"G"arn, Susie!" cried a shrill boy"s voice--"If y"are leadin" us, lead! G"arn!"
A sweet flute-like treble responded to this emphatic adjuration, singing alone, clear and high,
"A branch of May---" and then all the other voices chimed in:
"A branch of May we have brought you And at your door it stands, "Tis but a sprout, But "tis budded out By the work of our Lord"s hands!"
And with this, a great crown of crimson and white blossoms, set on a tall, gaily-painted pole and adorned with bright coloured ribbons, came nid-nodding down the box-tree alley to the middle of the lawn opposite Walden"s study window, where it was quickly straightened up and held in position by the eager hands of some twenty or thirty children, of all sizes and ages, who, surrounding it at its base, turned their faces, full of shy exultation towards their pastor, still singing, but in more careful time and tune:
"The Heavenly gates are open wide, Our paths are beaten plain, And if a man be not too far gone, He may return again.
The moon shines bright and the stars give light A little before it is day, So G.o.d bless you all, both great and small, And send you a merrie May!"
II
For a moment or two Walden found himself smitten by so strong a sense of the mere simple sensuous joy of living, that he could do no more than stand looking in silent admiration at the pretty group of expectant young creatures gathered round the Maypole, and huddled, as it were, under its c.u.mbrous crown of dewy blossoms, which showed vividly against the clear sky, while the long streamers of red, white and blue depending from its summit, trailed on the daisy- sprinkled gra.s.s at their feet.
Every little face was familiar and dear to him. That awkward lad, grinning from ear to ear, with a particularly fine sprig of flowering hawthorn in his cap, was d.i.c.k Styles;--certainly a very different individual to Chaucer"s knight, Arcite, but resembling him in so far that he had evidently gone into the woods early, moved by the same desire: "I hope that I some green here getten may!" That tiny girl, well to the front, with a clean white frock on and no hat to cover her tangle of golden curls, was Baby Hippolyta,--the last, the very last, of the seemingly endless sprouting olive branches of the s.e.xton, Adam Frost. Why the poor child had been doomed to carry the name of Hippolyta, no one ever knew. When he, Walden, had christened her, he almost doubted whether he had heard the lengthy appellation aright, and ventured to ask the G.o.dmother of the occasion to repeat it in a louder voice. Whereupon "Hip-po-ly-ta"
was uttered in such strong tones, so thoroughly well enunciated, that he could no longer mistake it, and the helpless infant, screaming l.u.s.tily, left the simple English baptismal font burdened with a purely Greek designation. She was, however, always called "Ipsie" by her playmates, and even her mother and father, who were entirely responsible for her name in the first instance, found it somewhat weighty for daily utterance and gladly adopted the simpler sobriquet, though the elders of the village generally were rather fond of calling her with much solemn unction: "Baby Hippolyta," as though it were an elaborate joke. Ipsie was one of the loveliest children in the village, and though she was only two-and-a-half years old, she was fully aware of her own charms. She was pushed to the front of the Maypole this morning, merely because she was pretty,--and she knew it. That was why she lifted the extreme edge of her short skirt and put it in her mouth, thereby displaying her fat innocent bare legs extensively, and smiled at the Reverend John Walden out of the uplifted corners of her forget-me-not blue eyes.
Then there was Bob Keeley, more or less breathless with excitement, having just got back again from Badsworth Hall, his friend the butcher boy having driven him to and from that place "in a jiffy" as he afterwards described it,--and there was a very sparkling, smiling, vivacious little person of about fifteen, in a lilac cotton frock, who wore a wreath of laburnum on her black curls, no other than Kitty Spruce, generally alluded to in the village as "Bob Keeley"s gel";--and standing near Baby Hippolyta, or "Ipsie," was the acknowledged young beauty of the place, Susie Prescott, a slip of a la.s.s with a fair Madonna-like face, long chestnut curls and great, dark, soft eyes like pansies filled with dew. Susie had a decided talent for music,--she sang very prettily, and led the village choir, under the guidance of Miss Janet Eden, the schoolmistress. This morning, however, she was risking the duties of conductorship on her own account, and very sweet she looked in her cheap white nuns-veiling gown, wearing a bunch of narcissi carelessly set in her hair and carrying a flowering hazel-wand in her hand, with which she beat time for her companions as they followed her bird-like carolling in the "Mayers" Song." But just now all singing had ceased,--and every one of the children had their round eyes fixed on John Walden with a mingling of timidity, affection and awe that was very winning and pretty to behold.
