Spring in a Shropshire Abbey

“Her wouldn’t to-night,” explained Nana, “my little lamb; her thinks of nothing but the pug-pup. I holds to dolls for little ladies, but Miss Bess, she holds to dogs for herself. ‘Oh, Nana,’ her said, when I was bathing her, ‘I could not live without dogs. God makes them into brothers for me.’

“Then I said, ‘Why do you like ’em like that? ’Tis almost a sin.’ She answered, ‘God never makes them answer back; and then we can do with different toys.’

“Well,” concluded Nan, pensively, as she took up her sewing, “my old aunt said God Almighty made caterpillars for something, and I suppose even dogs b’aint made for nought, leastways, they be pleasures to some.”

I laughed, for behind me, padding up the stairs reluctantly, but faithfully, I saw through the open door my great Dane.

“I should miss Mouse dreadfully. Bess is right,” I cried, “one’s dog never answers back, and is loving and sympathetic at all times, in and out of season.” I passed gently out of the room and went downstairs. I left the dimity-hung chamber, and as I did so I had a vision of a little bright, happy face. At seven, a pug-pup may seem almost a fairy prince, or possess all the gifts of the philosopher’s stone. “Oh, happy childhood,” I said, “which asks so little and wants it so badly.”

Great logs of wood blazed gaily on the great open hearth of the chapel hall, between delicate bronze Italian dogs. The moon was shining down from a sky of placid splendour, and the little oratory looked in the evening light wonderful, and mystic. Through the old irregular lattice windows I felt as if a message of peace was being brought to me. No sound of bird or cry of beast greeted my ears. A copy of Thomas à Kempis’ immortal book lay near me on the table. I took it up and read.

“In the Cross is Salvation, in the Cross is life. In the Cross is the perfection of sanctity.” I read the beautiful words over, and over again. How exquisite the language is. What hope and radiance beam through every syllable. “Yes,” I said, in the stillness of this wonderful place, “I too can hear His message, for this once also was a holy and austere place, where men poured out their lives in the ecstasies of prayer.” Then I thought of the monk of St. Agnes as I saw him in imagination across the long centuries, denying himself all that makes life sweet, and welcome to most men, and devoting himself heart and soul to holy meditation, and still holier penmanship. Idleness he abhorred; labour, as he said, was his companion, silence his friend, prayer his auxiliary. There seemed almost an overpowering sense of holiness in the serene calm of the Abbey, and I strove against it as if the air were unduly burdened with an incense too strong to bear. I rose and went to the door and let in the night air. I saw the dim outline of the trees and the dimmer outline of garden-bed and bush. As I looked, in strange contrast, the glory of the summer days returned to me. In the cold of January my mind floated back to the joy of faintly budding woods, to deep red roses, to the rich perfume of bee-haunted limes, and to pure lines of blossoming lilies. All these I saw in my soul as I stood and gazed into the chill darkness. The flowers seemed to laugh at me, and were accompanied by fair visions of Joy, Love, and Life; but grim forlorn winter, the symbol of the lonely soul in the mountain heights, has also its own beauties. I looked round again, and the mystic sides of Renunciation held me fast. The peace and devotion of the past seemed to hold and chain me with irresistible force. I shut the door and stood again in the place where saints had stood.

THE HOLY PLACE

Beside me was the great stone altar with its seven holy crosses, before which kneeling kings had received the sacrament, and where saint and sinner had received alike absolution. Outside alone the stars were witnesses of my presence. They shone as they had shone a thousand years ago, as they will shine a thousand years to come. Pale, mystic, and eternal, a holy dew of wonder seemed to fall upon my shoulders, the Peace of God is not of this world, nor can it be culled from the joys of life.

It is the Christian’s revelation of glory, but those that serve can hear at times the still calm voice of benediction in such silent places as this, or in the supreme moment of duty, “for in the cross is the invincible sanctuary of the humble, in the cross of Christ is the key of Paradise.”

