Chapter IV: April (1)

"Strowe me the ground with daffodoundilles
And cowslips and king-cups, and loved lillies,
The pretie pawnce,
And the cheveraunce
Shall match with the fayre flowre Delice."
SPENSER, _Shepherd's Calendar_.

A soft sweet day. A gentle rain had fallen all through the night, and the sense of spring was everywhere. Soft mellow sunshine flooded into the house. How the chestnut buds glistened in the sunlight, all damp, and sticky, and a few even had begun to uncurl.

The almonds were out in sheets of rosy pink blossom. Bees were humming everywhere, and thrushes were piping their jubilant strains on every gnarled apple tree.

I asked at breakfast for my little maid, but I was told that she was not yet down, and even our irreproachable butler Fremantle seemed almost inclined to laugh, if such a sedate and irreproachable person can descend to such levity, as he told me that Miss Bess, he feared, would be a little late that morning.

I had, as it happened, many letters to answer, and so forgot to trouble about Bess, for I had heard her chirp like a bird between six and seven in the morning, and therefore was not anxious. I remembered now that Bess had been often up to tea at the Red House of late, and that when Constance and she had met, they had whispered much, and that Bess had often caught her hand and held it tightly before parting, and then bubbled over with happy laughter. Once, when I asked Bess the cause of all this mystery, she replied, "Only white secrets, mum," and Constance had laughed too, and repeated the child's words, "Only white secrets."

Whilst I stuck down my letters, I recalled these little half-forgotten episodes, when suddenly the door was flung open with a bang, and Bess stood before me; but not my every-day little Bess in short petticoats, and white pinafore, and her locks hanging round her, with a mane like a Church Stretton pony's, but my little Bess clothed in a fancy-ball costume, in that of a diminutive jester of the fourteenth century, with cap and bells, in little yellow and pink tights with satin embroidered vest, and her luxuriant locks confined in a cap.

She entered shaking her bells merrily, and as I started up in surprise, she exclaimed, "Don't say anything, mamsie, please don't. Wait till you have heard my verse, or you will spoil everything. Constance has learnt it me, and I have said it over and over again. You see it is All Fools' Day, and I must give you a surprise, for Nana says, a surprise is next best to a birthday."

And then my little girl faced me, in the middle of the old chamber, with the great stone altar as a background, and piped aloud in her gay childish way. The old rhyme somewhat altered--

"When April her Folly's throne exalts,
While Dob calls Nell, and laughs because she halts,
While Nell meets Tom, and says he too must play,
Then laughs in turn, and laughing runs away,
Let us my muse thro' Folly's harvest range
And glean some moral into Wisdom's grange."

[Sidenote: AN APRIL FOOL]

It is an old rhyme, and I am told that Constance had taught it to my little maid. I stood looking at my dear little fool, all blushes and sweet smiles. "Constance," continued Bess, "was sure it would make you laugh." And then, after a pause, she added, "I have not done yet. Listen; I know all the funny things, pit-pat. Miss Weldon may not find me clever, but Constance says I learnt at once what she taught me. You see, mum, it is all fun, and fun with Constance is better than boxes of sugar-plums;" and here my little lass began to cut a hundred capers, to jingle her bells, and to dance gaily, calling out, "There are heaps of funny things to do. I must send Burbidge on a sleeveless errand, tell Absalom to go for the map of the Undiscovered Islands, and send Célestine for pigeons' milk, and won't she be cross! Crabs won't be in it, no, not if they were steeped in vinegar for a month, Nana says." And away danced my little lass into the brilliant April sunshine.

I did not catch what she said to the old gardener outside, but I heard a deep roar of laughter from Burbidge, and a bass duet of guffaws, from Absalom and Roderick; and a minute later Burbidge entered from the garden and told me, his face beaming with honest pleasure, that "Miss Bess was the gayest little Folly that had ever come to Wenlock, and would surely make folks laugh like an ecall come what might."

A few minutes later, and Bess flew off to her old nurse and to Auguste, and both I heard, by their shrill exclamations, affected to be overcome with laughter at her approach. Inside and outside, on this first of April, I heard sounds of merriment, as if a return to old customs had come back, and as if loud and jocund mirth had not died out of simple hearts. I thought of all the old games, plays, quips, and pranks, that the old walls of the Abbey Farmery must have heard and seen in the Middle Ages, for even the monks allowed times of folly and revelry, at Yule-tide and Candlemas, I have read; and on the first of April, All Fools' Day, many must have been the hearty laugh, and simple joke, that folks made and passed on each other in Wenlock town, and all over old England.

I popped my letters into the box for post, and stepped out, as my task for the day was accomplished. The morning was enchantingly beautiful. "Old Adam" glistened beneath the sundial like a wondrous jewel, the eyes in his tail seemed of a hundred tints. He appeared, as Buffon said, "to combine all that delights the eye in the soft, and delicate tints of the finest flowers, all that dazzles it in the sparkling lustre of gems, and all that astonishes it, in the grand display of the rainbow." His tail appeared of a hundred tints, and the red gold of the featherlets round the eyes flashed as if illuminated by fire. His grey, subdued wives, walked meekly beside him, and cast upon him humble glances of admiration, while he strutted before them with the pride of a Scotch piper, and expanded his tail with a strange mechanical whirr, that recalled the winding-up of some rich, elaborate, modern toy.

