The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume III Part 27

After the syllabub there was the garden to see, and a most beautiful garden it was;--long and narrow, a straight gravel walk down the middle of it, at the end of the gravel walk there was a green arbour with a bench under it.

There were rows of cabbages and radishes, and peas and beans. I was delighted to see them, for I never saw so much as a cabbage growing out of the ground before.

On one side of this charming garden there were a great many bee-hives, and the bees sung so prettily.

Mamma said, "Have you nothing to say to these pretty bees, Louisa?"

Then I said to them,

"How doth the little busy bee improve each s.h.i.+ning hour, And gather honey all the day from every opening flower."

They had a most beautiful flower-bed to gather it from, quite close under the hives.

I was going to catch one bee, till Sarah told me about their stings, which made me afraid for a long time to go too near their hives; but I went a little nearer, and a little nearer, every day, and, before I came away from grandmamma's, I grew so bold, I let Will Tasker hold me over the gla.s.s windows at the top of the hives, to see them make honey in their own homes.

After seeing the garden, I saw the cows milked, and that was the last sight I saw that day; for while I was telling mamma about the cows, I fell fast asleep, and I suppose I was then put to bed.

The next morning my papa and mamma were gone. I cried sadly, but was a little comforted at hearing they would return in a month or two, and fetch me home. I was a foolish little thing then, and did not know how long a month was. Grandmamma gave me a little basket to gather my flowers in. I went into the orchard, and before I had half filled my basket, I forgot all my troubles.

The time I pa.s.sed at my grandmamma's is always in my mind. Sometimes I think of the good-natured pied cow, that would let me stroke her, while the dairy-maid was milking her. Then I fancy myself running after the dairy-maid into the nice clean dairy, and see the pans full of milk and cream. Then I remember the wood-house; it had once been a large barn, but being grown old, the wood was kept there. My sister and I used to peep about among the f.a.ggots to find the eggs the hens sometimes left there. Birds' nests we might not look for. Grandmamma was very angry once, when Will Tasker brought home a bird's nest, full of pretty speckled eggs, for me. She sent him back to the hedge with it again. She said, the little birds would not sing any more, if their eggs were taken away from them.

A hen, she said, was a hospitable bird, and always laid more eggs than she wanted, on purpose to give her mistress to make puddings and custards with.

I do not know which pleased grandmamma best, when we carried her home a lap-full of eggs, or a few violets; for she was particularly fond of violets.

Violets were very scarce; we used to search very carefully for them every morning, round by the orchard hedge, and Sarah used to carry a stick in her hand to beat away the nettles; for very frequently the hens left their eggs among the nettles. If we could find eggs and violets too, what happy children we were!

Every day I used to fill my basket with flowers, and for a long time I liked one pretty flower as well as another pretty flower, but Sarah was much wiser than me, and she taught me which to prefer.

Grandmamma's violets were certainly best of all, but they never went in the basket, being carried home, almost flower by flower, as soon as they were found; therefore blue-bells might be said to be the best, for the cowslips were all withered and gone, before I learned the true value of flowers. The best blue-bells were those tinged with red; some were so very red, that we called them red blue-bells, and these Sarah prized very highly indeed. Daffodils were so very plentiful, they were not thought worth gathering, unless they were double ones, and b.u.t.ter-cups I found were very poor flowers indeed, yet I would pick one now and then, because I knew they were the very same flowers that had delighted me so in the journey; for my papa had told me they were.

I was very careful to love best the flowers which Sarah praised most, yet sometimes, I confess, I have even picked a daisy, though I knew it was the very worst flower of all, because it reminded me of London, and the Drapers' garden; for, happy as I was at grandmamma's, I could not help sometimes thinking of my papa and mamma, and then I used to tell my sister all about London; how the houses stood all close to each other; what a pretty noise the coaches made; and what a many people there were in the streets. After we had been talking on these subjects, we generally used to go into the old wood-house, and play at being in London. We used to set up bits of wood for houses; our two dolls we called papa and mamma; in one corner we made a little garden with gra.s.s and daisies, and that was to be the Drapers' garden. I would not have any other flowers here than daisies, because no other grew among the gra.s.s in the real Drapers' garden. Before the time of hay-making came, it was very much talked of. Sarah told me what a merry time it would be, for she remembered every thing which had happened for a year or more. She told me how nicely we should throw the hay about. I was very desirous indeed to see the hay made.

