_JULY_
"As late each flower that sweetest blows,
I plucked the garden's pride;
Within the petals of a rose,
A sleeping love I spied."
COLERIDGE.
I wandered round the garden some ten days later. It was July, the
Queen of Summer in the North. I heard the swish of the mowers'
scythes, as wave after wave of blossoming grass fell beneath their
feet. As I looked, I noticed that the trees had taken a darker,
fuller shade of green, and that the apple and emerald tints which
delighted me so much in budding June, had fled before the fierce days
of full summer heat. Although the lawns were still verdant, and such
as you could only see where the summer rainfall is great, all traces
of spring were gone. The polyanthus and cowslips' umbels were crowned
with seeds, and the narcissi in the grass had almost vanished. Birds,
that a few weeks ago were funny little fluffy creatures, with orange,
gaping throats, were now strong on the wing. Tramp and Tartar pursued
one day a thrush across the lawn. I ran out of the house to save him,
but found, to my relief, that he could take good care of himself.
With a triumphant scream he flew to the top of the high yew hedge. In
vain the two little terriers leapt and whimpered below, and besought
him to come down and be killed. For all he was young, he was wise,
and continued to sit on a twig, and to look down on their efforts
with complacent indifference.
[Sidenote: MOSS ROSES IN BLOOM]
When I went into the walled garden, I found the moss roses in full
blossom. They are most beautiful, the most delicate, perhaps, of all
the roses. There was an old-fashioned pink, such as one used to see
at Covent Garden Market years ago.
I had in my row Blanche Moreau, an exquisite paper white, Maître
Soisons, another beautiful white, and the crested and deep purple
Deuil de Paul Fontaine. How delicious they all were! Just a little
sticky, perhaps, but very sweet; especially an old cottage pink
variety that I was given from a garden at Harley, and the name of
which I have never known. The kind donor, an old dame, I remember,
told me, when she gave me a cutting and I pressed for the name, that
it hadn't no name as far as she knew, but that she called it her
"double sweetness," for it was to her nose, she affirmed, "honey and
candy in one."
Then I noted, bursting into bloom on the other side of the path, rows
of Chinese Delphiniums of all colours, that Burbidge had raised from
some seed sent to me from a lovely Scotch garden in the far north.
The blossoms were of all colours. There were some of an exquisite
watery tender turquoise blue, some deep blue de Marie, and others, a
faint and celestial tint, as of the sky on soft February days.
Besides these there were opal twilights, and darkest indigoes.
I paused and looked down the Ercal gravel path, and stood gazing at
my forests of peonies. The English ones were over, but round the
clematises were masses of the Chinese sorts. They were of all
colours--crimson, carmine, white, purple, cream, pink, rose. How
wonderfully beautiful they were, what satiny pinks, what splendid
roses, what creamy whites!
In the borders I noticed a few plants of the beautiful tree or Moutan
peony, the most glorious kind of all, but which had flowered rather
earlier. My plants as yet were small, but "Elisabeth" had had one
blossom of deepest scarlet. And I was led to hope that Athlete, Comte
de Flandres, and Lambertiana would be strong enough next year to be
allowed to flower.
A few steps beyond I paused to look at my Austrian briar hedge, which
was then literally, a line of flame in my garden. It was a glorious
note of colour, and planted next to the hedge were patches of purple
peonies. What a beautiful contrast the two made! one that Sandro
Botticelli loved. Then I made my way to a bed of hybrid teas.
These delightful roses, as has been justly said, combine all that is
best of old and new. Almost all of them are sweet scented, and even
in cold latitudes they flower twice, freely, in each year. Amongst
those that I love best are Augustine Guinoiseau, and Camoens. Beyond
these, on the southern side of the garden, extend my great bed of
hybrid perpetuals, which stand our cold Shropshire climate so bravely
and bloom often into late November. I stopped to admire a beautiful
specimen of the Earl of Dufferin that seemed almost purple in its
sombre magnificence, and felt almost dazzled at the splendour of
Éclair. Then I paused to smell a Fisher Holmes, and gathered an
almost black rose, which Burbidge told me a few days ago was a new
rose to him, and was called the Black Prince. Such a mysterious black
rose as it was, with a faint sweet distant smell, like new-mown grass
after a summer shower.
[Sidenote: IRISES AND ROSES]
Between each row of roses I have planted rows of the beautiful
English and Spanish irises in turns. These bulbs, I find, like the
damp and shade caused by the neighbourhood of the bushes, and the
effect of yellow, purple, blue, and lavender, between the pink, red,
and white of the roses was enchantingly beautiful. Then I looked
upwards and was delighted to see that my Crimson Ramblers and
Ayrshire and Penzance briers were all ramping away to my, and to
their, hearts' content over their pillars, and covering their bowers
and arches with trails and clusters of glory. I call my arches and
bowers my garden in the clouds. Nobody quite knows how beautiful the
Crimson Rambler can be till they have seen it against a background of
summer sky. Just out of the garden stretched the plantation of firs,
Scotch and Austrian, with a border of ribes, laurels, hollies, and
yews. The plantation is very small, but it gives a sense of silence
between the Abbey and the old town.
Before I returned to the house, I made my way to my bed of annuals.
They were on the southern side of the greengages. How gay and
gorgeous they looked with a few orange-tip butterflies flying over
them. There were patches of African marigold, all a blaze of rich
velvety gold, pale Love-in-the-Mist, sea-tinted and mysterious.
Love-in-the-Mist is just such a flower as one can imagine Venus wore
when she appeared for the first time from the depth of the sea foam,
with its curious shadow of green, and its sea-green petals of blue.
Then I had in full flower little square beds of larkspur, raised from
some wonderful seed I bought from Messrs. Smith, of Worcester, that
had blossomed forth in a hundred shades of opalescent beauty. There
were shadowy unreal reds, and purples of many shades and colours in
one flower, and as I looked at them, they recalled the wonderful
draperies of some Burne Jones figures in that great artist's
paintings from the Idylls of the King. A little further off there
were lines of stocks of all colours, warm-tinted buff, like the hue
of Scotch cattle browsing on a moorland, primrose, bluish rose, dusky
red, and spotless white, with creamy hearts. Then flame-coloured
nasturtiums ran along in places, black and brown, and twisted and
twined wherever there was a little space. At the end of the long
border there were patches of the primrose-tinted sweet sultan, with
its exquisite scent, mixed with crimson cockscomb, over which old
Gerard fell into ecstasies, and wrote of the "gentle," as he called
it, that it "far exceeded his skill to describe so beautiful, and
excellent a plant."
Before I returned to the Abbey, I slipped off to the kitchen garden
to ascertain what progress my sweet peas had made. They were only as
yet showing buds and long tendrils, but in another month they would
be a glory of sweetness and brilliancy, I felt certain. As I retraced
my steps to the Abbey, I was greeted by the children. During his
visit to the Abbey little Hals had lost his delicate look, and fine
pink roses bloomed on each cheek. He and Bess came dancing up the
path hand-in-hand, and the little fox-terriers scampered behind them,
joyously.
"I am sure we have found something," cried Bess, excitedly. "Burbidge
wouldn't look because he's been stung by a bee. 'But,' I said, 'you
don't hear all that chattering for nothing. If only Thady were here
we should soon know.' I wanted to run off to the Bull Ring to fetch
him, but Nana said I wasn't to mess myself, as Aunty Constance was
coming down to luncheon to-day. Much she'd care! She knows I can have
as much soap as I like."
[Sidenote: THE GARDEN MYSTERY]
"Much you'd use, miss, if you had your own way," I answered laughing.
And then I turned and begged Bess, pouting and looking rather irate,
to show me where there was this wonderful chattering.
"It is a secret," cried Bess, "I am sure--a real secret."
Then, without another word, we turned in through the wooden door at
the back of the great yew hedge. As we entered I heard such a
twittering and indignant chirping, that I was thoroughly puzzled to
guess the cause. The children and I peered through the branches.
"There must be a cat somewhere," I said. I have read that birds will
chatter round a sick cat or dying fox, but I could discover no beast
about. At our approach, two brilliant greenfinches alone took flight
with a beautiful flash of apple-green wings, and vanished into the
recesses of the great walnut tree.
Still the harsh discordant cries continued. Suddenly I saw a nest.
"A nest!" I cried, "and the noise comes from there. What can it be?"
I tried to touch it, but the nest of moss and twigs was beyond my
reach. "We must get the steps and then we shall know what makes the
noise," I said. "But only Mouse amongst the dogs may see; Tramp and
Tartar must be shut up in the shed, for if the birds fluttered down
or could not fly, they would kill them, before we could save them."
We shut up the terriers and fetched the steps. "I wish," I said,
"that one of the boys"--as Burbidge calls them--"were here to hold
them." For the ground at the back of the hedge was uneven, and it was
difficult to get the steps reared firmly up.
