Man is an autobiographical animal, he speaks only from his thimbleful of human experience, and the I, I, I, of his talk drops out like an insistent drip of water. Even the knowledge we gain from books has to be grafted on to the knowledge we have of life before it bears fruit in our minds. Like patient clerks we are always adding up the columns of facts, fancies, and ideas, and arriving at the very tiny total at the end of the day.

In order to give themselves scope when they wish to soliloquise, many authors address their conversation to a cat, a grandfather clock, a dog, a picture on the wall, or what-not. Cats, I think, have the preference. I have often wondered what Crome, the painter, said to his cat when he pulled hairs out of her to make paint-brushes; or what Doctor Johnson said to his cat Hodge, about Boswell. Having explained this much, I may easily be forgiven for repeating the conversation I had with a Stone Dog who sat on his haunches outside the door of a woodman’s cottage.

The cottage stood on the edge of a wood, and was, as I shall point out, a remnant of departed glory, of which the dog was the most pertinent reminder.

A cottage on the borders of a wood is in itself one of the most valuable pictures for a romance. A woodcutter may be in league with goodness knows how many fairies, elves, and witches. It is a place where heroes meet heroines; where kings in disguise eat humble pie; where dukes, lost in hunting a white stag, meet enchanted princesses.

The wood, of which I speak, was once, years ago—about three hundred years—part of the park of Tanglewood Court, an extensive property, an old house, a great family possession.

Gone, like last winter’s snow, were the family of Bois; gone the pack; gone the glories of the great family; gone the portraits, the armour, the very windows of Tanglewood Court, of which but a fine ruin remained. And the lane, a mere cart track, was all that was left of the fine sweep of drive to the house; and a tangled undergrowth under ancient trees all that stood for the grand avenue down which my Lord Bois had once ridden so madly. They call the lane Purgatory Lane, and they tell a story of wild doings and of a beautiful avenue, that cannot have its place here.

The great gates that once swung open to admit the carriage of Perpetua Bois (of the red hair, the full voluptuous figure, the smile Sir Peter Lely painted) were now two stone stumps at the feet of which two slots, green and worn, showed where the hinges had been. These fine gates once boasted, on the top of stone pillars, the greyhounds of Bois in stone. One of these dogs had been rescued from the undergrowth by the woodcutter, the other lies broken and bramble-covered in the wood. I wonder if they miss each other.

So you see I was addressing myself to a high-born Jacobean dog.

This dog, very calm and dignified, with a stone tail and a back worn smooth by wind and weather, sat with his back to the cottage which had been built out of the remains of the old stone lodge by a gentleman of the name of Bellington, who was afterwards found drowned in the lake. That lake held many secrets, indeed, some said (the woodcutter’s wife told me this) it held Lady Perpetua’s jewels. That did not concern me, for it held for me the finer jewels of Water Lilies that grew there in profusion, though I will not deny that the idea of Lady Perpetua gave an added touch of romance. How often had the clear water of the lake reflected her satin-clad figure and the forms of her little toy spaniels?

It so happening, I sat by the Stone Dog, on a wooden seat, to eat my lunch one day, and dropped into conversation with him, after a bite or two, in the most natural way in the world.

There was the wood in front of us, blue-purple with wild Hyacinths. There was the old cottage behind clothed with rambling Creepers; a carpet of smooth rabbit-worn grass at our feet; a profusion of Primroses, Wind Flowers, and budding trees before our eyes. There was also the enchanting hum of wild bees (like those wild bees Horace knew, that sought the mountain of Matinus in Calabria, and there “laboriously gathered the grateful thyme”) to soothe us in our solitude.

I addressed him then, “Stone Dog,” I said, “this is a very beautiful wood. Nature, laughing at the ghosts of the Bois family, steel-clad, periwigged, or patched, has reclaimed her own.”

The dog answered me never a word but kept his gaze fixed in front of him as if he saw visions in the wood.

“This was a Park once,” said I, “the pleasure-ground of great folk, where they might sport in playful dalliance”—I thought that sounded rather Jacobean.

But, as I looked at him, it seemed, as though he listened for the sound of wheels, and turned his sightless eyes to look for the figure of Lady Perpetua.

“She was very fair,” I said, understanding him, knowing that he had seen many generations drive through the gates he sat to guard. “She would come down to the lodge-keeper’s house to take her breakfast draught of small ale. Poor Lady Perpetua, she was a good house wife, and saw to the pickling of Nasturtium buds, and Lime Tree buds, and Elder roots; and ordered the salting of the winter beef; and looked to it that plenty of Parsnips were stored to eat with it. What sights you must have seen!”

