In Memoriam of CROSBY STUART NOYES The bridegrcom may forget the bride, Was made his wedded wife yeste'en ; The monarch may forget his crown That on his head an hour has been ; The mother may forget the child That smiles sae sweetly on her knee; Bui. ni rem.ember thee, dear Moyes, And a' that thou hast done for me. . — William Robertson Smith. iass'r£K5M^ l)()()K i'i'ae rural scenery, and characteristic in the rural ociety of Southern England, and to forget tliat c also appertains to a dramatist of no common jower, who has wrought in a period, when — if 'he theatres be deserted, and the popular acted drama have degenerated into melo-drama, bur- letta, and farce — the plays published exhibit far more signs of strength and promise, than were shown by those produced in the palmy days of Garrick, or the yet more glorious after-summer of the Kembles. It was at Christmas time, in the year 1789, that Miss Mitford was born, her birth-place being the little town of Alrcsford, Hampshire. She is descended on the father's side, from an ancient family in Northumberland, not remotely con- nected with nobility ; and there is a quaint rhyme current in the north country, which promises the name a long duration : " Midforci was Midford when Morpeth was nano, Midford shall be Midford when Morpclh is guiie ; Si) long as the sun sets or the moon runs her round, A Midford in Midford shall always be found." Her mother was the only daughter of Dr, Rus- sell, of Ashe, in Hampshire; this lady was a sin- gularly good classical scholar, and it would have been strange if under such auspices, the educa- tion of her daughter had not been liberally plan- ned and carefully completed. How delightfully Miss Mitford iias chronicled her school pleasures and scliool feelings, during the years bctvveeti the ages often and fifteen, passed by her at a London boarding-school of high repute, no one who has read " Our Village" can have forgotten. IJy her own shou'ing she was as shy as she was clever, atler a somewhat original fashion — a keen lover of poetry and plays. And shortly after she left school, she sliovved the next evidence of talent, the possession of a creative as well as appreciative power, by publishing a volume of miscellaneous poems, which were favourably received ; for in tliosc days poetry was read. These, and other juvenile effusions, now all but forgotten, were, at the time of tlieir appearing, successful ; but their young writer was herself dissatisfied with them; conscious, perhaps, that tliey were little more than imitations, and forgetting that it was by imitation that genius has almost always in the first instance manifested itself. She with- drew herself from composition — read much, though \^ithout any decided aim or object, and would never (she thinks) have attempted author- ship again, had not those vicissitudes of fortune, which try the metal of the sufferer no less search- ingly than the sincerity of his friends, compelled her to come forth from her retreat, and honour- ably to exercise the talents with which she had been so largely gifted. It would be raising the veil too high to dwell upon the sequel ; upon the rich reward of love, and respect, and conside- ration, which have repaid so zealous and unselfish a devotion of time and talent as Miss Mitford's life has shown. We have but to speak of the good which has come out of evil, in the shape of lier writings ; and we do this briefly and rapidly, because of the limited space within which we are restricted. > y Miss Mitford's principal efforts have been a series of tragedies. "The Two Foscari," — "Ju- lian," — " Rienzi," — "Charles the First," — have been all represented, and all well received — the third with signal success. Besides these may be mentioned two other tragedies, still in manu- script, " Inez de Castro" and " Otto of Wittels- bach," Mias Mitford's last, finest work. In all these plays there is strong vigorous writing, — masculine in the free unshackled use of language, but wholly womanly in its purity from coarse- ness or license, and in the intermixture of those incidental touches of soflest feeling and finest ob- servation, which are peculiar to the gentler sex. A rich air of the soutli breathes over " Rienzi ;" and in the " Charles," though tite character of Cromwell will be felt to vibrate, it is, on tlie whole, conceived with a just and acute discernment of its real and false greatness — of the thousand con- tradictions which, in reality, make the son of the Huntingdon brewer a character too difficult, and mighty, for any one beneath a Shakspeare to ex- hibit. As also in Joanna Baillie's fine tragedies, the poetry of these plays is singularly fresh and unconventional ; equally clear of Elizabi tlian quaintness and of modern Della-cruscanism, which, as some hold, indicate an exhausted and artificial state of society, in which the drama — the hearty, bold, natural drama — has no exist- ence. At all events, it is now too much the fash- ion that every thing which is written for the stage shall be forgotten so soon as the actors employed in it have " fretted their hour." Were it other- wise, we should not have need to dwell, even thus briefly, upon the distinctive merits of Miss Mit^ ford's trajredies. PREFACE. In leaving- them, however, we cannot, but point attention to the happy choice of their subjects, and in doing- this, may venture a remark or two which will lead us on to the works by which Miss Mit- ford is most widely known — her sketches of coun- try life and scenery. Among the characteristics which eminently distinguish female authorship, it has ollen struck us, that there is none more certiin and striking than an instinctive quickness of discovery and happiness in working- out avail- able subjects and fresh veins of fancy. At least, if we travel through the domains of lighter litera- ture during the last fifty years, we shall find enough to prove our assertion. We shall find the supernatural romance growing into eminence under the hands of Aima Radcliffe — the national tale introduced to the public by Miss Edgeworth and Lady Morgan — the historical novel by Miss Lee and tlie Miss Porters — the story of domestic life, witii commonplace persons for its actors, brought to its last perfection by Miss Austen. We shall find " Kenilworth" anticipated by the " Recess" (a tale strangely forgotten,) and " Wer- ner," owinji- not only its origin, but its very dia- logue to " Ivruitzner" — and the stories of " Fos- cari" and " Rienzi," ere they fell into the hands of Byron and Bulwer, fixed upon with a happy boldness by the authoress under notice. But the claims of Miss Mitford to swell tiie list of i«uen- tors, rest upon yet firmer grounds ; tiiey rest upon those exquisite sketches by which — their scenery all, and their characters half real — she has cre- ated a scliool of writing, homely but not vulgar, familiar but not breeding contempt, (in this point alone not resembling the highly finished pictures of the Dutch school,) wherein the small events and the simple characters of rural life, are made interesting by the truth and sprightliness with which they are represented. Every one now knows "Our Village," and every one knows that the nooks and corners, the haunts and copses so delightfully described in its pages, will be (bund in the immediate neighbourhood of Reading, and more especially around " Three Mile Cross," a cluster of cottages on the Basing- stoke road, in one of which our authoress has now resided for many years. But so little was the |)eculia,r and original excellence of her descrip- tions understood, in the first instance, that, after having gone the round of rejection through the more important periodicals, they at last saw the liffht in no worthier publication than the Ladi/s Mn^azine. But the series of rural ()ictures grew, and the venture of collecting them into a separate volume was tried. The public began to relish the style so fresh yet so finisiicd, to enjoy the delicate humour and tiic sim[)le pathos of the tales ; and the end was, that the popularity of these sketches somewhat outgrew that of the works of loflier or- der, proceeding from the same pen — that young writers, English and American, began to imitate so artless and charming a manner of narration; and that an obscure Berkshire hamlet, by the magic of talent and kindly feeling, was converted into a place of resort and interest for not a few of the finest spirits of the age. It should, perhaps, be owned in speaking of these village sketches, that their writer enamels too brightly — not the hedge-rows and the mea- dow-streams, the orchards and the cottage gar- dens, for who could exceed nature? — but the figures which people the scene ; that her country boys and village girls are too refined, too constantly turned " to favour and to prettincss." But this flattery only shows to us the health and benevo- lence of mind belonging to the writer ; nor would it be just to count it as a fault, unless we also were to denounce Crabbe as an unfaithful painter of English life and scenery, because, with a ten- dency diametrically opposite, he lingers like a lover in the workhouse and the hovel, and dwells rather upon decay, and meanness, and misery, than the prosperity and charity and comfort with which their gloom is so largely chequered. He may be called the Caravaggio, Miss Mitford the Claude, of village life in England ; and the truth lies between them. Both, however, are remark- able for the purity and selectness of their lan- guage; both paint with words, in a manner as faithful as it is significant. Crabbe should be re- served for those bright moments when the too buoyant spirits require a chastencr, a memento of the "days of darkness;" Miss Mitford resorted to in hours of depression and misgiving, when any book bearing an olive-branch to tell us that there is fair weather abroad, is a blessed visitant. After publishing five volumes of these charm- ing sketches, a wider field for the same descrip- tive powers was found in a small market-town, its peculiarities and its inhabitants, — and " Bel- ford Regis" was written. But the family likeness between this work and " Our Village" is so strong as to spare us the necessity of dwelling upon its features. And now our record may be closed, as I it is not permitted to us to dwell ujjon the private pleasures and cares of an uneventful life, spent | for the most part in a " labourer's cottage, with a j duchess's flower-garden." We should mention, ! however, the recent addition of Miss Mitford's name to the pension-list, as one among many } gratifying proofs, that literature is increasingly j becoming an object of care and protection to I statesmen, and that in this nmch-stiginatized i world, talent and self-sacrifice do not always puss ; on their way unsympathized with or unrecog- I nized. ■ 1 CONTENTS. OUR VILLAGE: First Series: — ■ Page Preface 7 Our Village 7 Hannah 11 Walks in the Country. Frost and Thaw. 13 Modern Antiques 15 A Great Farm-IIouse 18 Lucy 20 Walks in the Country. The First Prim- rose 24 Bramley Maying 26 Cousin Mary 28 Walks in the Country. Violating 31 The Talking Lady 32 Ellen 34 Walks in the Country. The Cowslip-Ball 38 A Country Cricket-Match 41 Tom Cordery 45 An Old Bachelor • 48 A Village Beau 51 Walks in the Country. The Hard Sum- mer 54 The Talking Gentleman 57 Mrs. Mosse. . .". 59 Walks in tiie Country. Nutting 64 Aunt Martha 66 Walks in the Country. The Visit 67 A Parting Glance at Our Village 71 Preface to the Second Volume 76 Second Series : — A Walk through the Village 76 The Tenants of Beechgrove 80 Early Recollections. The French Teacher 83 Walks in the Country. The Copse. . . 87 The Touchy Lady. 90 Jack Hatch 93 Early Recollections. My School-fellows. 95 Walks in the Country. The Wood 100 The Vicar's Maid 101 Marianne 106 Early Recollections. The English Teacher 111 A Visit to Lucy 116 Dr. Tubb 119 The Black Velvet Bag 121 Walks in the Country. The Dell. . . . . 123 Early Recollections. French Emigrants 126 The Inquisitive Gentleman 131 Walks in the Country. The Old House at Aberleigh 133 Early Recollections. My Godfather... 136 The Old Gipsy 139 1* Little Rachel 142 Early Recollections. My Godfather's Manoeuvring 144 The Young Gipsy 147 Third Series : — Introduction. Extracts from Letters ■ . . . 150 Grace Neville 153 A new-mairied Couple 156 Olive Hathaway 159 A Christmas Party 161 A Quiet Gentlewoman 164 The Two Valentines 168 A Country Apothecary 170 Wheat-Hoeing. A morning Ramble. .. . 174 The Village Schoolmistress 177 | Fanny's Fairings 181 I The Chalk-Pit 183 j Whitsun-Eve 185 1 Jessy Lucas 1 87 A Country Barber 190 Hay-carrying 193 Our Maying 197 An Admiral on Shore 201 The Queen of the Meadow 206 Dora Creswell 209 The Bird-Catcher 212 My Godmothers 215 The Mole-Catcher 220 Mademoiselle Therese 222 Lost and Found 224 Fourth Series : — Introductory Letter, to Miss W 226 Lost and Won 230 Children of the Village. Amy Lloyd. . . 234 Early Recollections. The Cobbler over the way 235 Patty's new Hat 238 Children of the Village. The Magpies. . 240 Cottage Names 241 Walks in the Country. The Shaw 244 Little Miss Wren 247 Walks in the Country. Hannah Bint. . • 249 Children of the Village. The Robins... 253 Early Recollections. The General and his Lady 254 Going to the Races 258 The China Jug 261 Early Recollections. Tom Hopkins .... 264 Louisa 266 Children of the Village. Harry Lewington 269 The Election 271 A Castle in the Air 274 (5) VI CONTENTS. The Two Sisters 276 Children of the Village. Pride shall have a fall 279 Rosedale 280 Walks in the Country. The Fall of the Leaf. 285 Children of the Village. The Two Dolls 287 Hopping' Bob 289 A Viait to Richmond 292 Ghost Stories 295 Matthew Shore 3Ui Will. BELFORD REGIS : The Town Stephen Lane, the Butcher. . William and Hannah The Curate of St. Nicholas. . King Harwood The Carpenter's Daughter . . Suppers and Balls The Old Emigre The Tambourine Mrs. Hollis, the Fruiterer. . . Belles of the Bali-Room. Tl The Greek Plays Peter Jenkins, the Poulterer The Sailor's Wedding Country Excursions The Ydang Sculptor Belles of the Ball-room, No. IL Match- making Mrs. Tomkins, the Cheese-monger The Young Market Woman Hester Flirtation Extraordinary Belles of the Ball-room, No. IIL The Silver Arrow The Young Painter The Surgeon's Courtship 307 309 315 319 3:23 332 336 339 347 351 359 3o3 307 372 378 385 39G 400 405 410 426 429 442 450 The Irish Haymaker 456 Mark Bridgman 461 Rosamond : a Story of the Plague 466 Old Davy Dykes 472 The Dissenting Minister 475 Bclford Races 480 The Absent Member 490 COUNTRY STORIES: Country Lodgings 496 The London Visiter 501 Jesse Cliffe 503 Miss Philly Firkin, the China- woman. . . . 512 The Ground-ash 516 Mr. Joseph Hanson, the Haberdasher. . . . 521 The Beauty of the Village 526 Town versus Country 530 The Widow's Dog 534 The Lost Dahlia 538 Honor O'Callaghan 545 Aunt Deborah 549 EXTRACTS FROM FINDEN'S TABLEAUX. England. The King's Ward 557 Florence. The Wager 560 Ceylon. The Lost Pearl 563 Scotland. Sir Allan and his Dog 566 Castile. The Signal 568 The Return from the Fair 570 The Rustic Toilet 575 The Gleaner 580 The Village Amanuensis 585 Hop Gathering 588 TRAGEDIES: FoscARi 593 Julian 613 RiENZi 632 Charles the First 651 OUR VILLAGE: SKETCHES OF RURAL CHARACTER AND SCENERY. PREFACE.* The following pages contain an attempt to delineate country scenery and country man- ners, as they exist in a small village in the south of England. The writer may at least claim the merit of a hearty love of her subject, and of that local and personal familiarity, which only a long residence in one neighbour- hood could have enabled her to attain. Her descriptions have always been written on the spot, and at the moment, and in nearly every instance with the closest and most resolute fidelity to the place and the people. If she be accused of having given a brighter aspect to her villagers than is usually met with in books, she cannot help it, and would not if she could. She has painted, as they appeared to her, their little frailties and their many virtues, under an intense and thankful con- viction, that in every condition of life, good- ness and happiness may be found by those who seek thcra, and never more surely than in the fresh air, the shade, and the sunshine of nature. OUR 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 nondescript dwellings, with inhabitants whose faces are as familiar to us as the flowers in our garden ; 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 ; 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 ; it produces 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 conJ:ains ; or to ramble with Mr. White f 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 thexn ; 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 importation of savage or sailor I 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 neighbourhood 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, straffo-ling winding street at the bottom of a fine'eminence, with a road through it, ahvays abounding in carts, horsemen, and carriages, and lately enlivened 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 now-a-days ; perhaps this may be intended for a monthly diligence, or a fortnight L *To ihe first volume, as originally published. t White's Natural History and Antiquities of Sel- borno ; one of the most faFi'kialiog books ever written. I wonder that no natunlist has adopted the same plan. (7) OUR VILLAGE. fly. Will you walk, with me throug-h our village, courteous reader"? The journey is not long. We will hegiii 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 pub- lican from a neighbouring town ; a substantial person with a comely wife; one who piques himself on independence and idleness, talks politics, reads newspapers, hates the minister, and cries out for reform. He introduced into our peaceable vicinage the rebellious innova- tion of an illumination on the queen's acquittal. Remonstrance and persuasion were in vain ; 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 handker- chief) with a flaming portrait of her Majesty, hatted and feathered, in red ochre. He had no rival in the village, that we all acknow- ledged ; the very bonfire was less splendid ; the little boys reserved their best crackers to be expended in his honour, and he gave them full sixpence more than any one else. He would like an illumination once a month ; for it must not be concealed that, in spite of gar- dening, of newspaper reading, of jaunting about in his littj* cart, and frequenting both church and meeting, our worthy neighbour begins to feel the weariness of idleness. He hangs over his gate, and tries to entice pas- sengers to stop and chat; he volunteers little jobs all round, smokes cherry-trees to cure the blight, and traces and I'lows up all the wasp-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 tbe end, is the pretty dwelling of the shoemaker, a pale, sickly-looking, black-haired man, the very model of sober industr}'. There he sits in his little shop from early morning till late at night. An earthquake would hardly stir him : the illumination did not. He stuck immoveably to his last, from the first lighting up, through the long blaze and the slow de- cay, till his large solitary candle was the only light in the place. One cannot conceive any thing niiire perfect fh;in the contempt which the liicui of transparenci ;s and the man of shoe» must have felt tor 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 sub- stance; lie 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. A very at- tractive person is that child-loving girl. I have never seen any one in her station who possessed so thoroughly that undefmable 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 M'hite 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 oflicer in our little state, nothing less than a constable : but, alas ! alas ! when tumults arise, and the con- stable 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 bewitch- ing doors is Mr. Constable's only fault. Next to this ofiicial dwelling is a spruce brick tenement, red, high, and narrow, boast- ing, 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 be- tween the deals ; for affected gentility and real starvation. This should have been its destiny; but fate has been unpropitious : it belongs to a plump, merry, hustling 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 every thing, 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 youug women (one of them is a pretty blue-eyed girl) who teach little children their ABC, and make caps and gowns for their mam- mas, — parcel schoolmistress, parcel mantua- maker. I believe they find adorning the body a more profitable vocation than adorning the mind. OUR VILLAGE. 9 Divided from the shop by a narrow yard, and opposite the shoemaker's, is a habitation, of whose inmates I shall say nothingr. A cot- tafre — no — a miniature house, with many additions, little odds and ends of places, pan- tries, and what not; all angles, and of a charm.ing in-and-outness ; a little bricked court before one half, and a little flower-yard bo- fore the other; the walls old and weather- stained, covered with hollyhocks, roses, ho- ney-suckles, and a great apricot tree ; the casements full of geraniums; (ah, there is our superb vi'hite cat peeping out from amongst them!) the closets (our landlord has the assurance to call them rooms) full of con- trivances and corner-cupboards; and the little garden behind full of common flowers, tulips, pinks, larkspurs, pionies, stocks, and carna- tions, with an arbour of privet, not unlike a sentry-box, where one lives in a delicious green light, and looks out on the gayest of all gay flower-beds. That house was built on purpose to show in what an exceedingly small compass comfort may be packed. Well, I will loiter there no longer. The next tenement is a place of impor- tance, the Rose inn ; a white-washed build- ing, 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 cf carts, wagons, 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 town-ward as often as she can. She is gone to B to-day with her last and principal lover, a recruiting serjeant — a man as tall as Serjeant Kite, and as im- pudent. 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 wagon-load of bricks at the door. — That house is the plaything of a wealthy, well-meaning, whimsical person, who lives about a mile oflf. 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- B 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 won- der whether any thing has really been done. One exploit in last June was, however, by no means equivocal. Our good neighbour fan- cied 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 early Christmas the fo- liage 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 excel- lent 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 every body in the place, her schoolmistress in- cluded; 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 ro,mp with her; does any thing she pleases; is absolutely irresistible. Her chief attraction lies in her exceeding power of loving, and her firm reliance on the love and indulgence 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 counte- nance. 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 together 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 grey-hound called May-flower, 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-wallc, shaded 10 OUR VILLAGE. 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 wiieeler's shop. The dwelling-house is more ambitious. Look at the fine flowered window-blinds, the green door with the brass knocker, and the somewhat prim but very civil person, who is sending ott 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 par- lour 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 reflection of clerical impor- tance about them, since their connection with the church, which is quite edifying — a de- corum, 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 handkerchief! — or to hear him rebuke a squalling child or a squab- bling 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 oppo- site, 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 hand- some, 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 cont'emptible one herself. It is very mag- nanimous in me not to hate her ; for she beats me in my own waj;^, 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-kind- ness. Half-way up the hill is another de- tached cottage, the residence of an oflicer 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 hedge-rows so thickly timbered ! How finely the evening sun falls on that sandy excavated bank, and touches the farm-house on the top of the emi- nence ! 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 ao-o, when he lost his wife, and became in- sane. He was sent to St. Luke's, and dis- missed as cured ; but his power was gone and his strength ; he could no longer manage a garden, nor submit to the restraints, nor en- counter the fatigue of regular employment; so he retreated to the work-house, the pen- sioner and factotum of the village, amongst whom he divides his services. His mind often wanders, intent on some fantastic and impracticable plan, and lost to present ob- jects ; but he is perfectly harmless, and full of a child-like simplicity, a smiling contented- ness, a most touching gratitude. Every one is kind to John Evans, for there is that about him which must be loved ; and his unpro- tectedness, his utter defencelessness, have an irresistible claim on every better feeling. I know nobody who inspires so deep and ten- der a pity; he improves all around him. He is useful, too, to the extent of his little pow- er; will do any thing, but loves gardening best, and still piques himself on his old arts of pruning fruit-trees, and raising cucumbers. 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 on the very brow of the eminence close to the Hill-house and its beautiful gar- den. On the outer edge of the paling, hang- ing 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 trem- bling, like a tuft of feathers, whiter and greener than the life,' and more prettily mixed with the bright blue sky. There should in- deed be a pool ; but on the dark grass-plat, under the high bank, which is crowned by that magnificent plume, there is something that does almost as well, — Lizzy and May- flower in the midst of a game at romps, " making a sun-shine in the shady place ;" Lizzy rolling, laughing, clapping her hands, and glowing like a rose ; May-flower playing 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 fore- ground they do make to the real landscape! The road winding down the hill with a slight bend, like that in the High-street at Oxford ; a wagon slowly ascending, and a horseman passing it at a full trot — (ah! Lizzy, May- flower 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 HANNAH. 11 the little mason ; then the limes and the rope- walk ; then the villag-e street, peepincr throufrh the trees, whose clustering tops hide all but the cliimne5's, and various roofs of the houses, and here and there some anofle 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 in- termixed. The trees are of all kinds and all hues, chiefly the finely shaped elm, of so deep and bright a green, the tips of whose high outer branches droop 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 ; the right side fringed by hedge-rows and trees, with cottages and farm-houses irregularly placed, and terminated bj'^ 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 chim- neys, looking out from its blooming orchard, and backed by woody hills. The common is itself the prettiest part of the prospect ; half covered with low furze, whose golden blos- soms 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 with spectators, some standing, some sitting, some stretched on thfe grass, all taking a delightful interest in the game ; the other, a merry group of little boys, at an humble distance, for whom even cricket is scarcely lively enough, shouting, leaping, and enjoyintj themselves to their hearts' content. But cricketers and country boys are too im- portant 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. HANNAH. The prettiest cottage on our village-green is the little dwelling of Dame Wilson. It stands in a corner of the common, where the hedge-rows go curving oft' into a sort of bay round a clear bright pond, the earliest haunt of the swallow. A deep, woody, green lane, such as Hobbima or Ruydsdael might have painted, a lane that hints of nightingales, forms one boundary of the garden, and a sloping meadow of the other : whilst the cottage itself, a low thatched irregular build- ing, backed by a blooming orchard, and cover- ed with honeysuckle and jessamine, looks like the chosen abode of snugness and com- fort. 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 our country phrase, a handy fellow. He could do any sort of work ; was thatcher, carpenter, bricklayer, painter, gardener, game- keeper, " every thing by turns, and nothing long." No job came amiss to him. He killed pigs, mended shoes, cleaned clocks, doctored cows, dogs, and horses, and even went so 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 ; 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 over-heated 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-partnery of fame, is simply no- body — 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 Wil- son ] Whose clock hath Robert Ellis clean- ed 1 — whose windov/s hath he mended"? — whose dog hath he broken 1 — whose pigs hath he rung] — 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 ; 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, there must have been much to endure, much to suf- fer; 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 respect in their struggle for independ- ence. 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 main- 12 OUR VILLAGE. tain herself and her children in their own comfortable home. There was no visible change ; she and tlie little girls were as neat as ever ; the house had still within and with- out the same sunshiny cleanliness, and the garden was still famous overall other gardens for its cloves, and stocks, and double wall- flowers. But the sweetest flower of the gar- den, the joy and pride of her mother's heart, was her daughter Haimah. Well might she be proud of her ! At sixteen Hannah Wilson was, beyond 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 rai)id 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 ; a low soft voice, sweet even in its monosyllables; a dress remarkable for neat- ness and propriety, and borrowing from her delicate beauty an air of superiority not its own ; — such was the outward woman of Han- nah. Her mind was very like her person ; modest, graceful, 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 1 uxury. Rosy-cheeked apples, plums with the bloom on them, nosegays of cloves and blossomed myrtle : these were offering? 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 employments, with something of her father's versatile power. Besides being an i excellent laundress, she was accomplished 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 bet- ter than new. She had no rival at a rifaci- mentn, as half the turned gowns on the common can witness. As a dairy-woman, and a rearer of pigs and poultry, she was equally success- ful : 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 ac- counts, 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 was equal to either. Except to be kind or useful, she never left home; attended no fairs, or revels, or Mayings; went no where but to church ; and seldom made a nearer approach to rustic revelry than by stand- ing at her own garden-gate on a Sunday evening, with her little sister in her fland, to look at the lads and lasses on the green. In short, our village beauty had fairly reached her twentieth year without a sweetheart, with- out 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; and another had descried a trim elastic figure walking, not unaccompanied, down the shady lane. Matters were quite clear. Hannah had gotten a lover; and, when poor little Susan, who deserted by her sister, ventured to peep rather nearer to tlie gay group, was laughingly questioned on the subject, the hesitating No, and the half Yes, of the smiling child, were equally conclu- sive. Since the new marriage act,* we, who be- long to country magistrates, have gained a priority over the rest of the parish in matri- monial news. We (tlie privileged) see on a work-day the names which the sabbath an- nounces to the generality. Many a blushing 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 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 walked aside witli me, and a rapid series of questions and answers conveyed the story of the courtship. " William was," said Han- nah, " a journeyman hatter in B. He had walked over one Sunday evening to see the cricketing, and then he came again. Her mother liked him. Every body liked her William — and she had promised — she was going — was it wrong]" — "Oh no! — and where are you to live V — " 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 * It is almost unnecessary lo observe that this litlle story was written dnrinfi the short life ol' that whirn- eical_ experimeni in legislation. HANNAH. 13 pleasant. He little thinks — any where." She stopped suddenly ; but her blush and her clasped hands finished the sentence, " any where 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 morn- ing; 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 ta- ble. " Did she tell you where they should dinel" — "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 bur- then. — "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 beat 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 address 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 ; and at last contrived to tame this wild dove, and even to get the entree of the cot- tage. 