"I'll hold them, dear," said Hals, politely. And added with pride,
"You know I'm very good at doing any man's job."
But as they were heavy and rather clumsy, being an old-fashioned
pair, I declined this and begged Hals to get out of the way, for fear
of an accident happening to him. Then I mounted. I reached the summit
of the ladder and looked down into the nest. As I did so I was
conscious, at the "back of my head," as Nana says, that the children
were watching me intently.
"What is it?" they cried breathlessly.
I saw below me a greenfinch's nest made out of green moss and twigs
and lined with cow's hair, and in it, filling almost the entire
space, was a gigantic grey-barred bird with an enormous mouth, which
he opened at me in great wrath. Nothing daunted, I stretched out my
hand to seize him, and obtained my prize; but in the effort, of doing
so, I overbalanced myself, the steps clattered down with a crash, and
I fell, bird in hand, to the ground.
In my endeavour to save the bird from harm, I came in contact with a
projecting piece of lime rock. I felt a sharp pain in my right knee,
and then a giddy, confused sensation possessed me, and a hundred
lights, red, blue, and white, danced before my eyes. The bird escaped
from my hand and fluttered into the hedge with a guttural cry. Hals
and Bess approached me in terror.
"Mum, Mum, you're not dead?" asked Bess. I saw the little face
twitching above me, and as she spoke, hot tears ran down her cheeks.
"No, no," I whispered dreamily; and then all the trees and the hedge
seemed to mingle in a senseless dance, and everything bobbed up and
down before me. But I did not entirely lose consciousness, for I
heard the children whisper together. At last Bess took Hals' hand and
came quite close to where I was lying.
"They do not always die," Hals said soothingly.
"No, not mothers," Bess answered, with a gulp. But my poor little
maid looked white with fear--she was trembling, and added, "But
mothers _can_ die."
I tried to say something to reassure them, but all my words seemed to
die on my lips, and as I lay there everything seemed to get further
and further off, and to become indistinct and unreal.
At last Hals seemed to remember what to do in the emergency. "Run,
Bess, run, and get some one," I heard him say.
[Sidenote: MOUSE'S ROUGH KIND TONGUE]
As the two children started off to the house, Mouse gave a whimper,
and I felt her rough, kind tongue against my face. Then a mist
gathered round me and I remembered nothing more.
In a little while, however, I heard voices. Kindly Auguste led the
way, talking volubly. "Madame est morte," I heard him call out in
theatrical tones. Then old Mrs. Langdale followed, wringing her
hands; then Célestine, like a whirlwind; and Nana and Burbidge a
second later hobbled up across the lawn.
"Madame, vite," exclaimed Célestine, and then followed a string of
proposed remedies in the most astonishingly quick French. As she
spoke, she tried to raise me, but I could not move without acute
pain; and Mouse, watching my face, growled angrily. At this, Burbidge
forced himself to the front.
"Have done with your gibberish," he cried, in a surly tone. "For an
English blow an English remedy. Yer might have broken my steps,
marm," he said to me, with a catch in his throat. Burbidge is full of
kindness; "but at times his tongue is as rough as pig bristles," as
his old wife, Hester says, and just then he was thoroughly angry with
me for having hurt myself chasing "mere wild birds, like a village
loseller."
Then he called to his boys, and somehow, with their aid, I got back
to the house. The children were both in tears.
"She has broken her leg," cried Bess. "Mothers can, I know it,
besides beggars and princes."
But Hals would not allow this, and said, with dogged steadfastness,
"Mothers don't break like dolls, I know that."
For this remark Burbidge commended him. "Stick to it, young squire,"
he said; and then he bade Roderick run for the doctor, like greased
lightning.
After a minute or two, Nana begged all to go out, and took possession
of the injured knee, and began to bathe it with a decoction of arnica
and boiled lily-root, which last is an excellent remedy, still used
in Shropshire, for cuts or bruises. Gradually the pain diminished,
and as I lay, feeling much shaken and a little foolish, the doctor
made his appearance.
He begged me to remain on the sofa, to rest, and discontinue all
exercise for the present; and before going wrote out the prescription
for another lotion. When he had left, I weakly suggested I would use
both, and hoped for the best. But this "trimming" course did not
pacify Nana, who declared "he might say what he liked, but Dr. Browne
had no call to change her lotion."
After luncheon I felt better, and was carried out on a sofa to the
lawn on the east side of the house, some favourite books were placed
near me, and the letters I had received that morning. Burbidge was by
that time very penitent and full of compunction, now that he was no
longer terrified, and was sure that my leg was not broken. He brought
me a sprig of lavender, "to have summat nice to sniff," and assured
me "that them birds of mine in the aviary should be looked after
proper;" and added, by way of gloomy consolation, "I wouldn't let 'em
nohow suffer, not even if you'd broken both legs."
When Burbidge had left me, I took up my letters sadly, and felt
grieved that I must forego that week the pleasure of calling on
friends and of visiting their lovely gardens, decked in the full
glory of summer; and that I could not see, as I had intended to do,
the stately garden of Cundover, the glowing borders of Burwarton, or
the splendour of the Crimson Rambler at Benthall. All these beautiful
things, as far as I was concerned, must remain unseen, and flower
their sweetness away in the desert air.
Not even my own garden might I visit, for my orders were to lie down
and not to put foot to the ground for some days; so I said sadly to
myself I must only _think_ of gardens. I remained therefore quite
quiet, for the children had both gone off to tea at the Red House,
and Mouse, and I were left alone, to enjoy each other's society.
I lay back amongst the cushions, and thought of all the beautiful
gardens that I had ever seen.
[Sidenote: THE GARDEN OF MY CHILDHOOD]
My mind flew back to the old Hampshire garden, where I had played as
a child, with its glowing anemones in May, its auriculas, and its
golden patches of alyssum, which we called as children, "golden
tuft." Its great hedges of lavender, its masses of fruit trees, and
its big beds of hautbois strawberries all returned to me. How well I
remembered the quinces, medlars, and mulberries, and a hundred other
delights. I recollected also, the groves of filberts and great
coverts of gooseberries and raspberries, where the old gardener used
to allow us to "forage," as he termed it, for ten minutes at a time,
and never more, by his great silver watch, presented to him years ago
"by the earl," in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
Then how beautiful the walls were in summer and autumn, laden with
apricots, peaches, delicious black figs, and later on, with beautiful
pears of brilliant colours and gigantic proportions.
How carefully the fruit trees were trained--some in toasting-forks
and others to make perfect fans. And then what beautiful long alleys
of close-shorn turf there were, and what plantations of beautiful
standard roses he grew for my mother.
[Sidenote: SHIPTON GARDEN]
Then my mind flew back to the beautiful pleasaunces of Highclere,
just seven miles away. How magnificent were the great cedars round
the house, the masses of gorgeous rhododendrons, and the wonderful
beds of azaleas. Then, amidst shady groves with sparkling patches of
sunlight, I remembered, also, beautiful examples of the great tree or
Moutan peony--the highest and biggest bushes that I have ever seen;
and across the park, delicious Milford, with its islands of blossom,
its swans, and its sunlit lake. Gardens are great pleasures. The
state gardens of the world remain with us as beautiful and wonderful
pictures of the tastes and manners of past centuries. They are the
living splendours of past ages. I recalled such examples as Levens,
Hatfield, Longleat, and Littlecote. Then I turned in thought to
homelier, what Bess calls, "more your own kind of places;" and I
thought of the lovely little old manor-house gardens that I had seen.
There is one not far from Wenlock, by name Shipton. A little terraced
garden, with old stone vases of Elizabethan time. The present house
dates mostly from Mary Tudor's reign, and belonged later to Sir
Christopher Hatton, the Maiden Queen's dancing Chancellor, who won
all hearts by his grace and amiability, it is said. On each side of
the little narrow garden run high walls, festooned with roses--and
such old-fashioned roses! Old kinds that I have never seen
elsewhere--such as Waller might have thought of when he penned his
exquisite verses to Saccharissa--dainty, small, and deliciously
fragrant. Then, just outside the garden are big bushes of brilliant
berberries, that turn in autumn, red, like a regiment of English
soldiers in peace-time, and that were so highly esteemed for the
making of "conserves," in the Middle Ages.
How pretty such old-fashioned gardens are--very tiny, very dainty,
and meant to be very formal and trim. They seem little worlds all of
their own; little centres of human care and affection, and outside
all appears a wilderness in comparison.
Then, as I lay idly back, looking into the blue mist and enjoying the
far green of the poplars, my mind turned to all the lovely gardens
that I had read about. I thought of "that railit garden," that James
I. of Scotland--poet, musician, and artist--loved; and where he fell
in love with the Lady Jane, the fair daughter of the Earl of
Somerset. There, he tells us, he passed his deadly life--"full of
peyne and penance." From a grim tower he first saw his lady-love. He
tells us in the "King's Quhair," how he saw her walking in a fair
garden, and how, in seeing her, "it sent the blude of all my body to
my hert;" and how, for ever afterwards, "his heart became her
thrall," although "there was no token of menace in her face."
