Gaskell Catherine Henrietta Milnes
Spring in a Shropshire Abbey
“Thady,” I said, as we parted at Mrs. Harley’s wicket, “you must come for me some Saturday. We will go into the woods, and I will bring out luncheon, and you shall climb the trees, whilst I and Bess will search the ground; but we will take no nests, only look at them and see the eggs.”
“Leave the eggs, and what for will her leddyship do that?” asked Thady, surprised. “That wud be like catching a hare and not finding it in the pot the night after.”
“Well,” I remonstrated, “when you come with me, you must play my game of bird-nesting. Anyway, I can promise there will be nothing sick, or sorry, where we have gone.”
Thady at this laughed a little contemptuously, and a second later vanished behind a hedgerow, and I entered Mrs. Harley’s cottage.
It was a lovely morning, bright and joyous. The air was full of spring odours, and in the song of the birds I only heard the echo of universal joy. Yet I knew, the moment I entered the cottage, that the hand of Death was about to beckon my old friend away from the good and useful life, that she had led so well and bravely, to the other side of the bourn from which no man returns.
Old Bessie met me. “Her’s goin’ fast,” she whispered, and stood a moment in the sunlight, hot tears almost blinding her poor old eyes. Then, as I hesitated, she touched me gently on the arm and murmured, “Come up, come up. Glad her’ll be to see you, for all her’s done with Homer, and this world too.” So I mounted the stairs and again found myself in Mrs. Harley’s presence.
Outside beyond the Severn and the Wrekin, the sun was shining gaily. Inside the little chamber, all was spotlessly clean, I noted, as I entered the bed-chamber. I saw the dying woman wanted something, from the way in which her face moved.
“A FAIR DAY TO GO HOME”
“Light, light,” she murmured as I touched her hand; and then, very low, “A fair day to go Home.”
“Her’s been talking of nothing but goin’ home,” said Betsy, reverently; “and her’s goin’ sure, same as gospel truth.”
“All’s at peace,” whispered my old friend, and took a long, far look of the great hill of which all Shropshire men are so proud. So, smiling tenderly and loving the distant scene, her head sank back, and she seemed gently to fall asleep.
“How peaceful!” I said, awestruck.
“The Lord have a-called her, and her work be done,” said Betty solemnly, a little later. “’Tis a good thing,” she added, “to have done good work, and I think the Lord loved her for all she was lowly and never trod in high places.”
Then I left Betty, and the triumphant serene face, in the little whitewashed chamber. As I departed, I was conscious of having touched the fringe of a very holy garment.
I passed out. And as I met the gladness of the outside world, I knew that some of my old friend’s radiance was still lighting my path. After all, I know no better or more blessed things than simple faith, and a noble life, ended by His supreme grace.
Mouse followed at my heels, dutifully walking close behind me. It is curious, the way in which a dog that is often our companion, reflects our mood. The great hound knew that I was absorbed, and gave way to no frolic, chased no rabbit, but kept near, watching me out of her topaz eyes solemnly and with marked concern.
A great stillness seemed to belong to the afternoon. The sun was hidden beneath tender lavender clouds. I crossed a stile and walked amongst the budding grass. Suddenly out of a wood, for the first time in the year, I heard the mystic voice of the cuckoo, calling, calling as if out of a dream.
What a delightful eërie sound it is! Not like a real bird, but like some voice from another world, with its strange power of reiteration, a voice which we cannot do otherwise than listen to; for, as Sir Philip Sidney said, “The cuckoo cometh to you with a tale to hold children from their play, and old men from the chimney corner.” From all time men have loved his cry. In the “Exeter Book” occurs the passage —
“Sweet was the song of birds,
The earth was covered with flowers,
Cuckoos announced the year.”
THE CRY OF THE CUCKOO
I did not see the bird, which lent enchantment to his song. I listened, with budding daisies at my feet, and over Wenlock spire a magic purple light. He seemed to me no bird, but a spirit calling to the world with a gladness that we cannot know. Death and winter must come, but for all that, spring is here, he seemed to say.
Death had come near me, even touched me half an hour ago, but for all the solemn sadness I felt a brief time ago, the joy of life seized me afresh.
As I wandered home across the peaceful fields, the Cuckoo’s call seemed spoken and repeated from coppice to hedgerow, and in every mossy dingle. The old nursery rhyme I used to say in childhood came back to me —
“In April
The Cuckoo shows his bill;
In May
He sings all day;
In June
He alters his tune;
In July
Away he’ll fly;
Come August
Fly he must.”
