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■^ 118 1 2.5

1^ '■■ ""i^

MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

STANDARD REFERENCE MATERIAL 1010a

(ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2)

fc...r%>

'^^^^""y^-^y ^ ""'^

I gj=^—

4^^

'and TllK HKIDGK, WHKRK KVKRY ONE STOPS, AS BY INSTINCT,
TO I, KAN OVKR THK RAILS."

Ma psr Rii s 3 E LL M' t po i^d.

TORONTO:

Belfords, Clarke and Company.

1880.

CHICAGO:
KNIGHT i LEONARD, PRINTERS

V^^,J^,,;^>^^;.0,

•\>r^f\

The following pages contain an attenii>t to dulineate rocntry
scenery and country manners, as they exist in a small village in
the south of England. The writer may at least claim l!ie merit
of a hearty love of her subject, and of that !<•( al and personal
familiarity which only a 'ong r-.idence in one neighbourhood
could have enabled her to attain. litr dcscriptioas have always
been written on the spot and at the monunt, and in nearly every
instance with the closest and most resolute fidelity to the i)lace
and the people. If she be accused of having given a brigliter
aspect to her villagers than is usually met with in books, siie
cannot help it, and would not if she could. She has painted, as
they appeared to her, their little frailties and their many virtues,
under an intense and thankful conviction that in every condition
of life goodness and happiness may be found by those who seek
them, and never more surely than in the fresh air, the sli.idc, and
the sunshine of nature.

It may be well to notify that the selections in this volume
consist principally of those portions specified in the original
edition of 1824 as "Walks in the Country," — abounding in de-
scriptive word-painting of country scenes, which has few equals
in our language, and fully bearing out the loving enthusiasm for
the task evinced in the jjreface.

To rival such a pen with the pencil is no easy task; but it is
hoped that the si)irit of the authoress has been fairly rendered
by the artists engaged, whose patience and studious care the pro-
jector takes this opportunity of acknowledginq.

London, 1879.

Our Nii.LAGE

Fno&T . . . .

TflAW ....

The First Primrose

ViOLETING - - -

The Cowslip-Ball

'I'HE Hard Summer -

Nutting - . - .

The Visit ...

The Copse

The Wood ...

The Dell

The Old House at Aberleigh

The Shaw

Hannah Bint

The Fall of the Leaf

9
35
47
49
59
67
81

105

"3
'39
•47
159
169

'83
«9S

H^-

AKUANGKIi AM) ENGRAVED BY JAMES D. CDOPF.K.

SUBJECT.

The LcKldon - - . .

Titlc-pajjc - - . . .

Portrait of Marv F^ussell Mitford

Heading to Pretare

Heading to Contents -

Tail-piece - - - . .

Heading to List of Illustrations
Tail-piece - - . . .

Ash tree — lieading

iS<|iiirre! and birds

" The tidy, square, red cottage on the right hand "

■' He hangs over his gate"

The shoemaker

"She likes flowers, too" •

The blacksmith

The little parlour - . . .

Our cottage - . . ..

White cat among the geraniums

The Rose inn - . . .

AK t rST.

|'ac;r.

W. H.J. Moor

/•'mii/ii/tirce

TitU

a//er Haydon

- W. H.J. Hour

t»

id"

C. O. Ml RRAY

- W.H.J. Hoot

• C. O. MlRRAY

W. H.J. Hour

r^'ji-

L/ST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

SUBJP.CT.

Miss Pliccbe and the serjeant

" Come ! "

" Pictures(iiie wheeler's shop"

" Rebuke a sqiialling child "

ISov on the gate

Joliii Evans pruning

" Such a thorn!"

Lizzy and Mav romping

The Green Coninion

lloar-lrost

Wai{gon in the snow

The slide -

Tlie lieutenant skating

Avenue of oaks -

The deep lane

Kingfishers

Blackbird at the window

Brainble and holly

The inundation

Gabbling ducks -

Windy Marcli weather

The rural bridge -

Rachel Hilton

" Danghng stockings and shirts, swelled by the wind "

A country house ....

"Tears her pretty feet by vain scratchings"

" Li\ ing again in the clear 'right pool"

Primroses gathered ...

"A dull grey morning"

" Swallows haunt that pond " -

" Sheep and beautiful lambs"

Bean-setter ....

ARTIST.

I'ACH.

. C. O. MlRRAY

2.S

. W. H. J. Boot

C. O. Murray

- W.H.J. Boot

C. O. Murray

. W. H. J. Boot

C. O. Murray

- W. H. J. Boot

,33

^ ((

C. O. Murray

W. H.J. Boor

((

• **

C. O. Murray

d" W. H.J. Boot

C. O. Murray

. W. H. J. Boot

L/ST OF fLr.USTRAT/Oi\S.

SUBJECT.

An old larm-hDUse -

Tlie violet bank -

Gathered violets

Cowslips ...

Cows in the yard

A c;iniiic flirtation

The liieksy rivulet •

"(Jill pollaiils uieatlied with ivy

Cowslip-ball ■

The cuckoo

Lizzy after the butterfly

The passiui; storm

By the lireside

"Cold, cloudy, windv, wet"

The dusty road

Hollyhocks

Cricket

Joe Kirby

Jem Eusden -

The little hussar •

"What a train of rosy lif;ht!

Dipping al the well ...

" Hij;li elms will shut out the little twilight'
Return from the wheat-fleld
Nut-leaves - . - . .

Cottage, planted at the corner of a lane
Apple-gathering ....
Nutting - - . . .

May and the nuts - . . .

liasket of nuts - . . .

Aulmnn ride . . .

Sulkv horse - - . .

\V. 11. ] MCM.T

f'.?

('S

((

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C. O. MlKRAV

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W. 11. J. lioui

7«

C. O. Ml Ruw

7.S

W. H.J. Hoot

C. O. Ml kkay

«.S

((

W. U.}. Hoot

C. O. Ml UK w

'>^

W. 11. J. li.M.T

■'4

C. (). MUKU.W

./.

W. 11. J. Hnor

C. O. Murray

\Oi

103

\V. II. J. H,„,T

'"4

i".S

C. O. .Mlkii.w

106

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIOXS.

SITJKCT.

Sunset from the liill . . . .

Bcti Kirhy at sdiool ....

Cliililron round the bonfire - • - .

Rookery --..-.
llorse-clicslnuts . . . . .

Village elunch .....

"Miinini;i! niainma!" . . . ,

'J"1k' confjice roaii ....

" The l.uly ol the noocis" . . . .

The lerr:ice liis .....

The trio ......

Convolvulus .....

Skirts of the thieket . . . .

Saladin, Hiindle, and May

"Clear stream, windinj,' between clumps of elms"

Mrs. Sally Mearing ....

No matrimony . . . . .

Poor Jane Davis .....

I, ami) at bay ---...
Saladin repentant ....

Sujierl) ash tree . , . . .

Wood pigeons .....

Oak branch ......

Clouds and sunshine ....

Saladin and the gander . . . .

The tall elms .....

Gathering wood-sorrel . . . .

May and the hedge-hog ....

'J'imher .....

'I'he woodman .....

" Portentous grandeur" ...
Cornfield that leads to the dell -

,\K Tisr.

I'AOK.

W. H. J. Hoot

io8

C. O. Ml KKAY

III

113

\S. H. J. Hoot

ii6

C. O. MlKKAY

iiS

W. II. J. I!(.()T

I '9

I20

121

C. O. Murray

'-3

W. II.J. Boot

124

((

12,S

C. O. Ml RRAY

1J7

W. II. J. Door

i:!8

C. O. Ml RRAY

1-9

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13^

133

'34

1.36

W. II. J. Hoot

'.^7

C. O. Ml RRAY

'39

W. II.J. Hoot

140

((

141

C. O. Murray

142

W. H.J. HcoT

143

C. O. Murray

144

14s

146

148

\V. II.J. Hoot

150

'51

/, AV •/• OF n. I. ( .v Th'A IK J.V.S-.

i;.

Sl'llJECT.

Old bliml Robert
Tliedoll -
Ewe iiiul lamb
Moor-liens

Mr. Allen in the orclianl
Mrs. Allen leeding the poultry-
Pet baiilani -
Sunset on the I^oiKlon
".Shade of tliose balinv fir.s"
The bridfje
OKI ruined mansion -
Ki.sh pond
Ciatlierint; roses
Old boat-house
View Ironi the window
"A bright suiishinv afternoon "
Stray dog bei,'ging -
Mav and Dash
Painting the waggon
" Daddy, come home!" -
Gnorge Coper
" Harvest Home!"
Canine recognition -
Ivy

The Shaw -
"A clear pond " -
Hannah Hint milking
Watch -
Poor Jack
The farmer's gitt
Casket-making
Neptune ...

AKTIST.

rAOK.

C. (). Ml KKAY

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W. \\,\. Huor

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C. (.). Ml KK.W

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C. O. Mt KUAV

\V. H.J. H.M.r

170

'71

■'

'7,?

C. O. Ml KKAY

17.S

.76

W. II. J. H.Hir

17S

C. O. .Ml KKAY

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'\5

1S5

W. 11. J. lioor

186

1S7

1 89

C. O. Ml KKAV

190

191

192

194

"J.";

198

Sl'llJKCT.

L/SI' OF /Lf.USrRATJOXS.

Fall of the leaf
The lane •
The po.st-bov
Chililrc'ii at the well
Dash ami the phca-aiit
'i'lie pai-k (l,ip])lctl with itcci-
The iiiessai,'o -
CauL'ht ill the shower

VV. W.J. B(

C. O. Ml

W. H.J. Boor

C. O. Ml KRAV

199

202
203

204

206

^':^^%^

delightful is a littk- vill;ige far in V
the country; a small nt'it^hbourhood, not of
fine mansions fiuL-ly [)eo[)letl, but of cottaj^cs
and cottage-like houses, "messuages or
tenements," as a frien>' of mine calls sue h
ignoble and nondescript dwellings, with in-
Si. habitants whose faces are as familiar to us
^ as the (lowers in our gardens; a little world
of our own, close-packed and insulated like
■f^-i'CT- ants in an ant-tiill,or bees in a hive, or sheep
in a fold, or nuns in a convent, or sailors in
a ship; where we know every one, are known
to every one, interested in every one, and authorised to hoi)e that
every one feels an interest in us. How pleasant it is to slitle into
these true-hearted feelings from the kin<ily and unconscious influence
of habit, and to learn to know and to love the i)eopIe about us, with all
their peculiarities, just as we learn to know and to love the nooks and
turns of the shady lanes and sunny commons that we pass every day.

( IS )

".^-^-i^"""'*"

.>''f\V,-^"C >'.'■'

t-t- -Mj.

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veil ill hooks 1 like.

.1 (oiifinecl iocalitv,

aiul s(

"l/*!.

<i<) tiiu critics when they '• '

. l:ilk of the unities. Nothing is so tiresome as to

lie whirled half over Europe at the chariot-wheels

of a hero, to yo to sleep at Vienna, and awaken at

^'jj^^^ ' ■^';^^''''' ' 't produces a real fatigue, a weariness of
m^^ 7-'>pint. On the other hand, nothing is so delightful as
pC'-}%' to sit down in a country village in one of Miss Austen's
delicious novels, (piite sure before we leave it to be-
ronie intimate with every spot and every person it contains; or to
ramble with Mr. White over his own parish of Selborne, and form a
friendship with the fields and coi.pices, as well as with the birds
mice, and squirrels, who inhabit them; or to sail with Robinson
Crusoe to his island, and live there with him and his goats and his
man Friday; — how much we dread any new comers, any fresh im-
portation of savage or sailor! we never sympathise for a moment in
our hero-s want of company, and are quite grieved when he gets
away; — or to be shipwrecked with Ferdinand on that other lovelier
island-the island of Prospero, and Miranda, and Caliban, and Ariel,
and nobody el.se, none of Dryden's e.xotic inventions :-that is best of
all. And a small neighbourhood is as good in sober waking reality as
in poetry or j.rose; a village neighbourhood, such as this Berkshire
liamlet in which I write, a long, straggling, winding street at the bot-
tom of a fine eminence, with a road through it, always abounding in

( >6)

f>r/i' \ ii.iuii:.

(iirts, horsemen, and < arriajjcs, and lately enlivened hy a stage-c uatli

from M 10 S , which passed through about ten days ago, and

will, I suppose, return some time or other. 'I'here are < ()a< hes of all
varieties nowadays; perhaiis this may be intended for a monthly dili-
gence, or a fo tnightly fly. Will you walk with me throu^;h our village,
courteous reader? The journey is not long. We will begin al tho
lower end, and pro( eed up the hill.

The tidy, square, red cottage on the right hand, with the long, well-
stocked garden by the side of the road, belongs to a retired publican
from a neighbouring town; a su])stantial person with a comely wife;

1 8

OCh' \ n.l.M.E

f'/7i' \ III. K.i:

()( R \ III Mil

'•;■(

:>5

Sic Iht nil ;i Simd.iv in liir siiii|ili( ity

and luT while tmrk, ami slu' might pass

tor an earl's daiinhtcr. She likes llowcrs,

1(1(1, and has a iinifiision ol' white slo( ks

under lier window, as pure and delii ate

as her«'lf.

■{'he Inst house on the opposite side

of the way is the hhu ksmitli's ; a nlooiny

dwelling, where the sun never seems to

shine: dark and smoky within and with- -

oiil, like a forge. The Mai ksinilh is a

high ofilicer in our little stale, nothing

less than a constable; but alas! alas! when

tumults arise, and tlu' < (instable is called

for, he will ( (iminonly be found in the thickest of the fray. I.iuky

would it be for his wife and her eight children if there were no publie-

liouse in the land : an inveterate im linalion to enter those bewitch-
ing doors is Mr. Constable's only fault.

Next to this ofirtri '1 dwellini' is ,i spruce brick tenement, re', liigh,
1 ib Vv- another, i nei- sash-windows, the oiih
~ ,•.!). i-.i.dows in the village, with a clematis on
one side and a rose on the other, tall and nar-
row like itself. That slender mansion has .i
fine genteel look. The little parlour
seems made for Hogarth's old maid and
lier stunted footboy ; for tea and card
parties, — it would just hold one talile;
for the rustle of faded silks, and the
splendour of old china; for the delight
of four 'by honours, and a little snug,
fpiiet scandal between the deals; for

and narrow, boastini'

('/

'/ /

iillft icii nontility and real st.nvatioi!.
(Ifstiny, '111 late has been unpropiiious ; i' 1
liiistling lino, with fi)iir fat, rosy, noisy »
viilnarit\ ind plenty.

s, uid liavc licel) Its

'•nj^s to a plump, nu-iry.

II, the viTv cssfiK 1 t)i

'I'hen i-oincs ti vilhij^e siiop like otlier village shops, niiillitarii'iis
as a bazaar; a rcj isitory for bread, shoes, tea, cheese, tape, ribands,
and bacon; for evrything, in short, e.\< opt the one particular tliinj^
whicli you happen to want at the uiouient and will he sure not to
find. I'he people a/e civil and thrivinj^, and fruj^al withal ; they have
let tlie upi)er part of their house to two younj; women (one of them is
a jiretty blue-eyed j.!rl)wh() teach little ( hildren their A \) (".and
make caps and gown for their mammas, — parcel schoolmistress, i)ar-
cel mantua-maker. I believe they tmd adornini; the body a mute
profitable vocation than adorning the mind.

Divided from the shop by a narrow yard, and opposite the shoe-
maker's, is a habitation of whose inmates I shall say nothing. A cot-
tage — no — a miniature house, with manv additions, little odds and

:,-K.^'."-!^k^'

,-V^"«,"-

ends lit ])l;uL's, pantries, and wliat not; all angles, and of a charming
in-anil-outness ; a little bricked court before one half, and a little
llower-vard before the other; the wails, old and weather stained, cov-
ered with hollyhocks, roses, honeysuckles, and a great apricot-tree;
the casements full of geraniums; (ah, there is our su[)erb white cat
l)eeping out from among them!) the closets (our landlord has the
assurance to call them rooms) full of contrivances and corner-cup-
boards; antl the little garden behind full
of common flowers, tulips, pinks, lark-
spurs, i)eonies, stocks and carnations, with
an arbour of privet, not unlike a sentry-
box, where one lives in a delicious green
light, and looks out on the gayest of all
gay llower-beds. That house was built on
l)urpose to show in what an exceedingly
small compass comfort may be packed.
Well, I will loiter there no longer.

Ol N \ II.I.U.E. ^.1

'I'lu' next tenement is a i>la(e of inipoitanie, tlte Rose inn ; a white-
washed hiiihling, retired from the road beliind its fine swinging,' si(,'n,
with a Httle bow-window room roming out on one siile, and tonuinj;,
with our stable on the other, a sort of open s(nuire. wliii li is tlie c on-
stant resort of carts, waggons, and return ( haises. There are two
carts there now, and mine host is serving tiiem with lieer in liis eter-
nal red waistcoat. He is a thriving man, and a portly, as his waist-
coat attests, which has been twice let out witiiin this twelvemonth.

Our landlord has a stirring wife, a hopeful son, anil a daughter, the
belle of the village; not so pretty as the fair nymph at the shoe-shop,
and far less elegant, but ten times as fme ; all curl-papers in the
morning, like a porcupine, all curls in the afternoon, like a poodle,
with more flounces than curl-papers, and more lovers than curls.
Miss PJHL'be is fitter for town than country; and, to do her justice,
she has a consciousness of that litness, and turns her steps townwanl

OUli \/L/.A(iE.

as often as she can. She is gone to H to-day with her last and

l)rin( ipai lover, a recruiting Serjeant — a man as tali as Serjeant Kite
and as impudent. Some day or otlier he will carry off Miss Phcebe.
In a line with the bow- window room is a low
garden-wall, 1 ..-''Miging to a house under
repair: — the white house opposite the
collar-make! 's siiop, with four lime-trees
before it, and a waggon-load of bricks
at the door. That house is the play-
thing of a wealthy, well-meaning,
whimsical |)erson, who lives about a
mile off He has a ])assion for brick
and mortar, and being too wise to
meddle with his own residence, diverts
himself with altering and re-altering, im-
proving and rc-improving, doing and
undoing here. It is a perfect Pene-
lope's web. Carpenters and bricklayers have been at work for these
eighteen months, and yet I sometimes stand and wonder whether
anything has really been done. One exploit in last June was,
however, by no means equivocal. Our good neighbour fancied that
the limes shaded the rooms, and made them dark, (there was not
a creature in the house but the workmen,) so he had all the leaves
stripped from every tree. There they stood, poor miserable skele-
tons, as bare as Christmas under the glowing midsummer sun.
Nature revenged herself, in her own sweet and gracious manner;
fresh leaves sprang out, and at nearly Christmas the foliage was as
brilliant as when the outrage was committed.

Next door lives a cari)enter, "famed ten miles round, and worthy
all his fame," — few cabinet-makers surpass him, with his excellent
wife, and their little daughter Lizzy, the plaything and queen of the

oi'h' vu.i..u;e.

2^^

village, a child tliree years old according to tin- rcgi>tci-, but si\ m
size and strength and intellect, in i)ower and in self-will. She nian-
ages everybody in the place, her schoolmistress included; turns the
wheeler's children out of their own little cart, and makes them draw
her; seduces cakes and lollypops from the very shop window; makes
tin- lazy carrv her, the silent talk to her, the grave romi) with her;

does anything she pleases; is ab^o-
lutelv irresistible. Her ( hief

attraction lu-s m her exceed-
ing power of loving, and livr
firm reliance on the love
and indulgence of others.
V^^f', How impossible it would
i'l '•', be to disapijoint the
JjS [ dear little girl when she
^ runs to meet vou, slides
''% her pretty hand into
yours, looks up gladly
in your face, and says,
"Come ! " \'ou must
go; you cannot help it.
Another i)art of her
charui is her singular
beauty. Together with a
good deal of the character
of Napoleon, she has something of his s(piare, sturdy, upright
form, with the finest limbs in the world, a complexion purely
English, a round laughing face, sunburnt and rosy, large merry
blue eyes, curling brown hair, and a wonderful play of counte-
nance. She has the imperial attitudes too, and loves to stand with
her hands behind her, or folded over her bosom; and sometimes,

, : I

OlfN \ILI..U,li.

wliLMi she lias a little touch of shyness, sl)c clasps them to.nether on
the top of her head, pressing down her shining curls, and looking so
e.\(|uisitely pretty ! Ves, I,i/zy is (pieen of the village I She has but
one rival in her dominions, a certain white greyhound called May-
flower, much iier friend, who resembles her in beauty and strength, in
playfulness, and almost in sagacity, and reigns over the animal world
as she over the human. They are both coming with nie, i.izzv and

J.i/zy's " pretty May." We are now at the end of the street ; a cross-
lane, a rope-walk, shaded with limes and oaks, and a cool clear pond
overhung with elms, lead us to the bottom of the hill. There is still
one house round the corner, ending in a picturesque wheeler's shop.
The dwelling-house is more ambitious. Look at the fine flowered
window-blinds, the green door with the brass knocker, and the some-
wliat |)rim but very civil person, who is sending off a lal)ouring man
with sirs and curtsies enough for a prince of the blood. Those are

<U U \ II.I.M.E.

the curate's lodtiings — aiiartincnts liis landlady would tall tlu'ni : he
lives with his own family lour miles off. hut once or twi( e .1 wi'ck he
conies to his neat little parlour to write sermons, to marry, or to hiny,
as the case may recjuire. Never were better or kinder people than
his host and hostess: and tiiere is a fme rellection of clerical impor-
tance about them since their connexion with the t'luin h, wlii( h is
rpiite edifying — a ilecorum, a gravity, a solemn politeness. ( )h, to

Z"^-

see the worthy wheeler carry the gown after his lodger on a Sunday,
nicely pinned ii|> in his wife's best liandkerchief ! — or to hear him
rebuke a scpialling child or a stjuabbling woman I The curate is
nothing to him. He is fit to be perpetual ( hurchwarden.

We must now cross the lane into the shady rope-walk. 'I'hat
pretty white cottage opposite, whi(;h stands straggling at the end of
the village in a garden full of flowers, belongs to our mason, the

ovu vii.L.uu:.

shortest of men, and his handsome, tall wife: he, a dwarf, with the
voice of a giant; one starts when he begins to talk as if he were
shouting throiigli a speaking trumpet ; she, the sister, daughter, and
grand-daughter, of a long line of gardeners, and no contemptible one
herself It is very magnanimous in me not to hate her; for she beats
mc in my own way, in chrysanthemums, and dahlias, and the like
gauds. Her plants are sure to live; mine have a sad trick of dying.

perhaps because I love them, "not wisely, but too well," and kill
them with over-kindness. Half-way up the hill is another detached
cottage, the residence of an officer, and his beautiful family. That
eldest hoy, who is hanging over the gate, and looking with such
intense childish admiration at my Lizzy, might be a model for a
Cupid.

How pleasantly the road winds up the hill, with its broad greer.
borders and hedge-rows so thickly timbered ! How finel\ the evening

Or/C \ ll.l..U,l:

a i)retty picture tliey would make; wliul a i)rctty lorcground they do
make to tlie real landsra])c' ! Tlit' roatl winding down llie liill witli a
siiglit bend, like that in tlie liigh-strcet at Oxford; a waggon slowly
ascending, and a horseman jiassing it at a tall tro' — (ah! I, i/zy, May-
dower will certainly desert you to have a gambol with that blood-
horse ! ) half-way down, just at the turn, the red (ottage of the
lieutenant, covered with vines, the very image of comfort and con-
tent; farther down, on the o|)j)osite side, the small white dwelling of
the little mason; then the limes and tlu' rope-walk; then the village
street, jjceping through the trees, whose clustering to})s hide all but
the chimneys, and various roofs of the houses, and lu're and there
some angle of a wall; farther on, the elegant town of 11 — , with its
fine old church-towers and spires; the wIkjIc view shut in by a range
of chalky hills; and over every part of the picture, trees so profusely
scattered, that it ap|)ears like a woodland scene, with glades and vil-

t 31 I

i>i /,' \ iLi..u,h:.

lagcs intt-ri/iixed. The- trees are of all kituls and all hues, chiefly the
(inely-sha|.ed elm. of so deep and bright a green, the tips of whose
high outer branches drop down with such a crisp and garland-like
richness, and tiie oak, whose stately form is just now so splendidly
adorned by the sunny < oioiiring of the voung leaves. Turning again
up the hill, we find ourselves on that peculiar charm of English
scenery, a green common, divided by the road; the right side fringed
by hedge-rows and trees, with (otiages and farm-houses irregularly
I)laced, and terminated by a double avenue of noblj oaks; the left,
I)rettier still, (!ap,.i, d by bright pools of water, and isands of cottages
and cottage-gardens, and sinking gradually down to corn-fields and
meadows, and an old farm-house, with jioinled roofs and clustered
• himneys, looking out from its blooming orchard and backed by
woody hills. 'I'he common is itself the prettiest i)art of the prospect ;
half covered with low furze, whose golden !)lossoms reflect so intensely
the last beams of the setting sun, and alive with cows and sheep, and
two sets of ( ri( keters; one of young men, surrounded by spectators,
some standing, some sitting, some stret. bed on the grass, all taking a
delighted intere:n in the game; the other, a merry grouj) of little boys,
at a humble distance, for whom even cricket is scarcely lively enough,
shouting, leaping, and enjoying themselves to their hearts' content,
liiil ( rickeleis and country boys are too important persons in our vil-
lage to be talked of merely as figures in the land.scape. 'I'hey deserve
an indivi 'ual introduction —an essay to themselves — and they shall
I'ave it. No fear of forgetting the good-humoured faces that meet us
in our walks everv dav.

«^

A (IKKKN (OMMON, DIVIDKD MV 1111. JroAI

1. I

FJiOST.

January 23rd. — At noon to-day I and my white greyhound, May-
flower, set out for a walk into a very l)caiitilul world, — a sort of silent
fairy-land, — a creation of that matchless magician the hoar-frost.
There had been just snow enough to cover the earth and all its colours
with one sheet of pure and uniform white, and just time enough since
the snow had fallen to allow the hedges to be freed of their fleecy load,
and clothed with a delicate coating of rime. 'I'he atmosphere was.
deliciously calm ; soft, even mild, in spite of the tiiermometcr ; no per-
ceptible air, but a stillness that might almost be felt; the sky, rather
grey than blue, throwing out in bold relief the snow-covered roofs of
our village, and the rimy trees that rise above them, and the sun shin-
ing dimly as through a veil, giving a pale fair light, like the moon, only
brighter. There was a silence, too, that might become the moon, as
we stood at our little gate, looking up the quiet street ; a sabbath-like

( 35 )

OVR \- 1 1. 1. Mil:.

