'4 
 
 ■m 
 
 
 Jil 
 
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 dan 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1 89 1 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 PR4415.C2A8 
 
 In memory of W.V. 
 
 3 1924 013 453 299 
 
M ^ Cornell University 
 VM Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013453299 
 
In Memory of 
 W. V. 
 
7h nr/'^/'e/ . 
 
LONDON 
 
 J. M. DENT &' CO. 
 
 Aldine House, Bedford Street, W.C. 
 
 1901 
 
/\(^)&JyS^ 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson d?* Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press 
 
/ had no human fears ; 
 She seemed a thing that could not feel 
 The touch of early years. 
 
 No motion has she now, no force ; 
 
 She neither hears nor sees ; 
 Rolled round in earth's diurnal course. 
 
 With rocks, and stones, and trees. 
 
 This is He 
 Of Galilee, 
 Of Nazareth, 
 
 The Christ that conquers Death . . . 
 Talitha cumi ! See 
 The tumult as of some sweet strife 
 Strained tremulous up — up — 
 " Give her to drink ! " He saith — 
 Yea, Lord, behold, a cup ! 
 
 Thy voice is on the rolling air ; 
 
 I hear thee where the waters run ; 
 
 Thou standest in the rising sun. 
 And in the setting thou art fair. 
 
 Far off thou art, but ever nigh ; 
 I have thee still, and I rejoice. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 WINIFRED VIDA . 
 
 
 PACK 
 
 I 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF HER SCHOOL 
 
 
 DAYS 
 
 • 27 
 
 IN THE GOLDEN PRIME . 
 
 
 ■ 51 
 
 OUR STORIES .... 
 
 
 97 
 
 Beside a Summer Fire 
 
 
 100 
 
 Chimney Flowers 
 
 
 109 
 
 A Prisoner of War 
 
 
 114 
 
 A Red-Letter Day 
 
 
 118 
 
 The First Parting 
 
 
 136 
 
 Santa Claus and the Babe 
 
 
 147 
 
 Three Steps and a Little Door 
 
 
 iji 
 
 OUR POEMS 
 
 
 161 
 
 The Ring-Fence .... 
 
 
 164 
 
 Home ...... 
 
 
 165 
 
 The Miraculous .... 
 
 
 166 
 
 Bedtime . ..... 
 
 
 167 
 
 Carol ...... 
 
 
 168 
 
Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OUR POEMS continued 
 
 
 
 
 PACE 
 
 Santa Glaus if'9 
 
 In the Storm 
 
 
 
 
 170 
 
 Almond Blossom 
 
 
 
 
 171 
 
 My Friend 
 
 
 
 
 172 
 
 Garden-Fires . 
 
 
 
 
 173 
 
 April Song — I 
 
 
 
 
 174 
 
 April Song — II 
 
 
 
 
 175 
 
 In the Woodlands . 
 
 
 
 
 176 
 
 Martin-tide . 
 
 
 
 
 177 
 
 May-Morning Rain 
 
 
 
 
 178 
 
 Fellow-feeling 
 
 
 
 
 180 
 
 In the Underwood . 
 
 
 
 
 181 
 
 From Flower to Flower 
 
 
 
 
 182 
 
 The Angler . 
 
 
 
 
 183 
 
 The Water-Ousel . 
 
 
 
 
 184 
 
 Red- Cap Cherries . 
 
 
 
 
 185 
 
 A Child's Song 
 
 
 
 
 186 
 
 To Winifred . 
 
 
 
 
 187 
 
 The Look 
 
 
 
 
 188 
 
 The Call 
 
 
 
 
 189 
 
 The Mantelpiece 
 
 
 
 
 190 
 
 The Wells of Elim 
 
 
 
 
 . 191 
 
 Gloaming 
 
 
 
 
 192 
 
 SUB UMBRA CRUCIS 
 
 
 
 
 • 193 
 
 W. V 
 
 
 
 
 . 208 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 WINIFRED, October 1900 . . Frontispiece 
 
 WINIFRED AND PHYLLIS 
 
 IN THE Warren, Albury Heath, 
 
 July 1899 .... To face page 48 
 
 WINIFRED, October 1900 . „ „ 96 
 
 WINIFRED AND GUY, Sep- 
 tember 1897 ....„„ 144 
 
W^inifred Kida 
 
WINIFRED VIDA 
 
 Glasgow, April 26, 1890. Highgate, April 15, 190 1 
 
 THOUGH to her it is a vain service, 
 I wish to leave a brief memorial 
 of Winifred's little life, and so com- 
 plete the book which has made her the child 
 of many households besides our own. I 
 undertake the task at the suggestion of 
 one who loved her, though he never looked 
 upon her face ; and in writing of her I shall 
 try to think of her, not as I last saw her, 
 but as she was to me for nearly eleven 
 years ; as she will ever be in memory ; as 
 she is; as I shall yet see her, on the first 
 day of the new week, when it is no longer 
 dark, when the stone has been taken away. 
 
4 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 When she came home for the Easter holi- 
 days, she was looking more healthy and 
 rosy than we had seen her for a long time 
 — full of gaiety and high spirits. She was 
 so much a child of the earth, so com- 
 pletely one with spring flowers and new 
 leaves and sunshine and the glad breath 
 of the west wind, that one felt that while 
 these lasted she could not but be as they 
 were. Indeed, her joyous little soul seemed 
 to give them something of its own im- 
 mortality and a human nearness which of 
 themselves they had not. 
 
 She had a reverence and piety of her 
 own, thought much of the mystery of God 
 and of the person of Christ, made her own 
 quaint forms of worship — as when she added 
 to her evening prayer the familiar petition, 
 "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and the love of God, and the fellowship of 
 the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore." 
 
WINIFRED VIDA 5 
 
 Yet in her many moods she was never a 
 " heavenly " child. She wanted nothing 
 better than the good earth on which she 
 found herself. She was wonderfully alive 
 to all that was beautiful ; but when I once 
 asked her whether she would not like to 
 live in the sunset among the trees and little 
 islands and tiny houses which she imagined 
 (her meaning for " imagine " was, " I seem 
 to see, although I don't quite "), she an- 
 swered with a decided " No, I should not." 
 And my question, " Why not ? " was met 
 with the prompt reply, " Because I am quite 
 happy down here." 
 
 Other children, indeed, may have been as 
 happy ; none could have been happier. She 
 had at times her childish troubles, but care 
 fell from her easily. Life was so good to 
 her — and so good to us through her. Even 
 at the end, the wind of the Valley was 
 tempered. She suffered little pain, and no 
 
6 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 shadow of anxiety or misgiving disturbed 
 her heart at any time. None of us thought 
 of death, she least of all. It is a comfort 
 to me to know that in the common sense 
 of the word she did not die, but only 
 swooned away through a momentary blank 
 of darkness into the life divine. There was 
 no leave-taking — no word of anguish or 
 dereliction ; no time or chance for these, 
 the change was so sudden. 
 
 And yet to us now looking back, there 
 was a sort of premonition in a curious 
 phrase of hers on the evening before her 
 death, when, a little light-headed, she 
 said : " Oh, mother, we shall miss you if 
 you go to Italy." On the following morn- 
 ing, too, she wandered at intervals, and I 
 found her much troubled for a moment or 
 two. " I don't want to marry the king's 
 son ; but you have to, if you find the king's 
 ring." When I assured her that there was 
 
WINIFRED VIDA 7 
 
 really no compulsion at all, and that she 
 should not marry any one unless she liked, 
 she was greatly relieved, and looked up at 
 me with a smile of perfect trust. That was 
 the last time I saw the light in her living 
 eyes. 
 
 Phyllis and Winifred came home on the 
 Tuesday before Easter, and after a very 
 happy holiday, in spite of the east wind and 
 wet, were preparing to return on Monday, 
 April 1 5th, the day on which she died. 
 
 On Saturday, the 6th, she went with Guy 
 and me into the woods ; and we talked and 
 laughed over the " old times," before Guy 
 was born, when she and I had adven- 
 tures with the Oak-men, and went in great 
 dread of bears and of the webs of the Iron 
 Spider; and of later happy days when we 
 used to take out Guy in his mail-cart, and 
 tell stories in our country house while he 
 
8 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 lay asleep under the shade of the tree which 
 was his town house. That was the last 
 time we three were in the woods together. 
 She was always companionable, but now I 
 found her grown into a kind of equal, with- 
 out having lost any of her old gaiety and 
 freshness of fancy. 
 
 The following Tuesday was beautifully 
 bright and warm, and the children went 
 into the woods in the afternoon, taking 
 bananas, chocolate, and biscuits with them. 
 They tied Phyllis to a tree, as Andromeda 
 exposed to Pristrix the Sea-monster, and 
 ran away and left her. Some boys came 
 along, and offered Phyllis a knife to free 
 herself "from her bonds," but she was not 
 going to cut their skipping-rope ; and pre- 
 sently Winifred peered round a tree laugh- 
 ing. She let Bertha release Phyllis, but ran 
 off home herself, for fear they should chain 
 her to the rock. 
 
WINIFRED VIDA 9 
 
 On Wednesday Phyllis, Winifred, and 
 mother went to the British Museum, chiefly 
 to see Cleopatra's mummy and the great 
 tomb of Mausolus, with its huge stone 
 chariot and horses. She was much inter- 
 ested in both of these things, for we had 
 often talked of them, and these old stories 
 had always a particular attraction for her. 
 In the evening she was very anxious to go 
 to church, but as the bells had stopped 
 ringing before she got there, and she did 
 not like to go in late, she came to meet me. 
 I was crossing the road from the station 
 when I heard a voice, "Father ! " and Winnie 
 came running towards me. A little later in 
 the evening she complained of pain in the 
 chest, which we thought was probably caused 
 by indigestion ; and she lay down and fell 
 asleep. 
 
 On Thursday she still had a little pain, 
 but the children amused themselves with 
 
lo IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 type-writing, and were very merry. After 
 tea it was so bright that they took a run 
 with their bicycles, but Winifred did not 
 stay out long. 
 
 On Friday she did not care to go to the 
 Hippodrome. As the pain had shifted 
 somewhat lower and suggested gastric 
 catarrh, the doctor was sent for ; but she 
 did not appear to be at all ill. Indeed, all 
 day she was very lively, reading and playing 
 with Guy, and working at some patchwork 
 for a lucky-bag. The needle remains in it 
 just as she left it. At night when Phyllis 
 went to bed, Winifred sat up and said : " I 
 feel better now ; let's have a game ! " but 
 soon afterwards, hearing footsteps on the 
 stairs, they dived under the bedclothes, and 
 went to sleep. 
 
 About one o'clock in the morning she 
 awoke her mother, and complained of the 
 pain being worse. Hot fomentations and 
 
WINIFRED VIDA ii 
 
 poultices were applied ; the doctor came 
 early, and he diagnosed local peritonitis, 
 with a temperature of 103. The word 
 '* peritonitis " did not then mean for us 
 what it has come to mean since ; we saw no 
 cause for dread. There was pain, it is true, 
 but it was not acute except when she tried 
 to move, and with a little care, we thought, 
 all would be well immediately. Late in the 
 evening her temperature had risen to 105 ; 
 but although she suffered from thirst and 
 restlessness during the night, it had fallen to 
 102 in the morning, and it did not rise again. 
 
 I take what follows from her mother's 
 account in our House-book : — 
 
 She wandered a good deal all day, which 
 we attributed partly to the morphia she was 
 taking, and she kept asking what day it was. 
 When I said it was still Sunday, she laughed 
 at herself quite in her old way, "I am a 
 
12 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 donkey ! " The doctor thought her cer- 
 tainly no worse when he came in the even- 
 ing. She had a very restless night and 
 talked a great deal. Nurse called me at 
 four in the morning, and said she had just 
 been very sick. After poulticing again, 
 nurse went away for an hour, and I lay 
 down beside Winifred, and held her hand 
 and fanned her. She slept a little until 
 six ; then I poulticed her again, and nurse 
 got up. Winifred looked very dark round 
 the eyes, and her face was thin, but I never 
 anticipated any danger. She was sick 
 several times again ; I think she counted 
 the number, poor child. I helped nurse 
 to wash and change her, and Will came 
 up and helped too. We moved her to the 
 other side of the bed, and she said she was 
 so comfortable. She seemed to move more 
 easily, and I thought she was a little better, 
 but I could see she would need a great 
 
WINIFRED VIDA 13 
 
 deal of care and nursing. She brightened 
 up when I said they should not go back to 
 school, but that, when she got better, we 
 should all go away to the seaside together. 
 
 She talked quite rationally about some 
 things, though she wandered at times. 
 Once she said "Shall I have to marry the 
 king's eldest son ? You know you must, 
 if you find the king's signet-ring." I told 
 Will, and he said, " Oh, you needn't, if you 
 don't want to," which seemed to reassure 
 her. She begged for ice, and Phyllis went 
 and got some, and brought her some flowers, 
 too, which she looked at. She complained 
 of pain at the top of her head, and we kept 
 putting on eau-de-cologne and ice and wet 
 handkerchiefs. She threw the bedclothes 
 off a good deal, and her hands felt cold. 
 
 The doctor came soon after 10.30. He 
 found her temperature no higher and her 
 body less tender, but her pulse was bad, and 
 
14 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 he said she was very low, and proposed to 
 send for advice. She began to speak indis- 
 tinctly too, and yet I never thought of 
 immediate danger. The doctor said he 
 would come back about one. I sent a tele- 
 gram to Will at once to say that a physician 
 was coming, but almost immediately she 
 began to change. Nurse felt her hands and 
 found them cold and wet ; " Oh, she is 
 going ! " she said. We gave her brandy, 
 but her teeth were clenched and we could 
 not get her to take it. I sent another 
 message to Will ; and nurse seeing the 
 doctor's coachman, sent for him to come 
 back at once. 
 
 I stood by her trying to realise that she 
 was leaving me. Her eyes were wide open, 
 all pupil, but quite unseeing. I kissed her, 
 and spoke to her, but she never replied, and 
 she just breathed a few times, and it was all 
 over. The doctor came in a few minutes 
 
WINIFRED VIDA 15 
 
 afterwards. I think it must have been about 
 11.45; but I was too stunned to think of 
 looking at the time. I went downstairs 
 and told Phyllis, and waited for Will to 
 come home. I was so cold. 
 
 So ends the story of the little life which 
 to us was so dear. 
 
 Before I could reach home she had been 
 dead for nearly two hours, yet her head 
 and bosom were so strangely warm that it 
 was impossible to surrender hope. It was 
 not till late in the evening that the cold of 
 the grave set in, and one knew for certain 
 that her bright spirit had gone. 
 
 During the days that followed we kept 
 the shadow from falling on Guy as much 
 as we were able. He played and built and 
 ran his trains as usual, and wound tunes 
 out of his musical box ; only, now and then 
 he would ask : " Will it disturb Winnie ? 
 
1 6 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 Won't she hear ? " And when he got for 
 answer, " No, dear, but she would like it 
 if she did," he would say : " It isn't too 
 loud," and would go on very softly with 
 his winding. Poor little man, no trouble, 
 I think, fell to his share on her account. 
 
 But for us when she died all the clocks 
 of the world seemed to stop, and all the 
 wheels of life to fall still. It was strange 
 to think how much we had to tell you, 
 how many things we wanted to ask you, 
 Winifred. Every trifle of hers became 
 in a peculiar way precious — and so many 
 things of ours became valueless. Books 
 and pictures which I had kept for her 
 when she should have grown older, what 
 was the use or worth of them now that 
 her hands should never touch them, her 
 eyes never take pleasure in them? The 
 natural impulse was to lay them beside 
 her ; she alone seemed to have any right 
 
WINIFRED VIDA 17 
 
 to them. How clearly one understood the 
 sorrow of old days, when all sorts of 
 treasures were laid in the dust with the 
 dead. I used to suppose that this was 
 done solely, or at least chiefly, with a 
 thought of an after-life ; now I knew 
 that there was an earlier thought and a 
 deeper emotion at work in the heart of 
 the ancient people ; they felt that the 
 fitting place for these things was the 
 grave. 
 
 One of Winifred's last visits was to an 
 old clergyman who was ill and was not 
 expected to recover, so very old was he. 
 When he heard she was dead he tried to 
 come and look for the last time on her 
 innocent face, but he found he had not 
 strength enough to get so far. 
 
 From almost as many strangers as friends 
 came letters of sorrow and sympathy, and 
 it chastened the selfishness of grief to learn 
 
1 8 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 that of those who felt for us most deeply, 
 several had had losses as grievous and nearly 
 as recent as our own, and had suffered in 
 silence, and at least without our knowledge 
 and sympathy. 
 
 We laid her to rest in Highgate Cemetery 
 on the 1 8 th. Her little schoolfellows in 
 Kent sent flowers, among them violets from 
 her own garden ; and on the Sunday they 
 sang in church the Resurrection Morning 
 hymn. Her old companions at the Kinder- 
 garten in Highgate also sent a wreath. In 
 a small village in Norfolk, school-children 
 she did not know searched the woods and 
 fields for wild flowers for her grave ; and 
 other children, of whom she had only heard, 
 sent moss and anemones from the shores of 
 Coniston Lake. 
 
 At the funeral not only did the sun shine 
 on the coflin, but in the grave itself there 
 was light. All during the service, which 
 
WINIFRED VIDA 19 
 
 was conducted by her friend, Dr. Robertson 
 NicoU, a robin, I am told, sat close to the 
 grave ; she would have liked that. When 
 I went up next day the bees were busy 
 among her flowers, and that too would 
 have been to her liking. 
 
 From our House- book I take this por- 
 trait of her, drawn more truthfully than I 
 could have drawn it : — 
 
 She was very fair ; her skin fine and clear 
 and white ; her hair fair and silky, and so 
 fine that it did not appear abundant, though 
 it really felt quite thick in the hand; her 
 eyes large and blue — beautiful eyes, not so 
 deep-set as Guy's, with long dark lashes ; 
 light eyebrows, and pretty nose, rather 
 long ; her mouth was not quite so pretty 
 as it was when she was younger, her second 
 teeth came imperfectly enamelled, a sign 
 of delicacy, I sometimes think now, but 
 
20 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 there was no other symptom that struck 
 one in that way. 
 
 Her body was strong; broad-built ; she 
 had fine straight limbs, square-set feet, 
 and extremely pretty hands and nails — 
 (" moons," she used to call the white at 
 the root of the nails : " Does God like us 
 to show our moons?") — I used to delight 
 over her hands ; she used them so grace- 
 fully too. Her flesh was firm and elastic 
 to the touch, and she gave one the im- 
 pression of having a good deal of muscular 
 power. But she flagged easily ; much walk- 
 ing or sustained exertion quickly tired her, 
 and though when she was well she looked 
 well, a very little illness made her look 
 pale and wan. 
 
 To most people she was the embodiment 
 of gaiety and high spirits, but to those who 
 knew her well her pensive and sometimes 
 melancholy moods were equally familiar. 
 
