Spring in a Shropshire Abbey

A SUMMER GARDEN

But a truce to domestic worries, for early in June I gardened; that is to say, I stood about on the close-shorn turf and Burbidge gave directions for the summer plants to be put in the beds. This always is a solemn summer function, and Burbidge had all the importance of a Prime Minister moving amongst his Cabinet, whilst I stood by and admired.

On the east side of the Abbey Farmery, as it was once called, we had already put in round beds of heliotrope (the old cherry-pie of childhood). Burbidge had planted a bed of scarlet verbenas, and was, when I went out, putting in one of the delicate pure white variety, that smells so sweet after a passing shower in the twilight. Besides these, there were to be spudded in beds of crimson and scarlet geraniums, near the high southern wall running from the oratory to the gazebo. We had planted, a few years before, sweet tea-roses of all colours – pink, orange, and copper, a Choisya ternata, the orange-blossom of Mexico, patches of close-clinging Virginian creeper, to enjoy their autumn glory, and over the pillars different varieties of large-flowering clematises. These, as they make their full growth, will be tied to the stone balls that crown the wall. The clematises are of the most beautiful modern sorts, mauve, lavender, and purple, and in August and September, I trust, will repay us amply for our care during the dark winter months, and in the sharp winds of March.

Burbidge was solemnly having his plants brought out, and stood watching that no mishap took place, for, he assured me, “boys were born careless.”

Round the sundial were to be planted four scarlet plots of geraniums, and all were to be edged with a ribbon of blue lobelia. “How commonplace!” some of my readers will exclaim; but all the same, very gay and cheery during the late summer and early autumn, and a brilliant note of colour when the glory of the herbaceous borders is over. We must always remember that there are many forms of beauty, and that even the newest one day will be old-fashioned, and that a fashion immediately past may have something to commend it, in spite of the gardening papers of the day, and learned critics. When the beds were planted and the tiny little string of lobelia added, then the wire netting that encircled each bed was carefully put back, or otherwise, to quote Burbidge, “Adam and his crew would soon be the death of the greenhouse stuff, sure enough.”

After that, we planted a bed of heliotrope, of a beautiful Jamaica variety, that was brought back from there by a friend; and then a bed or two of fuchsias, including a few two- or three-year-old standards in the centre, for nothing gives a bed greater beauty than that it should be of different heights. The old flat bed was poor and ugly, and did not give half the effect of colour that one does of different heights. Then I saw put out beds of latana, red, yellow, and brown, and salmon and pink geraniums, and the old stone troughs and tubs were filled with rich velvety petunias. After all the small beds were planted, we came to the long border immediately in front of the new southern wall. There Burbidge put in squares of that dear old plant known to children as the lemon verbena plant, and great patches of many different sorts of sweet-scented geraniums. Amongst these delights were the old peppermint, the rose geranium, the lemon-scented, the citron-scented, the apple-scented, and the pennyroyal, and some of the best of the named sorts, such as Little Gem, Pretty Polly, Lady Plymouth, Shottesham Park, and Lady Scarborough. Altogether, Burbidge told me with pride, there were not less than twenty sorts. All these perfumed pelargoniums have a delicious fragrance of their own, distinct, and exquisitely sweet. All will bed out well in an English garden, but care should be taken to plant out in the same bed sorts that grow about the same height, as some varieties are much more vigorous than others in the open, and, to quote Burbidge’s words, “fair trample down the weaker sorts, like horses wud childer, if yer put ’em alongside.”

In this long border there were also placed round bushes of Paris Marguerites, and here and there Burbidge slipped in a castor-oil plant with its overshadowing handsome foliage and horse-chestnut-like fruit, and at intervals a spike of cannas, and a plant or two of tasselled maize with variegated leaf, “to bring them tropics home,” I was told. Then in the foreground, “his boys” spudded in African marigolds, soft mauve violas, asters, and stocks, besides patches of geraniums, to bring in “a smart snap of colour,” as my old gardener put it.

“SOME NOSEGAY BLOWS”

After luncheon I went out on the other side of the old house, to what is known as the Quadrangle, to witness further garden operations. I pleaded in favour of putting into some of the tubs what Burbidge calls “some nosegay blows.” Burbidge acceded to my request; “But us must mind the colours too,” he declared. He put in, however, to please me, a few little brown evening stocks, that smell sweetest at nights, for I told him that it was delightful to come and sit out after dinner, and enjoy the scents of night. He put in a few verbenas also, for the chance of evening showers, some nicotianas, and a few crimson humeas. Round the old redstone building, he planted three rows of Jacoby geraniums, “For them will mean brightness,” he said.

As I stood and watched the last row of geraniums being put in the soil, I was joined by Bess and Mouse.

“Oh, mum!” Bess told me, “Mouse has been growling and growling at something behind the ivy. If it had been at night, I should say she had met a devil or ogre. Every minute she was with Nana and me, she got crosser and crosser; and see, her nose is quite red and bleeding, just like Hals’ when he tumbled downstairs. Could it be a real robber?” and Bess’s eyes opened wide.

