maid's frock completed by

Easter Sunday. For it is held in Shropshire to be most unlucky not to

be clad in fresh attire on that feast day of the Church. Wherefore,

whatever else was left undone, Bess's frock had to be finished for

the festival.

"The rooks," murmured Bess, as we entered the churchyard, "cannot say

nothing, for all I have is new--shoes, stockings, drawers, chemise,

and frock. And them," alluding to the rooks, "them only spoils old

things, does them, mamsie?"

"Oh, you're safe," I laughed, and we passed up the aisle.

A peal of bells was ringing gaily. "How gay and good it sounds,"

whispered Bess, dreamily, "as if all the world was good and playing."

Then we walked up to our pew, and the mild delicate scent of

primroses greeted us everywhere. "I wish we had flowers every

Sunday," said Bess, as she flumped down in her seat. "It seems to

make God's house like a posy. I think it must be nicer for Him so."

The old columns were festooned with garlands of flowers, and round

the ancient font were placed bunches of flashing marsh marigolds and

great branches of tender half-uncurled beech leaves.

Bess looked round her, and said gravely in an undertone, "I think the

blessing will come this Sunday, for I feel sure that God cannot see

so many flowers about without being pleased." Then I said, "Hush!"

for I feared my little maid was talking over-much.

Immediately after, the morning service began. At the close, as the

last hymn died away, Nana took my little maiden off, whilst I

remained on for the most beautiful, and the most solemn, of all our

Church services.

The sound of retreating footsteps was at last hushed. The children

had all left, and many of the people. Then there was a pause, and

then the opening prayers, and I saw, in the dim light of the chancel

window, the vicar breaking the bread and preparing the wine, and we

were invited to the Lord's Table.

"The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee,

preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life." I seemed to hear

the solemn words as in a trance. Outside, through the old

perpendicular window, the sun was shining faintly, and from the glad

world without I heard the birds singing in a joyous chorus. Inside,

the great and solemn rite of Christianity was being administered, and

faith and love of Him who died for the sins of men was visiting each

faithful heart in a rapture of holy delight. A few minutes afterwards

and I regained my seat. The spirit of the old world was with me. How

many pious hearts have offered up prayer and thanksgiving before

those altar rails! How often has the blessed Sacrament come to

faithful hearts, as an elixir of the soul!

[Sidenote: THE HOLY SACRAMENT]

Owing, perhaps, to the joy of the world outside, there was a great

sense of triumph in such an Easter Sunday. "Christ is risen!" seemed

to be shouted everywhere; His body had suffered pain and death, but

now the heavens were opening for the glory in which death and pain

could have no place. The glory of His life was everywhere. For "with

angels, and archangels, and with all the company of heaven," could

"we laud and magnify our Lord and praise the Most High."

I came out of the church, and some of its mystic radiance seems to

cling like a cloud of splendour around me. As I walked along, I

thought of the founder of the town church, Roger de Montgomery, the

great Earl of Shrewsbury, who founded also that of the Abbey close

by. The former, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, still has its roof,

and pious services are still performed there every Sunday; whereas

the Abbey church of the Clugniac monks is deserted alike by prior and

pilgrim. Alone, my pigeons and the jackdaws fly amidst its aisles,

and only across grass and thyme can the outlines of the high altar be

discerned.

I lingered at the church wicket. A soft shower had just fallen, and

dew-drops glistened on the grass like pearls. A great white cross

shone in splendour, still wet, but of dazzling whiteness, almost like

a pillar of light in the morning sunshine. The birds on every bush

and wall were chanting anthems of delight.

A minute later I passed out of God's acre, and Bess met me in the

avenue. My little maid rushed up with a bound of excitement.

"Thady is ill, mum," she cried. "I heard Burbidge tell Nana so. He

said 'The little varmint be down with a bad leg, and he hoped that

would settle him for a bit.' And Nana said 'she hoped it would, too,

for when boys were wicked they was best in bed.' But I'm sorry,

sorry, for all Thady's naughty, he's never nasty." I sympathized with

Bess, and promised that we would visit Thady during the afternoon.

After luncheon, we cut Thady a slice of plum-pudding, and Bess put

aside for him an Easter-egg. "I had three," she said, "and this one

is sky blue, and Auguste says that is the best colour of all and sure

to bring good luck. So you'll see, mum," she added, "Thady will be

right again and able to climb the trees in no time after he has eaten

my egg."

We prepared to start out, and took Thady the gifts contained in the

basket; but Bess declared that first we must go into the ruins and

pick her little friend a bunch of daffydowndillies.

"'A bunch of daffs on Easter Day

Brings luck to the house, and peace in May.'

"Nan says so, and I believe it," cried Bess. "Anyway, Thady will like

to look at 'em while he eats my egg." So we wandered into the rough

grass inside the ruined church to pluck a handful.

How beautiful are spring flowers. All round it was a blaze of

brilliant blossoms. There were early Van Thol tulips, like flames of

fire, large rings of golden daffodils, some of them with almost

orange faces moving in the soft winds, and then there were patches of

beautiful blue scilla sibirica, and in the distance the star-like

forms of the narcissi Stella, and Cynosure.

[Sidenote: A MEAD OF BLOSSOMS]

For several autumns Burbidge and "his boys" had planted for me great

numbers of bulbs, and the result was, as Burbidge said, better "than

a carpet of delight." These bulbs are now grown largely in

Lincolnshire, and in parts of Ireland. When they arrived they looked

small and meagre. They were not at all the splendid, sleek, fat

bulbs, that come from Holland; but, to quote Burbidge, looked "poor

little shy customers;" but they were glad enough to find a home in

the Abbey turf. Before putting them in, we skinned back the grass,

dug up the soil to about six inches, added a little leaf mould, took

out any stones, and popped in tulips, daffodils, snowdrops, crocuses,

and, for a later radiance when the hawthorn would be out in snow, the

rich double white narcissus, that gardeners call, on account of its

perfume and appearance, the gardenia narcissus.