The next morning I rose early. There was much to do, for life can be as busy in the country as in town. I wrote my letters, and according to my constant custom – much laughed at, be it said, by many friends – jotted down my engagements, duties, and pleasurable excitements for the day. There were —

Some blankets to send to the poor. My list of flower seeds. And then Bess and I were to go sledging in the lanes.

To English people sledging never seems a quite real amusement, and always to belong a little to the region of a fairy-story.

Punctual to the moment, Burbidge appeared with long sheets of foolscap, and we made out the list of seeds.

“Burbidge,” I said grandly, as he handed to me the sheets of paper, “I leave the vegetables to you, save just my foreign pets.”

Burbidge bowed graciously and we were about to begin, when he could not resist his usual speech about disliking foreign men, foreign flowers, and foreign seeds.

“Yes,” I rejoined slyly; “but you must remember how many people liked the Mont D’Or beans and praised your Berlin lettuces.”

“Well, so long as you and the squire were pleased, I know my duty,” replied Burbidge, mollified.

“Which is?” I could not refrain from asking, for the old man has always his old-fashioned formula at the tip of his tongue.

“Which is,” repeated old Burbidge, rehearsing his old-fashioned catechism solemnly, “watering in droughts, weeding all weathers, and keeping a garden throughout peart and bobbish as if it war the Lord’s parlour.”

“It is a very good duty,” I said.

“Yes,” answered Burbidge, complacently; “new fangled scholards haven’t got far beyond that, not even when they puts Latin names to the job. They have County Councils now, and new tricks of all sorts, but ’tis a pity as so many get up so early to misinform themselves, but there be some as allus will live underground and call it light, and there be none so ignorant as they as only reads books. They be born bats for all the garnish of their words.”

After which there followed a long pause – then Burbidge handed me his list of vegetables.

“I haven’t forgotten the foreigneerers,” he said indulgently, “carrots, potatoes, peas, onions, celery, and greens, sprouts, and curls – enough even for a kitchen man, and the Lord Almighty would have a job to know what a Froggy cannot chop up or slip into a sauce. One might stock a county with extras, if one listened to they.”

LOVE IN THE MIST

Then we turned to the flower list. Burbidge pointed with a big brown finger to my entry of “Love in the Mist,” as I wrote, for I proposed having great patches of it in front of my lines of Madonna lilies, varied by patches of carnations, stocks, and zinnias in turns.

“I don’t hold,” he said severely, “to so much bluery greenery before my lilies. There won’t be no colour in my borders.” Then when I protested, he added, “You like it, mam, ‘cause it has a pretty name. There’s a deal in a name, but ’tisn’t all that call it ‘Love in the Mist.’ ‘Devil in the Bush’ was what my mother used to call it, and other folks ‘Laddie in a Hole.’ But there’s a deal too much talked about such nonsense. Leave the maids alone, and eat your vittals, is what I tell my boys, and then there’d be a lot of cakey nonsense left out of the world.”

Then Burbidge, knowing my heart was, what he terms, “set on blows,” bowed slowly, and vanished.

Left to myself, I looked down the catalogue of flower seeds and ordered to my heart’s content; packets of shadowy Love in the Mist, and Eckford’s delightful sweet peas in exquisite shades of red, mauve, lavender, rose, pink, scarlet, and pale yellow. Then I thought of the sweetness of Centaury, the brilliant yellow of the Coreopsis, the perfume of the mulberry-tinted Scabious, and the azure glory of the Convolvulus Minor. I recalled the beauty of the godetias and the opal splendour of the larkspurs, while the gorgeous shades of the Malopes seemed to make an imaginary background of magnificence in my borders, and in my mind’s eye the diaphanous beauty of the Shirley poppies seemed to add to the gorgeous sunlight of even sovereign summer itself. And lastly, as the latest annuals of the year, I did not forget to add some single moon-faced sunflowers, such as I once saw at Linley in the old garden there – worn, white, shadowy creatures with the tears of autumn in their veins.