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 excellent son ; and, after talking w^ith 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 point of its being kept secret till the wedding-day. We have managed the business of settlements ; and William, having discovered that his fiiir biide has some curiosity to see London (a cu- riosity, by the by, which I suspect she owes to you or poor Lucy), intends taking her thither for a fortnight. He will then bring h«r home to one of the best houses in B., a fine garden, fine furniture, fine clotlies, fine servants, and more money than she will know what to do with. Really the surprise of Lord E.'s farmer's daugiiter, when, thinking she hrid 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 Hannali though, as is said to have been the case with that poor lady." — " Oh no ! Hannah loves her husband too well. Any where 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 any thing 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 green- house plants. Her reception was a charming mixture of sweetness and modesty, a little more respectful than usual, and far more shamefaced! Poor thing! her cheeks must have pained her ! But this was the only dif- ference. In every thing 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 goodness to her and to Susan. She would fetch the cake and wine herself, and would gather, in spite of all re- monstrance, some of her choicest flowers as a parting nosegay. She did, indeed, just hint at her troubles with visiters and servants — how strange and sad it was ! seemed dis- tressed 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, "Any where with him ! " WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. January 23d. — At noon to-day, I and my white greyhound, May-flower, set out for a walk into a very beautiful world, — a sort of silent fairy land, — a creatiort of that match- less magician the hoar-frost. There had been just snow enough to cover the earth and all its colours with one sheet of pure and uniform white, and just time enough since the snow had fallen to allow the hedges to be freed of their fleecy load, and clothed with a delicate coating of rime. The atmosphere was deli- ciously calm ; soft, even mild, in spite of the thermometer; no perceptible air, but a still- ness 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-da}' ; nothing was audible but the pleasant hum of frost, that low monotonous sound, which is perhaps 14 OUR VILLAGE. the nearest approach that life and nature can make to absolute silence. The very wagons, as they come down the hill along the beaten track of crisp yellowish frost-dust, glide along like shadows ; even May's bounding footsteps, at her height of glee and of speed, fall like snow upon snow. But we shall have noise enough presently : May has stopped at Lizzy's door: and Lizzy, as she sate on the window-sill, with her bright rosy face laughing through the case- ment, 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-hole — sturdy ' let-me-outs,' and ' I will gos,' mixed with shrill cries on May and on me from Lizzy, piercing through a low con- tinuous harangue, of which the j)rominent parts are apologies, chilblains, sliding, broken bones, loUypops, rods, and gingerbread, 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 chil- dren 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 de- lightful sound of childish voices, ringing with glee and merriment almost from beneath our feet. Ah, Lizzy, your mother was right ! They are shouting 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 tri- umph. Half a dozen steps bring us to the bank right above them. May can hardly re- sist 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 com- plexion and white flaxen hair, reversing the usual lights and shadows of the human coun- tenance, give so strange and foreign a look to his flat and comic features. This hobgoblin. Jack Kapley by name, is May's great crony ; and she stands on the brink of the steep irre- gular 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 liapley is not easily to be kno(;ked off his feet, lie saw her coming, and in the moment of her leap sprang dexterously off the slide on the rough ice, steadying himself by the shoulder of the next in the file, which unlucky follower, thus un- expectedly checked in his career, fell plurnp backwards, knocking down the rest of the line like a nest of card-houses. There is no harm done ; but there they lie roaring, kick- ing, sprawling, in every attitude of comic dis- tress, whilst Jack Rapley and May-flower, sole authors of this calamity, stand apart from the throng, fondling, and coquetting, and com- plimenting each other, and very visibly laugh- ing. May in her black eyes, Jack in his wide close-shut mouth, and his whole monkey-face, at their comrades' mischances. I think, Miss May, you may as well come up again, and leave Master Rapley to fight your battles. He'll get out of the scrape. He is a rustic wit — a sort of Robin Goodfellow — the sau- ciest, idlest, cleverest, best-natured boy in the parish ; always foremost in mischief, and al- ways ready to do a good turn. The sages of our village predict sad things of Jack Rapley, so that 1 am sometimes a little ashamed to confess, before wise people, that I have a lurking predilection for him, (in common with other naughty ones), and that I like to hear him talk to May almost as well as she does. ' Come, May !' and up she springs as light as a bird. The road is gay now ; carts and post- chaises, and girls in red cloaks, and, afar off, looking almost like a toy, the coach. It m§ets 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 atti- tude how miserable she would look uncovered. Another pond, and another noise of chil- dren. More sliding "? Oh ! no. This is a sport of higher pretension. Our good neigh- bour, the lieutenant, skating, and his own pretty little boys, and two or three other four- year-old elves, standing on the brink in an ecs- tasy of joy and wonder! Oh! what happy spectators! And what a happy performer! They admiring, he admired, with an ardour and sincerity never excited by all the quad- rilles and the spread-eagles of the Seine and the Serpentine. He really skates well though, and 1 am glad I 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 w)io has seen skating before. Now we have reached the trees, — the beau- tiful trees ! never so beautiful as to-day. Imagine the effect of a straight and regular double avenue of oaks, nearly a mile long arcliing over head, and closing into perspec- tive 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 MODERN ANTIQUES. 15 uniform, how »various, how fillinjr, how sa- tiatino^ to the eye and to the mind — above al], how melancholy ! There is a thrilling awful- ness, an intense feeling of simple power in that naked and colourless beauty, wiiich falls on the heart like the thought of death — death pure, and glorious, and smiling, — but still death. Sculpture has always the same effect on my imagination, and painting never. Co- lour 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 ; a mere narrow cart-track, sinking between high banks clothed with fern and furze and low broom, crowned with luxuriant hedgerows, and fiimous 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 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 Sel- borne 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, far- ther on, just under the bank, by the slender runlet, which still trickles between its trans- parent 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 plumafje of scarlet and blue flashingr in the sun, like the glories of some tropical bird. He is come for water to this little sprimr liy the hill side, — water which even his long bill and slender head can hardly reach, so nearly do the fan- tastic 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 a'.d 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 out- side the ])arlour-window, and cover it with bread-crun\s in the hard weather. It was quite delightful to see the pretty things come and feed, to conquer their shyness, and do away their mistrust. First came the more social tribes, " the robin red-breast and the wren," cautiously, suspiciously, picking up a crum on the wing, with the little keen bright eye fixed on the window; then they would stop for two pecks; then stay till they were satisfied. The shj^er 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 moTe. 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 !" THAW. January 28th. — We have had rain, and snow, and frost, and rain again ; four days of absolute confinement. Now it is a thaw and a flood ; but our light gravelly soil, and coun- try boots, and country hardihood, will carry us through. What a dripping, comfortless day it is! just like the last days of Novem- ber: no sun, no sky, grey or blue; one low, overhanging, dark, dismal cloud, like London smoke :" Mayflower is out coursing too, and Lizzy gone to school. Never mind. Up the hill again ! Walk we must. Oh what a wa- tery world to look back upon ! Thames, Ken- net, Loddon — all overflowed ; our famous town, inland once, turned into a sort of Venice; C. park converted into an island ; and the long range of meadows from B. to W. one huge 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 reborn. Wagons creak, horses pTash, 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, except where some mel- ancholy piece of melting ice floats sullenly upon the water; and cackling geese and gab- bling ducks have replaced the lieutenant and .Tack Kapley. 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." MODERN ANTIQUES. Early in the present century there lived in the ancient town of B. two complete and re- markable specimens of the ladies of eighty years ago — ladies cased inwardly and out- wardly 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 Itf OUR VILLAGE. women, that they may he hest descrihed to- Gfether; any little non-resemblance may be noted afterwards; it was no more than nature, prodiiral of variety, would make in two leaves from the same oak-tree. Both, then, were as short as women well eould 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 hig-h heels, and the tallest of all tall caps, each of which artificial elevations was as ostentatiously conspicuous as the leg's and cover of a jiipkin, and served equally to add to the squatness of the real machine : both were lean, 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 flour- ishing white embroidery vied in size with the plants on the robe ; 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 grey 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 ])eaks turned back, and lined with blue satin, and a variety of tall rings in an odd, out-of-f\ishion 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 ; thej^ had adapt- ed themselves in a very remarkable manner to the little taper wasp-like point in which the waist ended, to which the elbows, ruffle 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 Avas adorned with black stuff shoes, very 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 inde- scribable; it mf)St nearly resembled sailing. They seemed influenced hy the wind in a way incidental to no moving thing, except a ship or a shuttlecock; and, indeed, one boisterous blowing night, aI)ont the equinox, when stand- ing OQ some high stone steps, waiting for a carriage to take her home from a party, the wind did catch out 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 Brobdig- nag, 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 aquiline nose, and long sociable chin, evinced that dis- position 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 }ook 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 lu- dicrous perplexity, as if beset by a ventrilo- quist, or haunted by strange echoes. When the immediate cackle subsided, they were easily distinguished. Mrs. Theodosia w'as 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 da}', though not ap- proaching 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 re- newed and quickened, by their having the honour of a distant relationship to one of the most aminble and unfortunate of modern poets. So Mrs. Frances studi(xl novels and poetry, in addition to her sister's sermons and cookery books; though (as she used to boast) without doing a stitch the less knitting, or playmg a MODERN ANTIQUES, 17 Zl 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 churcli-door was open. Their abode was a dwelling ancient and respectable, like themselves, that looked as if it had never undergone the slightest varia- tion, inside or 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 en- vied — treasures which had either never gone out of fashion, or had come in again. The gar- den 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, honey- suckle, and the high-scented fraxinella ; I never saw that delicious plant in such pro- fusion. The garden walks were almost as smooth as the floors, thanks to the two assi- duous serving maidens (nothing like a man- servant ever entered this 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, ruflles, 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 ; cut out flannel petticoats, and knit stockings to give away. Never was so complete an instance of assimilation ! She had even be- come 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 visiters 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 supernume- rary ; 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 muflins and cakes ; 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 chim- ney — namely, that volume of 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 Vvith prints not certainly of the highest merit as works of art, but which served exceedingly to realise the story, and to make us, as it were, person- ally 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 ; and loved Emily with my whole heart ! Clementina I did not quite understand ; nor (I a'm half afraid to say so) do I now; and Sir Clrarles I positively disliked. He was the only thing in the book that I disbelieved. Those bowings seemed incre^iible. At last, however, 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 thereabout, but wonderfully young-looking, and well-preserved. It was said, indeed, that no fading belle was better versed in cosmetic secrets, or more arduously devoted to the duties of the toilet. Fresh, upright, unwrin- kled, 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 de- sire of representing the town in which he resided ; and canvassing, sheer canvassing, without eloquence, without talent, without 2* C 18 OUR VILLAGE. bribery, had brought him in and kept him in. There his ambition stopped. To be a mem- ber 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 him- self, or stood suspected of selling himself — perhaps he might sometimes give himself away. But that he could not help. It was almost impossible for him to say No to any body, — 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 some- times an opposition was threatened, and some- times it came ; but then he went through a double course of smirks and hand-shakings, and all was well again. The great grievance 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 ; his lamenta- tions, such as might become a great misfor- tune. Of course there was something ludi- crous in his courtliness, but it was not con- temptible ; it only wanted to be obviously dis- interested to become respectable. The ex- pression might be exaggerated ; but the feel- ing 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 attach- ment, some even said an engagement, how broken none could tell, between him and Mrs. Frances. Certain it is, that there were symp- toms 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 mit- tens 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 manceu- vred 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; and did not dislike a little gentle raillery on the subject — even 1 — 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 con- stancy must have passed through that maiden heart! The timid hope; the sickening sus- pense; the slow, slow fear; the bitter disap- pointment; the powerless anger; the relent- ing; the forgiveness; and then again, that in- terest, 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 — bat they clung by her to the last, and ceased only in death. A GREAT FARM-HOUSE. 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 w^as a fine thing to witness the hearty hospitality, and to think of the social happiness of a great farm-house. No situa- tion 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 val- ley, 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 recol- lections of the old delights of that delightful place, and of the admirable qualities of its owners. How often I had opened that gate, and how gaily — certain of meeting a smiling welcome — and what a picture of comfort it was ! Passing up the lane, we used first to en- counter 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 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 swe[)t greenly and abruptly down into fertile enclosures, richly set with hedge-row 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 pigs; 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 age, with a A GREAT FARM-HOUSE. 19 healthy, ruddy, square face, all alive with in- telligence 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, wonderfully rich and round in its tones, and harmonizing 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 right hand approached his head, out flew a jest. Besides his own great farm, the business of which seemed to go on like machinery, al- ways regular, prosperous, and unfailing — be- sides this and two or three constant steward- ships, and a perpetual succession of arbitra- tions, in which, such was the influence of his acuteness, his temper, and his sturdy justice, that he was often named by both parties, and left to decide alone, — in addition to these oc- cupations, he was a sort of standing overseer and churchwarden ; 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 ma- naged, being the independent member for 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 sea-side ; 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 ken- nels 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 illustra- tion of this remark. His old dog. Hector, for instance, for which he refused a hundred gui- neas, — 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 that showed some " conscience of his worth." He was the largest dog I ever saw ; but so finely pro- portioned, 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, en- I tirely unspotted, except that his head was I very regularly and richly marked with black. Hector was certainly a perfect beauty. But jthe little bitches, on which his master piqued himself still more, were not, in my poor judg- 1 ment, so admirable. They were pretty little round, graceful things, sleek and glossy, and for the most part milk-white, with the small- est heads, and the most dove-like eyes that vvere 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 inclining to the clumsy ; a dumpiness, a pointer-look. They went off like an arrow from the bow ; for the first hundred yards no- thing 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 Helen, on W. hill. All the coursers were in the valley below, looking up to the hill-side as on a moving picture. I suppose she turned the hare twenty times on a piece of green- sward 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 county ; but she killed him ; and then, though almost as large as herself, took it up in her mouth, brought it to her mas- ter, 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 cork- screw, — 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 m.uch time in mount- ing and descending the sharp acclivities. Very eager dogs, however, will sometimes dare the leap, and two of our good friend's favourite greyhounds perished in the attem.pt in two following years. They were found dead in the hollow way. After this he took a dislike to distant coursing meetings, and sported chiefly on his own beautiful farm. His wife was like her husband, with a dif- ference, 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 happv, and being kind ; like him in cherishing an abundance of pets, and in getting through with marvellous facility an astounding quantity of business and pleasure. Perhaps the quality 20 OUR VILLAGE. in which they resembled each other most completely, was the happy ease and serenity of behaviour, so seldom found amongst peo- ple 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 after 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 gracefully from some low-boughed tree, whilst he turns round his crested head with the air of a birth-day bel'e, to see who ad- mires him. What a glorious creature it is ! How thoroughly content with himself and with all the world ! Next to her poultry our good farmer's Avife 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 genu- ine florist; valued pinks, tulips, and auriculas, for certain qualities of shape and colour, with which beauty had nothing to do; preferred black ranunculuses, and gave into all those obliquities of a tripled refined taste by which the professed 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 connomeur now, shall prefer a deep puce hol- lyhock, to the gay pink blossoms which clus- ter around 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 naturalized 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 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 every thing 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 somewhat pensive elegance of mind and manner was thrown into fine relief by his father's loud hilarity, and harmonized delightfully with the smiling kindness of his mother. His Sponsors and Thomsons, too, looked well amongst the hyacinths and geraniums that filled the windows of the little snug room in which they usually sate ; 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 deco- rated with the prize-cups and collars of the greyhounds, and generally loaded with sub- stantial work-baskets, jars of flowers, great pyramids of home-made cakes, and sparkling bottles of gooseberry-wine, famous all over the country. The walls were covered with portraits of half a dozen greyhounds, 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 ridiculously like, that when the picture fixed its good-humoured eyes upon you as you entered the room, you were almost tempted to say — howd'j'^edo? — Alas! the portraits are now gone, and the originals. Death and distance have despoiled that plea- sant home. The garden has lost its smiling mistress ; the greyhounds 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. LUCY. About a twelvemonth ago we had the mis- fortune to lose a very faithful and favourite female servant ; one who has spoiled us for all others. Nobody can expect to meet with two Lucies. We all loved Lucy — poor Lucy ! She did not die — she only married ; but we were so sorry to part with her, that her wed- LUCY. 21 ding, which was kept at our house, was almost as tragical as a funeral ; and from pure regret and affection we sum up her merits, and be- moan our loss, just as if she had really de- parted this life. Lucy's praise is a most fertile theme : she united the pleasant and amusing qualities of a French scaibrette, with the solid excellence of an English woman of the old school, and was good by contraries. In the first place, she was exceedingly agreeable to look at ; remarkably pretty. She lived in our family eleven 5rears ; but, having come to us very young, was still under thirty, just in full bloom, and a very brilliant bloom it was. Her figure was rather tall, and ratlier large, with delicate hands and feet, and a remarkable ease and vigour in her motions : I never saw any woman walk so fast or so well. Her face was round and dimpled, with sparkling grey eyes, black eye-brows and eye-lashes, a profusion of dark hair, very red lips, very white teeth, and a complexion that entirely took away the look of vulgarity which the breadth and flatness of her face might other- wise have given. Such a complexion, so pure, so finely grained, so healthily fair, with such a sweet rosiness, brightening and vary- ing like her dancing eyes whenever she spoke or smiled ! When silent, she was almost pale ; but, to confess the truth, she was not often silent. Lucy liked talking, and every body liked to hear her talk. There is always great freshness and originality in an unedu- cated and quick-witted person, who surprises one continually by unsuspected knowledge or amusing ignorance ; and Lucy had a real talent for conversation. Her light and pleasant temper, her cleverness, her universal kindness, and the admirable address, or rather the ex- cellent feeling, with which she contrived to unite the most perfect respect with the most cordial and affectionate interest, gave a singular charm to her prattle. No confidence or indul- gence — and she was well tried with both — ever made her forget herself for a moment. All our friends used to loiter at the door or in the hall to speak to Lucy, and the}^ miss her, and ask for her, as if she were really one of the family. — She was not less liked by her equals. Her constant simplicity and right- mindedness kept her always in her place with them as with us; and her gaiety and good humour made her a most welcome visiter in every shop and cottage round. She had another qualification for village society — she was an incomparable gossip, had a rare genius for picking up news, and great liberality in its diffusion. Birtlis, deaths, marriages, casualties, quarrels, battles, scandal — nothing came amiss to her. She could have furnished a weekly paper from her own stores of facts, without once resorting for assistance to the courts of law or the two houses of parliament. She was a very charitable reporter too ; threw her own sunshine into the shady places, and would hope and doubt as long as either was possible. Her fertility of intelligence was wonderful ; and so early ! Her news had always the bloom on it ; there was no being beforehand with Lucy. It was a little mortifying when one came prepared with something very recent and surprising, something that should have made her start with astonishment, to find her fully acquainted with the story, and able to furnish you with twenty particulars that you never heard of. But this evil had its peculiar compensation. By Lucy's aid 1 passed with every body, but Lucy herself, for a woman of o-reat information, an excellent authority, an undoubted reference in all matters of gossipry. Now I lag miserably behind the time ; I never hear of a death till after the funeral, nor of a wedding till I read it in the papers ; and, when people talk of reports and rumours, they undo me. I should be obliged to run away from the tea-tables, if I had not taken the resolution to look wise and say nothing, and live on my old reputation. Indeed, even now Lucy's fund is not entirely exhausted ; things have not quite done happening. I know nothing new; but my knowledge of by-gone passages is absolute ; I can prophesy past events like a gipsy. Scattered amongst her great merits Lucy had a few small faults, as all persons should have. She had occasionally an aptness to take offence where none was intended, and then the v/hole house bore audible testimony to her displeasure : she used to scour through half-a-dozen doors in a minute for the mere purpose of banging them after her. She had rather more fears than were quite convenient of ghosts and witches, and thunder, and ear- wigs, and various other real and unreal sights and sounds, and thought nothing of rousing half the family in the middle of the night at the first symptom of a thunder-storm or an apparition. She had a terrible genius for music, and a tremendously powerful shrill high voice. Oh! her door-clapping was no- thing to her singing! it rang through one's head like the screams of a peacock. Lastly, she was a sad flirt; she had about twenty lovers whilst she lived with us, probably more, but upwards of twenty she acknow- ledged. Her master, who watched with great amusement this uninterrupted and intricate succession of favourites, had the habit of call- ing her by the nanre of the reigning beau — Mrs. Charles, Mrs. .John, Mrs. Robert ; so that she has answered in her time to as many mas- culine appellations as would serve to supply a large family with a " commodity of good names." Once he departed from this cus- tom, and called her " Jenny Dennison " On herinquiring the reason, we showed her "Old Mortality," and asked if she could not guess, i " Dear me," said she, " why Jenny Dennison j had only two !" Amongst Lucy's twenty 22 OUR VILLAGE were three one-eyed lovers, like the three one-eyed calendars in the " Arabian Nights." They were much about the same period, near- ly contemporaries, and one of them had nearly carried off the fair Helen. If he had had two eyes, his success would have been certain. She said yes and no, and yes again ; he was a very nice younij man — but that one eye — that unlucky one eye ! — and the being rallied on her three calendars. There was no get- ting over that one eye : she said no, once more, and stood firm. And yet the pendulum might have contiinied to vibrate many times longer, had it not been fixed by the athletic charms of a gigantic London tailor, a superb man, really ; black-haired, black-eyed, six feet high, and large in proportion. He came to improve the country fashions, and fixed his shop-board in a cottage so near us that his garden was only divided from our lawn by a plantation full of acacias and honey-suckles, where " the air smelt wooingly." It followed of course that he should make love to Lucy, and that Lucy should listen. All was speed- ily settled ; as soon as he should be established in a good business, which, from his incom- parable talent at cutting out, nobody could doubt, they were to be married. But they had not calculated on the perversity of coun- try taste ; he was too good a workman ; his suits fitted over well; his employers missed certain accustomed awkwardnesses and re- dundancies which passed for beauties; be- sides, the stiffness and tightness which dis- tinguished the new coat of the ancien regime, were wanting in the make of this daring inno- vator. The shears of our Bond-street cutter were as powerful as the wooden sword of Harlequin; he turned his clowns into gentle- men, and their brother clod-hoppers laughed at them, and they were ashamed. So the poor tailor lost his customers and his credit ; and just as he had obtained Lucy's consent to the marriage, he walked off one fair morning, and was never heard of more. Lucy's ab- sorbing feeling on this catastrophe was aston- ishment, pure unmixed astonishment! One would have thought that she considered fickle- ness as a female privilege, and had never heard of a man deserting a woman in her life. For three days she could only wonder; then came great indignation, and a little, a very little grief, which showed itself not so much in her words, which were chiefly such disclaimers as " I don't care ! very lucky I happy escape !" and so on, as in her goings and doings, her aversion to the poor acacia grove, and even to the sight and smell of honeysuckles, her total loss of memory, and above all, in the distaste she showed to new conquests. She paid her faithless suitor the compliment of re- maining loverless for three weary months ; and when she relented a little, she admitted no fresh adorer, nothing but an old hanger- on ; one not quite discarded during the tailor's reign; one who had dangled after her during the long courtship of the three calendars; one who was the handiest and most complaisant of wooers, always ready to fill up an interval, like a book, which can be laid aside when company comes in, and resumed a month af- terwards at the very page and line where the reader left off. I think it was an affair of I amusement and convenience on both sides, j Lucy never intended to marry this commodi- | ous stopper of love gaps; and he, though he courted her for ten mortal years, never made a direct offer, till after the banns were pub- lished between her and her present husband : then, indeed, he said he was sorry — he had hoped — was it too late] and so forth. Ah! his sorrow was nothing to ours, and, when it came to the point, nothing to Lucy's. She cried every day for a fortnight, and had not her successor in oflice, the new housemaid, arrived, I do really believe that this lover would have shared the fate of the many suc- cessors to the unfortunate tailor. I hope that her choice has been fortunate ; it is certainly very different from what we all expected. The happy man had been a neigh- bour, (not on the side of the acacia-trees,) and on his removal to a greater distance the mar- riage took place. Poor dear Lucy ! her spouse is the greatest possible contrast to herself; ten years younger at the very least ; well- looking, but with no expression good or bad — I don't think he could smile, if he would — assuredly he never tries ; well made, but as stiff as a poker; I dare say he never ran three yards in his life ; perfectly steady, sober, honest, and industrious; but so young, so grave, so dull ! one of your " demure boys," as Fallstaff calls them, " that never come to proof." You might guess a mile off that he was a schoolmaster, from the swelling pom- posity of gait, the solemn decorum of manner, the affectation of age and wisdom, which con- trast so oddly with his young unmeaning face. The moment he speaks, you are certain. No- body but a village pedagogue ever did or ever could talk like Mr. Brown, — ever displayed such elaborate politeness, such a study of phrases, such choice words and long words, and fine words and hard words ! He speaks by the book, — the spelling book, and is civil after the fashion of the Polite Letter- Writer. He is so entirely without -tact, that he does not in the least understand the impression produced by his wife's delightful manners, and interrupts her perpetually to speechify and apologise, and explain and amend. He is fond of her, nevertheless, in his own cold, slow way, and proud of her, and grateful to her friends, and a very good kind of young man altogether; only that I cannot quite for- give him for taking Lucy away in the first place, and making her a school-mistress la the second. She a school-mistress, a keeper of silence, a maintainor of discipline, a scold- LUCY. 23 er, a pumsher ! Ah ! she would rather be scolded herself; it would be a far