I passed the hunch of cake to Thady, and quickly, silently he put it into his voluminous pocket, in which it disappeared as in a well. Then Thady lifted his cap, and a second later I heard him whistling softly in the gloaming.
As I went into the chapel hall I was greeted by Constance. I congratulated her warmly on her successful morning. Nothing could have been better, I said. It was a real scene of gaiety, and gave, I am sure, all the young and old, a great deal of enjoyment.
“There not a budding boy or girl this day
But is got up and gone to bring in May,”
I quoted laughingly. “The old times will come back to Wenlock, thanks to you, Constance,” I said. “Over each house will be hung bough and garlands, till each household is given up to laughter and frolic.”
“There is much wisdom in wholesome laughter,” my friend replied. “Perhaps the best thing that can be done for the people is to teach them how to play. They have almost forgotten how, in their desire to make money.”
Then my friend and I parted.
IN THE RUINED CHURCH
After dinner I wandered into the garden. It was a lovely night. The moon was hardly seen, only in faint peeps at intervals, but there was a mist of stars. I faintly saw the vane of the flying crane pointing due south, and in the distance I heard the hoot of an owl far away in the Abbot’s Walk. In the pathway I saw dim shadowy creatures, which turned out to be toads enjoying the cool moisture of the night. Far away, in a cornfield, I caught the harsh cry of the corncrake, calling, calling—as he would call, I knew, all through the May nights. A little later, and over Windmoor Hill on the sheep-nipped turf would glisten nature’s jewel, the glow-worm, but early in May such gems are rarely to be met with in our cold country. How lovely it was to wander round the garden and ruined church—to inhale the scent of the budding lilac, and the poet’s narcissus in the grass, for where pious knees once knelt was then a milky way of floral stars. They glittered in the grass like faint jewels, and their rich perfume gave the evening air an intoxicating sweetness.
My great hound walked at my heels. At night she is always watchful, and is haunted by a persistent sense of danger. But even she, that still night, could find nothing to be alarmed about, or to hurl defiance at. All the world seemed bathed in a mystic sapphire bath of splendour, and round me I knew that mystic process of what we call life was silently but rapidly taking form. I could almost feel the budding of the trees, for the wonderful revelation of summer was at hand. To-night, on an ancient larch, one of the first I have heard that was planted in Shropshire, a storm-cock, as the country people call the missel-thrush, piped into the growing night. What a joyous song his was. He had sung on and off, since January, and his voice was almost the loudest and clearest of all the feathered songsters. No cold could daunt him, but soon he would be silent, for the storm-cock sings little after May.