Free A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley Page A

What ails you? You’d best have a cupful of rue to-night to clear your wits.”
    She spoke severely but in a minute her face brightened as she looked through the bushes.
    â€œLet us run down this alley where no one can see us. There’s the herb-garden at the end. You pick the herbs and I’ll go about my own affairs. I must have speech with Tom Snowball the gardener.”
    So I gathered the pungent grey-green herbs which grew on many small bushes in the Thackers herb patch where I had been before, and I sniffed the strong, clean smells which were those which permeated the Thackers kitchen, where bunches hung from the beams and walls. As I filled my large basket with the sprays and leaves I looked round at the flowers in surprise, for although my Aunt Tissie’s garden had many a bloom as I knew very well, for I went there every day for a posy, this garden was more carefully tended, and lay in straight lines and squares like a patterned quilt. There were the same small daffodils, which my aunt called “daffodowndillies” growing in masses by the walls, and white violets in snowdrifts filling the crannies of the path. Gillyvers striped and yellow sprung from the mossy walls, where a cat crouched eyeing me balefully. The beds were bordered with little low hedges of box, smooth as green walls, cut into trim shapes like the hedge. There were bushes of Lad’s-Love which sent out their rich fragrance, and lanes of lavender, and clumps of spraying rosemary, with many a rose-tree growing alongside, already in full leaf.
    I wandered about on the narrow paths which led me in a maze in and out and round about a dozen flower-beds which would soon be ablaze, each one bounded by the box hedge. Pale lilies-of-the-valley and blood-red primulas were out with bees hovering round them from the straw skeps perched on stone stools farther up the garden. Tall orange lilies, bronze-budded, stood like soldiers guarding them, and overhead darted the blue swallows.
    I went back to the herb patch and filled the basket. Over it I slipped the brown lid, and clasped it with a wooden pin which dangled from it. I gazed up at the blue sky and the rounded hills and woods. Then I heard laughter and away down the alley among the lilies I saw Tabitha and a young man. He wore leather leggings and rough, heavy shoes clogged with soil and a short leather coat on his back. His eyes were bright as an hawk’s, and his cheeks ruddy as a ripe wood-nut. His head was black and tousled, for he had taken off his round leather hat and stood with hair on end. He put his arm round Tabitha and kissed her with loud smacking kisses, which she seemed to enjoy. Then he saw me peeping over the hedge.
    â€œAh! The little spying wench from London! I’ll buss thee too if thou tell’st on me!” he cried laughing, and Tabitha sprang from his arms and came back very red in the face.
    â€œPenelope! Not a word to your aunt,” she warned me.
    She took the basket and together we returned along the garden path towards Thackers. When we reached the wicket I saw four ladies sitting under the cedar-tree, sewing and talking with their heads nodding together.
    â€œMaster Anthony’s two sisters and his mother, staying with us. Since his marriage they spend their time between Thackers and the big house at Darby, but they all love this place best.”
    I wanted to stop but Tabitha forbade me. “It is not for us to speak before we’re spoken to. Keep to your own side of the hedge,” said she.
    â€œI’ve seen them before, playing a game in a room,” I explained, and I peered over my shoulder at their quilted skirts and their proud, young faces and the sad eyes of the older lady.
    â€œMaybe. They’ve their own parlour upstairs, but you’ve no business spying! You munno enter except to wait on them,” said Tabitha, severely.
    We went past the open door of the church, and from within came the faint sounds of