Spring in a Shropshire Abbey

“Have it your own way, Thady,” I said, for I knew that Thady had long since kissed the Blarney Stone. “And now tell me why you didn’t come. There were cakes, and singing.”

“My mother,” answered Thady, solemnly. “It was my mother that was the prevention of my best intentions. My mother,” he continued, “is as full of pride as an egg is full of meat. And ‘Thady,’ she said, in a voice as deep as death, yer leddyship knows her way of speakin’, ‘’yer must never,’ she said, ‘give the name of your father a downfall. When yer go to her leddyship’s sports it must be clad as the best of ’em,’ and where were my boots to begin with?” And Thady sighed, and looked down rather piteously at his bare feet.

But a minute later, with the grace of an Irish lad, his face became wreathed in smiles, and he turned to me saying, “Well, though I stayed at home I gave yer all the good wishes in the world, and as I couldn’t be here in the morning, ’tis here I am in the evening.”

Then I stepped out of the aviary, and, as I mounted the stairs, I noted that Thady’s face had an air of mystery. As I approached him, he held out something in his hand, and said, in a tone of charming apology, “Here is something I have for yer, and for yourself alone. It’s never dirt with yer leddyship, whatever it is that a poor lad brings yer,” and as I got near, Thady uncovered one hand, and I saw through the fingers of the other a little black bird.

“A JACK SQUEALER, BEGORRA”

“A jack squealer, begorra,” he exclaimed triumphantly, as I reached the same level that he was on. Then Thady went on to say that he had picked him up last night. “He’s tired with coming,” he explained, “poor bit of a bird, but if yer can keep him safe for a day or two, he’ll live to fly with the best over crypt and arch.” So Thady and I bore away our prize, and mounted to the old chamber, which is known as the leper’s room, and there we deposited our little feathered friend.

“He’ll do here,” said Thady, “no cat can get him here. Give him a dish of water, and he’ll catch flies for himself.” The little bird was of a dusty black, with faint green reflections, and with a light drab tint beneath his beak, but with no white whatever under the tail. His short face expressed no fear at human contact. His legs I noted were very short. I put him down on the powdery dust of the chamber. He did not attempt to fly away, but when I placed him against my dress, he ran up my shoulder, to quote Thady’s words, “as active as a rabbit in a field of clover.”

“He’s a late un,” said Thady, contemplating his little prize. “‘Last to come, first to go,’ I’ve heard ’em say about swallows, but I don’t know if ’tis true or not; but he’s pretty in a way, and doesn’t know what fear is.” Then Thady went on to say nobody hurts a squealer, not even Wenlock boys, even they let him be. He’s the Almighty’s prime favourite, after a wren or a cock robin, Thady gave as an explanation. Then he told me how he found him at the bottom of the Bull Ring last night.

“Tired he was,” continued Thady, “like a tired horse that had taken three parties to a wedding. So I took him up safe from the cats; and old Timothy, him as they call Maister Theobalds, he said, leaning on his stick and his smock floating behind him like a petticoat, ‘Let the lady of the Abbey have ’im. Varmint and such toys be all in her line. She or the lady Bess wull be sure to like ’im.’ So I brought ’im here.”

“He is most fascinating,” I answered, watching my new pet; “but how can I catch him flies?”

“Let him be,” answered Thady; “feeding birds is mostly killing ’em. With water he’ll freshen up, and go and get his own meat.”

I stood a few minutes watching the little bird. He ran about on the floor, and apparently found what was necessary for his subsistence; but his wings were so weak that he could not rise. Thady disappeared for a moment, and then reappeared with an armful of branches. “These will be a pleasure to him and harbour insects, and such birds like shade. Now he’ll do.”

We arranged the boughs, and Thady fetched a saucer of water, which he put down. The bird, after a moment’s hesitation, plunged in, expanded his wings with a cry of pleasure, and then lay contentedly on the ground.

“He’ll be well now,” said Thady, “well as Uncle Pat’s pig when it got into an orchard of cider apples.” So we shut the old door of the leper’s chamber carefully behind us, and descended the steps – overgrown with budding valerian.

