Spring in a Shropshire Abbey

“The wicked prince,” she said, “and his pack of bloodhounds are close upon me, therefore I must fly.” And she bade them adieu, but not till she had told them to sharpen their scythes, for the reaping of the barley should take place that night.

All came to pass as the Blessed One had foretold, for as the countrymen were busy reaping their grain, the heathen prince and his followers arrived on the scene.

But the labourers were true and faithful hearts, and neither threats nor promises could extract from them in what direction the Lady Milburgha had fled.

When the prince saw that the peasants had begun to reap the grain that had been sown the self-same day, a great awe fell upon him and his lords, and he vowed that it was a vain and foolish thing to fight against the Lord, and his anointed.

Other old writers tell how the river Corve, at the voice of God, saved Lady Milburgha; and how, as soon as she had passed over its waters, from an insignificant little brooklet it swelled into a mighty flood which effectually barred the prince’s progress. Amongst other incidents mentioned by Saxon chroniclers, we hear that St. Milburgha drove away the wild geese from the plots of the poor. Many are the legends of the beautiful Shropshire saint that are still cherished in the wild country between the Severn and the Clee. She was as fair as she was good, it was said, and old writers told how, when a veil once fell from her head in the early morning sunshine, it remained suspended in the air until replaced by her own hand, and how she wrought a miracle by prayer and brought back to life the son of a poor widow; while all the while, a mystic and sacred flame burnt beside her, a visible manifestation of her sanctity, for all to see.

THE SAINT’S WELL

I thought of all these beautiful old legends, fairy-stories of grace, they seemed to me, as I wandered up the back lane and paused before the saint’s well at Wenlock, which is still said to cure sore eyes.

As I stopped to gaze down upon the deep well below, I noticed that the little wicket gate was open, and that a child with a little jug was about to descend the stairs to fetch what she termed in the Shropshire tongue, “a spot o’ water.”

“Have you no water at home, my child, that you come here?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” replied the little maiden, Fanny Milner by name, “there be a hougy drop in our well after the rains; but grandam says I must get some from here, or she’ll never be able to read her chapter come Sunday afternoon, with glasses or no glasses. Grandam says as it have a greater power of healin’ than ever lies in doctor’s messes, or than in bought stuffs neither. It be a blessed water, grandam says, and was washed in by a saint – and when saints meddle with water, they makes, grandam says, a better job of it than any doctor, let him be fit to burst with learning.”

I smiled at the apple-cheeked little lass’s quaint talk, and helped her to fill her jar. The belief in the healing powers of the old well lingers on, and many of the inhabitants of Much Wenlock are still of opinion that water fetched from St. Milburgha’s well can cure many diseases, and particularly all malign affections of the eyes.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the holy wells of many Welsh and Shropshire wells degenerated into Wishing wells. They then lost their sacred character, and became centres of rural festivities.

It is said that at Much Wenlock on “Holy Thursday,” high revels were held formerly at St. Milburgha’s well; that the young men after service in the church bore green branches round the town, and that they stopped at last before St. Milburgha’s well. There, it is alleged, the young maidens threw in crooked pins and “wished” for sweethearts. Round the well, young men drank toasts in beer brewed from water collected from the church roof, whilst the women sipped sugar and water, and ate cakes. After many songs and much merriment, the day ended with games such as “Pop the Green Man down,” “Sally Water,” and “The Bull in the Ring,” which games were followed by country dances, such as “The Merry Millers of Ludlow,” “John, come and kiss me,” “Tom Tizler,” “Put on your smock o’ Monday,” and “Sellingers all.”

Such was the custom at Chirbury, at Churchstoke, and at many of the Hill wakes, and from lonely cottage and village hamlets the boys and girls gathered together, and danced and played in village and town.

After shopping in the town, I entered the little old red-walled garden where my annuals blossom in the lovely long June days. All looked sad and brown, and “packed by” for rest, as Burbidge calls it. I noticed, however, a few signs of returning life. The snowdrops had little green noses, which peered above the ground, and here and there the winter aconites had bubbled up into blossom. What funny little prim things they were with their bonnets of gold, and their frills of emerald green. I noted, also, that the “Mezeron-tree,” as Bacon calls it, was budding. How sweet would be its fragrance a few weeks later, I thought, under the glow of a warm March sun.

