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MITFORD
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FIRST -EDITION
PVBLISHED-1^43
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
THE
SEIZES
OF
ENGLISH
IDTLLS
VILLAGE
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
College
Library
Page
OUR VILLAGE i
WALKS IN THE COUNTRT
Frost and Thaw . . . .17
The First Primrose . . . .25
Violeting . . . * 3 2
The Cowslip-ball . . . 38
The Hard Summer . . . .49
Nutting . . . . .61
The Wood ..... 69
The Dell 76
The Old House at Aberleigh . . 85
The Shaw . . . .94
The Fall of the Leaf . . . .104
SELECT SKETCHES
Hannah . .113
Modern Antiques . .122
A Great Farm-house . . . ,132
1221S04
v
Page
Bramley Maying . . , .141
A Parting Glance at Our Village . . 1 50
A Country Cricket-match . . 167
Wheat-hoeing . . . .182
Whit sun-eve . . . . . io
The Haymakers . . . .200
Hay-carrying . . . .214
Lost and Found . . . .220
The Old Gipsy . 237
The Toung Gipsy . . . .248
Jack Hatch . . 260
The Mole-catcher . v , .270
The Village Schoolmistress . . .279
The Rat-catcher . , . . 294
Aunt Martha , . , .306
In the very spring and pride of their tottering
prettiness .... frontispiece
Title-page .....
/ and my white greyhound . . . facing page 2 1
Nothing but for sober melancholy use . ,, 36
Striving against the heat . . . > 73
A singular division of labour . . ,, 80
Toulh and age . . . . 87
Screamed at by the dame . . . ,,98
Symptoms of a Jlirtation still . . 133
Scolding little boys and girls . . 148
Oh ! they 'will never do for cricket . . ,, 181
Not a stroke have they done for these Jive minutes ,, 196
Mending by Master Keephimself . . ,, 197
His oivn visions growing into reality . ,, 212
An old crone stooping over a kettle . . ,,245
Isaac is a tall, /ean, gloomy personage . ,, 260
Most of the three-colour blocks used in this book have been made
by the Graphic Photo- Engraving Co., London
Miss MITFORD, in one of her letters to Miss
Barrett (afterwards Mrs Barrett Browning), says : " I
have never been without pecuniary care, care that
pressed upon my thoughts the last thing at night, to
wake in the morning with a dreary sense of pain, a
pressure of something that weighed me to the
earth."
Such, indeed, was her life, made sordid and in
part miserable through the diversions of a father, of
whom it is difficult to speak with patience or find in
his character one redeeming principle. A gambler
who grasped and lost in play the fortunes of a wife
and daughter in addition to his own, and when all
was exhausted, lived upon and gambled with the
earnings of his only child even in dying leaving
her only a heritage of debts to the amount
of a thousand pounds, which she most nobly
liquidated.
But out of all this sordidness and suffering there
was born to her a beautiful, quiet heroism, full of a
great cheerfulness ; and there was given to her, in
compensation, a perfect appreciation and delight in
x
nature's loveliness, and a great industry which hardly
knew fatigue.
Mary Russell Mitford was born at Alresford,
Hampshire, on the 1 6th December 1787. Her father
had been educated for the medical profession, and had
passed his degree at the Edinburgh University. Her
mother, Mary Russell, was the daughter of Richard
Russell, one of those richly beneficed clergymen who
held two livings, Overton and Ash, both in Hamp-
shire. She was born into comfortable circumstances,
her mother having a considerable fortune, as, indeed,
had her father ; and throughout her early child-
hood this comfort prevailed, though her father was
constantly diminishing the fortunes by his wasteful
extravagance and wretched gambling habits. When
he had exhausted the whole of their large for-
tunes it is said, indeed, that during his life-time
he threw away money to the extent of seventy
thousand pounds his daughter added to the family
fortunes by winning a prize in a lottery worth twenty
thousand pounds. She was attracted to the numbers
by the fact that the figures of 2224 made, when
added together, the number of her years. This
came in time to save them from penury.
Mary was sent to a school kept by a Mrs St
Quinton, which had something of a reputation, for
several ladies, who afterwards reached literary fame
among them the well-known L. E. L. had previously
been educated there. She left this school, however,
x
in 1802, and went to live with her parents, and from
that time forward supported them both by her earn-
ings. She began to write poetry, and published her
first volume in 1810; and, strange to say, these
verses, which are very curious to look back upon,
attained a second edition, and, we believe, were
widely read in America. From poetry, she passed
on to writing a drama, and soon it became necessary
that she should use all the literary gifts she had
in order to maintain her parents and keep the house
together.
It was fortunate, indeed, that the necessity of
finding money for her father to gamble with led Miss
Mitford to turn her thoughts to what we would
venture to say she was born for, viz, to the pictur-
ing of those charming scenes of country life so
exquisitely drawn, so full of a bright cheerfulness,
so redolent of fresh air, that have been our delight
ever since they appeared. It is amusing to think
that this work, which was of true genius, was re-
jected by Thomas Campbell for the New Monthly
Magazine because he thought it was beneath the
dignity of his pages. They were handed over to a
little tiny magazine called the Ladies' Magazine,
which had a circulation at that time of two hundred
and fifty copies, but after the first story of " Our
Village," it immediately rose to two thousand, and
the delightful stories have been perennially printed
ever since.
xiv
Miss Mitford was for many years an invalid, and
one looks with the more disgust upon the character
of the father, who could so recklessly live upon and
gamble away the earnings of such a fragile creature.
He, however, died in 1842, and the poor invalid
lived on in peace, helped by a government pension
of one hundred pounds a year and a public subscrip-
tion (which was mainly used to pay her father's
debts), until the year 1855, when the shock of a
carriage accident accelerated the ravages of rheuma-
tism, and she died on Jan. loth.
Her genius, though of a very limited order, is
so perfect in expression in these wonderful idylls of
our English village life, so true in detail, as to re-
mind one of the old Dutch painters in their perfection
of light and shade and fulness of colour. They have
not the intuitive sense of fine art which Mrs GaskelPs
books contain, but they have in them a beauty en-
tirely their own and absolutely unique in our litera-
ture. It is curious that Harriet Martineau looked
upon her as the originator of that modern style
which we call " graphic description," but Mrs
Browning was far nearer the truth, it seems to
us, when she describes her as the "Prose Crabbe
in the sun."
The publishers have endeavoured to bring to-
gether all the pictures of actual village life contained
in the five volumes of stories. They have chosen
those first which revealed the author at her best and
xv
that were more directly studies of nature and the
village character. The greater number of these
studies are real portraits, so that the volume pre-
sents nearly all that the author wrote of " our
village."
Several selections of the stories have been illus-
trated, but the possibility to reproduce colour more
accurately has tempted the publishers to make more
vivid, scenes that are fast disappearing from our
English life.
VILLAGE
OF all situations for a constant residence, that
which appears to me most delightful is a little
village far in the country ; a small neighbourhood,
not of fine mansions finely peopled, but of cottages
and cottage-like houses, " messuages or tenements,"
as a friend of mine calls such ignoble and non-
descript dwellings, with inhabitants whose faces are
as familiar to us as the flowers in our garden j a
little world of our own, close-packed and insulated
like ants in an ant-hill, or bees in a hive, or sheep
in a fold, or nuns in a convent, or sailors in a ship j
where we know every one, are known to every
one, interested in every one, and authorised to
hope that every one feels an interest in us. How
pleasant it is to slide into these true-hearted feelings
from the kindly and unconscious influence of habit,
and to learn to know and to love the people 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.
Even in books I like a confined locality, and so
do the critics when they talk of the unities.
Nothing is so tiresome as to be whirled half over
Europe at the chariot wheels of a hero, to go to
sleep at Vienna, and awaken at Madrid j it pro-
duces a real fatigue, a weariness of spirit. On
the other hand, nothing is so delightful as to sit
down in a country village in one of Miss Austen's
delicious novels, quite sure before we leave it to
become intimate with every spot and every person it
contains ; or to ramble with Mr White l over his
own parish of Selborne, and form a friendship with
the fields and coppices, 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 importa-
tion 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 ship-
wrecked with Ferdinand on that other lovelier island
the island of Prospero, and Miranda, and Caliban,
and Ariel, and nobody else, none of Dryden's exotic
inventions that is best of all. And a small neigh-
bourhood is as good in sober waking reality as in
poetry or prose ; a village neighbourhood, such as
this Berkshire hamlet in which I write, a long,
straggling, winding street at the bottom of a fine
eminence, with a road through it, always abounding
in carts, horsemen, and carriages, and lately enlivened
1 White's Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne ; one of the
most fascinating books ever written. I wonder that no naturalist
has adopted the same plan.
3
by a stage-coach from B to S , which passed
through about ten days ago, and will, I suppose,
return some time or other. There are coaches of all
varieties nowadays ; perhaps this may be intended
for a monthly diligence, or a fortnight fly. Will you
walk with me through our village, courteous reader ?
The journey is not long. We will begin at the lower
end, and proceed 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 substantial person with a comely wife j one
who piques himself on independence and idleness,
talks politics, reads newspapers, hates the minister,
and cries out for reform. He introduced into our
peaceful vicinage the rebellious innovation of an illu-
mination on the Queen's acquittal. Remonstrance and
persuasion were in vainj he talked of liberty and
broken windows so we all lighted up. Oh ! how
he shone that night with candles, and laurel, and white
bows, and gold paper, and a transparency (originally
designed for a pocket-handkerchief) with a flaming
portrait of her Majesty, hatted and feathered, in red
ochre. He had no rival in the village, that we all
acknowledged ; the very bonfire was less splendid ;
the little boys reserved their best crackers to be
expended in his honour, and he gave them full six-
pence more than any one else. He would like an
illumination once a month ; for it must not be con-
cealed that, in spite of gardening, of newspaper
reading, of jaunting about in his little cart, and
frequenting both church and meeting, our worthy
neighbour begins to feel the weariness of idleness.
4 OU1{ VILLAGE
He hangs over his gate, and tries to entice passengers
to stop and chat ; he volunteers little jobs all round,
smokes cherry trees to cure the blight, and traces and
blows up all the wasps' nests in the parish. I have
seen a great many wasps in our garden to-day, and
shall enchant him with the intelligence. He even
assists his wife in her sweepings and dustings. Poor
man ! he is a very respectable person, and would be
a very happy one if he would add a little employment
to his dignity. It would be the salt of life to him.
Next to his house, though parted from it by another
long garden with a yew arbour at the end, is the pretty
dwelling of the shoemaker, a pale, sickly-looking,
black-haired man, the very model of sober industry.
There he sits in his little shop from early morning till
late at night. An earthquake would hardly stir him j
the illumination did not. He stuck immovably to his
last, from the first lighting up, through the long blaze
and the slow decay, till his large, solitary candle was
the only light in the place. One cannot conceive
anything more perfect than the contempt which the
man of transparencies and the man of shoes must
have felt for each other on that evening. There was
at least as much vanity in the sturdy industry as in the
strenuous idleness, for our shoemaker is a man of
substance he employs three journeymen, two lame,
and one a dwarf, so that his shop looks like an hospital ;
he has purchased the lease of his commodious dwelling,
some even say that he has bought it out and out ; and
he has only one pretty daughter, a light, delicate, fair-
haired girl of fourteen, the champion, protectress, and
playfellow of every brat under three years old, whom
she jumps, dances, dandles, and feeds all day long.
OU^VILL^tGE 5
A very attractive person is that child-loving girl. I
have never seen any one in her station who possessed
so thoroughly that undefinable charm, the lady-look.
See her on a Sunday in her simplicity and her white
frock, and she might pass for an earl's daughter
She likes flowers, too, and has a profusion of white
stocks under her window, as pure and delicate as
herself.
The first house on the opposite side of the way is
the blacksmith's ; a gloomy dwelling, where the sun
never seems to shine ; dark and smoky within and
without, like a forge. The blacksmith is a high
officer in our little state, nothing less than a con-
stable ; but, alas ! alas ! when tumults arise, and the
constable is called for, he will commonly be found
in the thickest of the fray. Lucky would it be for
his wife and her eight children if there were no
public-house in the land ; an inveterate inclination to
enter those bewitching doors is Mr Constable's only
fault.
Next to this official dwelling is a spruce brick
tenement, red, high, and narrow, boasting, one above
another, three sash-windows, the only sash-windows
in the village, with a clematis on one side and a rose
on the other, tall and narrow like itself. That slender
mansion has a fine, genteel look. The little parlour
seems made for Hogarth's old maid and her stunted
footboy ; for tea and card parties it would just hold
one table ; for the rustle of faded silks, and the
splendour of old china ; for the delight of four by
honours, and a little snug, quiet scandal between the
deals ; for affected gentility and real starvation.
This should have been its destiny ; but fate has been
B
unpropitious : it belongs to a plump, merry, bustling
dame, with four fat, rosy, noisy children, the very
essence of vulgarity and plenty.
Then comes the village shop, like other village
shops, multifarious as a bazaar ; a repository for
bread, shoes, tea, cheese, tape, ribands, and bacon;
for everything, in short, except the one particular
thing which you happen to want at the moment, and
will be sure not to find. The people are civil and
thriving, and frugal withal; they have let the upper
part of their house to two young women (one of them
is a pretty, blue-eyed girl) who teach little children
their ABC, and make caps and gowns for their
mammas parcel schoolmistress, parcel mantua-
maker. I believe they find adorning the body a
more profitable vocation than adorning the mind.
Divided from the shop by a narrow yard, and
opposite the shoemaker's, is a habitation of whose
inmates I shall say nothing. A cottage no a
miniature house, with many additions, little odds and
ends of places, pantries, and what not ; all angles,
and of a charming in-and-outness ; a little bricked
court before one half, and a little flower-yard before
the other ; the walls, old and weather-stained,
covered with holyhocks, roses, honeysuckles, and a
great apricot-tree ; the casement full of geraniums
(ah, there is our superb white cat peeping out from
among them); the closets (our landlord has the
assurance to call them rooms) full of contrivances
and corner-cupboards ; and the little garden behind
full of common flowers, tulips, pinks, larkspurs,
peonies, stocks, and carnations, with an arbour of
privet, not unlike a sentry-box, where one lives in a
VILLAGE 7
delicious green light, and looks out on the gayest of
all gay flower-beds. That house was built on pur-
pose to show in what an exceeding small compass
comfort may be packed. Well, I will loiter there no
longer.
The next tenement is a place of importance, the
Rose Inn ; a whitewashed building, retired from the
road behind its fine swinging sign, with a little bow-
window room coming out on one side, and forming,
with our stable on the other, a sort of open square,
which is the constant resort of carts, waggons, and
return chaises. There are two carts there now, and
mine host is serving them with beer in his eternal
red waistcoat. He is a thriving man and a portly, as
his waistcoat attests, which has been twice let out
within this twelvemonth. Our landlord has a stirring
wife, a hopeful son, and a daughter, the belle of the
village ; not so pretty as the fair nymph of the shoe-
shop, and far less elegant, but ten times as fine ; 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
Phoebe is fitter for town than country ; and to do
her justice, she has a consciousness of that fitness,
and turns her steps townwards as often as she can.
She is gone to B to-day with her last and
principal lover, a recruiting sergeant a man as tall
as Sergeant Kite, and as impudent. Some day or
other he will carry off Miss Phoebe.
In a line with the bow-window room is a low
garden-wall, belonging to a house under repair
the white house opposite the collar-maker's shop,
with four lime-trees before it, and a waggon-load of
8 OU^VILL^fGE
bricks at the door. That house is the plaything of
a wealthy, well-meaning, whimsical person who lives
about a mile off. He has a passion for brick and
mortar, and, being too wise to meddle with his own
residence, diverts himself with altering and re-altering,
improving and re-improving, doing and undoing here.
It is a perfect Penelope's web. Carpenters and brick-
layers have been at work for these eighteen months,
and yet I sometimes stand and wonder whether any-
thing 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 skeletons, 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 carpenter, " 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 village, a child three years old according to the
register, but six in size and strength and intellect,
in power and in self-will. She manages 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 the lazy carry
her, the silent talk to her, the grave romp with her ;
does anything she pleases ; is absolutely irresistible.
Her chief attraction lies in her exceeding power of
loving, and her firm reliance on the love and in-
dulgence of others. How impossible it would be to
disappoint the dear little girl when she runs to meet
you, slides her pretty hand into yours, looks up gladly
in your face and says, " Come ! " You must go ; you
cannot help it. Another part of her charm is her
singular beauty. Together with a good deal of the
character of Napoleon, she has something of his
square, 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
countenance. She has the imperial attitudes, too,
and loves to stand with her hands behind her, or
folded over her bosom; and sometimes, when she
has a little touch of shyness, she clasps them to-
gether on the top of her head, pressing down her
shining curls, and looking so exquisitely pretty !
Yes, Lizzy is queen of the village ! She has but
one rival in her dominions, a certain white greyhound
called Mayflower, much her 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 me,
Lizzy and Lizzy'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
io OU VILLAGE
the somewhat prim but very civil person, who is
sending off a labouring man with sirs and curtsies
enough for a prince of the blood. Those are the
curate's lodgings apartments, his landlady would
call them : he lives with his own family four miles
off, but once or twice a week he comes to his neat
little parlour to write sermons, to marry, or to bury,
as the case may require. Never were better or kinder
people than his host and hostess : and there is a reflec-
tion of clerical importance about them since their
connection with the Church which is quite edifying
a decorum, a gravity, a solemn politeness. Oh, to see
the worthy wheeler carry the gown after his lodger
on a Sunday, nicely pinned up in his wife's best hand-
kerchief ! or to hear him rebuke a squalling child or
a squabbling woman ! The curate is nothing to him.
He is fit to be perpetual churchwarden.
We must now cross the lane into the shady rope-
walk. That pretty white cottage opposite, which
stands straggling at the end of the village in a
garden full of flowers, belongs to our mason, the
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 through
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 me 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
OU^VILL^fGE ii
detached cottage, the residence of an officer and his
beautiful family. That eldest boy, 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, green borders and hedgerows so thickly
timbered ! How finely the evening sun falls on that
sandy excavated bank, and touches the farmhouse on
the top of the eminence ! and how clearly defined
and relieved is the figure of the man who is just
coming down ! It is poor John Evans, the gardener
an excellent gardener till about ten years ago,
when he lost his wife, and became insane. He was
sent to St. Luke's, and dismissed as cured j but his
power was gone and his strength ; he could no longer
manage a garden, nor submit to the restraint, no T
encounter the fatigue of regular employment : so he
retreated to the workhouse, the pensioner and facto-
tum of the village, amongst whom he divided his
services. His mind often wanders, intent on some
fantastic and impracticable plan, and lost to present
objects : but he is perfectly harmless, and full of a
child-like simplicity, a smiling contentedness, a most
touching gratitude. Every one is kind to John Evans,
for there is that about him which must be loved ;
and his unprotectedness, his utter defencelessness,
have an irresistible claim on every better feeling. I
know nobody who inspires so deep and tender a pity ;
he improves all around him. He is useful, too, to
the extent of his little power ; will do anything, but
loves gardening best, and still piques himself on his
old arts of pruning fruit-trees and raising cucumbers.
12 OU VILLAGE
He is the happiest of men just now, for he has the
management of a melon bed a melon bed ! fie !
What a grand, pompous name was that for three
melon plants under a hand-light ! John Evans is
sure that they will succeed. We shall see; as the
chancellor said, " I doubt."
We are now on the very brow of the eminence,
close to the Hill-house and its beautiful garden. On
the outer edge of the paling, hanging over the bank
that skirts the road, is an old thorn such a thorn !
The long sprays covered with snowy blossoms, so
graceful, so elegant, so lightsome, and yet so rich !
There only wants a pool under the thorn to give a
still lovelier reflection, quivering and trembling, like
a tuft of feathers, whiter and greener than the life,
and more prettily mixed with the bright blue sky.
There should, indeed, be a pool ; but on the dark
grass-plot, under the high bank, which is crowned
by that magnificent plume, there is something that
does almost as well Lizzy and Mayflower in the
midst of a game at romps, "making a sunshine in
the shady place"; Lizzy rolling, laughing, clapping
her hands, and glowing like a rose ; Mayflower play-
ing about her like summer lightning, dazzling the
eyes with her sudden turns, her leaps, her bounds,
her attacks, and her escapes. She darts round the
lovely little girl, with the same momentary touch
that the swallow skims over the water, and has
exactly the same power of flight, the same matchless
ease, and strength, and grace. What a pretty picture
they would make ; what a pretty foreground they do
make to the real landscape ! The road winding cjown
the hill with a slight bend, like that in the High
13
Street at Oxford ; a waggon slowly ascending, and
a horseman passing it at a full trot (ah ! Lizzy,
Mayflower will certainly desert you to have a
gambol with that blood-horse !) half-way down,
just at the turn, the red cottage of the lieutenant,
covered with vines, the very image of comfort
and content ; farther down, on the opposite side,
the small, white dwelling of the little mason :
then the limes and the rope-walk; then the village
street, peeping through the trees, whose clustering
tops hide all but the chimneys, and various roofs of
the houses, and here and there some angle of a wall :
farther on, the elegant town of B , with its fine
old church-towers and spires ; the whole view shut in
by a range of chalky hills ; and over every part of the
picture, trees so profusely scattered, that it appears
like a woodland scene, with glades and villages inter-
mixed. The trees are of all kinds and all hues, chiefly
the finely shaped elm, of so bright and deep a green,
the tips of whose high outer branches drop down
with such a crisp and garland-like richness, and the
oak, whose stately form is just now so splendidly
adorned by the sunny colouring of the young leaves.
Turning again up the hill, we find ourselves on that
peculiar charm of English scenery, a green common
divided by the road j the right side fringed by hedge-
rows and trees, with cottages and farm-houses irregu-
larly placed, and terminated by a double avenue of
noble oaks ; the left prettier still, dappled by bright
pools of water, and islands of cottages and cottage-
gardens, and sinking gradually down to corn-fields
and meadows, and an old farm-house, with pointed
roofs and clustered chimneys, looking out from its
14
blooming orchard, and backed by woody hills. The
common is itself the prettiest spot of the prospect :
half covered with low furze, whose golden blossoms
reflect so intensely the last beams of the setting sun,
and alive with cows and sheep, and two sets of
cricketers ; one of young men, surrounded by spec-
tators, some standing, some sitting, some stretched
on the grass, all taking a delighted interest in the
game ; the other, a merry group of little boys, at a
humble distance, for whom even cricket is scarcely
lively enough, shouting, leaping, and enjoying them-
selves to their hearts' content. But cricketers and
country boys are too important persons in our village
to be talked of merely as figures in the landscape.
They deserve an individual introduction an essay to
themselves and they shall have it. No fear of
forgetting the good-humoured faces that meet us in
our walks every day.
WALKS IN THE COUNTRY
JANUARY 2 3RD. At noon to-day I and my white
greyhound, Mayflower, set out for a walk into a
very beautiful 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 covers 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. The atmosphere was deliciously calm ; soft,
even mild, in spite of the thermometer ; no percep-
tible 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 shining
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 pause of work and play, rare on a work-day ;
nothing was audible but the pleasant hum of frost,
that low, monotonous sound, which is perhaps the
nearest approach that life and nature can make to
absolute silence. The very waggons as they come
1 8 OU VILLAGE
down the hill along the beaten track of crisp, yellowish
frost-dust, glide along like shadows j even May's
bounding footsteps, at her height of glee and of
speed, fall like snow upon snow.
But we shall have noise enough presently : May
has 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 evil omen issue through the
key-holesturdy "Let me outs," and "I will goes,"
mixed with shrill cries on May and on me from
Lizzy, piercing through a low continuous harangue,
of which the prominent parts are apologies, chilblains,
sliding, broken bones, lollypops, rods, and ginger-
bread, from Lizzy's careful mother. " Don't scratch
the door, May ! Don't roar so, my Lizzy ! We'll
call for you as we come back." " I'll go now ! Let
me out ! I will go ! " are the last words of Miss
Lizzy. Mem. Not to spoil that child if I can help
it. But I do think her mother might have let the
poor little soul walk with us to-day. Nothing worse
for children than coddling. Nothing better for chil-
blains than 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 brought us up the hill,
and half-way across the light and airy common,
with its bright expanse of snow and its clusters
of cottages, whose turf fires send such wreaths
of smoke sailing up the air, and diffuse such
aromatic fragrance around. And now comes the
delightful sound of childish voices, ringing with glee
19
and merriment almost from beneath our feet. Ah,
Lizzy, your mother was right ! They are shout-
ing from that deep, irregular pool, all glass now,
where, on two long, smooth, liny slides, half-a-
dozen ragged urchins are slipping along in tottering
triumph. Half-a-dozen steps bring us to the bank
right above them. May can hardly resist the
temptation of joining her friends, for most of the
varlets are of her acquaintance, especially the
rogue who leads the slide he with the brimless
hat, whose bronzed complexion and white flaxen
hair, reversing the usual lights and shadows of the
human countenance, give so strange and foreign
look to his flat and comic features. This hob-
goblin, Jack 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 she 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 knocked
off his feet. He 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 file, which unlucky follower, thus
unexpectedly checked in his career, fell plump back-
wards, knocking down the rest of the line like a
nest of card-houses. There is no harm done; but
there they lie, roaring, kicking, sprawling, in every
attitude of comic distress, whilst Jack Rapley and
Mayflower, sole authors of this calamity, stand apart
from the throng, fondling, and coquetting, and compli-
menting each other, and very visibly laughing, May in
her black eyes, Jack in his wide, close-shut mouth,
20 OU VILLAGE
and his whole monkey-face, at their comrades' mis-
chances. 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 sauciest, idlest,
cleverest, best-natured boy in the parish ; always fore-
most in mischief, and always ready to do a good turn.
The sages of our village predict sad things of Jack
Rapley, so that I am sometimes a little ashamed to
confess, before wise people, that I have a lurking pre-
dilection 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 gentleman, and the
shivering lady with the invisible face, sole passengers
of that commodious machine ! Hooded, veiled, and
bonneted, as she is, one sees from her attitude how
miserable she would look uncovered.
Another pond, and another noise of children.
More sliding ? Oh, no ! This is a sort 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 ! O what
happy spectators ! And what a happy performer !
They admiring, he admired, with an ardour and
sincerity never excited by all the quadrilles and
the spread-eagles of the Seine and the Serpentine.
He really skates well, though, and I am glad I
3
F<%pST ^f^D THdW 21
came this way ; for, with all the father's feelings
sitting gaily at his heart, it must still gratify the
pride of skill to have one spectator at that solitary
pond who has seen skating before.
Now we have reached the trees the beautiful
trees ! never so beautiful as to-day. Imagine the
effect of a straight and regular double avenue of
oaks, nearly a mile long, arching over-head, and
closing into perspective like the roof and columns
of a cathedral, every tree and branch encrusted 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 the eye
and to the mind above all, how melancholy ! There
is a thrilling awfulness, an intense feeling of simple
power in that naked and colourless beauty which falls
on the earth, like the thoughts of death death pure,
and glorious, and smiling but still death. Sculpture
has always the same effect on my imagination, and
painting never. Colour is life. We are now at the
end of this 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 the hill j a mere narrow cart-track,
sinking between high banks clothed with fern and
furze and low broom, crowned with luxuriant hedge-
rows, and famous for their summer smell of thyme.
How lovely these banks are now the tall weeds
and the gorse fixed and stiffened in the hoar-frost,
which fringes round the bright, prickly holly, the
pendent foliage of the bramble, and the deep orange
leaves of the pollard oaks ! Oh, this is rime in its
C
22 OU VILLAGE
loveliest form ! And there is still a berry here and
there on the holly, " blushing in its natural coral,"
through the delicate tracery, still a stray hip or haw
for the birds, who abound here always. The poor
birds, how tame they are, how sadly tame ! There
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 gorgeous kingfisher, its magnificent plumage of
scarlet and blue flashing in the sun, like the glories
of some tropical bird. He is come for water to
this little spring by the hillside water which even
his long bill and slender head can hardly reach, so
nearly do the fantastic forms of those garland-like icy
margins meet over the tiny stream beneath. It is
rarely that one sees the shy beauty so close or so
long ; and it is pleasant to see him in the grace and
beauty of his natural liberty, the only way to look at
a bird. We used, before we lived in a street, to fix
a little board outside the parlour window, and cover
it with bread crumbs in the hard weather. It was quite
delightful to see the pretty things come and feed,
to conquer their shyness, and do away with their
mistrust. First came the more social tribes, " the
robin red-breast and the Wren," cautiously, sus-
piciously, picking up a crumb on the wing, with the
little, keen, bright eye fixed on the window ; then
23
they would stop for two pecks ; then stay till they
were satisfied. The shyer birds, tamed by their
example, came next ; and at last, one saucy fellow of
a blackbird a sad glutton, he would clear the board
in two minutes used to tap his yellow bill against
the window for more. How we loved the fearless
confidence of that fine, frank-hearted creature ! And
surely he loved us. I wonder the practice is not
more general. "May! May! naughty May!"
She has frightened away the kingfisher ; and now in
her coaxing penitence she is covering me with snow.
" Come, pretty May ! it is time to go home."
JANUARY 28TH. We have had rain, and snow,
and frost, and rain again j four days of absolute con-
finement. Now it is a thaw and a flood j but our
light, gravelly soil, and country boots, and country
hardihood, will carry us through. What a drip-
ping, comfortless day it is ! just like the last days of
November : no sun, no sky, grey or blue ; one low,
overhanging, dark, dismal cloud, like London smoke :
Mayflower is out coursing too, and Lizzy is gone to
school. Never mind. Up the hill again ! Walk we
must. Oh, what a watery world to look back upon !
Thames, Kennet, London 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,
unnatural 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
24 OU^ VILLAGE
re-born. Waggons creak, horses splash, carts rattle,
and pattens paddle through the dirt with more than
their usual clink. The common has its old, fine tints
of green and brown, and its old variety of inhabitants,
horses, cows, sheep, pigs, and donkeys. The ponds
are unfrozen, and cackling geese and gabbling ducks
have replaced the lieutenant and Jack Rapley. The
avenue is chill and dark, the hedges are dripping,
the lanes knee-deep, and all nature is in a state of
" dissolution and thaw."
MARCH 6TH. Fine March weather : boisterous,
blustering, much wind and squalls of rain ; and yet
the sky, where the clouds are swept away, deliciously
blue, with snatches of sunshine, bright, and clear, and
healthful, and the roads in spite of the slight, glitter-
ing showers, crisply dry. Altogether, the day is
tempting, very tempting. It will not do for the dear
common, that windmill of a walk ; but the close,
sheltered lanes at the bottom of the hill, which keep
out just enough of the stormy air, and let in all the
sun, will be delightful. Past our old house, and
round by the winding lanes, and the workhouse, and
across the lea, and so into the turnpike 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 and 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 is not quite so luxurious
or so spiritual j not quite so much what one fancies
25
26 OU3 VILLAGE
of flying or being carried above the clouds in a
balloon.
Nevertheless, a walk is a good thing ; especially
under this southern hedgerow, where nature is just
beginning to live again ; the periwinkles, with their
starry blue flowers, and their shining, myrtle-like
leaves, garlanding the bushes ; woodbines and elder-
trees pushing out their small, swelling buds ; and
grasses and mosses springing forth in every variety
of brown and green. Here we are at the corner
where four lanes meet, or rather where a passable
road of stones and 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 master. How he became so rich is almost a
puzzle ; for, though the farm be his own, it is not
large; and though prudent and frugal on ordinary
occasions, Farmer Barnard is no miser. His horses,
dogs, and pigs are the best kept in the parish May
herself, although her beauty 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
quantity 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.
THE FI<I(ST ptKIWROSE 27
There is a sturdy squareness of face and figure ; a
good-humoured obstinacy j 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, spirited lad,
who may, perhaps, some day or other, play the part of
a fountain to the reservoir.
Now turn up the wide road till we come to the
open common, with its park-like trees, its beautiful
stream, wandering and twisting along, and its rural
bridge. Here we turn again, past that other white
farm - house, half hidden by the magnificent elms
which stand before it. Ah ! riches dwell not there,
but there is found the next best thing an industrious
and light-hearted poverty. 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
custom. She had lovers by the score; but Joseph
White, the dashing and lively son of an opulent
farmer, carried 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 blithe, jolly dame, whose beauty has amplified into
comeliness ; he is tall, and thin, and bony, with
sinews like whip-cord, a strong, lively voice, a sharp,
28 OU VILLAGE
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, whitewashed 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, Betty Adams, the wife
of our sometimes gardener. 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, pains-
taking 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 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 four. 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 the old place and so in good
truth does mine. What a pretty place it was or
THE FI3(ST PI^WZpSE 29
rather, how pretty I thought it ! I suppose I should
have thought any place so where I had spent eighteen
happy years. But it was really pretty. A large,
heavy, white house, in the simplest style, surrounded
by fine oaks and elms, and tall, massy plantations
shaded down into a beautiful lawn by wild over-
grown shrubs, bowery acacias, ragged sweet-briers,
promontories of dogwood, 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 natural stream, the banks as rude
and wild as the shrubbery, interspersed with broom,
and furze, and bramble, and pollard oaks covered
with ivy and honeysuckle ; the whole enclosed by
an old mossy 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. What a tearing
up by the root it was ; I have pitied cabbage-plants
and celery, and all transplantable things, ever since ;
though, in common with them, and with other vege-
tables, the first agony of the transportation being
over, I have taken such firm and tenacious hold of
my new soil, that I would not for the world be
pulled up again, even to be restored to the old
beloved ground not even if its beauty were un-
diminished, which is by no means the case ; for in
those three years it has thrice changed masters, 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, planting to keep them out, shutting
up windows to darken the inside of the house (by
go OUy{ VILLAGE
which means one end looks precisely as an eight of
spades would do that should have the misfortune to
lose one of his corner pips), and building colonnades
to lighten the out, added to a general clearance of
pollards, and brambles, and ivy, and honeysuckles,
and park palings, and irregular shrubs, 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 attraction is
a certain broken bank full of rabbit burrows, into
which she insinuates her long, pliant head and neck,
and tears her pretty feet 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, oxslips, arums, orchises,
wild hyacinths, ground ivy, pansies, 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 weeping birch, "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 among the 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.
Here we are making the best of our way be-
tween the old elms that arch so solemnly overhead,
THE FI<HST PI^WZpSE 31
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 hear the nightin-
gales, and look at the glowworms but there, better
and rarer than a thousand ghosts, dearer even than
nightingales or glowworms, there is a primrose,
the first of the year j a tuft of primroses, springing
in yonder sheltered nook, from the mossy roots of
an old willow, and living again in the clear, bright
pool. Oh, how beautiful they are three fully
blown, and two bursting buds ! How glad I am I
came this way ! They are not to be reached. Even
Jack Rapley's love of the difficult and unattainable
would fail him here : May herself could not stand on
that steep bank. So much the better. Who could
wish to disturb them ? There they live in their
innocent and fragrant beauty, sheltered from the
storms, and rejoicing in the sunshine, and looking as
if they could feel their happiness. Who would dis-
turb them ? Oh, how glad I am I came this way
home !
MARCH 2/TH. It is a dull, grey morning, with a
dewy feeling in the air ; fresh, but not windy ; cool,
but not cold ; the very day for a person newly
arrived from the heat, the glare, the noise, and the
fever of London, to plunge into the remotest laby-
rinths of the country, and regain the repose of mind,
the calmness of heart, which has been lost in that
great Babel. I must go violeting it is a necessity
and I must go alone ; the sound of a voice, even my
Lizzy's, the touch of Mayflower's head, even the
bounding of her elastic foot, would disturb the serenity
of feeling which I am trying to recover. I shall go
quite alone, with my little basket, twisted like a bee-
hive, which I love so well, because she gave it to me,
and kept sacred to violets and to those whom I love ;
and I shall get out of the highroad 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 grace-
fully and easily see how prettily her veil waves in
the wind created by her own rapid motion ! and
that gay, gallant boy, on the gallant white Arabian,
curveting at their side, but ready to spring before
3*
VIOLETI^G 33
them every instant is not that chivalrous-looking
party Mr and Mrs M., and dear B. ? No ! the
servant is in a different livery. It is some of the
ducal family, and one of their young Etonians. I
may go on. I shall meet no one now; for I have
fairly left the road, and am crossing the lea by one of
those wandering paths, amidst the gorse, and the
heath, and the low broom, which the sheep and
lambs have made a path turfy, elastic, thymy and
sweet, even at this season.
We have the good fortune to live in an un-
enclosed parish, and may thank the wise obstinacy
of two or three sturdy farmers, and the lucky un-
popularity 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, retiring, 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, and intersected by another ; and surrounded
by a most picturesque confusion of meadows, cottages,
farms, and orchards j with a great pond in one
corner, usually bright and clear, giving a delightful
cheerfulness 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 ; clear,
bright, sparkling water ; it excites and feeds their
curiosity ; it is motion and life.
The path that I am treading leads to a less lively
34 OU^ VILLAGE
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 flower-
ing shrub ! Not a rose-tree or currant-bush ! No-
thing but for sober, melancholy use. Oh, different
from the long irregular slips of the cottage-gardens,
with their gay bunches of polyanthuses and crocuses,
their wall-flowers sending sweet odours through the
narrow casement, and their gooseberry trees bursting
nto a brilliancy of leaf, whose vivid greenness has
the effect of a blossom on the eye ! Oh, how different !
On the other side of this gloomy abode is a meadow
of that deep, intense emerald hue, which denotes the
presence of stagnant 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, sub-
stantial, useful j but so dreary ! so cold ! so dark !
There are children in the court, and yet all is silent.
I always hurry past the 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 feelings, which the sight of those
walls excites ; yet, perhaps, if not certainly, they
contain less of that extreme desolation than the
morbid fancy is apt to paint. There will be found
order, cleanliness, food, clothing, warmth, refuge for
the homeless, medicine and attendance for the sick,
VIOLETI^G 35
rest and sufficiency for old age, and sympathy the
true and active sympathy which the poor show to
the poor for the unhappy. There may be worse
places than a parish workhouse and yet I hurry past
it. The feeling, the prejudice, will not be controlled.
The end of the dreary garden edges off 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
Thames at Henley), amidst green meadows, all
alive with cattle, sheep, and beautiful lambs, ia
the very spring and pride of their tottering pretti-
ness ; or fields of arable land, more lively still with
troops of stooping 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 work bean-setting is ! What a reverse of
the position assigned to man to distinguish him from
the beasts of the field ! Only think of stooping for
six, eight, ten hours a day, drilling holes in the earth
with a little stick, and then dropping in the beans
one by one. They are paid according to the quantity
they plant : and some of the poor women used to be
accused of clumping them that is to say, of dropping
more than one bean into a hole. It seems to me, con-
sidering 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 standing amongst the high elms the old
farm-house, which always, I don't know why, carries
back my imagination to Shakespeare's days. It is a
36 OU^ VILLAGE
long, low, irregular building, with one room, at an
angle from the house, covered with ivy, fine white-
veined ivy ; the first floor of the main building pro-
jecting and supported by oaken beams, and one of the
windows below, with its old casement and long narrow
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 ruined tenant.
Now a few yards farther, and I reach the bank.
Ah ! I smell them already their exquisite per-
fume 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. 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 feverish 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 ! How 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
VIOLETIWG 37
of primroses, with a yellow butterfly hovering over
them, like a flower floating on the air. What happi-
ness to sit on this tufty 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 fearless, gay, and gentle as a child. Then
it is that thought becomes poetry, 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 sensation, enjoying in peace and gratitude
the common blessings of Nature, thankful above all
for the simple habits, the healthful temperament,
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 fill my
basket with pure flowers, and my heart with pure
thoughts; can gladden my little home with their
sweetness ; can divide my treasures with one, a dear
one, who cannot seek them j can see them when I shut
my eyes ; and dream of them when I fall asleep.
THE COW8LIP-BML
MAY i6rH. There are moments in life when,
without any visible or immediate cause, the spirits
sink and fail, as it were, under the mere pressure of
existence; moments of unaccountable depression, when
one is weary of one's very thoughts, haunted by images
that will not depart images many and various, but
all painful ; friends lost, or changed, or dead ; hopes
disappointed even in their accomplishment ; fruitless
regrets, powerless wishes, doubt and fear, and self-
distrust 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 needlework, the most effectual sedative,
that -grand soother and composer of woman's distress,
fails to comfort me to-day. I 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 specific 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 make a cowslip-
ball. "Did you ever see a cowslip-ball, my
38
THE COWSLIP-B^LL 39
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, narrow lane, whose hedges
seem to meet over the water, and win our way to the
little farm-house at the end. " Through 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. " I 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.
In the meantime, my other pet, Mayflower, had
also gotten into a scrape. She had driven about a
huge, unwieldy sow, till the animal's grunting had
disturbed the repose of a still more enormous New-
foundland 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 diverted from the sow to this
new playmate, friend or foe, she cared not which j
and he of the kennel, seeing his charge unhurt, and
out of danger, was at leisure to observe the charms of
his fair enemy, as she frolicked around him, always
beyond the reach of his chain, yet always, with the
natural instinctive coquetry of her sex, alluring him
to the pursuit which she knew to be vain. I never
40 OU^ VILLAGE
saw a prettier flirtation. At last the noble animal,
wearied out, retired to the inmost recesses of his
habitation, and would not even approach her when
she stood right before the entrance. " You are
properly served, May. Come along, Lizzy. Across
this wheat-field, and now over the gate. Stop ! let
me lift you down. No jumping, no breaking of necks,
Lizzy ! " And here we are in the meadows, and out
of the world. Robinson Crusoe in his lonely island
had scarcely a more complete or a more beautiful
solitude.
These meadows consist of a double row of small
enclosures of rich grass-land, a mile or two in length,
sloping down from high arable grounds on either side,
to a little nameless brook that winds between them
with a course which, in its infinite variety, clearness,
and rapidity, seems to emulate the bold rivers of the
north, of whom, far more than of our lazy southern
streams, our rivulet presents a miniature likeness.
Never was water more exquisitely tricksy now dart-
ing over the bright pebbles, 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-
marigolds which grow on its margin ; now sweeping
round a fine reach of green grass, rising steeply into
a high mount, a mimic promontory, whilst the other
side sinks softly away, like some tiny bay, and the
water flows between, so clear, so wide, so shallow,
that Lizzy, longing for adventure, is sure she could
cross unwetted ; now dashing through two sand-
banks, a torrent deep and narrow, which May clears
at a bound ; now sleeping, half hidden, beneath the
THE COITSLIP-BML 41
alders, hawthorns, and wild roses, with which the
banks are so profusely and variously fringed, whilst
flags, 1 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 when they spring to the surface
for the summer flies. Izaak Walton would have
loved our brook and our quiet meadows ; they
breathe the very spirit of his own peacefulness, a
soothing quietude that sinks into the soul. There
is no path through them, not one ; we might wander
a whole spring day and not see a trace of human
habitation. They belong to a number of small pro-
prietors, who allow each other access through their
respective grounds from pure kindness and neigh-
bourly feeling ; a privilege never abused ; and the
fields on the other side of the water are reached by a
rough plank, or a tree thrown across, or some such
1 Walking along these meadows one bright sunny afternoon, a
year or two back, and rather later in the season, I had an oppor-
tunity of noticing a curious circumstance in natural history. Stand-
ing close to the edge of the stream, I remarked a singular appearance
on a large tuft of flags. It looked like bunches of flowers, the
leaves of which seemed dark, yet transparent, intermingled with
brilliant tubes of bright blue or shining green. On examining this
phenomenon more closely, it turned out to be several clusters of
dragon-flies, just emerged from their deformed chrysalis state, and
still torpid and motionless from the wetness of their filmy wings.
Half-an-hour later we returned to the spot and they were gone.
We had seen them at the very moment when beauty was complete
and animation dormant. I have since found nearly a similar account
of this curious process in Mr. Bingley's entertaining work, called
Animal Biography.
42 OU^ VILLAGE
homely bridge. We ourselves possess one of the
most beautiful ; so that the strange pleasure of pro-
perty, that instinct which makes Lizzy delight in her
broken doll, and May in the bare bone which she has
pilfered from the kennel of her recreant admirer of
Newfoundland, is added to the other charms of this
enchanting 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 expansion, like leaf-gold j the little of the poor
may be not only more precious, but more pleasant
to them ; certain that bit of grassy and blossomy
earth, with its green knolls and tufted bushes, its
old pollards 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, and of all vernal flowers : Shakespeare's
song of spring bursts irrepressibly 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,
The cuckoo then on every tree - "
" Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! " cried Lizzy, breaking in with
her clear, childish voice ; and immediately, as if at
her call, the real bird, from a neighbouring 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
unpoetical (but I cannot help it, I have many such)
THE COirSLlP-B^LL 43
against this " harbinger of spring." His note is so
monotonous, so melancholy ; and then the boys
mimic him ; one hears " Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! " in dirty
streets, amongst smoky houses, and the bird is hated
for faults not his own. But prejudices of taste, likings,
and dislikings, are not always vanquishable by reason ;
so, to escape the serenade from the tree, which pro-
mised to be of considerable duration (when once that
eternal song begins, on it goes ticking like a clock)
to escape that noise, I determined to excite another,
and challenged Lizzy to a cowslip-gathering ; a trial
of skill and speed, to see which should soonest fill her
basket. My stratagem succeeded completely. What
scrambling, what shouting, what glee from Lizzy !
twenty cuckoos might have sung unheard whilst she
was pulling her own flowers, and stealing mine, and
laughing, screaming, and talking through all.
At last the baskets were filled, and Lizzy de-
clared victor j and down we sat, on the brink of the
stream, under a spreading hawthorn, just disclosing
its own pearly buds, and surrounded with the rich
and enamelled flowers of the wild hyacinth, blue and
white, to make our cowslip-ball. Every one knows
the process : to nip off the tuft of flowerets just below
the top of the stalk, and hang each cluster nicely
balanced across a riband, till you have a long string
like a garland ; then to press them closely together,
and tie them tightly up. We went on very pros-
perously, considering as people say of a young lady's
drawing, or a Frenchman's English, or a woman's
tragedy, or of the poor little dwarf who works with-
out fingers, or the ingenious sailor who writes with
his toes, or generally of any performance which is
44 OU^ VILLAGE
accomplished by means seemingly inadequate to its
production. To be sure we met with a few accidents.
