Spring in a Shropshire Abbey

We want a pretty maid
To walk along with us.’

“The lads used to say that in a chorus,” Nana explained. “Then the maids would answer —

“‘Fiddle faddle – fiddle faddle.’

“Then the boys would say —

“‘We’ll take a pretty maid,
We’ll catch her by the hand,
She shall go to Derby,
For Derby be her land.
She shall have a duck, my dear,
She shall have a lamb,
Hers shall be a nice young man,
A-fighting for her sake.

“‘Suppose this young man was to die,
And leave the lass alone,
Our bells would ring, and we should sing
And clap our hands together.’

“And the maids said —

“‘Fiddle faddle – fiddle faddle.’”

“I don’t like it,” said Bess, impulsively. “Why should they all be jolly because the poor gentleman died?”

“THERE’S THINGS AS GIRLS CAN’T UNDERSTAND”

But Hals did not take that view. “There’s things,” he said loftily, “as girls can’t understand.”

At this Bess turned very red, and in the spirit of the modern woman declared, “What she couldn’t understand, Hals couldn’t neither.” And in deep dudgeon she followed Nana into the house.

As the little party passed out of the garden Hals called back to me, “We’ve forgotten Stag a Roarning. The best of all the games we’ve not told you about. One that I played last year with my papa at a school feast.”

The twilight turned into night. The servants came out, and I was helped back to the Chapel Hall. After all it had not been a dull afternoon. One can go many miles in one’s room, if one knows how to ride on the wings of fancy, and many is the garden that I had visited that day, borne along on the pinions of imagination, for were not the gardens of all time open to me? No dragons or mailed warriors guarded the entrance gates, not even a modern policeman.

An hour after dinner I found myself in bed. The window of my chamber was wide open, an old lancet window of Norman days, one out of which Roger de Montgomery may have gazed, and, later, many of the Henry’s of England in succession. All was very still outside. In the little bit of dark sapphire-blue sky that met my eye as I lay in bed, I saw a mist of silver stars, and the scent of the creepers entered with entrancing sweetness. I was no longer in pain, but not sleepy, so I stretched out my hand and took hold of a book. My hand closed upon a volume of Milton, well worn, and much used; for John Milton has a solemn, sacred power, and touches you with the solemnity of some grand chords heard upon a cathedral organ, and the melody of his verse is often welcome in this holy place. But it was not to his “Paradise Lost” or “Regained” that I turned, nor to his exquisite sonnets. I was in a lighter mood; I turned to the most beautiful masque that ever was written; whilst I thought of the most beautiful of all ruins, Ludlow Castle, the early home of Sir Philip Sidney, England’s ideal knight, and the mirror of her chivalry.

The plot of the masque arose from a simple little mishap which happened in the life of the actors. John Milton was then tutor to the Earl of Bridgewater’s sons, Lord Brackley and Thomas Egerton. On their way to Ludlow, the young party went through Haywood Forest in Herefordshire. Travelling with her brothers was the Lady Alice Egerton. Somehow, in the depth of the wilderness, the young lady was lost for a short time.

Out of this slender plot Milton constructed his masque of “Comus.” His friend, Henry Lawes, set his songs to music, and the fair Alice and her two brothers all appeared in the play on Michaelmas night and acted at Ludlow Castle before their parents and assembled guests. As I lay in bed the grace and the charm of the masque returned to me. I thought in the tranquillity of the summer evening I heard the lady calling —

“Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that lives unseen
Within thy airy shell,
By slow meander’s margent green,
And in the violet-embroidered vale
Where the love-lorn nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well:
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
That likest thy narcissus are?
O, if thou have
Hid them in some flowery cave
Tell me where?
Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere,
So mayest thou be translated to the skies
And give resounding grace to all heaven’s harmonies.”

THE MASQUE OF “COMUS”

How prettily the lines must have sounded, not through wood and glade, but through the stately presence chamber of Ludlow Castle to the graceful tinkling music Lawes had written for them. The earl and countess sat, I have read, in all the state of the Marches Court in the front row, and were surrounded by neighbours and dependents. There is the grace of great things in “Comus,” and a grace and finished purity of soul that have seldom belonged to youth.

The elder brother’s speech is worthy of Shakespeare —

“He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit in the centre and enjoy bright day.
But he, that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.”

What happened to fair Alice, I have often asked myself, in the time of trouble that was soon to come? I have never been able to find out much, save that she married Lord Carberry, and lived with him at his seat of Golden Grove.

