Though ne’er so foule be the weather.”
Herrick’s Hesperides.
Some weeks had passed, and I had been away from home. Rain had fallen, and the snow had vanished like a dream—the first dawn of spring had come. Not spring as we know her in the South of France or in Southern Italy—gorgeous, gay, debonair—but shy, coy, and timid. The spring of the North is like a maiden of the hills, timid and reserved, yet infinitely attractive, what our French friends would call “une sensitive.”
There was, as yet, very little appearance that winter “brear Winter,” as Spenser calls him, was routed and obliged with his legions of frost and snow, to fly before the arrival of youth and life, and the breath of triumphant zephyrs. A spring in the North is chiefly proclaimed by the voice of the stormcock in some apple tree, by the green peering noses of snowdrops, and here and there a crimson tassel on the hazel tree and larch; but, above all, by the splendour of golden and purple lights which come and go across the hillsides and athwart wood and coppice. The turf, as I walked along, I noticed was moist and soft, and oozed up under my feet. February fill-dyke, as she is called, had come in due order, and in appointed form. Little puddles glistened on the drive, and for all the patches here and there of blue, there were leaden shadows and grey clouds, and it was wise, if you wandered abroad, to have at hand the protecting influence of an umbrella. I walked up the back drive, till I stood before the well of our patron saint.
THE “HOLY ONE OF WENLOCK”
Long centuries ago the holy and beautiful daughter of Merewald, King of Hereford, according to old tradition, came here and founded a nunnery. The story runs that St. Milburgha, pursued by the importunities of a Welsh prince, found a refuge at Wenlock, and gathered round her a community of devoted women.
Tradition tells the story of how the saint fled on one occasion to Stoke, a hamlet in the Clee Hills. The legend says that she fell fainting from her milk-white steed as she neared a spring there. As she did so she struck her head against a stone, causing blood to flow freely from the wound. At that time, about the middle of February, some countrymen were occupied in sowing barley in a field which was called the Placks, and seeing the lovely lady in so sad a plight, they ran to her assistance.
“Water,” she wailed, but none seemed at hand. Then St. Milburgha bade her steed strike his hoof against the rock, and, believed the hagiologists, water, clear, wonderful and blessed, leapt forth at her command. As it flowed, the lady is reported to have said: “Holy water, flow now, and from all time.” Then she stretched forth her hands and blessed the fields where the barley had been sown, and immediately, before the astonished eyes of all beholders, the grain burst forth into tender blades of grass. Then St. Milburgha turned to the countrymen.
“The wicked prince,” she said, “and his pack of bloodhounds are close upon me, therefore I must fly.” And she bade them adieu, but not till she had told them to sharpen their scythes, for the reaping of the barley should take place that night.
All came to pass as the Blessed One had foretold, for as the countrymen were busy reaping their grain, the heathen prince and his followers arrived on the scene.