First, Lizzy spoiled nearly all her cowslips by snap-
ping them off too short; so there was a fresh gathering;
in the next place, May overset my full basket, and
sent the blossoms floating, like so many 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, Lizzy, who held
the riband, caught a glimpse of a gorgeous butterfly,
all brown and red and purple, 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 hanging the basket in a pollard-ash, out
of sight of May, the cowslip,- ball was 'finished.
What a concentration of fragrance and beauty it
was ! golden and sweet to satiety ! rich to sight,
and touch, and smell ! Lizzy was enchanted, and ran
off with her prize, hiding amongst the trees in the
very coyness of ecstasy, as if any human eye,
even mine, would be a restraint on 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 in those short, delicious
strains which are to the ear as roses to the eye j those
snatches of lovely sound which come across us as
airs from heaven. Pleasant thoughts, delightful
associations, awoke as I listened ; and almost uncon-
sciously I repeated to myself the beautiful story of
the Lutist and the Nightingale, from Ford's Lover's
THE COWSLIP-E^LL 45
Melancholy. Here it is. Is there in English poetry
anything finer ?
" Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales
Which poets of an elder time have feign'd
To glorify their Tempe, bred in me
Desire of visiting Paradise.
To Thessaly I came, and living private,
Without acquaintance of more sweet companions
Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts,
I day by day frequented silent groves
And solitary walks. One morning early
. This accident encounter'd me: I heard
The sweetest and most ravishing contention
That art and nature ever were at strife in.
A sound of music touch'd mine ears, or rather,
Indeed, entranced my soul ; as I stole nearer,
Invited by the melody, I saw
This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute
With strains of strange variety and harmony
Proclaiming, as it seem'd, so bold a challenge
To the clear choristers of the woods, the birds,
That as they flock'd about him, all stood silent,
Wondering at what they heard. I wonder'd too.
A nightingale,
Nature's best skill 'd musician, undertakes
The challenge ; and for every several strain
The well-shaped youth could touch, she sang him down.
He could not run divisions with more art
Upon his quaking instrument than she,
The Nightingale, did with her various notes
Reply to.
Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last
Into a pretty anger, that a bird,
Whom art had never taught clefFs, moods, or notes,
Should vie with him for mastery, whose study
Had busied many hours to perfect practice.
To end the controversy, in a rapture
Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly,
So many voluntaries, and so quick,
That there was curiosity and cunning,
Concord in discord, lines of different method
46 OU^ VILLAGE
Meeting in one full centre of delight.
The bird ( ordain 'd to be
Music's first martyr) strove to imitate
These several sounds ; which, when her warbling throat
Fail'd in, for grief down dropt she on his lute,
And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness
To see the conqueror upon her hearse
To weep a funeral elegy of tears.
He looked upon the trophies of his art,
Then sigh'd, then wiped his eyes ; then sigh'd and cry'd,
' Alas ! poor creature, I will soon revenge
This cruelty upon the author of it.
Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood,
Shall never more betray a harmless peace
To an untimely end ' ; and in that sorrow,
As he was pashing it against a tree,
I suddenly stept in."
When I had finished the recitation of this
exquisite passage, the sky, which had been all the
afternoon dull and heavy, began to look more and
more threatening ; darker clouds, like wreaths of
black smoke, flew across the dead leaden tint ; a
cooler, damper air blew over the meadows, and a
few large, heavy drops splashed in the water.
"We shall have a storm. Lizzy! May! where are
ye ? Quick, quick, my Lizzy ! 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 familiar as a duck; May, on the other
hand, peering up at the weather, and shaking her
pretty 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 May is too
faithful for that, too true a comrade, understands
THE COITSLIP-BML 47
too well the laws of good-fellowship ; so she waited
for us. She did, to be sure, gallop 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 meanwhile got on as fast as we
could, encouraging and reproaching each other.
" Faster, my Lizzy ! Oh, what a bad runner ! "
" Faster, faster ! Oh, what a bad runner ! " echoed
my sauce-box. " You are so fat, Lizzy, you make
no way ! " " Ah ! who else is fat ? " retorted the
darling. Certainly her mother is right j I do spoil
that child.
By this time we were thoroughly soaked, all three.
It was a pelting shower, that drove through our thin
summer clothing, and poor May's short glossy coat, in
a moment. And then, when we were wet to the skin,
the sun came out, actually the sun, as if to laugh at
our 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 w,hole day's
rain. Never mind ! on we go, faster and faster ;
Lizzy obliged to be most ignobly carried, having
had the 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 man-
fully. May, a dog of excellent sense, went instantly
to bed 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 enjoying the luxury
VILLAGE
of dry clothing by a good fire. Really, getting wet
through now and then is no bad thing, finery apart ;
for one should not like spoiling a new 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 rather pleasant than
not. The little chill refreshes, and our enjoyment
of the subsequent 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 Lizzy and May and I have
undergone, to cure low spirits. Try it, my dear
readers, if ever ye be nervous I will answer for
irs success.
AUGUST I5TH. Cold, cloudy, windy, wet. Here
we are, in the 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 grasshopper ; shivering under
the influence of the Jupiter Pluvius of England, the
watery St Swithin ; peering at that scarce personage,
the sun, when he happens to make his appearance, as
intently as astronomers look after a comet, or the
common people stare at a balloon ; exclaiming against
the cold weather, just as we used to exclaim against
the .warm. " What a change from last year ! " is the
first sentence you hear, go where you may. Every-
body remarks it, and everybody complains of it ; and
yet in my mind it has its advantages, or at least its
compensations, as everything in nature has, if we
would only take the trouble to seek for them.
Last year, in spite of the love which we are now
pleased to profess towards that ardent luminary, not
one of the sun's numerous admirers had courage to
look him in the face : there was no bearing the world
till he had said " good-night " to it. Then we might
stir : then we began to wake and to live. All day
long we languished under his influence in a strange
49
50 OU^ VILLAGE
dreaminecs, too hot to work, too hot to read, too hot
to write, too hot even to talk ; sitting hour after
hour in a green arbour, embowered in leafiness,
letting thought and fancy float as they would. Those
day-dreams were pretty things in their way j 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 requiring the slightest exertion
which I performed in that warm weather was water-
ing my flowers. Common sympathy called for that
labour. The poor things withered, and faded, and
pined away ; they almost, so to say, panted for
draught. Moreover, if I had not watered them my-
self, I suspect that no one else would ; for water last
year was nearly as precious hereabout as wine. Our
land-springs were dried up ; our wells were ex-
hausted ; our deep ponds were dwindling 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 impure element, which
my trusty lackey 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, scorched, and sunburnt, like them.
It really went to my heart to look at it.
On the other side of the house matters were
still worse. What a dusty world it was, when about
THE H^1(p SUMMED 51
sunset -we became cool enough to creep into it !
Flowers in the court looking fit for a hortus siccus;
mummies of plants, dried as in an oven ; hollyhocks,
once pink, turned into Quakers ; cloves smelling of
dust. Oh, dusty world ! May herself 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. No foot could
make three plunges into that abyss of pulverised
gravel, which had the impudence to call itself a hard
road, without being clothed with a coat a quarter of
an inch thick. Woe to white gowns ! woe to black !
Drab was your only wear.
Then, when we were out of the street, what
a toil it was to mount the hill, climbing with weary
steps and slow upon the brown turf by the wayside,
slippery, hot, and hard as a rock ! And then if we
happened to meet a carriage coming along the middle
of the road the bottomless middle what a sandy
whirlwind it was ! What choking ! what suffocation !
No state could be more pitiable, except, indeed, that
of the travellers who carry this misery about with
them. I shall never forget the plight in which we
met the coach one evening in last August, full an
hour after its time, steeds and driver, carriage and
passengers, all in dust. The outsiders, and the
horses, and the coachman, seemed reduced to a torpid
quietness, the resignation of despair. They had left
off trying to better their condition, and taken refuge
in a wise and patient hopelessness, bent to endure in
silence the extremity of ill. The six insides, on the
contrary, were still fighting against their fate, vainly
struggling to ameliorate their hapless destiny. They
52 OU^ VILLAGE
were visibly grumbling at the weather, scolding at
the dust, and heating themselves like a furnace, by
striving against the heat. How well I remember the
fat gentleman without his coat, who was wiping his
forehead, heaving up his wig, and certainly uttering
that English ejaculation, which, to our national
reproach, is the phrase of our language best known
on the Continent. And that poor boy, red-hot, all
in a flame, whose mamma, having divested her own
person of all superfluous apparel, was trying to
relieve his sufferings by the removal of his neckerchief
an operation which he resisted with all his might.
How perfectly I remember him, as well as the pale
girl who sat opposite, fanning herself with her bonnet
into an absolute fever ! They vanished after a while
into their own dust ; but I have them all before my
eyes at this moment, a companion picture to Hogarth's
Afternoon, a standing lesson to the grumblers at cold
summers.
For my part, I really like this wet season. It
keeps us within, to be sure, rather more 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 j
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 naught. Look at those hollyhocks,
like pyramids of roses ; those garlands of the
THE H^<%p SUMMED 53
convolvulus major of all colours, hanging around
that tall pole, like the wreathy hop-bine ; those
magnificent 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 ! Besides, the weather clears sometimes
it has cleared this evening ; and here are we,
after a merry walk up the hill, almost as quick 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 play at cricket.
I plead guilty to a strong partiality towards that
unpopular class of beings, country boys j I have a
large acquaintance amongst them, and I can almost
say, that I know good of 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
capacity for happiness, quite unmatched in man, or
woman, or girl. They are patient, too, and bear
their fate as scape-goats (for all sins whatsoever are
laid, as matters of course, to their door), whether
at home or abroad, with amazing resignation ; and,
considering the many lies of which they are the
objects, they tell wonderfully few in return. The
worst that can be said of them is, that they 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 anti-
cipated. It is astonishing how sensible they are
to notice from their betters, or those whom they
E
54 OU^ VILLAGE
think such. I 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 hearts and their
services. Half-a-dozen of them, poor urchins,
have run away now to bring us chairs from their
several homes. " Thank you, Joe Kirby ! you
are always first yes, that is just the place 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 ! I was
sure it would go to the wicket. Run, Joe. They
are waiting for you." There was small need to
bid Joe Kirby make haste ; I think he is, next
to a race-horse, or a greyhound, or a deer, the
fastest creature that runs the most completely
alert and active. Joe is mine especial friend, and
leader of the " tender juveniles," as Joel Brent is
of the adults. In both instances this post of
honour was gained by merits even more remark-
ably so in Joe's case than in Joel's ; for Joe is a
less boy than many of his companions (some of
whom are fifteeners and sixteeners, quite as tall
and nearly as old as Tom Coper), and a poorer
than all, as may be conjectured from the lament-
able state of that patched, round frock, and the
ragged condition of those unpatched shoes, which
would encumber, if anything could, the light feet
that wear them. But why should I lament the
poverty that never troubles him ? Joe is the
merriest and happiest creature that ever lived
THE H^l(p SUMMED 55
twelve years in this wicked world. Care cannot
come near him. He hath a perpetual smile on
his round, ruddy face, and a laugh in his hazel
eye that drives the witch away. He works at
yonder farm on the top of the hill, where he is
in such repute for intelligence and good-humour,
that he has the honour of performing all the errands
of the house, of helping the maid, the mistress, and
the master, in addition to his own stated office of
carter's boy. 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 field-
ing, as if for life, filling the place of four boys ; being,
at a pinch, a whole eleven. The late Mr Knyvett,
the king's organist, who used in his own person to
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 ubiquity about him ; he
thinks nothing of being in two places at once, and for
pitching a ball, William Grey himself 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 ruler he makes. Never-
theless, in the best - ordered states there will be
grumblers, and we have an opposition here in the
shape of Jem Eusden.
Jem Eusden is a stunted lad of thirteen, or there-
about, lean, small, and short, yet strong and active.
His face is of an extraordinary 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 constantly arrayed in the blue
56 OU^ VILLAGE
cap and old-fashioned coat, the costume of an endowed
school to which he belongs ; where he sits still all
day, and rushes into the field at night, fresh, untired,
and ripe for action, to scold, and brawl, and storm,
and bluster. He hates Joe Kirby, whose immovable
good-humour, broad smiles, and knowing nods, must
certainly be very provoking to so fierce and turbulent
a spirit j and he has himself (being, except by rare
accident, no great player) the preposterous ambition
of wishing to be manager of the sports. In short,
he is a demagogue in embryo, with every quality
necessary to a splendid success in that vocation a
strong voice, a fluent utterance, an incessant iteration,
and a frontless impudence. He is a great " scholar "
too, to use the country phrase ; his " piece," as our
village schoolmaster terms a fine sheet of flourishing
writing, something between a valentine and a sampler,
enclosed within a border of little coloured prints
his last, I remember, was encircled by an engraved
history of Moses, beginning at the finding in the
bulrushes, with Pharaoh'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 six-
pences from all encouragers of learning Montem in
miniature. The Mosaic history was so successful,
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 Kirby to a trial in Practice, or the Rule
of Three), gave him, when compared with the general
THE H^1(p SUMMED 57
poverty, a most unnatural preponderance 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, when Joe received
a present of two bats and a ball for the youngsters
in general and himself in particular and Jem's
adherents left him on the spot they ratted, to a man,
that very evening. Notwithstanding this desertion,
their forsaken leader has in nothing relaxed from his
pretensions or his ill-humour. He still quarrels and
brawls as if he had a faction to back him, and thinks
nothing of contending with both sides, the ins and
the outs, secure of out-talking the whole field. He
has been squabbling these ten minutes, and is just
marching off now with his own bat (he has never
deigned to use one of Joe'sj in his hand. What
an ill-conditioned hobgoblin it is ! And yet there
is something bold and sturdy about him, too. I
should miss Jem Eusden.
Ah, there is another deserter from the party !
my friend the little hussar I do not know his name,,
and call him after his cap and 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, bronzed, fiat visage, resembling
those convertible signs, the Broad-Face and the
Saracen's-Head (which, happening to be next-door
neighbours in the town of B., I never knew apart),
resembling, indeed, any face that is open-eyed and
immovable, the very sign of a boy ! he stalks about
58 OU^ VILLAGE
with his hands in his breeches pockets, like a piece
of machinery ; sits leisurely 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 melee; I doubt, indeed, if he have one, which
may be partly the reason of a circumstance that I
record to his honour, his fidelity to Jem Eusden,
to whom he has adhered through every change of
fortune, with a tenacity proceeding, perhaps, from
an instinctive consciousness that the loquacious leader
talks enough for two. He is the only thing re-
sembling a follower that our demagogue possesses,
and is cherished by him accordingly. Jem quarrels
for him, scolds for him, pushes for him ; and but
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 drubbings a day.
But it is growing late. The sun has set a
long time. Only see what a gorgeous colouring
has spread itself over those parting masses of clouds
in the west what a train of rosy light ! We shall
have a fine sunshiny day to-morrow a blessing not
to be undervalued, in spite of my vituperation of
heat. Shall we go home now ? And shall we take
the longest but prettiest road, that by the green
lanes ! This way, to the left, round the corner of
the common, past Mr 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 young foal, and the great yard-
dog, all so fat ! Fenced in with hay-rick, and
THE H*A<Kp SUMMED 59
wheat-rick, and bean-stack, and backed by the long
garden, the spacious drying-ground, the fine orchard,
and 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 parish she a
laundress, with twenty times more work than she
can do, unrivalled in flounces 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 circumstances of so
many worthy members of the community 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
landowner, pays rates and taxes, grumbles at the
times, and is called Master Welles the title next to
Mister that by which Shakespeare was called
what would man have more ? His wife, besides
being the best laundress in the county, is a comely
woman still. There 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 too late to see its beauty ; and
here is the pleasant shady lane, where the high elms
will shut out the little twilight that remains. Ah,
but we shall have the fairies' lamps to guide us, the
6o OU VILLAGE
stars of the earth, the glowworms ! Here they are,
three almost together. Do you not see them ? One
seems tremulous, vibrating, as if on the extremity 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. I would not 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 j and I shall walk here to-morrow
and visit them again. And now, good-night !
beautiful insects, lamp of the fairies, good-night !
SEPTEMBER 26rH. One of those delicious
autumnal days, when the air, the sky, and the earth
seemed lulled into a universal calm, softer and milder
even than May. We sallied forth for a walk, in a
mood congenial to the weather and the season, avoid-
ing, by mutual consent, the bright and sunny common,
and the gay highroad, 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 used to contemplate with so much
interest the father, mother, and children, returning
from the wheat-field, the little ones laden with brist-
ling close-tied bunches of wheat-ears, their own glean-
ings, 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 procession as this to-day j for the harvest is
nearly over, the fields are deserted, the silence may
almost be felt. Except the wintry notes of the red-
breast, nature herself is mute. But how beautiful,
how gentle, how harmonious, how rich ! the rain has
preserved to the herbage all the freshness and verdure
62 OU VILLAGE
of spring, and the world of leaves has lost nothing of
its midsummer brightness, and the harebell is on the
banks, and the woodbine in the hedges, and the low
furze, which the lambs cropped in the spring, has
burst again into its golden blossoms.
All is beautiful that the eye can see ; perhaps
the more beautiful for being shut in with a forest-
like closeness. We have no prospect in this
labyrinth of lanes, cross-roads, mere cart-ways,
leading to the innumerable little farms into which
this part of the parish is divided. Uphill 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 meady 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 crossways, almost startles us by
the unexpected sight of the dwellings of men in
such a solitude. But that we have more of hill
and dale, and that our cross-roads are excellent in
their kind, this side of our parish would resemble
the description given of La Vendee in Madame
Laroche-Jacquelin's most interesting book. 1 I am
sure if wood can entitle a country to be called Le
Bocage, none can have a better right to the name.
1 An almost equally interesting account of that very peculiar
and interesting scenery may be found in The Maid of La Vendee, an
English novel, remarkable for its simplicity and truth of painting,
written by Mrs Le Noir, the daughter of Christopher Smart, an
inheritrix of much of his talent. Her works deserve to be better
known.
63
Even this pretty snug farm-house on the hillside,
with its front covered with the rich vine, which
goes wreathing up to the very top of the clustered
chimney, and its sloping orchard full of fruit
even this pretty, quiet nest can hardly peep out of its
leaves. Ah ! they are gathering in the orchard har-
vest. Look at that young rogue in the old mossy
apple-tree that great tree, bending with the weight
of its golden-rennets see how he pelts his little
sister beneath with apples as red and as round as her
own cheeks, while she, with her out-stretched frock,
is trying to catch them, and 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, 1 and depositing
them so honestly in the great basket on the grass,
already fixed so firmly and opened so widely, and
filled almost to overflowing by the brown rough
fruitage of the golden-rennet's next neighbour, the
russeting ; and see that smallest urchin of all, seated
apart in infantine state on the turfy bank, with that
toothsome piece of deformity, a crumpling, in each
hand, now biting from one sweet, hard, juicy morsel,
and now from another. Is not that a pretty English
picture ? And then, farther up the orchard, that
bold, hardy lad, the eldest born, who has scaled
1 "Deedily." I am not quite sure that this word is good
English ; but it is genuine Hampshire, and is used by the most
correct of female writers, Miss Austen. It means (and it is no
small merit that it has no exact synonyme) anything done with a
profound and plodding attention, an action which engrosses all the
powers of mind and body.
64 OL/X VILLAGE
(heaven knows how) the tall, straight upper branch
of that great pear-tree, and is sitting there as securely
and as fearlessly, in as much real safety and apparent
danger, as a sailor on the topmast. Now he shakes
the tree with 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 spirited boy to bolder ventures. Is not that a
pretty picture ? And they are such a handsome
family too, the Brookers. I do not know that there
is any gipsy blood, but there is the true gipsy com-
plexion, richly brown, with cheeks and lips so red,
black hair curling close to their heads in short, crisp
rings, white shining teeth and such eyes ! That
sort of beauty entirely eclipses your mere roses and
lilies. Even Lizzy, the prettiest of fair children,
would look poor and watery by the side of Willy
Brooker, the sober little personage who 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 with-
out 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 a convenient peephole. "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 on 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
65
gone coolly to work again. He is, indeed, a most
lovely child. I think some day or other he must
marry Lizzy ; I shall propose the match to their
respective mammas. At present the parties are rather
too young for a wedding the intended bridegroom
being, as I should judge, six, or thereabout, and the
fair bride barely five but at least we might have a
betrothment after the royal fashion there could be
no harm in that. Miss Lizzy, I have no doubt,
would be as demure and coquettish as if ten winters
more had gone over her head, and poor Willy would
open his innocent black eyes, and wonder what was
going forward. They would be the very Oberon
and Titania of the village the fairy king and queen.
Ah ! here is the hedge along which the peri
winkle wreathes and twines so profusely, with its
evergreen leaves shining like the myrtle, and its
starry blue flowers. It is seldom found wild in this
part of England ; but, when we do meet with it, it
is so abundant and so welcome, the very robin-
redbreast of flowers, a winter friend. Unless in
those unfrequent frosts which destroy all vegetation,
it blossoms from September to June, surviving the
last lingering crane's-bill, forerunning the earliest
primrose, hardier even than the mountain daisy
peeping out from beneath the snow, looking at itself
in the ice, smiling through the tempests of life, and
yet welcoming and enjoying the sunbeams. Oh, to
be like that flower !
The little spring that has been bubbling under
the hedge all along the hillside, begins, now that we
have mounted the eminence and are imperceptibly
descending, to deviate into a capricious variety of
66 OU VILLAGE
clear, deep pools and channels, so narrow and so
choked with weeds, that a child might overstep them.
The hedge has also changed its character. It is no
longer the close, compact, vegetable wall of hawthorn,
and maple, and brier-roses, intertwined with bramble
and woodbine, and crowned with large elms or thickly
set saplings. No ! the pretty meadow which rises
high above us, backed and almost surrounded by a
tall coppice, needs no defence on our side but its own
steep bank, garnished with tufts of broom, with
pollard oaks wreathed with ivy, and here and there
with long patches of hazel overhanging the water.
" Ah, there are still nuts on that bough ! " and in an
instant my dear companion, active and eager and de-
lighted as a boy, has hooked down with his walking-
stick one of the lissome hazel stalks, and cleared it
of its tawny clusters, 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 them, now bending the tall tops into the
lane, holding them down by main force, so that I
might reach them and enjoy the pleasure of collecting
some of the plunder myself. A very great pleasure
he knew it would be. I doffed my shawl, tucked
up my flounces, turned my straw bonnet into a basket,
and began gathering and scrambling for, manage it
how you may, nutting is scrambling work those
boughs, however tightly you may grasp them by the
young, fragrant twigs and the bright, 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
67
enjoyment ! All my life long I have had a passion
for that sort of seeking which implies finding (the
secret, I believe, of the love of field-sports, which is
in man's mind a natural impulse) therefore I love
violating therefore, when we had a fine garden, I
used to love to gather strawberries, and cut asparagus,
and above all, to collect the filberts from the shrub-
beries : but this hedgerow nutting beats that sport
all to nothing. That is a make-believe thing com-
pared with this ; there was no surprise, 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 enjoyment this nut-gathering is ! They
are in such abundance, that it seems as if there were
not a boy in the parish, nor a young man, nor a
young woman for a basket of nuts is the universal
tribute of country gallantry ; our pretty 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 squirrel, and cracks the shell and extracts
the kernel with equal dexterity. Her white glossy
head is upturned now to watch them as they' fall.
See how her neck is thrown back like that of a
swan, and how her quick eye follows the rustling
noise, and her light feet dance and pat the ground,
and leap up with eagerness, seeming almost sustained
in the air, just as I have seen her, when Brush is
beating a hedgerow, and she knows from his questing
that there is a hare afoot. See, she has caught that
68
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 amongst the matted
grass even my bonnet how beggingly she looks at
that ! " Oh what a pleasure nutting is ! Is it not,
May ? " May tosses her graceful head as if she
understood the question " And we must go home
now must we not ? But we will come nutting
again some time or other shall we not, my May ? "
APRIL 2OTH. Spring is actually come now,
with the fulness and almost the suddenness of a
northern summer. To-day is completely April
clouds and sunshine, wind and showers ; blossoms
on the trees, grass in the fields, swallows by the
ponds, snakes in the hedgerows, nightingales in
the thickets, and cuckoos everywhere. My young
friend Ellen G. is going with me this evening to
gather wood-sorrel. She never saw that most
elegant plant, and is so delicate an artist that the
introduction will be a mutual benefit ? Ellen will
gain a subject worthy of her pencil, and the pretty
weed will live no small favour to a flower almost
as transitory as the gum cistus ; duration is the
only charm which it wants, and that Ellen will
give it. The weather is, to be sure, a little
threatening, but we are not people to mind the
weather when we have an object in view ; we
shall certainly go in quest of the wood-sorrel, and
will take May, provided we can escape May's
followers ; for since the adventure of the lamb,
Saladin has had an affair with a gander, furious
in defence of his goslings, in which rencontre the
gander came off conqueror ; and as geese abound
F 69
70 OU^ VILLAGE
in the wood to which we are going (called by the
country people the Pinge), 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 Pinge, 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, " Yes ! "
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 life and
light to the picture ; and you will have a faint idea of
the Pinge. Every step was opening a new point of
view, a fresh combination of glade, and path, and
thicket. The accessories, too, were changing every
moment. Ducks, geese, pigs, and children, giving
way, as we advanced into the wood, to sheep and
forest ponies ; and they again disappearing as we
became more entangled in its mazes, till we heard
nothing but the song of the nightingale, and saw only
the silent flowers.
What a piece of fairy-land ! The tall elms
overhead just bursting into tender, vivid leaf, with
here and there a hoary oak, or a silver-barked
beech, every twig swelling with the brown buds,
and yet not quite stripped of the tawny foliage of
THE WOOD 71
autumn ; tall hollies and hawthorn beneath, with
their crisp, brilliant leaves, mixed with the white
blossoms of the sloe, and woven together with
garlands of woodbines and wild-briars what a
fairy-land !
Primroses, cowslips, pansies, and the regular
open-eyed white blossom of the wood anemone (or
to use the more elegant Hampshire 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 their side others of a deeper
tint, and lined, as it were, with a rich and changeful
purple ! Don't you see them ? " pursued my dear
young friend, who is a delightful piece of life and
sunshine, and was half inclined to scold me for the
calmness with which, amused by her enthusiasm, I
stood listening to her ardent exclamations "Don't
you see them ? Oh, how beautiful ! and in what
quantity ! what profusion ! See how the dark shade
of the holly sets off the light and delicate colouring
of the flower ! And see that other bed of them
springing from the rich moss in the roots of that
old beech tree ! Pray let us gather some. Here
are baskets." So, quickly and carefully we began
72 OU^ VILLAGE
gathering leaves, blossoms, roots and all, for the
plant is so fragile that it will not brook separation
quickly and carefully we gathered, encountering
divers petty misfortunes in spite of all our care, now
caught by the veil in a holly bush, now hitching our
shawls in a bramble, still gathering on, in spite of
scratched fingers, 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 gallop-
ing, the beauty ! " (Ellen is almost as fond of May
as I am.) "What has she got in her mouth? that
rough, round, brown substance which she touches
so tenderly ? What can it be ? A bird's nest ?
Naughty May ! "
" No ! as I live, a hedgehog ! Look, Ellen,
how it has coiled 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 me to have puzzled 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, at last, dropt the hedgehog ;
continuing, however, to pat it with her delicate, cat-
like paw, cautious 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 the
other day, and appeared entirely motionless), she
gave him so spirited a nudge with her pretty black
nose, that she not only turned him over, but sent
THE WOOD 73
him rolling some little way along the turfy path
an operation which that sagacious quadruped endured
with the most perfect 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, some-
thing 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 curiosity, as if half inclined to return and try the
event of another shove. The sudden 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.
We had nearly threaded the wood, and were
approaching an open grove of magnificent oaks on
the other side, when sounds other than of nightingales
burst on our ear, the deep and frequent strokes of
the woodman's axe, and emerging from the Pinge
we saw the havoc which that axe had committed.
Above twenty of the finest trees lay stretched on the
velvet turf. There they lay in every shape and form
of devastation : some bare trunks, stripped ready for
the timber carriage, with the bark built up in long
piles at the side ; some with the spoilers busy about
them, stripping, hacking, hewing ; others with their
noble branches, their brown and fragrant shoots, all
fresh as if they were alive majestic corses, the slain
of to-day. The grove was like a field of battle.
74 OU^ VILLAGE
The young lads who were stripping the bark, the
very children who were picking up the chips,
seemed awed and silent, as if conscious that death
was around them. The nightingales sang faintly
and interruptedly a few low frightened notes like a
requiem.
Ah ! here we are at the very scene of murder,
the very tree that they are 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 thrilling operation, as the work of death
usually is. Into how grand an attitude was that
young man thrown as he gave the final strokes round
the root ; and how wonderful is the effect of that
supple and apparently powerless saw, bending like
a riband, and yet overmastering that giant of the
woods, conquering and overthrowing that thing of
life ! Now it has passed half through the trunk,
and the woodman has begun to calculate which way
the tree will fall ; he drives a wedge to direct its
course ; now a few more movements of the noiseless
saw, and then a larger wedge. See how the branches
tremble ! Hark, how the trunk begins to crack !
Another stroke of the huge hammer on the wedge,
and the tree quivers, as with a mortal agony, shakes,
reels, and falls. How slow, and solemn, and awful
it is ! How like to death, to human death in its
grandest form ! Caesar in the Capitol, Seneca in
the bath, could not fall more sublimely than that
oak.
Even the heavens seem to sympathise with the
devastation. The clouds have gathered into one
thick, low canopy, dark and vapoury as the smoke
THE WOOD 75
which overhangs London ; the setting sun is just
gleaming underneath with a dim and bloody glare,
and the crimson rays spreading upward with a lurid
and portentous grandeur, a subdued and dusky glow,
like the light 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.
MAY 2ND. "A delicious evening ; bright sun-
shine ; light summer air ; a sky almost cloudless ;
and a fresh yet delicate verdure on the hedges and in
the fields ; an evening that seems made for a visit to
my newly-discovered haunt, the mossy 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 May's killing a rabbit there.
May has had a fancy for the place 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 hill.
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 them they fill the sack,
and sell the contents in the village. Half the cows
in the street for our baker, our wheelwright, and
THE DELL 77
our shoemaker has each his Alderney owe the best
part of their maintenance to blind Robert's industry.
Here we are at the entrance of the cornfield 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 for-
ward 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. -j
At the end of the field, which, when seen from
the road, seems terminated by a thick, dark coppice,
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, turfy, and bare, or only
broken by bright tufts of blossomed broom. One or
two old pollards almost conceal the winding road
that leads down the descent, by the side of which
a spring as bright as crystal runs gurgling along.
The dell itself is an irregular piece of broken ground,
in some parts very deep, intersected by two or three
high banks of equal irregularity, now abrupt and
bare, and rock-like, now crowned with tufts of the
feathery willow or magnificent old thorns. Every-
where 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 paler blossoms of the common orchis, the
78 OU^ VILLAGE
enamelled blue of the wild hyacinth, so splendid in
this evening light, and large tufts of oxslips and
cowslips rising like nosegays from the short turf.
The ground on the other side of the dell is
much lower than the field through which we came,
so that it is mainly to the labyrinthine intricacy of
these high banks that it owes its singular character
of wildness and variety. Now we seemed hemmed
in by those green cliffs, shut out from all the
world, with nothing visible but those verdant
mounds and the deep blue sky ; now by some
sudden 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
quite apart. Ah ! there are lambs amongst them
pretty, pretty lambs nestled in by their mothers.
Soft, quiet, sleepy things ! Not all so quiet, though !
There is a party of these young lambs as wide-awake
as heart can desire ; half-a-dozen of them playing
together, frisking, dancing, leaping, butting, 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 that ever is to
be a cat, can have. How complete and perfect is
their enjoyment of existence ! Ah ! little rogues !
your play has been too noisy ; you have awakened
THE DELL 79
your mammas ; and two or three of the old ewes
are getting up; and one of them marching gravely
to the troop of lambs has selected her own, given
her a gentle butt, and trotted off ; the poor rebuked
lamb following meekly, but every now and then
stopping and casting a longing look at its playmates ;
who, after a moment's awed pause, had resumed their
gambols j whilst the stately dame every now and
then looked back in her turn, to see that her little
one was following. At last she lay down, and the
lamb by her side. I never saw so pretty a pastoral
scene in my life. 1
Another turning of the dell gives a glimpse of
1 I have seen one which affected me much more. Walking in
the Church lane with one of the young ladies of the vicarage, we
met a large flock of sheep, with the usual retinue of shepherds and
dogs. Lingering after them and almost out of sight, we encountered
a straggling ewe, now trotting along, now walking, and every now
and then stopping to look back, and bleating. A little behind her
came a lame lamb, bleating occasionally, as if in answer to its dam,
and doing its very best to keep up with her. It was a lameness of
both the fore feet ; the knees were bent, and it seemed to walk on the
very edge of the hoof on tip-toe, if I may venture such an expres-
sion. My young friend thought that the lameness proceeded from
original malformation ; I am rather of opinion that it was accidental,
and that the poor creature was wretchedly foot-sore. However that
might be, the pain and difficulty with which it took every step were
not to be mistaken ; and the distress and fondness of the mother,
her perplexity as the flock passed gradually out of sight, the effort
with which the poor lamb contrived to keep up a sort of trot, and
their mutual calls and lamentations, were really so affecting, that
Ellen and I, although not at all lachrymose sort of people, had much
ado not to cry. We could not find a boy to carry the lamb, which
was too big for us to manage but I was quite sure that the ewe
would not desert it, and as the dark was coming on, we both trusted
that the shepherds, on folding their flock, would miss them and
return for them and so I am happy to say it proved.
8o OU VILLAGE
the dark coppice by which it is backed, and from
which we are separated by some marshy, rushy
ground, where the springs have formed into a
pool, and where the moor-hen loves to build her
nest. Ay, there is one scudding away now I can
hear her plash into the water, and the rustling of
her wings amongst the rushes. This is the deepest
part of the wild dingle. How uneven the ground
is ! Surely these excavations, now so thoroughly
clothed with vegetation, must originally have been
huge gravel pits ; there is no other way of account-
ing for the labyrinth, for they do dig gravel in
such capricious meanders ; but the quantity seems
incredible. Well ! there is no end of guessing !
We are getting amongst the springs, and must turn
back. Round this corner, where on ledges like
fairy terraces 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, farmer Allen.
This rustic dwelling belongs to what used to be
called in this part of the country " a little bargain " ;
thirty or forty acres, perhaps, of arable land, which
the owner and his 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 rapidly away,
but in which much of the best part of the English
character, its industry, its frugality, its sound sense,
and its kindness might be found. Farmer Allen him-
self is an excellent specimen, the cheerful, venerable
old man, with his long white hair, and his bright
THE DELL 81
grey eye ; and his wife is a still finer. They have had
a hard struggle to win through the world and keep
their little property undivided ; but good manage-
ment and good principles, and the assistance afforded
them by an admirable son, who left our village a
poor 'prentice boy, and 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 care and anxiety as their best friends
could desire.
Ah ! there is Mr Allen in the orchard, the
beautiful orchard, with its glorious gardens of pink
and white, its pearly pear-blossoms and coral apple-
buds. What a flush of bloom it is ! how brightly
delicate it appears, thrown into strong relief by 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 poultry, with her three
little granddaughters from London, pretty fairies,
from three years old to five (only two-and-twenty
months elapsed between the birth of the eldest and
the youngest), playing round 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 Siddons. The outline of Mrs Allen's
82 OU3{ VILLAGE
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, and combed
under her exquisitely neat and snowy cap ; a muslin
neckerchief, 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 j there she sits,
placid and smiling, with her spectacles in her hand
and a measure of barley on her lap, into which the
little girls are dipping their chubby hands and scatter-
ing the corn amongst the ducks and chickens with
unspeakable glee. But those ingrates, the poultry,
don't seem so pleased and thankful as they ought to
be ; they mistrust their young feeders. All domestic
animals dislike children, partly from an instinctive
fear of their tricks and their thoughtlessness ; partly,
t suspect, from jealousy. Jealousy seems a strange
tragic passion to attribute to the inmates 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 so scornfully from the barley-corns
which Annie is flinging towards him, and say if he
be not as jealous as Othello ? Nothing can pacify
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
THE DELL 83
crows and pecks, proudest and happiest of bantams,
the pet and glory of the poultry-yard !
In the meantime my own pet, May, who has
all this while been peeping into every hole, and
penetrating every nook and winding of the dell,
in hopes of finding 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 go 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 disappearing, and the narrow liny clouds,
which a few minutes ago lay like soft vapoury streaks
along the horizon, lightened up with a golden splen-
dour that the eye can scarcely endure, and those still
softer clouds which floated above them wreathing
and curling into a thousand fantastic 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 disappears, and the sky above grows every
moment more varied and more beautiful as the dazz-
ling 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 see that magnificent picture reflected in
the clear and lovely Loddon water, is a pleasure
never to be described and never forgotten. My heart
VILLAGE
swells and my eyes fill as I write of it, and think of
the immeasurable majesty of nature, and the unspeak-
able goodness 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
JUNE 25TH What a glowing, glorious day !
Summer in its richest prime, noon in its most
sparkling brightness, little white clouds dappling
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, pro-
fessedly to walk we should be frightened at the
very sound ! and yet it is probable that we may be
beguiled into a pretty long stroll before we return
home. We are going to drive to the old house at
Aberleigh, to spend the morning under the shade of
those balmy firs, and amongst those luxuriant rose-
trees, and by the side of that brimming Loddon
river. " Do not expect us before six o'clock," said
I, as I left the house ; " Six at soonest ! " added my
charming companion ; and off we drove in our little
pony chaise, drawn by our old mare, and with the
good-humoured urchin, Henry's successor, a sort of
younger Scrub, who takes 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 high endowments,
to whom the novelty of the thing, and her own
naturalness of character and simplicity of taste, gave
G 8 S
86 OU VILLAGE
an unspeakable enjoyment. She danced the little
chaise up and down as she got into it, and laughed
for very glee like a child. Lizzy herself could
not have been more delighted. She 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 between hedges
garlanded with woodbine and rose trees, whilst
the air was scented with the delicious fragrance of
blossomed beans. I enjoyed it all but, I believe,
my principal pleasure was derived from my com-
panion 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 Shakespeare's or
Fletcher's women stepped into life ; just as tender,
as playful, as gentle, and as kind. She is clever
too, and has all the knowledge and accomplishments
that a carefully conducted education, acting on a mind
of singular clearness and ductility, matured and
improved by the very best company, can bestow.
But one never thinks of her acquirements. It is the
charming artless character, the bewitching sweetness
of manner, the real and universal sympathy, the quick
taste and the ardent feeling, that one loves in Emily.
She is Irish by birth, and has in perfection the melting
voice and soft caressing accent by which her fair
country-women are distinguished. Moreover, she is
pretty I think her beautiful, and so do all who
have heard as well as seen her but pretty, very
THE OLD HOUSE <4T ^EET^EIGR 87
pretty, all the world must confess ; and perhaps that
is a distinction more enviable, because less envied,
than the " palmy state " of beauty. Her prettiness
is of the prettiest kind that of which the chief
character is youthfulness. A short but pleasing
figure, all grace and symmetry, 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 when 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. There is no seeing them without
feeling an increase of respect and affection for both
grandmother and granddaughter always one of
the tenderest and most beautiful of natural connec-
tions as Richardson knew when he made such ex-
quisite use of it in his matchless book. I fancy
that grandmamma Shirley must have been just such
another venerable lady as Mrs S., and our sweet
Emily Oh, no ! Harriet Byron is not half good
enough for her ! There is nothing like her in the
whole seven volumes.
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 purest of flowers, which sits enthroned on its
own cool leaves, looking chastity itself, like the
88 OU VILLAGE
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.'
We must dismount here, and leave Richard to take
care of our equipage under the shade of these trees,
whilst we walk up to the house See, there it is !
We must cross this stile ; there is no other way
now."
And crossing the stile, we were immediately in
what had been a drive round a spacious park, and
still retained something of the character, though the
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 dilapidated doors form a melancholy
contrast with the strength and entireness of the rich
and massive front.
The story of that ruin for such it is is always
to me singularly affecting: It is that of the decay
of an ancient and distinguished family, gradually
reduced from the highest wealth and station to
actual poverty. The house and park, and a small
estate around it, 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 difficulty, farming his own
lands, and clinging to his magnificent home with a
love of place almost as tenacious as that of the
younger Foscari, was at last forced to abandon it,
THE OLD HOUSE <T ^BEt^LEIGH 89
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, immedi-
ately 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
splendid chambers, with their carving and gilding,
are exposed to wind and rain sad memorials of past
grandeur ! The grounds have been left in a merciful
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 plants ; but the
shrubs and flowering trees are undestroyed, and have
grown into a magnificence of size and wildness of
beauty, such as we may imagine them to attain in
their native forests. Nothing can exceed their luxuri-
ance, especially in the spring, when the lilac, and
laburnum, and double-cherry put forth their gorgeous
blossoms. There is a sweet sadness in the sight of
such floweriness amidst such desolation ; it seems the
triumph of nature over the destructive power of man.
The whole place, in that season more particularly, is
full of a soft and soothing melancholy, reminding
me, I scarcely know why, of some of the descriptions
of natural scenery in the novels of Charlotte Smith,
which I read when a girl, and which, perhaps, for
that reason hang on my memory.
But here we are, in the smooth, grassy ride, on
po OU^ VILLAGE
the top of a steep turfy slope descending to the
river, crowned with enormous firs and limes of equal
growth, looking across the winding waters into a
sweet, peaceful landscape of quiet meadows, shut in
by distant woods. What a fragrance is in the air
from the balmy fir trees and the blossomed limes !
What an intensity of odour ! And what a murmur
of bees in the lime trees ! What a coil those little
winged people make over our heads ! And what a
pleasant sound it is ! the pleasantest of busy sounds,
that which comes associated with all that is good
and beautiful industry and forecast, and sunshine
and flowers. Surely these lime trees might store a
hundred hives ; the very odour is of a honeyed rich-
ness, cloying, satiating.
Emily exclaimed in admiration as we stood under
deep, strong, leafy shadow, and still more when
honeysuckles trailed their profusion in our path, and
roses, really trees, almost intercepted our passage.
" On, Emily ! farther yet ! Force your way by
that jessamine it will yield ; I will take care of this
stubborn white rose bough." " Take care of your-
self! 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
flounces, she stopped to contemplate and admire the
tall, graceful shrub, whose long, thorny stems, spread-
ing in every direction, had opposed our progress, and
now waved their delicate clusters over our heads
"Did I ever think," exclaimed she, "of standing
under the shadow of a white rose tree ! What an
exquisite fragrance ! And what a beautiful flower !
so pale, and white, and tender, and the petals thin and
THE OLD HOUSE <AT dBE<%LEIGH 91
smooth as silk ! What rose is it ? " " Don't you
know ? Did 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 Shake-
speare and of her. Is it not ? No ! do not smell it ;
it is less sweet so than other roses ; but one cluster
in a vase, or even that bunch in your bosom, will
perfume a large room, as it does the summer air."
" Oh ! we will take twenty clusters," said Emily " I
wish grandmamma were here ! She talks so often
of a musk 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, perhaps, in the days of Shakespeare,
we reached the steps that led to a square summer-
house or banqueting-room, overhanging the river :
the under part was a boat-house, whose projecting
roof, as well as the walls and the very top 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 the scene.
We were now close to the mansion ; but it
looked sad and desolate, and the entrance, choked
with brambles and nettles, seemed almost to repel
our steps. The beautiful summer-house was free,
and open, and inviting, commanding from the un-
92 OU^ VILLAGE
glazed windows, which hung high above the water,
a reach of the river terminated by a rustic mill.
There we sat, emptying our little basket of
fruit and country cakes, till Emily was seized with a
desire of viewing, from the other side of the Loddon,
the scenery which had so much 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.
We had no way of reaching the desired spot
but by retracing our steps a mile, during the heat
of the hottest hour of the 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
repast, and a pencil without a point which I happened
to have about me. But these small difficulties are
pleasures to gay and happy youth. Regardless of
such obstacles, the sweet Emily bounded on like
a fawn, and I 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 the mill, in a most felicitous
combination ; the little straw fruit-basket made a
capital table ; and refreshed and sharpened and
pointed by our trusty lackey's excellent knife (your
country boy is never without a good knife, it is his
prime treasure), the pencil did double duty first
THE OLD HOUSE ^T ^BET^LEIGH 93
in the skilful hands of Emily, whose faithful and
spirited 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, at day
Of ripest summer ; o'er the deep blue sky
White speckled clouds came sailing peacefully,
Half-shrouding in a chequer'd veil the ray
Of the sun, too ardent else what time we lay
By the smooth Loddon, opposite the high,
Steep bank, which as a coronet gloriously
Wore its rich crest of firs and lime trees, gay
With their pale tassels ; while from out a bower
Of ivy (where those column'd poplars rear
Their heads) the ruin'd boat-house, like a tower,
Flung its deep shadow on the waters clear.
My Emily ! forget not that calm hour,
Nor that fair scene, by thee made doubly dear!
SEPTEMBER prn. 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 over -much of the
weather j but the weather, this summer, has forced
people to talk of it. Summer ! did I say ? Oh !
season most unworthy of that sweet, sunny name !
