"THE DEVIL'S BIT."
"Now, me dearie," said Mrs Gilmour, replacing her needle and thimble,
with the reel of thread, in her little "housewife," and putting that
carefully back into her pocket, "sure, we'll have a jollification on our
own account as our gentlemen have left us. We'll show them that we can
do without them, sure, when we like."
"How nice, auntie!" cried Miss Nellie, agreeing thoroughly in the
sentiment her aunt had expressed, the desertion of the Captain and Bob,
in addition to the fact of Dick having been also taken away, having
affected the young lady more than she had acknowledged. "What shall we
do first to be `jolly,' as Bob says?"
"I'll soon show you, me dearie," replied Mrs Gilmour. "Sure, you'll
say in a minute, Nell. Come now, me darlint, and help me."
Then ensued a pleasant task, one in which Rover especially evinced the
keenest interest, the sagacious retriever watching their every movement
with an attention that never faltered.
Needless almost to say, the agreeable occupation in question was that of
unpacking the hamper containing all the good things which Sarah had
packed and Dick had brought from the house for their picnic in the
woods.
Aye, it was in the woods; and under the woods, too!
Encircled by a hedge of green shrubbery and thicket undergrowth, amidst
which the wild-flowers of the forest stood out here and there, their
brightest tints gleaming with a wealth of colouring which nature's gems
alone display, Mrs Gilmour selected a nice smooth stretch of velvety
turf for their table.
On this, she proceeded to lay a damask cloth, whose snowy whiteness
contrasted vividly with its surroundings; for, a clump of silver birches
joined in hand-clasp with a straggling oak overhead, sheltering the
grass-plot with their welcome shade from the heat of the noonday sun,
while, over all, a lofty spreading elm extended its sturdy branches,
like outstretched arms, above its lesser brethren below, as if saying
paternally, "Bless you, my children!"
Having daintily arranged the contends of the hamper to the best
advantage on the open-air banqueting-table, an enormous veal-and-ham
pie, their chief dish, in the centre, Mrs Gilmour and Nellie surveyed
their handiwork with much complacency.
"Sure, and I don't think a single thing has been forgotten," observed
the former with pardonable pride, after a critical inspection of the
various viands. "At most of the picnics I have participated in, either
the salt, or the mustard, or something else has been left behind; but,
to-day, I believe Sarah has remembered everything!"
"Yes, I'm sure she has, auntie dear!" cried Miss Nellie with equal
enthusiasm. "Here's the kettle for us to boil; and the teapot, and
teacups, too, all ready for our tea, auntie, after lunch."
"She is a good girl, Sarah, and I will reward her for this," said Mrs
Gilmour, giving a final pat to the table-cloth after smoothing it down
and pulling the corners straight. "I'm afraid, though, dearie, we'll
have to wait a precious long time before Captain Dresser and the boys
come back; and, laying the table has made me feel quite hungry, I
declare."
"So am I, auntie," laughed Nell. "The sight of all the nice things is
too much. Let us go away and pick some wild-flowers till the others
come back, eh, auntie?"
"But, how can we leave the things here?" questioned the other. "Suppose
some stranger, passing by, should take a fancy to our nice luncheon?
What a terrible thing it would be to come back and find it gone! Again,
too, just think, your friends the rabbits, dearie, might take it into
their comical little heads to play at hide-and-seek amongst the dishes,
besides nibbling what they liked. How would you like that, eh?"
"Oh, auntie, how funny you are!" cried Nell, quite overcome at the idea
of the bunnies making a playground of their well-arranged table-cloth.
"But you can trust Rover to guard everything safely if we go away."
"Are you sure, dearie?" inquired her aunt. "Quite sure?"
"Certain, auntie, dear, nobody would dare to come near the spot while
he's here, for he'd pretty soon bark, and bite, too! And, as for the
poor rabbits, one sniff of his would send them all scuttling back into
their burrows. Hi, Rover!" Nell called out, after giving this
testimony on his behalf. "Lie down there, good dog, and watch!"
Rover at once cocked an eye and looked in his young mistress's face.
