Gerald. ‘Her liking for you is the mere anticipation of the passion
that will fill her when she sees me. She cares for you only as Olivia
did for Viola before she saw Sebastian.’
How had the boy hit upon that comparison? I had conversely been
thinking for three hours past that my liking for Sebastian had been the
mere anticipation of my love for Viola!
At her brother’s words, May laughed and shook her head. ‘Don’t _you_
deceive yourself, dear. There is no rival to “dear Henry” in Mrs
Bowden’s heart.’
‘Who is “dear Henry?”’ I asked.
‘The late Mr Bowden, and the one vexation of my life.’
‘How can that be, if he is dead?’
‘Alas! he has left innumerable relatives, who haunt his widow and sing
his praises. They profess to be actuated only by exceptional devotion
to his memory and by affection for his widow; and I suppose it is only
the natural perversity of my soul that reminds me of the fact that
Mrs Bowden is very rich and has no relatives of her own. Perhaps it
is their strong and very plainly displayed jealousy of my supposed
influence over my employer that makes me think so uncharitably of them.’
‘And does Mrs Bowden believe in their professions?’
‘I don’t know; but she is a very shrewd old lady; and I suspect her of
finding some pleasure in giving each of “dear Henry’s” relatives in
turn the impression that he or she is to be her heir, and then dashing
their hopes to the ground. To-day, she has delighted her husband’s
brother, and will doubtless drive all the other relatives to despair,
by giving him Mr Bowden’s favourite seal, a thing she cherishes
greatly. This is supposed to be almost equivalent to making a will
in his favour. I suppose it’s malicious,’ said May with one of her
brightest smiles, ‘but I can’t help getting some fun out of it too. You
see, she has expressly stated that she has no intention of dividing her
property; one individual is to inherit all, so the anxiety of each is
intense, though concealed. I really think the only relief they all have
from their dissimulated hatred of each other is their open hatred of
me.’
‘Poor little girl! How can even the most prejudiced of fortune-hunters
hate you? It is hard to bear,’ said Gerald tenderly, taking his
sister’s hand in his.
But the shade which had for a moment darkened her face vanished as
she saw it reflected in his. ‘That is only a little trouble, dear,’
she said gently, ‘so little, that if I had any harder ones, I should
not notice it; and by way of compensation, I am sure that Mrs Bowden
herself really loves and trusts me.’
We were very merry as we walked up to the old house in Well Walk,
Hampstead, where Miss Atherton lived. A pretty, picturesque place it
seemed in the dim spring moonlight; and May grew quite animated in
telling me of the quaint relics of past centuries which survived beside
the modern comfort of its furnishing. The path between the garden door
and that of the house had been covered with glass and made into a
conservatory, where even at this early time of the year flowers and
rare ferns spread their leaves. Gerald and I watched May pass within
the door, feeling—at least I did—like Moore’s unfortunate Peri to whom
the doors of heaven were shut. At the inner door she turned and waved
her hand, sending a smile of farewell down the flowery vista. Then she
disappeared, and suddenly the night grew darker.
I had all this time—so selfish a thing is pleasure!—forgotten the
unfortunate gentleman whose sudden illness I had witnessed; but as
Gerald and I were walking down Haverstock Hill, after parting with May,
the thought of him suddenly came to my mind, and at the same moment I
recollected the packet I had picked up and put in my pocket. I narrated
the incident of the afternoon to my friend, and went back with him to
his rooms to examine the thickly-filled envelope which had come into my
possession. There was on it neither address nor other superscription;
one side was soiled by falling in the mud of the street; on the other
was a large seal in red wax, on which I deciphered, in old English
characters, the letters H. L. B., below a mailed hand holding a dagger,
and above the motto, ‘What I hold, I hold fast.’
I determined to take the packet to the hospital next day, when I should
go to inquire for the invalid, and either give it to him, or, if his
condition rendered him incapable of taking care of it, intrust it to
the house-surgeon. It was not permitted to me to fulfil my intention.
When, after my day’s work, I went to the hospital, I found that the
patient in whom I was interested had been removed.