Season of coldness and cloudiness, of gloom and
rain ! A worse November ! for in November the
days are short j and shut up in a warm room, lighted
by that household sun, a lamp, one feels through the
long evenings comfortably independent of the out-
of-door tempests. But though we may have, and
did have, 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 rain, not merely audible, but
visible for seven days in the week would be enough
to exhaust the patience of Job or Grizzel ; especially
if Job were a farmer, and Grizzel a country gentle-
woman. Never was known such a season ! Hay
swimming, cattle drowning, fruit rotting, corn spoil-
ing ! and that naughty river, the Loddon, who
never can take Puff's advice, and, " keep between
94
THE SH*AW 95
its banks," running about the country, fields, roads,
gardens, and houses, like mad ! The weather would
be talked of. Indeed, it was not easy to talk of any-
thing else. A friend of mine having occasion to
write me a letter, thought it worth abusing in rhyme,
and bepommelled it through three pages of Bath-guide
verse ; of which I subjoin a specimen :
" Aquarius surely reigns over the world,
And of late he his water-pot strangely has twirl'd ;
Or he's taken a cullender up by mistake,
And unceasingly dips it in some mighty lake ;
Though it is not in Lethe for who can forget
The annoyance of getting 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 pony-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. 1 In short, whether in prose or
in verse, everybody railed at the weather. But this
1 This friend of mine is a person of great quickness and
talent, who, if she were not a beauty and a woman of fortune
that is to say, if she were prompted by either of those two power-
ful stimuli, want of money or want of admiration, to take due pains
would inevitably become a clever writer. As it is, her notes
and jeux <f esprit, struck off a trait de plume, have great point and
neatness. Take the following billet, which formed the label to
a closed basket, containing the ponderous present alluded to, last
Michaelmas day :
" To Miss M.
' When this you see,
Remember me,'
Was long a phrase in use ;
And so I send
To you, dear friend,
My proxy, ' What ? ' A goose 1 "
96 OU^ VILLAGE
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 sometimes ways as odd as those of the
unfurred, unfeathered animals, who walk on two legs,
and talk, and are called rational. My beautiful white
greyhound, Mayflower, 1 for instance, is as whimsical
as the finest lady in the land. Amongst her other
fancies, she has taken a violent affection for a most
hideous stray dog, who made his appearance here
about six months ago, and contrived to pick up a
living in the village, one can hardly tell how. Now
appealing to the charity of old Rachel Strong, the
laundress a dog-lover by profession ; now winning
a meal from the light-footed and open-hearted lasses
at the Rose ; now standing on his hind-legs, to
extort by sheer beggary a scanty morsel from some
pair of " drouthy cronies," or solitary drover, dis-
cussing his dinner or supper on the alehouse bench ;
now catching a mouthful, flung to him in pure con-
tempt by some scornful gentleman of the shoulder-
knot, mounted on his throne, the coach-box, whose
notice he had attracted by dint of ugliness ; now
sharing the commons of Master Keep the shoemaker's
pigs j now succeeding to the reversion of the well-
gnawed bone of Master Brown the shopkeeper's
fierce house-dog ; now filching the skim-milk of
1 Dead, alas, since this was written.
THE SHJIW 97
Dame Wheeler's cat spit at by the cat ; worried by
the mastiff; chased by the pigs j screamed at by the
dame ; stormed at by the shoemaker j flogged by the
shopkeeper ; teased by all the children, 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 repose his sorry
carcass, some comfort in his disconsolate condition.
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
him into her territory, the stable ; resisted all
attempts to turn him out ; re-instated him there,
in spite of maid and boy, and mistress and master ;
wore out everybody's opposition by the activity
of her protection, and the pertinacity of her self-
will ; made him sharer of her bed and of her
mess j 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 peculiar one-sided awkward-
ness to his gait ; but independently of his great
merit in being May's pet, he has other merits
which serve to account for that phenomenon
being, beyond all comparison, the most faithful,
attached, and affectionate animal that I have ever
VILLAGE
known ; and that is saying much. He seems to
think it necessary to atone for his ugliness by
extra good conduct, and does so dance on his
lame leg, and so wag his scrubby tail, that it does
any one who has a taste for happiness good to look
at him so that he may now be said to stand on his
own footing. We are all rather ashamed of him
when strangers come in the way, and think it neces-
sary to explain that he is May's pet ; but amongst
ourselves, and those who are used to his appearance,
he has reached the point of favouritism in his own
person. I have, in common with' wiser women, the
feminine weakness of loving whatever loves me and,
therefore, I like Dash. His master has found out that
he is a capital finder, and in spite of his lameness will
hunt a field or beat a cover with any spaniel in Eng-
land and, therefore, he likes Dash. The boy has
fought a battle, in defence of his beauty, with another
boy bigger than himself, and beat his opponent most
handsomely and, therefore, he 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 I said before or
rather to the cottage by the Shaw, to bespeak milk
and butter of our little dairy-woman, Hannah Bint
a housewifely occupation, to which we owe some of
our pleasantest rambles.
And now we pass the sunny, dusty village street
who would have thought, a month ago, that we
should complain of sun and dust again ! and turn
the corner where the two great oaks hang so
beautifully over the clear, deep pond, mixing their
'
THE SRdW 99
cool green shadows with the bright blue sky, and
the white clouds that flit over it ; and loiter at the
wheeler's shop, 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, hammering and singing, and making a
various harmony also. The shop is rather empty
to-day, for its usual inmates are busy on the green
beyond the pond one set building a cart, another
painting a waggon. And then we leave the village
quite behind, and proceed slowly up the cool, quiet
lane, between tall hedgerows of the darkest verdure,
overshadowing banks green and fresh as an emerald.
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
annoyance, for I don't think a partridge itself, barring
the accident of being killed, can be more startled
than I at that abominable explosion. Dash has
certainly better blood in his veins than any one would
guess to look at him. He even shows some inclina-
tion 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.
Ah ! here is a shriller din mingling with the
small artillery a shriller and more continuous. We
are not yet arrived within sight of Master Waston's
cottage, snugly hidden behind a clump of elms ; but
we are in full hearing of Dame Weston's tongue,
raised, as usual, to scolding pitch. The Westons are
new arrivals in our neighbourhood, and the first
thing heard of them was a complaint from the wife
ioo OU3 VILLAGE
to our magistrate of her husband's beating her : it
was a regular charge of assault an information in
full form. A most piteous case did Dame Weston
make of it, softening her voice for the nonce into a
shrill, tremulous whine, and exciting the mingled pity
and anger pity towards herself, anger towards her
husband of the whole female world, pitiful and
indignant as the female world is wont to be on such
occasions. Every woman in the parish railed at
Master Weston; and poor Master Weston was sum-
moned to attend the bench on the ensuing Saturday,
and answer the charge ; and such was the clamour
abroad and at home, that the unlucky culprit, terrified
at the sound of a warrant and a constable, ran away,
and was not heard of for a fortnight.
At the end of that time he was discovered, and
brought to the 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 had 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 unexpected witness
had not risen up in his favour. His wife had brought
in her arms a little girl about eighteen months old,
partly, perhaps, 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 quiet as
a lamb during her mother's examination ; but she no
sooner saw her father, from whom she had been a
fortnight separated, than she clapped her hands, and
THE SH<dW lot
laughed, and cried, "Daddy ! daddy ! " and sprang into
his arms, and hung round his neck, and covered him
with kisses again shouting, " Daddy, come home !
daddy ! daddy ! " and finally nestled her little head
in his bosom, with a fulness of contentment, an assur-
ance 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
acted 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 accomplishment of scold-
ing (tongue-banging, it is called in our parts, a com-
pound word which deserves to be Greek), 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 the Shaw. How beautifully green this pasture
looks ! and how finely the 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
cheeks as red as a real rose, tottering up the path
to meet her father. And here is the carroty-
polled urchin, George Coper, returning from work,
and singing, " Home ! sweet home ! " at the top ot
his voice j 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
H
102 OU VILLAGE
the song and the words, " Home ! sweet home ! "
and looking as if he felt their full import, ploughboy
though he be. And so he does ; for he is one of a
large, an honest, a kind, and an industrious family,
where all goes well, and where the poor ploughboy
is sure of finding cheerful faces and coarse comforts
all that he has learned to desire. Oh, to be as
cheaply and as thoroughly contented as George
Coper ! All his luxuries, a cricket-match ! all his
wants satisfied in " Home ! sweet home ! "
Nothing but noises to-day ! they are clearing
Farmer Brooke's great bean-field, and crying the
" Harvest Home ! " in a chorus, before which all
other sounds the song, the scolding, the gunnery
fade away, and become faint echoes. A pleasant
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
pathway, its tangled dingles, its nuts and its honey-
suckles and, carrying away a faggot of those sweetest
flowers, we reach Hannah Bint's j of whom 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 succeeded 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 hand ; or showing a poverty
of invention, or a want of acquaintance with the bead-roll of canine
THE SH^fT 103
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 called Thomas. The name belongs to the
species. Sitting in an open carriage one day last summer at the
door of a farmhouse where my father had some business, I saw
a noble and beautiful animal of this kind lying in great state and
laziness on the steps, and felt an immediate desire to make
acquaintance with him. My father, who had had the same fancy,
had patted him and called him "poor fellow'' in passing, with-
out eliciting 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 into the gig. Of
course I was right in my guess. The gentleman's name was
Dash.
THE FML OF THE LE^F
NOVEMBER 6rH. 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
in appearance, than in any two periods of the year.
There is in; both the same freshness and dewiness
of the herbage ; the same balmy softness in the air ;
and the same pure and lovely blue sky, with white
fleecy clouds floating across it. The chief difference
lies in the absence of flowers and the presence of
leaves. But then the foliage of November is so rich,
and glowing, and varied, that it may well supply the
place of the gay blossoms of the spring ; whilst all
the flowers of the field or the garden could never
make amends for the want of leaves that beautiful
and graceful attire in which nature has clothed the
rugged forms of trees the verdant drapery to which
the landscape owes its loveliness, and the forests
their glory.
If choice must be between two seasons, each so
full of charm, it is at least no bad philosophy to
prefer the present good, even whilst looking grate-
fully back, and hopefully forward, to the past and
the future. And of a surety, no fairer specimen of
THE FtALL OF THE LE^F 105
a November day could well be found than this a
day made to wander
" By yellow commons and birch-shaded hollows,
And hedgerows bordering 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 waterside,
for I have a message to leave at Farmer Rile^!s : and
sooth to say, it is no unpleasant necessity ; for the
road thither is smooth and dry, retired, as one likes
a country walk to be, but not too lonely, which
women never like ; leading past the Loddon the
bright, brimming, transparent Loddon a fitting
mirror for this bright blue sky, and terminating at
one of the prettiest and most comfortable farmhouses
in the neighbourhood.
How beautiful the lane is to-day, decorated with
a thousand colours ! The brown road, and the rich
verdure that borders it, strewed with the pale yellow
leaves of the elm, just beginning to fall ; hedgerows
glowing with long wreaths of the bramble in every
variety of purplish red ; and overhead the unchanged
green of the fir, contrasting with the spotted sycamore,
the tawny beech, and the dry sere leaves of the oak,
which rustle as the light wind passes through them ;
a few common hardy yellow flowers (for yellow
is the common 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
io6 OU VILLAGE
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 wayside,
and George Hearn, the little post-boy, trundling his
hoop at full speed, making all the better haste in
his work because he cheats himself into thinking
it play ! And how beautiful again is this patch
of common at the hill-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 tattered drapery, are
dipping up water in their little homely cups shining
with cleanliness, and a small brown 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 the
potatoes for the pot, and watching the progress of
dipping and filling that useful utensil, completes the
picture.
But we must go on. No time for more sketches
in those 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 meadow, at a rate that
indicates game astir, and causes the leaves to fly as
fast as an east wind after a hard frost. Ah ! a
pheasant ! a superb cock pheasant ! Nothing is
more certain than Dash's questing, whether in a
THE F^LL OF THE LE*AF 107
hedgerow or covert, for a better spaniel never went
into the field ; but I fancied that it was a hare afoot,
and was also 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 nevertheless), 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 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 ! the beautiful Loddon ! and
the bridge where every one stops, as by instinct, to
lean over the rails, and gaze a moment 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
harmonised by the soft beauty of the clear blue sky,
and the delicious calmness of the hour. The very
io8 OU VILLAGE
peasant whose daily path it is cannot cross the 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 ever-
greens and dappled with deer, and the meadows
where sheep, 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 open-
ing 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 vener-
able yew trees : and where, embosomed in orchards
and gardens, and backed by barns and ricks, and all
the wealth of the farmyard, stands the spacious and
comfortable abode of good Farmer Riley the end
and object of our walk.
And in happy time the message is said, and the
answer given, for 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 the air, and at
length falling crisply on the earth, as if Dash were
beating for pheasants in the tree - tops ; the sun
gleams dimly through the fog, giving little more
of light and heat than his fair sister the lady
THE F^LL OF THE LE^fF 109
moon I don't know a more disappointing person
than a cold sun ; and I am beginning to wrap my
cloak closely round me, and to calculate the
distance to my own fireside, recanting all the way
my praises of November, and longing for the
showery, flowery April, 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 the 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.
SELECT SKETCHES
THE prettiest cottage on our village-green is
the little dwelling of Dame Wilson. It stands in a
corner of the common, where the hedgerows go
curving off into a sort of bay round a clear bright
pond, the earliest haunt of the swallow. A deep
woody, green lane, such as Hobbema or Ruysdael
might have painted, a lane that hints of nightingales,
forms one boundary of the garden, and a sloping
meadow the other ; whilst the cottage itself, a low
thatched irregular building, backed by a blooming
orchard, and covered with honeysuckle and jessamine,
looks like the chosen abode of snugness and comfort.
And so it is.
Dame Wilson was a respected servant in a most
respectable family, where she passed all the early
part of her life, and which she quitted only on her
marriage with a man of character and industry, and
of that peculiar universality of genius which forms,
what is called in country phrase, a handy fellow.
He could do any sort of work ; was thatcher,
carpenter, bricklayer, painter, gardener, gamekeeper,
" everything by turns, and nothing long." No job
came amiss to him. He killed pigs, mended shoes,
cleaned clocks, doctored cows, dogs, and horses,
"3
ii4
VILLAGE
and even went as far as bleeding and drawing teeth
in his experiments on the human subject. In addition
to these multifarious talents, he was ready, obliging,
and unfearing ; jovial withal, and fond of good
fellowship ; and endowed with a promptness of
resource which made him the general adviser of
the stupid, the puzzled, and the timid. He was
universally admitted to be the cleverest man in the
parish j and his death, which happened about ten
years ago, in consequence of standing in the water,
drawing a pond for one neighbour, at a time when
he was overheated by loading hay for another, made
quite a gap in our village commonwealth. John
Wilson had no rival, and has had no successor : for
the Robert Ellis, whom certain youngsters would
fain exalt to a co-par tnery of fame, is simply nobody
a bell-ringer, a ballad-singer, a troller of profane
catches a fiddler a bruiser a loller on alehouse
benches a teller of good stories a mimic a poet !
What is all this to compare with the solid parts of
John Wilson ? Whose clock hath Robert Ellis
cleaned ? whose windows hath he mended ? whose
dog hath he broken ? whose pigs hath he ringed ?
whose pond hath he fished ? whose hay hath he
saved ? whose cow hath he cured ? whose calf hath
he killed ? whose teeth hath he drawn ? whom
hath he bled ? Tell me that, irreverent whipsters !
No ! John Wilson is not to be replaced. He was
missed by the whole parish j and most of all he was
missed at home. His excellent wife was left the
sole guardian and protector of two fatherless girls ;
one an infant at her knee, the other a pretty handy
lass about nine years old. Cast thus upon the world,
115
there must have been much to endure, much to
suffer; but it was borne with a smiling patience,
a hopeful cheeriness of spirit, and a decent pride,
which seemed to command success as well as re-
spect in their struggle for independence. Without
assistance of any sort, by needle-work, by washing
and mending lace and fine linen, and other skilful
and profitable labours, and by the produce of her
orchard and poultry, Dame Wilson contrived to
maintain herself and her children in their old com-
fortable home. There was no visible change ; she
and the little girls were as neat as ever ; the house
had still within and without the same sunshiny
cleanliness, and the garden was still famous over
all other gardens for its cloves, and stocks, and
double wall-flowers. But the sweetest flower of
the garden, and the joy and pride of her mother's
heart, was her daughter Hannah. Well might she
be proud of her ! At sixteen Hannah Wilson was,
beyond a doubt, the prettiest girl in the village,
and the best. Her beauty was quite in a different
style from the common country rosebud far more
choice and rare. Its chief characteristic was modesty.
A light youthful figure, exquisitely graceful and
rapid in all its movements ; springy, elastic, and
buoyant as a bird, and almost as shy ; a fair innocent
face, with downcast blue eyes, and smiles and blushes
coming and going almost with her thoughts j a low
soft voice, sweet even in its monosyllables ; a dress
remarkable for neatness and propriety, and borrowing
from her delicate beauty an air of superiority not its
own ; such was the outward woman of Hannah.
Her mind was very like her person ; modest, graceful
u6
gentle, affectionate, grateful, and generous above all.
The generosity of the poor is always a very real and
fine thing ; they give what they want ; and Hannah
was of all poor people the most generous. She
loved to give; it was her pleasure, her luxury.
Rosy-cheeked apples, plums with the bloom on them,
nosegays of cloves and blossomed myrtle ; these
were offerings which Hannah delighted to bring to
those whom she loved, or those who had shown her
kindness ; whilst to such of her neighbours as needed
other attentions than fruit and flowers, she would
give her time, her assistance, her skill ; for Hannah
inherited her mother's dexterity in feminine employ-
ments, with something of her father's versatile power.
Besides being an excellent laundress, she was accom-
plished in all the arts of the needle, millinery, dress-
making, and plain work; a capital cutter-out, an
incomparable mender, and endowed with a gift of
altering, which made old things better than new.
She had no rival at a rifacimento, as half the turned
gowns on the common can witness. As a dairy-
woman, and a rearer of pigs and poultry, she was
equally successful ; none of her ducks and turkeys
ever died of neglect or carelessness, or to use the
phrase of the poultry-yard on such occasions, of " ill-
luck." Hannah's fowls never dreamed of sliding out
of the world in such an ignoble way ; they all lived
to be killed, to make a noise at their deaths, as
chickens should do. She was also a famous
" scholar " ; kept accounts, wrote bills, read letters,
and answered them ; was a trusty accomptant, and
a safe confidante. There was no end to Hannah's
usefulness or Hannah's kindness ; and her prudence
117
was equal to either. Except to be kind or useful,
she never left her home ; attended no fairs, or
revels, or mayings ; went nowhere but to church ;
and seldom made a nearer approach to rustic
revelry than by standing at her own garden-gate
on a Sunday evening, with her little sister in her
hand, to look at the lads and lasses on the green.
In short, our village beauty had fairly reached her
twentieth year without a sweetheart, without the
slightest suspicion of her having ever written a
love-letter on her own account ; when, all on a
sudden, appearances changed. She was missing at
the "accustomed gate"; and one had seen a young
man go into Dame Wilson's j and another had de-
scried a trim, elastic figure walking, not unaccom-
panied, down the shady lane. Matters were quite
clear. Hannah had gotten a lover j and, when poor
little Susan, who, deserted by her sister, ventured to
peep rather nearer to the gay group, was laughingly
questioned on the subject, the hesitating No, and
the half Yes, of the smiling child, were equally
conclusive.
Since the new marriage act, 1 we, who belong to
country magistrates, have gained a priority over the
rest of the parish in matrimonial news. We (the
privileged) see on a work-day the names which the
sabbath announces to the generality. Many a blush-
ing, awkward pair hath our little lame clerk (a sorry
Cupid !) ushered in between dark and light to stammer
and hacker, to bow and curtsey, to sign or make a
1 It is almost unnecessary to observe, that this little story was
written during the short life of that whimsical experiment in
legislation.
I
ii8 OU VILLAGE
mark, as it pleases Heaven. One Saturday, at the
usual hour, the limping clerk made his appearance ;
and walking through our little hall, I saw a fine
athletic young man, the very image of health and
vigour, mental and bodily, holding the hand of a
young woman, who, with her head half buried in
a geranium in the window, was turning bashfully
away, listening, and yet not seeming to listen, to
his tender whispers. The shrinking grace of that
bending figure was not to be mistaken. " Hannah ! "
and she went aside with me, and a rapid series of
questions and answers conveyed the story of the
courtship. "William was," said Hannah, a "journey-
man hatter in B. He had walked over one Sunday
evening to see the cricketing, and then he came
again. Her mother liked him. Everybody liked her
William and she had promised she was going
was it wrong ? " " Oh no ! and where are you to
live ? " " William has got a room in B. He works
for Mr Smith, the rich hatter in the market-place,
and Mr Smith speaks of him oh, so well ! But
William will not tell me where our room is. I
suppose in some narrow street or lane, which he is
afraid I shall not like, as our common is so pleasant.
He little thinks anywhere." She stopped suddenly ;
but her blush and her clasped hands finished the
sentence, "anywhere with him!" "And when is
the happy day ? " " On Monday fortnight, Madam,"
said the bridegroom-elect, advancing with the little
clerk to summon Hannah to the parlour, " the earliest
day possible." He drew her arm through his, and
we parted.
The Monday fortnight was a glorious morning ;
119
one of those rare November days when the sky and
the air are soft and bright as in April. "What a
beautiful day for Hannah ! " was the first exclamation
of the breakfast table. "Did she tell you where
they should dine ? " " No, Ma'am ; I forgot to ask."
"I can tell you," said the master of the house,
with somewhat of good-humoured importance in his
air, somewhat of the look of a man, who having
kept a secret as long as it was necessary, is not
sorry to get rid of the burthen. " I can tell you :
in London." " In London ! " " Yes. Your little
favourite has been in high luck. She has married
the only son of one of the best and richest men in B.,
Mr Smith, the great hatter. It is quite a romance,"
continued he : " William Smith walked over one
Sunday evening to see a match at cricket. He saw
our pretty Hannah, and forgot to look at the cricketers.
After having gazed his fill, he approached to ad-
dress her, and the little damsel was off like a bird.
William did not like her the less for that, and thought
of her the more. He came again and again j and at
last contrived to tame this wild dove, and even
to get the entree of the cottage. Hearing Hannah
talk is not the way to fall out of love with her. So
William, at last finding his case serious, laid the
matter before his father, and requested his consent
to the marriage. Mr Smith was at first a little
startled ; but William is an only son, and an excel-
lent son ; and, after talking with me, and looking at
Hannah (I believe her sweet face was the more
eloquent advocate of the two), he relented ; and
having a spice of his son's romance, finding that he
had not mentioned his situation in life, he made a
120 OU VILLAGE
point of its being kept secret till the wedding-day.
We have managed the business of settlements ; and
William, having discovered that his fair bride has
some curiosity to see London (a curiosity, by-the-bye,
which I suspect she owes to you or poor Lucy),
intends taking her thither for a fortnight. He will
then bring her home to one of the best houses in B.,
a fine garden, fine furniture, fine clothes, fine servants,
and more money than she will know what to do with.
Really the surprise of Lord E.'s farmer's daughter,
when, thinking she had married his steward, he
brought her to Burleigh, and installed her as its
mistress, could hardly have been greater. I hope
the shock will not kill Hannah though, as is said to
have been the case with that poor lady." " Oh no !
Hannah loves her husband too well. Anywhere
with him."
And I was right. Hannah has survived the
shock. She is returned to B., and I have been- to
call on her. I never saw anything so delicate and
bride-like as she looked in her white gown and her
lace mob, in a room light and simple, and tasteful
and elegant, with nothing fine except some beautiful
greenhouse plants. Her reception was a charming
mixture of sweetness and modesty, a little more re-
spectful than usual, and far more shamefaced ! Poor
thing ! her cheeks must have pained her ! But this
was the only difference. In everything else she is
still the same Hannah, and has lost none of her old
habits of kindness and gratitude. She was making a
handsome matronly cap, evidently for her mother,
and spoke, even with tears, of her new father's good-
ness to her and to Susan. She would fetch the cake
111
and wine herself, and would gather, in spite of all
remonstrance, some of her choicest flowers as a
parting nosegay. She did, indeed, just hint at her
troubles with visitors and servants how strange and
sad it was ! seemed distressed at ringing the bell,
and visibly shrank from the sound of a double knock.
But, in spite of these calamities, Hannah is a happy
woman. The double rap was her husband's ; and
the glow on her cheek, and the smile of her lips and
eyes when he appeared, spoke more plainly than
ever, " Anywhere with him ! "
EARLY in the present century there lived in the
ancient town of B. two complete and remarkable
specimens of the ladies of eighty years ago ladies
cased inwardly and outwardly in Addison and
whalebone. How they had been preserved in this
entireness, amidst the collision and ridicule of a
country town, seemed as puzzling a question as the
preservation of bees in amber, or mummies in
pyramids, or any other riddle that serves to amuse
the naturalist or the antiquarian. , But so it was.
They were old maids and sisters, and so alike in
their difference from all other women, that they may
be best described together ; any little non-resemblance
may be noted afterwards ; it was no more than nature,
prodigal of variety, would make in two leaves from
the same oak-tree.
Both, then, were as short as women well could
be without being entitled to the name of dwarf, or
carried about to fairs for a show ; both were made
considerably shorter by the highest of all high heels,
and the tallest of all tall caps, each of which artificial
elevations was as ostentatiously conspicuous as the
legs and cover of a pipkin, and served equally to add
to the squatness of the real machine ; both were lean,
1 23
wrinkled, withered, and old ; both enveloped their
aged persons in the richest silks, displayed over large
hoops, and stays the tightest and stifFest that ever
pinched in a beauty of George the Second's reign.
The gown was of that make formerly, I believe,
called a sacque, and of a pattern so enormous, that
one flower, with its stalk and leaves, would nearly
cover the three quarters of a yard in length, of which
the tail might, at a moderate computation, consist.
Over this they wore a gorgeously figured apron,
whose flourishing white embroidery vied in size
with the plants on the robe j a snowy muslin necker-
chief, rigidly pinned down ; and over that a black
lace tippet of the same shape, parting at the middle,
to display a gay breast-knot. The riband of which
this last decoration was composed was generally of
the same hue with that which adorned the towering
lappeted cap, a sort of poppy colour, which they
called Pompadour. The sleeves were cut off below
the elbows with triple ruffles of portentous length.
Brown leather mittens, with peaks turned back, and
lined with blue satin, and a variety of tall rings in an
odd, out-of-fashion variety of enamelling, and figures
of hair, completed the decoration of their hands and
arms. The carriage of these useful members was at
least equally singular j they had adapted themselves
in a remarkable manner to the little taper wasp-like
point in which the waist ended, to which the elbows,
ruffles and all, adhered as closely as if they had been
glued, whilst the ringed and mittened hands, when
not employed in knitting were crossed saltier-wise,
in front of the apron. The other termination of their
figure was adorned with black stufF shoes, very
124 OU^ VILLAGE
peaked, with points upwards, and massive silver
buckles. Their walking costume was, in winter, a
black silk cloak lined with rabbit skins, with holes
for the arms : in summer, another tippet and a
calash : no bonnet could hold the turreted cap.
Their motion out of doors was indescribable ; it
most nearly resembled sailing. They seemed in-
fluenced by the wind in a way incidental to no
moving thing, except a ship or a shuttlecock ; and,
indeed, one boisterous blowing night, about the
equinox, when standing on some high stone steps,
waiting for a carriage to take her home from a party,
the wind did catch one of them, and, but for the
intervention of a tall footman, who seized her as one
would seize a fly-away umbrella, and held her down
by main force, the poor little lady would have been
carried up like an air-balloon. Her feelings must
have been pretty much similar to those of Gulliver in
Brobdingnag, when flown away with by the eagle.
Half a minute later, and she was gone.
So far they were exact counterparts. The chief
variation lay in the face. Amidst the general hue of
age and wrinkles, you could just distinguish that Mrs
Theodosia had been brown, and Mrs Frances fair.
There was a yellow shine here and there amongst the
white hairs, curiously rolled over a cushion high
above the forehead, that told of Fanny's golden
locks ; whilst the purely grey rouleau of Mrs
Theodosia showed its mixture of black and white
still plainer. Mrs Frances, too, had the blue eye,
with a laughing light, which so often retains its flash
to extreme age ; whilst Mrs Theodosia's orbs, bright
no longer, had once been hazel. Mrs Theodosia's
{MODEIQ^ v43<TIQ UES 125
aquiline nose, and long sociable chin, evinced that
disposition to meet which is commonly known by
the name of a pair of nut-crackers ; Mrs Frances'
features, on the other hand, were rather terse and
sharp. Still there was, in spite of these material
differences, that look of kindred, that inexplicable
and indefinable family likeness, which is so frequently
found in sisters ; greatly increased in the present case
by a similarity in the voice that was quite startling.
Both tongues were quick and clear, and high and
rattling, to a degree that seemed rather to belong to
machinery than to human articulation ; and when
welcomes and how-d'ye-dos were pouring both at
once on either side, a stranger was apt to gaze in
ludicrous perplexity, as if beset by a ventriloquist, or
haunted by strange echoes. When the immediate
cackle subsided, they were easily distinguished.
Mrs Theodosia was good, and kind, and hospitable,
and social ; Mrs Frances was all that, and was besides
shrewd, and clever, and literary, to a degree not
very common in her day, though not approaching to
the pitch of a blue-stocking lady of the present.
Accident was partly the cause of this unusual love
of letters. They had known Richardson ; had been
admitted amongst his flower-garden of young ladies ;
and still talked familiarly of Miss Highmore, Miss
Fielding, Miss Collier, and Miss Mulso they had
never learned to call her Mrs Chapone. Latterly the
taste had been renewed and quickened, by their
having the honour of a distant relationship to one of
the most amiable and unfortunate of modern poets.
So Mrs Frances studied novels and poetry, in addition
to her sister's sermons and cookery books ; though
126 OU VILLAGE
(as she used to boast) without doing a stitch the less
of knitting, or playing a pool the fewer in the course
of the year. Their usual occupations were those of
other useful old ladies ; superintending the endowed
girls' school of the town with a vigilance and a
jealousy of abuses that might have done honour to
Mr Hume ; taking an active part in the more private
charities, donations of flannel petticoats, or the loan
of baby-things; visiting in -a quiet way; and going
to church whenever the church door was open.
Their abode was a dwelling ancient and respect-
able, like themselves, that looked as if it had never
undergone the slightest variation, inside and out,
since they had been born in it. The rooms were
many, low, and small ; full of little windows with
little panes, and chimneys stuck perversely in the
corners. The furniture was exactly to correspond;
little patches of carpets in the middle of the slippery,
dry-rubbed floors ; tables and chairs of mahogany,
black with age, but exceedingly neat and bright ;
and Japan cabinets and old China, which Mr Beckford
might have envied treasures which have either never
gone out of fashion, or have come in again. The
garden was beautiful, and beautifully placed ; a series
of terraces descending to rich and finely timbered
meadows, through which the slow magnificent Thames
rolled under the chalky hills of the pretty village of
C. It was bounded on one side by the remains of an
old friary, the end wall of a chapel with a Gothic
window of open tracery in high preservation, as rich
as point lace. It was full too of old-fashioned durable
flowers, jessamine, honeysuckle, and the high-scented
fraxinella; I never saw that delicious plant in such
127
profusion. The garden-walks were almost as smooth
as the floors, thanks to the two assiduous serving
maidens (nothing like a man-servant ever entered that
maidenly abode) who attended it. One, the under
damsel, was a stout strapping country wench, changed
from time to time as it happened ; the other was as
much a fixture as her mistresses. She had lived
with them for forty years, and, except being twice
as big and twice as tall, might have passed for
another sister. She wore their gowns (the two just
made her one), caps, ruffles, and aprons ; talked with
their voices and their phrases ; followed them to
church, and school, and market ; scolded the school-
mistress ; heard the children their Catechism j cut
out flannel petticoats, and knit stockings to give away.
Never was so complete an instance of assimilation !
She had even become like them in face.
Having a brother who resided at a beautiful seat
in the neighbourhood, and being to all intents and
purposes of the patrician order, their visitors were
very select, and rather more from the country than
the town. Six formed the general number one
table a rubber or a pool seldom more. As the
only child of a very favourite friend, I used, during
the holidays, to be admitted as a supernumerary ; at
first out of compliment to mamma ; latterly I stood
on my own merits. I was found to be a quiet little
girl ; an excellent hander of muffins and cake ; a
connoisseur in green tea ; an amateur of quadrille
the most entertaining of all games to a looker-on ;
and, lastly and chiefly, a great lover and admirer of
certain books, which filled two little shelves at cross
corners with the chimney namely, that volume of
128 OU VILLAGE
Cowper's Poems which contained " John Gilpin,"
and the whole seven volumes of " Sir Charles
Grandison." With what delight I used to take
down those dear books ! It was an old edition ;
perhaps that very first edition which, as Mrs Barbauld
says, the fine ladies used to hold up to one another
at Ranelagh and adorned with prints, not certainly
of the highest merit as works of art, but which
served exceedingly to realize the story, and to make
us, as it were, personally acquainted with the
characters. The costume was pretty much that of
my worthy hostesses, especially that of the two
Miss Selbys ; there was even in Miss Nancy's face
a certain likeness to Mrs Frances. I remember I
used to wonder whether she carried her elbows in
the same way. How I read and believed, and
believed and read ; and liked Lady G., though I
thought her naughty ; and gave all my wishes to
Harriet, though I thought her silly j and loved
Emily with my whole heart ! Clementina I did not
quite understand ; nor (I am half afraid to say so)
do I now ; and Sir Charles I positively disliked.
He was the only thing in the book that I disbelieved.
Those bowings seemed incredible. At last, how-
ever, I extended my faith even to him; partly
influenced by the irresistibility of the author, partly
by the appearance of a real living beau, who in the
matter of bowing might almost have competed with
Sir Charles himself. This beau was no other than
the town member, who, with his brother, was, when
in the country, the constant attendant at these chosen
parties.
Our member was a man of seventy, or there-
1 29
about, but wonderfully young-looking, and well-
preserved. It was said, indeed, that no fading belle
was better versed in cosmetic secrets, or more
devoted to the duties of the toilet. Fresh, upright,
unwrinkled, pearly-teethed, and point device in his
accoutrements, he might have passed for fifty ; and
doubtless often did pass for such when apart from
his old-looking younger brother; who, tall, lanky,
shambling, long-visaged, and loosely dressed, gave a
very vivid idea of Don Quixote, when stripped of
his armour. Never was so consummate a courtier as
our member ! Of good family and small fortune, he
had early in life been seized with the desire of repre-
senting the town in which he resided; and canvassing,
sheer canvassing, without eloquence, without talent,
without bribery, had brought him in and kept him in.
There his ambition stopped. To be a member of
parliament was with him not the means but the end
of advancement. For forty years he represented an
independent borough, and, though regularly voting
with every successive ministry, was, at the end of his
career, as poor as when he began. He never sold
himself, or stood suspected of selling himself per-
haps he might sometimes give himself away. But
that he could not help. It was almost impossible for
him to say No to anybody quite so to a minister, or
a constituent, or a constituent's wife or daughter. So
he passed bowing and smiling through the world, the
most disinterested of courtiers, the most subservient
of upright men, with little other annoyance than a
septennial alarm for sometimes an opposition was
threatened, and sometimes it came ; but then he
went through a double course of smirks and hand-
130 OU1{ VILLAGE
shakings, and all was well again. The great griev-
ance of his life must have been the limitation in the
number of franks. His apologies, when he happened
to be full, were such as a man would make for a
great fault j his lamentations, such as might become
a great misfortune. Of course there was something
ludicrous in his courtliness, but it was not con-
temptible j it only wanted to be obviously dis-
interested to become respectable. The expression
might be exaggerated ; but the feeling was real.
He was always ready to show kindness to the
utmost of his power to any human being. He would
have been just as civil and supple if he had not
been M.P. It was his vocation. He could not
help it.
This excellent person was an old bachelor ; and
there was a rumour, some forty or fifty years old,
that in the days of their bloom, there had been a
little love affair, an attachment, some even said an
engagement, how broken none could tell, between
him and Mrs Frances. Certain it is, that there were
symptoms of flirtation still. His courtesy, always
gallant to every female, had something more real
and more tender towards " Fanny," as he was wont
to call her; and Fanny, on her side, was as conscious
as heart could desire. She blushed and bridled !
fidgeted with her mittens or her apron ; flirted a
fan nearly as tall as herself, and held her head on
one side with that peculiar air which I have noted in
the shyer birds, and ladies in love. She manoeuvred
to get him next her at the tea-table ; liked to be
his partner at whist ; loved to talk of him in his
absence ; knew to an hour the time of his return ;
1 3 1
and did not dislike a little gentle raillery on the
subject even I But, traitress to my sex, how can
I jest with such feelings ? Rather let me sigh
over the world of woe, that in fifty years of hopeless
constancy must have passed through that maiden
heart ! The timid hope j the sickening suspense ;
the slow, slow, fear ; the bitter disappointment ; the
powerless anger ; the relenting ; the forgiveness ;
and then again, that interest, kinder, truer, more
unchanging than friendship, that lingering woman's
love Oh how can I jest over such feelings ? They
are passed away for she is gone, and he but they
clung by her to the last, and ceased only in death.
THESE are bad times for farmers. I am sorry
for it. Independently of all questions of policy, .as
a mere matter of taste and of old association, it is a
fine thing to witness the hearty hospitality and to
think of the social happiness of a great farm-house.
No situation in life seemed so richly privileged ; none
had so much power for good and so little for evil ;
it seemed a place where pride could not live and
poverty could not enter. These thoughts pressed
on my mind the other day in passing the green
sheltered lane, overhung with trees like an avenue,
that leads to the great farm at M., where ten or
twelve years ago I used to spend so many pleasant
days. I could not help advancing a few paces up
the lane, and then turning to lean over the gate,
seemingly gazing on the rich undulating valley
crowned with woody hills, which, as I stood under
the dark and shady arch, lay bathed in the sunshine
before me, but really absorbed in thoughts of other
times, in recollections of the old delights of that
delightful place, and of the admirable qualities of
its owners. How often had I opened the gate, and
how gaily certain of meeting a smiling welcome
and what a picture of comfort it was !
132
afrit.
<A Gl^E^T FeAlt^M-HOUSE 133
Passing up the lane we used first to encounter
a thick solid suburb of ricks of all sorts, shapes, and
dimensions. Then came the farm, like a town ; a
magnificent series of buildings, stables, cart-houses,
cow-houses, granaries, and barns, that might hold
half the corn of the parish, placed at all angles
towards each other, and mixed with smaller habita-
tions for pigs, dogs, and poultry. They formed,
together with the old substantial farm-house, a sort
of amphitheatre, looking over a beautiful meadow,
which swept greenly and abruptly down into fertile
enclosures, richly set with hedgerow timber, oak,
and ash, and elm. Both the meadow and the farm-
yard swarmed with inhabitants of the earth and of
the air ; horses, oxen, cows, calves, heifers, sheep,
and pigsj beautiful greyhounds, all manner of poultry,
a tame goat, and a pet donkey.
The master of this land of plenty was well
fitted to preside over it ; a thick, stout man of
middle height, and middle-aged, with a healthy,
ruddy, square face, all alive with intelligence and
good-humour. There was a lurking jest in his eye,
and a smile about the corners of his firmly closed
lips, that gave assurance of good-fellowship. His
voice was loud enough to have hailed a ship at sea,
without the assistance of a speaking-trumpet, wonder-
fully rich and round in its tones, and harmonising
admirably with his bluff, jovial visage. He wore his
dark shining hair combed straight over his forehead,
and had a trick, "when particularly merry, of stroking
it down with his hand. The moment his hand
approached his head, out flew a jest.
Besides his own great farm, the business of
K
134 OU K. VILLAGE
which seemed to go on like machinery, always
regular, prosperous, and unfailing besides this, and
two or three constant stewardships, and a perpetual
succession of arbitrations, in which, such was the
influence of his acuteness, his temper, and his sturdy
justice, that he was oftened named by both parties,
and left to decide alone in addition to these occupa-
tions he was a sort of standing overseer and church-
warden; he ruled his own hamlet like a despotic
monarch, and took a prime minister's share in the
government of the large parish to which it was
attached ; and one of the gentlemen whose estates
he managed, being the independent member of an
independent borough, he had every now and then
a contested election on his shoulders. Even that did
not discompose him. He had always leisure to
receive his friends at home, or to visit them abroad ;
to take journeys to London, or make excursions to
the seaside ; was as punctual in pleasure as in business,
and thought being happy and making happy as much
the purpose of his life as getting rich. His great
amusement was coursing. He kept several brace
of capital greyhounds, so high-blooded, that I
remember when five of them were confined in five
different kennels on account of their ferocity. The
greatest of living painters once called a greyhound,
" the line of beauty in perpetual motion." Our friend's
large dogs were a fine illustration of this remark.
His old dog, Hector, for instance, for whom he
refused a hundred guineas what a superb dog was
Hector ! a model of grace and symmetry, necked
and crested like an Arabian, and bearing himself with
a stateliness and gallantry which showed some "con-
F^Ttyl-HOUSE 135
science of his worth." He was the largest dog I
ever saw ; but so finely proportioned, that the most
determined fault-finder could call him neither too
long nor too heavy. There was not an inch too
much of him. His colour was the purest white,
entirely unspotted, except that his head was very
regularly and richly marked with black. Hector
was certainly a perfect beauty. But the little bitches,
on which his master piqued himself still more, were
not in my poor judgment so admirable. They were
pretty little round, graceful things, sleek and glossy,
and for the most part milk-white, with the smallest
heads, and the most dove-like eyes that were ever
seen. There was a peculiar sort of innocent beauty
about them, like that of a roly-poly child. They
were as gentle as lambs too : all the evil spirit
of the family evaporated in the gentlemen. But,
to my thinking, these pretty creatures were fitter
for the parlour than the field. They were strong,
certainly, excellently loined, cat-footed, and chested
like a war-horse ; but there was a want of length
about them a want of room, as the coursers say ;
something a little, a very little, inclined to the clumsy ;
a dumpiness, a pointer-look. They went off like an
arrow from a bow ; for the first hundred yards
nothing could stand against them ; then they began
to flag, to find their weight too much for their speed,
and to lose ground from the shortness of the stroke.
Up-hill, however, they were capital. There their
compactness told. They turned with the hare,
and lost neither wind nor way in the sharpest
ascent. I shall never forget one single-handed
course of our good friend's favourite little bitch
1 36 OU^ VILLAGE
Helen, on W. hill. All the coursers were in
the valley below, looking up to the hillside as on
a moving picture. I suppose she turned the hare
twenty times on a piece of greensward not much
bigger than an acre, and as steep as the roof of a
house. It was an old hare, a famous hare, one that
had baffled half the dogs in the country ; but she
killed him ; and then, though almost as large as
herself, took it up in her mouth, brought it to her
master, and laid it down at his feet. Oh, how
pleased he was ! and what a pleasure it was to see
his triumph ! He did not always find W. hill so
fortunate. It is a high steep hill, of a conical shape,
encircled by a mountain road winding up to the
summit like a corkscrew a deep road dug out of the
chalk, and fenced by high mounds on either side.
The hares always make for this hollow way, as it is
called, because it is too wide for a leap, and the dogs
lose much time in mounting and descending the sharp
acclivities. Very eager dogs, however, will some-
times dare the leap, and two of our good friend's
favourite greyhounds perished in the attempt in two
following years. They were found dead in the
hollow way. After this he took a dislike to cours-
ing meetings, and sported chiefly on his own beautiful
farm.
His wife was like her husband, with a difference,
as they say in heraldry. Like him in looks, only
thinner and paler ; like him in voice and phrase, only
not so loud ; like him in merriment and good-humour ;
like him in her talent of welcoming and making happy,
and being kind ; like him in cherishing an abundance
of pets, and in getting through with marvellous
.// GI^E^T FtAltyl-HOUSE 137
facility an astounding quantity of business and plea-
sure. Perhaps the quality in which they resembled
each other most completely was the happy ease and
serenity of behaviour, so seldom found amongst
people of the middle rank, who have usually a best
manner and a worst, and whose best (that is, the
studied, the company manner) is so very much the
worst. She was frankness itself; entirely free from
prickly defiance or bristling self-love. She never
took offence or gave it ; never thought of herself or
of what others would think of her ; had never been
afflicted with the besetting sins of her station, a dread
of the vulgar, or an aspiration of the genteel. Those
" words of fear " had never disturbed her delightful
heartiness.
Her pets were her cows, her poultry, her bees,
and her flowers ; chiefly her poultry, almost as
numerous as the bees, and as various as the flowers.
The farm - yard swarmed with peacocks, turkeys,
geese, tame and wild ducks, fowls, guinea-hens, and
pigeons ; besides a brood or two of favourite bantams
in the green court before the door, with a little
ridiculous strutter of a cock at their head, who
imitated the magnificent demeanour of the great Tom
of the barn-yard, just as Tom in his turn copied the
fierce bearing of that warlike and terrible biped, the
he-turkey. I am the least in the world afraid of a
turkey-cock, and used to steer clear of the turkery as
often as I could. Commend me to the peaceable
vanity of that jewel of a bird, the peacock, sweeping
his gorgeous tail along the grass, or dropping it grace-
fully from some low-boughed tree, whilst he turns
round his crested head with the air of a birthday
138 OU^ VILLAGE
belle, to see who admires him. What a glorious
creature it is ! How thoroughly content with him-
self and with all the world !
Next to her poultry our good farmer's wife loved
her flower-garden ; and, indeed, it was of the very
first water, the only thing about the place that was
fine. She was a real, genuine florist j valued pinks,
tulips, and auriculas, for certain qualities of shape
and colour, with which beauty has nothing to do ;
preferred black ranunculuses, and gave in to all those
obliquities of a triple-refined taste by which the pro-
fessed florist contrives to keep pace with the vagaries
of the Bibliomaniac. Of all odd fashions, that of
dark, gloomy, dingy flowers, appears to me the
oddest. Your true connoisseurs now shall prefer a
deep puce hollyhock to the gay pink blossoms which
cluster round that splendid plant like a pyramid of
roses. So did she. The nomenclature of her garden
was more distressing still. One is never thoroughly
sociable with flowers till they are naturalised, as it
were, christened, provided with decent, homely,
well-wearing English names. Now her plants had
all sorts of heathenish appellations, which no offence
to her learning always sounded wrong. I liked
the bees' garden best ; the plot of ground immediately
round their hives, filled with common flowers for
their use, and literally " redolent of sweets." Bees
are insects of great taste in every way, and seem
often to select for beauty as much as for flavour.
