Spring in a Shropshire Abbey

Bess agreed. “They are very wicked for all their nice ways.” And then she added dreamily, “I wonder if terriers ever go to heaven.”

“Begorra! if it is the holy Mother that has a fancy for the breed, I’ll be bound she gets them past St. Peter. ’Dade,” said Thady, “if I was the saint, I’d never shut the door in a good bitch’s face.”

“Well,” says Bess, after a little pause, “for all terriers kill things, they love us badly; and, besides, there may be rats in heaven.”

“How about heaven, then, being quite a perfect place?” I asked, for I must plead guilty to a strong dislike to rats.

“Mum, Mum,” answered Bess, impatiently, “you must leave the poor Lord a few rats, or what would his poor dogs do?”

I laughed and had no answer ready, for a child’s wit is generally the hardest to fight. The best being bred by simplicity and kindness of heart. A minute later I slipped back my little furry nursling into the rose-bush, and we threaded our way across the fields.

As we retraced our steps no bird sang, only the faint barking of a dog in some distant farm reached our ears, and away in the hollow came the far-off sound of distant church bells. We walked along grassy fields, down dim lanes, and beside the budding wheat.

Thady was to come down and get a slice of cake and a glass of milk. “With raisins, real raisins!” exclaimed Bess. The prospect of the feast opened his heart.

“Begorra, I’ll tell you at last,” he cried, with a sly chuckle, and he bubbled over with laughter. “You shall hear all about the job. Yer leddyship,” continued Thady, “has taught me to hate the thieving of a poor bird’s nest, same as the blessed Virgin has taught me to be a Christian.”

I nodded in approbation, but did not quite understand; but then that, as Bess says, “never matters, if you’re not found out.” In a minute Thady went on – whilst I led both children, mounted on old Jill – and told me of an adventure of his.

“It was this ways,” he said. “Two gentlemen last month came over from Manchester, and they put up at the Raven. I watched them come, out of the corner of my eye – and ’tis little,” Thady added, “that escapes me at such times. So when they had been round the churchyard, and peered at the ruins, as is the habits of town-bred folks, I made so bold as to approach them. Indade, I had kept, ever since they left the hotel, remarkably near them. My mother watched me up the Bull Ring, for she knowed that I had a bit of somethin’ up my sleeve, and as I passed, lookin’ as dacent as a lad that had just been bishopped, she whispered, ‘Ye spalpeen, what be yer tricks?’ But I shook her off, as a lad of spirit should, for when yer minded to have a bit of fun, give yer mother a wide berth sure.

“Such is the advice of Thady Malone,” and my little friend drew himself up loftily, and spoke as one who had solved a hard problem.

THE RUN OF THE SEASON

“I followed the gentlemen right enough,” he continued, “and never took my eyes off them, but kept on with them, eyeing and peering round, same as a hawk above a clutch of chickens. And by their talk I made out it was after specimens that they had come. I crept round by a bush, and discovered, right enough, it was after birds and eggs that they had journeyed; and at last one of ’em, the tall, dark, lean ’un, he called out to me, and he said to the fat, sandy-whiskered one that was standing by, ‘Perhaps this lad could help us.’ Then he turned to me. ‘My lad,’ he said, ‘we want to go over a bit of wild country, and to see a bit of wild life. Take us to a wood that is known here as the Edge Wood. They say rare birds still nest there. Hawks, we’ve heard, some of the scarce tomtits, and one or two of the rare fly-catchers, and we want to get some eggs.’ Said I to myself, ‘Thady, yer shall have fine sport.’ But one of them, the lean ’un, had a nasty stick, so I said, ‘Thady, my man, be careful;’ but comforted myself after a bit, for ’tis only on louts’ backs that sticks need fall. Then I stood up and answered bold, ‘Is it the big hawk that your honours want, or the fern owl, the sheriff-man, or any other fowl?’ Begorra, and indade yer leddyship, there was no fowl that I wouldn’t have pretended acquaintanceship with. And they nodded, and I nodded, and they, the fat and the lean, they winked, and I winked, and they talked of eggs and fine prices, and they offered me shillin’s, beautiful silver shillin’s; but I said I’d serve them for the pleasure, for though silver is good, a bit antic is better. Besides,” added Thady, gallantly, “what her leddyship has taught me, I canna unlearn,” and Thady bowed to me with the instinct of a born courtier.