WINIFRED VIDA 21 
 
 Wherever she went she made friends ; she 
 seemed to know every one's name, and 
 both in Highgate and at L — d everybody 
 knew and had a greeting for Winifred. 
 
 And now her playthings are laid away, 
 within sight and reach, but unused. No 
 one touches the clubs with which she set 
 out on her adventures. The vine has 
 caught her hoop and twined it with ten- 
 drils and green leaves. 
 
 The rose-bush in the garden is breaking 
 into flower at last. Blossom, slow bush, 
 lift up hands of flowers, as she would 
 say ; the last time she was near you she 
 blamed your long delay. In the woods, 
 now that she can walk no more in the 
 familiar footsteps, the ways are glad with 
 the colour of spring. How she loved it ! 
 Here are the trees where there used to be 
 pools after rain, and in her later years she 
 
2 2 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 would look into them and laugh at her 
 old fancies that there were water-fairies 
 that lived down in those clear leafy depths. 
 To-day all the pools are dried up, there 
 has been no rain since she died. To me 
 she was such a pool of fairy water — a ten- 
 years' fountain of joy for ever springing. 
 
 How well N prayed : — " We praise 
 
 Thee for the years of good Thou hast 
 given us ! " How wise and helpful was 
 his whole prayer — one unvarying and un- 
 grudging hymn of praise and thanks for 
 all, alike for the good and for that which 
 does not seem good. 
 
 " We praise Thee ! " 
 
 And yet for all that, how well I under- 
 stand the misery of Othello's cry, " Othello's 
 occupation's gone ! " Constantly I find my- 
 self referring things to her — " This will 
 do for Winifred ; I must ask Winifred 
 about that ; Winifred must read this " — 
 
WINIFRED VIDA 23 
 
 and as constantly I am thrust back upon 
 myself. 
 
 " We praise Thee ! " 
 
 Yet all the purpose, the brave plans, the 
 high spirits, the zest of life have vanished. 
 If I set myself to my tasks anew, it will 
 be with the thought, "I shall go softly 
 all my years." 
 
 Still, feeling this, knowing this, "We 
 praise Thee ! " 
 
 A week later, on what would have been 
 her birthday, we went to Albury where all the 
 woods and lanes are alive with her presence. 
 
 I knew that I should see her standing 
 beside her bicycle in the shadow of the 
 great beeches in the Warren ; that I should 
 see her waving her hand to me as she 
 coasted down one of the broad drives 
 along the Heath ; that in one of the deep 
 sandy lanes which lead to the Hurtwood, 
 
24 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 where they played bare-footed, with rods 
 of foxglove, at being Whortleberry Pilgrims, 
 I should espy her resting in one of the 
 " wayside chapels," formed half-way up the 
 bank by the woven roots of the trees. 
 Highgate she has left for ever ; but in this 
 still region of childish play and happy 
 memories her joyous spirit, I felt, would 
 linger with a lingering love of the sweet 
 earth ; and — who could say that it might 
 not pass into a sudden visibility ? — even as 
 a little bright cloud startles the aeronaut 
 by appearing suddenly at his side out of 
 the clear air, and as suddenly departing 
 into its unseen home. 
 
 And indeed, in the evening, I felt her 
 presence with a deep sense of nearness. 
 The sun had gone down, but the air was 
 still clear, and the lark was still singing in 
 the higher light ; the thrushes, too, in bush 
 and tree. 
 
WINIFRED VIDA 25 
 
 On the top of the Heath, in its little 
 garden, the small white post-office stood 
 out against the sombre green pines and 
 beeches of the Warren, and around the 
 post-office the garden looked like the 
 garden of a vision, for a slender birch 
 stood very t^ll and silvery, with light 
 branches which seemed to float on the 
 dim air, and behind there was a cloud of 
 greenish-white plum-blossom, the two trees 
 appearing as one. 
 
 All the garden was full of this dreamy- 
 bloom ; and at one corner a faint smoke, 
 with a tinge of rose in it, floated high 
 above the blossom of plum and damson — 
 this was the flower of the wild-cherry. 
 
 Far away, on the ridge of the downs, 
 the little cruciform chapel of St. Martha 
 stood cold and grey in a reach of cold 
 clear sky. 
 
 The twilight deepened, the half-moon 
 
26 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 high overhead grew bright, the garden on 
 the Heath became more dreamily angelic. 
 How easy it seemed to believe that if we 
 waited a little we should see once more 
 her light figure, in its well-known pink 
 and dark blue, wheel past us with her nod 
 and smile. Oh, Winifred, one last living 
 look ! Oh, child, one rose from your 
 Paradise ! 
 
Recollections of her 
 Schooldays 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF HER 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 THE following recollections of Wini- 
 fred were written a few weeks after 
 her death by her cousin Phyllis. 
 They cover the three months they were at 
 school together at L — d, in 1901 : — 
 
 A week or two before we left L — d, 
 Winifred and I dressed up and acted our 
 Shakespearian play. The audience was com- 
 posed of Uncle Frank, Aunt Hetty, and 
 the maid, Minnie. 
 
 After the play, which went very well, 
 we had some tableaux ; they were good. 
 Winifred was " The First-born " and " The 
 
30 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 Little Match-seller." At least, Mingie* 
 was the mother of the First-born ; the First- 
 born was my dolly. I was "The Sleeping 
 Beauty" and "What's o'clock.?" After 
 the tableaux we sang, and the audience 
 was immensely pleased. When we had 
 finished, and were retiring (after we had 
 come before the curtain, which was a screen) 
 Uncle Frank asked if we weren't going to 
 have a collection. So we said we would. 
 And got threepence. 
 
 Our costumes for this great occasion 
 were as follows : — 
 
 For " As You Like It," Winifred wore a 
 flowing white robe composed of one of 
 Auntie's best night-gowns : also a lovely 
 variegated girdle, made of strips of the best 
 paper, licked at the ends — the hue came ofF 
 on to our tongues, and stuck together. 
 
 * Mingie and W. V. were only nicli:names for Winifred (as 
 Guy could not say Winnie he used to say Mingie) ; it means 
 the same girl all along. 
 
HER SCHOOLDAYS 31 
 
 She also wore all the articles of jewellery she 
 could find, and her party slippers. She had 
 her hair put into a loose graceful knot, and 
 braided becomingly. I was very much the 
 same. 
 
 One night Auntie Hetty said we were 
 not to talk after we got into bed. So, as 
 we are very obedient children, we sat, after 
 the light was put out, outside on the very 
 edge of the bed, and talked for quite a long 
 time. And Auntie could not scold us, for 
 we had obeyed orders so well. 
 
 Every Sunday Winifred takes a class in 
 Sunday-school. At least Miss N. is sup- 
 posed to take it, but Winifred keeps order 
 for her. When she calls the register, some 
 of the boys say, "Yes, ma'am," and others 
 say, "Yes, 'm." But sometimes they 
 answer, " Present, teacher," which pleases 
 her immensely. 
 
 Sometimes we play at " Scouting " in the 
 
32 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 sand-hole during the dinner-hour. We 
 played it like this. First Mingie would go 
 round one side of a hill, and I round the 
 other ; we would both have our clubs and 
 our top-boots, "to make us look more like 
 men," said Winifred. (They are American 
 boots made of rubber, and reaching to the 
 knee ; W. V. called them "seven-leaguers.") 
 Then when we met at the foot of the hill, 
 we would wrestle and the one that could 
 overthrow the other first was pronounced 
 victor. Then we would do it all over 
 again. Somehow Winifred always seemed 
 to get me down first. 
 
 One night I was having my bath before 
 the fire, and Winifred was waiting for her 
 turn, when she suddenly said, " Let us play 
 at Nymphs ! " So I was a Nymph in the 
 sitz-bath, and W. V., garbed in nothing 
 but two small towels, was " A Man," as she 
 said. The Nymph had to try to hide in 
 
HER SCHOOLDAYS 33 
 
 the water, but I am unfortunately too large, 
 and when my body was hidden, my legs 
 dangled over into the fender ; so it was a 
 failure. But the Man laughed so that his 
 towel fell off, and had to be readjusted. 
 By this time, however. Auntie bustled the 
 Nymph out of the Silent Lake, and pro- 
 ceeded to wash the Man, at which dairing 
 proceeding he was very indignant. 
 
 We two always slept together, and one 
 night when we were unusually wakeful, we 
 decided to make an alteration in our sleep- 
 ing quarters. So, after much tugging and 
 hauling, we managed to make the bed so 
 that one of us should sleep at the foot and 
 one at the head, and Auntie was vastly 
 surprised when she could find only one of 
 us at the head instead of two. We did it 
 all in the dark, too. 
 
 Another night, when we were restless, 
 instead of putting out the light, like good 
 
34 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 children, I climbed (in my nighty) on to 
 the chest of drawers, and was "Juliet," 
 while W. V. was " Romeo," and serenaded 
 me ; and as it was cold, she stood on the 
 hot- water bottle. All would have gone 
 well if I had not fallen off the chest, 
 taking the candlestick with me, and plung- 
 ing the room into darkness as well as 
 making a great clatter. Up came Auntie, 
 and we went to bed in disgrace ; but we 
 had enjoyed it very much all the same. 
 
 Very nearly every evening Winifred and 
 I skip in the playground. We fasten one 
 end of the rope (the clothes-line) to the 
 wall, and we take it in turns to turn the 
 other end, while one of us skips till 
 she is " out." We skip " Baker, baker " ; 
 this is it. The one who is skipping gets 
 a big stone and runs in to the rope, and 
 skips while a rhyme is said. When the 
 rhyme comes to an end, some one says, 
 
HER SCHOOLDAYS 35 
 
 "One, two, three," and at "three," the 
 skipper, still skipping, drops the stone. 
 Then the rhyme, a little altered, is again 
 said, and when "One, two, three" again comes, 
 the skipper picks up the stone and goes on 
 skipping. It is not at all easy to do, but" 
 both W. V. and I can do it. We have a 
 great many more skipping games, but this is 
 both the most difficult and the nicest. 
 
 Uncle Will sent us each a book. W.'s 
 was " The Adventures of Baron Munchau- 
 sen," and mine was " The Comedy of 
 Errors." We were so pleased with them, 
 and Uncle Frank spent the whole afternoon 
 in reading them. 
 
 Every day we refresh our minds with a 
 walk on the roof. If it is a fine day we 
 stay out for quite a long while (if we 
 have time), and hide there. One day, when 
 I unsuspectingly walked out there, I heard 
 a little click, and I looked round and saw 
 
36 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 that naughty Winifred had cut off my only 
 exit, by latching the bedroom window. In 
 vain I shouted to her that the school-bell 
 was ringing, and that she must let me in to 
 get tidy ; she only smiled, and brushed her 
 hair ; and not till the second bell was ring- 
 ing did she let me in. I often tried to 
 fasten her out ; but no, she was too careful 
 for that, and I never managed it. 
 
 Every Friday evening we have a grand 
 clearing out of our bedroom. We take 
 every ornament down, dust it and the place 
 where it has been, and put it back again. 
 We do all the room like this. 
 
 We like early Saturday morning better 
 than any of the other- mornings. That was 
 because we were somehow allowed to stay in 
 bed until 7.30, or past. We used to take 
 the bedclothes and tie them to the four 
 posts, and so make, by letting the sides 
 hang right down for walls, a house with a 
 
HER SCHOOLDAYS 37 
 
 roof. We then would put all the pillows 
 inside, and after that get in ourselves, and 
 lie there until it became too hot ; but gene- 
 rally before it had time to do so we were 
 called to get up. 
 
 One afternoon we had a half-holiday, and 
 we were taken to West M — g to do some 
 shopping. I bought a little piano, some 
 animals (imitation ones), and some choco- 
 late. Winifred bought a dough-nut and 
 some sweets, and I forget what else ; but I 
 know we were laden when we started to go 
 home. Charlie went with us, and we had 
 to help Auntie to get the mail-cart over the 
 stiles. 
 
 Daddy wrote a tragic song, in which this 
 verse occurred : — 
 
 ' Go(ts mercy ^ cried the stricken knight. 
 And flung his sword far in the fight ; 
 The din of battle swept away. 
 And on the trampled field he lay. 
 
38 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 W. V. made a new version ; it ran like 
 this : — 
 
 ' Oh, lummie ! ' cried the startled Kay, 
 And flung her twin-brooch in the fray ; 
 The din of Phillipses rose around. 
 And the twin-brooch lay on the trampled 
 ground. 
 
 Kay was my cousin Kathleen, and she 
 was very fond of wearing twin-brooches, 
 two brooches fastened together. 
 
 On my thirteenth birthday morning Wini- 
 fred and I woke up unusually early; and 
 when we heard the postman at the door we 
 left our bed-making and raced downstairs. 
 There were a great many parcels, eight in 
 all, but that was only by the first post. We 
 sat down on the floor and opened them all. 
 All the presents were lovely; but Winifred 
 was most taken with the watch. In the 
 afternoon Auntie Hetty took Mingie to 
 
HER SCHOOLDAYS 39 
 
 M — e, and Winifred bought me a watch- 
 stand, and Auntie a photo-frame. I had a 
 birthday-cake for tea. We used to count 
 up the days until it should be her birthday, 
 but it seemed a very long time to us to 
 wait, for it was practically two months. 
 
 Winifred had some very remarkable ex- 
 pressions, and about the funniest was one 
 that she always used if I tickled her. It 
 is hard to spell, and I think it is Scotch. 
 It was " Dinna do't ! " She pronounced 
 it " Dinna doot " ; and I may remark that 
 it meant " Do not do it." Two of 
 her favourite words were " wildly " and 
 " slightly." If Uncle Frank was very angry, 
 Winifred would say he was " slightly vexed "; 
 or if he, or any one, came into the house 
 slowly, she would say he was " coming wildly 
 in." So that if Uncle was angry with her 
 for doing something too slowly, she would 
 say, " Uncle was slightly vexed when he saw 
 
40 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 me wildly doing so and so." If you reversed 
 it you got it right, but not unless. She 
 used to come heavily downstairs, and thump 
 about, which made Auntie Hetty vexed 
 with her, for she said, " I don't want people 
 to think that we have got a great heavy man 
 in the house ! " But Winifred used to quite 
 forget all that, and come down just as 
 noisily as before ; and when again rebuked, 
 she would say, with a look of mild surprise, 
 " Why, Auntie darling, I was only thun- 
 dering- lightly down ! " 
 
 The day that Winifred's mother and my 
 father came to L — d for the concert, we 
 were "wildly excited." We had a half- 
 holiday in the afternoon, and I went with 
 Aunt Hetty in the cab to meet them. 
 While we were away, Winifred helped to 
 put the stage up, in readiness for the con- 
 cert at night. Auntie Annie brought Wini- 
 fred a beautiful bunch of daffodils, and they 
 
HER SCHOOLDAYS 41 
 
 were put on the stage, to make it look nice. 
 When we went into the concert we got front 
 seats. Auntie Annie and Auntie Hetty 
 played pianoforte duets, and Daddy sang. 
 We enjoyed it very much. 
 
 The few days they spent with us were 
 very fine, but alas ! they went all too quickly, 
 and before we knew it, Daddy and Auntie 
 were on their way back to London. When 
 Winifred and I were driving to the station 
 with them at night, Winifred, looking up at 
 the stars, said, " I don't know why people 
 call those stars the Great Bear ; they are no 
 more like a bear than I am." I said, " Not 
 so much ! " And I did catch it when I was in 
 bed. When they had gone the place felt 
 horrid without them, and Winifred wept 
 copiously (in bed), and I tried to comfort 
 her, although I felt bad myself. 
 
 A few weeks before Aunt Hetty's birth- 
 day, Mingie and I heard her saying that she 
 
42 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 wanted a new tea-cosy; so we saved up 
 manfully. Between us we got 3s., all out 
 of our pocket-money, and sent it to Man- 
 chester, and on the birthday there arrived a 
 lovely tea-cosy. Auntie was pleased. 
 
 Just before we came home we went to 
 M — e, to buy Easter eggs. Winifred and 1 
 each bought for everybody we wanted to, 
 and then went and had some tea. After 
 that Auntie did a lot of shopping ; and 
 when it was finished we discovered that we 
 should have to wait an hour and a quarter 
 for our train. It was pouring with rain, 
 and all the shops were shutting up, as it was 
 their closing afternoon. So we went home 
 at last in the carrier's cart ; and that was 
 the best fun of all. We bought a nest with 
 three eggs in it for Uncle Frank and Aunt 
 Hetty. I gave little Charlie a basket-pipe 
 with an egg in it. I forget what Mingie 
 gave him — oh, I remember, it was an egg 
 
HER SCHOOLDAYS 43 
 
 with a pearl necklace in it. The egg was 
 made of green wood. 
 
 [In connection with this ride in the carrier's 
 cart, so briefly mentioned, we learned after- 
 wards that the carrier was very much affected 
 by the news of Winifred's death. The chil- 
 dren had sat beside him as he drove, and 
 they were much amused because he told 
 them that no one had ever done so before 
 but his "young lady." He had been only 
 recently married, and he spoke a great deal 
 about her to them.] 
 
 One day when Winifred and 1 had been 
 having a slight " diflFerence " over something, 
 she said with a sigh, " My child, you are 
 paving my way to an early grave," and that 
 made us laugh, so that the difference was 
 entirely forgotten. She often used to try to 
 look pensive, and say either " My little child, 
 you are turning my golden locks white," or 
 '• Oh, child, child, when you are my age you 
 
44 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 will know better ! " And when she had 
 spoken we both used to laugh, so that 
 Winifred could not look pensive any 
 longer. 
 
 Her favourite game at night was describ- 
 ing dresses. Every, or nearly every, night 
 I had to describe my wedding dress, my 
 going-away dress, and my baby's dress, at 
 least; then she would do the same. And if 
 I dared to be sleepy, she would just kick all 
 the things off poor me, and hold them oiF 
 till I would "describe." I had no way of 
 avenging myself, for she used to hold the 
 clothes very tightly so that they would not 
 come off. But one night I took a wet 
 sponge into bed, and had my revenge ! 
 
 I had a calendar given to me, and every 
 morning I used to cross off a day, as one 
 nearer to going home. There was always 
 great excitement when we came to the end 
 of a row. 
 
HER SCHOOLDAYS 45 
 
 She was very fond of getting flowers and 
 making them into wreaths, and putting them 
 on the graves in the churchyard opposite. 
 I have known her decorate as many as five 
 graves at once in this manner. 
 
 One or two of the schoolboys sometimes 
 touched their caps to her, and then she was 
 delighted. She would sail past them with 
 a dignified air that was very imposing, 
 but as soon as she was out of sight, 
 she forgot her dignity, and burst out 
 laughing. 
 