They have a better eye for colour than the florist.
The butterfly is also a dilettante. Rover though he
be, he generally prefers the blossoms that become
him best. What a pretty picture it is, in a sunshiny
exf G1(E^T Ftdli^M-HOUSE 139
autumn day, to see a bright spotted butterfly, made
up of gold and purple and splendid brown, swinging
on the rich flower of the china aster !
To come back to our farm. Within doors,
everything went as well as without. There were no
fine misses sitting before the piano, and mixing the
alloy of their new-fangled tinsel with the old sterling
metal ; nothing but an only son, excellently brought
up, a fair, slim youth, whose extraordinary and some-
what pensive elegance of mind and manner was
thrown into fine relief by his father's loud hilarity,
and harmonised delightfully with the smiling kind-
ness of his mother. His Spensers and Thomsons,
too, looked well amongst the hyacinths and geraniums
that filled the windows of the little snug room in
which they usually sat ; a sort of after-thought, built
at an angle from the house, and looking into the
farm-yard. It was closely packed with favourite
arm-chairs,, favourite sofas, favourite tables, and a
side-board decorated with the prize cups and collars of
the greyhounds, and generally loaded with substantial
work - baskets, jars of flowers, great pyramids of
home-made cakes, and sparkling bottles of goose-
berry wine, famous all over the country. The walls
were covered with portraits of half-a-dozen grey-
hounds, a brace of spaniels as large as life, an old
pony, and the master and mistress of the house in
half-length. She as unlike as possible, prim, mincing,
delicate, in lace and satin ; he so staringly and ridi-
culously like, that when the picture fixed its good-
humoured eyes upon you as you entered the room,
you were almost tempted to say How d'ye do !
Alas ! the portraits are now gone, and the originals.
140 OU^ VILLAGE
Death and distance have despoiled that pleasant home.
The garden has lost its smiling mistress ; the grey-
hounds their kind master ; and new people, new
manners, and new cares, have taken possession of the
old abode of peace and plenty the great farm-house.
MR GEOFFREY CRAYON has, in his delightful
but somewhat fanciful writings, brought into general
view many old sports and customs, some of which,
indeed, still linger about the remote counties,
familiar as local peculiarities to their inhabitants,
whilst the greater part lie buried in books of the
Elizabethan age, known only to the curious in
English literature. One rural custom which would
have enchanted him, and which prevails in the
north of Hampshire, he has not noticed, and pro-
bably does not know. Did any of my readers
ever hear of a Maying ? Let not any notions of
chimney - sweeps soil the imagination of the gay
Londoner ! A country Maying is altogether a
different affair from the street exhibitions which
mix so much pity with our mirth, and do the
heart good, perhaps, but not by gladdening it.
A country Maying is a meeting of the lads and
lasses of two or three parishes, who assemble in
certain erections of green boughs called May-
houses, to dance and but I am going to tell all
about it in due order, and must not forestall my
description.
Last year we went to Bramley Maying. There
142 OU^ VILLAGE
had been two or three such merry-makings before
in that inaccessible neighbourhood, where the
distance from large towns, the absence of great
houses, and the consequent want of all decent
roads, together with a country of peculiar wildness
and beauty, combined to produce a sort of modern
Arcadia. We had intended to assist at a Maying
in the forest of Pamber, thinking that the deep
glades of that fine woodland scenery would be
more congenial to the spirit of our English merri-
ment, as it breathed more of Robin Hood and
Maid Marian than a mere village green to say
nothing of its being of the two more accessible by
four-footed and two-wheeled conveyances. But the
Pamber day had been suffered to pass, and Bramley
was the last Maying of the season. So to Bramley
we went.
As we had a considerable distance to go, we set
out about noon, intending to return to dinner at six.
Never was a day more congenial to a happy purpose.
It was a day made for country weddings and dances
on the green a day of dazzling light, of ardent sun-
shine falling on hedgerows and meadows fresh with
spring showers. You might almost see the grass
grow and the leaves expand under the influence of
that vivifying warmth ; and we passed through the
well-known and beautiful scenery of W. Park, and
the pretty village of M., with a feeling of new
admiration, as if we had never before felt their charms ;
so glorious did the trees in their young leaves, the
grass springing beneath them, the patches of golden
broom and deeper furze, the cottages covered with
roses, the blooming orchards, and the light snowy
143
sprays of the cherry trees tossing their fair blossoms
across the deep blue sky, pour upon the eye the full
magic of colour. On we passed gaily and happily
as far as we knew our way perhaps a little further,
for the place of our destination was new to both of
us, when we had the luck, good or bad, to meet
with a director in the person of the butcher of M.
My companion is known to most people within a
circuit of ten miles ; so we had ready attention and
most civil guidance from the man of beef and
mutton a prodigious person, almost as big as a
prize ox, as rosy and jovial-looking as FalstafF him-
self, who was standing in the road with a slender
shrewd-looking boy, apt and ready enough to have
passed for the page. He soon gave us the proper,
customary, and unintelligible directions as to the
lanes and turnings first to the right, then to the
left, then round Farmer Jennings' close, then across
the Holy Brook, then to the right again till at last,
seeing us completely bewildered, he offered to send
the boy, who was going our way for half-a-mile to
carry out a shoulder of veal, to attend us to that
distance as a guide ; an offer gratefully accepted by
all parties, especially the lad, whom we relieved of
his burden and took up behind, where he swung
in an odd but apparently satisfactory posture, between
running and riding. While he continued with us
we fell into no mistakes ; but at last he and the
shoulder of veal reached their place of destination ;
and after listening to a repetition, or perhaps a varia-
tion, of the turns right and left which were to
conduct us to Bramley green, we and our little guide
parted.
144 ou ^ VILLAGE
On we went, twisting and turning through a
labyrinth of lanes, getting deeper and deeper every
moment, till at last, after many doublings, we be-
came fairly convinced that we had lost our way.
Not a soul was in the fields ; not a passenger in
the road ; not a cottage by the roadside ; so on we
went I am afraid to say how far (for when people
have lost their way" they are not the most accurate
measurers of distance) till we came suddenly on a
small farm-house, and saw at once that the road we
had trodden led to that farm, and thither only. The
solitary farm-house had one solitary inmate, a smiling
middle-aged woman, who came to us and offered
her services with the most alert civility : " All
her boys and girls were gone to the Maying," she
said, "and she remained to keep house." "The
Maying ! We are near Bramley, then ? " " Only
two miles the nearest way across the field were
we going ? she would see to the horse we should
soon be there, only over that stile, and then across
that field, and then turn to the right, and then take
the next turning no ! the next but one to the
left." Right and left again for two miles over those
deserted fields ! Right and left ! we shuddered at
the words. "Is there no carriage-road? Where
are we ? " " At Silchester, close to the walls, only
half-a-mile from the church." " At Silchester ! "
and in ten minutes we had said a thankful farewell
to our kind informant, had retraced our steps a
little, had turned up another lane, and found our-
selves at the foot of that commanding spot which
antiquaries call the amphitheatre, close under the
walls of the Roman city, and in full view of an old
145
acquaintance, the schoolmaster of Silchester, who
happened to be there in his full glory, playing the
part of Cicerone to a party of ladies, and explaining
far more than he knows, or than any one knows, of
streets, and gates, and sites of temples, which, by-
the-bye, the worthy pedagogue usually calls parish
churches. I never was so glad to see him in my
life, never thought he could have spoken with so
much sense and eloquence as were comprised in
the two words, " straight forward," by which he
answered our inquiry as to the road to Bramley.
And forward we went by a way beautiful be-
yond description : a road bounded on one side by
every variety of meadow, and corn-field, and rich
woodland ; on the other, by the rock-like walls of
the old city, crowning an abrupt, magnificent bank
of turf, broken by fragments, crags as it were,
detached from the ruin, and young trees, principally
ash, with silver stems standing out in picturesque
relief from the green slope, and itself crowned with
every sort of vegetation, from the rich festoons of
briar and ivy which garlanded its side, to the venera-
able oaks and beeches which nodded on its summit. I
never saw anything so fine in my life. To be sure,
we nearly broke our necks. Even I, who, having
been overset astonishingly often, without any harm
happening, have acquired, from frequency of escape,
the confidence of escaping, and the habit of not
caring for that particular danger, which is, I suppose,
what in a man, and in battle, would be called
courage ; even I was glad enough to get out, and
do all I could towards wriggling the gig round the
rock-like stones, or sometimes helping to lift the
146 OU^ VILLAGE
wheel over the smaller impediments. "We escaped
that danger, and left the venerable walls behind us.
But I am losing my way here, too ; I must loiter
on the road no longer. Our other delays of a
broken bridge a bog another wrong turning
and a meeting with a loaded wagon, in a lane too
narrow to pass all this must remain untold.
At last we reached a large farm-house at
Bramley ; another mile remained to the green, but
that was impassable. Nobody thinks of riding at
Bramley. The late lady of the manor, when at
rare and uncertain intervals she resided for a few
weeks at her house of B. R., used, in visiting her
only neighbour, to drive her coach and four through
her farmer's ploughed fields. We must walk : but
the appearance of gay crowds of rustics, all passing
along one path, gave assurance that this time we
should not lose our way. Oh, what a pretty path
it was ! along one sunny sloping field, up and
down, dotted with trees like a park ; then across
a deep shady lane, with cows loitering and cropping
grass from the banks ; then up a long narrow
meadow, in the very pride and vigour of its green-
ness, richly bordered by hedgerow timber, and
terminating in the churchyard and a little country
church.
Bramley church is well worth seeing. It con-
tains that rare thing, a monument fine in itself, and
finer in its situation. We had heard of it, and in
spite of the many delays we had experienced, could
not resist the temptation of sending one of the
loiterers, who seemed to stand in the churchyard
as a sort of out-guard to the Maying, to the vicar's
147
house for the key. Prepared as we had been to see
something unusual, we were very much struck. The
church is small, simple, decaying, almost ruinous ;
but as you turn from the entrance into the central
aisle, and advance up to the altar, your eye falls
on a lofty recess, branching out like a chapel on one
side, and seen through a Gothic arch. It is almost
paved with monumental brasses of the proud family
of B., who have possessed the surrounding property
from the time of the Conqueror ; and in the centre
of the large open space stands a large monument,
surrounded by steps, on which reclines the figure of
a dying man, with a beautiful woman leaning over
him, full of a lovely look of anxiety and tenderness.
The figures are very fine j but that which makes the
grace and glory of this remarkable piece of sculpture,
is its being backed by an immense Gothic window,
nearly the whole size of the recess, entirely composed
of old stained glass. I do not know the story which
the artist, in the series of pictures, intended to repre-
sent ; but there they are, the gorgeous, glorious
colours, reds and purples, and greens, glowing like
an anemone bed in the sunshine, or like one of the
windows made of amethysts and rubies in the Arabian
Tales, and throwing out the monumental figures with
an effect almost magical. The parish clerk was at
the Maying, and we had only an unlettered rustic to
conduct us, so that I do not even know the name of
the sculptor he must have a strange mingled feeling
if ever he saw his work in its present home delight
that it looks so well, and regret that there is no one
to look at it. That monument alone was worth losing
our way for
148 OU^ VILLAGE
But across two fields more, and up a quiet lane,
and we are at the Maying, announced afar off by the
merry sound of music, and the merrier clatter of
childish voices. Here we are at the green a little
turfy spot, where three roads meet, close shut in by
hedgerows, with a pretty white cottage, and its long
slip of a garden at one angle. I had no expectation
of scenery so compact, so like a glade in a forest ; it
is quite a cabinet picture, with green trees for the
frame. In the midst grows a superb horse-chestnut,
in the full glory of its flowery pyramids, and from
the trunk of the chestnut the May-houses commence.
They are covered alleys built of green boughs, de-
corated with garlands and great bunches of flowers,
the gayest that blow lilacs, Guelder-roses, peonies,
tulips, stocks hanging down like chandeliers among
the dancers j for of dancers, gay, dark-eyed young
girls in straw bonnets and white gowns, and their
lovers in their Sunday attire, the May-houses were
full. The girls had mostly the look of extreme
youth, and danced well and quietly like ladies too
much so ; I should have been glad to see less elegance
and more enjoyment ; and their partners, though not
altogether so graceful, were as decorous and as
indifferent as real gentlemen. It was quite like a
ball-room, as pretty and almost as dull. Outside
was the fun. It is the outside, the upper gallery of
the world, that has that good thing. There were
children laughing, eating, trying to cheat, and being
cheated, round an ancient and practised vendor of
oranges and gingerbread j and on the other side of
the tree lay a merry group of old men, in coats
almost as old as themselves, and young ones in no
\v
*
ng Jittit bay*
HfiJ Oirls &(>s>uf
their A0C
149
coats at all, excluded from the dance by the disgrace
of a smock-frock. Who would have thought of
etiquette finding its way into the May-houses !
That group would have suited Teniers ; it smoked
and drank a little, but it laughed a great deal more.
There were a few decent, matronly-looking women,
too, sitting in a cluster ; and young mothers strolling
about with infants in their arms ; and ragged boys
peeping through the boughs at the dancers ; and the
bright sun shining gloriously on all this innocent
happiness. Oh, what a pretty sight it was ! worth
losing our way for worth losing our dinner both
which events happened ; whilst a party of friends,
who were to have joined us, were far more unlucky ;
for they not only lost their way and their dinner, but
rambled all day about the country, and never reached
Bramley Maying.
IT is now eighteen months since our village first
sat for its picture, and I cannot say farewell to my
courteous readers without giving them a little in-
telligence of our goings on a sort of parting glance
at us and our condition. In outward appearance it
hath, I suppose, undergone less alteration than any
place of its inches in the kingdom. There it stands,
the same long straggling street of pretty cottages,
divided by pretty gardens, wholly unchanged in size
or appearance, unincreased and undiminished by a
single brick. To be sure, yesterday evening a slight
misfortune happened to our goodly tenement, occa-
sioned by the unlucky diligence mentioned in my first
notice, which, under the conduct of a sleepy coach-
man and a restive horse, contrived to knock down
and demolish the wall of our court, and fairly to
drive through the front garden, thereby destroying
in its course sundry curious stocks, carnations, and
geraniums. It is a mercy that the unruly steed was
content with battering the wall j for the messuage
itself would come about our ears at the touch of a
finger, and really there is one little end-parlour, an
afterthought of the original builder, which stands so
temptingly in the way, that I wonder the sagacious
130
151
quadruped missed it. There was quite din enough
without that addition. The three insides (ladies)
squalling from the interior of that commodious vehicle;
the outsides (gentlemen) swearing on the roof; the
coachman, still half asleep, but unconsciously blowing
his horn ; we in the house screaming and scolding ;
the passers-by shouting and hallooing ; and May, who
little brooked such an invasion of her territories,
barking in her tremendous lion-note, and putting
down the other noises like a clap of thunder. But
passengers, coachman, horses, and spectators all
righted at last ; and there is no harm done but to my
flowers and to the wall. May, however, stands be-
wailing the ruins, for that low wall was her favourite
haunt ; she used to parade backwards and forwards
on the top of it, as if to show herself, just after the
manner of a peacock on the top of a house; and
would sit or lie for hours on the corner next the gate,
basking in the sunshine like a marble statue. Really
she has quite the air of one who laments the destruc-
tion of personal property ; but the wall is to be rebuilt
to-morrow, with old weather-stained bricks no
patchwork ! and exactly in the same form ; May her-
self will not find the difference ; so that in the way
of alteration this little misfortune will pass for nothing.
Neither have we any improvements worth calling
such. Except that the wheeler's green door hath
been retouched, out of the same pot (as I judge from
the tint) with which he furbished up our new-old
pony-chaise ; that the shop-window of our neighbour,
the universal dealer, hath been beautified, and his
name and calling splendidly set forth in yellow letters
on a black ground ; and that our landlord of the Rose
152 OU^ VILLAGE
hath hoisted a new sign of unparalleled splendour;
one side consisting of a full-faced damask rose, of the
size and hue of a peony, the other of a maiden blush
in profile, which looks exactly like a carnation, so
that both flowers are considerably indebted to the
modesty of the " out-of-door artist," who has warily
written The Rose under each ! except these trifling
ornaments, which nothing but the jealous eye of a
lover could detect, the dear place is altogether
unchanged.
The only real improvement with which we have
been visited for our sins (I hate all innovations,
whether for better or worse, as if I was a furious
Tory, or a woman of threescore and ten) the only
misfortune of that sort which has befallen us is under
foot. The road has been adjusted on the plan of Mr
Macadam ; and a tremendous operation it is. I do
not know what good may ensue ; but for the last six
months some part or other of the highway has been
impassable for any feet, except such as are shod by
the blacksmith j and even the four-footed people who
wear iron shoes make wry faces, poor things ! at
those stones, enemies to man and beast. However,
the business is nearly done now ; we are covered with
sharp flints every inch of us, except a " bad step " up
the hill, which, indeed, looks like a bit cut out of the
deserts of Arabia, fitter for camels and caravans than
for Christian horses and coaches ; a point which, in
spite of my dislike of alteration, I was forced to
acknowledge to our surveyor, a portly gentleman,
who, in a smart gig, drawn by a prancing steed, was
kicking up a prodigious dust at that very moment.
He and I ought to be great enemies j for, besides the
153
Macadamite enormity of the stony road, he hath
actually been guilty of tree murder, having been
accessory before the fact in the death of three limes
along the rope-walk dear, sweet, innocent limes,
that did no harm on earth except shading the path !
Ifaever should have forgiven that offence, had not
their removal, by opening a beautiful view from the
village up the hill, reconciled even my tree-loving
eye to their abstraction. And, to say the truth,
though we have had twenty little squabbles, there is
no bearing malice with our surveyor ; he is so civil
and good-humoured, has such a bustling and happy
self-importance, such an honest earnestness in his
vocation (which is gratuitous, by-the-bye), and such
an intense conviction that the state of the turnpike
road between B. and K. is the principal affair of this
life, that I would not undeceive him for the world.
How often have I seen him in a cold winter morning,
with a face all frost and business, great-coated up to
the eyes, driving from post to post, from one gang of
labourers to another, praising, scolding, ordering,
cheated, laughed at, and liked by them all ! Well,
when once the hill is finished, we shall have done
with him for ever, as he used to tell me by way of
consolation, when I shook my head at him, as he
went jolting along over his dear new roads, at the
imminent risk of his springs and his bones ; we shall
see no more of him; for the Macadam ways are
warranted not to wear out. So be it j I never wish
to see a road-mender again.
But if the form of outward things be all un-
changed around us, if the dwellings of man remain
the same to the sight and the touch, the little world
154 OU K. VILLAGE
within hath undergone its usual mutations the hive
is the same, but of the bees some are dead and some
are flown away, and some that we left insects in the
shell are already putting forth their young wings.
Children in our village really sprout up like mush-
rooms ; the air is so promotive of growth, that the
rogues spring into men and women, as if touched by
Harlequin's wand, and are quite offended if one
happens to say or do anything which has a reference
to their previous .condition. My father grievously
affronted Sally L. only yesterday, by bestowing upon
her a great lump of gingerbread, with which he had
stuffed his pockets at a fair. She immediately, as she
said, gave it to the " children." Now Sally cannot
be above twelve, to my certain knowledge, though
taller than I am. Lizzy herself is growing womanly.
I actually caught that little lady stuck on a chest
of drawers, contemplating herself in the glass, and
striving with all her might to gather the rich curls
that hung about her neck, and turn them under a
comb. Well ! If Sally and Lizzy live to be old
maids, they may probably make the amende honorable
to time, and wish to be thought young again. In the
meanwhile, shall we walk up the street ?
The first cottage is that of Mr H., the patriot,
the illuminator, the independent and sturdy yet
friendly member of our little state, who, stout and
comely, with a handsome chaise-cart, a strong mare,
and a neat garden, might have passed for a portrait
of that enviable class of Englishmen, who, after a
youth of frugal industry, sit down in some retired
place, to " live upon their means." He and his wife
seemed the happiest couple on earth : except a little
155
too much leisure, I never suspected that they had one
trouble or one care. But Care, the witch, will come
everywhere, even to that happiest station, and this
prettiest place. She came in one of her most terrific
forms blindness or (which is perhaps still more
tremendous) the faint glimmering light and gradual
darkness which precede the total eclipse. For a long
time we had missed the pleasant bustling officiousness,
the little services, the voluntary tasks which our good
neighbour loved so well. Fruit-trees were blighted,
and escaped his grand specific, fumigation ; wasps
multiplied, and their nests remained untraced; the
cheerful modest knock with which, just at the very
hour when he knew it could be spared, he presented
himself to ask for the newspaper, was heard no
more ; he no longer hung over his gate to waylay
passengers, and entice them into chat; at last he
even left off driving his little chaise, and was only
seen moping up and down the garden-walk, or
stealing gropingly from the wood-pile to the house.
He evidently shunned conversation or questions,
forbade his wife to tell what ailed him, and even
when he put a green shade over his darkened eyes,
fled from human sympathy with a stern pride that
seemed almost ashamed of the humbling infirmity.
That strange (but to a vigorous and healthy man
perhaps natural) feeling soon softened. The disease
increased hourly, and he became dependent on his
excellent wife for every comfort and relief. She had
many willing assistants in her labour of love ; all his
neighbours strove to return, according to their several
means, the kindness which all had received from him
in some shape or other. The country boys, to whose
156 OU^ VILLAGE
service he had devoted so much time, in shaping bats,
constructing bows and arrows, and other quips and
trickeries of the same nature, vied with each other in
performing little offices about the yard and stable ;
and John Evans, the half-witted gardener, to whom
he had been a constant friend, repaid his goodness by
the most unwearied attention. Gratitude even seemed
to sharpen poor John's perception and faculties.
There is an old man in our parish workhouse who
occasionally walks through the streets, led by a little
boy holding the end of a long stick. The idea of
this man, who had lived in utter blindness for thirty
years, was always singularly distressing to Mr H. I
shall never forget the address with which our simple
gardener used to try to divert his attention from this
miserable fellow-sufferer. He would get between
them to prevent the possibility of recognition by the
dim and uncertain vision ; would talk loudly to drown
the peculiar noise, the sort of duet of feet, caused by
the quick short steps of the child, and the slow
irregular tread of the old man j and, if anyone
ventured to allude to blind Robert, he would turn
the conversation with an adroitness and acuteness
which might put to shame the proudest intellect. So
passed many months. At last Mr H. was persuaded
to consult a celebrated occulist, and the result was
most comforting. The disease was ascertained to be
a cataract j and now with the increase of darkness
came an increase of hope. The film spread,
thickened, ripened, speedily and healthily; and to-
day the requisite operation has been performed with
equal skill and success. You may still see some of
the country boys lingering round the gate with looks
GL^t^CE 157
of strong and wondering interest ; poor John is going
to and fro, he knows not for what, unable to rest a
moment ; Mrs H., too, is walking in the garden,
shedding tears of thankfulness ; and he who came to
support their spirit, the stout, strong-hearted farmer
A., seems trembling and overcome. The most tranquil
person in the house is probably the patient : he bore
the operation with resolute firmness, and he has seen
again. Think of the bliss bound up in those four
words ! He is in darkness now, and must remain so
for some weeks ; but he has seen, and will see ; and
that humble cottage is again a happy dwelling.
Next we come to the shoemaker's abode. All
is unchanged there, except that its master becomes
more industrious and more pale - faced, and that
his fair daughter is a notable exemplification of
the development which I have already noticed
amongst our young things. But she is in the
real transition state, just emerging from the chry-
salis, and the eighteen months, between fourteen
and a half and sixteen, would metamorphose a
child into a woman all the world over. She is
still pretty, but not so elegant as when she wore
frocks and pinafores, and unconsciously classical,
parted her long brown locks in the middle of her
forehead, and twisted them up in a knot behind,
giving to her finely shaped head and throat the
air of a Grecian statue. Then she was stirring
all day in her small housewifery, or her busy
idleness, delving and digging in her flower-border,
tossing and dandling every infant that came within
her reach, feeding pigs and poultry, playing with
May, and prattling with an open-hearted frankness
158 OL/X. VILLAGE
to the country lads, who assemble at evening in
the shop to enjoy a little gentle gossiping ; for be
it known to my London readers, that the shoe-
maker's in a country village is now what (accord-
ing to tradition and the old novels) the barber's
used to be the resort of all the male news-
mongers, especially the young. Then she talked
to these visitors gaily and openly, sang, and
laughed, and ran in and out, and took no more
thought of a young man than of a gosling. Then
she was only fourteen. Now she wears gowns
and aprons puts her hair in paper has left off
singing, talks has left off running, walks nurses
the infants with a grave solemn grace has entirely
cut her former playmate, Mayflower, who tosses
her pretty head as much as to say who cares ?
and has nearly renounced all acquaintance with the
visitors to the shop, who are by no means disposed
to take matters so quietly. There she stands on
the threshold, shy and demure, just vouchsafing
a formal nod or a faint smile as they pass, and if
she in her turn be compelled to pass the open
door of their newsroom (for the working apart-
ment is separate from the house), edging along
as slyly and mincingly as if there were no such
beings as young men in the world. Exquisite
coquette ! I think (she is my opposite neighbour,
and I have a right to watch her doings the right
of retaliation) there is one youth particularly dis-
tinguished by her non-notice, one whom she never
will see nor speak to, who stands a very fair
chance to carry her off. He is called Jem
Tanner, and is a fine lad, with an open ruddy
GL^S^CE 159
countenance, a clear blue eye, and curling hair of
that tint which the poets are pleased to denominate
golden. Though not one of our eleven, he was
a promising cricketer. We have missed him lately
on the green at the Sunday evening game, and I find
on inquiry that he now frequents a chapel about a
mile off, where he is the best male-singer, as our
nymph of the shoe-shop is incomparably the first
female. I am not fond of betting j but I would
venture the lowest stake of gentility, a silver three-
pence, that, before the winter ends, a wedding will
be the result of these weekly meetings at the chapel.
In the long dark evenings, when the father has
enough to do in piloting the mother with con-
jugal gallantry through the dirty lanes, think of the
opportunity that Jem will have to escort the daughter!
A little difficulty he may have to encounter : the lass
will be coy for a while ; the mother will talk of their
youth, the father of their finances j but the marriage,
I doubt not, will ensue.
Next in order, on the other side of the street, is
the blacksmith's house. Change has been busy here
in a different and more awful form. Our sometime
constable, the tipsiest of parish officers, of black-
smiths, and of men, is dead. Returning from a revel
with a companion as full of beer as himself, one or
the other, or both, contrived to overset the cart in
a ditch (the living scapegrace is pleased to lay the
blame of the mishap on the horse, but that is contrary
to all probability, this respectable quadruped being a
water-drinker) ; and inward bruises, acting on in-
flamed blood and an impaired constitution, carried
him off in a very short time, leaving an ailing wife
i6o OU VILLAGE
and eight children, the eldest of whom is only four-
teen years of age. This sounds like a very tragical
story; yet, perhaps, because the loss of a drunken
husband is not quite so great a calamity as the loss of
a sober one, the effect of this event is not altogether
so melancholy as might be expected. The widow,
when she was a wife, had a complaining, broken-
spirited air, a peevish manner, a whining voice, a
dismal countenance, and a person so neglected and
slovenly, that it was difficult to believe that she had
once been remarkably handsome. She is now quite
another woman. The very first Sunday she put on
her weeds, we all observed how tidy and comfortable
she looked, how much her countenance, in spite of
a decent show of tears, was improved, and how
completely through all her sighings her tone had
lost its peevishness. I have never seen her out of
spirits or out of humour since. She talks and laughs
and bustles about, managing her journeymen and
scolding her children as notably as any dame in the
parish. The very house looks more cheerful ; she
has cut down the old willow trees that stood in
the court, and let in the light ; and now the sun
glances brightly from the casement windows, and
plays amidst the vine-leaves and the clusters of grapes
which cover the walls ; the door is newly painted,
and shines like the face of its mistress ; even the
forge has lost half its dinginess. Everything smiles.
She indeed talks by fits of " poor George," especially
when any allusion to her old enemy, mine host of
the Rose, brings the deceased to her memory ; then
she bewails (as is proper) her dear husband and her
desolate condition ; calls herself a lone widow ; sighs
161
over her eight children; complains of the troubles
of business, and tries to persuade herself and others
that she is as wretched as a good wife ought to be.
But this will not do. She is a happier woman than
she has been any time these fifteen years, and she
knows it. My dear village husbands, if you have
a mind that your wives should be really sorry when
you die, whether by a fall from a cart or otherwise,
keep from the ale-house !
Next comes the tall thin red house, that ought
to boast genteeler inmates than its short fat mistress,
its children, its pigs, and its quantity of noise, "happi-
ness, and vulgarity. The din is greater than ever.
The husband, a merry jolly tar, with a voice that
sounds as if issuing from a speaking-trumpet, is
returned from a voyage to India ; and another little
one, a chubby roaring boy, has added his lusty cries
to the family concert.
This door, blockaded by huge bales of goods,
and half darkened by that moving mountain, the
tilted waggon of the S. mill, which stands before
it, belongs to the village shop. Increase has been
here too in every shape. Within fourteen months
two little pretty quiet girls have come into the world.
Before Fanny could well manage to totter across the
road to her good friend the nymph of the shoe-shop,
Margaret made her appearance ; and poor Fanny,
discarded at once from the maid's arms and her
mother's knee, degraded from the rank and privi-
leges of " the baby " (for at that age precedence is
strangely reversed), would have had a premature
foretaste of the instability of human felicity, had she
not taken refuge with that best of nurses, a fond
161 OU VILLAGE
father. Everything thrives about the shop, from
the rosy children to the neat maid and the smart
apprentice. No room now for lodgers, and no need !
The young mantua-making schoolmistresses, the old
inmates, are gone ; one of them not very far. She
grew tired of scolding little boys and girls about
their ABC, and of being scolded in her turn by
their sisters and mothers about pelisses and gowns ;
so she gave up both trades almost a year ago, and
has been ever since our pretty Harriet. I do not
think she has ever repented of the exchange, though
it might not perhaps have been made so soon, had
not her elder sister, who had been long engaged to
an attendant at one of the colleges of Oxford, thought
herself on the point of marriage just as the house-
maid left us. Poor Betsy ! She had shared the fate
of many a prouder maiden, wearing out her youth in
expectation of the promotion that was to authorise
her union with the man of her heart. Many a year
had she waited in smiling constancy, fond of William
in no common measure, and proud of him, as well
she might be j for, when the vacation so far lessened
his duties as to render a short absence practicable,
and he stole up here for a few days to enjoy her
company, it was difficult to distinguish him in air
and manner, as he sauntered about in elegant in-
dolence with his fishing-rod and his flute, from the
young Oxonians, his masters. At last promotion
came j and Betsy, apprised of it by an affectionate
and congratulatory letter from his sister, prepared
her wedding-clothes, and looked hourly for the bride-
groom. No bridegroom came. A second letter
announced, with regret and indignation, that William
GL^S^CE 163
had made another choice, and was to be married
early in the ensuing month. Poor Betsy ! We were
alarmed for her health, almost for her life. She
wept incessantly, took no food, wandered recklessly
about from morning till night, lost her natural rest,
her flesh, her colour j and in less than a week she
was so altered that no one would have known her.
Consolation and remonstrance were alike rejected,
till at last Harriet happened to strike the right chord
by telling her that " she wondered at her want of
spirit." This was touching her on the point of
honour ; she had always been remarkably high-
spirited, and could as little brook the imputation as
a soldier or a gentleman. This lucky suggestion
gave an immediate turn to her feelings : anger and
scorn succeeded to grief; she wiped her eyes,
" hemmed away a sigh," and began to scold most
manfully. She did still better. She recalled an
old admirer, who, in spite of repeated objections,
had remained constant in his attachment, and made
such good speed that she was actually married the
day before her faithless lover, and is now the happy
wife of a very respectable tradesman.
Ah ! the in-and-out cottage ! the dear, dear
home ! No weddings there ! No changes ! ex-
cept that the white kitten, who sits purring at a
window under the great myrtle, has succeeded to
his lamented grandfather, our beautiful Persian cat.
I cannot find one alteration to talk about. The
wall of the court indeed but that will be mended
to-morrow.
Here is the new sign, the well-frequented
Rose inn. Plenty of changes there ! Our landlord
1 64 OU^ VILLAGE
is always improving, if it be only a pig-sty or a
watering-trough plenty of changes and one splendid
wedding. Miss Phoebe is married, not to her old
lover the recruiting sergeant (for he had one wife
already, probably more), but to a patten-maker,
as arrant a dandy as ever wore mustachios. How
Phoebe could "abase her eyes" from the stately
sergeant to this youth, half a foot shorter than her-
self, whose " waist would go into any alderman's
thumb-ring," might, if the final choice of a coquette
had ever been matter of wonder, have occasioned
some speculation. But our patten-maker is a man
of spirit; and the wedding was of extraordinary
splendour. Three gigs, each containing four persons,
graced the procession, besides numerous carts and
innumerable pedestrians. The bride was equipped
in muslin and satin, and really looked very pretty
with her black sparkling eyes, her clear brown com-
plexion, her blushes and her smiles ; the bride-
maidens were only less smart than the bride; and
the bridegroom was " point device in his accoutre-
ments," and as munificent as a nabob. Cake flew
about the village ; plum-puddings were abundant ;
and strong beer, ay, even mine host's best double
X, was profusely distributed. There was all manner
of eating and drinking, with singing, fiddling, and
dancing between ; and in the evening, to crown all,
there was Mr Moon, the conjuror. Think of that
stroke of good fortune ! Mr Moon, the very pearl of
all conjurors, who had the honour of puzzling and
delighting their late Majesties with his " wonderful
and pleasing exhibition of Thaumaturgics, Tachy-
graphy, mathematical operations, and magical decep-
GL^^CE 165
tions," happened to arrive about an hour before
dinner, and commenced his ingenious deceptions
very unintentionally at our house. Calling to
apply for permission to perform in the village,
being equipped in a gay scarlet coat, and having
something smart and sportsmanlike in his appear-
ance, he was announced by Harriet as one of the
gentlemen of the C. hunt, and taken (mistaken I
should have said) by the whole family for a certain
captain newly arrived in the neighbourhood. That
misunderstanding, which must, I think, have retaliated
on Mr Moon a little of the puzzlement that he inflicts
on others, vanished of course at the production of
his bill of fare ; and the requested permission was
instantly given. Never could he have arrived in a
happier hour. Never were spectators more gratified
or more scared. All the tricks prospered. The cock
crew after his head was cut off; and half-crowns and
sovereigns flew about as if winged ; and the very
wedding-ring could not escape Mr Moon's incanta-
tions. We heard of nothing else for a week. From
the bridegroom, esprit fort, who defied all manner
of conjuration and diablerie, down to my Lizzy,
whose boundless faith swallows the Arabian Tales,
all believed and trembled. So thoroughly were men,
women, and children impressed with the idea of the
worthy conjuror's dealings with the devil, that when
he had occasion to go to B., not a soul would give
him a cast, from pure awe ; and if it had not been for
our pony-chaise, poor Mr Moon must have walked.
I hope he is really a prophet ; for he foretold all
happiness to the new-married pair.
So this pretty white house with the lime-trees
M
1 66 OU VILLAGE
before it, which has been under repair for these
three years, is on the point of being finished. The
vicar has taken it, as the vicarage-house is not yet
fit for his reception. He has sent before him a
neat modest maid-servant, whose respectable appear-
ance gives a character to her master and mistress
a hamper full of flower-roots, sundry boxes of books,
a pianoforte, and some simple and useful furniture.
Well, we shall certainly have neighbours, and I have
a presentiment that we shall find friends.
Lizzy, you may now come along with me round
the corner and up the lane, just to the end of the
wheeler's shop, and then we shall go home ; it is
high time. What is this affiche in the parlour window ?
" Apartments to let enquire within." These are
certainly the curate's lodgings is he going away ?
Oh, I suppose the new vicar will do his own duty
yet, however well he may do it, rich and poor will
regret the departure of Mr B. Well, I hope that he
may soon get a good living. "Lodgings to let"
who ever thought of seeing such a placard hereabout ?
The lodgings, indeed, are very convenient for "a
single gentleman, a man and his wife, or two sisters,"
as the newspapers say comfortable apartments, neat
and tasty withal, and the civilest of all civil treatment
from the host and hostess. But who would ever have
dreamt of such a notice ? Lodgings to let in our
village !
I DOUBT if there be any scene in the world more
animating or delightful than a cricket-match : I do
not mean a set match at Lord's Ground for money,
hard money, between a certain number of gentlemen
and players, as they are called people who make a
trade of that noble sport, and degrade it into an
affair of bettings, and hedgings, and cheatings, it may
be, like boxing or horse-racing; nor do I mean a
pretty fete in a gentleman's park, where one club of
cricketing dandies encounter another such club, and
where they show off in graceful costume to a gay
marquee of admiring belles, who condescend so to
purchase admiration, and while away a long summer
morning in partaking cold collations, conversing
occasionally, and seeming to understand the game
the whole being conducted according to ball-room
etiquette, so as to be exceedingly elegant and ex-
ceedingly dull. No ! the cricket that I mean is a
real solid old-fashioned match between neighbouring
parishes, where each attacks the other for honour
and a supper, glory and half-a-crown a man. If
there be any gentleman amongst them, it is well
if not, it is so much the better. Your gentleman
cricketer is in general rather an anomalous character.
167
168 OU VILLAGE '
Elderly gentlemen are obviously good for nothing ;
and your beaux are, for the most part, hampered and
trammelled by dress and habit ; the stiff cravat, the
pinched-in waist, the dandy-walk oh, they will
never do for cricket ! Now, our country lads,
accustomed to the flail or the hammer (your black-
smiths are capital hitters), have the free use of their
arms ; they know how to move their shoulders ; and
they can move their feet too they can run; then
they are so much better made, so much more
athletic, and yet so much lissomer to use a Hamp-
shire phrase, which deserves at least to be good
English. Here and there, indeed, one meets with
an old Etonian, who retains his boyish love for that
game which formed so considerable a branch of his
education ; some even preserve their boyish pro-
ficiency, but in general it wears away like the Greek,
quite as certainly, and almost as fast j a few years of
Oxford, or Cambridge, or the continent, are sufficient
to annihilate both the power and the inclination.
No ! a village match is the thing where our highest
officer our conductor (to borrow a musical term)
is but a little farmer's second son ; where a day-
labourer is our bowler, and a blacksmith our long-
stop ; where the spectators consist of the retired
cricketers, the veterans of the green, the careful
mothers, the girls, and all the boys of two parishes,
together with a few amateurs, little above them in
rank, and not at all in pretension ; where laughing
and shouting, and the very ecstasy of merriment
and good-humour prevail : such a match, in short,
as I attended yesterday, at the expense of getting
twice wet through, and as I would attend to-
C^CI^ET-^M^TCH 169
morrow, at the certainty of having that ducking
doubled.
For the last three weeks our village has been in
a state of great excitement, occasioned by a challenge
from our north-western neighbours, the men of B.,
to contend with us at cricket. Now, we have not
been much in the habit of playing matches. Three
or four years ago, indeed, we encountered the men
of S., our neighbours south-by-east, with a sort of
doubtful success, beating them on our own ground,
whilst they in the second match returned the com-
pliment on theirs. This discouraged us. Then an
unnatural coalition between a high-church curate and
an evangelical gentleman-farmer drove our lads from
the Sunday-evening practice, which, as it did not
begin before both services were concluded, and as it
tended to keep the young men from the ale-house,
our magistrates had winked at, if not encouraged.
The sport, therefore, had languished until the
present season, when under another change of cir-
cumstances the spirit began to revive. Half-a-dozen
fine active lads, of influence amongst their comrades,
grew into men and yearned for cricket ; an enter-
prising publican gave a set of ribands : his rival, mine
host of the Rose, an out-doer by profession, gave
two j and the clergyman and his lay ally, both well-
disposed and good-natured men, gratified by the
submission to their authority, and finding, perhaps,
that no great good resulted from the substitution of
public-houses for out-of-door diversions, relaxed.
In short, the practice recommenced, and the hill was
again alive with men and boys, and innocent merri-
ment ; but farther than the riband matches amongst
170 OU3^ VILLAGE
ourselves nobody dreamed of going, till this chal-
lenge we were modest, and doubted our own
strength. The B. people, on the other hand, must
have been braggers born, a whole parish of gascon-
aders. Never was such boasting ! such crowing !
such ostentatious display of practice ! such mutual
compliments from man to man bowler to batter,
batter to bowler ! It was a wonder they did not
challenge all England. It must be confessed that we
were a little astounded ; yet we firmly resolved not
to decline the combat j and one of the most spirited
of the new growth, William Grey by name, took up
the glove in a style of manly courtesy, that would have
done honour to a knight in the days of chivalry.
" We were not professed players," he said, "being
little better than school-boys, and scarcely older j
but, since they had done us the honour to challenge
us, we would try our strength. It would be no
discredit to be beaten by such a field."
Having accepted the wager of battle, our
champion began forthwith to collect his forces.
William Grey is himself one of the finest youths
that one shall see tall, active, slender and yet
strong, with a piercing eye full of sagacity, and a
smile full of good humour, a farmer's son by
station, and used to hard work as farmers' sons are
now, liked by everybody, and admitted to be an
excellent cricketer. He immediately set forth to
muster his men, remembering with great complacency
that Samuel Long, a bowler comme II y en a peu, the
very man who had knocked down nine wickets, had
beaten us, bowled us out at the fatal return match
some years ago at S., had luckily, in a remove of
a quarter of a mile last Ladyday, crossed the
boundaries of his old parish, and actually belonged
to us. Here was a stroke of good fortune ! Our
captain applied to him instantly ; and he agreed at
a word. Indeed, Samuel Long is a very civilised
person. He is a middle-aged man, who looks rather
old amongst our young lads, and whose thickness
and breadth give no token of remarkable activity ;
but he is very active, and so steady a player ! so
safe ! We had half gained the match when we had
secured him. He is a man of substance, too, in every
way ; owns one cow, two donkeys, six pigs, and
geese and ducks beyond count dresses like a farmer,
and owes no man a shilling and all this from pure
industry, sheer day-labour. Note that - your good
cricketer is commonly the most industrious man in
the parish ; the habits that make him such are pre-
cisely those which make a good workman steadiness,
sobriety, and activity Samuel Long might pass for
the beau ideal of the two characters. Happy were
we to possess him ! Then we had another piece of
good luck. James Brown, a journeyman blacksmith
and a native, who, being of a rambling disposition,
had roamed from place to place for half-a-dozen
years, had just returned to settle with his brother at
another corner of our village, bringing with him a
prodigious reputation in cricket and in gallantry the
gay Lothario of the neighbourhood. He is said to
have made more conquests in love and in cricket
than any blacksmith in the county. To him also
went the indefatigable William Grey, and he also
consented to play. No end to our good fortune !
Another celebrated batter, called Joseph Hearne,
172 OU^ VILLAGE
had likewise recently married into the parish. He
worked, it is true, at the A. mills, but slept at the
house of his wife's father in our territories. He also
was sought and found by our leader. But he was
grand and shy ; made an immense favour of the
thing ; courted courting and then hung back : " Did
not know that he could be spared ; had partly re-
solved not to play again at least not this season;
thought it rash to accept the challenge ; thought
they might do without him - " " Truly I think
so too," said our spirited champion; "we will not
trouble you, Mr Hearne."
Having thus secured two powerful auxiliaries,
and rejected a third, we began to reckon and select
the regular native forces. Thus ran our list :
William Grey, I. Samuel Long, 2. James Brown,
3. George and John Simmons, one capital, the
other so-so an uncertain hitter, but a good fields-
man, 5. Joel Brent, excellent, 6. Ben Appleton
here was a little pause Ben's abilities at cricket were
not completely ascertained ; but then he was so good
a fellow, so full of fun and waggery ! no doing with-
out Ben. So he figured in the list, 7. George
Harris a short halt there too ! Slowish slow but
sure. I think the proverb brought him in, 8. Tom
Coper oh, beyond the world, Tom Coper ! the
red-headed gardening lad, whose left-handed strokes
send her (a cricket-ball, like that other moving
thing, a ship, is always of the feminine gender),
send her spinning a mile, 9. Harry Willis, another
blacksmith, 10.
We had now ten of our eleven, but the choice
of the last occasioned some demur. Three young
C^C^ET-^M^TCH 173
Martins, rich farmers of the neighbourhood, suc-
cessively presented themselves, and were all rejected
by our independent and impartial general for want of
merit cricketal merit. "Not good enough," was
his pithy answer. Then our worthy neighbour, the
half-pay lieutenant, offered his services he, too,
though with some hesitation and modesty, was re-
fused " Not quite young enough" was his sentence.
John Strong, the exceeding long son of our dwarfish
mason, was the next candidate a nice youth every-
body likes John Strong and a willing, but so tall
and so limp, bent in the middle a thread-paper, six
feet high ! We were all afraid that, in spite of his
name, his strength would never hold out. " Wait
till next year, John," quoth William Grey, with all
the dignified seniority of twenty speaking to eighteen.
" Coper's a year younger," said John. " Coper's a
foot shorter," replied William : so John retired : and
the eleventh man remained unchosen, almost to the
eleventh hour. The eve of the match arrived, and
the post was still vacant, when a little boy of fifteen,
David Willis, brother to Harry, admitted by accident
to the last practice, saw eight of them out, and was
voted in by acclamation.
That Sunday evening's practice (for Monday was
the important day) was a period of great anxiety, and,
to say the truth, of great pleasure. There is some-
thing strangely delightful in the innocent spirit of
party. To be one of a numerous body, to be
authorised to say we, to have a rightful interest in
triumph or defeat, is gratifying at once to social feel-
ing and to personal pride. There was not a ten-
year-old urchin, or a septuagenary woman in the
174 OU K. VILLAGE
parish, who did not feel an additional importance, a
reflected consequence, in speaking of " our side."
