Spring in a Shropshire Abbey

Then Bess interrupted Hals and called out sharply, “Amuse mama.”

OLD SHROPSHIRE GAMES

“Do,” I said; “and begin by telling me all about the games, and repeat to me all the rhymes that you can remember.”

“Yes, we must,” said Bess, moved to pity, “for poor mama, she didn’t even go to Aunty Constance’s garden, although she was asked, or see Aunty Constance’s new flower with a long name that I am sure I can only misremember.”

There was a pause. Then Hals stood on the gravel path some five yards away, and said modestly, “I’ll do my best, but I am afraid all the games won’t come back to me. The first time you play at games, they are almost as hard as sums.”

“Oh no,” interrupted Bess, contemptuously. “Games can never be as bad as sums, for you can kick about and swing your feet in games. But in sums it’s always ‘keep quiet;’ and then,” added Bess sadly, with a note of pathos in her voice, “sums will always keep on changing, unless they are done by a governess.”

Then a hush fell upon us all, for Hals said he must try and think of the games pat, and we were silent. I saw Hals’ lips move, and a pretty vision rose before me of a little figure clad in green velvet, with fair flaxen curls clustering round his brow and resting on his lace collar. After a few minutes the little boy stepped a little nearer, and in a treble key, began to explain the character of the old games and to recite some of the old verses that once delighted lad and lass of the far West country.

“First we played Kiss in the Ring. We ran about,” he explained, “and the boys dropped handkerchiefs on the shoulders of the girls they liked, and they said in turn —

“‘I wrote a letter to my love
And on the way I lost it;
Some one has picked it up,
Not you, not you, not you.’

That they said,” said Hals, “when the boys didn’t like a girl. I didn’t play,“ he remarked grandly, ”because I didn’t like being kissed by strange girls; so I played with the others at Cat and Mouse, which is better, for the kissing is understood.”

“And after that?” I asked.

“Oh, after that we played Bingo.”

“Bobby Bingo,” corrected Bess, severely. “You should call things by their proper name, Hals.”

“It was a game about a dog, and we came up, and all said together,” continued Hals unmoved —

“‘A farmer’s dog lay on the floor,
And Bingo was his name O.
B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O,
And Bingo was his name O.’

I cannot exactly say how that was played,” said Hals, puzzled, “but we danced and we sang, and one girl stood straight up in the middle, as if she had a punishment lesson to say. And when I’m grown up, I will get my father to buy me a dog, and I will call him Bingo.”

“Now I want to talk,” cried Bess, impatiently, “because I, too, know some of the games. We’ve often played at them, Nana and I and the maids, on Saturday afternoon when it was wet. There was Bell-horses. Nobody is so silly, mamsie, unless it’s members of parliament or governesses, as not to know ‘Bell-horses.’”

Then my little maid slipped off the wooden bench on which she had been swinging her feet, and went and stood by little Harry.

“Listen,” she cried, and blurted forth at double quick pace —

BELL-HORSES AND OTHER DELIGHTS

“‘Bell-horses, bell-horses, what time of day?
One o’clock, two o’clock, three and away.
Bell-horses, bell-horses what time of day?
Two o’clock, three o’clock, four and away.’”

Then we stood up, and cried out —

“‘Five o’clock, six o’clock, no time to stay.’”

At this point Hals came and sat quietly by me on the edge of my sofa, and Bess went on.

“Besides that we had Green Gravel, Green Gravel, and even Mrs. Burbidge says that is not a wicked game to play,” cried Bess; and repeated the old lines with a funny little tilt of her head —

“‘Green gravel, green gravel, the grass is so green,
She is the fairest young lady as ever was seen.
I’ll wash her in milk,
And I’ll clothe her in silk,
And I’ll write down her name
With a gold pen and ink.’”

Then came what Bess called “them that laughed,” who said —

“‘O Sally, O Sally, your true love is dead,
He sent you a letter to turn round your head.’”

“I like that,” remarked Bess. “The words are pretty. ‘Green gravel, green gravel,’ but I shouldn’t like to be washed in milk, soap and water are bad enough, but I should like letters to be written with a pen of gold. They sound as if they ought to be letters all about holidays or Christmas presents; leastways, they never ought to be rude or disagreeable, or have anything to do with lessons.’”

“Yes,” agreed Harry, “written only for fun, and because everybody may do as they like.”

Then we discussed Wallflowers. And as the children stood talking, for Hals had run to Bess’s side, old Nana came out of the Chapel Hall and joined our group.

“It is time, mam, for them to be in bed,” said Nana, sourly; “and I’m sure it will be a mercy if both childer are not ill to-morrow. By their own accounts they’ve eaten as many lolly-pops as they had a mind to. I did think as Mrs. Legarde had more sense than that. But them as feasts children, should physic ’em.”

“Wallflowers, wallflowers,” interrupted Bess, rudely. “Come and amuse mama, poor mamsie hasn’t had tea out, or done anything to please herself.”

So old Nana – whose bark, all the household acknowledges, is far worse than her bite – came and began to recite the old rhymes of her youth, and of the old days before that.

“I am just ashamed of the old nonsense,” she said, blushing like a girl, “but since it will amuse your mama,” and she turned to Bess, “I’ll try my best.” And Nana, in a funny old husky voice, with the Shropshire accent growing stronger and stronger at every line repeated —

“‘Wallflowers, wallflowers, wallflowers up so high,
Us shall all be maidens, and so us will die.
Excepting Alice Gittens – she is the youngest flower,
She can hop, and she can skip, and she can play the hour,
Three and four, and four and five,
Turn your back to the wall side.’”

And thereupon old Nana, animated by old recollections, turned her back upon me and stood facing the old bowling-green.

QUEEN BESS’S GAME

“Well done!” cried both children simultaneously. And then Bess called for “Nuts in May.” “You know, what we played last Christmas, when we could’nt go out,” she explained, “because the snow was so deep.”

For a moment Nana looked puzzled.