LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 106, 2 October 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE HAUNTED CARDEN. What is it to be haunted ? Who can explain or understand the laws which regulate the “night side of nature,” or trace to their source the phenomena that seem to stand beyond those ordinary facts of every day experience, which long custom lias caused us to look upon as a settled order of the universe, though they are truly all miracles and wonders, into whose remote depths we cannot penetrate ? Yes ; we may well ask, “What is it to be haunted ?” It were perhaps best to pass over, without comment, the most recent manifestations which the wisdom and enlightment of this nineteenth century have produced, and to refrain from trying to fathom the shallow mysteries that require the intervention of a “medium” to interpret them, lest perchance they should rap out to us on the table an order to sign a cheque for a few hundred pounds in favour of the medium, pelt us with stale fruit, or rattle trumpets and accordions about our ears in a dark room. These beings seem, indeed, in their spiritual state, to profit so little by the expensive and liberal education bestowed on them in their lifetime by their parents, and to have sunk from the entertaining, learned, and genial friends we once knew, the men of power and influence the world once admired, into such very illiterate and stupid dolts, such feeble inanities, that the less we have to do with them the less we shall expose our character and reputation to the deterioration and disgrace which necessarily arise from keeping low company. It is, however, possible for a man or a place to be haunted. I did not believe it once, but Ido now. ‘ Oh, yes!’ you tell me; ‘ one can be haunted by remorse for evil deeds, by a horrid secret, by the memory of neglected opportunities that never returned, by lost or by buried, but unforgotten, love, &c. ’ But I had a haunted garden! Don’t tell me that yours is haunted too—by the cats that roll on your choice flowers, and shriek under your window at night, making you start from your pillow with your hair on an end, and with a vague sensation that murder or burglary is going on close at hand.

My garden was haunted by a plant! Now, don’t laugh and say that it was exactly the right thing to haunt a garden, and that 3 ou wish you had plenty to haunt yours. 1 had plenty before I had done with it; and to this day I turn my head away when I pass the greengrocer’s, lest I should find my old enemy following me still. You must know that when I married (it is years ano now), I bought a pleasant little villa near what is now the “Great Cheatem and Doer ” southern railway terminus. It was a pretty place then, though it is a wilderness of bricks now ; there was a shady lane leading to the house, and primroses grew in the hedge-bottoms in spring, though it was near enough to town for me to come home and dine after concluding business. You remember the little strip of garden behind the house, and how it was divided from that of my neighbor by a well kept privet edge. You saw it a few months after I went to live there; and you know how nicely I laid it out with small gravel walks and intricately-shaped beds bordered with box. Ah ! my friend, when you went away to India, you little thought what trouble that small plot of ground would bring to me; how one, mistake in its cultivation would embitter some of the best L years of my life ! “Clara,” said I to my wife, “with a little garden, such as ours, it is of no use trying to grow vegetables or fruit; you know, my dear, every potato and cabbage we grew would cost us half-a-crown; and, perhaps, after all, there would not be one worth eating. Let us cultivate flowers only, and then we can look after them ourselves, and a gardener can come twice a week, just to do the rough work, and dig and rake and hoe the ground when it wants it.”

‘Oh yes, George!’ replied my wife; ‘and I know of such a nice old man who will garden for us; he keeps a small nursery ground of his own, and he says he can spare just two days a week from his work; and then, too, he can supply us with plants as many as we like to buy. So, if you wish, we will go and see him at once and engage him, for old Mr Dunlop, who lives next door, tells me that we ought not to miss him, and you know Mr Dunlop cultivates choice geraniums, carnations, and pansies, which he sends to all the flower-shows in the county, and, he says, if it Avere not that Samuel Spikenard, the hardener, nearly always has better plants than his oavii, he should certainly Avin every prize that he puts in for.’

So Ave went to the nursery gardens. Samuel Spikenard undertook to do all that Ave wished, and for a feAV happy months no garden could be gayer than the little patch behind Elm Tree row. Such pelargoniums, fuchsias, and verbenas—such dahlias and petunias—l never saAV before nor since! It was Christmas time, and a few old friends Avere to dine Avith us. On Christmas Eve the good cheer had just come in from the grocer’s, the baker’s, and the butcher’s—f rom the last a splendid sirloin, and from the greengrocer’s the vegetables and trimmings -—when my Avife came into the room with a serious face. ‘George,’ she said, ‘ I have scolded Turnips, the greengrocer, over and over again about his vegetables not being fresh and nice, but it is of no use. Just look what herbs he has sent. This parsley is just like an old rag, and I might as Avell scrape your walking-stick as this horseradish. You know it has no flavour at all unless it is fresh, and your aunt Judith is coining to our Christmas dinner, and she is so fond of it. It is all very well, my dear, to groAv doAvers in the garden, but you really must let me have a corner to grow some herbs, so that we may run out and gather them fresh Avhenever they are wanted.’ Could I do otherAvise than fall in Avith so reasonable a suggestion ? Alas! had I knoAvn AA'liat Avould folloAA r , I Avould cheei - fully have paid Turnips a sovereign for every penny bunch of parsley rather than have taken the unadvised step that I Avas led to do.

Before the early spring came round again Samuel Spikenard was busy at his woik, turning over the ground and planting his bulbs in the anticipation of a glorious show of crocuses and tulips. I was strolling round the garden in the twilight, when the request of my wife for a herb-bed came to my recollection.