An election interests in the same way ; but that feel-
ing is less pure. Money is there, and hatred, and
politics, and lies. Ohj to be a voter, or a voter's
wife, comes nothing near the genuine and hearty
sympathy of belonging to a parish, breathing the
same air, looking on the same trees, listening to the
same nightingales ! Talk of a patriotic elector ! Give
me a parochial patriot, a man who loves his parish !
Even we, the female partisans, may partake the
common ardour. I am sure I did. I never, though
tolerably eager and enthusiastic at all times, remember
being in a more delicious state of excitement than on
the eve of that battle. Our hopes waxed stronger
and stronger. Those of our players who were
present were excellent. William Grey got forty
notches off his own bat ; and that brilliant hitter,
Tom Coper, gained eight from two successive balls.
As the evening advanced, too, we had encourage-
ment of another sort. A spy, who had been de-
spatched to reconnoitre the enemy's quarters, returned
from their practising ground with a most consolatory
report. " Really," said Charles Grover, our intelli-
gence a fine old steady judge, one who had played
well in his day " they are no better than so many
old women. Any five of ours would beat their
eleven." This sent us to bed in high spirits.
Morning dawned less favourably. The sky
promised a series of deluging showers, and kept its
word as English skies are wont to do on such
occasions ; and a lamentable message arrived at the
headquarters from our trusty comrade Joel Brent.
' C<%ICf(ET-<!MfTCH 175
His master, a great farmer, had begun the hay-harvest
that very morning, and Joel, being as eminent in one
field as in another, could not be spared. Imagine
Joel's plight ! the most ardent of all our eleven ! a
knight held back from the tourney ! a soldier from
the battle ! The poor swain was inconsolable. At
last, one who is always ready to do a good-natured
action, great or little, set forth to back his position ;
and, by dint of appealing to the public spirit of our
worthy neighbour and the state of the barometer,
talking alternately of the parish honour and thunder-
showers, of lost matches and sopped hay, he carried
his point, and returned triumphantly with the de-
lighted Joel.
In the meantime we became sensible of another
defalcation. On calling over our roll, Brown was
missing ; and the spy of the preceding night, Charles
Grover the universal scout and messenger of the
village, a man who will run half-a-dozen miles for a
pint of beer, who does errands for the very love of
the trade, who, if he had been a lord, would have
been an ambassador was instantly despatched to
summon the truant. His report spread general con-
sternation. Brown had set off at four o'clock in the
morning to play in a cricket match at M., a little town
twelve miles off, which had been his last residence.
Here was desertion ! Here was treachery ! Here
was treachery against that goodly state, our parish !
To send James Brown to Coventry was the im-
mediate resolution ; but even that seemed too light
a punishment for such delinquency. Then how we
cried him down ! At ten on Sunday night (for the
rascal had actually practised with us, and never said
1 76 OU^ VILLAGE
a word of his intended disloyalty) he was our faithful
mate, and the best player (take him for all in all) of
the eleven. At ten in the morning he had run away,
and we were well rid of him ; he was no batter com-
pared with William Grey or Tom Coper ; not fit to
wipe the shoes of Samuel Long, as a bowler ; nothing
of a scout to John Simmons ; the boy David Willis
was worth fifty of him
" I trust we have within our realm,
Five hundred good as he,"
was the universal sentiment. So we took tall John
Strong, who, with an incurable hankering after the
honour of being admitted, had kept constantly with
the players, to take the chance of some such accident
we took John for our pis-aller. I never saw any
one prouder than the good-humoured lad was of this
not very flattering piece of preferment.
John Strong was elected, and Brown sent to
Coventry j and when I first heard of his delinquency,
I thought the punishment only too mild for the crime.
But I have since learned the secret history of the
offence (if we could know the secret histories of all
offences, how much better the world would seem
than it does now !) and really my wrath is much
abated. It was a piece of gallantry, of devotion to
the sex, or rather a chivalrous obedience to one
chosen fair. I must tell my readers the story. Mary
Allen, the prettiest girl of M., had, it seems, revenged
upon our blacksmith the numberless inconsistencies of
which he stood accused. He was in love over head
and ears, but the nymph was cruel. She said no,
and no, and no, and poor Brown, three times rejected,
at last resolved to leave the place, partly in despair,
d COUWT<%r C^d^ET-^M^TCH 177
and partly in that hope which often mingles strangely
with a lover's despair, the hope that when he was
gone he should be missed. He came home to his
brother's accordingly ; but for five weeks he heard
nothing from or of the inexorable Mary, and was
glad to beguile his own " vexing thoughts " by
endeavouring to create in his mind an artificial and
factitious interest in our cricket-match all unim-
portant as such a trifle must have seemed to a man in
love. Poor James, however, is a social and warm-
hearted person, not likely to resist a contagious
sympathy. As the time for the play advanced, the
interest which he had at first affected became genuine
and sincere : and he was really, when he left the
ground on Sunday night, almost as enthusiastically
absorbed in the event of the next day as Joel Brent
himself. He little foresaw the new and delightful
interest which awaited him at home, where, on the
moment of his arrival, his sister-in-law and confidante
presented him with a billet from the lady of his heart.
It had, with the usual delay of letters sent by private
hands in that rank of life, loitered on the road, in a
degree inconceivable to those who are accustomed to
the punctual speed of the post, and had taken ten
days for its twelve miles' journey. Have my readers
any wish to see this billet-doux? I can show them
(but in strict confidence) a literal copy. It was
addressed,
" For mistur jem browne
" blaxmith by
"S."
The inside ran thus : " Mistur browne this is
to Inform you that cure parish plays bramley men
1 78 OU^ VILLAGE
next monday is a week, i think we shall lose without
yew. from your humbell servant to command
" MARY ALLEN."
Was there ever a prettier relenting ? a summons
more flattering, more delicate, more irresistible ? The
precious epistle was undated ; but, having ascertained
who brought it, and found, by cross-examining the
messenger, that the Monday in question was the very
next day, we were not surprised to find that Mistur
browne forgot his engagement to us, forgot all but
Mary and Mary's letter, and set off at four o'clock
the next morning to walk twelve miles, and play for
her parish, and in her sight. Really we must not
send James Brown to Coventry must we ? Though
if, as his sister-in-law tells our damsel Harriet he
hopes to do, he should bring the fair Mary home as
his bride, he will not greatly care how little we say
to him. But he must not be sent to Coventry
True-love forbid !
At last we were all assembled, and marched
down to H. common, the appointed ground, which,
though in our dominions according to the maps, was
the constant practising place of our opponents, and
terra incognita to us. We found our adversaries on
the ground as we expected, for our various delays
had hindered us from taking the field so early as we
wished ; and, as soon as we had settled all pre-
liminaries, the match began.
But, alas ! I have been so long settling my
preliminaries, that I have left myself no room for the
detail of our victory, and must squeeze the account
of our grand achievements into as little compass as
C<I(ICI(ET-M^TCH 179
Cowley, when he crammed the names of eleven of his
mistresses into the narrow space of four eight-syllable
lines. They began the warfare those boastful men
of B. And what think you, gentle reader, was the
amount of their innings ! These challengers the
famous eleven how many did they get ? Think !
imagine ! guess ! You cannot ? Well ! they got
twenty-two, or, rather, they got twenty ; for two of
theirs were short notches, and would never have been
allowed, only that, seeing what they were made of,
we and our umpires were not particular. They
should have had twenty more if they had chosen to
claim them. Oh, how well we fielded ! and how
well we bowled ! our good play had quite as much
to do with their miserable failure as their bad.
Samuel Long is a slow bowler, George Simmons
a fast one, and the change from Long's Jobbing to
Simmons's fast balls posed them completely. Poor
simpletons ! they were always wrong, expecting the
slow for the quick, and the quick for the slow.
Well, we went in. And what were our innings ?
Guess again ! guess ! A hundred and sixty-nine !
in spite of soaking showers, and wretched ground,
where the ball would not run a yard, we headed them
by a hundred and forty-seven j and then they gave in,
as well they might. William Grey pressed them
much to try another innings. " There was so much
chance," as he courteously observed, " in cricket,
that advantageous as our position seemed, we might,
very possibly, be overtaken. The B. men had better
try." But they were beaten sulky, and would not
move to my great disappointment ; I wanted to
prolong the pleasure of success. What a glorious
i8o OU VILLAGE
sensation it is to be for five hours together winning
winning ! always feeling what a whist-player feels
when he takes up four honours, seven trumps !
Who would think that a little bit of leather, and two
pieces of wood, had such a delightful and delighting
power !
The only drawback on my enjoyment was the
failure of the pretty boy, David Willis, who, in-
judiciously put in first, and playing for the first time
in a match amongst men and strangers, who talked to
him, and stared at him, was seized with such a fit of
shamefaced shyness, that he could scarcely hold his
bat, and was bowled out without a stroke, from actual
nervousness. " He will come off that," Tom Coper
says I am afraid he will. I wonder whether Tom
had ever any modesty to lose. Our other modest lad,
John Strong, did very well ; his length told in fielding,
and he got good fame. Joel Brent, the rescued mower,
got into a scrape, and out of it again ; his fortune for
the day. He ran out his mate, Samuel Long ; who,
I do believe, but tor the excess of Joel's eagerness,
would have stayed in till this time, by which exploit
he got into sad disgrace ; and then he himself
got thirty-seven runs, which redeemed his reputation.
Will Grey made a hit which actually lost the cricket-
ball. We think she lodged in a hedge, a quarter
of a mile off, but nobody could find her. And
George Simmons had nearly lost his shoe, which he
tossed away in a passion, for having been caught out,
owing to the ball glancing against it. These,
together with a very complete somerset of Ben
Appleton, our long-stop, who floundered about in the
mud, making faces and attitudes as laughable as
181
Grimaldi, none could tell whether by accident or
design, were the chief incidents of the scene of action.
Amongst the spectators nothing remarkable occurred,
beyond the general calamity of two or three drench-
ings, except that a form, placed by the side of a
hedge, under a very insufficient shelter, was knocked
into the ditch, in a sudden rush of the cricketers to
escape a pelting shower, by which means all parties
shared the fate of Ben Appleton, some on land and
some by water j and that, amidst the scramble, a
saucy gipsy of a girl contrived to steal from the knee
of the demure and well-apparelled Samuel Long, a smart
handkerchief which his careful dame had tied round
it to preserve his new (what is the mincing feminine
word ?) his new inexpressibles, thus reversing the
story of Desdemona, and causing the new Othello to
call aloud for his handkerchief, to the great diversion
of the company. And so we parted ; the players
retired to their supper, and we to our homes j all wet
through, all good-humoured and happy except the
losers.
To-day we are happy too. Hats, with ribands
in them, go glancing up and down ; and William
Grey says, with a proud humility, " We do not
challenge any parish ; but if we be challenged, we
are ready."
N
A MORNING RAMBLE
MAY THE 3RD. Cold, bright weather. All
within doors sunny and chilly ; all without windy
and dusty. It is quite tantalising to see that brilliant
sun careering through so beautiful a sky, and to feel
little more warmth from his presence than one does
from that of his fair but cold sister, the moon. Even
the sky, beautiful as it is, has the look of that one
sometimes sees in a very bright moonlight night
deeply, intensely blue, with white clouds driven
vigorously along by a strong breeze now veiling,
and now exposing the dazzling luminary around
which they sail. A beautiful sky ! and, in spite of
its coldness, a beautiful world ! The effect of this
backward spring has been to arrest the early flowers,
to which heat is the great enemy ; whilst the leaves
and the later flowers have, nevertheless, ventured to
peep out slowly and cautiously in sunny places
exhibiting in the copses and hedgerows a pleasant
mixture of March and May. And we, poor chilly
mortals, must follow, as nearly as we can, the wise
example of the May blossoms, by avoiding bleak
paths and open commons, and creeping up the
183
sheltered road to the vicarage the pleasant sheltered
road, where the western sun steals in between two
rows of bright green elms, and the east wind is
fenced off by the range of woody hills which rise
abruptly before us, forming so striking a boundary to
the picture.
How pretty this lane is, with its tall elms, just
dressed in their young leaves, bordering the sunny
path, or sweeping in a semicircle behind the clear
pools and the white cottages that are scattered along
the way ! You shall seldom see a cottage hereabout
without an accompanying pond, all alive with geese
and ducks, at the end of the little garden. Ah !
here is Dame Simmons making a most original use of
her piece of water, standing on the bank that divides
it from her garden, and most ingeniously watering
her onion-bed with a new mop now a dip, and now
a twirl ! Really, I give her credit for the invention.
It is as good an imitation of a shower as one should
wish to see on a summer day. A squirt is nothing
to it !
And here is another break to the tall line of
elms the gate that leads into Farmer Thorpe's great
enclosures. Eight, ten, fourteen people in this large
field, wheat-hoeing. The couple nearest the gate,
who keep aloof from all the rest, and are hoeing this
furrow so completely in concert, step by step, and
stroke for stroke, are Jem Tanner and Mabel Green.
There is not a handsomer pair in the field or in the
village. Jem, with his bright complexion, his curling
hair, his clear blue eye, and his trim figure set off
to great advantage by his short jacket and trousers
and new straw hat ; Mabel, with her little stuff
184 OU^ VILLAGE
gown, and her white handkerchief and apron
defining so exactly her light and flexible shape
and her black eyes flashing from under a deep
bonnet lined with pink, whose reflection gives to
her bright dark countenance and dimpled cheeks a
glow innocently artificial, which was the only charm
that they wanted.
Jem and Mabel are, beyond all doubt, the hand-
somest couple in the field, and I am much mistaken
if each have not a vivid sense of the charms of the
other. Their mutual admiration was clear enough in
their work ; but it speaks still more plainly in their
idleness. Not a stroke have they done for these five
minutes ; Jem, propped on his hoe, and leaning across
the furrow, whispering soft nonsense ; Mabel, blush-
ing and smiling now making believe to turn away
now listening, and looking up with a sweeter smile
than ever, and a blush that makes her bonnet-lining
pale. Ah, Mabel ! Mabel ! Now they are going
to work again ; no ! after three or four strokes
the hoes have somehow become entangled, and
without either advancing a step nearer the other,
they are playing with these rustic implements as
pretty a game at romps showing off as nice a piece
of rural flirtation as ever was exhibited since wheat
was hoed.
Ah, Mabel ! Mabel ! beware of Farmer Thorpe !
He'll see at a glance that little will his corn profit by
such labours. Beware, too, Jem Tanner ! for Mabel
is, in some sort, an heiress ; being the real niece and
adopted daughter of our little lame clerk, who,
although he looks such a tattered ragamuffin that the
very grave-diggers are ashamed of him, is well to
pass in the world keeps a scrub pony indeed he
can hardly walk up the aisle hath a share in the
County fire-office and money in the funds. Mabel
will be an heiress, despite the tatterdemalion costume
of her honoured uncle, which I think he wears out
of coquetry, that the remarks which might other-
wise fall on his miserable person full as misshapen
as that of any Hunchback recorded in the Arabian
Tales may find a less offensive vent on his raiment.
Certain such a figure hath seldom been beheld out of
church or in. Yet will Mabel, nevertheless, be a
fortune; and, therefore, she must intermarry with
another fortune, according to the rule made and
provided in such cases ; and the little clerk hath
already looked her out a spouse, about his own
standing a widower in the next parish, with four
children and a squint. Poor Jem Tanner ! Nothing
will that smart person or that pleasant speech avail
with the little clerk never will he officiate at your
marriage to his niece " Amen" would " stick in his
throat." Poor things ! in whal a happy oblivion of
the world and its cares, Farmer Thorpe and the wheat-
hoeing, the squinting shopkeeper and the little clerk,
are they laughing and talking at this moment ! Poor
things ! poor things !
Well, I must pursue my walk. How beautiful
a mixture of flowers and leaves is in the high bank
under this north hedge quite an illustration of
the blended seasons of which I spoke. An old
irregular hedgerow is always beautiful, especially
in the spring-time, when the grass, and mosses,
and flowering weeds mingle best with the bushes
and creeping plants that overhang them. But this
1 86 Of/^ VILLAGE
bank is, most especially, various and lovely. Shall
we try to analyse it ? First, the clinging white-
veined ivy, which crawls up the slope in every
direction, the masterpiece of that rich mosaic '
then the brown leaves and the lilac blossoms of its
fragrant namesake, the ground ivy, which grows
here so profusely ; then the late-lingering primrose ;
then the delicate wood-sorrel ; then the regular
pink stars of the cranesbill, with its beautiful
leaves ; then the golden oxslip and the cowslip,
"cinque-spotted"; then the blue pansy, and the
enamelled wild hyacinth; then the bright foliage
of the briar-rose, which comes trailing its green
wreaths amongst the flowers ; then the bramble
and the woodbine, creeping round the foot of
a pollard oak, with its brown folded leaves ; then
a verdant mass the blackthorn, with its lingering
blossoms the hawthorn, with its swelling buds
the bushy maple the long stems of the hazel and
between them, hanging like a golden plume over the
bank, a splendid tuft of the blossomed broom ; then,
towering high above all, the tall and leafy elms.
And this is but a faint picture of this hedge, on the
meadowy side of which sheep are bleating, and where
every here and there a young lamb is thrusting its
pretty head between the trees.
Who is this approaching ? Farmer Thorpe ?
Yes, of a certainty, it is that substantial yeoman,
sallying forth from his substantial farmhouse, which
peeps out from between two huge walnut-trees on
the other side of the road, with intent to survey his
labourers in the wheat-field. Farmer Thorpe is a
stout, square, sturdy personage of fifty, or there-
187
about, with a hard weather-beaten countenance, of
that peculiar vermilion, all over alike, into which the
action of the sun and wind sometimes tans a fair
complexion ; sharp, shrewd features, and a keen grey
eye. He looks completely like a man who will neither
cheat nor be cheated : and such is his character an
upright, downright English Yeoman just always,
and kind in a rough way but given to fits of anger,
and filled with an abhorrence of pilfering, and idle-
ness, and trickery of all sorts, that makes him strict
as a master, and somewhat stern at workhouse and
vestry. I doubt if he will greatly relish the mode
in which Jem and Mabel are administering the hoe
in his wheat-drills. He will not reach the gate yet ;
for his usual steady, active pace is turned, by a recent
accident, into an unequal, impatient halt as if he
were alike angry with his lameness and the cause. I
must speak to him as he passes not merely as a due
courtesy to a good neighbour, but to give the delin-
quents in the field notice to resume their hoeing ; but
not a word of the limp that is a sore subject.
" A fine day, Mr Thorpe ! "
" We want rain, ma'am ! "
And on, with great civility, but without pausing
a moment, he is gone. He'll certainly catch Mabel
and her lover philandering over his wheat-furrows.
Well, that may take its chance ! they have his lame-
ness in their favour only that the cause of that
lameness has made the worthy farmer unusually
cross. I think I must confide the story to my
readers.
Gipsies and beggars do not in general much
inhabit our neighbourhood ; but about half-a-mile
1 88 OU VILLAGE
off there is a den so convenient for strollers and
vagabonds, that it sometimes tempts the rogues to
a few days' sojourn. It is, in truth, nothing more
than a deserted brick-kiln, by the side of a lonely
lane. But there is something so snug and com-
fortable in the old building (always keeping in
view gipsy notions of comfort) ; the blackened
walls are so backed by the steep hill on whose
side they are built so fenced from the bleak north-
east, and letting in so gaily the pleasant western
sun ; and the wide, rugged, impassable lane (used
only as a road to the kiln, and with that abandoned)
is at once so solitary and deserted, so close to the
inhabited and populous world, that it seems made
for a tribe whose prime requisites in a habitation are
shelter, privacy, and a vicinity to farmyards.
Accordingly, about a month ago, a pretty strong
encampment, evidently gipsies, took up their abode
in the kiln. The party consisted of two or three
tall, lean, sinister-looking men, who went about the
country mending pots and kettles, and driving a small
trade in old iron ; one or two children, unnaturally
quiet, the spies of the crew ; an old woman, who sold
matches and told fortunes ; a young woman with an
infant strapped to her back, who begged ; several
hungry-looking dogs, and three ragged donkeys. The
arrival of the vagabonds spread a general consterna-
tion through the village. Gamekeepers and house-
wives were in equal dismay. Snares were found in
the preserves poultry vanished from the farmyards
a lamb was lost from the lea and a damask table-
cloth, belonging to the worshipful the Mayor of
W - . was abstracted from the drying-ground of
WHE^T-HOEl^G 189
Rachel Strong, the most celebrated laundress in these
parts, to whom it had been sent for the benefit of
country washing. No end to the pilfering^ and the
stories of pilfering ! The inhabitants of the kiln were
not only thieves in themselves, but the cause of thievery
in others. " The gipsies ! " was the answer general to
every inquiry for things missing.
Farmer Thorpe whose dwelling, with its variety
of out-buildings barns, ricks, and stables is only
separated by a meadow and a small coppice from the
lane that leads to the gipsy retreat was particularly
annoyed by this visitation. Two couple of full-
grown ducks, and a whole brood of early chickens,
disappeared in one night ; and Mrs Thorpe fretted
over the loss, and the farmer was indignant at the
roguery. He set traps, let loose mastiffs, and put
in action all the resources of village police but in
vain. Every night property went j and the culprits,
however strongly suspected, still continued unamen-
able to the law.
At last, one morning, the great Chanticleer of
the farm-yard a cock of a million, with an unrivalled
crow, a matchless strut, and plumage all gold and
green, and orange and purple gorgeous as a pea-
cock, and fierce as a he-turkey Chanticleer, the
pride and glory of the yard, was missing ! and Mrs
Thorpe's lamentations and her husband's anger re-
doubled. Vowing vengeance against the gipsies, he
went to the door to survey a young blood-mare of
his own breeding ; and as he stood at the gate now
bemoaning Chanticleer now cursing the gipsies
now admiring the bay filly his neighbour, Dame
Simmons the identical lady of the mop, who
VILLAGE
occasionally chared at the house came to give him
the comfortable information that she had certainly
heard Chanticleer she was quite ready to swear to
Chanticleer's voice crowing in the brick-kiln. No
time, she added, should be lost, if Farmer Thorpe
wished to rescue that illustrious cock, and to punish
the culprits since the gipsies, when she passed the
place, were preparing to decamp.
No time -was lost. In one moment Farmer Thorpe
was on the bay filly's unsaddled back, with the halter
for a bridle ; and, in the next, they were on full
gallop towards the kiln. But, alas ! alas ! " the more
haste the worse speed," says the wisdom of nations.
Just as they arrived at the spot from which the
procession gipsies, dogs, and donkeys and Chanti-
cleer in a sack, shrieking most vigorously were
proceeding on their travels, the young blood-mare
whether startled at the unusual cortege, or the rough
ways, or the hideous noise of her old friend, the
cock suddenly reared and threw her master, who
lay in all the agony of a sprained ankle, unable to
rise from the ground ; whilst the whole tribe, with
poor Chanticleer a prisoner, marched triumphantly
past him, utterly regardless of his threats and im-
precations. In this plight was the unlucky farmer
discovered, about half-an-hour afterwards, by his wife,
the constable, and a party of his own labourers, who
came to give him assistance in securing the culprits ;
of whom, notwithstanding an instant and active
search through the neighbourhood, nothing has yet
transpired. We shall hardly see them again in these
parts, and have almost done talking of them. The
village is returned to its old state of order and
191
honesty ; the Mayor of W has replaced his
table-cloth, and Mrs Thorpe her cock ; and the
poor farmer's lame ankle is all that remains to give
token of the gipsies.
Here we are at the turning, which, edging round
by the coppice, branches off to their sometime den :
the other bend to the right leads up a gentle ascent
to the vicarage, and that is our way. How fine a
view of the little parsonage we have from hence,
between those arching elms, which enclose it like a
picture in a frame ! and how pretty a picture it forms,
with its three pointed roofs, its snug porch, and its
casement windows glittering from amid the china-
roses ! What a nest of peace and comfort ! Farther
on, almost at the summit of the hill, stands the old
church with its massy tower a row of superb lime-
trees running along one side of the churchyard, and
a cluster of dark yews shading the other. Few
country churches have so much to boast in archi-
tectural beauty or in grandeur of situation.
We lose sight of it as we mount the hill, the
lane narrowing and winding between deep banks,
surmounted by high hedges, excluding all prospects
till we reach the front of the vicarage, and catch
across the gate of the opposite field a burst of
country the most extensive and the most beautiful
field and village, mansion and cot, town and river,
all smiling under the sparkling sun of May, and
united and harmonised by the profusion of hedgerow
timber in its freshest verdure, giving a rich wood-
land character to the scene, till it is terminated in
the distance by the blue line of the Hampshire hills
almost melting into the horizon. Such is the view
192 OU^ VILLAGE
from the vicarage. But it is too sunny and too
windy to stand about out of doors, and time to finish
our ramble. Down the hill, and round the corner,
and past Farmer Thorpe's house, and one glance at
the wheat-hoers, and then we will go home.
Ah ! it is just as I feared. Jem and Mabel
have been parted : they are now at opposite sides of
the field he looking very angry, working rapidly
and violently, and doing more harm than good she
looking tolerably sulky, and just moving her hoe, but
evidently doing nothing at all. Farmer Thorpe, on
his part, is standing in the middle of the field,
observing, but pretending not to observe, the little
humours of the separated lovers. There is a lurking
smile about the corners of his mouth that bespeaks
him more amused than angry. He is a kind person
after all, and will certainly make no mischief. I
should not even wonder if he espoused Jem Tanner's
cause ; and, for certain, if any one can prevail on the
little clerk to give up his squinting favourite in favour
of true love, Farmer Thorpe is the man.
THE pride of my heart and the delight of my
eyes is my garden. Our house, which is in dimen-
sions very much like a bird-cage, and might, with
almost equal convenience, be laid on a shelf or hung
up in a tree, would be utterly unbearable in wet
weather were it not that we have a retreat out of
doors, and a very pleasant retreat it is. To make
my readers comprehend it I must describe our whole
territories.
Fancy a small plot of ground with a pretty, low,
irregular cottage at one end ; a large granary, divided
from the dwelling by a little court running along one
side ; and a long thatched shed, open towards the
garden, and supported by wooden pillars, on the
other. The bottom is bounded half by an old wall
and half by an old paling, over which we see a
pretty distance of woody hills. The house, granary,
wall, and paling, are covered with vines, cherry-
trees, roses, honey-suckles, and jessamines, with
great clusters of tall hollyhocks running up between
them ; a large elder overhanging the little gate, and
a magnificent bay-tree, such a tree as shall scarcely
be matched in these parts, breaking with its beautiful
conical form the horizontal lines of the buildings.
193
194 OU^ VILLAGE
This is my garden ; and the long pillared shed, the
sort of rustic arcade, which runs along one side, parted
from the flower-beds by a row of geraniums, is our
out-of-door drawing-room.
I know nothing so pleasant as to sit there on a
summer afternoon, with the western sun flickering
through the great elder-tree, and lighting up our gay
parterres, where flowers and flowering shrubs are set
as thick as grass in a field, a wilderness of blossom,
interwoven, intertwined, wreathy, garlandy, profuse
beyond all profusion, where we may guess that there
is such a thing as mould, but never see it. I know
nothing so pleasant as to sit in the shade of that dark
bower, with the eye resting on that bright piece of
colour, lighted so gloriously by the evening sun, now
catching a glimpse of the little birds as they fly
rapidly in and out of their nests for there are
always two or three birds'-nests in the thick tapestry
of cherry-trees, honeysuckles, and china-roses, which
covers our walls now tracing the gay gambols of
the common butterflies as they sport around the
dahlias ; now watching that rarer moth, which the
country people, fertile in pretty names, call the bee-
bird; 1 that bird-like insect, which flutters in the
hottest days over the sweetest flowers, inserting its
long proboscis into the small tube of the jessamine,
and hovering over the scarlet blossom of the
geranium, whose bright colour seems reflected on
its own feathery breast : that insect which seems
so thoroughly a creature of the air, never at rest ;
always, even when feeding, self-poised and self-
supported, and whose wings, in their ceaseless
> Sphinx ligwstri, privet hawk-moth.
195
motion, have a sound so deep, so full, so lulling,
so musical. Nothing so pleasant as to sit amid
that mixture of rich flowers and leaves, watching
the bee-bird ! Nothing so pretty to look at as my
garden ! It is quite a picture ; only unluckily it
resembles a picture in more qualities than one it is
fit for nothing but to look at. One might as well
think of walking in a bit of framed canvas. There
are walks, to be sure tiny paths of smooth gravel,
by courtesy called such but they are so overhung
by roses and lilies, and such gay encroachers so
overrun by convolvulus, and heart's-ease, and mignon-
ette, and other sweet stragglers, that except to edge
through them occasionally for the purpose of planting,
or weeding, or watering, there might as well be
no paths at all. Nobody thinks of walking in my
garden. Even May glides along with a delicate and
trackless step, like a swan through the water ; and we,
its two-footed denizens, are fain to treat it as if it
were really a saloon, and go out for a walk towards
sunset, just as if we had not been sitting in the open
air all day.
What a contrast from the quiet garden to the
lively street ! Saturday night is always a time of
stir and bustle in our village, and this is Whitsun-
Eve, the pleasantest Saturday of all the year, when
London journeymen and servant lads and lasses
snatch a short holiday to visit their families. A short
and precious holiday, the happiest and liveliest of
any ; for even the gambols and merry-makings of
Christmas offer but a poor enjoyment compared with
the rural diversions, the Mayings, revels, and cricket-
matches of Whitsuntide.
196 OU^ VILLAGE
We ourselves are to have a cricket-match on
Monday, not played by the men, who, since a
certain misadventure with the Beech-hillers, are,
I am sorry to say, rather chopfallen, but by the
boys, who, zealous for the honour of their parish,
and headed by their bold leader, Ben Kirby, marched
in a body to our antagonists' ground the Sunday
after our melancholy defeat, challenged the boys of
that proud hamlet, and beat them out and out on the
spot. Never was a more signal victory. Our boys
enjoyed this triumph with so little moderation that it
had like to have produced a very tragical catastrophe.
The captain of the Beech-hill youngsters, a capital
bowler, by name Amos Stone, enraged past all
bearing by the crowing of his adversaries, flung the
ball at Ben Kirby with so true an aim that if that
sagacious leader had not warily ducked his head when
he saw it coming, there would probably have been a
coroner's inquest on the case, and Amos Stone would
have been tried for manslaughter. He let fly with
such vengeance, that the cricket-ball was found
embedded in a bank of clay five hundred yards oiF,
as if it had been a cannon shot. Tom Coper and
Farmer Thackum, the umpires, both say they never
saw so tremendous a ball. If Amos Stone live to be
a man (I mean to say if he be not hanged first) he'll
be a pretty player. He is coming here on Monday
with his party to play the return match, the umpires
having respectively engaged, Farmer Thackum that
Amos shall keep the peace, Tom Coper that Ben shall
give no unnecessary or wanton provocation a nicely
worded and lawyer-like clause, and one that proves
that Tom Coper hath his doubts of the young gentle-
/\w A ffnJie h*vt, (ttey Jon*,
for titte five rnfnuttf
197
man's discretion ; and, of a truth, so have I. I would
not be Ben Kirby's surety, cautiously as the security
is worded no ! not for a white double dahlia, the
present object of my ambition.
This village of ours is swarming to-night like
a hive of bees, and all the church bells round are
pouring out their merriest peals, as if to call them
together. I must try to give some notion of the
various figures.
First, there is a group suited to Teniers, a cluster
of out-of-door customers of the Rose, old benchers
of the inn, who sit round a table smoking and drink-
ing in high solemnity to the sound of Timothy's
fiddle. Next, a mass of eager boys, the combatants
of Monday, who are surrounding the shoemaker's
shop, where an invisible hole in their ball is mending
by Master Keep himself, under the joint superin-
tendence of Ben Kirby and Tom Coper. Ben showing
much verbal respect and outward deference for his
umpire's judgment and experience, but managing to
get the ball done his own way after all ; whilst
outside the shop, the rest of the eleven, the less
trusted commons, are shouting and bawling round
Joel Brent, who is twisting the waxed twine round
the handles of the bats the poor bats, which please
nobody, which the taller youths are despising as too
little and too light, and the smaller are abusing as too
heavy and too large. Happy critics ! winning their
match can hardly be a greater delight even if to
win it they be doomed ! Farther down the street is
the pretty black-eyed girl, Sally Wheeler, come home
for a day's holiday from B., escorted by a tall footman
in a dashing livery, whom she is trying to curtsy off
o
VILLAGE
before her deaf grandmother sees him. I wonder
whether she will succeed !
Ascending the hill are two couples of a different
description. Daniel Tubb and his fair Valentine,
walking boldly along like licensed lovers ; they have
been asked twice in church, and are to be married on
Tuesday j and closely following that happy pair, near
each other but not together, come Jem Tanner and
Mabel Green, the poor culprits of the wheat-hoeing.
Ah ! the little clerk hath not relented ! The course
of true love doth not yet run smooth in that quarter.
Jem dodges along, whistling " Cherry-ripe," pretend-
ing to walk by himself, and to be thinking of nobody ;
but every now and then he pauses in his negligent
saunter, and turns round outright to steal a glance at
Mabel, who, on her part, is making believe to walk
with poor Olive Hathaway, the lame mantua-maker,
and even affecting to talk and to listen to that gentle,
humble creature, as she points to the wild-flowers on
the common, and the lambs and children disporting
among the gorse, but whose thoughts and eyes are
evidently fixed on Jem Tanner, as she meets his back-
ward glance with a blushing smile, and half springs
forward to meet him : whilst Olive has broken off
the conversation as soon as she perceived the pre-
occupation of her companion, and began humming,
perhaps unconsciously, two or three lines of Burns,
whose " Whistle and I'll come to ye, my lad," and
" Gie me a glance of thy bonny black e'e," were
never better exemplified than in the couple before
her. Really, it is curious to watch them, and
to see how gradually the attraction of this tantalising
vicinity becomes irresistible, and the rustic lover
WHITSU^-EVE 199
rushes to his pretty mistress like the needle to the
magnet. On they go, trusting to the deepening
twilight, to the little clerk's absence, to the good
humour of the happy lads and lasses who are passing
and repassing on all sides or rather, perhaps, in a
happy oblivion of the cross uncle, the kind villagers,
the squinting lover, and the whole world. On they
trip, arm in arm, he trying to catch a glimpse of her
glowing face under her bonnet, and she hanging
down her head, and avoiding his gaze with a mixture
of modesty and coquetry, which well becomes the
rural beauty. On they go, with a reality and intensity
of affection which must overcome all obstacles ; and
poor Olive follows her with an evident sympathy in
their happiness which makes her almost as enviable
as they ; and we pursue our walk amidst the moon-
shine and the nightingales, with Jacob Frost's cart
looming in the distance, and the merry sounds of
Whitsuntide, the shout, the laugh, and the song,
echoing all around us, like " noises of the air."
A COUNTRY STORY
AMONGST the country employments of England
none is so delightful to see or to think of as hay-
making. It comes in the pleasantest season, amidst a
green, and flowery, and sunshiny world ; it has for
scene the prettiest places park, or lawn, or meadow,
or upland pasture ; and withal it has more of innocent
merriment, more of the festivity of an out-of-door
sport, and less of the drudgery and weariness of
actual labour, than any other of the occupations of
husbandry. One looks on it, pretty picture as it is,
without the almost saddening sympathy produced by
the slow and painful toil of the harvest-field, and,
moreover, one looks on it much oftener. A very
little interval of dressed garden shall divide a great
country mansion from the demesne, where hay-cocks
repose under noble groups of oaks and elms, or
mingle their fragrance with the snowy wreaths of the
acacia, or the honeyed tassels of the lime ; and the
fair and delicate lady who cannot tell wheat from
barley, and the mincing fine gentleman who " affects
an ignorance if he have it not," shall yet condescend
not merely to know hay when they see it, but even
THE H^YM^E 201
to take some interest in the process of getting it up.
In short, at the most aristocratic country tables, from
the high-sheriff of the county to the lord-lieutenant,
hay is a permitted subject ; and the state of the
clouds, or of the weather-glass, shall be inquired into
as diligently, and be listened to with as much atten-
tion, as speculations on the St Leger or the Derby,
discussions on the breed of pheasants, or calculations
on a contested election. Hay is very naturally felt
to be a gentlemanly topic, since from the richest to
the poorest every country gentleman is a hay-owner.
I have been used all my life to take a lively
interest, and even so much participation as may belong
to a mere spectator, in this pleasant labour j for I can-
not say that I ever actually handled the fork or the
rake. In former times our operations were on a
grand scale, since the lawn before and around our old
house, and the park-like paddock behind, were of
such an extent as to make the getting in of the crop
an affair of considerable moment in a pecuniary point
of view. Now we have in our own hands only two
small fields, the one a meadow of some three acres,
about a mile off, the other a bit of upland pasture not
much bigger, and rather nearer. The consequence
of which diminution of property is, that I am ten
times more interested in our small possession than ever
I was in our large demesne, and that the produce of
these two little bits of land the minikin rick, not
much better than a hay-cock itself, all of which is to
be consumed by that special friend of mine, our
pretty, frisky cream-coloured horse, 1 of whom it is
every day predicted that he will break our necks
1 Now, alas ! no more 1 Would that the beauty were alive
202 OU VILLAGE
appears much more important in my eyes than the
mountains of dried grass, which, after feeding some
dozen horses, and half a dozen cows, were sold out
amongst the inn-keepers, coach proprietors, cattle-
dealers, and hay-buyers of all sorts, and, sometimes,
in a plentiful year, had even the honour to be adver-
tised in a country newspaper, put up to public sale,
puffed by the auctioneer, abused by the bidders,
talked about, and lied about, and finally knocked
down by the hammer as great a piece of promotion
as a hay-rick can well come to.
This trick of estimating one's possessions in an
inverse ratio to their real value is, I believe, strange
as the assertion may seem, no uncommon freak of that
whimsical, but goo&-for-sotnething piece of perversity
called human nature. In my own case I can, besides,
claim in mitigation for the mistake (if mistake it be to
take an interest in anything innocent !) the extreme
beauty of the two patches of ground on which grows
the hay in question.
One of these grass-plots is a breezy, airy, upland
field, abutting on the southernmost nook of an open
common, forming, so to say, one side of a sunny bay,
half filled with a large clear pond of bright water,
water always bright ; the first swallows of the year
are regularly seen there ; a great farmhouse with its
bustling establishment directly opposite ; a winding
road leading across the green; and trees, cottages,
children, horses, cows, sheep, and geese, scattered
around in the gayest profusion a living and moving
picture. The most populous street of a populous
again, even if he did put our lives in jeopardy ! I shall never
entertain so strong a personal friendship for any steed.
THE H^T^M^J^E^ 203
city gives a less vivid idea of habitation than the view
from the gate, or from the high bank, feathered with
broom and hazel for the fence consists rather of a
ditch than of a hedge, the field being, as it were,
moated of that lightsome and cheerful bit of pasture
land.
The more distant meadow is prettier still ; it
has no regular approach, and is reached only through
a chain of fields belonging to different neighbours,
whose gates, close locked upon all other occasions,
open only to admit the ponderous hay waggon, creak-
ing under its burthen, and the noisy procession of
pitchers and rakers by which it is accompanied.
Surrounded by close and high hedges, richly studded
by hedgerow timber, no spot can be more completely
shut out from the world than this small meadow. A
stream of considerable variety and beauty winds
along one end, fringed on each margin by little
thickets of copse wood, hawthorn, and hazel, mixed
with trees of a larger growth, and clothed, inter-
twisted, matted, by garlands of wild rose and wild
honeysuckle ; whilst here and there a narrow strip
of turf intervenes between these natural shrubberies
and the sparkling, glittering, babbling stream, which
runs so clearly over its narrow bed that every shoal
of minnows is visible as they pass. Every vagary
that a nameless brooklet well can play does this
brook show off in its short course across the end
of our meadow ; now driven rapidly through a narrow
channel by the curvature of the banks, fretting, and
fuming, and chafing over the transparent pebbles;
now creeping gently between clusters of the rich
willow herb and golden flag ; now sleeping quietly
204 OU<R^ VILLAGE
in a wider and deeper pool, where the white water-
lily has found room for its dark leaves and its snowy
flowers, and where those quiet but treacherous
waters seem about to undermine the grassy margent
which already overhangs them, and to lay bare
the roots of the old willows. On the banks
of that tricksy stream lies the scene of our little
story.
Last summer was, as most of my readers pro-
bably remember, one of no small trial to haymakers
in general, the weather being what is gently and
politely termed " unsettled," which in this pretty
climate of ours, during " the leafy month of June,"
may commonly be construed into cloudy, stormy,
drizzly, cold. In this instance the silky, courtly,
flattering epithet, being translated, could hardly mean
other than wet fixed, determined, settled rain.
From morning to night the clouds were dropping ;
roses stood tottering on their stalks ; strawberries lay
sopping in their beds ; cherries and currants hung all
forlorn on their boughs, with the red juice washed
out of them ; gravel roads turned into sand ; pools
into ponds ; ditches into rivulets ; rivers overflowed
their channels ; and that great evil a summer flood
appeared inevitable. "The rain it raineth every
day " was the motto for the month. Sheridan's
wicked interpolation in Mr Coleridge's tragedy,
" drip, drip, drip, there's nothing here but dripping,"
seemed made expressly for the season. Cut or uncut,
the grass was spoiling ; the more the hay was made
the clearer it appeared that it would never make to
any purpose ; the poor cattle shook their ears as if
aware of an impending scarcity ; salt, the grand
THE HJKM<AI(E ( R 205
remedy for sopped hay, rose in the market ; farmers
fretted, and gentlemen fumed." 1
So passed the " merry month of June." To-
wards the beginning of July, however, matters
mended. A new moon made her appearance in the
world, and that great stranger, the sun, as if out of
compliment to his fair, cold sister, ventured out of
the clouds to salute her across the sky, one evening
just before his usual time of setting, and even con-
tinued the civility by leaving behind him such a glow
of purple rosiness, and such a line of golden light,
as illumined the whole horizon, and gave the most
gracious promise for the ensuing day a promise
unusually well kept for so great a personage that
is to say, not quite forgotten. The weather, to be
sure, was not quite perfect when was the weather
known to be so ? it was, on the contrary, of that
description which is termed " catching " ; but still
there were intervals of brightness ; the rain was less
heavy ; the sun did shine sometimes ; and even when
he refused to show that resplendent face of his, a
light stirring breeze answered all hay-making pur-
poses almost as well. In short, between wind and
sunshine, we managed to get in our upland crop with
little danger and less damage, and encouraged by
that success, and by the slow, gentle rising of the
weather-glass, which the knowing in such matters
1 It is well if they did no worse. A fair young friend of mine,
whose father, one of the most accomplished persons that I have
ever known, and by no means addicted to the use of naughty words
on common occasions, rented about thirty acres of water-meadow,
known by the name of " the moors," used always to call the hay-
making time his " swearing month." He was wont to laugh at
the expression but I never heard him deny that it was true.
206 OU VILLAGE
affirm to be much more reliable than a sudden and
violent jump of the quicksilver, we gave orders to
cut the little mead without delay, and prepared for a
day's hay-making in that favourite spot.
We were not without other encouragements
with respect to the weather. The sun himself had
had the goodness to make " a golden set " and a rosy
dawning, and those vegetable barometers, the scarlet
pimpernel in the hedgerows, and the purple Venus's
looking-glass in the garden, threw open their rich
cups to receive his earliest beams, with a fulness of
expansion seldom shown by those, I had almost said,
sentient flowers, when there is the slightest appear-
ance of rain. Our good neighbour the shoemaker,
too, an in-door oracle, whose speculations on the
atmosphere are not very remarkable for their correct-
ness, prognosticated wet ; whilst our other good
neighbour, Farmer Bridgwater, an out-of-door, prac-
tical personage, whose predictions and it is saying
much for them are almost as sure to come true
as the worthy cordwainer's to prove false, boldly
asseverated that the day would prove fine, and made
his preparations and mustered his troops (for Farmer
Bridgwater is generalissimo in our hay-field) with a
vigour and energy that would have become a higher
occasion. He set six men on to mowing by a little
after sunrise, and collected fourteen efficient hay-
makers by breakfast-time. Fourteen active hay-
makers for our poor three acres ! not to count the
idle assistants ; we ourselves, with three dogs and
two boys to mind them, advisers who came to find
fault and look on, babies who came to be nursed,
children who came to rock the babies, and other
THE H^YM^K^^ 207
children who came to keep the rockers company and
play with the dogs ; to say nothing of this small
rabble, we had fourteen able-bodied men and women
in one hay-field, besides the six mowers who had got
the grass down by noon, and finding the strong beer
good and plentiful, magnanimously volunteered to
stay and help to get in the crop. N.B. This
abundance of aid is by no means so extravagant as
it seems, especially in catching weather. Beer, par-
ticularly in country affairs, will go twice as far as
money, and, if discreetly administered (for we must
not make even haymakers quite tipsy), really goes as
near to supply the place of the sun as anything well
can do. In our case the good double X was seconded
by this bright luminary, and our operations prospered
accordingly.
Besides being a numerous, ours was a merry
group, very merry and very noisy j for amongst the
country people, as amongst children, those two words
may almost be reckoned synonymous. There was
singing that might pass for screaming ; laughter that
burst forth in peals and in shouts j and talking in
every variety of key, from the rough, bluff, com-
manding halloo of Farmer Bridgwater, issuing his
orders from one end of the field to another, to the
shrill cry of Dame Wilson's baby, which seemed to
pierce upwards, and cleave the very sky. A mingled
buzz of talking was, however, the predominant sound,
talking of which little could be collected except a
general expression of happiness, Dame Wilson's
roaring infant being, with one exception, the only
dissatisfied person in the field.
