Chapter IV: April (2)

Bess looked round her, and said gravely in an undertone, "I think the blessing will come this Sunday, for I feel sure that God cannot see so many flowers about without being pleased." Then I said, "Hush!" for I feared my little maid was talking over-much.

Immediately after, the morning service began. At the close, as the last hymn died away, Nana took my little maiden off, whilst I remained on for the most beautiful, and the most solemn, of all our Church services.

The sound of retreating footsteps was at last hushed. The children had all left, and many of the people. Then there was a pause, and then the opening prayers, and I saw, in the dim light of the chancel window, the vicar breaking the bread and preparing the wine, and we were invited to the Lord's Table.

"The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life." I seemed to hear the solemn words as in a trance. Outside, through the old perpendicular window, the sun was shining faintly, and from the glad world without I heard the birds singing in a joyous chorus. Inside, the great and solemn rite of Christianity was being administered, and faith and love of Him who died for the sins of men was visiting each faithful heart in a rapture of holy delight. A few minutes afterwards and I regained my seat. The spirit of the old world was with me. How many pious hearts have offered up prayer and thanksgiving before those altar rails! How often has the blessed Sacrament come to faithful hearts, as an elixir of the soul!

[Sidenote: THE HOLY SACRAMENT]

Owing, perhaps, to the joy of the world outside, there was a great sense of triumph in such an Easter Sunday. "Christ is risen!" seemed to be shouted everywhere; His body had suffered pain and death, but now the heavens were opening for the glory in which death and pain could have no place. The glory of His life was everywhere. For "with angels, and archangels, and with all the company of heaven," could "we laud and magnify our Lord and praise the Most High."

I came out of the church, and some of its mystic radiance seems to cling like a cloud of splendour around me. As I walked along, I thought of the founder of the town church, Roger de Montgomery, the great Earl of Shrewsbury, who founded also that of the Abbey close by. The former, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, still has its roof, and pious services are still performed there every Sunday; whereas the Abbey church of the Clugniac monks is deserted alike by prior and pilgrim. Alone, my pigeons and the jackdaws fly amidst its aisles, and only across grass and thyme can the outlines of the high altar be discerned.

I lingered at the church wicket. A soft shower had just fallen, and dew-drops glistened on the grass like pearls. A great white cross shone in splendour, still wet, but of dazzling whiteness, almost like a pillar of light in the morning sunshine. The birds on every bush and wall were chanting anthems of delight.

A minute later I passed out of God's acre, and Bess met me in the avenue. My little maid rushed up with a bound of excitement.

"Thady is ill, mum," she cried. "I heard Burbidge tell Nana so. He said 'The little varmint be down with a bad leg, and he hoped that would settle him for a bit.' And Nana said 'she hoped it would, too, for when boys were wicked they was best in bed.' But I'm sorry, sorry, for all Thady's naughty, he's never nasty." I sympathized with Bess, and promised that we would visit Thady during the afternoon.

After luncheon, we cut Thady a slice of plum-pudding, and Bess put aside for him an Easter-egg. "I had three," she said, "and this one is sky blue, and Auguste says that is the best colour of all and sure to bring good luck. So you'll see, mum," she added, "Thady will be right again and able to climb the trees in no time after he has eaten my egg."

We prepared to start out, and took Thady the gifts contained in the basket; but Bess declared that first we must go into the ruins and pick her little friend a bunch of daffydowndillies.

"'A bunch of daffs on Easter Day
Brings luck to the house, and peace in May.'

"Nan says so, and I believe it," cried Bess. "Anyway, Thady will like to look at 'em while he eats my egg." So we wandered into the rough grass inside the ruined church to pluck a handful.

How beautiful are spring flowers. All round it was a blaze of brilliant blossoms. There were early Van Thol tulips, like flames of fire, large rings of golden daffodils, some of them with almost orange faces moving in the soft winds, and then there were patches of beautiful blue scilla sibirica, and in the distance the star-like forms of the narcissi Stella, and Cynosure.

[Sidenote: A MEAD OF BLOSSOMS]

For several autumns Burbidge and "his boys" had planted for me great numbers of bulbs, and the result was, as Burbidge said, better "than a carpet of delight." These bulbs are now grown largely in Lincolnshire, and in parts of Ireland. When they arrived they looked small and meagre. They were not at all the splendid, sleek, fat bulbs, that come from Holland; but, to quote Burbidge, looked "poor little shy customers;" but they were glad enough to find a home in the Abbey turf. Before putting them in, we skinned back the grass, dug up the soil to about six inches, added a little leaf mould, took out any stones, and popped in tulips, daffodils, snowdrops, crocuses, and, for a later radiance when the hawthorn would be out in snow, the rich double white narcissus, that gardeners call, on account of its perfume and appearance, the gardenia narcissus.

We put in three to five bulbs in each little space. After which we carefully replaced the grass, and beat it well down, so that, after the first shower, no one could have known that we had even moved the turf. Just then much of the grass of the ruins was a sheet of glory, reminding me in its _parterre_-like beauty of the foreground of some early Italian painter.

Every autumn Burbidge and his workers bring wheelbarrow loads of leaf mould and decayed lawn grass, and spread them over my "bulb forest;" and the result is that every year the flower roots strengthen, and the blossoms multiply.

Bess ran from group to group, until her hands were full of different daffodils. "There's luck here," she cried, "and see, they glitter like gold money, mamsie--that must mean something good."