Vk 1

pause of work and play, rare on a work-day ; nolliing was audible but
the pleasant lumi of frost, that low monotonous souiul, which is perhaps
the nearest approach that life and nature can make to absolute silence.
'l"he very wagj^ons as they come down tiie hill along the lieaten track
of crisp yellowish frost-dust glide along like shadows; even May's
bounding footsteps, at her height of glee and of speed, fall like snow
upon snow.

Hut we shall have noise enough presently: May lias stopped at
Lizzy's door; and Lizzy, as she sat on the window-sill with her bright
rosy face laughing through the casement, has seen her and disappeared.
She is coming. No ! The key is turning in the door, and sounds of

orU \ II.I.M.E

evil omen issue through thekey-liolc — sturdy "lot me outs," and "I will
goes," mixed witii shrill tries on May and on me from I, i//.y, piercing
through a tow continuous harangue, of which the prominent jiarts are
apologies, cliill)lains, sliding, broken Ijones, ioUyiiops, rods, and ginger-
bread, from Lizzy's careful mother. "Don't scratcii the door. May!
Don't roar so, my I-izzy ! We'll call for you as we come back." — " I'll
go now ! Let me out ! 1 will go ! " are the last words of Miss Li//v.
Mem. Not to spoil that child — if I can help it. lint 1 do think her
mother might have let the ])Oor little soul walk with us to-day. Nothing
worse for children than coddling. Nothing better for chilblains tlian
exercise. Besides, I don't believe she has any — and as to breaking her
bones in sliding, I don't suppose there's a slide on the common. These
murmuring cogitations have brouglit us up the liill.and half-wav across
the light and airy common, witii its bright expanse of snow and its
clusters of cottages, whose turf fires send such wreaths of smoke sail-
ing up the air, and diffuse such aromatic fragrance round. And now
comes the delightful sound of childish voi< es, ringing with glee and
merriment almost from beneath our feet. .Ah, l.i/zy, vour mother was
right ! They are shouting from that deep irregular jiool, all glass now,
where, on two long, smooth, liny slides, half a do/en ragged urchins are
slipping along in tottering triumph Half a dozen ste])s bring us to the
bank right above them. May can hardly resist the temjUation of joining
her friends, for most of the varlets are of her accjuaintance, esi)eciall v the
rogue who leads the slide, — he with the brimless hat, whose bronzed
complexion and white flaxen hair, reversing the usual lights and shad-
ows of the human countenance, give so strange and foreign a look to
his flat and comic features. This hobgoblin, ]m\^ Rapley by name, is
May's great crony ; and she stands on the brink of the steep, irregular
descent, her black eyes fixed full upon him, as if slie intended him the
favour of jumping on his head. She does : she is down, and upon
him: but Jack Rapley is not easily to be kno( ked off his feet, He

OUli VILI.ACIi.

saw her coming, and in the moment of her leap sprung dexterously off
the slide on the rough ice, steadying himself by the shoulder of the
next in tiie file, which unlucky follower, thus unexpectedly checked in
his career, fell plumi) backwards, knocking down the rest of the line
like a nest of card-houses. There is no harm dcme ; but there they
lie, roaring, kicking, sprawling, in every attitude of comic distress,
whilst Jack Rapley and Mayllower, sole authors of this calamity, stand
apart from the throng, fondling, and cocpietting, and complimenting
each other, and very visibly laughing. May in her black eyes, Jack in
his wide close-shut mouth, and his whole monkey-face, at their com-
rades' mischances. I think. Miss May, you may as well come up again,
and leave Master Rapley to fight your battles. He'll get out of the
scrape. He is a rustic wit — a sort of Robin Goodfellow — the sauci-
est, idlest, cleverest, best-natured boy in the parish; always foremost
in mischief, and always ready to do a good turn. Tiie sages of our
village i)redict sad things of Jack Rapley, so that I am sometimes a
little ashamed to confess, before wise people, that I have a lurking
predilection for him (in common with other naughty ones), and that I
like to hear him talk to May almost as well as she does. "Come, May! "
and up she springs, as light as a bird. The road is gay now ; carts
and post-chaises, and girls in red cloaks, and, afar off, looking almost
like a toy, the coach. It meets us fast and soon. How much happier
the walkers look than the riders — especially the frost-bitten gentle-
man, and the shivering lady with the invisible face, sole passengers of
that commodious machine ! Hooded, veiled, and bonneted as she is,
one sees from lier attitude how miserable she would look uncovered.
Another pond, and another noise of children. More sliding ? Oh,
no! This is a sport of higher pretension. Our good neighbour, the
lieutenant, skating, and his own pretty little boys, and two or three
other four-year-old elves, standing on the brink in an ecstasy of joy and
wonder ! Oh, what happy spectators ! And what a happy performer !

KNOCKING DOWN THK KEST OF THE LINE LIKK A NKST OK
CARD-HOUSES."

orix' VII.I.M.H.

'I'liey admiring, he admired, with an ardour and sincerity never ex( ited
by all the quadrilles and the spread-eagles of the Seine and the Ser-
pentine. He really skates well though, and 1 am glad I came this way ;
for, with all the father's feelings sitting gaily at iiis heart, it must Mill
gratify the pride of skill to have one spectator at tiiat :;olitary pond
who has seen skating before.

Now we have reached the fees,— the beautiful trees! never so
beautiful as to-dav. Imagine the effect of a straight and regular doul)le
avenue of oaks, nearly a mile long, arching over-head, and closing mto
perspective like the roof and columns of a cathedral, every tree and
branch incrusted with the bright and delicate congelation of hoar-frost,
white and pure as snow, delicate and defined as carved ivory. How
beautiful it is, how uniform, how various, how filling, how satiating to t^e

eye and to the mind-above all, how melancholy ! There is a thrilling
awfulness, an intense feeling of simple power, in that naked and colour-
less beauty, which falls on the heart like the thought of death-death
pure, and glonous, and smiling, but still death. Sculpture has always

(43 )

the same effect on my imag-
ination, and painting never. Colour
is life. We are now at tlie end of
tliis magnificent avenue, and at the top
of a steep eminence commanding a wide
view over four counties — a landscape of snow. A
deep lane leads abruptly down tlie hill; a mere nar-
row cart-track, sinking between high banks clothed with fern and
furze and low broom, crowned with luxuriant hedgerows, and famous
for their summer-smell of thyme. How lovely these banks are now!

(43 )

oru \ii.i..uii:.

the tall weeds and the gorse fixed and stiffened in the hoar-frost
which fringes round the l.right pri.kly holly, the pendant foliage of
the bramble, and the deep orange leaves of the pollard oaks ' Oh
this ,s nine ,n its loveliest form ! And there is still a berry here and
there on the holly, "blushing in its natural coral" through the deli-
cate tracery, still a stray hip or haw for the small birds, who abound
here always. The poor birds, how tame they are, how sa.Ily tame '
1 here is the beautiful and rare crested wren, " that shadow of a bird "
as White of Selborne calls it, perched in the middle of the hedge
nestling as it were amongst the cold bare boughs, seeking, poor pretty

;!■

thing, for the warmth it will not find. And there, farther on, just
under the bank, by the slender runlet, which still trickles between its
transparent fantastic margin of thin ice, as if it were a thing of life -
there, with a swift, scudding motion, flits, in short low flights, the gor-
geous icingfisher, its magnificent plumage of scarlet and blue flashing
>n the sun, like the glories of some tropical bird. He is come for
water to this little spring by the hill-side,-water which even his long
b.ll and slender head can hardly reach, so nearly do the fantastic
forms of those garland-like icy margins meet over the tiny stream be-

oClx' 17/./. \(,l-

neath. It is rarely tliat one sees tlie shy beauty so closi- or so lon^ ;
and it is pleasant to see him in tiie t^race and In' itily ol" liis natural
liberty, the only way to look at a bird. We iise<l, before we lived m
a street, to fix a little board outside the parlour window, and cover it
with bread-erund)s in the hard weather, it was (piite d' ''^httul to
see the pretty things come and 'ici^tX, to t oncpier their shyi.e >s, and do

ay their mistrust. First eanie the more soeial tribes,

tlie roliui

reil-breast and the wren," cautiously, suspiciously, picking up a crumb
on the wing, with tiie little keen bright eye fixetl on the window ; then
they would stoj) for two jiecks; then stay till they were satisfied.
The shyer birds, tamed by their exami)le, came next ; and at last one
saucy fellow of a blackbird — a sad glutton, he would ( k'ar the board
in two minutes, — used to tap his yellow bill against the wiiulow for
more. Flow we loved the fearless confidence of that line, frank-
hearted creature! And surely he loved us. I wonder the jirartice is
not more general. — "May! May! naughty May!" She has frightened
away the kingfisher; and now, in her (oaxing penitence, she is cov-
ering me with snow. "Come, |)retty .\Iay! it is time to go home."

January aStli.— \Vc iiave had rain,
and snow, and frost, and rain again;
four days of al)solute connneinent.
Now \l is a tiiaw and a flood; hut our
ligiU gravelly soil, and country hoots,
and country hardihood, will carry us through. What a dripping,
comfortless day it is! just like the last days of N()veml)er: no sun,
no sky, grey or lilue; one low, overhanging, dark, dismal cloud, like
London smoke : Mayflower is out coursing too, and [,izzy gone to
school. Never mind. Up the hill again! Walk we must. Oh
what a watery world to look hack upon ! Thames, Kennct, Loddon
— all overflowed; our famous town, inland once, turned into a sort
of Venice; C. park converted into an island; and the long range
of meadows from B. to W. one huge -irM.atural lake, with trees
growing out of it. Oh what a watery world !— I will look at it no
longer. I will walk on. The road is alive again. Noise is re-horn.
Waggons creak, horses plash, carts rattle, and pattens paddle through
the dirt with more than their usual clink. The conmion has its old
fine tints of green and hrown, and its old variety of inhahitants,
horses, cows, sheep, pigs, and donkeys. The ponds are unfrozen,

(47 )

ex< ci>l wlieri- some

upon the water ;

rei)lated llie lieiittnan

dark, llie liedges are dripping,

( U I//./.I''/'

lani lioiy i)ie( e ol nieliinn i< c

an(

1 cackling neese and Kabhlini;
I and Ja. k Rapley. 'I'l'e avenue is

llo.its sullenly
(hu ks have
■hilt and

the

lanes knee-deei>, and all nature

is in a st

iite <it^ "dissolution and thaw.

THE FIRST PRIM NOSE

March 6th.— Kinc March weather: boisterous, blustering, much
wind and squalls of rain; and yet the sky, where the clouds are
swept away, deliriously blue, with snatches of sunshine, bright and
clear, and healthful, and the roads, in spite of the slight, glittering
showers, crisply dry. Altogether, the day is tempting, very tempting.
It will not do for the dear common, thi:t windmill of a walk ; but
the close sheltered lanes at the bottom of the hill, which keep out
just ■■nough of the stormy air, and let in all the sun, will be de-
lightful. Past our old house, and roi;nd by the winding lanes, and
the worVhouse, and across the lea, and so into the turni)ike road
again,— that is our route for to-day. Forth we set, Mayflower and
I, rejoicing in the sunshine, and still more in the wind, which gives
such an intense feeling of existence, and, co-operating with brisk
motion, sets our blood md our spirits in a glow. For mere physical
pleasure, there is nothing perhaps equal to the enjoyment of being
drawn, in a light carriage, against such a wind as this, by a blood-
horse at his height of speed. Walking comes next to it ; but walking
3 ( 49 )

OUli VILI.Adli.

is not <iuite so luxurious or so spiritual, not (luite so much what one
fancies of flying, or being carried above the clouds in a balloon.

Nevertheless, a walk is a g.-od thing; es-pecially under this
southern hedgerow, where nature is just beginning to live again :
the ,,eriwinkles with their starry blue flowers and their shining myr-
tle-like leaves, garlanding the bushes; woodbines and elder-trees
pushing out their small swelling buds; and grasses and mosses
sprin-in- forth in every variety of brown and green. Here we are
at tiie corner where four lanes meet, or rather where a passable road
of stones a-.d gravel crosses an impassable one of beautiful but
treacherous turf, and where the small white farm-house, scarcely
larger than a cottage, and the well-stocked rick-yard behind, tell of
comfort and order, but leave all unguessed the great riches of the
mister How he became so rich is almost a puzzle; for, though the
f„m be his own, it is not huge; and though prudent and frugal on
ordinary occasions, farmer Barnard is no miser. His horses, dogs,
ind pigs are the best kept in the parish,- May herself, although her
bcaut)"be injured by her fatness, half envies the plight of his bitch
Fly his wife's gowns and shawls cost as much again as any shawls
or gowns in the village; his dinner parties (to be sure they are not
frequent) display twice the ordinary (luantity of good things- two
couples of ducks, two dishes of green peas, two turkey poults, two
gammons of bacon, two plum-puddings; moreover, he keeps a single-
horse chaise, and has built and endowed a Methodist chapel. Yet
is he the richest man in these parts. Everything prospers with him.
Money drifts about him like snow. He looks like a rich man. There
is a sturdy s.piareness of face and figure ; a good-humoured obstinacy;
a civil importance. He never boasts of his wealth, or gives himself
undue airs; but nobody can meet him at market or vestry without
finding out immediately that he is the richest man there. They have
no child to all this money; but there is an adopted nephew, a fine

orn viLi.ACE.

spirited lad, who may, perhaps, some day or otlier, phiy the part of a
fountain to tlie reservoir.

Now turn up the wide road till we come to the ojien common,
with its jjark-like trees, its beautiful stream, wandering and twisting
along, and its rural hridf^o. Here we turn again, jiast that other
white farm-house, iialf hidden by tlie magnificent elms wliich stand

before it. Ah! riches dwell not there; but there is found the next
best thing — an industrious and light-hearted ])overty. Twenty years
ago Rachel Hilton was the prettiest and merriest lass in the country.
Her father, an old gamekeeper, had retired to a village ale-house,
where his good beer, his social humour, and his black-eyed daughter,
brought much custoin. Siie had lovers Ijy the score; but Joseph
White, the dashing and lively son of an opulent farmer, carried

OU/{ VILLAGE.

off the fair Rachel. They married and settled here, and here they
live still, as merrily as ever, with fourteen children of all ages and
sizes, from nineteen years to nineteen months, working harder than
any people in the parish, and enjoying themselves more. I would
match them for labour and laughter against any family in England.
She is a blitlie jolly dame, whose beauty has amplified into comeli-
ness; he is tall, and thin, and bony, with sinews like whipconl, ■<

strong, lively voice, a sharp weather-beaten face, and eyes and lips
that smile and brighten when he speaks into a most contagious
hilarity. They are very poor, and I often wish them richer; but I
don't know — perhaps it might put them out.

Quite close to farmer White's is a little, ruinous cottage, white-
washed once, and now in a sad state of betweenity, where dangling
stockings and shirts, swelled by the wind, drying in a neglected
garden, give signal of a washerwoman. There dwells, at present in
single blessedness, Hetty Adams, the wife of our sometime gardener.

OVR VILLAGE.

I never saw any one who so much reminded me in person of that
lady whom everybody knows, Mistress Meg Merrilies; — as tall, as
grizzled, as stately, as dark, as gipsy-looking, bonneted and gowned
like her prototype, and almost as oracular. Here the resemblance

ceases. Mrs. Adams is a perfectly honest, industrious, painstaking
person, who earns a good deal of money by washing and charing,
and spends it in other luxuries than tidiness, — in green tea, and gin,
and snuff. Her husband lives in a great family, ten miles off. He
is a capital gardener — or rather he would be so, if he were not too
ambitious. He undertakes all things, and finishes none. But a

OUIi V/LLAOE.

smooth tongue, a knowing look, and a great capacity of labour,
carry him through. Let him but like his ale and his master, and
he will do work enough for fou-. Give him his own way, and his
full quantum, and nothing comes amiss to him.

Ah. May is bounding forward! Her silly heart leaps at the sight
of tlie old place — and so in good truth does mine. What a pretty

place it was — or rathe.% how pretty I

^^^ tl-.ought it! I suppose I should have

ihougiit any place so where I had spent

eighteen happy years. But it

was rea'ly pretty. A large, '"

heavy, white house, in the sim- •- ?>i^.^, ,

plest style, surrounded by fine oaks - '^H'l..

and elms, and tall massy plantations

shaded dowr. into a beautiful lawn by wild overgrown shrubs, bowery

acacias, ragged sweet-briers, promontories of dog-wood, and Portugal

laurel, and bays, overhung by laburnum and bird-cherry; a long

piece of water letting light into the picture, and looking just like a

OUR VILLAi.E.

natural stream, the banks as rude and wild as the shrubbery, inter-
spersed with broom, and furze, and bramble, and pollard oaks
covered with ivy and honeysuckle : the whole enclosed by an old
mossv park paling, and terminating in a series of rich meadows,
richly planted. This is an exact description of the home which,
three years ago, it nearly broke my heart to leave. Wiiat a tearing
up by tiie root it was! I have pitied cabbage plants and celery, and
all transi)lantable things, ever since; though, in common with them,
and with other vegetables, the first agony of transportation being
over, I liave taken sutli firm and tenacious liold of my new soil, tliat
I would not for the world be pulled up again, even to !>e restored to
the old l)eloved ground; — not even if its beauty were undiminished,
which is by no means the case; fur in those three years it lias tiuice
changed masiers, and every successive possessor has brought the
curse of improvement upon the place : so that between filling up the
water to cure dampness, cutting down trees to let in prospects, plant-
ing to keep them out, shutting up windows to
darken the inside of the house (by which means
one end looks precisely as an eight of spades - • -^"i
would do that should have the misfortune to
lose one of his corner pips), and building
colonnades to lighten the out, added to a
genera! clearance of pollards, and bram-
bles, and ivy, and honeysuckles, and park
palings, and irregular shru!)s, the poor
place is so transmogrified, that if it had
its old looking-glass, the water, back again,
it would not know its own face. And yet

I love to haunt round about it : so does May. Her particular attrac-
tion is a certain broken bank full of rabbit-burrows, into which she
insinuates her long pliant head and neck, and tears her p. tty feet

^•-^?<^-'

OUR VILLAGE.

by vain scratchings : mine is a warm sunny hedgerow, in the same
remote field, famous for early flowers. Never was a spot more
variously flowery : primroses yellow, lilac, white, violets of either
hue, cowslips, oxlips, arums, orchises, wild hyacinths, ground ivy,
l)ansies, strawberries, heart's-ease, formed a small part of the Flora
of that wild hedgerow. How profusely they covered the sunny open
slope under the weei)ing bircli, "the lady of the woods" — and how

often have I started to see the early innocent brown snake, who
loved the spot as well as I did, winding along the young blossoms,
or rustling amongst tiie fallen leaves ! There are primrose-leaves
already, and short green buds, but no flowers ; not even in that
furze cradle so full of roots, where they used to blow as in a basket.
No, my May, no rabbits ! no primroses ! We may as well get over
the gate into the woody winding lane, which will bring us home
again.

OUR VlLl.AUE,

Here we are making the best of our way between the old elms
that arch so solemnly overhead, dark and sheltered even now.
They say that a spirit haunts this deep pool — a white lady without
a head. I cannot say that I have seen her, often as I have paced
this lane at deep midnight to iiear the nightingales, and look at the
glow-worms; — but there, better and rarer than a thousand ghosts,
dearer even than nightingales or glow-worms, there is a primrose,
the first of the year; a tuft of primroses, springing in yonder shel-
tered nook, from the mossy roots of an old willow, and living again
in the clear bright pool. Oh, how Ijeautiful they are — three fully
blown, and two bursting buds! How glad I am 1 came this way!
Tiiey are not to be reached. Even Jack Rai)iey's love of the diffi-
cult and the unattainable would fail him here: May herself could
not stand on that steep bank. So much the better. Who would
wish to disturb them.' There they live in their innocent and fra-
grant beauty, sheltered from tlie storms, and rejoicing in the sun-
siiine, and looking as if they could feel their happiness. U ho would
disturb them." Oh, how glad I am I came this way home !

VIOI.ETLXG.
March 27111. — It is a dull grey morning;, with a dewy feeling in the
air; fresh, but not windy; < ool, hut not cold; — the very day for a
person newly arrived from the heat, the glare, the noise, and ihe fever
of r.ondon, to plunge into the remotest labyrinths of the country, and
regain the repose of mind, the calmness of heart, which has been lost
in that great Itabel. I must go violeting — it is a necessity — anil I must
go alone: the sound of a voice, even my Lizzy's, the touch of May-
flower's head, even the bounding of her elastic foot, would disturb the
serenity of feeling which 1 am trying to recii\cr. 1 shall go (piite alone,
with my little basket, twisted like a bee-hive, which I love so well, be-
cause she gave it to me, and keep sacred to violets and to those whom I
love ; and I shall get out of the high road the moment I can. I would
not meet any one just now, even of those whom I best like to meet.

Ha! — Is not that group — a gentleman on a blood horse, a lady
keeping pace with him so gracefully and easily — see how prettily her
veil waves in the wind created by her osvn rapid motion ! — and that gay,
gallant boy, on the gallant white .\rabian, curveting at their side, but
ready to spring before them every instant — is not that chivalrous-look-
ing party, Mr. and Mr,i. M. and dear 1!..' No I the servant is in a
different livery. It is some of the ducal family, and one of their young

( 59 )

i !

OUR VILI.AC.R.

Etonians I may go on. I shall n»eet no one now; for I have fairly
left the road, and am crossing the lea l)y one of those wandering paths,
amidst the gorse and the heath and the low broom, which the sheep
and lambs iiave made — a path turfy, elastic, thymy, and sweet even at
this season.

We have the good fortune to live in an unenclosed parish, and may
thank the wise obstinacy of two or three sturdy farmers, and the lucky
unpopularity of a ranting madcap lord of the manor, for preserving
the delicious green patches, the islets of wilderness amidst cultivation,
which form perhaps the peculiar beauty of English scenery. The
common that I am passing now — the lea, as it is called — is one of the
loveliest of these favoured spots. It is a little sheltered scene, retir-
ing, as it were, from the village ; sunk amidst higher lands, hills would
be almost too grand a word; edged on one side by one gay high road,

OUli VILI.ACK.

and intersected by another; and surrounded I7 a niost picturescjue
confusion of meadows cottages, farms, and orchards ; w ith a jrreat pond
in one corner, unusually bright and clear, giving a delighifiil cht-cr-
fulness and daylight to the picture. The swallows haunt that pond;
so do the children. There is a merry group round it now; I have
seldom seen it without one. Children love water, dear, bright, spark-
lin).; water; it excites and feeds their curiosity; it is motion and life.
The path that I am treadin;; leads to a less lively spot, to that
large heavy building on one side of the common, whose solid wings,
jutting out far beyond the main body, occupy three sides of a square,
and give a cold shadowy look to the court. On one side is a gloomy
garden, with an old man digging in it, laid out in straight dark beds
of vegetables, potatoes, cabbages, onions, beans; all earthy and
mouldy as a newly dug grave. Not a flower or a flowering shrub!
Not a rose-tree or a currant-bush ! Nothing but for sober melan-
choly use. Oh how different from the long irregul.^ ,lips of the cot-
tage-gardens, with their gay bunches of polyanthuses and crocuses,
their wall-flowers, .sending sweet odours through the narrow case-
ment, and their gooseberry-trees bursting into a brilliancy of leaf,
whose vivid greenness has the effect of a blossom on the eye! Oh
i.r.w different ! On the other side ol this gloomy abode is a meadow
of ibat deep intense emerald hue, which denotes the presence of stag-
nant water, surrounded by willows at regular distances, and, like the
garden, separated from the common by a wide moat-like ditch. That
is the parish workhouse. All about it is solid, substantial, useful; —
but so dreary! so cold! so dark! There are cliildren in the court.
and yet all is silent. I always hurry past that place as if it were a
prison. Restraint, sickness, age, extreme poverty, misery, which I
have no power to remove or alleviate,— these are the ideas, the feel-
ings, which the sight of those walls excites; yet, perhajjs, if not cer-
tainly, they contain less of that extreme desolation than the morbid

OUli \II.I..Uili.

fancy is aj)! to paint. Tlicn- will be found order, cleanliness, food,
clolliing, warmtli, refuge fdi tlie lionu-kss, medicine and attendance
for the si<k, rest and suftu icncy for old age, and sympathy, the true
and active sym|)athy which the poor show to the poor, for .the un-
happy, I'here may be worse i)laces than a parish workhouse — and
yet I hurry past it. 'Ilie feeling, the prejudice, will not be controlled.

';"^.A>r"w'

'I'he iim\ of tlie dreary garden edges ol!" into a close-sheltered lane,
wandering and winding, like a rivulet, in gentle " sinuosities " (to use
a word once applied by Mr. Wilberforce to the 'I'hames at Henley),

amidst green meadows, all alive with cattle,

sheep, and beautiful lambs, in the very

spring and pride of their tottering pretti-

ness: or fields of arable land, more lively

still with troops of stoo|)ing bean-setters,

women and children, in all varieties of

costume and colour; and ploughs and

harrows, with their whistling boys and

steady carters, going through, with a

slow and plodding industry, the main

business of this busy season. What

OUH \II.IA(;E.

work bean-setting is! What a reverse of the position assigned to
man to distinguish liim from the beasts of the field! Only think of
stooping for six, eight, ten hours a day. drillinj; hoks in the earth with
a little stick, and then drof, ing m ti>e beans one by one. 'I'hey are
paid according to ihf quantity they plant; and some of the poor
women used to be accused of clumping then> — that is to say, of drop-
ping more than one bean into a hole. It seems to me, considering
the temptation, that not to clump is to be at the very pinnacle of
human virtue.

Another turn in
the lane, and we
come to the old house stand-
ing amongst the high elms —
the old farm-house, which al-
ways, I don'' know why, carries back my imagination to Shaks])eare's
days. It u i long, low, irregular building, with one room, at an angle

OUR VILLAGE.

from the house, covered with ivy, fine white-veined ivy; the first
floor of tlie main building projecting and supported by oaken beams,
and one of the windows below, with its old casement and long nar-
row panes, forming the half of a shallow hexagon. A porch, with
seats in it, surmounted by a pinnacle, pointed roofs, and clustered
chimneys, complete the picture. Alas! it is little else but a picture!
The very walls are crumbling to decay under a careless landlord and
a ruined tenant.