There, amidst "a garden fair," by towered walls, knit round with
hawthorn hedges, where thick boughs beshaded long alleys, and where
the sweet green juniper gave out its aromatic fragrance, he, poor
poet-king, sang of love, listening all the while to the "little sweet
nightingale that sat on small green twists, and that sang 'now soft,
now lowd,' till all the garden and the walls rung 'right of the
song.'"
Then I thought of that still garden at St. Mary's chapel, at
Westminster, where the great father of English poetry wrote his
treatise on the "Astrolabe" for his little son Lewis. I imagined him
with his wise and tender face, and far-off, deep-set grey eyes
looking out on the world kindly, serious, gentle.
I liked to remember the great man's peaceful deathbed, and thought of
his last sweet verses--
"Flie fro the prese, and dwell with sothfastnesse;
Suffise unto thy Goode, though it be small,
For horde hath hate, and climbing tikelnesse."
It is an old, old story, and yet always a new one; but in Chaucer's
time, failure met with a sharp ending.
I thought also of that fair garden near the Temple, which our
greatest poet has touched with the divine intuition of genius, and
made bloom with roses that no frost can kill, or smoke can soil.
Where Plantagenet plucked the white rose of York, and Somerset the
red one of Lancaster.
Then I thought of unfortunate Richard's queen in the garden at
Langley, and of the old faithful, rugged gardener and of his bitter
cry of pity. "Here did she drop a tear. Here in this place I'll set a
bank of rue, sour herb of grace."
[Illustration:
_Photo by Frith._
CHAPTER HOUSE AT WENLOCK.]
[Sidenote: BACON'S GARDEN]
Then I thought of Lord Bacon's beautiful garden of "prince-like"
proportions. According to him, the ideal garden did not measure less
than thirty acres, and was to be divided into three parts--a garden
proper, a greene, a heath, or desert.
In the garden there was to be a succession of flowers. Germander,
sweet briars, and gilly flowers, were some of those named, and the
garden was always to be gay. He advocated many kinds of fruit,
"cherries, rasps, apples, pears, plummes, grapes, and also peaches."
In the heath or desert, were to be planted thickets of honeysuckle,
and garlands of wild vine; while mole-hills were to be skilfully
covered with wild thyme, with pinks, and in opening glades, sheets of
violets, cowslips, daisies, and beare-foot, were each to have their
place. Then long alleys were to be planted with burnet, wild thyme,
and water-mint, which, when crushed, would, he tells us, "give out
rich perfume."
"Great Princes may add statues and such things for state and
magnificence," wrote Bacon; "but beyond these things is the true
pleasure of a garden." And there the great Chancellor was right, for
we all know little plots and tiny greenhouses, worked and tended by
loving hands, where the owner, and toiler, gets more pleasure out of
a very small enclosure or a single frame, than a ducal proprietor out
of many acres of horticultural magnificence. God is very just in
pleasure, if not in wealth.
It was in his own beautiful garden at Gorhambury, that the great
philosopher and master-mind wrote much that was beautiful. His was a
strange character. He soared to heaven by his intellect, and fell to
hell by his baseness. Ben Johnson wrote, "In his adversity I ever
prayed that God would give him strength, for greatness he could not
want."
Bacon, be it said in sorrow, was one of the last of the bench who
descended to torturing his victims. He wrote of the unfortunate
Peacham, when he refused to answer his questions, "that he had a dumb
devil." Yet this man loved at other moments pure pleasures. His love
of a garden was real, and deep, and no man understood more fully the
heights and depths of the Christian Faith, or the higher flights of
redeemed souls. "Prosperity," he wrote, "is the blessing of the Old
Testament; Adversity, the blessing of the New, which carrieth the
greater benediction, and the clearer evidence of God's favour."
"Prosperity," he declared, "was not without many fears and distastes,
and Adversity not without comforts and hopes. Prosperity doth best
discover vice, but Adversity doth best discover virtue." Nobody has
ever approached Bacon for his beauty of expression. Shelley wrote of
his style, "His language has a sweet, majestic rhythm, which
satisfies the sense no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his
philosophy satisfies the intellect." Such natures as Lord Verulam's
are difficult for commonplace mortals to understand, for the head is
of a god, and the feet, those of a beast. The young or inexperienced
might call such men humbugs, or hypocrites; but, perhaps, the real
truth is, that such men possess dual natures. In them is a spirit
that knows the light, and seeks it, as the Chancellor swore he would
seek the light; but to whom, also, the ways of darkness are not
repellent, and who cannot resist the favour of man, and the false
glamour of courts.
Then I thought of the fair gardens of history. I imagined the
splendours of Nonsuch, laid out by bluff Harry, of which men said,
"that the palace was encumbered with parks full of deer, and
surrounded with delicious gardens and groves, ornamented with trellis
works and cabinets of verdure, so that it seemed a place pitched upon
by Pleasure herself, to dwell in along with Youth."
It was also good to think of John Evelyn in his plantings, and during
his long rides. I thought of him journeying in the south of France,
along the Mediterranean coast, enjoying the sight there of the
vineyards and olives. In fancy I beheld him scenting the orange and
citron groves, and stopping to gaze "at the myrtle, pomegranates, and
the like sweet plantations," as he passed villa after villa, built,
as he said, of glittering free-stone, which, in that clear
atmosphere, made him think "of snow dropped from the clouds, amongst
the verdure of the ilexes and perennial greens."
[Sidenote: ELIZABETH OF YORK'S BOWER]
Besides these fair gardens, I thought in the dawn of gardening, of
Elizabeth of York's bower, "in the little park of Wyndsor," and I
liked to dream of that arbour in Baynarde's Castle in London put up
for her, by order of the king. I should have liked also to have
walked with Sir Thomas More in that fair garden (probably his) from
which he imagined the one in his "Utopia," where "we went and sat
down on a green bank and entertained one another in discourse."
Then I should have liked to have crept into the great gardens at
Hampton Court laid out by the great cardinal, where "there was a
flower garden to supply the queen's bower with roses, and where John
Chapman, the most famous gardener of his time, grew his herbs for the
king's table."
I should have liked to have had the invisible cap, and to have
stepped past the guard and entered the Privy garden, and have read
the mottoes on the sundials, and to have slyly scented the roses, and
pinched the rosemary, juniper, and lavender.
Had I possessed the magic cap, I should not have forgotten to wander
into the Bird garden and to have seen "the beestes," holding in stone
their vanes; and I should have liked also dearly to have seen all the
strange animals, amongst which there were harts, badgers, hounds,
dragons, antelopes, and one stately lion.
Could I have walked there, perhaps I might have caught a glance of
that "sweetest lady from Spain" whom Shakespeare honoured most of all
women; or perhaps in the joyous hey-day of her youth have met Anne of
the slender neck, for whom Fate had reserved so terrible a fate,
although for a time all seemed to go so smilingly with her.
Then I should have liked to have been a favourite guest at Moor Park,
in the days when the stately Countess of Bedford lived there, and to
have heard the wits talk, and perhaps have followed the countess and
Doctor Donne up the trim gravel walks, and have admired the standard
laurels, and rejoiced in the stately fountains in a garden that, in
the words of the great Minister of the Hague, "was too pleasant ever
to forget." I should have liked also to have walked into Sir William
Temple's own garden at Sheen, had a chat with him about his melons,
of which he was so proud, or have paced with him the trim alleys of
his own Moor Park in Surrey. Later, I should have liked to have seen
his stiff beds, reflections of the _parterres_ of Holland, and have
heard from his own lips the account of the Triple Alliance. And
beyond this garden of men's hands, I should like to have seen the
glorious extent of firs and heather that enclosed his garden, and to
have heard the murmur of the distant rivulet, and to have felt the
charm of the distant view that he gazed upon.
Perhaps even, if fortune had been kind, I might have seen Lady
Gifford in all the splendour of silk or satin, or heard some
brilliant witticism from the lips of young Jonathan, or even have
caught a fleeting glimpse of lovely Stella.
Now all these pretty, all these interesting shades of the past are
gone. Yet Sir William's sundial still stands in his favourite garden,
and below it lies buried his heart, placed there by his own desire,
whilst the rest of his remains lie in Westminster Abbey, beside those
of his charming wife, Dorothy Osborne.
[Sidenote: THE GARDENS OF THE EAST]
No sound anywhere, on this lovely July day, greeted me, but the
trilling jubilation of a thrush in a lilac, so I could dream on at
will about gardens and their delights. After a while my mind wandered
to the gardens of the ancients. I thought of those deep groves where
Epicurus walked and talked, of the rose-laden bowers where Semiramis
feasted and reposed, of the moonlit gardens where Solomon sung his
Oriental rhapsodies, where fountains played day and night, and in
which hundreds of trees flowered and fruited.
