LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 107, 3 October 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE HAUNTED GARDEN.

Concluded .

‘I think, my dear,’ remarked my wife, ‘ that I see some of the horseradish coming up again.’ Yes. It was coming up again. It did come up again. Do you know how horseradish grows? Did you ever hear of the Hydra, a beast with a hundred heads, which, if one was cut off, burst out with a new crop of half a dozen? Have you read of the marvellous vitality of wheat? Of its growing, when planted, after it had been clasped for thousands of years in the hand of a mummy? Have you heard of seeds, buried in the earth for unknown ages, germinating into new forms of vegetable life, when some railway cutting exposed them to air and light? Well, they are nothing to horseradish. Cut it up into pieces, and every piece sends out a dozen shoots and offsets; bury it, and it forces its way up; cast it down on the naked soil, and it puts up a shoot to the light, and sends a root into the earth; its stringy fibres run like a mole under the ground, and come up again in unexpected places a huge bunch of pungent green; it scatters seeds, and they grow in a season to seed and increase again. I learned all this, but too late. In another month my garden was a wilderness of coarse green. Every fragment that Samuel had dug in became a score, aye, a hundred plants. I tore them out of the walks, the beds, the borders, uprooting my trim box-edging and destroying my neat gravel-walks.

At last my wife said to me, ‘ George, I am so sorry that you should be mortified in this manner by that dreadful horseradish. Let us get it carefully dug up, and we will have the garden sown with grass and make it into a lawn. A few nice shrubs will look nearly as well as the flowers, and we shall have no trouble with them. ’

So we got a man to fork up the plants as well as he could,, and my garden disappeared; the roots were carefully thrown aside in a heap, and grass was sown over the place where my flowers had been so gay. But the grass would not grow into a lawn. It did certainly come up here and there in patches, but, before it could grow, the broad curling leaves of my enemy began to spread over it. It was vain to cut it down; it sprang up again in a day or two; the fine threads from the roots grew quickly into cords, so that to pull it up was to destroy my lawn. I humbled myself so far as to send for Samuel Spikenard; but all the advice he gave me was to try sodding, saying, ‘ Them as ’ad it put in orts for to know ’ow for to get it hout.’ He treated me as one would do who sees a gleam of returning reason in a lunatic. ‘ I will have it sodded, said I to Clara; ‘it will make a croquet-ground, ’ (The game had just then been invented.) Hot long after this my neighbor, old Mr Dunlop, came to call on me. He was an old salt, and had been a captain of a ship, where he had seen some rough service. He had a mast fully rigged in his garden, and two ship’s carronades, and a pile of shot menaced all those who approached his verandah. His head was bald and shining, and his strong heavy face face was of the color of mahogany. His back was broad as that of a turtle, and his legs were like pillars set wide apart. He had been a strict disciplinarian in his ship, and he now ruled his house and garden by the most rigid and inflexible laws. Hot a thing was out of its place; nothing was permitted to go wrong, especially among his geraniums, pansies, and carnations, which engrossed his whole care and attention. Do you know how a man of that kind can swear when he is angry? Do you know how ho can act when he is crossed? Yes; you have not been so long in the world without knowing something about it!

It was five o’clock in the morning, when I hurried down to answer his impatient rattle at my door (I am not an early riser). I dare not repeat the language he used. Clara looked out of the window, fearing he would kill me, and trembled as she listened. ‘Do you know, sir—do you know that you’ve been and piled five tons of nasty stinking horseradish against my hedge, sir, and that it’s grown through, sir, into my garden, and is smothering the carnation that I was going to send’to Dogglebury Flower Show, sir ? Do you think, sir, that, because you are such an idiot, sir, as to grow it yourself, sir, that I want it straying on my premises, sir ? I hold you liable for all consequences, sir ; and if you don’t have it cleared away, nr, before the end of the week, I’ll . . . ’. ” The remainder of the sentence I cannot record here.

I stammered out my regret, and promised in a faltering voice to have it removed. Alas! how often had I tried in vain to remove it!