“So I started at a trot,” pursued Thady, “and I sang out, ‘Gentlemen, I’m yer man,’ and I gave a bow and then away, as hard as I could make the pace, and they followed on, like two mad bullocks, or fox-hounds in full cry, and away we tore, over the fields, up the lanes, along the high-road where need be. On, on, I headed ’em like a young he-goat. I’m allus in training, and they followed. I gave ’em a splendid lead over field and fallow, and whenever the fat ’un panted bad, I told ’im to cheer up, for the fern owl and the great hawk’s nests were just ahead.

“At last they began to get a bit rusty. Like enough, by the twinkle of my eye, they began to fear as their cases would never get filled. So I shouted out, as if I were leading the king’s army. ‘Keep up your peckers, misters, a field more and yer’ll see the great hawk hisself,’ and so on up a sharpish pull. I looked back, and saw ’em fair sick – the lean one coming on, but the fat sandy ’un fit to burst. I stopped to catch the breeze, and in the pause I shouted out, ‘Yer’ll find the nest with old Bolas, or where folks says the crows fly at nights,’ and I laughed; and then, begorra, I ran like the best Jack-hare that ever I set eyes on. And when they guessed I had had a bit of a spree, they didn’t take it kindly, not at all, at all, but called out no end of bad words – words,” said Thady, sanctimoniously, “that I never could repeat in your leddyship’s hearing, and that shocked even poor me. So I kept at a proper distance, for the stick that the lean gent had was a right nasty one, and,” added Thady, “a wise man only stops to argue with men of his own size. But I did hear they went up to the station that evening, those two poor gentlemen with never an egg or a grub in their cases, and the porter did say that they made tracks to Manchester like two bears with sore heads. ’Tis wonderful how some folks can never see a joke.”

THE NATURALISTS GO EMPTY AWAY

“Few of us can do that when the joke goes against us,” I answered laughing. “But I am glad, Thady, that you played them a trick. Naturalists of that sort are a pest. In the name of science, they rob our woods, and exterminate all our rare birds and butterflies. Every honest man’s hand should be against them.”

At this Thady grinned all over, “Indade,” he said, “I’ll remember yer leddyship’s words of wisdom to my dying day, and never let go by a chance of honest amusement.”

So speaking we reached the old Abbey Farmery. Hals and Bess, drowsy from their long expedition, were lifted off the pony half asleep. We all had a standing meal, which, as Bess said, was much better than sitting down, because you never eat what you don’t want; and then the young life vanished – Bess and my little guest to bed, and Thady into the silent fields, and only Mouse was left to keep me company. I agreed that evening with the children, that it is very nice sometimes to have no dinner, and to return to simple habits, because the sense so of wood and field lingers longer with you.

CHAPTER VII

JULY

“As late each flower that sweetest blows,
I plucked the garden’s pride;
Within the petals of a rose,
A sleeping love I spied.”

    Coleridge.
I wandered round the garden some ten days later. It was July, the Queen of Summer in the North. I heard the swish of the mowers’ scythes, as wave after wave of blossoming grass fell beneath their feet. As I looked, I noticed that the trees had taken a darker, fuller shade of green, and that the apple and emerald tints which delighted me so much in budding June, had fled before the fierce days of full summer heat. Although the lawns were still verdant, and such as you could only see where the summer rainfall is great, all traces of spring were gone. The polyanthus and cowslips’ umbels were crowned with seeds, and the narcissi in the grass had almost vanished. Birds, that a few weeks ago were funny little fluffy creatures, with orange, gaping throats, were now strong on the wing. Tramp and Tartar pursued one day a thrush across the lawn. I ran out of the house to save him, but found, to my relief, that he could take good care of himself. With a triumphant scream he flew to the top of the high yew hedge. In vain the two little terriers leapt and whimpered below, and besought him to come down and be killed. For all he was young, he was wise, and continued to sit on a twig, and to look down on their efforts with complacent indifference.