We put in three to five bulbs in each little space. After which we

carefully replaced the grass, and beat it well down, so that, after

the first shower, no one could have known that we had even moved the

turf. Just then much of the grass of the ruins was a sheet of glory,

reminding me in its _parterre_-like beauty of the foreground of some

early Italian painter.

Every autumn Burbidge and his workers bring wheelbarrow loads of leaf

mould and decayed lawn grass, and spread them over my "bulb forest;"

and the result is that every year the flower roots strengthen, and

the blossoms multiply.

Bess ran from group to group, until her hands were full of different

daffodils. "There's luck here," she cried, "and see, they glitter

like gold money, mamsie--that must mean something good."

We walked, laden with our gifts, till we reached the Bull Ring. We

paused at the door of an old black and white house, with a broad

pebble causeway before it. On entering the cottage we found Thady in

bed.

"Well, Thady, how did it happen?" I said.

"I was after a rook's nest," replied Thady, "and the twig gave way

entirely, and so I came down dang-swang, as the folks say here."

"Indade," said his mother, Mrs. Malone, "it's afflicted I am in

Thady. When he's good he's ill, and when he's well he keeps company

entirely with the Devil."

"Never fear, mother, whativer. 'Tis a bad boy as can't get good some

day," and Thady, for all his face looked white and worn from pain, he

burst into an irresistible fit of laughter.

Upon this Bess showered upon him yellow daffodils, and I opened my

basket containing the plum-pudding, and Bess's sky-blue egg, and an

orange or two.

"Sure and God bless you," said the good dame, his mother, with

enthusiasm. "They will please him finely, for Wenlock is as dull as

ditch water, for all they boast that in days gone by once there was

gay goings on here. Bull and dog baitings, according to our old

neighbour Timothy Theobalds' tales, and behind the Vicarage, cock

matches fit for a king, and pretty fights between the young men

behind the church. But, whatever there was then, 'tis still now, and

sleepy as Time."

[Sidenote: MASTER THEOBALDS ON POLITICS]

As we left the cottage I met the neighbour of the Malones, old

Timothy Theobalds. He was a shrivelled little old man, had been ount,

or mole-catcher, for many years, had driven cattle to market, and I

have also heard, was once earth-stopper to the Hunt. If what his

neighbours say is true, old Timothy is not now far off a hundred. He

receives annually a small pension collected from three county

families, has, I am told, cakes and beer at Yule-tide from his

neighbours, and in his own words, "a snap of somethin' tasty, when he

has a mind, wherever he goes." The old man is excellent company for

all his years, and has many a good story to tell, of folks long since

dead, and of the wild ways and curious customs of old Shropshire,

before the days of railroads, when folks still believed in witches,

and in the power of divining rods, and danced, and made merry at

wakes and fairs. Like many other old men, "Daddy" Theobalds is not

exempt from grumbling, and can use language, I fear, "fit to blow

your head off" if provoked. According to him, "Life's a poor thing

now. No fun nor luck left. Yer mayn't even get a shillin' nowadays

for a vote if so be as yer has one; though what good a vote can do a

poor man if he can't sell it, I don't know. They Radicals," he told

me once, "were grand at givin'; but their gifts were nought but mugs

wi'out beer, or dishes wi'out beef; they brought nought when yer

speered in, but fandangles, flummery and folly."

Old Timothy I met leaning on his stick before his door, clad in a

long embroidered smock. He pushed open the door. "Come in, marm," he

says, "and sit yer down before the fire."

I entered his house whilst Bess dashed off to fetch the pug-pup,

exclaiming, "We must remember it is his Easter Sunday," and I and old

Timothy were left alone.

I made a remark upon the fine day, and told old Timothy about the

morning service and the lovely flowers. Old Timothy did not respond.

He holds to church on Sunday, but rather as a preparation to a Sunday

dinner, than anything else, I fear; but as to flowers, he "doesn't

think much of they, leastways not in churches."

"When I war a lad," he said, "folks kept they for May Day, and the

lads and lasses then went out and pulled blossoms and danced, for the

fun of the land wasn't all dead then, as it is now. That be the

proper use of blows." Then, after a pause, in a weary voice old

Timothy went on to say, "'Tis a deal decenter now, no doubt, more

paint about and print readen', but the fun and jollity be clean dead.

When I war young, folks often had a tidy bit saved, and when they had

'a do' they spent it at home. The missus would bake Yule-tide cakes

or all souls, or snap-jacks, accordin' to the season, and the maister

brewed a barrel of ale, and then the couple wud call in the

neighbours. Now 'tis hoard up, and go away, as if yer could only

laugh in London or Birmingham, and never a cake or a sup for friends

or neighbours.