Now a few yards farther, and I reach the bank. Ah ! I smell them
al'eady — their exquisite perfume steams and lingers in this moist
heavy air. Through this little gate, and along the green south bank
of this green wheat-field, and they burst upon me, the lovely violets,
in tenfold loveliness I The ground is covered with them, white and
purple, enamelling the short dewy grass, looking but the more vividly
coloured under the dull, leaden sky. There they lie by hundreds,
by thousands. In former years I have been used to watch them from
the tiny green bud, till one or two stole into bloom. They never
came on me before in such a sudden and luxuriant glory of simple
beauty, — and I do really owe one pure and genuine pleasure to fever-
ish London ! How beautifully they are placed too, on this sloping
bank, with the palm branches waving over them, full of early bees,
and mixing their honeyed scent with the more delicate violet odour!
Hotv transparent and smooth and lusty are the branches, full of sap
and life! And there, just by the old mossy root, is a superb tuft of
primroses, with a yellow butterfly hovering over them, like a flower
floating on the air. What happiness to sit on this turfy knoll, and fill
my basket with the blossoms ! What a renewal of heart and mind !
To inhabit such a scene of peace and sweetness is again to be fear-
less, gay and gentle as a child. Then it is that thought becomes po-
etry, and feeling religion. Then it is that we are happy and good.
Oh that my whole life could pass so, floating on blissful and innocent

OUR VILLAGE.

sensation, enjoying in peace and gratitude tlie common blessings of
Nature, thankful above all for the simple habits, the healtliful tem-
perament, which render them so dear! Alas! who may dare expect
a life of such happiness ? But I can at least snatch and prolong the
fleeting pleasure, can fdl my basket with pure flowers, and my heart
with pure thoughts; can gladden my little home witii their sweet-
ness ; can divide my treasures with one, a dear one, who cannot seek
them: can see them when I sluit my eyes; and dream of them wiien
I fall asleep.

ihi

Ti. . ; CO I! 'SA IP- /,'. / /. r. .

^il / : "^^'^^ i6tli.— Thcro arc inoiiients in life
when, without any visible or immediate
cause, the spirits sink and fail, as it were, un-
der the mere pressure of existence: monientsof
unaccountable depression, when one is weary
of one's very thou<;hts, haunted hy images that
will not depart — images many and varidiH 'mt
all paint'ul; friends lost, or changed, or >
hopes disappointed even in their accomplish
ment; fruitless regrets, powerless wishes, doubt and fear, and self-dis-
irust, and self-disapprobation. They who have known these feelings,
(and who is there so happy as not to have known some of them ?) will
understand why Alfieri became powerless, and Froissart dull ; and why
even needle-work, the most effectual sedative, that grand soother and
composer of woman's distress, fails to comfort me to-day. \ will go
out into the air this cool, pleasant afternoon, and try what that will
do. I fancy that exercise, or exertion of any kind, is the true speciiic
for nervousness. "Fling but a stone, the giant dies." I will go to
the meadows, the beautiful meadows! and I will have my materials
of happiness, Lizzy and May, and a basket for flowers, and we will

( (n)

OUR VILLAGE.

make a cowslip-ball. " Did you ever see a cowslip-ball, my Lizzy?" —
"No." — "Come away, then; make haste! run, Lizzy!"

And on we go, fast, fast! down the road, across the lea, past the
workhouse, along by the great pond, till we slide into the deep nar-
row lane, whose hedges seem to meet over the water, and win our
way to the little farm-house at the end. "Througli the farm-yard,
Lizzy; over the gate; never mind the cows; they are quiet enough."

— "I don't mind 'em," said Miss Lizzy, boldly and truly, and with a
proud affronted air, displeased at being thought to mind anything,
and showing by her attitude and manner some design of proving her
courage by an attack on the largest of the herd, in the shape of a pull
by the tail. "1 don't mind 'em." — "I know you don't, Lizzy; but
let them alone, and don't chase the turkey-cock. Come to me, my
dear!" and, for a wonder, Lizzy came.

orii vn.i.MiK.

In the meantime, my other pet, Mayllower, had also j^otten into a
scrape. She had driven about a huge unwiel.ly sow, till the animal's
grunting had disturbed the repose of a still more enormous Newfound-
land dog, the guardian of the yard. Out he sallied, growling, from
the depth of his kennel, erecting his tail, and shaking his long chain.
May's attention was instantly diverteil from the sow to this new play-
mate, friend or foe, she cared not which; and he of the kennel, see-
ing his charge unhurt, and out of danger, was at leisure to observe the
charms of his fair enemy, as siie frolic ked round him, alwavs beyond

the reach of his chain, yet always, with the natural instinctive co-
quetry of her sex, alluring him to the pursuit which she knew to be
vain. I never saw a ])rettier flirtation. At last the noble anii.
wearied -'it, retired to the inmr ,' cess ■ of his habitation, and woi ^^
not even approach her when -■ stood rig': before the rntrance.
"You are properly served, May. Come along, lazzy. Across this
wheat-field, and now over the gate. St.., ; let me lift you n. •■ Mo
jumping, no breaking of necks, I,izzy! And here we .1. 1 the
meadows, and out of the world; Robinson Crusoe, in his lonely isl-
and, had scarcely a more complete or a more beauiiful solitude.

fi^'^ffe'A'^^

Oirr it!. I. AGE.

\ \\ ::

?: a

'I'iicsi' me;i(lu\vs ( onsist of ;> dotibh- /ow oi' spiall ciu losures of rich
grass-laiul, a mile or two in irngth, siujing down from high arable
gn ■iind:i on fithci side, to a little naii?eless
brook that winds lietween them with a
course which, in its inrtnitc variety, clear-
ness, and rapidity, seems to enmlate the
bold rivers of the north, of m ,'iom, far
MKjre than of our la/y southtii. streams,

sparkling and flashing in the

light with a bubbling music as

sweet and wild as the song of

the woodlark ; now stretching

quietly along, giving back the

rich tufts of the golden marsh

marygolds which grow on it?

margin; now sweeping ' -d

fine rea<:h of green grass, -w\,\

stcejily into a high mounv... . •'I'mic promontory, whilst the other side

sinks softly away, like som . ^iv. b.\y, and the water flows between, so

clear, so wide, so shallow, that Li// y longing for adventure, is sure she

OUh' XII.I.UiE.

coiilti cross unwettcd; now dashini; through two sand-hanks, a tor-
rent deep and narrow, which May dears at a hound; now sleeping,
half hidden, heneath the alders, and hawthorns, and wild roses, with
which the hanks are so profusely and variously fringed, whilst (lags,
lilies, and other aquatic plants, almost cover the surface of the stream.
In good truth, it is a beautiful brook, and one that Walton himself
might have sitten by and loved, for trout are there; we see them as
they dart up the stream, and hear and start at the sudden plunge
wlien they spring to the surface for the summer Mies. I/aak Walton
would have loved our brook and our .piiet meadows; they breathe
the very spirit of his own iieacefulness, a soothing (piietude that sinks
into the soul. There is no path through them, not one; we might
wander a whole sjjring day, and not see a trace of liunian habii.iiion.
They belong to a number of small proprietors, who allow ea( h other
access through their respective grountis, from pure kimlness and
neighbourly feeling; a privilege never abused: an<l the fields on the
other side of the water are reached by a rough jilank, or a tree thrown
across, or some such homely bridge. We ourselves possess one of
the most beautiful; so that the strange i)leasure of property, that in-
stinct which makes Lizzy delight in her broken doll, and M.iy in the
bare bone which she has pilfered from the kennel of her re( reant ad-
mirer of Newfoundland, is added to the other (harms of this en( bant-
ing scenery; a strange pleasure it is, when one so poor as I can feel
it! Perhaps it is felt most by the poor, with the rich it may be less
intense— too much diffused and spread out, becoming thin by expan-
sion, like leaf-gold; the little of the poor may be not only more i)re-
cious, but more pleasant to them: certain that bit of grassy and
blossomy earth, with its green knolls and tufted bushes, its old pol-
lards wreathed with ivy, and its bright and babbling waters, is very
dear to me. But I must always have loved these meadows, so fresh,
and cool, and delicious to the eye and to the tread, full of cowslips.

FT' J

III

and of all vernal flowers : Shakspeare's Song of Spring bursts irre-
pressibly from our lips as we step on them.

"When daisies pied, and violets blue,

And lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue.

Do paint the meadows with delight,
'J"he cuckoo then on every tree — "

"Cuckoo! cuckoo! " cried l.izzy, breaking in with her clear childish
voice; and immediately, as if at her cill, the real bird, from a i t igh-
bouring tree, (for these meadows are dotted with timber like a park,'
began to echo my lovely little girl, "cuckoo! cuckoo!" I have a
prejudice very unpastoral and unpoeticai (but I cannot help it, I have
many such) against this "harbinger of spring." His note is so mo-
notonous, so melancholy; and then the boys mimic him; one hears

( 7^ )

ANO DOWN WK SAT, ON THE RKINK OP THE STREAM, UNDER
SPREADING HAWTHORN."

oih' xii.i.u.i.:

"ruckoo! curkoo! " in dirtv >itr,.,-t.

'■-"'■^••■-- "•' "-^ -::;:r::::=,:

^-;Af^-'^T - ^^•'^""= «"' "• ^•s.-ap. ,h, serenade- fro,,, ,1,..

"■'■'"' *^''"''' l>™»is.<l to l,e„f.,.nsid-

fral,lc.dur,ni„n,{„l,c.non.v.hat eternal
^<"\^ I-cgins. c.n it «ru.s t„ kinj,- like ..
<''>'k.)- to escape that no.s,. I ,|i.„.r

""nc'.ltocxriteanutlu.r.and.hallc.nKcd

'■-^/ytoa,owslip.nall,crin,; a trial of

^ ^^'" ^""l ^l-^cl. to s.-e win, I, shoul.l

-"•H-*tr,ll her l.askct. Mv strata,..,,,

Mpccdcl romplc.dy. What sr.a.nM,,,,

twenty cuckoos ,.,,,Hthav:t;:;;;;;:::i\::;:: «'-•-' "^^^-^

own flowers, and stealing mine ' , "'"' '""""« '"■'•

through all. '^'""^'' ^"«-"^''"ing, an.i talk.ng

At last the baskets were filled m,! r ; i ,

d..w„,ves,,^„„n,.,,H„u,fI i \ ;;■ ■■'"■■;' "'"""■

just ,li„-losine ■■'■ . .■ ^ pearl, iLu 1' ''"'■■"'""■■ ''" '"•

cowslip-ball. Every one knows ,i ' '"'''''' '""■

floweritsjustbelow'i: o r ::;,r"T; '" "'" """^ '•'^' ^'^
balanced across a riband. ,, y' ^e':" "^■'^--•;.''""^ ''''''
t.-topressU..nc,ose.ytog^h;:r!;;u; i:;-:-^--'-;
on very prosperously, ..,„/V/,vvV/. • as neo.>le s r ' "'"'

drawing, or a Frenchman's Kngli h or . ' '"""'' ''''^"^

poor Httie dwarf who works ;^;:;:;:": :::T'' "^ *' r

who writes with his toes, or generally of . '' ' ""' ""'°'"

accomplished by .eans ^em^ ^i: u::r"'"'^T'^ ^""'' '
be sure we met with a fc.y accidents /. •'^"''"'"""- ''^^

accidents. I-.rst. lazzy spoiled nearly all

OUli VILLAGE.

her cowslips l.y snapping them ..If too short; so there was a fresh
gathering- in tlu- next place May overset my full l.asket, and si-nt
the blossoms floating, like so ..umy fairy favours, down the brook;
then, when we were going on pretty steadily, just as we had made a
superb wreath, and were thinking of tying it together, L,./y who
held the riband, caught a glimpse of a gorgeous butterfly, all brown
and red and puri.le. and skipping off to pursue the new object.

let go her hold; so all our treasures
were abroad again. At last, however,
by dint of taking a branch of alder
as a substitute for Lizzy, and hang-
ing the basket in a pollard-ash. out of
siglit of May. the cowslip-ball was
finished. What a concentration of fra-
grance and beauty it was ! golden and
sweet to satiety! rich to sight, and
touch, and smell! Lizzy was en-
1^ chanted and ran off with her prize,
iiiding amongst the trees in the very
coyness of ecstasy, as if the human
eye, even mine, would be a restraint
upon her innocent raptures.
. In the meanwhile I sat listening, not to my enemy the cuckoo,
but to a whole concert of nightingales, scarcely interrupted by any
meaner bird, answering and vying with each other m those ^
delicious strains which are to the ear as roses to the eye: tl^se
snatches of lu.ely sound which come across us as a.rs from heaven^
Pleasant thoughts, delightful associations, awoke as I listened; and
almost unconsciously I repeated to myself the beaut.ful story of he
Lutist and the Nightingale, from Ford's Lover's Melancholy. Here
it is. Is there in En^.ish poetry anything finer ?

' f

oi /■' \ 11. I.AC i:.

" I'a»»inj{ Iroiii Itiilv to (iii'cio, the tali-s
Whiirh poct» of an eliltT tinu- liiivc IViKn'il
To k'"''''>' "'••■i'' 'ri'iiipi', IuihI ill WW
Desire t»r vi-iliiin I'iuailiM'.
To 'I'lii'KMilv I catiii-, ;iiul liviny priviili",
\Vittiv)iit ii('(|uaintaiii.'c' of iiiorc sttt'rt lompiinion*
Than t)iL> old iiunattfK tu my lovf, iii_\ tluniglit*,
I ilav bv ilav Iroiiiifiitod sikiit i;ri)vi's
Anil Nolitaiv «alk-<. Otu' iiioiniii;; imiIv
'I'hi.s aiiiilfiit fiiiounliT'il iiu': I liianl
The swt'i'tc>t aiul most rav isliiiiy ronU'iitioii
That art and nature ever were at hirile In.
A Konnd of niu»ii' toiuliM mine ears, or ralher
Indeeil entraneed my >oul : an I stole nearer,
Invited h\ llie melody, 1 saw
This youth, this fair-laced youth, upon his lute
With Htruins of Mtrant;e variety and harmony
I'roelaiminjj, as it seem'd, so hold a eliallenye
To the clear choristers of the woods, the hirils,
That as they llock'd about hitn, all stood sdent,
Wondering; at what they heanl. I womler'd too.

A niKhtinj,'"''-'.

Nature's bestskill'il musician, uiulertaki's

The cliallenj»e; ami for every several strain

The well-shaped youth couKI touch, she sauf^ him down.

He could not run divisions with more art

Upon his quakinj; instrument than she.

The nightinj^ale, ilid with her various notes

Reply to.

Some tiinc thus spent, the youny man i,Mew at last

Into a pretty anjjer, that a bird,

Whom art had never taui^ht clilVs, mood-., or notes,

Shoidd vie with him lor mastery, whose study

Had busied many hours to perfect practice.

To end the controversy, in a rapture

Upon his instrument he plays so swil'tly.

So many voluntaries, and so quick,

That there was curiosity and cuiminj;.

Concord in discord, lines of ditferinj^ method

Meeting in one full centre of delight.

78 OUR VILLAGE.

The bird (ordain'd to be

Music's first martyr) strove to imitate

These several sounds; whicliulieii her warbling throat

Fail'd in, tor grief down ilropt she on liis lute,

And brake bei' heart. It was the qnaintest sadness

To see the conqueror upon lier hearse

To weep a luneral elegy ol tears.

He look'd upon the trophies ot" his art,

Then sigh'd, tluMi wipet! his eyes; then sigb'd and cry'd,

'Alas! |)oor eieatnre, 1 will soon revenge

This cruelty '.ipon the author ot it.

Ilencelbrth this lute, guilty of innocent blood,

Shall never more hetr;i" a harmless peace

To an untimely eniP : and in that sorrow.

As he was pashing it against a tree,

I suddenly slept in."

When I had finishet] tlie lecitalioii of this fxciiiisit,, jjassage, the
sky, wiiicli had been a'! the "fiernoon dull ar.d h:;a''y, began to look
more and more threatening; darker clouds, like w:;.:'hs of black
smoke, flew across the dead leaden tint; a cooler, dan:j)er air blew
over the meadows, and a few large heavy drops sjjlashed in the water.
" We shall have a storm. Lizzy! May ! where are ye.'' Quick, quick,
my I.izzv! run, run ! faster, faster ! "

And off we ran ; Lizzy not at all displeased at the thoughts of a
wetting, to which indeed she is almost as fani'liar as a duck ; May, on
the otlter hand, peering up at the weather, and shaking her jiretty ears
with manifest dismay. Of all animals, next to a cat, a greyhound
dreads rain. She might have escaped it; her light feet would have
borne her home long before the shower; but ^L^y is too faithful for
that, too true a comrade, understands too well the laws of good-fel-
lowship; so she waited for us. She did, to be sure, galloj) on before,
and then stop and look back, and beckon, as it were, with some scorn
in her black eyes at the slowness of our progress. We in the mean-
while got on as fast as we could, encouraging and reproa.ching each

other. "I-aster, my [,i/.zy ! Oli, wluit a bad ruMnc-r !"-" Faster
faster ! Oh, what a bad rii.iner ! " echoed .nv saucebox.-" Vou are
so fat, Lizzy, you make no way ! "-"Ah ! who else is fat ? " retorted
the darling. Certninly her mother is right; I do spoil that child.

By this time we were thoroughly soak, d, all three. It was a pelt-
ing shower, that drove through o,ir thin summer clothing and poor
May's short glo.ssy coat in a moment. Ai .J then, when we were wet
to the skin, the sun came out, actually the sun, as if to laugh at uur
plight; and then, more provoking still, when the sun was shining, and
the shower over, came a maid and a boy to look after us, loaded with
cloaks and umbrellas enough to fence us against a whole day's rain.
Never mind! on we go, faster and faster; I.izzy obliged to be most

(79)

OUR VILLAGE.

ignobly carried, liaving had tlie misfortune to lose a shoe in the mud,
which we left the boy to look after.

Here we are at home — dripping; but glowing and laughing, and
bearing our calamity most manfully. May, a dog of excellent sense,
went instantly to betl in the stable, and is at this moment over head
and ears in straw; Lizzy is gone to bed too, coaxed into that wise
measure by a promise of tea and toast, and of not going home till to-
morrow, and the story of Little Red Riding Hood; and I am enjoy-
ing the luxury of dry clothing by a good fire. Really getting wet
through now and then is no bad thing, finery ai)art ; for one should
not like spoiling a now pelisse, or a handsome plume; but when there
is nothing in question but a white gown and a straw bonnet, as was
the case to-day, it is ratiier pleasant than not. The little chill re-
freshes, and our enjoyment of the subsetjuent warmth and dryness is
positive and absolute, besides, the stimulus and exertion do good to
the mind as well as body. How melancholy I was all the morning!
how cheerful I am now ! Nothing like a shower-bath— a real shower-
bath, such as J Jzzy and May and I !,ave undergone, to euro low spirits.
Try it, my dear readers, if ever ye be nervous— 1 will answer for its
success.

THE HARD Sl'MMF.K.

August i5tli. — Cold, <l()ucly, windy, wet. Here we are, in ilic midst
of the dog-days, clustering merrily round the warm hearth, like so
many crickets, instead of chirruping in the green fields like that other
merry insect the grasshopjier; shivering under the influeiK c of the
Jupiter Pluvitis of England, the wntery St. Swithin ; peering at that
scarce personage tiie sun, when he happens to make his appearan( e,
as intently as astronomers look after a < omct, or tiie conunon i)e()plc
stare at a balloon; exclainiing against the cold weather, just .is we
used to exclaim against the warm. " Wiiat a change from last year! "
is the first sentence you hear, go where you may. Kveryhody remarks
it, and everybody complains of it ; and yet in my mind it has its ad-
vantages, or at least its compensations, is everything in nature has, if
we would only lake the trouble to seek for tlieni.

Last year, in spite of the love which we are now pleased to i)rofess
towards that ardent luminary, not one of the sui,'s numerous admirers
had courage to look him in the face : there "as no bearing the world
till he had said " (iood-night " to it. Then we might stir; then we
began to wake and to live. All day long we languished under Iiis
II (8.)

III

OUli VILLAGE.

influenre in a strange dreaminess, too hot to work, too hot to read,
too liot to write, too hoi even to talk; sitting hour after hour in a
green arbour, embowered in leafiness, letting tiiought and fancy float
as they would. Those day-dreams were pretty tilings in their way;
there is no denying that. But then, if one half of the world were to
dream through a whole summer, like the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood,
what would become of the other.'

The only office recjuiring the slightest exertion, which I performed
in that warm weather, was watering my flowers. Common sympathy
called for that labour. The poor things withered, and faded, and pined
away ; they almost, so to say, punted for drought. Moreover, if I had
not watered them myself, I suspect that no one else would ; for water
last year was nearly as precious hereabout a;, wine. Our land springs
were dried up; our wells were exhausted ; our deep ponds were dwin-
dling into mud; and geese, and ducks, and pigs, and laundresses, used
to look with a jealous and suspicious eye on the few and scanty half
buckets of that imi)ure element, which my trusty lacquey was fain to
filch for my poor geraniums and campanulas and tuberoses. We were
forced to smuggle them in through my faithful adherent's territories, the
stable, to avoid lectures within doors; and at last even that resource
failed ; my garden, my blooming garden, the joy of my eyes, was forced
to go waterless like its neighbours, and became shrivelled, )M;orched,
and sunburnt, like uiem. It really went to my heart to Iof)k at it.

On the other side of the house matters were still worse. What a
dusty world it was, when about sunset we became cool enough to
creep into it! ]'"lowers in the court looking fit for a hortiis siccus;
mummies of plants, dried as in an oven ; hollyhocks, once pink, turned
into Quakers; cloves smelling of dust. Oh dusty world ! May her-
self looked of that complexion; so did Lizzy; so did all the houses,
windows, chickens, children, trees, and pigs in the village; so, above
all, did the shoes. Xo foot could make three plunges into that abyss

orix' VII. I. ACE

of jnilverised j;ravf!, wliicli liad tla- iiiiinulcnce to rail itself a hard
road, without bein^ c.lotlied with a coat a iiiiartcr of an inch tliick.
Woe to white gowns! woe to black ! Drab w.is your only wear,

'I'iien, when we were out of the street, what a toil it was to mount
the hill, climbing with weary steps ami slow upon the brown turf by
the wayside, slipjiery, hot, and hard as a rock I And then if we hap-
pcnetl to meet a carriage coming along the middle of the road, — the
bottomless middle, — wiiat a sandy wliirlwind it was I What choking!
what suffoca'ion! No state could be more pitiable, except indeed tiiat

U:;^^i|^.'lV .

of the travellers who carried this misery about with them. I shall
never forget the plight in whidi we met the roach one evening in last
August, full an hour after its time, steeds a.'d f'.river, carriage and pas-
sengers, all one dust. The outsides, and \u- horses, and the coach-
man, seemed reduced to a torpid quietness, the resignation of despair.
They had left off trying to better their condition, and taking refuge in
a wise and patient hopelessness, bent to endure in silence the extrem-
ity of ill. The six insides, on the contrary, were still fighting against
theirfate, vainly struggling to ameliorate their hapless destiny. They
were visibly grumbling at the weather, scolding the dust, and heating

OUli VILLAGE.

themselves like a furnace, by striving against the heat. Mow well I
rememl)er the fat gentleman without his coat, who was wiping his fore-
head, heaving \.\\^ his wig, and certainly uttering that English eiacula-

anguage

tion, which, to our national rei)roach, is the phrase of our 1

best known on the comment. And that poor boy, red-hot, all" in°a
flame, wliose mamma, having divested her own person of all super-
fluous apparel, was trying to relieve his sufferings by tiie removal of
his neckercliief,— an operation which he resisted with all his might,
r. How perfectly I remember him, as well as the pale girl
J^' who sat opposite, fanning herself with her bonnet into
an absolute fever! They vanished after awhile in
their own dust; but I have them all before my eyes
at this moment, a conipanion picture to Ho-
garth's Afternoon, a standing lesson to the
grumblers at cold summers.

For my part, I really like this wet season.
It keei)s us within, to be sure, rather more
X^^ than is quite agreeable ; but then we are at
least awake and alive there, and the world out
of doors is so much the pleasanter when we
can get abroad. Everything does well, except
those fastidious bipeds, men and women ; corn
ripens, grass grows, fruit is plentiful ; there is
no lack of birds to eat it, and there has not
been such a wasp-season these dozen years.
My garden wants no watering, and is more
beautiful than ever, beating my old rival in
that primitive art, the pretty wife of the little
mason, out and out. Measured with mine,
her flowers are nought. Look at those holly-
hocks, like pyramids of roses ; those garlands

■^"^'M

.■^m

OUR \'ii.i..u;e.

of the convolvulus major of all ( olours, lianj^inj^ around that tall polf,
like the wreathy hop-bine; those inagnificent dusky cloves, breathing
of the Spice Islands; those flaunting double dahlias; those splendid
scarlet geraniums, and those fierce and warlike flowers the tiger-lilies.
Oh how beautiful they are 1 liesides, the weather clears sometimes —
it has cleared this evening; and here are we, after a merry walk up
the hill, almost as (juick as in the winter, bounding lightly along the
bright green turf of the pleasant common, enticed by the gay shouts
of a dozen clear young voices, to linger awhile, and see the boys i)lay
at cricket.

I plead guilty to a strong jjartiality towards that unpopular class
of beings, country boys: I have a large acipiiintance amongst them,
and I can almost say that I know good 01 many and harm of none
In general, they are an open, spirited, good-humoured race, with a
proneness to embrace the pleasures and eschew the evils of their
condition, a cajjacity for happiness, tpiite unmat( hed in man, or

(nrii vhj.ace.

woman, or j;iil. I'liey arc Dutient. too, ami l)ear tlu-ir fate as srai)e-
goats (for all sins wliatsoi rr are laid as matters of course to their
door, whether at home or abroad,) witli amazint; resignation ; and,
ronsideriiig the manv lies of which they are the objects, they tell
wotulcrfully few in rciiirn. The worst that can be said of them is,
tint iluv seldom, when grown to man's estate, keep the promise of
their boyhood; but that is a fault to come — a fault that may not
come, and ought not to be anticipated. It is as'onishing how sen-
sible they are to notice from their betters, or those whom they think
surh. ] do not speak of money, or gifts, or praise, or the more coarse
and common briberies — they are more delicate courtiers; a word, a
nod, a smile, or the mere calling of them by their names, is enough
to ensure their liearts and their services. Half-a-dozen of them, poor
urchins, have run away i-ow to bring us chairs from their several
homes, '"rh.nik you, Joe Kirby ! — you are always first — yes, that
is just the i)lace — I shall see everything there. Have you been in
yet, Joe .=""—" No, ma'am, I go in next."— "Ah, I am glad of that —
and now's the time. Really that was a pretty ball of Jem Eusden's!
1 was sure it would go to the wicket. Run, Joe! They are wait-
ing for you." There was small need to bid Joe Kirby
^^^--wj^^iiake haste; I think he is, next to a race-horse, or a

^W- - ^r -^''^■^''"""■'*^' "'" '^ ^^'•■'■' the fastest creature tliat runs
^'^ '*■ ™f —the most completely alert and active. Joe is
mme especial friend, and leader of the "tender
juveniles," as Joel Brent is of the adults. In both
instances this i)ost of honour was gained by merit,
even more remarkably so in Joe's case than in
' Joel's; for Joe is a less boy than many of his com-

panions, (some of whoim are fifteeners and si.xteeners, (juite as tall
and nearly as old as Tom Coper,) and a poorer than all, as may be
conjectured from the lamentable state of that patched round frock,

?j«Biii i iiim» '

or/y' vii.i.AdE.

and the ragged condition of tliost- unpatclietl stiocs, wlii< h would i-n-
runiber, if anytliin^ could, the liglit fuet tlKit wear tluiii. I!ut wliv
should I lament the jjoverty that never troubles him? Joe is the
merriest and liajipiest creaturo that ever lived twelve years in this
wicked world, ("are cannot come near him. He hath a perpetual
smile on his round, ruddy face, anil .1 lauj;h in his lia/el eye. that
drives the witch away. He works at yonder farm on tiie top of tiic
hill, where he is in sucli repute for intelligence and good-humour,
that he I>as the honour of performing all the errands of the house, of
iielping the maid, and the mistress, and the master, in addition to his
own slated office (jf carter's hoy. There he works hard from five till
seven, and then he comes here to work still harder under the name
of play — batting, bowling, and tlelding, as if for life, filling the jiiace
of four boys; being, at a pinch, a whole eleven. 'I'he late Mr, Kny-
vett, the King's organist, who used in his own person lo sing twenty
parts at once of the Hallelujah chorus, so that you would have
thought he had a nest of nightingales in his throat, was but a type
of Joe Kirby. There is a sort of ubiipiity about him; he thinks
nothing of being in two places at once, and for pit( hing a ball,
William (irey hiitiself is nothing to him. It goes
straight to the mark like a bullet. He is king of
the cricketers from eight to sixteen, both inclusive,
and an excellent rider he makes. Nevertheless,
in the best-ordered states there will be grumblers,
and we have an opposition here in the sliapc of
Jem Eusden.