We walked, laden with our gifts, till we reached the Bull Ring. We paused at the door of an old black and white house, with a broad pebble causeway before it. On entering the cottage we found Thady in bed.

"Well, Thady, how did it happen?" I said.

"I was after a rook's nest," replied Thady, "and the twig gave way entirely, and so I came down dang-swang, as the folks say here."

"Indade," said his mother, Mrs. Malone, "it's afflicted I am in Thady. When he's good he's ill, and when he's well he keeps company entirely with the Devil."

"Never fear, mother, whativer. 'Tis a bad boy as can't get good some day," and Thady, for all his face looked white and worn from pain, he burst into an irresistible fit of laughter.

Upon this Bess showered upon him yellow daffodils, and I opened my basket containing the plum-pudding, and Bess's sky-blue egg, and an orange or two.

"Sure and God bless you," said the good dame, his mother, with enthusiasm. "They will please him finely, for Wenlock is as dull as ditch water, for all they boast that in days gone by once there was gay goings on here. Bull and dog baitings, according to our old neighbour Timothy Theobalds' tales, and behind the Vicarage, cock matches fit for a king, and pretty fights between the young men behind the church. But, whatever there was then, 'tis still now, and sleepy as Time."

[Sidenote: MASTER THEOBALDS ON POLITICS]

As we left the cottage I met the neighbour of the Malones, old Timothy Theobalds. He was a shrivelled little old man, had been ount, or mole-catcher, for many years, had driven cattle to market, and I have also heard, was once earth-stopper to the Hunt. If what his neighbours say is true, old Timothy is not now far off a hundred. He receives annually a small pension collected from three county families, has, I am told, cakes and beer at Yule-tide from his neighbours, and in his own words, "a snap of somethin' tasty, when he has a mind, wherever he goes." The old man is excellent company for all his years, and has many a good story to tell, of folks long since dead, and of the wild ways and curious customs of old Shropshire, before the days of railroads, when folks still believed in witches, and in the power of divining rods, and danced, and made merry at wakes and fairs. Like many other old men, "Daddy" Theobalds is not exempt from grumbling, and can use language, I fear, "fit to blow your head off" if provoked. According to him, "Life's a poor thing now. No fun nor luck left. Yer mayn't even get a shillin' nowadays for a vote if so be as yer has one; though what good a vote can do a poor man if he can't sell it, I don't know. They Radicals," he told me once, "were grand at givin'; but their gifts were nought but mugs wi'out beer, or dishes wi'out beef; they brought nought when yer speered in, but fandangles, flummery and folly."

Old Timothy I met leaning on his stick before his door, clad in a long embroidered smock. He pushed open the door. "Come in, marm," he says, "and sit yer down before the fire."

I entered his house whilst Bess dashed off to fetch the pug-pup, exclaiming, "We must remember it is his Easter Sunday," and I and old Timothy were left alone.

I made a remark upon the fine day, and told old Timothy about the morning service and the lovely flowers. Old Timothy did not respond. He holds to church on Sunday, but rather as a preparation to a Sunday dinner, than anything else, I fear; but as to flowers, he "doesn't think much of they, leastways not in churches."

"When I war a lad," he said, "folks kept they for May Day, and the lads and lasses then went out and pulled blossoms and danced, for the fun of the land wasn't all dead then, as it is now. That be the proper use of blows." Then, after a pause, in a weary voice old Timothy went on to say, "'Tis a deal decenter now, no doubt, more paint about and print readen', but the fun and jollity be clean dead. When I war young, folks often had a tidy bit saved, and when they had 'a do' they spent it at home. The missus would bake Yule-tide cakes or all souls, or snap-jacks, accordin' to the season, and the maister brewed a barrel of ale, and then the couple wud call in the neighbours. Now 'tis hoard up, and go away, as if yer could only laugh in London or Birmingham, and never a cake or a sup for friends or neighbours.

"Folks could play well enough when I war a boy," and then old Timothy began to tell me of the old "plays" as he called them. "This place, 'Old Wenlock,' as us used to call it, war cheery, and jolly, in grandam's days," he told me. "Every spring there wud come a man with a bull. Many is the one, I have heard her say, was baited in this spot, just outside the doors. The farmers and colliers from Ironbridge would bring their dogs, and have three days' drinking and amusement. And," continued old Timothy, "he war a mighty fine man as cud count as his the best bull dog about. Now folks be proud of their cricket, and of their football matches, but the games can't touch the old sports." Then after a pause, old Timothy said solemnly, "It war a terrible undoing of England puttin' down the old plays. I mind," the old man added, "how mad dad war when they put down the bull-baiting at Ellesmere. There used, in the old times, to be grand goings on there. Well, one Wake Monday, Mr. Clarke, 'the captain' as they called him, put that down. Tom Byollin, I've heard dad say, war leaden' the bull round pretty nigh smothered in ribbons, as war the good old custom, when the captain 'e comes up and 'e said, 'What be goin' to do with that there bull?' 'Bait 'im,' said Tom, 'we allus bait a bull at Wake's. 'Tis our Christian custom.' But the captain he wudn't have it. He war allus a meally souled 'un, 'cording to dad, and one that left a good custom, to take up with a new one, and so he offered five pounds to Tom, and got round him by biddin' too a new pair of breeks--and so there war no bull-baiten. Tom was mortal hard up, I've heard, but to his dyin' day he regretted the job, and used to cry over his cups, because he had helped to ruin the land by doin' away with a good old practice."