Next, he took note of her pointed finger, which she waved in a sort of
comprehensive curve embracing the table-cloth with its appetising
display of eatables; and then, as if he had made a mental list of all
left in his charge, he laid down in a couchant position at the head of
the table, if such it could be called, with his nose between his paws,
along which his eyes were ready to take aim at any intruder, saying, in
their fixed basilisk stare, "Now, you just touch anything, if you dare,
my friend. I should like to see you attempt it!"
"We can safely leave now, auntie," said Nellie; whereupon she and Mrs
Gilmour strayed off through the bracken, hunting here and there for
flowers on their way.
Almost the first thing to catch their sight, before indeed they had left
the little turfy dell where their paraphernalia was spread out with
Rover in charge, was the pretty rose-coloured blossom of the "ragged
Robin," rising out of the grass. A little further off was a cluster of
the lilac field madder, named after Sherard the eminent botanist, whose
herbarium is still preserved at Oxford. This plant is one of a large
family, numbering over two thousand varieties, from which the well-known
dye, madder, is obtained, though, of late years, aniline colouring
matter has somewhat depreciated its commercial value.
Mrs Gilmour presently picked up something better than either of these,
at least in appearance. This was a little blue flower resembling the
violet, with glossy green leaves that were its especial charm.
"I declare I've found a periwinkle!" she cried--"such a fine one too."
"Oh, let me look, auntie!" said Nell, peeping into her hand. "Dear me,
do you call that a periwinkle?"
"Yes, dearie. Pretty, isn't it? It blooms all the year; and I've seen
it down in Devonshire covering a space of nearly half an acre with its
leaves and blossoms. One of the poets, not Cowper my favourite, though
one equally fond of the world of nature, describes the flower very
nicely. `See,' he says--
"`Where the sky-blue Periwinkle climbs
E'en to the cottage eaves, and hides the wall
And dairy lattice, with a thousand eyes!'"
"What pretty lines, auntie, so very like the flower!" cried Nell when
Mrs Gilmour finished the quotation. "But, do you know, auntie, I
thought when you said you'd found a periwinkle, you meant one to eat,
like those periwinkles I've got in the aquarium you gave me."
"Did you really, though, dearie?" said her aunt, smiling at her very
natural mistake. "It is because you feel hungry, I suppose. You may
eat this one if you like!"
"No, no, auntie," laughed Nellie, "I'm not quite so hungry as that!
But, oh, auntie, here are some of those lovely big daisies we saw when
we first came in the park."
"Those are the daisies that are called the `ox-eye' or moon daisy, my
dear," explained Mrs Gilmour. "You might call them the first cousins--
though only, mind you, a sort of poor relation--of the choice marguerite
daisy that gardeners cultivate and think so highly of. Here, too,
dearie, I see another old friend of mine, whose petals fall just like
snow-flakes on the grass."
"It is almost like the honeysuckle," cried Nellie. "How sweet it
smells!"
"Like its name, dearie," replied the other. "It is called the `meadow-
sweet'; and a delicious perfume can be extracted from it by infusion in
boiling water. The roots of the plant are long tubers, which, when
ground to powder and dried, may be used as a substitute for flour,
should you have any scarcity of that article!"
"I'd rather have the real sort of flour, though, auntie."
"So would I, too, dearie," agreed Mrs Gilmour. "I only told you in
case you may be thrown on a desert island some day, when the information
might be of use in the event of your being without bread."
"But, supposing there was no meadow-sweet there either, auntie?"
"Sure that would be a bad look-out," said Mrs Gilmour, joining in
Nell's laugh. "I think we'd better wait till you get to the desert
island!"
Wandering along, they plucked at their will masses of the wild
convolvulus, or "great bindweed," whose white blossoms, while they
lasted, added much to the general effect of the bouquet Nellie was
making up with her busy fingers from the spoils of coppice and sward.
These, in addition to the flowers they had just picked, now comprised
many other natives of the wood and hedgerow, such as the purple bugloss,
the yellow iris, the star thistle, the common mallow; and, a convolvulus
which was brilliantly pink, in contrast to his white brother before-
mentioned. Besides these, Nellie had also gathered some sprays of the
"toad flax" and "blue succory," a relative of the "endive" tribe, which
produces the chicory-root so much consumed in England, as in France, as
a "substitute" for coffee. A splendid sprig of yellow broom and dear
little bunch of hare-bells, the "blue Bells of Scotland," with two or
three scarlet poppies, a wreath of the aromatic ground ivy and some
fern-leaves for foliage, completed her floral collection.