Down by the Abbey pond I saw the two swans swimming, but, every now and then, the male bird seemed almost to leap out of the water in the delight of spring, and beat the water with his great snowy wings as he drove across the glass-like expanse at a furious rate, making the little wavelets rise and fall and dance, in a crystal shimmer over reeds and grass.

Suddenly a little moor-hen dipped and bobbed out of the reeds. With an angry cry, one of the swans went for her, and I thought, for a moment, the poor little bird must have fallen a victim to his murderous beak; but the little black bird, as Burbidge would have said, "was nimble as ninepence," and doubled, and dived, before her enemy could reach her. It was very good to be out. Life seemed enough. The island in the centre of the Abbot's pond had become a sheet of primroses, and looked as if it had been sown with stars; and as I stood in the garden, the scent of the crimson ribes reached me. What a rich perfume it was! and what a distance it carried. In the full sunshine it was almost like incense, swung before the high altar of some old-world cathedral. I wandered away into the red-walled garden. How busy Burbidge was! The fir branches and matting were to be taken down off the tea-roses, and away from the beautiful purple and lavender clematises, my autumn splendours.

[Sidenote: WINTER COVERINGS REMOVED]

Beautiful Mrs. George Jackman, that shone like a great full moon in the dusk on clear summer nights, was now to be allowed "to open out," as gardeners say, and the sun and soft winds were once more to play with her tender leaves, and delicate tendrils.

Then the exquisite tea hybrid roses, such as Augustine Guinoiseau la France, and that richest of all the noisettes, William Allen Richardson, were to dispense with their protecting fir branches. The time had come for them to feel the joy of full sunlight again, and the tree peonies were no longer to be enveloped in tawny fern branches, or to lie smothered in litter.

As I stood in the pathway, I heard Burbidge walking up and down the paths, giving orders in the Shropshire tongue that I love so well.

A mantle of spring splendour had fallen upon all. Lines of yellow crocuses shone like threads of gold. Crown Imperials were opening their rich brown, metallic-looking blossoms. Pink and white daphne bushes perfumed the air, and I noted that a host of hungry bees were humming greedily round them. Chionodoxas of all shades, were looking enchantingly fair. The blue Sardensis was opening its petals, of the same wonderful sapphire-blue shade as the Alpine gentian. Then in blossom also I noted Chionodoxa Luciliæ, that had the delicacy and daintiness of a piece of china, and lovely Alleni, that recalled the beauty of a sunset sky when the gold is dying, and when celestial amber is dissolving and melting into exquisite tones of mauve and lavender.

A little later, I found Burbidge hard at work pruning my great bed of hybrid teas, and hybrid perpetual roses, that I have planted with alternate rows of old Dutch and Darwin tulips, with English and Spanish irises, and with lines of grape and Botryoides hyacinths. "Us must get a bit of the bush off," said my old gardener, as he plied his pruning scissors. I begged him, however, not to cut my hybrid teas too hard, as now so many gardeners are inclined to do, for roses in Shropshire, it seemed to me, did not like too much of the knife, or of the French drastic treatment. "Let it be a rose _bush_ in England," I pleaded.

"Right you are, ma'am," replied Burbidge, "for there's many as uses the knife as a child the whip. Most of the roses here be on their own roots, and so, healthy and abiding. Manetti stuff have blooms big as saucers the first year, but go out the next year like candles as the wind's overmastered. They be like most fandangles--no stay in them."

[Sidenote: THE VERMILLION ROSE]

So saying, my old friend plied his scissors vigorously, and the click, click, resounded all through the garden. Before I left the red-walled garden, I had a word with my old gardener about my hedge of Austrian briars. What a wonderful single rose it is, and the variety is very ancient. Parkinson mentions it in his "Theatre of Plants," and calls it "the vermilion rose of Austria." If we prune it this year, we shall get no flowers, I lamented, and I am always very loth to let the pruning shears work their will with my pet rose. Then I turned to my moss roses: pink, white, purple, and the most beautiful variety of all, the old crested. They were all big bushes and must be kept in shape, but should not be pruned in the ordinary sense.

Besides these sorts already named, I grow in my garden the beautiful roses of Japan--the purple and white, and the semi-duplex kinds, all of which bear such superb hips in the autumn. I told Burbidge that we must net some of the bushes in autumn, and that I would try later and get some German recipes for making them into preserves. In Elizabethan days, I have read, "Cooks and their ladies did know how to prepare from hips many fine dishes for their tables." Burbidge scoffed at this notion. "Let the wild things be, marm," he said to me; and added, "I never heard of much that was good wild, but nuts." At this I laughed and replied, "Wait and see--and taste."

Burbidge told me, that he proposed to carry out the bees in their little wooden houses next week. "Come next Thursday, bee operations should begin," my old friend assured me. Nine was the hour chosen, and, if fine, "us will have the masks, so that come a breakage the little brown folk can't come to us--and the vermin make sore flesh of us." To-day, as I went into the tool-house I heard the bees buzzing angrily, as if they could not keep quiet for anger.

"To-morrow," Burbidge then informed me, he and the boys would paint all the "bees' homes over, save the lips, in different colours." These must, in his language, remain "simple;" but "come Thursday, us will take off the zinc stopper on each, and then the little brown uns can roam as they list."