Yes, I say, fly he must, with summer which is “the sovereign joy of all things,” as Piers Ploughman wrote long years ago, and then autumn, and the long chill nights of winter.
There is always a mystery about the cuckoo, as to where he comes from, and where he goes. Far down in the south of India, I have been told, is the only place where the cuckoo is to be found summer and winter alike, calling in the tropics his strange, mystic cry. Be this as it may, he is never with us in Shropshire till the second week in April, and vanishes like a ghost early in August.
Some days later, and it was Palm Sunday, one of the great festivals of old England during the Middle Ages.
There is but little sign left now of the blessing of the boughs, as the rite was performed in mediæval times, save that nearly all the boys present had cut sprigs of the wild willow and placed them in their button-holes, and my little maid, by her old Nana’s wish, had a spray pinned in also, amongst the ribbons of her hat. What a lovely blossom it is, that of the wild willow. How delicate the soft grey, and how lovely the brilliant shades of gold. How wonderful is the mixture of both colours, and how exquisitely gold and grey melt into each other.
As I sat in our pew on the northern side of the church, I thought of the old Church Service that once was held there. After the Mass, I have read, it was usual that there should follow the hallowing of the branches and flowers by the priest. I thought, as I sat in church in Protestant England, of how the priest, up to the first half of the sixteenth century, and for long centuries before, stood forth in scarlet cope and blessed the sweet branches and the first flowers of the year. I liked to recall the old rite and custom of entreating the Almighty to bless and sanctify “his creatures,” by which was meant branch and blossom, which were laid by lay brothers and novices at the foot of the altar, and then it was nice to think how branch and blossom were broken up and blest, and a spray given to all the devout people assembled. It was a pretty and holy usage, and I could not but feel regret, that so gracious a rite was lost. It must have been a delightful service for little children to witness, and a sweet memory for the old who could remember the happy springs of years gone by.
As we came out of church, I told Bess about the old custom. And Bess said dryly, “Now we have to bless our palm branches ourselves;” and added with the strange intuition of a child, “I think it was better when God did part of it, don’t you, mamsie?”
A STROLL IN THE CHURCHYARD
After the service, we took a stroll into the picturesque old churchyard, surrounded by old black and white timber, and Georgian houses of glowing red brick. There was standing by the door by which we entered the church, the remains of an old stone cross and several tombs, which, I have been told, were brought from the ruined Abbey Church. The grass was full of glittering daffodils, which shone like stars, and the scent from the ribes and Daphne bushes filled God’s acre with sweetness. Bess and I walked round the churchyard.
I told her of the little room over the church-porch with its little narrow window. Such a holy little room, I said. In such a room, I think, holy Master George Herbert must have written; and from that I went on to tell my little girl about Sir Thomas Botelar, the first priest who lived at Much Wenlock after the expulsion of the monks.
“Tell me about him,” said Bess, eagerly. “I like to hear about good monks and priests from you, although Nana says they were all wicked, and walled up poor girls. But perhaps,” added Bess, thoughtfully, “they were not all as wicked as she thinks; leastways, there may have been a few good ones just sometimes.”
After luncheon I took down the printed sheets in which are preserved Sir Thomas Botelar’s entries, for, alas! his original manuscript perished in the great fire at Wynnstay in 1859. And I read aloud such passages as I thought my little girl would follow, at least in places.
As I read aloud, Constance was ushered in. She did not know Sir Thomas’s register and begged me to go on reading, so I continued to read. The old papers, I told her in a pause, embraced eight years of Henry VIII.’s reign, went through that of Edward VI.’s, took in the whole of Queen Mary’s, and gave the four opening years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. All Sir Thomas’s sympathies were with the old order of things, I begged her to remember, and then I went on reading.
“‘In February, 1546, on the 5th day of the month, word and knowledge came to the borough of Much Wenlock that our Sovereign Lord King Henry VIII. was departed out of this transitory life, whose soul,’” Sir Thomas added, “‘God Almighty pardon.’”
“Sir Thomas Botelar,” I told Constance, “was the last Abbot of St. Peter and St. Paul’s Monastery at Shrewsbury. After the Dissolution, the King turned away all the monks, and Sir Thomas became, after a short time, Vicar of Much Wenlock, but his heart remained in the cloisters of his former abbey.”
Then I turned to a notice a little further down the page —
“‘On the 13th April of the same year three convicts were buried, and one was a child of eleven.’ Poor little girl,” I said, “what a terrible bald statement of misery! What could so young a child have done to merit death?”