To be sure nothing could be more pleasant than the day the orchard was mowed: the hay smelled so sweet, and we might toss it about as much as ever we pleased; but, dear me, we often wish for things that do not prove so happy as we expected; the hay, which was at first so green, and smelled so sweet, became yellow and dry, and was carried away in a cart to feed the horses; and then, when it was all gone, and there was no more to play with, I looked upon the naked ground, and perceived what we had lost in these few merry days. Ladies, would you believe it, every flower, blue-bells, daffodils, b.u.t.ter-cups, daisies, all were cut off by the cruel scythe of the mower. No flower was to be seen at all, except here and there a short solitary daisy, that a week before one would not have looked at.

It was a grief, indeed, to me, to lose all my pretty flowers; yet, when we are in great distress, there is always, I think, something which happens to comfort us, and so it happened now, that gooseberries and currants were almost ripe, which was certainly a very pleasant prospect. Some of them began to turn red, and, as we never disobeyed grandmamma, we used often to consult together, if it was likely she would permit us to eat them yet, then we would pick a few that looked the ripest, and run to ask her if she thought they were ripe enough to eat, and the uncertainty what her opinion would be, made them doubly sweet if she gave us leave to eat them.

When the currants and gooseberries were quite ripe, grandmamma had a sheep-shearing.

All the sheep stood under the trees to be sheared. They were brought out of the field by old Spot, the shepherd. I stood at the orchard-gate, and saw him drive them all in. When they had cropped off all their wool, they looked very clean, and white, and pretty; but, poor things, they ran s.h.i.+vering about with cold, so that it was a pity to see them. Great preparations were making all day for the sheep-shearing supper. Sarah said, a sheep-shearing was not to be compared to a harvest-home, _that_ was so much better, for that then the oven was quite full of plum-pudding, and the kitchen was very hot indeed with roasting beef; yet I can a.s.sure you there was no want at all of either roast beef or plum-pudding at the sheep-shearing.

My sister and I were permitted to sit up till it was almost dark, to see the company at supper. They sate at a long oak table, which was finely carved, and as bright as a looking-gla.s.s.

I obtained a great deal of praise that day, because I replied so prettily when I was spoken to. My sister was more shy than me; never having lived in London was the reason of that. After the happiest day bedtime will come! We sate up late; but at last grandmamma sent us to bed: yet though we went to bed we heard many charming songs sung: to be sure we could not distinguish the words, which was a pity, but the sound of their voices was very loud and very fine indeed.

The common supper that we had every night was very cheerful. Just before the men came out of the field, a large f.a.ggot was flung on the fire; the wood used to crackle and blaze, and smell delightfully: and then the crickets, for they loved the fire, they used to sing, and old Spot, the shepherd, who loved the fire as well as the crickets did, he used to take his place in the chimney corner; after the hottest day in summer, there old Spot used to sit. It was a seat within the fire-place, quite under the chimney, and over his head the bacon hung.

When old Spot was seated, the milk was hung in a skillet over the fire, and then the men used to come and sit down at the long white table.

_Pardon me, my dear Louisa, that I interrupted you here. You are a little woman now to what you were then; and I may say to you, that though I loved to hear you prattle of your early recollections, I thought I perceived some ladies present were rather weary of hearing so much of the visit to grandmamma. You may remember I asked you some questions concerning your papa and your mamma, which led you to speak of your journey home: but your little town-bred head was so full of the pleasures of a country life, that you first made many apologies that you were unable to tell what happened during the harvest, as unfortunately you were fetched home the very day before it began._

III

ANN WITHERS

(_By Mary Lamb_)

My name you know is Withers, but as I once thought I was the daughter of sir Edward and lady Harriot Lesley, I shall speak of myself as miss Lesley, and call sir Edward and lady Harriot my father and mother during the period I supposed them ent.i.tled to those beloved names. When I was a little girl, it was the perpetual subject of my contemplation, that I was an heiress, and the daughter of a baronet; that my mother was the honourable lady Harriot; that we had a n.o.bler mansion, infinitely finer pleasure-grounds, and equipages more splendid than any of the neighbouring families. Indeed, my good friends, having observed nothing of this error of mine in either of the lives which have hitherto been related, I am ashamed to confess what a proud child I once was. How it happened I cannot tell, for my father was esteemed the best bred man in the county, and the condescension and affability of my mother were universally spoken of.