All last winter, since November, the bees had lived in the tool-house, and had been artificially fed for the last fortnight, so that, to use my old friend's words, "they be fair nasty with temper, and buzzin' like an organ on fire." And now nothing remained but for Auguste, as he always did, to make them one last meal of burnt sugar, and solemnly to "inviter ces messieurs à faire leur miel." Their appointed time of liberty was at hand, and in a few days the little brown folk would fly into the sunshine with pæans of joy.

I went into the tool-house with Burbidge. Burbidge is a man of order. Every night he makes "his boys" hang up the tools, after cleaning them with care. Those not in use shine brightly against the wall. Every night they are rubbed clean with a rag steeped in oil. Great strings of onions hung from the massive oak beams. During bad days in winter, when the snow lay on the ground, Burbidge and his men mended the fruit nets, painted the water-cans a brilliant red, or green, made wooden labels, and got ready, as they called it, "for the comin' of summer."

There, along one side, were the beehives, some eight in all--all to be painted in different colours. Burbidge holds the view that no two should be painted the same colour, so that each hive, as he calls it, "should drop on their own colour sharp." What truth there may be in this idea I cannot say, but I was delighted to oblige my old friend in this respect, for I, too, like bright colours in a garden.

Burbidge took out of an oak locker his colour board for the year. "I know, marm, as yer be tasty with a needle," he said, "and I'll leave it to you to say what pleases you and the brown folk most." I suggested shades of blue, and told him of the Scotch belief that bees of all colours love blue best. But Burbidge would not admit this. "I never heard _that_ in Shropshire," he said stoutly. "Don't believe it, nor a letter of it. Orange or purple, I believe, be every bit as good as blue." Then I asked Burbidge about the old Shropshire bees that learned folks in bee-lore have told me were descended from the old wild bees that the British had, and of which there are still swarms in straw skeps in far-away farmhouses nestling against the Clee. But about these wild bees Burbidge knew nothing, but only felt certain that anything "as be Shropshire born be bound to be good."

Then I chose the colours--red, flame, crimson, salmon, mauve, pink, the delicate shade of the autumn crocus, jonquil yellow, and one or two shades of blue--and particularly the dear old-fashioned bleu de Marie that one meets in an Italian sky, as beautiful in its way as the breast of "old Adam" (the peacock) against a yew hedge on a fine March morning in full sunlight.

It was a lovely spring morning on that Thursday, the appointed day for the removal of the bees to summer quarters.

[Sidenote: MOONLIGHTERS AT WORK]

Bess and I had a cup of milk and a slice of bread and butter, the best of all morning breakfasts, and ran out to see the sport. Burbidge was there with his boys, looking all of them like marauders, or moonlighters, for their faces were clothed with masks and their hands were covered with thick gloves.

Bess grasped tight hold of my hand. "Mamsie, how wicked they look, as if they meant to kill some one," she whispered.

As to Mouse, she could not contain her displeasure. She gave a series of low growls, and, for all she knew them, did not like their coming too near us.

Burbidge propped back the garden gate with a stout staff. Then they carried the little wooden houses out. What an angry sound of buzzing went on inside, as the men bore them along. "Steady, steady!" cried Burbidge, in a tone of command, "or the little brown people will burst themselves with rage, and then, boys, it will be run for it who can."

After this note of warning, "the two boys" advanced very gently and placed the beehives in turn along the side of a path under the shade of an apple grove, and stood them facing south and east. "That be your home," said Burbidge, and then gravely proceeded to whisper "a charm." What that was I have never been able to discover, for Burbidge declared it to be a secret between him and the little brown 'uns, and if it was known the good would go with "gossamer wings." There is something about spring and blossom, and sun, and gentle rain, an old woman once told me, but the exact words old Nelly Fetch wouldn't tell me, and declared, like Burbidge, "that charms and rhymes were best kept between bees and bee-keepers, same as words to the bees when death had visited a family." It is believed in Shropshire that bees are canny, touchy folk, and that those who wish to keep them must be civil and knowledgeable, and, "plaize 'em as little sweethearts," as an old cottager once said to me, "or the bees wud mak' yer rue it."

"Whispering a death" is still a common custom. I remember once asking a farmer's wife, who used to be noted for her bees, if she had any honey to sell, and being gravely told that she was out of bees, for that they had forgotten when the master died to whisper his death to them, and in consequence the bees had taken to the woods in displeasure.

[Sidenote: "PAINTS NEXT BEST TO WATER"]

Bess and I watched the proceedings, and when all the hives were fixed in their places, we put on old aprons and helped to daub on the paint. Burbidge had mixed little cans of each colour, pink, yellow scarlet, and flame, crimson, jonquil, and blue. Bess was delighted with the little pots and the brushes. "Mamsie, I am certain of one thing," she said, "paints are next best to water." And in a few moments the little face, hands, and pinafore, reflected all the colours of the rainbow.

In ten minutes or so, we had given each hive one coat of colour, and we never give more. Then we all went and stood at the other end of the garden to see the effect of our handiwork.