Taking in the whole picture of nature, youth and beauty, as it was set against the pure background of the sky, Walden realised that he was expected to say something,--in fact, he had been called upon to say something every year at this time, but he had never been able to conquer the singular nervousness which always overcame him on such occasions. It is one thing to preach from a pulpit to an a.s.sembled congregation who are prepared for orthodoxy and who are ready to listen with more or less patience to the expounding of the same,-- but it is quite another to speak to a number of girls and boys all full of mirth and mischief, and as ready for a frolic as a herd of young colts in a meadow. Especially when it happens that most of the girls are pretty, and when, as a clergyman and director of souls, one is conscious that the boys are more or less all in love with the girls,--that one is a bachelor,--getting on in years too;--and that- -chiefest of all--it is May-morning! One may perhaps be conscious of a contraction at the heart,--a tightening of the throat,--even a slight mist before the eyes may tease and perplex such an one--who knows? A flash of lost youth may sting the memory,--a boyish craving for love and sympathy may stir the blood, and may make the gravest parson"s speech incoherent,--for after all, even a minister of the Divine is but a man.
At any rate the Reverend John found it difficult to begin. The round forget-me-not eyes of Baby Hippolyta stared into his face with relentless persistency,--the velvet pansy-coloured ones of Susie Prescott smiled confidingly up at him with a bewildering youthfulness and unconsciousness of charm; and the mischief-loving small boys and village yokels who stood grouped against the Maypole like rough fairy foresters guarding magic timber, were, with all the rest of the children, hushed into a breathless expectancy, waiting eagerly for "Pa.s.son" to speak. And "Pa.s.son" thereupon began,--in the lamest, feeblest, most paternally orthodox manner:
"My dear children--"
"Hooray! Hooray! Three cheers for "Pa.s.son"! Hooray!"
Wild whooping followed, and the Maypole rocked uneasily, and began to slant downward in a drunken fashion, like a convivial giant whom strong wine has made doubtful of his footing.
"Take care, you young rascals!" cried Walden, letting sentiment, orthodoxy and eloquence go to the winds,--"You will have the whole thing down!"
Peals of gay laughter responded, and the nodding ma.s.s of bloom was swiftly pulled up and a.s.sisted to support its necessary horizontal dignity. But here Baby Hippolyta suddenly created a diversion. Moved perhaps by the consciousness of her own beauty, or by the general excitement around her, she suddenly waved a miniature branch of hawthorn and emitted a piercing yell.
"Pa.s.son! Tum "ere! Pa.s.son! Tum "ere!"
There was no possibility of "holding forth" after this. A. short address on the brevity of life, as being co-equal with the evanescent joys of a Maypole, would hardly serve,--and a fatherly ambition as to the unbecoming att.i.tude of mendi-cancy a.s.sumed by independent young villagers carrying a great crown of flowers round to every house in the neighbourhood, and demanding pence for the show, would scarcely be popular. Because what did the "Mayers" Song say:
"The Heavenly gates are opened wide, Our paths are beaten plain; And if a man be not too far gone, He may return again."
And the "Heavenly gates" of Spring being wide open, the Reverend John, thought his special path was "beaten plain" for the occasion; and not being "too far gone" either in bigotry or lack of heart, John did what he reverently imagined the Divine Master might have done when He "took a little child and set it in the midst." He obeyed Baby Hippolyta"s imperious command, and to her again loudly reiterated "Pa.s.son! Tum "ere!" he sprang forward and caught her up in his arms, kissing her rosy cheeks heartily as he did so. Seated in "high exalted state" upon his shoulder. "Ipsie" became Hippolyta in good earnest, so thoroughly aware was she of her dignity, while, holding her as lightly and buoyantly as he would have held a bird, the Reverend John turned his smiling face on his young parishioners.
"Come along, boys and girls!" he exclaimed,--"Come and plant the Maypole in the big meadow yonder, as you did last year! It is a holiday for us all to-day,--for me as well as for you! It has always been a holiday even before the days when great Elizabeth was Queen of England, and though many dear old customs have fallen into disuse with the changing world, St. Rest has never yet been robbed of its May-day festival! Be thankful for that, children!--and come along;-- but move carefully!--keep order,--and sing as you come!"
Whereupon Susie Prescott lifted up her pretty voice again and her hazel wand baton at the same moment, and started the chorus with the verse:
"We have been rambling all this night, And almost all this day; And now returning back again, We bring you in the May!"
And thus carolling, they pa.s.sed through the garden moving meadow- wards, Walden at the head of the procession,--and Baby Hippolyta seated on his shoulder, was so elated with the gladsome sights and sounds, that she clasped her chubby arms round "Pa.s.son"s" neck and kissed him with a fervour that was as fresh and delightful as it was irresistibly comic.