Where were the gardens of "the Hesperides?" I asked myself. That spot
of wonderful delight which none ever wished to leave, where flowers
blossomed all the year, and where fair nymphs danced and sang through
all the seasons.
Then where was the garden of Alcinous, where the trees formed a dark
and impenetrable shade, where fountains refreshed the weary and where
fruit followed fruits in endless succession?
With us in England, a garden means a place of joyous sunlight, a
place where flowers glitter in the sunshine, and where throughout the
day feathered songsters sing in joyous chorus. In the Oriental
imagination, a garden means cool alleys, flowing water, marble
basins; a place to wander in beneath the stars, and to hear the
nightingale sing his chant of melody and grief. Even in the matter of
gardens, the aspirations of the West must always be different from
those of the East. Then my mind turned to the gardens of fancy.
"Where sprang the violet and the periwinkle rich of hue"--where "all
the ground was poudred as if it had been peynt, and where every
flower cast up a good savour." Where amongst the trees "birdis sang
with voices like unto the choir of angels, where sported also little
conyes, the dreadful roo, the buck, the hert, and hynde, and
squirrels, and bestes small of gentil kynde." Where sweet musicians
played, and where, as Chaucer wrote, with the _naiveté_ of the early
poets, that God who is Maker and Lord of all good things, he guessed,
never heard sweeter music, "where soft winds blew, making sweet
murmurs in the green trees, whilst scents of every holsom spice, and
grass were wafted in the breeze."
Then in the peace of that exquisite summer day, I saw as in a dream
that blest region which Sir Philip Sidney has painted and called
Arcadia, "where the morning did strew roses and violets in the
heavenly floor against the coming of the sun, where nightingales sung
their wrong-caused sorrow;" where the hills rose, their proud heights
garnished with stately trees, beneath which silver streams murmured
softly amidst meadows enamelled with all sorts of eye-pleasing
flowers. Where pretty lambs with bleating outcry craved their dam's
comfort, and where a shepherd-boy piped as though he never could grow
old, whilst a shepherdess sang and knitted all the while, so that it
seemed "that the voice comforted her hands to work, and the hands
kept time to the voice music."
In that sweet and happy country, where light and sun and blue sky
were constant joys, where the houses were all scattered, "but not
from mutual succour," where the joys of "accompanable solitariness
were to be found combined with the pleasures of civil wildness," I
allowed my fancy to linger.
Then as butterflies flitted past in all the pomp of summer splendour
in my Abbey garden, I thought for a moment of Mistress Tuggy's bowers
of passion-flower at Westminster, of which Gerard wrote, and of which
he told us "there was always good plenty." I thought also of that gay
procession to the Parson of Tittershall, where merry maids went,
bearing with them garlands of red roses, and of that wreath laid
through many centuries, in beautiful Tong Church.
I liked to imagine Theobalds, where it was said a man might wander
two miles and yet never come to the end of the great gardens; or to
think of that great pleasaunce of Frederick, Duke of Würzburg, where
it was said that it was easy for a stranger to lose his way, so vast
was the space of the enclosure.
[Sidenote: ELIZABETHAN GARDENS]
Then I should have liked to have known the great gardens of
Kenilworth, where proud Dudley entertained the Maiden Queen.
There, according to Master Humphrey Martin, every fruit tree had its
place. In the centre of the pleasaunce stood, he wrote, an aviary and
a fountain of white marble, where tench, bream, and carp, eel and
perch "all did play pleasantly," and "beside which delicious fruits,
cherries, strawberries, might be eaten from the stalk."
In the Elizabethan garden men were not content with gay blossoms
alone; sweet odours were necessary to complete their standard of
delight.
Bacon wrote, because the breath of flowers is "farr sweeter in the
air, where it comes, and goes, like the warbling of music, then in
the hand, so there is nothing more fit for delight than to know what
be the flowers and plants that doe best perfume the aire." He
recommended amongst other sweet scents, two specially, that of
violets, and the perfume of dying strawberry leaves, "an excellent
cordial in autumn." He also mentioned the perfume of sweet-briar, and
recommended that wallflowers should be planted under a parlour or
lower chamber window.
Andrew Borde, writing in the same century, declared that it was
deemed necessary for the country house of his time to be surrounded
by orchards well-filled with sundry fruits and commodious, and to
have a fair garden "repleat with herbs aromatic and redolent of
savours."
Markham also talked of the nosegay garden, which was to be planted
with violets, and gilly-flowers, marigolds, lilies, daffodils,
hyacinths, "tulipas," narcissus, and the like. There were to be
knots, or _parterres_ of delightful interlacing patterns, and amongst
the ribbon borders such sweet plants and flowers as thyme, pinks,
gilly-flowers, and thrift, all neatly bordered and edged, with
turrets and arbours to repose in.
Thomas Hill, writing in 1568, also suggested that there should be
_parterres_ filled with hyssop, thyme, and lavender, for the pleasure
of the perfume. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries folks
sought their flowers in their gardens, which it can well be imagined
was a much healthier form of enjoyment than the modern one of masses
of flowers in stuffy rooms and of having tables laden with
strong-smelling blossoms, during hot and crowded banquets.
The delight in the garden was essentially a sixteenth and seventeenth
century pride. Lawson exclaimed, "What can your eye desire to see,
your ear to hear, your mouth to taste, or your nose to smell, that is
not to be had in a garden, with abundance of beauty?"
Lawson also loved the birds, as did the Scotch poet king, and
Chaucer, and, in the early nineteenth century, Shelley and Keats. He
wrote lovingly of a brood of nightingales that turned his orchard
into a paradise. "The voice of the cock bird," he declared, "did bear
him company, both day and night."
Then I should have liked to have visited Gerard in his physic garden
in Holborn, overlooking the Fleet, and how delightful it would have
been to have had a chat with the old man, or to have brought him some
new plant or flower.
Or perhaps, if fortune had smiled upon me, I might another day have
popped in and got a talk with John Tradescant, whose father and
grandfather were both gardeners to Queen Bess, and who himself was
gardener in his time, to ill-fated Charles I. These Tradescants
travelled all over the world in search of plants for the royal
gardens, and one of them even went to Virginia in order to bring back
new specimens.
[Sidenote: WHERE ARE THE GARDENS OF THE PAST?]
Where are the gardens of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? A
few are the delight and joy of our own time, but most of them have
perished, and are gone like the roses that Sir Philip Sidney picked
for Stella, or the anemones that John Evelyn loved. The press of
human feet has displaced nearly all the fair floral sites in London,
and the hare and the partridges rove over many of those famed in
Tudor and Stuart days in the country.
Of Nonsuch, Evelyn wrote, "they cut down the fair elms and defaced
the stateliest seat that his Majesty possessed."
Alone, near High Ercall, at Eyton, where George Herbert's mother was
born and bred, stands the old gazebo or pleasure-house that belonged
to the ancient hall of the Newports. This still remains in red brick,
a lovely sixteenth-century building. The old house has perished, and
the old gardens have gone back into plough, or meadow-land. Alone the
old pleasure-house stands and a gigantic ilex, which is said to have
been planted at the same time.
Did "holy Mr. Herbert" ever pace that old pleasure-house, I have
often asked myself, as a little lad? It is a pleasant thought. All
loved him. Lord Pembroke, his kinsman, told the king, James I., that
he loved him more for his learning and virtues than even for his name
and his family, and all men sought his friendship. Amongst these the
learned Bishop of Winchester and Francis Lord Bacon. Was it of such a
man that the great essayist wrote, "A man having such a friend hath
two lives in his desires"? If so, it was of the immortal side of life
he spoke, for all George's aspirations were for the treasure where
"neither moth nor rust can corrupt, and where no thief can break
through or steal."
Then I let my fancy linger for a moment in the old bowling-green at
Whitehall, all gone too; I thought of the prisoner, Sir Richard
Fanshawe, in the chamber above: and of his devoted wife, standing
morning after morning, whilst the rain fell in torrents, talking and
listening with the desperation of love.
[Sidenote: THE MASQUE OF FLOWERS]
The shadows deepened, the sunlight faded, and the glory of red melted
away into tender lavender and green. After a while I think I got
drowsy, for in my imagination I saw a garden, gorgeous and
resplendent. Loud music resounded within its precincts, and a
pleasaunce extended before me of strange and fantastic beauty. In the
centre I noted a beautiful fountain, reared on four columns of
silver, with four golden masked faces, from whose lips clear water
issued in sparkling streams. There were also curious beasts of gold
and silver, in the shape of lions and unicorns.