‘We found out his name and address from some letters in his pocket,’
said the house-surgeon, ‘and sent a message to his family. His son came
immediately and removed him.’
‘What is the name?’ I asked.
‘I forget. Collins or Cotton, or something like that; but I can’t speak
with any certainty. He was a solicitor, I remember.’
‘Is not his name on the hospital books?’
‘No. He was here so short a time, that it was never entered.’
‘How very unfortunate!’ I exclaimed.
‘Why? Was it of importance that you should see him?’ asked the
house-surgeon, an easygoing and careless youth, who had evidently felt
hitherto that my interrogatories were tiresome and unnecessary, but was
now roused to attention by the fervour of my tone.
‘It may be of considerable importance to him. He dropped a packet,
apparently containing documents, when he fell yesterday. I picked it
up, and forgot to deliver it to you when I left him in your charge. It
may be essential to him to regain immediate possession of it.’
The young doctor was sufficiently interested now, but he could do
nothing; he had no certain recollection of anything connected with his
patient. I was forced to content myself with leaving with him my name,
Richard Langham, and the address of Messrs Hamley and Green, in whose
employ I was, that he might refer to me if any inquiry was made about
the packet.
I doubted not that I should within a few days be relieved of the
charge of it; but days and weeks passed into months, and that sealed
envelope remained in my possession, and lay like an undeserved burden
on my conscience.
THE OLD PRIORY GARDEN.
The whispering May wind stirs the hawthorn and lilac in the old priory
garden, and brings great gushes of delicious scent past the window, and
fills the room with sweetness. All the last month the weather has been
fitful and changeable—rain and storm, sunshine and cloud, dust and east
winds; but after two days of soaking downpour and wild west wind, the
morning of the last day of May has dawned in the full glorious beauty
of late spring. Thrushes and blackbirds vie with each other in song,
sweet and shrill, clear and inspiring; a modest siskin whistles its
little monotonous roulade; now and then, a few notes of the shy linnet
are heard; a robin is feeding its brood close by; swallows and martins
are darting about in all directions; in the apple blossoms are hundreds
of bees, making a dense dreamy music; while their compatriot the
humble-bee booms along with his big velvety body shining and gleaming
in the sun.
What a splendid creature! See, it settles close at hand. Turn it over
with a grass bent. With a surprised buzz, it rights itself. Again and
yet again it turns over, seemingly staring to see the cause of its
overthrow. Draw the bent lightly across its back—two legs are instantly
raised to brush off the unwelcome touch. A second time the same; a
third, and the bent is fairly clutched by all the gummy legs, and
retained under its body. It crawls up a stick, and with angry bustle,
goes booming off.
One does not realise summer is so close upon us, when May is such
a capricious maiden, till a morning like this wakes one up to the
conviction that in twenty-four more days the sun will have reached its
altitude, and soon will begin the shortening days again. The garden
here is quaint, and quite unlike the generality of town gardens. From
the square of paved court rises one step, and then a stretch of grass,
an oval flower-bed each side, a path up the centre; sloping grass banks
supported with large stones, where huge bunches of primroses spring
from the niches. Along the sides are rockeries with hardy trailing
plants—stonecrop, periwinkle both major and minor, white and blue, with
variegated foliage; sweet woodruff, violets, and a mass of ferns, whose
delicate light silver green fronds are daily uncurling into beauty.
The wallflowers are in full bloom. Later on, the germander speedwell
will open its bright evanescent flowers, that, though only a wild
plant, makes such splendid masses of colour when cultivated, with the
silver-foil in bunches near it.
Up a short flight of stone steps, with ferns on each side, under
an ivy-covered archway, and on another plat of grass, with a long
flower-bed, with trellis-work at the back, covered with the red and
yellow honeysuckle, and a huge mass of climbing roses, the rare
delicate ‘maiden blush,’ which in a fortnight will be heavy with bloom.