Bainton, making his way along the southern wall of the orchard, to take a "glance round" as he termed it, at the condition of the wall fruit-trees before his master joined him on the usual morning tour of inspection, stopped and drew aside to watch the merry procession winding along under the brown stems dotted with thousands of red buds splitting into pink-and-white bloom; and a slow smile moved the furrows of his face upward in various pleasant lines as he saw the "Pa.s.son" leading it with a light step, carrying the laughing "Ipsie"
on his shoulder, and now and again joining in the "Mayers" Song"
with a mellow baritone voice that warmed and sustained the whole chorus.
"There "e goes!" he said half aloud--"Jes" like a boy!--for all the wurrld like a boy! I reckon "e"s got the secret o" never growin"
old, for all that "is "air"s turnin" a bit grey. "Ow many pa.s.sons in this "ere neighbrood would carry the children like that, I wonder?
Not one on "em!--though there"s a many to pick an" choose from--a darned sight too many if you axes my opinion! Old Putty Leveson, wi"s bobbin" an" "is bowin"s to the east--hor!--hor!--hor!--a fine east "e"s got in "is mouldy preachin" barn, wi" a whitewashed wall an" a dirty bit o" tinsel fixed up agin it--he wouldn"t touch a child o" ourn, to save "is life--though "e"s got three or four mean, lyin" pryin" brats of "is own runnin" wild about the place as might jest as well "ave never been born. And as for Francis Anthony, the "igh pontiff o" Riversford, wi"s big altar-cloak embrided for "im by all the poor skinny spinsters wot ain"t never "ad no chance to marry--"e"d see all the children blowed to bits under the walls of Jericho to the sound o" the trumpets afore "e"d touch "em! Talk o"
saints!--I"m not very good at unnerstannin" that kind o" folk, not seein" myself "owever a saint could manage to get on in this mortal wurrld; but I reckon to think there"s a tollable imitation o" the real article in Pa.s.son Walden--the jolly sort o" saint, o" coorse,-- not the prayin", whinin", snuffin" kind. "E"s been doin" nothin" but good ever since "e came "ere, which m"appen partly from "is not bein" married. If "e"d gotten a wife, the place would a" been awsome different. Not but wot "e ain"t a bit cranky over "is, flowers "isself. But I"d rather "ave "im fussin" round than a petticut arter me. A petticut at "ome"s enough, an" I ain"t complainin" on it, though it"s a bit breezy sometimes,--but a petticut in the gard"nin"
line would drive me main wild--it would reely now!"
And still smiling with perfect complacency, he watched the Maypole being carried carefully along the s.p.a.ce of gra.s.s left open between the fruit trees on either side of the orchard, and followed its bright patch of colour and the children"s faces and forms around it, till it entirely disappeared among the thicker green of a clump of elms that bordered the "big meadow," which Walden generally kept clear of both crops and cattle for the benefit of the village sports and pastimes.
He was indeed the only land-owner in the district who gave any consideration of this kind to the needs of the people. St. Rest was surrounded on all sides by several large private properties, richly wooded, and possessing many acres of ploughed and pasture land, but there was no public right-of-way across any single one of them, and every field, every woodland path, every tempting dell was rigidly fenced and guarded from "vulgar" intrusion. None of the proprietors of these estates, however, appeared to take the least personal joy or pride in their possessions. They were for the most part away in London for "the season" or abroad "out" of the season,--and their extensive woods appeared to exist chiefly for the preservation of game, reared solely to be shot by a few idle louts of fashion during September and October, and also for the convenience and support of a certain land agent, one Oliver Leach, who cut down fine old timber whenever he needed money, and thought it advisable to pocket the proceeds of such devastation.
Scarcely in one instance out of a hundred did the actual owners of property miss the trees sufficiently to ask what had become of them.
So long as the game was all right, they paid little heed to the rest. The partridges and the pheasants thrived, and so did Mr.
Oliver Leach. He enjoyed, however, the greatest unpopularity of any man in the neighbourhood, which was some small comfort to those who believed in the laws of compensation and justice. Bainton was his particular enemy for one, and Bainton"s master, John Walden, for another. His long-practised "knavish tricks" and the malicious delight he took in trying to destroy or disfigure the sylvan beauty of the landscape by his brutish ignorance of the art of forestry, combined with his own personal greed, were beginning to be well- known in St. Rest, and it is very certain that on May-morning when the youngsters of the village were abroad and, to a great extent, had it all their own way, (aided and abetted in that way by the recognised authority of the place, the minister himself,) he would never have dared to show his hard face and stiffly upright figure anywhere, lest he should be unmercifully "guyed" without a chance of rescue or appeal.
With the disappearance of the Maypole into the further meadow, Bainton likewise disappeared on his round of duty, which, as he had declared, moved him "in sundry places," and for a little while the dove-like spirit of Spring brooded in restful silence over the quiet orchard and garden.