"Did you ever see a bull baited?" I asked old Timothy.

[Sidenote: "A ROYAL DO"]

"Yes, mam," answered my old friend with pride, "when I war at Loppington, I have myself seen the sport, as quite a lad," and as he spoke old Timothy's eyes lighted up with excitement. "It war a royal do. For they had not only bulls, but bears. I mind me," he continued after a minute's hesitation, "as it war in 1825. There war great rejoicin's. Folks druv and came in from all parts, and it war a grand celebration, and all given because the parson's daughter war marryin' a squire. They said as the parson paid the costs hisself bang off, he was that pleased at his daughter's grand marriage. But then parsons _were_ parsons in those days. They rode, shot, and wrestled, besides preachin'. 'Tis true as there war a few what objected. Now at Madeley Wakes they had grand games on too. All the colliers, I've heard grandam say, used to come down and bet free and easy, like gentlemen born. Many was the time, I've heard 'em say, folks used to see the collier folks ranged down to make a lane like for the bull or bear to pass along. My word! as old Matt Dykes used to say. It war a mighty question which looked best, beast or dog, for when 'twas a bull, they only slipt one to a time. 'One dog one bull,' that war what they used to say to Madeley.

"Oaken-Gates, I've heard say, war the last place where they baited the bull in Shropshire. And I allus say," said old Timothy, with a spark of enthusiasm, "that 'tis a mighty fine feather in the cap of that place, as it war the last as kept up the good old English sport."

Then old Timothy went on to tell me "how the bull in 1833 at Madeley war a mighty game 'un, and tugged that ferocious at the stake, that he broke abroad stake and all, and with the chain charged down madly, and hurted several what war standing by."

After a pause, old Timothy went on to tell me, "how for all the Vicar of Loppington war reasonable and right minded about the old sports, there war some even then, as had 'cakey' and queasy stomachs about such enjoyments." And he went on to say how Mr. Anstice of Madeley, and one Mortimer, as was vicar then, spoilt, in his own language, sport cruel. "It war in this way," continued the old man, "the bull, a proper beast, war baited three times; first, at the Horse Inn, then at Lincoln Hill, and lastly, on Madeley Wood Green. At the last bout, Squire Anstice and Parson Mortimer they comed up with a handful of constables, but there war hundreds of colliers and decent folks looking on, and I war told that they could have chawed up constables, squire, and vicar, if they had a mind."

"And what saved 'em?" I asked eagerly.

"Well," answered Maister Theobalds, "for all the vicar war a little 'un deformed, and some called him as dry as a chip, he had a mighty fine tongue, and though he'd hadn't grit enough to thresh a hen, he'd hadn't no mortal fear, and he stood up and pleaded and spoke same as if the bull had been his brother. And the bull war sent away."

[Sidenote: "LAMB-LIKE TO PUPS"]

Then after a little while Timothy added reflectively, "There be mountains in a tongue. Grandam used to say as Parson Mortimer seemed to hold God Almighty inside him when he war angry, so terrible war he, not that he ever war angry unless he waxed white hot about sin, or cruelty, as he called it. He war a little 'un to look at, but he had a mighty spirit, though lamb-like to pups, childers, and wild wounded things. The biggest fellows quailed before him when he took on in a rampage, and none of them dared sin when he war by."

At that moment I heard my Bess tapping at the door. "Lor, bless her," said Timothy, "'tis the little 'un; how them does grow, the childers," and he got up and hobbled to the door. Then Bess ran in and bubbled over with excitement about her May _fête_, for she had met Constance on the road. She told old Master Theobalds that he must come down and see her May dance. "Sure I will, my pretty," he said; "I'd like to see a May-stang again, and a mass of lads and lasses dancing round, as I have heard grandam talk about when she war a likely wench."

Then the old man began to tell us of the old May Days, and of the long-handed-down traditions of the Shropshire May festival.

"It war the fashion," he said, "in the old time for all the lads and lasses to wend their way to the Stanhill Coppice or down to the great Edge Wood, and a merry time they had. Old Gregson Child as war shepherd to Farmer Dawson, that lived once at the Marsh Farm, used to go with the lads, and they used to blow horns, and one or two, if they had a mind, would tootle on the flute, and others scrape on fiddles, till wood and field fair swarmed with music, and so, they say, they got them to the woods an hour or so after dawn. And after a while, the lads and lasses would twine garlands, and the lads would buss the lasses. And the lasses would cry out, but let 'em do it again, and when they had romped and sang, the boys and maids, fair smothered in May branches, mead marigolds, posies of primroses, and laxter shoots of beech and hazel, would get them to their homes and hang up garlands and posies to their lintels over their dad's door, and take to laughter and bussing again.

"Ay, grandam used to talk of those times--merry times for all they hung for sheep stealing, sure enough, but the lads laughed 'twixt times gay as ecalls," and the old man bent before the dying fire, and seemed in thought to plunge back to the days of the past, which even he could hardly have seen.

Then Bess and I got up, and Mouse gave a deep bark, and as I said good-bye, I repeated my invitation for the First of May.

"Lor', mam," replied old Timothy, sadly, as he opened the door, "it isn't likely as I shall forget it, for a piece of jollity don't often come my way. 'Tis dull and parson-like as they've made the world now. Well, it is for the young 'uns to call for the tune now."