MOSS ROSES IN BLOOM

When I went into the walled garden, I found the moss roses in full blossom. They are most beautiful, the most delicate, perhaps, of all the roses. There was an old-fashioned pink, such as one used to see at Covent Garden Market years ago.

I had in my row Blanche Moreau, an exquisite paper white, Maître Soisons, another beautiful white, and the crested and deep purple Deuil de Paul Fontaine. How delicious they all were! Just a little sticky, perhaps, but very sweet; especially an old cottage pink variety that I was given from a garden at Harley, and the name of which I have never known. The kind donor, an old dame, I remember, told me, when she gave me a cutting and I pressed for the name, that it hadn’t no name as far as she knew, but that she called it her “double sweetness,” for it was to her nose, she affirmed, “honey and candy in one.”

Then I noted, bursting into bloom on the other side of the path, rows of Chinese Delphiniums of all colours, that Burbidge had raised from some seed sent to me from a lovely Scotch garden in the far north. The blossoms were of all colours. There were some of an exquisite watery tender turquoise blue, some deep blue de Marie, and others, a faint and celestial tint, as of the sky on soft February days. Besides these there were opal twilights, and darkest indigoes.

I paused and looked down the Ercal gravel path, and stood gazing at my forests of peonies. The English ones were over, but round the clematises were masses of the Chinese sorts. They were of all colours – crimson, carmine, white, purple, cream, pink, rose. How wonderfully beautiful they were, what satiny pinks, what splendid roses, what creamy whites!

In the borders I noticed a few plants of the beautiful tree or Moutan peony, the most glorious kind of all, but which had flowered rather earlier. My plants as yet were small, but “Elisabeth” had had one blossom of deepest scarlet. And I was led to hope that Athlete, Comte de Flandres, and Lambertiana would be strong enough next year to be allowed to flower.

A few steps beyond I paused to look at my Austrian briar hedge, which was then literally, a line of flame in my garden. It was a glorious note of colour, and planted next to the hedge were patches of purple peonies. What a beautiful contrast the two made! one that Sandro Botticelli loved. Then I made my way to a bed of hybrid teas.

These delightful roses, as has been justly said, combine all that is best of old and new. Almost all of them are sweet scented, and even in cold latitudes they flower twice, freely, in each year. Amongst those that I love best are Augustine Guinoiseau, and Camoens. Beyond these, on the southern side of the garden, extend my great bed of hybrid perpetuals, which stand our cold Shropshire climate so bravely and bloom often into late November. I stopped to admire a beautiful specimen of the Earl of Dufferin that seemed almost purple in its sombre magnificence, and felt almost dazzled at the splendour of Éclair. Then I paused to smell a Fisher Holmes, and gathered an almost black rose, which Burbidge told me a few days ago was a new rose to him, and was called the Black Prince. Such a mysterious black rose as it was, with a faint sweet distant smell, like new-mown grass after a summer shower.

IRISES AND ROSES

Between each row of roses I have planted rows of the beautiful English and Spanish irises in turns. These bulbs, I find, like the damp and shade caused by the neighbourhood of the bushes, and the effect of yellow, purple, blue, and lavender, between the pink, red, and white of the roses was enchantingly beautiful. Then I looked upwards and was delighted to see that my Crimson Ramblers and Ayrshire and Penzance briers were all ramping away to my, and to their, hearts’ content over their pillars, and covering their bowers and arches with trails and clusters of glory. I call my arches and bowers my garden in the clouds. Nobody quite knows how beautiful the Crimson Rambler can be till they have seen it against a background of summer sky. Just out of the garden stretched the plantation of firs, Scotch and Austrian, with a border of ribes, laurels, hollies, and yews. The plantation is very small, but it gives a sense of silence between the Abbey and the old town.

