February, 1890
OCTOBER.
Fas est hic, Indulgere Genio.
I.
OCTOBER 17, 1882.
Of Nuns and White Owls; Yews, Thrushes, and Nutcrackers.
THE GARDEN’S STORY. It is only eleven years old, though the place itself is an old place—an old place without a history, for scarce a record remains of it anywhere that we have ever found. Its name occurs on a headstone in the parish churchyard, and on one or two monuments within the chancel of the parish church. There is brief mention of it in Evelyn’s Diary. It is there described as “a very pretty seate in the forest, on a flat, with gardens exquisitely kept, tho’ large, and the house, a staunch good old building.” It seems George Evelyn (the author’s cousin) was amongst the many who have lived here once. At that time eighty acres of wood surrounded the house, where now there lies a treeless stretch of flat cornfields. Quite near, across the road, are the ruins of an ancient nunnery. Our meadow under the high convent wall is called the Walk Meadow, because here the nuns used to walk. The great Walnut tree, which they might possibly have known, only died after we came. It was cut down for firewood, and its hollows were full of big chestnut-coloured “rat bats,” very fierce and strong. At that time also white owls lived in the ruins, and used to come floating over the lawn at twilight—until the days of gun licenses, since when, they have disappeared. Dim legends surround the place, but nothing clear or certain is known or even said, and there is not a ghost anywhere. All we know is, that since taking possession, wherever a hole is dug in the garden to plant a tree, the spade is sure to strike against some old brick foundation of such firm construction that they have to use the pick to break it up. Bones of large dogs also are found all about the place whenever the ground is broken—remains of the watch dogs, or hunting dogs, of the olden time—also quaintly shaped tobacco-pipes. I know of nothing to support the tradition that monks abode here once. There were signs of an upstairs room having at some remote time been used as a chapel; a piscina in the wall and a narrow lancet window having been found and destroyed, when the house was in the builder’s hands eleven years ago. Broken arches, also, and mouldings in chalk and stone, were dug up out of the foundations of some outhouses at the same time. “They say” there is an underground passage between the Abbey and the house, but we do not believe it, and we do not believe in the murder of a monk for his money, said to have been committed by a nun in the upper room now a guest-chamber. Such vague traditions are sure to hang around old walls, like mists about a damp meadow. Very distinct, however, and carved in no vague characters, are certain initials and dates still visible on the stems of the trees in the Lime avenue. For in old times—
“Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress’ name.”