Jem Eusden is a stunted lad of thirteen, or
thereabouts, lean, small and short, yet strong
and active. His face is of an evtraordinary ugliness, colourless,
withered, haggard, with a look of extreme age, much increased by
hair so light that it might rather pass for white than flaxen. He is

OVIi Vll.l..UiE.

.onstantly arrayed in the blue i ap and old-fashioned coat, the cos-
tume of an endowed school to which he l)elongs; where he sits still
all day, and rushes into tin- field at nij^ht, fresh, untired, and ripe
Inr action, to scold, and hrawl, and storm, and Muster. He hates
Joe Kirliy, whose immovable good-humour, broail smiles, and know-
in- nods, must certainly I.e very provoking to so fierce and turbulent
a spirit; and he ha^ himself (l.cin^, except by rare accident, no great
|)layer) the preposterous ambition of wishing to be manager of the
sports. In short, he is a demagogue in embryo, with evt^ry <piality
necessary to a splendid success in that vocation,— a strong voice, a
nuenl utterance, an incessant iteration, and a frontiers impudence.
lie is a great "scholar." too, to use the country phrase; his "piece."
as our village schoolmaster terms a fine .heet of nourishing writing,
something between a valentine and a sampler, enclosed within a bor-
der of little coloured prints.— his last, I remend)er. was encircled by
an engraved history of Moses, beginning at the finding in the bul-
rushes, with I'haraoh's daughter dressed in a rose-coloured gown and
blue feathers,— his piece is not only the admiration of the school, but
of the parish, and is sent triumphantly round from house to house at
Christmas, to extort halfpence and sixpences from all encouragers of
learning — /l/,;///m in miniature. The Mosaic history was so suc-
cessful, that the produce enabled Jem to purchase a bat and ball,
which, besides adding to his natural arrogance, (for the little pedant
actually began to mutter against being eclipsed by a dunce, and went
so far as to challenge Joe Kirl.y to a trial in Practice, or the Rule of
Three,) gave him. when compared with the general poverty, a most
unnatural prei)onderance in the cricket state. He had the ways and
means in his hands~(for alas' the hard winter had made sad havoc
among the bats, and the best ball was a bad one) — he had the ways
and means, could withhold the supplies, and his party was beginning
to wax strong, wlien Joe received a present of two bats and a ball for

^•n,.-.

Ollx \ II. I. .U.K.

the youngsters in >;etuTal and liiinself in parti- uhir— and Ji'in's adher-
ents left him on the spot — they ratted, to a man, that very evening.
Notwithstanding this desertion, their forsaken leadir ha-. \:\ imthini^
rehixed from his pretensions, or his ill-hnmour. He still i|iiarrels
and l)rawls as if he had a faction to l)a<k him. .md thinks nothing of
conleniling with botli sides, tlie ins and the outs, secure of oiU-lalking
the whole field. He has heen s(iuabbling these ten inimiles. and is
just marching off now with his own hat (he has never deigned to use
one of Joe's) in his hand. Wh.it an ill-conditioned hol)gol)hn it is!
Anil yet there is something bold and sturdy about him too. I should
miss Jem Kusden.

Ah, there is another deserter from the party! my friend the iiitie
hussar — 1 do not know his name, and call him after his < ap .md
jacket. He is a very remarkable person, about the age of eight years,
the youngest piece of gravity and dignity I ever encountered ; short,
and square, and upright, and slow, with a fine bron/ed flat visage, re-
sembling those convertible signs the Broad- Face
and the Saracen's Heail, which, happening to be
ne.xt-door neighbours in the town of H., I never
know apart, resembling, indeed, any face that is
open-eyed and immovable — the very sign of a boy!
He stalks .ibout with his hands in his breeches
pocket, like a piece of machinery, sits leisurelv
down when he ought to field, and never gets
farther in batting than to stop the ball. His
is the only voice never heard in the meli'e : I
doubt, indeed, if he have one, whicii may be partly
the reason of a circumstance that I record to his
honour, his fidelity to Jem Kusden, to whom he has adhered through
every change of fortune, with a tenacity proceeding i)erhaps from an
instinctive consciousness that that lo([uacious leader talks enough for

OUR VILLAGE.

two. He is the only tiling resenihiing a follower that our demagogue
possesses, and is cherished by him accordingly. Jem quarrels for him,
scolds for him, jjushes for him; and hut for Joe Kirby's invincible
good-humour, and a just discrimination of the innocent from the
guilty, the activity of Jem's friendship would get the poor hussar ten
drul)bings a day.

But it is growing late. The sun lias set a long time. Only see
•what a gorgeous colouring has spread itself over tiiose parting masses
of clouds in the west,— what a train of rosy light! We shall have a
fine sunsiiiny day to-morrow,— a blessing not to be undervalued, in
spite of my late vituperation of heat. Shall wc go home now? And
shall we take the longest but prettiest road, that by the green lanes?
This way, to ihe left, round the corner of the common, past Mrs.
Welles's cottage, and our path lies straight before us. How snug
and comfortable that cottage looks! Its little yard all alive with the
•cow, and the mare, and the colt almost as large as the mare, and the

J; 1

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STANDARD REFERENCE MATERIAL 1010a

(ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No 2)

TIIKRK SHK SIANDS AT TIIK SPRING, DIPPING UP WATER FOR

TO-MOKROW."

or/i' vii.i.uii:.

young foal, and the ^rcat yard-dog, all m) iai : I-'i'ik (.d ni wiUi iiay-
rick, and wheat-rick, ami hean-stack, and backed by the long garden,
the spacious drying-ground, the fine orchard, antl that large field
quartered into four different crops. How comfortable this cottage
looks, and how well the owners earn their comforts! They are the
most prosperous pair in the par'sh — she a laundress with twenty
times more work than she lan do, unrivalled in lloimces and shirt-
frills, and such delicacies of the craft : he, partly a farmer, partly a
farmer's man, tilling his own ground, and then tilling other people's;
— affording a proof, even in this declining age, when the (ire urn-
stances of so many worthy members of the (onimimity seem to have
"an alacrity in sinking," that it is possible to amend them by sheer
industry. He, who was born in the workhouse, and bred up as a
parish boy, has now, by mere manual labour, risen to the rank of a
land owner, pays rates and taxes, grumbles at the times, and is called
Master Welles, — the title next to Mister — that by which Shakspeare
was called; — what would man have more.' His wife, besides being
the best laundress in the county, is a comely woruan still. Ihere
she stands at the spring, dipping up water for to-morrow, — the clear,
deep, silent spring, which sleeps so peacefully under its high flowery
bank, red with the tall spiral stalks of the foxglove and their rich
pendent bells, blue with the beautiful forget-me-not, that gem-like
blossom, which looks like a living jewel of turquoise and topaz. It is
almost tco late to see its beauty; and here is the pleasant shady lane,
where the u-^h elms will shut out the little twilight that remains.
Ah, but we shall have the fairies' lamps to guide us, the stars of the
earth, the glow-worms! Here they are, three almost together. Do
you not see them ? One seems tremulous, vibrating, as if on the ex-
tremity of a leaf of grass; the others are deeper in the hedge, in some
green cell on which their light falls with an emerald lustre. I hope
my friends the cricketers will not come this way home. 1 would not

OUR V/LLAGE.

have the pretty creatures removed for more than I care to say, and in
this matter I would hardly trust Joe Kirby— boys so love to stick
them in their hats. But this lane is quite deserted. It is only a road
from field to field. No one comes here at this hour. They are quite
safe; and I shall walk here to-morrow and visit them again. And
now, good night! beautiful insects, lamps of the fairies, good night!

' /'/

'JiMS^

THE FATHER, MOTHER, AND CHILDREN RETURNING FROM THE
WHEAT-FIELD."

I^JHyj^ tlio air, the sky, and the earth, seem hilled into
*t<i?A jj universal calm, softer ami milder even than

May. We sallied forth for a walk in a mood congenial to the
weather and the season, avoiditit;, by mutual consent, the bright and
sunny common, and the gay liigh-road, and stealing through shady,
unfrequented lanes, where we were not likely to meet any one, — not
even the pretty family procession which in other years we useii to
contemplate with so riuch interest — the father, mother, and children,
returning from the vhcat-field, the little ones laden with bristling
close-tied bunches of wheat-ears, their ow.i gleanings, or a bottle and
a basket which had contained their frugal dinner, whilst the mother
would carry her babe hushing and lulling it, and the father and an
elder child trudged after with the cradle, all seeming weary, and all
happy. We shall not see such a ])rocession as this to-day ; for the
harvest is nearly over, the fields are deserted, the silence may almost
be felt. Except the wintry notes of the redbreast, Nature herself is
mute. Hut how beautif'd, how gentle, how harmonious, how rich !
The rain has preserved to the herbage all the freshness and verdure
13 ( 97 )

OUii V //./.. USE.

of spring, and ihe world of leaves lias lost nothing of its inidsiinimtT
liriglitncss, and tlie hare-hel! is on the l)anks, and the woodbine in
the liedges, and the low fllr^e, which the Lunbs cropped in the spring,
has burst again into its golden blossoms.

All is beautiful that the eye '■) i see; perhaps the more beautiful
for being shut in with a forest-nke t jseness. We have no prospect
in this labyrinth of lanes, cross-roads, mere cart-ways, lending to the
innumerable little farms into which this part of the parish is divided.

Up-hill or down, these quiet woody lanes scarcely give us a peep at
the world, except when, leaning over a gate, we look into one of the
small enclosures, hemmed in with hedgerows, so closely set with
growing timber, that the meadowy opening looks almost like a glade
in a wood ; or when some cottage, planted at a corner of one of the
little greens formed by the meeting of these cross-ways, almost star-
tles us by the unexpected sight of the dwellings of men m such a
solitude. But that we have more of hill and dale, and that our cross-

l'i.y^--,.LiU ' jjiui.4!4 i .^jij^j 9g,g

turn i //./.. M.f-:

roads are excellent in their kind, this side of our parish wdiiid rv-
stinblc the description given of I,a Vendee, in Madame I.aroi he-
JiiC(pielin's most intefesting book. I am sure if wood can entitle .i
country to be called Le Hoca;!;e, none can iiave a better right to tlie
name. Even this pretty snug farni-house on the hill-side, with ils
front covered with the rich vjnc, which goes wreathing up to the very
top of the clustered chimney, and its sloping on hard full of fruit —
even this pretty ipiiet nest can hardiv pci p out of Its leaves. .Ah!
they are gathering in the orchard
harvest. Look at that young
rogue in the old mossy api)lc-
tree — that great tree, bend-
ing with the weight of its
golden-rennets — see how he
pelts his little sister beneath
with apples as red and us
round as her own cheeks,
while she, v,ith her out-
stretched frock, is trying to
catch them, anil laughing
and offering to pelt again as
often as one bobs against
her; and look at that still
younger imp, who, as grave
as a judge, is creeping on
hands and knees under the tree, -'"
picking up the apples as they fall
so deedily, and depositing them so honestly in th-,- great basket on
the grass, already fixed so firmly and oi.ened so widely, and fdled
almost to overflowing by the brown rough fruitage of the golden-
rennet's next neighbour the russeting; and see that smallest urchin

lOO

OVii VILLAUE.

ol" all, M-ntc(l apart in infantine state on the turfy ;,ank, with that
toothsome piece of detonnity a en, -ipling in each hand, now hiting
from one sweet, hard, juicy morsel, and now from another. Is not
tliat a pretty Knglish picture? And then, iarther up the orchard,
that hoKl, liardy lad, the eldest b(Tn, who has scaled (Heaven knows
how) tlie tail straight upper branch of that great pear-tree, and is sit-
ting there as securely and as fearlessly, in as much real safety and
a|)parent danger, as a sailor on the top-mast. Now he shakes the
tree witii a mighty swing that brings down a pelting shower of stony
bergamots, which the father gathers rapidly up, whilst the mother can
hardly assist for her motherly fear — a fear which only spurs the
si)irited boy to bolder ventures. Is not that a pretty picture? And
they are such a handsome family, too, the Hrookers. I do not know
that there is any gipsy blood, but there is the true gipsy complexion,
riclily brown, witli cheeks and lips so deeply red, black hai- curling
close to their !,eads in sho't crisp rings, white shining teeth— and
such eyes!— That sort of beauty entirely eclipses your mere roses
and lilies. Even Li//,y, the prettiest of fair children, would look poor
and watery by the side of Willy Hrooker, tiie .sober little personage
wIk) is picking up the apples with his small chubby hands, and filling
the basket so orderly, next to his father the most useful man in the
field. " Willy ! '• He hears without seeing ; for we are quite hidden
by the high bank, and a spreading hawthorn bush that overtops it,
though between the lower branches and the grass we have found J
convenient peep-hole. "Willy!" The voice .sounds to him like
some fairy dream, and the black eyes are raised from the ground
with sudden wonder, the long silky eyelashes thrown back till they
rest on the delicate brow, and a deeper blush is burning in those dark
cheeks, and a smile is dimpling about those scarlet lips. But the
voice is silent now, and the little quiet boy, after a moment's pause, is
gone coolly to work again. He is indeed a most lovely child. I

OIH \ II I.U'E.

\o\

think some day or oilier he must m.irry l.i//.y; I ^hall proj-jse the
maldi to ilieir resi)e( tive manm^as. At present the parties are rather
too youn^ for a wedding -the intrndid l.ridct;ronm U•^^^^. as I
•h.-uld judge, six, or thereabout, and the l.iir l.rule l)areiy five,— hut
at least we mi^-ht have a l.etrothmeiu after tlie royal fashi«m,— there
rould be no harm in that. Miss I.i//v, I have no doubt, would be as
demure and ((xiueltish as if ten winters more had gone over her head,
and poor wniy would open his inn... eut black eyes, and wonder what
was going forward. They wo.dd be the very ()l.cr..n an.l i'itania of
the village, the fairy king and .pieen.

.\h! heie is the hedge along which the periwinkle wreathes an.l
twines so i.rofusely, with its evergreen leaves shinmg like the myrtle,
and its star.y blue flowers. It is sel.lom foim.l wild in this part of
England; but, when we do n.eet with it. it -s so abundant and so
welcome,— the very robin-redbreast ..f fl.)wers, a winter friend. Un-
less in those unfrequent frosts which destroy all vegetation, it blos-
soms from September to June, surviving the last lingering crane's
bill, forerunning the earliest primn.se, hardier even than the moun-
tain daisy,— i>eeping out from beneath the snow, looking', at itsell w\
the ice, smiling through the temi.ests of life, an.l yet welcoming and
enjoying the sunbeams. Oh, t.> 1>j like that flower!

The little soring that has been bubbling under the hedge all ahmg
the hill-side begins, now tha' wc have m.)unted the eminence and are
imi)erceptibly desc.mding. t.. .Acviatc into a capricious variety of clear
deep p.)ols and channels, so narrow and so choke.l with weeds that a
child might overstep them. The hedge has also ciianged its charac
ter. It is no long.^r the close compa.:t vegetable wall of hawthorn,
and maple, and brier-roses, inlertwinevl with bramble and woodbine,
and crowned with large elms or thickly-set saplings. No 1 the piotty
meadow which rises high above us, backed a.ul almost surrounded by
a tall copiMce, needs no defence on our side but its ..wn steci) bank.

I02

OUR vn.LAdE.

If i

garnished with tufts of broom,
:* with pollard oaks wreathed with
ivy, and here and there with
long patches of hazel over-
anging the water. "Ah,
there are still nuts on that
'ough ! " and in an instant
my dear companion, active
and eager, and delighted as
a boy, has hooked down with
his walking-stick one of the
issonie hazel stalks, and
. cleared it of its tawny clus-

ters, and in another moment
he has mounted the bank, and
is in the midst of the nuttery,
now transferring the spoil
from the lower branches into
that vast variety of pockets
which gentlemen carry about
tliem, now bending the tall
tops into the lane, holding \
them down by main force, so '
that I may reach them and |
enjoy the |)leasure of collect- ,;,,
ing some of the plunder myself.'^^
A very great pleasure he knew it
would be. I doffed my shawl.

nVR vn.i.MiE

' ' >^

tucked up niy flounces, turned my stiaw l)()nnet into .i lusket, and
began gathering and scrambling — for, manage it liow you mav, mu-
ting is scrambling work, — tliose l)ougiis, however tiglitiy you may
gras]) lliem l)y the young fragrant twigs and the l)rigiit green leaves,
will recoil and burst away; but there is a pleasure even in that:
so on we go, scrambling and gathering with all our might and all
our glee. Oh what an enjoyment! AH my life long I lutve had a
passion for that sort of seeking which implies fmding, (the secret,
I believe, of the love of field-sports, which is in man's mind a nat-
ural impulse,) — therefore I love violeting, — therefore, when we had
a fine garden, I used to love to gather strawberries, and cu: aspar-
agus, and, above all, to collect the filberts from the shrubberies: but
this hedgei'jw nutting beats that sport all to nothing. That was a
make-bcieve thing, compared with this; there was no surjjrise, no
suspense, no unexpectedness — it was as inferior to this wild nutting
as the turning out of a bag-fox is to unearthing the fellow, in the eyes
of a staunch fox-hunter.

Oh what an enjoyment this nut gathering is! They are in such
abundance, that it seems as if there were not a
^%i-^ ^ bov in the parish, nor a voung man, \un a voung
woman, — for a basket ot nuts is the universal
tribute of country gallantry ; our jiretty damsel
Harriet has had at least half-a-dozen this season ;
but no one has found out these. And they
are so full too, we lose half of them from over-
ripeness; they drop from the socket at the
slightest motion. If we lose, there is one
who finds. May is as fond of nuts as a stpiir-
rel, and cracks the shell and extracts the ker-
nel with equal dexterity. Her white glossy
head is upturned now to watch them as they

I I

wiiiiimuM

i()4

OUli VlLLAdli.

fall. See how her neck is thrown back like that of a swan, and how
beautifully her folded ears quiver with expectation, and how her quick
eye follows the rustling noise, and her light feet dance and j^at the
ground, and leap up with eagerness, seeming almost sustained in the
air, just as I have seen her when Brusli is Ideating a hedgerow, and
she knows from his (juesting that there is a hare afoot. See, she has
caught that nut just before it touched the water; but the water would
have been no defence, — she fishes them from the bottom, she delves
after them among the matted grass — even my bonnet — how beg-
gingly she looks at that ! "Oh what a pleasure nutting is! — Is it not,
May.' But the ])ockets are almost full, and so is the basket-bonnet,
and that bright watch the sun says it is late; and after all it is wrong
to rob the poor boys — is it not, May.'" — May shakes her graceful
head denyingly, as if she understood the (]uestion — " and we must
go home now — must we not .' But we will come nutting again some
time or other — shall we not, my May.'"

^ ' THE VISIT.

October 271!). — A iovely autumnal
day; tlie air soft, balmy, genial;
ihe sky of that softened and delicate
blue upon wliicli the eye loves to rest,— tlie blue which gives such
relief to the rich beauty of the earth, all around glowing in the ripe
and mellow tints of the most gorgeous of the seasons. Really such
an autumn may well compensate our Knglisli climate for the fine
spring of the south, that spring of which the poets talk, but which
we so seldom enjoy. Such an autumn glows ujion us like a splendid
evening; it is the very sunset of the year; and I have been tempted
forth into a wider range of enjoyment than usual. 'I"his n'alk (if I
may use the Irish figure of speech called a bull) will be a tide. A
very dear friend has beguiled me into accompanying her in her pretty
equipage to her beautiful home, four miles off; and having sent for-
ward in the style of a running footman the servant who had driven
her, she assumes the reins, and off we set.

My fair companion is a person whom nature and fortune would
14 1 '05 )

BMMMMHIM)

io6

OUR VILLAGE.

have spoiled if they could. She is one of those striking women whom
a stranger cannot pass without turning to look again; tall and finely
proportioned, with a bold Roman contour of figure and feature, a deli-
cate English complexion, and an air of distinction altogether her own.
Her beauty is duchess-like. She seems born to wear feathers and dia-
monds, and to form the grace and ornament of a court ; and the noble
frankness and simplicity of her countenance and manner confirm the
impression. Destiny has, however, dealt more kindly by her. She is
the wife of a rich country gentleman of high descent and higher at-
tainments, to whom she is most devotedly attached,— the mother of a
little girl as lovely as herself, and the delight of all who have the hap-
piness of her acquaintance, to whom she is endeared not liierely by
her remarkable sweetness of temper and kindness of heart, but by the
singular ingenuousness and openness of character which communicate
an indescribable charm to her conversation. She is as transparent as
water. You may see every colour, every shade of a mind as lofty and
beautiful as her person. Talking with her is like being in the Palace
of Truth described by Madame de Genlis; and yet so kindly are her
feelings, so great her indulgence to the little failings and foibles of our
common nature, so intense her sympathy with the wants, the wishes,
the sorrows, and the happiness of her fellow-
^creatures, that, with all her frank-speaking, I
never knew her make an enemy or lose a
friend. But we must get on. What would
she say if she knew I was putting her into
print.' We must get on up the hill. Ah!
that is precisely what we are not likely to
do! This horse, this beautiful and high-
bred hor.se, well fed, and fat and glossy, who
stood prancing at our gate like an Arabian,
has suddenly turned sulky. He does not indeed stand quite still, but

THE BEAUTIKUL I'KOSPF.CT THAT LAV liATHKD IN ClOLDEN SUNSHINE."

If fl .

i: f

,^M

I .»

Ol'R y I I.I. Mi E.

109

his way of moving is little better — the slowest and most sullen of all
walks. Even they who ply the hearse at funerals, sad-looking beasts
who totter under blai k feathers, go faster. It is of no use to admon-
ish him by whi]), or rein, or word. 'l"he rogue has found out that \t
is a weak and tender hand that guides him now. Oh for one imll,
one stroke of his old driver, the grodui ! how he would lly ! I'.ut
there is the groom half-a-mile before us, out of ear-shot, clearing; tlie
ground at a cai)ital rate, beating us hollow. He has just turned tlie
top of the hill; — and in a moment — aye, nou< he is out of si^lii, and
will undoubtedly so continue till he meets us at the l.iwn gate. Well!
there is no great harm. It is only prolonging the pleasure of enjoy-
ing together this charming scenery in fine weather. If once we make
up our minds not to care how slow our steed goes, not to fret our-
selves by vain exertions, it is no matter what his pace may be. riuie
is little doubt of his getting home by sunset, and tliat will content um.
He is, after all, a fine noble animal; and perhaps when he funis that
we are determined to give him his way, he may relent and give us
ours. .Ml of his sex are sticklers for dominion, though, when it is
undisputed, some of them are gei .nous enough to abandon it. Two
or three of the most discreet wives of my acipiaintance contrive to
tiianage their husbands sufficiently with no better secret than this
seeming submission ; and in our case the example lias the more
weight since we have no possible way of helping ourselves.

Thus philosophising, we reached tlie top of the hill, and viewed
with "reverted eyes" the beautiful prospect that lay bathed in golden
sunshine behind us. Cowper says, with that boldness of ex])ressing
in poetry the commonest and simplest feelings, which is jK'rhaps one
great secret of his originality,

"Scenes must be beautil'ul, wliiili, daily --l'imi.
Please daily, and wliose novelty survives
Long knowledge and tlie sci iiliuy of years."

iMml

OUli V/LLAdE.

Everyday I walk up this hill-every day I pause at the top to admire
the broad winding road with the green waste on each side, uniting it
with the thickly-timbered hedgerows; the two pretty cottages at un-
equal distances, placed so as to mark the bends; the village beyond,
with its mass of roofs and clustered chimneys peeping through the'
trees; and the rich distance, where cottages, mansions, churches,
towns, seem embowered in some wide forest, and shut in by blue shad-
owy hills. Every day I admire this most beautiful landscape; yet
never did it seem to me so fine or so glowing as now. All the tints of
the glorious autumn, orange, tawny, yellow, red, are poured in profu-
sion amongst the bright greens of the meadows and turnip fields, till
the eye is satiated with colour; and then before us we have the com-
mon with its picturescpie roughness of surface tufted with cottages,
dappled with water, edging off on one side into fields, and farms, and
orchards, and terminated on the other by the princely cik avenue.
What a richness and variety the wild broken ground gives to the lux-
uriant cultivation of the rest of the landscape ! Cowper has described
It for me. How perpetually, as we walk in the country, his vivid
pictures recur to the memory ! Here is his common, and mine !

"The common overgrown with fern, and rough
With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and dclorm'd
And dangerous to the touch, has yet its hioom.
And decks itself with ornaments of gold;—

"^ ■ there the turf

Smells fresh, and, rich in otioriferous herhs
And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense
With luxury of unexpected sweets."

The description is exact. There, too, to the left is my cricket-
ground; (Cowper's common wanted that finishing grace;) and there
stands one solitary urchin, as if in contemplation of its past and fu-
ture glories ; for, alas ! cricket is over for the season. Ah ! it is Ben
Kirby, next brother to Joe, king of the youngsters, and probably his

OUR VILl.AC.E.

