PAGE 31
Mary’s Meadow
by
Though I have not accepted Saxon, he spends most of his time with us. He likes to come for the night, because he sleeps on the floor of my room, instead of in a kennel, which must be horrid, I am sure. Yesterday, the Old Squire said, “One of these fine days, when Master Saxon does not come home till morning, he’ll find a big mastiff in his kennel, and will have to seek a home for himself where he can.”
Chris has been rather whimsical lately. Father says Lady Catherine spoils him. One day he came to me looking very peevish, and said, “Mary, if a hedgehog should come and live in one of your hedges, Michael says he would be yours, he’s sure. If Michael finds him, will you give him to me?”
“Yes, Chris; but what do you want with a hedgehog?”
“I want him to sleep by my bed,” said Chris. “You have Saxon by your bed; I want something by mine. I want a hedgehog. I feel discontented without a hedgehog. I think I might have some thing the matter with my brain if I didn’t get a hedgehog pretty soon. Can I go with Michael and look for him this afternoon?” and he put his hand to his forehead.
“Chris, Chris!” I said, “you should not be so sly. You’re a real slyboots. Double-stockings and slyboots.” And I took him on my lap.
Chris put his arms round my neck, and buried his cheek against mine.
“I won’t be sly, Mary,” he whispered; and then, hugging me as he hugs Lady Catherine, he added, “For I do love you; for you are a darling, and I do really think it always was yours.”
“What, Chris?”
“If not,” said Chris, “why was it always called MARY’S MEADOW?”
NOTE.–If any readers of “Mary’s Meadow” have been as completely puzzled as the writer was by the title of John Parkinson’s old book, it may interest them to know that the question has been raised and answered in Notes and Queries.
I first saw the Paradisi in sole Paradisus terrestris at Kew, some years ago, and was much bewitched by its quaint charm. I grieve to say that I do not possess it; but an old friend and florist–the Rev. H. T. Ellacombe–was good enough to lend me his copy for reference, and to him I wrote for the meaning of the title. But his scholarship, and that of other learned friends, was quite at fault. My old friend’s youthful energies (he will permit me to say that he is ninety-four) were not satisfied to rust in ignorance, and he wrote to Notes and Queries on the subject, and has been twice answered. It is an absurd play upon words, after the fashion of John Parkinson’s day. Paradise, as AUNT-JUDY’S readers may know, is originally an Eastern word, meaning a park, or pleasure ground. I am ashamed to say that the knowledge of this fact did not help me to the pun. Paradisi in sole Paradisus terrestris means Park–in–son’s Earthly Paradise!
J. H. E., February, 1884.