Stopping beneath a group of trees further on, to listen to the song of a
thrush, which was so full of melody that they approached him quite close
without his noticing them, Nell and her aunt were amused by seeing two
rooks quarrelling over a worm which they had both got hold of at the
same time, one at either end gripping the unfortunate creature; and
gobbling, and tugging, and cawing, at once!
One of these rooks had a white head, which he seemed to cock on one side
in a strangely familiar way to Nell.
"He's just like the Captain!" she exclaimed, tittering at the fancied
resemblance. "Look, auntie, why he actually seems to wink!"
"I declare I'll tell him!" said Mrs Gilmour, enjoying the joke none the
less at the fancied resemblance. "Sure he'd be hoighly delighted."
Then, as they wound round back to the dell through the dense shrubbery,
they re-crossed the little rivulet which they had twice passed over
before.
On the banks of this, although it was too small almost to have "banks,"
properly speaking, Mrs Gilmour pointed out to Nell the "great water
plantain," with its sprigs of little lilac blossoms and beautiful green
leaves, like those of the lily of the valley somewhat. The plant is
said to be used in Russia as a cure for hydrophobia, the good lady
explained; though she added that she could not vouch personally for its
virtues.
Not far from this, too, they found another very curious plant, called in
some places the "cuckoo pint," and in others the "wake robin," or, more
commonly, "lords and ladies." The leaves of this are of a glossy dark-
green and the flower very like the leaf; only, more curved and tinted
inside, with a hue of pale buff that becomes pinkish at the extremities,
the centre pistil being of the same colour. It belongs to the arum
family.
Following the course of the brook, Nellie, a little way on, spied out a
regular bed of the forget-me-not; when Mrs Gilmour told her the old
legend connected with the flower.
How a knight and a lady were sitting by the side of a river; and, on the
lady expressing a desire to have some of the bright blue blossoms "to
braid in her bonny brown hair," the gallant knight at once dashed in the
stream to gratify her wishes. He secured a bunch of the flowers; but,
on turning to regain the shore, the current overcame him; and, as the
old song goes--
"Then the blossoms blue to the bank he threw,
Ere he sunk in the eddying tide;
And `Lady, I'm gone, thine own love true,
Forget-me-not,' he cried.
"The farewell pledge the lady caught;
And hence, as legends say,
The flower's a sign to awaken thoughts
Of friends who are far away!"
"How nice!" cried Nellie-- "How very nice!"
"Not for the poor knight, though," said her aunt. "However, here,
dearie, is another plant not quite so romantic, the old brown scabious,
or `turf-weed.' It is a great favourite with bees, while its roots are
supposed to have valuable medicinal properties, which the country people
well know and estimate at their right worth. In some places they call
it the `Devil's bit'!"
"How funny!" interposed Nellie. "Why do they give it such a strange
name?"
"Yes, it is rather a strange title; but I read once somewhere that the
story about it is, that the Spirit of Evil, envying the good which this
herb might do to mankind, bit away part of it and thence came its name,
`Devil's bit.'"
"Really, auntie," said Nell. "Does it look as if it had been bitten?"
"Yes, the root does," she replied. "But, come, dearie, we must get back
now as fast as we can, or Captain Dresser and the boys will be there
before us and eat up all the luncheon!"
Without stopping to look at any more flowers or curious plants, they
retraced their steps towards the dell, Nellie humming the last line of
the song of the forget-me-not, which she was trying to learn by heart--
"Of friends who are far away! Of friends who are far away"--when,
suddenly, they heard Rover's bark ringing through the woods, its echoes
loud and resonant, like the sound of a deep-toned bell.
"Come on, dearie," called out Mrs Gilmour, who was in advance,
quickening her pace as she spoke, "come on quick, dearie! There's some
one making off with our lunch; and, just think how hungry we are!"
"Don't fear, auntie," said Nell reassuringly behind her; "Rover will not
let any one touch it, you may be certain!"
Nevertheless, she hurried after Mrs Gilmour; and both arrived together,
well-nigh breathless, at the spot where they had left their feast so
nicely laid out.