“I cannot think,” exclaimed Bess. “Perhaps cursed and swore and scratched; but, even then, had she no father or mother to forgive her?”
“Only God,” said Constance, softly.
And then I begged them to listen to an account of a funeral of an excellent priest, and obviously a very learned man.
THE OLD CHURCH REGISTERS
“‘Sir William Corvehill, priest,’” I read, “‘was laid in a tomb of lime and stone, which he had caused to be made for himself. Sir W. Corvehill was excellently and singularly expert in divers of the VIJ liberal sciences, especially in geometry. He was also skilled in the making of organs and in the carving of masonry, in the weaving of silk, and in printing. Besides he was,’” adds Sir Thomas, “‘a very patient man and full honest in his conversation and living.’” Then, after commending his soul to the care of God, Sir Thomas wound up quaintly by declaring that, “‘All this country hath a great loss from the death of Sir William Corvehill, for he was a good bell-founder and a maker and framer of bells.’”
Then I found a notice of a marriage. “‘Here was married,’” ran the old register, “‘Thomas Munslow Smith and Alice Nycols;’” and added, “‘The bride was wedded in her smock, and barehead.’”
“When I’m married,” said Bess, loftily, “I’ll have a veil and some flowers. Nana says it isn’t proper to be married without a veil. ’Twould be as silly as papa ploughing, or you, mama, plucking fowls.”
I didn’t enter into the question of parental ridicule, but I looked down the vicar’s entries and read, “‘Poor Sir John Baily Clerke, otherwise called John Cressage, died. It was about 9 of the clock,’” wrote Sir Thomas, “‘and at the manor place of Madeley.’”
Bess had often heard the story from me of the poor old man who, after surrendering his monastery, retired broken-hearted to die at Madeley. When I came to this part of the register, she broke out indignantly with —
“Why couldn’t they leave our abbot alone? I can’t abear that old Henry VIII. He did nothing but wicked things: cut off his wives’ heads and pulled down churches and nice buildings. Yet Nan and Burbidge call him a good man. I think people ought to be good in a different way.”
Bess was quite excited, and Constance had to take her on her knee to soothe her, and thus she sat on listening, with a scarlet face.
Then I read how, after the death of King Edward, Sir Thomas and all the people made great joy over the proclaiming of the Lady Mary Queen of England. I read also how the people of Bridgnorth “fair cast up their caps and hats, lauding, thanking, and praising God Almighty, with ringing of bells and making of bonfires in the streets,” and how the same joy was evinced at Shrewsbury, and at Much Wenlock.
In the first year of Mary’s reign on June 16th, I read that the altar of our blessed Lady within this church (of the Holy Trinity) was again built up and consecrated afresh, and evidently Sir Thomas rejoiced.
A month later, the Bishop of Worcester, the Lord President of the Marches, coming with Justice Townesynde, stopped on their road to Bridgnorth at Much Wenlock, and were entertained by Richard Lawley at the Ash, the fine old timber house in Spital Street, where, at a later date, Charles I. and Prince Rupert both slept on different occasions.
Then followed a description of the fête held in their honour. We learnt how the house was gaily decked with cloths of Arras, with the covering of beds, bancards, carpets and cushions, and how the table was laden with pears and dishes of apples of the previous year. We wondered how they could have been kept. Also with cakes, fine wafers, claret, sack and white wine, and after much pleasant feasting and pleasant intercourse, how “Mr. Justice rose and gave the Burgesses great and gentle thanks for their cost and cheer.”
“I wish that I, too, mamsie, had been there, for I, too, would like to have eaten pears in summer, and have seen all their gay carpets,” exclaimed Bess.
A little later on in the pamphlet I found the announcement of Queen Elizabeth’s being proclaimed Queen after the death of her sister. Sir Thomas made this entry evidently with rather a heavy heart.
As I closed the little book, Constance took it in her hand and looked over the pages.
“How many were hanged in those days!” she said sadly. “There are mentions of executions for sheep stealing, for murder, for robbery; and what a number of convicts, even children of quite tender years.”
Then she alluded to the immense age of many of the parishioners named. Agnes Pyner was said to be seven score years when she received the blessed sacrament just before death. John Trussingham declared that he was seven score years, and that at the age of four-score years he had witnessed the battle of Blore Heath; whilst John Francis, chief farmer at Callaughton, Sir Thomas declared, was aged 107 years when he was buried.