"Folks could play well enough when I war a boy," and then old Timothy

began to tell me of the old "plays" as he called them. "This place,

'Old Wenlock,' as us used to call it, war cheery, and jolly, in

grandam's days," he told me. "Every spring there wud come a man with

a bull. Many is the one, I have heard her say, was baited in this

spot, just outside the doors. The farmers and colliers from

Ironbridge would bring their dogs, and have three days' drinking and

amusement. And," continued old Timothy, "he war a mighty fine man as

cud count as his the best bull dog about. Now folks be proud of their

cricket, and of their football matches, but the games can't touch the

old sports." Then after a pause, old Timothy said solemnly, "It war a

terrible undoing of England puttin' down the old plays. I mind," the

old man added, "how mad dad war when they put down the bull-baiting

at Ellesmere. There used, in the old times, to be grand goings on

there. Well, one Wake Monday, Mr. Clarke, 'the captain' as they

called him, put that down. Tom Byollin, I've heard dad say, war

leaden' the bull round pretty nigh smothered in ribbons, as war the

good old custom, when the captain 'e comes up and 'e said, 'What be

goin' to do with that there bull?' 'Bait 'im,' said Tom, 'we allus

bait a bull at Wake's. 'Tis our Christian custom.' But the captain he

wudn't have it. He war allus a meally souled 'un, 'cording to dad,

and one that left a good custom, to take up with a new one, and so he

offered five pounds to Tom, and got round him by biddin' too a new

pair of breeks--and so there war no bull-baiten. Tom was mortal hard

up, I've heard, but to his dyin' day he regretted the job, and used

to cry over his cups, because he had helped to ruin the land by doin'

away with a good old practice."

"Did you ever see a bull baited?" I asked old Timothy.

[Sidenote: "A ROYAL DO"]

"Yes, mam," answered my old friend with pride, "when I war at

Loppington, I have myself seen the sport, as quite a lad," and as he

spoke old Timothy's eyes lighted up with excitement. "It war a royal

do. For they had not only bulls, but bears. I mind me," he continued

after a minute's hesitation, "as it war in 1825. There war great

rejoicin's. Folks druv and came in from all parts, and it war a grand

celebration, and all given because the parson's daughter war marryin'

a squire. They said as the parson paid the costs hisself bang off, he

was that pleased at his daughter's grand marriage. But then parsons

_were_ parsons in those days. They rode, shot, and wrestled, besides

preachin'. 'Tis true as there war a few what objected. Now at Madeley

Wakes they had grand games on too. All the colliers, I've heard

grandam say, used to come down and bet free and easy, like gentlemen

born. Many was the time, I've heard 'em say, folks used to see the

collier folks ranged down to make a lane like for the bull or bear to

pass along. My word! as old Matt Dykes used to say. It war a mighty

question which looked best, beast or dog, for when 'twas a bull, they

only slipt one to a time. 'One dog one bull,' that war what they used

to say to Madeley.

"Oaken-Gates, I've heard say, war the last place where they baited

the bull in Shropshire. And I allus say," said old Timothy, with a

spark of enthusiasm, "that 'tis a mighty fine feather in the cap of

that place, as it war the last as kept up the good old English sport."

Then old Timothy went on to tell me "how the bull in 1833 at Madeley

war a mighty game 'un, and tugged that ferocious at the stake, that

he broke abroad stake and all, and with the chain charged down madly,

and hurted several what war standing by."

After a pause, old Timothy went on to tell me, "how for all the Vicar

of Loppington war reasonable and right minded about the old sports,

there war some even then, as had 'cakey' and queasy stomachs about

such enjoyments." And he went on to say how Mr. Anstice of Madeley,

and one Mortimer, as was vicar then, spoilt, in his own language,

sport cruel. "It war in this way," continued the old man, "the bull,

a proper beast, war baited three times; first, at the Horse Inn, then

at Lincoln Hill, and lastly, on Madeley Wood Green. At the last bout,

Squire Anstice and Parson Mortimer they comed up with a handful of

constables, but there war hundreds of colliers and decent folks

looking on, and I war told that they could have chawed up constables,

squire, and vicar, if they had a mind."

"And what saved 'em?" I asked eagerly.

"Well," answered Maister Theobalds, "for all the vicar war a little

'un deformed, and some called him as dry as a chip, he had a mighty

fine tongue, and though he'd hadn't grit enough to thresh a hen, he'd

hadn't no mortal fear, and he stood up and pleaded and spoke same as

if the bull had been his brother. And the bull war sent away."

[Sidenote: "LAMB-LIKE TO PUPS"]

Then after a little while Timothy added reflectively, "There be

mountains in a tongue. Grandam used to say as Parson Mortimer seemed

to hold God Almighty inside him when he war angry, so terrible war

he, not that he ever war angry unless he waxed white hot about sin,

or cruelty, as he called it. He war a little 'un to look at, but he

had a mighty spirit, though lamb-like to pups, childers, and wild

wounded things. The biggest fellows quailed before him when he took

on in a rampage, and none of them dared sin when he war by."

At that moment I heard my Bess tapping at the door. "Lor, bless her,"

said Timothy, "'tis the little 'un; how them does grow, the

childers," and he got up and hobbled to the door. Then Bess ran in

and bubbled over with excitement about her May _fête_, for she had

met Constance on the road. She told old Master Theobalds that he must

come down and see her May dance. "Sure I will, my pretty," he said;

"I'd like to see a May-stang again, and a mass of lads and lasses

dancing round, as I have heard grandam talk about when she war a

likely wench."

Then the old man began to tell us of the old May Days, and of the

long-handed-down traditions of the Shropshire May festival.

"It war the fashion," he said, "in the old time for all the lads and

lasses to wend their way to the Stanhill Coppice or down to the great

Edge Wood, and a merry time they had. Old Gregson Child as war

shepherd to Farmer Dawson, that lived once at the Marsh Farm, used to

go with the lads, and they used to blow horns, and one or two, if

they had a mind, would tootle on the flute, and others scrape on

fiddles, till wood and field fair swarmed with music, and so, they

say, they got them to the woods an hour or so after dawn. And after a

while, the lads and lasses would twine garlands, and the lads would

buss the lasses. And the lasses would cry out, but let 'em do it

again, and when they had romped and sang, the boys and maids, fair

smothered in May branches, mead marigolds, posies of primroses, and

laxter shoots of beech and hazel, would get them to their homes and

hang up garlands and posies to their lintels over their dad's door,

and take to laughter and bussing again.

