Some four-and-twenty miles from Curtain Wells on the Great West Road is
a tangle of briers among whose blossoms an old damask rose is sometimes
visible. If the curious traveller should pause and examine this fragrant
wilderness, he will plainly perceive the remains of an ancient garden,
and if he be of an imaginative character of mind will readily recall the
legend of the Sleeping Beauty in her mouldering palace; for some
enchantment still enthralls the spot, so that he who bravely dares the
thorns is well rewarded with pensive dreams and, as he lingers a while
gathering the flowers or watching their petals flutter to the green
shadows beneath, will haply see elusive Beauty hurry past.
Here at the date of this tale stood the _Basket of Roses_ Inn, a mile or
so away from a small village. When coaches ceased to run, the house
began to lose its custom and, as stone is scarce hereabouts, was
presently pulled down in order to provide the Parson with a peculiarly
bleak Parochial Hall.
However, this melancholy fate was still distant, and old Simon Tabrum
had a fine custom from the coaches and private travellers who delighted
to spend a night in so sweet a lodging.
The _Basket of Roses_ was the fairest, dearest inn down all that billowy
London road. The counter, sheathed in a case of pewter, the glasses all
in a row, the sleek barrels and the irregular lines of home-brewed
cordials, charmed the casual visitor to a more intimate acquaintance.
Behind the tap was the Travellers' Room, and what a room it was--with
great open fireplaces and spits and bubbling kettles and blackened
ingles. Long-buried ancestors of the village had carved their rude
initials over each high-backed bench and battered the bottoms of the
great tankards into unexpected dents by many rollicking choruses in the
merry dead past. The walls of this room knew the pedigree of every
bullock and the legend of every ghost for many miles round. Here was the
cleanest floor, the clearest fire in England.
Old Tabrum the landlord was the very man for the house--the very man to
bring out all that was most worthy in his guests. He always produced
good wine and a piping hot supper, never asked for his money till his
guests were satisfied and always wore an apron as white as the foam of
his cool deep ale.
He was eighty years old now, with a bloom on his cheeks like an autumn
pippin and two limpid blue eyes that looked straight into yours and, if
you had any reverence at all, made the tears well involuntarily at the
sight of such gentle beauty.
Once he was a famous Basso Profundo, but now his voice was high and
thin, and seemed already fraught with faint aerial music. The ancient
man was a great gardener as properly became a landlord whose sign was a
swinging posy. What a garden there was at the back of this glorious inn.
The bowling-green surrounded by four grey walls was the finest ever
known, and as for the borders, deep borders twelve feet wide, they were
full of every sweet flower. There were Columbines and Canterbury Bells
and blue Bells of Coventry and Lilies and Candy Goldilocks with Penny
flowers or White Sattin and Fair Maids of France and Fair Maids of Kent
and London Pride.
There was Herb of Grace and Rosemary and Lavender to pluck and crush
between your fingers, while some one rolled the jack across the level
green of the ground. In Spring there were Tulips and Jacynths, Dames'
Violets and Primroses, Cowslips of Jerusalem, Daffodils and Pansies,
Lupins like spires in the dusk, and Ladies' Smocks in the shadowed
corners. As for Summer, why the very heart of high June and hot July
dwelt in that fragrant enclosure. Sweet Johns and Sweet Williams with
Dragon flowers and crimson Peaseblossom and tumbling Peonies, Blue
Moonwort and the Melancholy Gentlemen, Larksheels, Marigolds, Hearts,
Hollyhocks and Candy Tufts. There was Venus' Looking Glass and Flower of
Bristol and Apple of Love and Blue Helmets and Herb Paris and Campion
and Love in a Mist and Ladies' Laces and Sweet Sultans or Turkey
Cornflowers, Gillyflower Carnations (Ruffling Rob of Westminster amongst
them) with Dittany and Sops in Wine and Floramor, Widow Wail and
Bergamot, True Thyme and Gilded Thyme, Good Night at Noon and Flower de
Luce, Golden Mouse-ear, Princes' Feathers, Pinks, and deep-red Damask
Roses.
It was a very wonderful garden indeed.