JOAN OF POSENHALL
Then Constance’s fingers flitted back to a past page, and she read aloud a touching little entry about Joan of Posenhall, a fair maiden of twenty-two years, who, it was believed, “died of a canker in the mouth, which disease her father ascribed to the smelling of rose flowers.”
“Could it have been a poisoned rose?” I asked, for in those days many and subtle were the poisons used to get rid of a fair rival.
But Bess could not understand how a rose by its scent could injure any one. “In my true fairy-stories,” she said, “roses can only do good. They are only good fairies’ gifts, and I know they can only come out of the mouths of good girls – real good girls,” Bess repeated, “so I don’t see how a rose could have hurt poor Joan.”
Whereupon I explained matters to my little maid. After a pause Bess exclaimed —
“Well, I think ’tis best to live now, for anyhow we’ve only doctors to kill us.”
“To save us,” laughed Constance.
But Bess would not allow this. “To kill us is what Mrs. Burbidge says; and Nana says she won’t have a doctor in at no price for herself.”
Then Bess jumped up from her chair, and declared inconsequently that it was time to feed her puppy, and darted out of the room, and Constance and I were left alone. Upon which we fell to chatting about the great quilt. “I have chosen the flowers, as you know,” she said. And she enumerated one after another their old-world musical names. “And now I want charming words about sleep,” she added.
I suggested from Sir Thomas Browne’s “Religio Medici”: “Make my sleep a holy trance,” or “On my temples sentry keep,” again from the same author “Come as thou wilt, or what thou wilt bequeath,” from Drummond of Hawthornden, or again, “Men like visions are, Time all doth claim,” or “He lives who dies to win a lasting fame.”
“You must not also,” I said, “forget a beautiful line from Mrs. Barrett Browning: ‘He giveth His beloved sleep.’”
Before leaving me, Constance told me that she and Bess had a little game in hand – a real May frolic – “but you must not know yet, it must be a surprise.”
THE QUEEN OF THE MAY
To this I at once gave my maternal sanction, and then the nature of the “secret” was revealed to me. Constance told me that she proposed to have a little May dance for some eight of the little school maidens, and that she would like Bess to take a part in the festivities. Eight little maidens are to dance round the maypole, which is to be decked with ribbons and many flowers, and are to sing some old songs; and she added, “If you have no objection, Bess is to say us a verse or two from some old poets in honour of May morning.”
I fell in readily with Constance’s little plans for a village fête, and offered the old bowling green as a site for it to take place. “The bowling green,” I said, “is very sheltered; it is surrounded on three sides with yew hedges, and I am delighted at the idea of Bess appearing as the queen of the revels.”
Bess is to be attired all in white with a crown of flaming marsh marigolds on her head, and to bear in her hand a staff decorated with primroses, cowslips, and sprays of beech and willow.
Just as Constance was leaving, Bess rushed in and seized my friend’s hand, and called out impetuously, “Have you told mamsie? May I? May I?”
I nodded “yes,” and told my little maid that she was to have a white muslin, a white wand of office, posies of primroses and shining shoe buckles. Bess was delighted, she hugged me and Constance rapturously in turns, and said “it will be the best day of my life.”
“All we must hope will be a success,” laughed Constance, as she departed up the pathway to the old gate-house; “and we must pray for sunshine for the sake of the little expectant maidens and anxious mothers.”
Next morning I confided to Burbidge the plan of our proposed revels, and informed him that I should like to ask in the villagers. Burbidge remarked in a lofty way that he had no objection – a Yorkshire expression which he acquired when a lad from a Yorkshire gardener; but added severely, that they that come must keep to the paths, not spoil his lawns, and scatter no lollipop papers, or such-like dirt.
But Burbidge’s old wife, Hester, showed a less conciliatory spirit. In a foolish moment, as I happened to meet her carrying Burbidge’s dinner to the tool-house, I confided our secret. Upon which she told me sourly that she was sorry to think “as there is to be play-acting, and even dancing on the property – the monks,” she declared, “were bad enough, but this would beat all.”
Hester is descended from old Puritan stock, and disapproves of all laughter and merriment. Burbidge, who overheard her last words of censure, exclaimed —
“Tut, tut, my dear, you was young once. I can mind thee fine as a horse in bells, for all thee’s old now and that the rheumatics lay hold on thee, sharp as scissor points. But the young uns they want their games and their plays, for all as us is getting miller’s bags on our pates.”