We passed into the sunlight, and saw the lads and lasses hastening to school, and away up the streets I saw older lads and lasses in Sunday trim, dressed for courting, and the Sunday walk.

[Sidenote: OLD MAY DAYS]

Is the world less merry, I asked myself, since old Timothy's grandam danced beneath the May-pole? Have we forgotten how to laugh and sing in village and hamlet, and is merry England steeped in grey mists? I thought of what I had heard, as I walked along, and tried to picture to myself that merry England of whom a stranger wrote, "A merrier, gayer people breathe not on God's earth." I thought of the time when the May Festival was observed by nobles, and even by kings and queens. I remembered how Chaucer, in his "Court of Love," tells us that early on May Day "went forth all the Court, both most and least, to fetch fresh flowers, and so bring back branch and bloom."

"O Maye with all thy flowers, and thy green,
Bright welcome, be thou faire, freshe May,"

exclaims the courtly knight Arcite. I recalled a passage in Malory where the great prose poet makes beautiful Queen Guinevere go a-maying with her lords and ladies. In Henry VIII.'s reign the Court still went a-maying, for Hall tells us how Henry, in his youth, accompanied by his stately Spanish queen, "rose up early with all their courtiers" to enjoy the old English custom, and of how the Court went forth with bows and arrows, shooting through the green spring woods, and brought back "flowers and branches." Shakespeare, in his "Midsummer Night's Dream," alluded to the old English holiday, and declares, through the mouth of one of his characters, that folks would not lie abed the last day of April, but rose up early to observe this rite of May, so eager were they for its fun. So keenly did Queen Bess enjoy these revels that she always longed, it is said, to lay aside the state of royalty on these occasions, and live the life of a milkmaid during the month of May.

Towards the close of the Elizabethan era, Stubbs wrote, sourly attacking all such practices. In an old brown, mouldy book by him, that I once came across in an old country house library, entitled "Anatomie of Abuses," I read a jaundiced account of a May festival.

"The Chiefest Jewel that they bring from the woods," he wrote, "is their May-poole, which they bring home in great veneration in this wise." And then the old Puritan went on to recount how "tweentie to fourtie yoke of oxen were harnessed together, and how a sweet posie of flowers was tied to the typee of their horns, and so the oxen drew home the May-poole."

Thinking over old-fashioned customs, it was impossible not to lament there is now left, to quote an old chronicler's quaint expression, "so little worshipful mirth" in England, and that villages no longer have their dances and May Day rejoicings, as in years gone by. It cannot be other than a matter of regret to all reflective minds, that the one notion of pleasure amongst our working classes, is to sit long hours in an excursion train, and, be it said, invariably to leave their own homes.

Hospitality amongst the poor, save for a wedding or a christening, has become a thing of the past. Love-spinning, soul-caking, and well-dancing are all gone by. And England is a poorer country, I think, in that it is no longer Merrie England, as it was in the days of the Tudors and the Stuarts, but the England of many chimneys--in others words, the Workshop of the World.

[Sidenote: SUMMER SOUNDS]

Soft days followed Easter Sunday. The weather was exquisite sunshine and shower making a perfect combination. Burbidge was always busy. There was continually the summer sound of mowing. No longer, alas! the rhythmic swish of the scythe, but the twinkling click of the machine. Yet even this was delightful, for in the sound came the cry of summer. Everywhere the heads of the herbaceous plants in the border grew bolder and stronger. The beautiful burning bush, as my old gardener calls the _Dictamnus Fraxinella_, was then a foot high; and my white Martagon lilies and _Lilium Auratum_ were all springing up gaily from their mother earth strong and vigorous; whilst my Oriental poppies, of various colours, were rearing themselves up for a June glory. Then my pansies (the seed of which I had brought from Paris a year ago) were full of promise. How rich they will be, I said, blotched and mottled in different shades of purple, lavender, and chocolate brown, and each flower later will have a face of its own, with an almost human expression. Besides these, there were Hen and Chicken daisies, or red and pink Bachelor's Buttons, as they call them in Shropshire, and opening sprays of Bouncing Bess (which is our local name for the gay Valerian), wherever it could push its way between the old stone walls.

I wandered round the garden in the Cloisters, with its lavabo and wrought-iron gates. On the lancet windows of the Leper's Chamber, white pigeons were cooing and disporting themselves, and running up and down along the level turf. Jackdaws amidst the ruins were hurrying to and fro on the wing, with grub or insect in their beaks. Above the chamber, where men said the service was heard by the sick, there was a mass of gold which shone like beaten metal against the cloudless sky. It was the wild wallflower in a sea of blossom. How busy all nature was--building, growing, blossoming, and budding. Certainly a fair spring morning is one of the undying joys of the world.

Later on I found myself in the little kitchen garden. The later pears were then sheets of snow, and I noticed that an apple flower was beginning to turn pink on an espalier.

Burbidge I found busily occupied in dividing the roots of the violets.

All through the winter, when frosts bound the ground, he sent me in fragrant bunches of the double Neapolitan violet, varied by bouquets of the Czar, the Princess of Wales, and the red purple of Admiral Avalon.

Now all the roots were being lifted from the frames, and little runners with minute fibrous roots planted, some eight inches apart, in shady corners.

