Spring in a Shropshire Abbey. Gaskell Catherine Henrietta Milnes

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