"Fine, very fine," exclaimed Burbidge, admiringly. "A horse in bells couldn't look smarter." And Bess added, "Mamsie, it's like a bunch of flowers, only there are no leaves." As we remained there, Auguste came on the scene. He appeared with a pail of syrup to feed the bees, for bees will always feed with avidity when put out first into the air, however dainty or reluctant they have been to eat when kept in confinement. A large bottle with a broad opening, full of thick syrup, was filled, and fixed upside down on the top of each hive. We heard behind the perforated zinc a mighty din. "Messieurs les abeilles crient pour leur dîner," said Auguste.

Overhead was the sunshine, and the bees scented the breeze. Burbidge filled each bottle, and then replaced the wooden lid of each hive. "Stand back, marm!" he cried, "and you, too, Monsieur." Then Burbidge called his "boys," and they removed the little pieces of zinc that had kept the bees so long prisoners. Out they flew with exultant hums and buzzes.

"They wud have liked to cut their way through," cried Absalom, "but zinc, for all their cunning, be the masters of they."

"They'll be contented now," laughed Burbidge. "Sugar and sunshine, what more can a bee desire?"

There is a great art in making bee syrup, like there is in doing most country things. Syrup should be clear and of the right thickness, and not too liquid; above all, it should not be too thin, so as to pass too quickly through the muslin, or, in Burbidge's words, "it would drown the bees like flies in a jar of cream."

After watching the bees come out and fly round in exultant joy, Bess and I returned to the house, for, as Bess said, the "bee play" was over for to-day. How busy the little brown people will be gathering fresh honey, flying amongst the arabis and searching for celandines and primroses.

We went in, and Bess ran up to her lessons. Alas! study to my little maid is always a period of sadness. "Real children never like lessons," is my little girl's dictum. They don't like useless things; and to Bess, French, geography, history, and music are all useless and worthless acquisitions. As I sat and embroidered in the Chapel Hall, I was suddenly told that a boy outside wished to speak to me. I left a carnation spray, a copy of a design of one of Mary Queen of Scots', and looked up to welcome Thady Malone, a little Irish lad, who, with his father and mother, had lately come into the parish.

Thady is the terror of the locality, and the hero of all the naughty-boy stories of the neighbourhood.

[Sidenote: "MORE DEVIL THAN BOY"]

According to my old gardener, who looks at him with an evil eye, "Thady be more devil than boy." Burbidge declares that Thady is a plague, and a sore to the town, and "wull be the death of some 'un, unless he kills hisself first." The fact is, Thady has done every naughty thing conceivable. He has fired woods, put strings across roads, I have been told, to try and trip up his natural enemy, James Grogan, the reigning policeman, and even put logs across the little local line, I have been assured; but this he stoutly denies himself. He has been thrashed by indignant farmers for running their sheep, and yet, as Bess says, always turns up "naughty and nice," with the politest of manners, which he gets from "auld Oireland," and the sweetest and most innocent of baby faces out of which natural wickedness ever peeped.

A minute later and Thady stood before me, bare-legged and bonny, with an expectant smile in his eyes. I opened the conversation by asking him from where he came? "Right from Mrs. Harley." And he added, with a catch in his throat, "The poor lady is like to die entirely, judging by what Mrs. Betty said, and so I have come to you to see what your leddyship can do to stop the disease."

Thady spoke in the most engaging brogue, and he had the sunniest, pleasantest smile in the world. He stood before me, with his little bare feet shyly touching the fringe of the carpet.

No other child in the old town goes barefoot. He is known at Wenlock by the nickname of "Naughty Bare-legs," and has a shock of curly hair and dancing grey-blue eyes.

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

Thady scratched his head and looked puzzled, declared he didn't know, but protested there was nothing he wouldn't do to oblige Mrs. Harley, for all, he averred, "she's a hathan, and never says a prayer to the blessed Virgin."

It appeared that once some naughty boys at Homer nearly succeeded in drowning Mrs. Harley's tortoiseshell kitten, but that Thady, hearing the poor little beast mew, fearlessly came to its rescue, fought his way through the thick of the band of miscreants, and told them they were nothing but base robbers, that they should be the death of something bigger; and before they had recovered from their surprise, had dashed through the ring, plunged out of the brook, and carried off poor pussie victoriously. After this, Mrs. Harley had always been a friend of his, filled his pockets with damsons in autumn, and apples, and when the world turned a cold shoulder on him, never failed to hold out to him the hand of friendship.

"For all I'm bad," Thady would say, with a twinkle in his eye, "Mrs. Harley never believes the worst of me, and says (God bless her!) the day will come when the country will be proud of me."

There was no time to be lost, so I followed the little bare-legged messenger out of the room, ran upstairs, put on my hat and cape, and whistled my great dog to heel. I said before starting, "Is there nothing I ought to take to her?"

Whereupon Thady answered impetuously, with the romance of his people, "There's just nothing at all. It's just your face, my leddy, which the poor body wants to get a sight of, considerin' it's never the shadow of the blessed Virgin that she can bless her eyes with."

So without another word, Thady and I passed out of the Abbey, hurried across the emerald velvet of the Cloister lawn, and let ourselves out by the little side wicket, and so up the meadow past the station and away to the top of the hill. "I cannot run any more," at last I cried to Thady, who had set the pace. "We must walk. See, even Mouse is panting." Thady stopped, and then we settled down into a walk, and began after a few minutes to chat.

Thady looked at Mouse. "Proud I'd be, my leddy," he said, "if I owned such a dog. The constable, I'm thinking, would look a small man beside me then."