"Ay, grandam used to talk of those times--merry times for all they

hung for sheep stealing, sure enough, but the lads laughed 'twixt

times gay as ecalls," and the old man bent before the dying fire, and

seemed in thought to plunge back to the days of the past, which even

he could hardly have seen.

Then Bess and I got up, and Mouse gave a deep bark, and as I said

good-bye, I repeated my invitation for the First of May.

"Lor', mam," replied old Timothy, sadly, as he opened the door, "it

isn't likely as I shall forget it, for a piece of jollity don't often

come my way. 'Tis dull and parson-like as they've made the world now.

Well, it is for the young 'uns to call for the tune now."

We passed into the sunlight, and saw the lads and lasses hastening to

school, and away up the streets I saw older lads and lasses in Sunday

trim, dressed for courting, and the Sunday walk.

[Sidenote: OLD MAY DAYS]

Is the world less merry, I asked myself, since old Timothy's grandam

danced beneath the May-pole? Have we forgotten how to laugh and sing

in village and hamlet, and is merry England steeped in grey mists? I

thought of what I had heard, as I walked along, and tried to picture

to myself that merry England of whom a stranger wrote, "A merrier,

gayer people breathe not on God's earth." I thought of the time when

the May Festival was observed by nobles, and even by kings and

queens. I remembered how Chaucer, in his "Court of Love," tells us

that early on May Day "went forth all the Court, both most and least,

to fetch fresh flowers, and so bring back branch and bloom."

"O Maye with all thy flowers, and thy green,

Bright welcome, be thou faire, freshe May,"

exclaims the courtly knight Arcite. I recalled a passage in Malory

where the great prose poet makes beautiful Queen Guinevere go

a-maying with her lords and ladies. In Henry VIII.'s reign the Court

still went a-maying, for Hall tells us how Henry, in his youth,

accompanied by his stately Spanish queen, "rose up early with all

their courtiers" to enjoy the old English custom, and of how the

Court went forth with bows and arrows, shooting through the green

spring woods, and brought back "flowers and branches." Shakespeare,

in his "Midsummer Night's Dream," alluded to the old English holiday,

and declares, through the mouth of one of his characters, that folks

would not lie abed the last day of April, but rose up early to

observe this rite of May, so eager were they for its fun. So keenly

did Queen Bess enjoy these revels that she always longed, it is said,

to lay aside the state of royalty on these occasions, and live the

life of a milkmaid during the month of May.

Towards the close of the Elizabethan era, Stubbs wrote, sourly

attacking all such practices. In an old brown, mouldy book by him,

that I once came across in an old country house library, entitled

"Anatomie of Abuses," I read a jaundiced account of a May festival.

"The Chiefest Jewel that they bring from the woods," he wrote, "is

their May-poole, which they bring home in great veneration in this

wise." And then the old Puritan went on to recount how "tweentie to

fourtie yoke of oxen were harnessed together, and how a sweet posie

of flowers was tied to the typee of their horns, and so the oxen drew

home the May-poole."

Thinking over old-fashioned customs, it was impossible not to lament

there is now left, to quote an old chronicler's quaint expression,

"so little worshipful mirth" in England, and that villages no longer

have their dances and May Day rejoicings, as in years gone by. It

cannot be other than a matter of regret to all reflective minds, that

the one notion of pleasure amongst our working classes, is to sit

long hours in an excursion train, and, be it said, invariably to

leave their own homes.

Hospitality amongst the poor, save for a wedding or a christening,

has become a thing of the past. Love-spinning, soul-caking, and

well-dancing are all gone by. And England is a poorer country, I

think, in that it is no longer Merrie England, as it was in the days

of the Tudors and the Stuarts, but the England of many chimneys--in

others words, the Workshop of the World.

[Sidenote: SUMMER SOUNDS]

Soft days followed Easter Sunday. The weather was exquisite sunshine

and shower making a perfect combination. Burbidge was always busy.

There was continually the summer sound of mowing. No longer, alas!

the rhythmic swish of the scythe, but the twinkling click of the

machine. Yet even this was delightful, for in the sound came the cry

of summer. Everywhere the heads of the herbaceous plants in the

border grew bolder and stronger. The beautiful burning bush, as my

old gardener calls the _Dictamnus Fraxinella_, was then a foot high;

and my white Martagon lilies and _Lilium Auratum_ were all springing

up gaily from their mother earth strong and vigorous; whilst my

Oriental poppies, of various colours, were rearing themselves up for

a June glory. Then my pansies (the seed of which I had brought from

Paris a year ago) were full of promise. How rich they will be, I

said, blotched and mottled in different shades of purple, lavender,

and chocolate brown, and each flower later will have a face of its

own, with an almost human expression. Besides these, there were Hen

and Chicken daisies, or red and pink Bachelor's Buttons, as they call

them in Shropshire, and opening sprays of Bouncing Bess (which is our

local name for the gay Valerian), wherever it could push its way

between the old stone walls.

[Illustration:

_Photo by Frith_

The ABBEY RUINS.]

I wandered round the garden in the Cloisters, with its lavabo and

wrought-iron gates. On the lancet windows of the Leper's Chamber,

white pigeons were cooing and disporting themselves, and running up

and down along the level turf. Jackdaws amidst the ruins were

hurrying to and fro on the wing, with grub or insect in their beaks.

Above the chamber, where men said the service was heard by the sick,

there was a mass of gold which shone like beaten metal against the

cloudless sky. It was the wild wallflower in a sea of blossom. How

busy all nature was--building, growing, blossoming, and budding.

Certainly a fair spring morning is one of the undying joys of the

world.

Later on I found myself in the little kitchen garden. The later pears

were then sheets of snow, and I noticed that an apple flower was

beginning to turn pink on an espalier.

