Spring in a Shropshire Abbey. Gaskell Catherine Henrietta Milnes

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