At this sally I had the ill-nature to suggest the constable could shoot Mouse. Whereupon Thady, with Hibernian readiness, replied, "Now I'm thinking the dog would bite first."

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

A little later a bird flew across the path, upon which Thady cried out, "A Kitty wren, begorra!" and before I could stop him, had picked up a pebble to throw at a little golden-crested wren that I saw running up a spray of yew.

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

"Why not?" said Thady. "There's no law in England or Oireland against killin' a wren, beside"--and he what the Shropshire folks call "rippled over" with laughter--"'twould be a pretty shot."

But I begged him to desist, and Thady, who is civility itself, or, as he quaintly expresses it, "born dutiful entirely to a leddy," dropped his stone and we walked on. After a few minutes' conversation, I discovered that Thady Malone was a naturalist of no mean repute, that he could imitate the call and various notes of most of the wild birds, and that he knew where to find their nests. "And if it's after such," he added gallantly, "that yer fancy takes yer, I'll lead yer and show yer the rarest birds that fly. Only wait another fortnight, pheasants, hawks, magpies, jays, blackcaps, blue-bonnets, Nanny washtails, heather lenties, red-poles, cutty wrens, corbie crows, Harry redcaps, and scores of others." Many of Thady's names I did not know, but Thady was graciously inclined, and assured me that he would "learn my leddyship the true names." "I don't call them after the books whatever," he asserted, "but same as the gipsy folks, and by the names known by the people that lived in London, and elsewhere, before us settled in Wenlock."

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

"Let it be Saturday," said Thady, authoritatively, "for then there's no school to plague the life out of a fellow. I can climb and you can cap," by which Thady meant that I was to carry the eggs.

"Thady," I said, as we parted at Mrs. Harley's wicket, "you must come for me some Saturday. We will go into the woods, and I will bring out luncheon, and you shall climb the trees, whilst I and Bess will search the ground; but we will take no nests, only look at them and see the eggs."

"Leave the eggs, and what for will her leddyship do that?" asked Thady, surprised. "That wud be like catching a hare and not finding it in the pot the night after."

"Well," I remonstrated, "when you come with me, you must play my game of bird-nesting. Anyway, I can promise there will be nothing sick, or sorry, where we have gone."

Thady at this laughed a little contemptuously, and a second later vanished behind a hedgerow, and I entered Mrs. Harley's cottage.

It was a lovely morning, bright and joyous. The air was full of spring odours, and in the song of the birds I only heard the echo of universal joy. Yet I knew, the moment I entered the cottage, that the hand of Death was about to beckon my old friend away from the good and useful life, that she had led so well and bravely, to the other side of the bourn from which no man returns.

Old Bessie met me. "Her's goin' fast," she whispered, and stood a moment in the sunlight, hot tears almost blinding her poor old eyes. Then, as I hesitated, she touched me gently on the arm and murmured, "Come up, come up. Glad her'll be to see you, for all her's done with Homer, and this world too." So I mounted the stairs and again found myself in Mrs. Harley's presence.

Outside beyond the Severn and the Wrekin, the sun was shining gaily. Inside the little chamber, all was spotlessly clean, I noted, as I entered the bed-chamber. I saw the dying woman wanted something, from the way in which her face moved.

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

"Light, light," she murmured as I touched her hand; and then, very low, "A fair day to go Home."

"Her's been talking of nothing but goin' home," said Betsy, reverently; "and her's goin' sure, same as gospel truth."

"All's at peace," whispered my old friend, and took a long, far look of the great hill of which all Shropshire men are so proud. So, smiling tenderly and loving the distant scene, her head sank back, and she seemed gently to fall asleep.

"How peaceful!" I said, awestruck.

"The Lord have a-called her, and her work be done," said Betty solemnly, a little later. "'Tis a good thing," she added, "to have done good work, and I think the Lord loved her for all she was lowly and never trod in high places."

Then I left Betty, and the triumphant serene face, in the little whitewashed chamber. As I departed, I was conscious of having touched the fringe of a very holy garment.

I passed out. And as I met the gladness of the outside world, I knew that some of my old friend's radiance was still lighting my path. After all, I know no better or more blessed things than simple faith, and a noble life, ended by His supreme grace.

Mouse followed at my heels, dutifully walking close behind me. It is curious, the way in which a dog that is often our companion, reflects our mood. The great hound knew that I was absorbed, and gave way to no frolic, chased no rabbit, but kept near, watching me out of her topaz eyes solemnly and with marked concern.

A great stillness seemed to belong to the afternoon. The sun was hidden beneath tender lavender clouds. I crossed a stile and walked amongst the budding grass. Suddenly out of a wood, for the first time in the year, I heard the mystic voice of the cuckoo, calling, calling as if out of a dream.

What a delightful eërie sound it is! Not like a real bird, but like some voice from another world, with its strange power of reiteration, a voice which we cannot do otherwise than listen to; for, as Sir Philip Sidney said, "The cuckoo cometh to you with a tale to hold children from their play, and old men from the chimney corner." From all time men have loved his cry. In the "Exeter Book" occurs the passage--

"Sweet was the song of birds,
The earth was covered with flowers,
Cuckoos announced the year."