More rockeries and ferns, lilies of the valley and forget-me-nots
under the syringa bushes, and sweet-brier. In another corner are tall
irises and great white lilies, with here and there a bunch of orange
tiger lily. Southernwood, lavender, and rosemary, variegated balm in
profusion. Soon the fragrant pinks, and their aristocratic relations
the carnations, will be in bloom; and the rich velvety pansies, that
are now so large and perfect, will dwindle as the sun gains more power,
and the strawberries begin to crimson on the sunny south beds; and
the geraniums and verbenas and purple heliotropes take the place of
auriculas and the narcissus.
Round the square of vegetable garden is a wide path, with beds sloping
to the walls, one of which is of good brick, with plum, cherry, and
other fruit-trees trained along it. The other is the real old stone
wall belonging to the ‘antient’ priory, that formerly stood close
by. At one time, this wall was covered with a dense mass of ivy, in
which colonies of sparrows built their nests, reared their young, and
flourished mightily. Snails, slugs, and wood-lice swarmed, and beetles
in endless variety. One wild day in a wet February, part of the old
wall came down, breaking up the trees, and cutting up the borders and
turf. It was patched up again; and just as the spinach was fit to cut
and lettuce planted out, there was a soaking rain one night, and in the
morning the old wall was again prostrate over all our spring plantings.
Such a wreck it was, and disturbed our equilibrium for days. It was
soon set straight as regards the stonework; but it was weeks before the
place looked itself again; and that crumbling old wall was watched with
suspicion all summer. Then outdoor life coming to an end, we ceased to
think on the subject.
October following was mild and balmy for the first few days; then
the wind shifted suddenly to the east, and four or five nights of
sharp frost came, that turned all the foliage into a golden glory, a
steady downpour of a week culminating with a tremendous wind-storm.
It blew and whistled and stormed till every leaf was swept away into
space, going no one knew whither, howling and whistling round the
chimney-stacks till night was made terrible. During the worst of the
storm, in the early morning, down came the old wall again from end to
end, cutting up turf, breaking down the fruit-trees, and overwhelming
the shrubs and rockeries in a general wreck. For many weeks did the
state of chaos continue; wretched drenched fowl made themselves at
home in the flower-beds, and forlorn-looking ducks wandered across,
and feasted on the host of slugs and fat snails and beetles that the
pouring rain had tempted out of the nooks and crevices of the stones
and mass of ivy. It was built up at last; but little or nothing could
be done to repair the ravages done to the garden till the end of March,
except making a general clearance of the rubbish, and one of the
quaintest of shady corners seemed lost for ever.
But after a few fine balmy days and a spell of sunshine, curious things
happened under the rebuilt wall: stray snowdrops appeared in places
where none had been heretofore; a bunch of pure white crocuses unfolded
their blossoms to the sun in one place; two or three stray ‘stars
of Bethlehem’ in another. Later on, a single stem shot up of yellow
Lent lilies; bunches of tormentilla with double yellow blooms, and
clover with deep red-brown leaves and big snowy balls of flowers; the
mouse-ear, hawkweed, and trailing moneywort. Down amongst the remains
of the common turf came a thick growth of parsley-piert with its close
fine-edged leaves, and cuckoo-pint with delicate pinky-white flowers.
On the wall between the new mortar and old stones came little fibres
of crimson-tipped moss, stonecrop (_Sedum_), sandwort, pellitory of
the wall, and in one place a single plant of flax, with its pale-blue
flowers and long spear-like leaves; without mentioning the more common
chickweed, groundsel, wild feverfew and plantain, yellow wallflowers,
and many different sorts of grass and mosses. There is no doubt most
of these plants had come from seeds brought to the nests in the ivy
by the birds, and had lain there in the dry rubble for years, some,
perhaps, for generations, simply because there was not moisture enough
to cause the seeds to sprout and germinate. ‘If a grain of wheat
fall to the ground and _live_, it abideth alone; but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit,’ which seems enigmatical till pondered over
and thought out. How often have the gray-cowled monks strolled round
this old garden, marking how this tree promised a bounteous crop of
cherries, luscious morrellas, that, when ‘cunninglie steeped in spirits
with due proportion of mace, cloves, cinnamon, and sugar,’ makes a
liqueur fit for the drink of princes; or noting how the gnarled old
apple-trees—then young and in full bearing—were covered with garlands
of pink-and-white blossoms, that promised later in the autumn a rich
harvest of golden fruit: ladies’-fingers, Ribstone pippins, codlings,
golden russets, Blenham orange, with sourings for winter keeping; also
the frail blooms of the pear-trees, jargonelle, Marie Louise, baking
pears of enormous size, with the rich, juicy ‘bishop’s thumbs’ and
brown burées.