FRESH NESTS TO SEE

“They be wonderfully dressy, be swallows,” piped Thady, “in the building of their nests. There’s nought that comes amiss to them. Shreds of gauze, scraps of muslin, bits of mud, in fact,” he added, “any iligant thing that they can meet with, they dart off with in a minute. ’Tis wonderful the fancy and the invention of the craythures. In August they’ll go, this sort; but where they go there’s few as knows.”

I was about to return to the Abbey, when Thady stopped me. “I’ve somethin’ else to show you, somethin’ as you’ll be pleased wid,” he said.

“What is it?”

“A real pretty bird,” was Thady’s answer. “None of yer common kinds. The cock is the bonniest little fellow I have ever seen; fire snaps, I call ’em, – that’s the name that Ben O’Mally called one that we saw together near Birmingham. He’s about the size of a robin, but ’tis a more spirited tail that he has, a black waistcoat, and a lavender head. None of your mud-pie midgeon tits, but a real gay hopper. About the bonniest little fellow that I have ever seen. He’s got a flash of brightness about him, like the foreign flower that Mister Burbidge declared he would whip the life out of me if I touched. Jump the flame, the blazer, and kitty brantail, I’ve heard him called in different places; but call ’em what they will, they all think a lot of him.”

Then I asked Thady about the plumage of the little hen.

“Oh, the missus,” answered Thady. “Well she’s purty but not so fine as her mate. She’s a bitter duller, and the fire has gone out of her tail.”

“Where is the nest?” I asked.

Thady did not answer, but walked across the ruined church to a broken column, and there, sure enough, in a little hole screened from the winds by a spray of budding eglantine, I found the nest of the redstart. The eggs, of which there are four, reminded me of those of the hedge-sparrow; but the blue was fainter, and on one or two I noticed a few dim brownish specks. Then we retired quickly, for hovering close by was the brilliant little cock bird himself. How beautiful he was! Like a vision of the tropics. The redstart is never found in great numbers in Shropshire, but every year there is a pair that comes and builds somewhere in our ruined church. Three years ago they built in a wall, last year in a crevice in the crypt, and this year in a ruined column.

The redstart visits our shores in April, and always commands attention by his brilliant plumage. He is a bold bird and not easily frightened. He dips his tail up and down, with a movement which recalls that of a water-wagtail, only it is not so fussy, or continuous; and when he flies, he leaves behind him the vision of a red-hot coal on the wing, so glorious are the feathers on the top of the tail.

I begged Thady to show no one the nest. Nests are best kept dead secrets, and this one, I said, will be a joy and an interest to me for the next two months.

“I’ve somethin’ more,” and Thady hesitated – “and a real beauty,” he added. “I know yer was occupied with play-acting and entertainments and what not,” and Thady waved his hand majestically, as if on May morning of 1904 ours had been the revels of Kenilworth, and added “it isn’t beasts, and birds, that the gentry care for at such times, so I waited my time,” and Thady beckoned to me to follow.

I crossed the garden, and let myself out by the lily gates while Thady stepped over the wall, and found myself in a few minutes’ time across the meadows and standing with Thady by the furthest point of the old Abbey fish-ponds.

A RING-OUZEL’S NEST

“’Tisn’t often as this sort will come down from the hills and the wild ground,” Thady said. “They are wild folk and belong to the north moorland. I’ve never heard of a rock-jack here. Some folks call ’em burn-dippers.” I looked, and saw amongst the branches of an old willow a nest which was not unlike that of a blackbird, but the eggs were not quite the same, being splashed with spots of a reddish brown on a ground of a brighter green.

“What is it?” I asked, for Thady’s country names did not convey much to me. And then I saw, not far off on the grass, a bird not unlike the familiar blackbird, or black ouzel of the garden, as some country folks still call him, save that he had a white throat. It was the first that I ever saw in England, although I believe the ring-ouzel is not uncommon on the Church Stretton hills; but on cultivated land, save in a few parts of Scotland, he is always a rare visitor.

I watched him hop about, with the same heavy flop of his cousin, the blackbird, but I noted that his plumage was not so brilliant as our garden favourite. He had greener shades in the black, and his plumage was almost of a rusty brown in places. Underneath his throat he had a brilliant white tie. He was certainly a handsome fellow. His movements recalled those of a blackbird, but he had not the “yellow dagger” that Tennyson praised, and at our approach he did not make his exit with the angry rattle which is so characteristic of our garden friend.