During the summer, Burbidge and his boys will cut off every runner or blossom that may appear on these plants, and keep them, to use his expression, "round as a nest." "I likes," he said, "to give 'em hearts like cabbages." The first week in September, the violet roots will be replaced in the frames "for winter blowing."

In the mean time the frames are to be cleared, the soil renewed, and then sown with asters, zinnias, and my beautiful golden lettuces, that come over every year from the Austrian seedsman.

Next to the frames, in little narrow beds, were lines of choice daffodils, and I stopped to look at them. They were of the largest and most effective kinds. There was Emperor, and Empress, Horsfieldi, Sir Watkin Wynn, Golden Spur, Mrs. Langtry, and beautiful Madame de Graaf, and the brilliant sunset glory of Orange Phoenix.

They made a brave show and found great favour in my old gardener's eyes. "Nothing mean about they," he said, only the day before, complacently to me. "Look to the size. They be near the girth of roses, and fit for any nobleman's garden." The old man seemed to swell with pride as we looked at them together. I had not the heart to be disagreeable and to suggest that any should be plucked for vases, or to deck the altar bowls, and I saw that my old friend was relieved.

A little later I walked up the trim path empty-handed and peeped into the gooseberry and currant cages. The cages are made of fine wire netting, fixed on poles, about twenty feet square, in which were planted currants and gooseberries, to save their fruit from the wild birds. Burbidge joined me. "So," he said, "they has nothing inside to rob them, not a 'nope'" (as he calls the bullfinch), "nor them mischievous 'poke-puddings'" (by which name some folks here call the tomtits) "can interfere."

[Sidenote: A BULLFINCH CAN DO NO WRONG]

Hearing my favourites, the bullfinches, attacked, I could not help saying something in their defence. "The cock 'nope,' as you call him, is so beautiful," I urged, "that surely he may have a few buds in spring, and later on get a little fruit? Besides," I added warmly, "many people now say that he does no damage, and that the buds, that he attacks, are already diseased, and, anyway, would bear no fruit."

But at this Burbidge waxed wroth. "The nope," he retorted angrily, "be pure varmint for gardens, same as stoats be for poultry, and squirrels for trees; and as to his colour, 'tis like looks in lasses, it hath nought to do with character. I don't see things, marm, as you does. When yer sweats for a thing, there be no halves in the matter. What's a friend to my garden, I be a lover to; but what's foreign, I be a foreigner to," and the old man walked away in a huff.

After "our bullfinch war," as Bess called it when I recounted to her later the little episode, I walked up the path that is edged by rows of double primroses. How lovely they were in the neatest of little clumps, white, yellow, and mauve, with here and there tufts of hen and chicken daisies, roots of the single blue primroses, brilliant polyanthuses, and the curious hose-in-hose variety, which an old South Country nurse of ours used to call "Jack-a-Greeners." A little further on, I saw some plants of the soft _Primula Cashmeriana_, which bore leaves which looked as if they had been powdered with milk of sulphur, and carried umbrella-like mauve heads of blossom.

A little higher up the path I saw some fine plants of _Primula Japonica_ with its red whorls of blossom; and at the top of the garden I came across a line of beautiful auriculas. The most beautiful of all the primulas, I think, is "Les Oreilles d'Ours," as the French call these flowers, with their sweet distant smell, like downs covered with cowslips on dewy mornings, or golden apricots ripening on southern walls. As I passed back to the Abbey, I plucked a shoot off a black-currant bush. How fragrant the budding shoots were. They recalled the perfume of the bog myrtle on Scottish moors, only that the scent had something homely and useful, but none the less delicious.

Ten minutes later, and I was seated before my embroidery. To-day I had a blue dragon to work. I tried to see and to reproduce in my mind's eye Burne Jones' wonderful tints of blue with brown shades and silver lights, and so the hours passed.

[Sidenote: "A PATIENT HAS VIRTUES"]

In the afternoon Bess visited Thady. "Mama," she cried, "I think Thady will soon be well, for all he was so lame on Sunday. You see he wants to get well so badly, and what people want badly they generally get. I took him some pudding and some cake, and Nana gave him some ointment. Nana," said Bess, presently, "seems quite kind now. Do you know, mamsie, since Thady has taken her medicine, and rubbed on her lily stuff, she seems quite to like Thady."

"Ah, my little girl," I laughed, "you are discovering a very old truth. Nana has found a patient, and a patient always has virtues."

Bess did not quite understand, but declared it was a good job that Nana had given up disliking Thady, for in Thady, Bess found a most delightful and useful friend. He had already made my little maid a whistle, and was then engaged in making her a crossbow, and he is a wonderful hand in whittling an ash or hazel stick in elaborate designs, all of which are delightful and rare accomplishments in Bess's eyes.

All the week Bess ran up and down to the Red House. Bess repeated her verses for the _fête_ to Miss Weldon, and gained what her governess called "word accuracy," but all gestures and action Constance taught her, I heard. Besides this, I was told about the dance which was being practised for the great day by eight little town maidens in the disused room over the stables of the Red House, and of the music which Constance's nice parlourmaid played. Constance endeavoured to get eight little boys to dance also; but the little lads were too shy, what an old woman, speaking of her grandson, calls "too daffish and keck-handed to learn such aunty-praunty antics," and all that Constance could get in the way of male support was to induce eight little lads to look on, bend their knees, and bow at intervals, whilst the maidens sang and danced.