Nobody could imagine the joyous din of that
208 OU VILLAGE
little place. A "jovial crew" they were, though
by no means " merry beggars " ; for our haymakers
were for that profession, persons of respectability,
rather, indeed, amateurs than professors saving,
perhaps, Dame Wilson and her set of boys and
girls, who might be accounted poor, and a certain
ragged Irishman called Jerry, who comes over every
year harvesting, and is a general favourite with high
and low ; with these small drawbacks (N.B. Dame
Wilson is a mountain of a woman, at least five feet
in the girth, and Jerry a maypole of a man, who
stands six feet three without his shoes), with these
trifling exceptions, our troop of haymakers might
really pass for people of substance.
First came the commander- in- chief, Farmer
Bridgwater, a hearty, sturdy old bachelor, rough
and bluff, and merry, and kind, a great although a
general admirer of our pretty lasses, to whom his
blunt compliments and rustic raillery, of which the
point lay rather in a knowing wink, a sly turn of the
head, and a peculiar dryness of manner, than in the
words, added to his unfailing good nature, rendered
him always welcome.
Next in the list figures our respectable neigh-
bour, Aaron Keep, the shoemaker, who came to help
us and to watch the weather. He is an excellent
person is Aaron Keep, and he came, as he said, to
help us; and I daresay he would have been very
sorry if the hay had been quite spoiled ; nevertheless,
having predicted that it would rain, I cannot help
thinking he considered it a little hard that no rain
came. The least little shower, just to confirm his
prognostics, would have made him happy, and he
THE HtArjWtrfK^T^S 209
kept watching the clouds, and hoping and foretelling
a thunderstorm ; but the clouds were obstinate, and
the more he predicted that a storm would come, the
more it stayed away.
Then arrived Master Wheatley, our worthy
neighbour, the wheelwright, who, being also parish
constable, might have abated the noise if he himself
had not been the noisiest. I think he came to please his
daughter Mary, a smiling, airy damsel of thirteen, who
never made hay before in her life. How enraptured
the little girl was with the holiday ! My dog Dash
was the only creature in the field gay enough to
keep pace with her frolics. They were playmates
during the whole day.
Mine host of the Rose was also present, that
model of all village landlords, mine host in his red
waistcoat j and he also brought with him his pretty
daughters, lasses of eighteen and twenty, who care
no more for poor Dash than I do for a wax doll ; I
daresay they don't even know that he's a spaniel.
Lucy had been to London this spring, and brought
home a beau, whom she had picked up there, as a
visitor to her papa, and, our hay-field being a good
place for love-making, there too was he, displaying
in handling a prong all the awkwardness that might
be expected from a Cheapside haberdasher accustomed
to the yard. He laughed at himself, however, with
a very good grace, and seemed a well-conditioned and
well-behaved person, his misfortune of cockneyism
notwithstanding. They said that Miss Lucy would
soon leave the Rose and take to measuring ribands
herself. Patty, too, the round-faced, rosy-cheeked,
fair-haired, younger sister, my favourite (but that is
2io OU VILLAGE
a secret, for both are equally civil, and, as far as I
know, equally good; I would not make any differ-
ence in the world, only Patty is my favourite);
Patty, said the world the village world was also not
unlikely to leave the Rose, though for an abode only
two doors removed from it ; Mr George Waring,
our smart young saddler, having, they affirmed, won
her heart ; but upon looking out for Patty and
George, thinking to find them engaged as the other
couple were, what was my astonishment to see the
poor little lass, her smiles gone and her roses faded,
moping under the hedge alone, rather making believe
to rake than actually raking ; whilst Mr George
Waring was tossing about the hay in company with
the handsome brunette Sally Wheeler, who was
just (as I remembered to have heard) come home
from service to be married, and looked prodigiously
as if the young saddler was her intended spouse.
Nothing was ever more suspicious. He looked
brighter and gayer than ever, and so did Sally, and
for certain they were talking of something interest-
ing, something at which the gentleman smiled and
the lady blushed, talking so earnestly that they
even forgot to toss the hay about, and that Farmer
Bridgwater's loudest reprimand, although it startled
every one else in the field, was apparently unheard
by either of them.
" Alas ! I fear Mr George Waring will play
poor Patty false," was my involuntary thought, as
I glided amongst the thickets by the side of the
stream, and established myself in a verdant nook
quite out of sight of the gay scene I had quitted,
from which I was parted by a natural shrubbery of
..- , ^Ji? "> W
, * v.yv.- -
*&-&*
M2
THE HdKMtAK'R 211
honeysuckle and wild roses, covered with blossoms
and over-canopied by the spreading branches of a
large oak. A pleasant seat was that green bank,
with the clear water flowing at my feet, gay with
the yellow flag, the white lily, and the blue forget-
me-not, and fragrant with the rich tufts of the elegant
meadow-sweet, mingling its delicious odour with that
of the wild rose, the honeysuckle, and the new-mown
hay. A pleasant seat was that turfy bank, and, as
the haymakers adjourned to the farther end of the
field to dinner, a quiet one ; until suddenly I heard
first a deep sigh, and then two voices, from the other
side of the oak tree. I listened with somewhat
of curiosity, but more of interest, to the following
dialogue :
"Why, my queen, "said the bluff, good-humoured
voice of Farmer Bridgwater, " what are you moping
here for ? And what have you done with your rosy
cheeks ? A'nt you well ? "
" Yes," answered the sighing Patty.
' ' Go to dinner, then," responded the generalissimo
of the hay-field.
"No," sighed the damsel; "I'd rather stay
here."
"Shall Lucy bring you something to eat?"
pursued the good farmer.
"No."
" Or your father ? "
"No."
" Or Aaron Keep ? I see he has done."
" No."
" Or little Mary Wheatley ? she'll be here like a
bird."
212 OU VILLAGE
" No, I don't want any dinner, thank you " ; and
then came a deep sigh such a sigh !
" Or I myself? " continued the honest farmer, not
at all diverted from his purpose.
" No. It's very good of you," said Patty, half
crying, " and I am very much obliged but - "
"Perhaps you'd rather George Waring should
bring it ? " pursued the pertinacious inquirer, with
a slight change of voice. "I'll go and send him
directly."
" Don't think of such a thing," interrupted Patty,
breathlessly j " he's engaged."
" No," chuckled the farmer, " that business is
over ; Sally and he have settled the wedding-day, and
I have recommended you for bridesmaid."
" Me ! "
*' Ay, you ! One wedding leads to another.
Wednesday week is to be the day ; and after
George Waring has given Sally to his brother
Tom, he'll have an excellent opportunity for
courting you."
" Tom ! Tom Waring ! Of whom are you
speaking ? "
" Of George's brother, to be sure, and Sally's
beau. There he is, just coming into the field.
Did you never hear of Tom Waring ? He only
arrived from Andover last night, where Sally and
he have been living next door to each other; and
now they are going to marry and settle, as true
lovers should. Why, what's the girl crying for ? "
exclaimed the good farmer, " crying and smiling,
and blushing, and looking so happy ! Did you
think George was making love to her in his own
THE H<AYM*AJ!(E C R 213
proper person, you goosecap ? Will you come to
dinner now, you simpleton ? you'd better, or I'll tell."
" Oh, Farmer Bridge water ! "
"Wipe your eyes and come to dinner, or I'll
send George Waring to fetch you ; come along,
I say."
" Oh, Farmer Bridg water ! " and off they
marched ; and the next I saw of the haymakers,
George and Patty were at work together, and so
were Tom and Sally, looking as happy all the four
as ever people could do in this world.
AT one end of the cluster of cottages, and
cottage-like houses, which formed the little street
of Hilton Cross a pretty but secluded village, a
few miles to the south, stood the shop of Judith
Kent, widow, " Licensed " as the legend imported
"to vend tea, coffee, tobacco, and snuff." Tea,
coffee, tobacco, and snuff formed, however, but a
small part of the multifarious merchandise of Mrs
Kent ; whose shop, the only repository of the
hamlet, might have seemed an epitome of the wants
and luxuries of humble life. In her window, candles,
bacon, sugar, mustard, and soap, flourished amidst
calicoes, oranges, dolls, ribands, and gingerbread.
Crockeryware was piled on one side of her door-
way, Dutch cheese and Irish butter encumbered
the other ; brooms and brushes rested against the
wall; and ropes of onions and bunches of red
herrings hung from the ceiling. She sold bread,
butcher's meat, and garden-stuff, on commission;
and engrossed, at a word, the whole trade of
Hilton Cross.
Notwithstanding this monopoly, the world went
ill with poor Judith. She was a mild, pleasant-look-
ing, middle-aged woman, with a heart too soft for her
4
215
calling. She could not say, no ! to the poor creatures
who came to her on a Saturday night, to seek bread
for their children, however deep they might already
be in her debt, or however certain it was that their
husbands were, at that moment, spending, at the
Chequers or the Four Horse-shoes, the money that
should have supported their wives and families ; for
in this village, as in others, there were two flourishing
ale-houses, although but one ill-accustomed shop
" but one halfpenny-worth of bread to this intolerable
deal of sack ! "
She could not say, no ! as a prudent woman
might have said ; and, accordingly, half the poor
people in the parish might be found on her books,
whilst she herself was gradually getting in arrears
with her baker, her grocer, and her landlord. Her
family consisted of two children: Mary, a pretty,
fair-haired, smiling lass, of twelve or thirteen, and
Robert, a fine youth, nearly ten years older, who
worked in the gardens of a neighbouring gentleman.
Robert, conscious that his mother's was no gainful
trade, often pressed her to give up business, sell off
her stock, relinquish her house, and depend on
his labour for her support j but of this she would
not hear.
Many motives mingled in her determination ; a
generous reluctance to burthen her dutiful son with
her maintenance a natural fear of losing caste among
her neighbours a strong love of the house which,
for five-and-twenty years, had been her home a
vague hope that times would mend, and all come
right again (wiser persons than Mrs Kent have lulled
reason to sleep with such an opiate !) and, above all,
216 OU<R, VILLAGE
a want of courage to look her difficulties fairly in the
face. Besides, she liked her occupation its petty
consequence, its bustle, and its gossipry ; and she
had a sense of gain in the small peddling bargains
the pennyworths of needles, and balls of cotton, and
rows of pins, and yards of tape, which she was accus-
tomed to vend for ready money, that overbalanced,
for the moment, her losses and her debts ; so that,
in spite of her son's presages and warnings, the shop
continued in full activity.
In addition to his forebodings respecting his
mother, Robert had another misfortune ; the poor
youth was in love.
About a quarter of a mile down the shady lane,
which ran by one side of Mrs Kent's dwelling, was the
pretty farmhouse, orchard, and homestead of Farmer
Bell, whose eldest daughter, Susan the beauty of
the parish was the object of a passion, almost
amounting to idolatry. And, in good sooth, Susan
Bell was well fitted to inspire such a passion. Besides
a light graceful figure, moulded with the exactest
symmetry, she had a smiling, innocent countenance, a
complexion coloured like the brilliant blossoms of
the balsam, and hair of a shining golden brown, like
the fruit of the horse-chestnut. Her speech was at
once modest and playful, her temper sweet, and her
heart tender. She loved Robert dearly, although he
often gave her cause to wish that she loved him not ;
for Robert was subject to the intermitting fever,
called jealousy, causelessly as he himself would
declare, when a remission of the disease gave room for
his natural sense to act causelessly and penitently,
but still pertinaciously jealous.
217
I have said that he was a fine young man, tall,
dark, and slender ; I should add, that he was a good
son, a kind brother, a pattern of sobriety and industry,
, and possessed of talent and acquirement far beyond
his station. But there was about him an ardour, a
vigour, a fiery restlessness, commonly held proper to
the natives of the south of Europe, but which may be
found sometimes amongst our own peasantry ; all his
pursuits, whether of sport or labour, took the form
of passion. At ten years old, he had far outstripped
his fellow-pupils at the Foundation School, to which,
through the kindness of the 'squire of the parish, his
mother had been enabled to send him ; at eighteen,
he was the best cricketer, the best flute-player, the
best bell-ringer, and the best gardener in the county ;
and some odd volumes of Shakspeare having come
into his possession, there was some danger at twenty
of his turning out a dramatic poet, had not the kind
discouragement of his master, to whom some of his
early scenes were shown by his patron and admirer,
the head gardener, acted as a salutary check. Indeed,
so strong at one time was the poetical furor, that
such a catastrophe as an entire play might, probably,
have ensued, notwithstanding Mr Lescombe's judicious
warnings, had not love, the master-passion, fallen,
about this time, in poor Robert's way, and engrossed
all the ardour of his ardent temperament.
The beauty and playfulness of his mistress,
whilst they enchanted his fancy, kept the jealous
irritability of his nature in perpetual alarm. He
suspected a lover in every man who approached her ;
and the firm refusal of her father to sanction their
union, till her impatient wooer was a little more
2i8 OU VILLAGE
forward in the world, completed his disquiet. Affairs
were in this posture, when a new personage arrived
at Hilton Cross.
In addition to her other ways and means, Mrs
Kent tried to lessen her rent by letting lodgings, and
the neat, quiet, elderly gentlewoman, the widow of a
long-deceased rector, who had occupied her rooms
ever since Robert was born, being at last gathered to
her fathers, an advertisement of " pleasant apartments
to let, in the airy village of Hilton Cross," appeared
in the county paper. This announcement was as true
as if it had not formed an advertisement in a country
newspaper. Very airy was the pretty village of
Hilton Cross with its breezy uplands, and its open
common, dotted, as it were, with cottages and clumps
of trees ; and very pleasant were Mrs Kent's apart-
ments, for those who had sufficient taste to appreciate
their rustic simplicity, and sufficient humility to over-
look their smallness. The little chamber glittering
with whiteness j its snowy dimity bed, and " fresh
sheets smelling of lavender," the sitting-room, a
thought larger, carpeted with India matting, its
shining cane-chairs, and its bright casement wreathed,
on one side, by a luxuriant jessamine, on the other
by the tall cluster musk-rose, sending its bunches of
odorous blossoms into the very window; the little
flower-court underneath, full of holly-oaks, cloves,
and dahlias, and the large sloping meadow beyond,
leading up to Farmer Bell's tall irregular house, half-
covered with a flaunting vine ; his barns, and ricks,
and orchard ; all this formed an apartment too
tempting to remain long untenanted, in the bright
month of August : accordingly, it was almost im-
219
mediately engaged by a gentleman in black, who
walked over one fair morning, paid ten pounds as a
deposit, sent for his trunk from the next town, and
took possession on the instant.
Her new inmate, who, without positively declin-
ing to give his name, had yet contrived to evade all
the questions Mrs Kent could devise, proved a per-
petual source of astonishment, both to herself and her
neighbours.
He was a well-made little man, near upon forty ;
with considerable terseness of feature, a forehead of
great power, whose effect was increased by a slight
baldness on the top of the head, and an eye like a
falcon. Such an eye ! It seemed to go through you
to strike all that it looked upon, like a coup-de-soleil.
Luckily, the stranger was so merciful as, generally, to
wear spectacles ; under cover of which those terrible
eyes might see, and be seen, without danger.
His habits were as peculiar as his appearance.
He was moderate, and rather fanciful, in his diet;
drank nothing but water, or strong coffee, made, as
Mrs Kent observed, very wastefully ; and had, as she
also remarked, a great number of heathenish-looking
books scattered about the apartment Lord Berners's
Froissart, for instance, Sir Thomas Browne's Urn
Burial, the Baskerville Ariosto, Goethe's Faust, a
Spanish Don Quixote, and an interleaved Philoctetes,
full of outline drawings. The greater part of his
time was spent out of doors. He would even ramble
away, for three or four days together, with no other
companion than a boy, hired in the village, to carry
what Mrs Kent denominated his odds and ends;
which odds and ends consisted, for the most part, of
220 OU VILLAGE
an angling rod and a sketching apparatus our in-
cognito being, as my readers have, by this time,
probably discovered, no other than an artist, on his
summer progress.
Robert speedily understood the stranger, and
was delighted with the opportunity of approaching
so gifted a person j although he contemplated with a
degree of generous envy, which a king's regalia would
have failed to excite in his bosom, those chef-d'ceuvres
of all nations, which were to him as " sealed books,"
and the pencils, whose power seemed to him little
less than creative. He redoubled his industry in the
garden, that he might, conscientiously, devote hours
and half-hours to pointing out the deep pools and
shallow eddies of their romantic stream, where he
knew, from experience (for Robert, amongst his
other accomplishments, was no mean " brother of the
angle "), that fish were likely to be found ; and,
better still, he loved to lead to the haunts of his
childhood, the wild bosky dells, and the sunny ends
of lanes, where a sudden turn in the track, an over-
hanging tree, an old gate, a cottage chimney, and a
group of cattle or children, had, sometimes, formed a
picture, on which his mind had fed for hours.
It was Robert's chief pleasure to entice his
lodger to scenes such as these, and to see his own
visions growing into reality, under the glowing pencil
of the artist ; and he, in his turn, would admire, and
marvel at, the natural feeling of the beautiful, which
could lead an uninstructed country youth instinctively
to the very elements of the picturesque. A general
agreement of taste had brought about a degree of
association unusual between persons so different in
2 2 1
rank : a particular instance of this accordance dissolved
the intimacy.
Robert had been, for above a fortnight, more
than commonly busy in Mr Lescombe's gardens and
hot-houses, so busy that he even slept at the hall;
the stranger, on the other hand, had been, during the
same period, shut up, painting, in the little parlour.
At last they met ; and the artist invited his young
friend to look at the picture, which had engaged him
during his absence. On walking into the room he
saw on the easel a picture in oils, almost finished.
The style was of that delightful kind, which com-
bines figures with landscape, the subject was hay-
carrying j and the scene, that very sloping meadow
crowned by Farmer Bell's tall irregular house, its
vine- wreathed porch, and chimneys, the great walnut-
tree before the door, the orchard and the homestead
which formed the actual prospect from the windows
before them. In the foreground was a waggon piled
wjth hay, surrounded by the Farmer and his fine
family some pitching, some loading, some raking
after, all intent on their pleasant business. The only
disengaged persons in the field were young Mary
Kent and Harry Bell, an urchin of four years old,
who rode on her knee on the top of the waggon,
crowned and wreathed with garlands of vine-leaves,
and bind-weed, and poppies, and corn-flowers. In
the front, looking up at Mary Kent and her little
brother, and playfully tossing to them the lock of
hay which she had gathered on her rake, stood Susan
Bell, her head thrown back, her bonnet half off, her
light and lovely figure shown, in all its grace, by the
pretty attitude and the short cool dress ; while her
222 OU VILLAGE
sweet face, glowing with youth and beauty, had a
smile playing over it, like a sunbeam. The boy was
nodding and laughing to her, and seemed longing
as well he might to escape from his flowery bondage,
and jump into her arms. Never had poet framed a
lovelier image of rural beauty ! Never had painter
more felicitously realized his conception.
" Well, Robert ! " exclaimed our artist, a little
impatient of the continued silence, and missing the
expected praise, " Well ! " but still Robert spoke
not. " Don't you think it a good subject ? " con-
tinued the man of the easel ; " I was sitting at the
window, reading Froissart, whilst they were carrying
the after-crop, and by good luck happened to look
up, just as they had arranged themselves into this
very group, and as the evening sun came slanting,
exactly as it does now, across the meadow ; so I
dashed in the sketch instantly, got Mary to sit to me
and a very pretty nymph-like figure she makes
dressed the boy with flowers, just as he was decked
out for the harvest home the rogue is, really, a fit
model for a Cupid ; they are a glorious family ! and
persuaded Susan " at that name, Robert, unable to
control himself longer, rushed out of the room, leav-
ing the astonished painter in the full belief that his
senses had forsaken him.
The unhappy lover, agonised by jealousy, pur-
sued his way to the farm. He had, hitherto, con-
trived, although without confessing his motive, even
to himself, to keep his friend and his mistress asunder.
He had no fears of her virtue, or of his honour ; but,
to Robert's romantic simplicity, it seemed that no
one could gaze on Susan without feeling ardent love,
and that such a man as the artist could never love in
vain. Besides, in the conversations which they had
held together, he had dwelt on beauty and simplicity
as the most attractive points of female character :
Robert had felt, as he spoke, that Susan was the
very being whom he described, and had congratu-
lated himself that they were still unacquainted. But
now, they had met ; he had seen, he had studied,
had transferred to canvas that matchless beauty ;
had conquered the timidity which, to Robert, had
always seemed unconquerable j had won her to admit
his gaze, had tamed that shyest, coyest dove ; had
become familiar with that sweetest face, and that
dearest form j oh ! the very thought was agony !
In this mood, he arrived at the farm ; and there,
working at her needle under the vine-wreathed porch,
with the evening sun shining full upon her, and her
little brother playing at her feet, sat his own Susan.
She heard his rapid step, and advanced to meet him
with a smile and a blush of delight, just the smile
and blush of the picture. At such a moment, they
increased his misery ; he repulsed her offered hand,
and poured forth a torrent of questions on the subject
which possessed his mind. Her innocent answers
were fuel to his frenzy : " The picture ! had he
seen the picture ? and was it not pretty ? much too
pretty, she thought, but everybody called it like !
and Mary and Harry was not he pleased with them ?
What a wonderful thing it was to make a bit of
canvas so like living creatures ! and what a wonder-
ful man the strange gentleman was ! she had been
afraid of him, at first sadly afraid of those two
bright eyes and so had Harry: poor Harry had
224 OU^ VILLAGE
cried ! but he was so merry and so kind, that neither
of them minded sitting to him, now ! And she was
so glad that Robert had seen the picture ! she had so
wanted him to see it ! it was too pretty, to be sure,
but, then, Robert would not mind that. She had
told the gentleman " " Go to the gentleman now,"
interrupted Robert, "and tell him that I relinquish
you ! It will be welcome news ! Go to him, Susan,
your heart is with him. Go to him, I say ! " and,
throwing from him, with a bitter laugh, the frightened
and weeping girl, who had laid her trembling hand
on his arm, to detain him, he darted from the door,
and returned to his old quarters at the hall.
Another fortnight passed, and Robert still kept
aloof from his family and his home. His mother and
sister, indeed, occasionally saw him; and sad accounts
had poor little Mary to give to her friend Susan, of
Robert's ill looks and worse spirits. And Susan
listened, and said she did not care ; and burst into a
passion of tears, and said she was very happy ; and
vowed never to speak to him again, and desired Mary
never to mention her to him, or him to her, and then
asked her a hundred questions respecting his looks,
and his words, and his illness, and charged her with
a thousand tender messages, which, in the next
breath, she withdrew. And Mary, too young to
understand the inconsistencies of love, pitied and
comforted, and thought it " passing strange."
In the meantime misfortunes of a different kind
were gathering round Mrs Kent. The mealman and
baker, whose bread she vended, her kindest friend
and largest creditor, died, leaving his affairs in the
hands of an attorney in the next town, the pest and
225
terror of the neighbourhood ; and, on the same day,
she received two letters from this formidable lawyer
one on account of his dead client, the baker, the
other on behalf of his living client, the grocer, who
ranked next amongst her creditors, both threatening
that if their respective claims were not liquidated, on
or before a certain day, proceedings would be com-
menced against her forthwith.
It is in such a situation that woman most feels
her helplessness, especially that forlorn creature
whom the common people, adopting the pathetic
language of Scripture, designate by the expressive
phrase, " a lone woman ! " Poor Judith sat down to
cry, in powerless sorrow and vain self-pity. She
opened, indeed, her hopeless day-book, but she
knew too well that her debtors could not pay. She
had no one to consult, for her lodger, in whose
general cleverness she had great confidence, had been
absent, on one of his excursions, almost as long as
her son, and time pressed upon her, for the letters,
sent with the usual indirectness of country conveyance,
originally given to the carrier, confided by the carrier
to the butterman, carried on by the butterman to the
next village, left for three days at a public-house,
and, finally, delivered at Hilton Cross, by a return
post-boy had been nearly a week on the road.
Saturday was the day fixed for payment, and this
was Friday night ! and Michaelmas and rent-day were
approaching ! and unable even to look at this accumu-
lation of misery, poor Judith laid her head on her
fruitless accompt-book, and sobbed aloud !
It was with a strangely mingled feeling of
comfort in such a son, and sorrow so to grieve him,
226 OU VILLAGE
that she heard Roberts voice at her side, asking
tenderly, what ailed her ? She put the letters into
his hands ; and he, long prepared for the blow,
soothed and cheered her. " All must be given up,"
he said, " and he would go with her the next day, to
make over the whole property. Let us pay as far as
our. means go, mother," pursued he, "and do not
fear but, some day or other, we shall be able to dis-
charge all our debts. God will speed an honest
purpose. In the meantime, Mr Lescombe will give
us a cottage I know he will and I shall work for
you and Mary. It will be something to live for
something worth living for. Be comforted, dear
mother ! " He stooped, as he said this, and kissed
her ; and when he arose, he saw Susan standing
opposite to him, and behind her the stranger. They
had entered separately, during the conversation be-
tween the mother and son, and Susan was still uncon-
scious of the artist's presence.
She stood, in great agitation, pressing Mary's
hand (from whom she had heard the story), and
immediately began questioning Mrs Kent as to the
extent of the calamity. " She had twenty pounds of
her own, that her grandmother had left her ; but a
hundred ! did they want a whole hundred ? and
would they send Mrs Kent to prison ? and sell her
goods ? and turn Mary out of doors ? and Robert
Oh ! how ill Robert looked ! It would kill Robert !
Oh J " continued Susan, wringing her hands, " I
would sell myself for a bondwoman, I would be like
a negro-slave, for one hundred pounds ! " " Would
you ? " said the stranger, advancing suddenly from
the door, and producing two bank bills ; " would
227
you ? well ! we will strike a bargain. I will give you
two hundred pounds for this little hand, only this
little hand ! " " What do you mean, Sir ? " exclaimed
Mrs Kent, "what can you mean!" "Nothing but
what is fair and honourable," returned her lodger ;
" let Susan promise to meet me at church, to-morrow,
and here are two hundred pounds to dispose of, at
her pleasure, to-night." "Susan! my dear Susan!"
" Let her alone, mother ! " interrupted Robert ;
"she must choose for herself!" and, for a few
moments, there was a dead silence. Robert stood,
leaning against the wall, pale as marble, his eyes cast
down, and his lips compressed, in a state of forced
composure. Mrs Kent, her head turning, now to-
wards the bank-notes, and now towards her son, was
in a state of restless and uncontrollable instability j
Mary clung, crying, about her mother ; and Susan,
her colour varying, and her lips quivering, sat, un-
consciously twisting and untwisting the bank-notes
in her hand.
" Well, Susan ! " said the artist, who had re-
mained in tranquil expectation, surveying the group
with his falcon eye, " Well, Susan ! have you deter-
mined ? " The colour rose to her temples, and she
answered firmly, " Yes, Sir ! be pleased to take back
the notes. I love nobody but Robert, and Robert
loves me dearly, dearly ! I know he does ! Oh Mrs
Kent ! you would not have me vex Robert, your own
dear son, and he so ill, would you ? Let them take
these things ! they never can be so cruel as to put you
in prison you, who were always so kind to every-
body ; and he will work for you ! and I will work
for you ! Never mind being poor ! better anything
228 OU VILLAGE
than be false-hearted to my Robert ! " " God for
ever bless you, my Susan ! " "God bless you, my
dear child ! " burst, at once, from Robert and his
mother, as they, alternately, folded her in their
arms.
" Pray take the notes, Sir," repeated Susan after
a short interval. " No ! that I will not do," replied
the stranger, smiling. " The notes shall be yours,
are yours, and what is more, on my own con-
ditions ! Meet me at church to-morrow morning,
and I shall have the pleasure of bestowing this pretty
hand, as I always intended, on my good friend,
Robert, here. I have a wife of my own at home,
my dear, whom I would not exchange, even for you ;
and I am quite rich enough to afford myself the
luxury of making you happy. Besides, you have a
claim to the money. These very bank-notes were
gained by that sweet face ! Your friend, Mr
Lescombe, Robert, has purchased the hay-carrying !
We have had a good deal of talk about you, and I
am quite certain that he will provide for you all. No
thanks ! " continued he, interrupting something that
Robert was going to say, " No thanks ! no
apologies ! I won't hear a word. Meet me at
church to-morrow ! but remember, young man, no
more jealousy ! " and, followed by a glance from
Susan, of which Robert might have been jealous,
the artist left the shop.
ANYBODY may be lost in a wood. It is well for
me to have so good an excuse for my wanderings !
for I am rather famous for such misadventures,
and have sometimes been accused by my kindest
friends of committing intentional blunders, and
going astray out of malice prepense. To be sure,
when in two successive rambles I contrived to get
mazed on Burghfield Common, and bewildered in
Kibe's Lane, those exploits did seem to overpass
the common limits of stupidity. But in a wood,
and a strange wood, a new place, a fresh country,
untrodden ground beneath the feet, unknown land-
marks before the eyes, wiser folks than I might
require the silken clue of Rosamond, or the bag
of ashes given to Finette Cendron (Anglice, Cin-
derella) by the good fairy her godmother, to help
them home again. Now, my luck exceeded even
hers of the Glass Slipper, for I found something not
unlike the good fairy herself, in the pleasant earthly
guise of an old friend. But I may as well begin my
story.
About two years ago we had the misfortune
to lose one of the most useful and popular inhabitants
of our village, Mrs Bond, the butter-woman. She
Q "9
230 OU^ VILLAGE
for although there was a very honest and hard-working
Farmer Bond, who had the honour to be Mrs Bond's
husband, she was so completely the personage of the
family that nobody ever thought of him she lived on
a small dairy-farm at the other side of the parish,
where she had reared ten children in comfort and
respectability, contriving in all years and in all seasons
to look and to be flourishing, happy, and contented,
and to drive her tilted cart twice a week into B.,
laden with the richest butter, the freshest eggs, and
the finest poultry of the county. Never was market-
woman so reliable as Mrs Bond, so safe to deal with,
or so pleasant to look at. She was a neat, comely
woman of five-and-forty, or thereabout, with dark
hair, laughing eyes, a bright smile, and a brighter
complexion red and white like a daisy. People used
to say how pretty she must have been ; but I think
she was then in the prime of her good looks j just as
a full-blown damask rose is more beautiful than the
same flower in the bud.
Very pleasant she was to look at, and still
pleasanter to talk to ; she was so gentle, so cheerful,
so respectful, and so kind. Everybody in the village
loved Mrs Bond. Even Lizzy and May, the two
most aristocratical of its inhabitants, and the most
tenacious of the distinctions of rank, would run to
meet the butter-cart as if it were a carriage and four ;
a mark of preference which the good-humoured dairy-
woman did not fail to acknowledge and confirm by
gifts suited to their respective tastes an occasional
pitcher of butter-milk to May, and a stick with
cherries tied round it to poor Lizzy.
Nor was Mrs Bond's bounty confined to largesses
LOST exf^(Z) FOU^D 231
of so suspicious a nature, as presents to the pets of a
good customer. I have never known any human
being more thoroughly and universally generous,
more delicate in her little gifts, or with so entire an
absence of design or artifice in her attentions. It was
a prodigality of kindness that seemed never weary of
well-doing. What posies of pinks and sweet-williams,
backed by marjoram and rosemary, she used to carry
to the two poor old ladies who lodged at the pastry-
cook's at B. ! What fagots of lilac and laburnum she
would bring to deck the poor widow Hay's open
hearth ! What baskets of water-cresses, the brown-
est, the bitterest, and the crispest of the year, for
our fair neighbour, the nymph of the shoe-shop, a
delicate girl, who could only be tempted in to her
breakfast by that pleasant herb ! What pots of honey
for John Brown's cough ! What gooseberries and
currants for the baker's little children ! And as soon
as her great vine ripened, what grapes for everybody !
No wonder that when Mrs Bond left the parish to
occupy a larger farm in a distant county, her absence
was felt as a misfortune by the whole village ; that
poor Lizzy inquired after her every day for a week ;
and that May watched for the tilted cart every
Wednesday and Friday for a month or more.
I myself joined very heartily in the general
lamentation. But time and habit reconcile us to
most privations, and I must confess that, much as I
liked her, I had nearly forgotten our good butter-
woman, until an adventure which befell me last week
placed me once more in the way of her ready
kindness.
I was on a visit at a considerable distance from
232 OU<R^ VILLAGE
home, in one of the most retired parts of Oxfordshire.
Nothing could be more beautiful than the situation,
or less accessible ; shut in amongst woody hills,
remote from great towns, with deep chalky roads,
almost impassable, and a broad bridgeless river,
coming, as if to intercept your steps, whenever you
did seem to have fallen into a beaten track. It was
exactly the country and the season in which to wander
about all day long.
One fair morning I set out on my accustomed
ramble. The sun was intensely hot ; the sky almost
cloudless ; I had climbed a long abrupt ascent, to
enjoy the sight of the magnificent river, winding like
a snake amidst the richly-clothed hills : the pretty
village, with its tapering spire; and the universal
freshness and brilliancy of the gay and smiling
prospect too gay, perhaps ! I gazed till I became
dazzled with the glare of the sunshine, oppressed by
the very brightness, and turned into a beech-wood
by the side of the road, to seek relief from the over-
powering radiance. These beech-woods should rather
be called coppices. They are cut down occasionally,
and consist of long flexible stems, growing out of
the old roots. But they are like no other coppices,
or rather none other can be compared with them.
The young beechen stems, perfectly free from under-
wood, go arching and intertwining overhead, forming
a thousand mazy paths, covered by a natural trellis ;
the shining green leaves, just bursting from their
golden sheaths, contrasting with the smooth silvery
bark, shedding a cool green light around, and casting
a thousand dancing shadows on the mossy flowery
path, pleasant to the eye and to the tread, a fit haunt
LOST vfWD FOUND 233
for wood-nymph or fairy. There is always much of
interest in the mystery of a wood ; the uncertainty
produced by the confined boundary ; the objects
which crowd together, and prevent the eye from
penetrating to any distance ; the strange flickering
mixture of shadow and sunshine, the sudden flight of
birds oh, it was enchanting ! I wandered on, quite
regardless of time or distance, now admiring the
beautiful wood-sorrel which sprang up amongst the
old roots now plucking the fragrant wood-ruff
now trying to count the countless varieties of wood-
land-moss, till, at length, roused by my foot's catching
in a rich trail of the white-veined ivy, which crept,
wreathing and interlaced, over the ground, I became
aware that I was completely lost, had entirely forsaken
all track, and out-travelled all landmarks. The wood
was, I knew, extensive, and the ground so tumbled
about, that every hundred yards presented some
flowery slope or broken dell, which added greatly
to the picturesqueness of the scenery, but much
diminished my chance of discovery or extrication.
In this emergency I determined to proceed
straight onward, trusting in this way to reach at
last one side of the wood, although I could not at all
guess which ; and I was greatly solaced, after having
walked about a quarter of a mile, to find myself
crossed by a rude cart track ; and still more delighted,
on proceeding a short distance farther, to hear sounds
of merriment and business ; none of the softest,
certainly, but which gave token of rustic habitation ;
and to emerge suddenly from the close wood, amongst
an open grove of huge old trees, oaks, with their
brown-plaited leaves, cherries, covered with snowy
234 OU K. VILLAGE
garlands, and beeches almost as gigantic as those of
Windsor Park, contrasting, with their enormous
trunks and majestic spread of bough, the light and
flexible stems of the coppice I had left.
I had come out at one of the highest points of
the wood, and now stood on a platform overlooking
a scene of extraordinary beauty. A little to the
right, in a very narrow valley, stood an old farm-
house, with pointed roofs and porch and pinnacles,
backed by a splendid orchard, which lay bathed in
the sunshine, exhaling its fresh aromatic fragrance,
all one flower ; just under me was a strip of rich
meadow land, through which a stream ran sparkling,
and directly opposite a ridge of hanging coppices,
surrounding and crowning, as it were, an immense
old chalk-pit, which, overhung by bramble, ivy, and
a hundred pendent weeds, irregular and weather-
stained, had an air as venerable and romantic as
some grey ruin. Seen in the gloom and stillness of
evening, or by the pale glimpses of the moon, it
would have required but little aid from the fancy to
picture out the broken shafts and mouldering arches
of some antique abbey. But, besides that daylight is
the sworn enemy of such illusions, my attention was
imperiously claimed by a reality of a very different
kind. One of the gayest and noisiest operations
of rural life sheep-washing was going on in the
valley below
"the turmoil that unites
Clamour of boys with innocent despites
Of barking dogs, and bleatings from strange fear."
WORDSWORTH.
All the inhabitants of the farm seemed assembled
LOST .tfO^p FOU3iD 235
in the meadow. I counted a dozen, at least, of men
and boys of all ages, from the stout, sunburnt, vigorous
farmer of fifty, who presided over the operation, down
to the eight-year old urchin, who, screaming, running,
and shaking his ineffectual stick after an eloped sheep,
served as a sort of aide-de-camp to the sheep-dog.
What a glorious scene of confusion it was ! what
shouting ! what scuffling ! what glee ! Four or five
young men, and one amazon of a barefooted girl,
with her petticoats tucked up to her knees, stood
in the water where it was pent between two hurdles,
ducking, sousing, and holding down by main force,
the poor, frightened, struggling sheep, who kicked,
and plunged, and bleated, and butted, and, in spite
of their imputed innocence, would certainly, in the
ardour of self-defence, have committed half a dozen
homicides, if their power had equalled their inclina-
tion. The rest of the party were fully occupied ;
some in conducting the purified sheep, who showed
a strong disposition to go the wrong way, back to
their quarters ; others in leading the uncleansed part
of the flock to their destined ablution, from which
they also testified a very ardent and active desire to
escape. Dogs, men, boys, and girls, were engaged
in marshalling these double processions, the order of
which was constantly interrupted by the outbreaking
of some runaway sheep, who turned the march into
a pursuit, to the momentary increase of the din
which seemed already to have reached the highest
possible pitch.
The only quiet persons in the field were a
delicate child of nine years old, and a blooming
woman of forty-five a comely, blooming woman,
236 OU^ VILLAGE
with dark hair, bright eyes, and a complexion like
a daisy, who stood watching the sheep - washers
with the happiest smiles, and was evidently the
mother of half the lads and lasses in the melee.
It would be, and it was, no other than my friend
Mrs Bond, and resolving to make myself and my
difficulties known to her, I scrambled down no
very smooth or convenient path, and keeping a
gate betwen me and the scene of action, contrived,
after sundry efforts, to attract her attention.
Here, of course, my difficulties ceased. But
if I were to tell how glad she was to see her old
neighbour, how full of kind questions and of hospitable
cares how she would cut the great cake intended for
the next day's sheep-shearing, would tap her two-
year-old currant wine, 'would gather a whole bush of
early honeysuckles, and finally would see me home
herself, I being, as she observed, rather given to
losing my way j if I were to tell all these things,
when should I have done ? I will rather conclude in
the words of an old French fairy tale : " Je crains dejh
d* avoir abuse de la patience du lecteur. Jejlnis avant qu'il
me dise definir"
THE OLD GIPST
WE have few gipsies in our neighbourhood. In
spite of our tempting green lanes, our woody dells
and heathy commons, the rogues don't take to us. I
am afraid that we are too civilised, too cautious ; that
our sheep-folds are too closely watched ; our barn-
yards too well guarded ; our geese and ducks too
fastly penned ; our chickens too securely locked up ;
our little pigs too safe in their sty ; our game too
scarce ; our laundresses too careful. In short, we are
too little primitive : we have a snug brood of vagabonds
and poachers of our own, to say nothing of their regular
followers, constables and justices of the peace : we
have stocks in the village, and a treadmill in the next
town : and therefore we go gipsyless a misfortune of
which every landscape painter, and every lover of that
living landscape, the country, can appreciate the extent.
There is nothing under the sun that harmonises so
well with nature, especially in her woodland recesses,
as that picturesque people, who are, so to say, the
wild genus the pheasants and roe-bucks of the
human race.
Sometimes, indeed, we used to see a gipsy pro-
cession passing along the common, like an eastern
caravan, men, women, and children, donkeys and
237
238 OU1{ VILLAGE
dogs ; and sometimes a patch of bare earth, strewed
with ashes and surrounded with scathed turf, on the
broad green margin of some cross road, would give
token of a gipsy halt ; but a regular gipsy encamp-
ment has always been so rare an event, that I was
equally surprised and delighted to meet with one in
the course of my walks last autumn, particularly as
the party was of the most innocent description, quite
free from those tall, dark, lean, Spanish-looking men,
who, it must be confessed, with all my predilection
for the caste, are rather startling to meet when
alone in an unfrequented path : and a path more
solitary than that into which the beauty of a bright
October morning had tempted me could not well
be imagined.
Branching off from the high road, a little below
our village, runs a wide green lane, bordered on
either side by a row of young oaks and beeches, just
within the hedge, forming an avenue, in which, on a
summer afternoon, you may see the squirrels disport-
ing from tree to tree, whilst the rooks, their fellow-
denizens, are wheeling in noisy circles over their
heads. The fields sink gently down on one side, so
that, being the bottom of a natural winding valley,
and crossed by many little hills and rivulets, the turf
exhibits even in the dryest summers an emerald
verdure. Scarcely any one passes the end of that
lane without wishing to turn into it ; but the way is
in some sort dangerous and difficult for foot-pas-
sengers, because the brooklets which intersect it are
in many instances bridgeless, and in others bestridden
by planks so decayed, that it were rashness to pass
them j and the nature of the ground, treacherous and
THE OLD GtPST 239
boggy, and in many places as unstable as water,
renders it for carriages wholly impracticable.
I, however, who do not dislike a little difficulty
where there is no absolute danger, and who am more-
over almost as familiar with the one only safe track
as the heifers who graze there, sometimes venture
along this seldom-trodden path, which terminates, at
the end of a mile and a half, in a spot of singular
beauty. The hills become abrupt and woody, the
cultivated enclosures cease, and the long narrow
valley ends in a little green, bordered on one side by
a fine old park, whose mossy paling, overhung with
thorns and hollies, comes sweeping round it, to meet
the rich coppices which clothe the opposite acclivity.
Just under the high and irregular paling, shaded by
the birches and sycamores of the park, and by the
venerable oaks which are scattered irregularly on the
green, is a dark deep pool, whose broken banks,
crowned with fern and wreathed with briar and
bramble, have an air of wildness and grandeur that
might have suited the pencil of Salvator Rosa.
In this lonely place (for the mansion to which
the park belongs has long been uninhabited) I first
saw our gipsies. They had pitched their tent under
one of the oak trees, perhaps from a certain dim sense
of natural beauty, which those who live with nature
in the fields are seldom totally without ; perhaps be-
cause the neighbourhood of the coppices, and of the
deserted hall, was favourable to the acquisition of
game, and of the little fuel which their hardy habits
required. The party consisted only of four an old
crone, in a tattered red cloak and black bonnet, who
was stooping over a kettle, of which the contents
240. OU3^ VILLAGE
were probably as savoury as that of Meg Merrilies,
renowned in story ; a pretty black-eyed girl, at work
under the trees ; a sun-burnt urchin of eight or nine,
collecting sticks and dead leaves to feed their out-of-
door fire, and a slender lad two or three years older,
who lay basking in the sun, with a couple of shabby
dogs, of the sort called mongrel, in all the joy of
idleness, whilst a grave, patient donkey stood grazing
hard by. It was a pretty picture, with its soft
autumnal sky, its rich woodiness, its sunshine, its
verdure, the light smoke curling from the fire, and
the group disposed around it so harmless, poor out-
casts ! and so happy a beautiful picture ! I stood
gazing on it till I was half ashamed to look longer,
and came away half afraid that they should depart
before I could see them again.
This fear I soon found to be groundless. The
old gipsy was a celebrated fortune-teller, and the
post having been so long vacant, she could not have
brought her talents to a better market. The whole
village rang with the predictions of this modern
Cassandra unlike her Trojan predecessor, inasmuch
as her prophecies were never of evil. I myself could
not help admiring the real cleverness, the genuine
gipsy tact with which she adapted her foretellings to
the age, the habits, and the known desires and cir-
cumstances of her clients.
To our little pet, Lizzy, for instance, a damsel
of seven, she predicted a fairing-, to Ben Kirby, a
youth of thirteen, head batter of the boys, a new
cricket-ball ; to Ben's sister Lucy, a girl some three
years his senior, and just promoted to that ensign of
womanhood a cap, she promised a pink top-knot;
THE OLD GIPST 241
whilst for Miss Sophia Matthews, our old-maidish
school-mistress, who would be heartily glad to be a
girl again, she foresaw one handsome husband, and
for the smart widow Simmons, two. These were the
least of her triumphs. George Davis, the dashing
young farmer of the hill-house, a gay sportsman, who
scoffed at fortune-tellers and matrimony, consulted
her as to whose greyhound would win the courser's
cup at the beacon meeting : to which she replied, that
she did not know to whom the dog would belong,
but that the winner of the cup would be a white
greyhound, with one blue ear, and a spot on its side,
being an exact description of Mr George Davis's
favourite Helen, who followed her master's steps like
his shadow, and was standing behind him at this very
instant. This prediction gained our gipsy half-a-
crown. And Master Welles the thriving, thrifty
yeoman of the Lea she managed to win sixpence
from his hard, honest, frugal hand, by a prophecy
that his old brood mare, called Blackfoot, should
bring forth twins. And Ned the blacksmith, who
was known to court the tall nursemaid at the mill
she got a shilling from Ned, simply by assuring him
that his wife should have the longest coffin that ever
was made in our wheelwright's shop. A most tempt-
ing prediction ! ingeniously combining the prospect
of winning and of surviving the lady of his heart a
promise equally adapted to the hot and cold fits of
that ague called love ; lightening the fetters of wed-
lock; uniting in a breath the bridegroom and the
widower. Ned was the best pleased of all her
customers, and enforced his suit with such vigour,
that he and the fair giantess were asked in church
242 Ol/X. VILLAGE
the next Sunday, and married at the fortnight's
end.