And because the old man loved flowers, tending them in the early
twilight with water and releasing them from many a small weed which he
was fain to destroy, but in the end always replanted in a small clearing
on the shady side of his farthest meadow, because he loved flowers, the
old man, whose first wife died years and years ago on a long past
primrose-tide, married in the hale winter of his life a comfortable
wench whom he could trust as he trusted his flowers to be true to their
seasons. This second wife, more like a daughter than a wife, he
delighted to surprize with fragrant rolls of gaily sprigged cloths; and
never a summer morning broke but he was abroad in the dewy grass to
gather her such a posy of freshness and beauty as can only be taken in
the earliest hours of the morning. Mrs. Tabrum, for all she was so young
and rosy, had a great feeling for the importance of her position as
mistress of a famous hostelry and ordered about little Polly Patch,
newly arrived from Mrs. Margery Severe's select charity school, with a
great air of ladyship. Little Polly Patch was a very important young
woman too; for the _Basket of Roses_ was not a large galleried inn full
of grooms and hostlers and waiters and chambermaids, but a house of
quite another character, where you were never bewildered by superfluous
service but always received with a quiet dignity. Therefore you paid a
great deal of respectful attention to little Polly Patch who had a great
deal to do with your night's rest and your morning's breakfast. I think
Mr. Vernon was a very wise man to choose a domestick fairyland so apt to
soothe the sweet alarms of his Phyllida.
Here they would sup while the horses were being changed, and hence they
would set out in the darkness, preserving, as they galloped along, a
sense of peace and quiet beauty that should be to her the fortunate
prelude of a happy adventure.
Vernon had sent word to the house of their arrival, hinted at the
fatigues of a gay bridal, and let it be supposed they desired no
intrusion.
To the ancient man such a confidence was enough to set his old brain
agog with the gallant scenes of his youth. He chuckled over every
tankard of ale he drew, told every one of his daffodils the merry secret
and piped away at long forgotten melodies until his wife in despair sat
him down in the ingle, put a broken fiddle in his hand and bade him play
his fancies to sleep. The storm that rose at sunset shrieked about the
inn, and the hollow groaning in the mazes of the huge chimney consorted
in fitting harmonies with the old man's eerie tunes.
"March is going out wi' thunder and tempest like a roaring lion," he
muttered, as a sudden gust of hail was blown against the lattice which
pattered and rattled as if a crowd of elfin drummers were beating a wild
tattoo without.
"Aye, 'tis a main ugly night," said Mrs. Dorothy Tabrum, who was laying
the shining silver about the snowy tablecloth.
"So 'tis, my peony, so 'tis! A main ugly night for daffodils and young
brides. Is her chamber ready?" he went on.
"Aye! Aye!"
"Wi' rosy curtains drawn close?"
Mrs. Tabrum nodded.
"Wi' candlelight and the cracking of logs and green bayleaves in the
presses?"
"Why, do'ee think I'm gone daft to forget suchlike?"
"And a vase of daffodils by her mirrour?" the ancient one persisted.
Polly Patch came in at that moment.
"All be ready, mistress," she said in a slow voice, solemnly nodding her
enormous mobcap while she spoke.
"Now Polly," said Mrs. Tabrum, "lend a hand wi' this table and lets put
'un a thought nearer to the fire. Ugh! how it blows!" A vivid flash of
lightning illuminated the room, and on the heels of a terrifick roar of
thunder there was a cry of 'House! House!'
"Hurry, hurry, my daisies, and make who comes there welcome. Jacob!
Jacob!" cried the old landlord as, much excited, he rose from his seat
in the ingle and quavered towards the taproom.
"You are sure the candles are lighted, Polly?"
"Sarten, mistress."
"And the logs burning brightly?"
"'Ess mistress."
"And the curtains pinned together?"
"'Ess mistress."
"Then stand by the door, curtsey when you're spoken to, and don't put
your thumb in the soup."
"No, mistress."
"Is Mary Maria watching the fowls?"
"Wi' both her eyes, mistress."
"Hark!"
"I'm harking away, mistress."
And while the mistress and the maid harked vigilantly the ancient
landlord ushered Miss Phyllida Courteen into the Travellers' Room of the
_Basket of Roses_ Inn.
As he entered, old Tabrum looked very much like a sexton leading a shy
maid to the altar. She, flustered, expectant, murmured soft thanks into
the farthest recesses of her swansdown muff, stumbled frequently to the
voluble distress of her guide, and seemed afraid to look round the
well-ordered comfortable room after so many miles of wind and driving
rain.