[Sidenote: THE CRY OF THE CUCKOO]

I did not see the bird, which lent enchantment to his song. I listened, with budding daisies at my feet, and over Wenlock spire a magic purple light. He seemed to me no bird, but a spirit calling to the world with a gladness that we cannot know. Death and winter must come, but for all that, spring is here, he seemed to say.

Death had come near me, even touched me half an hour ago, but for all the solemn sadness I felt a brief time ago, the joy of life seized me afresh.

As I wandered home across the peaceful fields, the Cuckoo's call seemed spoken and repeated from coppice to hedgerow, and in every mossy dingle. The old nursery rhyme I used to say in childhood came back to me--

"In April
The Cuckoo shows his bill;
In May
He sings all day;
In June
He alters his tune;
In July
Away he'll fly;
Come August
Fly he must."

Yes, I say, fly he must, with summer which is "the sovereign joy of all things," as Piers Ploughman wrote long years ago, and then autumn, and the long chill nights of winter.

There is always a mystery about the cuckoo, as to where he comes from, and where he goes. Far down in the south of India, I have been told, is the only place where the cuckoo is to be found summer and winter alike, calling in the tropics his strange, mystic cry. Be this as it may, he is never with us in Shropshire till the second week in April, and vanishes like a ghost early in August.

Some days later, and it was Palm Sunday, one of the great festivals of old England during the Middle Ages.

There is but little sign left now of the blessing of the boughs, as the rite was performed in mediæval times, save that nearly all the boys present had cut sprigs of the wild willow and placed them in their button-holes, and my little maid, by her old Nana's wish, had a spray pinned in also, amongst the ribbons of her hat. What a lovely blossom it is, that of the wild willow. How delicate the soft grey, and how lovely the brilliant shades of gold. How wonderful is the mixture of both colours, and how exquisitely gold and grey melt into each other.

As I sat in our pew on the northern side of the church, I thought of the old Church Service that once was held there. After the Mass, I have read, it was usual that there should follow the hallowing of the branches and flowers by the priest. I thought, as I sat in church in Protestant England, of how the priest, up to the first half of the sixteenth century, and for long centuries before, stood forth in scarlet cope and blessed the sweet branches and the first flowers of the year. I liked to recall the old rite and custom of entreating the Almighty to bless and sanctify "his creatures," by which was meant branch and blossom, which were laid by lay brothers and novices at the foot of the altar, and then it was nice to think how branch and blossom were broken up and blest, and a spray given to all the devout people assembled. It was a pretty and holy usage, and I could not but feel regret, that so gracious a rite was lost. It must have been a delightful service for little children to witness, and a sweet memory for the old who could remember the happy springs of years gone by.

As we came out of church, I told Bess about the old custom. And Bess said dryly, "Now we have to bless our palm branches ourselves;" and added with the strange intuition of a child, "I think it was better when God did part of it, don't you, mamsie?"

[Sidenote: A STROLL IN THE CHURCHYARD]

After the service, we took a stroll into the picturesque old churchyard, surrounded by old black and white timber, and Georgian houses of glowing red brick. There was standing by the door by which we entered the church, the remains of an old stone cross and several tombs, which, I have been told, were brought from the ruined Abbey Church. The grass was full of glittering daffodils, which shone like stars, and the scent from the ribes and Daphne bushes filled God's acre with sweetness. Bess and I walked round the churchyard.

I told her of the little room over the church-porch with its little narrow window. Such a holy little room, I said. In such a room, I think, holy Master George Herbert must have written; and from that I went on to tell my little girl about Sir Thomas Botelar, the first priest who lived at Much Wenlock after the expulsion of the monks.

"Tell me about him," said Bess, eagerly. "I like to hear about good monks and priests from you, although Nana says they were all wicked, and walled up poor girls. But perhaps," added Bess, thoughtfully, "they were not all as wicked as she thinks; leastways, there may have been a few good ones just sometimes."

After luncheon I took down the printed sheets in which are preserved Sir Thomas Botelar's entries, for, alas! his original manuscript perished in the great fire at Wynnstay in 1859. And I read aloud such passages as I thought my little girl would follow, at least in places.

As I read aloud, Constance was ushered in. She did not know Sir Thomas's register and begged me to go on reading, so I continued to read. The old papers, I told her in a pause, embraced eight years of Henry VIII.'s reign, went through that of Edward VI.'s, took in the whole of Queen Mary's, and gave the four opening years of Queen Elizabeth's reign. All Sir Thomas's sympathies were with the old order of things, I begged her to remember, and then I went on reading.

"'In February, 1546, on the 5th day of the month, word and knowledge came to the borough of Much Wenlock that our Sovereign Lord King Henry VIII. was departed out of this transitory life, whose soul,'" Sir Thomas added, "'God Almighty pardon.'"

"Sir Thomas Botelar," I told Constance, "was the last Abbot of St. Peter and St. Paul's Monastery at Shrewsbury. After the Dissolution, the King turned away all the monks, and Sir Thomas became, after a short time, Vicar of Much Wenlock, but his heart remained in the cloisters of his former abbey."

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

"'On the 13th April of the same year three convicts were buried, and one was a child of eleven.' Poor little girl," I said, "what a terrible bald statement of misery! What could so young a child have done to merit death?"

"I cannot think," exclaimed Bess. "Perhaps cursed and swore and scratched; but, even then, had she no father or mother to forgive her?"