Now, a young lay-brother will come to pick dainty bits of herbs for
flavouring the soups and stews, with their accompaniment of esculent
vegetables, for, in those old palmy days, seldom did their genial faces
have ‘anchorite’ written on them. Go to the extreme end of the garden,
and turn round; what a delightful view meets the gaze! Down in the
hollow lies the sleepy little town, with its quaint gabled houses, and
nearly imbedded in a wealth of lime-trees. Far away, when the wind is
high and the atmosphere clear, are seen ranges of fertile hills for
miles, or the distance is wrapped in a soft purple haze that is still
more lovely; and over all this, the deep blue sky with fleecy white
clouds, and the blessed sunshine pouring down over all the wealth of
buds and blossoms, singing birds, and busy humming bees.
I came across, the other day, an account of what a naturalist found in
a square of backyard nearly uncultivated. Why, such a place as this
old priory garden would give him pleasure and profit for months, nay,
years, for not a tenth part of all the natural lovelinesses has been
exhausted yet. Some other time, perhaps, I shall tell something more of
what I find here as the years glide onward.
A POSSIBLE LEGAL REFORM.
Counsel and solicitors have never been so friendly as brother
professionals should be, and never will be until ‘amalgamation’ is an
accomplished fact. They have many causes of difference—some real, many
fancied. In all of them, jealousy is a great factor; for, whatever may
be thought to the contrary, each branch of the legal profession _is_
jealous of the privileges of the other. The barrister wants personal
relations with his client, which would mean very great loss to the
solicitor; and the solicitor wants to be allowed a right of audience
before the Supreme Court, which would certainly rob the barrister of
half his fees. Hence, there is a straining between the two limbs of the
law, which causes many hard things to be said of both.
One of the most real grievances of solicitors is in the matter of
fees. Two solicitors brief counsel to appear in two cases. Both cases
come on for hearing at the same time in different courts. Obviously,
the chosen advocate cannot attend to both, and so one is left to the
tender mercies of a half-fledged junior, whose well-meant efforts
often result in the loss of his client’s case. That such should be the
fact is inevitable, so long as the public will persist in preferring
the possible services and slight attention of an ‘eminent’ counsel,
obtained at a fancy price, to the certain attention and careful study
bestowed upon his case by a less eminent, but often equally able,
counsel at a fair price. But the real ground of complaint is that when
a case is thus murdered through its conductor’s inability to attend
to it, that conductor still retains his fee. He has never, in fact,
the smallest idea of disgorging a fee, even when paid on a brief upon
which he has never appeared. Why should he? It was not his fault that
he could not do the work he was retained for; he _has_ given valuable
time to getting up the case (though he certainly need not have done
so, as it turned out); and—strongest argument of all—he does not
lose custom by thus publicly fattening on the unearned increment. So
he has continued to ‘unearn’ it; and the solicitor—whose interests
are of course his client’s—has continued to writhe under the open
injustice thus sanctioned by the etiquette of that most honourable of
professions, the Bar of England.
But at last a ray of hope has found its way into the long-suffering
solicitor’s breast. The chink through which the welcome ray has come
has been pierced by a certain Mr Norton, a solicitor. It happened in
this wise: Mr Norton briefed and feed ‘an eminent leading counsel’ in
a certain case; but the retained one failed to appear upon the trial.