Bess was full of her verses and of her white costume, and old Nana, for all that she grumbled much at first, got stage-fever at last in her veins, and told me "that none would look as well as her blessed lamb, and seeing what the play was, and who made the dresses, and where the flowers grew, she held it to be all foolish, overgrown, mealy-mouthed righteousness on old Hester's part to stick out so obstinate and audacious again' a harmless bit of childer's play."

When I asked Burbidge if he and his men would get me some primroses and bunches of marsh marigolds, he was at first very wroth.

"Do yer take me for a loseller, marm?" he said, using the old country word for an idler. "Do yer think that I have nought to do, but to stump through wood and field, pulling blows for a May folly?"

But since the first outbreak he softened, and now he has begun to speak in a more kindly spirit, about fine primroses as grow above Homer steps, marsh marigolds as can be got near the Marsh Farm pool, and about cuckoo pint and bits of green fern, and I have little doubt that on May morning it will be found that my request has been granted.

Burbidge and Nana will always do what we want them, only give them time, as Bess says, for my little minx, young as she is, has long discovered that with old friends, and particularly old servants, there is often a great deal of bark, but happily not much bite.

One day it had been raining all the morning. Everything seemed growing. I could almost, as I looked out of the window, see the chestnut buds swelling, and the points of the yews were turning a reddish gold. Through a window I could hear the canaries singing, singing and filling the garden with melodious sounds. The sun had gently pierced the clouds at last, and here and there faint shades of delicate blue were to be seen.

Suddenly, as I sat by the window plying my needle and admiring the rain drops glistening like crystals in the grass, I saw my little friend, Thady, below on the gravel walk. "What, Thady, you here!" I cried; for Thady, to use his mother's expression, was all himself again, bare-legged and as merry as a grig.

[Sidenote: "BEGORRA, IT'S ME"]

"Begorra, it's me," replied Thady, "me myself, and I've come to ask if yer will come a bird-nesting with me, some day?" And he added, with the courtesy that only can be found in an Irish imp, "'Twill be an honour and a pleasure to guide yer leddyship to the rarest nests in the country, and yer remember our talk some weeks ago?"

So, after a little parley, it was agreed that the following day, a Saturday, if fine, we would take our luncheon into the woods, and that Thady should climb the trees, as we had previously proposed.

We settled thus, the main point, for Thady, in his own language, "was the best man whatever at that sport." "Whilst you are climbing," I said, "we can look for rare flowers and ferns, and find what nests we can upon the ground."

I asked Thady a minute later what nests he knew of.

"Galore," he answered, grinning. And then proceeded to enumerate them: "A lintie (a linnet), a green grosbeak (greenfinch), a Harry redcap (goldfinch), a yellow yeorling by the roadside, a scobby (chaffinch), a lavrock (skylark), a cushie-doo (a wood pigeon), a cutty wren (common wren), a nanny washtail (pied wagtail) in the rocks, and two tom-titers of sorts. Then there be hawks," he called through the window, "and one by Ippekin's Cave as I don't rightly know, bluish and bigger than the wind-hover (kestrel) or the pigeon-hawk, not to make mention of throstles and black ouzels (blackbirds), which just jostle same as hips and haws in October, but they're hardly worth the point of raising of a foot to see."

So our plans were made, and I looked forward to spending the morrow in the budding woods. Thady was to be our guide, but no eggs were to be taken. This was a matter of mortification to Thady. "Sure," he said, on another occasion, "I thought I would have made the little lady, this year, the prettiest necklace that ever was strung, fine and rare, for the May dance; and," he added, "yer leddyship must not forget that I have eaten of Miss Bess's blue egg, and so glad I would be to show her a bit of favour."

However, I succeeded in making Thady give up the project of robbing the nests, by begging him to make me a whistle, which, as my little daughter declares, is a thing that might be useful to everybody--"to a lady, to a bishop, or even to a Member of Parliament."

The next day was a day of glorious sunshine--gay and pure--one of those rare sweet days in spring, when it does not seem possible for "rain, or hail, or any evil thing to fall." Little Hals, to our joy, came over without governess or maid, only what Bess calls "under his own care," which she declared was best, because there was then no need to be naughty; and Miss Weldon, to the joy of all, vanished for the day to Shrewsbury; so, to quote my little girl, "all seemed happy, and everything just pure fun."

As the old church clock struck eleven we started.

The groom boy, Fred, led Jill, the Stretton pony, bearing a basket strapped on a saddle, which contained a simple luncheon, and off we went into the woods.

[Sidenote: AWAY TO THE EDGE WOOD]

We started gaily; there were no trains to catch--always a subject of congratulation--and we only left word that we should be back for tea.

It was true that old Nana had black prognostications about what "that villain Thady would do" (for since Thady was cured, her kindly interest in him had ceased). But I laughed at her fears. "Nan," I cried out as we left, "we will all take care of ourselves, and even Jill shall come back safe and sound."

We walked along the town, Bess and Hals running in front, hand-in-hand, and Thady and I following leisurely behind. In a few minutes we had left the town behind us and were wandering up a lane, cut in the lime rock, bordered with yews in places, and between high hedgerows.

Hals begged that we might begin to bird-nest at once; but Thady, who was master of the ceremonies, shook his head. "Best wait, begorra, for the Edge Wood, sir," he exclaimed; "that's the mightiest place in the county for all that wears feathers."