lighter pun- ishment. Lucy likes her vocation as little as I do. She has not the natural love of chil- dren, which would reconcile her to the evils they cause ; and she has a real passion for cleanliness, a fiery spirit of dispatch, which cannot endure the dust and litter created by the little troop on the one hand, or their tor- menting slowness and stupidity on the other. She was the quickest and neatest of work- women, piqued herself on completing a shirt or a gown sooner and better than seemed pos- sible, and was scandalized at finding such talents degraded to the ignoble occupations of tacking a quarter of a yard of hemming for one, pinning half a seam for another, picking out the crooked stitching of a third, and work- ing over the weak irregular burst-out button- hole of a fourth. When she first went to S , she was strongly tempted to do all the work herself. "The children would have liked it," said she, "and really I don't think the mothers would have objected ; they care for nothing but marking. Tliere are seven girls now in the school working samplers to be framed. Such a waste of silk, and time, and trouble! I said to Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Smith said to me" — Then she recounted the whole battle of the samplers, and her defeat; and then she sent for one which, in spite of her declaration that her girls never finished any thing, was quite completed (probably with a good deal of her assistance), and of which, notwithstanding her rational objection to its uselessness, Lucy was not a little proud. She held it up with great delight, pointed out all the beauties, selected her own favourite parts, especially a certain square rose-bud, and the landscape at the bottom ; and finally pinned it against the wall, to show the effect it would have when framed. Really, that sampler was a superb thing in its way. First came a plain pink border; then a green bor- der, zig-zag ; then a crimson, wavy ; then a brown, of a different and more complicated zig-zag; then the alphabet, great and small, in every colour of the rainbow, followed by a row of figures, flanked on one side by a flower, name unknown, tulip, poppy, lily, — something orange or scarlet, or orange-scarlet; on the other by the famous rose-bud ; the divers sen- tences, religious and moral; — Lucy was quite provoked with me for not being able to read them : I dare say she thought in her heart that I was as stupid as any of her scholars; but never was MS, so illegible, not even my own, as the print work of that sampler — then, last and finest, the landscape, in all its glory. It occupied the whole narrow line at the bottom, and was composed with great regularity. In the centre was a house of a bright scarlet, with yellow windows, a green door, and a blue roof: on one side, a man with a dog; on the other, a woman with a cat — this is Lucy's information ; I should never have guessed that there was any difference, except in colour, be- tween the man and the woman, the dog and the cat ; they were in form, height, and size, alike to a thread ; the man grey, the woman pink, his attendant white, and her's black. Next to these figures, on either side, rose two fir-trees from two red flower-pots, nice little round bushes of a bright green intermixed with brown stitches, which Lucy explained, not to me. — "Don't you see the fir-cones, Sir"? Don't you remember how fond she used to be of picking them up in her little basket at the dear old place 1 Poor thing, I thought of her all the time that I was working them ! Don't you like the fir-cones'!" After this, I looked at the landscape almost as lovingly as Lucy herself. With all her dislike to keeping school, the dear Lucy seems happy. In addition to the merciful spirit of conformity, which shapes the mind to the situation, whatever that may be, she has many sources of vanity and com- fort — her house above all. It is a very re- spectable dwelling, finely placed on the edge of a large common, close to a high-road, with a pretty flower-court before it, shaded by four horse-chestnuts cut into arches, a sashed win- dow on either side of the door, and on the door a brass knocker, which being securely nailed down, serves as a quiet peaceable han- dle for all goers, instead of the importunate and noisy use for which it was designed. Jutting out at one end of the court is a small stable ; retiring back at the other, a large school-room ; and behind, a yard for childrftn, pigs, and poultry, a garden, and an arbour. The inside is full of comfort; miraculously clean and orderly for a village school, and with a little touch of very allowable finery in the gay window-curtains, the cupboard full of pretty china, the handsome chairs, the bright mahogany table, the shining tea-urn, and brilliant tea-tray, that decorate the par- lour. What a pleasure it is to see Lucy pre- siding in that parlour, in all the glory of her honest affection and her warm hospitality, making tea for the three guests whom she loves best in the world, vaunting with courte- ous pride her home-made bread and her fresh butter, yet thinking nothing good enough for the occasion ; smiling and glowing, and look- ing the very image of beautiful happiness. — Such a moment almost consoles us for losing her. Lucy's pleasure is In her house; mine is in its situation. The common on which it stands is one of a series of heathy hills, or rather a high table-land, pierced in one part by a ravine of marshy ground,' filled with alder bushes growing larger and larger as the val- ley widens, and at last mixing with the fine old oaks of the forest of P . Nothing can be more delightful than to sit on the steep brow of the hill, araonorst the I'rasfrant heath- 24 OUR VILLAGE. flowers, the blue-bells, and the wild thyme, and look upon the sea of trees spreading out beneath us ; the sluggish water just peeping from amid the alders, giving brightly back the bright blue sky; and, farther down, herds of rough ponies, and of small stunted cows, the wealth of the poor, coming up from the forest. I have sometimes seen two hundred of these cows together, each belonging to a different person, and distinguishing and obeying the call of its milker. All the boundaries of this heath are beautiful. On one side is the hang- ing coppice, where the lily of the valley grows so plentifully amongst broken ridges and fox- earths, and the roots of pollard-trees. On an- other are the immense fir plantations of Mr. B., whose balmy odour hangs heavily in the air, or comes sailing on the breeze like smoke across the landscape. Farther on, beyond the pretty parsonage-house, with its short avenue, its fish-ponds, and the magnificent poplars which form a landmark for many miles round, rise the rock-like walls of the old city of S , one of the most perfect Roman re- mains now existing in England. The wall can be traced all round, rising sometimes to a height of twenty feet, over a deep narrow slip of meadovv^ land, once the ditch, and still full of aquatic flowers. The ground within rises level with the top of the wall, which is of grey stone, crowned with the finest forest trees, whose roots seem interlaced with the old masonry, and covered with wreaths of ivy, brambles, and a hundred other trailing plants. Close by one of the openings, which m^k the site of the gates, is a graduated ter- race, called by antiquaries the Amphitheatre, which commands a rich and extensive view, and is backed by the village church and an old farm-house, — the sole buildings in that once populous city, whose streets are now traced only by the blighted and withered ap- pearance of the ripening corn. Roman coins and urns are often ploughed up there, and it is a favourite haunt of the lovers of " hoar antiquity," But the beauty of the place is in- dependent of its noble associations. The very heart expands in the deep verdure and perfect loneliness of that narrow winding valley, fenced on one side by steep coppices or its own tall irregular hedge, on the other by the venerable crag-like wall, whose proud coronet of trees, its jutting ivy, its huge twisted thorns, its briery festoons, and the deep caves where the rabbits burrow, make the old bul- wark seem no work of man, but a majestic piece of nature. As a picture it is exquisite. Nothing can be finer than the mixture of those varied greens so crisp and life-like, with the crumbling grey stone; nothing more perfectly in harmony with the solemn beauty of the place, than the deep cooings of the wood- pigeons, who abound in the 'walls. I know no pleasure so intense, so soothing, so apt to bring sweet tears into the eyes, or to awaken thoughts that " lie too deep for tears," as a walk round the old city on a fine summer evening. A ride to S was always de- lightful to me, even before it became the re- sidence of Lucy ; it is now my prime festival. WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. THE FIRST PRIMROSE. March 6th. — Fine March weather: bois- terous, blustering, much wind and squalls of rain ; and yet the sky, where the clouds are swe])t away, deliciously blue, with snatches of sunshine, bright, and clear, and healthful, and the roads, in spite of the slight g ntering 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 lines at the bottom of the hill, which keep out just enough of the stormy air, and let in all the sun, will be de- lightful. Past our old house, and round by the winding lanes, and the work-house, and across the lea, and so into the turnpike-road again, — that is our route for to-day. Forth we set, May-flower and I, rejoicing in the sun- shine, 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 liglit 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, not quite so much what one fan- cies of flying, or being carried above the clouds in a balloon. Nevertheless, a walk is a good thing; espe- cially under this southern hedgerow, where nature is just beginning to live again : the perriwinkles, with their starry blue flowers, and their shining myrtle-like leaves, garland- ing 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 M'here 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 com- fort 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 pru- dent 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 WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. 25 fatness, half envies the plight of his bitch Fly; his wife's crowns 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. Every thing prospers with him. Money drifts about him like snow. He looks like a rich man. There is a sturdy squareness of face and figure; a good-humoured obstinacy; a civil importance. He never boasts of his wealth, or gives himself undue airs ; but nobody can meet him at market or vestry without finding out immediately that he is the richest man there. They have no child to all this money; but there is an adopted nephew, a fine 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 com.e 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-honse, half hidden by the magnificent elms which stand before it. Ah! riches dwell not there; but there is found the next best thing — an indus- trious and light-hearted poverty. Twenty years ago Rachel Hilton was the prettiest and merriest lass in the country. Her father, an old game-keeper, 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 b}^ 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 them- selves 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 whipcord, a strong lively voice, a sharp, weather-beaten face, and eyes and lips that smile and brighten when he speaks into a most contagious hilarity. They are very poor, and I often wish them richer ; but I don't know — perhaps it might put them out. Quite close to farmer White's is a little ruinous cottage, white-washed once, and now in a sad state of betweenity, where dangling stockings and shirts swelled by the wind, dry- ing in a neglected garden, give signal of a washerwoman. There dwells, at present in a state of single blessedness, Betty Adams, the wife of our sometimes gardener. I never saw any one who so much reminded me in person 3 D of that lady whom every body 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 snutf. Her husband lives in a great fam- ily 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 know- ing 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 rather, how pretty I thought it I I suppose 1 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 overgrown shrubs, 'bowery acacias, ragged sweet-briars, promontories of dogwood, and Portugal laurel, and bays over- hung 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 shrubbary, in- terspersed with broom, and furze, and bramble, and pollard oaks covered with ivy and honey- suckle ; 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 roots 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 tena- cious hold of mj' 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 undiminished, which is by no means the case ; for in those three years it has thrice changed masters, and every suc- cessive 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 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 gen- 26 OUR VILLAGE. eral clearance of pollards, and brambles, and ivy, and honeysuckles, and park palings, and irreo-ular shrubs, the poor place is so trans- mogrified, that if it had its old lookinor-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 at- traction 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, oxlips, arums, orchises, wild hyacinths, ground ivy, pansies, strawberries, heart's-ease, formed a small part of the Flora of that wild hedge- row. 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 rloo, and, quitting the army at the peace, had loi- tered about Germany and Italy and Greece, and only returned on the death of his father, ELLEN. 37 two or three years back, to reside on the family estate, where he had won " jjolden opinions from all sorts of people." He was, as Ellen trnly described him, tall and ofrace- ful, and well-bred almost to a fault; remind- ino- her of that heau-ideal of courtly eleg'ance, Georjre the Fourth, and me, (])ray, reader, do not tell !) me, a little, a very little, the least in the world, of Sir Charles Grandison. He certainly did excel rather too much in the mere forms of politeness, in cloakin^is and bowing-s, and bandino^s down stairs; but then he was, like both his prototypes, thorouorhly imbued with its finer essence — considerate, attentive, kind, in the most comprehensive sense of that comprehensive word. I have certainly known men of deeper learninpr and more original g^enius, but never any one whose powers were better adapted to conversation, who could blend more happily the most va- ried and extensive knowledfje with the most playful wit and the most interesting^ .and ami- able character. Fascinating was the word that seemed made for him. His conversation was entirely free from trickery and display — the charm was (or seemed to be) perfectly natural: he was an excellent listener; and when he was speakinor to any eminent person — orator, artist, or poet, — I have sometimes seen a slifrht hesitation, a momentary diffi- dence, as attractive as it was unexpected. It was this astonishing evidence of fellow-feel- ingr, joined to the g^entleness of his tone, the sweetness of his smile, and his studied avoid- ance of all particular notice or attention, that first reconciled Ellen to Colonel Falkner. His sister, too, a charming young woman, as like him as Viola to Sebastian, began to under- stand the sensitive properties of this shrinking and delicate flower, which, left to itself, repaid their kind neglect by unfolding in a manner that surprised and delighted us all. Before the spring had glided into summer, Ellen was as much at home at Holly-grove as with us; talked and laughed and played and sang as freely as Charlotte. She would indeed break off if visibly listened to, either when speak- ing or singing; but still the ice was broken; that rich, low, mellow voice, unrivalled in pathos and sweetness, might be heard every evening, even by the Colonel, with little more precaution, not to disturb her by praise or no- tice, than would be used with her fellow-war- bler the nightingale. She was happj^ at Holly-grove, and we were delighted ; but so shifting and various are human feelings and wishes, that, as the summer wore on, before the hay-making was over in its beautiful park, whilst the bees were still in its lime-trees, and the golden beetle lurked in its white rose, I began to lament that she had ever seen Holly-grove, or known its master. It was clear to me, that unintentionally on his part, unwittingly on hers, her heart was gone, — and, considering the merit of the unconscious possessor, pro- bably gone for ever. She had all the pretty marks of love at that happy moment when the name and nature of the ))assion are alike un- suspected by the victim. To her there was but one object in the whole world, and that one was Colonel Falkner: she jived only in his presence; hung on his words; was rest- less she knew not why in his absence; adopted his tastes and opinions, which differed from hers as those of clever men so frequently do from those of clever women ; read the books he praised, and praised them too, deserting our old idols, Spenser and Fletcher, for his favourites, Dryden and Pope ; sang the songs he loved as she walked about the house ; drew his features instead of Milton's in a portrait which she was copying for me of our great poet, — and finally wrote his name on the mar- gin. She moved as in a dream — a dream as innocent as it was delicious! — but oh, the sad, sad waking! It made my heart ache to think of the misery to which that fine and sensitive mind seemed to be reserved. Ellen was formed for constancy and suffering — it was her first love, and it would be her last. I had no hope that her affection was returned. Young men, talk as they may of mental at- tractions, are commonly the slaves of p'l^rsonal chariTis. Colonel Falkner, especially, was a professed admirer of beauty, I had even sometiines fancied that he was caught by Charlotte's, and had therefore taken an op- portunity to communicate her engagement to his sister. Certainly he paid our fair and blooming guest extraordinary attention ! anj' thing of gallantry or compliment was always addressed to her, and so for the most part was his gay and captivating conversation ; whilst his manner to Ellen, though exquisitely soft and kind, seemed rather that of an affectionate brother. I had no hopes. Affairs were in this posture when I was at once grieved and relieved by the unexpected recall of our young visiters. Their father had completed his business in Ireland, and was eager to return to his dear home, and his dear children ; Charlotte's lover, too, was ordained, and was impatient to possess his promised treasure. The intended bridegroom was to arrive the same evening to escort the fair sis- ters, and the journej' was to take place the next day. Imagine the revulsion of feeling produced by a short note, a bit of folded paj)er — the natural and redoubled ecstasy of Char- lotte, the mingled emotions of Ellen. She wept bitterly : at first she called it joy — joy that she should again see her dear father; then it was grief to lose her Charlotte ; grief to part from me ; but, when she threw herself in a farewell embrace on the neck of Miss Falkner, whose brother happened to be absent for a few days on business, the truth appeared to burst upon her at once, in a gush of agony that seemed likely to break her heart. Miss 38 OUR VILLAGE, Falkner was deeply affeoteJ ; becrcred her to write to her often, very often ; loaded her with the ^ifts of little price, the valueless tokens which affection holds so dear, and stole one of her fair ring-lets in return. "This is the curl which William used to admire," said she : " have you no messaore for poor Wil- liam]" — Poor Ellen ! her blushes spoke, and the tears that dropped from her downcast eyes; but she had no utterance. Charlotte, however, came to her relief with a profusion of thanks and compliments ; and Ellen, weep- ing with a voice that would not be controlled, at last left Holly-orrove. The next day we too lo5t our dear young friends. Oh what a sad day it was! how much we missed Charlotte's bright smile and Ellen's sweet complacency ! We walked about desolate and forlorn, with the painful sense of want and insufficiency, and of that vacancy in our home, and at our board, which the departure of a cherished guest is sure to occasion. To lament the absence of Char- lotte, the dear Charlotte, the happiest of the happy, was pure selfishness ; but of the aching heart of Ellen, my dear Ellen, I could not bear to think — and yet I could think of no- thing else, could call up no other image than her pale and trembling form, weeping and sobbing as I had seen her at Holly-grove ; she haunted even my dreams. Early the ensuing morning I was called down to the colonel, and found him in the garden. He apologized for his unseasonable intrusion ; talked of the weather, then of the loss which our society had sustained ; blushed and hesitated ; had again recourse to the wea- ther ; and at last by a mighty effort, after two or three sentences begun and unfinished, con- trived, with an embarrassment more graceful and becoming than all his polished readiness, to ask me to furnish him with a letter to Mr. Pace. " You must have seen," said he, co- louring and smiling, " that I was captivated by your beautiful friend ; and I hope — I could have wished to have spoken first to herself, to have made an interest — but still if her affec- tions are disengaged — tell me, you who must know, you who are always my friend, have I any chance? Is she disengaged 1" " Alas ! I have sometimes feared this; but I tho\ight you had heard — your sister at least was aware" — "Of what] It was but this very morning — aware of what ]" "Of Charlotte's engagement." "Charlotte! It is of Ellen, not her sister, that I speak and think ! Of Ellen, the pure, the delicate, the divine! That whitest and sweetest of flowers ; the jasmine, the myrtle, th^ tuberose among wo- men," continued he, elucidating his similes by gathering a sprig of each plant, as he paced quickly up and down the garden walk — "Ellen, the fairest and the best; your darling and mine! Will you give me a letter to her father] And will you wish me suc- cess?" "Willi! Oh ! how sincerely ! My dear colonel, I beg a thousand pardons for un- dervaluing your taste — for suspecting you of preferring a damask rose to a blossomed myr- tle; I should have known you better." And then we talked of Ellen, dear Ellen, — talked and praised till even the lover's heart was sa- tisfied. I am convinced that he went away that morning, persuaded that I was one of the cleverest women, and the best judges of character that ever lived. And now my story is over. What need to say, that the letter was written with the warmest zeal, and received with the most cordial graciousness — or that Ellen, though shedding sweet tears, bore the shock of joy better than the shock of grief, — or that the twin sisters were married on the same day, at the same altar, each to the man of her heart, and each with every prospect of more than common felicity 1 What need to say this ] Or having said this, why should I tell what was the gift that so enchanted me 1 I will not tell: — my readers shall decide according to their several fancies between silver favours or bridal gloves, or the magical wedding cake drawn nine times through the ring. W^ALKS IN THE COUNTRY, THE COWSLIP-BALL. May IGih. — There are moments in life, when, without any visible or immediate cause, the spirits sink and fall, as it were, under the mere pressure of existence : moments of un- accountable depression, when one is weary of one's very thoughts, haunted by images that will not depart — images many and vari- ous, but all painful ; friends lost, or changed, or dead ; hopes disappointed even in their ac- complishment; 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 un- derstand why Alfieri became powerless, and Froissart dull ; and why even needle-work, that 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 Lizzy 1" — "No." — " Come away, then ! make haste ! run, Lizzy !" And on we go fast, fast ! down the road, WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. 39 across the lea, past the workhouse, along by the great pond, till we slide into the deep nar- row lane, whose hedges seem to meet over the water, and win our way to the little farm-, house at the end, "Through the farm-yard, Lizzy ; over the gate ; never mind the cows ; they fire quiet enono-h." — " I don't mind 'em," said Miss Lizzy, boldly and truly, and with a proud affronted air, displeased at being thought to mind any thing, and sliowing by her atti- tude 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 mean time my other pet, Mayflower, had also gotten into a scrape. She had driven about a hufjp unwieldy sow, till the animal's grunting had disturbed the repose of a still more enormous Newfoundland dog, the guar- dian 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 : and he of the kennel, seeing his charge unhurt and out of danger, was at lei- sure to observe the charms of his fair enemy, as she frolicked round 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 saw a prettier flirtation. At last the noble animal, wearied out, retired to the in- most recesses of his habitation, and would not even approach her when she stood right be- fore 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 mea- dows, and out of the world. Robinson Cru- soe, 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 mi- niature likeness. Never was water more ex- quisitely tricksv : — now darting over the brigfht 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-marygolds which grow on its margin ; now svv'eeping round a fine reach of green ffrass, rising steepljr into a high mound, 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 unwettcd ; now dashing through two sand-banks, a torrent deep and narrow, which May clears at a bound ; now sleeping half-hidden beneath the alders and hawthorns and wild roses, with which the banks are so profusely and variously fringed, whilst flags,* 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 sur- face for the summer flies. Izaac 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 habi- tation. They belong to a number of small proprietors, who allow each other access through their respective grounds, from pure kindness and neighbourly feeling, a privilege never abused ; and the fields on the other side of the v/ater are reached by a rough plank, or a tree thrown across, or some such homely bridge. We ourselves possess one of the most beautiful ; so that the strange pleasure of property, 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 Newfound- land, is added to the other charms of this en- chanting 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 diflTused and spread out, becoming thin by expansion, like leaf- gold ; 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 * Walking along these meadows one bright sunny afternoon, a year or two back, and rather later in the seabion, I had an opportimity of observing; a curious circumstance in natural history. Standinc; close to the edge of the stream, I remarked a singular appear- ance on a large tuft of flags. ]t looked like bunches c-f flowers, the leaves oi which seemed dark, yet transparent, intermingled with brilliant tubes of bright blue or shining green. On examining this pheno- menon more closely, it turned out to be several clusters of dragon-flies, just emerged from their de- formed crysalis state, and still torpid atid motionless from the wetness of their filmy wina;9 Haif 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. Biugley's very entertaining work, called "Ani- mal Biography." 40 OUR VILLAGE 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 : Shakspeare's Song of Spring bursts irrepressibly from our lips as we step on them ; "When daisies pied, and violets bine, And lady-smofks all silver white, And ciickoo-biids of yellow hue. Do paint ihe meadows with delight, The cuckoo then on every tree — " " Cuckoo ! cuckoo !" cried Lixzy, breaking in with her clear childish voice; and imme- diately, 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 unpo- etical (but I cannot help it, I have many such), 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 promised 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 suc- ceeded 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 declared victor : and down we sate, on the brink of the stream, under a spreading haw- thorn, 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 prosperously, considering, as people say of a young lady's drawing, or a Frenchman's English, or a wo- man's tragedy, or of the poor little dwarf who works without fingers, or the ingenious sailor who writes with his toes, or generally of any performance which is accomplished by means seemingly inade{|u;ite to its |)rodiiction. To be sure, we mcit with a few accidents. First, Lizzy spoiled nearly all her cowslips by snapping them off too short; so there was a iresh gathering; in the next place, May over- set 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 pur- ple, and skipping off to pursue the new ob- ject, 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 fra- grance and beauty it was ! golden and sweet to satiety ! rich to sight, and touch, and smell I 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 mean while I sate 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 ; those snatches of lovely sound which come across us as airs from heaven. Pleasant thoughts, delightful associations, awoke as I listened ; and almost unconsciously I repeated to my- self the beautiful story of the Lnfist and the Nightingale, from Ford's Lover's Melancholy. — Here it is. Is there in English poetry any thing 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 encountered me : I heard The sweetest and most ravishing contention That art and nature ever were at slriie ui. A sound of music touch'd mine ears, or rather Indeed entranced my soul ; as 1 stole nearer, Invited hy the melody, I saw This yoiUh, this fiiir-fiiced youth, upon his lute Wiih strains of strange variety and harmony Proclaiming, as it seem'd, so hold a challenge To the clear choristers of the woods, the birds, That as they flocU'd about him, all stood silent. Wondering at what they heard. 1 wonder'd too. A nightingale. Nature's bi^si-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 TTpon his (]uaking instrument than she. The nighlnigale, 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 clefs, moods, or notes. Should vie with him for mastery, whose shidy Had busied many hours to perfect practice. To end the controversy, in a rapture Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly, A COUNTRY CRICKET-MATCH. 41 So many volunlaries, and so quick, That there was curiosity and running Concord ui discord, hnes of differing method Meeting in one lull 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, fi)r 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 look'd upon the trophies of his art. Then sigh'd, then wiped his eyes ; then sigh'd and cried, 'Alas! poor creature, I will soon revenge This cruelty upon the author of it. Hencef()rth 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 heen all the afternoon dull and heavy, beoran to look more and more threatening; darker clouds, like wreaths of black smoke, flew across the tiead leaden tint; a cooler, damper air blew over the meadows, and a few large heavy drops plashed 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 distnay. 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 he- fore the shower; but May is too faithful for that, too true a comrade, understands 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 mean while 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 iny saucebox. " You are so fat, Liz- zy, you make no way !" — " Ah ! who else is fati" retorted the darling. Certainly her mother is right; 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 pqor May's short glossy coat in a moment. And then, when we were wet to the skin, the sun caine 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, canme a inaid and a boy to look after us, loaded with cloaks and umbrellas enough to fence us against a whole day's rain. Never 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 glow- ing and laughing, and bearing our calamity most manfully. 