The next day the pile was taken to the opposite side of the garden. I tried to burn it, but it would not burn ; it was growing at every joint, and was as green and moist as it could be. How bare the hedge looked where it had been, and I could see through it the long shoots that had crept into my neighbor’s garden. ‘ I will try to pull them out,’ said I to myself, but my heart sank in my bosom. I knew how vain it would be to try to get rid of the plague. I carefully drew the long, ropy roots towards me. 1 saw them leave a long furrow in my neighbor’s soil! Some of his choice flowers seem to move ! I gave a stronger pull; there was a crash of glass, and'l fell backwards, drawing through the hedge the prize carnation entangled with my intrusive plant; and I had pulled down also a glass frame, to the utter ruin of the remaining flowers. From that time forth I had an enemy next door. My poor wife could no longer walk in the garden, owing to the growling and cursing of the venerable tar. Her health began to droop. The ground had been sodded, and was kept mown, but a day a two would cover it with the noxious plant. Simpson, who used to be considered the crack croquet player, would join our little croquet parties now and then; but he complained that his eyes smarted so much on my ground that he never make a decent stroke. The lawn had to be fresh mown for every party, and the horrid effluvium of the root filled our nostrils Our croquet meetings were finally broken up by old Dunlop. He had treasured up his vengeance and my stray roots for a fitting opportunity ; and at our last meetin or lie poured a shower of roots and leaves over the hedge, mingled with a torrent of imprecations on the fools who liked horseradish, and who should have all he had to spare.

‘Let us leave this place, Clara,’ said I; ‘ I can endure this no longer; we will let this house and take another. ‘Oh George !’ replied she ; ‘it is just what I have been wishing for. Baby has been nearly poisoned in the garden with a piece of that dreadful stuff that he picked up ; and when it bit his dear little tongue he rubbed his eyes with his fingers, till they are as red as fire, and, oh ! so dreadfully sore ! Yes, let us go ! ’ At last we found a young couple who were willing to take the house ; the garden had been nicely mown the day they came to look at it, and they only remarked on the curious smell. ‘ I should like some flowerbeds cut out in this grass,’ said the bride. I held my breath, and said nothing. We soon after left for another house further away from town. You may be sure I looked carefully to see what was growing in the garden ! But my tenants did not stay long; they said nothing could be done with the garden, and that we must have been accustomed to supply all London with horseradish. For a long time the house was unlet. Mr Dunlop was dead, and I the place occasionally. It was embedded in a forest of rough leaves. At last I found a tenant who, I thought, would suit me exactly. ‘ I don’t care for the garden,’ said he. ‘lf you’ll do a little papering and whitewashing, and build me a stable for my hunters, you can pave the garden and make it into a yard, and. as the situation suits me, I will take it on a five years’ lease. ’ You may be sure I was not long in coming to terms, and in having the stable run up and the garden nicely paved over. ‘And now,’ thought I, ‘that matter is settled for good.’ You may judge what were my feelings when Tom Tandem, my tenant, came, with a long face, into my countinghouse three months afterwards, saying, ‘ I want you to take that lease off my hands. I am not particular about terms, but I must be rid of the place. There is some nasty plant that grows between the paving stones of the yard, and we cannot get it out, though half the pavement has been disturbed by pulling at it. But that is not the worst. A lot of it began to grow in the stable, and when my groom pulled it up, sir, there was a smell just like new mustard, that set my horses coughing and kicking and sneezing and kicking as if they were mad. They have smashed the stalls to pieces, and half-killed the groom into the bargain.” ‘Call to-morrow,’ said I, ‘and in the meantime I will think it. ’ But I mentally determined that I would not not let my tenant off his lease if I knew it.

The next morning I received a letter and my tenant at the same moment. Having read my letter, I turned to him. ‘ Tandem/ said I, ‘lam glad to be able to meet your wishes, and to let you off your lease on easy terms. The ‘ Cheatem and Doer’ Kailway Company have just sent me notice that they require the property that you occupy for their new Swindlum Junction Extension, and I mean to send them word that they can have it on reasonable terms, and without giving themselves the trouble of passing it through the hands of professional valuers. ’ Well, the “ Cheatem and Doer ’ took my house and demolished it. The country lane, the Elm Tree Row disappeared; a great cutting, like a half-healed scar, ran through the desolated fields, where bricks were now burned, and shabby little rows of houses, fit neither for town nor country, sprang up. Close by Elm Kow Station there was a rough verdure on the bank, though all else was black cinders or grimy clay. I lived some way down the new line now, and noted that last landmark of my old residence, where all else had disappeared before the ruthless tide of so-called improvement. I knew what it was, but it was no trouble to me now. Two years after the line was opened my aunt Judith sat, as usual at Christmas time, at my table, ‘Ah George !’ sighed she, ‘ I wish I had never taken that thousand pounds from you to invest in that shocking ‘ Cheatem and Doer ’ Line ! Ever since they made the new Swindlum Extension they have never paid a a penny of dividend, and they tell me I could not give the shares away.’ No doubt she would have run on with a long catalogue of troubles about her railway property, had not the wail of a wretched song from the hard-frozen road fallen upon our ears. Somehow the note seemed familiar to me, and I went to the window. A poor, broken-down, ragged old man was shuffling along the street. In spite of his battered hat and cracked boots, his ten days’ beard, his shrunken limbs, and withered, faminestriken face, I recognised my old gardener, Samuel Spikenard. One feels soft-hearted at Christmas time; so, forgetting the wrong he had done me, I ran to the door and called him. ‘Why, Samuel,’said I, ‘what has brought you to this?’