So we marched on steadily to the great strip of wood which is known in Shropshire as the Edge Wood. This strip runs for many miles, is very precipitous in places, and consists of groves of oaks, patches of yews here and there, hollies--the haunts of woodcocks--and in many parts a rough tangle of hazel is to be found. It is a sweet wild place, little visited save by bird and beast. In one place the woodcutters had cut for some hundred yards, and in the cleared spaces the ground was covered with primroses, ground ivy, and the uncurled fronds of the lady fern--still brown and crinkly. Groups of lords and ladies reared themselves up amongst their sombre leaves, and patches of dog's mercury nodded and whispered with their cords of green grain. Overhead, the larch in a few branches was breaking into emerald splendour, whilst pink tassels at the extremities trembled here and there. Squirrels leapt into the trees and vanished at our approach, and once or twice we heard, like a distant curse, the rancorous guttural cry of the jay, and saw one disappear into the undergrowth, a jewelled flash of turquoise splendour.

In a ride below, I saw a magpie hopping about, its long green-black tail bobbing up and down on the grass. At this sight Thady gravely took off his cap and saluted him, saying aloud--

"One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a wedding,
Four for a birth."

And then cried out in a tone of excitement, "Look out, yer leddyship, begorra, look out for another; for it is mirth to-day and no sorrow whatever that we must have."

Then we plunged into the heart of the wood. Fred and Jill alone kept to the path. How lush it was, that soft moist turf in April, all teeming with moisture and freshness--not even the driest summer sun can parch or dry the soil of the Edge Wood. Here and there I saw little plantations of self-sown ash amidst beds of downy moss, and everywhere hundreds and thousands of little infinitesimal plants, struggling for existence. As I walked along I noted open glades, which later would be rosy with pink campion, or purple with the stately splendour of the foxglove. Now and then a bird flew away, and I saw at intervals the white scut of a frightened rabbit.

[Sidenote: BIRD-NESTING WE GO]

Suddenly Thady stopped before a yew tree. Hals and Bess followed, panting and crying out eagerly, "Where, where?" for Thady had discarded his jacket, and in a twinkling had thrown his arms round the tree. In a second he was aloft. "A lintie's nest," he whispered, and then peered in. A minute later he called out, "Two eggs."

"Will you bring one down?" we said in chorus. For all answer, Thady nodded, slipped an egg into his mouth, and then proceeded to descend. We looked at the little egg that Thady held out on the palm of his hand. It was of a pale bluish white, speckled and streaked with lines of purplish brown.

After we had all peered over it, the egg was put back solemnly by Thady.

A little further on, and Thady again halted. "Here it be, yer leddyship," he cried, in a high treble; and there, sure enough, looking upward, we discerned a nest of twigs and roots. It was quite low down, and I was able easily to lift up the children to get a peep themselves. The little nest was lined with hair and wool stolen from the neighbouring fields, but as yet there were no eggs. "A nope's (bullfinch's) sure enough," said Thady, dogmatically. Then on we wandered until we paused below a fir tree. Below the bole of the tree there was no herbage, for the fir leaves had fallen like needles and had pierced and stabbed the grass to death--so it was quite bare now, not a leaf, or even a patch of moss; as bare, in fact, as a village playground.

Suddenly we heard overhead a loud, ringing clap of wings, and as we looked up, we saw an ill-made nest of sticks, and two eggs, which last we could see glistening inside, like two button mushrooms. For a minute I had a vision of a big departing bird of a soft lavender grey, and as I looked, Thady called out, "Quice," which is the Shropshire name for the wood-pigeon. Thady was anxious to mount the tree and bring me down an egg for closer inspection; but I begged him not to do so, for the Cushat-Doos, as he tells me he has heard them called in the North Country, are very shy birds in a wild state, and I have been told will never return to a nest where the hand of man has trifled with eggs or nest.

I lingered, looking up at the shining round pink eggs with the light glimmering through the twigs; and then I mounted up the hill, which was very hard work, for both children were a little weary and hot, and I went up the incline, pulling both up as best I could. Mouse kept close to my heels. She had had dark suspicions ever since we entered the wood, and was convinced of the existence, I felt sure, of robbers, footpads, wolves, and also of innumerable vague dangers, and alarms.

We passed a blackbird's nest, but Thady waved his hand in lofty disdain, and refused to pull back the bough so that we might look at the eggs. "'Tisn't for dirt like that that I'll trouble yer leddyship and the young squire to spier round," he exclaimed. "The black ouzel is just a conny among feathered folk, or what blackberries be 'mongst the fruit."

Thady seemed to know every inch of the ground. "It isn't in woods or field that I forget myself," he remarked to me, when I commended him for his knowledge of the Edge. "Devil a bit," he said, "if I have ever lost my way along, or missed a mark or forgotten the bend of a stick; but," he added, in a tone of contrition, "'tis in the book larning and figures that Thady Malone cannot always discern rightly."

At last, after much puffing and panting, we reached the top of the hill.

[Sidenote: THE SCOBBY'S NEST]

"Like enough we'll find a scobby's nest in the hedge," said Thady. Then he went on to say, "They be wonderful builders be scobbys; 'tight and nanty,' as folks say here." And sure enough, a little further on, fixed in a branch of blackthorn, we saw a little nest of exquisite beauty. Outside it appeared to be built almost entirely of lichen, pulled off the bark of trees; whilst inside it was lined with hair and feathers, woven together with marvellous dexterity. There were three eggs, all of a reddish pale grey, blotched here and there with vinous patches.