 Winifred was very fond of Geometry, and 
 she always brightened up considerably when 
 that lesson-day came. She was very good at 
 it, and generally got ten-tenths. Indeed, 
 she never went below eight-tenths. 
 
 There was a tumble-down kind of out- 
 house not very far from us, that was called 
 " The Black Lodge," because robbers were 
 supposed to hide there, and to jump out at 
 
46 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 people after dark. But though we often 
 passed it at dusk, no one came and tried to 
 kill us. Winifred did want to take her 
 clubs and seven-leaguers and further dis- 
 guise, and " lurk " there to spring out at 
 unsuspecting village folk, get their wealth, 
 and " fly." Of course, she agreed to share 
 the ' ' booty " with me, who was to stay at 
 home so as to draw her up through the 
 window with a rope. But she never got 
 the chance to do it ! 
 
 One morning I woke up very early, and 
 as it was fine, I woke Winifred, and we put 
 on our clothes, all but our frocks, with our 
 jackets and caps. We then crept out in our 
 bloomers and reefers as boys. We each 
 got our (or uncle's) gardening tools, and 
 gardened for quite a long time. Aunt 
 Hetty was surprised when she could not 
 find us in bed, later on. I was hungry 
 before half-past six, and retired to seek 
 
HER SCHOOLDAYS 47 
 
 food. Winifred soon followed my ex- 
 ample. But she, unlike me, did not care 
 for dry bread, but had to grope for the 
 butter, and during the proceeding upset the 
 bread-mug, and came so near waking the 
 household that we fled into the wood- 
 lodge ; but as nothing happened she came 
 back, found her butter, and was happy. 
 
 If ever in the evening, or in any part of 
 the day, I, when I was alone, stayed out too 
 long, Winifred would come to find me, and 
 very stern she was when at length she found 
 me. She would march me home (deliver- 
 ing a lecture as she did so), and give me 
 some kind of punishment when she got me 
 there. The punishment was generally 
 making me do some sums. 
 
 One evening, wishing to be very helpful, 
 she went and thoroughly dug up about two 
 feet wide by two and a half feet long of an 
 ugly bit of ground with no plants of any 
 
48 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 kind on it. She dug it up well, and not till 
 she had done nearly half of it, did she dis- 
 cover that she had " done for " a good 
 part of the onion bed. Uncle Frank was 
 "slightly vexed," and Mingie was sent to 
 her room to write out fifty lines, but by the 
 time she had written about half the number, 
 Uncle told her she need not do any more. 
 [So like Winifred to let her zeal outrun 
 her discretion.] 
 
 On the evening of Sunday, April 14th 
 (the day before she died), as I was fanning 
 Winifred, she said, " Phyllis, everybody 
 loves my choir-boy, don't they ? " By her 
 choir-boy she meant one in the church that 
 she was always gazing at, and talked of, 
 and called " hers." 
 
 She has often said to me that she would 
 not like to be very old when she died. She 
 would like to die young ; why, she never 
 said. 
 
s 
 
 m 
 
 < 
 
 z" 
 
 III 
 
 a 
 
 2 < 
 
 n 
 z 
 < 
 
 Q 
 U 
 
HER SCHOOLDAYS 49 
 
 Sunday, May 5, 1901. — Last night I had 
 the strangest dream that I have ever had. 
 I dreamed that it was early morning, 
 and we were all in bed. I was awake, 
 and suddenly Winifred came in through 
 the window. Her face looked just as 
 it did when she was well, but she was 
 dressed in white, and she seemed to fly into 
 the room. I know that she spoke to me, 
 but all that I can remember her saying was 
 that she liked being where she was. 
 
 When she had been in with me some time, 
 she went to see her mother and her father ; 
 when she came out of their rooms she did 
 not say anything more to me except that 
 she would come again, or something like 
 that, — I cannot quite remember; and then 
 she went out of the window again, and when 
 I woke up I felt like crying, for I did want 
 to see her properly, and I was so disappointed 
 to find out that it was only a dream. 
 
 D 
 
50 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 I went to sleep again, and seemed to be 
 shopping in a great crowd, who wanted to 
 take my purse from me ; but Winifred 
 came, and took care of both me and my 
 money, and somehow no one could touch 
 me, and they were all making room for 
 us, when Auntie said, " Wake up, Phyl ! " 
 
In the Golden Prime 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 
 
 HERE in the autumn woods, while Guy 
 is gathering acorns to plant a forest 
 of his own, 1 sit and think of her ; 
 and somehow my memory goes back to our 
 little story, " Beside a Summer Fire." Like 
 the child of my fancy, she has vanished from 
 the sun, gone far and far into the dusky 
 paths of the long silence. I may call, and 
 listen, and call again, but she never replies 
 — never replies. Soon I too shall go, fol- 
 lowing you, Winifred, peering wistfully into 
 the shadows, and holding my breath for the 
 sound of your voice. Oh, some day — some- 
 where — beyond all doubting, we shall meet 
 beside another fire, blithe and unquench- 
 
 53 
 
54 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 able ; and know each other, and remember 
 with gladness, and not without tears, these 
 old happy years of the earth. 
 
 Guy always walks with me in the woods ; 
 but it is only Guy — it is not She ! Yet, 
 dear little soul, what should I do without 
 him ? 
 
 In places where the tree-trunks are dap- 
 pled with the low light, he "washes his 
 hands with gold," and on the shining 
 patches of the grass he puts his feet glee- 
 fully, for who Would not be " The Boy with 
 the Golden Shoes " ? I can fancy I see her 
 watching him — see the smile, half amused 
 half motherly, and the silent motion of the 
 humorous eyes with which she would have 
 called my attention to him. How delighted 
 would she have been, had she seen him 
 pointing to the two rough-hewn benches 
 they have placed beside the fountain : 
 " Look at those bears, pappa ; they are 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 55 
 
 growling at each other ; their feet are stuck, 
 fast in the ground." 
 
 In his childish prattle he gives comfort 
 that no one else can give me. ..." Won't 
 Winnie never come down again ? " he asks. 
 " No, dear." " No, we must die into heaven 
 to her ; and God will keep us there." If he 
 misses her it is not sorrowfully, but with a 
 quiet assurance : " I would like to see her. 
 When I die into heaven I shall see her." 
 "Yes, you will." "Yes, I will see her. I 
 shall have plenty of toys to play with there ; 
 and flowers to pluck. The flowers never die 
 there ; they are always in warm summer air. 
 Where does the cold come from down here?" 
 
 Dying into heaven ! The old Keltic folk 
 were wont to speak of "dying into the 
 hills." A strange phrase it sounded, but a 
 child's saying shows with what natural in- 
 tuition they divined the way of our " hence- 
 faring." 
 
56 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 How these woods are haunted with the 
 recollections of her ! 
 
 Here among the hollows of the tumbled 
 ground we gathered blue-bells in May — a 
 lovely day, so warm and sweet with the scent 
 of the spring that Winifred said she would 
 tell her children about it, if (with a shrug) 
 she had any. Out in the sunny fields beyond 
 we once heard the crying of sheep, and when 
 at her entreaty we went to look at them, 
 there was no Boy Blue, as she had half ex- 
 pected, but an old rheumatic shepherd, with 
 a face wrinkled and brown as a walnut. 
 Under the trees in June we noticed how on 
 the dappled ground the sunshine always 
 came through the leaves in circles, no matter 
 what the shape of the leaves or of the 
 chinks between them ; and in winter she 
 found that the snow under . these trees 
 was spotted with tiny discs and cups of 
 ice. 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 57 
 
 Dew for her was " fairy rain," and it was 
 a delight to move a little this way and that 
 so the sun might flash on the drops. If you 
 shut your eyes and looked at the sun, you 
 would see " tomato-red " through your eye- 
 lids. It was no use to point out that you 
 could not look at the sun with your eyes 
 shut ; " you could pretend to look." On a 
 morning in late October she discovered a 
 benumbed butterfly, and held it tenderly 
 till the warmth of her hand restored it, and 
 it fluttered away. 
 
 She noted that in November the foliage 
 on the eastern side of trees falls first ; just as 
 hoar-frost "blackens" first on the eastern 
 side on a bright winter morning, while it 
 shows so grey on the western side that the 
 trees seem to be smoking. She was always 
 curious in the observation of colour, but 
 keenness for fact did not spoil her fancy. 
 Long after she had lost faith in the Oak-men, 
 
58 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 she suggested that " perhaps the swifts or 
 martins carried the Oak-men away pick-a- 
 back to the south : nicer than sleeping in the 
 cold trees here all the winter." There was 
 no capriciousness in regard to these things ; 
 she was invariably eager to watch and 
 conjecture about them. " The ways of 
 Mother Nature," was her phrase for them. 
 " You don't understand Mother Nature, my 
 dear," she once closed a lecture to Guy, 
 when he got cross because it was raining ; 
 " she wants to water her plants and 
 things." 
 
 It was pretty to watch these two at their 
 play sometimes. " You nice, sweet huggy 
 Winniline ! " he would cry, unpacking his 
 heart, and she would fold his head in her 
 arms : " Oh, you little hero ! " While she 
 was at school he often talked of her, and 
 picked up acorns, pebbles, bits of stick, any- 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 59 
 
 thing, that in his fanciful way he thought 
 she might like to have when she came home : 
 " I love Winnie ; she does nice thoughts 
 for me" — not only thinks them, but does 
 them. 
 
 I have often been glad that she read the 
 book from which she got her " little hero." 
 It filled her world with such a sense of what 
 was high and generous and gallant, with such 
 dreams of beauty and splendour. Perseus 
 and Danae, Theseus, Jason, Athene, Chiron, 
 the Argonauts — they were all so real to her. 
 And how seriously she took them ! " Oh 
 no," she declared when it was a question of 
 playing at the " Heroes," " I wouldn't be 
 Theseus for anything, for after all his great 
 deeds, there is a chapter which says, ' How 
 Theseus fell by his pride.' " It was one 
 of her regrets that she could not go to 
 school to the Centaur : in heaven, perhaps, 
 she might be allowed — " the Centaur would 
 
6o IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 not be in Hades, would he ? " I do not 
 know how she acquired some of her theo- 
 logical notions, unless indeed, piecing to- 
 gether the odds and ends of talk which 
 children pick up with such startling alert- 
 ness, she worked them out for herself in 
 her untiring spirit of inquiry. Having read 
 somewhere about what she called " Top-het," 
 she asked whether "that pit of darkness 
 and fire" were the same as Hades, and 
 remarked : " There must be only very few 
 people in Tophet ; only those, I should 
 think, who worCt be sorry for what they 
 have done." 
 
 "We are having quite a theollojun for 
 our son ! " she laughed, when Guy hazarded 
 a conjecture as to the divine intention in 
 the making of trees ; and it often happens 
 that in children the theologian is twin-born 
 with the poet. But whatever her childish 
 speculations, she had a deep sense of right 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 6i 
 
 and reverence. Ritual appealed strongly to 
 her, and among the last things we talked of 
 together were some forgotten customs of 
 the Ages of Faith. Greatly did it please 
 her to hear of the bells of mediasval cities 
 chiming out the quarters, night and day, 
 with a phrase of prayer — Ut nobis parcas — 
 Ut nobis indulgeas — and marking the hour 
 with the close of the petition, Te rogamus 
 audi nosl Many a time as we came home- 
 wards through the woods at evening we 
 sang together in an undertone a rhyme of 
 ours which had taken her fancy, and 
 which we called — 
 
 THE PASSING BELL 
 
 When our little day is ended. 
 When the dusk and dark have Mended, 
 When the lights of time cease gleaming 
 O'er these tents of earthly dreaming, — 
 "He rogamus — 
 
62 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 Do not in that hour forsake us ; 
 Let not dust and darkness take us ; 
 Send Thy dawn's clear splendour streaming 
 From the East of our redeeming, 
 Te rogamus I 
 
 But what did we not sing and say and 
 play in the woods ? Nonsense rhymes made 
 up on the spur of the moment, poems I 
 had learned when I was of her own age, 
 verses she had picked up at school. There 
 was " Cadet Rousselle," with his three houses, 
 three hats, three coats, three eyes, and his 
 rusty sword, and 
 
 Quand trois poules vont aux champs 
 La premiere va devant, 
 
 and "Sur le pont d' Avignon," and "L'alou- 
 ette " which was at once both French and 
 English, of a kind : — 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 63 
 
 Ualouetf, Valouette monte en haut, 
 
 The lark runs up the heavenly stair. 
 Pour prier Dieu qiCil fasse chaud. 
 
 To pray God send it warm and fair 
 For three wee downy laverocklings. 
 
 Pour ses trois peiits pdtureaux, 
 Who have not either cloaks or wings. 
 
 Qui rCont ni ailes ni manteaux. 
 
 Her memory was remarkably quick and 
 retentive, both for prose and verse, and she 
 was constantly using phrases and allusions 
 which showed how she assimilated what she 
 read. " Hush, the naked bear will get thee ! " 
 she whispered in the words of Nokomis, 
 when little Guy was in one of his moments 
 of ululation. " Let us look at Tan ; he is 
 in his kennel ; that's where he sits and sings 
 his evening hymn."' When I referred to a 
 letter of hers as an " epistle," thinking she 
 would not understand, " Oh," she broke in. 
 
64 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 laughing, "I remember that Epistle of St. 
 Winifred." " Oh, mother, you never let 
 me come into your bed now. You know I 
 would be as quiet and still as a deep lake." 
 " My saucy son," from Norman Gale's 
 " Bartholomew," was one of her names for 
 
 Guy — 
 
 Bartholomew's 
 
 My saucy son : 
 No mother has 
 A sweeter one ! 
 
 " The Songs for Little People " was one of 
 her favourite books, though she found fault 
 with the poet for " leaving words out " of 
 Auntie Nell. 
 
 And then we cluster round her knees 
 To say our prayers, 
 
 ought to have been, "To say our morning 
 prayers," and " To make us neat " — to make 
 us " nice and neat." 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 65 
 
 She seemed to realise everything with a 
 dramatic vivacity. When the " Ancient 
 Mariner " was read to her she flopped down 
 on the rug and lay bent and rigid against 
 the bulwarks (of the couch) to show how 
 the dead men cursed the Mariner with their 
 glassy eyes, and when the albatross fell off 
 and sank like lead into the sea, she uttered 
 a prolonged O-o-h ! — " I quite forgot about 
 that whopping bird ! " " Write when you 
 get there," I said to nurse, as she was carry- 
 ing Guy downstairs. " Wouldn't it be 
 funny," cried Winifred, " if nurse wrote a 
 letter for him. 
 
 Dear Pappa, 
 
 Dot dcre, 
 
 Baby." 
 
 How one lingers over these foolish trifles ! 
 — but at the recollection of one of the 
 slightest of these she comes back to me, 
 
 £ 
 
66 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 the bright, nimble-fancied, merry Winifred 
 — and a Winifred still more close and dear. 
 For, as though it were but yesterday, I 
 remember an evening after a day of illness 
 and pain, when it was very heaven to see 
 the western light slanting into the cool 
 depths of the wood, reddening the trunks 
 and flushing the child's face, and darkening 
 to a hot purple in the distant underwood. 
 
 And in the clasp of her hand there was 
 healing. Winifred, " win-peace," " Peace 
 the White." The meaning of names had 
 an unfailing attraction for her ; each new 
 one set her questioning and wondering 
 about the people who first bore them. 
 Guy, " the leader " ; William, " the helmet 
 of resolution " ; Elizabeth, " the worshipper 
 of God"; Phyllis, "the green bough"; 
 Winifred, " the white peace " — rather the 
 Red Racket, I used to tease her — but how 
 well I knew that she was my Win-peace too ! 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 67 
 
 Her MS. books and school cahiers lie in 
 a small pile before me, and I try to piece 
 together some record for myself of the 
 busy working, the dreams and projects, of 
 her restless spirit. 
 
 How vividly this black-covered note- 
 book recalls her first desperate struggles 
 with arithmetic ! Afterwards she acquired 
 more concentration and perseverance in her 
 attempts to master figures. 
 
 Here, too, are her collections of wild 
 flowers — some of the flowers missing from 
 their places, the others faded and shrivelled. 
 They mostly belonged to June, '98, and 
 bear their dates ; some few were gathered 
 in July, '99. Among the former I notice 
 the " srynga," " marsh-mallow," " feather- 
 few," " wild convolyulus " and " huny- 
 ckukul," and that remembrancer of old 
 romance, the " Plantagenet." 
 
 One page among the flowers shows, in a 
 
68 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 sketch, the contrast between " stones before 
 being washed by the sea " and " stones after 
 being washed by the sea." As might have 
 been expected, there are drawings, heads 
 and figures, and among these a story 
 begins : — " Once opun a tiome there was 
 a little fay her name was cowslip a very 
 pretty name too." . . . That story was 
 never told. 
 
 She revelled in colour, and was constantly 
 painting. Costumes, flowers, and decorative 
 designs gave her most pleasure. Her 
 favourite amusement beyond all others 
 was to dress up as some historic or fairy- 
 story personage. An old programme of 
 some such performance, dated May 28, 
 1898, survives, and in a note-book of 
 " Stories and Poems " belonging to the 
 same year, I find what seems to be her first 
 attempt at a play : — 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 69 
 
 ALFRED THE GREAT 
 
 Scene. — A moor with Alfred disclosed, as 
 the curten rises, disgised as a ■pesent. 
 
 Alfred. To think that I am a king — 
 no one would think it by my looks. Who 
 knows when I shall get my kingdom re- 
 stored to its proper rights ? No doubt I 
 shall never see the throne of England. And 
 my troops, what will become of them .'' 
 They will have to provide for themselves. 
 I wish I could get something to eat and 
 drink. Ah, I see some smoke coming from 
 that clump of bushes ; and the good woman 
 must be preparing dinner for her husband, 
 and I will ask for something to eat. 
 Curten. 
 
 Scene. — Alfred with a woman in a room in 
 a cottage. 
 
 Woman. Well, I sopose you can have 
 something to eat. There is my husband 
 
70 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 coming in to his dinner, and you can have 
 
 some dinner with us. [T^hey eat. 
 
 Man. Well, travlar, play for us on 
 
 your violin, come. \_Alfred plays. 
 
 Man. Thanks ; come to bed now. 
 
 [They go to bed. 
 Curten. 
 
 Scene. — 'The same, with brekfast ready. 
 They eat and talk. 
 
 Man. I must go to work now. Good- 
 bye. \He goes out. 
 
 Woman. Will you watch these cakes 
 while I go out. 
 
 Alfred. Yes. 
 
 Woman. Well, mind they do not get 
 burnt. 
 
 Alfred. Very well. [She goes out, 
 
 Alfred. Well, here we are alone again. 
 I wonder where the Danes are — in Denmark 
 or England .-' I hope the Danes will not get 
 the crown. [The cakes bum. 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 71 
 
 Goodness gracus ! the cakes have burnt. I 
 am in hot water. [The wife comes in. 
 