"Dear soul! And where's the bridegroom?" exclaimed Mrs. Tabrum, as she
led Phyllida to a high-backed chair right before the heart of the
blazing fire.
Phyllida blushed as she explained Mr. Amor was travelling on horseback.
"Indeed, I expected to find him here," she stammered, "Oh! I hope
nothing has happened to him."
"Now, don't 'ee fret thyself, sweet marjoram," said the ancient one,
humming round her like a bee. "A'most anything might have happened to
him on such a dreadful night."
"Don't 'ee hark to the ancient dodderer," interrupted the dodderer's
wife.
"Killed by a falling tree, withered to a cinder by bloody lightning."
"You alarm me," exclaimed Phyllida, jumping up.
"Hold thy ancient foolish tongue," commanded Mrs. Tabrum peremptorily,
"and go see that Mary Maria keeps the fowls turning a while yet."
"Very well, my gillyflower, very well," piped senility, "but don't 'ee
take on, my little blue love-in-a-mist, happen 'tis no more than a
broken leg has overtook your husband."
"Polly," said Mrs. Tabrum, who saw that Phyllida was on the verge of
tears, "take thy ancient master away. Hark," she finished, with an
impressive forefinger.
"What are us to hark to, pretty pink?"
"Ef I doant hear a great tom-cat a-scratching in the tulips, my name
be'ant Dorothy Ann Tabrum."
As at this moment the tempest outside was howling with unsurpassed fury,
it is extremely doubtful whether the buxom lady spoke the truth, but her
husband was alert at once and hastily snatching down a blunderbuss
labelled 'Loaded on Tuesday sennight' Simon Tabrum moved stealthily from
the room.
"You must pardon my ancient old husband for his flowery manner of
speech. 'Tis not disrespect he do mean, but love and charity wi' his
neighbour, having as it were been sown a power of years ago and being
now apt to let his withered branches fall on the heads of all manner of
folk."
As this long sentence was evidently considered a full and proper
explanation of the dodderer's inconvenient habit of prophecy, Phyllida
smiled very charmingly and said she quite understood.
"And now let us gossip of thy wedding," said Mrs. Tabrum in a cosy tone
of voice, "or would 'ee rather go to thy chamber, pretty miss?"
"Oh! indeed I will stay here, thank you. Mr. Amor might come at any
moment."
"Polly! Polly Patch!"
"'Ess, mistress."
"What for are 'ee standing there, lolloping thy great cap, dollop. Be
off, great clockface, be off, pundle, to Mary Maria, and tell her to
keep the fowls a-turning and a-turning."
Polly Patch curtseyed solemnly and retreated slowly, murmuring to
herself, "and not to put my thumbs in the soup."
"Do you think he will be a very long time?" asked Phyllida, turning
suddenly to the landlady and looking indescribably wistful.
"What I can't make out, my lamb, is how he came to leave 'ee on such a
night. That's what I can't make out at all. Now at my bride-ale, for all
I was wedding a man old enough to be my ancestor, why it was bride-ale,
I do warrant. My aged husband being a publican and a sinner, there was a
mort of merry-making, I tell 'ee, and 'twas only when Tabrum slipped on
the floor and cracked the back of his faded head as we finished, and me
forced to use the holland smock as I won at Ascensiontide smock-racing.
Oh! his head was so raw as an egg, and running faster than ever I run
for the smock."
"How dreadful," murmured Phyllida, not quite sure whether the narrative
should offend her maiden sensibility or not.
"But he was out wi' the hens next morning," the talkative lady
continued, "out wi' the hens and scratching away in the garden as hard
as any of 'em. But, I tell 'ee, I did souse his head wi' vinegar when I
got 'un indoors. The house smelt like a jar of pickle for a week o'
Sundays after. But there! Tabrum he gets ascited. Don't matter whether
'tis his own or another's wedding, he's all the while jumping around
like a Shrovetide pancake. And talk--well, 'tis babble, babble, and all
of men and maids as was under yews twenty green years ago. I tell 'ee,
we all laffed when he began telling 'ow he kissed my grandmother coming
out of Evening Prayer one frosty night. 'The moon was on her back,' he
says, 'ay, and ecod! so was she!' Pretty times, pretty times!"