I passed along, and looked at a line of yellow crocuses. The most beautiful of all crocuses, veritable lamps of fire in a garden, are those known as the Cloth of Gold. The golden thread was full of promise, but as yet no blossom was expanded. How glorious they would be when they opened to the sunshine. There is indeed almost heat in their colour, it is so warm and splendid.

MANY-COLOURED STARLINGS FLIT

As I stood before these signs of dawning life, two starlings flitted across the garden. How gay they were in their brilliant iridescent plumage! The sun, as they passed me, struck the sheen of their backs, and they seemed to shine a hundred colours, all at once. I tried to count the colours that the sun brought forth in them, gold, red, green, blue, gray and black with silver lights; but as I named the colours, words seemed bald and inadequate to describe the beauty and mutability of their hundred tints, for, as they moved, each colour changed, dissolved, reappeared and vanished, to grow afresh in some more wonderful and even more exquisite tint. And then suddenly the sun was obscured behind a cloud, and my starlings, that seemed a minute ago to hold in their plumage the beauty of the sun and the moon and of the stars, became in a twinkling poor brown, everyday, common little creatures. Like Ashputtel when the charm was gone, they looked common little vulgar creatures, and as they flew over the wall into the depths of the ivy on the ruined church, I wondered why I had ever admired them.

Starlings, some fifty years ago, were often kept as pets. Burbidge has told me that they are the cleverest mimics that breathe, being “born apes,” so to speak. Now, however, my old friend declares, “none will do with them, for nobody cares for nought but popinjays, and then they must have the colours of a gladiolus married to the voice of a piano.” So the English starling is no longer a village pet. A few minutes later, and Burbidge told me that a spray of Chionodoxa Luciliæ was out.

I peered round and I saw some little hard china like buttons, folded tight in a sheath, and beyond, a cluster of bronze noses, about a quarter of an inch above the ground. How lovely they will be, I thought, all these delicate spring flowers. All blue, and all wonderfully beautiful from the deep sapphire blue of the Chionodoxa Sardensis, to the pale lavender of the dainty and exquisite Alleni.

Yes, the world is alive, I said, and laughed; for I knew that spring must come in spite of snows and frosts, that the breath of life had gone forth, mysterious, wonderful, the miracle of all the miracles, and that the joy of spring and the glory of summer must come, as inevitably as death and winter.

I turned and inspected a large bed of Chinese Peonies. I moved a little of the protecting bracken placed there by the loving hand of Burbidge, and peeped into the litter. Yes, they too, had heard the call of spring. A few shoots had pierced through the soil, and they were of the richest blood-red colour, like the shoots of the tea-roses on the verandah of our hotel at Mentone. They were of the deepest crimson, with a light in them that recalled the splendour of a dying sun. Then I covered up the shoots quickly for fear of night frosts, but with hope in my heart, for everywhere I knew the earth must burst into bud and blossom; and as I listened to the storm-cock in the plantation, I rejoiced with him in the lengthening days, and in the growing sunshine.

A JOYOUS CHAFFINCH

I passed out of the garden, and walked down the stone stairs, through the old wrought-iron gate, that is said to have belonged to the house where the Rye House Plot was hatched. Just outside, and perched on a silver holly, I saw a lovely cock chaffinch. A second later, he was strutting gaily up and down on the grass! What a grand fellow he was, with his lavender head, his greenish-grey back, his salmon breast, and the brilliant white bars on his wings! What a cheery, light-hearted little creature! “Joyeux comme un pinson,” the French say, and he is certainly the most light-hearted of English birds. The Twink, or Bachelor bird he is often nicknamed, for when winter comes, many of the cocks stretch their wings and fly off to foreign parts and leave the hens behind. The pied-finch is his name in the village. By nature a most joyous bird, the pied-finch is the last of the summer singers, singing gaily into July, when the thrush and blackbird are mute. I stood and watched him as he hopped about the sward. He took no notice that I was near, for the Bachelor bird is very fearless and curiously little apprehensive, or timid. All of a sudden, I turned round and saw my great hound Mouse behind me. “Mouse!” I cried, and with a bound she was beside me. For the first twenty-four hours after my return, Mouse is miserable out of my sight. She always gives me a boisterous welcome, and will not leave me for a moment. She sniffs at my boxes, watches me out of the corner of her eye, and wanders round me, trying often in a foolish, dumb way to block my passage, if she thinks I wish to leave the room.

Panting, and running behind my dog, followed Bess.