The magic garden was hedged in with a sombre hedge of cypress. On the
whole scene fell the brilliant glare of flaming torches. Gorgeous
_parterres_ of tulips, all a blaze of blossom, flashed with a hundred
colours, whilst to me, borne on little eddying breezes, came wafted
back the delicious sweetness of honeysuckle and eglantine. Then, as I
looked, to the sound of lutes and to the tinkle of old stringed
instruments, I saw nymphs clad in rich apparel dance a stately
measure.
My book slipped off my knees, and fell with a flump upon the grass. A
minute later I rubbed my eyes and laughed, and then remembered that I
had not been to fairyland after all, as Bess would have said, but
that I had fallen asleep, and had been dreaming about the Masque of
Flowers, a great _fête_ that was given in honour of the marriage of
the Earl of Somerset and the Lady Frances, daughter of the Earl of
Suffolk, by the gentlemen of Grays Inn, in the long past year of
1613. I laughed, for I really believed, as the children say, it was
all true, and Mouse, suspicious probably by my puzzled look, gave a
long deep growl. My faithful friend had never left my side. Since my
accident she had remained with me, troubled, and annoyed and sullen
to everybody else.
Mouse had a bad opinion of the doctor (most dogs have). She did not
like his carriage, and thought badly of his coachman. Just then the
world for her was full of evil characters, and they taxed narrowly
her powers of observation.
As I leant over the sofa to pick up my book, the oak door of the
chapel hall was flung violently open, and the two children, Bess and
little Hals, danced in together.
"Oh, mamsie!" they cried, for Hals had caught up Bess's manner of
addressing me. "Such fun! such fun! We did all kinds of things. We
played games in the garden--Kiss in the Ring, Stag a Roarning, Bell
Horses, Draw Buckets, and Shrewsbury Blind Man's Buff, Wallflowers,
Garden Jumps, and heaps of others. Aunty Constance called them
'Shropshire games.'"
"Were they good games?" I asked.
The children were too excited to speak, but nodded their heads
furiously, whilst their eyes shone with excitement.
"Can you repeat to me any of the rhymes?" I asked.
"Hals can," answered Bess; "I can't long remember poetry. Things fly
into my head, but they soon fly out again."
I turned to Hals, and begged him to tell me those that he could
remember.
[Illustration: _Photo by Frith._ OLD WENLOCK TOWN.]
"Well," he replied, "I'll try. Anyway it was great fun. Aunty
Constance taught us a lot, but most of the children came from her
class, and, besides, they knew a lot. Shropshire children, I think,
even Fräulein would call 'very learned.'"
"They were all funny," cried Bess; "and we danced on the grass, and
Aunty Constance gave us sugar-plums, and red lolly-pops between the
games, and we drank lemonade and orangeade."
"Yes," said Hals, grandly; "I don't think even the king, or my father
could have amused themselves better. They know how to be happy in
Shropshire."
Then Bess interrupted Hals and called out sharply, "Amuse mama."
[Sidenote: OLD SHROPSHIRE GAMES]
"Do," I said; "and begin by telling me all about the games, and
repeat to me all the rhymes that you can remember."
"Yes, we must," said Bess, moved to pity, "for poor mama, she didn't
even go to Aunty Constance's garden, although she was asked, or see
Aunty Constance's new flower with a long name that I am sure I can
only misremember."
There was a pause. Then Hals stood on the gravel path some five yards
away, and said modestly, "I'll do my best, but I am afraid all the
games won't come back to me. The first time you play at games, they
are almost as hard as sums."
"Oh no," interrupted Bess, contemptuously. "Games can never be as bad
as sums, for you can kick about and swing your feet in games. But in
sums it's always 'keep quiet;' and then," added Bess sadly, with a
note of pathos in her voice, "sums will always keep on changing,
unless they are done by a governess."
Then a hush fell upon us all, for Hals said he must try and think of
the games pat, and we were silent. I saw Hals' lips move, and a
pretty vision rose before me of a little figure clad in green velvet,
with fair flaxen curls clustering round his brow and resting on his
lace collar. After a few minutes the little boy stepped a little
nearer, and in a treble key, began to explain the character of the
old games and to recite some of the old verses that once delighted
lad and lass of the far West country.
"First we played Kiss in the Ring. We ran about," he explained, "and
the boys dropped handkerchiefs on the shoulders of the girls they
liked, and they said in turn--
"'I wrote a letter to my love
And on the way I lost it;
Some one has picked it up,
Not you, not you, not you.'
That they said," said Hals, "when the boys didn't like a girl. I
didn't play," he remarked grandly, "because I didn't like being
kissed by strange girls; so I played with the others at Cat and
Mouse, which is better, for the kissing is understood."
"And after that?" I asked.
"Oh, after that we played Bingo."
"Bobby Bingo," corrected Bess, severely. "You should call things by
their proper name, Hals."
"It was a game about a dog, and we came up, and all said together,"
continued Hals unmoved--
"'A farmer's dog lay on the floor,
And Bingo was his name O.
B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O,
And Bingo was his name O.'
I cannot exactly say how that was played," said Hals, puzzled, "but
we danced and we sang, and one girl stood straight up in the middle,
as if she had a punishment lesson to say. And when I'm grown up, I
will get my father to buy me a dog, and I will call him Bingo."
"Now I want to talk," cried Bess, impatiently, "because I, too, know
some of the games. We've often played at them, Nana and I and the
maids, on Saturday afternoon when it was wet. There was Bell-horses.
Nobody is so silly, mamsie, unless it's members of parliament or
governesses, as not to know 'Bell-horses.'"
Then my little maid slipped off the wooden bench on which she had
been swinging her feet, and went and stood by little Harry.
"Listen," she cried, and blurted forth at double quick pace--
[Sidenote: BELL-HORSES AND OTHER DELIGHTS]
"'Bell-horses, bell-horses, what time of day?
One o'clock, two o'clock, three and away.
Bell-horses, bell-horses what time of day?
Two o'clock, three o'clock, four and away.'"
Then we stood up, and cried out--
"'Five o'clock, six o'clock, no time to stay.'"
At this point Hals came and sat quietly by me on the edge of my sofa,
and Bess went on.
"Besides that we had Green Gravel, Green Gravel, and even Mrs.
Burbidge says that is not a wicked game to play," cried Bess; and
repeated the old lines with a funny little tilt of her head--
"'Green gravel, green gravel, the grass is so green,
She is the fairest young lady as ever was seen.
I'll wash her in milk,
And I'll clothe her in silk,
And I'll write down her name
With a gold pen and ink.'"
Then came what Bess called "them that laughed," who said--
"'O Sally, O Sally, your true love is dead,
He sent you a letter to turn round your head.'"
"I like that," remarked Bess. "The words are pretty. 'Green gravel,
green gravel,' but I shouldn't like to be washed in milk, soap and
water are bad enough, but I should like letters to be written with a
pen of gold. They sound as if they ought to be letters all about
holidays or Christmas presents; leastways, they never ought to be
rude or disagreeable, or have anything to do with lessons.'"
"Yes," agreed Harry, "written only for fun, and because everybody may
do as they like."
Then we discussed Wallflowers. And as the children stood talking, for
Hals had run to Bess's side, old Nana came out of the Chapel Hall and
joined our group.
"It is time, mam, for them to be in bed," said Nana, sourly; "and I'm
sure it will be a mercy if both childer are not ill to-morrow. By
their own accounts they've eaten as many lolly-pops as they had a
mind to. I did think as Mrs. Legarde had more sense than that. But
them as feasts children, should physic 'em."
"Wallflowers, wallflowers," interrupted Bess, rudely. "Come and amuse
mama, poor mamsie hasn't had tea out, or done anything to please
herself."
So old Nana--whose bark, all the household acknowledges, is far worse
than her bite--came and began to recite the old rhymes of her youth,
and of the old days before that.
"I am just ashamed of the old nonsense," she said, blushing like a
girl, "but since it will amuse your mama," and she turned to Bess,
"I'll try my best." And Nana, in a funny old husky voice, with the
Shropshire accent growing stronger and stronger at every line
repeated--
"'Wallflowers, wallflowers, wallflowers up so high,
Us shall all be maidens, and so us will die.
Excepting Alice Gittens--she is the youngest flower,
She can hop, and she can skip, and she can play the hour,
Three and four, and four and five,
Turn your back to the wall side.'"
And thereupon old Nana, animated by old recollections, turned her
back upon me and stood facing the old bowling-green.
[Sidenote: QUEEN BESS'S GAME]
"Well done!" cried both children simultaneously. And then Bess called
for "Nuts in May." "You know, what we played last Christmas, when we
could'nt go out," she explained, "because the snow was so deep."
For a moment Nana looked puzzled.
"You ought to recollect that," cried Bess, "because it was you that
learnt us it before."