I I !

successor — for this Michaelmas has cost us Joe! He is ]ironii)tcil
from the farm to the mansion-house, two mile> ^^^i: tliere he deans
shoes, rubs knives, and runs on erraniis. and is. as Ids mother ex-
presses it, "a sort of 'prentice to tlie footman." I shouhi not wonder
if Joe, some day or other, sliould overtop the footman, and rise to be
butler; and his splendid prosi)ects must be our ( onsolaiioii for the
loss of this great favourite. In the meanliim.' wi' hive lien.

Ben Kirby is a year younger tlian Joe, and a scliool-fellow and rival
of Jem Eusden. To be sure his abilities lie in rather a different line.
Jem is a scholar, Ben is a wag: Jem is great in figures and writing,
Ben in faces and mischief. His master says of him, that, if there were
two such in the school, he must resign his office; and, as far as my
observation goes, the worthy pedagogue is right. Ben is, it must be

ml
V'

i! !

I 13

(fCU V//./.A(iB.

confessed, a great corru|.tcr of ^jravity. Me hath an exceeding aver-
sion to authority and deeonim. and a wonderful huldnesi and dexter-
ity in overthrowing the one and puzzling the other. His contortions
of visage are astounding. His " power over his own muscles and thosp
of other people" is almost etpial to that of Liston ; and indeed the
original face, flat and s.piare, and Chinese in its shape, of a fine tan
complexion, with a snub nose, and a slit for a mouth, is nearly as com-
ical as that matchless perfonner's. When aided by Hen's singular
mobility of feature, his knowing winks, and grins, and shrugs, and
nods, together uith a certain dry shrewdness, a habit of saying sharp
things, and a marvellous gift of impudence, it forms as lino a specimen
as possible of a humorous country boy, an oddity in embryo. Every-
body likes Hon, except his butts; (which may perhaps compris half
bis acquaintance;) and of them no one so thoroughly hates and dreads
liim as our parish schoolmaster, a most worthy King Log, whom IJen
dumfounds twenty times a day. He is a great ornament of the
cricket-ground, has a real genius for the game, and displays it after a
very original manner, under the disguise of awkwardness — as the
clown shows off his agility in a pantomime. Notiiing comes amiss to
iiim. Jiy the bye, he would have been the very lad for us in our pre:-,
ent dilemma; not a horse in England could master Hen Kirby. But
we are too far from him now— and perhaps n is as well that we are
so. 1 believe the rogue has a kindness for me, in remembrance of
certain apples and nuts, which my usual companion, who delights in
his wit, is accustomed to dole out to him. liut it is a Robin Goodfel-
low nevertheless, a perfect Puck, that loves nothing on earth so well as
mischief. Perhaps the horse may be the safer conductor of the two.
The avenue is quite alive to-day. Old women are picking up
twigs and acorns, and pigs of n'l si;.es doing their utmost to spare
them the latter part of the trouble ; boys and girls groping for beech-
nuts under yonder clump; and a group of younger elves collecting as

OUR \n.!.\<:K

i'3

many dead leaves as they can find lo feed the bonfire which is smok-
ing away so briskly -imongst the tn-es-a sort of rehea.sal of the
grand bonfire nine days hence; of the loyal ronllanr.uion of the ar. h
traitor (".uyVaux, which is annually solciv.niscil in ti>c avenue, accom-
panied with as much of s.iuihbery and era. kcry as our boys can beg

^r borrow— not to say steal. Hen Rirby is a great man on the fitth of
November. All the savings of a month, the hoarded halfpence, the
new farthings, the very luck-penny, go off in fumo on that night. For
my part, I like this daylight mockery better. There is no gunpowder
—odious gunpowder ! no noise but the merry shouts of the small fry,
so shrill and happy, and the cawing of the rooks, who are wheeling in
IS

SSeSSBBB

114

ou/,' K/iw-.-r./.

,a:^

large rircles overhead, and wondering what is going forward in their
territory — sfcmitiK in tht-ir loud clamour lo ask what that light smoke
may mean that curls so prettily amongst their old oaks, towering as if
to tneet the clouds. There is something very intelligent in the ways
of that black people the rooks, particularly in their wonder. I sup-
pose it results from their numbers and their unity of purpose, a sort
of collective and corporate wisdom. Yet geese congregate also; and
geese never by any chance look wise, luit then geese are a domestic
fowl; we have spoiled them; and rooks a-e free commoners of na-
ture, who use the habitations we provide for them, tenant our groves
and our avenues, and never dream of becoming our subjects.

-T^ ^

W ,1 labyruuh of a road this is! I do think there are four
turnings in the short half-mile between the avenue and the mill.
And what a pity, as my companion observes — not that our good and
jolly miller, the very rei)resentative of the old English yeomanry,
should be so rich, but that one consequence of his ri. hes should be
the pulling down of the prettiest old mill that ever looked at Itself in
the Loddon, with the picturesque, low-browed, irregular cottage,
which stood with i»s light-pointed roof, its clustered chimneys, and
its ever-open door, lookmg like the real abode of comfort and hospi-
tality, to build this huge, staring, frightful, red-brick mill, as ugly as

PHI

r/ i.AiiE.

a manufactory, and tins gn nquar. house. uKly and. rc.l t.. niat.h,
just behind. 'I'lu* ..Id buildui«s .iKv .» used to remind me ot \\\>\

lett's beautiful engravinK of i
be long l)efore any artist will i
this redness in a picture ! this
description of Bardolph's nost
Here is that monstrous ni,n
.f tlour. and its four fat horses

il»e Maid of the Mdl. It will
.1 drawinj; of this. Only tliink of
led lobster of a house ! Fa! .tafTs
id Icok pale in the comparison,
c of A tihfd wiiKunii, with its uad
t wonder wiiellier our horse will
l.ave the decency to get out of t' way. If he does not, I un sure
we cannot make him ; and that Mnous shi]) upon wheels, that ark
on dry land, would r .11 over u^ -e < ar of juK^ernaut Really

— Oh no! there is i.o danger nou -■ .liould havc .cm.Mnbereil that
it s my friend Samuel Long wlu drives the mill-team. He will
take care of us. "Thank you, Samu.l!" And Samuel has put us
on nir way, steered us safely past lus i^^on, escorted us over the
briage; and now, having seen us thm ,,. our immediate difriculties,
has 'arted from us with a very civil bow and good-Iuimoured smile,
as e who is always civil and good-humoured, but with a ccrt.iin
triuii .hant h.asterful look in his eyes, which I have noted i.i m.'U,
even the best of them, when a woman gets into straits bv atten.i.t-
ing n' inly employments. He has done us great good though, and
may be allowed his little f.^'jing of superiority. The i.arting salute
he bestowed on our steed, in the shap. of an astounding < ra.k of
his huge whip, has put tiiat refractory animal on his mettle. On we
go fast ' past the glazier's pretty house, with its porch and its filberd
walk; along the narrow lane bordered with elms, whose fallen leaves
have'm. de the road one yellow ; past that little farm-house with the
horse-chestnut trees before, glowing like oranges; past the white-
washed school on the other side, gay with October roses; past the
park, and the lodge, and the mansion, where once dwelt the great
earl of Clarendon ;— and now the rascal has begun to discover that

";?!

ii6

0[//f VILLAGE.

Samuel Long and his whip are a mile off, and that his mistress is
driving him, and he slackens his pace accordingly. Perhaps he feels
the beauty of the road just here, and goes slowly to enjoy it. Very
beautiful it certainly is. The i)ark paling forms the boundary on one
side, with fme clumps of oak, and deer in all attitudes; the water,

/ :

tufted with alders, flowing along on the other. Another turn, and the
water winds away, succeeded by a low hedge, and a sweep of green
meadows; whilst the park and its palings are replaced by a steep
bank, on which stands a small, quiet, village ale-house; and higher
up, embosomed in wood, is the little country church, with its sloping
churchyard and its low white steeple, peeping out from amongst mag-
nificent yew-trees : —

"Huge trunks! ami each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Upcoiling, and invet'rately convolved."

Wordsworth.

OUli V 11. LACE.

I I

No village chiircli was ever more happily placed. It is the very
image of the peace and humbleness inculcated within its walls.

Ah ! here is a higher ;.' 'r^'^V
hill rising before us, al- -'^ ^%"^^
most like a mountain. How ^'.
grandly the view opens as ';^
we ascend over that wild
bank, overgrown with fern, and lieath, and gorse, and between those
tall hollies, glowing with their coral berries! Wi>at an expanse!
But we have little time to gaze at present; for tliat piece of perver-
sity, our horse, who has walked over so much level ground, has now,
inspired, I presume, by a desire to revisit his stable, taken it into
that unaccountable noddle of his to trot up this, the very steepest
hill in the county. Here we are on the top; and in five minutes we
have reached the lawn gate, and are in the very midst of that beau-
tiful piece of art or nature, (I do not know to which class it be-
longs,) the pleasure-ground of F. Hill. Never was the " proi)hetic eye

ill

i.il

ii8

Ol/Jf VfLLAGE.

Of taste •• exerted with more magical skill than in these plantations
Tlurty years ago this place had no existence; it was a mere undis-
t.nguished tract of Held and meadow and common land ; now it is a
mmi.c forest, delighting the eye with the finest combinations of trees
and shrubs, ti,e rarest effects r( form and foliage, and bewildering
the mmd w.th its green glades, a..d impervious recesses, and anpar-
ently .ntermmable extent It is ihe triumph of landscape gardening
and never more beautiful than in this autumn sunset, lighting up the'
ruddy beech and the spotted sycamore, and gilding the shining fir-
cones that hang so thickly amongst the dark pines. The robins are
smgmg around us, as if they too felt the magic of the hour. How
gracefully the road winds through the leafy labyrinth, leading imper-
ceptibly to the more ornamented sweep. Here we are at the door,
amidst geraniums, and carnations, and jasmines, still in flower. Ah !

here is a flower sweeter than all, a
,;,.,, bird gayer than the robin, the little
liik' ^'""^ '''^' chirps to the tune

of " mamma ! mamma ! "— the
bright-faced fairy, whose tiny
feet come pattering along, mak-
ing a merry music, mamma's
own Frances! And following
her guidance, here we are in the
dear round room time enough
to catch the last rays of the sun,
as they light the noble land-
scape which lies like a pano-
rama around us, lingering long-
est on that long island of old thorns
and stunted oaks, the oasis of B.
Heath, and then vanishing in a succession of gorgeous clouds.

October 28th.— Another soft and brilliant morning. But the

OUli VILLAGE.

pleasures of to-day must be written in short-hand. I have Ictt my-
self no room for notes of admiration.

First we drove about the coppice; an e.xtensive wood of oak, and
elm, and beech, chiefly the former, which adjoins the park paling ot
F. Hill, of which demesne, indeed, it forms one of the most delightfid
parts. The roads through the coppice are studiously wild, so tliat they
have the appearance of mere cart-tracks ; and the manner in which the

^y^,?^"^'^-^^:--

ground is tumbled about, the steep declivities, the sunny slopes, the
sudden swells and falls, now a close narrow valley, then a sharp as-
cent to an eminence commanding an immense extent of prospect,
have a striking air of natural beauty, developed and heightened by the
perfection of art. All this, indeed, was familiar to me ; tlie colouring
only was new. I had been there in early spring, when the fragrant
palms were on the willow, and the yellow tassels on the hazel, and

I20

OUR VILLAGE.

ill! ^ !^

every twig was swelling with

and

lie gr

.^-^

leafi

■■v,r-

t.i

&^'*^-

renewed life; and I had been there again
ness of midsummer; but never as now
:Vvhen the dark verdure of the fir-planta-
-^tions, hanging over the picturesque
^llf and unequal paling, partly covered
f V ^^'''> "'o«s and ivy, contrasts so re-
'^- niarkably with the shining

^V^ orange-leaves of the beech,
hf. already half fallen, the pale
yellow of the scattering elm,
the deeper and richer tints of
the oak, and the glossy stems
of the "lady of the woods,"
the delicate weeping birch.
The underwood is no less
picturesque. The red-spotted
leaves, and redder berries of
the old thorn, the scarlet fes-
toons of the bramble, the tall
fern of every hue. seem to vie with the
brdhant mosaic of the ground, now cov-
ered with dead leaves, and strewn
with fir-cones, now, where a little
; glade intervenes, gay with various
mosses and splendid///..^./. How
beautiful is this coppi :e to-day-

r.T^r;-?

\T^r

?v*A^

»-':fC

.^S?>V

^M^'

'fr^t

OCR VILLAOE.

121

especially where the little spring, as clear as crystal, comes bubbling
out from the "old fantastic" beech
root, and tri« kles over the grass,
bright and silent as the dew in a
May morning. The wood-pigeons
(who are just returned from their "!>{;
summer migration, and are crop-
ping the ivy berries) add their
low cooings, the very note of love,
to the slight fluttering of
the falling leaves in the
quiet air, giving a voice to
the sunshine and the beau-
ty. This coppice is a place *"'•
to live and die in. But we
must go. And how fine is
the ascent which leads us
again into the world, past
those cottages hidden as in a
pit, and by that hanging or-
chard and that rough heathy
bank ! The scenery in this
one spot has a wildness, an
abruptness of rise and fall,

\^3w^s?

122

OUR VILLAGE,

I i

rare in any part of England, rare above all in this rich and lovely but
monotonous county. It is Switzerland in miniature.

And now we cross the hill to pay a morning visit to the family at
the great house,— another fine place, commanding another fine sweep
of country. The park, studded with old trees, and sinking gently into
a valley, rich in wood and water, is in the best style of ornamental
landscape, though more according to the common routine of gentle-
men's seats than the singularly original place which we have just left.
There is, however, one distinctive beauty in the grounds of the great
house; -the magnificent firs which shade the terraces and surround
the sweep, giving out in summer odours really Sabaean, and now in
this low autumn sun producing an effect almost magical, as the huge
red trunks, garlanded with ivy, stand out from the deep shadows like
an army of giants. Indoors -Oh I must not take my readers in-
doors, or we shall never get away !-Indoors the sunshine is brighter
still; for there, in a lofty lightsome room, sits a damsel fair and arcl.
^r,A piquante, one whom Titian or Velasquez should be born again to
paint, leaning over an instrument as sparkling and fanciful as herself,
singing pretty French romances, and Scottish Jacobite songs, and all
sorts of graceful and airy drolleries picked up I know not v/here —
an English improvisatrice ! A gayer Annot Lyle! whilst her sister,
of a higher order of beauty, and with an earnest kindness in her
smile that deepens its power, lends to the piano, as her father to the
violin, an expression, a sensibility, a spirit, an eloquence, almost hu-
man -almost divine! Oh to hear these two instruments accom-
panying my dear companion (I forgot to say that she is a singer
worthy to be so accompanied) in Haydn's exquisite canzonet " She
never told her love,"-to hear her voice, with all its power, its sweet-
ness, Its gush of sound, so sustained and assisted by modulations that
rivalled its intensity of expression; to hear at once such poetry, such
music, such execution, is a pleasure never to be forgotten, or mixed
with meaner things. I seem to hear it still.

OUR Vn.I.A(.E.

Ab ill the bursting spring time o'er the eve

or one wlio haunts llio fields fair visions creep
Beneatli tlie dosed lids (iifore dull sleep

Dim* the quick fancy) of sweet flovsers that lie

On grassy banks, oxlip of orient tlyo,
And palest primrose and blue violet,
All in their I'rcsli and dewy beauty set.

Pictured within the sense, and will not fly;

So in mine ear resounds and lives again
One mingled melody, — a voice, a pair
Of instruments most voice-like! Of the air

Rather than of the earth seems that hij;h strain,

A spirit's song, and worthy of the train

That soothed old Prospero with music rare.

123

I it

i^^-<*^v\,^

^^M^P^EiM THE COPSE.

\ ./A/.,. ^^j:r- r^Wl^^T'-^ APKU.i8tli.- -Sad wintry weather;

a nortli-east wind; a sun that i)iUs out
• one's eyes, without allordiiij^ the slight-
est warmth ; dryness tliat cliaps lips and
hands like a frost in December; rain that
comes chilly and arrowy like hail in Janu-
ary; nature at a dead pause; no st ods up in the garden; no leaves
out in the hedgerows; no cowslips swinging their pretty bells in the
fields; no nightingales in the dingles; no swallows skimming round
the great pond; no cuckoos (that ever I should miss that rascally
sonneteer!) in any part. Nevertheless there is something of a charm
in this wintry spring, this putting-back ol tiie seasons. If the flower-
clock must stand still for a month or two, could it choose a better
time than that of the primroses and violets. I never remember (and
for such gauds my memory, if not very goo'i for aught of wise or use-
ful, may be trusted) sucii an afiluence of the one or such a duration
of the other. Primrosy is the epithet which this year will retain in

( J^O

! I

ia6

OUR V ILL ACE.

my recollection. Hedge, ditch, „,eadow, field, even the very paths
and highways, ar ,• set with them ; i,„t their chief hahitat is a certain
copse, about a n,ilo off, where they are spread like a carpet, and where
I go to vis.t th.m rather oftener than quite comports with the di.-.i.y
of a lady of mature age. I am going thither this very afternoon.' and
May and her comjiany are going too.

This Mayllower of mine is a strange animal. Instinct and imita-
t.on make in her an approach t(, reason winch is .on.eti.nes almost
startlmg. She mimics all that she see. us do, with the dexterity of a
mon.ey, and far more of gravity and apparent purpose; cracks nuts
an. eats them; gathers currants and severs them from the stalk with
thcynost delicate nicety; f.lches and munches apples and pears; is
as dangerous in an orchard as a schoolboy; smells to flowers; smiles
at meetmg; answers in a pretty lively voice when spoken to (sad pity
that the language should be unknown !) and has greatly the advantage
of us ,n a conversation, inasmuch as our meaning is certainly clear to
her;-all th.s and a thousand amusing prettinesses (to say nothing of
her canme feat of bringing her game straight to her master's feet, and
refusing to resign it to any hand but his,) does my beautiful grey-
nound perform untaught, by the mere effect of imitation and sagacity
^ ell. May. at the end of the coursing season, having lost Brush, our
old spaniel, her great friend, and the blue greyhound, Mariette, her
comrade and rival, both of which four-footed worthies were sent out
o keep for the summer, began to find solitude a weary condition and
to look abroad for company. Now it so happened that the same sus-
pension of sport which had reduced our little establishment from three
dogs to one, had also dispersed the splendid kennel of a celebrated
courser ,n our neighbourhood, three of whose finest young dogs came
home to "their walk "-as the spor-ng phra.se goes~at the collar-
maker s in our village. May, accordi, gly, on the first morning of her
solitude, (she had never taken the slightest notice of her neighbours

ggeyan gjiummv

OVIi VII.l.MiE.

127

before, althougli they had sojourned \\\ our strt-i't u|)war(ls of a lort-
night,) bcthouglu lierself of the timely resource offered to her by the
vicinity of these canine beuiix, and went u|i Iioldly and kno( kcd at
their stable door, which was already very coniinodiously on the half-
latch. The three dogs came out with much alertness and gallantry,
and May, declining apparently to enter their territories, brought them
off to her own. 'I'his manoeuvre has been repeated every day, with
one variation; of the three dogs, the first a brindle, the second a yel-

low, and the third a black, the two first only are now admitted to
walk or consort with her, and the last, poor I'ellow, for no fault that I
can discover except May's caprice, is driven away not only by the
fair lady, but even by his old companions — is, so to say, sent to Cov-
entry. Of her two permitted followers, the yellow gentleman, Saladi.i
by name, is decidedly the favourite. He is, indeed. May's shadow,
and will walk with me whether I choose or not. It is quite impos-

138

Olh' VII.I.UiE.

sible to ^;ct rid of liiin unless by discarding Miss May also; — and to
accomjilish a walk in the country without her would he like an ad-
venture ot" Don Quixote, without his faithful ^(luire S.iiu ho.

So forth we set, May and I, and Saladin, and the hrindle; May
and myself walking with the sedatcness and decorum befitting our sex
and age (she is five years old this grass, rising six)— the young things,
for the soldan and the brindle are (not meaning any disrespect) little
better than puppies, frisking and frolicking as best pleased them.

Our route lay for the first part along the sheltered quiet lanes which
lead to our old habitation ; a way never trodden by me without pecu-
liar and home-like feelings, full of the recollections, the pains and
pleasures, of other days. But we are not to talk sentiment now; —
even May would not understand that maudlin language. We must

li'f I

or/i" v/i.r\i,r

1-^9

get on. What .i wintry hedgerow this i-. lur tlu' I'i^htcenth nt .\|iril !
Priinrosy to hf sure, abundantly span^jlcd witli those stars of the f.irth,
— but so bare, so Icatless, so cold! I'he wind whistlfs ihrou^h the
brown boughs as in winter. I''.ven tlie e.irly elder shoots, which do
make an approach to springiness, look brown, and the small leaves of
the woodbine, which have also ventured to peep lorth, are of a sad
purple, frost-bitten, like a dairymaid's elbows on a snowy morninn.
The very birds, in this season of pairing and building, look chillv and

imcomfortable, and their nests' " ()li, Saladin ! ( ome away from

the hedge! don't you see that what puzzles you atwl mikes you leap up
in the air i.< a redbreast's nest .' don't v<>u see the [iretty speckled et;gs?
don't you hear the poor hen ralhr.g as it were for help? Come here
this iMoment, sir!" .\nd by good luck ha'.adin (who for a paynim has
tolerable (jualities) comes, bclbrp he has touched the nest, or before
his playmate the brindle, tiu' less manageable of the two, has espied it.

Now we go round the corner. md ■. rossthe bridge,
where the common, with its clear stream wine
between clumps of elms, assumes so park-likt
appearance. Wiio is this approaching so si
and majestically, this square bundle of petti-
coat and cloak, this road-waggon of a woman ■
It is, it must be Mrs. Sally Mearing, tite
com])letest specimen within my knowledge
of farmeresses (may 1 be allowed that in-
novation in language.') as they were. It
can be nobody else.

Mrs. Sally Mearing.when I first became
acquainted with her, occupied, together with
her father (a superannuated man of ninety),
a large farm very near our former habitation. It had been anciently
a great manor-farm or court-house, and was still a stately subslan-

I30

OUR VILLAGE.

tial building, whose lofty halls and spacious cliambcrs gave an air of
grandeur to tiie common offices to which they were api)lied. Traces of
gilding might yet be seen on the panels which covered the walls, and
on the huge carved chimney-pieces which rose almost to the ceilings;
and the marble tables and the inlaid oak staircase still spoke of the
former grandeur of the court. Mrs. Sally corresponded well with the
date of her mansion, although she troubled herself little with its dignity.
She was thoroughly of the old school, and Iiad a most comfortable
contempt for the new; rose at four in winter and summer, breakfasted
at six, dined at eleven in the forenoon, supped at five, and was regu-
larly in bed before eight, except when the hay-time or the harvest
imperiously required her to sit up till sunset,— a necessity to which
she submitted with no very good grace. To a deviation from the.se
hours, and to the modern iniquities of white aprons, cotton stockings,
and muslin handkerchiefs, (Mrs. Sally herself always wore check,'
black worsted, and a sort of yellow compound which she was wont \o
call susy,) together with the invention of drill plough and thrashing
machines, and other agricultural novelties, she failed not to attribute
all the mishaps or misdoings of the whole parish. The last mentioned
discovery especially aroused her indignation. Oh to hear her des-
cant on the merits of the flail, wielded by a stout right arm, such as
she had known in her youth, (for by her account there was as great a
deterioration in bones and sinews as in the other implements of bus-
bandry,) was enough to make the very inventor break his machine.
She would even take up her favourite instrument, and thrash the air
herself by way of illustrating her argument, and, to say truth, few men
in these degenerate days could have matched the stout, brawny, mus-
cular limb which Mrs. Sally displayed at sixty-five.

In spite of this contumacious rejection of agricultural improve-
ments, the world went well with her at Court-Farm. A good landlord,
an easy rent, incessant labour, unremitting frugality, and excellent

or/,' VI LI. Mil-:.

'3'

times, insured a regular tlunigli moderate ijrolit; and slie lived on,
grumbling and prospering, nourishing and complaining, till two misfor-
tunes befell her at once — her father died, and her lease expired, 'i'he
loss of her father, although a bedridden man, turned of ninety, wiio
could not in the course of nature have been expected to live long, was
a terrible shock to a daughter, who was not so much younger as to be
without fears for her own life, and who had besides been so used to
nursing the good old man, and looking to his little comforts, that she
missed him as a mother would miss an ailing child. The expiration
of the lease was a grievance and a puzzle of a different nature. Her
landlord would have willingly retaineti his excellent tenant, but not on
the terms on which she then held the land, which had not varied for
fifty years; so that poor Mrs. .Sally had the misfortune to find rent
rising and prices sinking both at the same moment — a terrible sole-
cism in political economy. Even this, however, I believe she would
have endured, rather than have quitted the house where she was born,
and to which all her wnys and notions were adapted, had not a prig-
gish steward, as much addicted to improvement and reform as she was
to precedent and established usages, insisted (jn binding her by lease
to spread a certain number of loads of chalk on every field. This tre-
mendous innovation,— for never had that novelty in manure whitened
the crofts and pightles of Court- 1 'arm,— decided her at once. She
threw the proposals into the fire, and left the place in a week.

Her choice of a habitation occasioned some wonder, and nnu h
amusement in our village world. To be sure, upon the verge of sev-
enty, an old maid may be permitted to dispense with the more rigid
punctilio of her class, but Mrs. .Sally had always been so tenacious on
the score of character, so very a prude, so determined an avoider of
the "men folk," (as she was wont contemptuously to call them,) that
we all were conscious of something like astonishment, on finding that
she and her little handmaid had taken up their abode in one end of a

■^

'32

nuR viLr.UiE.

i •

spacious farm-house belonging to the Muff old bachelor, George Rob-
inson, of the Lea. Now farmer Robinson was quite as notorious for
his aversion to petticoated things, as Mrs. .Sally for her hatred to the
unfeathcred bipeds who wear doublet and hose, so Miat there was a
little astonishment in that quarter too, and plenty of jests, which the
honest farmer speedily silenced, by telling ail who joked on the subject
that he i,ad given his lodger fair warning, that, let people say what

they would, he was quite determined not to marry her; so that if she
had any views that way, it would be better for her to go elsewhere
This declaration, which must be admitted to have been more remark'
able for frankness than civility, made, however, no ill impression on
Mr.s. Sally. To the farmer's she went, and at his house she lives still
w,lh her little maid, her tabby cat, a decrepit sheep-dog, and much of
the lumber of Court-Farm, which she could not find in her heart .o

OUR Vll.l.At.E.

part from, Tlicre she follows licr old ways ami her old JKUirs, im-
teinpled by niatriiuony, aiul unassailed (as tar as I hear) by love or by
scandal, with no other grievanc e than an otcasional dearth of eniplny-
nient ("or herself and her young lass, (even pewter dishes 'o not always
want scouring,) and now and then a twinge of the rhennuitisni.