 Woman. You good-for-nothing, all the 
 cakes are burnt. [The man comes in. 
 
 Man. King Alfred the Great, the good 
 Saxon. 
 
 Alfred. Yes, I am King Alfred. 
 
 Woman. Oh, sire, I beg your pardon, 
 for we did not know you. 
 
 Curten. 
 
 A fragment of another play, " A Fairy 
 Prince," opens with a gorgeous setting, and 
 plunges at once into business. 
 
 Princess. I dare say you would, and so 
 would I ; but I can't. 
 Prince. Why not .? 
 
 In the " Two Good People," the Prince, 
 who owns a magic ring, brings the Princess 
 
72 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 Dotherinapon into his presence by its power, 
 and proceeds to woo her : — " Adorable Prin- 
 cess, will you be my queen ? for I have riches 
 in abundance, and I am your equil." To 
 which the Princess replies, " Prince, I would 
 gladly marry you, but I have my father, who 
 is a magician, and who has already given 
 me to a man I hate." " Beloved Princess," 
 cries the lover, " I can easily rid you of that 
 torment. I have a wishing ring and I can 
 do what I like with it. When you marry 
 me, I will give you the ring as a marriage 
 gift." 
 
 And so the effective, if somewhat unex- 
 pected, Curten. 
 
 Much attention is given to the theatrical 
 wardrobe ; in many cases the costumiere has 
 completed her task before the dramatist has 
 been able to start on the text. Page after 
 page is filled with her coloured drawings 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 73 
 
 of ladies' dresses, ladies' coats and skirts, 
 children's hats, evening toilettes, and heads 
 magnificent with feathers, jewels, and other 
 gorgeous accessories. 
 
 The last of her dramatic eflforts is pre- 
 ceded by the note : — 
 
 " 1900, April 28. First fern up." 
 
 It is entitled — 
 
 THE GARDEN OF ROSES. 
 
 Characters — Princes. Princesses (2). 
 Fairies (4). Witch. 
 
 Scene. — A little wood. A little girl is asleep. 
 Circle of fairies swaying backwards and 
 forwards singing. 
 
 FAYS' SONG. 
 
 Little mortal, hushaby ! 
 While we sing in the woods ; 
 
74 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 'Though the mortals are forgetful 
 We will guard thee here in peace. 
 
 Chorus. 
 Come to the garden of roses. 
 Come where the roses grow. 
 Where we fairies dance for ever 
 All among the roses. 
 
 Enter Witch. 
 
 Witch. So you have got a princess. 
 Now I will give you each a wish — and I 
 will have one too. 
 
 First Fairy. I give her buty. 
 
 Second Fairy. I give her happiness. 
 
 Third Fairy. I give her riches. 
 
 Fourth Fairy. I give her noble mar- 
 rige. 
 
 Witch. And I give her some sorrow. 
 
 Curten. 
 Following this unfinished play there are 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 75 
 
 openings of two stories, that of " The Sweet 
 Princess^" who was shut up in a great grey 
 castle, and that of " Princess Rosa," who 
 was dressed in pearl-grey satin, and wore 
 round her neck "thirteen strings of large 
 pearls, rubies, emeralds, diamonds, christals, 
 sapphiers, and amerthists." 
 
 So many beginnings ! So many things to 
 do, so many things left undone in her little 
 busy eager life ! 
 
 I pass over in silence the various things she 
 wrote in ordinary prose, as I cannot be sure 
 how far she was merely reproducing what 
 she had read. There are sketches and tales 
 —"Dorothy," "Tommy," "The Fairy 
 House," "The Magic Wande," "The Rose 
 Maid," " The Spoilt Princess," "ThePufF- 
 pufF and the Gee-gee," and so on — finished, 
 unfinished, barely begun, and all distin- 
 guished by a cheery indifference to or- 
 
76 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 thography which gives them a certain 
 transatlantic — or shall I say mediasval ? — 
 piquancy. Here, however, is a happy 
 ending : — 
 
 " But one day the Princess was in her 
 little chapel praying, with her white hands 
 clasped togather, and her golden hair reach- 
 ing down to the ground, and clad in a dress 
 shinning like the sun. A man came in, and 
 with a cry of joy the Princess rushed into 
 his armes and sobbed opon his sholder. 
 ' My darling,' said the King, ' you must 
 come with me home to my own land.' So 
 they started, and when they arrived the 
 Princess fainted. . . . ' Oh, were am I ? ' said 
 the Princess ; for comeing counches (con- 
 scious) again, she was in a pink silk bed and 
 blue curtains, and the King was be side her, 
 holding her hand. ' My treasure,' said the 
 King, 'you are with your dear one.' The 
 Princess fell into his arms, and the King 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 77 
 
 pressed a kiss on her pretty cheek. They 
 were soon marred, and ended their days 
 in joy." 
 
 Turning to her diaries I find the follow- 
 ing, under date February i, 1899 : — 
 
 I saw a little rain-drop sitting on a blade of 
 
 grass, 
 and I took that little rain-drop and I made 
 
 him a home. 
 And that pretty little rain-drop came to he my 
 
 friend. 
 
 To the June of this year belongs a " Book 
 of Laws and Rules," drawn up by Phyllis 
 and herself for the observance of " the 
 Court of Queen Titania " during the holi- 
 days, which we spent on the edge of Albury 
 Heath. It is an extremely rigorous code, 
 but the provisions had been framed with 
 much deliberation, and had received the 
 approval of all the estates of the realm — 
 
78 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 witness their signatures : Count Randolph, Sir 
 Edmund Greysteel, Prince Ralph, Wildrose 
 Stevenson, Prince Max, Sir George Eliot, 
 and the worthy commoners John Gumtree, 
 Speedwell, Charles Krong (a foreigner ?), and 
 Arthur White Gregson. 
 
 On the 7 th August she records her earliest 
 recollections : — 
 
 " The first thing I remember is myself 
 sitting on my father's knee, dressed in a 
 pale blue dress, a white pinafore, and a pale 
 blue sash, and my mother coming down the 
 road, at Glasgow. And I remember a white 
 statue, and father says it was the Venus of 
 Milo, and it stood in the corner of the 
 room." 
 
 As she was not more than thirteen months 
 old when we left Glasgow, it is much more 
 likely that this is a recollection of things heard 
 long afterwards than of things actually seen. 
 
 " The second thing I remember is — 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 79 
 
 Mother had dressed me to go out, and I 
 went into the garden to wait for her, and 
 there was a railing, and one end of it was 
 tarry, and I got some tar on my fingers and 
 rubbed it down my dress, and mother put 
 some butter on it to take the stain out." 
 
 At that time she would be a little over three. 
 
 These recollections are followed by what 
 seems to be a Latin exercise — " Agna saltat 
 in prato . . . Canis vexat taurum . . . 
 Cornua demittit taurus," and so on. 
 
 In the beginning of 1900 she notes — 
 " I read in December ' Wyemarke and the 
 Sea - fairies,' by Edward H. Coupar. I 
 learnt at school in 1899 'The Rhyme of 
 the King and the Rose,' by Elsie Hill, and 
 ' The Inchcape Rock,' by Robert Southey." 
 
 She also knew by heart "The Revenge," 
 by Tennyson, " Oriana," Longfellow's " King 
 Robert of Sicily" and the "Monk Felix," 
 " Sir Galahad," Kingsley's " pleasant Isle of 
 
8o IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 Aves," and a number of other pieces in 
 English and French which I cannot at this 
 moment recall. It was no trouble to her to 
 learn ; things lodged in her memory of 
 their own accord. 
 
 The verses which I now give were written 
 at various times during the year. 
 
 POETRT. 
 
 'The robins all have flown away. 
 The spring is coming bright and gay. 
 The grass is green, the sky is blue. 
 And thafs why I like spring — Don^t you ? 
 
 THE SEASONS. 
 
 The winter^ s gone, the spring is here. 
 
 And budding is the lime. 
 And up the sunlit old brick wall 
 
 The jessimen doth climb. 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 8i 
 
 'The spring is gone, the summer's here, 
 
 The rose is on the wall; 
 There's marjoram, there's featherfew. 
 
 And silver lilies tall. 
 
 The summer's gone, the autumn's here. 
 The leaves are red and gold ; 
 
 And with its clouds and autumn sun 
 The year is growing old. 
 
 The autumn's gone, the winter's come, 
 
 The close of all the year. 
 And with the Christmas snow and frost 
 
 The Christmas chimes ring clear. 
 
 IN SUMMER. 
 
 Oh, sunlit sky. 
 
 Oh, happy hours, 
 I love the wind, 
 
 I adore the flowers. 
 
 F 
 
82 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 // is so sweet 
 
 To see them grow. 
 Like heaven above 
 
 Is earth below. 
 'The leaves are green. 
 
 Blue are the flowers. 
 Oh, sunlit sky. 
 
 Oh, happy hours ! 
 
 THE BLACKBIRD. 
 
 On a merry May morning, a blackbird sits 
 
 High up in the tree-top green. 
 He sings a song so sweet, so clear. 
 
 All over the world he has been. 
 
 Hurrah ! cries the blackbird, and sings a note. 
 Hurrah! pipes the sparrow with feathers grey. 
 
 Be glad, ye people of earth so brown. 
 This is a gladsome day ! 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 83 
 
 Hurrah ! next month comes the swallow white* 
 
 In June the roses sway, 
 A merrier month is not to be found — 
 
 'This is the month of May I 
 
 THE SUMMER. 
 
 The summer is coming, 
 The birds are all singing. 
 The winter is over. 
 And soon comes the clover. 
 With lillies and roses 
 The children make posies. 
 The breases are soft. 
 And the birds sing aloft. 
 
 Here, too, there are numerous beginnings 
 which have a certain pitifulness about them. 
 
 * The white swallow is, I suppose, the martin, with its 
 white breast and its white leg and feet feathers. 
 
84 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 IN INDIA. 
 
 'The babes are sitting on the grass, 
 The Indians go to their morning Mass ; 
 I wish I were an Indian boy. . . . 
 
 The cherry-tree is bare of fruit. 
 The leaves are off it now. . . . 
 
 The sun was sinking in the sky, 
 
 I watched the little clouds on high. 
 
 And as I watched the moon came out. . . . 
 
 JVhen all the land is frozen o'er 
 With snow so thick and deep. 
 
 Jack Frost comes round with an icy touch 
 While Mother Nature's fast asleep. . . . 
 
 During the holidays, which we again 
 spent among the woods and flowery lanes 
 of Albury, Winifred and her cousin edited 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 85 
 
 and " published " a magazine. As Phyllis 
 was the sub-editor, the lion's share of the 
 work fell naturally to her, but I am as- 
 sured the profits were divided with a 
 scrupulous rectitude by the editor. The 
 opening article by the sub-editor describes 
 some of their amusements : — 
 
 " One day we were Princesses, and wrote 
 letters to imaginary Princes, and posted 
 them in a hollow tree, and went day by 
 day to see if there were any answers ; but 
 we only found our own yesterday's notes. 
 So we sadly threw them away, and put in 
 the fresh ones." 
 
 Winifred mentions another incident : — 
 " One afternoon Phyllis was in the garden. 
 Suddenly she saw the cat with a little bird 
 in its mouth. She ran forward and called 
 me and the maid, and between us we 
 managed to get the bird away, but it was 
 dead. Phyllis and I then got a little 
 
86 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 white and silver box, and we dug a little 
 grave in the heather, and we buried the 
 bird with great mourning, and we deco- 
 rated the grave with white flowers, and sang 
 cheerful songs over it." 
 
 Curiously enough she omits to mention 
 that they pretended that the dead bird was 
 the Fairy Queen, and that they proposed to 
 Guy to join them in pricking their fingers 
 and shedding blood on the grave. Guy 
 sturdily refused to abet such paganism, just 
 as he refused to play the troublesome part 
 of Faithful, though he was prepared to eat 
 oranges as a humble pilgrim, worn with long 
 wayfaring. 
 
 On the loth January 1901, Winifred 
 began a diary, which she kept to the end of 
 the term. It is perfunctory, but the entries 
 are regularly made, and here and there they 
 are personal. 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 87 
 
 January 21. — Monday. — I learnt a verse 
 of " Sir Galahad." The Queen is eighty-one 
 now, so she is rather old to recover. 
 
 January 22. — 'Tuesday. — The Queen is 
 dead. Long live the King. 
 
 THE ^EEN. 
 
 She is dead, our beloved one. 
 Our good and great dueen ; 
 
 She was loved by all nations, 
 Her life was serene. 
 
 W. V. C. 
 
 January 23. — Wednesday. — I got four 
 sums right this morning. 
 
 January 25. — Friday. — I had five sums 
 right this morning. 
 
 January 28. — Monday.— ^t had Scrip- 
 ture this morning, about Hezekiah. I had 
 two sums right this morning. We had 
 recitation, " The Revenge " (Tennyson). 
 
88 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 January 30. — Wednesday . — We had a half- 
 holiday to-day because they have been chang- 
 ing classes. Phyl and I made a cake all 
 by ourselves. I had four sums right to-day. 
 
 January 31. — 'Thursday. — We had geo- 
 metry this afternoon. I got ten-tenths 
 and an enormous " Right." We have each 
 bought a white china plate, and we have 
 been each painting little girls on them. 
 
 February 9. — Saturday. — We have been 
 having an exam. I got 1 9 and Phyl got 20. 
 We have been pretending to be princesses ; 
 I am Betty, Phil is Edith. 
 
 February 1 3.^ — Wednesday . — We hadmodel 
 drawing. I got seven, and Phyl got seven. 
 
 February 26. — Tuesday. — I got 9 in draw- 
 ing. It is cold. Uncle Frank is going to 
 get us a French book, if he can ; but I hope 
 he can't. 
 
 March 8. — Friday. — We had a lesson on 
 recurring decimals. 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 89 
 
 March 16. — Saturday. — We helped with 
 cooking this morning. This afternoon I 
 skipped with Phyl and May H . 
 
 March 21. — Thursday. — The tide is right 
 
 up New H e and flooded the road. I 
 
 have got chilblains, and am going to retire 
 to bed with goose-grease. 
 
 On the following day she was not al- 
 lowed to get up, and amused herself by 
 making her will, which cannot now be 
 found. 
 
 As a rule there is very little of Winifred 
 in her letters. She was too impatient to say 
 well or to say at any length what she would 
 have spoken with pleasure. Spelling, too, 
 was a great burden to her. On occasion, 
 however, she filled in the details, as in the 
 following : — 
 
 September 30, 1900. — Yesterday I went 
 blackberry-picking with Jane P , Grace 
 
90 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 and Cecil R , and Charles (in his 
 
 pram). 
 
 Yesterday a little gipsy baby was buried, 
 and I made a wreath for it. It had such a 
 pretty little coffin, white and silver. My 
 wreath was of Christmas daisies and red 
 leaves. The leaves are lovely just now, 
 crimson. 
 
 I rode my bicycle yesterday. 
 
 I enclose one of the autam leaves. ... I 
 must stop, so good-bye from your very un- 
 homesick daughter, Winifred. 
 
 [Phyllis has already referred to the pleasure 
 Winifred took in laying flowers on neglected 
 graves. I do not know what thought it was 
 that stirred her to these acts of pity towards 
 the dead, but it was a trait very natural to 
 her. I remember, when long ago we went 
 across the Heath to visit the tumulus of 
 
 Boadicea, how anxious she was to know 
 
 I 
 
 whether there was " a wreath on that dead 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 91 
 
 queen's grave." " Not any leaves either ? " 
 Then, when she had heard that all who 
 knew her had died long ago, and even the 
 pine-trees that had waved over her had 
 died too, " We might have taken some 
 flowers." She was not much more than six 
 then.] 
 
 October 26, 1900. — I am sending a little 
 poem for a birthday surprise. ... I could 
 not think of anything but a poem for your 
 birthday, and Auntie suggested that a letter 
 and a poem would be the nicest thing. So 
 I send both. I wish I could see you all, but 
 it will not be long before I do so. 
 
 THE BLUE BIRD. 
 
 A merry Blue Bird sat on a green hough. 
 Whispering then, and whispering now. 
 He said to his little blue son, ' Beware ! 
 'The cruel grey Cat is there — look there ! ' 
 
92 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 ' Ha ! ha ! ' cried Puss, ' there a Blue Bird 
 
 sits ; 
 He will make an excellent meal for my Kits /' 
 jind down she pounced on the Blue Bird fair. 
 And the Blue Bird's soul went up through 
 
 the air. 
 
 October 31, 1900. — . . . You promised 
 to give me 3d. for a good "pome," and id. 
 for a " good, bad, or indifferent " one. I 
 will try and send you a nice one to-day, 
 though really I don't know whatever to 
 write about. 
 
 February 24, 1901. — ... I am at last 
 sending you a poem. I am afraid it is not 
 very nice. . . . We have bought another 
 dormouse, and called it Dorcas. It is so 
 pretty. Phyllis encloses a poem. I hope 
 they are worth something. . . . Your loving 
 little girl, Winifred. 
 
 xxxxxxxxxxby loooooooooooooooooo. 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 93 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 In the flickering warm bright firelight 
 
 I sat when all was dark. 
 And as I looked on the blackness 
 
 I saw the thick snow in the park. 
 I saw the red lights in the village, 
 
 I saw the stars shining bright, 
 I saw the dark fir-trees swinging. 
 
 And below all the snow was white. 
 
 Her last letter was written on the type- 
 writer ^used for the first time) on April 1 1 , 
 four days before her death. In it she says : — 
 " We went to the British Museum yesterday. 
 We saw the mummy of Cleopatra. ... It 
 was a horrid day here this morning, but it is 
 quite nice now. Perhaps Uncle Charlie is 
 going to take Phyllis and me to the Hippo- 
 drome to-morrow. It is aggravating that 
 the holidays are nearly over." 
 
94 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 Among her papers there are many little 
 notes written to imaginary persons, chiefly 
 people she had read of in stories. In her 
 Birthday Book, too, she entered not only the 
 names of her friends, but of two characters 
 in the novels of Marion Crawford, whose 
 works she was very fond of, and other ima- 
 ginary people. In many instances she has 
 evidently been too much in a hurry to wait 
 till the ink dried before closing the book. 
 So like our little whirlwind ! Under her 
 name on the fly-leaf she has inscribed, 
 "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke vi. i). 
 
 At Albury the sense of her unseen pre- 
 sence was so acute that longing unsatisfied 
 became a torture. Here at Hambledon 
 there is no presence, no companionship ; 
 she does not come at all. There it seemed 
 but a question of time as to when she would 
 stand before me, living and unchanged ; here 
 
IN THE GOLDEN PRIME 95 
 
 in my heart of hearts I know that this 
 will not happen. And yet — in spite of 
 knowledge — as I sit at sun-down on the 
 edge of the high pine-wood and look over 
 the long green levels below me, the lines of 
 "Kilmeny" rise unbidden in my memory, 
 as though they were half a supplication, half 
 a promise : — 
 
 When many a day had come and fled. 
 When grief grew calm, and hope was dead, 
 hate, late in a gloamin when all was still. 
 When the fringe was red on the westlin hill, 
 'The wood was sere, the moon i' the wane, 
 The reek 0' the cot hung over the plain. 
 Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane. 
 When the ingle lowed with an eiry leme, — 
 Late, late in the gloamin, Kilmeny came hame. 
 