Mr Norton felt hurt; but, being a practical man, an idea struck him. He
wrote to the eminent one, pointing out that it would not be altogether
an iniquitous proceeding if his fees were returned. The eminent one
made courteous reply that ‘he would be happy to return the fees if he
could find any precedent for doing so.’ This would have ‘stumped’ most
solicitors; but Mr Norton rose to the occasion. He at once laid the
whole matter before the Attorney-general; and that luminary expressed
his ‘views and usage’ to be ‘to return so much of the brief fee as
exceeds the amount which would have been proper if the brief had been
simply a case for opinion.’ This means the return in such cases of by
far the greater portion of the fees; and such return will, if it become
a ‘precedent,’ be most acceptable not only to solicitors, but to the
public at large. In this particular case, the counsel referred to,
having found a precedent, and being unable to eat his own words, at
once sent Mr Norton a ‘cheque for the difference;’ and Mr Norton has
certainly done well to make the matter public. All barristers now have
a sound precedent for doing an act of justice; and it is to be hoped
that they, as a body, will not neglect to follow it. So the profession
will escape a certain amount of ill repute which has long tarnished, in
the eyes at least of envious persons, its very honourable ’scutcheon.
DEAD FLOWERS.
BY ALEXANDER ANDERSON.
Those simple daisies which you view,
Last year, when summer winds did wave,
And clouds were white with sunshine, grew
Upon the Ettrick Shepherd’s grave.
But not of him they speak, nor draw
My thoughts back to that early time
When, rapt in that one dream, he saw
The shadows lift from fairy clime.
Nor yet of Ettrick, as it goes
To join the Yarrow’s haunting tone,
That each may murmur as it flows
A music something like his own.
Nor even of Saint Mary’s Lake,
Amid those hills from which he drew
The legendary Past, to wake
Its far-off melodies anew.
No; not of these I think, though each
Is rich in spells of magic song;
These daisies touch a chord to which
All sadder thoughts of death belong.
And so I turn, and for a space
Within the sacred Past I stand,
To feel the sunshine of a face,
The kindly pressure of a hand.
All just the same as when she[2] gave
These dead flowers as a welcome thing.
Alas! and now upon her grave
The grass is thinking of the spring.
It seems but yesterday since then—
How slow, yet swift, the days have sped—
And here, beside the streets of men,
She slumbers with the holy dead.
She should have lain among the hills,
In some old churchyard, where each sound
Is of the wind, the tinkling rills,
And cry of lonely things around;
Or where old ballads grew to life,
Far back within the shadowy years,
That sang of rugged Border strife,
Or passions born of love and tears.
For loyal to their old-world chords,
She felt her heart in unison
With all their rich but simple words,
That took new music from her own.
True woman of the faithful heart,
And kindly as the summer air;
A nature such as could impart
Its genial presence everywhere.
In her the friend was friend indeed;
A larger sense of sympathy,
That overstepped the pales of creed,
Drew her to all in charity.
And now this death that waits for each,
An unseen shade by all, has come;
The Scottish music of her speech
So sweet, is now for ever dumb.
So pass the leal ones of this earth,
To leave with us a holier claim;
To touch us with their spirit-birth,
And whisper they are still the same.
These simple flowers of withered hue,
Last year, when summer winds did wave,
Were plucked by her because they grew
Upon the Ettrick Shepherd’s grave.
This year, when summer pours her light,
And daisies are to beauty blown,
Some hands will pluck their blossoms white,
Because they grow upon her own.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Jean Logan Watson, author of _Bygone Days in our Village, Round the
Grange Farm_, and other books full of quaint simplicity and freshness,
and breathing on every page the delightful personality of the writer.
Her sudden death was deeply felt by a large circle of friends, and has
left a blank that can never be filled up. She died 7th October 1885,
and sleeps in the Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh.—A. A.
EASTER SUNDAY.
It is not perhaps generally known that Easter Sunday falls this year on
the latest possible date on which it can fall—April 25. It is only once
in every century that Easter falls on so late a date as this; the last
year on which it did so was in 1734, and the next occasion will be in
1943. The earliest date for Easter is March 22, and this has occurred
once only in this century—in 1818; and it may safely be said that none
now living will see the next similar occurrence, for it will not take
place until the year 2000. In fixing Easter, the general rule is, that
Easter Sunday is always the first Sunday after the full moon on or next
after 21st March.
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Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.
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_All Rights Reserved._