Here she is, that good reiiipie of the olden time, — for, in spite of
her whims and prejudices, a better and a kinder woman never lived, —
here she is, with the iiood of her red cloak pulled (ner her close black
bonnet, of that silk which once (it may be presumed) was fashionable,
since it is still called mode, and her whole stout figure huddled u]i in a
miscellaneous and most substantial covering of thick petticoats, gowns,
aprons, shawls, and cloaks, — a weight which it recpiires the strength of
a thrasher to walk under, — here she is, with her sipiare honest visage,
and her loud frank voice; — and we holil a pleasant disjointed chat of
rheumatisms and early chickens, bad weather, and
hats with feathers in them; — the last exceetlingh
sore subject being introduced by poor Jane Davis.
(a cousin of Mrs. Sally,) who, ])assing us
in a beaver bonnet, on her road from
school, stopped to drop her little curtsy,
and was soundly scolded for her( ivility. -
Jane who is a gentle, humble, smiling
lass, al)out twelve years old, receives so
many rebukes from her worthy relative,
and bears them so meekly, that I should
not wonder if they were to be followed *'iJi_«-^*'
by a legacy: I sincerely wish they may. ijpb*'**
Well, at last we said good bye; when, on
inquiring my destination, and hearing that I was bent to the ten-acre
copse, (part of the farm which she ruled so long,) she stoi)ped me to
tell a dismal story of two sheep-ste.dcrs, who, sixty years ago, were

{
I

il i

'34

OUR yiLl.ACE.

found
resi

"'1 '^i<l'i''n in .lK,t .„pse, and only t.k.n after ,rcat dirtunl.y anc
stance, and the nKuminguf a peace oflicer.-" Pray don't ^^o there

nnss! For mercy's sake don't be so venturesome! Think if thev

should kill vou '

were tlu; last words of Mrs. Sally.

Many thanks n,r iuM- care and k.ndness! Hut, without hen., at
.-.Il fool-hardy ,n general. I have no great fear of the sheep-steale.s of
sixty years ago. Even if they escaped hanging for that exploit, I
•sl.ould greatly doubt their being in case to attempt another .So on
«e go; ,lown the short shady l.ne, and out on the pretty retired green
^ln.t .n bv nelds and hedgerows, which we must cro^o read 2

copse. How lively this green nook is to-day. half covered with cows
and horses, and sheep! And how glad these frolicsome greyhound^
are to exchange the hard gravel of the high road for this pleasan!
•short turf, whtch seems made for their gambols! How beautifully
t eyareat play, chasing each other round and round in lessening cir-
cles, dartn^g off at all kinds of angles, crossing and recrossing May
and try„.g to win her sedateness into a game at rotnps. turning round
on each other w.th gay defiance, pttrsuing the cows and the colts leap-
ing up as , to catch the crows in their flight ; all in their harmless and

(Uh' vii.i.Adi:.

' >5

innocent "Ah \vrel(lK'N! villains! ras( aM four-lnotcd nii>(hii.'ls !

canine plagues !— Sahuiin ! iiiintllo !"— 'I'iicy are atier ilie sIrm-j) —
"Saladin, I say!" — They iiave actually sini;le(l out that |irettv spottcil
lamb— ■' Hnites, if I catch you ! — Saladin ! I'.iin.llc!" We shall lie
taken uj) for sheep-stealing presently oui elves. I'hey have ( hascd
the poor little lamb into a ditcli, and are mounting; guard over it,
standing at bay.~"Ah wretches, I have you now! I-'or shame, Sal.i-
din ! C.et away, Urindle ! See how good May is. Olf with you, iuutes !
For shame! for shame!" .And brandishing a handken liief, which
could hardly be an ellicient instrument of correction, I succeeded in
driving away the two pujjpies, who after all meant nothing more than
play, although it was somewhat rough, and rather too mucli in tlie
style of the old fable of the boys and the Irogs. May is gone after
them, i-erhaps to scold them; for she has 1)een as grave as a judge
during the whole proceeding, keeping ostentatiously close to me, and
taking no part whatever in the mischief.

The i)Oor little pretty lamb! here it lies on the bank quite motion-
less, frightv.ned I believe to death, for certainly those villains never
touched it. It does not stir. Does it breathe.'' Oli ye.,, it does ! It
is alive, safe enougii. Look, it opens its eyes, and, fimling the coast
clear and its enemies far away, it springs up in ■ jiiient and gallops
to its dam, who has stood bleating the whole time at a most respect-
ful distance. Who would suspect a lamb of so much simple cunning.'
I really thought the pretty thing was dead. And now how glad the
ewe is to recover her curling spotted little one ! How fluttered they
look! Well! this adventure has flurried me too: between fright and
running, I warrant you my heart beats as fast as the lamb's.

Ah ! here is the shameless villain Saladin, the cause of the commo-
tion, thrusting his slender nose into my hand to beg pardon and make
u])! "Oh wickedest of soldans ! Most inicpiitous pagan! Soul of
a Turk!" — but there is no resisting the good-humoured creature's

'36

orn vn.i.ACE.

I'^iitcn.f. I nuist |.u hi.,,-" Th.r., there ! Now we will go to the
«"|)se, I an, s„re we sl,all f.n.l ,,0 worse malefactors than onrselves-

shall we, May?— and the sooner we get out

ofsighiofthe sheep the better; for Hrindle

i^^; seems meditating another attack. Allons,

//icssieias, over this gate, across this

meadow, and liere is the copse."

Mow boldly that superb ash-lree
with its fine silver bark rises from
the bank, and what a fine entrance
It makes with the holly beside it,
wi,icl, also de.serves to be called a
tree ! lint here we are in the copse.
Ah! only one half of the under-
wood was cut last year, and the
other is at its full growth : hazel,
brier, woodbine, bramble, forn,ing
one impenetrable thicket, and almost uniting with the lower branches
of the elms, and oaks, and beeches, which rise at regular distances
overhead. No foot can penetrate that dense and thorny entangle-
menl; but there is a walk all round by the side of the wide sloping
bank, walk and bank and copse carpete.l with ,,rimroses, whose fresh
and balmy odo, r imp,egnates the very air. Oh how exquisitely beau-
tiful ! and It IS not the primro.ses only, those gems of f].,wers, but the
natural mosaic of which they form a part: that net-work of ground-
■vy.with Its Iliac blossoms and the subdued tint of its purplish leaves
those rich mosse.s, those enamelled wild hyacinths, those spotted
arums, and above all those wreaths of ivy linking all those flowers
together with chains of leaves more beautiful than blossoms, whose
white veins seem swelling amidst the deep green or si,lendid brown-
-It IS the whole earth that is so beautiful. Never surely were prim-

HOW BOLDLY THAT SUPKRB ASH-TRK.E WITH ITS 1 INK SILVI K HARK
RISES FROM THK ISA.NK!"

i i

orii viij.u.ii. ,^

roses so richly sot. and never ,l,d ,,rin,n,ses better deserve s„.l, a
setting. There they are of their ,.wn lovely yelluw. the hue to which
they have ^uen a name, the exact tint of the Initterlly that overh ui.s
them (the first I have seen this year! can s,,nn. reallv he coming at
last?)-s,,nnk!ed here and there with tnfts of a re.Mish ,nir,.le. and
others ot the purest white, as some ac. id, . of soil affects that strange
and mscrutahle operation of nature, the colouring of flowers Oh
how fragrant they are, and how pleasant i, is to sit in this sheltered
copse, listening to the Cine creaking of the wind amongst the branches
the most unearthly of sounds, with this gay tapestry under our feet'
and the wood-pigeons flitting from tree to tree, and mixing the deep
note of love with the elemental music !

Yes ! spring is coming. Wood-pigeons, butterflies, and sweet flow-
ers, all gtve token of the sweetest of the seasons. Spring is .oming
The hazel stalks are swelling an.l putting forth their pale tassels the
satm palms with their honeyed odours are out on the willow, an.i the
last lingering winter berries are dropping from the hawthorn, and
making way for the bright and blossomy leaves.

ill!

!tf'

H>^."i, f

THE WOOD.

Aprii, joth.— SprioK is actually ,oine
n<nv, will, the fulness and almost the snd-
ilcnness of a northern .summer. 'lo-day
,„ . , , , '^'^«"ii''-''<-'ly April ;-clou.ls and sunshine, wind

ad showers; blossoms on the trees, grass in the Hehls. swallows l.y
e ponds, snakes ,n the hedgerows, nightingales in the thickets, and
cuckoos everywhere. My y„ung friend Lllien (1. i. going with m this
evenmg to gather wood-sorrel. She never saw that tnost elegant plant

benefit , E |en wdl gan. a subject worthy of her pencil, and the prcttv
weed w.ll .,ve;-no s..i. favour to a Hower ahnost as trans.tlrv as
^e gum c.stus: duration is the only charm which it wants, and that
Elenw.ll g,ve ,t The weather ,s, to be sure, a little threa.cning, but
we are not people to m.nd the weather when wo have an objL in
v^ew; we sal certamly go in quest of the wood-sorrel, and w,il take
May. provided we can escape May's followers : f„r since the adventn

( '4' )

y t

ill

Ihf I:

142

0(//f Vll.r.ACE.

of the lainh, Saladin has liatl an affair with a gander, furious in de-
fence of liis goslings, in which rencontre the gander came off < on-
queror; and as geese abound in the wood to which we are going,
(called' by the country peo) le the I'inge,) and the victory may not
always incline to the right side, I should be very sorry to lead the
soldan to fight his battles over again. We will take nobody but May.

So saying, we proceeded on our way through winding lanes, between
hedgerows tenderly green, till we reached the hatch-gate, with the white
cottage beside it embosomed in fruit trees, which forms the entrance
to the Pingc, and in a moment the whole scene was before our eyes.

" Is not this beautiful, Ellen .? " The answer could hardly be other
than a glowing rapid " \ es ! " A wood is generally a pretty place,
but this wood — Imagine a smaller forest, full of glades and sheep-
walks, surrounded by irregular cottages with their blooming orchards,
a clear stream winding about the brakes, and a road intersecting it,
and giving light and life to the picture; and you will have a faint
idea of the Tinge. Every step was opening a new point of view, a
fresh combination of glade and path and thicket. The accessories

Skv

orh' yn.i.u I

143

too were (hanging every mome.u. Dm. ks. geese, i-igs. an.l . lul.l.en.
Hiving way. as we advanced into the wood, to sheep and torest ponies ;
and they again disa,.pearing as we be. ,une n.ore nUangled .n Us
mazes, till we heard nothing hut the song of the n.gh..n^;ale. and
saw only the silent (lowers. Whal .
a pieie ol" fairy land! . ^
The tall elms overhead '^l^
just bursting into ten- '^J^^ '
dcr vivid leaf, with here
and there a hoary oak

or a silver-harked

beech, every twig

swelling with

the brown

buds,

and

^#J'''^' yet not (piite strij.ped of the tawny
■^ -s'-'-'^^S^' f"'''^e^ °^ autumn; tall hollies and haw-

'":- }^* N^'j'^/T thorn beneath, with tlu-ir crisp brilliant leaves

'-'"^ '''"'"- mixed widi the white blossoms of the sloe, and

144

OUR VILLAGE.

woven together with garlands of woodbines and wild-briers;— what
a fairy land !

Primroses, cowsli])s, pansies, and the regular open-eyed white
blossom of the wood-anemone, (or to use the more elegant Hamp-
shire name, the wind-flower,) were set under our feet as thick as
daisies in a meadow ; but the pretty weed that we came to seek was
coyer; and Ellen began to fear that we had mistaken the place or

the season. At last she had herself the pleasure of finding it under
a brake of holly—" Oh look ! look ! I am sure that this is the wood-
sorrel ! Look at the pendent white flower, shaped like a snow-drop
and veined with purple streaks, and the beautiful trefoil leaves folded
like a heart,— some, the young ones, so vividly yet tenderly green
that the foliage of the elm and the hawthorn would show dully at

ouii \ n.r.Adi:.

145

their side,-others of a deeper tint, and ln>cd. .s ,t were, wuh a ru h
and changeful purple !- Don't you see them?" pursued n,y dear
young friend, who is a delif^luful piece of life and sunslune, and was
half inclined to scold me for the calmness with which, amused by
her enthusiasm, I stood listening to her ardent exclan.at.ons - I 'on t
you see them ? Oh how beaul.ful ! and in what .luantuy ! wl,at pro-
Lion ' See how the dark shade of the holly sets off the l.ght and
delicat"e colouring of the .lower! -And see that other bed ot then,
springing from the rich moss in the roots of that old beech tree.
I'rav let us gather some. Here are baskets." So, .(uickly an.l care-
fully wc began gathering, leaves, blossoms, roots and all. lor the plant
is so fragile that it will not brook separation j-cpiickly and carefully
we gathered, encountering divers petty nusfortunes in sp.te of a 1 our
care, now caught bv the veil in a holly-bush, now hitching our sh.awls
in a bramble, still gathering on, in spite of scratched ln>gers, till we
had nearly filled our baskets and began to talk of our departure :-

"But where is May? ' May! May! No going home without her.
May ' Here she comes galloping, the beauty ! "-(KUen -s alnu.st as
fond of May as I am.)-" What has siie got in her mouth ? that rough,
round, brown substance which she touches so tenderly ? W hat .an it
be ? A bird's nest ? Naughty May ' "
"No! as I live, a hedgehog! Look,
El'.en, how it !:as ( oiled itself into
a thorny ball! Off with it, May !
Don't bring it to me!" And
May. somewhat reluctant to part
with her prickly prize, however
troublesome of carriage, whose
change of shape seemed to ,ne to have pu/,.led her sagacity more
than any event I ever witnessed, for in general she has perfectly the
air of understanding all that is going forward -May a. last dropt the
19

146

OUR VILLAGE.

hedgehog; continuing, however, to pat it with her delicate cat-like
paw, cautiously and daintily applied, and caught back suddenly and
rapidly after every touch, as if her poor captive had been a red-hot
coal. Finding that these pats entirely failed in solving the riddle,
(for the hedgehog shammed dead, like the lamb tlie other day, and
appeared entirely motionless,) she gave him so spirited a nudge with
her pretty black nose, that she not only turned him > . er, but sent him
rolling some little way along the turfy path,- ' eration which that
sagacious quadruped endured with the mo .'U passiveness, the

most admirable non-resistance. No wonder that May's discernment
was at fault, I myself, if I had not been aware of the trick, should have
said that the ugly rough thing which she was trundling along, like a
bowl or a cricket-ball, was an inanimate substance, something devoid
of sensation and of will. At last my poor pet, thoroughly perplexed
and tired out, fairly relinquished the contest, and came slowly away,
turning back once or twice to look at the object of her i;uriosity, as if
half inclined to return and try the event of another shove. The sud-
den flight of a wood-pigeon effectually diverted her attention; and
Ellen amused herself by fancying how the hedgehog was scuttling
away, till our notice was also attracted by a very different object.

I!'J.,.-.L.... 'ji^l

'as me t.AVi; TlIK FINAL SIKOKF.S KOl'NM) IHl ROOl'.

OVIi VIl.l.M,!-:.

»49

We liail nearly llircadod the w(hh!, and wci/ .ii.pro uhmn an open
grove of magnificent oaks on the otiicr sule. wlien soinuls other than
of nightingales burst on our ear, the <l,c,. an.l IreMuent strokes of
the woodnvm-s axe. and emerging from the I'ln.^e we diseovered the
havoe whieh that axe had committed. Ahove twenty nt the fmest
trees lay streKdied on the velvet turf. There they lay in every sh.ipe
and form of devastation; some, hare trunks strippcl rea.ly for the
timber carriage, with the bark built up in long piles at the side; some
with the spoilers busy about them, stripping. ha( king, luumg; others
with their noble bran.:hes, their brown a.ul in'grant shoots all tresu
as if thev were alive — majesti. corses, the slain of to-day! The
grove was like a field of battle. The young lads who weie stripping
the bark, the very children who were pi. king up tlw chips. seenuHl
awed and silent, as if conscious that .lealh was around then.. The
nightingales sang faintly and interruptedly- a few h.w tnghteue.l

notes like a requiem.

Ah! here we are at the very scene of murder, the viuy tree that
they aie felling; they have just hewn round the trunk with those
slaughtering axes, and are about to saw it asunder. .After all, it is a
fine and thrdling operati(m, as the work of de.ith usually ,s. IntoL.w
grand an attitude was that young man thrown as he gave the final
strokes rou.ui the ro..t ; and how wonderful is the eltect of tnat supple
and apparently powerless saw, bending like a nband, and yet over-
mastering that giant of the woods, conquermg and overthn.wmg thai
thing of life! Now it has passed half through the trunk, and the
woodman has begun to calculate which way the tree wdl tall; he
drives a wedge to direct its course; -now a tew more moveu.ents ol
the noiseless saw, and then a larger we.lge. See how the branches
tremble! Hark how the trunk begins to crack \ Another stroke of
the huge hammer on the wedge, and the tree .p.ivers. as with a .nortal
agony, shakes, reels, and falls. How slow, and soleuu,, and awlul it

I !

150

OUR VILLAGE.

is! How like to deatii, to liiiman deatli in its grandest form ! Cseiar
in the Capitol, Seneca in the bath, could not fall more sublimely than
that oak.

Even the heavens seem to sympatliize with the devastation. The
clouds have gathered into one thick low canopy, dark and vapoury as
the smoke which overhangs London; the setting sun is just gleaming
underneath with a dim and bloody glare, and the crimson rays spread-
ing ujjward with a lurid and portentous grandeur, a sulidued and dusky
glow, like the liglit reflected on the sky from some vast conflagration.
The deep flush fades away, and the rain begins to descend; and we
hurry homeward rapidly, yet sadly, forgetful alike of the flowers, the
hedgehog, and the wetting, thinking and talking only of the fallen tree.

////- nEi.i..

May 2iul. — A delicious evening; —
bright siinsliine; liglit 'summer air; a
-**"*" "' sky almost cloudless; and a tresli yet

delicate verdure on the hedges and in the fields; — an evening that
seems made for a visit to my newly-discovered haunt, the mossv dell,
one of the most beautiful spots in the neighbourhood, which after
passing, times out of number, the field which it terminates, we found
out about two months ago from the accident of Mav's killing a rabbit
there. May has had a fancy for the i)lace ever since; and so have I.
Thither accordingly we bend our way;— through the village; — up
the hill;— along the common ;— past the avenue ;— across the bridge;
and by the mill. How deserted the road is to-night ! We have not
seen a single acquaintance, except poor blind Robert, laden with his
sack of grass plucked from the hedges, and the little boy that leads
him. A singular division of labour! Little Jem guides Robert to
the spots where the long grass grows, and tells him where it is most
plentiful; and then the old man cuts it close to the roots, and between
Ihem they fill the sack, and sell the contents in the village. Hall the

152

OUR VILLAGE.

cows in the street — for our baker, our wheelwriglit, and our shoemaker
has each his Alderney — owe the best part of their maintenance to
l)lind Robert's industry.

Here we are at the entrance of the corn-field which leads to the
dell, and which commands so fine a view of the Loddon, the mill, the
great farm, with its picturesque outbuildings, and the range of woody
hills beyond. It is impossible not to pause a moment at that gate, the

landscape, always beautiful, is so suited to the season and the hour,

so bright, and gay, and spring-like. But May, who has the chance of
another rabbit in her pretty head, has galloped forward to the dingle,
and poor May, who follows me so faithfully in all my wanderings, has
a right to a little indulgence in hers. So to the dingle we go.

At the end of the field, which when seen from the road seems ter-
minated by a thick dark cojjpice, we come suddenly to the edge of a
ravine, on one side fringed with a low growth of alder, birch, and
willow; on the other, mossy, uirfy and bare, or only broken by bright

Illfl

NOW WE SEEM HEMMED IN BY THOSE GREEN CMKKS, SHUT
OUT FROM ALL THE WORLO."

ori^ vn.i.M.r.

155

tufts of blossoiiu'd broum. (hie or two old jiollards almost < ntn c.d
the winding road that leacs down tlic (k's( i-nt, bv tin- side of wliidi a
spring as bright as crystal runs gurgling along, 'riic tk-U itsidf is an
irregular iiiecc of broken ground, in sonu I'arts v»-ry dec]), intfrsccteil
by two or three high banks of .qual irregularity, now abrupt and bare,
and rock-like, now crowned with tufts of the feathery willow or mag-
nificent old thorns. KveryniKre the earth is covered by short fine
turf, mixed with mosses, soft, beautiful, and various, and embossed
with the speckled leaves and lilac flowers of the arum, the i)aler blos-
soms of the common orchis, the enamelled blue of the wild iiyaemili,
so splendid in this evening light, and large tuft- of oxlips and cows-
lips rising like nosegays from the short turf.

The ground on the other side of the Jell is mu( h lower than the
field through which we came, so that it is mainly to the labyrmthine
intricacy of these high banks that it owes its singular character of wihl-
ness and variety. Now we seem henuned in by those green cbifs, shut
out from all the world, w nothing visible but those verdant mounds
and the dee]) blue sky ; now by some sudd.u turn we get a peep at
an adjoining meadow, where the sheep are lying, dappling its sloping
surface like the small clouds on the summer heaven. Poor harmless,
quiet creatures, how still they are ! Some socially lying side by side ;
some grouped in threes and fours; some .piite .ipart. Ah ! tliere are
lambs amongst them— pretty, pretty lambs ! —nestled in by their
mothers. Soft, (piiet, sleepy things ! Not all so (piiet, though ! There
is a party of these young lambs as wide awake as heart (an desire;
half a d..zen of them playing together, frisking, dancing, leaping, butt-
ing, and crying in the young voice, which is so pretty a diminutive of
the full-grown bleat. How beautiful they are, with their innocent
spotted faces, their mottled feet, their long curly tails, and their light
flexible forms, frolicking like so many kittens, but with a gentleness,
an assurance of sweetness and innocence, which no kitten, nothing

■
1 1 1

156

Ol//f V/LLAdK.

that ever is to l)e a cat, can have. How complete and perfect is th-
enjoynient of existunce! Ah! little rogues! your play has beer 100
noisy; you have awakened your mammas; and two or three of th oid
ewes are ijetting u|.; and one of them marching gravely to the t. op
of lambs has selected her own, given her a gentle butt, and trottcJ

off; the poor rebuked lamb following meekly, but every now and then
stopping and casting a longing look at its playmates, who, after a
moriie'U's awed i)ause, had resumed their gambols; whilst the stately
dame evry now and then looked back in her turn, to see that her

little one w ■s following. At last she lay down, and the lamb by her

side. I never saw so prettv ,1

pastoral scene in my life.
Another turning of the

dell gives a glimpse of the

dark coppice by which it

is backed, and from which

we are separated by some

niarshy.rushyground.where

the springs have formec

into a pool, and where the •^'j

moor-hen loves to build her

nest. Ay, there is one scudding away now;- I can hear her plash

OUli Vtl.l.MiK

'57

into the water, ,iii«l tlic rustlinn of l\i'r \\\\\^-, amnnyst llu- ruslien. I l\is
is the deepest part of tlu' wild dingle. How iiiu:\iii tlu- ^;r(iiin(l is!
Surely these excavations, now so tliorounldy ( loiiud witti vfuct.ition,
must orij^inally have been hu^c j;r,ivfl i)its; llnri' is no oilur way of
■A'. V omuinn for the labyrinth, for tlicy do di^; gravel in snch capricious
meanders; Init tiie (pianlity sfcnis iiu rcdihlc. Will ! there is no end
of guessing ! We are getting amongst the springs, and must turn hack.
Round this corner, where on ledges like fairy terrat es the orchises
and arums grow, and we emerge suddenly on a new side of the dell,
just fronting the small homestead of our good neighbour faniur Allen.
This rustic dwelling belongs to what used to be called in this |)arl
of the country "a little bargain:" thirty or forty .icres. i-erhaps, of
arable land, which the owner and Ids sons cultivated themselves,
whilst the wife and daughters assisted in the husbandry, and eked
out the slender earnings by the produce of the dairy, the poultry yard,
and the orchard; — an order of cultivators now passing raj. idly away,
but in which much of the best part of the Knglish char.uter, its in-
dustry, its frugality, its sound sense, and its kindness, might be hniiui.
Farmer Allen himself is an excellent sjiec imen, the cheerlul, vener-
able old man, with his long white hair and his bright grey eye; and
his wife is a still finer. They have had a hard struggle to win thiongh
the world and keep their little property undivided; but good man-
agement and good principles, and the assistance affordeil lluni i>v an
admirable son, who left our village a poor 'prentice boy, ami is now a
partner in a great house in London, have enabled them to overcome
all the difficulties of these trying times, and they are now enjoying
the peaceful evenings of a well-spent life as free from (are and an.\i-
ety as their best friends could desire.

Ah ! there is Mr. Allen in the orchard, the beautiful orchard, with
its glorious garlands of pink and white, its pearly pear-blossoms, and
coral apple-buds. What a Hush of bloom it is ! How brightlv .Micale

, i I

I5«

Ol//f V/LLAGE.

it appears, thrown into strong relief I)y the dark house and the weather-
stained barn, in this soft evening light!
The very grass is strewed with the snowy
petals of the pear and the cherry. And
^ there sits Mrs. Allen, feeding her poul-
try.with her three little granddaugh-
k-^ tersfroin London.pretty fairies from
\^ three years old to five (only two and
' twenty months elapsed between the
birth of the eldest and the young-
est) playing around her feet.

Mrs. Allen, my dear Mrs. Allen,
has been that rare thing a beauty,
and although she be now an old
woman I had almost said that she
is .so still. Why should I not say so.?
Nobleness of feature and sweetness of
expression are surely as delightful in age as in youth. Her face and
figure are much like those which are stamped indelibly on the memory
of every one who ever saw that grand specimen of woman-- Mrs. Sid-
dons. The outline of Mrs. Allen's face is exactly the same; but there
is more softness, more gentleness, a more feminine composure in the
eye and in the smile. Mrs. Allen never played Lady Macbeth. Her
hair, almost as black as at twenty, is parted on her large fair forehead,
ond combed under her exquisitely neat and snowy cap ; a muslin neck-
kerchief, a grey stuff gown, and a white apron complete the picture.

There she sits under an old elder tree which flings its branches
over her like a canopy, whilst the setting sun illumines her venerable
figure and touches the leaves with an emerald light; there she sits,
placid aid cmiling, with her spectacles in her hand and a measure of
barley on her lap, into which the little girls are dipping their chubby

:^ \

"there she sits, IM.ACII) AND SMIMNG, WITH HKR S1'K( I AC I.I- S IN lll.K
HANI) ANU A MEASURE OF BARI.KY ON HKR l.Al'."