 The red light dies on the hill, cottage 
 windows glimmer far down in the dusk, the 
 air blows cold ; but she does not come 
 
96 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 home. It may be that in our hours of 
 waking we are not fitted for intercourse 
 with those of our love who have passed from 
 this light ; but I know that when it sleeps 
 the mind is "bright with eyes." I shall 
 sleep, and in sleep surely it will be given to 
 me to see her, as I saw one taken more rathe 
 in old days of- loss. And as sorrow fell from 
 me then, so will it now drop away from me ; 
 and I shall be glad that I am alive, and not 
 unhappy, Winifred, that you are dead. 
 
Winifred. 
 October 1900. 
 
Our Stories 
 
OUR STORIES 
 
 Winifred's personality, her doings and 
 sayings, count for so much in the following 
 sketches and stories, that these pages would 
 by their omission be rendered still more 
 imperfect than they are. 
 
BESIDE A SUMMER FIRE 
 
 One of our favourite haunts is the old 
 quarry. 
 
 Though it is scarcely half a mile from 
 the village it is among the loneliest places 
 in the world. It is one of the greenest too, 
 and one of the stillest, for no sound seems 
 to reach it, except it may be, the song of a 
 lark overhead, or the noise of the shallow 
 brook across which we have to pick our way 
 to enter it. 
 
 Nobody can tell me when it was last 
 worked, or why it was abandoned. I sup- 
 pose some of the older houses were built 
 from its red sandstone ; perhaps some of the 
 illegible slabs in the graveyard were hewn 
 out of it. No one can say. 
 
BESIDE A SUMMER FIRE loi 
 
 Up in the fields above, a fence runs along 
 the brink to keep the cattle and sheep from 
 falling over. Around it there are rowans, 
 larches, hazels, bushes covered with dog- 
 roses in June ; and the grass has grown 
 thick over the litter of chipped stone, and 
 lichens have tinged with curious colours the 
 big blocks which were ready for lifting but 
 were never carted away. 
 
 In the face of the perpendicular rock 
 there is a hole which looks like a cavern 
 that might lead into the heart of the hill, 
 but we have never ventured to explore it. 
 It is too uncanny, too menaceful. One of 
 us is too old, one is too young to be so 
 recklessly adventurous. 
 
 We are content to gather dead wood and 
 light a fire beneath one of the larches. We 
 watch the smoke curl up in blue wavering 
 puffs and wreaths, and we sit beside our 
 wild summer hearth, and spread our lunch 
 
I02 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 — venison from the King's vert, we pretend, 
 which we have brought down at the peril 
 of losing our right hands, so barbarous are 
 the laws of the forest. 
 
 How is it that we both take such delight 
 in a handful of fire under a tree in a blazing 
 summer day ? 
 
 As I lie and listen to my companion's 
 merry chatter I wonder at the curious feel- 
 ing of contentment, of freedom, of romance 
 which I experience. Then I endeavour to 
 account for it, but I find myself baffled by 
 the prosaic common-sense which I presume 
 must accompany all our grown-up attempts 
 at reasoning. I ask. my companion to ex- 
 plain. She, who is so young yet, so much 
 nearer to Nature and the Ancestors, ought 
 to be able to give some intelligible account 
 of the matter. I can see by her smile that 
 she knows, but it becomes manifest that she 
 cannot find words for things so elusive. I 
 
BESIDE A SUMMER FIRE 103 
 
 do make out, however, that she thinks we 
 ought really always to live like this — under 
 the blue, in the clear sunny air or in the 
 clear shadow of trees. It is nicer than a 
 house, it is the real house ; a house is a 
 sort of clay modelling of this larger home 
 — good enough in winter, but a very inferior 
 imitation when it is warm and one has no 
 Kindergarten to attend. 
 
 Then fire is a most beautiful creature ; 
 " more wonderful really than dog - roses," 
 though they, too, look like a kind of fairy 
 fire. Still it is not solely the beauty of the 
 fire which delights us. It appears rather to 
 be its companionableness. "Lightning is 
 quarrelsome ; but fire is friendly," she 
 thinks. I imagine she is right. Through 
 long centuries men and fire have been house- 
 mates, and mates when there was never a 
 house. 
 
 Can this be really the clue to the mystery 
 
104 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 — that for ages and ages, beginning far 
 away back in the houseless nights and skin- 
 clad days of the ancient life, our ancestors 
 have loved the cheerful face of fire ; that 
 the antique joyous association of burning 
 wood with the savage woodland was so long 
 a habit that the civilisation of our historic 
 centuries has been unable to obliterate it 
 completely ? 
 
 I can scarcely resist the conclusion that it 
 is so. I remember the desert islands of my 
 boyhood, and I know it was not merely a 
 wish to put into action the books of adven- 
 ture I had read which made me a little 
 savage who caked his hair into a spire with 
 clay from the river. At any rate it is no 
 desire to play at pirates and outlaws which 
 thrills me to-day with the dreadful atavistic 
 joy in a tramp's fire and free life under the 
 greenwood tree. No, we are the children 
 of the Ancestors, and their blood in us beats 
 
BESIDE A SUMMER FIRE 105 
 
 true to the old forest paths and the laws of 
 the wilderness. 
 
 As we idle by the dull embers and white 
 ashes my companion asks for a story. 
 
 Well, does she know where the Fens 
 are ? 
 
 Why, yes ; and they were drained long 
 ago. 
 
 Just so. Well, once upon a time there 
 was a savage hunter who came with his 
 little girl up the river in a canoe hollowed 
 out of a tree, and paddled to a little piece 
 of beach on the edge of the forest ; for in 
 those days there were no Fens, but there 
 was a mighty forest of great oaks and firs 
 and alder and birch and willows. And 
 they landed and drew up the canoe, and 
 they gathered sticks and dead leaves and 
 lit a fire, just as we had done. 
 
 And the little girl went away in among 
 the trees to look for berries and wild fruit. 
 
io6 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 and the father piled more wood on the 
 fire. 
 
 And when the little girl had been away a 
 long while, and the father heard no crackling 
 of dry branches or rustling of bushes, he 
 called to her, but she did not answer. He 
 grew uneasy, and went into the forest to 
 seek her, and kept calling and calling, but 
 she never replied. 
 
 So he went deeper and deeper into the 
 wilderness of great oaks and firs, and con- 
 tinued to call her name till the sound of his 
 voice died away. 
 
 And the fire beside the canoe smouldered, 
 and then went out, with only half the wood 
 burnt. 
 
 And the forest grew older and older and 
 older; and the great trees decayed and fell 
 down with age, one by one, till nearly all 
 the forest was dead ; and storms tore up the 
 other trees; and water lodged among the 
 
BESIDE A SUMMER FIRE 107 
 
 fallen trunks ; and reeds and marsh plants 
 matted them together, till great peat bogs 
 covered the country many feet deep. 
 
 Then the sea broke in and flowed over the 
 bogs, for the land sank down ; and sand and 
 shells and sea-weed were drifted together in 
 thick sheets. 
 
 And all this took hundreds and hundreds 
 of years to happen. 
 
 And at last when the sand and sea-warp 
 grew high enough, the country became the 
 Fenland, and the Romans, when they con- 
 quered Britain, made a roadway across 
 it with trunks of trees and a bed of 
 gravel, and that was fifteen hundred years 
 ago. 
 
 "True.?" 
 
 Why, yes. 
 
 How did I know ? 
 
 Because not long ago when people were 
 digging in the Fens they found the canoe, 
 
io8 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 and the wood piled for the fire and the 
 burnt embers in the middle of it. 
 
 And the little girl ? 
 
 Well, she wandered into the forest and her 
 father went to seek her. 
 
 And hundreds and hundreds of years 
 went by. 
 
 And they never came back .'' 
 
 Not to the Fenland. But she wandered 
 on and on till she came to an old quarry, 
 and there she lit a fire, and when she had 
 done she turned round, and there was her 
 father sitting beside it. 
 
 W. V. laughed incredulously : " Father, 
 you said it was true ! " 
 
CHIMNEY FLOWERS 
 
 On a wild night three winters ago the wind 
 Euroclydon tore it from the chimney top, 
 and sent it clattering down the slates. It 
 plunged like a Bulwan shell into a huge 
 laurel bush in the garden, and there 
 W. V. and I found it in the morning, 
 unbroken, in a litter of snow and shredded 
 branches. 
 
 Neither in shape nor in colour was it a 
 pretty specimen of the potter's craft ; but 
 it had been clay, and all clay appeals to 
 humanity. As I looked at it, it seemed 
 to deserve a better fate than the dustman's 
 cart, so, to Winifred's great delight, I dug 
 a hole for it in one of the flower-beds 
 that catch a little of the sun, set it on 
 
no IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 end, and filled it with stones and soil, in 
 which something might be planted. 
 
 This is Nature's way ; when she lets her 
 volcanic ' fires smoulder to ashes she lays 
 out the crater in grass and wild flowers. 
 And this appeared to be the proper way 
 of treating this old retainer which had 
 served so staunchly on the ridge of the 
 roof; which had never plagued us with 
 smoke, whatever the wind or the weather. 
 
 We were puzzled what to plant till I 
 recollected London Pride, which, I pointed 
 out to Winifred, is a true roof flower. 
 You find it, no doubt, in gardens little 
 above sea level, but in Kerry, in Spain, 
 its natural place is on the roof of the 
 hills. An "ice-plant," the country people 
 call it, I believe ; and that too was ap- 
 propriate to the hollow of the cylinder 
 through which no fire would ever again 
 send its familiar smoke. 
 
CHIMNEY FLOWERS iii 
 
 Wherefore we planted London Pride. in 
 the old chimney-pot, and masked its plain- 
 ness with ferns. 
 
 To-day the feathery fronds hide all but 
 the thick blackened rim ; behind it a rose- 
 bush, trained against the dark paling, shows 
 four crimson buds ; in the crater itself the 
 space is filled with green rosettes, and a 
 score of stalks send up stars of pink-and- 
 white blossom. 
 
 As I pass by in my walk I think of all 
 the comfortable fires that have burned on 
 the hearth beneath it; of the murmur of 
 pleasant talk, of the laughter of children; 
 of the sound of music and singing, of 
 the fragrance of tobacco, that have floated 
 up to it and through it on the current 
 of warm air. In a way it has shared our 
 joy and our sorrow, our merriment and 
 our cares, and it, too, can thrill with "the 
 sense of tears in human things." 
 
112 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 I recall especially one March night. The 
 rain from the roof is splashing from the 
 gorged gutters ; all are in bed save a rest- 
 less four-months child — " the Fretful Por- 
 cupine," W. V. flippantly calls him — who 
 is asleep in his cradle in a shadow of the 
 room. His little socks are on the fender. 
 About midnight he will awake and cry for 
 food, and I shall take him upstairs. Mean- 
 while I read and write. Raindrops fall 
 and hiss on the glowing coal. 
 
 How long ago it seems ! 
 
 The other day I saw a blackbird light on 
 the rim of the chimney-pot, and make a 
 dab with his yellow beak among the 
 rosettes. In the old time, on the roof, 
 sparrows used to alight there, possibly for 
 the sake of the warmth ; so I am glad 
 the blackbird came. 
 
 I wonder, in an absurd way, whether it 
 misses the wreaths of homely smoke. Per- 
 
CHIMNEY FLOWERS 113 
 
 haps it has forgotten them — it is the nature 
 of clay to forget easily ; perhaps it re- 
 members, but is reconciled, feeling dimly 
 (as I do) that flower and leaf are only 
 another and less fleeting form of the old- 
 time smoke and flame and warmth — are 
 indeed the original form, the beautiful 
 form which they wore in the far-ofi^ days 
 when the coal murmured and tossed in 
 the green forests which murmured and 
 tossed in the sunshine. 
 
A PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 There were silvery summer clouds floating 
 in a vision of blessed peace in the blue 
 depths ; the wind in the limes and rowans 
 was wafting an elfin summons to me to re- 
 turn " The World as Will and Idea " to its 
 place on the shelf, and to come out and 
 enjoy the world as a shining reality ; the 
 swifts were diving and wheeling to and fro 
 with shrieks of delight that life was so good 
 to live ; a big, velvety bumble-bee was dron- 
 ing, with sudden stoppages and intervals of 
 busy silence, about the white stars of the 
 clematis and the cream roses which muffled 
 the gable wall. I read on stoically, and 
 might have finished Book III. but for the 
 sound of childish merriment in the garden. 
 
A PRISONER OF WAR 115 
 
 I went to the window and looked out, 
 unobserved. 
 
 A rosy little maid of seven was playing 
 at shuttle-cock on the lawn. By the edge 
 of a flower-bed, in the shadow of the rowans, 
 her mother was leaning back in a garden 
 chair. Beside the chair on a rug spread 
 over the grass a chubby nine-months boy 
 sat working his plump little body backwards 
 and forwards in a ceaseless rhythm of eager, 
 ineffectual activity. 
 
 "The planetary babe," some one had 
 called him, seeing that the only kind of 
 motion he had acquired was a revolution on 
 his own axis ; and looking down with fond 
 pride at the radiant little soul, his mother, I 
 think, was not ill-pleased. 
 
 The little girl soon tired of her solitary 
 game. Dropping the racket on her mother's 
 lap, she threw herself down on the rug, and 
 catching the planetary babe by the hands. 
 
ii6 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 began to sing the rhyme of "See-saw, Mar- 
 gery Daw." 
 
 Mother took up the racket, and looked 
 dreamily through the square meshes of the 
 network at the summer clouds. As she 
 looked a happy thought struck her. The 
 racket was a prison window, she said 
 aloud ; and gazing through the iron 
 bars she could see the green fields and 
 pleasant woods, with the sun shining on 
 them. 
 
 The little girl paused in her rhyme, held 
 the babe's hands, and listened. 
 
 Yes, she could see the swifts flying joy- 
 ously up and down, and in the fields there 
 were flowers growing ; and only a hundred 
 yards away there was a little boy and a little 
 girl playing. How happy they must be out 
 in the sweet air and the warm sunshine ! If 
 they only knew that she was there in a dark 
 dungeon, with chains on her feet and hands. 
 
A PRISONER OF WAR 117 
 
 perhaps they would gather some flowers and 
 give them to her. 
 
 The little girl sprang to her feet, and 
 hurried round the garden plucking pansies 
 and marigolds and spires of blue veronica. 
 Returning, she put them into the babe's 
 hands, raised him on to his unsteady feet, 
 and lifted him up to the dolorous prison 
 window. 
 
 " Give them to the poor man inside, baby. 
 He is a poor old prisoner of war, and cannot 
 get out." 
 
 Through the loophole in the dungeon wall 
 an emaciated hand took the flowers, and a 
 pitiful voice thanked the children for their 
 kindness. 
 
 Then W. V., sitting down on the rug and 
 settling the babe on her lap, looked up 
 eagerly at the face behind ' the iron bars : 
 " Say it again, mother ! " 
 
A RED-LETTER DAY 
 
 My Red-Letter Day began with a cry of 
 a cuckoo, a glitter of dewy leaves tossing 
 under my window, a fragrance of flowers 
 and wood-fires, and a wild chant of jubilee. 
 Guy Greatheart was lifting up his voice in 
 the garden in one of his mystic songs with- 
 out words. 
 
 A few minutes later I saw him under the 
 white rosettes of the syringa. He had pro- 
 vided himself with a couple of pebbles, and 
 was swinging from one foot to the other 
 as he sang ; then he walked round thrice 
 in a ring, clashing his stone cymbals, and 
 finally resumed his musical rocking from 
 foot to foot. Surely some antique an- 
 cestor who worshipped the Sun with quaint 
 
A RED-LETTER DAY 119 
 
 dance and barbaric minstrelsy thirty cen- 
 turies ago, must have at last wakened up in 
 Guy. 
 
 And, now that I think of it, this may 
 account for the interest and even awe with 
 which he listens to any reference to the 
 Laws of the Medes and Persians. When 
 every other appeal to his sense of duty 
 and propriety has been exhausted, when he 
 stands stolid and breathing heavily, with 
 eyes cast down, or sits roaring in his chair, 
 " Wants his own way ! Wants his own 
 way ! " a rhyme from that memorable code 
 generally acts like a spell, and he gives in 
 with a " Wipe eyes, mamma ! " — whether 
 there be tears or not. 
 
 I fear, however, that neither Winifred nor 
 her cousin Phyllis has the same reverence for 
 the beautiful examples of conduct recorded 
 in those ancient laws. The other day, after 
 hearing that — 
 
I20 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 lUie Medes and Persians did not dream 
 Of doing such a thing as scream ; 
 
 and 
 
 The Medes and Persians always did 
 Religiously what they were bid; 
 
 and 
 
 The Medes and Persians thought it rude 
 To play at table with their food ; 
 
 Winifred rejoined — 
 
 English children never can 
 Be like Mede or Per-si-an ; 
 
 and Phyllis abetted her by laughing hila- 
 riously. 
 
 Immediately after breakfast we started for 
 a long day in the Hurtwood. Under the 
 cool awning of his mail-cart, Guy Great- 
 heart took charge of the string bag and 
 basket which contained the locusts and wild 
 honey of our wayfaring. Mother and the 
 
A RED-LETTER DAY 121 
 
 " chawldren," as he calls Winifred and his 
 cousin, went briskly on before with their 
 long hazel staffs, and I brought up the 
 rear, for mail-carts have a fashion of loiter- 
 ing behind when left to themselves. 
 
 Now there are many ways of reaching the 
 Hurtwood, but the properest is through the 
 Two Tree Field and the Emerald Door. 
 You turn by the mill-pool — and on this 
 day of all days the young men were washing 
 sheep, and a brood of fluffy ducklings were 
 dancing among the ripples made by the 
 heavy woolly creatures as they were tumbled 
 into the water hurdled off for them, and 
 martins were dipping their wings in the 
 pool as they swept over it. Then, between 
 the yellowing wheat and the brown hay, you 
 push up the long slope of the Two Tree 
 Field. 
 
 Just before you reach the first of the two 
 trees you perceive, in a break of the high 
 
122 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 woods, the bluish bare ridge of the North 
 Downs, and the grey silhouette of St. 
 Martha's chapel against the sky. Along 
 that ridge, as the children knew, thousands 
 of travellers in the old time — travellers from 
 the west country or from over-seas — passed 
 on their journey to the shrine of St. Thomas 
 at Canterbury, and rested under the shadow 
 of St. Martha's; for that is a bit of the 
 Pilgrims' Way. 
 