"Oh my dear friend," said miss ----, "it was very natural indeed, if you supposed you possessed these advantages. We make no comparative figure in the county, and my father was originally a man of no consideration at all; and yet I can a.s.sure you, both he and mamma had a prodigious deal of trouble to break me of this infirmity, when I was very young." "And do reflect for a moment," said miss Villiers, "from whence could proceed any pride in me--a poor curate's daughter;--at least any pride worth speaking of; for the difficulty my father had to make me feel myself on an equality with a miller's little daughter who visited me, did not seem an anecdote worth relating. My father, from his profession, is accustomed to look into these things, and whenever he has observed any tendency to this fault in me, and has made me sensible of my error, I, who am rather a weak-spirited girl, have been so much distressed at his reproofs, that to restore me to my own good opinion, he would make me sensible that pride is a defect inseparable from human nature; shewing me, in our visits to the poorest labourers, how pride would, as he expressed it, "prettily peep out from under their ragged garbs."--My father dearly loved the poor. In persons of a rank superior to our own humble one, I wanted not much a.s.sistance from my father's nice discernment to know that it existed there; and for these latter he would always claim that toleration from me, which he said he observed I was less willing to allow than to the former instances. "We are told in holy writ," he would say, "that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." Surely this is not meant alone to warn the affluent: it must also be understood as an expressive ill.u.s.tration, to instruct the lowly-fortuned man that he should bear with those imperfections, inseparable from that dangerous prosperity from which he is happily exempt."--But we sadly interrupt your story.--

"You are very kind, ladies, to speak with so much indulgence of my foible," said miss Withers, and was going to proceed, when little Louisa Manners asked, "Pray, are not equipages carriages?" "Yes, miss Manners, an equipage is a carriage." "Then I am sure if my papa had but one equipage I should be very proud; for once when my papa talked of keeping a one-horse chaise, I never was so proud of any thing in my life: I used to dream of riding in it, and imagine I saw my playfellows walking past me in the streets."

"Oh, my dear miss Manners," replied miss Withers, "your young head might well run on a thing so new to you; but you have preached an useful lesson to me in your own pretty rambling story, which I shall not easily forget. When you were speaking with such delight of the pleasure the sight of a farm-yard, an orchard, and a narrow slip of kitchen-garden, gave you, and could for years preserve so lively the memory of one short ride, and that probably through a flat uninteresting country, I remembered how early I learned to disregard the face of Nature, unless she were decked in picturesque scenery; how wearisome our parks and grounds became to me, unless some improvements were going forward which I thought would attract notice: but those days are gone.--I will now proceed in my story, and bring you acquainted with my real parents.

Alas! I am a changeling, subst.i.tuted by my mother for the heiress of the Lesley family: it was for my sake she did this naughty deed; yet, since the truth has been known, it seems to me as if I had been the only sufferer by it; remembering no time when I was not Harriot Lesley, it seems as if the change had taken from me my birthright.

Lady Harriot had intended to nurse her child herself; but being seized with a violent fever soon after its birth, she was not only unable to nurse it, but even to see it, for several weeks. At this time I was not quite a month old, when my mother was hired to be miss Lesley's nurse--she had once been a servant in the family--her husband was then at sea.

She had been nursing miss Lesley a few days, when a girl who had the care of me brought me into the nursery to see my mother. It happened that she wanted something from her own home, which she dispatched the girl to fetch, and desired her to leave me till her return. In her absence she changed our clothes: then keeping me to personate the child she was nursing, she sent away the daughter of sir Edward to be brought up in her own poor cottage.

When my mother sent away the girl, she affirmed she had not the least intention of committing this bad action; but after she was left alone with us, she looked on me, and then on the little lady-babe, and she wept over me to think she was obliged to leave me to the charge of a careless girl, debarred from my own natural food, while she was nursing another person's child.

The laced cap and the fine cambric robe of the little Harriot were lying on the table ready to be put on: in these she dressed me, only just to see how pretty her own dear baby would look in missy's fine clothes. When she saw me thus adorned, she said to me, "O, my dear Ann, you look as like missy as any thing can be. I am sure my lady herself, if she were well enough to see you, would not know the difference." She said these words aloud, and while she was speaking, a wicked thought came into her head--How easy it would be to change these children! On which she hastily dressed Harriot in my coa.r.s.e raiment. She had no sooner finished the transformation of miss Lesley into the poor Ann Withers, than the girl returned, and carried her away, without the least suspicion that it was not the same infant that she had brought thither.