“Mums,” she said, “we couldn’t think where you was gone. We hunted everywhere. ‘Like enough,’ Burbidge said, ‘you was hunting for flowers.’ But don’t bother about little spikes and green things, for Mouse and I want you badly.”

“Hals is coming,” continued Bess, “and this time without his crab-tree governess. Burbidge says, ‘Give me a Fräulein to turn the cream sour;’ and declares that ‘You could make vinegar out of her!’”

“Well, then, my dear,” I said, “you and Hals can thoroughly enjoy yourselves, for you will be alone.”

“Yes,” answered Bess, “for when I saw Hals I said, ‘Nothing but old, old clothes – clothes that will nearly want gum to stick them on, and that won’t mind any mud.’”

“Did you enjoy yourself at Hals’ birthday?” I asked, for on that eventful day I was away.

“I should think I did, mamsie,” and Bess’s eyes glistened at the recollection. “There was no conjurer, but the dearest little white dog in the world, that did tricks, and he knew more tricks than a pig at a fair, Nana said; and after that Cousin Alice, Miss Jordan, read us some stories and poetry. First of all, she sang us such nice old songs about ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary,’ ‘Little Boy Blue,’ and ‘I saw Three Ships come Sailing,’ and then she went on reading poetry. She read us the ‘Ancient Mariner,’ and ‘Sister Helen,’ and I sat on her knee; but Hals wouldn’t sit on his mother’s, because he said people were looking, and boys had better sit on their own chairs. And ‘Sister Helen’ was quite real, and made me feel creepy, creepy. It was all about two sisters – they hated some one, and made an image, and they dug pins into it, and then they repeated bad words, and the person for whom it was meant got iller and iller and died; and Hals and me we liked it.” So, chattering all the way, Bess and I regained the house.

“Will there be cake – my favourite cake?” inquired Bess, “the one that Hals likes best of all, with apricot jam and chocolate on the top?”

“Yes,” I answered, “and Auguste has promised to make it himself. But only one helping. You must try and be wise, little girl.”

“I must try,” said Bess, but not very hopefully.

Half an hour later and Hals arrived, without Fräulein Schliemann. We all felt relieved; the two children embraced hurriedly, as if life was all too short to get in all the fun of an afternoon spent in each other’s company; and then Bess said, “You can go now,” sharply to the little maid who had brought him over. “We don’t want to be unkind, but we want to be quite, quite alone, please;” then, thinking that she had not been quite courteous, Bess ran impetuously out of the room. “Poor thing!” she explained to me a minute after, “she must read, because she cannot play; she cannot help it;” and Bess gave Jane a story-book.

“You will find that very amusing,” I heard her say through the open door. “It is all about a naughty girl, but she couldn’t help being naughty, ’cause it was her nature.”

Then Jane went up to the nursery, and a minute later Bess and Harry bounced off together. Before leaving me she whispered something into his ear.

An hour later and Fremantle rang the bell for tea.

A GREAT, GREAT SECRET

After a few moments of waiting Bess and Hals reappeared. They whispered loudly, but I pretended not to hear what they said, for Bess told me with flashing eyes that they had a great, great secret.

“The greatest secret, Mum Mum, that we ever had in our lives.”

Their faces looked scarlet, and as to their hands, it is hard to say of what colour they were originally. It was, however, Bess’s special fête, so I said nothing tactless about cleanliness, nor did I allude to whispering being against the canons of good manners; for there are moments when a mother should have eyes not to see, and ears not to hear, and as a wise friend once said to me, “half the wisdom of life is knowing when to be indulgent.”

I need not have feared any excess on the part of the children as regarded the cake and the jam, for they hardly ate any, and Auguste’s chef d’œuvre had only two small slices cut out of it.

Bess, I saw, was under the influence of some great excitement. She could hardly sit still a moment, and fidgeted on her chair repeatedly, till I feared she would topple backwards, chair and all.

At last tea was over, and grace was said, and the two children, breathless, and absorbed, begged leave to go off.

“Yes,” I answered, “but not out of doors; for, see, it is raining, and I promised your mother, Hals, that you should not get wet.”

“Oh no, it’s nothing to do with puddles,” cried Bess. “But, mum, may I take some pins from your pincushion? Nurse won’t let me have as many as I want. And then will you say that nobody – nobody is to go near us?”

“Very well,” I answered, “only don’t do anything that is really wrong.”