 From the second tree, the pathway mounts 
 straight up the slope to a bright emerald 
 door which is set in a dark green wall of 
 oak and beech and pine at the top of the 
 field. Some people say there is no door, 
 that what seems so is only the path piercing 
 the dark wall to a patch of sunlit hazels in 
 the wood ; but we have no patience with 
 people who are always wanting to explain 
 away things. In at the Emerald Door, 
 and through the dim pines you go ; and lo ! 
 
A RED-LETTER DAY 123 
 
 you are on Black Heath, which, with the 
 white sand, worn into numberless cross-tracks 
 by sheep and rabbit and human feet, and 
 showing through grass and gorse, through 
 green fronds of bracken and tufts of flower- 
 ing ling, might well be called White Heath. 
 
 St. Martha's was again in sight, and as 
 we toiled slowly over the rough ground 
 of the Heath, I told the children how, 
 ages before Thomas a Becket was born, 
 this same Pilgrims' Way was a famous 
 road which wound from the coast of Kent, 
 right along the northern edge of the mighty 
 forest of Anderida, into Devon and Cornwall. 
 
 The ancient traders in Cornish tin used 
 to travel that way ; and sometimes they 
 were attacked by robbers who were beaten 
 off, and sometimes they were killed among 
 the hills. 
 
 How could any one know that for certain ? 
 Why, because there were ingots of tin — 
 
124 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 shaped like knuckle-bones, in the Phoenician 
 fashion — blocks of tin which the traders 
 must have buried when the alarm was 
 given, and which have been found beside 
 the track. 
 
 There are huge old yew-trees, too, along 
 the route. Some say the Druids planted 
 these ; but others say they grew naturally, 
 and that the Druids, who could find here 
 no great boulders for their standing-stones 
 and circles, cut down the yews they did 
 not want and left the rest growing in 
 rings and avenues. 
 
 The sound of Latin once was as familiar 
 along this way as the song of the night- 
 ingale in the May nights is still ; and 
 just as the old traders left their ingots 
 of tin, so the old Romans left their urns 
 and mosaic pavements to tell of their 
 presence. 
 
 Then there are said to be fruit trees 
 
A RED-LETTER DAY 125 
 
 among the wildwood which fringes the 
 old road. It was the Canterbury Pilgrims 
 who are believed to have dropped the 
 seeds from which these sprang, as far 
 back, perhaps, as seven hundred years ago, 
 when the great festival of St. Thomas 
 was fixed for July 7. 
 
 I said nothing, however, about Bunyan 
 having got his idea of the "Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress " from the Pilgrims' Way. The 
 marshes at Shalford may have been a 
 veritable Slough of Despond, and there 
 may have been a Doubting Castle at Dor- 
 king, and " wicket-gates " are common 
 everywhere, but the whole story is a rank 
 heresy. 
 
 Sweet was the fruity smell of the pines 
 in the hot sun. A fresh breeze tempered 
 the shadowless glare, and far away, in 
 some pleasant tent of green, the cuckoo 
 called with a mufiled note. 
 
126 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 Underfoot the spider had spread curious 
 patches of iridescence. These, when you 
 came to look, were made by his web, 
 stretched flat on the low wiry heath ; and 
 he himself lurked stealthily in his well, in 
 a corner of his glistening trap. 
 
 Wild roses built wonderful mounds of 
 fairy colour on the waste. Here and 
 there, to Winifred's horror, honeysuckle 
 and deadly nightshade were entangled in 
 the same clump of bushes, for deadly 
 nightshade, as she gravely warned me, is 
 so venomous that it may be fatal even to 
 touch it with a finger. Once or twice I 
 gathered wild flowers, the names of which 
 I wanted to know. " Why, father," she 
 cried, laughing, " you are as fond of flowers 
 in your hat as Plantagenet ! " 
 
 Skirting the corner of Farley Heath and 
 passing through Farley Green, we came to 
 the shadow of a huge beech about midway 
 
A RED-LETTER DAY 127 
 
 to the Hurtwood ; and here we rested, and 
 refreshed ourselves on the locusts and wild 
 honey. 
 
 There is something curiously unreal about 
 the colouring of the trunk and branches of 
 a big beech-tree. One could fancy that it 
 had been whitewashed long ago, and that 
 the rains of many seasons had only at last 
 begun to restore some of the primeval 
 colouring. The thick twisted roots of 
 this beech of ours made a ladder down 
 the steep bank into the road, and in a 
 few moments the " chawldren " were snugly 
 nestled in the meshes half-way up the bank. 
 Guy was satisfied with a small cavern 
 scooped by the rain out of a ledge of 
 friable sandstone. 
 
 As we rested we heard the clanking of 
 a bell, and a flock of sheep came down the 
 road and passed. 
 
 They were driven by a very aged 
 
128 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 " Heathen," as Winifred delights (among 
 ourselves) to call these dwellers on the 
 Heath — an earth-coloured, shrivelled, wiry 
 little man, who indeed looked so old that 
 he might well have been a survivor of 
 the ancient men of the real heathen time. 
 Away in the east there was a gloom of 
 thunder, and I ventured to ask this antique 
 shepherd whether we might expect a storm. 
 He shook his grey head as he glanced at 
 the sky. " No ; the South-east do mostly 
 bring blight," he said. "It's the South- 
 west that do give us rain, and we wants 
 en badly." I thought of the horrible bronze 
 demon of the South-west wind which the 
 Chaldeans used to hang out of door or 
 window as a talisman against the blast of 
 the desert. If these " Heathens " were to 
 make an image of the South-west wind, 
 it would take the shape of a beautiful 
 goddess breathing soft airs and showers. 
 
A RED-LETTER DAY 129 
 
 and they would worship her with garlands 
 of wild flowers and little sheafs of grass 
 and green corn. 
 
 After a stiff shove up the powdery road, 
 for the ground rises all the way, we came 
 at last to the high pines of the Hurtwood, 
 and the wayside banks matted with the 
 small green leaves and spangled with the 
 pink little globes of the berry from which 
 it derives its name. For, in spite of the 
 maps, the Hurtwood is not the Hartwood, 
 and it is not called the Hurtwood because 
 some royal hunter, as Phyllis conjectures, 
 was hurt there, but because " hurts " is a 
 corruption of " whorts," and " whorts " is 
 the short for " whortleberries." 
 
 The cuckoo shifted about the dusky 
 coombes and steep hillocks as the young- 
 sters took off shoes and socks, kilted their 
 dresses, and danced among the sand and 
 pine needles. 
 
I30 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 Then a pleasant fancy occurred to them. 
 They tied bunches of blossoming ling to 
 their hazel sticks, and gave Guy a rod of 
 foxglove. This was the Pilgrims' Way, and 
 they were Canterbury Pilgrims. 
 
 " Whortleberry Pilgrims, I think," said 
 Winifred. 
 
 " It doesn't matter," replied Phyllis ; 
 " come along, Brother Greatheart," and Guy 
 trod warily, with his soft feet wincing at the 
 bits of dry wood. 
 
 " We should not go to an holy place 
 without singing an holy song," said Wini- 
 fred. " Ah, little Brother, is the way pain- 
 ful ? It would be worse if you had peas 
 in your shoes. But come, you shall bathe 
 your feet in the healing sand." 
 
 " We are such very poor pilgrims," con- 
 tinued Phyllis, " that we have no choice but 
 to go barefoot." Then perceiving our pre- 
 parations for lunch : " O fair and noble 
 
A RED-LETTER DAY 131 
 
 woman "—to her aunt — " may we beg a cup 
 of cold water from your well, and a crust 
 of bread from your store ? Come, Brother 
 Chatterbox and Brother Greatheart, this 
 good queen will help us." 
 
 Brother Greatheart, however, was busy 
 with sand and fir-cones making " a pilgrim 
 pie " for his own delectation ; and he did not 
 feel disposed to abandon it for any week-day 
 fare that even a queen could bestow. 
 
 " Come along, little Child of Angels," 
 said Winifred coaxing ly ; but Greatheart 
 turned a deaf ear. 
 
 "The Babe of Eden will not come, 
 mother," Winifred reported. 
 
 "Then let us make merry ourselves," 
 cried Phyllis, " for the way is long." 
 
 When Greatheart heard me " hopping " 
 the ginger-beer and saw the oranges and 
 bananas, he thought better of it and came 
 up to our palace of oak, where fair couches 
 
132 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 of bracken and heather were spread for the 
 pilgrim guests. 
 
 Phyllis noticed his hands. " O royal 
 woman," she said, " give me thine outer 
 raiment that I may wipe the sand from his 
 hands ; " then she added presently, " No 
 matter, I have cleansed them in the 
 bracken." 
 
 The time went quickly and gaily in all 
 sorts of sports and nonsense. 
 
 Greatheart resumed pilgrim-pie making, 
 or took a rest in some wayside chantry 
 among the oak roots. 
 
 The " chawldren " played at tin-traders 
 and ancient British marauders on a pine- 
 covered mound. 
 
 Mother lay back against the fallen tree 
 which was our palace, and dozed like the 
 Belle au hois dormant. 
 
 I smoked and took surreptitious notes, 
 for this was a day I should be glad to 
 
A RED-LETTER DAY 133 
 
 remember in every little detail of sight and 
 sound and feeling. 
 
 At last when shoes and socks had been 
 put on again, and Greatheart had been 
 strapped into his mail-cart, with his rod of 
 foxglove stuck up beside him like a flowery 
 thyrsis, I found that the " chawldren " had 
 wandered off into the pages of " The 
 Heroes." Mother was the fair Danae ; I 
 was old Chiron the Centaur, Winifred and 
 Phyllis were Pers_eus and Theseus, and Guy 
 was " the one Chiron loved best, little 
 Achilles, the too wise child." 
 
 As we trudged merrily homeward I over- 
 heard Perseus telling Phyllis : " To-day I 
 have slain two oxen, and watched the spotted 
 snake change its skin." To which Theseus 
 was somewhat at a loss for an answer, I 
 thought, for Phyllis has not read the whole 
 of " The Heroes " yet. 
 
 In the evening, after tea, I went out for 
 
134 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 a stroll by myself, for one never really tires 
 of these Heaths and sandy lanes full of 
 flowers. 
 
 I met little children, who had got back 
 from school, playing in wild green places or 
 driving the slow friendly cows to some fresh 
 evening pasture. They paused or got up to 
 smile and drop a curtsey. 
 
 Out of tangles of greenery a curl of blue 
 smoke arose and betrayed a quaint timbered 
 cottage which, if a hen had not run across 
 my path, I should probably have passed 
 unnoticed earlier in the day, so thick is the 
 foliage. 
 
 Young lads, returning from work, went 
 by with a salute, and it was pleasant to 
 observe their shy clean eyes and girlish faces. 
 Weary as the farm labourer or woodman 
 must have been, his spirit was light enough 
 to let him be companionable. Sweet are the 
 Surrey hills and the wild acres of moorland 
 
A RED-LETTER DAY 135 
 
 and the stretches of dingle and forest, and 
 good and kindly are the Surrey folk. 
 
 Coming home through the dusk of the 
 avenue of elms, I saw a mail-cart which I 
 could pick out from a thousand, and in the 
 still evening air I, heard a brief dialogue : 
 
 "I thought it was pappa," said Guy; 
 "and it is a gempy " (gentleman). 
 
 "It isn't a gempy," said mother, "it's 
 pappa ! " 
 
 But even this disparagement of two 
 generations did not cast a shadow on the 
 brightness of my Red-Letter Day. 
 
 And, after all, Guy makes up for it hand- 
 somely when he is in bed ; for, after seizing 
 my hands and squeezing them to his breast, 
 he sits up and kisses the palms, kisses the 
 backs, kisses my face, kisses the top of my 
 head, and at last exhausts himself in a gush 
 of affection : " I simply like you, pappa ! " 
 
THE FIRST PARTING 
 
 As I sit near the white and red roses in the 
 cool green of the garden I am troubled in 
 my mind. I try to divert thought by noting 
 that in the last decade of July the sparrows 
 seem to nest about half-past seven, after a 
 good deal of chatter in the trees. Now it 
 is eight, and there is a clear grey sky, with 
 pearly drifts and pinkish clouds ; and the 
 martins are racing overhead, high and silent. 
 Far beneath them come suddenly, in rushes, 
 flights of hilarious swifts, screaming and 
 laughing like girls let loose from school. 
 Just for an instant as they pass I hear the 
 whifF of their wings. 
 
 It is no use ; the very swifts remind me 
 
 of the child. Even the long sunny weeks 
 
 136 
 
THE FIRST PARTING 137 
 
 among the hills and pinewoods do not seem 
 to have been of much benefit. "Growing 
 too fast," they say ; pale and easily tired, 
 and too excitable, I can see plainly enough ; 
 and these hot days do not agree with her, 
 though she says she likes them. 
 
 We wait and watch ; and July effects no 
 change. August comes with the red rowan 
 berries and cooler air, but she seems no 
 better ; and it becomes clear to us that the 
 wisest course is to send her to the seaside till 
 Christmas. 
 
 W. V. is, of course, delighted at the idea. 
 The cliffs, the sands, the great waters, the 
 magical ships sailing east and west, are anti- 
 cipations of unspeakable rapture. We look 
 for Broadstairs in the atlas ; as we walk 
 through our poor woods, from which the 
 glamour seems now to have exhaled, like 
 the dew from the grass of the morning, all 
 our talk is of the sea, and brown mariners 
 
138 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 from foreign waters, and white sails, and 
 sand-castles, and wading, and donkey rides 
 on the shore. I fear that as she will be 
 at school she will not find that every day 
 will be a holiday, but she is overjoyed at the 
 thought of a change and new companions. 
 " Of course " she is sorry to go away from 
 home and to leave us, but Christmas will 
 soon be here, and " of course " we shall go 
 and see her at the half-term. 
 
 The day of parting comes in September, 
 and she is radiant. The day is dull, but her 
 little head is full of sunshine. At the Lon- 
 don terminus her mother remarks, " What 
 a dirty station this is ! " but London is 
 paved with gold and roofed with sapphire 
 for her. One must admit that it is not 
 sylvan, but the excuse comes readily : " Oh, 
 well, mother, you couldn't expect to find 
 green pastures and shepherds and lambs on 
 the platform, could you .'' " 
 
THE FIRST PARTING 139 
 
 Poor little woman, so eager to fly away 
 from the old woods and familiar nest, so 
 easily caught by the glitter of change, by the 
 mere sound of the word Sea ! 
 
 At home one small mortal goes about the 
 house wondering, missing the accustomed 
 voices and the faces he has seen daily since 
 the beginning of creation. He has promised 
 to be very good till mother comes home, but 
 he is puzzled by the silence, the vanished 
 presences, the strange gaps left in his tiny 
 world. He creeps under the table, and 
 takes his wooden horse with him for com- 
 panionship. Who can guess what passes be- 
 tween the two in that primeval rock-shelter ? 
 
 When I return from town I find him 
 breathing very heavily, almost sobbing, as 
 he tells me, " Mingie gone 'chool ! Mamma 
 gone 'chool." He repeats the phrase in 
 grievous whispers to himself. At night 
 before he falls asleep, he weeps the fii'st. 
 
I40 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 tears of bereavement, and at last drops off 
 into slumber with a bitter sigh : " Gone 
 'chool ! " 
 
 He is more cheerful in the morning, but 
 the mysterious sense of loss and desolation 
 has not been washed away in sleep. He has 
 a droll way of putting his hands together 
 with the palms open upward, and cooing, 
 " O-o-oh, pappa ! " as if he were offering 
 up his whole heart to you ; but when I have 
 taken him on my knee and cuddled him, he 
 begins his tragic refrain, like a Greek chorus, 
 " Mingie gone 'chool ! Mamma gone 'chool ! " 
 
 It is Saturday, so we may go into the 
 forest together, to see some of the old 
 friends whom he can greet with his favour- 
 ite, "Hallo!" He can still say, " Ha'o, 
 Mist' Oak ! Ha'o, Lady Birch ! " but alas, 
 the birds and the flowers have all " gone 
 'chool." 
 
 A small boy, of friendly disposition, to 
 
THE FIRST PARTING 141 
 
 whom he shouts " Ha'o, boy ! " smiles at 
 him and stops to speak, and he unfolds his 
 trouble to his sympathetic face — " Mingie 
 gone 'chool ! " 
 
 It is just a year since Mingie and I, with 
 Guy in his mail-cart, went through this 
 same underwood. Here was the spot where 
 she threw down a piece of flint — "fire- 
 stone " — and was sadly disappointed that it 
 did not burst into flames. There were the 
 pools showing glimpses of fairyland, which 
 she afterwards made pictures of, so that we 
 might remember them when we grew old. 
 It was here that in the cold days, at the close 
 of October she found a benumbed butter- 
 fly and held it till the warmth of her hand 
 revived it, and it fluttered away. Here 
 was the sheltered dingle, so dry and plea- 
 sant in July, where she showed me " fairy 
 houses," and composed me extempore poems, 
 while Guy slept under his white awning. 
 
142 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 The " poems," joyously free from the 
 trammels of rhyme and metre, were after this 
 fashion : — 
 
 " The Oak-men are always in the wood 
 under their spreading trees, their high roof. 
 In autumn we go and gather their cups and 
 saucers." (" The acorns, you know, father," 
 she adds by way of annotation.) 
 
 " All day long, if it rains, the Fairies sit 
 under their fungus umbrellas of yellow and 
 reddy-brown." ("I don't know why any one 
 should call them toadstools, do you, 
 father ? ") " They gather honey from the 
 bees, and drink the rain from the grass." 
 
 " Guy looks with sunny eyes of blue at 
 the Oak-men and the trees. The Oak-men 
 laugh when they see Guy looking." 
 
 The reddy-brown and yellow toadstools 
 are still there ; the acorn-cups ; the fairy 
 
THE FIRST PARTING 143 
 
 houses, and the high roof; but alas, alas, 
 Oak-men and Fairies and all gentle spirits 
 of the rain-pool and the woodlands have 
 vanished with W. V. They have all " gone 
 "chool." 
 
 Sometimes for whole days Guy will forget 
 his bereavement, and then, just as we are 
 saying, " How soon things slip out of their 
 memories ! " we hear him telling the gar- 
 dener or a tradesman's boy, in mournful 
 tones and with a hopeless shake of his head, 
 " Mingie gone 'chool," or whispering the 
 same reminder to himself or to his play- 
 things. 
 
 And the radiant W. V., how does she 
 fare on the shores of old romance ? Her 
 first letter, which reaches us a week after 
 her absence, is not so wildly hilarious as one 
 would have anticipated. 
 