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 ffoing home till to-morrow, and the story of Little Red Riding-Hood ; and I am enjoying the luxury 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 pluine ; 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 enioyment 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! No- thing like a shower-bath — a real shower-bath, such" as Lizzy and May and 1 have undergone, to cure low spirits. Try it, my dear readers, if ever ye be nervous — I will answer for its success. A COUNTRY CRICKET-MATCH. I DOUBT if there he 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 ad- miring belles, who condescend so to purchase admiration, and while away a long summer morning in partaking cold collations, convers- ing occasionally, and seeming to understand the game ; — the whole being conducted ac- cording to ball-rooin etiquette, so as to be ex- ceedingly elegant and exceedingly dull. No! the cricket that I mean is a real solid old- fashioned match between neighbouring parish- es, where each attacks the other for honour and a supper, glory and half-a-crown a man. If there be any gentlemen amongst them, it is well — if not, it is so much the better. Your gentleman cricketer is in general rather an anoinalous character. Elderly gentlemen are obviously good for nothing; and young beaux mind! on we go, faster and faster; Lizzy are, for the most part, hainpered and tram- obliged to be most ignobly carried, having I melled by dress and habit; the stiff cravat, 42 OUR VILLAGE. the pinclied-in waist, the dandy-walk — oh they will never do for cricket! Now, our country lads, accustomed to the flail or the hannnier (your blacksmiths 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 athle- tic, and yet so much lissomer — to use a Hampshire 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 proficiency, but in general it wears away like the Greek, quite as certainly, and almost as fast; a few years of Oxford, or Cambridge, or the con- tinent, 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 fiirmer'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 pre- tension ; where laughing and shouting, and the very ecstasy of merriment and good hu- mour, prevail : such a match, in short, as I at- tended yesterday, at the expense of getting twice wet through, and as I would attend to- morrow, at the certainly of having that duck- ing doubled. For the last three weeks our village has been in a state of great excitement, occasioned by a challenge from our north-western neigh- bours, 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 doubt- ful success, beating them on our own ground, whilst they in the second match returned the compliment on theirs. This discouraged us. Then an utmatural 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 circumstances the spirit began to revive. Half a dozen fine active lads, of influence amongst their comrades, grew into men and yearned for cricket: an enterjjrising publican gave a set of ribands: his rival, mine host of the Rose, an out-doer by profession, gave two ; and the clergyman and his lay-ally, both well-disposed and good-natured men, gratified by the sub- mission to their authority, and finding, per- haps, that no great good resulted from the sub- stitution of public houses for out-of door di- versions, relaxed. Li short the practice recom- menced, and the hill was again alive with men and boys, and innocent merriment; but farther than the riband matches amongst ourselves nobody dreamed of going, till this challenge — we were modest, and doubted our own strength. The B. people, on the other hand, must have been braggers born, a whole parish of gasconaders. 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 Encrland. It must be confessed that we were a little astounded ; yet we firmly resolved not to decline the combat; 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 : but, since they had done us the honour ''W 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 every body, and admitted to bean excellent cricketer. He immediately set forth to muster his men, remembering with great complacency that Samuel Long, a bowler comme il y en a pen, 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 Lady-day, 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 civilized person. He is a middle-aged man who looks rather old amongst our young lads, and whose thickness and breadth give no token of remark- able activity; but he is very active, and so steady a player ! so safe ! We had half gained the match when we had secured hinri. He is a man of substance, too, in every way; ow.ns one cow, two donkeys, six pigs, and geese and ducks b(^yond 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 precisely those which make liim a good workman — steadiness, sobriety, and activity — Samuel Long might pass for the A COUNTRY CRICKET-MATCH. 43 bean ideal of the two characters. Happy were we to possess him ! Then we had another piece of o-ood luck. James Brown, a journeyman blacksmith and a native, who, being of a ram- blinor disposition., had roamed from place to p. ace for half a dozen years, had just returned to settle with his brother at another corner of our villag-e, brintring with him a proditjious reputation in cricket and in gallantry — the oay 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 Jo- seph Hearne, 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 resolved 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 cham- pion ; " we will not trouble you, Mr. Hearne." Having thus secured two powerful auxiliar- ies, and rejected a third, we began to reckon and select the regular native forces. Thus ran our list: — William Grey, 1. — Samuel Long, 2. — James Brown, 3. — George and John Sim- mons, one capital, the other so, so, — an uncer- tain hitter, but a good fieldsman, 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 without 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 gar- dening 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 Martins, rich farmers of the neighbour- hood, successively presented themselves, and were all rejected by our independent and im- partial general for want of merit — crickelal 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, W"as refused — " not quite J'oung enough," was his sentence. John Strong, the exceeding long son of our dwarfish mason, was the next can- didate, — 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 ar- rived, and the post was still vacant, when a little boy of fifteen, David Willis, brother to Harry, admitted by accident to the last prac- tice, 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 plea- sure. There is something strangely delightful in the innocent spirit of party. To be one of a numerous body, to be authorized to say ine, to have a rightful interest in triumph or defeat, is gratifying at once to social feeling and to personal pride. There was not a ten-year old urchin, or a septuagenary woman in the 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 feeling is less pure. Money is there, and hatred, and politics, and lies. Oh, 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 nightin- gales ! Talk of a patriotic elector ! — Give me a parochial patriot, a man who loves his par- ish ! Even we, the female partisans, may par- take the common ardour. 1 am sure I did. I never, though tolerably eager and enthusiastic at all times, remember being in a more deli- cious state of excitation 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 encour- agement of another sort. A spy, who had been despatched to reconnoitre the enemy's quarters, returned from their practising ground, with a most consolatory report. " Really," said Charles Grover, our intelligencer — 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 head-quarters from our trusty comrade Joel Brent. His master, a o-reat farm- er, had begun the hay-harvest that very morn- ing, and Joel, being as eminent in one field as in another, could not be spared. Liiagine Joel's plight I the most ardent of all our eleven ! a 44 OUR VILLAGE kniofht held back from the tourney ! a soldier from the bvittle ! The poor swain was incon- solable. At last, one who is always ready to do a (jood-natured action, great or little, set forth to back his petition ; and, by dint of ap numberless inconsistencies of which he stood accused. He was in love over head and ears, but the nym})h was cruel. She said no, and no, and no, and poor Brown three times reject- ed, at last resolved to leave the place, partly pealintr to the public spirit of our worthy neicrh- I in despair, and partly in that hope which often hour, and the state of the barometer, talking , minjjles strany^ely with a lover's despair, the alternately of the parish honour and thunder , hope that when he was o-one he should be showers, of lost matches and sopped hay, he | missed. He came home to his brother's accord- carried his point, and returned triumphantly inoly ; but for five weeks he heard nothings with the delighted .loel. from or of the inexorable Mary, and was glad In the mean time we became sensible of to beguile his own "vexing thoughts," by en- another defalcation. On calling over our roll, deavouring to create in his mind an artificial Brown was missing; and the spy of the pre- and factitious interest in our cricket-match — ceding night, Charles Grover, — the universal all unimportant as such a trifle must have scout and messenger of the village, a man ; seemed to a man in love. Poor .lames, how- who will run half-a-dozen miles for a pint of j ever, is a social and warm-hearted person, not beer, who does errands for the very love of the t likely to resist a contagious sympathy. As trade, who, if he had been a lord, would have j the time for the play advanced, the interest been an ambassador — was instantly despatched to summon the truant. His report spread gen- eral consternation. 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 against that goodly state, our parish! To send James Brown to Coventry was the immediate 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 ras- cal had actually practised with us, and never said 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 baiter compared with William Grey or Tom Coper ; not fit to wipe the shoes of Samuel Long, as a bowler; no- thinof 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 hanker- ing after the honour of being admitted, had ke])t constantly with the players, to take the chance of some such accident — we took John for our pi.sn/ler. 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 ; and when I first heard of his which he had at first affected became genuine and sincere : and he was really, when he left the ground on Sunday nioht, almost as enthu- siastically 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, pre- sented 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-dotix ? I can show them (but in strict confidence) a literal copy. It was addressed, " For mistur jem browne " blaxrnith by " S." The inside ran thus : — " Mistur browne this is to Inform yew that oure parish playes bram- ley men next monday is a week, i think we shall lose without yew. from j'our humble servant to command " Mary Allen." Was there ever a ])rettier relenting 1 a sum- mons more flattering, more delicate, more ir- resistible 1 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 sur})rised to find that delinquency, I thought the punishment only ! Misfur browne forgot his engagement to us, too mild for the cri^me. . But I have since \ forgot all but Mary and Mary's letter, and set learned the secret history of the offence; (if \ off at four o'clock the next mornintr to walk we could know the secret histories of all of- ; twelve miles, and play for her parish and in fences, how much better the world would seem i her sight. Keally we must not send James than it does now!) and really my wrath is much Browne to Coventry — inust we 1 'I'houoh if, abated. It was a piece of gallantry, of devo' tion to the sex, or rather a chivalrous obedience to one chosen fair. I must tell my readers the story. Mary Allen, the jjrettiest girl of M., had it seems revenged upon our blacksmith the as his sister-in-law tells our damsel Harriet hebopes 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 ! TOM CORDERY. 45 At last we were all assembled, and marched down to H. common, the appointed gjround, which, thoiiorh in our dominions according- to the map, 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 wish- ed ; 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 cora])ass as Cowley, when he crammed the names of eleven of his mistresses into the narrow space of four eight-syllable lines. Tlieij began the warfare — these boastful men of B. And what think you, gentle reader, was the amount of their innings T 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 bowl- ed ! our good play had quite as much to do with their miserable failure as their bad. Samuel Long is a slow bowler, George Sim- mons a fast one, and the change from Long's lobbing, to Simmons's fast balls posed them completely. Poor simpletons ! they were al- ways wrong, expecting the slow for the quick, I 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 ; and then they gave in, as well they might. William Grey pressed them much to try an- other 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 dis- appointment; I wanted to prolong the pleasure of success. What a glorious sensation it is to be for five hours together winning — win- ning—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 injudiciously put in first, and playing for the first time in a match among men and strangers, who talked to him, and stared at him, was seized with such a fit of shame- faced 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, .Tohn 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 for the excess of Joel's eagerness, would have staid in till this time, by which exploit he got into sad disgrace; and then he himself got thirty- seven runs, which redeemed his reputation. William 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, to- gether with a very complete somerset of Ben Appleton, our long-stop, who floundered about in the mud, making faces and attitudes as laughable as Grimaldi, none could tell whether by accident or design, were the chief incidents of the scene of action. Amongst the specta- tors nothing remarkable occurred, beyond the general calamity of two or three drenchings, 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 ; and that, amidst the scramble, a saucy gipsey of a girl contrived to steal from the Ivuee of the demure and well-appareled Samuel Long, a smart handkerchief, which his careful dame had tied around it, to preserve his new (what is the mincing feminine word 1) his new in- expressibles ; thus reversing the story of Des- demona, and causing the new Othello to call aloud for his handkerchief, to the great diver- sion of the company. And so we parted ; the players retired to their supper, and we to our homes; all wet through, all good humoured, and all 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." TOM CORDERY. There are certain things and persons that look as if they could never die : things of such vigour and hardiness, that they seem consti- tuted for an interminable duration, a sort of immortality. An old pollard oak of my ac- 46 OUR VILLAGE. quaintance used to give me this impression. Never was tree sn gnarled, so knotted, so full of crooked life. Garlanded w'tli ivy and wood- bine, almost bending under the weight of its own rich leaves and acorns, tough, vigorous, lusty, concentrating as it were the very spirit of vitality in its own curtailed proportions, — could that tree ever die] I have asked myself twenty times, as I stood looking on the deep water over which it hung, and in which it seemed to live again — would that strong dwarf ever fall 1 Alas! the question is answered. Walking by the spot to-day — this very day — there it lay prostrate; the ivy still clinging about it, the twigs swelling with sap, and put- ting forth already the early buds. There it lay a victim to the taste and skill of some admirer of British woods, who with the tact of Ugo Foscolo (that prince of amateurs) has disco- vered in the knots and gnarls of the exterior coat the leopard-like beauty which is concealed within the trunk. There it lies, a type of syl- van instability, fallen like an emperor. Another piece of strong nature in a human form used to convey to me exactly the same feeling — and he is gone too ! Tom Cordery is dead. The bell is tolling for him at this very moment. Tom Cordery dead ! the words seem almost a contradiction. One is tempted to send for the sexton and the undertaker, to undig the grave, to force open the coffin-lid — there must be some mistake. But, alas! it is too true; the typhus fever, that axe which levels the strong as the weak, has hewed him down at a blow. Poor Tom Cordery ! This human oak grew on the wild North-of- Hampshire country, of which I have before made honourable mention ; a country of heath, and hill, and forest, partly reclaimed, enclosed, and planted by some of the greater proprietors, but for the most )iart uncultivated and uncivil- ized ; a proper refuge for wild animals of every species. Of these the most notable was my friend Tom Cordery, who presented in his own person no unfit emblem of the district in which he lived — the gentlest of savages, the wildest of civilized men. He was by calling rat- catcher, hare-finder, and broom-maker; a triad of trades which he had substituted for the one grand profession of poaching, which he fol- lowed in his younger days with unrivalled talent and success, and would, undoubtedly, have pursued till his death, had not the burst- ing of an overloaded gun unluckily shot off his left hand. As it was, he still contrived to mingle a little of his old unlawful occupation with his honest callings ; was a reference of hitrh authority amongst the young aspirants, an adviser of undoubted honour and secresy — suspected, and more than suspected, as being- one " who, though he played no more, o'er- looked the cards." Yet he kept to windward of the law, and indeed contrived to be on such terms of social and even friendly intercourse with the guardians of the game on M. Com- mon, as may be said to prevail between re- puted thieves and the myrmidons of justice in the neighbourhood of Bow-street. Indeed his especial crony, the head-keeper, used some- times to hint, when Tom, elevated by ale, had provoked him by overcrowing, " that a stump was no bad shield, and that to shoot oflT a hand and a bit of an arm for a blind, would be no- thing to so daring a chap as Tom Cordery." This conjecture, never broached till the keeper was warm with wrath and liquor, and Tom fairly out of hearing, seemed always to me a little super-subtle ; but it is certain that Tom's new professions did bear rather a suspicious analogy to the old, and the ferrets, and terriers, and mongrels by whom he was surrounded, "did really look," as the v^-orthy keeper ob- served, "fitter to find Christian hares frnd pheasants, than rats and such vermin." So in good truth did Tom himself. Never did any human being look more like that sort of sportsman commonly called a poacher. He was a tall, finely-built man, with a prodigious stride, that cleared the ground like a horse, and a power of continuing his slow and steady speed, that seemed nothing less than miracu- lous. Neither man, nor horse, nor dog, could out-tire him. He had a bold, undaunted pre- sence, and an evident strength and power of bone and muscle. You might see by looking at him, that he did not know what fear meant. In his youth he had fought more battles than any man in the forest. He was as if born without nerves, totally insensible to the recoils and disgusts of humanity. 1 have known him take up a huoe adder, cut off its head, and then deposit the living and writhing body in his brimless hat, and w'alk with it coiling and wreathing about his head, like another Medusa, till the sport of the day was over, and he car- ried it home to secure the fat. With all this iron stubbornness of nature, he was of a most mild and gentle demeanour, had a fine placid- ity of countenance, and a quick blue eye beam- ing with good-humour. His face was sunburnt into one general pale vermilion hue that over- spread all his features ; his very hair was sun- burnt too. His costume was generally a smock- frock of no doubtful complexion, dirt-coloured, which hung round him in tatters like fringe, rather augmenting than diminishing the free- dom, and, if I may so say, the gallantry of his bearing. This frock was furnished with a huge inside pocket, in which to deposit the game killed by his patrons — for of his three employments, that which consisted of finding hares for the great farmers and small gentry, who were wont to course on the common, was by far the most profitable and most pleasing to him, and to them. Every body liked Tom Cordery. He had himself an aptness to like, which is certain to be repaid in kind — the very dogs knew him, and loved him, and would beat for him almost as soon as for their master. Even May, the most sagacious of greyhounds, TOM CORDERY. 47 appreciated his talents, and wonld as soon lis- ten to Tom sohoing as to old Tray giving tono-ue, Nnr was his conversation less aofreeable to the other part of the company. Servants and masters were equally desirons to secure Tom. Besides his oeneral and professional familiar- ity with beasts and birds, their ways and doinofs, a knowledge so minnte and accurate, that it might have put to shame many a pro- fessed naturalist, he had no small acquaintance with the goings-on of that unfeathered biped called man; in short, he was, next after Lucy, who recognized his rivalry by hating, decry- ing, and undervaluing him, by far the best newsgatherer of the countryside. His news he of course picked up on the civilized side of the parish, (there is no gossiping in the forest,) partly at that well-frequented inn the Red Lion, of which Tom was a regular and noted sup- porter — partly amongst his several employers, and partly by his own sagacity. In the mat- ter of marriages, (pairings be was wont to call them.) he relied cliiefly on bis ov\'n skill in noting certain preliminary indications ; and certainly for a guesser by profession and a very bold one, he was astonishingly often right. At the alehouse especially, he was of the first authority. An air of mild importance, a diplo- matic reserve on some points, great smoothness of speech, and that gentleness which is so often the result of conscious power, made him there an absolute ruler. Perhaps the effect of these causes might be a little aided by the la- tent dread which that power inspired in others. Many an exploit had proved that Tom Cor- dery's one arm was fairly worth any two on the common. The pommelling of Bob Arlott, and the levelling of Jem Serle to the earth by one swing of a huge old hare, (which unusual weapon was by the way the first-slain of May- flower, on its way home to us in that walking cupboard, his pocket, when the unlucky ren- contre with .lem Serle broke two heads, the dead and the living,) arguments such as these mitjht have some cogency at the Red Lion. But he managed every body, as your gentle- mannered person is apt to do. Even the rude 'squires and rough farmers, bis temporary masters, be managed, particularly as far as concerned the beat, and was sure to bring them round to his own peculiar fancies and preju- dices, however strongly their own wishes might turn them aside from the direction indi- cated, and however often Tom's sagacity in that instance might have been found at fault. Two spots in the large wild enclosures into which the heath had been divided were his especial favourites; the Hundred Acres, alias the Poor Allotment, alias the Burnt Common — (Do any or all of these titles convey any notion of the real destination of that many- named ])lace'? a piece of moor-land portioned out to serve for fuel to the poor of the parish) — this was one. Oh the barrenness of this miserable moor! Flat, marshy, dingy, bare. Here that piece of green treachery, a bog ; there parched, and pared, and shrivelled, and black with smoke and ashes ; utterly desolate and wretched every where, exce[)t where amidst the desolation blossomed, as in mock- ery, the enamelled gentianella. No hares ever came there; they had too much taste. Yet thither would Tom lead his unwary em- plojrers ; thither, however warned, or caution- ed, or experienced, would be by reasoning, or induction, or gentle persuasion, or actual fraud, entice the hapless gentlemen ; and then to see him with his rabble of finders, pacing up and down this precious "sitting-ground," (for so was Tom, thriftless liar, wont to call it.) pretending to look for game, counterfeit- ing a meuse; forging a form; and telling a story some ten years old of a famous hare once killed in that spot by his honour's favour- ite bitch Marygold. I never could thoroughly understand whether it were design, a fear that too many hares might be killed, or a real and honest mistake, a genuine prejudice in favour of the place, that influenced Tom Cordery in this point. Half the one, perhaps, and half the other. Mixed motives, let Pope and his disciples say what they will, are by far the commonest in this parti-coloured world. Or be had shared the fate of greater men, and lied till he believed — a coursingr Cromwell, beginning in hypocrisy and ending in fimati- cism. Another pet spot was the Gallows- piece, an enclosure almost as large as the Hundred Acres, where a gibbet had once borne the bodies of two murderers, with the chains and bones, even in my remembrance, clanking and creaking in the wind. The gib- bet was gone now; but the name remained, and the feeling, deep, sad, and shuddering. The place, too, was wild, awful, fearful ; a heathy, furzy spot, sinking into broken hol- lows, where murderers might lurk; a few withered pines at the upjier end, and amongst them, half hidden by the brambles, the stone in which the gallows had been fixed : — the bones must have been mouldering beneath. All Torn's eloquence, seconded by two capi- tal courses, failed to drag me thither a second time. Tom was not, however, without that strong sense of natural beauty which they who live amongst the wildnesses and fastnesses of nature so often exhibit. One spot, w^here the common trenches on the civilized world, was scarcely less his admiration than mine. It is a high hill, half covered with furze and heath, and broom, and sinking abruptly down to a larnfe pond, almost a lake, covered with wild water-fowl. The ground, richly clothed with wood, oak and beech and elm, rises on the other side with equal abruptness, as if shut- ting in those glassy waters from all but the sky, which shines so brightly in their clear bosom : just in the bottom peeps a small 48 OUR VILLAGE. sheltered farm, whose wreaths of liorht smoke and the white trlancinor Winn's of the wild- ducks, as thpy flit across the lake, are all that give token of motion or of life. I have stood there in utter oblivion of greyhound or of hare, till moments have swelled to minutes, and minutes to hours ; and so has Tom, con- veying by his exclamations of delight at its " pleasantness," exactly the same feeling which a poet or a painter (for it breathes the very spirit of calm and sunshiny beauty that a master-painter loves) would express by dif- ferent but not truer praise. He called his own home " pleasant" too ; and there, though one loves to hear any home so called — there, I must confess, that favourite phrase, which I like almost as well as they who have no other, did seem rather misapplied. And yet it was finely placed, very finely. It stood in a sort of defile, where a road almost perpen- dicular wound from the top of a steep abrupt hill, crowned with a tuft of old Scottish firs, into a dingle of fern and wild brushwood. A shallow, sullen stream oozed from the bank on one side, and, after forming a rude chan- nel across the road, sank into a dark, deep pool, half hidden among the sallows. Behind these sallows, in a nook between them and the hill, rose the uncouth and shapeless cot- tage of Tom Cordery. It is a scene which hangs upon the eye and the memory, strikinor, grand, almost sublime, and above all eminently foreign. No English painter would choose such a subject for an English landscape ; no one in a picture would take it for English. It might pass for one of those scenes which have furnished models to Salvator Rosa. Tom's cottage was, however, very thoroughly na- tional and characteristic; a lov.% ruinous hovel, the door of which was fastened with a sedu- lous attention to security, that contrasted strangely with the tattered thatch of the roof, and the half-broken windows. No garden, no pigsty, no pens for geese, none of the usual signs of cottage habitation: — yet the house was covered with nondescript dwellings, and the very walls were animated with their extraordinary tenants ; pheasants, partridges, rabbits, tame wild ducks, half-tame hares, and their enemies by nature and education, the ferrets, terriers, and mongrels of whom his retinue consisted. Great ingenuity had been evinced in keeping separate these jarring elements ; and by dint of hutches, cages, fences, kennels and half a dozen little hurdled enclosures, resembling the sort of courts which children are apt to build round their card-houses, peace was in general tolerably well preserved. Frequent sounds, however, of fear or anger, as their several instincts were aroused, gave token that it was but a forced and hollow truce, and at such times the clamour was prodigious. Tom had the re- markable tenderness for animals when do- mesticated, which is so often found in those whose sole vocation seems to be their destruc- tion in the field ; and the one long, straggling, unceiled, barn-like room, which served for kitchen, bed-chamber, and hall, was cumbered with bipeds and quadrupeds of all kinds and descriptions — the sick, the delicate, the newly- caught, the lying in. In the midst of this menagerie sate Tom's wife, (for he was mar- ried, though without a family — married to a woman lame of a leg as he himself was minus an arm,) now trying to quiet her noisy inmates, now to outscold them. How long his friend the keeper would have continued to wink at this den of live game, none can say; the roof fairly fell in during the deep snow* of last winter, killing, as poor Tom observed, two as fine litters of rabbits as ever were kittened. Remotely, I have no doubt that he himself fell a sacrifice to this misadventure. The overseer, to whom he applied to reinstate his beloved habitation, decided that the walls would never bear another roof, and removed him and his wife, as an especial favour, to a tidy, snug, comfortable room in the work- house. The workhouse ! From that, poor Tom visibly altered. He lost his hilarity and independence. It was a change such as he had himself often inflicted, a complete change of habits, a transition from the wild to the tame. No labour was demanded of him ; he went about as before, finding hares, killing rats, selling brooms, but the spirit of the man was departed. He talked of the quiet of his old abode, and the noise of the new ; com- plained of children and other bad company ; and looked down on his neighbours with the sort of contempt with which a cock pheasant might regard a barn-door fowl. Most of ail did he, braced into a gipsy-like defiance of wet and cold, grumble at the warmth and dry- ness of his apartment. He used to foretell that it would kill him, and assuredly it did so. Never co\ild the typhus fever have found out that wild hill side, or have lurked under that broken roof. The free touch of the air would have chased the demon. Alas, poor Tom I warmth and snugness, and comfort, whole windows, and an entire ceiling, were the death of him. Alas, poor Tom I AN OLD BACHELOR. There is no effect of the subtle operation of the association of ideas more universal and more curious than the manner in which the most trivial circumstances recall particular persons to our memory. Sometimes these glances of recollection are purely pleasurable. Thus I have a double liking for a May-day, as being the birth-day of a dear friend whose fair idea bursts upon me with the first sun- beam of that glad morning; and I can never AN OLD BACHELOR. 