Nana thought for a minute, and then repeated the old Shropshire
version of the ancient game, which, tradition says, was written by
Queen Bess one Christmas time for Lord Burleigh's children. But Nana
first of all explained to us the action of the game.
"You must know, mam," she said, "that there are two parties--one of
lads and the other of lasses." "The first come up and call (the
lads)--
"'Here we come gathering nuts in May,
Nuts in May, nuts in May,
Here we come gathering nuts in May
On a cold and frosty morning.'
"Then the second lot," as Nana called the lasses, "answer back, and
shout--
"'Who have ye come to gather away?'
And the first lot (the lads) reply--
"'We have come to gather sweet Maude away.'
'And who will you send to fetch her away?'
'We'll send Corney Rodgers to fetch her away.'
"Then the two parties pull," she added, "and in the end a lass has to
leave, and to go over to the lads' side."
"Who was sweet Maude, and who was Corney Rodgers?" I asked of Nana.
But she declared she didn't know for certain, "but most-like he was
some bad bold man who lived in the hills, and took off any maid he
had a mind to."
"Go on, go on!" cried the children enthusiastically, and clapped Nana
vociferously.
"You know them all," exclaimed Bess, "although you like pretending;
but nurses always do."
At this Nana, for all her head of snow, fell a laughing. She forgot
all about "bedtime," and stood before us with pink cheeks, whilst she
exclaimed--
"They comes back! They comes back, the old plays." And therewith
begins to repeat "Here comes Three Dukes a Riding." "Us used to play
that--and a right pretty game it was," she explained,--"on the
village green, when the leaves were budding, betwixt the hours of
school."
And she recited aloud in her dear, funny, old cracked voice--
"'Here comes three dukes a riding
With a ransome, dansome, day.'
"Then the lasses used to answer," she told us, "and cry out--
"'And what is your intent, sirs, intent, sirs?
With a ransome, dansome, day.'
"At this the lads used to shout--
"'My intent is to marry, to marry.'
"And the maids would reply--
"'Will you marry one of my daughters, one of my daughters?'
"Then the lads used to look highty-tighty, for all they had in their
bones only the making of ploughmen, ditchers, and shepherds," Nana
declared, "and they would say--
"'You be as stiff as pokers, as pokers.'
And turn up their noses and strut back.
"Then the maids would answer, mincing like--
"'We can bend like you, sirs, like you, sirs!'
"Then the lads would scan the lasses up and down, and sing back, as
if every one of 'em had been born a lord, or high sheriff of the
county at least--
"'You're all too black and too blowsy, too blowsy
For a dilly-dally officer.'
"Then the maids would sing with a bit of spite--
"'We're good enough for you, sirs, good enough for you.'
"Then a lad would leave his fellows, and say with a shrug of his
shoulders, and crestfallen like--
"'If I must have one I will have this,
So away with you my pretty miss.'"
And then old Nana told us that the maids would laugh and the lads
would jeer, for in turn each lad had to choose a lass, and sometimes
the lass he had a mind to wouldn't go.
[Sidenote: A RING OF ROSES]
Then Nana, after a short pause, said, "Then there be another game as
us used to play. Ring of Roses, some used to call it, and others
Grandfather's Rheum. But I cannot remember but one verse--
"'A ring, a ring of roses,
A pocket full of posies.
One for Jack, and one for Jan
And one for little Moses.
A-tisha, a-tisha, a-tisha.'
and the fun was who could sneeze loudest. I remember Mike Mallard and
Mary Wilston was wonderful at it. 'Yer'll die in a sneeze,' folk used
to tell them."
"Nana can you think of no more, just one more." For Nana had beckoned
to Bess to say good night and go.
"Yes," I said, "just one more."
So old Nana yielded to our united pleadings, asserted it must be only
_one_, as it was high time for her lad and lass to be in bed, and
ended by reciting aloud a strange old Shropshire rhyme--
"'Walking up the green grass,
A dust, a frust, a dust.
We want a pretty maid
To walk along with us.'
"The lads used to say that in a chorus," Nana explained. "Then the
maids would answer--
"'Fiddle faddle--fiddle faddle.'
"Then the boys would say--
"'We'll take a pretty maid,
We'll catch her by the hand,
She shall go to Derby,
For Derby be her land.
She shall have a duck, my dear,
She shall have a lamb,
Hers shall be a nice young man,
A-fighting for her sake.
"'Suppose this young man was to die,
And leave the lass alone,
Our bells would ring, and we should sing
And clap our hands together.'
"And the maids said--
"'Fiddle faddle--fiddle faddle.'"
"I don't like it," said Bess, impulsively. "Why should they all be
jolly because the poor gentleman died?"
[Sidenote: "THERE'S THINGS AS GIRLS CAN'T UNDERSTAND"]
But Hals did not take that view. "There's things," he said loftily,
"as girls can't understand."
At this Bess turned very red, and in the spirit of the modern woman
declared, "What she couldn't understand, Hals couldn't neither." And
in deep dudgeon she followed Nana into the house.
As the little party passed out of the garden Hals called back to me,
"We've forgotten Stag a Roarning. The best of all the games we've not
told you about. One that I played last year with my papa at a school
feast."
The twilight turned into night. The servants came out, and I was
helped back to the Chapel Hall. After all it had not been a dull
afternoon. One can go many miles in one's room, if one knows how to
ride on the wings of fancy, and many is the garden that I had visited
that day, borne along on the pinions of imagination, for were not the
gardens of all time open to me? No dragons or mailed warriors guarded
the entrance gates, not even a modern policeman.
An hour after dinner I found myself in bed. The window of my chamber
was wide open, an old lancet window of Norman days, one out of which
Roger de Montgomery may have gazed, and, later, many of the Henry's
of England in succession. All was very still outside. In the little
bit of dark sapphire-blue sky that met my eye as I lay in bed, I saw
a mist of silver stars, and the scent of the creepers entered with
entrancing sweetness. I was no longer in pain, but not sleepy, so I
stretched out my hand and took hold of a book. My hand closed upon a
volume of Milton, well worn, and much used; for John Milton has a
solemn, sacred power, and touches you with the solemnity of some
grand chords heard upon a cathedral organ, and the melody of his
verse is often welcome in this holy place. But it was not to his
"Paradise Lost" or "Regained" that I turned, nor to his exquisite
sonnets. I was in a lighter mood; I turned to the most beautiful
masque that ever was written; whilst I thought of the most beautiful
of all ruins, Ludlow Castle, the early home of Sir Philip Sidney,
England's ideal knight, and the mirror of her chivalry.
The plot of the masque arose from a simple little mishap which
happened in the life of the actors. John Milton was then tutor to the
Earl of Bridgewater's sons, Lord Brackley and Thomas Egerton. On
their way to Ludlow, the young party went through Haywood Forest in
Herefordshire. Travelling with her brothers was the Lady Alice
Egerton. Somehow, in the depth of the wilderness, the young lady was
lost for a short time.
Out of this slender plot Milton constructed his masque of "Comus."
His friend, Henry Lawes, set his songs to music, and the fair Alice
and her two brothers all appeared in the play on Michaelmas night and
acted at Ludlow Castle before their parents and assembled guests. As
I lay in bed the grace and the charm of the masque returned to me. I
thought in the tranquillity of the summer evening I heard the lady
calling--
"Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that lives unseen
Within thy airy shell,
By slow meander's margent green,
And in the violet-embroidered vale
Where the love-lorn nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well:
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
That likest thy narcissus are?
O, if thou have
Hid them in some flowery cave
Tell me where?
Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere,
So mayest thou be translated to the skies
And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies."
[Sidenote: THE MASQUE OF "COMUS"]
How prettily the lines must have sounded, not through wood and glade,
but through the stately presence chamber of Ludlow Castle to the
graceful tinkling music Lawes had written for them. The earl and
countess sat, I have read, in all the state of the Marches Court in
the front row, and were surrounded by neighbours and dependents.
There is the grace of great things in "Comus," and a grace and
finished purity of soul that have seldom belonged to youth.
The elder brother's speech is worthy of Shakespeare--
"He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit in the centre and enjoy bright day.
But he, that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon."
What happened to fair Alice, I have often asked myself, in the time
of trouble that was soon to come? I have never been able to find out
much, save that she married Lord Carberry, and lived with him at his
seat of Golden Grove.