“Why, Thady,” I said, “I am pleased. The ring-ouzel is a very rare English bird. At least, so they say in books.”

“Begorra, I have never seen one in these parts but once,” answered Thady, “and that was in Sherlot Forest by the lake.”

Then we got back over the rails, and I followed Thady to one of the small plantations where the young trees were about twenty years old.

“What else have you got?” for Thady was beginning to run, so great evidently was his impatience to show me something that he knew of.

“A nest of the finest singer in Shropshire,” replied Thady, “as good, some say, as the nightingale. I’ve heard him called the mock nightingale, and by others the coal tuft, Jack smut, and black the chimney. Anyway, whatever they like to call him, he’s a fine songster for all his poor dull feathers. He can pipe loud and full right across a wood, and then warble soft as a nope’s bride. He won’t stay here in August, and flies away with the first of the swallows.”

Then I recalled the olive woods in Southern France, and remembered how sweetly I had heard the blackcaps sing in March mornings from the Hotel Bellevue windows. I looked at the little nest built in the branches of a budding bramble; it was not unlike that of a robin, save that it had no moss interwoven in its structure, and that it was entirely lined with horse hair and the hair off the backs of the red and white cows of the country. Inside I saw three eggs of a palish, reddish brown, sprinkled over with spots of purple. I could not help noticing how different the three eggs were.

“I’ve never before found eggs like this so early,” said Thady. “Generally the Jack smuts take a deal of time to settle, but this pair have a-nested and laid as soon as they got to the parish.” I bent over the nest.

THE BOWER OF THE MOCK NIGHTINGALE

“Don’t touch ’em,” cried Thady, excitedly, “since it’s yer leddyship’s pleasure to leave them; for the mock warbler, as dad calls him, he says are as shy as a hawk, and a touch of the nest will make ’em quit in a twinkling. Some morning, yer leddyship,” Thady continued, “yer must come down and hear him. If yer was to get outside the fence, yer’d catch him some day singing. For he’s got a strange voice, soft and pretty at one moment as if he was charming, and the next as if telling the tales of a thousand victories.”

Thady and I walked home in the twilight. I love seeing the nests of God’s little wild birds. How wonderfully they are built. What marvellous architects birds are, how clever and dexterous, with claw and beak.

In the still light of the dying day, the old spire of the parish church loomed like a gigantic lance across the rich meadows, and through the stillness I heard the sound of the chimes. They filled this old English spot with a sense of rest. No hurry, they seemed to call, no hurry. Leisure, the best gift of the gods, is yours and ours. Time to wander, time to see, time to sleep. I stood and gazed on the quiet scene. All the pleasant things of spring and summer were before us. White mists were gathering from the beck and running in long lines of diaphanous obscurity across the fields. There was no sound but the distant chimes. All was sinking gently to rest.

I entered the eastern gate and called to Mrs. Langdale, the old housekeeper, and begged her to give me a hunch of cake to bestow on Thady. The good dame handed it through the mullioned window sourly enough, for Thady was no favourite with such a barndoor-natured woman as my old housekeeper. “’Tis little I’d get if yer leddyship wasn’t here,” laughed Thady. “‘Get out and don’t poison the place with yer breath, yer limb of Satan,’ – that’s what I’d hear if yer wasn’t by, to stand by me,” Thady whispered, as Mrs. Langdale shut the window with an angry snap.

I passed the hunch of cake to Thady, and quickly, silently he put it into his voluminous pocket, in which it disappeared as in a well. Then Thady lifted his cap, and a second later I heard him whistling softly in the gloaming.

As I went into the chapel hall I was greeted by Constance. I congratulated her warmly on her successful morning. Nothing could have been better, I said. It was a real scene of gaiety, and gave, I am sure, all the young and old, a great deal of enjoyment.

“There not a budding boy or girl this day
But is got up and gone to bring in May,”

I quoted laughingly. “The old times will come back to Wenlock, thanks to you, Constance,” I said. “Over each house will be hung bough and garlands, till each household is given up to laughter and frolic.”

“There is much wisdom in wholesome laughter,” my friend replied. “Perhaps the best thing that can be done for the people is to teach them how to play. They have almost forgotten how, in their desire to make money.”

Then my friend and I parted.

IN THE RUINED CHURCH