Another dreaded place was a certain Primrose dell, beautifully starred with blossoms, beautifully green, beautifully shaded; the very place for happy children, it would seem, and for long hours of flower-picking gipsy teas and endless games. It was quite lost in the woods that banded the property, away from intrusions of nurse or governess—and yet, how haunted! Never shall I forget—I feel it now as I write—the profound misery that would seize upon me at the very entrance to the laughing glade.
I am not sure, however, that there was not a tangible reason for this depression, connected with the disappearance of a fondly-loved four-footed playfellow. A darling dog he was: one of the jocose, high-spirited kind; his open mouth and hanging tongue seemed to show him a partaker in human mirth, with a waggish humour all his own. ‹No pun is intended!› He had a rough tangled coat, black and white, a flag of a tail, flopping ears. He was the swiftest, gayest, most romping creature that has ever shared the play of children. We adored him. His name was Carlo. I don’t know of what breed he was, if of any.... Alas! he hunted the sheep! He disappeared! No one knew what had become of him. We children never ascertained anything, but there was a rumour—a dark, untraceable, yet most convincing rumour—that somebody had seen the small, rough corpse hanging from a tree-trunk, not far from the Primrose dell. Was it not that, perhaps, which haunted the dell for me?
THE LOATHELY HERD
We suspected the herd. A large, fat, round-faced, smiling man, this; with an unctuous, creeping voice that seemed to gurgle up like a slow oil-bubble from inner recesses of obesity. A man who at intervals would remark, seeing us grouped about our mother, “You’ve a lovely lot of ladies, ma’m, God bless them!”—as if we were little pigs or calves.
He had a sinister reputation with us already on account of his periodical dealings with sheep, which we, tender-hearted and impressionable children, scarcely as much as hinted to each other; and certainly never really associated with the roast mutton that appeared twice a week.
No, we did not like Green, the herd; and I, the smallest of the “lovely lot,” would cling to my mother’s skirts when his little twinkling eye turned in my direction.
For a long time he was associated in my mind with the horror of a conversation which passed between him and my mother. How well I remember that day! We were walking through one of the upper fields towards a village called Hop Hall, which also belonged to the estate. It was a lovely meadow with a curious little wood in the middle of it, ringed like a moat by a streamlet in which the cattle drank. This wood was full of wild Crab-apples; the blossom of it hung over the water and was mirrored therein. The field caught the sweep of wind that blew from the top of the hill with the breath of the Pine-trees. It was a carpet of Cowslips in the right season.
Well, as we walked, my mother and four little girls and one little boy, the herd stumping along with a stick—he had a lame leg—his ragged dog behind him, there came the following interchange of remarks, which set a seal of terror on my young mind. My mother mentioned her intention of visiting Hop Hall, and then inquired how a certain old woman might be who dwelt there. She had been long bedridden.
“Troth, and she’s the same as ever!”