“Speak for yourself,” replied Hester, with acidity, puckering up her withered visage. And then she added with severity, “I never knew yet any good come out, or wisdom, of play-acting. They be devil’s works, and take my word for it,” and there she held up a bony emphatic finger, “that the devil will claim toll, for all as they seem mild and innocent.”
With which ominous remark Hester made over to Burbidge his dinner, and hobbled up the back drive homeward.
“’Tis a pity,” said Burbidge, looking after his old wife, “as good wine can turn to vinegay like that. The Lord made her, but the old ’un” (the devil) “guides her eyesight sure enough, and most times directs her tongue. The fact is,” and the old man drew himself up straight, “when yer think too much about hell, yer can never see heaven. My mother used to say that, and for all she was a Methody body, it be gospel truth.”
EASTER SUNDAY
A few days later it was Easter Sunday. The bells rang merrily, but we hurried off to church almost late; for, according to Shropshire fashion, Bess had got a new frock on for the occasion.
It consisted of a pale mauve serge of the colour of the autumn crocus blossoms which flower in the aftermath in this neighbourhood.
For the last fortnight dear old Nanny had been too busy “to draw a breath,” to use her favourite expression, and had sewn morning, afternoon, and evening, to get my little maid’s frock completed by Easter Sunday. For it is held in Shropshire to be most unlucky not to be clad in fresh attire on that feast day of the Church. Wherefore, whatever else was left undone, Bess’s frock had to be finished for the festival.
“The rooks,” murmured Bess, as we entered the churchyard, “cannot say nothing, for all I have is new – shoes, stockings, drawers, chemise, and frock. And them,” alluding to the rooks, “them only spoils old things, does them, mamsie?”
“Oh, you’re safe,” I laughed, and we passed up the aisle.
A peal of bells was ringing gaily. “How gay and good it sounds,” whispered Bess, dreamily, “as if all the world was good and playing.” Then we walked up to our pew, and the mild delicate scent of primroses greeted us everywhere. “I wish we had flowers every Sunday,” said Bess, as she flumped down in her seat. “It seems to make God’s house like a posy. I think it must be nicer for Him so.” The old columns were festooned with garlands of flowers, and round the ancient font were placed bunches of flashing marsh marigolds and great branches of tender half-uncurled beech leaves.
Bess looked round her, and said gravely in an undertone, “I think the blessing will come this Sunday, for I feel sure that God cannot see so many flowers about without being pleased.” Then I said, “Hush!” for I feared my little maid was talking over-much.
Immediately after, the morning service began. At the close, as the last hymn died away, Nana took my little maiden off, whilst I remained on for the most beautiful, and the most solemn, of all our Church services.
The sound of retreating footsteps was at last hushed. The children had all left, and many of the people. Then there was a pause, and then the opening prayers, and I saw, in the dim light of the chancel window, the vicar breaking the bread and preparing the wine, and we were invited to the Lord’s Table.
“The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.” I seemed to hear the solemn words as in a trance. Outside, through the old perpendicular window, the sun was shining faintly, and from the glad world without I heard the birds singing in a joyous chorus. Inside, the great and solemn rite of Christianity was being administered, and faith and love of Him who died for the sins of men was visiting each faithful heart in a rapture of holy delight. A few minutes afterwards and I regained my seat. The spirit of the old world was with me. How many pious hearts have offered up prayer and thanksgiving before those altar rails! How often has the blessed Sacrament come to faithful hearts, as an elixir of the soul!
THE HOLY SACRAMENT
Owing, perhaps, to the joy of the world outside, there was a great sense of triumph in such an Easter Sunday. “Christ is risen!” seemed to be shouted everywhere; His body had suffered pain and death, but now the heavens were opening for the glory in which death and pain could have no place. The glory of His life was everywhere. For “with angels, and archangels, and with all the company of heaven,” could “we laud and magnify our Lord and praise the Most High.”
I came out of the church, and some of its mystic radiance seems to cling like a cloud of splendour around me. As I walked along, I thought of the founder of the town church, Roger de Montgomery, the great Earl of Shrewsbury, who founded also that of the Abbey close by. The former, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, still has its roof, and pious services are still performed there every Sunday; whereas the Abbey church of the Clugniac monks is deserted alike by prior and pilgrim. Alone, my pigeons and the jackdaws fly amidst its aisles, and only across grass and thyme can the outlines of the high altar be discerned.
