Days and Hours in a Garden

Part 1

DAYS AND HOURS IN A GARDEN.

DAYS AND HOURS IN A GARDEN.

“E. V. B.”

“God Almighty first planted a garden; And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.”

BACON.

NINTH EDITION.

LONDON: ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1896.

RICHARD CAVENDISH BOYLE.

WHOSE LOVE FOR NATURE AND FOR ART, YEARS HAD NOT CHILLED NOR TROUBLE CHANGED, THESE RECORDS OF OUR GARDEN WERE INSCRIBED BY E. V. B., IN 1884.

PREFACE.

If for a sixth reprint of DAYS AND HOURS IN A GARDEN a new Preface was deemed advisable, still more so, perhaps, should there be something new prefixed to the Seventh Edition, although, indeed, it contains nothing that in any sense is new. Neither new words nor any new vignettes appear therein. Nevertheless we venture to hope that perhaps new readers may be found. Since the last edition was published some three years have come and gone, with their world-old roll of seasons and their burden of inevitable change. The garden has three times slept beneath the rains and the snows of winter, and has awakened in spring with the birds and the bees. Meanwhile, the shrubs are taller and larger, and the trees have extended their roots and stretched out their branches over lawns and gravel paths. And the summer shade, so coveted in other days, has broadened, while, on the other hand, it has become more hard to maintain in their wonted brilliancy our borders and flowerful closes. The axe and the pruning-knife have been busy during the winter months; and many a fine Laurel, in all its wealth of glossy green, has been laid low, and with Yew and the full-foliaged Phylleria, and more than one tall Deodara,--become a burnt sacrifice to “Apollo’s sunny ray.” For the south sunshine must be let in, no matter what the cost. In certain ways the garden may be said to suffer change; and chiefly when the grace and softly rounded loveliness of various evergreens which do not bear the shears--Cryptomeria Elegans, Red Cedar, and the like--after a course of years begins to wane. Even to the upward-pointing Cypress middle life in an English garden is not becoming. And as the larger trees increase in size, so the overshadowed lawns diminish. And thus the slower progress of some of our trees has given place to a rapid growth, which bids fair to overstep all bounds of such limited space as ours. The Douglas Fir and the branching Cedar of Lebanon keep growing into one another, while Excelsa touches them both, and wants to reach across to the clump of Yew and Laburnum. Their near neighbour the Sequoia already rises to the height of fifty feet, and measures over nine feet round at some two feet from the ground. Nordmaniana alone (most beautiful of all), through having five times lost his leader, is forced to greater moderation. Still, although no future of green maturity can ever compensate the earlier, expectant delight of watching our young trees’ youth, all is not lost; for the pleasures carried away by Time, Time itself replaces by others to the full as sweet. It may be that favourite plants become established and yield a larger harvest of beauty, or that deep-laid plans ripen into bright perfection, while a thousand garden joys arise fresh each year, nay, well-nigh every day. As to the living frequenters of the garden, whose presence there for the most part enhances our enjoyment of it, the tomtits and nuthatches, are as busy with the cocoanuts which hang for their use all winter from the Rose-arches as the mice and the sparrows are with the crocuses; the white pigeons still circle in the air and settle upon the gables, or preen their feathers in the sunshine amongst the yellow stonecrop at the base of the old grey pillar in the parterr; the swallows return year by year to their nests within the porch; but the faithful satin-coated Collie lies still for ever under the turf by the ivied wall, and the earth lies heavy on his noble head. For these thirteen summers past he had taken his pleasure in the garden--had chased marauding cats, or bounded after apples with any playfellow of the hour, while his glad bark rang again; or as in later days, had gravely followed the steps of his mistress about the walks, or rolled upon the grass, or watched with lazy but unfailing interest his friend the Gardener at work. Four words graven on a little white marble tablet that shines amidst the dark ivy-leaves on the wall record his name and character:--

Already the Snowdrops are giving way before impatient Hepaticas and Primroses, the bare Elms are thickening with purple, and we begin to count the Gentian buds. Everywhere Nature repairs herself in ceaseless round. Only in our human lives some vacant spots there may be, where the grass will not grow green again.

E. V. B.

HUNTERCOMBE MANOR, February, 1890

OCTOBER.

Fas est hic, Indulgere Genio.

OCTOBER 17, 1882.

Of Nuns and White Owls; Yews, Thrushes, and Nutcrackers.

THE GARDEN’S STORY. It is only eleven years old, though the place itself is an old place--an old place without a history, for scarce a record remains of it anywhere that we have ever found. Its name occurs on a headstone in the parish churchyard, and on one or two monuments within the chancel of the parish church. There is brief mention of it in Evelyn’s Diary. It is there described as “a very pretty seate in the forest, on a flat, with gardens exquisitely kept, tho’ large, and the house, a staunch good old building.” It seems George Evelyn (the author’s cousin) was amongst the many who have lived here once. At that time eighty acres of wood surrounded the house, where now there lies a treeless stretch of flat cornfields. Quite near, across the road, are the ruins of an ancient nunnery. Our meadow under the high convent wall is called the Walk Meadow, because here the nuns used to walk. The great Walnut tree, which they might possibly have known, only died after we came. It was cut down for firewood, and its hollows were full of big chestnut-coloured “rat bats,” very fierce and strong. At that time also white owls lived in the ruins, and used to come floating over the lawn at twilight--until the days of gun licenses, since when, they have disappeared. Dim legends surround the place, but nothing clear or certain is known or even said, and there is not a ghost anywhere. All we know is, that since taking possession, wherever a hole is dug in the garden to plant a tree, the spade is sure to strike against some old brick foundation of such firm construction that they have to use the pick to break it up. Bones of large dogs also are found all about the place whenever the ground is broken--remains of the watch dogs, or hunting dogs, of the olden time--also quaintly shaped tobacco-pipes. I know of nothing to support the tradition that monks abode here once. There were signs of an upstairs room having at some remote time been used as a chapel; a piscina in the wall and a narrow lancet window having been found and destroyed, when the house was in the builder’s hands eleven years ago. Broken arches, also, and mouldings in chalk and stone, were dug up out of the foundations of some outhouses at the same time. “They say” there is an underground passage between the Abbey and the house, but we do not believe it, and we do not believe in the murder of a monk for his money, said to have been committed by a nun in the upper room now a guest-chamber. Such vague traditions are sure to hang around old walls, like mists about a damp meadow. Very distinct, however, and carved in no vague characters, are certain initials and dates still visible on the stems of the trees in the Lime avenue. For in old times--

“Fond lovers, cruel as their flame, Cut in these trees their mistress’ name.”

When the trees are bare and the western sky is bright, you can see them quite plainly--large capital letters, often a pair, enclosed in a large heart with the date. The dates run from 1668 on to late in 1700. Those old village lovers must have had sharp pen-knives, which cut deep! They and their names have long passed away and been forgotten; but, for so much as is traced in the living bark, these Limes have proved as good as any marble monument; much better than the long wooden “rails” which are still in fashion hereabouts. Since the place was ours this short avenue of twenty-four trees has been taken in from the public road; and now the Limes give us cool shade and fragrance and many midges in the hot summer days. I fear there is nothing more to be discovered about the past history of the House than we now already know. We must be content, and follow as we best may George Herbert’s concise admonition--

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