49 hear certain airs of Mozart and Handel with- out seeraincr to catch an echo of that sweetest voice in which I first learnt to love them. Pretty often, however, the point of association is less elegant, and occasionally it is tolerahly ludicrous. We happened to-day to have for dinner a couple of wild-ducks, the first of the season ; and as the master of the house, who is so little of an epicure that I am sure he would never while he lived, out of its feathers, know a wild-duck from a tame, — whilst he, with a little affectation of science, was squeez- innr the lemon and mixing Cayenne pepper with the gravy, two of us exclaimed in a breath, " Poor Mr. Sidney !" — " Ay," rejoined the squeezer of lemons, " poor Sidney ! I think he would have allowed that these ducks were done even to half a turn." And then he told the story more el-iborately to a young visiter, to whom Mr. Sidnej^ was unknown ; — how, after eating the best parts of a couple of wild-ducks, which all the company pro- nounced to be the finest and the best dressed wild-ducks ever brought to the table, that ju- dicious critic in the gastronomic art limited the too sv»-eeping praise by gravely asserting, that the birds were certainly excellent, and that the cookery would have been excellent also, had they not been roasted half a turn too much. Mr. Sidney has been dead these fif- teen years ; but no wild-ducks have ever ap- peared on our homely board without recalling that observation. It is his memorable saying ; his one good thing. Mr. Sidney was, as might be conjectured, an epicure; he was also an old bachelor, a clergyman, and senior fellow of * * College, a post wliich he had long filled, being, al- though only a second son, so well provided for that he' could afford to reject living after living in expectation of one favourite rectory, to whicli he had taken an early fancy from the pleasantness of the air. Of the latter quality, indeed, he used to give an instance, which, however satisfactory as confirming his prepos- session, could hardly have been quite agree- able, as preventing him from gratifying it ; — namely, the extraordinary and provoking lon- gevity of the incumbent, who at upwards of ninety gave no sign of decay, and bade fair to emulate the age of old Parr. Whilst waiting for the expected living, Mr. Sidney, who disliked a college residence, built himself a very pretty house in our neiohbour- hood, which he called his home ; and where he lived, as much as a love of Bath and Brigh- ton and London and lords would let him. He counted many noble families amongst his near connections, and passed a good deal of his time at their country-seats — a life for which he was by character and habit peculiarly fitted. In person he was a tall stout gentlemanly man, "about fifty, or by'r lady, inclining to threescore," with fine features, a composed 5 G gravity of countenance and demeanour, a bald head most accurately powdered, and a very graceful bow — quite the pattern of an elderly man of fashion. His conversation was in excellent keeping with the calm imperturba- bility of his countenance and the sedate gravity of his manner,— smooth, dull, commonplace, exceedingly safe, and somewhat imposing. He spoke so little, that ])eople really fell into the mistake of imagining that he thought; and the tone of decision with which he would ad- vance some second-hand opinion, was well calculated to confirm the mistake. Gravity was certainly his chief characteristic, and j'et it was not a clerical gravity either. He had none of the generic marks of his profi^ssion. Although perfectly decorous in life and word and thought, no stranger ever took Mr. Sidney for a clergyman. He never did any duty any where, that ever I heard of, except the agree- able duty of saying grace before dinner; and even that was often performed by some lay host, in pure forgetful ness of his guest's ordi- nation. Indeed, but for the direction of his letters, and an eye to * * * Rectory, I am persuaded that the circumstance might have slipped out of his own recollection. His quality of old bachelor was more per- ceptible. There lurked under all his polish, well covered but not concealed, the quiet self- ishness, the little whims, the precise habits, the primness and priggishness of that discon- solate condition. His man Andrews, for in- stance, valet, groom, and body-servant abroad ; butler, cook, caterer, and major d'om.o at home; tall, portly, powde-ed and blackcoated as his master, and like him in all things but the knowing pig-tail which stuck out hori- zontally above his shirt-collar, giving a lu- dicrous dignity to his appearance; — Andrews, who, constant as the dial pointed nine, carried up his chocolate and shaving water, and re- gular as " the chimes at midnight," iirepared his white-wine whey ; who never forgot his gouty shoe in travelling, (once for two days he had a slight touch of that gentlemanly dis- order,) and never gave him the newspaper un- aired ; to whom could this jewel of a valet, this matchless piece of clock-work belong, but an old bachelor? And his little dog Viper, unparagoned of terriers, black, sleek, sharp, and shrewish ; who would beg and sneeze and fetch and carry like a Christian ; eat olives and sweetmeats and mustard, drink coffee and wine and liqueurs; — who but an old bachelor could have taught Viper his mul- tifarious accomplishments? Little Viper was a most useful person in his way ; for although Mr. Sidney was a very creditable acquaintance to meet on the King's highway, (your dull man, if he rides well, should never think of dismounting.) or even on the level ground of a carpet in the crowd of a large party ; )'et when he happened to drop in to take a family dinner — a pretty fre- 50 OUR VILLAGE. quent habit of his when in the country — then Viper's talents were inestimable in relievinpf the ennui' occasioned by that grave piece of gentility his master, " not only dull in him- self, but the cause of dullness in others." Any thing to pass away the heavy hours, till whist or piquet relieved the female world from his intolerable silence. In other respects these visits were sufficient- ly perplexing. Every housewife can tell what a formidable guest is an epicure who comes to take pot-luck — how sure it is to be bad luck, especially when the unfortunate hostess lives five miles from a market-town. Mr. Sidney always came unseasonably, on wash- ing-day, or Saturday, or the day before a great party. So sure as we had a scrap dinner, so sure came he. My dear mother, who with true benevolence and hospitality cared much for her guest's comfort and notliing for her own pride, used to grieve over his discomfi- ture, and try all that could be done by potted meats and omelettes, and little things tossed up on a sudden to amend the bill of fare. But cookery is an obstinate art, and will have its time ; — however you may force the component parts, there is no forcing a dinner. Mr. Sid- ney had the evil habit of arriving just as the last bell rang ; and in spite of all the hurry- scurry in the kitchen department, the new niceties and the old, homely dishes were sure to disagree. There was a total want of keep- ing. The kickshaws were half raw, the solids were mere rags ; the vegetables were cold, the soup was scalding ; no shallots to the rump-steaks ; no mushrooms with the broiled chicken; no fish ; no oysters; no ice; no pine- apple. Poor Mr. Sidney ! He must have had a great regard for us to put up with our bad dinners. Perhaps the chance of a rubber had some- thing to do with his visits to our house. If there be such a thing as a ruling passion, the love of whist was his. Cards were not mere- ly the amusement, but the business of his life. I do not mean as a money-making specula- tion ; for although he belonged to a fashiona- ble club in London, and to every card-meeting of decent gentility within reach of his country- home, he never went beyond a regular mo- derate stake, and could not be induced to bet even by the rashest defier of calculation, or the most provoking undervaluer of his play. It always seemed to me that he regarded whist as far too important and scientific a pursuit to be degraded into an affair of gam- bling. It had in his eyes all the dignity of a study; an acquirement equally gentlemanly and clerical. It was undoubtedly his test of ability. He had the value of a man of family and a man of the world, for rank, and wealth, and station, and dignities of all sorts. No human being entertained a higher respect for a king, a prince, a prime minister, a duke, a bishop, or a lord. But these were conventional feelings. His genuine and unfeigned venera- tion was reserved for him who played a good rubber, a praise he did not easily give. He was a capital player himself, and held all his country competitors, except one, in supreme and undisguised contempt, which they endured to admiration. I wonder they did not send him to Coventry. He was the most disagree- able partner in the world, and nearly as un- pleasant an adversary ; for he not only en- forced the Pythagorean law of science, which makes one hate whist so, but used to distri- bute quite impartially to every one at table little disagreeable observations on every card they played. It was not scolding, or grum- bling, or fretting; one has a sympathy with those expressions of feeling, and at the worst can scold again ; it was a smooth polite com- mentary on the errors of the jiarly, delivered in the calm tone of undoubted superiority with which a great critic will sometimes take a small poet, or a batch of poets, to task in a review. How the people could bear it! — but the world is a goodnatured world, and does not like a man the less for treating it scorn- fully. So passed six evenings out of the seven with Mr. Sidney, for it was pretty well known that, on the rare occurrence of his spending a day at home without company, his fac-totum Andrews used to have the honour of being beaten by his master in a snug game at double dumby; but what he did. with himself on Sunday occasioned me some speculation. Never in my life did I see him take up a book, although he sometimes talked of Shakspeare and Rlilton, and .Johnson and Burke, in a manner which proved that he had heard of such things ; and as to the newspaper, which he did read, that was generally conned over long before night; besides he never exhibited spectacles, and I have a notion that he could not read newspaper type at night without them. How he could possibly get through the after- coffee hours on a Sunday puzzled me long. Chance solved the problem. He came to call on us after church, and agreed to dine and sleep at our house. The moment tea was over, without the slightest apology or attempt at conversation, he drew his chair to the fire, set his feet on the fender, and fell fasjt asleep in the most comfortable and orderly manner possible. It was evidently a week'y habit. Every sense and limb seemed composed to it. Viper looked up in his face, curled himself round on the hearth-rug, and went to sleep too; and Andrews, just as the clock struck twelve, came in to wake him that he might go to bed. It was clearly an invariable custom ; a settled thing. His house and grounds were ke])t in the neatest manner possible. There was some- tliing even disagreeable in the excessive nicety, the Dutch preciseness of the shining gravel walks, the smooth shaven turf of the A VILLAGE BEAU. 51 lawn, and the fine-sifted mould of the shrub- beries. A few dead leaves or scattered flowers, even a weed or twoj any thing to take away from the artificial toy-like look of the place, would have been an improvement. Mr. Sid- ney, however, did not think so. He actually caused his gardener to remove those littering plants called roses and gum cistuses. Other flowers fared little better. No sooner were they in bloom, than he pulled them up for fear they should drop. In doors, matters were still worse. The rooms and furniture were very handsome, abounding in the luxurious Turkey carpets, the sofas, easy chairs, and Ottomans, which his habits required ; and yet I never in my life saw any house which looked less comfortable. Every thing was so constantly in its place, so provokingly in order, so full of naked nicety, so thoroughly old-bachelorish. No work! no books! no music ! no flowers ! But for those two things of life. Viper and a sparkling fire, one might have thought the place uninhabited. Once a year, indeed, it gave signs of animation, in the shape of a Christmas party. That was Mr. Sidney's shining time. Nothing could exceed the smiling hospitality of the host, or the lavish profusion of the entertainment. It breathed the very spirit of a welcome, splendidly liberal ; and little Viper trisked and bounded, and Andrew's tail vibrated (I was going to say wagged) with cordiality and pleasure. Andrews, on these occasions, laid aside his " customary black " in favour of a blue coat and a white silk court waist- coat, with a light running pattern of em- broidery and silver spangles, assumed to do honour to his master and the company. How much he enjoyed the applause which the wines and the cookery elicited from the gen- tlemen ; and how anxiously he would direct the ladies' attention to a IMS. collection of riddles, the compilation of some deceased countess, laid on the drawing-room table for their amusement between dinner and tea. Once, I remember, he carried his attention so far as to produce a gone-by toy, called a banda- lore, for the recreation of myself and another little girl, admitted by virtue of the Christmas holidays to this annual festival. Poor An- drews ! I am convinced thai he considered the entertainment of the visiters quite as much his aflfair as his master's ; and certainly they both succeeded. Never did parties pass more pleasantly. On those evenings Mr. Sidney even forgot to find fault at whist. At last, towards the end of a very severe winter, during wiiich he had suffered much from repeated colds, the rectory of * * * be- came vacant, and our worthy neighbour hast- ened to take possession. The day before his journey he called on us in the highest spirits, anticipating a renewal of health and youth in this favourite spot, and approaching nearer i than I had ever heard him to a jest on the subject of looking, out for a wife. Married or single, he made us promise to visit him during the ensuing summer. Alas ! long before the summer arrived, our poor friend was dead. He had waited for this living thirty years ; he did not enjoy it thirty days. A VILLAGE BEAU. Thk finest young man in our village is undoubtedly Joel Brent, half-brother to my Lizzy. They are alike too ; as much alike as a grown-up person and a little child of dif- ferent sexes well can be; alike in a vigorous uprightness of form, light, firm, and compact as possible; alike in the bright, sparkling, triumphant blue eye, the short-curled upper lip, the brown wavy hair, the white forehead and sunburnt cheeks, and, above all, in the singular spirit and gaiety of their countenance and demeanour, the constant expression of life and glee, to which they owe the best and rarest part of their attractiveness. They seem, and they are two of the happiest and merriest creatures that ever trod on the greensward. Really to see Joel walking by the side of his team, (for this enviable mortal, the pride of our village, is by calling a carter), to see him walking, on a fine sunny morning, by the side of his bell-team, the fore-horse decked with ribbons and flowers like a countess on the birth-day, as consciously handsome as his driver, the long whip poised gracefully on his shoulder, his little sister in his hand, and his dog Ranger (a beautiful red and white spaniel — every thing that belongs to Joel is beautiful) frisking about them : — to see this group, and to hear the merry clatter formed by Lizzy's tongue, Joel's whistling, and Ranger's de- lighted bark, is enough to put an amateur of pleasant sounds and happy faces in good hu- mour for the day. It is a grateful sight in other respects, for Joel is a very picturesque person, just such an one as a painter would select for the fore- ground of some English landscape, where na- ture is shown in all her loveliness. His cos- tume is the very perfection of rustic coqiietr}^ of that grace, which all admire and few prac- tise, the grace of adaptation, the beauty of fit- ness. No one ever saw Joel in that wretched piece of deformity a coat, or that still wretch- eder apology for a coat a docktailed jacket. Broad-cloth, the " common stale" of peer and peasant, approaches him not; neither does " the poor creature,'" fustian. His upper gar- ment consists of that prettier jacket without skirts, call it for the more grace a doublet, of dark velveteen, hanging open over his waist- coat, giving a Spanish or an Italian air to his whole appearance, and setting off to great advantage his trim yet manly shape. To this 52 OUR VILLAGE. he adds a silk handkerchief, tied very loosely round his neck, a shirt-collar open so as to show his throat, as you commonly see in the portraits of artists, very loose trowsers, and a straw hat. Sometimes in cold weather, he throws over all a smock-frock, and last winter brougrht up a fashion amongst our lads, by as- suming' one of that blue hight Waterloo, such as butchers wear. As soon as all his comrades had provided themselves with a similar piece of rustic finery, he abandoned his, and indeed generally sticks to his velveteen jacket, which, by some magical influence of cleanliness and neatness, always looks new. I cannot imagine how he contrives it, but dirt never hangs upon Joel ; even a fall at cricket in the summer, or a tumble on the ice in the winter, fails to soil him ; and he is so ardent in his diversions, and so little disposed to let his coxcombry interfere with his sports, that both have been pretty often tried ; the former especially. Ever since William Grey's secession, which took })lace shortly after our great match, for no cause assigned, Joel has been the leader and chief of our cricketers. Perhaps, indeed, Joel's rapid improvement might be one cause of William's withdrawal, for, without attri- buting any thing like envy or jealousy to these fine young men, we all know that " two stars keep not their motion in one sphere," and so forth, and if it were absolutely necessary that either our " Harry Hotspur, or the Prince of Wales," should abdicate that fair kingdom the cricket-ground, I must say that I am content to retain our present champion. Joel is in my mind the better player, joining to William's agility, and certainty of liand and eye, all the ardour, force, and gaiety of his own quick and lively spirit. The whole man is in the game, mind and body ; and his success is such as dexterity and enthusiasm united must always command. To be sure he is a ketle over-eager, thai I must confess, and does occasionally run out a slow mate ; but he is sure to make up for it by his own exertions, and after all what a delightful fault zeal is ! Now that we are on the subject of faults, it must be said, not that Joel has his share, which is of course, but that they are exceedingly venial, little shades that become him, and arise out of his brighter qualities as smoke from the flame. Thus, if he sometimes steals one of his active holidays for a revel or a cricket-match, he is sure to make up the loss to his master by a double portion of labour the next day; and if now and then at tide-times, he loiters in the chim- ney-corner of the Rose, ratlier longer than strict prudence might warrant, no one can hear his laugh and his song pouring through the open door, like the ve^y voice of "jest and youthful jollity," without feeling certain that it is good fellowship, and not good liquor, that detains him. Indeed so much is he the delight of the country lads, who frequent that well- accustomed inn, so much is his company sought after in all rustic junketings, that I am only astonished at the strength of resolution, and power of resisting temptation, which he dis- plays in going thither so seldom. If our village lads be so fond of him, it is not to be doul)ted that our village maidens like him too. The pretty brunette, JSally Wheeler, who left a good service at B., to take in needle- work, and come home to her grandmother, she being, to use Sally's phrase, " unked for want of company," (N. B. Dame Wheeler is as deaf as a post, a cannon would not rouse her,) is thought, in our little world, to have had an eye to Joel in this excess of dutifulness. Miss Phcebe, the lass of the Rose, she also, before her late splendid marriage to the patten-maker, is said to have becurled and beflounced herself at least two tiers higher on club-nights, and Sundays, and holidays, and whenever there was a probable chance of meeting him. The gay recruiting sergeant, and all other beaux were abandoned the instant he appeared ; nay, it is even hinted, that the patten-maker owes his fair bride partly to pique at Joel's inditier- ence. Then Miss Sophia Matthews, the school- uiistress on the lea, to whom in point of dig- nity Miss Phoebe was nothing, who wears a muff and a veil, walks mincingly, and tosses her head in the air, keeps a maid, — a poor little drab of ten years old ; follows, as she says, a genteel profession, — I think she may have twenty scholars at eight-pence a week ; and when she goes to dine with her brother, the collar-maker, hires a boy for a penny to carry her clogs ; Miss Sophia, it is well known, hath pretermitted her dignity in the matter of Joel ; hath invited the whole family to tea (only think of Joel at a tea-party?) hath spoken of him as " a person above the common : a respecta- ble young man ; one, who with a discreet and accomplished wife, a woman of reading and education," (Miss Sophia, in the days of her father, the late collar-maker of happy memory, before she "taught the young idea how to shoot," had herself drunk deeply at that well of knowledge, the circulating library of B.) " not too young," (Miss Sophia calls herself twenty-eight — I wonder what the register says I) " no brazen-faced gipsy, like Sally Wheeler," (Miss Sophia's cast of countenance is altogether different from Sally's dark and sparkling beauty, she being pink-eyed, red- haired, lean, pale, and freckled) " or the jill- flirt Phoebe" but to cut short an oration which in spite of the lady's gentility, began to grow rather scurrilous, one fact was certain, — that Joel might, had he so chosen, have worn the crown matrimonial in Miss Sophia's terri- tories, consisting of a freehold-cottage, a little the worse for wear, a good garden, a capital orchard, and an extensive right of common ; to say nothing of the fair damsel and her school, or, as she is accustomed to call it, her seminary. Joel's proud bright eye glanced, however, carelessly over all. There was little percepti- A VILLAGE BEAU. 53 ble difference of feeling in the gay distant smile, with which he regarded the coquettish advances of the pretty brunette, Sally Wheel- er, or the respectful bow with which he re- treated from the dignified condescension of Miss Sophia. He fluttered about our village belles like a butterfly over a bed of tulips ; soinetimes approaching them for a moment, and seeing them ready to fix, but oftener above and out of reach, a creature of a sprightlier element, too buoyant and volatile to light on an ear.thly flower. At last, however, the rover was caught; and our damsel, Harriet, had the glory of winning that indomitable heart. Now Harriet is in all things Lucy's suc- cessor; in post, and favour, and beauty, and lovers. Ln my eye she is still prettier than Lucy ; there is something so feminine and so attractive in her loveliness. She is a tall young woman, finely, though, for eighteen, rather fully formed ; with a sweet child-like face, a fair blooming complexion, a soft inno- cent smile, and the eye of a dove. Add to this a gentle voice, a quiet modest manner, and a natural gentility of appearance, and no wonder that Harriet might vie with her pre- decessor in the number of her admirers. She inherited also a spice of her coquetry, although it was shown in so different a way that we did not immediately find it out. Lucy was a flirt active ; Harriet was a flirt passive : Lucy talked to her beaux ; Harriet only listened to her's ; Lucy, when challenged on the number of her conquests, denied the thing, and blushed, and laughed, and liked to be laughed at; Har- riet, on a similar charge, gave no token of liking or denial, but said quietly that she could not help it, and went on winning, hearts by dozens, prodigal of smiles but chary of love, till Joel came, "pleased her by manners most unlike her own," and gave to her delicate womanly beauty the only charms it wanted — sensibility and consciousness. The manner in which we discovered this new flirtation, which, unlike her others, was concealed with the pretty reserve and mystery that wait on true love, was sufficiently curi- ous. We had noted Joel more frequently than common about the house : sometimes he came for Lizzy ; sometimes to bring news of a cricket-match ; sometimes to ask questions about bats and balls; sometimes to see if his dog l-ianger had followed my May ; sometimes to bring me a nosegay. All this occasioned no suspicion; we were too glad to see Joel to think of inquiring wiiy he came. But when the days shortened, and evening closed in dark and cold before his work was done, and cricket and flowers were over, and May and Lizzy safe in their own warm beds, and poor Joel's excuses fairly at an end ; then it was, that in the after-dinner pause about seven, when the clatter of plates and dishes was over, that the ornithological ear of the master of the house, a dabbler in natural history, was struck by a regular and melodious call, the note, as he averred, of a sky-lark. That a sky-lark should sing in front of our house, at seven o'clock in a December evening, seemed, to say the least, rather startling. But our ornithologist hap- pening to agree with Mr. White, of Selborne, in the opinion, that many more birds sing by night than is commonly supposed, and becom- ing more and more confident of the identity of the note, thought the thing possible; and not being able to discover any previous notice of the fact, had nearly inserted it, as an original observation, in the Naturalist's Calendar, when running out suddenly one moonlight night, to try for a peep at the nocturnal songster, he caught our friend Joel, whose accomplishments in this line we had never dreamt of, in the act of whistling a summons to his lady-love. For some weeks our demure coquette list- ened to none but this bird-like wooing; partly from pride in the conquest; partly from real preference ; and partly, I believe, from a lurk- ing consciousness that Joel was by no means a lover to be trifled with. Lideed he used to threaten, between jest and earnest, a ducking in the goose-pond opposite, to whoever should presume to approach his fair intended ; and the waters being high and muddy, and he at all points a formidable rival, most of her for- mer admirers were content to stay away. At last, however, she relapsed into her old sin of listening. A neighbouring farmer gave a ball in his barn, to which both our lovers were in- vited and went. Now Harriet loves dancing, and Joel, though arrayed in a new jacket, and thin cricketing pumps, would not dance; he said he could not, but that, as Harriet ob- serves, is incredible. I agree with her that the gentleman was too fine. He chose to stand and look on, and laugh, and make laugh, the whole evening. Li the meantime his fair betrothed picked up a new partner, and a new beau, in the shape of a freshly-arrived carpen- ter, a grand martial-looking figure, as tall as a grenadier, who was recently engaged as foreman to our civil wheeler, and who, even if he had heard of the denunciation, was of a size and spirit to set Joel and the goose-pond at defiance, — David might as well have at- tempted to goose-pond Goliath ! He danced the whole evening with his pretty partner, and afterwards saw her home; all of which Joel bore with great philosophy. But the next night he came again ; and Joel approach- inor to give his own sky-lark signal, was star- tled at seeing another lover leaning over the wicket, and his faithless mistress standing at the half-open door, listening to the tall car- penter, just as complacently as she was wont to do to himself. He passed on without speak- ing, turned down the little lane that leads to Dame Wheeler's cottage, and in less than two minutes Harriet heard the love-call sounded at Sally's gate. The effect was instantane- ous ; she discarded the tall carpenter at once 54 OUR VILLAGE and for ever, locked and bolted the door, and sat down to work or to cry in the kitchen. She did not cry long. The next night we again heard the note of the sky-lark louder and more brilliant than ever, echoing across our court, and the lovers, the better friends for their little quarrel, have been as constant ap turtle-doves ever since. WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. THE HARD STJMMER. August 15th. — 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 JupHer Phivius of England, the watery St, Swithin ; peering at that scarce personage the sun, when he happens to make his appear- ance, as intently as astronomers look after a comet, or the common people stare at a bal- loon ; 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 every body complains of it; and yet in my mind it has its advantages, or at least its compensations, as every thing in nature has, if we would only take the trou- ble to seek for them. Last year in spite of the love which we are now pleased to profess tosvards that ardent luminary, not one of the sun's numerous ad- mirers 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 dreaminess, 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, em- bowered in leafiness, letting thought and fancy float as they would. Those day-dreams were pretty things in their way ; there is no deny- ing tliat. 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 exer- tion, which I performed in that warm weather, was watering my flowers.- Common sympa- thy called for that labour. The poor things withered, and faded, and pined away; they almost, so to say, panted for drought. More- over, if I had not watered them myself, I sus- pect 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 exhausted ; our deep ponds were dwin- dling into mud; and geese, and ducks, "and pigs, and laundresses, used to look with a jealous and suspicious eye on the few and scanty half-buckets of that impure element, which my trusty lacquey was fain to filch for my poor geraniums and campanulas and tube- roses. 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 sunset we became cool enough to creep into it! Flowers in the court looked fit for a hortiis siccus; mummies of plants, dried as in an oven; hollyhocks, once pink, turned into Quakers; cloves smelling of dust. Oh dusty world ! May herself looked of that com- plexion ; 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 im- pudence 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, ciinibing witli 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 tlie road, — the bottomless middle, — w'hat a sandy whirlwind it was! What choking! what suflTocation ! No state could be more pitiable, except in- deed that of the travellers who carried 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 passen- gers, all one dust. The outsides and the horses and the coachman, seemed reduced to a torpid quietness, the resignation of despair. They had left off trying to better their condi- tion, and taken refuge in a wise and patient hopelessness, bent to endure in silence the ex- tremity of ill. The six insides, on the con- trary, were still fighting against their fate, vainly struggling to ameliorate their hapless destiny. They were visibly grumbling at the weather, scolding, the dust, and heating them- selves like a furnace, b}^ striving against the heat. How well I remember the fat gentle- man wiihout 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 lan- guage best known on the continent. And that poor boy, red-hot, all in a flame, whose mam- ma, having divested her own person of all su- THE HARD SUMMER. 55 perfluons ap|)arel, was tryinor to relieve his sufFerinofs by the removal of his neck-kerchief — an operation which he resisted with all his miirht. How perfectly I remember him, as well as the pale girl who sate opposite fanning herself with her bonnet into an absolute fever ! They vanished after a while in their own dust; but I have them all before my eyes at this mo- ment, a companion-picture to Hogarth's After- noon, a standing lesson to the grumblers at cold summers. For my part I really like this wet season. It keeps us witliin, to be sure, rether 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. — Every thing does well, except those fastidious bipeds, men and women ; corn ripens, grass grows, fruit is plentiful ; there is no lack of birds to eat it, and there has not been such a wasp-season these dozen years. My garden wants no watering, and is more beautiful than ever, beating my old rival in that primitive art, the pretty wife of the lit- tle mason, out and out. Measured with mine, her flowers are nought. Look at those holly- hocks, like pyramids of roses; those garlands of the convolvulus major of all colours, hang- ing around that tall pole, like the wreathy hop- vine ; those magnificent dusky cloves, breath- ing of the Spice Islands; those flaunting double dahlias ; those splendid scarlet geran- iums, add those fierce and warlike flowers the tiger-lilies. Oh how beautiful they are ! Be- sides, 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 lightl)^ 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: 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 hap- piness, 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 re- signation ; and, considering the many lies of which they are the objects, they tell wonder- fully few in return. The worst that can be said of them is, tliat they seldom, when grown to man's estate keep the promise of their boy- hood; but that is a fault to come — a fault that may not come, and ought not to he anticipated. It is astonishing how sensible they are to no- tice from their betters, or those whom they 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 insure their hearts and their se vices. Half a dozen of them, ])oor 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 every thing there. Have you been in yet, .Toel" — " No, ma'am ! I go in next." — " Ah, I am glad of tliat — and now 's the time. Real- ly, 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 grey- hound, or a deer, the fastest creature that runs — the most completely alert and active. Joe is mine especial friend and leader of the " ten- der juveniles," as Joel Brent is of the adults. In both instances ti.is post of honour was gained by merit, even more remarkably so in Joe's case than in Joel's ; for Joe is a less boy than many of his (;ompanions, (some of whom are fifteeners and sixteeners, quite as tall and nearly as old as Tom Coper) and poorer than all, as may be conjectured from the lamenta- ble state of that patched round frock, and the ragged condition of those unpatched shoes, which would encumber, if any thing could, the light feet that wear them. But why should I lament the poverty that never troubles him 1 Joe is the merriest and happiest creature that ever lived twelve years in this wicked world. Care cannot come near him. He hath a per- petual 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 in- telligence and good-humour, that he has the honour of performing all the errands of the house, or helping the maid, and 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 fielding 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 be- ing 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. Nevertheless, in the best-ordered states there will be grumblers, and we have an ojjpositiou here in the shape of Jem Kusden. Jem Eusden is a stunted lad of thirteen, or 56 OUR VILLAGE thereabout, lean, small, and short, yet strong and active. His face is of an extraordinary ug-liness, colourless, withered, hacrgard, with a look of extreme ag-e, much increased by hair so liijht that it miojht rather pass for white than flaxen. He is constantly arrayed in the blue cap and old-fashioned coat, the costume of an endowed school to which he belonsrs ; where he sits still all day, and rushes into the field at night, fresh, untired, and ripe for ac- tion, to scold, and brawl, and storm, and blus- ter. He hates Joe Kirby, wiiose immoveable pood-humour, broad smiles, and knowing nods, must certainly be very provokinof to so fierce and turbulent a spirit; and he has himself (beincf, except by rare accident, no great play- er,) 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 voca- tion, — a strong voice, a fluent utterance, an in- cessant iteration, and a frontless impudence. He is a great " scholar," too, to use the coun- try phrase ; his " piece," as our village school- master 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 histor)' 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 ad- miration of the school but of the parish, and is sent triumphantly around from house to house at Christmas, to extort halfpence and sixpences from all encouragers of learning — Montcm 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 com- pared with the general poverty, a most unna- tural preponderance in the cricket state. He had the ways and means in his hands — (for alas! the bard winter had made sad havoc among the bats, and the best ball was a bad one) — he bad the ways and means, could witlihold the supplies, and his party was be- ginning to wax strong, when Joe received a present of two bats and a ball for the young- sters in general, and himself in particular — and Jem's adherents left him on the spot — they ratted, to a man, that very evening. Not- withstanding this desertion, their forsaken leader has in nothing relaxed from his preten- sions, 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 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 never deigned to use one of Joe's) 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 huzzar — I do not know his name, and call him after his cap and jacket. He is a very remarkable person, about the age of eiglit years, the youngest piece of gravity and dignity I ever encountered; short, and square, and upright, and slow, with a fine bronzed flat visage, resembling those converti- ble signs the Broad-Face and the Saracen's Head, which, happening to he next-door neigh- bours in the town of B., I never know apart, resembling, indeed, any face that is open-eyed and immoveable, the very sign of a boy ! He stalks about with his hands in his breeches pocket, like a piece of machinery ; sits leisure- ly 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 maybe partly the reason of a circumstance that I re- cord 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 that lo- quacious leader talks enough for two. He is the only thing resembling 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 discrimina- tion of the innocent from the guilty, the ac- tivity 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 colour- ing 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 late 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 Mrs. Welles's cottage, and our path lies straight before us. How snug and comfortable that cottage looks! Its little yard all alive with the cow, and the mare, and the colt almost as large as the mare, and the young foal, and the great yard-dog all so fat ! Fenced in with hay-rick, and wheat- rick, and bean-stack, and backed by "the long garden, the spacious dryinj-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 THE TALKING GENTLEMAN. 