I lingered at the church wicket. A soft shower had just fallen, and dew-drops glistened on the grass like pearls. A great white cross shone in splendour, still wet, but of dazzling whiteness, almost like a pillar of light in the morning sunshine. The birds on every bush and wall were chanting anthems of delight.
A minute later I passed out of God’s acre, and Bess met me in the avenue. My little maid rushed up with a bound of excitement.
“Thady is ill, mum,” she cried. “I heard Burbidge tell Nana so. He said ‘The little varmint be down with a bad leg, and he hoped that would settle him for a bit.’ And Nana said ‘she hoped it would, too, for when boys were wicked they was best in bed.’ But I’m sorry, sorry, for all Thady’s naughty, he’s never nasty.” I sympathized with Bess, and promised that we would visit Thady during the afternoon.
After luncheon, we cut Thady a slice of plum-pudding, and Bess put aside for him an Easter-egg. “I had three,” she said, “and this one is sky blue, and Auguste says that is the best colour of all and sure to bring good luck. So you’ll see, mum,” she added, “Thady will be right again and able to climb the trees in no time after he has eaten my egg.”
We prepared to start out, and took Thady the gifts contained in the basket; but Bess declared that first we must go into the ruins and pick her little friend a bunch of daffydowndillies.
“‘A bunch of daffs on Easter Day
Brings luck to the house, and peace in May.’
“Nan says so, and I believe it,” cried Bess. “Anyway, Thady will like to look at ’em while he eats my egg.” So we wandered into the rough grass inside the ruined church to pluck a handful.
How beautiful are spring flowers. All round it was a blaze of brilliant blossoms. There were early Van Thol tulips, like flames of fire, large rings of golden daffodils, some of them with almost orange faces moving in the soft winds, and then there were patches of beautiful blue scilla sibirica, and in the distance the star-like forms of the narcissi Stella, and Cynosure.
A MEAD OF BLOSSOMS
For several autumns Burbidge and “his boys” had planted for me great numbers of bulbs, and the result was, as Burbidge said, better “than a carpet of delight.” These bulbs are now grown largely in Lincolnshire, and in parts of Ireland. When they arrived they looked small and meagre. They were not at all the splendid, sleek, fat bulbs, that come from Holland; but, to quote Burbidge, looked “poor little shy customers;” but they were glad enough to find a home in the Abbey turf. Before putting them in, we skinned back the grass, dug up the soil to about six inches, added a little leaf mould, took out any stones, and popped in tulips, daffodils, snowdrops, crocuses, and, for a later radiance when the hawthorn would be out in snow, the rich double white narcissus, that gardeners call, on account of its perfume and appearance, the gardenia narcissus.
We put in three to five bulbs in each little space. After which we carefully replaced the grass, and beat it well down, so that, after the first shower, no one could have known that we had even moved the turf. Just then much of the grass of the ruins was a sheet of glory, reminding me in its parterre-like beauty of the foreground of some early Italian painter.
Every autumn Burbidge and his workers bring wheelbarrow loads of leaf mould and decayed lawn grass, and spread them over my “bulb forest;” and the result is that every year the flower roots strengthen, and the blossoms multiply.
Bess ran from group to group, until her hands were full of different daffodils. “There’s luck here,” she cried, “and see, they glitter like gold money, mamsie – that must mean something good.”
We walked, laden with our gifts, till we reached the Bull Ring. We paused at the door of an old black and white house, with a broad pebble causeway before it. On entering the cottage we found Thady in bed.
“Well, Thady, how did it happen?” I said.
“I was after a rook’s nest,” replied Thady, “and the twig gave way entirely, and so I came down dang-swang, as the folks say here.”
“Indade,” said his mother, Mrs. Malone, “it’s afflicted I am in Thady. When he’s good he’s ill, and when he’s well he keeps company entirely with the Devil.”
“Never fear, mother, whativer. ’Tis a bad boy as can’t get good some day,” and Thady, for all his face looked white and worn from pain, he burst into an irresistible fit of laughter.
Upon this Bess showered upon him yellow daffodils, and I opened my basket containing the plum-pudding, and Bess’s sky-blue egg, and an orange or two.
“Sure and God bless you,” said the good dame, his mother, with enthusiasm. “They will please him finely, for Wenlock is as dull as ditch water, for all they boast that in days gone by once there was gay goings on here. Bull and dog baitings, according to our old neighbour Timothy Theobalds’ tales, and behind the Vicarage, cock matches fit for a king, and pretty fights between the young men behind the church. But, whatever there was then, ’tis still now, and sleepy as Time.”