The singing of the May-day children had now grown so faint and far as to be scarcely audible,--and the call of the cuckoo shrilling above the plaintive murmur of the wood pigeons, soon absorbed even the echo of the young human voices pa.s.sing away. A light breeze stirred the tender green gra.s.s, shaking down a shower of pink almond bloom as it swept fan-like through the luminous air,--a skylark half lost in the brilliant blue, began to descend earthwards, flinging out a sparkling fountain of music with every quiver of his jewel- like wings, and away in the sheltered shade of a small hazel copse, the faint fluty notes of a nightingale trembled with a mysterious sweetness suggestive of evening, when the song should be full.
More than an hour elapsed, and no living being entered the seclusion of the parson"s garden save Nebbie, the parson"s rough Aberdeen terrier, who, appearing suddenly at the open study-window, sniffed at the fair prospect for a moment, and then, stepping out with a leisurely air of proprietorship lay down on the gra.s.s in the full sunshine. A wise-looking dog was Nebbie,--though few would have thought that his full name was Nebuchadnezzar. Only the Reverend John knew that. Nebbie was perfectly aware that the children had come with the Maypole, and that his master had accompanied them to the big meadow. Nebbie also knew that presently that same master of his would return again to make the circuit of the garden in the company of Bainton, according to custom,--and as he stretched his four hairy paws out comfortably, and blinked his brown eyes at a portly blackbird prodding in the turf for a worm within a stone"s throw of him, he was evidently considering whether it would be worth his while, as an epicurean animal, to escort these two men on their usual round on such a warm pleasant morning. For it was a dog"s real lazy day,--a day when merely to lie on the gra.s.s was sufficient satisfaction for the canine mind. And Nebbie, yawning extensively, and stretching himself a little more, closed his eyes in a rapture of peace, and stirred his tail slightly with one, two, three mild taps on the soft gra.s.s, when a sudden clear whistle caused him to spring up with every hair bristling on end, fore-paws well forward and eyes wide open.
"Nebbie! Nebbie!"
Nebbie was nothing if not thoroughbred, and the voice of his master was, despite all considerations of sleep and sunshine, to him as the voice of the commanding officer to a subaltern. He was off like a shot at a tearing pace, nose down and tail erect, and in less than a minute had scented Walden in the shrubbery, which led by devious windings down from the orchard to the banks of the river Rest, and there finding him, started frantically gambolling round and round him, as though years had parted man and dog from one another, instead of the brief s.p.a.ce of an hour. Walden was smiling to himself, and his countenance was extremely pleasant. Nebbie, with the quaint conceit common to pet animals, imagined that the smile was produced specially for him, and continued his wild jumps and barks till his red tongue hung a couple of inches out of his mouth with excess of heat and enthusiasm.
"Nebbie! Nebbie!" said the Reverend John, mildly; "Don"t make such a noise! Down, lad, down!"
Nebbie subsided, and on reaching the river bank, squatted on his haunches, with his tongue still lolling out, while he watched his master step on a small floating pier attached by iron chains and posts to the land, and bend therefrom over into the clear water, looking anxiously downward to a spot he well knew, where hundreds of rare water-lilies were planted deep in the bed of the stream.
"Nymphea Odorata,"--he murmured, in the yearning tone of a lover addressing his beloved;--"Nymphea Chromatella--now I wonder if I shall see anything of them this year! The Aurora Caroliniana must have been eaten up by water-rats!"
Nebbie uttered a short bark. The faintest whisper of "rats"
seriously affected his nerves. He could have told his master many a harrowing story of those mischievous creatures swimming to and fro in the peaceful flood, tearing with their sharp teeth at the lily roots, and making a horrible havoc of all the most perfect buds of promise. The river Rest itself was so clear and bright that it was difficult to a.s.sociate rats with its silver flowing,--yet rats there were, hiding among the osiers and sedges, frightening the moorhens and reed-warblers out of their little innocent lives. Nebbie caught and killed them whenever he could,--but he had no particular taste for swimming, and he was on rather "strained relations" with a pair of swans who, with a brood of cygnets kept fierce guard on the opposite bank against all unwelcome intrusion.
His careful examination of the lily beds done, John Walden sprang back again from the pier to the land, and there hesitated a moment.
His eyes rested longingly on a light punt, which, running half out of a rustic boathouse, swayed suggestively on the gleaming water.
"I wish I had time,--" he said, half aloud, while Nebbie wagging his tail violently, sat waiting and expectant. The river looked deliciously tempting. The young green of the silver birches drooping above its shining surface, the lights and shadows rippling across it with every breath of air,--the skimming of swallows to and fro,--the hum of bees among the cowslips, thyme and violets that were pushing fragrantly through the clipped turf,--were all so many wordless invitations to him to go forth into the fair freedom of Nature.
"The green trees whispered low and mild, It was a sound of joy! They were my playmates when a child, And rocked me in their arms so wild!