"Only God," said Constance, softly.

And then I begged them to listen to an account of a funeral of an excellent priest, and obviously a very learned man.

[Sidenote: THE OLD CHURCH REGISTERS]

"'Sir William Corvehill, priest,'" I read, "'was laid in a tomb of lime and stone, which he had caused to be made for himself. Sir W. Corvehill was excellently and singularly expert in divers of the VIJ liberal sciences, especially in geometry. He was also skilled in the making of organs and in the carving of masonry, in the weaving of silk, and in printing. Besides he was,'" adds Sir Thomas, "'a very patient man and full honest in his conversation and living.'" Then, after commending his soul to the care of God, Sir Thomas wound up quaintly by declaring that, "'All this country hath a great loss from the death of Sir William Corvehill, for he was a good bell-founder and a maker and framer of bells.'"

Then I found a notice of a marriage. "'Here was married,'" ran the old register, "'Thomas Munslow Smith and Alice Nycols;'" and added, "'The bride was wedded in her smock, and barehead.'"

"When I'm married," said Bess, loftily, "I'll have a veil and some flowers. Nana says it isn't proper to be married without a veil. 'Twould be as silly as papa ploughing, or you, mama, plucking fowls."

I didn't enter into the question of parental ridicule, but I looked down the vicar's entries and read, "'Poor Sir John Baily Clerke, otherwise called John Cressage, died. It was about 9 of the clock,'" wrote Sir Thomas, "'and at the manor place of Madeley.'"

Bess had often heard the story from me of the poor old man who, after surrendering his monastery, retired broken-hearted to die at Madeley. When I came to this part of the register, she broke out indignantly with--

"Why couldn't they leave _our_ abbot alone? I can't abear that old Henry VIII. He did nothing but wicked things: cut off his wives' heads and pulled down churches and nice buildings. Yet Nan and Burbidge call him a good man. I think people ought to be good in a different way."

Bess was quite excited, and Constance had to take her on her knee to soothe her, and thus she sat on listening, with a scarlet face.

Then I read how, after the death of King Edward, Sir Thomas and all the people made great joy over the proclaiming of the Lady Mary Queen of England. I read also how the people of Bridgnorth "fair cast up their caps and hats, lauding, thanking, and praising God Almighty, with ringing of bells and making of bonfires in the streets," and how the same joy was evinced at Shrewsbury, and at Much Wenlock.

In the first year of Mary's reign on June 16th, I read that the altar of our blessed Lady within this church (of the Holy Trinity) was again built up and consecrated afresh, and evidently Sir Thomas rejoiced.

A month later, the Bishop of Worcester, the Lord President of the Marches, coming with Justice Townesynde, stopped on their road to Bridgnorth at Much Wenlock, and were entertained by Richard Lawley at the Ash, the fine old timber house in Spital Street, where, at a later date, Charles I. and Prince Rupert both slept on different occasions.

Then followed a description of the _fête_ held in their honour. We learnt how the house was gaily decked with cloths of Arras, with the covering of beds, bancards, carpets and cushions, and how the table was laden with pears and dishes of apples of the previous year. We wondered how they could have been kept. Also with cakes, fine wafers, claret, sack and white wine, and after much pleasant feasting and pleasant intercourse, how "Mr. Justice rose and gave the Burgesses great and gentle thanks for their cost and cheer."

"I wish that I, too, mamsie, had been there, for I, too, would like to have eaten pears in summer, and have seen all their gay carpets," exclaimed Bess.

A little later on in the pamphlet I found the announcement of Queen Elizabeth's being proclaimed Queen after the death of her sister. Sir Thomas made this entry evidently with rather a heavy heart.

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

"How many were hanged in those days!" she said sadly. "There are mentions of executions for sheep stealing, for murder, for robbery; and what a number of convicts, even children of quite tender years."

Then she alluded to the immense age of many of the parishioners named. Agnes Pyner was said to be seven score years when she received the blessed sacrament just before death. John Trussingham declared that he was seven score years, and that at the age of four-score years he had witnessed the battle of Blore Heath; whilst John Francis, chief farmer at Callaughton, Sir Thomas declared, was aged 107 years when he was buried.

[Sidenote: JOAN OF POSENHALL]

Then Constance's fingers flitted back to a past page, and she read aloud a touching little entry about Joan of Posenhall, a fair maiden of twenty-two years, who, it was believed, "died of a canker in the mouth, which disease her father ascribed to the smelling of rose flowers."

"Could it have been a poisoned rose?" I asked, for in those days many and subtle were the poisons used to get rid of a fair rival.

But Bess could not understand how a rose by its scent could injure any one. "In my true fairy-stories," she said, "roses can only do good. They are only good fairies' gifts, and I know they can only come out of the mouths of good girls--real good girls," Bess repeated, "so I don't see how a rose could have hurt poor Joan."

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

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

"To save us," laughed Constance.

But Bess would not allow this. "To kill us is what Mrs. Burbidge says; and Nana says she won't have a doctor in at no price for herself."

Then Bess jumped up from her chair, and declared inconsequently that it was time to feed her puppy, and darted out of the room, and Constance and I were left alone. Upon which we fell to chatting about the great quilt. "I have chosen the flowers, as you know," she said. And she enumerated one after another their old-world musical names. "And now I want charming words about sleep," she added.