‘Ay, sir,’ replied he, ‘you may well ax that. I’m a ruined man, sir—a ruined man. Ay, dreary me. To think o’ my hewtiffle gardin, as I owned an’ tended like a pet child.’

‘And what has become of it, Samuel? Why did you part with it, when you were doing so well, and with so many new customers.coming to your neighborhood too by the Swindlum Extension?’

‘ ’Twas that as done it, sir. Yes, yes! that done it. You know, sir, I was alius so pertickler to hav’ rich, fresh soil put in every year; that was the secret of my flowers, sir; an’ two year ago, sir, a contractor come to me, and ‘ Samuel,’ sez he, * I’ve a splendid lot o’soil as ’ll suit you.’ ‘ Where does it come from?’ sez I, for I was alius so pertickler to know as it should come from a right sort o’ place. ‘ Well,’ sez he, ‘ it’s jest been dug from a stable and stableyard, as the new line’s a goin’ through, an’ it’s as full o’ likkid menure as it can be.’ ‘Send me ten loads,’ sez I. So when the soil came, sir (my eyes isn’t as good as they was, sir), there was a smell about it as reminded me o’ you, sir; but, thinks I, it’s the the likkid manure. So I digs it into the strawberries, an’ I pots all my choice plants in it, and spreads the rest through my gar din. You can guess the rest sir, I sees by yer face. Yes, sir ! So it was, sir ! When I digged that ere orsradish into you, Sir, I never thought as ’ow it would come back to be digged into myself; but so it was sir. Next summer it was orsradish here, and orsradish there, and everywheres around me. 1 fought it till the next spring, but it beats me then, and I had to turn out. I was too old to go out gardnin,’ and here I am, sir, as you see.’

I ga's e him five shillings. I confess my eye brimmed with a tear. ‘ Samuel, ’ said I, * you know what retribution is ; but I forgive you,’ I have not seen him since, X

know not whether the evil spirit that haunts that spot, in the form of horseradish, is laid by my forgiveness ; we shall see. But here comes my eldest son from school, and I can see ‘ news ’ in his face.

‘ Well, my boy ! What wonder have you to tell us of to-day ?’ ‘ Oh papa, have you heard of the frightful accident at Elm Bow Station to-day? A poor old man tripped just at the same part of the platform that Sir Joseph Dollars fell down on, when he broke his collar-bone, for which he recovered six thousand pounds damages from the ‘ Cheatem and Doer ’ Company. The poor old man fell under the wheels of the express train, and is killed. They say there is a lot of horseradish from some old garden under that part of the platform, and that it forces up the paving tiles so that it is impossible to keep them level for a fortnight together. ’ ‘ Did you hear the man’s name, my boy. ’ ‘ Yes, papa; it was rather a curious one; it was Samuel Spikenard. ’ My wife looked at me; and said, in a low voice, ‘My dear, you are right. The place is haunted!’

The West Chester (Pa.) News takes a f ractical view of the cremation question, t says ; —“With some people cremation is only a question of time. If it don’t come in this world, it is sure to come in the next.” The boy who, when asked to what trade he would wish to be brought up, replied, “I will be a trustee, because ever since papa has been a trustee we have had pudding for dinner,” was a wise child in his generation. The Academy states that the British Museum has just acquired a marble head which Mr Newton, on his visit to Branchidae in 1872, had pointed out cf the same type as the statues from this spot now in the Lycian Room of the Museum, Several of these statues being headless, it was possible that the head might be found to fit one of them ; but such has not been the case. It is in a state of preservation unusually good for sculpture in marble of this extremely early period, and so far it is a valuable acquisition ; but its arrival at this moment is particularly interesting from the comparison which it presents to an archaic head and some fragments lately obtained from Ephesus. The Ephesian head, exhibited in the new Elgin Room of the Museum, is finer altogether, but the type is the same, and from this it will be inferred that the style of the Branchidae figures was not of a local character, but prevailing along the coast of Asia Minor for the time.