Marys Meadow | Page 3

the basket, and then we play at being weeding women in each
other's gardens.
She tells Bessy about the Old Squire. She says--"He do be a real old
skinflint, the Old Zquire a be!" But she thinks it--"zim as if 'twas
having ne'er a wife nor child for to keep the natur' in 'un, so his heart do
zim to shrivel, like they walnuts Butler tells us of as a zets down for
desart. The Old Zquire he mostly eats ne'er a one now's teeth be so bad.
But a counts them every night when's desart's done. And a keeps 'em
till the karnels be mowldy, and a keeps 'em till they be dry, and a keeps
'em till they be dust; and when the karnels is dust, a cracks aal the lot of
'em when desart's done, zo's no one mayn't have no good of they
walnuts, since they be no good to be."
Arthur can imitate the Weeding Woman exactly, and he can imitate the
Scotch Gardener too. Chris (that is Christopher, our youngest brother)
is very fond of "The Zquire and the Walnuts." He gets nuts, or anything,
like shells or bits of flower-pots, that will break, and something to hit
with, and when Arthur comes to "The karnels is dust," Chris smashes
everything before him, shouting, "A cracks aal the lot of em," and then
he throws the bits all over the place, with "They be no good to he."

Father laughed very much when he heard Arthur do the Weeding
Woman, and Mother could not help laughing too; but she did not like it,
because she does not like us to repeat servants' gossip.
The Weeding Woman is a great gossip. She gossips all the time she is
having her tea, and it is generally about the Old Squire. She used to tell
Bessy that his flowers bloomed themselves to death, and the fruit rotted
on the walls, because he would let nothing be picked, and gave nothing
away, except now and then a grand present of fruit to Lady Catherine,
for which the old lady returned no thanks, but only a rude message to
say that his peaches were over-ripe, and he had better have sent the
grapes to the Infirmary. Adela asked--"Why is the Old Squire so kind
to Lady Catherine?" and Father said--"Because we are so fond of Lords
and Ladies in this part of the country." I thought he meant the lords and
ladies in the hedges, for we are very fond of them. But he didn't. He
meant real lords and ladies.
There are splendid lords and ladies in the hedges of Mary's Meadow. I
never can make up my mind when I like them best. In April and May,
when they have smooth plum-coloured coats and pale green cowls, and
push up out of last year's dry leaves, or in August and September, when
their hoods have fallen away, and their red berries shine through the
dusty grass and nettles that have been growing up round them all the
summer out of the ditch.
Flowers were one reason for our wanting to go to Mary's Meadow.
Another reason was the nightingale. There was one that used always to
sing there, and Mother had made us a story about it.
We are very fond of fairy books, and one of our greatest favourites is
Bechstein's As Pretty as Seven. It has very nice pictures, and we
particularly like "The Man in the Moon, and How He Came There;" but
the story doesn't end well, for he came there by gathering sticks on
Sunday, and then scoffing about it, and he has been there ever since.
But Mother made us a new fairy tale about the nightingale in Mary's
Meadow being the naughty woodcutter's only child, who was turned
into a little brown bird that lives on in the woods, and sits on a tree on
summer nights, and sings to its father up in the moon.

But after our Father and the Old Squire went to law, Mother told us we
must be content with hearing the nightingale from a distance. We did
not really know about the lawsuit then, we only understood that the Old
Squire was rather crosser than usual; and we rather resented being
warned not to go into Mary's Meadow, especially as Father kept saying
we had a perfect right so to do. I thought that Mother was probably
afraid of Saxon being set at us, and of course I had no fears about him.
Indeed, I used to wish that it could happen that the Old Squire, riding
after me as full of fury as King Padella in the Rose and the Ring, might
set Saxon on me, as the lions were let loose to eat the