144 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 (First page) My dear Mother, 
 I am not very happy hear and I do wish 
 you wood come and take me baak with you. 
 (Second page) I am so very unhappy. 
 Mother dear do do come take me baak do do 
 Mother Dear I cry every night and I can- 
 not helpit. I am glad to hear that dear 
 Baby is well and do come and take me baak 
 do do Mother I shall die if you dount 
 Give my love to every one 
 
 Your loveing little doughter 
 
 Winifred. 
 do come 
 
 Her mother cried over that letter, as 
 mothers will, but Guy and I had already 
 supped our sorrow ; and though we cannot 
 help muttering in silent rooms, we know 
 that Christmas will soon come, and that 
 long before Christmas, Mingie will have 
 recovered from her home-sickness. 
 
Winifred and Guy. 
 
 September 1897. 
 
THE FIRST PARTING 145 
 
 There is a dense fog on Christmas Day, 
 and the gas has to be lit early in the after- 
 noon. It is delightful to watch the small 
 people sitting at the table decked in Christ- 
 mas-tree jewelry, cracker caps and sashes of 
 many colours — W. V. looking rosy and 
 strong, and the boy tipsy with joy to see 
 her again. 
 
 Mingie is playing with her enchanted 
 people. It isn't quite Fairyland, but a 
 borderland of spells and charms, with 
 Brownies and Pixies and Oak-men. There 
 is a forest of mistletoe, holly and red 
 berries, and narcissus (in vases) ; and on the 
 edge of the forest a lake, and on the lake 
 the Queen of Pixies sails in a magic barge 
 (a swan-shaped salt-cellar) ; and a donkey 
 (a prince bewitched) walks on the lake 
 beside her, and there are Pixies in a wicker 
 boat, which does not sink, " because the 
 water runs out of it as fast as it runs in." 
 
 K 
 
146 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 On this memorable day, Guy gets a new 
 name — " BibofFski," on account of his post- 
 prandial clamour, " Bib ofF! bib oiF! " 
 
 " BibofFski, the great Russian poet ? " 
 suggests some one. 
 
 " Oh no," says W. V. " It is BiboiFski, 
 the mighty hunter ! " 
 
 "Not at all," says mother; "BibofFski is 
 the heavenly babe — the Babe-of-Sky ! " 
 
 Whereupon we all laugh, and Guy most 
 gleefully of all, and we feel glad that "Mingie 
 has gone 'chool " — and come back again. 
 
SANTA CLAUS AND THE BABE 
 
 Mingie's was the first of the Christmas 
 cards to arrive. It came early on Christ- 
 mas Eve. Mademoiselle had sent it from 
 Rouen, and she must have chosen the 
 loveliest she could buy, for when the box 
 was opened and the card unfolded, there, 
 within a ring of Angels, was the Stable 
 of Bethlehem, with the Babe in the manger, 
 and a star gleaming over the roof. 
 
 Mingie was in an ecstasy; Phyllis, her 
 cousin, was delighted ; and even Guy Great- 
 heart, though the little man was too young 
 to understand, clapped his hands and cried, 
 " Pretty, pretty ! " 
 
 It was placed on the music-cabinet, so 
 
 that the maiden-hair fern drooped over it, 
 147 
 
148 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 and made it look like a scene in a forest 
 among the lonely hills. 
 
 And there, after many last looks, the 
 children left it when they went up to bed. 
 
 It had been very cold all day, and it was 
 snowing when mother and auntie and uncle 
 set out for the watch-night service. Father 
 preferred a book by the warm fireside. 
 
 "Then," said mother, "you might leave 
 the door ajar, so that you can hear the 
 children. And won't you send a line to 
 Tumble-Down Dick ? " 
 
 Father and Tumble-Down Dick had quar- 
 relled long ago, and it seemed no longer 
 possible to say anything that could make 
 any difference. 
 
 "You know that I am in the right," said 
 father, shaking his head and frowning. 
 
 " Yes, dear, I know," said mother ; " but 
 when one is in the right, it is so much easier 
 to be large-minded." 
 
SANTA CLAUS AND THE BABE 149 
 
 Father smiled grimly at the crafty reply, 
 but said nothing. 
 
 Long afterwards, as he sat thinking, two 
 little white figures crept down the stairs 
 (which creaked dreadfully), and stole into 
 the drawing-room. Then father heard the 
 striking of a match, and going out to 
 see what it meant, found Mingie and 
 Phyllis. 
 
 " Oh, father," Mingie explained, " we 
 awoke and remembered that there was no 
 stocking hung up for the Babe ; so we 
 thought we would each hang up one of 
 ours for him. Santa Claus is sure to see 
 them, isn't he .'' " 
 
 Father laughed and carried the two back 
 to bed. 
 
 Then he went and looked at the Stable 
 and the Babe and the stockings. 
 
 Over the roof the Star of the East was 
 shining, as it shone two thousand years ago. 
 
150 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 The song the Angels were singing was one 
 of peace and good-will. 
 
 Then father wrote to Tumble-Down Dick, 
 and hurried through the snow to catch the 
 last post. 
 
 Tumble-Down Dick never knew what had 
 induced father to write that letter. 
 
THREE STEPS AND A LITTLE 
 DOOR 
 
 I KNOW not from what dim days on the 
 furthest verge of memory there comes float- 
 ing to me an odd rhyme about some small 
 Scotch bairn whose story has vanished with 
 the lost legends of strath and corrie : — 
 
 " "Tommy Gorrie — 
 Went — up — three — steps ; 
 And in at a little doorie." 
 
 Even at this distance of time it seems to 
 me that I can bring back the feeling of 
 delight and wonderment and curiosity which 
 those words awakened in my childish soul. 
 They were a sort of spell ; for when I 
 
152 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 repeated them to myself, there, in front of 
 me, set in a long high wall of grey stone, 
 was the little door with its pointed arch — 
 a door of solid oak almost bleached by the 
 weather from brown to grey ; and there 
 were the three stone steps leading to it. 
 
 The other evening I overheard Carrie 
 telling Boy-Beloved the rhyme, and now 
 Winifred goes up and down the house 
 repeating it. 
 
 Of Tommy Gorrie I was often told — just 
 as Carrie now tells Boy-Beloved — that he 
 never did any of the discreditable and un- 
 ruly things of which I appear to have been 
 guilty. Tommy Gorrie never said " No ; " 
 he never screamed or stamped in great 
 wrath ; he liked everything that was good 
 for him ; he did not need to be told twice. 
 
 I am in doubt as to how Boy-Beloved re- 
 gards the exemplary Tommy. " You mustn't 
 crumble your biscuit on the cloth," said 
 
THREE STEPS AND A DOOR 153 
 
 Carrie. "Mustn't I crumble my biscuit?" 
 asked Boy-Beloved ; " didn't Tommy Gorrie 
 crumble his biscuit?" "No, he didn't." 
 " Didn't he ? Naughty boys do ! " For my 
 part, I was not emulous of Tommy Gorrie ; 
 I should have taken no interest in him if it 
 had not been that he went up those three 
 steps and in at that little door. But that 
 was an adventure which might well excite 
 the envy and admiration of the most re- 
 volutionary little Radical. 
 
 What did Tommy Gorrie see when he 
 went in ? 
 
 No one could tell me. I used to stare 
 for ten minutes together at the door I could 
 picture before me, and wish it would open — 
 were it but a hand's breadth — so that I might 
 have just one glint of the wonderland on 
 the other side of the wall ; but it only ended 
 in some one coming to see what new scheme 
 of mischief was keeping me so quiet. 
 
154 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 At night I would dream that I was going 
 up the steps, and that the door was yielding 
 to the push of my strong hand ; but either 
 I awoke before it opened, or the dream took 
 another turn, and I found myself as far as 
 ever from solving the mystery. 
 
 Those three steps and that little door 
 were the imperishable romance of my child- 
 hood. Had my curiosity been gratified I 
 should have forgotten all about them; but 
 as no one could tell me, and as I never 
 found the door while awake and could never 
 enter by it while asleep, I had for years an 
 inexhaustible subject for my day-dreams. 
 
 Since I have grown up I have had several 
 curious reminders of that old rhyme. It 
 was with a singular shock of reminiscence 
 that I read Goethe's sketch in his Auto- 
 biography, of the enchanted garden which 
 he entered by the little brown wicket in the 
 Bad Wall ; and of his complete failure to 
 
THREE STEPS AND A DOOR 155 
 
 find the entrance a second time, although he 
 had noted the extremely old nut-trees, whose 
 green branches hung down over the wall on 
 the opposite side of the way, and the niche 
 with the fountain. 
 
 And almost as much like a page from 
 my own experience was the passage in Mr. 
 Pater's idyll, " The Child in the House," in 
 which he tells of such a vision of loveliness 
 as Tommy Gorrie must have had when he 
 went up the three steps. 
 
 For " it happened that, as he walked one 
 evening, a garden gate, usually closed, stood 
 open ; and lo ! within, a great red hawthorn 
 in full flower, embossing heavily the bleached 
 and twisted trunk and branches, so aged that 
 there were but few green leaves thereon — a 
 plumage of tender crimson fire out of the 
 heart of the dry wood. The perfume of 
 the tree had now and again reached him, in 
 the currents of the wind, over the wall. 
 
156 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 and he had wondered what might be behind 
 it." 
 
 But beautiful as that sight must have 
 been, and sweet as were that child's dreams, 
 loitering all night " along a magic roadway 
 of crimson flowers," my three steps and the 
 little doorie gave promise of a surprise more 
 strange, and of a more rapturous joy. 
 
 Only once have I seen in print anything 
 that came near to the glad mystery hidden 
 behind my leagues of lofty stone wall. Any 
 one who is curious will find it in Carlyle's 
 translation of Tieclc's little masterpiece, 
 " The Elves." 
 
 When Tommy Gorrie went up three steps 
 and in at a little doorie, he must have been 
 as fortunate as little Mary when she ran 
 across the bridge. He must have met a 
 glittering elf-maiden, and swung with her 
 on the tops of the trees which she made 
 spring up with a stamp of her fairy foot, 
 
THREE STEPS AND A DOOR 157 
 
 and seen the dwarfs carrying sacks of gold- 
 dust, and watched the water-children swim- 
 ming and sporting and blowing on crooked 
 shells. Only I do not believe that his story 
 ended with the sorrowful disenchantment ot 
 Mary's. The magic garden into which 
 Tommy Gorrie's door opened never lost a 
 green leaf or a coloured blossom, and no 
 wicked weather of the world ever reached it, 
 and Tommy 
 
 Well, as for Tommy, I don't believe he 
 never said " No," and liked everything that 
 was good for him, and did not need to be 
 told twice. I think he was no better and no 
 worse than Boy-Beloved, or even than myself. 
 I think Tommy is alive yet, and never grows 
 any older. I think he spends his time in 
 seeking for those three steps and going in at 
 that little door. 
 
 What happens then I don't know ; but I 
 fancy he gets tired with play and falls asleep ; 
 
158 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 and when he awakes he finds himself out- 
 side, with just a dim, dreamy recollection of 
 something strange and delightful, and so he 
 sets off again to find the three steps. And 
 as long as there are children Tommy Gorrie 
 will be a child, and will continue to go up 
 three steps and in at a little doorie. 
 
 There is a curious tenacity and sugges- 
 tiveness about rhymes, and this of Tommy 
 Gorrie hitches itself on to all sorts of people 
 and incidents. When I read a page of a 
 beautiful book, I nod across to the invisible 
 author : " You went up three steps and in 
 at a little doorie." When I meet a couple 
 of lovers in the wood, I smile to myself: 
 " You are looking for three steps, eh ? " 
 When I pass a Sister of Charity, or watch a 
 working woman rocking a babe in her arms, 
 I think : " And you too have been up the 
 three steps." 
 
 To-night even, as I sat with my small son 
 
THREE STEPS AND A DOOR 159 
 
 on one knee and his sister on the other, and 
 my wife asked, " Which way did you come 
 home ? " I replied, somewhat absently it 
 might seem, " Up three steps and in at a 
 little doorie ; " but her laugh showed that 
 she understood. 
 
Our Poems 
 
OUR POEMS 
 
 Insignificant as they may be in them- 
 selves, the verses which follow are to me 
 so full of sad and of happy memories, 
 that I cannot forbear giving them a place 
 in these pages. As I read them once more 
 the leaves of vanished summers are green 
 on the trees, the snow of a winter for- 
 gotten drifts against the window ; the day, 
 the spot, the bright young faces are all 
 brought back, with the light of love and 
 gladness upon them. And nothing of the 
 least of these would I willingly lose. 
 
 163 
 
164 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 THE RING-FENCE 
 
 Oh, happy garden trees. 
 
 By dim degrees 
 
 Your subtle branches, muffling me about. 
 
 Shut all my neighbours out ! 
 
 Not that I love them less, but they 
 Being fenced away, 
 
 ^Tis sweet to feel in oh ! how small a round 
 May peace and joy abound. 
 
OUR POEMS 165 
 
 HOME 
 
 East or West, at home is best ! 
 
 Let the norland blizzard blow 
 From the icy mountain crest. 
 
 While I wade through drifts of snow. 
 
 Smoke Vd see — blue smoke alone — 
 From my own chimney gladlier than 
 
 Cheeriest fire on the hearthstone 
 Of another and better man. 
 
1 66 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 THE MIRACULOUS 
 
 / left her in the dark to find 
 
 Her own way home ; she had no fear. 
 I followed noiselessly behind; 
 
 She never dreamed that I was near. 
 
 I let her have her childish will ; 
 
 But had she cried, why in a wink ! — 
 That would have seemed a miracle. 
 
 So in our little life, I think. 
 
OUR POEMS 167 
 
 BEDTIME 
 
 She kneels and folds her baby hands. 
 And gaily babbling lisps her prayer. 
 
 What if she laughs ? God understands 
 The joyous heart that knows no care. 
 
 Her prayer is like a new-fledged bird 
 That cannot flutter to its tree ; 
 
 But God will lift it, having heard. 
 Up to the nest where it would be. 
 
1 68 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 CAROL 
 
 When the herds were watching 
 In the midnight chill. 
 
 Came a spotless lambkin 
 From the heavenly hill. 
 
 Snow was on the mountains. 
 And the wind was cold. 
 
 When from God's own garden 
 Dropped a rose of gold. 
 
 When 'twas bitter winter. 
 Houseless and forlorn 
 
 In a star-lit stable 
 
 Christ the Babe was born. 
 
 Welcome, heavenly lambkin ; 
 
 Welcome, golden rose ; 
 Alleluia, Baby, 
 In the swaddling clothes ! 
 
OUR POEMS 169 
 
 SANTA CLAUS 
 
 Wee Flaxen-poll and Golden-head, 
 "They both are sleeping, rosy-red; 
 And loving hands that make no noise 
 Have filled each stocking full of toys. 
 
 Oh, think ! — unslumbering and forlorn. 
 Perchance one little Babe new-born 
 Lies wondering that we never saw 
 Him too, in spirit, in the straw. 
 
I70 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 IN THE STORM 
 
 thro^ half the wild March night the sleet 
 Against the shuddering windows beat. 
 " Pity" a small voice prayed, " dear God, 
 Our blackbird in the ivy-tod ! " 
 
 The blackbird, darkling in her nest. 
 Felt five green eggs beneath her breast. 
 And knew no cold : through all the storm 
 Five coals of mothering kept her warm. 
 
OUR POEMS 171 
 
 ALMOND BLOSSOM 
 
 Among the snow-flakes, whirling white, 
 I saw a vision of delight — 
 All clotted by the wintry shower. 
 An almond-tree laughed out in flower I 
 
 Blow, wintry years, I shall not care. 
 If I the almond^ s joy may share. 
 And break in bloom at heart, although 
 My aged head be white with snow I 
 
172 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 MY FRIEND* 
 
 / saw a little raindrop 
 
 Upon a grassy Hade ; 
 I touched it not, but in my heart 
 
 A home for it I made. 
 
 For mirrored in the raindrop 
 
 I saw the skies descend ; 
 And Heaven was there. So in my heart 
 
 It came to be my friend. 
 
 * See p. 77. 
 
OUR POEMS 173 
 
 GARDEN-FIRES 
 
 WTiat though the snow gleams on the Mill 
 The sweet west wind Mows fresh and clear ; 
 The world feels new. 
 Tree-tops are full of heavenly blue ; 
 The hollyhock and daffodil 
 Are shooting leaf and spear ; 
 
 The rosebush starts from sleep. 
 And, redding plots and walks. 
 The gardener rakes into a fiery heap 
 The dead year's withered leaves and shrivelled 
 stalks. 
 
 Blow, wind of heaven, and make me whole I 
 Oh, blue of heaven, fill full my soul! 
 And, while the new-born flower springs, 
 I too will bum all dead and worthless things. 
 
174 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 APRIL SONG— I. 
 
 Little Boy Blue, come blow, come blow 
 Through wood and field your magic horn ! 
 
 The almond blossom is chilled with snow. 
 The green bud seared on hazel and thorn. 
 
 We want to see the spring clouds go 
 
 Like lambs through sunny fields of morn ; 
 
 So wake, you Little Boy Blue, and blow 
 Through wood and field your April horn ! 
 
OUR POEMS 175 
 
 APRIL SONG— II. 
 
 How glad I shall be 
 
 When summer comes round- 
 "The leaf on the tree, 
 
 "The flower on the ground ; 
 
 A welkin of glass, 
 
 A wind from the west, 
 
 A nest in the grass. 
 And eggs in the nest ; 
 
 Lambs leaping for joy. 
 My boy in his pram. 
 
 My big baby boy. 
 
 Half wild for a lamb ! 
 
 The snow's on the ground. 
 No leaf's on the tree ; 
 
 When summer comes roind 
 How glad shall I be ! 
 
176 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 IN THE WOODLANDS 
 
 In the forest lawns I see 
 
 Little ring-plots fenced around. 
 
 So that shrub and sapling tree 
 
 T'hrive in safe and happy ground ; 
 
 And I wonder. Cannot I 
 Keep some little place apart. 
 
 Open to the wind and sky. 
 For the growing of my heart ? 
 
OUR POEMS 177 
 
 MARTIN-TIDE 
 
 When morning rain has washed with sheen 
 
 Each blade and flower, and made them sweet. 
 And twinkling trees stand wet and green. 
 
 And rain-pools sparkle in the street. 
 Oh, then beside some lakelet filled 
 
 With quivering shapes of mirrored leaves, 
 The martin gathers tnud to build 
 
 His hanging nest beneath the eaves. 
 
 Then, in a little, you shall hear. 
 
 Awaking at the break of light. 
 Low twitterings, very soft and clear. 
 
 For joy of five -pure eggs of white ; 
 And so take heart for the new day 
 
 That oh, such little things suffice — 
 Eggs, raindrops, particles of clay — 
 
 To make a bower of paradise. 
 
 M 
 
178 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 MAY-MORNING RAIN 
 
 Oh sweet, oh sweet, oh sweet the Spring, 
 When angels make the world anew. 
 
 And gladness gleams from everything 
 Between the living green and blue ; 
 
 And airs that breathed in Paradise 
 
 Blow draughts of life through shower and 
 shine. 
 