Burbidge I found busily occupied in dividing the roots of the violets.

All through the winter, when frosts bound the ground, he sent me in

fragrant bunches of the double Neapolitan violet, varied by bouquets

of the Czar, the Princess of Wales, and the red purple of Admiral

Avalon.

Now all the roots were being lifted from the frames, and little

runners with minute fibrous roots planted, some eight inches apart,

in shady corners.

During the summer, Burbidge and his boys will cut off every runner or

blossom that may appear on these plants, and keep them, to use his

expression, "round as a nest." "I likes," he said, "to give 'em

hearts like cabbages." The first week in September, the violet roots

will be replaced in the frames "for winter blowing."

In the mean time the frames are to be cleared, the soil renewed, and

then sown with asters, zinnias, and my beautiful golden lettuces,

that come over every year from the Austrian seedsman.

Next to the frames, in little narrow beds, were lines of choice

daffodils, and I stopped to look at them. They were of the largest

and most effective kinds. There was Emperor, and Empress, Horsfieldi,

Sir Watkin Wynn, Golden Spur, Mrs. Langtry, and beautiful Madame de

Graaf, and the brilliant sunset glory of Orange Phoenix.

They made a brave show and found great favour in my old gardener's

eyes. "Nothing mean about they," he said, only the day before,

complacently to me. "Look to the size. They be near the girth of

roses, and fit for any nobleman's garden." The old man seemed to

swell with pride as we looked at them together. I had not the heart

to be disagreeable and to suggest that any should be plucked for

vases, or to deck the altar bowls, and I saw that my old friend was

relieved.

A little later I walked up the trim path empty-handed and peeped into

the gooseberry and currant cages. The cages are made of fine wire

netting, fixed on poles, about twenty feet square, in which were

planted currants and gooseberries, to save their fruit from the wild

birds. Burbidge joined me. "So," he said, "they has nothing inside to

rob them, not a 'nope'" (as he calls the bullfinch), "nor them

mischievous 'poke-puddings'" (by which name some folks here call the

tomtits) "can interfere."

[Sidenote: A BULLFINCH CAN DO NO WRONG]

Hearing my favourites, the bullfinches, attacked, I could not help

saying something in their defence. "The cock 'nope,' as you call him,

is so beautiful," I urged, "that surely he may have a few buds in

spring, and later on get a little fruit? Besides," I added warmly,

"many people now say that he does no damage, and that the buds, that

he attacks, are already diseased, and, anyway, would bear no fruit."

But at this Burbidge waxed wroth. "The nope," he retorted angrily,

"be pure varmint for gardens, same as stoats be for poultry, and

squirrels for trees; and as to his colour, 'tis like looks in lasses,

it hath nought to do with character. I don't see things, marm, as you

does. When yer sweats for a thing, there be no halves in the matter.

What's a friend to my garden, I be a lover to; but what's foreign, I

be a foreigner to," and the old man walked away in a huff.

After "our bullfinch war," as Bess called it when I recounted to her

later the little episode, I walked up the path that is edged by rows

of double primroses. How lovely they were in the neatest of little

clumps, white, yellow, and mauve, with here and there tufts of hen

and chicken daisies, roots of the single blue primroses, brilliant

polyanthuses, and the curious hose-in-hose variety, which an old

South Country nurse of ours used to call "Jack-a-Greeners." A little

further on, I saw some plants of the soft _Primula Cashmeriana_,

which bore leaves which looked as if they had been powdered with milk

of sulphur, and carried umbrella-like mauve heads of blossom.

A little higher up the path I saw some fine plants of _Primula

Japonica_ with its red whorls of blossom; and at the top of the

garden I came across a line of beautiful auriculas. The most

beautiful of all the primulas, I think, is "Les Oreilles d'Ours," as

the French call these flowers, with their sweet distant smell, like

downs covered with cowslips on dewy mornings, or golden apricots

ripening on southern walls. As I passed back to the Abbey, I plucked

a shoot off a black-currant bush. How fragrant the budding shoots

were. They recalled the perfume of the bog myrtle on Scottish moors,

only that the scent had something homely and useful, but none the

less delicious.

Ten minutes later, and I was seated before my embroidery. To-day I

had a blue dragon to work. I tried to see and to reproduce in my

mind's eye Burne Jones' wonderful tints of blue with brown shades and

silver lights, and so the hours passed.

[Sidenote: "A PATIENT HAS VIRTUES"]

In the afternoon Bess visited Thady. "Mama," she cried, "I think

Thady will soon be well, for all he was so lame on Sunday. You see he

wants to get well so badly, and what people want badly they generally

get. I took him some pudding and some cake, and Nana gave him some

ointment. Nana," said Bess, presently, "seems quite kind now. Do you

know, mamsie, since Thady has taken her medicine, and rubbed on her

lily stuff, she seems quite to like Thady."

"Ah, my little girl," I laughed, "you are discovering a very old

truth. Nana has found a patient, and a patient always has virtues."

Bess did not quite understand, but declared it was a good job that

Nana had given up disliking Thady, for in Thady, Bess found a most

delightful and useful friend. He had already made my little maid a

whistle, and was then engaged in making her a crossbow, and he is a

wonderful hand in whittling an ash or hazel stick in elaborate

designs, all of which are delightful and rare accomplishments in

Bess's eyes.

All the week Bess ran up and down to the Red House. Bess repeated her

verses for the _fête_ to Miss Weldon, and gained what her governess

called "word accuracy," but all gestures and action Constance taught

her, I heard. Besides this, I was told about the dance which was

being practised for the great day by eight little town maidens in the

disused room over the stables of the Red House, and of the music

which Constance's nice parlourmaid played. Constance endeavoured to

get eight little boys to dance also; but the little lads were too

shy, what an old woman, speaking of her grandson, calls "too daffish

and keck-handed to learn such aunty-praunty antics," and all that

Constance could get in the way of male support was to induce eight

little lads to look on, bend their knees, and bow at intervals,

whilst the maidens sang and danced.