Bess avoided my gaze, and did not answer, and a minute later I heard the two children scuttle up the newel staircase, and shortly after heard the muffled sound of voices in the old tower of the Abbey that a Lawley is said to have erected in the middle of the seventeenth century.

THE FAIRY-STORY

About half an hour after, the children returned to me in the chapel hall. Bess, I noticed, looked white and fagged, and both children seemed exhausted by their play, whatever it was, so I made them sit quiet, fetched my embroidery, and began to tell them a fairy-story. I meandered along the paths of fiction. I fear my story had but little plot, but it had fiery dragons, wild beasts, a fairy prince, and a beautiful fairy princess, and, in the background, a wicked ogre. And as I talked, the children sat entranced.

“You see,” I said, as I heard the front-door bell ring, and heard the tramp of horses outside, “the prince was to have everything, all that his heart could wish – dogs, the golden bow and arrows, the azure ball, and the deathless crimson rose – as long as he restrained his temper, and never gave way to fits of violent passion. But if he swore at his old nurse, Ancoretta, or struck the goat-herd, Fritz, or even pinched the goose-girl, Mopsa, palace, dogs, bow, ball and rose were all to disappear like a flash of lightning, and he was to become again the poor little bare-legged village lad. Then the princess was to be carried off by fiery dragons, and never return till he, Florizel, had been able to grow good and pitiful again, and to do some lowly, humble service to some poor old dame that everybody else despised, and was unkind to.”

At this point of my story, Fremantle entered and announced the carriage.

“Go on, go on,” cried the children in one breath. “We want to hear what happened!”

But I answered, shaking my head, “How Prince Florizel was rude to his tutor, ungrateful to his old nurse, and beat his faithful foster-brother, Fritz, is another story, as Mr. Kipling would say; and all this you must wait to hear in the second volume of my mind, which will appear on Easter Monday, when Hals shall come over, if his mother can spare him, and we three will all sail off in fairy barks with silken sails to the far and happy land of Fancy.”

So Harry departed, attended by Jane, and Bess sat on in silence looking hard into the fire, and then early, and of her own accord, pleaded fatigue and slipped off to bed.

Just as I was finishing dinner I saw old Nurse Milner standing in the doorway.

“Nothing wrong, nurse?” I asked, starting up.

“Nothing very wrong,” answered old Nana, cautiously; “leastways, Miss Bess is not ill, but she seems out of sorts and won’t say her prayers to-night, and will keep throwing herself about, till I think she’s bound to fall out of bed. I have asked her what’s the matter, but she’s as secret as a state door. She and Master Harry have been up to some tricks, I’ll be bound, for I don’t hold to children playin’ by themselves, as if they were nothing but lambkins in a meadow. You can’t tell what they won’t be up to, but this you may be sure of, to childers left by themselves, mischief is natural sport.” And old Nana glared, and made me feel very small.

“No great harm done this time,” I said, and went upstairs.

“What’s the matter, little girl?” I asked. I took a little hot, feverish hand and pressed her to tell me why she would not say her prayers.

At first Bess was sullen – turned her head away, and would not speak; but she could not resist my kiss, and at last confession bubbled up to her lips.

A LITTLE MAID’S CONFESSION

“Mama,” she exclaimed vehemently, “I have been wicked, very wicked – wicked as an ogre or a she-dragon. Can you love me really and truly when you know what I’ve done – really love me again?”

“I am sure I can,” I answered, “only tell me. When I know, I can help you.”

Bess buried her head against my shoulder, and then rambled on rather incoherently —

“Do you remember what I told you about Hals’ birthday – how there wasn’t a conjurer but a white dog, and how, after the tricks were done, Miss Jordan read us stories and told us poems? Well, there was one bit of poetry that I wish I had never heard, nor Hals either, and that was Sister Helen, because it has made me very wicked. It has made me think of how I could pay out Fräulein. We both hate her, she does nothing but punish; not punish you to make you good, but to make you horrid. Hals catches it for not washing his hands, for not brushing his hair, for not putting on his coat, for losing his blotting-paper, for dropping his pencil. Everything means a punishment with Fräulein. She pounces on him like a cat, and she has him everywhere.” Then, after a pause, Bess began again. “Hals and I thought we would punish her, too – once and for all.”

“Yes, Bess,” I inquired; “but what did you do?”

“Mum, I was very naughty,” replied my little girl, tearfully. “To-day, Hals and I went upstairs, up to the tower, and I got a dustpan and two candle-ends, and we lighted some sticks and some paper in the dustpan – I stole some matches out of papa’s room – and then we melted up the wax.”