57 tilling^ other people's ; — affording; a proof, even in this declininor -Age, when the circumstances of so many worthy members of the community seem to have "an alacrity in siniiing:," that it is possible to amend them by sheer industry. He, who was born in the workhouse, and bred up as a parish boy, has now, by mere manual labour, risen to the rank of a land-owner, pays rates and taxes, s^rumbles at the times, and is called Master Welles, — the title next to Mister — that by which Shakspeare was called; — what would man have more? His wife, be- sides being the best laundress in the county, is a comely woman still. There she stands at the spriiior, dipping up water for to-morrow, — the clear, deep, silent springr, which sleeps so peacefully under its high tlowery bank, red with the tall spiral stalks of the foxglove and their rich pendent bells, blue with the beauti- ful fortret-me-not, that gem-like blossom, which looks like a living jewel of turfjuoise 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 re- mains. Ah, but we shall have the fairies' lamps to guide us, the stars of the earth, the glow-worms ! Here they are, three almost to- gether. Do you not see them 1 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. i3ut this lane is quite deserted. It is only a road from field to field. No one comes here at this hour. They are quite safe ; and I shall walk here to-morrow and visit them again. And now, good night! beautiful insects, lamps of the fairies, good night ! THE TALKING GENTLEMAN. Thk lords of the creation, who are generally (to do. them justice) tenacious enough of their distinctive and peculiar faculties and powers, have yet by common consent made over to the females the single gift of loquacity. Every man thinks and says that every woman talks more than he : it is the creed of the whole sex, — the debates and law reports notwith- standing. And every masculine eye that has scanned my title has already, I doubt not, looked to the errata, suspecting a mistake in the gender ; but it is their misconception, not my mistake. I do not (Heaven forbid !) in- tend to impugn or abrogate our female privi- lege ; I do not dispute that we do excel, ge- nerally speaking, in the use of the tongue; H I only mean to assert that one gentleman does exist, (whom I have the pleasure of knowing intimately,) who stands pre-eminent and un- rivalled in the art of talking, — unmatched and unapproached by man, woman, or child. Since the decease of my poor friend " the Talking Lad}''," who dropped down speechless in the midst of a long story about nine weeks ago, and was immediately known to be dead by her silence, I should be at a loss where to seek a competitor to contend with him in a race of words, and I should be still more puzzled to find one that can match him in wit, pleasantry, or good-humour. My friend is usually called Harry L., for, though a man of substance, a lord of land, a magistrate, a field officer of militia, nobody ever dreamed of calling him Mister or major, or by any such derogatory title — he is and will be all his life plain Harry, the name of uni- versal good-will. He is indeed the pleasantest fellow that lives. His talk (one can hardly call it conversation, as that would seem to im- ply another interlocutor, something like reci- procity) is an incessant flow of good thino-s, like Congreve's comedies without a re[)!ying speaker, or Joe Miller laid into one; and its perpetual stream is not lost and dispersed by diffusion, but runs in one constant channel, playing and sparkling like a fountain, the de- light and ornament of our good town of B. Harry L. is a perfect example of provincial reputation, of local fame. There is not an urchin in the town that has not heard of him, nor an old woman that does not chuckle by anticipation at his approach. The citizens of C. are as proud of him as the citizens of Ant- werp were of the Chapeau de Faille, and they have the advantage of the luckless Flem.ings in the certainty that their boast is not to be purchased. Harry, like the Flemish Beauty, is native to the spot; for he was born at B., educated at B., married at B., — though, as his beautiful wife brought him a good estate in a distant part of the country, there seemed at that epoch of his history some danger of his being lost to our ancient borough ; but he is a social and gregarious animal ; so he leaves his pretty place in Devonshire to take care of itself, and lives hero in the midst of a hive. His tastes are not at all rural. He is no sportsman, no farmer, no lover of strong ex- ercise. When at B., his walks are quite re- gular; from his own house, on one side of the town, to a gossip-shop called " literary" on the other, where he talks and reads newspa- pers, and others read newspapers and listen : thence he proceeds to another house of news, similar in kind, though differing in name, in an opposite quarter, where he and his hearers undergo the same process, and then he returns home, formings a pretty exact triangle of about half a mile. This is his daily exercise, or rather his daily walk; of exercise he takes abundance, not only in talking, (though that 58 OUR VILLAGE, is nearly as good lo open the chest as the dumb-bells,) but in a tjeneral restlessness and fidgetiness of person, the result o£ his ardent and nervous temperament, which can hardly endure repose of mind or body. He neither gives rest nor takes it. His company is, in- deed, in one sense (only one) fatiguing. Lis- tening to him tires you like a journey. You laugh till you are forced to lie down. The medical gentlemen of the place are aware of this, and are accustomed to exhort delicate patients to abstain from Harry's society, just as they caution them against temptations in point of amusement or of diet — pleasant but dangerous. Choleric gentlemen should al- ways avoid him, and such as love to have the last word ; for, though never provoked him- self, I cannot deny that he is occasionally tolerably provoking, — in politics especially — (and he is an ultra-liberal, quotes Cobbett, and goes rather too far) — in politics he loves to put his antagonist in a fume, and generally succeeds, though it is nearly the only subject on which he ever listens to an answer — chiefly I believe for the sake of a reply, which is commonly some trenchant repartee, that cuts off the poor answer's head like a razor. Very determined speakers would also do well to eschew his company — though in general I never met with any t-alker to whom other talkers were so ready to give way ; perhaps because he keeps them in such incessant laughter, that they are not conscious of their silence. To himself the number of his listeners is altogether unimportant. His speech flows not from vanity or lust of praise, but from sheer necessity ; — the reservoir is full, and runs over. When he has no one else to talk to, he can be content with his own company, and talks to himself, being beyond a doubt greater in soli- loquy than any man off tlie stage. Where he is not kno\\n, this habit sometimes occasions considerable consternation, and very ridiculous mistakes. He has been taken alternately for an actor, a poet, a man in love, and a man be- side himself. Once in particular, at Windsor, he greatly alarmed a philanthropic sentinel, by holding forth at his usual rate whilst pacing the terrace alone; and but for the op- portune arrival of his party, and their assur- ances that it was only " the gentleman's way," there was some danger that the benevolent soldier might have been tempted to desert his post to take care of him. Even after this ex- planation, he gazed with a doubtful eye at our friend, who was haranguing himself in great style, sighed and shook his head, and finally implored us to look well after him till he should be safe off the terrace. — " You see, ma'am," observed the philanthropist in scar- let, " it is an awkward place for any body troubled with vagaries. Suppose the poor soul should take a fancy to jump over the wall 1" In his externals he is a well-look ino- crentle- man of forty, or thereabout ; rather thin and rather pale, but with no appearance of ill- health, or any other peculiarity, except the re- markable circumstance of the lashes of one eye being white, wliich gives a singular non- resemblance to his organs of vision. Every one perceives the want of uniformity, and few detect the cause. Some suspect him of what farriers call a wall-eye ; some think he squints. He himself talks familiarly of his two eyes, the black and the white, and used to liken them to those of our fine Persian cat, (now, alas ! no more,) who had, in common with his feline countrymen, one blue as a sapphire, the other yellow as a topaz. The dissimilarity certainly rather spoils his beauty, but greatly improves his wit, — I mean the sense of his wit in others. It arrests attention and predis- poses to laughter ; is an outward and visible sign of the comical. No common man has two such eyes. They are made for fun. In his occupations and pleasures Harry is pretty much like other provincial gentlemen; loves a rubber, and jests all through, at aces, kings, queens, and knaves, bad cards, and good, at winning and losing, scolding and praise; — loves a play, at which he out-talks the actors whilst on the stage, — to say nothing of the advantage he has over them in the in- tervals between the acts ; — loves music, as a good accompaniment to his grand solo ; — loves a contested election above all. That is his real element, — that din and uproar, and riot and confusion ! To ride that whirlwind and direct that storm is his triumph of triumphs! He would make a great sensation in parlia- ment himself, and a pleasant one. (By the way, he was once in danger of being turned out of the gallery for setting all around him in a roar.) Think what a fine thing it would be for the members to have mirth introduced into the body of the house ! to be sure of an honest, hearty, good-hurnoured laugh during the session ! Besides, Harry is an admirable speaker, in every sense of the word. .Testing is indeed his forte, because he wills it so to be ; and therefore, because he chooses to play jigs and country dances upon a noble organ, even some of his stanchest admirers think he can play nothing else. There is no quality of which men so nmch grudge the reputation as versatility of talent. Because he is so hu- morous, they will hardly allow him to be elo- quent ; and, because he is so very witty, find it difficult to account him wise. But let him go where he has not that mischievous fame, or let him bridle his jests and rein in his hu- mour only for one short hour, and he will pass for a most reverend orator, — logical, pathetic, and vigorous above all. But hov/ can I wish him to cease jesting even for an hour f Who would exchange the genial fame of good-hu- moured wit for the stern reputation of wisdoml Who would choose to be Socrates, if with a wish he could be Harry h.l MRS. MOSSE. 59 MRS. MOSSE. I DO not know whether I ever hinted to the courteous reader that I had heen in my younjSfer days, without prejudice to my present condi- tion, somewhat of a spoiled child. The person who, next after my father and mother, contri- buted most materially to this melancholy ca- tastrophe, was an old female domestic, Mrs. Elizabeth Mosse, who, at the time of her death, had lived nearly sixty years in our iiouse and that of my maternal grandfather. Of course, duringr the latter part of this long^ period, the common forms and feelings of ser- vant and master were entirely swept away. She was a member of the family, an humble friend — happy are they who have such a friend ! — livintr as she liked, up stairs or down, in the kitchen or the nursery, considered, consulted, and beloved by the whole household. Mossy (for by that fondling nursery name she best liked to be called) had never been married, so that the family of her master and mistress had no rival in her heart, and on me, their only child, was concentrated that inten- sity of affection which distinoruishes the at- tachments of agfe. I loved her dearly too, as dearly as a spoiled child can love its prime spoiler, — but, oh ! how selfish was my love, com{)ared to the depth, the purity, the indul- g-ence, the self-denial of hers ! Dear Mossy! I shall never do her justice; and yet I must try. Mrs. Mosse, in her appearance, was in the highest degree what is called respectable. She must have been tall when young; for even when bent with age, she was above the middle height, a large-made though meagre woman. She walked with feebleness and dif- ficulty, from the attacks of hereditary gout, which not even her temperance and activity could ward off. There was something very interesting in this tottering helplessness, cling- ing to the balusters, or holding by doors and chairs like a child. It had nothing of vulgar lameness; it told of age, venerable age. Out of doors she never ventured, unless on some sunny afternoon I could entice her into the air, and then once roimd the garden, or to the lawn gate and back again, was the extent of her walk, propped by a very aristocratic walking- stick (once the property of a duchess) as tall as herself, with a hooked ivory handle, joined to the cane b}' a rim of gold. Her face was as venerable as her person. She must have been very handsome; indeed she was so still, as far as regular and delicate features, a pale ijrown complexion, dark eyes, still retaining the intelligence and animation of youth, and an expression perfectly gentle and feminine, could make her so. It is one of the worst penalties that woman pays to age, that often, when advanced in life, the face loses its cha- racteristic softness ; in short, but for the dif- ference in dress, many an old woman's head might pass f"or that of an old man. This mis- fortune could never have happened to Mossy. No one could mistake the sex of that sweet countenance. Her dress manifested a good deal of lauda- ble coquetry, a' nice and minute attention to the becoming. I do not know at what precise date her costume was fixed : but, as long as I remember her fixed it was, and stood as inva- riably at one point of fashion, as the hand of an unwound clock stands at one hour of the day. It consisted (to begin from the feet and describe upwards) of black shoes of shining stuff, with very pointed toes, high heels, and a peak up the instep, showing to advantage her delicately white cotton stockings, and peeping beneath petticoats so numerous and substantial, as to give a rotundity and projec- tion almost equal to a hoop. Her exterior gar- ment was always quilted, varying according to the season or the occasion, from simple stuff, or fine white dimity, or an obsolete manufac- ture called Marseilles, up to silk and satin ; — for, as the wardrobes of my tiiree grandmo- thers (pshaw! I mean my grandfather's three wives !) had fallen to her lot, few gentlewomen of the last century could boast a greater vari- ety of silks that stood on end. — Over the quilted petticoat came an open gown, whose long waist reached to the bottom of her stiff stays, and whose very full tail, about six inches longer than the petticoat, would have formed a very inconvenient little train, if it had been permitted to hang down ; but that inconve- nience never happened, and could scarcely have been contemplated by the designer. The tail was constantly looped up, so as to hang behind in a sort of bunchy festoon, exhibiting on each side the afores'aid petticoat. In mate- rial the gown also varied with the occasion, although it was always either con.posed of dark cotton or of the rich silks and satins of my grandmamma's wardrobe. The sleeves came down just below the elbow, and wen finished by a narrow white ruffle meeting hei neat mittens. On her neck she wore a snow white double muslin kerchief, pinned over the gown in front, and confined by an apron also of muslin ; and, over all, a handsome silk shawl, so pinned back as to show a part of the snowy neck-kerchief. Her head-dress was ecjuaily becoming, and more particularly pre- cise; for, if ever she betrayed an atom of old- maidishness, it was on the score of her caps. From a touch of the gout in her hands which had enlarged and stiffened the joints, she could do no work which required nicety, and the successive lady's maids, on whom the opera- tion devolved, used to say that they would ra- ther make up ten caps for their mistress than one for Mrs. Mosse ; and yet the construction seemed simple enough. A fine clear-starched caul, sticking up rather high and peaked in front, was plaited on a Scotch gauze liead{)ieco; 60 OUR VILLAGE (I remember there used to be exactly six plaits on each side — woe to the damsel who should put more or less !) and, on the other side, a border, consisting of a strip of fine muslin, edged with narrow lace, clear-starched and crimped, was plaited on with equal precision. In one part of this millinery 1 used to assist. I dearly loved to crimp Mossy's frills, and she with hor usual indulgence used frequently to let me, keeping however a pretty close eye on her laces and muslins, whilst I was passing them with triumphant rapidity between the small wooden machine notched longitudinally, and the corresponding roller. Perhaps a great- er proof of indulgence could hardly have been shown, since she must, during this operation, have been in double fear for her own cap strips, which did occasionally get a rent, and for my fingers, which were sometimes well pinched — then she would threaten that 1 should never crimp her muslin again — a never which seldom lasted beyond the next cap-making. The head- piece was then concealed by a satin riband fastened in a peculiar bow, sometliitig between a bow and a puffing behind, whilst the front was adorned with an equally peculiar small knot, of which the two bows were pinned down flat and the two ends left sticking up, cut into scallops of a prodigious regularity. The purchase of the ribands formed another branch of the cap-making department to which 1 laid claim. From the earliest period at which I could distinguish one colour from another, I had been purveyor of ribands to Mossy, and indeed at all fairs, or whenever I received a present or entered a shop, (and I was so liber- ally supplied that there was nothing like gen- erosity in the case,) it was the first and plea- santest destination of money that occurred to me: so that the dear woman used to complain, that Miss bought her so many ribands, that they spoiled in kee|)ing. We did not quite agree either in our taste. White, as both ac- knowledged, was the only wear for Sundays and holidays; but then she loved plain white, and I could not always control a certain wan- dering inclination for figured patterns and pearl edges. If Mossy had an aversion to any thing, it was to a pearl edge. I never could persuade her to wear that simple piece of finery but once ; and then she made as many wry faces as a child eating olives, and stood before a glass eyeing the obnoxious riband with so much discomposure, that I was fain to take it out myself, and promise to buy no more pearl edges. The every-day ribands were coloured ; and there, too, we had our little differences of tasto and opinion. Both agreed in the propri- ety of grave colours ; but then my reading of a grave colour was not always the same as hers. My eyes were not old enough. She used to accuse my French greys of blueness, and my crimsons of redness, and my greens of their greenness. She had a 'penchant for brown, and to brown I had a repugnance only to be equalled by that which she professed to- wards a pearl edge ; — indeed I retain my dis- like to this hour; — it is such an exceedingly cross and frumpish-looking colour — and then its ugliness! Show me a brown flower ! No! I could not bring myself to buy brown; — so after fighting many battles about grey and green, we at last settled on purple as a sort of neutral tint, a hue which pleased both par- ties. To return to the cap which we have been so long making — the finish both to that and to my description was a strip of crimped muslin, with edging on both sides to match the border, quilled on a piece of tape, and fast- ened on a cap at each ear. This she called the chinnum. A straight short row of hair rather grey, but still very dark for her age, just appeared under the plaited lace; and a pair of silver-mounted spectacles completed her equipment. If I live to the age of seven- ty, I will dress so too, with an exception of the stiff stays. Only a waist native to the fashion could endure that whalebone armour. Her employments were many and various. No v'ork was required of her from her mis- tress ; but idleness was misery to her habits of active usefulness, and it was astonishing how much those crippled fingers could do. She preferred coarse needle-work, as it was least difficult to her eyes and hands; and she attended also to those numerous and undefined avocations of a gentleman's family which come under the denomination of odd jobs — shelling peas, paring apples, splitting French beans, washing china, darning stockings, hemming and mending dusters and house-cloths, mak- ing cabbage-nets, and knitting garters. These were her daily avocations, the amusements which she loved. The only more delicate operation of needle-work that she ever under- took was the making of pincushions, a manu- facture in which she delighted — not the quips and quiddities of these degenerate days, little bits of riband, and pasteboard, and gilt paper, in the shape of books or butterflies, by which, at charitable repositories, half-a-dozen pins are smuggled into a lady's pocket, and shillings and half-crowns are smuggled out; — no! Mossy's were real solid old-fashioned silken pincushions, such as Autolycus might have carried about amongst his pedlery-ware, square and roomy, and capable, at a moderate com- putation, of containing a whole paper o[ sfiorl- iv/u'les, and another of nnddlings. It. was de- lightful to observe her enjoyment of this play- work ; the conscious importance with which she produced her satins and brocades, and her cards of sewing silks (she generally inade a whole batch at once) — the deliberation with which she assorted the colours; — the care with which she tacked and fitted side to side, and corner to corner ; — the earnestness with which, when all was sewed up except one small aperture for the insertion of the stuf- fing, she would pour in the bran, or stow in MRS. MOSSE. 61 the wool : — then the care with which she poked the stuffing into every separate corner, ramminor it down with all her strength, and making- the little bag (so to say) hold more than it would hold, until it became almost as hard as -^ cricket-ball; — then how she drew the aperture together by main force, putting so many last stitches, fastening off with such care; — and then distributing them to all around her (for her lady-like spirit would have scorned the idea -of selling them), and always reserv- ing the gayest and the prettiest for me. Dear old soul ! I have several of them still. But, if I should begin to enumerate all the instances of kindness which I experienced at her hands, through the changes and varieties of troublesome childhood and fantasti&youth ; from the time when I was a puling baby, to the still more exacting state of a young girl at home in the holidays, I should never know when to end. Her sweet and loving temper was self-rewarded. She enjoyed the happi- ness she gave. Those were pleasant evenings when my father and mother were engaged in the Christmas-dinner visits of a gay and ex- tensive neighbourhood, and Mrs. Mosse used to put on her handsomest shawl and her kind- est smile, and totter up stairs to drink tea with me, and keep me company. From those even- ings I imbibed, in the first place, a love of strong green tea, for which gentlewomanly excitation Mossy had a remarkable predilec- tion ; second!)', a very discreditable and unla- dylike partiality, of which I am quite ashamed, which I keep a secret from my most intimate friends, and wou_d not mention for the world — a sort of sneaking kindness for her favourite game of cribbage; an old-fashioned vulgarity, which, in my mind, beats the genteeler pas- times of whist and picquet, and every game, except quadrille, out and out. I make no ex- ception in favour of chess, because, thanks to m)r stupidity, I never could learn that recon- dite diversion ; moreover, judging from the grave faces and fitiguing silence of the initi- ated, I cannot help suspecting that, board for board, we cribbage-players are as well amused as they. Dear Mossy could neither feel to deal and shutlle, nor see to peg; so that the greater part of the business fell to my share. The success was pretty equally divided. Three rubbers were our stint ; and we were often game and game in the last before victory de- clared itself. She was very anxious to beat, certainly — (N. B. we never played for any thing) — she liked to win ; and yet she did not quite like that I should lose. If we could both have won — if it had been four-handed cribbage, and she my partner — still there would have been somebody to be beaten and pitied, but then that somebody would not have been " Miss." The cribbage hour was pleasant ; but I think the hours of chat which preceded and followed it were pleasanter still. Mossy was a most agreeable companion, sensible, modest, sim- ple, shrewd, with an exactness of recollection, an honesty of memory, that gave exceeding interest to her stories. You were sure that ! you heard the truth. There was one striking peculiarity in her manner of talking, or rather one striking contrast. The voice and accent were quite those of a gentlewoman, as sweet- toned and correct as could be; the words and their arrangement were altogether those of a common person, provincial and ungrammatical in every phrase and combination. I believe it is an effect of association, from the little slips in her grammar, that I have contracted a most unscholar-like prejudice in favour of false syntax, which is so connected in my mind with right notions, that I no sooner catch the sound of bad English than I begin to listen for good sense ; and really they often go toge- ther (always supposing that the bad English be not of the order called slang), and meet much more frequently than those exclusive people, ladies and gentlemen, are willing to allow. In her they were always united. But the charm of her conversation was in the old family stories, and the unconscious peeps at old manners which they afforded. My grandfather, with whom she had lived in his first wife's time, full twenty years be- fore my mother's birth, was a most respectable clergyman, who, after passing a few years in London amongst the wits and poets of the day, seeing the star of Pope in its decline, and that of Johnson in its rise, had retired into the country, where he held two adjoining livings of considerable value, both of which he served for above forty years, until the duty becoming too severe, he resigned one of them under an old-fashioned notion, that he who did the duty ought to receive the remuneration. I am very proud of m}'' venerable ancestor. We have a portrait of him taken shortly after he was or- dained, in his gown and band, with a curious flowing wig, something like that of a judge, fashionable doubtless, at the time, but which at present rather discomposes one's notions of clerical costume. He seems to have been a dark little man, with a sensible countenance, and a pair of black eyes, that even in the pic- ture look you through. He was a votary of the Muses, too; a contributor to Lewis's Mis- cellany ; (did my readers ever hear of that collection'?) translated Horace, as all gentle- men do; and wrote love-verses, which had the unusual good fortune of obtaining their object, being, as Mrs. Mosse was wont to affirm, the chief engine and implement by which at fifty he gained the heart of his third wife, my real grandmamma, the beautiful daughter of a neighbouring 'squire. Of Dr. R., his wives, and his sermons, the bishops who visited, and the poets who wrote to him, Mossy's talk was mainly composed ; chiefly of the wives. Mrs. R., the first, was a fine London lady, 62 OUR VILLAGE. a widow, and considerably older than her spouse, inasmuch as my grandpapa's passion for her commenced when he and her son, by a former husband, were school-fellows at Westminster. Mrs. Mosse never talked much of her, and, I suspect, did not much like her, though, when closely questioned, she would say that madam was a fine, portly lady, stately and personable, but rather too high. Her son made a sad mesalliance. He ran away with the sexton's daughter, an adven- ture which cost the sexton his post, and his mother her pride : she never looked up after it. That disgrace, and a cold caught by bump- ing on a pillion six miles through the rain, sent her to her grave. Of the second Mrs. R. little remains on record, except a gown and petticoat of prim- rose silk, curiously embossed and embroidered with gold and silver thread and silks of all colours, in an enormous running pattern of staring flowers, wonderfully unlike nature ; also various recipes in the family receipt- book, which show a delicate Italian hand, and a bold originality of orthography. The chief event of her married life appears to have been the small-pox. She and two of her sisters, and Mrs. Mosse, were all inoculated together. The other servants, who had not gone through the disorder, were sent out of the house: Dr. R. himself took refuge with a neighbouring friend, and the patients were consigned to the care of two or three nurses, gossips by profes- sion, hired from the next town. The best parlour, (in those days drawing-rooms were not,) was turned into a hospital ; a quarantine, almost as strict as would be required in the plague, was kept up, and the preparation, the disease, and the recovery, consumed nearly two months. Mrs. Mosse always spoke of it as one of the pleasantest passages of her life. None of them suffered much ; there was no- thing to do, plenty of gossiping; a sense of self-importance, such as all prisoners must feel more or less; and for amusement they had Pamela, the Spectator, and Sir Charles Grandison. My grandfather had a very fine library; but Sir Charles was a female book, having been purchased by the joint contri- butions of six young ladies, and circulated amongst them once a year, sojourning two months with each fair partner, till death or marriage broke up the coterie. Is not that famel V7ell, the second Mrs. R. died in the course of time, though not of the small-pox ; and m}' grandfather, faithful to his wives, but not to th(!ir memories, married again as usual. His third adventure in that line was par- ticularly happy; for my grandmother, beside being a celebrated beauty, appears to have been one of the best and kindest women that ever gladdened a country-home. She had a large household ; for the tithes of one rich rec- tory were taken in kind, and the glebe culti- vated ; so that the cares of a farm-house were added to the hospitality of a man of good for- tune, and to the sort of stateliness which in those primitive days appertained to a doctor of divinity. The superintendence of that large household seems to have been at once her duty and her delight. It was a plenty and festivity almost resembling that of Camacho's wed- ding, guided by a wise and liberal economy, and a spirit of indefatigable industry. Oh the saltings, the picklings, the preservings, the cake-makings, the unnamed and unnameable confectionary doings over which she presided ! The very titles of her territories denoted the extent of her stores. The apple-room, the pear-bin, the cheese-loft, the mi need -meat closet, were household words as familiar in Mossy's mouth as the dairy or the poultry- yard. And my grandmamma was no hoarder for hoarding's sake, no maker of good things which Avere not to be eaten — as I have some- times noted amongst your managing ladies ; the object of her cares and stores was to con- tribute to the comfort of all who came within her influence. The large parsonage-house was generally overflowing with guests ; and from the Oxford professor, who, with his wife, chil- dren, servants, and horses, passed his vaca- tions there, to the poor pew-opener, who came with her little ones at tide-times, all felt the charm of her smiling graciousness, her sweet and cheerful spirit, her open hand and open heart. It is difficult to imagine a