Spring in a Shropshire Abbey

“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.”

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.

CHAPTER V

MAY

“Come lasses and lads, take leave of your dads,
And away to the May-pole hie;
For every he has got him a she,
And a minstrel standing by.
For Willy has gotten his Jill,
And Johnny has got his Joan
To jig, to jig it, jig it up and down.”

    Old May Song.
All the morning Bess had been beside herself, jumping up and down, and running round in gusts of wild excitement. At noon the fête was really to take place, and at that hour Constance and her band were to come down by a back way through the town. The piano had already been moved on the bowling green, between the yew hedges. In the distance I had watched Burbidge superintending, and I am sure grumbling freely by the ominous shakes of his head. Our old servant had been in a great state of alarm about his lawns since the dawn, and the passing of the piano under the great yew arch had been to him a matter of grave anxiety “They be centuries in growing, be yews,” he said to me, “and the commonest piano as is made, can break ’em.”

However, in spite of his hostile tone, Burbidge and “his boys” went out quite early and brought back an abundance of fiery marsh marigolds from the marshes, great sprays of budding beech, and a few branches of opening hawthorn; besides which they gathered bunches of primroses, the last of the season that were still in flower in damp woodlands and against northern banks, and also purple heads of meadow orchises. “She’ll be fine,” Burbidge told Nan, “but it be a sad waste of time pulling wild things that come up all by themselves, when we might have been puttin’ taters in or wheelin’ on manure.” At this old Nan had waxed wroth and had exclaimed, “There’s none too old to idle sometimes, Burbidge.” “Ay,” had replied our old gardener in a surly tone, “but let me idle in my own way.”

However, for all his apparent hostility, I had an idea at the back of my head, that Burbidge would be concerned if the little fête did not go off well; and I believed, in spite of his angry tones, that he and his boys would deck the May-stang and order all rightly for me.

I was not deceived, for as I looked out of the drawing-room windows, I saw a little later the gardeners all at work, putting up the May-pole. In a little while it was finely decked with gay flowers, and Célestine and Nana, for once united in a common cause, brought out many yards of coloured ribbon, which they tied in knots of pink, red, white, blue, and yellow amongst the flowers. These floated like a hundred little flags in the breeze, and seemed to fill the air with gaiety.

DECKED FOR THE FÊTE

When this operation was at last completed, the dressing of Bess began in earnest, and my little maid for once sat quite still, and allowed mademoiselle to brush and fluff her hair till it stood out like the mane of a Shetland pony. This done, Nana put her on a little white bodice and paniers, and sewed on bunches of primroses and white violets, and then crowned her with a crown of golden marsh marigolds that the deft fingers of Célestine had twisted together. “Thee’ll be crowned, dear,” said the old nurse softly, “with the lucky flower.” Then all the maids from upstairs and downstairs crowded to the nursery, and Bess received me graciously, looking like a little fairy. In her hand she held her sceptre as May Queen, round which was wound a sprig of ivy, and one little bunch of violets.

All the time my little girl had been dressing, her lips had never ceased to move. I asked her what was the matter? “My verses, my verses,” was her reply. When all was completed, and the bunches re-sewn in places so that none could fall, Nana looked out of a passage window. “They be all a-comin’ to see my lamb,” she cried. And sure enough there were old men in smocks, old beldames in quaint old black sun-bonnets, and all the children from the National School. On they streamed together. Then Constance and her dancers appeared, some of them running to escape observation, and all attired in waterproofs, so that nobody might see the splendour of their festive apparel. The garlands on their heads even were covered with Shetland shawls. They had slipped down by the churchyard and so into the ground, to try and gain unseen the back of the great yew hedge and walnut tree.

“We are all ready,” cried Constance, as we made our way out and gained her group. I looked at her band of children. “Some will be dancers,” she said, “in yellow and green, some in blue, and the rest in cherry or scarlet. Behind her little lasses stood eight little lads in smocks, with soft felt hats, looped up with ribbons, and each gay bachelor had a posy knot, like the bouquets coachmen used to wear at a drawing-room in Queen Victoria’s time.

“They will dance,” whispered Constance to me in an aside, and pointed to her little swains, “another year, and then the little girls will not have all the fun to themselves.”

Then there was a hush, and the Shetland shawls and the cloaks were all taken off in a jiffey, and at a signal given, Dinah started playing on the piano. The old tune across the lawn sounded like a far-off tinkle. Dinah made a pretty picture. She was dressed like a village maiden of the eighteenth century. On her head she had a mobcap, across her shoulders was folded a fichu of lawn, and on her hands were a pair of old black silk mittens that belonged long years ago to Constance’s grandmother.

All the people stood aside as the players and dancers made their way to the centre of the lawn.

Then the singers stood by the piano and started in unison an old May song. The sun shone forth brightly, and a throstle joined in from a damson tree at the top of his voice.

There was a general sense of joy. The young voices sounded sweet and clear, and all the meadows and distant hills seemed bathed in a blue mist.

At last the singing died away. Then Bess, with bright eyes, but somewhat nervous steps, advanced and repeated her verses. She spoke as clearly as she could. Nana looked at her, as if she could eat her up with pride, and afterwards declared that Bess had spoken like an archbishop; and even old Sally Simons, who is believed to be deafer than any post on the estate, affirmed that she could hear “’most every word.”

Across the budding sward Milton’s beautiful verses in praise of May seemed to ring in my ears. In the far meadows, the rooks were cawing amongst the poplars, and over the Abbey pool a few swallows were skimming and catching flies —

“HAIL! BOUNTEOUS MAY”

“Hail! bounteous May that dost inspire
Mirth and youth and warm desire.”