“And then, Bess?”

“Then, when the wax was sticky and horrid, we stuck pins into it, and I said, ‘Please, God, let Fräulein die.’ And Hals did not want to say it, but I made him, for I said I wouldn’t have God angry with only me.

“And then I called out, ‘Let her die, God, in horrid pain, like the snake last year that Burbidge killed and that wouldn’t die straight off; and then, dear Lord, let her go to hell and be kept there ever afterwards.’ But Hals wouldn’t say that, because he had heard Parsons, their stud groom, say you must give every beggar a chance, so he bargained that she should come out one day and have some chocolates. To which I said, if the Lord lets her out of hell, it shall be only common chocolates, not like those that Uncle Paul brought me back from Paris. Then Hals agreed, Mum Mum; only he said, for all she was a German woman, the chock was not to be too nasty, seeing that she would only have some once a year.

“Then Hals wanted to go away; but I said he shouldn’t till we had done the whole job.

“Then he and I blew out the fire and stamped upon the wax, and it was quite soft and squashy and I pricked my foot; but nurse does not know, for Eliza bathed me to-night, and Eliza did not notice.”

“And after that?” I asked.

“Oh,” sobbed Bess, “you will be very angry.”

“Never mind, go on,” I said.

“Then,” said Bess, steeled to the point, in a penetrating broken chirp, “after that I told Hals we must say bad words, for I knew that bad words can do a great deal. But Hals couldn’t think of any, so I called him a muff and a milksop, and I told him to repeat after me all that I said.”

HOW COULD I BE SO NAUGHTY?

“What did you say?”

“Mama, I called out ‘damn’ three times.”

“My dear, what a dreadful word! How did you know it?”

“Oh, once I heard Uncle Paul say it when he ran a nail in his boot; and once I remembered that Crawley said it when he got his foot caught in a gate-post out riding, and I have never forgotten it. And worse,” continued Bess, “I called out, ‘hell! hell! hell!’ and then I was frightened; but I didn’t let Hals see it, or he would have said girls were only funks after all.”

“Well, little girl, you have done wrong, and you know it; for it is always wicked to curse anybody, and mean to pray that some evil may befall them. But,” I added, as I saw Bess’s tear-stained little face, “I am sure you’re sorry; for think what a terrible thing it would be if anything dreadful happened to Fräulein, and if you thought your wicked words had brought it about.”

Bess’s composure by this time had quite broken down, she broke out into a passionate fit of tears.

“Why don’t you beat me, why don’t you shake me, or do something?” she cried.

“My poor little girl,” I answered, and I took her in my arms and prayed God that He would purify my little girl’s heart, and give her a pure white soul.

At last Bess’s sobs grew less violent, and she lay quiet.

“Do you feel better now?” I asked.

“Yes,” came back from Bess; “for the curses, Mum Mum, seem to have gone out of the room and to be dying away. Before you came, the whole place seemed full of them, and eyes, great horrid eyes, seemed to be looking at me everywhere, and I couldn’t rest, do what I would.”

“Now you can sleep,” I said with a smile, “and I will sit by you till all the evil spirits are gone, and guard you.”

So I sat on without speaking, and held Bess’s hands till the dustman of children’s fancy came with his sandbags and threw the sand of kindly oblivion into my little maiden’s eyes, and she fell asleep. Then softly and as delicately as I could, I untwined the little network of fingers that had twined themselves so cunningly around mine, and gave little Bess a parting kiss as I glided out of the room.

When I returned to the chapel hall I found a letter from Constance. In a postscript she told me that the idea of the quilt was taking form.

“From ‘Gerard’s Herbal’ I have chosen,” she wrote, “the King’s Chalice, or Serins’ Cade; the Dalmatian Cap; the Guinny Hen; the Broad-leaved Saffron; Goat’s Rue, or the Herb of Grace; Ladies’ Smock; Golden Mouse-ear; Solomon’s Seal; Star of Bethlehem; Sops in Wine; Ales-hoof; Wolf’s Bane and Golden Rod. I give you all the old names. On a scroll I propose round the quilt or ‘bed hoddin,’ as Shropshire folks would call it, to work wise and beautiful words about sleep;” and her letter ended with an appeal to me, to help her, by finding some apt saws and quotations for this purpose. Of course I will; what a delightful excuse for looking through the poets, I said to myself.