‘Samuel,’ I said to him, ‘I want a few herbs grown this season, if you can find a spare corner for them. Just a little patch

of parsley, and some sage and mint and thyme, and a root or two of horseradish.’ ‘Well, sir,’ said Samuel, ‘I thinks if a gentleman means to grow flowers as he ought to grow ’em, and if he wants a marketgarden, he’d better hire a market-gard’ner to tend his bit o’ ground ; an’ I thinks, sir, as you’ll do a deal better not to heve none o’ that sort o’ rubbish a mixin’ with my flowers here, for there isn’t never a square inch as I can spare ’em, and Turnips, the greengrocer, he’ll sell ’em cheaper and better nor ever you’ll grow ’em here, sir.’ The mention of Turnips, and the recollection of the musty trimmings to the Christmas beef, determined me, when I ought to have yielded to Samuel’s better knowledge. ‘Samuel,’ said I, firmly but kindly, ‘I desire you will plant the herbs I have mentioned, and if you can find no room elsewhere, you must put them here and there amongst the flowers—just a few in each bed, where they will not be conspicuous.’ ‘Well sir,’ returned he, ‘that’s not my way, but howsumever, if you borders it, sir, I’ll do it;’ and he wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and looked sulky. ‘Samuel,’ said I, ‘I order you to follow the directions which I have given. ’ Next day the seeds were brought and sown (just a little bit in each bed), and neatly labelled.

‘ What are those things, Samuel ?’ I asked observing about a dozen little whitey-brown sticks in his hand.’

‘These ere’s orsradish,’ said he, ‘as you bordered me to plant; so I’m jest a stickin’ one on ’em in the middle of each bed.’ ‘Do you think one in each bed is enough, Samuel ?’ said I. ‘ Try half a dozen.’ ‘You’ll find ’em sufficient, sir,’ replied Samuel, with a grim smile. So they were planted and labelled like the rest. Spring came fully in, with its genial weather and its flowers ; when one day my wife came to me and said; ‘My dear George, how provoking it is that we cannot get a bit of horeradish to grow in the garden ! I have been looking at the place where Samuel stuck the label in February, and there is not the slightest sign of its coming up ; I do not believe the tiresome man planted any. And did you ever see the garden so weedy before, George ? There is a sort of weed like a dock-leaf coming up all over every bed, and I have pulled it up, oh so often ! but there seems no end of it. It comes up in the night, I think, when one is not looking. I spoke to Sumuel about it, and asked him what it was; but all his answer was, ‘Ax master, mum, he to know, he orts; it’s none o’ my plantin’, mum. ’ ’ Samuel was working ’gloomily in the garden ; he seemed to have lost his love for it. The miserable weed my wife had noticed was green on all the beds ; the flowers were scanty and poor; the white stick labelled horserapish stuck up by itself in the middle of each bed. I was vexed, and, I dare say, I spoke harshly. ‘Mr Spikenard,’said I, ‘I am afraid you have lost all pride in my garden ; look how weedy it is ! And you could oblige me by raising a few plants of horseradish. I believe you never put in those roots at all.’ Samuel laid down his spade, and ran his horny fingers through his grizzled hair. He evidently took me for a lunatic, and be lieved that what I now said was the development of a mania that had first shown itself in February. ‘ Orsradish ;’ exclaimed he; “ good lawks! orsradish ! Surely you don’t mean to say as yer wants more on it? Andlook at my garden, as was bewtiflle, overrun with it ? But I won’t serve no one as is gone out o’ his senses on the subjeck o’ orsradish! so I’ll leave yer, sir; I’ll leave yer service ; but I’ll jest dig over yer garden after the spring things is tuk up, and then p’raps ye’ll be happy with yer orsradish!’ ‘ Samuel, you are insane !’ I replied. “ Look at those labels ; not a single leaf near them; and you tell me that the garden is overrun with horseradish !’ ‘ Good lawks, sir !’ and what do yer call call them ?’ pointing as he spoke to what I had taken for dock-leaves. ‘Did ever a gentleman’s garden look sich a sight as that before! Don’t ye know, sir, as orsradish never grows straight up at wunst, but it strikes out roots as runs all round like a star ?’ ‘Oh!’ said I, somewhat mollified; ‘then it has really grown, and come up, after all !’ And I went cheerfully to my wife to explain how matters stood, and that the coarselooking plants, which she had supposed to be weeds were really fine specimens of that useful but pungent vegetable which she had so long coveted. ‘My dear,’ said I, ‘you can pull up the spare plants and leave a few to grow to maturity, and we will have roast beef and horseradish of our own growing when Aunt Judith comes to see us again.’ The next week Samuel Spikenard came and took up the spring bulbs, which had ceased flowering. He was quiet and surly; but there was a malicious twinkle in his eye which I did not understand. This work completed, he began to dig over the garden for its summer show of flower". My aunt was to dine with us the next day, and I had my reasons for keeping on good terms with her; she was wealthy, and her money helped me in my business. Dinner-time came. My wife met me with tears in her eyes. ‘Oh George!’she said, ‘ Aunt Judith is here, and dinner is ready, and that tiresome, nasty Samuel has dug over the garden and cut rip every single plant of horseradish into little bits, and aunt won’t eat beef without it. ’ It could not be helped. There was no time to send to Turnips, and if there had been I would not have humilated myself to him, after having proudly told him that in fixture I should grow my own herbs. So dinner was eaten, and we all were cross and out of temper over it. My aunt eat only potatoes and gravy, and refused beef shorn of her favorite garnishing. Before she left she said to me, ‘Oh George! I wish to invest that thousand pounds that I lent you in ‘ Cheatem and Doer ’ stock, and I am sorry to have to ask you to repay it to me so soon, but you must contrive to let me have it next week.’ I paid her the money, but it injured my business, and, as I sat at the window, looking into my garden, now bare and desolate (for Samuel had left me, and I had not replaced him), I thought bitterly of my fancy for growing my own herbs, and what it had brought upon me. To be continued.