Bess was full of her verses and of her white costume, and old Nana,

for all that she grumbled much at first, got stage-fever at last in

her veins, and told me "that none would look as well as her blessed

lamb, and seeing what the play was, and who made the dresses, and

where the flowers grew, she held it to be all foolish, overgrown,

mealy-mouthed righteousness on old Hester's part to stick out so

obstinate and audacious again' a harmless bit of childer's play."

When I asked Burbidge if he and his men would get me some primroses

and bunches of marsh marigolds, he was at first very wroth.

"Do yer take me for a loseller, marm?" he said, using the old country

word for an idler. "Do yer think that I have nought to do, but to

stump through wood and field, pulling blows for a May folly?"

But since the first outbreak he softened, and now he has begun to

speak in a more kindly spirit, about fine primroses as grow above

Homer steps, marsh marigolds as can be got near the Marsh Farm pool,

and about cuckoo pint and bits of green fern, and I have little doubt

that on May morning it will be found that my request has been granted.

Burbidge and Nana will always do what we want them, only give them

time, as Bess says, for my little minx, young as she is, has long

discovered that with old friends, and particularly old servants,

there is often a great deal of bark, but happily not much bite.

One day it had been raining all the morning. Everything seemed

growing. I could almost, as I looked out of the window, see the

chestnut buds swelling, and the points of the yews were turning a

reddish gold. Through a window I could hear the canaries singing,

singing and filling the garden with melodious sounds. The sun had

gently pierced the clouds at last, and here and there faint shades of

delicate blue were to be seen.

Suddenly, as I sat by the window plying my needle and admiring the

rain drops glistening like crystals in the grass, I saw my little

friend, Thady, below on the gravel walk. "What, Thady, you here!" I

cried; for Thady, to use his mother's expression, was all himself

again, bare-legged and as merry as a grig.

[Sidenote: "BEGORRA, IT'S ME"]

"Begorra, it's me," replied Thady, "me myself, and I've come to ask

if yer will come a bird-nesting with me, some day?" And he added,

with the courtesy that only can be found in an Irish imp, "'Twill be

an honour and a pleasure to guide yer leddyship to the rarest nests

in the country, and yer remember our talk some weeks ago?"

So, after a little parley, it was agreed that the following day, a

Saturday, if fine, we would take our luncheon into the woods, and

that Thady should climb the trees, as we had previously proposed.

We settled thus, the main point, for Thady, in his own language, "was

the best man whatever at that sport." "Whilst you are climbing," I

said, "we can look for rare flowers and ferns, and find what nests we

can upon the ground."

I asked Thady a minute later what nests he knew of.

"Galore," he answered, grinning. And then proceeded to enumerate

them: "A lintie (a linnet), a green grosbeak (greenfinch), a Harry

redcap (goldfinch), a yellow yeorling by the roadside, a scobby

(chaffinch), a lavrock (skylark), a cushie-doo (a wood pigeon), a

cutty wren (common wren), a nanny washtail (pied wagtail) in the

rocks, and two tom-titers of sorts. Then there be hawks," he called

through the window, "and one by Ippekin's Cave as I don't rightly

know, bluish and bigger than the wind-hover (kestrel) or the

pigeon-hawk, not to make mention of throstles and black ouzels

(blackbirds), which just jostle same as hips and haws in October, but

they're hardly worth the point of raising of a foot to see."

So our plans were made, and I looked forward to spending the morrow

in the budding woods. Thady was to be our guide, but no eggs were to

be taken. This was a matter of mortification to Thady. "Sure," he

said, on another occasion, "I thought I would have made the little

lady, this year, the prettiest necklace that ever was strung, fine

and rare, for the May dance; and," he added, "yer leddyship must not

forget that I have eaten of Miss Bess's blue egg, and so glad I would

be to show her a bit of favour."

However, I succeeded in making Thady give up the project of robbing

the nests, by begging him to make me a whistle, which, as my little

daughter declares, is a thing that might be useful to everybody--"to

a lady, to a bishop, or even to a Member of Parliament."

The next day was a day of glorious sunshine--gay and pure--one of

those rare sweet days in spring, when it does not seem possible for

"rain, or hail, or any evil thing to fall." Little Hals, to our joy,

came over without governess or maid, only what Bess calls "under his

own care," which she declared was best, because there was then no

need to be naughty; and Miss Weldon, to the joy of all, vanished for

the day to Shrewsbury; so, to quote my little girl, "all seemed

happy, and everything just pure fun."

As the old church clock struck eleven we started.

The groom boy, Fred, led Jill, the Stretton pony, bearing a basket

strapped on a saddle, which contained a simple luncheon, and off we

went into the woods.

[Sidenote: AWAY TO THE EDGE WOOD]

We started gaily; there were no trains to catch--always a subject of

congratulation--and we only left word that we should be back for tea.

It was true that old Nana had black prognostications about what "that

villain Thady would do" (for since Thady was cured, her kindly

interest in him had ceased). But I laughed at her fears. "Nan," I

cried out as we left, "we will all take care of ourselves, and even

Jill shall come back safe and sound."

We walked along the town, Bess and Hals running in front,

hand-in-hand, and Thady and I following leisurely behind. In a few

minutes we had left the town behind us and were wandering up a lane,

cut in the lime rock, bordered with yews in places, and between high

hedgerows.

Hals begged that we might begin to bird-nest at once; but Thady, who

was master of the ceremonies, shook his head. "Best wait, begorra,

for the Edge Wood, sir," he exclaimed; "that's the mightiest place in

the county for all that wears feathers."