No wonder that all the world that is to say,
all our world were crazy to have their fortunes
told to enjoy the pleasure of hearing from such
undoubted authority, that what they wished to be
should be. Amongst the most eager to take a peep
into futurity was our pretty maid Harriet, although
her desire took the not unusual form of disclamation
" Nothing should induce her to have her fortune
told, nothing upon earth ! She never thought of the
gipsy, not she ! " and, to prove the fact, she said so
at least twenty times a day. Now Harriet's fortune
seemed told already ; her destiny was fixed. She,
the belle of the village, was engaged, as everybody
knows, to our village beau, Joel Brent j they were
only waiting for a little more money to marry ; and
as Joel was already head carter to our head farmer,
and had some prospects of a bailiff's place, their
union did not appear very distant. But Harriet,
besides being a beauty, was a coquette, and her
affection for her betrothed did not interfere with
certain flirtations which came in like Isabella, "by-
the-bye," and occasionally cast a shadow of coolness
between the lovers, which, however, Joel's cleverness
and good-humour generally contrived to chase away.
There had probably been a little fracas in the present
instance, for at the end of one of her daily professions
of unfaith in gipsies and their predictions, she added,
" that none but fools did believe them j that Joel
had had his fortune told, and wanted to treat her
to a prophecy but she was not such a simpleton."
About an hour after the delivery of this speech,
THE OLD GIPST 243
I happened in tying up a chrysanthemum, to go to
our wood-yard for a stick of proper dimensions, and
there, enclosed between the faggot-pile and the coal-
shed, stood the gipsy, in the very act of palmistry,
conning the lines of fate in Harriet's hand. Never
was a stronger contrast than that between the old
withered sibyl, dark as an Egyptian, with bright
laughing eyes, and an expression of keen humour
under all her affected solemnity, and our village
beauty, tall, and plump, and fair, blooming as a
rose, and simple as a dove. She was listening too
intently to see me, but the fortune-teller did, and
stopped so suddenly that her attention was awakened,
and the intruder discovered.
Harriet at first meditated a denial. She called
up a pretty innocent unconcerned look ; answered
my silence (for I never spoke a word) by mutter-
ing something about "coals for the parlour"; and
catching up my new-pairited green watering-pot,
instead of the coal-scuttle, began filling it with all
her might, to the unspeakable discomfiture of that
useful utensil, on which the dingy dust stuck like
bird-lime and of her own clean apron, which ex-
hibited a curious interchange of black and green
on a white ground. During the process of filling
the watering-pot, Harriet made divers signs to the
gipsy to decamp. The old sibyl, however, budged
not a foot, influenced probably by two reasons one,
the hope of securing a customer in the new-comer,
whose appearance is generally, I am afraid, the very
reverse of dignified, rather merry than wise j the
other, a genuine fear of passing through the yard-
gate, on the outside of which a much more imposing
244 OU K. VILLAGE
person, my greyhound Mayflower, who has a sort
of beadle instinct anent drunkards and pilferers, and
disorderly persons of all sorts, stood barking most
furiously.
This instinct is one of May's remarkable quali-
ties. Dogs are all, more or less, physiognomists, and
commonly pretty determined aristocrats, fond of the
fine and averse to the shabby, distinguishing, with
a nice accuracy, the master castes from the pariahs
of the world. But May's power of perception is
another matter, more, as it were, moral. She has
no objection to honest rags ; can away with dirt, or
age, or ugliness, or any such accident, and, except
just at home, makes no distinction between kitchen
and parlour. Her intuition points entirely to the race
of people commonly called suspicious, on whom she
pounces at a glance. What a constable she would
have made ! What a jewel of a thief-taker ! Pity
that those four feet should stand in the way of
her preferment ! she might have risen to be a Bow
Street officer. As it is, we make the gift useful in
a small way. In the matter of hiring and marketing
the whole village likes to consult May. Many a chap
has stared when she has been whistled up to give
her opinion as to his honesty ; and many a pig bargain
has gone off on her veto. Our neighbour, mine host
of the Rose, used constantly to follow her judgment
in the selection of his lodgers. His house was never
so orderly as when under her government. At last
he found out that she abhorred tipplers as well as
thieves indeed, she actually barked away three of
his best customers : and he left off appealing to her
sagacity, since which he has, at different times, lost
THE OLD GIPST 245
three silver spoons and a leg of mutton. With every
one else May is an oracle. Not only in the case of
wayfarers and vagrants, but amongst our own people,
her fancies are quite a touchstone. A certain hump-
backed cobbler, for instance May cannot abide him,
and I don't think he has had so much as a job o^
heel-piecing to do since her dislike became public.
She really took away his character.
Longer than I have taken to relate Mayflower's
accomplishments stood we, like the folks in The Critic,
at a deadlock j May, who probably regarded the
gipsy as a sort of rival, an interloper on her oracular
domain, barking with the voice of a lioness the
gipsy trying to persuade me into having my fortune
told and I endeavouring to prevail on May to let
the gipsy pass. Both attempts were unsuccessful :
and the fair consulter of destiny, who had by this
time recovered from the shame of her detection,
extricated us from our dilemma by smuggling the
old woman away through the house.
Of course Harriet was exposed to some raillery,
and a good deal of questioning about her future fate,
as to which she preserved an obstinate but evidently
satisfied silence. At the end of three days, however
my readers are, I hope, learned enough in gipsy
lore to know, that unless kept secret for three entire
days, no prediction can come true at the end of
three days, when all the family except herself had
forgotten the story, our pretty soubrette, half burst-
ing with the long retention, took the opportunity of
lacing on my new half-boots to reveal the prophecy.
" She was to see within the week, and this was
Saturday, the young man, the real young man, whom
R
246 OU^ VILLAGE
she was to marry." "Why, Harriet, you know poor
Joel." " Joel, indeed ! the gipsy said that the young
man, the real young man, was to ride up to the
house dressed in a dark great-coat (and Joel never
wore a great-coat in his life all the world knew that
he wore smock-frocks and jackets), and mounted on
a white horse and where should Joel get a white
horse ? " " Had this real young man made his
appearance yet?" "No; there had not been a
white horse past the place since Tuesday ; so it must
certainly be to-day."
A good look-out did Harriet keep for white
horses during this fateful Saturday, and plenty did
she see. It was the market-day at B., and team after
team came by with one, two, and three white horses ;
cart after cart, and gig after gig, each with a white
steed ; Colonel M.'s carriage, with its prancing pair
but still no horseman. At length one appeared ;
but he had a great-coat whiter than the animal he
rode ; another, but he was old farmer Lewington, a
married man ; a third, but he was little Lord L., a
schoolboy, on his Arabian pony. Besides, they all
passed the house ; and as the day wore on, Harriet
began, alternately, to possess her old infidelity on
the score of fortune-telling, and to let out certain
apprehensions that, if the gipsy did really possess the
power of foreseeing events, and no such horseman
arrived, she might possibly be unlucky enough to die
an old maid a fate for which, although the proper
destiny of a coquette, our village beauty seemed to
entertain a very decided aversion.
At last, at dusk, just as Harriet, making believe
to close our casement shutters, was taking her last
THE OLD GIPST 247
peep up the road, something white appeared in the
distance coming leisurely down the hill. Was it
really a horse? Was it not rather Titus Strong's
cow driving home to milking ? A minute or two
dissipated that fear ; it certainly was a horse, and as
certainly it had a dark rider. Very slowly he de-
scended the hill, pausing most provokingly at the
end of the village, as if about to turn up the Vicar-
age lane. He came on, however, and after another
short stop at the Rose, rode up full to our little gate,
and catching Harriet's hand as she was opening the
wicket, displayed to the half -pleased, half -angry
damsel, the smiling triumphant face of her own Joel
Brent, equipped in a new great-coat, and mounted on
his master's newly - purchased market nag. Oh,
Joel ! Joel ! The gipsy ! the gipsy !
THE TOUJ^G GIPSr
THE weather continuing fine and dry, I did not
fail to revisit my gipsy encampment, which became
more picturesque every day in the bright sun-gleams
and lengthening shadows of a most brilliant autumn.
A slight frost had strewed the green lane with the
light yellow leaves of the elm those leaves on whose
yielding crispness it is so pleasant to tread, and which
it is so much pleasanter to watch whirling along,
" thin dancers upon air," in the fresh October breeze;
whilst the reddened beech, and spotted sycamore,
and the rich oaks drooping with acorns, their foliage
just edging into its deep orange brown, added all the
magic of colour to the original beauty of the scenery.
It was undoubtedly the prettiest walk in the neigh-
bourhood, and the one which I frequented the most.
Ever since the adventure of May, the old
fortune-teller and I understood each other perfectly.
She knew that I was no client, no patient, no cus-
tomer (which is the fittest name for a goosecap who
goes to a gipsy to ask what is to befall her ?) but she
also knew that I was no enemy to either her or her
profession j for, after all, if people choose to amuse
themselves by being simpletons, it is no part of their
neighbours' business to hinder them. I, on my side,
248
THE rOU^G GIPST 249
liked the old gipsy exceedingly; I liked both her
humour and her good humour, and had a real respect
for her cleverness. We always interchanged a smile
and a nod, meet where we might. May, too, had
become accustomed to the whole party. The gift of
a bone from the caldron a bare bone your well-fed
dog likes nothing so well as such a windfall, and
if stolen the relish is higher a bare bone brought
about that reconciliation. I am sorry to accuse May
of accepting a bribe, but such was the fact. She
now looked at the fortune-teller with great com-
placency, would let the boys stroke her long neck,
and, in her turn, would condescend to frolic with
their shabby curs, who, trained to a cat-like caution
and mistrust of their superiors, were as much alarmed
at her advances as if a lioness had offered herself as
their playfellow. There was no escaping her civility,
however, so they submitted to their fate, and really
seemed astonished to find themselves alive when the
gambol was over. One of them, who from a tail
turned over his back like a squirrel, and an amazingly
snub nose, had certainly some mixture of the pug in
his composition, took a great fancy to her when his
fright was past ; which she repaid by the sort of
scornful kindness, the despotic protection, proper to
her as a beauty, and a favourite, and a high-blooded
greyhound always a most proud and stately creature.
The poor little mongrel used regularly to come
jumping to meet her, and she as regularly turned
him over and over and over, and round and round
and round, like a teetotum. He liked it apparently,
for he never failed to come and court the tossing
whenever she went near him.
250 OU^ VILLAGE
The person most interesting to me of the whole
party was the young girl. She was remarkably
pretty, and of the peculiar prettiness which is so
frequently found amongst that singular people. Her
face resembled those which Sir Joshua has often
painted rosy, round, and bright, set in such a pro-
fusion of dark curls, lighted by such eyes, and such
a smile ! and she smiled whenever you looked at her
she could not help it. Her figure was light and
small, of low stature, and with an air of great
youthfulness. In her dress she was, for a gipsy,
surprisingly tidy. For the most part, that ambulatory
race have a preference for rags, as forming their most
appropriate wardrobe, being a part of their tools of
trade, their insignia of office. I do not imagine
that Harriet's friend, the fortune-teller, would have
exchanged her stained tattered cloak for the thickest
and brightest red cardinal that ever came out of a
woollen-draper's shop. And she would have been a
loser if she had. Take away that mysterious mantle,
and a great part of her reputation would go too.
There is much virtue in an old cloak. I question
if the simplest of her clients, even Harriet herself,
woud have consulted her in a new one. But the
young girl was tidy ; not only accurately clean, and
with clothes neatly and nicely adjusted to her trim
little form, but with the rents darned, and the holes
patched in a way that I should be glad to see equalled
by our own villagers.
Her manners were quite as ungipsy-like as her
apparel, and so was her conversation ; for I could not
help talking to her, and was much pleased with her
frankness and innocence, and the directness and
THE TOU^G GIPST 251
simplicity of her answers. She was not the least
shy ; on the contrary, there was a straightforward
look, a fixing of her sweet eyes full of pleasure and
reliance right upon you, which, in the description,
might seem almost too assured, but which, in reality,
no more resembled vulgar assurance than did the
kindred artlessness of Shakespeare's Miranda. It
seems strange to liken a gipsy girl to that loveliest
creation of genius ; but I never saw that innocent
gaze without being sure that just with such a look
of pleased attention, of affectionate curiosity, did the
island princess listen to Ferdinand.
All that she knew of her little story she told
without scruple, in a young liquid voice, and with a
little curtsy between every answer, that became her
extremely. "Her name," she said, "was Fanny.
She had no father or mother ; they were dead ; and
she and her brothers lived with her grandmother.
They lived always out of doors, sometimes in one
place sometimes in another ; but she should like
always to live under that oak tree, it was so pleasant.
Her grandmother was very good to them all, only
rather particular. She loved her very much ; and she
loved Dick (her eldest brother), though he was a sad
unlucky boy, to be sure. She was afraid he would
come to some bad end."
And, indeed, Dick at that moment seemed in
imminent danger of verifying his sister's prediction.
He had been trying for a gleaning of nuts amongst
the tall hazels on the top of a bank, which, flanked
by a deep ditch, separated the coppice from the
green. We had heard him for the last five minutes
smashing and crashing away at a prodigious rate,
252 OU^ VILLAGE
swinging himself from stalk to stalk, and tugging
and climbing like a sailor or a monkey ; and now, at
the very instant of Fanny's uttering this prophecy,
having missed a particularly venturesome grasp, he
was impelled forward by the rebound of the branches,
and fell into the ditch with a tremendous report,
bringing half the nuttery after him, and giving us all
a notion that he had broken his neck. His time,
however, was not yet come ; he was on his feet again
in half a minute, and in another half minute we again
heard him rustling among the hazel boughs ; and
Fanny and I went on with our talk, which the
fright and scolding, consequent on this accident, had
interrupted. My readers are of course aware that
when any one meets with a fall, the approved medi-
cament of the most affectionate relatives is a good
dose of scolding.
"She liked Dick," she continued, "in spite of
his unluckiness he was so quick and good-humoured ;
but the person she loved most was her youngest
brother, Willy. Willy was the best boy in the
world, he would do anything she told him " (indeed
the poor child was in the very act of picking up
acorns under her inspection, to sell, as I afterwards
found, in the village), " and never got into mischief,
or told a lie in his life ; she had had the care of him
ever since he was born, and she wished she could get
him a place." By this time the little boy had crept
towards us, and, still collecting the acorns in his small
brown hands, had turned up his keen intelligent face,
and was listening with great interest to our conversa-
tion. " A place ! " said I, much surprised. " Yes,"
replied she firmly, " a place. 'Twould be a fine
THE TOU^G GIPSr 253
thing for my poor Willy to have a house over him in
the cold winter nights." And with a grave tender-
ness, that might have beseemed a young mother, she
stooped her head over the boy and kissed him. " But
you sleep out of doors in the cold winter nights,
Fanny?" "Me! Oh, I don't mind it, and some-
times we creep into a barn. But poor Willy ! If I
could but get Willy a place, my lady ! "
This " my lady," the first gipsy word that Fanny
had uttered, lost all that it would have had of un-
pleasing in the generosity and affectionateness of the
motive. I could not help promising to recommend
her Willy, although I could not hold out any very
strong hopes of success, and we parted, Fanny
following me, with thanks upon thanks, almost to
the end of the lane.
Two days after I again saw my pretty gipsy ;
she was standing by the side of our gate, too modest
even to enter the court, waiting for my coming out
to speak to me. T brought her into the hall, and was
almost equally delighted to see her, and to hear her
news ; for although I had most faithfully performed
my promise, by mentioning Master Willy to every-
body likely to want a servant of his qualifications, I
had seen enough in the course of my canvass to con-
vince me that a gipsy boy of eight years old would
be a difficult protege to provide for.
Fanny's errand relieved my perplexity. She
came to tell me that Willy had gotten a place
" That Thomas Lamb, my lord's head gamekeeper,
had hired him to tend his horse and his cow, and
serve the pigs, and feed the dogs, and dig the garden,
and clean the shoes and knives, and run on errands
254 OU^ VILLAGE
in short, to be a man of all work. Willy was gone
that very morning. He had cried to part with her,
and she had almost cried herself, she should miss
him so ; he was like her own child. But then it was
such a great place j and Thomas Lamb seemed such
a kind master talked of new-clothing him, and
meant him to wear shoes and stockings, and was very
kind indeed. But poor Willy had cried sadly at
leaving her," and the sweet matronly elder sister
fairly cried too.
I comforted her all I could, first by praises of
Thomas Lamb, who happened to be of my acquaint-
ance, and was indeed the very master whom, had I
had the choice, I would have selected for Willy ; and
secondly, by the gift of some unconsidered trifles,
which one should have been ashamed to offer to any
one who had ever had a house over her head, but
which the pretty gipsy girl received with transport,
especially some working materials of the commonest
sort. Poor Fanny had never known the luxury of a
thimble before ; it was as new to her finger as shoes
and stockings were likely to be to Willy's feet. She
forgot her sorrows, and tripped home to her oak-tree,
the happiest of the happy.
Thomas Lamb, Willy's new master, was, as I
have said, of my acquaintance. He was a remark-
ably fine young man, and as well-mannered as those
of his calling usually are. Generally speaking, there
are no persons, excepting real gentlemen, so gentle-
manly as gamekeepers. They keep good company.
The beautiful and graceful creatures whom they at
once preserve and pursue, and the equally noble and
generous animals whom they train, are their principal
THE TOUWG GIPST 255
associates ; and even by their masters they are re-
garded rather as companions than as servants. They
attend them in their sports more as guides and leaders
than as followers, pursuing a common recreation
with equal enjoyment, and often with superior skill.
Gamekeepers are almost always well behaved, and
Thomas Lamb was eminently so. He had quite the
look of a man of fashion ; the person, the carriage,
the air. His figure was tall and striking ; his features
delicately carved, with a paleness of complexion, and
a slight appearance of ill-health that added to their
elegance. In short, he was exactly what the ladies
would have called interesting in a gentleman ; and
the gentleness of his voice and manner, and the con-
stant propriety of his deportment, tended to confirm
the impression.
Luckily for him, however, this delicacy and
refinement lay chiefly on the surface. His constitu-
tion, habits, and temper were much better fitted to
his situation, much hardier and heartier, than they
appeared to be. He was still a bachelor, and lived
by himself in a cottage, almost as lonely as if it had
been placed in a desert island. It stood in the centre
of his preserves, in the midst of a wilderness of
coppice and woodland, accessible only by a narrow
winding path, and at least a mile from the nearest
habitation. When you had threaded the labyrinth,
and were fairly arrived in Thomas's dominion, it was
a pretty territory. A low thatched cottage, very
irregularly built, with a porch before the door, and a
vine half covering the casements ; a garden a good
leal neglected (Thomas Lamb's four-footed subjects,
the hares, took care to eat up all his flowers : hares
256 OU1{ VILLAGE
are animals of taste, and are particularly fond of
pinks and carnations, the rogues !), an orchard, and a
meadow completed the demetne. There was also a
commodious dog-kennel, and a stable, of which the
outside was completely covered with the trophies of
Thomas's industry kites, jack-daws, magpies, hawks,
crows, and owls, nailed by the wings, displayed, as
they say in heraldry, against the wall, with polecats,
weasels, stoats, and hedgehogs figuring at their side,
a perfect menagerie of dead game-killers. 1
But the prettiest part of this woodland cottage
was the real living game that flitted about it, as
tame as barn-door fowls ; partridges flocking to be
fed, as if there were not a dog, or a gun, or a man
in the world ; pheasants, glorious creatures ! coming
at a call j hares almost as fearless as Cowper's, that
would stand and let you look at them : would let you
approach quite near, before they raised one quivering
ear and darted ofTj and that even then, when the
instinct of timidity was aroused, would turn at a safe
distance to look again. Poor, pretty things ! What
a pity it seemed to kill them !
Such was to be Willy's future habitation. The
day after he entered upon his place, I had an oppor-
tunity of offering my double congratulations, to the
master on his new servant, to the servant on his new
master. Whilst taking my usual walk, I found
1 Foxes, the destructi&n ol which is so great an object in a
pheasant preserve, never are displayed, especially if there be a pack
of hounds in the neighbourhood. That odious part of a game-
keeper's occupation is as quietly and unostentatiously performed as
any operation of gunnery can be. Lords of manors will even affect
to preserve foxes Heaven forgive them! just as an unpopular
ministry is sure to talk of protecting the liberty of the subject.
THE TOUS^G GIPST 257
Thomas Lamb, Dick, Willy, and Fanny, about half-
way up the lane, engaged in the animating sport of
unearthing a weasel, which one of the gipsy dogs
followed into a hole by the ditch-side. The- boys
showed great sportsmanship on this occasion : and so
did their poor curs, who, with their whole bodies
inserted into the different branches of the burrow,
and nothing visible but their tails (the one, the long
puggish brush, of which I have already made mention,
the other a terrier-like stump, that maintained an
incessant wag), continued to dig and scratch, throw-
ing out showers of earth, and whining with impatience
and eagerness. Every now and then, when quite
gasping and exhausted, they came out for a moment's
air ; whilst the boys took their turn, poking with a
long stick, or loosening the ground with their hands,
and Thomas stood by, superintending and encourag-
ing both dog and boy, and occasionally cutting a root
or a bramble that impeded their progress. Fanny
also entered into the pursuit with great interest,
dropping here and there a word of advice, as nobody
can help doing when they see others in perplexity. In
spite of all these aids, the mining operation proceeded
so slowly, that the experienced keeper sent off his
new attendant for a spade to dig out the vermin, and
I pursued my walk
After this encounter, it so happened that I never
went near the gipsy tent without meeting Thomas
Lamb sometimes on foot, sometimes on his pony ;
now with a gun, and now without ; but always
loitering near the oak-tree, and always, as it seemed,
reluctant to be seen. It was very unlike Thomas's
usual manner to seem ashamed of being caught in any
VILLAGE
place, or in any company ; but so it was. Did he go
to the ancient sibyl to get his fortune told ? or was
Fanny the attraction ? A very short time solved the
query.
One night, towards the end of the month, the
keeper presented himself at our house on justice
business. He wanted a summons for some poachers
who had been committing depredations in the pre-
serve. Thomas was a great favourite ; and was
of course immediately admitted, his examination
taken, and his request complied with. " But how,"
said the magistrate, looking up from the summons
which he was signing, " how can you expect,
Thomas, to keep your pheasants, when that gipsy
boy with his finders has pitched his tent just in the
midst of your best coppices, killing more game than
half the poachers in the country ? " " Why, as to
the gipsy, sir," replied Thomas ; " Fanny is as good
a gi r l " " I was not talking of Fanny," inter-
rupted the man of warrants, smiling, " as good a
girl," pursued Thomas " A very pretty girl ! "
ejaculated his worship, " as good a girl," resumed
Thomas, "as ever trod the earth ! " "A sweet, pretty
creature, certainly," was again the provoking reply.
" Ah, sir, if you could but hear how her little brother
talks of her ! " " Why, Thomas, this gipsy has made
an impression." " Ah, sir ! she is such a good girl ! "
and the next day they were married.
It was a measure to set every tongue in the
village a-wagging j for Thomas, besides his per-
sonal good gifts, was well-to-do in the world my
lord's head keeper, and prime favourite. He might
have pretended to any farmer's daughter in the
THE TOUWG GIPSr 259
parish : everybody cried out against the match. It
was rather a bold measure, certainly ; but I think it
will end well. They are, beyond a doubt, the
handsomest couple in these parts ; and as the
fortune-teller and her eldest grandson have had the
good sense to decamp, and Fanny, besides being
the most grateful and affectionate creature on earth,
turns out clever and docile, and comports herself
just as if she had lived in a house all her days, there
are some hopes that in process of time her sin
of gipsyism may be forgiven, and Mrs Lamb be
considered as visitable, at least by her next neigh-
bours, the wives of the shoemaker and the parish
clerk. At present, I am sorry to say that those
worthy persons heve sent both Thomas and her
to Coventry a misfortune which they endure with
singular resignation.
I PIQUE myself on knowing by sight, and by
name, almost every man and boy in our parish, from
eight years old to eighty I cannot say quite so much
for the women. They the elder of them at least
are more within doors, more hidden. One does not
meet them in the fields and highways ; their duties
are close housekeepers, and live under cover. The
girls, to be sure, are often enough in sight, " true
creatures of the element," basking in the sun, racing
in the wind, rolling in the dust, dabbling in the water,
hardier, dirtier, noisier, more sturdy defiers of heat,
and cold, and wet, than boys themselves. One sees
them quite often enough to know them ; but then the
little elves alter so much at every step of their approach
to womanhood, that recognition becomes difficult,
if not impossible. It is not merely growing,
boys grow; it is positive, perplexing, and perpetual
change : a butterfly hath not undergone more trans-
mogrifications in its progress through this life, than
a village belle in her arrival at the age of seventeen.
The first appearance of the little lass is something
after the manner of a caterpillar, crawling and creep-
ing upon the grass, set down to roll by some tired
little nurse of an elder sister, or mother with her
260
261
hands full. There it lies a fat, boneless, rosy
piece of health, aspiring to the accomplishments of
walking and talking ; stretching its chubby limbs ;
scrambling and sprawling ; laughing and roaring ;
there it sits, in all the dignity of the baby, adorned
in a pink-checked frock, a blue-spotted pinafore, and
a little white cap, tolerably clean, and quite whole.
One is forced to ask if it be boy or girl ; for these
hardy country rogues are all alike, open-eyed, and
weather-stained, and nothing fearing. There is no
more mark of sex in the countenance than in the dress.
In the next stage, dirt-encrusted enough to pass
for the chrysalis, if it were not so very unquiet, the
gender remains equally uncertain. It is a fine, stout,
curly-pated creature of three or four, playing and
rolling about, amongst grass or mud, all day long ;
shouting, jumping, screeching the happiest com-
pound of noise and idleness, rags and rebellion,
that ever trod the earth.
Then comes a sunburnt gipsy of six, beginning
to grow tall and thin, and to find the cares of the
world gathering about her ; with a pitcher in one
hand, a mop in the other, an old straw bonnet of
ambiguous shape, half hiding her tangled hair ; a
tattered stuff petticoat, once green, hanging below
an equally tattered cotton frock, once purple ; her
longing eyes fixed on a game of baseball at the
corner of the green, till she reaches the cottage
door, flings down the mop and pitcher, and darts
off to her companions, quite regardless of the
storm of scolding with which the mother follows
her runaway steps.
So the world wags till ten j then the little damsel
S
262 OU VILLAGE
gets admission to the charity school, and trips mincingly
thither every morning, dressed in the old-fashioned
blue gown, and white cap and tippet, and bib and
apron of that primitive institution, looking as demure
as a nun, and as tidy ; her thoughts fixed on button-
holes and spelling-books those ensigns of promotion ;
despising dirt and baseballs, and all their joys.
Then at twelve the little lass comes home again,
uncapped, untippeted, unschooled ; brown as a berry,
wild as a colt, busy as a bee working in the fields,
digging in the garden, frying rashers, boiling potatoes,
shelling beans, darning stockings, nursing children,
feeding pigs ; all these employments varied by occa-
sional fits of romping and flirting, and idle play,
according as the nascent coquetry or the lurking love
of sport happens to preponderate ; merry, and pretty,
and good with all her little faults. It would be well if
a country girl could stand at thirteen. Then she is
charming. But the clock will move forward, and at
fourteen she gets a service in a neighbouring town ; and
her next appearance is in the perfection of the butter-
fly state, fluttering, glittering, inconstant, vain, the
gayest and gaudiest insect that ever skimmed over a
village green. And this is the true progress of a
rustic beauty, the average lot of our country girls ;
so they spring up, flourish, change, and disappear.
Some indeed marry and fix amongst us, and then
ensues another set of changes, rather more gradual
perhaps, but quite as sure, till grey hairs, wrinkles,
and linsey-woolsey wind up the picture.
All this is beside the purpose. If woman be a
mutable creature, man is not. The wearers of smock-
frocks, in spite of the sameness of the uniform, are
263
almost as easily distinguished by an interested eye as
a flock of sheep by the shepherd, or a pack of hounds
by the huntsman ; or, to come to less affronting similes,
the members of the House of Commons by the Speaker,
or the gentlemen of the bar by the Lord Chief Justice.
There is very little change in them from early boyhood.
" The child is father to the man " in more senses than
one. There is a constancy about them ; they keep the
same faces, however ugly ; the same habits, however
strange ; the same fashions, however unfashionable j
they are in nothing new-fangled. Tom Coper, for in-
stance, man and boy, is and has been addicted to posies,
from the first polyanthus to the last china rose, he has
always a nosegay in his button-hole ; George Simmons
may be known a mile off, by an eternal red waistcoat ;
Jem Tanner, summer and winter, by the smartest of all
smart straw hats ; and Joel Brent, from the day that
he left off petticoats, has always, in every dress and
every situation, looked like a study for a painter no
mistaking him. Yes ! I know every man and boy of
note in the parish, with one exception one most
singular exception, which " haunts, and startles, and
waylays" me at every turn. I do not know, and I
begin to fear that I never shall know, Jack Hatch.
The first time I had occasion to hear of this
worthy was on a most melancholy occurrence. We
had lost I do not like to talk about it, but I cannot
tell my story without we had lost a cricket match,
been beaten, and soundly too, by the men of Beech-
hill, a neighbouring parish. How this accident
happened, I cannot very well tell ; the melancholy
fact is sufficient. The men of Beech-hill, famous
players, in whose families cricket is an hereditary
264 OUV^ VILLAGE
accomplishment, challenged and beat us. After our
defeat, we began to comfort ourselves by endeavour-
ing to discover how this misfortune could possibly
have befallen. Every one that has ever had a cold
must have experienced the great consolation that is
derived from puzzling out the particular act of
imprudence from which it sprang ; and we, on the
same principle, found our affliction somewhat miti-
gated by the endeavour to trace it to its source.
One laid the catastrophe to the wind a very common
scapegoat in the catarrhal calamity which had, as it
were, played us booty, carrying our adversaries' balls
right and ours wrong; another laid it to a certain
catch missed by Tom Willis, by which means Farmer
Thackum, the pride and glory of the Beech-hillers,
had two innings ; a third to the aforesaid Thackum's
remarkable manner of bowling, which is circular, so
to say that is, after taking aim, he makes a sort of
chassee on one side, before he delivers his ball,
which pantomimic motion had a great effect on the
nerves of our eleven, unused to such quadrilling ; a
fourth imputed our defeat to the over-civility of our
umpire, George Gosseltine, a sleek, smooth, silky,
soft-spoken person, who stood with his little wand
under his arm, smiling through all our disasters
the very image of peace and good-humour; whilst
their umpire, Bob Coxe, a roystering, roaring, bully-
ing blade, bounced, and hectored, and blustered from
his wicket, with the voice of a twelve-pounder ; the
fifth assented to this opinion, with some extension,
asserting that the universal impudence of their side
took advantage of the meekness and modesty of ours
(N.B. It never occurred to our modesty that they
265
might be the best players) which flattering persua-
sion appeared likely to prevail, in fault of a better,
when all on a sudden the true reason of our defeat
seemed to burst at once from half a dozen voices,
re-echoed like a chorus by all the others "It
was entirely owing to the want of Jack Hatch !
How could we think of playing without Jack
Hatch !
This was the first I heard of him. My inquiries
as to this great player were received with utter
astonishment. "Who is Jack ?" " Not know Jack
Hatch ! " There was no end of the wonder " not
to know him, argued myself unknown." "Jack
Hatch the best cricketer in the parish, in the
county, in the country ! Jack Hatch, who had got
seven notches at one hit ! Jack Hatch, who had
trolled and caught out a whole eleven ! Jack Hatch,
who, besides these marvellous gifts in cricket, was
the best bowler and the best musician in the hundred,
could dance a hornpipe and a minuet, sing a whole
song-book, bark like a dog, mew like a cat, crow like
a cock, and go through Punch from beginning to end !
Not know Jack Hatch ! "
Half-ashamed of my non-acquaintance with this
Admirable Crichton of rural accomplishments, I
determined to find him out as soon as possible,
and I have been looking for him more or less ever
since.
The cricket-ground and the bowling-green were
of course the first places of search ; but he was always
just gone, or not come, or he was there yesterday, or
he is expected to-morrow a to-morrow which, as far
as I am concerned, never arrives ; the stars were
266 OU VILLAGE
against me. Then I directed my attention to his
other acquirements ; and once followed a ballad-
singer half a mile, who turned out to be a strapping
woman in a man's great-coat ; and another time
pierced a whole mob of urchins to get at a capital
Punch when behold it was the genuine man of
puppets, the true squeakery, the " real Simon Pure,"
and Jack was as much to seek as ever.
At last I thought that I had actually caught him,
and on his own peculiar field, the cricket-ground.
We abound in rustic fun, and good humour, and of
course in nicknames. A certain senior of fifty, or
thereabout, for instance, of very juvenile habits and
inclinations, who plays at ball, and marbles, and
cricket with all the boys in the parish, and joins a
kind merry buoyant heart to an aspect somewhat
rough and careworn, has no other appellation that
ever I heard but " Uncle " ; I don't think, if by any
strange chance he were called by it, that he would
know his own name. On the other hand, a little
stunted pragmatical urchin, son and heir of Dick
Jones, an absolute old man cut shorter, so slow, and
stiff, and sturdy, and wordy, passes universally by
the title of " Grandfather " I have not the least
notion that he would answer to Dick. Also a slim,
grim-looking, white-headed lad, whose hair is
bleached, and his skin browned by the sun, till he is
as hideous as an Indian idol, goes, good lack ! by the
pastoral misnomer of the " Gentle Shepherd." Oh,
manes of Allan Ramsay ! the Gentle Shepherd !
Another youth, regular at cricket, but never
seen except then, of unknown parish and parentage,
and singular uncouthness of person, dress, and de-
JtdCK^ H^TCH 267
meanour, rough as a badger, ragged as a colt, and
sour as verjuice, was known, far more appropriately,
by the cognomen of " Oddity." Him, in my secret
soul, I pitched on for Jack Hatch. In the first place,
as I had in the one case a man without a name, and
in the other a name without a man, to have found
these component parts of individuality meet in the
same person, to have made the man to fit the name,
and the name fit the man, would have been as pretty
a way of solving two enigmas at once as hath been
heard of since OEdipus his day. But besides the
obvious convenience and suitability of this belief, I
had divers other corroborating reasons. Oddity was
young, so was Jack; Oddity came up the hill from
leeward, so must Jack ; Oddity was a .capital
cricketer, so was Jack ; Oddity did not play in our
unlucky Beech-hill match, neither did Jack ; and
last of all, Oddity's name was Jack, a fact I was
fortunate enough to ascertain from a pretty damsel
who walked up with him to the ground one evening,
and who, on seeing him bowl out Tom Coper, could
not help exclaiming in soliloquy, as she stood a few
yards behind us, looking on with all her heart,
" Well done, Jack ! " That moment built up all my
hopes ; the next knocked them down. I thought I
had clutched him, but willing to make assurance
doubly sure, I turned to my pretty neighbour (Jack
Hatch too had a sweetheart), and said in a tone half
affirmative, half interrogatory, " That young man
who plays so well is Jack Hatch ? " " No, ma'am,
Jack Bolton ! " and Jack Hatch remained still a
sound, a name, a mockery.
Well ! at last I ceased to look for him, and
268 OU VILLAGE
might possibly have forgotten my curiosity, had not
every week produced some circumstance to relumine
that active female passion.
I seemed beset by his name, and his presence,
invisibly as it were. Will-o'-the-wisp is nothing to
him j Puck, in that famous Midsummer Dream, was a
quiet goblin compared to Jack Hatch. He haunts
one in dark places. The fiddler, whose merry tones
come ringing across the orchard in a winter's night
from Farmer White's barn, setting the whole village
a-dancing, is Jack Hatch. The whistler, who trudges
homeward at dusk up Kibe's lane, out-piping the
nightingale, in her own month of May, is Jack
Hatch. And the indefatigable learner of the bassoon,
whose drone, all last harvest, might be heard in the
twilight, issuing from the sexton's dwelling on the
Little Lea, " making night hideous," that iniquitous
practiser is Jack Hatch.
The name meets me all manner of ways. I have
seen it in the newspaper for a prize of pinks ; and on
the back of a warrant on the charge of poaching ;
N.B. the constable had my luck, and could not find
the culprit, otherwise I might have had some chance
of seeing him on that occasion. Things the most
remote and discrepant issue in Jack Hatch. He
caught Dame Wheeler's squirrel ; the Magpie at the
Rose owes to him the half-dozen phrases with which
he astounds and delights the passers-by ; the very
dog Tero an animal of singular habits, who sojourns
occasionally at half the houses in the village, making
each his home till he is affronted Tero himself, best
and ugliest of finders a mongrel compounded of
terrier, cur, and spaniel Tero, most remarkable of
269
ugly dogs, inasmuch as he constantly squints, and
commonly goes on three legs, holding up first one,
and then the other, out of a sort of quadrupedal
economy to ease those useful members Tero himself
is said to belong of right and origin to Jack Hatch.
Everywhere that name meets me. 'Twas but a
few weeks ago that I heard him asked in church,
and a day or two afterwards I saw the tail of the
wedding procession, the little lame clerk handing the
bridesmaid, and a girl from the Rose running after
them with pipes, passing by our house. Nay, this
very morning, some one was speaking Dead ! what
dead ? Jack Hatch dead ? a name, a shadow, a
Jack-o'-Lantern ! Can Jack Hatch die ? Hath he
the property of mortality ? Can the bell toll for
him ? Yes ! there is the coffin and the pall all that
I shall ever see of him is there ! There are his
comrades following in decent sorrow and the poor
pretty bride, leaning on the little clerk My search
is over Jack Hatch is dead !
MOLE-CATCHER
THERE are no more delightful or unfailing asso-
ciations than those afforded by the various operations
of the husbandman, and the changes on the fair face
of nature. We all know that busy troops of reapers
come with the yellow corn ; whilst the yellow leaf
brings a no less busy train of ploughmen and seeds-
men preparing the ground for fresh harvests ; that
woodbines and wild roses, flaunting in the blossomy
hedge-rows, give token of the gay bands of hay-
makers which enliven the meadows ; and that the
primroses, which begin to unfold their pale stars by
the side of the green lanes, bear marks of the slow
and weary female processions, the gangs of tired yet
talkative bean-setters, who defile twice a day through
the intricate mazes of our cross-country roads. These
are general associations, as well known and as univer-
sally recognised as the union of mince -pies and
Christmas. I have one, more private and peculiar,
one, perhaps, the more strongly impressed on my
mind, because the impression may be almost confined
to myself. The full flush of violets which, about
the middle of March, seldom fails to perfume the
whole earth, always brings to my recollection one
solitary and silent coadjutor of the husbandman's
270
THE MOLE-C^TCHEI^ 271
labours, as unlike a violet as possible Isaac Bint, the
mole-catcher.
I used to meet him every spring, when we lived
at our old house, whose park-like paddock, with its
finely-clumped oaks and elms, and its richly-timbered
hedge-rows, edging into wild, rude, and solemn
fir plantations, dark, and rough, and hoary, formed
for so many years my constant and favourite walk.
Here, especially under the great horse-chestnut, and
where the bank rose high and naked above the lane,
crowned only with a tuft of golden broom ; here the
sweetest and prettiest of wild flowers, whose very
name hath a charm, grew like a carpet under one's
feet, enamelling the young green grass with their
white and purple blossoms, and loading the air with
their delicious fragrance ; here I used to come almost
every morning, during the violet-tide ; and here,
almost every morning, I was sure to meet Isaac
Bint.
I think that he fixed himself the more firmly in
my memory by his singular discrepancy with the
beauty and cheerfulness of the scenery and the season.
Isaac is a tall, lean, gloomy personage, with whom
the clock of life seems to stand still. He has looked
sixty-five for these last twenty years, although his
dark hair and beard, and firm manly stride, almost
contradict the evidence of his sunken cheeks and
deeply-lined forehead. The stride is awful : he hath
the stalk of a ghost. His whole air and demeanour
savour of one that comes from underground. His
appearance is " of the earth, earthy." His clothes,
hands, and face are of the colour of the mould in
which he delves. The little round traps which hang
272 OU^ VILLAGE
behind him over one shoulder, as well as the strings
of dead moles which embellish the other, are encrusted
with dirt like a tombstone ; and the staff which he
plunges into the little hillocks, by which he traces
the course of his small quarry, returns a hollow
sound, as if tapping on the lid of a coffin. Images of
the churchyard come, one does not know how, with
his presence. Indeed he does officiate as assistant to
the sexton in his capacity of grave-digger, chosen, as
it should seem, from a natural fitness ; a fine sense of
congruity in good Joseph Reed, the functionary in
question, who felt, without knowing why, that, of all
men in the parish, Isaac Bint was best fitted to that
solemn office.
His remarkable gift of silence adds much to the
impression produced by his remarkable figure. I
don't think that I ever heard him speak three words
in my life. An approach of that bony hand to that
earthy leather cap was the greatest effort of courtesy
that my daily salutations could extort from him. For
this silence, Isaac has reasons good. He hath a
reputation to support. His words are too precious
to be wasted. Our mole-catcher, ragged as he looks,
is the wise man of the village, the oracle of the
village inn, foresees the weather, charms away agues,
tells fortunes by the stars, and writes notes upon the
almanack turning and twisting about the predictions
after a fashion so ingenious, that it's a moot point
which is oftenest wrong Isaac Bint, or Francis
Moore. In one eminent instance, our friend was,
however, eminently right. He had the good luck to
prophesy, before sundry witnesses some of them
sober in the tap-room of the Bell he then sitting,
THE MOLE-C^TCHE^ 273
pipe in mouth, on the settle at the right-hand side of
the fire, whilst Jacob Frost occupied the left he had
the good fortune to foretell, on New Year's Day,
1812, the downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte a piece
of soothsayership which has established his reputation,
and dumfounded all doubters and cavillers ever
since ; but which would certainly have been more
striking if he had not annually uttered the same
prediction, from the same place, from the time that
the aforesaid Napoleon became First Consul. But this
small circumstance is entirely overlooked by Isaac and
his admirers, and they believe in him, and he believes
in the stars, more firmly than ever.
Our mole-catcher is, as might be conjectured, an
old bachelor. Your married man hath more of this
world about him is less, so to say, planet-struck.
A thorough old bachelor is Isaac, a contemner and
maligner of the sex, a complete and decided woman-
hater. Female frailty is the only subject on which
he hath ever been known to dilate ; he will not even
charm away their agues, or tell their fortunes, and,
indeed, holds them to be unworthy the notice of the
stars.
No woman contaminates his household. He
lives on the edge of a pretty bit of woodland scenery,
called the Penge, in a snug cottage of two rooms, of
his own building, surrounded by a garden cribbed
from the waste, well fenced with quick-set, and well
stocked with fruit trees, herbs, and flowers. One
large apple tree extends over the roof a pretty
bit of colour when in blossom, contrasted with the
thatch of the little dwelling, and relieved by the dark
wood behind. Although the owner be solitary, his
274 OU^ VILLAGE
demesne is sufficiently populous. A long row of
bee-hives extends along the warmest side of the
garden for Isaac's honey is celebrated far and near ;
a pig occupies a commodious stye at one corner ; and
large flocks of ducks and geese (for which the Penge,
whose glades are intersected by water, is famous) are
generally waiting round a back gate leading to a
spacious shed, far larger than Isaac's own cottage,
which serves for their feeding and roosting-place.
The great tameness of all these creatures for the
ducks and geese flutter round him the moment he
approaches, and the very pig follows him like a dog
gives no equivocal testimony of the kindness of
our mole-catcher's nature. A circumstance of recent
occurrence puts his humanity beyond doubt.
Amongst the probable causes of Isaac's dislike
to women may be reckoned the fact of his living in
a female neighbourhood (for the Penge is almost
peopled with duck-rearers and goose-crammers of
the duck and goose gender) and being himself ex-
ceedingly unpopular amongst the fair poultry-feeders
of that watery vicinity. He beat them at their own
weapons ; produced at Midsummer geese fit for
Michaelmas ; and raised ducks so precocious, that
the gardeners complained of them as fore-running
their vegetable accompaniments j and " panting peas
toiled after them in vain." In short, the Naiads of
the Penge had the mortification to find themselves
driven out of B market by an interloper, and
that interloper a man, who had no manner of right
to possess any skill in an accomplishment so exclu-
sively feminine as duck-rearing ; and being no ways
inferior in another female accomplishment, called
THE MOLE-C^TCHEl^ 275
scolding, to their sister-nymphs of Billingsgate, they
set up a clamour and a cackle which might rival the
din of their own gooseries at feeding-time, and would
inevitably have frightened from the field any com-
petitor less impenetrable than our hero. But Isaac
is not a man to shrink from so small an evil as
female objurgation. He stalked through it all in
mute disdain looking now at his mole-traps, and
now at the stars pretending not to hear, and very
probably not hearing. At first this scorn, more
provoking than any retort, only excited his enemies
to fresh attacks ; but one cannot be always answering
another person's silence. The flame which had blazed
so fiercely at last burnt itself out, and peace reigned
once more in the green alleys of Penge-wood.
One, however, of his adversaries his nearest
neighbour still remained unsilenced.
Margery Grover was a very old and poor
woman, whom age and disease had bent almost to
the earth ; shaken by palsy, pinched by penury, and
soured by misfortune a moving bundle of misery
and rags. Two centuries ago she would have been
burnt for a witch j now she starved and grumbled
on the parish allowance ; trying to eke out a scanty
subsistence by the dubious profits gained from the
produce of two geese and a lame gander, once the
unmolested tenants of a greenish pool, situate right
between her dwelling and Isaac's, but whose
watery dominion had been invaded by his flourishing
colony.
This was the cause of feud ; and although Isaac
would willingly, from a mingled sense of justice and
of pity, have yielded the point to the poor old creature,
276 OU1{ VILLAGE
especially as ponds are there almost as plentiful as
blackberries, yet it was not so easy to control the
habits and inclinations of their feathered subjects,
who all perversely fancied that particular pool ; and
various accidents and skirmishes occurred, in which
the ill-fed and weak birds of Margery had generally
the worst of the fray. One of her early goslings
was drowned an accident which may happen even
to water-fowl ; and her lame gander, a sort of pet
with the poor old woman, injured in his well leg ;
and Margery vented curses as bitter as those of
Sycorax; and Isa'ac, certainly the most superstitious
personage in the parish the most thorough believer
in his own gifts and predictions was fain to nail a
horse-shoe on his door for the defence of his property,
and to wear one of his own ague charms about his
neck for his personal protection.