In the unbroken calm, the old world seemed very near me. Ghosts, once dear to Ludlow, seemed to breathe around me. The little princes, with their fair curls, smiled upon me from the threshold of life; Prince Arthur, Sir Philip Sidney, Alice and her brothers, and Milton in the dawn of his poet’s career; ill-fated Charles; and brilliant, but broken-hearted, Butler. I thought of all of them, whilst the wind stirred faintly the summer leaves. At last I sank into repose. Sweet dreams are those suggested by old-world ghosts, and when the spirit is lulled by the graces of another age. I lay half-dreaming, half-awake, and thought of John Milton, young and beautiful, with the fire of inspiration in his deep grey-blue eyes. A man of wonderful learning and grace. A master swordsman, inasmuch as it was true of him “that he was not afraid of resenting an affront from any man.” Of deep erudition, for Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac were all known to him, besides being well versed in Italian, French, and Spanish. He could repeat aloud, I have heard, many portions of Homer. I thought of him later giving himself up to the delights of music, of which he was a master, as was his father; playing, it is said, both on the organ and on other instruments. He was also a composer, like his friend Henry Lawes, though none of his compositions have reached us. Certainly, as Bishop Newton wrote of him, “he was a man of great parts, for his was a quick apprehension, a sublime imagination, a strong memory, a piercing judgment, and a wit always ready.”

The next day I sat out after breakfast. It was delicious weather. Soft rain had fallen during the night towards dawn, and refreshed the earth. I had begun to answer letters on a little bed-table, when my solitude was interrupted by the appearance of Auguste. He approached my couch with a profound bow. Under his arm was a book bound in vellum, and bearing on the side an inscription in manuscript. He advanced, placed both heels together, and then bowed profoundly.

“Madame se porte mieux?” he inquired.

I replied in the affirmative, and thanked him for his kind enquiries.

L’ŒUVRE DE GRAND-PAPA

There was a pause; then Auguste bowed again, and after a long string of courteous words, in which our cook trusted that “le bon Dieu ferait vite son métier,” and in which he assured me that he prayed that I should be soon restored to health, he put beside me “le cahier blanc” that he had been holding. “C’est l’œuvre de mon grand-père,” he explained with pride. “Il était cuisinier dans la famille d’un maréchal de l’Empire,” and added, “madame peut copier ce dont elle a besoin.”

I felt overwhelmed at this proposal, for I realized that poor Auguste was giving me what he prized most in the world. Perhaps the great Napoleon had supped off grandpapa’s entrées, or Josephine had tasted an ice or some brioche made by grandpapa’s hands. These recipes have for Auguste the mysticism of the lore of Merlin. They are, in his words, magnifiques, superbes, and the last words of culinary art. “Mes secrets,” he generally calls them. Grand’maman bound them in white vellum, and the book has been handed down as a priceless heirloom in Auguste’s family.

I felt I could hardly thank my cook sufficiently for his kind thought. There Auguste stood in irreproachable white linen cap and coat. No prince could have believed that he could offer a more splendid gift, as he repeated, with a theatrical wave of his hand, “Madame peut tout copier.” And then added, with an indulgent smile, “Madame est malade, cela lui fera un plaisir énorme.”

I rose to the occasion and said, as “bonne ménagère.” I found it difficult to express my gratitude.

At this Auguste retired a step, and then, with a courtly bow, exclaimed grandly, his eye upon my embroidery which lay near on a chair, “Il faut que les artistes se consolent dans les jours de tristesse,” and so saying, vanished to reign over his own kingdom.

A little later Burbidge came in to see me. In his hand he held a bunch of roses, neatly tied with green matting, a new fad of mine. Amongst the roses that he had brought me, I found a lovely Caroline Testout, of great size and beauty, of a delicate pink with a glow of richer colour in the centre. Then there was an open bud of charming Thérèse Levet, and a full blown splendour of Archiduchesse Marie Immaculata, with its curious red-brick tints; and two or three blossoms of the dear old-fashioned Prince Camille de Rohan of a deep, brownish crimson hue.

“Here’s a few on ’em, just a sprinklin’,” said Burbidge. “But oh, ’tis a pity as yer can’t see ’em growin’! The sop of rain has brought ’em out, like the sunshine brings out chickens from under a hen’s wing. They be popping and peering in the garden, as if they had the Lord Almighty to look at ’em Hisself.”

“Perhaps He is,” I said with a smile.