I suggested from Sir Thomas Browne's "Religio Medici": "Make my sleep a holy trance," or "On my temples sentry keep," again from the same author "Come as thou wilt, or what thou wilt bequeath," from Drummond of Hawthornden, or again, "Men like visions are, Time all doth claim," or "He lives who dies to win a lasting fame."

"You must not also," I said, "forget a beautiful line from Mrs. Barrett Browning: 'He giveth His beloved sleep.'"

Before leaving me, Constance told me that she and Bess had a little game in hand--a real May frolic--"but you must not know yet, it must be a surprise."

[Sidenote: THE QUEEN OF THE MAY]

To this I at once gave my maternal sanction, and then the nature of the "secret" was revealed to me. Constance told me that she proposed to have a little May dance for some eight of the little school maidens, and that she would like Bess to take a part in the festivities. Eight little maidens are to dance round the maypole, which is to be decked with ribbons and many flowers, and are to sing some old songs; and she added, "If you have no objection, Bess is to say us a verse or two from some old poets in honour of May morning."

I fell in readily with Constance's little plans for a village _fête_, and offered the old bowling green as a site for it to take place. "The bowling green," I said, "is very sheltered; it is surrounded on three sides with yew hedges, and I am delighted at the idea of Bess appearing as the queen of the revels."

Bess is to be attired all in white with a crown of flaming marsh marigolds on her head, and to bear in her hand a staff decorated with primroses, cowslips, and sprays of beech and willow.

Just as Constance was leaving, Bess rushed in and seized my friend's hand, and called out impetuously, "Have you told mamsie? May I? May I?"

I nodded "yes," and told my little maid that she was to have a white muslin, a white wand of office, posies of primroses and shining shoe buckles. Bess was delighted, she hugged me and Constance rapturously in turns, and said "it will be the best day of my life."

"All we must hope will be a success," laughed Constance, as she departed up the pathway to the old gate-house; "and we must pray for sunshine for the sake of the little expectant maidens and anxious mothers."

Next morning I confided to Burbidge the plan of our proposed revels, and informed him that I should like to ask in the villagers. Burbidge remarked in a lofty way that he had no objection--a Yorkshire expression which he acquired when a lad from a Yorkshire gardener; but added severely, that they that come must keep to the paths, not spoil _his_ lawns, and scatter no lollipop papers, or such-like dirt.

But Burbidge's old wife, Hester, showed a less conciliatory spirit. In a foolish moment, as I happened to meet her carrying Burbidge's dinner to the tool-house, I confided our secret. Upon which she told me sourly that she was sorry to think "as there is to be play-acting, and even dancing on the property--the monks," she declared, "were bad enough, but this would beat all."

Hester is descended from old Puritan stock, and disapproves of all laughter and merriment. Burbidge, who overheard her last words of censure, exclaimed--

"Tut, tut, my dear, you was young once. I can mind thee fine as a horse in bells, for all thee's old now and that the rheumatics lay hold on thee, sharp as scissor points. But the young uns they want their games and their plays, for all as us is getting miller's bags on our pates."

"Speak for yourself," replied Hester, with acidity, puckering up her withered visage. And then she added with severity, "I never knew yet any good come out, or wisdom, of play-acting. They be devil's works, and take my word for it," and there she held up a bony emphatic finger, "that the devil will claim toll, for all as they seem mild and innocent."

With which ominous remark Hester made over to Burbidge his dinner, and hobbled up the back drive homeward.

"'Tis a pity," said Burbidge, looking after his old wife, "as good wine can turn to vinegay like that. The Lord made her, but the old 'un" (the devil) "guides her eyesight sure enough, and most times directs her tongue. The fact is," and the old man drew himself up straight, "when yer think too much about hell, yer can never see heaven. My mother used to say that, and for all she was a Methody body, it be gospel truth."

[Sidenote: EASTER SUNDAY]

A few days later it was Easter Sunday. The bells rang merrily, but we hurried off to church almost late; for, according to Shropshire fashion, Bess had got a new frock on for the occasion.

It consisted of a pale mauve serge of the colour of the autumn crocus blossoms which flower in the aftermath in this neighbourhood.

For the last fortnight dear old Nanny had been too busy "to draw a breath," to use her favourite expression, and had sewn morning, afternoon, and evening, to get my little maid's frock completed by Easter Sunday. For it is held in Shropshire to be most unlucky not to be clad in fresh attire on that feast day of the Church. Wherefore, whatever else was left undone, Bess's frock had to be finished for the festival.

"The rooks," murmured Bess, as we entered the churchyard, "cannot say nothing, for all I have is new--shoes, stockings, drawers, chemise, and frock. And them," alluding to the rooks, "them only spoils old things, does them, mamsie?"

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

A peal of bells was ringing gaily. "How gay and good it sounds," whispered Bess, dreamily, "as if all the world was good and playing." Then we walked up to our pew, and the mild delicate scent of primroses greeted us everywhere. "I wish we had flowers every Sunday," said Bess, as she flumped down in her seat. "It seems to make God's house like a posy. I think it must be nicer for Him so." The old columns were festooned with garlands of flowers, and round the ancient font were placed bunches of flashing marsh marigolds and great branches of tender half-uncurled beech leaves.