Even as I talked there emanated from the Stone Dog some atmosphere of the past, and we were once more in a fair English park, with its orangeries, and houses of exotic plants, and its maze, and leaden statues, and cut yew trees, and lordly peacocks. The great trees had been cut down, and the timber sold; acres of land, once grazing ground for herds of deer, were ploughed; here, in front of us, was the tangled wood, a corner of what was, once, a wild garden—a fancy of Lady Perpetua’s, no doubt, who loved solitudes, and sentimental poetry:

Perhaps it was here she met young Hervey; perhaps it was here Lord Bois found them, cutting initials on one of those very trees, G. H. and P. B. and two hearts with an arrow through them. Ah! then the smile Sir Peter Lely painted faded to a quiver of the lips. Lord Bois looked at the trembling mouth and his glance flew to the initials on the tree. “So this is why, madam,” I could hear him say, “you took to sylvan glades like a timid deer; so this is why you coaxed me up to London, leaving you alone—but, not unprotected.” I could see his sneering bow to young Hervey—a bow that was a blow.

And all the while I was only seeing with the Stone Dog’s eyes. There was just the rippling sea of wild Hyacinths, the pale gold of the Primroses, the innocent white of the wood Anemones—like fairies’ washing—and the purple haze of bursting buds.

Once the Stone Dog had looked along an avenue and had seen a vista of Tanglewood Court, and smooth terraces, and bright beds of flowers, with Lords and Ladies walking up and down, taking the air, discussing fruit trees, and Dutch gardening, and glass hives for bees. Now, he saw nothing but the woods all brimming with Spring flowers: a garden made by Nature.

And then I thought I saw one Bluebell detach itself from its fellows and come wafting to us with a fairy’s message, but it was a bright blue butterfly who sailed, rejoicing in the sun. Somehow the butterfly reminded me of the Lady Perpetua, soft and smiling, and fluttering in the sun: as if she had returned to her woods in that guise to hover near the tree, the trysting-place, on which the initials were cut.

I said as much to the Stone Dog, but received no answer.

“Stone Dog,” I said, “England is a very wonderful place: every park, every field, every little wood is full of stories. I cannot pass a park gate without thinking of the men and women who have been through it. What a Garden of History the whole place is! I’ll warrant a Roman has kissed a Saxon girl in this very place, for there’s a camp not far off—perhaps you have seen twinkling ghostly watch-fires gleaming in the night. Young Hervey’s dead, but you never saw him die; they fought in the garden on the smooth grass, and the story goes that he slipped, and Bois ran him through as he lay on the grass. What flowers grow over his head now? And Perpetua is dead. They say she ran out and saw her lover dead, and bared her breast to her husband’s sword. The grass was wet with her blood when you saw Lord Bois ride madly down the drive, through the gates, and out into the open country. The smile Sir Peter Lely painted is carved by the hand of Death. She was only a girl, after all. Who places flowers on her grave?”

Meanwhile the sun shone on the Bluebells, and struck odd leaves of the trees, picking them out with a fanciful finger till they shone like green fires.

Then the idea came to me that this wood held the spirit of Lady Perpetua fast for ever. The Bluebells were the satin sheen of her dress (blue like the Lely portrait), the red-brown autumn leaves and the dead Bracken were her hair; the Wind Flowers, like her body linen; the Violets, her eyes; the Primroses, her breath; the Cowslips, her golden ornaments; the Daisy petals like her pure white skin. A gentle breeze stirred all the flowers together, and—behold! there she was, alive. The wood was yielding up her secret, as woods and flowers will do to those who love them.

So the Stone Dog and I had a bond of sympathy between us, the bond of old memories, and the wood united us with its store of romance and beauty: and he who loves wild flowers and woods, as well as walled gardens and trees clipped in images, may gather store of pictures for his mind.

So the afternoon passed in this pleasant manner, and I took opportunity to speak once more to the Stone Dog before the woodcutter’s children came home from school to spoil our peace.

I said, “There is no man so poor but he can afford to take pleasure in Bluebells, and, even if he live in a town, there are wild flowers for sale in the streets, and a bunch of Spring to be bought for a penny. And there is no man so rich that he can wall up the treasures of heaven, or build his walls so high but a Rose will peep over the edge. Poor and rich are free of their thoughts, and there are thoughts and enough to spare, in a hedgerow or a wood. Uncaged birds sing best, and wild flowers yield the purest scents. You and I are fellow dreamers, and this wood is our garden, and these birds our orchestra, and this grass our carpet; and even when I am underneath the brown earth I love so well, you will sit here and listen for the sound of carriage wheels, and wonder if you will catch a glimpse of red hair and a satin dress through the long-silent avenue. There are mountains, Stone Dog, that still feel the pressure of the foot of Moses; and hills under which Roman soldiers lie; and there are woods growing where orchard gardens were; and gardens planted where the wild boar once ravaged.”

After I had said this came wild shouts, and the laughter of children, and a great clatter as the four children of the woodcutter came running from the village school.

As I left that place, and turned, before a bend of the road shut out the sight of the wood, I saw the sea of Bluebells, and the sky above, the Primroses and the Wind Flowers and last year’s leaves all melt into one. The figure they made was the figure of Lady Perpetua standing there smiling. Then I heard the wheels of a carriage on the road, and I could have sworn I saw the Stone Dog turn his head.