As we stood watching the nest, the handsome little cock chaffinch eyed us anxiously. With a quick movement he turned round, and we caught the flash of his white wings. "A bobsome, joyous little gent," said Thady; "a scobby, I have heard folks say, is the last bird to give over singing in summer."

Then we sat down to luncheon. "We must eat," Bess cried with conviction; "seeing so many nests has made me feel eggy with hunger." All round us the birds filled the thicket with the joy of their carols. "The place fair swarms with them," observed Thady, "but come a week or two, we shall have all the foreigners over." By which he, doubtless, meant the arrival of all the delicious warblers that come from the South in spring, not to mention many of the cock chaffinches, most of the pipits, the yellow water-wagtails, the gorgeous redstarts, and the beautiful turtle, or Wrekin doves.

Listening to the different notes, we sat down and got our luncheon, which Bess and Hal, who had acquired the appetite of hunters, declared was fit for any king, and believed that even Nan, if she had been there, wouldn't grumble.

"When I'm at home," said Bess, after a pause, "I eat mutton, but here I call it the flesh of sheep," and as she spoke she put upon Hal's knees another slice. Hal looked at her and retorted gravely, "Mutton isn't good, but the flesh of sheep is fit for a general."

Thady, overhearing these remarks, exclaimed, "Begorra, it is a poor place where Thady Malone cannot eat to your leddyship's health." And added, "Deed, I'm like Mrs. Langdale's chickens, I could peck a bit wherever it was." So saying, he fell heartily to work on some huge beef sandwiches which had been prepared for him and Fred, by Auguste. A few minutes later, the girths of the saddle were loosened and Jill was allowed to graze at her own free will, nipping and cropping the tender grass with avidity.

"Mamsie," said Bess, after the last scrap of chocolate had been eaten, and the last Blenheim orange apple munched, "have you no fairy-story to tell us, for you know, this is a real place for fairy-tales." Then the children crept under my cloak, and I rambled on aloud about princes and princesses, giants and dragons, enchanted castles, good and evil fairies, and knights and ladies.

Thady approached our group and listened also. "'Tis better nor a theatre," he was kind enough to say, as I came to an end at last, with the happy marriage of the prince and princess, and a description of the royal festivities on that occasion. "Begorra," he exclaimed, "I'd like to be a man, and fight dragons and giants. Fightin' is the life for me."

Then we got up, packed the basket, and prepared to return homeward across the fields. Jill was caught, but could with difficulty be girthed, so enlarged had she become by several hours of happy browsing; but after a struggle the saddle and basket are put on, and we turned our heads homewards. Hals had been silent for the last few moments.

"Well," I said, "what is it?"

"I too should like to fight," he answered, "but it must be on a horse and in armour."

[Sidenote: THE GLORY OF AULD OIRELAND]

"'Tis all one, sir," replied Thady, cheerily, "so long as yer get a stomach full of blows and can give good knocks back. Fighting," he explained, "is what makes the difference between boys and girls, and it is the glory of auld Oireland."

We talked away and walked homeward. There was a nest of a cutty wren in a juniper bush, which Thady knew of, and a tomtit's in a hollow tree, beautifully made of a mass of feathers, and in it were many tiny eggs, almost too small to touch without breaking, and Fred lifted both children up to see. A little further on, Thady pointed away to a distant orchard that encircled two lonely cottages nestling against the opposite hill. "There," he said, "be the nest of a Harry red-cap." But our energy had died away for bird-nesting. "It shall be for another day," said Bess. And then added dreamily, "I didn't think I ever could have seen bird-nests enough, but I think some other play now would be nice."

So we walked on, Hals leading the way, and Thady bringing up the rear and whistling, as he went along, the Shan Van Vocht. Thus we returned home, Bess and Hals riding on Jill in turns. The cry of the cuckoo pursued us like a voice out of dreamland, while the scents of the sweet spring day were wafted to us on a hundred eddying breezes.

In the evening I found a note from Constance at the Abbey. She sent me a full list of the flowers she proposed working on the quilts, and added, "What do you think of these words about sleep?--

"'Sweet sleep fell upon his eyelids.'--_The Odyssey._

"'Sleep and death.'--_The Iliad._

"'Death and his brother sleep.'--SHELLEY.

"'Sleep thy fill, and take thy soft repose.'--QUARLES.

"'Sleep in peace and wake in joy.'--SCOTT, _Lord of the Isles._

"'Never sleep the sun up.
Rise to prevent the sun.'--VAUGHAN."

When I had written to Constance, I thought of bed in a happy sleepy state of mind. As I brushed out my hair, I went over our pleasant long day in the woods, away from men, and noise, and even home. A day spent amidst birds and beasts, looking at nests, resting on mossy banks, and seeing only the sweet, sprouting things of field and lane, is a delightful thing.

Is there anything better than a day out in the heart of the country? As I slipped into bed, Bess's last words came back to me as she went off to her cot. "Is it really very wicked, mamsie, to take nests and eggs?--for Fred says he has done it scores and scores of times, and he doesn't see no use in such things if they can't make sport for young ladies and gentlemen."

"Some day you will understand," I had replied. "One cannot know some things when one is very young." And I have often noticed with children, that, up to a certain age, the uneducated view of everything is the sympathetic and natural one; later, to a few, the light does come.