So we marched on steadily to the great strip of wood which is known

in Shropshire as the Edge Wood. This strip runs for many miles, is

very precipitous in places, and consists of groves of oaks, patches

of yews here and there, hollies--the haunts of woodcocks--and in many

parts a rough tangle of hazel is to be found. It is a sweet wild

place, little visited save by bird and beast. In one place the

woodcutters had cut for some hundred yards, and in the cleared spaces

the ground was covered with primroses, ground ivy, and the uncurled

fronds of the lady fern--still brown and crinkly. Groups of lords and

ladies reared themselves up amongst their sombre leaves, and patches

of dog's mercury nodded and whispered with their cords of green

grain. Overhead, the larch in a few branches was breaking into

emerald splendour, whilst pink tassels at the extremities trembled

here and there. Squirrels leapt into the trees and vanished at our

approach, and once or twice we heard, like a distant curse, the

rancorous guttural cry of the jay, and saw one disappear into the

undergrowth, a jewelled flash of turquoise splendour.

In a ride below, I saw a magpie hopping about, its long green-black

tail bobbing up and down on the grass. At this sight Thady gravely

took off his cap and saluted him, saying aloud--

"One for sorrow,

Two for mirth,

Three for a wedding,

Four for a birth."

And then cried out in a tone of excitement, "Look out, yer leddyship,

begorra, look out for another; for it is mirth to-day and no sorrow

whatever that we must have."

Then we plunged into the heart of the wood. Fred and Jill alone kept

to the path. How lush it was, that soft moist turf in April, all

teeming with moisture and freshness--not even the driest summer sun

can parch or dry the soil of the Edge Wood. Here and there I saw

little plantations of self-sown ash amidst beds of downy moss, and

everywhere hundreds and thousands of little infinitesimal plants,

struggling for existence. As I walked along I noted open glades,

which later would be rosy with pink campion, or purple with the

stately splendour of the foxglove. Now and then a bird flew away, and

I saw at intervals the white scut of a frightened rabbit.

[Sidenote: BIRD-NESTING WE GO]

Suddenly Thady stopped before a yew tree. Hals and Bess followed,

panting and crying out eagerly, "Where, where?" for Thady had

discarded his jacket, and in a twinkling had thrown his arms round

the tree. In a second he was aloft. "A lintie's nest," he whispered,

and then peered in. A minute later he called out, "Two eggs."

"Will you bring one down?" we said in chorus. For all answer, Thady

nodded, slipped an egg into his mouth, and then proceeded to descend.

We looked at the little egg that Thady held out on the palm of his

hand. It was of a pale bluish white, speckled and streaked with lines

of purplish brown.

After we had all peered over it, the egg was put back solemnly by

Thady.

A little further on, and Thady again halted. "Here it be, yer

leddyship," he cried, in a high treble; and there, sure enough,

looking upward, we discerned a nest of twigs and roots. It was quite

low down, and I was able easily to lift up the children to get a peep

themselves. The little nest was lined with hair and wool stolen from

the neighbouring fields, but as yet there were no eggs. "A nope's

(bullfinch's) sure enough," said Thady, dogmatically. Then on we

wandered until we paused below a fir tree. Below the bole of the tree

there was no herbage, for the fir leaves had fallen like needles and

had pierced and stabbed the grass to death--so it was quite bare now,

not a leaf, or even a patch of moss; as bare, in fact, as a village

playground.

Suddenly we heard overhead a loud, ringing clap of wings, and as we

looked up, we saw an ill-made nest of sticks, and two eggs, which

last we could see glistening inside, like two button mushrooms. For a

minute I had a vision of a big departing bird of a soft lavender

grey, and as I looked, Thady called out, "Quice," which is the

Shropshire name for the wood-pigeon. Thady was anxious to mount the

tree and bring me down an egg for closer inspection; but I begged him

not to do so, for the Cushat-Doos, as he tells me he has heard them

called in the North Country, are very shy birds in a wild state, and

I have been told will never return to a nest where the hand of man

has trifled with eggs or nest.

I lingered, looking up at the shining round pink eggs with the light

glimmering through the twigs; and then I mounted up the hill, which

was very hard work, for both children were a little weary and hot,

and I went up the incline, pulling both up as best I could. Mouse

kept close to my heels. She had had dark suspicions ever since we

entered the wood, and was convinced of the existence, I felt sure, of

robbers, footpads, wolves, and also of innumerable vague dangers, and

alarms.

We passed a blackbird's nest, but Thady waved his hand in lofty

disdain, and refused to pull back the bough so that we might look at

the eggs. "'Tisn't for dirt like that that I'll trouble yer leddyship

and the young squire to spier round," he exclaimed. "The black ouzel

is just a conny among feathered folk, or what blackberries be 'mongst

the fruit."

Thady seemed to know every inch of the ground. "It isn't in woods or

field that I forget myself," he remarked to me, when I commended him

for his knowledge of the Edge. "Devil a bit," he said, "if I have

ever lost my way along, or missed a mark or forgotten the bend of a

stick; but," he added, in a tone of contrition, "'tis in the book

larning and figures that Thady Malone cannot always discern rightly."

At last, after much puffing and panting, we reached the top of the

hill.

[Sidenote: THE SCOBBY'S NEST]

"Like enough we'll find a scobby's nest in the hedge," said Thady.

Then he went on to say, "They be wonderful builders be scobbys;

'tight and nanty,' as folks say here." And sure enough, a little

further on, fixed in a branch of blackthorn, we saw a little nest of

exquisite beauty. Outside it appeared to be built almost entirely of

lichen, pulled off the bark of trees; whilst inside it was lined with

hair and feathers, woven together with marvellous dexterity. There

were three eggs, all of a reddish pale grey, blotched here and there

with vinous patches.