 And the five gifts of sense suffice 
 'To make mere consciousness divine ! 
 
 Oh, fresh on leaf and blossom-flake 
 The rain of early morning glints ; 
 
 It lies about in little lakes. 
 
 It fills the ruts and horseshoe prints ; 
 
OUR POEMS 179 
 
 With leaf and bloom its depths are lit — 
 
 How magically deep they seem ! 
 A flock goes by : far down in it 
 
 Glide sheep and lambs as in a dream. 
 
 A sparrow comes, and bathes and drinks ; 
 
 Wildly he flounces in his joy, 
 Breaks the clear glass, and little thinks 
 
 What fairy scenes his freaks destroy. 
 
 Yet who'd begrudge him ? Off he flies ! 
 
 And once again, most beautiful. 
 Leaf, blossom, clouds, and sunny skies 
 
 Are pictured in the little pool; 
 
 And, wandering in some fairy deep 
 
 Where grass is sweet and sweet the air. 
 
 As Winnie knows, the herd and sheep 
 And bleating lambs are also there. 
 
i8o IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 FELLOW-FEELING 
 
 Poor little soul ! We kissed the place 
 'To make the smarting forehead whole, 
 
 Then dried the May and April face. 
 Saying, Poor little soul ! 
 
 So soothed, he felt within him stir 
 Some pity for his mate in woe. 
 
 And went and kissed the baluster. 
 Sighing, Poor itty so" ! 
 
OUR POEMS i8i 
 
 IN THE UNDERWOOD 
 
 " I fought you was quite gone away ! " 
 He said, with blue eyes big with tears ; 
 
 Then hugged and kissed my hands. Til flay 
 No more upon his childish fears. 
 
 For, as he frolicked through the wood, 
 I watched from leafy lurking-place. 
 
 And saw how, missing me, he stood 
 With startled eyes and working face. 
 
 And thought how soon the day will come. 
 When shadowed by the cypress-tree 
 
 I shall be very cold and dumb. 
 And he bereft of power to see. 
 
 And I, too stark to breathe or move. 
 
 Shall watch his piteous dismay. 
 And hear his sob of frightened love — 
 
 " Pappa ! " grow faint and die away ! 
 
1 82 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 FROM FLOWER TO FLOWER 
 
 When morning comes with golden air. 
 Before the garden shadows wane. 
 
 Her tenderness delights to hear 
 
 From flower to flower the gift of rain. 
 
 And God, who gives in gracious wise. 
 Her own sweet gift on her bestows ; 
 
 Joy flowers, like speedwells, in her eyes. 
 And in her heart love, like a rose. 
 
OUR POEMS 183 
 
 THE ANGLER 
 
 On pool and pinewood, clearly grey. 
 
 The twilight deepened, hushed and cool ; 
 
 The trout swam high in languid play ; 
 Ring-ripples stirred the darkening pool. 
 
 And as I watched in pleased content. 
 Dim memories of bygone things 
 
 Rose softly, and through my spirit sent 
 A glimmering joy in trembling rings. 
 
1 84 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 THE WATER-OUSEL 
 
 Beneath the brook, with folded wings 
 'The Ousel walks ; and one may hear. 
 
 In happy hour, the song he sings, 
 Submerged, yet elfin-sweet and clear. 
 
 Dear child, I see in those fresh eyes 
 
 Far down, drawn deep from troublous things. 
 Your spirit walking, ousel-wise. 
 
 In dreamy song with folded wings. 
 
OUR POEMS 185 
 
 RED-CAP CHERRIES 
 
 Red-cap Cherries, hanging high 
 In the azure and the sun. 
 
 Cuckoo now has ceased his cry — 
 Now his summer song is done. 
 
 He with cherries plumped his crop 
 Three times — so he calls no more. 
 
 Y^qUI be dumb too, if yoiCll drop. 
 Filling thrice our pinafore. 
 
1 86 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 A CHILD'S SONG* 
 
 The little white clouds are flaying to-day, 
 T laying to-day, playing to-day ; 
 
 They call to the flowers. Come out and play. 
 Come out and play I 
 
 Come out and play, for the sun is rolled. 
 Sun ts rolled, sun is rolled. 
 
 Thro' meadows of blue, like a ball of gold, 
 A ball of gold. 
 
 The flowers reply. We see you on high. 
 
 See you on high, see you on high. 
 
 We flutter our leaves, and long to fly. 
 And long to fly. 
 
 We dance in the breeze, pirouette and sway, 
 ^ouette and sway, ""ouette and sway. 
 
 Pretending we're clouds, and with you at play. 
 With you at play ! 
 
 * The first stanza and the " ball of gold " in the second 
 are Winifred's. 
 
OUR POEMS 1 8 
 
 TO WINIFRED 
 
 When I am dead. 
 And you are old, 
 TouUl sit as we are sitting now. 
 
 Close to the fire, hearing the wind blow cold 
 And you will stroke a golden head. 
 And, suddenly, remembering how 
 
 I fondled yours, become at last aware 
 How dear to me was every single hair. 
 
 When I am dead. 
 And you are old. 
 You'll clasp in yours a little hand — 
 
 A nestling hand, sweet as a flower to hold — 
 T^he pretty fingers you will spread. 
 And kissing them will understand 
 
 How kissing yours, I found therein a joy 
 Beyond the world's to give, or to destroy. 
 
IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 THE LOOK 
 
 Beside the fire he sits between my feet. 
 And, snuggling, feels how winter can he sweet. 
 Then leaning back — such love in his clear eyes I — 
 " You look at me a little bit ! " he cries. 
 " / have been looking, dear ! " " You look 
 again ! " 
 
 O least importunate of tiny men. 
 
 Have eyes such power? Can such a trifling 
 
 thing 
 So lift up your fond heart upon the wing ? 
 Yet I that know Whose eyes upon me brood 
 Have never felt this child's beatitude. 
 
OUR POEMS 189 
 
 THE CALL 
 
 I walked with one whose child had lately died. 
 
 We -passed the little folk i' the street at play. 
 When suddenly a clear voice " Father !" cried ; 
 
 The man turned quick and glad ; sighed; 
 moved away. 
 
 I spoke not, but ^twas given me to discern 
 
 The love that watches through tK eternal years; 
 
 God surely so must start and quickly turn 
 
 Whene'er the cry of "Father!^' strikes His 
 ears. 
 
I90 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 THE MANTELPIECE 
 
 'The ■polished oaken lintel showed 
 Dusk forest, and a winding road. 
 The grain o" the oak-heart only ? Nay,. 
 We trod that road but yesterday. 
 Through hushed and haunted trees ; 
 
 wound. 
 To- wishing-wells and faerie-ground. 
 
 The elfin horns blew crystal-clear ! 
 No more we two those horns shall hear. 
 Her sprightly feet are lapped in clay — 
 °f of s very feet I O Yesterday I 
 Beloved playmate, are you dead F 
 Winifred ! Winifred ! 
 
OUR POEMS 191 
 
 THE WELLS OF ELIM 
 
 Elim, Elim ! 'Through the sand and heat 
 I toil with heart uplifted, I toil with bleeding feet. 
 For Elim, Elim ! at the last, I know 
 That I shall see the palwr-trees, and hear the 
 waters flow. 
 
 Elim, Elim ! Grows not here a tree. 
 
 And all the springs are Marah, and bitter thirst 
 
 to me; 
 But Elim, Elim ! in thy shady glen 
 Are twelve sweet wells of water, and palms 
 
 threescore and ten. 
 
 Elim, Elim ! though the way be long. 
 Unmurmuring I shall journey, and lift my heart 
 
 in song ; 
 And Elim, Elim I all my song shall tell 
 Of rest beneath the palm-tree, and joy beside the 
 
 well. 
 
192 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 GLOAMING 
 
 ^he green sky ! 
 
 The far hills ! 
 
 My heart fills ; 
 T sigh — sigh ! 
 
 Spirits blest 
 Surely lie 
 In green sky 
 
 In God^s rest. 
 
 My heart fills; 
 
 I sigh — sigh. 
 
 The green sky ! 
 The far hills ! 
 
Sub Umbra Cruets 
 
SUB UMBRA CRUCIS 
 
 HERE by the green mound where she 
 lies, the cry of Pliny rises in my 
 heart, " Give me some fresh com- 
 fort, great and strong, such as I have never 
 yet heard or read. Everything that I have 
 read or heard comes back now to my 
 memory, but my sorrow is too deep to be 
 reached by it." 
 
 But oh, mothers on whose wet pillows sit 
 the little shadows of lost babes, how shall I 
 have better comfort than you, for whom no 
 one has found oblivion in Lethe, or balm in 
 Gilead ? I know, and I understand, with 
 what sweet and sorrowful dreams you have 
 sought to dull the edge of anguish ; why 
 
196 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 you hung tiny moccasins above the little 
 grave ; how you filled the cradle with 
 feathers and decked it with toys, and carried 
 it on your back, so that the wearied baby- 
 spirit might find warmth and rest when it 
 would. I know, and I understand, how, 
 looking at the sunrise of the new day, you 
 made its glittering fields the land of the 
 bright little creatures of whom you had 
 been bereaved. 
 
 These of old were your dreams, waking 
 and sleeping ; and these you gave for solace 
 to those who grieved with you, and to all 
 who in days to come should have an empty 
 chair in the house, and toys with which no 
 one should care to play any more. And we 
 too, of a later time, seek for relief in the 
 same fond way, and try to quench our thirst 
 from the well of dreams. But it is only in 
 our own dreams that our pain is assuaged, 
 not in the dreams of any other. 
 
SUB UMBRA CRUCIS 197 
 
 Oh, friend, let me thank you for your 
 tender words. Again and again I have read 
 them : — " It is a lovely face, and the soul in 
 the face is more beautiful than the face 
 itself. Strange, how extraordinarily near I 
 feel to that girl. Her death affected me 
 more than any death outside my own house- 
 hold. To see her face in that photograph 
 made me feel it still more. To lose her 
 was a tragedy. But as I looked at her I felt- 
 also that her happiness was now supreme, 
 and her love for all she loved tenfold. Yet 
 — would she had stayed. She looks im- 
 mortal in her picture, and I suppose she 
 was sorely needed where she lives now." 
 
 Do not blame me if I am not made happy 
 by your words ; nor by yours, dear woman, 
 who write to me from your lonely mission- 
 house in the far East : — " Perhaps, too, as 
 the disciples were tired and cross, and there 
 was no other way but that one of calling 
 
198 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 unto them a little child, so perchance Jesus 
 called your little one to teach the angels 
 something they, too, would not understand ; 
 and, perhaps, no other little child would 
 do." 
 
 Dreams, dreams, and not my dreams — 
 dreams that might give rest if one knew 
 that they were only a little more than 
 dreams. 
 
 Surely sorrow is fractious and hard to 
 please, for I must quarrel with you, old 
 friend, who bid me be glad of heart, for 
 now she is " removed from the evil to 
 come," now she is " safe." Is that a 
 worthy, and not a shallow comfort ? Do 
 you not see beneath it the selfishness and 
 the cowardice that are glad to be set free 
 from future responsibility ? Why should 
 we so disparage the dead, and discount 
 God's purposes .'' Do you forget the poet's 
 lines — 
 
SUB UMBRA CRUCIS 199 
 
 If he had lived, you say — 
 
 Well, well — // he had lived, what then ? 
 
 Some men 
 
 Will always argue — yes, I know . . . of 
 
 course . . , 
 The argument has force. 
 If he had lived, he might have changed — 
 From had to worse ? 
 Nay, my shrewd balance-setter. 
 Why not from good to better ? 
 Why not to best ? to joy 
 And splendour ? O, my boy ! 
 
 And you who chide me gently, and bid 
 me be a man and bear as a man, considering 
 — oh, Job's comforter ! — how, at the heart 
 of it, sorrow is rooted in self, and when we 
 mourn it is less for the lost than for the 
 losers, shall I not also feel as a man ? How 
 shall I not "remember such things were, 
 that were most precious to me ? " 
 
 For whom should I lament ? Not for 
 
200 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 her — oh, not for her, for she is in Thy 
 keeping, O Thou Light of the Dead. For 
 whom should I lament, if not for the living 
 who are left ? Did we so lightly value Thy 
 gift to us that when it was withdrawn we 
 dried eyes scarcely wet, and straightway 
 forgot that she had ever been flesh of our 
 flesh and soul of our soul ? 
 
 Oh, friend, whose hand hurts and does 
 not heal, ape not a vain and foolish stoicism. 
 God is not vexed by the tears whose foun- 
 tains He has made. And if He who could 
 raise from the dead was moved to tears 
 beside the sepulchre at Bethany, who shall 
 rebuke us that we weep rather for our- 
 selves than for those who have been taken 
 from us ? 
 
 And you who, meaning well, but speaking 
 not so well, write to me wondering why one 
 who died so young should have lived at all, 
 oh, do not ask for reasons. These things 
 
SUB UMBRA CRUCIS 201 
 
 are God's mysteries. As she herself used to 
 say, " Our sense is nothing to God's ; and 
 though big people have more sense than 
 children, the sense of all the big people in 
 the world put together would be no sense to 
 His. We are only little babies to Him ; we 
 do not understand Him at all." 
 
 Is it not enough to know that to be born 
 is to enter into the birthright of a blessed 
 immortality ? 
 
 Oh, Thou whose shadow is death, whose 
 shadow is immortality, " we do not under- 
 stand Thee at all." But we know that 
 Thou art good and wise and pitiful ; and 
 we believe that when Thou takest childhood 
 in its blossom, and seemest to forget old age 
 in weariness and penury, Thou hast Thy 
 purpose for that with Thee, as Thou hast 
 for this which awaits Thee. 
 
 And if we weep the loss of our little child, 
 it is not that we would call her back, but 
 
202 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 that it is a need of our nature to regret 
 the beloved made invisible. Nay, if Thou 
 shouldst promise, Call her and she shall 
 return, we should be dumb with the dread 
 of an unknown future, we should not call, 
 we should leave her to Thy divine father- 
 hood. 
 
 And if in the dust and darkness of our 
 souls we reach out our hands to her, it is 
 but to know that she is happy, that it is 
 well with her, that she is indeed with Thee. 
 
 And if we ask for a sign, it is but the 
 longing of creatures who live and feel and 
 know by the senses, to have through the 
 senses an assurance of that which we believe 
 in the spirit. Thou knowest our frame ; 
 remember that we are dust. Is it strange 
 that we, too, should cry. Lama sabachthani ? 
 
 And you, true friend and wise consoler, 
 who bid me think of that little Agatha, 
 " aged fourteen years," who sleeps in the 
 
SUB UMBRA CRUCIS 203 
 
 catacombs at Rome under that simple avowal 
 of grateful hearts, 
 
 "For whom thanks be to the Lor a and to 
 Christ'' 
 
 perhaps you perceived more clearly than I 
 myself how much I had to be thankful for 
 in this child. 
 
 When I ponder on all that I owe her, I 
 seem to apprehend a strange and heavenly 
 truth underlying one of the most savage 
 superstitions of the Dark Ages. For you 
 have not forgotten how when the walls of 
 Copenhagen, as the legend tells, crumbled 
 and fell as fast as they were built, an in- 
 nocent little girl was set in her chair beside 
 a table, where she played with her toys- and 
 ate the rosy apples they gave her while 
 twelve master-masons closed a vault over 
 her ; and then the walls were raised, and 
 stood firm for ever after. And so it may 
 
204 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 sometimes be in the dispensations of provi- 
 dence that the lives of men can only be 
 raised high and stable in virtue of the little 
 child immured for ever within them. 
 
 Poor little shadow, with its apples and 
 playthings ! Poor little child, if still the 
 walls crumble and fall. 
 
 They have finished the white cross upon 
 her grave ; they have set the marble curbs 
 about her little plot of earth, and covered 
 it with flowers. 
 
 The first sight of it shocked me in a 
 manner that I could not have anticipated. 
 I had learned to find a sort of comfort in 
 the broken turf, the grassy clods, the new 
 leaves of weeds springing between the clods 
 and stones, the bees droning from flower to 
 flower. These were in the rough but kindly 
 way of nature. And the earth lay light — 
 
SUB UMBRA CRUCIS 205 
 
 light and warm and living in the sunshine. 
 It is a foolish thing to say : to the green 
 mound I had grown reconciled. 
 
 But now this heavy slab seemed the last 
 seal set on the irretrievable. It was the 
 visible, immovable symbol of that unseen 
 door, which we knew was closed, but which, 
 to our own hearts, we made-believe was 
 not so surely closed but that it might mir- 
 aculously fall open to our prayers. Oh, 
 how many have known that unaccountable 
 feeling of unreasoning expectation — to how 
 many does it cling for months, for years — 
 that, somehow, something is going to 
 happen which will bring their dead children 
 back to them again ! 
 
 Heavily lay that slab upon me, until there 
 dawned within me the memory of another 
 grave, whither an angel " came, and rolled 
 back the stone from the door, and sat 
 upon it." 
 
2o6 IN MEMORY OF W. V. 
 
 How strange that that should ever have 
 been written ; for of the four who told the 
 story of the tomb in the garden, three have 
 been silent as to that heavenly vision ; and a 
 merciful thing it seemed — predestined, one 
 almost dared to think, for such a time of 
 trouble — that to one of the Evangelists it 
 was given to use words which have power to 
 change the stone of the last despair into a 
 seat for an angel. 
 
 Deep in her garden I have buried a wisp 
 of warm brown hair twined with a faded 
 flower plucked in some New South Wales 
 field and sent by a stranger who loved her. 
 
 Between the dark green ledges of the 
 cedar which grows beyond her grave I see 
 far below me the dome of St. Paul's, dream- 
 like in the Smoke and autumn haze ; and 
 the dim masses of the great city. How her 
 eyes brightened with interest when she looked 
 
SUB UMBRA CRUCIS 207 
 
 on that romantic region of Dick Whitting- 
 ton's adventures. 
 
 On one of the steps of the cross is her 
 name, with the date of birth and of death. 
 
 Not there, but in my heart, is written — 
 
 " For whom thanks he to the Lord and to 
 Christy 
 
 The years will pass, and time will sweeten 
 the memory of these things, till at last it 
 will seem to me that I too " have been on 
 the banks of Ulai, plucking an apple here 
 and there." 
 
W. V. 
 
 Here's a flower for you, lying dead. 
 Child, whom living I never met. 
 Friends a many I may forget — 
 
 Not you, little Winifred. 
 
 Men grow sick when they live alone. 
 
 And long for the sound of a childish voice. 
 And you — how often you've made me rejoice 
 
 In a simple faith like your own I 
 
 So here's a flower for you, Winifred — 
 Out of London, a violet — 
 Little child whom I never met, 
 
 Winifred, lying dead. 
 
 H. D. LowRY. 
 
 The Morning Post, April 18, 1901. 
 
11