happier couple than my venerable grandfather and his charming wife. He retained to the last his studious habits, his love of literature, and his strong and warm family aff'ections ; while she cast the sunshine of her innocent gaiety over his respectable age, proud of his scholarship, and prouder still of his virtues. Both died long ago. But Mossy was an "honest chro- nicler," and never weary of her theme. Even the daily airings of the good doctor (who, in spite of his three wives, had a little of the pe- culiar preciseness in his studies and his exer- cise, which one is apt to attribute exclusively to that dreary person, an old bachelor) even those airings from twelve to two, four miles on the turnpike-road, and four miles back, with the fat horses and the grey-haired coach- man, became vivid and characteristic in her description. The very carriage-dog, Sancho, was individualized ; we felt that he belonged to the people and the time. Of these things we talked, mingled with many miscellaneous anecdotes of the same date; — how an electioneering duke saluted madam, and lost master's interest by the free- dom ; — how Sir Thomas S., the Lovelace of his day, came in his chariot and six, full twenty miles out of his way, to show himself to Miss Fanny in a Spanish masquerade dress, white satin slashed with blue, a blue cloak embroid- ered with silver, and point-lace that might have won any woman's heart, except that of his fair but obdurate mistress ; and lastly, MRS. MOSSE 6a how Henry Fielding, when on a visit in the neighbourhood, had been accustomed to come and swing tlie children in the great barn ; he had even swung Mossy herself, to her no small edification and delight — only think of being chucked backwards and forwards by the man who wrote about Parson Adams and 'Squire Allworthy! I used to envy her that fe- licity. Then from authors we got to books. She could not see in my time to read any thing but the folio Bible, and Common Prayer-Boole, with which my dear mother had furnished her; but in her younger days she had seen or heard parts at least of a variety of books, and enter- ed into them with a very keen though uncriti- cal relish. Her chief favourites were, the Pilgrim's Progress, Don Quixote, Gulliver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe, and the equally apocryphal but still truer-seeming History of the Plague in London, by the same author, all of which she believed with the most earnest simplicity. I used frequently to read to her the passages she liked best ; and she in her turn would repeat to me songs and ballads, good, bad, and indifferent — a strange medley, and strangely confounded in her memory; and so the time passed till ten o'clock. Those were pleasant evenings for her and for me. I have sometimes, on recollection, feared that her down-stair life was less happy. All that the orders of a mistress could effect for her comfort was done. But we were rich then unluckily; and there were skipjacks of foot- men, and surly coachmen, and affected wait- ing-maids, and vixenish cooks, with tempers red-hot like their coals, to vex and tease our dear old woman. She must have suffered greatly between her ardent zeal for her mas- ter's interest, and that strange principle of con- cealing evil doings which servants call ho- nour, and of which she was perpetually the slave and the victim. She had another infirm- ity, too, an impossibility of saying no, which, added to an unbounded generosity of temper, rendered her the easy dupe of the artful and designing. She would give any thing to the appearance of want, or the pretence of affec- tion ; in short, to importunity, however clothed. It was the only point of weakness in her cha- racter; and to watch that she did not throw away her own little comforts, to protect her from the effects of her over-liberality, was the chief care of her mistress. Three inferior ser- vants were successively turned away for tres- passing on Mossy's goodness, drinking her green tea, eating her diet-bread, begging her gowns. But the evil was incurable; she could dispense with any pleasure, except that of giving. So she lived on, beloved as the kind, the gentle, and the generous must be, till 1 left school, an event that gave her great satisfaction. We passed the succeeding spring in Lon- don ; and she took the opportunity to pay a long-promised visit to a half-nephew and niece, or rather a half-niece and her husband, who lived in Prince's-street, Barbican. Mrs. Beck (one naturally mentions her first as the person of most consequence) was the only real wo- man who ever came up to the magnificent ab- stract idea of the "fat woman of Brentford," the onlj' being for whom Sir John Falstaff might have passed undetected. She was in- deed a mountain of Hesh, exuberant, rubicund, and bearded like a man ; and she spoke, in a loud deep mannish voice, a broad Wiltshire dialect; but she was hearty and jovial withal, a thorough good fellow in petticoats. Mr. Beck, on the other hand, was a little insignificant, perking, sharp-featured man, with a Jerry- Sneak expression in his pale whey-face, a thin squeaking voice, and a Cockney accent. He had been lucky enough to keep a little shop in an independent borough, at the time of a violently contested election ; and having adroit- ly kept back his vote till votes rose to their full value (I hope this is no breach of privi- lege,) and then voted on the strongest side, he was at the time of which I speak comfort- abl}'^ settled in the excise as a tide-waiter, had a pretty neat house, brought up his family in good repute, wore a flaming red waistcoat, at- tended a dissenting meeting, and owed no man a shilling. These good people were very fond of their aunt, who had indeed, before they were so well off, shown them innumerable kindnesses. Perhaps there might be in the case a little gra- titude for favours to come; for she had three or four hundred pounds to bequeath, partl3'^her own savings, and partly a legacy frorn a dis- tant relative ; and they were her natural heirs. However that might be, they paid her all pos- sible attention, and when we were about to return into the country, petitioned so vehe- mently for a few weeks more, that, yielding to the above-mentioned infirmity, she consented to stay. I had myself been the ambassadress to Barbican to fetch our dear old friend ; and I remember, as if it were yesterday, how ear- nestly I entreated her to come with me, and how seriously I lectured Mrs. Beck for her selfishness, in wishing to keep her aunt in London during the heat of June. I even, after taking leave, sprang out of the carriage and ran up stairs to persuade her to come with me. Mossy's wishes were evidently on my side; but she had promised, and the perform- ance of her promise was peremptorily claim- ed : so with a heavy heart I left her. I never saw her again. There is surely such a thing as presentiment. A violent a.ttack of gout in the stomach carried her off in a few hours. Hail to thy memory ! for thou wast of the an- tique world, when " service sweat for duty, not for meed !" 64 OUR VILLAGE, WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. NUTTING. September 2Gth. — One of those delicious autumnal days, when the air, the sky, and the earth, seem lulled into an universal calm, softer and milder even than May. We sallied forth for a walk, in a mood congenial to the wea- ther and the season, avoiding, by mutual con- sent, the bright and sunny common, and the gay high road, and stealing through shady un- frequented lanes, where we were not likely to meet any one, — not even the pretty Aimily pro- cession, which in other years we used to con- template with so much interest — the father, mother, and cinldren, returning from the wheat field, the little ones laden with bristling close- tied bunches of wheat-ears, their own glean- ings, or a bottle and a basket which had con- tained 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; 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 beau- tiful, how gentle, how harmonious, how rich ! The rain has preserved to the herbage all the freshness and verdure of spring, and the world of leaves has lost nothing of its midsummer brightness, and the harebell is on the banks and the woodt)ine 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 ; per- haps 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 di- vided. Uphill or down, these quiet woody lanes scarcely give us a peep at the world, except when, leaning over a gate, we look in- to one of the small enclosures, hemmed in with hedo-erows, so closely set with growing tim- ber, 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 cross-ways, 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 descrip- tion given of La Vendee, in Madame Laroche- jacquelia's most interesting book.* I am sure * An almost equally interesting account of that very peculiar and interesting scenery, may be found in "The Maid of La Vendee," an F.iijilish novel, re- markable fc>r its simplicity and truth of painting, written by IMrs. Le JNoir, the daughter of Cliristoplier Smart, and inheritrix of much of his talent. Her works deserve to be belter known. if wood can entitle a country to be called Le Bocage, none can have a better right to the name. Even this ])retty snug farm-house on the hill-side, with its front covered with the rich vine, which goes w-reathing 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 harvest. Look at that young rogue in the old rnossy apple-tree — that great tree, bending with the weitrht 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 outstretched 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,! 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 russet- ing; 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 (Heaven knows how I) 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 top-mast. 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 1 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 complexion, richly brown, with cheeks and lips so deeply red, black hair curling close to their heads in short crisp rings, white shining teeth — and such eyes I — That sort of beauty entirely eclipses your mejre roses and lilies. Even Lizzy, the prettiest of fair children, would look poor and watery by the side of Willy Brooker, the sober liule per- sonage 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 without see- t " Deedily," — T am not quite sure that this word is good Knglish; but it is genuine Hampshire, and is used by the most correct of female wniers, Miss Ausien. It means (and it is no small merit that it has no exact synonymo) any thing done with a protbund and [iloddiiig attention, an action which engrosses all the powers ot mind and body. WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. 65 ing; 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 peep-hole. " Willy !" The voice sounds to him like some fiiry dream, and the black eyes are raised from the ground with sudden won- der, the long silky eye-lashes thrown back till they rest on the delicate brow, and a deeper blush is burning in those dark cheeks, and a smile is dimpling about those scarlet lips. But the voice is silent now, and the little quiet boy, after a moment's pause, is gone coolly to work again. He is indeed a most lovely child. I 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 co- quettish as if ten winters more had gone over her head, and poor Willy would open his in- nocent black eyes, and wonder what was go- ing 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 wel- come, — the very robin-red-breast 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 un- der the hedge all along the hill side, begins, now that we have mounted the eminence and are imperceptibly descending, to deviate into a capricious variety of 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 briar 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 cop- pice, 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 over- hanging the water. " Ah there are still nuts j on that bough !" and in an instant my dear I companion, active and eager and delighted as i a boy, has hooked down with his walking-! stick one of the lissome hazel stalks, and i cleared it of its tawny clusters, and in another j moment he has mounted the bank, and is in j the midst of the nuttery, now transferring the j spoil from the lower branches into that vast i 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 my- self. 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 be- tran ffatherinsT and scramblincr — 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 ant- all our glee. Oh what an 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 violeting, — there- fore, 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 hedge-row nutting beats that sport all to nothing. That was a make-believe thing compared with this; there was no sur- prise, no suspense, no unexpectedness — it was as inferior to this wildnutting, as the turning out of a bag fox is to unearthing the fellow in the eyes of a staunch foxhunter. Oh what an enjoyment this nut-gathering is I — 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 coun- try 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 mo- tion. 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 beautifully her folded ears quiver with expectation, and how her quick eye follows the rustling noise, and her light feet dance and pat the ground, and leap up with -^agerness, seeming almost sustained in the air, just as I have seen her when Brush is beating a hedge- row, and she knows from his questing that there is a hare afoot. See, she has caught that nut just before it touched the water ; but 6* I 66 OUR VILLAGE. 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 hegforingly she looks at that! "Oh what a pleasure nuttin^ is! — Is it not, May 1 But the pockets are almost full, and so is the basket-bonnet, and that brifrht watch the sun says it is late ; and after all it is wrong to rob the poor boys — is it not, Mayl" May shakes her graceful head denyingly, as if she understood the question. — "And we must go home now — must we not 1 But we will come nutting again some time or other — shall we not, my May 1" AUNT MARTHA. One of the pleasantest habitations I have ever known is an old white house, built at right anglps, with the pointed roofs and clustered chimneys of Elizabeth's day, cover- ed with roses, vines, and passion-flowers, and parted by a green sloping meadow from a straggling picturesque village street. In this charming abode resides a more charming family : a gentleman, " Polite ai? 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 sup- pose, — she must have one ; — but I scarcely know it : Aunt Martha is the name that be- longs 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 every body'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 I — she must be five-and-forty ; but few beauties of tvv-enty could stand a comparison with her loveliness. It is such a fulness of bloom, so luxuriant, so satiating; just tall enough to carry off the plumpness which at forty-five is so becoming; a brilliant com- plexion ; 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 re- gularity of feature; and a profusion of rich brown hair. — Such is Aunt Martha. Add to this a very gentle and pleasant speech, always kind, and generally lively; the sweetest tem- per; the easiest manners; a singular rectitude and singleness of mind ; a perfect open-heart- edness ; 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 particular direction — the love matrimonial — and an overflowing of aflTection in all other channels, that it seems as if the natural course of the stream had been violently dainmed up. She has many lovers — admirers I should say, — for there is, amidst her good-humoured gaiety, a coyness that for- bids their going farther; a modesty almost amounting to shyness, that checks even the laughing girls, who sometimes accuse her of stealing away their beaux. I do not think any man on earth could tempt her into wedlock ; it would be a most unpardonable monopoly if any one should ; an intolerable engrossing of a general blessing ; 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 old enough to take and to adorn the head of the table; nor the house-keeper, 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 re- cej)tacle : nor a guest; her spirit is too active j for that lazy post ; her real vocation there, and every where, seems to be comforting, I cheering, welcoming, and spoiling every thing that comes in her way ; and, above all, nurs- ing and taking care. Of all kind employ- ments, these are her favourites. Oh the shawl- ings, the cloakings, the cloggings ! the cau- tions against cold, or heat, or rain, or sun ! the remedies for diseases not arrived ! colds un- caught! incipient tooth-aches! 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 sj)ite 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 con- nection, as regularly send for her on the occa- sion of a lying-in, as for the midwife. I sup- pose 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 in- exhaustible. She has an intense feeling of fellowship with her kind, and grieves or re- joices in the sufferings or happiness of others with a reality as genuine as it is rare. Her accomplishments are exactly of this sympathetic order; all calculated to adminis- ter much to the pleasure of her companions, nothing to her own importance or vanity. She leaves to the sirens, her nieces, the higher en- chantments of the piano, the harp, and the guitar, and that noblest of instruments, the WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. 67 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 indefatigable : she neither caricatures the face of man nor of nature under pretence of drawing figures or landscapes; but she ornaments the reticules, bell-ropes, ottomans, and chair-covers of all her acquaint- ance, with flowers as rich and luxuriant as her own beauty. She draws patterns for the ig- norant, 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 extraordinary ; she is a gentle newsmonger, and turns her scandal on the sunny side. But she is an old maid still ; and certain small pe- culiarities 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 tea-cup, 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 orderl)'to fidgetiness; — that is her greatest calamity ! — for young ladies now-a-days 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 ! WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. THE VISIT. October 27th. — A lovely autumnal day; the air soft, balmy, genial ; the sky of that softened and delicate blue upon which the eye loves to rest, — the blue which gives such re- lief to the rich beauty of the earth, all around glowing in the ripe and mellow tints of the most gorgeous of the seasons. Really such an autumn may well compensate our English climate for the fine spring of the south, that spring of which the poets talk, but which we so seldom enjoy. Such an autumn glows upon us like a splendid evening; it is the very sun- set of the year : and I have been tempted forth into a wider range of enjoyment than usual. This roalk (if I may use the Irish figure of speech called a bull) will be a ride. A very dear friend has beguiled me into ac- companying her in her pretty equipage to her beautiful home, four miles off^; and having sent forward in the style of a running footman the servant who had driven her, she assumes the reins, and otFwe set. My fair companion is a person whom nature and fortune would have spoiled if they could. She is one of those striking women whom a stranger cannot pass without turning to look again : tall and finely proportioned, with a bold Roman contour of figure and feature, a delicate English complexion, and an air of dis- tinction altogether her own. Her beauty is duchess-like. She seems born to wear fea- thers and diamonds, and to form the grace and ornament of a court ; and the noble frankness and simplicity of her countenance and manner confirm the impression. Destiny has however dealt more kindly by her. She is the wife of a rich country gentleman of high descent and higher attainments, to whom she is most de- votedly attached, — the mother of a fine little girl as lovely as herself, and the delight of all who have the happiness of her acquaintance, to whom she is endeared not merely by her remarkable sweetness of temper and kindness of heart, but by the singular ingenuousness ! and openness of character which communicate ! an indescribable charm to her conversation. I She is as transparent as water. You may see | every colour, every shade of a mind as lofty; and beautiful as her person. Talking with her is like being in the Palace of Truth, de- ' scribed by Madame de Genlis ; and yet so | kindly are her feelings, so great the indul- ' gence to the little failings and foibles of our i common nature, so intense her sympathy with j the wants, the wishes, the sorrows, and the happiness of her fellow-creatures, that with all her frank-speaking, I never knew her to make an enemy or lose a friend, I But we must get on. What would she say i if she knew I was putting her into print? We i must get on up the hill. Ah ! that is precisely | what we are not likely to do ! This horse, this beautiful and high-bred horse, well fed, and fat and glossy, who stood prancing at our gate like an Arabian, has suddenly turned sul- ky. He does not indeed stand quite still, but his way of moving is little better — the slowest j and most sullen of all walks. Even they who ! ply the hearse at funerals, sad-looking beasts, j who totter under black feathers, go faster. It : is of no use to admonish him by whip or rein, j or word. The rogue has found out that it is '■ a weak and tender hand that guides him now. I Oh for one pull, one stroke of his old driver, ' the groom! How he would fly! But there is the groom half-a-mile before us, out of ear- ; shot, clearing the ground at a capital rate, ' beating us hollow. He has just turned the top of the hill ; — and in a moment — ay, noiv he is out of sight, and will undoubtedly so continue till he meets us at the lawn gate. Well ! there \ is no great harm. It is only prolonging the pleasure of enjoying together this charming scenery in this fine weather. If once we make up our minds not to care how slowly our steed goes, not to fret ourselves by vain exertions, it is no matter what his pace may be. There is little doubt of his getting home by sunset, 68 OUR VILLAGE. and that will content ns. He is, after all, a fine noble animal ; and perhaps when he finds that we are determined to give iiim his way, he may relent and give us ours. All his sex are sticklers for dominion, though when it is undisputed, some of them are generous enough to abandon it. Two or three of the most dis- creet wives of my acquaintance contrive to manage their husbands sufficiently with no better secret than this seeming submission ; and in our case the example lias the more weight since we have no possible way of help- ing ourselves. Thus philosophising, we reached the top of the hill, and viewed with "reverted eyes" the beautiful prospect that lay bathed in golden sunshine behind us. Cowper says, with that boldness of expressing in poetry the common- est and simplest feelings, which is perhaps one great secret of his originality, "Scenes must be beautiful, which, daily seen, Please daily, and whose novelty survives Long knowledge and the scrutiny ol'years." Every day I walk up this hill — every day I pause at the top to admire the broad winding road v/ith the green waste on each side, unit- ing it w"ith the thickly timbered hedgerows; the two pretty cottages at unequal distances, placed so as to mark the bends ; the village beyond, with its mass of roofs and clustered chimneys peeping through the trees; and the rich distance, where cottages, mansions, churches, towns, seem embowered in some wide forest, and shut in by blue shadowy hills. Every day I admire this most beautiful land- scape ; yet never did it seem to me so fine or so glowing. as bow. All the tints of the glo- rious aulumn, orange, tawny, yellow, red, are poured in profusion amongst the bright greens of tiie meadow's and turnip fields, till the eye is satiated with colour ; and then before us we have the common with its picturesque rough- ness of surface, tufted with cottages, dappled with water, edging off on one side into fields and farms and orchards, and terminated on the other by the princely oak avenue. What a richness and variety the wild broken ground gives to the luxuriant cultivation of the rest of the landscape ! Cowper has described it for me. How perpetually, as we walk in the country, his vivid pictures recur to the memo- ry ! Here is his common and mine ! "The common overgrown with fern, and rough With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deform'd And dangerous lo the touch, has yet its bloom, And decks itself with ornaments of gold ; — there the turf Smells fresh, and, rich in odoriferous herbs And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense With luxury of unexpected sweets." The description is exact. There, too, to the left is my cricket-ground ; (Cowper's common 'wanted that finishing grace ;) and there stands I one solitary urchin, as if. in contemplation of its past and future glories ; for, alas ! cricket is over for tlie season. Ah ! it is Ben Kirby, next brother to Joe, king of the youngsters, and probably his successor — for this Michael- mas has cost us Joe. He is promoted from the farm to the mansion-house, two iniles off: there he cleans shoes, rubs knives, and runs upon errands, and is, as his mother expresses it, " a sort of 'prentice to the footman." — I should not wonder if Joe, some day or other, should overtop the footman, and rise to be but- ler; and his splendid prospects must be our consolation for the loss of this great favourite. In the mean tiine we have Ben. Ben Kirby is a year younger than Joe, and the schoolfellow and rival of Jem Eusden. To be sure his abilities lie in rather a difler- ent line: Jem is a scholar; Ben is a wag: Jem is great in figures and writing; Ben in faces and mischief. His master says of him, that, if there were two such in the school, he must resign his office : and, as far as my ob- servation goes, the worthy pedagogue is right. Ben is, it must be confessed, a great corrupter of gravity. He hath an exceeding aversion to authority and decorum, and a wonderful boldness and dexterity in overthrowing the one and puzzling the other. His contortions of visage are astounding. His " power over his own muscles and those of other people," is almost equal to that of Listen : and indeed the original face, flat and square and Cliinese in its shape, of a fine tan complexion, with a snub nose, and a slit for a mouth, is nearly as comical as that matchless performer's. When aided by Ben's singular mobility of feature, his knowing winks and grins and shrugs and nods, together with a certain dry shrewdness, a habit of saying sharp things, and a marvel- ous gift of impudence, it forms as fine a spe- cimen as possible of a humorous country boy, an oddity in einbryo. Every body likes Ben, except his butts ; (which may comprise half bis acquaintance;) and of them no one so tho- roughly hates and dreads hitn as our parish school-master, a most worthy King Log, whom Ben dumfounds twenty times a day. He is a great ornament of the cricket-ground, has a real genius for the game, and displays it after a very original manner, under the disguise of awkwardness — as the clown shows oflf his agility in a pantomime. Nothing comes amiss to hitn. — By the by, he would have been the very lad for us in our present dilemma; not a horse in England could master Ben Kirby. But we are too far from him now — and per- haps it is as well that we are so. I believe that the rogue has a kindness for me in re- membrance of certain apples and nuts, which my usual companion, who delights in his wit, is accustomed to dole out to him. But it is a Robin Goodfellow, nevertheless, a perfect Puck that loves nothing on earth so well as mischief. Perhaps the horse may be the safer conductor of the two. WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. 69 The avenue is quite alive to-day. Old wo- men are picking' up twigs and acorns, and pig-s of all sizes doing- their utmost to spare them the latter part of the trouble ; boys and girls groping for beech-nuts under yonder clump; and a group of young elves collecting as many dead leaves as they can find to feed the bon- fire which is smoking away so briskly amongst the trees, — a sort of rehearsal of the grand bonfire nine days hence; of the loyal confla- gration of the arch traitor Guy Fawkes, which is annually solemnized in the avenue, accom- panied by as much sfjuibbery and crackery as our boys can beg or borrow — not to say steal. Ben Kirby is a great man on the 5th of No- vember. All the savings of a month, the hoarded halfpence, the new farthings, the very luck-penny go off in fumn on that night. For my part, I like this daylight mockery better. There is no gunpowder — odious gunpowder ! no noise but the merry shouts of the small fry, so shrill and happy, and the cawing of the rooks who are wheeling in large circles over- head, and wondering what is going forward in their territory — seeming in their loud clamour to ask what that light smoke may mean that curls so prettily amongst their old oaks, tow- ering as if to meet the clouds. There is some- thing very intelligent in the ways of that black people the rooks, particularly in their wonder. I suppose it results from their numbers and unity of purpose, a sort of collective and cor- ])orate wisdom. Yet geese congregate also; and geese never by any chance look wise. But then geese are a domestic fowl ; we have spoiled them ; and rooks are free commoners of nature, who use the habitations we provide for them, tenant our groves and our avenues, and never dream of becoming our subjects. What a labyrinth of a road this is ! I do think there are four turnings in the short half- mile between the avenue and the mill. And what a pity, as my companion observes — not that our good and jolly miller, the very repre- sentative of the old English yeomanry, should be so rich, but that one consequence of his riches should be the pulling down of the pret- tiest old mill that ever looked at itself in the Loddon, with the picturesque low-browed ir- regular cottage, which stood with its light- pointed roof, its clustered chimneys, and its ever-open door, looking like the real abode of comfort and hospitality, to build this huge, staring, frightful, red-brick mill, as ugly as a manufactory, and this great squnre house, ugly and red to match, just behind. The old build- ings always used to remind me of Wollett's beautif\il engraving of a scene in the Maid of the Mill. It will be long before any artist will make a drawing of this. Only think of this redness in a picture ! this boiled lobster of a house ! Falstaff 's descrijjtion of Bar- dolph's nose would look pale in the compari- son. Here is that monstrous machine of a tilted wagon, with its load of flour, and its four fat horses. I wonder whether our horse will have the decency to get out of the way. If he does not, I am sure we cannot make him ; and that enormous ship upon wheels, that ark on dry land, would roll over us like the car of Juggernaut. Really — Oh no! there is no dan- ger now. I should have remembered that it is my friend Samuel Long who drives the mill- team. He will take care of us. " Thank you, Samuel !" And Samuel has put us on our way, steered us safely past his wagon, escort- ed us over the bridge; and now, having seen us through our immediate difficulties, has parted from us with a very civil bow and good-humoured smile, as one who is always civil and good-humoured, but with a certain triumphant masterful look in his eyes, which I have noted in men, even the best of them, when a woman gets into straits by attempting manly em|)loyments. He has done us great good though, and may be allowed his little feeling of superiority. The parting salute he bestowed on our steed, in the shape of an as- tounding crack of his huge whip, has put that refractory animal on his mettle. On we go fast! past the glazier's pretty house, with its porch and its filbert walk; along the narrow lane bordered with elms, whose fallen leaves have made the road one yellow; past that little farm-house with the horse-chesnut trees before, glowing like oranges; past the white- washed school on the other side, gay with October roses ; past the park, and the lodge, and the mansion, where once dwelt the great earl of Clarendon; — and now the rascal has begun to discover that Samuel Long and his whip are a mile off, and that his mistress is driving him, and he slackens his pace accord- ingly. Perhaps he feels the beauty of the road just here, and goes slowly to enjoy it. Very beautiful it certainly is. The park pal- ing forms the boundary on one side, with fine clumps of oak, and deer in all attitudes; the water, tufted with alders, flowing along on the other. Another turn, and the water winds away, succeeded by a low hedge, and a sweep of green meadows; whilst the park and its paling are replaced by a steep bank, on which stands a small, quiet, village ale-house; and higher up, embosomed in wood, is the little country church, with its sloping church-yard and its low white steeple, peeping out from amongst magnificent yew-trees : "Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine Up-coiling and invet'rately convolved." Wordsworth. No village-church was ever more happily placed. It is the very image of the peace and humbleness inculcated within its walls. Ah ! here is a higher hill rising before us, ! aliuost like a mountain. How grandly the, view opens as we ascend over that wild bank, ' overgrown with fern,- and heath, and gorse, I 70 OUR VILLAGE, and between those tall hollies, glowing with their coral berries ! What an expanse ! But we have little time to gaze at present; for that piece of perversit)^ our horse, who has walked over so much level ground, has now, inspired, I presume, by a desire to revisit his stable, taken it into that unaccountable noddle of his to trot up this, the very steepest hill in the county. Here we are on the top; and