As we stood watching the nest, the handsome little cock chaffinch

eyed us anxiously. With a quick movement he turned round, and we

caught the flash of his white wings. "A bobsome, joyous little gent,"

said Thady; "a scobby, I have heard folks say, is the last bird to

give over singing in summer."

Then we sat down to luncheon. "We must eat," Bess cried with

conviction; "seeing so many nests has made me feel eggy with hunger."

All round us the birds filled the thicket with the joy of their

carols. "The place fair swarms with them," observed Thady, "but come

a week or two, we shall have all the foreigners over." By which he,

doubtless, meant the arrival of all the delicious warblers that come

from the South in spring, not to mention many of the cock

chaffinches, most of the pipits, the yellow water-wagtails, the

gorgeous redstarts, and the beautiful turtle, or Wrekin doves.

[Illustration:

NEST OF GREENFINCH.]

[Illustration:

NEST OF RING-OUZEL.

_Photos by Mrs. New._]

Listening to the different notes, we sat down and got our luncheon,

which Bess and Hal, who had acquired the appetite of hunters,

declared was fit for any king, and believed that even Nan, if she had

been there, wouldn't grumble.

"When I'm at home," said Bess, after a pause, "I eat mutton, but here

I call it the flesh of sheep," and as she spoke she put upon Hal's

knees another slice. Hal looked at her and retorted gravely, "Mutton

isn't good, but the flesh of sheep is fit for a general."

Thady, overhearing these remarks, exclaimed, "Begorra, it is a poor

place where Thady Malone cannot eat to your leddyship's health." And

added, "Deed, I'm like Mrs. Langdale's chickens, I could peck a bit

wherever it was." So saying, he fell heartily to work on some huge

beef sandwiches which had been prepared for him and Fred, by Auguste.

A few minutes later, the girths of the saddle were loosened and Jill

was allowed to graze at her own free will, nipping and cropping the

tender grass with avidity.

"Mamsie," said Bess, after the last scrap of chocolate had been

eaten, and the last Blenheim orange apple munched, "have you no

fairy-story to tell us, for you know, this is a real place for

fairy-tales." Then the children crept under my cloak, and I rambled

on aloud about princes and princesses, giants and dragons, enchanted

castles, good and evil fairies, and knights and ladies.

Thady approached our group and listened also. "'Tis better nor a

theatre," he was kind enough to say, as I came to an end at last,

with the happy marriage of the prince and princess, and a description

of the royal festivities on that occasion. "Begorra," he exclaimed,

"I'd like to be a man, and fight dragons and giants. Fightin' is the

life for me."

Then we got up, packed the basket, and prepared to return homeward

across the fields. Jill was caught, but could with difficulty be

girthed, so enlarged had she become by several hours of happy

browsing; but after a struggle the saddle and basket are put on, and

we turned our heads homewards. Hals had been silent for the last few

moments.

"Well," I said, "what is it?"

"I too should like to fight," he answered, "but it must be on a horse

and in armour."

[Sidenote: THE GLORY OF AULD OIRELAND]

"'Tis all one, sir," replied Thady, cheerily, "so long as yer get a

stomach full of blows and can give good knocks back. Fighting," he

explained, "is what makes the difference between boys and girls, and

it is the glory of auld Oireland."

We talked away and walked homeward. There was a nest of a cutty wren

in a juniper bush, which Thady knew of, and a tomtit's in a hollow

tree, beautifully made of a mass of feathers, and in it were many

tiny eggs, almost too small to touch without breaking, and Fred

lifted both children up to see. A little further on, Thady pointed

away to a distant orchard that encircled two lonely cottages nestling

against the opposite hill. "There," he said, "be the nest of a Harry

red-cap." But our energy had died away for bird-nesting. "It shall be

for another day," said Bess. And then added dreamily, "I didn't think

I ever could have seen bird-nests enough, but I think some other play

now would be nice."

So we walked on, Hals leading the way, and Thady bringing up the rear

and whistling, as he went along, the Shan Van Vocht. Thus we returned

home, Bess and Hals riding on Jill in turns. The cry of the cuckoo

pursued us like a voice out of dreamland, while the scents of the

sweet spring day were wafted to us on a hundred eddying breezes.

In the evening I found a note from Constance at the Abbey. She sent

me a full list of the flowers she proposed working on the quilts, and

added, "What do you think of these words about sleep?--

"'Sweet sleep fell upon his eyelids.'--_The Odyssey._

"'Sleep and death.'--_The Iliad._

"'Death and his brother sleep.'--SHELLEY.

"'Sleep thy fill, and take thy soft repose.'--QUARLES.

"'Sleep in peace and wake in joy.'--SCOTT, _Lord of the Isles._

"'Never sleep the sun up.

Rise to prevent the sun.'--VAUGHAN."

When I had written to Constance, I thought of bed in a happy sleepy

state of mind. As I brushed out my hair, I went over our pleasant

long day in the woods, away from men, and noise, and even home. A day

spent amidst birds and beasts, looking at nests, resting on mossy

banks, and seeing only the sweet, sprouting things of field and lane,

is a delightful thing.

Is there anything better than a day out in the heart of the country?

As I slipped into bed, Bess's last words came back to me as she went

off to her cot. "Is it really very wicked, mamsie, to take nests and

eggs?--for Fred says he has done it scores and scores of times, and

he doesn't see no use in such things if they can't make sport for

young ladies and gentlemen."

"Some day you will understand," I had replied. "One cannot know some

things when one is very young." And I have often noticed with

children, that, up to a certain age, the uneducated view of

everything is the sympathetic and natural one; later, to a few, the

light does come.