ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
Spring in a Shropshire Abbey. Gaskell Catherine Henrietta Milnes
Читать онлайн.Название Spring in a Shropshire Abbey
Год выпуска 0
isbn
Автор произведения Gaskell Catherine Henrietta Milnes
Жанр Зарубежная классика
Издательство Public Domain
“Oh, mama, why has it all stopped? I should like driving in a sledge to go on for ever and ever.”
I kissed the little maid, and we went into tea. Bess hardly spoke, and I thought her wearied by the excitement of the drive, but that night, when I went up to see her in bed, she called out —
“Mamsie, mamsie, come quite close. A secret.” So I sat down on the little bed, and the little arms went round my neck. “Mama, I have looked out a heap – a heap of toys – to send off to poor children. My new doll Sabrina, my blue pig, my little box of tea things, the new Noah’s Ark, but Nana will not pack them up. She says they’re too good for poor children. Isn’t she wicked, for I want to give them all, and to be happy – happy as you mean me to be.”
CHAPTER II
FEBRUARY
“The Hag is astride
This night for to ride,
The devil and she together,
Through thick and through thin,
Now out, and now in,
Though ne’er so foule be the weather.”
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.
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.
But the labourers were true and faithful hearts, and neither threats nor promises could extract from them in what direction the Lady Milburgha had fled.
When the prince saw that the peasants had begun to reap the grain that had been sown the self-same day, a great awe fell upon him and his lords, and he vowed that it was a vain and foolish thing to fight against the Lord, and his anointed.
Other old writers tell how the river Corve, at the voice of God, saved Lady Milburgha; and how, as soon as she had passed over its waters, from an insignificant little brooklet it swelled into a mighty flood which effectually barred the prince’s progress. Amongst other incidents mentioned by Saxon chroniclers, we hear that St. Milburgha drove away the wild geese from the plots of the poor. Many are the legends of the beautiful Shropshire saint that are still cherished in the wild country between the Severn and the Clee. She was as fair as she was good, it was said, and old writers told how, when a veil once fell from her head in the early morning sunshine, it remained suspended in the air until replaced by her own hand, and how she wrought a miracle by prayer and brought back to life the son of a poor widow; while all the while, a mystic and sacred flame burnt beside her, a visible manifestation of her sanctity, for all to see.
I thought of all these beautiful old legends, fairy-stories of grace, they seemed to me, as I wandered up the back lane and paused before the saint’s well at Wenlock, which is still said to cure sore eyes.
As I stopped to gaze down upon the deep well below, I noticed that the little wicket gate was open, and that a child with a little jug was about to descend the stairs to fetch what she termed in the Shropshire tongue, “a spot o’ water.”
“Have you no water at home, my child, that you come here?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” replied the little maiden, Fanny Milner by name, “there be a hougy drop in our well after the rains; but grandam says I must get some from here, or she’ll never be able to read her chapter come Sunday afternoon, with glasses or no glasses. Grandam says as it have a greater power of healin’ than ever lies in doctor’s messes, or than in bought stuffs neither. It be a blessed water, grandam says, and was washed in by a saint – and when saints meddle with water, they makes, grandam says, a better job of it than any doctor, let him be fit to burst with learning.”
I smiled at the apple-cheeked little lass’s quaint talk, and helped her to fill her jar. The belief in the healing powers of the old well lingers on, and many of the inhabitants of Much Wenlock are still of opinion that water fetched from St. Milburgha’s well can cure many diseases, and particularly all malign affections of the eyes.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the holy wells of many Welsh and Shropshire wells degenerated into Wishing wells. They then lost their sacred character, and became centres of rural festivities.
It is said that at Much Wenlock on “Holy Thursday,” high revels were held formerly at St. Milburgha’s well; that the young men after service in the church bore green branches round the town, and that they stopped at last before St. Milburgha’s well. There, it is alleged, the young maidens threw in crooked pins and “wished” for sweethearts. Round the well, young men drank toasts in beer brewed from water collected from the church roof, whilst the women sipped sugar and water, and ate cakes. After many songs and much merriment, the day ended with games such as “Pop the Green Man down,” “Sally Water,” and “The Bull in the Ring,” which games were followed by country dances, such as “The Merry Millers of Ludlow,” “John, come and kiss me,” “Tom Tizler,” “Put on your smock o’ Monday,” and “Sellingers all.”
Such was the custom at Chirbury, at Churchstoke, and at many of the Hill wakes, and from lonely cottage and village hamlets the boys and girls gathered together, and danced and played in village and town.
After shopping in the