Property News · March 27, 2017

The gardener becomes a priestess of fire: Country diary 100 years ago


Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 26 March 1917Kew Gardens, March 24For several glorious hours the gardener has been feeding a bonfire in a snowstorm. The great piles of damp straw which had packed the fruit trees and of herbaceous canes – bocconia and Michaelmas dairies and phloxes and chrysanthemums – had been waiting and waiting in the hope that they would dry. But they didn’t and the spring tidying called for their abolition. It seemed to the prudent people in the house as if the gardener had chosen the very worst possible day, for scarcely had a start been made, when the first flakes began to whirl around, light, but threatening. “Come in!” they cried. “Are you a lunatic? You’ll get wet. You’ll be frozen! It’ll never burn!” But the gardener shook her head. She may have been a lunatic, but she was having the most glorious holiday, and the song of the hissing, spluttering fire, fanned by the rising wind to a roar, was an exultant song. The coils of smoke, first thick and shapely, ascended in the still air, and no fire was seen. Then came a gust which blew it in a formless sheet away, and a flame leapt. Quickly the small beginning was fed with more fuel, a little at a time and chosen from the driest portion. The wind rose and became an auxiliary; of puckish temper, however, for he blew all round the compass, and it seemed to the gardener that he wilfully dogged her steps, so as always to puff into her eyes. Every now and then she had perforce to close them, and the delicious pungency made her cough, too. But he would veer again and show her a flaring corner to be quickly fed. As the heat grew more and more of the damp stuff was piled on and a great incandescent mound was formed. The gardener became a priestess of fire, performing a dance of service to the god she had created. The wind rose and the blizzard grew, and the god defied them and grew with them. “Come snow, come wind or thunder, High up in air!” cried the gardener. Cold? She was glowing! Wet? It was delicious to be so wet and so smoky. By and by she would be dry and clean again, and the accomplished work would be a sober satisfaction for a season. But the song of the fire and the wild loveliness of whirling snow would be an exultant memory for all time. Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
Read more…The gardener becomes a priestess of fire: Country diary 100 years ago

You may also like...