“No,” I answered, “I don’t think it could be a robber; but let’s go and see.”

So we started off across the gravel. Mouse ran on ahead, as if anxious to show us something. Suddenly she stopped with a whimper. I followed on, jumped down the crypt, and, peering behind the ivy leaves, soon discovered the cause of my dog’s excitement and displeasure. I found half covered up with dead leaves and rolled tightly into a ball of prickles, a poor little hedgehog.

“For shame, Mouse!” I cried, and called her off. For Mouse, at the sight of the poor little beast, growled angrily, and wished once more to go for her antagonist.

“Better to kill un’,” said Burbidge, who had arrived on the scene. “Hedgehogs baint good for naught. They be milk-suckers, and death on the squire’s game.”

For like most country-folks, Burbidge’s hand was against hedgehogs. Burbidge had in his hand a rake, and was about to strike the poor little prickly creature, but I interposed.

MY SANCTUARY

“They do no harm. Besides, this is my sanctuary,” I said. “In the Abbey Church no bird or beast may be harmed.”

Burbidge walked away growling, “Varmint should be killed anywhere.”

Then Bess and I went and inspected the little ball of spikes.

“See, Bess,” I said, “how it defends itself. All the winter this hedgehog has slept amongst a bed of dead ivy leaves, and so has passed long months. But now that summer has returned it will walk about, and at nights he will crop the grass, and eat insects.”

Mouse looked abashed at my lavishing notice on a hedgehog, and jumped up on a bank of thyme and watched intently what I was doing. Great Danes are remarkably sensitive dogs, and the mildest rebuke is often sufficient to make them miserable for long spells. A friend of mine, who had a very large one, said, “I never dared do more than whip its kennel. As a puppy, that was punishment enough.” So I spoke gently to Mouse, and said, “You must never hurt hedgehogs again.” At this, Mouse gravely descended from her heights, sat down by my side, and inspected the hedgehog, and I felt certain she would never hurt one again.

Then I said to Bess that perhaps there were some little hedgehogs not far off, funny little creatures, born with little, almost soft, prickles; and I told the child how useful they were in a garden. How they feed on slugs and insects, and how, when introduced in a kitchen, they would even eat black beetles.

“Once,” I told my little maid, “I had read that a poor scullion, in the Middle Ages, had one that he taught to turn the spit. So you see, Bess,” I said, “hedgehogs can be very useful creatures; not at all the wicked murderous race that Burbidge would wish you to believe.”

Bess looked at me askance. “I cannot like them as much as you, mama,” she answered in a pained voice; “for Nana said too that they sucked the cows. And see how this one has pricked poor Mouse’s nose.”

“Well, let us leave the hedgehog,” at last I said, “and wash foolish Mouse’s wounds.” So we wandered off to the fountain, and dipped our handkerchiefs into the clear water, and washed my great hound’s fond and foolish nose.

At first, Mouse objected; but as Bess told her, “One gets used to washing, same as lessons,” so after a minute or two, she sat by us until we had washed away all traces of the fray.

As we were thus engaged, Auguste, the French cook, went by. I noticed, as he passed us, that he carried in his hand a basket.

“Voyez, madame,” he cried. “Quelle belle trouvaille. Elles sont superbes.” And he showed me a mass of creepy, crawly, slimy brown snails. Auguste was as proud as if he had found a basketful of new-laid eggs, and proposed with his aides to have a magnificent souper. “Quelle luxe!” I heard him say to himself, as he made his way to his kitchen, “et dire dans toute cette valetaille il n’y a que nous, qui en voudrons.”

Auguste will steep them in cold water, and then cook them. I must honestly confess I have never had the courage to eat one, but I believe now that there is a growing demand for escargots in London, and I have been told that in one shop alone, more than a hundred thousand are sold each season.

“Come on, mamsie,” at last cried Bess. “Even Nana couldn’t make Mouse cleaner.” So my little maid and I went off hand-in-hand across the well-tended lawns of the Cloister garth.

“ONLY YOU AND ME AND MOUSE”

Bess was full of confidences. “Mamsie,” said my little maid, “I never want to grow any older, ’cause why – I should have to wear long, long dresses, like grown-ups, and then, how could I climb the trees. But I should like all days to go on just the same as to-day – no lessons, no rain, no governesses, nobody but you and me and Mouse.”

I caught something of the child’s enthusiasm. The glory of the summer was like an intoxicating draught. “Wouldn’t it be lovely, dear,” I said, “to have no commonplaces, no tiresome duties – only summer and the song of birds; and never to catch cold, or feel ill, or tired, or worried?”

Bess laughed, and we kissed each other.