In the unbroken calm, the old world seemed very near me. Ghosts, once
dear to Ludlow, seemed to breathe around me. The little princes, with
their fair curls, smiled upon me from the threshold of life; Prince
Arthur, Sir Philip Sidney, Alice and her brothers, and Milton in the
dawn of his poet's career; ill-fated Charles; and brilliant, but
broken-hearted, Butler. I thought of all of them, whilst the wind
stirred faintly the summer leaves. At last I sank into repose. Sweet
dreams are those suggested by old-world ghosts, and when the spirit
is lulled by the graces of another age. I lay half-dreaming,
half-awake, and thought of John Milton, young and beautiful, with the
fire of inspiration in his deep grey-blue eyes. A man of wonderful
learning and grace. A master swordsman, inasmuch as it was true of
him "that he was not afraid of resenting an affront from any man." Of
deep erudition, for Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac were all known to
him, besides being well versed in Italian, French, and Spanish. He
could repeat aloud, I have heard, many portions of Homer. I thought
of him later giving himself up to the delights of music, of which he
was a master, as was his father; playing, it is said, both on the
organ and on other instruments. He was also a composer, like his
friend Henry Lawes, though none of his compositions have reached us.
Certainly, as Bishop Newton wrote of him, "he was a man of great
parts, for his was a quick apprehension, a sublime imagination, a
strong memory, a piercing judgment, and a wit always ready."
The next day I sat out after breakfast. It was delicious weather.
Soft rain had fallen during the night towards dawn, and refreshed the
earth. I had begun to answer letters on a little bed-table, when my
solitude was interrupted by the appearance of Auguste. He approached
my couch with a profound bow. Under his arm was a book bound in
vellum, and bearing on the side an inscription in manuscript. He
advanced, placed both heels together, and then bowed profoundly.
"Madame se porte mieux?" he inquired.
I replied in the affirmative, and thanked him for his kind enquiries.
[Sidenote: L'OEUVRE DE GRAND-PAPA]
There was a pause; then Auguste bowed again, and after a long string
of courteous words, in which our cook trusted that "le bon Dieu
ferait vite son métier," and in which he assured me that he prayed
that I should be soon restored to health, he put beside me "le cahier
blanc" that he had been holding. "C'est l'oeuvre de mon grand-père,"
he explained with pride. "Il était cuisinier dans la famille d'un
maréchal de l'Empire," and added, "madame peut copier ce dont elle a
besoin."
I felt overwhelmed at this proposal, for I realized that poor Auguste
was giving me what he prized most in the world. Perhaps the great
Napoleon had supped off grandpapa's _entrées_, or Josephine had
tasted an ice or some _brioche_ made by grandpapa's hands. These
recipes have for Auguste the mysticism of the lore of Merlin. They
are, in his words, _magnifiques_, _superbes_, and the last words of
culinary art. "Mes secrets," he generally calls them. Grand'maman
bound them in white vellum, and the book has been handed down as a
priceless heirloom in Auguste's family.
I felt I could hardly thank my cook sufficiently for his kind
thought. There Auguste stood in irreproachable white linen cap and
coat. No prince could have believed that he could offer a more
splendid gift, as he repeated, with a theatrical wave of his hand,
"Madame peut tout copier." And then added, with an indulgent smile,
"Madame est malade, cela lui fera un plaisir énorme."
I rose to the occasion and said, as "bonne ménagère." I found it
difficult to express my gratitude.
At this Auguste retired a step, and then, with a courtly bow,
exclaimed grandly, his eye upon my embroidery which lay near on a
chair, "Il faut que les artistes se consolent dans les jours de
tristesse," and so saying, vanished to reign over his own kingdom.
A little later Burbidge came in to see me. In his hand he held a
bunch of roses, neatly tied with green matting, a new fad of mine.
Amongst the roses that he had brought me, I found a lovely Caroline
Testout, of great size and beauty, of a delicate pink with a glow of
richer colour in the centre. Then there was an open bud of charming
Thérèse Levet, and a full blown splendour of Archiduchesse Marie
Immaculata, with its curious red-brick tints; and two or three
blossoms of the dear old-fashioned Prince Camille de Rohan of a deep,
brownish crimson hue.
"Here's a few on 'em, just a sprinklin'," said Burbidge. "But oh,
'tis a pity as yer can't see 'em growin'! The sop of rain has brought
'em out, like the sunshine brings out chickens from under a hen's
wing. They be popping and peering in the garden, as if they had the
Lord Almighty to look at 'em Hisself."
"Perhaps He is," I said with a smile.
To this Burbidge didn't give direct assent, but like a true
Shropshire man, he declared that it was his belief, if the Lord was
on earth, it might pleasure Him to see the place, for the whole of
the red-walled garden was a garland of flowers. "There be irises, and
roses, and peonies; and it be hard to tell the colours. There be all
sorts and all shades, most like a glass window in the Abbey Church at
Shrewsbury." And Burbidge added, with that true sense of poetry that
belongs to the peasant, that "the Wrekin doves they be cooing and
fluttering round the firs, same as in a real poem."
[Sidenote: A POSY OF ROSES]
Burbidge laid the bunch of roses close beside me, for they had
slipped off the sofa whilst he was talking. Before going, he
vouchsafed the information that there be a Reine d'Angleterre three
parts in blow. He pronounced the French words strangely, but I
understood from many talks what was meant in Gallic, and that he
would bring it to me. "And 'tis a great deal, I think, the sight of a
new rose--leastways, 'tis to me; for it allus pleases, and it never
can be uncivil like many Christians," he said. After which profound
dictum, my good old gardener hobbled off. These kind gifts and little
attentions touched me. I appreciated much Auguste's thoughtful
kindness, and Burbidge's pity for my misfortune, for it was his
invariable rule that a "first blow," must show itself first in a
garden. "Don't 'e interfere with the Lord's system," he once said to
me, when I wanted to gather a new tree peony. "Let it pleasure itself
first time in the garden, and arter yer may please yerself."
I smelt my bunch of roses, the fragrance was delicious, soft and
sweet, and only to be fully appreciated by dipping one's nose well
into the centre of the sweetest.
Certainly a rose is a lovely flower, and it is wonderful what
gardeners have done to tend, improve, and develop it, and it was hard
to imagine that any of the great double complex blossoms that I held
in my hand, were first cousin, and lineally descended from the wild
rose of the hedges. Yet delicious as roses are, and beloved by most
men, and women, there have been, and may be, for aught I know, some
who still cordially hate them, as cordially as Lord Roberts is said
to dislike the presence of a cat, or a certain Duchess that I have
been told of, the approach of horses.
Marguerite of Navarre, the wife of Henry IV. of France, is said to
have found the perfume of roses so repellent, that she fainted if one
was brought her; and I remember in Evelyn's Diary of 1670, an account
of a dinner-party at Goring House, in which he tells us that, "Lord
Stafford rose from table in some disorder, because there were roses
stuck about the fruit at dessert."
Sir Kenelm Digby also told a story of the same kind of Lady Selenger
(St. Leger). Her antipathy to this flower he declared to have been so
great, that some one laying a rose beside her cheek when asleep,
thereby caused a blister to rise. Whether the story was true it is
too long ago to tell; but by all accounts Sir Kenelm "was a teller of
strange things."
Whilst I was thinking over these old-world stories, I was suddenly
interrupted by the entrance of my little girl.
"Oh, mamma," cried Bess, with tears in her eyes, "only to think
he--Hals--has to go, to go in two days."
"Do not cry, little one," I replied. "Papa and I have settled that I
am to go off for a week to the seaside, and you shall come too; and
even Mouse shall have her ticket."
At this Bess was comforted, for the prospect of the sea, the sands,
and a spade of her very own, were very consolatory. But the day that
little Hals left us, she came to me just before going off to bed.
"Mum," she said, "I've been thinking."
"Yes, dear," I replied.
"I've been thinking," pursued Bess, "that somehow there ought to
be--a way to keep a boy. Grown-up girls have husbands, I know," she
said. Then, after a momentary pause, "You have a great, great book of
Harrod's. Surely, somewhere, mamsie, they have a boy stall."
I laughed and kissed my little girl. "We are poor creatures," I said,
"we girls and women. We have all for centuries wanted to buy some
boy, and haven't yet found out where or how to do it."
[Sidenote: "GOOD-BYE! GOOD-BYE!"]
A few days later, Bess and I found ourselves on the Wenlock station
platform. Masses of boxes surrounded us, and Mouse, with a label tied
to her collar, sat watching us intently.
"Why aren't you glad to go--glad as I am, mamsie?" cried Bess,
impetuously. "You know the doctor said that it would make you quite
better, and we can bathe together in the sea. Besides," added my
little maid, with wisdom beyond her years, "if you only go, you are
always much gladder to come back."
We jumped into a carriage, and Mouse looked out of the window.
Burbidge took my last injunctions. Then the train moved off, and the
ruins and old town of Wenlock faded before my eyes. "Good-bye, dear
old place!" I murmured. And as we dashed on, faintly sounding on the
breeze, I caught the last notes of the distant chimes--"Good-bye!
Good-bye!"