Before I returned to the house, I made my way to my bed of annuals. They were on the southern side of the greengages. How gay and gorgeous they looked with a few orange-tip butterflies flying over them. There were patches of African marigold, all a blaze of rich velvety gold, pale Love-in-the-Mist, sea-tinted and mysterious. Love-in-the-Mist is just such a flower as one can imagine Venus wore when she appeared for the first time from the depth of the sea foam, with its curious shadow of green, and its sea-green petals of blue. Then I had in full flower little square beds of larkspur, raised from some wonderful seed I bought from Messrs. Smith, of Worcester, that had blossomed forth in a hundred shades of opalescent beauty. There were shadowy unreal reds, and purples of many shades and colours in one flower, and as I looked at them, they recalled the wonderful draperies of some Burne Jones figures in that great artist’s paintings from the Idylls of the King. A little further off there were lines of stocks of all colours, warm-tinted buff, like the hue of Scotch cattle browsing on a moorland, primrose, bluish rose, dusky red, and spotless white, with creamy hearts. Then flame-coloured nasturtiums ran along in places, black and brown, and twisted and twined wherever there was a little space. At the end of the long border there were patches of the primrose-tinted sweet sultan, with its exquisite scent, mixed with crimson cockscomb, over which old Gerard fell into ecstasies, and wrote of the “gentle,” as he called it, that it “far exceeded his skill to describe so beautiful, and excellent a plant.”

Before I returned to the Abbey, I slipped off to the kitchen garden to ascertain what progress my sweet peas had made. They were only as yet showing buds and long tendrils, but in another month they would be a glory of sweetness and brilliancy, I felt certain. As I retraced my steps to the Abbey, I was greeted by the children. During his visit to the Abbey little Hals had lost his delicate look, and fine pink roses bloomed on each cheek. He and Bess came dancing up the path hand-in-hand, and the little fox-terriers scampered behind them, joyously.

“I am sure we have found something,” cried Bess, excitedly. “Burbidge wouldn’t look because he’s been stung by a bee. ‘But,’ I said, ‘you don’t hear all that chattering for nothing. If only Thady were here we should soon know.’ I wanted to run off to the Bull Ring to fetch him, but Nana said I wasn’t to mess myself, as Aunty Constance was coming down to luncheon to-day. Much she’d care! She knows I can have as much soap as I like.”

THE GARDEN MYSTERY

“Much you’d use, miss, if you had your own way,” I answered laughing. And then I turned and begged Bess, pouting and looking rather irate, to show me where there was this wonderful chattering.

“It is a secret,” cried Bess, “I am sure – a real secret.”

Then, without another word, we turned in through the wooden door at the back of the great yew hedge. As we entered I heard such a twittering and indignant chirping, that I was thoroughly puzzled to guess the cause. The children and I peered through the branches.

“There must be a cat somewhere,” I said. I have read that birds will chatter round a sick cat or dying fox, but I could discover no beast about. At our approach, two brilliant greenfinches alone took flight with a beautiful flash of apple-green wings, and vanished into the recesses of the great walnut tree.

Still the harsh discordant cries continued. Suddenly I saw a nest.

“A nest!” I cried, “and the noise comes from there. What can it be?” I tried to touch it, but the nest of moss and twigs was beyond my reach. “We must get the steps and then we shall know what makes the noise,” I said. “But only Mouse amongst the dogs may see; Tramp and Tartar must be shut up in the shed, for if the birds fluttered down or could not fly, they would kill them, before we could save them.”

We shut up the terriers and fetched the steps. “I wish,” I said, “that one of the boys” – as Burbidge calls them – “were here to hold them.” For the ground at the back of the hedge was uneven, and it was difficult to get the steps reared firmly up.

“I’ll hold them, dear,” said Hals, politely. And added with pride, “You know I’m very good at doing any man’s job.”

But as they were heavy and rather clumsy, being an old-fashioned pair, I declined this and begged Hals to get out of the way, for fear of an accident happening to him. Then I mounted. I reached the summit of the ladder and looked down into the nest. As I did so I was conscious, at the “back of my head,” as Nana says, that the children were watching me intently.

“What is it?” they cried breathlessly.