We walked on along the path that encircled the ruins. Young, fat, flopperty thrushes, with large brown eyes and short tails, hopped about the grass. On the bough of a lime tree, we came across a line of little tom-tits, nine in a row. There they sat, chirping softly, or charming, as the people call it here. The poor parent birds, in an agony of terror, flew backwards and forwards, imploring their offspring to return to the nest, but the young ones took no notice. They would not believe in the existence of such monsters as boys or cats. They, too, like us, were charmed with the sunshine and the gaiety of the outside world, and utterly declined to go back to what folks call here, “their hat of feathers.” A little further on, however, our enthusiasms received a chill. In the branches of a dead laurel, that I had for some time been watching, was a thrush’s nest, and it was deserted. The mother-bird had sat day and night, and I had watched the tips of her brown tail, or met, at intervals, the gaze of her round anxious eye. And now the nest was forsaken. How sad! She had become almost a friend. For days, after breakfast, I had brought out a saucer full of bread and milk, and placed it at a respectful distance from the nest. And yet in spite of all my care, behold! an enemy had come in the night, some horrid boy or evil cat, and the thrush had forsaken the nest, and we lamented over the eggs – cold as stones.

I showed Bess the nest. “How wicked!” cried Bess, “to frighten off a poor bird like that. Well, I am sure,” she added, “the wicked creature that has done that ought to go to prison. Perhaps Barbara, the housemaid,” she continued, after a moment’s reflection, “might tell her policeman. Policemen should be of use, sometimes.”

With a sense of regret, I retraced my steps, till I reached the tourist’s wicket, that leads into the public road. Seated close by, on a mossy bank, I found old Timothy Theobalds.

I told him about the forsaken thrush’s nest.

“Lord, love yer, marm!” he answered contemptuously, “they be as common as blackberries, be thrushes; there’s any amount of they – there be one not a hundred yards off, just on the ground. The feathered gentry will fly, give ’em a week or so. I don’t think nothin’ of they. But I do remember a yellow water wagtail’s nest, when I was a boy. It war down by the pond. I was stayin’ with grandam, and the missus that lived here at the farm had a fine lot of white ducks then. Well, she seed me one day speerin’ round, and her thought I war arter her ducks. ‘What be yer lookin’ round here for?’ her cried out, furious. I told her I was arter a yellow dip-tail, but her wouldn’t believe me. ‘I’ll mak’ yer know the taste of the willow’ – for there was a great one then by the pond – ‘and yer won’t wish to know it twice,’ her said. Farmer folk war masterful then” mused old Timothy; “they held the land from the gentry, and the land was meat and drink.”

After a pause I asked the old man if he was not enjoying the sunshine.

THE APPLE HOWLERS

“Pretty fair,” he replied. “But how about the apples? ’Tis good,” he acknowledged, “a bit of summer; but yer should have know’d the summers in the old days,” he exclaimed; “they war built up by plenty. Now,” he said, sadly, “there’s always somethin’ agin’ summer, like there be agin’ most things. Summer blows bain’t enough to content poor folks like me. Us old ’uns want our apples bobbin’ in beer come Christmas.”

I then remembered hearing a few days before that the apple-blossom had been sadly nipped by the late spring frosts.

“Them as is rich can buy the foreigners,” pursued Master Theobalds, “but to poor folks, frosts mean the end of pleasure. But there bain’t like to be much fruit now in the orchards,” he continued, “since folks have given up the decent customs of their forefathers.”

“What ones?” I asked. “And how did folks in the years gone by prevent frosts, and blights?”

“You’ll hear, you’ll hear,” and old Timothy, in a high squeaky voice of ninety years and more, told me of old Wenlock customs long since forgotten.

“I mind me,” he pursued, “when it war different; but in grandam’s time, it was a regular custom for them as had apple trees and plum orchards to get the young men to go round and catch round the trees with their arms – ”

“What good did that do?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

“What good!” and old Timothy glared at me for this impertinent interpellation. “Why, mam, it was accounted a deed of piety in those days ‘to march’ the orchards, as folks called it. Religion war a different thing altogether, even when I war a lad,” he said sadly. “The devil we thought a lot of ’im in my time – always raging and rampaging up and down, it was supposed. Now, from what I hear, he seems a poor lame kind of played-out devil, broken-winded and drugged; not the rowdy, handsome chap us used to be afeard of. Years agone we thought he could get anywhere – in our houses, in our cupboards, up the chimney, down the wells, anywhere. ‘Keep him out,’ parsons used to say; and us thought us had done a good job if us could keep him out of our gardens, and from our fruit trees. So the lustiest lads of a parish would come round, call out a benediction, and tramp round. They would – they that war nimble with their fists – have a set-to, mostly, at Wenlock, in the churchyard. Many’s the match I’ve a-seen. Two young fellows fighting, fair and square, as Christians should, and after they had found the best man, they’d go and brace the trees. ‘Apple Howlers’ folks used to call ’em, and the best man war captain of the lot.”