It is a great delight to order your own flower list. It means a true wealth of beauty in the future, brilliant colours and sweet odours, and the promise of so much in the present. Promise is often like the petals of last year’s roses, and yet full of delights is the garden of imagination. I sat on and dreamt of my future borders, in which no frost nor hail, nor any evil thing would fall, and sat on drawing little squares and rounds on white paper borders when my leisure was suddenly disturbed. Too much leisure is not given to any mother of the twentieth century. And Bess entered like a thunder clap.

“Mama,” she called, “Mama, Crawley declares that you are going out sledging. May I come – I want to, I want to?”

“Yes,” I answered; “but you must do just as I tell you, get out if I tell you, and not do anything foolish.”

Bess agreed to all my stipulations. What would she not have agreed to, to gain her point? And conditions, before they happen, do not sit heavily on a child’s soul.

At last even luncheon was over, and Bess awaited the sledge, expectant and triumphant on the mounting-block.

Just as Bess was sure for the hundredth time that it must be almost tea time, and that something must have happened to Bluebell, the sound of the bells rang out across the frosty air.

“It comes, it comes,” cried Bess, rapturously, “and oh, mama, isn’t it fun. It’s better than walnuts on Sundays, or damming up a stream with Burbidge, or even helping to wash Mouse with Fred,” and my little maid, in a flame-coloured serge mantle trimmed with grey Chinchilla fur, leapt about with excitement.

WE JOURNEY IN A SLEDGE

A minute later, and Fremantle and the footman ran out with blankets, which they carried in their arms in great brown-paper parcels. Each parcel bore the name of one of the seven old women who were that afternoon to receive a pair of blankets. We got in, and then somehow all the parcels were piled up and round us – how I cannot really say, but like a conjuring trick somehow it was done. At last, when all was put in and Bess screamed out “safe,” I shook the reins, old Bluebell looked round demurely, and then trotted off. Mouse gave a deep bay of exultation, Tramp and Tartar yelped frantically, and away we went.

The dogs barked, the bells jingled, and a keen, crisp wind played upon us, packages and pony.

We drove along the old town. We passed the old Town Hall with its whipping-post, and so up High Street past the beautiful old house known as Ashfield Hall, once the old town house of the Lawleys, where Charles I. is said to have slept during his wars, and where Prince Rupert another time dined and rested with some of the gentlemen of his guard. Ashfield Hall is a striking old house, with a gateway, mullion and latticed windows, and beyond extends the old street, known since the days of the pilgrims as Hospital Street.

Overhead stretched a laughing blue sky, and all round was what Bess was pleased to term the Snow Queen’s Kingdom. First of all, we went to Newtown. We passed the red vicarage with its great dark green ilex, and then up by the picturesque forge, where the blacksmith was hammering on a shoe, away by the strange old cottages on the Causeway, with a fall below them into the road of some seven or eight feet, on we went as quickly as fat Bluebell could be persuaded to trot. Then we mounted the hill, and I got out and led the old pony to ease its burden, for a sledge is always a heavy weight when it has to be dragged up hill. At last old Jenny James’s cottage was reached, and her parcel duly handed out.

“I like giving things,” said Bess, superbly. “It seems to make you happier.”

“Yes,” I answered; “but gifts are best when we give something that we want ourselves.”

“Don’t you want the blankets, mama?” asked Bess, abruptly.

“Well, not exactly, dear,” I answered. “Giving them didn’t mean that I had to go without my dinner, or even had to give up ordering my seed list this morning.”

“Must one really do that,” asked Bess sadly, “before one can give anything?”

“Perhaps, little one,” I said, “to taste the very best happiness.” Then there was a little pause, which was at last broken by Bess turning crimson and saying —

“Mamsie, I think it must be very, very difficult to be quite, quite happy.”

GIFTS TO THE POOR

I did not explain, but saw from Bess’s expression that I had sown a grain of a seed, and wondered when it would blossom. Then we turned round and slipped down the hill at a brisk rattle, all the dogs following hotly behind, to an old dame who had long had a promise of a blanket. The old body came out joyfully and stood by her wicket gate, beaming with pleasure. It is an awful thing, sometimes, the joy of the poor over some little gift. It brings home to us at times our own unworthiness more than anything else.