“Simply Warwickshire for ‘Go away,’” was Mrs. Pitt’s careless answer. Her thoughts had gone back to her childhood.
“You forgot to tell us what the ‘Wishing Tree’ was for,” Betty timidly suggested, fearful of interrupting her reminiscences.
“Why, so I did! We would tiptoe all alone up to the tree, and if, under its wide branches, we made a wish, we thought it was sure to come true. There was another curious old game of finding out how many years we were to live, by a ball. We would bounce it upon the hard ground, and catching it again and again in our hands, would chant all the while:
‘Ball-ee, ball-ee, tell me true,
How many years I’ve got to go through,
One, two, three, four,—’
If that had proved true, I shouldn’t be here to-day to tell of it, for I was never very skillful with the ball, and could only catch it ten or fifteen times at the most.”
Mrs. Pitt laughed. “There is so much of ancient folk-lore here in Warwickshire,” she went on. “I remember that the old country people always crossed themselves or said some charm for a protection, when one lone magpie flew over their heads. That meant bad luck, for the verses said:
‘For one magpie means sorrow,
Two, mirth,
Three, a wedding,
And four, a birth.’
Why, what is it, Barbara?”
Barbara had jumped to her feet, and was wildly waving her arms about her head. “It’s only a bee,” she said, rather ashamed. “I don’t like them quite so near.”
It was delightful to ride along on this “rare day in June,” through the fair county of Warwickshire,—the “Heart of England.” If they were just a bit uncomfortably warm on the hill-top where the sun beat down upon the fields and open road, they were soon again in the beautiful woodland, where the cool air refreshed them, or passing through the street of some remote village, shaded by giant elms. In each little hamlet, as well as the row of peaceful thatched cottages, with smoke curling upwards from their chimneys, there was the ancient vine-covered church, with perhaps a Norman tower, where the rooks found a home, and the gray old rectory close at hand.