It was wonderful that no one discovered that I was not the same child.

Every fresh face that came into the room, filled the nurse with terror. The servants still continued to pay their compliments to the baby in the same form as usual, saying, How like it is to its papa!

Nor did sir Edward himself perceive the difference, his lady's illness probably engrossing all his attention at the time; though indeed gentlemen seldom take much notice of very young children.

When lady Harriot began to recover, and the nurse saw me in her arms caressed as her own child, all fears of detection were over; but the pangs of remorse then seized her: as the dear sick lady hung with tears of fondness over me, she thought she should have died with sorrow for having so cruelly deceived her.

When I was a year old Mrs. Withers was discharged; and because she had been observed to nurse me with uncommon care and affection, and was seen to shed many tears at parting from me; to reward her fidelity sir Edward settled a small pension on her, and she was allowed to come every Sunday to dine in the housekeeper's room, and see her little lady.

When she went home it might have been expected she would have neglected the child she had so wickedly stolen; instead of which she nursed it with the greatest tenderness, being very sorry for what she had done: all the ease she could ever find for her troubled conscience, was in her extreme care of this injured child; and in the weekly visits to its father's house she constantly brought it with her. At the time I have the earliest recollection of her, she was become a widow, and with the pension sir Edward allowed her, and some plain work she did for our family, she maintained herself and her supposed daughter. The doting fondness she shewed for her child was much talked of; it was said, she waited upon it more like a servant than a mother, and it was observed, its clothes were always made, as far as her slender means would permit, in the same fas.h.i.+on, and her hair cut and curled in the same form as mine. To this person, as having been my faithful nurse, and to her child, I was always taught to shew particular civility, and the little girl was always brought into the nursery to play with me. Ann was a little delicate thing, and remarkably well-behaved; for though so much indulged in every other respect, my mother was very attentive to her manners.

As the child grew older, my mother became very uneasy about her education. She was so very desirous of having her well-behaved, that she feared to send her to school, lest she should learn ill manners among the village children, with whom she never suffered her to play; and she was such a poor scholar herself, that she could teach her little or nothing. I heard her relate this her distress to my own maid, with tears in her eyes, and I formed a resolution to beg of my parents that I might have Ann for a companion, and that she might be allowed to take lessons with me of my governess.

My birth-day was then approaching, and on that day I was always indulged in the privilege of asking some peculiar favour.

"And what boon has my annual pet.i.tioner to beg to-day?" said my father, as he entered the breakfast-room on the morning of my birth-day. Then I told him of the great anxiety expressed by nurse Withers concerning her daughter; how much she wished it was in her power to give her an education, that would enable her to get her living without hard labour. I set the good qualities of Ann Withers in the best light I could, and in conclusion I begged she might be permitted to partake with me in education, and become my companion.

"This is a very serious request indeed, Harriot," said sir Edward; "your mother and I must consult together on the subject." The result of this consultation was favourable to my wishes: in a few weeks my foster-sister was taken into the house, and placed under the tuition of my governess.

To me, who had hitherto lived without any companions of my own age except occasional visitors, the idea of a playfellow constantly to a.s.sociate with, was very pleasant; and, after the first shyness of feeling her altered situation was over, Ann seemed as much at her ease as if she had always been brought up in our house. I became very fond of her, and took pleasure in shewing her all manner of attentions; which so far won on her affections, that she told me she had a secret intrusted to her by her mother, which she had promised never to reveal as long as her mother lived, but that she almost wished to confide it to me, because I was such a kind friend to her; yet, having promised never to tell it till the death of her mother, she was afraid to tell it to me. At first I a.s.sured her that I would never press her to the disclosure, for that promises of secrecy were to be held sacred; but whenever we fell into any confidential kind of conversation, this secret seemed always ready to come out. Whether she or I were most to blame I know not, though I own I could not help giving frequent hints how well I could keep a secret. At length she told me what I have before related, namely, that she was in truth the daughter of sir Edward and lady Lesley, and I the child of her supposed mother.