“There’s nought like backy,” he answered. “’Tis meat and drink, and makes yer forget.” Then leaning heavily on his stick, the old man got up.
I saw him walk past the old watch-tower of the monks, and stop at his old black and white timber house in the Bull Ring. As he pattered along, the brilliant sunshine struck upon his smock, and lighted up the elaborately embroidered yoke.
What a changed world it is, I said to myself. How completely one seems to hear the voice of the Middle Ages in listening to old Timothy’s tales. Scolds, bridles, whipping-posts, penances, and stocks. As I mused, the sound of all others that belongs essentially to modern England reached me. Within a few hundred yards away I heard an engine puffing up and down.
Truly, in this country of ours, the old and the new are very close. I stood up on the base of a broken column, heard the guard’s whistle, and saw engine and train go off into the far country. Whilst I was thus engaged, Bess ran up.
“Have you done?” she asked. “When you and old Timothy get together, he tells you a pack of rubbish, Nan says.”
A TWILIGHT STROLL
That evening, in the twilight, I walked round the bee garden. Mouse lay outside by the wrought-iron gates and watched me. How delicious it is, the first fulfilment of everything in the glory of early June. My white Martagon lilies were covered with lovely little wax-like bells. The English crimson peony blossoms were all out, whilst their Chinese sisters had great knobby buds which would open shortly, and their bronze-tinted foliage was a beautiful ornament to the garden. My hybrid perpetual roses were not yet in flower, for Shropshire is a cold county compared to Sussex or Surrey; but the glory was on the wing, and would come to us surely, if a little later than in the south of England. My single rose bushes were all rich with buds. How lovely Harrisoni would be shortly, I thought. And soon my hedge of Penzance briars would be a perfect barrier of sweetness, I mused. Then I looked below, and saw that my beautiful columbines were nearly all in full perfection. How delicate they were in colouring, in their soft grey, topaz pinks, and die-away lavenders and ambers. They recalled shades of opal seen through flame and sunlight, and fading skies after glorious sunsets. Last summer I got a packet of Veitch’s hybrids, and this year I have been amazed at their beauty.
Then I passed on to my lupines. They were all in bud, white, blue, and purple, a great joy to the bees. A little further off were great clumps of Oriental poppies, neatly and fully staked by Burbidge. Tied so that they could flower to their heart’s content and in full enjoyment of air and sunlight; not tied up in faggots, such as the ordinary gardener delights in.
I fondly wandered round and round. How good it was to be out in the opening splendour of June, and to look at everything to one’s heart’s content.
There was no sound of voices. Burbidge and his men had left the garden for the night, only the notes of blackbird and thrush reached me softly from the bushes beyond. To-night they, too, seemed almost dazed, with the glory of summer and were singing below their breath, as if worn out with the beauty of nature.