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Do you remember that pretty cottage we passed in our ride round Silvermead, last Tuesday?” inquired my friend L——, some days ago, as we were mounting our horses for an equestrian lounge. “We were pressed for time that evening, or I should have liked to show you the interior of the little dwelling, and to have introduced you to its worthy humble owners, who are old friends of mine, and not the least respected on my list. What say you, shall we take the ‘Peasant’s Nest’ in our round to-day?” The proposal met my willing acquiescence, and an hour’s quiet amble through a richly wooded and beautifully diversified part of the country brought us to a short straight lane, half-embowered by luxuriant hedges on either side, and (except a half-worn cart-track) carpeted with the greenest and softest turf, which terminated in a gateway to a small meadow, and in a low green wicket in the centre of a sweet-brier hedge; behind which, and two intervening flower-knots on either side the neat gravel-walk, stood the little dwelling which had attracted my attention on a former day by its air of peculiar neatness and comfort, and even rustic elegance. Its thatched roof (a masterpiece of rural art) had just acquired the rich mellowness of tone which precedes the duller hue of decay, and when the last rays of a golden sunset touched it in flickering patches through the dark foliage of overhanging elms, it harmonised, and almost blended in brilliancy of colour, with the brightest blossoms of the buddlea, which, overtopping its fellow-trailers, seemed aspiring to meet and dally with the sunbeams, and almost to rival them with its topaz stars.
Moss-roses were budding round each of the wide low casements on either side the door, over which a slight arch of rustic trellis-work supported a mass of rich dark foliage, soon to be starred with the pale odorous flowers so typical of virgin purity; and far along the low-projecting eaves on one side of the cottage, ran the flexile stems and deep verdure of the beautiful luxuriant plant, till it reached and formed a bowery pent-house over a long open lattice, through the wire-work of which brown glazed pans were discernible, half-filled with rich creaming milk, and pats of neatly printed butter—yellow as the flower which gilds our summer meadows—ranged with dairy-woman’s pride on the wet slab of whitest deal.
The master of the cottage—a respectable-looking old man—was so intently occupied in tying up some choice pheasant-eyed pinks in one of the flower-knots, that he had not heard the quiet pacing of our steeds down the green bowery lane, and was only roused from his floral labours by the salutation of my friend, as we dismounted before the low wicket-gate, and, hooking our bridles to its side-posts, prepared to enter the little territory. Starting from his flower-bed, the old man, at sight of us, respectfully uncovered his grey head, and came forward as quickly as was compatible with the state of limbs crippled by rheumatic gout, to admit and welcome his visitors with something beyond rustic courtesy.
“Ah, Hallings!” said my friend, cordially shaking hands with his humble acquaintance, whose countenance brightened with pleasure at the kind greeting—“here you are at your favourite work; no wonder your garden is celebrated for the most beautiful flowers in the neighbourhood, for you and Celia tend them, I verily believe, night and day; and as for those pinks—which are, I know, the pride of your heart—you may rest content, for they are the pride of the country. Remember, Mrs L—— has your promise of a few slips at the proper season.”
“Be pleased to look, sir at these few plants I have made free to pot for Mrs L——,” answered the venerable Hallings, with a glance of conscious pleasure, not unmingled with pride, as he directed my friend’s attention to some perfect specimens of the choice flowers in question: “I will send them down to the lady to-morrow morning by my brother’s cart, and Celia and I shall be proud to think madam will accept them, and set some store, may be, on our poor offering, for the remembrance of old times, and the sake of those who are gone. You may remember, sir, how our dear lady prized this particular sort?”
“Well do I remember it, and those old times you allude to, my good Hallings. Methinks at this moment I can see your worthy venerable master, and his faithful companion and friend, the dear sister of whom you speak;—he, with one of these, her choice flowers, in his button-hole when he came into the drawing-room dressed for dinner, and she often assisted to her seat during her slight attacks of gout by Mrs Hallings, her faithful Celia. I believe, Hallings, Mrs Eleanor used to send her brother a daily present, for his afternoon toilet, of one of these rare beauties—was it not so?” asked my friend, with a smile; the good-humoured archness of which soon, however, changed to a more serious expression, as he observed that the old man’s voice faltered in his attempted reply, and that he hastily drew his sleeve across his eyes, to disperse the watery film which had gathered over them while Mr L—— was speaking.
“But come, Hallings,” said the latter, quickly changing the subject that had struck painfully on a too sensitive chord in the old man’s heart—“I am come not only to visit you and your flowers, but my old friend, Celia; and I have promised, in her name, a frothing glass of red cow’s milk, fresh from the pail, to this gentleman, Mr Hervey, who complained of thirst in our way hither.”
Recovering from his momentary emotion, the master of the cottage threw open its latched door, and respectfully made way for us to enter the little carpeted parlour, where his well-assorted partner (my friend’s friend, Celia) sat smoothing her apron, in expectation of the visitors, the sound of whose voices had reached her through the open casement.
The comely dame who rose up at our entrance, and dropt to each a curtsy that would not have dishonoured the patrician graces of her revered lady and prototype, the late Mrs Eleanor Devereux, was still comely for her years—“fat, fair, and sixty” and exhibiting, in her prim neatness of person, the antiquated but becoming fashion of her dress, and her profound respectfulness, untinctured by anything like cringing servility to those she considered her superiors, no unfavourable specimen of the housekeeper and waiting-woman of former days—of a class now almost extinct, as the times in which it flourished are accounted obsolete—when better feelings, and more Christian principles than those which loosely huddle up our modern mercenary compacts, based and cemented the mutual obligations of masters and servants, of the great and their dependants—when there was dignity in the humblest servitude, and meekness in the most absolute authority—self-respect on both sides, and the fear of God above all.