Poor old Margery ! A hard winter came ; and
the feeble, tottering creature shook in the frosty air
like an aspen-leaf; and the hovel in which she dwelt
for nothing could prevail on her to try the shelter
of the workhouse shook, like herself, at every blast.
She was not quite alone either in the world or in her
poor hut : husband, children, and grandchildren had
passed away; but one young and innocent being, a
great-grandson, the last of her descendants, remained,
a helpless dependant on one almost as helpless as
himself.
Little Harry Grover was a shrunken, stunted
boy, of five years old ; tattered and squalid, like
his grandame, and, at first sight, presented almost
as miserable a specimen of childhood as Margery
herself did of age. There was even a likeness
THE MOLE-C^TCHE^ 277
between them ; although the fierce blue eye of
Margery had, in the boy, a mild appealing look,
which entirely changed the whole expression of the
countenance. A gentle and a peaceful boy was
Harry, and, above all, a useful. It was wonderful
how many ears of corn in the autumn, and sticks
in the winter, his little hands could pick up ! how
well he could make a fire, and boil the kettle, and
sweep the hearth, and cram the goslings ! Never
was a handier boy or a trustier j and when the
united effects of cold, and age, and rheumatism,
confined poor Margery to her poor bed, the child
continued to perform his accustomed offices j fetch-
ing the money from the vestry, buying the loaf at
the baker's, keeping house, and nursing the sick
woman, with a kindness and thoughtfulness, which
none but those who know the careful ways to
which necessity trains cottage children, would deem
credible j and Margery, a woman of strong passions,
strong prejudices, and strong affections, who had
lived in and for the desolate boy, felt the approach
of death embittered by the certainty that the
workhouse, always the scene of her dread and
loathing, would be the only refuge for the poor
orphan.
Death, however, came on visibly and rapidly ; and
she sent for. the overseer to beseech him to put Harry
to board in some decent cottage ; she could not die in
peace until he had promised ; the fear of the innocent
child's being contaminated by wicked boys and god-
less women preyed upon her soul ; she implored, she
conjured. The overseer, a kind but timid man,
hesitated, and was beginning a puzzled speech about
T
278 OU^ VILLAGE
the bench and the vestry, when another voice was
heard from the door of the cottage.
" Margery," said our friend Isaac, " will you
trust Harry to me ? I am a poor man, to be sure ;
but, between earning and saving, there'll be enough
for me and little Harry. 'Tis as good a boy as ever
lived, and I'll try to keep him so. Trust him to me,
and I'll be a father to him. I can't say more."
" God bless thee, Isaac Bint ! God bless thee ! "
was all poor Margery could reply.
They were the last words she ever spoke. And
little Harry is living with our good mole-catcher, and
is growing plump and rosy ; and Margery's other pet,
the lame gander, lives and thrives with them too.
THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMIST<I(ESS
WOMEN, fortunately perhaps for their happiness
and their virtue, have, as compared with men, so few
opportunities of acquiring permanent distinction, that
it is rare to find a female unconnected with literature
or with history, whose name is remembered after her
monument is defaced, and the brass on her coffin-lid
corroded. Such, however, was the case with Dame
Eleanor, the widow of Sir Richard Lacy, whose name,
at the end of three centuries, continued to be as freshly
and as frequently spoken, as " familiar" a " household
word " in the little village of Aberleigh, as if she had
flourished there yesterday. Her memory was embalmed
by a deed of charity and of goodness. She had founded
and endowed a girls' school for " the instruction" (to
use the words of the deed) " of twenty poor children,
and the maintenance of one discreet and godly matron" >
and the school still continued to be called after its
foundress, and the very spot on which the schoolhouse
stood, to be known by the name of Lady Lacy's
Green.
It was a spot worthy of its destination, a spot of
remarkable cheerfulness and beauty. The Green was
small, of irregular shape, and situated at a confluence
of shady lanes. Half the roads and paths of the
279
280 OU3{ VILLAGE
parish meet there, probably for the convenience of
crossing, in that place by a stone bridge of one arch
covered with ivy, the winding rivulet which inter-
sected the whole village, and which, sweeping in a
narrow channel round the school garden, widened into
a stream of some consequence, in the richly wooded
meadows beyond. The banks of the brook, as it
wound its glittering course over the green, were set,
here and there, with clumps of forest trees, chiefly
bright green elms, and aspens with their quivering
leaves and their pale shining bark ; whilst a magni-
ficent beech stood alone near the gate leading to the
school, partly overshadowing the little court in which
the house was placed. The building itself was a
beautiful small structure, in the ornamented style of
Elizabeth's day, with pointed roofs and pinnacles, and
clustered chimneys, and casement windows ; the whole
house enwreathed and garlanded by a most luxuriant
vine. The date of the erection, 1563, was cut in a
stone inserted in the brick-work above the porch;
but the foundress had, with an unostentatious
modesty, withheld her name, leaving it, as she
safely might, to the grateful recollection of the suc-
cessive generations who profited by her benevolence.
Altogether it was a most gratifying scene to the eye
and to the heart. No one ever saw Lady Lacy's
schoolhouse without admiration, especially in the
play hour at noon, when the children, freed from
" restraint that sweetens liberty," were clustered
under the old beech tree, revelling in their innocent
freedom, running, jumping, shouting, and laughing
with all their might, the only sort of riot which it is
pleasant to witness. The painter and the philan-
THE VILLAGE SCHOOL3MIST<%ESS 281
thropist might contemplate that scene with equal
delight.
The right of appointing both the mistress and -
the scholars had been originally vested in the Lacy
family, to whom nearly the whole of the garish had
at one time belonged. But the estates, the manor,
the hall-house had long passed into other hands and
other names, and this privilege of charity was now
the only possession which the heirs of Lady Lacy
retained in Aberleigh. Reserving to themselves the
right of nominating the matron, her descendants had
therefore delegated to the vicar and the parish officers
the selection of the children, and the general regula-
tion of the school a sort of council of regency,
which, for as simple and as peaceful as the govern-
ment seems, a disputatious churchwarden or a sturdy
overseer would sometimes contrive to render suf-
ficiently stormy. I have known as much canvassing
and almost as much ill-will in a contested election for
one of Lady Lacy's scholarships, as for a scholarship
in grander places, or even for an M.P.-ship in the
next borough ; and the great schism between the late
Farmer Brookes and all his coadjutors, as to whether
the original uniform of little green stuff gowns, with
white bibs and aprons, tippets and mob, should be
commuted for modern cotton frocks and cottage
bonnets, fairly set the parish by the ears. Owing
to the good farmer's glorious obstinacy (which I
suppose he called firmness), the green gownians lost
the day. I believe that, as a matter of calculation, the
man might be right, and that his costume was cheaper
and more convenient ; but I am sure that I should
have been against him, right or wrong j the other
282 OU VILLAGE
dress was so pretty, so primitive, so neat, so becoming ;
the little lasses looked like rose-buds in the midst of
their leaves : besides, it was the old traditionary
dress the dress contrived and approved by Lady
Lacy. Oh ! it should never have been changed,
never !
Since there was so much contention in the
election of pupils, it was perhaps lucky for the vestry
that the exercise of the more splendid piece of
patronage, the appointment of a mistress, did not
enter into its duties. Mr Lacy, a representative of
the foundress, a man of fortune in a distant county,
generally bestowed the situation on some old de-
pendant of his family. During the churchwarden-
ship of Farmer Brookes, no less than three village
gouvernantes arrived at Aberleigh a quick succes-
sion ! It made more than half the business of our
zealous and bustling man of office, an amateur in
such matters, to instruct and overlook them. The
first importation was Dame Whitaker, a person of no
small importance, who had presided as head nurse
over two generations of the Lacys, and was now, on
the dispersion of the last set of her nurslings to their
different schools, and an unlucky quarrel with a
favourite lady's-maid, promoted and banished to this
distant government. Nobody could well be more
unfit for her new station, or better suited to her old.
She was a nurse from top to toe. Round, portly,
smiling, with a coaxing voice and an indolent manner j
much addicted to snufF and green tea, to sitting still,
to telling long stories, and to humouring children.
She spoiled every brat she came near, just as she had
been used to spoil the little Master Edwards and
THE VILLAGE SCHOOLJMIST1(ESS 283
Miss Julias of her ancient dominions. She could
not have scolded if she would the gift was not in
her. Under her misrule the school grew into sad
disorder ; the girls not only learnt nothing, but
unlearnt what they knew before; work was lost
even the new shifts of the Vicar's lady ; books were
torn ; and, for the climax of evil, no sampler was
prepared to carry round at Christmas, from house to
house the first time such an omission had occurred
within the memory of man. Farmer Brookes was at
his wits' end. He visited the school six days in the
week, to admonish and reprove ; he even went nigh
to threaten that he would work a sampler himself;
and finally bestowed on the unfortunate ex-nurse
the nickname of Queen Log, a piece of disrespect,
which, together with other grievances, proved so
annoying to poor Dame Whitaker, that she found
the air of Aberleigh disagree with her, patched up a
peace with her old enemy, the lady's-maid, abdicated
that unruly and rebellious principality, the school,
and retired with great delight to her quiet home in
the deserted nursery, where, as far as I know, she
still remains.
The grief of the children on losing this most
indulgent non-instructress was not mitigated by the
appearance or demeanour of her successor, who at
first seemed a preceptress after Farmer Brookes's own
heart, a perfect Queen Stork. Dame Banks was the
widow of Mr Lacy's gamekeeper, a little thin woman,
with a hooked nose, a sharp voice, and a prodigious
activity of tongue. She scolded all day long, and,
for the first week, passed for a great teacher. After
that time it began to be discovered, that, in spite of
284 OU^ VILLAGE
her lessons, the children did not learn; notwith-
standing her rating they did not mind, and in the
midst of a continual bustle nothing was ever done.
Dame Banks was in fact a well-intentioned, worthy
woman, with a restless irritable temper, a strong
desire to do her duty, and a woeful ignorance how
to set about it. She was rather too old to be taught
either j at least she required a gentler instructor
than the good churchwarden; and so much ill-will
was springing up between them, that he had even
been heard to regret the loss of Dame Whitaker's
quietness, when very suddenly poor Dame Banks fell
ill and died. The sword had worn the scabbard;
but she was better than she seemed ; a thoroughly
well-meaning woman grateful, pious, and charitable ;
even our man of office admitted this.
The next in succession was one with whom my
trifling pen, dearly as that light and fluttering instru-
ment loves to dally and disport over the surfaces of
things, must take no saucy freedom ; one of whom
we all felt it impossible to speak or think without
respect ; one who made Farmer Brookes's office of
adviser a sinecure, by putting the whole school, him-
self included, into its proper place, setting everybody
in order, and keeping them so. I don't know how
she managed, unless by good sense and good humour,
and that happy art of government, which seems no
art at all, because it is so perfect ; but the children
were busy and happy, the vestry pleased, and the
churchwarden contented. All went well under Mrs
Allen.
She was an elderly woman, nearer perhaps to
seventy than to sixty, and of an exceedingly vener-
THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMISTRESS 285
able and prepossessing appearance. Delicacy was
her chief characteristic, a delicacy so complete that
it pervaded her whole person, from her tall, slender
figure, her fair, faded complexion, and her silver
hair, to the exquisite nicety of dress by which, at all
hours and seasons, from Sunday morning to Saturday
night, she was invariably distinguished. The soil of
the day was never seen on her apparel j dust would
not cling to her snowy caps and handkerchiefs : such
was the art magic of her neatness. Her very pins
did their office in a different manner from those be-
longing to other people. Her manner was gentle,
cheerful, and courteous, with a simplicity and pro-
priety of expression that perplexed all listeners ; it
seemed so exactly what belongs to the highest birth and
the highest breeding. She was humble, very humble ;
but her humility was evidently the result of a truly
Christian spirit, and would equally have distinguished
her in any station. The poor people, always nice
judges of behaviour, felt, they did not know why,
that she was their superior 5 the gentry of the neigh-
bourhood suspected her to be their equal some
clergyman's or officer's widow, reduced in circum-
stances, and would have treated her as such, had
she not, on discovering their mistake, eagerly un-
deceived them. She had been, she said, all her life
a servant, the personal attendant of one dear mistress,
on whose decease she had been recommended to Mr
Lacy, and to his kindness, under Providence, was
indebted for a home and a provision for her helpless
age, and the still more helpless youth of a poor
orphan, far dearer to her than herself. This avowal,
although it changed the character of the respect paid
286 OU VILLAGE
to Mrs Allen, was certainly not calculated to diminish
its amount ; and the new mistress of Lady Lacy's
school, and the beautiful order of her house and
garden, continued to be the pride and admiration of
Aberleigh.
The orphan of whom she spoke was a little girl
about eleven years old, who lived with her, and
whose black frock bespoke the recent death of some
relative. She had lately, Mrs Allen said, lost her
grandmother, her only remaining parent, and had
now no friend but herself on earth j but there was
one above who was a Father to the fatherless, and He
would protect poor Jane ! And as she said this,
there was a touch of emotion, a break of the voice, a
tremor on the lip, very unlike the usual cheerfulness
and self-command of her manner. The child was
evidently very dear to her. Jane was, indeed, a most
interesting creature : not pretty a girl of that age
seldom is ; the beauty of childhood is outgrown, that
of youth not come ; and Jane could scarcely ever have
had any other pretensions to prettiness than the fine
expression of her dark grey eyes, and the general
sweetness of her countenance. She was pale, thin,
and delicate j serious and thoughtful far beyond her
years ; averse from play, and shrinking from notice.
Her fondness for Mrs Allen, and her constant and
unremitting attention to her health and comforts, were
peculiarly remarkable. Every part of their small
housewifery that her height and strength and skill
would enable her to perform, she insisted on doing,
and many things far beyond her power she attempted.
Never was so industrious or so handy a little maiden.
Old Nelly Chun, the charwoman, who went once a
THE VILLAGE SCHOOLJMISTI^ESS 287
week to the house, to wash and bake and scour,
declared that Jane did more than herself j and to all
who knew Nelly's opinion of her own doings, this
praise appeared superlative.
In the schoolroom she was equally assiduous,
not as a learner, but as a teacher. None so clever as
Jane in superintending the different exercises of the
needle, the spelling-book, and the slate. From the
little work-woman's first attempt to insert thread
into a pocket-handkerchief, that digging and plough-
ing of cambric, miscalled hemming, up to the nice
and delicate mysteries of stitching and button-holing ;
from the easy junction of a b, ab and b a, ba, to that
tremendous sesquipedalian word irrefragibility, at
which even I tremble as I write ; from the Numera-
tion Table to Practice, nothing came amiss to her.
In figures she was particularly quick. Generally
speaking, her patience with the other children, how-
ever dull or tiresome or giddy they might be, was
exemplary ; but a false accomptant, a stupid arith-
metician, would put her out of humour. The only
time I ever heard her sweet, gentle voice raised a
note above its natural key, was in reprimanding
Susan Wheeler, a sturdy, square-made, rosy-cheeked
lass, as big again as herself, the dunce and beauty of
the school, who had three times cast up a sum of
three figures, and three times made the total wrong.
Jane ought to have admired the ingenuity evinced by
such a variety of error j but she did not ; it fairly put
her in a passion. She herself was not only clever in
figures, but fond of 'them to an extraordinary degree
luxuriated in Long Division, and revelled in the
Rule-of-Three. Had she been a boy, she would
288 OU3 VILLAGE
probably have been a great mathematician, and have
won that fickle, fleeting, shadowy wreath, that crown
made of the rainbow, that vainest of all earthly
pleasures, but which yet is a pleasure Fame.
Happier, far happier was the good, the lowly,
the pious child, in her humble duties ! Grave and
quiet as she seemed, she had many moments of intense
and placid enjoyment, when the duties of the day were
over, and she sate reading in the porch, by the side of
Mrs Allen, or walked with her in the meadows on a
Sunday evening after church. Jane was certainly
contented and happy, and yet every one that saw her
thought of her with that kind of interest which is
akin to pity. There was a pale, fragile grace about
her, such as we sometimes see in a rose which has
blown in the shade ; or rather, to change the simile,
the drooping and delicate look of a tender plant re-
moved from a hothouse to the open air. "We could
not help feeling sure (notwithstanding our mistake
with regard to Mrs Allen) that this was indeed a
transplanted flower, and that the village school,
however excellently her habits had become inured to
her situation, was not her proper atmosphere.
Several circumstances corroborated our suspicions.
My lively young friend Sophia Grey, standing with
me one day at the gate of the schoolhouse, where
I had been talking with Mrs Allen, remarked to me,
in French, the sly, demure vanity with which Susan
Wheeler, whose beauty had attracted her attention,
was observing and returning her glances. The
playful manner in which Sophia described Susan's
"regard furtif" made me smile; and looking acci-
dentally at Jane, I saw that she was smiling too,
THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMISTRESS 289
clearly comprehending, and enjoying the full force of
the pleasantry. She must understand French ; and
when questioned, she confessed she did, and thank-
fully accepted the loan of books in that language.
Another time, being sent on a message to the vicarage,
and left for some minutes alone in the parlour, with a
piano standing open in the room, she could not resist
the temptation of touching the keys, and was dis-
covered playing an air of Mozart, with great taste
and execution. At this detection she blushed, as if
caught in a crime, and hurried away in tears and
without her message. It was clear that she had once
learnt music. But the surest proof that Jane's
original station had been higher than that which she
now filled, was the mixture of respect and fondness
with which Mrs Allen treated her, and the deep
regret she sometimes testified at seeing her employed
in any menial office.
At last, elicited by some warm praise of the
charming child, our good schoolmistress disclosed her
story. Jane Mowbray was the granddaughter of
the lady in whose service Mrs Allen had passed her
life. Her father had been a man of high family and
splendid fortune ; had married beneath himself, as it
was called, a friendless orphan, with no portion but
beauty and virtue ; and, on her death, which followed
shortly on the birth of her daughter, had plunged
into every kind of vice and extravagance. What
need to tell a tale of sin and suffering ? Mr Mowbray
had ruined himself, had ruined all belonging to him,
and finally had joined our armies abroad as a volun-
teer, and had fallen undistinguished in his first battle.
The news of his death was fatal to his indulgent
2po OU^ VILLAGE
mother ; and when she too died, Mrs Allen blessed
the Providence which, by throwing in her way a
recommendation to Lady Lacy's school, had enabled
her to support the dear object of her mistress's love
and prayers. " Had Miss Mowbray no connections ? "
was the natural question. " Yes j one very near
an aunt, the sister of her father, richly married in
India. But Sir William was a proud, and a stern
man, upright in his own conduct, and implacable to
error. Lady Ely was a sweet, gentle creature, and
doubtless would be glad to extend a mother's protec-
tion to the orphan ; but Sir William oh ! he was so
unrelenting ! He had abjured Mr Mowbray and all
connected with him. She had written to inform them
where the dear child was, but had no expectation of
any answer from India."
Time verified this prediction. The only tidings
from India, at all interesting to Jane Mowbray, were
contained in the paragraph of a newspaper which
announced Lady Ely's death, and put an end to all
hopes of protection in that quarter. Years passed
on, and found her still with Mrs Allen at Lady
Lacy's Green, more and more beloved and respected
from day to day. She had now attained almost to
womanhood. Strangers, I believe, called her plain ;
we, who knew her, thought her pretty. Her figure
was tall and straight as a cypress, pliant and flexible
as a willow, full of gentle grace, whether in repose
or in motion. She had a profusion of light brown
hair, a pale complexion, dark grey eyes, a smile of
which the character was rather sweet than gay, and
such a countenance ! no one could look at her with-
out wishing her well, or without being sure that she
THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMISTRESS 291
deserved all good wishes. Her manners were modest
and elegant, and she had much of the self-taught
knowledge which is, of all knowledge, the surest
and the best, because acquired with most difficulty,
and fixed in the memory by the repetition of effort.
Every one had assisted her to the extent of his
power, and of her willingness to accept assistance ;
for both she and Mrs Allen had a pride call it
independence which rendered it impossible, even
to the friends who were most honoured by their
good opinion, to be as useful to them as they could
have wished. To give Miss Mowbray time for im-
provement had, however, proved a powerful emollient
to the pride of our dear schoolmistress ; and that
time had been so well employed, that her acquire-
ments were considerable ; whilst in mind and
character she was truly admirable ; mild, grateful,
and affectionate, and imbued with a deep religious
feeling, which influenced every action and pervaded
every thought. So gifted, she was deemed by her
constant friends, the vicar and his lady, perfectly
competent to the care and education of children 5 it
was agreed that she should enter a neighbouring
family, as a successor to their then governess, early
in the ensuing spring ; and she, although sad at the
prospect of leaving her aged protectress, acquiesced
in their decision.
One fine Sunday in the October preceding this
dreaded separation, as Miss Mowbray, with Mrs
Allen leaning on her arm, was slowly following the
little train of Lady Lacy's scholars from church, an
elderly gentleman, sickly-looking and emaciated,
accosted a pretty young woman, who was loitering
292 OU^ VILLAGE
with some other girls at the churchyard gate, and
asked her several questions respecting the school and
its mistress. Susan Wheeler (for it happened to be
our old acquaintance) was delighted to be singled
out by so grand a gentleman, and being a kind-
hearted creature in the main, spoke of the school-
house and its inhabitants exactly as they deserved.
" Mrs Allen," she said, " was the best woman in the
world the very best, except just Miss Mowbray,
who was better still, only too particular about
summing, which, you know, sir," added Susan,
" people can't learn if they can't. She is going to
be a governess in the spring," continued the loquacious
damsel, "and it's to be hoped the little ladies will
take kindly to their tables, or it will be a sad
grievance to Miss Jane." " A governess ! Where
can I make inquiries concerning Miss Mowbray ? "
" At the vicarage, sir," answered Susan, dropping
her little courtesy, and turning away, well pleased
with the gentleman's condescension, and with half-a-
crown which he had given her in return for her
intelligence. The stranger, meanwhile, walked
straight to the vicarage, and in less than half
an hour the vicar repaired with him to Lady Lacy's
Green.
This stranger, so drooping, so sickly, so ema-
ciated, was the proud Indian uncle, the stern Sir
William Ely ! Sickness and death had been busy
with him and with his. He had lost his health, his
wife, and his children j and, softened by affliction,
was returned to England a new man, anxious to
forgive and to be forgiven, and, above all, desirous
to repair his neglect and injustice toward the only
THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMIST1(ESS 293
remaining relative of the wife whom he had so fondly
loved and so tenderly lamented. In this frame of
mind, such a niece as Jane Mowbray was welcomed
with no common joy. His delight in her, and his
gratitude toward her protectress, were unbounded.
He wished them both to accompany him home, and
reside with him constantly. Jane promised to do so ;
but Mrs Allen, with her usual admirable feeling of
propriety, clung to the spot which had been to her
a "city of refuge," and refused to leave it in spite
of all the entreaties of uncle and of niece. It was
a happy decision for Aberleigh j for what could
Aberleigh have done without its good school-
mistress ?
She lives there still, its ornament and its pride ;
and every year Jane Mowbray comes for a long visit,
and makes a holiday in the school and in the whole
place. Jane Mowbray, did I say ? No ; not Jane
Mowbray now. She has changed that dear name for
the only name that could be dearer : she is married
married to the eldest son of Mr Lacy, the lineal
representative of Dame Eleanor Lacy, the honoured
foundress of the school. It was in a voice, tremulous
more from feeling than from age, that Mrs Allen
welcomed the young heir, when he brought his fair
bride to Aberleigh ; and it was with a yet stronger
and deeper emotion that the bridegroom, with his
own Jane in his hand, visited the asylum which she
and her venerable guardian owed to the benevolence
and the piety of his ancestress, whose good deeds
had thus showered down blessings on her remote
posterity.
A SKETCH
BEAUTIFULLY situated on a steep knoll, over-
hanging a sharp angle in the turnpike road, which
leads through our village of Aberleigh, stands a
fantastic rustic building, with a large yew tree on
one side, a superb weeping ash hanging over it on
the other, a clump of elms forming a noble back-
ground behind, and all the prettinesses of porches
garlanded with clematis, windows mantled with
jessamine, and chimneys wreathed with luxuriant
ivy, adding grace to the picture. To form a picture,
most assuredly, it was originally built, a point of
view, as it is called, from Allonby Park, to which
the byroad that winds round this inland cape, or
headland, directly leads ; and most probably it was
also copied from some book of tasteful designs for
lodges or ornamented cottages, since not only the
building itself, but the winding path that leads up
the acclivity, and the gate which gives entrance to
the little garden, smack of the pencil and the graver.
For a picture certainly, and probably from a
picture was that cottage erected, although its ostensible
purpose was merely that of a receiving-house for letters
294
THE ^T-C^fTCHE^ 295
and parcels for the Park, to which the present inhabi-
tant, a jolly, bustling, managing dame, of great activity
and enterprise in her own peculiar line, has added the
profitable occupation of a thriving and well-accus-
tomed village-shop ; contaminating the picturesque,
old-fashioned bay-window of the fancy letter-house
by the vulgarities of red herrings, tobacco; onions,
and salt-butter a sight which must have made the
projector of her elegant dwelling stare again and
forcing her customers to climb up and down an
ascent almost as steep as the roof of a house, when-
ever they wanted a pennyworth of needles, or a
halfpennyworth of snuff, a toil whereat some of
our poor old dames groaned aloud. Sir Henry
threatened to turn her out, and her customers
threatened to turn her off; but neither of these
events happened. Dinah Forde appeased her land-
lord and managed her customers ; for Dinah Forde
was a notable woman ; and it is really surprising
what great things, in a small way, your notable
woman will compass.
Besides Mrs Dinah Forde, and her apprentice,
a girl of ten years old, the letter-house had lately
acquired another occupant in the shape of Dinah's
tenant or lodger I don't know which word best
expresses the nature of the arrangement my old
friend Sam Page, the rat-catcher, who, together
with his implements of office, two ferrets, and four
mongrels, inhabited a sort of shed or outhouse at
the back of the premises serving, " especially the
curs," as Mrs Forde was wont to express herself,
" as a sort of guard and protection to a lone woman's
property."
296 OU^ VILLAGE
Sam Page was, as I have said, an old acquaintance
of ours, although neither as a resident of Aberleigh,
nor in his capacity of rat-catcher, both of which were
recent assumptions. It was, indeed, a novelty to see
Sam Page as a resident anywhere. His abode seemed
to be the highway. One should as soon have ex-
pected to find a gipsy within stone walls, as soon have
looked for a hare in her last year's form, or a bird in
her old nest, as for Sam Page in the same place a
month together ; so completely did he belong to that
order which the lawyers call vagrants, and the com-
mon people designate by the significant name of
trampers ; and so entirely of all rovers did he seem
the most roving, of all wanderers the most unsettled.
The winds, the clouds, even our English weather,
were but a type of his mutability.
Our acquaintance with him had commenced above
twenty years ago, when, a lad of some fifteen or
thereaway, he carried muffins and cakes about the
country. The whole house was caught by his in-
telligence and animation, his light active figure, his-
keen grey eye, and the singular mixture of shrewdness
and good-humour in his sharp but pleasant features.
Nobody's muffins could go down but Sam Page's.
We turned off our old stupid deaf cakeman, Simon
Brown, and appointed Sam on the instant. (N.JB.
This happened at the period of a general election, and
Sam wore the right colour, and Simon the wrong.)
Three times a week he was to call. Faithless wretch !
he never called again ! He took to selling election
ballads, and carrying about handbills. We waited
for him a fortnight, went muffinless for fourteen
days, and then, our candidate being fairly elected,
THE ^AT-C^TCHE^ 297
and blue and yellow returned to their original non-
importance, were fain to put up once more with poor
old deaf Simon Brown.
Sam's next appearance was in the character of a
letter-boy, when he and a donkey set up a most
spirited opposition to Thomas Hearne and the post-
cart. Everybody was dissatisfied with Thomas
Hearne, who had committed more sins than I can
remember, of forgetfulness, irregularity, and all
manner of postman-like faults j and Sam, when
applying for employers, made a most successful
canvass, and for a week performed miracles of
punctuality. At the end of that time he began to
commit, with far greater vigour than his predecessor,
Thomas Hearne, the several sins for which that
worthy had been discarded. On Tuesday he forgot
to call for the bag in the evening ; on Wednesday
he omitted to bring it in the morning ; on Thursday
he never made his appearance at all ; on Friday his
employers gave him warning ; and on Saturday
they turned him off. So ended this hopeful experi-
ment.
Still, however, he continued to travel the country
in various capacities. First, he carried a tray of
casts ; then a basket of Staffordshire ware j then he
cried cherries ; then he joined a troop of ruddle-men,
and came about redder than a red Indian j then he
sported a barrel-organ, a piece of mechanism of no
small pretensions, having two sets of puppets on the
top, one of girls waltzing, the other of soldiers at
drill ; then he drove a knife-grinder's wheel ; then he
led a bear and a very accomplished monkey j then he
escorted a celebrated company of dancing dogs ; and
298 OU^ VILLAGE
then, for a considerable time, during which he took a
trip to India and back, we lost sight of him.
He reappeared, however, at B. Fair, where one
year he was showman to the Living Skeleton, and the
next a performer in the tragedy of the Edinburgh
Murders, as exhibited every half-hour at the price of
a penny to each person. Sam showed so much talent
for melodrama, that we fully expected to find him
following his new profession, which offered all the
advantage of the change of place and of character
which his habits required ; and on his being again, for
several months, an absentee, had little doubt but he
had been promoted from a booth to a barn, and even
looked for his name amongst a party of five strollers,
three men and two women, who issued play-bills at
Aberleigh, and performed tragedy, comedy, opera,
farce, and pantomime, with all the degrees and com-
pounds thereof described by Polonius, in the great
room at the Rose, divided for the occasion into a
row of chairs called the Boxes, at a shilling per seat,
and two of benches called the Pit, at sixpence. I
even suspected that a Mr Theodore Fitzhugh, the
genius of the company, might be Sam Page fresh
christened. But I was mistaken. Sam, when I saw
him again, and mentioned my suspicion, pleaded
guilty to a turn for the drama ; he confessed that he
liked acting of all things, especially tragedy, "it was
such fun." But there was a small obstacle to his
pursuit of the more regular branches of the histrionic
art the written drama : our poor friend could not
read. To use his own words, " he was no scholar" ;
and on recollecting certain small aberrations which
had occurred during the three days that he carried
THE ^T-C^TCHE^ 299
the letter-bag, and professed to transact errands, such
as the misdelivery of notes, and the non-performance
of written commissions, we were fain to conclude
that, instead of having, as he expressed it, "somehow
or other got rid of his learning," learning was a
blessing which Sam had never possessed, and that a
great luminary was lost to the stage simply from the
accident of not knowing his alphabet.
Instead of being, as we had imagined, ranting in
"Richard" or raving in "Lear," our unlucky hero
had been amusing himself by making a voyage to the
West Indies and home by the way of America, having
had some thoughts of honouring the New World by
making it the scene of his residence, or rather of his
peregrinations ; and a country where the whole popu-
lation seems movable, would, probably, have suited
him ; but the yellow fever seized him, and pinned
him fast at the very beginning of his North American
travels ; and, sick and weary, he returned to England,
determined, as he said, " to take a room and live
respectably."
The apartment on which he fixed was, as I have
intimated, an outhouse belonging to Mrs Dinah Forde,
in which he took up his abode the beginning of last
summer with his two ferrets, harmless, foreign-looking
things (no native English animal has so outlandish an
appearance as the ferret, with its long limber body,
its short legs, red eyes, and ermine-looking fur), of
whose venom, gentle as they looked, he was wont to
boast amain j four little dogs, of every variety of
mongrel ugliness, whose eminence in the same quality
nobody could doubt, for one had lost an eye in battle,
and one an ear, the third halted in his fore-quarters,
300 OU^ VILLAGE
and the fourth limped behind j and a jay of great
talent and beauty, who turned his pretty head this
way and that, and bent and bowed most courteously
when addressed, and then responded in words equally
apt and courteous to all that was said to him. Mrs
Dinah Forde fell in love with that jay at first sight ;
borrowed him of his master, and hung him at one
side of the door, where he soon became as famous all
through the parish as the talking bird in the Arabian
tales, or the parrot Vert-vert, immortalised by
Cresset.
Sam's own appearance was as rat-catcher-like,
I had almost said as venomous, as that of his retinue.
His features sharper than ever, thin, and worn, and
sallow, yet arch and good-humoured withal ; his
keen eye and knowing smile, his pliant active figure,
and the whole turn of his equipment, from the shabby
straw hat to the equally shabby long gaiters, told his
calling almost as plainly as the sharp heads of the
ferrets, which were generally protruded from the
pockets of his dirty jean jacket, or the bunch of dead
rats with which he was wont to parade the streets
of B. on a market-day. He seemed, at last, to have
found his proper vocation ; and having stuck to it for
four or five months, with great success and reputa-
tion, there seemed every chance of his becoming
stationary at Aberleigh.
In his own profession his celebrity was, as I have
said, deservedly great. The usual complaint against
rat-catchers, that they take care not to ruin the stock,
that they are sure to leave breeders enough, could
not be applied to Sam ; who, poor fellow, never was
suspected of forethought in his life j and who, in this
THE ^T-C^TCHE^ 301
case, had evidently too much delight in the chase
himself, to dream of checking or stopping it, whilst
there was a rat left unslain. On the contrary, so
strong was the feeling of his sportsmanship, and that
of his poor curs, that one of his grand operations, on
the taking in of a wheat-rick, for instance, or the
clearing out of a barn, was sure to be attended by all
the idle boys and unemployed men in the village,
by all, in short, who, under the pretence of helping,
could make an excuse to their wives, their consciences,
or the parish officers. The grand battue, on emptying
Farmer Brookes's great barn, will be long remembered
in Aberleigh j there was more noise made, and more
beer drunk, than on any occasion since the happy
marriage of Miss Phcebe and the patten-maker; it
even emulated the shouts and the tipsiness of the B.
election and that's a bold word ! The rats killed
were in proportion to the din and that is a bold
word too ! I am really afraid to name the number,
it seemed to myself, and would appear to my readers,
so incredible. Sam and Farmer Brookes were so
proud of the achievement, that they hung the dead
game on the lower branches of the great oak outside
the gate, after the fashion practised by mole-catchers,
to the unspeakable consternation of a cockney cousin
of the good farmer's, a very fine lady, who had never
in her life before been out of the sound of Bow-bell,
and who, happening to catch sight of this portentous
crop of acorns in passing under the tree, caused her
husband, who was driving her, to turn the gig round,
and notwithstanding remonstrance and persuasion,
and a most faithful promise that the boughs should
be dismantled before night, could not be induced to
302 OL/X. VILLAGE
set foot in a place where the trees were, to use her
own words, " so heathenish," and betook herself
back to her own domicile at Holborn Bars, in great
and evident perplexity as to the animal or vegetable
quality of the oak in question. 1
Another cause of the large assemblage at Sam's
rat-hunts was, besides the certainty of good sport, the
eminent popularity of the leader of the chase. Sam
was a universal favourite. He had good fellowship
enough to conciliate the dissipated, and yet stopped
short of the licence which would have disgusted the
sober, was pleasant-spoken, quick, lively, and intelli-
gent, sang a good song, told a good story, and had
a kindness of temper, and a lightness of heart, which
rendered him a most exhilarating and coveted com-
panion to all in his own station. He was, moreover, a
proficient in country games, and so eminent at cricket
especially, that the men of Aberleigh were no sooner
able, from his residence in the parish, to count him
amongst their eleven, than they challenged their old
rivals, the men of Hinton, and beat them forthwith.
Two nights before the return match, Sam,
shabbier even than usual, and unusually out of
spirits, made his appearance at the house of an old
Aberleigh cricketer, still a patron and promoter of
that noble game, and the following dialogue took
place between them :
1 Moles are generally, and rats occasionally, strung on willows
when killed; not much to the improvement of the beauty of the
scenery. I don't know anything that astounds a Londoner more
than the sight of a tree bearing such fruit. The plum-pudding
tree, whereof mention is made in the pleasant and veracious travels
of the Baron Munchausen, could not appear more completely a
lusus naturz.
THE ^AT-C^tTCHE^ 303
"Well, Sam, we are to win this match."
" I hope so, please your honour. But I'm sorry
to say I shan't be at the winning of it."
" Not here, Sam ! What, after rattling the
stumps about so gloriously last time, won't you
stay to finish them now ! Only think how those
Hinton fellows will crow ! You must stay over
Wednesday."
" I can't, your honour. 'Tis not my fault. But
here I've had a lawyer's letter on the part of
Mrs Forde, about the trifle of rent, and bill that
I owe her ; and if I'm not off to-night, Heaven
knows what she'll do with me ! "
" The rent that can't be much. Let's see if we
can't manage "
" Aye, but there's a longish bill, sir," interrupted
Sam. " Consider, we are seven in family."
"Seven!" interrupted, in his turn, the other
interlocutor.
" Aye, sir, counting the dogs and the ferrets,
poor beasts ! for I suppose she has not charged
for the jay's board, though 'twas that unlucky bird
made the mischief."
" The jay ! What could he have to do with the
matter ? Dinah used to be as fond of him as if he had
been her own child ! and I always thought Dinah
Forde a good-natured woman."
" So she is, in the main, your honour," replied
Sam, twirling his hat, and looking half-shy and half-
sly, at once knowing and ashamed. " So she is, in
the main j but this, somehow, is a particular sort of
an affair. You must know, sir," continued Sam,
gathering courage as he went on, " that at first the
304 OU^ VILLAGE
widow and I were very good friends, and several of
these articles which are charged in the bill, such as
milk for the ferrets, and tea and lump-sugar, and
young onions for myself, I verily thought were meant
as presents ; and so I do believe at the time she did
mean them. But, howsoever, Jenny Dobbs, the
nurserymaid at the Park (a pretty black-eyed lass
perhaps your honour may have noticed her walking
with the children), she used to come out of an even-
ing like to see us play cricket, and then she praised
my bowling, and then I talked to her, and so at last
we began to keep company j and the jay, owing, I
suppose, to hearing me say so sometimes, began to
cry out, " Pretty Jenny Dobbs ! "
"Well, and this affronted the widow ?"
"Past all count, your honour. You never saw
a woman in such a tantrum. She declared I had taught
the bird to insult her, and posted off to Lawyer Latitat.
And here I have got this letter, threatening to turn
me out, and put me in gaol, and what not, from the
lawyer ; and Jenny, a false-hearted jade, finding how
badly matters are going with me, turns round and
says that she never meant to have me, and is going
to marry the French Mounseer (Sir Henry's French
valet), a foreigner and a papist, who may have a
dozen wives before for anything she can tell. These
women are enough to drive a man out of his senses ! "
And poor Sam gave his hat a mighty swing, and looked
likely to cry from a mixture of grief, anger, and vexa-
tion. " These women are enough to drive a man
mad ! " reiterated Sam, with increased energy.
" So they are, Sam," replied his host, administer-
ing a very efficient dose of consolation, in the shape
THE ^T-C^TCHE^ 305
of a large glass of Cognac brandy, which, in spite
of its coming from his rival's country, Sam swallowed
with hearty goodwill. " So they are. But Jenny's
not worth fretting about : she's a poor feckless thing
after all, fitter for a Frenchman than an Englishman.
If I were you, I would make up to the widow : she's
a person of property, and a fine comely woman into
the bargain. Make up to the widow, Sam, and drink
another glass of brandy to your success ! "
And Sam followed both pieces of advice. He
drank the brandy and he made up to the widow,
the former part of the prescription probably inspiring
him with courage to attempt the latter ; and the lady
was propitious, and the wedding speedy : and the last
that I heard of them was, the jay's publishing the
banns of marriage, under a somewhat abridged form,
from his cage at the door of Mrs Dinah's shop (a pro-
ceeding at which she seemed, outwardly, scandalised ;
but over which, it may be suspected, she chuckled
inwardly, or why not have taken in the cage ?), and
the French valet's desertion of Jenny Dobbs, whom
he, in his turn, jilted ; and the dilemma of Lawyer
Latitat, who found himself obliged to send in his bill
for the threatening letter to the identical gentleman
to whom it was addressed. For the rest, the cricket
match was won triumphantly, the wedding went off
with great eclat, and our accomplished rat-catcher is,
we trust, permanently fixed in our good village of
Aberleigh.
ONE of the pleasantest habitations I have ever
known is an old white house, built at right angles,
with the pointed roofs, and clustered chimneys of
Elizabeth's day, covered with roses, vines, and passion-
flowers, and parted by a green sloping meadow from
a straggling, picturesque village street. In this charm-
ing abode resides a more charming family : a gentleman,
" Polite as all his life in courts had been,
And good as he the world had never seen " ;
two daughters full of sweetness and talent ; and Aunt
Martha, the most delightful of old maids ! She has
another appellation, I suppose she must have one
but I scarcely know it : Aunt Martha is the name that
belongs to her the name of affection. Such is the
universal feeling which she inspires, that all her friends,
all her acquaintances, (in this case the terms are almost
synonymous,) speak of her like her own family she
is everybody's Aunt Martha and a very charming
Aunt Martha she is.
First of all, she is, as all women should be if
they can, remarkably handsome. She may be it
is a delicate matter to speak of a lady's age she
must be five-and-forty ; but few beauties of twenty
could stand a comparison with her loveliness. It is
such a fulness of bloom, so luxuriant, so satiating :
306
307
just tall enough to carry off the plumpness which
at forty-five is so becoming ; a brilliant complexion j
curled pouting lips ! long, clear, bright grey eyes
the colour for expression, that which unites the
quickness of the black with the softness of the
blue ; a Roman regularity of feature ; and a pro-
fusion of rich brown hair. Such is Aunt Martha.
Add to this a very gentle and pleasant speech,
always kind, and generally lively ; the sweetest
temper ; the easiest manner ; a singular rectitude
and singleness of mind ; a perfect open-heartedness,
and a total unconsciousness of all these charms,
and you will wonder a little that she is Aunt
Martha still. I have heard hints of an early
engagement broken by the fickleness of man ; and
there is about her an aversion to love in one par-
ticular direction the love matrimonial and an
overflowing of affection in all other channels, that
it seems as if the natural course of the stream had
been violently dammed up. She has many lovers
admirers I should say for there is amidst her
good-humoured gaiety, a coyness that forbids their
going farther ; a modesty almost amounting to shy-
ness, that checks even the laughing girls, who
sometimes accuse her of stealing away their beaux.
I du not think any man on earth could tempt her
into wedlock : it would be a most unpardonable
monopoly if any one should ; an intolerable engross-
ing of a general blessing j a theft from the whole
community.
Her usual home is the white house covered with
roses ; and her station in the family is rather doubtful.
She is not the mistress, for her charming nieces are
308 OU^ VILLAGE
old enough to take and to adorn the head of the table ;
nor the housekeeper, though, as she is the only lady
of the establishment who wears pockets, those ensigns
of authority, the keys, will sometimes be found, with
other strays, in that goodly receptacle ; nor a guest
her spirit is too active for that lazy post ; her real
vocation there, and everywhere, seems to be comfort-
ing, cheering, welcoming, and spoiling everything that
comes in her way j and, above all, nursing and taking
care. Of all kind employments, these are her favourites.
Oh, the shawlings, the cloakings, the cloggings ! the
cautions against cold, or heat, or rain, or sun ! the
remedies for diseases not arrived ! colds uncaught !
incipient toothaches ! rheumatisms to come ! She
loves nursing so well, that we used to accuse her of
inventing maladies for other people, that she might
have the pleasure of curing them ; and when they
really come as come they will sometimes, in spite of
Aunt Martha what a nurse she is ! It is worth while
to be a little sick to be so attended. All the cousins,
and cousins' cousins of her connection, as regularly
send for her on the occasion of a lying-in, as for the
midwife. I suppose she has undergone the ceremony
of dandling the baby, sitting up with the new mamma,
and dispensing the caudle, twenty times at least. She
is equally important at weddings or funerals. Her
humanity is inexhaustible. She has an intense feeling
of fellowship with her kind, and grieves or rejoices in
the sufferings or happiness of others with a reality as
genuine as it is rare.
Her accomplishments are exactly of this sym-
pathetic order : all calculated to administer much to
the pleasure of her companions, and nothing to her
309
own importance or vanity. She leaves to the sirens,
her nieces, the higher enchantments of the piano, the
harp, and the guitar, and that noblest of instruments,
the human voice ; ambitious of no other musical fame
than such as belongs to the playing of quadrilles and
waltzes for their little dances, in which she is inde-
fatigable ; she neither caricatures the face of man nor
of nature under pretence of drawing figures or land-
scapes ; but she ornaments the reticules, bell-ropes,
ottomans, and chair-covers of all her acquaintance,
with flowers as rich and luxuriant as her own beauty.
She draws patterns for the ignorant, and works flounces,
frills, and baby-linen, for the idle ; she reads aloud to
the sick, plays at cards with the old, and loses at chess
to the unhappy. Her gift in gossiping, too, is extra-
ordinary ; she is a gentle newsmonger, and turns her
scandal on the sunny side. But she is an old maid
still ; and certain small peculiarities hang about her.
She is a thorough hoarder ; whatever fashion comes
up, she is sure to have something of the sort by her,
or, at least, something thereunto convertible. She is
a little superstitious ; sees strangers in her teacup,
gifts in her finger-nails, letters and winding-sheets in
the candle, and purses and coffins in the fire ; would
not spill the salt " for all the worlds that one ever has
to give " ; and looks with dismay on a crossed knife
and fork. Moreover, she is orderly to fidgetiness
that is her greatest calamity ! for young ladies now-
adays are not quite so tidy as they should be, and
ladies'-maids are much worse; and drawers are
tumbled, and drawing-rooms in a litter. Happy
she to whom a disarranged drawer can be a
misery ! Dear and happy Aunt Martha '
x
Printed by Turnbull & Spears
at Edinburgh in Great Britain
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College
Library
UCLA-College Library
PR 5022 093 1904
A 001 176266 3
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