:,rBt'im;

OUR V ILL ACE.

l6l

hands and scattering the corn anionyst lliu ducks and chickens with
unspeakable glee. But those in",rates the poultry don't seem so pleased
and thankful as they ous^ht to he; tlicy mistrust their young feeders.
All domestic animals dislike cliildren, partly tVoni an instinc tive fear
of their tricks and their thoughtlessness; partly, I suspect, from jeal-
ousy. Jealousy seems a strange tragic passion to attribute to the in-
mates of the basse cour, — but only look at that strutting fellow of a
bantam cock (evidently a favourite), who sidles up to his
old mistress with an air half affronted and half tender,
turning^-, -.cornfully from the barleycorns which
Annie is flinging towards him, and say if 1 .. ■>.
not as jealous as Othello? Nothing can j ,i -
him but Mrs. Allen's notice and a dole
from her hand. See, she is calling to him
and feeding him, and now how he swells ^,^;
out his feathers, and flutters his wings, and
erects his glossy neck, and struts, and crows, and pecks, proudest and
happiest of bantams, the pet and g -" if the poultry yard!

In the meantime my own pet \l i has all this while been

peeping into every hole, and penetratu,(, ^very nook and winding of
the dell, in hopes to find another rabbit, has returned to my side, and
is sliding her snake-like head into my hand, at once to invite the
caress which she likes so well, and to intimate, with all due respect,
that it is time to £jo home. The setting sun gives the same warning;
and in a moment we are through the dell, the field, and the gate;
past the farm and the mill, and hanging over the bridge that crosses
the Loddon river.

What a sunset! how golden ! how beautiful ! The sun just disap-
pearing, and the narrow liny clouds, which a few minutes ago lay like
soft vapoury streaks along the horizon, lighted up with a golden
splendour that the eye can scarcely endure, and those still softer clouds

l62

OUU VILLAGE.

which floated above them wreathing and curling into a thousand fan-
tastic forms, as thin and changeful as summer smoke, now defined
and deepened into grandeur, and edged with ineffable, insufferable
light! Another minute and the brilliant orb totally disapi)ears, and
the sky above grows every moment more varied and more beautiful
as the dazzling golden lines are mixed with glowing red and gorgeous
purple, dappled with small dark specks, and mingled with such a blue
as the egg of the hedge-sparrow. To look up at that glorious sky,
and then to sec that magnificent picture reflected in the clear and
lovely Loddon water, is a pleasure never to be described and never
forgotten. My heart swells and my eyes fill as I write of it, and think
of the immeasurable majesty of nature, and the unspeakable good-
ness of God, who has spread an enjoyment so pure, so peaceful, and
so intense, before the meanest and the lowliest of His creatures.

THE OLD HOUSE AT
ABEKLEIGU.

June 25111. — Wliat a glfuving
glorious day I Sninmer in its
richest prime, noon in its most
si)arkling brijjhtness, littli; white
clouds dapjjling the deep blue sky, and the sun, now partially veiled,
and now bursting through them with an intensity of light! It would
not do to walk to-day, professedl ^ 'valk,— we should be frightened
a? the V,, ry sound ! and yet it is , 'ble that we may be beguiled
i:v,o a pretty 'ong stroll before we return home. We are going to
drive to the u.'. house at Aberleigh, to spend the morning under the
shade ' . •■•ose balmy firs, :..i ;; • )ngst those luxunanl rose trees, and
by the side of that brimm"r,rr ^oddon river. " Do not expect us be-
fore six o'clock," said I, as ' ;.h the house; "Six at soonest!" added
my charming companion; and off we drove in our little pony chaise,
drawn by our old mare, and w'.th the good-humoured un hin, Henry's

K "'J )

164

OU/t VILLAGE.

svioc'sior, a sort of younger Scrub, who fikes care of horse and chaise,
and cow and garden, for our charioteer.

My comrade in this homely equipage was a young lady of high
family and higher endowments, to whom the novelty of the thing, and
her own naturalness of character and simplicity of taste, gave an un-
speakable enjoyment. She danced the little chaise up and down as
she got into it, and laughed for very glee like a child. Lizr.y herself
could not have been more delighted. Slie praised the horse and the
driver, and the roads and the scenery, and gave herself fully up to
the enchantment of a rural excursion in the sweetest weather of this
sweet season. I enjoyed all this too; for the road was pleasant to
every sense, winding through narrow lanes, under high elms, and be-
tween hedges garlanded with woodbine and rose-trees, v/hi!st the air
was scented with the delicious fragrance of blossomed beans. I en-
joyed it all, — but, I believe, my principal pleasure was derived from
my companion herself.

Emily I. is a person whom it is a privilege to know. She is quite
like a creation of the older poets, and might pass for one of Shaks-
peare's or Fletcher's women stepped into life ; just as tender, as play-
ful, as gentle, and as kind. She is clever, too, and has all the knowl-
edge and accomplishments that a carefully-conducted education,
acting on a mind of singular clearness and ductility, matured and im-
proved by the very best company, can bestow. But one never thinks
of her acquirements. It is the charming artless character, the be-
V .*ching sweetness of manner, the real and universal sympathy, the
i^, :k taste and the ardent feeling, that one loves in Emily. She is
Irish by birth, and has in perfection the melting voice and soft caress-
ing accent by which her fair countrywomen are distinguished. More-
over she is pretty — I think her beautiful, and so do all who have heard
fis well as seen her, — but pretty, very pretty, all the world must con-
;V.-s; and perliaps that is a distinction more enviable, because less

OUli \/ 1. 1. ACE.

i6s

envied, than tlu- "iialmy state" of beauty. Her prcttincss i^ of the
prettiest kiiul — that of which the chief character is youtlifulncss. A
short but pleasing' figure, all grace and syininetry, a fair blooming
face, beaming with intelligence and good-humour; the prettiest little
feet and the whitest hands in the world;— such is Emily I.

She resides with her maternal grandmother, a venerable old lady,
slightly shaken with the palsy; and wlien together, (and they are so
fondly attached to each other that they are seldom parted,) it is one of
the loveliest combinations of youth and age ever witnessed, 'riiere is
no seeing them without feeling an increase of respect and affection for
both grandmother and granddaughter— always one of the tenderesl
and most beautiful of natural ronne.xions — as Richardson knew when
he made such e.vquisite use of it in his matchless book. I fan( y that
grandmamma Shirley must have been just such another venerable lady
as Mrs. S., and our sweet Emily— Oh, no! Harriet liyron is not half
good enough for her! There is nothing like her in the whole seven
volumes.

1 66

OUR VILLAGE,

But here we are at the bridge! Here we must alight! "This is
the Loddon, Emily. Is it not a beautiful river? rising level with its
banks, so clear, and smooth, and peaceful, giving back the verdant
landscape and the bright blue sky, and bearing on its pellucid stream
the snowy water-lily, the jjurest of flowers, which sits enthroned on
its own cool leaves, looking chastity itself, like the lady in Comus.
That queenly flower becomes the water, and so do the stately swans
who are sailing so majestically down the stream, like those who

' On St. Mary's lake
Float double, swan and shadow.'

Mi :

We must dismount here, and leave Richard to take care of our equi-

page under the shade of these trees, whilst we walk up to the house:

See there it is! We must cross this stile; .ere is no other way now."

t,|

IBBSflpKIWWWf JSWW '1^ S!

ouji vii.L.u.i:.

167

And crossing the stile we were immediately in what had lu-en a
drive round a sjiacioiis park, and still retained something of tlie char-
acter, thou^jh tiie park itself had long been broken into arable fields,
— and in full view of the Great House, a beautiful structure of James
the First's time, whose glassless windows and dilai)id.ited doors form
a melancholy contrast with the si relish and eiuireness of tlie rich
and massive front.

The story of that ruin — for such it is — is always to me sinnulariy
affecting: It is that of the decay of an ancient and distinguished fam-
ily. '., -^dually reduced from the highest wealth and station to actual
pi'' I/. The house and park, and a small estate around il, were
entailed on a distant cousin, and could not be alienated ; and the late
owner, the last of his name and lineage, after long struggling with debt
and diftkulty, farming his own lands, ' clinging to iiis magnificent
home with a love of place almost as tc. j'is as that of the younger
Foscari, was at last forced to aoandon it, retired to a paltry lodging in
a paltry town, and died there about twenty years ago, broken-hearted.
His successor, bound by no ties of association to the spot, and rightly
judging the residence to be much too large for the diminished estate,
)■ imediately sold the superb fixtures, and would have entirely taken
down the house, if, on making the attempt, the masonry had not been
found so solid that the materials were not worth the labour. A great
part, however, of one side is laid open, and the sjjlendid chambers,
with their carving and gilding, are exposed to the wind and rain — sad
memorials of past grandeur! The grounds have been left in a mer-
ciful neglect; the park, indeed, is broken up, the lawn mown twice a
year like a common hay-field, the grotto mouldering into ruin, and the
fish-ponds choked with rushes and aquatic ])lants; but the shrubs
and flowering trees are undestroyed, and have grown into a magnifi-
cence of size and wildness of beauty, such as we may imagine them to
attain in their native forests. Nothing can exceed their luxuriance.

Il«

it '

I I

1 68

OU/f VIIJ.ACK.

especially in the spring, when the lilac, and laburnum, and d' hle-
cherry put forth their gorgeous blossoms. There is a sweet sadness
in the sight of puch flowermess amidst such ch'solation ; it seems the
triumph of nature over the destructive power of man. I'he whole
place, in ili.it season more particularly, is full of a soft and soothing
melancholy, reminding me, I st arcely know why, of some of the descrij)-
tions 'natural scenery in the novels of Charlotte Smith, which I read
when a girl, ami which, p. haps, for that reason hang on my memory.

But here we are, in the smooth gr.u>sy ride, on the top of a steep
turfy slope descending to the river, crowned with enormous firs and
iimes of equal growth, ' loking across the winding waters into a sweet
pea< -ful landscape of quiet meadows, shut in by distant woods. What
a fragrance is in the air from f e balmy fir-trees and the bt ssomed
limes! What an intensit of odour! And what a mum ur oi bees in
the lime trees! What a coil those little winged people make over
our heads! And what a pleas.nnt sound it is! the pleasantest of busy
sounds, that which comes associated with all that is good and beanti-

oiUi \//.f.u;/-:

i<)9

f„) industry and forecast, and sunsliine nnd flowers. Surely tlu-c

lime trees might store a hundred l»ivcs; the very (idmir is ot a hon-
eyed richness, chjying, satiating.

Emily exchiimed in admiratimi as we stt.n.l uiuki the deep, strong,
leafy shadow, and still more when honeysuckles trailed their un-
trimmed profusion in out path, and roses, really trees almost inter-
cepted our passage.

"On, Emily! farther yet! For< e your way by that jessainnu — it
will yield ; I will take care of this stubborn white rose bough."— "Take
care of yourself! Pray take care," said my fairest friend ; " let me hold
back the branches." After we had won our way through the strait.
at some expense of veils and n()un( es, she stopped *' •*

to contemplate and admire the tall graceful
shrub, whose long thorny stems, spread-
ing in every direction, had opi^osed our
progress, and now waved their delicate

clusters over our heads. "Did I ever

think," exclaimed she, "of standing jj

under the shadow of a white rose

tree ! W hat an exquisite fragrance ! :']

And what a beautiful flower! so pale,

and wiiite.and tender, and the petals

thin and smooth as silk ! What rose

is it.?" — "Don't you know.' Didji

you never see it before ? It is rare

now, I believe, and seems rarer than

it is, because it only blossoms in very

hot summers ; but this, Emily, is the

musk rose, — that very musk rose of which

Titania talks, and which is worthy of

Shakspeare and of her. Is it not .'—No ! do not smell to it ; it is less

170

Ot'h' VH.I.AdR.

•weet »o tliiin other roses; but ont- duster in a vase, or even that
bunch in your bosom, will perfume a large room, as it does the sum-
mer air."—" Oh ! we will take twenty clusters," said ICniily. " I wish
grandmamma were here ! She talks so often of a nuisk rose tree that
grew against one end of her father's house. I wish she were here to
see this! "

Echoing her wish, and well laden with musk roses, planted per-
haps in ilk- days of Shakspi-are, we reached the stejjs that led to a
square summer-house or banciueting-room, overhanging the river:
the under part was a boat-house, whose projecting roof, as well as
the walls and the very lop of the little tower, was covered with ivy
and woodbine, and surmounted by tufted barberries, bird-cherries,

acacias, covered with their snowy chains, and other pendent and
flowering trees. Beyond rose two poplars of unrivalled magnitude,
towering like stately columns over the dark tall firs, and giving a sort
of pillared and architectural grandeur to tl scene.

We were now close to the mansion; but it looked sad and deso-

ovii r//./.A'.f

171

UUf, and the entrance, < hoked with liramliles and nettles sccnu-d
almoHt to repel our steps. Tlu- Niimmer-house, the lieautilul siiinincr-
house, was free and ojjcn.and invilinn.t oinniandiiin fmm tlie unnl.ued
windows, whicli hnng hij^h above the water, a reai h ot llie river ter-
minated by a rustic mill.

There we sat, emptyini^ our little basket of fruit and (ountry < akes,
till Family was seized with a desire of viewing, from the other side of
the Loddon, the scenery which had so nuicli enchanted her. " I
must," said she, "take a sketch of the ivied boat-house, and of this
sweet room, and this pleasant window. Grandmamma would never
be able to walk from the road to see the place itself, but she must
see its likeness." So forth we sallied, not forgetting the dear musk
roses.

172

OUli VILLAGE.

II
I

N
I i

We had no way of reaching the desired spot but by retracing our
stei)s a mile, during the heat of the hottest hour of tlie day, and then
following the course of the river to an equal distance on the other
side; nor had we any materials for sketching, except the rumpled
paper which had contained our ropast, and a pencil without a point
which I hai)pened to have about nie. But these small difliculties are
pleasures to gay and hapjjy youth. Regardless of such obstacles, the
sweet Emily bounded on like a fawn, and 1 followed, delighting in her
delight. The sun went in, and the walk was delicious; a reviving
coolness seemed to breathe over the water, wafting the balmy scent
of the firs and limes; we found a point of view presenting the boat-
house, the water, the poplars, and die mill, in a most felicitous com-
bination; the little straw fruit basket made a capital table; and,
refreshed and sharpened and pointed by our trusty lacquey's excellent
knife, (your country bcr is never without a good knife, it is hfs prime
treasure,) the pencil did dci.>''e duty; -first in the skilful hands of
Emdy, whose faithful and 3!),.ifed sketch does equal honour to the
scene and to the artist, and then in the humbler office of attempting
a faint transcript of my own impressions in the following sonnet : —

It was an hour of calmest noon, a clay

Of ripest summer: o'er the deep blue skv
White speckled clouds came sailing peacefully,

Hnirshroiu'inj; in a chequer'd veil the ray

Of the sun, too ardent else, — what time we lav
By the smooth Loddon, opposite the high
Steep bank, which as a coronet gloriously

Wore its rich crest of lirs and liipe trees, gay

With their pale tassels; while (rom out a bower

Of ivy (where those column'd poplars rear

'I'heir heads) the ruin'd boai-house, like a tower,

Flung its deep shadow on tho wati'rs clear.
My Emily! forget not that calm hour,

Xor that fai. scene, by thee made doubly dear.

yf ■^^t.'^,■

77//'; SUAIV.

^■^''^^ SKi'TKMiiER 9th. — A bright sunshiny afternoon.

What a comfort it is to get out again — to see once more that rarity
of rarities, a fine day! We English people are accused of talking
overmuch of the weather; but the weather, this summer has forced
people to talk of it. Summer ! did I say ? Oh ! season most un-
worthy of that sweet, sunny name! Season of coldness and doudi-
ness, of gloom and rain ! A worse November ! — for in November
the days are short; and shut u]) in a warm room, lighted by that
household sun a 'ami), one feels t! rough the long evenings comfort-
ably independent of the out-of-door tempests. Hut though we may
havC; and did 'ias ., fires all through the dog-days, there is no
shutting out daylight; and sixteen hours of rain, pattering against
the windows and dripping from the eaves — sixteen hours of --ain,
not merely audible, but visible, for seven days in the week — would
be enough to exhaust the patience of Job or Grizzel ; especially if

( 17,^ )

174

OUIi VILLAGE.

Job were a farmer, and Grizzel a country gentlewoman. Never was
known such a season ! Hay swimming, cattle drowning, fruit rotting,
corn spoiling! and that naughty river, the I-oddon, who never can
take Puff's advice and " keej) between its banks," running about the
country, fields, roads, gardens, and iiouses, like mad ! The weather
would be talked of. Indeed, it was not easy to talk of anything else.
A friend of mine having occasion to write me a letter, thought it
worth abusing in rhyme, and beijommclled it through three pages of
Bath-guide verse; of which I subjoin a specimen: —

"Aquarius surely iTtirii^ over the world.
And of late he his water-pot strangely has twirl'd;
Or he's taken a cullender up by mistake,
And unceasinj^ly dips it in some inif^hfy lake;
Thou^li it is not in Lethe — for who can forget
The annoyance of tj;ettinij most thoroughly wet.'
It must be in the river called Styx, I declare,
For the moment it drizzles it makes the men swear.
'It did rain to-morrow,' is growing good grammar;
Vauxhall and camp stools have been brought to the hammer;
A i)ony gondola is all I can keep.
And I use my umbrella and pattens in sleep:
Row out of my window, whene'er 'tis my whim
To visit a friend, and just ask, 'Can you swim.'"'

So far my friend. In short, whether in prose or in verse, everybody
railed at the weather. But this is over now. The sun has come to
dry the world; mud is turned into dust; rivers have retreated to
their proper limits; farmers have left off grumbling; and we are
about to take a walk, as usual, as far as the Shaw, a pretty wood
about a mile off. But one of our companions being a stranger to the
gentle reader, we must do him the honour of an introduction.

Dogs, when they are sure of having their own way, have some-
times ways as odd as those of the unfurred, unfeathered animals, who
walk on two legs, and talk, and are railed rational. My beautiful

OUR V/r.f.AdE.

»75

white greyhound, Mayflower, for instance, is as wliMnsiral as the fuvst
lady in the land. Amonj^st )ier otiier fancies, she has taken a violent
affection for a mos^ hideous stray dos;, wlio made his apjjearani c here
about six months ago, and contrived to pick u]) a living in the
village, one can hardly tell how. Now appealing to the thaiity of
old Rachel Strong, the laundress — a dog-lover by profession; now
winning a meal from the light-footed and o|)en-hearted lasses at the
Rose; now standing on his hind-legs, to extort bv sheer beggary
a scanty morsel from some pair of
"droughty cronies," or solitary drov-
er discussing his dinner or supper on
the ale-house bench; now catching
a mouthful, flung to him in pure con-
tempt by some scornful gentleman of
the shoulder-knot, mcunted on his
throne, the coach-box, whose notice
he had attracted by dint of ugliness;
now sharing tlie commons of Master W'Ti
Keep the shoemaker's ])igs ; now
succeeding to the reversion of the
well-gnawed bone of Master Hrown
the shopkeeper's fierce house-dog;
now filching the skim-milk of Dame
Wheeler's cat ; — spit at by the cat; worried by tlu' uuisiitf; chased
by the pigs; screamed at by the dame; stormed at by the shoemaker;
flogged by the siiojjkeeper; — teased by all the ( hildren, and scouted
by all the animals of the parish; — but yet living through his griefs,
and bearing them patiently, "for sufferance is the badge of all his
tribe;" — and even seeming to find, in an occasional full meal, or a
gleam of sunshine, or a wisp of dry straw on which to rei>ose his
sorry carcase, some comfort in his disconsolate condition.

176

OUU VILLAGE.

WW 1 !

! hi! 'f

In this plight was he found by May, the most high-blooded and
aristocratic of greyhounds; and from this plight did May rescue
him; — invited iiim into her territory, tiie stable; resisted all attempts
to turn him out; reinstated him there, in spite of maid and boy, and
mistress and master; wore out everybody's opposition, by the activ-
ity of her protection, and the pertinacity of her self-will; made him
sharer of her bed and of her mess ; and, finally, established him as
one of the family as firmly as herself.

Dash — for he has even won himself a name amongst us, before
he was anonymous — Dash is a sort of a kind of a spaniel; at least
there is in his mongrel composition some sign of that beautiful race.
Besides his ugliness, which is of the worst sort — that is to say, the
shabbiest — he has a limp on one leg that gives a peculiarly one-sided
awk^s•ardness to his gait; but inde])endently of his great merit in
being May's pet, he has other merits which serve to account for that

OUIi VII.LAUE.

• 7;

phenomenon — being, beyond all comparison, liu- iudsi taithliil, at-
tached, and affectionate animal that I have ever known; and that
is saying much. He seems to think it necessary to atone for his
ugliners by extra good condiut, and does so dan( e on his lame leg,
and so wag his scrubby tail, th.it it dues any one who has a taste lor
happiness good to look at him; so that he may now he said to stand
on his own footing. We are all rather ashamed of him when strangers
come in the way, and think it necessary to exjjlain that he is Mav's
pet; but amongst ourselves, and those who are used to his appear-
ance, he has reached the point of favouritism in his own jjerson. I
have, in common with wiser women, the feminine weakness of loving
whatever loves me — and, theretore, I like Dash. His master has
found out that he is a <;apital finder, and in si)ite of his lameness will
hunt a field or beat a (over with any spaniel in J'.ngland — and,
therefore, he likes Dash. Tiie boy has fougtit a battle, in defeni e
of his beauty, with another boy, bigger than himself, and beat his
opponent most handsomely — and, therefore, //<r likes Dash; and the
maids like him, or pretend to like him, because we do — as is the
fashion of that pliant and imitative class. And now Dash and May
follow us everywhere, and are going with us to the Shaw, as 1 said
before — or rather to the cottage by the Shaw, to bes])eak milk and
butter of our little dairy-woman, Hannah I>int — a housewilely occu-
pation, to which we owe some of our pleasantest rambles.

And now we ,'a..'- the sunny, dusty village street — who would
have thought, ": runti ago, that wo should complain (jf sun and ilust
again ! — and turn "" i. corner where the two great oaks hang so beau-
tifully over the clear deep pond, mixmg their cool green shadows
with the bright blue sky, and the white ciouils that t1il over it; and
loiter at the wheeler's shoj), always picturesque, with its tools, and
its work, and its materials, all so various in form, and so harmonious
in colour; and its noisy, merry workmen, hannnering and singing,

2.^

i i

ill

178

OUR VILLAGE.

and making a various harmony also. The shop is rather empty to-
day, lor its usual inmates are busy on the green beyond the pond —
one set building a cart, another painting a w," "on. And then we
leave the village quite behind, and proceed slowi) up the cool, quiet
lane, between tall hedgerows of tlie darkest "erdiire, overshadowing
banks green and fresh as an emerald.

N<Ss^ '."St'.

Not so quick as I expected, though — for they are shooting here
to-day, as Dash and I have both discovered : he with great delight,
for a gun to him is as a trumpet to a war-horse ; I with no less annoy-
ance, for I don't think that a partridge itself, barring the accident of
being killed, can be more startled than I at that abominable explo-
sion. Dash has certainly better blood in his veins than any one
would guess to look at him. He even shows some inclination to
elope into the fields, in pursuit of those noisy iniquities. But he is
an orderly person after all, and a word has checked him.

!!l

AND CRIKl). 'daddy! DADDV'!' AND SPKANC INIO HIS ARMS."

ori^ \Ji.i.M.i:.

iSt

Ah! here is a slirillcr ilin min<;lin^ witli the small .irtillery — a
shriller aiul more coiitimtous. We are not yel arrived within si^ht
of iMaster Weston's cottage, snugly hiiklen behind a cUimi) of elms;
but we are in full hearing of Dame Weston's tongue, raised as usual
to scolding pitch. 'I'lie Westons are new arrivals in mir neighbour-
hood, and the first thing heard of them was a complaint from the
wife to our magistrate of her husband's beating her: it was a regular
charge of assault — an information in full form. A most piteous i .ise
did Dame Weston make of it. softening her voii e for the mnK r inUi
a shrill tremulous whine, and exciting the mingled pity and anger —
pity towards herself, anger towards her husband — of the whole fe-
male world, pitiful and indignant as the kiiiale world is wont to be
on such occasions, livery woman in the parish railed at Master
Weston; and jjoor Master Weston was summoiu il lo atlmd the
bench on the ensuing Saturday and answer the charge; and sm h
was the clamour abrcjad and at home, that the unlm ky ( ulpril, terri-
fied at the sound of a warrant and a ( onstable, ran away, and was
not heard of for a fortnight.

At the end of that time he was discovered, and brought to t'-»
bench ; and Dame Weston again told her story, and, as before, on
the full cry. She had no witnesses, and the bruises of which she
made complaint had disappeared, and there were no women present
to make common cause with the sex. Still, however, the general
feeling was against Master Weston ; and it would have gone hard
with him when he was called in, if a most unexpec ted witness had
not risen up in his favour. Mis wife had brought in her .inns a little
girl about eighteen months old, partly perhajis to move compassion
in her favour; for a woman with a child in her arms is always an
object that excites kind feelings. The little girl had looked shy and
frightened, and had been as cpiiet as a lamb during her mother's
examination; but she no sooner saw her father, from whom she had

;i: i

J ^

I I : i

I 1

182

l)r/,' VILI.MiE.

been a fortnit^ht separated, than she clapped her hands and laiiglied,
and cried, "Daddy! daddy!" and sprang into liis arms, and hung
round his neck, and covered liini with kisses — again shouting,
"Daddy, conic home! daddy! daddy!" — and finr.ily nestled her
little head in his bosom, with a fulness of contentment, an assurance
of tenderness and protection such as no wife-beating tyrant ever did
inspire, or ever could inspire, since the days of King Solomon. Our
magistrates icted in the very spirit of the Jewish monarch : they
accepted the evidence of nature, and dismissed the complaint. And
subsequent events have fully justified their decision ; Mistress Weston
proving not only renowned for the feminine accoinplishment of scold-
ing, (tongue-banging, it is called in our i)aits, a compound word
which deserves to be (ireek,) but is actually herself addicted to
administering the conjugal discipline, the infliction of which she was
pleased to impute to her luckless husband.