What farther free confessions would have rippled from Mrs. Tabrum's
cherry-ripe lips, it would ill become a modest writer or reader to
speculate. They were cut short by the lurching entrance of Charlie and
Dicky Maggs, the two postillions.
It would have been hard to find a more ill-favoured pair of ruffians in
a day's posting. Both of them had dismounted very regularly at every
house of call on the road and arrived at the _Basket of Roses_ with a
considerable cargo of bad spirits. The prospect of a long wait, while
the horses were changed and their fares supped, encouraged them to
farther excesses, and a lucky summons to the drawer to reach down a
special cordial gave them an opportunity to finish off the greater part
of a bottle of Plymouth Gin.
Fortified by this, annoyed to find that Vernon had not arrived, and half
afraid they would lose their wages, they had come in to extract from
Miss Courteen as much money as they could, being willing and anxious to
drink away every minute of the wait.
"Ve're vet, Miss," said Charles.
"And it vouldn't be amiss if ve could 'ave a little piece of gold as 'ud
varm us wiv its shining," said Dicky.
"Mr. Amor will settle your charges," said Phyllida.
"And be off, you ruffians," exclaimed Mrs. Tabrum, enraged by this
impudent invasion of the Travellers' Room.
"Shut your mouth, mother Appleface," hiccoughed Charlie.
"And fork out somefink on account, Miss," oozed from his brother.
The latter began to move with uncertain steps after Phyllida, who shrank
towards the shelter of the inglenook.
"Jacob! Jacob! Simon Tabrum! Polly Patch! Mary Maria!" screamed the
landlady, snatching at the only article of offence in reach, which
happened to be a pair of bellows. With these she puffed away furiously,
to the enormous delight of the drunken postillions, who continued to
advance and indeed probably found the air of the bellows very grateful
to their heated brains.
It is unlikely that anything more serious than a volley of oaths would
have occurred, if a tall elderly gentleman in a chestnut-brown frogged
riding-coat had not come in at that moment; but as he did come in, no
doubt the room was the sweeter for the interruption.
"Oh, your honour," said Mrs. Tabrum, "will 'ee please turn out these
drunken rogues, seeing as all the house is away at their business and no
one near by."
The elderly gentleman clenched his riding-stick a trifle more firmly and
directed his steel-grey eyes--equally potent weapons--towards the
abashed brothers. They did not wait to be addressed, but hurried as
quickly as the fumes of liquor allowed them, to the more congenial
atmosphere of the taproom. It is comforting to reflect, while they
twisted their way out, that Charlie and Dicky Maggs were hanged at
Tyburn for a peculiarly atrocious robbery and brutal assault upon a
blind rat-tamer, who, with many clinging rats and mice and a
scarlet-frilled dog, was a familiar figure in the villages round London.
It is not perhaps so comforting to reflect upon the poor old man lying
insensible in a puddle, with his tame rats and mice wandering aimlessly
in and out of his innumerable pockets and his scarlet-frilled dog with
three broken ribs moaning in the middle of a quickset bush. Egad! I vow
the Tyburn horse never responded so readily to Jack Ketch's whip and
never a pair of rogues went so ashen grey at the tide of a mob's
execrations in all the livid chronicles of quick and evil ends.
The elderly gentleman in the chestnut Surtout turned from the exit of
Charlie and Dickie Maggs to survey the subject of their insolence. It
would have puzzled an onlooker to say precisely what effect was produced
on the elderly gentleman's countenance by this deliberate inspection of
Miss Phyllida Courteen, now melting in tears of apprehension and only
barely restrained from hystericks by Mrs. Tabrum's plump hands in
extensive motion.
When the iron-grey clouds of a chill December afternoon dissolve for a
moment in the scud of a high gale and shed a ray of pallid sunlight on a
spent blossom, we are almost glad to see the thin azure thus displayed
as quickly veiled, and welcome the sullen twilight that succeeds. The
elderly gentleman's countenance took on for a brief moment a strange
light, but the frosted smile betrayed so much grim sorrow behind that it
was quite a relief to see his face resume a normal frigidity as he
muttered a regret and inquired into the chances of a good night's
lodging.
_Chapter the Thirtieth_