in five minutes we have reached the lawn gate, and are in the very midst of that beautiful piece of art or nature (I do not know to which class it belongs,) the pleasure-ground of F. Hill. Never was the " prophetic eye of taste" ex- erted with more magical skill than in these plantations. Thirty years ago this place had no existence; it was a mere undistinguished tract of field and meadow and common land ; now it is a mimic forest, delighting the eye with the finest combinations of trees and shrubs, the rarest effects of form and foliage, and bewildering the mind with its green glades, and impervions recesses, and appa- rently interminable extent. It is the triumph of landscape gardening, and never more beau- tiful than in this autumn sunset, lighting up the ruddy beech and the spotted sycamore, and gilding the shining fir-cones that hang so thickly amongst the dark pines. The robins are singing around us, as if they too felt the magic of the hour. How gracefully the road winds through the leafy labyrinth, leading imperceptibly to the more ornamented sweep. Here we are at the door amidst geraniums, and carnations, and jasmines, still in flower. Ah ! here is a flower sweeter than all, a bird gayer than the robin, the little bird that chirps to the tune of "mamma! mamma!" the bright-faced fairy, whose tiny feet come pat- tering along, making a merry music, mam- ma's own Frances ! And following her gui- dance, here we are in the dear round room, time enough to catch the last rays of the sun, as they light the noble landscape which lies like a panorama around us, lingering longest on that long island of old thorns and stunted oaks, the oasis of B. Heath, and then vanish- ing in a succession of gorgeous clouds. October 28. — Another soft and brilliant morning. But the pleasures of to-day must be written in short-hand. I have left myself no room for notes of admiration. First we drove about the coppice ; an ex- tensive wood of oak, and elm, and beech, chiefly the former, which adjoins the park paling of F. Hill, of which demesne, indeed, it forms one of the most delightful parts. The roads through the coppice are studiously wild, so that they have the appearance of mere cart- tracts ; and the manner in which the ground is tumbled about, the steep declivities, the sunny slopes, the sudden swells and falls, now a close narrow valley, then a sharp as- cent to an eminence, commanding an immense extent of prospect, have a striking air of na- tural beauty, developed and heightened by the perfection of art. AH this, indeed, was fami- liar to me ; the colouring only was new. I had been there in early springr, when the fragrant palms were on the willow, and the yellow tassels on the hazel, and every twig was swelling with renewed life ; and I had been there again and again in the green leafi- ness of midsummer; but never as now, when the dark verdure of the fir-plantations, hanging over the picturesque and unequal paling, part- ly covered with moss and ivy, contrast so re- markably with the shining orange-leaves of the beech, already half fallen, the pale yellow of the scattering elm, the deeper and richer tints of the oak, and the glossy stems of the "lady of the woods," the delicate weeping birch. The underwood is no less picturesque. The red-spotted leaves and redder berries of the old thorns, the scarlet festoons of the bramble, the tall fern of every hue, seem to vie with the brilliant mosaic of the ground, now cover- ed with dead leaves and strewn with fir-cones, now, where a little glade intervenes, gay with various mosses and splendid fungi. How beautiful is this coppice to-day ! especially vi^here the little spring, as clear as crystal, comes bubbling out from the "old fantastic" beech root, and trickles over the grass, bright and silent as the dew in a May morning. The wood pigeons (who are just returned from their summer migration, and are cropping the ivy berries) add their low cooings, the very note of love, to the slight fluttering of the fallen leaves in the quiet air, giving a voice to the sunshine and the beauty. Tiiis coppice is a place to live and die in. But we must go. And how fine is the ascent which leads ns again into the world, past those cottages hid- den as in a pit, and by that hanging orchard and that rough heathy bank ! The scenery in this one spot has a wildness, an abruptness of rise and fall, rare in any part of England, rare above all in this rich and lovely but mo- notonous county. It is Switzerland in minia- ture. And now we cross the hill to pay a morning visit to the. family at the great house, — another fine place, commanding another fine sweep of countr)'. The park studded with old trees and sinking gently into a valley, rich in wood and water, is in the best style of ornamental land- scape, though more according to the common routine of gentlemen's seats than the singular- ly original place which we have just left. There is, however, one distinctive beauty in the grounds of the great house; — the magni- ficent firs which shade the terraces and sur- round the sweep, giving out in summer odours really Sab.ean, and now in this low autumn sun producing an effect almost magical, as the huge red trunks, garlanded with ivy, stand out from the deep shadows like an army of giants. In-doors — Oh I must not take my readers in- doors, or we shall never get away ! — In-doors A PARTING GLANCE AT OUR VILLAGE. 71 the sunshine is brighter still ; for there, in a lofty licrhtsome room, sits a damsel fair and arch and piquante, one whom Titian or Velas- quez should be born again to paint, leaning over an instrument* as sparkling and fanciful as herself, singing pretty French romances, and Scottish Jacobite songs, and all sorts of graceful and airy drolleries picked up I know not where — (an English improvvisatrice ! a gayer Annot Lyle ! whilst her sister, of a higher order of beauty, and with an earnest kindness in her smile that deepens its power, lends to the piano, as her father to the violin, an expression, a sensibility, a spirit, an elo- quence, almost superhuman — almost divine! Oh to hear these two instruments accompany- ing my dear companion (I forgot to say that she is a singer worthy to be so accompanied) in Haydn's exquisite canzonet, "She never told her love," — to hear her voice, with all its power, its sweetness, its gush of sound, so sustained and assisted by modulations that ri- valled its intensity of expression ; to hear at once such poetry, such music, such execution, is a pleasure never to be forgotten, or mixed with meaner things. I seem to hear it still. As in the bursting spring-time o'er the eye Of one who haunts the fields fair visions creep Beneath the closed lids (a(ore dull sleep Dims the quirk fancy) of sweet flowers thai lie On grassy hanks, oxlip of orient dye, And palest primrose and blue violet, All in their fresh and dewy beaiUy set, Pictur'd within the sense, and will not fly: So in mine ear resounds and lives again One mingled melody, — a voice, a pair Of instruments most voice-like! Of the air Rather than of the earth seems that high strain A spirit's song, and worthy of the train That sooth'd old Frospero with mUsic rare. A PARTING GLANCE AT OUR VILLAGE. It is now eighteen months since our village first sat for its picture, and I cannot say fare- well to my courteous readers, witliout giving them some little intelligence of our iroings on, a sort of parting glance at us and our condi- tion. In outward appearance it hath, I sup- pose, undergone less alteration than any place of its inches in the kingdom. There it stands, the same long straggling street of pretty cot- tages, divided by pretty gardens, wholly un- changed in size or appearance, unincreased and undiminished by a single brick. To be sure, yesterday evening a slight misfortune happened to our goodly tenement, occasioned by the unlucky dilirrence mentioned in my first notice, which, under the conduct of a sleepy coachmnn, and a restive horse, contrived to knock down and demolish the wall of our *The dital harp. court, and fairly to drive through the front garden, thereby destroying sundry curious stocks, carnations, and geraniums. It is a mercy that the unruly steed was content with battering the wall ; for the messuage itself would come about our ears at the touch of a finger, and really there is one little end par- lour, an after-thought of the original builder, which stands so temptingly in the way, that I wonder the sagacious quadruped missed it. There was quite din enough without that ad- dition. The three insides (ladies) squalling from the interior of that cominodious vehicle ; the outsides (gentlemen) swearing on the roof; the coachman still half asleep, but unconscious- ly blowing his horn; we in the house scream- ing and scolding; the passers-by shouting and hallooing; and May, w-ho little brooked such an invasion of her territories, barking in her tremendous lion-note, and putting down the ether noises like a clap of thunder. But pas- sengers, coachman, horses, and spectators, all righted at last; and there is no harm done but to my flowers and to the wall. May, how- ever, stands bewailing 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 la- ments the destruction of personal property ; but the wall is to be rebuilt to-morrow, with old weather-stained bricks — no patch-work ! and exactly in the same form ; May herself 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 neigh- bour, the universal dealer, hath been beauti- fied, and his naine and calling splendidly set forth in yellow letters on a black ground ; and that our landlord of the Rose hath hoisted a new sign of unparalleled splendour; one side consisting of a full-faced damask rose, of the size and hue of a pinny, the other of a inaiden blush in profile, which looks exactly like a carnation, so that both flowers are considera- bly 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 un- changed. The only real improvement with which we have been visited for our sins — (I hate all in- novation, whether for better or worse, as if I was a furious Tory, or a woman of three-score and ten) — the only misfortune of that sort which has befallen us, is underfoot. The road 72 OUR VILLAGE. has been adjusted on the plan of Mr. Mac- Adam ; 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 ; 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 co- vered with sharp flints every inch of us, except a " bad step" up the hill, whicii, indeed, looks like a bit cut out of the deserts of Arabia, fitter for camels and caravans than for Chris- tian horses and coaches ; a point, which, in spite of my dislike of alteration, I was forced to acknowledge to our surveyor, a portly gen- tleman, who, in a smart gig, drawn by a pranc- ing steed, was kicking up a prodigious dust at that very moment. He and I ought to be great enemies ; for, besides the MacAdamite enormity of the stony road, he hath actually been guilty of tree-murder, having been an ac- cessary before the fact in the death of three limes along the rope-walk — dear sweet inno- cent limes, that did no harm on earth except shading the path ! I never should have for- given that offence, had not their nmioval, 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, such an honest ear- nestness in his vocation (which is gratuitous by the by), and such an Intense conviction that the state of the ti"'npike road belween B. and K. is the principal affair of this lifj, that I would not undeceive him for the world. How often have I seen him on 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 ; 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 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 youna wings. — Children in our village really sprout up like mushrooms; 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 any thing which has a reference to their previous condition. My father grievously affronted Sally L. only yesterday, by bestowing upon her a great lump of ginger-bread, with which he had stuffed his pockets at a fair. She imme- diately, as she said, gave it to the " children." Now Sally cannot be above twelve to my cer- tain knowledge, though taller than I am. — Lizzy herself is growing womanly. I actu- ally caught that little lady stuck upon a chest of drawers, contemplating herself in the glass, and striving with all her might to gather the rich curls that hang about her neck, and turn them under a comb. Well ! if Sally and Lizzy live to be old maids, they may proba- bly make the amende hoiwrab/e to time, and wish to be thought young again. In the mean while, shall we walk up the street ] The first cottage is that of Mr. H. the pa- triot, the illuminator, the independent and sturdy, yet friendly member of our little state, who, stoutand comely, with ahandsome 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 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 precedes the total eclipse. For a long time we had missed the pleasant bustling ofhciousness, the little ser- vices, the voluntary tasks, which our good neighbour loved so well. Fruit trees were blighted, and escaped his grand specific fumi- gation ; wasps multiplied, and their nests re- mained 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 gar- den walk, or stealing gropinoly from the wood- pile to the house. He evidently shunned con- versation or questions, forbade his wife to tell what ailed him, and even when he put a green shade over his darkened eyes, fled from hu- man 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 com- fort and relief. She had many willing assist- ants in her labour of love ; all his neighbours A PARTING GLANCE AT OUR VILLAGE. 73 strove to roturn, according to their several means, the kindness which all had received from hinri in some shape or another. The conn- try boys, to whose 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 per- forming little offices abolit 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 seemed to sharpen poor John's per- ception and faculties. There is an old man in our parish work-house, who occasionally walks through the street, 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 fel- low-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 ; he would turn the conversation with an adroitness and acuteness that might put to shame the proudest intellect. So passed many months. At last Mr. H. was persuaded to consult a celebrated oculist, and the result was most comt^orting. The disease was ascer- tained to be a cataract; and now with the in- crease of darkness came an increase of hope. The film spread, thickened, ripened, speedily and healthily ; and to-day the requisite ope- ration has been performed with equ5il skill and success. You may still see some of the coun- try boys lingering round the gate with looks 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 thank- fulness; 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 he 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 exem- plification of the developement which I have already noticed amongst our young things. But she is in the real transition state, just emerg- ing from the crysalis — 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 7 ^ elegant as when she wore frocks and pin-a- fores, and unconsciously classical, parted her long brown locks in the middle of her fore- head, 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 dangling every in- fant that came within her reach, feeding pigs and poultry, playing with May, and prattling with an open-hearted frankness 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 shoemaker's in a country village is now what (according 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 visiters gaily and openly, sang and laughed and ran in and out, and took no more thought of a young man than of a gos- ling. Then she was only fourteen. Now she wears gowns and aprons, — puts her hair in paper, has left off singing, talks, — has left oft 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 visiters of 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 news-room (for the working apartment 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 ojjposite neigh- bour, and I have a right to watch her doings, — the right of retaliation), there is one youth particularly distinguished by her non-notice, one whom she never will see or 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 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 visits a chapel about a mile off, where he is the best male singer, as our nymph of the shoe-shop is incompara- bly the first female. I am not fond of betting; but I would venture the lowest stake of gen- tility, a silver threepence, that, before the win- ter 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 conjugal gal- lantry through the dirty lanes, think of the opportunity that Jem will have to escort the 74 OUR VILLAGE. daughter. A little difficulty he may have to encovintor; the lass will be coy for a while; the mother will talk of their youth, the father of their finances; but the marriage, I doubt not, will ensue. Next in order, on the other side of the street, is the blacksmitli's house. Change has been busy here in a different and more awful form. Our sometime constable, the tipsiest of parish officers, of blacksmiths 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 inflamed blood and an im- paired constitution, carried him off in a very short time, leaving an ailing wife and eight children, the eldest of whom is only fourteen years of age. This sounds like a very tragi- cal story ; yet, perhaps, because the loss of a drunken husband is not quite so great a ca- lamity 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 dis- mal 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 ob- served how tidy and comfortable she looked ; how much her countenance, in spite of a de- cent 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 din- giness. Every thing 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 pro))er) her dear hus- band and her desolate condition ; calls herself a lone widow; sighs 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 quan- tity of noise, happiness, 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 wagon of the S. mill which stands before it, belongs to the village shop. Increase has been here too in every shai)e. 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 appear- ance; and poor Fanny, discarded at once from the maid's arms and her mother's knee, de- graded from the rank and privileges of "the baby," (for at that age precedence is strangely reversed,) would have had a premature fore- taste of the instability of human felicity, had she not taken refuge with that best of nurses, a fond father. Every thing 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 school-mistresses, the old inmates, are gone ; one of them not very far. She grew tired of scolding little boys and girls about their A, B, C, and of being scolded in her turn by their sisters and mothers about pelisses and gowns; so she gave up both trades about 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 at- tendant at one of the colleges of Oxford, thought herself on the point of marriage just as our housemaid left us. Poor Betsy! She had fared 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 Wil- liam in no common measure, and proud of him, as well she might be ; for, when the vaca- tion 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 al)out in elegant indolence with his fishing-rod and his flute, from the young Oxonians his masters. At last promo- tion came ; and Betsy, apprised of it, by an affectionate and congratulatory letter from his sister, prepared her wedding-clothes, and A PARTING GLANCE AT OUR VILLAGE 75 looked hourly for the bridegroom. No bride- groom came. A second letter announced, with regret and indignation, that William 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 co- lour; and in less than a week she was so altered, that no one would have known her. Consolation and remonstrance were alike re- jected, till at last Harriet happened to strike the right chord, by telling her that " she won- dered at her want of spirit." This was touch- ing her on the point of honour; she had al- ways 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 re- called an old admirer, who in spite of repeated rejections had remained constant in his attach- ment, 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! except that the white kitten, who sits purring at the window under the great myrtle, has succeeded to his lamented grandfather, our beautiful Persian cat, I cannot find one altera- tion to talk about. The wall of the court in- deed — but that will be inended to-morrow. Here is the new sign, the well-frequented Rose Inn ! Plenty of changes there ! Our landlord is always improving, if it be only a pig-sty or a water-trough — plenty of changes, and one splendid wedding. Miss Phoebe is married, not to her old lover the recruiting ser- geant (for he had one wife already, probably more,) but to a patten-maker, as errant a dan- dy as ever wore mustachios. How Phcebe could " abase her eyes" from the stalely sergeant to this youth, half a foot shorter than herself, whose " waist would go into any alderman's thumb-ring," might, if the final choice of a coquette had ever been a 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 look- ed very pretty with her black sparkling eyes, her clear brown complexion, her blushes and her smiles ; the bride-maidens were only less smart than the bride ; and the bridegroom was "point device in his accoutrements," 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 ttie evening, to crown all, there was Mr. Moon the conjuror. Think of that stroke of good fortune! — Mr. Moon the very pearl of all con- jurors, who had the honour of puzzling and delighting their late Majesties with his "won- derful and pleasing exhibition of thaumatur- gics, tachygraphy, mathematical operations and inagical deceptions," 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 sportsman-like in his a[ipearance, he was announced by Harriet as one of the gentlemen of the C. Hunt, and taken (w/staken 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 hap- pier hour ! Never were spectators more grati- fied 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; — the very wedding-ring could not escape Mr. Moon's incantations. We heard of nothing else for a week. From the bride- groom, im esjD?-«7 y^r/, who defied all manner of conjuration and diablerie, down to my Liz- zy, whose boundless faith swallows the Ara- bian tales, all believed and trembled. — So thoroughly were men, women, and children, impressed with the idea of the worthy conju- ror'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 lie is really a pro- phet ; for he foretojd all happiness to the new- married pair. So this pretty white house with the lime- trees before it, whioii has been under repair for these three years, is on the point of being finished. — The vicar has taken it, as the vicar- age house is not yet fit for his reception. He has sent before him a neat modest maid-ser- vant, whose respectable appearance gives a character to her master and mistress, — a ham- per full of flower-roots, sundry boxes of books, a piano-forte, and some simjile and useful fur- niture. Well, we shall certainly have neigh- bours, and I have a presentiment that we shall find friends. Lizzy, you may now come along with me round the conier 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 qfficfie 76 OUR VILLAGE. in the parlour window 1 " Apartments to let, — inquire 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 he may soon get a good living. " Lodg- ings to hn"— 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 ! PREFACE.* The indulgent reception given to her little book of Our Village, has encouraged the au- thor to extend her work by putting forth' a second volume on a similar plan ; consisting, like the first, of slight and simple delinea- tions of country manners, blended with a few sketches drawn from a somewhat higher rank of society. A WALK THROUGH THE VILLAGE. When I had the honour about two years ago of presenting our little village to that mul- tiform and most courteous personage the Pub- lic, I hinted I tliink that it had a trick of stand- ino- still, of remaining stationary, unchanged, and unimproved in this most changeable and improving world. This habit, whether good or evil, it has retained so pertinaciously, that except that it is two years older, I cannot point out a single alteration which has oc- curred in our street. I was on the point of paying the inhabitants some equivocal com- pliment — and really I almost may — for, set- ting aside the inevitable growth of the young members of our community, and a few more grey hairs and wrinkles amongst the elder, I see little change. We are the same people, the same generation, neither richer, nor wiser, nor better, nor worse. Some, to be sure, have migrated ; and one or two have died ; and some — But we had better step out into the village, and look about us. It is a pleasant lively scene this May morn- ing, with the sun shining so gaily on the irre- gular rustic dwellings, intermixed with their pretty gardens; a cart and wagon watering (it would be more correct, perhaps, to say * To the second volume, as originally published. beering) at the Rose ; Dame Wheeler, with her basket and her btown loaf, just coming from the bake-house; the nymph of the shoe- shop feeding a large family of goslings at the open door — they are very late this year, those noisy little geese ; two or three women in high gossip dawdling up the street ; Charles North the gardener, with his blue apron and ladder on his shoulder, walking rapidly by ; a cow and a donkey browsing the grass by the way- side; my white greyhound, Mayflower, sit- ting majestically in front of her own stable; and ducks, chickens, pigs, and children, scat- tered over all. A pretty scene! — rather more lopping of trees, indeed, and clipping of hedges, along the high road, than one quite admires; but then that identical turnpike-road, my ancient despair, is now so perfect and so beautiful a specimen of MacAdamization, that one even learns to like tree-lopping and hedge-clipping for the sake of such smooth ways. It is sim- ply the best road in England, so says our sur- veyor, and so say I. The three miles between i us and B are like a bowling-green. By the way, I ought, perhaps, to mention, as something like change in our outward posi- tion, that this little hamlet of ours is much nearer to that illustrious and worshififul town than it used to be. Not that our quiet street hnth been guilty of the unbecoming friskiness of skipping from place to place, but that our ancient neighbour, v;hose suburbs are sprout- ing forth in all directions, hath made a parti- cularly strong shoot towards us, and threatens some day or other to pay us a visit bodily. The good town has already pushed the turn- pike gate half a mile nearer to us, and is in a fair way to overleap that boundary and build on, till the buildings join ours, as London has done by Hampstead or Kensington. What j a strange figure our rude and rustical habita- tions would cut ranged by the side of some! staring red row of newly-erected houses, each i as like the other as two drops of water, with I courts before and behind, a row of poplars op- 1 posite and a fine new name. How different! we should look in our countless variety of j nooks and angles, our gardens, and arbours, and lime-trees, and pond ! but this union of town and country will hardly happen in my time, let B enlarge as it may. We shall certainly lend no assistance, for our bounda- I ries still continue exactly the same. The first cottage — Ah! there is the post- cart coming up the road at its most respectable rumble, that cart, or rather caravan, which so much resembles a house upon wheels, or a show of the smaller kind at a country fair. It is now crammed full of passengers, the dri- ver just protruding his head and hands out of the vehicle, and the sharp clever boy, whof in the occasional absence of his father, ofli- ciates as deputy, perched like a monkey on the roof. " Any letters to day V And that A WALK THROUGH THE VILLAGE. 77 question, always so interesting, being unsatis- factorily answered, I am at leisure to return to our survey. The first cottage is that erst inhabited by Mr. and Mrs. H. the retired pub- lican and his good wife. They are gone; I i always thought we were too quiet for them; and his eyes being quite recovered, he felt the j weariness of idleness more than ever. So they returned to W., where he has taken a \ comfortable lodging next door to their old and j well-frequented Inn, the Pie and Parrot, where 1 he has the pleasure every evening of reading ; the newspaper, and abusing the ministers i amongst his old customers, himself a cus- i tomer; as well as of lending his willing aid in waiting and entertaining on fair-days and market-days, at pink-feasts and melon-feasts, to the great solace of mine host, and the no small perplexity of the guests, who, puzzled between the old landlord and the new, hardly know to whom to pay their reckoning, or which to call to account for a bad tap: — a mistake, which our sometime neighbour, hap- pier than he has been since he left the Bar, particularly enjoys. His successor here is an industrious person, by calling a seedsman, as may be collected by the heaps of pea and bean seed, clover and vetches, piled tier above tier against the window. The little white cottage down the lane which stands so prettily, backed by a tall elm wood, has also lost its fair inmate, Sally Wheeler; who finding that Joel continued constant to our pretty Harriet, and was quite out of hope, was suddenly forsaken by the fit of dutifulness which brought her to keep her deaf grandmother company, and returned to service. Dame Wheeler has howeVe-r a com- panion, in a widow of her own standing, ap- pointed by the parish to live with, and take care of her. A nice tidy old woman is Dame Shearman ; — pity that she looks so frumpish ; her face seems fixed in one perpetual scold. It was not so when she lived with her sister on the Lea : then she was a light-hearted mer- ry chatterer, whose tongvie ran all day long — and that's the reason of her cross look now ! Mrs. Wheeler is as deaf as a post, and poor ! Mrs. Shearman is pining of a suppression of I speech. Fancy what it is for a woman, espe- 1 cially a talking woman, to live without a list- I ener ! forced either to hold her peace, or when ! that becomes impossible, to talk to one to ! whose sense words are as air ! La Trappe is I nothing to this tantalization ; — besides the Trappists were men. No wonder that poor Dame Shearman looks cross. The Blacksmith's! no change in that quar- j ter; except a most astonishing growth amongst ! the children. George looks quite a man, and j Betsy, who was just like a blue-eyed doll, i with her flaxen curls and her apple-blossom complexion, the prettiest fairy that ever was seen, now walks up to school every morning with her work-bag and her spelling-book, and is really a great girl. They are a fine family from the eldest to the youngest. The shoemaker's! — not much to talk of there; no funeral ! and (which disappoints my prediction) no wedding! My pretty neigh- bour has not yet made her choice. She does wisely to look about her, A belle and an heiress — I dare say she'll have a hundred pounds to her portion — and still in her teens, has some right to be nice. Besides, what would all the mammas, whose babies she nurses, and all the ciiildren whom she spoils, do without her"? No sparing the shoemaker's fair daughter ! She must not marry yet these half-dozen years ! The shop! — all prosperous, tranquil, and thriving; another little one coming; an idle apprentice run away, — more of him anon ; and a civil journeyman hired in his room. An ex- cellent exchange ! Jesse is a very agreeable person. He is the politician of the village since we have lost Mr. H., and as he goes every day into B in his paper cap to carry our country bread, he is sure to bring home the latest intelligence of all sorts, especially of canvassing and electioneering. Jesse has the most complete collection of squibs in the country, and piques himself on his skill in detecting the writers. He will bestow as many guesses, and bring forward as many proofs on occasion of a hand-bill signed " Fair- Play," or a song subscribed " True-blue," as ever were given to that abiding riddle, the au- thorship of Junius — and very likely come as near the mark. Ah, the dear home ! A runaway there too ! I may as well tell the story now, although very sorry to have to record so sad an act of delinquency of my clients tlie boys, as an elopement from our own premises. Henry Hamilton — that ever a parish boy, offspring of a tailor and a cook-maid, should have an appellation so fitted to the hero of a romance! Henry Hamilton had lived with us for three years and upwards as irian of all work, part waterer of my geraniums, sole feeder of May, the general favourite and fac- totum of the family. Being an orphan with no home but the workhouse, no friend but the overseer, at whose recommendation he was engaged, he seemed to belong to us in an especial manner, to have a more than com- mon claim on protection and kindness. Henry was just the boy to discover and improve this feeling; — quick, clever, capable, subtle, and supple; exceedingly agreeable in manner, and pleasant in appearance. He had a light, pli- ant form, with graceful delicate limbs like a native Indian ; a dark but elegant countenance s[)arkling with expression ; and a remarkable variety and versatility of talent. Nothing came amiss to him. — In one week he hath been carpenter, blacksmith, painter, tinker, glazier, tailor, cobbler, and wheelwright. These were but a few of his multifarious ac- OUR VILLAGE. '1 complishments ; he would beat Harriet at nee- dle-work, and me in gardeninjr. All the parish was in the habit of applying to him on emer- gency, and I never knew him decline a job in my life. He hath mended a straw bonnet and a smoke-jack, cleaned a clock, constructed a donkey-cart, and dressed a doll. "With all these endowments, Henry was scarcely so ffood a servant as a duller boy. Besides that he undertook so many thin