Now we cross the stile, and walk up the fields to tlie Shaw. How

beautifully green this pasture looks! and how finely tiie evening sun

glances between the boles of that clump of trees,

beech, and ash, and aspen ! and how sweet the

hedgerows are with woodbine and wild

scabious, or, as the country people call

it, the gipsy rose ! Here is little Dolly

Weston, the unconscious witness, with

< heeks as red as a real rose, tottering

up the i)ath to meet her father. And

here is the carroty-polled urchin, (}eorge

Coper, returning from work, and singing

" Home ! sweet Home ! " at the top of

his voice; and then, when the notes

prove too high for him, continuing the air in a whistle, until he has

turned the impassable corner; then taking up again the song and the

oiN yn.i..\<,i

'«3

words, "Home! sweet Home!" and lookinn as if he felt tluir lull

import, i)l(niglil)oy tluniuli lie bv. And
so he docs; fur lu- is one of a largf,
an honest, a kind, and .\ii indus-
trious family, where all goes well,
and where the i>oor ploiij;hboy
is sure of finding clucrful faces
and coarse comforts — all that
he has learned to desire. Oh, to
be as cheaply and as thorough-
ly contented as (ieorge Cojier!
All his luxuries a cri< ket-match;
all his wants satisfied in
" home ! sweet
u)nie ! "

\\ \

i84

OUli VILLAGE.

Nothing but noises to-day ! Tiiey are clearing Farmer Brooke's
great bean-field, and crying the " Harvest Home!" in a chorus, be-
fore which all other sounds — the song, the scolding, the gunnery
— fade away, and become faint echoes. A i)lcasant noise is that !
though, for one's ears' sake, one makes some haste to get away from
it. And here, in happy time, is that pretty wood, the Shaw, with its
broad i)athway, its tangled dingles, its nuts and its honeysuckles;—
and, carrying away a faggot of those sweetest flowers, we reach
Hannah Bint's: of whom, and uf whose doings, we shall say more
another time.

Note.— Poor Dash is also dead. We did not keep him long, indeed
I believe that he died of the transition from starvation to good feed,
as dangerous to a dog's stomach, and to most stomachs, as the less
agreeable change from good feed to starvation. He has been suc-
ceeded in place and favour by another Dash, not less amiable in
demeanour, and far more creditable in appearance, bearing no small
resemblance to the pet spaniel of my friend Master Dinely, he who
stole the bone from the magpies, and who figures as the first Dash of
this volume. Let not the unwary reader opine that, in assigning the
same name to three several individuals, I am acting as an humble
imitator of the inimitable writer who has given immortality to the
Peppers and the Mustards, on the one han-l ; or showing a poverty
of invention or a want of acquaintance with the bead-roll of canine
appellations on the other. I merely, with my usual scrupulous fidelity,
take the names as I find them. The fact is that half the handsome
spaniels in England are called Dash, just as half the tall footmen are
railed Thomas. The name belongs to the species. Sitting in an

r-.ite»««Bi#i»»

OUR VILLM'K-

iSS

open carriage one day last summer at the door of a farm-ho„se where
n'y father had some business, I sr.v a noble and bcaut.ful .n.mal of
this kind lying in great state and laziness on the s.q.s, am felt an
immediate desire to make acquaintance witl, h.n. My father who
had had the same fancy, had patted him and called hm. I'-; f^"-.,
in passing, without ehciting the smallest notice in return. Dash
cried I at a venture, "good Dash- noble Dash-/ and up he started
in a moment, making but one spring from the door ,nt.. the g.g. Of
course I was right in my guess. The gentleman's nan>e was Dash.

MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

STANDARD REFERENCE MATERIAL 1010a

(ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No 2)

A^!

coppice; that is to say, a tract of thirty or forty acres .ovcrcd w,th
fine growir^g timber- ash, and oak. and ehn. very regularly planted
and Interspersed here and there with large patches ot underwood,
hazel, maple, birch, holly, and hawthorn, woven into almost mpene-
trable thickets by long wreaths of the br . ble. the bryony, and the
brier-rose, or by the pliant and twisting garlands of the w, d honey-
suckle In other parts, the Shaw is .luite clear of Us bosky v.nder-
growth, and clothed only with large beds of feathery fern, or carpets
of flowers, primroses, orchises, cowslips, ground-i^. crane s-b>ll. cot-
ton-grass, Solomon's seal, and forget-me-not, crowded together w.th a
profusion and brilliancy of colour, such as I have rarely seen e.p.alled

1 88

OUR V'LLAGE.

■ !

Ui I

II i

even in a garden. Here the wild hyacinth really enamels the ground
with its fresh and lovely purple ; there,

"On aged roots, with briKlit fjrcLMi mosses ilad,

Dwells the wooci-sonel, with its bright thin leaves

Heart-shaped and triplv folded, and its root

Creeping like headed coral; -vhilst around

Flourish the copse's pride, anemones,

With ravs like j^oldctj studs on ivory laid

Most delicate; but touch'd with purple clouds,

Fit crown for April's fair but changeful brow."

The variety is much greater tlian I liave enumerated; for the ground
is so unequal, now swelling in gentle ascents, now dimpling into dells
and hollows, and the soil so different in different parts, that the sylvan
Flora is unusually extensive and complete.

The season is, however, now too late for this floweriness; and ex-
cept the tufted woodbines, which have continued in bloom during
the whole of this lovely autumn, and some lingering garlands of the
purple wild veitch, wreatiiing round the thickets, and uniting with
the ruddy leaves of the bramble, and the pale festoons of the bryony,
there is little to call one's attention from the grander beauties of the
• trees — the sycamore, its broad leaves already spotted — the oak,
heavy with acorns — and the delicate shining rind of the weeping
birch, "the lady of the woods," thrown out in strong relief from a
background of holly and hawthorn, each studded with coral berries,
and backed with old beeches, beginning to assume the rich tawny
hue which makes them perhaps the most picturesque of autumnal
trees, as the transparent freshness of their young foliage is undoubt-
edly the choicest ornament of the forest in spring.

A sudden turn round one of these magnificent beeches brings us
to the boundary of the Shaw, and leaning upon a rude gate, we look
over an open space of about ten acres of ground, still more varied
and broken than that which we have passed, and surrounded on all

ouii yii.i.uii-:

189

sides by thick woodland. As a piece of colour, noth.ng can be well
finer The ruddy glow of the heath-flower, contrastmg. on the one
hand with the golden-blossomed fnr.e-on the other, w.th a ,nUch
buckwheat. <' which the bloon, i. not past, although t e gra.n e
ripening,-the beautiful buckwheat, whose transparent leaves and

ta ks are so brightly tinged with vern.lion, while the dehcate p.nk-
: e of the noter, a paler persicaria, has a feathery ^a" at or^ so

rich and so graceful, and a fresh and rev.v.ng odour, hke that of

'-^-M^::?.^'

• , . ^f ., \I-,v pvi-nini: The bank tluU surmounts
hirrh trees in the dew of a .Ma> evcnm^,.

' a„e„,„. a. cu,„va.i»n i» oownec, -viO, ,„. ,a.e ^".^^^^

sutdy mullein; the pasture of wkici, so B'.»t a ,.a,t of .1.. waste

otiL, looks as Bteen as an emerald; a dear „o,,.l " ■ - "j^

sky reflected in it. lets light into the picture ; the wln.e cottage of ,h.

■i •!

190

OUR Vir.LAdE.

keeper peeps from the opposite coppice ; and the vine-covered dwell-
ing of Hannah Bint rises from amidst the pretty garden, which lies
batiied in the sunshine around it.

The living and moving accessories are all in keeping with the
clieerfulness and repose of tlie landscape. Hannah's cow grazing
quietly beside the keeper's pony; a brace of fat pointer puppies hold-
ing amicable intercourse with a litter of young pigs; ducks, geese,

cocks, hens, and chickens scattered over the turf; Hannah herself
sallying forth from the cottage-door, with her milk-bucket in her
hand, and her little brother following with the milking-stool.

My friend, Hannah Bint, is by no means an ordinary person. Her
father. Jack Bint, (for in all his life he never arrived at the dignity of

^Xim

'-.•i«.J^*'V("--.*«*A:W'

ou/t yii.i. u:e

191

being called John, indeed in our parts he wa^ ronunonly known l.y
the cognomen of London Jack.) was a drover of high rei>nte m lus
profession. No man. between Salisbury I'lain an.l SnulhheUi. Nvas
.bought to conduct a flock of shee,. so skilfully through all tl,e d.th-
culties of lanes and commons, streets and high-roads, as Jack Ibnt.
aided by Jack Hint's famous dog, Watch; for Watcl^'s rough, honest
face, black, svith a little white about the muzzle,
and one white ear, was as well known at fairs
and markets, as his master's equally honest
and weather-beaten visage. Lucky was the
dealer that could secure their services; Watch
being renowned for keeping a flock together
better than any shepherd's dog on the road —
Jack for delivering them more punctually, and
in better condition. No man had a more thor-
ough knowledge of - proper night stations,
where good feed migl ; be procured for his
charge, and good licpior for Watch and him-
self- Watch, like other sheep dogs, being accustomed to live ch.etly
on bread and beer. His master, though not averse to a pot ot good
double X, preferred gin; and they who plod slowly along, through
wet and weary ways, in frost and in fog, have unci ubtedly a stronger
temptation to indulge in that cordial and reviving stimulus than we
water-drinkers, sitting in warm and comfortable rooms, cat. read.ly
imagine. For certain, our drover couhl never resist the gentle seduc-
tion of the gin-bottle, and being of a free, .nerry, jovial temperament,
one of those persons commonly called good fellows, who hke to see
others happy in the same way with themselves, he was apt to c.rcu-
late it at his own expense, to the great improvement of h.s popularity,
and the great detriment of his finances.

All this did vastly well whilst his earnings continue.l proportionate

192

OVIi VILLAGE.

to his spendings, and tlie little family at home were comfortably sup-
ported by his industry : but when a rheumatic fever came on, one
hard winter, and finally settled in his limbs, reducing the most active
and hardy man in the parish to the state of a confirmed cripple, tl- ,
his reckless improvidence stared him in the face; and poor JacK, a
thoughtless, but kind creature, and a most affectionate father, looked
at his three motherless children with the acute misery of a parent

who has brought those whom he loves best in the world to abject
destitution. He found help, where he probably least expected it, in
the sense and spirit of his young daughter, a girl of twelve years old.
Hannah was the eldest of the family, and had, ever since her
mother's death, which event had occurred two or three years before,
been accustomed to take the direction of their domestic concerns, to
manage her two brothers, to feed the pigs and the poultry, and to
keep house during the almost constant absence of her father. She

Umi^

OUli \ II.I.UiK.

103

was a quick, clever lass, of a hi,l, spirit, a .mr. u-mrer. sonu- v^nW
Z a Lrrc. of accepting parochial rcUcf. whul, .s every day l.eco .-
Zl Lr a.nong.t the peasantry; hut .Inch fonus t e sure. ^.
guld to the sturdy independence of the .'-"^''''V ," r f t ^r
Httle damsel possessed this quality in perfe. t.o,> ; and when her at
alUed of «ii. up their co..,rtal,le cottage, an re.,.,v.n«

workhouse, whil.t she and her brothers tnust go to ser >.., Hannah
formed a bold resolution, and without d.turbin, the suk ,nan by any
^Tticipation of her hopes and fears, proceeded after se.tbn. the.r
trifling affairs to act at once on her own plans and des,gns

cfreless of the future as the poor drover had see.ned he had > t
kept clear of debt, and, by subscribing constantly to a '--";;';.
had secured a pittance that tnight at least ass.st tn supj.or u g Inm
d Ig t e long years of sickness and helplessness to wh.ch he was
doomed to look forward. This his daughter knew. She k.u-w also
tha the employer in whose service his health had suffered so severe y
!a ich nd liberal cattle-dealer in the neighbourhood, who wo.dd
I 1 ingly aid an old and faithful servar,t, atul iuul. tndeed. come fo -
r d . th offers of money. To assistance from such a quar
nlah saw no objection. Farmer Oakley and the par.h .ere
llannan , . nf him iccordiniily, si>e asked, not m<:ney,

quite distmct thmgs. Of him, accoruini^iy, .„^^ ,.„,,, „,d

^,LL ' ■■ And, partly nn.«»cl. ,Kmly in.».».ed l,y .he .1. •! « ear-
Tie . the wca thy yeon,a„ ea.e her, „ot „ a ,..,rcha«, .,.,t a, a
" e em a very One yo.mg Akie.ney. She' the,, ..e„t to the lord of
present,.! vciy ; rhnnrter beuced his per-

the manor, and, with equal knowledge of ^'^"^'-''^'^ .'"^^ '

:n^:r:«:^er::x::7Li-:,,ay.^

i 1

■

194

Ot//t [TILLAGE.

rent, and keep her father off the parish, if lie would only let it graze
on the waste;" and he, too, half from real good nature — half, not to
be outdone ir liberality by his tenant, not only granted the requested
permission, but reduced the rent so much that the i)roduce of the
vine seld!)m fails to satisfy their kind landlord.

• :> .!

Now, Hannah showed great judgment in setting up as a dairy-
woman. She could not have chosen an occupation more completely
unoccupied, or more loudly called for. One of the most provoking
of the petty difficulties which beset people with a small eoiablish-
ment in this neighbouiiiood, is the trouble, almost the impossibility,
of procuring the pastoral luxuries of milk, eggs, and butter, which
rank, unfortunately, amongst the indispensable necessaries of house-
keeping. To your thoroughbred Londoner, who, whilst grumbling
over his own breakfast, is apt to fancy that thick cream, and fresh

OUti i//./.A(iE.

19S

butter, and now-laid c^.s, ,r.nv. ho to say. in .he . -unury - u>uu an
actual part of us natural produ.c~it .nay \n- s-.n...- .on.turt t., learn
that, in this great grazing .listri... however the calve, and the .ar.nm
„,ay be the better for cow., nobody .ise ,s; that iarnu-rs w,ve. 1 ve
ceased to kee,, poultry; and that we unhu ky v.llagcrs s„ down ..ten
o our first n.oal in a state .f dcsti.unon. which may well make hun
content with his thin ...ilk and his Cambridge butter, when . u.n-
pared to our imputed pastoralities.

Hannah's Alderney restored us to one rural pr.vdege Neve as
so cleanly a little milU-maid. She changed away some of the cottage
fmery, wlch,, m his prosperous days, poor Jack had pleased hu sel
Ih Ringing home,-the china tea-service, the gilded mugs, and tl,e

inted waUers,-for the useful utensils of the dairy, and speeddy es-
tablished a regular and gainful trade in milk, eggs, butter, honey and
poultry-for poultry they had always kept.

196

OUR VILLAGE.

Her domestic management prospered equally. Her father, who
retained the perfect use of his hands, began a manufacture of mats
and baskets, which he constructed with great nicety and adroitness;
the eldest boy, a sharj) and clever lad, cut for him his rushes and
osiers; erected, under his sister's direction, a shed for the cow, and
c-nlarged and cultivated the garden (always with the good leave of her
kind patron the lord of the manor) until it became so ample that the
produce not only kejit the pig, and half kept the family, but afforded
another branch of merchandise to the indefatigable directress of the
establishment. For the younger boy, less quick and active, Hannah
contrived to obtain an admission to the charity-school, where he made
great progress — retaining him at home, however, in the hay-making,
and leasing season, or whenever his services could be made available,
to the great annoyance of the schoolmaster, whose favourite he is, and
who piques himself so much on George's scholarship, (your heavy
sluggish boy at country work often turns out quick at his book,) that
it is the general opinion that this much-vaunted pupil will, in process
of time, be promoted to the post of assistant, and may, possibly, in
course of years, rise to the dignity of a jjarish pedagogue in his own
person ; so that his sister, although still making him useful at odd
times, now considers George as pretty well off her hands, whilst his
elder brother, Tom, could take an ur-'er-gardener's place directly, if
he were not too important at home to be spared even for a day.

In short, during the five years that she has ruled at the Shaw cot-
tage the world has gone well with Hannah Bint. Her cow, her calves,
her pigs, her bees, her poultry, have each, in their several ways, thriven
and prosjjered. She has even brought Watch to like buttermilk, as
well as strong beer, and has nearly persuaded her father (to whose
wants and wishes she is most anxiously attentive) to accept of milk as
a substitute for gin. Not but Hannah hath had her enemies as well
as her betters. Why should she not? The old woman at the lodge,

OIJH VI I. I.AC E-

197

who always piqued lu-rself on being spitHui, and cry.ng down new
ways foretold from the first she would come to no g.,od. and could not
forgi've her for falsifying her prediction; and Hetty Harnes. the slat-
ternly widow of a tippling farmer, who rented a field, and set up a cow
herself and was universally discarded for insufferable dirt, saul all tlut
the wit of an envious woman could devise against Hannah and her
Alderney; nay, even Ned Miles, the keeper, her next ue.ghbour. who
had whilom held entire sway over the Shaw common, as well as .ts
coppices, grumbled as much as so gond-natured and gemal a pe>M,n
could grumble, when he found a little girl sharing his donunu.n, a
cow gr'azing beside his pony, and vulgar cocks and hens hovermg
around the buckwheat destined to feed his noble pheasants. No-
body that iiad been accustomed to see th.a parag.-n ot keepers, so tall
and manly, and pleasant looking, witu ins n,erry eye and lus kn.pnng
smile, striding ga.ly along, in his green coat and h>s gold-lace.l hat,
with Neptune, his noble Newfoundland dog. (a retnever .s the sport-
ing word,) and his beautiful spaniel Flirt at his heels, co.dd conce.ve
how askew he looked when he first found Hannah an.i \Vatcl> hold-
ing equal reign over his old territory, the Shaw comnu.n.

Yes' Hannah hath had her enemies; but they are jmssnig away.
The old woman at the lodge is dead, ,.oor creature ; and Betty
Barnes, having herself taken to tippling, has lost the tew tnends sh e
once possessed, and looks, luckless wretch, as if she wouhl soon d,e
too'-and the keeper.'-why he is not dead, or like to d,e; but he
change that has taken place there is the most aston.shmg of all-
except, perhaps, the change in Hannah herself.

Few damsels of twelve years old, generally a very pretty age, were
less pretty than Hannah Hint. Short and stunted in her figure thm
in face, sharp in feature, with a muddled complex.on. w.ld sun-burnt
hair, and eyes whose very brightness had in them somethmg startbng,
overinformed. supersubtle. too clever for her age,- at twelve years

jq8 our village.

old she had quite the air of a little old fairy. Now, at seventeen,
matters are mended. Her complexion has cleared ; her countenance
has developed itself; her figure has shot up into height and lightness,
and a sort of rustic grace ; her bright, acute eye is softened and sweet-
ened by the womanly wish to please ; her hair is trimmed, and curled
and brushed, with exquisite neatness; and her wliole dress arranged
with that nice attention to the becoming, the suitable both in form
and texture, which would be called the highest degree of coquetry, if
it did not deserve the better name of propriety. Never was such a
transmogrification beheld. The lass is really pretty, and Ned Miles
has discovered that she is so. There he stands, the rogue, close at
her side, (for he hath joined her whilst we have been telling her little
story, and the milking is over!)— there he stands, holding her milk-
pail in one hand and stroking Watch with the other; whilst she is
returning the compliment, by patting Neptune's magnificent head.
There they stand, as much like lovers as may be ; he smiling, and she
blushing — he never looking so handsome nor she so pretty in all their
lives. There they stand, in blessed forgetfulness of all except each
other, as happy a couple as ever trod the earth. There they stand,
and one would not disturb them for all the milk and butter in Chris-
tendom. I should not wonder if they were fixing the wedding day.

THE FALL OF THE LEAF.
NovFM«ER 6th.-The weather is as peaceful to-day, as calm, and as
mild, as in early April; and, perhaps, an autumn afternoon and a
spring morning do resemble each other more in feeling, and even m
appearance, than any two periods of the year. There ,s m both the
same freshness and dewiness of the herbage, the same balmy soft-
ness in the air, and the same pure and lovely blue sky. wuh wh.te
fleecy clouds floating across it. The chief difference hes m the
absence of flowers and the presence of leaves. Hut then the U.hage
of November is so rich, and glowing, and varied, that .t may well
supply the place of the gay blossoms of the sprmg; whdst all the
flosvers of the field or the garden could never n.ake amends for the
want of leaves,- that beautiful and graceful attire m wh.ch nature
has clothed the rugged forms of trees - the verdant drapery to wh.ch
the landscape owes its loveliness, and the forests the.r glory.

If choice must be between two seasons, each so full of charm. U

( 199 )

2CX)

OUR VILLAGE.

is at least no bad philosophy to prefer the present good, even whilst
looking gratefully back, and hopefully forward, to the past and the
future. And of a surety no fairer specimen of a November day
could well be found than this, — a day made to wander

"By yellow commons and bircli-shadeci liol'ows,
And hedgerows bordermg unfrequented lanes.;"

nor could a prettier country be found for our walk than this shady
and yet sunny Berkshire, where the scenery, without rising into
grandeur or breaking into wildness, is so peaceful, so cheerful, so
varied, and so thoroughly English.

We must bend our steps towards the water-side, for I have a mes-
sage to leave at Farmer Riley's : and sooth to day, it is no unpleasant
necessity, for the road thither is smooth and dry, retired, as one

\\ I

OUR VILLAGE.

20I

likes a country walk to be, but not too lonely, which women never like ;
leading past the Loddon — the bright, brimming, transparent i.oddon
— a fitting mirror for tliis bright blue sky, and terminating at one of
the prettiest and most comfortable farni-iiouses in the neiglibourhood.
How beautiful the lane is to-day, decorated with a thousand col-
ours! The brown road, and the rich verdure that borders it, strewed
with the pale yellow leaves of the elm, just beginning to fall ; hedge-
rows glowing with long wreatlis of the bramble in every variety of
purplish red; and overhead the unchanged green of the fir, contrast-
ing with the spotted sycamore, the tawny beech, and the dry sere
leaves of the oak, which rustle as tiie light wind passes through them ;
a few common hardy yellow flowers, (for yellow is the conunon colour

of flowers, whether wild or cultivated, as blue is the rare one,) flowers
of many sorts, but almost of one tint, still blowing in spite of the
season, and ruddy berries glowing through all. How very beautiful
is the lane !

And how pleasant is this hill where the road widens, with the
group of cattle by the way-side, and George Hearn, the little post-
boy, trundling his hoop at full speed, making all the better haste in
26

r I

202

OUR VILLAGE.

his work because he cheats liimself into thinking it play! And how

beautiful, again, is this pptch of common at the hiil-top with the clear

pool, where Martha Pither's children, — elves of three, and four, and

five years old, — without any distinction .■,-,■,

of sex in their sunburnt faces and tat- '^J'^^v^yrii

tered drapery, are dipping up water ^

in their little homely cups shining ;,f^

with cleanliness, and a small brown t^^

pitcher with the lip broken, to fill

that great kettle, which, when it

is filled, their united strength will

never be able to lift! They are

quite a group for a

painter, with ' ■ •'^''**

their rosy cheeks, and chubby hands, and round merry faces; and the
low cottage in the background, peeping out of its vine leaves and
china roses, with Martha at the door, tidy, and comely, and smiling,
preparing t potatoes for the pot, and watching the progress of
dipping and filling that useful utensil, completes the picture.

OUR VILLAGE.

203

IJut we must ;',';t on. No time for more sketches in tliese short
days. It is getting cold too. We must proceed in our walk. Dash is
showing us the way and beating the thick double hedgerow that runs
along the side of the meadows, at a rate that indicates game astir, and
causes the leaves to lly as fast as an east-wind after a hard frost. Ah !
a pheasant! a su,,erb cock pheasant! Nothing is more certain than
Dash's questing, whether in a liedgerow or covert, for a better spaniel
never went into the field ; but I fancied that it was a hare afoot, and
was almost as much startled to hear the whirring of those splendid
wings as the princely bird himself would have been at the report of

a gun. Indeed I believe that the way in which a pheasant goes off
does sometimes make young sportsmen a little nervous, (they don't
own it very readily, but the observation may be relied on neverthe-
less,) until they get as it were broken in to the sound; and then that
grand and sudden burst of wing becomes as pleasant to them as it
seems to be to Dash, who is beating the hedgerow with might and
main, and giving tongue louder and sending the leaves about faster
than ever— very proud of finding the pheasant, and perhaps a little
angry with me for not shooting it; at least looking as if he would be

304

OUK VILLAGE.

angry if I were a man; for Dash is a dog of great sagacity, and has
doubtless not lived four years in the sporting world without making
the discovery that although gentlemen do shoot, ladies do not.

The Loddon at last ! tiie beautiful Loddon ! and the bridge, where
every one stops, as by instinct, to lean over the rails and gaze a mo-
ment on a landscape of surpassing loveliness, — the fine grounds of
the Great House, with their magnificent groups of limes, and firs, and
poplars grander than ever poplars were ; the green meadows opposite,
studded with oaks and elms; the clear winding river; the mill with
its picturesque old buildings bounding the scene; all glowing with
the rich colouring of autumn, and harmonized by the soft beauty of
the clear blue sky and the delicious calmness of the hour. The very
peasant whose daily path it is, cannot cross that bridge without a pause.

But the day is wearing fast, and it grows colder and colder. I
really think it will be a frost. After all, spring is the pleasantest
season, beautiful as this scenery is. We must get on. Down that
broad yet shadowy lane, between the park, dark with evergreens and

OUIt VlLLAdE.

205

dappled with deer, and the meadows where slieep, and cows, and
horses are grazing under the tall elms; that lane, where the wild
bank, clothed with fern, and tufted with furze, and crowned by rich
berried thorn and thick shining holly on the one side, seems to vie
in beauty with the picturesque old paling, the bright laurels, and the
plumy cedars, on the other -down that shady lane, until the sudden
turn brings us to an opening where four roads meet, where a noble
avenue turns down to the Great House; where the village church
rears its modest spire from amidst its venerable yew trees, and where,

embosomed in orchards and gardens, and backed by barns and neks,
and all the wealth of the farm-yard, stands the spacious and comfort-
able abode of good Fanner Riley,- the end and object of our walk.
And in happy time the message is said, and the answer given, for

306

OUli VILLACR.

this beautiful mild day is edging off into a dense frosty evening; the
leaves of the elm and the linden in the old avenue are quivering and
vibrating and fluttering in tlie air, and at length falling crisply on the
eartli, as if Dash were beating for jjheasants in the tree-tops; the sun
gleams dimly through the fog, giving little more of light or heat than
his fair sister liie lady i.ioon ; — I don't know a more disapjjointing
person than a cold sun ; and I am beginning to wrap my cloak closely
around me, and to calculate the distance to my own fireside, recant-
ing all ihe way my praises of November, and Innging for the showery,
flowery Ajjril, as much as if I were a half-chilled butterfly, or a dahlia
knocked down by the frost.

Ah, dear me! what a climate this is, that one cannot keep in the
same mind about it for half an hour together ! I wonder, by the way,
whether the fault is in tlie weather, which Dash does not seem to
care for, or in me ? If I should happen to be wet through in a shower
next spring, and should catch myself longing for autumn, that would
settle the question.

aaaastssBiAa,' ii mw imwiMti