INDEX
A
Abbey Farmery, 233, 279
Ales-hoof, 262
All Fools' Day, 132
Almonds, 131
Amiel, 2
Anemones, 16, 228
varieties, 289
Annuals, 283
Anstice, Squire, 168
Apple Howlers, 242
Arabis, 98
Ashfield Hall, 53
Austrian briar, 137
Ayrshire briars, 283
B
Bachelors' Buttons, 173
Bacon, Lord, 300
Bacon's garden, 293
Baily Clerke, Sir John, _alias_ John Cressage, 153
Banister or Banaistre, 83
Banister's Coppice, 83
Beans, Mont d'Or, 50
Bee charms, 140, 141
Bee hives, 139
Bees, 137, 138
Berners, Dame Juliana, 100
Birds' country names, 179
Blackbird, 94
Blackcap, 16, 220
Black ouzel (blackbird), 184
Blore Heath, 155
Bog myrtle, 176
Borde, Andrew, 300
Boscobel, 227
Botelar, Sir Thomas, 151, 152, 153
Botryoides hyacinths, 136
Bouncing Bess (Valerian), 173
Bridle, the scold's, 247
Browne, Sir Thomas, 156
Buckingham, Duke of, 83
Bull-baiting, 166
Bull-ring, 163, 250
C
Caer Caradoc, 273
Camden, 211
Canaries, 36
Cap St. Martin, 11
Carrion crow, 104, 105
Chaffinch, 8, 65, 185
Chapter House, 209
Charité, La, 95
Charles I., 53
Charles II., 227
Chartres, 42
Chaucer, 171
Chaucer's garden, 298
Chimes, 12, 321
Chionodoxa, 64, 136
_Choisya ternata_, 233
Clee Hill, 79
Clematis Flammula, 40
Clematis Jackmanni, 40
Clematis Montana, 40
Cloisters, 173
Clugniac monks, 161
Clun, 77, 109
Cobbett, 213
Cock-fighting, 199, 200, 201
Columbines, 251
Comus, 314
Convolvulus, 51
Corncrake, 226
Corsica, 12
Corvehill, Sir William, 153
Craven Arms, 81
Cressage, John, _alias_ Sir John Baily Clerke, 153
Crimson Rambler, 40
Crocuses, 96, 97, 135
Cromwell, Oliver, 5
Cromwell, Thomas, 211
Crown Imperials, 136
Cuckoo, 148, 149, 185, 285
Cuckoo's Cup, 196
D
Daffodils, garden varieties, 174
Dahlias, 109
Daphne, 9, 17
Darwin Tulips, 136
Delphiniums, 281
Devil, Timothy Theobald's views on the, 242
Digby, Sir Kenelm, 320
Dog-rose, 226
E
Ecall (woodpecker), 260
Eckford's sweet peas, 51
Edge Wood, 181, 182
Elizabeth of York's bower, 295
Ellesmere, 166
Escargots, 95, 96, 238
Evelyn, John, 295
Exeter book, 148
F
Fanshawe, Sir Richard, 302
Farley Dingle, 83, 226
Favourite flowers, 120
Forester, Squire, 206, 207
_Fraxinella Dictamnus_ (Burning Bush), 173, 256, 257
G
Games in Shropshire, 304-12
Gardens, 290
at La Mortola, 11
Geraniums, sweet-scented, 234, 235
"Gerard's Herbal," 43, 74, 301
Ghosts of Ludlow Castle, 315
Gladioli, varieties, 116
Godwin, Bishop, 211
Grass, bulbs in, 163
Grass of Parnassus, 124
Greenfinch, 122
H
Hampton Court, 295
Hanbury, Sir Thomas
his garden at La Mortola, 11
Hedgehog, 236, 237
Heliotrope, 234
Hellebores, 97
Henricus Stephanus, 254
Henry VIII., 212
Herbert, George, 302
Herbs, 258
Hesperides, 297
Highclere, 290
High Ercall, 302
Hill, Thomas, 300
Homer, 144
Honeysuckle, 226
Hotel Bellevue, 11
I
Irises, Spanish, 136
J
Jackdaws, 9, 173
Jack squealer, 215
Jay, 182
Johnnie's watch, 197
Judy Cookson, 247
K
Kenilworth, 299
King, Collins, 224
King-cups, 121
Kiss-in-the-ring, 199
Kitty wren, 145
Kynaston, Humphrey, 110
L
Langley, 292
Laon, 256
Latimer, 213
Lawson, 301
Leper's chamber, 173
Leveret, the, and "Mouse," 273
_Lilium Auratum_, 173
_Lilium Martagon_, 173
Longleat, 254
Longmynd, 273
Loppington, 167
Love in the Mist, 51
Lucky flower, marsh marigold, 191
Ludlow Castle, 314, 315
M
Macaws' colours, 14
Madeley manor, 153
Madeley wakes, 167
Magpie, 182
Malope, 51
Malory, 2
Manetti, stock for roses, 136
Markham, 300
Marsh marigold, a lucky flower, 191
Martagon lilies, 173
Mary proclaimed queen, 154
Masque of flowers, 303
May Day, 166, 171, 172
Mediterranean, 12
Mentone, 11
"Mezeron tree," 62
Milburgha, Saint, 30, 32, 59, 60
Milton, John, 6, 313
Mistress Tuggy's bower, 299
Montaigne, 3, 115
Moody, Tom, 202, 203, 204
Moor-hen, 134
Moor Park (Herefordshire), 296
Moor Park (Surrey), 296, 297
More, Sir Thomas, 84
Morris dancers, 195
Mortola (La), gardens at, 11, 12
Moss roses, 281
Mouse-ear, 259
Mytton, Sheriff, 83
N
Nanny Morgan, 89, 90
Napoleon, 12
Narcissus, Stella and Cynosure, 162
Nest, a forsaken, 240
Nonsuch, 294, 301
O
Oak-apples, 226, 227
Oaken gates, 168
Old Soul, 203, 204
Oreilles d'Ours, 176
Osborne, Dorothy, 297
Ounts, 101
P
Palm Sunday, 150
Parson Mortimer, 168
Patrick's (Saint) shamrock, 123
Peacock, 9
Pear varieties, 108
Penance, 250
Penzance briars, 283
Peonies, 251, 259
Peonies (tree), 282
Periwinkles, 121
Piers Ploughman, 149
Pigeons, 9
Pinks, 258
Pittosporum, 11
Poke-puddings (tomtits), 8, 239
Poppies, Oriental, 251
Poppies, Shirley, 52
Posenhall, 155
Primroses, 121, 159
_Primula_, _Cashmeriana_ and _Japonica_, 176
Punishments, ancient, 246
Q
Quice (wood-pigeons), 94, 184
R
Ranunculi, 108, 109, 228
Raven's bowl, the, 196
Redstart, 217, 218
Ribes, 135
Ring-ouzel, 219
Robin, 29, 99
Roger de Montgomery, 33, 161, 313
Rooks, 9, 101, 102, 103, 159
Rose haters, 319, 320
Rose, Japanese, 137
Roses, hybrid tea, 135
Roses, old, 43
Roses, red, 299
Roses, tea, 40
Roses, varieties, 108, 282, 318
Rosemary, 255
Royal oak, 227
Rue, 292
Rupert, Prince, 53
S
Scilla Sibirica, 162
Servant hiring, 244
Severn, 147
Sheinton Street, 56
Sherlot Forest, 121
Shinewood, 83, 84
Shipton, 84, 291
Shropshire games, 304-12
Silverton, 79
"Sister Helen," 66, 71
Skylark, 122, 123
Spital Street, 154
Stafford, Lord, 320
Starlings, 8, 63
Stocks, 246
Stonhill coppice, 168
Storm-cock, 94, 233
Swans, 134, 135
T
Temple Garden, 292
Temple, Sir William, 297
Theobalds, 299
Thomas à Kempis, 48
Thrush, 95, 239, 253
Tiberius, the Emperor, 269
Tomtits, 8, 239
Tong Church, 299
Tradescant, John, 301
V
Violas, 235
Violets, 94
garden varieties, 174
white, 120
W
Wagtail, yellow, 240
Wake Sunday, 196
Watch-tower, 9
Well, St. Milburgha's, 61
Wenlock station, 321
Wife, sale of a, 247
Wormwood, 261
Wrekin, 147, 197
Wrekin doves, 249
Wrens, 8, 98
THE END
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Transcriber's note:
Some presumed printer's errors have been corrected, including
punctuation.
The spelling of words was changed so that spelling in the Index
matched the spelling in the main text.
Two occurrences of the proper name Celestine were altered to
Célestine for consistency.
Further corrections are listed below with the printed text (top) and
corrected text (bottom):
thrushs'
thrushes' (p. viii)
round the old Abbey precints.
round the old Abbey precincts. (p. 41)
ABBY
ABBEY (Illustration to face p. 94)
as we are won't to call her.
as we are wont to call her. (p. 119)
bird-nest at at once
bird-nest at once (p. 181)
ring ouzel
ring-ouzel (p. 219-220)
It faut que
Il faut que (p. 319)